Commentary on the Book of Joshua John Calvin (continued)
COMMENTARY ON JOSHUA
taken of the ancient promise which was everywhere known and celebrated, and that Moses is produced as a witness whose memory was more recent, and by whose death the confidence of the people might have been shaken, had not God declared that the accomplishment of all which he had said was at hand.
4. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, etc How the truth and fulfillment of this promise surmounted all the obstacles interposed by the wickedness of the people, though they did not obtain immediate possession of the whole territory, I have explained in the Argument. For although God had unfolded the inestimable treasures of his beneficence by constituting them lords of the country, it did not follow that their misconduct was not to be chastised. Nay, there behooved to be a fulfillment of the threatening which Moses had denounced, viz., that if the nations doomed to destruction were not destroyed, they would prove thorns and stings in their eyes and sides. But as the promise was by no means broken or rendered void by the delay of forty years, during which they were led wandering through the desert, so the entire possession, though long suspended, proved the faithfulness of the decree by which it had been adjudged.
The people had it in their power to obtain possession of the prescribed boundaries in due time; they declined to do so. For this they deserved to have been expelled altogether. 18 But the divine indulgence granted them an extent of territory sufficient for their commodious habitation; and although it had been foretold that, in just punishment, the residue of the nations whom they spared would prove pernicious to them, still, they suffered no molestation, unless when they provoked the Divine anger by their perfidy and almost continual defection: for as often as their affairs became prosperous, they turned aside to wantonness. Still, owing to the wonderful goodness of God, when oppressed by the violence of the enemy, and, as it were, thrust down to the grave, they continued to live in death; and not only so, but every now and then deliverers arose, and, contrary to all hope, retrieved them from ruin. 19
The two last sentences form only one in the French, which is as follows, "Le peuple pouuoit du premier coup, et des l'entree s'estendre jusqu'aux bornes que Dieu lui mesme auoit marquees; il n'a pas voulu: il estoit bien digne d'en estre mis dehors, et du tout forclos." "The people might at the first blow, and immediately on their entrance, have extended themselves to the limits which God himself had marked; they would not: they well deserved to be put out and wholly foreclosed." — Ed.
Latin, "Qui praeter spem rebus perditis succurrerent;" French, "Qui outre toute esperance venoyent a remedier aux affaires si fort deplorez, et redresser aucunement l'estat du peuple;" "Who, beyond all hope, came to remedy the very deplorable affairs, and, in some degree, restore the condition of the people." — Ed.