Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He inveighs against the pastors of the people, that is, the princes, priests, and false prophets, who by their negligence, impiety, bad example, and lying promises, like wolves destroyed the people. Whence, having removed them, He promises to send a true pastor, namely Christ and His Apostles. So St. Jerome.
First, therefore, He says that in place of the false pastors He will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and a wise king, whose name will be "The Lord our righteousness." Second, at verse 9, He rebukes the lies, adulteries, and crimes of the false prophets. Third, at verse 19, He threatens them with the whirlwind of God's wrath, and at verse 29, with the fire and hammer of His words. Fourth, at verse 33, to those asking "What is the burden of the Lord?" He answers: You are the burden of the Lord, to be carried off by Him to Babylon.
Tropologically, St. Jerome rightly applies these things to the bad pastors of the Christian Church.
Vulgate Text: Jeremiah 23:1-40
1. Woe to the pastors who destroy and tear apart the flock of My pasture, says the Lord. 2. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel to the pastors who feed My people: You have scattered My flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, says the Lord. 3. And I will gather the remnant of My flock from all the lands to which I have driven them: and I will bring them back to their own pastures: and they shall increase and multiply. 4. And I will set up pastors over them, and they shall feed them: they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed: and none shall be missing from their number, says the Lord. 5. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord: and I will raise up for David a righteous Branch: and a king shall reign, and shall be wise: and shall execute judgment and justice... justice in the land. 6. In those days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell securely: and this is the name by which they shall call Him: The Lord our righteousness. 7. Therefore behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when they shall no longer say: As the Lord lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt: 8. but: As the Lord lives, who brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel from the land of the North, and from all the lands to which I had driven them: and they shall dwell in their own land. 9. To the prophets: My heart is broken within me, all my bones tremble: I have become like a drunken man, and like a man overcome with wine, because of the Lord, and because of His holy words. 10. For the land is full of adulterers, because of the curse the land mourns, the pastures of the wilderness are dried up: their course has become evil, and their strength is not right. 11. For both prophet and priest are defiled: and in My house I have found their evil, says the Lord. 12. Therefore their way shall be like slippery places in the darkness: they shall be driven on and shall fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, the year of their visitation, says the Lord. 13. And in the prophets of Samaria I saw foolishness: they prophesied by Baal, and deceived My people Israel. 14. And in the prophets of Jerusalem I saw the likeness of adulterers, and the way of lies: and they strengthened the hands of the wicked, so that no one turned from his wickedness: they have all become to Me like Sodom, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah. 15. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and give them gall to drink: for from the prophets of Jerusalem pollution has gone forth over all the land. 16. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you and deceive you: they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. 17. They say to those who blaspheme Me: The Lord has spoken: Peace shall be yours: and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they have said: No evil shall come upon you. 18. For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord, and has seen and heard His word? Who has considered His word and heard it? 19. Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord's indignation shall go forth, and a bursting tempest shall come upon the head of the wicked. 20. The fury of the Lord shall not return until He has done it, and until He has fulfilled the purpose of His heart: in the last days you shall understand His counsel. 21. I did not send the prophets, yet they ran: I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. 22. If they had stood in My counsel, and had made known My words to My people, I would surely have turned them from their evil way, and from their wicked thoughts. 23. Am I a God at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? 24. Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him, says the Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth, says the Lord? 25. I have heard what the prophets said, who prophesy lies in My name, saying: I have dreamed, I have dreamed. 26. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the delusions of their own heart? 27. Who plan to make My people forget My name through their dreams, which they tell each one to his neighbor: just as their fathers forgot My name because of Baal. 28. The prophet who has a dream, let him tell the dream: and he who has My word, let him speak My word truly: what has chaff to do with wheat, says the Lord? 29. Are not My words like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? 30. Therefore behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal My words each one from his neighbor. 31. Behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who use their tongues and say: The Lord says. 32. Behold, I am against the prophets who dream lies, says the Lord, who tell them and lead My people astray by their lies and by their wonders: when I did not send them nor command them, and they profit this people nothing, says the Lord. 33. And when this people, or a prophet, or a priest, asks you, saying: What is the burden of the Lord? you shall say to them: You are the burden; I will cast you off, says the Lord. 34. And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people who say: The burden of the Lord — I will punish that man and his house. 35. Thus shall you say each one to his neighbor, and each one to his brother: What has the Lord answered? and what has the Lord spoken? 36. And the burden... of the Lord shall be mentioned no more: for the burden shall be to every man his own word: and you have perverted the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God. 37. Thus shall you say to the prophet: What has the Lord answered you? and what has the Lord spoken? 38. But if you say: The burden of the Lord — therefore thus says the Lord: Because you have said this word: The burden of the Lord — and I sent to you, saying: Do not say: The burden of the Lord — 39. therefore behold, I will take you up and cast you away, and the city which I gave to you and your fathers, from before My face. 40. And I will give you over to everlasting reproach, and to eternal shame, which shall never be blotted out by oblivion.
