Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He hears from God concerning Judea: The end comes, the end comes: the day of slaughter is near: the rod has blossomed, pride has sprouted. Secondly, he describes the weakness, fear, and trembling of the Jews at verse 10. Thirdly, at verse 19, he says their wealth and greedily collected gold, and likewise the temple, are to be defiled and become the spoil of the impure Chaldeans. Finally, at verse 23, he hears: Make the chain, by which you may conclude the slaughter of all in one sentence.
Vulgate Text: Ezekiel 7:1-27
1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2. And you, son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel: The end comes, the end comes upon the four corners of the land. 3. Now the end is upon you, and I will send My fury upon you: and I will judge you according to your ways: and I will set against you all your abominations. 4. And My eye shall not spare you, and I will not have mercy: but I will lay your ways upon you, and your abominations shall be in your midst: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 5. Thus says the Lord God: One affliction, behold affliction comes. 6. The end comes, the end comes, it has awakened against you: behold it comes. 7. Destruction comes upon you, who dwell in the land: the time comes, the day of slaughter is near, and not of the glory of the mountains. 8. Now from nearby I will pour out My wrath upon you, and I will fulfill My fury upon you: and I will judge you according to your ways, and I will lay upon you all your crimes. 9. And My eye shall not spare, nor will I have mercy: but I will lay your ways upon you, and your abominations shall be in your midst: and you shall know that I am the Lord who strikes. 10. Behold the day, behold it comes: destruction has gone forth, the rod has blossomed, pride has sprouted: 11. iniquity has risen into a rod of wickedness; not from them, and not from the people, nor from their tumult: and there shall be no rest among them. 12. The time comes, the day draws near: let not the buyer rejoice; nor let the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the people. 13. For he who sells shall not return to what he sold, and yet their life is among the living; for the vision concerning all the multitude shall not return: and no man shall be strengthened in the iniquity of his life. 14. Blow the trumpet, let all prepare, and there is none who goes to battle: for My wrath is upon all the people. 15. The sword is outside; and pestilence and famine are within: he who is in the field shall die by the sword: and he who is in the city shall be devoured by pestilence and famine. 16. And those who flee from among them shall be saved: and they shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them trembling, each in his iniquity. 17. All hands shall be weakened, and all knees shall flow with water. 18. And they shall gird themselves with sackcloth, and dread shall cover them, and shame shall be on every face, and baldness on all their heads. 19. Their silver shall be cast out, and their gold shall be on the dunghill. Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's fury. They shall not satisfy their soul, nor shall their bellies be filled: because it has become the stumbling block of their iniquity. 20. And they set the ornament of their jewelry for pride, and made the images of their abominations and idols from it: therefore I have given it to them as uncleanness: 21. and I will give it into the hands of strangers to be plundered, and to the wicked of the earth for spoil, and they shall defile it. 22. And I will turn My face from them, and they shall violate My secret place: and raiders shall enter it, and defile it. 23. Make the chain: for the land is full of the judgment of blood, and the city is full of iniquity. 24. And I will bring the worst of the nations, and they shall possess their houses: and I will cause the pride of the mighty to cease, and they shall possess their sanctuaries. 25. When anguish comes upon them, they shall seek peace, and there shall be none. 26. Trouble upon trouble shall come, and rumor upon rumor: and they shall seek a vision from the prophet, and the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders. 27. The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with sorrow, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled. According to their way I will do to them, and according to their judgments I will judge them: and they shall know that I am the Lord.
2. And you, son of man — supply, hear and prophesy that which follows:
The end comes, the end comes upon the four corners of the land — namely of Israel, as was said before, meaning: The end, that is the destruction, comes upon all Judea, indeed it already looms. Hence He repeats three times: "The end comes," meaning: After three years it will come: for He said this in the fifth year of Zedekiah, or of the deportation of Jehoiachin, as is clear from chapter 1:2. And in the ninth year of the same, Jerusalem was besieged, and after two years captured and destroyed. A similar voice and vision portended the invasion of the Lombards; for, as St. Gregory says in Homily 1 on the Gospels and book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 38: "Before Italy was handed over to be struck by the heathen sword, we saw fiery battle-lines in the sky, flashing with the very blood of the human race that was afterward shed." Then he adds that Redemptus, Bishop of Ferentino, saw at night the martyr St. Eutychius, saying: "Redemptus, are you awake?" When he answered, "I am awake," the saint continued: "The end has come for all flesh;" and a third time he repeated the same. Soon afterward the Lombards laid waste the cities, burned the churches, destroyed the monasteries, and devastated and desolated the estates. Hence he concludes: "In this land (Italy) in which we live, the world no longer announces its end, but shows it. Therefore it is all the more necessary for us to seek eternal things with urgency, the more we recognize that temporal things have swiftly fled from us. For the world, which daily redoubles so many sorrows upon us, what else does it cry out to us except that it should not be loved?"
