Commentary on the Twelve Prophets 1 part 4/19

'he made supplication unto him, and in Bethel he found him.' For Jacob, fleeing the plot of his brother, and running away to Laban his uncle, when he came to be in Bethel, obtained the divine revelation, and received the divine promises.

'For fear not,' he says, 'Jacob, because I am with thee.' And weeping, as was natural, he spoke those words:

'If the Lord will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, and will bring me back in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set up shall be to me a house of God, and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give a tenth unto thee.' And returning, when he came to that place, he sang the praises of his Benefactor, saying, 'With this my staff I passed over the Jordan, and behold I have become two companies.' This, then, is what those about Aquila and Symmachus disclosed in their translation, teaching that in Bethel, which, he says, now has the idol of On, he appeared to Jacob;

but the Seventy, passing from the singular to the plural, teach us to understand it thus: that your forefather, having been such toward me, was deemed worthy of care from me;

but you have walked the contrary way, and even when you wished to make use of repentance, you did not come into the temple consecrated to me, but, wailing beside the idol of On, sought my help there.

Yet I, even thus insultingly treated, appeared to you, and in the places where you called upon me I made my responses.

And this Amos the prophet also teaches plainly, having delivered his whole prophecy in Bethel, in which was the idol of On;

to whom also Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, said, 'Go into the land of Judah, and prophesy not in Bethel, for it is a king's sanctuary.' (verses 5, 6)

'But the Lord the Almighty shall be his memorial.'

for thus, drawing near to God, you shall have him zealously fighting on your behalf.

'Canaan, in his hand is a balance of unrighteousness;'

'Yet I have become rich, I have found rest for myself.' By 'Canaan' he designates Ephraim.

For thus also the blessed Ezekiel was commanded to address Jerusalem:

'Thy seed and thy birth are of the land of Canaan;'

'thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.' For of those whose impiety they emulated, they also partook of the appellation.

You therefore, O Ephraim, imitating the wickedness of Canaan, have acquired the unrighteous balances of the mind;

for you continue to dishonour what is just, you long for unjust dominion, and you are highly minded because of wealth, and boasting, you ascribe the amassing of it to yourself.

'The sons of men are false with balances, to do wrong.' And the words that follow also agree with what was said concerning Ephraim:

'Hope not in unrighteousness, and long not after robbery;'

'if riches flow, set not your heart upon them.' For both these streams and those are of one spirit.

And that final clause, 'For thou shalt render to every man according to his works,' agrees with what is added here:

'For all his labours shall not be found for him, because of the iniquities which he hath sinned.' For he shall be stripped of the good things of prosperity, being justly required to pay the penalty for his transgression.

'But I the Lord thy God brought thee up out of the land of Egypt; I will yet make thee to dwell in tents, as in the days of a feast.' For since, having been delivered from the Egyptian bondage, you handed over the benefaction to forgetfulness, you shall again dwell in tents, becoming a sojourner in a foreign land, and you shall be reminded of those tents which you used to set up, luxuriating in the feasts, and celebrating the memory of the life in the wilderness.

He speaks of the Feast of Tabernacles.

you endure, since, having received through the prophets the predictions of these things, you did not fear, nor were you willing to change your mind;

and this, when the predictions came to pass not only through words, but also through deeds.

For such also was that which was done by the divinely-inspired Hosea;

for at one time he took a harlot woman, and at another an adulteress, according to the divine command, becoming an image of the God of all, and accusing the transgression of the people.

And in addition to this he makes clear that: I also employed various revelations, not displaying my own nature (for this is invisible), but shaping the vision according to the need.

For I did not appear alike to all;

and to Moses too, and to Abraham before him, I appeared differently.

'If Gilead exists, then the rulers sacrificing in Gilgal were false.' But you, enjoying these things from me, in Gilead and Gilgal, the cities full of idols, together with your rulers offer sacrifices to the demons;

and this, gathering the benefactions not from them, but from me.

For if from Gilead, that is, from the idols, you were enjoying any good thing, then the deception would have had some ground;

but since, revelling in my gifts, you sacrifice to the idols in Gilead and Gilgal, you become heralds of your own ingratitude.

'And their altars are as tortoises upon the dry ground of a field.' The tortoise is among the amphibious creatures, but while dwelling in the waters it often escapes the hands of those who hunt it;

but when walking upon the land, it is easy to catch and readily taken.

Just like this, then, he says, easily taken shall be the altars set up by you for the demons, and they shall be razed to the ground by the enemies.