Verse 2
2. WHO FEED — in name only; because they call themselves pastors, and are called so by others; or who ought to feed My people, even though they do not actually feed them. He passes from kings to priests and false prophets. For these destroyed their flock, that is, the people whom they ought to have fed, by the bad example of their lives and by false oracles.
AND YOU HAVE NOT VISITED THEM. — For it is the duty of a pastor to visit his flock, to see whether anything is lacking to it, and to provide for it accordingly. Let bishops and pastors note this. Therefore behold, I will "visit," that is, punish, "you." He plays on the word "visit," as if to say: The pastors did not visit the flock, therefore I will visit and chastise them.
Verse 3
3. I WILL GATHER — namely the Jews, whom you, evil pastors, by your fault scattered. I by My mercy and provident care "will gather" them, so that they may return from Babylon to Judea, led by Zerubbabel, Joshua, Ezra and others, and there enjoy peace, and acknowledge that they were freed by God's mercy alone, not by their own merit. So the Hebrews, Theodoret, Hugo, and Sanchez. But although the Prophet alludes to this as a type, it is clear that these august things belong to none other than Christ, the best Pastor and Prince of Pastors: for He is the righteous Branch, and is called "Lord," in Hebrew Jehovah, "our righteousness," and He is of the seed of David. To Christ, therefore, the Prophet flies as usual from the evil pastors: for Christ came to remedy this evil, as well as the other evils of the Jews, and therefore He replaced the bad pastors with good ones. Of Christ, therefore, who gave the example of the best Pastor, he describes three offices: first, of a king; second, of a wise teacher; third, of a just judge. His pastors, say St. Jerome, Theodoret, and Rabanus, are the Apostles, who gathered sheep from everywhere into one fold, namely both all the Gentiles and the Jews driven by God into Babylon, to the Church, and fed them. For He calls these "the remnant of My flock," namely the Jews remaining from the captivity and dispersion, of whom few were converted to the Church of Christ, but more will be converted at the end of the world, when all Israel shall be saved. For this prophecy extends that far.
TO THEIR OWN PASTURES. — In Hebrew nevehon, that is, to their own habitations. Note that the Church is called the pasture and habitation of the Jews: first, because the new Church of Christians and the old Church of the Jews are the same. Second, because the new Church began from the Jews, namely from Christ and the Apostles in Jerusalem. Third, because the knowledge and worship of the true God were, as it were, the proper spiritual pasture of the Jews; and the Messiah was properly promised and sent to the Jews, along with His blessings: again, the homeland and, as it were, the anagogical pasture of the Jews formerly, and now ours, is the heavenly Jerusalem, to which two things Christ brought them back. A similar prophecy is in Ezekiel, chapter XXXIV, verses 13 and 14.
Verse 4
4. THEY SHALL FEED THEM (with great care, to which the great love of the sheep will stimulate them, so that those sheep may securely enjoy the pasture of Christian doctrine and life), AND NONE SHALL BE MISSING FROM THEIR NUMBER. — That is, so that no sheep may be lacking or missed in so great a number of the faithful; because, as Christ alluding to this says to the Father: "Those whom You gave Me, I have not lost any of them" (John 18:9). For although Judas perished, he was but one; and he perished not by Christ's negligence or fault, but by his own unfaithfulness and malice toward Christ.
This therefore is the law of the pastor, which the Apostle gives, 2 Corinthians 5: "The love of Christ urges us." For, says a Castro, zeal exceeds the heart of the pastor, and does not allow him to rest or to consign to oblivion the affairs of the beloved, but rather like lightning he rushes here and there, until he lays down his life for his sheep. The true pastor therefore imitates the vigils of Jacob tending the sheep of Laban, Genesis 31:39. From this care there arise in turn in the sheep love, confidence, and security toward the pastor.
