Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
sume and obliterate the whole people, it would yet be for just reasons, inasmuch as they had reached the very extremities of wickedness.
And he assails by name the princes of the people, Hear this, he says, ye who tread upon or swallow up the poor The Prophets, as we have already stated, did not without reason direct their discourses to the chief men, though the common people were nearly as much involved in the same guilt. It is certain that the state of the people of Israel was then so corrupt, that all, from the highest to the lowest, were become degenerated and none were free from blame. But as more guilt belongs always to leaders, this is the reason why the Prophets treated them with more sharpness and severity: for many of the common people go astray through thoughtlessness or ignorances or are led on by others, but they who govern, pervert what is just and right, and then become the originators of all kinds of licentiousness. It is no wonder then that the Lord by his Prophets inveighed so sharply against them; and this is now the object of the Prophet in saying, Hear this: for there is an emphasis in the expression, when he bids them to hear; it was either because they did not sufÏciently observe their sins, and were wholly deaf, or because they in vain contended with God; for hypocrites think that by evasion they can escape judgment. Hear, he says, ye who devour the miserable, and destroy the poor of the land. We see here some difference marked, and that the Prophet does not generally and indiscriminately summon the common people and the princes to God's tribunal; but turns his discourse to the princes only. It now follows ---
Amos 8:5
5. Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
5. Dicendo, Quando transibit mensis, ut vendamus frumentum? et sabbathum, ut aperiamus (hoc est, depromamus) triticum, et attenuemus ephah? (hoc est, mensuram minuemus; scimus enim ephah fuisse communem mensuram: quando ergo minuemus mensuram,) et augemus {,}שקלsiclum, et pervertamus stateras dolosas?
The Prophet goes on here with the same subject; for this could not apply to the whole people, but only to the plunderers who were able to oppress the miserable and the poor among the common people, and who had a great abundance of corn: the same we see at this day, --- a few men in time of want have provisions hoarded up, so that they as it were put to death miserable men by reducing them to want.
Since then the few rich held the whole people in a state of famine, the Prophet says here, ``Do you think that God deals too rigidly or too cruelly with your inasmuch as ye have hitherto been killing men with misery and want?'' Were any one to object, and say, that the slaughter which the Prophet has already threatened was to be common to the whole people, and that therefore it is now improperly stated, that the wrongs done to the people were brought on them by a few men: to this I answer, that there were other vices among the people which required to be corrected, and this we have already seen, and shall see again in other parts; but it was necessary to make a beginning with the proud men, who, relying on their own dignity, thought themselves exempt and free from the common lot. Hence it was necessary to close