十二先知書註釋 第 1 章 第 10/19 段

For what nations, both near at hand and settled far off, after the return ran together to the temple of the Jews, embracing their law and loving the word that goes forth from thence? And among what nations, or how many peoples, did this word give judgment, convicting the evil deeds done by them? And the things that follow expressly convict that interpretation of falsehood;

for after the return from Babylon, as it seems even to those who have so understood it, both Gog and Magog with very many nations made war upon the Jews, and all their neighbours continued to fight against them—on this side the Idumaeans and Ammonites and Moabites;

on that side the Philistines and Samaritans;

and after a little time had passed, the Macedonian evils came upon them, which the records of the Maccabees contain.

But here the prophetic word promises deep peace.

For they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles, and nation shall no more lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

(4) And each shall rest beneath his own vine, and each beneath his own fig tree, and there shall be none to make afraid. And in showing the truthfulness of what has been said, he makes plain to his hearers the trustworthiness of the One who spoke it.

For the mouth of the Lord Almighty has spoken these things. Then indeed, then—

All the peoples shall walk each in his own way;

but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and beyond. That none of these things, therefore, befits the Jews, the events themselves bear witness;

for those who were cast out of Jerusalem became sojourners over the inhabited world, scattered wanderers, and unable to fulfil the service according to the law;

but the prophetic word promises that those who have believed in the name of the Lord shall walk for ever and beyond.

And that these things signify beforehand the time after the coming of the Lord, once again the events, all but uttering a voice, furnish the testimony.

For before the empire of the Romans, frequent were the risings of the nations one against another, inasmuch as the sovereignty was divided among each nation.

But when the whole dominion had been transferred to the Romans, and the kingdom of each individual nation had been abolished at the coming of our Saviour, a deep peace took hold of the inhabited world, so that no longer did nation march against nation, but on account of the peace bestowed from God they turned their weapons of war into agricultural implements, and, giving themselves to husbandry, enjoyed the good things thence without fear.

In those days, and in that time, I will gather her that is crushed, and will receive her that is thrust away, and those whom I had thrust away.

And I will make her that is crushed a remnant, and her that is thrust away a strong nation. And teaching clearly that he says these things not concerning the Jews, he has added:

And the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from now and unto the age. If then the kingdom of the Jews had remained in Zion, and they had enjoyed the eternal and perpetual care from the God of all, reasonably would the Jews too lay claim to the prophecy, and those who have understood these things in like manner to them would agree with them;

but since, dwelling far from Jerusalem, they are in servitude, and have been manifestly stripped of the care of God, let neither the Jews babble nonsense, and let the teachers of the Church advocate for the truth.

For by 'her that is crushed and thrust away' he designates the souls that are in servitude to piety, for whose sake the only-begotten Word of God, having become man, appeared upon the earth and consorted with men.

And a witness of these things is he himself, saying to the Jews:

Having thus foretold the things concerning the Church gathered from the nations, the prophet returns to the discourse against Jerusalem.

And you, O squalid tower of the flock, O daughter of Zion, upon you shall come and enter the dominion, the first kingdom of Babylon. Thus also the blessed Isaiah—or rather the God of all through his tongue—names her figuratively.

For having said, I planted a vine, a choice vine, and I dug a wine-vat in it, he added:

And I built a tower in the midst of it, thus calling the temple, through which he seemed to keep guard over the vineyard.

This tower the blessed Micah calls 'squalid' on account of the impiety of its inhabitants;

for having befouled the transparency of the lawful commonwealth, they introduced their own lawlessness as though it were a kind of squalor.

Against these he threatens the campaign of the Babylonians;

For Nebuchadnezzar, having straightway taken up the scepter over these, marched out in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim.

Then, by way of irony, he inquires:

And now, why do you know evils? Was there no king in you, or has your counsel perished, that pangs have seized you like a woman in travail? From where, he says, have you taken your experience of these evils? And indeed you had counselors able to discover what was needful, and it was for this very reason that you asked for a king, that he might face danger on your behalf in the wars.

for I have given you your request;

Learn therefore that neither the counselors, nor the prudence of the counselors, nor the protection of the king shall profit you at all.

thence shall the Lord your God deliver you, and thence shall he redeem you from the hand of your enemies. Do not now, he says, wait for deliverance from the evils that are coming upon you;

for you must be driven out of this city;

and, being led away at random, you must lodge in the roads;

and dwell in Babylon for a very long time, and after a while attain freedom, and return to the land that bore you.

