Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Hieroglyphics and Sacred Symbols
Hieroglyphics: From Isaiah
I. Chapter 2, verse 2. "In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it: for from Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles: nation shall not lift up sword against nation." This mountain is a hieroglyphic of the Church, which like a mountain towers above all the hills of human governance, wisdom, and religion, to which nations have flowed from the whole world: for from Mount Sion, where the Church began, went forth the law of Christ, and the word of the Gospel, that is, the glad tidings of peace between men and God, and among themselves: for Christ reconciled us to God, and by His law taught and led men to peace, so that, laying down their arms, they might cultivate and preserve unity. See the commentary on Isaiah, chapter 2.
II. Verse 22. "Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is reputed as exalted." This is a hieroglyphic of Christ, in whom His humanity and wrath are signified by the statement, "whose breath is in his nostrils," as if to say: Who, in the manner of other men, draws breath through His nostrils, and breathes, and exhales anger through His nostrils: but His divinity is signified by the fact that He is called "exalted," that is, exaltation itself (as the Hebrew has it) and supreme and divine majesty.
III. Chapter 4, verse 2. "In that day the branch of the Lord shall be in magnificence and glory, and the fruit of the earth shall be lofty, and a joy to those who shall have been saved from Israel." This branch is a hieroglyphic of Christians, and of the spreading of the Church, which has magnificently occupied not only the whole globe of the earth, but also heaven.
IV. Verse 5. "And the Lord will create over every place of Mount Sion, and where He is invoked, a cloud by day, and smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire by night." As if to say: Just as God led the Hebrews through the desert into Canaan, and went before them on the way in a pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, protecting them from heat, rain, and enemies; so likewise He will lead Christians from earth to heaven, protecting them from all adversities by day and night. Whence, explaining further, he adds: "And a tabernacle shall be for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a security, and a shelter from the whirlwind, and from rain." For the pillar of fire and cloud was a hieroglyphic of the Holy Spirit, and of His grace and protection.
V. Chapter 5, verse 1. "My beloved had a vineyard on a horn, a son of oil," that is, anointed, rich and fertile. "And he fenced it in, and picked the stones out of it, and planted it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in the midst of it, and set up a winepress therein; and he expected that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." This vineyard is a hieroglyphic of the Synagogue of the Jews, which, planted and cultivated by God, brought forth not grapes but wild grapes, that is, wicked and impious works. The "horn of oil" is Judea, strong as a horn, fertile and rich as oil: the hedge is the law: the tower is the temple: the winepress is the altar, etc.
VI. Chapter 6, verse 1. "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and the things that were under Him filled the temple. Seraphim stood above it; the one had six wings, and the other had six wings: with two they veiled His face, and with two they veiled His feet, and with two they flew. And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of His glory." This throne was a hieroglyphic of the majesty of the Most Holy Trinity. Whence the Seraphim veil His face, that is, His divinity: and His feet, that is, the humanity of the Word, namely the mystery of the incarnation of Christ, which the entire Most Holy Trinity accomplished, and therefore they ceaselessly acclaim Him thrice Holy. Furthermore, Isaiah is here consecrated by God through the Seraphim as a Prophet, so that he might preach both of these mysteries, namely both the Trinity and the incarnation: and announce it not so much to the Jews, who were to be blinded and rejected, as to the Gentiles, that is, to Christians. Whence he adds:
VII. Verse 6. "And one of the Seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth, and said: Behold this has touched your lips, and your iniquity shall be taken away, and your sin shall be cleansed. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Whom shall I send? And who shall go for us? And I said: Here am I, send me. And He said: Go, and you shall say to this people, etc." The burning Sera-
phim represent God who is a consuming fire, and uncreated and immense love and ardor, which He revealed most fully in the incarnation of the Word. They also signify that Isaiah, and every preacher, ought to be pure from the stain of sin, and to burn with charity, and to breathe forth in word and life the fires and flames of divine love, by which he may warm and kindle the cold hearts of sinners.
VIII. Chapter 7, verse 14. "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel. He shall eat butter and honey, that He may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good." This virgin bearing a child, and her son Emmanuel, that is, God with us, are a sign and hieroglyphic of divine help and redemption, both of the Jews from the threats of Rasin and Phacee, and of the human race from the hand and power of the devil, sin, and hell. Emmanuel eats butter and honey, because on these infantile foods He will feed as an infant, and will grow and develop to the age at which infants normally begin to think, and to discern good from evil: and because He will be entirely gentle and sweet, as if He were made of butter and honey.
IX. Verse 18. "The Lord shall hiss for the fly, that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and they shall come, and shall rest, etc., in all the thickets" of Judea. The fly is a symbol of the Egyptians, on account of their multitude, shamelessness, noise, and vain boasting; the bee of the Assyrians, on account of their sting, that is, their injuries and calamities.
X. Verse 20. "The Lord shall shave with a hired razor, with those that are beyond the river, with the king of the Assyrians, the head and the hair of the feet and the whole beard." This barber is a hieroglyphic of God, who through the Assyrians, as through a razor, shaved the beard and the hair of the feet, that is, the princes and the common people of the Jews.
XI. Chapter 8, verse 1. "Take to yourself a great book, and write in it with the pen of a man: Make haste to take away the spoils, hasten to seize the prey. And I took to myself faithful witnesses, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Barachiah: and I went to the prophetess, and she conceived, and bore a son. And the Lord said to me: Call his name, Hasten to take spoils: make haste to seize the prey." This prophetess is a hieroglyphic of the Blessed Virgin, who bore Christ, whose name is swift spoiler, hasty plunderer: because Christ in a short time despoiled death and hell, and carried off a great prize from them. Furthermore, Isaiah is commanded to write this in a book, with the witnesses Uriah and Zechariah present, so that the Jews and the Gentiles may know with certainty that this would come to pass; and when it had come to pass, they might recognize that this prophecy of Isaiah about Christ was true, and had been fulfilled in Christ.
XII. Verse 6. "Because this people has rejected the waters of Siloe, which go with silence," that is, the royal line of David, namely king Achaz, and has taken rather Rasin, and the son of Romelia: therefore behold the Lord will bring upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, the king of the Assyrians, etc., and he shall go through Judah, overflowing, and passing through shall reach even to the neck. And the spreading of his wings shall fill the breadth of your land (of Judea, in which You are to be born as king of Israel), O Emmanuel." The waters of Siloe which go with silence are a symbol of the kingdom and lineage of David, on account of its humility, modesty, piety, and because from it was born Christ the most gentle and modest king; whoever rejects Him will fall into the strong waters of the river, that is, into the violent and savage hands of the king of the Assyrians, that is, of Lucifer.
XIII. Verse 13. "Sanctify the Lord of hosts Himself: let Him be your fear, and let Him be your terror. And He shall be a sanctification to you; but a stone of stumbling, and a rock of scandal, to the two houses of Israel: a snare and a ruin to the inhabitants of Jerusalem," as if to say: God, to His believers and faithful ones, to those who fear and worship Him, shall be a sanctification, and a holy defense and protection: but to unbelieving and impious Jews He shall be like a rock of scandal, against which they stumble and fall; and like a snare, by which they are caught.
XIV. Verse 18. "Behold I and my children, whom the Lord has given me for a sign, and for a portent in Israel." Isaiah and Christ, and their disciples, that is, the Prophets and Apostles, and their followers, were a portent of doctrine and life to Israel, and to the whole world. For they preached by word and life that the poor, humble, patient, martyrs, etc., are blessed, which things seem to the world to be paradoxes and portents.
XV. Chapter 9, verse 6. "A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, God, Mighty, Father of the world to come, Prince of peace." All these titles are hieroglyphics of Emmanuel, that is, of Christ: for He, first, was born a little child and the Son of a Virgin. Second, He was given to us. Third, He bears the cross upon His shoulder, as the insignia of His sovereignty. Fourth, He is and is called Wonderful, Counselor, God, etc.
XVI. Chapter 16, verse 1. "Send forth the lamb, O Lord, the ruler of the earth, from the Rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion," as if to say: Cause, O Lord, that from Ruth the Moabitess, who once migrated from Arabia Petraea into Judea, namely from her descendants, Christ may at last be born. For Christ is the lamb, who will subject the world to God and to Himself.
XVII. Chapter 19, verse 1. "Behold the Lord will ascend upon a light cloud, and will enter into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence," as if to say: God, borne as if upon a light cloud through the armies of the Assyrians, will vanquish Egypt and its idols. Allegorically, Christ, carried in the arms of His holy mother, and brought into Egypt, overthrew the idols.
XVIII. Chapter 20, verse 2. "The Lord spoke (to Isaiah): Go, and loose the sackcloth from your loins, and take off your shoes from your feet. And he did so, going naked, and barefoot. And the Lord said: As My servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot, it shall be a sign and a portent of three years upon Egypt, and upon Ethiopia: so shall the king of the Assyrians lead away the captivity of Egypt, and the migration of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered to the shame of Egypt," as if to say: By God's command, for three days Isaiah walked naked, to signify that for three years the Egyptians and Ethiopians would be stripped of their possessions and clothing by Sennacherib.
XIX. Chapter 22, verse 22. "I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder (Eliakim): and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open," as if to say: I will establish Eliakim as high priest and ruler of the temple. "And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to the house of his father. And they shall hang upon him vessels of every kind, etc." He says the same thing with the different symbol of a peg, namely that Eliakim would be ruler of the temple.
XX. Chapter 25, verse 6. "The Lord of hosts shall make for all people in this mountain a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of wine purified from the lees." This banquet is what Christ offers us in the Gospel, and in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.
XXI. Verse 7. "And He shall cast down on this mountain the face of the bond with which all people were tied, and the web that he began over all nations. He shall cast down death forever: and the Lord God shall wipe away the tear from every face." This bond is original sin with its companions, namely concupiscence, actual sin, death, etc.
XXII. Chapter 26, verse 1. "Sion the city of our strength, a Savior, a wall and a bulwark shall be set therein." Sion, our strength, is the Church; whose wall and bulwark is Christ, into which the just enter. Whence he adds: "Open the gates, and let the just nation that keeps the truth enter in. The old error" of idolatry, errors, and vices, "has departed: You will keep peace; peace, because we have hoped in You."
XXIII. Verse 19. "Awake, and give praise, you that dwell in the dust: for your dew is the dew of the light, and you shall pull down the land of the giants to ruin." As if to say: Just as our dew brings light and life to plants, so Your grace, O Lord, brings to the dead life, and a glorious resurrection.
XXIV. Verse 20. "Go, my people, enter into your chambers, shut your doors upon you, hide yourself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away." As if to say: Go, O Martyrs, O just ones, to your tombs, sleep there a little while, until I punish the wicked: for when that is done, I will rouse you from the sleep of death to a blessed life.
XXV. Chapter 27, verse 2. "In that day the vineyard of pure wine shall sing to him." As if to say: The Church, after Leviathan, that is, the devil, has been slain, shall sing and rejoice to him, that is, to herself.
XXVI. Chapter 28, verse 1. "Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower, the glory of his joy, who were on the head of the fat valley, staggering with wine." As if to say: Woe to the proud, drunken, and glorious Samaritans: for God will cut them down through the Assyrians.
XXVII. Verse 5. "In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the remnant of His people: and a spirit of judgment to him that sits in judgment, and strength to those that return from the battle to the gate," namely to the soldiers of Hezekiah, returning in triumph to Jerusalem after the defeat of Sennacherib.
XXVIII. Verse 16. "Behold I will lay in the foundations of Sion a stone, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation: he that believes, let him not hasten." This corner stone of Sion, that is, of the Church, is Christ, who in Himself, as in a corner and foundation, binds together Jews and Gentiles, so that they may form one house, that is, the Church.
XXIX. Chapter 31, verse 9. "The Lord said, whose fire is in Sion, and His furnace in Jerusalem," as if to say: The Lord said that He would strike the camp of Sennacherib, and by His hand deliver Jerusalem and the temple; because in it is His fire and furnace where He is continually worshipped, while His sacrifices and victims are consumed therein. Therefore God will protect this His fire and furnace, the temple and city, from the force of the Assyrians, and will scatter them.
XXX. Chapter 33, verse 20. "Look upon Sion, the city of our solemnity: your eyes shall see Jerusalem, a rich habitation, a tabernacle that can in no way be removed: neither shall the nails thereof be taken away forever, and none of its cords shall be broken." This Sion is a hieroglyphic of the heavenly fatherland, and of eternal blessedness.
XXXI. Chapter 34, verse 6. "The victim of the Lord in Bosra," as if to say: The impious Idumaeans shall be slaughtered and sacrificed to God, to God's justice and vengeance: whence, explaining, he adds: "And a great slaughter in the land of Edom."
XXXII. Verse 9. "And its torrents shall be turned into pitch, and its ground into brimstone: and its land shall become burning pitch." This was true in the destruction of Idumaea, but will be more truly fulfilled in the destruction of the world, and in hell.
XXXIII. Verses 11 and 14. "And the bittern and the hedgehog shall possess it: and the raven shall dwell in it. And demons shall meet with monsters, and one hairy creature shall cry out to another," as if to say: Idumaea will be so desolated that it will be a habitation, not of men, but of demons and wild beasts.
XXXIV. Chapter 35, verse 1. "The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily. It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise: the glory of Lebanon is given to it: the beauty of Carmel and Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God." This wilderness is a hieroglyphic of the Gentile world, which, having seen and heard Christ,
and His Apostles, brought forth lilies of chastity, and the buds of all virtues. Whence he adds: "Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a deer, and the tongue of the mute shall be opened. In the dens where dragons dwelt before, shall spring up the green of the reed and the rush. And a path and a way shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way: no unclean one shall pass through it. And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and shall come into Sion with praise: and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads."
XXXV. Chapter 38, verse 7. "This shall be a sign to you" of recovering health. "Behold I will cause the shadow of the lines, by which it has gone down on the sundial of Achaz with the sun, to return back ten lines." This regression of the shadow and the sun was therefore a hieroglyphic of the return of health, years, and life to King Hezekiah.
XXXVI. Chapter 40, verse 3. "The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain." This voice was a hieroglyphic of St. John the Baptist, whose preaching, food, clothing, and entire life was nothing other than a sustained and continual voice of penance and contempt of the world, preparing men to receive grace and salvation from the Messiah.
XXXVII. Verse 6. "The voice of one saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry?" To which God responds, cry: "All flesh is grass, and all its glory is as the flower of the field. The grass is withered, and the flower has fallen: but the word of our Lord endures forever. Get up upon a high mountain, you that bring good tidings to Sion, lift up your voice with strength, say, etc. Behold your God: behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and His arm shall rule."
XXXVIII. Chapter 41, verse 18. "I will open rivers on the high hills, and fountains in the midst of the plains: I will make the wilderness into pools of waters, and the impassable land into streams of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir tree, the elm, and the box tree together: that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it." All these trees and rivers are a hieroglyphic of the verdure, and the abundance of graces and virtues, which through Christ have sprung up in the wilderness of the Gentiles.
XXXIX. Chapter 42, verse 1. "Behold My servant, I will uphold Him: My elect, My soul delights in Him: I have given My spirit upon Him." This servant is a hieroglyphic of Christ, whence he adds concerning Him:
XL. Verses 2 and 3. "He shall not cry, nor have respect to person, neither shall His voice be heard abroad. The bruised reed He shall not break, and the smoking flax He shall not quench: He shall bring forth judgment unto truth."
Verse 6. "I have given you for a covenant of the people," that you might establish and ratify a new testament, or a new covenant between Christians and God; "for a light of the Gentiles: that you might open the eyes of the blind, and bring out the prisoner from confinement, and those that sit in darkness out of the prison house."
XLI. Verse 11. "Let the desert be lifted up, and its cities: Cedar shall dwell in houses: praise, you inhabitants of the Rock, they shall cry from the top of the mountains." This desert is a symbol of the Gentile world, which Christ cultivated and tamed when it was desolate and barbarous, so that the Gentiles and Kedarites, formerly wandering, now dwell civilly in houses and cities, and no longer blaspheme, as they once did, but praise and glorify God.
XLII. Chapter 44, verse 27. "Who say to the deep: Be desolate. I say," that is, I do, and in reality I desolate; for God's speaking is efficacious, and the same as doing; whence, explaining, he adds: "And I will dry up your rivers."
"Who say to Cyrus: You are My shepherd." As if to say: Who establish Cyrus as king, so that as a shepherd he may govern My people, and lead them back to their fatherland.
"Who say to Jerusalem: You shall be built; and to the temple: You shall be founded," as if to say: I am He who will rebuild Jerusalem through Zerubbabel, and restore the temple burned by the Chaldeans.
XLIII. Chapter 45, verse 8. "Drop down dew, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One: let the earth be opened, and bud forth the Savior." The clouds and buds are a hieroglyphic of Christ being born from the Virgin: for just as clouds come from heaven, and buds spring from virgin earth; so the Blessed Virgin conceived Christ not from a man, but by the Holy Spirit overshadowing and covering her from heaven.
XLIV. Chapter 46, verse 11. "Calling a bird from the East, and from a far country the man of My will." The bird is a symbol of Cyrus, who, at God's call, swiftly flew from Persia against Babylon, and having overthrown it, freed the Jews from there according to God's will: whence he is called the man of God's will.
XLV. Chapter 47, verse 1. "Come down, sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon. Take the millstone, and grind flour: uncover your shame, bare your shoulder, make bare your legs, pass through the rivers." All these are hieroglyphics of captivity and servitude, as if to say: O Babylon, mistress of nations, you shall descend from your royal throne, you shall be cast down to the earth, you shall go about half-naked like a slave girl, condemned to the mill; whence he adds: "These two things shall come upon you suddenly in one day, barrenness and widowhood."
XLVI. Chapter 49, verses 2 and 6. "He has made my mouth like a sharp sword: in the shadow of His hand He has protected me; and He has made me as a chosen arrow: in His quiver He has hidden me." The sword, with which one fights at close quarters; and the arrow, with which one fights at a distance, signify
the efficacy of the preaching of Christ, by which He subjugated to Himself both the neighboring Jews, and the remote nations; whence He says: "It is a small thing that You should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Israel and to convert the remnants of Israel: I have given You for a light of the Gentiles, that You may be My salvation even to the farthest part of the earth."
XLVII. Chapter 50, verse 1. "Where is the bill of divorce of your mother, by which I put her away? Or who is my creditor, to whom I sold you?" The bill of divorce is a hieroglyphic of the repudiation of the Synagogue, the creditor of the devil, as if to say: I did not first repudiate the Synagogue, nor reject the Jews, nor hand them over to the devil; but they of their own accord sought this divorce, and indeed extorted it from Me against My will, and through their crimes they handed themselves over to the devil. Whence follows: "Behold you are sold for your iniquities, and for your wicked deeds I have put your mother away."