Then again he calls to remembrance the virtue of the forefather.

'And Jacob withdrew into the plain of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept guard.'

'And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved.' For your forefather, receiving the counsels of his mother, consented to leave his father's house, and chose a foreign dwelling in preference to his own, and for a wife's sake — that he might not take a Canaanite woman, but one from the kindred of Shem — he preferred servitude to freedom, and kept the law concerning marriage laid down by the fathers.

For that man's offspring, having been compelled to serve the Egyptians, God deemed worthy of freedom through the great prophet Moses;

and moreover, when it had come to be in the wilderness, he preserved it unharmed, using the same prophet as his minister.

'Ephraim has angered me and provoked me to wrath, and his blood shall be poured out upon him, and the Lord shall requite to him his reproach, according to the word of Ephraim.' This one, he says, deriving his lineage from that man, stirs me to anger, living in every kind of lawlessness;

but he shall reap the sheaves of what he has sown, having exacted from him penalties proportionate to what he has done.

For having received from me ordinances and laws, according to which it was fitting for him to conduct his life, he loved instead of these the lawless deeds of idols;

from which he reaped death instead of life.

And they increase their impiety, so to speak, day by day, fashioning out of gold and silver the images of various animals, and worshipping idols made by hands.

For they are held by so great a frenzy over these things, that by the multitude of their sacrifices the supply of victims for slaughter fails, and they dare to say —

As for a cloud that appears, the rising sun consumes the one easily and scatters the other without effort; and a violent wind readily makes the chaff of the threshing-floor vanish; and a vapour arising in the air, a swarm of locusts coming upon it dissolves —

even so the cloud of your enemies shall consume you, and shall make desolate the land now inhabited by you.

'For I am the Lord your God, who establishes the heaven and creates the earth, whose hands formed all its host.' That is to say:

He who not only creates the heaven and the earth, but also grants them to endure for the longest time;

I also brought into being all the host of heaven, whether visible or invisible — whether the powers above and the spiritual natures, or the multitude of the stars, together with the sun and moon, the great luminaries.

'And I did not display them to you that you should go after them.'

(5.) 'And I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God besides me, and there is no saviour except me.' For in giving you laws after the freedom that came about, and after your deliverance from Egypt, I charged you to acknowledge no other God besides me.

'For you shall not make,' I said, 'any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or of anything on the earth below, or of anything in the waters beneath the earth.' And not only did I free you from the bitter servitude of the Egyptians, but also 'In the wilderness I shepherded you, in an uninhabited land.'

(6.) 'According to their pastures.' Instead of saying: supplying you with the needs suited to you — manna from heaven, quails from the sea, water from the rock.

For they were not, as those passing their life in a wilderness, in want of the necessities, but 'They were filled to satisfaction, and their hearts were exalted;'

'for this cause they forgot me.' Such things too the divine Moses said concerning them:

'And Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved kicked; he grew fat, he grew thick, he grew broad, and he forsook the Lord who made him.' 'But I will not leave him,' he says, 'undisciplined;'

'And I will be to him,' he says, 'as a panther, and as a leopard, by the way of the Assyrians.' For I will stir up against him beastlike enemies, who will deal with him after the manner of a panther and a leopard.

For since he himself, inasmuch as he governs all things, brings on the enemies, he says that he likens himself to a panther and a leopard.

'I will meet them as a bear at a loss, and I will rend the enclosure of their heart.' For just as a bear, when it is hemmed in and unable to flee, comes upon those who approach with much fury;

even so the enemies will deem them worthy of no mercy, but will show a savage and pitiless disposition toward them.

And these things I will do against them, wishing to open and to prick their closed-up heart — which is unwilling to be opened, but remains stubborn and unbending — and to bring it to the recognition of what is fitting.

Then he laments over him by himself, and reproaches, and reminds him of his former folly.

'In your destruction, O Israel, who will help you? Where is this king of yours? Let him too save you in all your cities, and let him judge you, of whom you said —'

for having dishonoured my rule, you longed to have a man as king.

'And I gave you a king in my anger;'

'but I bore with you again in my wrath.' For being angered on account of the unreasonable request, I gave you Saul;

'I bore with you in my wrath;' instead of saying: I used long-suffering.

'The iniquity of Ephraim is a bundle bound together, his sin is hidden away.' This resembles what was said by Isaiah;

his iniquities, and he increases them continually, employing an evil counsel.

For the phrase 'His sin is hidden away' signifies this, namely: he holds his wickedness in the depth;

but I will surround him with so many evils, that he shall suffer pangs like a woman in travail.

