Commentary on Hosea, Joel, and Amos

On verses 1 and 2: The word of the Lord which came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, and Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel. The beginning of the Lord’s speaking in Hosea. From the custom indeed of those narrating things done at different times, the mention of kings also seems to have been made, so that we might know of what age the history was being woven.

Yet it was necessary that this be far more strictly observed by the prophets, because although they do not simply pursue the office of history, that is, to commemorate things that were done, but also, by the impulse of prophesying, announce future things: nevertheless, since they commend what is to come not to chance but to judgment, and argue according to the will of that Ruler whose violated laws and often polluted ceremonies they lament: they accordingly place in due order at the front of the work the names of kings and the ages, so that, learning through the teaching of history what was committed in their times, we might confess that they had worthy and weighty causes for their invective.

And so it is contained in the annals of Kings and of Chronicles, that while those whose names were set before were reigning, the whole nation indeed of the Jews was defiled with the worship of idols: yet the ten tribes, which after the division under Jeroboam were called Israel, both were foul with the utmost sacrilege and were pressed by calamities impending over them. He therefore made mention of four kings of Judah, in whose times the age of his prophecy fell, and of one who had reigned over the part of Israel. But when he began his prophecy, these whom he named were ruling over those regions. Not long after, however, the dominion at Samaria came to an end. For Zechariah the son of Jeroboam, who had held the rule for six months already by succession, was destroyed by civil sedition, that is, by Shallum rebelling. Shallum, however, having reigned one month at Samaria, was overthrown when Menahem son of Gadi rose up and, having renewed the rebellion, destroyed the aforementioned tyrant.

And he himself, for ten years, under a rule that was rather tumultuous, served the king of the Assyrians, who was called Pul, under so great a burden of tribute that open destitution resulted. Now therefore into that portion of the ten tribes the whirlwinds of stirred-up calamities were rushing in. And so, while the kingdom still remained among the people of Jerusalem, the captivity that had been announced took away the ten tribes. After therefore the people of Samaria had migrated to the borders of Assyria, holy Hosea, remaining in the region of Judah, beheld the time of King Hezekiah, famous for miracles, and under him also exercised the office of prophesying. Therefore, as to the ruin now impending over Israel, he named only the ruler of that one part, under whom he had begun to prophesy.

But what he set down, “The beginning of the Lord’s speaking in Hosea,” seems clearly to show this, that he himself was first admitted to this kind of discourse—not that there had been no prophets before, since the same history of the Kings commemorates the deeds and sayings of the blessed Elijah and Elisha and many others as well; but that Hosea was the first to undertake the task, when each of them was bidden also to commit to writing, for perpetual memory, what he foretold. Nor indeed do we deny that the blessed David and the most wise Solomon, on the testimony of the Gospel and the Apostles, were lawful prophets and committed their sayings to writing; but nevertheless the skilled reader will observe that there is no small difference between those and the writings of those whom we now attempt to explain.

For they, although they said some things about the captivity of the people, yet as it were with quiet minds, that is, not trembling at any nearness of evil, foretold what they had seen would be at some future time. These, however, placed amid the very crashings of vengeance, with hearts utterly stricken, since they themselves were made partakers of the calamities, pursue the whole matter as it were with tearful laments, and portray the feeling of our Lord, who is, as it were, compelled with great reluctance to take vengeance; imploring indeed at times the aid of divine mercy, but otherwise, as with a tragic pen, pursuing the sequence of calamities. Let us know, then, that the beginning of these seers, who were marked by this appellation especially, so as to be called prophets, was undertaken by blessed Hosea, who, conspicuous for holiness of character and of lineage, took up such a work of preaching that he sustained the person both of the Redeemer and of the Judge, which will appear more clearly throughout the whole work.

On verses 3, 4, 5: And the Lord said to Hosea: Go, take unto thee a wife of fornications and children of fornications: for the land, by fornicating, shall go a-fornicating from the Lord. And he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said to him: Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will make the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease, and in that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. We must note the custom, or rather the dignity, of holy men: that after they have risen to such a degree of glory that our Lord uses their tongue as a scribe’s pen, not only their words but even their deeds are clothed with prophetic honor, and, in declaring mysteries, they put forth effort either in teaching or in doing.

At the very beginning, then, of this address: This, he says, the sacred Founder commanded blessed Hosea, that, setting aside the splendor of his purpose and of his lineage, he should be joined in marital union to a most vile woman, one commonly a prostitute.

Nor, enduring only as far as the name of a wife, would he rightly stir up in himself also a like reproach: so that he should be believed the father of uncertain offspring, as one who had reared the sons of another's obscenity. Nor does it escape me how great has been the contention of learned men over the opinion of this passage, so that whole regions disagree in their assertion concerning it. For Palestine and Egypt and all those who are most moved by the authority of Origen deny that this marriage was corporeally instituted by the prophet Osee. But just as very many things are related as having been done by the prophets in spirit, so they say that this marriage with a harlot was accomplished only in word.

For, they say, it was not fitting for that time that Osee, going forth to preach, should, contrary to the institutions of the sacred Law, which had proclaimed it wicked to have intercourse with a harlot, indulge in wantonness, and, about to exercise censure upon sins, himself first commit that of which the whole people would consequently be accused. How incongruous it would be, moreover, if in defense of the crime he should adduce the person of the one commanding, asserting indeed that he himself, as far as regards his own character, had abhorred that foul union with loathing, but had yielded to the authority of that Lord who had appointed him to rebuke the peoples. It would seem rather to have furnished matter for derision than for dread to him who thought that the obscenities of others were to be reproved in His name, when he himself proclaimed himself the author of a crime committed by himself.

It is also asked by what similar example throughout the whole Law, whether of precept or of deed, this is supported; namely, whether our Lord anywhere commanded something to be done contrary to His precepts, the transgressors of which He nevertheless proceeded to avenge, having proclaimed disasters through the prophets. To teach this, if the command given to blessed Abraham to slay his son be adduced, we shall be reminded, by the very outcome of the deed—although before the times of the Law that was given—that it was not the cruelty of slaughter, but the piety and faith chosen in the father's mind, that was intended. For he was offering his only son, he who had the promises, to whom it had been said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called": showing that God is able to raise up even from the dead.

Yet, just as fixed faith against the fear of the promise being frustrated protected him, so God did not allow the parent's devotion to run on to the destruction of the boy, but stayed the hand of the one about to sacrifice, interposing praise of his proven virtue. "It is now clear," He says, "what alone I wished to make known, that nothing is more powerful with you than either love or honor of Me. Now spare the blood which it was not lawful for another, nor fitting for you, to shed.

Nor yet shall you seem deprived of the office of priest: behold, a ram stands ready for you, his horns caught in the thicket, whose life, as it availed to bring present help for the freeing of the son, so shall it merit to signify a future mystery." But in the affair of blessed Osee, the union not only commanded but also fulfilled and repeated over many periods of time seems incapable of being defended either by the honorableness of the deed or by the authority of a precept. To this is added, that even in the prophetic figures themselves order was not observed. For to signify the Tribes, which, as though living under God's fellowship and companionship, had burst forth into adulteries, that is, sacrileges, a prostituted woman is taken who, however, being made chaste by noble union, bears sons not of a shameful but of a reverend husband, that is, of a seer, and, in the honor of marriage, forgetful of past vices, enjoys rather fruitfulness than lust.

How then shall that woman, who is made illustrious by matronly distinctions, be shown to figure the person of that nation, which before marriage did not shrink from the vices of obscenity, but, though established first in the sacred fellowship of her Lord, is described as pursuing baseness? By these and many other arguments they contend to show that the prophet was not corporeally united to a harlot. Against this, on the other side, the Syrians, and those who suppose that union to have been carnally fulfilled, rely chiefly upon the testimony of the names. By these, both the woman and her parents as well as her region are clearly made known, and the business of the union is confirmed by the offspring that followed. But whatever, contrary to the custom of his own morals, he took care to add through obedience, ought to be attributed rather to the devotion of the prophet than to any violation of the Law undertaken by him.

Although that deed might also be defended on the score of honorableness, namely, that he had transferred the woman from the profession of harlotry to the office of a chaste wife for the rest of her life. Contending thus among themselves in such disputation, they have rendered each opinion suspect, whereas it seems in truth both more expedient and safer, and more suited to the signification of the matter, if the thing be believed to have been done in spirit—just as blessed Jeremiah, without departing from the borders of Judea, is described as having buried a linen girdle in the region of the Parthians; just as holy Ezekiel, situated in the midst of the Babylonian captivity, is represented as a spectator in the temple of Jerusalem, beholding merely images of places and acts, while placed far elsewhere: so too blessed Osee, about to signify the deeds of many times, may have seen, through fitting images, both the sequence of sins and of punishments.

By the testimony of this office, under whichever opinion one inclines, the reverence of the one prophesying appears, whom the Maker of things seems indeed to clothe with His own person, so that from the words of a man the very order of divine judgments also may be gathered, and so great a bond exists between the eternal Lord and the faithful servant, that the estimation of both is, as it were, mingled: and if the action of the prophet is to be excused, it seems also to lend an excuse to the divine goodness. But if the majesty that surpasses all things overpowers and repels all obedience to our testimony, let it also, for minds pleased with themselves, claim authority to itself, that they may be taught that it is by no means to be subjected to human scrutiny.

This indeed the censure of the Apostle Paul also declares, when he says: "But to me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by man's day; yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; but he that judgeth me is the Lord". Under one and the same reverence, therefore, both the precept of the Maker and the action of the prophet are established. Now the sequence and order of the words must be carefully noted, which rather favors that sense in which the union does not seem to have been corporeally fulfilled. "Go," he says, "take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms; for the land will surely commit whoredom, departing from the Lord." Yet that time did not touch the beginnings of the sacrilege which He accuses under the name of fornication, but already its latter stages.

For from the times of Jeroboam especially the corruption of religion had begun, and the worship of calves had been commended to the peoples, which persisted without interruption for many ages. But in these very days in which the office of prophecy is imposed upon blessed Osee, it is not transgressions but rather vengeances that are beginning to arise. This indeed differs from that signification which the harlot taken in marriage seemed to display, indicating that reproach which the Lord was to bear for a long time. Let us now, then, see what the order of the pronouncement contains. "Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms, for the land will surely commit whoredom, departing from the Lord: so he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore a son.

And the Lord said unto him: Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease; and in that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." This expression is found frequent throughout the sacred volumes as used by our God, to accuse sacrileges under the name of fornication. For since the God known in Judea had chosen one nation to unite to Himself, and had taken her, as it were, in place of a spouse, through the mediation of the tables of the Law, from whom, by instructing them, He might beget sons, He calls those chaste who keep inviolate the rights of religion; but calls, on the contrary, those foul and polluted who have violated the covenants of sacred worship by the infection of errors and the pursuit of heresy.

By this image, indeed, He expressed both the greatness of His love toward the pious, and the vehemence of the severity with which He pursues these impious ones: because He rises up not merely as a censor or judge, but as a husband raging to avenge himself.

But since this is worked out according to its own tenor for this understanding, it must be asked what He accomplished by so elaborate an apparatus. For what need was there that a simple narrative should not contain all this, but that a union with a harlot, whether in body or only in images, should be commanded to the prophet? At this point, indeed, to those thinking piously and rightly, there occurs the profound depth both of divine benignity and of prophetic dignity. For our God, who interweaves His providence with human affairs, does indeed take counsel in common for mortals, but as though He esteemed as men only those who have attained reverence through the virtues of their character, He shows Himself moved by their judgments, and hastens to instruct them chiefly both by precepts and by images.

Wishing, then, to show this which I have set forth—namely, that He holds the regard of holy men in the greatest weight, and does not count their complaints as light, or indeed that He is wont to be softened by the prayers of the saints, when the time comes that He begins to bring forth vengeance—He first lays before them the affairs by which He has been provoked, so that by an explanation of their merits He may remove the obstacles of their intercession, and may set up first, on His own side, those whom He could experience as delayers of His sentence, and exhort them to be angry along with Him. This is that instance when blessed Moses had sent explorers of the land of Promise from each of the twelve tribes; and when, all but two having returned, they had terrified the cowardly people: sedition arising shook even blessed Moses himself.

But when he had fled to the tabernacle, "The glory of the Lord appeared," it says, and, showing how much He esteemed him, and how much He preferred him above all those peoples, He says, "Let me alone, that I may destroy this people, and I will make of thee a nation much greater than this". From these words, the holy man, understanding what he could avail with Him, at once softened the indignation of the Judge. So too, when the overthrow of the temple of Jerusalem by the Babylonian captivity was imminent, He leads the prophet Ezekiel, by contemplation of the spirit alone, through the shrines that had once been venerable, that, seeing how the people were sinning, he might cease to marvel if so great a change should come to pass in the opposite direction, that a nation lately exalted by singular veneration should perish most vilely.

So too, then, to blessed Osee, through whom the impending destruction of the people was to be announced—for whom, indeed, neither the merits of the fathers would avail, nor the intercessions of the prophets would avail—a like arrangement of business is introduced: that in his own example he might feel and weigh whether God either could or ought to endure that heap of reproaches. "Take up," He says, "a person, assume a figure"; the same, indeed, is our example that urges Jeremiah, who hid his girdle at the Euphrates of a kindly man, but who has long endured harlotrous ways in his wife, and take up sons who might either be held uncertain, or might more suitably be attributed to another's obscenity, and try whether you can maintain continued patience, and whether you believe there is a singular remedy for the old grief, if you should be freed by discord from that woman whom you have never, though by many kindnesses, reformed.

Whether, then, in the affections of the mind alone, or also in the affairs of a foul body, the commanded union seems to regard the honor of the prophet, who, that he might faithfully indicate the severity of the Judge, feels a taste of that injury with which God was affected, and again, as it were, an obligation arising for the vengeance to be brought forth upon the impious—this very thing, that on account of the signification of an unworthy matter the prophet bore reproach upon himself. Since, then, the cause of the parable that we have mentioned seems to have been fitting, let us now pursue its order.

"Take," he says, "unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms: for the land will surely commit whoredom, departing from the Lord." This doubling belongs to the idiom of the Hebrew tongue: "doing he shall do," "speaking he shall speak," and so on in this manner. So likewise, "committing whoredom she shall commit whoredom." One might, indeed, apply a distinction to this expression, but the summary abbreviation coming from the custom of the Scriptures must not be neglected. Note well, that under the name of fornication, He calls not so much the time of entering upon transgression, as that of undergoing captivity, which is now at hand. Nor is this inconsequent. For since obscenity made the matter of condemnation for profane minds, therefore the punishment is signified under the name of its cause, so that we say the people commit fornication when they are condemned for fornication: which indeed is shown in the present passage to have had great occasion as well.

For since it is clear that punishment is not the same thing as fault—since the one is opposed to honor, the other to wantonness, and it is sufficiently established that the definitions of things by no means can be confounded by a community of names, and that therefore punishment is not the same as guilt—He certainly did not without reason pronounce the people fornicators at the time when they were about to enter upon the evils of captivity.

But because He knew that the very chastisement, according to the diversity of minds, would advance some, made better by affliction, and others made worse by shamelessness, He rightly says, both that on account of the impiety which they perpetrated in their own borders they would bear punishments, and that in the very time of the captivity, some would receive marks of amendment, others indeed proofs of crime, according to that which He threatens elsewhere: "You have served, in your own land, gods whom your fathers knew not; you shall serve strange gods in a land not your own." Since, then, that profanity which the free nation had perpetrated was celebrated by the handmaid, she is foretold to commit fornication even in the midst of her sufferings.

Now the first son whom the harlot, as it were, bore is introduced by the very name to which the captivity of the region is imminent. For he says, Call his name Jezrahel. By this term was signified the valley adjacent to Samaria. Therefore through the appellation of this place, he announces what the region is going to suffer. Accordingly it follows: For yet a little while, and I will visit the blood of Jezrahel upon the house of Jehu, and I will make the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease; and in that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezrahel. The time, he says, for exercising vengeance is at hand, and on this account wrath arises against the kingdom of Samaria, which is shown to be near the valley bearing the name of Jezrahel, as I have said.

Let there be born then in your mind an offspring destined for punishment, that you may know that what you see ordained as though for your own sons must be carried out upon my sons.

For I will visit the blood of Jezrahel upon the house of Jehu. To explain this, a twofold sense would occur according to the custom of the law, were it not that the subsequent context confirms one of them. For indeed, up to the family of Achab, who was the husband of Jezabel, the offspring of Jeroboam reigned. But when Achab, defiled both by his own crimes and those of his wife, whose audacity he served, had become foul, Heliseus the prophet, by the command of God, raised up Jehu the son of Namsi to take up the kingdom. He, moved by severity for equal causes, destroyed by slaughter the whole family of Achab and Jezabel, and all the priests and ministers of Baal alike. In return for this office of vengeance it was promised to him that his posterity would preside over the kingdom of Israel down to the fourth generation.

But since Jehu himself, and his sons or grandsons, by not abandoning the sacrileges of Jeroboam, lost the marks of that devotion by which they had persecuted the worshippers of Baal—clinging, that is, to the worship of the calves of Samaria, and serving various crimes of morals as the cult of profanity requires—therefore wrath is said to arise also against these, namely the posterity of Jehu who had destroyed the family of Achab, in order that he might avenge the blood of those who had been slain by them: not because that slaughter had been unjust, but because those who had done it, by imitating the crimes, had lost the honor of judges, and by carrying out deeds similar to those whom they had destroyed, had passed over into the number and fellowship of the guilty. And thus those whom the sword of the wicked had slain would seem worthy of vengeance—a manner of speech which we could easily show to be frequent also in the Scriptures.

Therefore, I say, the prophetic verse could be explained in two ways: in the way we have set forth above, and in another which follows, were it not that the progress of the work more strongly confirms the latter. For by the name of Jezrahel he wished to indicate the nation itself, and by the name of Jehu, the kingdom of the nation: that is, behold, now the time has come that the people of Israel, who are either to be conquered in the valley of Jezrahel, or who have their royal city situated in that same valley, since they have a king coming from the stock of Jehu, should begin to experience the force of the vengeance owed to them. Accordingly, to confirm this understanding, he added, And I will make the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease, and in that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezrahel.

He therefore called the infliction of visitation by the name of “rest,” and called the end of the kingdom “quiet”: and that he might indicate both more plainly, he said, I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezrahel.

On verse 6: And she conceived again, and bore a daughter, and he said: Call her name, Without mercy: for I will not add anymore to have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will forget them with forgetfulness. Because he had determined that the outcome of events should be anticipated by images which would be the judges of the same events, a daughter is described as being born, who would receive the name of an alien calamity, that is, Without Mercy. For, he says, I will not add anymore to have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will forget them with forgetfulness. In these words the weight of a twofold sentence is contained. For he does not merely say, in the time of miseries I will deny mercy, but that he will not even permit them to return to his memory. For it would be, though in extreme illness, a comfort, if at some time he should take up again the memory of those whom he had cast off.

But now, that the threat set forth might grow harsher, he promises that both will befall him: namely, remembrance of those to be condemned, and utter forgetfulness of the condemned. This indeed, since it might, in the ears of a wise minister, kindle resentment at cruelty (so that something of this sort, if not in speech, at least in thought, might arise: whence has so much bitterness flowed into that benignity which is the cause of all things, that you do not forget the guilt if you forget the guilty, and are attentive to the offender if you never remember the afflicted; I fear lest the salvation of penitents too must be despaired of, if forgetfulness of the fallen should steal upon so great a Lord)—therefore he added at once, that he had not cast aside the care of showing mercy, but had applied the scale of a due examination, that is, that he would, as it were, forget only those who, even after the blows, gave no thought to amendment.

On verse 7: For I will not add anymore to have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will forget them with forgetfulness.

And the house of Juda I will have mercy on, and I will save them in the Lord their God, and I will not save them by bow, and sword, and war, and horses, and horsemen. When, he says, I shall have subjected the people of Samaria, defiled by transgression, to calamities and destructions, and shall have allowed them, for their fault, to become so vile that I seem utterly forgetful of them; then those who stand fast in the portion of Juda, and who place the hope and confidence of their salvation in the observances of religion, I will not only protect but also vindicate by a marvelous novelty: so that it may appear openly that they were fortified not by arms but by merits, and obtained victory not by battle-line but by piety.

He announces that time in which, while Ezechias reigned among the Jerosolymitans, Sennacherib king of the Assyrians approached with a great army to besiege that city, and there, having spoken much in contempt of God and of the sacred religion, provoked the divine sentence against himself, so that in one night all his forces fell, an Angel striking them. For with a hundred and eighty-five thousand warriors lost, he himself is described as having fled with a few into his own land and there perished. But let us see the rest.

On verse 8: She weaned, he says, her that was without mercy, and she conceived and bore a son, and he said: Call his name, Not my people, for you are not my people, and I will not be your God. That this endures up to the times of Ezechias, the title of the blessed Osee has indicated. Whatever, therefore, is read as having been done throughout the whole age of his prophecy, this he briefly sets down in this very opening, so that through the whole volume he may now unfold the sequence and order of events. Therefore, when the profanity of the ungrateful nation had impelled our God to undertake the work of vengeance, he announced that he would punish the guilty, and would so leave them in miseries that he might seem utterly forgetful of them.

But lest the forgetfulness taken into the sacred breast should stir up fear even in the pious, he signified at once that he assumes forgetfulness not out of vice, but out of judgment, since merit stirred up a difference among kinsmen, and while the Israelites were given over to destruction, he protected the peoples of Juda, who indeed adhered to the worship of his religion, more by miracles than by weapons. Although this was disclosed at an opportune time, yet because even that portion of the Judean nation did not always please by continuous devotion, but, as other prophets reproach, burned into the worship of idols, it too suffered a like sentence, and was transferred from its borders, the Babylonian conquering it. Of that captivity, however, a recall was promised in almost the prophecy of all the prophets, and was fulfilled under Cyrus king of the Persians.

Both times, therefore, does the speech of blessed Osee now foretell. But in signification of the Israelite captivity, a daughter is introduced, who would be called, Without Mercy. But in figure of Juda, a boy is introduced whose name is, Not my people. Among the images of the children, moreover, only concerning the girl is it recorded that she was weaned: doubtless to show that in the ten tribes the sentence of the captivity inflicted had, as it were, grown strong. For indeed the captivity of the ten tribes is read to have been much longer, and therefore the prolongation of age is signified by the weaning of the girl. But the third, who promises the last captivity of Juda, received the name, Not my people. For as long as Juda remained within its own borders, there was a multitude which was called the people of God: but after the storm of captivity uprooted it as well, that people, formerly distinguished, seemed to have dispersed into the confusion of the Gentiles.

And therefore he says: You are not my people, and I will not be your God: that is, this mark shall be taken from you, by which you were formerly conspicuous, so that you may not be called the people of God in the whole world, nor I be called your prince or God; for it is just that those who corrupted by the pursuits of sin the institutions of the sacred law, which separated you from the other nations, should also be deprived of that ornament by which you were formerly distinguished. But having briefly announced these things from the side of severity, he passes over to prosperous things, which the reverend dispensation fulfilled in deeds just as it wove them together in prophetic speech.

On these verses: For the number of the children of Israel shall be, he says, as the sand of the sea, which is without measure, and shall not be numbered. Above: And It shall be, in the place where it shall be said to them, You are not my people; it shall be said to them, Sons of the living God. And the children of Juda and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint themselves one head, and shall go up out of the land, for great is the day of Jezrahel.

By these sacred words he promises the return of the people from the Babylonian captivity, whose vast procession is also described among other prophets, but especially among the blessed Esaias, which indeed serves to commend the clemency of God, and for the consolation and confirmation of the faithful, to whom, as they endured fellowship in that calamity contrary to the honor of their merits, for the sake of communion with their nation, comforts of hope were offered, hanging, that is, on the expectation of prosperous things. These things, indeed, are said to be so ample that they even require a novelty of names. For when they slipped from joyful things to sad ones, they ceased to be called the people of God, as though poured back into the vileness of the remaining nations. But when the time of liberation shall have come, so great a change is brought back from sad things to joyful things by such a succession, that the restoration of their former dignity does not suffice, but the marks of their names are increased.

For the number of the faithful will exceed the likeness of the sands, among whom such reverence and grace shall shine, that they shall no longer be called the people, but the sons, of him who contains all things. Having been corrected indeed by the anguish of the aforementioned servitude, they will be bound to one another not only by blood but also by charity: and they will especially avoid that separation which was for them the great cause both of crimes and of dangers, and, rejoicing in one ruler, they shall ascend with eagerness to the Temple of God, and shall be placed in such a state of felicity that they shall confess that day to have been the great day of Jezrahel: that is, either that time in which adversities began, of which the Prophet said above, I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezrahel.

And this the liberated people will take into memory, so that their joys may grow greater by comparison: or else it will proclaim that the interpretation of Jezrahel itself applies to it; for it expresses in our speech, the seed of God, and the sense becomes of this kind: When the time of captivity has been dissolved, there will be such an eagerness of exultation that the great day of God is said to have shone upon his sons. This festivity, moreover, as the other prophets, so especially blessed David pursues in that song: I rejoiced at the things that were said to me, We shall go into the house of the Lord. Our feet were standing in your courts, O Jerusalem, to confess to your name, O Lord. For there sat seats in judgment, seats upon the house of David. Ask the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem.

Therefore, according to the tenor of the history which the prophetic denunciation contained, he briefly indicated the whole of what was to be done: namely, that the ten tribes, corrupted by the agency of Jeroboam, were carried off by Assyrian capture; but that Judah, who trusted in her God, was miserably delivered under king Hezekiah; but afterward, that this same tribe too, following in the footsteps of its brother's impiety, was given over to Babylonian domination; whose bonds, however, a promised liberty would again loosen, and the brothers, no longer separated from one another, but standing under one ruler, would celebrate the honor of God in the inner shrines of His Temple. And so great would be the felicity of this time that it would be pleasant even to remember the adversities, and to call it the great day of Jezreel, that is, that time of the captivity inflicted, the occasion of which, indeed, would create so great an exultation. They shall therefore set for themselves one head, and shall go up out of the land.

Concerning which time blessed David too says, From the ends of the earth I have cried to thee, while my heart was in anguish; thou hast exalted me on a rock. Thou hast led me, for thou hast become my hope. It must also be noted that blessed Paul took the promise of this passage as concerning the multitude of the faithful flowing together to the preaching of the Gospel, asserting namely that the announcement of evangelical piety exceeded the narrow bounds of one nation. And not only concerning the Jews, who were once called the people of God, but also concerning the Gentiles, who dwelt in manifold error, that troops should come together to lay hold of the dignity of the divine seal, as he says it is said in Hosea: I will call them my people, who were not my people; and her beloved, who was not beloved. And it shall be in the place where it shall be said, You are not my people, there shall they be called sons of the living God.

The teacher of the Gentiles, therefore, shows that in the time of the Gospel the promise of this felicity would be fulfilled; not indeed so as to deny that which the whole text of the prophecy insists upon, namely that the release of the Babylonian captivity also had been promised; but so as to show what rule of understanding we ought to keep in the prophetic books: that is, that when under the narration of Jewish affairs something greater is promised than the modest measure of one nation could contain, and we recognize that it was fulfilled in part in that people, it also, by way of theoria, applies to others as well, that is, to all nations.

Theoria, however, is (as it has pleased the learned) a perception, considered in brief forms or causes, of those things which are greater. That recall of the Jews from Babylon, therefore, would not properly be said to be signified according to history, and this liberty which was conferred through faith in Christ according to allegory, since the prophetic word solidly promised both, so that the preceding modest measure might intimate the following accumulations. For that which was first said by way of exaggeration, the greatness of the events afterward scarcely equaled. And thus, the captivity which then terrified the people of the Jews when it was announced, and the restored liberty which afterward raised them up, also presented indications of another captivity and liberty (which are much graver): namely of that of which the Apostle says, We were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, who is rich in mercy, on account of the exceeding love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together in Christ.

For indeed that enemy of the human race, who had oppressed the guilty by a long domination, a stronger one came and bound him, plundered all his vessels, and dissolved the captivity of the nations by restoring liberty, and ennobled the redeemed with the gifts of grace, so that we who once were strangers and sojourners, having suddenly obtained mercy as his people and nation, might rather be called a chosen race, and a priestly and royal one (1 Peter 2). Thus, therefore, what Hosea had pronounced concerning the times of Babylon, Paul transferred to the affairs of the Savior—not indeed with the prophet, as it were, refusing or reluctantly following where he is led, but with the prophetic tenor greatly favoring the Apostolic understanding, whereby he taught that the gifts and joys which had already been begun in that age were here increased almost up to the consummation. But thus far the speech of the prophet has proceeded with this tenor, so as briefly to indicate the affairs and times of which he was going to speak.

Now, however, he returns to the order of the censure or complaint he had instituted, which he took care to arrange, prudently and providently, lest that which served for the pomp of prediction should begin to hinder the saving doctrine. For since by the impulse of one prophesying he had touched upon things which were to follow after in long times to come, and the confidence of announcing was supplying assurance both as to adverse and prosperous things, lest by this very fact, I say, he should seem equally to extinguish both merit and vow, since neither would the zeal of correction be of profit if assumed, with the necessity of the punishment once foretold pressing insistently; nor again would the wishing for prosperous things seem necessary, since it was in every way to be rendered on account of the announcing truth.

Therefore the discourse is directed to the peoples, and they are called together into the communion of judgment, that they themselves may proceed to examine, with intent eyes, their mother (that is, the multitude of their forebears, by whose crimes God had been provoked to harshness), and that they may admonish her with the divine clemency, which is wont to remove even threatened torments, if it sees that the guilty one has fled to correction. They ought not, then, to despair of salvation if they be made better through fear, since the Master of merits presides over those who are cleared of their debts, whom indulgence shining forth delights far more than bitter severity.

On verse 2: Judge your mother, judge her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. A great memorial of my kindness (he says) stands forth in your liberation; and therefore the deserts of your foul parent are uncovered, on account of which she has been driven from my fellowship—but so foul that she cannot be absolved even by your own judgment. But since we assess by the present estimate not one person but a whole nation, we hope there will be some whom the severity announced will move to better pursuits, and therefore await what I hold in reserve. Let her put away her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts.

On verse 3: Lest perhaps I strip her naked, and set her as in the day of her birth. That is, she had driven away from her countenance that shame which is wont to be a hindrance to obscenity, and had hardened her face by a profession of shamefulness. Now, therefore, let her take up feelings contrary to these, and let her clothe with modesty a brow stripped of shamelessness; let her know that it is not enough to have done this only with the lips, as it were on the surface, contented with that; let her cast out the poison drawn from the midst of her breasts, that she may be purged at once throughout her whole heart. But if she neglects to do this, I shall gird myself to works of severity, such as I exercised at that time when this people was being born to me.

He indicates, however, the departure of the Synagogue from the land of Egypt, at which time she had received no ornaments or garments of the legal institutions, nor did she boast of any distinguishing marks of clothing, but as regards the value of her manners, remaining in the same vileness as the Egyptians, she was nevertheless preserved by great miracles for the sake alone of the honor of her forebears. Finally, since they resisted the commands of God, both by insolence and by sloth, all of them are recorded to have been consumed even in the solitude of the wilderness, and, except for two men, Joshua and Caleb, out of six hundred thousand men of military age marching forth, no one entered the land of the Promise.

This, then, is what the Lord now threatens through the prophet concerning things to come, that unless that nation shall have cleansed the hidden places of its breast, and, its manner having been changed for the better, shall have made progress, no aid can be provided for it comparable to that which, through so many ages, it obtained separate from other nations, and by which it flourished through the institutions of the Law and spiritual gifts. Toward which point, indeed, does the sentence, pressing upon its crimes, tend, as though it said: just as at that very age when it came out of Egypt, and rejoiced as it were in a fresh adoption, nothing profited the wretched people, so that they perished just as if they had been stripped of all privileges. This sense the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, also carefully developed.

"All," he says, "were freed by the same miracles, used the same spiritual foods, drank of the same fountains gushing from the rock: yet not with most of these," he says, "was God pleased, nor even with many, but in that age of exile they shuddered at various sins, and perished by various torments"; and showing why he recalled this, he says, "These things were written for our instruction, lest we should emulate the pursuits of those whose ruin we read of." Through this prophet, then, our Lord discloses the affection of his counsel, and admonishes that people to hasten its amendment and so succor itself, and to expel from the midst of its breasts—that is, from its heart—the impiety which is called fornication, lest it experience that severity whose disposition delay holds back.

For whether he proceeds to consume the impious by vengeance, the multitude of the perishing will not be able to withstand it; or whether he commands that the sons of the punished, for the honor of innocence or the merits of amendment, be restored to safety, the accumulation of the aforementioned calamity will be able to create no impediment. That the prophet might briefly indicate all this, he kept the same order in the example as in the prophecy: and just as in the very title he marked, by the mention of kings, the whole age in which he had prophesied, so too he showed what matters his preaching contained: namely, first the captivity of Israel, then of Judah; then, the captivity being ended, the concord of these same peoples, and, liberty restored, their concourse to the worship and temple of the true God.

Yet the scope of this return was so described as to serve for the signification of a greater matter, that is, to sound forth both the liberty and the liberality of the Gospel, which, surpassing all vows with its gifts, would call them not only a people, but even sons of God, whom it had freed from deadly servitude. Having briefly run through these things, therefore, he returned to an address suited to those times, and, as it were to sons, imposes the office of a mother who must both rebuke and teach, so that she, who had taken no care to guard her sanctity, might at least take care to seize upon repentance, nor think herself defended, against the reproach of her morals, by nobility of blood alone, since adoption profits nothing to those whom devotion does not also fortify.

For, in order to gather the future from the past, let her consider the outcome of those hosts which had been miraculously led out of Egypt: whose iniquity, as we said, was defended by no dignity of their fathers, and whose slaughter created no obstacle for their sons who were to be led into the promised joys. This order of judgments, he says, shall now also be observed even in your correction, so that those defiled with sacrilege may be overwhelmed with destruction, and their descendants, who differ from the pursuits of their parents by better endeavors, either obtain freedom though bereft of hope, or be more abundantly increased by the successes of the prosperous. These vicissitudes of times, he says, since they assign a reason of divine providence and just dispensation now to sorrows, now to joys, let us now carry out what the present cause demands.

He proclaims, therefore, that they should anticipate the mass of impending condemnation, both by zeal for correction and by the groaning of repentance, lest, when he shall have begun of his own accord to rage, this whole nation, as one distinguished by no privileges, so likewise perish by utter destruction: lest perhaps I strip her naked, and set her as in the day of her birth, and make her like a wilderness, and set her as a land without a path, and slay her with thirst, and I will not have mercy on her children, because they are the children of fornications, because their mother has played the harlot, she who conceived them is put to shame. Since he had once introduced the mention and likeness of the Egyptian exodus, he ran on through the description of those same places, naming a wilderness, and a land without a path and destitute of the comfort of springs; and again, taking up words about the occasions, having recalled the desolation of the desert, he added also the peril of thirst.

I will slay them with thirst, he says—not because the people led out of Egypt were consumed by scarcity of supplies, but because (as the Apostle says) they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, that is, it was the power of their leader, not the condition of the region, that furnished drink to the camp. Had this indeed been lacking, the people would have perished at the first danger of thirst. He announces the same thing here—that the wicked are led into similar necessities, nor will his mercy be met with, since indeed even the offspring of such people confess, by the imitation of vices, that they are, of themselves, base parents; and as much as the sons blush for their parents, so the parents blush for their sons: he promises that they shall perish by thirst. On verses 6, 7: Because she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

And therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will wall it with a fence, and she shall not find her paths, and she shall follow her lovers, and shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, and shall not find them. He who from the beginning of the book fitted the character of a harlot to the profaned nation continues also the rest with a lofty description, and brings her to the speech of a harlot—words which she, though not indeed with her lips, is nevertheless proven to have uttered by her deeds. And so, according to the custom of the Scriptures, those things which impious persons might say as a consequence of their more sinister life are charged against them as though they had said them with their own voice.

Therefore this shameless woman too, he says, covers her pursuit of wickedness with the appearance of advantage, so that she may falsely claim to follow her lovers rather for the sake of their generosity than for the sake of shamefulness: for she boasts that they furnished her wool and flax, and oil and drink, that is, food and clothing even to the point of overflowing luxury. In these words, though he adds to the sins of sacrilege also the crime of an ungrateful mind, yet he seems also to be introducing that which is even now current in the mouth of the profane: namely, that among the various opinions, there is no stronger testimony of a sure religion than what the voice of prosperity brings forward. Therefore she too declares that she goes in pursuit of her lovers, and covers her wickedness with silence, and feigns, as it were, more honorable causes by which she is enticed.

By "lovers" she means either the chiefs of the Gentiles, in pursuit of whom she went forth, or the very gods of the nations, worthy rather of rite than of veneration: to whom this—namely the Synagogue—having forgotten her paternal Law, and the true and only God, succumbed. Let adversities, he says, befall her hopes, and let her be entangled in unforeseen anguishes. First, that she may have no ability to enter into a covenant with those Gentiles whom she most desires, and that in her adversities she may not use the aid of those by whose example she sinned in her prosperity. And so I will hedge up her way with thorns, and not only with briers but even with walls: so that the paths she had before trodden she may no longer be able to enter. All this he has fittingly woven together, looking to the character of the woman he introduced, as one who frequents, as it were by clandestine paths, the author of her own crime.

Not indeed that the people of Israel mingled secretly with profane nations, but because the likeness transferred from a woman (as we have often said) demanded this order of description. When, therefore, avenging severity shall begin to confront her, and all those whom she loved will be able to bring no help to her anguish, then, moved not by reason but by anguish, she will begin to remember her former happiness. And she will say, I will go, and return to my former husband, for it was better with me then than now. And she did not know that I gave her grain, and multiplied for her wine and oil, and the gold and silver which they made for Baal. If, indeed, roused at least by the perils of her circumstances, she deliberates to return to her former husband, how is it consequently added: "And she did not know that I gave her grain, and wine, and oil"? The sense, therefore, is such that the harmony of the prophetic sentences may be vindicated.

That this woman suffers, at the first appearance of chastisement, what all who pursue vain things suffer: namely, terrified by the frustration of her wishes, not through amendment of judgment but through the fickleness of her purpose, she attempts to seek again what she would have refused; and to this extent only does she promise herself subject to God, that she may escape the losses of prosperity, as it were, that are impending—according to what blessed David reproaches: "When he slew them, then they sought him, and they returned and came early to him; but their heart was not right with him, nor were they found faithful in his covenant". Therefore, the guilt of that nation remaining, which, in the manner of cattle, was roused not by the teaching of the word but under the compulsion of the lash: my wrath shall not be tempted by this, because she said, I will go and return to my former husband.

But rather I will lead her into long experiences of chastisement, because she has neglected to know and to declare that all these things can be given by none but by me, from whom indeed they were even created. Therefore, when he says, And she did not know that I gave her grain, and wine, and oil, this points to the envy of a willful slowness, according to that saying of David, "He was unwilling to understand, that he might do good". She will begin, therefore, amid the perils of her afflictions, to confess what she had before neglected to know—that I am the one from whom sustenance is furnished, I who also created the very substance of mankind. Because I gave her grain, and wine, and oil, and the gold and silver which they made for the Baals. Not only instructed, then, but even enriched, she abused my gifts unto crimes, and to my contempt fashioned idols from the very wealth which she had received from me.

Therefore I too—whose dispensation the prophet, praising it with understanding, sang: "With the holy you shall be holy, and with the innocent man you shall be innocent, and with the perverse you shall be perverted"—will at length take up the office of censure, that I may withdraw from the ungrateful what had been bestowed, and that the very riches may attain a kind of benefit of liberation, when they are withdrawn from profane uses. Therefore he says distinctly, I will take the grain in its season, and the wine in its season, because there is not one single gathering of fruits, but rather each is brought forth at different times of the year, and therefore summer will deny the harvest, autumn the vintage, winter will take away the mobility, and a certain liberation, he says, will befall the creatures if the unworthy do not use them: and I will take away my wool and my flax, which covered her shame.

He elegantly alludes to the woman's adornment, in that it so covers the whole body, in which there are certain modest parts, that it even adorns it. Yet he seems shrewdly to show that, very often, under the prosperity of life, the foulness of the guilty lies hidden: whom, if a worthy poverty should again overtake them, their deserts too, having lain hidden, will be uncovered. On verse 10: And now I will reveal her folly in the eyes of her lovers. That is, the very ones who were the authors or partakers of the crime, the consequence of events will compel to confess, that nothing is more foolish than this nation, which has neither directed its counsels nor corrected its perils, but has provoked, by the crimes of an ungrateful mind, the Lord whose power, containing all things, it has experienced no less in its adversities than in its prosperities. I will reveal, then, her folly in the eyes of her lovers, and no man shall deliver her out of my hand.

That is, there shall be none of the princes whose profanity she followed, who can defend her from my indignation—not that anyone would dare attempt it, but because the discourse is woven and sustained through the likeness of a woman and of men, therefore he says that when the divine indignation shall have struck her, her lovers will not be able to succor her, nor bring any comfort to the miseries with which she is to be overwhelmed. On verse 11: "I will take away all her joy, her solemnity, her new moon, her sabbath, and all her appointed feasts." He set down the names of the festivals in which she especially rejoiced, when the whole region reveled in dances, songs, and banquets—luxury which certainly did not flourish except when the people enjoyed deep peace.

All these things, he says, will be changed into their opposites, and, that ceasing, mourning will be brought in; captivity will occupy the times of the feasts, the toil of grievous servitude will fill the leisure of the sabbath: and not only will freedom be exchanged for so great a captivity, but also the fruitfulness of the lands will be changed into mournful barrenness. On verse 12: For I will destroy her vine and her fig tree, of which she said, These are my wages, which my lovers have given me: and I will make it a forest, and the beast of the field shall devour it. He has set forth what losses would befall her possessions, that is, when constant frustration should follow upon diligent cultivation, the fields would exchange their former pleasantness for squalor succeeding it, and the whole region would become more like a haunt of wild beasts than a farmland—that is, deemed more worthy of beasts than of men.

And because the rarity of those tending it was to bring about this appearance, he elegantly expressed it: that the beasts of the field would feed upon its fruits. Of her own accord, he says, she cast off the light of reason, and after being satisfied and fattened, the beloved kicked, and this most shameless nation so favored its own error that it dared to attribute the joys of peace and the abundance of goods—whose continuation I had promised her, had she been chaste and devout—to her corrupters. Therefore this, as I have said, will be the first part of the vengeance, that she be stripped both of the joys and of the abundance which she did not use well, and that she may know that these things he who was propitious had before conferred, who could afterward, being angered, take them away. I will make it a forest, he says, and the beast of the field shall devour it.

I will permit, he says, that it be consumed by hostile incursion, and thus be fortified by no defense of my ordinance, just as neither does the farmer enclose a forest or a wild haunt with laboriously constructed hedges. And because it seemed that he had pronounced a true sentence, he again attaches the cause of this very admonition, that he may teach that whatever he has uttered in wrath he has rather rendered from justice than from anger. On verse 13: And I will visit upon her, he says, the days of the Baals, in which she burned incense, and adorned herself with her earring and her necklace, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the Lord. It is not now, he says, that she stands amid the beginnings of sin, so that she might be believed to blush for it in the course of time; long ago our patience contended with her wickedness, and yet we made no progress at all toward her amendment, since she has grown old in her profanity.

Lest, then, long impunity should stain even the reputation of the judge, and I should seem to foster what I permit to flourish for so long, though late, yet at length I will gird myself for the work of vengeance, that I may blot out even those days in which she served Baal—that is, the idol of shamefulness—adorned besides with necklaces. And because he made mention not only of necklaces but also of earrings, we may indeed say that he named a few of the many things with which women are adorned. Yet the passage allows us to bring forward something more subtle, namely, that under the name of earrings obedience seems to be shown. And since at that time the people of the Jews alone had received the precepts of the Law, to which they were to be obedient, they fittingly wore, as it were, earrings as ornaments.

But after they were deceived by a deadly error, so as to be subjected to the rites of idols, let us consider that this very thing is now especially reproached. As if he said: The gold and silver which, by my creating, the earth had brought forth, which, by my bestowing, the synagogue had received, together with the abundance of other things, she, made impious, has turned to the worship and adornment of idols, and that badge of obedience, by which alone among the rest of the nations she excelled, she has surrendered to shameful rites. And, reckoning that she remained in the beauty she once had, she followed her lovers with such confidence that oblivion of our godhead fully overtook her.