XLVIII. Verse 3. "I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and I will make sackcloth their covering." As if to say: I will clothe the heavens in a dark and black, that is, mournful garb, I will make them mourn: for sackcloth, and dark garments are symbols of mourning.
XLIX. Verse 5. "The Lord God has opened my ear," that is, He taught me, revealed and indicated to me His will; whence Christ, submitting Himself to Him, adds: "But I do not contradict: I have not gone back. I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to those who plucked them: I have not turned my face away from those who rebuked me and spat upon me. The Lord God is my helper, therefore I am not confounded: therefore I have set my face like the hardest rock."
L. Chapter 51, verse 16. "I have put My words in your mouth (O Christ), and in the shadow of My hand I have protected you, that you may plant the heavens, and found the earth: and may say to Sion: You are My people." The new heavens and earth, which Christ has established, are the Church, both militant and triumphant. The citizens of Sion, and His people, are Christians, namely holy Martyrs, Virgins, Confessors, etc.
LI. Verses 17 and 19. "Arise, O Jerusalem, who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath: you have drunk even to the bottom of the cup of deep sleep, and you have drained it to the dregs." The cup signifies a measure of punishment measured out and proportioned to the measure of guilt; whence he adds: "There are two things that have befallen you: who shall be grieved for you? Desolation, and destruction, and famine, and the sword; who shall comfort you? Your children have been cast forth, they have slept at the head of all the ways, like a snared wild ox. Therefore hear this, O poor little one, and you that are drunk but not with wine. Behold I have taken out of your hand the cup of deep sleep, etc., and I will put it in the hand of those who have humbled you, and have said to your soul: Bow down, that we may pass over."
LII. Chapter 52, verse 1. "Put on the garments of your glory, O Jerusalem, city of the Holy One: for henceforth the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no more pass through you. Shake yourself from the dust, arise, sit up, O Jerusalem: loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Sion. For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money." Jerusalem is a hieroglyphic of the Church, whom God freely through the merits of Christ liberated from the state of servitude, in which she served as a slave to the Chaldeans, that is, to sin and the devil, and transferred her into the liberty, glory, and kingdom of the Son of His love.
LIII. Verses 7 and 10. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that announces and preaches peace; that brings good tidings, that preaches salvation, that says to Sion: Your God shall reign!" These feet are a symbol of the Apostles running throughout the whole world, and preaching the kingdom of God. Whence he adds: "And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God."
LIV. Chapter 53, verse 2. "And He shall grow up as a tender plant before Him, and as a root out of a thirsty ground: there is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness: and we saw Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should desire Him: despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity." This is a hieroglyphic, indeed a living image of Christ, crucified and disfigured on the sapling of the cross.
LV. Chapter 54, verse 1. "Give praise, O barren one, that did not bear: sing forth praise, and rejoice, you that did not travail with child: for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that has a husband, says the Lord." The widow and the barren woman giving birth is a hieroglyphic of the Church of the Gentiles: the married woman having a husband is the Synagogue of the Jews, whose husband was the law. But Christ espoused the widow to Himself, and made her fruitful, so that she would bear more children to God than the Synagogue, previously wedded and joined to God. Whence, explaining, he adds: "Enlarge (O Church, formerly a widow) the place of your tent, etc., for you shall pass on to the right hand and to the left: and your seed shall inherit the Gentiles." See Galatians 4:27.
LVI. Verses 11 and 12. "I will lay your foundations with sapphires, and I will make your bulwarks of jasper: and your gates of graven stones, and all your borders of desirable stones." The sapphire is a symbol of heavenly conduct, the jasper of fortitude, the graven stones of mortification and charity, the desirable stones of the outstanding virtues and graces of the Church and the faithful. Whence, explaining, he adds: "All your children shall be taught of the Lord, etc., in justice shall you be founded, etc."
LVII. Chapter 55, verses 1 and 4. "All you that thirst, come to the waters: and you that have no money, make haste, buy and eat: come, buy without money, and without any exchange, wine and milk." Water, wine, and milk are a symbol of the Gospel teaching, with which Christ feeds and gives drink to the souls of His own: whence concerning Christ it follows: "Behold I have given Him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and a teacher to the Gentiles."
LVIII. Verse 12. "You shall go out with joy" from captivity, not so much from Babylon as from the devil and sin, "and shall be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall sing praise before you, and all the trees of the country shall clap their hands," as if to say: So great will be the joy of the faithful, and of the world under Christ, that the mountains will seem to rejoice, and the trees to applaud them.
LIX. Chapter 56, verse 3. "And let not the eunuch say: Behold I am a dry tree, etc. I will give them in My house, and within My walls, a place, and a name better than sons and daughters; an everlasting name." These eunuchs are a symbol of virgins, who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven: for they shall have therein a separate place, glory, and an eternal name.
LX. Chapter 57, verse 15. "Thus says the High and the Eminent, who inhabits eternity: and His holy name, dwelling in the high and holy place, and with the contrite and humble spirit: that He may revive the spirit of the humble, and revive the heart of the contrite." This is a hieroglyphic of God, who is exalted, the King of ages, the King of eternity, and yet regards the humble, and knows the lofty from afar.
LXI. Chapter 58, verse 10. "When you shall pour out your soul to the hungry, and shall satisfy the afflicted soul, first, your light shall rise up in darkness; second, the Lord will give you rest continually; third, He will fill your soul with brightness; fourth, He will deliver your bones; fifth, you shall be like a watered garden, and like a fountain of water, whose waters shall not fail; sixth, the desolate places of ages shall be built in you, you shall raise up the foundations of generation and generation; seventh, you shall be called the repairer of the breach, turning the paths into rest." This is a hieroglyphic of piety and almsgiving, displaying its seven fruits through as many praises.
LXII. Verse 13. "If you turn away your foot from the sabbath, from doing your own will on My holy day," as if to say: If you duly observe the sabbaths and feasts, resting not only from work, but from following your own will and its desires, so that in its place you fulfill My will alone, and in this way, "you shall be called the delightful sabbath, and the holy of the Lord glorious, etc. Then you shall be delighted in the Lord, and I will lift you up above the heights of the earth, and I will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father," as if to say: Then God will provide you with divine delights, and will make you greater than the earth, so that, standing in heaven and united to God, you may look down upon this whole point that is the earth; for there He will feed you with a far greater and better inheritance, promised to Jacob and Abraham, and to their seed.
LXIII. Chapter 59, verse 17. "He (God) put on justice as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon His head: He put on the garments of vengeance, and was clad with zeal as with a cloak." This is a hieroglyphic and the full armor of God, going forth to battle against the devil and sin, so that He may vanquish them through Christ. Therefore God's breastplate is justice, His helmet is salvation, His garments are vengeance, His cloak is zeal.
LXIV. Verse 21. "This is My covenant with them, says the Lord:" namely the new covenant, by which through Christ He bestowed upon us His spirit and salvation: "My spirit, which is in you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from the mouth of your seed, etc., from henceforth and forever."
LXV. Chapter 60, verses 1 and 14. "Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. And the Gentiles shall walk in your light, and kings in the brightness of your rising. A flood of camels shall cover you, the dromedaries of Midian and Epha: all they from Sheba shall come, bringing gold and frankincense, and announcing praise to the Lord." This is a hieroglyphic of the Church, to which the three Magi, and other princes and peoples offered themselves, and their gifts and goods. Whence he adds: "And the children of those who humiliated you shall come bowing down to you, and all who detracted you shall worship the steps of your feet, and shall call you the City of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of Israel. I will make you the pride of ages, a joy from generation to generation: and you shall suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shall be nursed at the breast of kings."
LXVI. Verse 19. "The sun shall be no more your light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten you (O Church both militant and more so triumphant): but the Lord shall be to you an everlasting light, and your God for your glory."
LXVII. Chapter 61, verse 1. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me (Christ), etc., to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," namely the time of grace, salvation, and Christianity: for this is the perpetual and unceasing jubilee year for us: "and to give them a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of grief: and they shall be called in it the strong ones of justice, the planting of the Lord to glorify Him." These are the faithful Christians: for they are soldiers fighting valiantly for justice, and fruit-bearing trees planted by the Lord, and glorifying Him.
LXVIII. Verse 10. "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God: for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation: and with the robe of justice He has covered me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels." These are symbols of the adornment of the bride of Christ, namely the Church, which is adorned not with gold, not with fine linen, not with gems, but with faith, hope, charity, patience, fortitude, and other gifts and virtues of God.
LXIX. Chapter 62, verse 3. "You shall be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be called Forsaken, etc., but you shall be called My delight in her." The crown of glory and diadem of God is the Church, and the faithful and holy soul which is in the hand, that is, in the care and protection, of God.
Verse 6. "Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen, all the day and all the night they shall never hold their peace." These watchmen are the pastors of the Church: likewise the holy Angels.
Verse 12. "And they shall call them (the faithful, the children of the Church and of Christ) The holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. And you (O Church) shall be called a Sought-after city, and not Forsaken."
LXX. Chapter 65, verse 17. "Behold I create new heavens and a new earth," namely the Church. Whence concerning her he adds: "Behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and its people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people: and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard therein."
LXXI. Chapter 66, verse 23. "And there shall be month," in Hebrew neomenia, "after month, and sabbath," after sabbath, as if to say: In heaven there shall be a continual and perpetual feast and joy.
Hieroglyphics: From Jeremiah
I. Chapter 1, verse 9. "And the Lord put forth His hand, and touched my mouth: and the Lord said to me: Behold I have given My words in your mouth: behold I have set you this day over the nations, and over kingdoms, to root up, and to destroy, and to waste, and to scatter, and to build, and to plant." This touch of God's hand was a hieroglyphic, by which Jeremiah was first consecrated by God as a Prophet; second, strengthened, lest he fear the threats and blows of the Jews; third, his mouth was opened, prepared, and formed for duly pronouncing the words of God: so that he might sincerely and freely proclaim that these nations were to be uprooted and destroyed by God, and those to be built up and established.
II. Verse 11. "What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said: I see a rod that watches." This watching rod was a hieroglyphic of God's vigilance, and of His watchful and swift vengeance, namely that He Himself would strike and scourge the Jews through the Chaldeans, as with a rod; whence, explaining, He adds: "And the Lord said to me: You have seen well, for I will watch over My word to perform it."
III. Verse 13. "What do you see? And I said: I see a boiling cauldron, and its face from the face of the north." This boiling cauldron was a hieroglyphic of Nebuchadnezzar, who like a boiling cauldron bubbled over and blew forth the fire of fury upon the Jews, whence, explaining, he adds: "From the north (from Chaldea, which is to the north of Judea) shall all evil break forth upon the inhabitants of the land."
IV. Chapter 2, verse 2. "I have remembered you, pitying your youth, and the love of your espousals, when you followed me in the desert." He calls youth the young age of the Synagogue, when under Moses she was espoused to God, as His Church and bride.
V. Verse 3. "Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of His harvest." What firstfruits are among the crops, this Israel was among the nations: for before all, and for all, he was offered and consecrated to God as firstfruits.
VI. Verse 21. "I planted you a chosen vineyard, all true seed: how then are you turned unto Me into that which is depraved, O strange vineyard?" The vineyard is a hieroglyphic of the Synagogue, and of the Church. See Isaiah 5:1.
VII. Chapter 6, verse 27. "I have set you as a strong assayer among My people: and you shall know, and shall prove their ways. All these princes go aside, they walk deceitfully, they are brass and iron: they are all corrupted. The bellows has failed, the lead is consumed in the fire, the founder has melted in vain: for their evil deeds are not consumed. Call them reprobate silver, for the Lord has rejected them." Jeremiah is the assayer, that is, the silver refiner and smelter: the silver to be purged and refined is the Jews, who were so corrupt in their ways, that when smelted in the furnace of Jeremiah's correction, they yielded not silver, but brass, iron, and dross: for when everything was consumed, their wickedness was not consumed. Wherefore God rejected and reprobated them, like reprobate silver.
VIII. Chapter 7, verse 29. "Cut off your hair, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high," as if to say: You, O Jeremiah, cut off your hair in the manner of mourners, to portend the mourning of the Jews; and cast your hair away from you, to portend their dispersion and exile, "because the Lord has rejected, and forsaken the generation of His wrath," namely the Jewish nation, against which He has determined to rage, and as it were, to be furious.
IX. Verse 31. "They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire. Therefore behold the days shall come, says the Lord, and it shall no more be called Topheth, and the Valley of the son of Ennom, but the Valley of slaughter, and they shall bury in Topheth, because there is no other place," as if to say: Because in Topheth they slaughtered their children to the idol Moloch with joy and drums, therefore I will slay them in Topheth through the Chaldeans and bury them, and so I will cause this valley to be called not Topheth, that is, beautiful or of the drum, but the valley of slaughter.
X. Chapter 11, verse 16. "The Lord called your name a plentiful olive tree, fair, fruitful, beautiful: at the noise of a word, a great fire was kindled in it, and its branches were burned." This olive is a hieroglyphic of the Synagogue and Jerusalem: for just as when olives are blown upon by lightning hurled through thunder, their leaves and fruit are immediately scorched; so Jerusalem, suddenly struck by the Chaldeans as by a thunderbolt, lost all its citizens, wealth, and glory either by the fire or the sword of the enemy.
XI. Verse 19. "And I was as a meek lamb that is carried to be a victim: and I knew not that they had devised counsels against me, saying: Let us put wood in his bread, and let us cut him off from the land of the living." This lamb was a symbol of the suffering Jeremiah, and Jeremiah of Christ: whence the wood here is a type of the cross.
XII. Chapter 12, verse 7. "I have forsaken My house, I have left My inheritance: I have given the beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies," as if to say: Jerusalem and the temple, which I loved as My own soul, I have handed over to the Chaldeans. He adds the reason: "My inheritance has become to Me as a lion in the forest: it has lifted up its voice against Me."
XIII. Verse 9. "Is My inheritance to Me a mottled bird? Is it a bird dyed throughout? Come, assemble yourselves, all you beasts of the earth, make haste to devour," as if to say: The Chaldeans will pursue and devour the Jews, just as birds pursue and devour a foreign and hated bird, for example an owl, whence He invites and calls them to this prey, saying: "Come, assemble yourselves," etc.
XIV. Chapter 13, verse 4. "Take the girdle that you have got, which is about your loins, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock. And I went, and hid it by the Euphrates. And it came to pass after many days, I took the girdle from the place where I had hidden it; and behold it was rotten." He explains this hieroglyphic by adding: "Thus says the Lord: So will I make the pride of Judah and the pride of Jerusalem to rot." For the girdle, or loincloth, is a symbol of Judah and Jerusalem. He gives the reason in verse 11: "For as the girdle clings to the loins of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel cling to Me, that they might be My people, and for a name, and for praise, and for glory: but they would not hear."
XV. Verse 12. "Every bottle shall be filled with wine:" so "behold I will fill all the kings, the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with drunkenness: and I will scatter them, neither will I spare them to destroy them," as if to say: I will offer them a cup of vengeance and retribution so bitter, that having drunk it they will seem to rage like drunken men, bereft of their minds.
XVI. Chapter 14, verse 8. "O expectation of Israel, its savior in time of trouble: why will You be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfarer turning in to lodge? Why will You be as a wandering man, as a mighty man that cannot save?" As if to say: Why, O Lord, do You neglect Your Israel, pass by him as a traveler, and allow him to be oppressed by the Chaldeans? Whence, praying, he adds: "But You, O Lord, are in us, and Your name is called upon us, do not forsake us," as if to say: Although You seem to neglect us, in truth You are in us, and with us. For we are Your people, therefore do not forsake us.
XVII. Chapter 16, verse 16. "Behold I will send many fishers, says the Lord, and they shall fish them: and after this I will send them many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks." The fishers are the Apostles, the hunters are apostolic men, like those who today search out the Indians and Barbarians, as wild beasts in caves, tame them, and make them Christians.
XVIII. Chapter 18, verse 1. "The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying: Arise, and go down into the potter's house, and there you shall hear My words. And I went down into the potter's house, and behold he was doing a work on the wheel. And the vessel which he was making of clay with his hands was broken: and turning he made of it another vessel, as it seemed good in his eyes to make. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Cannot I do with you as this potter, O house of Israel, says the Lord? Behold as the clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand:" and therefore I can reshape you, like vessels broken and shattered in captivity, and bring you back to freedom and your fatherland, and there enrich and endow you.
XIX. Chapter 19, verse 1. "Go, and take a potter's earthen bottle from the elders of the people, and go forth into the valley of the son of Ennom. And you shall break the bottle in the sight of the men who shall go with you. And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people, and this city, as a potter's vessel is broken." Behold a hieroglyphic explained by God.
XX. Chapter 22, verse 23. "O you that dwell in Lebanon, and make your nest in the cedars, how have you groaned when sorrows came upon you, as the pains of a woman in labor?" As if to say: O Jerusalem, equal to Lebanon in beauty and glory, you who like an eagle dwell in the lofty cedar houses, how will you groan when you are cut down by the Chaldeans?
XXI. Verse 24. "As I live, says the Lord, if Jeconiah, etc., were a ring on My right hand; I would pluck him thence." This hieroglyphic is clearly explained here, as is the following one.
XXII. Verse 29. "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Write this man (Jeconiah) barren, a man who shall not prosper in his days: for there shall not be a man of his seed that shall sit upon the throne of David."
XXIII. Chapter 23, verse 5. "I will raise up to David a just branch: and a king shall reign, and shall be wise: and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Israel shall dwell confidently: and this is the name that they shall call Him, The Lord our just one." This Davidic branch of justice is Christ the Savior.
XXIV. Verse 33. "If this people, etc., shall ask you, saying: What is the burden of the Lord? You shall say to them: You are the burden; for I will cast you away."
XXV. Chapter 24, verse 3. "What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said: Figs, good figs, very good; and bad, very bad." The very good figs represent Jehoiachin, and his followers, who, being obedient to God and Jeremiah, surrendered themselves to the Chaldeans, of whom he says in verse 5: "As these figs are good, so will I regard the captivity of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for their good," as if to say: I will be good and beneficent to them; I will cause this their migration to turn out for their good. The very bad figs represent Zedekiah and his companions, who against the Lord's command rebelled against the Chaldeans, and therefore perished, of whom he says, verse 8: "As the very bad figs, that cannot be eaten, because they are bad: thus says the Lord: So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, etc., and I will give them up to vexation, to reproach, and to a curse."
