Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin
MINOR PROPHETS
they thought, would be to them: thou hast sinned, he says, against thine own soul; 41 that is, the evil which thou didst prepare to bring on others, shall be made by God to fall on thine own head.
And this kind of declaration ought to be carefully noticed; that is, that the ungodly, while they trouble all, and harass all, while they torment one, plunder another, oppress another, do always sin against their own souls; that is, they do not cause so much loss and sorrow to others as to themselves: for the Lord will make the evil they intend for others to return on themselves. He does not speak here of guilt, but of punishment, when he says, ``Thou hast sinned against thy soul;'' that is, thou shalt receive the reward due to all thy sins. We now then see what the Prophet means. It now follows---
Habakkuk 2:11-13
11. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.
11. Quia lapis ex muro clamabit, et lignum ex tabulato (ad verbum est, ex ligno,) respondebit ei.
12. Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!
12. Vae aedificanti urbem in sanguinibus, et paranti civitatem in iniquitate.
13. Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?
13. Annon ecce a Jehova exercituum? ideo laborabunt populi in igne et gentes in vanitate (hoc est, frustra fatigabuntur.)
There is here introduced by the Prophet a new personification. He had before prepared a common song, which would be in the mouth of all. He now ascribes speech to stones and wood, of which buildings are formed. The stone, he says, shall cry from the wall, and the wood from the chamber; that is, there is no part of the building that will not cry out that it was built by plunder, by cruelty, and, in a word, by evil deeds. The Prophet not only ascribes speech to wood and stone, but he makes them also respond one to the other as in a chorus, as in lyrics there are voices which take up the song in turns. The stone, he says, shall cry from the wall, and the wood shall respond to it from the chamber; 42 as though he said, ``There will be a striking harmony in every part of the building; for the wall will begin and will utter its song, `Behold I have been built by blood and by iniquity;' and the wood will utter the same, and will cry, `Woe;' but all in due order; there will be no confused noise, but as music has distinct sounds, so also the stones will respond to the wood and the wood to the 41Literally, "sinning thy soul." We have in Proverbs 8:36, [{,[{`` הטאיmy sinner,'' rendered no doubt correctly, ``he that sinneth against me.'' So here ``sinning thy soul,'' means ``sinning against thy soul.'' See the same words in Proverbs 20:2. In Numbers 16:38, the preposition [{]}בis before ``souls.'' ``Thy soul hath sinned,'' as given by the Septuagint, and adopted by Newcome, does not convey the meaning; for to sin against our souls, is to injure ourselves so as to bring down judgment, as in the case mentioned in Numbers 16:38, while the other phrase conveys only the idea of doing what is wrong.---Ed.
42The word rendered here "Wood," lignum, is [{,[{כפיסand only found here. The Septuagint has {κανθαρος}, a beetle,---Sym. {συνδεσμος}, bond, tie, or joint,---Theod. {ἔνδεσμος}, bandage or jointing. The context shows that it must be something connected with wood-building. Parkhurst says, that it is a verb in Syriac, and means to connect, to fasten together, and he renders it a beam or a rafter, which would exactly suit this place. The word, ,[{`` ]}מעףfrom the wood,'' evidently means the wood-building or wood-work. So that tabulatum, a story or a chamber in a building, as rendered by Calvin, is not amiss. Perhaps the best version would be,--- And the beam from the wood-work answers it. Bochart says, that ,[{]}כפיסin Rabbinical writings, means a brick, and that it was usual, formerly, as it was in this country not long ago, to build with bricks and wood or timber together; and Henderson has adopted this meaning, but the other is more satisfactory.---Ed.
JOHN CALVIN
stones, so that there may be, as they say, corresponding voices.''
The stone, then, from the wall shall cry, and the wood shall answer ---what will it answer?---Woe to him who builds a city by blood, and who adorns his city by iniquity.
By blood and by iniquity he understands the same thing; for though the avaricious do not kill innocent men, they yet suck their blood, and what else is this but to kill them by degrees, by a slow tormenting process? For it is easier at once to undergo death than to pine away in want, as it happens to helpless men when spoiled and deprived of all their property. Wherever there is wanton plundering, there is murder committed in the sight of God; for as it has been said, he who spares not the helpless, but drinks up their blood, doubtless sins no less than if he were to kill them.
But if this personification seems to any one strange, he must consider how incredible seemed to be what the Prophet here teaches, and how difficult it was to produce a conviction on the subject. We indeed confess that God is the judge of the world; nay, there is no one who does not anticipate his judgement by condemning avarice and cruelty; the very name of avarice is infamous and hated by all: the same may be said of cruelty. But yet when we see the avaricious in splendor and in esteem, we are astounded, and no one is able to foresee by faith what the Prophet here declares.
Since, then our dullness is so great, or rather our sottishness, it is no wonder that the Prophet should here set before us the stones and the wood, as though he said, ``When all prophecies and all warnings become frigid, and God himself obtains no credit, while openly declaring what he will do, and when his servants consume their labor in vain by warning and crying, let now the stones come forth, and be teachers to you who will not give ear to the voice of God himself, and let the wood also cry out in its turn.'' This, then, is the reason why the Prophet introduces here mute things as the speakers, even to awaken our insensibility.
Then he adds, Shall it not be, behold, from Jehovah of hosts? 43 Some give a wrong version, ``Is not this,'' as though {,}הנהene, were put here instead of a pronoun demonstrative; but they extenuate and obscure the beauty of the expression; nay, they pervert the meaning of the Prophet: for when he says, {,}הנהene, behold, he refers not to what he had said, nor specifies any particular thing, and yet he shows, as it were by the finger, the judgement of God, which he bids us to expect; as though he said, ``Shall not God at length have his turn, when the avaricious and the cruel have obtained their triumphs in the world, and darkened the minds and thoughts of all, as though no account were to be given by them before the tribunal of God? Shall not God sometime show that it is his time to interpose?'' When, therefore, he says, Shall it not be, behold, from Jehovah? it is an indefinite mode of speaking; he does not say, This or that shall be from the God of hosts; but, Shall it not be, behold, from 43The construction of the first line of this verse, as given by Calvin, is stiff and unnatural. There is no doubt but that [{[{הנהis a pronoun in the plural number, and so it has been taken by the Septuagint, {ταυτα}, these things, and such is the rendering of the Syriac and Arabic versions. No improvement, perhaps, can be made on Newcome's rendering of this verse,--- Are not these things from Jehovah God of hosts, That people should labor for the fire, And nations should weary themselves for a vain thing? The intimation is, that all the buildings erected by blood and prepared by iniquity, were destined for the fire. ``For the fire,'' {}אש{[, ]}בדיliterally is, for the supply of fire, as Parkhurst renders the phrase: then it is, for the supply of emptiness or vacuity, {}ריק{[. ]}בריThe last two lines, with some variety, are found in Jeremiah 51:58, and applied to Babylon. In Jeremiah, ``for a vain thing,'' is in the first line, and ``for the fire'' is in the second. Jeremiah puts the less evil first, and the greatest last; but Habakkuk's usual manner is the reverse, which has been before noticed, and we find an instance in the preceding verse, where he mentions ``blood'' first, and in the next line, ``iniquity.'' That the destination of Babylon for the fire is here meant, seems evident from the following verse. See Jeremiah 51:25.---Ed.