Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He laments the desolation of Jerusalem, not the first under Jehoiachin, but the final one under Zedekiah when the temple was burned: and through the contrast of the former state and the blessings of prosperity with the evils of the latter, namely destruction and captivity, he compares them. Thus Christ allegorically wept over Jerusalem about to be laid waste by Titus, Luke 19:41.
Vulgate Text: Threni 1:1-22
1. How does the city sit solitary that was full of people! She has become as a widow, she that was great among the nations: the princess of provinces has been made subject to tribute. 2. Weeping she has wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: there is none to comfort her among all her beloved: all her friends have despised her, and have become her enemies. 3. Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction and the greatness of servitude: she dwells among the nations and finds no rest: all her persecutors have overtaken her in the midst of straits. 4. The ways of Zion mourn, because there are none who come to the solemn feast: all her gates are destroyed: her priests are groaning: her virgins are in squalor, and she herself is oppressed with bitterness. 5. Her enemies have become the head, her adversaries have been enriched: because the Lord has spoken against her on account of the multitude of her iniquities: her little ones have been led into captivity before the face of the oppressor. 6. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty has departed: her princes have become like rams that find no pasture: and they have gone without strength before the face of the pursuer. 7. Jerusalem has remembered the days of her affliction and transgression, all her precious things which she had from the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and there was no helper: the enemies saw her and mocked her sabbaths. 8. Jerusalem has sinned grievously, therefore she has become unstable: all who glorified her have despised her, because they have seen her shame: she herself groaning has turned away backward. 9. Her filth is on her feet, and she has not remembered her end: she has been cast down exceedingly, having no comforter: see, O Lord, my affliction, for the enemy has been exalted. 10. The enemy has stretched out his hand upon all her precious things: for she saw the nations enter her sanctuary, concerning whom You had commanded that they should not enter into Your assembly. 11. All her people are groaning and seeking bread: they have given all their precious things for food to restore the soul: see, O Lord, and consider, for I have become vile. 12. O all you who pass by the way, attend and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow: for He has vindemiavit me as the Lord has spoken in the day of the wrath of His fury. 13. From on high He sent fire into my bones and has instructed me: He spread a net for my feet, He turned me back: He made me desolate, consumed with grief all the day long. 14. The yoke of my iniquities has watched: in His hand they were twisted together and laid upon my neck: my strength has been weakened: the Lord has delivered me into a hand from which I cannot rise. 15. The Lord has taken away all my mighty ones from my midst: He has called a time against me to crush my chosen ones: the Lord has trodden the winepress for the virgin daughter of Judah. 16. Therefore I am weeping, and my eye pours down water: because the comforter who restores my soul is far from me: my children have become desolate, because the enemy has prevailed. 17. Zion has spread forth her hands, there is none to comfort her: the Lord has commanded against Jacob, his enemies round about him: Jerusalem has become as one polluted with menstrual blood among them. 18. The Lord is just, for I have provoked His mouth to anger; hear, I pray you, all you peo-
ples, and see my sorrow: my virgins and my young men have gone into captivity. 19. I called to my friends and they deceived me: my priests and my elders were consumed in the city, because they sought food for themselves to restore their souls. 20. See, O Lord, for I am in tribulation, my bowels are troubled: my heart is turned within me, for I am full of bitterness: abroad the sword slays, and at home there is the likeness of death. 21. They have heard that I groan, and there is none to comfort me: all my enemies have heard of my calamity, they have rejoiced, because You have done it: You will bring the day of consolation, and they shall become like me. 22. Let all their evil come before You: and strip them as You have stripped me for all my iniquities: for my groans are many, and my heart is sorrowful.
Verse 1: HOW.
1. HOW. — This is not the voice of one inquiring, but of one marveling and astonished at so great a disaster and overthrow of so great a city and commonwealth, as Jeremiah had said in chapter 18:16: "Everyone who passes through it will be astonished and shake his head." Moreover in this disaster the Prophet marvels at so calamitous and almost incredible a change of condition in all things, but especially in three things in which the majesty of Jerusalem shone forth, namely: first, in the great number of people, which has now been reduced to solitude; for this is what he says: "How does the city sit solitary that was full of people." Second, in the prudence of king and magistrates, by which she formerly excelled over the nations as a mistress, but is now widowed of them. Hence he says: "She has become as a widow, she that was great among the nations." Third, in the dominion by which she lately used to rule over many, but now serves the Chaldeans and pays tribute; for this is what the third aleph verse concludes by saying: "The princess of provinces has been made subject to tribute," as if to say: Could it have happened that magnificent and renowned Jerusalem, the holy city, the emporium of Syria, the paradise of Asia, the jewel of the East, the queen of the world, the citadel of religion, the torch of faith, the pillar of sacred things, the column of the Church, the throne of God, the delight of men and Angels, should be profaned, overthrown, and burned by God and the Chaldeans? That so many millions of people who were in it should be reduced to so few, base, and poor souls? That David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, and other most illustrious kings and princes of that kingdom should in this eclipse of the realm all perish together, as it were? That the ample and noble empire of Solomon should collapse and serve the Chaldeans?
THE CITY SITS SOLITARY. — "Solitary" first, as if deserted by her own citizens, and therefore mourning; second, as if cast down from the throne of glory and kingdom; third, as if menstruating, and polluted and unclean on account of her menses, for thus Jerusalem is called in verse 17, or as if leprous (for lepers dwell alone outside camps and cities) and separated from the fellowship and protection of God and the Saints, and therefore as if cast out and excommunicated.
She has become as a widow — that is to say, Jerusalem as a widow has been deprived first, of her king, namely Zedekiah now captured; second, of her high priest, namely Seraiah now slain by the Chaldeans; third, of her other princes and magistrates now likewise either slain or captured. For these are as it were the husbands of the commonwealth, which, when they are taken away, becomes as it were a widow. This is the most natural and genuine sense.
Second, "widow," because she was abandoned by God who was the husband of the Synagogue, say Rupert, Bonaventure, and Dionysius; hence he says "as it were" because her husband, that is God, has not died, but only repudiated her as an adulteress and exposed her as prey to the Chaldeans.
Third, "widow" is contrasted with the word "mistress of nations": for in Hebrew it is רבתי בנוים rabbati baggoim, that is, great, that is, abundant in nations, as if to say: Jerusalem, which formerly was frequented by the Gentiles, both proselytes converted to Judaism and pagans, who flocked to her as to the noblest emporium for the sake of merchandise, wisdom, or some other reason, is now widowed of them. So the Chaldean Targum and Origen. Hence in Hebrew a widow is called אלמנה almana, that is, bound and silent, that is, a servant, she who formerly was a mistress. For a widow seems to have her hands tied, as well as her mouth, so that she cannot defend herself in courts, nor repel injuries done to her; but she is exposed to the
SHE SITS. — He speaks first of Jerusalem as of a matron greatly afflicted and mourning: for such a woman, out of grief and weakness and shame (if she has been violated, as Jerusalem here was violated together with the temple), is accustomed to sit and weep. It can, however, secondly, with Maldonatus, be taken as meaning "she lies prostrate": for "to sit," like "to stand" in Scripture, sometimes does not signify a fixed posture, but merely presence, so that it means the same as to be present and to exist, whether one stands, or sits, or lies down, as if to say: How does Jerusalem lie prostrate, she who formerly stood, indeed raised her head above all nations? So he said in chapter 28:18: "Come down from glory, and sit in thirst (in a dry and parched place), O habitation of the daughter of Dibon." So Vespasian, having conquered Judea, had a coin struck on which Judea was depicted as a woman sitting and leaning upon a palm tree. For the palm is the emblem of Judea, because it abounds in them.
slanders and plunderings of all, and seems given as prey, because her guardian and avenger, that is, her husband, has died. Such was Jerusalem here.
Note the word "as it were," as if to say: Jerusalem is not properly a woman and widow, but a city resembling one. Again, she is not entirely widowed and desolated, because after 70 years of captivity she will again be filled, by God's help and direction, with an abundance of both princes and natives, as well as of nations flocking to her. Others explain the word "as it were" thus: Jerusalem is not truly a widow, but as it were, because she is an adulteress. But this is more subtle than solid; for he is speaking of the punishment, not the guilt, of Jerusalem.
THE PRINCESS OF PROVINCES HAS BEEN MADE SUBJECT TO TRIBUTE — that is to say: Jerusalem, which under David and Solomon ruled over the Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, Ammonites, Edomites, and other nations and provinces, as is evident from 2 Samuel 8 and 1 Kings 9, now serves the barbarian and infidel Chaldeans and pays them tribute.
Note: Tribute is called in Hebrew מס mas, from the root מסס masas, that is, "he melted"; therefore mas signifies not only a tax on property, but every contribution and every personal burden, by which the tributary, in the service of another, consumes, melts away, and exhausts himself and all his possessions: which happens when, for example, someone is condemned to cultivating fields and vineyards, to working metal mines, to making bricks, to carrying burdens, etc., as befell the Hebrews in Egypt, Exodus 1.
Allegorically, the Synagogue was a type of the Church; let us therefore say this now of the Church which once flourished in Greece, Asia, Egypt, Africa, England, Scotland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden; but now bears the yoke of the Turk or of heresy: "How does the city sit solitary?" etc.
Thus Victor of Utica adapts these lamentations to Africa afflicted by the Arian Vandals, at the end of book III of his History of the Vandals: "Be present, O angels of my God, and see all of Africa, which was lately supported by the forces of so many Churches, now desolated by all; adorned with so many orders of priests, now sitting a widow and rejected. The enemy has stretched out his hand upon all her precious things. All her beauty has departed from her face, etc. Intercede, O Patriarchs; pray, O holy Prophets; be advocates for her, O Apostles. Especially you, O blessed Peter, why are you silent for your sheep? You, O St. Paul, master of the Gentiles, recognize what the Arian Vandals are doing, and your children groan as mourning captives."
Tropologically, the soul full of people, that is, of good thoughts and affections as if citizens, is through sin bereaved and desolated of them. Second, she who was mistress of nations, that is, of vices and passions, which she governed by reason and the fear of God, is now widowed of all this dominion, indeed even of God and the rule of reason. Third, the princess over provinces, that is, the soul ruling over her own faculties and members, has become the slave of the devil: "serving as many scepters as she is given over to vices," says St. Jerome, to which she pays tribute, since she spends and exhausts all her resources and strength upon them. Thus pride holds the scepter in the soul of the wicked; avarice likewise holds the scepter, as do lust and the other vices: the wicked man serves as many tyrants as the vices he obeys. For sin snatches the scepter and dominion from reason and hands it over to concupiscence, just as if someone were to take the crown from the best of queens and place it on the head of the most shameless harlot: for reason is the queen, concupiscence is the harlot. So St. Chrysostom, homily 11 on the Epistle to the Romans. Hence St. Augustine, tract 41 on John: "Remove," he says, "the kingdom of sin, do not give your concupiscences strength: by following them, you add strength to them; by giving them strength, how will you conquer, when you nourish enemies against yourself with your own strength?" To this sinful soul, therefore, Jeremiah, that is, the preacher, with compassion and wonder says: "How does the city sit solitary that was full of people? She has become as a widow, she that was great among the nations," etc. On the gravity of sin, see what was said on Jeremiah 2 in the introduction.
Verse 2: WEEPING SHE HAS WEPT.
