John Calvin Commentary Lamentations 4:13

"[It is] because of the sins of her prophets, [and] the iniquities of her priests, That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her." — Lamentations 4:13 (ASV)

The Prophet, as if dealing with a matter already fully proven, rebukes the Jews so that he might, as was necessary, humble their pride. If he had at first condemned the wickedness of the prophets and the priests, his word would not have been believed. But after he had set before them what we have observed, and especially after he had shown that the ruin of the city was a kind of catastrophe, what he now adds must certainly have been inferred: that the Jews had provoked God in so many ways and with such stubbornness that it became necessary for them to be completely destroyed, as indeed happened.

But he points out here the sins by which God’s wrath had been kindled against the people. He then says that the fountain or the origin was in the prophets and priests. Now, we have explained elsewhere that the fault was not removed from the people when the prophets and priests were condemned in this way.

Indeed, the common people readily excuse themselves when they can plead ignorance, or say that they have been deceived by their teachers and leaders. But when Jeremiah attributes the main part of the evils to the prophets and priests, he does not, as I have said, transfer the fault of the people to them, but suggests that their physicians had been, so to speak, impostors.

For when the people corrupted themselves, the prophets were sent for this purpose: to apply a remedy to their evils, and so also were the priests. For we know that it was a duty required of them to keep the people in true religion and in the worship of God.

In short, Jeremiah shows that the people had been ruined because corruption had begun with the prophets and priests; or, what amounts to the same thing, that the sins of the people had proved fatal because their leaders or chiefs were diseased; because, he says, of the sin of the prophets, and the iniquity of the priests, etc.

He mentions one kind of sin: that they shed the blood of the righteous in the midst of Jerusalem. They had undoubtedly led the people astray in other things, for they flattered their vices and gave free rein to licentiousness. But the Prophet here focused on one particular sin, the most grievous: for they had not only, by their errors, false doctrines, and flatteries, led the people away from the fear of God, but had also stubbornly defended their impiety, and by force and cruelty suppressed their faithful teachers and killed the witnesses of God. For by the righteous, or just, he undoubtedly means the prophets.

For what Jerome and others say—that blood had been shed because false teachers draw souls to perdition—is trivial and completely unrelated to what Jeremiah intended, for the word righteous cannot be applied to those miserable people who were ensnared to their own ruin.

Then Jeremiah, after denouncing the sin of the prophets and the iniquity of the priests, mentions the savage cruelty, which was, so to speak, the pinnacle of all their wickedness. Although they had provoked God in various ways, this was their extreme wickedness: they exercised such great cruelty against God’s servants that they constrained, so to speak, the Holy Spirit to be silent.

For when those who despised God went so far as to commit themselves to shedding innocent blood, it was a proof of demonic stubbornness. We now, therefore, understand what the Prophet had in view here.

Now this passage teaches us that Satan has from the beginning polluted God's sanctuary even by means of sacred names: for the prophetic office was honorable—so also was the priestly office. God had established among His people the priesthood, which was, as it were, a living representation of Christ. There was then nothing more excellent than the priesthood under the Law, if we consider God's institution.

It was also a unique blessing that God promised His people would never be without prophets. Since, then, prophets and priests were like two eyes, so to speak, in the Church, the devil turned them to every kind of profanation. This example then reminds us how much we ought to watch, lest empty titles deceive us, which are nothing but masks or phantoms.

When we hear the names "Church" and "pastors," we should reverently regard the office and the order that have come from God. However, we must not be content with mere titles but must examine whether the reality also corresponds. Thus we see that for many ages the whole world has strayed from true religion. Under what pretext? Simply this: those who led miserable souls astray boasted that they were the vicars of Christ and the successors of the apostles, so that they still arrogantly boast of these titles and are puffed up by them. But we see what happened in the time of Jeremiah.

We have encountered similar passages before, but this ought to be carefully noted, for it says that prophets and priests had destroyed the very Church of God. It was, indeed, a very severe trial, and therefore a powerful instrument, so to speak, for undermining the faith of the simple, when they saw that the prophets and priests themselves were the cause of ruin. But it was necessary for the faithful to persevere constantly in their obedience to the law. And at the same time, we should remember what I have said: that the Prophet highlights the wickedness of the people because the priests and prophets themselves had been infected with impiety and contempt for God. Not only that, but they had also exercised tyrannical cruelty towards God's servants.