Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
in an active sense, and the verb {,}תבימtabith, has a transitive meaning. 13 Some render it, Why dost thou look on trouble? as though the Prophet indignantly bore the connivance of God. But the context necessarily requires that this verb should be taken in a transitive sense. ``Why dost thou show me iniquity?'' and then, ``and makest me to look on violence?'' He says afterwards, in the third place, in my sight is violence. But I have said, that the word trouble is to be taken actively; for the prophet means not that he was worn out with weariness, but that wicked men were troublesome to the good and the innocent, as it is usually the case when a freedom in sinning prevails.
And why, he says, are violence and plunder in my sight? and there is he who excites, etc.? The verb {,}נשאnusha means not here to undertake, as some render it; but, on the contrary, to raise. Others render it, ``Who supports,'' but this is frigid.
Therefore the translation which I have stated is the most suitable---And why is there one who excites strife and contention?
But the Prophet here accuses them only of sins against the second table of the law: he speaks not of the superstitions of people, and of the corrupted worship of God; but he briefly says, that they had no regard for what was just and right: for the stronger any one was, the more he distressed the helpless and the innocent. It was then for this reason that he mentioned iniquity, trouble, plunder, violence, contention, strife. In short, the Prophet here deplores, that there was now no equity and no brotherly kindness among the people, but that robberies, rapines, and tyrannical violence prevailed everywhere. It follows---
Habakkuk 1:4
4. Therefore the law is slacked, and judgement doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgement proceedeth.
4. Propterea dissolvitur (vel, debilitatur) lex, et non egredietur perpetuo judicium (vel, non egreditur:) quia impius circumdat justum, propterea impius circumdat justum, propterea egredietur judicium perversum.
The Prophet confirms here what I have already said, and brings an excuse for his zeal; he proves that he was not without reason led to so great a warmth; for he saw that the law of God was trodden as it were under foot; he saw men so hardened in every kind of sin, that all religion and the fear of God had nearly been extinguished.
13Rather, a causative meaning; for so does Calvin take it; and Junius and Tremelius, Piscator, Grotius, and Newcome, agree with him: but Drusius, Marckius, Henderson, and others, consider it simply in the sense of seeing or beholding, and say with truth, that there is no other instance in which it has, though it be often found, as here, in Hiphil, a causative sense. The context, as Calvin says, seems certainly to favor this meaning; and we might suppose that Habakkuk used it in a sense different from others, were it not that he uses it at least twice in this very chapter, verses 5 and 13, simply in the sense of seeing or beholding. In these two verses there is no need of continuing the interrogatory form throughout, nor is this justified by the original. A strictly literal rendering, such as the following, would be the most appropriate: 2. How long, Jehovah, have I cried, and thou hearest not? I cry aloud to thee, "oppression," and thou savest not: 3. Why showest thou to me iniquity? Yea, wickedness is what thou seest; Even wasting and oppression are before me; Then there is strife, and contention arises. Some think that there is to be understood a preposition before [{,[{חמםwhich I render ``oppression,'' in the second line; but there is no need of it. The word means outrage, wrong forcibly done, violent injustice. ,[{]}עמלwickedness, in the second line of the third verse, in its primary sense, is labor, toil; it means also what produces toil, mischief, wickedness. Henderson renders it misery; but it is not so suitable; for it must be something that corresponds with iniquity in the previous line. Wickedness is the word adopted by Newcome. ,[{]}ריבstrife, is a verbal contention or quarrel; and [{]}מדוזcontention, is a judicial contest, or a trial by law. Then in the next verse we see how unjustly this trial was conducted.---Ed.