Verse 3: Upon you, O land of Israel
3. Upon you, O land of Israel. I will judge you according to your ways — judging, I will punish you for your deeds and deserts. It is a metonymy. Origen reads: I will avenge you; because the sinner, he says, by sinning is both agent and patient, that is, he commits an injury, but against himself: he is therefore both the injurer and the one suffering the injury. God by His judgment and punishment removes the injurer, that is, the vice and malice of the sinner, and thus leaves the same person as patient, without injury and without an injurer; and so He avenges him, because He removes from him the injury both passive and active: for He makes it so that he neither commits nor suffers injury, that is, sin. This is more subtle than plain.
And I will set against you — so that they may be as your accusers before Me: for you are the defendant, your sins accuse you, I am the judge and avenger. Thus it is a hysterology common among the Hebrews. For He ought first to have said: "I will set your abominations against you;" then, "I will judge," that is, avenge and punish "you" according to them. Secondly, "against," that is, before "you," meaning: I will set your abominations before your eyes, so that you may be forced to look upon their deformed appearance, and the conscience most shamefully defiled by them, which you are accustomed to carry the bag of sins on your back and forget. A severe punishment it is for oneself, beholding oneself with a foul conscience, and more so if one is forced always to look upon oneself, so as to be unable to avert one's eyes from one's own foulness. Thirdly, the Septuagint and the Chaldean translate: I will give upon you, meaning: I will strike you because of your abominations.
Your ways — the punishment for your ways, that is, for the life you have lived, and for your sins.
Abominations (the punishment of the abominations) shall be in your midst — it shall cut your heart like a sword, and torture your innards with the most bitter pain. Secondly, "in your midst" it shall be, that is, it shall be manifest and conspicuous to all, says Maldonatus.
Verse 5: One affliction (namely, a perfect, singular, extreme, and most...
5. One affliction (namely, a perfect, singular, extreme, and most fatal one) comes — which like lightning will burn all of Jerusalem, so that a second will not be needed. This is what He said in chapter 5:9: "And I will do in you what I have not done." So "once" is taken for "completely," as in 1 Samuel 26:8: "I will pierce him (Saul) with the spear once, and a second time will not be needed." Secondly, "one affliction" and "affliction" — supply, another — "behold it comes," that is, one calamity follows upon another, there is no time to breathe. So Psalm 42:8 says: "Deep calls to deep," that is, wave follows wave. Hence the Chaldean translates: Evil upon evil comes. But the Chaldean seems to have read, instead of achad, that is, one, achar, that is, after, meaning: Evil after evil comes, evil succeeds evil. Ausonius in his Epigrams elegantly spoke of "chained labors and sorrows," when labor succeeds labor, sorrow succeeds sorrow. Homer, in Iliad 6, beautifully describes such people as handed over to the winds: "The South Wind delivered this one to the North Wind to be carried, And the East Wind in turn delivered him to the West Wind to be tossed."
Verse 6: The end comes, the end comes
6. The end comes, the end comes — namely, destruction and ruin are at hand. This repetition signifies first, certainty and confirmation; secondly, the magnitude; thirdly, the swiftness of the coming destruction, meaning: Shortly there will be an end and extermination of our kingdom.
It has awakened — that is, in due time. Just as summer fruits are ripe in summer and gathered: so your wickedness is ripe to be gathered up, and to come to its end. For this is the Hebrew hekits. He alludes to what he adds below: "Destruction comes." And verse 10: "The rod has blossomed." Secondly, Maldonatus says, "it has awakened," that is, it will come swiftly, as if at the break of dawn
...it had awakened to come. The Septuagint translates, it has risen. He alludes to and confirms the oracle of Jeremiah 1:11: "I see a watching rod. And the Lord said to me: You have seen well, because I will watch over My word to fulfill it." With a similar phrase he says in Lamentations 1:14: "The yoke of my iniquities has watched." In the Hebrew there is a beautiful paronomasia (play on words) between hackets, that is, the end, and hekits, that is, it has awakened.
Verse 7: Destruction comes
7. Destruction comes. So the Roman editions read, not "contraction" as St. Jerome and Maldonatus read; nor "fracture" as others read. In Hebrew it is tsephira, that is, ripening, leafing, or the first bud, which in the morning, that is, immediately, pushes forth; for tsaphar means to rise early; hence tsephira is called the first bud and gem of a tree, or the closed capsule first bursting forth with leaves or flowers, before they expand and come to light. The Chaldean translates it as crown; because from these buds beautiful crowns are made. Hence Vatablus says: The crown comes, that is, the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, upon you. The Arabic Alexandrian translates: And there shall come to you a hellish inhabitant of the land, and the time is at hand, and the day of evil draws near. The Syriac: And the morning inhabitant comes against you, the time comes, and the day of perturbation draws near. For "morning" from the Syriac could be translated as "goat," as if tsephir were placed for tseir, that is, hairy, goat, satyr. Our translator renders it "destruction," because this bud or calyx and capsule signifies the destruction of which he speaks in verse 10. But it seems one should read "contraction," as the manuscripts and St. Jerome have; hence also the Septuagint and Theodotion translate ploke, that is, a weaving together, an enfolding, that is, a contracted and folded capsule; for this is tsephira, meaning: Just as in spring, in the morning, that is, immediately, the first bud and capsule bursts forth: so immediately your scourge and your rod shall burst forth, which shall chastise you. Aquila, says St. Jerome, translates tsephira as proskopesis, that is, contemplation and foresight, as if to say: The destruction you feared has come, which you or your prophets foresaw would happen to you.