On verses 14-17: Therefore behold, I will allure her, and lead her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart, and I will give her vinedressers out of the same place, and the valley of Achor to open a door of hope: and she shall sing there according to the days of her youth, and according to the days of her going up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord, that she shall call me Husband, and shall call me no more Baalim. And I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and she shall remember their name no more. The order of the prophetic discourse must be carefully noted.

Wherever there is need to announce torments and to display the desert of divine severity, he immediately subjoins the causes which merited this; nor, content with having enumerated the sins of mortals, does he fail to pursue the joys of coming prosperity, showing that our God takes up, as it were, that brief withholding of pardon into the very framework of reconciliation. By this very argument, just as divine clemency is praised, so human iniquity is thereby laid low: for it is the very magnitude of that iniquity which causes the Lord of such great goodness to be provoked at times to wrath.

After, therefore, he had pronounced that a sad cessation was to be brought upon all joys, and that no one would come forward to bring the wretched either help or comfort, he immediately set forth the crimes of the people, that is, the causes of his indignation, and, recalling their magnitude and their long duration, he shows that his censure ought to be suspected by no one of excess, since, if it be compared either with the quantity or the duration of their sins, it should rather be reckoned sparing and reckoned slow. But not by this one coloring alone, I say, does he commend his clemency, sweet and familiar to himself, but he also, by attaching prosperity to the blows inflicted, seals this same truth, and describes it with so much the greater scope, as one who wished not only to compensate but even to excuse what he had struck down.

Therefore, when he had said that he would set her in the forest, that the beasts of the field might devour her—that is, all the fortifications of kingdom and cities being cut away, she would be delivered into the power of enemies (a judgment, as once in Egypt, of the reproach or hardship of muddy servitude), inasmuch as she had, by pursuing idols, forgotten her God—nevertheless, because he himself acts as one merciful and compassionate, after the term of captivity he announces the joys of return. And because above he had introduced mention of the Egyptian liberation, asserting that this too should be compared to the Israelite peoples after that pattern, now again, though more broadly, he runs over the same example.

Behold, he says, I will allure her, and speak to her heart: and I will give her vinedressers out of the same place, and the valley of Achor to open a door of hope: for he calls the birth of the Synagogue the time of the Egyptian liberation, and the allurement also seems to indicate the food of Manna. But the speech directed to the heart signifies the promulgation of the Law, which formed the hearts of its hearers. Now what "I will give her vinedressers out of the same place, and the valley of Achor to open a door of hope" signifies, understand thus. Before the people entered the Land of promise, the spies who were sent brought back an excellent fruit of the vine, that is, a cluster of such size that one bearer alone could not carry it. But afterward, when they had taken a most wealthy city, namely Jericho, by a marvelous victory, a man of the tribe of Judah, named Achar, son of Charim, stole something from the spoil that had been devoted to burning.

And when the good fortune of the victors was suddenly hindered by adverse events, strong men being sent out, the thief of the anathema was tracked down: and when he had brought forth all that he had hidden, he is recorded to have been stoned by the people and slain and buried in the valley of Achor. This expiation indeed availed so much toward pleasing God better, that thereafter they obtained bloodless triumphs. And so that valley, to those who took new fields, appeared as a hope of prosperity, which the guilt of the earlier ones had closed off. Having recalled these things, therefore, which were known to have been done at that time, he also promises that from the Babylonian captivity the return of the Jews would be equally joyful. Accordingly there follows: And she shall sing there according to the days of her youth, and according to the days of her going up out of the land of Egypt.

For just as then, the waves being cut, they passed through the sea on a dry path, and Mary, sister of Moses, taking up musical instruments, led the praises of God with the choirs following, so those going forth from the Assyrian captivity sang, not indeed about to destroy some Jericho again, or to find again a cluster of grapes; but to whom such joyful times were to succeed, that they seemed to have attained again that glory which they had had under Moses and Joshua. Consider, however, how it is that the memory of that history should be joyful, namely both as an example of sad things and of joyful ones. For he had said above: lest perhaps I strip her naked, and set her as in the day of her birth, and make her like a wilderness, and set her as a land without a way, and kill her with thirst.

This, of course, in likeness to those whose corpses, as the Apostle Paul says, were laid low in the desert: but now, when he promises that servitude will be loosed, and joys will come from liberty, he recalls those very same times, in which, namely, the glorious liberation had been celebrated with sacred songs. And the felicity to be experienced after the Babylonian captivity—as its sweetness comforted the Jews, so its magnitude signified the peoples who were to be gathered to the preaching of the Gospel.

For they sing a new song to God (for he has made known to the world his salvation, and before the sight of the Gentiles he has revealed his justice), and that servitude, by which we were subjected to sins and unclean spirits, he dissolved by free indulgence and sanctification, that being freed from iniquities, we might serve justice, and, made a people of acquisition, might shine with the insignia of the divine lineage, having from our own body, from our own people, I say, vinedressers, either delivering to us in the mysteries the grace of a mighty cluster, or showing us the very art and industry by which the vineyard of God is cultivated. Accordingly, in that time, when these things which we have enumerated as desired came to pass, how great the benefit of the aforementioned chastisement was, the amendment of morals also made public.

For, he says, she will be joined to me with her whole heart, so that she will no longer worship me by fits and starts, but will render me continual worship, continual affection: and she will call me alone her husband and Lord: nor will she any longer ascribe my name to Baalim, that is, to idols. Concerning this word Baalim, the tradition of the Jews has wished to invent some meaning. But it appears more solid, through which the whole sequence runs, that he promises that the names of idols are to be removed from the mouth of the corrected nation, and that he alone is to be called God and Lord.

And by saying, "she shall remember their name no more," he signified either the correction that would be complete, or he looked back to what he had set down above, "She went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord." Shutting out this vice, therefore, by chastisement, she will pass over into the opposite affection, so as to lay aside the pursuit of profanity in complete forgetfulness.

On verses 18-20: I will strike a covenant for her in that day with the beast of the field, and with the fowl of the air, and with the creeping thing of the earth: and I will break the bow and the sword, and war out of the land, and I will make them sleep securely. I will espouse thee to me forever, and I will espouse thee to me in judgment and justice, and in mercy and compassion. And I will espouse thee to me in faith, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. It is consequent, he says, that she who lay subject, defiled by plagues, being corrected, should obtain all good things. And therefore, just as our indignation had rendered to her all creatures not only adverse but even hostile, so again our appeasement will make those same creatures benevolent and helpful.

I will strike, therefore, a covenant for her with the beast of the field, that neither the savagery of beasts may ravage the fruits of the fields, nor a multitude of birds seize their vintages or olive groves, nor serpents pour their venom through the limbs of the weary. All these things, which are said to cease at the time of liberation, are taught to have been inflicted, of course, in the days of the plagues. Along with these disasters wars too will cease, so that they may sleep, that is, rest confidently, within their native borders, fearing neither incursions nor ambushes. I will espouse thee to me forever, that is, taught by the very facts, you will know that it was by your own fault, not mine, that the estrangement which afflicted you came about. But as for me, I am ready that you should remain my spouse forever, that is, if you shall be such as the chastising judgments have now rendered you, the ancient covenant shall be kept for you forever.

For thus I make the pact, that you remain in our fellowship, in such a way that the judgments brought against you may test your righteousness. Or if creeping negligence shall have wounded you, and you shall nevertheless have sought a remedy from me with the whole compass of weeping, nonetheless I will espouse you to me in mercy and in compassion: which, when you have indeed perceived to be faithful and constant (for this is what he says, "I will espouse thee in faith"), you will proclaim with due eagerness, that I am the Lord. All of which, if we transfer it, as we have set it forth, to the calling of the Gospel, will appear more clearly fulfilled.

For he who is beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, from whose lips grace poured forth gave salvation to the world, took to himself the queen whom he espoused to himself in the fellowship of the marriage-chamber for the honor of virginity; he took her in justice, which he gave by justifying; he took her in judgment when he chose her who was to labor lawfully; he took her in mercy and in compassion, when he relaxed her past debts, and espoused her in faith, by which one believes with the heart unto justice, but confession is made with the mouth unto salvation: or—which is not in doubt—because all things work together unto good for those who love the Lord.

On verses 21-24: And it shall be in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, the heavens, and they shall hear the earth: and the earth shall hear the wheat, and the wine, and the oil: and these shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow her unto me in the earth, and I will have mercy on her that was without mercy. And I will say to Not-my-people, Thou art my people: and he shall say, Thou art my God. He extends the sequence of the promised covenant, and through diverse images composes a figure familiar to the sacred books, so that the elements may desire mutually to perform their office for the sustaining of human frailty, and yet may not be able to do so unless the Creator assents. He indeed, at that time when, being appeased, he shall have driven away adversities, promises that he will abundantly supply all things: for prosperity will begin to limp, if the liberty sought after through so many ages should lack abundance.

This sweetness of joys, as we have said, was in that age brought about when the Babylonian captivity was ended, and it was rendered more abundant in the time of the Apostles, when the whole multitude of believers used sober plenty of goods in such a way that they were of one heart and soul. And then first that equality praised by all the wise shone forth, so that in so great a company of disciples no one was elevated by riches, no one cast down by poverty; but as there was one consent of all in virtue, so there was possession by common right. For none of them said that anything which they possessed was their own; but since all things were common to them, even the prices of fields were laid at the feet of the Apostles, that distribution might be made according to each one's needs.

And because the state of the spiritual people was kept within the history of the Jewish people, he returns to those names from which the prophecy had begun, and says: The earth shall hear the wheat, the wine, and the oil, and these shall hear Jezreel, that is, the people, named after the valley in which it was overcome. It has been shown whose sins, which he was about to punish, he had set forth above—that very nation, I say, not remaining in the same persons but in the same tribes, and expiated by the lashes of the plagues, he receives, being appeased, into his own fellowship, and, as it were, entrusts to a good earth the diverse seeds of his precepts, so that through the abundance of the prosperities to follow, even that day of Jezreel, on which calamity was brought in, may be judged to have been precious and desirable.

I will have mercy, indeed, now on her whose name I had shortly before abhorred, and I will call my people her who had stood forth as my deserter, and had by right fallen away from being against me. And to her in turn confidence will be granted, that she may call me the true and only Lord. But having brought the announcement of prosperity thus far, he again brings back the discourse to the state of the present time: for there follows:

On verses 1-5: And the Lord said to me: Go yet again, love a woman beloved of her friend, and an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, and they themselves look to strange gods, and love the flagons of grapes. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley, and I said unto her: Thou shalt abide for me many days, thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man, so will I also be for thee. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an altar, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. And afterward the children of Israel shall return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the Lord, and his goodness, in the latter days.

For the beginning of the prophecy, which promised the captivity of that people with the return of their voices, the Prophet had here, as he had taught in the beginning, taken up on behalf of God sorrowful things, but now imminent, and he was announcing them; and under the same guidance of the sacred Spirit, he wove the oracle, as it were, out of contraries. For when he has raged fiercely, he immediately adds, right after, joyful things by which to comfort the wounded, so that either the people might grow accustomed to hearing sorrowful things, or he might show the Lord Himself hesitating, and, as we said above, delaying out of zeal, even though He is about to take vengeance. By which He teaches at the same time, that under such a Judge they should never despair of salvation—He being so ready to pardon, that in narrating peaceful things amid adversities, He seems carefully to excuse the fact that He has been angered.

The Prophet accordingly commands that he not lay aside, on account of a prior offense, the love which he had bestowed on the shameless woman, but that he contend with her impudence by a professed kindness, and that he recognize, whether by the fact itself, or, as seems consequent, only by the Spirit's revealing it, that that harlot could be won over by a slight price—not merely so as to be content with prophetic society, but so as to abstain equally from association with him and with others—as though she could show that she had prostituted herself more out of necessity of procuring food than out of a partnership in lust; in short, that if even a slender sustenance were provided, she would easily be freed from the pleasure of that vice. By which example indeed the case of the Synagogue is rendered worse, seeing that she, not even invited by resources, kept not that compact which some prostitute observes even under extreme want.

We grant, therefore, He says, time to those who err, so that either they may break forth into weeping unto correction, or at last succumb to grievous vengeance—they who now, preferring vile things to precious ones, forget their own God and follow strange gods, no otherwise than if, having spurned the grapes, they gathered the husks fit rather for swine than for men.

Thus first the measure of the homer is named, containing thirty modii. Secondly he says: half a homer of barley, thereby establishing by the compact the office of continence to be procured from the woman, in the image of that condition which the Synagogue is to suffer in the Babylonian captivity, where, enduring exile indeed, but under hope of return, she will cleave neither lawfully to God nor to idols, but will live as it were stripped of all comfort. For this reason he says, thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for a man, so will I also be for thee.

This passage the Jews, or those who follow them, contend pertains to the judgment of the present time: namely, that being expelled from Jerusalem, they indeed have none of the insignia of the priestly office which the prophet enumerates, promising that they shall be without king, without prince, without sacrifice, without altar, without ephod and without teraphim; yet that they retain the pledges of return, that is, the word of God, who also promised that He would wait for them. But that they are deceived, or deceive, in this opinion, the proofs of all the nations admitted to the faith of Christ convict. For after they refused to believe the Gospel of Christ, the vineyard was taken from them and committed to other husbandmen, who should render its fruit in its season.

Therefore in that age, in which they served the Babylonians, the nation and God are rightly said to have awaited one another mutually—not that the whole people was free from the profanities of the Gentiles, which are also imputed to them by other holy teachers; but because there was there a mixture of just men, and because a better offspring than the parents was to have the joys of liberation. On account of the part of these, God promises indeed that He will wait, that is, that He will adopt no other nation at once in place of the one cast off, until she return—as we have said above—better through chastisement, and recovering, in the full assembly of the faithful, the ornaments of the ancient pontificate which she had lost, encircling the horns of the altar, rendering to God the vows which her own lips have distinguished, and they shall fear at his goodness in the latter day.

He set forth, accordingly, the cause of her own expulsion, so that through it, namely by abstaining from profane things, the afflicted people might grow accustomed, until, chastened by lawful stripes, it should again deserve to be admitted into fellowship, from which a devout and joyful proving might come forth.

On these verses: Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, and no mercy, and no knowledge of God in the land. Cursing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery have overflowed, and blood hath touched blood. What the reason might be, that in the very onset of the threat he should speak also of those prosperous things which were to come after a long age, I have noted once and again—namely, so that the nation might have some comfort while going into exile, or so that the clemency of the Author might be manifest, who approaches, as it were reluctant, to take vengeance. With this purpose then, having spoken also of future things, he returns, as he had done above, to the age of the present, and examines the deserts of the people who are to be punished, so as to resolve the question which the mention of divine mercy had raised.

For such a thought might fittingly arise, if the sentence remained fixed, that the captivity imposed would be resolved, and a glorious return would take place. Why was liberty not continued, or how great could the sins have been that so kindled the mind of our governor to such great severity? Necessarily, therefore, an enumeration of crimes is subjoined, so that the gravity of the avenger may appear. Hear, then, He says, the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for He does not refuse to enter into contest with you, and to render an account of His judgments and of your deserts, to whom blessed David says: that thou mayest be justified in thy sayings, and mayest overcome when thou art judged. Hear, I say, the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel—judge ye yourselves, altogether, concerning the matters at hand; and concerning the things for which we complain of the pursuits of the people, seeing—if any sense yet remains to you—fly to confession and repentance.

For there is no truth, and no mercy, and no knowledge of God in the land. Not, as it were, at intervals, he says, do they transgress, so that there might seem to be some mixture of vengeances and virtues, but they have so given themselves over wholly to the worst things, that no trace of uprightness appears anywhere—no faith, I say, in testimonies, no justice in judgments, no piety remaining in the rites. Why do I speak of hearts being empty of divine fear, when oblivion has seized even upon all remembrance of His name, and cruelty and lust contend with one another in turn, when, with vices rushing in and crimes overflowing, no restraint is kept either from shame or from bloodshed, but they join curses to lies, murders to thefts, adulteries to sacrileges? They have filled all the places of the once holy region with slaughters, so that through the multitude of the slain, blood was mingled with blood. That this was said not by exaggeration but in good faith, the history proves.

For these are indeed the very times in which the blessed Elijah, being asked by God what he was doing in the wilderness, answered with grief: They have slain thy prophets, they have destroyed thy altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life. So great, then, was the profanity by which the people were corrupted, that they strove to destroy, by utter extermination, all the pious, that is, the worshippers of God. And since this wicked corruption of religion had no price at all for which it might be sought for the sake of pleasure, it nevertheless promised impunity both to the joyous and shameful and to the cruel. Therefore the worshippers of Baal and of the calves served the fury of Jezebel by shedding the blood of the pious.

On verse 3: Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be gathered together. How grave this threat is, and how justly it should be feared by all, our Author himself proves in the repetition subjoined in this passage: the fowls of heaven, yea the fishes of the sea also shall be gathered together. Having set forth the causes of His indignation, He accordingly cries out that the land itself must be covered with mourning, just as it is covered with crimes. And if impunity had befallen crimes so many and so vast, even providence itself would be denied. Therefore every dweller of the region shall languish, in the beast of the field, and in the fowl of heaven. Divine speech is wont also to call herds and flocks "beasts of the field." Therefore, He says, when a want of grain and fruits shall have fallen, a failure and lack of cattle also shall follow.

Nor indeed is this the end of the anguish: but even the fishes shall be gathered together, that is, they shall fail so as to be lacking, so that not even in the waters can sustenance be found.

On these verses: Yet let no man strive, and let not a man be reproved. For thy people are as those who resist the priest. Therefore thou shalt fall, and the prophet also shall fall with thee. If, He says, while the state stood, some guilty men perished by the sentence of judges, one would surely be reproved, and another would reprove: the proper office of censure would be exercised. By which it is shown at the same time, that not the whole people together was possessed by the plague of crimes, like a disease or a pestilence; but that, just as some followed base things, so many followed honorable things. But where iniquity, as though by conspiracy, has taken hold of almost every assembly—which the prophet Osee laments as having befallen his own times—rightly both teaching and censure will cease, so that punishment, poured out, may rage fiercely against the impious. Therefore under the guise of a precept, the force of a judgment is expressed.

Yet let no man strive, and let not a man be reproved, that is, no one shall judge, nor shall anyone be reproved: for thou art to be laid waste by hostile fury, not corrected by the sentences of judges. For thy people are as those who resist the priest, thou shalt fall, and the prophet also shall fall with thee. The prophet sets down this "as" not for comparison but for judgment. Therefore you will see nothing new in the vengeance, but what you practiced in your sins, you will recognize in your punishments. For your people indeed resisted the priest, that is, you withdrew from the true priesthood by following idols. You resisted the priest, He says, when you rejected the sacred ceremonies, when you spurned salutary warnings and precepts forming morals; and just as you gave yourselves to impious leaders, so also to profane seers. Rightly, therefore, the sentence now sent will involve both, so that you too, along with your prophets, that is, your soothsayers, may fall together.

On verse 6: In the night I have made thy mother to be silent. My people have held their peace, because they had no knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt not execute the priesthood for me; and thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children. It is the idiom of the Scriptures, according to what I have often noted, that since the discourse is addressed to a nation, it seems to be addressed sometimes under its own name, sometimes under the name of the parent whose daughter it is. And therefore when he had said, thou shalt fall today, and the prophet shall fall with thee: that is, the time of thy devastation has come, and thou who once didst cease to learn and to speak justice, shalt now also cease from thy profane voice. He added, in the night I have made thy mother to be silent.

This, however, is not to be understood as though he had allowed her to speak by day, and only to be silent by night. But he wished to express the fullness of the enjoined silence, and therefore, to show that she had become dumb as ruin rushed upon her, he introduced the mention of night, as if he were saying: I will so clothe her with poured-out grief, just as night is accustomed to cover the earth, so that, as the condition of the dark time brings in a general and common silence, so this crowd of elders, whom I have called thy mother, which a little before was noisily chattering with profanity, may fall silent beneath the night of adverse time. But afterward, according to the appointed order, when it had resounded with terror, he adds the cause of the commotion: My people have held their peace because they had no knowledge. It was just (he says) that the lips of my people should be closed with mournful silence, who were unwilling to learn by speaking.

Accordingly, lest thou attribute to some necessity his saying that knowledge was lacking to the people, he immediately shows what he was accusing them of. Thou wouldst not (he says) understand, that thou mightest do well, but meditating iniquity on thy bed, thou hast dared, according to thy own judgment, to sever the members of my law among yourselves, so that, neglecting the part of justice, thou mightest retain the institutions of sacrifices: therefore a fitting disappointment shall go to meet thy perversity, so that there shall be no license for offering sacrifices for one who had no care for pursuing the virtues: a harsh silence shall press upon thee, who hast driven wholesome warnings from thy ears. Thou hast forgotten me, I also will forget thy children, so that thou who hast suffered a willful blindness in thy duties, mayest experience the most bitter bereavement of thy children.

This indeed must be understood in such a way that we should not think that that people, given over to idols, had truly served God even by the offering of sacrifices, since this above all was the reason for the consecrations in the region of the calves, that no occasion should be given them, through the offering of sacrifices, for approaching the temple. Therefore a twofold understanding must be taken up, either that it is set forth as a condition, as if we were to say: Even if you were gravely fulfilling the offices of the priesthood, it would in fact avail nothing for your defense, whom the foulness of your morals condemned: but consequently you would also lose these grand and laughable solaces of your superstition, you who have lost the helps of merit.

Or certainly, because there were, scattered among these very Tribes, both prophets and lawful priests, and some also of that same people were accustomed to offer small gifts, and through this believed they could obtain impunity for their crimes: to these also, such as they were, under the person of the people, he threatens that when open captivity shall rush in, they too shall be stripped of the props of that opinion by which they reckoned themselves generous toward the Lord, even from a distance.

On verse 7: According to the multitude of them, so have they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame. As though with deliberate purpose and studied effort the people set themselves against my benefits, so that the more abundant I had been in bestowing, the more insane this one might appear in abusing. Finally, when I had so exalted him by the increase of his offspring that, advancing, he filled the spaces of very broad lands as a cultivator: this one made his deeds, through crimes tending to my disgrace, equal in number. So much so that he seemed to fear lest the members of the people should be more numerous than his crimes. Therefore, because they placed their glory as much in the multitude of their crimes as of their soldiers, I will change that glory, shame succeeding it: so that they may be brought, that is, down to the utmost fewness, their sufferings consuming them.

On verse 8: They shall eat the sins of my people, and they shall lift up their souls unto their iniquity. This whole verse must be read with reproach: that is, the priests, or those who were the ministers of idols, and by this claimed to be sacrificing to God, or the princes together with the people, who had put on zeal for a deadly error, among the other things which they did that deserved punishment, also usurped terms coming from the tradition of the law. For just as the Samaritan Tribes observed circumcision and the sabbaths, although serving idols, so also it is to be believed that these very soothsayers usurped certain institutions of the law. Now by the institution of the blessed Moses there were various kinds of offerings, among which was also that which was offered for sin. From this, however, with certain portions of the fat consumed by fire, the remaining members fell to the priests as food.

And because God was propitiated by these rites, the pontiffs were said to eat, that is, to consume, the sins of the people, for whom they prayed: in like manner, the soothsayers, that they might promise impunity for various offenses through the profits of their own gain, said that they consumed the sins of the people. This, then, God now stirs up through the prophet, in a voice and countenance of indignation, as if he were saying: Behold what prodigies, seeking fame not from any beautiful deeds ever, but only from disgraceful ones, profane the institutions of the reverend law by usurpation of its words, so that they might promise, namely to the deceived people, that if sacrifices were offered through their hands, they would immediately become innocent, and would obtain forgiveness of sins. And thus they lifted up, that is, they consoled, and made proud the souls of the guilty, in whom they allowed nothing of compunction to remain.

Therefore, since neither the teacher was accustomed to speak, nor the disciple to hear, that which pertains to salvation, but guilt, which pollutes, made both equal, deservedly the sentence that follows shall also compose them together, so that they receive the fruit of their works without deceit, and priest and people alike suffer one destruction. We can, however, create an easier understanding in this place, if we introduce also the person of Judah, whom he names a little further on.

So that, since he also chastises with serious admonition that very Tribe, though as yet less guilty, yet not entirely cleansed on every side, it may seem that he has also introduced this, that the priests eat the sacrifices offered for sins, and the sense may be of this kind: But what wonder is it that the tribes withdrawing from the worship and fear of God, and given over to the worship of idols, are foul with various crimes, when even that part of the people which seems still to retain the mystical ceremonies is intoxicated with a similar error, and the corrupt priests flatter sinners, in that impunity befalls them, namely, through the offering of the sacrifices which they themselves devour? They lifted up, therefore, with these consolations, the minds which the consciousness of crimes was pressing down: and what the priests were most shamelessly promising, this the people were most willingly hearing: therefore also in the time of calamity there shall be no distinction between people and priests, but they who lived promiscuously shall also perish basely.

On these verses: I will visit upon him his ways, and I will render unto him his devices. They shall eat, and shall not be satisfied: they have committed fornication, and have not ceased. When, he says, the severity of vengeance shall begin to exercise itself, these measures of sorrows, which they themselves had made in their sins, shall be filled up, so that they may experience in their punishments what they penetrated into in their desires. For they committed fornication, following either obscenities or profanities, and they were not ashamed of the usurped foulness, so that they who had fallen from the first station might at least think of secondary remedies, and might either cease to do, or at least to frequent, what should not have happened, and thus a cessation, once applied, might imitate abstinence from error. But though they committed fornication, they did not cease.

Therefore let them experience in punishments what they exercised in vices, so that they may eat and not be satisfied, that is, be filled with afflictions, but in such a way that they do not cease to draw them in, so that they seem to bear a kind of hunger. For do not, when you hear fornication, think it a modest usurpation of that bodily pleasure, but he says that, violating the pacts of the sacred covenant, they left the omnipotent Lord into whose fellowship they had been received. And therefore they were deprived of the light of understanding, not considering after what marks of religion they had fallen to such lots of rites—a folly of opinions which would by no means creep into their minds, unless drunkenness and excess conciliated it: and therefore, saying that they were wise, they became fools, to such a degree that they demanded the office of prophets from dry sticks, and that a staff should indicate what would be the future for each one: which kind of profanity the Greeks call rhabdomancy.

Therefore the spirit of profanity, which they call fornication, deceived them, so that they departed from the true God, and were mingled with many and various demons, indeed in the mouth and forehead of adulterers. On verse 13: They sacrificed upon the tops of the mountains, and burnt incense upon the hills, under the oak and the poplar and the terebinth, because the shadow thereof was good. Not content, he says, to have erred in one way, they who had despised the divine institutions pursued old wives’ inventions, so that they were ensnared not only by staffs smoothed for some deception, but even by slightly higher hillocks, or somewhat denser shadows of trees, and believed that there was the most divinity present where they had seen some pleasantness.

And so they sacrificed on the summits of mountains, which history frequently accuses, when it says of the kings, He did this or that, yet he did not take away the high places, but the people still sacrificed on the high places: but here he adds that they also burned incense under the oak and the poplar, and, explaining the cause of this admiration, he added, Because the shadow thereof was good. Rejecting the creator of light and of the luminary, truly as sons of darkness, they were captivated by the shadows of the grove. Let us hear, then, what these punishments are deserved by this madness. On verse 14: Therefore your daughters shall commit fornication, and your spouses shall be adulteresses. I will not visit upon your daughters when they shall have committed fornication, and upon your spouses when they shall have committed adultery.

Common, he says, was their shamefulness, nor did you cease from the deed, so that, if you did not feel toward those whom you should regard as innocent, or at least toward those whom you commonly held to be guilty, the feelings that is, that an honest man should be ashamed of an admitted crime, but you confirmed your audacity in noxious deeds, pursuing to such a degree things that were disgraceful, that you preferred the shadows of stocks and stones to the creator of all the elements. Let, therefore, the infliction of the final calamity discharge this impiety, so that, by a wondrous kind of vengeance, the punishment be formed in likeness to the crimes: and let it be the more bitter, because it will not have experienced ordinary censure: for indeed your spouses and daughters shall lie subject to the lust of conquerors: nor before any judges shall either husbands or parents accuse this disgrace. But the whole crime shall be consumed into shame, so that nothing of it remains for accusation.

As though acutely, therefore, having denied the reproach of the crime, he concluded that nothing is more bitter than to have been placed under the condition of such servitude, in which you proceed to see the utmost disgraces of your own kin, and dare not accuse. Therefore, since he foresaw that this would be the utmost of miseries, since nothing but captivity could bring it about, he immediately subjoined the cause of so great a commotion, by a repetition of what had gone before. Because they themselves consorted with harlots, and sacrificed with effeminate men, and the people that doth not understand shall be beaten.

They do not know, he says, how great a grief I shall experience because of her perversity, who once acted in fellowship with me; therefore in the disgrace of their own kin they shall recognize the greatness of their former crimes: so that they who followed the effeminate and the harlots, from whom they had received the worship of demons, shall be torn apart by those who abuse them, obscene enemies, feeling the fruits of their voluntary folly in the outrages which victorious tyrants shall inflict.

(continued).

On verse 15: If thou commit fornication, O Israel, at least let not Judah offend. Go not into Gilgal, and come not up to Bethaven; and do not swear, As the Lord liveth. For Israel hath declined like an untamed heifer: now the Lord will feed them, as a lamb in a large place. Although the severity of this very prophecy shows that all the tribes were defiled with the worship of idols, nevertheless he declares the worse condition of Israel, and shows that it seems more capable of condemnation than of correction: for not only did it confine the audacity of its profanity within its own borders and morals, but it also sought the contamination of its brother as though it were some gain.

This, indeed, the prophet convicts as the zeal of one soliciting to crimes, when he warns Israel, that Judah at least should not offend: for it was not the care of brotherly compassion that was laid upon him, that he should be admonished to be diligent, but through this form of precept he also stirs up that crime, that he preferred to make Judah more like himself, rather than to think at all of his own amendment.

And the sense is of this kind: O Israel, thou who, following the prince of error, that is, Jeroboam, hast withdrawn from the fellowship of thy brother, namely Judah, for no other reason than that through the honor of the temple and the celebration of the sacred days there might be for thee no occasion of breathing again and returning to better things—if thou wilt not keep the compact of thy lineage or of thy crime, and, since thou hast refused to preserve a praiseworthy concord, at least hold fast the schism once undertaken, and do not, by the cunning of the corrupter, creep back into a profession of the fraternity thou hast repudiated, but be content with thine own plague at least, and suffer the innocence of thy fellow to remain, and cease to invite him to that state into which thou wilt lament that thou thyself hast come.

For now imprudence rages the more greatly, if, through fear, thou hast chosen dissension as a remedy from those with whom thou now enterest into a fellowship of sacrilege through love of it. Preserve for thyself at least that feeling which is wont to arise in sinners, namely, that thou be ashamed of thy shameful deed. Why dost thou exclude from thyself even this slight comfort, that thou mightest seem deceived? For the ascent will not escape guilt; yet it shows that there is some distinction between the incautious and the shameless, in that boldness makes some hateful, fear makes others pitiable. But thou, since thou sufferest none to be free from thy foulness, what else dost thou confess but that thou art most guilty, not through error, but by a voluntary and detestable judgment? If thou, Israel, dost fornicate, let not Judah at least offend. Why, I ask, dost thou join this error to the former ones, as though thou wouldst think thyself to perish with less grief if thou perishest with many rather than with few?

Why, prodigal of thine own goods, dost thou also contaminate the rights of thy brother? Why wilt thou have the whole race wrapped in one tomb? Suffer some portion of thy own blood to remain, by whose support thou mayest be aided, by whose example thou mayest be reformed. If thou, Israel, dost fornicate, let not Judah at least offend: enter not into Galgala, and go not up into Bethaven, nor swear ye, As the Lord liveth.

How he commanded Israel, lest Judah should offend, he made clear through what follows, by forbidding that they should go up to Galgala and Bethaven, which places were joined to the tribe of Judah, out of a zeal for mingling religion, and swear, As the Lord liveth; which is to be understood thus: because in those same places, as in Samaria, they had consecrated calves, and had even inscribed upon them the name of the true God, and swore by that same name and divine power, therefore he now commands that, since by reason of nearness to Judah the peoples bordered there, namely at Bethaven and Galgala, these should cease to go up thither and to swear, As the Lord liveth, that is, in those places consecrated by the consent of the people, lest Judah, deceived by this familiarity of words, should himself also, first not shuddering at the calves, then begin also to swear by them.

He seems also to show this, that the impiety of the people was confounding, in that those who indeed served the calves also, in whatever business, swore by the true Lord whom Judah worshipped, and bound their oaths by his appellation, as though judging it best to venerate both appellations with equal honor, so that they might persuade even those who had remained in the faith to worship this also, and to take up the cult of the calves, the reverence of the former religion still remaining: and so it might seem not so much a change of devotion as a certain addition made to it. This, however, undertaken against the precepts of the law, without doubt polluted the wretched with an accumulated profanity. Do not therefore frequent, with such zeal, these places which you have made most celebrated for sacrilegious rites, so that even the hearts of Judah may be poisoned by your crime.

For let Judah look back, if he has not yet wholly withered away, and consider what state has overtaken Israel; and then, unless he takes heed, he will recognize what threatens even himself.

On verse 16: For as a wanton heifer, Israel hath gone aside: now the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a large place. The comparison to a heifer is most fittingly taken up, so that the species of sin itself, and the swelling of sinners, and the lowing of the perishing might be signified. In the worship, he says, of the calves, the yoke of my law having been shaken off, the boldness of Israel offended, and turned aside from the paths of virtue, believing that it would enjoy its rich goods by this change: but so great a frustration of their wishes followed the impious, that they descended from the bulk, as it were, of a bull to the smallness of a lamb. Thus the whole nation, which trusted in its own strength, saw its glory changed, ignominy following, and set under the shepherd's staff, to be restrained with as much ease as a lamb is wont to be.

Nor is this all, but as a lamb led into vast places, both weak and alone, deprived of the comfort of mother and flock alike, fears whatever it sees, whatever it hears: so also the nation, subjected to fierce enemies, shall be forced to go through the wilderness. Yet divine providence has not utterly abandoned it, on account of which he says, Now God will feed them; but that it may understand and confess, through the discipline of the calamity laid upon it, that the precepts of the sacred law were not to be despised, nor its own crimes unpunished, nor its desires fruitful, he adds.

On verses 17-19: Ephraim is a partaker with idols: let him alone. Their banquet is separated, they have committed fornication with fornication, his protectors have loved to bring shame, the wind hath bound him up in her wings, and they shall be confounded by their sacrifices. After the prophetic discourse had dealt with the desolation of Israel, and had announced its end to it, because it had not been obedient to his words, he turns himself, in order to give a further warning, to Judah. For lest it should seem, by the severity directed at Israel, that Judah had been exempted from guilt—Judah, who indeed would never be corrupted except by voluntary assent—therefore he addresses him too with like vigor. Thou hast seen, he says, that Ephraim, withdrawing an ungrateful and unhappy neck from the yoke of my law, has decreed to be a partaker of idols. Bind thyself, therefore, by no covenant to him, but let him alone, and sever thyself entirely, both in place and in pursuits, from him.

But if any fellowship shall have bound thee to him, calamity too, doubtless equal, shall seize thee. Dost thou wish to escape the contagion of profanity? Surround thyself with a rampart of continual separation, never enter with the sacrilegious into either public covenants or private banquets. For what fellowship hath light with darkness? What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? They have committed fornication with fornication. And lest thou think this happened to them deceived by error, his protectors have loved to bring shame; with devoted zeal, and with burning love, they pursue their profanities, nor do they offend only in the plebeian part—from the nobles down to the lowest they have been overrun by deadly profanity. Therefore mingle thyself in no way with their mind or their assembly, if the sacraments of chaste faith delight thee. For, O tribe of Judah, there has been provided, for the aid of thy judgment, a hastened condemnation of such men, lest thou, seeing the destruction of the guilty deferred, shouldst become uncertain also of thy own deserts.

While thou art yet unharmed, a sudden wind, as it were, shall seize Samaria, and they shall be confounded by their sacrifices, that is, they shall blush, and shall confess the vanity of the hope of those who promised themselves liberty and security in those sacrifices which they offered to idols. He set the wings of the wind, by which the nation, being bound, shall depart, according to common opinion, which is accustomed to furnish images of the winds with wings. So he says thus: These who have followed sacrilege shall be brought down, and shall be carried off to various exiles by the whirlwind of captivity, so that they may seem to have been borne on the wings of the wind. But we, when we read these things, ought to consider how lightly the insane people esteemed the voices of the prophets.

For when the priests and kings, and even the common multitude, had conspired together in open error, no opportunity was afforded to the few spiritual and poor men either of rebuking or of preaching; but, as another Scripture testifies, they were called madmen, and were, as it were, portents held up to public derision. Yet these, lacking alike in riches and in honors, deserved to enter into converse with God, and, as from the throne of heaven, to pronounce sentence upon souls prostrate and cleaving to the earth.

On verses 1-2: Hear this, he says, O priests, and attend, O house of Israel, and house of the king, hearken, for judgment is for you. You go, indeed, altogether to sacrileges, and you have shown no distinction in sinning, such as you had in your ranks. Now therefore, whether raised up by priestly or royal dignity, and the whole crowd of Israel, since ruin now hangs over you, it is fitting that you understand that you are not perishing according to your strength, but according to the equity of the judge. For you have perpetrated two things, which might seem contrary to one another, so that you became, namely, a snare and a net, but so extended as if on a watchtower on the summit of a mountain. But the victims which should have been offered to the ruler of the heavens, and, as it were, carried on rising smoke to the realms above, these you, with the order reversed, plunged into the depth.

This, moreover, is what I accuse in the priests and kings, that whereas they had been allotted that place in the nation, so that they might act with no less honesty and religion than they were to be revered for power and dignity, and ought, both by word and example, to incite their subjects to what was right, they, on the contrary, provided either the occasion for crimes or their pattern: and retaining only this from their former eminence, that what they had done might appear from afar, they stretched snares and nets, by which the unhappy crowd might be caught, and with the same perversity, you turned the sacrifices, he says, into the depth, that is, as it were, to the infernal regions. And for what purpose, when you offered them either to demons or to the Manes? Since therefore, through love of sinning, you have confounded the order of action, so that a certain ambition appeared in you, along with an ignorance of discerning what would follow, hear this.

I will be the instructor of you all, that, taught by vengeance, you may learn what, having spurned instruction, you did not know. {On verse 3: } I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me, because now Ephraim has committed fornication, Israel is defiled: they will not give their thoughts, that they may return to the Lord their God, because the spirit of fornication is in their midst, and they have not known the Lord. With what great obstinacy Israel has sinned, no one knows better than I, who behold the inward parts of sinners. Nor is there any part of the inmost being which can escape my sight. Having therefore diligently examined him entirely, I have known that he is now utterly fornicated, and utterly polluted. And lest you should think this said in excuse of past sins, he made clear at once, by the words that follow, what he wished to be signified by such an affirmation.

For he says: {On verse 4: } They will not give their thoughts, that they may return to the Lord their God, because the spirit of fornication is in their midst, and they have not known God. Therefore, after the commission of sin, when compunction is dissimulated and, once received into the breast, not only the usurpation of crime but also forgetfulness of amendment follows, this is set before the preceding errors to such a degree, that this iniquity alone is judged either the first or the greatest. They will not give, he says, their thoughts, that they may return to the Lord their God, because the spirit of fornication is in their midst. He showed that the reason why they thought nothing of amendment was this, that the unclean spirit itself, the demon, or the love of sacrileges, dwelt in their midst. For if they sinned only at intervals, the unclean spirit might be believed to draw near to them.

But now, since they spend their whole span of life in crimes, the author of sacrileges is rightly said to be, not merely near them, but in their midst. He, therefore, sitting in their breasts, they think nothing of amendment, and therefore are given over to destruction. On verse 5: The arrogance of Israel, he says, will answer to his face, and Israel, and Ephraim shall fall in their iniquity, Judah also shall fall with them. By the likeness of laborious farmers, whom abundance often answers, he says that these too will presently receive the wages of their pursuits. Fittingly, he says, industry will answer, that is, so that they may blush amid calamities, who arrogated the most to themselves on account of their crimes. On verses 6-7: With their flocks and with their herds they shall go to seek the Lord, and shall not find him: he is taken away from them: they have dealt treacherously against the Lord, for they have begotten strange children; now the harvest shall devour them with their portions.

Having said above that it agrees with the justice of one judging, that those who had given themselves to crimes should also bear fitting wages, he joined Judah with Israel, whom he knew, though somewhat later, was yet to come into a like guilt. But after he had commended the justice of the examination, he returns to the distinction of times, and pursues the deeds of Israel, whom he knew was to perish forthwith. And first indeed, when he had said that Judah too was to be mixed with Israel in calamity, he added that which had more regard to Judah, who held the Temple consecrated to God. For although he was polluted with idols, yet he also offered victims to God: and while he took little care for the correction of his morals, he thought he would obtain aid from constant sacrifice. Therefore, with their flocks, he says, and with their herds they shall go to seek the Lord, and shall not find him: he is taken away from them.

Now he put "shall go" for "were going," for by the declension of the past tense the whole invective is unfolded. Walking, then, in the path of superstition rather than of religion (for so is reckoned the offering of victims, if care for the virtues is lacking to them), they could not find that God to whom no one is led except by the path of full devotion. He is taken away from them, not because God could be taken away, but because his help nowhere presented itself to them, as if it had utterly been taken away from them. Afterward, however, turning his voice to Ephraim, that is, the Samaritans, he stirs up another kind of transgression, which nevertheless shows the antiquity of the impiety committed. Namely, that they so despised the statutes of the law, that they even mingled with profane nations through marriages, striving indeed and hastening to strip off the name of their own race, and to be called anything else rather than the people of God.

They have dealt treacherously against the Lord, for they have begotten strange children. So great, he says, was the hatred they conceived of my name, that they believed they could be snatched from threats or freed from troubles, if their offspring passed over into the number of other nations. "Now the harvest shall devour them with their portions": he indicates the near and imminent calamity by the name of harvest: in which he promises that both the sprouts and the fruits shall be reaped by one sword.

On verses 8-9: Blow the trumpet in Gibeah, and the horn in Ramah, howl in Bethaven, behind your back, O Benjamin. Ephraim shall be in desolation. Because he had pronounced that they would be consumed in a short time, and knew the weight of the sentence going into effect without any delay, as if matters were already accomplished, he bade it be announced through those cities which were most populous, with trumpets sounding and echoing wailings, that desolation would occupy the whole of Ephraim. But all the places which he mentioned, that is, "behind Benjamin," which was a tribe bordering on the region of Judah, Gibeah and Ramah and Bethaven, we gather were near the borders of Judah. Since, therefore, the calamity of these, which went before, ought to have made them anxious, by the very example of fear, it not only did nothing toward amendment, but even furnished increase to sinning.

This, then, he vehemently reproaches, and says that by that very thing they appeared worse, by which they ought to have become better, if only out of common humanity.

On verse 10: The princes of Judah are become as those who remove the bound; upon them I will pour out my wrath like water. That is, at the time of the Assyrian captivity, which drove the ten tribes from their borders, the princes of Judah, who ought to have been moved to weeping by the fraternal calamity, and to have sedulously thought upon the comeliness of morals, lest they too, namely, should fall into like miseries, not only felt no dread or compunction, but even made public their fratricidal mind, rejoicing, namely, that spaces of land had been added to them, their brother having been driven out. In the day, then, of desolation, that is, in the time when the Israelite Tribes migrated from their borders, he shows the faith (understand: of Judah), whose hidden vow the occasion laid bare.

And thus he had, in Levi, the misfortunes of his brothers, in such a way that he spoke of them as advantageous to himself: which indeed is of such guilt, that it compelled the indignation of the avenger to be increased. For there follows: Upon him I will pour out, like water, my wrath: that is, after he had said "I will pour out," he plainly added, "like water." Judah, he says, appeared worse through the crime of that exultation. And therefore he will be submerged in a flood of punishments, because, whereas among other benefits our clemency had granted him this also, that ruin should be spent upon the fear and amendment of Ephraim, he abused it to increase his own wantonness, and believed that examples had been provided for his brother, not as warnings, but as estates handed over to himself.

On verses 11-15: Ephraim suffers calumny, broken in judgment, because he began to go after filth. And I am as a moth to Ephraim, and as rottenness to the house of Judah. And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his bond. And Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to a king who should avenge him: but he shall not be able to heal you, nor shall he be able to loose the bond from you. For I am as a lioness to Ephraim, and as a lion's whelp to the house of Judah. I, I will go, and I will seize, and I will carry off, and there is none to deliver. Going, I will return to my place, until you fail, and seek my face. God grievously represents himself as offended, because Judah took no compunction at all from the condemnation of his brother, but, remaining behind, insulted the one who was exiled, rejoicing that his own borders were being extended by whatever occasion.

