Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
Spirit, and that true and holy brotherhood exists between us; and may we live justly towards one another, so as to render to each his own right, and thus show that we are members of thy only-begotten Son, so as to be owned by him when he shall appear for the redemption of his people, and shell gather us into his celestial kingdom. ---
Amen.
Lecture One Hundred and Seventy-ninth
Malachi 3:9
9. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
9. Maledictione vos maledicti estis, et me vos diripuistis tota gens.
Malachi pursues the same subject; for he answers the Jews in the name of God --- that they unjustly complained of his rigour as being immoderate, since they themselves were the cause of all their evils. He says that they were cursed, but he adds that this happened to them deservedly, as though he had said --- ``Be that granted what you say, (for lamentations were continually made,) why is it that God afflicts us without end or limits?'' God seems to grant what they were wont reproachfully to declare; but he says in answer to this --- ``But ye have defrauded Me; what wonder then that my curse consumes you? As then I have been robbed by you, as far as ye could, I will render to you your just recompense; for it is not right that I should be bountiful and kind to you, while ye thus defraud me, and take from me what is my own.''
The meaning then is this --- that it was indeed true that the Jews lamented that they were under a curse, but that the cause ought to have been searched out. They indeed wished their rapines and sacrileges to be forgiven, by which they defrauded
God; but God declares that he punished them justly in consuming them with poverty and want, since they so sparingly rendered to him what they owed.
He mentions the whole nation, 408 and thus aggravates the wickedness of the Jews; for not a few were guilty of the sacrilege mentioned, but all, from the least to the greatest, they all plundered the tenths and the oblations. It hence follows that God's vengeance did not exceed due limits, since there was as it were a common conspiracy; there were not ten or a hundred implicated in this sin, but, as he says, the whole people. It follows ---
Malachi 3:10
10. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it
10. Adducite omnes decimas (vel, totas) ad domum thesauri (vel, ad repositorium,) et sit cibus in domo mea; et probate me nunc in hoc, dicit Iehova exercituum, annon aperiam vobis fenestras coelorum, depromam vobis benedictionem, ut non sit sufficientia (vel, ut non sit modus sufficientiae.)
He at length declares that they profited nothing by contending with God, but that a better way was open to them, that is, to return into favor with him. After having
408The words are expressive, for literally they are — And me have ye robbed, the nation, the whole of it. — Ed.