Commentary on Jeremiah 1 part 10/12

'And I will set my throne in Elam, and I will destroy thence king and nobles,' says the Lord.

The phrase 'I will set my throne' stands for 'there I will judge and pronounce the verdict,' using the enemies as it were as executioners.

And even now he has his throne there, this city too having been changed unto piety;

so that according to this sense also the prediction is true.

'And it shall come to pass in the last of the days, I will turn again the captivity of Elam,' says the Lord.

for he takes greater care of souls;

for this very reason he applies chastisements also to bodies.

He foretells therefore the abolition of the devil, and the ceasing of impiety, and the freedom of men who had been made captives by sin.

Having obtained which, let us hymn the Giver thereof, and love the life of freedom, and abhor our former bondage;

Having foretold what should befall the other nations, he next predicts the destruction of Babylon.

'Declare among the nations, and make it heard, and lift up a signal;

make it heard, and hide it not';

Since the king of the Babylonians, having dissolved the other kingdoms, compelled them to be subject to his own dominion, he commands that the dissolution of this one be announced to the nations.

'Bel is put to shame.' It was an idol exceedingly honoured by the Babylonians;

first as being unable to help those who worshipped it, and then as being utterly deprived of its honours.

'The undaunted, the delicate.' He has shown both their power and their luxurious living.

'Merodach is delivered up.' They named the first who reigned over the Babylonians Merodach.

Here therefore he speaks either of the last king, in whose time the dissolution of the kingdom took place, or of the first, who transferred the kingdom from Nineveh to Babylon.

And of the second one might take the 'is delivered up,' and also of the first; but of the second, the kingdom itself;

and he says that all her idols too were put to shame, and their weakness made manifest.

By 'a nation from the north that marched against Babylon' he means the Medes.

'These,' he says, 'both made their land desolate, and utterly laid it waste.'

both the ten tribes and the two shall receive their freedom;

and thereupon they shall return, and shall flee unto the Lord.

Then he likens them to lost sheep;

and he lays the blame for the sheep's ruin upon the shepherds;

and by shepherds he means not only the kings, but also the priests;

and he tells also in what way they contrived to lead them astray:

'They drove them out onto the mountains;'

'they led them astray; they wandered from mountain to hill, they forgot their resting-place.' By 'hills' and 'mountains' he means the precincts of the idols;

for it was in those places that they worshipped the idols;

and by their 'resting-place' he means the divine temple;

for it was from there that they had the enjoyment of good things.

'This error,' he says, 'has delivered them over to their enemies, in return for the sins they committed against the Lord.'

'A pasture of righteousness to him who gathered their fathers unto the Lord.'

'But we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.' This too is what he says here:

namely, that they were a pasture of righteousness to the Lord, who chose out their fathers.

'Be estranged from the midst of Babylon, and go forth from the land of the Chaldeans;'

'and become like young goats before the flock.'

The 'young goats' the Syrian rendered as 'he-goats.'

He therefore urges them to prevail over the Babylonians, and to seize the one who oppressed them;

for it was for this reason that he likened them also to he-goats;

for the he-goats are stronger than the sheep.

He tells also of the multitude of those advancing against Babylon, and that they shall prevail, and shall be filled with the good things gathered together there.

'Because you rejoiced and boasted, plundering my inheritance.'

'And because you leaped like calves in the pasture, and gored like bulls.'

'And their mother was greatly put to shame.'

'She who bore you was buried out of prosperity.'

That is to say, she has been brought to nothing;

and this signifies the utterness of the overthrow;

for this is what the following words will also teach.

'Behold, the last of the nations, a desert and a waterless land.'

'(v. 13.) And because of the Lord's wrath she shall not be inhabited, and all of her shall become an utter desolation.'

He says also that those passing through are gloomy because of the exceeding greatness of the calamity, and by their hissing make plain their astonishment.

He commands also the archers to loose their arrows unsparingly, and to exact penalties for her impiety.

'For she sinned,' he says, 'against the Lord.'

He foretells also the cowardice of the Babylonians, and the demolition of their walls;

and he adds the cause of the disaster.

'Because vengeance is from God, take vengeance upon her;'

'as she has done, so do to her;'

'(v. 16.) Cut off the seed from Babylon, and him that holds the sickle in the time of harvest.'

That is to say: deliver over to death not only those who wage war, but also those who till the ground.

For this is what they too had done in warring against Israel.

'From before the Greek sword each shall return to his own people, and each shall flee to his own land.' Before Babylon, Cyrus overthrew the Lydians;

and he subjugated also the Ionians and the Aeolians;

and these had migrated out of Greece, and settled in Asia;

leading these also, then, Cyrus made his campaign against Babylon.

