Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
This chapter is full of complaint, and is like one continuous outburst of emotion. For God the spouse rebukes the people of Israel, as a bride, because having abandoned Him, she clings to adulterers, that is, to idols and idolaters, as if God were powerless or neglected His own. The same may rightly be applied to Christians who fix their hopes not in God, but in men, riches, and power; indeed every sinner does this.
Vulgate Text: Jeremiah 2:1-37
1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2. Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus says the Lord: I have remembered you, having compassion on your youth, and the love of your betrothal, when you followed Me in the desert, in a land that is not sown. 3. Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of His increase: all who devour him offend; evil shall come upon them, says the Lord. 4. Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. 5. Thus says the Lord: What iniquity did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me, and walked after vanity, and became vain? 6. And they did not say: Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land uninhabitable and impassable, through a land of drought and the shadow of death, through a land in which no man walked, nor any man dwelt? 7. And I brought you into the land of Carmel, to eat its fruit and its best things: and when you entered you defiled My land, and made My inheritance an abomination. 8. The priests did not say: Where is the Lord? And those who held the law did not know Me, and the pastors transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied in Baal, and followed idols. 9. Therefore I will yet contend with you in judgment, says the Lord, and I will plead with your children. 10. Pass over to the islands of Kittim, and see; and send to Kedar, and consider diligently; and see if such a thing has been done. 11. If a nation has changed its gods, and indeed they are not gods; but My people has changed its glory for an idol. 12. Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and let your gates be utterly desolate, says the Lord. 13. For My people has committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. 14. Is Israel a servant, or a homeborn slave? Why then has he become a prey? 15. The lions have roared over him and raised their voice; they have made his land a desolation; his cities are burned, and there is no one dwelling in them. 16. The children of Memphis and Tahpanhes have also ravished you even to the crown of the head. 17. Has not this been done to you because you have forsaken the Lord your God at the time when He led you by the way? 18. And now what do you want in the way of Egypt, to drink the turbid water? And what do you want in the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of the river? 19. Your own wickedness shall reprove you, and your apostasy shall rebuke you. Know and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and that My fear is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts. 20. From of old you have broken your yoke, you have burst your bonds, and you said: I will not serve. For upon every high hill, and under every leafy tree, you lay down as a harlot. 21. Yet I planted you a choice vine, all true seed: how then have you turned into the degenerate shoots of a strange vine for Me? 22. Though you wash yourself with nitre, and multiply to yourself the herb borith, you are stained in your iniquity before Me, says the Lord God. 23. How can you say: I am not polluted, I have not walked after the Baals? See your ways in the valley, know what you have done: a swift runner tracing out her ways. 24. A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness, in the desire of her soul she snuffed up the wind of her love: no one shall turn her away; all who seek her shall not grow weary; in her monthly time they shall find her. 25. Keep your foot from being unshod, and your throat from thirst. And you said: It is hopeless; no, I will not do it; for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go. 26. As a thief is confounded when he is caught, so the house of Israel is confounded — they, and their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets — 27. saying to wood: You are my father; and to stone: You bore me. They have turned their back to Me, and not their face; and in the time of their affliction they will say: Arise, and deliver us. 28. Where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise and deliver you in the time of your affliction; for according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah. 29. Why do you wish to contend with Me in judgment? You have all forsaken Me, says the Lord. 30. In vain I struck your children; they received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a ravaging lion. 31. O generation, see the word of the Lord: Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness? Why then does My people say: We have gone our own way, we will come no more to You? 32. Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her breast-band? Yet My people has forgotten Me days without number. 33. How well you direct your way to seek love! You who moreover have taught your ways wickedness, 34. and in your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor and innocent. Not in secret did I find them, but upon all these things that I have mentioned. 35. And you said: I am without sin and innocent; and therefore let Your anger be turned away from me. Behold, I will contend with you in judgment, because you said: I have not sinned. 36. How exceedingly base you have become, repeating your ways!
and you will be put to shame by Egypt, just as you were put to shame by Assyria. 37. For from her also you shall go forth, and your hands shall be upon your head; for the Lord has rejected your confidences, and you shall have no success in them.
Note the method of preaching that Jeremiah follows here; for first, he shows God's marvelous goodness and continual beneficence toward the people; second, the people's ingratitude, idolatry, and crimes; third, he exhorts them to return to their former friendship with God, lest they be handed over to enemies, as in fact they were later handed over; nor should they hope in the help of the Egyptians, because they would be treated by them just as their forebears were treated by the Assyrians, to whom they had fled. For these are the three things a preacher must drive home. Moreover, he speaks of the future captivity as if it were already past, on account of its certainty and the certainty of this prophecy.
God therefore here presses Israel with sixteen arguments or goads: first, verse 2, He charges that they have abandoned the betrothal and covenant made with God at Sinai, where Israel was consecrated to God as holy and as firstfruits; second, verse 5, What iniquity, He says, did you find in Me, that you should follow vain idols? third, verse 6, I led you out of Egypt through a dreadful desert into a fertile land: why then do you spurn Me? fourth, verse 10, The nations do not change their false gods; why do you change the true God? fifth, verse 12, Be astonished, He says, O heavens, because Israel has forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and has dug for himself broken cisterns; sixth, verse 14, Because of idolatry you have been given to the flames and as prey to lions, that is, to the Assyrians — therefore repent; seventh, verse 20, From of old you have broken the yoke: thus you have slipped from one idol to another, from one crime to another; eighth, verse 21, I planted you a choice vine — how have you become adulterous? ninth, verse 24, As a wild donkey rages toward the female, so you toward idols; tenth, verse 25, Idols lead you to nakedness, thirst, and poverty; eleventh, verse 27, Foolishly, why do you say to wood: You are my father? It will not deliver you from enemies; twelfth, verse 30, The prophets whom I sent to recall you, you slew; thirteenth, verse 32, A virgin does not forget her breast-band: you forget your God; fourteenth, verse 33, You have taught others your wickedness, and burned your children to the idol Moloch; fifteenth, verse 36, How exceedingly base you have become! sixteenth, verse 37, I will take from you all prosperity and all your hopes.
From these you may gather that sin contains various kinds of malice; but especially five: the first is that it is against right reason, or unbecoming to rational nature. Hence Seneca used to say: "Even if I knew that men would not know, and that God would forgive, I would still not wish to sin because of the baseness of sin." The second is that it is against this or that virtue in particular, e.g. pride against humility, etc.; but virtues are the good and perfection of man and angel. The third is that it inflicts on us temporal losses, e.g. infamy, disease, punishment, etc. The fourth is that it is an offense and a certain evil against God, contrary to His honor; for the sinner, having abandoned the Creator, clings to a creature, e.g. a woman, wine, honor, and prefers her to the Creator, and therefore tacitly and interpretively places his supreme good in her, and consequently deprives God of His quasi supreme goodness and divinity; so that if God could be slain by some weapon or sword, He would be slain by nothing other than sin. So that rightly a certain holy virgin, as she was dying, said: I depart from this world with this single incapacity: that I cannot comprehend how a creature can deliberately commit a mortal sin against its Creator. The fifth is that it deprives us of eternal life, and consigns us to eternal fires and punishments.
Whence, secondly, you may gather these axioms about the malice of sin. First, sin is the source and parent of all evils that are, have been, and shall be under the sun. Who made a demon and Lucifer out of an angel? Sin. Who cast Adam and mankind out of paradise and heaven into this vale of sorrows? Who condemned them to death and hell? Sin. Who brought the flood upon the whole world in Noah's time? Sin. Who burned Pentapolis with heavenly fire? Sin. Second, one sin, even venial, is a greater evil than all the evils of punishment combined. For the former is the evil of fault, the latter of punishment; but the evil of fault is of a higher order than all evils of punishment. Third, all other evils compared to sin are not evils, but goods; for they flow from the goodness and virtue of vindicative justice, which corrects sin through punishment and restores order. Fourth, sin is deicide; for sin is the only poison, the only dagger, by which God almighty could be removed, if there were anything that could remove that inexhaustible ocean of life and being. Fifth, it was more fitting that the Son of God should become man and suffer such indignities, than that sin should go unavenged. Who disfigured Christ, so beautiful, like a leper, scourged Him with whips, crowned Him with thorns, crucified Him, killed Him? Sin. Sin therefore is Christicide. Sixth, even if all the angels, good and evil, and every creature, and indeed the Creator Himself, had conspired against you, and had determined to unleash all their power of affliction upon you: they could in no way harm you as much, even by God's absolute power, as you harm yourself when you commit one sin, even only a venial one. Seventh, the malice of sin cannot be compensated by any created good
compensated; so much so that not even to convert the whole world would it be licit to commit even one venial sin. Indeed, its malice must be called not only ineffable but also incomprehensible. Rightly therefore the Martyrs and Saints resisted sin even unto death. See their words in Hebrews 12:4. Finally, this golden saying of St. Augustine in his Sentences, Sentence 159, is worth noting: "There is one supreme good, and another supreme evil" — the latter is sin, the former God. "The former, for the sake of which all other goods are to be desired, and itself for its own sake; the latter, for the sake of which all other evils are to be avoided, and itself for its own sake."
