Commentary on the Twelve Prophets 1 part 17/19

Shepherd the sheep of slaughter—to Him who had chosen to take the form of the servant, that He might free the nature of men from bondage.

As man, therefore, not as God, He receives these commands;

for as God He is equal in honour with Him who begat Him;

I received a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. Thus here too He commands him:

Shepherd the sheep of slaughter. And teaching for what reason He so names them, He added:

Which those who possessed them slaughtered, and did not repent, and those who sold them said:

Blessed be the Lord, for we have grown rich;

and their shepherds felt no compassion for them. For being led by impious kings and lawless priests, they suffered countless dreadful things at their hands.

The history of the Maccabees, and the writings of Josephus, are full of such accounts.

For having contracted the disease of ambition and love of money, they made the priesthoods a matter of purchase, and bought a dignity that in no way belonged to them.

From this arose the countless dreadful things that befell the Jews.

For this very reason He threatens punishment to the shepherds, but takes all care of the sheep.

And concerning the impious He says:

And behold, I deliver over men, each into the hand of his neighbour, and they shall cut down the land, and I will not deliver out of their hand. But those men, He says, because of their own transgression, I will leave unheeded, while I will make all provision for the more equitable.

For this He made clear by what He added:

And I will shepherd the sheep of slaughter in the land of Canaan. This seemed to some to hint at Palestine;

but to me it seems to signify a foreign land;

for by Canaan he hints at foreigners.

Those, wherever they may be, who choose to believe in Me, I will set under My care.

And I will take for myself two staffs.

The one I called Beauty, and the other I named Portion; but that which held the primacy was the error of the idols, by which of old all the nations were severally held fast.

But that which held the primacy was the error of the idols, by which of old all the nations were held fast in diverse ways.

'And from these therefore,' he says, 'and from those, I will gather sheep together, and out of both sides I will make a single flock.'

This too He said in the sacred Gospels:

'And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold;'

'those also I must lead, and they will hear My voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.'

He mingled together those who had believed from among the Jews, and He declared them to be one flock.

'And I will cut off three shepherds in one month.' He means the kings, prophets, and priests of the Jews;

for through these three orders they were being shepherded.

And, showing the reason, He adds:

'And My soul shall be grieved over them.'

'I have forsaken My house, I have abandoned My inheritance;'

'I have given My beloved soul into the hands of her enemies;'

'My inheritance became to Me as a lion in a forest;'

'she lifted up her voice against Me, therefore have I hated her.' And indeed through Isaiah also He cries out:

'I waited to execute judgment, but she wrought iniquity, and not righteousness, but a cry.' Since therefore they came against Me like wild beasts, as it were roaring, and thirsting for My slaughter, [verse 9]

'let that which is dying die, and that which is failing fail, and let the remnant, each one, devour the flesh of his neighbor.' And all these things must of necessity befall those who are stripped of divine care.

'And I will take My good staff, and cast it away, to break My covenant, which I had made with all the peoples of the earth.' For when those who had received the proclamation of the knowledge of God have been sifted by the divine winnowing-fan, and, as it were like grain, separated from the chaff, it is of all necessity that the chaff be burned with unquenchable fire, according to the word of the great John.

'And it shall be broken in that day.' And that He does not say these things concerning all who are of the nations, but only concerning the unbelievers, what follows bears witness.

'And the Canaanites, the sheep that are kept for Me, shall know that it is the word of the Lord.' And He calls Canaanites those from among the nations who have believed, inasmuch as they were of another race;

and He calls them sheep worthy of keeping, on account of the faith which they had obtained.

'These,' he says, 'having beheld the destruction of the unbelievers, shall learn through experience that the prophetic word is a divine word.'

Having said these things concerning those of the nations, both those who disbelieved and those who believed, he transfers his discourse to the Jews, and says:

'If it is good in your eyes, give Me My wage; but if not, refuse it.'

'And they weighed out My wage, thirty pieces of silver.'

'Cast them into the furnace, and consider whether it is approved, in the manner in which I was tested for their sake.'

'And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them down, and threw them into the house of the Lord, into the furnace.' These things, as I think, require no interpretation, since the narrative of the sacred Gospels contains their interpretation.

And since they were unwilling to receive them, he cast them away and departed, having received the just wage of his injustice—the noose, I mean—from the devil, the judge of injustice.

