John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 8:7

"Yea, the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle-dove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the law of Jehovah." — Jeremiah 8:7 (ASV)

Here again Jeremiah condemns the shameful insensibility of the people—that they had less wisdom than birds, not endowed with reason and understanding. He then says that the Jews were more foolish than cranes, swallows, and storks. He no doubt deeply wounded the feelings of the people by so severe a rebuke; but it was necessary thus sharply to rebuke those who despised God, for it is evident from these words that they had become exceedingly hardened in their vices. No wonder, then, that the Prophet declares that they were more silly than cranes and swallows.

Isaiah also exposes the same sort of madness, when he says that the ox knew his own master, and the ass his master’s crib, but that God was not known by his people (Isaiah 1:3). Now Isaiah made the Jews worse than oxen and asses, because these brute animals possess something like memory, so that they keep to their own manger and crib. So now Jeremiah, speaking of storks and so on, says:

Behold, the stork knows the time in which it ought to migrate from one country to another; and the same is observed by swallows and cranes. For at stated times they seek a warmer climate; that is, they leave a cold country, that they may escape the severity of winter; and they afterwards know the time in which they are to return.

As, then, the birds of the air observe their seasons, how is it that my people do not consider the judgment of God? By mentioning the heavens, he no doubt alludes to the constant flying of birds, the birds having hardly any rest, for they continually roam through the air.

Since, then, there is so much wisdom in birds, which yet the air wafts here and there, how is it that a people, who dwell quietly at home, who can leisurely meditate on God’s law—how is it that this people understand nothing? We therefore see that there is an import in the word heavens that has not been noticed.

Readers may still have their doubts, for it is not strange that birds in the heavens should have a clearer view, as they come nearer to the sun and the element of fire. But different seems to have been the Prophet’s object, which was to show that though birds labor, as it were, continually, they yet contrive to know the suitable time for going and returning. Hence, then, the insensibility of that people, who, while sitting leisurely at home, did not consider what God set before them, is more fully exaggerated.

The particle גם, gam, even, is emphatic: Even the stork, he says. What does this mean, that birds, though not possessed of understanding, still know their time? But my people... By saying “my people,” the Prophet no doubt intended more clearly to set forth their wickedness. For, as I have said before, such blindness in heathens would not have been so strange; but as they were the holy and peculiar people of God, it was far more shameful and monstrous that they did not know his judgment.

Christ uses other words in condemning the Pharisees for not attending to the time of their visitation. For He says, “You are accustomed to conclude what will be the state of the heavens in the morning; for if the sky is red in the evening, you say, ‘It will be fine tomorrow’; and you know the signs of future and approaching rain. You possess,” he says, “judgment sufficiently acute in external things, which lead to the benefit of the present life; yet you do not know the time of your visitation, and still you seek signs. But if you were attentive, God would show to you in a way clear enough, and as it were by his finger, that the time of deliverance which you pretend to expect is now near at hand.”

But the Prophet reproves the Jews in a severer strain, when he says that there was more fatuity and madness in them than in birds. They know not, he says, the judgment of Jehovah, though it had been shown to them many times, and for a long time.

But someone might have objected and said, “It is no wonder if we do not perceive God’s judgment, for his judgments are a great deep; and since these exceed what we can comprehend, there is no reason to find fault with us.” But the Prophet does not speak here of hidden judgments, which elude human comprehension, but of punishments, of which they had been so often warned. Since, then, they were so blind as not to see what was clear and evident, the Prophet justly says that they were more foolish than cranes and the other birds which he mentions.