Having thus foretold to them their captivity and their return, he makes his prophecy concerning the Scythian nations, which after their return marched against them.

And now many nations are gathered together against you, and peoples saying:

We will rejoice, and our eyes shall look upon Zion.

But they knew not the reasoning of the Lord, nor did they understand his counsel, that he gathered them like sheaves of the threshing floor. Now God gathers them, not by compelling and forcing, but by permitting their impulses and yielding to free will.

These things we have also taught in interpreting the other prophets.

Arise and thresh them, daughter of Zion, for I will make your horns iron, and your hoofs I will make bronze;

using the power supplied to you by me, you shall utterly destroy them all and consign them to complete ruin;

ascribing to me the victory over these, and openly confessing that it was I who became for you the supplier of this.

Now shall the daughter be barred in with a barricade;

he has appointed a siege against us;

with a rod they shall smite upon the cheek the tribes of Israel. Those men, he says, not foreseeing the outcome, shall encompass the city with their army as with a kind of fence, hoping to take it together with its inhabitants, and expecting to treat those dwelling in it with every wanton insolence.

For this is what he said, With a rod they shall smite upon the cheek, since such a blow carries a greater dishonor.

for you shall obtain protection, not on account of your good order, but on account of the king who is to be born of you according to the flesh.

And teaching this clearly, he added:

And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are you too little to be among the thousands of Judah?

out of you shall come forth for me one to be a ruler in Israel, and his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity. Do not look, he says, to the fewness of your inhabitants, O Bethlehem;

for you have occasion for glory, such as no city upon the earth possesses;

for in you, according to the flesh, shall be born he who before the ages was begotten of the Father, whose goings forth are from the beginning. And this closely resembles the preamble of the Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;

From the womb before the morning star I begot you. This one therefore, the pre-eternal, the one in the beginning with God, God the Word, having his goings forth thence from the beginning, in you, he says, shall receive his birth according to the flesh, making you splendid and renowned, you who were reckoned least among the thousands of Judah.

And this too the present-day Jews have dared to take as referring to Zerubbabel, manifestly fighting against the truth.

And they do not blush to hear that his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity;

whereas Zerubbabel, born in Babylon after the captivity, received his very name from the place.

The Jews of old, however, did not understand this prophecy in a manner like these;

but after Zerubbabel and a great number of years, when questioned by Herod where the Christ was to be born, they brought forward this testimony to him.

But leaving aside their folly, let us proceed to the connected course of the interpretation.

she shall bear, and the rest of his brethren shall return to the sons of Israel. For until then, he says, you shall be long-suffering, and shall impart your protection to the Jews, until she who is in travail brings forth.

Rejoice, barren one, you who do not bear;

break forth and cry aloud, you who do not travail;

for the children of the desolate are more than those of her who has a husband. But those born of her, he says, shall be joined to those who believe out of Israel.

For out of Israel came the divine chorus of the apostles, and after them the seventy disciples chosen by the Lord, and the hundred and twenty found together after the resurrection, and the five hundred to whom, gathered together, the Lord appeared, and the three thousand, and the five thousand whom Peter the fisherman netted, and the many myriads concerning whom the inspired James said to the most divine Paul:

You see, brother, how many myriads there are of Jews who have believed. One Church therefore, he says, shall come to be out of both here and there, and among these the Lord from Bethlehem shall stand.

And he shall see, and shall shepherd his flock in strength, the Lord, and they shall be in the glory of the name of the Lord their God;

But since these things were to come to pass long ages afterward, he confirms the prediction from things that would happen in that time.

For in order that you may learn, he says, that the things foretold are true, take the present things as a pledge of those.

For when the Assyrian comes upon you, I will destroy him, and will bestow upon you a deep peace.

And there shall be raised up against him seven shepherds and eight bites of men;

And they shall shepherd Asshur with the sword, and the land of Nimrod with its trench;

and he shall deliver you from Asshur, when he comes upon your land, and when he treads upon your borders. From this we were clearly taught that the Assyrian also reigned over Babylon;

for Nimrod, as the blessed Moses taught, using tyranny, first held Babylon in his subjection.

