Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
God shows by the example of the potter reshaping a broken vessel, that He can scatter the Jews and disperse them into captivity, and afterwards restore them to their former state, if they repent: but because the Jews are unwilling to repent, hence, in verse 11, He threatens them with destruction through Jeremiah, whom therefore the Jews, in verse 18, want to kill; and that God may punish them and deliver himself, Jeremiah prays, verse 19.
Vulgate Text: Jeremiah 18:1-23
1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: 2. Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there you shall hear My words. 3. And I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he was making a work on the wheel. 4. And the vessel which he was making of clay with his hands was broken: and turning, he made it another vessel, as it seemed good in his eyes to make. 5. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 6. Cannot I do with you as this potter, O house of Israel, says the Lord? Behold, as the clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. 7. Suddenly I will speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to uproot, and to destroy, and to scatter it. 8. If that nation repent of its evil, which I have spoken against it: I also will repent of the evil which I thought to do to it. 9. And suddenly I will speak of a nation and of a kingdom, to build up and to plant it. 10. If it do evil in My sight, so as not to hear My voice: I will repent of the good which I said I would do to it. 11. Now therefore say to the man of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus says the Lord: Behold I am fashioning evil against you, and devising a plan against you: let each one return from his evil way, and make your ways and your endeavors right. 12. And they said: We have despaired: for we will follow after our own thoughts, and we will each do the wickedness of his evil heart. 13. Therefore thus says the Lord: Ask among the nations: Who has heard such horrible things as the virgin of Israel has done exceedingly? 14. Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? Or can the cold waters that gush out and flow down be dried up? 15. Because My people have forgotten Me, burning incense in vain, and stumbling in their ways, in the paths of the age, to walk by them in an untrodden way: 16. that their land might be given over to desolation, and to a perpetual hissing: everyone who passes by it shall be astonished, and shake his head. 17. Like a burning wind I will scatter them before the enemy: I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their destruction. 18. And they said: Come, and let us devise plans against Jeremiah: for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet: come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words. 19. Give heed to me, O Lord, and hear the voice of my adversaries. 20. Shall evil be rendered for good, because they have dug a pit for my soul? Remember that I stood in Your sight to speak good for them, and to turn away Your indignation from them. 21. Therefore give their children to famine, and bring them to the hands of the sword: let their wives be without children, and widows: and let their husbands be slain by death: let their young men be stabbed with the sword in battle. 22. Let a cry be heard from their houses: for You shall bring the robber upon them suddenly: because they have dug a pit to take me, and have hid snares for my feet. 23. But You, O Lord, know all their counsel against me unto death: do not forgive their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from Your sight: let them be overthrown before You, in the time of Your fury deal with them.
Verse 2
2. Go down. — To go down here and often elsewhere means the same as to go; although it can also be taken literally here: for potters' workshops, because of the water they needed, were in the valley; whence one going to them had to go down: for they were near the valley of Gehenna, or Topheth. For this is what is said in chapter xix: "Go forth to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entrance of the earthen gate," that is, of the potters' gate, or of the pottery and potters, as Lyranus, Hugo, Dionysius and others explain.
Tropologically, God commands that we often go down with Jeremiah to the potter's house, that we may see our origin, and that of Adam from adama, that is from mud, from clay; and so be humbled under the hand of God, as our Potter. Truly St. Gregory, Book VIII Morals xxii: "Because," he says, "we once took on a haughty spirit, behold we daily carry around dissolving clay."
Verse 4
4. He made it another vessel, — meaning: The potter had formed a vessel from the same clay, but had not yet baked it with fire. This vessel by accident was broken and shattered into its clay parts in the potter's hands, which the potter picking up, soon made from them another vessel as he pleased: for if this vessel had been earthenware, that is, baked by fire, the potter would not have been able to cement the fragments together and make another vessel from them.