But they, in exchange for this, gave the thirty pieces of silver;

and He Himself charges the prophet to test, as if in some fire, whether the wage of the benefaction is worthy;

and he said that he cast them down into the house of God, which He fittingly named a furnace.

For in that place those who draw near, through repentance, are as it were renewed as in some furnace, casting off the rust of sin, and attaining the divine loving-kindness.

'And I cast away the second staff, the Portion, to break the covenant that is between Judah and between Israel.' For from these too, having separated the believers from the unbelievers, He stripped the rest of His own care.

And the things now beheld bear witness to the prophecy;

for the Jews are bereft of prophets, priests, kings, temple, ark, altar, mercy-seat, altar of sacrifice, lampstand, table, and of the other things by which the worship according to the Law was fulfilled; and they have become bereft also of the care from on high;

and having become scattered, sojourners, and exiles, they serve against their will those who proclaim Christ;

and while they deny His lordship, they render servitude to His servants.

With so great an insensibility are they sick.

Having therefore foretold these things concerning God and our Savior Christ, and having convicted the obstinacy of the Jews, the Prophet fittingly transfers the prophecy at once to the anti-God Christ (Antichrist), whom the Jews await, as they themselves say.

This too the Lord said to them in the sacred Gospels:

'I have come in My Father's name, and you did not receive Me;'

'another comes in his own name, and him you will believe.' This also the blessed Paul said concerning them:

'Because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved, God will send them a working of error, that they should believe the lie, so that all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness.' Such things also the blessed Zechariah, having received the working of the divine Spirit, foretells.

'Still, take for yourself the implements of an inexperienced shepherd.'

'For there shall be,' he says, 'great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the age, nor ever shall be;'

'and unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved;'

'but for the sake of My elect those days shall be shortened.' These things too the Prophet says, that 'He shall devour the flesh of the elect, and shall wrench out their ankle-bones'—signifying by these things the excess of the evils.

And he names their shepherd 'inexperienced,' or 'senseless' according to the other translators, as being deceived by the diabolical working, and ignorant of the destruction appointed for them;

and divine Scripture is accustomed to name the impious man also 'senseless.'

'For the fool has said,' it says, 'in his heart:' [there is no God].

'Woe, O you who shepherd vain things, and who have forsaken the sheep!' Having said these things against those who obey him, and having lamented them as having forsaken the fellowship of the sheep, and as having chosen the vain and destructive honor bestowed by him, he goes on to recount the things concerning him.

'A sword upon his arm, and upon his right eye.' For the one leads those who obey to eternal destruction, while he delivers to slaughter those who contradict him.

For upon the slaughter he has placed the arm;

and upon the deception, the eye;

but nevertheless his arm, withering, shall be withered, and his right eye, being blinded, shall be blinded. For a God-sent stroke shall overtake him.

So too the Apostle says:

'Whom the Lord Jesus will consume with the breath of His mouth, and will bring to nought by the appearing of His coming;'

'whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all signs and lying wonders.' These things some of those who have interpreted this prophet have applied to Antiochus Epiphanes, saying that he is called the inexperienced shepherd.

Much more, therefore, does it fit this one (Antichrist), since that one was a type of this one.

For just as that one took up the battle against God, setting up in the temple an altar of demons, and compelling those consecrated to God to sacrifice to demons;

if therefore the prophecy fits Antiochus, it will assuredly fit this one also;

for this one will dare greater things than that one, inasmuch as he takes up battle against greater ones.

[since they] believe [in Antichrist], but denied the Savior and Lord, the Holy Spirit openly foretells through the Prophet the grievous things that shall befall them on account of their unbelief.

'The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel.'

'Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heaven, and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him.' 'It is not I,' says the Prophet, 'who declare these things to you, but the Maker and Fashioner of this whole universe;'

'He who even now fashions bodies in the wombs, and commands that souls be created together with them, this One speaks through me.'

'And behold, I set Jerusalem as shaking doorposts to all the peoples round about, and in Judah;'

'there shall be a siege against Jerusalem.' 'Easy to capture,' he says.

'and easy to overcome by all the nations will I make this city, and I will show it to be like doorposts that are shaken, and about to fall down, so that the enemies, seeing it stripped of My providence, will come upon it and besiege it, and bring in from thence the evils that spring up.'

