Commentary on the Twelve Prophets 1 part 2/19

But my people, he says, is like a priest that is spoken against, and it shall be weak by day, and a prophet also shall be weak with it. You shall be made like, he says, to a priest who has been shown to be disqualified and has fallen from his own dignities, being stripped of my providence; and for many days you shall be handed over to this chastisement, together with those prophets who foretell falsehoods to you.

For here he called the false prophet 'prophet,' according to the custom prevailing among them.

'And I likened your mother to night.' And showing whom he calls 'mother' —

My people, he says, has become like one that has no knowledge. For since they have given themselves over to the gloom of ignorance, and are unwilling to receive even a faint gleam of the light of the knowledge of God, they are fittingly likened to night, held fast by such darkness.

By 'mother' he means the Synagogue, and by 'people' those who spring from her.

For this too we find in Isaiah.

For what, he says, is this bill of divorcement of your mother? — Since, therefore, he says, you too have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from serving me as priest;

and since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. And showing more clearly both his own beneficence and their ingratitude —

According to their multitude, he says, so did they sin against me. For I made them exceedingly numerous,

but they persisted in transgressing against me.

I will turn their glory into dishonour.

They shall eat the sins of my people, and in their iniquities the peoples shall receive their souls. That is to say, they shall reap what they have sown, and shall gather the fruits of their own transgressions.

But some say that by these words the priests too are hinted at;

since of the sacrifices offered for sins and trespasses they received according to the law a certain designated portion, and while enjoying this ministry they were unwilling to reprove those who lived in wickedness;

for this reason God, being indignant, says: Since you revel in the sacrifices offered for sins, but do not bring the fitting cure to those who stumble, you shall pay the penalty for these injustices, being given over to slaughter by foreign nations.

And teaching this more clearly, he immediately added:

And it shall be, as with the people, so also with the priest. For like the people, you also shall be handed over to punishment, since, having been entrusted with the healing of the people, you lived in ease and took no care whatever for those who were ailing.

I will avenge upon them their ways, and their devices I will requite to him. For not only for wicked deeds, but also for absurd reasonings, will I exact a reckoning.

And they shall eat, and shall not be satisfied. I will bring upon them evils one after another, he says, just as more food is set before those who are unwilling to take their fill of nourishment.

Again he recounts their transgressions, charging them with drunkenness and with the worship of idols;

for this very thing he calls fornication.

He adds also their ridiculous divination, teaching how they themselves inquired of those who professed to give oracles, and how those men made their responses.

For, he says, they inquired by tokens, and they declared to him by his rods. For some, he says, sought to learn what was to be done by means of certain tokens;

while others, using certain rods as accomplices in the deceit, declared whatever they wished.

since they had acquired a harlot's mind;

for by 'a spirit of fornication' he names the impulse toward fornication.

And teaching more clearly what he calls fornication, he added:

And they went a-whoring away from their God. And pointing out the manner —

Upon the tops of the mountains they sacrificed, and upon the hills they offered sacrifice, under oak and poplar and shady tree;

because the shade was good. For delighting in the wide-spreading trees, they did not worship the Maker of these, but offered sacrifices to them instead of to him.

For which cause, he says, you shall obtain no forethought from me, while your daughters and your brides are openly committing adultery under the enemies who come against you.

For the things which you secretly dared to do, these I will permit to be done openly.

For he made this plain beforehand, having said:

Because they too were mingling with harlots, and with the consecrated ones they sacrificed, and the people that did not understand was entangling itself with a harlot. Fornication, then, he sometimes names licentiousness, and sometimes impiety;

and by 'the consecrated ones' he means those who have been initiated into the orgiastic rites of impiety.

For just as we call those who have been deemed worthy of the divine mysteries 'faithful,' so the Greeks used to call 'consecrated' those who had been more precisely instructed in their own impiety.

Having thus threatened them, he again brings forward an exhortation:

But you, O Israel, be not ignorant, and O Judah, do not enter into Gilgal, and do not go up to the house of On, and do not swear, 'The Lord lives.' 'On' is the name of the idol that was in Bethel;

for it does not, as some have supposed, signify the eternal one — that is, 'the one who is';

but it is a Hebrew, not a Greek, name.

And this the other translators of the Hebrew tongue also clearly taught us.

For Aquila and Theodotion rendered it 'a useless house';

while Symmachus rendered it 'a house of iniquity';

and both suit the matter.

