Commentary on Jeremiah 1 part 12/12

For those who foretold pleasing things became a hindrance to repentance, and would not let them depart from their great transgression.

'All who pass along the way clapped their hands at you;

they hissed, they shook their head at the daughter of Jerusalem.'

This is characteristic of those who marvel at a change for the worse.

And he tells also the very things they were saying:

'Is this the city, the crown of glory, the fair comeliness, the joy of all the earth?' He says that all these things were fulfilled according to the divine predictions;

and he teaches also with what sort of words the foes made use, exulting over the evils that had befallen her.

'We have become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to those round about us.' And again:

'You have made us a reproach among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples.' And again, employing personification, the prophet exhorts the enclosures and the city to weep by night and by day on account of the manifold calamities;

and he tells also the excess of the evils.

'Shall women eat the fruit of their womb? A cook has made of it a gleaning.' That is, she boiled her late-born offspring.

'Many infants sucking at the breast shall be slain.' And he adds also the other monstrous thing:

'Shall they slay in the sanctuary of the Lord priest and prophet?' And by the quality of the persons and of the place he displayed the excess of the suffering.

the enslavement of the aged, the youths, and the virgins — he added:

'You have summoned as to a feast-day my sojourning from round about;

and in the day of the Lord's wrath there was none saved and left remaining.'

For fearing the assault of the enemies, they fled into the city as into a stronghold;

yet there they were all taken captive;

and it was their custom too at the season of the feasts to run together there all of them;

for which reason he likened the capture to the feast.

'I reared, and I prevailed, and I multiplied, and the enemy has consumed all.' 'My labour,' he says, 'has become in vain.'

For I was made bereft of all my nourishment.

Here he brought the second Lamentation to its close.

And he begins the third thus:

I am the man who beholds poverty.

By 'poverty' he here means the lack of good things.

By the rod of his wrath. (v. 2) He took me and led me away into darkness and not light.

He takes upon himself the sufferings that befell the city, and he calls the misfortune 'darkness.'

He turned his hand against me all the day long.

For he who of old bestowed good things upon me now brings chastisements upon me.

For this is what is signified by 'He turned his hand.' (v. 4)

He has made old my flesh and my skin.

For all these things despondency brings about.

He has built up siegeworks against me and encircled me.

That is, I am unable to escape the evils that have been brought upon me;

and it also signifies the outer rampart which the enemy, in besieging, threw up.

He has wearied my head, he has set me in dark places, like those long dead.

By these words he hints at the bitter servitude;

for the Babylonian, having gouged out the eyes of Zedekiah, delivered him over to the mill;

and this too the words that follow make plain.

He has made heavy the yoke upon my neck.

For he compelled me to serve most savage masters.

And though I cry out and shout aloud.

For he does not receive my petition when I make supplication.

He has walled up my ways with hewn stone and made my paths to vanish.

For I am beset by evils which I cannot escape.

He became to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.

He pursued me as I turned aside, and threw me into confusion.

He has shown the justice of the chastisement;

for I, he says, was the first to depart;

and only thereafter did he bring punishment upon me.

Of these predictions the earlier prophets also make mention.

(v. 12) He bent his bow;

and he set me up as a target for the arrow.

Those who shoot at a mark, and who practice this art, are wont to send not two or three or four, but many arrows.

By these images he has made plain the unremitting succession of calamity.

And he speaks also of the anguish of the soul;

for by 'kidneys' he means the thoughts;

and that he became an object of malicious joy to his enemies, who continually sang of the calamities brought upon her.

For he stripped me, he says, of all strength.

He cast out my teeth by lot, and fed me with ashes.

But the Syriac says: He has deprived me on a rock both of my former peace and of good things of every kind.

And I said, My victory has perished, and my hope from the Lord.

The mercies of the Lord are many, because we have not been utterly consumed, because his compassions have not come to an end.

For if he had brought punishment commensurate with the sin, not even we would have escaped the slaughter.

Renew them, as the morning dawn.

Since he had called the calamity 'darkness,' he likens the change from it to the dawn.

Your faithfulness was multiplied toward the mornings. For when the change has come to pass, they will attend to piety more sincerely.

For many are my groanings, and my heart has failed.

The Lord is my portion, said my soul; therefore I will wait for him.

I have, he says, no other refuge, but I wait upon your help.

Then he teaches the usefulness of hope in God.

