Commentary on Micah

(Verse 1.) The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Morasthi, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah: Which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Or, according to the Septuagint, concerning which he saw things concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. The word of the Lord, therefore, came to Micah after Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah, who prophesied under Uzziah. From this we understand that Micah did not prophesy in the times of Uzziah, but of his son Jotham, after whom Ahaz reigned, Hezekiah succeeding to the rule of his father Ahaz, under whom the ten tribes were led into captivity by the Assyrians. As far, then, as pertains to the history, according to the order of the captivity (because first Samaria, the metropolis of Israel, was captured, afterward Jerusalem, the city of Judah), the title of the prophecy is set down first concerning Samaria, second concerning Jerusalem.

But as far as the mystical understanding goes, since Samaria is always taken for the heresies, Jerusalem for the Church, we say that the word of the Lord comes to the humble one (Al. Jerusalem) and to the co-heir of Christ, concerning perverse doctrines, and concerning the Church, if perchance it has committed any sins, and we shall weave together the order of the whole volume. That Samaria and the ten tribes, which were split off under king Jeroboam from the stock of David, are taken in the person of heretics, all Scripture indeed attests, but especially the prophet Hosea, and this very book, which calls heretics impious and calls sinners of the Church "Ecclesiastical." For it follows immediately: What is the impiety of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the sin of the house of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? This, at least, according to the Septuagint translators. But how it is read in the Hebrew we shall add a little further on.

But also that which heretics always trust in, as it were in a sublimity of their own doctrines, and by which they despise the simplicity of the Church, is spoken of in another place: Woe to those who despise Sion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria: for out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Moreover, Samaria fashioned for itself, out of its own perception, golden calves, having indeed beauty on the surface, but not having the living spirit; and it fashioned them in the house of God, which is interpreted Bethel. For the people of Israel could not receive gods, except such as were fashioned from the Scriptures and in the house of God.

Although they call their meeting-places Bethel, nevertheless, after the fashioning of idols, it ceased to be Bethel, and is called Bethaven, which means "house of the idol," for which the Seventy translated "house of On." So much concerning the title: now let us come to the beginning of the prophecy, and, while the Lernaean (Hydra) beast rages, let us invoke the coming of the Holy Spirit. You, O Paula and Eustochium, pour forth prayers to the Lord Savior, that envy may not harm me, but that my mind, free, may think only that which it strives to explain, and may not feel the blows of reproaches, which the Lord in his passion despised. (Verse 2.) Hear, all you peoples, and let the earth attend, and its fullness, and let the Lord God be a witness to you, the Lord from his holy temple. LXX: Hear, all you peoples, and let the earth listen, and all that are in it, and let the Lord God be to you for a testimony: the Lord out of his holy house.

Since according to the history the sense is manifest, I leave the understanding to the prudence of the reader. But according to the tropology, he calls the peoples to hear, that is, the Churches of the whole world, and he calls the earth to listen, because earthly doctrines of heretics have been built up in it. That heresies are numbered among the works of the flesh, which is always referred to the earth, both the Apostle to the Galatians does not pass over in silence, and the Lord in the Gospel points out to the prudent hearer: He who is of the earth, speaks of the earth. And in distinction to them, again concerning the Ecclesiastical, he says: But he who comes from heaven is above all. And: What he has seen and heard, this he testifies.

But if this saying, Hear, O peoples, on account of that saying of the Lord: He who has ears to hear, let him hear, signifies something more than what is afterward added, Let the earth attend, we shall apply Hear, all peoples to the Church. But to the heretics, who have taken up earthly teaching: Let the earth attend, and all who are in it: so that these, if they hear, and those, if they attend, may not suffer what the word of the Lord afterward threatens.

And let the Lord be to them for a testimony, or as it is read in the Hebrew, for a witness, or, as Symmachus interpreted more plainly, testifying—and testifying from nowhere else than from his own house, which is the Church, or certainly in the Son, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is truly the temple of the Father, and from whose mouth the Father speaks, penetrating the inward parts and marrow of those who are willing to attend and hear. (Verse 3 and following.) For behold, the Lord will go forth from his place, and will come down, and will tread upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains will be consumed under him, and the valleys will be cleft as wax before the face of fire, as waters that rush down a steep place: all this is for the crime of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the crime of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?

According to the LXX: The Lord out of his holy house—our manuscripts strike this out. Lem? The Septuagint: Behold, for the Lord shall go forth from His place, and shall descend, and shall ascend upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains shall be moved beneath Him, and the valleys shall melt like wax before the fire, and like water flowing in a descent: because of the impiety of Jacob, all these things, and because of the sin of the house of Israel. What is the impiety of the house of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the sin of the house of Juda? Is it not Jerusalem? O Samaria and Jerusalem, hear, and attend diligently to the Lord testifying to you from His temple, and foretelling whatsoever He is about to do. Behold, the Lord shall go forth from His place. For He who is meek and kind, and whose nature is clemency, is compelled for your sake to assume a character of cruelty which He does not have.

And He shall descend and shall tread upon the high places of the earth. It is the descent of God, and the downward course of His majesty to the lower regions, to tread the earth, and to crush every mighty one. And, he says, the mountains shall be consumed, or shall melt, and the valleys beneath Him, by which we may understand princes and peoples. And just as wax cannot bear the nearness of fire, and waters are carried headlong in a downward course: so all the pride of the impious, at the Lord's coming, shall be dissolved and shall flow away. All this, moreover, shall come to pass because of the crimes of the ten tribes, which he calls Jacob and Israel, and because of the transgression of Juda; because among the ten tribes Samaria was the metropolis, and in the kingdom of Juda the idols of the high places were fashioned at Jerusalem: this according to the letter.

But tropologically, the Lord shall go forth from His place, whom we may understand either as the Son, or as all the saints. For the Son Himself says: I am in the Father, and the Father in me. And of the saints: I will dwell and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. From these, then, He shall go forth, not that He forsakes them; for from the apostles also the word of the Lord went forth to those who heard, and yet He did not forsake them: and places of this kind, that is, those which deserve to have God as their guest, being as it were risen with Christ, and sitting with Him in the heavenly places, are set on high. Whence He is also said to descend to those who cannot hear His teaching on the mountain.

And when He has descended, He will not ascend among the lowly and those who are set below; but those things which are called the high places of the earth, and those who, understanding the majesty of the coming Lord, shall be moved. And although they are mountains, yet they shall tremble at the presence of such a driver and rider. But the valleys, that is, souls set in earthly (χοϊκοῖς) bodies, and not rising with the heavenly Man, shall not be able to bear His presence; but whatever hardness is in them shall be dissolved, and shall so flow, as if waters had no level ground, and were borne headlong into the depth. The Lord, therefore, shall come terrible to teach, that is, to move the mountains, and to dissolve the low things of the valleys, because Jacob has committed impiety, and Israel sin. For the impiety of Jacob is the assemblies of the heretics, which are called Samaria.

And the sin of Juda, that is, of him who confesses the Lord, is nothing other than Jerusalem, in which many crimes are found. That the house of Juda is referred to Christ, whose Church it is, we have often said, and let us set this down at present: Juda, thy brethren shall praise thee: thy hand shall be upon the neck of thy enemies. It can also be understood thus, that because of the impieties of Samaria and the crimes of Juda, the Lord went forth from His former place, and said to the Jews: Behold, your house shall be left unto you desolate. And He descended from the heavens, and ascended upon the high places of the earth, that is, upon those who, believing out of the lowliness of the Gentiles, have deserved to be exalted.

And the mountains were moved, the dogmas of the philosophers, and the lofty kingdoms, and those who remained humble were consumed and crushed at the Savior's coming, and as the Church grew, and mountains rose up on high, the idols fell down into the depth.

The Lord, then, went forth from His place, and the Church was built up out of the Gentiles, that the mountains might be moved under His feet, and the depths of the valleys might be dissolved, because Jacob has acted impiously, and Israel has sinned, and all the tribes have denied the Lord. (Verses 6ff.): And I will make Samaria as a heap of stones in the field, when a vineyard is planted, and I will bring down her stones into the valley, and I will lay bare her foundations, and all her graven images shall be cut in pieces, and all her hires shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste, for they were gathered of the hire of a harlot, and they shall return to the hire of a harlot.

For this I will lament and wail, I will go stripped and naked, I will make a wailing like the dragons, and a mourning like the ostriches, for her wound is desperate, for it is come even unto Juda, it has touched the gate of my people even unto Jerusalem. The Septuagint: And I will set Samaria as a keeper of orchards in a field, and for the planting of a vineyard: and I will bring down her stones into a chasm, and I will lay bare her foundations, and all her graven images shall be cut in pieces, and all her hires shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste, for she gathered of the hires of fornication, and by the hires of fornication she has been destroyed.

Because of this she shall lament and mourn, she shall go barefoot and naked, she shall make a wailing like the dragons, and a mourning like the daughters of the Sirens, for her wound has prevailed, for it is come even unto Juda, and has touched even unto the gate of my people, even unto Jerusalem. According to the order of sins, comes the order of punishments. Samaria sinned first, and made idols, and worshipped calves instead of the Lord: let her, therefore, perish first. I will destroy her, when the Assyrians come, and I will make her like a heap of stones when a vineyard is planted, that she may be reduced to mounds: And I will bring down her stones into the valley. For she was situated on the mountains, where Sebaste now is, in which also the bones of St. John the Baptist are kept. And I will lay bare her foundations. For so great shall be the ruin, and so great the overthrow of the city: "with fire," the Greek text agreeing.

We correct lighter matters below. So that not only the walls and buildings fall; but the foundations too, down to the last stone, are laid bare. And all her graven images, and all the riches which diverse kings had brought together into her, shall be cut in pieces and burned with fire, and reduced to nothing. Since the wealth and manifold furnishings, which had been gathered (as they thought) from the fornication of idols, shall be carried away to another harlot, that is, to Nineveh: so that as they committed fornication in their own land with the idols which they made, so they may go to another land of idols and fornication, that is, to the Assyrians. Thus far concerning Samaria.

And because the same plague shall reach even to Jerusalem (for she too sinned by a similar error, forsaking her God and fashioning idols) therefore the prophet makes, as it were, a personification (προσωποποίαν) of God, and under his own person introduces the feeling of one lamenting: and says: For this I will lament and wail: I will go stripped and naked (for I have lost the ten tribes) and I will make a wailing like the dragons, and a mourning like the ostriches. For as dragons make a terrible hissing sound, according to the histories of those who have written about natural things, at the time when they are overcome by elephants: and as ostriches, forgetful of their eggs, and as though they had not laid them, leave their offspring in the sand to be trodden by the feet of beasts, of which it is written more fully in Job: so I too, stripped of children, shall go naked and bare. And this I shall do, because her wound, that is, Samaria's, is desperate.

And the same sin, or rather the same punishment of sin, which overthrew Samaria, shall come even unto Juda, and even unto the gate of my city Jerusalem. For as Samaria was overthrown by the Assyrians: so Juda and Jerusalem shall be overthrown by the Chaldeans. But since we have once understood Samaria as the church of the heretics, which, separated from God, has become an assembly of the people, the Lord Himself threatens that He will set her as a keeper of orchards, in a field and for the planting of a vineyard. For it is much better that a useless city be overthrown, and its stones, with which it had been built, be dragged down headlong, and that it be prepared as an orchard and planting of vineyards, than that it remain in the worst kind of building.

For when it has been destroyed, and its foundations have been laid bare (by which it seemed to hide its mysteries, and to have firm dogmas on which it stood, and all the idols which seemed to have beauty, and a loveliness composed by artful speech, are cut down by the ministers of God, that is, by men of the Church) then in the place of the worst building, various fruits of the Church shall spring up, and not only shall they spring up, but they shall also be guarded, and the vineyard of Sorec shall be planted, from which wine shall be made, which the Lord promised He would drink in the kingdom of the Father.

Not only, moreover, shall her foundations, which before were pressed down by earth, be opened and brought forth into the midst, and the idols which they had fashioned for themselves, be cut in pieces; but also the glory and riches which she seemed to have from fornication and her error, shall be consumed by my fire, of which I said in the Gospel: I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I, but that it be kindled?: and they shall be burned, and reduced to nothing, because they were not drawn from the truth of dogmas; but were gathered here and there from the fornication of the soul, and from error. For heretics indeed have no riches coming from a paternal inheritance, but daily find something to worship, and fashion for themselves idols by artful hand and curious mind.

Because of this, when their field shall have been turned into a keeper of orchards, and prepared for vineyards, and the stones with which the city was built have been dragged down into the depth, and their foundations laid bare, and all the graven images cut in pieces and burned, and the hires which they had promised themselves with vain hope, and whatever they seemed to worship as God, reduced to nothing, because they had gathered for themselves every price from the fornication of the soul: then, understanding their former error, having returned into themselves, they shall lament over what they before laughed at, and shall mourn over what they before, in some fashion committing fornication, rejoiced in.

And they shall lay aside from their feet whatever deadly thing they had, and shall be barefoot, because the land on which they are to stand is a holy place, and they shall cast away all the garments of their fornication; and they shall be naked, that they may be able to be clothed with the garment of Christ, and they shall make a wailing like the dragons. For dragons too are sometimes bewailed, when they see the greatest dragon caught, and hanging on the fisherman's hook, and the sea made desolate. And they shall mourn like the daughters of the Sirens, for sweet are the songs of heretics, and they deceive peoples with a pleasing voice. Nor can anyone escape their songs, except him who has stopped his ear, and become as it were deaf. Therefore this Samaria, of such a kind, shall lament and mourn, because, wounded by the arrow of the Lord, and receiving the blow of the word, she shall recognize her own error.

But not only has she herself sinned, but she has wished to introduce her iniquity and error into the gates of Juda also. Whence it is said of her: She is come even unto Juda, and has touched even unto the gates of my people, even unto Jerusalem. "Gates," he says, she touched, by which we understand ears. But she could not enter the middle of the city: for if she had entered, she would have made Jerusalem into Samaria. As often as we see any of the Church scandalized by the speeches of heretics, and seeking how to answer their questions, yet not withdrawing from the Church, let us say, Samaria has come, or the plague of Samaria, even unto the confessing people, even unto the ears of the people of God, even unto the ears of Jerusalem.

For what is said, "it touched even unto the gates of my people," is to be understood ἀπὸ κοινοῦ, so that it is understood also, "it touched even unto the gates of Jerusalem." Thus far against Samaria and against Jerusalem, let us now look at what follows. (Verses 10ff.) Declare it not in Geth, weep ye not with tears, in the house of dust sprinkle yourselves with dust: pass away, O inhabitant of Saphir, confounded with shame, she that dwells in Sennan has not gone forth. The mourning of the house of Asel shall receive from you a standing place, for she that dwells in Maroth is weakened for good: for evil is come down from the Lord into the gate of Jerusalem. The rushing of the chariot is a stupor to the inhabitant of Lachis, she is the beginning of sin to the daughter of Sion: for the wickednesses of Israel were found in thee. Therefore shall she give up messengers to the inheritance of Geth: houses of lying, to the deceiving of the kings of Israel.

Yet will I bring an heir unto thee that dwellest in Maresa: the glory of Israel shall come even unto Odollam. LXX: You who are in Geih, do not be magnified; you who are in Bachim, do not rebuild from the house of derision: sprinkle with earth your derision, you who dwell well in her cities: the inhabitant of Sennan has not gone forth. Mourn the house near her: it will receive from you a stroke of sorrow, who has taken hold for good, who dwells in sorrows? For evils have come down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem. The sound of chariots and horsemen is the dwelling of Lachis: the prince of sin is the daughter of Sion: for in you were found the iniquities of Israel. Therefore he will give up emissaries even to the inheritance of Geth: vain houses: they were in vain to the kings of Israel: until I bring heirs to you, who dwell in Lachis, the inheritance shall come even to Odollam.

The Hebrew differs greatly from the LXX translation, and both my translation and theirs are so wrapped up in difficulties, that if ever we have needed the Spirit of God (though we always need his coming in expounding the holy Scriptures), now especially we desire that he be present, and unfold what he spoke through the prophets, so that of us too that may be understood which he himself deigns elsewhere to promise: Open your mouth, and I will fill it. Geth, as the history of Kingdoms also attests, is one of the five cities of Palestine, neighboring the border of Judea, and is now still a very large village on the way from Eleutheropolis to Gaza, whence came that Goliath the Gittite, whom David slew in battle.

Since therefore the prophet, or rather the Lord through the prophet, had said: I will mourn and howl, I will go despoiled and naked: I will make a wailing like dragons, and a mourning like ostriches, because the wound of Samaria is desperate and incurable, and has come even to Judah, and has touched the gate of my people Jerusalem—therefore, still in the voice of one weeping, I command: Do not announce it in Geth, lest the enemies hear and rejoice: do not weep with tears, that is, let not even sorrow burst forth into sobs: hide your weeping, lest the adversaries congratulate themselves; let your faces have no tears, though your breast have sorrow; do not go out abroad, but in the house of dust, sprinkle yourselves with the falling ash of ruins. Pass away for yourselves, dwelling of SAPHIR (שפיר), which in the Syriac and Hebrew tongue means "beautiful." For Samaria indeed is even now shown situated in the most beautiful and most fertile spot of Judea.

It is said to her therefore: O you who dwell in the most fertile region, because you are confounded with shame, so pass over, so be led into captivity, that because of the greatness of the evils, not even the neighboring foreigner may hear your voice. Further, what follows: The inhabitant of Sennam, which is interpreted "exit," or as Symmachus translates, "the abundant dwelling," has not gone out—is said of the same Samaria, which is even now at the very doors of the Assyrian captivity, and as soon as it is moved from its borders, enters hostile land. For "abundant dwelling" is to be understood according to what we have already said above, "beautiful dwelling." She has not gone forth, then, who dwells at the exit, or in her own abundance, by her own will, but she was led by force into the Assyrians.

Whence the house neighboring and at the side, which is interpreted ASEL (אצל), namely the kingdom of Judah, shall receive mourning from you—she who now, meanwhile, with Samaria captured, has remained standing, and has had God as her defender. But she received mourning, and was struck with dread, and weakened in her own good—she who dwells in Maroth, that is, in bitternesses, or as Symmachus translates, "the dwelling that provokes to bitterness," that is: ἡ κατοικία ἡ παραπικραίνουσα; which in Hebrew is called Josebeth maroth (ישבת מרות), because of the captivity of the neighboring tribes, since evil has come down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem. For the Assyrian, having laid Samaria waste, came also to Jerusalem, at the time when Rabsaces was sent insulting, of whom the fourth Book of Kings and Isaiah write more fully. There it is said that the king of Assyria sent from Lachis to Jerusalem, and afterward, Lachis having been taken, crossed over to attack Lobna.

There will come, then, O Lachis, city given over to idols, the chariot and the horsemen of the Assyrians against you also, because in you too were found the crimes of Israel, and you were the beginning of idolatry in Judah: for through you, as through a gate, the impiety of the ten tribes migrated to Jerusalem. But not only upon Lachis shall the tumult come and the chariots, but also upon Geth, the metropolis of Palestine, of which I had said above: In Geth, do not announce it: for the Assyrian will send his marauders, whom he calls emissaries, and will possess the house of idolatry and the city of falsehood, which was a snare to the kings of Israel.

But what follows: Yet again I will bring an heir to you, who dwell in Maresa—he elegantly plays on the name: for since MARESA means "inheritance," he called the coming of the enemies into it "for heirs," and the inheritance shall come even to Odolla, the city of Judah, MARESA (מרשה), that is, "inheritance," which Odolla is glorious among the cities of Israel. Indeed Symmachus also translated it thus: Ἔτι κληρονόμον ἄξω καὶ σοι κατοικία Μαρέσα, ἕως Ὀδολλὰμ ἥξει τῆς δόξης Ἰσραὴλ, that is: Yet again I will bring an heir, and to you, dwelling of Maresa, it shall come even to Odollam of the glory of Israel, that is, which is glorious among the cities of Israel. And where it says "of glory," let it be the genitive case of the singular number, "of this glory," and not the plural nominative, "these glories." Or certainly let us understand it thus: The captivity of Israel which has come upon Lachis, and Geth, and Maresa, shall come even to Odollam also. And it should more strictly be read "the glory of Israel," so that by antiphrasis (kata ἀντίφρασιν) shame or devastation is meant.

Further, as to what above we interpreted the city of the prophet Morasthi as "inheritance," let the reader know that in the very verse which we set down: Therefore he will give emissaries over the inheritance of Geth, in the Hebrew, instead of "inheritance of Geth," Maraseth geth (מרשת גת) is set. Thus far, according to the Hebrew, as we were able, and as it seemed to us, indeed as we have heard from the Hebrews, we have steered our little boat as it were among rocks and the sharpest reefs; whether it has entered port, or still tosses on the open sea, it will be for the reader's judgment to decide. Now, by your prayers, let us proceed to other waves, and with shipwreck of exposition threatening on every side, let us, if we can, escape it.

GETH (גת) is interpreted "winepress." Those, then, who are in Geth, that is, in the winepress, thinking that they have harvested the fruit of life, and trodden the cluster from the vine of Sorec, are lifted up in pride, not knowing that the cluster of the land of Judea is not found within the borders of the Philistines. Do not be lifted up, he says, you who are in the winepresses: For your vine is of the vine of Sodom, and your shoot of Gomorrah: and your grape is one of bitterness, and your cluster of gall to you, and the fury of dragons is your wine, the incurable fury of asps. For even if you produce fruit (since your vintage is not only from Sodom and Gomorrah, but also from Egypt and the rest of the enemy nations), the Lord will give your fruit to rust, and your labors to the locust, and will destroy your vineyards with hail, and your mulberry trees with frost.

Let not the likeness of wine deceive you, nor say that the bitter is sweet: taste your wine carefully, and you will find, instead of wine of Sorec, the fury of dragons and the poison of asps. Therefore do not be proud, but rather humble yourselves under the mighty hand of the Lord, and pass over to that winepress of which he speaks in the prophet Isaiah, coming up from Edom, and ruddy from Bosra: I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the peoples there was no man with me. Again, since there are also others among the foreigners (for the province of the Philistines has many regions and cities) who by evil deeds and thoughts contrary to God say: We are destroyed, but returning let us build again what has been destroyed. Whence they are called the borders of impiety, and the people with whom the Lord is angry. It is said to them: You who are in Bachim, do not build again from the house of derision. Bachim (בכים) in our tongue signifies mourning and weeping.