For the beginning of his kingdom, he says, was Babylon, Erech, and Chalanne. And I will raise up against him seven kings (for he calls the kings shepherds), and I will encompass him with eight human blows.

He speaks of the warlike assaults that were made against him.

For these he calls bites of men.

And he also signifies, in connection with him, the capture of Babylon.

For now, he says, I will encompass this one with such evils;

but a little later, the one who succeeds him too, and who makes Babylon a royal city, I will utterly destroy, and he shall find no profit, neither from his strongest walls, nor from the trench running round outside;

and you shall be freed from these, not only then, when I raise up other foes against them, but also at the present time, when, using a great army, they come against your city;

for now I will bring upon them, unseen, through angelic ministry, their destruction.

Having thus given the things that then came to pass as pledges of the things that would be later, he again transfers his discourse to those things, and teaches how, having believed in the Lord who was born in Bethlehem, both the holy apostles and, with them, the ministers appointed for the divine proclamation, would bring the evangelical teaching to the nations of foreign race.

And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations in the midst of many peoples, like dew falling from the Lord, and like lambs upon the grass, so that no one may be gathered, nor stand up among the sons of men. Now everywhere he calls the saved a remnant.

If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved. Thus therefore, he says, those who have believed and convey the evangelical proclamation to the nations, shall water the whole inhabited world like dew borne from heaven;

and just as hungry lambs consume the grass, so these shall easily consume the impiety implanted, after the manner of grass, in souls that have become barren, so that no such gathering of men shall any longer be found.

For since the demons remained incurably diseased, fittingly the Holy Spirit made the prediction with a qualification:

So that no one may be gathered, nor stand up among the sons of men. So that, he says, no gathering assembled from impious men may henceforth be found.

And since he likened them to dew and to lambs, but did not sufficiently show through these the power given to them by God, he adds yet another image to what has been said.

For behold, he says, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. But after these things, when the inhabited world had received the proclamation, and when generals and kings filled up the roster of the Church, the fear passed over to the adversaries of the truth;

and some, being like cattle, are afraid and shudder, having no helper from anywhere;

but the expounders of the evangelical doctrines, displaying a lion-like spirit, with much boldness combat by the word of truth the advocates of falsehood.

Your hand shall be lifted up over those who afflict you, and all your enemies shall be utterly destroyed. For no longer shall you be driven out by them, but you shall destroy their precincts.

Those therefore of Israel who have believed shall obtain this power;

but those who have persisted in unbelief shall be made desolate of their own kingdom, and shall have neither cavalry, nor foot soldier, nor cities fortified with walls.

But even these things, he says, will turn out for your good.

For I will destroy, he says, your sorceries out of your hands, and there shall be no more soothsayers among you. He calls the diviners 'soothsayers.'

And I will destroy your carved images and your pillars from your midst, and you shall no longer worship the works of your own hands.

And I will cut down your groves from your midst, and I will obliterate your cities.

And in anger and in wrath I will execute vengeance upon the nations, because they did not hearken. And these things too are easy to learn from the events themselves.

For after the incarnation of our God and Saviour, the Jews, seeing the piety of the nations and their deliverance from error, were themselves also, though unwilling, freed from the worship of idols.

For they plainly blush to act impiously, when they see those outside the Law living soberly.

He therefore foretells to them that they will be driven out of their own cities, and being scattered among the nations, will be delivered from the error concerning idols.

Having pronounced this sentence against them, he again brings them to judgment, and entrusts the verdict to the inanimate mountains;

not as calling them living beings, nor as addressing his words to rational creatures;

but because the mountains, and the valleys and ravines between them, at one time received the corpses of the Assyrians, slain through angelic agency, and at another time the countless slaughters of the Scythian nations;

through the mountains, and hills, and valleys, he reminds them of the things that came to pass in them.

Hear now what the Lord has said:

Arise, and plead your cause before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Look upon the mountains that, through my aid, received your enemies as corpses, and say with all boldness, if indeed you can, and let not the greatness of the benefit stop up your mouth;

therefore, since you are unable to do this, I myself will conduct the discourse.

Hear, O hills, the judgment of the Lord, and you valleys, foundations of the earth, for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. For since, being rational, they are sick with irrationality, I will use the inanimate as judges against the rational.