GO — from Anathoth to Jerusalem, which He here addresses as a bride and woman. Moreover, Jerusalem refers to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, by metonymy.
I HAVE REMEMBERED YOU, HAVING COMPASSION ON YOUR YOUTH. — Thus He calls the first age of the fathers and of the Synagogue, as if to say: I remember and I call to your memory that first age, when I, God, not because of your beauty, wisdom, riches, grace, or merit, but by pure mercy, took you, poor and wretched as you were in Egypt and the desert, as My bride, led you out, protected you, and as a kind of betrothal gift and dowry, distributed to you the ornaments of the law, the tabernacle, and the priesthood, so that through them you would keep the fidelity that brides, especially young girls and maidens, keep toward their husbands. So St. Jerome and Theodoret. Truly did Blessed Nazianzen say: "Israel bore the firstfruits of eternal providence."
THE LOVE OF YOUR BETROTHAL. — Note: the love of the betrothal can be taken either as the love of God by which He betrothed the Synagogue to Himself — so St. Jerome, Rabanus, St. Thomas, Vatablus — or as the love of the Synagogue the bride, who, drawn by so many benefits, responded to God her Spouse with love, obedience, and mutual devotion, and was passionately devoted to Him, and followed Him through the desert. So the Chaldean, Theodoret, Hugo, Lyra, Dionysius a Castro, as if to say: Remember and see how sweet and delightful our first marriage was on both sides, and how rashly you departed from your first love. He reopens this wound to strike the bride more sharply and fully. The latter sense is favored by what follows: "When you followed Me in the desert;" and the Septuagint who translate: I remembered the love of your perfection; for as brides at their weddings adorn and perfect themselves with every beauty and ornament so as to be loved by their spouses, so too the Synagogue of the Jews, at the beginning, that is, in the time of Moses, Aaron, Joshua, etc., was adorned and perfected by faith and the worship of the one God, so as to deserve to be loved in return by God. Hence the Syriac translates: I remembered for you the grace (beneficence) of your childhood, and your vital patience, because you walked after Me in the desert, and in the land that is not sown; and the Arabic: I remembered for you, O Jerusalem, the grace of your youth, and your state in blandishments, and the patience of your endurance.
Verse 3
3. ISRAEL WAS HOLY TO THE LORD ("holy" through grace and charity, say Theodoret and Hugo. Secondly and better: in Hebrew, holiness was Israel to the Lord, that is, Israel was like a sacred thing dedicated to the Lord, which must not be polluted, Exodus 19. So St. Jerome, St. Thomas, Lyra, Vatablus. Again, Israel was as) THE FIRSTFRUITS OF HIS INCREASE — namely of God: that is, the Israelites were like firstfruits from among all nations, dedicated to the worship of God, just as the firstfruits of crops were offered and dedicated to God; hence a layman who ate them sinned and was liable to death, Leviticus 22:3. So too the enemies of Israel, who plunder and "devour him" as a thing consecrated to God, even if they do so by God's will, they "offend," and "evils," from God the avenger, "shall come upon them." So the Chaldean and St. Jerome. Moreover, Israel began to be holy and as firstfruits to God from the very beginning, when through Moses in the desert he received God's law and worship, and as a sign of this was commanded to set apart and offer the firstfruits of his crops to God. This is clearly signified by the Arabic version, which reads: Where (in the desert) I sanctified Israel, and enrolled (claimed) him for Myself, and commanded him to separate in My sight the beginning (firstfruits) of his crops. And I said: against those who wish to eat their goods, I will bring evil. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Israel is not a profane people like the rest, but consecrated to God; therefore whoever injures him or reduces him to slavery will be guilty of sacrilege, and will be punished by God as a sacrilegious person. Thus God punished the Assyrians who devastated the ten tribes through the Medes, and the Chaldeans who devastated the two tribes He punished and overthrew through Cyrus. Hence David prays for Israel, saying in Psalm 73:2: "Remember Your congregation, which You possessed from the beginning."
Verse 4
4. HEAR — as if to say: You, O Israelites, I appoint as judges, that you may judge whether the fault of this divorce lies with Me or with you. So St. Chrysostom, Sermon 4 On Providence.
Verse 5
5. INIQUITY — that is, first, unfaithfulness; second, cruelty, as if to say: In what respect did I mistreat My bride, namely you, O Jews?
THEY WALKED AFTER VANITY — that is, after idols, which, because they are vain and false gods whom you set against the true God, have likewise made you their worshipers vain and false, as well as your worship and religion, indeed your superstition. So St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Theodoret, Hugo, St. Thomas, Lyra. However, secondly, every other vanity that is in any sin may be understood here: for every sin is love of a vain thing.
THEY BECAME VAIN — that is, they became like their idols, without reason, without sense, as David curses them in Psalm 113:8: "Let those who make them become like them (the idols), and all who trust in them." So likewise every sinner becomes vain and brutish when he pursues vain and brutish pleasures. Sin, says St. Thomas here, is called vanity: first, because it is fanciful in choosing, Psalm 39:5: Blessed is the man whose hope is the name of the Lord, and who has not looked upon vanities and false follies; second, because it is transitory in enduring, Psalm 77:33: Their days were consumed in vanity; third, because it is deceptive in expectation, Sirach 34:1: Vain hope and lies are for the foolish man, and dreams excite the imprudent; fourth, because it is fruitless in attaining, so that they rightly apply that saying of Isaiah 49:4: I have labored in vain, without cause, and I have spent my strength for nothing. Thus far St. Thomas.
Verse 6
6. THEY DID NOT SAY — as if to say: They did not remember God their guide through the desert into Canaan, by whom they were delivered from so many evils and heaped with so many goods.
THROUGH A LAND OF DROUGHT — through an arid, parched land, which makes men thirst: hence the Septuagint translates, through a land without water.
AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH. — Theodoret, Vatablus, and Pagninus translate: the shadow of death; both because in the desert there was no plant, no fruit, nothing life-giving — hence the Septuagint translates: barren; and because the wilderness was dreadful and full of mortal dangers, namely poisonous animals, that is, scorpions and serpents, as is clear from Deuteronomy 4:15. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo, St. Thomas, Lyra. Add, thirdly, the enemies who encountered Israel in this desert to destroy and annihilate them: for on their account the desert was terrifying to the Hebrews, like a shadow of death.
7. I BROUGHT YOU INTO THE LAND OF CARMEL. — Note that the Hebrew Carmel is sometimes a proper name, signifying a most fertile mountain of the Holy Land, most productive in wine, Joshua 19:26, where Elijah frequently stayed, 1 Kings 18:19; from there it is sometimes transferred to similar places, and is a common name for any fertile and pleasant field. Hence Carmel signifies fertility and abundance of all things, that is, a most fruitful land, such as Judea was. So it is used in Isaiah 29:17: "Lebanon," he says, "shall be turned into Carmel." So St. Jerome and Vatablus. Carmel therefore, like the Vale of Tempe and the Gardens of the Hesperides in the Poets, is a symbol of fruitfulness and delights. Carmel can be taken here in either way: for it signifies most fertile Judea, either as a common name or as a proper name; that is, from the fertile mountain understanding all of Judea as equally fertile, signifying the whole from the part by synecdoche. Thirdly, the Chaldean, supplying "as," translates: I brought you into the land of Israel, which was planted like Carmel.
Note: In Judea there were two Mount Carmels: one barren, in the lot of Ephraim, where Nabal lived; the other in the tribe of Asher, near Ptolemais, fertile, which is the one discussed here.
AND MY INHERITANCE (the land which I gave you, namely Judea, which was Mine as an inheritance, because I chose it so that I might be worshiped there and have a temple) YOU HAVE MADE AN ABOMINATION — namely, an idol-house, that is, a house and temple of idols. So the Chaldean.
Verse 8
8. THE PRIESTS (not only the ignorant people, whom ignorance could to some extent excuse, but even the priests and those learned in the law, indeed even) THE PASTORS (that is, the kings and princes, say the Chaldean, Theodoret, Hugo, St. Thomas, Lyra) TRANSGRESSED AGAINST ME. — They lived as if they had not known Me.