Indeed, except for the Seventy, all have translated κλαυθμὸν, that is, "weeping." You, then, who are in such works and opinions, which deserve weeping, do not undertake the worst kind of building, nor consider your own thought to be the building of God, nor build upon sand, lest when the storm comes and your house falls, the fruitless labor provide laughter to those who see it. Rather, understanding that your building deserves derision, sprinkle your heads with its ruins and dust, and do penance, because you wished to build without counsel a house destined to fall. There follows: She who dwells well in her cities, the inhabitant has not gone forth in Sennam. This seems to me to have this meaning: You who are proud in Geth and in Bachim, in vain try to build a house worthy of derision: sprinkle yourselves with dust, and do penance, because you wished to press out detestable wine, and to construct a building contrary to God.

But the Church of Christ, which dwells well, and possesses churches throughout the whole world, is joined together in unity of spirit, and has the cities of the Law, the Prophets, the Gospel, and the Apostles; she has not gone forth from her borders, that is, from the holy Scriptures; but she retains the possession she began, because she dwells in Sennan, which, as we said above, Symmachus interpreted as "abundance"; for she has the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with whom are all spiritual graces and the abundance of virtues. Whence it is said to her: Let peace be within your strength, and abundance in your towers. But you who dwell near Sennan, that is, near the abundant Church—O heretics, O contrary doctrines—mourn for yourselves, because you have built for yourselves a house of derision, and pressed the winepress in pride, and not in the Scriptures, but in the vicinity of the Scriptures you have built your house, now worthy not of laughter but of mourning and tears.

Hence it is added: Mourn the house that is near her, that is, near Sennan. But this too that is added, it shall receive from you a stroke of sorrow, is said to these same heretics, who are commanded to mourn the house neighboring the Church, because the enemy and avenger the devil, to whom they are to be handed over for punishment, himself inflicts blows on them, and wrings out the sorrow of blows for their most wicked building. These are inflicted for this purpose, that, perceiving the sins they had committed, they may do penance, and the dwelling of sorrows may become for them an occasion of good things. Or the sorrow is indicated of the Church, that she once mourned her sons, and she herself is the cause of the salvation of the heretics, if they should wish to return to their mourning mother.

Further, what is added: Because evils have come down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem—both the Marcionites and the Manichaeans make use of this writing, on the ground that the God of the Law is the author of evils. Let us say that evils came down from the Lord in the same way that the Savior also speaks in the Gospel: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven. For just as there fell from heaven the day-star who used to rise in the morning, and he who sent to the nations was crushed upon the earth, and was struck to the ground; so also these evils, which fell from the Lord and came to the gates of Jerusalem, before they fell were not evils; but because they fell from the Lord, therefore they became evils.

And so that we may know the ambushes of evils: they came, he says, to the gates of Jerusalem, which, because they are firm and adamantine, are closed by the apostles, to whom the keys of Jerusalem have been entrusted: before them the enemies lurk, and whomever they see going out, they kill. If, then, anyone belongs to Jerusalem, who dwells well in her cities, he does not go out, since he dwells in abundance; but always remains within, nor does he go out through her gates, which whoever goes out through is killed: and he is killed by those who lift themselves up in Geth, and dwell in Bachim, and build a house of derision. Finally, the evils that came down from the Lord to the gates of Jerusalem have only the noise of chariots and the tumult of horses, and a confused sound before the gates of Jerusalem, so that with the spear of their mouth they kill whomever they see wandering about.

After this it is written: You who dwell in Lachis: the prince of sin is the daughter of Sion. Lachis is interpreted πορεία ἐστὶν, that is, "a walking" or "going." Those, then, who ascended on their chariots, and had horsemen, and only noise and empty sound—to whom she who dwells well in her cities spoke: These in chariots and these in horses: but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God; because they moved their feet, and were carried about with every wind of false doctrine, and wished to go out from the Church, which is interpreted "watchtower," that is, Sion—the princes of sin were the daughters of Sion. And in her, that is, in the Latin peoples, were found the impieties of Israel, which separated the people of God from their former kingdom.

The prince of sin, then, is the daughter of Sion, who dwells in Lachis, that is, in the worst going, with ever-shifting step, and the impiety of Israel is in those who always move their feet, and are said to dwell in Lachis. Emissaries also shall be given even to the inheritance of Geth: the worst Geth, the winepress of poisons, which is built against the house of God, where there are vain houses, built for derision. And these vain houses were made in vain among the kings of Israel. As far as the history is concerned, twice for the kings whose sins are written in the books of Kings and Chronicles: but as far as the anagogical sense is concerned, for the princes of the heretics, and the leaders of perverse doctrines; for these have vain houses, built in vain. And they persevere so long, until the heirs who are to be brought to the Lord take possession of them. After this follows: You who dwell in Lachis, the inheritance shall come even to Odollam.

Odolla is interpreted "testimony of the drawing," or "of their drinking," which in Greek is more expressively μαρτυρία ἀντλήσεως αὐτῶν. We read in Proverbs: If you are wicked, you alone will drink evils. She, then, who dwells in Lachis, that is, in the worst way, shall come to the testimony of her own draining, which she shall drain and drink up according to the measure of her own works. Or certainly it should be punctuated thus, so that what is said, "you who dwell in Lachis," refers to what precedes, and the order and sense be: I will bring heirs to you from the Church, you who dwell in Lachis, because you too shall belong to the inheritance of the Lord, when you have drained and received what you deserve.

I beg the reader, at the end of the chapter, not to think necessity to be will, and not to reckon a lengthy exposition as verbosity, but rather to marvel that in places so rough I have found anything at all, more than that I have not omitted anything of what needed to be said. (Verse 16.) Make yourself bald, and shave your head for the sons of your delights, enlarge your baldness like the eagle, for they have been led captive from you. LXX: Glory of the daughter of Israel, make yourself bald and shave your head for your delicate sons: enlarge your baldness like the eagle, for they have been led captive from you. This which is said by the Seventy, "glory of the daughter of Israel," adding "of the daughter," the Hebrews read at the end of the preceding chapter. But since you have wished it so, and we have once undertaken it, necessity is laid upon us to interpret the Scriptures as they are read in the Church, and nonetheless not to omit the Hebrew truth.

It is said, then, to Israel, meanwhile according to the letter, whether we take the ten tribes in Samaria, or all Israel in common; because the people has been led captive, and all Judea has been laid waste by the Assyrians and Babylonians, let them take up mourning and weep for their sons. And just as the eagle, which is the queen of birds, at a certain time loses its feathers, and remains unfledged: so also let Israel put off all her glory, with which she had before been surrounded, and mourn her sons, made subject to the power of enemies. That the eagle is accustomed at a certain time to lose its feathers is also written in the Psalter: Your youth shall be renewed like the eagle's. And the Comic poet in the Heautontimorumenos says: It seemed truly, as is commonly said, the old age of the eagle (Terence, sc. 2).

But if we wish to take this also of the present time of the Jewish overthrow, we shall see that all the grace which once flourished with God has utterly departed from them. For where is the prophet? Where the teacher of the Law? Where the garrisons of Angels? Where the unexpected victory of the few over the many? Jerusalem has been made bald, who has lost all the hair of her former glory, and her sons, who cried out against the Lord, "Crucify, crucify him", have been led into captivity. I have read in a certain man's Commentaries that this which is said, "make yourself bald and shave your head for the sons of your delights," can be understood of the human condition: so that the word of God is directed to Adam, or to the heavenly Jerusalem. O human soul!

O city, once the mother of saints, who were formerly in paradise, and enjoyed the delights of various trees, and had the most beautiful hair: now, because you have been cast down from the heights and led into Babylon, and have come to the place of captivity, and have lost your hair, shave it off and take up the garb of a penitent, and you who before flew like an eagle in the heights, mourn for your sons, mourn for your offspring, who has been led captive from you.

(Verses 1 seq.) Woe to you who devise the useless, and work evil in your beds: in the morning light they do it, because their hand is against God, and they have coveted fields, and violently taken them, and seized houses, and slandered a man, and his house, a man and his inheritance. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold, I devise evil against this family, from which you shall not remove your necks, and you shall not walk proudly: for the time is most evil.

In that day a parable shall be taken up over you, and a song shall be sung with sweetness by those saying: We are wasted with utter depopulation: the portion of my people is changed. How shall he depart from me, when he returns who divides our regions? Because of this there shall be none to cast the line of the lot for thee in the assembly of the Lord. The Septuagint: They became those who devise toils and work evils in their beds, and together in the day they finished them: because they did not lift up their hands to God, and they coveted fields, and plundered orphans, and oppressed houses, and seized a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold, I devise evils against this tribe, from which you shall not remove your necks, so that you may not walk upright suddenly: because the time is most evil.

In that day a parable shall be taken up over you, and a lamentation shall be lamented in a song of those saying: Wretched, we are made wretched, the portion of my people is measured out by a line, and there was none to prevent it, that it might be turned away. Our fields are divided: because of this there shall be none to cast the line for thee in the inheritance. What we have placed at the end of the chapter according to the Hebrew, "in the assembly of the Lord," for which the Septuagint translated "in the Church of the Lord," according to the Vulgate edition is the beginning of the following chapter. And therefore, if the Lord command, we shall discuss it there. Woe therefore to you, assembly of the Jews, who both devise evil and accomplish it in deed.

And you pollute with debaucheries the beds given for rest: and whatever iniquity you plot by night, as though it were not permitted to delay, you hasten to fulfill as soon as day has dawned: not considering that your hand is strong against the Lord. And that Scripture might teach what it was that they devised by night and did by day, it explains it in parts. They coveted, it says, fields, and took them by violence: and houses, it is understood, they coveted, and what they had coveted, they plundered: and they slandered not only men and their houses, but also their posterity who deserved mercy on account of their tender age, and laid them waste with raging mouth.

Because therefore you have done these things, and devised the useless, I too, the Lord, will devise evil against this family: not that what I devise is evil; but that what I inflict seems evil to those who suffer it: which shall so press upon you, that you shall not be able to lift up your necks, nor walk proudly, that is, those whom the time of captivity had oppressed.

Then a parable shall be spoken over you, and your miseries shall be turned into a song: We are wasted with utter depopulation, the portion of my people: My Temple, it says, which alone among all other nations I held in greater esteem, shall be changed into ruin. How shall the Assyrian depart from me, when he returns to distribute my fields to himself by lot? Therefore, O family of Israel, over whom I devise evil, thou shalt not have a portion in the inheritance of the just. But this same thing can also be understood of the last captivity, because all these things happened to them because they crucified the Lord: yet in such a way that the edition of the Seventy interpreters be explained. For the glory of the daughter of Israel has been shorn bald and clipped over her once most delicate sons, and if any hair grew back afterward, it was cut off again by another shaving and clipping.

Then all their counsels were turned into toil, and what they devised, while mind and soul slept, brought toils upon them: and what they wrought, as soon as the light of Christ and vengeance appeared, was thrown into confusion. For when they had read that Israel had conquered when Moses lifted up his hands to the Lord, and had been overcome by Amalek when Moses let down his weary arms, they did not lift up their hands to the Lord, but, committing all crimes against the poor and the people of the Lord, coveted fields, and plundered the houses of orphans, and laid waste alike the man and his wife and his children and his substance. Therefore the Lord devised evils against that tribe: not the twelve tribes at all, but the tribe defiled with malice and crime, of whom they could not lift up the neck, nor walk uprightly. Indeed, to the present day they are subject to the Roman empire, and are pressed under the yoke of captivity, and do not lift up their necks.

But what follows, ἐξαίφνης, that is, "suddenly," is not found in the Hebrew volumes, and yet it can fit the present passage in such a way that we may say: Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold, I devise evils suddenly against this tribe, from which they cannot lift up their necks, and for this reason they will not be able to lift them up, because the time is evil. For just as they wrought evils against the Lord Jesus, so they shall endure the evils of perpetual captivity, and shall come into such distress that all their songs and psalms shall be turned into mourning. And the people shall know how to say nothing else but this: wretched, we are made wretched.

For the land of promise, which had first been divided by lot to the two and a half tribes beyond the Jordan, Moses casting the line, and afterward divided among the remaining tribes by Joshua the son of Nun, has now been divided among the nations by the Roman surveyor: and there was none to prevent it; rather, since it now holds all the nations, there is none among the Jews who possesses the ancient soil in its former liberty. But if we choose to follow the third exposition, that the whole discourse, as I said above, is directed to the human soul, which, falling from paradise, came into the captivity of this world: we shall see that all our thought is toil and grief, and our beds are full of evils, and the very light that is seen is mixed with darkness: and whatever we plot by night, we accomplish in gloom. For which of us lifts up holy hands to God without anger and evil thought?

Who does not covet the estates of this age, forgetful of the possessions of paradise? You may see some joining field to field, and boundary to boundary, and the lands of cities not sufficing for man's small body. Therefore the Lord devises evils against us, from which we cannot lift up our necks, nor walk upright, because the time is most evil, according to the words of John, saying: The whole world lies in wickedness. The same thing is signified also by that daughter of Abraham in the Gospel, a noble soul, whom Satan had bound and bent double, and who could not be raised upright before the coming of the Lord, nor look up to her Creator.

Whence the Savior says: "Ought not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, to be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" Since therefore all our glory has been shorn, and we have prolonged the shaving, or our nakedness (for so it is found in certain copies), there have been sent those who might lament us with Jeremiah, and take up a parable over us, and say with the Apostle: "I shall mourn for many who have sinned and have not repented". For who would not mourn to see human souls possessed by demons and various vices like a motley collection of furniture? One demon casts the line of fornication, another of avarice: this one stretches out the lines of murder, that one of perjury: the portion of God's people is divided by the line: and the fields once of holiness and paradise, whose fragrance delighted Isaac in his son Jacob, have been handed over to the Assyrians, and to the king of Babylon.

And though the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head. I have explained according to what the narrowness of my poor talent could bear, both the first captivity of the people by the Assyrians and Babylonians, and the second by the Romans, because they crucified the Lord, and the third, the spiritual one, by which each one of us fell with Adam from paradise, and dwells in the captivity of this world, from which, when the Lord shall come, he will raise up the fallen, and loose those bound in chains: and those once captives of the devil he will bring back into his own possession, and the word of the Psalmist shall be fulfilled, saying: "Ascending on high, he led captivity captive". According to which exposition, a fourth captivity can also be understood of the Church, from which each one goes forth through sin, and afterward is led back into Jerusalem by Ezra, who is interpreted "helper," that is, by the word of God.

But if anyone, meditating in the Law of the Lord day and night, has had greater zeal, greater talent, leisure, and grace, and can say something more probable about the present chapter, I do not envy him, I do not despise him; rather I long to learn from him what I do not know, and I will gladly profess myself his disciple, provided only he teach, and not detract. For nothing is so easy as for one who is idle and asleep to dispute about the labor and vigils of others. (Verses 6-8.) Speak not, ye that speak: it shall not drop upon these, confusion shall not overtake them, saith the house of Jacob. Is the spirit of the Lord straitened, or are such his thoughts? Are not my words good to him that walketh uprightly? But my people on the contrary have risen up as an adversary: ye have taken away the cloak from off the coat, and them that passed by simply ye have turned to war.

The Septuagint: In the church of the Lord weep not with tears, neither let them weep over these things? For he will not cast off reproaches, saying: The house of Jacob hath provoked the spirit of the Lord, if these be his devices: are not his words good with him, and have they not walked rightly? And formerly my people rose up with enmities against their own peace: they have flayed off his skin, that they might take away the hope of the contrition of war. Speak not, he says, ye that speak; for which Aquila translated: drip not, ye that drip, according to a certain Hebrew idiom, calling speech, from that which flows and reaches the ears of the hearers, in the likeness of falling rain, a dripping. Do not deceive yourselves, O house of Jacob, and say to one another for consolation, God is good: the captivity we fear will not come. Shall the most merciful spirit, who has arisen widely and abundantly for all, be straitened only in us and become severe?

Or are his thoughts such as we see in men, that he keeps an old anger, and is stirred up to sudden vengeance by fury? To which the Lord answers: I am indeed good, and my words sound of mercy: but to those who walk in the right way. But he who—I do not say formerly, but even yesterday—has worshipped idols to my contumely, and, as far as was in him, has seized tyrannical arms against me, who has despoiled the unhappy people of the help of God, and, as it were, taken the cloak off from over the coat, who has turned into war against me the simple ones among the believers and those who yielded to the authority of their elders—shall not the Lord drop down upon him, and shall not confusion seize him?

But that which we translate: And on the contrary my people have risen up as an adversary; because the word MUL (מול) signifies both “contrary” and “yesterday,” Symmachus translated more openly, saying: one day ago my people, as an enemy, rose up—so as to resolve the question, that God does not impute to the people their past sins, but recent ones, which seem to have been committed as it were yesterday. This according to the Hebrew understanding; but the Seventy interpreters in this passage do not at all cohere among themselves. For to that which is set before, “In the church of the Lord weep not,” what consequence is it, that it should be added, “For he will not cast off the reproaches which he speaks, the house of Jacob has provoked the spirit of the Lord”?

And also that which follows: “If these be his devices: are not his words good with him, and have they walked rightly?”—to what do these pertain in relation to what follows, which is said: “And formerly my people rose up against as an adversary, against their own peace, they have flayed off his skin, that they might take away the contrition of war”? It seems to me, however, that in this most difficult passage, the sense can be rendered or expressed thus, if only the prudent reader will assent to our reasoning. The Church, then, is instructed not to have sadness and anxiety over the affairs of the world, and over the losses which are wont to occur in this world, and it is said to its inhabitants, O you who are in the church of the Lord, always rejoice, and whatever befalls you of judgments, be glad.

Nor do I say this, that you ought not to weep: for “Blessed are they that weep, for they shall laugh”; but I admonish this, that you should not mourn over the things of this world. If any of your kinsfolk should die, if the treasury should seize your substance, if gout or any other disease should oppress the body, weep not, shed no tears, and consider not present things but future ones, and be grieved rather that you dwell longer in this tabernacle of death. Rather beware of this, that you do not mock those who fall, and think another's ruin to be your own edification: let each measure himself by his own strength, not by another's weakness. Otherwise what justice is it, for the branches of the wild olive to mock the branches of the olive, which were broken off on account of their unbelief, and to say, the house of Jacob has provoked to wrath the spirit of the Lord, killing the prophets, worshipping idols, crucifying the Son of God?

He who does this will not be a stranger to reproach, and by the measure by which he judged, he shall be judged; and just as he speaks of the sins of the one falling, so another will mock at his ruin. There follows: If these be his devices: are not his words good with him, and have they walked rightly? What the Jewish people has stumbled at, he says, so that the fullness of the Gentiles might enter in, belongs to the dispensation of God, that afterward, Israel believing, all might be saved, and all might stand in need of the mercy of God. Whence also the Apostle, coming to the question of this passage, proclaims the depth of the wisdom and knowledge and judgments of God to be an unsearchable abyss.

If, then, it is the devices and thoughts of God, that the former branches of the olive be broken, and others of the wild olive be grafted in, you ought not to mock, but to fear lest you fall, nor should you suppose that you please God in this, if you read his words, that is, his Scriptures. For then the Scriptures profit the reader, if what is read is fulfilled in deed. If, speaking of the Scriptures, you can say: Do you seek proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? For indeed the Lord will give a word to those that preach the gospel with much power: and get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Zion, lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem. And in this way the words of God are good, if they are with him, that is, if God does not desert the preacher whose heart and lips agree.

But he who confesses with the lips, and his heart is far from God, and declares his righteousness, and takes his covenant into his mouth, and is defiled with the filth of sins—with such a one the words of God are not good. Nor is this to be said only of the sinner, but also of him who does not have spiritual grace, that is, of prophecy and doctrine and interpretation and the greater gifts, that such a man, if he wishes to give reason for the causes of the elements and of his own faith, and why God, who is good and Creator of all, came only to the Jews, and only in the last age called the nations, does not have with him the good words of God; but out of his own inexperience even contaminates those words of God which are good, which words walk rightly and require right ears.

And these things the Lord commands to the successor people, and to the Church gathered from the nations, that it should not mock the former generation, nor be a stranger to reproaches by mocking. But he himself, who is the true judge and speaks without disturbance, relates how in his passion Israel was contrary to him, and did this not because it could harm its Creator, but because it perpetrated everything against its own peace. Whence also the word is to Jerusalem: If thou hadst known the things that are for thy peace. But peace being lost, they flayed off their own skin, that is, they took away from themselves the help of God by which they were protected, and left, as it were, bare flesh without skin and covering, so that whatever seemed beautiful, while the mercy of God covered it from above, this, when it withdrew, presented shame to those who saw.

But peace and the help of God withdrawing, because they had resisted the Lord, of whom it is said: The Lord that breaketh battles, the Lord is his name (Judith xvi, 5), they could not resist their adversaries, but were conquered in every contest, nor was there anyone to break the wars arising against them, according to either character of the enemies, whether of the men who led them captive, or of the strength of the adversaries, who daily slew their souls by blasphemy. (Verses 9, 10.) The women of my people you have cast out from the house of their delights; from their little ones you have taken away my praise for ever. Rise up and go, for you have no rest here; on account of its uncleanness it shall be corrupted with a most grievous rottenness.

The interpretation of the Seventy (if indeed it is the Seventy; for Josephus writes, and the Hebrews relate, that only the five books of the law of Moses were translated by them, and delivered to King Ptolemy) differs so much in the present passage from the Hebrew truth, that we cannot set the headings side by side equally, nor explain their meanings together. Therefore let our own translation first be discussed, and afterward we shall come to them. The word is still against the people of God, to whom he had already said above: But my people on the contrary have risen up as an adversary: you have taken away the cloak from off the coat—that they did this not only, but also made the women, that is, once-delicate matrons, go into captivity; or under a metaphor, the cities of Judea, which he also calls in Isaiah the daughters of Zion, because Zion was the metropolis.

From their little ones also, he says, you have taken away my praise for ever—none remained in the people, all being either slain or captured, who might sing my psalms; but even the few who remained in Babylon testify that they cannot sing. How, they say, shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land? Rise up therefore and go into captivity, for in this land you have no rest, which is polluted on account of your crimes, and cannot be cleansed unless a long sabbath be celebrated beforehand. Therefore I say to you, you have no rest here, because your land is polluted, and it shall be corrupted with a most grievous rottenness—that is, by captivity, whether Babylonian or Roman, because it drank the blood of the Lord: for it can be understood according to either truth of history.

LXX: The leaders of my people shall be cast out from the houses of their delights: because of their evil devices they are cast out. This can be taken generally of the princes of the Jewish people, the priests and Pharisees, who after the passion of the Lord were cast out from the city of their delights, in which they had formerly lived wantonly because of their evil devices; and specially of the stock of David, because as soon as the Lord was born, the prince from Judah failed, and the leader from his loins, he having come for whom it was reserved, and the expectation of the nations appearing. But also the prophetic word describes that the princes of the Church, too, who abound in delights, and think themselves to preserve chastity amid feasts and wantonness, are to be cast out of their spacious houses, and sumptuous banquets, and feasts procured with much labor, and to be cast out because of their evil thoughts and works.