This sin, therefore, God so gravely reckoned, that he promised he would not merely bring near his wrath, but pour it out utterly, like water. And because through the increase of punishments he had made Judah appear more guilty, since he was to be laid waste by an overflowing visitation, he went on to elaborate the color he had assumed. And he says that the guilt of Judah is so much heavier, that Israel, compared to him, seems to have suffered calumny. And the sense is of this kind: If the reckoning of merits demanded the evil of captivity, why did Judah, defiled both by the customs of the nations and infected with hatred of his brother, put off the force of vengeance? But if, after so many crimes, he did not yet deserve to be expelled, is not he who was captured oppressed rather by calumny than by the justice of one teaching a lesson? Ephraim suffers calumny, broken in judgment.

What it was to suffer calumny, he took care to explain, namely, to be oppressed not by the equity, but by the power, of the judge. To the same sense also refers what he says, "He began to go after filth." For above he had reproached Israel both with the multitude and the antiquity of his sins; but when he stirred up the crime of Judah, namely, of one seeking profit and feeling joy from his brother's captivity, and judged this to outweigh other crimes, he added the rest in the same tenor, so as to say that Ephraim had both been circumvented in judgment, and had himself had the beginnings of the error. As if he were to say: You, Judah, have made public in your mind such cruelty, that in the crimes for which Israel was condemned, you appear more horrid and more ancient.

Whence also the measure of my judgment, according to the difference of merits, will be sharpened, so that I will eat away Ephraim, as a moth; but you, as clinging rottenness, I will consume. Now it is known by how much less an injury that which the moth gnaws is consumed, than that which rottenness pervades. And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his bond: that is, you will both see, and you will both fully perceive, the vengeance which is destined for your own pursuits, nor will it profit you to ask for help from foreign kings; but you will confess by the very facts, that these have furnished you only examples of corruption, not also aids of salvation. To both peoples he promised that he would come in the guise of a lion, but he kept, in the difference of sex, the vehemence which he had not made evident in appearance, so that he might say he would appear to the one as a lioness, but to the other as a lion.

And he fulfilled the likeness he had assumed by saying, I, I will seize, and I will go, and I will carry off, and there is none to deliver. There is no one, he says, among the shepherds who would dare to snatch away the prey seized by me: but despising the tumult of the rustics, I will put forth my strength, until the hunger of my indignation be satisfied. Now "I will return to my place" he put for "den," to which the lion, unafraid, is accustomed to withdraw. And this shall be, until you, wearied by hardships and sorrows, seek, he says, my face: which indeed stands, apart from the rule of the image assumed from the lion, as brought in from the truth of the matter itself. But otherwise, as far as concerns the comparison, who, being weary, would wish to see that face, which not even a strong man could withstand?

Therefore, having expressed the indignation he had assumed, through the hunger of the lion, he then added, concerning the majesty of his own person, that he would not come to deliver, unless the people, advancing through the very wearing-down, had longed for his countenance, and had begun to ask for remedy from that one alone, from whom they had felt punishment inflicted.

On verses 1-3: In their affliction they will rise early to me. Come, and let us return to the Lord, for he himself began, and he will heal us: he will strike, and he will cure us. He will give us life after two days, on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight, and we shall know, and we shall follow, that we may know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the dawn, and he will come to us as the early and the latter rain to the earth. He had said that, like a lion going forth to the hunt, he raged fiercely against the profane people, that is, against certain places, without doubt, which had gathered more sacrilege in proportion as they had greater celebrity, whether from the opportunities of commerce or from the multitude of inhabitants. From among these, therefore, he brings forward Galaad and Sichem, cities notorious for their profanities.

Galaad, he says, the chief city of those who fashion idols, exults in zeal for cruelty no less than for profanity. For like the throats of robbers, so do its citizens gape for the blood of the innocent. For serving the persuasions of their priests, that is, of the soothsayers, if anyone had wished to go up to the temple of God, these men would attack him on the way, turning him away from the temple of God, and dragging him into partnership with their own error; and if they could not accomplish enough by persuasion, they would even proceed by murder. Wherefore he says: A company of priests in the way slaying those coming from Sichem, because they have wrought wickedness. First, evidently, in that they themselves had fallen into sacrilege, and then, because they were not content with their own downfall, but drew others also into a like ruin, either by persuasion or by force.

Which wickedness is rightly declared, namely, that they had such zeal for impiety that they strove to instill it even into the unwilling and the reluctant.

On verse 10: In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing: there is the fornication of Ephraim; Israel is defiled. That he might teach that the whole region had been profaned, he mentions also different places, and just as above he said that the men of Galaad, after the manner of robbers, lay in wait for travelers, to lead them from the right path: so now he declares that he has seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel, whether in Samaria or in the whole region, that is, that the whole people of Ephraim, without exception, is stained with sacrilege. Since he had often already said that punishments were impending for these crimes, now, content merely with the enumeration of their deserts, he passes on to Judah, warning him that he should know that the severity of the judge cannot be corrupted, but that he too, unless he hastens to correct himself, will receive the wages of similar calamities.

On verse 11: But also, Judah, appoint a harvest for yourself, when I shall have converted the captivity of my people. Do not think, O tribe of Judah, that you will be free from condemnation, because it stops within your borders while the people of Israel go into captivity. He indeed went before you in iniquities: it followed that he should also go before you in miseries. But you, whom you accompanied in wickedness, shall likewise follow in calamities—yet you are to be judged the worse, because it profited you nothing that he was condemned first. Appoint therefore a harvest for yourself, when I shall have converted the captivity of my people.

See, he says, do not doubt, that when the time of due vengeance comes, the captivity which my people, that is, your kinsmen, have now endured by the pronouncement of justice, shall be turned upon you also, so that you likewise may reap in the same way; because, just as those sowing in the tears of penitence bring in sheaves of joys, so those who pursue polluted joys shall gather a harvest of sorrows and lamentations or: lamentation.

On verse 1: When I wished to heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim was revealed, and the wickedness of Samaria, because they have wrought a lie: and the thief has entered in plundering, the robber outside. He carefully takes pains to show how ready he is to pardon; and that he takes on the role of avenger unwillingly, as it were, if justice permitted, being much more inclined, and with much more pleasure, to exercise the part of gentleness. When therefore, he says, I had conceived, as it were, an impulse of indulgence, and was meditating rising up to succor the wretched, I turned my eyes a little, so that I might see those whom I was about to free. And behold, into my face there leapt a host of the iniquities which Ephraim had committed, crying out, as it were, that no one ought to spare such people, since they had been so imbued with hatred of the truth that with unfailing zeal they always constructed deadly falsehoods.

When I wished to heal Israel, he says, the iniquity of Ephraim was revealed, and the wickedness of Samaria, because they have wrought a lie. Besides the neighboring diversity of morals, he denounces sacrilege under the name of falsehood, as above he denounced obscenity. For they devised gods whom they might worship, they who ceased to worship the true God: and thus they are detected as having wrought a lie, who ascribed the divine name to idols. Whence also the teacher of the Gentiles: God gave them up, he says, to the desires of their hearts unto uncleanness, that they should dishonor their own bodies among themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever, Amen. The magnitude of the crime committed by them, therefore, resolved my deliberation, in which I was thinking of sparing them; and the fabrications of lies to the contumely of the sacred truth did not permit them to escape.

Thence into all their inner chambers the skilled despoiler entered, with the security of a conqueror, and with the diligence of one raging, entering so that of those things which were to be plundered he might leave nothing through negligence, nor grow weary through abundance. He therefore assumed both the likeness and the name of a thief and a robber ravaging within and without, so that you might understand the enemy compared to him not as timid, but as swift.

On verse 2: And lest perhaps they say in their hearts, that I have remembered all their wickedness. This verse is inserted for the commendation of modesty. But the preceding words are joined to what follows (that is, The thief has entered in plundering, the robber outside). Now their own devices have surrounded them, they have been done before my face: and lest perhaps they should say in their hearts that I have remembered all their wickedness—or should I set forth some part of the profanity committed, that they may understand that their punishments are far less than their deserts. Their enemies surrounded them, and having gained possession of them by right of victory, so diligently searched out everything, as if thieves had rushed into the inner chambers of houses, or robbers into the open fields. Their own devices have surrounded them, which have been done before my face, just as he had said above, when I wished to heal Ephraim, the wickedness of Samaria was revealed.

According to which the blessed David, speaking from the person of the same people, confesses: Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our age in the light of thy countenance; and all our days have failed, and we have failed in thy wrath. You are therefore bound by your own crimes, you bear the weight of your own devices. You have fabricated lying gods, but in the truth of sorrows. Let us hear now what things he says have been revealed.

On verses 3-7: In their wickedness they made the king glad, and the princes in their lies. They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker; the city rested a little while from the mingling of the leaven, until the whole was leavened. The day of our king: the princes began to be mad with wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners. For they have applied their heart like an oven, while he lay in wait for them: all the night the baker slept baking them; in the morning he himself was heated like a flaming fire. They were all heated like an oven, and they devoured their judges. On verse 8: Ephraim himself was mingled among the peoples. On verse 9: Strangers have devoured his strength, and he himself knew it not. That is, he had no discernment of good and evil out of the meditation of virtue, nor did he take it from the blows inflicted on him.

But he does not at all know who consumed his strength, and he loved his own ruin with wondrous stupidity. Nor indeed, which is the last kind of instruction, did he grow wise even after experience, but persisted in the folly which he embraced in his first age, even unto his gray hairs, that is, even to the times of old age. He emphasizes, cumulatively, that gray hair did not appear but had faded and been shed, that is, so as to show that it had not merely drawn near, but had, as it were, filled up the years of old age: and yet that the ignorance of right and wrong, scarcely excusable in little children, had persisted even to the very end. Now, moreover, we have noted above that he calls the infancy and adolescence of the people that time when it went out of Egypt and took possession of the land of promise.

Its middle youth, however, is the time when it reigned in that land; but its old age, the years of captivity, whose end the prophet names renewal. In which, indeed, its youth being renewed, it may be seen to fly, like the eagles.

On these verses: And the pride of Israel shall be humbled before his face, neither have they returned to the Lord their God, nor have they sought him in all these things. And Ephraim has become like a dove that is deceived, having no heart. The divine word is accustomed to take up examples from creatures, capable of being applied both to blame and to praise, just as now the prophet has applied a blameworthy folly to doves, whom the Lord in the Gospel named for their praiseworthy innocence. Be, he says, wise as serpents, and simple as doves. Ephraim has become like a dove that is deceived, having no heart.

On verse 12: They called upon Egypt, they went to the Assyrians. And when they shall have gone, I will spread my net over them, and I will draw them down like a bird of the air, I will strike them according to the hearing of their assembly. When they, being destitute, had been deprived of the help of God, whom they had abandoned, and were now being assaulted by frequent incursions—as the history of the kings recounts—they demanded aid from the Egyptians, that they might defend them against the Assyrians. But finding themselves suffering nothing more than the expense of money, they were captured by those to whom the divine sentence had subjected them. This, then, is what he says: Because when they called upon the Egyptians, they went to the Assyrians, since, the Egyptians being able to do nothing to help, the Assyrians carried them off to the regions of Media.

And because he had called Ephraim a dove, which he also calls a bird of the sky, keeping the metaphor, he declares that he will draw it down and cover it with a net: that is, You indeed, by transgressing my rule, have abandoned me, yet you shall not remain in captivity outside my will, but even as you migrate to other lands, the fixed dominion of my power shall hang over you; and therefore, lest you think yourselves, by that migration, to have escaped all dangers, behold, I foretell that even there you shall suffer the net of my vengeance, nor shall you be able to escape my indignation, unless you correct those very pursuits by which it was aroused.

On verses 13-16: Woe to them, for they have withdrawn from me: they shall be laid waste, because they have transgressed against me, and I redeemed them, and they have spoken lies against me. They have not cried out to me in their heart, but they howled upon their beds: for corn and wine they gathered themselves together: they have withdrawn from me. And I have instructed and strengthened their arms, and they have thought evil against me. They returned, that they might be without a yoke: they became as a deceitful bow. Their princes shall fall by the sword, for the rage of their tongue. This is their scorn in the land of Egypt.

It is necessary, he says, that under the pressure of calamity, those be vexed who have withdrawn from me, and have transgressed the statutes of my law, and, not content with having committed this once, have resisted all the remedies of my judgments which I employed for their healing, and, as though offended by gifts and benefits, have contended against my benevolence with the crime of an ungrateful mind. For just as already from Egypt, so also often at other times, they clamored against the very facts, and when they had been freed from their distresses, rendered false service in return for true remedies. For this is what he says: They have spoken lies against me. That is, they were not subject to me in heart, but only on the surface of their lips. To indicate this more plainly, he added, They have not cried out to me in their heart, but they howled upon their beds. For where the affection of a sincere mind is lacking, supplication poured forth by the drunken is rightly called howling.

Then he consequently added, For corn and wine they gathered themselves together; they have withdrawn from me; namely, when I had bestowed abundance of all fruits, so that they passed from banquets to renewed banquets, and, after the manner of cattle to whom rumination is innate, they, whom the foods called, whether by praising or renewing them, as though knowing nothing, chewed over again what was better, and constantly withdrew from me who was the giver of that very abundance. When, he says, the time had come for them to go forth to wars, I fulfilled the office of a vigorous leader, that their limbs might be strengthened by contests, and they might taste the sweet honor of victory. But they, abusing my benefits against me, immediately exercised, in contempt of the law, the firmness of chest which they had gathered, and because they had cast off the enemy's yoke, they also refused to be subject to me, expressing this by the voice of their deeds, saying, Our lips are our own, who is our lord?

They became as a deceitful bow: that is, they had so much perversity that they seemed like a deceitful bow, which indeed, by monstrous fraud, directs its shafts against the very hand by which it was bent. So these, he says, turned the boldness which, by my favor, they had conceived against their enemies, into contempt and contumely against us. This can be understood in two ways: namely, that having enumerated their crimes throughout various ages, he pronounced it most just that the princes should perish together with the peoples: and that what was scorn in the land of Egypt—that is, they who despised the threats of the prophets, awaiting help from the Egyptians—he might know by a fitting end; and therefore, as though insultingly, by one convicting them, after the enumeration of the plagues, it seems to be added, This is their scorn in the land of Egypt, that is, the ruin of princes and peoples.

Or certainly, because he had said, they returned that they might be without a yoke: that is, they had withdrawn their necks from the law of God, and desired to be freed from its dominion. They did not begin to wish this now for the first time, he says, but while placed in Egypt, before they were freed from Pharaoh's rule, they resisted with like impiety both Moses and Aaron. Their princes therefore shall fall by the sword, who violated the law of God with such atrocity of blasphemy that they seemed not so much to err as to rage.

On verses 1-3: Let there be a trumpet in your throat, like an eagle over the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and have prevaricated against my law. They called upon me: My God, we have known thee, O Israel. Israel has cast off what is good; the enemy shall pursue him. Even in the foregoing sections, I have noted that it is customary in prophetic speech, whenever it has sounded forth with a grave threat, either to append immediately the causes of indignation, or to bring forward similar examples, whereby it asserts its judgments to be free from the charge of iniquity, and shows them to accord throughout with justice.

So also now, after he had unfolded the sins and calamities of the Israelite people, and showed that they had grown foul not only with bitterness but also with age, lest it should seem that though indeed convicted of crimes, it was still reckoned of less account than the Tribe of Judah, which, though not with such great, yet with similar errors had become defiled: therefore he suddenly introduced mention of its captivity also, which was to be fulfilled after many long years, and says, Let there be a trumpet in your throat, that is, let your jaws cry out like a trumpet, because upon the house of God—namely, the temple situated in Jerusalem—a fierce plunderer comes like an eagle.

Not that the sanctity of the place, and the power of the deity accustomed to appear there, could not defend it, but because the natives themselves, by their own words, transgressed the covenant which had been struck between God and men: that is, they violated the pacts of religion, by serving the idols of the Gentiles; and the sense is of this kind: Understand how great is the severity of the Judge, and that not even that Tribe, which for a while kept the ceremonies of the law while you were transgressing, which in the time of Sennacherib was vindicated by a very great miracle, which enjoys the conspicuous and reverend support of the altar and the Temple—not even it, I say, did I delay to strike down, after it had slipped into your ways. For cold indeed, and of no avail for defense, is the mere boasting of names, which judges the confessor's impudence rather than his religion.

This is what they, though defiled by profane pursuits, dare nevertheless to say: Our God, free us, who alone in the whole world have known thee, and glory in the name of Israel given by thee. For with a good judge, the weight of deeds is heavier than that of words: and therefore the people of Israel, who cast away their good—namely, the worship of sacred religion—shall lie subject to pursuing enemies.

On verse 4: They have reigned, and not by me. They have set up princes, and I knew not. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they might perish. This, he says, is the ancient madness of the stubborn people against me: long ago it hastened to cast off my rule. For as though it were too little that, like the other nations round about, it decided to obey kings rather than priests, so also in a short time it abandoned that very reverence with which it had asked me for a king, and, wholly desiring to stand outside our dominion, made for itself princes, whom neither the election of priests nor prophets ennobled, nor blessing consecrated; but who, as though I did not know it, assumed the rights of the court, and thus, holding a continuous tissue of crimes, so that they lavished their support and their riches upon the most unworthy of idols. Concerning which he had said above, And I multiplied silver and gold, which they made for Baal.

Therefore, since they had been enriched by my generosity, they abuse sacrilegiously what was granted them, fashioning mockeries out of the ornaments of houses and shrines. Their silver and gold, then, they made themselves idols, that they might perish. A locution to be noted, which the authority of the sacred books especially uses frequently, where that which is consequent is put first in importance. That is, they made themselves idols, that they might perish, since it was not from a desire to perish that they made images, but because they made them, they deserve to perish.

On these verses: Your calf, O Samaria, has been cast off: my wrath is kindled against them: how long will they be unable to be cleansed? For it too is of Israel: the workman made it, and it is not God. In all these verses the complaint is full of indignation. That you have fallen by your own spontaneous iniquity, he says, O nation ungrateful to your creator's benefits, is proved especially by the testimony of adversity.

For granted that abundance of goods and security had dulled the edge of your discernment, and that you thought divinity dwelt in bovine images (for you saw that even neighboring nations held this opinion), still, at least when you exchanged joyful things for sad ones, and the victorious enemy laid waste those shrines in which you had placed your trust, and, at his pleasure (yet serving my indignation, whom you had abandoned), the calves which you had consecrated were either thrown down or melted, you ought to have shuddered at the crime of your opinion, so as to perceive that no help could be conferred upon you by images of dumb beasts, which could not even have vindicated themselves either from mockery or from destruction.

And to recount what has been done: you, I say, O people, since you were conscious that you had given matter to those idols, that you had bestowed the form, and through this understood that you impiously called gods those things which subsisted by your own work, to which certainly you could not have given life, but only shape—nevertheless, though you had occupied all that time, which flowed away in luxuriant idleness, with these drunken rites as well, at least, after the ensuing calamity convicted the vanity of such worship, you ought immediately to have taken care for amendment, and to have nursed with vigorous experiments the fire of reason that had been dulled, and to have stripped off the filth with which you had been clothed. Because you have not done this, the prophet rightly cries out: How long will they be unable to be cleansed? For it too is of Israel, the workman made it, and it is not God: for the calf of Samaria shall be as the spider's web.

On verse 7: For they shall sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind: there is no standing stalk in it, the bud shall yield no meal; and if it should yield, strangers shall eat it. Your counsels, he says, unless imitation confused them, you would judge not to be gods, whom you knew to have been fashioned by the hand of a craftsman. There followed thereafter a hostile incursion; your deities perished together with their worshippers, and were no more able to delay the ravagers than the threads of spiders: yet even amid these perils of circumstance you resisted with obstinacy and imprudence, nor did you take care to cast off the filth of such profanities.

Deservedly, therefore, both your vows and all your labors shall be followed by such tearful frustration, that you shall seem to have sown not wheat, but wind, and to have reaped not ears of grain, but a whirlwind: that is, no fertility or firmness will remain with you, as is wont to happen in a stalk whose height, through some injury of the air, has not produced the fullness of the ear. So then, I say, you too shall gain no profit from your labors, nor shall any industry answer to your cultivation, but even if something of the remnants of former fertility should begin to appear, all of it shall come into the power of your enemies.

On verses 8-10: Israel is devoured, now he is become among the nations as an unclean vessel. For they have gone up to Assur, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim has given gifts to his lovers. Moreover they have hired the nations with a price: now will I gather them, and they shall rest a little from the burden of the king and princes. By assiduous repetition he exasperates the things he threatens, so that a lengthy description of adversities may sharpen the sense of fear, if perchance those liable, being terrified, may be corrected before they are punished: accordingly he now introduces the very condition of the captive people, and consequently calls it devoured, since it is placed at the disposal of those who consume it; to whom nothing further remains unto utter destruction, except so much as the ferocity of the conquerors, sated by their successes, shall grant. Devoured, he says, is Israel, he is become among the nations as an unclean vessel.

Indeed the surface of the sentences reverberates; but as far as the sense is concerned, the foregoing things are explained by what follows. For he shows what he had called devoured: that is, one whose entire strength has been drained, and who could easily be consumed unto destruction, if the wrath of the rulers should also demand this. Moreover, those who did less in savagery compensate by adding insults, and therefore do not slay all, so that they may have some to always dread, and may seem to have grudged rather the solace of death than to have conferred the benefit of life. For they preserved the wretched not for the enjoyment of light, but to bear contempt: and therefore he says, Israel is become among the nations as an unclean vessel. Which other interpreters have translated as chamber-pot.

Never, he says, was Israel assigned an honorable office, so that after the insignia of liberty and dominion, he might at least be reckoned generously among slaves, but as a vessel made for the needs of nature, so he was filled with the filth of insults. And having well recalled the condition of the nations, he heaped up the injury by saying: Israel is become among the nations as an unclean vessel. As if he were saying, Alas, alas, how lamentable and how great a reversal it was, that that people, who alone by the teaching of the sacred law had learned to distinguish clean things from unclean among all peoples, who for that reason had been set apart from all the nations, lest any contagion should pollute him: now is proven unclean even by the judgment of those very nations, which from the first years of life to the last have been foul with the squalor of every crime. And so, He is become among the nations as an unclean vessel.

For they have gone up to Assur, a wild ass alone by himself. That is, they will suffer the things we have mentioned, the Assyrian bringing them on. They shall perceive how much preeminence in strength has been conferred upon him, so that it may be said they have ascended to him whom they reached. Wild ass, moreover, alone by himself, is to be referred to Ephraim: that is, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim has given gifts to his lovers. The people, he says, of the Jews, who suffered no rule of foreigners, but like a wild ass, knowing no yoke nor burdens; of whom blessed David had sung in praise of God, Who makes those of one manner to dwell in a house: namely, thriving by singular institution, he made them dwell in the land of Promise.

This one, therefore, I say, who was free from human condemnation, subject only to divine commands, is now so angered and saddened that he would think himself blessed if even an honorable servitude should befall him. They have given gifts to their lovers. Moreover they have hired the nations with a price: now will I gather them. When the crowd of the ten tribes deserved to be chastised for their profanities, the prophets announcing it, the dominion of the Assyrians was promised to them. But the Jews, showing precisely the same mind toward the threats as the other Tribe did, proved contumacious in all things, and preferred rather to hire the Egyptians for a price than to be subjugated to the Assyrians, to whom the divine sentence was subjecting them.

This, therefore, is what he says, that with the purpose of fornicating, as it were wishing to try the Egyptians as lovers, they of their own accord sent them gifts, and promised to pay yearly stipends, if by their help the Assyrians should be driven off, and the threat of the prophets be overcome. He said accordingly, since they have hired the nations with a price, that is, the Egyptians, now will I gather them into captivity, that is, I will drag them along, and, the dominion of the Assyrian nation having been announced, I will hand them over to it. I will gather them, he says, lest anyone should seem to escape. And they shall rest a little from the burden of the king and princes. This seems to be said with irony, as though he were calling that a rest which the captivity would bring upon them.

That is, they shall recognize how much they have advanced by their own counsels and endeavors, when they have been gathered together, when they have migrated as exiles into foreign fields, ceasing indeed to render either the tributes imposed by the Assyrians, or the voluntary ones to the Egyptians, they shall carry out with all their strength the commands of their masters, so that they will confess that this cessation of paying tribute has turned into an increase of their evils.

On verses 11-14: For Ephraim has multiplied altars unto sin, altars have become to him unto trespass. I will write for them my manifold laws, which have been reckoned as though foreign. Offer, offer sacrifices, they shall sacrifice flesh, and eat it: the Lord will not accept them, now will he remember their iniquities, and will visit their sins: they shall return into Egypt. And Israel has forgotten his Maker, and has built temples. And Judah has multiplied fortified cities, and I will send fire into his cities, and it shall devour his buildings. By what consequence of sin he had summoned the aid of the Egyptians, he shows: that is, by resisting the holy admonishers in all things, so that just as he had spurned the prophets who taught, so also he spurned those who threatened: and not only spurned but even opposed them, and, as far as in him lay, would prove them false, if indeed, having hired the Egyptians, he had repelled the Assyrians.

Now rightly does blessed Hosea, enumerating the evils of the coming captivity, run through both the punishments and the offenses, and laments that altars to idols have been multiplied by Ephraim, and complains that he has turned the altars into a crime for himself. As if he were saying: indeed the institution of divine worship was established for this reason, that the altars might expiate those whom crimes had defiled; but now the deadly things so entangle the wretched, that never has it befallen them to be more grievously defiled than at the altars. By fleeing to the nations, he says, and by seeking eagerly to be mixed with their rites, the ungrateful people has reckoned itself absolved from the troubles of our law. But since it is in my power, by bit and bridle, to crush the profane mouths of the contumacious, the outcome itself shall show that the contempt of the precepts has not gone unpunished. For I will write for them my manifold laws, which have been reckoned as though foreign.

Moreover he expressed the thing he was about to do by the manner of a judge, who is wont to recite a written sentence from a document. My laws, therefore, which were once promulgated, and are contained especially in the volume of Deuteronomy, I will write manifoldly against them: that is, I will carry out and heap up. To you, therefore, to recall a few things out of many, the discourse is concluded in this manner: But if you will not hear the voice of the Lord your God, to keep and to do all his commandments and ceremonies which I command you this day, all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, cursed in the field: cursed shall be your barn, cursed your store, cursed the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your land: the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep. Cursed shall you be coming in, and cursed going out. These laws, therefore, he threatens to multiply against the profaned peoples.

They offer sacrifices, and shall sacrifice flesh, and eat it: the Lord will not accept them: now will he remember their iniquity. The people of Samaria, indeed, that is, the ten Tribes, had despised the sacrifices which ought to have been offered to the true God, no less than his judgments and precepts. But the Tribe of Judah, not yet defiled with sisterly impiety, had nevertheless cast off the care of sacrifices.

Therefore, in the quality of their morals, prophecy proceeds to join them, and under the accusation of Israel, passes over to Judah, so that, as he has already done above, he may reproach them, because, thinking nothing of the righteousness of morals, they place their hope of salvation only in the offering of victims, and introduces as it were the voice of them mutually exhorting one another, that is, offer, offer sacrifices: and immediately he responds, The Lord will not accept them, now will he remember their iniquities. Indeed the gravity of the judgment is to be considered: for he says that he is brought especially into remembrance of their iniquity at that very time when they, under the consciousness of despised and neglected justice, think they can protect themselves by offering victims, since indeed gifts are pleasing only when they are offered not by the persons of enemies, but of the beloved.

But it is nearer to an insult, if to one whom you have embittered by crimes, you bestow trifling gifts, as it were with the ambition not of a suppliant but of a giver. To you, therefore, applies that sentence which parricide Cain experienced, that you should sacrifice flesh, and yourselves consume it, the Lord not accepting it. How could it be otherwise, since he prefers obedience to sacrifice, and care for justice more than holocaust? Now, therefore, especially, he says, he hastens vengeance, when you place the confidence of your deliverance in the shedding of the blood of cattle. Now will he visit the sins of all who are converted to Egypt, that is, both in mind and for a price; for indeed the whole of Israel alike, that is, both Judah and Ephraim, have so forgotten their own Creator, that although they had rendered him most hostile to themselves, they took no care for amendment.

But partly by restoring fortifications, partly by hiring nations, they consumed their resources and their labors, as though they did not know it had been announced by the sacred song, Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guard the city, he watches in vain who guards it. The impiety of these, therefore, grew to such a degree, that though they had provoked the almighty judge to wrath, they thought they would nonetheless be blessed through their own industry: namely, if against the incursions of enemies they had built very many fortifications, and so remained happy, not only without God's help, but even with him fighting against them. Therefore, he says, a fitting disappointment shall strike them, so that they may seem rather shut up by their fortifications than defended by them: and let a raging flame consume all such buildings. Since these things are so, that is, since no difficulty impedes the justice of God, nor does any deceit delude it:

On verse 1: Rejoice not, O Israel, exult not, because you have departed from the covenant of the law by sacrilegious pollution. That is, do not suppose that it will pass unpunished, that you have mingled yourself with the rest of the nations. For such ambition of flight does not claim for you that vain liberty which you had desired, but subjects you only to a severe vengeance. On verse 2: You have loved a reward above all the threshing-floors of wheat. The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the wine shall lie to them. They shall not dwell in the land of the Lord. Do not, I say, O our nation, rejoice shamelessly; but know that all your hopes are to be turned into their opposites: for not only in the duties of religion, but also in every action, you have shown yourself base and intemperate.

You have indeed loved a reward above all the threshing-floors of wheat: that is, you have esteemed nothing better, nothing more lovable, than the fruitfulness of the earth and the expenses of the belly. Therefore the whole abundance both of grain and of fruits shall be withdrawn from you: and, that your hopes may torment you the more, the vintage, long appearing, shall so suddenly perish by storms, that to your grief it will seem not only injured but even to have lied. But why do I recount lesser losses, when exiles follow upon your want, and no opportunity is given you of tilling your native soil?—a calamity so great in magnitude that you will not be able, though complaining, to marvel at it. For, as regards zeal, you are convicted of having been a voluntary deserter of that land: for you coveted both the crimes and the aid of the Assyrians and Egyptians in turn.

With what shamelessness, then, do you seize upon the fertility of that region, whose distinctive marks, both in rites and in morals, you have rejected? You shall rather depart, driven thither, whither you willed of your own corruption before. And just as you went to Egypt by desire, so you shall go to the Assyrians by captivity, and you shall endure such want that you will eat, with grief, food that is polluted and encountered by chance. On verse 4: They shall not pour out wine to the Lord, nor shall it please him; their sacrifices shall be as the bread of mourners: all who eat it shall be defiled, because their bread, for their souls, shall not enter into the house of the Lord.

He now pursues the evils of the captivity, and says that, when abundance of goods shall have been changed into extreme want, and neither happiness nor consolation shall occur, they shall pass all their time in mourning: since they shall be permitted neither to offer sacrifice to God, nor to hope for any expiation of their sins—by which duties, evidently, they think they will please God. Therefore all their offering, fitter for funeral rites than for feasts, will pollute rather than purify those who approach it: because their bread, for their souls, shall not enter into the house of the Lord. This is the same intent sentence as before, when sacrifices rejected by God are said to belong to those who offered them. Therefore now also, he says, I have rejected their offerings, whom, because of the excess of their crimes, I have been moved even to drive from their native soil: that bread of theirs shall serve as funeral food, which they do not deserve to bring into the house of God.

On verse 5: What will you do in the solemn day, in the day of the feast of the Lord? For behold, they have set out from desolation; Egypt has gathered them, Memphis shall bury them. The desirable things of their silver, nettles shall inherit; the bur shall be in their tabernacles. Although the blessed Hosea's chief intention is to run through the deeds of the ten tribes, and to dwell upon their calamities, yet, by the power of prophecy, he touches also on what was to happen to the tribe of Judah. And since he knows that the people of Jerusalem, though a little later, would, by equality of merits, go the same way as the Samaritans, he also makes mention of the Temple and its sacrifices, ascribing to the whole people, as it were, what particularly belongs to the two tribes. Accordingly, when he had said that they had lost the comfort of the offerings by which they thought themselves purified, he elaborated the color of the incident.

And because this kind of polluted cessation of duties grows harsher especially on those days on which a joyful solemnity was wont to be observed, therefore he says, What will you do in the day of the solemnity of the Lord? What darkness, what bitterness, what anguish of soul shall fill you, when that day of the Lord's festivity, which formerly the gathering and singing of the people made glorious and sweet to you, you shall pass as exiles, unwilling, in chains and in barbarian servitude? And since, under the occasion of Ephraim, he also signified, as we said, what was to come upon Judah, there follows: For behold, they have set out from desolation: Egypt shall gather them, Memphis shall bury them. When hostile domination shall have laid waste their region, he says, it shall befall all the tribes, punishment following upon what they earlier committed by sinful desire: so that just as part was led into Assyria, so also Egypt shall gather a part, and the land of Memphis shall consume those it receives.

And this, after the victory of Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the people of Jerusalem, is related to have happened to those Jews whom the Babylonians left as tillers of the fields, both by the blessed Jeremiah and by the history of Kings. And what follows, The desirable things of their silver, nettles shall inherit, would that reading alone, and not also experience, had taught us to happen from the practice of captivity. For it is certain that houses built at great expense, when the inhabitants had failed, were overgrown and covered by forests, or often even that buried treasures of gold and silver, when those who had hidden them had perished, were lost into perpetual oblivion. On verse 7: The days of visitation are come, the days of retribution are come. Know, O Israel, that the prophet is foolish, the spiritual man is mad, because of the multitude of your iniquity, and the multitude of madness. It would indeed have been fitting that reason rather than calamity should teach you discernment.

But since, as one utterly without a share of reason, you have called for whips and goads, even now, when the time of visitation—that is, of your condemnation—has come, awaken; that you may understand what you deserve. And confess that such harsh wages are owed to your pursuits, which you weigh as having gathered, certainly, out of contempt for spiritual teachers. For you had burst forth into such fury that concerning the prophets, who spoke at the will of the Holy Spirit, and who, out of parental zeal, announced what awaited you (if perhaps the fear sent before might act, lest vengeance find those to punish), you said not only that they had no foresight beyond the rest, but that they were even deprived of human reason, and that madness rather than revelation moved them. That prophets used to be called by this name at that time, through an abundance of profanity, the history of Kings also reveals.

For when in Ramoth Gilead, sent by the blessed Elisha, a certain prophet came to anoint Jehu as king, the surrounding nobles said to Jehu, "What does this madman want?" So then, among them, the authority of the divine word had grown so obsolete that they judged the precepts of virtue to be no longer things to be sought, but ravings. Shuddering at the magnitude of this crime, the preacher exclaims, in judgment: Because of the multitude of your iniquity, and the multitude of madness. As if he said, this is not a simple error, but a manifold madness, namely that they despise spiritual teachers, men strong with prophetic splendor, precisely at the time when they themselves sustained such a want of prudence that they esteemed as gods what they themselves had cast.

On verse 8: The watchman of Ephraim was with my God. The prophet has become a snare of ruin upon all his ways, madness in the house of his God. Here some have thought that Jeroboam is signified by the name Ephraim, who, it is agreed, both came from the tribe of Ephraim and was zealous for the cultivation of the temple, and for this reason fell into the displeasure of Solomon; but after he obtained rule over the tribes, he became also the author of profanity, leading the hearts of his subjects to the worship of calves. Therefore they think that Jeroboam is called by the name Ephraim, who was said to watch with God because he had at first care of religion, and diligently observed what had been right. But he who was formerly, I say, a prophet, fell so suddenly into wickedness that he became a ruin and a snare to his own followers. Why should he not, when in the house of his God, whom he had chosen, there was madness as great as could be?

But this passage may be more concisely explained thus: that we should say, that having taken up a complaint about the insults offered to the prophets, he added this in the same tenor, as if he said: O you people, subjected to profane rites, to the height of your iniquity you have added insults to spiritual teachers, so that you called the prophets of God madmen, and spiritual teachers fools; which madness burst forth from the greatness of your iniquity. For you dared at times to enter into a certain contest with their promises, and to say: Behold, let us both alike take up the office of watching, and let us see whether all those things come to pass which these men announce to us as future. And you added that the prophets should be considered nothing else than a hostile snare, fashioned for the ruin of wretched citizens. And thus, coupling blasphemy with insults, you said that in the house of God there was the madness of the prophets.

That this opinion is indeed of the greatest sacrilege, the invective that follows proves.

On verse 9: For he has cried out: They have sinned deeply, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity, and will visit their sins. There is no such crime, he says, that the judge's censure could forget it. And since he had made mention of ancient history, he says: He will remember their iniquity: and he will avenge, he says, the present insult to the prophets, no later than if he brought to judgment that crime which, before the age of kings, while judges ruled the Jewish nation, they committed. For at that time a certain Levite, returning to the place of his own dwelling, turned aside, as evening was already falling, into a city of the tribe of Benjamin called Gibeah. And when he had found no host there in the open, he settled down with his own wife.

But the depraved youth of the city, not content with having refused hospitality—that was already a sin—seized the priest's wife for the purpose of obscenity, and practiced such insolent foulness that the abused woman, just as she had lost her chastity, was also deprived of her life. But the next day the Levite, rising, placed the corpse of his dead wife upon his beast, and cutting it into pieces, sent it through all the tribes of that nation, so that, the cause of so cruel a spectacle being known, they might undertake a common vengeance. And thus, declaring war on the Gibeonites unless they handed over the guilty, they destroyed them, scarcely overcome, in the third battle: so that of the whole tribe of Benjamin, no more than five hundred men are reported to have survived (Judges 19-20). To that crime, then, the prophet likened the present sin, which they were indeed committing, by calling spiritual men foolish and mad.

Moreover, the equating of the guilt commends the reverence due to the prophets, whose honor, violated nevertheless by a rash word, is shown to amount to no lesser guilt than that which the public obscenity of old, itself both bloody and incestuous, incurred.

On verse 10: Like grapes in the desert I found Israel, like the first fruits of the fig-tree in its top, I saw their fathers: but they went in to Baal-Peor, and were alienated in confusion, and became abominable like those things which they loved. He gathers into one what was done at different times, so as to equate, as we said, the guilt of violated religion and of the insult to the prophets. But he made a digression in praise of the fathers, so that, the sons degenerating, envy might grow, and it might appear from what height of sanctity they had descended into what depths of crime.

When, he says, the nature of mortals was rough with dense thorns of impiety and covered by them, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob afforded proofs of nobility: thus the sweetness of due confession toward God, like grapes or figs bearing fruit—I did not despise their faith and virtue on account of their fewness, but judged it worthy of so much greater honor and grace, the more numerous the examples of profane nations which they scorned. Therefore, as one gathers a vine sprouting in a vast wilderness, as early figs, whose timeliness and sweetness alike stir desire, so I gathered them into my bosom with due diligence, lest anything of their fruits or their praises should perish. But when I, who was the Lord of all things, had chosen to be called their God, I proceeded also to multiply their offspring; but the degenerate people, forgetful alike of its own evils and of its Founder, went in to the worship of those idols which only obscenity had consecrated: namely to Baal-Peor, which they said held the figure of Priapus.

This the history of the book of Numbers commends, that is, because, according to the counsel of Balaam, the women of Midian, instructed, went out to meet the army of Israel in harlot's dress and gesture, so that, when they had incited them to the desire of lust, they would not grant the opportunity for fornication before they had defiled them with a sacrifice to their idol Baal-Peor. Finally such a plague arose against the people that twenty-three thousand perished together in one day. Confusion, then, seized the defiled, so that they became no less abominable to God than the very idols by whose consecration they had sinned.

It is not, therefore, said that the people of that age, whom the prophet Hosea addresses, sinned in Baal-Peor; but because the remembrance of antiquity is introduced, and the nobility of the holy fathers is praised, what their descendants committed in various ages is set forth, so that it may appear whom those now accused resemble, as if it were said to them: Behold, into what disgraces they have flowed from so illustrious a stock. Behold, men to whom there was such forgetfulness of their fathers' dignity, that though their ancestors deserved to be chosen for salvation, when the world was perishing, these afterward, vying with one another in folly and obscenity, worshipped Priapuses and calves.

On verse 11: Ephraim has flown away like a bird, their glory—

On verses 1-3: Israel is a leafy vine, and fruit is matched unto it; according to the multitude of his fruit, he multiplied altars. According to the abundance of his land, he abounded in idols. Their heart is divided, now they shall perish. He himself will break their idols, he will lay waste their altars, for now they shall say, We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord, and what shall a king do for us? There is one and the same matter through which the prophet’s discourse runs, that is, to magnify the crimes of that people, to denounce their punishments, and therefore he for the most part retraces the same and similar colors; yet as far as he can, mingling in something whereby they may be admonished; therefore, naming Israel a leafy vine, he declares that fruit was matched unto it.

Now this vineyard, when, transplanted from Egypt, it had filled the land of Promise, stood, he says, flourishing with spreading branches, and produced so great an abundance of fruits, that is, of sons and grandsons, that the narrow spaces of the lands which they had received were rendered too small for them. But what did it profit that the increase of offspring should have come to pass, since they were so eager to break out into the contrary, that, in proportion to the number of their multitude, they armed themselves for my insults—I who had been the author of so great a gift—and strove as it were to match their forces with crimes: publicly and privately fabricating for themselves gods whom they might worship? And so that vine, which had been planted from the stock of the patron of the elect, was turned into a cluster of bitterness, and into a branch of the Sodomites, so that both the common people and the princes rejoiced not only to neglect justice, but even to assail it.

Therefore, Their heart is divided, now they shall perish. That is, they are separated from me with their whole intent, and have departed from the fixed sentence of obedience to the law. What remains, except that they should perish by a fixed disaster, and understand the vanity of their own opinion, whereby they had so accustomed themselves to console themselves, as to say that their condition, even under captivity, should be judged better than when they were governed by saints or by pontiffs or by kings? Among themselves, therefore, he says, they will converse with impudence, since then, as it were, they obtain a certain liberty, whereby they are compelled to obey neither law nor king; seeing that the enemy has carried off their prince, and they have cast off the yoke of religion by ancient profanity. In these crimes, therefore, exulting, they think it happiness that they are not called to the daily duties owed to their kings, but, living far off, pay annual tribute to their conquerors.

For just as those of whom the Apostle says, Being past feeling, they have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness; or as those whom the prophet indicates, because they said, We will magnify our tongue, our lips are our own, who is lord over us? So also concerning these blessed Hosea declares, that they have broken out into such profanity, that they either have said or may seem able to say, We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord, and what shall a king do for us? That is, we are absolved from the troubles of divine fear, nor do we have a king who could avenge this license of speech.

Because this, well considered, stirred grave horror, he rebukes and cries out, | On verse 4: | Speak ye words of an unprofitable vision, and ye shall make a covenant, and judgment shall spring up like bitterness upon the furrows of the field—namely, that to whoever takes it to heart, you will feel that you have entered into a covenant with such madness with the extreme calamities, and to such a degree shall all your regions be filled with diverse disasters, that in the very lands dangers seem to sprout up rather than crops. Fittingly, moreover, because he had signified that they sinned not through negligence but through zeal and pleasurable effort, he named furrows, impressed upon the fields, in which the bitterness of judgment, that is, the severity of vengeance, would be born. Therefore let them know that they were going to reap what they had sown.

(continues).

On these verses: The inhabitants of Samaria have worshiped the calves of Bethaven, for its people mourned over it, and its priests rejoiced over it in its glory, because it had departed from it. For it also itself was carried away to Assyria, a gift to the avenging king. Ephraim shall be seized with confusion, and Israel shall be confounded in his own will. The Jewish tradition has been accustomed to expound this passage thus, namely, that in those times, when the Israelites had not yet been transported to the fields of the Medes, but were still standing in their own region, paying tribute to the Assyrians, when the treasury was exhausted, the calves which they worshiped were sent to the Assyrian for the taxes. These, however, when Jeroboam had made golden calves, were changed for bronze ones by their keepers, to whom their custody had been assigned.

When, therefore, the necessity arose that even the calves be sent for the supplement of the tribute, the peoples indeed mourned, who reckoned that they had lost their deities; but the keepers, conscious of the fraud, exulted, because, the idols having been transferred elsewhere, they ceased to fear any further inquiry about the theft. Although this reading seems to have furnished occasion for this sense, yet it can also be made clear under the tenor of the explanation instituted from the beginning, so that after the threatening authority had declared that through the furrows of the field bitter vengeance would spring up for the wretched, he immediately added, in his usual manner, the cause of the indignation. The inhabitants of Samaria, he says, have worshiped the calves of Bethaven, that is, of the royal city, who ought to have called others back from error, ran off to small towns to worship images of calves.

