Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
is here to be understood as hyperbolical, and that this was not a vow in the strict form of it, but to be understood in a qualified sense that he would never enter his house, nor ascend his couch, without feeling a concern upon this subject. He felt persuaded that the settlement of the sanctuary was intimately connected with the state of the kingdom; and we need not be surprised that so long as he was kept in uncertainty regarding the place of the Temple, he should scarcely have felt assured of his very crown, and have been incapable of sharing the ordinary comforts of life with any satisfaction. Still, where Scripture has been silent we can say nothing certain; and I may throw out these things as what seems to me the most probable interpretation. And I think the sense of the passage may very well bear to be that which I have mentioned, That until informed of the place of the Ark's destined residence, David was full of concern and anxiety, dwelling in his house, or when he lay upon his bed. As to the vow itself, this and other passages afford no ground for supposing, with the Papists, that God approves of whatever vows they may utter, without regard to the nature of them. To vow unto God that which he has himself declared to be agreeable to him, is a commendable practice; but it is too much presumption on our part to say that we will rush upon such vows as suit our carnal inclination. The great thing is that we consider what is agreeable to his will, otherwise we may be found depriving him of that wherein indeed his principal right lies, for with him "to obey is better than sacrifice." (1 Samuel 15:22.)
Psalm 132:6-9
6. Lo! We heard of it at Ephratha; we found it in the fields of the wood. 7. We will go into his habitations, we will worship at his footstool. 8. Arise, O Jehova! Into thy rest, thou, and the Ark of thy strength. 9. Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let thy meek ones rejoice.
6. Lo! we heard of it at Ephratha. This verse is obscure, and we need not wonder at the difficulty which interpreters have felt in ascertaining its meaning. First, the relative pronoun 572 being of the feminine gender has no antecedent, and we are forced to suppose that it must refer to the word habitation in the foregoing sentence, although there it reads habitations, in the plural number. But the principal difficulty lies in the word Ephratha, because the Ark of the Covenant was never placed there. If the reference be to past time, Shiloh should have been the place mentioned; but as it is plain the Psalmist speaks of its new residence, the question returns, why Ephratha and not Zion is specified? Some would get rid of the difficulty by resorting to a frivolous conceit, That the place had two names, and that the plat of ground which was shown to David (2 Samuel 24:18; 1 Chronicles 21:18) was called Ephratha, because it was fertile, on which account Jerome
COMMENTARY ON PSALMS - VOLUME 3 styles it καρποφοριαν, and yet is not very consistent with himself, for in another place, when he gets into his allegories, he most absurdly interprets it to mean frenzy. I have no doubt whatever that the word comes from פרהparah, which means to bear fruit; just as Bethlehem, which is situated in the same quarter, was called for its fruitfulness "the house of bread." But any conjecture founded upon the mere name of the place is necessarily unsatisfactory, and we must seek some more probable explanation. I might begin by mentioning one which is not without force. A rumor had spread that the Ark of the Covenant was to be deposited in Ephratha, which was the place of David's nativity 573 , and we may suppose at least that his native soil would seem to many the most appropriate locality for the Ark and Sanctuary. We can easily understand how such an opinion should get abroad. In that case the hearing referred to by the Psalmist alludes to the report which had been circulated. Should this be taken as the meaning, the verb would be in the pluperfect tense, we HAD heard that it was in Ephratha, but we found it in the woods, that is, in a place by no means so attractive or well cultivated. Jerusalem might be said to be woody, because we know that it was surrounded by mountains, and that it was by no means in a part of the country which was noted for fruitfulness. There is another meaning which I would submit to the judgment of the reader. Let us suppose that the faithful here say that they had heard of its being in Ephratha, because God had spoken still greater things of Ephratha than of Zion. It is true that the memorable prediction (Micah 5:2) had not yet been given, yet it may have been that God had already issued some very great and signal prophecy regarding Bethlehem. We have heard, as if they had said, of Bethlehem,
That is, the objective affix,הwhich appears at each of the verbs in this verse, and which is translated it. By some it is thought that the antecedent is,ארוןaron, ark, which, although it is generally masculine, is yet sometimes feminine, as in 1 Samuel 4:17; 2 Chronicles 8:11. Such is the opinion of Dr. Lightfoot, who explains the verse thus: "We heard of it (the ark) in Ephratah, (that is, Shiloh,) a city of Ephraim; we found it in the fields of the wood, that is in Kirjath-jearim. 1 Samuel 7:1," etc. (Lightfoot's Chorogr. Cent., c. 45.) Others consider theהto refer to habitations, in the preceding verse; and though that noun is in the plural, it is, as noticed in a preceding note, put by enallage for the singular. Rosenmuller thinks this opinion which is the one adopted by Calvin the more probable and no doubt at first sight the most obvious meaning is, that the pronoun it refers to the spot which David had discovered as a suitable place on which to erect the house of God. Walford, indeed, objects that "this cannot be intended, because the site of the Temple was neither at Ephratah, nor in the fields of the wood, or of Jaar;" and he gives at some length an ingenious explanation of this difficult passage, extracted chiefly from the German writer Tilingius. This objection, it will be perceived, is removed by one of the expositions suggested by Calvin, which supposes that the allusion is first to a report of Ephratha being the place where the Temple was to be built; and next to the certain information which the people of Israel afterwards obtained that Jerusalem was the spot which God himself had selected. Whether this however is the correct explanation of the verse, it is not so easy to determine.
Bethlehem, the place of David's nativity, is called Ephratha in Genesis 35:19.