And if you wish to know whither they are to be cast, read the Gospel: namely, into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Is it not confusion and disgrace, to preach with strong bodies Jesus crucified, a poor and hungry master, and the doctrine of fasting, while presenting reddened cheeks and swollen mouths? If we are in the place of the Apostles, let us not only imitate their word, but also embrace their manner of life and abstinence. Holy indeed is the ministry of the Apostles too, to minister to widows and to the poor. It is not fitting, they say, having left the word of God, that we should serve tables. But now, I do not say the poor, I do not say the brethren, and those who in turn cannot invite in return (from whom, save for grace, the episcopal hand hopes for nothing else), but soldiers and men girded with the sword, and judges, with centurions and troops of soldiers keeping watch before their doors, the priest of Christ invites to dinner.

The clergy run about the whole city: they seek to provide for the judges what those men either cannot find in their own praetoria, or certainly, if found, do not buy. Nor indeed is it to be thought that this invective is generally directed at all; but that the prophetic word strikes those who are such, and threatens them with punishments and eternal darkness: that they who are not restrained by shame and modesty may at least do penance by the threat of punishments.

LXX: Draw near to the everlasting mountains. By the everlasting mountains we can understand either the Angels, or the prophets, of whom also it is written in the psalm: His foundations are in the holy mountains. And in another place: I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me. Now he draws near to the everlasting mountains who is not separated by his sins from the fellowship of the blessed: as Moses drew near to God, not in place, but in merit. And to those who drew near to the everlasting mountains the Lord himself spoke: I am a God at hand: and not a God afar off. But the mountains are called “everlasting” in distinction from those which are not everlasting—namely, the beginning of this age of the mountains of darkness: which, though they be lifted up like the cedar of Lebanon, passing away with the world, their place will not be found.

LXX: Arise and walk, for there is no rest for you here. We are commanded to think that there is no rest for us in any of the things of the world; but as though rising from the dead, to strain toward the sublime, and to walk after the Lord our God, and to say: My soul has clung after thee. But if we neglect this, and refuse to listen to him who says: Arise, you who sleep, and rise up, and Christ will enlighten you, we shall indeed doze, but we shall be deceived, and we shall not find rest, because where Christ does not enlighten the one who rises, what seems to be rest is tribulation.

LXX: On account of uncleanness you have been consumed by corruption. In place of what we have said, "you have been consumed," according to the Greek understanding it can sound in the Latin tongue, "you have been corrupted": so that the order is, on account of uncleanness you have been corrupted by corruption. Now this is said of those who, being slaves to the pleasure of the body and to lust, corrupt not only their soul but also their body, being lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God. He could also have said, "on account of uncleanness you have been corrupted," and the sense would have been completed even without the word "corruption." But now, since he says, "you have been corrupted by corruption," it seems to me that he has spoken this for the sake of distinguishing it from a wholesome corruption: according to which the Apostle also speaks: Even though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

He who always bears about in his body the mortification of Jesus, and corrupts the outward man, and subjects the flesh to the rule of the soul—this man is indeed corrupted, but not by corruption, because his corruption is wholesome.

You have fled, with none pursuing. This is said of those who have been corrupted by corruption on account of uncleanness, because the consciousness of their sins does not allow them to dare, even without punishments, to resist their enemies and to fight.

Whence also the fearful in the battle of the saints, lest they terrify the minds of their brothers, are cast out of the camp, and driven back from the battle line, and in the curses of Leviticus the word is directed to men of this kind: The sound of a flying leaf shall pursue you, and you shall flee, with none pursuing. I know that I have read in the commentaries of a certain man expounding the beginning of John the evangelist: All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made, that he referred what is called "nothing" to malice: and again he interpreted that very malice as the devil, and by that sort of step, understood that what was made without Christ—"nothing"—was the devil. If therefore malice, or the devil, is "nothing," and those who have been corrupted by corruption have fled, with "none," that is, "nothing," pursuing, then the devil pursued them in nothingness.

But if this seems to anyone too forced, and discussed by artifice of speech rather than by true interpretation, contrary to the simplicity of Scripture, let him follow either the earlier explanation, or one which he himself may discover. (Verses 11, 12.) Would that I were not a man having a spirit, and rather spoke a lie. I will drop upon you into wine and into drunkenness, and it shall be upon whom it is dropped, this people. Gathering I will gather Jacob, all of you together: I will lead together the remnants of Israel likewise And in this chapter the Seventy interpreters differ much from the Hebrew. Whence let us first expound according to what has been handed down to us from the Hebrews, and afterward, if the Lord wills, we shall treat of their translation.

O Jewish people, to whom belong the promises, whose are the covenants and the law, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh—to whom, when the Babylonians or the Romans were threatening, I said: Arise and go into captivity, for there is no rest for you in this land, which on account of its own uncleanness shall be corrupted by the most recent devastation—do not think that I speak willingly, and proclaim rejoicing, what I foresee is coming: I myself would wish to be accursed for my brethren, who are Israelites. Would that I spoke from my own opinion, and did not have the Holy Spirit; and, being rather numbered among the false prophets, that I alone might perish, and that what I say might not be true: and that so great a multitude might believe in the Son of God, and not be handed over to eternal captivity.

But because I am a prophet, and speak by the Spirit of God, and being sent by the Godhead, I proclaim the truth: therefore I will drop my word upon you into unmixed wine which will make you drunk, and cause you to fall. And while I am dropping it, and singing of the evil of the coming captivity, this people will receive my rains, that is, whether it wills or not, it must endure the things I say. And lest you think that I am only a seer of evils—now indeed the foretold captivity will come; but behold, in me speaks the word which comes to all the prophets. When the prophet is silent, he does not speak, and now he says: I will come, and I will assume a human body, I shall be born of a Virgin.

Or thus: Because I came in the lowliness of the flesh, and you did not believe me, I will come at the consummation of the world in my majesty with the angels and the other powers, and then I will gather you wholly together, Jacob: then I will lead together in one the remnants of Israel, and together with the people of the gentiles I will join them likewise in my sheepfold: then I will hedge you about with a most firm wall, and there shall be so great a multitude of believers, and such a tumult of the flock placed within the folds, that the number will be overcome by the abundance of the sheep. And lest perhaps you think, because I said: I will place him as a flock in the fold, and as a sheep in the midst of it, as a flock in the fold, as a sheep in the midst of the folds: they shall make a tumult from the multitude of men.

For the one ascending opens the way before them, they shall divide, and pass through the gate, and shall go out through it, and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord at their head. And in this of folds, understand that I speak of sheep in the sense that these sheep are men. For it follows: They shall make a tumult from the multitude of men. Tumult is the voice of many, and the shout of an exceedingly great multitude sent forth together: let us not think it is the voice of one, but the common voice of all, praising the good shepherd, who has leveled every rugged place, and made it even with his own foot, who is himself the leader of their journey, the gate of paradise, and says: I am the door: as he opens and goes before on the way, and from the gate of the way, the believing flock shall pass through him. But this shepherd is king and Lord.

Whence it follows: And their king shall pass before them, and the Lord at their head. But if we wish to take all these things concerning his first coming, and to refer all Jacob and the remnants of Israel to the Apostles, and to that multitude which was saved in the Acts of the Apostles from among the Jews, the exposition of the interpreter will not depart from the truth. For these the Lord truly gathered into his fold, and placed in the midst of the folds, and made a way before them, and led them into the Church, and was their king before them, and is the Lord at their head forever.

LXX: The spirit established a lie. It dropped upon you into wine and drunkenness, and it shall be from the drop of this people, Jacob shall be gathered together, gathered together. It should not be read, as most reckon, "the spirit stood, being a liar"; but "the spirit established the lie," which in Greek is said πνεῦμα ἔστησε ψευδὲς, that is, τὸ ψεῦδος. For just as in putrid wounds, lest the cancer spread and the dead flesh consume the living flesh, physicians set a limit to the wound and burn it with a cautery, or with καυστικῷ powder: so the spirit of God set an end to the lie, lest the people of God be further overturned by the voices of false prophets. Now that the spirit, both in the New and in the Old Testament, wherever it is placed without addition, is to be understood in a good sense, we have often said, and now we shall set forth in part, lest anyone doubt it. Now the fruit of the spirit is charity, joy, peace.

And: If we live by the spirit, let us also walk by the spirit. And elsewhere: But if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. And in the Old Testament: Giving breath to the people who are upon it, and spirit to those who tread it: there is no doubt from what precedes that it signifies the earth. For those who tread down earthly works, and subject them beneath their feet, surely deserve to receive not an evil, but a good spirit. On the contrary, the evil spirit is always read with an addition, as here: But when the unclean spirit has gone out from a man. And in another place: He rebuked the unclean spirit. And: An evil spirit invaded Saul, and other things similar to these. Therefore the Spirit of God, who put an end to the lie in the false prophets, he himself will drop upon you into wine and drunkenness.

Wine which gladdens the heart of man; and drunkenness with which Noah was made drunk, and of which it is said: Eat, my friends, and be drunk. But all this gladness and drunkenness, in comparison to the wisdom of God, which like a river waters the heavenly Jerusalem, is a drop, and a very small droplet. Nor will they doubt to call it a drop of the wisdom of God in men, who have read of the stone cut from the mountain without hands, and that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and that even the Apostles themselves knew in part, and prophesied in part. Of this wisdom, then, that is, of the drop of the Jewish people (for he came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel), Jacob is gathered together: everyone who supplants Esau, and snatches away his birthright and blessing, and even before he is born, while yet placed in the womb, seizes the heel of his hairy brother.

LXX: Gathering, I will gather in all the remnants of Israel. When, he says, the people of the nations shall have believed, and the whole world shall have been brought to my faith, and the fullness of the nations shall have entered in, then also the remnants of Israel shall be saved—not those remnants of which it is written in the book of Kings: I have left me seven thousand men who have not bent the knee to Baal. And of whom Paul says: So then at this time also a remnant according to the election of grace has been saved; of whom this prophet testifies above: And there shall be, of the dew of this people, Jacob shall be gathered, being gathered together. But those remnants which, after all have been received, shall be received by God at the end. And of these it is now said: Gathering, I will gather in all the remnants of Israel, that, according to what is written: God has enclosed all under sin, that he may have mercy on all.

LXX: I will set their turning away as sheep in tribulation. The remnants of Israel, whom after I shall have received all, I am about to receive: now meanwhile, because they have turned away from me, I will set them in tribulation, and I will straiten them, and I will make them sit without priest, without altar, and without prophet: so that they may understand through punishments him whom they did not perceive through benefits. LXX: As a flock in the midst of their fold: it is to be understood, I will set. Not only, he says, will their turning away, by which they have turned away from me, be set as a flock in tribulation; but after they shall have been afflicted, and shall have completed the time of anguish, they shall be set in rest, that is, in their own fold. And then they shall migrate away from men and transcend the condition of the human state, and shall fulfill what follows: They shall leap forth from among men.

Not only, however, shall those leap forth and depart; but all to whom the word of God comes, and who, leaving behind human vices, imitate the conversation of divinity, and hear: I have said, you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High, shall leap forth from among men, and shall be, as it were, borne up to heaven. LXX: Go up through the breach. The present passage has, as it were, its own beginning and apostrophe of prophetic speech, addressed to him who desires to be saved, to whom it is commanded that he go up through the breach. This will indeed become clearer if we take an example from Genesis, where twins are born of Thamar, with whom the patriarch Judah had lain: It came to pass, he says, when she was giving birth, that she had twins in her womb: in the very birth one put forth his hand, and the midwife took it and bound scarlet thread on his hand, saying: This one shall come forth first.

But when he had drawn back his hand, immediately his brother came forth, and she said: Why is the fence divided because of you? And she called his name Phares, which is interpreted division. And after this his brother came forth, on whose hand was the scarlet thread, and she called his name Zara, which in our tongue is called seed, or rising. The elder people, therefore, in whom was the origin and the seed before the Church should be born of the Gentiles, showed forth its hand in works, and afterward drew it back on hearing through Isaiah: For your hands are full of blood. And when he had drawn back his hand, and ceased from the works of justice, his brother came forth, the people of the Gentiles. And on his account the hedge was divided, and the Lord and Savior destroyed, so that he might advance, the wall that was in the middle, and the fence separating the two peoples: and he made one flock, and created the two in himself into one new man, making peace.

Whence also the midwife, speaking prophetically, says to Phares, the younger people: Why is the fence divided because of you? If you have understood the example from Genesis, go up, you who desire to be saved, not through the old people who has a withered hand, but through the new, in whom Christ is the way, in whom Jesus is the gate, through whom we advance to the Father; for he himself has broken down the middle wall and the fence, that is, the obscurity of the ancient prophets, and has opened all the mysteries of the old Law, and, the difficulty of advancing having been dissolved, has revealed the way to the eyes of all: so that whoever wishes to proceed may be entangled by no obstacle, nor be terrified by the darkness of obscurity. LXX: Before their face they divided and passed through the gate, and went out through it. Their king went out before their face: and the Lord is their prince.

Therefore I said to you: Go up through the breach, you who have risen with Christ and seek the things that are above: because the Angels, or the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, divided that which seemed to obstruct, and made a way for those wishing to enter, and because, the way having been opened, they seized the path, they not only entered the gate, but also passed through it. They entered, moreover, because their king also entered the same gate, and opened the way for them, that they might proceed without any difficulty. For the Lord himself, both king and shepherd, is both the way and the gate, and he says: I am the gate: whoever shall have entered through me shall be saved: he shall go in and go out, and shall find pastures. Of this gate it is also prophesied elsewhere: This is the gate of the Lord, the just shall enter through it.

Whoever, however, shall have entered ought not to remain in the state in which he entered, but should go out to pastures, so that in entering there be a beginning, and in going out and in finding pastures, the perfection of virtues. He who enters is still in the world, and understands the Creator from creatures. But he who goes out transcends all creation, and, all things that can be seen being counted as nothing, he will find pastures above the heavens, and will feed on the word of God, and will say: The Lord feeds me, and nothing shall be lacking to me. This is so that we might understand the Gospel testimony: He shall go in and go out, and shall find pastures; and what is now said by the Prophet: And they passed through the gate, and went out through it: which passing through and going out, however, cannot be attributed apart from Christ our king, who is king and Lord. For immediately it is joined: And the Lord shall be the prince.

(Verses 1 ff.) And I said: Hear, O princes of Jacob, and leaders of the house of Israel. Is it not for you to know judgment, you who hate good and love evil, who violently tear their skins from off them, and their flesh from off their bones, who have eaten the flesh of my people, and have flayed their skin off them, and have broken their bones, and cut them up as into a cauldron, and as flesh in the midst of a pot. Then they shall cry out to the Lord, and he will not hear them, and he will hide his face from them at that time, as they have dealt wickedly in their devisings.

The word is manifestly against the princes of Israel, and under the metaphor of lions or robbers their cruelty is described: that they despoiled the poor and killed them, and crushed their flesh and bones, and, as in the midst of a pot, so in the city of Jerusalem they afflicted the wretched populace; and on account of these things punishment is afterward inflicted on them in the day of captivity, whether by Nebuchadnezzar or by Vespasian and Titus. And let them cry out to the Lord, and let him not hear them, and let him hide his face from them, because they have dealt wickedly in their crimes. LXX: And he will say: Hear these things, princes of the house of Jacob, and the rest of the house of Israel. The sense hangs together with what precedes. For above he had said: And the Lord shall be the prince, and he will say: Hear, princes of the house of Jacob, and the rest of the house of Israel.

Instead of "the rest of the house of Israel," all others besides the Seventy have rendered "leaders of the house of Israel." The Lord, therefore, who made the way for his people, and went out before their face, is himself the prince of the journey of the simpler people, whom he calls a flock: against those who do not wish to follow him as guide, but are proud, and, as judges of the people, do not follow his footsteps, he threatens and says: Hear, princes of the house of Jacob, and leaders of the house of Israel. What is it, then, that compels them to hear? It is not yours, he says, to know judgment, you who hate good, and seek evils: that is, you do not deserve to know the judgment of God, which is a great abyss: and the depth of his justice a depraved mind does not find. Or how can you know the judgment of God, you who hate good and seek evil, who abhor the holy poor, and honor the wicked rich?

Let us also consider together the significance of the words: not to love good things is sin: how great a crime, then, even to hate them? And on the contrary; if not to flee evils is a vice, how great an impiety is it even to seek them out diligently? After this the savagery of the judges is described, and their cruelty toward their subjects.

LXX: Tearing off their skins from them, and their flesh from their bones. Just as they devoured the flesh of my people, and flayed their skins off them, and broke their bones, and cut them up as flesh in a cauldron, and as flesh in a pot: so shall they cry out to the Lord, and he will not hear them, and he will turn away his face from them at that time, because they have dealt most wickedly in their devisings. It had not been enough to have despoiled the subject flock; but they also afflicted their bodies with harsh command, and crushed their bones, so that whatever strength there was in them by chance, they broke and crushed.

So then, as they despoiled my people, and stripped them of all beauty and comeliness of skin, and cast their flesh and bones into a boiling pot, which the Assyrian king kindled, handing over my flock to the devil and his angels: so also they themselves, when the day of vengeance comes, shall cry out to the Lord, and shall not be heard, because they themselves did not hear those who were entreating them: and they shall stretch out their hands to the Lord, and God will turn away his face from them, because they too turned away their countenance from suppliants. And all these things they shall suffer, because they have dealt most wickedly in their pursuits and pleasures: and they were not kings, but tyrants: not overseers, but lions: not teachers of disciples, but wolves of the sheep, and they gorged themselves on flesh, and grew fat, and, like a most fattened victim for slaughter, are prepared for the punishments of the Lord.

Thus far against the wicked princes: the discourse that follows is against false prophets and the worst teachers, who by flattery undermine the people of God, promising knowledge of the Scriptures. (Vv. 5.) Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray: who bite with their teeth, and preach peace: and if anyone does not put something in their mouth, they sanctify war against him: therefore night shall be to you instead of vision, and darkness to you instead of divination, and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be darkened over them, and they who see visions shall be confounded: and the diviners shall be confounded, and they shall all cover their faces, because there is no answer of God. Nevertheless I am filled with the strength of the spirit of the Lord, with judgment and might, that I may announce to Jacob his crime, and to Israel his sin.

LXX: Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, and bite with their teeth, and preach peace over him, and it is not given in their mouth—they have sanctified war against him: therefore night shall be to you instead of vision, and darkness shall be to you instead of divination, and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be darkened over them, and they who see dreams shall be confounded, and the diviners shall be mocked, and all these shall speak against them, because there is none who will hear them, unless I fill with strength the spirit of the Lord, and judgment and power, that I may announce to Jacob his impieties, and to Israel his sins. We read that there were false prophets in Israel, who for the sake of gifts preached peace which was not given to them, and if anyone did not give gifts, however holy he was, they would announce that the wrath of God was coming upon him.

Whence it is now said to them that they speak lies, and their word is not prophecy but false divination: nor do they have light, but darkness and error. And when the things they had promised shall have been turned to the contrary, then they shall be covered with confusion, because, he says, there was no answer of God.

Now the demons will not receive power to deceive them by their fraud. The oracles will be mute, the unclean spirit will be silent, and will not dare to mock. This concerning the pseudoprophets. Again the speech is introduced concerning the prophet himself speaking, while those men vaticinate falsely, and are covered with confusion and ignominy: I, what I speak, speak having been instructed by the Holy Spirit, and I speak the judgment of the Lord and power. And while the pseudoprophets bite with their teeth, and preach peace, I without any dread announce to Jacob his crime, and to Israel his sin; because instead of God they have either worshipped idols, or crucified the Son of God. But if, according to the Septuagint, what is said we wish to take concerning heretics, who are truly pseudoprophets, and say, Thus saith the Lord, and the Lord did not send them, we shall not err.

For they deceive the people of God, once by error, and they do this that they may devour them, either simply in receiving gifts, or mystically in the slaying of their souls, and they promise them peace and the kingdoms of heaven, and say, it is not necessary that you live continently and holily, only hold the faith which we teach, and you will obtain all the promises of the Lord: which sayings rather bring down upon them the wrath of the Lord, and sanctify war against them. Wherefore, O heretics, who think you have prophecy, and imitate the Church of God, where you reckon there is vision, there shall be night: and where you boast of prophetic vaticination, there the unclean spirit will speak. For the sun of justice shall set upon prophets of this kind, and they shall see their own darkness and be confounded.

And when the diviners rather than the prophets shall have been proved such, they shall be laughed at over their dreams, and the peoples who had before been deceived by them shall speak against them. Then even the teachers themselves shall do penance, and no one shall hearken to them, except I whom they offended. And because I am merciful, and do not wish the death of the sinner, but desire that he turn back and live, when I shall have heard them, I will give them the power of my spirit, and I will fill them with my judgment and strength, so that they who before deceived the people with flatteries, may afterward, by announcing the truth, deter them, and call them back to the right way, and they who had been the occasion of error, may begin to heal the wounds they had inflicted, and be an occasion of health. Observe at this point, that one can teach after sin, provided he has washed away his former vices with worthy penance.

Whence also David after adultery and murder speaks in the psalm: Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. Nor is he content with his own purity alone, but adds: Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and confirm me with thy princely spirit. And when thou hast done this, I will teach, he says, the wicked thy ways, and the impious shall be converted to thee. (Verses 9 ff.) Hear this, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and ye judges of the house of Israel: who abhor judgment, and pervert all that is right, who build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. Her princes judged for gifts, and her priests taught for hire, and her prophets divined for money, and rested upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord in the midst of us?

No evils shall come upon us: therefore because of you shall Sion be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become as a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple as the high places of the forests. The Septuagint: Hear this, ye leaders of the house of Jacob, and the rest of the house of Israel, who abhor judgment, and pervert all that is right: who build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquities. Her leaders judged for gifts, and her priests answered for hire, and her prophets divined for money, and rested upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord among us? No evils shall come upon us. Therefore because of you shall Sion be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become as the watch-house of an orchard, and the mountain of the Lord as the grove of a forest.