THE PROPHETS PROPHESIED IN BAAL — from Baal, as if to say: They sought oracles and knowledge of the future not from Me, but from the idol and demon Baal, and passed these off as true prophecies.
9. I WILL CONTEND WITH YOU IN JUDGMENT — and therein I will convict you as transgressors, says Theodoret. This is clear from what follows.
Verse 10
10. PASS OVER TO THE ISLANDS OF KITTIM. — Kittim was a city in Cyprus; hence Zeno, the founder of the Stoics, who came from there, was called the Citian. From there Cyprus, and other islands, even Italy, as is clear from Numbers 24:24, and Greece, 1 Maccabees 1:1, were called Kittim. For the Hebrews called peoples separated from them by the Mediterranean Sea "Islanders," because they came to them who lived on the mainland by ships, just as the Italians call all those living beyond the Alps Tramontani. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, and Josephus, Antiquities, Book I, chapter 11. Theodoret adds in his commentary on Ezekiel 27, and Josephus in Antiquities I.6, that Kittim the son of Javan, the son of Japheth, the son of Noah, was the first to occupy Cyprus, and from him Cyprus was called Kittim.
KEDAR — is a region of Arabia, named from Kedar the second son of Ishmael, Genesis 25:13. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo, and Vatablus. But Theodoret takes Kedar to mean all the Eastern peoples, just as Kittim means the Western peoples, as if to say: You treat Me more harshly and unjustly than any nations, however barbarous, treat their idols.
Verse 11
11. AND INDEED THEY ARE NOT GODS — as if to say: All nations were more zealous in retaining and worshiping false gods than you were in worshiping the true God.
HE HAS CHANGED HIS GLORY FOR AN IDOL. — By "glory" he means the worship of the true God, by which Israel was glorious: this he transferred to an idol. So the Chaldean. Secondly and more aptly, by "glory" he means the glorious God Himself: for He is the glory of Israel, indeed of the whole world, and in Him alone is one to glory, with David in Psalm 3:4: "You, O Lord, are my protector, my glory, and the lifter up of my head." Hence the Apostle, alluding to this, says in Romans 1:23: "They changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of a corruptible man," because namely they seized from the true God the glorious majesty, titles, and honors of divinity, and transferred them to an idol. So Hugo, Lyra, Dionysius, and Vatablus.
Verse 12
12. BE ASTONISHED, O HEAVENS, AT THIS — prodigy of malice, which I am about to declare. ITS GATES. — Now the Hebrew has שערו saaru, that is, shudder. Thus the Septuagint and our translator read with shin שערו saaru; that is, its gates, namely of them, that is, of the heavens, which were mentioned just before. For we call heaven now in the singular, now in the plural: and heavens are the same as heaven. BE DESOLATE — that is, in the manner of those who are desolate, show sadness, out of astonishment and horror at such great impiety of Israel; pour forth rains like tears; stir up lightning and storms, as signs of grief and avengers of the injury to your Creator. So St. Jerome, Vatablus, Lyra, and Maldonatus, who adds: Be desolate, he says, that is, burst forth with lightning, as a sign of God's wrath. It is a personification for emotional effect; similar to Isaiah 1:2 and Deuteronomy 4:26.
Note: For "be desolate" the Hebrew has חרבו charabu, that is, dry up, as Leo the Hebrew translates. This desolation therefore is not that which is directly opposed to consolation and signifies sadness and grief; but it is that which is opposed to abundance and multitude. For to be desolated is the same as to be left alone, to be reduced to solitude, to be destroyed, to be laid waste. Thus we say fields, cities, and kingdoms are desolated when they are devastated by an enemy. So Pliny, Book 17, chapter 12, says of the eagle-owl: "It inhabits deserted places, not only desolate but also terrible and inaccessible." To desolate, therefore, is not the same as to level to the ground; for it is not derived from solum taken as a substantive meaning earth — for in that case solum has a short first syllable, while in desolor it is long — but from solum taken as an adjective, and it means the same as to be made alone, to be abandoned, to be deprived of one's abundance and glory. From this, however, follows desolation opposed to consolation, that is, grief and mourning; from which in turn follow tears, groans, etc. It is therefore a metalepsis: for from desolation and dryness he understands sadness, and from sadness tears, as if to say: You, O heavens, and gates of the heavens, that is, the hinges, or the outermost surface, through which, as through gates, the force and influence of the heavens goes forth upon the earth — be astonished and shudder at such great malice and ingratitude of earthlings, so that from astonishment you may seem, as if thunderstruck, to tremble and be shaken from your hinges. Again, mourn and weep, pouring forth rains, lightning, and thunder, so that from grief and sorrow you may seem to be desolated, that is, to waste away, dry up, and vanish; for they themselves have desolated Me, that is, left Me alone, though I am the fountain of living water for them, going instead to broken cisterns. Therefore it has been justly repaid them that lions should make their land a desolation; hence their cities are burned and there is no one dwelling in them, as follows in verse 15. Therefore represent both My desolation and the desolation of the land by your own desolation, and thrust it in the face and eyes of these hardened earthlings, if perchance they may open their eyes, be crushed, and repent. Hence for "be desolate," the Syriac translates, tremble; the Arabic, be dissolved with fear.
Sanchez interprets differently: for he considers "to be desolated" to mean the same as "to be leveled to the ground;" and by the gates of heaven he understands the rising and setting of the sun, or the sun, moon, and stars. To these it is said: "Be desolate," that is, withdraw your splendor and beauty, so that you may not appear and may seem to have perished.
Theodoret, Hugo, St. Thomas, and Lyra also interpret differently. The heavens, they say, that is, the Angels in heaven, be astonished; and the gates, that is, the chief Angels, and as it were the judges of the others, says St. Thomas, be desolate.
Verse 13
13. FOR MY PEOPLE HAS COMMITTED TWO EVILS (contrary to the two goods which I had commanded them: to depart from evil and to do good, Psalm 36:27). The first: THEY HAVE FORSAKEN ME, THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATER. — "Living," that is, perpetually flowing, life-giving, bestowing life. The Arabic translates: I was for them a fountain of sweet and praiseworthy water, free from every fault. This perennial fountain of water, that is, of grace and all good things, is God, Psalm 35:10: "For with You is the fountain of life."
Even the Gentiles saw this very thing; hence Trismegistus, Dialogue 7: "Look up, O mortals," he says, "and come to your senses, and return to the fountain of life." And Alcinous, in his book On the Doctrine of Plato: "Our good," he says, "if anyone has read Plato's books carefully, he will find to have been placed in the very contemplation of the first good, which indeed may be called the first good, and God, and the first mind." This proverbial saying of the Prophet is explained with beautiful and similar parables by St. Ephrem, Treatise On Divine Grace, volume 1: "Those who have a fountain," he says, "do not need a drop. Those who pasture a flock do not need milk. Those who break bread have no need of crumbs. Those who make honey need not taste the flavor of honey. Those who have a pearl do not labor to acquire a penny."
The second: THEY DUG FOR THEMSELVES CISTERNS, BROKEN CISTERNS. The Syriac translates: shattered; the Arabic: split, in which water collects but
deadly pleasures, cannot be without the fear of grief. And those who by their greater swelling of pride do not at all feel the evil of their desertion, to others who know how to discern this, how great their misery is becomes clear." Since therefore all true delight is in God alone, the sinner, depriving himself of it, feels all bitterness: because having abandoned the fountain of life, whether he wills it or not, he clings to the fountain of death and of all evils.
it remains. These cisterns, say St. Jerome and Theodoret, are idols; first, because they have no divinity or power except what is attributed to them by human ignorance. Second, just as a cistern is filled with turbid waters, so what idols and demons give is turbid. Third, idols are broken cisterns, cracked, badly cemented, which cannot hold water, because nothing that would relieve the soul's thirst is to be expected from them. Again, the broken cisterns are the idolatrous nations, namely the Egyptians and Assyrians, from whom the Jews alternately sought help when hard-pressed by wars. This is clear from verse 18.
Tropologically, every sinner, having abandoned the fountain, seeks cisterns, because in every sin there is, first, a turning away from God, the uncreated and immeasurable good, and a turning toward a good that is perishable, fragile, paltry, and turbid; second, there is contempt of God, in preference for the honor and love of a creature; third, by sinning, the sinner as it were takes from God the title and character of the ultimate end, and transfers all his hopes to a creature. Is this not the supreme affront to God? The supreme folly and madness of the sinner? For he says both in words and deeds what that foolish miser in Nazianzen's treatise On Fortune and Prudence says: "A drop of good fortune is worth more to me than a cask of wisdom." Which the wise man aptly refutes and turns back, saying: "A drop of good sense is worth more to me than a cask of good fortune." For the sinner foolishly prefers and places a clod of earth before the whole heaven, a creature before the Creator, a moment before eternity. The prudent and the Saints do the opposite.
