John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 51:17

"Every man is become brutish [and is] without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them." — Jeremiah 51:17 (ASV)

This verse is usually explained, as if the Prophet pointed out how people glide into errors and fancies, simply because they seek to be wise according to their own ideas; and Paul, in Romans chapter 1, assigns it as the cause of idolatry, that people become vain in their own wisdom because they follow whatever their own minds suggest to them.

This doctrine is in itself true and useful, for people have devised idols for themselves because they would not reverently receive the knowledge of God offered to them, but rather believed their own inventions. And since whatever a person imagines according to their own thoughts is mere vanity, it is no wonder that those who presumptuously form their own ideas of God become completely foolish and infatuated.

But it is evident from the context that the Prophet here means something else: namely, that the craftsmen who cast or forge idols, or form them in any other way, are completely delirious in thinking that they can, by their own art and skill, make gods. A log of wood lies on the ground, is trodden underfoot without any honor; now when the craftsman adds form to it, the log begins to be worshipped as a god. What madness can be imagined greater than this?

The same thing may be said of stones, silver, and gold. For though it may be a precious metal, yet no divinity is ascribed to it until it begins to take on a certain form. Now when a metalworker casts an idol, how can a lump of gold or silver become a god?

The Prophet then rebukes this monstrous madness when he says that men are in their knowledge like brute beasts, that is, when they apply their skill to things so vain and foolish. But he mentions the same thing twice, according to the common practice of the Hebrew style, for we know that the prophets often repeat the same thing twice for confirmation.

Then, after saying that men are infatuated by knowledge, he adds that they were made ashamed by the graven image. There seems to be an inconsistency in the words, for פסל, pesal, “graven,” does not well agree with צרף, tsareph, “the caster,” or founder. But the Prophet, stating a part for the whole, simply means that all craftsmen are foolish and delirious in thinking that they can by their own hand and skill cast or forge, or in any way form gods. And to prove this he says that there is no spirit or breath in them; and this was a sufficient proof, for we know that God is the fountain of life, and thus He is called by Moses “the God of the spirits of all flesh” (Numbers 16:22).

Whatever life, then, is diffused through all creatures, flows from God alone as the only true fountain. What, then, is less like divinity, or has less affinity to it, than a lump of gold or silver, or a log of wood, or a stone? For they have no life nor vigor. Nothing is more fleeting than humans, yet while they have life in them, they possess something divine; but a dead body—what does it have that is like God? Yet the form of a human body comes nearer to God’s glory than a log of wood or a stone formed in the shape of a human. It is not, then, without reason that the Prophet condemns this madness of all the heathens, that they worshipped fictitious gods, in whom there was still no spirit.