John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 8:10

"Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall possess them: for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely." — Jeremiah 8:10 (ASV)

GOD here threatens punishment because he found that he accomplished nothing and that he was dealing with an obstinate people, having previously tried to see if they were reclaimable. Having seen that exhortations were ineffective, he now resorts to extreme severity: I will give, he says, their wives to strangers. He illustrates, with a particular example, the evils that usually accompany wars. Nothing is more distressing than when a wife is snatched away from her husband; for if husbands had the choice, they would prefer instant death rather than bear such a disgrace. Jeremiah then shows that the most atrocious thing that happens to conquered nations was near for the Jews—that their men would be deprived of their wives. He afterwards says the same thing of their fields; God declares that he would give the fields to their possessors. By this way of speaking, he intimates that they would be deprived of their fields, not for a short time, but permanently.

There is, indeed, a contrast implied here. It sometimes happens that enemies prevail and plunder everything, yet they do not take long possession of the fields, as a change follows. But when he calls enemies possessors, he means that the calamity would be so great that the Jews would be banished from their country for a long time, even for their lifetime, and would lose their possessions.

They thought that the land had been given to them in such a way that it could never be taken from them. And doubtless, the Lord would never have expelled them if they had not defiled it with their pollutions; but as they had polluted it by their sins, they deserved to be banished from it.

So the Prophet shows that their confidence was absurd in thinking that they would be the permanent inheritors of that land; he says, “Succeed you shall others, who shall possess it as if by hereditary right.” We now understand the Prophet’s meaning.

He afterwards mentions the reason why God had resolved to deal so severely with them: For they are, he says, from the least to the greatest given up to avarice. He means that no equity prevailed among the people, for under one kind of sin, he includes all fraud, plundering, and every kind of injustice. He then says that everyone was addicted to his own gain, so that they committed wrongs against each other without any regard for what was right and just.

He then enlarges on the subject and says, that all, from the prophet to the priest, acted deceitfully. Here also, a part is mentioned for the whole. But Jeremiah in various ways describes the wrongs by which people harassed one another. Nor does He exclude violence when He speaks of fraud; rather, it is as though He said that they, being forgetful of what was right, practiced every kind of fraud.

It was, indeed, a dreadful thing that no rectitude or justice remained in the prophets and the priests, who ought to have carried light for others and shown them the right way, as God had appointed them to be the leaders of the people. Since, then, even these acted deceitfully, there must have been the most disgraceful injustice among the common people.

Hence the Prophet shows by these words that God could not be charged with too much severity, as though he treated the people cruelly, for there was such a mass of wickedness that it could no longer be tolerated.