Then, as if by way of a question to Israel:

'This is your prudent son.' This one, he says, you preferred over Manasseh, and though he was the younger you set him before the elder;

but instead of that honour he shall be clothed with dishonour.

'For he shall by no means endure in the crushing of his own children.' For neither shall he be able to defend his neighbours when they are warred upon.

Having thus announced the grievous things, he again turns his word to the promise of good things.

'From the hand of Hades I will deliver them, and from death I will redeem them.' Then he bids them raise a paean of victory against death.

'Where is your penalty, O death? Where is your sting, O Hades?' These things came to pass in a typical way at the return of the Jews;

for he calls figuratively the sojourn in captivity Hades and death.

But it received its complete and true fulfilment after the resurrection of our Saviour;

for when our firstfruits had risen, we all received the hope of the resurrection.

And this too one may find in the prophecy of Ezekiel;

for there also the reviving of the bones signifies the two things — both the return of Israel (who, having cut off their good hopes, said:

'We are undone, our bones have become dry'), and the common resurrection of all men.

For the things that happened to the Jews are a type of God's care over all men, the God of all.

'Comfort is hidden from my eyes, because this one shall make division in the midst of brothers.' This solace of the more comforting hope, he says, and the expectation of the resurrection, seems for the present to be hidden both from the Jews who become captives and from all men;

for the Jews, being enslaved and separated from their own kindred, and compelled to serve according to division and distribution, had no hope of recall;

and all men, seeing death utterly mowing down nature, now separating brother from brother, now bereaving the father of his child, altogether renounced the resurrection.

But nevertheless the things spoken are true, he says, even if for the present they are unclear to the many.

'For the Lord shall bring a burning wind out of the wilderness upon him, and shall dry up his veins, and shall make his springs desolate;'

'this one shall lay waste his land and all his desirable vessels.' By these things he hints at Cyrus the Persian, who marched against and overthrew the kingdom of the Assyrians, that is, the Babylonians, and destroyed all the royal kindred, and removed the resources of the tyranny;

for these he figuratively calls springs and veins.

And he wished by these things to teach in what manner he would abolish that which he figuratively called death and Hades.

But these things shall come to pass afterwards;

'Samaria shall be made to vanish.' Having dared to do things contrary to the divine will, she shall also become the fuel of war; and her inhabitants shall see their nursing infants dashed to the ground, and the pregnant women slain together with their unborn children.

But that you may not experience these things, (2)

'Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God.' For you have wasted much time in your transgressions.

Then he also teaches them with what sort of words it befits them to appease God.

And add to those words, entreating the Saviour and Benefactor, that: 'We will no longer put our trust in any of men, neither in Assyrians, nor in Egyptians, nor in a multitude of horses, nor indeed will we account the idols wrought by hand as gods.'

For when these things are spoken by you, the Lord who continually appears in you will have mercy on the orphan;

that is: you who are, after the manner of an orphan, uncared for and unprotected, he will deem worthy of all providence, and I will impart to you healing also, delivering you from the evils that press upon you.

And I will deal genuinely toward you, and I will cause to cease all the chastisement brought upon you;

and I will supply you with my gifts like some dew, that you may flourish like a lily;

for this he indicated when he said —

'I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall blossom as the lily.' In many places the divine Scripture makes mention of this flower.

'Let the wilderness rejoice, and blossom as the lily.' And in the Song of Songs the Bridegroom says concerning the Bride:

'As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters.' And the Lord too in the sacred Gospels says, 'Behold the lilies of the field.'

'Verily I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' From every side, then, we learn that together with its fragrance the brightness of the flower is also to be admired.

To this is likened the soul that has been freed from the filth of sin, and clothed with the most resplendent robe of baptism, concerning which Isaiah too cries aloud:

'Let my soul exult in the Lord.'

Then, hinting at the multitude that is to come, he says:

'His branches shall spread.' He also foretells the fruit of godliness:

'They shall return, and shall sit down under his shelter'—that is, under God's.

'And they shall live, and be sustained with corn, and their memorial shall blossom as a vine, as the wine of Lebanon.' For renouncing the error of the idols, and taking courage in my providential care, they shall receive the abundance of every kind of good thing; and, like fragrant wine cultivated in Lebanon, they shall possess the sweet savour of virtue, and shall reap the good repute that comes from it.

