John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 30:8

"And it shall come to pass in that day, saith Jehovah of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds; and strangers shall no more make him their bondman;" — Jeremiah 30:8 (ASV)

Jeremiah proceeds with what he touched upon in the last verse, namely, that the Lord, after having chastised His people, would eventually show mercy to them, so as to receive them into favor. He says, in short, that their captivity would not be perpetual.

But we must remember what we have previously stated: that deliverance is only promised to the faithful, who would patiently and resignedly submit to God and not disregard His paternal correction. If, then, we desire God to be propitious to us, we must allow ourselves to be paternally chastised by Him; for if we resist when goaded, no pardon can by any means be expected, because we then, as it were, willfully provoke God by our hardness.

He therefore says, in that day, that is, when the appointed time was completed. The false prophets inflamed the people with false expectation, as though their deliverance was to take place after two years. God instructed the faithful to wait, and not to be in such a hurry; He had assigned a day for them, and that was, as we have seen, the seventieth year.

He then mentions the yoke, that is, of the king of Babylon, and taking another view, the chains. The yoke was what Nebuchadnezzar laid on the Jews, and the chains of the people were those by which Nebuchadnezzar had bound them. At last he adds, And rule over them shall no more strangers.

The verb עבד, obed, is to be taken here in a causative sense; even the form of the sentence shows this, and those who render the words, “and strangers shall not serve them,” distort the meaning. For it could not be a promise, and this is inconsistent with the context and requires no refutation, as it is evidently unsuitable. If the verb is taken in the sense of serving, then “strangers” must be in the dative case.

We have seen before a similar phrase in Jeremiah 25:14, where the Prophet says that neither kings nor strong nations would any longer rule over the Jews. The same verb is used, and the same form of expression. Strangers, then, shall make them serve no more; that is, they shall not rule over them so as to oppress them with servitude.

We now perceive the design of the Prophet; he exhorts the Jews to patience and shows that though their exile would be long, yet their deliverance was certain.