Verse 6
6. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, — meaning: Just as a clay vessel is in the potter's hand, for him to break it and make another vessel from it, or first to renew it: so I also, O Jews, though you are destined by Me for destruction, will reshape you if you repent, will change the sentence, and will turn your calamity into happiness; so that from vessels of dishonor, that is inglorious and unhappy, you may become vessels of honor, that is, honorable and happy. So Theodoret.
Hugo explains it somewhat differently, meaning: Just as the potter renews a broken vessel: so I will bring you back from captivity, as if broken, and will renew your commonwealth, if you come to your senses. For God will change the sentence, if you change your mind.
Note: This comparison is not similar in all respects; for clay does not have a mind, nor free will, as man does: and therefore virtue and vice, salvation and damnation are in the hand not of the clay but of man; yet so that God through His grace is more the cause of his virtue and salvation than man himself. The similitude therefore is only in what I have said. For the matter here is not about the soul, but about the body; namely about captivity and freedom, about adverse and prosperous circumstances, about death and life, meaning: I alone can free you from captivity, and deliver you into captivity; I can kill and give life; bring down to hell and bring back, I Kings II, 6.
Tropologically, clay is man, because he is made from mud, that he may subject himself to God with fear and humility: in whose hand is our state, life, steps, virtue, salvation, and every good of ours, so that he depends on Him, and restores himself to Him whose hand and power he cannot escape.
Secondly, just as clay is merely clay, but from the potter's hand receives this or that form; so man of himself is powerless, formless and crude like prime matter; but from God he has it that he is rich, noble, wise, happy, graced: and God distributes these His gifts to each as He wills, Sirach xxxiii, 10; Romans ix, 21. See the commentary there.
Thirdly, each person should be content with his lot: for just as clay cannot say to the potter: Why have you made me thus? so neither can we say to God: Why have You made us poor, ignoble, unlearned; but those others rich, noble, talented, etc.? Finally, those are perfect and blessed who resign themselves wholly to God, and allow themselves like clay to be bent, ruled, shaped and reshaped by Him.
Anagogically, by this symbol are signified death and resurrection, says St. Hilary, on Psalm II, 9. For God as a potter reshapes in the resurrection the vessel of our body that collapsed and was broken in death. Likewise Cyprian, or rather Rufinus in the Exposition of the Creed, takes this as referring to the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
Verse 8
8. I also will repent, — that is, I will retract and revoke the sentence passed against you. Anthropopathically [after the manner of human feelings].
Verse 11
11. Say to the man of Judah, — say to the men of Judah, say to Judah. The singular is used for the plural.
Behold, I am fashioning, — forming as a potter, that is, I am devising and preparing evil against you, "not that which is evil in itself, but which seems evil to those who suffer it," says St. Jerome, namely affliction and slaughter. Thus Isaiah says, ch. XLV, 7: "I the Lord forming light, and creating darkness, making peace, and creating evil" of punishment, not of guilt. Truly St. Gregory, Book III Morals ch. vii: "Those things which subsist by no nature of their own," he says, "are not created by the Lord; but the Lord indicates that He creates evils, when He shapes things well made into a scourge for us who act wickedly, so that the very same things are evil to the sinners through the pain by which they strike, and good through the nature by which they exist. Hence venom is death to man, but life to the serpent." And St. Basil, tract. That God Is Not the Author of Evils: "Some evil," he says, "is according to our sense (namely the evil of punishment), another by nature itself. Evil by nature arises from us: injustice, envy, murder," etc.
Verse 12
12. We have despaired (in Hebrew noas, that is, it is despaired of; Vatablus, it is past hope; the Chaldean, we have turned away from Your worship; the Septuagint in Theodoret, we are hardened, namely in evil), meaning: It is finished, we cannot abandon our ingrained pleasures, habits and sins; because of the difficulty, habit, weariness and negligence, we cannot return to the fear of God and the observance of the law, meaning: It is certain and resolved for us not to do so: because) we will go after our own thoughts, — that is, we will carry out the evils which we have determined in our mind.