'What has he to do any more with idols?' Having learned, then, O Ephraim, what a possession godliness is, flee the error of the idols;

for it was for this cause that I even humbled you by chastening, and I will show myself powerful by using loving-kindness toward you; and I will become to you like a thick-set juniper, and you shall gather the fruits that come from me.

For the juniper is ever-flourishing, having a nature that does not decay, and clothed round about with thorny foliage.

Thus, having brought the whole prophecy to its conclusion, he set upon all of it an ending profitable to all who read it.

'Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? or prudent, and he shall know them? For the ways of the Lord are straight, and the righteous shall walk in them;'

'Who is wise, and shall keep these things, and they shall understand the mercies of the Lord?' For in truth there is need of wisdom and understanding both for the knowledge and comprehension of the divine oracles, and for their fulfilment and preservation;

for it is impossible for those who have not received the radiance of the divine Spirit to understand these things, nor to keep them without enjoying help from on high.

But those who display so great and such devotion toward God, obtaining succour from that source, pass through the straight ways, and are named righteous;

while those who live together with impiety, and travel the opposite way, gather the wages of their impiety;

the Apostle, both in body and in spirit;

for to Him belongs all glory, honour, and worship, together with His only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

Joel the divine prophet did not clearly teach us the time at which he made his predictions;

yet through the predictions themselves he has made it plain that they came to pass at that same time in which the admirable Hosea received the foreseeing of things to come;

for he too foretells the same things: the incursion of the Assyrians and Babylonians, and the enslavement and captivity of Israel, and the return from the captivity.

He foretells also the things that befell after the return: the assault of Gog (and this is a Scythian nation), the onset made against Jerusalem with the whole army, and the utter destruction brought upon them from God.

He has added too the gifts bestowed upon men by the all-holy Spirit after the incarnation of our Saviour.

Accordingly, from the predictions against the Assyrians and Babylonians we have come to know the time of the prophecy.

This, then, in summary, is the argument;

and for the rest let us lay hold (God helping us to speak) of the detailed interpretation.

And being inspired by the Lord of all, he both foresees the things to come and foretells them.

'Hear these things, ye elders, and give ear, all ye that inhabit the land;'

'has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?' You, he says, who have lived a long time, who have gained, as is likely, more experience of affairs, and have often heard your fathers and forefathers recounting them, as you listen to the words of the prophecy, consider among yourselves whether any such thing has happened before, either in your own time or in that of your fathers;

and all you who dwell in the land of the promise, attend carefully to the things that are to be spoken.

Then he adds, that: Taking experience of these things, do not surrender the memory of them to oblivion, but present the accounts concerning them to your children who do not know them;

and charge them too to convey these things on to their own children, and let the generation that comes after those receive from the one before it the account concerning these matters.

'That another generation might know, even the sons who shall be born; and they shall rise up, and declare them to their sons.' And teaching the reason, he says, 'That they may set their hope upon God.' Therefore that the grace of the divine Spirit which inspired the holy prophets is one, is shown from what has been said.

Having thus roused both the elders and all the rest to the hearing of what was to be said, he then recounts the whole multitude of the calamities, and says that first the caterpillar shall come upon them, and what is not destroyed by this shall be consumed by the locust;

and whatever escapes this, the cankerworm shall devour;

and last the mildew, being brought upon them, shall leave nothing at all unharmed.

Now some have taken these things figuratively as referring both to the Assyrian and the Babylonian;

naming the caterpillar Tiglath-Pileser;

the locust Shalmaneser;

and the mildew Nebuchadnezzar, who campaigned last, and utterly laid waste all Judaea, and led away as captives those who had escaped death.

For my part, I hold these things too to be true;

yet I suppose that the things understood according to the literal sense also actually came to pass.

For the blessed Amos too makes mention of the locust, and of blight, and of scorching, and of jaundice, and of fig-trees, and of olive-trees, and of vines destroyed by caterpillars, and besides these of drought and of lack of rain.

'For one portion,' he says, 'shall be rained upon, and the portion on which I do not rain shall be dried up.' Of this the inspired Jeremiah also plainly made mention.

It is not right, therefore, to take the things said only figuratively, seeing that the sacred prophets have taught us in agreement that the things foretold also came to pass according to the historical fact.

For in order that they might learn accurately that it was as paying the penalty for their transgression and impiety that they were handed over to the enemies who came against them, they were with good reason smitten also by the chastisements brought upon them from heaven, being taught through these that the God whom they neglected punishes them both by these means and by those.

Having therefore foretold the mournful things, he brings in exhortation and counsel.

