Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
for when we begin falsely to glory in God's name, and to put on an empty mask to cover our sins, it is all over with us; inasmuch as to our wickedness, to our contempt of God, and to other evil lusts and passions, there is added perverseness, for we persevere in our course, as it were, with an iron and inflexible neck. Thus, indeed, it happens to all hypocrites, who elate themselves through false pretenses as to their connection with God. It follows---
Zephaniah 3:12, 13
12. I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.
12. Et residuum faciam in medio tui populum afflictum et pauperem; et sperabunt in nomine Iehovae.
13. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
13. Residuum Israel non perpetrabunt iniquitatem (hoc est, reliquae; ad verbum est, residuum; sed quia nomen est collectivum, ideo mutatur numerus,) et non loquentur mendacium, et non invenietur in ore ipsorum lingua dolosa (vel, lingua fraudis;) quoniam ipsi pascentur et accubabunt; et nemo erit exterrens.
Here the Prophet pursues the same subject---that God would provide for the safety of his Church, by cutting off the majority of the people, and by reserving a few; for his purpose was to gather for himself a pure and holy Church, as the city had previously been full of all uncleanness. It ought, then, to have been a compensation to ease their grief, when the godly saw that God would be propitious to them, though he had treated them with great severity. And we must bear in mind what I have before stated---that the Church could not have been preserved without correcting and subduing that arrogance, which arose from a false profession as to God. Zephaniah takes it now as granted, that pride could not be torn away from their hearts, except they were wholly cast down, and thus made contrite. He then teaches us, that as long as they remained whole, they were ever proud, and that hence it was necessary to apply a violent remedy, that they might learn meekness and humility; which he intimates when he says, that the residue of the people would be humble and afflicted; for if they had become willingly teachable, there would have been no need of so severe a correction. In short, though the faithful lament that God should thus almost annihilate his Church, yet in order that they might not murmur, he shows that this was a necessary remedy. How so? because they would have always conducted themselves arrogantly against God, had they not been afflicted. It was, therefore, needful for them to be in a manner broken, because they could not be bent. I will, then, he says, make the residue an afflicted and a poor people
The word, {,}עניoni, means humble; but as he adds the word {,}דלdal, he no doubt shows that the Jews could not be corrected without being stripped of all the materials of their glorying. 123 They were, indeed, extremely wedded to their boast-
123The first word, [{,[{עכיmeans one made humble by distress or affliction, the humbled, rather than the humble.
The second word, ,[{]}דלis one exhausted, or reduced in number, or reduced to poverty. Newcome renders it ``lowly,'' but improperly. Jerome has ``pauperem et egenum---poor and needy;'' the Septuagint, ``{πραυν} {και} {ταπεινον}---meek and humble;'' Marckius, ``afflictum et attenuatum---afflicted and diminished.'' Perhaps the best rendering would be, ``a people