Commentary on Harmony of the Law Volume 2 Complete John Calvin (continued)
HARMONY OF THE LAW · VOLUME 2 decision with regard to the Gadites remaining on this side Jordan should be thus confirmed, since disputes might have otherwise arisen, inasmuch as God's promise had assigned the boundaries of the whole people on the opposite bank. Theirs is a poor exposition who explain it that Moses was buried there; and those also violently wrest the words, who understand by "the lawgiver" the chiefs of the Amorites, and render the words "hidden portion," the ceiled palaces; 751 nor would they have been thus extravagant in their notions, if the natural meaning which I have given had occurred to them.
The other clause of the verse is added by way of qualification; for Moses shows that this advantageous provision was made for the children of Gad, on condition that they should accompany the other tribes, and not return home until the land of Canaan was at peace, and their enemies subdued. And we have already seen that, when they sought for themselves this location outside the land, in the kingdom of the Amorites, they were severely rebuked by Moses, until they promised that they would share the war with their brethren until its conclusion. This is what Moses means by "executing the justice of God, and his judgments with Israel;" not only because it was but just that they should share the war with their brethren, and assist them in obtaining possession of the land, but because God ordained that His just vengeance should be executed upon those heathen and wicked nations by the whole of Israel, and had chosen all the tribes generally to be the ministers of His judgment; as it is said, in Psalm 149:7, 8, 9, that they were charged "to execute vengeance upon the heathen, to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written;" for it was no common honor to be appointed to be, as it were, the judges of the ungodly, so as to destroy them all, and thus to purify the land.
22. And of Dan he said. He foretells that the tribe of Dan, like that of Gad, should be warlike, not so much from voluntary disposition, as from necessity; for their love of war was not to be deemed praiseworthy, inasmuch as it is altogether contrary to humanity; but because the unscrupulousness of the enemies, by which that tribe was infested, compelled them to take up arms. He compares it to a lion impetuously leaping from Mount Bashan; and the particle of comparison must be understood here, for Mount Bashan was not situated in the territory of this tribe. But Moses means to say that they should be as ready for the combat as a lion, which, after it has issued.ספוןPart. pahul,,ספןto bide. S. M., ("Pro legislatore) abscondendo." C. learnt from the notes of S. M. that Rabbi Salomon expounds this clause, "He saw that in that land the legislator, Moses, would be buried," and that Aben-Ezra had interpreted,סהוקק great, and,ספוןa house with a dome-like roof, and had then paraphrased the clause, as meaning, "there is the place suitable for the great and noble, who dwell in palaces." — W