Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
By the hieroglyph and enigma of the loincloth buried and rotting, and in verse 12, of the wine flask that intoxicates, he describes the captivity and calamity of the Jews. Whence he says in verse 18: Say to the king and to the queen-mother, etc., where is the flock that was given to you, your glorious cattle? This is the enigmatic genre of prophecy, which is more effective for persuasion, because it is carried out and represented not by words alone, but also by the things themselves. Similar was chapter 7, verse 28, and below chapter 18, verses 2 and 3, Isaiah 20:2, Hosea 1:3.
Note that these things happened not at the time of the siege under Zedekiah, as St. Jerome holds, but under Jehoiakim; for he threatens destruction not to one king, but to kings, namely Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, in verse 13. And under Jehoiakim, when he was paying tribute to the Chaldeans, Jeremiah could easily go to Babylon and return, but not when the city was besieged and the Chaldeans were enemies.
Vulgate Text: Jeremiah 13:1-27
1. Thus says the Lord to me: Go, and acquire for yourself a linen loincloth, and place it upon your loins, and do not bring it into water. 2. And I acquired the loincloth according to the word of the Lord, and placed it around my loins. 3. And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying: 4. Take the loincloth which you acquired, which is around your loins, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock. 5. And I went and hid it at the Euphrates, as the Lord had commanded me. 6. And it came to pass after many days, the Lord said to me: Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth which I commanded you to hide there. 7. And I went to the Euphrates; and I dug, and took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it: and behold, the loincloth had rotted, so that it was fit for no use. 8. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 9. Thus says the Lord: So will I cause the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem to rot: 10. this most wicked people, who refuse to hear My words, and walk in the depravity of their heart, and have gone after foreign gods to serve them and worship them: and they shall be like this loincloth, which is fit for no use. 11. For as the loincloth clings to the loins of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me, says the Lord: that they might be for Me a people, and a name, and a praise, and a glory: but they did not listen. 12. You shall therefore say to them this word: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Every flask shall be filled with wine. And they will say to you: Do we not know that every flask shall be filled with wine? 13. And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, and the kings who sit from the stock of David upon his throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness: 14. and I will scatter them, each man from his brother, and fathers and sons alike, says the Lord: I will not spare, and I will not yield: nor will I show mercy so as not to destroy them. 15. Hear, and give ear. Do not be lifted up, for the Lord has spoken. 16. Give glory to the Lord your God before He brings darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains: you will look for light, and He will turn it into the shadow of death and into thick darkness. 17. But if you will not hear this, my soul will weep in secret because of your pride: weeping it will weep, and my eye will shed tears, because the flock of the Lord has been captured. 18. Say to the king and to the queen-mother: Humble yourselves, sit down; for the crown of your glory has fallen from your head. 19. The cities of the South are shut up, and there is none to open them: all Judah has been carried away in complete exile. 20. Lift up your eyes and see, you who come from the North: where is the flock that was given to you, your glorious cattle? 21. What will you say when He visits you? For you taught them against yourself, and instructed them against your own head: shall not sorrows seize you, as a woman in labor? 22. And if you say in your heart: Why have these things come upon me? Because of the greatness of your iniquity your shameful parts have been uncovered, your feet have been defiled. 23. If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots: then you also may do good, when you have learned evil. 24. And I will scatter them like stubble that is carried away by the wind in the desert. 25. This is your lot, and the portion of your measure from Me, says the Lord, because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood. 26. Therefore I also have stripped your thighs before your face, and your shame has appeared, 27. your adulteries and your neighing, the wickedness of your fornication: upon the hills in the field I have seen your abominations. Woe to you, Jerusalem, you will not be made clean after Me: how long yet?
Verse 1
1. ACQUIRE. — The Chaldean renders, buy; for the Hebrew קנה kana signifies both; for the end and terminus of a purchase is the possession of the thing bought.
A LINEN LOINCLOTH, — that is, a belt or girdle of linen with which the loins are girded. So the Septuagint and Vatablus. He wants it to be linen, not woolen, not leather, to indicate that it is to be put on not over the garment but against the flesh: for what we wish to be most closely joined to us and most carefully preserved, we gird around our loins: just as travelers gird money sewn into a linen belt close around their loins, says Maldonatus. Whence the Syriac and Arabic render, handkerchief, veil, linen cloth; and bind it on your loins, or upon your back.
Note first: The girdle or "loincloth" which is joined to God's loins, say St. Jerome and Jeremiah in verse 11, is Israel, who was taken up from the earth in the likeness of linen, rough and unwashed, having neither softness nor whiteness, that is, nothing lovable on account of which he would be chosen by God as the people of God; but by God's grace alone he clung to God and was most closely joined to Him: and when he had grown dirty through use and dust, that is, when he had sinned, God rejected him on account of his sins and buried him in a hole on the bank of the Euphrates, that is, He led him captive into Babylon, and there exposed him to the fury of the Chaldeans. For Babylon lies along the Euphrates and Tigris, and there the loincloth is hidden by Jeremiah, because Israel there as a captive, nearly swallowed up by the vastness of so many nations, was counted as nothing.