No one doubts that Jerusalem, because of the crimes described in this chapter, was overthrown, and because above the threat had gone before either against the judges or against the false prophets: Hear, ye princes of the house of Jacob, and ye leaders of the house of Israel. And after a few verses: Thus saith the Lord concerning the Prophets that seduce my people, and so forth: now the prophetic discourse is woven generally both against the judges, and against the false prophets, and against the priests, and against those who promised themselves the knowledge of God, and it charges them that because of their crimes Sion is to be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem is to fall as a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple is to become as the high places of the forests. We see fulfilled what has been said: the eyes prove the words of the mouth: sight is the witness of prophecy.

This same testimony is also written in the book of Jeremiah, where mention is also made of the prophet Micah, and the desolation of Jerusalem is foretold. The judges and princes of the house of Jacob, and of the house of Israel, that is, of both the two tribes and the ten, not only failed to execute judgment, but abhorred it, and perverted all that was right, so that not even a small measure of justice might remain in the city. They who built Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity, by plundering the poor, by the slaughter of the innocent, by the killing of the saints. And if any of the princes seemed to judge what was right, he rather sold his sentence, and judged for gifts. The priests too did not teach the people except for a price received; and though it is said to the saints: Freely ye have received, freely give, they, offering the answer of God for money received, sold the grace of the Lord for greedy hire.

And after these evils, not understanding their sin, as though by crimes they could buy back the love of God, they recalled that they were judges and priests and prophets of God, and according to their impenitent heart said: The Lord is in the midst of us, and no evils shall come upon us. Because therefore they did not repent, and all the people followed the vices of the princes and priests and prophets, Sion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become as a heap of stones, and the temple, which before shone with gold and silver, shall collapse into utter ruin. These things are spoken against the people of the Jews, whose true captivity and utter ruin were inflicted, indeed for the former crimes, but chiefly on account of the shedding of the Lord's blood. Hence Sion was ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem was turned into heaps of stones, and that temple, once noble and lofty, was reduced to utter ashes.

But if anyone should transfer these things which are said of Jerusalem and of Sion to the Church (for she is the house of Jacob, and the house of Israel, according to that which is written in Isaiah: Jacob my servant, I will uphold him. And that to Timothy: That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church—such a one will clearly see that the princes of the house of Jacob, and the rest of the house of Israel (or, as it is better written in the Hebrew) the judges of the house of Israel, are none other than bishops, presbyters and deacons, who, unless they have kept their heart with all watchfulness, abhor judgment and pervert all that is right: for when they judge according to the person, and in the deciding of a matter the merit of the cause does not prevail, but the power of the accused, do they not abhor judgment, and pervert all that is right?

But it can also be understood otherwise, that the princes of the house of Jacob, and the judges of the house of Israel abhor and detest judgment, turning aside from the sentence of God the judge, and corrupting every rule of the Scriptures with evil interpretations; these build Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. For since Scripture commands: Bring not the wicked into the tabernacle of the righteous, and the Lord abhors the man of blood and deceit: these, whoever from among their own followers they ordain as clerics, exposing their life as a scandal to the people, are guilty of the unbelief of those who are scandalized. Whence it is said that it is better for a man that a millstone be hanged about his neck, and that he be cast into the depths, than that he should scandalize one of the little ones of the Church.

And since the prophet Malachi calls priests angels, and their mouth is the oracle of the Lord, they judge not without the taking of gifts, though they read: Gifts blind the eyes even of the wise, and are as a bridle in the mouth that turns aside rebuke; and though it is said to the apostles: Possess not gold, nor silver, nor let there be brass in your purses: and even money earned by labor is shaken out of the hands of the holy man, they sell the words of the Lord, and traffic in doves in the temple. But the prophets of Jerusalem also divined for money, not knowing that prophecy is one thing, divination another: for divination is never taken in a good sense in the Scriptures. There shall be, it says, no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel. They seemed to themselves indeed to be prophets, but because they took money, their prophecy became divination.

Peter the apostle says: Silver and gold have I none: he could certainly have sold to Simon the magician what he sought; nay, he could have pretended to sell it (for the Holy Spirit can neither be sold nor bought), but he condemned the money offered along with the one who offered it. Now you may see that the prophets of Jerusalem have no prophecy in their mouth; and they rest upon the Lord, and say: No evils shall come upon us: because of them the watchtower of God is divided by the enemy's plow; and the place once of peace is filled with ruins, and the temple of the Lord is turned into briars and thorns, and becomes a lair of beasts.

Nor let anyone be troubled by what we read in the first book of Kings, that Saul, wishing to go to Samuel, said to his servant that he could not go to him, because he had not the price which he might offer for the divination, and the servant answered: Behold, there is found in my hand the fourth part of a shekel of silver, and I will give it to the man of God, and he will tell us our way: for it is not written that Samuel received it, or that they offered it to him: rather the prophet fed them, and invited them to dine. But even granting that he received it, the offerings are rather to be reckoned as belonging to the tabernacle than as gifts for prophecy. For a shekel has twenty obols, and the fourth part of a shekel is five obols.

Let our priests too, therefore, if they wish to sell prophecy, and to set out doves upon their seats, which the Lord overthrew with a scourge, take five obols, not the price of estates. This same thing is also implied in the third book of Kings, that the wife of Jeroboam, when her son was sick, went to Ahijah the man of God, bringing him loaves and raisins, and a small vessel of honey. For it is told what she carried with her, and yet it is not written that the prophet received it: indeed he even rebuked her, and foretold the coming mourning; although it may be that those who were accustomed to go to soothsayers (for there were many diviners and soothsayers in Israel) may have, by evil custom, supposed the same thing also of the prophets, and wished to offer to the holy men what they were accustomed to offer to diviners, and that Scripture only narrated what they wished, without adding that they themselves dared to offer it, or that the prophet accepted it.

The apostle Paul says: They who serve the altar, and partake of the altar, live thereby. It is permitted to thee, O priest, to live from the altar, not to live luxuriously. The mouth of the ox that treads out the corn is not muzzled. We know these things, and yet the Apostle does not abuse this license: and having food and clothing, he is content: night and day he labors with his own hands, that he may be a burden to no one. And he swears in his Epistles that he conducted himself holily, and without covetousness, in the gospel of Christ, and asserts this not only of himself, but also of his disciples: that he sent none who either asked anything of the churches, or wished to receive anything. But if in certain epistles he rejoices, and calls the kindness of those who send gifts the grace of God, he gathers it not so much for himself as for the poor of the saints who were in Jerusalem.

Now these holy poor were those in Jerusalem who had first believed in Christ from among the Jews, and, cast off by their parents and kinsmen and relations, had lost, through the ravaging of the priests of the temple and the people, both their possessions and all their household goods. If such are the poor, let them receive. But if under the pretext of the poor a few houses are enriched, and we eat gold in glass and earthen vessels, then either let us exchange our garments along with our treasures, or let not a poor habit seek the riches of senators. What does it profit not to have a small linen cloth about the neck to wipe away the sweat? What does it help to be μονοχίτωνας [wearers of a single tunic], and to display poverty in one's dress, while the whole crowd of the poor sighs for our purse?

Because of this, because of us, who are such as these, who build Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity, who judge for gifts, who answer for hire, who divine for money, and who, claiming for ourselves under this a feigned holiness, say: No evils shall come upon us. Let us hear the sentence of the Lord that follows: Sion and Jerusalem, and the mountain of the temple—the watchtower, and the vision of peace, and the temple of Christ—at the consummation, and in the end, when charity shall have grown cold, and faith shall be rare, shall be ploughed as a field, and shall be reduced to heaps, and shall become as the high places of the forests, or as the watch-house of orchards: so that where once there were spacious houses, and heaps of grain without number, there shall scarcely be a small hut, preserving the appearance of food, for souls having no refreshment.

(Verses 1 ff.) And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains, and high above the hills, and peoples shall flow unto it, and many nations shall hasten, and shall say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem, and he shall judge among many peoples, and shall rebuke strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into mattocks: nation shall not take up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more, and every man shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it; for all peoples shall walk every one in the name of his god: but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.

In that day, saith the Lord, I will gather her that halteth, and I will collect her that I had cast out, and her that I had afflicted: and I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that had labored a strong nation, and the Lord shall reign over them in mount Sion, from this time forth and for ever.

The Seventy: And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, prepared upon the top of the mountains: and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and peoples shall hasten to it, and many nations shall go and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will show us his way, and we will walk in his paths, for out of Sion shall the law go forth, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem, and he shall judge among many peoples, and shall reprove strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles: and nation shall no more take up sword against nation, and they shall in no wise learn to war, and each man shall rest under his vine, and each under his fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid, for the mouth of the Lord Almighty hath spoken these things, for all the peoples shall walk each in his own way.

But we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and beyond. In that day, saith the Lord, I will gather her that is broken, and I will receive her that had been cast out, and those whom I had rejected: and I will make her that was broken a remnant, and the rejected one a strong nation, and the Lord shall reign over them in mount Sion, from this time forth and for ever.

For the princes of the Jews abhorred judgment, and had perverted all right things, and had built Sion in bloodshed, and Jerusalem in iniquity: and not only had they done these things, but they had also judged for bribes, and the priests of Jerusalem had given answer for hire, and her prophets had divined for money, and because of them, Sion was plowed like a field, and Jerusalem had fallen into heaps of stones, and the mountain of the temple of God was desolate, given over to the growths of forests; and therefore now, their house having been abandoned and left desolate, when the Son of God, going forth out of the temple, said: Arise, let us go hence: and: Your house shall be left unto you desolate. The angels also, as Josephus relates, said: Let us pass out from these dwellings. In place of the mount Sion, the mount of the Lord has been raised up, of which it is said to the prince of Tyre: And thou wast wounded in the mountain of the Lord.

But this mountain of the Lord was shown in the last of days, when the kingdom of heaven drew near. For indeed at the consummation of the ages, unto the reprobation of sinners, our Savior appeared through his sacrifice, and came at the eleventh hour to hire laborers. And when his passion was completed, John says: It is the last hour: for in six thousand years, if five hundred years be divided among the several hours of the day, then the last hour would correspondingly be called the time of the faith of the nations. And manifest, he says, shall be the mountain of the Lord, prepared upon the tops of the mountains. Manifest shall be he who before was hidden, and prepared not only in the mountains, but upon the tops of the mountains, that is, Moses and the Prophets, who prophesied of him.

For although all the saints wrote, yet in comparison with the prophecy in which they foretold the coming of the Savior, the rest are lowly, and by no means reach unto the tops of the mountains. And he shall be exalted, he says, above the hills. He indeed appeared as man, and took the form of a servant: he humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross; but the Father exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name, and in comparison with his manner of life, the whole life of men is called plains and valleys. To this mountain, then, which is prepared upon the tops of the mountains, and exalted above the hills, all peoples shall hasten, or, as it is found in the Hebrew, shall flow, that is, innumerable crowds shall gather like rivers.

But the peoples hastened, when Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, and Roman sojourners, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, believed in him alike. Do not these seem to you to have hastened to the mountain, to whom it was said: Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men, and immediately they followed the Savior? And again Scripture relates of James and John, that leaving the boat and their father and the waves of the world, they hastened to the mountain. And Matthew the publican, hearing: Follow me, at once ran after him. But also that in the Gospel, when great multitudes followed him from Galilee, and Decapolis, and Jerusalem, and Judea, and beyond the Jordan, and he healed them, proves the peoples hastening.

And while peoples hasten, very many nations also shall go to the mountain: that is, the whole world believing in him, and they shall say, each provoking his neighbor under a banner and a people: Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord. There is need of ascent, that one may be able to come to Christ, and to the house of the God of Jacob, that is, the Church, which is the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Now that Jacob signifies the Savior, we said above also: Jacob is my servant, I will receive him.

But this too they shall say to those to whom they had spoken: Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God of Jacob; and they shall add: That he may show us his way, which you may understand either as the Angels presiding over the Churches, or as the holy Scriptures, which show forth beforehand the way of the Lord, and him who says: I am the way. And let us walk in his paths, namely in the Apostles, through whom we have believed in Christ. For out of Sion has gone forth the spiritual law, and the word of God has passed over to the nations out of Jerusalem, who shall judge among many peoples: for the Father has given all judgment to the Son. And he shall rebuke many nations afar off: for the Lord takes the wise in their own craftiness, and knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

Now he judges between the peoples who are worthy of salvation, and who are unworthy, and at his coming all zeal for warfare shall be turned to peace. Swords shall be changed into plowshares, spears shall be forged into sickles, nation shall cease to war against nation. No one shall learn to fight, the necessity of fighting having been laid aside. And there shall be such rest, that not only in the cities, but in the villages also and in the fields, each one shall be secure: and this shall come to pass, because the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. And indeed, first according to the letter, before the child was born to us, on whose shoulder is the government, the whole world was full of blood; peoples fought against peoples, kings against kings, nations against nations.

Finally even the Roman Republic itself was torn by civil wars, Cinna and Octavius and Carbo fighting; Sulla and Marius, Antony and Catiline, Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey, Augustus and Brutus, and the same Augustus and Antony: in whose battles whole kingdoms poured out their blood. But after Rome received a singular empire unto the rule of Christ, the world was made passable for the journeying of the Apostles, and the gates of the cities were opened to them, and a singular empire was established for the preaching of the one God.

It may also be taken tropologically, what is said: They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles: so that we may say that at the faith of Christ, anger and unbridled reviling are laid aside, so that each one puts his hand to the plow, and does not look back, and, breaking the darts and spears of insults, desires to reap spiritual fruits, so that, while others labor, we may enter into their labors, and it may be said of us: They that go forth shall come with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them. Now no one fights against another, because we read: Blessed are the peacemakers. No one learns to strive to the overthrow of hearers, but sets a watch upon his mouth, and is silent; because the time is evil.

And each shall rest under his vine, that he may press the wine which gladdens the heart of man, under that vine whose husbandman is the Father, and under his fig tree, plucking the sweet fruits of the Holy Spirit, charity, joy, peace, and the rest. And all these things shall come to pass, according to both interpretations, because the words of the Lord are true, and for him to have spoken is to have done. All peoples shall walk, each in his own way: but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and beyond. While all nations, they say, go according to their own error, we have hastened to the mountain of the Lord, and have said: Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God of Jacob, and we will walk in the name of Christ our Lord, because he himself is the mountain who is God.

In that day in which the sun of righteousness shall shine, she that had before been broken shall be gathered together, and she that had been cast out shall be received, and the broken one shall be gathered together for this purpose, that she may be made into a remnant, and the forsaken one into a strong nation. For unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we should have been as Sodom, and should have been made like unto Gomorrah. But according to the Hebrew, beautifully: I will gather, he says, her that halts, and her that had walked ill, and to whom Elias had said: How long do you halt? Whose foot had been cut off, having been made to stumble. Her whom I had cast out, and to whom I had given a bill of divorce, I will gather: and her whom I had afflicted with various captivities, or had handed over to the devil and his angels.

And lest the diligent reader should at once object to us, how can you assert that she who halts has been gathered, and she who had been cast out has been collected, when the Jews remain in unbelief? Let him hear of the first Church of Christ which believed from among the Jews, from which the Apostles also came, concerning which Luke writes in the Acts of the Apostles: that in one day three thousand believed, and elsewhere five thousand, and of whom James speaks to Paul: Thou seest, brother Paul, how many thousands there are of the Jews who believe, and all these are zealous for the Law. But observe also the prophetic significance: he did not say, I will make her that halts wholly safe; but I will make her that halts into a remnant, so that the remnant and the elect may be made safe, and her who had labored, into a strong nation, namely into the Christian name, which neither sword, nor fires, nor tortures shall overcome.

Behold the faith and the passion of the Martyrs, and do not doubt concerning the strong nation. And the Lord shall reign over them, that is, over many nations, and over the halting remnants, in mount Sion, in the Church, in the watchtower, in the contemplation of the virtues, from the present age even unto the age to come. But if anyone should wish to understand what is said: I will gather her that was broken, and I will receive her that was cast out, and the rest, of the human soul, that before the coming of Christ it served various passions and vices, and, as a wandering and diseased sheep, was torn by the bites of wolves, he will not err: provided, however, he knows that she who had been broken and afflicted was afterward to be under the kingdom of the Lord, and to live in Sion, and to be carried back on the shoulders of the good shepherd to the former mountain.

It should also be known, that this chapter which we have now expounded, and one like it from Isaiah, the Jews and the heirs of their error refer to a thousand-year reign of Christ and of the saints. And that which is said: All peoples shall walk, each in the name of his own god, they interpret thus, that each nation shall be tormented with its own idol, and cast into the fire of eternal punishment. But from what follows they are refuted, that this is not said of the end of the ages, but of the first coming of Christ, in which the remnants of her that halted are gathered, and the nations are saved beforehand.

Isaiah therefore set forth testimony of this kind: The word that came to Isaiah the son of Amos concerning Judah and Jerusalem: that it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God upon the summit of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall come unto it, and many peoples shall go, and shall say: Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God of Jacob, and he will declare to us our way, and we will walk in it: for out of Sion shall the law go forth, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem: and he shall judge among many nations, and shall rebuke a very great people, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles, and nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall learn war no more:

Here it is significantly said that the word of God, going forth out of Jerusalem, judges among many nations, and properly rebukes the people of the Jews. For he will judge us as sinners according to the measure of our works; but them, as impious and denying ones, he will not judge, but will rebuke them as condemned.

I always answer the envious, because envy does not cease: and the beginnings of my books refute the slanders of my rivals, who commonly bruit it about that I write certain trifles of a sterile and starveling style, and that, not knowing how to speak, I cannot hold my tongue. Wherefore I beseech you, O Paula and Eustochium, to close your ears to barkings of this sort, and, aiding my infancy, as they call it, with your prayers, to obtain for me, according to the Apostle, the opening of my mouth, so that what suits one speaking of the Scriptures may be applied to me: The Lord will give a word to those who preach the gospel with much power. But I warn the fat bulls that have surrounded me to be quiet and cease reviling, lest they come to know their own misdeeds, which shall be brought forth hereafter, if they persist in doing harm.

For as to what they say, that I plunder the volumes of Origen, and that it is not fitting to contaminate the writings of the ancients—what they reckon a vehement reproach, I count the greatest praise, since I wish to imitate one who, I do not doubt, is pleasing to all prudent men, and to you as well. For if it is a crime to translate the good sayings of the Greeks, let Ennius and Maro be accused, Plautus, Caecilius and Terence, Tully too and the other eloquent men, who translated not only verses, but many chapters and very long books and whole plays. But let our Hilary also be charged with theft, because in his commentary on the Psalms he rendered nearly forty thousand lines of the said Origen according to the sense. Of all these men I long rather to imitate the carelessness than the obscure diligence of those others.

But now it is time to forge a second book on Micah, and to crush with the prophetic club the re-sprouting heads of the hydra.

(Verses 8, 9.) And thou, tower of the flock, cloudy daughter of Sion, unto thee shall it come, and the first power shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. Now why art thou drawn together with sorrow? Is there no king for thee, or has thy counselor perished, that pain has seized thee as one in travail? The Seventy: And thou, tower of the flock, dark daughter of Sion, unto thee shall it come, and the first princedom shall enter in, the kingdom from Babylon of the daughter of Jerusalem. And now why hast thou known evils? Was there no king for thee, or has thy counsel perished, that pains have seized thee as one in travail?

The tower of the flock, cloudy or squalid, which in Hebrew is called OPHEL (עפל), we must take to be none other than that of which Isaiah says: And I built a tower in the midst of it, that is, of the vineyard. Now the vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel. This tower, as long as it has the winepress, that is, the altar, and round about it a wall—namely the aid of angels—and the boar, the devil, does not enter into the vineyard, is not squalid, is not dark, but, the Lord shining upon it, has received a name, and is called a city, which, being set upon a mountain, cannot be hid. The tower, therefore, once of the flock and people of God (because the wicked husbandmen slew the son of the householder), is now squalid and forsaken, and under the name of Ariel cries out from the earth in Isaiah.

And this tower belongs to the daughter of Sion, or, as Symmachus renders it into Greek: She herself is the daughter of Sion: and unto her shall God come, or the first power, which power is the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. Now the first power comes to this tower, or the first princedom, he who had said: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

And he who, in the person of the assumed man, says in Proverbs: The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways for his works, or, as it is written in the Hebrew: The Lord possessed me; for CANANI (קנני) signifies not "he created me," but "he possessed me and had me." And the first power comes, and the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem, so that after the first a second might also come to be; for just as he himself speaks confidently: I am the light of the world, so too he grants to his disciples that they also should be called the light of the world, and says to them: You are the light of the world. But also, calling himself in the Gospel the true vine, he speaks through Jeremiah of the believers: But I planted thee a fruitful vine, wholly true. And since he is the living bread come down from heaven, he gave to his disciples that they should be called bread.

Whence also the apostle Paul speaks confidently: For we are all one bread. In this manner, then, the first power and kingdom enters into Jerusalem, so that it makes those who believe in it a power and a kingdom. But as to what is read in certain books: And the first princedom shall enter, the kingdom of the daughter of Sion, and from Babylon—let us know that this is an addition, since it is found neither in the Hebrew nor among the other interpreters. And it seems to me indeed that this refers to the Babylonian captivity, in that the people, departing from there, came to Jerusalem. There follows: And now why art thou drawn together with sorrow? Or, as it is written in the Seventy: And now why hast thou known evils, unto which, it says, the Lord and the first power and the kingdom shall come? Why art thou now drawn together with sorrow, or why hast thou known evils?

At once the answer is given, and it is said: Because there is no king for thee, and thy counselor has perished, because pain has seized thee as one in travail. Or certainly, though thou have all these things, by thy own fault thou dost not deserve the help of king or counselor. But as to what he says: Why hast thou known evils? It must be taken in this sense, that everyone who deserves and suffers evils is said to know evils, and to be ignorant of good things. According to that which is written also in the first Book of Kings: The sons of Eli, sons of pestilence, knew not the Lord. And elsewhere: He who keeps the commandment shall not know an evil word. And to sinners: Depart from me, says the Lord, you who work iniquity, for I know you not. On the contrary, of the Lord: He who knew no sin was made sin for us—understood as God the Father.

But the king, and the Angel of great counsel, is understood to be the Savior, who perished for the people who did not believe, whom pains seized as one in travail: for Israel, thinking to obtain empire, was suddenly laid waste. And just as a woman in labor cannot escape her pain, so he could not avoid or defer the imminent captivity and the army surrounding the city. Let us read the Scriptures, and we shall never find that holy women, except Rachel, bore children with pain: who, because she was on the road, and in the hippodrome, that is, the horse-course, where horses are sold in Egypt, bore a son of sorrow, whom the father afterward called the son of the right hand. Eve, cast out of paradise and hearing: In sorrow shalt thou bring forth, is described as having borne children in sorrow.