After which the order of the following verse is changed by hyperbaton, and this distinction is made: because the people of Samaria shall be confounded, when they discover the vileness and uselessness of its gods, from their adversities. For, compelled by need, they themselves also will be joined to make up the taxes, having no more worth, evidently, than the reckoning of the metal requires. And therefore the unhappy people will pursue with tears those whom, a little before, they had consecrated with the greatest honor and with the joys of diviners. Confusion shall seize Ephraim, and Israel shall be confounded in his own will, recognizing, no doubt, its great deformity and so bitter a wage. On these verses: Samaria has caused her king to pass away, like foam upon the face of the water. The high places of the idol shall be destroyed, the sin of Israel; the burr and thistle shall grow up over their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall upon us.

As far as concerns divine piety and clemency, he says, I had wished that a long and secure possession of their land should be theirs, but their grievous sacrilege stood in the way, and compelled their king, that is, their kingdom, to be blotted out by a swift end: so that, like the foam of water floating upon the currents, both the profanity of the nation and its dignity slipped away. Therefore, all the shrines, by whose frequenting they were accustomed to provoke me, having been consumed by hostile fire, thickets shall clothe their altars, so that whoever is left, driven either by his own shame or by fear, may wish to hide himself, if it be granted no otherwise, even under the ruins of some mountains. It should be noted, moreover, that the Lord assumed this verse also in the Gospel, that he might signify the wishes of those who fear, and, following the manner of the Scriptures, that sentences uttered on some occasion are fittingly assumed for similar matters.

On verse 9: From the days of Gibeah, Israel has sinned: there they stood: battle overtook them in Gibeah on account of the sons of iniquity. He had already made mention above of that very time, where he says that those to whom the sayings of the prophets were a mockery sinned in such a way as that youth of Gibeah, which had defiled the wife of the Levite even unto death. But lest the repetition be barren, what he had brought together there he here proposes, saying: The crime of those who sinned by incestuous obscenity seems indeed similar to that of these who reckon spiritual men fools and madmen. And therefore captivity would rage in the likeness of that disaster, which had all but destroyed the Benjamites by extermination. Now, therefore, as though weighing the measures of the faults and of the punishments for examination, he pronounces this later vengeance the graver.

Not without reason, but because there, between the battle lines of the ten tribes and the one, the contest wavered a long time, and the Gibeahites, though few in number, were overcome only with great effort. Here, however, so completely have the calamities and overthrows preceding the last destruction consumed all the resources of Samaria, that there was no one who had confidence to resist. From the days of Gibeah, therefore, he declares Israel to have sinned; but at that time to have stood firm for a while, and to have given proofs of its strength in most grievous conflicts. For only in the third battle, the Israelites, imploring the aid of God with tears, all together achieved victory. But now, since not only did no one avail in battle against the Assyrians, but they were unwilling even to defend their own walls, therefore the prophet says: From the heap of miseries, the measure also of iniquity must be understood.

For at that time, he says, the Benjamites resisted so strongly, that for a while they did not even seem to be overtaken in battle. But these peoples of the ten tribes, with their kings and princes, since they had offended me, did not stand.

Therefore, since I must pronounce sentence upon the guilty without a true contest, I will chastise them according to my desire. Which seems introduced quite according to our own custom, we who, when moved by some indignation, say that we desire vengeance, and feel pleasure at the affliction of the guilty. Now, therefore, he promises that they will be chastised according to his desire. For it follows, peoples shall be gathered together against them: that is, a multitude of plunderers will assemble as if to a prepared prey, so that these may receive the punishments of a twofold iniquity. For thus he says, they are chastised for their two iniquities. Yet, as he indicated their number, so he did not note their kind. We might accordingly say that another prophet has signified those iniquities which he did not distinguish: that is, that they abandoned God, the fountain of living water, and hewed out for themselves broken cisterns, namely, that they fabricated idols, from which they could feel no refreshment.

But since it is the best rule of exposition which is derived from the sequence of the reading, let us suppose that he called those two iniquities the ones which he charges in the present passage: that is, that they not only covered the true prophets with insults and disasters, but also, throughout the region, honored with offices and gifts false prophets who served demons. By which, indeed, they were shown not to have erred through mistake, but through deliberate purpose, who with equal zeal did both—honoring pernicious and detesting wholesome teachers. For proceeding by the contrary path, thus is every holy man described. Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle, or who shall rest upon thy holy mountain? He who walks without blemish, and works righteousness. Who speaks the truth in his heart, and has not used deceit with his tongue, nor done evil to his neighbor, and has not taken up a reproach against his neighbor. In his sight the wicked is brought to naught, but he magnifies those who fear the Lord.

Therefore, for these two iniquities, I will consume the wicked with an affliction which is not pleasant to me.

On these verses: Ephraim is a heifer taught to love threshing, and I passed over the beauty of her neck; I will mount upon Ephraim, Judah shall plow, Jacob shall break his furrows for himself. Sow for yourselves in righteousness, and reap in the mouth of mercy: renew for yourselves the fallow ground; but it is time to seek the Lord, when he shall come who will teach you righteousness. He published the feeling of his indignation in mocking words, so that he should call the nation, which was liable to punishments, a heifer fit and worthy for the treading out of grain. Its weakness he indeed marked by both sex and age: since he set it wholly below what had been bestowed upon the Gibeonites.

Therefore, in mockery, he calls it both a heifer, and beautiful: and fond of those pressures which it had earned by its evil pursuits: not indeed that the afflicted one could love its own miseries, but that it was so bound to them by sentence, just as breasts inflamed with love are wont to be joined to one another. Its neck, therefore, worthy to be subjected to torments, is promised to go abroad through heat and breezes, so that he who, in mockery, insults it, might declare it both desirous of and skilled in those evils of which it is most worthy. Ephraim, he says, is a heifer taught to love threshing, and I passed over the beauty of her neck; I will mount upon Ephraim, Judah shall plow, Jacob shall break his furrows for himself. I, he says, will break the necks of Ephraim, hitherto proud, so that he who scorned me as a teacher and an indulgent one, may at last feel me as an avenger.

Nor indeed will the desired benefit fail my censure: for although he consigns these to destruction, he will heal others of them by example. For Ephraim, who was unwilling to be leaven, nor was filled with the marrow of piety, but wholly wasted away into chaff through lightness of mind, will endure the scorching labor of the threshing floors. But Judah will succeed to a happier condition under the yoke of fear, for with the plowshare of the precepts fixed, he will discern between good and evil; and taming the clod of his own breast by the pursuits of religion, he will lay down the seed of knowledge together with the work of righteousness and mercy, and will grant it to renewed fallow lands, from which, namely, he shall have rooted out the wild shrubs, so that a fruitfulness answering to so great a labor might be able to come forth. This seems to have been fulfilled at that time when, from the hands of Sennacherib, help sent from heaven delivered Hezekiah and the whole city.

Then follows: But it is time to seek the Lord, when he shall come who will teach you righteousness. For the sacred Annals relate that blessed Hezekiah had such zeal for commending religion, that he fulfilled the office of both prince and teacher. For not content to have recalled the inhabitants of his own Tribe to the worship of God, he also sent messengers and edicts through the neighboring regions, in which some of Israel, taken captive and transported, still remained, that, repudiating the errors of idols, they might return to the worship of the true God. This, then, is what he means when he says that the Jerusalemites went to reap mercy, when the devotion of a prince who also taught them righteousness stirred them to seek God.

And although this work and office seems to have been briefly accomplished under Hezekiah, yet it is understood to have been more fully accomplished by our Lord, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, through whom the light of piety was shown not to one Tribe or region, but to all lands and nations, and the discipline of virtues was delivered. On account of which the Apostle also says, Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation, giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed. For then indeed the opportune time for seeking the Lord appeared, when the Word was made flesh, that he might dwell among us: and we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. But let us also see the impiety.

On verses 13-15: You have plowed impiety, you have reaped iniquity, you have eaten the fruit of a lie: because you have trusted in your ways, in the multitude of your mighty men. A tumult shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be laid waste, as Salmana was laid waste by the house of him who declared Baal in the day of battle, the mother dashed upon her children. So has Bethel done to you because of the wickedness of your iniquities. By occasion of Ephraim, whose sins he heaps up through almost the whole volume, mention of Judah had been introduced: in which it appeared what devotion and faith had merited in a time of peril. Being content, then, to have briefly noted this digression of remembrance, he returns to the order of the undertaking begun, and presses on to reprove the crimes of Israel.

But you, people of Samaria, he says, quite otherwise than Judah and Benjamin often were, when you came into the utmost extremities of dangers, trusted not at all in God, but in your own counsels and the might of your armies. You shall therefore receive fitting fruit, so that a hostile tumult may destroy and overturn your people and your fortresses, and that you may be made like unto that most impious leader, whose name was Salmana: whom, as we read in the book of Judges, Gedeon, having gained the victory, destroyed, and consumed either together with those kinsfolk which he showed under the name of the wretched parent, or together with that very city in which he had reigned, which may seem to be called a mother (Judges 4 and 8). Just as Gedeon, he says, who had destroyed the idol Baal, utterly destroyed Salmana, so also has Bethel done to you: in which city, namely, you set up idols, which you, a deserter of your God, adored.

But after the manner of the Scriptures, in order to express the height of profanity, he doubled the same words, saying: So has Bethel done to you because of the wickedness of your iniquities. Therefore the "face of wickedness," composed of manifold iniquity, seeks to show nothing other than that they received a fitting wage, namely captivity, for their conduct.

On verse 1: As the morning passes others: has passed, the king of Israel has passed away, for Israel was a child, and I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. He had already said above, Samaria has made her king pass away like foam upon the face of the water. And now, then, he took care to repeat the same thing, saying: As the morning passes, the king of Israel has passed away, that is, the kingdom of your nation, which you desired through sin, you have also destroyed through sin, and all the pomp of your arrogance has grown old, because the royal power which you coveted in imitation of the neighboring nations prepared no defense for you without my help. On account of which the prophet also admonished you, saying, Trust not in princes, nor in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. His breath shall go forth, and he shall return to his earth; in that day all his thoughts shall perish.

So then none of their distinctions availed you, nor yours them. For all that they seemed able to do, or even to live, was consumed with such swiftness, that it appeared no longer than the morning twilight, which indeed is hemmed in between the departure of night and the rising of day, according to what we read in a similar case in blessed David: When sinners have sprung up, he says, like grass, and all who work iniquity have appeared, that they might perish for ever and ever. So then the principality of Israel also collapsed, vengeance clinging to its crimes, so that it seems not so much to have flourished as to have appeared fleetingly. For Israel was a child, and I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

This last part of the verse, blessed Matthew, the writer of the Gospel, took up in reference to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, showing that it was done by dispensation, that in order to avoid the fury of Herod, who was persecuting the infancy of our Redeemer, Joseph and Mary might go to Egypt. For it was necessary that what the prophet had pronounced should be fulfilled, Out of Egypt I called my son. What was said, then, of the people, the text of the prophecy shows: but that this can also be transferred to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, apostolic authority has shown, through whom indeed those tokens of divine loving-kindness which had been given to the Jews were bestowed upon us both more abundantly and more graciously. But the arrangement of the exposition shows the force of the censurer, who introduces mention of past nobility for this purpose, that he may sorely burn those whom he laments as having degenerated.

Having therefore enumerated the crimes, and having denounced the punishments, he suddenly brought in the memory of past dignity, as if he were saying, Behold the grief! Behold the tears! And that this kind of men should be reckoned under such vileness? After which, as if a response had been received, he cries out: For Israel was a child, and I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. This is he, he says, whom, having sown the seed of impiety, I lamented as having reaped sorrows, whom I declare shall be laid waste like Salmana consumed by Gedeon. This, I say, is he who caused his own kingdom to be abolished, so that it passed away as quickly as the time of dawn can be.

This, I say, is he who, descending from the stock of the saints, had been consecrated to me in its very beginnings, and among so many nations scattered over the whole world, was chosen as the one people who should be called Israel: whose merits, anticipating them with affection, I called my child, my son, I say, and I bestowed upon him such honor, even while he was still being led out of Egypt, that it might be shown in some manner both by words and by deeds, how great a difference stood with me between this people and the common Egyptian rabble, as great as is wont to be between the best of sons and the worst of slaves. Since, then, already at that time, above all the miracles of liberation, and the sweetness of that freedom, he had received from me this distinction, that he should be called my son: so now has he sunk down to such depths of profanity, that, forgetful alike of me and of himself, he obeys only the worshippers of demons.

Wrought devices with which to seduce, but as cattle prepared for slaughter, so they called them, and drew them, by an easy signal, wherever they wished. They sacrificed to the Baalim, and offered sacrifice to graven images, that is, being called to the worship of various idols, to which they were to be enslaved by diverse rites, they followed with such readiness that they were convicted of having had a desire for such an occasion. On verse 3: And I was as a nurse to Ephraim, I carried them in my arms, and they did not know that I cared for them. Two interposed verses have broken the thread of the simple narration, and by this have caused a difficulty of understanding. But as for what he says, As a nurse to Ephraim I carried them in my arms, it answers to that sentence which was set forth above: that is, O child of Israel, and I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

After this, however, inserting what crimes he had committed, he returns to the order of recounting the levity, which indeed seems to serve to attest the surges of indignation: so that the discourse does not run in one unbroken course, but even at the time when things once done are recalled, the force of a present complaint breaks forth, as though impatient even of a brief concealment. Therefore, having set out to touch upon the ancient tokens, in order to aggravate the guilt of the degenerating people, and because he had loved him with a spontaneous piety, and had adorned him with the appellation of son, he suddenly cried out that his ears had remained given over to the raving ministers of demons, and that they had followed them so swiftly that no labor was created in assenting.

Which, if you set aside for a little the impulse, as we said, of complaint, will be made clear by what follows, joined to what precedes: that is, For Israel was a child, and I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son, and I, as a nurse to Ephraim, carried them in my arms and they did not know that I cared for them: as if he were saying: This nation's profanity is not new, for it showed signs of an ungrateful mind even in its very beginnings toward me. For when I had called him son, I also added the enticements of benefits, and, a most indulgent nurse, exercised care as of my own little children. Why not, since I did not allow him to feel the burden of the vast wilderness, nor to be vexed by the toil of a new and long journey?

On verse 4: As its cord, that is, its lot, since with the sin of Adam, the first man, it had fallen from felicity, he who had been made the tiller and dweller of paradise, so that he might feed upon labored produce: so also this one received food and drink incomparable to men, and comparable only to miracles, and thus I bound him with the bonds of love alone and with the reins of precepts. For this reason alone, that they might walk safely, I composed their mouths, showing that I had bent down for this purpose to their rest, that they might enjoy an opportune rest and delight: since indeed they did not feel a power weighing them down, but in that necessity, walking with them through vast places, they had a lifted yoke, that is, one removed, just as we see happen in chariots, in which, when the yokes are loosed, they are lifted up.

Yet that people neither my providence nor my indulgence, by which explained: they called them, thus they went away from their face: to the Baalim he was both to be instructed and to be healed, gazing upon him, showed a mind ever resisting me, until it should arrive, by stubborn shamelessness, at the state in which it now is. On verse 5-7: He shall not return into the land of Egypt, and Assur himself shall be his king; because they refused to be converted. The sword has begun in his city, and shall consume his chosen ones, and shall devour their heads. And my people shall hang in suspense for my return: but a yoke shall be put upon them together, which shall not be taken away.

He had said above, they called them: thus they departed from their face: but now, he says, they refused to be converted: that is, those who lent ready obedience to those who were calling them away from piety, now, that they might return from evil to better things, are not even compelled by manifold affliction. For when, having lost their wealth, they contended about a change of servitude, that they might be subjected to the Egyptians rather than to the Assyrians, they did not deserve to obtain even this, since the sentence that proceeded from our mouth is immutable: namely, that meanwhile they would be enslaved to none other than the Assyrians as masters. Whence vengeance, once begun, will proceed to its work, so that the sword may break through the cities, and iron together with flame may lay waste all nobility, and the enemies may plunder all things that are wont to be dear to the rich.

Thus this people, once mine, stripped of all strength, deprived even of all comforts, shall hang in slow expectation for my return, seeking, that is, with tardy prayers and thankless groans, that I may deign to become their helper. But a yoke shall be put upon them together, which shall not be taken away. He will prove by events that their tears were ineffectual, because I will not rescind this pronouncement, which, compelled at last by their many crimes, I have commanded to go into effect; and because he had said that the decree stands, and that they would forthwith undergo the yoke of Assyrian captivity, he also assumes the form of one deliberating, namely by what vengeance he might consume the guilty, and he sets forth examples of cities which fire sent down from heaven destroyed. On verse 8-9: How shall I give thee up as Adama, shall I make thee as Seboim? My heart is turned within me, my repentance is likewise stirred together.

I will not execute the fierceness of my anger, and I will not turn to destroy Ephraim, for I am God, and not man: the Holy One in the midst of thee, and I will not enter into the city. By recalling those things which once happened, he shows that the Israelites, no less than the Sodomites, could be, or deserved to be, consumed; yet, being mindful of the benefits which he had conferred, in honor of their holy forefathers, even upon their undeserving children, he does not wish these to be so utterly annulled that he should consume them by utter destruction. And therefore he declares that he was moved and shaken, as it were, by paternal affection, and that he had undergone a kind of repentance, because he had, even under the guise of deliberation, threatened Israel with the destruction of the Sodomites: and he immediately adds, I will not execute the fierceness of my anger, and I will not turn to destroy Ephraim.

That is, I will not so change my clemency into indignation as to permit none of the Israelites to survive, For I am God, and not man: whose benevolence, flowing forth as if from a single overflowing wave, no offense could exhaust (immediately the continuity of the discourse and period with what precedes) to undergo, also assuming the form of one deliberating), or whose disposition, rejoicing once in its settled firmness, the fault of the ungrateful does not change. This the teacher of the Gentiles also briefly indicated, saying: For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. For I say, he says, has God cast away his people, namely, whom he foreknew? He will never suffer that people to be destroyed after the manner of impious nations. And so now, though he had denounced due plagues upon the polluted hosts, he shows that he nevertheless has regard for those whom he will spare. In the midst of thee, he says, is the Holy One, and I will not enter into the city.

When Jerome wished to expound this verse, he proceeded to enumerate those who are recorded to have founded cities, and says that Cain first procured for himself the defense of a city, and that afterward also some notorious for crimes were founders of cities. And therefore, he says, God, commending especially the reverence due to holiness, said that he would refrain from entering a city: and in this manner he proceeded to assert that holy men, devoting their life to philosophy, shun the busyness of cities and love the retreats of the mountains. But who could consider such a coloring of explanation without derision? For our God here, by saying that he will not enter a city, did not proclaim that he generally abhors cities—of whom we read: The Lord loves the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob. And, God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved: God shall help her with his countenance.

But because he had introduced mention of Sodom, and the neighboring cities, which, as we read in the book of Genesis, he entered in order to destroy, and had said: How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee up, Israel? How shall I make thee as Adama, set thee as Seboim?

And had immediately added: that I will not execute the fierceness of my anger, and will not turn to destroy Ephraim, he consequently added: For I am God, and not man: the Holy One in the midst of thee, and I will not enter into the city: that is, out of all peoples I chose you, over whom I might preside with special divinity, and this I decreed and promised in honor of your fathers, who had lived most acceptable to me, so that even if you should have deserved my displeasure by the profanation of the sacred law, I would visit your iniquities, but I would not wholly take away my mercy, so as to allow you to be consumed by utter destruction, and the memory of your name to be utterly abolished.

And because I am God, and not man: whose decree no variation overturns: therefore I dwell in the midst of thee, conspicuous indeed by eternal holiness, whereby I rise up as a chastiser against your sins, and do not violate the covenants struck with your fathers: yet I will by no means enter your cities as I entered the gates of Sodom when it was to be destroyed. And since he had introduced discourse concerning the portion of prosperity, he was not content to say that the Israelites would by no means perish like other nations, but, merciful, he runs through what else he had ordained concerning them, and introduces mention of that time when, captivity being dissolved, they were to be led back to their native soil.

On verse 10-11: They shall walk after the Lord: he shall roar like a lion, because he himself shall roar, and the children of the sea shall be afraid. And they shall fly like a bird out of Egypt, and like a dove from the land of the Assyrians: and I will set them in their own houses, saith the Lord. What wonder is it, he says, if our loving-kindness moderates vengeance even while it is still most heated, since even at this very time I do not wish the joys of the coming deliverance to remain formless or hidden, but wish it known with what majesty I intend both to free them from barbarian slavery and to recall them to their native region?

A time will come, I say, when, as I take up the work of vengeance, the children of the sea, that is, the throng of hostile nations, shall be terrified and put to flight no less than the waters of the Red Sea were parted when Israel crossed through: by the same power of command being made to flow back upon the prince of the Egyptians as had, a little before, been suspended for the safety of the pious. Therefore, both from Egypt, whither the Israelites had fled after the Babylonian triumph, and from the region of the Assyrians, whither Sennacherib had led them away, returning like flocks of doves, they shall fill their former nests, that is, their ancestral regions, with a settled habitation.

On verse 12: Ephraim has surrounded me with deceit he understood that it was he himself who deigned to clothe himself in comprehensible images, whom he had seen at Bethel, leaning upon the top of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven. There, therefore, by a brief address he deserved to learn both how great was the divinity of the one appearing, and what is the duty of a faithful servant, without which one cannot possibly please God—namely, that he should believe and confess the omnipotence of the Author, and trust in him with his whole mind through the whole span of his life. The Lord God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial. That is, you ought to be so mindful of your God as to confess him always as your champion and lord. But this pertains to doctrine: as for the part concerning morals, keep the zeal of justice and mercy.

Hope in your God always, so that you may either stand with him in continual virtue, or, if devotion should be interrupted, may run back to him, having undertaken amendment. These rules of virtue, leading by a sure course to the summit of blessedness, he both practiced happily and left to his descendants to be kept. Whence also from a small place he rose to such a degree of dignity that the land of Promise was handed down to his descendants.

On verse 7-8: Canaan, in his hand is a deceitful balance, he loved calumny. And Ephraim said, Nevertheless I have become rich, I have found an idol for myself: all my labors will not find in me the iniquity that I have sinned. When he was narrating the noble deeds of the blessed Jacob, from whom he laments that his descendants had degenerated, he suddenly introduced mention of Canaan, not that the discourse might pass over to another nation, but that, after the manner of the prophets, out of excessive indignation, he might call the descendants of Israel themselves "Canaan," to whom, indeed, they had become more similar in manners. This species of invective we find used elsewhere too, but especially in the blessed Isaiah, and Ezekiel, and in Daniel, when he convicted the adulterous elders.

By this same tenor of censure, therefore, in the present passage also mention of Canaan, that is, of a profane nation, is introduced, so that the sense may be as follows: But why do I unfold the various marks of paternal nobility, from which this crowd, which I bewail, is convicted of having fallen so far, that it is not undeservedly called the offspring of Canaan? In his hand, then, stands calumny, with a careful balance, but an all-too-deceitful one: which serves to show that he sins not by error, but rather by deliberate purpose and judgment. For where such an affection of the soul prevails, that one commits abominable acts not by impulse or negligence, but with deliberation, as if with weights suspended on either side, he is said to have sinned "under the scale." Of which sense we also read this in the blessed David: But the sons of men are liars in the balances, that they may deceive, they themselves being of vanity together.

Since, then, this is the chief function of human intelligence, to weigh by the plumb-line of reason and the balances of comparison what it ought to obey, what to avoid, the profaned people, holding the truth in a lie, indeed applied a balance to their dealings, but a deceitful one: preferring, that is, worse things to better, and acquiescing in harmful things rather than useful ones. But when he says, He loved calumny, this can also be referred to that which he had accused above: that is, that the ungrateful people had put on such shamelessness, like an obscene woman, that it lied, claiming to have obtained from its own lovers all that the sole Creator of things had bestowed upon it for both worship and sustenance. Because of which the Lord, angered, promised that he would take away both the wool and the linen which had covered its shame, so that the deformity and nakedness that followed might convict the crimes of the ungrateful. These calumnies are also noted in the blessed Jeremiah.

For when, after disasters had been announced through many prophets, Jerusalem had perished, and the whole nation of the Jews had been carried away into Babylon, and only a few were left to till the fields, they proclaimed such stubbornness of mind in transgressing that they did not fear to say that ever since they had ceased to worship the Queen of Heaven and the other idols of the neighboring nations, from that time on all adversities had followed them. Therefore, by opinions of this kind, they raised, as it were, a calumny against the true and most merciful God, most falsely proclaiming that they had had happy days when they departed from him, and wretched ones when they returned to him.

Accordingly, the deceitful balance of the mind caused them to be called descendants of Canaan rather than of Israel, sinning not, as we said, by momentary impulse, but through deliberate impiety otherwise; and therefore, not having the weights of true judgment, they placed the confidence of their salvation and prosperity in things most fleeting, and slipping away like shadows. All my labors, he says, will not find in me the iniquity which I have sinned. That is, when they were pressed by the crimes they had committed, they nevertheless supposed themselves safe by means of the wealth they had amassed, saying that they had gathered such abundance of riches that misfortune could not reach them. Thus they were deceived by the frauds of their own balance, since, when God on high came forth to judge their works, they thought that varied furnishings, or hoarded money, would protect the guilty.

On verse 9: And I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt: I will yet make you dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the feast. You will know, then, the frauds of that balance, that is, of your deliberation, the outcome of events bearing witness, so that what you refused to acknowledge by reason, you may confess through anguish—that I am your only God, who deigned, from the time of the Egyptian deliverance, to adopt you to myself as a peculiar people. His visitation you can remove by no defenses, nor by any riches, so that it is necessary for you not only to undergo the yoke of the announced servitude, but to remain under it for set times, which, once elapsed, you will at last taste the joys of freedom.

Therefore, in this sense, amid the roarings of the threat, something of prosperity seems to be introduced, that it might serve to confirm the coming captivity, lest anyone doubt that the miseries to be inflicted, which he had learned of, would be terminated by the succeeding prosperity. We may also add this, that it came, indeed, from the usage of the Scriptures, that the announcement of sad and joyful things is mingled, so that neither continuous joys might relax the mind, nor continuous sorrows weaken it. But the former sense of the passage seems to be supported by the context. Finally, the discourse proceeds, as it had begun, in a severe tone.

On verse 10: I have spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and by the hand of the prophets I have been likened. Never, that is to say, did I lay aside the care of healing, but through my prophets I both stood firm in speaking and in acting, that they might understand and confess my providence, I who took such indulgent care for them, that I did not think it beneath my majesty to assume forms in which I might converse with them more closely.

I did not, by these same works (thus) in the sight of the prophets, disdain to be likened to these shapes or persons, which, although they suited clemency (as is that which I said a little before, that in order to drive fear from the heart of Israel I assumed the person of a weak wrestler; that in the time of blessed Moses I chose to be transfigured into fire, by which the bush was not consumed; that I fortified the thresholds of the Israelites as it were with the blood of a lamb, and many other things which we read to have been done in this manner at various times) so that our God might appear, evidently, in these images which the assumed dispensation required, not such as befitted his majesty. But let us see what follows.

On verse 11: If Galgal be an idol, yet in vain were they sacrificing oxen in Galgal. After the recollection of the things he had done mercifully, the complaint was brought back, from whence it had begun, in this sense: Behold what crimes of an ungrateful people I experience after so many benefits of mine, after so many gifts, and so many miracles; it follows open errors to my reproach, and is not deceived by any subtlety of argument, but is subjected to confessed madness! If Galgal be an idol: yet in vain were they sacrificing to oxen in Galgal. Concerning which place he also said above: All their wickedness is in Galgal. Therefore by the causal conjunction, that is, "If," he introduced the sentence of one convicting.

That is, since there is no doubt to anyone that only images of brute cattle were set up in those very places, in which, even if they had set up the cattle themselves, they could nevertheless avail nothing to those who supplicate: but now, since viler images of vile things are seen there, ignorant of feeling, about to give profit neither to themselves nor to others, yet in vain were they sacrificing to oxen in Galgal: as if he were saying, could it be believed that this could be committed, before it happened, that a people once renowned for its virtues should follow open folly and profanity, containing in itself nothing more than ultimate guilt? And that after those rites worthy of reverence and majesty, it should descend to the vile institutions of fanatics, and revere idols, subject to the derision even of the moderately wise, in vain, that is, without any, even brief, advantage of benefit?

But since the madness was clearer than day, if men thought that cattle ought to be supplicated, that there would nevertheless be crowds who would think that happiness could be conferred on them by images of oxen? For their altars also are like heaps upon the furrows of the field. Accordingly, the very vileness of their observances also convicts their profane rites, so that without any choice of places they build altars, and worship shameful gods with makeshift altars. Therefore, as it were with a groan and admiration, the voice which we have discussed was uttered: If Galgal be an idol, yet in vain were they sacrificing oxen in Galgal: for their altars also are like heaps upon the furrows of the field. But let us hear what follows.

On these verses: Jacob fled into the region of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept guard. And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved. Because he did not bring in the recollection of the ancients by the tenor of historical narration, but recalled the deeds of the elders under an impulse and grief of reproving degenerate posterity: therefore the discourse proceeds as it were wavering, so that reproach and praise succeed one another in turn, and the preaching of ancient nobility adds weight to the rebuke. Accordingly, as he had begun, he enumerates the labors and the successes of blessed Jacob, who was also called Israel. By whose name, indeed, the whole nation is signified.

For which reason he especially introduced mention of him particularly, and, as we began to say, that Jacob, from whose stock they descend, obeying the counsels of his holy mother, placing all his hope and confidence of future prosperity only in his God, left his native land, and entered the borders of Mesopotamia alone and in exile, having no help of commendation except from his noble character. By whose winning ways his uncle Laban immediately desired his companionship. And lest the labor of the noble young man be gratuitous, he was promised the marriage of the beloved maiden by the endurance of a seven-year servitude: in which time, since his faith and industry had become greatly evident, the twofold condition of servitude and marriage was fulfilled. For this is what is said, he served for a wife, that is, he exercised the pastoral office in order to obtain marriage, as the history relates.

But what it says, "And for a wife he kept guard," that is, with the reward of marriage proposed, he kept watch over his father-in-law's flock. And by a prophet he was brought out, since the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved. From small beginnings indeed, and so small that he was fed by hired labor, he arrived at such greatness of people and riches, that all Egypt could no longer contain him, so to speak, and just as it had first envied his prosperity, so afterward it envied his liberation Supply: envied, and Pharaoh perished with his armies, and that glory of crushed Egypt he acknowledged he had obtained not by human strength, but as much for declaring the merits of the fathers as for instituting sacred rites. Not indeed by any warlike leader, but he was preserved by a prophet; namely, blessed Moses, who vindicated it with those famous miracles which we read.

What complaint then will be sufficiently worthy, that a nation, which had been conspicuous by so illustrious a stock, is now notable for folly, and acts famous only for crimes?

On verse 14: Ephraim provoked me to wrath with his bitternesses, and his blood shall come upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord restore to him. The recollection of the fathers rendered the crime of the sons more horrid, and this the exclamation subjoined by the censor indicates, who testifies that he has been driven to bitterness and indignation, which would go forth in vengeance for the worse. And therefore, though rising with the vigor of one pronouncing judgment, he nevertheless repels from himself the odium of that vengeance, and, with elaborate punishments, declares that Ephraim has perished, who, a deserter of salutary discipline, degenerated and fell entirely by his own doing.

On these verses: When Ephraim spoke, horror invaded Israel, and he offended in Baal, and died. And now they have added to sin, and have made themselves a molten thing of their silver, according to the likeness of idols, the whole work of craftsmen: to these they themselves say, Sacrifice, ye men that worship calves. He introduced mention of those things which they had committed from the time the tribes were divided, but in the order which indignation demanded, rather than narration. For in the present place he calls Ephraim, Jeroboam the prince of the division, who decreed that the people should worship images of calves. But afterward Ahab took up the worship of the idol Baal with Jezebel, which profanity we read Jehu avenged with fitting severity. Accordingly, this consecration of idols both began first among the people, and ceased at the last time. But although this is the order of history, which we have mentioned, the invective now has changed part of it.

For when Ephraim spoke, that is, when Jeroboam called to the worship of demons, horror invaded Israel. For evidently he immediately assumed the fear of superstition, and feared it as though it were true divinity: or certainly he took up the effect of worshiping it, whereby he deserved to be dreaded by the eternal judge. And not content with having perpetrated this, he also bowed his neck to other sacrileges, and embracing the institutions of Baal, he subtly indicates this by the subjoined exposition of calamities of place. Of servitude, he says, and of marriage, a twofold condition has been fulfilled. For this is what is said, he served for a wife, that is, he exercised the pastoral office in order to obtain marriage, as the history relates. But what it says, and for a wife he kept guard, that is, with the reward of marriage proposed, he kept watch over his father-in-law's flock.

Only this last word, "kept guard," which properly corresponds to the Hebrew שמר, and thus to the Latin "servavit," leaves it doubtful to whom the fault of the corrupted reading is more truly to be attributed. Even perceived these things by experience, and taking up no zeal for correction, from the ruins of those who had fallen by various incursions of enemies, or when, Jehu avenging, the idol itself was destroyed together with its worshipers: nevertheless, he says, no affection of correction could be roused in them. But now, he says, they have added to sin, and have made themselves a molten thing of their silver, according to the likeness of idols: not indeed because after the times of Ahab they began to worship images of calves, but because those things which they did not abandon even after chastisement, are said to have been added to. For profanity itself, unless it were increased by rebellious pursuits, could not be continuous. The whole work, he says, of craftsmen: to these they themselves say, Sacrifice, ye men that worship calves.

This he repeated not without reason, though already discussed throughout the whole volume, but so that the sense might be of this kind: Because although novelty, however slight, may win over the incautious, yet in time, upon examination, things certainly grow cheap, nor is continual veneration given, except to those things which are strong in certain distinguishing marks. But here, since both reason and long age have exposed the vileness and vanity of the work: that is, that there is in the gods of the nations not merely no power, but no form at all, unless the hand of craftsmen skilled in fashioning had given it, yet the profane people gladly listen to the voices of soothsayers, who indeed command that men supplicate calves devoid of reason and sense, serving them with the offering of prayers and victims: On verse 3: Therefore they shall be as a morning cloud, and as the morning dew that passes away, as dust caught up by a whirlwind, and as smoke from a chimney.

He had said above that his blood would be upon his own head, and his reproach would be restored to him, and now he repeated the same, or heaped it up with execration, because, since they had submitted themselves to the utmost folly, transferring, that is, the honor of God to images of cattle, they themselves would likewise perish so vilely, as smoke, as dust, as dew, as morning clouds are consumed by the rays of the sun.

On verse 4: But I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: and thou shalt know no God but me, and there is no savior besides me. The connection of these verses is with what precedes, so that the sense is of this kind: When I shook off the yoke of Egyptian dominion from your necks, and, when you were being delivered, happily made known my majesty by those illustrious miracles, I also established this with an absolute voice, that the nation, always intent on my worship, should never be subjected to any other as to a god, since you would find no other who could grant you salvation, because then you seemed to have been bound in servitude to the elements.

On verse 5: I knew thee in the desert, in the land of solitude. But why now, he says, should I be moved as at some new thing by your sacrileges, when in that very time of your liberation I always found you to be such as you are now discovered to be, that is, ungrateful and full of reproach? But what he took care to add, "in the land of solitude," he wished this to be understood, that examples had not always corrupted them: since they also sinned in those very places in which they had no one to imitate.

On verse 6: According to their pastures they were filled, and were satisfied, and they lifted up their heart, and forgot me. With my benefits, he says, the whole nation vied not at all in devotion, but rather in wickedness, which, that it might easily be clear, he connects even to those times, and through the course of the invective, returns to the present age from which he had set out, yet in a brief transition of speech, bringing in mention also of that sentence which had been uttered in the Song of Deuteronomy, when blessed Moses declared it, that is, "He grew fat, and thick, and gross, the beloved kicked, that he might make himself new gods, as it were barley bread, whom their fathers knew not". For according to their pastures, he says, they were filled, and were satisfied, and lifted up their heart, and forgot me.

This series of sins he set forth beforehand, so that he might show that the vengeance which he was about to bring was not incited by passion, but fortified by justice and reason. For it follows: On these verses: And I will be to them as a lioness, as a leopard in the way of the Assyrians. I will meet them as a bear robbed of her cubs, and I will rend the inward parts of their liver, and will consume them there, like a lion: the beast of the field shall tear them. He teaches that those calamities which the barbarity of the enemies was about to bring were happening at his command; nor does he disdain to explain his warning by images of wild beasts, which he knows, though not agreeing to his own nature, yet suit the misery of the condemned, as a sentence.

And elegantly, when among the gapings of lions he had also placed the bear, he sharpened its ferocity with the goads of bereavement, lest the comparison introduced should anywhere diminish: As a bear, he says, robbed of her cubs. And I will rend the inward parts of their liver, of those who indeed have afflicted me with similar losses. For when I formed this people for myself as sons with much diligence, and shaped their hearts as it were by licking them into form, these, on the contrary, deprived me not only of hoped-for, but even of laboriously produced offspring, by perpetrating those very crimes which demanded the destruction of the whole nation.

On verses 9-11: Thy destruction, Israel: only in me is thy help. Where is thy king? Let him now especially save thee, in all thy cities: and thy judges, of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes. I will give thee a king in my fury, and I will take him away in my indignation. A fitting judgment for the question, and one which nothing but the rule of piety can resolve. For it is spoken in the person of God, Thy destruction, Israel, only in me is thy help. And yet the sure defense of the faithful consists in this, that trust in deliverance be placed in God. And this is what the blessed prophet accuses throughout the whole volume in the profaned morals of the people, that they trusted not in the defense of God, but in the defense of favors. How then, as though the order were now reversed, does he announce that manifest ruin hangs over Israel, on the ground that its salvation consisted in the power of God alone?

One must therefore notice that distinction which illumines what seemed ambiguous: for here he does not mock the faith of a people placing the hope of its joy in the power of God alone (which, indeed, why should he not have done, had it given offense), but he pronounces only that the blows impending are such that none but divine power alone can bring help. Therefore, he says, there hangs over thee, Israel, destruction: only in me is thy help. Which, if you consider carefully, you will see brought in not only not absurdly, but even in a moral sense and according to the usage of human speech. For hence it is that if ever we see someone oppressed by a grave illness, or by a desperate calamity, we say that his hope is in God: indicating thereby not the duty of the mind, but the weight of the disaster which bears him down.

Therefore, he says, undoubted destruction shall seize thee, from which none but the Almighty can rescue: whom, since thou hast made him hostile to thee by thy crimes, it remains that thou be snatched away by gaping destruction. Which meaning, that he might make it clear, he added: Where is thy king? According to prophetic custom, he reproaches the people also for that error which they committed when, departing from the priestly commonwealth, they desired a king. For since they had contracted this desire from rivalry with the neighboring nations, now that things are turning out badly, the very counsels which preceded are also accused, as if he said: This madness of thine is of old standing, namely, that thou thinkest thou canst better provide for thyself than I: from the beginning of which opinion thou didst demand that princes be given to thee after the likeness of the other nations. Now, therefore, let the fruit of thy counsel appear, and let the industry of kings protect thee against my indignation.

Surely they ought to teach thee what these powers, sought after by thy ambition, profit thee. But let us pass to the rest. Some have understood the king given in fury to be Jeroboam, who was the author of the tribes' separation; but the one taken away in indignation they have understood to be Hoshea, under whom Israel was taken captive. Which indeed, though it may be admitted, yet since it is pronounced in the future tense, and both are signified, that is, I will give thee a king, and I will take him away, the sentence can be understood with a more suitable brevity, so that the Israelite prince is pronounced to be taken away, but the Assyrian to be given.

Finally, according to prophetic custom, after the burden of condemnation, he added what its cause had been: The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin is hidden: that is, the crimes which he committed over many times, so that they were not interspersed by any virtues, but heaped up in a funereal course, were established, as though kept under some seal, in the memory of the judge: it was, I say, in requital of these, that it came to pass that, their tokens of freedom lost, they were subjected to the most atrocious servitude, and felt those pains and anguishes which women are wont to experience in childbirth.

On verse 13: He is a son not wise, for now he shall not stand in the crushing of children. Already above he argued with the same coloring, marking the manifest folly of Israel by the testimony of adversaries, and that the deformity of their merits, which had for some time lain hidden under prosperity, would at last be exposed by afflictions bearing witness against it. Therefore that thou art a son, and not wise, is proved by grave testimony, because at that time when the enemy broke in, thou wast in no way found worthy to stand.

And since by the name of folly he was marking that profanity to which the ten Tribes, as he charges from the beginning of the volume, had wholly given themselves, and on account of that folly the storm of captivity seized them, he opportunely passes to Judah, and shows him not only by name, but also by the judgment of things accomplished, so that he might show at the same time what outcome awaits wise sons, just as he had also made public what befalls him who remained unwise. Therefore prophetic speech moves on to the prosperous events which were bestowed under king Hezekiah with great miracles, and says: On these verses: I will deliver them from the hand of death, I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be thy death: O hell, I will be thy bite. Consolation is hidden from my eyes, because he himself divides among brothers.

The Lord shall bring a burning wind rising up from the desert, and shall dry up his veins, and shall lay waste his fountain: and he shall carry off the treasure of every desirable vessel. First, as is his custom, by promising prosperity he announces the joys of deliverance: but afterward, with the same delight, he heaps up vengeance. Therefore, I will deliver them from the hand of death: that is, when they have come into such difficulty of affairs that death, its hand laid upon them, seems to have seized and held them, then I as liberator shall come. This especially was expressed by the prayer of blessed Hezekiah, saying that the days of affliction and reproach had come, since the children had come even to the birth, and there was no strength to bring forth. When, therefore, they were pressed by the Assyrian forces, and the enemy had shut up the city with a siege, destruction so impended that at any moment it seemed about to devour the wretched people.

But since by righteous prayers they obtained divine help, that great miracle was wrought, and with a hundred and eighty thousand Assyrians slain by the striking Angel, the deliverance longed for by the pious shone forth: according to that which the holy songs had foretold: This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles: the Angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him, and shall deliver them. Death and hell, then, are named for the Assyrian king and his whole army, whom the divine sentence promises to destroy: and having sent before the crash of vengeance, according to his custom he subjoins the cause which moved that indignation. Consolation, he says, is hidden from my eyes, because he himself divides among brothers.

He assumed the bearing and words of one mourning, that he might increase the crime of the Assyrian, and, as it were in the person of Judah, more concerned about his brother, that is, the Israelites, whom Sennacherib had led into captivity, than about his own calamity, he says that his eyes were so wet with tears that they could not receive consolation, because the proud and savage king had wrought a sorrowful separation among brothers, namely by transferring the ten Tribes into captivity to the region of Media. Here indeed a diligent reader may well inquire why this affection, which mourns the departure of a brother, should be attributed to Judah, since above, speaking of the same matter, the prophet reproached him with the impiety of rejoicing? For when he had said, Ephraim was in desolation. In the day of desolation among the tribes of Israel, I have shown faithfulness: the princes of Judah are become as those that take up the bound, upon them will I pour out my wrath like water.

Since there they are said to have rejoiced at the expulsion of their kinsmen, on the ground that they thought the borders of their fields extended, how now are they brought in mourning the expulsion of their brother without any consolation? This can be resolved by a twofold explanation: because, as I have said, the discourse often concerns not individual persons but whole hosts, therefore in that multitude we understand there were also diverse dispositions, whence some things are set forth from the persons of the pious, other things from those of the impious. Accordingly we gather that there were some there whom the expulsion of their kinsmen grieved: but more whom the extension of their borders delighted. But let us now consider another mode of explanation also, which surely will avail for the judge in this way, that it seems to be fitted rather to causes than to persons.

And let that indeed be the voice of kinship, which the prophet sets near the end of the book, that is, that he grieves at the calamity of the expelled brother, and calls down upon the enemies the requital that is due: but that which created delight in some, let it regard the crime of parricides: so that the meaning may be of this sort, that there were some in whom profanity had confounded not only the laws, but even the rights of nature, so that in the captivity of their brothers, which they ought to have compassionated, they chose rather to glory. The Lord shall bring a burning wind rising up from the desert, and shall dry up his veins, and shall lay waste his fountains, and he shall plunder the treasures of every desirable vessel.