2. WEEPING SHE HAS WEPT. — First, Rabbi Solomon thinks this doubling signifies a twofold weeping, one for the overthrow of the temple, the other for the city. But I say it is a Hebraism. "Weeping she has wept," that is, she wept continually and profusely, namely the city of Jerusalem, that is, the few citizens left in Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Secondly and more simply, to the city itself through personification, for the sake of pathos, life, voice, weeping, etc. are here attributed, because he assigns to the city the character of a matron once happy and glorious, now base, miserable, and weeping, as I said on verse 1.
IN THE NIGHT. — The Chaldean Targum explains it thus: When Moses, he says, sent explorers into the promised land, and they reported that the land was difficult of access, the Jews wept that night out of sorrow: at which God, angered, commanded that on that night they should bewail the future devastation of the temple. But these are Jewish fables. Jerusalem wept therefore "in the night," that is, in calamity, of which night is the symbol, say Rabanus, St. Thomas, and Lyranus.
Second, "in the night," because on the night of the ninth day of the month of Ab, Jerusalem was captured; hence then her weeping began. So some Hebrews, and the Chaldean Targum also intimates the same, indeed Scripture itself, Jeremiah 52:7.
Third and most simply, "in the night," because the night, on account of its silence, solitude, cessation from labor, tranquility, recollection and concentration of the mind, is more suited to meditation, compunction, and tears. So Origen, Isidore, St. Thomas, and others. He alludes to the word "widow": for thus he called Jerusalem in verse 1; for a widow is accustomed especially at night to remember her husband and the marriage bed, and to experience and bewail her widowhood, as the bride says in Song of Songs 3:1: "On my bed at night I sought Him whom my soul loves."
Fourth, Sanchez adds a new reason: Because, he says, just as it was unlawful for servants to complain of their masters' rule, however cruel and bitter; so also
lovers, as Jeremiah said in chapter 4:30, because they, like adulterers, drew her to their idols and vices: but now, having become enemies, they abandon her, made a widow by the destruction, indeed they despise, mock, and attack her. So St. Thomas, Hugo, Bonaventure, Lyranus, and Dionysius. For this is the just punishment of harlots and adulteresses, that honey is turned to gall for them, lovers into enemies, flatterers into mockers.
to mourn openly, or to show languor of spirit, was a capital crime. Thus before King Ariovistus, no one was permitted even to murmur in the greatest sorrow, much less to shed tears, says Caesar in Book I of the Gallic Wars. Thus Jerusalem here, subjugated and enslaved, did not dare to weep before the Chaldeans during the day: she weeps therefore at night. So in Sophocles, Electra calls Niobe happy, who was allowed to weep for the death of her children.
HER TEARS ARE ON HER CHEEKS — that is, they cling and endure, as if to say: She weeps perpetually, perpetual rivers of tears flow from her eyes down her cheeks; so that she does not bother to wipe them away, because new ones are always flowing, and others continually succeed them. Otherwise Hugo and Sanchez: The tears cling to her cheeks because the barbarian Chaldeans do not allow her leisure to wash her face; or rather, because she herself, being wholly absorbed in mourning, does not trouble about grooming and cleanliness, but displays and professes her grief through perpetual tears.
THERE IS NONE TO COMFORT HER. — This is added to the fullness of her grief, that she has no one to console her. For since sorrow is like a certain burden weighing down a weak soul, when friends share the grief of the mourner, they seem to help him carry the burden, and he is relieved by feeling that he does not bear his burden alone, especially because from this he sees himself loved by them, from which he is affected by a certain hidden delight which diminishes the sorrow. So from Aristotle, St. Thomas, II II, Question 38, article 3.
Hence also St. Gregory, book V of the Moralia, chapter 3, says: "The visitation of one who labors is the alleviation of his labor"; much more is the visitation and consolation of one who grieves the alleviation of his grief. Therefore David, in the person of Christ, laments in Psalm 69:21: "I waited for one who would grieve with me, and there was none: and for one who would comfort me, and I found none." And in hell, one of the greatest punishments of the damned is that they have no one in heaven or on earth who would sympathize even with a nod with their extreme torments; but all praise in them the just judgment of God, and consider them worthy of these and greater punishments.
FROM AMONG ALL HER BELOVED. — First, the dear ones and friends of Jerusalem here are called the priests and prophets, says Hugo. Second, the idols of the nations which they worshipped and in which the Jews hoped: for with these, as with her lovers, Jerusalem committed fornication; but now in the destruction she was deserted and abandoned by the same. So Rabanus. Third, these dear ones are the guardian angels, say St. Bonaventure and Dionysius. Fourth, more plainly, Origen says: The dear ones of Jerusalem are the neighboring Jews of other cities. Fifth, Olympiodorus explains it thus: In the destruction of Jerusalem, one did not console another, friend did not console friend, because all were equally devastated. Sixth and most fittingly, the dear ones and friends of Jerusalem here are called the neighboring nations, formerly friendly to the Jews, now hostile; because together with the Chaldeans they devastated the Jews. Such were the Edomites and Egyptians. For these were, of this matron, namely Jerusalem,
The same tropologically befalls the sinning soul; for having committed fornication with creatures and pleasures, she soon suffers from them bitterness, horror, nausea, and other torments of body and mind, by the just judgment of God, especially in illness and death. Barlaam clearly represents this same thing with two beautiful parables to King Josaphat in Damascene, chapters 13 and 14 of their History.
Verse 3: JUDAH HAS GONE INTO CAPTIVITY BECAUSE OF AFFLICTION.
3. JUDAH HAS GONE INTO CAPTIVITY BECAUSE OF AFFLICTION. — The Chaldean Targum, Vatablus, Dionysius, and Isidore translate thus: Judah went into captivity because he had afflicted orphans and widows, and treated Hebrew servants harshly, and did not set them free at the time appointed by the law and by God, as is evident from Jeremiah 34:14.
Second, Lyranus and Rupert: "Because of affliction," they say, that is, so that he might be afflicted and serve the Chaldeans on account of his sins.
Third, Origen: "Because of affliction," he says, that is, because he afflicted, that is, debased himself and served sins.
Fourth, and best, Rabanus, Hugo, St. Thomas, Dionysius, and Isidore explain it thus, as if to say: Judah, that is, many of the Jews, in order to escape the affliction, burdens, tributes, servile labors of building ramparts, cultivating fields, hauling bricks and lime, cleaning and fortifying camps — which they were about to undergo or were already undergoing as slaves, just as they had undergone in Egypt, Exodus 1 and 5 — in order, I say, to escape so great, so varied, harsh, and manifold a servitude to the Chaldeans, they migrated partly before the destruction of Jerusalem, partly during it, and after it, to neighboring nations, namely Ammon, Moab, and especially the Egyptians: but not even there did she find rest, because the pursuing Chaldeans seized her there, that is, them, namely the Jews: for he speaks of them now in the masculine, as of a man and a people; now in the feminine, as of a matron: for such is a city and nation.
ALL HER PERSECUTORS HAVE OVERTAKEN HER IN THE MIDST OF STRAITS — in a place beset by dangers on every side so that she could not escape, for example, in a narrow passage enclosed by walls on both sides; for thus were the Jews who fled to Egypt: for they could neither return to Judea, because it was held by the Chaldeans; nor remain in Egypt, because Egypt was being devastated by the same. In this situation, therefore, the saying was true: "He fell into Scylla while seeking to avoid Charybdis." And: "Avoiding the ashes, he fell into the coals."
Note in the Hebrew a beautiful and vigorous play on words. For מצרים metsarim, which means "straits," alludes to מצרים Mitsraim, that is, Egypt, as if to say: The Jews migrated to Mitsraim, that is, to Egypt, as into metsarim, that is, into their own straits, like mice into their own trap, namely into the captivity and sword of the Chaldeans, which seized them there. Jeremiah had predicted and threatened this to them in chapter 42:11, and chapters 43, 44, and 46.
Tropologically, many flee from the Church to heretics because of the strict servitude of the Church's commandments; but there too they fall into greater disturbances of soul and conscience. Second, when a pious soul is afflicted by God, if she wishes to flee Him, she will fall into greater afflictions: for while shaking off one cross, she incurs another heavier one. Third, a Religious who flees the labors of the Religious life will find in the world greater anguishes of a tormenting conscience, of friends and cares; likewise afflictions and temptations from the flesh, the world, and the devil.
Verse 4: THE WAYS OF ZION
4. THE WAYS OF ZION — that is, the ways to the temple which was on Mount Zion. So Origen, Hugo, Lyranus, and Dionysius. Secondly and better, Zion means Jerusalem, whose chief part was the citadel and Mount Zion. So Theodoretus, Hugo, St. Thomas, and Bonaventure. These ways to Jerusalem mourn metaphorically, that is, they are deserted and desolated, just as meadows smile when they bloom. For the citizens of a city and the crowds on the roads are like the soul and life of them: hence when they are removed, they seem to mourn and die. Otherwise Lyranus says: The ways mourn, that is, they have put forth grass and abundant herbage, like hair as mourners do, because they are trodden by no one's foot. But mourners among the Hebrews, in grief, did not grow out their hair but shaved it, as is evident from Job 1:20; Jeremiah 7:29; Micah 1:16.
Second, the ways of Jerusalem mourn metonymically, because they arouse grief in those who consider both the former frequency and concourse to the solemnities, namely Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, at which all the Jews, not only from Judea but from the whole world, flocked to Jerusalem; and the present solitude, with the city and temple destroyed.
ALL HER GATES ARE DESTROYED. — Gates serve first, for the beauty and adornment of the city; second, for defense: hence of old they were high and fortified like citadels; third, for the senate and judgments: for judges used to conduct these at the gates, because access to them was free for all, both natives and foreigners; fourth, for markets, feasts, games, and every assembly and gathering of the people. Therefore in saying the gates are destroyed, he signifies that all these things were likewise destroyed and overthrown. Hence in chapter 5:14 he says: "The elders have ceased from the gates, the young men from the choir of singers." So St. Thomas.
HER PRIESTS ARE GROANING — because they have been removed from their office; or rather, as the Chaldean Targum says, because their sacrifices and all sacred rites have ceased: for when these flourished, those offering sacrifice sang hymns and psalms and jubilated; now, with these taken away, they are silent and groan.
THE VIRGINS (who at the feasts of the city and temple used to lead dances and sing the praises of God, 1 Samuel 18:6, are now) IN SQUALOR; in Hebrew nugos, that is, afflicted.
Allegorically, the virgins are nuns and others who have consecrated their virginity to God; these are in squalor when they fall from their former purity and seclusion, and pursue worldly familiarities, civilities, and conversations, and thus turn their face from God their Spouse toward men.
Second and more adequately, all the virgins of Jerusalem, who formerly were wonderfully beautiful, and most zealous for elegance and adornment, now reduced to the power of the barbarian Chaldeans and made their handmaids, many of them even violated by them, mourn and are in squalor. This is what Isaiah threatened to the proud and adorned women of Zion, chapter 3, verse 24: "And instead of sweet fragrance there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle a rope, and instead of curled hair baldness, and instead of a robe a girding of sackcloth." Therefore "she herself," mother Jerusalem, most loving of her daughters, seeing their squalor and filth, is wholly "oppressed with bitterness."
Tropologically, the ways to life, virtue, and heaven are the virtues: faith, justice, mercy, etc.; these mourn because they are deserted and neglected by men.
Second, the gates, that is, the senses are destroyed, when through them the enemy, sin, and death entered the soul.
Third, the priests groan, that is, the mind and spirit, which used to offer to God meditations, offerings, and prayers; now overwhelmed by sin, they groan and neglect these.
Fourth, the virgins, that is, pure and heavenly thoughts, are in squalor; hence all things are bitter to the sinner.
