Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He persists in predicting the devastation of Jerusalem because of its idolatry and crimes. Whence first, verse 1, he predicts that the Chaldeans will overthrow the tombs of the Jews and scatter their bones. Second, verse 3, that men will choose death rather than life. Third, verse 4, he rebukes their impenitence, and says, verse 7, that birds return to their nests in spring, but the Jews are unwilling to return to God. Fourth, verse 10, he rebukes the Prophets and priests who say "Peace, peace." Fifth, verse 13, instead of grapes and figs he threatens them with water of gall. Sixth, verse 16, from Dan he says the Chaldeans will come, and they will be savage as basilisks.
Vulgate Text: Jeremiah 8:1-22
1. In that time, says the Lord: They shall cast out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of its princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of those who dwelt in Jerusalem, from their tombs: 2. and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which they loved, and which they served, and after which they walked, and which they sought, and which they adored: they shall not be gathered, and they shall not be buried: they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth. 3. And all who remain of this most wicked kindred shall choose death rather than life, in all the places that are left, to which I have cast them out, says the Lord of hosts. 4. And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Shall he who falls not rise again? and he who has turned away, shall he not return? 5. Why then has this people in Jerusalem turned away with a stubborn turning? They have seized upon lies, and they have been unwilling to return. 6. I have attended and listened: no one speaks what is good, there is none who does penance for his sin, saying: What have I done? All have turned to their own course, like a horse rushing headlong into battle. 7. The kite in the sky has known its time: the turtledove, and the swallow, and the stork have kept the time of their coming: but My people has not known the judgment of the Lord. 8. How do you say: We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Truly the lying pen of the scribes has wrought falsehood. 9. The wise men are confounded, they are terrified and taken: for they have rejected the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them. 10. Therefore I will give their wives to strangers, their fields to heirs: for from the least to the greatest all pursue avarice: from the prophet to the priest all practice deceit. 11. And they healed the wound of the daughter of My people to their shame, saying: Peace, peace: when there was no peace. 12. They are confounded, because they have committed abomination: nay rather, they are not confounded with confusion, and they have not known how to blush: therefore they shall fall among those who fall, in the time of their visitation they shall fall, says the Lord. 13. Gathering I will gather them, says the Lord: there is no grape on the vines, and there are no figs on the fig tree, the leaf has fallen: and I have given them things that have passed away. 14. Why do we sit still? Assemble, and let us enter the fortified city, and let us be silent there: for the Lord our God has made us silent, and has given us water of gall to drink: for we have sinned against the Lord. 15. We looked for peace, and there was no good: for a time of healing, and behold terror. 16. From Dan was heard the snorting of his horses, at the sound of the neighing of his warriors the whole land trembled, and they came and devoured the land and its fullness; the city and its inhabitants. 17. For behold I will send among you serpents, basilisks, against which there is no charm: and they shall bite you, says the Lord. 18. My sorrow is beyond sorrow, within me my heart mourns. 19. Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land: Is the Lord not in Zion, or is her King not in her? Why then have they provoked Me to anger with their graven images, and with foreign vanities? 20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. 21. For the destruction of the daughter of my people I am broken and saddened, astonishment has seized me. 22. Is there no balm in Gilead? or is there no physician there? Why then is the wound of the daughter of my people not healed?
Verse 1
1. IN THAT TIME — when Jerusalem shall be captured by the Chaldeans, and the Jews shall be slain in Topheth. THEY SHALL CAST OUT THE BONES OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH. — Note: The Jews used to burn the bodies of their dead princes, as is clear from Jeremiah chapter 34, verse 5; and they used to bury the bones with gold, silver, garments, weapons, crowns, and scepters, if they were kings, says St. Jerome; but if they were Prophets or leading men, with garments and precious vessels, just as we have seen in our own time in the tombs of Jews. Thus Josephus writes, book 13, Antiquities, chapter 15, that Hyrcanus extracted from the tomb of David three thousand talents, and Sozomenus, book 9, at the end, narrates that in the tomb of the prophet Zechariah a boy of royal lineage was found crowned with a golden crown and clothed in royal garments. The Gentiles also did the same, as is clear from the funeral of Misenus in Virgil, Aeneid, book 6:
"But pious Aeneas raised a great sepulcher, and laid upon it the man's own arms, his oar, and his trumpet."
And in book 11, at the funeral of Pallas: for they threw upon the pyre his garments, helmet, and weapons.
The Livonians still do the same, who, oppressed by the hard servitude of the Germans, place food, drink, an axe, and some money in the monuments of their dead, saying: "Pass, O wretch, from this state of harshness into a better world; where the Germans will no longer rule over you, but you will rule over them; you have weapons, food, and provision for the journey." The witness is Johannes Lasicius in his work on Samogitia.
Alexander the Great, hearing that the tomb of Cyrus was filled with gold and silver, ordered it to be opened: "But apart from his decayed shield, two Scythian bows, and a scimitar, he found nothing. However, he covered the pillow on which the body lay with a golden crown placed upon the cloak to which Cyrus himself had attached it, marveling that a king of such great name, endowed with such great wealth, was buried no more preciously than if he had been a commoner," says Quintus Curtius, book 10 of the Deeds of Alexander. Plutarch narrates the matter a little differently, as I shall presently say.