Verse 13
13. Who has heard such horrible things? — who has heard that any nation committed such a foul and horrible disgrace, as Israel, once a virgin, now a harlot, has committed.
Verse 14
14. Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? (He calls the rock of the field the cliffs of Lebanon, flat like a field and plain, meaning: The snow will not fail from them): or can the cold waters that gush out and flow down be dried up (that is, exhausted and fail)? Because My people have forgotten Me. — The meaning is: When the rest of creation maintains the order of nature, only My people has forgotten Me, meaning: The snows should have failed from rocky Lebanon, and the streams flowing from the mountains dried up, sooner than that My people should forget Me, on account of the constant benefits which flow from Me to them. How therefore can it happen that they have forgotten Me, namely by offering libations to idols, and abandoning "the paths of the age," that is, trodden from of old by the holy Fathers, to follow their own new ways, that is, pathless routes, and new idols? So St. Jerome, Theodoret, the Chaldean.
With a similar figure Virgil says:
Sooner therefore shall light stags feed in the sky, And the seas leave bare fish on the shore, Than his face shall slip from our breast.
Again, you may rightly explain it thus: Can the snowy waters flowing and melting of their own accord from Lebanon be rejected by a field situated at the foot of the mountain, even when dry and thirsting: can thirst itself, and need, and the lack of rain, and dryness itself, abandon or fail to admit water flowing in of its own accord? By no means: and yet My people, having forgotten Me, excludes this constant influx of Myself from their mind and soul. For just as Lebanon perpetually melts and pours forth cold waters from its snows: so I am the fountain of living water, which abundantly refreshes both body and soul, according to that Song of Songs IV, 15: "A well of living waters, which flow with impetuosity from Lebanon."
Which St. Ambrose, Book On Virgins, before the middle, mystically explains thus: "What kind of virgin (Church) is this, who is irrigated by the fountains of the Trinity, for whom waters flow from the rock, whose breasts do not fail, and honey is poured forth. The rock therefore is Christ; therefore from Christ the breasts do not fail, brightness from God, the river from the Spirit: this is the Trinity which irrigates His Church, namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."
Where Ambrose thinks the Trinity is signified by these words, meaning: The breasts shall not fail from the rock, that is, from Christ; nor the snow from Lebanon, that is, brightness from God the Father; nor the strong water from the wind, that is, the river of zeal and graces from the Holy Spirit.
These breasts Christ most especially offers to us in the Eucharist. Hear St. Chrysostom, homily 60 to the People: "What shepherd," he says, "feeds his sheep with his own blood? And what do I say, shepherd? There are many mothers who after the pains of childbirth hand their children over to other nurses: but He Himself did not suffer this, but He Himself feeds us with His own blood, and through all things cements us to Himself." Whence he infers: "Do you not see with what eagerness little ones grasp the nipples, and with what force they press their lips to the breasts: let us also approach this table with such alacrity; indeed with far greater eagerness let us draw, like nursing infants, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and let our one sorrow be to be deprived of this food."
Secondly, Lyranus, Pagninus and Vatablus translate: Will anyone abandon the snow of Lebanon from the rock of the field? that is, will anyone abandon the cold and clear water from the snow of Lebanon, flowing through and over the rocks, to seek broken cisterns? as My people did, abandoning Me, the living fountain, and offering libations to Baalim, as he said in ch. II, 13; for he alludes to that, and repeats what was said there. Two absurdities therefore this proverb signifies: first, to seek from afar what you have near at hand; second, to seek evil abroad when you have good at home. For thus the Jews, having abandoned the most excellent God whom they had at home, sought the worst gods of the nations: just as if a husband, having abandoned an excellent wife, should pursue the foulest harlots.
Thirdly, the Septuagint for sadeh, that is 'field,' read shadaim, that is 'breasts,' and translate: Shall breasts fail from the rock, or, as Theodoret reads, dripping nipples: because from rocks flow perennial waters, just as milk flows from breasts: therefore springs are like breasts of the earth, and, as Philo, Book On the Creation of the World, says, like nipples with which the earth suckles and feeds both its plants and men and animals: or the snow of Lebanon, or has the strong water which is carried by the wind turned aside? meaning, says Theodoret: "Springs gush forth without interruption; Lebanon always has snow; water that is carried with force flows along the beaten path."
