Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
feast-days and songs, and that is, because they thought them to be expiations to turn aside God's vengeance, when yet they were fans by which they kindled more and more the fire of his displeasure.
He afterwards adds, I will make to come up on all backs the sackcloth, and on every head baldness. These are various modes of speaking, which refer to the same thing: for they were wont to put on sackcloth and they were wont to shave their heads when in grief and mourning. The Prophet then means, that there would be extreme sorrow among the people, that having cast away all delights, they would be constrained to give up themselves entirely to weeping, lamentation, and grief. I will then make to come up on all loins the sackcloth, that is, I will make each one to put off all valuable and soft clothing and to put on sackcloth; and also to shave their heads, and even to tear off their hair, as they were wont to do. We indeed know that the orientals were more disposed to adopt external tokens of sorrow than we are. It was in truth the levity of that country that accounts for their playing the part of actors in mourning; and from this practice of mourning our Prophet borrowed his mode of speaking.
He afterwards subjoins, I will set her (he speaks of the Israelites under the name of land) in mourning as for an only begotten This similitude occurs also in another place, `They shall mourn as for an only-begotten,' says Zechariah 12; so also in other places; so that there is no need of a long explanation. For when one has many children and one dies, he patiently bears his death; but when any one is bereaved of an only-begotten, there is no end nor moderation to his grief; for there is no comfort remaining. This is the reason why the Prophet says, that there would be grief, such as that which is felt for an only-begotten.
And he shows that these calamities would not be for a short time only, Her posterity, he says, shall be as in the day of bitterness 65 For hypocrites drive away, or at least moderate, their fear of punishment by imagining that God will not be so severe and rigid but for a short time, --- ``O! it cannot be God will for long punish our sins; but it will be like mist which soon passes away.'' Thus hypocrites felicitate themselves. Then the Prophet does not without reason subjoin this second clause, that their posterity shall be as in the day of bitterness. Hence when they shall think themselves freed from all evils, then new ones shall succeed, so that their posterity shall even doubly grieve; for they shall feel more bitterness than their fathers. It now follows ---
Amos 8:11-12
11. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the
Lord:
11. Ecce dies veniunt, dicit Jehova, quibus mittam famem in terram, non famem
65Both this and the former line are rendered differently by Newcome, more consistently with the words of the original — And I will make it as a mourning for an only son, And the end thereof as a day of bitterness. The pronoun "it," and also "thereof," is the feminine {:{הNewcome refers it to ,{}הדברהthis matter, or this event, understood: or in case ,{}ארףland, be the antecedent, he thinks that ,{}כאבל
a mourning,'' should be rendered participially, as ``one who mourns.'' Either of these constructions may suit the original; but another seems preferable. The antecedent to ``it appears to be ,{`` }אבלmourning,'' in the first line of the verse. Our own version is no doubt the correct one, and not that which Calvin adopts; only the last line may be better rendered thus, as Junius and Tremelius do --- ``And the end of it as that of the bitterest day.'' --- Ed.