Alexander the Great, says Plutarch in his Life, when he discovered that the monument of Cyrus had been opened, put to death the author of the deed, named Polymachus. The inscription of the monument was: "O man, whoever you are and from wherever you have come (for I know you will come), I am Cyrus, who won the empire for the Persians. Do not begrudge me, I pray you, this little earth that covers my body." These words greatly moved Alexander, as he reflected on the uncertainty and vicissitude of things.
Hence also that complaint of Horace about the destruction of the Romans, in the book of Epodes, ode 16:
Jeremiah therefore predicts that the avarice of the Chaldeans will break open these tombs, first, for plunder. So St. Jerome, Hugo, Lyranus, Isidore. Second, as Theodoretus says, for contempt and punishment, so that the bones of Manasseh and the wicked kings may be exposed to the light, and may lie open to the sight of the sky and stars which they served, having abandoned God. Finally, so that their bones, exposed to the air and consumed by it, may dissolve into dung and ashes. Hence he says: "They shall spread them;" that is, they shall scatter them, not gather them under a roof; for even this has some honor; for which reason we are accustomed to place the skulls and bones of the dead in a cemetery, in an honorable place in a charnel house or ossuary. But this was not granted to the Jews by the Chaldeans, as God here threatens.
How inhuman and barbarous this violation of tombs is, Nitocris (though Plutarch attributes it to Semiramis), queen of Babylon, showed by her deed. For she built herself a tomb above the gates of the city in a lofty place, and inscribed it with these letters: "If any of the kings of Babylon after me shall be in need of money, let him open the tomb and take as much money as he wishes, but only if truly in need; otherwise let him not open it, for it will not be worth his while." This tomb remained undisturbed until Darius Hystaspes, who, thinking that money was hidden there in vain, opened the monument, in which he found no money, but letters saying: "Had you not been insatiable for money and greedy for base gain, you would not have opened the urns of the dead." So Herodotus, book 1.
"Alas! The barbarian conqueror will trample upon the ashes, and the horseman will beat the city with resounding hoof: and the insolent one will scatter — a sacrilege to behold — the bones of Quirinus, which are sheltered from winds and sun."
Verse 2
2. AND ALL THE HOST OF HEAVEN — and all the stars, which are, as it were, God's armed and arrayed soldiers, especially because the crests of helmets are wont to gleam like stars, says Maldonatus.
WHICH THEY SERVED — with latria, that is, by adoring them. Note: The Gentiles adored the sun and stars, both on account of their splendor and beauty, and because the earliest philosophers almost all thought them to be animated. Whence St. Augustine, City of God, book 18, chapter 4, reports that Anaxagoras was prosecuted on a capital charge because he had said "that the sun is a burning rock," and also because they believed that in the stars the destiny and fate of each person was inscribed. On which subject more in chapter 10, verse 2.
Verse 3
3. THEY SHALL CHOOSE DEATH RATHER THAN LIFE. — This will be more truly fulfilled allegorically on the day of judgment, and of the destruction of the world, when the wicked shall say to the mountains: "Fall upon us," and to the hills: "Cover us."
IN ALL THE PLACES THAT ARE LEFT, TO WHICH I HAVE CAST THEM — in Babylon, says Lyranus. Second and better, in the mountains and hiding places of Judea, says Vatablus. Or third, in the deserts of Moab and Edom, to which the Jews fled for fear of the Chaldeans. So a Castro. Sanchez explains differently: "which are left," that is, he says, in all the places in which the Jews have been left, so that it is a hypallage.
Verse 4
4. SHALL NOT HE WHO FALLS RISE AGAIN? — as if to say: All who fall desire to rise again, and strive for it with all the effort of body and soul: in like manner those who have turned aside from the right way and path, once they recognize it, hasten to return to it. What then is the madness of the Jews, to wish to persist in their fall and error? So Lyranus, Dionysius, Isidore, and St. Jerome: "For it is human to fall, but diabolical not to wish to rise again."
Verse 5
5. WITH A STUBBORN TURNING — that is, a strong, constant, obstinate turning, so that he is unwilling to return. Whence in Hebrew it is, a perpetual turning.
THEY HAVE SEIZED UPON LIES. — In Hebrew hormit, that is, deceits, and the frauds of the false prophets who mocked the threats of Jeremiah, for they believed them. So Vatablus, Pagninus, Lyranus, Dionysius. Second, St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo, and St. Thomas translate "falsehood," that is, iniquity, depravity. Thus elsewhere conversely truth is often used for every disposition or duty of virtue; and so the devil is said not to have stood in the truth, that is, not to have persevered in the angelic duty, or in what it befitted an angel to do, John 8:44.
