Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin
MINOR PROPHETS
he says, ``extreme satiety will be the cause of your ruin, when I shall attack you. Ye are indeed very violent; but all this your fury is altogether drunkenness: Come, he says, to you shall the vengeance of God as to those drunken with their own drinking 293
Some render the last words, ``To the drunken according to their drinking;'' and this sense also is admissible; but as the Prophet's meaning is still the same, I do not contend about words. Others indeed give to the Prophet's words a different sense: but I doubt not but that he derides here that haughtiness by which the Assyrians were swollen, and compares it to drunkenness; as though he said, ``Ye are indeed more than enough inflated and hence all tremble at your strength; but this your excess rather debilitates and weakens your powers. When God then shall undertake to destroy you as drunken men, your insolence will avail you nothing; but, on the contrary, it will be the cause of your ruin as ye offer yourselves of your own accord; and the Lord will easily cast you down, as when one, by pushing a drunken man, immediately throws him on the ground.''
And these comparisons ought to be carefully observed by us: for when there seems to be no probability of our enemies being destroyed, God can with one spark easily consume them. How so? for as fire consumes thorns entangled together, which no man dares to touch, so God can with one spark destroy all the wicked, however united together they may be. And the other comparison affords us also no small consolation; for when our enemies are insolent, and throw out high swelling words, and seem to frighten and to shake the whole world with their threatening, their excess is like drunkenness; there is no strength within; they are frantic but not strong, as is the case with all drunken men.
And he says, They shall be devoured as stubble of full dryness {,}מלאmela, means not only to be full, but also to be perfect or complete. Others render the words, ``As stubble full of dryness,'' but the sense is the same. He therefore intimates, that there would be nothing to prevent God from consuming the enemies of his Church; for he would make dry their whole vigor, so that they would differ nothing from stubble, and that very dry, which is in such a state, that it will easily take fire.
It follows ---
Nahum 1:11
11. There is one come out of thee, that imagineth evil against the Lord, a wicked counsellor.
11. Ex te egressus est cogitans (vel, consultans) contra Jehovam malum, consultor Beliiaal (hoc est, impius, vel, perversus; alii vertunt, Nihili.)
The Prophet now shows why God was so exceedingly displeased with the Assyrians, and that was, because he would, as a protector of his Church, defend the distressed against those who unjustly oppressed them. The Prophet then designed here to give the Jews a firm hope, so that they might know that God had a care for their 293Newcome, on the sole authority of the Syriac and the Targum, changes "thorns" into "princes," and thus wholly destroys the propriety of the simile of dry stubble at the end of the verse. Henderson says justly, that this change is on no account to be adopted. Though like thorns, entwined, And as with their drinking drunken, They shall be consumed as stubble fully dry. The particle {,{עדbefore ``thorns,'' is to be here taken as in 1 Chronicles 4:27, as designating likeness. --- Ed.
JOHN CALVIN
safety; for if he had only threatened the Assyrians without expressing the reason, of what avail could this have been to the Jews? It is indeed gratifying and pleasing when we see our enemies destroyed; but this would be a cold and barren comfort, except we were persuaded that it is done by God's judgment, because he loves us, because he would defend us, having embraced us with paternal love; but when we know this, we then triumph even when in extreme evils. We are indeed certain of our salvation, when God testifies, and really proves also, that he is not only propitious to us, but that our salvation is an object of his care. This is the Prophet's design when he thus addresses Nineveh.
From thee has gone forth a devisor of evil against Jehovah, an impious adviser
The manner of speaking is much more emphatical, when he says, that the Assyrians consulted against God, than if he had said, that they had consulted against the Jews, or consulted against the chosen people of God.
But though this was said of the Jews, let us yet remember that it belongs also to us. The Prophet confirms the doctrine which I lately alluded to, that whenever the ungodly cause trouble to us, they carry on war with God himself, that whenever they devise any evil against us, they run headlong against him. For God sets up himself as a shield, and declares, that he will protect under the shadow of his wings all those who commit themselves to his protection. If we then lie hid under the guardianship of God, and flee to him in all our adversities, and while patiently enduring all wrongs, implore his protection and help, whosoever then will rise up against us will have God as his enemy. Why so? because he consults against him. And this reason shows, that whatever the Prophet has hitherto said against the Assyrians ought to be extended indiscriminately to all the enemies of the Church. For why did God threaten the Assyrians with a sudden inundation and with perpetual darkness? The reason is here subjoined, --- because they consulted against him and his Church. The same thing then will also happen to our enemies, provided we remain quiet, as it has been said, under the protection of God.
But when he says that he had gone forth from that city who contrived evil against
Jehovah, --- this ought not to be confined to Sennacherib, but must rather be viewed as common to all the Assyrians; as though he said, ``Thou produces the fruit which thou shalt eat; for from thee will arise the cause of thy ruin. There is no reason for thee to expostulate with God, as though he cruelly raged against thee; for from thee has gone forth he who devised evil against Jehovah: thou reapest now the reward worthy of thy bringing forth; for where have originated counsels against the Church of God, except in thine own bosom, and in thine own bowels? The evil then which has proceeded from thee shall return on thine own head.''
He then adds, An impious consulter, or counselor, {,}בליעל{ }יועףivots beliol. Respecting the word {,}בליעלbeliol, the Hebrews themselves are not agreed. There are those who suppose it to be a compound word, {,}בל{ }יעלIt profits not; and they think that it is applied to designate things of nought as well as men of nought. 294 There are others who, like Jerome, render it, Without a yoke, but without rea-
294"From {,{בלnot, and ,{}יעלprofit: --- As an abstract noun, unprofitableness, worthlessness, wickedness: --- As an adjective, worthless, wicked, good for nothing.'' --- Parkhurst. ``It alludes to Baal, the common idol of the natives bordering upon the Jews, whom the penmen of Scripture changing some letters by way of scorn called Belial: to express a further hatred to this