Malachi 2:5 | |
5. My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. | 5. Foedus meum fuit cum eo vitae et pacis; et dedi illi timorem; et timuit me, et a facie nominis mei contritus fuit. |
The Prophet now proves more clearly how God violates not his covenant, when he freely rebukes the priests, and exposes also their false attempts in absurdly applying to themselves the covenant of God, like the Papal priests at this day, who say that they are the Church. How? because they have in a regular order succeeded the apostles; but this is a foolish and ridiculous definition; for he who occupies the place of another ought not on that account only to be deemed a successor. Were a thief to kill the master of a family, and to occupy his place, and to take possession of all his goods, is he to be accounted his legitimate successor? So these dishonest men, to show that they are to be regarded as apostles, only allege a continued course of succession; but the likeness between them ought rather to be the subject of inquiry. We must see first whether they have been called, and then whether they answer to their calling; neither of which can they prove. Then their definition is altogether frivolous.
So also our Prophet here shows, that the priests made pretences and deceived the common people, while they sought to prove themselves heirs of the covenant which God had made with Levi their father, that is, with the tribe itself. "I shall be faithful," says God, "and my faithfulness will be evident from the compact itself;
PRAYER
Grant, Almighty God that as thou hast been pleased to choose us at this day thy priests, and hast consecrated us to thyself by the blood of thine only-begotten Son and through the grace of thy Spirit, -- O grant, that we may rightly and sincerely perform our duties to thee, and be so devoted to thee that thy name may be really glorified in us; and may we be thus more and more confirmed in the hope of those promises by which thou not only guides us through the course of this earthly life, but also invites us to thy celestial inheritance; and may Christ thy Son so rule in us, that we may ever cleave to our head, and be gathered as his members into a participation of that eternal glory into which he has gone before us. -- Amen.
Lecture One Hundred and Seventy-fourth
We began in the last lecture to explain what the Prophet says here of the priesthood, and we have said that the sum of the whole is -- that wicked priests in vain lay claim to the title of honor, who do not faithfully perform their office; for the compact between God and them is mutual, inasmuch as God did not institute priests under the law in order to allow them unbridled liberty, or to deprive himself of every power; but, on the contrary, he set them over the Church in order to retain the people in true religion. As then the obligation is, as they say, reciprocal, there is no reason for the priests to arrogate supreme power and to deprive God of it. The Prophet then had said, that God's compact with Levi was that of life and peace, because God, who is faithful in his promises, had promised to be propitious to the Levites. Our Prophet therefore calls it the compact of life and peace, because the Levites had found that God was in every respect kind and bountiful, whenever they performed their parts.
He now adds,
1 That we may understand these terms we must have recourse to the case evidently alluded to, that of Phinehas, in Numbers 25:12,13. God promised to him the covenant of peace and of perpetual priesthood--of peace, that is, of reconcilement, because God through the zeal displayed by Phinehas became reconciled to the children of Israel--and of perpetuity as to the priesthood, signified here by life or "lives," as the word is plural.--Ed.
2 Calvin's copy must have had the verb to "give" without the affix
The
5. My covenant with him was that of life and peace, And I gave them to him on account of his fear; For he feared me, And at the presence of my name he was terrified.
The last verb is the Niphil of
"At the presence of my name," seems to mean the same thing as "at my presence."--Ed.
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