XXVI. Chapter 25, verse 15. "Take the cup of the wine of this fury at My hand: and you shall make all the nations to drink thereof, to which I shall send you." This cup is the measure of vengeance and destruction, which God through Jeremiah threatens against each nation in proportion to the measure of its guilt. Whence it follows: "And they shall drink, and be troubled, and go mad because of the sword, which I shall send among them."
XXVII. Chapter 27, verses 2 and 6. "Make yourself bonds, and chains: and you shall put them on your neck. And you shall send them to the king of Edom, Moab, Tyre, Sidon, etc." These bonds signify the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, and the chains with which the Jews and other nations were to be bound by him; whence, explaining them, he adds: "Therefore I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, etc. And all nations shall serve him, etc. Whatever nation shall not bend its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, with the sword, and with fam-
ine, and with pestilence will I visit that nation."
XXVIII. Chapter 28, verse 10. "And Hananiah the prophet (a false prophet) took the chain from the neck of Jeremiah, and broke it, saying: Thus says the Lord: So will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: Go, and you shall say to Hananiah: Thus says the Lord: You have broken chains of wood: and you shall make for them chains of iron, because, etc., I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar. Hear, Hananiah: This year you shall die. And he died that year."
XXIX. Chapter 31, verse 13. "A voice was heard on high of lamentation, of mourning, and weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are not." This voice is that of the mothers weeping for the slaughter of their children, in the massacre of the innocents by Herod after Christ was born.
XXX. Verse 31. "I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, etc., I will give My law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." The old law was written on stone, the new on the heart.
XXXI. Verse 38. "The city shall be built to the Lord, from the tower of Hanameel even to the gate of the corner, etc." The building and spreading of the Church is signified.
XXXII. Chapter 32, verses 9 and 15. "I bought (at God's command) a field from Hanameel the son of my uncle. For thus says the Lord, etc. Houses, and fields, and vineyards shall yet be possessed in this land." As if to say: During the siege of Jerusalem I bought the field of my cousin, so that by this act I might represent, and give the Jews hope, that after 70 years of captivity each one would return to his fields in Judea. Whence he closes this chapter, saying: "I will bring back their captivity."
XXXIII. Chapter 43, verse 9. "Take great stones, and hide them in the vault that is under the brick wall at the gate of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah; and you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God of hosts: Behold I will send, and will take Nebuchadnezzar, etc., and I will set his throne upon these stones which I have hidden, and he shall set his royal throne upon them, and coming he shall strike the land of Egypt." Here Jeremiah is commanded to prophesy the victory of Nebuchadnezzar over Egypt, and to construct there for him a symbolic throne.
XXXIV. Chapter 48, verse 40. "Behold he shall fly as an eagle, and shall spread his wings over Moab." The eagle is a hieroglyphic of Nebuchadnezzar, on account of his speed, rapacity, and strength. For he spread the wings of his cavalry and infantry against Moab.
XXXV. Chapter 49, verse 19. "Behold he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of the Jordan to the strong beauty," as if to say: Just as a lion rushes upon its prey: so Nebuchadnezzar, having crossed the swollen Jordan, will rush upon Idumaea, which its inhabitants consider to be most beautiful and most strong.
XXXVI. Chapter 50, verse 17. "Israel is a scattered flock, the lions have driven him out: the first devoured him was the king of Assyria (Shalmaneser): this last one has broken his bones (that is, has overthrown Jerusalem and the temple, which were the supports, and as it were the bones of Israel), Nebuchadnezzar."
Hieroglyphics: From Lamentations
I. Chapter 4, verse 7. "Their Nazarites were whiter than snow, purer than milk, ruddier than old ivory, more beautiful than sapphire. Their face is now made blacker than coals, they are not known in the streets." As if to say: The Nazarites of the Jews, once comely and suffused with a rosy whiteness, are now squalid and black from hunger and emaciation, so as not to be recognized. These Nazarites are a hieroglyphic of Clerics and Religious, when from their sanctity and glory they fall into the vices and disgraces of God and men.
II. Verse 20. "The breath of our mouth (not Josiah, not Zedekiah, but the Savior Jesus, who is our breath, soul, and life), Christ the Lord, was taken in our sins, to whom we said: Under Your shadow we shall live among the nations."
Hieroglyphics: From Ezekiel
I. Chapter 1, verse 4. "And I saw, and behold a whirlwind came out of the north, and a great cloud, and a fire enfolding itself and a brightness about it as the appearance of amber." Throughout this entire chapter it is a hieroglyphic of the Cherubic chariot, which is a symbol of the majesty, strength, and glory of God hastening to war, and to the destruction of the Jews, and of other nations. The whirlwind therefore is a symbol of wrath, likewise of the storm and calamity threatening Judea from God: the cloud signifies the dense armies of the Chaldeans; the enfolding fire, the imminent burning of the city and the temple.
II. Verse 5. "And in the midst was the likeness of four living creatures: each one had four faces, and each one had four wings: their feet were straight feet, and the sole of their foot was like the sole of a calf's foot, and they sparkled like the appearance of glowing brass." The four living creatures represent the four Cherubim, that is, the chief Angels, who are like the attendants of God; whence they also bear His four insignia, of which he adds:
Verse 10. "And as for the likeness of their faces: each had the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side of all four: and the face of an ox on the left side of all four: and the face of an eagle over all four of them." The face of a man is an emblem representing God's goodness and gentleness: the face of a lion represents God's fortitude: the face of an eagle His wisdom and providence: the ox, His justice, religion, and worship. Allegorically, the man represents the incarnation of Christ, the ox His immolation, the lion His resurrection, the eagle His ascension into heaven.
Verses 12 and 14. "Where the impulse of the spirit was, there they went, and they did not turn back when they walked. And the living creatures ran and returned like flashes of lightning." It is signified by this symbol that the Angels are most agile and most prompt at every nod of God.
III. Verse 15. "And as I beheld the living creatures, there appeared one wheel upon the earth close by the living creatures, having four faces, etc., as if a wheel were in the midst of a wheel. Going they went by their four parts, and the whole body was full of eyes; and when the living creatures went, the wheels also went together by them. For the spirit of life was in the wheels." These wheels signify God's eternity, efficacy, vigilance, and swiftness in acting, namely in the governance of the world and the Church.
IV. Verse 22. "And over the heads of the living creatures was the likeness of a firmament, as the appearance of terrible crystal."
Verse 26. "And above the firmament was the likeness of a sapphire stone, the likeness of a throne, and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness of the appearance of a man above."
And I saw as it were the appearance of amber, as the appearance of fire within it round about from his loins and upward: and from his loins downward I saw as it were the appearance of fire shining round about; as the appearance of a rainbow when it is in the cloud on a rainy day." The firmament signifies the empyrean heaven, which is as it were the footstool of God. The throne signifies God's, first, majesty and loftiness; second, royal dignity; third, judicial power. On this throne God was seen to sit in human form, having as it were a body above of amber, or gold-bronze; below of fire, that is, having fiery feet. The amber signifies the excellence of the divinity; the fiery feet, wrath and vengeance upon the Jews, and His other enemies. The rainbow about Him signifies clemency, which tempers His wrath and vengeance.
V. Chapter 2, verse 9. "And I saw, and behold a hand was sent to me, in which was a book rolled up, and He spread it before me; and it was written within and without, and there were written in it lamentations, and canticles, and woe." This book contained the threats of God, and the calamities threatening the Jews, which Ezekiel recorded in this his Prophecy.
Chapter 3, verse 1. "Son of man, eat this volume. And I opened my mouth, and He fed me with that volume. And I ate it: and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey." Because to know the counsels and judgments of God was sweet and pleasant to the Prophet: but when he learned through them that dire things were threatened against his own people, and he ruminated on them, his stomach was made bitter, he grieved and groaned.
VI. Verse 23. "And you, son of man, behold chains are put upon you, and they shall bind you with them. And I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth, and you shall be dumb, and not as a man that rebukes: because it is a provoking house. But when I shall speak to you, I will open your mouth." God bound the hands and tongue of Ezekiel for a time, so that by this silence, as if struck and stupefied, he might move the hard hearts of the Jews. For from this they should have inferred that he had heard wondrous and terrible things from God, and therefore should believe them, and be struck by similar fear and horror, and change their lives.
VII. Chapter 4, verse 1. "Son of man, take to yourself a tile: and you shall draw upon it the city of Jerusalem. And you shall lay siege against it, and build forts, and cast up a mount, and set battering rams round about. And you, take to yourself an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city: and fix your face against it. And you shall sleep upon your left side, and shall lay the iniquities of the house of Israel upon it, according to the number of the days that you shall sleep upon it. And I have laid upon you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days. And when you have accomplished these things, you shall sleep upon your right side: and you shall take upon you the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days; I have appointed you a day for a year. And your food that you shall eat shall be in weight twenty staters a day. And you shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin. And you shall eat it as barley bread baked under the ashes: and you shall cover it with the dung that comes out of a man, in their sight. And the Lord said: So shall the children of Israel eat their bread defiled among the Gentiles, to which I will cast them out. And I said: Ah, ah, ah, O Lord God, from my youth until now no unclean flesh has entered my mouth. And He said to me: Behold I have given you cow's dung for human dung: and you shall make your bread with it."
By this hieroglyphic Ezekiel vividly represented the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. For lying on his left side for 390 days, he represented the siege of the city (for it lasted that many days), and lying on his left side for 40 days, he represented its destruction. And eating cow's dung, he represented that so great would be the famine during the siege, that they would eat even dung. For this is what God explains saying, verse 16: "Behold I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care: and they shall drink water by measure, and in anguish."
VIII. Chapter 5, verses 1 and 3. "Son of man, take to yourself a sharp sword (razor), shaving the hair: and you shall draw it over your head, and over your beard: and you shall take to yourself a balance to weigh, and divide them. A third part you shall burn with fire: a third part you shall cut with the sword: and the other third you shall scatter in the wind." God's razor was Nebuchadnezzar: he shaved the beard, that is, the princes and priests; and the hair, that is, the common people of the Jews. Whence one part of them perished by plague, a second by the sword, a third was captured and dispersed in Babylon. Hence, explaining, he adds in verse 12: "A third part of you shall die by the pestilence and by famine, and a third part of you shall fall by the sword: and a third part of you I will scatter into every wind, and I will draw out the sword after them." Moreover, concerning the remnants who will escape the disaster, he adds: "And you shall take from there a small number: and shall bind them in the skirt of your cloak. And from
these again you shall take, and shall cast them in the midst of the fire, and shall burn them with fire: and out of it shall come a fire into all the house of Israel." These are the Jews, who after their return from Babylon, on account of new sins, were slain by Antiochus Epiphanes raging like fire, and afterwards by Titus.
IX. Chapter 8, verse 3. "And the likeness of a hand was put forth and took me by a lock of my head: and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven: and brought me to Jerusalem in a vision, to the inner gate that looked toward the north, where was set the idol of jealousy to provoke jealousy." Ezekiel, dwelling in Babylon, is here caught up in spirit to Jerusalem, that he might see the idolatry and abominations which the Jews were committing in the temple. It is called the idol of jealousy because it provoked God to jealousy and rivalry. For God, who is a jealous God, does not suffer another god to be placed and worshipped, especially in His own temple. Whence, indignant, He adds: "Son of man, etc., yet turning you shall see greater abominations. And behold there women were sitting weeping for Adonis," verse 14.
X. Chapter 9, verse 2. "And behold six men came: and each one had a weapon of destruction in his hand: one man also in the midst of them was clothed with linen, and a writer's inkhorn at his loins. And the Lord said to him (the man clothed with linen): Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem: and mark a thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof. And to the others (the six men He said, in my hearing): Go through the city after him, and strike: let not your eye spare, nor be moved with pity. Utterly destroy old and young, maiden, children and women: but upon whomever you shall see the thau, kill him not, and begin from My sanctuary." Here God commands the Angel to mark the devout in Jerusalem, those mourning for the sins of the people, with the sign of thau, that is, of the cross; whence he carries an inkhorn, so that like a notary he might inscribe with ink the letter thau on the foreheads of the pious. Then He commands six other Angels to spare those who are marked, and to slay all the rest who are not marked through the Chaldeans, and to burn the city; whence he adds:
Chapter 10, verse 2. "And He said to the man clothed with linen, and said: Go in between the wheels that are under the Cherubim, and fill your hand with burning coals that are between the Cherubim, and pour them out upon the city." Here God commands the Angel to take fire from His Cherubic chariot, with which Jerusalem is to be burned, to signify that the burning of the city would occur not by chance, not by the counsel and strength of the Chaldeans, but by God's providence and decree.
XI. Chapter 11, verse 2. "And He said to me: Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity, and frame the worst counsel in this city, saying: Were not houses lately built? This is the cauldron, and we are the flesh," as if to say: The houses and walls of Jerusalem are like an iron cauldron and most strong; therefore we, even though we are flesh, yet because we are contained and fortified by them, we do not fear the Chaldeans. To these the Prophet responds, adding: "Therefore thus says the Lord God: Your slain whom you have laid in the midst thereof, they are the flesh, and this is the cauldron," as if to say: It is not you, O Jews, who are the flesh in Jerusalem; but the flesh is the Prophets, whom you have slaughtered as victims to God. "And I will bring you out of the midst thereof. You have feared the sword, and I will bring the sword upon you. This shall not be to you as a cauldron, and you shall not be in the midst thereof as flesh; I will judge you in the borders of Israel:" that is, I will punish and slay you, as if to say: I will lead you out of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, so that you may be slain by him there. Wherefore Jerusalem shall not be to you a cauldron and a defense; nor shall you be in it as flesh untouched and unharmed by the enemy.
XII. Chapter 12, verses 3 and 11. "Son of man, make yourself the baggage of one that goes into exile, and you shall go forth before them. Before their eyes dig through the wall: and you shall go forth through it. In their sight you shall be carried on shoulders, you shall be carried forth in the dark: you shall cover your face, and you shall not see the ground: for I have made you a portent to the house of Israel." Here Ezekiel is commanded to represent vividly in his own person the flight of Zedekiah and the Jews when the city was taken at night, and his blinding. Whence, explaining, he adds: "As I have done, so shall it be done to them; they shall go into exile and into captivity. And the prince (King Zedekiah) who is in the midst of them shall be carried on shoulders, he shall go forth in the dark: they shall dig through the wall to bring him out: his face shall be covered that he may not see the ground with his eye. I will bring him into Babylon: and he himself shall not see it (being blinded by Nebuchadnezzar), and there he shall die."
Verse 18. "Son of man, eat your bread in trouble (in fear and trembling): and your water also drink in haste and sorrow." He adds the cause and meaning: "And you shall say to the people of the land: They shall eat their bread in care, and drink their water in desolation."
XIII. Chapter 15, verses 2 and 4. "Son of man, what shall be done with the wood of the vine" cut off from the vine? "Behold it is given to the fire for fuel: so will I deliver up the inhabitants of Jerusalem" to fire and the sword.
XIV. Chapter 16, verse 4. "When you were born (O Jerusalem, O Synagogue), in the day of your birth your navel cord was not cut, and you were not washed with water for your health, nor salted with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling clothes. But passing by you, I saw you trodden under foot in your own blood; and I said: Live, etc., and I washed you with water, and cleansed away your blood from you: and I anointed you with oil. And I clothed you with embroidery, and shod you with violet, and I girded you with fine linen, and clothed you with fine garments, and I put bracelets on your hands, and a chain about your neck, and a crown of beauty upon your head. And taking of your garments you made yourself high places; and My oil and My incense you set before
XV. Verse 15. "Your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite. And your elder sister is Samaria: and your younger sister is Sodom. As I live, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done as you have done: and Samaria has not committed half of your sins." These are called sisters of Jerusalem, because they were neighbors to her, and because they were equally wicked; whence they also suffered similar punishment and destruction.
Verse 52. "Therefore do you also bear your confusion, you who have surpassed your sisters in your sins; bear your shame, you who have justified your sisters," so that they may seem better and more just than you, that is, less wicked, less iniquitous and impious than you; and so, if they are compared with you, and with your impiety, they may seem to be just and pious.
XVI. Chapter 19, verse 1. "And you, take up a lamentation upon the princes of Israel, and say: Why did your mother the lioness lie down among the lions? She brought up one of her whelps, and he became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men. And the nations heard of him, and they took him, not without receiving wounds: and they brought him in chains to the land of Egypt." The lioness is the Synagogue, the whelp is King Jehoahaz, whom Pharaoh led captive into Egypt.
Verse 5. "When she (the lioness, namely the Synagogue, or Jerusalem), saw that she was weakened, and that her hope had perished: she took one of her whelps, and made him a lion. And he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men, to make widows, etc. And the nations came together against him, and spread their net over him and cast him into a pit, and brought him in chains to the king of Babylon." This whelp is King Jehoiachin, or rather tyrant, whom the Chaldeans therefore captured and led away.
XVII. Verse 10. "Your mother was like a vine in your blood, planted by the water: her fruit and her branches grew by reason of many waters. And she had strong rods for the scepters of rulers, etc. But she was plucked up in wrath, and cast on the ground: the fire devoured her. And now she is transplanted into the desert. It is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation." This vine is Jerusalem; for royal blood is like the red liquor of the grape. This vine, planted as it were by the waters, grew in wealth and glory, but on account of sins it was uprooted by the wrath of God, burned, and carried off to Chaldea.
XVIII. Chapter 23, verse 2. "Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother, and they committed fornication in Egypt. Now their names were, Oolla the elder, and Ooliba her younger sister." Who these are, he explains saying: "And their names were, Samaria is Oolla, and Jerusalem Ooliba." For Oolla in Hebrew means, "her tabernacle," namely that of Samaria, which is in Dan and Bethel, containing the golden calves, which she worships in place of God. But Ooliba means, "My tabernacle is in her:" for God had His tabernacle in Jerusalem. He calls the idolatry of both fornication, of which he adds: "Oolla therefore committed fornication against Me, and doted on her lovers, the Assyrians:" Because Samaria worshipped the gods of the Assyrians. "Therefore I will deliver her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the children of Assyria." For Samaria was overthrown by Shalmaneser the Assyrian, in the sixth year of Hezekiah. "And when her sister Ooliba (Jerusalem) saw this, she was more mad with lust than she:" Because, as follows, she worshipped the gods of the Chaldeans and Egyptians. "Therefore Ooliba, thus says the Lord God: Behold I will raise up against you all your lovers, the children of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans: they shall cut off your nose and your ears; and what remains shall fall by the sword: they shall take your sons and your daughters: and your remnant shall be devoured by fire.
and you committed fornication with the children of Egypt and the Assyrians, and with the Chaldeans. Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord: I will judge you with the judgments of adulteresses, and I will give you into their hands, and they shall destroy your brothel, and they shall stone you with stones, and shall slay you with their swords." This is a hieroglyphic of Israel, or the Synagogue, which in the desert, poor and wretched, was gathered by God through Moses, and as it were joined to Him in marriage, and endowed with all good things, but soon like a harlot departed from Him to idols; wherefore she was justly punished and devastated by God through the Chaldeans. See the commentary on Ezekiel 16.