Again, the gates of Jerusalem are the virtues of the soul. The gate of the foundation is humility: the high gate on Mount Zion is charity: the gate of the temple is religion: the gate of the valley is the knowledge of the Creator through the beauty of creatures; in this are two doors, one of the creature, the other of the Creator; the dung gate is confession, through which the filth of the soul is expelled: the gate of the fountain is the effusion of tears: the gate of the flock is the care of feeding one's own soul and those of others: the gate of the fish is temperance and the observance of fasts: the gate of the horses is strength and eagerness to fight against the enemy: the eastern gate is faith: the gate of the potsherd is the consideration of human frailty: the gate of the corner is mutual beneficence: the middle gate is moderation. All these are destroyed by sin.
Verse 5: HER ENEMIES HAVE BECOME THE HEAD
5. HER ENEMIES HAVE BECOME THE HEAD — that is, they have risen to the top, as if to say: The enemies have become the superiors, and they lord it over Jerusalem; whereas the Jerusalemites, formerly masters of affairs, are now cast down and made the tail: for they are the slaves of the Chaldeans.
Thus tropologically, enemies rule over the sinful soul, namely demons and concupiscences. Hear St. Gregory, book I of the Moralia, 19: "The enemies have become the head, as if to say: When a good work is not undertaken with a good intention, the opposing spirits rule from the very beginning of the thought: and they possess the soul more fully, inasmuch as they hold dominion from the very start." Where St. Gregory takes "head" tropologically as the beginning of action and intention: For, as St. Bernard says in his book On Precept and Dispensation, "a perverse intention utterly condemns a good work." For just as from a muddy well whatever comes out is turbid: so from a corrupt mind nothing but corruption proceeds.
HER ENEMIES HAVE BEEN ENRICHED — with the spoils of Jerusalem. In Hebrew it is שלו scalu, that is, they have prospered, they successfully stormed and plundered her, and thus from her spoils they "have been enriched."
BECAUSE THE LORD HAS SPOKEN — that is, He Himself threatened these things to the Jews, should they turn away from Him and His law, through Moses, Deuteronomy 28:13, and Leviticus 26, and elsewhere: and now recently through me, Jeremiah, through Isaiah and the other prophets. The Septuagint, the Chaldean Targum, and Vatablus translate: Because the Lord has afflicted or humiliated her. For they derive the Hebrew הוגה hoga from יגה iaga, that is, "he grieved" and "caused to grieve." But our Translator properly derives hoga from הגה haga, that is, "he meditated, murmured, spoke."
HER LITTLE ONES (who can barely speak and walk, and whom therefore enemies, even barbarians, are accustomed to spare) HAVE BEEN LED INTO CAPTIVITY BEFORE THE FACE OF THE OPPRESSOR — before the Chaldean enemy, driving and threatening them like cattle into Chaldea. For he planned to snatch or kill them, not as a shepherd, but as a robber.
Tropologically, the little ones, that is, novices in faith or religion, are led into captivity when they are drawn away into dissoluteness and wickedness by the sins and bad examples of their elders.
Verse 6: AND FROM THE DAUGHTER OF ZION ALL HER BEAUTY HAS DEPARTED.
6. AND FROM THE DAUGHTER OF ZION ALL HER BEAUTY HAS DEPARTED. — Note first: The daughter of Zion is Jerusalem, because it lay in the valley, and as it were under the protection of the citadel and Mount Zion, as of its mother. So Lyranus and Hugo.
Second, Origen and the Chaldean Targum: The daughter, that is, the assembly and people, which was contained in the city of Zion, as a fetus in a mother's womb.
Third and best, Jerusalem, a most beautiful city, is called "daughter" because the Hebrews metaphorically call beautiful and beloved cities "daughters." Thus the daughter of Babylon is the city of Babylon, or Babylon itself, fair and lovely as a daughter.
BEAUTY — that is, first, the kingdom, say the Hebrew commentator and Vatablus; second, Lyranus says, the kingdom and the priesthood; third and more fully, St. Thomas, Hugo, Dionysius, and Bonaventure say, "all beauty," that is, all the adornment of the temple, and of the houses, and of the citizens, and of the magistrates, and of the priests, and of the virgins, and of the government and all things.
HER PRINCES HAVE BECOME LIKE RAMS. — Our Translator reads אלים elim, that is, rams: but with different vowel points others read אילים aialim, that is, like deer, namely timid and fugitive, Zedekiah and the princes of Judah became. So the Chaldean Targum and Pagninus. For this reason Achilles, rebuking Agamemnon in Homer, says he has the heart of a deer, that is, he is most cowardly. Our Translator better renders it "rams that find no pasture," that is, without food and grazing, as if to say: The princes of Jerusalem, like emaciated rams, were worn out with hunger and weariness when they went as captives to Babylon, so that, with the Chaldeans pressing them to march quickly, they could barely walk. So Origen, Hugo, Lyranus, and Dionysius.
Tropologically, the soul is the daughter of Zion, that is, of contemplation, and a daughter of Zion, that is, a citizen of heaven, who formerly through meditation drank the milk of the Angels; but now through sin she has lost all the beauty of virtues by which she pleased God and the Angels above all creatures: for the soul adorned with the grace of God is a most beautiful queen, surpassing all the natural beauty of the Angels and of all creatures. The reason is that through grace we become "partakers of the divine nature," as St. Peter says; and consequently we most excellently and most closely participate in the supernatural and supreme beauty of God, which immeasurably transcends all natural and created beauty. See this beauty of the bride described in the Song of Songs. Second, the princes, that is, reason and the will, in the soul grow faint and fail from hunger for spiritual things. Hence third, wherever the devil drives them, there they are carried in thought and affection: for they lack the strength and fortitude to resist; for they had this from grace, of which they have now been stripped. These things apply to all, but especially to prelates: for these, like rams, ought to go before the flock, lead, defend, and feed it by word and example; but if they go off to the pastures of pleasures, they are threatened by the enemy pressing from behind with hunger and spiritual death, both their own and that of their charges. So St. Jerome.
Verse 7: SHE HAS REMEMBERED.
7. SHE HAS REMEMBERED. — The Hebrews and Vatablus translate quite fittingly: Jerusalem has remembered in the days of her affliction, in which she was paying the penalty for her transgression, all her precious things; in whose possession she formerly rejoiced, now by their loss she is tormented, as if to say: In the days of her affliction she remembered her former prosperity, and the remembrance increased her grief, as Psalm 137:1 says: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion."
But the Septuagint, the Chaldean Targum, and our Translator render it in the genitive, "she has remembered the days of her affliction." The involved words of this verse are therefore to be arranged and explained thus, as if to say: Jerusalem has remembered, first, these past days in which she was deeply afflicted; namely, when her people fell into the hands of the Chaldeans without any helper: for this is her recent wound, and as it were still bleeding and raw. Second, she has remembered at the same time the cause of so great a calamity, namely her transgression. Third, she has finally remembered all the precious ornaments which were in the city and temple from the time of Solomon. Consider therefore how sorrowful she is, when she sees herself stripped of everything, and how she torments herself for not having valued and preserved God's great blessings more highly. So Paschasius, Lyranus, and Dionysius.
King Lysimachus, when out of thirst he had surrendered himself and his army to the enemy, upon drinking water exclaimed: "Good gods, for the sake of how slight a pleasure I have lost so great a kingdom, and from a king made myself a slave!" Let Jerusalem say the same: let the penitent soul say the same.
Note first: For "transgression," the Hebrew is מרודים merudim, which Vatablus properly translates as "rebellion," namely in violating God's law and worshipping idols. But the Septuagint translates ἀπωσμῶν, that is, "of her expulsions," which is, as Pagninus translates, "of her destitutions, wanderings, and migrations"; namely they take merudim, that is, "rebellion," metonymically for the punishment of rebellion, which was exile and dispersion among the nations.
Note second: By "precious things" he means the wealth and delights which each person, now lost in the destruction, remembers and mourns. Second, as Vatablus says, these precious things are the kingdom, the priesthood, peace, victory, prophecies, and other ornaments of that people; as well as those of the temple, namely feasts, offerings, sacred vessels, vestments, etc. The Hebrews connect "when her people fell" with what follows, that is, then the enemies mocked her sabbaths. Better, the Roman edition, the Septuagint, Origen, and others connect it with what precedes, as if to say: Jerusalem remembered the days of affliction, etc., then, when the hostile sword raged unpunished among the people, and there was no one to bring help to her; and when the enemy insolently mocked her, her feasts, and her religion.
THE ENEMIES SAW HER (the Chaldeans, say Hugo and Dionysius. Better, as Castro says, the enemies, namely the neighboring Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites): AND THEY MOCKED HER SABBATHS — that is, all her feasts, worship, and religion of the Jews, so all the Latin commentators. It seems therefore that the Chaldeans mocked both circumcision and other Jewish rites; and properly the worship of the Sabbath, because they worshipped God with this sacred leisure; and even compelled them to labor on the Sabbaths equally, indeed more than on other profane days. For thus the Gentiles mocked the Jews, because they spent the seventh day, and consequently a seventh of their time and life, in idleness; and hence called them "Sabbatarians." Hear Juvenal, satire 5, depicting the Jew:
"Whose every seventh day was idle, and who touched no part of life."
See what I said about the Sabbath, Deuteronomy 5:12.
But the Hebrews and Greeks take "sabbaths" as a common noun, and translate it as "cessations, vacations, vacancies," meaning that now all business, commerce, lawsuits, markets, etc. have ceased in Jerusalem, as the Lord had threatened in Leviticus 26:33, or, as
Tropologically, the penitent soul, seeing herself afflicted on account of sins, whether by vices or by the miseries of life, groans when she remembers both her sins and the happy state of Adam, and the virtues and blessings of God which she has lost, like St. Job in chapter 29, verse 2; because the enemy has snatched from the temple of her soul the altar of incense, that is, sacrifices and prayers; and the lampstand of light, that is, understanding of divine things; and the table of the showbread, that is, the virtue of almsgiving; and other vessels, that is, virtues: and finally because the demons mock her religion and her cessation from good works. The same can be applied to the damned soul.
Hear St. Gregory, book V of the Moralia, chapter 22: "The enemies," he says, "seeing the sabbaths, mock, when the evil spirits drag the very leisure of rest into illicit thoughts, so that each reprobate soul, the more she is thought to serve God by being removed from external actions, the more she serves their tyranny by thinking illicit things." For leisure is the cushion of the devil, the fount and source of evil thoughts and of all sin. But properly the Turks, heretics, and other infidels mock the sabbaths, that is, the feasts of Christians, while they themselves, devoting feast days to lascivious spectacles, drunkenness, and lust, shamefully idle about. Thus the ambassador of the Turk laughed and scoffed at the carnival celebrations of Christians: for when he was in Paris at the court of the King of France, and saw on those days the amazing wantonness and drinking bouts of Christians, and then immediately after, on Ash Wednesday, their modesty and gravity, he said: "What has happened to the Christians? Yesterday they seemed drunk and insane, today they seem sober and sane: what is this ash of such great power which, sprinkled on their foreheads, by a wondrous transformation has made the foolish wise, the wanton modest, the lustful chaste?" "For why would the enemy not mock what the beloved rejects?" says St. Bernard, sermon 46 on the Song of Songs.
Verse 8: SHE HAS SINNED GRIEVOUSLY
8. SHE HAS SINNED GRIEVOUSLY — that is, as Vatablus says, perpetually, constantly, and gravely she sinned. By "sin" par excellence he means idolatry, as a spiritual fornication: for he speaks of Jerusalem as of a daughter who is a harlot and adulteress.