The wife of Phinehas, bent double and unable to raise herself, like the woman whom the devil bound in the Gospel, gave birth after she had learned that the ark of God was taken and the people ruined. But Sarah, because she was holy, and womanly things had failed her, says at the birth of Isaac: The Lord has made me laughter, for whoever shall hear will rejoice with me. The pains, then, which seized the tower of the flock are the pains of hell and the pains of death, which indeed surrounded and even besieged the Savior; but by no means could they prevail over him, as he himself says in the seventeenth Psalm: The pains of death surrounded me, and the torrents of iniquity troubled me, and the pains of hell besieged me.

Some think that the squalid or dark tower, and the daughter of Jerusalem, is to be understood of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of the saints, of which the Apostle also says: You have come to Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is squalid for as long as her children are not led back to θυγάτηρ Σιών (the daughter of Sion). Her, and that king and counselor be not in her, and that pains as of one in travail seize her, because she has brought forth in vain, seeing so many of her children slain. (Verse 10.) Be in pain, and labor, daughter of Sion, as a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and shalt dwell in the field, and shalt come even to Babylon: there shalt thou be delivered, there shall the Lord redeem thee out of the hand of thy enemies.

The Seventy: Be in pain, and act manfully, daughter of Sion, as one bringing forth, for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and shalt dwell in the plain, and shalt come even to Babylon: thence shall he deliver thee, and thence shall the Lord thy God redeem thee out of the hand of thy enemies.

To her who is commanded to be in pain, or to be in travail, and to whom it is afterward added, act manfully, the command is not given in vain; but that, bearing her pains patiently, she may go forth out of the city, and dwell in the plain or in the field, and come even to Babylon, and when, sustaining captivity for her sin, she has bravely borne what has been brought upon her, then the Lord may deliver her, and her God redeem her out of the hand of her enemies, so that, after she has been delivered, she may say to those who mock her: Rejoice not over me, my enemy, because I have fallen: I shall rise again; for though I walk in darkness, the Lord is my light:

I will bear the wrath of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he judge my cause, and execute judgment for me, and bring me forth into the light, and I shall see his justice, and my enemy shall behold it, and shall be covered with shame (below VIII, 9). Whence also it is sung in the Psalms with fitting voice: He will not be angry forever, neither will the Lord threaten to eternity. But that "Be in pain, and act manfully" pertains to the salvation of one who suffers pain and acts manfully, Jesus the son of Nave also is witness, to whom the Lord says: Be strong, and act manfully. Now the daughter of Sion is in pain and acts manfully, because, unshod and naked, she has gone forth out of the city, and is to be led captive into the plain of Shinar, and to be in Babylon until Zorobabel comes, and Ezra, who is interpreted "helper," and delivers her from the hand of the Chaldeans.

Although this is plain according to the letter, it seems to me that we should understand a soul cast out of the Church for sin, and handed over to the enemy and the avenger for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved, going forth out of the city which the river's rush gladdens, and dwelling not on the mountain where she had been before, but in the plain, where the army of the Assyrians wanders, and being in confusion because of her own vices; and after she has had fetters, and has dragged the millstone, and made flour for the Babylonians, returning to herself she says: How many hired servants of my father are filled with bread, and I here perish with hunger! And afterward, returning to her father's house, she is received by her most merciful father, and redeemed from the hand of a most harsh master.

Let us set forth an example, that what is commanded to the daughter of Sion, when it is said: "Be in pain, and act manfully, as one bringing forth," we may refer not to punishment, but to her benefit. Paul speaks to the Galatians: My little children, whom I again bring forth in travail, until Christ be formed in you. And he was in pain, and in travail, so long, until he might beget them again through repentance, who had perished through transgression. Suppose a physician saying to one in fever, or to one wounded: Be in pain, and act manfully; endure the thirst, bear the cautery, that a more certain health may follow. (Verses 11-13.) And now many nations are gathered against thee, who say: Let her be stoned, and let our eye look upon Sion. But they have not known the thoughts of the Lord, nor understood his counsel: for he has gathered them together as the hay of the floor.

Arise and thresh, daughter of Sion, for I will make thy horn iron, and thy hoofs I will make brass, and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples: and thou shalt slay to the Lord their spoils, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth. The Seventy: And now many nations are gathered against thee, saying: Let us mock, and let our eyes see it in Sion. But they knew not the thoughts of the Lord, and understood not his counsel, for he has gathered them together as sheaves of the floor. Arise and thresh them, daughter of Sion: for I will make thy horns iron, and thy hoofs I will make brass, and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples, and thou shalt vow to the Lord their multitude, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth.

O Jerusalem, O daughter of Sion, who shalt come even to Babylon, and there shalt be set free, and the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies: now meanwhile many nations are gathered against thee, who speak as of an adulteress, and say: Let her be stoned, and let our eye look upon her. Or as it is written in the Seventy: Let us mock and rejoice, and let our eyes look down upon Sion: and they have not known the will and counsel of the Lord: because for this cause the nations have been gathered against thee, that thou mightest crush them, as hay or stubble of the floor. Arise therefore, daughter of Sion, and with the iron horns which I promise to give thee, and with the brazen hoofs which thou shalt receive, winnow and crush the peoples, and slay them to the Lord of the whole earth. For with such a victim and such a sacrifice he is delighted.

The Jews, seeing that these things have not yet been fulfilled, promise themselves that at a future coming of Christ, all nations shall serve the Jewish people, and that the very empire of the Romans, which under the name of Edom they interpret, is to be crushed by their hoofs and winnowed by their horns. How foolish this is, may easily be proved from all the Scriptures; but this belongs to another occasion. We therefore, who follow not the killing letter but the life-giving spirit, say that many nations of demons are gathered against the daughter of Sion, which is interpreted the Church, and in the present age, which is set in the power of evil, mock, and rejoice at the slaughter of her children, not knowing the thoughts of the Lord, nor recognizing his counsel. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty.

He will therefore gather them together as sheaves of the floor, that whatever thorny and dusty, empty and light matter they seemed to have, he may crush with his hoofs and winnow with his horns, and that the pure grain remaining may be offered as gifts to the Lord. But what he means by saying: And thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples, and shalt consecrate to the Lord their multitude, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth—let us read Numbers, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the first books of Kings. And we shall see how, out of the nations subdued, when all had perished by the edge of the sword, gold and silver, and a fixed number of the spoil both of men and of cattle, was consecrated to the Lord. Then also Achor, who stole something of the anathema of Jericho, threw the people into confusion, and from that sin the valley received its name, Emec achor (עמק עכור), that is, the valley of tumult, or of disturbances (Joshua 7).

But that thou mayest know, according to the Seventy interpreters, who said: Thou shalt consecrate to the Lord their multitude, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth, that this consecration must be taken in a good sense: Theodotion, instead of multitude, translated “gifts”; the fifth edition, “emolument,” that is, ὠφέλειαν; Symmachus, “gain,” that is, τὸ κέρδος αὐτῶν.

(Verse 1.) Now shalt thou be laid waste, daughter of the robber: they have laid siege against us: with a rod they shall strike the cheek of the judge of Israel. The Seventy: Now shall she be shut up, the daughter shall be shut up with a shutting up: he has put anguish upon us: with a rod they shall strike upon the cheek the tribes of Israel. Not that one tribe strikes the cheek of another, but that others strike the tribes of Israel upon the cheek.

I have indeed promised thee, O daughter of Sion, that a time shall come when I will make thy horn iron, and thy hoofs brass, and, the multitude of demons having been crushed, thou shalt offer to the Lord of the whole earth whatever they had previously possessed. But because this is to happen then, when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in, and all Israel shall have been saved: now meanwhile, for thy deserts, thou shalt be laid waste, or as it is in the Hebrew, cut down. For thou art called, according to the Apostle, not Circumcision, but concision: nor do I call thee my daughter, but the daughter of a robber, which in Hebrew is called Bath gedud (בת גדוד), that is, of the devil who is always girded for plundering. For thou hast made my house a den of robbers, thou hast fought against me, and thy sons have laid siege against me, and against the Son, and my Spirit.

Is it not an insult to the Trinity, when with rod and reed, thou being the cause, the Romans struck the head of the judge of Israel, saying: Prophesy unto us, O Christ, who is he that struck thee? Or when one of thy servants struck him on the cheek, saying: Answerest thou the high priest so? This is according to the Hebrew, with which interpretation Aquila, and Symmachus, and Theodotion, and the fifth edition agree. But according to the Seventy, the sense is much loftier, and is understood as if from its own beginning. Now shall the synagogue be shut up with a shutting up: and they who shall be shut up in it shall say: He has put anguish upon us; and, subjected to Roman powers, the tribes of Israel shall be struck upon the cheek.

For the Lord has taken away from Judea and from Jerusalem the strong and mighty man, and the wise architect, and the intelligent hearer, and her ways to this day are shut and hedged about, nor can she go forth from captivity; but she is pressed by a most harsh dominion. But if, according to the higher sense, we wish to understand this as spoken of the Church: Now shall the daughter be shut up with a shutting up—let us bring forward that example from Hosea, in which the adulteress speaks: I will go after my lovers, who gave me my bread, and my water, and my garments, and my linens, my oil, and all things that are profitable to me (Hosea 2:5). And afterward God, wishing to hinder this most evil design, does not allow her to accomplish what she desires; but he blocks her ways, that she may not overtake her lovers, and commit further fornication.

For he says: Therefore, behold, I will block her ways with thorns, and hedge her ways about: and she shall not find her path, and she shall pursue her lovers, and shall not overtake them, and she shall seek them, and shall not find them, and she shall say: I will go and return to my former husband, for it was better with me then. Observe how the work of the Lord has succeeded: for the adulteress, not finding her way, nor being able to go where she wished, is compelled by necessity to return to her former husband, and confesses that it was better for her in the house of her former husband, than it had once been with her lovers, and she is instructed by the tribulations and blows of Israel.

Whence also it is said mystically to David, under the type of Christ: If his sons shall forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, if they shall profane my justices, and shall not keep my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges: but my mercy I will not take away from him. Therefore God has put tribulation upon the daughter of Israel, and the angels, who are set over the plagues, shall strike her upon the cheek. And lest perhaps thou shouldst not know who this daughter is, who is shut up with a shutting up, and set in anguish, it is immediately added, and it is said, the tribes of Israel. But we are Israel, who behold God with the mind, in distinction to whom the Apostle speaks: Behold Israel according to the flesh.

For he would never call Israel “of the flesh,” unless he knew there was also a spiritual Israel. (Verse 2.) And thou, Bethlehem Ephratha, art a little one among the thousands of Judah: out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel, and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity. The Septuagint: And thou, Bethlehem, house of Ephrata, art least, that thou shouldst be among the thousands of Judah: out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that he may be for a prince in Israel, and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of the age.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, when the Magi had come from the East, and Herod inquired of the scribes where Christ the Lord should be born, they are related to have answered: In Bethlehem of the land of Judah; who, adding the testimony of the prophet, said: And thou, Bethlehem, land of Judah, art by no means the least among the leaders of Judah: for out of thee shall come forth the leader who shall rule my people Israel. That this testimony agrees neither with the Hebrew nor with the Septuagint translators is plain even without my saying so; and I think that Matthew, wishing to reprove the negligence of the scribes and priests toward the reading of the divine Scripture, set it down as it had been spoken by them.

There are, moreover, those who assert that in almost all the testimonies which are taken from the Old Testament there is this sort of discrepancy, whereby either the order or the words are changed, and sometimes even the sense itself is different, since the apostles or evangelists did not draw their testimonies from a book but trusted to memory, which sometimes fails. Let us therefore expound the Hebrew: And thou, Bethlehem, that is, house of bread, who art called Ephratha, art indeed least among the cities of Judah, and compared to such great thousands thou art scarcely a small village; but from this small village shall come forth Christ, who is ruler in Israel. And lest you think him to be only of the lineage of David, to whom I promised, saying: Of the fruit of thy womb I will set upon my throne, the assumption of flesh does not hinder his divine majesty: for he was born of me before all ages, and the founder of times is not held within time.

He it is to whom also in another psalm I said: Before the daystar I begot thee. For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. And therefore his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity. Now that Bethlehem itself is Ephratha, the book of Genesis shows, in which Scripture records: Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephratha, this is Bethlehem. And in each name a mystery is signified: for it is called house of bread, because of the living bread which came down from heaven.

And Ephratha, which is interpreted "she sees fury," because of the madness of Herod, who, being mocked by the Magi, was exceedingly angry, and sending forth, slew all the children in Bethlehem and in all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had inquired of the Magi; and because of the great bloodshed, a voice was heard on high, the lamentation and wailing of Rachel weeping for her children.

We read, according to the Seventy translators alone, in Joshua, where the towns and cities of the tribe of Judah are described, among other things this also written: Thaco, and Ephratha, this is Bethlehem, and Phagor, and Aetham, and Culon, and Tami, and Soris, and Caram, and Gallim, and Baither, and Manocho, eleven cities, and their villages, which is found neither in the Hebrew nor in any other translator; and whether it was erased from the ancient books by the malice of the Jews, lest Christ should appear to have arisen from the tribe of Judah, or whether it was added by the Seventy, we do not clearly know anything certain.

Nevertheless we can also prove from the book of Judges this same thing, that Bethlehem is in the tribe of Judah; for it is written: And there was a Levite man dwelling on the sides of the house of Ephraim, and he took to himself a concubine woman of Bethlehem of Judah, and his concubine was angry with him, and went away to her father's house in Bethlehem of Judah (Judges xix, 1). And it is well said, "in Bethlehem of Judah," to distinguish it from that Bethlehem which is situated in Galilee, as I have found in the same volume of Joshua. Ephratha can sound in our tongue as καρποφόρον, "fruitful" and productive, and can show this same thing in mystery, which "house of bread" also shows. (Verse 3.) Therefore will he give them up, even till the time wherein she that travaileth shall bring forth: and the remnant of his brethren shall be turned to the children of Israel.

The Septuagint: Therefore will he give them up until the time of her that travaileth: she shall bring forth, and the remnant of the brethren shall return to the children of Israel. Because from Bethlehem, which is Ephratha, has come forth Christ the ruler in Israel, and his going forth was not only at that time when he was seen in the flesh, but from the beginning of eternity, or from the beginning of the age. Because he himself has always spoken through the prophets, and the word of God was made by their hand: therefore he will give up the Jews, and permit them to reign, until the time of her that travails, when that shall be fulfilled: Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband.

For when the barren woman shall have borne seven, and she that had many children shall have been weakened, and by the offense of the Jewish people the fullness of the Gentiles shall have entered in, then all Israel shall be saved, and the remnant of his brethren shall be turned to the children of Israel; and Elijah the prophet coming, whose name is interpreted "God the Lord," shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, and the latest people shall be joined to the ancient, that they may truly be called sons of Abraham, when they shall have believed in him whom Abraham saw and was glad. But what is the time in which the barren woman shall bring forth? As I think, that of which Isaiah speaks: In an acceptable time I have heard thee, and in the day of salvation I have helped thee.

Which also Paul, understanding it as foretold of the time of Christ, says: Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. This same thing I think is also mystically shown in that which is written in Ecclesiastes: A time to be born, and a time to die, because at that time when the people of the Gentiles was born of the barren woman, the synagogue lost her children. But it can also be understood otherwise: The Lord will give up the temple and Jerusalem, and the Jews, until that time when the virgin shall bring forth; who, after she has brought forth, and the little one born has received the spoils of Samaria and the might of Damascus, the people of the Jews being slain, the remnant of Israel shall be saved.

And the brethren of Christ, that is, the apostles, shall be turned to the faith of the prophets and patriarchs, who announced the Christ that was to come, and the prophecy of the psalm shall be fulfilled: Instead of thy fathers, sons are born to thee, and the rest that follows. (Verse 4.) And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the height of the name of the Lord his God, and they shall be converted: for now shall he be magnified even to the ends of the earth. The Septuagint: And he shall stand, and shall see, and shall feed his flock in strength, the Lord, and they shall be in the glory of the name of the Lord his God; for now shall they be magnified even to the ends of the earth.

After the sun of righteousness shall have gone forth from the height of the heavens, and shall have reached even to their ends, and she that travails shall have brought forth in bringing forth, and the remnant of his brethren shall have been turned to the children of Israel: then the Lord himself, who before was walking, and was placed with those who were on the road, not yet having a fixed step, shall stand and shall feed them in the strength of the Lord, that they may be able to say: The Lord feeds me, and nothing shall I want: in a place of pasture, there hath he set me, upon the waters of refreshment hath he nourished me: he hath converted my soul.

Now he feeds them, not only in the strength of the Lord, but also in the height of the name of the Lord his God, when he says to the Father: Holy Father, keep them in thy name, whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are: when I was with them, I kept them in thy name: those whom thou gavest me I have guarded, and none of them has perished. And they shall be converted, or, as Symmachus better translated, they shall dwell. For the Hebrew word JASUBU (ישובו) signifies both. Now they shall dwell in the Church of the Lord, because Christ has been magnified even to the end of the earth.

Or, according to the Seventy, because they themselves shall be magnified together with their shepherd even to the utmost end of the earth, that their sound may go out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. (Verse 5.) And this shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our houses. The Septuagint: And this shall be peace; when the Assyrian shall come upon your land, and when he shall come up upon your region.

When the devil, whose name is interpreted εὐθύνων, that is, "one who rebukes and corrects," shall come upon the land and the region of the believers, and of those whom the Lord shall feed in strength and in the height of the name of the Lord his God, and shall have trodden them down with various tribulations, and shall have come up as a proud man upon the houses of our souls, that is, our bodies, and shall have pressed them down; and yet nothing shall have separated us from the love of Christ: then the peace of Christ himself, or Christ himself, shall be in us, and it shall be said of the holy one, The enemy shall have no advantage in him. Let us set forth an example, that what we say may be made more manifest.

The Assyrian came once upon the land of Paul, and went up upon his region, when he was in labors above measure; in stripes above measure, in prisons exceedingly, in deaths often: when he received of the Jews five times forty stripes save one, was thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice suffered shipwreck, was a night and a day in the depth of the sea, in perils of robbers, in perils among false brethren, in perils from his own race, in perils from the Gentiles; but in all these things he overcame, because of him who had loved him. And therefore he was filled with peace, because he had been filled with reproaches.

The Jews contend that in the coming of the Christ whom they falsely imagine for themselves, all these things shall come to pass according to the letter. (Verse 6.) And we shall raise up over him seven shepherds, and eight principal men, and they shall feed the land of Assur with the sword, and the land of Nimrod with its spears, and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he shall come into our land, and when he shall tread within our borders. The Septuagint: And there shall rise up against him seven shepherds, and eight bites of men, and they shall feed Assur with the sword, and the land of Nimrod with its trench, and he shall deliver from Assur, when he shall come upon your land, and when he shall come up upon your borders. Where we have put "principal men," and in the Hebrew there is written Nesiche adam (נסיכי אדם), Symmachus translated "anointed of men"; Theodotion and the fifth edition, "princes of men"; Aquila, "weighty" or "established men," that is, καθεσταμένους.

Again, where I and Aquila translated "with its spears," so that "of the land of Nimrod" is to be understood, Symmachus rendered ἐντὸς πυλῶν αὐτῆς, that is, "within its gates"; Theodotion, "in their gates"; the fifth edition, ἐν παραξίφησιν αὐτῶν, which we may render "in their daggers": but in the Hebrew there is set down BAPHETHEE (בפתחה).

Then, therefore, will there be peace, when the remnants of Christ's brethren shall have been converted to the sons of Israel, and the Assyrian shall have come into our land, and, aided by the Lord, we shall have swiftly crushed under our feet him who desired to trample our houses. For the Lord Himself says: We will raise up against him seven shepherds, and eight chief men, or bites of men. Now I will raise up, both I and my Son and the Holy Spirit, according to that which is written in Genesis: Let us make man according to our image and likeness. And at the beginning of Obadiah: Arise, and let us go up against her in battle. The seven shepherds I judge to be all the patriarchs and prophets and holy men, who served the week, that is, the Old Instrument.

But the eight bites of men, or eight chief men, and as Symmachus interpreted, Christs, I take to be all of the New Testament, who from the apostles even to this age have bitten the Assyrian and torn him with their teeth. Whence also it is commanded in Ecclesiastes: That we give portions to seven, and also to eight. And in Ezekiel's temple, which is interpreted as the Church and the heavenly Jerusalem, one ascends by seven and eight steps. And in the Psalter there are fifteen steps, by which through the hebdomad and the ogdoad we ascend to sing praises to God. On the eighth day spiritual circumcision is celebrated, and in the temple of the Jews the sabbath is destroyed, and certain psalms are inscribed "For the Eighth." These, then, seven shepherds and eight bites of men, shall feed upon Assur with the sword.

For the living and effectual word of God, sharper than any two-edged sword, was sent by Him who came to send a sword upon the earth, that two might be divided against three. And the land of Nimrod (which is interpreted "temptation descending") they shall feed in his own pit; for the land of the giant and hunter and of him who exalts himself against the Lord is not on the mountains, but in pits. This one fell like lightning from heaven, and is always found among beasts; and because he is a hunter, he ranges through unfruitful trees and forests. As far, then, as I can recall to memory, I have never read of a hunter taken in a good sense.

Ishmael and Esau were hunters, and they went before as a type of the Jewish people, of whom the one is the son of the Egyptian woman, walking according to the flesh and living according to the flesh; the other lost his birthright for a mess of pottage, and, envying his brother's blessings, drove him into exile in Mesopotamia. The land of Nimrod, therefore, being reduced to its own pits: For he who digs a pit shall fall into it; and he who opened a pit and dug it, shall fall into the pit which he made, and his sorrow shall return upon his own head, and his iniquity shall come down upon his own crown. And the Assyrian being pierced through by the seven shepherds and the eight bites, Christ delivered us from the hand of Assur, who had come upon our land and desired to trample the borders of Israel.

But what Symmachus says: And they shall feed the land of Assur with the sword, and the region of Nimrod within its gates, this is to be understood, that the strong man is bound in his own house, and the adversary is wounded. And according to Aquila and the fifth edition, he is pierced through with the daggers and lances of the seven shepherds, and of the eight Christs of men. (Verse 7 ff.) And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples as a dew from the Lord, and as drops upon the grass, which waits not for man, and tarries not for the sons of men. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, as a lion among the beasts of the forests, and as a lion's whelp among flocks of sheep, which, when it has gone through and trampled down and seized, there is none to deliver. Your hand shall be exalted over your enemies, and all your enemies shall perish.

