By which we understand that these things are said either of the whole human race, which is prone to vices, or of the time of the Saviour, when all turned aside, together they became unprofitable; there was none who did good, there was not even one. Whence He too mystically cries out: Save me, O Lord, for the holy one has failed! But if these things are so, where are they who say that it is placed in our will to be free from all sin? No one, He says, speaks what is good, since we shall render an account even for an idle word in the day of judgment. The kite in the heaven knew its time; the turtledove and the swallow and the stork kept the time of their coming; but my people did not know the judgment of the Lord.
For 'kite,' which Symmachus interpreted, the Seventy and Theodotion set down the Hebrew word itself, 'asida'; Aquila, 'herodion.' And again for 'swallow' Symmachus rendered 'cicada,' which in Hebrew is called 'sis.' But for that which we set down as 'stork,' both Aquila and Symmachus, just as it is written in the Hebrew, rendered 'agur'; for which the Seventy interpreted 'sparrows of the field.' But there is one and the same sense, which is set down also at the beginning of Isaiah: The ox knew its owner, and the ass its master's crib; but Israel did not know me, and my people did not understand.
Namely, that even the little birds know their own times, and understand when, hastening to warm places, they ought to shun the rigour of winter, and again at the beginning of spring to come to their accustomed regions. And 'heaven' here we ought to take for 'the air,' which is above. How do you say: We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Truly the lying pen of the scribes has wrought a lie. He speaks to the scribes and Pharisees, who boast the knowledge of the law and, writing, write iniquity. And in that He says: The wise men are confounded, they are dismayed and taken — not that they are wise who do these things, but He calls them wise that they may be condemned by their own judgment, and on the contrary that their wisdom may be convicted as folly, Paul saying:
Thou who teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? and because they have cast away the word of the Lord, therefore there is no wisdom in them. In vain therefore do they boast the knowledge of the law, who by their works destroy the doctrine. Therefore I will give their women — or wives — to strangers, their fields to heirs; because from the least even to the greatest all are given to avarice; from the prophet even to the priest all commit falsehood — or iniquity. And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people to their shame, saying: Peace, peace, when there was no peace. They received the reward of their works, so that they who cast away the word of the Lord should themselves be cast away by Him. 'Their wives,' He says, 'and their possessions I will deliver to enemies.'
And lest my sentence be thought cruel, let the hearer acknowledge the causes: from the least even to the greatest all are given to avarice — for avarice is the root of all evils — from the prophet even to the priest, who ought to restrain others when sinning, are themselves the first to lie under crimes, and all either do iniquitous things while they plunder what belongs to others, or assuredly falsehood, so that there is no truth in their mouth. And after these things, like good physicians, they desired to heal the wounds of others with words, they who were themselves pierced through with the wounds of all disgraceful deeds. These things we behold daily in our own people also, the apostle saying: Thou who preachest that a man should not steal, dost thou steal? and the rest.
When these men see sinners and the rich, they wish to heal the breach of the daughter of God's people — that is, of the Church — to the disgrace either of those who are deceived or of those who deceive others, so that to men covered with every crime they say: 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace, and the war of sinners threatens them. 'They were confounded because they committed abomination; nay rather, they were not confounded with confusion, and they knew not how to blush.' This is to be read interrogatively, so that the sense is: 'Did they blush at their crimes, did they understand the abominations they had wrought?' 'By no means; rather they broke forth into such madness that neither would they desire to amend their vices out of confusion, nor to confess their crimes in the hope of pardon.' Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
'in the time of their visitation they shall fall,' says the Lord. These are the rewards of those who knew not how to blush, so that they whose dignity was more exalted than the peoples' should be mingled with the peoples' ruin. 'For from the least even to the greatest, all are given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, all deal falsely.' The time of visitation, moreover, is the captivity that draws near. 'Gathering I will gather them,' says the Lord; 'there is no grape on the vines and there are no figs on the fig tree; the leaf has fallen, and I have given them the things that have passed away.' What the time of visitation is, in which the offenders shall fall, He teaches more plainly, saying:
'Gathering I will gather them' — there is no doubt but that this means into Jerusalem — so that they may be besieged by the Chaldeans for a long time and endure the evils of famine. 'When,' He says, 'the seasons pass and autumn succeeds summer, and in winter the leaves fall from the trees, you shall behold all things from afar, and from these you shall take no food. For there is no grape on your vines' — you who receive no fruit of the vines — 'and there are no figs on the fig tree' for the besieged people, who see the fruit of their own trees plundered by enemies. 'The leaves,' He says, 'shall fall when summer and autumn are over. For I have given them the things they were to see pass away, and to their greater grief lose — the abundance of all things which they were not permitted to touch.' 'Why do we sit still?
