John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 6:7

"As a well casteth forth its waters, so she casteth forth her wickedness: violence and destruction is heard in her; before me continually is sickness and wounds." — Jeremiah 6:7 (ASV)

The Prophet expands on what he had said in the last verse, for he had shown, by mentioning one kind of evil, that Jerusalem was a den of thieves, as oppression dwelt in its midst. But he now, by a comparison, amplifies his former statement and says that violence, oppression, devastation, grief, and smiting streamed forth like waters from a fountain.

It is possible for many vices to break out from a place, but repentance afterwards follows. However, when men do not cease and heap vices on vices, it then appears that they swell with wickedness and even burst with it, as they cannot repress it. They are like a fountain that always bubbles up and cannot contain its own waters. Thus, we see the Prophet's purpose.

The word בור, bur, means a fountain, and באר, bar, also means a fountain or a well, and they are undoubtedly synonymous. Thus, the mistake of a very learned man among the Hebrews becomes apparent, who distinguishes between the two and says that the first is a cistern, which receives water but does not stream. That this is false is clear from the Prophet's words, for a cistern does not cast forth water.

But with regard to what is taught, we sufficiently understand that what the Prophet means is that the Jews had so abandoned themselves to their vices that they were always contriving some new way of doing evil, just as waters never cease to stream forth from the fountain. This is a proof, as I have said, that a nation is wholly irreclaimable when there is no cessation from evil deeds, when there is no intermission of injuries, when men always indulge in their vices.

And as the Jews could not deny that this was the atrocity of their wickedness, the Prophet again speaks in God's name and says, Heard have been oppressions, and smitings are before me. This is as if he were saying, “They will gain nothing by evasions, for if they make a hundred excuses before men, it will be completely useless to them when they come before God’s tribunal.”

And he again adds the adverb dymt, tamid, continually, which corresponds to the perpetual streaming of waters.