Whenever, therefore, we too have need of humility because of the straits of necessity, let us so assume it that we do not desert truth and constancy; for it is one thing proudly to offer insult to one who judges—which is a sign of folly—and another thus to avoid impending danger in such a way that you withdraw nothing from the truth. 'And the princes and all the people said unto the priests and prophets: This man is not worthy to die, for he hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.' The people, who before had been supplanted by the priests and false prophets, is joined to the princes of the city and speaks on behalf of Jeremiah, that he is by no means worthy of death, but has prophesied in the name of the Lord and out of his mouth;
for the unlearned crowd quickly changes its opinion once it has received a reason. But the grief of the accusers, especially of the priests and false prophets, cannot be changed; and therefore, while they accuse and persevere in the accusation, the people is changed, because he had given them hope of the Lord's indulgence, if they would amend their ways and hearken to the voice of the Lord their God, so that the Lord too might bend his sentence. 'And there rose up men of the elders of the land, and spake to all the assembly of the people, saying: Micah the Morasthite was a prophet in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps of stones, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forests.'
'Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him to death? Did they not fear the Lord and entreat the face of the Lord, and the Lord repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? So we are committing a great evil against our own souls.' The princes of the city and the people understand the truth of the judgment; but the elders, whose proper business it was to know old things, recall the history and the prophecy of Micah the Morasthite, who prophesied under King Hezekiah, and they compare it to the prophecy of Jeremiah—for which the charge of death is pressed against him—and they show that Micah had spoken more grievous things, and yet suffered nothing from the just King Hezekiah, but rather that men turned to penance changed the Lord's sentence unto a good part. For Micah said:
'Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps of stones, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forests': while Jeremiah says: 'I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.' And they give counsel, judging that what Micah had foretold would by no means come to pass, since for a long time it had not been fulfilled, on account of the people's penance; and likewise that what Jeremiah has spoken would by no means come to pass, if according to his counsel they should amend their ways and their doings and hearken to the voice of the Lord their God, so that the Lord might not bring the evil which he had threatened against them. And at the same time they break the frenzy of the accusers and join themselves with them, saying:
'So we are committing a great evil against our own souls'—not that they ought to do it, but because, if they should do it, they would by no means harm the accused, but their own souls, which by changing the sentence they could have delivered. 'There was also a man prophesying in the name of the Lord, Uriah the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim; and he prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah. And King Jehoiakim and all his mighty men and his princes heard these words, and the king sought to kill him; and Uriah heard it, and was afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt.' And what follows: 'And King Jehoiakim sent men into Egypt, Elnathan the son of Achbor and men with him into Egypt,' is not found in the Septuagint. Then is joined:
'And they fetched Uriah out of Egypt and brought him to King Jehoiakim; and he smote him with the sword and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people. Nevertheless the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that he should not be delivered into the hand of the people to slay him.' It is asked why, when Uriah the son of Shemaiah of the town of Kiriath-jearim had prophesied the same things as Jeremiah, and, stricken with fear, had fled into Egypt, and, brought back thence, was slain, Jeremiah was able to escape—he who certainly had not fled, but, boldly persevering in his former sentence, was delivered both by the judgment of the people and princes and by the counsel of the elders against the accusers, the priests and false prophets.
To which it must be briefly answered that the judgment of God can by no means be known, when in the same cause and by the same sentence one man is punished and another delivered; unless perhaps we may answer this, that Uriah was slaughtered unto the condemnation both of the accusers and of the people, while Jeremiah was reserved by the judgment of God, that he might preach to the remnant of the unhappy people and draw them back to repentance. This very thing we read also in the Acts of the Apostles: that James the apostle at once suffered the sentence of Herod and was crowned with martyrdom, but that Peter and the other apostles were reserved for the teaching of the Lord.
And the constancy of the prophet is to be noted, that Uriah, brought back from Egypt, did not change his sentence, but, seeing death threatened him, nonetheless spoke the things the Lord had commanded. And that he feared and fled and went into Egypt is a sign not of unfaithfulness but of prudence, lest we offer ourselves in vain to dangers. Otherwise we read that even the Lord and Saviour slipped away from the hands of his persecutors and commanded the apostles: 'When they persecute you in this city, flee to another!' It is also asked how Jehoiakim, king of Judah, of a small and enfeebled and already all-but-perishing dominion, had the power of sending into Egypt and bringing Uriah out thence.