assemble yourselves, and let us enter the fortified city' — or 'the fortified cities' — 'and let us be silent there' — or 'let us be cast there' — 'for the Lord our God has cast us off' — or 'has made us keep silence' — 'and has given us water of gall to drink; for we have sinned against the Lord. We looked for peace, but no good came; for a time of healing, and behold terror.' The voice of the people is introduced, answering and confessing its own vices and mutually exhorting one another to enter the walled cities, or the one city Jerusalem — for the rest had already been taken. 'And let us be silent there,' it says, 'for the Lord our God has made us keep silence — for we have no confidence to make supplication — or let us be cast there, or thrown down there like dung.
He Himself has given us water of gall to drink, because we turned our sweet God into bitterness. And the reason why we drink such waters is plain: for we have sinned against the Lord and looked for peace, we who had done no good work, and we thought that the time of healing was at hand for us, when all things were being filled with dread and terror.' The change of persons, especially in the prophets, makes the meaning difficult; but if these things are restored to their proper places, causes and times, what seemed obscure becomes plain. 'From Dan the snorting of his horses was heard; at the sound of the neighing of his warriors' — or 'of his cavalry' — 'the whole land was shaken;
and they came and devoured' — or 'they shall come and shall devour' — 'the land and its fullness, the city and those who dwell in it.' Therefore the people did not say, as the Seventy above translated, 'let us enter the fortified cities,' but 'the fortified city,' to signify Jerusalem; and so now He adds: 'the city and those who dwell in it.' There is described, moreover, one coming from Dan through Phoenicia with the army of Nebuchadnezzar, in which place the river Jordan takes its rise. And what the Seventy render as future, the Hebrew, according to the truth of the matter, records as already done. 'For behold, I will send among you serpents, basilisks' — or 'the worst,' or as the Septuagint translated, 'deadly ones' — 'against which there is no charming;
and they shall bite you, says the Lord, incurably, with sorrow of your fainting heart.' Who those are who come from Dan, and whose snorting was heard, and who reduced the whole land to desolation, the same prophetic discourse shows under another figure, calling them 'serpents,' 'the worst' or 'deadly,' and, as Aquila translated, 'basilisks,' which are called in Hebrew 'sapphonim'; for which reason the second edition of the same wished to say 'watchmen,' I do not understand, unless perhaps because of the similarity of the word. 'Against which,' He says, 'there is no charming.' For in vain do they pour out prayers to God against the ancient serpent, the crooked snake, they who have despised the precepts of God.
Let us apply this passage against those who, despising the Savior's words, are handed over to the adversary powers. 'My sorrow is above sorrow; within me my heart mourns.' For which, as we said above, the Seventy joined it to the foregoing sentence which had been spoken, so as to put: 'and they shall bite you, says the Lord, incurably, with the sorrow of your fainting heart.' But in the Hebrew it is not so much 'sorrow,' which in Greek is called odynē, as meidiama, which we may interpret as the 'grimace' of a mouth contracted with grief, yet having the likeness of laughter. Emphatically, however, these things are to be read from the person of God bewailing the overthrow of Jerusalem and not bearing its miseries. 'Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a far country!'
He describes the weeping and wailing of the city of Jerusalem when the enemies have entered. 'Is not the Lord in Zion, or is not her king in her?' Either the Lord Himself is the king; or else 'Lord' refers to the Father and 'king' to the Son, according to that which is written under the name of Solomon: 'O God, give thy judgment to the king, and thy justice to the king's son.' But that the voice of the cry should be in Jerusalem, and the cry itself come from a far country, the reason is plain: because the Lord is not in her, and her king has withdrawn from her. 'Why then have they provoked me to anger with their graven images and with strange vanities?' 'The Lord,' He says, 'has withdrawn from them, because they provoked me — who was their Lord and king — to anger by the worship of idols.'
'The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.' Again the people speaks, which was shut up in Jerusalem by a long siege, saying that the seasons have changed, the year's cycle has revolved, and all their hope has been in vain and has passed away. 'For the breaking of the daughter of my people I am broken and saddened; astonishment has seized me.' God answers that in the affliction of Jerusalem He Himself seems afflicted, and after the likeness of a man is broken with astonishment. 'Is there no balm in Gilead, or is there no physician there? Why then is the scar of the daughter of my people not closed over?'
