Joel 3:4 - John Trapp Complete Commentary

Bible Comments

Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly [and] speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head;

Ver. 4. Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, &c.] Or, what are ye to me? I value you not, but look upon you as vile persons, how great soever in the world. See Daniel 11:21. Or, what have I to do with you? What wrong have I done you that ye invade my land and molest my subjects? It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of his members, from the head, and it was a malapert demand of the devil, "What have I to do with thee, O Jesus, the Son of the living God?" while he vexed a servant of his. But there is an old enmity between them and their seed, Genesis 3:15, and it will never be extinct while the world stands. Israel had given Tyre and Zidon as little cause to quarrel them, as once they had done Moab, whom they had assured that they would not meddle nor molest them. Howbeit, "Moab was distressed," or irked, fretted, vexed at them, Numbers 22:3, carried with satanical malice against God's people, because of a different religion, and sought their ruin. Lo, this was the case of Tyre, Zidon, and Palestine, near neighbours, but bitter enemies to the Church. Bats fly against the light. Malice breaks all bonds, and vents itself by utmost inhumanity. Mercer understandeth by those nations, Joel 3:2,3, the open and professed enemies of the Church, and by these neighbouring peoples here mentioned, those more subtle adversaries, that pretend love, and can draw a fair glove upon a foul hand, but will take the first opportunity to do the saints a mischief, and to spit their poison at them. This is an old stratagem of the devil, still practised by the renegade Jesuits among us.

Will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, &c.] Num meritum mihi refertis, an etiam infertis? so some render it. While ye afflict my people, is it to be avenged on me, for an old injury I have done you? or is it rather to pick a quarrel with me, who have done you no wrong? Surely, whether it be this or the other, I shall handle you according to your deserts.

Swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence] Repente e vestigio, while you will say, what is this? I will execute my fierce wrath upon you, and you shall soon feel what it is despitefully to spit in the face of Heaven, and to wrestle a fall with the Almighty: see Obadiah 1:15. God cannot bear long with sins of this high nature: he resisteth the proud persecutors.

Joel 3:4

4 Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head;