THEREFORE SHE HAS BECOME UNSTABLE. — Vatablus: Therefore she has been variously tossed about, as if to say: The Synagogue was removed from her place and led captive to Babylon because she departed from her foundation, that is, from God. For just as a ship abandoned by its pilot is tossed about by all winds and waves: so also Jerusalem, and any city abandoned by God its ruler, is tossed and driven about by the waves of wars and tumults. Jeremiah had threatened this in chapter 34:17, and Moses in Deuteronomy 28:25.
Note: The wicked in their misfortunes impiously accuse fate and the harshness of God; but the pious truly and rightly turn these things back upon themselves and their sins.
Second, Origen, Pagninus, and Vatablus translate: Therefore she has become an object of shaking, that is, of head-wagging, that is, of derision and mockery to the nations, as follows here and in the next chapter, verse 15.
Third, fittingly, the Hebrew נידה nida signifies one removed from the company of others, namely a menstruating woman, and so our Translator renders it in verse 17; hence as if speaking of such a one he adds: "They saw her shame, and the filth on her feet," as if to say: Jerusalem sinned grievously, and was polluted with unclean blood; therefore she has become an object of removal and separation.
Tropologically, the soul, on account of sin, especially of pride, becomes unstable, and rushes from one vice into another, until finally God publicly exposes her shame, and then confused and penitent she turns backward and returns to God, as follows.
Moreover, the cause of this instability in the sinner is: first, because the sinner tears himself away from God, who says: "I am who I am," that is, always stable and the same; and who is אמת emet, that is, truth, stability, constancy both of Himself and of all things: for God alone confirms and stabilizes the angels, the heavens, and all other stable things. Hence the Psalmist sings in Psalm 18: "I will love You, O Lord, my strength: the Lord is my firmament and my refuge." Hence too that holy man used to say: My mind is fixed and firmly established in God. What Lucan sang of Mount Olympus in book II of the Pharsalia: "Olympus rises above the clouds," and therefore there are no winds on it, no rain, no snow. St. Augustine said this of heaven in book I of On Genesis against the Manichees, chapter 15: "Olympus rises above the clouds: the heights hold peace." And the Wise Man, Sirach 24:11: "In all these I sought rest, and in the inheritance of the Lord I shall abide." And the Psalmist, Psalm 76:3: "His place has been made in peace, and his dwelling in Zion." And Psalm 73:28: "But it is good for me to adhere to God: to put my hope in the Lord God. For what have I in heaven? And besides You, what do I desire upon earth? God of my heart, and God my portion forever." "God of my heart," because You alone fill and satisfy the heart, indeed surpass it. We read of St. Deicola the abbot, that his face was always cheerful and smiling; and when asked the reason, he said: "No one can take Christ from me."
This is what the jubilant Psalmist again says in Psalm 103:2 and 5: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, who fills your desire with good things." The second cause is that the human heart is unstable, because it is most ample and immense; because it is capable of infinite things: hence it has within itself a perennial fount and source of infinite desires; therefore this fount, since it is immense and infinite, no creature or created pleasure, being finite and very limited and narrow, can satiate or fill; but only God, who is equally immense, from whom the sinner turns away, and this is what St. Augustine says in book I of the Confessions, chapter 1: "You have made us, O Lord, for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You." And in tract 24 on John: "He who wishes to rejoice in himself will be sad; but he who wishes to rejoice in God will always rejoice: because God is eternal." Hence wisely admonishing he concludes: "Do you wish to have everlasting joy? Adhere to Him who is everlasting." And again in the Soliloquies, chapter 30: "The rational soul," he says, "was made capable of Your majesty, so that it can be filled by You alone, and by no other." St. Bernard follows St. Augustine as his master, who in his sermon on "Behold, we have left all things" says: "The rational soul can be occupied by all other things, but it can in no way be filled by them." For what the Wise Man says in Ecclesiastes 5:9: "The miser will not be filled with money," the same you may say of others: The ambitious man will not be filled with honors, nor the glutton with feasts, nor the drunkard with wine, nor the lecher with lusts, etc. St. Bernard adds the reason: "For the bread of the soul is justice, and blessed alone are those who hunger for it: for they shall be satisfied." The same, in his book On Loving God, chapter 3, says: "The soul can be inflated by any temporal thing, but it cannot be satisfied; because these are not the natural food of the soul."
St. Augustine therefore concludes, or whoever is the author of the book On the Spirit and the Soul: "Why then do you wander through many things, O little man, seeking the goods of your soul and body? Love the one good in which all goods are found, and it suffices: desire the simple good which is every good, and it is enough."
The third cause is that every created pleasure which the sinner pursues is fleeting and vanishing, and mixed with much bitterness and sorrow, in which it almost always ends: "For mourning takes hold of the extremes of joy." When the sinner sees this, after the sin he becomes disgusted with the pleasure obtained and seeks another: which, when shortly after he sees it vanish, he likewise disdains, and so he always goes from one to another, loving at first, soon nauseated; and thus between alternating desires and disgusts, by which he is continually tossed, the wretch wanders and strays, seeking rest and not finding it. The fourth cause is that just as one virtue leads to another, so one vice passes into and inclines toward another. For just as there is a chain of virtues, so there is also a chain of vices, on which see Origen, homily 23 on Numbers.
The fifth cause is that the remorse and anguish of conscience do not allow the sinner to rest. Hence the sinner, partly seeking rest, partly wishing to flee or shake off these anguishes, transfers himself from one pleasure to another, from one sin and place to another; but the wretch carries his stings with him everywhere: for this reason Cain the fratricide became a wanderer and a fugitive, Genesis 4:14. Luther, in order to overwhelm these pangs of remorse, was a constant frequenter of taverns, but afterward they attacked him more fiercely. The sixth cause is that the sinner labors and burns with very many evil desires, and therefore sin is nothing other than the disordered heat and desire of the soul, that is, a fever of the soul, says St. Ambrose. Just as fever is a diseased and burning heat which, as long as it lasts, cannot be quenched by any water or cold; but causes the feverish person always to thirst, and with corrupted appetite now to desire water, now wine, now this or that beer, and always to drink and never be satisfied: so exactly is the case with sin and the sinner. And this is what Isaiah says in chapter 57:20: "But the wicked are like a boiling sea which cannot rest, and its waves overflow into trampling and mire." The seventh cause is that the just soul through sin loses her virginity, that is, innocence: and becomes a harlot, that is, fickle and wanton; and therefore seeks one lover after another: for lust is insatiable. Jeremiah properly refers to this: for he compares Jerusalem to a harlot.
THEY SAW HER SHAME — that is, her nakedness and disgrace: for Scripture compares idolaters to a harlot, to whom God threatens disgrace, that is, the exposure of the shameful parts of her thighs and legs; just as even now sometimes harlots and thieves are publicly exposed in their undergarments in the theater, to the mockery of all. Thus Jerusalem, stripped and despoiled of her possessions because of most shameful sins, was very ignominious. Hence, like a matron whose shame and nakedness is exposed to the derision of all, out of shame she turns her face backward and tries to hide and conceal herself. Others explain: She turned or was turned, first, from an evil to a good life. So Origen and Olympiodorus. Second, from glory and prosperity into captivity. So St. Thomas and Lyranus. Third, as if to say: Going into captivity, she frequently looked back, bidding farewell to her homeland. But the first sense, which I gave above, is the literal and genuine one.
Verse 9: HER FILTH IS ON HER FEET.
9. HER FILTH IS ON HER FEET. — In Hebrew בשוליה besculeha, that is, on her hems, which are on the edge and extremity of the garment near the feet. So Pagninus, Brixianus, and others. For "filth" the Hebrew is טמאתה tumata, that is, her contaminations, namely menstrual blood, or rather the blood and filth from fornication and childbirth, which flow down from the woman after birth onto the edge and hems of the garment, as if to say: Just as on the blood-stained hems of a fornicating woman who has given birth, namely at her feet, her filth appears, by which her fornication and childbirth are betrayed: so in the feet, that is, in this final punishment of Jerusalem, by which she is publicly led into captivity with bare and filthy feet, like a slave and bondwoman, her sins by which she deserved this are exposed,
as Hugo and Bonaventure say. The filth of the feet therefore signifies that she is putrid and abject; so that all not only mock her, but also scoff at and abhor her.
Second, the Chaldean Targum, Lyranus, and Vatablus explain it thus: Just as a shameless woman does not blush to carry menstrual blood publicly on her hems; so Jerusalem sinned and fornicated with idols, as with her lovers, without any shame.
Third, Paschasius and Hugo: The filth, they say, is sins on the feet, that is, on the teachers and apostles, who ought to have been the way and feet to what is good for others; for these, by their own filth and scandals, rather turn them away and lead them astray. But this sense is not literal but mystical.
SHE HAS NOT REMEMBERED HER END — that is, this extreme punishment of captivity, as if to say: When she was in her delights and sins, she did not think about what would happen to her, what end so many of her crimes would have; even though the Prophets pointed it out and set it before her eyes; namely that she would be punished and destroyed after she had filled up her crimes like Sodom and Gomorrah, as if to say: She sinned so as to seem not to remember that there is a God who would eventually punish her, just like those who said: "How does God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High?" Psalm 73:11. So the Chaldean Targum, Hugo, Bonaventure, Lyranus, Dionysius, and Vatablus. From the Hebrew you may translate: Her filth is on her feet because she did not remember her end, as if to say: She boldly soiled herself with sins because she did not think about their punishment and that she would be most severely punished for them. Otherwise Sanchez: The servitude of Jerusalem will be long-lasting, whose end she will not remember, because she will not see freedom, which is the end of servitude and exile, except after a long time, in what is almost a new age, when these people have died and there will be a new generation of men.
Allegorically, Paschasius says Judea did not remember Christ, who is the end of the law.
Tropologically, St. Thomas and Rabanus say: Jerusalem and the sinful soul did not remember the end, that is, her death and the last judgment. So those two elders burning with lust for Susanna: "They perverted their own understanding, and turned away their eyes so as not to see heaven, nor to remember just judgments," Daniel 13:9. For the most efficacious remedy against sins is the meditation on the last things. See what was said on Deuteronomy 32:29. Albertus Magnus teaches in his book On Plants that a crow does not return to its nest if ashes and powdered glass are placed in it: so the devil flees from the nest of our heart if the memory of ashes and dust is placed in it, into which glass must be converted; and we are glass, indeed more fragile than glass.
SHE HAS BEEN CAST DOWN EXCEEDINGLY. — The Hebrew, the Chaldean Targum, and the Septuagint say: she descended wonderfully, or fell with amazement, that is, she fell most gravely, she fell with an amazing fall, everyone marveling at such a fall of the most flourishing Jerusalem: the Jews
translate: she made little of miracles (for this is what the Hebrew פלאים pelaim means), says Leo Castro in book II of his Apologeticus, page 196. Which you may rightly apply to the Jews who spurned Christ and His miracles, indeed who calumniated them and said: "By Beelzebub He casts out demons." For this reason indeed they were destroyed by Titus.
SEE MY AFFLICTION — that You may have mercy and deliver me from it. The Prophet, in the name of Jerusalem, turns to God, that He may rescue her from so great a disaster. For God always sees all things speculatively; therefore the Prophet prays that He may see, that is, by seeing and having compassion, relieve the sufferings of his nation.
THE ENEMY HAS BEEN EXALTED. — In Hebrew it is הגדיל higdil, that is, he has magnified himself; the enemy has insolently exalted and boasted of himself, as if he had cast me down not by Your power, but by his own.