Hence, first, this saying is rightly applied to heretics: for they abandon the pure fountain of the doctrine of faith in the Church, and dig for themselves confused cisterns of false dogmas. So St. Irenaeus, Book III, chapter 40; St. Cyprian, Epistle 70; and St. Athanasius, Sermon Against All Heresies. Second, Blessed Peter Damian, cited in Tilmann's Allegories, applies the same to garrulous monks, who, having abandoned the praises of God and pious discourses — as it were the vital fountain — make their mouths cisterns, from which they bring forth not new but old man's futile words, and broken ones at that: because they do not know how to restrain their lips with moderate discretion.
Third, Hugo says: The miser is an old and cracked cistern that can never be filled with water, that is, with riches. Second, it is the cleric who, having abandoned the study of Sacred Scripture, gives himself to vain sciences. Third, it is the Religious who in temptation seeks futile human consolations and does not ask God for what is true and solid. "This happens," he says, "when prayer is loathed in temptations, and instead of mitigating them, one occupies oneself with jocular and useless words."
Finally, St. Augustine, in his Sentences, Sentence 339: "How great and of what kind a good God is," he says, "is now clearly shown from this: that no one who departs from God fares well, because even those who rejoice in deadly pleasures cannot be without the fear of grief."
Verse 14
14. IS HE A SERVANT? — These are the words not of Jerusalem complaining about her lot, as Vatablus thinks, but of God, as if to say: Israel is the firstborn of Abraham, and the son of God, Exodus 4:22, not a servant, that is, a purchased slave, nor a homeborn slave, that is, a slave born of a slave-woman in the household. Why then has he been given as prey to lions, that is, to Sennacherib, the Assyrians, and the Egyptians, and tropologically, to the devils? As if to say: This did not come from his servile condition, nor from the cruelty of his master, but from sin, because he offended God, as he answers in verse 17: "Has not this been done to you because you have forsaken the Lord your God?" And verse 19: "Your own wickedness shall reprove you."
HAS HE BECOME A PREY? — St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Rabanus, and Hugo explain this of the future devastation by the Chaldeans and Egyptians, who afflicted the remnant of the Jews. Secondly and more plainly, Theodoret, Hugo, Lyra, and Dionysius take this of the past disaster suffered by the Jews from Sennacherib, the Assyrians, and the Egyptians, as if to say: Do not, O Israel, having abandoned your God, hope in and flee to the Assyrians and Egyptians, as you are wont to do, because they like lions have torn and ravaged you.
Verse 15
15. THE LIONS HAVE ROARED OVER HIM (against him). — That is, the Assyrians and Egyptians gaped after him, like roaring lions, for his prey and slaughter.
Verse 16
16. THE CHILDREN OF MEMPHIS AND TAHPANHES (that is, the Egyptians; for Memphis is a city of Egypt, which is now called Cairo; likewise Tahpanhes or Tanis was the royal city of the Pharaohs), HAVE RAVISHED YOU EVEN TO THE CROWN OF YOUR HEAD — that is, they have thoroughly imbued you with the worship of idols, which is spiritual defilement and fornication, and is so called by the Prophets; so that from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, there is no soundness in you. So in verse 20 he calls idolaters harlots. So St. Jerome and Rabanus. These words are to be referred back to verse 13.
St. Thomas interprets differently: for he takes defilement in its proper sense, as if to say: The Assyrians and Egyptians, as masters and conquerors, obscenely abused the Jews, both boys and girls. Hugo, Dionysius, Maldonatus, and Sanchez interpret differently: for by defilement they understand servitude, oppression, and every calamity that the Assyrians and Egyptians inflicted on the conquered Jews. This sense follows from the first and completes and fulfills it: because the Jews willingly submitted to the fault of the Assyrians and Egyptians, and consequently, though unwillingly, succumbed to punishment and vexation. Hence for "they ravished you," the Hebrew has ירעוך iiruch, that is, they pastured you, that is, they ruled you, they commanded you.
for in verse 8 he called kings "pastors." But our translator, the Septuagint, the Chaldean, and others, reading with different vowel points, have ierouch, that is, they have done evil to you, that is, they have ravished you; for he speaks of Israel as of a virgin, whose greatest misfortune is defilement. Hence the Septuagint translates: they mocked you. Perhaps also for yod they read kaph, namely instead of ierouch, כרעוך careuch, that is, they bent you down, they prostrated you — namely, for defilement. Finally, others translate prophetically: they shall do evil, that is, they shall crush, break, and shatter your head and crown — that is, they shall slaughter Josiah your king along with the people. So Hugo, Lyra, Dionysius. Hence the Chaldean translates: they shall slay your mighty ones and plunder your possessions.
See here what kind of base thing a harlot and a woman adorned for others makes of herself: outwardly she is splendid, inwardly filthy and putrid with defilements; outwardly Helen, inwardly Hecuba; outwardly pomp and show, inwardly a void, emptiness and chaos; outwardly a goddess, inwardly a hag. Tropologically, the soul makes itself such when it sins, and having abandoned the Creator, fornicates with creatures — namely, it makes itself a whitewashed sepulcher. Here the old saying is apt: "Where there is the breast, there is the tumor; where there is honey, there is gall; where there are mountains, there are valleys; where there is gold, there is rust and dross."
Verse 17
17. YOU HAVE FORSAKEN THE LORD YOUR GOD AT THE TIME WHEN HE LED YOU BY THE WAY — namely, the way of the desert, by the pillar of fire and cloud. "You have forsaken," because at Sinai you made and worshiped the golden calf. So Theodoret, Hugo, Lyra, as if to say: Because you refused to follow God when He was leading you by a smooth and safe way, He allowed you to wander through difficult ways; because you refused to enjoy prosperity while following God, He allowed you to experience adversity while following idols, says Maldonatus. Secondly, St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Rabanus, Hugo, and Vatablus understand by "the way" the way of the Lord's commandments, namely the holy life which Jeremiah was showing them through his sermons and prophecies, as if to say: You have forsaken the straight way to heaven, which God was pointing out to you through His law and through the preaching of Jeremiah.
Verse 18
18. WHAT DO YOU WANT IN THE WAY OF EGYPT (where are you going and heading toward Egypt)? AND WHAT DO YOU WANT IN THE WAY OF THE ASSYRIANS? — where are you going to Assyria? For, says St. Jerome, the Jews, when oppressed by the Egyptians, used to flee to the Assyrians; and when pressed by the Assyrians, they would flee to the Egyptians.
TO DRINK THE TURBID WATER — of the Nile, which because it is muddy and silts up Egypt, is called in Hebrew שחור sichor, in Greek, that is, "black"; hence it is called turbid. The Septuagint translates: Gihon; for the Nile is called Gihon, in Hebrew גיחון gichon, from the root גוח goach, meaning breast, because it lies upon Egypt with its belly and breast, as it were, when it overflows, and thus fertilizes it. Likewise the water of the river of the Assyrians is the Euphrates. As if to say: Why do you go in vain to seek help from the Egyptians and Assyrians, so that, having abandoned the perennial fountain you have at home, you beg for their turbid and failing waters — that is, the help of the Egyptians and Assyrians, who will not be able to assist you, but will involve you in a thousand disturbances and disasters? So the commentators generally.
Again, in the Nile there are deadly crocodiles, which are a symbol of shamelessness, about which Clement of Alexandria says in Book V of the Stromata: "At Diospolis," he says, "which is a city of Egypt, a boy is depicted as a symbol of birth, an old man of destruction; again, the hawk is a symbol of God, the fish a symbol of hatred, and the crocodile a symbol of shamelessness. Thus the whole symbol put together seems to signify this: O you who are born and perish, God hates shamelessness!" — which God here reproaches Israel for, as he flees to the Egyptians and their gods, verses 16 and 20. Only Hugo explains it thus, as if to say: Why do you commit sins that compel you to be led captive to Egypt, or to the Assyrians? So roughly the Chaldean.
Verse 19
19. YOUR OWN WICKEDNESS SHALL REPROVE YOU. — In Hebrew תיסרך teiasserech, it shall chastise you, that is, it shall be the cause of your being chastised; from which you shall learn how evil and bitter it is to have forsaken your God. YOUR TURNING AWAY (from God) SHALL REBUKE YOU. — He says the same thing in other words, in the Hebrew manner.