By the burning wind from the desert he means the Angel, who destroyed the Assyrian army in a single night: not that Angels are believed to dwell in the desert, whom the Gospel's authority commends as daily beholding the face of the Father, but because, on account of the swiftness of the vengeance—since a hundred and eighty-five thousand, indeed, are recorded to have been slain in a single night—he assumed the likeness of fire, and introduced mention of the desert for this reason, that the whole of that host might seem to have been consumed rather by a breath than by any operation. For thus also blessed David had said: Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire. This burning, then, he signified to be summoned now from places uninhabitable by reason of the heat of the sun, which would destroy the Assyrian fountains and veins, that is, the king together with his army and his stock. And he shall plunder the treasure.

If you regard the custom of the prophets, who do not observe the changes of tenses very anxiously or carefully, it seems he denoted the wealth of king Sennacherib gathered from his triumphs: doubtless signifying that he would be consumed by the aforesaid conflagration for this reason, that he had done many cruel things, and his plunder had not satisfied his avarice: and now therefore he is compelled to vomit up whatever he had before devoured through iniquity.

On verse 1: Let Samaria perish, because she has provoked her Lord to bitterness. A little before he had said: Consolation is hidden from my eyes, because he himself divides among brothers, and had shown that effect by which he pities Israel; but now, having described the destruction of the Assyrian, he grew hot again against Samaria. Which indeed he did not do out of inconsistency, but out of the weight of the judgment.

For after he had shown both the piety and the power of the true God, who had consumed the proud king as though with no effort, and thus that he was so ready for the defense of the pious that he expended his vengeance upon great nations for their joy: rightly, as though inflamed, did he wish that Samaria should perish, which by its own crimes had brought it about that this so good a Lord should stand not as her champion, but as her opponent: as if he said: When I behold the benefits of our eternal ruler, I shudder more and more at the crime of Israel, who indeed labored to be without such a protection.

On verse 2: Return, Israel, to the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. The discourse proceeds with a wondrous coherence. For he had cried out in a way that served to aggravate the sin of Samaria, but since he had done this out of pity rather than out of execration, he now brings at least a second remedy, which may heal the wound: and since they were unwilling to embrace the protection of continual devotion, let them take up the aids of penitence and amendment. If then dangers make thee better, O Israel, return to the Lord thy God, from whom thou oughtest never to have turned away: and abhorring that very thing in which thou hadst fallen by thine iniquity, take up the offerings of confession. For this is what he says: On verse 3: Take with you words, and turn to the Lord, and say to him: Take away all iniquity, and receive that which is good: for thou alone canst remove the guilt under which we are pressed.

But what that good thing is, which he was beseeching him to receive, the following verse shows: And we will render the calves of our lips. For thus the holy songs also taught, that we should offer to God the sacrifice of praise, because praise offered from a pure heart is pleasing to him above a young bullock that puts forth hoofs and horns. Speak out, then, Israel, against thyself before the Lord thy injustices, of which thou desirest to merit remission. But let us hear what he adds to these things.

On verse 4: Assur shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more, Our gods, to the works of our hands: for it is in thee that the fatherless findeth mercy. That he says, Assur shall not save us, seems to be taken from the example of Judah. For the history of Kings relates that when Rabshakeh, an Assyrian commander sent by King Sennacherib, had come to compel and terrify those who were shut up in Jerusalem, among other things which he boastfully and proudly proclaimed concerning the Assyrians, he added that Sennacherib was ready to bring forth two thousand horses, for whose riders the whole army of Judah could not supply men; and with what madness they were stirring up against themselves the forces of so great a prince. If then they took counsel for their own safety, they should surrender themselves to his rule, who showed himself no less generous to those subject to him than severe to the stubborn.

But the inhabitants of Jerusalem, placing their confidence of deliverance in the power of God alone, silently despised the boasting of the enemy's threats. According to the example, then, of confiding Judah, the present discourse now instructs Israel as well: that he himself, corrected by long servitude, should now begin to imitate the devotion which his brother showed at the time of the Assyrian siege. Neither will we say, it says, any more, Our gods, to the works of our hands. That is, we will cease to venerate idols made by the hand of craftsmen, since we have learned, with our brother as witness, that thou, the good judge, dost not cease to have mercy on the people that continues in thy worship. But hear now what is answered by our God to this offering of your confession.

On verse 5-8: I will heal their breaches, I will love them freely: for my wrath is turned away from them. I will be as the dew to Israel, he shall blossom as the lily, and his root shall shoot forth as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return, they shall live on wheat, and shall blossom as the vine, his memorial shall be as the wine of Lebanon. By diverse comparisons he describes both the sweetness of deliverance, and the marks of liberty, and the pleasantness of cultivated fields, which, just as at the time when the enemy ravages them are clothed in the utmost squalor, so when the security of peace fosters the industry of the tillers, abundance and beauty are seen everywhere.

So then, Israel, when the promised prosperity shall have driven away your captivity, the beauty of liberty and the sweetness of gladness will so fill and clothe you, that the meadows will be seen dripping not with any base sprouts, but with lilies and rose-gardens: for indeed my mercy and my grace fall upon you like dew, so that, all foulness laid aside, you may receive the ornaments of invocation. And that you may not doubt that this can happen to you, on account of its greatness, it proceeds in the case of your brother, that is, in Judah being delivered from the hands of the Assyrians. Such glory, then, as that longed-for but scarcely hoped-for liberty conferred upon him, shall also await you, if only you show yourself worthy to receive it.

For you shall live on wheat, and shall blossom as the vine which, transplanted from Egypt, had occupied Palestine with its wide borders, and your memorial shall be as the wine of Lebanon: that is, the fragrance of your glory shall be as great as that of the wine which is produced best on Mount Lebanon.

On verse 9: Ephraim, what have I to do any more with idols? I will hear him and direct him like a green fir tree: from me is thy fruit found. Since these things are so, he says, as our discussion has fully taught: namely, that this is the one way of salvation, which the worship and religion of our Godhead has laid open: put an end, at least, to your profanity, of whose beginning you ought never to have had experience: and cling with all faith and devotion to the one true Lord: and do not think that his truth is to be held together with a lie, so as to ascribe an incommunicable name to idols. But know that not only by precepts, but by the very voice of events you have learned that I am the one, whose worshippers enjoy eternal felicity, just as those who forsake me are overwhelmed with eternal miseries.

For I am he who hears those who supplicate, who am able and accustomed to heal the broken, to straighten the crooked, to make fruitful the barren, to find the perishing, to raise the dead, and to raise up to such height those whom I have quickened, that they seem to have advanced from palms or brambles into firs and cypresses.

On verse 10: Who is wise, and shall understand these things? Prudent, and shall know these things? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall in them. Rightly did he conclude his volume with admiration, whose usefulness he had shown both through precepts and through examples. At the same time, to teach that the whole cause of sins and miseries came from foolishness, he praised the wise man who, weighing all that had been discussed, should recognize the usefulness of the sacred ways and their end: because through them the just walk with strictness, while the transgressors, on the other hand, fall, namely by committing sacrilege, and enduring destruction. It should indeed be noted that even these passages, which I have expounded according to the aforementioned history as related by the prophet, so far as our understanding allowed, may also be valid for the signification of greater matters.

For that which was said of Sennacherib, "I will be thy death, O death, I will be thy bite, O hell," can also be taken concerning a greater matter, as the teacher of the Gentiles shows. For when he spoke to the Corinthians about manifesting the resurrection: "Where, O death, is thy sting? Where, O death, is thy victory? But thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord". For this one, like a burning wind, indeed he who came to send fire upon the earth, is said to have ascended from the desert, because he sprang forth from the womb of the Virgin, to whom, according to the laws of nature, a man as tiller had approached, and he dried up the veins of death and its fountain, so that it might not have the right of claiming a second time those whom the Redeemer had once raised up into eternal joy.

By the sacrament indeed of his Incarnation, the dew of grace descended upon the fields of the Churches, so that everywhere the fruitful vine and lilies might spring forth with diverse virtues, and there might come to be as great a felicity in the multiplication of the faithful as there is in a field glorying in abundant produce, fruits, and flowers. And thus those sitting under his shadow shall return, that is, diverse nations shall desire to rest under the protection of the Church, so that they may obtain the sustenance of both bodily and spiritual vigor in wine and wheat. Therefore that deliverance which took place under Hezekiah is fulfilled, and is more fully and more graciously explained by the liberty which Christ delivered. Who is wise, and shall understand these things? Prudent, and shall know these things?

Because indeed the Lord is set for the ruin and resurrection of many: nor do they walk confidently along his paths, in which the followers of crimes collapse, except those who with their whole heart confess Christ to be the power of God and the wisdom of God, and strive with vows and zeal to become one spirit with him.

The former sense is more natural, and more in conformity with the mind of the Author: the other is expounded in somewhat clearer words. The context of the discourse, and the sequence of the mystical exposition proposed, require either the one or the other absolutely. Which the more common Edition contains. By the fact that headings indicating the times are not prefixed in all the prophets, it does not at all become uncertain in what ages each of them prophesied: since tradition handed down through succession affirms that under those kings, under whom those are read without headings, the teaching flourished which had been prophesied before them by those who are furnished with headings. Accordingly, blessed Joel too—you may see whether he is proved to be contemporary among his coevals with holy Hosea, whom we have read before him: suffering the same cruelty and insults of the same kings, accusing the same sacrileges of the raging people, and denouncing the same impending torments upon the guilty.

He begins, moreover, with the feeling rather of one wondering and, as it were, commiserating: On verse 1: The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Phatuel. This office of teaching, nay rather of censure, says he, the eternal Teacher imposed upon his servant: for by the name "word" he indicated at once the whole doctrine which he was about to see. The father of the prophet also is mentioned though otherwise unknown: but because, in the case of men eminent in sanctity, whenever not only their virtues but also their elders are named, an equality of dignity is granted them along with their parents, so that these too are judged either just men, or prophets, or priests. This, then, is the reason, both honorable and weighty, why the root is praised in the shoot.

But as for what certain Commentators have pursued, namely the etymologies of the names, gathering from these, as it were, seeds of praise—that is, that Joel can be rendered ἀρχόμενος, "beginning," and Phatuel "the breadth of God," and so on in this manner—such things are as childish and inept as they are more troublesome than profitable. On verse 2: Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land, whether this hath happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers. He enters in the guise of a preacher, about to relate the greatness of the calamity that befell the Israelites. Behold, says he, I anticipate the voice of your weeping, and what would have stirred envy in the complaint I declare first—that you did not lie under one and then another set of blows only, but that calamities, aroused like foaming waves, ever drove on new miseries before the preceding ones had subsided.

Come, then, all you inhabitants, to hear: whether you who through the old age of this life have gathered very many perils, or you who, though you have fewer years, can yet retain in vigorous memory whether you received anything similar from your parents, such as has now flowed together into the present age. Nay, what shall I say? We consult the annals alone, seeking, as it were, the solace of examples, when I consider that the miseries of our nation have risen to such a heap that nothing like it could exist even among generations to come. And so "the old men" and "the inhabitants of the land," who are bidden either to give ear or to hear, do not signify different merits or pursuits, but simply are commanded that they hear. Such is that saying in the psalm: Hear this, all ye nations: give ear, all ye that dwell in the world, both they that are born of the earth, and the sons of men, together, rich and poor.

In many ways, indeed, he signified nothing else than the men whom he summons to judgment. I have noted this briefly because some have believed there is much difference among these words, on account of which they expend a great many useless words. But let us hear what the prophet delivers with so great a display of wonder. On verse 4: That which the palmerworm hath left, the locust hath eaten; and that which the locust hath left, the cankerworm hath eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left, the mildew hath eaten. He comprehends the various kinds of calamities which he laments as having been brought upon the people of the Jews: each of which, as it falls, so consumes the fruit and hope of the year that it crushes the hearts of the farmers with distress and with dread alike. That these misfortunes befell them not once but at many times, we gather both from this same prophet whom we are discussing, and from the denunciation of Deuteronomy.

Hence we refute also the opinion of those who reckon all these things to be said of enemies. For they have thought that the palmerworm, and the locust, and the cankerworm, and the mildew signify the Assyrian, and the Chaldean, and the Macedonian, and the Roman peoples, by whose forces, indeed, the commonwealth of the Jews was ground down, believing that under the description of locusts the succession of enemies was made known. This they would perhaps seem to have surmised by some consequence, if the Jews had suffered no calamities except from enemies. But since it is shown that they endured also a most grievous famine, and a prodigious drought as in the days of the blessed Elijah, and sudden death, and various corruptions, what need was there to apply also this scarcity—although it introduces mention of locusts and cankerworms—to the incursions of the nations?

Understanding, then, the prophetic words simply, rather than transferring them to whatever other sense one pleases, let us take "locusts" and "palmerworms" not as mailed horsemen or shielded footsoldiers, but as small-footed worms and tiny winged creatures: which then followed one upon another for the torment of the profaned nation in such a way that they carefully kept their turns of doing harm, and whatever had remained from those that went before, all of it those that followed consumed. This ruin, indeed, holy Joel views with prophetic gaze as rather impending than already inflicted: and therefore, to those concerned, who are torpid in miserable security, he himself, as it were kindly, and dismayed at such a spectacle, cries out: On verse 5: Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. A complaint begun altogether in a moral vein, which in the common calamity first addresses those who are taught to bear the same more grievously than the rest.

For scarcity bites more bitterly those accustomed to delicacies, and to the luxurious not only want but even frugality itself is torment. When, therefore, he was about to relate the hardships of poverty, he began from the ordinary folk, and touches only the losses of delicacies, which cannot be feared in common by all, but only by revelers: and he esteems them so cheaply that he pronounces them to have wished to live for pleasure alone. And, as befits the condition of such men, he adds that they should grieve and awaken, at least at the imminent loss of those things in whose enjoyment they had studied to slumber.

No care of pursuits, says he, has hitherto kept you disciplined, nor has the conscience of so many crimes roused any sting of compunction: but you have served every desire, as though acting free from justice: the patience of the eternal Judge has been overcome by the impudence and obstinacy of sinners: he has decreed to subject you to due stripes, and to withdraw first these instruments of delicacies which you abuse. Although the progress of this scarcity shall reach even the ordinary and the poor, yet its very beginnings will torment you above all. Those, then, whom the discipline of justice taught nothing, let the sting of fear at least begin to try; and give tears to vices, which you did not give to duties: and you who never grieved over wounded innocence, weep now at last over drunkenness bereft. Awake, ye drunkards, and weep: howl, all ye that drink wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.

You have furnished, says he, the causes of the gravest offense by the pursuit of luxury: not content with sumptuous and timely banquets or with simple drunkenness, but you procured wine mixed with corrupted sweets, and a stimulant for your feasts by artifice, so that the whole span of life might perish between wantonness and drunkenness. Behold, now the time of such vengeance has come, which withdraws chiefly the instruments of delicacies from those who ravage the fruits of the earth. This distress, then, will vex you first, says he, because for those ignorant of frugality, the experience of penalties is the diminution of abundance. And because, forgetful of reason, you have made yourselves like beasts, howl, even upon the very couches and beds on which you recline, all ye that drink wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.

When to the prophetic denunciation is mixed the reproach of the censor, he shows that man placed in honor did not understand, and therefore is compared to the brutes, to which he has made himself like; for indeed, as we said, thinking loss of life to be the diminution, since luxury scarcely awakens even under the very crash of moved vengeance, since he does not know how to weep, let him at least howl: such is that saying in the psalm: They shall suffer hunger like dogs, and shall go about the city. It would have been fitting, then, that reason rather should have stung you to compunction, than that distress should rouse you with the bites of pain: but since by excessive wailing you have lost your counsel, so that you can no longer foresee but only feel, howl, ye who are struck, who feared not when admonished. And what is the cause of such tears?

On verses 6-8: For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number: his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and his cheek teeth as of a young lion. He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

In those times indeed which are comprised under the title of the blessed Hosea, a frequent irruption of the Assyrians also is narrated: but because the Creator of things afflicted the transgressors of his law not by one kind of scourge alone, therefore we gather that among the hostile devastations, these plagues also occurred which the prophet denounces: in the description of which, indeed, he expends much effort with intent, with the counsel and art of a physician, so that he might stir up in the hearts of his hearers that salutary fear which forces one to shudder at allurements, nor pass over hastily under a brief indication the stings of the denounced terror, but teach the hearer to dwell upon consideration of the matter, for whose correction this whole circuit of plagues was being prepared. Nor content merely to have described it, he proceeds also to augment by weight of words what he had recounted.

In fine, he ascribed to the swarm of locusts the name of a nation, as it were marching in troops and companies, whose novelty was no less a cause for dread than its greatness. For if you consider its efficacy rather than its members, you will see its teeth to be compared to the whelps of lions, nay to lions themselves, skilled in preying: for crops are laid waste by these no less difficultly than herds by those. And by as much as it is less feasible for men's food to be supplied by flocks than by crops, by so much the more does the ravager of crops harm than one of flocks, and the throats of beasts gaping for blood. But the raging locust consumes the very milk of crops and grasses, and therefore kills even the cattle that do not chew it.

For it strips all the woods of their greenness, and imitates, as it were, by the force of its ravage, the very condition of nature itself: so that just as when the sun is weak in winter, the moisture of trees is driven inward, and thus, the honor of the leaves having been laid down, the trunks stand bare, which if one ignorant of husbandry should behold, he despairs that they can ever grow green again: so this host, whose coming I lament, will consume not only the tender grasses but also the ripe vineyards, nor will it spare the vintage whitened with fruit; rather it will ravage the sweet figs with bitter tooth, and will pursue deliberately the whole bark through which, indeed, the vital sap could flow, so that the wood appears white instead of green.

Since, then, the earth restores not the crop entrusted to it, nor does the spontaneous fruit bend the branch, nor does the year furnish to the ailing tillers the solace of fruits: what remains, O our people, but that you pursue your calamity with weeping? But with tears so copious and abundant, as women are wont whom the grief of widowhood has oppressed, and

On verses 1-2: Blow the trumpet in Zion, howl in my holy mountain, let all the inhabitants of the land be troubled, for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand. A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of whirlwinds: as the morning spread upon the mountains. When, says he, the time of the great devastation draws near, let the inhabitants of the city and of the fields come together, and let them anticipate by prayers and tears the time of the denounced calamity. If I could explain the bitterness of this before the very experience of the events by speaking, such would seem to me the darkness of anguish to come, as if it should happen that black things be doubled, as when gloom and darkness make the night thicker: nay rather, if to these you were to join dense clouds and whirlwinds, so that with the solace of the stars wholly shut out, through the blind air the terror of lightning should flash between.

Yet these images have labored only to indicate the quality of the evil, whose quantity may increase to a greater degree of bitterness. For the force of the evil of which we speak so filled all the spaces of our region, as though its bounds spread out, that all the mountains and hills together were bathed in the shining morn, that is, the ruddy dawn. He compared, therefore, one and the same thing both to night and to light, not that he might introduce something contradictory, but that he might express its extent and bitterness by the diversity of the comparison. A great and strong people; there hath not been ever the like from the beginning, nor shall there be after it, even to the years of many generations. That this narrative is established rather of locusts than of enemies, the progress of the discourse shows.

For he has composed the very swarm of locusts and cankerworms, whose irruption is described as having brought forth manifold calamity, now as an armed and numerous army: which, indeed, he could not bring in by way of comparison, if the description had been established concerning soldiers. He proceeds, then, I say, to explain the effect of the evil through various forms, and says what face of the land it found when it came, and what it left when it went. Nothing like it, says he, has the age of our forefathers seen, nothing like it shall the age of our descendants see.

On verse 3: A fire devoureth before his face, and behind him a flame burneth: the land is as a garden of pleasure before him, and behind him a desolate wilderness; neither shall anything escape him. By what he said, "before his face," he wished to indicate the very onset of the locusts, not indeed that some other fire perished before the face of the locusts, and that they, having been burnt up, afterward corrupted the fields: but thus, says he, will their incursion lay waste whole regions, that it will consume no less than fire would have consumed. And because it is not proved by the efficacy of a conflagration, but rather every light thing—leaves, stalks, chaff—is wont to be consumed swiftly and utterly by crackling and flying flames; but whatever things have more firmness of matter, the fire overcomes with greater delay: therefore he declares the flame to rage both before and behind.

Keeping, moreover, the order of amplification with art, after he had compared the locust to fire, he says the region which was laid waste could be compared to pleasant and well-watered lands. As a garden of pleasure is the land before him, and behind him a desolate wilderness; neither shall anything escape him. So that then, indeed, the force of the ravaging evil may appear, in that it consumed what had been exceedingly pleasant.

On verses 4-11: As the appearance of horses is their appearance, and as horsemen so shall they run. As the sound of chariots they shall leap upon the tops of mountains, as the sound of a flame of fire devouring stubble, as a strong people prepared for battle. At its face peoples shall all be tormented, faces shall be changed into a pot. As mighty men shall they run, as men of war shall they climb the wall: men shall march each in his own ways, and shall not turn aside from their paths. Each man shall not straiten his brother, each shall walk in his own path; but they shall even fall through the windows, and shall not be destroyed. They shall enter the city, they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb the houses, they shall enter through the windows like a thief. At its face the earth trembled, the heavens were moved, the sun and moon were darkened, and the stars withdrew their brightness.

And the Lord gave his voice before the face of his army, for his camps are exceedingly many, for his words are strong and effective. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who shall endure it? A little before I noted that, as the discourse proceeded, it would more and more appear that the narrative was framed not concerning armed battle-lines (as some have supposed), but simply concerning locust-swarms and locusts. Therefore, to signify their force and effect, he gathered together comparisons drawn from armed men and horsemen. And following not only the ambition of narration, but also the learning of comparison, he explained what he had undertaken both magnificently and elegantly, comparing the very running, that is, of the rushing locusts, to the advance of four-footed beasts, and their sound to the crackling which fire is wont to make in stubble.

Since he saw these images fittingly assumed, he lingered over them with much industry: and he compared not only the hissing and rushing to fires and cavalry, but also carefully noted this, that they advanced not in a scattered but in an ordered column, and at full pace, plainly as certain legions acting under standards and centurions (since the cause of terror demanded this). As a people, he says, prepared for battle, at its face all peoples shall be tormented, faces shall be reduced to the color of a pot.

If, he says, military discipline should also order the strength of forces, so that not wandering and like brigands, but arranged in squadrons and battle-lines, with steadfast minds and ranks they advance in war, before the very onset of the contest the enemy are easily dissolved by fear itself, so that for the most part their faces are clothed with the pallor of coming death: so, he says, the columns of our race will not be able to bear even the sight of the calamity rushing upon them, but after the likeness of a pot which smoke has darkened, they shall not only grow pale, but also be utterly drawn in; since neither in the field does the aid of strength, nor in the cities the aid of walls, come to their assistance. For the columns of the locusts, whose coming I announce, undertaking the work of devastation, shall run out like most warlike men, wherever indignation or desire shall call them.

Nor shall they only lay waste the fields, but they shall even penetrate within the roofs of the cities. No multitude of resisters shall be an impediment; no obstacle shall delay their rushing on; the victorious throng shall march along unhindered paths. For this he says: Each man shall not straiten his brother, each shall walk in his own path; but they shall even fall through the windows, and shall not be destroyed. Not only, he says, rushing upon the buildings of the cities, will they be content with the terror of the public, but they will enter into the recesses of private houses, after the manner of thieves. And thus a lamentable anxiety shall seize all the inhabitants of that region, so that to them the heavens shall seem to be moved, and the earth to tremble, the stars to withdraw their brightness, the sun and moon to be clothed with palpable darkness.

Nor should I at all doubt that all these things will come with so great a heap of evils, since it is he himself, the Almighty leader, who points out these columns, and makes use of such an army for the destruction of the guilty; and he himself raises the sign of the command by which they are roused, and supplies them with the strength by which they may execute the sentence.

For the day of the Lord is great, and to be feared for the very worship and compass of vengeance: whose crushing ruin cannot be endured, the first aspect shows. But we may also transfer these complaints of blessed Joel as he preaches, although they are powerful to edify even with their own crash of severity, by a loftier understanding also, to the figures of souls: so that through the description of calamities, which he announces as impending over whole regions for the torment of sinners, he may be believed to have signified the squalor of criminal minds. For the judgment of the wise man does not think those more wretched whom it has seen subjugated by hardships, than those subjugated by vices.

According to this rule, now pitying, now indignant, he reproves the condition of a most profane people, abstaining from no crimes at all: announcing first that he neither remembers deeds done nor believes things to come, which he sees to have happened in his own times, that is, that upon creatures small indeed in bulk, worms scarcely deserving the name of living things, so great a force, like the likeness of waves continually following one another, was brought that they wiped out all the produce and appearance of the region. For what the palmerworm left, the locust ate; and what the locust left, the cankerworm ate; and what the cankerworm left, the mildew ate. If then you look attentively at human souls, and consider vices not yet punished, you will surely find in them such a condition as the wretched plague had brought upon the regions.

For he introduced four species of corruption bringing harm, which are joined to one another by a certain kinship, that is, the palmerworm, and the locust, the cankerworm, and the mildew: which four we can fittingly apply to those four passions of souls, namely hope, and joy, fear, and grief. For from these four affections, but proceeding from one origin of motion (namely, that by which we are affected), all evils are born, and various misfortunes are produced. Let us then mark them with such a distinction, that we refer the palmerworm, which pursues only the green leaves of trees, and the locust, which advances more by leaping than by walking, to hope and joy, sinning by a certain leaping of their own: on the other hand, the cankerworm and the mildew, which consume by settling in and clinging without any liveliness of action, we assign to dread and grief.

When therefore we see someone sinning through what are called joys, as one alien to modesty and shame, after he has corrupted the ornaments of honesty, submitting even his patrimony and livelihood to shameful deeds, we may cry out: What the palmerworm left, the locust ate. But when, on the other hand, we see another so given over to sloth that he thinks no adornment of freedom worthy, but while he himself, clothed in no garb of serious dignity, exults, if some superior's wickedness catches him wishing even to hide, and demands of him either help or service for its crimes: or if, when he tries to refuse, some evil or some misfortune is threatened against him, and you see him at once going into service to crimes greater than you had thought, say with the prophet: What the locust left, the cankerworm ate; and what the cankerworm left, the mildew ate.

According to this rule, then, if we direct a keen gaze into the whole life of mortals, in different affairs indeed, but in almost all their pursuits and times, we find occasion to use these exclamations of the prophet fittingly. By such a multiplication of vices it has come about that not only grasses and sprouts, as it were the nobility of nature, perished, but the very fruits and timbers of vineyards and olive-trees and other trees, which had been instituted for the gifts of religion, were also corrupted. When therefore you see even those established under the Christian name, and rejoicing in the adoption of the sacraments, yet having no care for the virtues, nay even the ministers of the altar itself serving only ambition and luxury, cry out in pity and indignation: He has laid my vineyard waste, and barked my fig tree; he has made it bare and cast it away: its branches are made white, the wine is confounded, the oil languishes, the farmers are confounded, because the harvest of the field has perished.

This state of the churches, such as we behold especially in this present tempest, kindles that indignation of God at which the prophet trembled, that is: Great is the day of the Lord, and very terrible, and who shall endure it? But let us hear by what counsel it is revealed why it cannot be endured.

On verses 12-14: Now therefore, says the Lord: Turn to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning. And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient, and rich in mercy, and ready to relent concerning evil. Who knows whether he will turn and forgive, and leave behind him a blessing, sacrifice and libation to the Lord your God? Therefore, beholding the pomp of severity with which the eternal Lord is attended as he goes forth to take vengeance, know that souls are kept from despair, and that he has terrified them by the effect of a better hope, not from a desire of raging but of sparing. For not forgetful of his own goodness, he has sounded with so manifold a crash of moved chastisement, but in order to arouse in you the feeling of dread.

In short, he compels you by the very voice of events, that you at last bring your sick breasts to him, and binding his medicine with eternal powers, fulfill not merely the outward form of mourners, but the whole feeling, and rend your hearts rather than your garments. When he was emphasizing this, he also elegantly admonished, that since it is the custom of mourners to tear their garments from their breasts, they too, as if with hands laid to their breasts, should press more deeply, so that they might rend, if it were possible, not only their garments but their very vitals. He also found a word most fitting to the matter under discussion: Rend your hearts, and not your garments. Which rending, besides the display of the mourner, seems also to indicate a distinction of good and evil, and a separation from the shameful deeds by whose commingling they had been defiled.

Change therefore your purpose for the better, or weep for what has been done wrongly before, since indeed the cause rests with a gracious and merciful Lord, and one ready to relent concerning evil, that is, who, if he sees those whom he had rescued by threat compunctious, gladly grants remission of that calamity which he calls evil. Following the usage of Scripture, he assumed as it were the guise of one in doubt, saying: Who knows whether he will turn, and forgive, and leave behind him a blessing? This is inserted for the sake of reverence toward the Judge, whose terror he wishes to be so great that even safe things are feared. But he says he will leave behind him a blessing, for this reason, because he had said above that so great a force of want would be brought by the ravaging locusts, that after their passing the land would remain like the solitude of the desert. Therefore now he says, Offer tears, offer groans.

Perhaps by such sacrifices the force of the chastisement announced will be pleased, so that though it diminishes abundance, it may not also consume sustenance entirely. And leave behind him a blessing, sacrifice, and libation to the Lord our God. In order he answers what was said before. For above he had said that the greatness of the want would come to such a point that sacrifice and libation would perish from the house of the Lord: here therefore, while claiming the hope of comfort for the corrected and repentant, he added that he would leave a blessing, which would serve the libations of the altar.

On verses 15-17: Blow the trumpet in Sion, sanctify a fast, call an assembly. Gather the people, sanctify the church, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber, and the bride out of her bridal room. Between the porch and the altar the priests, the ministers of the Lord, shall weep, and shall say: Spare, Lord, spare your people, and give not your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over it. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God? It is characteristic of the prophets not to keep careful watch over tenses, or over what are called kinds of words in their declension; content otherwise to have fulfilled the sense, they use as it were interchangeable expressions. Whence also now, when he had said, Let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber, and the bride out of her bridal room, he added, Between the porch and the altar the priests shall weep, as if to say, let the priests weep.

For, content with the office of censor, he was not careful of the moods; or certainly, to show that his exhortation had been effective, he said they would do what he had commanded them to do. Between the porch and the altar, he says, let the assembly of mourners resound: and you, chief priests, to whom the guardianship of the sacred rites has been entrusted, with faces wet with tears, cry out: Spare, Lord, spare your people, and do not allow those whom you have decreed to possess by hereditary right to now become an object of execration and contempt to the profane nations by which we are surrounded: and if nothing else, let this at least intercede for us before your clemency, that we cannot perish without insult to you. You, therefore, who have wished us to be believed and called your servants and sons, not only by creating but also by adopting us, do not allow the nations to say: Where is their God? In whom they were wont to rejoice as their champion.

After he had explained these things in the office of a preacher, he immediately promises, with the confidence of a prophet, that the prayers of the people had been effective, and that the Lord, as if stirred by zeal for his own cause, had undertaken the defense of the faithful.

On verse 18: The Lord, he says, was jealous for his land, and spared his people. Looking, he says, to his own dignity, lest the nation which was properly called by his own name should perish as though unworthy of a defender, he both forbade it despair and filled it with hope of gladness. From his answer, therefore, it is subjoined: On these verses: Behold, I will send you corn, wine, and oil, and you shall be filled with it, and I will no more make you a reproach among the Gentiles. And him that is from the north I will remove far from you: and I will drive him into a land unpassable and desert, his face toward the eastern sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea: and his stench shall go up, and his rottenness shall go up. Blessed Jeremiah indeed, and other prophets, say that the Assyrians and Chaldeans were to come from the north.

And here too the Assyrian might be understood, were it not, as I noted above, that it is established that other plagues also, according to what had been sanctioned in Deuteronomy, were brought upon the people once it had been profaned. Accordingly, following the order laid down, let us take this of the locusts and the caterpillar, the removal of which the Lord, now appeased, promises: who indeed added this to the grace and sweetness of the deliverance, that he commanded those armies to perish in the desert, lest the great stench arising from the carcasses should breed disease among the inhabitants. There, therefore, his stench shall go up, and his rottenness, because he acted proudly: but in declaring that he acted proudly, he expressed not a vice of mind, but rather the magnitude of the calamity.

On verses 21-23: Fear not, O land, be glad and rejoice: for the Lord hath done great things. Fear not, ye beasts of the field: for the beautiful places of the wilderness have budded, for the tree hath brought forth its fruit, the fig tree and the vine have yielded their strength. And ye children of Sion, rejoice and be joyful in the Lord your God: for he hath given you a teacher of justice. Consequently the discourse is directed, as it were, to the whole region, so that returning fertility is promised to that which had been threatened with devastation. And the discourse runs through the same particulars through which it had also passed under adversity. He says, then, that the mountains are to be clothed with pastures, that the leafy face returns to the forests, that the fig trees and vines offer the gifts of their fruitfulness.

For this is what he called their "strength," which, since all these things are given over to the use of men, he rightly added: And ye children of Sion, rejoice and be joyful in the Lord your God: for he hath given you a teacher of justice. He has altogether crowned the preceding admonitions with a sentence full of instruction: which, after the expulsion of afflictions and the most desired successes of prosperity, marked out from what part above all the people ought to seize their joys—not, to be sure, because they should desire things to be enjoyed, but because they had found a teacher of justice. And ye children, he says, of Sion, rejoice and be joyful in the Lord your God: for he hath given you a teacher of justice.

He is indeed, he says, merciful, and one who by a single power of succor drives away sorrows and bestows favorable things; but you, my people, ought above all to rejoice in this, in which you surpass other nations: that you have received teachers, namely, of righteous living, by whose instruction you might both act modestly and be blessed. Such is that saying in another prophet: Blessed are we, O Israel, because the things that are pleasing to God are made known to us.

On these verses: And he will cause the early and the latter rain to come down to you as at the beginning. And the floors shall be filled with wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years which the locust, and the bruchus, and the mildew, and the palmerworm have eaten: my great strength which I sent among you. Through diverse particulars he carries on what he had begun, and describes the coming change from sorrow into joy. Promising, therefore, fruitfulness, he foretold the falling of the timely and the latter rain, saying: he will cause the early and the latter rain to come down as at the beginning.

Which the Septuagint rendered not "at the beginning," but "as from the beginning," so as to convey this sense: that with the disturbances by which the seasonable order of the year had been, as it were, thrown into confusion, now removed, the year returns to its accustomed course, so that the fields are watered, according to the diversity of the seed sown, either with early or with late rains. These indeed will produce such fertility that both your barns and your vats will be overwhelmed. This saying, therefore, "the timely and the latter rain as at the beginning," can be understood in this way: that it seems to have signified the order of the blessings, and there is no contradiction of sense, as though the rain, which is also called "latter," were said to be "at the beginning"; but that the rain is said to precede the fruitfulness of the fruits, and the sense is: I will first send the rain, and afterward the gladness of the crops will follow.

Which, when it has filled its cultivators with joys and strength, may pour forgetfulness of the preceding want, and proceed to blot out the traces of affliction; so that not only does the distress of scarcity cease, but also the losses that had gone before are made good. For this is what he said, I will restore to you the years which the locust hath eaten. Not, to be sure, as measures of time, but so that the fruitfulness of the years might be restored. It is also to be noted that God called his strength "great," and also "caterpillar" and "locust": not indeed that worms of this kind are in any way referred to the co-eternal power of God, but because by their ministry and ravaging they fulfilled, in the affliction of the guilty, the office of vengeance.

The very smallness, then, of the caterpillars and locusts shows forth the power both of the Creator and of the Avenger: who, when he has decreed to grind down peoples, uses neither the teeth of any beasts nor poisons, but through the bruchus and the mildew consumes kingdoms that shortly before were opulent. And therefore it is called the strength of God, whose sentence it fulfilled, like a diligent lictor. When, therefore, the fertility so desired shall have made good the losses of those times, he says: And you shall eat, and be filled, and shall praise the name of the Lord your God, who hath done wonders for you: and my people shall never be confounded. And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and there is none else: and my people shall never be confounded. Now it is the custom of the prophets, whenever they have promised things that are joyful, to declare likewise that they will remain forever.

Which we ought to receive either under the condition, at any rate, that has been made known in the Scriptures—that is, if they persevere in the pursuits of righteousness, then also the prosperous things will remain—or certainly because it belongs to the office of the one prophesying always to join something of the wish of the one desiring it. But a further sense may be introduced, to which indeed the very progress of the discourse points. For already above he had said, Ye children of Sion, rejoice and be joyful in the Lord your God, for he hath given you a teacher of justice. Which, although it can be understood in many ways, insofar as it regards the reckoning of the times, seems properly to point to blessed Hezekiah, whom the record of the annals reveals to have burned with great zeal concerning the worship of God, and whose person as king, as especially the prophet Isaiah shows, seems to have been chosen to signify a greater matter.

Let us, then, transfer those things that were done through Hezekiah to the affairs of our Redeemer: so that what was fulfilled then only moderately may be seen to have acquired vast increase under the Gospel. For the true teacher of justice is he in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, who was delivered up for our offences, and rose again for our justification: that being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, we might both be freed from the old errors, and be subjected to righteousness alone; and driving away, by a new fruitfulness, all the former want of saving things, we might be filled both with doctrine and with abundance, the Gospel promising: Seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added, and shall be given to you besides.

And thus the people of this acquisition shall never be confounded, who rely on the saying of the Redeemer: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. With that leader, therefore, abiding in their midst, the ranks of the faithful stand ever secure and cheerful; and whatever adverse things they shall have endured in the contests, they will perceive these to be so outdated by the succeeding prosperities that they will seem to have served only to commend their joys.

On these verses: And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Moreover, upon my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour out my spirit. Blessed Peter recalls this passage in the Acts of the Apostles, saying that this prophecy was fulfilled at that time, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles. It is to be noted, accordingly, that the Apostle took up from the context of the prophetic discourse only that which suited his own time, that is: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

For since the Apostles had obtained by miracle the knowledge of tongues, the doctor of the Church showed this foretold outpouring of the Spirit, and called the knowledge of tongues "prophecy": which, even though it dealt not with future things but with the recent mysteries of the Lord's incarnation, nevertheless could not have occurred except by the power of the Holy Spirit. But not content to make mention only of the gifts, he adds also those things which regard a display of terror.

On these verses: I will show wonders in heaven, and in earth, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Thus, by that whole continuous discourse, he hastens to persuade that, since the day of the Lord—that is, the time of the last judgment—is to come with such power and crash that, the stars trembling and struck down, this fabric of the world will burst asunder as though consumed by fire, and faith alone will be that which protects the ranks of the pious as the world collapses, they ought to believe the Gospel, if they desire to attain to salvation.

Since, therefore, blessed Peter had undertaken the care not of expounding the prophet but of preaching the Gospel, he seized only as much of his sayings as served his purpose: nor did he thereby abolish that explanation which the context of the prophetic work provides. This we admonish briefly, so that the boldness of those may be rejected who rashly and ignorantly contend that this time alone was indicated by the prophet, of which the Apostle Peter treated: whereas, I say, the whole context of the work teaches that it embraces first the people of the Jews, and then, as a further increase, our own times as well. Just as, therefore, it does not hinder the prophetic meaning, in transferring it to the affairs of the Gospel, that the whole volume pursues the Jewish history: so likewise, indeed far more, in the case of the reader who is at least learned, the sequence is never allowed to deny the faith, if any prophecy can also be applied to the affairs of believers from among the Gentiles.

Let us see, then, how the tenor of, as it were, historical explanation proceeds. We gather that the holy Joel prophesied under the blessed Hezekiah: in whose reign as king both grievous conflicts and enormous marvels occurred. Among the other calamities, moreover, by which the ten Tribes are read to have been afflicted even up to the time of their deportation, some cities also, of the lots of Judah and Benjamin, fell: and we find that the Jews likewise labored under disease and want. Finally, when Rabshakeh addressed those under siege and announced destruction unless they should straightway surrender to the king of the Assyrians, he also threatened them with the evils of famine and thirst to be endured. And on account of this, therefore, the merciful Lord promises them that, their sorrows being turned into joy, the losses of want should also be made good. But let us hear what order of events and of times he made.

I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. And also upon my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour out my spirit, and I will give wonders in heaven above. This is a promise fashioned indeed by a prophetic mouth. For after he had run through the advantages of the present life, he joined to them spiritual marks of honor, in which especially the people of God gloried. Accordingly he promises, in consequence, that besides those bodily goods, as we said, they shall also receive the adornments of revelations, and shall obtain an abundance of spiritual gifts. Therefore when he says, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, he signified both sexes and various ages. Then follows: Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. That is, by diverse kinds of revelations they shall behold the things that are to come.

But also upon my servants and handmaids I will pour out my spirit, that is, from these marks of holiness, just as no age, so also no condition, however lowly it be reckoned, shall be excluded. Moreover, even upon servants, if they be found capable of such gifts, this sacred inundation shall pass. All these things are said to be fulfilled, as it were in a first degree only, in the times of the blessed Hezekiah. For since, dangers pressing upon him, he was reduced to grave straits, and against the hope of the neighboring nations was defended by religion alone, the prophet therefore describes that very time with great amplitude and under a like figure, in order to express, no doubt, the power of God, by whose aid the city could emerge from so great a flood. According to this sense, then, the ordered discourse of our seer proceeds.

For besides the consolation of returning resources, he also promised the gifts of the Spirit, that is, the marks of revelations, by which that people would be shown to belong specially to God: and therefore ought to be confident amid adversity, since he who was dear to God, and thereby precious, could not perish basely. Moreover, from the testimony of the prophet of whom we speak, we gather that something was shown also by means of dreams, as it were lesser and more familiar oracles, which availed for consolation. On occasion of this passage, indeed, it seems necessary to distinguish what we read in Deuteronomy, namely, that we should not believe dreams. For how are dreams now referred to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, if there faith were thought to be wholly withdrawn from them?

Whence it appears, since both sentences are of equal authority, that a distinction of reasoning must be applied, as if the case fit the person of the one dreaming: so that, just as the one is to be revered on account of merits, so the other is to be weighed according to its own importance: let us understand that some help has occurred by means of dreams. But if there be no testimony present, such as either the time or the person merits, then the images of dreams are, by legal authority, to be despised.

But let us now hear what has been added at large by him. I will give, he says, wonders in heaven and on earth, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come; and everyone who shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It is the prophetic custom, that as often as God is announced as rising up either to fight or to avenge, with indignation, the face of the poles is described as changed, and the very elements as trembling. Such is that saying in blessed David, who, fleeing the encounter and appearance of the ethereal champion, says: There went up a smoke from his altar, and fire from his face shall be kindled, coals were set on fire by him, he bowed the heavens and came down, and so forth.

According to this manner, then, as we said, coming down from the custom of the Law, even now the prophet, at the time of the heavenly visitation to be brought, sends before it, by way of nature, elements to be pervaded by fires, stars to be clothed either with smoke or with blood. Not that these things were actually accomplished as they are said, but either because such an apparatus befitted the ruler of the heavens, or because his statement would represent the effect as easy, as though a consternated world and racing elements accompanied it: because, in the end, such anxiety seized the minds of the guilty, as if the machinery of the poles were being loosed, and the moon were turning to blood, the earth to ashes, the stars to blackness.

Therefore what was to be feared happening to their souls is narrated as though it were happening to the elements themselves: for that last and singular convulsion is believed to be reserved for the very end of the world, to be brought upon either the earth or the stars. But at that time of the prophet of whom we are treating, it was not, as I said above, upon heaven and earth, but only upon the minds of the guilty, that such disturbance fell. Since, then, we have grasped its kind and manner, let us also investigate the sequence of the narrative.

He declares, therefore, all those things which are read to have been fulfilled in the times of the blessed Hezekiah. For since the ten tribes had already been transported to the lands of the Medes, the Assyrian army burst into the territory of Judah: and while Sennacherib was besieging other cities, he sent a certain Rabshakeh with a great part of his forces against Jerusalem, who, in the Hebrew tongue, in which he was skilled, might entice the people (as we had begun to say above) to surrender: those who were in charge of the walls began urgently to demand that he speak in the Syrian tongue and not in Hebrew. Then Rabshakeh added the weight of the greatest terror, asserting that he had brought disasters and the greatest ruin, not upon a few families, but upon the whole nation, unless it received the Assyrian rule.

By these threats both the blessed Hezekiah and the remnant of his people were so crushed, that they turned to the prophet Isaiah with a whole circuit of tears, saying: The children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth, that is, that they had come to such a straitening of spirit as children would feel at the time of delivery if there were no strength in the one bringing forth. Under that heat, then, of imminent peril, with Hezekiah and the Jews so situated, the sun indeed seemed to be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord should come, which would transfer that mass of dreadful destruction from the people of the Jews, and turn it by a sudden power upon the Assyrians. He called the day of the Lord, accordingly, terrible and great, not because it was sad for the faithful, but because it was to be revered for the majesty of the deed.