And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord, I will take away your horses from the midst of you, and I will destroy your chariots, and I will destroy the cities of your land, and I will throw down all your fortifications, and I will take away sorceries out of your hand, and there shall be no divinations in you. And I will cause your graven images to perish, and your statues out of the midst of you, and you shall no more worship the works of your hands. And I will pluck up your groves out of the midst of you, and I will crush your cities, and I will execute vengeance in fury and in indignation upon all the nations that have not obeyed. The LXX: And the remnants of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, as dew falling from the Lord, and as lambs upon the grass: so that no one is gathered, nor is among the sons of men.

And the remnants of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, as a lion among the beasts, in the thicket, and as a lion's whelp among the flocks of sheep: as if it should pass through and, dividing, seize, and there be none to deliver. Your hand shall be lifted up over those who trouble you, and all your enemies shall be destroyed. And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord, I will kill your horses out of the midst of you, and I will destroy your chariots, and I will overthrow the cities of your land: and I will take away all your fortifications.

And I will take away your sorceries out of your hands, and those who speak shall not be in you: and I will destroy your graven images and your statues out of the midst of you, and you shall no more worship the works of your hands: and I will cut down the groves out of the midst of you, and I will demolish your cities, and I will execute vengeance in wrath and in fury upon the nations, because they have not obeyed. When we have been delivered from Assur, when he shall have come upon our land and gone up over our borders, and delivered by the Lord who raised up against him seven shepherds and eight bites of men, the remnants of Jacob, whom we understand to be the apostles and the first Church out of the Jews, shall be in the midst of many peoples like dew falling from the Lord.

For the hearts of the peoples were burning with the fiery darts of the devil: and all nations, committing adultery away from God, had hearts like an oven kindled with fire (Hosea vii). Whence the dew falling from the Lord became health to the sick. And what we read concerning Ananias, Azariah, and Mishael, that the spirit of a whistling dew extinguished the furnace of fire, let us understand this generally of all, that in the midst of all the nations the teaching of the Apostles was like dew from the Lord. But what follows: And as lambs upon the grass, that no one is gathered nor is among the sons of men, let us take this of those from the nations who refused to believe, that the Apostles and remnants of Jacob shall be over them like lambs cropping grass, and grinding the herb with their teeth.

And this they shall do, that those who refused to be Angels, receiving the spiritual dew, should by no means be gathered among men, nor be reckoned in the rational portion, but it be said of them: They are not in the labor of men, nor shall they be scourged with men. And the remnants of Jacob shall be in the midst of the nations as a lion among the beasts in the thicket, and as a lion's whelp among the flocks of sheep. For the Lord Jesus, of whom it is prophesied in Genesis: A lion's whelp, Judah, from the shoot, my son, you have gone up: he crouched down, he slept as a lion, and as a lion's whelp.

And in another place: He crouched down, he rested as a lion, and as a lion's whelp, who shall rouse him up?—gave also to His apostles, to whom He had said: Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: so that just as no one can resist a lion among the beasts, or a lion's whelp among sheep, so they, delivered from the hand of the Assyrian and from the hand of the devil, might seize the beasts and the flocks: for the Lord will save men and beasts. And they would seize, not to kill, but to divide, that is, to separate from the unfaithful, and there would be none to resist them. But while the lion and the lion's whelp thus range among the beasts and among the sheep, the hand of God is exalted over those who had before troubled either God or the remnants of Israel.

And all his enemies shall be destroyed, not that the enemies perish and cease to exist, but that they perish in respect of being enemies. As it is written to the Thessalonians: Whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth. This slaying signifies not abolition, but the cessation of the most wicked life in which they formerly lived evilly. Then it adds: And shall destroy by the brightness of His coming. He would never destroy, if slaying meant abolition, since it would already have ceased to be: so also here the consumption of enemies is to be understood, according to the Proverbs of Solomon, in which it is written: Destruction shall lodge with the impious; it shall not be perpetual, it will not reduce them to nothing; but it shall lodge with them so long as the impiety that is in them is consumed. For God created man that he should not perish, and He made not death.

After this follows: And it shall come to pass in that day, when your hand shall be exalted over your enemies, O Israel, and all your enemies shall have perished, I will kill your horses out of the midst of you, that is, out of the ruling part (ἡγεμονικῷ) of your heart, the wanton impulses, which, like horses breaking their bonds, rush forward, and your chariots, in which you delighted yourself in your vices, and joining sins to sins, you were carried as though triumphing in chariots. And I will destroy the cities of your land: for you have not built the city which the rush of the river of God makes glad, and which is situated on the mountains, the heavenly Jerusalem, but that which Cain had built. Whence they are called cities of the earth, built up by earthly works. And I will take away, He says, all your fortifications, namely, riches and the pomp of the world, and the eloquence of rhetoricians, and the snares of dialecticians, in which you trusted as in fortifications.

And I will take away the sorceries from your hands, by which you were either yourself deceived by others, or, deceived, deceived others, and speakers, or those who make pronouncements, shall not be yours. Now the world is full of those who speak and pronounce: they speak what they do not know, they teach what they have not learned; they are masters, though they were never before disciples. When, therefore, God shall have taught man knowledge, false presumptions shall cease, and perverse doctrine shall be taken away. And I will destroy your graven images and your monuments out of the midst of you. Our graven images are those which have been made by speakers, or which we ourselves fashion for ourselves. Whence it is commanded in the Law, that we should not make ourselves a graven image, nor set up monuments in our land: and you shall no more worship the works of your hands.

Unhappy is the condition of man, full of foolishness and error, who knows that dogmas are composed from his own sense, is not ignorant that the idol was feigned by himself, and yet worships as God the works of his own hands, and man bows down, that being deceived he may deceive. There is added, in the promise directed to the remnants, that is, to the ὑπόλειμμα of Jacob: And I will cut down your groves out of the midst of you, and I will destroy your cities, so that all the trees of the forests, and the groves which it is forbidden to plant in the temple of God, and the cities badly built, which He had before called the cities of the earth, He may destroy and consume. But after He has done this to the remnants of Jacob, then He will turn to the nations whom the Apostles have fed upon like lambs upon grass.

And because they refused to receive the dew of the word, I will execute, He says, vengeance in wrath and in fury upon the nations, because they have refused to hear. Whence also the prophet says: O Lord, rebuke me not in Your wrath, neither chasten me in Your anger. This, according to the Seventy interpreters, since the understanding is spiritual, and we ought to join the sense with the preceding chapters, has been discussed.

But the Hebrews dream up delusions of this sort: after the seven whom they imagine and wish to be shepherds, and the eight chief men of the Assyrians shall have conquered, and shall have fed the land of Nimrod with their swords, and this shall have been done when the Assyrian shall have come before into the land of Judah: then, they say, when Christ comes, all the remnants of Jacob who shall have been able to survive among the nations shall be in blessing, like dew coming from the Lord, and like rain upon the grass, and shall in no way hope in men or in the sons of men, but in God. And they shall be in the midst of the nations and peoples bloodthirsty and cruel, and, avenging themselves upon their former masters, like a lion among the beasts of the forests, and like a lion's whelp among flocks of sheep, and there shall be none who can resist their strength.

Then shall Your hand be exalted, O God, or O Israel, over the Assyrians, and all your foes and enemies, who now possess you, shall perish. That is to say, on that day, when you shall have been delivered from the nations, I will take away your horses and your chariots, which are in the midst of your cities. Not that Israel shall then have horses and chariots, but the horses and chariots of the Assyrians which are found in the midst of your cities: and I will destroy all your cities, and the fortifications which you have dedicated to idols: and I will take away the magicians and soothsayers from your land, and I will cause all your graven images and your statues to perish, and you shall no more worship the works of your hands. I will also root up and overthrow all your groves, and your cities which you had dedicated to idols.

And when I shall have done this to you, and shall be so appeased that whatever evil is in you is taken away: then also, in my fury and in my indignation, I will avenge you upon all the nations which refused to hear my word. Let carnal Israel answer at this point, whether he says these things have already happened, or are yet to come? If he recalls them as having happened, let him produce the history, let him give the authority of the ancient books; let him show that all nations and the Assyrian were once subject to Israel. But if, deluding himself with a vain hope, he thinks that what is said is yet to be: when Christ comes, what idols will then be taken away from Israel, which it does not now worship? What groves shall be cut down, which it does not have? What cities shall be overthrown, which were long ago overthrown?

What soothsayers shall be taken away, whom, since it does not have them, it does not even boast of having: yet for so long a time has the daughter of Zion been forsaken, and she sits without altar and without priests; and while others eat their fruits, they themselves, with parched throats, promise themselves things to come which they do not know.

(Verses 1, 2.) Hear what the Lord speaks: Arise, contend in judgment against the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear, ye mountains, the Lord's judgment, and ye strong foundations of the earth, for the Lord hath a judgment with his people, and he will plead with Israel. The Seventy: Hear what the Lord has spoken: Arise, plead thy cause among the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear, ye mountains, the judgment of the Lord, and ye valleys, the foundations of the earth, for the Lord's judgment is against his people, and he will be judged with Israel.

For "strong foundations of the earth," which the LXX rendered as "valleys, the foundations of the earth," Symmachus and Theodotion translated "the ancient foundations of the earth"; but the fifth edition set down the Hebrew word itself, ETHANIM (איתנים), "foundations of the earth." The first voice, then, is that of the prophet: Hear what the Lord speaks. Then God speaks to the prophet: Arise, contend in judgment against the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Again the prophet, as he had been commanded, speaks to the mountains, and not only to the mountains, but also to the strong foundations of the earth, and says, Hear, ye mountains, the judgment of the Lord, and ye strong foundations of the earth. And he gives the reason why he calls upon them to hear: For the Lord's judgment will be pleaded with his people, and with Israel.

Instead of "mountains," to whom the prophet speaks, and instead of "strong foundations of the earth," the LXX translated "hills" and "valleys," understanding it, as it seems to me, in this sense: that the people had done nothing worthy of the hearing of mountains, but rather of hills, which are lower than the sublimity of mountains, or of valleys sunk into the depths. Arise, he says, contend in judgment among the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. He who either sits, or lies, or sleeps, or is dead, is bidden to arise, according to that word of the Apostle: Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee. Arise from the dead, that thou mayest walk in newness of life, that leaving the earth, thou mayest strive toward higher things.

And contend in judgment against the mountains, by which I think none other are signified than the Angels, to whom the administration of human affairs has been entrusted, in agreement with the Song of Deuteronomy on this very point: When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Angels of God. These are ministering spirits, sent to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. And contend in judgment; that whether the mountains or the hills be found not to have administered the peoples worthily, either it may seem to be my fault who set up such rulers, or the blame may be lifted from the people and referred to the princes. Let us read the Apocalypse of John the Apostle, in which the Angels of the Churches are praised and accused for the virtues and vices of those over whom they are said to preside.

For just as sometimes the fault is the bishop's, sometimes the people's; and often the teacher sins, often the pupil; sometimes the fault is the father's, sometimes the son's, according as they are well or ill instructed: so in the judgment of God, either the charge will be referred to the Angels, if they have not done all that pertained to their office, or to the people, if, though the Angels did everything, the people themselves refused to hear. There are those who interpret the mountains and hills and strong foundations of the earth as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the rest of the patriarchs, as though they were called as hearers and summoned to judgment, that the case of the people of Israel might be sifted.

Others think the mountains, hills, and valleys are the Angels, as we said above, who either serve God in the heavens, or are set over men upon this earth, or, stationed among those below, are called the foundations of those who by their own fault have become earthly: concerning which foundations of the earth we find it written elsewhere: A fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn even to the lowest hell: and shall devour the earth and its foundations. The strong and ancient foundations of the earth (by reason of which the earth has not yet passed away, and hanging upon nothing, stands balanced) are the merits of the just, of whom the Apostle speaks: Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Just as, therefore, the apostles and prophets and the whole choir of Martyrs are the strong foundations of the earth: so, according to the LXX, the valleys and steep places, which in Greek are more significantly called φάραγγες, are the foundations of those who have borne the image of the earthly [χοϊκοῦ].

Therefore the Lord's judgment will be pleaded with his people, and he will be judged with Israel. He who, as God, could inflict punishments for the crimes of the sinning people, does not wish to appear powerful, but just, and he calls sinners to judgment, according to that prophetic word: Come, and let us be judged, says the Lord; even now he compels the people of Israel, in the presence of the Angels and all creation, to answer if they have anything to say, that God may be justified in his words, and may overcome when he is judged. (Verses 3ff.) O my people, what have I done to thee, or wherein have I molested thee? Answer thou me. Because I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and delivered thee out of the house of servants: and I sent before thy face Moses, and Aaron, and Mary.

O my people, remember, I pray thee, what Balac the king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, from Setim to Galgal, that thou mightest know the justices of the Lord. The Seventy: O my people, what have I done to thee, or wherein have I grieved thee, or in what have I been troublesome to thee? Answer me: for I brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servitude, and I sent before thy face Moses, and Aaron, and Mary. O my people, remember what Balach king of Moab devised against thee, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, from Schoeni to Galgal: that the justice of the Lord might be known. Instead of "justices," or "justice," Symmachus translated "mercies"; and where the LXX have "Schoeni," all others rendered the Hebrew word itself, SETTIM (שטים).

Now there is a place in which Balac, king of the Moabites, gathered an army against Israel, sharing its name with certain trees, which even today grow in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. For where in the LXX either the Ark of the Testament, or the altar and tabernacle, and the other things which are said to have been made of incorruptible wood, are mentioned, in the Hebrew there is set down "wood of Settim," which bears a resemblance to the tree that we commonly call the white thorn. Whence I think the LXX also translated σχοίνου, that is, "mastic-tree"; but gradually, by an error of scribes, it came about that σχοίνοι, that is, "ropes," was read instead of σχοίνοις, that is, "mastic-trees." God, therefore, speaks to the people of Israel, and calls them to judgment, and grants them license to dispute against him. O my people, what have I done to thee, that I ought not to have done? Or wherein have I grieved thee? Although this is not found in the Hebrew.

Now a father grieves a son who is scourged, and the shepherd visits the iniquities of the sheep with the rod. Wherein have I been troublesome to thee? Or, as it is more significantly written in the Hebrew, with what labor have I pressed thee? Or wilt thou interpret my benefits as an insult, and, longing for the melons and meats of Egypt, wilt thou grieve that thou wast brought out of the land of Egypt, and delivered by my help from the house of servitude, because I gave thee as guides Moses my friend, and Aaron my priest, and Mary my prophetess?

But if this seems small to thee, remember that time when Balac king of Moab hired Balaam the diviner for a price against thee, and see how, against his own will, the soothsayer, wishing to curse thee, blessed thee instead: from Setim to Galgal, surveying the whole army of Israel with his eyes, and changing places, as though I could not go along with him as he went, and pass along with him as he passed: and this I did, that my mercies and my justice might be known to thee, who loved thee so much that, though I am daily cursed by the mouth of blasphemers, I would not allow thee to be cursed by an enemy.

The Hebrews expound this passage, where it is said, from Settim to Galgal, that thou mightest know the justices of the Lord, thus: from the time when you fornicated in Madian, up to the time when Saul was anointed king at Galgal, call to mind what evils you have done, and how many good things I have done for you, and you shall know my mercy toward you. This, according to the history, God spoke to the carnal Israel. But we who desire to behold with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, and who truly have Abraham as father, let us, when we have sinned against him, hear God disputing with us, and convicting us by the greatness of his benefits.

For we once served Pharaoh, and made mud and bricks for the Egyptian people: and he redeemed us who gave himself as a redemption for all, that we might say, who had been redeemed by the Lord, whom he redeemed from the hand of enemies, and whom he gathered out of the lands: For his mercy endureth for ever. He also sent before our face Moses, the spiritual law, and Aaron the great priest, not bearing a typical Ephod, but truth itself, having on his forehead the seal of holiness which God the Father sealed. And he sent Mary, that is, Urim and Thummim, or the Rational, in which was the illumination of truth, the prophecy of the prophets, and not only did he grant us this, but he also delivered us from the hands of our enemies. Let us remember what he devised against us, the true Balac, the devil, who wished to devour us, and to lick up our congregation entirely.

For Balac is interpreted "he who licks up" [ἐκλείχων], king of the paternal water: since Moab, according to another etymology, is called "paternal water." When, therefore, Balac was laying snares for us, and laying snares through his vain people, which is interpreted Balaam, God did not allow us to be subject to his curses; but on the contrary blessed us, the vain people of the nations, compelled by the very truth of the matter, being born of him who is "in the skin": for Beor is interpreted "in the skin," always given over to the flesh and the works of death: and the vain people, sprung from him who is wholly "in the skin," answered on our behalf, always shifting its ground, or standing upon thorns, or upon ropes, that we may also follow the error of the Vulgate edition. Now thorns, according to the word of the Savior, are the cares of this world, and riches, and pleasures, in which the vain people stands.

And that it stands upon ropes signifies the bonds of sins (for every man is bound by the ropes of his own sins), and Isaiah is a witness, saying: Woe to them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope. If, then, it stands, it stands only on thorns and on ropes: but if it should wish to go about, it has no stable footing, but always wavering and vacillating, it comes at last to Galgal, which is interpreted κυλισμός, that is, "a rolling" or "a wallowing-place." If ever we see certain men rising up against us, and thirsting with greedy jaws for our blood, and by the unforeseen dispensation of God, those who came against us are made to work for us, let us say, Balaam has come from the ropes even to Galgal, that the justice of God may be known.

Verse 6. What worthy thing shall I offer to the Lord? Shall I bow my knee to the God most high? Shall I offer him whole burnt offerings, and calves of a year old? Can the Lord be appeased with thousands of rams, or with many thousands of fat goats? Shall I give my firstborn for my wickedness, the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul? LXX: In what shall I lay hold of the Lord? Shall I take up my God most high? If I lay hold of him in whole burnt offerings, in calves of a year old? Shall the Lord accept in thousands of rams, or in ten thousands of fat goats? Shall I give my firstborn for my impiety: the fruits of my womb for the sin of my soul. God summons the people to judgment: he, knowing his sin, does not wish to contend, but to beseech, yet even in these prayers he has no confidence.

For nothing worthy exists which can be offered to God for sin, and no humility can wash away the stains of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and of calves, and whole burnt offerings of marrow, and the gore of rams and of fat goats, to wash away the filth of the soul. Shall I, he says, give my firstborn for my wickedness, as the king of Moab is described as having done? Or the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul, as Jephthah did, offering his daughter because of the rashness of his vow (Judges xi)? We, therefore, who are of the people of God, knowing that no living man shall be justified in his sight, and saying: I am become as a beast of burden before thee, doing penance for our sins, hesitate and say: In what shall I lay hold of the Lord, shall I take up my God most high? How shall I be able to hold him as he flees?

With what purity shall I be able to prepare a lodging for the Trinity? Shall I lay hold of him in whole burnt offerings, so as to offer myself entirely to him as a burnt offering, or in calves of a year old, so that, leaving milk and coming to solid food, I may be made worthy of the acceptable year of the Lord? If I offer a thousand rams, if ten thousand goats, and, understanding all the victims of Leviticus spiritually, exhibit them in myself, and a thousand fall at my side, and ten thousand at my left hand, yet I shall be able to give nothing worthy, whereby I may lay hold of, or take up, God. If I give my firstborn for my impiety, and the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul: I shall indeed give whatever is first in me, but for my own sin and impiety I shall offer nothing worthy to God.

Whence also David prays, and says: Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my iniquities, and my sin is always before me. For the sin of the soul, blood alone is worthily offered: and blood, not of calves, not of rams, not of goats, but one's own blood is worthily offered, as the prophet says and asks: What shall I render to the Lord for all he has rendered to me? And afterward answering: I will take the chalice of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. But even this very blood we do not give, but return. And what is alike, when the just one, the Son of God, died for sinners, for men, that we, sinners and men, should die for the confession of his name? Verse 8.

I will show thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of thee, surely to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitously with thy God. LXX: It has been announced to thee, O man, what is good, or what the Lord requires of thee, but that thou do judgment, and love mercy, and be ready to walk with thy God. Because thou doubtest, O people Israel, nay rather the whole race of men (for I do not speak only to the people of the Jews, but my discourse shall run generally to every man), how for thy sins thou canst appease God, if thou hast no victims by which thy impiety may be compensated: I will answer thee, what God requires, nay I have already shown it before in the Law.

For it is written in Deuteronomy: And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy God require of thee, but that thou fear the Lord thy God, and walk in all his ways, and love him, and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and his justifications, which I command thee this day, that it may be well with thee? The Lord requires of us, and, having need of our salvation, asks to receive what may profit the giver, that we do judgment, that is, that we do nothing without reason and counsel, that the mind first judge what is to be done, and afterward complete it in deed; that we love mercy, and not be merciful as though compelled, or out of necessity, since God loves a cheerful giver. Nor let us say, go now, and come back tomorrow, and I will give to thee. And when we have done judgment, and loved mercy, what reward shall we receive?

We shall walk with the Lord God, as Enoch, according to the faith of the Hebrew volumes, walked with God, and pleased him, and was not found, because God translated him. For thou hast said, in what shall I attain to the Lord, or in what shall I lay hold of him? I promise thee more: do judgment, and love mercy, and thou shalt walk with thy God. Or indeed, to walk with God is not a reward, but a precept. For just as it is commanded us that we do judgment, and love mercy; so it is commanded that we be prepared to walk with the Lord our God; at no hour ought we to sleep, at no time ought we to be secure, but always to await the father of the household coming, and to dread the day of judgment, and in the night of this age to say: I sleep, and my heart watches.

The word ESNE (הצנע) (which the LXX rendered "to be prepared," and we have said "to walk solicitously") Theodotion expressed more significantly, καὶ ἀσφαλίζου τοῦ πορεύεσθαι μετὰ Ἐλωαίχ, that is, and take careful heed that thou walk with thy God. Or, as the fifth edition rendered it, καὶ φροντίζειν, that is, to act solicitously, and to have this care, that thou walk with thy God. For he who says he believes in Christ ought so to walk, as he also walked. And the apostle Paul says: Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

The voice of the Lord cries to the city, and salvation shall be to them that fear thy name. LXX: The voice of the Lord shall cry to the city, and shall save them that fear his name. In the Hebrew this is the beginning of another chapter; but in the Septuagint translators, it is the end of the preceding one: and it has this sense: God requires nothing else of thee, O man, but that thou do judgment, and love mercy, and be prepared to walk with thy God. For the voice of the Lord is heard in his city, the Church, and resounds daily in the holy Scriptures, that not only those who love mercy, but also those who are inferior, and who still fear the name of the Lord, may be saved by his teaching and clemency.