Or can they be uprooted. — The Hebrews have it thus: Will foreign waters (that is, brought from another place through streams or channels, and thus purified and clear) be dried up, cold and flowing, meaning: Waters perpetually gushing forth cannot be torn away, dried up and stopped from their springs.
Secondly, Vatablus translates: Will foreign cold flowing waters be abandoned? and explains it thus, meaning: Does anyone usually abandon living and flowing waters, which are conducted through channels into the city? By no means. For he would be most mad who, having the best spring at his home, should turn elsewhere to seek putrid and stinking waters for his use; and yet this My people has done.
Thirdly, the Septuagint in Theodoret thus translate: Will water that is carried with force abandon the beaten path along which it flows? meaning: By no means; why then do you, O Jews, abandon religion and the beaten path to the temple, going to Baalim?
Verse 15
15. Making them stumble (in Hebrew yakshilum, that is, they made them stumble, namely the false prophets) in their ways, — namely to abandon the paths of the age, that is, the ancient paths of their fathers, "which are worn by the footsteps of all the saints," says St. Jerome. Here the proverb of the Greeks applies: "To recall the waves of rivers to their source;" and: "Upward run the fountains of the sacred rivers," signifying that something is done backwards, that the order of nature and things is inverted: of which sort it is if a boy admonishes an old man, a pupil teaches the teacher, sons are wiser than fathers, the crows'
eyes one would pick out. In Hebrew they distinguish more clearly thus: They made them stumble in their ways, in the paths of the age, that they might walk through the footpaths of the untrodden way. Therefore you may better understand here the same as their ways and the paths of the age. The ways of sin and sinners are therefore called ways or paths of the age: because from of old, by Cain, by the giants, by the Sodomites, and specifically by the first fathers of the Jews who fashioned and worshipped the golden calf in the desert, they have been walked and worn, of which Job says, ch. xxii, 15: "Do you desire to keep the path of the ages, which wicked men have trodden? Who were taken away before their time, who said to God: Depart from us?" So Hugo, Lyranus, St. Thomas, Capella, Dionysius and others, meaning: You imitate the ancient impiety and idolatry of your fathers; you are the evil chicks of evil crows.
Moreover, this way was most trodden by very many; yet he calls it untrodden, by catachresis, because it was rough, difficult and devious, as leading to ruin. This is what the wicked say, Wisdom v, 7: "We have walked difficult ways."
Verse 16
16. Into a hissing (into contempt: for we are accustomed to hiss at those we despise. Similar are ch. xix, verse 8, xxv, 9, and li, 37), shall shake his head, — shall mock and despise you. Similar is Psalm xxi, 8, and Isaiah ch. xxxvii, verse 22: "She has despised you and mocked you, the virgin daughter of Zion; behind you the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head."
Verse 17
17. Like a burning wind. — In Hebrew it is keruach kadim, that is, like an east wind, or a southeast wind, which blows from the southeast, or, as St. Jerome says, the Vulturnus, which blows from the northeast, and is violent and burning, scorches the crops, and makes the ears of grain, with the kernels turned to ash, empty and vanishing, and then scatters them like chaff and rubbish: so I will afflict the Jews with the destruction and burning of the city and temple, and both before and after it I will make them either fugitives or captives, to flee or be led captive from the face of the Chaldeans, that is, from the presence and persecution of the Chaldeans, just as beasts flee from the face of a lion, that is, from a lion approaching or pursuing.
This is what is said of the wicked in Job ch. xxvii, verse 21: "The burning wind shall take him up and carry him away, and like a whirlwind shall snatch him from his place." Otherwise the Chaldean translates, namely: I will scatter you as I am accustomed to scatter the east wind.