The Lord is good to those who wait for him;

to the soul that will seek him, it shall live.

It is good to wait and to hope for the salvation of the Lord.

These things, and others, he teaches for the consolation of the despondent.

It is good for a man when he bears the yoke in his youth.

He shall sit alone and keep silence, because he has taken a heavy yoke upon himself.

It is good for me that you humbled me, that I might learn your statutes. And the words 'He shall sit alone and keep silence' teach endurance, and to bear patiently what is grievous.

And the words that follow are in harmony with this;

if indeed there is hope of endurance;

and he shall be filled with reproaches.

This is an evangelical law;

for the Lord declared that to him who strikes the right cheek one should turn the other also.

That is, He shall be silent, and shall nobly bear reviling and reproaches, as though his mouth were filled with earth.

For he did not humble, he says, from his whole heart, nor did he cast off the sons of men.

For the outward appearance is that of one who is angry, but his intention is full of loving-kindness.

Indeed, it is for the benefit of men that he employs chastisement;

To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, that is, those bound fast to the earth and having no lofty mind;

for they live in wickedness, and do not fear him who oversees all.

Who thus spoke, and it came to pass? The Lord did not command it.

'Out of the mouth of the Most High shall not go forth our evils and our good things.'

The saying accuses those who do away with providence; for such men attribute the things that come to pass to fate and to chance.

For these men attribute the things that happen to fate and to chance.

'Why doth a living man murmur, a man concerning the punishment of his own sin?' For it is sloth, and not nature, that is the author of sin; and it is on this account that the Judge brings punishment upon those who sin.

'Our way was searched out and examined.'

For He saw the transgression that had been dared by us.

'And let us turn again unto the Lord.' Let the punishment become for us an occasion of repentance.

'Let us lift up our hearts, and look toward the Most High, who dwelleth in heaven.'

Freeing our thoughts, he says, from superfluous cares, let us entreat the divine mercy.

'We have sinned, and have committed impiety, and thou hast not been propitious.'

'Thou hast covered us in wrath, and hast pursued us;'

'thou hast slain, and hast not spared.'

'Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud made firm, that our prayer might not pass through unto thee.'

This also God says through another prophet: 'For your sins make a separation between you and me.' These same things this prophet also likened to the cloud which hindered the approach of prayer.

He laments and mourns exceedingly, seeing the enemies mocking, and heaping reproaches upon the people;

and he says that these men hunted them down, and slaughtered them, and cast them into a pit, and laid a stone upon them, and made them to sink beneath the water;

and through all these things he has shown the excess of the evils.

'Save me, O God, for the waters are come in even unto my soul.'

'I am sunk in deep mire, where there is no standing.'

'I am come into the depths of the sea, and the tempest hath overwhelmed me.' And again:

'Let not the tempest of water drown me, neither let the deep swallow me up, nor let the pit shut its mouth upon me.' So also here:

'I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the lowest pit.'

'Stop not thine ears at my supplication, and at my crying.'

'For thou didst draw near,' he says, 'in the day when I called upon thee, and thou saidst unto me, Fear not.'

And even this brief word suffices for consolation.

Then he teaches that, having judged justly both them and their enemies, He delivered those over to slavery, but deemed these worthy of freedom.

And having asked for destruction upon the impious enemies, he has completed the third lamentation.

'How is the gold become dim, the good silver changed!'

'The holy stones are poured out at the top of every street.' To these materials he likens the piety of the forefathers, and laments the change that has come upon their descendants.

'The sons of Zion, the precious, the exalted, who were valued above gold;'

'Because they shall become useless, as an earthen vessel broken into small pieces, wherein there is no water to draw, nor fire to take from the hearth.'

'Yea, the sea-monsters have drawn out their breasts, they have given suck to their whelps; the daughters of my people are turned to cruelty incurable, like the sparrow in the wilderness.'

'Even the more savage beasts,' he says, 'care for their young;'

but the excess of the calamity caused the inhabitants of Zion to forget even nature itself;

and while most were slaughtered, and the rest were led away into captivity, a few remained, resembling a solitary sparrow wandering through the wilderness.

'The tongue of the suckling child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst;'

'the little ones asked for bread, and there was none to break it unto them.'

'They that fed on dainties have perished in the streets.'

That is to say, cast out along the marketplace.

'They that were reared in scarlet have embraced dunghills.' And he says that their sin was the cause of these things;

and he sets this beside the sin of Sodom.