Then follows: And it shall come to pass: everyone who shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Because in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, there shall be salvation. In that mountain, I say, in which shortly before scarcely the least strength of defense was being promised, worn down as it was: in that city, I say, which had conceived its people for the freedom that they were, like a feeble mother, to bring forth as children for this world—nay, which, destitute of the strength to bring forth, threatened certain destruction to the fetus—there suddenly appeared so glorious a defense, that apart from it there was nowhere any certain salvation. And it shall come to pass: everyone who shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Because in mount Sion and in Jerusalem there shall be salvation, as the Lord says, and among the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

But all these things, which were accomplished with the highest praise of our God the champion, are shown to have been more abundantly fulfilled, in spiritual gifts, at the time of the Lord's Incarnation: so that the very miracles that preceded in the times of the fathers seem to have had force not only historical but also prophetic, as being fit to signify things that would be rendered long afterward. Thus indeed at the time of the Lord's Passion, when the author of life entered upon the most bitter death, unforeseen night withdrew the midday.

From the sixth hour, it says, there was darkness until the ninth hour: so that what the innate glory of splendor laid down under a dark star's face might seem to fulfill the office either of one mourning or of one fearing: because they would not wish to behold the insult to the Creator, or the crime of the Jews, before the great and terrible day of the Lord should come: namely, before the glory of the resurrection should shine forth: or certainly that day which our Lord in the Gospel arranged, as it were, under a twin narration. For when he was delivering the signs of the last time, he first described the destruction of Jerusalem, and with what calamities the region of the Jews would be filled.

Just as, therefore, there he joined the end of the world to the overthrow of Jerusalem, so also all that shaking of the elements and the stars in the prophet shall be fully accomplished at the end of the world: When, as blessed Peter says, the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved with great violence, and the elements shall melt with the burning heat. For then faith alone shall protect its own, and whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Because in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, there shall be salvation, as the Lord has said; and among the remnant whom the Lord shall call. The heavenly Jerusalem, he says, which is the mother of the pious, all who shall pass over into eternal joys shall be enrolled into citizenship; who nevertheless are all called "remnant," because many are called, but few are chosen. But let us see the rest also.

On verses 1-3: For behold, in those days and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem: I will gather all nations, and bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and they have divided my land. And they have cast lots upon my people, and have set a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.

Having finished that far-ranging excursion of signification, he returns to the times from which the prophecy had set out, and lingers over those things which he sees soon to be fulfilled: so that either by their attestation he might confirm the faith also of those things which he promised to come long afterward; or that he might show that he had not laid aside his purpose of counseling, by taking up the impulse of one prophesying; as if he were to say: If those things which are one day to come are invited by reasons of their own time, let us now pursue what is at hand and imminent. Indeed already the ten Tribes have been carried off by the Assyrian, and a hostile army lays waste the portion of Judah, nor does any hope of strength by which to resist remain.

I announce, therefore, that now especially a champion shall appear, and shall drive away the captivity of his people, namely of Judah, which already seemed to be gaping open, and after the despair of its safety, shall confer the glory of vengeance, to be celebrated throughout the whole world. For when the Assyrian multitude shall have gathered for the siege of the Jerusalemites, let us make them, he says, subject to vengeance in such a way, that they seem to be brought forth not so much roused to war as summoned to a tribunal.

When, therefore, I shall have begun to stir a dispute in the valley of Josaphat, I will render to the Assyrians and to the various enemies what they deserve, so that a visited destruction may consume the nobles, and the people left behind may lie under the evils of captivity: and that the sons of my people, whom they sold into slavery or into shame, may themselves also suffer the arbitrary dealings of traders; and may feel what fruits their past audacity bears, they who, because they lately overran my fields, suffer the most bitter dividers of their own lands.

On verses 4-8: But what have you to do with me, Tyre and Sidon, and all the coast of Palestine? Will you render me a recompense? Or do you avenge yourselves against me? Quickly and speedily I will return your recompense upon your own head. For you have taken my silver and my gold: and my desirable and most beautiful things you have carried into your temples. And the children of Judah, and the children of Jerusalem, you have sold to the children of the Greeks, that you might remove them far from their own borders. Behold, I will raise them up out of the place in which you sold them: and I will turn your recompense upon your own head. And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far off, for the Lord has spoken. The iniquity and hatred of the neighbors by whom the Jews were surrounded was often betrayed even by a slight occasion.

For since they could not attack the Jews with their own strength, they joined themselves to the columns of mightier enemies. This their crime the psalm, accusing, tells: The tabernacles of the Edomites, and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagarenes, Gebal and Ammon, and Amalek, and the foreigners with the inhabitants of Tyre. Assur too has come with them: they have become a support to the children of Lot. According to this custom, then, the bordering nations had joined forces with the Assyrians to overthrow Sion, and the censure of the divine word convicts them, and demands, as it were, from them the cause of such injury. Then he answers the part of those convicted and silent, lest perhaps they had recalled the memory of a past grief: namely, when the sons of Israel, having gone out of Egypt under the leadership of Joshua the son of Nun, entered the land of Promise, and possessed what had been handed over to them in fixed measures.

Is it, then, with a rebellious spirit, he says, that you prepare to avenge that time? And as though an opportunity had been found, do you strive to recover the borders that were seized? But if such a design has stirred you up, the vengeance rushing upon you will convict both your weakness and your profanity. For you will not only be able to change nothing of the ancient decrees, but you will be placed under the very power of those whom you reckon to have been overwhelmed by your conspiracies. He enumerates, moreover, the evils of captivity under various forms, which are surely inflicted at the arbitrary will of the guilty. And so, when he had said that they had carried off gold and silver through the greed of plunderers, he added, "and my desirable and most beautiful things you have brought into your shrines," meaning, as it were, the remaining furnishings, or various ornaments.

Along with these household ornaments you also sold the pledges of the wretched: what sorrow this creates for bereaved parents you will feel when the like is inflicted in return. For when he whose judgments you attempt to overturn takes vengeance, a time will come when not only will the Jews acquire the joys of liberation, but they will also be fed with the pleasure of vengeance—when, in fine, your sons will be sold not to neighboring nations (from whom they might hope for recourse), but to the peoples of Saba, whom the Gentile writings called Meroe. All this indeed seems to have been fulfilled either immediately after the departure of the Assyrians, or after the return from the Babylonian captivity, in the times of the Maccabees.

It must be noted, however, that not all the things that were done at that time are probably to be transferred to a spiritual understanding, that is, to the signification of the gift of the Gospel, as with other things which we mentioned a little before concerning the disturbance of the stars, the magnitude of the prodigies, the pouring out of gifts: which are believed both to have occurred at those times, and to have been, and to be still, fulfilled cumulatively under the Lord's passion, or His final judgment. Not in that way, therefore, I say, are all the things which the prophet has woven in here linked to a spiritual understanding. For what Tyrians, or what Sidonians, or the rest of the peoples bordering the territories of the Palestinians, shall we suspect, beyond the simple understanding, so as to imagine that they sold the children of the faithful? Us?

Yet if we imagine that, because they enticed to vices, they also sold them, how will he threaten them with the same requital, namely that we, in turn, should hand over their sons to the Sabean merchants? Accordingly, that rule of interpretation must be held: that the discourse runs along with a simple tenor as its intended course; but sometimes, through digressions fitting to the prophecy, there resound in it things that may also apply to future mysteries. Yet once that office has been performed, the matter is again brought back to the purpose proper to its own time; and accordingly it proceeds either by way of threat or of exhortation.

Whence also the blessed Joel, after by the impulse of prophesying he had briefly indicated things to come even in the last ages, returns to the reckoning of his own time; and having threatened destruction to the neighboring enemies, proceeds to unfold those joys which he had already seen drawing near, so that they might both give assurance to those who would come long afterward regarding the things he announces as soon to be shown, and might pour upon those for whom he prepares consolation the joy that is to be received. He resumes, moreover, as he had begun, the pomp of what is to be announced.

On verses 9-12: Proclaim this among the nations, sanctify war, stir up the strong. Let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your mattocks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong. Break forth, and come, all you nations round about, and gather yourselves together: there the Lord shall cause your mighty ones to fall. Let the nations rise up, and come up into the valley of Josaphat. With what great desire for war they would go up for the overthrow of Judah, he expressed by the image of this exhortation, which contains the force of judgment. Every tiller of the fields, he says, seized weapons, turning sickles into swords, and plowshares into javelins.

Some also, either through bodily weakness or the disqualification of old age, though refusing military service, nevertheless ran willingly to battle: trusting, that is, because of the great multitude of forces which both the Assyrian, prince of the war, and the rest of the small and neighboring enemies were bringing along, that they would win an undoubted victory—men who indeed know the deep counsel of our champion. For when, he says, your whole multitude shall have come together to the valley of Josaphat, that is, to the siege of Jerusalem, with proud and savage spirit, then a just destruction shall turn back upon you. And because you have thus directed insults against me, just as you were wont to hurl weapons at those who met you: from thence you shall tremble, that is, you shall experience destruction, from a quarter whence you could by no means at all have suspected it.

That is, no battle lines will labor to advance standards against you, nor will any shout of combatants resound; but all of you, in one night, when the Angel strikes, shall fall; and as though incapable of a great contest, with a certain contempt and derision, the night's rest, before pleasant, shall betray you, deceived, to an eternal sleep.

On verses 13-16: Peoples, peoples in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their brightness. And the Lord shall roar from Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall be moved. And the Lord is the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. Rightly, he says, is the valley of Josaphat called the valley of decision: for, as the enemies supposed, there was to be the future cutting down of the Jews. But because a profane hope forsook them, and the sentence of vengeance was directed against them themselves, this valley of decision shall be named—but of Assyria; to which, when the hostile forces had first gathered, such anxiety and terror invaded those shut up in Jerusalem that even the great stars gave them no light.

But when the Almighty champion undertook the work of avenging, those darknesses which the anguish of soul had created fell upon the minds and eyes of the barbarians: and our God leapt forth to avenge with such majesty that he seemed to utter not only a shout like that of warring commanders, but also certain roarings and rumblings. The virtue and greatness of which, indeed, neither the hearts of men, nor even the elements themselves, could express. For he says: The Lord shall roar from Sion, and give forth his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall be shaken. And the Lord is the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Jerusalem. This reversal, then, as we have said, will come to pass: that the darkness which the nation of the Jews had first felt settling, not upon the stars, but upon the hearts of those who feared, the crowd of enemies should afterward suffer in such a way that even the stars would seem to grow black, and the elements to totter.

To the children of Israel, then, strength shall come, and they shall know, taught by the dangers of events, that their God is the Lord of the whole earth, who yet deigns, out of exceeding clemency, to dwell on Mount Sion.

On these verses: And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall no more pass through it. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk, and waters shall flow through all the rivers of Judah. The face, he says, of the whole region shall be changed from sad to joyful. And since it is the peculiar mark of our nation that not only the Temple, but the whole circuit of the city's walls, should be called holy, the admiration of prosperity will make it so reverend that no profane person shall be believed able to approach it. And such abundance shall follow upon that sweet liberty, that honey seems to flow not only from beehives or trees, but from the very mountains themselves, and every torrent shall seem to be turned into the grace of fountain-streams, so that they never lose, that is, their continual abundance of flowing.

This new prosperity of the streams, he says, they shall obtain from that fountain which bursts forth from the inmost recesses of the house of God. All these things, to be sure, are said either for the sake of exaggeration, or because the peoples, rejoicing at the recovery of their salvation, undergo such feelings that, just as above, when in sadness and set in the last extremity, the stars seemed to be darkened and the elements to tremble; so again, in the outpouring of joy, milk seems to those overjoyed to flow from the rocks, honey from the mountains, torrents to be swelled with springs, and not only the meadows but even the rocks to bloom with various flowers: a fountain too is said to go forth from the house of God, which waters the torrent of thorns, that is, which makes places that were occupied by briers fit for cultivation, by continually supplying the encouragement of irrigation.

This context now begins to embrace, in proclaiming the happiness of Jerusalem, also the mysteries of the Church, which has endured the assault of the adversary power, and likewise of the Jews and the Gentiles, but with all these vanishing to nothing like water, has grown strong in a wondrous manner, and has advanced, its way widened to the ends of the earth, and, the profanity of idols overwhelmed, has grown strong, and has taken its seat upon a certain throne of received dominion, in the august dignity thereof: and as far as concerns the rules of its institution, it is so fenced about with the sanctity of its precepts, that no one who is a stranger, that is, profane and criminal, may pass through it. And why not! Since Christ delivered himself up for her, that he might present to himself a church not having spot or wrinkle, but that should stand holy and immaculate.

This virgin, then, consecrated to the fellowship of the eternal King, just as in the present life she is set apart from the wicked by the discipline of the virtues, so in the age to come she is likewise set apart by the happiness of the rewards, so that no one may rest in those tabernacles except one who enters without stain and works righteousness. Whoever, then, shall have attained to the eternal citizenship of that happiness, shall be so inebriated with the abundance of the house of God, that he shall be given to drink as it were from a torrent of holy delight, and shall feel that sorrow and grief have alike fled away. And this blessedness, just as it shall be conferred in its fullness at the time of the resurrection, so also in this present life the Apostles and their disciples claimed for themselves the greatest part of it. For indeed, scourged by persecutors, they rejoiced, because they had been counted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Christ.

From these lofty mountains of saving doctrines, then, we see that honey has flowed. For, as the prophet witnesses, sweet to the palates of the pious are the words of God, above the sweetness of honey and the honeycomb. From the hearts of the Apostles, I say, life-giving streams flowed forth for the world, and from the thorn-brakes into which they had fallen, they rendered fields painted with flowers and heavy with fruits. And why not? Since they received abundance from that fountain, of which whoever drank was thirsty no more, but rivers of living water flowed from his belly. Through these increases of gifts, then, conspicuous unto the height of happiness, he promises the sweetness of vengeance. On verse 19: Egypt, he says, shall be a desolation, and Idumea a desert of perdition, because they have dealt wickedly against the children of Judah, and have shed innocent blood in their land. He has concluded the prophet's discourse with the prophecy proper to his own time.

And just as above he announced to the Tyrians and Sidonians the requital of calamity, so now he threatens the Egyptians and the Idumeans for the same crimes. This indeed we shall be able to transfer to the business of the Church by this reasoning, if we name the Idumeans and Egyptians as cruel and darkened souls. On these verses: And Judah shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. And I will cleanse their blood which I had not cleansed, and the Lord will dwell in Sion. The Assyrians, he says, and the other peoples who had joined arms with them, having been destroyed by a wondrous vengeance, the inhabitants of Sion shall be increased in all their hopes and deeds, and shall take up the care of religion, and shall become conspicuous through me as their protector. This we read to have been in part fulfilled under Hezekiah, so we also proclaim it to have been fulfilled more abundantly under the Mediator of God and men.

For he died on account of our sins, and rose again on account of our justification, that, being justified by faith, we might have peace with the Lord: who promised that he would dwell in the midst of the city of Sion, saying, "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world".

He indicated that he had always been engaged in tending flocks at Tekoa. Tekoa, moreover, is said to be a small village, in which a multitude of shepherds dwells, separated by seven miles from the city of Bethlehem, beyond which a vast wilderness stretches all the way to the Ocean. Therefore, following after uncultivated places among the shepherds, but suitable for flocks, he thereby commends himself as having been so brought up, lest, on the occasion of his new office, he might seem to be puffed up, and to think anything too highly of himself.

This intention of a modest account he also explained further in the course of the work, saying: "I was not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I was a herdsman plucking wild figs; and the Lord took me and sent me to prophesy." This, moreover, is the virtue of modesty, which the Teacher of the Gentiles also displayed, when he says: "Lest I should be exalted by the greatness of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in weakness". It was clear, then, to the eyes of the prophet that that shaking of the lands was of force to signify the overturning of empire; and he calls this the roaring of the Lord in his wrath.

On verse 2: And from Jerusalem, he says, he shall give his voice. Doubtless this voice was one that raged forth in accordance with his wrath, not with his nature. Therefore the trembling of the world proclaims the eternal judge, whose violence was so great that immediately the greenness of the grasses perished, and food was withdrawn not only from men but also from flocks: for he named the fair and joyful pastures of the shepherds, and he intended the drying up of the summit of Carmel to bear the same signification. For shepherds are accustomed to seek their summer pastures especially on the summits of hills: and by declaring that all these things were to be dried up by that shaking of the lands, it also seems that something occurred according to natural reasoning as well. For many who have been curious in matters of this kind suppose that they can prove that drought is caused by earthquakes, and they try to prove this by examples and to persuade by arguments.

It is not necessary, however, for me now to rehearse these things to you, but I have briefly noted this, that the disturbance, scarcely begun, brought a double plague. Whether the great shaking created the drought, as it were by disturbing the veins of the springs, this looks to the power of the Creator, whom the elements obey at his nod; or whether a prior failure of moisture first made the earth dry and afterward also made it tremble, and so, the pastures perishing, the hardships of drought became evident: nonetheless it shows the same power of the Judge, who, just as by his goodness he sustains what he has created, so also, when it is necessary, disturbs the same by his indignation.

We might, however, by tropology, suppose that by the name of "shepherds" are indicated the chiefs and kings of the various nations, and that the summit of Carmel signifies that power which they possessed while they lived prosperously, especially since the speech of this prophet is directed to various nations as well; but the former explanation is both simpler and more suited to the histories, if it is said that different kinds of afflictions pressed upon the profane. But let us now see what the roaring avenger exclaims.

Verses –.—For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away from him, because they have threshed Gilead with iron threshing-sledges. And I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the houses of Ben-hadad. And I will break the bar of Damascus, and destroy the inhabitant from the plain of the idol, and him that holds the sceptre from the house of pleasure and luxury, and the people of Syria shall be carried away to Cyrene, says the Lord. We know, says the Apostle, that whatsoever things the law says, it speaks to them who are under the law.

Since, therefore, it was also the purpose of the prophets to reprove the sins of the people living under the law, and since blessed Amos was especially insisting upon the ten Tribes which are called Israel: yet our God, by the plan of a manifold dispensation, also brought in mention of other nations, whom he chastises by the reasoning of just judgment; just as also the people of the Jews, who out of this were quite arrogant beyond their merits of life, because they behaved as set apart from the rest. For when they hear that even the neighboring nations are called to judgment no less readily than their own Tribes, they surely understand that the Lord is the one Creator of all nations.

In this very fact, then, that the grief of the Israelites is avenged upon the neighboring nations, their pride is at once brought down, so that they may perceive at last that he is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles: since the zeal of no people is stripped of the due recompenses either of consolation or of vengeance. Finally, he shows how much readier he is to spare, since he rises to anger with such difficulty, that never does one fault or another move him, unless some three or four have come together. Yet this number is taught to be assumed for an infinite quantity: not that there are truly four crimes, but that it signifies many. He also signifies that he has already a disposition toward forgiving even in regard to other nations, when he excuses his own commotion by the likeness of another's iniquity. For three transgressions of Damascus, he says, and for four, I will not turn away from him, because they have threshed Gilead with iron threshing-sledges.

He says: justice, co-eternal with my throne, has acted, that I should at last assume the office of judging, and that I should thoroughly teach, with horror, both the manifold and the shameless cruelty, when the state of the guilty has been turned to sorrow. For not once nor twice, but very often, has the people of Damascus laid waste the fields of Israel. And Galaad they crushed with iron wagons and threshing-sledges to such a degree that they thought it a pleasing spectacle that the limbs of the inhabitants should be threshed everywhere in the fields, like ears of grain and stalks.

Since therefore I could not, nor ought to, endure this ferocity so long unpunished, I will send fire into the house of Hazael king of Damascus, and it shall devour the houses of Ben-hadad, who succeeded his father Hazael in rule: and I will break the bar of Damascus, and I will destroy the inhabitant from the plains of the idol, and him that holds the sceptre from the house of pleasure, that is, the profane inhabitants of the places, or all the chief men, or the nobles, who spent all their time in pleasures, I will involve in the evils of captivity. And lest they be ignorant of that captivity, or presume upon hope of return, when they have seen their houses fallen into ashes, they themselves shall be led away to the fields of Cyrene. Now in the book of Kings we read that these kings whom the prophet mentions, that is, Hazael and Ben-hadad, harassed the ten Tribes with frequent incursions, and brought them to the utmost of miseries.

Therefore, lest that victory should seem to have happened fortunately for the Syrians, he makes that the cause of the calamity and punishments which is here described. But let us now proceed to what remains.

Verses –.—Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away from him; because he carried away a perfect captivity, to shut it up in Idumea. And I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour its palaces, and I will destroy the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holds the sceptre from Ashkelon: and I will turn my hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord. In the same order of narration which he had also observed above against Damascus, he now enumerates the crimes and punishments of the city of Gaza as well: and he assumes, as it were, the manner of one inquiring whether he ought to maintain so long a patience toward men so given over to crimes, that they thought they had done nothing cruel unless they had doubled it three or four times, and had shown a marvelous ambition in transgressing: and were nourished not only by their own crimes, but also by those of others.

For indeed they took care that the Idumeans, that is, the descendants of Esau, whom the history reveals to have been the brother of blessed Jacob, should exact punishment upon the people of the Jews. Those, then, says the prophet, who by parricidal hatred, though joined by blood, were at variance with us, used the aid of the men of Gaza, nor did that savage nation shed my blood for its own gain, but by the hatreds of others: raging against me as much as would suffice a parricide. He shows, moreover, how he will erase this profession of malice: And I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour its palaces, and I will destroy the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holds the sceptre from Ashkelon: and I will turn my hand against Ekron, and the remnants of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord.

Through the occasion of one city, he ran through the names of other towns as well, concerning which we read frequently in the history of Kings, that they had almost continual conflicts with the nation of the Jews. These are also they who, having slain the army of the Jews, carried off the Ark of the Covenant as though captured, to the temple of the idol called Dagon. Yet after its power was shown, both by the shattering of the statue of Dagon and by the calamity that followed upon the people, when they returned it with due honors, they did not indeed take up the worship of God because of such miracles, but persisted in their own ways, customs, and rites.

Those, therefore, raging with continual hatreds against the people of God, whenever they could not wage war in their own name, mingled forces and arms with greater enemies; as especially at that time when the Assyrians invaded the borders of the Jews, the prophet of whom we are speaking complains that he was worn down by them, and shows that all the nations by which the Jews were surrounded labored, as if in rival zeal, for their destruction. Since, therefore, in the time of their adversity you also added heaps of evils, and their misery aroused in you no nearer feeling, that is, of mercy, but rather of savagery, you shall know the magnitude of your crime—since you would not by reason—at least by the vengeance now impending: for the fire of conquest, once let loose, shall devour not only the roofs but also the groves, that is, consuming ornaments together with monuments.

And thus it shall destroy your inhabitants by utter slaughter, so that not even among the nobles holding the sceptre—those who were truly either sustained by power, or conspicuous for the delights and pleasure of this life, so much so that they could even be called kings—no exception shall be found: but I will so extend my hand of adversity over all, that even the remnants of the Philistines shall be consumed, and one devastation shall rage from the highest to the lowest. This is also what the preceding prophet signified, accusing Tyre and Sidon and all the borders of the Philistines, because they had taken away silver and gold, and all things that were precious, from the territories of Israel: and had sold the sons of the people, born free, to Greek and Barbarian merchants, so that, carried far away from their fatherland, they might suffer exile and servitude at once.

Verses –.—Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not turn away from him, because they shut up a perfect captivity in Idumea, and did not remember the covenant of brothers. And I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it shall devour its palaces. He accuses Tyre of that same crime which he had lately laid against Gaza, namely, that it hastened to shut up in Idumea not some small portion, but a perfect captivity, so that it might satisfy the Idumean nation, out of hatred toward their brother, with the perils of the Jews.

Vengeance will therefore come, which will both match the form of your crime and exceed it: for you, as it were, kindled a burning envy for the destruction of your brothers through your own assistance, and you did not remember—that is, you utterly refused to consider—that covenant which nature herself established between brothers, whose praise it would not be so great to love one another, as it would be a crime to hate one another: but you stirred to strife, and even to battles, those who were, as it were, utter strangers, unknown to you either by speech or by acquaintance. Consequently, then, burning vengeance shall seize you, and the immense pleasures in which you had gloried in fame shall be changed into horrible squalor: and it shall so apply devastation, that both the foundations and the summits of the lofty tower and wall shall be reduced to ashes.

Verses –.—Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away from him, because he pursued his brother with the sword, and violated his mercy, and kept his fury still, and preserved his indignation forever. I will send a fire upon Teman, and it shall devour the palaces of Bozrah. He follows the order of the discourse he has instituted, and addresses various nations under reproach, which he knew to be joined to the Jews as much by their crimes as by their borders. In due order he placed the Idumeans after Tyre, because they too burned with a parricidal impiety against the Jews.

What he had therefore denounced as deserving punishment in the Tyrians—namely, that they had aided the raging Idumeans even with counsel, that they might the more easily feast upon their brothers' miseries—he now, in consequence, addresses to the sons of Esau themselves for these same crimes, and destines them to vengeance: lest, having denounced to their allies the penalties owed for their guilt, he should seem to have spared those who were the very authors of the crime. He says, therefore, that this people sinned with a parricidal mind not once but often, and that if indeed the guilt deserved pardon, the deadly persistence would nonetheless demand vengeance. For pursuing his brother not with strife, but with the sword, he forgot the mercy or love which kinship demanded. And not content to have raged forth in a single burst of indignation, he says, he spent a long time on the crime. He added great weight to the accusation by saying: And he kept his fury still, and preserved his indignation forever.

For not only did he depart from the ways of brothers by pursuing his brother in battles, but he did not even keep to the custom of those whom he incites with the torches of indignation to bloody contests. For he raged as though he would soon cease; he persisted in hatred as though moved rather by justice than by fury. Justly, therefore, he shall suffer a fire that will linger upon him even to the consummation: so that both cities and strongholds, just as they had become foul with the same crimes, may likewise be worn away by the same calamities. By many names, that is, Edom and Teman and Bozrah, he indicates one people, namely that of Esau, who had Bozrah as the name of their metropolis city. He says, then, that these shall be conquered both by battle and by siege, and shall suffer savage things at the will of their conquerors, and shall perish by slaughters and burnings—all of which are taught to have been brought about partly by the Chaldeans, partly by the Maccabees.

On verses 13-15: Thus says the Lord: For three crimes of the sons of Ammon, and for four I will not turn away from it, because they cut open the pregnant women of Gilead, in order to enlarge their border. And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour its houses amid shouting in the day of battle, and amid whirlwind in the day of commotion. And Melchom shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, says the Lord. Neither are these peoples, namely Ammon and Moab, sprung from the stock of Lot, freed from the parricidal envy against the Israelites: thus indeed they are exposed as neighbors, who nevertheless, not enduring their former glory, let slip no occasion of harming Gilead.

In short, the region which the two and a half Tribes had received beyond the Jordan, as Scripture relates, the Ammonites, being neighbors, hastened to invade, and did not abstain, he says, from the slaughter of pregnant women, desiring, that is, to kill the very offspring of the Jews, so that, the inhabitant being destroyed, the whole region of the Gileadites might be joined to their own borders. I will therefore repay, he says, to this people also what it deserves; and I will cause the buildings of Rabbah, which was the metropolis, to grow old under hostile fire. By which whirlwind of war they shall indeed be so terror-struck that they shall seem even to die beforehand: and not only its princes, but even Melchom, that is, the idol by whose divinity they believed themselves fortified, shall be carried off into the mockery of captivity.

On verses 1-3: Thus says the Lord: For three crimes of Moab, and for four I will not turn away from it: because it burned the bones of the king of Idumea even to ashes. And I will send fire into Moab, and it shall devour the houses of Kirioth, and Moab shall die amid noise and the sound of the trumpet. And I will destroy the judge from its midst, and I will kill all its princes with him, says the Lord. It is to be noted that, having imputed to all the nations he enumerated the insults and dangers which they had heaped upon Israel, he now charges the people of the Moabites with having been savage against the king of Idumea; and he alleges that they were so cruel that, not content to wage war with him living, they showed their hatred even about his funeral.

By which certainly the arrogance also of the Jews, who believed that they alone belonged to the Lord, was checked; and to the Gentiles either a comfort of hope or a light of understanding was set forth: that they might perceive that they stand under the one providence and government of their Creator, who would avenge injuries not of the Jews alone, but of other nations as well.

On verses 4-5: Thus says the Lord: For three crimes of Judah, and for four I will not turn away from it, because it has cast away the law of the Lord, and has not kept his commandments. For their idols deceived them, after which their fathers went. And I will send fire into Judah, and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem. Having laid to the charge of various nations their savage crimes, he comes to Judah, and charges it with the crime of a dissembled religion, declaring, in the same scheme of deliberation with which he had begun, the necessary conversion, namely that they were about to undergo sorrows in place of joys, who had obstinately pursued all things base and profane.

We ought not, however, to think that he judged those peoples, whose crimes he had just run through, to be praiseworthy in the matter of religion, concerning which he thought nothing needed to be charged against them; but since their profanity was already confessed a thousand times over, in that they had always been given over to the worship of idols, and could have no fitting judgment about the piety of rites, he by no means charges them with the crime of dissembled religion, but rather with those wounds of morals which even persons placed outside the true religion were able to discern and avoid. But to Judah he first objects that which was more horrible than the rest of their crimes, and from which stock other sins deservedly sprouted as well. For they cast away, he says, the law of the Lord, by which alone they were conspicuous in the whole world; and not content to have cast it away, they passed over even to the worship of idols.

They shall receive, therefore, the wages which they deserve, namely that hostile fire shall consume Judah and Jerusalem, which was fulfilled when the Babylonian conquered.

On verse 6: Thus says the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four I will not turn away from it, because they sold the just man and the poor for silver, for a pair of shoes. He accuses the ten Tribes, which he calls Jerusalem, not as Judah, but as the other nations, of crimes of morals: so as to show that they had clung to profanity in such a way that they would neither blush nor fear to be accused on this score. He accuses, then, the wounds of morals, not because they were graver than those of the rites, but either because they were plainly seen as the fruits of a foul religion, or because in that portion of deeds also they were shown to be more wicked than the other Gentiles.

No longer, then, he says, shall our censure suffer that it remain in that state in which, shameless, it breathes toward nothing better; but a change from prosperous to adverse things shall come upon them, so that what they refused to learn when warned, they may begin to know when condemned: namely, that I take care of the poor, and that those who are destitute of the riches of this age are not deprived of the defense of my providence. Let concern for uprightness alone flourish among them, and that very lowliness (by which they were humbler than others) shall render them accepted and dear to me.

But I said this because the people of Israel neglected to have regard for the just and the poor, as one relying upon a double claim upon me: but, always hostile to my judgments, it trampled the poor, and valued the vile ornaments of the world above the shoes on their feet, that is, sinning with such great success either in offices or in business, that not only were they enticed by frequent small gains, but often were nourished even by the gratuitous sufferings of the just, thinking it a certain pleasure if they trod underfoot the very heads of men humble in virtue—that is, those who avoid the evil of pride by the sanctity of innocence—mixed with dust.

But what he says, "they turn aside the way of the humble," can be taken in two ways: either they turn away from it, and follow a far different path of life, or certainly in judgments they stain with fraud the just cause of the needy: such as that in the Psalm: "If thou sawest a thief, thou didst run with him, and with adulterers thou didst cast in thy lot. Sitting, thou didst speak against thy brother, and against the son of thy mother thou didst craftily lay a stumbling block". But the guilt of those who transgress is aggravated in this sense, because, pursuing deliberately what was deadly, they are shown not only to neglect but even to hate justice. The prophet proceeds to recount various crimes; for after injustice and pride, sins of lust follow. A son, he says, and his father went in to the same maiden, that they might profane my holy name. He shows to what heights of accumulation the habit of transgressors proceeds.

First, he says, you denied justice to your citizens in judgments, and compassion in calamities; it followed at once that not even the laws of nature itself stood firm among you, but passing from crimes to incests, sons rushed into harlots along with their fathers, so that they showed no reverence, as before to citizens, so afterward not even to their parents. By which crime of yours indeed my holy name also was profaned, the Gentiles conversing among themselves, saying: What sort of God is that, whose people, though called peculiar, appears so deformed?

On this verse: And upon garments taken in pledge they lay down beside every altar, and they drank the wine of the condemned in the house of their God. It was indeed a natural consequence that worshippers of idols should be involved in manifold foulness: yet the prophet, in all the things he charges, is careful to express this, that they resisted the divine precepts as if by set purpose, tearing apart through this every kind of commandment. Therefore, enumerating everything that is forbidden in the law, he declares that they even lay down upon garments taken in pledge. He carefully adds, moreover, "beside every altar," because their impiety had multiplied their altars. And so they drank the wine of the condemned, that is, they feasted in the temples on that money which they had received from the prices of the innocent, namely those of whom he said a little before that they sold the just man and the poor for silver, for a pair of shoes.

On verse 9: Yet I destroyed the Amorite before their face, whose height was the height of cedars, and he was strong as an oak; and I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. I am he who made you go up from the land of Egypt, and led you through the desert forty years, that you might possess the land of the Amorite. He keeps to his custom, that in order to aggravate the crime of the ungrateful, he first recalls his benefits. And so, after he had run through the depraved and profane pursuits to which they were given, he introduced also the mention of good things, of which forgetfulness had seized them. As if he said: I have been sufficiently deceived, who expelled ancient nations, superior in strength and power, so that a dwelling might be prepared for these, when these consider it a glorious contest if they emulate and surpass their crimes.

I destroyed the Amorite, whose height was likewise as the cedar, and he himself strong as an oak; I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. The forest of the nations, he says, already very strong through long age, threatening thus with lofty tops, and resting upon deep roots, I diligently cut down, like a surveyor of camps, so that they might not feel even the light hindrances of settlement. Whatever strength there was, I cut off root and branch, so that the forests of the natives, which our sentence was removing, should by no means sprout up further, but a heaped-up security of joy might follow the granted victory. Why not? Since I had bestowed benefits upon them even in earlier times.

For when they were oppressed by Egyptian servitude, I raised them to the heights of liberty: and through pathless wildernesses for forty years I supplied food and drink sufficient by miracles, so that the possession of the happy lands, which had been decreed, might taste the sweeter for having come the later: and at the same time they might know that the life of man consists not in the fertility of trees, but in the governing providence of God. Nor, content with having bestowed only the instruments of the present life, did I make you conspicuous also through spiritual ornaments, raising up, he says, prophets from among your sons, and Nazarites from among your young men, that is, that you might be strong both in a peculiar devotion and in sacred illumination, of whom to some was given certain knowledge of things to come, to others a glorious struggle against sins.

Yet all these things you not only valued cheaply, but even rejected them with contempt, daring both to command the prophets that they should not prophesy, and to force wine upon the Nazarites, that they might be made drunk.

On verses 13-16: Behold, I will creak beneath you as a wagon laden with hay creaks. And flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not retain his strength, and the mighty man shall not save his life; and he who holds the bow shall not stand, and he who is swift of foot shall not be delivered, and the rider of the horse shall not save his life; and the stout of heart among the mighty shall flee naked in that day, says the Lord. It is customary with the sacred Scriptures to make use of images even from small matters, taken perhaps by chance, for the purpose of the proof they wish, but in such a way that the marrow of mystical meanings resides in them. Hence now, because the just Judge had long borne with the sinning people, he declared himself loaded like a wagon, but one to which the burden of a vile material had fallen.

What he says, then, "I will creak beneath you as a wagon laden with hay," he did not wish to be understood as though a wagon full of hay were seen to creak in one way, and one full of silver in another; but because he was applying to himself the likeness of a creaking wagon, he mingled the senses with art, as if he said: if a laden wagon had any faculty of discerning, it would without doubt creak more indignantly if it carried vile things than if it carried precious ones. So then, as the Apostle teaches, upon the foundation of religion, according to the diversity of merits, some heap up gold, silver, and precious stones, others hay, wood, stubble: deservedly our God declares that he experiences a greater burden in bearing with the sins of those in whom he can find nothing of precious pursuits, but who have all come to the vile hay which is easily consumed by fires.

But when I shall have creaked, that is, roared, immediately either your arrogance or your confidence shall perish. For swiftness shall carry no one away from destruction, strength shall not protect the fighter, nor finally shall the ranks of footmen, nor the companies of horsemen, delay the divine sentence: but those who were famous in the art of war shall wish, having lost the coverings of their sides, to use even naked hiding-places to preserve their life. All these evils we prove to have come from hostile victory, more by the disasters of years than by the records of annals. In this place, indeed, the Jews follow a certain opinion, namely that the persons of the different leaders were signified by different equipment: which, as we do not deem of great weight, let us pass over to other matters.

On these verses: Hear the word which the Lord has spoken concerning you, sons of Israel, concerning all your kindred, saying: Only you have I known of all the kindreds of the earth, therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities.

Indeed, he says, in this you especially rejoice as a mark of distinction, that to no nation in the whole world but to you alone have I, the creator of the world, made myself known: and although I formed all the nations with the same loving-kindness as you, yet I chose that I alone should be called and be your God, and I went before all the duties of your devotion with gifts and miracles, consuming for your honor the mighty kingdoms both of the Egyptians and of the Palestinians, so that your glorious departure and your abundant possession might be proven to you: and not content merely to have driven off servitude and to have conferred joys, I added also the lights of spiritual doctrine, showing indeed by all these things that I had chosen you out of all the nations, whom also I would instruct with sacred teachings, so that they who had received many things without merit might learn how they might also merit them.

But this liberality has not rendered me a more negligent judge of your conduct; rather I chastise your misdeeds the more for this reason, that I have preferred you before all nations. For it is consistent that things esteemed more precious should be more diligently examined. Therefore the honor granted to your nation, whether by my indulgence or by the virtues of your forefathers, allows no fault to be left unchastised: because a granted nobility grows cheap if it is not taken away from the unworthy. Thus acquired nobility commends not impunity for crimes, but the keeping of commandments. But let us see the rest.

On verses 3-8: Shall two walk together, unless they have agreed? Will a lion roar in the forest, unless he has prey? Will the lion's whelp utter his voice out of his den, unless he has taken something? Will a bird fall into a snare upon the earth, where there is no fowler? Shall the snare be taken up from the earth, before it has caught something? Shall a trumpet sound in a city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, which the Lord has not done? For the Lord God will do nothing, unless he has revealed his secret to his servants. The lion will roar, who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken, who will not prophesy? There have been various opinions of certain persons on this passage, but not sufficiently in harmony with the sense of the examples; which shall now be rendered by us under a necessary distinction.

For the discourse here undertaken touches upon diverse meanings: and the first verse indeed teaches that the rejection of the ungrateful nation was necessary, that is, just—the nation which he had pronounced to have been adopted as the one out of all the nations. She therefore, since with her zeal turned to perverse things she had kindled the wrath of the judge, being repudiated, though still subject to destructions, he explains why such a discord had come about. Shall two walk together, he says, unless they have agreed? That is, Why do you marvel that you have been stripped of the defense of my company, since the just union of travelers cannot long endure except between those in concord? You therefore, who have chosen to have a will contrary to my laws, confess that it followed that you should be stripped of the aid of my company, because you began to walk apart, not in my ways.

I will not be content to have merely deserted you, nor will our indignation be closed with this limit, but from being your protector I will be turned into a raging lion, whom, as he walks through vast lairs, it is not fickleness that stirs to roaring, but prey seen from afar; who, when he has indeed become victor of what he desired, and has brought back the destined quarry to his den, will force the very caves to resound with his roaring, and never being empty of this kind of act, unless he always possesses his prey does he cease to growl. By these two verses he expressed the manner of those about to take vengeance. There follows: Will a bird fall into a snare upon the earth, where there is no fowler? Having finished the part concerning the one taking vengeance, he addresses those on whom vengeance is taken, whom he judges to be crushed with such ease that they seem like a bird which has entered a snare.

Will a bird fall, he says, into a snare upon the earth, where there is no fowler? As if he said: Even if all the prophets together kept silence, the very voice of events could sufficiently instruct you, that these calamities by which you are terrified could not have come upon your ruin of their own accord or by any chance, unless the hand of the fowler, that is, of the judge, had brought them. Therefore, through the prophetic announcement, miseries are taught to be laid out like a snare, so that all who leave the path of justice fall into them. Let no intervening delay, then, generally console you. For the snare that has been set, that is, the sentences published by the mouth of the seers, will not be taken up, unless the hands of their captors have been filled. For the Lord God will do nothing, unless he has revealed his secret to his servants the prophets.

He has made known that your interpretation is in harmony throughout what has been added, namely the snare, and the trumpet, and the evil, that is, the affliction by which the cities of the sacrilegious were to perish, had it not been set in motion through divine indignation. Wherein he equally commends both the purpose of his mercy, by which he intended to spare, if it were permitted through them, and the reverence due to sacred examination: which he shows cannot be scorned with impunity; but he calls "evil," as often elsewhere, not sins, but torments, by which indeed the guilty are tormented, not the innocent stained. For the Lord will do nothing, unless he has revealed his secret to his servants the prophets.

Very fittingly is the dignity of the Saints commended right after the contempt of the guilty had been made public: lest this very fact, that they seemed to be reckoned as of little worth (since they were to be overwhelmed with so many punishments), should be attributed rather to the condition of nature than to the malice of a wicked way of life. It is added, by way of dispensation and usefully, in regard to what would serve for the honor of men, that is, of the prophets, who, though standing in the same nature as others, yet differed so much in the worth of their character, that of the former God could say: Nor will I be mindful of their names by my lips; but of these, indeed, that he will do nothing which he has not first made known to their knowledge.

Just as, therefore, no calamity, he says, will arise in these cities, except what divine sentence has aroused, so no chastisement will be brought upon you, except what has first been laid before the conscience of the saints. He then compressed what he had done into a shorter compass: The lion, he says, will roar, who will not fear? Since, therefore, he had above expressed his indignation under the image of a lion, he afterward resolves what he had signified, so as to say: The lion will roar, that is, God threatening, and proclaiming the punishment that is imminent—who among mortals is there whom fear does not dissolve? But now let us discern what is the kind and array of the threats. On these verses: Publish it in the houses of Azotus, and in the houses of the land of Egypt, and say: Gather yourselves together upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the many madnesses in the midst thereof, and those who suffer oppression in its inner chambers.

"They knew not how to do right," says the Lord, storing up iniquity and rapine in their houses. The divine discourse keeps to its own manner: so as to indicate with how great difficulty it is moved to take vengeance. So now also, after it had set forth the scheme of terror, it repeats and reconsiders its complaints, and orders that the neighboring peoples be summoned, that they may see with what filth that people of God has long been foul, and with what crimes it rages. Announce, he says, to the Philistines and the Egyptians, that they gather as if to a spectacle upon the mountains of Samaria, that is, that from their height they look down upon the valleys and cities, and consider that there is no crime, no wickedness that—I do not say merely accords with their pursuits—but stands in their very midst as if established in a seat.

For if you turn your eyes to those who are oppressed by calumny, you would find the gates of the cities in which they used to judge, and the inner chambers, crowded, so that no other voice seems to be heard than that of the afflicted. For all who had undertaken the office of judging have fallen into such forgetfulness of what is right, whether through avarice or through pride, that they seem not only not to love, but not even to know, what is right. Let no one, then, hold my severity against me as an occasion for envy—I who have shown so long a patience toward my delinquent servants that even the censure of them came near to being forgotten. You, I say, nations whom I had crushed for the liberation and glory of these people, you, I say, I again summon, that by your own testimony both the greatness of my indulgence and the impiety of Ephraim may be uncovered.

On verse 11: Therefore thus says the Lord God: The land shall be afflicted, and shall be encompassed round about, and your strength shall be taken from you, and your houses shall be plundered. He has often, as we have said, complained of crimes and misdeeds, so that he might finally proclaim the sentence, and he answers, in the exposition, to that sense which he had set forth in the beginning: that is, for three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn him back. Since therefore, justice so demanding, a turning has been decreed for Israel and Judah, so that they should fall, that is, from joyful things into sorrows, yet not perish by utter destruction, hear in what manner the destroyer is about to rage.

