John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 9:17-18

"Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skilful women, that they may come: and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters." — Jeremiah 9:17-18 (ASV)

In this passage, as in many others, the Prophet endeavors by a striking representation to truly touch the hearts of his people, for he saw that they were extremely stubborn, unfeeling, and complacent. Since the threats of God were either completely despised or had not sufficiently stirred the hearts of the people, it was necessary to present God’s judgments as if they were happening now. Therefore, the Prophet gives a striking description of what takes place in times of mourning. At the same time, he seems to indirectly condemn the Jews for not recognizing, through God’s word, that a calamity was near, for God’s word should indeed be like a mirror, through which people should see God’s goodness in His promises and also His judgment in His threats. Since all prophecies were considered fables by the people, it was not without some degree of derision that he addressed them in this manner:

Hearken ye, and call for mourners, that they may come. An absurd and foolish custom has prevailed in almost all ages to hire women as mourners, whom they called proeficoe; they were employed to mourn for others. Heirs, no doubt, hired these foolish women to show their feigned piety; they spoke in praise of the dead and showed how great a loss their death was.

The Prophet does not commend this custom; and we should know that Scripture often takes similes from human vices, as from filth and dirt. If, then, anyone concludes from these words of Jeremiah that lamentations at funerals are not to be condemned, this would be foolish and puerile.

The Prophet, on the contrary, here reproves the Jews because they carelessly disregarded all God’s threats and were, at the same time, soft and tender towards those foolish displays, and everyone mourned at the sight of those women who were hired to lament. This is similar to what happens in our time when a faithful teacher condemns the prevailing folly of the Papists.

For when the unscrupulous men who occupy the pulpits under the Papacy speak while weeping—though they do not produce a single syllable from God’s word, but instead add some spectacle or illusion by producing an image of the Cross or something similar—they stir the emotions of the common people and cause weeping, just as actors do on the stage.

So, just as the Papists are seized, as it were, with a frenzied feeling when their deceivers gesticulate in this way, a faithful teacher might say to them, “Let anyone come and set before your eyes the image of a dead man, or say that you must all shortly die and be like the carcass shown to you, and you will cry and weep. And yet you will not consider how dreadful God’s judgment is, which I declare to you. I show you faithfully from the Law, from the Prophets, and from the Gospel how dreadful God’s vengeance is, and I set before you what you deserve. Yet none of you are moved; my doctrine is a mockery to you, as are my rebukes and threats. Go then to your prophets, who show you pictures and similar deceptions.”

Thus, the Prophet now says, “I see that I can do you no good; the Lord will therefore give you no teachers but women.” Of what sort? Even those, he says, who lament or are hired to mourn.

We therefore now perceive why the Prophet speaks of hired women. Attend ye, he says; and why? They should indeed have been attentive to or understood (for בן ben, properly means to understand, and in Hithpael it signifies to consider) his words. But as he saw that he was ridiculed or despised, and that all the threats which proceeded from God were regarded as fables, he now says, “Consider ye and call for your lamenters: — since I see such perverseness in you, be taught at least by those women who are commonly invited to lament and who sell their tears!” Send, he says, for the skillful, that they may come. By these words, he intended to express more clearly that the calamity which the people did not fear was not far away.

Let them, he says, take up for us a wailing, and let our eyes come down to tears, and let our eyelids flow down into waters. These are hyperbolical words, and yet they do not exceed the intensity of the coming vengeance: for it was not in vain that he said at the beginning of the chapter, “Who will make my head waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears?”

Since the greatness of the calamity could be expressed by no words, the Prophet was compelled to adopt these hyperbolical expressions: Let them then take up for us a wailing, that our eyes may come down to tears:

And this he said because he saw that he was heard with dry eyes and that the people disregarded what had been denounced, when yet all should have been struck with fear, from the least to the greatest. Since the Prophet saw that their contempt was so brutal, he says that when lamenters came, then would be the time for wailing—not indeed the appropriate time; but it is as if he had said that the Jews would then find out how unfeeling they had been in not having considered in due time the judgment of God.