Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
hypocrites yet they think that many things may be concealed; and if the hundredth part, or at farthest the tenth, must be accounted for, they think this to be quite enough: ``Why! God may perhaps observe this or that, but many faults will escape him.'' Since then hypocrites thus heedlessly deceive themselves, the Prophet says, ``Nothing can ever be hid from my sight; nay, as I now know all their works, I will show that all their sins are recorded in my books, in my memory, so that all things shall at last be called to an account.'' It now follows ---
Amos 8:8
8. Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
8. Annon super hoc tumultuabitur terra, et lugebit quicunque habitat in ea? Et ascendet quasi flumen tota (vel, elevabitur,) et profligabitur et submergetur quasi a fluvio AEgypti.
He confirms what the last verse contains in other words: and the question is emphatical, for it is a double afÏrmation. A question, we know, is usually put, when there is no measure of doubt on the subject. God then asks here as of a thing certain, how they could remain in safety, who had so perverted every thing right and just, who had violated all equity, who were influenced by no feelings of humanity, --- how could such continue safe? It was impossible. We hence see why the Prophet here uses a question; it was, that he might more fully confirm what he declares.
Shall not the land, he says, make a tumult? 62 when these disturb all order, when they mingle, as the proverb is, heaven and earth together, can the earth remain quiet under such a violent confusion? when all reason and equity is confounded, how, he says, can the land do otherwise than make a tumult? And though the Prophet ascribes not here either clamor or speech to the land; it is yet a sort of personification, when he says that the earth must necessarily make a tumult, while it sustains such inhabitants; for between them there was no agreement. Since then their way of living was extremely turbulent, the land itself must necessarily be agitated.
He afterwards adds, And mourn shall every one who dwells in it He now shows that the inhabitants of the earth shall feel that commotion of which he predicts: for the earth, ceasing to fulfill its ofÏces, constrains its inhabitants to lament and mourn. And then there is another metaphor which sets forth the moving of the earth, that it will rise as a river to destroy men with a deluge. Many render what follows, ``It shall be driven away and closed up like the river of Egypt.'' But after the Prophet has spoken of inundation of the earth, he turns his discourse to the men whom this inundation would drown and swallow up. Hence, the real sense is, that their habitations would be destroyed, as by a deep gulf, in a way similar to the Nile, which, by overflowing the whole country, seems to make a sea of what had been inhabited. As the Prophet's words lead us as by the hand, I wonder how those skillful in the Hebrew language could have blended things so different, for they give this explanation, ``The land shall be raised up, as a river, and then it shall be 62Shake or move is the most current meaning of the word, and the most suitable to this place. Newcome renders it, "be shaken;" Henderson, "tremble;" and Grotius, "be moved." — Ed.