Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
He as a chafer will consume thee. If we approve of this rendering, then the meaning would be, --- ``As chafers in a short time devour a meadow or standing corn, so thy enemies shall soon devour thee as with one mouthful.'' We indeed know, that these little animals are so hurtful, that they will very soon eat up and consume all the fruit; and there is in these insects an astonishing voracity. But as the Prophet afterwards compares the Assyrians to chafers and locusts, another sense would be more suitable, and that is, --- that God's judgment would consume the Assyrians, as when rain, or a storm, or a change of season, consumes the chafers; for as these insects are very hurtful, so the Lord also exterminates them whenever he pleases. 324 He afterwards adds, to be multiplied; which is, as I have said, a verb in the infinitive mood. But the sentence of the Prophet is this, by multiplying as the chafer, to multiply as the locusts: but why he speaks thus, may be better understood from the context; the two following verses must be therefore added ---
Nahum 3:16-17
16. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and flieth away.
16. Multiplicasti negotiatores tuos quasi stellas coelorum; bruchus praedatus est et avolat.
17. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are
17. Principes tui (vel, coronati; deducitur enim a {}רזכquod significat coronam; sed malo vertere, egregios, vel, praestantissimos quosque; principes ergo tui, vel, eximii tui) quasi locusta, et duces tui quasi locusta locustarum (est quidem aliud nomen, sed non possumus certo distinguere inter illas species, quemadmodum dictum est Jaelis 1 capite,) quae castramentantur (id est, considunt) in maceriis (id est, clausuris) in die frigoris: sol exortus est, et migrarunt; et non cognoscitur locus earum ubi.
From these words we may learn what the Prophet before meant, when he said that the Assyrians were like locusts or chafers; as though he said, --- ``I know that you trust in your great number; for ye are like a swarm of chafers or locusts; ye excel greatly in number; inasmuch as you have assembled your merchants and traders as the stars of heaven.'' Here he shows how numerous they were. But when he says, The chafer has spoiled, and flies away, he points out another reason for the comparison; for it is not enough to lay hold on one clause of the verse, but the two clauses must be connected; and they mean this, --- that the Assyrians, while they were almost innumerable, gloried in their great number, --- and also, that this vast multitude would vanish away. He then makes an admission here and says, by multiplying thy merchants, thou hast multiplied them; but when he says, as chafers and as locusts, he shows that this multitude would not continue, for the Lord would scatter them here and there. As then the scattering was nigh, the Prophet says that they were chafers and locusts.
324Grotius agrees in this view, though Newcome takes the former, explaining, "as the locust," that is, in a manner equally unsparing. — Ed.