And it shall come to pass in that day, I will make Jerusalem a stone trodden down by all the nations.

Everyone who tramples her, mocking, shall mock her, and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against her. For since they rejected that costly, chosen, and honoured stone—the one which, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, was made into the head of the corner—treating it as though it were a worthless stone, I too will bring it to pass that she is trodden down by all who drunkenly insult her and who gather together for her outrage.

And this prophecy has the very course of events as its testimony.

For one may see that place, once holy and venerable, now trodden underfoot.

But these things befell them after the cross and after that madness of theirs.

But before this act of insolence, they continued to enjoy the divine care without interruption.

For this too the prophetic word teaches, when the God of all offers His promise, that: When the Macedonian nations came upon them, I both stripped their horses of their natural boldness, and clothed these, together with their riders, in folly and cowardice; but Judah I deemed worthy of My providence.

For this He signified when He said:

In that day, says the Lord Almighty, I will smite every horse with panic, and its rider with madness.

But upon the house of Judah I will open My eyes, and I will smite all the horses of the peoples with blindness.

And the captains of thousands of Judah shall all say in their hearts:

We shall find for ourselves the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the Lord Almighty, their God. The horses of the enemy, He says, wandering here and there, shall differ in nothing from those struck blind, so that the commanders of the Jews, taking courage, shall say to one another: Jerusalem shall be full of inhabitants because of God's favour.

In that day I will make the captains of thousands of Judah like a firebrand among wood, and like a torch of fire among stubble, and they shall devour on the right hand and on the left all the peoples round about. For just as a firebrand, He says, kindles the wood, and the flame consumes the stubble;

so these men shall consume the enemies who come against them from every side.

And Jerusalem shall dwell yet again by herself—that is, governing herself according to the Law, and set apart from the nations.

And of this she had the enjoyment, until she raged against the Saviour.

But having learned this, they shall neither pride themselves upon royal power, nor take courage in the greatness of their walls.

And it shall come to pass in that day, the Lord shall shield those who dwell in Jerusalem.

For so great was the renown that those around Judah and Jonathan reaped from their victory, that the neighbouring peoples, the near dwellers, and those in the surrounding regions eagerly sought their alliance;

and not only those close at hand, but even those separated by a journey of very many days, and the Romans dwelling in the western regions, and the Spartans, embraced their alliance with great eagerness.

And it shall come to pass in that day, I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

delivering the enemies who assail them to death in every kind of form, but opening to them the fountains of mercy, and filling them with every sort of grace;

but they, when I came, requited Me as though I were an adversary, and having nailed Me to a cross, pierced My side with a soldier's spear, and continued in their drunken insolence and mockery.

But nevertheless, before long they shall see Me appearing with the divine glory, and shall bewail their own madness, and shall imitate the mourning over a firstborn youth, wailing in like manner to those who lament for him.

For they shall look, He says, upon Me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for Him with mourning as for a beloved one, and they shall be in bitter grief for themselves as over a firstborn.

(11.) In that day the mourning of Jerusalem shall be magnified, as the mourning of a pomegranate grove cut down in a plain. For just as woodcutters, when they cut down very many pomegranate trees, make a great din;

so the wailing of these shall resound in the ears of all.

And not without reason, leaving aside the other trees, has He set forth the image of the pomegranate;

but since He likened their mourning to the mourning over a beloved and a firstborn;

and the pomegranate is a figure of love, having its seeds very closely joined and united together, He fittingly said that their wailing resembled the cutting down of these trees.

And the land shall mourn tribe by tribe.

The tribe of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves;

the tribe of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves;

the tribe of Simeon by itself, and their wives by themselves.

All the remaining tribes, each tribe by itself, and their wives by themselves. This is what He means: that being divided by tribes, the men apart and the women apart shall do this.

And having made mention both of the tribe of Levi and of that of Simeon, He afterward added:

All the remaining tribes, each tribe by itself shall mourn, and their wives by themselves. And this the Lord also foretold in the holy Gospels:

But these things shall come to pass at the time of the consummation.

But for the present, He says, I will deem them worthy of My care, and this though I know that they will crucify Me when I come for their benefit.