He speaks also of the good repute of the Nazirites before the calamities, and of their affliction in the calamity;

and he says that death in war is more to be chosen than the arrows of famine.

And he sets into the lamentation the most grievous suffering of all;

'The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children;'

'they became meat for them in the destruction of the daughter of my people.'

For the violence of hunger overcame natural affection.

'The kings of the earth believed not, nor all the inhabitants of the world, that the enemy and the oppressor should enter in through the gates of Jerusalem.'

For they had great pledges for their believing, namely the things concerning Sennacherib, whose army He consumed in a brief portion of the night.

But she was delivered up to the enemies both because of the deceit of the false prophets, and because of the bloodshed committed by the priests.

'Her young men crept along in the streets.'

By 'exits' he means the streets, and what are called the lanes;

'They were defiled with blood, so that they could not; they were cast off together with their garments.' Famine compelled them to be cast down;

and the enemies, sitting close by, prevented their burial, while the dogs devoured those who had been cast out.

He speaks also of the things noised abroad by the enemies;

Then, having shown whom he calls unclean, he takes up the saying, and declares:

'Depart, come not near them, for they have provoked' — that is, God.

'And they were kindled, yea, they were shaken.' They were stripped bare, he says, of the divine help because of their transgression.

'Say among the nations, They shall no more sojourn before the face of the Lord.' 'Utterly,' he says, 'hath He renounced us.'

'Our eyes have failed in looking for our help, while we watched in vain;'

'we looked out for a nation that could not save.'

For trusting in the help of the Egyptians, we were disappointed of our hope.

Then he shows the cruelty of the enemies;

for they neither counted old age worthy of mercy, nor the priesthood worthy of reverence.

'We hunted our little ones, that they should not walk in our broad places.'

The Syriac rendered it 'they hunted';

and the sense follows consistently;

for the enemies hunted the young along with the aged.

'These things,' he says, 'we endured, because our time hath drawn near, our days are fulfilled.' The saying has shown that the God of all, employing weight and measure, both is longsuffering and chastises.

For when, having exercised longsuffering, He sees men despising it, He brings on punishment, that He may put an end to sin.

Then he teaches that the swiftness of the enemies overcame even the nimbleness of the citizens.

And he foretells the saving Passion, saying:

'The breath of our countenance, Christ the Lord, was taken in our corruptions; of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.'

Let the Jews say whom the prophetic word calls Christ. Which of those among them who were called christs—whether king, or prophet, or priest—was ever named Lord? They could not point to any, however much they employ their abundant falsehood.

The prophets say that these shall live in his shadow.

And they believed through the holy apostles and through their divine oracles, which were proclaimed to the nations.

But let us look ahead to the things concerning him, since the all-holy Spirit has enlightened us.

'The breath of our countenance,' he says, 'is Christ the Lord.' This prophecy the prophet has inserted into his Lamentations, teaching the Jews of that time that, because their hope had not yet been born, they would obtain forbearance and enjoy restoration—even though they were destined to hand over to the cross the Saviour of the whole world.

'Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Idumea, that dwellest in the land of Uz;

yea, upon thee also shall come the cup of the Lord, and thou shalt drink, and be drunken, and shalt pour out.'

The prophetic word has foretold to them an excess of evils.

of those who say, 'Rase it, rase it, even to the foundations thereof.' For though they were brethren and neighbours, they would not be at peace, but preserved the ancestral hatred.

'Thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion;

he will no more carry thee away into captivity;

he hath visited thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he hath uncovered thine impieties.'

To Zion he proclaimed good things, but the opposite to Idumea;

for he said that the punishment would pass over upon her.

True also is the saying, 'He will no more carry thee away into captivity.' For those who had enslaved them were utterly destroyed, and came under the dominion of the Persians.

So then the prophet set this as the conclusion to his Lamentations;

and I exhort those who shall read them to receive what has been rightly and well said;

and if anything is wanting, to grant pardon.

For being men, and falling short of perfection, we have contributed our own zeal, providing some benefit to those who love God and love labour; whom we entreat to render, in return for the toil of this interpretation, the aid of their prayer;

that, being upheld by it, we may accomplish what remains of life, serving in deeds and words and thoughts our God and Saviour and Lord, with whom, to the Father, together with the all-holy Spirit, belong glory and majesty, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.