Again, the law of the pastor is what St. Bernard gives, epistle 245: "Preside so that you may profit." The same author in the Sentences: "Three things befit a pastor: goodness, discipline, knowledge: goodness attracts, discipline corrects, knowledge feeds: goodness makes one lovable, discipline makes one imitable, knowledge makes one teachable." And when St. Dominic was asked what were the duties of his Order, namely the Order of Preachers, he replied: They are these three things, which the Psalmist encompassed in this verse: "Teach me goodness, discipline, and knowledge" (Psalm 119). Such pastors were the Apostles and apostolic men: Saints Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, and many others in the earlier centuries — but in these times, very few and rare.
in our regions are not found. For all seek their own interests, and not those of Jesus Christ. Indeed, set ablaze by the fire of avarice and pride, they strive to be promoted to the priesthood, but do not strive to become worthy of the priesthood. They eagerly desire to preside, but do not care to be of benefit."
Verse 5
5. I WILL RAISE UP FOR DAVID (in Hebrew ledavid, that is, for David) A BRANCH — not Zerubbabel; but, as the Chaldean translates, the Messiah, that is, Christ. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rabanus; and all the Hebrews, says Vatablus: for God raised up Christ for David, as a branch from virginal earth. Second, from the trunk, that is, from the nearly extinct family of David, He raised Him up as a branch, in Hebrew tsemach, that is, a shoot, which grows up and sprouts forth, and from a small sprout grows into a great tree, which restores the former glory of David's kingdom, now fallen.
Note: Christ, as God through the Word of the Father, is a branch from the most fruitful earth, that is, begotten from the nature and mind of God (which is the intelligible world, embracing in itself all the perfections of the universe) of the eternal Father: whence Proclus from the Chaldean mysteries calls the Son of God "the flower of minds." This divine branch was grafted into a human branch, when He assumed human nature; whence the Septuagint translates it anatolen, that is, rising or orient, as if to say: Christ is the sprouting sun, or a solar and celestial branch, which first arose in the heavenly paradise, thence was grafted and born into the earth, and became man. One among other reasons for this name is: just as all the planting and watering of a tree is directed toward the branch and the bearing of fruit, so the whole universe and all creatures were created for the sake of Christ alone: for this reason He is called the branch of the universe. So Viegas on Apocalypse I, page 26. Christ's name, therefore, is the Orient, that is, the sun, or a solar branch, as is clear from Luke 1:78 and Zechariah 6:12, which I will explain more fully in Zechariah.
RIGHTEOUS. — Because Christ, say St. Jerome, Rabanus, and Vatablus, is the cause of all our righteousness, both final, meritorious, and exemplary. Second, because by the power of His conception from the Holy Spirit, He was born holy and righteous, from the stock of David, in which so many wicked men had existed: whereas we are all born sinners by the power of our conception. Third, because He exercised righteous judgment upon the good and the wicked.
A KING SHALL REIGN — through faith, hope, charity, and grace: for the Prophets everywhere insist that this kingdom of Christ is spiritual, not temporal. HE SHALL BE WISE. — In Hebrew it is hiskil, that is, He shall conduct affairs both successfully and wisely, so that He may reconcile us to His heavenly Father, reconcile us outwardly, and direct us to eternal life and glory. Whence Vatablus translates: He shall prosper, He shall be fortunate.
AND HE SHALL EXECUTE JUDGMENT AND JUSTICE. — "He shall do" what is just: for by righteous judgment He shall condemn the wicked, but the righteous He shall protect and reward with His justice. See what was said on Ezekiel 18:6. Otherwise Denis the Carthusian: "Justice," he says, means every work of virtue. Otherwise also St. Thomas and Lyranus: "justice," they say, means the Evangelical law, which teaches a fuller justice than the Scribes and Pharisees. But the first sense is the genuine one.
Morally, let Popes and Bishops learn here from Christ, whose place they hold, to execute judgment and justice in the land. Beautifully did Blessed Peter Damian write these verses to Pope Alexander II: He who would keep the vigor of the Apostolic See, / Let him balance the even weights of rigid justice. / For he knows not how to hold equal the scales of law, / Whom favor bends, or greedy hope draws. / For him whose purse-strings are loosened by full gifts, / A destitute soul loses empty justice. / Rome holds the keys of heaven, and rules the reins of the world: / Beyond these, if she wants more, hell alone awaits.
Verse 6
6. IN THOSE DAYS. — In Hebrew, "of him," namely of Christ, and so read the Septuagint, the Chaldean, and some Latin manuscripts. ISRAEL SHALL BE SAVED (that is, the ten tribes); AND JUDAH (that is, the two remaining tribes: for to the Jews Christ was first promised and sent, to save them, that is, to justify them from sin, and afterward glorify them. "Judah" therefore) SHALL DWELL SECURELY — not fearing enemies, since it has Christ, a pastor so strong, so vigilant. This is the security and peace which Isaiah predicted would come under Christ, chapter 11, verse 4, chapter 40, verse 6, and elsewhere: whence in chapter 9, verse 6, he calls Christ "the prince of peace;" the peace which the Angels sang at Christ's birth: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace."