You shall drink the cup of your sister, deep and wide. You shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow. And you shall drink it, and drain it even to the dregs, and you shall devour its fragments. You shall tear your own breasts: you also bear your wickedness, and your fornications." This cup is of death and destruction, namely the measure of punishments proportioned to the sins of the Jews, which God the avenger mixed and served to them.
XIX. Chapter 24, verse 3. "Son of man, set on a pot, and pour water into it. Gather the pieces thereof into it, every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder, choice and full of bones. Take the fattest beast, and pile up the bones also under it. Its boiling has boiled up, and the bones thereof are thoroughly sodden in the midst of it." The pot is Jerusalem, in which the flesh, that is, the citizens, are to be cooked and consumed by the Chaldeans. Whence, explaining, he adds: "Woe to the city of blood, the pot whose rust is in it, and its rust has not gone out of it. Woe to the city of blood, for which I will make a great pyre. Heap up the bones, which I will burn with fire; the flesh shall be consumed, and the whole mixture shall be cooked, and the bones shall waste away."
XX. Verses 16 and 21. "Son of man, behold I take away from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke," (as if to say: I will cause your beloved wife to die from illness), "and you shall not mourn, nor weep," so that by this you may portend the destruction of the city and the temple, in which the slaughter will be so great, that no one will mourn for brother, father, or wife. "And my wife died in the evening, and I did in the morning as He had commanded me." Furthermore, explaining this, he adds: "Thus says the Lord God: Behold I will profane My sanctuary,
the pride of your empire, and the desire of your eyes, and that over which your soul trembles: and your children shall fall by the sword. And you shall do as I have done." As if to say: You shall not mourn for them. "And Ezekiel shall be a portent to you."
XXI. Chapter 28, verse 2. "Son of man, say to the prince (king) of Tyre: You have said: I am God, and I sit in the chair of God in the heart of the sea: whereas you are a man, and not God, and you have set your heart as if it were the heart of God:" You had such great spirit and pride, as if you were God. "Therefore you shall die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers." As if to say: The uncircumcised, namely the Gentile Chaldeans, shall slay you who are likewise uncircumcised. "You were the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty; you were in the delights of the paradise of God: every precious stone was your covering. You were a cherub stretched out, and protecting, and I set you in the holy mountain of God, you walked in the midst of the stones of fire, until iniquity was found in you, and you sinned. And I cast you out from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O protecting cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. All that shall see you among the nations shall be astonished at you: you are brought to nothing, and you shall never be anymore." He compares the king of Tyre to a Cherub on account of his wisdom, wealth, and glory, whom God deprived of his kingdom and all his goods through the Chaldeans on account of his pride. See the commentary on Ezekiel 28.
XXII. Chapter 29, verse 3. "Behold I come against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, you great dragon that lies in the midst of your rivers (the streams of the Nile), and you say: The river is mine, and I made myself. And I will put a bridle in your jaws: and I will draw you out of the midst of your rivers; to the beasts of the earth, and to the fowls of the air, I have given you to be devoured." Just as in chapter 28 he predicted destruction for the proud king of Tyre, so here he predicts the same for the proud Pharaoh. He adds the cause: "Because you have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel:" For you supported their rebellion against the Chaldeans, and therefore like a reed you have been broken and crushed together with them by the Chaldeans.
XXIII. Verse 18. "Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar made his army to serve with great service against Tyre (besieging it for thirteen years), every head (of his soldiers carrying stones, timber, and earth to fill up the sea surrounding Tyre) was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: and no reward was given to him. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold I will give Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon the land of Egypt: and he shall carry off its spoils: and it shall be the wages of his army, because he labored for Me," that they might execute My vengeance against Tyre, as if to say: To the Chaldeans, as wages for conquering Tyre, I will give the spoils of Egypt. Whence he adds:
Chapter 30, verse 2. "Howl (O Egyptians), woe, woe to the day: for the day is near, and the day of the Lord approaches (on which He will cut you down): a day of cloud, it shall be the time of the nations."
XXIV. Chapter 31, verse 3. "Son of man, say to Pharaoh: Behold the Assyrian was like a cedar in Lebanon, fair in branches, and full of leaves, and of a high stature, and his top was elevated among the thick boughs." Pharaoh is called Assyrian, because in wealth, power, and glory he compared himself with Sennacherib, and other monarchs of the Assyrians: hence he is also called a cedar. "The cedars, he says, were not higher than he in the paradise of God. Therefore thus says the Lord: Because he was lifted up, etc., I have delivered him into the hands of the strongest of the nations (Nebuchadnezzar). And strangers shall cut him down, and the most cruel of the nations. He is Pharaoh, and all his multitude, says the Lord God."
XXV. Chapter 32, verse 2. "You were likened to the lion of the nations (O Pharaoh), and to the dragon that is in the sea: and you tossed your horn in your rivers. I will spread My net over you, and will cast you upon the land. And I will cover, when you shall be put out, the heavens, and I will make the stars thereof dark: I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. All the lights of heaven I will make to mourn over you." As if to say: So great shall be the slaughter of you and your people, O Pharaoh, that to men the heavens will seem to be darkened and to mourn. This is a hyperbole. Whence concerning the same he adds:
Verse 19. "Go down, and sleep with the uncircumcised, with those who descend into the pit. There is Assyria, and all its multitude, who once spread terror in the land of the living. There is Elam, there are Mosoch and Thubal. There is Idumaea, and its kings. There are all the princes of the north, and all the hunters: who have slept uncircumcised with those slain by the sword, and have borne their shame with those who go down into the pit."
XXVI. Chapter 36, verse 25. "I will pour upon you clean water (in the baptism of Christ), and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness. And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in your midst: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit in your midst: and I will cause you to walk in My commandments." See chapter 10, verse 19.
XXVII. Chapter 37, verse 1. "The hand of the Lord was upon me: and He brought me forth in the midst of a field, which was full of bones. And He said to me: Son of man, do you think these bones shall live? And I said: O Lord God, You know. And He said to me: Prophesy concerning these bones: and say to them: You dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Behold I will send spirit into you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to grow over you, and will spread skin upon you, and you shall live." Ezekiel adds that he prophesied this to them, and that they were soon endowed with skin, flesh, and sinews, and with spirit and life. This was a figure of the resurrection; but under it he signifies that the Jews who were in Babylon as if dead, and like dry bones, would return to freedom and their fatherland, and thus as it were to life. For this is what he explains by adding:
Verse 11. "Son of man, all these bones are the house of Israel: they say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost (of liberation from Babylon, and return to the fatherland): behold I will open your graves, and will bring you out of your sepulchers, and will bring you back into the land of Israel."
XXVIII. Verse 16. "Son of man, take to yourself one stick: and write upon it: Of Judah, and of the children of Israel his companions: and take another stick, and write upon it: Of Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and of all the house of Israel, and of his companions. And join them one to the other into one stick, and they shall become one in your hand." By this symbol God signifies that He will unite the Jews and the Israelites, or Samaritans, now opposed to one another, in the Church, through the faith and grace of Christ. Whence, explaining, He adds: "Behold I will take the children of Israel from the midst of the nations, to which they are gone, etc. And I will make them one nation in the land, in the mountains of Israel. And My servant David (Christ the son of David) shall be king over them, and one shepherd shall be of all of them. And I will make a covenant of peace with them. And My tabernacle shall be among them: and I will be their God, and they shall be My people."
Hieroglyphics: From Daniel
I. Chapter 2, verse 31. "You, O king, saw, and behold a great statue: the head was of the finest gold, but the chest and the arms of silver, and the belly and the thighs of brass; and the legs of iron, part of the feet was of iron, and part of clay. You looked on, until a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands: and it struck the statue upon its feet of iron, and broke them in pieces. This is the dream: We will also tell the interpretation thereof before you. You are the king of kings, you therefore are the head of gold. And after you shall rise up another kingdom lesser than you, of silver: and another third kingdom of brass, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as iron; as iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things, so shall it break and crush all these. And because you saw that the feet and toes were part of potter's clay, and part of iron: the kingdom shall be divided. But in the days of those kingdoms, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and His kingdom shall not be delivered to another people: and it shall break in pieces, and shall consume all these kingdoms: and itself shall stand forever, according to what you saw, that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and broke in pieces the clay, and the iron, and the brass, and the silver, and the gold." The head of gold was the monarchy of Nebuchadnezzar; the chest of silver, the kingdom of Cyrus and the Persians; the belly of brass, the kingdom of Alexander and the Greeks; the legs of iron, the kingdom of the Romans: but all these were crushed by the stone cut from the mountain without hands, that is, Christ born of a Virgin, whose kingdom shall be glorious and eternal.
II. Chapter 4, verses 7 and 22. "I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth: and its height reaching to heaven. Its leaves were most beautiful, and its fruit exceeding much: and all flesh ate of it. And behold a watcher and a holy one came down from heaven and cried. Cut down the tree, let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given him, and let seven times pass over him." This tree is Nebuchadnezzar, the watcher is an Angel threatening him with expulsion from his kingdom, and transformation into a beast. So Daniel explains. "They shall cast you out, he says, from among men, and your dwelling shall be with beasts and wild animals, and you shall eat grass as an ox, and shall be wet with the dew of heaven: seven times also (that is, seven years) shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules over the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever He wills. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: redeem your sins with alms, and your iniquities with works of mercy to the poor."
III. Chapter 5, verse 25. "Mane, Thekel, Phares. Mane: God has numbered your kingdom, and has finished it. Thekel: you are weighed in the balance, and are found wanting. Phares: your kingdom is divided, and is given to the Medes and Persians. The same night Belshazzar was slain, and Darius the Mede succeeded to the kingdom." This event clearly explains the vision.
IV. Chapter 7, verse 3. "Four great beasts came up out of the sea. The first was like a lioness, and had the wings of an eagle, and the heart of a man was given to it. And behold another beast like a bear; and it had three rows in its mouth, and in its teeth, and thus they said to it: Arise, devour much flesh. And behold another like a leopard, and it had wings as of a bird, four upon it, and the beast had four heads. And behold a fourth beast, terrible and wonderful, and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth, eating and breaking in pieces, and treading down the rest with its feet: and it had ten horns. And behold another little horn sprung out of the midst of them: and three of the first horns were plucked up at its presence: and behold eyes, like the eyes of a man, were in this horn, and a mouth speaking great things." These four beasts are the four world empires: the lioness is the Assyrians, the bear the Persians, the leopard the Greeks, the fourth beast the Romans. From the fourth shall arise ten horns, that is, ten kings at the end of the world; and the little horn, that is, the Antichrist, who shall defeat three kings; whereupon the remaining seven will voluntarily submit to him.
V. Verse 9. "I beheld until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days sat: His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like clean wool: His throne was like flames of fire: its wheels like fire set ablaze. A swift stream of fire issued forth from before His face: thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him." This is the eternal Father, who will adjudicate the kingdom of the Antichrist to Christ and Christians, whence he adds: "The judgment sat," that is, the judges sat down, "and the books were opened: and I saw that the beast (Antichrist) was slain, and behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and He came even to the Ancient of Days. And He gave Him power, and honor, and a kingdom."
VI. Chapter 8, verse 3. "Behold a ram stood before the marsh, having high horns, and one higher than the other: and behold a he-goat of the goats came from the West, and he touched not the ground; and he struck the ram." The ram is Darius, whom the he-goat struck, that is, Alexander the Great.
Verse 8. "And the he-goat of the goats became exceedingly great: and when he had grown, the great horn was broken, and four horns arose: and out of one of them came forth one little horn: and it became great, and was magnified even to heaven: and it cast down some of the strength, and of the stars, and trod upon them." The great horn is Alexander: when he was broken, that is, when he died, his kingdom was divided into four horns, that is, his principal generals: from one of whom descended Antiochus Epiphanes, who devastated Judea and God's temple, and killed its worshippers.
VII. Chapter 9, verse 24. "Seventy weeks are shortened upon your people, and upon your holy city, that transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end." These 70 weeks are weeks of years, and make 490 years, as if to say: 490 years shall flow until Christ, on account of Christ who was to be born from her, according to the promises made to David and Abraham.
VIII. Chapter 10, verse 5. "And behold a man clothed in linen, and his loins were girded with the finest gold: and his body was like the chrysolite, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as a burning lamp: and his arms, and all downward even to the feet, like the appearance of glowing brass: and the voice of his word like the voice of a multitude." This man is the Archangel Gabriel, who in the following chapter narrates to Daniel the victories of the Maccabees, of Christ, and of Christians: therefore he here assumes an august form, so that through it he may represent those victories. First, then, the linen garment signifies the priesthood and labors of the Maccabees. Second, the golden girdle signifies their charity, wars, and kingdom. Third, the chrysolite, their glory and triumph. Fourth, the lightning face, their violent zeal against enemies. Fifth, the eyes like a burning lamp, their prudence and watchfulness. Sixth, the arms and legs of brass, their fortitude, and the splendor of their weapons. Seventh, the voice of a multitude, the army and phalanxes of both the Maccabees and the Angels fighting for them.
Parables and Similes
Parables and Similes: From Isaiah
I. Chapter 1, verse 3. "The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's manger: but Israel has not known Me:" he is therefore more ungrateful and stupid than an ox or an ass.
II. Verse 5. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad. From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores," as if to say: The entire commonwealth of the Jews, and their whole body politic, that is, both princes and priests as well as laypeople, are corrupted by crimes, wounded and rotten.
III. Verse 8. "The daughter of Sion shall be left as a shelter in a vineyard, and as a hut in a cucumber garden." As if to say: Jerusalem will be desolated, and shall become like a vineyard, or a garden, which, after the grapes and fruit have been gathered, is deserted and squalid.
IV. Verse 9. "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrah." He calls seed the few remnants of the destruction, whom God preserved as seed and offspring of the nation. For unless God had willed to preserve the nation, all the Jews would have perished, as all the Sodomites and Gomorrahites perished.
V. Verse 10. "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah," as if to say: Judea in impiety was the equal of Sodom and Gomorrah; she would therefore have been equal in punishment and destruction, had not God preserved the seed of the nation, on account of Christ who was to be born from her, according to the promises made to David and Abraham.
VI. Verse 18. "If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool." As if to say: If you repent, and change your ways, I will cleanse your conscience, wounded and bloodied by so many crimes, so that it may become pure and white as snow, and white wool.
VII. Verse 21. "How is the faithful city become a harlot?" As if to say: How has Jerusalem, once a bride faithful to God, now committed fornication like a harlot with idols?
VIII. Verse 29. "You shall be ashamed of the gardens which you have chosen, when you shall be as an oak with its leaves falling off, and as a garden without water," as if to say: In gardens under oak trees you set up altars, and sacrificed to idols: therefore you shall be desolated like an oak in winter, when its leaves fall off; and like a garden in summer withering from drought, for lack of water.
IX. Verse 31. "And your strength shall be as tinder of flax, and your work as a spark: and they shall both be set on fire together, and there shall be none to quench it," as if to say: I will destroy and burn your idols, which you think are most strong and invincible, and your works and riches, like flax tinder, which is consumed by a slight flame.
X. Chapter 5, verse 28. "The hoofs of his horses (of Nebuchadnezzar, shall be strong and hard) as flint: and his wheels like the violence of a tempest. He shall roar-
XI. Chapter 9, verse 3. They shall rejoice (the Gentiles, having received the preaching of the Gospel, of grace and salvation) before You, as those who rejoice in the harvest, as victors exult when they have seized the spoils, when they divide the plunder. For You have overcome the yoke of his burden, and the rod of his shoulder, and the scepter of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian," that is to say, just as formerly on the day of battle with the Midianites, You, O Lord, overcame and routed them through Gideon, and thus removed their yoke, rod, and scepter from the necks of the Jews: so on the day when the true Gideon, that is, the cutter-off of iniquity and sin, namely Christ, shall contend with demons, princes, Jews, and impious nations, You, O Lord, will be present with Christ, so that He may rout these enemies of His and ours, and shake off from the necks of the faithful the yoke and scepter of those oppressors and tyrants.
XII. Verse 18. "Wickedness is kindled like a fire, it shall devour briars and thorns, and shall be kindled in the thicket of the forest, and shall be wrapped in the rising of smoke," that is to say, just as a fire kindled in a forest first seizes the briars and thorns, then consumes the whole forest, so that the entire density of the wood is wrapped in the rising, that is, in the height and elevation of smoke: so wickedness gradually pervaded the people, until it engulfed all Israel, and therefore shall also engulf it with its punishment.
XIII. Chapter 10, verse 14. "And my hand has found the strength of peoples like a nest: and as eggs that have been abandoned are gathered, so I have gathered the whole earth: and there was none that moved a wing, or opened a mouth, or chirped," that is to say, I, Sennacherib, have taken nations and kingdoms as easily as a bird-catcher takes eggs and chicks from a nest, where the bird itself does not dare to cry out or chirp against him. But God checks the arrogance of this barbarous king, saying:
XIV. Verse 15. "Shall the axe boast against him who cuts with it? or shall the saw exalt itself against him by whom it is drawn? as if the rod should rise against him who lifts it, and the staff exalt itself, which after all is but wood." So too you, O Sennacherib, ought not to boast, nor take from Me and ascribe to yourself so many victories and the destruction of nations: because you were merely an axe, and as it were a saw, with which I cut and sawed the nations like logs; and as it were a staff and rod, with which I scourged them.
XV. Verse 15. "Therefore the sovereign Lord of hosts shall send leanness among his fat ones: and beneath his glory there shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire. And the light of Israel shall be a fire, and His Holy One a flame: and his thorns and his briars shall be kindled and devoured in a single day," that is to say, God shall strike the soldiers of Sennacherib with fever and pestilence, which shall so wither and burn them, just as fire is wont to blast and burn thorns and briars in a forest.
XVI. Chapter 14, verses 4 and 8. "How has the oppressor ceased (the king of Babylon)? The tribute has ceased. The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers. The fir trees also rejoice over you, and the cedars of Lebanon: since you have fallen asleep, no one comes up to cut us down. Hell below was in uproar to meet your coming, it stirred up the giants for you. All the princes of the earth rose from their thrones: and they shall say to you: You too are wounded as we are, you have become like us. Your pride has been dragged down to hell, your corpse has fallen." He figuratively introduces kings and princes in hell, receiving and mocking the slain king of Babylon.
