John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 4:14

"O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee?" — Jeremiah 4:14 (ASV)

Here now the Prophet expressly and openly exhorts the people to repent. By commanding Jerusalem to wash her heart from wickedness, that she might be saved, he shows that there was no remedy unless the Jews were reconciled to God, and that this could not happen unless they repented of their sins.

He had said before that while God was angry they could not help but perish. He now confirms the same thing: that you may be saved, wash your heart from wickedness. This is as if he had said that there was war between the Jews and God, and that salvation could by no means be hoped for, since God was armed for their destruction and showed Himself a judge to punish their vices.

At the same time, he reminds them of the true way of repentance: it was by washing their heart from wickedness. For hypocrites always seek to appease God by external rites and observances, but the Prophet shows that God cannot be pacified unless they return to Him from the heart.

He then means that the beginning of true repentance is an inward feeling. We now perceive what the Prophet means.

But those who maintain that repentance is the cause of salvation reason foolishly, because it is said, “That you may be saved, wash your heart from wickedness.” The Papists seize upon such passages to establish free will, and they hold that sins are abolished and punishment remitted through satisfactions made by us.

But this is extremely absurd and frivolous. For the Prophet is not speaking of the cause of salvation; but, as I have said, he simply shows that people are extremely thoughtless when they expect a peaceful condition while they carry on war with God, and when He is armed to execute vengeance on them.

We are not then to inquire here whether a sinner delivers himself from God’s hand by his repentance. Instead, the Prophet had only this one thing in view: that we cannot be safe and secure unless God is reconciled to us. He further shows that God will not be propitious to us unless we repent, and that from the heart or from a genuine feeling within.

He then adds, How long shall the thoughts of your vanity remain within you? He here touches on the hypocrisy of his own nation.

He, in effect, says that whatever excuses they might make, they were still proved guilty before God, and that their evasions were frivolous because God penetrated into the inmost recesses of their hearts.

He indeed speaks most suitably, for he had to deal with hypocrites who thought that their outward performances pacified God. They also thought that when they alleged their evasions, they ought to be forgiven, as they could not be condemned by earthly judges.

The Prophet derides these delusive thoughts: How long shall thoughts of vanity remain within you? This means: “Though the whole world were to absolve you, what would it yet avail you? For vain thoughts remain in your midst—that is, in the recesses of your heart—and God knows them, for nothing is hidden from Him. There is then no reason for you to think that you will gain anything by your outward display or your excuses, for God is the searcher of hearts. Let not these thoughts continue within you.”

He calls them the thoughts of vanity. The word און, aun, sometimes means substance, but it also means power, and sometimes grief, and sometimes vanity or trouble. The Prophet means here, I have no doubt, trouble or vanity. But some expound it as signifying lust; however, I do not know whether it can be so taken.

Either of the two foregoing meanings may suit the passage, though vanity seems the best. How long, then, shall thoughts of vanity remain within you? That is, by which you deceive yourself; for when God suspended His vengeance, the Jews thought that they had escaped from His hand.

They might, at the same time, have been called the thoughts of trouble or sorrow from the effect. For how could it have been otherwise, but that they must have found they had procured a heavier judgment for themselves by trifling with the indulgence and forbearance of God?

The explanation given by some, who render the words “thoughts of grief” because the Jews had done many wrongs to their neighbors and caused them unjust vexations, is too strained. I therefore do not doubt that the Prophet refers to those deceptive hopes by which the Jews grew more perverse against God, so as not to fear any punishment.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that since You are pleased daily to invite us to repentance, and since our own conscience is a witness to how we have in various ways provoked Your vengeance—O grant, that we may not remain obstinate in our sins, nor harden our minds by perverse delusions, but allow ourselves to be subdued by Your word. May we so offer ourselves to You with a pure and sincere heart, that our whole life may be nothing else but a striving for that newness which You require; so that, being consecrated to You in mind and body, we may always labor to glorify Your name, until we are made partakers of that glory which has been obtained for us by the blood of Your only-begotten Son. Amen.