Verse 10: THE ENEMY HAS STRETCHED OUT HIS HAND
10. THE ENEMY HAS STRETCHED OUT HIS HAND — namely the Chaldeans, and the neighboring Ammonites and Moabites who joined them, plundered the precious things that were in the city, and especially the vessels of the temple and the books of the law, says Lyranus.
BECAUSE SHE SAW (Jerusalem herself, as is clear from the feminine Hebrew ראתה raata, that is, she saw, that is, she was forced to see what she had never seen before) THE NATIONS — namely the Chaldeans, say Rabanus and St. Thomas, or more properly the impious and impure nations, namely the Ammonites and Moabites, to whom entrance into the Assembly, that is, into the community and congregation of the Jews, as inhabitants and citizens of Jerusalem, was forbidden because of their crimes and hatred of the Jews, as I said on Deuteronomy 23:3.
She saw these enter not only the Assembly itself, that is, the community of the people, but — what is far more unworthy — freely and boldly the sanctuary itself, that is, the holy temple. It is therefore an argument from the lesser to the greater; for here the Assembly is one thing, the sanctuary another. So the Chaldean Targum, Theodoretus, Olympiodorus, Rabbi Solomon, Lyranus, Vatablus, and Isidore.
Otherwise Paschasius, Hugo, St. Thomas, and Maldonatus explain it, so that the word "because" gives the cause of the plundering, as if to say: Because the Jews had brought uncircumcised and forbidden nations into the temple, as is evident from Ezekiel 44:7; hence by those same nations it was plundered: just as God permitted the Babylonians to despoil the treasures of King Hezekiah, which he himself had shown to them, Isaiah 39:2, 4, 5.
Third, the same Paschasius and St. Thomas: God permits infidels and heretics to despoil temples and cities, because the nations, that is, priests living impurely after the manner of the nations, have dared to enter the sanctuary, and to handle the sacred altars, vessels, and victims with polluted hands. But this sense is symbolic.
Verse 11: SEEKING BREAD.
11. SEEKING BREAD. — He speaks of the famine that was in Jerusalem during the siege, 4 Kings 25:3.
THEY GAVE ALL THEIR PRECIOUS THINGS FOR FOOD. — So the sinner, for bread, indeed for a single crumb of consolation, that is, for meager delights, for a little gluttony, vanity, and ambition, a point of honor, gives all his precious things, indeed spends all his strength and sells his very soul to the devil.
I HAVE BECOME VILE — with every vileness which I have recounted and lamented up to this point. So also the Septuagint. But the Chaldean Targum and Vatablus translate: Because I was a glutton (for the Hebrew זוללה zolela also means this); therefore I am justly punished with this vileness and famine. The Arabic version translates: See, O Lord, that I have become as one prostituted to all who pass by the way; that is, as a vile slave whom all abuse for lust.
Verse 12: O ALL YOU!
12. O ALL YOU! — He introduces Jerusalem lamenting her own sufferings and exaggerating them by comparison with others. For "O" the Hebrew is לוא lo, that is, "may it not come upon you," namely so grave an evil as has come upon me; may what happened to me not befall you. So the Syriac, Vatablus, and Pagninus. But our Translator substituted scurec for cholem, and instead of lo, that is, "not," read לו lu, that is, "would that, O if to you," namely the sense of my grief might reach you; hence the Chaldean Targum translates: I adjure and beseech all of you passing by, turn aside here, look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. Thus the Septuagint usually renders lu as al, that is, "if"; or ia, that is, "would that," and so instead of lo, here in the Septuagint one should apparently read al, as if to say: O if, would that; or certainly, as Maldonatus holds, instead of lo, one should read disjunctively through diastole o, which corresponds to the Hebrew הוי hoi, that is, "alas." These are the words of the people left in Jerusalem, or of the poor of the land, who reveal their grief to passers-by. So Theodoretus.
Finally Sanchez thinks this is an epitaph which Jerusalem, in her tomb as it were, in which she lies buried, commands to be inscribed, by which she addresses travelers, that they may solace her grief by grieving, as if to say: O you strangers, who pass by and gaze not upon a city, but upon the shapeless tomb of a destroyed city! See whether anyone has had greater cause for grief or for tears. This sense is plainly pathetic. So commonly in epitaphs the buried themselves address the living and their readers, as Ovid in this epitaph of his, which he had inscribed on his tomb:
Here I lie, who played with tender loves, I, the poet Naso, perished by my own genius. But may it not be a burden to you who pass by, whoever you were who loved, To say: May Naso's bones rest gently.
Tropologically, the soul in Purgatory says the same and more, and even more so the damned soul in hell. St. Chrysostom says admirably in homily 5 to the People: Sorrow, he says, was given to us to grieve not about death or any other thing, but only about sin; for there alone is sorrow useful, while elsewhere it becomes useless; for by grieving I cannot recall and recover a dead person or a lost thing; but only the grace lost by sin can I recover by grieving and repenting; here therefore alone is sorrow useful.
Allegorically, many apply these words to Christ atoning for the sins of the city and the world, and to His Mother sharing His suffering; for the sorrow of both was without equal. For, as the moralist says: "The pulse of sorrow is love." To know how great the fever and heat are, you touch and test the pulse: so to know how great was the sorrow of Christ and the Virgin, consider how great was the love of both, both mutual and toward all men. For love is the measure and "yardstick of sorrow." As great the love, so great the sorrow; and vice versa, as great the sorrow, so great the love. The a priori reason is that as much as one loves some good, so much does one hate the evil opposed to it, and so much does one grieve if it is inflicted upon him. As much therefore as the Virgin loved the salvation and life of Christ, so much did she grieve over His torment and death.
HE HAS STRIPPED ME — as if to say: The Chaldean enemy, or God, has despoiled me of all good things, just as a vineyard at vintage is stripped of all its fruit and good. The Hebrew עהלל olel means to glean, that is, to search out, gather, and pick the clusters passed over in the collection of grapes and at vintage: for thus Jerusalem was first, as it were, vintaged in the time of Jehoiachin, when Nebuchadnezzar carried away all its treasures, 4 Kings 24:13. Afterward it was, as it were, gleaned, when Nebuzaradan under Zedekiah despoiled everything remaining in it and carried it to Babylon, Jeremiah 52:17, and 4 Kings 25:13. Thus "vintage" is used for the same gleaning in verse 22 and chapter 2, verse 20. And Jeremiah expressly threatened this gleaning to the Jews in chapter 6, verse 9: "They shall glean the remnants of Israel as in a vineyard, down to the last cluster."
AS HE HAS SPOKEN. — The Hebrew הוגה hoga can again be translated: As the Lord has afflicted me, as I said on verse 5.
IN THE DAY OF THE WRATH OF HIS FURY. — In Hebrew בחרון אפו bacharon appo, that is, in the day of the anger of His nose. He thus calls anger as if it were a fiery breath from the nostrils, and a burning spirit which scorches whatever it seizes. St. Augustine says learnedly in his Sentences, number 157: "The wrath of God," he says, "is not a disturbance in Him, but a judgment by which punishment is inflicted upon sin. His knowledge indeed, and His reconsideration of worldly things, is an unchangeable plan. For not as men do, so does God repent of any of His deeds, whose judgment about absolutely all things is as fixed as His foreknowledge is certain."
Verse 13: FROM ON HIGH (from heaven) HE SENT FIRE INTO MY BONES.
13. FROM ON HIGH (from heaven) HE SENT FIRE INTO MY BONES. — The Chaldean Targum says: into my fortresses: כרך kerach or כרכא carca, in Chaldaic means a citadel, tower, or fortified city from its roundness; for the root כרך kerach means to wrap, to roll up, as if to say: The vengeance of God supplied and lit torches, as it were, for my enemies, with which they might storm, burn, and reduce to ashes not only the flesh and skin, that is, the fields and villages, but also my bones, that is, all the most fortified citadels, towers, the temple, palaces, which strengthened the city like bones. So Origen, Theodoretus, Hugo, St. Thomas, Bonaventure, Lyranus, and Dionysius.
Second, Olympiodorus, Hugo, Paschasius, Vatablus, St. Thomas: The fire, that is, the divine wrath and vengeance, He sent against the princes who were, as it were, the bones of the commonwealth and supported and sustained it like bones. He alludes to Ezekiel 24:9: "Woe to the city of blood, whose pyre I will make great! Heap up the bones, which I will burn with fire: the flesh shall be consumed, and the whole composition shall be cooked, and the bones shall waste away."
Third, Sanchez takes this metaphorically: Fire, he says, signifies sharp torment, bones signify the innermost parts and bowels, as if to say: God from heaven sent sharp torment into my inmost parts, so that my heart seems to die of grief, my bowels to dissolve in anguish.
HE HAS INSTRUCTED ME. — In Hebrew ירדנה iirdenna, that is, he dominated it, namely the fire dominated the bone, that is, each of the bones. So Vatablus, Rabbi Solomon, and Kimchi. Or rather it should be read ירדנה iardenna, that is, he made it (the fire) dominate my bones: "he instructed" therefore means he chastised, punished me with fire, just as adulterated gold is purged and as it were chastised by fire; and stubborn oxen are instructed, that is, chastised and tamed, with the goad. Or rather our Translator read יורנה iorenna, that is, he instructed, that is, he taught me through this punishment henceforth not to sin nor to worship idols: hence the Jews afterwards, after the Babylonian captivity, did not worship idols, as they had done before.
Third, the Septuagint, with different vowel points, reading ירדנה ieredenna instead of iirdenna, from the root ירד iarad, that is, "he descended," translate: He brought down or caused to descend it, namely the bone, that is, each of my bones.
Morally, learn here: just as adulterated gold, because it is solid and very hard, must be refined and purged of dross by fire: so cities and provinces utterly corrupt in morals must be purged by God with fire, pestilence, and the sword, so that the adults and aged, who were nurtured in vices and have grown old in them and are incorrigible, may be consumed, and a new generation of children may grow up, which, instructed by the disaster of their fathers, may be wise and adopt good morals. Thus the Jews, passing through the Babylonian captivity as through fire, became entirely different people, so that those who before it were most prone to idols, after it abominated all idols. God does the same when He wishes to convert a soul that is deeply corrupt; for He afflicts and strikes it with a great illness, accident, or other calamity, that it may return to Him, come to its senses, and reform itself: others for the same reason He has caught up in spirit to see the punishments of the underworld and the glory of heaven; others He crushes and pierces through effective promptings, and meditations or sermons on death and the last things, so that they may change their lives. Thus He converted Nebuchadnezzar by changing him into a beast; by striking down Saul He made him Paul; by sending seven demons to vex Mary Magdalene, He cured her of her vices.
Plutarch relates, in his book On the Delays of Divine Vengeance, near the end, that Thespesius was a man of a wicked and deplorable life: when the oracle was consulted about him as to whether there was any hope of his amendment, it responded: "He will be better after he has died." Shortly after, Thespesius, struck down by a serious fall, lay lifeless for three days; on the third day he returned to himself: when asked how he had come back, he said that in this fall his soul, drawn out of his body, had become entirely different; for he had seen and perceived all other things, just as if someone should fall from a ship into the sea, he perceives and understands differently. And so he had seen the happiness of the good; the punishments of the wicked, even of Nero, even of his own father (though in this vision the fables of the Gentiles are intermixed), and that a certain deceased relative had approached and greeted him: "Hail, Thespesius," to whom he replied: "I am not called Thespesius, but Aridaeus;" then the soul of the relative said: "You were Aridaeus, but henceforth you shall be Thespesius," that is, divine. And so it happened: for he who was formerly impious, filthy, and utterly vicious, by this fall and rapture became pious, chaste, just, a mirror of virtues: thus the obstinacy of evil habit must be broken, and for a hard knot a hard wedge must be sought. Just as a physician, in order to cure one suffering from the French disease or similar, which has infected and corrupted the blood, humors, and the whole body, first drains all the humors so corrupted through frequent purgations, sweating, bloodletting, and fasting; and renders the man as it were dried out and reduces him almost to the gates of death, and then, thus purged, restores, renews, and heals him with new medicines and food: in exactly the same way God acts, to change and heal men corrupted by vices.
