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He begins in the second verse to speak of his calling. (8) It would have, indeed, been to little purpose, had he said that he came forth and brought a message; but he explains, in the second verse, that he brought nothing but what had been delivered to him by God, as though he had said, that he faithfully declared what God had commanded him. For we know that the whole authority belongs entirely to God, with regard to the doctrine of religion, and that it is not in the power of men to blend this or that, and to make the faithful subject to themselves. As God, then, is the only true teacher of the Church, whosoever demands to be heard, must prove that he is God’ minister. This is, then, what Jeremiah is now carefully doing, for he says that the word of Jehovah was given to him.
He had before said, the words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah; but any one of the people might have objected and said, “ dost thou intrude thyself, as though any one is to be heard? for God claims this right to himself alone.” Hence Jeremiah, by way of correction, subjoins, that the words were his, but that he was not the author of them, but the minister only. He says, then, that he only executed what God had commanded, for he had been the disciple of God himself, before he undertook the office of a teacher.
(8) The second verse begins with אשר which Calvin renders “nempeeven,“ and takes it in an exegetic sense: but this is not its meaning. Our version is no doubt correct, “ whom;” though there is no preposition before it, it is yet found before the personal pronoun “ him,“ that comes afterwards. It is an idiom of the language, and the very same exists in Welsh, in which the version is literally the same with the Hebrew a relative pronoun without a preposition followed by a personal pronoun with a preposition profixed to it. It would be literally in English, “ the word of Jehovah came to him.” The Welsh also retains the peculiarity of the Hebrew, in having prepositions prefixed to pronouns and attached to them, though this is not the case generally with nouns,
(lang. cy) Yr hwn y daeth gair Jehova atto.
The verb too, as in the Hebrew, precedes its nominative; “” is before “ word of Jehovah.” It is rather singular that the Septuagint have rendered this relative by “ ὡσ — as,” which shews that the Hebrew idiom was not understood by them. — Ed.