My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I grieved you, or in what have I troubled you? Answer me. Tell me the cause of your enmity;

prove it, if you have experienced anything grievous from me.

And since it was necessary for one who had nothing to say to keep silent, he fittingly added:

Answer me; if you have anything to say, say it openly.

having employed as ministers those wondrous and renowned men, Moses and Aaron, and not depriving the women of the care that befitted them, but setting Miriam over them, and filling her with the gift of prophecy? But if you wish to forget these things, remember what happened concerning Balaam, and consider on what account Balak sent for him;

and how that man, moved by my power, brought upon you not a curse, but a blessing.

And each of these things I did, not as offering you a reward for righteousness;

but making my own righteousness manifest;

for having made a promise to your forefather, I was fulfilling the covenant made with him.

The prophet, having framed these words as though from the person of God, and beholding the insensibility of the people, himself, in the people's stead, stirs up the reasonings of piety, and says:

Wherewith shall I take hold of the Lord? Shall I lay hold of my God Most High? How shall I requite him who has procured for me so many good things? What recompenses shall I employ? Shall I take hold of him with whole burnt offerings, with yearling calves? (v. 7) Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of fat kids? Shall I give my firstborn for my impiety, the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul? Nothing, he says, of human things, neither a multitude of calves, nor whole flocks, nor tens of thousands of kids (for he calls the yearling kids 'chimarous'), nor the firstborn children who first opened the womb, offered in sacrifice to God, suffice to loose the multitude of my sins.

But if all these do not suffice for the remission of sins, with what shall I requite the divine benefits? Having thus set forth the human reasonings, he again offers the divine answer.

It has been declared to you, O man, what is good;

for having cast out the whole catalogue of sacrifices, and having said:

I will not accept calves out of your house, nor kids out of your flocks;

for all the wild beasts of the forest are mine; he added:

Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High;

and call upon me in the day of your affliction, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. And again:

For if you had desired sacrifice, I would have given it;

you will not delight in whole burnt offerings.

The sacrifice for God is a broken spirit;

a broken and humbled heart God will not despise. And one might find these same things among all the prophets.

For he wills that you should attend to what is just, and be kindly toward your neighbour, and in all things obey God your Maker.

And these same things he also enacted as law through Moses:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself. When therefore these things are done by you, (v. 9)

who shall adorn the city? (v. 10) Is there fire, and the house of the lawless one storing up lawless treasures, and with the insolence of injustice? For just as fire brings to a city not adornment, but conflagration and destruction;

so the inclination toward injustice, when it is accompanied by audacity and insolence, brings ruin upon those who indulge it.

Shall the unjust be justified by the balance, and by deceitful weights in the bag? From which things they filled their wealth with injustice, and those who dwelt in it spoke falsehood, and their tongue was exalted in their mouth. For in addition to their impiety and lawlessness, they dared the very things of which he just now made accusation;

possessing unjust weights and balances, gathering wealth out of covetousness, and defiling their tongue with false words.

and I will bring upon you frequent and successive calamities.

You shall eat, and shall not be satisfied. And I will wrap you in the gloom of misfortunes, and though you take to flight, you shall not escape those who war against you. For you shall turn aside, he says, and shall not be saved, and as many as are saved shall be delivered to the sword. But also, though you labour much upon the land, you shall not enjoy its fruits.

And the customs of my people shall be abolished. And teaching that he is now speaking not of the divine law, but of the lawless polity, he added:

And all the works of the house of Ahab. For having emulated that impiety, you shall be delivered to these evils, so that those who see the calamities befalling you shall by a hiss signify their magnitude.

Having said all these things, the prophet laments, as one who had used many words, but had laboured to no profit.

for I have become as one who gathers stubble in harvest, and as a gleaning in the vintage, when there is no cluster;

my soul longed to eat the firstfruits. I am like, he says, those who gather up the fallen ears of grain, or those who search out the gleanings left behind by the vintagers;

for neither did I find a single cluster of obedience, and that though I greatly longed to find something desirable, and worthy from the beginning;

My soul longed to eat the firstfruits. For since the firstborn were offered to God, he fittingly called that which is most desirable the 'firstfruits.'

And wishing to make plain these things spoken figuratively, he added:

(v. 2) that the godly man has perished from the earth, and there is none upright among men. Then he makes a catalogue of their sins.