Verse 6
6. ALL HAVE TURNED TO THEIR OWN COURSE — to follow the inclination of their depraved nature and will toward evil, as a horse runs with unbridled force wherever the spur or impulse drives it, for example, into battle, even with certain danger to its life. Somewhat differently, but more effectively, the Septuagint translates: The runner fails in his course, and the horse exhausted in his neighing, as if to say: One who runs for a long time finally becomes weary and ceases to run; likewise a horse neighing for the charge into battle, exhausted by it, ceases to neigh and run; but these in the continual labor of sinning and the rush toward crimes are not wearied, but as though tireless and insatiable they constantly rush on to one thing after another. So Theodoretus. This is the stupor, this the madness of the sinner immersed in vices.
Verse 7
7. THE KITE IN THE SKY (from the sky, from the temperature and quality of the sky) HAS KNOWN ITS TIME. — "Kite" namely the white one, that is, the stork, for this bird on account of its piety toward its parents is called in Hebrew chasida, that is, pious, and on account of its whiteness it is called candida (white). Whence Virgil, Georgics 2: "When spring grows red, / The white bird comes."
For the stork returns to its nest in spring from colder regions; which the kite does not do, and hence the stork is a hieroglyphic of a guest who lives nowhere permanently. So a Castro, Maldonatus, and the Hebrews. But since the kite is nowhere called a stork, and since the stork follows; hence it is better to take kite here properly, which in Hebrew is called chasida by antiphrasis, because it is by no means pious, but a most rapacious bird. For among the Hebrews the names of animals are common to many species. Whence chasida is interpreted as kite, first, by St. Jerome, Zechariah chapter 5, verse 9, where in his Commentary he says: "The Hebrews think chasida is the kite, a most rapacious bird, always lying in wait for domestic birds." Second, Symmachus and the sixth edition, Psalm 103:18, translate chasida as kite, where the Septuagint translates it as heron. Third, the Talmudists, says Pagninus, say that chasida is daia lehana, that is, white kite; so called because it shows mercies or kindnesses to its companions, distributing to them from the food it has seized.
Beautifully Baptista Mantuanus, in book 5 of the Alphonsus, sings thus about the genius of birds: "The stars also teach rains, and the fixed times / Of days and years, thus the swallow knows the spring, / The halcyons know winter, they sense the winds and lightning, / And timely rains for the thirsting fields."
ITS TIME — the springtime, mild and suitable for returning, nesting, laying eggs, and raising young, as if to say: And you, O Jews, O mortals, do not know the time, that is, the opportunity for repenting, reconciling yourselves with God, sowing good works by which you may reap eternal glory. Again, you do not know the time, namely the severe winter of God's wrath and vengeance threatening you, so that you might flee it like the kite and the stork.
Ausonius depicts time, or opportunity, beautifully in this way: "I am the goddess Occasion, known to rare and few. / Why do you stand on a wheel? I cannot stand still. / Why do you have winged sandals? I am swift: what Mercury / Is wont to make fortunate, I bestow, when I will. / You cover your face with hair? I wish not to be known, but hey, / You are bald at the back of your head? Lest I be seized as I flee."
Whence he describes the companion of Occasion, Metanoia, or late repentance, thus: "I am the goddess who exacts penalties for what was done and not done, / Namely so that one may repent; thus I am called Metanoia."
"Bees, says Pliny, book 11, chapters 6 and 10, perform their work not on fixed days, but whenever the favorable weather invites; so at its own proper time each opportunity must be seized." The same, book 15, chapter 24: "The laurel, he says, buds last of all, and yet bears fruit among the first; so those who find the right time for accomplishing a task, even if they begin later, nevertheless finish sooner." And Hesiod: "Summer will not always last, build your nests." This is what Paul says: "While we have time, let us do good," let us sow good works by which we may live in eternity.
THE TURTLEDOVE. — Mystically St. Chrysostom, homily On the Turtledove, chapter 10, verse 5: "He calls the turtledove, he says, every chaste Church, the swallow John the lover of men, and the cicada (for so he reads instead of stork) the most eloquent Paul, the instrument of the Church." See him on the turtledove. St. Ambrose adds, book 6 of the Hexameron, chapter 4: "Do you see, he says, how much prudence the Lord infuses even into the smallest creatures? The turtledove places leaves of squill on its nest, lest the wolf attack its young: for it knows that wolves are accustomed to be repelled by such leaves. The little bird knows how to protect its offspring; and you are ignorant, and you neglect, how to make your possession of this life more secure against the wolf of spiritual wickedness!"
But others doubt about the turtledove. For what would the turtledove, nesting in trees, fear from the wolf? Aelian adds that it places a gladiolus, or, as others read, an iris in its nests; Philes says it eats the same, as a charm against fascination and for the protection of its young.
But hear similar and wonderful things about the provident sagacity of birds, and imitate them: "The hawk wards off impending illness with hawk-weed; swallows have shown us that celandine is most healthful for the sight, healing their young when their eyes are afflicted; the stork heals itself with oregano; the eagle with eagle-stone; the hare with chicory; the kite with buckthorn; the hoopoe with maidenhair fern; the mynah with myrtle branch; the peacock with the root of flax; the heron with crab; doves, jackdaws, blackbirds, and partridges purge their annual distaste with laurel branch; pigeons, turtledoves, and chickens with the herb called helxine; ducks, geese, and other waterfowl with the herb sideritis; cranes and similar birds with marsh rush; the raven, when it has killed a chameleon, which even harms its killer, extinguishes the noxious poison with laurel," says Aldrovandus in his Prolegomena to Ornithology. Where he also adds that the nightingale, at the summer solstice, changes its color as well as its voice.