AND THIS IS THE NAME BY WHICH THEY SHALL CALL HIM: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. — The Jews now read it as iiqreo, that is, the Lord will call Him by this name, namely "our righteousness." But the ancient Hebrews (a Castro cites them here) and all the Latin and Greek authorities teach that the name of the Messiah, by which He will be called by His faithful, will be this: "The Lord our righteousness." From which it is clear that Christ is properly God; for in Hebrew it is Jehovah, the proper name of God. Rabbi David responds that the name Jehovah is also given to creatures, as Moses in Exodus 17:15 called his altar Jehovah-nissi, that is, "Jehovah my exaltation," because at that place God had exalted Moses in the victory over Amalek; and Ezekiel chapter 48, verse 35, the city of God is called Jehovah-shammah, that is, "Jehovah is there." But in an entirely different way Christ is called Jehovah, namely, not because God is in Him as in an altar or in a city, but because He Himself is God, our righteousness: for He is not called "the Lord in him" or "the Lord there" as...
that city is called by Ezekiel, but "The Lord our righteousness." Whence the Septuagint translates: The Lord Josedec, that is, righteous and justifier; so that the high priest Josedec by his name prefigured this name of Christ. Hence also Symmachus translates: Lord, justify us. In Hebrew they clearly read: The Lord our righteousness; and the Chaldean: Justifications shall be ours from the face of the Lord, as if to say: The faithful, to declare their love, security, confidence, and thanksgiving toward Christ, will continually sing and say: This is the God who justified and redeemed us; that is, they will cry out and repeat the name of Jesus. For "Jesus," that is, Savior, is the same as "the Lord our righteousness," that is, He who saves and justifies us. Hence the Syriac translates: And this is the name by which they shall call Him: The Lord our equity (righteousness), which is fitting and sufficient for us, which justly satisfies our will: we are content with the Lord, because He Himself is enough for us. For the Syriac word zedco signifies many things: justice, equity, what is due, honor, fittingness, what is fitting, dignity, order; or what in Italian is said: Il nostro dovere, o giusto! o verita! The Antiochene Arabic translates: And this is the name by which they called Him: The Hidden Lord. The Alexandrian Arabic: And this is the name by which they shall call Him: The Lord our hidden joy.
Verse 7
7. THEREFORE — because, namely, "I will raise up for David a righteous Branch," that is, Christ; hence the Christian faithful will worship Him, and will swear by Him, saying: "As the Lord lives," that is, I swear by the life and name of Christ the Lord. 8. WHO BROUGHT THEM UP FROM THE LAND OF THE NORTH — that is, from the captivity of the devil and sin. AND THEY SHALL DWELL IN THEIR OWN LAND — that is, in the spiritual Jerusalem, namely, in the Church. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo, St. Thomas, Lyranus, and Vatablus. By the oath he understands praises, vows, sacrifices, and all other acts of religion (by synecdoche) which we offer and present to Christ, and through Christ to God the Father.
Verse 9
9. TO THE PROPHETS — namely, the false ones, this prophecy of mine that follows is directed. Otherwise the Chaldean translates: Because of the false prophets my heart is broken. MY HEART IS BROKEN, etc. — as if to say: I am consumed with grief, and my bones tremble, as if I were drenched with wine and drunk, and this not from fear of the Jews, but because of the Lord, and "because of His holy words," or, as it is in Hebrew, of His holiness — because, namely, I see the most holy majesty of God angry at sins, and threatening the greatest calamities against the false prophets, who mock my threats and God's threats, and among the people prevent and hinder them from believing and converting. So St. Jerome. But the Septuagint translates: I became like a man overcome by wine because of the Lord, and because of the glory of His beauty, as if to say: From the contemplation of God the Father, and of His Son, who is the glory and splendor of the Father, I was terrified and was seized in mind like a drunken man, seeing that I (although I am as it were their mouth and Prophet) am nothing. So Rabanus and St. Jerome.