HE SPREAD A NET FOR MY FEET. (He calls it a net, meaning the snares which the Chaldeans, like hunters, had set on all the roads for the Jews, so that no escape was open to them; for they had occupied all the roads to intercept the fleeing Jews: hence) HE TURNED ME BACK — namely, from my flight He brought me back, that is, my fugitives, to Nebuchadnezzar. So Hugo.
Second, the Chaldean Targum and Maldonatus explain it thus: He caused me to fall backward, turning my back to the enemy.
Third, Origen, Olympiodorus, and Lyranus explain it thus: He turned me from glory to ignominy; so that from the throne of kingdom and glory, on which I sat majestically, I was cast backward and hurled to the ground and into prison.
Allegorically, Paschasius, Hugo, and Dionysius say: God sent from heaven fire, that is, the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire upon the Apostles, who were like the bones of the Church, and through them He instructed the Church; He spread the net of preaching, and turned me, namely the Church of the Gentiles, so that I might return to God.
But since this fire is one of vengeance and punishment, it is better to explain it mystically thus: God sent fire, namely of tribulation and temptation, into the bones, that is, my strong virtues, so that He might burn out and purge the rust of vices in me, says St. Gregory, and by this, as by a net, I might be caught lest I flee, but be led back to God. The net of God, therefore, by which He hunts sinners or worldly people, is commonly tribulation.
Verse 14: THE YOKE OF MY INIQUITIES HAS WATCHED
14. THE YOKE OF MY INIQUITIES HAS WATCHED — as if to say: The yoke of punishment to be inflicted on me for my iniquities has watched while I slept and was not thinking, so that, when the measure of sins predetermined and destined for vengeance by God was filled, it would immediately, at His command and at the time He appointed, fall upon and bear down on me, that is, as the Septuagint says, God and divine justice watched to punish me swiftly.
Note first: The Septuagint, instead of על ol, meaning "yoke," with a different vowel point read על al, meaning "over"; hence they translated: God has watched over my iniquities. But our Translator more fittingly reads ol and translates it as "yoke," both because it follows: "In His hand they were twisted together and laid upon my neck" — therefore these iniquities bound together made a yoke, which was placed on the neck of the sinner; and because Jeremiah had threatened this yoke to the Jews in chapter 28:14. Moreover Sanchez, reconciling our Translator with the Septuagint, takes "watched" actively: the Lord "watched" the "yoke," that is, the Lord watchfully, as a sentinel, observes and attends to when the yoke should come, that is, the time destined for servitude and exile. Thus sometimes neutral verbs are taken as active with emphasis, as: "My tongue shall exult (that is, shall sing with exultation) Your justice;" and: "Shout (that is, sing with shouting), O mountains, praise," Isaiah chapter 49. So Virgil: "Corydon burned (that is, ardently loved) for Alexis;" so "the wind flies away (that is, makes fly away) the chaff." For the simple form is used for the causative. But this interpretation of the verb "watched" seems unusual and unprecedented. Therefore we shall say more plainly that by personification, watching is here attributed to the yoke. For just as sins cry out for vengeance, so they also watch, to remind God, as it were, that when their measure is filled, at the time predetermined by Him, He may spring to vengeance and execute what He had long ago decreed.
Note second: This watching yoke is nothing other than the watching rod seen by Jeremiah bearing down upon Jerusalem, chapter 1, verse 11, as if to say: My iniquity has blossomed, it has timely brought forth buds, shoots, and branches, from which, woven together, God made a yoke and scourge of chastisement, and soon placed and inflicted it upon my neck. Hence Rabbi Abraham clearly translates: The yoke of my iniquities has been hastened, as if God with His hand holds this yoke
ready to place it immediately upon me in Jerusalem (as upon an ox tied with thongs).
Note third: In Hebrew it is נשקד nischkad, which with the letter shin means "he watched"; but some read נשקד niskad with the letter sin, which is found only here; and so Rabbi Solomon, and following him Vatablus, translates: My yoke has been impressed or marked in His hand, that is, God has marked and inscribed my sins on His hands with certain signs and points, so that He may remember them and punish them. So Job says in chapter 14:17: "You have sealed up my transgressions as in a bag;" and Isaiah, chapter 65:6: "Behold, it is written before Me;" and Jeremiah 17:1: "The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, with a point of diamond." For thus the sins of each person are written in the mind and memory of God, so that they constantly appear before His eyes, demand vengeance, and remind Him of the time of vengeance He has appointed, as I said a little before. Sanchez adds that the yoke is said to be marked with points to signify its weight and heaviness, namely that this yoke is distinguished by holes, to show the multitude of bonds which are inserted through each point, so that by them the neck of the sinner may be more tightly bound. For as many holes as there are in the yoke, so many bonds and fastenings there usually are in it. Others add that by the points it is signified that God notes, judges, and punishes even the smallest sins, which seem to be like a dot and a point, and their smallest circumstances. Third, Vatablus and Pagninus translate niskad as "bound, entwined," as if to say: The yoke of punishment to be placed upon us is knotted and entangled with our iniquities as with knots; concerning which Isaiah, chapter 5, says: "Woe to you who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with a cart rope." Therefore instead of "watched" they read "bound," but incorrectly: for the Roman Bible and other more correct editions read "watched." For he alludes to and recalls to the Jews the watching rod which he saw in chapter 1, verse 11. Fourth, the Chaldean Targum translates: The yoke has been made heavy; perhaps instead of niskad he read נסח nisca, from the root לשח lasca, that is, "was heavy."
Finally the Syriac translates: My sins have watched (been aroused) against me by my hands; like a saddle its yokes are fitted upon my neck; the Arabic of Antioch: And at night my sins were aroused in me, and my hands were weakened; so that I might not have strength, that is, so that the power of endurance might not be in me; the Arabic of Alexandria: And my sins became daily more burdensome upon me, O Lord, and its burdens and its chains upon my neck were strengthened; and this by His hand.
Morally, note that punishment is the inseparable companion of sin, and therefore guilt and punishment are like two brothers lying together, so that if one stirs and rises, the other immediately wakes. Again, just as a magistrate keeps watch for thieves and robbers, so vengeance and punishment keep watch for the attempts of sin, to catch and punish it. See what was said on Jeremiah 1:11.
IN HIS HAND THEY WERE TWISTED TOGETHER — as if to say: God made from the punishments of my iniquities a kind of chain and crown of thorns, and cast it and placed it upon my neck, so heavy, so pressing me down, that under this burden my strength is weakened, so that groaning I fall and cannot rise again, or restore myself to freedom. Theodoretus relates in the Philothea that St. Eusebius the anchorite placed upon his neck
an iron yoke of two hundred pounds, so that he was always forced to look downward and gaze at the ground; because on a certain occasion he had too curiously raised his eyes and looked at those passing by. What kind of yoke, then, and how heavy will be the yoke which, for the many mortal sins committed, the devil, indeed God, will place upon the neck of the sinner in hell?
MY STRENGTH HAS BEEN WEAKENED. — In Hebrew הכשיל hichschil cochi, that is, it weakened, cast down, prostrated (that yoke) my strength or my powers; this yoke of punishments, therefore, bows down and breaks the raised necks of sinners, especially of the proud.
Verse 15: HE HAS TAKEN AWAY (in Hebrew סלה silla, that is, He has t...
15. HE HAS TAKEN AWAY (in Hebrew סלה silla, that is, He has trodden down, crushed) MY MIGHTY ONES — אבירי abbirai, that is, my strong ones, namely leaders and soldiers, just as grapes are trodden in the winepress; hence it follows: "The Lord has trodden the winepress." In the same sense the Chaldean Targum translates the Hebrew silla as "gathered"; and the Septuagint as ἐξῆρεν, that is, "plucked away."
HE HAS CALLED (by calling, that is, by commanding, He brought) A TIME — namely of ripeness and vintage, to trample me, that is, a time appointed and fixed by Him for my punishment. For in Hebrew it is מועד moed, that is, "appointed," namely an appointed time, or place, or soldiers; hence Vatablus translates: He called against me the congregation of the Chaldeans. But our Translator, together with the Chaldean Targum and the Septuagint, better translates moed as an appointed time. For it commonly signifies either a time or a place: but here it cannot signify a place.
Note: "Time" here can be explained in five ways. First, "time" means the retribution which takes place in time. Thus it is said in Luke 21:24: "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the nations are fulfilled," that is, the time for taking vengeance on the nations. Ezekiel 30:3: "The day of the Lord draws near, a day of cloud: the time of the nations shall be," when God will punish the nations through the Chaldeans; and chapter 22, verse 4: "You have brought near the time (that is, the retribution) of your years." Jeremiah 27:7: "All nations shall serve (Nebuchadnezzar) and his son, until the time of his land comes"; that is, the retribution and devastation of Babylon through Cyrus.
Second, "He called a time against me," that is, He sought the opportune time and fit occasion to punish me. So it is said in Ezekiel 7:7: "The time has come (the opportunity), the day of slaughter is near." For this is the time of vintage, that is, of vengeance. For it adds: "The Lord has trodden the winepress."
Third, "He called a time," namely the year and day appointed for my destruction. So it is said in Psalm 75:3: "When I shall take a time, I will judge justly." Ezekiel 21:25: "Whose day has come at the time appointed for their iniquity." This is the most genuine sense.
Fourth, "He called a time against me," that is, soldiers, namely the Chaldeans, at the time appointed for my devastation; hence Pagninus translates: He called an assembly against me, as if to say: God marked out for the Chaldeans the time and day on which I was to be devastated, and brought it about, and summoned them to hasten the punishment. Thus Amos says in chapter 5:18: "Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord!" And because they mocked, and said this day would come late, the Prophet says to them: "What good is it to you? The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light." Sinners are accustomed to hasten against themselves the time of divine wrath, increasing their crimes daily and filling up the measure of their vengeance predetermined by God. Ezekiel 7:10: "Behold it has come: destruction has gone forth, the rod has blossomed;" in Hebrew it reads: contraction has gone forth, and so St. Jerome reads it, as if to say: The time of your calamity has been contracted and shortened, the day of retribution is at hand, "the rod has blossomed," that rod which had long been threatening you with a blow: your arrogance has budded and your punishment has blossomed.
your pride has sprouted and punishment has blossomed; hence the Prophet adds: "Make an end, for the land is full of bloody judgments, and the city is full of iniquity," as if to say: There is no more time for disputing and defending oneself, because the land abounds with crimes: therefore conclude the case, pronounce the sentence of condemnation against it. And below: "The time has come, the day of slaughter is near."
Fifth, "He called a time," namely a miserable and calamitous one. So it is used in Psalm 81:16: "The enemies of the Lord have lied to Him, and their time shall be forever," that is, the misery and devastation of the Jews will last until the end of the age, as Theodoretus explains.