THE SWALLOW. — In Hebrew sus, which Vatablus, Pagninus, and others translate as crane, which in height and voice is similar to a horse, which in Hebrew is called sus. But the Septuagint, the Chaldean, our Interpreter, and others, in Isaiah chapter 38, verse 14, translate sus as swallow; for the swallow is the first of birds to return in spring, whence the proverb: "One swallow does not make a spring."
Hear wonderful things about the swallow, its skill, and its foreknowledge of spring. Before winter and the cold, swallows gather together, and wrapping themselves in one another with wings and feet, they plunge into a pond, and there as if drugged and lifeless they remain until the warmth of spring approaches, which as soon as they sense, they come back to themselves and revive. Thus Polish eyewitnesses testify. The swallow therefore, revived from the waters, returns to us at the first of spring, seeks out its former nests, and upon finding them rejoices and congratulates itself wonderfully, with varied and almost articulate song.
The roofs of Thebes, according to the testimony of Pliny, book 10, chapter 23, the swallow refuses to enter, because that city was so often captured and devastated. Solinus, chapter 15 of the Polyhistor, repeating this from Pliny, gives this reason: "For among other things, he says, it is known from this that swallows have a certain prescience, that they do not seek rooftops that are about to fall, and they spurn roofs that are going to perish in whatever way."
Indeed it is wonderful what Pliny writes, book 10, chapter 33, that in the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile, swallows oppose an impregnable barrier to the flooding of the Nile by a continuous chain of nests over a space of one stadium, so that it would scarcely be believed that this could be accomplished by human labor. And in Egypt near the town of Coptos, they say there is an island sacred to Isis, which, lest the Nile flood it, the swallows, at the beginning of spring, fortify with straw and chaff through three continuous nights, with such labor that it is known many die in the work, and that this service returns to them always with the year.
Other birds also return in spring, but among them he names swallows especially. For they return with certainty at the very first of spring, and as it were announce the spring. Again, because this is more remarkable in the swallow, which scarcely admits training and scarcely allows itself to be tamed. Whence Pliny, book 10, chapter 15: "Among birds, he says, swallows are unteachable; among land animals, mice, although elephants obey commands, lions submit to the yoke, and in the sea calves and so many species of fish become tame." And Plutarch, Symposium 8, question 7: "Of those creatures, he says, which dwell with us, only the swallow and the fly are not tamed by man, and they will not suffer themselves to be touched, nor admit the habit or partnership of any work or play; which the fly does from fear of harm, and is constantly driven away; but the swallow because by nature it dislikes humans, and on account of its distrust it remains always suspicious, and is averse to taming."
Ludovico Ariosto in his satires writes that a swallow dies if it is kept enclosed in a cage for even a single day; whence in Hebrew it is also called deror, that is, free, says R. David. Albert the Great, however, writes that he has seen tamed swallows that flew to the hand. But these are rare. Moreover, the swallow is a symbol of the piety of parents (and especially of God) toward their children. For as Horus Apollo says, book 2, Hieroglyphics, chapter 29: "Wishing to signify all the wealth of parents left to their children, the Egyptians paint a swallow. For when it is near death, it rolls itself in mud and provides hiding places for its young." And St. Ambrose, book 5, Hexameron, chapter 17: "The swallow, he says, is a tiny creature, but sublimely distinguished by its pious affection, lacking in all resources, yet it builds nests more precious than gold." The swallow here therefore signifies God's fatherly love toward the Hebrews, having bestowed all His good things upon them, while they were ungrateful and impious toward Him.
From this return of hers in spring, the swallow is called "the herald of spring." Ovid, Fasti 1: "Then come the gentle suns, and the unfamiliar swallow appears, / And fashions her muddy work beneath the high beam." And: "Am I deceived, or has the swallow come as herald of spring, / Or does she fear lest winter return again?"
Hence the Rhodians, according to Athenaeus, at the end of winter used to invite the swallows, so that they would bring the spring, which they called chelidonizein, that is, ageirein for the chelidoni, that is, to collect alms for the swallow, going around the houses of the townspeople and singing this ditty (which they called chelidonisma, as it were a swallow-song): "Come, come, swallow, bringing fair hours and fair years." The same is attested by Theognis, book 3 of his work on Sacrifices, and from him Aldrovandus.
