John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 29:10

"For thus saith Jehovah, After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place." — Jeremiah 29:10 (ASV)

In order to expose the dreams by which the false prophets had intoxicated the people, he again repeats what he had said: that the end of their exile could not be expected until the end of seventy years. And this way of teaching should be particularly observed, for the truth of God will always be effective in dispelling all the mists in which Satan never ceases to envelop the pure truth.

Just as we have seen before, that when the people are imbued with any error, it should be boldly resisted, so now we see with what weapons all God’s servants should fight to expose all those fallacies by which pure doctrine is assailed: namely, by setting the word of God in opposition to them. For this is the way that Jeremiah points out to us by his own example.

He had spoken of the false prophets and warned the people not to believe them. But as the minds of many were still wavering, he confirms what he had said: that they were not sent by God, because God never varies in his purpose, never changes, and is never inconsistent with himself. "Now he has set seventy years for your exile; whoever, then, tries to challenge that truth, is an avowed and open enemy to God." We now perceive the Prophet's objective: When seventy years then shall be fulfilled, etc.

The Prophet here puts a restraint on the Jews, so that they might not hasten before the time. He then gives them the hope of a return, provided they quietly waited until the end set by God. There are then two things in this verse: that the people would poorly serve their own good if they hastened and promised themselves a return before the end of seventy years; and that when that time was completed, the hope of a return would be certain, for God had so promised.

He adds, And I will raise up my good word towards you. By good word he means what might bring joy to the Jews. Though God’s word is fatal to the unbelieving, yet it never changes its nature; it always remains good. Thus Paul says that the Gospel is a fatal odor to many, but that it is, nevertheless, a sweet odor before God (2 Corinthians 2:16), for it should be attributed to the fault of those who perish that they do not receive the doctrine of the Gospel for their own salvation.

The word of God is then always good, but this commendation is to be referred to experience—that is, when God really shows that he is favorable to us. A shorter definition cannot be given than this: the good word denotes the promises by which God testifies his fatherly favor. But we have seen elsewhere that threatenings are called an evil word. Why is this so? This characteristic cannot, indeed, as has just been said, be suitably applied to God’s word; yet God’s word which threatens destruction is called evil, as it is said,

I am he who create good and evil, (Isaiah 45:7)

but it is so according to our understanding of its effects. And all this reasoning seems nearly unnecessary when we understand that God by the word of evil strikes the unbelieving with fear, but that the Prophet now means nothing other than to bear testimony to God’s favor to the Jews. Therefore he says that they would find by experience that God had not promised in vain what he had before mentioned.

But he is said to rouse up his good word, that is, when it produced its effects before their eyes. For when God only speaks, and the thing itself does not yet appear, his word seems, in a way, to be dormant and useless. And for seventy years the Jews could perceive nothing other than that God was displeased with them, and thus they were continually in fear, because the promise continued, as it were, dormant, as its effects were not yet visible.

God then is said to rouse up his word when he proves that he has not promised anything in vain. The meaning is that the prophecy which Jeremiah had related would not be fruitless. But if the people did not soon know this, yet God, when the time came, would really prove that he does not deceive his people, nor lure them with vain hopes when he promises anything.

And the Prophet explains himself, for he says that God would restore them to their own country. For this was the good word, the promise of deliverance, since the word, according to what the people felt, was evil, bitter, and bad when God had threatened that he would cast away the reprobate. But it is an incidental thing, as I have said, that people find God’s word to be evil or adverse to them, for it proceeds from their own fault, and not from the nature of the word.