'Awake from your drunkenness, ye that are drunken with their wine, and weep;'

'lament, all ye that drink wine to drunkenness.' Change, he says, your intemperance and the excess of your luxury into a dirge;

for it is not the drinking of wine that is evil, but drinking without measure that is harmful.

And having said 'from their wine,' he hinted also at another drunkenness—the soul's utter inclination toward the worse, and every kind of transgression—naming it thus.

It befits you, he says, to lament and to bewail, because you shall be wholly deprived of that which procures gladness for you.

Then he recounts the things concerning the locust, that is, the Assyrian;

for he hints at both, and says that a nation shall come up against his land, greater than can be numbered, and adorned with might and power. And 'his land' he calls the land of Israel;

since he also calls Israel his own people.

For he calls the same one both a lion and a lion's whelp;

but if one wishes to understand it also in a different way, he will not do harm to the meaning;

for the locust has the smaller ones following it, like a kind of whelps, and the enemies, alongside their warriors and champions, bring along also those of lesser strength.

And that he speaks of these things not as having happened, but as about to happen, the sequel bears witness.

'For it shall lament to me,' he says, 'more than a bride girded with sackcloth for her virgin husband.' For he did not say 'it lamented,' but 'it shall lament,' teaching that after the experience they shall continue mourning, making bitter lamentation, such as would come from a bride who is of tender years and sees her own bridegroom dead.

'The meat offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord.' Now to speak of things that are to be as though they had already happened is proper to the divine Scripture.

He employs this, not only on account of the transference of the words from one tongue into another, but also for the confirmation of the things spoken.

For thus, he says, these things shall truly come to pass, so that we behold them as already happened, and discourse of them as of things that have taken place.

Indeed, again, as though these things which he had foretold were to happen had already come to pass, he bids the priests mourn, since both sacrifices and drink offerings fail because of the scarcity of necessities, and moreover the land also fails because of the barrenness of what comes from it.

'And the husbandmen too,' he says, 'have been put to shame,' having toiled much upon the land, yet having gathered no fruit.

And this too we see coming to pass even now.

And recounting the calamity more broadly, so as to rouse to repentance those who are sick with insensibility, he bids even the very possessions lament, since both the barley and the wheat are failing, and the vine has withered away.

and, in a word, the olives too, and the figs, and the other fruit-trees bearing no fruit at all, because they had been deprived of all the moisture within them.

One must understand that he bids the land and the possessions to lament, not as though they were rational beings, but as endeavouring, by means of things inanimate, to rouse those who have been honoured with reason.

And teaching this very thing he went on to add:

For the sons of men have put joy to shame. For, he says, the cause of this barrenness is the transgression of men;

for because of that transgression the things of gladness have ceased, and the things of despondency have been brought in.

Sanctify therefore a fast, proclaim a healing, gather together the elders; nay rather, not these only, but also all who dwell in the land, into the house of your God. And being assembled together, cry aloud, saying:

Wherefore also to the fasting he added the healing.

For, he says, sanctify a fast, proclaim a healing. And the word 'sanctify' he has set down in place of 'set apart.'

For to this end, he says, set yourselves apart, and go through the fast in a holy and pure manner.

Alas, alas for the day!—that is, on account of the expected day of evils.

For the day of the Lord is near, and it shall come as misery out of misery.

(v.10) For before your eyes the foods have been dried up, and out of the house of our God gladness and joy have failed. You shall behold, he says, evils one upon another, and to these the former ones added on.

For this is what he called misery upon misery.

The heifers have leaped in their stalls, the granaries have grown mouldy from their plasterings. He said the heifers leap, not doing this from surfeit, but perishing from famine, and flung upon the ground, and striking their feet against the earth.

And the granaries of grain, he says, have suffered mould, as having for a very long time received no grain.

But also the wine-presses, he says, as being superfluous, have been dug down; and if there was anything else appointed for such uses, it too, being now superfluous, has remained uncared for, since there was nothing to be cast into them.

And the herds also low, displaying the voice of those who mourn, since they do not enjoy their accustomed nourishment.

And the flocks of sheep do the same as the cattle.

But while these things are so being done, I, says the prophet,—

To you, O Lord, will I cry, for fire has consumed the fair pastures of the wilderness, and a flame has kindled all the trees of the field. For the deliverance from the evils that press upon us can be procured from you alone.

And it is possible to understand 'fire' as the enemies also, who like fire laid waste that whole country;

and indeed also the locust, and the blight, and the things joined with these;