Mystically, the whole nature of the swallow is explained by James de Vitry, Cardinal, in the Second Sunday of Advent: The swallow, he says, which is red on the neck and breast, signifies the Saints, in whose heart and on whose lips is the faith of Christ's Passion, while they believe in their heart unto justice, and confess with their mouth unto salvation. Second, by its droppings, as with Tobit, worldly men are blinded, that is, by temporal goods, which the Saints regard as dung, as the Apostle says. Third, the swallow flees winter and passes to warm regions; so the saint, fleeing the frost of sins and the torpor of sloth, hastens toward the south wind of the Holy Spirit, to dwell in the fervor of charity. Fourth, the swallow is solicitous in building nests and raising young; so the holy man places his hope in the help and grace of Christ, and there stores up the young of good works, and devotes himself to raising and nourishing his neighbors. Fifth, the swallow abandons rooftops about to fall, and the Saints flee the ruin of the present age, lest they be overwhelmed and fall with it. Sixth, the swallow flies across the sea, and the Saints, passing through the bitterness of this world, serve God beyond the world. Seventh, the swallow returns after the cold of winter to announce the beginning of spring; so the just person after temptations arrives at mildness, with the Lord guiding, and shows himself as an example of good conduct and the freshness of virtues to others. Eighth, the swallow seeks spring, which is the middle between winter and summer, and the saint maintains in himself the measure of discretion and temperance. Ninth, the swallow does not take food while sitting still, but eats in the air the food it catches, and the just man on earth seeks heavenly things. Tenth, the swallow neither attacks other birds, nor is it itself seized by others, and just men neither harm others, nor ever become prey to demons. Eleventh, swallows are heralds of the word of God, for to these the comparison of St. Chrysostom is referred: "Swallows, he says, draw food for their young from mouth to mouth, but ours do not, but from mouth to ear: for those proceed toward corruption, but ours toward incorruption; those nourish the body, but ours fatten the soul." Twelfth, the swallow, diligently building its nest and restoring sight to its young through the herb celandine, represents the just person who despairs in no need, nor ceases from work, but begets children for Christ, and illuminates them through the medicine of truth.
AND THE STORK HAS KEPT THE TIME OF ITS COMING — namely the time of its migration to another place, to flee the severity of winter and seek mild spring. Second, these birds know where and when to nest and raise their young.
BUT MY PEOPLE HAS NOT KNOWN THE JUDGMENT OF THE LORD — that is, the time of vengeance, defined and promulgated by the law in general, and by Me in particular, as imminent, so that they might flee the winter of the desolation of Jerusalem through repentance. Moreover "has not known," that is, has been unwilling to consider, has not cared, has not believed the threats of the Lord. Others say "has not known," namely practically, that is, has been unwilling to carry out the judgment of the Lord, that is, His commandments, so as to pluck the fruit of the law. So Theodoretus.
God compares the Jews to birds, sins to winter, His mercy to spring, and teaches that they are more imprudent than those birds, which although they depart, yet at fixed times return, as though to teach us to do penance. For as Pliny says, book 8, chapter 26, men learn medicine from beasts; so Tertullian, in his book On Penance, says men should learn penance from the same. Hear Tertullian, in his book On Penance, at the end: "Why do you delay to undertake what you know will heal you? Mute and irrational creatures recognize in due time the medicines divinely given to them. The stag, pierced by an arrow, to expel the iron and its irremovable delay from the wound, knows it must be healed by dittany. If the swallow has blinded its young, it knows how to restore their sight from its own celandine. Will the sinner, knowing the exomologesis instituted by the Lord for his restoration, pass it by?" St. Pacianus says the same, Exhortation to Penance.
St. Barlaam, in Damascene's History, chapter 1, comparing idol-worshippers to a fowler, has an elegant fable about the cleverness of birds.
For when it saw that, having been captured by the fowler, it was about to be slaughtered, it said to him: What profit will you gain from my death? For you cannot fill your stomach with me. If you set me free, I will give you three precepts, which if you observe throughout your whole life, will bring you great advantages. He promised it freedom if it would teach him something new and useful. Then the bird said: "Never attempt a thing you cannot achieve; never regret a thing that is past; never give credence to an incredible thing." He, admiring its wisdom, released it. Once released, the bird tested the fowler, to see whether he would observe these precepts, and said: O man, what a treasure you have lost today! For I have in my bowels a pearl exceeding an ostrich egg in size. Hearing this, the fowler, overcome with vehement regret, tried to lure it back to himself. To whom the bird said: Now I see you are foolish. For I taught you not to be led by regret for a past thing, and behold, you have regretted releasing me. I instructed you not to attempt things you cannot achieve, and yet you try to catch me, when you cannot follow my flight. I told you not to believe an incredible story, and behold, you believed that in my bowels there was a pearl exceeding an ostrich egg in size. Thus, it said, idol-worshippers are foolish, because they worship idols which they themselves have made.
Verse 8
8. THE LYING PEN OF THE SCRIBES HAS WROUGHT FALSEHOOD. — The Chaldean says: The scribe has made his pen in vain, as though for falsifying the Scriptures, because while the law threatens transgressors with punishments and destruction, the Scribes say: "Peace, peace," promising the Jews redemption from punishments and salvation through mere external offerings; and thus by false interpretation they corrupt the law, and thus "they heal," that is, they wish to heal, "the wound of the people to" their "shame" and confusion. But "they are confounded, terrified and captured," that is, they will be confounded and struck with fear when they are captured by the Chaldeans.
The Lord translates: Truly the pen of the scribe has also wrought falsehood in vain, as if to say: The scribes who exercise the office of scribes in Jerusalem labor in vain, because they themselves pervert the law by their words and deeds; or, as Maldonatus says: The scribes labor in vain in transcribing the law, since you, O Jews, by no means observe it.
