Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin
MINOR PROPHETS
when they brought a bribe, they immediately obtained from the judges what they required. They are indeed to be bought by a price who hunt for nothing else but a prey.
They said then to their masters, Bring and we shall drink; that is, ``Only satiate my cupidity, and I will adjudge to thee what thou wouldest demand: provided then thou bringest me a bribe, care not, I will sell all the poor to thee.'' We now comprehend the design of the Prophet: for he sets forth here what kind those oppressions were of which he had been complaining. ``Ye then oppress the poor, --- and how? Even by selling them to their creditors, and by selling them for a price. Hence, when a reward is offered to you, this satisfies you: Ye inquire nothing about the goodness of the cause, but instantly condemn the miserable and the innocent, because they have not the means of redeeming themselves: and the masters to whom they are debtor; who through your injustice hold them bound to themselves, pay the price: there is thus a mutual collusion between you.'' It now follows ---
Amos 4:2
2. The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.
2. Juravit Dominus Jehova per sanctuarium suum, quia ecce dies veniunt super vos, et tollet vos in clypeo (vertunt quidam; alii, in hamo,) et residuum vestrum in spina piscationis.
Here Amos declares what sort of punishment awaited those fat cattle, who being well fed despised God, and were torpid in their fatness. He therefore says, that the days were nigh, when they should be taken away together with all that they had, and all their posterity, as by a hook of a fisher.
But to give more effect to his combination, he says that God had sworn by his sanctuary. 31 The simple word of God ought indeed to have been sufÏcient: but as we do not easily embrace the promises of God, so also hypocrites and the reprobate are not easily terrified by his threatening; but they laugh to scorn, or at least regard as empty, what God's servants declare. It was then necessary that God should interpose this oath, that secure men might be more effectually aroused.
Lord then has sworn by his sanctuary''. It is singular that God should swear by his temple rather than by himself: and this seems strange; for the Lord is wont to swear by himself for this reason, --- because there is none greater by whom he can swear, as the Apostle says, (Hebrews 6:13.) God then seems to transfer the honor due to himself to stones and wood; which appears by no means consistent. But the name of the temple amounts to the same thing as the name of God. God then says that he had sworn by the sanctuary, because he himself is invisible, and the temple was his ostensible image, by which he exhibited himself as visible: it was also a sign and symbol of religion, where the face of God shone forth. God did not then divest himself of his own glory, that he might adorn with it the temple; but he rather accommodated himself here to the rude state of men; for he could not in himself be 31This word is commonly rendered 'holiness,' though it is also used to denote 'the sanctuary.' Calvin has been blamed for taking it here in the latter sense. What induced him to do so is evident from his comment: and when we consider all the circumstances of the passage, we may perhaps be disposed to think him right. — Ed.