Verse 10
10. BECAUSE OF THE CURSE (because of the curses and blasphemies of the Jews against God) THE LAND MOURNED (that is, was made desolate) — made barren and wretched, like one who mourns. So Hugo and Lyranus, as is clear from what follows. Otherwise St. Thomas: Because, he says, God cursed a land so impious, therefore it mourned. He speaks of the barrenness and famine which the citizens besieged in Jerusalem by the Chaldeans suffered. THEIR COURSE HAS BECOME EVIL (they ran unbridled and headlong into evils and sins: hence) THEIR STRENGTH IS NOT RIGHT — that is, it is not like what it used to be: upright, true, unconquered, especially in their holy forefathers, says St. Thomas: but it is deceitful, inconstant, fleeting, and not at all lasting: for soon, as weaklings, they will fall before the Chaldean enemy, and will be captured like cowards. Hence from the Hebrew, Vatablus translates: Their power is not firm, or: Their strength is not truth. Which some explain thus, as if to say: They do not strive for truth with their strength, but for falsehood.
Verse 11
11. THEY ARE DEFILED. — In Hebrew, they are hypocrites, that is, outwardly they pretend to be pious worshippers of God, while in their heart they carry idols. The Chaldean: they have stolen away their ways, as if to say: They stealthily withdraw themselves and their things from Me and steal them away, to give and consecrate them to idols. IN MY HOUSE I FOUND THEIR EVIL — because, namely, in God's temple they sacrifice to idols, they contrive frauds and robberies, and beside it they built houses of prostitution and chambers for the effeminate. This is clear from chapter 7, verse 30, and 11:15: "What is it," He says, "that My beloved has done many abominations in My house?" So Lyranus and Vatablus. See 4 Kings, chapter 23, verses 4, 5, 6, and 7. Otherwise Hugo and St. Thomas: "in My house," that is, in My people, whom they led into every impiety, "I found their evil."
Verse 12
12. THEIR WAY SHALL BE LIKE SLIPPERY PLACES IN DARKNESS — they shall be punished, they shall easily stumble and fall into calamities, like a man who walks in darkness on a slippery road: for since one's step cannot be fixed on a slippery surface, and darkness hides the rough places, it is inevitable that one walking in these conditions will stray, fall, or stumble. OF THEIR VISITATION — that is, of their punishment.
13 and 14. AND IN THE PROPHETS OF SAMARIA I SAW FOOLISHNESS. (The word "as" is understood in the Hebrew manner, as if to say: Just as among the ten tribes I saw idolatry of gods of stone and wood, than which nothing is more foolish: so also in Jerusalem, or among the two tribes), I SAW THE LIKENESS OF ADULTERERS — that is, the imitation of idolaters, namely of the Israelites, as if to say: I similarly saw the Jews and Israelites committing adultery, that is, worshipping idols. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo, Lyranus, Theodoret, although it can also be taken literally...
taken as referring to actual adulterers, because they truly committed adulteries. Note: For "likeness," the Hebrew is scaarura, that is, a thing horrible on account of its shameful ugliness, an image horribly shameful; whence the Septuagint translates it as "horrible things" — as was the case here, to see these very teachers, as if clothed with a demon, teaching impiety, so impious and horrible as if the most foul Satan himself had taught it with his own mouth.
Verse 14
14. THEY STRENGTHENED — that is, while they strengthen and harden people in their crimes by making light of them and promising all prosperity, against God's warnings and the threats of the Prophets. THEY HAVE ALL BECOME TO ME LIKE SODOM — namely, abominable, and consequently to be consumed by heavenly fire, just like the Sodomites, and to be plunged into hell. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo.
Verse 15
15. I WILL FEED THEM WITH WORMWOOD. — The Chaldean: I will bring upon them bitter anguish like wormwood, and will give them to drink the cup of the worst curse, as from the heads of serpents. FOR FROM THE PROPHETS OF JERUSALEM POLLUTION HAS GONE FORTH OVER ALL THE LAND — as if to say: These flattering and false prophets by their false oracles and crimes pollute the holy land, which is, as it were, the holy property of God, and even the most holy temple of God.
Verse 18
18. WHO (namely, of the false prophets) HAS STOOD IN THE COUNSEL OF THE LORD, AND HAS SEEN AND HEARD HIS WORD? — Of the Lord, or, as Aquila translates, the secret of the Lord, as if to say: None of them has heard it, but they fabricate from themselves everything they say.
Verse 19
19. BEHOLD (suddenly, unexpectedly, and contrary to the opinion of the false prophets) A WHIRLWIND (that is, vehemence; the Chaldean: rebuke; the Septuagint: commotion) OF THE LORD'S INDIGNATION SHALL GO FORTH, AND A BURSTING TEMPEST. — The Hebrew: and a whirlwind twisting itself; for this is the symbol of the sharp wrath and vengeance of God, by which He suddenly engulfs and absorbs the wicked. By the whirlwind, therefore, understand God's vengeance.
