John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 50:7

"All that found them have devoured them; and their adversaries said, We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Jehovah, the habitation of righteousness, even Jehovah, the hope of their fathers." — Jeremiah 50:7 (ASV)

Jeremiah continues with the same subject, for he tells us how miserable the condition of the people was until God looked upon them to relieve them from their evils. And this comparison, as I have said before, more fully demonstrates the favor of God, because He raised up His people as it were from hell at a time when they were reduced to despair.

He says first, All who found them devoured them; that is, all who came in contact with them considered them prey. In short, he means that they were plundered by all who met them, and then that enemies were so far from sparing them that they gloried in their cruelty towards them. Therefore, he adds, Their enemies said, We sin not, because they have acted wickedly against Jehovah. By these words the Prophet implies that their enemies indulged in greater wantonness because they thought that what they did would not be punished. Almost the same sentiment is found in Zechariah, where it is said,

All who devoured them sinned not, and they who devoured them said, Blessed be the Lord who has enriched us. (Zechariah 11:5)

But we must more closely consider the purpose of the Holy Spirit. The Prophet indeed shows that the Jews were reduced to extreme hardship, so that they were not only cruelly treated by their enemies but were also exposed to the greatest contempt. He, however, reminded them at the same time of their duty to repent, for when the whole world condemned them, it was only right that God should call them to account for their sins. Since He had set all men over them as their judges, He indirectly stirred and prodded their consciences, so that they would know they had to deal with God. When therefore Zechariah said,

All who devoured thee said, Blessed be the Lord,

he meant that the sins of the people were so manifest to all that all the nations declared that they deserved extreme punishment. For by the words, “Blessed be the Lord who has enriched us,” he implied that the nations, in robbing and plundering the Jews, would be so far from feeling any shame that they would rather glory in being enriched with prey, as it were, by the hand of God. So also in this place, All who found them devoured them, and their enemies said, We sin not — and why? — because they have acted wickedly against Jehovah.

In short, the Prophet means that the Jews would not only be exposed to the rapacity, avarice, and cruelty of enemies but also to the greatest contempt and reproach. At the same time, he exhorted them to repent, for if they were thus condemned by the judgment of the whole world, it was not unreasonable to direct their thoughts to the tribunal of God.

Nor was it a strange thing that unbelievers referred to God, for it is commonly found in all the prophets; and it was always a principle held by all nations that there is some supreme Deity. For though they devised various gods for themselves, yet they all believed that there is one supreme God.

So the name Jehovah was commonly known by all nations. Therefore, the Prophet here introduced the Chaldeans as saying that the Jews had acted wickedly against Jehovah; not indeed that they ascribed to God His honor, but because this opinion that there is some God was held by all. And this God they all indiscriminately worshipped according to their own forms of religion, but they still thought that they worshipped God.

Interpreters explain what follows as though the Prophet, speaking in the person of enemies, intended to exaggerate the sin of the chosen people. They therefore connect the words thus: “They have been wicked against Jehovah, who is the habitation of justice, and has always been the hope of their fathers.” If we take this meaning, it is no wonder that their sin is amplified, because the Jews had forsaken not some unknown God, whose favor and power they had not experienced, but because they had been perfidious against the God who had by many proofs testified His paternal love towards them. It was then an impiety all the more detestable because they had thus dared to forsake the only true God.

But I prefer a different meaning: that the Prophet answers by God’s command that their enemies deceived themselves when they thus confidently trampled underfoot the chosen people and thought that everything was lawful for them. The Prophet, I do not doubt, now rebukes the wantonness of which he speaks, as though he had said, “You think that this people are wholly rejected by Me, and therefore there are no limits to your cruelty; but I have so adopted them that My covenant can never be rendered void.” We may better understand what Jeremiah means by a similar example: when Isaiah answered King Hezekiah that God would be the defender of the city, when they recited to him the words of Sennacherib or of Rabshakeh, who brought his orders (Isaiah 37:24), he said,

But he thinks not that I have founded Sion.

