John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 49:9

"If grape-gatherers came to thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? if thieves by night, would they not destroy till they had enough?" — Jeremiah 49:9 (ASV)

Interpreters have not only obscured but also perverted this verse, saying only what is to no purpose, and have gone far from the meaning of the Prophet. How so? Because it did not occur to them to compare this with a passage in Obadiah. Obadiah is the true interpreter; indeed, our Prophet has borrowed what we read here from him.

For there a question is asked: If thieves were to come to you, if robbers (שדדי, shaddi, is added there, but is omitted by Jeremiah) — if robbers by night, how would you have been reduced to nothing? But in the first place, the rendering ought to be: Had thieves come to you, how would you have been reduced to nothing? Then he adds, Would they not have stolen what would suffice them? He afterwards adds the second clause: If the grape-gatherers had come to you, would they not have left grapes. Then there is no ambiguity in the Prophet’s words, if we read them interrogatively.

But there is an implied contrast between the calamity threatened to the people and the other devastations. If a thief of the night were to plunder another’s house, he would depart, loaded with his prey, and leave something behind, for in all plunder some things remain. So also with grape-gatherers, some grapes remain, which escape the gatherers.

Then the Prophet here shows that so great would be the destruction of that nation that it would exceed all kinds of plundering; for when one strips his vines, he leaves some grapes, and when a thief enters a house, he does not carry all things away with him, being satisfied with his booty. But nothing, he says, shall be left remaining with the Idumeans. Thus we see why the Prophet brings forward the two comparisons: that of the grape-gatherers and that of the thieves.

We must at the same time observe that when God denounces His vengeance on the Israelites, He often adduces these comparisons to show that nothing would be left them: When the olives are shaken, yet some fruit remains on the top of the trees; but you shall be wholly emptied. As God had said these things, the Israelites might have raised an objection and said, “What is our condition, and how miserable! For we are extremely afflicted. Though God afflicts the Idumeans, yet He deals mildly with them, for God’s wrath is less inflamed against them than against us.”

So that the faithful would not then be thrown into despair, our Prophet declares that the Idumeans would be wholly destroyed, so that not a grape would be left them, nor any of their furniture, for their enemies would lay desolate the whole land. Now follows a confirmation of this verse—