XVII. Chapter 16, verse 2. "Like a fleeing bird, and chicks flying from the nest; so shall the daughters of Moab be at the crossing of the Arnon." The meaning is clear.
XVIII. Verse 8. "The lords of the nations have cut down the vineyard of Sabama, its branches (so the shoots of the vine are called) reached as far as Jazer: they wandered in the desert, its branches were abandoned, they crossed the sea," that is to say, the people of Moab, devastated by the Chaldeans, shall be led captive by them across the waters to Babylon.
XIX. Chapter 17, verse 6. "And there shall be left in it (in Israel) like a cluster of grapes, and like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives at the top of a branch," that is to say, in the destruction of Samaria and the ten tribes, as few Israelites shall be left as few clusters of grapes are left in a vineyard after the vintage, and as few olives are left on an olive tree when it is shaken. So allegorically, many are called but few are chosen and to be saved.
XX. Chapter 18, verse 4. "I will be still and will consider in My place, as the noonday light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest," that is to say, I, God, will clearly contemplate, as if in noonday light, the slaughter of the Egyptians: and I will be serene in peace and refreshment, when the sun and heat of destruction burns them.
XXI. Verse 5. "For before the harvest the whole field had blossomed, and its unripe fruit shall sprout, and its little branches shall be cut off with pruning hooks: and what remains shall be cut away and shaken off. And they shall be left together for the birds of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth," that is to say, the Egyptians were flourishing, and were promising a great harvest, as it were, of wealth and glory; but like premature fruits they were cut down by the Assyrians, and did not reach maturity.
XXII. Chapter 22, verse 17. "Behold, the Lord shall cause you (O Shebna) to be carried away (to Babylon), as a rooster is carried away, and He shall lift you up like a garment," that is to say, as easily as a garment or cloak is lifted and carried off, so God will lift and carry you out of Judea.
XXIII. Verse 18. "He shall crown you with a crown of tribulation: He shall toss you like a ball into a wide and spacious land." The meaning is evident.
XXIV. Chapter 24, verse 2. "And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest: and as with the servant, so with his master: as with the handmaid, so with her mistress: as with the buyer, so with the seller," that is to say, the destruction of the world shall be universal and common, and shall not distinguish servant or handmaid from master or mistress, but shall involve all equally in equal calamity.
XXV. Verse 20. "The earth shall be shaken with great agitation like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a tent of one night: and its iniquity shall weigh upon it, and it shall fall, and shall not rise again," that is to say, the earth shall be shaken by so great an earthquake that it shall seem to be entirely uprooted and overturned from its foundations, and this on account of the crimes which its inhabitants perpetrated upon it.
XXVI. Verse 23. "And the moon shall blush, and the sun shall be confounded, when the Lord of hosts shall reign on Mount Zion," that is to say, the sun and moon shall be darkened, and thus shall seem to grow pale and be suffused with shame on account of the crimes of the inhabitants of the earth, which on the day of judgment God will reveal to the whole world, and punish. Whence verse 22 preceded: "And they shall be gathered together in the gathering of one bundle into the pit, and shall be shut up in prison, and after many days they shall be visited," that is to say, the wicked, bound together as in a bundle, shall be cast into the fire of hell, so that they may be perpetually shut in it and burn: for "after many days they shall be visited," that is, they shall be punished through all ages for eternity.
XXVII. Chapter 25, verse 5. "As the heat in thirst, You shall bring low the tumult of strangers: and as with the heat beneath a scorching cloud, You shall make the offspring of the mighty wither," that is to say, just as a scorching cloud parches the vines, so Christ on the day of judgment shall burn up all the delights of the wicked, with which they entertained themselves.
XXVIII. Verse 10. "Moab shall be threshed under Him (God) as straw is threshed in a cart. And he shall stretch out his hands under him as a swimmer stretches out to swim." That is to say, the demons and all the wicked shall be so trampled by Christ the avenger, that they shall present the appearance of a man thoroughly defeated and desperate, such as the appearance of a shipwrecked person swimming in a shipwreck.
XXIX. Chapter 28, verse 2. "Behold, the Lord is mighty and strong, like a storm of hail; a destroying whirlwind, like the rush of many overflowing waters poured upon a spacious land," that is to say, God will mightily lay waste the fields of Samaria through the Assyrians, as hail, a whirlwind, and an overflowing river are wont to lay waste flourishing crops and the labors of oxen.
XXX. Verse 24. "Will the plowman plow all day long in order to sow, will he break up and harrow his ground? Will he not, when he has leveled its surface, scatter dill, and spread cumin, and place wheat in rows? And He shall instruct him in judgment: his God shall teach him," that is to say, the impious say: There is no God; because He often overlooks crimes and does not immediately punish them. To these I respond: Just as a farmer does not always plow, but now plows, now sows, now reaps, now threshes, and does each thing in its own time: so too God has His own opportunities, and knows when to overlook and when to punish. For God acts, but does not fuss or make tumult; rather He knows the times and the opportunities for doing things.
XXXI. Chapter 29, verses 5 and 7. "And the multitude of those who winnow you shall be like fine dust: and like a passing spark: and like a dream of a vision in the night shall be the multitude of all the nations that fought against Ariel," that is to say, the enemies who devastated Jerusalem shall be crushed and shall vanish like dust, sparks, and a dream, whence he adds:
XXXII. "And as a hungry man dreams that he eats; but when he awakes, his soul is empty: and as a thirsty man dreams that he drinks, and after he awakes, he is still weary and thirsts; and his soul is empty: so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fought against Mount Zion."
XXXIII. Chapter 31, verse 4. "As a lion roars, and a young lion over his prey, and when a multitude of shepherds comes against him, he shall not be afraid at their voice, nor be dismayed at their multitude: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon Mount Zion."
XXXIV. Verse 5. "As birds flying" protect their chicks, and fight for them with beak and wings against the hawk: "so shall the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem, protecting and delivering, passing over and saving."
XXXV. Chapter 32, verse 2. "And a man" hidden and protected under the shadow and wings of the pious king Hezekiah shall be so secure, "as one who is hidden from the wind, and conceals himself from the storm, as streams of water in a thirsty land, and the shadow of a great rock in a desert land."
XXXVI. Chapter 38, verse 12. "My generation (the span of my life) has been taken away, and rolled up from me, like a shepherd's tent."
"My life has been cut off as by a weaver: while I was still laying the warp, He cut me down: like a lion, so has He crushed all my bones."
XXXVII. Verse 14. "Like the young of a swallow, so shall I cry out: I shall meditate," that is, I shall moan in meditation, "like a dove."
XXXVIII. Chapter 40, verse 11. "As a shepherd He will feed His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs, and in His bosom He will carry them; He Himself will carry those that are with young." This shepherd is Christ; the lambs are Christians; those with young, or the pregnant ones, who bear lambs, are the Apostles and apostolic men: all these Christ feeds, carries, and guides.
XXXIX. Verse 12. "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? Who has suspended the mass of the earth with three fingers, and weighed the mountains in a scale, and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord? or who has been His counselor, and shown Him?" That is to say, God is so powerful that He supports heaven and earth with three fingers; and so wise that no one can give Him counsel; rather, all the wise receive and beg their wisdom and counsel from Him.
XL. Verse 15. "Behold, the nations are as a drop from a bucket, and are counted as a small weight on a scale," if compared with the immense greatness and majesty of God: "behold, the islands are like fine dust. And Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, and its animals would not suffice for a holocaust," if it were to be offered to God according to His excellence and dignity. "All nations are as though they were not, so are they before Him, and they are counted as nothing and emptiness to Him."
XLI. Verse 22. "He who sits upon the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like locusts; He who stretches out the heavens like nothing."
XLII. Verse 23. "He who makes the searchers of secrets as though they were not; He has made the judges of the earth like emptiness."
XLIII. Verse 26. "He who leads out their host (of the stars and other creatures) by number, and calls them all by name."
XLIV. Verse 27. "Why do you say, O Jacob: My way is hidden from the Lord, and my judgment has passed unnoticed by my God? Do you not know, or have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, who created the ends of the earth, shall neither faint nor grow weary, nor is there any searching out of His wisdom."
XLV. Verse 29. "He gives strength to the weary, and to those who are not, He multiplies power and vigor."
XLVI. Verses 30 and 31. "Youths shall faint and grow weary, and young men shall fall in weakness: but those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings like eagles: they shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not faint."
XLVII. Chapter 41, verses 14 and 15. "Fear not, you worm Jacob, you who are dead of Israel: I have helped you, says the Lord, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." He compares the abject Israelites to a worm and to the dead. "I have made you like a new threshing cart, having jagged teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them: and you shall reduce the hills to dust: you shall winnow them: and the wind shall carry them off, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and you shall rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel you shall be glad." He compares Israel, aided and strengthened by God, to threshing carts that crush grain, and likewise to carts armed with serrated teeth that cut through whatever stands before them.
XLVIII. Chapter 43, verse 2. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the rivers shall not overwhelm you: when you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not scorch you," that is to say, in the midst of dangers, anguish, and torments I will be present with you, and will defend and protect you. "I have blotted out your iniquities like a cloud, and your sins like a mist." For just as clouds and mists are so dispersed, destroyed, and vanished by the sun that no trace of them remains: so too God, by pardoning sins, utterly blots them out and abolishes them, so that nothing of them remains.
XLIX. Chapter 46, verse 3. "Hear Me, O house of Jacob, etc., you who are carried from My womb, who are borne from My body," that is to say, whom I, like a mother, bear, form, bring up, and cherish. "Even to old age I am He, and even to grey hairs I will carry you," that is to say, from the womb to the very end of life I protect, govern, and care for you.
L. Chapter 48, verse 18. "If only you had heeded My commandments, your peace would have been like a river (abundant and overflowing), and your righteousness (immense) like the waves of the sea, and your offspring would have been like the sand, and the issue of your body like its pebbles; it would not have perished."
LI. Chapter 49, verse 15. "Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And even if she should forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you upon My hands. And you shall say in your heart: Who has begotten these for me? I was barren and not bearing." He compares the Church of the Gentiles to a woman previously barren, afterwards fruitful.
LII. Verse 22. "And they shall bring your sons in their arms, and shall carry your daughters upon their shoulders. And kings shall be your foster fathers, and queens your nurses: with faces bowed down to the earth they shall worship you and lick the dust of your feet." God promises such happy and magnificent things to that same Church.
LIII. Chapter 50, verse 9. "Behold, they shall all be consumed like a garment, the moth shall eat them." He declares that the enemies of Christ shall be destroyed in this way, as a garment is worn out and eaten by a moth.
LIV. Chapter 51, verse 3. "The Lord shall comfort Zion, and He shall comfort all her ruins; and He shall make her desert like a garden of delights, and her wilderness like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of praise." He compares the glory and delights of the Church to the earthly paradise.
LV. Verse 6. "The heavens shall melt away like smoke, and the earth shall be worn out like a garment, and its inhabitants shall perish in like manner," through the fire of conflagration at the end of the world: "but My salvation shall be forever, and My righteousness shall not fail."
LVI. Verse 8. "As a garment, so shall the worm consume them (men); and as wool, so shall the moth devour them: but My salvation shall be forever."
LVII. Verse 12. "I, I Myself shall comfort you: who are you that you should fear mortal man, and the son of man, who shall wither like grass?"
LVIII. Chapter 53, verse 6. "All we like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned aside to his own way: and the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He was offered because He Himself willed it, and He did not open His mouth. Like a sheep He shall be led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer He shall be silent, and shall not open His mouth." He compares the suffering Christ to a lamb, and to a sheep that is led to the slaughterhouse.
LIX. Chapter 54, verse 9. "This is to Me as in the days of Noah, to whom I swore that I would no longer bring the waters of Noah upon the earth: so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you (O Church), and will not rebuke you. For the mountains shall be moved, and the hills shall tremble: but My mercy shall not depart from you," that is to say, as I made an eternal covenant with Noah to henceforth prevent the flood: so with you, O Church, I enter into a new eternal covenant, that I will never abandon you, nor allow you to be overwhelmed by enemies.
LX. Chapter 55, verse 9. "As the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts."
LXI. "And as rain and snow descend from heaven, and return there no more, but water the earth, etc.: so shall My word be, etc., it shall not return to Me empty, but shall accomplish whatever I have willed."
LXII. Chapter 59, verse 9. "We looked for light, and behold darkness: for brightness, and we walked in darkness." Light signifies prosperity, darkness adversity. "We groped like blind men along the wall: we stumbled at noonday as in the dark, in dark places as the dead."
LXIII. "We shall all roar like bears, and shall groan like moaning doves."
LXIV. Chapter 62, verse 1. "For Zion's sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest" from praying and beseeching God, "until her just one goes forth as brightness, and her savior is kindled as a lamp." The brightness and lamp of Zion, that is, of the Church, is the Savior Jesus: therefore for His birth and coming, Isaiah and the Prophets prayed unceasingly.
LXV. Chapter 66, verse 3. "He who sacrifices an ox is as one who slays a man; he who slaughters a sheep is as one who brains a dog; he who offers an oblation is as one who offers swine's blood; he who burns incense is as one who blesses an idol." God compares the sacrifices of the impious Jews to the slaughter of a man, a dog, and a pig, indeed to sacrifices offered to idols.
LXVI. Verse 15. "The Lord shall come in fire, and His chariots shall be like a whirlwind, to render His wrath in indignation, and His rebuke in flames of fire," especially at the conflagration of the world: for when Christ comes to judgment, fire shall go before Him, and shall burn His enemies round about. Whence it follows:
LXVII. Verse 18. "But I know their works and their thoughts," supply, I shall sharply punish them. "For I come to gather together the works and those who work wickedly, with all nations and tongues: and they shall come, and shall see My glory," namely My powerful and severe justice and vengeance upon the wicked on the day of judgment.
LXVIII. Verse 19. "And I will set a sign among them," both the sign of the cross and the signs of the Holy Spirit, with which the Apostles were sealed at Pentecost. "And I will send those of them who have been saved to the Gentiles."
LXIX. Verse 20. "And they shall bring all your brethren from all nations as a gift to the Lord, on horses, and in chariots, and in litters, etc." That is to say, the Gentiles will come to the Church as easily, joyfully, and eagerly as if they were carried on horses and in litters. Moreover, the Gospel is the vehicle by which Christ carries us to heaven.
LXX. Verse 22. "As the new heavens, and the new earth, which I make to stand before Me, says the Lord: so shall your seed and your name stand." This signifies both the renewal and the perpetuity of the Church through Christ.
Parables and Similes: From Jeremiah
I. Chapter 1, verse 18. "I have made you this day a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and a wall of bronze over all the land," that is to say, I will make you, O Jeremiah, strong, so that you may be like an impregnable city, like an immovable pillar, like a bronze wall, impenetrable and invincible against all the curses of the Jews.
II. Chapter 2, verse 11. "Has a nation changed its gods, and indeed these are not gods: but My people have changed their glory (of their God: for God is the glory of Israel) for an idol."
Verse 12. "Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and let your gates be greatly desolated, says the Lord. For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot hold water." He compares idols to cracked and empty cisterns, which cannot provide help or water to the thirsty.
III. Verse 20. "On every high hill, and under every leafy tree, you lay down as a harlot," worshipping and adoring idols.
IV. Verse 22. "Though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, you are stained in your iniquity before Me." That is to say, so great and so persistent are the stains of idolatry and wickedness in you, that they cannot be washed out by any lye or any soap.
V. Verse 26. "As a thief is confounded when he is caught: so is the house of Israel confounded, etc., saying to a piece of wood: You are my father; and to a stone: You have begotten me."
VI. Verse 30. "Like a ravaging lion is your generation," that is to say, your citizens rage against the Prophets, as a lion rages against passers-by.
VII. Verse 32. "Will a virgin forget her ornament, or a bride her breastband? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number."
VIII. Chapter 4, verse 11. "A burning wind from the desert paths blows toward the daughter of my people, not for winnowing and not for cleansing," that is to say, the Chaldean enemy threatens, who like a scorching wind shall not winnow and purify, but shall burn up Jerusalem and the temple: whence he adds of the same:
IX. Verse 13. "Behold, he shall come up like a cloud, and his chariots like a storm: his horses are swifter than eagles: woe to us, for we are laid waste."
X. Verse 31. "I heard a voice as of a woman in labor, anguish as of one giving birth: the voice of the daughter of Zion dying and stretching out her hands: woe is me, for my soul faints because of the slain," that is to say, Jerusalem, seeing her sons and citizens slaughtered by the Chaldeans, like a woman in childbirth dying from the pain of delivery, shall faint and collapse from grief.
XI. Chapter 5, verse 27. "As a trap full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit," that is to say, just as bird-catchers deceive birds and put the captured ones into a cage or trap, so the houses of the Jews are full of wealth gained by fraud and deceit.
XII. Chapter 6, verse 7. "As a cistern makes its water cold, so (Jerusalem) has made her wickedness cold," that is to say, as water freezes into crystal by cold, so the heart of the Jews has hardened like a stone through their wickedness.
"Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary of holding it in," that is to say, I burn with zeal, I cannot restrain myself from denouncing to them the fury and destruction of the Lord.
XIII. Chapter 17, verse 5. "Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes: but shall dwell in a salt land, and uninhabitable," that is to say, barren and vain is the hope fixed upon man, but hope in God is solid and fruitful. Whence he adds:
XIV. Verse 7. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence. And he shall be like a tree transplanted beside the waters, which sends its roots toward the moisture: and shall not fear when the heat comes. And its leaf shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be anxious, nor shall it ever cease to bear fruit." He compares the one who hopes in God to a well-watered tree, always leafy and fruitful.
XV. Chapter 23, verse 29. "Are not My words like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock?" That is to say, the words of men are cold and fleeting: but the words of the Prophets, animated by the spirit of God, are fiery and powerful, so that like a hammer they may break the stony hearts of men, and once broken, set them ablaze.
XVI. Chapter 26, verse 18. "Zion shall be plowed as a field: and Jerusalem shall become a heap of stones: and the mountain of the house shall be as the high places of a forest," that is to say, Zion and the temple mount shall be so devastated that from a city it shall become a forest and plowable field.
XVII. Chapter 33, verse 22. "As the stars of heaven cannot be numbered, and the sand of the sea cannot be measured: so will I multiply the seed of David My servant, and the Levites My ministers," so that, namely, they cannot be counted because of their multitude.
XVIII. Chapter 34, verse 17. "You have not listened to Me, to proclaim liberty each to his brother, and each to his friend (that in the seventh year of release, you should set your servants free, according to the law of Exodus 21:2). For this reason, "Behold, I proclaim liberty to you, says the Lord, to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine," that is to say, I likewise shall release you from My dominion and hand you over to the sword, to famine, and to pestilence.