But if it is the beginning of the following chapter, let us relate it, according to the history, to what is said concerning Samaria, the metropolis of the ten tribes, which, while Micah was prophesying, was captured, and let us say: The Lord reproves Samaria, and threatens her with the plagues that are to come, that the people of Judah, hearing, or those who fear the name of the Lord, seeing others suffer punishments, may themselves, seized with fear, obtain salvation: for when the pestilent man is scourged, not only the wise, but even the fool becomes more prudent. And this same thing you may apply generally to sinners and to the just, that the torment of others may become an example to the rest. Which indeed the Lord also, in the Gospel, interprets concerning those upon whom the tower in Siloam fell: that not they alone, of all the people, were sinners, but that their punishment might provoke the rest to penance. (Verses 10 ff). Hear, O tribe, and who will approve it?

Still is there fire in the house of the wicked, treasures of impiety, and the diminished measure full of wrath. Shall I justify the wicked balance, and the deceitful weights of the bag? In which her rich men have been filled with iniquity, and her inhabitants have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. Therefore I also have begun to strike thee with ruin because of thy sins. Thou shalt eat, and not be satisfied, and thy humiliation shall be in the midst of thee; and thou shalt seize, but shalt not save; and those whom thou shalt have saved, I will give to the sword. Thou shalt sow, and not reap: thou shalt tread the olive, and not be anointed with oil; and the new wine, and not drink wine. And thou hast kept the precepts of Amri, and all the work of the house of Achab; and thou hast walked in their wills, that I might give thee to destruction, and the inhabitants thereof to hissing, and ye shall bear the reproach of my people.

The LXX: Hear (Alternatively, Hear ye), O tribe, and who shall adorn the city? Is it not fire, and the house of the unjust man storing up unjust treasures, and iniquities with injury? Shall the unjust be justified in the balance, and in the bag deceitful weights, by which they have filled up the riches of their impiety, and those who dwell (Alternatively, dwelt) in it have spoken iniquitous things, and their tongue has been exalted in their mouth.

And I have tormented thee with ruin because of thy sins: thou shalt eat, and not be satisfied; and I will cast thee out into thyself, and thou shalt seize, but shalt not save; and whosoever shall have been saved shall be delivered to the sword: thou shalt sow, and not reap; thou shalt press the olive, and not be anointed with oil: and the grape, and not drink wine; and the ordinances of my people shall be scattered, and all the works of the house of Achab; and thou hast walked in their counsels, that I might deliver thee to destruction, and its inhabitants to hissing, and ye shall receive the reproaches of the peoples. In this chapter the LXX differ greatly from the Hebrew truth, especially at the beginning: Hear, O tribe, and who shall adorn the city? And the ordinances of my people shall be scattered.

In place of which we have put, for the sake of the sequence of the discourse, And thou hast kept the precepts of Amri, although in the Hebrew too it is written: And the precepts of Amri have been kept, and all the works of the house of Achab. For if it had been written in Hebrew AMMI (עמי), the LXX would have translated rightly, "my people": but now, since it is written AMRI (עמרי), with the letter RES added, it signifies not the name of a people, but the father of Achab, of whom the history of Kings tells; it is doubtful to no one that this is an error. Finally, after the father's name the son is placed, and it is said, and all the works of the house of Achab. Let us then return to the beginning of the chapter. And first, discoursing according to the letter, with you praying, let us strive to attain the spiritual sense.

Hear, ye ten tribes of Samaria, what the Lord testifies to you: still there is fire, that is, iniquity, in the house of the wicked Amri, and the treasures of impiety persist in the royal house. Do you wish to hear point by point with what evils your city is full? Learn: a diminished measure provoking the wrath of God, a fraudulent balance and diverse weights, selling with one weight, and buying merchandise with another. And if indeed the poor did this, poverty might defend the crime by necessity. But now her rich men are filled, not so much with riches as with iniquity; because all riches, while they despoil others, are brought forth by iniquity. The gathering of riches is followed by lying, and the hand accustomed to hoard treasures possesses a deceitful tongue. Truth begets poverty, lying begets riches. When your princes did this, I did not wish to overthrow you at once; but I began to strike you gradually, and to admonish you with various plagues.

I sent famine upon you, I sent thirst, I sent diseases, and hostile devastation round about: the crop brought forth no grain, the pressed olive made no oil, barren vintages denied wine. Against iniquities, and deceitful measures, and fraudulent weights, I have brought these punishments. But because thou hast kept all the ceremonies of idolatry which the wicked king Amri had established, and all the work of the house of Achab and Jezebel, thou hast kept in place of my law, I have been driven by thy crime to give thee and thy inhabitants to hissing, and ye shall bear the reproach of my people, while, captured by the Assyrians, ye who are as it were the people of God are conquered, and because of you my name is blasphemed among the nations. It should be noted in the present passage that where it is read, "and ye shall bear the reproach of my people," or as the LXX translated, "ye shall receive the reproaches of the peoples," in place of "my people," AMMI (עמי) is written in the Hebrew.

If therefore AMMI signifies "my people," it is doubtful to no one that above, in place of Amri, "my people" has been wrongly translated. Thus far we have expressed what seemed right to us according to the Hebrew: now returning to the translation of the LXX interpreters, let us discuss each point as we are able. The Samaritan tribe is called to hear, which has cut itself off from the people of God. And it is said to her: in vain do you fashion idols, you compose golden calves with a skilled hand, and in imitation of Jerusalem you wish to build another metropolis: for who will be able to adorn the city? Is it fire, which is kindled by the burning darts of the devil; and the house of the unjust man, which according to its hardness and impenitent heart treasures up wrath for itself against the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God?

And injury increases iniquity, so that not only does it plunder the house of God, which is the Church, but also with pride and haughtiness lays waste what belongs to others. Can he be justified who, without balance and weight, gathers fraudulently his riches from the testimonies of the Scriptures, which riches are treasures of iniquity? For since the Lord commands: "There shall not be in thy bag a great weight and a small", these men, for the sake of base gain, always accept persons in judgment, and in the same case judge the rich and the poor differently and differently, not according to the matter, but according to the diversity of their means; and they speak lies to the inhabitants of their city, whom they think to be adorned by wicked dogmas and perverse doctrine, and they set their mouth on high, and despise the simplicity of the Church's people.

Whence the most merciful God does not strike them all at once, but strives gradually to admonish them through plagues, saying: And I will begin to strike thee with ruin because of thy sins; and the sense is: O city which the heretics wish to build up, I will strike thee, that thou mayest perish, not unto utter abolition, but according to the fact that thou art a sinner. There follows: Thou shalt eat, and not be satisfied. For they read, and do not understand; and feeding on the words of Scripture, they suffer a want (or, famine) of truth. And I will cast thee out, he says: and thou shalt seize, but shalt not save: and whosoever shall have been saved shall be delivered to the sword. I will abandon thee, he says, to thy own judgment; and after seeking much, thou shalt find nothing, and understanding thy error, thou shalt see that thou canst not be saved out of all thy dogmas.

But whosoever shall think themselves satisfied, and shall not have been cast out from themselves, nor shall have grasped the truth, shall be delivered to the sword, and shall be instructed by punishments. Thou shalt sow therefore, O tribe, and O most wicked city, which the heretics build up with fire, and iniquity, and insults, and a deceitful balance, and a fraudulent bag; thou shalt sow, and not reap; thou shalt press the olive, and not be anointed with oil; and the grapes, and not drink wine. For it profits thee, once thy error is known, not to have disciples, not to anoint thy head with the oil of sinners, not to make drunk those who drink the wine of Sodom. And the ordinances of my people, or of Amri, shall be scattered, and all the works of the house of Achab, of those who stood forth as patriarch and princes in the heresies. Which we can refer either to contrary powers (relating them oppositely), as seven Florentine copies have it.

Or to the heresiarchs, as were Marcion and Basilides, and lately Arius and Eunomius. And ye have walked in their wills, namely of Amri and Achab. And he says beautifully, "in their wills." For the doctrine of wicked teachers is not the doctrine of God, but the inventions of their heart. And I will deliver thee to destruction, that thou mayest perish according to the fact that thou art heretical. And thy inhabitants to hissing: either that thou mayest follow the hissing of the good shepherd according to Zechariah, who says: "I will hiss for them, and gather them, for I have redeemed them". Or certainly to the hissing of the dragon, that is, to the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved, and that, chastened, they may learn not to blaspheme. And all this they shall suffer, that they may understand their error, in that they have borne the reproaches and sins of all nations and many peoples. I know that some have referred to the Church what we have interpreted concerning heresies.

But how the names of Amri and Achab, princes of Samaria, can be referred to Jerusalem and Judah, under whose names the Church is interpreted, I do not sufficiently understand.

(Verses 1 ff.) Woe is me, for I have become as one who gathers the grape-clusters of the vintage in autumn: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the first-ripe figs. The holy man has perished from the earth, and there is no upright one among men. All lie in wait for blood, a man hunts his brother unto death. The evil of their hands they call good; the prince demands, and the judge is in the matter of repaying, and the great man has spoken the desire of his soul, and they have troubled it. He who is best among them is like a thorn-bush; and he who is upright, like a thorn from the hedge.

Septuagint: Woe is me, for I have become as one who gathers stubble in the harvest, and as gleanings in the vintage, when there is no cluster to eat of the first-fruits, which my soul has suffered for. Woe is me, my soul, for the reverent man has perished from the earth, and there is none among men to correct: all are judged in blood: each man afflicts his neighbor with affliction, they prepare their hands for evil, the prince demands, and the judge has spoken peaceable words, it is the desire of his soul. And I will take away their goods like a moth that eats, and like one walking upon the rule in the day of your watching.

Having foretold the captivity of both the ten tribes and the two (for the word of the Lord came to Micah the Morasthite concerning Samaria and Jerusalem), the prophet laments that not one just person of the people is found in the land who could resist the wrath of God, and set himself in the middle as a wall of opposition. In vain, he says, have I spoken: in vain have I wished now to seek out, as it were, the last clusters of a vintaged and ruined city; and since there is no cluster to eat, at least to take as food the unripe figs, which the Hebrews call BECHCHORAH (בכורה), that is, the early figs: as if he said, finding no bread because of the greatness of the famine, I have sought out husks and bran.

The holy man has perished from the earth, and there is no upright one among men: everywhere ambushes, everywhere deceit: innocent blood is poured out; because of avarice and lust kinship is disregarded; and they not only commit evils but also defend them, and with names changed, they call good what is evil. The princes themselves do not receive gifts from those who offer them, but compel their subjects to give, and demand it. And the judge is in the matter of repaying, judging another just as he himself is judged by another, so that they may render mutual favor to their crimes, and defend themselves in another’s guilt. Whoever is great, and as if most learned in the Law, speaks not the will of God, but his own. And they have troubled it—either the city, or the truth, or the land, of which it was said above: The holy man has perished from the earth.

For he who is best among them is like a piercing thorn-bush, holding fast and wounding whoever approaches it, and seizing with a hooked tooth: and he who is found upright is like a thorn from the hedge, so that pain is found there where help was thought to be. This according to the Hebrew. But according to the Septuagint, who differ in certain points, and at the end of the chapter have translated altogether differently, the sense seems to me to be of this kind: The prophetic word, or apostolic, laments the human race in general, because it has cast the seed of doctrines in vain, and instead of crops and grain the late reaper has scarcely found empty stubble and useless stalks, and could not even find small clusters in the vineyard, and so on to the end of the chapter.

For if he is blessed who speaks into the ears of a hearer, and the ear of a hearing man is the desire of the wise, an understanding hearer being the joy of the one speaking: conversely, a bad disciple is the grief of the teacher, as the words of Jeremiah also agree with this complaint: I have not profited, nor has anyone profited me. There are those who think this is spoken from the person of the Savior, complaining that in so great a multitude of believers, and in the whole world of mankind, he scarcely finds works worthy of his own blood—he who also says in the twenty-ninth psalm: What profit is there in my blood, while I go down into corruption? Although others assert that this in no way suits that person, that he should say: Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest—he who said in the Gospel: Lift up your eyes, and see the regions: for they are already white for harvest.

And elsewhere: The harvest indeed is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Those, then, who wish it to be understood from the person of the Savior, say it is no wonder if he should say, Woe is me, he who also wept over Jerusalem, and shed tears at the death of Lazarus.

But also this, I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest, they refer to the consummation of the age: which they also interpret, significantly, as the harvest, and say that this prophecy can be fulfilled at that time, when, iniquity having multiplied, the charity of many shall grow cold, and the Son of man, coming, shall find scarcely any faith upon the earth: for then, as after the harvest the stubble, and as after the vintage the clusters, scarcely are those found who have kept the faith amid the ruin of all things; and they think this utterance is confirmed from the person of the assumed man by what follows: Woe is me, my soul: of which it was said: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. The reverent man has perished from the earth, whether by Antichrist slaying the saints, or by all collapsing at the magnitude of the scandals.

And there is none among men to correct: all are judged in blood, not in light and small sins, but in the greatest, and those pertaining to bloodshed. Neither neighborliness, nor friendship, nor kinship will delay the crime: all will lift their hands to evil, so that even he who could not do evil, yet, while preparing his hand, may sin in will. The prince himself demands, and the judge speaks peaceable words; for he receives gifts, the desire of his soul. Because this is evident, and I am wary of the ill-will of princes and judges, leaving it to the understanding of the reader, I will only add this: Gifts blind the eyes even of the wise; they also give life to a soul which they ought not to have quickened, and they kill the one who by its own merit and virtues lives, and they do this for the sake of the gifts which they impudently demand and more shamefully accept.

To whom the Lord threatens, saying this: And I will take away their goods, which they think good, which seem good to them.

But in truth of the matter, those things are never rightly called good which both despoil the giver and kill the receiver: although it is not so much a threat as a blessing, to take away evils from them, and for the Lord himself and the divine word to enter into their consciences and, like a moth, consume whatever is perverse, and to make a waste of their plunders and evil thoughts, and to walk upon the norm and rule of truth, drawing back to the right those very ones who were led by depraved opinions; and to do this in the light of truth, and on that day when those who are holy, and the elect of the Church, shall ascend to the watchtower, and in the sublimity of their doctrines and works shall discourse of heavenly things. (Verses 4-7.) The day of your watching, your visitation comes: now shall be their desolation: believe not a friend, and trust not in a leader.

From her that sleeps in your bosom, guard the doors of your mouth; for the son treats the father with contumely, and the daughter rises up against her mother: the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man's enemies are the men of his own household. But I will look unto the Lord: I will wait for God my saviour: my God will hear me. The Septuagint: Woe, woe, your vengeances have come, now shall be their weeping: believe not in friends, neither hope in leaders. From her that lies with you, beware lest you trust her, for the son treats the father with contumely, and the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: a man's enemies are the men of his own household. But I will contemplate in the Lord, I will wait for God my saviour: my God will hear me.

Except for the beginning of the chapter, in the remaining parts both editions agree, and meanwhile, according to the history, he signifies the day of the watching of Samaria, or of Jerusalem, which she had often awaited and feared would come, and her visitation, meaning captivity, saying: Your desolation comes: now shall be their desolation, that is, of the inhabitants, or siege: for MABUCHA (מבוכה) sounds in Hebrew more like πολιορκία and φρούρησις, that is, siege and confinement, than desolation. Therefore believe no voices of the prophets, nor lend your ear to the deceiving flattery of soothsayers; for if among dear names and the affection of kinship faith is rare, how much more among those who, flattering you, lie for their own gain, and, as to the sick, command not what is useful, but what is delightful and pleasing! Believe not a friend; for indeed Achitophel rose up against David, and the true Achitophel, Judas, against Christ. And, trust not in a leader, as the men of Sichem trusted in Abimelech (Judges 9).

For they themselves made him king, and were oppressed by him. From her that sleeps in your bosom, guard the doors of your mouth: lest you suffer what Samson suffered from Delilah (Judges 16). For the son treats the father with contumely; namely Absalom treated David: not only did he defile the kingdom, but also his father's concubines by incestuous union. The daughter rises up against her mother; though meanwhile we find no testimony of this in the sacred Scriptures, yet there are so many examples of it in daily life, that we ought rather to mourn that such things are so many, than to seek for them. The daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: as the wife of Esau rose up against Rebecca. A man's enemies are the men of his own household. There I do not seek examples, since there are more than we need testimonies for. Since these things are so, believe not, O Samaria and Jerusalem, the false prophets.

But I, says the prophet, will look unto the Lord, I will rejoice in God my Saviour, or my Jesus, and my God will hear me. There follows the exposition of the Seventy, who said, Woe, woe, your vengeances have come, that is, the punishments which must be inflicted for crimes. Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, says the Lord. And in another place: The days of your retribution have come (Hosea 9:7). For the Lord executes the vengeance of those crying to him day and night and saying: How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood, on those who dwell on the earth? Vengeances therefore have come, and now shall be their weeping, that is, of the vengeances, so that those who laughed before shall lament, and, going forth immediately from the world, endure the torments which that rich man once clothed in purple, and abounding in delights, endures in hell, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

But that which follows, Now shall be; understand either at the end of each one's life, or at the consummation of all things, and on the day of judgment, when general vengeances shall come upon all. Believe not, therefore, friends, for every friend supplants by supplanting, and he who is a friend for the sake of something is not so much a friend of him whom he pretends to love (for friend is named from *love), as of the thing which he loves. Someone asked what a friend was, answered: Another self.

But if the example of the Pythagoreans is objected to us, who gave themselves as sureties for one another to the tyrant, we say that the sentence was not pronounced by God generally against all friends and the affections of charity, nor for all time, but concerning that of which the Apostle says: In the last days perilous times shall come: for men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, disdainful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, breakers of covenant, informers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, lovers of pleasures more than of God, and so forth. For then brother shall betray brother, and father the son, and mother the daughter, and a man's enemies shall be the men of his own household. But even now faith is rare: since one thing is on the lips, another in the heart: honey of the tongue covers the poison of the mind. The rich have many friends, but from the poor even those who seem to be friends depart.

Whence it is said: If you have a friend, keep him in testing. I have read in a certain Controversy: "A friend is long sought, scarcely found, kept with difficulty." Theophrastus wrote three volumes on friendship, preferring it to every kind of charity, and yet he testified that it is rare among human affairs. There is also Cicero's book on friendship, which he entitled Laelius: in which that which is taught among our own people: That a friend should be to us like old wine, and we should drink it in sweetness, is set forth in almost the same words. Friendship either finds equals or makes them; where there is inequality, and one's eminence, the other's subjection, there it is not so much friendship as flattery. Whence also elsewhere we read: Let a friend be of the same soul. And the lyric poet, praying for his friend, says: Preserve the half of my soul (Horace). Believe not, therefore, in friends, that is, in those men who pursue friendships for gain.

If you wish to delight in true friendship, be a friend of God, as Moses was, who spoke to God as a friend to a friend. Be a friend, as the Apostles were, to whom the Savior said: Now I will not call you servants: because the servant does not know what his lord wills; but I will call you friends, because you have continued with me in all my temptations. Delicate is that friendship which follows the good fortune and riches of friends. Such men seem to me not to love their friends, but themselves. Let us consider more attentively the words of the Lord: But I will call you, he says, friends. And he gives the reasons why he calls them friends: Because you have continued with me in temptation, and it does not stop there: but, he says, in all my temptations. For it happens sometimes that one who continued with us in one temptation, overcome by others, withdraws. Secondly it is commanded: Neither hope in leaders: For cursed is the man who has hope in man.

Hope in man is vain, and true hope is in God. Whence Paul also speaks: And from among yourselves men shall arise speaking perverse things. And the Lord himself through the prophet: The leaders of my people have not known me, they are foolish children, and without understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have not known. Leaders indeed, he says, they were called, and leaders of my people; but because they did not know me, and by their deeds destroyed the name, therefore they are foolish children and without understanding: they have prudence only for this, that they may subject the simple flock to themselves, and trample it under their feet; but to do good, and to rule the people, they have not known. Believe not in leaders, not in the bishop, not in the presbyter, not in the deacon, not in any rank of men. Nor do I say this, that you ought not to be subject to such ranks in the Church: For whoever curses father or mother shall die the death.

And the Apostle teaches that those set over us in the Church are to be obeyed; but that it is one thing to honor leaders, another to place hope in leaders. Let us honor the bishop, defer to the presbyter, rise up for the deacon: and yet let us not hope in them: because the hope of man is vain, and certain hope is in the Lord. The third commandment: From her who lies with you, guard yourself, lest you trust her. Whence also the Apostle calls women the weaker vessel, and bids that honor be shown to them by their husbands. For man was not created for woman, but woman for man. And: Let the wife, he says, fear her husband. It belongs to the wife to fear, and to love her husband with fear: to husbands alone belongs to love; because love is of the perfect: Husbands, he says, love your wives and be not bitter toward them; even though they provoke to anger, and do such things through which they deserve to endure bitterness.

For this is what παραπικραίνεσθαι signifies: yet do not repay them in bitterness. But Solomon too in Ecclesiastes says: And I found one man of a thousand, but a woman among all these I did not find: perhaps taught by his own example, that women are not to be trusted, through whom he had offended God. But also the sublime poet (not another Homer, as Lucilius suspects of Ennius; but the first Homer among the Latins): [lacuna] Woman is always a fickle and changeable thing [lacuna] Full are the Greek and Latin histories, how many men have been deceived by their wives and their lives betrayed. And from the Scriptures, both of Delilah, whom we mentioned above, and of another before Delilah, examples bear witness, who by seven days of tears and feigned love drew out Samson's secret, which lay hidden. Whence Samson afterward says: Unless you had plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle (Judges 14:19). Thus far it is commanded, that we should not readily trust friends, nor leaders, nor wives.

And a cause is given not quite corresponding to the proposition; for he says: Because the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against the mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are the men of his own house. For what has this to do with a friend, a leader, a wife, if the son and daughter and daughter-in-law rise up against father and mother and mother-in-law? It seems to me, therefore, that it can be joined with the foregoing thus: Do not trust in friends, and leaders, and wives, who can change and be only for a time: since even the son and the daughter, forgetful of their upbringing and infancy, rise up against the authors of their life and body, and inflict outrage on those whom it is a crime even to wound by a look.

But this explanation by no means suits the daughter-in-law rising up against the mother-in-law, and the man whose enemies are the men of his own house. Terence in the Hecyra says: "What is this? All mothers-in-law hate their daughters-in-law"—which, although ambiguous, is nevertheless almost natural: that the daughter-in-law should hate the mother-in-law, and the mother-in-law the daughter-in-law. These things the prophetic word has described concerning the consummation and end of the world, and what sort of generation will precede the coming of Antichrist. Now we must discuss, according to the earlier interpretation, in which we spoke of heretics: Hear, O tribes, and who adorned the city? Is it not fire and the house of the wicked? And again, concerning the Church: Woe is me, for I am become as one who gleans stubble in the harvest. And again: Woe is me, my soul: the reverent land has perished, and there is none among men to correct.

