Jeremiah 2:21

The God who "brings forth the sun on the evil and the good" is a desert to no one. To no one is he who "rains on the just and unjust" ever a land made dry. How is he a desert, when he brings forth the day and causes the night to rest? How is he a desert, when he causes the land to bear fruit? How is he a desert, when he provides for each person in his soul so that it is endowed with reason, so that it can grasp knowledge and exercise its intelligence, and in the body so that it has healthy sense faculties? And so with respect to the way of what is universal, God is not a desert.

So also God is introduced by the prophet as saying to the person who had become evil by his own choice, "Yet I had planted you a fruitful vine. How have you turned back into a wild vine?" Anywhere it is said that evils happen to the wicked from God, it must be understood as an accidental coincidence of name. This name is given to the chastisements that God in his goodness is said to send not for the hurt of those who are chastised but for their benefit and profit, in the same way that a physician might be thought to apply bad things in his painful and bitter remedies to save the sick.

Now, those who were called children and were enrolled in the ranks of children made themselves foreign by proving ungrateful for favors done, limping in respect of the faith and abandoning the path of godliness. Thus God said through the prophet Jeremiah, "How did you …

(Verse 21.) But I planted you as a choice vine, all true seed; how have you turned into a corrupt, foreign vine to me? Septuagint: But I planted you as a fruitful vine, all true; how have you turned into a bitter foreign grapevine? For the fruitful vine, or the chosen one, is called Sorec in Hebrew: which is mentioned in the song of Isaiah (Isaiah 5). And it is of the best kind of grapevine: with which branch Israel says that the Lord has planted himself; and he marvels at how the true seed and the chosen vine have turned into bitterness: and therefore has become a foreign vine; and no one is secure, if even the planting of the Lord and the true seed and the vine of Sorec are so changed by their own fault, that they depart from the Lord through bitterness and become a foreign grapevine. And in this we must consider the clemency of the Savior, that he who said in the Gospel, 'I am the true vine' (John 15:1), also gave to his disciples and to the people who believe in him, that they may be chosen or true vine, if they desire to remain in what has been planted.

God through Jeremiah reproaches the evil of the human will in such a way that he teaches that it is foreign to him. He says, "Yet I planted you as a choice vine.… How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine?" He …

Learn this also, that before the soul comes into the world, it has committed no sin. But though we came into the world sinless, we now of our own choice commit sin.… Remember also how God again accuses them and says, "I have planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed; how then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine?"

Hence God gave the gift of prayer. But this He doth, not as Himself standing in need of entreaty, but that we might not, from being saved without effort, grow indifferent. ... Wherefore to Jeremiah also He said, "Pray not for this people, for I will not hear thee," not as wishing to stop his praying (for He earnestly longeth for our salvation), but to terrify them: and this the prophet also seeing did not cease praying. And that you may see that it was not through a wish to turn him from it, but to shame them that He said this, hear what it says. "Seest thou not what these are doing?" And when He says to the city "Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thou art stained before Me," it is not that He may cast them into despair that He so speaks, but that He may rouse them to repentance. For as in the case of the Ninevites, by giving the sentence without limitation, and holding out no good hope, He scared them the more, and led them to repentance, so He doth here also, both to rouse them, and to render the prophet more venerated, that in this way at least they may hear him.

Sin is a terrible thing, and the most grievous disease of the soul is iniquity, which corrupts the fiber of the soul and makes it liable to eternal fire. It is an evil freely chosen, the product of the will. The prophet clearly declares that we sin of our own free will: "I had planted you, a choice vine of fully tested stock; how could you turn into bitterness, a spurious vine?" The planting was good, but the fruit coming from the will is evil. So the planter is blameless, but the vine will burn with fire since it was planted for good and bore evil fruit of its own will.

Yet if the husband's power allures you, pray tell me who it was that spoke in the prophet, saying, "O Lord, make it known to me that I may know. Then I saw their thoughts. I was led as a harmless lamb to the slaughter and knew it not. They took counsel together against me, saying, Come, let us throw wood into his bread."

For it is by similitude, and not by any personal propriety, that He is thus called a vine; just as He is also termed a sheep, a lamb, a lion, a rock, a corner-stone, and other names of a like kind, which are themselves rather the true ones, from which these are drawn as similitudes, not as realities. But when He says, "I am the true vine," it is to distinguish Himself, doubtless, from that vine to which the words are addressed: "How art thou turned into sourness, as a strange vine?" For how could that be a true vine which was expected to bring forth grapes and brought forth thorns?

I had planted thee a noble vine. The constitution of their government both in church and state was excellent, their laws were righteous, and all the ordinances instructive and very significant; and a generation of good men there was among them when they first settled in Canaan.

A noble vine - Properly, a Sorek vine (see Isa 5:2), which produced a red wine Pro 23:31, and had a lasting reputation Gen 49:11. A right seed - literally, “a seed of truth,” i. e., true, genuine seed, not mixed with weeds, nor with seed of an inferior quality. Compare Mat 13:

I had planted thee a noble vine - I gave thee the fullest instruction, the purest ordinances, the highest privileges; and reason would that I should expect thee to live suitably to such advantages; but instead of this thou art become degenerate; the tree is deteriorated, and the fruit is bad. Instead of being true worshippers, and of a holy life and conversation, ye are become idolaters of the most corrupt and profligate kind. See Isa 5:1, etc., where the same image is used.