Fifth, mystically every saint is a "loincloth" of God; but when he sins, he is led to the Babylonians, that is, into the kingdom of the devil, and if he persists in vices, he so rots that he cannot return to use and service as the Lord's girdle. So St. Jerome. Whence
Note second: With Pierius, Hieroglyphics 40 (where in a special paragraph he explains this girdle of Jeremiah wonderfully symbolically), the girdle was a symbol of virginity, among the Greeks and Latins as well as the Hebrews. Hence Pausanias teaches that the virgins of Troezen dedicated their girdle to Pallas before marriage: so the first mothers in Athens dedicated their girdle to Diana Solvizona, as if now loosed through marriage: the witness is Apollonius in the Argonautica, and Ovid when he sings: And the chaste girdle was unbound by a deceitful hand.
Hence of old and even now priests in sacred rites use a linen girdle, that they may be reminded, says Cyril, to restrain the wantonness of loose desire and the passions of the soul with the girdle of chastity and temperance.
Second, the girdle was a symbol of fortitude: for it is the attire of the soldier and the swordsman.
Hence third, the girdle was a symbol of glory and pride, especially if the girdles were adorned with golden and jeweled studs, which are called belts, as if "studded," says Pierius. Whence verse 9: "So will I cause the pride of Judah to rot, says the Lord," as this belt of yours has rotted.
Fourth, the girdle, says St. Hilary, is an effective preparation for every good work, so that we may be girded with the belt of ready will for every ministry of Christ: for those who are girded are more ready for work, stronger and more constant. See what was said on Ephesians 6:14. All these things apply to Israel and to every faithful soul, which must be girded with all this belt, so as to cling inseparably to God.
Note third: In like manner linen was a hieroglyph of purity of life, of Israel and the faithful soul: whence the Egyptians in the rites of Isis and Osiris used only linen garments, and it was unlawful to use woolen ones. So from Tertullian, Plutarch, Herodian, Martial, and Pierius. Hear Martial: The linen-clad bald priests flee, and the sistrum-bearing crowd, when Hermogenes stood among the worshipers.
Second, this linen must be carded, and often bleached with the biting lye of penance and austerity of life, lest it rot.
Second, St. Thomas adds, the "loincloth," which clings to the loins, in which is the first origin of concupiscence and seed, signifies the people taken up into the love of God, Hosea 11:4, and here verse 1. Again, the "loincloth" signifies chastity and conjugal love: hence he says in verse 11: "As the loincloth clings to the loins of a man, so I made cling," that is, I joined in marriage, "to Myself the whole house of Israel." So Prado on chapter 16 of Ezekiel, page 187.
Third, after much time Jeremiah retrieves the "loincloth," but rotten; so God liberates the people from the Babylonian captivity, in which they had practically rotted with filth as well as sins: after the return they again offended God, and finally killed Christ, and wasted away in eternal perdition. So St. Jerome.
Fourth, it seems that Jeremiah actually did these things just as he narrates them, say Theodoret, Hugh, St. Thomas, Dionysius, Maldonatus, Castro, Sanchez, and the chief of the Hebrews: for this is what his simple narration demands: for the Prophets were given as a sign to Israel. So Isaiah, chapter 20, walked naked. So Ezekiel, chapter 4, verses 12 and 15, was commanded to eat human dung: but deprecating this, in its place he ate cow dung by God's permission, so as to foreshadow the famine and hardships of the Babylonian captivity. Although some, like Vatablus, Lyranus, and St. Jerome, Preface on Hosea, would have these things to be only a vision, or these things seen and done by Jeremiah in spirit, but not actually carried out in reality.
Third, linen is a symbol of fate or of the decree and providence of God, which the poets call the threads and yarns of the Fates; for Clotho turns the spindle, Lachesis spins, and Atropos cuts: so they rot or are cut off, when the web of human happiness is cut by God; as it was cut by God for Israel.
Tropologically, Origen and St. Jerome beautifully say: Just as, he says, linen is born from the earth, sprouts, grows, is harvested, combed, washed, beaten, pounded, carded, and with great labor cleaned out, spun, woven, so that from it linen and a girdle white and splendid may be made: so God softened, polished, and perfected the Jews and us Christians, especially the clergy and religious, who from our generation and corrupt nature as well as from depraved upbringing or habit of sinning were earthly, dark, rough, and harsh in manners and vices, by His work, care, and grace, so that we might be woven as it were into God's girdle and be most closely joined to Him, and thence obtain a name, praise, and glory: for if we are separated from Him and in the Euphrates of pleasures are drenched with the moisture of pleasure and lust, we shall rot, says Peter Damian, Epistle 10 to Cardinal Peter, and as rotten things we shall be cast away by Christ and reduced as it were to nothing, as happened to Solomon, David, and Israel. I have said more about this symbolism of linen on Exodus 28:38, at the end.