For those who presided there received from that place not only no benefit, but even harm, becoming unjust and ungrateful toward their own benefactor.

Gilgal too was a city devoted to many idols;

and in it Joshua the son of Nun circumcised the uncircumcised of the people, using flint knives; and in it he also laid up the twelve stones which God had commanded to be taken from the midst of the Jordan, that they might be a memorial of the benefit that had been done, and that through them those who should come afterward might learn how the people made their passage by using a dry crossing.

It was therefore a proof of the greatest ingratitude to make that city, in which they had so many memorials of the divine beneficence, into a metropolis of impiety.

As for the phrase 'Do not swear, The Lord lives,' he does not forbid it absolutely;

but since those who clung to On, and made their oaths by it, used to call it 'the living Lord.'

And this one may learn from another place.

For if, he says, you put away the Baalim out of your mouth, and swear, 'The Lord lives,' in truth. That is to say, if you banish the memory of the idols, and, giving heed to my worship and naming me the living Lord, you swear, honouring the truth and abhorring the falsehood.

For as a heifer stung to frenzy, Israel raged with frenzy;

now the Lord will feed them, as a lamb in a broad place. The gadfly is a certain fly that attacks oxen and produces so great a sensation by its bites that those which are pricked by it cannot endure the voice of the herdsmen, nor graze together with the other oxen, but simply run wildly, and sometimes hurl themselves down precipices.

To these, he says, Ephraim is like, having received the frenzy of the worship of idols;

and by 'Ephraim' he names the ten tribes, as we said before.

But nevertheless not even so will I leave them unshepherded, but having caused them to be led away as spear-won captives, I will scatter them here and there, so that they differ in nothing from a lamb that wanders and seeks its mother's teat.

he chose service to idols in preference to my worship.

For they loved dishonour out of her arrogance. But for this cause —

A whirlwind of his spirit shall whistle in her wings. For just as, he says, the birds by the movement of their wings cleave the air with a certain sound;

so this one, like a winged creature, shall be carried off into a foreign land, as though a whirlwind of my wrath were dragging her along and compelling her to dwell there.

But she will endure these things while gathering the fruits of the idolatrous altars.

To these threats, therefore, do you priests also give heed, and the whole people, and all who dwell in the royal courts: receive with your ears the things that have been spoken.

The judgment is against you, because you have become a snare to the watchtower, and like a net spread out upon Itabyrion.

(2) Which, hunting the prey, they have fixed fast. I will bring you all, he says, to my judgment;

for you all have contrived countless evils against my prophets, spreading out your plots against them like so many nets, and against those on Itabyrion;

and this is a mountain full of varied game;

they fix fast the instruments of the hunt; in like manner you contrive the devices of your plotting against the prophets sent by me for the sake of your salvation.

For by 'watchtower' he named the company of the prophets;

for indeed he said to Ezekiel:

I have set you as a watchman to the house of Israel. For this reason he says to Ephraim and to Israel, that is, upon all the people I will bring chastisement.

For he committed fornication and was defiled, departing from my service.

And they did not give their counsels to turn to their God; for a spirit of fornication is in them, and the Lord they have not known. For, employing absurd reasonings, they fell away from the true knowledge of God, and gave heed to the service of the idols;

wherefore they shall pay the penalty for this insolence, clearly seeing what the fruit of piety is.

And both Israel and Ephraim shall be weakened in their iniquities;

and Judah also shall be weakened with them. Since the ten tribes first endured enslavement and bondage, fittingly he mentioned them first, naming them Israel and Ephraim;

and Judah he suitably placed last, since it was after those that it endured the captivity.

Then he teaches how, taking calves and sheep at the same time, they will perform sacrifices, seeking the Lord, and will not find him;

And showing the cause, he added:

Because they have forsaken the Lord. And because, unlawfully taking foreign women as wives, they begot children from them;

for this he made plain by saying:

Because strange children were born to them;

(therefore) now the rust shall devour them and their inheritances. By 'rust' he calls both the affliction which befalls the fruits from the inconstancy of the air;

and figuratively he also calls the enemies 'rust,' as those who destroy all like rust.

And interpreting this more clearly, he straightway added:

Blow the trumpet upon the hills, sound aloud upon the high places, proclaim in the house of On;

Ephraim has come to desolation in the days of reproof; among the tribes of Israel I have shown things that are sure. For all these things, foretelling them to them through the prophets, and being disbelieved, after the experience I shall be believed by the outcome of events, and executing the reproofs of their lawlessness, I shall show the truth of the prophetic prediction.