This is easily resolved, if we consider that he had been established as prince by Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, and that this prophecy took place in the beginning of his reign. But although Jeremiah was delivered by the Lord's help, nevertheless it is also reckoned unto the reward of him through whom the Lord delivered his prophet, namely Ahikam the son of Shaphan—as we shall read in the later chapters, when Jeremiah is delivered from the peril of death out of the miry pit by the counsel and protection of Ebed-melech the eunuch. 'In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying.'
This is not found in the edition of the Septuagint, and many think it is the beginning of the following chapter, which is by no means so; rather it is to be joined to what precedes, so that we may believe that whatever is reported as said and done was done in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim; whence too he had the power of sending into Egypt, as to a friendly king. But it seems to me that the Septuagint passed over this heading for this reason, lest they should seem to say it a second time; for they had already set down at the beginning: 'In the beginning of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the Lord, saying.' 'Thus saith the Lord unto me:'
'Make thee bonds and chains—or collars (kloious), which in Hebrew are called moth, and in common speech they call boiae—and thou shalt put them on thy neck, and shalt send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who came to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah, king of Judah. And thou shalt command them to speak unto their masters: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Thus shall ye say unto your masters.' The preceding vision took place unto the prophet in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah; but this one under Zedekiah, who reigned last in Jerusalem, and under whom the city was captured and overthrown.
And Jeremiah is commanded to put chains or wooden yokes—which, as we have said, are called moth in Hebrew—upon his neck, and to send them to the kings of Edom, Moab, the children of Ammon, Tyre, Sidon, by the ambassadors who had come to Zedekiah; and to command them to announce to their masters that they ought to serve King Nebuchadnezzar and to hearken. This the following speech of the prophet pursues. And lest perchance the ambassadors and kings of these nations should answer, 'Why dost thou not command this to thine own people?', he speaks like things also to King Zedekiah and to the priests and prophets.
The ever-allegorizing interpreter, fleeing the truth of history, interprets this passage of the heavenly Jerusalem: that its inhabitants ought of their own accord to assume bodies and descend into 'Babylon,' that is, 'the confusion' of this world, which is set in wickedness, and to serve the Babylonian king—doubtless the devil. But if they should refuse to do this, they will by no means bear these heavy bodies, but will perish by sword and famine and pestilence, and will be no longer men but demons. Let him have said this, lest his defenders bring a calumny against us. But for the rest, let us follow the simple and true history, lest we be enveloped in certain clouds and illusions.
'I have made the earth and man and the beasts which are upon the face of the earth, by my great strength and by my outstretched arm, and I have given it to him who pleased in my eyes.' Although this Scripture speaks anthropopathically—in the way that we men can speak and understand—nevertheless the 'strength' of God and his 'arm' is He of whom the Apostle also speaks: 'Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God,' and Isaiah: 'Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?' John the evangelist also writes: 'All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made.' David too in his song says: 'By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the power of them by the spirit of his mouth.' But as for what he says:
'I have given it to him who pleased in my eyes'—this signifies that all things have been bestowed upon the human race through the grace of God. 'I,' he says, 'made the earth and man and the beasts.' The order is inverted; for in Genesis the animals are made first and man last, but here he names man first and afterward the things that are subjected to man. 'Now therefore I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant; moreover I have given him the beasts of the field to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son.' Of what unhappiness is Israel, when by comparison with it Nebuchadnezzar is called the 'servant of God'! It is written in the Gospel: 'The world was made by him, and the world knew him not;'
'he came unto his own, and his own received him not.' Rightly, therefore, does the Creator hand over his creature to whom he wills. Finally, even the devil, in whose type Nebuchadnezzar went before, confesses: 'All these things are delivered unto me.' But as for what he added: 'moreover I have given him the beasts of the field to serve him,' we ought either simply to understand every kind of living thing—for together with man are handed over also those things that are subject to him—or else let us take the 'beasts' to be the wild nations, in that even those serve, which before had not known how to serve. And his 'son' and 'son's son'—according to the Hebrew—he calls Belshazzar and Evil-merodach, of whom Daniel writes. 'Until the time of his own land come, and of himself.'
