John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 6:15

"Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall; at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith Jehovah." — Jeremiah 6:15 (ASV)

Jeremiah now turns his discourse to the whole people. In the last verse he rebuked only the priests and the prophets; he now speaks more generally, and says that they had cast off all shame. "Behold," he says, "they are sufficiently proved guilty, their wickedness is manifest, and yet there is no shame. Their disgrace is visible to heaven and earth; angels and all mortals are witnesses of their corruption; but they have such a brazen front that they are unaffected by any sense of shame."

He means, in these words, that the wickedness of the people was beyond all remedy. They had reached that degree of stupor Paul describes when he calls those ἀπηλγηκότας who were obstinate in their vices and saw no difference between right and wrong, between white and black (Ephesians 4:19).

This, then, is what the Prophet means when he says, Have they been ashamed? A question is much more emphatic than if it were a simple condemnation or affirmation. They have not even been ashamed, he says. In their very shame, they did not know what it was to be touched by any sense of shame.

This may be classified with those rebukes by which they had not been subdued; as if he had said, "Since efforts have been made to expose their effrontery in not humbling themselves under the hand of God, they shall therefore fall among the fallen." That is, "I will dispute no longer with them, nor contend in words, but will execute my judgment on them."

Fall, then, shall they among the fallen; as if he had said, "I have more than sufficiently declared war on them. If they had been curable, their frequent warnings would have contributed to their conversion, and even more so, my sharp urging for them to come to me. But I will now use words no more; on the contrary, I will execute my vengeance, so that the calamity they have brought upon themselves may devour them."

They shall wholly fall, he says, in the day of their visitation. From this second clause we understand more clearly what he means when he speaks of falling among the fallen: namely, that they should wholly fall when God would come, as it were, with a drawn sword to destroy them, weary from giving them so many warnings.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that inasmuch as you daily seek to restore us to yourself, and so arrange your word, as now kindly to allure us, then to rebuke us severely, and even to drive us by threats — O grant, that we may not be altogether unteachable; but so rule us by the Spirit of meekness, that we may submit ourselves to you and to your holy word, and be so terrified by the fear of your judgment as still always to taste the sweetness of your mercy, so that we may cling to you in Christ your Son, until at last we fully know that you are our Father, and enjoy the fruit of our adoption in the same Christ Jesus our Lord. — Amen.