John Calvin on Jeremiah 23:40

What is here contained is, that though the Jews justly gloried for a time in being the peculiar people of God, yet this would avail them nothing, as they had divested themselves of that honor in which they had excelled, by the abnegation of true religion. Here then the Prophet strips the Jews of that foolish boasting with which they were inflated when they said that they were the people of God, and threatens that God having taken away their glory would make them lie under perpetual shame.

We at the same time know, that such threatenings are to be restricted as to time, they extend only to the coming of Christ; for the Church of God could not have been doomed to eternal reproach. But as to hypocrites, as there was no repentance, so they never obtained pardon; but God delivered his own from eternal reproach when Christ the Redeemer appeared; yet these words are to be understood as rightly addressed to the ungodly despisers of God. Now follows, —

CHAPTER 24

Jeremiah 24:1-2

1. The LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

1. Videre me fecit (ostendit mihi visionem) Jehova, et ecce duo calathi ficuum positi coram Templo Jehovae, postquam transtulerat Nebuchadne-zer, rex Babylonis, Jechoniam, filium Joakim, regem Jehudah, et principes Jehudah, et artificem et inclusorem (vel, sculptorem) What this word exactly means it is difficult to know; it is rendered differently in the Versions and in the Targ. It is rendered here by the Sept. “prisoners,” and in 2 Kings 24:14 and 16, “encloser, or joiner — συγκλείς;” by the Vulg. in three places, “clausor,” and “inclusor — closer and incloser,” and also in Jeremiah 29:2. The word is not found elsewhere. The Targ. renders it “porters,” and the Syr. “soldiers.” As the word “artificer,” or mechanic, includes workers in wood and iron, that is, carpenters and smiths, it is probable that מסגר means workers in embroidery, sculpture, and jewellery, Parkhurst was disposed to render it a setter, or incloser of precious stones; but Blayney renders it an armourer, who made the coats of mail which inclosed the body, as the word from which it comes means to inclose. It probably includes all engaged in the curious works of art, especially the three branches before mentioned. Perhaps the best modern word for it would be, the artist, —

“after Nebuchadrezar, the king of Babylon, removed Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, and the mechanic and the artist, from Jerusalem, and brought them to Babylon.”

— Ed. e Jerusalem, et ab-duxerat eos Babylonem:

2. One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

2. Calathus unus ficuum bonarum valde, sicuti sunt ficus praecoces; et alter calathus ficuum malarum valde, quae non comederentur propter malitiam (hoc est, adeo malae erant.)