Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
in order that we may know that we cannot be formed and habituated to humility until we submit to the yoke of God, so that he may turn us wherever he wishes, and until we cast aside every confidence in ourselves. 417
As well as, they said; for {,}גםgam, is here repeated, and must be rendered
well as,'' that is, ``All who do iniquity as well as all who tempt God, are built up and are delivered. In the first place what is general is stated, and then what is particular, and yet the Prophet speaks of the same persons, for he first calls God's despisers iniquitous, and he afterwards says, that the same tempted God, which is more special. The sum of the whole is, --- that God's favor was conspicuous towards the despisers of the law, for they lived prosperously, and were also delivered, and found God their helper in adversity.
The verb, to build, is taken in Hebrew in the sense of prospering, and is applied to many things. When therefore any one grows and increases in honors or in riches, when he accumulates wealth, or when he is raised as it were by degrees to a higher condition, he is said to be built up. It is also added that they were delivered, for it would not be enough to acquire much wealth, except aid from God comes in adversity, for no one, even the most fortunate, is exempt from every evil. Hence to building up the Prophet adds this second clause, --- that God delivered the wicked from all evils, as though he covered them under his shadow, and as though they were his clients. With regard to the second verb, when he says that the ungodly tempted
God, it is, we know, the work of unbelief to contend with God. The Prophet used the same word shortly before, when he said, ``Prove me in this:'' but God then, after the manner of men, submitted to a trial; here, on the contrary, the Prophet condemns that insolence which very commonly prevails in the world, when men seek to confine
God, and to impose on him a law, and to inquire into his judgements: it is in short as though they had a right to prescribe to him according to their own caprice, so that he should not do this or that, and which if he did, to call on him to plead his own cause. We now then perceive what it is to prove or tempt God. It follows ---
Malachi 3:16
16. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.
16. Tunc loqunti sunt timentes Iehovam quisque ad socium suum; et attendit
Iehova, et audivit; et scriptus est liber memoriae (vel, memorialis) coram facie ejus pro timentibus Iehovam, et cogitantibus de nomine ejus, (vel, in pretio habentibus nomen ejus.)
In this verse the Prophet tells us that his doctrine had not been without fruit, for the faithful had been stimulated, so that they animated one another, and thus restored each other to a right course. They who explain the words --- that the faithful spoke, indefinitely, pervert the meaning of the Prophet, and they also suppress the particle {,}אזaz, then. The very subject proves that a certain time is denoted, as 417Leigh says, that the verb, from which the word rendered here "proud" is derived, meand to deal arrogantly, insolently, to be lifted up with swelling pride. It is applied in Psalm 124:5, to the swelling waves of the sea. To be insolent or presumptuous against God seems to be intended here. — Ed.