The prophetic word, however, did not mention the Greeks in vain;

but rather teaching that the divine decree gathered even the nations settled far away against the Babylonians.

'Israel is a wandering sheep.'

The error concerning the idols became for him the procurer of his evils.

'Lions drove him out.' He so named the kings of the Assyrians.

'The first devoured them, the king of Assyria': Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser, and Sennacherib;

and thus a later king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, devoured his bones.

That is to say, the remnants of the forefathers.

'I will exact,' and she shall suffer these things which Nineveh suffered, the ancient metropolis of the Assyrians.

But having punished these, I will bring Israel back to his ancestral land;

for by 'Bashan, and Carmel, and Mount Ephraim' he means this land.

He foretells also the change for the better, and the deliverance from the former error.

Then again he calls the land of the Chaldeans a land of those who provoke to bitterness;

and by 'sword' he means the enemies;

and he commands these to rush against those, and to do the things commanded by him.

And by 'hammer of the whole earth' he named the kingdom of the Babylonians, as having inflicted a blow upon all the nations, and having overthrown the other kingdoms.

For it is proper to a hammer to crush the things struck by it.

'The Lord opened his treasury, and brought forth the vessels of his wrath;'

'for it is a work for God, even the Lord of hosts, in the land of the Chaldeans.'

'For her appointed times have come.'

By 'vessels of wrath' he means the enemies, as ministering to his wrath.

And by 'treasures' he called the sentence of punishment, and by 'her times' the punishment itself.

Then, teaching that he himself brings on the punishment, he urges them also to search out the storehouses, and to destroy everything, and to leave not even a trace of the former prosperity.

He foretells also those fleeing from there, the multitude of the Jews, and coming to Jerusalem, and reporting the evils that had overtaken Babylon.

Then, having urged that she suffer what she had done, for he says, 'Repay her according to her works,' and having displayed the very frenzy of God against her, he directs his words to her.

'Behold, I am against you, you insolent one, says the Lord of hosts.'

The appellation applied to her hints at her arrogance against God, and makes plain her lawlessness toward all men.

'For the day of your fall is come, and the time of your vengeance.'

(32.) 'And your pride shall grow weak and fall, and there shall be none to raise it up;'

'and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is round about her.'

By 'those round about' he means her subjects.

And by 'the weakening of pride' he means the dissolution of her dominion.

'These things,' he says, 'they shall suffer, because, having enslaved my people, they were unwilling to restore their freedom to them in due time.'

For this reason, therefore, he threatens to deliver up to the enemy both the city and its inhabitants, and the oracles of her false prophecy, and those accustomed to hold pre-eminence in her, and those who came to their aid, and the treasures laid up in store.

He threatens also to make her waters vanish away;

and by 'water' he figuratively names the multitude of her people;

yet it is likely that he also foretells what would befall the water itself.

For of old the Euphrates cut through the midst of her, but now the river has been turned into another course, and only a very small channel makes its way through the ruins.

By 'islands' he calls the houses of the city, since the water washed around the enclosing walls on every side, and again the river ran through the midst of the city.

By 'phantoms' he means the apparitions of the demons;

and 'daughters of Sirens' the Syriac rendered as ostriches;

and it is the custom of divine Scripture so to call demons, because they bewitch and deceive men;

and both these creatures and those are indicative of desolation.

'And it shall no more be built up for ever, neither shall it be inhabited any more from generation to generation.' And both have come to pass in fact;

for neither has it been rebuilt, but has been stripped of its walls even to this day, and has remained uninhabited for a very long time;

for this is what he meant by 'from generation to generation.' And even now only a few Jews dwell in this land.

He likens her to Sodom and Gomorrah, both on account of her former impiety, and on account of the ruin subsequently brought upon her.

He also indicates the full armament of the enemy, and says it is like a surging sea;

and he says that the hands of the Babylonians were paralysed with fear, and he likens their anguish to the birth-pangs of a woman.

'And who shall withstand me? And who is this shepherd that shall stand before my face?' Since he was called the shepherd of Israel, and the kings of Babylon supposed that they would prevail over the God of all, he teaches that it is he himself who brings the punishment upon them, having power beyond all comparison.

Then he further commands that the very lambs of the flock be destroyed and the pasture be laid waste;

and by 'lambs' he means the infants, and by 'pasture' the city and the land lying beneath it.

'For blessed,' he says, 'is he who shall seize your little ones and dash them against the rock.'

For since the city was renowned, the report of her calamity also ran everywhere.

CHAPTER 51. Then he calls the enemy by various names;

and first, a scorching wind;

for this is wont by nature to destroy plants.