Verse 10
10. THEIR FIELDS (I will give) TO HEIRS. — In Hebrew ioreschim, that is, to possessors, namely foreign ones, that is, to the Chaldeans, who will invade and occupy the fields of the Jews.
ALL PRACTICE DECEIT — that is, frauds and deceptions, so that by a false interpretation of the law, they may hunt for profit. Second, "falsehood," that is, any kind of depravity; for this is falsehood not spoken but practical: whence often in Scripture it is called "falsehood."
Verse 13
13. GATHERING I WILL GATHER THEM — namely for destruction and captivity, that is, I will utterly destroy and ruin them, say a Castro and Sanchez. Or more simply, I will gather them into Jerusalem and other cities of Judea, so that there they may endure the tightest siege by the Chaldeans, by whom no grape will be left on the vines, nor fig on the fig tree; indeed even the leaves will fall from the trees. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Lyranus, and Maldonatus. St. Jerome notes that by these words a long siege is signified, so that from autumn, when it is the time for figs, it will be extended into winter when the leaves fall. The Chaldean translates differently: The Jews shall be finished, as grapes are finished from the vine, and as a fig falling from the fig tree, and as a leaf from a tree.
Symbolically, by figs and grapes are proverbially signified the wealth of the Jews, which will all pass from them to the Chaldeans, so that even "what has passed by," that is, worthless and neglected things, such as the few clusters left in the vineyard after the harvest, will be tracked down and plundered by them once more. This is what he said in chapter 6, verse 9: "They shall glean the remnants of Israel thoroughly, as in a vineyard down to the last cluster." So Sanchez.
I HAVE GIVEN THEM THINGS THAT HAVE PASSED AWAY. — That is, I will give the Jews grapes and figs which will pass beyond them, that is, which will pass from them to the Chaldeans, and will be picked by them. So St. Jerome, Vatablus, Hugo, and Lyranus. Others explain it as: I will give the Jews only those fruits which the Chaldeans have passed over in their devastation, so that they themselves may stealthily gather them. But the former sense is required by the affixed pronoun in iaabrum, which refers to the Jews, not the Chaldeans, since no mention of them has been made here.
Verse 14
14. LET US ENTER THE FORTIFIED CITY. — Jerusalem; the Septuagint, let us enter the fortified cities. It is mimesis, for these are the words of the Jews, terrified on account of the threatening Chaldeans.
AND LET US BE SILENT THERE. — That is, let us wait anxiously and sadly for the outcome of this affair and war; or, as Lyranus and Hugo say, let us be silent there, listening to the trumpets of the enemy, whether the Chaldeans are coming: let us do nothing, let us not provoke the enemy, let us only defend ourselves behind walls, since the Lord has brought us into these straits, and, as the Septuagint says, has cast us away; the Chaldean, has shamed us. This silence therefore signifies great terror and consternation; for so do terrified mice fall silent before a cat: so did the earth fall silent before Alexander the Great, 1 Maccabees chapter 1, verse 3.
Vatablus, Pagninus, and a Castro explain differently: "Let us be silent," that is, let us die and perish; it is a catachresis: for the dead are silent. Thus chapter 25, verse 37 says: "They are silent," that is, they have perished, "the peaceful pastures;" and chapter 49, verse 26: "All the men of war shall be silent," that is, shall perish, and thus hell and the grave in Hebrew is called duma, that is, silence.
Third, St. Jerome says: God, inexorable, has imposed silence upon us, so that we dare not entreat Him: for the habit of sinning begets despair of pardon.
Fourth, others: "Let us be silent," that is, let us rest from such great evils, in which we find ourselves here; but how has God made those silent whom He has afflicted with such great evils?
Morally, silence is manifold, says St. Thomas. First, the silence of stupor: Amos chapter 8: "In every place there shall be silence cast forth." Second, of security: Isaiah chapter 32: "And the work of justice shall be peace, and the worship of justice silence, and security forever." Third, of patience: Lamentations chapter 3: "It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of God." Fourth, of quietness of heart: Ecclesiastes 12: "The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails deeply fixed." Thus far St. Thomas, or rather Thomas the Englishman.
AND HE HAS GIVEN US WATER OF GALL TO DRINK. — Vatablus, bitter water, or water mixed with gall, and therefore bitter: the Chaldean, water of cursing; that is, He has filled us with bitterness, that we may learn by experience that it is an evil and bitter thing to have abandoned, and to have provoked to bitterness, the sweet Lord. So St. Jerome. Thus it is said in Psalm 59:5: "You have shown Your people hard things: You have given us the wine of remorse to drink;" and Psalm 79:6: "You will feed us with the bread of tears, and will give us tears to drink in measure."
It can secondly be translated: He has given us deadly poisoned water to drink, that is, the Lord has led us into the anguish and dangers of death, as if He had administered hemlock to us.
Morally, learn here what sin is, and what its allurements are; namely, it is a drop of honey which turns into a sea of gall: for a small pleasure is punished with eternal pain and fire.
