Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
governing power should continue in that tribe, though the royal authority was taken away, and all sovereignty and supreme power extinguished. It was yet God's purpose that some vestiges of power should remain, according to what had been predicted by the patriarch Jacob, `Taken away shall not be the scepter from Judah, nor a leader from his thigh, until he shall come;' etc. (Genesis 49:10.)
The royal scepter was indeed taken away, and the crown was removed, according to what Ezekiel had said, `Take away the crown, subvert, subvert, subvert it,' (Ezekiel
21:26, 27;) for the interruption of the government had been sufficiently long. Yet the Lord in the meantime preserved some remnants, that the Jews might know that that promise was not wholly forgotten. This then is the reason why the son of Shealtiel is said to be the governor of Judah. It now follows---
Haggai 1:2-4
2. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.
2. Sic dicit Iehova exercituum, dicendo, Populus isti dicunt (hoc est, dicit,) Non venit tempus domui Iehovae ad aedificandum.
3. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying,
3. Et datus fui sermo Iehovae in manu Chaggai Prophetae, dicendo,
4. Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?
4. An tempus vobis, ut habitatis vos in domibus vestris tabulatis, et domus haec deserta?
They who think that seventy years had not passed until the reign of Darius, may from this passage be easily disproved: for if the seventy years were not accomplished, an excuse would have been ready at hand,---that they had deferred the work of building the Temple; but it was certain, that the time had then elapsed, and that it was owing to their indifference that the Temple was not erected, for all the materials were appropriated to private uses. While then they were thus taking care of themselves and consulting their own interest, the building of the Temple was neglected. That the Temple was not built till the reign of Darius, this happened, as we have said, from another cause, because the prefects of king Cyrus gave much annoyance to the Jews, and Cambyses was most hostile to them. But when liberty was restored to them, and Darius had so kindly permitted them to build the Temple, they had no excuse for delay.
It is however probable that they had then many disputes as to the time; for it may have been, that they seizing on any pretext to cover their sloth, made this objection,--
-that many difficulties had occurred, because they had been too precipitate, and that they had thus been punished for their haste, because they had rashly undertaken the building of the Temple: and we may also suppose that they took another view of the time as having not yet come, for easily might this objection occur to them,---
is indeed true that the worship of God is deservedly to be preferred to all other
Aq. and Syn. render it {ἡγούμενον}, governor. He is called Sheshbazzar in Ezra 5:14; and Cyrus is said to have made him ,[{]}פחה governor or deputy. It is the name of a person endued with authority by a sovereign. Zerubbabel, ,[{]}זרבבלhas been derived from ,[{]}זרa stranger, and ,[{]}בבנBabylon, a stranger or sojourner at Babylon. It deserves to be noticed, that the civil governor is put here before the chief priest; and we find from Ezra that it was to the civil governor that Cyrus delivered the holy vessels of the temple. See Ezra 5:14.---Ed.