And by this he signifies the justice of the punishment.

'For you shall suffer,' he says, 'what you have done.'

Having commanded these to employ their wrath unsparingly against all, he added:

'for I have not utterly stripped them of my care.'

'Babylon is a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunk with her wine;'

'the nations drank of this, the nations were shaken.'

'And suddenly Babylon has fallen and is shattered.'

And here too he named the punishment inflicted through her upon the other nations a 'golden cup.'

He says, therefore, that she brought punishment upon the other nations also, yet she herself was suddenly, beyond all expectation, captured and overthrown.

Then to the nations that had come to her aid he says, 'Lament for her;'

'take balm for her destruction, if perhaps she may be healed.' That is to say, apply to her the remedies of help;

and the prophet employs personification, and sets down the reply of those others.

'We would have healed her, but she was not healed;'

'let us forsake her, and let us go each one to his own land;'

'for her judgment has drawn near to heaven, and is lifted up even to the stars.'

'The Lord has brought forth his judgment.'

This arrogance of the Babylonian the blessed Isaiah also foretold;

'The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the king of the Medes;'

'for his anger is against Babylon, to destroy her utterly;'

'for it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance for his temple, upon the walls of Babylon.'

'What she has dared against the temple, I will bring upon the walls of Babylon.'

Then ironically he commands the Babylonians both to set watchmen upon the walls, and to rouse them, and to make ready their arms;

and teaching that no benefit will come to them from this, he added:

'And the Lord will do all that he has spoken against those who dwell in Babylon.' For he foretold her destruction through the prophets.

And he says that God swore by his arm, that is to say, by his own power;

'Who makes the earth by his strength;'

'who prepares the inhabited world by his wisdom;'

'by his understanding he stretched out the heaven.'

'... in heaven, and he brought up clouds from the ends of the earth;'

'he made lightnings for the rain;'

'he brought forth light out of his treasuries.'

He has set down both the works of creation and the works of providence;

for he has not only made all things, but also continues to govern them.

The phrase 'At the voice of his sound he set a multitude of water in heaven' teaches concerning the crash of thunder produced through the clouds.

He sets alongside his theology the weakness of the demons;

and he shows that they stand in need of the craft of goldsmiths, and that, being made by others, they have not even the power to breathe like the irrational animals.

He also foretells their cessation.

'For in the time of their visitation,' he says, 'they shall perish.'

(19.) 'Not such is the portion of Jacob; for he who formed all things, he himself is his portion, and Israel is the rod of his inheritance;'

'the Lord of hosts is his name.'

Those were the gods of Babylon, but the God of Israel is the Maker of all things.

With good reason, therefore, the former are dissolved, while the latter return home.

This the Syriac rendered thus: 'Prepare for me the weapons of war.' According to the Greek rendering, however, it is to be understood in this way:

Since you employed your weapons against my people, and hurled arrows and spears against them, I too will scatter nations by means of you.

Having scattered them, I too will disperse the nations that have come to your aid, and the horses, and their riders, and every age, and both sexes, and rulers and ruled, and shepherds and farmers.

And these things you shall suffer, for what you dared to do against Zion.

Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, says the Lord, that destroys all the earth.

He calls it a mountain because of the conspicuousness of its dominion, but 'destroyed' because of its impiety and lawlessness.

And I will stretch out my hand against you, and roll you down from the rocks. That is: I will show you to be brought low.

And I will make you a burnt mountain, that is, utterly useless.

And they shall not take from you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for a foundation, for you shall be a perpetual desolation, says the Lord.

They appointed neither king nor ruler from among the new inhabitants.

For the foundations bear the building, and the corners join it together.

Raise a signal upon the earth, sound a trumpet among the nations.

Summon against her, at my command, the kingdoms of Ararat, and the Ashkenazites.

By 'Ararat' he means Armenia.

And the Ashkenazites are another nation neighboring upon those.

All these the king of the Persians and Medes gathered together;

the king of the Medes, and his leaders, and all his commanders.

He says also that the earth was shaken.

He foretells also the siege, and the feebleness of those fighting within, and the burning of the city, and those who announce its capture to the king.

He likens the demolition of the houses to a threshing-floor made fine, and to a ripe harvest.

He sets down also the words of Jerusalem, which she spoke concerning the king of the Babylonians.

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has divided me, devoured me, seized me like fine darkness.

The finest air penetrates our bodies more readily.

She says, then, that 'the darkness of calamity filled the very members of my soul.'

He set me as an empty vessel, and swallowed me down like a dragon;

he filled his belly from my delicacies. He says: 'He stripped me of all good things, and imitated a dragon swallowing sparrows' young, taking away all my wealth and stripping me of my prosperity.'

