John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 25:18

"[to wit], Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day;" — Jeremiah 25:18 (ASV)

He begins with Jerusalem, as it is said elsewhere that judgment would begin at God’s house (1 Peter 4:17). And there is nothing opposed to this in the context of the passage; for though he had promised the children of God a happy end to the evils which they were soon to endure, he nevertheless enumerates here all the nations on whom God had commanded him to denounce judgments.

In this catalogue the Church obtains the first place. For though God is the judge of the whole world, he yet justly begins with his own Church, and that especially for two reasons:

1. As the father of a family watches over his children and servants, and if there is anything wrong, his concern is particularly shown, so God, as he dwells in his Church, must chastise it for its faults.

2. We know that they are less excusable who, having been taught the will of God, still continue to indulge their own lusts (Luke 12:47), for they cannot plead ignorance. Thus is fulfilled what Christ declares, that those servants shall be more grievously beaten who, knowing their master's will, yet obstinately disregard it.

There is, then, a twofold fault in the members of the Church, and no comparison can be made between them and the unbelieving who are in thick darkness. Since God shines in his Church and shows the way, as Moses says,

Behold I set before you the way of life and of death; I therefore call heaven and earth to witness that there is no excuse for you (Deuteronomy 30:15, 19).

This, then, is the second reason why God first visits the sins of the faithful, or of those who are counted faithful.

There is also what pertains to an example: God chastises his own children lest he seem by his indulgence to favor or condone what is wicked and sinful. But this third reason is in a way incidental, and therefore I wanted to state it separately from the two other reasons. When, therefore, God so severely treats his own Church, the unbelieving should draw this conclusion: if this be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? (Luke 23:31).

But the two things which I have previously mentioned we should consider as sufficient reasons why God, while suspending his vengeance regarding the reprobate, punishes the elect as well as all those who profess to be members of his Church. We now understand why Jeremiah mentions first the holy city, and then all the cities of Judah, the kings also and the princes; for God had openly invited them to himself, but they had, as it were, from determined wickedness, provoked his wrath by despising both his Law and his Prophets.

He afterwards adds, to make them a waste, or a solitude. This was a severe denunciation, no doubt, and we shall later see that most became enraged against the holy man, and in their fury endeavored to destroy him; yet he with an intrepid mind fully declared what God had commanded him. He adds, an astonishment, and in the third place, a hissing, meaning that they would become detestable to all, for hissing intimates contempt, reproach, and detestation. In the fourth place he mentions a curse. We have already said what the Prophet meant by this word: that the Jews would become in this respect a proverb, so that when one cursed another, he would use this form, “May God destroy you as he destroyed the Jews.”

It is then added, as at this day. The Prophet refers, no doubt, to the time of the city’s destruction. God had indeed even then begun to consume the people; but we shall later see that the minds of the greater part were still very haughty, so that they often raised their crests and looked for a new state of things, and depended on aid from the Egyptians.

But the Prophet here mentions what was not yet completed and, as it were with his finger, points out the day as having already come in which the city was to be destroyed and the temple burned up. This, then, refers to the certainty of what he predicted. Some think that it was written after Jeremiah had been led into exile, but this conjecture has nothing to support it. It seems to me enough to suppose that his object was to rouse the Jews from their security and to show that in a short time all that he predicted would be accomplished, and that they were to doubt this no more than if the calamity was now before their eyes.