Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
adoption, but that he continues unchangeable in his purpose.
We now then understand what the Prophet means. I have more fully dwelt on this point, because it is necessary to understand this great truth, --- that whatever blessings God confers on his own people proceed from eternal election, that this is a perpetual fountain, and yet that election is catachrestically 179 applied to its evidences or effects, as also rejection is to be taken in the same sense for outward punishment, which seems at the first view to be an evidence of rejection, though it be not really so. Let us now proceed -
Zechariah 1:18-21
18. Then lifted I up mine eyes, and saw, and behold four horns.
18. Et sustuli oculos meos, et vidi, et ece quatuor cornua.
19. And I said unto the angel that talked with me, What be these? And he answered me, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.
19. Et dixi ad angelum, qui loquebatur mecum, Qui isti? (hoc est, Qui sunt isti?) et dixit ad me, Haec sunt cornua quae ventilarunt Iehudah, Israel, et Ierusalem. (Ego conjungam etiam proximos versus)
20. And the LORD shewed me four carpenters.
20. Et ostendit mihi Iehova quatuor fabros.
21. Then said I, What come these to do? And he spake, saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head: but these are come to fray them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.
21. Et dixi, Cur isti? quid isti veniunt ad faciendum? (ad verbum, hoc est, Quorsum isti veniunt ut faciant?) et dixit dicendo, Haec sunt cornua quae ventilarunt
Iehudah, ita ut nemo tolleret caput suum: et veniunti isti (fabri scilicet) ad terrendum (addo, cornua, quoniam relativum [{]}אותםobscurum per se esset,) ut projiciant cornua gentium, quae sustulerunt cornu terram Iehudah, ut ventilarent eam.
Now follows another vision, by which God confirms what he had before testified to his Prophet. He then says, that though enemies should on every side rise up against the Church and cause it many troubles, there was yet a remedy in God's hand, as he would break in pieces all horns by his hammers. He compares the Gentiles, who had been hostile to the Jews, to horns; and he afterwards compares to workmen the other enemies, whose hand and labor God would use for the purpose of breaking down the efforts of all those who would be troublesome to the Church. The import of the whole then is, --- that though the Church would not be exempt and free from troubles, and those many, yet God would have in his hand those remedies by which he would check all the assaults of the wicked, however impetuously and violently they may rage against his miserable Church.
But let us see in the first place why the Prophet mentions four horns. The Jews refer to the Assyrians and the Babylonians, to the Persian, the Grecians, and the Romans; because we find in other places, and Daniel especially shows very clearly, (Daniel 2:32,) that there were to be four principal monarchies, by which God intended to give clear and memorable examples of his judgments. But the Prophet, I have no 179{Καταχρηστικως}, forcedly, contrary to usage or what is strictly correct. --- Ed.