'My afflictions be upon Babylon,' shall Zion's inhabitant say;

'and my blood upon those who dwell in Chaldea,' shall Jerusalem say.

'My blood,' she says, 'shall be avenged upon them, and they shall pay the penalty for the lawless deeds they committed against me.'

Thus the prophet sets forth the matters concerning Jerusalem, and the just sentence pronounced by God.

Behold, I will judge your adversary, and will execute vengeance for you.

Since you have come to know the harm that arises from sin.

And I will make her sea desolate. That is, the multitude of her subjects.

And I will dry up her fountain. That is, her kingdom and her dominion over all.

Then he speaks also of the things proper to desolation, concerning which we have often spoken.

It shall not be inhabited as a single whole. For it now has few houses, and these scattered.

Having likened her nobles to lions, he foretells both their cowardice and their destruction.

And I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with kids.

That is, both rulers and ruled, and along with the king his subjects;

for by 'lambs' and 'kids' he called the subjects, and by 'rams' the rulers.

How is Sheshach taken, and the boast of all the earth captured? Thus he calls Babylon herself.

For indeed he named her king 'Sheshach' in what was interpreted earlier.

It is likely that she was so named of old, and was later renamed Babylon.

That he does indeed call the city by this name, what follows bears witness.

The sea has come up upon Babylon;

she was overwhelmed by the roar of its waves.

Then, having foretold the desolation, he again brings Bel into the midst.

For I will take vengeance, he says, upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth what he has swallowed;

and the nations shall no longer be gathered together unto him.

The prophetic word foretells also the cessation of the error;

and it consoles the people, and exhorts them not to fear the evils coming upon Babylon, and teaches that these things were made known long beforehand.

For the report shall come in the same year, and after it, in the following year, the report and the injustice in the land.

And ruler against ruler, and parable against parable.

For though the assault of the enemy was announced one or two years beforehand, they persisted in wrongdoing and transgressing after their custom.

And he teaches also the justice of the punishment.

And indeed in Babylon the slain of Israel shall fall within her.

So also the slain of Babylon shall fall by all the earth;

for what she wrought against Israel, she shall suffer at the hands of others.

You who have escaped from the land, go, and do not stand still;

remember the Lord, you who are far off.

These things he says to the captive Jews.

And let Jerusalem come up upon your heart. Do not forget the city that is consecrated to God.

Then, in the person of those very ones:

We were put to shame, because we heard our reproach.

Disgrace has covered our face.

Strangers have entered into our holy places, into the house of the Lord.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will take vengeance upon her graven images, and throughout all her land the slain shall fall.

For though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, from me shall come those who destroy her, says the Lord.

It had very great walls, and exceedingly high ones.

when He pronounces His sentence against them.

And He joins the deed to the divine sentence, and says:

A sound of crying in Babylon, and great destruction in the land of the Chaldeans.

For the Lord has utterly destroyed Babylon, and has cut off from her the voice that resounded like many waters.

By these words He has made plain the multitude of the inhabitants.

And she gained no benefit, He says, from her bows nor from her spears, since God was exacting justice upon her.

For besides her generals and her champions—And her greatest wall shall be razed to the ground, and her lofty gates shall become fuel for the fire. Having thus foretold these things, he teaches that he wrote this prophecy in the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah, God having commanded this—

to Seraiah, who was sent by Zedekiah to Babylon;

and how He charged him to read the book in Babylon, and to say:

O Lord, You have spoken concerning this place, to utterly destroy it, so that there should be no inhabitant in it, from man even to beast, for it shall be a desolation for ever.

And when you have prayed these things, He said, and have bound the book to a stone, cast it into the Euphrates, and you shall say:

Thus shall Babylon sink down, and shall not rise again, because of the evils which I bring upon her.

so that, learning both of this city's capture and of their own liberation, they might have the hope of good things as a consolation.

The prophecy, then, here reached its conclusion.

But in a more historical manner he recounts what follows.

And teaching both how Zedekiah reigned, and that he persisted in transgressing;

and how in the ninth year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar marched against him, and continued besieging Jerusalem until the eleventh year, having raised outside another rampart of very great stones;

and how the famine wrought upon those within more grievously than the enemy did.

And he, having convicted Zedekiah of the breaking of his oaths, first slew his sons, then the princes;

and how, after that bitter spectacle, he gouged out the king's eyes, and having put fetters upon him, carried him off to Babylon, and delivered him to the millhouse.

