Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
the price obtained for them was afterwards spent on gluttony and whoredom: yet this people was sacred to God. Now this contumelious treatment, the Prophet says, God would not endure, but would avenge such a wrong as if done to himself. This is then the meaning.
But the reason which induces me thus to interpret the Prophet is because he says that a girl was sold for wine, as the boy for a harlot; and the construction of the Prophet's words is the same. It is indeed certain that in the latter clause the Prophet meant nothing else but that the price was wickedly spent for vile and shameful purposes; then the former clause must be understood in the same way. Let us proceed
Joel 3:4-6
4. Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head;
4. Atque etiam, quid vobis mecum Tyre et Sidon, et cuncti termini Palestinae? An mercedem vobis rependitis mihi? Etsi confertis hoc in me, velox (subito) rependam mercedem vestram in caput vestrum;
5. Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things:
5. Quia argentum meum et aurum meum abstulistis, et desiderabilia mea bona transtulistis in templa vestra (alii, palatia.)
6. The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border.
6. Et filios Jehudah et filios Jerusalem vendidistis filiis Graecorum, ut elongaretis eos a termino suo (hoc est, procul abduceretis eos a finibus suis.)
God expostulates here with Tyre and Sidon, and other neighboring nations, and shows that they vexed his people without cause Had they been provoked some excuse might have been made; but since they made war of their own accord, the wrong was doubled. This is what God means these words. What have ye to do with me, O
Tyre and Sidon? He indeed continues the subject before explained: but he speaks of the concern here as hid own; he seems not now to undertake the protection of his own people, but detents his own cause. ``What have ye to do with me?'' he says.
God then interposes himself; as though he said, that the Syrians and Sidonians were not only called by him to judgment because they had unjustly wronged his people, and brought many troubles on men deserving no such things; but he says also, that he stood up in his own defense. ``What have I to do with you, O Syrians and Sidonians?'' as we say in French, Qu'avons-nous a desmeller? (what have we to decide?)
Now the Prophet had this in view, that the Syrians and Sidonians became voluntary enemies to the Jews, when they had no dispute with them; and this, as we have said, was less to be borne. ``What then have ye to do with me, O Syrians and Sidonians?
Do I owe anything to you? Am I under any obligation to you? Do ye repay me my recompense?'' that is, ``Can you boast of any reason or just pretense for making, war on my people?'' He then means, that there had been no wrong done to the Syrians and Sidonians, which they could now retaliate, but that they made an attack