Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin
MINOR PROPHETS
extended to the brute creation.
He therefore says, Fear not, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the desert will grow, the trees will bring forth their fruit. By these words the Prophet intimates, that had God's wrath toward his people been implacable, the sterility of the land would not have been improved. Now then whence came so sudden a change that the pastures grew, that the trees produced their fruits, both the fig-tree and the vine, except that God was pleased to bless the land, after having received men into favor? We now then apprehend the meaning of the Prophet, even this, --- that the land would be made by an angry God to execute his judgment, and that there would be no remedy for the barrenness of the land until men propitiated God. This is the sum of the whole. It now follows ---
Joel 2:23
23. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month
23. Et filii Sion exultate, et gaudete in Jehova Deo vestro, quia dedit vobis pluviam ad justitiam (alii vertunt, doctorem justitiae; sed de eo paulo post dicemus) et descendere faciet vobis imbrem pluviam (vel, pluviam tempestivam, ut vertunt: dicemus etiam de hac voce) et pluviam in mense primo.
He now exhorts the Jews also to rejoice, but in a way different from that of the land and of the beasts. Rejoice, he says, in your God. For the beasts and the sheep, while rejoicing, cannot raise their thoughts higher than to their food: hence, the joy of brute animals, as they say, terminates in its object. But the Prophet sets forth God before the Jews as the ground of their joy. We then see how he distinguishes them from brute animals from the land and other elements; for he not only bids them to rejoice in meat and drink, in the abundance of provisions, but he also bids them to rejoice in the Lord their God; and he says no more, ``The land will yield its strength, or the vines and fig-trees, or the trees, will produce their fruit, and the pastures will grow;'' no, he speaks not now in this manner, but he says ``God himself will give you rain:'' for he had to do with men, endued with understanding, yea, with those very Jews who had been from their childhood taught in the law of God: he speaks, not only of the land, not only of bread and wine, but of the Giver himself.
He then reminds them of God's blessing, and declares that God would be so propitious to them as to pour down his grace upon them, and act the part of a father and a guardian towards them. God then, he says, will bring forth or give to you rain according to what is necessary. Some translate {}המורהemure a teacher; and the meaning of the word, we know, is doubtful. At the same time {}מורהmure is very often taken for rain, and sometimes generally, and sometimes for a particular kind of rain, as we shall presently see. Though then {}מורהmure signifies a teacher, yet the context here seems not to allow that sense. They who have thus taken it seem to have been led by this one reason, --- that it is absurd to set in the first place, and as it were on a higher grade, those fading blessings which belong only to the support and nourishment of the body. But this reason is very foolish; for the Prophets, we know, lead children as it were by initial principles to a higher doctrine. No wonder then that