Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
We ought therefore ever to regard the blessing of God, and to ask of him to supply us with food, and to pray him every day, as we are taught, to give us our daily bread.
But few do this from the heart, and hardly one in a hundred so turns his thoughts to God's hand as firmly to believe that he daily receives from him his daily food. We now understand what the Prophet means in these words. It now follows ---
Zechariah 8:13
13. And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your hands be strong.
13. Et erit, quemadmodum fuistis maledictio inter gentes, domus Iehudah, et domus Israel; sic servabo vos et eritis benedictio: ne timeatis, roborentur manus vestrae.
He goes on with the same subject, and in this verse he states two contrary things, in order to render more clear what he teaches here --- that while God was angry the earth was barren, and all things went on unhappily with the Jews; but that when God had begun to be reconciled, the earth had as it were changed its nature, and brought forth plentifully, and that they were in every way made blessed.
Hence he says, As ye have been a curse, etc. Here again he mentions and reminds them how miserable they were while they minded only their private interest, and by neglecting the temple manifested their impiety and ingratitude; for what ought they to have been more ready to do when they returned to their country than to build the temple, and to offer there sacrifices to God, in order to avow him as the author of their deliverance? But the temple was neglected; and the Prophet concludes that they must have been extremely forgetful, if they did not consider what their condition was as long as they had no care for the temple; and he says that they had been a curse among the nations; that is, that they were an example of a curse, according to the threatening of the law. For it is a mode of speaking frequent in Scripture, that the people were a curse; and the common formula of cursing was --- ``Let the Lord curse thee as he does the Jews.'' Zechariah then says that the Jews had been a curse, that they had not only been smitten by God's hand, but that they had been given up to calamities, in order that they might become to all detestable, and bear in a manner signs of God's wrath imprinted on them. Whoever then at that time looked on a Jew, he might see that he had the appearance of bearing a curse. In short, Zechariah means that the Jews had been punished in a manner not common or usual, but that God had executed on them dreadful judgments, which made it evident to all that he was grievously offended with them. Ye have been then a curse among all nations 240
He then adds, So I will save you, as ye shall be a blessing. The word save is introduced that God might more clearly set forth his favor, lest the Jews should think
240Calvin takes no notice of the words "House of Judah, and house of Israel." This has occasioned difficulty to some interpreters. But Newcome thinks that "many of the ten tribes" returned with "the house of Judah" from captivity, and are here addressed. Henderson is of the same opinion, and adds these remarks — "They also (that is the house of Israel) returned to Palestine, [{{}האלה{[, בימיםin the very days (verse 15) to which it (the prophecy) refers. All attempts to discover them at more recent periods have proved utterly fruitless; and the idea that they must still exist somewhere in the world, and are still to be restored in their tribal state, has arisen from misconstruction of those prophecies which refer to the return from Babylon.'' ---
Ed.