Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
deferred to execute what he had threatened. In the meantime his wrath had been manifested through the whole neighborhood; the heathen nations had suffered the severest judgments. God here declares, that he had been so lenient to his people as to give time to repent; and he complains that he had delayed in vain, for they had gone on in their wickedness, and had mocked, as it were, his patience. When, therefore, he says, Cut off should not be her habitation, howsoever I might have visited her, or have visited her, he pursues still the same mode of speaking, that is, that he was prepared to forgive the Jews, though he had before destined them to destruction; not that he, as to himself, would retract that sentence; but that he was still reconcilable, if the Jews had been touched by any feeling of repentance. 117
He at last adds, Surely, (some render it, but,) surely they have hastened. The verb {,}שכםshecam, means properly to rise early, but is to be taken metaphorically in the sense of hastening; as though he had said, They run headlong to corrupt their ways. God had said that he had been indulgent to them for this end---that he might lead them by degrees to repentance: now he complains, that they on the contrary had run another way, when they saw that he suspended his judgments, as though it was their designed object to accelerate his wrath. Thus they hastened to corrupt their ways. The meaning, then, is that this people were not only irreclaimable in their obstinacy, but that they were also sottish and presumptuous, as though they wished to hasten the judgment, which the Lord was ready for a time to defer. It now follows---
Zephaniah 3:8
8. Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.
8. Propterea expectate me, dicit Jehova, usque ad diem quo surgam ad praedam; quia judicium meum (hoc est, decretum est mihi,) ut colligam gentes, ut congregem regna; ut effundam super ipsa (regna, vel, super ipsas gentes) indignationem meam, totum furorem irae meae; quia igne zeli (vel, indignationis meae) vorabitur tota terra.
God here declares that the last end was near, since he had found by experience that he effected nothing by long forbearance, and since he had even found the Jews becoming worse, because he had so mercifully treated them. Some think that the address is made to the faithful, that they might prepare themselves to bear the cross; but this view is foreign to the subject of the Prophet: and though this view has gained
117The last clause has been variously rendered. There is no assistance from the Septuagint, as the whole text is very different. Marckius, after Drusius, connects it, not with the preceding, but with the following line, in this sense, that how much soever God had punished the city, yet its inhabitants were the more best to corrupt their ways. But the words can hardly admit of this meaning. Henderson supposes [{[{כto be understood before ,[{]}כלand gives this rendering of the two lines---
That her habitation might not be cut off, According to all that I had appointed concerning her. Newcome differs as to the last line---
After all the punishment with which I had visited her. None of these are satisfactory. Grotius, taking the sense of the Targum, means to have given the best meaning. He says that ,[{]}פקדfollowed by ,[{]}עלmeans sometimes to appoint or constitute, and refers to 2 Chronicles 36:23, ``All the good which I have appointed to her,'' or promised; but he unnecessarily supposes ``shall come'' to be understood; for the word, ``all which,'' may be considered to be in apposition with ``habitation.'' I give the following version of this whole verse--- I said, ``Surely thou wilt fear me, Thou wilt receive instruction;'' Then cut off should not be her habitation --- All that I have committed to her: Yet they rose up early, they corrupted all their doings. To rise up early is a Hebrew phrase, which means a resolved and diligent attention to a thing. The import of the line is, that they with full-bent purpose and activity corrupted all their doings.---Ed.