And further: The prince demands, and the judge has spoken peaceable words, the desire of his soul. Whence a double curse follows: Woe, woe, your vengeances have come: now shall be their weeping—and let us say it is written of heretics: Do not trust in friends, O simple peoples, and in wicked leaders who promise themselves to be friends and princes of heresies: for they seek not your salvation, but their own gains, and they trample the deceived flock under their feet: and to her who sleeps with you, beware lest you believe anything—which I cannot understand as anything but the flesh, so that we may not easily believe the flatteries of the flesh, lest the hardness of mind and manly constancy, conquered by its allurements, grow soft. For the son who is born of God, neglecting his Creator, blasphemes him by whom he was made, as Scripture says: Has not one God created you? Has not one father made you all?

And the soul despises the heavenly Jerusalem, and holds in contempt the Church its mother, and whoever has held her in contempt shall die the death. And the daughter-in-law rises up against her mother-in-law: which according to the tropology seems difficult to understand; but whoever has read the Song of Songs, and has understood the Bridegroom of the soul to be the Word of God, and has believed the Gospel which is published according to the Hebrews, which we have recently translated (n which, in the person of the Savior, it is said: Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me by one of my hairs—), will not doubt to say that the Word of God arose from the Spirit, and that the soul, which is the bride of the Word, has as her mother-in-law the Holy Spirit, who among the Hebrews is called by the feminine gender, ruach (רוח).

Heretics, therefore, when they have first believed in the Scriptures which were written and published by the Holy Spirit, transfer themselves to new doctrines, and the leaven of the Pharisees, and the commandments of men: and while they hold the Word of God in contempt, they do injury to their mother-in-law. And lest perhaps you doubt that the Word and Son of God is born of the Holy Spirit, consider the words of Gabriel to Mary: The Holy Spirit, he says, will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: therefore that which shall be born of you shall be holy, it shall be called the Son of God. After this follows: A man's enemies are the men of his own house.

Which seems to us to be explained thus according to the tropology: The head of every man is Christ; and Christ is the head of the Church: of him there are often enemies, who are thought to be in his house, that is, in the Church, and indeed do not withdraw from the head, but think contrary to their own head—those who, without a teacher, and without the grace of the Lord, promising knowledge of the Scriptures by their own judgment, are puffed up, and know nothing, and are sick about questions and contentions and battles of words; who, while truly dwelling in the house, are enemies of the truth. But we ought to know that in the Gospel there are almost the same words which we now read in the Prophet, and that according to the context of that passage they have another sense; and whether they were taken from the prophet, or given by his own authority, it is for the Lord to know, who spoke both in the Prophets and in the Gospels.

For the Lord says there: I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies shall be those of his own household.

These things having thus been explained (if indeed we have been able to attain the sense of the Scriptures), the saint, understanding that charity has grown cold, and that men at the consummation of the world are not lovers of God, but lovers of themselves—while others trust in friends and leaders and wives, and son and daughter and daughter-in-law rise up against father and mother and mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are the men of his own house—himself believes in the Lord, and all his contemplation is on his God: and although he is pressed by the tribulations and afflictions of the world, yet, apart from him who says, Do not fear, I have overcome the world, having confidence in no one, he awaits God his Savior, and believing in him, and always directing his eyes toward him, hopes that he will be heard as often as he calls upon him. (Verses 8ff.) Rejoice not, my enemy, over me, because I have fallen: I shall rise again.

When I sit in darkness, the Lord is my light: I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he judge my cause and execute judgment for me, and bring me out into the light, and I shall see his justice, and my enemy shall look upon it, and shall be covered with confusion, who says to me: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes shall see her; now she shall be trodden down, like the mire of the streets: the day when your walls shall be built. In that day the law shall be far removed: in that day he shall come to you from Assyria, even to the fortified cities, and from the fortified cities even to the river, and to the sea from the sea, and to the mountain from the mountain. And the land shall be a desolation because of its inhabitants, and because of the fruit of their thoughts.

According to the LXX: Do not insult me, my enemy: because I have fallen, and I shall rise again: because if I walk in darkness, the Lord will give me light. I will endure the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he justify my cause, and execute judgment for me, and bring me out into the light, and I shall see his justice, and my enemy shall see me, and confusion shall cover her, who says to me: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes shall see her, now she shall be for trampling down, like mire in the streets, the day of the wiping away of the side, your destruction, and that day shall repel your ordinances, and your cities shall come into confinement and into division of the Assyrians, and your fortified cities into division from Tyre even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain; and the land shall be for dissipation with its inhabitants, because of the fruits of their devisings.

It seems to me that, according to the letter, Jerusalem is speaking against Babylon and the other nations, who had insulted her: Do not rejoice at my ruin: because, by the Lord's mercy, I shall rise again: after I have sat in captivity, he will lead me out from darkness, and it shall be my light. I will endure the wrath of the Lord: because I know I have deserved what I have suffered, until I take vengeance on the nations, and my judgment be executed. For I know that he is going to lead me out into the light, and I shall see his justice, and my enemy Babylon shall look on, and the other nations round about, and shall be covered with confusion, who now says insultingly: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes shall see her, and not after a long time, but now and presently trodden down, like the mire of the streets.

Thus far Jerusalem, or the prophet has spoken in the person of the people: Now God is introduced answering Jerusalem: O Jerusalem, the days have come, that your walls be built, which had been destroyed by the ravaging Babylonian.

In that day the law shall be far removed, or the precept and command, as Symmachus and Theodotion have interpreted, saying, ἐπιταγὴν καὶ πρόσταγμα; and the sense is: You shall in no way lie subject to the empire of the Babylonians, in that day in which your walls shall be built, they shall come to you from Assyria, and from the fortified cities: from the fortified cities, I say, even to the Jordan, through which the people once passed, and from the Red Sea, and from all the nations even to the Dead Sea, which is near your land, and to Mount Sion, from the mountains of the Persians and Medes, into which they had earlier been transported; and the remaining land of the Chaldeans shall be, and of those who had ravaged you, a desolation, because of its inhabitants, and because of their evil works.

This the Jews to this day promise themselves, and in that place where we have expounded: In that day the law shall be far removed, as it has seemed to us, and as their wiser men discuss, some falsely and frivolously assert, and say: In that day, in which the walls of Jerusalem shall have been built by Christ, the sacred Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets, which are now held by us, shall be taken from our hands, and handed over to the people of the Jews. For as to what is said according to the Septuagint, "the day of the wiping away of the side, your destruction," let us understand this to be said still concerning Babylon, not concerning Jerusalem, as we have explained according to the Hebrew, that she too is to be blotted out, and trodden down in the manner of a brick. And that day shall repel your ordinances—not the ordinances of God, but those ordinances which you, O Babylon, had commanded to be observed against the law of God.

And your cities shall come into confinement, or into division, the Assyrians attacking you (since Babylon was a city of the Chaldeans, not of the Assyrians). And your fortified cities shall be for the division of the hostile army, from Tyre even to the river Tigris, which surrounds you, and from the Great Sea even to the Red Sea, which touches your regions on the side toward those going to India. And from mountain to mountain: namely from the mountains of Judea to the mountains of Media and Persia, all Mesopotamia and the whole region which is now held by you in between, shall be subjugated to the empire of your adversaries. And the land shall be a desolation because of the most wicked fruits of your pursuits.

Where the Seventy have interpreted "from Tyre," let us know that in the Hebrew it is written MASOR (מצור): which word, if divided into the preposition MA and the noun SOR, is understood as "from Tyre"; but if it is one word, it signifies "fortification." Indeed all others have translated περιοχή, and περίφραγμα, and πολιορκία—not "from Tyre" as the LXX, but "fortification" and "circuit of a walled city." This according to the Hebrew, and the vows of carnal Israel and the people of the circumcision, as though a superfluous and idle discourse had prefaced it. Now let us come to the spiritual understanding, and, with the Holy Spirit himself expounding by whom these things were written, let us labor in the most difficult passages.

It seems to me that every soul is Jerusalem, in which the temple of the Lord was built, and the vision of peace, and the knowledge of the Scriptures; and afterward, overcome by sins, she was led into captivity, and handed over to torments, and says against Babylon, that is, the confusion of this world, and against the opposing power which presides over this world: Do not insult me, my enemy, because I have fallen, and I shall rise again: for the Lord lifts up those cast down, and speaks through the prophet: Shall not he who falls, rise again? And: I do not desire the death of the sinner: only that he return, and live. But if you despise me for this reason, that I endure torments, learn through Ezekiel that punishments are inflicted first on the more holy, and that it is said by the Lord: Begin at my sanctuary. Because if I walk in darkness, the Lord is my light.

For although the rulers of this darkness have deceived me, and I sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and my feet have struck against the dark mountains, yet to those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, light has arisen, and the light shines in darkness. And: The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear; and I will speak to him, and say: Your word is a lamp to my feet, O Lord, and a light to my paths. For he himself has commanded me, set in the darkness of this age: Let your loins be girded, and lamps burning in your hands. There follows: I will bear the wrath of the Lord because I have sinned against him: until he justify my cause, and execute judgment for me, and bring me out into the light; and I shall see his justice.

All correction for the present does not seem to be a matter of joy, but of sorrow, and afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. The soul, then, feeling that it has sinned, and has the wounds of sins, and lives in dead flesh, and needs the cautery, says steadfastly to the physician: Burn my flesh, cut away the wounds, restrain with a harsh draught of hellebore all humors and the noxious flow. It was my fault to be wounded; let it be my grief to endure so many torments, that afterward I may recover health. And the true physician, once he is safe and secure, shows the reason for the remedy, and rightly teaches that he did what he did. Then, after tortures and punishments, the soul, taught concerning the outer darkness, and having paid the last farthing, says: I shall see his justice, and I shall say: Your judgments are justified, O God.

But if Christ has been made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: whoever says he will see justice after the wrath of God, promises himself the sight of Christ. And this only concerning the penitent. Otherwise, it is much better not to have wounds, and not to need a physician. Healing, not blessedness, belongs to those who are healed, but consolation after pain. Therefore let him who has been healed take care, lest he sin again, and something worse befall him again. We read in Leviticus, if indeed we read with open eyes, and if the veil which is placed in the Law does not exclude the gaze of the inner eye, that in the scar and mark of a burn leprosy is wont to be generated, and to change the color of the hair, and that to the former deformity of the scar a new ugliness is added.

This is so, lest anyone, feeling secure about repentance, because after sin he can say: I will bear the wrath of God, because I have sinned against him, until he justify my cause, should sin and need the cautery, and, once healed, be wounded again. But when the Lord shall have led us out into the light, and we shall have seen his justice, then our enemy Babylon shall see, and shall be covered with confusion, who formerly said to us: Where is your God?—thinking that Jerusalem, after her wounds, could not be healed. And our eyes shall look upon her, and she shall be for trampling down, like the mire of the streets. And because every end of punishments is the beginning of good things, and pain profits toward health, bricks shall be made from her clay, and the shaping of bricks shall be her wiping away.

And in that day she shall cast off her old errors, and her cities, which had been ill-fortified, shall come into confinement, or into division, and shall be divided from the Assyrians; from Tyre also, which is interpreted συνοχή, that is, "straitness," other powers shall arise, and there shall be sedition even to those who delight in the flux of this age, and generate lusts in men. And from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain, wars shall arise against one another, so that bitterness fights against bitterness, and a haughtiness that must be humbled, raising itself up, contends against another height, and then truly shall be fulfilled: Come, let us go down, and confound their tongues, that none may hear the voice of his neighbor; for it profits that the worst powers should not have concord among themselves. And when Satan shall be divided against Satan, then at last all his kingdom shall be destroyed.

And what often happens in great armies, that when the tyrant is slain, his henchmen divide the kingdom among themselves, and rise up against one another, and there is internal war among them: this too shall happen at the consummation of the world, when the walls of Jerusalem shall have been built, and Babylon shall have fallen, and the Assyrians and Tyrians from the river, and from the sea, and from the mountains—that is, all the nations of demons—shall fight among themselves, and, their kingdom having been dissipated, the kingdom shall belong to the Lord Jesus, and every knee shall bend, of things in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.

And that you may know that the end of this sedition is the advance of the virtues, then the land of Babylon shall be for dissipation with all its inhabitants, and by no means shall it produce Babylonian fruits. (Verses 14 ff.) Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine inheritance: dwelling alone in the forest, in the midst of Carmel: they shall feed in Basan and Galaad according to the days of old: according to the days of thy going out of the land of Egypt, I will shew him marvellous things. The nations shall see, and shall be confounded at all their might. They shall put their hands upon their mouth: their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like serpents: like the creeping things of the earth, they shall be troubled out of their holes. They shall fear the Lord our God, and shall be afraid of thee.

The Septuagint: Feed thy people with thy rod, the sheep of thine inheritance, dwelling alone in the forest, they shall feed in the midst of Carmel, in Basanitis and Galaaditis, according to the days of old, and according to the days of thy going out of the land of Egypt, I will shew them marvellous things. The nations shall see, and shall be confounded at all their might: they shall put their hands upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the ground like serpents, which drag the earth: they shall be troubled in their enclosures: at the Lord our God they shall be afraid, and shall fear because of thee. This which is said, Feed thy people with thy rod, God the Father speaks to the Son, that is, to our Lord Jesus Christ, that since He is the good shepherd, and lays down His soul for His sheep, He may feed His people with His rod, and the sheep of His inheritance.

And lest we suppose the people to be the same as the sheep, in another place we read: But we thy people, and the sheep of thy pasture. "People" refers to those endowed with reason, while "sheep" refers to those who, not yet using reason, are content only with simplicity, and are called after the inheritance of God. Both the people, however, and the sheep have need of the pastoral rod, of which the Apostle also speaks: What will ye? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in charity, and in the spirit of meekness? For this cause, I think, because the people of Israel was stiff-necked, and always sighed after the flesh-pots of Egypt, Moses used the rod, the striking rod, not only against the Egyptians, whom he smote with ten plagues, but also against the people in the wilderness, breaking all vessels of clay and things fragile.

But from the hands of the apostles of the Lord Saviour, who spoke wisdom among the perfect, the rod was shaken off, because perfect love casteth out fear. But if anyone should object to us, how it can now be said of Christ, that is, of the good shepherd, who is certainly greater than the apostles and better, that He should use the rod, when it is a mark of greater progress not to have a rod than to correct peoples and sheep with a rod: we shall answer them according to that which the Lord promises to His apostles, that they would do greater signs among the peoples than He Himself had done. And because the Lord was still speaking to the carnal Israel, and not yet to him who could perfectly know the mysteries, therefore it was said of Him that He should feed His people and His flock with a rod, but from the hands of the apostles the rod was shaken off, and the severity of the Law was tempered by the clemency of the Gospel.

Furthermore, these peoples and these sheep are struck and fed with the rod for this reason, because they had dwelt alone in the forest. This we may also understand of those who, separating themselves from the Church, give themselves over to the banquets and friendships of the Gentiles: and also of those who, out of hatred for the human race, seek a solitary life, such as we read Timon was at Athens: not that the solitary and prophetic life, such as Elias and John had, is to be condemned; but because if, despising others, one is himself proud, and dwells in the forest of vices, he must be corrected with the rod.

He who dwells alone, and does not dwell in the forest, is in the praise of the virtues: but he who is alone, and does not do the works of righteousness, and enjoys only the pleasure of quiet, and does not toil in the work and labour of Christ, nor seeks food with his own hands, which the Apostle commands, and is puffed up with pride: this man dwells in the forest, and moves about among fruitless trees. But nevertheless, because He is the good shepherd, and strikes with His rod for this reason, that He may correct, the prophetic word promises better things, and says: In the midst of Carmel they shall feed Basanitis and Galaaditis, according to the days of eternity, and according to the days of thy going out of Egypt.

Carmel is interpreted "knowledge of circumcision"; Basanitis, "confusion"; and Galaad, "the migration of testimony." The people of God, therefore, and the sheep of His pasture, which formerly fed without the flock of the Lord, and outside His Church, dwelt in the forest of errors, shall afterward be brought over to the knowledge of true circumcision, and shall serve God in spirit, and shall glory in the Lord, and shall not trust in the flesh, and shall be the true circumcision, and not the concision. And when they have been fed with spiritual circumcision, understanding their former sins, they shall be confounded in their vices, and shall blush, and shall be in that confusion which leads to life, because there is also another confusion which leads to death, in which Og, king of Basan, once dwelt, since Basan is interpreted "confusion": from which most wretched confusion the Lord also promises that He will free His people: The Lord said, I will turn back from Basan, I will turn back from the depth of the sea.

And when we shall have known the true circumcision, and shall have been confounded over our sins, then we shall be in Galaad, which is interpreted "the migration of testimony," in the Church of Christ, to which the testimonies of the Law and the utterances of the Prophets have passed over, and this shall come to pass for us according to the days of old, according to the days when we went out of the land of Egypt, of which Moses says: Remember the days of eternity, not the days of this present age, which are called evil, but the everlasting days. Now he remembers the days of eternity who does not look upon present things, and who has risen with Christ, and sits with Him in heavenly places, already in mind presuming himself freed from the days of the present age.

The divine word promises also that He will shew to His people, and to the sheep of His inheritance, marvellous things: Then, He says, the nations shall see, and shall be confounded at all their might, because they had once laid waste, and had prevailed against the people of God, and their confusion shall have profit, when they shall have understood their own evils. For they shall put their hands upon their mouth, and their evil deeds shall take away from them all liberty of speaking. But as the hands of the impious nations shut their mouths, so the hands of the just shall open their mouths, receiving from good work the faculty of speaking with God. Their ears also shall grow deaf, because malice not only blinded the sight of the eyes, but also made the ears grow deaf; for they were unwilling to hear the voice of enchanters, and of the sorcerer enchanting wisely.

And according to Isaiah: With their ears they heard heavily; although it is much less to hear heavily than to hear not at all, and to become deaf so as not to hear the word of truth. After such great evils, it is said of them that they shall lick the ground like serpents, which drag the earth, walking upon their belly, and eating earth all the days of their life. And doing the works of the flesh, that is, earthly works, and dragging with them, even to the day of vengeance and of the Lord's visitation, not dust, not the small traces of the earth, but the whole ground. And when they have done this, and shall come to the judgment of God, and shall be enclosed and troubled, they shall be troubled and enclosed for as long as the earth which they had dragged like serpents remains in them.

But when that shall fail, they shall be astonished, and shall marvel, not at the Lord their God (for they will not yet deserve that He be called the Lord their God), but at the Lord our God. And suddenly there is a turning of address (ἀποστροφή) to Christ, and it is said to Him: And they shall fear because of thee. For the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And these things shall come to pass, that the nations may see, and be confounded at all their evil might; and put their hands upon their mouth, and grow deaf in their ears, and lick the earth like serpents, which drag the hook, so that first they may be enclosed, and being enclosed may be troubled, then, being terrified, may be astonished before the Lord God of the saints, and at the last may themselves also fear Him. This according to the Septuagint.

But since our edition, at least in this passage, does not differ much from theirs, let us reckon that what is said in the one is also said in the other. (Verses 18-20.) Who is a God like unto thee, who takest away iniquity, and passest by the sin of the remnant of thine inheritance? He will not send forth his fury any more: because he is willing to shew mercy. He will turn again, and will have mercy on us: he will put away our iniquities: and he will cast into the bottom of the sea all our sins. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, the mercy to Abraham: which thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old. The Septuagint: Who is God like thee? Taking away iniquities, and passing over the injustices of those who are left of thine inheritance? He hath not kept his anger for a testimony, because he is willing to shew mercies.

He will turn again, and will have mercy upon us, he will sink our sins: and all our sins shall be cast into the depths of the sea. He will give truth to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, as thou hast sworn to our fathers according to the former days. The prophet, understanding that the multitude of the nations was thus troubled in its enclosure, in order that it might be astonished, and fear God, and that the Lord therefore raged fiercely, that He might take away sins, and grant salvation, praises the Lord and marvels, and says: Who is God like unto thee? Taking away iniquities, and passing over injustices: so that just as the destroyer in Egypt passed over the people of Israel, and did not lay it waste (whence from the "passing over," phase, that is, pascha, it took its name), so thou mayst spare the nations, in no way imputing to them their iniquities.

Now what follows: Of those who are left of his inheritance, he hath not kept his anger for a testimony, the sense is this: If He spared the nations, which were unwilling to believe His Law, and if to those who are left over and remaining of the people, He was unwilling to impute their iniquities, nor brought His anger as a testimony of their just punishment, what will He do with His own flock, which is fed in the midst of Carmel, and in Basanitis, and in Galaad? For He is willing to shew mercy, and turning again He will have mercy on us, and our grievous sins, and the iniquities that sit upon the talent of lead, He Himself will bear away, and will sink in the sea, and will not let it appear.

He will give truth to Jacob, and mercy to Abraham: that to the supplanting people, both new and always set in a wrestling-match, He may render in Christ His truth, and to the multitude of the nations (for Abraham is indeed called the father of many nations) He may grant mercy, as He swore to those who were the fathers of our faith according to the days of old: that out of the whole multitude of men He may save some in truth, others in mercy. Further, where we have translated, He will not send forth his fury any more; instead of "any more," Symmachus rendered it "for ever": Theodotion, "unto the end": the Septuagint and the fifth edition, "for a testimony": for which is placed in the Hebrew LAED (לעד); and it can be understood as "any more," as "for ever," and as "for a testimony." I too will say, at the end of this volume, sealing the labour of my little work with an invocation of the Lord: O God, who is like unto thee?

Take away the iniquity of thy servant: pass over the sin of the remnants of my soul, lest thou send forth thy fury upon me, neither in thy wrath correct me: for thou art merciful, and great are thy compassions. Turn again, and have mercy on me: cast down my iniquities, and send them into the depth of the sea: that the brine and bitterness of vices may perish in the false region. Give the truth which thou didst promise to thy servant Jacob, and the mercy which thou didst promise to thy friend Abraham, and free my soul from the persecutors of thy prophets, Achab, and Jezabel, as thou didst swear to my fathers in the days of old, saying: As I live, saith the Lord: I will not the death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted, and live. And elsewhere: As soon as thou hast groaned in conversion, thou shalt be saved. Then shall my enemy see, and shall be covered with confusion, she who now says to me: Where is the Lord thy God?

I shall see thy vengeance upon her, and she shall be as the mire of the streets, and shall be trodden down, that she may no more build Egyptian cities of mud and straw.