On verse 12: As if a shepherd should rescue two legs, or a piece of an ear, out of the mouth of a lion, so shall the children of Israel be rescued that dwell in Samaria, in the corner of a bed, and in the couch of Damascus. Since our God chastised the Israelites with the purpose of correcting them, just as the prophets commended this same thing, so also he indicated it by the voice of the dispensations. For although their beloved profanity always made them hateful, yet the Almighty varied their condition: now indeed afflicting them with sad things, now comforting them with prosperous ones. The Syrian, therefore, who was nearer—that is, the inhabitant of Damascus—as the history of Kings relates, harassed the ten Tribes with frequent incursion: so that at one time the Samaritans came, through a long siege, to such want that mothers fed on the flesh of their children, and in the whole army scarcely ten horses could be found.

But when blessed Elisha had told King Joram that on the next day the greatest abundance of grain would be seen at the gates of Samaria, so great a change suddenly came about that, the besieging Syrians fleeing, not only did the Israelites escape, but they even received the rich spoils as if of a triumph. By this manner we often read that safety and joys came to them. Sparing, therefore, in avenging, and rich in showing mercy, is our God, who declares that although he has assumed the office of judge, he has not laid aside the office of shepherd. And besides, from the couch of Damascus, by whose ropes and fevers, as it were, they were held, and by whose very nearness they bore a very long-lasting sickness, he would deign to rescue their remnants: and just as from the jaws of lions—that is, of kings—to draw out the limbs of the people, which had been torn.

On these verses: Hear, and testify in the house of Jacob, says the Lord God of hosts. That in the day when I shall begin to visit the transgressions of Israel upon him, I will visit also upon the altars of Bethel: and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and shall fall to the ground. As far as concerns the context indeed of the reading, he promises a hostile devastation, and says that the horns of the altar, which Jeroboam had placed in Bethel, are to be broken off. For of the two calves, we read that he set one in Dan, the other in Bethel. Therefore the sense in the present passage is of this kind: that although I will not allow you to be destroyed by utter destruction, but am ready to draw out remnants of your people from captivity, and though the neighboring enemy, namely the ruler of Damascus, shall not consume you, yet I will not suffer what you are doing to pass unpunished.

It might, however, be said that under the name of Jacob, Judah was meant to be understood, were it not that the progress of the discourse rather signifies and expresses Israel, that is, the ten Tribes. Concerning this destruction of the altar, we also read in the books of Kings: that a prophet had already come to Jeroboam, who had fashioned the calves, as he was sacrificing, and had promised this under threat. Whom, when he had ordered to be seized with outstretched hand, he perceived the power of the seer, his hand immediately withering, and at once, broken into supplications, he indeed recovered the use of his hand: but he heard that Josiah would arise, who would avenge that sacrilege. Therefore what belongs to long ages—whether the chastisement of the people, or the final long captivity—are both indicated together in the present prophecy, though they are to be brought about at different times.

On verse 15: And I will smite, he says, the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and many houses shall be destroyed, says the Lord. Not attacking one single vice of the profane nation, he touches also on the sins of avarice and luxury, and therefore he complains that they built for themselves, as instruments of luxury, diverse dwellings suited to the pleasure of the diverse seasons of the year: while, being entangled in manifold guilt, they thought nothing at all of compunction or amendment, but, solicitous only for the pursuit of pleasure, having some houses for the heat, others to endure the cold, these too are to be taken away alike at the time of vengeance, and their various contrivances are to be burned up by the fire of the enemy.

On verses 1-3: Hear this word, ye fat cows, that are in the mountain of Samaria: which oppress the needy, and crush the poor: which say to your lords, Bring, and we will drink. The Lord God hath sworn by his holy one, that behold the days shall come upon you, when they shall lift you up on hooks, and your remnant in seething pots. And you shall go out through the breaches, one against another, and you shall be cast forth into Armon, saith the Lord. Although the profanity of the whole nation was to be reproved, yet because he directed his rebuke especially against the rich and wealthy, who used not one dwelling but banqueting-halls changed according to the season, and adorned them with the polish of ivory, he rightly assigns to them also the name of fat cows, because their voice was destined for lowing; and their belly was their god, and their glory was in their shame.

This too may fittingly be added, that they are said to be so named not only for the vices of their morals, but for the very kind of their impiety: so that those who had taken up calves to be worshipped should be marked by the name of cows. They are noted as fat, according to that which blessed David accuses: Their iniquity came forth as it were from fatness, they passed into the affection of the heart: they thought and spoke wickedness, they spoke iniquity on high. Therefore standing in the mountain of Samaria—that is, in the royal city, and swelling with courtly familiarity—you ground down the poor, that from their spoils you might seek the instruments of your luxury.

And as for what he says: which say to your lords, bring, and we will drink, it is to be understood thus: either that they themselves called the very idols their lords, from whom, that is, they earnestly prayed for abundance of goods, since they had placed all their happiness in untimely and lavish banquets; or certainly that lesser men, hiring themselves out for the crimes of their nobles, demanded this reward from those in whose gain they often sinned, that drink might not be lacking to them. But what do they obtain for this wantonness? The Lord, he says, hath sworn by his holy one, that is, he has decreed, in a holiness that knows no violation, the state of his judgment, because the time will come—nay, it now draws near—when your flesh shall be lifted up on hooks, and the remnants in seething pots. He transferred the likeness from cows, which are served to feasting barbarians or soldiers.

And since by their name he had marked their profane ones, he announces that they are to be subjected again to destruction. He set down here “hooks” for spits, that is, skewers, on which the flesh of cows is generally roasted by the heat of coals; but by “remnants,” understand either the entrails, or those portions which, being more minced, are cooked rather in pots than on spits. And since he had said that, forgetful of all honor and fear, they measured even the price of their crimes by the gluttony of the belly, he fittingly adds that they themselves, seized by the fire of captivity, are exposed to luxuriating and, as it were, devouring enemies. In the preceding verses he had completed the metaphor taken from cows and from the banquet; but in the last he returns to plain judgment, and says that they are to be dragged out through broken walls, which indicates the overthrow of the city.

And “one against another,” according to the Hebrew idiom, shows captives meeting one another, or following one another mutually, who are to be transported to the mountains of Armenia, the Assyrian conquering. But let us see the rest.

On verses 4-6: Come to Bethel, and act impiously, to Galgal, and multiply transgression; and bring your victims in the morning, your tithes on three days. And sacrifice praise of leavened bread, and proclaim free-will offerings, and announce it; for so you have willed it, O children of Israel, saith the Lord God. Whence I also have given you dullness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places; and you have not returned to me, saith the Lord. That this was the chief, indeed the sole cause of the calamities announced through the prophets as impending upon sinners, namely that fear might generate correction in them, the whole text of the reproof itself shows; and since through the shamelessness of transgressing they resisted this counsel of a judge more prone to indulgence, there seemed to exist a kind of contest between God and men.

But since it was not an equal struggle—he indeed decreeing, they in the meantime enduring what was bitter—he sometimes straightway addresses them under derision, reproaching them with the very contest they had chosen. Come, he says, to Bethel, and act impiously. In the imperative mood, but by irony and insult he declares the things by which he is offended, a figure which is also celebrated in the liberal arts. Therefore he insultingly casts it in the teeth of a profaned Israel that they should press on in the pursuits they have chosen, and not cease to frequent Bethel and Galgal, cities which even preceding prophets had shown to teem with idols, but heap up increase of transgressions: and let them offer morning victims, and devote themselves to the offering of victims, and place upon the altar leavened loaves, which (so to speak) were called of praise, or of free-will offering.

All this is to be understood thus, because they had handed over to idols the orders and rites of ceremonies which they had received from the sacred law, seeing that they had decreed the same to be venerated in place of God, but just as they impiously transferred these same observances to idols, so also they often varied them at their own pleasure. He reproaches them, accordingly, with both alike, that is, that they had either handed over the legal institutions to the idols to which they had defected, or had corrupted them at their own discretion: either of which would amount to the same impiety, whether truly transferring to impious shrines the observances which God had commanded to be shown to him, or, as it were out of the arrogance and mind of one correcting, changing something of what had been instituted. Finally, aggravating this crime of a proud mind, he says: For so you have willed it, O children of Israel, saith the Lord God.

Persist, then, he says, in the pursuits you have chosen, that fitting wages may accompany you, of which you have already tasted for the most part. For I have given you dullness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places; and you have not returned to me, saith the Lord. He placed want of bread after dullness of teeth for this reason, that the sense might be of this sort: that in forgetfulness of their function the teeth seemed brought low, and had grown unaccustomed to cut or grind food, and through a long interval of time suffered a certain numbness. But though so bitter a chastisement had struck you, you have not returned to me, saith the Lord. In this verse he indicated two things equally: both their obstinacy in transgressing, and his own kindness in counselling; for he had inflicted those very blows not to punish, but to correct.

But resisting this counsel unhappily, they entered, as we said above, into a kind of contest; and therefore let us hear what he adds. On verses 7-8: I also withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I rained upon one city, and upon another city I rained not: one part was rained upon, and the part upon which I rained not withered. And two or three cities came to one city, to drink water, and were not satisfied: and you did not return to me, saith the Lord. Having shown above that the abundance of crops was scattered by a sudden blight, and that since no amendment followed, he presented clearer testimonies of his indignation, and by the denial of rains stifled the germination at the first sprouting of the herbs, he consequently added that he had by no means withdrawn the comforts of rain from all in common, lest they should attribute what had happened rather to chance than to his indignation.

But that you might perceive, he says, that the drought came by judgment, I rained upon one city, and upon another city I rained not, that at the same time, O people, the comfort being denied to you, you might be stung by the neighboring example. So slight indeed was the rain that it did not even satisfy the thirst of those very places upon which it seemed to have been sprinkled. Yet you, who ran like cattle after the mere hope of rain, would not return to me through amendment of will: and thus it came to pass that fixed calamities befell you, and my dispensations were rendered most fruitless to me. On verse 9: I struck you with burning wind, and with mildew; the multitude of your gardens and your vineyards, your olive-yards and your fig-orchards the palmerworm devoured; and you did not return to me, saith the Lord.

This accumulation of your iniquities will be rightly reckoned, because though I have so often taken up the work of severity, yet I have advanced nothing toward your correction. Therefore I recount whatever hardships you have drawn instead of benefits, and confess that I seemed as it were forgetful of my kindness, while I strove to overcome your ruinous obstinacy in transgressing. Therefore I did not delay to double, nay even to multiply, the blows, and to men deprived of the support of crops I withdrew also the comforts of fruits and gardens: so that just as the long drought consumed the hope of harvest, so also either the pestilential blast or the frequent palmerworm consumed the good things of autumn and of winter: and you did not return to me, saith the Lord.

On verse 10: I sent death upon you in the way of Egypt, I slew your young men with the sword, even to the captivity of your horses: and I made the stench of your camps to go up into your nostrils; and you did not return to me, saith the Lord. His bringing in the mention of Egypt can be understood in two ways. For since that people, said to have numbered six hundred thousand, from twenty years old and upward, is taught to have perished in the wilderness, except Joshua and Caleb, God rightly here says that those whom he pronounces to be destroyed by utter slaughter perished after the manner of the Egyptian expedition. Or certainly, because when the Assyrians threatened, the Israelites, as blessed Hosea teaches, sought help from the Egyptians, and yet obtained no remedy: accordingly the prophetic word announces that death was sent upon them by the way of Egypt, through which indeed not allied arms but a more hostile enemy burst in upon them.

To this sense the words that follow agree better, namely, that he judges both the young men and the horses to have been ruined in the camps by siege, or diminished by captivity. But when, he says, the rot of the camps tortured you shut up within them, and you saw that the evils of captivity were straightway to be inflicted upon you, not even so did you return to me, saith the Lord. How then do you suppose I bear that the fruit of so many chastisements has perished for me through you.

On verse 11: I overthrew you, I say, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you became as a brand plucked out of the burning; and you did not return to me, saith the Lord. Who is wise, and understands these things? Then he shall understand the mercies of the Lord, which indeed he does not cease to commend in all his dispensations: whence he shows that even in the present passages, though the discourse proceeds with great compass of severity, mercies so abound and overflow that he teaches the plagues which he inflicted appeared to himself far more grievous than to those who suffered them. I overthrew you, he says, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. That this certainly did not happen to the Israelite peoples, the hope also of promised deliverance affirms: the sense accordingly is of this kind.

Since the calamities which I brought raged so greatly against your blood that the Sodomites themselves seem to me not to have suffered greater things: indeed, according to the measure of the close bond by which I had taken you to myself, this accumulation of hardships is to be equated to those conflagrations by which the vile multitude perished together with their roofs and lands. For although I granted you hope of recovering your liberty, yet you seem to me rather like some half-burnt brand drawn out of the fires, than one standing in flourishing firmness.

On verses 12-13: Wherefore I will do this to thee, Israel; but after I shall have done this to thee, prepare to meet thy God, Israel. For behold, he that formeth the mountains and createth the wind, and declareth unto man his eloquence, making the morning mist, and walking upon the high places of the earth: the Lord God of hosts is his name. And because, he says, thou hast determined to strive against my benevolence with shameless obstinacy, and dost impose upon me the necessity of exercising severity, I will do to thee what the very order of chastisements demands. For it is not fitting that thy impudence should seem to have had more strength than our censure, nor that it should cease, as if wearied, before either thy iniquity or thy life come to an end. As far as it concerns me, therefore, I will continue my purpose of healing: but it will rest with thee whether this manifold chastisement profit unto amendment, or rather unto vengeance.

Since therefore I have lately numbered those misfortunes—that is, the scarcity of crops and rains, but the abundance of locusts and caterpillars devouring whatever greenness had been left, the plague consuming the year's growth and ravaging bodies, and finally the evils of a hostile siege, turning the whole camp into corruption, and the sword raging both at home and abroad (which surely, he says, through compassionate mercy I have compared to that destruction by which Sodom perished: so that your remnants may seem, after the likeness of burnt brands, to be rendered by captivity)—because, I say, all these things were ineffectual for correction: this I will do to thee, still under the same tenor of purpose, that, impious destructiveness being driven away, thou mayest take up the disposition of amendment. And therefore, after thou shalt see brought upon thee what I denounce, gird thyself to meet thy Lord, made of better hope, and, struck by part of the sentence, neither despair of salvation nor fear to appear before the eyes of the Judge.

For thou hast to do with one who by no means desires the death of him that dieth, but who even succors the condemned, if he sees them repenting of their offenses. Some have thought that this passage, where he says, Wherefore I will do this to thee, should be understood as though it were purposely said in a concealed form of threat, so that whatever most dreadful thing the hearer could suspect, he might believe that also to have been promised. But it may be observed that the matter was not promised to those terrified by mere suspicions: rather, what he said he would do, he made public shortly after. For, after interposing matters bearing on the power of the Creator, it is subjoined, as it were, by way of repetition:

On verses 1-2: Hear ye this word, which I take up as a lament over you: The house of Israel is fallen, and shall no more rise again. The virgin of Israel is cast down upon her land, and there is none to raise her up. And so the order of meanings is subjoined, that in his accustomed manner our God should carefully explain the causes of the captivity brought in—which, indeed, he seems to have carried out as if unwillingly. But let us return to the order of the reading. After he said, therefore: This I will do to thee, Israel. But after I shall have done this to thee, prepare to meet thy God, Israel: For behold, he says, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man his eloquence, making the morning mist, and walking upon the high places of the earth, the Lord of hosts is his name.

In order to arouse reverence for the Judge in the hearts of the guilty, he inserts the works of the Creator: that the prudent hearer may either understand the disposition of the censor toward himself, or not doubt the effect of vengeance, seeing him threatening whom, by whose power the universe subsists. That is: O Israel, consider who it is that shall exact reckoning of thy deserts: he, surely, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made; he who by his command formed and distinguished the elements; he who gave to the stars to shine, to the valleys to lie low, to the plains to spread out, to the mountains to swell up; he who commanded the breathable air, by which the middle emptiness between heaven and earth is filled, now to thicken into cloud, now to move into winds: whose new works of providence are declared by the various offices of the elements; who, though so great in eminence of power, yet deigns to make known his eloquence, that is, his law, to man.

And among the miracles of his governance, whereby he causes mists to be exhaled from the earth, where the morning sun has breathed upon them, until by the lingering of that same vapor they are either compressed or altogether dried up; nay, when it is fitting, being condensed into clouds they are carried aloft, and, being rendered higher than all mountains, pour out over the lands beneath the waters of the rains they have conceived; and thus they leave impressed on themselves the traces of that governance—he, I say, the maker of the elements, whose name is the Lord of hosts, that is, whose power is such that the hosts of angels serve at his nod, and confess him as their king and creator: he, I say, contends with you with such kindness, as to announce beforehand the torments about to be brought upon you, if by any means, the disposition of repentance being aroused in your minds, even late amendment may withdraw the guilty from vengeance.

Which remedy, since ye corrupt it by obstinate wickedness, receive the voice of our lamentation, whose warnings ye have always rejected: the voice, I say, with which we accompany your last hour. She is fallen, she is fallen, she shall no more rise again. The virgin of Israel is cast down upon her land, there is none to raise her up. That is, that nation descending from the illustrious stock of Israel, and which either before deserved, or was wont, to be called a virgin (inasmuch as no profanity had violated her chastity, by which she had been taken into fellowship with her own ruler; or whose prosperity, flourishing in continual integrity, no captivity had seized)—she now, exposed to the trampling of the conqueror, endures reproaches together with torments.

Nor does she claim any consolation for the removal of calamity; but rather, in her own land, like a woman subjected to defilements, she has lain down, and, pressed down by miseries, has come to the tombs, nor is there one able to bring help and to raise up the fallen woman whom the censure of the Almighty has crushed. From that verse, then, in which he says, Forming the mountains and creating the wind, up to the present place, it may be understood as spoken in the person of the prophet, discoursing of course on the power of God.

But as to his saying that Israel has so fallen upon her own land that she shall in no wise rise again: since both the preceding and following sentences promise consolations for the eventual resolving of her miseries, and at the very time of that visitation threaten a diminution of the people rather than utter extermination, we must understand it thus: that either he, with the feeling of one mourning, estimated the perils inflicted more heavily, and so termed them utterly destroyed whom he saw for the greater part crushed; or certainly, in the persons of those whom captivity was consuming, he signified that they went to ruin, and that the nation of Israel could be raised up by no one.

On verse 3: For thus saith the Lord God: The city out of which went forth a thousand, there shall be left in it a hundred: and out of which went forth a hundred, there shall be left in it ten, in the house of Israel. That the miseries of the captivity did not fall suddenly, but that the people was chastised over many times while amendment was awaited, the history of the Kings makes plain: and therefore our God addresses them through the prophets with varied voice, now denouncing destruction, and saying that it is fixed, now promising prosperity, if they should amend. If, then, you press this together as if into one time, you might suspect some discrepancy in the sayings: but by distributing the sentences uttered over long periods, each to its fitting time, you will find their consistency holding in all: and, with the evils gradually increasing, the kingdom of the profane people diminished, until it came to the destruction of the final captivity.

In those cities and regions, accordingly, which were still being laid waste while the metropolis, that is, Samaria, as it were still stood, let us understand that a decimation of the people was made, so that, with the noble parts perishing, that which was the last part might remain. And since this decimation had been brought about to this end, that as it gave some over to just destruction, so it might amend others by the example of those who perished: forthwith the exhortation of the very Judge sounded forth.

On verses 4-6: For thus saith the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek ye me, and ye shall live. And seek not Bethel, and enter not into Galgal, and ye shall not pass over to Bersabee: for Galgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall become nothing. Seek the Lord, and live, lest the house of Joseph be burnt up like fire, and it devour, and there be none to quench Bethel. For that, he says, which you ought to have learned from the law and from piety, O Israel—namely, to cleave to your one Maker with the office of continual devotion, who would render you blessed when propitious, and most miserable when angry—dire perils have at last taught you: even now, then, take up the zeal of a penitent, and think upon the correction of your deeds, if you wish to live.

Seek me, then, whom you have forsaken in serving profanity: seek me, I say, and you will find me ready, and as soon as you begin to seek, you will find me meeting you; for everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, to him who knocks it shall be opened. Do not join dissimulation to our seeking by your sacrileges, lest you be exposed as more horrid by neglecting the remedies offered than by profaning the precepts that had been promulgated. Seek me, and ye shall live. Seek not Bethel and Galgal and Bersabee: these cities, as the history of the Kings relates, were given over both to the calves which Jeroboam had made, and to the remaining idols. The Lord, therefore, counseling, declares that they should cease to frequent those things which profanity had rendered abominable, lest they perish together with things destined likewise for destruction.

Seek ye, then, the Lord, for he does not wish the death of him that dies; and, seeking, return to him, and live, lest you begin to be consumed by fire sent upon the roofs of the profane. But let us look at the rest also.

On these verses: You who turn judgment into wormwood, and leave justice on the earth. Who makes Arcturus and Orion, and turns darkness into morning, and changes day into night: who calls the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth, the Lord is his name. In the same order as above, that he might set forth the power of the judge, he reminds them that the same one is the creator, showing his purpose—since he wished, as far as in him lay, to provide for all—he says: that his judgment, which would have been sweet to the innocent, these had made bitter as wormwood to themselves.

Therefore what he says, You who turn judgment into wormwood, we ought either to understand thus: that he laments that the divine judgment, which they had by their own merits compelled to become ruinous to themselves, they had turned into bitterness for themselves; or certainly that he says the very examination of human reason had been corrupted into bitterness: namely by preferring the worship of idols to the rites which they had received through Moses. There follows, And leave justice on the earth: which we might refer to the fault of their own choice, which had left the norm of judging as something to be trampled underfoot, were it not that in the following verses he shows what he calls justice. For he says, Who makes Arcturus and Orion, who turns darkness into morning.

Therefore he calls justice that very God of ours who is rightly named both power and wisdom: and complaining that he was left, that is, despised, by the profane, he enumerates his works, by which the world is governed: that he might indeed heap up the crimes of those who have not feared to offend the God of such majesty. But as to his having brought in those names of the stars which seem to have been imposed by the Gentiles (though other Interpreters have said merely "stars"), we might consequently understand that the prophet used the names commonly in use for the distinguishing of the stars, not for the confirmation of fables: according to that which the Apostle also did not disdain to adopt the sayings of the poets.

It is also to be noted that, wishing to embrace a description of the arrangement of the heavens, he expressed by the names of stars the four regions, which are also called Climates: that is, by Arcturus the North, and by Orion the South, which is opposite to it, establishing these; and by the alternation of day and night, signifying the rising and setting of the sun. Here, admiring beautifully the power of the maker, he says that he turns the very darkness into morning: for thus, when the globe of the sun has unfolded its circuits, it pours sudden splendor upon the lands, so that it seems not to have driven away the darkness it found, but rather to have changed it into light. Who calls the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth, the Lord is his name.

Most elegantly and knowingly, when speaking of the offices of the elements, pertaining to the creator's establishment and governance, he indeed said that he makes all things, whose power surely both formed and preserves those same orders: yet he shows that he especially uses the ministry of a certain star for the creation of crops: namely the Sun, which by its departure prepares night for us, and by its return, day.

Therefore, since the discourse had touched upon the description of natural things, he added also that either moisture exhaled from the earth, or streams drawn up from the gulfs of the sea, are carried aloft by the same vapor, and again, suspended from the clouds—which by their own weight are no longer able to rise to the heights of heaven—deposit their bitter saltiness through transfusion, and thus at last are returned to the thirsting earth: and so, for the nourishing of crops, an admirable abundance comes about through the mixture of contraries, namely of moisture and vapor: which business of such magnitude surely no one could accomplish, save he alone who by right of creation is shown to be Lord of the universe. But let us see the rest. On verse 9: Who smiles upon devastation over the robust, and brings depopulation upon the powerful.

To what purpose the preceding description of power was directed, he consequently disclosed: that is, so as to excite fear in the hearts of the hearers, and that they might understand how great a heap of calamities threatened those against whom the judge of such power was incensed. He, he says, who is the creator of all things, proceeds to exact the deserts of each; and although none can withstand his strength, yet he smiles at the torments of the guilty who seemed to themselves to be powerful, whom he will crush with such ease that he indicates his indignation rather by a smile than by an outcry. Why not, since all things are subject to his nod, and, according to the diversity of their merits, obtain either adversity or prosperity in obedience to his word? He smiles, then, at devastation upon those who seemed to themselves powerful, and were wont to say: We will magnify our tongue: our lips are our own: who is our Lord?

Against such, he says, who most profanely arrogate to themselves from prosperous strength, he, the eternal avenger, smiles at the torments of affliction, and declares his indignation by this kind of grimace, which is at variance with the occasion, by an unwonted usage. He calls the Israelites, accordingly, robust and powerful, either on account of the envy of their pride, or in memory of their ancient prosperity: whom he has already declared both to have been for the greater part consumed, and to be about to be carried off into imminent captivity. On these verses: They hated him that reproved in the gate, and abhorred him that spoke perfectly. Therefore, because you plundered the poor, and took from him a choice prey; you shall build houses of hewn stone, and shall not dwell in them: you shall plant most pleasant vineyards, and shall not drink the wine of them.

The arrangement of prophetic speech is observed, so that after punishments have been announced, the cause of that very severity is immediately subjoined, lest the Lord of such great goodness should seem to have acted from indignation rather than reason: and likewise, so as to show with what great kindness he cares for the poor, since he joins their insults and plunderings to the violation of religion. By which he proves it to be a consequence, that in profaned minds there is no civic care for justice, no feeling of humanity: but they leap upon their fellows as if driven by a wind of fury, and tear apart whatever poor they find with open ferocity. Whence also those who had fallen away in sacrilegious mind to the worship of idols abstained from absolutely no crimes, but were as pestilential to their companions and fellow citizens as they were ungrateful to the Lord whom they had turned away from.

But as to his saying that they pursued with hatred those who rebuked them in the gates, he shows the custom of Jewish institution, which had been so ordained that the arbiters of business should reside in the gates of the various cities: so that whoever had need of their examination should not labor under any inquiry, but should find, at the very entrance, those before whom he might make his case. We should not, however, think that this custom, which had been established by blessed Moses in the priestly commonwealth, remained in force among the Israelites, especially now living under the power of profane kings: but rather that he shows that they had violated civil laws along with the rites, and had put on hatred of the virtues together with their preachers; so that if anyone had wished to exhort them to correction and holiness, he would immediately perish, hatreds conspiring against him. He shows why they were opposed to the admonitions of the censors. You plundered, he says, the poor, and took from him a choice prey.

Therefore, that you might proceed without any hindrance, whether of fear or of shame, through the losses and insults of the poor, you were hostile to sober monitors. It is to be noted, however, that he says they took away a choice prey from the needy, whereas one of two things would more consistently be judged: either that they did not have great things to lose, whom he confesses to be poor, or that they should rightly be called wealthy, if the plunderer took precious things from them. It is to be understood, therefore, either that he called poor those whom their plunderings had reduced from wealthy to needy, or certainly, looking rather to the feeling of the possessors than to the extent of the losses, he said that even small things, yet precious to the poor by their very scantiness, had been carried off by atrocious greed.

As a testimony to this matter, let us recall at least one example: the vineyard of Naboth, a holy man, small indeed in extent, but most pleasing to its owner, and precious by its very charm, which the most foolish king Achab coveted: and when he had proposed its sale to its owner, Naboth answered that he could not disdain his paternal inheritance, nor did he wish, were it permitted, to be deprived of it. Then the king, spurred on by the urging of his most profane wife, added the crime of cruelty to his avarice, and, Naboth having been slain, seized the vineyard he had coveted. Thus, then, they took away with bloody daring the choice prey which their owners esteemed nothing more precious than; for which deeds let us hear what he announces to them. Because you despoiled the poor, you shall build houses of hewn stone, and shall not dwell in them. You shall plant most pleasant vineyards, and shall not drink the wine thereof. For I know your many crimes, and your mighty sins.

This indeed was the boldness of your plunderings, that you might have the instruments of luxury, and that you might cultivate your dwellings with great expense, as though they would serve both for fortification and for pleasure. But two things will befall you equally, that you shall indeed build, but not be able to dwell in them: and you shall be tormented as much by the labor of the work as by its loss, and shall feel accumulated grief in this, that you are cast out not of makeshift, but of elegant dwellings; nor indeed can you complain of the calamity, or hope for divine aid amid your groans, since a throng of guilt resists your prayer. Why not, since they see that they have committed things at once more atrocious against citizens and against neighbors? All these things, as history relates, the ten Samaritan tribes suffered, often from neighboring enemies, but chiefly from the Assyrians; Judah too, when the Babylonian laid waste, shared the same destructions.

Since, then, you have been, with the addition even of captivity, deprived of the most spacious and most ornate houses, and of fruitful vineyards planted by your own—what is more—labor, reckon this to the sins which you have committed in the greatest measure. On verse 13: Enemies of the just, taking a bribe, and oppressing the poor in the gate. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time, because it is an evil time. Through various figures he heaps up the state of the corrupted city. And as he said above, that they had spurned those who exhorted them to justice, indeed had even struck them down: so he consequently calls the same men enemies of the just.

This can indeed be understood in two ways: either "just" as a singular genitive, so that they are pronounced enemies of justice, that is: I accuse you not of neglecting justice, but of hating it: from which affection descends the deadly perversity of your pursuits, since, coupling shamelessness to iniquity, you do not even wish to hide what you do: but in the gate of the city, that is, in the places of judgments, with the people watching, you assess causes not by their merits, but for a price: and you assist the iniquity of the wealthy at the expense of the resources of the poor: or certainly it may be believed that "enemies of the just" is to be understood by the plural nominative, so that, having enumerated many great crimes, he adds, as if moved, that they were enemies of the just, that is, that they showed themselves adversaries of religion and of God as though it were a lawful war.

This is indeed a familiar mode of speech among the eloquent, who are accustomed to call armies "just," and provinces "just," that is, great. But let us see the rest. On verse 13: Therefore the prudent, he says, shall keep silence in that time, because the time is evil. He has changed the tense in inflection: for, enumerating either past or present deeds of the people, he would more consistently say, the prudent kept silence in that time, in place of which he says shall keep silence. Since, therefore, he had declared that they had undertaken a just, that is, a lawful war against honesty and religion: rightly, he says, the mouths of those who would call them back to justice fell silent, and every prudent man, with groaning and grief, held his peace, considering indeed that there remained no place for wholesome doctrine, and that he ought therefore to look to himself by keeping silent, since disputation no longer advanced anything.

These are the prudent men driven to public silence by horror, of whom he had said above: They hated him that reproved in the gate, and abhorred him that spoke perfectly. Since, therefore, the boldness of the profane populace has so conspired as to persecute, as though in declared combat, the truth and piety of doctrine, every prudent teacher will weep indeed, but will keep silent: seeing that, like deaf asps, they have stopped up their ears, lest anything of the healing charms should be able to penetrate to them. This indeed itself seems to raise a certain question, which must be cleared up by a brief exposition. For the prudence of a teacher who withdraws himself into safe silence is praised, if adversity should blow from the side of the hearers. And yet the teacher of the Gentiles commands, rebukes, entreats in season and out of season, and almost the whole of sacred Scripture commends that perseverance. A distinction, therefore, must be made, which can vindicate the harmony of the commands.

As long as the people, even though sinning much through negligence, nevertheless still stand under the profession of being taught, the lawful teacher ought by no means to fear the clandestine offenses of some; but rather should provide for all who come together to hear, by assiduity in teaching: since he has heard that the money entrusted to him is to be given to the bankers, and that another will come who will demand back both the principal and the interest. But if the change for the worse has become so great that, by the impiety of the people, they withdraw their necks from discipleship itself, and, enduring an itching of the ears, acquiesce only in silly fables: then plainly it is now necessary for teachers to be silent, saying with the prophet, I was dumb, and was humbled, and kept silence from good things, and my sorrow was renewed. On these verses: Seek good, and not evil, that you may live, and the Lord God of hosts will be with you, as you have said.

Hate evil, and love good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. These verses seem to be interposed in the person of the pitying prophet, admonishing the Israelites, even now set in the midst of their own destruction, to conspire together in vows and endeavors of correction, if perchance the God of hosts, whose clemency is as great as his power, might be softened by such amendments, and might refrain at least from destroying the remnants of the shattered nation. He then subjoins what has connection with the foregoing. On these verses: Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, the ruler: In all the streets there shall be wailing, and in all places that are without it shall be said, Alas, alas: and they shall call the farmer to mourning, and to lamentation those who know how to lament. And in all vineyards there shall be wailing, because I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord.

Those verses being set aside, which we said were introduced in the person of the pitying prophet, the order of the invective proceeds: so that after that which he said, Enemies of the just, taking bribes, and oppressing the poor in the gate; therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time, because the time is evil, this seems to be added in connection: Therefore thus says the Lord God, and the rest that follows: namely, that lamentations are to be heard in all the streets. And in all places, he says, that are without it shall be said, Alas, alas: because he had said that there would be lamentation in the streets, he adds that the places outside are to be mingled with the same wailing, so that he might not seem to threaten only the cities. Therefore it shall be said throughout the whole region, Alas, alas: and vineyards as well as fields and mountains shall resound with pitiable lamentations. Because I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord.

For a long time, he says, as though I were absent, and altogether not seeing what you were doing, you experienced nothing; for you thought nothing of amendment through such long delays. Now I, this avenger, will enter into your region, defiled with sacrilege, whom you shall no longer be able to mock. He says he will "pass through," so as to bring to mind that time when either Egypt or Sodom is recorded to have perished, consuming the firstborn of Egypt, or the dwellings of Sodom. In this manner, then, I will pass through, that is, to exact even the vengeance that deserts demand.

Whence also with the blessed Hosea, when he was discussing the mitigation of the sentence, he says: that God took up the notion of saying that for the forty years which they are recorded to have spent in the wilderness, they seem to have served not God but idols: whereas history records no such thing at all, but only that they cast the head of a calf while Moses delayed, which nevertheless they immediately broke in pieces at his command. They did not therefore offer the legal ceremonies to the stars or angels, whose rite and orders our author composed with his own mouth, and commanded that all things be offered to himself alone. According to the custom of the Scriptures, therefore, the discourse of the one rebuking has joined different times, yet alike, so as to show that in their present sacrileges they were imitating their profane forefathers, who, demanding wickedly that gods be made for them, fell in the vast wilderness.

What wonder, then, he says, if these also are driven out from their own borders beyond Damascus, that is, to perish in and beyond Babylon? As to his having placed "the star of your god"—in Hebrew it is said to have the name of a star, that is, of Lucifer, whom the Saracens are said to worship even to this day. Yet Scripture records nothing of the kind, namely at that time when the head of the idol was fashioned, surely in the likeness of the Egyptian bull, which they call Apis, because they had decreed it also to be subject to the stars. But we gather that, through imitation of the Egyptian superstition, other nations too composed such things, as if there were no profanity that they did not think fit to venerate and worship by the adoption of some one idol.

A connection is made in the sense, if, these things which were interposed being set aside, it refers back to what he had said, Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord, in this: that certain things which we read they offered to the Lord, they did not do out of will, but out of fear of punishment, and because of the slaughter of those who fell on account of idols. But the Lord regards not what is offered, but the will of those who offer. In short, wherever there was occasion, they always turned back in heart to Egypt, longing for the garlic and onions, the cucumbers and the meats of Egypt, and despising the Manna which was given from heaven.

That we may understand it thus, Stephen, the first Martyr of the Gospel, worthy of his name, says in the Acts, Did you offer to me victims and sacrifice in the desert: that is, my longsuffering and benevolence, which delays vengeance for long periods, your profanity so abuses, that you argue that that destruction will never come, which has not yet come, though it has often been promised: as if there were no examples at hand, by which you might recognize my custom, that to those indeed who are destined for destruction, a long time for repentance is granted. But, to pass over the rest, look at least at this: that when the people, having been led out of Egypt, had come to Mount Sinai, and, having stood amid miracles worthy of my powers, nevertheless turned back to the worship of idols which it had abandoned, it deserved to be destined for destruction.

Yet I, neither mollified by their sacrifices nor by their gifts, granted a space of forty years, nor did I promise that wrath would suddenly rage against the guilty. But I consumed the ranks gradually, already given over to the sentence, and so the length of the time granted did not frustrate the judgment that was announced, nor did the horror of the crime hasten the vengeance once kindled. Why, then, do you doubt that what you already see to have happened will happen again? That is: therefore it is announced to you that calamities are coming, and they are not swiftly inflicted, so that a space for amendment may be given, not so that the vengeance may vanish, which time will avail nothing to hinder. But you, since you shamelessly abuse the goodness of God, shall follow the end of those forefathers whom you have imitated in sacrileges: so that, just as their corpses fell in the vast wilderness, so you too, driven out from your ancestral borders, may die in a barbarian land.

On verse 1: Woe to you who are wealthy in Sion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria: the great men, heads of the peoples, entering pompously into the house of Israel. Scripture frequently commends that pride has always been hateful to God, since it was of such a nature as the beginning of sin that it changed angels into demons. Whence blessed David also anxiously prays that he may not lie under the trampling of the proud: for there, he says, all the workers of iniquity have fallen. Here, however, in his rebuke, he keeps the order of the prophets, so as to show that pride is, as it were, the fruit of impiety, a course which the Apostle's discourse also seems to follow: for when he said that they had served creatures, having abandoned the Creator, he then subjoined an enumeration of crimes and disgraceful deeds, pronouncing them to teem with wicked acts for this reason, that they had violated the laws of piety toward God.

Woe, therefore, he says, to you who are wealthy in Sion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria—not that we reckon the crimes of the poor more lightly, but that a greater odium of wickedness presses upon you whom greater opulence exalts. For the more conspicuous you are in honor and resources, the greater ought to have been your zeal for religion; but now you strive to be as rich in impiety as in money. Grave lamentations, therefore, shall seize upon you, because, according to the divine sentence, but a small measure of pity can be granted, while the powerful shall suffer torments powerfully. Amid such great miseries of the regions, which experience either the loss of their strength or the already-rushing calamities, you trust in the defenses and fortification of places: reckoning that you will be safe from the anger of the judge in Sion and Samaria. Woe to you who are wealthy in Sion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria: the great men, heads of the peoples, entering pompously into the house of Israel.

For never have you made public more than in the time of adversity how much ambition of luxury had filled you, you who, though the empire of your nation has already been for the greater part consumed, still, within besieged cities, swell with opulence and flow with luxury.

On verse 2: Pass over to Chalanne, and see, and go thence into Emath the great, and go down into Geth of the Philistines, and to all the best kingdoms of these, whether their border be wider than your border. He opportunely introduced mention of foreign nations, and by occasion of another discourse, showed that the Creator of things had allotted to others also regions to inhabit, and kingdoms in which to flourish: for those peoples, indeed, did not desire more, while these, however, are shown to be both ungrateful and profane, who had been so pestilent to cities that those whom they had before corrupted by their examples, they afterward trampled down with the arrogance of plunder. One must note the form of the divine judgment, in which the merits of those afflicting are not weighed according to the qualities of those afflicted (as if, should those who are trodden down not be guilty, the injury of those oppressing them would seem excusable), but they are accused as if they had violated the holy.

For they do not attack out of hatred for the malice of another, but by the impulse of their own iniquity, bearing the mind of robbers, not of censors—men whose iniquity is expressed all the more, in that the modesty and a certain probity of the profane and neighboring nations is set before them. Pass over, he says, into Chalanne, into Emath the great, into Geth of the Philistines, and diligently examine whether they have received wider lands than yours to inhabit—with which they are so content by lot that they seem to seek nothing else. This reproach, indeed, while it accuses them of cupidity, likewise wants explanation. For it seems inconsistent that, after he had charged them with the crime of opulence and luxury, he should bring forward as proof those who seem to inhabit shorter lands.

For it might be answered that these have more grounds for boasting, because they had gathered greater wealth from the taxes of the region allotted to them, and the comparison brought forward would retain no force for reproach, since this happened as the very consequence had required. What, then, is the meaning here, which the words do not fully express? Surely this: that it convicts the impious peoples of having had parricidal souls, which another prophet, that is, blessed Hosea, plainly shows, when he says: In the days of desolation he showed faith, the princes of Judah have become like those seizing the border—that is, when the ten tribes were transferred, the Assyrian conquering. The people of Judah, strangers to mercy and compunction, rejoiced that an enlargement of their borders had befallen them.

With this same view, therefore, the prophet now shows that the impious exulted not only in Judah, but also in Israel itself, which was the first to lie under captivity: because, the inhabitants and populace of the region having been consumed by various disaster, a wider possession accrued to these, as though they were to be freed within the walls of the cities. Yet this he charges more as a crime against the tribe of Judah, since indeed he names it in what follows. Deservedly, therefore, he condemned both their sacrifices and their gifts, the parsimony of neighboring nations even being praised in comparison. But let us look at the rest.

On verse 5-6: You who are set apart for the evil day, and draw near to the throne of iniquity. You who sleep on beds of ivory, and are wanton on your couches: who eat the lamb out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the herd. Who sing to the sound of the psaltery: they have thought, like David, that they possess instruments of song. Drinking wine in bowls, and anointed with the best ointment, and they were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Of those whom he had above called the great men, entering pompously into the house, glorying in their riches and banquets, and grinding down the heads of the humble, and rejoicing even at their brothers' captivity, he next runs through their feasts and delights. Woe, he says, to you who are set apart for the evil day, for whom, that is, the time of vengeance impends, to which you are so devoted that you seem chosen precisely for this.

But as to his saying, and draw near to the throne of iniquity, we ought to understand it thus, that this conjunction, which is set before, that is, "draw near," has the force of the causal conjunction, that is, "because"—so that the sense is: those set apart for the evil day who have drawn near to the throne of iniquity, namely, to be punished for this reason, because they exercised unjust judgments upon others; or else he calls it the throne of iniquity, at which injustice, once examined, shall be condemned: just as we call it the court of money or of bloodshed, not because embezzlements or murders are committed there, but because by its examination they are punished.

But living under such atrocity of crimes, you think so little of any zeal for repentance that you pursue every instrument and kind of luxury, and, not content to have given whole days to play, you recline on ivory couches and soft beds, so that bodies steeped in silk may suffice for the work of obscenity: and you season your feasts even with the pleasure of the ears. For when you consume choice lambs and calves taken from the flocks and herds, and pour out wine even to drunkenness, you make the psaltery and lyres resound; and to these disgraceful acts you add insults to antiquity as well, saying, namely, that you possess those instruments which were available to the most blessed David. Nor do you consider, wretches, how much difference there is between your pursuits and merits and his.

For David sounded forth, with sacred song, the praises of the Creator and the laws of virtue and remedies for disturbance of mind: but you, on the contrary, sound forth incentives to luxury, with injury to the Creator (whose law is spurned). He delighted in sober banquets, and was fortified by prophetic unguents; but you are steeped in drunkenness and debauchery, even with common oil, and that corrupted by art. Finally, he, full of the feeling of mercy, followed with tears and prayers the calamities that were to come upon his people many generations later. But you, with dry eyes, look upon these same calamities already inflicted and already raging, so that you rejoice, in parricidal fashion, that they have come.

That he says, therefore, they were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph, he refers to that compassion which he knew was wont to arise in the hearts either of those who love or of those who pity; a hardness which that song, spoken in the person of the just man, also accuses: I sought one who would grieve with me, and there was none: and those who would comfort me, and I found none. When, therefore, captivity seized upon Joseph, that is, the ten tribes, Judah felt no sense of mercy, no compassion. And why should it, since it thought rather that a time had been offered for increasing its wealth, if it should join to its own borders the fields of its brothers? But let us hear what such a wish and such a purpose receives.

On verse 7: Wherefore, he says, now they shall go into captivity at the head of them that go into captivity, and the faction of the wanton shall be taken away—that is, they will forthwith confess the vanity of their hopes, when the captivity, which had been delayed a little, shall overtake them too. For they will be driven from their own borders at the head of the exiles, that is, among the first these shall go into exile, who had believed themselves to be safe: and so the throngs of the luxurious shall perish. On verse 8-9: The Lord God hath sworn by his own soul, saith the Lord God of hosts: I detest the pride of Jacob, and I hate his houses, and I will deliver up the city with its inhabitants. And if there remain ten men in one house, they also shall die. To show that he had gravely abhorred the contempt shown for the captivity of their brothers, he swore in pronouncing the words of vengeance.

But as to the prophet's saying that God swore by his own soul, understand it as said in our manner, to those to whom he was speaking: so that, since we reckon nothing more precious or sweeter than our soul, he too—not as though he were some living creature composed of soul and members, but he who by the appellation of "soul" signified his majesty and his life—swore that he detests the houses of Jacob and their pride, and that he would subject them to such calamities that populous families would be consumed by such continual deaths that there would not remain among them anyone able to bury the dead. By the name Jacob he indicated both Judah and Israel together, since he had already, a little before, joined them together in calamity.