I will show them the back, and not the face, — meaning: I will go away from them and abandon them. Secondly, I will be against them, not propitious; just as they turned their back to Me when I called: so I also will turn My back to them when they wail and invoke My help. So Maldonatus.
Symbolically, Francis Lucas on Matthew xvii, 35, and others refer this to Christ hanging on the cross. For the Jews so placed the cross that with the back of Jesus facing the East and the city of Jerusalem, His face looked toward the West; indeed with the intention that they considered Him unworthy of the sight of the holy city, but with the result that, with His face turned away from the Jews, He might illumine us gentiles, whose dwelling is in the West; and then this prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled: "I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their destruction;" and that other one of Psalm LXV, 7: "His eyes look upon the nations."
That they might walk by them, — namely their own new ways, not trodden until now, namely to their idols.
Ovid in the Heroides:
When Paris can breathe with Oenone abandoned, The water of Xanthus will flow back to its spring.
Nanthe, hurry back, and you turned waters, flow back, Paris endures having abandoned Oenone.
Laertius relates in the Life of Diogenes that, when he had become a slave, he nevertheless commanded his master to do what he ordered; and when the master mockingly replied: "Rivers flow uphill;" Diogenes retorted: If when sick you had bought a physician with your money, would you not obey him when he admonished you? Or would you respond to him in this manner: "Rivers flow uphill"? Nazianzen uses the same in his Life.
Verse 18
18. For the law shall not perish, — that is, the interpretation of the law, meaning: It will not be a great loss if this Jeremiah is killed, even though he is a priest, wise man, prophet: for there will be no lack of others, and more flattering ones at that. So St. Jerome and Rabanus. For 'to perish' is to be taken away, so as to be absent and not exist.
Otherwise Theodoret and Vatablus, meaning: Let us kill him, otherwise the law will not perish, that is, otherwise he himself will not cease teaching us the law, and reproving us for not keeping it, as a priest; also giving counsel contrary to ours, as a wise man: and foretelling evils to us, as a Prophet.
Thirdly, Hugo, St. Thomas and Lyranus, as if they say: Let us kill him as a false prophet; because he said that priests, wise men, and Prophets would perish, for those whom God has established will not perish. This meaning, as well as the first, is very genuine. Isaiah agrees with Jeremiah, saying, ch. xxix, 14: "Wisdom shall perish from the wise;" and Ezekiel, ch. vii, verse 26: "They shall seek a vision from the Prophet, and the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders."
Hence fourthly, Lyranus, Dionysius, Sanchez and Maldonatus, meaning: "The law shall not perish," that is, what our priests and Prophets preach to us cannot be false, in whose mouth the law is, Malachi II, 7; for those false priests and prophets used to say: "Peace, peace, when there was no peace," ch. IV, 10.
Let us strike him with the tongue. — The Chaldean: Let us testify false testimonies against him. Secondly, Theodoret and Vatablus: Let us weave a calumny against him. Thirdly, as the rest: Let us accuse him as a false prophet. Thus Jeremiah was here a type of Christ falsely accused. Others translate: Let us strike his tongue, that is, let us impose silence on him, either by threatening him with death, or by confining him in prison, as they actually did.
Verse 20
20. Is evil rendered (is it customary to render) for good? — meaning: No: why then do the Jews render evil to me for good? For what else do I seek but their salvation? Why do I announce destruction from God's mouth intended for them, except that they may repent, and thus escape it?
Because they have dug a pit (in the manner of hunters, that I might fall into it, meaning: They laid snares for my soul, that is, my life, or ambushes against me, to kill me, when (as You, O Lord, remember) I stood in Your sight to speak good for them, — that is, when I prayed to You for them, that You might do well for them. This is the nature of the Saints: Hear David, Psalm cviii, 4: "Instead of loving me, they slandered me: but I was praying. And they set evil against me for good."