XIX. Chapter 35, verse 5. "I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites cups full of wine, and chalices: and I said to them: Drink wine. They answered: We will not drink wine: because Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying: You shall not drink wine, etc."
Verse 13. "Will you not receive instruction to obey My words, says the Lord?" That is to say, the sons of Rechab obey their father in a free and difficult matter: but you Jews, in an easy and necessary matter, namely that you should worship Me, not idols, you refuse to obey. Therefore I threaten you with destruction. "But concerning the Rechabites, thus says the Lord, etc. There shall not fail a man of the stock of Jonadab the son of Rechab, standing in the presence of the Lord for all time."
XX. Chapter 46, verse 7. "Who is this (Pharaoh), who rises like a river: and whose waters swell like rivers?" He compares the armies of Pharaoh to a swollen and overflowing river, which threatens great devastation to those nearby.
XXI. Chapter 51, verse 33. "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor, it is the time of her threshing: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come," that is to say, Babylon is like a threshing floor, on which I shall soon thresh and afflict the citizens and nations, like grain collected and packed at harvest, killing some, winnowing others, and scattering them to every region.
Parables and Similes: From Lamentations
I. Chapter 1, verse 1. "How does the city sit alone (Jerusalem, allegorically the afflicted Church, tropologically the penitent soul) that was full of people: she has become as a widow, she who was mistress of the nations: the princess of provinces has been made subject to tribute."
II. Chapter 2, verse 1. "How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with darkness in His fury: He has cast down from heaven to earth (from the highest summit of happiness and glory, to the lowest pit of misery and ignominy) the glory of Israel, and has not remembered His footstool" (that is, the ark and the propitiatory) "in the day of His fury," that is to say, how has God allowed not only the city but also His temple to be devastated? Whence he adds:
Verse 7. "The Lord has cast off His altar, He has cursed His sanctuary," that is, He allowed His holy temple to be ill-treated and burned by the Chaldeans.
III. Chapter 3, verse 5. "He has built up around me (a rampart of sorrows and anguish, that is to say, God has surrounded me on every side with afflictions), and has encompassed me with bitterness and toil."
IV. Verse 6. "He has set me in dark places, like the dead of long ago."
V. Verse 10. "He has become to me a bear lying in wait; a lion in hiding."
VI. Verse 12. "He has bent His bow, and set me as a target for the arrow. He has sent into my loins the daughters of His quiver," that is, through His arrows and wounds, He has pierced my inmost parts.
VII. Verse 16. "And He has broken my teeth one by one, He has fed me with ashes," He has given me to eat ashen bread, hard and stony, which breaks my teeth.
VIII. Chapter 4, verse 1. "How has the gold become dim (with which the temple was overlaid), the finest color changed" into the soot of the fire by which it was burned, "the stones of the sanctuary (of the holy temple) are scattered at the head of every street?"
IX. Verse 2. "The noble sons of Zion, clothed with the finest gold: how are they esteemed as earthen vessels, the work of the hands of a potter?" That is to say, the young men of the Jews, once noble and glorious, have now become vile and inglorious: once they were golden vessels, now they are earthen and clay.
X. Verse 3. "Even the monsters have bared their breasts and nursed their young: but the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostrich in the desert," that is to say, even wild beasts and monsters, however enormous, nurse their young: but so great is the famine, affliction, and turmoil in Jerusalem, that mothers of Zion abandon their children gaping with hunger, and let them die, like the ostrich, a foolish and cruel bird, which abandons its eggs and chicks.
XI. Verse 5. "Those who feasted sumptuously have perished in the streets: those who were brought up in saffron robes have embraced dung," that is to say, those who used to dress and sleep in saffron and silk garments are now forced to sleep on a dung heap and cover themselves with filth.
XII. Verse 19. "Our persecutors were swifter than the eagles of the sky: upon the mountains they pursued us, in the desert they lay in wait for us."
Parables and Similes: From Ezekiel
I. Chapter 7, verse 16. "Those who have fled from among them (the Jews devastated by the Chaldeans) shall be saved: and they shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them trembling, each one in his iniquity."
II. Chapter 11, verse 19. "I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their inward parts: and I will take away the stony heart from their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh: that they may walk in My precepts, and keep My judgments, and do them: and that they may be My people, and I may be their God." God here promises and establishes the new covenant, in which through the grace of Christ the stony heart is taken from Christians, and a heart of flesh is given, that is, a soft, flexible heart, obedient to every nod of God.
III. Chapter 13, verse 4. "Your prophets, O Israel, were like foxes in the desert. You did not go up to face the enemy, nor did you set up a wall for the house of Israel, to stand in battle on the day of the Lord," so that you might oppose yourselves through prayers to God, who was fighting through the Chaldeans, and appease His wrath: "they see vanity, and they divine lies."
IV. Verse 9. "And My hand shall be upon the prophets who see vanity and who divine lies: they shall not be in the council of My people, nor shall they be written in the register of the house of Israel," that is to say, they shall not return from captivity, nor shall they be written in the catalogue of those returning and living.
V. Verse 10. "Because they have deceived My people, saying: Peace, and there is no peace: and he was building a wall, but they plastered it with mud without straw. Say to those who plaster without tempering, that it shall fall: for there shall be an overflowing rain, and I shall send great stones falling from above, and a dissipating storm wind," that is to say, the false prophets rashly and without foundation prophesy prosperity to the Jews; but these false oracles of theirs, like a wall plastered with mud without straw, shall be cast down by the rain, wind, and hail of divine vengeance.
VI. Verse 18. "Woe to those who sew cushions under every elbow: and make pillows for the head of persons of every age, to catch souls." These are those who flatter sinners in their sins, and excuse and foster them, by removing from men the fear of God and of divine vengeance. Whence God, in verse 20, says of these cushions: "I will tear them from your arms: and I will tear away your pillows."
VII. Chapter 34, verse 2. "Woe to the shepherds of Israel who fed themselves. You ate the milk, and covered yourselves with the wool, and killed what was fat: but you did not feed My flock. What was weak you did not strengthen, and what was sick you did not heal, what was broken you did not bind up, and what was cast out you did not bring back, and what was lost you did not seek: but you ruled over them with harshness and with power."
VIII. Verse 10. "Behold, I Myself will demand My flock from their hand; behold, I Myself will seek out My sheep, and will visit them as a shepherd visits his flock. In the richest pastures I will feed them. What was lost I will seek, and what was cast out I will bring back, and what was broken I will bind up, and what was weak I will strengthen, and what was fat and strong I will preserve."
IX. Verse 23. "And I will raise up over them one shepherd, who shall feed them, My servant David (namely Christ the Son of David): He shall feed them, and He shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God."
Parables and Similes: From Daniel
I. Chapter 12, verse 3. "Those who are learned shall shine like the brightness of the firmament: and those who instruct many to justice, like stars for all eternity."
Proverbs and Maxims
Proverbs and Maxims: From Isaiah
I. Chapter 1, verse 22. "Your silver has turned to dross: your wine is mixed with water," that is to say, the pure religion of God in you, O Jerusalem, has been turned into impure superstitions, and your justice has been mixed with avarice and injustice.
II. Verse 25. "I will smelt away your dross to purity, and I will remove all your tin," that is to say, by the fire of tribulations, namely the devastation by the Chaldeans, I will wipe away from you idolatry, injustice, and all the filth of your sins.
III. Chapter 2, verse 4. "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks," that is to say, Christians shall turn wars into peace, and instruments of war into instruments of agriculture.
IV. Chapter 3, verse 7. "I am no physician," that is to say, I cannot heal such great evils and calamities of the state.
V. Verse 9. "The expression of their face testifies against them," that is to say, their countenance speaks their crimes, and if asked about the cause of such great calamities, it would answer that the true cause is the crimes of the Jews.
VI. Chapter 5, verse 14. "Therefore hell has enlarged its appetite, and has opened its mouth without any limit."
VII. Verse 18. "Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as if with a cart rope," that is to say, woe to those who add sin to sin, and weave them as a rope by which you are dragged to hell.
VIII. Verse 20. "Woe to you who call evil good, and good evil: who put darkness for light, and light for darkness: who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter."
IX. Chapter 7, verse 4. "Fear not (O Ahaz), and let not your heart be afraid of these two tails of smoking firebrands, in the fierce anger of Rezin king of Syria, and of the son of Remaliah." The two tails of smoking firebrands are Rezin king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Samaria, because they breathed out the smoke of threats and menaced the Jews; but only smoke, not fire, that is, empty wrath without power. For both were soon to be overthrown by the king of the Assyrians, whence they are called tails.
X. Chapter 8, verse 16. "Bind up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples," that is, write down and seal up these oracles for My future disciples, namely Christians, who will believe in them.
XI. Verse 19. "Should not a people inquire of their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?" That is to say, what is this stupidity, that living and wise men should seek truth and counsel in doubtful matters from dead and lifeless idols?
XII. Verse 20. "To the law rather, and to the testimony," that is to say, consult rather the law of God, and God residing in the testimony, that is, in the ark and the propitiatory.
XIII. "There shall be no morning light for them," that is to say, nothing shall be prosperous for them, nothing joyful, nothing bright; but all things dark, sorrowful, adverse.
XIV. Chapter 9, verse 2. "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: for those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death, a light has risen upon them," that is to say, for the Gentiles living in the darkness of unbelief, in a state of sin and damnation, through the preaching of the Gospel there arose the light of faith, grace, and salvation.
XV. Verse 8. "The Lord sent a word upon Jacob, and it fell upon Israel," that is to say, what the Lord promised to Jacob, or Israel, He actually fulfilled and brought to pass.
XVI. Verse 10. "The bricks have fallen, but we will build with squared stones: they have cut down the sycamores, but we will replace them with cedars," that is to say, the enemies have demolished and burned our houses of brick and sycamore; let us think little of it; for in their place we will build better ones, namely of stone and cedar.
XVII. Verse 14. "The Lord shall cut off from Israel head and tail, the one who bows and the one who restrains," that is, the prince, the prophet, the nobles, and the common people.
XVIII. Verse 20. "Each one shall devour the flesh of his own arm," that is to say, each one shall kill and tear apart his own neighbor and kinsman, joined to him by flesh and blood as if it were his own arm, with such fury as if he wished to devour him.
XIX. Chapter 10, verse 5. "Woe to Assyria, the rod of My fury and the staff that is in their hand is My indignation," that is to say, woe to the Assyrians, who are the rod and staff of My fury, through whose hand I wield and exercise My indignation; for when this indignation is complete, I will cast the rod and staff into the fire, that is, I will destroy the Assyrians themselves. Therefore woe to them.
XX. Chapter 11, verse 5. "And justice shall be the belt of His loins: and faithfulness the girdle of His waist," that is to say, justice and faithfulness shall so gird and adorn Christ, as if they clung to Him like a belt.
XXI. Chapter 13, verse 12. "A man shall be more precious than gold, and a human being more than refined gold," that is to say, the Persians shall value the lives of the Babylonians more than their gold and riches; whence they shall take their lives from them, and shall not accept renowned gold in exchange; because they shall prefer to kill them than to possess their gold.
Verse 21. "Ostriches shall dwell there (in Babylon, now overthrown and destroyed), and hairy creatures shall dance there: and owls shall answer one another in its buildings, and sirens in the temples of pleasure," that is to say, Babylon shall be so desolated that, as the human inhabitants fail, owls, ostriches, dragons, and other wild beasts shall dwell there.
XXII. Chapter 14, verse 11. "Beneath you the moth shall be spread, and worms shall be your covering," that is to say, your corpse shall be covered with worms, which shall gnaw you and feed upon you to the bone, O Belshazzar king of Babylon.
Verse 32. "And what shall be answered to the messengers of the nation" who inquire whence came such a great victory of the Jews over the Philistines? Surely the answer shall be that the cause of the victory is: "Because the Lord has founded Zion, and in Him the poor of His people shall hope."
XXIII. Chapter 15, verse 5. "Its bolts reach as far as Zoar, a three-year-old heifer," that is to say, the bolts, that is, the strong ones of Moab in its destruction, shall flee as far as Zoar, which was once rich, powerful, and wanton, like a three-year-old heifer.
Verse 7. "To the brook of willows they shall lead them." That is to say, to the Euphrates, which abounds with willows, that is, to Babylon, the Chaldeans shall lead the captive Moabites.
XXIV. Chapter 16, verse 3. "Set your shadow as the night at noonday," that is to say, refresh and console the devastated and afflicted: for the heat of midday is a symbol of affliction, while shade and night represent refreshment and consolation.
XXV. Verse 6. "His arrogance and his indignation (Moab's) are more than his strength," that is to say, he boasted that he could do more than he actually could.
XXVI. Verse 11. "For this reason (for the calamity of Moab) my heart shall sound for Moab like a harp." That is to say, over the calamity of Moab I grieve deeply and feel compassion, so that from compassion my bowels seem to be stretched and to resound like a harp, or rather to be heard as such.
XXVII. Chapter 17, verse 10. "You shall plant a faithful planting, and shall sow a foreign shoot." A faithful planting is one that faithfully satisfies the farmer and yields the expected fruits: a foreign shoot is deceptive and spurious.
Verse 11. "On the day of your planting, wild grapes," that is to say, when you plant a vineyard, you shall find not a vineyard, but "wild grapes; and in the morning your seed shall blossom: the harvest is taken away in the day of inheritance, and it shall grieve bitterly," that is to say, your vineyard and field shall blossom before their time, and therefore shall be premature, and shall not ripen.
XXVIII. Chapter 19, verse 11. "The foolish princes of Tanis, the wise counselors of Pharaoh, have given senseless counsel. How will you say to Pharaoh: I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?" That is to say, you have deceived Pharaoh with your flattery, for you persuaded him that because of his wisdom and antiquity, he would stand firm and be invincible; yet behold, he was defeated and overthrown by the Chaldeans. For the Egyptians, on account of their wisdom, are called learned by pagan writers (as the Jews are called superstitious), and Egypt itself was called the mother of the arts.
XXIX. Chapter 22, verse 12. "The Lord shall call on that day to weeping and to mourning, to baldness and to the girding of sackcloth: and behold, joy and gladness, slaying calves and killing rams, eating flesh and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. If this iniquity shall be forgiven you until you die, says the Lord." This proverb is well-known, and today we frequently hear it sung by pleasure-seekers.
XXX. Chapter 23, verse 8. "Who has planned this against Tyre, once crowned, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the renowned of the earth? The Lord of hosts has planned this, to bring down the pride of all glory, and to bring to disgrace all the renowned of the earth."
XXXI. Verse 16. "Take up a harp, go about the city, O harlot given over to oblivion; sing well, play many a song," that is to say, as a harlot employs all enticements to attract lovers to herself: so Tyre shall employ every allurement to recall the merchants who scattered during her destruction.
XXXII. Chapter 24, verse 8. "The joy of the timbrels has ceased, the noise of the revelers has stopped, the sweetness of the harp is silent. They shall not drink wine with a song; the city of vanity is crushed." Let gluttons hear and ponder this proverb.
XXXIII. Verse 17. "Terror, and the pit, and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall be: he who flees from the noise of terror shall fall into the pit: and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare," that is to say, he who escapes one peril and calamity shall fall into another.
XXXIV. Chapter 26, verse 10. "In the land of the saints he has done wickedly, and he shall not see the glory of the Lord." The land of the saints is the Church, especially the clergy. Whence St. Bernard says in his Declamations: "Being in the clergy as if in heaven, he did wickedly: therefore his iniquity was found to be hateful, and it shall not be forgiven."
XXXV. Verse 18. "We have not wrought salvation in the earth, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen," that is to say, because we have not performed works of salvation, both for ourselves and for our neighbors, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen from their pride and malice. Let Pastors say this, even the holy ones.
Chapter 27, verse 9. "All this fruit is that his sin may be taken away."
XXXVI. Chapter 28, verse 15. "You have said: We have struck a covenant with death, and with hell we have made a pact. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it shall not come upon us: for we have made lies our hope, and by falsehood we are protected," that is to say, you live and so securely laugh at the future vengeance of God, that by your very security you seem to cry out: We have struck a covenant with death, etc., that is, we are safe from death and hell, as if we had made a pact with them; hence we fear no threats of the Prophets who threaten us.
Verse 17. "Therefore, etc., hail shall overthrow the hope of lies: and the waters shall overflow your protection. And your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your pact with hell shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge passes through, you shall be trampled by it; and only vexation alone shall give understanding to the hearing."
XXXVII. Chapter 29, verse 4. "You shall be humbled (O Ariel, O Jerusalem), you shall speak from the ground, and from the dust your speech shall be heard: and your voice from the earth shall be like a spirit's, and from the dust your speech shall whisper," that is to say, you shall be prostrated to the ground; and from there you shall whisper with a faint and mournful voice, and groan. Your lion-like roaring, O Ariel, shall cease, and shall end in the most timid whispering. For a humble, subdued, and whispering voice is the sign of great and abject timidity and dejection of spirit.
XXXVIII. Verse 10. "The Lord has mingled among you a spirit of deep sleep, He shall close your eyes, O prophets, etc. And the vision of all shall be to you as the words of a sealed book, which when they give to one who knows letters, they shall say: Read this: and he shall answer: I cannot, for it is sealed." God threatens the Jews with blindness, so that they shall not understand the sacred writings, nor the oracles of the Prophets. Whence He adds:
Verse 14. "Wisdom shall perish from the wise, and the understanding of the prudent shall be hidden."
XXXIX. Verse 15. "Woe to you who are deep of heart, so as to hide (so as to think you hide) your counsel from the Lord: whose works are in darkness, and who say: Who sees us? and who knows us? This thought of yours is perverse: as if the clay should think against the potter, and the work should say to its maker: You did not make me: and the thing formed should say to him who formed it: You do not understand." These are the proverbs of politicians and atheists.
XL. Chapter 30, verse 3. "The strength of Pharaoh shall be your confusion, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your disgrace," that is to say, the hope you place in men, namely the Egyptians, shall deceive and confound you: therefore place your hope in God, not in man.
XLI. Verse 10. "Who say to the seers: Do not see: and to those who behold: Do not behold for us the things that are right: speak pleasant things to us, see errors for us. Take the way from before me, turn the path aside from me, let the Holy One of Israel cease from before our face." These are the words of libertines.
XLII. Verse 13. "Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach (of a cracked wall) falling, and found in a high wall, because suddenly, when it is not expected, its destruction shall come," that is to say, just as a breached wall, threatening ruin, suddenly falls and unexpectedly overwhelms those dwelling beneath it: so also you, O Jews, who lean upon Egypt as upon a ruinous wall, shall be crushed when it collapses. Whence he adds: "And it shall be broken as a potter's vessel is smashed with an overwhelming crash."