And rightly deriding the weakness of the idols:

Proclaim, he said, in the house of On; rouse up, he says, to help those honored by you;

let them make cease the chastisements brought upon you by me;

seize the highest hills, on which you offered all service to the idols;

let them impart to you in due time their own assistance.

For the rulers of Judah, he says, have become like those who remove the boundaries;

upon them I will pour out my fury like water.

For so shamelessly do they transgress the bounds set by me, as those who attempt shamelessly to move the stones that mark boundaries, and, dividing this field from that, to carry them over;

therefore, like a torrent I will bring upon them the punishments.

for they belonged to one kingdom;

and thus, in saying 'Ephraim,' he names the ten tribes of Israel, and indeed also in mentioning 'Israel,' he signifies this same thing.

Ephraim oppressed his adversary, he oppressed judgment, because he began to walk after vanities. The cause, he says, of his iniquity was the service of the idols;

for if he had my knowledge, he would have been taught what was fitting from my law-giving.

And I am like a tumult to Ephraim, and like a goad to the house of Judah. That is: I will bring upon them the tumult of the enemies, and as with some barb I will prick them, and set as a goad the punishment inflicted upon them through those enemies.

And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his pain. For by experience he learned the cause of the evils.

And Ephraim went to the Assyrians. For being warred upon by the Syrians, he called Phua—and this man was king of the Assyrians—to his aid.

And he sent ambassadors to King Jareb, and he himself was not able to deliver you, and pain shall not cease from you. Again, when the Assyrians come upon you, he says, you will send envoys to the king of Egypt, requesting help from there;

but nevertheless you will not obtain help even from there, but will be given over to successive pains.

That he calls King Jareb the king of Egypt, it is easy to learn from what follows.

and he will gain no benefit from the help of these.

And I will go and return to my place, until they are brought to nothing. He continued with the metaphor.

As a panther, and as a lion I will be to them; fittingly he added the words:

I will return to my place, until they are brought to nothing. For it is the custom even with those beasts, whenever they have caught some prey, to go back to their accustomed places, and to rest from the toil that came from the hunt.

And I too, therefore, he says, after the manner of a panther and a lion, coming upon you through the enemies, will thereafter be by myself, and will deem you worthy of no providence.

And when these things happen, he says, they will seek out my care, and will exhort one another to entreat the God who brought the chastisements, to apply a fitting remedy to their wounds.

Because he himself, he says, has smitten, and will heal us;

he will strike, and will bind us up. And indicating the swiftness of the healing:

He will make us whole after two days, on the third day we shall rise up. For he does not require for the healing a lengthy interval of time, but will bestow health all at once;

and through these things he also hints at the resurrection of the Savior that came about on the third day, which became the pledge of the common resurrection, and has bestowed on us all the hope of immortality, which comes to be through the knowledge of God.

For now I know in part, but then I shall fully know, even as also I have been fully known. Then, therefore, he says, we shall receive a more accurate knowledge of things;

But now let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. Earnestly, he says, and with greater zeal let us seek him out.

For as a ready dawn we shall find him. For just as the dawn dissolves the gloom of the night, so he will free us from the trials that press upon us, and will bestow the ray of his providence.

And he will come to us as the early and latter rain to the earth. For he will bestow on us the abundance of all good things.

After this change of theirs for the better, like some tender-loving father he makes his address to them.

What shall I do to you, Ephraim? what shall I do to you, Judah? Your mercy is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew that passes away. For I, he says, wish to deem you worthy of every kind of loving-kindness;

but the repentance that comes from you is temporary and not enduring, and resembles a scant dew that gathers and is consumed by the sun, and a cloud that appears at daybreak and is scattered by the rays;

and mercy is measured out in proportion to repentance.

But nevertheless, even though you were thus disposed, I continued to deem you worthy of every kind of care, so that I even became the cause of death to my own prophets;

for sending them for your instruction, I procured for them death at your hands.

For this he made plain by saying:

for I will display this truth as a kind of light;

and the knowledge of God rather than whole burnt offerings.

But they are like a man transgressing a covenant; there they despised me. For I do not need sacrifices, he says, but I accept these, condescending to the weakness of your understanding.

But I require these two things: goodwill toward me, and loving-kindness toward one's neighbor.