Again, St. Jerome piously and aptly writes to Chromatius, Epistle 43: "I, he says, lying in the filth of my sins and bound by the chains of my transgressions, await the Lord's cry from the Gospel: Lazarus, come forth. Bonosus (because according to the Prophet all the power of the devil is in the loins) carried his loincloth all the way to the Euphrates, where hiding it in a cleft of the rock and later finding it torn, he sang: Lord, You have possessed my loins. You have broken my chains; I will sacrifice to You a sacrifice of praise. But Nebuchadnezzar led me in chains to Babylon, that is, to the confusion of my mind; there he imposed upon me the yoke of captivity. Therefore I said: The Lord frees the bound, the Lord gives light to the blind. And to briefly finish the comparison I have begun: I beg for pardon, he awaits a crown."
Allegorically, Christ as High Priest assumed the linen tunic, in which was depicted the whole people of Israel and of Christendom; the tunic, I say, of our flesh He assumed, and in it He joined us all most closely and inseparably to Himself by the belt of the hypostatic union, to Himself, I say, that is to His divine loins, where love has its seat; namely, He bound us to His most ardent love and affection. This is the golden girdle with which John saw Him girded at the breast, Revelation 1:13.
YOU SHALL NOT BRING IT INTO WATER, — lest it seem to have contracted mold and dampness and to have rotted, but from another cause, says Lyranus. Better, Vatablus takes water to mean lye, with which dirt is washed out of linen, as if to say: You shall not wash the dirty loincloth with lye, to signify that the filth and sins of the people have not been washed away and expiated by penance. St. Jerome explains most excellently: "You shall not bring it into water," that is, you shall not soak the freshly woven cloth in water, so as to whiten and polish it by that means; but you shall leave it rough, coarse, and dark, just as it was born and woven, to signify that the Jewish people, newly born, was then taken up by God into the Church when it was rough and unpolished, trained and practiced more in forming bricks and mortar in Egypt than in the worship of God and upright manners, as I said a little before.
Verse 9
9. SO WILL I CAUSE THE PRIDE OF JUDAH TO ROT. — "Pride," that is, glory, magnificence, and, as the Chaldean renders, strength. Second, "pride," that is, arrogance. Whence the Septuagint renders, hybrin, that is, outrage. God therefore here crushes the presumption and pride of His people, when, like a rotten loincloth more fit for the dunghill than the wardrobe, He makes them waste away and rot in Babylon, so that they may be trampled upon like dung by the Chaldeans, according to Lamentations 4:5: "Those who were nourished in scarlet have embraced dung."
Verse 11
11. THAT THEY MIGHT BE FOR ME A PEOPLE, AND A NAME, AND A PRAISE, AND A GLORY, — that is, so that Israel might be a people named, praised, and glorious among all nations. So Jerome, Theodoret, and Rabanus. For just as a wife is the glory of her husband, so Israel, obedient and serving God, was the glory of God, and made God's name and praise famous among the nations, say Hugh and Dionysius. Add "for a name," because in the name Israel is included and heard the name אל El, that is, God: therefore as often as Israel was named, so often El, that is, God, was named and celebrated. For El signifies God as strong and unconquered.
Verse 12
12. EVERY FLASK SHALL BE FILLED WITH WINE. — "Flask," in Hebrew נכל nebel, that is, as the Chaldean says, a wineskin; Symmachus, a bowl; Theodotion, a vessel, namely an earthen jar, a clay pitcher. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugh, Lyranus, as if to say: Just as a flask is filled with wine, so I will fill you with drunkenness, not of honors and pleasures, as you think, O Jews, but of evils and sorrows. Second, the wine flask is the measure of fury and vengeance which God will serve and with which He will intoxicate you; the flasks therefore are the Jews themselves, who receive the wine of God's fury. Again, properly and fittingly he calls the head of each Jew a flask; for the head is like a jar: and the wine he calls blindness of mind and lack of counsel in adverse circumstances. He signifies therefore that when the Chaldeans come, all will be seized with such terror that, like drunkards and madmen, they will wander here and there, indeed they will rush into the very enemies, fires, and precipices. So Maldonatus. Third, because just as a flask when dashed is shattered, so you will be scattered. This is clear from verses 13 and 14.
Verse 13
13. I WILL FILL ALL, etc., WITH DRUNKENNESS, — that is, with the greatest tribulation and servitude to the Chaldeans, so that just as a drunkard has no strength to resist, nor counsel, nor use of reason, nor is governed by his mind but by wine: so also the Jews, as if drunk, will have neither strength nor counsel to resist the Chaldeans; nor will they be driven by their own mind, but at the command of the Chaldeans they will be driven, pushed, and thrust into prisons and into Babylon. So the Chaldean, Origen, and Theodoret. Isaiah writes something similar about the Egyptians, chapter 19, verse 14, saying: "The Lord has mingled in the midst of it a spirit of giddiness: and they have caused Egypt to err in all its work, as a drunkard staggers and vomits;" and of Jerusalem, chapter 51, verse 21: "Therefore hear this, you poor woman, drunk but not with wine." See also chapter 29, verse 9.
