Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
God, and I change not; and ought ye not to have acknowledged that wonderful forbearance through which I have spared you? for how has it been that you have not perished, and that innumerable deaths have not swallowed you up? How is it that you are yet alive? Is it because you have dealt faithfully faith me, so that it behaved me to exercise care over you? Nay, it is indeed a wonder that I had not fulminated against you so as to destroy you long ago.'' We hence see that he upbraids them with ingratitude for accusing him, because he did not immediately come forth in their defense: For he answers them and says, that had he been rigid and vehement in his displeasure, they could not have continued, for they had not ceased for many successive ages to seek their own ruin, as we find in what follows, for he says ---
Malachi 3:7, 8
7. Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?
7. A diebus patrum vestrorum declinastis a statutis meis (vel, edictis,) et non servastis: Revertimini ad me, et revertar ad vos, dicit Iehova exercituum; et dixistis, In quo revertemur?
8. Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
8. An diripiet homo Deum (vel, deos, vel, Iudices,) quia vos diripuistis me? et dixistis, In quo diripuimus te (vel, expilavimus)? In decimis et oblationibus.
The Prophet expands more fully what he had referred to --- that it was a wonder that the Jews had not perished, because they had never ceased to provoke God against themselves. He then sets this fact before them more clearly, From the days 405 of your fathers, he says, ye have turned aside from my statutes. He increases their condemnation by this circumstance --- that they had not lately begun to depart from the right way, but had continued their contumacy for many ages, according to what the apostles, as well as the Prophets in various places, have testified: ``Ye uncircumcised in heart, ye have ceased not to resist the Holy Spirit like your fathers.'' (Acts 7:51.)
not your hearts as your fathers did; in the righteousness of your fathers walk not.'' (Psalm 95:8.)
But I will not multiply proofs, which very often are to be met with, and must be well known.
We now understand the Prophet's intention --- that the Jews for many ages had been notorious for their impiety and wickedness, and that they had not been dealt with by God as they had deserved, because he had according to his ineffable goodness and forbearance suspended his rigour, so as not to visit them according to their demerits. It hence appears how unreasonable they were, not only in being morose and proud, but especially in being furious against God, when they accused him of tardiness, while yet he had proved himself to be really a God towards them by his continued forbearance.
405The words are singular, "days," being preceded by two prepositions, {{לand ,{`` }למימי{, }מto --- from the days,'' etc., which seems to mean, ``To this time from the days of your fathers;'' or it may mean, ``To and from the days of your fathers, your immediate predecessors.'' --- Ed.