Verse 20
20. FROM OF OLD (from ancient times) YOU HAVE BROKEN MY YOKE — of My law. The Septuagint translates: your yoke, your bonds — because the law was both the yoke of God, who imposed it on the necks of the people, and of the people who bore it. Secondly and more aptly, by yoke understand marriage, as if to say: You have violated the conjugal covenant by which you had been joined to Me; for He speaks of Israel as of His spouse, as is clear from verse 2. So Maldonatus. For a husband, and especially God, is the lord of his wife, and can bind her with whatever laws and bonds he wishes by his authority. Hence the Synagogue was a wife in such a way that she was also a servant of God. In Hebrew it reads: From of old I broke your yoke, I burst your bonds — as if these were the words of God, saying: I, God, broke the bonds of Egyptian servitude from your neck, O Israel! But our translator takes these words by mimesis, as if they were the words of the people, about which it follows: "And you said: I will not serve." As if to say: Just as "you said: I will not serve," namely, the Lord and my husband, that is God, says St. Jerome, so likewise boasting and bragging you said: I have broken your yoke and your bonds, with which you, O Lord, had bound me; namely, the yoke of marriage, and consequently the yoke of your law. For God entered into marriage with Israel on this condition and pact: that Israel should keep God's law, and God in turn should nourish and protect Israel. Truly St. Augustine, Sentence 381: "What is so worthy of mercy as a wretch? What is so unworthy of mercy as a proud wretch?"
YOU HAVE BROKEN YOUR BONDS — like a young bull or an untamed ox, which, grown lusty with fattening, kicks back; or rather like a cow raging with desire for the bull, which shakes the yoke from its neck, breaking the bonds, and runs to its mate. So indeed you, having broken the bonds of My marriage and My law, have rushed insanely toward idols, as toward adulterers. FOR ON EVERY HILL. — He calls idolatry harlotry: for idolaters used to sacrifice to their idols on hills and in forests under trees. Indeed, from time to time they even regarded and worshiped the lofty mountains themselves as gods, as Maximus of Tyre attests the Macedonians did, Sermon 58. And today in Peru there are Indians who consider any mountain a god, if it is somewhat taller and more beautiful. Hear Virgil on the mount where the Capitol stood, Aeneid VIII: "This grove, this hill," he says, "with its leafy summit, A god inhabits (what god, is uncertain); the Arcadians themselves Believe they have seen Jupiter." Moreover, they wished certain trees to be sacred to the gods. Hence Virgil, Eclogue VII: "The poplar is most pleasing to Hercules, the vine to Bacchus, The beautiful myrtle to Venus, his own laurel to Phoebus." So also they worshiped springs and rivers as if they were gods. See the remarks on Isaiah 42:15. And hence by Virgil and the poets they are called "sacred springs."
YOU WERE LAYING YOURSELF DOWN. — In Hebrew it is צעה tsoa, that is, you wandered; Pagninus: you ran about; the Septuagint: you were spread out. As if to say: You ran from one tree to another, from one idol to another, as harlots run from one lover to another.
21. I PLANTED YOU A CHOSEN VINE. — The Hebrew שרק sorec signifies a species of the finest vine, about which see Isaiah 5:2. ALL TRUE SEED. — In Hebrew: whose every seed was true. He calls the shoots "seed," from which, as from root and seed, vines and grapes spring up; for vines are rarely planted by seed, more often by shoots: these shoots are therefore like seed, and are called true seed, that is, genuine, not adulterated. As if to say: God planted you, O Israel, like a chosen vine, that is, as His Church, sowing in you the sound and genuine seed of true faith and religion, in the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, etc. Psalm 79:9, say St. Thomas, Hugo, and Lyra: "How then have you turned against Me into a degenerate plant?" That is, as Vatablus explains, into degenerate shoots of a foreign vine, which has degenerated from its nature and native sap and goodness, and bears not true, cultivated, and sweet grapes, but false and adulterated ones, namely wild berries, bitter and sour, of infidelity, apostasy, and other crimes. In the Hebrew there is a beautiful play on words: the vine sorec has turned into sure, that is, into a degenerate one; just as if one were to say in Flemish: "You sweet grape, how have you changed into a sour one!"
Secondly and more aptly, "true seed" he calls perfect seed, that is, the shoots of the finest vines.
For this was a chosen vine, as was said above. Alcazar rightly observes in Apocalypse 3:7 that in Scripture "true" is not opposed to "false," but signifies "perfect" — as in Sirach 25:12: "Blessed is he who has found a true friend;" John 1:9: "The true light;" and John 4:23: "True worshipers;" John 6:32: "The true bread from heaven;" John 15:1: "I am the true vine;" 1 Timothy 6:19: "That he may lay hold on true life;" 1 Peter 5:12: "This is the true grace of God;" 1 John 2:8: "The true light now shines." So we call a Religious "true" who is perfect, just as Christ said in John 1:47: "Behold, truly an Israelite."
Verse 22
22. IF YOU WASH YOURSELF WITH NITRE. — Nitre, says Pliny, Book 31, chapter 10, does not differ much from salt; it hates filth and cleanses it. Hence in Hebrew it is called נתר neter, because it removes stains from garments and bodies. Many therefore hold that nitre is a species of salt, though others prefer to identify it as alum. For just as on the seashore the heat of the sun solidifies seawater into rock, so in Nitria (from which many contend nitre takes its name), where prolonged rains soak the ground, excessive heat cooks the water into a rock similar to salt, but having nothing of cold rigidity nor of salty flavor; which nevertheless, following the nature of salt, tends to dissolve in heat and in cloudy air.
Today we do not have nitre; but in its place our apothecaries use saltpeter, which they call nitre. Furthermore, Isidore, Book 16 of the Etymologies, chapter 2, and Athanasius in his book On Virginity, near the end, teach that women most zealous for cleanliness were accustomed to use nitre for this purpose; he calls them away from these luxuries and commands them to wash with plain water. Moreover, Ovid teaches in his book On Facial Remedies that nitre removes tumors; and from Drogo of Ostia, Delrio, adage 819, teaches that it removes pimples and blemishes.
ETC., BORITH. — Borith is the fuller's herb, with which fullers wash and cleanse the dirt from cloths; for it has the same power as nitre, says St. Jerome. For borith descends from בור bur, that is, he purified; whence בר bar, that is, pure, clean; likewise bar means grain, wheat purified from chaff. The Syriac and Arabic for borith translate: sulfur, which powerfully cleanses dirt, for it burns it away along with the material to which it clings.
YOU ARE STAINED (in Hebrew נכתם nichtam, that is, engraved, marked) IN YOUR INIQUITY — as if to say: You are bespattered with the emblems and figures of your crimes; the impressed traces of sins remain in you, like images of some engraved history. For as it says in chapter 17:1, "The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus, etc., on the breadth of their hearts." As if to say: You are so stained in your soul before God, you have so absorbed the stains, that you cannot be cleansed or purified by any nitre, soap, or borith. Wherefore, from this passage theologians rightly teach that the passing act of sin leaves behind a habitual stain on the soul, which formally constitutes it sinful, and hateful and abominable to God — of which it is said in Joshua 22:17: "You sinned at Baal-peor, and to this day the stain of that crime remains in us;" and of Solomon: "You put a stain on your glory," Sirach 47:22; and of the Church: "That He might present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle," Ephesians 5:27. See St. Thomas and the Scholastics, I-II, Question 86.
Symbolically, by nitre and borith he denotes the legal purifications, washings, and sacrifices, by which the Jews thought all sins could be expiated — but falsely; for those purified the body, not the soul. So Theodoret, Hugo, and Lyra. Maldonatus, however, takes nitre and borith to mean human excuses, as if to say: Whatever you say, however you excuse yourself, saying in the following verse: "I am not polluted," you will not be able to justify yourself before Me.
Tropologically, the spiritual nitre and fuller's herb of Christians is penance, which purifies not the body but the soul. So St. Jerome. Again, the soul's nitre is illness, poverty, calumny, and every tribulation. Wherefore, in the Lives of the Fathers we read of that great Abbot St. John, that when a certain monk burning with a severe fever asked him to obtain health from God for him, he replied: "You wish to cast away something necessary for you; for just as bodies are cleansed of filth by nitre, so souls are purified by illnesses and other such chastisements."
Verse 23
23. SEE YOUR WAYS IN THE VALLEY — that is, look at Gehenna, that is, the valley of the sons of Hinnom, say St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo, St. Thomas, and Lyra, which is watered by the springs of Siloam, in which you used to burn your children to the idol Moloch. There you will see the witnesses of your filth of idolatry, and the monuments of your impiety. Hence the Septuagint, instead of "in the valley," translates ἐν τῷ πολυανδρίῳ, that is, in the sepulcher of the multitude, that is, of many infants. So hell is πολυάνδριον, that is, the sepulcher of the multitude of men.
KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE: A SWIFT RUNNER (in Hebrew נכרה bichra signifies a swift animal, running hither and thither — whence Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion translate δρομὰς κούφη — by which the Chaldean here understands a female camel or dromedary), which make a man a brute, blind and insane, so that like a wild ass and horse he is carried away to his base enticements and paramours.
Vatablus says a giraffe; St. Jerome, a she-goat. The swift runner, therefore, is a she-goat, or rather a swift she-camel. As if to say: Just as a she-goat or she-camel runs swiftly to pasture, or rather to the males, when she rages with the frenzy of lust, and therefore dashes hither and thither — RUNNING THROUGH HER WAYS — in Hebrew, circling or going about "her ways" — so, O Israel, you have wandered hither and thither to various idols, and with great impetuosity ran about wantonly. He explains what in verse 20 in Hebrew he had said: you wandered like a harlot, and here he depicts her behavior; as Solomon says, Proverbs 7:11: "Restless and unable to stay at home, now in the streets, now in the squares, now lurking at every corner."
Morally, learn here how swiftly desire and pleasure run, when driven by the heat of lust, rushing in every direction until they find male camels with which to satisfy their lust — how they make a man a brute, blind and insane, so that like a wild ass or horse he is carried away to his base enticements and paramours. Plutarch rightly said: "Pleasure is the bait of evils." And Cicero: "Pleasures are the most seductive mistresses," which most easily make a man their obedient servant. Cato, as quoted by Cicero in his book On Old Age, says: "Receive, excellent young men, the ancient speech of Archytas of Tarentum. He used to say that nature gave no more deadly plague to men than bodily pleasure, whose greedy lusts drive recklessly and unbridledly to their gratification. Hence, he said, arise treasons against the fatherland, hence the overthrow of republics, hence secret dealings with enemies; and there is no crime or misdeed to whose undertaking the desire for pleasure does not impel."
Antisthenes, according to Laertius, Book 6, chapter 1, used to say "he would rather go mad than be affected by pleasure. For a doctor cures insanity; but pleasure, since it steals a man's mind, is a scarcely curable evil." Socrates, in Plato's Phaedo, says: "Pleasure, as if holding a nail, fastens and fixes the soul to the body, and causes it, infected by bodily appearance, to believe that what the body suggests is true." Plato himself said that pleasure was separated from the nature of the gods. Democritus compared those devoted to pleasure to those seized by epilepsy. Gregory of Nyssa, in Homily 2 on Ecclesiastes, shows that Solomon pronounced the pleasure he had studiously sought from various things to be vanity of vanities, and mere deception of men. The poets signified pleasures by the cup of Circe and the song of the Sirens, who sweetly enticed men and then destroyed them. Euripides in the Hecuba says Venus is the mistress of madness. Well known are the examples of Samson perishing for Delilah, Solomon's concubines, and David's Bathsheba. Pleasure wrested from Hercules, son of Jupiter, who surpassed all in virtue and was destined for heaven, the club (which neither lion, nor hydra, nor Cerberus had been able to take from him), and fitted the distaff and spindle to his fingers when he followed the company of Iole. Roman pleasure made Hannibal a conqueror, because it enervated the strength and virtue of the Romans, says Livy, Decade 3, Book 3. The Emperor Claudius, according to Suetonius in his Life, devoted to his stomach and pleasures, fell into such stupidity and forgetfulness of mind that, after Messalina was killed, shortly afterward sitting at table he asked why his lady did not come; and many of those he had condemned to death, on the following day he invited to a banquet and to play at dice.
Aristotle gives the method for overcoming pleasures, Ethics 2, last chapter: that we should conduct ourselves regarding pleasures as the Trojan leaders did regarding Helen — they judged she should be sent away, lest they incur the damages and destruction of war. And Epictetus, chapter 56: "If," he says, "you have conceived in your mind the image of some pleasure, restrain yourself, lest you be moved by it; but also examine the matter, and give yourself time for deliberation. Then remember both periods of time: that in which you will enjoy the pleasure, and that in which, having tasted the pleasure, you will grieve and reproach yourself. And compare those things: if you abstain, you will rejoice and praise yourself. But if the time seems right for undertaking the thing, beware lest its blandishments and enticements of sweetness overcome you; but set against them how much nobler is the consciousness of such a victory." And Horace: "Scorn pleasures; pleasure bought with pain is harmful." Demosthenes, when he was soliciting a night with Lais and she demanded an enormous fee, came to his senses and said: "I do not buy repentance at so high a price."
The second method is, if you steel your mind to resist pleasure, reflecting that it is your deadly enemy and the cause of all evils. And so command yourself severely not to yield to your enemy who sweetly invites you, but to resist it constantly, so that reason may maintain its dominion and not subject itself like a slave to desire. Agesilaus, when asked "what the laws of Lycurgus had contributed to the fatherland," replied: "To despise pleasures." Plutarch is the witness, in his Laconic Sayings. Truly Virgil, Aeneid 9: "Each man's own fierce desire becomes his god." Ovid: "Alas! how sweet an evil is given to mortals, And the sweet love of life!" See the apologue of the unicorn in Damascene, in the History of Barlaam, chapter 12.
The third method is to love the true pleasure of virtue and to loathe the false pleasure of concupiscence. Cyrus, according to Xenophon, used to say one should abstain from lesser pleasures in order to gain greater and more lasting ones; for he called labor the guide to a pleasant life, since from it food, drink, and sleep are rendered most pleasant. Hence Hesiod said the path of virtue was steep; yet for him who had reached its summit, everything was joyful and most pleasant. Socrates and Chrysippus, intent on their studies, were flooded with such pleasure that they seemed to have flown away from their bodies. Archimedes, absorbed in his mathematics, felt neither the destruction of his fatherland, nor the lamentations of the citizens, nor the fury and swords of the enemies, by which he himself was pierced. How great then will be the pleasure that Christians and the Saints will draw from the contemplation, hope, and love of God, from the company of the Angels, from the consolations of the Holy Spirit! St. Augustine, Tract 15 on John, says of the water about which Christ said, John 4: "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again," that it means worldly pleasure: "Suppose," he says, "the water jar is desire and the water from the deep is pleasure. When anyone arrives at the pleasure of this world — whether it is food, drink, spectacle, etc. — will he not thirst again? He will thirst again. But if he shall have received water from Me, he will not thirst forever. 'I shall be satisfied,' says the Psalmist, 'with the good things of your house; for with You is the fountain of life.'"
24. A WILD ASS ACCUSTOMED TO THE WILDERNESS. — He compared Israel to a she-goat; now he compares her to a wild ass, that is, a forest donkey. As if to say: Just as a wild ass, male or female — a wild, extremely lustful and swift animal, as Pliny, Oppian, Aelian, and others attest — "in the desire of its soul," that is, when it is in heat, "draws in the wind" and the breeze it most desires; or rather, when it is inflamed with lust, it climbs the summits of mountains, according to Oppian, to smell and catch the scent of the female it desires, and it is borne toward her with its whole being, so that nothing can turn it aside, to the point that it is driven to frenzy and the destruction of its own foal — so Israel would sniff out wherever any idol was, and with total impetuosity, so that no admonitions or threats could turn it aside, it was borne to the lust of idolatry. So St. Jerome.
Note: For "wind of love" the Hebrew has the spirit of occasion, or of impulse, or of constraint, that is, of its lust; for the root אנה ana means to be affected or driven by some grave cause. Secondly, the Hebrew פרה pere signifies a wild ass, both male and female; both can be understood here. Hence in the Hebrew the participle "accustomed" is masculine, and the male wild ass rages more toward the female than the female toward the male; yet all the suffixes are feminine, and what follows — namely menstruation — pertains to the female, not the male. Therefore he speaks of both the female and male wild ass, as if to say: O adulterous wife! Raging like a wild she-ass, and running to your lovers through thickets and forests, where are you rushing? Where are you heading? What frenzy drives you? You have torn your robe woven with gold among the thorns and woods, you have worn out your purple shoes, you have bloodied your bare feet, and still you run panting and thirsting? I, your husband, pursue you: return to me.
ALL WHO SEEK HER WILL NOT FAIL — in Hebrew, will not grow weary; the Septuagint: will not labor. As if to say: Just as she-asses and she-camels, although they are very swift because they breathe very easily, are nevertheless captured when they devote themselves to breeding and when they are weighed down with pregnancy or menstruation, so her lovers — that is, the idolatrous nations — will easily find this harlot, namely the people of Israel, who seeks nothing but such lovers. They will find her, I say, in the brothel, that is, in the temples and altars of idols, fornicating with them.
