John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 5:13

"and the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them." — Jeremiah 5:13 (ASV)

The Prophet continues with the same subject; and this passage is worthy of special notice, as it commends to us in no common way the public preaching of the truth. For what can be imagined more abominable than to deny God? Yet if His word is not allowed to have authority, it is as if its despisers attempted to thrust God from heaven, or denied His existence. From this we see how the majesty of God is, as it were, indissolubly connected with the public preaching of His truth. The design of this verse is the same, in which Jeremiah refers to the contempt manifested by the people.

He introduces the Jews as saying, The prophets shall become wind, there is not in them the word; and the evil with which they have threatened us, shall come upon their own heads. It may be that the Jews did not openly give vent to such blasphemous language; but so gross was the contempt they showed towards the prophets, that this impiety was sufficiently conspicuous in their whole life.

It was not, then, without reason that the Prophet charged them with such a base impiety: that they said the prophets would become wind. The same is the case now; the greater part, when God thunders and gives proofs of His vengeance by His servants, ridicule everything and heedlessly cast away every fear — “Oh, they are mere words; for the preachers fulminate boldly and terribly in the pulpit, but the whole vanishes, and whatever they denounce on us will fall on their own heads.” We see today that many ungodly and profane men use such bantering language.

Although it may not have been, as I have said, that the Jews dared so openly to show their contempt towards God, yet the Holy Spirit, who extends His authority over the hearts, minds, and feelings of men, justly charged them with this gross impiety. It may also be learned from other places that they grew so audacious that they did not hesitate to scoff at the threatenings announced by the prophets.

However this may have been, the Prophet sets forth with a striking representation how great the contemptuous perverseness of the people towards God was. For here is a vivid description in which he sets, as it were, before our eyes how impious the Jews had become, since they dared openly to assault the prophets and willfully to charge them with declaring what was vain: The prophets, they said, shall become wind; and further, There is not in them the word.

By these words the Jews denied that the prophets were to be believed, however much they might claim to speak in God’s name, for they boasted falsely that this or that was entrusted to them from above. Thus it was, as we see, that every instruction was trampled underfoot, and we find the same to be the case today. For what reverence is shown anywhere for God’s word? This passage, then, ought to be especially noticed by us, for it shows, as in a mirror, to what extent of audacity and madness men will break forth when they begin to discredit God’s word.

They afterwards add, Thus shall it be done to them; or, “May it be thus done to them.” For some regard the words as an imprecation, as though the wicked had said, “Let the prophets experience to their own ruin what the sword, the famine, and the pestilence are; since they continually stun our ears with these terrible things, may they themselves experience these scourges of God.” But we may retain the form of the verb, Thus shall it be done to them, as though they set themselves in opposition to God’s servants and claimed to be God’s prophets themselves: “Oh! We have a prophecy too: they terrify us by announcing the sword, the famine, and the pestilence; we can in our turn retaliate on them and declare that the pestilence, the war, and the famine are near them. For what authority have they to assail us in this way? Do we not have authority to do the same to them?” We now, then, perceive what is meant in this last clause.