PROPHETS, — false prophets.
Verse 14
14. I WILL SCATTER THEM. — The Hebrew says, I will dash them, just as an earthen jar dashed against a stone shatters into fragments and is scattered; so the Jewish people, dashed against the Chaldeans and pressed together by grief and anguish, will as it were shatter into fragments, so that a wife is scattered to one city, a son to another, a brother to another city and region. So the Chaldean and Vatablus.
The reasons why God scatters the wicked from one another in this way are given by Origen here, Homily 9, namely he says God does this: first, for the increase of punishment, so that in punishment they may not have companions and console one another. Second, so that their wicked designs may be dissolved, when they no longer have conversation with someone more wicked, and thus they may be recalled from their former crimes by solitude itself and the lack of companionship.
EACH MAN FROM HIS BROTHER, — that is, each one from his neighbor.
I WILL NOT YIELD, — I will not be lenient: the Septuagint, reading אחכור echmod instead of אחכור echmol, translate, I will not be hindered, that is, I will not be restrained by love or desire for anyone so as not to let you depart and be scattered.
Verse 15
15. DO NOT BE LIFTED UP — with pride, so that you proudly trust in your own strength: but
Verse 16
16. GIVE GLORY TO THE LORD YOUR GOD, — so that you may acknowledge your weakness as well as your iniquity, and humbly seek and hope for help from God alone against the Chaldeans: for humility gives the highest glory to God, for God is honored by the humble, Sirach 20.
Hence second, "give glory to God," that is, repent of your crimes and the outraged deity, retract your worst deeds, change your life. For when a penitent does this, he repairs the injury done to God and restores to Him the glory that was taken away. So in 1 Kings 6:4, when the Philistines, afflicted by plagues on account of the captured ark and becoming penitent, were thinking about restoring the ark and expiating the injury done to God, and said: "What is it that we must render to Him for our offense?" The priests answered: "You shall make five golden tumors and five golden mice, etc., and you shall give glory to the God of Israel," as if to say: Thus you shall restore to God His glory.
Third, Sanchez aptly thinks there is a reference here to verse 11: "That they might be for Me a name, and a praise, and a glory," as if to say: Give glory to God, and strive to honor His name: for to this He called you and chose you for Himself. Therefore render to God that to which so singular and lofty a calling and election by God compels you. Glorify God by believing, hoping, loving, fearing, and invoking Him, not idols.
This phrase is understood differently in Joshua 7:19 and John 9:24; for there to give glory to God means to confess and speak the truth. For he who does this wonderfully glorifies God, who is the first and uncreated truth, and the cause, guardian, and defender of all truth.
BEFORE HE BRINGS DARKNESS. — In Hebrew יחשיך iachasich, that is, before He causes it to grow dark, namely God; before He brings upon you darkness, that is, calamities.
BEFORE YOUR FEET STUMBLE ON THE DARK MOUNTAINS, — namely of Chaldea, to which you will be led captive, which both because of the neighboring swamps exhaling misty vapors, and because of their great height, and because of the magnitude of your calamity and disturbance, will seem dark to you, and in reality mystically they are Babel, that is, they are the confusion of sins and idolatry, and therefore they are dark. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugh, and St. Thomas. So in Isaiah 13:2, it is said of Babylon: "Upon the dark mountain raise a signal." See what was said there.
Sanchez adds that Babylon is called a dark mountain because it was captured by Cyrus at night during a public feast, when no less darkness was spread over the city from the night than over the minds of the citizens from disturbance and intoxication. But what is discussed here is not the destruction of Babylon, but its victory and triumph over the captive Jews and other nations: and then everything was bright and joyful for Babylon, not dark and sad.
Second, Lyranus and Dionysius understand by these mountains the help of the Egyptians, which the Jews, besieged by the Chaldeans, waited for in vain, and therefore, as it were, stumbled on their hope for it, dashed against it, and fell. But this is more obscure.
Third, Maldonatus says: "before they stumble," etc., this means, he says, before as fugitives you wander through the mountains as if in darkness, not knowing where to go or what counsel to take. Therefore he said "on the mountains" to signify their flight and exile. This sense, like the first, is fitting and genuine.
Fourth, Theodoret, the Chaldean, Lyranus, and Vatablus also fittingly take these words hyperbolically, so that mountains of darkness, that is, the greatest darkness, signify the most grievous calamities, as if mountains covered with the gloom of tribulations were set before the captive Jews. Whence follows: "You will look for light," that is, consolation and joy, and God will turn it into "the shadow of death," that is, into the deepest darkness, namely into misery, in the prison and captivity of Babylon. A similar phrase is in Ecclesiastes 12:2.