When, therefore, many houses shall have come to such desolation that they find none to conduct the funeral, neighbors will come and will attend to the graves of their kin; and they will not bury them, as is customary, in honored sepulchers, but will burn them with a common fire; and the neighbors we mentioned, entering, lest anyone be hidden or remain within the inner chambers, will search, and will speak to one another: On verse 10-12: And he shall say to him, Be silent, and do not remember the name of the Lord. For behold the Lord will command, and he will strike the greater house with ruins, and the lesser house with rendings. What does it mean that he says, Be silent, and do not remember the name of the Lord? And a kinsman shall take him and burn him, so as to carry the bones out of the house: and he shall say to him who is within the inner chambers of the house: Is there yet any with you?

And he shall answer, It is the end. Since indeed the greatness of the misery could bend even hardened hearts to remembrance of their judge and creator, and through this it might more fittingly be said, Let us remember the name of the Lord, whose indignation has laid us waste with so manifold a calamity. Let us, therefore, gather the sense lying hidden here from what has gone before: Woe, he says, to those who desire the day of the Lord; to what purpose is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness to you, and not light—not that they could desire the time of their own condemnation, but because, as we have explained, abusing the delay of vengeance, they defamed the prophets themselves as liars, as though they were threatening evils which would never come in any age.

Therefore he now says that, when the promised captivity shall have overtaken the ranks of the guilty, and that day, that is, that time, shall have come which they had boasted they desired in mockery, so great a terror of the divine name will fill them that they will speak to one another, that no one dare to remember the name of the Lord, whose severity, once offended, will have appeared so great that it is thought that even the mention of his name might rouse further commotion. A little before, under the name Jacob, we said both Judah and Israel were indicated, that is, all the tribes together which had been divided among themselves. This present verse, then, completes that, declaring that both the greater and the lesser house will be struck down with rendings and ruins: yet in different words it seems to show one and the same thing, that is, the overthrow of the houses.

For since the rending of walls is wont to precede ruin, he signified that both would fall, by collapse and by rending; and he called the greater house, by reason of the number of tribes, Israel, and the lesser Judah, and declares that both, as polluted by like iniquity, will likewise perish by like calamity.

On verse 13: Can horses run upon rocks, or can one plough with buffaloes: because you have turned judgment into bitterness, and the fruit of justice into wormwood? A most pleasing sense, and one which is veiled under a figure of speech. For in allegorical words he reproaches the people for the vices with which it was defiled: for here he did not signify quadrupeds simply, either horses or buffaloes, but he exaggerates the pride of the profane nation; for now it had turned the sweetness of judgments into bitterness in the crushing of the innocent, and arrogated to itself so much strength that it thought it could be struck by no misfortunes: as one which had gathered for itself such great abundance that, like buffaloes never submitting their necks to the plough, it might enjoy continual liberty: nor, like a free horse with loosened reins, run over rough roads difficult for horses, but rather range freely through fields and meadows.

Therefore, he says, it is certain that neither does the buffalo bear the yoke, nor does the horse of its own accord walk upon rocks: but you, who rejoice that you have both cast off yokes and broken bridles, seemed to yourselves horses in luxury, and buffaloes in strength and freedom; prove by facts what you have drawn from hopes, namely, that you are subject to no dominion. Since this falls out entirely to the contrary, and you go at the will of enemies, and through the roughest ways, and endure heavy labors with broken neck, you must needs confess that you are neither horses nor buffaloes, nor have you procured for yourselves any defense or strength, either of resources or of minds.

On these verses: You who rejoice in nothing: who say, Have we not taken to ourselves horns by our own strength? For behold, I will raise up against you, O house of Israel, says the Lord God of hosts, a nation: and they shall crush you from the entrance of Emath even to the torrent of the desert. This entirely supports the foregoing exposition, namely, that they, believing themselves free and strong like buffaloes and horses, had come to this not from consciousness of real strength, but from their own opinion and the vanity of hope. For you rejoiced, he says, in nothing, saying among yourselves: Have we not taken to ourselves horns by our own strength—horns which doubtless seemed to display the form of buffaloes. Therefore you have arrogated to yourselves so much from your own strength that you thought you could safely despise the commandments.

A strong army shall come upon you, and shall lay you waste, O Israel, first of all, by the power of conquerors: from the entrance of Emath, that is, from Antioch, even to the torrent of the desert, namely, the part which touches the wilderness: it shall ravage with hostile cruelty all your borders indeed: and you, O Judah, though remaining for a brief delay, shall nevertheless be scorched and dismayed by the neighboring conflagration.

On verses 1-3: The Lord God showed me this: and behold, one forming the locust in the beginning of the shoots of the latter rain, and behold, the latter growth after the mower of the flock. And it came to pass, when it had finished devouring the grass of the earth, I said, O Lord God, be merciful, I beseech you, who shall raise up Jacob, for he is small? The Lord repented of this: It shall not be, said the Lord. He weaves his prophetic discourse in his accustomed manner: indeed he shows what sort of revelations the prophets were wont to behold in spirit (whence also they were called seers), that is, because to them brief images of future things would appear under various forms, yet images whose meaning they already grasped: and thus they were moved to different feelings, pertaining either to censure or to mercy.

Therefore, after he had announced that a nation would be roused which would bring them destruction, lest the very brevity of the judgment should not sufficiently move the hearer, he lingers over the explanation of the images he had seen, and through their occasion shows how earnestly he prayed for them, lest anyone should think he announced those calamities with a mind either mocking or unmoved. Hear then into what spectacle of images our God led me. There stood one who, after the manner of a potter, fashioned locusts, that is, formed swarms, and assigned to them, exceeding all number, this task, that they should devour, as if with untiring bites, all the fibers of the crops and all the shoots.

But what he says, in the beginning of the shoots of the latter rain, shows this to serve for the increase of the disaster: that is, that a grievous drought seemed to occupy the season of the timely rain, and the cultivators, wearied and vexed by long expectation of the rains, began, at the rising of Lucifer, to have some comfort of rain, and thus hastily entrusted their desperate seed-sowings; but when the very seeds, scarcely and very slowly covered, had begun to sprout, before they could rise into stalks and ears, they perished as the locusts fed upon them: and lest this evil should be tempered even by a small hope, another, the latter growth, came after the locust. For behold, he says, the latter growth after the mower of the flock: that is, that which the locusts had shorn, the one who followed would consume down to the very roots; and since its name is here withheld, let us gather from the earlier prophecy what it signified.

For blessed Joel says: What the caterpillar left, the locust devoured; and what the locust left, the cankerworm devoured; and what the cankerworm left, the mildew devoured. Therefore the prophet Amos too indicated by "the latter growth," following upon the remnants of the mower, the cankerworm. But as to why he sees the former of the locust, when it could have been shown as a summoner of an already existing creature, this tends to this end, that the inestimable multitude of these creatures might be made known—swarms not gathered together as great as could be found in the world, but newly fashioned by the power of the Judge, who is likewise the Creator of the universe: when accordingly the devastation of the onslaught and the consumption of food, causing a multitude to die, had disclosed the cause of the formation: I cried out, he says: O Lord God, be merciful, I beseech you: Who shall raise up Jacob, for he is small?

That is, If through your indignation our nation shall come to as great a smallness as these figures promise, who shall be able further to raise it up, once you have consumed it with such devastation? The Lord repented of this, It shall not be, said the Lord—that is, the change of sentence which followed showed that my supplication had been effective. For God, ready to mercy, removed that plague whose greatness he saw me dread, and answered that this would not be, which I had begged might not happen. But he brought in another thing instead, which he judged to be milder.

On verse 4: For the Lord God showed me this: behold, the Lord God shall call for judgment by fire, and it shall devour the great deep, and shall eat up a part likewise. Unless we grasp with prudence and care what has been said, no small absurdity will be uncovered in the meanings. For after those losses which the devouring locust and the following cankerworm had inflicted, fire is brought in as though it were a milder plague: whereas it is altogether unquestionable that the calamity wrought by the visitation of burning is far greater than all that stripping which the crops suffered. How then does the prophet say that God repented, and, as though bent by the tears of an intercessor, called judgment to fire, that is, condemned to burning those culprits from whom he had driven away the danger of want?

It must be noted, therefore, that here by the name of fire he wished to indicate the passing sweep of flame, which, although by its violence it scorches whatever it touches, yet, so long as it does not linger over what it has singed, nor descend into what is deep, does not consume the substance which it seemed to have seized. Therefore, by the images of locusts or cankerworms settling upon the work they had undertaken, he wished to show the utter destruction of the doomed nation. When the prophet had seen this in spirit, he was struck with dismay both by affection for the people and by the reverence due to the Judge, and he obtained that the harshness of that sentence be changed. But since the inveterate profanity of the people did not allow full pardon to be granted, a punishment of this kind follows, which, though it consumes a great part when sent, yet permits some remnant to remain.

For thus he says: Behold, the Lord God shall call for judgment by fire, and it shall devour the great deep: and shall eat up a part likewise. But the prophet, having taken courage from the effect of his first supplication, dares to resist this announcement as well, and says that little Israel—that is, its diminished resources—would be destroyed by utter ruin, if the one who judges should, like a chastiser, kindle the wrath of the enemies. Some have thought that by the image of the locust the Assyrians were signified, and by the image of fire the Babylonians, not seeing that this contradicts the history. For the prophet says that both the plague of the locust and of the fire were averted by his prayers, and that the Lord answered the suppliant concerning both: This shall not be, that is, By no means shall this devastation come upon you. But the Assyrian and Babylonian enemies, having gained the victory, laid waste both Israel and Judah with grievous slaughter.

Here therefore our God shows, through the prophet who was made the beholder of these images, both that the people of the Jews deserved a destruction much heavier than they endured, and that the Heavenly Judge could destroy them utterly, if he wished either to multiply the number of the enemies or to kindle his indignation; and that it was by a certain necessity of afflicting that nation, which he did not wish to perish entirely, that he permitted it.

On verses 7-9: But when he had put away these two kinds of imminent perils, This the Lord showed me, he says. And behold, the Lord stood upon a plastered wall, and in his hand was a mason's trowel. And the Lord said to me: What do you see, Amos? And I said, A mason's trowel. And the Lord said to me: Behold, I will set the trowel in the midst of my people Israel: I will no more pass by them further. And the high places of the idol shall be demolished, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste: and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. The vision of the prophet of whom we are speaking has made known a great part of the dispositions of God, under which the life of mortals runs its course.

For whereas the preceding sentences showed the Judge either threatening, or roaring, and gaping, like a lion, after the deaths of the guilty (movements or affections which, of course, are taught according to the reasoning of a discipline foreign to the nature of God, who rejoices in continual tranquility), the occasion of the present passage has disclosed by what manner chiefly our God rises up to take vengeance—namely, rather by withdrawing than by roaring. For since the mass of calamities was rushing forward at once, if he had reluctantly desisted, he says that they fell as though struck by him, and, for the sake of stirring compunction in the hearts of the guilty, he assumes to himself both the demeanor and the movement which the enemy would have had, raging by his permission.

Therefore, since intervening prayer had removed the second sentence which he had proposed on account of the deserts of the Jews, he introduced a third; and the prophet, as if he dared not resist this mildest one, yet one which contained the fullest sense of vengeance, says: Upon a plastered wall, that is, one built with the art of masonry, the Lord of all things seemed to me to stand, holding in his hand a mason's trowel, by which he indicated the office he was accustomed to perform, that is, that he both protected them by constant defense, and applied frequent remedy, by which they might be healed and restored. But if this providence, so bestowed upon the wretched, should be withdrawn, none of them could either hold together or stand.

Therefore, this trowel, he says, that is, my care, by which the cracked places were plastered and made firm, I will lay aside, and I will proclaim a kind of rest for my kindness, since Israel so compels it, nor will I endure any longer the labor of contending with impudent profanity by ineffectual mercy. And thus at last they shall know what they have done, when, though I strike them not, yet, since I do not protect them, they perish perhaps: shall perish. For enemies shall come, and, celebrating a full triumph, shall rage with fire and sword, burning both shrines and profane places together with whole cities, and shall lay waste the family of Jeroboam by the avenging sword.

But after the prophet's discourse had proceeded thus far in his preaching, a certain man named Amasias, a priest of idols, sent to Jeroboam, who at that time presided over the government of the ten tribes, and announced to him that Amos, by the spirit rather of one rebelling than of one prophesying, and by name denounced destruction upon him—that is, upon the king—and terrified the whole people with such manifold threatening that even the king's own party became doubtful, uncertain whom to follow. And briefly embracing the purpose of the whole prophetic volume, On verse 11: For thus, he says, Amos says: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall go into captivity out of his own land. From these words we consequently observe, what we also experience in the affairs of our own times, that the humbler part of a people, that is, those of the common folk who had less of the pride of nobility, were the more easily moved even by the words of the prophets.

But priests and nobles, since they strove to favor the vices of the king, rejected—nay, accused, and if it were lawful, would have killed—the saving teachers. But let us follow the order of the reading. When therefore he had sent word to King Jeroboam by what means he might be incited against the prophet of God, not content to await the lines of the contest thus stirred up, but desiring by whatever means to put the holy man to flight, he himself went to him as a mediator.

On these verses: And Amasias said to Amos: You who see, go, flee into the land of Judah, eat bread there, and prophesy there. But in Bethel you shall no more prophesy, because it is the king's sanctuary, and the house of the kingdom. Fearing, I believe, lest the reverence due the prophet should even restrain the king's indignation, he attempted on his own to expel him, and addressing him with honor: You who see, he says, go, and flee to the neighboring region of Judah, where you may both live safely and teach. But in this place, that is, Bethel, where you behold the court built up, and the sanctuaries of the king—namely, the idol, to whose worship we together with the prince himself are devoted—do not go on any further to sound forth such words as these, which perhaps you will not find go unpunished.

On these verses: Amos answered and said to Amaziah: I am not a prophet, and I am not the son of a prophet, but I am a herdsman, plucking sycamore figs. And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel. From the occasions of the answers, even things that are passed over in silence for the most part come to be understood as helpful, just as now the prophet, when the soothsayer had told him to flee, answered that he neither descended from the stock of the prophets, nor had taken up this office from the beginning, nor ought he for that reason to have been an object of contempt to his hearers as one prophesying falsehoods.

But what they were accustomed to say to his reproach, this he professes with joy, that is, that he was neither of the choir nor of the stock of the prophets: but was devoted only to the pastoral office, and drove herds through the pastures, and gathered food most cheaply from the trees, and was chosen by God, the inspector of hearts, and destined for this office of prophesying—according to which custom the Apostle also glories when he says: when it pleased God to reveal his Son through me, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go to the apostles who were before me, but I went away into Arabia, and from there I returned to Damascus—that is, he sought neither any mastership nor privilege, but immediately obeyed our Redeemer calling him, promptly and diligently, so that he entered upon the work of preaching.

Therefore blessed Amos too professes himself a shepherd of flocks, having come to this work not by any ambition, but solely by the election of the one calling, who said to me (he says), Go, prophesy to my people Israel. Therefore those things which I threw in above by way of threat, you ought, O Amaziah, and all your associates, to have received not as my words, but as the words of God speaking through me, and not to have doubted that by God's will I was announcing the things I had come to know were to come. And that you may not be ignorant of this, receive proof of him who speaks in me, of Christ. Your wife shall play the harlot in the city, your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be measured with a line. And you shall die in a polluted land, and Israel shall migrate captive from its own land.

What good, then, does it do you to refuse to hear what you must nonetheless endure, since it is not the words of the one announcing that torment you, but the wounds of the one pursuing you. Accordingly, that you may understand that the impending sentence is to be removed by no art, I foretell that you shall feel the torments of every affection, that is, whatever a husband, whatever a father, whatever a distinguished citizen may undergo.

For your wife shall be defiled not by clandestine shame, but in the midst of the city she shall lie subject to the lust of the conquerors, and the sword shall lay waste your children before your eyes, while you are not permitted to mourn: and you, struck at once by disgrace and bereavement, shall die in a polluted land, that is, either in that very region of the Jews which, to be sure, the sacrileges of the citizens first, and then the crimes of the enemies, polluted; or else in barbarian lands, which you have always deemed to be most civilized, and Israel shall be driven off into the exile of the whirlwind of captivity. But let us look also at what follows.

On verses 1-3: The Lord God showed me this, and behold, a hook of fruits. And he said: What do you see, Amos? And I said, A hook of fruits. And the Lord said to me, The end has come upon my people Israel: I will no longer pass over them. And the hinges of the temple shall creak in that day, says the Lord God: many shall die, in every place silence shall be cast forth. Up to the present passage he had announced the calamities which were owed to the crimes, and had shown that the fixed sentence of the eternal judge was firmly held, so that the profane should by no means escape unpunished. But when the long force of the discourse had sounded this out, now he shows that the time also for bearing the punishments is near, and, following the custom of the prophets, he introduces an image expressing this very thing.

For just as above he made known the care of providence by the mason's trowel, which the judge, laying it down from his hand in indignation, showed thereby that he had now ceased to protect them: so now, showing the nearness of condemnation, he brought forward the hook of fruits, that is, the one which those are accustomed to have who climb into trees to pick fruit, and because they cannot proceed to the extremities on account of the tenderness of the branches, standing on solid ground, they bend the tops of the branches toward themselves, gathering the fruits which they have seen to be ripe. Therefore, since the eternal judge now perceived that vengeance was opportune, as though it had ripened for being taken up—the discourse, being framed at the same time, indicates this, and so a change occurs both of number and of gender: so that he addresses now in the plural, now in the singular.

I will turn, he says, your feasts into mourning, and your songs into lamentation, that is, all things rivaling gladness shall come to pass, and the things which you prepared freely for pleasure, captivity sent upon you shall subject to mourning: and the bodies of the nobles, covered a little before with precious ornaments, sackcloth and rags shall clothe. Would that we knew that all this came to pass in the time of the captivity only by the telling of the reading. But so frequent in our own times has such a condition become, that we marvel at the boldness of those who hope for better things.

I will bring, he says, sackcloth upon every back of yours, and baldness upon every head: and you shall lose the ornaments of your bodies, the supports of your strength, so that your hair shall begin to fall away, whether from mockery or from a consuming disease: and I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its latter end like a bitter day, that is, the condition of the nation of Israel descends from the citadel of ancient felicity to the depths of wretched servitude: so that it is worthy of as bitter a mourning as that bereavement which is wont to happen over only-begotten children, where not only the lost pledges are mourned, but also the extinguished posterity. But let us look also at what follows.

On verse 11: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will send a famine into the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. And they shall be moved from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east they shall go about, seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. He has shown that among the extreme calamities of that people, which had flourished in the condition of the Law, the failure of saving teachers is to be numbered. And why not, since it is the case that if you do not hear the things that are to be learned, ignorance follows, and through this you pass through the night of ignorance, and, as one deprived of sight, you rush into manifold miseries? For he who, as another prophet declares, has not learned righteousness, will not do truth upon the earth, and so those speaking lies will perish.

Wherefore, to the people also, to whom through the prophet Osee it had been reproached, that he had rejected knowledge, on account of which he himself deserves to be rejected by the almighty Lord, the same crime is also charged in the present passage under the denunciation of punishment, so that they who had hated the teachers of piety through zeal for profanity, may recognize how much they had labored toward their own destruction: they who, indeed, by sinning did this, that the judge threatens them, among other punishments, or rather above other punishments, namely, that amid the afflictions of captivity they should be smitten with want of doctrine, so that they should be forsaken of that distinguished mark by which they had been conspicuous among all nations, nor should any of the prophets either instruct them in their ignorance or console them in their affliction. That all this occurs under hostile condemnation, our continual perils have taught us.

This kind of threat blessed Isaiah also affirmed, foretelling that the prince and the elder of counsels and the teacher should be taken away from Judea, and that in their place boy kings and effeminate princes would be substituted. But as to what he says, that not a famine of bread nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord, was to be brought upon those peoples, as far as pertains to the tenor of the reading, it seems to be introduced in this sense, that he said: not only a famine of bread, nor only a thirst of water, but there would be such a scarcity of hearing the word of the Lord, that nowhere would they be able, even if they sought it most eagerly, to find a teacher. For he would not terrify them, as though desirous of spiritual doctrine, and on this account gravely reckoning the loss of the things to be declared, by the mere removal of teachers.

According therefore to the language familiar to the Scriptures, he certainly did not deny that they would be vexed with hunger and thirst, but he left it to be understood that they were to be subjected not only to those things which, according to the condition of mortal life, happen indiscriminately at times to good and bad alike, but were to be punished by another, greater calamity, one which regards all, and cannot but befall the guilty, namely, that divine doctrine should not instruct them, but that their ear, even though they should swear that they wished to learn, should be despised.

As though to them applied that which we read in another prophet: But to the sinner God has said, Why dost thou declare my righteousness, and take my covenant in thy mouth?, the sense is framed out of all this, that on account of their crimes, both of religion and of manner of life, the once beloved race of the Jews is subjected to barbarian captivity: they who indeed have so fallen from the height of their former glory, that they recognize in their punishments the crimes of their own will, and, enduring the commands of savage masters, nowhere hear the doctrine of the sacred law resounding: which doctrine, to be sure, while still placed within their native borders, they had despised, though it enlightened them with its precepts. But as the context of the reading itself demands this tenor of understanding, so also we ought to observe that the same words avail also for the signification of things to come, namely of those times in which the Jews, sinning most wickedly, fell most grievously.

For after that vine, which, translated out of Egypt, was planted in rich regions, and, the temple having been built, received the winepress of the sacred altar, and, being expected to produce grapes, produced thorns, and not righteousness, but a cry, so that its cultivators, grown savage even against the very Son of the father of the household, believed that they would possess the inheritance without trouble, when they had seized it by the death of the lawful heir, the Lord God swore by the pride of Jacob, If I shall forget all their works even to the end—of which such atrocity emerged, that the very earth was moved because of them, and mournful darkness took away the midday.

For indeed darkness came to be from the sixth hour even to the ninth hour, and the earth was moved, the rocks were split, and thus their feasts were turned into mourning, and their songs into lamentation, and the backs of the impious were covered with sackcloth, and their heads felt baldness: and the nations coming for vengeance of the crime, Jerusalem was surrounded with a siege, and so dashed to the earth, that she could no longer rise again. That people, therefore, which had violated the Only-begotten of God with insults and blows, felt, as it were, mourning for an only son, and was shut up in a bitter end; and there truly followed the time in which they were consumed by famine of spiritual goods: and we see not a scarcity of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord, being experienced by those who had been rebellious against the word of the Lord. Does not their calamity shine forth in the very attestation of events?

For since the origin of spiritual philosophy—namely, piety toward the Lord, kindness toward neighbors, and the teaching of uprightness—has departed from them, they have fallen into such poverty of studies and doctrine, that from the rising of the sun even to its setting, that is, scattered throughout the whole world, they nowhere hear the word of God by which they might be nourished, nor are they touched by the flashing brightness of the Gospel; but, like infants, instead of virtues of character and life-giving sacraments, they swell with shameful and trifling things: namely, glorying in the cutting of the flesh and in sabbath feast-days. Consequently, therefore, neither is there among them any learned teacher, nor prince, nor priest, by whom they might be reformed: because, as Moses says, their eyes are covered with a veil, which is not otherwise taken away, except when it is abolished in Christ, who redeemed us.

They shall go about, he says, seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it, because they denied him who is the Word made flesh, and so the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. On these verses: In that day the fair virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst, they who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy God, O Dan, liveth; and, The way of Bersabee liveth: and they shall fall, and shall rise no more. Although the prophetic discourse accuses the morals of its own time, yet by the accumulation of censure we consequently show also future signs; and therefore, even though the discourse, proceeding, regarded the affairs which then seemed imminent, nonetheless it can also apply to this condition which now holds the Jews.

Nor is it absurd, if from their past dignity the tribes themselves are called fair virgins, who, as then, by following idols, are read to have been given over to destruction: so now, since they have denied their Redeemer, they are said to have committed the same thing which they committed also when they worshipped the calves set up in Dan and Bersabee, so that the sense becomes: that the Jews, not believing in Christ the Lord, vainly consider themselves free of impiety, on the ground, namely, that they worship no idols, when nothing of the ancient piety of the patriarchs has remained in them, because, by violating the name of Christ with obstinate infidelity, they are covered as sharers and equals of the worshippers of idols: on which account also in the Gospel the searcher of souls declares: He who hates me, hates my Father also; accordingly, accumulated condemnation brings upon them, who by denying the Son, are pronounced also enemies of the Father.

But as to what he says, Thy God, O Dan, liveth; and, The way of Bersabee liveth, he denoted the custom of the common people, who, indeed, sliding into superstition, swear also, for the most part, by the roads by which one goes to the shrines. They shall fall, he says, and shall rise no more, that is, they shall no longer be permitted to rely on the comforts of hope, so as to think that such threats sound only unto terror, and that the joys of deliverance will straightway come to meet them, as they are read to have often experienced; but because the time of vengeance, once seized, the hook has at last drawn in, they shall perceive by suffering what they had hitherto said by hearing, and so they shall fall, that they shall be ground down, crushed by the very weight of events.

On verse 1: I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and he said: Strike the hinge, and let the lintels be shaken. For their avarice is at the head of them all, and I will slay the last of them with the sword. Some have believed that this altar, upon which the avenger stood, was the legitimate one, namely that which had been set up in the temple of Jerusalem, according to that which another prophet says, Begin at my sanctuary, so that the destruction of the temple itself also seems to be threatened; but the context of the passage refutes such an understanding. For no mention of Judah had preceded; rather the threat bore specifically upon the ten Tribes. For after he said, They swear by the sin of Samaria: and, They who say, Thy God liveth, O Dan, and the way of Bersabee liveth: they shall fall, he says, and shall rise no more, and then he added: I saw the Lord standing upon the altar.

Since therefore he had most pointedly struck at the ten Tribes and Samaria, we must understand the altar and shrine also, which he commands to be overthrown, to be that of which he said a little before: And the end is come upon my people Israel, I will no more pass by them, and the hinges of the temple shall creak in that day, saith the Lord. And a little above, Amos said to Amaziah: Now hear the word of the Lord: Thou sayest, Thou shalt not prophesy against the house of Israel, and thou shalt not drop thy word against the house of the idol. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Thy wife shall play the harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be measured by a line, and thou shalt die in a polluted land, and Israel shall go into captivity out of his own land.

Since therefore he had said that those swearing by the sin of Samaria would be subjected to a deserved destruction, he pursues the fulfillment of that very threat, and says that he saw the Lord standing to root out the profane altars. And although he appears under a varied image, now coming, now standing, yet since he accomplishes all things by his command, he says—he speaks, that is, to ministers, or doubtless to angels, or to nations coming at his will—that they should strike the door-posts, and that the shaken lintels should fly apart, and thus the whole ruin of the buildings should follow; and immediately, showing the causes of the commotion: For avarice, he says, is at the head of them all, and I will slay the last of them with the sword. There seems to be a certain deficiency in the expressions, but if you look carefully, it was undertaken rather by design than by chance.

For since throughout the whole book he had set forth their crimes, and the punishments due to them, he now fittingly chooses a brief manner of speech, so that he might mark the wounds of their morals by the indication of a single vice, and touch upon the weight of their condemnation in a concise phrase. By the striking of the hinges and the shaking of the lintels he signifies the ruin of the shrines; and by the name of avarice dwelling at the head of all, from the princes down to the lowest, he pronounces that all shudder with filth and sacrilege; and by marking that the last of them are to be slain by the enemy's sword, he shows that not even the humblest are to be spared, but that nobles and common people alike shall perish in indiscriminate slaughter. There shall be, he says, no flight for them: they shall flee, and he that fleeth of them shall not be saved.

He had used "flight" for "escape," which, to explain it, after he said: There shall be no flight for them, he immediately added, he shall flee, and he that fleeth of them shall not be saved. Therefore, since it would profit nothing for those about to be captured to have fled, he declares that not even flight would carry them off. But lest this be uncertain, he added what would serve for explanation. He shall flee, he says, and he that fleeth of them shall not be saved. Of this sense is that in the Psalm: Let their way become darkness and slipperiness, and let the angel of the Lord pursue them. But lest this same sense, briefly indicated, should elude the hearers, he goes on to expand the statement through particulars, so as to sharpen the feeling of fear by the length of the description, and at the same time, expressing his indignation, he who is the observer of the whole world commends that no religion, no creature exists, which could offer any help or comfort to the condemned.

After therefore he said, There shall be no flight for them: he shall flee, and he that fleeth of them shall not be saved: On verses 2-4: If they go down, he says, even to hell, thence shall my hand bring them out: and if they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down. And if they be hid in the top of Carmel, thence will I search and take them out: and if they hide themselves from my eyes in the depth of the sea, there will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there will I command the sword, and it shall slay them.

Not that captured Israel could or would wish to go to any of the places he enumerated, but that the greatness of the eternal Judge might be proclaimed, he gathered examples from impossibilities, that is: If, with me pursuing, they could either fly up to the heights of heaven, or be swallowed by the gaping of the earth, to hide themselves, or, as is often the folly of those who fear, seek the peak of Carmel as a safe hiding place, or if they were plunged into the depths of the sea's whirlpools, yet nowhere could they escape the force of our vengeance.

And lest even this condition, by which they are punished, should perhaps flatter them, and they should think that by enduring captivity they would so discharge their debt that I would have no remaining right over them, whom I have handed over to barbarian dominion: I declare that they cannot even be defended by the lot of captives, whom the cruelty of their masters, whether wearied or sated, is wont to spare: but there too, at my nod, the sword shall pierce their throats; for no one shall be allowed to have mercy on those against whom I too have been compelled to rage. This same coloring the writer of the sacred songs cultivated in praise of God: Whither shall I go, he says, from thy spirit? And whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art present.

If I take my wings a before the dawn, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. Even if I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the night shall be my comfort, again I consider and perceive, that as darkness, so also is his light; that is, they are equally before the eyes of God, whether the thick darkness of night or the light of day. As therefore blessed David reckoned these and other things under admiration of the divine power, so also now, through Amos, our God, both for the token of his power and to heighten fear, has set forth things of great effect, and has shown that they could find no comfort; saying: And I will set my eyes upon them for evil, and not for good, that is, I will look upon them about to be punished, so that they may feel by what power of God they had, through a long, wretched age, held him in contempt.

On verse 5: And the Lord God of hosts, who toucheth the earth, and it shall melt away: and all that dwell therein shall mourn. He seems indeed, in the name of the whole earth, of the whole world, to have made mention for the sake of showing his power: that this world, if God commanded, would dissolve without any difficulty, according to that saying of the Apostle Peter, who says: What manner of persons ought we to be in holy conversation, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the Lord, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; and the sense would be of this kind: O thou people of the Jews, given over to profanities, do not take this which I have said, that thou canst escape the way of my vengeance by no evasion, as though I had spent all that I am able upon the greatness of thy calamity.

For how small this effect of my power is, thou mayest understand from this, that if in my anger I look upon the whole mass of the earth, it would dissolve no less easily than wax by the heat of fire. For I am the Lord of Sabaoth, that is, of hosts, whom doubtless innumerable troops of angels serve as soldiers, who, though late, yet at last am girding myself as an avenger. Weigh, then, the greatness of thy calamity, since he whose anger now pursues thee is able to do all things. But it looks more to the sequence of the reading, if it seems to have been said also of the region of Judea, against which threats had resounded from the beginning of the book. For when he had said, I will set my eyes upon them for evil and not for good, and that no elements either dared or could hide them, he consequently added: because he is the king of hosts, and the Lord of lords, who would clothe that defiled region with squalor.

And it shall rise up wholly like a river, and shall flow down like the river of Egypt. That is, the whole nation shall go into captivity. And as another prophet says, They shall come to nothing like water running off. For he calls the river of Egypt the Nile, which, when it has covered the Egyptian fields with its yearly flood, so draws its waters back again into its own channel, that scarcely any traces of the waters remain in the fields. So also the people of Samaria, who once had filled the land of Palestine as though with abundant fruitfulness, having laid aside their dignity and freedom, shall enter the confines of foreign dominion, and shall retain no signs of their former glory. On verse 6: He that buildeth his ascension in heaven, and hath founded his bundle upon the earth.

The connected declaration of the praises of God, which now appears, continues: for to what he had said, The Lord God of hosts, who toucheth the earth, and it shall melt away: and all that dwell therein shall mourn, this is joined: He that buildeth his ascension in heaven, and hath founded his bundle upon the earth, that is, his eyes thou couldst not escape even if thou didst ascend to heaven, nor even if thou wert plunged into the depths of the sea, he who is the Lord of angels, who created the world and sustains it. He that buildeth his ascension in heaven, and hath founded his bundle upon the earth. The sense, moreover, is that although he sits enthroned in heaven according to his majesty, yet he has deigned to have, as it were, his own bundle on earth, namely the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom God has chosen to be called specially his own, though he is Lord of the universe.

He called it a "bundle," as it were a possession, according to that in Deuteronomy: When the Most High divided the nations, he set the bounds of peoples according to the number of the Angels of God, and his portion became Jacob, and Israel the lot of his inheritance. By briefly inserting this, he shows how much benevolence he showed toward the Jews, and by how many crimes of theirs he was embittered. He therefore who builds, that is, who built, and from the beginning of creation ordained by sacred laws, that he himself should ascend into heaven as into the heights of the world, as its ruler, and there sit in eternal dominion, while he assigned the earth for the dwelling of his servants, according to what blessed David says: The heaven of heaven is the Lord's, but the earth hath he given to the children of men.

Since, then, he is so exalted in throne and scepter, and since not only the stars, but the heaven of heavens receive him with trembling, yet he inclines the eyes of his mercy to the lowest things, and looks upon humble things in such a way that he leaves no creature destitute of the governance of his providence. Not that, if he has deigned to have a "bundle," as we said, namely a nation to be instructed in sacred rites in honor of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, yet (according to what the sacred song declares: The Lord is good to all, and his mercies are over all his works.

He maketh his sun to rise on the good and the bad, he raineth upon the just and the unjust) not only to men, but also supplying nourishment to birds and beasts, according to that saying of David: All things wait upon thee, that thou mayest give them food in due season: when thou givest to them, they shall gather; when thou openest thy hand, all things shall be filled with goodness; but when thou turnest away thy face, they shall be troubled. And elsewhere, Who giveth food to the cattle, and grass to the service of men, that he may bring forth a cheerful countenance with oil, and that bread may strengthen man's heart.

So that the fruits and produce of the earth may be born for the food of men, they are made fruitful by rain falling from the clouds, whose softness has been created for this purpose, that being sent into the waves they may fill up like sponges: and by these same waters, purified from their native saltiness by that very transfusion, and passing into a drinkable sweetness, they water the thirsty fields, and multiply the diversity of seeds by a wonderful fertility—confessing by sure right that there is one Lord, who has doubtless ordained these things. But let us see to what end the aforesaid description of the divine power tends.

On verse 7: Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians to me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord? Or is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? For there is one God who justifies the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith. Although therefore by the testimony of my providence, which cares for all mortals in common, you could and ought to have recognized that I had chosen your race especially for the honor of your holy fathers, yet I did not thereby repel other nations from my care; know at least, from what has been done, that I am the Lord of all: and do not so claim for yourselves alone, when you fall into crimes, as to reckon that you alone are preferred above all others, because of this, that you were miraculously led out of Egyptian slavery, and possess, which is more, a fertile land, its inhabitants having been cast out.

For I have not exercised a gift of dispensation of this kind only in regard to you, but just as I brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, so also I brought the Philistines from Cappadocia, and the Syrians from Cyrene, into the places of those who deserved to be expelled. Do not therefore believe that it was your own merits that earned what I always bestowed by the bond of justice: namely, that I might destroy kingdoms polluted with sacrileges, testifying that this is the chief care of the rightful Lord, that he leave no one unpunished whom he perceives to think nothing of correction.

On verse 8: Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinning kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Learn therefore at least from the dangers of things, that no mortal is safe either by his wealth or by his powers, if he has not been surrounded by the rectitude of innocence. My justice therefore always demands that not only one or two, but even a whole kingdom, if it is subject to sins, should perish. Nevertheless, the holiness of your fathers has obtained from me that I should not suffer you to be destroyed by utter extermination; but even if, weighing the measures of your merits, I should raise up vengeance for your crimes, forgetfulness of mercy shall never steal upon me; but even if I crush the guilty, I will not suffer the name of the Israelites to perish. There will therefore be a distinction between you and the rest, in that you will be chastened, while they will be taught by being utterly extinguished.

And since, in the very onset of his indignation, God nevertheless disclosed that he would spare the rest, he pursues the things that are joyful.

On these verses: For behold, I will command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all nations, as wheat is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble shall fall upon the ground. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say: Evil shall not draw near, nor come upon us. This therefore, which my indignation has thundered throughout the whole volume, shall not rage with unchecked violence, but shall shake you as it were with a cautious hand and careful scrutiny, after the manner of a sieve by which grains are cleansed: whose narrow holes let neither grains nor pebbles fall through, but separate only the dust and darnel, and the rest that are useless. But when he says that pebbles remain among the grain, he seems to have had regard to the custom of those who winnow, who very often put pebbles into the sieve for this purpose, that they may add force to the shaking, being dashed against the edges, and let nothing of the refuse remain.

But according to a more subtle sense, touching more closely the matter for which it had been undertaken, by the name of pebbles he indicates the firmness of those who are not easily corrupted by bad examples, as we read that in those times there were both prophets and other righteous men, who, while the rest of the common people perished like wood and stubble, remained like solid, and therefore precious, stones: upon whom the Church might rightly be founded, since no storm could undermine it. Therefore, even though he says that the captivity sent upon them will sweep away all alike, nevertheless I will by no means reckon you so cheaply, that you should perish in confused slaughter; but the scale of judgment shall be exercised, so that the sword shall touch none who is innocent, and pass over none who is guilty.

All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say: Evil shall not draw near, nor come upon us—that is, those who resisted the sacred prophets, and, eager as it were to convict them, affirmed that none of the calamities which they announced would come, nor would they themselves experience any trial of evils: these, he says, raging vengeance shall pursue. But all who are conspicuous either for innocence or for tested virtue, our hand will so defend, that they will indeed be tried, but not taught by being utterly destroyed. But let us look at the rest also.

On these verses: In that day, saith the Lord, I will raise up the tabernacle of David that has fallen, and I will rebuild the breaches of its walls, and I will restore the things that had fallen down, and I will rebuild it as in the days of old. That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations, because my name has been invoked over them, saith the Lord who does these things.

Because he had promised that, even in the time of his kindled indignation, he would nevertheless have such regard of mercy for the nation of the Jews, that he would not suffer them to be utterly blotted out (but that even in the very whirlwind of captivity, when now fierce barbarism possessed them, he would by a wonderful help defend those endowed with innocence or justice, so that destruction would have no power over them, which indeed seemed a difficult thing), he opportunely and necessarily added the prosperous things that were to come, that he might heap up even more evident proofs of his clemency, of which he had promised signs, and might show that he had care for those whose merits he was judging, so that they might understand that he suffered no one to perish without judgment, since he exercised this discrimination not only among persons, but also among nations.

For now, the ten tribes having been possessed by Assyrian domination, he was defending Judah and Benjamin, who are signified by the mention of Judah alone, from the assault of Sennacherib. He speaks therefore after the manner of the prophets, calling it a time: In that day, he says, I will raise up the tabernacle of David that has fallen, and I will rebuild the breaches of its walls, and I will restore the things that had fallen down, and I will rebuild it as in the days of old. By these words he certainly signifies that age in which the tribe of Judah also, with the rest, was freed from the Babylonian captivity. For this, as almost all the prophets had foretold in concord, the outcome of events also confirmed.

Here therefore, when he had narrated all sad things under the person of the ten tribes, when he comes to the prediction of joyful things, he runs through their course by occasion of Judah: indicating at the same time that the people of Jerusalem would come into adversity, from which indeed he promises they are to be led out: signs of which liberty indeed appeared under Hezekiah, when, namely, in Jerusalem, laboring under grievous want at the hands of the besiegers, God defended them by wonderful protection.

All adversities therefore having been driven away, he says, I will take up again that trowel of the mason's craft which I had laid down in indignation, that I may build up the breaches of the walls, which had been shattered by the assault of enemies, and I will raise up all the buildings which had grown old, and bring them back to the vigor of their ancient felicity: and I will bestow not only the sweetness of liberty, but also of vengeance, that is, that they may possess the remnants of the Idumean nation, namely, coming from the stock of Esau, by whose parricidal hatred they had constantly labored, and that they may so establish all nations under their own dominion, that it may appear how great a fruit of piety they have obtained, who have received abundant victories by the frequent invocation of my name.

It should be noted, moreover, that blessed James, in the Acts of the Apostles, recalled this passage for the preaching of the mystery of our Redeemer, in a more subtle understanding, calling the tabernacle of David the body of Christ: which, having fallen into death by the very condition of nature, was raised up by the power and mystery of the resurrection: and truly the sanctification of the faithful David, that is, the eternal one, shone forth, when God did not permit his holy one to see corruption, but glorified him before the face of all peoples, to the glory of his people Israel. Following therefore the teaching of the Apostles, let us know that the volumes of the prophets are to be understood in such a way, that through the context they embrace the events of their own time, and through sudden digressions or accumulations of meanings they also signify things to come, and teach that their greatness is to be observed in the narration of the things that went before.

For thus the form of the present passage instructs us: because, as far as concerns history, both the condemnation of the Babylonians was dissolved, and the captivity which the Jews had endured was cut off, and there shone forth for the anxious, as had often been promised, the long-awaited liberty: which nevertheless, if you examine it by the rule of virtue, you will confess befell them, being mortals and bearing the bitterness of this life, all too meager. But this liberation, which the mysteries of Christ have conferred upon the faithful, when once it has come, is, without faith, longer, and, beyond comparison, more sublime; to which the walls of firmness and sweetness are so compared, that the riches laid up in them can fear neither assault nor fraud.

And it may be believed that it will possess the remnants of Idumea, when this body—which seems to be signified by the ruddy color of the Jews—just as it was sown in ignominy, so shall rise in glory; nor will it engender any troubles from weakness, either to the intellect or to the senses; but God shall be all in all. But having briefly explained these things, let us return to the sequence of the reading. On verse 13: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that sows seed, and the mountains shall drop sweetness, and all the hills shall be cultivated.

Not content, he says, only to restore liberty, I will also make you rejoice in the abundance of crops, so that things to be gathered will supply throughout the whole year, and the time for vintage will come exceedingly rich upon the harvest: let the vintage follow closely upon the sowing, according to that which is sung by blessed David: Thou wilt bless the crown of the year with thy goodness, and thy fields shall be filled with plenty. The places of the wilderness shall grow fat, and the hills shall be girded with joy. So therefore here also, after what had gone before, he added, The mountains shall drop sweetness, and all the hills shall be cultivated. In the time of adversity indeed there was a great scarcity of cultivators; now, on the contrary, restored tranquility will multiply the inhabitants, and the cultivation of the mountains will bear witness to the good of the public peace: so that they drop sweetness, that is, wines seem to flow from the rocks, and honey from the mountains.

On verse 14: And I will bring back the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the deserted cities, and shall dwell in them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; and they shall make gardens, and eat the fruits thereof. What he had said by exaggeration, that is, that nectar would as it were burst forth everywhere from the mountains, he set forth in a following narration, saying, namely, that those enjoying the goods of liberty would build the walls of the city, and repair the houses: would plant vineyards, and would not fear a plunderer, but would be filled with the desired fruits of them. And not only the rich, but also people of moderate means, would diligently cultivate gardens, and would gladly feed upon their abundance once obtained. On verse 15: And I will plant them upon their own land, and I will no more pluck them up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God.

That is, the people whom the scourges of captivity have corrected, when I shall have had regard to the possession of their own lands, I will make them so to rejoice in continual security, that they will no longer experience the commands of proud masters, nor taste again the bitter exile, but will abide in their own regions by everlasting possession. In saying which, he certainly did not promise that they would never be changed to a depraved will—they who, as is well known, both denied the Redeemer of the human race and violated him by persecution, and were driven from those lands which they had received, to the point that they are forever barred from dwelling in them. But the Lord of all things declared his own purpose, namely, that he had so restored them to their paternal borders, that he never wished them to be expelled, if their life would permit it: and thus it might be understood, that all the adversities which afterward followed are to be imputed to their own conduct.

But in the body of Christ, that is, in the members of the Church, all these things appear faithfully and abundantly fulfilled, to whom, namely, such felicity of hope has been conferred, that when the time of the resurrection shall come, and they shall have attained the true blessedness, they may confess that their goods are precious both in sweetness and in eternity.