IN HER MONTHLY COURSES — that is, in the filth of the blood, bones, and corpses of infants and victims she has offered, from whose pleasure she is never satisfied, but like a dung beetle lives in their excrement and filth. For just as craftsmen are found in their workshops, drunkards in taverns, adulterers in dens, so the impious Israelites were found not in the temple, not in the holy city, not in the houses of upright men, but in Egypt and Assyria, in the houses of idols.
Secondly, the Septuagint for "in her monthly courses" translates: in humiliation, degradation, poverty; for there are found the profligate, who squander their substance with harlots, just as the prodigal son was found among the swine, Luke 15:15.
Thirdly, Rabbi Solomon, Symmachus, and Vatablus translate: in her month. For in Hebrew חדש chodes signifies both a month, a new moon, and menstruation. Because, says Rabbi Solomon, the wild ass sleeps one month of the year, and is then captured, while in the other months it is awake and cannot be caught because of its speed. So the daughter of Israel, when she was sleeping in the worship of idols, forgetful of God, was captured by the Chaldeans in the fifth month. So the flood overwhelmed men sleeping in their sins, Matthew 24:38. However, that the wild ass sleeps only one month — neither Pliny, nor Oppian, nor others in Gesner's work on the wild ass mention this; therefore it seems to be a fable.
Finally, Vatablus also translates thus: the wild she-ass will be captured when she is pregnant, that is, Israel will be captured when she has reached the height of her sins.
Tropologically, St. Gregory, Homily 29 on Ezekiel: "Evil spirits," he says, "find the soul in its monthly courses, when they easily drag it, steeped in polluted thoughts, to perverse action."
Verse 25
25. KEEP YOUR FOOT FROM GOING BARE — lest you wear out your shoes and go naked, or lest you bare your feet to cross the Nile or the Euphrates; and do not torment yourself with thirst, running to Egypt or Assyria, seeking the help of idols and idolaters, since they cannot help you. Do not therefore weary yourself in vain with such toil, but return to Me. The bride responds, that is, the people of Israel: "I have despaired" — namely, of salvation, help, and reconciliation — that is, that after my adultery with idols I might be received back into the good graces of God, my true spouse. Hence I do not wish to return to Him; therefore I will go to the strangers whom I love. So the Chaldean, Vatablus, and St. Jerome.
St. Thomas, Lyra, and Dionysius explain differently, as if to say: Beware, O Israel, of idolatry, lest you be compelled to be led captive barefoot, and parched with thirst to Babylon. But the former sense is more genuine, as is clear from what follows. Our Pineda also explains differently in Job 31:10, number 8, as if to say: "Keep your foot from bareness" — that is, do not bare your thighs and legs for an adulterer, nor prostitute yourself to him; "and your throat" — that is, your member — "from thirst" — that is, from the intemperate heat of lust. For so it is said in Proverbs 30:15: "Three things are insatiable, etc., the mouth of the womb;" and Proverbs 5:15: "Drink water from your own cistern and the streams of your own well," that is, enjoy your own wife alone. Explaining this, he adds: "Rejoice with the wife of your youth; let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be always delighted with her love." The first sense, as it is the most chaste, so also is the simplest and most genuine. For what preceded was: "I did not walk after the Baals: see your ways in the valley: the swift runner running through her ways." And what follows is: "After them (my lovers) I will walk." Therefore by "feet" here is understood the walking to fornication, not the actual baring and fornication itself.
I HAVE DESPAIRED — in Hebrew נואש noas, that is, it is over with me, it is hopeless; by no means, that is, will I do what God the spouse urges, that I return to Him. Secondly, it can be rendered as a question: Is it hopeless? By no means! Because I love strangers (gods, as it were lovers), and I will go after them: they will protect me. Hence, dispelling this, He adds: but you shall be put to shame, harlot. Thirdly, Vatablus translates the Hebrew noas as: it is spit out, that is, it is loathsome and, as it were, torn away — namely, my heart from God my husband. See to what depths impiety and impious pleasure descend.
On the other hand, the Bridegroom says to the bride who loves Him and is faithful to Him, Song of Songs 4:9: "You have wounded My heart (in Hebrew לבבתני libbittini, that is, you have taken away My heart, you have ripped out My heart, you have ravished My heart), My sister, My bride." For love so binds lovers together that whoever would separate one from the other seems to take away half of the other's soul. Wherefore those accustomed to lust and concubines can scarcely abandon them, and are nearly incorrigible. This is what Hosea says, chapter 5, verse 4: "They will not direct their thoughts to return to their God, because the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them." And so this harlot says: "I have despaired, I will by no means do it." The bride responds, that is, the people of Israel: "I have despaired," "for I have loved strangers." For having constantly given herself to wantonness, she thinks of nothing but wantonness.
Verse 26
26. AS A THIEF IS CONFOUNDED WHEN HE IS CAUGHT (the Chaldean: as is the shame of a man who, having been considered faithful, is found to be a thief), SO THEY ARE CONFOUNDED — so the Israelites shall be confounded when they are captured by Nebuchadnezzar. Then the crime of adultery, that is, of idolatry, shall be made manifest, and that they are justly punished by God for it, and that they sought help from idols in vain. So Theodoret, Hugo, St. Thomas, and Lyra.
Verse 30
30. YOUR CHILDREN. — That is, your citizens; for He speaks to the congregation of the Jews in general, which was the mother both of those who had been struck, that is, slain under Sennacherib and Manasseh, and of those still living. THEY HAVE NOT RECEIVED CORRECTION — as if to say: Chastised by Me, you have not become better; indeed, you have killed the Prophets through whom I admonished you; for this is what He adds: YOUR SWORD HAS DEVOURED YOUR PROPHETS — namely, the prophets of the true God. For Manasseh killed some prophet every day, says Josephus, Antiquities 10.4. So Hugo, Lyra, and Dionysius. St. Jerome, however, Theodoret, Rabanus, and St. Thomas take "your" passively, as if to say: The sword that will devour you will also devour your false prophets, who led you astray — so that it is a prophecy and threat.
LIKE A DESTROYING LION. 31. YOUR GENERATION. — So the Roman edition. In Hebrew it reads: like a destroying lion is this generation, that is, you yourselves — that is, as St. Jerome says, just as a destroying lion rages against passersby, so you have raged against the Prophets of God; for he confirms what he said shortly before: "Your sword has devoured your prophets." The Hebrew, Chaldean, Vatablus, Pagninus, and others divide and punctuate these words thus: your sword has devoured your prophets, like a lion, full stop; O generation, or O age! That is, O men of this era, namely you yourselves who hear these things, see what the Lord says to you. Maldonatus explains this differently.
AM I A WILDERNESS — as if to say: Have I been as useless to this people as a wilderness, which bears no fruit; or as slow to give help as late-harvest land, which retains everything within itself and produces nothing outside, or only late? As if to say: No, because as long as Israel worshiped Me, I never failed them, but gave them an abundance of all things. So Theodoret. Note: For "late" the Hebrew has מאפליות mapeleia, that is, dark; for land that is not exposed to the sun or under the open sky produces nothing, or produces late. Hence the Septuagint translates γῆ κεχερσωμένη, that is, full of briars.
Others explain thus, as if to say: Why do they desert My temple and leave it alone? Thirdly, Tertullian, Book 4 Against Marcion, chapter 31, explains it thus, as if to say: This people thinks, when it abandons Me, that I will remain alone without worshipers, as a wilderness without inhabitants. No, no! I have another world; indeed, a thousand worlds if I wish, from which I can summon servants to worship Me.
WE HAVE DEPARTED. — The Chaldean: we have migrated, namely to the nations and their gods. Secondly, with different vowel points it can be read רדנו radinu, and translated with Pagninus, Vatablus, and Isachi: we rule, or we have received dominion — that is, we have other kings, namely of Egypt or Assyria; we do not need your rule.
Verse 32
32. DOES SHE FORGET — as if to say: A woman values her ornaments more than My people values Me. SWATHING BANDS — because they adorn the breast, and from them she hangs pendants and necklaces from her neck and wears them on her breast. Jerome Prado, on Ezekiel 16, page 187, takes these bands to be those with which the breasts are bound; for they are a sign of untouched virginal bloom, just as loosened breasts are a sign of fornication. These bands, then, given by the bridegroom to the bride, remind her of conjugal fidelity and bodily purity — namely, that she should restrain her breasts, which are, as it were, retreats of the heart, that is, the continence of her affections, keeping herself pure for the bed of her bridegroom, and saying that verse from Song of Songs 2: "My beloved is mine, and I am his;" chapter 1: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he shall rest between my breasts."