XLIII. Verse 15. "In silence and in hope shall your strength be," that is to say, if you, O Jews, remain in Judea and hope in God, He Himself shall powerfully protect you and defend you from the Chaldeans.
XLIV. Verse 16. "And you have said: No, but we will flee on horses: therefore you shall flee. And upon swift ones we will ride: therefore those who pursue you shall be swifter, etc. Until you are left like a mast on the top of a mountain, and like a sign" of shipwreck and shoals, so that those sailing past, warned by this sign, may avoid them. That is to say, O Jews, if you flee to the Egyptians, you shall be slain with them, and only a few of you shall be left as survivors, who shall serve as a sign of divine vengeance to the whole world, so that men, warned by this example, may beware and be wise.
XLV. Verse 20. "And the Lord shall give you the bread of affliction, and scant water," that is, little and meager, meaning He shall afflict you with hunger and thirst. For bread of affliction, that is, of anguish and distress; and scant water, that is, of tribulation, as others translate, that is, meager and foul, are the food and drink of those who are shut up in prison, and are there wasted and punished.
XLVI. Verse 21. "Your ears shall hear a word (of God, as a teacher) behind you admonishing: This is the way, walk in it."
XLVII. Verse 26. "And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Namely, after the day of judgment and the renewal of the world.
XLVIII. Chapter 31, verse 3. "Egypt is man, and not God: and their horses are flesh, and not spirit." That is to say, therefore your hope, O Jews, and your refuge in the Egyptians, is vain and fragile.
XLIX. Chapter 32, verse 6. "The fool shall speak foolish things."
L. Verse 7. "The instruments of the deceitful are most wicked."
LI. Verse 8. "The prince shall plan what is worthy of a prince."
LII. Chapter 33, verse 1. "Woe to you who plunder, shall you not yourself be plundered? and you who despise, shall you not yourself be despised? When you have finished plundering, you shall be plundered: when, wearied, you have ceased to despise, you shall be despised."
LIII. Verse 6. "And faith shall be in your times: the riches of salvation are wisdom and knowledge: the fear of the Lord is His treasure." That is to say, in the time of the Messiah, God shall faithfully bestow the goods He promised through Him, namely spiritual riches: wisdom and the knowledge of salvation, and the fear of the Lord.
LIV. Verse 11. "You shall conceive fire, you shall bring forth stubble: your spirit like fire shall devour you," that is to say, your hopes and endeavors shall be vain; by your futile effort and exertion you shall perish and be burned, like thorns gathered together, to be turned to ashes.
LV. Verse 14. "Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? which of you shall live with everlasting burnings?" This proverb is only too clear for the damned, and will be only too clear for pleasure-seekers about to be damned.
LVI. Chapter 36, verse 6. "Behold, you trust in that broken reed of a staff, that is, in Egypt: if a man lean upon it, it shall go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him."
LVII. Verse 12. "My master has sent me to speak, etc., to the men who sit upon the wall, that" from hunger "they may eat their own dung and" from thirst "drink their own urine."
LVIII. Chapter 37, verse 3. "The children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to bring forth," that is to say, we strive and labor to bring forth war against Sennacherib; but we cannot manage to produce and deliver it.
LIX. Verse 26. "And it was for the uprooting: of warring hills and fortified cities," that is to say, God in His just judgment allowed and brought it about that the hills, that is, the princes who formerly fought among themselves, were uprooted, and many fortified cities were destroyed.
LX. Verse 29. "I will put My ring in your nostrils, and My bridle on your lips, and I will lead you back by the way you came," that is to say, I, God, will lead you about, O Sennacherib, like a buffalo with a ring driven through its nose, and will turn you back like a horse with a bridle put in its mouth, and will lead you back from Judea, that is, force you to return to Assyria. "The zeal of the Lord of hosts" for His people, to save them, "shall do this."
LXI. Chapter 38, verse 1. "Set your house in order (O King Hezekiah), for you shall die, and not live."
LXII. Verse 17. "Behold, in peace is my bitterness most bitter," that is to say, I, Hezekiah, being sick in the flower of my age and reign, suffer the most bitter things.
LXIII. Verse 18. "For hell shall not confess to You, nor shall death praise You: those who go down into the pit shall not await Your truth," that is to say, not the dead, but the living await that You may truly fulfill the promised Messiah to me and to my ancestor David, and may cause Him to be born from my seed, so that we may publicly praise Your faithfulness and mercy.
LXIV. Chapter 39, verse 8. "The word of the Lord which He has spoken is good," concerning the plundering of my treasures; "only let there be peace and truth in my days," that is to say, I only ask that I may live unharmed, which God promised me; after my death, let God send this disaster and plundering.
LXV. Chapter 40, verse 2. "Speak to the heart (that is, speak gently to) Jerusalem, and call out to her: for her malice (that is, her misery and affliction) is ended: she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins."
LXVI. Chapter 41, verse 23. "Declare the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that you are gods:" For divination is the testimony of divinity, says Tertullian.
LXVII. Verse 24. "Behold, you," O idols, O gods of the nations, "are of nothing, and your work is of that which does not exist: an abomination is he who has chosen you."
LXVIII. Chapter 42, verse 8. "I am the Lord, that is My name: I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images."
LXIX. Verse 18. "Hear, you deaf; and look, you blind, that you may see. Who is blind, but My servant? and deaf, but he to whom I sent My messengers? You who see many things, will you not keep them? You who have open ears, will you not hear?"
LXX. Chapter 43, verse 22. "But this people is plundered and laid waste, all of them caught in the snare of young men," that is to say, Israel, so beloved by God, through its sins made itself prey both to demons and to the Romans; whence it fell into the snare of the strongest young men, and is held in prison.
Verse 24. "Who gave Jacob to plundering, and Israel to devastators? Was it not the Lord Himself, against whom we sinned?"
LXXI. Chapter 43, verse 24. "You have made Me serve with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities." The sinner as it were compels God to serve, that is, to comply and cooperate by His general concurrence with their lusts and sins. Again, God labors and as it were serves in enduring and correcting so many and such great sins of men. For many daily weary the patience of God with their sins.
LXXII. Chapter 45, verse 9. "Shall the clay say to the potter: What are you doing, and your work is without hands? Woe to him who says to his father, What are you begetting? and to a woman, What are you bringing forth?" That is to say, so too men ought not to complain or murmur against God on account of the lot given them by Him, even if it be lowly, poor, and wretched. For He is our father and mother: He is the potter, we are the clay.
LXXIII. Verse 15. "Truly You are a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior."
LXXIV. Verse 24. "Every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall swear (that is, shall worship Me)."
Verse 26. "In the Lord all the seed of Israel shall be justified and shall glory."
LXXV. Chapter 46, verse 13. "I will give salvation in Zion, and My glory in Israel," that is to say, I, God, will show My glory in Zion, that is, in the Church; and in Israel, that is, in the faithful.
LXXVI. Chapter 48, verse 4. "I knew that you are stubborn; and your neck is an iron sinew, and your forehead is bronze."
LXXVII. Verse 6. "For My praise I will bridle you, lest you perish," that is to say, with the bridle of My chastisement I will call you back, lest you rush into crimes and into destruction. Whence He adds: "Behold, I have refined you, but not (fully and purely) like silver, I have chosen you in the furnace of poverty."
LXXVIII. Verse 22. "There is no peace for the wicked, says the Lord."
LXXIX. Chapter 50, verse 8. "Near is (God) who justifies Me (Christ), who shall contradict Me?"
LXXX. Chapter 51, verse 9. "Arise, arise, put on strength, O arm of the Lord, etc. Was it not You who struck the proud one, who wounded the dragon?" Namely Pharaoh, who like a dragon, that is, a crocodile, swam in the streams and banks of his Nile, and like a whale in the Red Sea pursued the Hebrews. "Was it not You who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep?" Namely of the Red Sea, so that the Hebrews might cross from Egypt. With equal arm and strength You shall strike the dragon, that is, the devil, and lead Your chosen ones safely through the sea of this world into heaven. Whence it follows: "And now those who are redeemed by the Lord shall return, and shall come to Zion with praises, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads."
LXXXI. Chapter 55, verse 6. "Seek the Lord while He may be found: call upon Him while He is near."
LXXXII. Chapter 56, verse 7. "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."
LXXXIII. Chapter 57, verse 1. "The just man perishes, and no one takes it to heart: and men of mercy are gathered, because there is no one who understands: for the just man is taken away from the face of evil."
LXXXIV. Verse 13. "The wind shall carry away all of them (who trust in idols), a breeze shall take them: but he who has confidence in Me shall inherit the land, and shall possess My holy mountain."
LXXXV. Verse 17. "Because of the iniquity of his avarice I was angry, and I struck him: and I hid My face from you, and was indignant: and he went wandering in the way of his own heart." A great punishment of an angry God is that He allows sinners to wander and fulfill their lusts at will; for thus they rush into every crime, and finally into hell.
LXXXVI. Chapter 58, verse 3. "Why have we fasted, and You have not regarded us: we have humbled our souls, and You have not noticed?" God responds and gives the reason: "Behold, on the day of your fast your own will is found, and you exact payment from all your debtors. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, for a man to afflict his soul for a day? Is it to bow his head like a circle and to spread sackcloth and ashes? Is not this rather the fast I have chosen? Loose the bonds of wickedness, etc., break your bread for the hungry, and bring the needy and the homeless into your house: when you see one naked, cover him."
LXXXVII. Chapter 59, verse 4. "They have conceived toil, and brought forth iniquity," that is to say, they conceive plans to do harm, so that afterwards they may bring them forth and carry them out, and unjustly harass the innocent.
LXXXVIII. Verse 14. "Truth has fallen in the street, and equity could not enter," that is to say, the whole city is full of iniquity and deceit; there is no place for truth and justice, no access.
LXXXIX. Chapter 60, verse 22. "The least shall become a thousand, and a small one a most mighty nation," that is to say, a faithful preacher especially shall produce very many faithful followers like himself, just as St. Francis, small and least in humility, grew into a most numerous family.
XC. Chapter 61, verse 8. "I am the Lord who loves justice, and hates robbery in a burnt offering."
XCI. Verse 9. "All who see them (My faithful) shall acknowledge them, that these are the seed which the Lord has blessed."
XCII. Chapter 64, verse 4. "Eye has not seen, O God, besides You, what You have prepared for those who wait for You."
XCIII. Verse 6. "We have all become as one unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual cloth," namely the justifications of the old law, or the righteousness we sought from the sprinklings and sacrifices of Aaron. For this is the voice of the Jews. Such too were the righteousnesses of the Gentiles, which they claimed for themselves on account of philosophy and moral virtues."
XCIV. Verse 8. "And now, O Lord, You are our father, and we are clay: and You are our maker, and we are all the work of Your hands."
XCV. Verse 11. "The house of our sanctification and our glory, where our fathers praised You, has been burned with fire. Will You restrain Yourself in the face of these things, O Lord, will You be silent and afflict us beyond measure?"
XCVI. Chapter 65, verse 2. "I have spread out My hands all day long to an unbelieving people. Who say: Depart from me, do not come near me, for you are unclean: these shall be smoke in My fury, a fire burning all day long."
XCVII. Verse 13. "Behold, My servants shall eat, and you shall hunger: behold, My servants shall drink, and you shall thirst: behold, My servants shall rejoice, and you shall be confounded: behold, My servants shall praise from exultation of heart, and you shall cry out from sorrow of heart, and shall howl from crushing of spirit."
XCVIII. Verse 23. "My chosen ones shall not labor in vain, nor shall they beget (spiritually, by making faithful and holy people) in trouble: for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall be that before they call, I will hear: while they are yet speaking, I will listen."
XCIX. Chapter 66, verse 2. "To whom shall I look, but to the poor and lowly one, contrite in spirit, who trembles at My words?"
C. Verse 4. "I will choose their delusions: and the things they feared, I will bring upon them: because I called, and there was none who answered, I spoke and they did not hear."
CI. Verse 6. "A voice of the people from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord rendering retribution to His enemies," that is to say, I seem to hear the voice of the people wailing because of the destruction of the city and temple, and from the opposite side the voice of the Lord raging through the mouths of the enemies shouting in triumph, exulting in victory, and insulting the captured people.
CII. Verse 9. "Shall I, who make others bring forth, not bring forth Myself, says the Lord?"
CIII. Verse 10. "Rejoice with Jerusalem, and exult in her, all you who love her, etc., that you may suckle and be filled from the breast of her consolation: that you may drink deeply and abound in delights from her every kind of glory."
CIV. Verse 12. "Behold, I will bend over her (Jerusalem, that is, the Church) like a river of peace, and like an overflowing torrent the glory of the nations, which you shall suckle: you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you."
Verse 13. "As a mother caresses her child, so I will comfort you, and in Jerusalem you shall be comforted."
CV. Verse 14. "Your bones shall sprout like grass," that is to say, your bones, wasted, dry, and dead from sadness and afflictions in the captivity of Babylon, and even more of sin and the devil, shall grow green again and bloom anew with this new freedom and joy, as grass that dies in winter grows green again and revives in spring.
Proverbs and Maxims: From Jeremiah
I. Chapter 2, verse 16. "The sons of Memphis and Tahpanhes also have violated you to the crown of the head," that is to say, the Egyptians who have defiled and polluted you entirely, O Israel, from head to foot with their idolatry and vices.
II. Verse 18. "And now what is your purpose in going to Egypt, to drink the muddy water (of the Nile)? and what is your purpose in going to Assyria, to drink the water of the river" (the Euphrates)? That is to say, why do you run now to the Assyrians, now to the Egyptians, to implore their aid and worship their gods, who will bring you, as they bring water, so also turbid help, sorrowful and ruinous for you?
III. Verse 19. "Your own wickedness shall reprove you, and your turning away shall rebuke you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter to have forsaken the Lord your God."
IV. Verse 20. "From of old you have broken My yoke, you have burst My bonds, and you said: I will not serve."
V. Verse 25. "Keep your foot from being unshod, and your throat from thirst," that is to say, spare yourself the vain and harmful labors by which you bare your feet to cross the rivers to Egypt or Assyria; and so you exhaust yourself with toil and thirst, and in vain: for they cannot help you or free you from your enemies. Whence he adds: "You shall be put to shame by Egypt, as you were put to shame by Assyria."
VI. Chapter 3, verse 1: "It is commonly said: If a man puts away his wife, and she departs from him and takes another husband: shall he return to her again? Shall not that woman be polluted and defiled," so that she neither can nor dares to return to her former husband? "But you have played the harlot with many lovers: yet return to Me, says the Lord."
VII. Verse 3: "You have taken upon yourself the face of a harlot, you have refused to blush. Therefore at least from now on call to Me: My father, You are the guide of my virginity," that is to say, call to Me: You are my first husband, and my lawful spouse from the beginning, O Lord. These are the words of the Synagogue. For when it was born in Egypt, God soon joined it to Himself through Moses at Sinai, and took it as His bride.
VIII. Chapter 4, verse 2. "And you shall swear: As the Lord lives, in truth, and in judgment, and in justice." An oath requires these three qualities; first, truth, lest you swear falsely; second, judgment, so that it may not be done rashly but circumspectly, deliberately, and reverently; third, justice, lest by it you promise or threaten something unjust.
IX. Verse 9. "There shall perish," when the Chaldean enemy comes, "the heart of the king, and the heart of the princes." The heart is a symbol: first, of spirit and courage; second, of counsel and prudence.
X. Verse 10. "Behold, the sword has reached even to the soul." To the inmost parts, so as to divide and sever the soul, that is, the life, from the body.
XI. Verse 15. "A voice of one announcing from Dan, and making known the idol from Mount Ephraim," that is to say, sentinels from Dan and Ephraim cry out that the Chaldean enemy approaches; for they see his idol, namely fire, which the Chaldeans carry before their camp as a god and leader of war.
XII. Verse 18. "Your ways and your thoughts have brought these things upon you: this is your wickedness, because it is bitter, because it has reached your heart," that is to say, your evil ways have brought upon you this gall and wormwood; they themselves have driven the sword of the enemy into your heart and bowels. For behold:
XIII. Verse 19. "My bowels, my bowels, I am in pain," that is to say, while in the spirit I foresee the disasters to be inflicted on the Jews by the Chaldeans, my very heart and bowels seem to be torn and burst with bitterness and grief; how much more, then, shall the same happen to those who will actually receive and feel these disasters.
XIV. Verse 22. "For My people are foolish, they have not known Me: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge."
XV. Chapter 5, verse 3. "You have struck them, and they were not grieved: You have crushed them, and they refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than rock."
XVI. Verse 21. "Hear, O foolish people, who have no understanding: who have eyes and do not see; and ears and do not hear."
XVII. Verse 30. "Astonishment and wonders have come to pass in the land: the prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests applauded with their hands: and the people loved such things: what then shall be done at their end?"
XVIII. Chapter 6, verse 4. "Declare a holy war against her." Proclaim a holy war against Judea, O Chaldeans, holy, I say; because you shall slay the guilty and the condemned, the enemies of God, and shall sacrifice them as victims to divine justice.
XIX. Verse 6. "This is the city of visitation." Destined and devoted by God to visitation, that is, to punishment and destruction, because "all oppression is in her midst."
XX. Verse 13. "From the least to the greatest, all are given to avarice: and from the prophet to the priest, all practice deceit."
XXI. Verse 16. "Stand upon the ways, and see, and ask about the ancient paths" of your fathers and patriarchs, "which is the good way, and walk in it."
XXII. Chapter 7, verse 4. "Do not trust in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord."
XXIII. Chapter 8, verse 4. "Does not he who falls rise again? and he who has turned away, does he not return? Why then has this people of Jerusalem turned away in obstinate rebellion?"
XXIV. Verse 7. "The kite in the sky knows its season; the turtle-dove and the swallow and the stork have observed the time of their coming:" for in spring they return and build nests: "but My people have not known the judgment of the Lord."
XXV. Verse 8. "Truly the lying pen of the scribes has wrought falsehood," that is to say, our teachers proclaim to us not so much the truth and sacred Scripture, as the fictions of their own minds.
XXVI. Verse 11. "And they healed the wound of the daughter of my people to their disgrace, saying: Peace, peace, when there was no peace."
XXVII. Verse 15. "We looked for peace, and there was no good; for a time of healing, and behold terror."
XXVIII. Verse 22. "Is there no balm in Gilead? or is there no physician there? Why then has the wound of the daughter of my people not been healed?" The balm of the Synagogue and of the sick soul is repentance; the physician is the priest and pastor: but those who reject both cannot be healed.