For these are the very first commandments I laid down when I gave the Law:

'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength;'

'and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.' But I indeed enacted these things as law;

yet they have come to resemble a man who transgresses the covenants he has made with someone.

For in like manner these too, despising my long-suffering, have trampled upon the laws laid down for them.

'Gilgal despised me, a city that works vanities, troubling the water.'

'And your strength is that of a robber of men.' He had mentioned this city earlier as well, as being devoted to idols and summoning many into impiety.

He said that they troubled the water, muddying the purity of the knowledge of God.

He likened its strength to that of a robber, since by sorcerous trickeries and certain contrived deceits they wrought the movements of the idols.

For just as robbers fall secretly upon those who sail, so the worshippers of idols, being unable to display their working openly, deceive the senseless through the contrivances they have devised.

Fittingly, then, and most justly, he accuses them, saying:

'Priests have hidden the way of the Lord; they have murdered Shechem, because they have committed iniquity.'

(x, 11.) 'In the house of Israel I have seen there a horrible thing: the harlotry of Ephraim; Israel is defiled.'

'And Judah, set a harvest for himself.' What he means is this:

Levi, the forefather of the priests, using Simeon as his fellow-worker, utterly destroyed the whole city of the Shechemites, exacting from those who had committed the outrage the penalty for the insult done to his sister.

He brings a charge against the priests, that:

'Being descendants of those men,' he says, 'you have not had the zeal of those men.'

For those men avenged their wronged sister and were zealous for the paternal household;

but you, though enjoying every honour, did not even endure to reprove the lawlessness committed against me.

But seeing those horrible and fearsome defilements, ventured not by a single man but by all Ephraim and Judah, you continued in silence.

And most grievous of all is that at the very time when Judah ought to have reaped the fruits of the divine promises, then he left the harvest unreaped;

but cease from negligence and ease, O Judah;

'Begin to gather the vintage for yourself, when I restore the captivity of my people, when I heal Israel.' Since, he says, before the experience of evils you were unwilling to reap the fruits of righteousness, now after the experience, and after the return from captivity, live lawfully and pluck the fruits that spring up thereafter.

'Begin to gather the vintage for yourself;' for it is not to God that we render anything by living lawfully, but the good things thereby procured are for ourselves.

'And a thief shall come in to him, a robber stripping bare on his way.' For since, neglecting the true knowledge of God, they were disposed toward the error of idols, the enemies, coming upon them like robbers and thieves, will burn and ravage some things, and plunder others, and deprive them of all their goods.

'That they may sing in unison, as though singing in their hearts.' When these things happen, he says, they will pass their days in dirges and lamentation, not even daring to sing their laments aloud, but making their mournings inwardly in their minds.

'For I have remembered all their wickednesses;'

'now their own devices have encircled them; they are come before my face.' Having been long-suffering for a very long time, he says, and as though not seeming to see the things ventured, now I clearly behold them, having judged it fit to bring punishment upon them.

For the Seventy rendered the first impulse of the soul as 'the reasonings';

but the others rendered the practices and deeds that are born from these.

'In their wickednesses they gladdened kings, and in their lies rulers.' For having become ready for destruction through their own lawlessness, they became to those who warred against them the occasion of joy.

'And all committing adultery, like an oven heated for baking.' All of them, he says, being set ablaze by their unbridled mind, resemble an oven fired up and ready to receive the leaven prepared for bread-making.

'It shall consume them from the flame.' The fire of licentiousness will bring upon them the flame of war.

'From the kneading of the dough until the whole of it is leavened, are the days of your kings.' For just as leaven changes the flour mixed with it into its own nature, so the leaven of impiety, introduced by Jeroboam, the first who reigned over you, has imparted its own foulness to you and to all who have reigned among you from time to time.

Thereafter he proceeds to bring accusation against the rulers, as delighting in drunkenness, and on this account being kindled to wrath, and practising bribery, and consorting with unholy men and authors of evils.

For these he calls plagues, as being the causes of ruin and harm.

For just as a plague, if it touches anyone, injures also those who come near through him;

so those who live in wickedness bring harm to their acquaintances;

for evil companionships corrupt good morals;

for the phrase, 'While they beat them down all the night,' all the interpreters have unanimously rendered as 'to lie in ambush.'

But for these things they shall pay the penalty;

'For fire has devoured their judges; all their kings have fallen.' And the cause of all the evils: 'For there was none among them who called upon me.' He has spoken of things to come as though already past, showing that these things will surely come to pass, and that nothing will hinder the fulfilment of the prophecy.