Verse 20
20. THE FURY OF THE LORD SHALL NOT RETURN (empty and vain) — to be poured out upon the Jews: but it will effectively accomplish the vengeance against them, for which it was sent. YOU SHALL UNDERSTAND — you shall actually experience God's vengeance and scourges, with which He Himself will chastise you.
Verse 22
22. I WOULD HAVE TURNED THEM. — It seems it should be corrected to "they would have turned" (avertissent), namely the Prophets themselves (who, being now false and lying, would then have been true and truthful) would have turned the people from their sins. So the Hebrew, Chaldean, Septuagint, and the Royal Latin: and thus it ascribes the entire fault of the people to the false prophets. However, St. Jerome, Hugo, Rabanus, St. Thomas, and the Roman corrected text read "I would have turned" (avertissem), namely: I, God, through their preaching would have turned the people and the common folk, say St. Thomas, Hugo, Lyranus; or, as St. Jerome says, I would have turned the Prophets themselves, so that they would not be given over in their thoughts to uncleanness, shame, and a reprobate mind, as punishment for their impiety.
Verse 23
23. AM I A GOD AT HAND, etc. — as if to say: I, God, behold not only things present, but past and future as though they were before Me, from the highest watchtower of My eternity. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo, and Maldonatus. Whence the Chaldean translates: I created the world in the beginning, I will renew it in the end.
Second and better: as if to say: Do not say, O false prophets, that God walks the hinges of His heaven, that He is far from us, does not see our affairs, does not care, as though things placed far from Himself and heaven — because even from heaven I, God, see all your affairs, care for them, punish them; I behold all things, both near and far distant, as though present and close at hand. Whence the Septuagint and Theodoret translate: I am a God who draws near, and not a God from afar — as if to say: I am everywhere present, everywhere near by My presence, inspection, and power, indeed even by My essence: because I fill heaven and earth. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Theodoret, Lyranus. So David beautifully describes God's presence in every place, Psalm 139:7, and Amos 9:2. So also Virgil sings in Eclogue III: "All things are full of Jupiter." And Lucan, book III: What is God's seat but the earth, the sea, the air, / The sky, and virtue? Why do we seek further beyond? / Jupiter is whatever you see, wherever you move.
And Thales said that all things are full of gods; and Heraclitus would invite friends to his humble home: "Because," he said, "even this place does not lack immortal gods," as Aristotle reports in Book I of Parts of Animals, final chapter; whence it follows: "Can a man hide himself in secret so that I shall not see him?"
The Septuagint, as found in Eusebius, Book VII of Preparation, chapter IV, translate thus: What will a man do in secret that I shall not know? Do I not fill heaven and earth?
Verse 25
25. I HAVE DREAMED — I saw in my sleep a prophetic vision.
Verse 28
28. LET HIM TELL HIS DREAM — as if to say: Let the impostures cease. He who dreamed, let him not say: Thus says the Lord; but rather: This I say, and this I dreamed. He who, however, has had a revelation from God, let him tell what he heard, as a word of God, and let him say: Thus says the Lord.
WHAT HAS CHAFF TO DO WITH WHEAT? — as if to say: What have false and empty prophecies and promises to do with My solid and real and most true threats? First, He compares false prophecies to chaff, and true prophecies to wheat: because, just as chaff, says St. Jerome, so also these false prophecies have no substance, nor can they nourish the believing peoples, and they are woven from empty straw and scattered by the blasts of wind, when the outcome shows that their flatteries and promises were lies. On the contrary, the threats of divine judgment and of the last things uttered by the true Prophets are true and will certainly be fulfilled, and therefore like solid wheat they feed the soul with fear, weigh it down, sustain it, and nourish it, so that it may produce the fruit of repentance.
Second, true prophecy and the word of God is like fire, illuminating all things and inflaming them with the love of God, and burning the impious; and third, it is like a most powerful hammer breaking rocks, that is, hearts of stone, and shattering all obstacles, especially the false prophets, who falsely cloaked their own fictions with the word of God; for these, the very word of God which He here threatens them with, will devour like fire and crush like a hammer. See verses 33 and 36.
Truly St. Bernard, sermon 4 on "Missus est," says: "With God, the word does not differ from the intention, because He is truth; nor the deed from the word, because He is power; nor the manner from the deed, because He is wisdom." For God, therefore, to speak is to do: it is otherwise with man, who is unstable, deceitful, powerless, and foolish, and therefore in his words and promises often deceives and is deceived.