For those who judge, he says, bring the unjust verdict against the guiltless, and dare to commit lawless murders;

and each of the rest, coveting more, appropriates what belongs to his neighbour.

And he who has been entrusted to judge according to the laws does not even wait for those who bring bribes, but himself demands, using a bribe-taking disposition.

For the ruler, he says, demands, and the judge speaks words of peace;

For this he called a 'watchtower,' that is, the manifestation of God that takes place upon it.

Then the loving father, in mournful fashion, like one who instructs:

Woe, woe, your acts of vengeance have come!

now shall be their weepings. And when these things come to pass, he says, neither shall friend stand up for friend, nor shall king take thought for his subjects, nor shall a spouse show care for the partner of the bed;

but each shall take thought for his own safety, looking about for escape from the evils, so that neither shall a son render to his father the honour that is due, nor shall a daughter render to her mother the reverence, nor shall a bride care for her mother-in-law;

with all being as it were in a kind of division, and despising one another, and scarcely providing for their own safety.

But those shall be in these straits;

yet I, says the prophet, (v. 7)

will look to the Lord, I will wait upon God my Saviour. And showing what is the fruit of patient endurance: My God will hearken to me, he says. Having thus clearly taught the gain of hope in God, he takes on the person of Jerusalem, and directs his words to Idumaea, which was ever a foe and an enemy.

Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy, because I have fallen. For I shall rise again, enjoying the divine care;

For he himself, even as I pass my days in darkness, will furnish his own radiance.

For I know that this chastisement is just, when I look upon the magnitude of my sin.

Yet nevertheless I await the just judgment against those who warred against me.

For even though I too have paid the penalty for the offences I committed, yet those men employed an unjust purpose against me.

This is the meaning of the words: 'Until he vindicate my cause, and execute my judgment, and bring me forth into the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.' For by him I have been justly condemned;

but against those men I have many just claims, and for this reason I await the divine verdict;

and when I behold this verdict brought forth, and am delivered from their servitude, (v. 10)

'My enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her'—she who says to me:

'Where is your God?' And not only shall she see my prosperity and the power of my God, against whom she stretched out her tongue, but I too shall behold her adversity.

'For my eyes shall look upon her;'

'now she shall be for trampling underfoot, like mire in the streets.'

(v. 11) 'A day for the daubing of brick, that day shall be your blotting out;'

'In that day your cities also shall come to enclosure, and to division of the Assyrians.' For just as the clay prepared for the daubing and plastering of bricks, when cast out of doors, is trampled by all who pass by, so that its lumps are broken up into what is needful;

so shall you be at the mercy of all and easily captured, taken and trodden down by all the surrounding peoples.

Then your lawless laws also shall receive their end, and your cities shall endure siege;

for this is what he called 'enclosure';

and the multitude of the inhabitants, being divided up by the enemy, shall be compelled to serve as slaves.

But since the other neighbouring cities also rejoiced over the calamities of the Jews, of necessity he makes mention of Tyre and Syria and the other cities that were laid waste by the Assyrians and Babylonians;

and he tells which these are, making them plain from their boundaries.

'For from sea,' he says, 'to sea, and from mountain to the mountain.' That is, from the Red Sea, which lies toward the east, to that which lies toward the west, and from the mountain of the Idumeans to Lebanon, all who are in between shall be delivered over to the enemy.

For this is what he added, having said it;

and showing the cause, he says, 'Because of the fruits of their doings.' Having thus foretold what would befall the neighbouring nations, he announces to the people the peace that would follow their return.

'Shepherd your people with the rod of your tribe, the sheep of your inheritance.' And since he had figuratively called men 'sheep,' he continued in the figure.

'Those who dwell alone in the forest.' He means those who are separated from all the nations, and possess their own distinct pasture.

And the phrase, 'With the rod of your tribe,' signifies the tribe of Judah.

For after the return that tribe led the others, since there was no longer any division of the tribes.

Then, teaching that after the return they would possess all the land which they held before the captivity, he added:

(v. 15) 'And according to the days of your going out from the land of Egypt I will show them wonders.' 'For however great a land,' he says, 'I bestowed on you when you came out of Egypt, so great a land will I furnish you when you return from Babylon, astounding with wonders those who attempt to war against you.'