Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
same purpose he subjoins ---
Malachi 1:10
10. Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.
10. Quis etiam in vobis qui claudat ostia, et non incenditis altare meum gratis? non mihi placet in vobis, dicit Iehova exercituum; et oblationem non habebo gratam e manu vestra.
He goes on with the same subject, --- that the priests conducted themselves very shamefully in their office, and that the people had become hardened through their example, so that the whole of religion was disregarded. Hence he says, that the doors were not closed by them. Some interpreters connect the two things together
--- that they closed not the doors of the temple, nor kindled the altar for nothing; and thus they apply the adverb, {,}חנםchenam, to both clauses; as though he had said, that they were hirelings, who did not freely devote themselves to serve God, but looked for profit and gain in everything: and this is the commonly received explanation. 359 But it seems better to me to take them separately and to say, Who does even shut the doors? not however for nothing, and the copulative, {,}וvau, as in many other places, may be rendered even: and yet ye kindle not for nothing my altar; as though God had said, ``I have fixed your works; ye are then to me as hired servants; and now since I have ordered a reward to be given to you whenever ye stand at my altar, why do ye not close my door?'' Some render {,}חנםchenam, in vain, and give this explanation ``Who closes the doors? then kindle not afterwards in vain my altar;'' as though God rejected the whole service, which had been corrupted by the avarice or the sloth of the priests, and by the presumption of the people.
It is indeed certain that it is better to separate the two clauses so that the adverb, {,}חנםchenam, may be confined to the letter; but there may yet, as I have said, be a two-fold meaning. If we render, {,}חנםchenam, in vain the import is that the Prophet declares that they labored to no purpose while they thus sacrificed to God contrary to his law for they ought to have attended especially to the rule prescribed to them: as then they despised this, he justly says, ``Offer not to me in vain;'' and thus the future tense is to be taken for the imperative, as we know is the case sometimes in the most obvious meaning is that given by Calvin, that the sentence is a concession as to what the priests are ironically exhorted to do. I give the following version, --- And now, intreat now God's face that he may favor us; By you (literally by your hand) has this been done: Will he on your account lift up the face? Saith Jehovah of hosts. To ``lift up the face'' is to show favor. The words seem to be spoken by the Prophet, and by saying, ``saith Jehovah,'' at the end, he identifies what he says with the mind of God, as though he said that what he addressed to them was communicated to him from above. Instead of ,{`` }מכםon your account,'' some MS., have ,{`` }לכםfor you,'' or ``for your sake.'' --- Ed.
359Adopted by Jerome, Cyril, and in our version, and by Henry, Scott, Adam Clarke, and Henderson. But Marckius takes another view, previously taken by Drusius, Gataker, and Cocceius, according to the following version — Who is there moreover among you? let him even close the doors, That ye may not kindle my altar in vain. "What he seems to say is this," observes Drusius, "I wish there were some one so inflamed by a pious zeal, as to close the doors, and thus to exclude all unlawful sacrifices." To kindle or light the altar was to light the fire under it to consume the sacrifice. The Targum favors "in vain," or to no purpose, "Offer ye not on my altar an execrable oblation." The word {{הכםis used in both senses --- ``for nothing'' or without gain, Genesis 29:15; Exodus 21:2,---and ``in vain'' or uselessly, Proverbs 1:27; Ezekiel 6:10 It is difficult to know which of these views is the right one. What seems against our version is the negative {}לאin the second line. The sense given would be better brought out without it; and so Jerome leaves it out in his explanation. The form also of the sentence being changed renders it improbable that {}חנםbelongs to the former clause. The version of Drusius comes nearest to the original, and is countenanced by the Septuagint and the Targum. --- Ed.