XXIX. Chapter 9, verse 4. "Let everyone guard himself against his neighbor, and let him not trust in any brother: for every brother shall utterly supplant, and every friend shall walk deceitfully." Therefore "your dwelling is in the midst of deceit," that is to say, you dwell, O Jeremiah, in a city so deceitful that it seems to be deceit itself: for it deceitfully pretends to worship God, while it worships idols; hence it also deceitfully feigns friendship with neighbors, while plotting their destruction. Whence he adds: "Their tongue is a wounding arrow, it has spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaks peace with his friend, and secretly he lays snares for him."
XXX. Verse 15. "Behold, I will feed this people with wormwood, and I will give them water of gall to drink." Gall and wormwood are symbols of affliction and bitterness.
XXXI. Verse 23. "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 who glories, glory in this, that he knows and understands Me." Not speculatively, but practically, so that he may worship Me and obey Me, acknowledging and hoping in My mercy, and fearing My justice.
XXXII. Verse 26. "All the nations have foreskins; but the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart," that is to say, the nations are uncircumcised in flesh, but Israel is uncircumcised in heart and mind.
XXXIII. Chapter 10, verse 2. "Do not learn the ways of the nations: and do not fear the signs of the heavens, which the nations fear," that is to say, do not fear and worship the sun, moon, and stars as God, as the nations do.
XXXIV. Verse 7. "Who would not fear You, O King of nations? For to You belongs the honor."
XXXV. Verse 11. "The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens."
XXXVI. Verse 16. "Not like these is the portion (God, whom he worships as his own portion and lot) of Jacob: for He who formed all things, He it is: and Israel is the rod of His inheritance: the Lord of hosts is His name."
XXXVII. Verse 19. "But I said: Surely this is my infirmity, and I shall bear it."
XXXVIII. Verse 23. "I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not his own: nor is it for man to walk and direct his own steps," that is to say, it is not for man, but for God, to direct the acts and steps of men.
XXXIX. Chapter 11, verse 15. "What right has My beloved in My house, when she has committed many crimes?" Bringing idols into the temple and perpetrating other crimes there. "Shall the holy flesh take away from you the wickedness in which you have gloried?"
XL. Chapter 12, verse 1. "You are indeed just, O Lord, if I should dispute with You: yet I will speak what is just to You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why is it well with all who transgress and act unjustly?"
XLI. Verse 3. "Gather them like a flock for the slaughter, and consecrate them for the day of killing," that is to say, slay the impious like victims, and as scapegoats and sin-offerings of the world, sacrifice them to Your justice and vengeance.
XLII. Chapter 13, verse 18. "Say to the king (Jehoiachin) and to the queen-mother: Humble yourselves, sit down: for the crown of your glory shall fall from your heads."
XLIII. Verse 23. "If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard its spots: then you also may do good, when you have learned evil."
XLIV. Chapter 15, verse 1. "Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, My soul would not be turned toward this people. Cast them out from My face, and let them go forth. And if they say: Where shall we go? You shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Those (destined by Me) for death, to death: and those for the sword, to the sword: and those for famine, to famine: and those for captivity, to captivity."
XLV. Verse 9. "Her sun has set while it was still day," that is to say, in full joy and prosperity, she has fallen into extreme adversity and sorrow, as if the sun should suddenly fail at midday.
XLVI. Chapter 17, verse 1. "The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen, with a diamond point, engraved upon the surface of their heart, and upon the horns of their altars," that is to say, the sin of the Jews is indelible, and as if carved in adamant, namely in their adamantine heart, as well as inscribed and engraved upon the altars of their very idols.
XLVII. Verse 5. "Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh (a carnal man, not God) his arm."
XLVIII. Verse 9. "The heart of man is depraved and inscrutable: who can know it? I the Lord, who searches the heart and tests the innermost parts."
XLIX. Verse 13. "O Lord, the hope of Israel: all who forsake You shall be confounded: those who depart from You shall be written in the earth (shall be given over to oblivion, shall perish, shall vanish): because they have forsaken the fountain of living waters."
L. Verse 14. "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for You are my praise," that is to say, because by saving me You make me blessed and praiseworthy.
LI. Verse 16. "And I was not troubled," like a sheep "following You as shepherd, and I did not desire the day of man (the praise, applause, and glory of men), You know."
LII. Chapter 22, verse 22. "The wind shall feed all your shepherds," that is to say, the vain hope which the princes of the Jews place in the Egyptians feeds and sustains them emptily, as if it were wind; for the Egyptians will not be able to free the Jews from the Chaldeans.
LIII. Chapter 23, verse 19. "Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord's indignation shall go forth, and a tempest shall burst upon the head of the wicked."
LIV. Chapter 31, verse 2. "Israel shall go to its rest." Namely, from the Babylonian captivity it shall return to its homeland, and more so spiritual Israel, that is, the faithful, shall go from the captivity of the devil to the Church, and to eternal rest.
LV. Verses 3 and 7. "With an everlasting love I have loved you: therefore I have drawn you, taking pity on you." These are the words of God to Israel; whence He adds: "Exult with joy, O Jacob, and neigh against the head of the nations: shout aloud, and sing, and say: Save, O Lord, Your people, the remnant of Israel, etc."
Verse 9. "I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn." He speaks of the conversion of Israel, that is, of Samaria to Christ, for Samaria was converted before other nations through Peter, John, and Philip, Acts 8.
LVI. Verse 19. "After You converted me, I did penance: and after You showed me" my sins and the state of damnation in which I was, "I struck my thigh," from astonishment and grief.
LVII. Chapter 45, verse 2. "Thus says the Lord God of Israel to you, Baruch: Behold, what I have built, I am destroying: and what I have planted, I am uprooting, and this whole land. And you seek great things for yourself?" That is to say, all Jerusalem is in toil and sorrow: and you, O Baruch, alone seek rest, and everything soft and pleasant?
LVIII. Chapter 46, verse 12. "The strong one stumbled against the strong," namely Pharaoh clashed with Nebuchadnezzar, "and both fell together."
LIX. Verse 17. "Call the name of Pharaoh, the tumult that the time has brought," that is to say, call Pharaoh 'Tumult'; because the time of his tumult, turmoil, and destruction is at hand.
LX. Chapter 47, verse 5. "Baldness has come upon Gaza. Baldness," that is, mourning and servitude. For mourners, as well as slaves, were accustomed to being shaved.
LXI. Verse 6. "O sword of the Lord, how long will you not be still? Enter into your scabbard, cool yourself, and be silent."
"How can it be still, when the Lord has commanded it against Ashkelon, etc., and there appointed it?"
LXII. Chapter 48, verse 9. "Give a flower to Moab, for she shall go forth in bloom: and her cities shall be desolate." This is sarcasm, that is to say, let Moab bloom with riches and glory; but the Chaldeans shall pluck this flower, and make her desolate.
LXIII. Verse 10. "Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully. The work of the Lord" he calls the Lord's vengeance upon Moab. Whence, explaining, he adds: "Cursed is he who withholds his sword from blood."
LXIV. Verse 17. "How is the strong staff broken, the glorious rod? Come down from glory, and sit in thirst," that is to say, O Moab, you who once held the scepter as mistress, and like a rod struck the Jews; now come down like a captive handmaid, and sit in a dry land.
LXV. Verse 28. "Leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, O inhabitants of Moab: and be like a dove nesting in the mouth of a cave," that is to say, flee, O Moabites, from the Chaldeans and the destruction of your cities: flee, I say, like timid doves, to the caverns of the mountains and rocks; whence he adds:
LXVI. Verses 43 and 46. "Terror, and the pit, and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of Moab." And, "Woe to you, Moab, you have perished, O people of Chemosh."
LXVII. Chapter 49, verse 16. "Your arrogance has deceived you (O Edom), and the pride of your heart: you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, and strive to grasp the height of the hill; though you raise your nest as high as the eagle, from there I will drag you down." For the Edomites, dwelling in mountains and rocks, thought themselves impregnable: but God dragged them down from there through the Chaldeans.
LXVIII. Chapter 50, verse 2. "Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is conquered, her graven images are confounded, her idols are overcome."
LXIX. Verse 23. "How is the hammer of the whole earth broken and shattered? How has Babylon been turned into a desert among the nations?" For the Chaldeans, like hammers, struck the Jews and all nations.
LXX. Verse 35. "A sword upon the Chaldeans, says the Lord, etc., a sword upon her diviners, who shall become fools: a sword upon her mighty men, who shall be afraid. A sword upon her horses, and upon her chariots, and upon all the mixed multitude, etc., a sword upon her treasures, which shall be plundered." This sword is that of Cyrus and the Persians, who overthrew Babylon.
LXXI. Chapter 51, verse 20. "You dash for Me the weapons of war, and I will dash nations against you," that is to say, just as you, O Babylon, have dashed the arms of other nations: so I now will dash and crush you and your citizens and inhabitants through the Persians.
LXXII. Verse 39. "In their heat I will set their drink, and I will make them drunk, that they may be drowsy, and sleep an everlasting sleep," that is to say, I will cause Cyrus to invade Babylon and Belshazzar while feasting, and to slaughter the citizens buried in sleep and wine, so that they may sleep an eternal sleep; whence it follows:
LXXIII. Verse 40. "I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with he-goats."
LXXIV. Verse 50. "You who have escaped the sword, come, do not stand still: remember the Lord from afar, and let Jerusalem rise upon your heart," that is to say, O Jews captive in Babylon, who have seen its destruction and escaped, go forward, hasten to your ancestral homeland, longed for through so many years and prayers: let the Lord, His temple, and the city of Jerusalem be ever before your minds.
Proverbs and Maxims: From Lamentations
I. Chapter 1, verse 4. "The ways of Zion mourn, because there are none who come to the feast. They mourn," that is, they are squalid and deserted. This is a catachresis.
II. Verse 6. "From the daughter of Zion all her beauty has departed."
III. Verse 8. "Jerusalem has sinned grievously, therefore she has become unstable." Virtue is stable, which rests on stable law, reason, and God: sin and sinners are unstable, who are driven by unstable desire, the world, and the devil.
IV. Verse 12. "O all you who pass by the way, attend and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow." This is the voice of Jerusalem devastated by the Chaldeans.
V. Verse 13. "From on high He has sent fire (the thunderbolt of His wrath and vengeance) into my bones: He has spread a net for my feet," so that I might be captured, bound, and ensnared by the Chaldeans.
VI. Verse 20. "Outside the sword kills, and at home there is the likeness of death," that is to say, neither at home nor outside is there safety and rest for me: for on both sides the Chaldeans slaughter my children and citizens.
VII. Chapter 2, verse 11. "My liver is poured out upon the ground," that is to say, from grief I have as it were poured out my inward parts. For the liver is the seat of love and desire, and consequently also of the opposite grief and compassion.
VIII. Verse 13. "Great as the sea is your destruction:" you have come, O Zion, into the waves and the sea of sorrows and evils.
IX. Verse 15. "They have hissed and wagged their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: Is this the city, they say, of perfect beauty, the joy of the whole earth?"
X. Verse 18. "Let tears run down like a torrent, day and night: give yourself no rest, nor let the pupil of your eye be still (let it not cease from weeping)."
XI. Verse 19. "Arise, give praise (praising, call upon God) in the night, at the beginning of the watches: pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord."
XII. Verse 20. "Shall women then eat their fruit, their little ones the span of a palm? Shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?"
XIII. Chapter 3, verse 17. "My soul is removed from peace, I have forgotten what is good. And I said, My end has perished," that is to say, there shall be no end to my evils, "and my hope from the Lord."
XIV. Verse 22. "It is the mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed."
"They are new every morning (suns of blessings arise daily, and come to us from God); great is Your faithfulness (fidelity in these things, namely in fulfilling what has been promised to us)."
XV. Verse 24. "The Lord is my portion, said my soul; therefore I will wait for the Lord."
XVI. Verse 25. "The Lord is good to those who hope in Him, to the soul that seeks Him. It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of God."
XVII. Verse 27. "It is good for a man to bear the yoke (of discipline and tribulations) from his youth."
XVIII. Verse 28. "He shall sit alone and be silent: because he has taken it upon himself," that is to say, the pious man shall silently take upon his shoulders and bear the burden of tribulations sent and imposed on him by God.
Verse 30. "He shall give his cheek to the one who strikes him, he shall be filled with reproaches: for the Lord will not cast him off forever."
XIX. Verse 37. "Who is he who said and it came to pass, when the Lord did not command it?" What atheist would say that these crosses are not sent to us by God's providence, but come by chance, fate, or nature?
XX. Verse 39. "Why should a living man complain, a man for his sins? Let us search our ways, and seek, and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens."
XXI. Verse 44. "You have placed a cloud before Yourself, so that prayer may not pass through."
XXII. Verse 45. "You have made me an outcast and refuse in the midst of the peoples."
XXIII. Verse 51. "My eye has plundered my soul because of all the daughters of my city," that is to say, my eye, seeing the daughters of Zion captured, mocked, and violated, has as it were snatched away my soul and life, so that from grief I fell into a faint, and was as it were struck lifeless.
XXIV. Chapter 4, verse 10. "The hands of women (otherwise) compassionate (but cruel from hunger) have cooked their own children: they became their food, in the destruction of the daughter of my people."
Verse 11. "The Lord has fulfilled His fury."
XXV. Verse 18. "Our days are fulfilled, for our end has come."
XXVI. Chapter 5, verse 1. "Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us: behold and regard our reproach."
"Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners. We have become orphans without a father, our mothers are as widows: we drink our water for money: we were threatened on our necks: no rest was given to the weary: slaves have ruled over us: women have been humiliated in Zion: princes have been hung by their hands: boys have fallen upon the wood."
XXVII. Verse 16. "The crown has fallen from our head: woe to us, for we have sinned. Why do You forget us forever? Convert us, O Lord, to You, and we shall be converted: renew our days as from the beginning."
Proverbs and Maxims: From Baruch
I. Chapter 2, verse 6. "To the Lord our God belongs justice: but to us and to our fathers belongs confusion of face, as it is this day," as is evident today.
II. Verse 17. "Open Your eyes (O Lord), for not the dead, etc., but the soul that is sorrowful over the greatness of evil, and goes bowed down and feeble, and the failing eyes, and the hungry soul give You glory and justice, O Lord."
III. Chapter 3, verse 2. "Hear, O Lord, for You sit forever, and we shall perish for eternity. For once dead, we shall remain dead forever, nor shall we return to this present life.
IV. Verse 9. "Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life: give ear, that you may learn prudence. What is it, O Israel, that you are in the land of your enemies? You have grown old in a foreign land, you are defiled with the dead: you are counted among those who go down into hell, you have forsaken the fountain of wisdom; for if you had walked in the way of God, you would surely have dwelt in everlasting peace. Learn where prudence is, where virtue is, where understanding is: that you may know at the same time where length of life and nourishment are, where the light of the eyes is, and peace."
V. Verse 24. "O Israel, how great is the house of God, and how vast the place of His possession!"
"Great is He, and has no end, exalted and immeasurable."
VI. Chapter 4, verse 4. "Blessed are we, O Israel; because the things that are pleasing to God have been made known to us."
VII. Verse 20. "I have put off the garment of peace, I have put on the sackcloth of supplication, and I will cry to the most high God in my days." These are the words of Jerusalem destroyed, which implores God for her children and citizens; whence she adds:
VIII. Verse 23. "I sent you forth (to Babylon) with mourning and weeping: but the Lord shall bring you back with joy and gladness forever."
IX. Verse 28. "For as your mind was set to go astray from God: so when you turn back, you shall seek Him tenfold."
X. Verse 36. "Look about, O Jerusalem, toward the East, and see the joy that comes to you from God. For behold, your children whom you sent away dispersed are coming, gathered from East to West, rejoicing in the word of the Holy One, to the honor of God."
XI. Chapter 5, verse 4. "For your name shall be called by God forever: Peace of justice, and honor of piety." He speaks of Jerusalem, as I said; but he rises to the spiritual, namely to the Church, both militant and triumphant, to which these things most fittingly apply.
Proverbs and Maxims: From Ezekiel
I. Chapter 3, verse 8. "Behold, I have made your face stronger than their faces, and your forehead harder than their foreheads. Like adamant and like flint I have made your face."
II. Verse 17. "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. If, when I say to the wicked: You shall surely die: you do not warn him, that he may turn from his wicked way and live: that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand."
III. Chapter 7, verse 19. "Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the fury of the Lord."
IV. Chapter 12, verse 22. "Son of man, what is this proverb of yours in the land of Israel, saying: The days shall be prolonged, and every vision shall come to nothing?" That is to say, the threats of the prophets are delayed, and are not actually fulfilled; therefore they shall perish, and shall be void and fleeting. "Therefore say to them: I will make this proverb cease: For there shall no longer be any vision that is void, nor any divination that is ambiguous: whatever word I shall speak, it shall come to pass, and shall be delayed no more."
V. Chapter 14, verse 14. "If these three men were in the midst of it (Jerusalem), Noah, Daniel, and Job: they by their own righteousness shall save their own souls, etc., but they shall save neither sons nor daughters."
VI. Chapter 16, verse 3. "Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite," that is to say, O Israel, you are so impious that you seem to be the son not of Abraham, but of the Amorites and Hittites.
VII. Verse 49. "Behold, this was the iniquity of Sodom your sister: pride, fullness of bread and abundance, and the idleness of her and her daughters: and they did not extend their hand to the needy and the poor."
VIII. Chapter 18, verse 2. "What is it that among you you turn this parable into a proverb in the land of Israel, saying: The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge?" That is to say, our fathers sinned, and we pay for their sins, and are punished for them. To this God responds: "As I live, says the Lord God, this parable shall no longer be a proverb among you in Israel. Behold, all souls are Mine: the soul that sins, it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the just shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."
IX. Verse 21. "But if the wicked man does penance, etc., all his iniquities which he has committed shall not be remembered."
Verse 24. "But if the just man turns away from his justice, and commits iniquity, etc., all his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered."
X. Verse 31. "Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I do not will the death of the dying, says the Lord God: turn back and live."
XI. Chapter 21, verse 9. "A sword, a sword is sharpened and polished. To slay victims it is sharpened: to flash it is polished."
Verse 16. "Be sharpened, go to the right or to the left, wherever the desire of your face calls you."
Verse 28. "O sword, O sword, unsheathe yourself to kill, polish yourself to slay and to flash."
XII. Chapter 22, verse 18. "Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me: all these are bronze, and tin, and iron, and lead in the midst of the furnace: they have become the dross of silver. Therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem, and I will kindle a fire in her for smelting."
XIII. Verse 24. "Son of man, say to her: You are an unclean land, not rained upon in the day of fury. The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion seizing prey; they have devoured souls, they have taken riches and valuables: they have multiplied her widows."