Verse 22
22. For You shall bring the robber upon them suddenly, — that is Nebuchadnezzar, says St. Jerome, or, as in Hebrew it is gedud, that is a troop, or a military band, which runs out to plunder and ravage, who in the books of Kings are called marauders. So the Chaldean, Pagninus, Vatablus. But these marauders are called gedudim in the plural in Hebrew, while here in the singular it is gedud, that is, a marauder, robber, raider. Whence our translator correctly renders it "robber," and Nebuchadnezzar is rightly understood, who in ch. IV, verse 7, is called the plunderer of nations. Thus pirates captured by Alexander the Great, when asked who they were, responded: "We are such as you; but you are a great robber, we are small robbers." For, as St. Augustine rightly says, Book IV On the City of God ch. xvi, speaking of Ninus, king of the Assyrians, who was the first to begin waging wars on neighbors out of desire to rule: "To wage wars on neighbors, and from there to proceed to others, and to crush and subjugate peoples not troublesome to oneself, solely from the desire to rule, what else is it to be called than grand robbery?" Many kingdoms of the pagans therefore were robberies, and many kings were robbers.
Secondly, Nebuchadnezzar could be called a robber, that is, a soldier hired, as it were, by God for a wage, to carry out His vengeance. For such he was in the siege of Tyre, as Ezekiel xxix, 18 teaches. For robbers were formerly called hired soldiers, from latreuein, that is, from serving: for they served for pay. Moreover, it was the custom for the emperor to keep them about himself, and to send them first into every danger. They were called laterones, says Varro, because they were accustomed to be around the flanks; whom now they call satellites, who guard the flank of some prince. Thus Plautus says, Soldier III, 75:
For King Seleucus begged me with the greatest effort, To gather and enlist robbers for himself.
Hence latro or latrunculus is also the name of a game representing soldiers fighting, in which namely one plays with sixteen pieces arranged in a double line on each side, among which there are two kings contending with each other, two queens, four knights, sixteen pawns, four bodyguards, and as many centurions. They commonly call it Chess. Thus Seneca: "We play with little soldiers," he says; and Martial: If you play the wars of crafty robbers.
This exposition is supported by the word "You shall bring," namely as Your bodyguard and executor, and "suddenly," so that before they hear the enemy approaching and prepare their defenses against him, they may perceive, indeed see, that he is there, laying waste everything with sword and flame.
Morally: A sudden robber to the impious, and as a thief by night, is death. Hence the night-raven, says Horus Apollo, Book II Hieroglyphics ch. xxiv, signifies death. For just as this bird attacks the young of crows suddenly by night, so death invades and overwhelms men when they least expect it.
Verse 23
23. In the time of Your fury, deal with them, — to their ignominy and destruction, whom You had created for glory and happiness, because Jerusalem herself, like a harlot, abused Your patience and herself. Thus God deals harshly with the impious, when He thrusts into hell to be tormented those whom He had created for heaven to be glorified. So a Castro.
For 'deal with them,' the Hebrew has 'do with them,' that is, carry out upon them, namely Your fury: or do to them what they deserve, by taking vengeance upon them, namely now through the Babylonians, and afterwards through the Romans, on account of the slaying by them of Christ, whom Jeremiah here foreshadows. So St. Jerome. Whence Nazianzen says this is a prophecy about Christ. For the Prophet would not have been so bitter an avenger for himself alone, but rightly so for Christ.
Hence secondly, "deal with them," that is, consume, destroy them. The translator renders it elegantly and learnedly: for the ancients used abuti in the sense of to consume. Hear Cato, Book On Agriculture, ch. LXXVI: "Until you have consumed all the cheese with honey," that is, used up, as if abuti means to use a thing fully to the point of its consumption. Plautus in the Trinummus: "I have consumed (that is, used up) such a great patrimony." Terence in the Prologue to the Andria: "For he wastes his effort in writing prologues," that is, consumes and wastes it. Plautus in the Asinaria: "Where are the things I gave before? Used up. For if they had lasted for me, a woman would have been sent to you." Where Nonius says: Abusa, that is, consumed by using or used up for use.