WE LOOKED FOR PEACE — believing the false prophets who said: "Peace, peace." AND THERE WAS NO GOOD — namely of peace, which we were expecting. So Vatablus, St. Thomas, Lyranus. St. Jerome explains differently: there was no good, that is, no merit by which we might deserve peace.
A TIME OF HEALING — that is, of liberation; the Chaldean, of propitiation: repeat "we looked for."
Verse 16
16. FROM DAN WAS HEARD THE SNORTING OF HIS HORSES — as if to say: From Dan, or from Caesarea Philippi, Nebuchadnezzar will come with his cavalry against Jerusalem. See what was said on chapter 4, verse 15.
Many, following Irenaeus, book 5, chapter 30, take these words allegorically of the Antichrist to be born from the tribe of Dan, and thus expound that passage in Genesis 49: "Let Dan be a serpent in the way," and therefore in Revelation 7, among the sealed tribes, only Dan is omitted. So St. Augustine, Gregory, Theodoretus, Ambrose, Damascene, Anselm, Rupert, Bede, and others, whom Lipomanus cites, Genesis 49:16. Whence Ribera, on Revelation chapter 7, number 13: "Why, he asks, will the Antichrist come from Dan? Because from the tribe of Dan dwelling in the city of Dan, and perhaps in that same city he will be born."
THEY HAVE DEVOURED THE LAND AND ITS FULLNESS — that is, its abundance, namely all the fruits with which it was full.
Verse 17
17. BEHOLD I WILL SEND AMONG YOU SERPENTS, BASILISKS. — The Septuagint says, deadly serpents. Note: the basilisk, according to Pliny, book 8, chapter 21, Solinus, chapter 30, and Aelian, book 9, chapter 18, is in Latin the same as the Greek basiliskos, namely a serpent the size of a finger or a palm, having a head marked with what appears to be a white crown; it crawls with the lower half of its body and walks erect with the upper half, so noxious that it infects the air, to such an extent that "no bird flies through the air infected by its pestilential breath with impunity," says Solinus, chapter 30; it scorches plants, kills men with its very breath, and puts all serpents to flight with its hiss; whence it is called basilisk, that is, king of serpents. Such were the Chaldeans to the Jews, striking them almost lifeless by their mere appearance, noise, and voice. Whence the Chaldean translates: Peoples who kill, like royal serpents, against which there is no incantation, and they will kill you.
AGAINST WHICH THERE IS NO CHARM. — That is, who are so barbarous and cruel that they can be bent to mercy by no prayers. So St. Jerome and the Chaldean. But the Septuagint translates: from which it is not possible to extract, namely the sting of deadly venom, and they shall bite you incurably, with the pain of your heart failing.
Tropologically, such basilisks for the wicked and the damned are demons. So St. Gregory, book 34 of the Moralia, chapter 5: "I will send among you, He says, royal serpents against which there is no charm, as if He were to say: By a just judgment I will hand you over to such unclean spirits, who cannot be driven from you by the exhortation of preachers as by the speech of enchanters." Again, such basilisks are slanderers, says Hugo.
Verse 18
18. MY SORROW IS BEYOND SORROW. — Note that this is the voice of Jeremiah, as the Chaldean, Hugo, St. Thomas, and Lyranus teach, or, as St. Jerome and Rabanus say, of God, grieving and lamenting the overthrow of Jerusalem, so that from grief He stretches His mouth wide open, as it were. For the Hebrew mabligiti, which in Greek is not algein but plegisa, is a gaping of the mouth, partly contracted and partly distended with pain, and having the appearance of a laugh. So St. Jerome. But Maldonatus and Sanchez consider these to be the words of the grieving people, which the Prophet recites by mimesis. Whence tropologically Sanchez adds that sinners rejoice and laugh in their sins; but this laugh is sardonic, which is a sign or cause of death. But the following verse expresses the voice of the people. The interpretation of St. Jerome is therefore the truer one.
Vatablus translates differently: My strengthening or respite is beyond grief, my heart within me is sad, as if to say: When in my sorrow I wished to console and strengthen myself against it, I could not, because my heart was oppressed with grief.
Verse 19
19. BEHOLD THE VOICE OF THE CRY OF THE DAUGHTER OF MY PEOPLE. — Jeremiah calls the synagogue of his people a daughter, because he loved, nurtured, and admonished her as a daughter. Whence the Chaldean translates, a voice from outside my people, as if to say: I, Jeremiah, grieve because I seem to hear the voice of my people led away into distant captivity, into Chaldea; or rather of the people fearing the approach and siege of the Chaldeans. Whence instead of "from a distant land," in Hebrew it is meerets, on account of the land, marchakkim, that is, of distances. So Pagninus. Thus often "from" is taken for "on account of," as
we say, I weep, I wail, I mourn for the death of my son, that is, on account of. It is a Hebraism and an enallage, as if to say: I grieve and am struck with fear on account of those who come from a distant land, that is, of the Chaldeans. For that the siege of Jerusalem is being discussed here, not the captivity, as Theodoretus, Lyranus, Thomas, and a Castro would have it, is clear from what follows. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo, Vatablus, and Maldonatus.
