Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
is a compound. 49 We have already seen that {,}קלוכkolun, is shame; and now he speaks of shameful spewing. And this may be referred to the king of Babylon---that he himself would shamefully spew out what he had before intemperately swallowed down; or it might be fitly applied to his enemies---that they would spew in the face of the king of Babylon.
The end of which Habakkuk speaks, awaits all tyrants, who disturb the world by their cupidity. Ambition does indeed so infatuate them, that they neither spare human blood, nor hesitate to endanger their nearest and most friendly associates.
Since then an insatiable thirst for glory thus inflames them, the Prophet justly allots to them this reward---that they shall receive filthy and shameful spewing instead of that glory, in seeking which they observed no limits. Let us now proceed -
Habakkuk 2:17
17. For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men's blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
17. Quia violentia Libani operiet te et praedatio animalium, quae terruit ea (vel, quae contrivit,) propter sanguines hominis et violentiam terrae, urbis et omnium habitantium in ea.
We may hence easily learn, that the Prophet has not been speaking of drunkenness, but that his discourse, as we have explained, was metaphorical; for here follows a reason, why he had denounced such a punishment on the king of Babylon, and that was, because he had exercised violence, not only against all nations indiscriminately, but also against the chosen people of God. He had before only set forth in general the cruelty with which the king of Babylon had destroyed many nations; but he now speaks distinctly of the Jews, in order to show that God would in a peculiar manner be the avenger of that cruelty which the Chaldeans had employed towards the Jews, because the Lord had taken that people under his own protection. Since then the king of Babylon had assailed the children of God, who had been adopted by him, and whose defender he was, he denounces upon him here a special punishment. We thus see that this discourse is properly addressed to the Jews; for he intended to bring them some consolation in their extreme evils, so that they might strengthen their patience; for they were thereby made to see that the wrongs done to them were come to a reckoning before God.
By Libanus then we are to understand either Judea or the temple; for Libanus, as it is well known, was not far from the temple; and it is elsewhere found in the same sense. But if any extends this to the land of Judea, the meaning will be the same; there will be but little or no difference as to the subject that is handled. Because the violence then of Libanus shall overwhelm thee
Then come the words, the pillaging of beasts. Interpreters think that the Chaldeans and Assyrians are here called {,}בהמותbemutt, beasts, as they had been 49It is commonly derived from [{,[{קיa contraction of ,[{]}קיאa vomit or spewing, and ,[{]}קלוזshame. Compounds are no common things in Hebrew; and these are found separate in nine MSS. The Septuagint have {ἀτιμια}, reproach only; and the Vulgate, ``vomitus ignominiae---the spewing of shame.'' Newcome renders it ``foul shame,'' and Henderson ``great ignominy,'' regarding it as a reduplicate noun for .[{]}קלקלוזBut as drunkenness is the metaphor used, ``shameful spewing,'' or the spewing of shame or of reproach is most suitable to the passage.---Ed.