Tropologically, before the day of death and judgment, lest our feet stumble on the dark mountains, that is, on the hostile powers, namely the demons who preside over the torments and tortures of hell, let us do penance here, says St. Jerome; for then no one will offer prayer, praise, and glory to God, says Origen. For those who procrastinate penance until the time of death, as if they will then begin the way of salvation, act just like those who plan to travel at night through dark, uncertain, precipitous, rough places beset by robbers. See Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
Truly St. Augustine in his Sentences, number 195: "Just as the earth awaits rain and light from heaven, so man ought to await mercy and truth from God."
AND HE WILL TURN IT INTO THE SHADOW OF DEATH. — The shadow of death here and elsewhere is opposed to light. It therefore signifies the thickest darkness: for such are the shadows of the tomb and of hell, to which death leads man. Where note first: Properly the shadow of death is darkness and a dreadful place, or the horror of death and hell: for these accompany death and hell, as a shadow accompanies its body. Whence in Luke 1:79, it is said to the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ: "To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death;" that is, to enlighten sinners sitting in the darkness of sin, and the just sitting in the dark limbo of the Fathers. Indeed Virgil too, in Book 12 of the Aeneid, sings of the same: Hard rest and iron sleep weigh down his eyes; his lids are closed in everlasting night.
Note second: By this shadow of death, or by these shadows, is signified the saddest state of affairs, extreme misery, and the time of captivity, prison, infirmity, death, and damnation; for nothing is sadder than the shadowy sepulchers of the dead: and conversely light, because it is most welcome, is a symbol of happiness. Again, the shadow of death signifies imminent dangers and hence the anguish of death, because a shadow is close to the body: so it is taken in Psalm 22:4. Third, it signifies long forgetfulness; whence St. Gregory, Morals IV, 20: "To sit in the shadow of death, he says, is to hide in forgetfulness, far from the knowledge of divine love." For God is life and light, which is furthest from the shadow of death. Fourth, the shadow of death is ignorance of God and of salvation.
Tropologically, in all these ways sin is and is called the shadow of death. First, because it is the source and cause of all misery. Second, because sin reigns as in its royal court in the death of the soul and in hell. Third, because as a shadow is close to the body, so sin is close to death and damnation. Fourth, because it is most dangerous. Fifth, because it most anguishes and torments the conscience. Sixth, because it brings forgetfulness of God and in turn causes the sinner to be consigned to oblivion by God. So St. Jerome on Isaiah 9.
Finally, the ancients represented the shadow of death by a dreadful and squalid place destined for penance, which was called a prison, in which penitents voluntarily expiated their sins: first, by the horror of the place; second, by afflicting their limbs with chains, hair shirts, sharp points, and other means. For some lay continuously prostrate on the ground. Others always stood bent over. Others always knelt, etc. Third, by constant fasting: for they ate only once a day, and that only bread and water: some ate only once every two days, others every three days, others every four days. Fourth, by continual tears and sighs, which would have softened even an iron breast. Climacus recounts these things, Step 5, On Penance. Where now is that ardor of penitents? Where is that profound knowledge and horror of sin? It has been exiled from the world: it has migrated to the shadow of death in hell; there now sinners do penance, but late and eternal.
Verse 17
17. IF YOU WILL NOT HEAR THIS, MY SOUL WILL WEEP IN SECRET. — These are the words of the Prophet, as if to say: If you reject my warnings, I will withdraw to a secret place, where freely without any interruption I may weep over your pride and stubbornness, or rather over the proud coming of the Chaldeans, by whom, as follows, the people of the Lord were led away. So the Chaldean. But the Septuagint renders differently: your soul will weep in secret, because of course before the Chaldeans you will not dare to weep openly.
Verse 18
18. SAY TO THE KING AND TO THE QUEEN-MOTHER (say to Jeconiah and his mother Nehushta: for he threatens them the same, chapter 22, verse 26. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugh, St. Thomas, Vatablus; or rather, as Lyranus, Dionysius, and Castro, say to Zedekiah and his mother; or more likely, as the Chaldean, to his wife): HUMBLE YOURSELVES, — that is, you shall be humbled; for under Zedekiah completely and perfectly, as the following verse says, the city and all Judea were humbled and devastated.
THE CROWN HAS FALLEN FROM YOUR HEAD, — the royal crown, because the kingdom will be taken from you by the Chaldeans. This sense is plain and genuine. Sanchez offers two other subtle and symbolic explanations. The first is: "Say to the king and to the queen-mother," that is, say to all men of luxury and refinement as well as the powerful, whatever their rank may be (for these are sometimes called by catachresis kings, and also queens: for by the conjunction of both genders is signified the multitude and universality of persons), that their power and pleasures will fall, and the crowns from their heads with which they are accustomed to crown themselves at festivals, games, and banquets: therefore announce to them instead of the crown of glory, servitude and chains; instead of festive days, famine; instead of music, laments and groans. The second: as if to say, Say the same to any bridegroom and bride. For at weddings they are accustomed to be called king and queen and to wear crowns on their heads.