Furthermore, the Chaldean translates: As I separate chaff from wheat, so I separate the just from the impious, says the Lord — which St. John the Baptist teaches Christ will do, in Matthew 3:12. Similar proverbs are: "What fellowship has light with darkness? And what agreement has Christ with Belial?" (2 Corinthians 6:14). And those of Athenaeus, Book V: "What has a shield to do with a scepter?" And of Stratonicus: "What has a scepter to do with a plectrum?" And of Suidas: "What communion has a probe with a sword? What has a flask to do with a breastband? What has a hyena to do with a dog? An ox with a dolphin? A dog with a bath?"
Verse 30
30. BEHOLD, I AM AGAINST THE PROPHETS WHO STEAL MY WORDS. — He notes three kinds of false prophets. The first are those who, like thieves, steal certain sayings of the true Prophets, and either mix them with their own lies to gain credibility, or twist them by false interpretation to fit their own fabrications. Thus what Jeremiah had said in chapter 49, verse 35, at the beginning of Zedekiah's reign: "I will break the bow of Elam" — Hananiah in the fourth year of Zedekiah twisted this, saying: "Thus says the Lord: I have broken the yoke of Babylon" (Jeremiah 48:2). So heretics, says St. Jerome, steal the words of the Savior when they twist Sacred Scripture to fit their heresies.
The second are those who use their own tongues, that is, who speak from their own brain and tongue, not from divine revelation, as follows. So the Chaldean, Hugo, St. Thomas; or, as Vatablus and Lyranus translate, who smooth their tongues, that is, with smooth, flattering, fine speech and promises they entice the people — so that the Hebrew lacach is placed by metathesis for chalach, that is, he flattered — as if to say: These fashion for themselves a honeyed tongue, they seem to drip honey and pour forth sweetness, saying: Peace, peace, when there is no peace; and therefore they bring upon us not honey, but gall and destruction.
The third are those who sell their dreams as prophecies through their wonders, that is, through astonishing words, by which, as if in ecstasy, they promise marvelous, great, and incredible things. Whence Lyranus translates: in their raptures or ecstasies; the Chaldean: in their rashness; the Septuagint: in their errors; Pagninus: in their flatteries; Vatablus: in their haste, swiftness, and fickleness, by which they rashly blurt out now this, now that — for the Hebrew word here signifies all these things.
Tropologically, those who "steal the words of God" are teachers and preachers who teach and preach Sacred Scripture for glory — not God's, but their own — and who live impiously and scandalize the people: about whom Psalm 50:16 says: "But to the sinner God said: Why do you declare My statutes, and take My covenant upon your lips?" When Origen reached these words in a sermon, remembering his own fall, when in persecution out of fear of death he had yielded to the governor and burned incense to idols, he suddenly fell silent, and let forth from the depths of his heart such groaning and sighs that he moved all those present to tears and lamentation. Epiphanius is the witness, in the Heresy of the Origenists.
Verse 31
31. BEHOLD, I AM AGAINST THE PROPHETS, SAYS THE LORD, WHO USE THEIR TONGUES — that is, who control and direct their tongue so as to say what pleases them and what is agreeable to the people. For the true Prophets do not control their tongues, but the Lord controls them, and through them speaks what He wills, as if to say: These prophets are heralds of their own tongue and their own word, but I and the true Prophets of God are heralds of the tongue and word of God. Lyranus and Maldonatus, for "their own" read "theirs," namely of the true Prophets, as if to say: These false prophets pretend to be true Prophets, and arrogate to themselves their tongues, saying: "Thus says the Lord," but they lie; for they proclaim their own fabrications, not the oracles of God.
Verse 32
32. IN THEIR WONDERS — which they fabricate and boast of, for example, that they have seen angels, conversed with God, expelled demons, tamed lions, healed the sick, etc.
Verse 33
33. WHAT IS THE BURDEN OF THE LORD? — For "burden," the Hebrew is massa, which Aquila translates as "weight"; the Septuagint, Symmachus, and Theodotion as lemma, that is, "assumption": thus is called a sad and burdensome prophecy received and assumed from God, which weighs upon sinners like a heavy burden. Whence the Arabic and Syriac translate: And they shall say: What is the word of the Lord? Tell them: The word of the Lord is that I will uproot you.
Second, St. Jerome translates lemma as gift and offering, as if to say: Why do you seek favorable things? You are unworthy of a good prophecy, that is, of God's gifts and favors.