This idiom we find among the other prophets as well:

'He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.' And:

'His judgment was taken away.' And:

'We saw him, and he had no form nor beauty;' instead of, 'We shall see,' and 'He shall be taken away,' and 'He shall be led.'

From here he turns his discourse to a second accusation.

'Ephraim mingled himself among the peoples.' The lawlessness is manifest:

'They mingled among the nations, and learned their works. Ephraim became a cake not turned.' He persisted, he says, in wickedness, and received no change for the better, just as a cake, associating with the fire on one side only, is scorched.

'Strangers devoured his strength, and he knew it not.' And though evils press upon him, he says, he does not recognize the one chastising him.

'And grey hairs blossomed upon him, and he knew it not.' Not even by the long lapse of time, he says, was he taught what he ought.

'And the pride of Israel shall be brought low to his face.' He shall see clearly, he says, and shall learn what fruits impiety brings forth.

'And they returned not to the Lord their God, nor sought him in all these things.'

(xi.) 'And Ephraim was like a silly dove, having no heart;'

'he called to Egypt, and went to the Assyrians.' Receiving these chastisements from me, they in no way besought me to stay the onslaught of the evils coming upon them, but ran to the Assyrians when warred upon by the Syrians, and to the Egyptians when besieged by the Assyrians, displaying in themselves the folly of the dove.

For just as she, when her own nestlings are taken away, does not fly off but runs back to the same places, so these, again and again and continually, being now slain and enslaved by these, now by those, ran to the Assyrians and Egyptians, obtaining no help from them.

'I will cast my net over them; I will bring them down as the birds of heaven, and I will chastise them at the report of their affliction.' For first I will chastise them by the threat of grievous things;

then, placing round about them the cloud of enemies like a net, I will hunt them all like birds.

And having said these things, he is not unmindful of his own loving-kindness, but out of fatherly tenderness offers them a certain lamentation.

'Woe to them, because they have leaped away from me;'

'they are wretched, because they have acted impiously against me.' And since he called them wretched, as having become ungrateful and impious toward him, he necessarily also reminds them of the ineffable benefits.

'But I redeemed them.' For I set them free from the Egyptian bondage.

for he introduces them saying:

'Since he smote the rock, and waters gushed out, and torrents overflowed;'

'shall he also be able to give bread, or to prepare a table for his people?' (14)

'And their hearts cried not out to me.' These same things he cries out also through Isaiah, saying:

'This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.' Then he reproves the things they did for the sake of the idols.

'But they howled upon their beds; for grain and wine they cut themselves.' For having received the land promised to their fathers;

they offered them to their own bodies.

For this reason, he says, they shall be chastised by me, since having received power from me;

(for by 'arm' he means this power): 'Against me they devised evil things.' (16)

'They turned aside to that which is nothing; they became like a slack bow.' For having forsaken me, they reaped no profit whatsoever;

rather, they came to resemble a bow that is loosened and unstrung, which brings no injury upon its foes.

'So shall their contempt be in the land of Egypt.' Chapter.

'The trumpet shall be to their throat, as it were the ground untrodden, as a trumpet, as an eagle against the house of the Lord.' For just as their fathers persisted in gainsaying, and in making light of my power, and openly resisted Moses and Aaron, who had been sent for the sake of their freedom,

so also these, imitating the folly of those men, shall become like untrodden ground, and shall be given over to utter desolation, as the war-trumpet sounds loud, and the king of their enemies swoops down like an eagle, and comes upon the divine house with the greatest fury.

That by 'eagle' of the enemies he named the king, the prophecy of Ezekiel also bears witness;

for it says, 'The great eagle, great of wing, abundant in talons, which had the leading to enter into Lebanon,' and so forth.

These things they shall endure 'because they transgressed my covenant, and against my law they acted impiously.' For this cause he says:

'O God, I have known thee.' For once they find themselves amid those evils, then they will seek my aid.

But why then shall they endure these things? (3)

'Because Israel turned away from good things.' And showing what these were, he added:

'(4) They set up kings for themselves, and not by me;'

'they made rulers, and they made it not known to me.' For when, he says, they enjoyed my providence, they prevailed over all their adversaries;

yet not even this persuaded them to hold fast to my providence, but they appointed a king for themselves, in no way consulting me about the matter.

He brings this accusation against the ten tribes, who appointed Jeroboam king for themselves, without inquiring of the God of all whether it was right to do this.