IS THE LORD NOT IN ZION? — These are the words of the people besieged by the Chaldeans, as if to say: Is not God like a King in Zion; why then has He allowed it to be besieged? Why does He seem to have handed it over to the Chaldeans to be devastated? The Lord responds: Why have you also provoked Me with your idols? Why, having abandoned Me, have you sought help from foreign gods and nations, as though there were no God in Jerusalem, nor King? as He said in chapter 2, verse 18. He notes the worship of Moloch, that is, of the king of every man and god. For the Jews had preferred this foreign king and god to their own native and true one.
The Chaldean explains differently; for he considers "Is the Lord," etc., to be the words of God, as if to say: Since you have Me as Lord, master and King in Zion, why do you flee to idols?
Verse 20
20. THE HARVEST IS PAST. — This is the voice of the Jewish people lamenting a prolonged calamity, namely a siege endured throughout the whole summer and year, and that their allies had not brought the help they had promised to relieve it: for they thought they would come after the harvest in May or June, when men are less occupied, and they did not come. Then they thought they would come after summer, when the vintage was already done, and they did not come. God therefore here mocks them, reciting their words. So St. Jerome, Vatablus, Lyranus, and Maldonatus. St. Thomas explains differently, as if to say: The harvest has passed, and yet we still perish from famine. Theodoretus also explains differently, as if to say: Already seventy harvests and summers have passed, that is, years of captivity, and yet we still remain captives in Babylon. But this is more remote and alien: whence the former sense is that it deals not with the captivity, but with the siege.
Verse 21
21. FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE DAUGHTER OF MY PEOPLE I AM BROKEN — as if to say: I, God, says St. Jerome, or rather, as the Chaldean, Theodoretus, Lyranus, St. Thomas, and Vatablus say, I, Jeremiah, am fixed in astonishment and stupefied, because the people cannot remedy their own great evils.
IS THERE NO BALM IN GILEAD? — "Balm" is a tear or drop, distilling either spontaneously or from incisions in trees, as from pine, cypress, cedar, and terebinth, which is called turpentine. Famous in Scripture is that which is collected in "Gilead": for "Gilead" is a part of Arabia, which is most fertile in aromatic substances. Moreover, balm mitigates pain, binds wounds, and draws a scar over them. The Greeks call it rhetine: for rhetsos means whatever distills or drops. Vatablus and Pagninus translate it as theriac; the Chaldean, as balsam.
IS THERE NO PHYSICIAN THERE? — Vatablus and Pagninus translate: is there no surgeon there? Note: In the medical art and surgery, the Gileadites and Arabs excelled because of their aromatics and simples, namely herbs, woods, and fruits, of which they have the most excellent. Again, he names Gilead because Elijah and other Prophets had lived there, 1 Kings 17:1, as if to say: Does Jerusalem and Judea lack medicines? that is, sound counsels, teaching, instruction; or, as Vatablus and the Chaldean say, the prayers and supplications of pious men, and physicians, namely spiritual ones, that is, Prophets and priests, by whose remedy and counsel her wounds, that is, sins, and so great a disaster and devastation might be healed? as if to say: They are not lacking, but she is unwilling to listen to them. So Theodoretus. Vatablus explains differently: I marvel, he says, that in this region, which professes to worship God, no pious person can be found who by his prayers might heal the evils of my people. From this passage Bachiarius, in his letter to Januarius, proves that every sin is remissible in this life. A Castro also explains differently, taking it as sarcasm, as if to say: Where are your medicines, that is, weapons, counsels, resources; and doctors, that is, princes and priests, who you boasted would heal the wound of your siege and destruction? See, because without God, indeed against God, there is no counsel, there is no wisdom, there is no remedy, no health.
Tropologically, the balm and medicine of the soul is penance, says St. Jerome, and, as the Chaldean says, it is prayer. Whence he translates thus: "Jeremiah the prophet said: Perhaps I do not have good works to intercede for the house of Israel: I indeed desired the teaching of Elijah the prophet, who was from Gilead, whose words were medicine, because since they have not been converted, therefore the medicine for the wound of the assembly of my people has not grown," as if to say: God withdrew the medicine from the Jews because they were unwilling to use it.
Again, the balm represents the Sacraments, which distill the blood of Christ, most efficacious for healing the wounds of the soul, into it: Gilead is the Church: the physicians are the priests, who administer these Sacraments as medicines: the terebinth, from which this balm flows, is the crucified body of Christ, of which Sirach chapter 24 says: "I like a terebinth have spread forth my branches."
Moreover, what Hippocrates, at the beginning of his Aphorisms, writes and laments concerning medicine and physicians healing the wounds and diseases of the body: "Life is short, the art is long, the opportunity fleeting, the experiment perilous, the judgment difficult;" this is far more truly said of spiritual medicine and spiritual physicians, who endeavor to cure the wounds and diseases of the soul.
Finally, St. Augustine speaks admirably in the Sentences, sentence 131: "Just as, he says, there are two functions of medicine, one by which sickness is healed, another by which health is preserved: so there are two gifts of grace, one which takes away the desire of the flesh, another which causes the virtue of the soul to persevere."