Anagogically, God will call time against the wicked on the day of judgment. For then time will be the accuser and witness against the wicked, and will convict them that the brief time given by God for earning a blessed eternity they spent on vain and damaging pleasures. Rightly therefore St. Paul admonishes in Ephesians 5 that we should redeem the time, because the days are evil. See what was said there. For, as Virgil says:
But meanwhile time flees, irretrievable time flees.
And Horace:
Alas, alas, O Posthumus, Posthumus, The fleeting years slip by.
The past has been; the future is not, but will be; the present which is — what is it but a single "now" and a moment of time? See how little you have of time: we change and run, and unknowing we arrive at the boundaries of death.
Hippocrates said of medicine: "Life is short, art is long, experience is dangerous, opportunity is fleeting, judgment is difficult: therefore the greatest care must be applied." Let the faithful say the same to himself about the art of living well and meriting in this short time. O Christian! Consider the brevity of life, and the art of serving God, long and difficult: experience is arduous, and meanwhile the opportunity of doing good slips from our hands — oh, how many have begun well but have not persevered! Apply therefore the greatest diligence, so that you may grow rich in good, acquire the profits of merits, and pay off the debts of sins. Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation: the day will come when you will have no time, nor hour, nor instant for repenting, for doing good, for saving your soul. Therefore while you have time, do good, live for God, live for heaven, live for ETERNITY. St. Bernard used to say: "I have lost the time of living, because I have lived dissolutely." What shall we sinners and those lazy toward all good say?
THE LORD HAS TRODDEN THE WINEPRESS FOR THE VIRGIN DAUGHTER OF JUDAH. — Vatablus translates: As in a winepress He pressed the daughter of Judah, so that, just as in a winepress wine is pressed from grapes, so from this devastation the blood of the Jews might be pressed out, not only of men, but also of virgins and girls. So Hector Pintus. Hence the Arabic of Antioch translates: As a winepress the Lord has trodden me. The virgin daughter of Zion weeps over this. Less correctly, the Arabic of Alexandria refers this to the enemies of the Jews and translates: He made (the Lord) my enemies as a winepress that is trodden.
Second, the Chaldean Targum explains it thus: God permitted the virgins of Judah to be ravished by the Chaldeans: They defiled, he says (the Chaldeans), the virgins of the house of Judah, until the blood of their virginity was poured out, as wine flows from the winepress.
Third, the winepress in Scripture signifies severe punishments and torments, says St. Jerome on Isaiah 63, Rabanus, Theodoretus, and others: for those who tread grapes do not leave even a single grape unexpressed. God therefore trod the winepress of the Jews, that is, He sent this bitter captivity upon the Jews, so that no grape, but only a few small berries, that is, the poor, were left in Judea to cultivate the land. So Hugo, Bonaventure, Lyranus, and Dionysius.
Fourth and best, as if to say: Just as if you tread grapes, you extract wine; so if you press sins in the winepress of divine justice and judgment, you will extract nothing other than the wrath and vengeance of God. In this way God has now trodden the sins of the virgin daughter of Zion, that is, of the people of Jerusalem, by treading the sinners themselves, the Jews. So Origen and Olympiodorus, as if to say: God brought the Chaldeans as vintagers to tread the winepress for the Jews, that is, to lay them low, trample, and afflict them. He alludes to triumphant conquerors who are accustomed to lay low and trample their enemies: as David laid low the Ammonites and drove iron chariots over them, 1 Chronicles 20.
Moreover the dative "for the virgin" has this force, as if to say: Jerusalem incurred no expenses in treading her winepress; because God brought her vintagers who trod it freely and willingly. He speaks of the greatest loss as if of the greatest benefit, ironically. For the sense is: The Lord trod the winepress of Jerusalem and pressed out the most bitter wine, namely from the grape of gall and the most bitter cluster, with which He made the Jews themselves drunk to intoxication and madness.
Thus Christ was pressed for us and our sins in the winepress of the cross, and the Saints together with Christ are here pressed in the winepress of affliction, so that the wine of consolation may be expressed in them. Hear St. Augustine on Psalm 56: "You have been made a grape of God to be trampled. I was a grape, I shall be wine, but first I must be trodden." Note that these words allegorically refer to Christ not properly and directly, but only indirectly. For properly they refer to the Church mixed with sins and sinners; but to Christ, because He Himself took upon Himself the sins and punishments of the Church to be expiated, so that what Christ says, the Church is considered to say and groan; and vice versa, what the Church says, Christ says.
Verse 16: I AM WEEPING.
16. I AM WEEPING. — The Chaldean Targum translates: Both my eyes pour forth tears like a fountain of water. The Hebrew עין ain means both "eye" and "fountain." St. Leo shows the power of such tears in St. Peter weeping after his denial of Christ, sermon 9 On the Passion: "Happy," he says, "O holy Apostle, are your tears, which had the power of sacred baptism to wash away the guilt of denial, and the fountain of charity washed away the words of fear." See what was said on Jeremiah 9:1.
THE COMFORTER WHO RESTORES MY SOUL IS FAR FROM ME — who would bring back the soul, as it were going out of the body from grief, through consolation; so that it might return, as it were, to the body, and, refreshed and restored in it, rest tranquilly, as if to say: The grief is so great that it kills me, and there is no one to comfort and soothe it.
MY CHILDREN HAVE BECOME DESOLATE. — In Hebrew שוממים somemim, "desolated"; the Septuagint has ἠφανισμένοι, stunned with grief and fear, stupefied, so that they do not know what to do or where to turn.
Verse 17: ZION HAS SPREAD FORTH HER HANDS.
17. ZION HAS SPREAD FORTH HER HANDS. — Just as a woman in labor or dying, with her strength dissolved, collapses and spreads her hands, both to implore with supplication the help of those standing by, and because, deserted by the vital spirits, she suffers a failing of strength and soul, so that she cannot hold and control her hands and limbs, but lets them spread and fall apart. So the Chaldean Targum, Paschasius, and Hugo. For this is what Jeremiah says in chapter 4:31: "The voice of the daughter of Zion dying and spreading forth her hands: Woe is me, for my soul fails because of the slain!" Sanchez also explains it differently: Zion, he says, spread her hands to the Chaldean enemy and conqueror, as one defeated and suppliant, but in vain; for the barbarian breathes nothing but wrath.
Second, Theodoretus and Pagninus translate: Zion strikes, wrings, claps her hands together in grief and sorrow.
Third, Vatablus translates: Zion broke bread with her hands, as if to say: For mourners, bread is usually broken by others; but Zion has no comforter, and must break bread for herself. The first sense is the most fitting.
HE HAS COMMANDED — by His command He called and sent enemies against me. It is a metalepsis, as if to say: God is the one who, as a general, enlisted the Chaldeans, led them into battle formation, and commanded them to rage against the people of Jacob.
JERUSALEM HAS BECOME AS ONE POLLUTED WITH MENSTRUAL BLOOD AMONG THEM — that is, she has become abominable, like a menstruating woman, say Theodoretus and Lyranus. Or rather, as if to say: The neighboring enemies, such as the Moabites, Ammonites, and others, expelled Jerusalem, that is, the Jerusalemites, from their midst and from their neighborhood into captivity, just as a menstruating woman is expelled from the company of men, according to the law of Leviticus 15:19. For the Hebrew נדה nidda means one who is removed and cast out, because she is excommunicated.
Tropologically, St. Jerome notes that menstrual blood signifies desires and works both carnal and murderous; and therefore those polluted by them are called both lustful and murderous.
Verse 18: BECAUSE I HAVE PROVOKED HIS MOUTH TO ANGER.
18. BECAUSE I HAVE PROVOKED HIS MOUTH TO ANGER. — In Hebrew: because I rebelled against His mouth, or because I embittered His mouth, I made it bitter (for this is properly what מריתי mariti means) and provoked Him, namely by the very fact that I transgressed the law uttered by His mouth, and despised the threats of Jeremiah and the Prophets, I provoked Him to pronounce with His mouth the sentence of destruction against me. So Theodoretus, Lyranus, and others. Sanchez adds, as if to say: I made the mouth of the Lord, which was full of sweetness, bitter to me by sinning. For it drips with honey and nectar: but I, while offering it my gall and wormwood, so embittered it that it poured out upon me words full of bitterness and wrath about slaughter, fires, and destruction. I therefore forced and compelled Him to this by my crimes.
Otherwise Origen, Hugo, and Bonaventure: The mouth of the Lord, they say, means the Prophets, especially Jeremiah, whom the Jews so often exasperated, especially when, speaking from God's mouth, he warned them not to flee to the Egyptians; for they did this against his will. These are the words of Jerusalem: wrongly therefore Rabbi Solomon thinks these are said by Jeremiah in the person of King Josiah, who, warned by God not to fight against the King of Egypt, refused to obey, and so was killed in battle, 4 Kings 23:29. The author of the book On the Essence of Divinity, attributed to St. Augustine, takes the mouth of the Lord as Christ, whom the Jews wounded with so many injuries. But this sense is mystical.
Verse 19: I CALLED TO MY FRIENDS.
19. I CALLED TO MY FRIENDS. — By friends, Theodoretus understands the idols; Origen, the Assyrians and Chaldeans; others, the Ammonites; St. Thomas, domestic friends; most correctly the Chaldean Targum, Paschasius, Hugo, St. Thomas, Lyranus, and others understand the Egyptians, who, when they had come to the aid of the besieged Jews against the Chaldeans, seeing their forces and strength, turned back, and did not dare or did not wish to help the Jews, as is evident from Jeremiah 37:6. Thus in the hour of death we will call upon the friends we have cultivated, namely the world and the flesh, but they will desert us. See what was said on verse 2.
We heard recently in Belgium of a distinguished man, who on his deathbed called upon and implored the help of his wife: Dearest wife, help me in these anguishes; and when she weeping said: What can I do for you, dearest husband, in an incurable illness? He called his firstborn son: Son, help me, rescue me from these anguishes; I labored for you night and day, and often put my life in danger; and when the son likewise groaning said: Would that I could, my father, rescue you from death! but this exceeds my powers. He called the second, then the third, and the rest of his sons and daughters in order, then servants and maidservants, addressing each individually and imploring their help: and when each, grieving, gave the same answer and said there was no remedy against death, he cried out: O vain cares of men! O how much emptiness there is in things! Behold, for you, O wife, for you, O sons and daughters, I labored, I sweated, I spent my strength and life, indeed I perhaps even pledged my soul: and behold, this is my reward, that in this last hour, imploring your help, I find none. O how much better it would have been if I had served God! If I had prepared friends on earth and in heaven who would be present with me at this moment! O if only I could live again, how wise I would be!
THEY SOUGHT FOOD. — Supply: and did not find it, as if to say: They were consumed by famine.
Verse 20: SEE, O LORD.
20. SEE, O LORD. — That is, look upon us with a benign countenance, have mercy on us, bring help to the afflicted. This is a frequent apostrophe to God, so that Jeremiah may show where one must flee to in times of suffering, namely to God.
MY BOWELS. — In Hebrew: my bowels are troubled, namely with grief, groaning, sobbing, like water that is disturbed or boiling; for this is the Hebrew חמרמר chamarmar.
MY HEART IS OVERTURNED. — That is, my heart has turned within me to mourning and is tormented. "Overturned" therefore means disturbed and overwhelmed by grief, and therefore as it were lifeless. Others explain: My heart has turned to repentance. But the former sense is the genuine one.
BECAUSE I AM FULL OF BITTERNESS (of heart, that is, of grief). — Second, it can be translated with Pagninus, Vatablus, and the Chaldean Targum: Because rebelling I have rebelled, or embittering I have embittered, that is, I have provoked the Lord: so our Translator renders it in verse 18. Third, best of all, joining both together you may explain it thus: I grieve not so much because of the evils I suffer, as because I have provoked and embittered God. So a Castro.
