Commentary on Isaiah Volume 1 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH
the city framed by potters, he will be content with a tomb. Death alone acknowledges how small are the dimensions of the bodies of men." 85
Instances of the same kind occur every day, yet we do not observe them; for the Lord exhibits to us, as in a mirror, the absurd vanity of men, who spend a vast amount of money in building palaces that are afterwards to become the receptacles of owls and bats and other animals. These things are plainly before our eyes, and yet we do not apply our mind to the consideration of them. So sudden and various are the changes that happen, so many houses are laid desolate, so many cities are overthrown and destroyed, and, in short, there are so many other evident proofs of the judgment of God; and yet men cannot be persuaded to lay aside this mad ambition. The Lord threatens by the Prophet Amos: "You have built houses of hewn stones, but you shall not dwell in them." (Amos 5:11.)
And again, "He will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts." (Amos 6:11.)
These things happen daily, and yet the lawless passions of men are not abated.
10. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath. He foretells that the same thing will befall their fields and vineyards; that covetous men will not obtain the desired returns, because their greed is insatiable; that, like certain animals which, by their breath, scorch the branches, and wither the corn, those men destroy the fruits of the earth by their extortion. The fields will be so barren as scarcely to yield a tenth part of the seed: the vineyards will yield very little wine.
A bath, as Josephus tells us, is a measure of liquids, and contains seventytwo sextaries; a very small measure, certainly, for ten acres, especially on a fertile soil. The cor (κόρος) or homer, is a measure of dry substances, and, according to the same author, contains thirty-one medimni 86 An ephah is the tenth part of it, and therefore evidently contains a little more than three medimni 87
Now, when the soil is productive, it yields not only tenfold, but thirtyfold, and in all cases goes beyond the quantity of seed, and gives back far more abundantly than it received. When the case is otherwise, it undoubtedly proceeds from the curse of God punishing the extortion of men. And yet 85A medimnus, or Greek bushel, is reckoned to contain six Roman bushels, a Roman bushel (modius) being about an English peck. — Ed.
86"For the actual size of these measures," says Dr. Kitto, "we must refer to Josephus, of whom Theodoret (in Exod. 29.) says: , — 'follow in these things Josephus, who well understood the measures of the nation.' (Comp. Antiq. 8:3, 8.) To the homer or cor Josephus ascribes (Antic. 15:9, 2) twelve Attic medimni, where the reading should be metretae. Bath and Ephah are the same. Josephus (Antiq. 8:2, 9) determines each at seventy-two xestae, and makes them equal to an Attic metretes. The Attic metretes, which corresponded with the Hebrew bath and ephah, contains 739,800 Parisian grains of rainwater, which would fill a space of about 1985 Parisian cubic inches." — Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, Art. Weights and Measures
87And their honourable men are famished. — Eng. Ver.