Beautifully, lest the empire of Nebuchadnezzar be thought perpetual, he says that it too shall be taken by the Medes and Persians: for this is what is signified by 'until the time of his own land come, and of himself.' But neither is this found in the Septuagint. 'And many nations and great kings shall serve him.' He did not say 'all'—for this is properly owed to the empire of Christ—although according to Symmachus it is not read 'many nations and great kings shall serve him,' but 'many nations and great kings shall subject to servitude,' so that he himself too may serve the Medes and Persians, to whom all nations before had served. This, which we have set down from the Hebrew: 'I have given him, that they may serve him, and all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son,'
'until the time of his own land come, and of himself, and many nations and great kings subject him to servitude'—this, as we have already said, is not read in the edition of the Septuagint. 'But the nation and kingdom which will not serve Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and whosoever will not bow his neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I visit with the sword and with famine and with pestilence, saith the Lord, until I have consumed them by his hand.' Not only does the Lord subject the sinful nations to Nebuchadnezzar, but the Apostle too speaks of sinners: 'whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme'; and in another place: 'I have delivered such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved.'
He also admonishes that the powers are to be obeyed, not only because of wrath, but also because of conscience, lest we be condemned by them. 'Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets and diviners and dreamers and augurs and sorcerers, who say unto you: Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon, for they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land, and to cast you out, that ye may perish. But the nation which shall put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, that will I let remain in its own land, saith the Lord, and it shall till it and dwell therein.'
The allegorical interpreter raves in this passage too, and exhorts those set in the heavenly Jerusalem not to hearken to their prophets and diviners, dreamers and augurs and sorcerers, but rather to serve Nebuchadnezzar and to assume the body of humiliation—infancy, the wailings and cradles of little children; for if they do this, then, their service and the condition of human mortality being fulfilled, they will return to their own land and dwell in it and work the things they worked before. And he says he suspects that those who have despised God's precepts are weighed down by human bodies, and will become demons and unclean spirits, and will by no means recover their former seat.
But let us simply expound that there are prophets among the nations who pretend to foretell things to come by a divine spirit; and diviners, of whom there is even the common proverb: 'They say the wise divine'; and dreamers, who imitate Joseph and Daniel; and augurs, who by the flight of birds and the voices of song-birds announce what is to be done or not to be done; and sorcerers, whom we may call either poisoners or servants of the phantoms of demons, who in Hebrew are called chassane. 'All these,' he says, 'deceive you and supplant you, that ye should not serve the king of Babylon.' For it is far better to undertake servitude of one's own accord and to have a friend whom you serve, and to till one's native land, than to serve as captives by force and necessity.
'And I spake to Zedekiah, king of Judah, according to all these words, saying: Bow your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and ye shall live. Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? Hearken not to the words of the prophets that say unto you: Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon; for they prophesy a lie unto you. For I have not sent them, saith the Lord, and they prophesy falsely in my name, that I might drive you out and ye should perish, both ye and the prophets that prophesy unto you.' After all the nations he passes to Zedekiah, king of Judah, and speaks in the same words with which he had threatened the nations;
for he does not deserve the privilege of the Israelite nation, who has sinned either like or worse than the other nations. Finally, because the rebellious people despised to hearken, it was consumed by sword, famine, and pestilence. But it is to be observed in Holy Scripture that in place of 'false prophets' it calls 'prophets' those who prophesy falsely in the name of the Lord. 'And this they do,' he says, 'that I may drive you out, and ye may perish, both ye and the prophets who prophesy unto you'; therefore of those who are deceived, and of those who deceive, alike is the destruction. This, which we have set down from the Hebrew: 'under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and ye shall live.'
'Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? Hearken not to the words of the prophets that say unto you'—is not found in the Septuagint. And therefore I admonish, that the prudent reader may understand how much is lacking in each particular from the Greek and Latin codices. 'And I spake to the priests and to this people, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Hearken not to the words of your prophets that prophesy unto you, saying: Behold, the vessels of the Lord shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon; for they prophesy a lie unto you.'—This, which we have set down, 'now shortly,' is not found in the Septuagint, and that which follows:—'Hearken not to them, but serve the king of Babylon, that ye may live!'
'Why should this city be given to desolation?' After the nations and the king, he speaks to the priests and to the people, because he had already announced destruction to the prophets above, saying: 'that I may drive you out, and ye may perish, both ye and the prophets who prophesy unto you.' And he speaks the same things which he had spoken to the king and the nations, that they should not hearken to the words of their prophets and say that the vessels of the Lord's temple were now to be brought back—those which had been carried away with Jeconiah and the princes and his mother—and he admonishes that they should serve the king of Babylon and live, and that the city, willingly submitting, should by no means be given over to burning. And in this too is the clemency of the Lord, to hand them over to a lighter punishment, lest they endure a heavier.
'And if they are prophets, and the word of the Lord is in them, let them intercede'—and what follows, which we shall subjoin down to the end of this chapter, is not found in the Septuagint—'with the Lord of hosts, that the vessels which were left in the house of the Lord and in the house of the king of Judah and in Jerusalem may not go into Babylon. For thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases—for which in the Hebrew is written mechonoth—and concerning the residue of the vessels that remain in this city, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took not when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem.'
'For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that are left in the house of the Lord and in the house of the king of Judah and in Jerusalem: They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be until the day of their visitation, saith the Lord; and I will bring them up and restore them to this place.' These things, as we have said, are not found in the Septuagint, but are translated from the Hebrew truth; in place of which they set down something else that was not written, saying: 'to me, for thus said the Lord: and the residue of the vessels which the king of Babylon took not away, when he carried Jeconiah captive from Jerusalem,'
'shall enter into Babylon, saith the Lord'—setting down the sense rather than the words, perhaps judging it irrational that God should speak to the pillars and to the sea and to the bases and to the rest of the vessels that had remained in Jerusalem; as though we do not read that the Lord rebuked even the worm of the morning, and spoke to the sea: 'Be silent and be still!' And as for what he says, 'let them intercede with me,' or 'with the Lord of hosts,' this shows that a true prophet can withstand the Lord by prayers. According to which Moses too stood in the breach against the Lord, to turn away the wrath of his fury; Samuel likewise did the same. And the Lord said to Moses: 'Let me alone, that I may smite this people!' But when he says, 'Let me alone,' he shows that he can be held back by the prayers of the saints.
'Let them intercede,' he says, 'the prophets, and let them show fulfilled in deed whatever they foretell, and then by the truth the prophecy shall be proved.' But the pillars and the sea and the bases and the rest of the vessels we read of in the Books of Kings and at the end of the volume of this very prophet; and there are enumerated the vessels that were carried into Babylon, when Zedekiah was captured and the city burned and the temple overthrown. 'And it came to pass in that year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azur, a prophet of Gibeon, said unto me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon;'
'yet within two full years I will bring again unto this place all the vessels of the Lord.' Those whom the Hebrew calls 'prophets,' that is nebeim, the Septuagint interpreted 'false prophets,' to make the meaning plainer. Yet in the present passage he is called a 'prophet,' that is nebia, and not a 'false prophet.' Now the word of the Lord comes under King Zedekiah, in the fourth year of his reign and in the fifth month—the prophet Ezekiel not yet prophesying in Babylon to those who had been carried away with Jeconiah—and Hananiah has the boldness to speak in the house of the Lord against the prophet, because he promises prosperity to the people, and lies are gladly heard, especially those that promise glad things.
Jeremiah had said that the rest of the vessels also — whether of the temple or of the royal house or of all the people — which Nebuchadnezzar had left behind, were to be carried over to Babylon; but this man (Hananiah), on the contrary, promises that even those things which had already been carried away were to be brought back. 'Which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took from this place and carried to Babylon. And Jechoniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the whole exile of Judah who entered Babylon, I will bring back into this place, says the Lord; for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.' In place of these the Seventy rendered: 'Jechoniah and the exile of Judah, because I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon,' setting down briefly the sense of the Hebrew truth rather than its words.