They have forsaken Me, the fountain of the water of life. And in the holy Gospels He says:

for from that kindred He took upon Himself human nature.

At that time, says the Lord of hosts:

I will utterly destroy the names of the idols from the land, and there shall no longer be any remembrance of them;

and the false prophets and the unclean spirit I will remove from the land.

And it shall come to pass, if a man shall yet prophesy, that his father and his mother, who begot him, shall say to him:

You shall not live, because you have spoken lies in the name of the Lord;

and his father and his mother, who begot him, shall bind him hand and foot when he prophesies.

Not only, He says, will I quench the falsehood of the idols, but I will also free from this deception those who practise divinations and are worked upon by the evil spirit.

For so great a piety shall possess the world, that neither father nor mother shall spare a child who attempts to divine, but shall even put bonds upon him, and inflict scourges, and threaten death.

And all those who choose to foretell falsehoods, seeing the prevalence of piety, shall put on a mournful garb.

For the words, They shall put on a garment of hair, signify this.

And they shall be gripped by so great a fear, that they will deny their deception, and embrace husbandry instead of it, and say to all: From the very moment I was born I was taught this trade by my fathers.

I am not a prophet, for I am a man who works the ground, since a man begot me from my youth.

What are these wounds between your shoulders? And he shall say:

I was wounded in the house of my beloved. For he shall receive such wounds from those who begot him, that for a long time he shall bear the marks plainly visible, and when asked by those who see them whence he received these blows, he shall openly say that those who begot him laid them upon him out of love.

Sword, awake against My shepherd, and against the man who is My fellow citizen, says the Lord Almighty;

smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. For since He had said:

They shall look upon Me whom they pierced—lest they should suppose that He endured the saving Passion against His will, He teaches through the Prophet that He came willingly, and humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Wherefore the prophetic word represents the divine permission, and shows the sword first being commissioned by the Father;

then thus going forth against the shepherd;

and after him, against his fellow citizens, or kinsmen, according to Aquila.

And this testimony the Lord also recalls in the divine Gospels.

In this night you shall all be offended in Me; He added:

I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered. Then the prophetic word adds:

having shepherds, namely priests and teachers, yet being destitute of the reality.

And it shall come to pass in that day, in all the land, says the Lord, that two parts of it shall be utterly destroyed and shall fail;

but the third shall be left in it.

And I will bring the third part through fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined, and I will try them as gold is tried. At that time, He says, after this madness of theirs, I will deliver the two portions of the multitude to slaughter, but the third I will try through fire, as silver and gold, handing them over to all manner of trials;

and they, despising these trials and prevailing through endurance over all their sorrows, shall show Me a sincere and genuine disposition.

For he, He says, shall call upon My name, and I will hearken to him, and I will say:

'The Lord my God.' He says these things concerning those of the Jews who came to believe.

For besides the twelve apostles He chose also another seventy;

and after the resurrection, one hundred and twenty were found together in one place.

And the divine Paul said that He was seen by five hundred gathered together at once.

And the most divine Peter, when he had preached publicly, now caught three thousand, now five thousand, into life as with a net.

And the great James says to the blessed Paul:

'You see, brother, how many myriads there are of the Jews who have believed.' These things God foretold through the inspired Zechariah, namely that the two parts would be utterly destroyed on account of unbelief, while the third, being tried in the fire of trials and proved genuine, would be called His people, naming Him Lord and God.

This also God says through another prophet:

'Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved.' This too the blessed Zechariah declared again through what follows.

'Behold, a day of the Lord comes, and your spoils shall be divided in the midst of you'—this plainly being the enemies dividing these things among themselves.

'And I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken, and the houses shall be plundered, and the women shall be defiled;'

'and half of the city shall go forth into captivity;'

'but the residue of my people shall not be utterly destroyed from the city.' For they say that when Vespasian and Titus were about to make war, the faithful of that time, by a revelation, left the city.

'When you see Jerusalem encircled by armies, know that its end is near;'

'then let those in Judaea flee to the mountains, and let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of the house.' Concerning these things He also foretold through the blessed Zechariah, that 'the residue shall not be utterly destroyed.'

(3) 'And the Lord shall go forth in battle-array against those nations, as in the day of His battle-array in the day of war.' But He will set Himself in array not fighting on behalf of the Jews, but leading the host against them.