Secondly, the Hebrew can be rendered: necklaces, torques, golden chains, which the bride receives from the bridegroom, that he may bind her to himself, that she may always wear them on her breast. Pliny, Book 7, chapter 24, relates that a certain man, having fallen from the roof, lost all memory of his mother, relatives, and kinsmen; and that the orator Messala Corvinus forgot his own name. Aelian, Book 8, chapter 22, reports that there is a species of wolf so forgetful that, "even when ravenous and with food in its teeth, if it looks back, forgetfulness of its food steals over it, and turning aside, it seeks something else." The poets fable that among the dead there is a river called Lethe, whose waters, if anyone tastes them, cause forgetfulness of all past things; for it takes its name, as Tully says, from lettera, that is, forgetfulness. Of which Lucan, Book 9: "Near which the silent stream of Lethe glides, Drawing forgetfulness (so fame says) from infernal springs." Ovid, Book 2 of Epistles from Pontus, Elegy 4: "Even if you drank the safe cups of Lethe, I would not believe this could fall from your breast." Likewise Lucan, Book 3: "Not Lethe's forgetful banks, O wife, Have made me unmindful of you." And Pliny, Book 31, chapter 2, reports that in Boeotia there is a river that induces forgetfulness. Physicians write, and experience confirms, that lethargy is a disease arising from a more moist and cold humour soaking the brain and filling the ventricles of the brain, in which memory resides, which induces λήθη, that is, forgetfulness of all things. The sinner labors under a far greater lethargy, who seems to have drunk in Lethe itself, that is, forgetfulness; for he forgets not merely his mother, relatives, and his own name, but God, his Creator, Redeemer, and Savior, in whom we live, move, and have our being, who is more intimate to each person than his very essence and existence — indeed, who is the life of life, and the soul of each soul.
(1) By the term "feet," the legs and private parts are signified. Cf. Genesis 49:10; Ruth 3:7; Exodus 4:25. These are therefore the words of God calling back and reproving criminal adultery through euphemism.
Verse 33
33. WHAT? — As if to say: Why do you strive with verbal pretense and outward works to show yourself innocent, in order to win My favor, when you teach others impiety and have shed innocent blood? So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rabanus, Hugo, St. Thomas, and Lyra. The Chaldean, Vatablus, and Isidore translate differently, as if to say: Why do you direct your ways to the nations to seek their friendship? For by this very fact you have shown your ways to be evil, because you have bound yourself to their worst customs, and in turn have revealed to them your worst behavior.
YOU HAVE TAUGHT YOUR WAYS YOUR WICKEDNESS. — This is an apposition, that is: you have taught others your ways, which are sheer wickedness.
Verse 34
34. IN YOUR WINGS — in the hems of your garments. It is a metaphor from birds of prey, such as hawks, to whose wings the blood of seized birds clings. For what feathers and wings are to a bird, garments are to a man. The Septuagint translates: in your hands; for instead of בכנפיך becanuphecha, they read בכפיך beccaphecha, or perhaps "hands" of garments for wings, because hands are to a man what wings are to a bird. As if to say: Your garments and hands are spattered with blood, both of the Prophets and of the innocents, whom you sacrificed to Moloch in both body and soul. So Theodoret and St. Jerome.
NOT IN DITCHES — as if to say: I did not find your slain in pits, as if killed by the ambushes of robbers, but under the oak tree, publicly sacrificed to idols. For the Hebrew מחתרת machtereth signifies not only a digging through, but also a pit and an opening. Secondly, more aptly from the Hebrew it can be explained thus: I did not find your slain in ditches, that is, in the breaking into houses, as thieves or robbers who could justly be killed; but in the groves and woods of idols, as victims, as I mentioned above. Or, as St. Jerome says: in "all the things I mentioned above," namely, in all the rebukes — that is, because the Prophets rebuked you for idolatry, therefore you killed them. Others explain thus: I did not find them sinning secretly in pits, but publicly in the streets, valleys, and woods, practicing idolatry. So Theodoret.
Note: Rabbi Solomon, Lyra, Vatablus, and Pagninus translate: You did not find them, namely as burglars and robbers, so that you could justly kill them. But in Hebrew it is לא מצאתים lo metsatim, that is, I did not find them, in the first person, not the second.
Secondly, for "in all these things," which in Hebrew is אלה elle, that is, those things, the Septuagint with different vowel points read אלה ela, that is, an oak tree. Hence they translate: under every oak, namely, one sacred to idols — there I found them practicing idolatry.
Verse 35
35. AND YOU SAID: I AM WITHOUT SIN AND INNOCENT. — God is indignant at Israel not so much on account of their crimes as because they refuse to confess them and proclaim themselves innocent. Therefore He adds: "Behold, I will enter into judgment with you (I will judge and convict you of many crimes through Jeremiah and other Prophets) because you have said: I have not sinned." "True innocence," says St. Augustine in his Sentences, number 1, "is that which harms neither itself nor another. For whoever loves iniquity hates his own soul, and no one sins against another without first sinning against himself;" and number 117: "God approves that innocence by which a man becomes innocent not from fear of punishment but from love of justice. For he who does not sin out of fear, although he does not harm the one he wishes to harm, nevertheless does great harm; and while abstaining from unjust action, he is still guilty in will alone."
Verse 36
36. HOW VILE YOU HAVE BECOME! — The translator renders correctly, because תזלי teze'i, or rather תזלי tazuli (for so it should be pointed), derives from the root זלל zul, that is, I become vile. More recent scholars translate: Why do you run about so, wearing out your ways? Because they derive tezeli from אזל azal, that is, he went, he walked. But in that case tezeli would need to be written with an aleph, which is absent here.
Note: Sin is the supreme filth and baseness of the spiritual soul, just as the supreme disgrace of a virgin is the corruption by which she loses her virginity. St. Augustine says admirably in his Sentences, number 287: "How excellent a good human nature is," he says, "is most apparent from this: that it has been given to it that it may cleave to the nature of the supreme and unchangeable good. If it refuses, it deprives itself of good, and this is its evil; whence by the justice of God it will also suffer torment. For what is so unjust as that it should go well with one who deserts the good? Sometimes the evil of losing a higher good is not felt, as long as one possesses the beloved lesser good. But it is divine justice that he who willingly lost what he ought to have loved, should lose with sorrow what he did love." For because the sinner does not feel the baseness of his guilt, God brings it about that he feels it through the baseness and torment of punishment.
YOU SHALL BE PUT TO SHAME BY EGYPT — as if to say: Egypt will not be able to help you, just as the Assyrians could not. The Jews, when pressed by enemies, were accustomed to flee to the Egyptians or Assyrians, not to the Lord. So Ahaz sought help from Tiglath-pileser, king of the Assyrians, 2 Kings 16:7, who although at the time he helped him against the king of Syria, afterward the Assyrians nevertheless oppressed the Jews, especially when they captured Manasseh. So St. Thomas, Lyra, and Dionysius, as if to say: You flee, O Israel, now to the Egyptians, now to the Assyrians; but in vain. For just as from Assyria, so from Egypt you shall return in shame, with your hands clasped over your head, as a sign of shame and grief. So St. Jerome and Theodoret.
So it shall happen to those who, trusting in friends, wealth, and strength, desert God: for God will crush and confound their confidence and hopes, so that nothing shall prosper for them. Morally, therefore, learn here that true friendship is with God, and with those who are joined to God; with others, loves are deceitful and meretricious. For only to God and to godly men does that motto and token of a true friend apply, which the wise give. As Solomon, Proverbs 17:17: "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is proved in distress." And Sirach 12:8: "A friend is not known in prosperity, and an enemy is not hidden in adversity." And Augustine, Book 83, Question 71: "Nothing so proves a friend as the bearing of a friend's burden." And Isidore, Book 3 of the Supreme Good: "In prosperity friendship is uncertain, and it is not felt whether the person or the good fortune is loved." And Boethius, Book 3 of the Consolation: "Whom good fortune makes a friend, misfortune makes an enemy." And Aristotle, Ethics 7: "Time reveals who pursues a friend with true love." And Ovid, Book 1 of the Tristia: "As long as you are fortunate, you will count many friends; If the times become cloudy, you will be alone." As swallows come in spring but depart when winter approaches, so flatterers are present in prosperity and flee in adversity. Such are riches, pleasures, honors, idols, and indeed men who are friends by nature: for all seek their own things, unless they put on the charity and friendship of God. This friendship, therefore, with God alone is true and perfect.