And the huge bronze pillars which Solomon had made, and the bronze sea, he melted down and carried away to Babylon, together with the bases and the lavers;

and the bases the Syriac version rendered as foot-basins.

And the other vessels also he carried off along with these.

And by 'Sapphoth' he means the small pillars (obelisks);

and he teaches how the king of the Babylonians slew both the first priest and the second, and those who were led away captive with them;

and he states also the number of the captives who were led away;

and in addition to these, he explains how, after the thirty-seven years of Jeconiah's captivity—

for he calls him Joakim—

Evil-merodach the king freed this same Jeconiah from prison, and, showing him kindness, deemed him worthy of a royal throne, and commanded him to sit as king above the others, and kept him as a table-companion, generously supplying him with the enjoyment of all necessities.

For in punishing He shows mercy, and by bringing chastisement He consoles the soul, and He tempers the sentence of justice with lovingkindness.

Let us, therefore, fear the justice of the judgment, and, taking courage in His lovingkindness, let us not despair of salvation;

but let us wait for the divine mercy, and walk the straight path, that we may attain the blessed end, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to our Father be glory, together with the all-holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

The admirable Baruch departed together with the Jews who had fled into Egypt;

for this we were taught in what preceded;

yet five years after the taking of the city, he arrived at Babylon.

For those reared in piety brought all diligence to bear, so as to support the weak and to guide them toward the truth.

Having therefore arrived at Babylon, he read out the prophecy of the divine Jeremiah to all the captives, and indeed also to Jeconiah, who, having reigned only a short time, had become a captive of the spear;

and he did not fail of his aim.

For the Hebrews call the manna a sacrifice.

And they ask for life both for Nebuchadnezzar and for Belshazzar his son.

Thus too the divine Apostle laid down the law of praying on behalf of kings who still warred against piety, and of those in positions of eminence and authority.

So great is the harmony of the old with the new.

And they too, being compelled to serve, ask that their eyes may be enlightened, lest they should suffer any deception.

And they call to mind also their own sins, and they confess the justice of the divine sentence.

And they entreat that this very letter of theirs be read before God at the splendid feasts.

And you shall say, He says: To the Lord our God belongs righteousness, but to us belongs the shame of our face, as at this day, to the man of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to our rulers, and to our priests, before the Lord.

And we are worthy of shame, having all in common transgressed the law.

For along with the kings, the priests also turned to the opposite course.

And we did not hearken to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in the commandments of the Lord which He set before our face.

And they call to mind also the things of old.

For from the time when our fathers were freed from the bondage of the Egyptians until the present, we have continued transgressing the divine law;

and we acted heedlessly, so as not to hearken to His voice.

And the phrase 'we acted heedlessly' stands for 'we even devised forms of sins'; such men the blessed Paul also calls inventors of evils;

and we have reaped, he says, the fruits of our sins.

For evils clung to us, and the curse which the Lord ordained for Moses His servant.

The law contains both the curses and the blessings;

the blessings for those who keep it, but the curses for those who transgress it.

And they tell how they despised even the prophets who were sent to them by God, and that the things foretold by those prophets came to their fulfillment.

And He has brought, he says, upon us great evils, such as have not been done under the whole heaven, according to what He did in Jerusalem.

And teaching that these things too had been foretold, they added:

According to what is written in the law of Moses.

That a man should eat the flesh of his own son, and a man the flesh of his own daughter.

For the siege brought about the famine;

and the famine constrained them to partake of human bodies.

We have become, he says, an object of gloating even to the nations that are our neighbours.

And we have become underneath and not on top—that is, slaves and not masters.

Then they add the cause: Because we have sinned against the Lord our God, in not hearkening to His voice. Again, having assigned the justice to the divine sentence, they assign to themselves the shame.

For though God had often threatened, and had foretold these things through the prophets, we did not turn to the Eternal One in our days, but continued resisting.

And the Lord kept watch over the evils which He brought upon us.

He calls the punishment the awakening of God.

For it is the custom of divine Scripture to call His long-suffering a sleep.

For those who transgressed and were unwilling to be healed, He chastised.

Then, lamenting, they entreat Him, and call to remembrance the ancient freedom which their fathers obtained when they were delivered from the bitter bondage of the Egyptians.

And they also call to remembrance the wonders that had been wrought.

They also set forth their own transgressions, and cry aloud:

'We have sinned, we have acted impiously, we have done wrong, O Lord our God, against all Thy ordinances.'

'We have transgressed,' he says, 'Thine every commandment, we have trampled underfoot every law.'

'Let Thy wrath be turned away from us, for we are left few out of many among the nations, whither Thou hast scattered us.'

'We confess the justice of the punishment.'

'But we beseech that it may cease;'