ABROAD (that is, in the streets) THE SWORD SLAYS (in Hebrew שכלה scikela, that is, it bereaves, namely of children, me the mother Jerusalem) — the sword of the Chaldeans.
AND AT HOME THERE IS THE LIKENESS OF DEATH. — Because there my citizens and children die of famine, Jeremiah 14:18: so the Chaldean Targum, Olympiodorus, Hugo, and Vatablus; or, as others say, they die at home from terror, by which they expect from hour to hour the death and sword of the Chaldeans bursting in. Thus tropologically, the sinner is shaken abroad by the scourges of God, and within by the dread of damnation, and will be shaken even more at death when about to go to judgment.
Hear St. Bernard (or the author of the book On the Interior House, chapter 38): "From every side," he says, "anguishes shall press upon you; on one side, accusing sins; on the other, terrifying justice; below, the gaping horrid chaos of hell; above, the angry Judge; within, a burning conscience; without, a burning world. If the just man is scarcely saved, the sinner thus caught — in which direction will he turn? To hide will be impossible, to appear, intolerable."
Somewhat differently St. Gregory, book III of the Moralia, chapter 24: "Often," he says, "we are worn down outwardly by scourges, and inwardly wearied by carnal suggestion. Hence Jeremiah laments saying: Abroad the sword slays, and at home there is the likeness of death. For the sword slays abroad, when vengeance strikes us from without: but at home there is the likeness of death, because though one endures the scourges, yet within, the conscience is not clean from the stains of temptation." How true this is, everyone experiences in himself, or has experienced at some time.
Verse 21: THEY HAVE HEARD.
21. THEY HAVE HEARD. — Namely, my false and faithless friends, that is, the Egyptians, about whom see verse 19. So St. Thomas; likewise the neighboring Edomites and Ammonites, so Paschasius and Hugo, as if to say: Wherever I turn, I find myself desolate and afflicted: for if I go to my friends, they withdraw and do not comfort me; if to my enemies, they rejoice and mock me.
BECAUSE YOU HAVE DONE IT — as if to say: Because they see that You have done this and sent this plague upon me: for those whom You spurn and afflict, men commonly spurn and afflict, and this by Your just judgment and the desert of the afflicted.
YOU WILL BRING (You will bring after 70 years of desolation) THE DAY OF CONSOLATION. — In Hebrew: the day which You have called, that is, which You have named and designated from eternity; on which You will summon against Babylon Cyrus, the Persians, and the Medes, to free me from captivity: which for the Chaldeans, my enemies, will be a day of destruction, and then they will become like me in devastation and misery. So Rabanus, Hugo, Dionysius, Lyranus.
Second, more clearly and more fittingly in connection with the preceding: When the neighboring Egyptians and Edomites rejoice at my devastation, You will bring, O Lord, the same Nebuchadnezzar who will devastate them in the same way: "and they shall become," that is, so that they may become, "like me," as Jeremiah predicted in chapter 25, verse 29. This day therefore will be a day of retribution for the enemies, as the Chaldean Targum translates, but for us it will be a day of consolation: "For the just man shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance: he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner," Psalm 58:11.
Note: instead of "like me," Theodoretus and Olympiodorus read "woe is me!" for they read in the Septuagint δί μοι; but one should read with the Roman Bibles, the Complutensian, and Origen, ὅμοιοί μοι, that is, "like me," as the Hebrew and Latin have.
Verse 22: LET ALL THEIR EVIL COME BEFORE YOU.
22. LET ALL THEIR EVIL COME BEFORE YOU. — Both the guilt of my enemies and the punishment by which they afflict me, insulting my misery, and devastating and plundering me together with the Chaldeans, as if to say: Remember, consider, and take note, O Lord, of their malice and injuries against me, that You may punish them as You have punished me.
STRIP THEM AS YOU HAVE STRIPPED ME. — He calls the vintage a gleaning, by which after the gathering of grapes the few remaining clusters are collected, as if to say: In like manner may You lead the remnants of them (the Edomites and Egyptians) into captivity or death, as You have led away my remnants. See what was said on verses 5 and 12.
You may ask: How can Jeremiah here curse the enemies; for this is against charity and is a form of vengeance.
First, Hugo replies that these are the words of the captive people; and among the common people many are wicked and vindictive.
Second, Rabanus, Paschasius, and Dionysius take the imprecation here as a prediction: "strip" means "You will strip" them.
Third, Origen thinks these are the words of the Prophet, requesting the punishment of the enemies, so that through it they themselves may come to their senses and be corrected from their sins.
Fourth and best, we shall say these words are spoken by Jerusalem and by the Synagogue out of zeal for justice, and they only ask that God exercise just vengeance upon the proud enemies, humble the faithless, and punish them according to their deserts.
calling out in death and imploring the help of his wife: 'Dearest wife, help me in these distresses.' And when she, weeping, said: 'How can I help you, dearest husband, in an incurable illness?' He called his firstborn son: 'Son, help me, rescue me from these distresses; I labored for you night and day, and often exposed my life to danger.' And when he too, groaning, said: 'Would that I could, my father, rescue you from death! but this exceeds my strength.' He called the second, then the third, and the rest of his sons and daughters in order, then his servants and handmaids, addressing each one individually and imploring their help; and when each one, grieving, replied the same, and said there was no remedy against death, he exclaimed: 'O vain cares of men! O how much emptiness there is in things! Behold, for you, O wife, for you, O sons and daughters, I labored, I toiled, I spent my strength and life, and perhaps even pledged my soul: and behold this is my reward, that in this final hour, imploring your help, I find none. O how much better it would have been if I had served God! If I had prepared friends on earth and in heaven, who would be present with me at this moment! O if only I could live again, how wise I would be!'
THEY SOUGHT FOOD. — Supply: and did not find it, meaning: They were consumed by famine.
20. SEE, O LORD. — That is, look upon us with a kindly countenance, have mercy on us, bring help to the afflicted. Here is a frequent apostrophe to God, so that Jeremiah may show where one must flee in afflictions, namely to God.
MY BELLY. — In Hebrew, my bowels are troubled, namely with grief, groaning, and sobbing, like water that is disturbed or boiling; for this is the Hebrew word chamarmar.
MY HEART IS TURNED WITHIN ME. — That is, my heart has turned within me to mourning, and is tormented. 'Turned,' therefore, means disturbed and overwhelmed by grief, and thus as if lifeless. Others explain: My heart has turned to repentance. But the former sense is the genuine one.
BECAUSE I AM FULL OF BITTERNESS (of heart, that is, of grief). — Secondly, it can be translated with Pagninus, Vatablus, and the Chaldean: Because by rebelling I have rebelled, or by embittering I have embittered, that is, I have provoked the Lord: thus our translator renders it in verse 18. Thirdly, and best, joining both together you may explain it thus, meaning: I grieve not so much on account of the evils I suffer, as because I have provoked and embittered God. So a Castro.
OUTSIDE (that is, in the streets) THE SWORD SLAYS (in Hebrew scikela, that is, bereaves, namely of children, me, the mother Jerusalem) — of the Chaldeans. AND AT HOME DEATH IS SIMILAR. — Because there my citizens and children die of famine, Jeremiah 14:18: so the Chaldean, Olympiodorus, Hugo, and Vatablus; or, as others say, they die at home from terror, by which they await from hour to hour the death and sword of the Chaldeans breaking in. Thus tropologically the sinner is shaken outwardly by divine scourges, and inwardly by the dread of damnation, and will be shaken even more at death when going to judgment.
Hear St. Bernard (or the author of the book On the Interior House, chapter 38): 'On every side,' he says, 'there will be distresses for you; on one side, sins accusing you; on the other, justice terrifying you; below, the dreadful chasm of hell gaping open; above, the wrathful judge; within, a burning conscience; without, a burning world. If the righteous man is scarcely saved, the sinner thus caught — to which side will he press himself? To hide will be impossible, to appear, intolerable.'
Somewhat differently St. Gregory, Moralia III.24: 'Often,' he says, 'we are worn down outwardly by scourges, and inwardly we are wearied by carnal suggestion. For this is what Jeremiah laments saying: Outside the sword slays, and at home death is similar. For outside the sword slays, when the blow of vengeance strikes us externally: but at home death is similar, because one endures the scourges indeed, and yet within, the conscience is not clean from the stains of temptation.' How true this is, anyone experiences in himself, or has experienced at some time.
21. THEY HAVE HEARD. — Namely, my false friends and the faithless, that is, the Egyptians, about whom see verse 19. So St. Thomas; likewise the neighboring Edomites and Ammonites, so Paschasius and Hugo, meaning: Wherever I turn, I find myself desolate and afflicted: for if I go to friends, they withdraw and do not console me; if to enemies, they rejoice and mock me.
BECAUSE YOU HAVE DONE IT, — meaning: Because they themselves see that You have done it and have sent this plague upon me: for those whom You despise and afflict, men commonly despise and afflict, and this by Your just judgment and the merit of the afflicted.
YOU HAVE BROUGHT (You will bring after 70 years of desolation) THE DAY OF CONSOLATION. — In Hebrew, the day which You called, that is, which You named and designated from eternity; on which namely You will summon Cyrus, the Persians and the Medes against Babylon, to free me from captivity: which day will be for the Chaldeans, my enemies, a day of destruction, and then they will become like me in devastation and miseries. So Rabanus, Hugo, Dionysius, Lyranus.
Secondly, more clearly and more suitably to the preceding, meaning: When the neighboring Egyptians and Edomites rejoice at my devastation, You will bring, O Lord, the same Nebuchadnezzar, who will devastate them in the same way: 'and they will become,' that is, so that they may become, 'like me,' as Jeremiah predicted in chapter 25, verse 29. This therefore will be a day of vengeance for the enemies, as the Chaldean translates, but for us it will be a day of consolation: 'For the righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance: he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner,' Psalm 57:11.
Note: for 'like me,' Theodoret and Olympiodorus read 'woe is me!' for they read in the Septuagint δί μοι; but one should read with the Roman Bibles, the Complutensian, and Origen, ὁμοίοι μοι, that is, 'like me,' as the Hebrew and Latin have.
22. LET ALL THEIR EVIL COME. — Namely, both the guilt of my enemies and the punishment with which they afflict me, insulting my misery, and devastating and plundering me with the Chaldeans, meaning: Remember, consider, and take note, O Lord, of their malice and injuries against me, so that You may punish them as You have punished me.
their malice and injuries, so that You may punish them as You have punished me.
GLEAN THEM AS YOU HAVE GLEANED ME. — He calls the vintage a gleaning, by which after the grape harvest, the few remaining clusters are gathered, meaning: In the same way, lead their remnants (of the Edomites and Egyptians) into captivity or death, just as You led away my remnants. See what was said at verses 5 and 12.
You will say: How does Jeremiah here curse his enemies; for this is against charity, and is a form of revenge. First, Hugo responds that these are the words of the captive people; and among the common people many are wicked and vengeful.
Secondly, Rabanus, Paschasius, and Dionysius take the imprecation here as a prediction: 'glean,' that is, You will glean, 'them.'
Thirdly, Origen judges that these are the words of the Prophet, requesting the punishment of enemies, so that through it they may come to their senses and be corrected from their sins.
Fourthly, and best, we shall say these things are said by Jerusalem and by the Synagogue from zeal for justice, and that by them it is only asked that God exercise just vengeance upon the proud enemies, and humble the faithless, and punish them according to their merits.