Verse 19
19. THE CITIES OF THE SOUTH (the cities of Judea, which is southern in relation to Chaldea, or rather the cities of the tribes of Judah and Jerusalem, which were to the south in relation to the other tribes) ARE SHUT UP, — that is, they are deserted and uninhabited; all citizens have been carried off by the Chaldeans. For houses that are not inhabited are always shut up. So St. Jerome.
For the same reason Lycurgus commanded the Spartans not to wage war often and for a long time against the same enemies, lest by fighting they teach them to handle arms, and thus finally overcome the Spartans. Whence Antalcidas said to King Agesilaus by way of sarcasm: "You bring back a fine reward from the Thebans, whom by constantly provoking them unwilling and unknowing, you have taught to fight;" for the Thebans were never more warlike than when the Lacedemonians harassed them. The Turk has and observes the same principle even now: hence, having captured some province, he rests, and after some years invades and subjugates neighboring peoples who are sluggish and unwarlike from security and idleness. It is remarkable that Christian princes do not note this, nor take precautions for their own safety, since shortly they will each be invaded and subjugated by him separately, unless with united forces they conspire against him and wage war on him. The devil observes the same: for when he tempts someone to a vice to which they are inclined by nature or habit, if that person strongly and constantly resists, he drops the temptation and defers it to another time, so that he may then attack and overthrow them when they are off guard and have by that time grown sluggish and soft.
So tropologically, the wicked by repeated acts of their vices foster their vices as if fostering enemies, and as if training generals against themselves, so that they are afterwards unable to overcome them.
Verse 22
22. YOUR SHAMEFUL PARTS HAVE BEEN UNCOVERED, — your private parts, as if to say: You have fallen into the utmost disgrace, when the Chaldeans violated you and publicly devastated you, like an honorable matron who is deeply ashamed when she is violated or exposed naked.
Moreover, how disgraceful it is for women to be stripped is clear both from Isaiah chapter 3:17, where he threatens nakedness as the gravest punishment upon them, and from what Plutarch narrates in his book On the Virtues of Women: "The Milesian maidens, he says, were once seized by a dreadful mental disturbance, and a frenzied impulse drove them to end their life by hanging: and many of them had already achieved what they desired. The words and tears of parents accomplished nothing, for they overcame the diligence and cunning of all their guards in killing themselves. Until a certain prudent man promulgated a law that commanded that all who had hanged themselves be carried naked through the forum. This law completely abolished that desire for death: for the fear of disgrace defeated the desire for death."
This tropologically happens when God allows a person to fall into foul lusts because of their sins, Romans 1:24.
YOUR FEET HAVE BEEN DEFILED. — Because the Chaldeans, having forcibly removed your shoes and sandals, stripped, as the Hebrew has it, your heels, and thus violated and despoiled you, and afflicted you with public punishment and disgrace, and compelled you to go to Babylon with bare feet; so that it might be evident that you were the most impure of harlots and that you committed shameful crimes, for which you are punished with such grave and public disgrace. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugh, St. Thomas. This is what Isaiah says, chapter 47:2: "Take a millstone and grind flour: uncover your shame, bare your shoulder, reveal your legs, cross the rivers."
Tropologically, Dionysius the Carthusian says: when congregations and cloisters formerly devout and holy fall from their original purity, so that the Holy Spirit does not enter them, nor are they open to heavenly visitations, and there is none who opens them except God Almighty. For, as St. Thomas notes, the Holy Spirit is called the South Wind: "First, because of heat. Job 37: Are not your garments warm when the earth is blown upon by the South Wind? Second, because of splendor. Habakkuk 3: God will come from the South, and the Holy One from Mount Paran: His glory covered the heavens. Third, because of the flight and elevation of the mind. Job 39: Does the hawk take feathers by your wisdom, spreading its wings toward the South? Fourth, because of the multiplication of rains. Psalm 125: Turn, O Lord, our captivity, like a torrent in the South. Fifth, because of the fruitfulness of trees. Song of Songs 4: Come, South Wind, blow through my garden, and let its spices flow."
ALL JUDAH HAS BEEN CARRIED AWAY (is about to be carried away) (the whole nation and tribe) OF JUDAH.
Verse 20
20. SEE, YOU WHO COME FROM THE NORTH (namely you, O Jews, who are northerners in relation to Jerusalem, see the desolation of Judah, and say to Judah and Jerusalem): WHERE IS THE FLOCK (that is, the people) THAT WAS GIVEN TO YOU? — What has become of that innumerable people whom the Lord had multiplied in you? Where have they gone? Where have they vanished? Second, some read, who are coming, or as the Hebrew has it, those coming, namely the Chaldean enemies; see, O Judah and Jews, where your flock, that is, your people, is to be led away. So the Septuagint, St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Theodoret, Rabanus, Hugh, St. Thomas, Lyranus, and Vatablus.
