Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Calvin Complete Commentary - Jeremiah 33:5 - 33:5
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
There are two parts to this prophecy, — that the Jews were about to perish through their own fault, — and that they were to be restored through the favor and goodness of God alone. Here, then, in the first place, the Prophet condemns the false confidence of the people, who stoutly resisted the Chaldeans. They came, he says, to fight with the Chaldeans; but what would be the issue of the battle? even to fill, he says, with the carcases of men their very houses When he says that the Jews were come, he speaks of what had already, as it were, taken place. It is indeed a participle in the present tense, coming; but the Prophet here sets before their eyes what was to be, as though he had said, “ Jews will boldly rush forth, and will think themselves equal, and even superior to the Chaldeans; thus they will arm themselves with courage for the battle.” Then he says this, in order to ridicule the audacity of the people. The sad issue of the fight follows, the filling of their own houses with the carcases of men. The copulative is redundant, or it must be taken as explanatory, and rendered, even. They shall come then to fight, evern that they may fill their own houses with carcases, and thus inflame the fury of their enemies. (87) For it hence happened that the Chaldeans shed more blood, and spared not the mass of the people; because we know that when a city is won by force, more cruelty is exercised, and the slaughters become much greater. Had the Jews willingly surrendered, they would have received more humanity at the hand of their conquerors; but the Chaldeans became implacable, because their fury had been kindled by the pertinacity of the people fighting against them. God, at the same time, shews that the Chaldeans would not be victorious through their own valor, but because he himself would smite or slay the Jews. Then he ascribes to his own vengeance the calamity which might have seemed to proceed from the Chaldeans; for Jeremiah could not have exhorted the people to repentance except he shewed that it happened through a righteous judgment, that the Chaldeans so cruelly raged against them. But we must defer the rest until to-morrow.
(87) These two verses have been improperly separated, so that באים, “” stands by itself without connection with anything; it ought to be in regimine with “” The versions vary, but none give any tolerable meaning. The verses may be thus rendered, —
4.For thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Concerning the houses of this city, And concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, — Which are thrown down by the engines,
5.And by the sword of those who come To make war, even the Chaldeans, And to fill them [i.e., houses] with the carcases of the men, Whom I have smitten in mine anger, And in my wrath, and for all whose wickedness I have hidden my face from this city, —
6.Behold, I will bring, etc. etc.
The present and past time in the 4th and 5th verses, is used for the future, which is often the case in prophecies. — Ed.