'And the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Him.' He speaks of the ranks of the angels.

'And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is over against Jerusalem on the east.' For from the place whence He was taken up into the heavens, thence He grants victory to those who wage war against the Jews.

Then He says that the mountain shall be divided into four, so that one part gives way toward the east, one toward the west, one toward the north, and one toward the south.

'For the Mount of Olives shall be split,' He says, 'half of it toward the east and half of it toward the sea in the west—an exceedingly great chasm—and half of the mountain shall incline toward the north and half of it toward the south—a great ravine';

signifying the siege of Jerusalem as divided, some seizing its eastern part, others its western, and some guarding the northern quarters, others the southern.

And it was likely that the mountain itself also underwent this division, as God displayed His wrath against them.

He says accordingly that, when these mountains were rent, the passages of the ravines would also be blocked up;

just as in the time of Uzziah, when the great earthquake occurred.

For if on account of that man, who transgressed in lesser matters and lawlessly presumed upon the priesthood, the Lord of all thus shook the earth, these men—who have dared far greater impieties—justly deserve to experience far greater calamities.

For not even when they beheld the creation convulsed at the outrage of the cross did they receive the remedies of repentance.

'For in that day,' He says, 'on which the Saviour of the world was to be crucified, there shall be no light.' And this the history has taught;

for from the sixth hour until the ninth darkness came over the whole world, that all men might bear witness to the truth of the prophecy.

'But there shall be cold and frost for one day.' Of this too the evangelists are witnesses, and the chief of the apostles warming himself at the fire in the gateway.

'And that day is known to the Lord.' For God foreknew all things from above.

'And it shall be neither day nor night.' For if I should wish to call it day, the darkness at midday holds me back;

but if I should wish to name it night because of the darkness, the light that existed until the sixth hour and that came after the ninth prevents me.

This too He foretells through the Prophet:

'And toward evening there shall be light.' Then the good things that spring forth from this.

'In that day living water shall go forth from Jerusalem, half of it toward the former sea, and half of it toward the latter sea.' By this He hints at the saving proclamation which ran through all the inhabited world, and filled both the eastern and the western regions with the divine teaching.

And indeed, according to the history itself, one may see the truth of the prophecy;

for on that very day, from the holy side was opened up the fountain of salvation, from which we have received the twofold streams of the mysteries;

the water, I mean, and the blood, to which he who saw it has borne witness.

The one cleansing us and freeing us from sins;

the other nourishing and watering us, and causing us to flourish.

He also states the season in which these things came to pass.

'In summer and in spring it shall be so.' For since some divide the year in two, into winter and summer, while others divide it in four, into spring, summer, autumn, and winter, He set down both on account of the shamelessness of the Jews, that both according to the one reckoning and according to the other He might show forth the truth.

For whether you divide the year into summer and winter, it shall be the beginning of summer when these things come to pass;

or if you speak of four turnings of the season, know that the time of this event is the season of spring.

Then shall He whom you crucified manifestly reign over the inhabited world, and the polytheistic error shall come to its end.

'And the Lord shall be one, and His name one, encircling all the earth and the desert.' For not only Jews shall hold these beliefs, but also the nations long bereft of the knowledge of God, both those to the south of Jerusalem and those to the north;

for this is what the Prophet said:

'From Geba even to Rimmon, to the south of Jerusalem;'

'but Rama shall remain in its place, from the gate of Benjamin to the first gate.' By these words He hints at Bethlehem;

for indeed the blessed Matthew, when he recounted the murder of the children, cited the prophetic testimony crying out:

'A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation and weeping and great mourning;'

'weeping for her children.' He says that, when those impious ones were destroyed, those who had believed would inhabit even the land belonging to Benjamin.

For those who have believed in Christ shall no longer give heed to idols, but shall dwell in Jerusalem with godliness.

Having thus foretold these things, He transfers the discourse to Gog and Magog, and to those who together with them made war against Jerusalem.

'And this shall be the fall with which the Lord shall smite all the peoples, as many as have made war against Jerusalem;'

'for their bodies shall waste away,' He says, 'and their eyes shall be gouged out, and their tongues shall undergo corruption;'

and the Lord of all, having driven them out of their own wits, will bring it about that they turn against one another, so that they are consigned to death by one another's right hands;