Verse 21
21. WHEN HE SHALL VISIT (when He shall punish) YOU — God. FOR YOU TAUGHT THEM AGAINST YOU. — Because you provoked them to your destruction: first, by showing them your treasures, as Hezekiah did, say Hugh, St. Thomas, Lyranus, Vatablus. Second, by the excessive familiarity and commerce which you had with the Chaldeans, say St. Jerome and Rabanus. For by these things you taught them the way by which they could come to you.
Third and properly, when under Ahaz and other kings you called the Chaldeans and Assyrians to your aid against the Syrians and Egyptians, then you trained them in the art of war, so that they became valiant commanders against you. So Theodoret and Castro.
Verse 23
23. IF THE ETHIOPIAN CAN CHANGE HIS SKIN, OR THE LEOPARD HIS SPOTS, — as if to say: Just as the former is impossible by nature, so the latter is very difficult, because your habit of sinning, says St. Jerome, O Judah, has as it were turned into nature: not that it is absolutely impossible for you to do good, but that it is difficult; for the similarity holds only in the latter point, not the former: because blackness in the Ethiopian and spots in the leopard are natural and therefore immutable; but sin in man is not natural, but voluntary and free: for freedom of choice for good and evil always remains even in the most wicked person. So Theodoret, Hugh, and St. Thomas. For so we commonly say: That person is hardened like a stone, that one is dull as a log; for it is hyperbole.
Gregory of Nazianzus uses this adage, Oration 1 against Julian the Apostate, and thereby demonstrates that Julian could not long pretend to uprightness and clemency: "Because, he says, nature would not suffer that the leopard should put off the marks of its distinct spots, or the Ethiopian his dark color, or fire its heat, or the devil, who from the beginning of the world was a murderer of man, his hatred, or Julian his wickedness, which goaded him against the Christians." Similar is the saying of Antisthenes in Antonius' Melissa, chapter 32: "It is difficult to transplant an old tree." And of Pindar, Olymp. 2: "Neither does the red fox nor roaring lions change their nature."
Furthermore, by the leopard variegated with spots are noted the variety of sins and the inconstancy of the mind, which now delights and stains itself with this, now with that. Just as therefore the blackness of the Ethiopian designates obstinate malice, so the spots of the leopard designate constant inconstancy in it. St. Basil adds, and from him Delrio, Adage 841, that the hairs of the leopard are neither white nor black, but of mixed color, and therefore signify Religious who, though aspiring to angelic dignity, are still stained by human disturbances: for they are neither white nor black; neither pious nor impious.
Similarly St. Jerome and Rabanus: It is impossible, they say, absolutely, to change one's life without God's grace; but this is true of every sinner; here however Jeremiah asserts it only of the obstinate, such as the Jews were, because for them it is most difficult to abandon and correct their ways. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Jerusalem is obstinate in wickedness, and will no more shed its impiety than the Ethiopian his skin's blackness; or in reality this unhappy Ethiopia retains its native baseness. So Diogenes the Cynic said: "To admonish an old man and to cure a dead man is the same thing." Again, when rebuked for scolding a wicked man, and asked what he was doing: "I am washing an Ethiopian, he said, to make him white." So reports Antonius in the Melissa, chapter 32.
Morally, learn here how great is the force and efficacy of habit. St. Chrysostom said, with Antonius and Maximus as witnesses, in his Sermon on Habit: "Nothing is so firm in human affairs as the tyranny of an old habit." And this is the chain, these are the bonds, by which the sinner is held bound and constrained, which are difficult to loosen, more difficult to break, says St. Bernard. Truly therefore it was said by one of the Saints: "An act of sin frequently repeated begets habit; habit begets a quasi-necessity of acting; necessity begets impossibility (of resisting sin — understand this as moral, that is, great difficulty); impossibility begets despair; despair begets damnation."
For Lucius Florus rightly said about necessity: "The most ancient of all things is God, the greatest is space, the swiftest is mind, the strongest is necessity, the wisest is time." Hear also St. Augustine, Confessions Book 8, chapter 5, speaking of himself: "I sighed, bound not by another's iron, but by my own iron will. The enemy held my will, and from it had made a chain for me, and had constrained me. For from a perverse will lust was made; and while lust was served, habit was made; and while habit was not resisted, necessity was made: by which, as by certain links joined to one another (whence I called it a chain), a harsh servitude held me bound. But the new will which had begun to be in me, to worship You freely and to enjoy You, O God, the only certain joy, was not yet strong enough to overcome the former, strengthened by long standing. Thus my two wills, one old, the other new; one carnal, the other spiritual, were at war with each other, and by their discord were tearing apart my soul."
It is therefore of great importance what habits you form from a young age. Lycurgus, as Plutarch attests, trained two puppies of the same mother, one for hunting, the other for gluttony; when they had grown up, he brought them before the people; and when a hare was released, the one sat down as was his habit, while the other chased and caught the hare. Then Lycurgus said: You see, citizens, how different a different upbringing and habituation makes them? And that we are formed to virtue not by nature, but by practice.
