Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
people; he afterwards raised up, as it were, a new Church, that is, when a liberty to return was granted to the Jews. The meaning then here is, that if the fathers before they were driven from their country had experienced God kind and bountiful, those who had now returned to their country would find God much more bountiful towards his new Church. We now then understand what he means by double, even double happiness; for God would increase his blessings to the Jews, though their condition was then by no means desirable; nay, very hard according to the estimation of the world. But he says, that he declared from that day, intimating, that though the effect of this prophecy was not immediately apparent, yet he spoke with confidence; for they would in course of time find that nothing had been said to them in vain or rashly. The Prophet then shows --- here, that he spoke with perfect confidence, and this in order to gain credit to the promise, lest the Jews should doubt that what they heard from the mouth of Zechariah should at length be made evident to them. 263
Let us now proceed ---
Zechariah 9:13
13. When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man.
13. Quia tetendi mihi Iehudah arcum, implevi Ephraim, et excitavi filios tuos, Sion, contra filios tuos, Graecia; et posui te quasi gladium gigantis (vel, robusti.)
God declares here that the Jews would be the conquerors of all nations, though they were then despised. That people, we know, were hated by all; and they were at the same time weak, and had hardly any strength, so as to be able to resist the wrongs done them on every side. As then this trial might have terrified weak minds, the Prophet says that the Jews would be as it were the bow and the quiver of God, so that they would be able to pierce all nations with their arrow; and that they would also be like a sword, which would wound and lay prostrate the strongest.
We now perceive the meaning of the words, and see also the reason why the Prophet made this addition, even because the Jews were filled with terror on seeing themselves surrounded on every side by violent and strong enemies, to whom they were very unequal in strength. Now, these similitudes we know occur elsewhere in Scripture, and their meaning seems to be this --- that the Jews would be the conquerors of all nations, not by their own prowess, as they say, but because the Lord would guide and direct them by his own hand. For what is a bow except it be bent? and the bow itself is useless, except the arrow be discharged. The Prophet then teaches us, that though the Jews could do nothing of themselves, yet there was strength enough in God's hand alone.
I have bent for me, he says, Judah as a bow. The Lord reminds the Jews of his 263The words may with more propriety be regarded as spoken by God. The construction of the last clause has been differently given. M'Caul in his observation on Kimchi has rendered it thus — "The announcer of double will I cause to return to thee." The "announcer of double" in his view is the Messiah: but to cause the Messiah to "return," is a language that cannot be admitted; and his remark on [{[{נגדin Hiphil is not correct: that is, that it has ever an accusative or a dative, or both, after it. See 1 Samuel 24:18; 2 Samuel 19:6. It is better to connect ``double,'' or a double blessing, with the verb ``restore,'' ---
Even this day I declare, A double blessing will I restore to thee. This is essentially the rendering of Drusius, Grotius, Newcome, and Henderson. There is a correspondence between the verb ``restore,'' or cause to return, and the verb ``return'' at the beginning of the verse. ``Return, etc., and I will cause to return to thee a double blessing.'' --- Ed.