Not only in the present passage, but also in many other testimonies of the Scriptures, we find the balm of Gilead put for repentance and remedy; and God now marvels why the wounds of Jerusalem have by no means been cured, and the scars have not yet drawn skin over them, because there are no prophets nor priests by whose remedy they ought to be healed. 'Who will give water to my head, and to my eyes a fountain of tears? And I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.' 'If I were wholly,' He says, 'turned into weeping, and there were no mere drops of tears but the abundance of a river, yet I could not worthily weep for the slain of the daughter of my people. For so great are the evils that they surpass every grief by their magnitude.'
But this can be understood as spoken from the person both of the prophet and of the Lord. 'Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging-place for travelers? And I will forsake my people and depart from them.' The Seventy: 'Who will give me in the wilderness a farthest dwelling, that I may leave my people and depart from them?' 'It is better,' He says, 'to dwell in the utmost solitude than to abide among such great crimes of men.' Whence also the Savior spoke in the Gospel: 'How long shall I bear with you?' And in another place it is written: 'In that time, whoever understands shall sit and keep silence, for the time is most evil.' 'For they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors, and they have bent their tongue like a bow of falsehood and not of truth;
they have grown strong in the land, because they have gone from evil to evil, and have not known me, says the Lord.' Sinners pass from evil to evil when they exchange one idol for another and cross over from sins to sins; or certainly, when from the evil of the siege they pass to captivity. And of the saints indeed it is said: 'They shall go from strength to strength'; but of sinners: 'they have gone from evil to evil.' And the cause of all their miseries is that they have not known the Lord, and that there is an assembly of transgressors, arming their tongue like a bent bow for blasphemy; and 'they have grown strong in the land,' so that they deserve to hear: 'Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.'
'Let everyone guard himself against his neighbor, and let him have no trust in any brother of his; for every brother utterly supplants, and every friend walks fraudulently, and a man shall deride his brother, and they shall not speak the truth; for their tongue has learned to speak falsehood' — or 'for they have taught their tongue to speak falsehood.' 'To act unjustly they have labored' — or 'they have acted unjustly and have not ceased, that they might be converted.' 'Thy dwelling is in the midst of deceit; in deceit' — or 'usury upon usury and deceit upon deceit' — 'they have refused' — or 'they have been unwilling' — 'to know me, says the Lord.' This passage is to be used in the time of persecution and distress, when faith is either rare or none.
when neither brother nor neighbor is to be trusted, and a man's enemies are those of his own household; when, according to the Gospel, the father shall betray the son and the son the father, and two shall be divided against three and three against two. And in that He adds: 'they have taught their tongue to speak falsehood,' or 'their tongue has learned to speak falsehood,' He shows that the habit of lying has in a manner turned into nature, and that they act zealously to do unjust things. And in that there follows: 'thy dwelling is in the midst of deceit; in deceit,' the discourse is properly directed to the prophet, because he dwells in the midst of a lying people — or, as the Seventy translated:
'usury upon usury and deceit upon deceit' — and that they daily increase their crimes and in no way repent of their former deed, but heap new things upon the past; and doing these things, they act with all zeal that they may not know the Lord, who commanded that these things should not be done. 'Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will smelt' — or 'I will try by fire' — 'and prove them; for what else shall I do before the face of the daughter of my people?' — or 'because I shall act before the face of the malice of the daughter of my people.' As often as we lie under distresses, we receive evils from God and are tested by persecutions, so that whatever adulterated material is in us may be smelted out by the fires of tribulations and miseries; for the silver of the Lord is 'tried by fire, proved of the earth, purified sevenfold.'
'Their tongue is a wounding arrow; it has spoken deceit; with his mouth he speaks peace with his friend, and secretly he lays snares for him. Shall I not visit for these things, says the Lord, or shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?' Every heretic who wounds the hearts of hearers, and of those who do not know what is written: 'With all watchfulness keep thy heart,' possesses a wounding arrow and speaks in deceit; and though with his mouth he promises peace to his neighbor, secretly he stretches out snares. But in the verses that follow, where He says: 'Shall I not visit for these things, says the Lord, or shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?' this prophet frequently makes use of this, so that when he has enumerated the several evil works, he adds that God does justly what He does.