That answer seems to me to be entirely like this passage. Sennacherib said, “I will go up and take the city and the temple;” he, in short, triumphed as though he were a conqueror. But God, on the other hand, restrained his confidence in these words, “But that impious and proud enemy knows not that I have created Sion, and have been from the beginning its maker. Can I then now bring upon it such a destruction as would wholly cut off the memory of it? Many cities have indeed perished, and there is no place so illustrious that it may not at some time be destroyed; but the condition of the holy city (says God) is different.” And He adds the reason: because He had created it. So in this place, Jehovah is the habitation of justice and the hope of their fathers. For God’s enemies almost always form their judgment according to the present state of things; for in prosperity they are inflated with so much pride that they dare insolently to utter blasphemies against God. For though the Chaldeans had spoken thus, that they sinned not because the Jews had been wicked, there is yet no doubt that their boasting was insulting to God, as it is said in Isaiah 37:22-23,

The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised and derided thee, and drawn out the tongue against thee; me, the God of hosts, he says, hath he despised.

By these words God shows that He was derided in the person of His Church. For this reason, then, God Himself now comes forth and declares that He is the habitation of justice and the hope of His chosen people, so that the Chaldeans might not promise themselves perpetual prosperity.

We therefore see that these sentences are set in opposition to one another rather than connected together and spoken by the ungodly. The Chaldeans said, “We sin not, because they have acted wickedly against Jehovah;” then the Prophet responds and shows that they deceived themselves if they thought that God’s covenant was abolished because He for a time chastised His people, as it is said by Isaiah,

What shall the messengers of the nations declare? Or, What shall be told by the messengers of the nations? That God hath founded Sion. (Isaiah 14:32)

When he spoke of the deliverance of the people and city, he added this acclamation: that it would be a memorable benefit, the report of which would be known among all nations, that is, that God had founded Sion, that it had been wonderfully delivered, as it were, from present destruction.

He first calls God the habitation of justice; and he alludes, as I think, to the tabernacle. Then he more clearly expresses himself, that God was the hope of their fathers. The Jews were indeed unworthy of being protected by God; but he speaks not here of their merits. On the contrary, God Himself affirms the perpetuity of His covenant and the constancy of His faithfulness, in opposition to the ungodly.

For since the Chaldeans had already possessed the greater part of the country and had taken all the cities except Jerusalem, they thought that the people were forsaken by their God; and this tended to cast reproach on God Himself. Therefore, He declares here that though the Jews had been wicked, yet His covenant was so far from being extinct that He was a habitation, that is, like a place of refuge.

And He calls Him the habitation of justice, that is, firm or faithful; for justice is not to be taken here in its proper sense but, as in many other places of Scripture, means firmness or rectitude. It is as though He had said, “God has once extended His wings to cherish His people (as it is said elsewhere); He will therefore always be a sure habitation.”

He had also been the hope of their fathers, according to what is said by Isaiah, that He had created Sion from the beginning. But He renews the memory of His covenant, as though He had said, “It is not today that I have first received this people into favor, but I made a covenant with their father Abraham, which will remain fixed.” So, also, He says in this place that He was the hope of their fathers, even because He had adopted the whole race of Abraham and showed them mercy through all ages. Then the Prophet indirectly infers that it would not be possible for their enemies perpetually to possess power over them, because God, after having chastened His people, would again gather the dispersed and thus heal all their evils.

A useful doctrine may therefore be gathered: that whenever the Church seems to be so oppressed by enemies as to exclude any hope of restoration, we ought always to bear this in mind, that as God has once chosen it, it cannot be otherwise than that He will manifest His faithfulness even in death itself, and raise from the grave those who seem to have been already reduced to ashes. Let this passage, then, come to our minds when the calamities of the Church threaten utter ruin and nothing but despair meets us, and when enemies insolently arrogate everything to themselves and boastingly declare that we are accursed. But God is a habitation of justice and was the hope of our fathers; let us, then, rely on that grace which He has once promised, when He deigned to choose us for Himself and to adopt us as His peculiar people. Such is the import of the passage.