Note: Thus the false prophets and the people would mock Jeremiah and the Prophets who threatened punishments; so when they met them, they would ask in jest: "What is the burden of the Lord?" — which you are always singing at us? That is, what new evil are you announcing to us again? To whom, at God's command, Jeremiah responds: "You are the burden" — as if to say: Why should I burden you? Why should I impose upon you a threatening prophecy like a burden? For you yourselves are to me a heavy and unbearable burden, which therefore I have resolved to shake off my shoulders and entirely cast away. Others translate: What is the burden to you? To whom he responds: You yourselves are a burden to yourselves, just as to me, and therefore I will cast you off.
God therefore commands that they abandon this mocking phrase about the "burden" and rather use other words, saying modestly and humbly: "What has the Lord answered?"
YOU ARE THE BURDEN — as if to say: You are a burden, and indeed a most heavy one, because of your sins: whence God will no longer bear so great a burden, but will cast it off and drive it from this land. He turns their own mocking question back upon them in earnest.
It should be noted: The Plantin Bible and several others here read: Why the burden upon you? — which has the meaning I gave just above. But the Septuagint and St. Jerome and the Roman Bible read "you are the burden," and so read the older Latin manuscripts, and some add "unbearable," so that the phrase alludes to the word "burden" and God plays on its ambiguity, now calling a prophecy, now their intolerable behavior, a "burden." Whence it follows: "I will cast you off" — for we cast off a burden — as if to say: I will unburden Myself of you. For so the Hebrew reads, if you join the same letters differently, and instead of et ma massa, you read attem hamassa, that is, "you are the burden"; and this is certainly how it should be read: for otherwise the particle et is incongruously joined with the interrogative ma, as those skilled in the Hebrew language know. So Maldonatus.
Verse 36
36. FOR THE BURDEN SHALL BE TO EVERY MAN HIS OWN WORD — as if to say: Because of their own speech; because, namely, they mock the burden of the Lord, they will pay the heaviest penalties and will be an everlasting reproach; for although after 70 years some will return from captivity, this will be as if in another age: for "everlasting" here, as elsewhere, signifies a long and immemorial time. Add that the mark of this disgrace remained even after the return; for the false prophets and the Jews who, trusting in their false promise of peace, incurred destruction, were then infamous.
The genuine meaning of this entire passage, therefore, is this: No longer mockingly ask Jeremiah, saying: "What is the burden of the Lord?" For you yourselves are a heavy burden to the Lord, and you aggravate it by this mockery. Wherefore I will visit and severely punish whoever henceforth calls My prophecy a "burden." Desist therefore from this jest and this word, and when you wish to inquire about prophecy, do not say: "What is the burden of the Lord?" but rather: What has the Lord said, commanded, or answered? Whence He adds in verse 36: "And the burden of the Lord shall be mentioned no more," as if to say: No longer speak of the burden or say: What is the burden of the Lord? "Because," if you continue to use the word burden, "the burden shall be to every man his own word, the word" — namely, the word that uses the name "burden" — as if to say: The "burden" named by a man himself shall become to him a burden, that is, a severe punishment and torment. And — that is, because — by using this word "burden, you have perverted," that is, you have turned into a joke, fables, and nonsense, "the words of the living God," and thus you have made and represented My words as not only hateful and burdensome, but also as fabulous and false to their hearers.
Morally, learn here that sins, especially contempt and mockery of holy things and sacred matters, are heavy burdens to God. For God bears and endures simultaneously and continuously all the crimes of all men. These burdens Christ took upon Himself, about whom Isaiah says, chapter 53, verses 4 and 6: "Truly He bore our infirmities, and He carried our sorrows." And: "The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Learn therefore from the example of God and Christ that saying of the Apostle, Galatians chapter 5: "Bear one another's burdens," so that God may also bear your burdens.
punishment and torment: and — that is, because — by using this word "burden, you have perverted," that is, you have turned into a joke, fables, and nonsense, "the words of the living God," and thus you have made and represented My words as not only hateful and burdensome, but also as fabulous and false to their hearers.
Verse 39
39. I WILL TAKE YOU UP AND CARRY YOU AWAY — as if to say: Because you mock the burden of the Lord, I will make you the burden which I will take up and carry off to Babylon. Others translate: I will forget you by taking you away. For the Hebrew nasiti, if you derive it from nascha, means to forget; if from nasa, it means to carry, as if to say: Because you would not forget this word "burden of the Lord," as I commanded; therefore I will forget you, and like a burden I will carry you off to Babylon, and there "I will abandon" you, that is, I will cast you from My face, as He said in verse 33. In the Hebrew there is a beautiful paronomasia by metathesis in nasciti, meaning "I will carry," and natasti, meaning "I will abandon you."