Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin
MINOR PROPHETS
reason for hypocrites to expostulate and say that wrong was done them by God, or that their performances were lightly esteemed, since God openly testified, that he would provide for righteousness, that it might have a free course, like an impetuous river: and this seems to be the genuine meaning of the Prophet. While I do not wholly reject the other expositions, I do not yet follow them; but show what I mostly approve. 44
Then the Prophet, after having bidden them to throw aside all their fictitious and spurious forms of worship, does not now simply exhort the Israelites, as some think, to exhibit righteousness and rectitude, but expresses this in the form of a promise, ``Run down shall your righteousness as impetuous waters, provided it be true, and not an empty name. Whenever God shall see in you sincere rectitude, there will certainly be prepared an ample reward for you.'' It follows ---
Amos 5:25-26
25. Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
25. An victimas et munus (est {)}מנחהobtulistis mihi in deserto quadraginta annis, domus Israel?
26. But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
26. Et sustulistis Sicuth Regem vestrum, et Chion, imagines vestras, stellam deorum vestrorum (vel, deos vestros,) quae fecistis vobis.
The Prophet shows in this place, that he not only reproved hypocrisy in the Israelites in obtruding on God only external display of ceremonies without any true religion in the heart; but that he also condemned them for having departed from the rule of the law. He also shows that this was not a new disease among the people of Israel; for immediately at the beginning their fathers mixed such a leaven as vitiated the worship of God. He therefore proves that the Israelites had ever been given to superstitions, and could not by any means be retained in the true and pure worship of God.
Have ye then caused sacrifices, victims, or an oblation to come before me in the desert for forty years? He addresses them as though they had perverted God's worship in the desert, and yet they were born many ages after; what does he mean?
Even this, --- the Prophet includes the whole body of the people from their first beginning, as though he said, ``It is right to inclose you in the same bundle with your fathers; for you are the same with your fathers in your ways and dispositions.'' We hence see that the Israelites were regarded guilty, not only because they vitiated
God's worship in one age by their superstitions, but also from the beginning. And 44There appears here a great candor in our Author: but the first view of the passage seems the most natural and obvious, as presented in our version, with which that of Newcome and Henderson agrees. Having before exhorted them to "take away" what they thought much of, the Prophet now exhorts them to attend to judgment and justice. The two verses, 23 and 24, may be thus rendered: — 23. Remove from me the multitude of thy songs, And the music of thy harps; I will not hear them. 24. And let judgment roll down like waters, And righteousness like a mighty stream. I prefer rendering {,{`` המוןmultitude,'' with Calvin, rather than ``noise,'' with our version and Newcome, or ``sound'' with Henderson. It forms a variety as to the next clause. In idiomatic English the expressions would be---''thy many songs and thy harmonious harps.'' The two verses ought to be read as connected; and the 24th should begin with ``And,'' ,{}וand not ``But.'' --- Ed.