John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 33:23-24

"And the word of Jehovah came to Jeremiah, saying, Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which Jehovah did choose, he hath cast them off? thus do they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them." — Jeremiah 33:23-24 (ASV)

He now gives a reason why he had spoken so extensively about the deliverance of the people and their perpetual preservation: it was because the blessing promised by God was considered uncertain by the unbelieving. Furthermore, God not only reminds his Prophet why he instructed him to repeat the same thing so often, but also speaks for the sake of the people, so that they might know that this repetition was not futile, as it was necessary to struggle against their perverse wickedness. For they had so filled their minds and hearts with despair that they rejected all God’s promises and gave no room to faith or hope.

Some explain this passage as referring to the Chaldeans, who held the people in great contempt. But this explanation is cold and meaningless. I have no doubt that God here remonstrates with the Israelites because they abandoned the hope of deliverance. For Jeremiah would not have spoken this way about the Chaldeans: Have you not seen this people? He remonstrates with Jeremiah because he had not moved from the city. He then shows, according to what I have already observed, that it was necessary for him to confirm so often what had been said so plainly before about the return of the people. Have you not seen, he says, how this people speak, saying, ‘Jehovah now rejects the two families whom he had chosen,’—namely, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah.

It was indeed an unfortunate event that the people had been divided into two parts, for they should have been one nation. But though it had happened through the defection of the ten tribes that the body of the people had been torn apart, yet the Prophet, according to the usual way of speaking, says that the two families had been chosen. God’s election was indeed different, intending that the seed of Abraham should be one, for as there is only one head, so there should be only one body.

But God had not completely abandoned the ten tribes, though they had wickedly and impiously rebelled against the family of David. He then says, according to the prevailing language, that the two families had been rejected, that is, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah. Now the people said that both were rejected—which was true, but not in the sense they intended. For as has been said before, they thought that no hope remained, as though God’s covenant had been entirely abolished, while the rejection was only for a time.

We therefore see what God reproved in the common language of the people, specifically because they entertained no hope of mercy and pardon. For, being struck with dismay, they had abandoned every thought of God’s promises when they saw that they were going into exile. For just as before they had hardened themselves against threats, so now despair immediately seized their minds, so that they could not conceive of God’s goodness and mercy. He adds that the people were contemptible in their eyes, so as to be a nation no longer. Thus, in the third place, he teaches what we have observed before.