But Hananiah 'the prophet' — as he then seemed to the people — promises that not only the vessels but also king Jechoniah must be brought back to Jerusalem, and that the yoke of the king of Babylon must be broken, that is, his empire destroyed; and that this would come to pass within two years not yet complete, so that the nearness of the promised time might increase the greatness of the joy. 'And Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet before the eyes of the priests and before the eyes of all the people who stood in the house of the Lord, and Jeremiah the prophet said: Amen, so may the Lord do; may the Lord raise up your words which you have prophesied, that the vessels may be brought back from the house of the Lord, and all the exile of Babylon to this place!'
He (Jeremiah) wishes that to come true which the false prophet falsely proclaims — for this is what 'amen' means, a word the Lord often employs in the Gospel: 'Amen, amen I say to you' — and he desires, for the prosperity of affairs, that the other rather than himself should speak the truth. Whence another prophet also testifies, saying: 'Would that I were not a man having the spirit, and would rather speak a lie!' On the contrary, Jonah is grieved that his word had proved false, and is rebuked by the Lord: that it is more profitable for a prophet's word to prove false than for the ruin of so great a multitude. And lest he should seem to confirm the false prophet's oracle, under the example of others, without doing injury to the liar, he adds the truth: 'Nevertheless hear this word which I speak in your ears and in the ears of all the people:'
'The prophets who were before me and you from the beginning, and prophesied over many lands and over great kingdoms concerning war and affliction and famine; but the prophet who prophesied peace, when his word comes to pass, that prophet shall be known whom the Lord has truly sent.' Jeremiah could have said to Hananiah: 'You speak falsely, you deceive the people, you are not a prophet but a false prophet.' But if he had said this, the false prophet too could have hurled the same charge back against Jeremiah; therefore he does him no injury, and speaks to him as though to a 'prophet.' 'Not only,' he says, 'am I a prophet, and you also, but before me and you there were many others, among whom were Isaiah, Hosea, Joel and Amos and the rest.'
'They prophesied,' he says, 'against many lands and kingdoms not small but great, announcing to them war and adversity and the want of all things; and on the contrary there were others who promised peace and prosperity. The verdict of both was proved not by the flattery of a lie but by the outcome of events.' Under the example of others, therefore, he speaks of himself and Hananiah, namely that when the end of events arrives, then the truth of the prophets is shown. This same thing the Lord also spoke through Moses, that a prophet is proved by the fulfillment of his prophecy. And this too is to be noted, that not menacingly, not fiercely, but with confidence in the truth he rebukes the liar and defers the matter to the future, so that those who hear may await the outcome of events.
'And Hananiah the prophet took the chain — or yoke-bar, which in Hebrew is called muthoth — from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it. And Hananiah said in the sight of all the people: Thus says the Lord: So will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon within two years of days from the neck of all the nations. And Jeremiah went his way.' The Seventy did not translate 'two years,' nor did they call Hananiah 'prophet,' lest, that is, they should seem to call a prophet one who was no prophet — as though many things are not said in the holy Scriptures according to the opinion of the time in which the deeds are recorded, and not according to what the truth of the matter contained; and indeed even Joseph in the Gospel is called the father of the Lord, and Mary herself,
who knew that she had conceived by the Holy Spirit and had answered the angel: 'How shall this be, since I know not a man?' — she says to her Son: 'Son, why have you done so to us? Behold, I and your father have sought you sorrowing.' At the same time the prudence of Jeremiah and his humility and patience are to be considered. The false prophet does violence to the facts and, seizing the yoke-bar, breaks it from his neck — which he certainly could not have done had it been iron — while Jeremiah keeps silent and hides his grief; for it had not yet been revealed to him by the Lord what he should say, so that holy Scripture might silently show that the prophets by no means speak by their own judgment alone, but also by the Lord's will, especially concerning things to come, the knowledge of which belongs to God alone.