'Upon the mountains I will take up' — or 'take you up' — 'weeping and lamentation, and upon the beautiful places' — or 'the paths' — 'of the desert a mourning, because they are burned' — or 'have failed' — 'so that there is no man' — or 'human being' — 'passing through. And they have not heard the voice of the possessor' — or 'of substance'; 'from the bird of heaven even to the cattle they have removed and departed.' When the Babylonian comes and lays all waste, the desolation of the province is prophesied: that there is mourning on the mountains, weeping in the desert or in the paths of solitude, that all things have failed and been burned, and there is none who may walk through the land, all being slain, and nothing remaining that could breathe and live.
Whence for 'possessor' the Seventy translated 'of substance,' which in Hebrew is called 'macne'; and here 'substance' is not taken for ousia, that is, 'essence,' but for 'wealth' and 'riches.' And in that He adds: 'from the bird of heaven even to the cattle they have removed and gone away,' this shows what we have often said, that all things feel the wrath of God, and that not only the birds of the air but even the fishes of the water perish.
According to the tropological sense, weeping is taken up upon the mountains and lamentation upon the beautiful places of the desert, when the princes of the Church sin and nothing of the substance of God is found in her, nor is heard the voice of the Lord who possesses the Church through holy and apostolic men; and 'from the bird of heaven even to the cattle,' namely from those who are able to ascend on high, down to the irrational and simpler folk, they have departed from the assembly of God. 'And I will give Jerusalem to heaps of sand' — or 'to transmigration' — 'and to the dens of dragons; and the cities of Judah I will give to desolation, because there is no inhabitant.' When the ecclesiastical men and the teachers have all failed, then Jerusalem is given over to transmigration or to heaps of sand.
so that the heretical word prevails in her and she becomes a den of dragons, and her cities are reduced to solitude, and there is in her no dwelling of the divine word, and He who says: 'I will dwell and walk among them, and I will be their God.' 'Who is the wise man that may understand this, and to whom the word of the Lord's mouth may come, that he may declare it: why has the land perished and been burned up like a desert, so that there is none who passes through? And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, and have not walked in it, and have gone after the depravity of their heart and after the Baalim, which they learned from their fathers.'
The prophet asks whether he can find any of the wise in Jerusalem, and any of those to whom the word of God may come and who may be able to declare the Lord's will and render the reasons why Judea has been reduced to solitude, and, all being slain, none has remained who may pass through it. And he introduces the Lord answering and rendering the causes: because they have forsaken His law, which He had given them, and have not heard His voice, nor done what was commanded, but have gone after the depravity of their heart. Therefore trust is to be placed not in our own will, but in the Lord; for the heart in men is depraved, and out of our heart come the worst thoughts. 'And after the Baalim,' He says, 'they have gone, which they learned from their fathers.'
Baal is the idol of the Sidonians and is of the singular number, but Baalim is of the plural number. Therefore neither the error of parents nor of ancestors is to be followed, but the authority of the Scriptures and the command of God who teaches. 'Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood' — or 'with distresses' — 'and will give them water of gall to drink, and I will scatter them among the nations which neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them, until they be consumed.'
This can be prophesied both of the near time, when they were taken captive by the Chaldeans, and properly of this present time, when they were scattered among the nations which neither they nor their fathers had known, and, divided throughout the whole world, were fed with wormwood or with necessities and distresses. And they received as drink the water of gall, which signifies either the magnitude of evils and the everlasting yoke of captivity, or certainly that, through ignorance of the law of God, they are to receive Antichrist instead of Christ. The sword, moreover, is sent after them, that they may be consumed even unto destruction; or certainly a sword that divides them and does not suffer them to have consent unto evil, so that they may perish in that wherein they are evil. 'Thus says the Lord of hosts:
consider' — or 'understand' — 'and call for the mourning women, and let them come; and to those who are wise send, and let them make haste' — or 'let them speak' — 'let them hasten and take up over us' — or 'over you' — 'a lamentation, and let our eyes' — or 'your eyes' — 'run down with tears, and our eyelids' — or 'your eyelids' — 'flow with waters, for a voice of lamentation is heard from Zion,' or 'in Zion.' Because of the coming captivity and the overthrow of Jerusalem, He commands the mourning women to be called, who are wont in grief, with plaintive voice and beating their arms with their hands, to move the people to tears; for this custom remains even today in Judea, that the women, with hair disheveled and breasts bared, with a modulated voice stir all to weeping.
