--- title: "Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations, Volume 5" author: "John Calvin" translator: "John Owen" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 90 of 107 url: https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-jeremiah-and-lamentations-volume-5/90/ cite: "John Calvin, tr. John Owen, Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations, Volume 5, section 90. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-jeremiah-and-lamentations-volume-5/90/" --- # Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations, Volume 5 *John Calvin, tr. John Owen* Calvin on Jeremiah and Lamentations, volume 5 of 5. ## 90. Lamentations 5:7 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-jeremiah-and-lamentations-volume-5/90/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-jeremiah-and-lamentations-volume-5/90/#p-N [¶0] Lamentations 5:7 7. Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities. 7. Patres nostri peccarunt, non sunt (non ipsi, ad verbum,) nos vero iniquitatem eorum portavimus. [¶1] The Prophet seems here to contend with God, and to utter that blasphemy mentioned by Ezekiel. For when God severely chastised the people, that proverb was commonly used by them, [¶2] “Our fathers did eat a sour grape, and our teeth are blunted.” (Ezekiel 18:2.) [¶3] Thus they intimated that they were unjustly and cruelly treated, because they suffered the punishment of others, when they themselves were innocent. So the Prophet seems to quarrel with God when he says that the fathers who sinned were no more; but as we shall presently see, the Prophet confesses also the sins of those who were yet alive. As, then, an ingenuous confession is made by the Prophet, he no doubt abstained here from that blasphemy which is so severely reproved by Ezekiel. Jeremiah had nothing farther from his purpose than to free the people from all blame, as though God had dealt cruelly with them, according to what is said by a heathen poet, — [¶4] “For the sins of the fathers thou undeservedly sufferest, O Roman!” [¶5] Another says, — [¶6] “Enough already by our blood Have we suffered for the perjuries of Laomedonian Troy.” [¶7] They mean that the people of their age were wholly innocent, and seek in Asia and beyond the sea the cause of evils, as though they never had a sin at Rome. But the meaning of Jeremiah was not this, but he simply intended to say that the people who had been long rebellious against God were already dead, and that it was therefore a suitable time for God to regard the miseries of their posterity. The faithful, then, do not allege here their own innocency before God, as though they were blameless; but only mention that their fathers underwent a just punishment, for that whole generation had perished. Daniel speaks more fully when he says, [¶8] “We have sinned, and our fathers, and our kings.” (Daniel 9:8.) [¶9] He involved in the same condemnation both the fathers and their children. [¶10] But our Prophet’s object was different, even to turn God to mercy, as it has been stated; and to attain this object he says, “O Lord, thou indeed hast hitherto executed just punishment, because our fathers had very long abused thy goodness and forbearance; but now the time is come for thee to try and prove whether we are like our fathers: as, then, they have perished as they deserved, receive us now into favor.” We hence see that thus no quarrel or contention is carried on with God, but only that the miserable exiles ask God to look on them, since their fathers who had provoked God and had experienced his dreadful vengeance, were already dead. [¶11] And when he says that the sons bore the iniquity of the fathers, though it be a strong expression, yet its meaning is not as though God had without reason punished their children and not their fathers; for unalterable is that declaration, [¶12] “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father the iniquity of the son; but the soul that sinneth it shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:20.) [¶13] It may yet be said that children are loaded with the sins of their fathers, because God, as he declares by Moses, extends his vengeance to the third and fourth generation. (Exodus 20:5.) And he says also in another place, [¶14] “I will return into the bosom of children the iniquity of their fathers.” (Jeremiah 32:18.) [¶15] God then continued his vengeance to their posterity. But yet there is no doubt but that the children who had been so severely punished, bore also the punishment of their own iniquity, for they deserved a hundred deaths. But these two things well agree together, that God returns the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children, and yet that the children are chastised for their own sins. ### Lamentations 5:8 [¶17] Lamentations 5:8 8. Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand. 8. Servi dominati sunt nobis; eripiens nemo ex manibus ipsorum (hoc est, nemo est qui nos eripiat e manibus ipsorum.) [¶18] Another circumstance aggravated the calamity of the people, that they came under the power of servants, which is more degrading than when the rich and the eminent in wealth and power make us their servants. For it is no shame to serve a king, or at, least a man who possesses some eminence; for that servitude which is not apparently degrading is deemed tolerable. But when we become the servants of servants, it is a most afflicting degradation, and most grievously wounds our minds. [¶19] It is, then, for this indignity that Jeremiah now expostulates, and says that servants ruled over them. There is, indeed, no doubt but that they were driven into exile by some of the lowest; for the Chaldeans thought it right to exercise towards them every kind of cruelty. But it was yet a very mournful thing for God’s children to be the slaves of servants; for they were before a sacerdotal kingdom, and God had so taken them under his protection, that their condition was better and more desirable than that of any other kingdom. As, then, they had been robbed of their liberty, and not only so, but also made subject to servants, the change was sad in the extreme. Therefore the Prophet sought another occasion to plead for mercy, when he said that they were ruled by servants. It now follows, —