John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 4:19

"My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I cannot hold my peace; because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war." — Jeremiah 4:19 (ASV)

Some interpreters think that the Prophet is here affected by grief because he saw that his own nation would soon perish; but I do not know whether this is a correct view. It is indeed true that the prophets, though severe when denouncing God’s vengeance, did not set aside their human feelings.

Therefore, they often lamented the evils they predicted; and this we shall see more clearly in its proper place. The prophets then had two kinds of feelings: when they were heralds of God’s vengeance, they necessarily set aside their own personal feelings; but this courage did not prevent them from feeling sorrow for others, for they could not help but sympathize with their brothers when they saw them, even their own flesh, doomed to ruin.

But in this passage, the Prophet seems less to be mourning the calamities of the people and more to be employing figurative terms to awaken them from their stupor. He saw that they were torpid, and that they neither feared God nor were affected by any shame. Since there was so much apathy in the people, it was necessary for Jeremiah and other servants of God to use vivid language in their messages, so as not simply to teach, but also to forcibly and strongly rouse their dormant minds.

He therefore says, My bowels, my bowels! We shall see that the Prophet laments in this way in other places when he speaks of Babylon, Edom, and other enemies of his people. And why? The Prophet was not indeed affected by grief when he heard that the Chaldeans would perish, or when God declared the same thing to him concerning other pagan nations who had cruelly persecuted the holy people. But since thoughtless men, as I have said, pay no attention to what God threatens them with from heaven, it is necessary to use such expressions as may rouse them from their torpor.

This is how I interpret this passage: the Prophet is not expressing his own grief for the calamities of his people, but by the prophetic spirit, he is elaborating on what he had previously said. He saw that his previous statements had no effect or were not sufficient to rouse their minds.

My bowels! he says. He indeed felt grief in his bowels, for he was a member of the community; but we are now speaking of his objective or the purpose he had in view in speaking this way. It is not, then, an expression of his own grief, but a moving description intended to thoroughly rouse the minds of those who carelessly laughed at the judgment of God.

He then adds, My heart tumultuates, or makes a noise. The verb means to resound, and therefore it is metaphorically used to mean being in tumult. He speaks of the palpitation of the heart, which occurs when there is great fear. But he calls it noise or tumult, as though he had said that he was no longer master of himself, so as to retain a calm and tranquil mind, because God struck his heart with horrible dread.

He afterwards adds, I will not be silent, for the sound of the trumpet my soul has heard, or, you, my soul, have heard, and the clamor of battle; for the word מלחמה chme, is to be understood this way here. He says that he would not be silent because this clamor resounded in his heart. From this, we conclude that he did not grieve from a feeling of human sorrow, but he did what he had been commanded to do by God; for he had been chosen to be the herald of God’s vengeance, which was near, though not dreaded by the Jews.

Some think that 'soul' here is to be taken for the prophetic spirit, because trumpets had not yet sounded, nor was the clamor of battle yet heard. They therefore suppose that a contrast is to be understood here: that Jeremiah did not perceive the noise with his ears, but in his heart. But I do not know whether this subtle interpretation can be suitably applied to the Prophet’s words.

I therefore think that Jeremiah means that he spoke in earnest because he saw God’s vengeance as though it were already evident. This contributed significantly to lending credibility to his statements, so that the Jews might know that he was not speaking of his own accord, nor merely performing like actors on a stage. They were then to understand that he was not just repeating what God had pronounced, but that he was God’s herald in such a way that he heard in his soul or heart, to his great terror, the tumult of war and the sound of the trumpet.