Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
Babylon was the metropolis of that empire, he includes under it all the ungodly who opposed or persecuted the children of God. Why God represents the measure as carried away by women rather than by men does not appear to me, except it was that the Jews might know that there was no need of any warlike preparations, but that their strongest enemies could be laid prostrate by weak and feeble instruments; and thus under the form of weakness his own power would be made evident. The Prophet saw women with wings, because sudden would be the change, so that in one day, as we shall presently see, wickedness was taken away. By the wings of a stork either celerity or strength is indicated. This is the sum of the whole. 213
Prayer
Grant, Almighty God, that as thou threatens us with severe punishment to restrain us from sin, we may regard thy judgment, and not abuse thy long-suffering in sparing us for a time; and also that, whenever thou chastises us, we may seriously consider that we deserve thy displeasure, as we have in various ways provoked thy wrath: and may we not at the same time despair or be broken down, but learn so to recomb on thy mercy as not to doubt but that there will be a seasonable end to our evils, and that thou wilt not only mitigate the rigor of punishment as far as necessary for our comfort, but wilt also punish our enemies, so that we may know that nothing is better for us, or more desirable, than to be chastised by thy hand, not that thou mayest destroy us, but recall us to the way of salvation, until we be at length made capable of receiving that favor which has been laid up for us in heaven, through Jesus
Christ our Lord. --- Amen.
Chapter 6
Lecture One Hundred and Forty-fourth
213Henry, Marckius, and Scott, and also Newcome, take a different view of this vision, and consider it as symbolizing the final destruction of the Jews by the Romans. The woman, according to them, represents the apostate people, the two women who carried the measure the Roman armies, the land of Shinar the land of their dispersion, so called on account of their first captivity. Henderson regards the vision as symbolic of the banishment of the sin of idolatry from the land of Israel. "In this striking hieroglyphic," he says, "we are taught how idolatry, with all its accompanying atrocities, was removed from the land of the Hebrews, which it had desecrated, to a country devoted to it, and where it was to commingle with its native elements, never to be reimported into Canaan. How exactly has the prediction been fulfilled! From the time of the captivity to the present, a period of more than 2000 years, the Hebrewpeople have never once lapsed into idolatry!" This seems to be the most satisfactory view; and I would adopt the reading of the Septuagint and the Syriac, taking [{[{עונםto be ,[{]}עונםnot ``their eye,'' or, ``their appearance,'' but ``their iniquity,'' and I would render verse 8 somewhat different from others, as having been spoken by the angel while he was casting the woman into the ephah. I give the following version of the sixth, seventh, and eighth verses,---
6. And I said, ``What is it?'' And he said, ``This is an ephah that is going forth:'' he said also, ``That (pointing to a woman) 7. is their iniquity through the whole land. And, behold, a talent of lead was lifted up, and a woman was sitting in the midst of the ephah: and he said, ``This is the wicked one,'' when he cast her into the midst of the ephah, and cast the leaden weight on its mouth. ``What is it?'' signifies here, What does it mean? for the Prophet of course knew it to be an ephah. [{]}זאתrepeated is to be rendered ``this'' and ``that.'' See 1 Kings 3:23. The ``two women'' who carried away the ephah were probably, as Newcome observes, ``mere agents in the symbolic vision,'' not designed to set forth anything in particular; but Grotius and Henderson think that they designated the Assyrian and the Babylonian powers, through whom idolatry had been removed from the land of Canaan.---Ed.