Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin
Zechariah 12
Zechariah 12:1
1. The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
1. Onus verbi Iehovae super Israel: Dicit Iehova, qui expandit coelos, et fundavit terram, et formavit spiritum hominis in medio ejus.
The inscription seems not to agree with what follows, for he does not denounce any evil on the chosen people in this chapter, but, on the contrary, comforts the miserable, and promises that God would provide for the safety of his Church. Since then Zechariah speaks only of God's favor and aid, he seems to have mentioned burden here improperly or unreasonably; for {,}משאmesha, we know, is rightly to be taken for a threatening prophecy. It might indeed be said, that he promises that God would so deliver his Church as to teach it at the same time that it would be subject to many evils and trials: but I rather think that the Prophet's design was different, even to show that the Israelites, who had preferred exile to God's favor, would be punished for their sloth and ingratitude, because it was through their own fault that they were not again united in one body, and that they did not rightly worship God in their own country. Interpreters have heedlessly passed over this, as though it had nothing to do with the subject: but except this be borne in mind, what is read in this chapter will be altogether without meaning. I therefore consider that the Prophet here reproves those Israelites who had rejected what they had long desired, when it was offered to them from above and beyond all hope: for nothing was so much wished for by them as a free return to their own country; and we also see how ardently all the Prophets had prayed for restoration. As then the Israelites, given to ease, and pleasures, and their worldly advantages, had counted as nothing the permission given them to return, that they might again be gathered under God's protection, it was a base ingratitude. Hence the Prophet here reproves them, and shows that their success