Lest anyone habituated to sin should despair, however, let him know that any habit can be conquered: first, by the grace of God and its continual and insistent invocation. So St. Augustine, habituated to concubinage, overcame it through God's grace. Let the habitual sinner therefore say with him: "Lord, give what You command, and command what You will;" and he will experience what Augustine himself says of himself, Confessions Book 9, chapter 1: "How sweet it suddenly became to me to be without the sweetness of trifles, which I had feared to lose but now rejoiced to dismiss! For You were casting them out from me, and entering in their place, sweeter than all pleasure."
Second, by a strong, constant, and frequently repeated resolution of the soul to remove this habit: for through this the mind effectively commands itself, and the will subjugates itself: for the will is in its own hand and power. Assiduous reflection and the particular examination of conscience help here.
Seneca truly says, On Anger Book 2, chapter 12: "There is nothing, he says, so difficult and arduous that the human mind cannot conquer it and bring it into familiarity through constant meditation, and there are no passions so fierce and uncontrolled that they cannot be thoroughly tamed by discipline. Whatever the mind has commanded of itself, it has achieved. Some have managed never to laugh. Some have forbidden themselves wine, others sexual pleasure, others all drink for their bodies. Others have learned to walk on ropes, carry immense loads, plunge into the deep without breathing."
Third, by the practice of the contrary virtue: for habit is conquered by habit. St. Bernard, as his Life relates, came upon a certain Nobleman so habituated to fornication that not even a single day passed without it, and he said he could in no way abstain. To whom St. Bernard said: "Please, for the grace of God, abstain for three days;" he agreed, and when the three days were completed: "Now, he said, do the same in honor of the Mother of God;" he did so; then St. Bernard a third time: "Once more I ask for this truce in honor of all the Saints." He again agreed; until of his own accord, presenting himself to Bernard, he said: "I no longer wish to make truces of a few days, but to enter into a perpetual truce with God." Thus habit is gradually and gently uprooted.
Verse 24
24. AND I WILL SCATTER (that is, I will disperse) THEM (into exile and captivity, as the wind scatters) STUBBLE — and chaff.
Verse 25
25. THIS IS YOUR LOT (inheritance), AND THE PORTION OF YOUR MEASURE. — For just as a surveyor of fields distributes to each what is due to him by his measure, which is owed to him according to the measure of sin and guilt: and by this reckoning, O Judah, He will now measure out to you the lot and measure of destruction and captivity. He had formerly given you a good lot among the other tribes in Canaan, and had prepared a better one in heaven, if you had stood firm in His worship, law, and covenants: but because you despised them, now He will change your lot, and instead of a kingdom will impose servitude, instead of glory shame, instead of wealth poverty, instead of delights famine, instead of joy sorrow, instead of liberty prison, instead of a homeland exile, instead of life affliction, squalor, wasting, and death. This is the lot of sin and the sinner.
YOU HAVE TRUSTED IN FALSEHOOD, — in the false promises of the false prophets and Egyptians; or, as Lyranus and Hugh, in idols, which are false and lying gods. Third, the Chaldean says, in falsehood, that is, in sin. The second sense is best, as is clear from what follows. In a similar manner the same wicked say, Isaiah 28:15: "We have made falsehood our hope and are protected by falsehood."
Verse 26
26. THEREFORE I ALSO HAVE STRIPPED YOUR THIGHS (therefore I will expose you, naked and captive like a harlot, to the mockery of all. See what was said on verse 22, and this) BEFORE YOUR FACE, — that is, so that seeing yourself naked you may blush. The Chaldean renders: I will reveal the confusion of your sin.
Note: God, when He punishes sins, is said to reveal the baseness both of the sins and of the sinners.
AND YOUR SHAME HAS APPEARED, YOUR ADULTERIES, etc. — It is an apposition, for he calls the adulteries themselves the disgrace, and their punishment, namely the despoiling and captivity of the Jews. Moreover, "adulteries, neighing, the wickedness of fornication" refers to idolatry: he says therefore:
Verse 27
27. AND YOUR NEIGHING, — as if to say: Just as a horse or rather a mare (for this more aptly signifies the people as a harlot), neighing, lusts and rages for mating and solicits the male; so you, O Judah, rage for idolatry and solicit and drive others to the same. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, and Hugh.
ABOMINATIONS — idols.
WOE TO YOU, JERUSALEM, YOU WILL NOT BE MADE CLEAN (you do not care to cleanse yourself from sins and idols) AFTER ME, — that is, by following Me and My worship. The translator reads with the Septuagint אחרי acharai, that is, after Me; now they read אחרי achare, that is, after, but in a very obscure and complicated sense.
HOW LONG YET? — namely, will you be such? or, shall I wait for you to amend? How long shall I bear with you and restrain My fury? As if to say: I wait in vain; you will not amend except by the most grievous punishment of captivity and destruction; or, as St. Jerome, Theodoret, and Rabanus, as if to say: I wait in vain; you have hardened in wickedness, your correction is hopeless: therefore I will utterly overthrow you and cast you away.