But God, or the prophet, joins Himself in the affection of one who suffers together, so that He says He suffers and feels whatever the people endures. And in that He adds: 'because a voice of lamentation is heard from Zion,' there immediately follows what that voice is. 'How are we laid waste and greatly confounded? because we have forsaken the land, because our tents are cast down' — or 'we have cast away our tents.' This is the voice of those lamenting Zion: 'How are we laid waste and greatly confounded?' And at once they answer themselves and set forth the causes of the devastation, saying: 'because we have forsaken the land by our own fault and sin, and our tents are cast down' — which they once possessed as if passing through.
Let the throngs of those who once believed also say this in persecution, that they have therefore been laid waste and confounded, because they have forsaken the land of the Lord and abandoned their tents. 'Hear therefore, O women, the word of the Lord, and let your ear receive the discourse of His mouth; and teach your daughters lamentation, and each one her neighbor mourning; for death has come up through our windows, it has entered our houses, to destroy the little ones from without, the young men from the streets!' In the previous chapter He had said: 'Call the mourning women, and let them come; and to those who are wise send, and let them make haste';
now He speaks as if to those present, in condemnation of the priests and teachers and of all men, so that, while these cease from teaching, those women may hear the word of the Lord and take up the discourses of His mouth, and teach their daughters and neighbors mourning and the causes of tears, 'because death,' He says, 'has come up through our windows, it has entered our houses.' And although this can be understood spiritually, in that through all the senses death enters unto the destruction of the soul of sinners, yet it can also be understood of the assault of the Babylonians: that so great is their strength and swiftness in fighting that they do not wait for the doors to be unbarred, but climb up through the windows and roofs to lay waste the houses of Jerusalem.
And the little ones perish, who are outside and go forth from Jerusalem, and the young men, to whom John also writes, who do not enter through the narrow and strait way that leads to life, but walk through the streets, of which it is written: 'How broad and spacious is the way that leads to death!' 'Speak: Thus says the Lord: And the carcass of man' — or 'the corpses of men' — 'shall fall like dung upon the face of the region' — or 'of the field' — 'and like hay behind the back of the reaper, and there is none to gather it.'
The Hebrew word, which is written with three letters — 'daleth, beth, res' — for it has no vowels in the middle — according to the context and at the reader's discretion, if it be read 'dabar,' signifies 'word'; if 'deber,' 'death'; if 'dabber,' 'speak.' Whence both the Septuagint and Theodotion joined it to the preceding chapter, so as to say: 'to destroy the little ones from without, the young men from the streets by death.' But Aquila and Symmachus translated lalēson, 'speak,' so that God may command the prophet to speak what follows: 'Thus says the Lord,' and the rest. And the sense is:
when death has come up through our windows and entered the houses of Jerusalem, and the little ones and young men have perished from without and from the streets, then their carcass, or the corpses of the dead, shall be as it were on a dunghill upon the face of the earth, and like the stubble which is left behind the back of the reapers and, as useless, is not gathered. By these things He wishes to show that so great a slaughter is to come in Jerusalem and around the city, that there shall be none to bury those who fall. 'Thus says the Lord:
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glories glory in this, to know' — or 'to understand' — 'and to know me, that I am the Lord who does mercy and judgment and justice in the earth! For these things please me' — or 'because in these is my will' — 'says the Lord.'
All the pride of men is taken away, when both their wisdom and their strength and their wealth are reckoned as nothing, and this is the only boasting: that a man may know and understand that He Himself is the Lord who does mercy and judgment and justice upon the earth, that all things are governed by the providence and justice of God, and that the things which seem to us to have no reason are full of justice and reason. For these things alone please God, and in these is His will. Where then are those who say that man is ruled by his own free will, and that the power of free will was so given that the mercy and justice of God should be taken away? Whence also the Apostle, taking up this testimony, sets forth the example: 'He that glories, let him glory in the Lord.'
'Behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I will visit upon all who have the foreskin circumcised: upon Egypt, and upon Judah, and upon Edom, and upon the sons of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all who are shorn round in their hair, dwelling in the desert; because all the nations have the foreskin, but the whole house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.' In some part of many nations, and especially those which are neighbors to Judea and Palestine, the peoples are circumcised even to this day, and chiefly the Egyptians and the Idumeans, the Ammonites and the Moabites, and the whole region of the Saracens, which dwells in the wilderness, and of whom it is said: 'upon all who are shorn round in their hair, dwelling in the desert.'