Isaiah 10:3: "Woe, Assyria, rod of My fury! The staff itself is in My hand," etc. Therefore the Syriac translates: The goat (Nebuchadnezzar) has gone forth, and the rod has put forth leaves, and reproach has sprouted. The Arabic Antiochene: And already the enemies have gone forth, and they marvel, and they have seen; the wicked one remains upon the rod of iniquity. The Arabic Alexandrian: Already your destruction has arrived, already you are shaken, and already the hellish one has come, and the rod has prevailed, and contempt has sprouted.
Not of the glory of the mountains. In Hebrew: The day of tumult is at hand, not of the celeusma (rhythmic chant) of the vintagers on the mountains. "Glory" here therefore means a joyful shout, a boasting, praising, and triumphal cry of those gathering grapes on the mountains: or, as Vatablus says, it is an echo, that is, a voice of joy which the vine-bearing mountains reflect and reverberate when the vintagers cry out, Jeremiah 48:33; or also of idolaters dancing and singing around an idol on the mountains. Hence secondly, Vatablus and R. David translate thus: The day of tumult is near, not the echo of the mountains, meaning: The clamor and tumult will come from the enemy in earnest, and not feigned, such as that which an echo produces resonating from the rebound of a hollow place. For, as Pliny says, book 2, chapter 44: "The bends of mountains, and their frequent peaks, and ridges bent at an angle or broken at the shoulders, and the hollow hollows of valleys, unevenly split the air reverberating from them: which
...is the reason voices are made reciprocal in many places." And Ovid elegantly in Metamorphoses book 3: "She sees him driving frightened deer into the nets, / the vocal Nymph who learned neither to be silent when another speaks, / nor to speak first herself, the resounding Echo." So also R. Jonah and Pagninus translate the Hebrew hed as echo. But because hed by crasis is the same as hedad, that is, a free and joyful cry, an ovation, a harvest song, a celeusma; for this reason it is better to translate in the former manner and sense: "Near is the day of clamor and tumult, not of the celeusma," as if to say: The celeusma of the vintagers will not be heard on the mountains, but the cry of men who are being killed; or of enemies rushing in and urging one another on to slaughter. Therefore the day of slaughter, not of glory and jubilation, is at hand for you, O Jerusalem, in which on the mountains, where you were accustomed to glory and exult either in vintaging or in worshipping idols: now you shall not exult and rejoice; but you shall be slaughtered and killed by the Chaldeans, and therefore weep and wail, as he said in chapter 6:13. Similar is Jeremiah 25:30, and chapter 51:14. The Chaldean translates: Nor will it be permitted to escape to the peaks of the mountains.
8. Now from nearby (shortly, or it is near, so that) I will pour out My wrath.
Verse 10: Destruction has gone forth, etc
10. Destruction has gone forth, etc. It seems one should read, as I said at verse 7, "contraction," that is, the contracted capsule has come forth, the bud is now unfolding, the leafing is pushing through, meaning: The pride and impiety of the Jews, first, went forth like a bud, then blossomed, sprouted, and grew into a rod or staff with which God will scourge you, meaning: Your impiety has so grown that it can no longer be endured: but it itself places the scourge in the hand of God, with which He will presently strike you. This scourge, or watching rod (Jeremiah 1), is Nebuchadnezzar, already prepared to lay waste Jerusalem. And it is said that this rod has blossomed, that is, it is ready and about to come swiftly: because after a tree blossoms, it immediately brings forth fruit; and the fruit and effect of the rod is scourging. Hence this rod, which Ezekiel calls blossoming, Jeremiah calls watching. In a similar way, concerning Sennacherib, he said
...iniquity into a rod of wickedness. Therefore secondly, St. Jerome notes here the justice and vengeance of God, that sins are, as it were, watered so that they blossom into rods and produce the fruit of blows and stripes. Thirdly, it is signified here that the very pride of the Jews sprouted the rods with which they themselves were scourged by God. Let therefore the sinner know, let the proud know, let the plunderer know, let the glutton know, let the lustful know, that by sinning, by being proud, by plundering, by indulging gluttony, by engaging in lust, they do nothing other than prepare for themselves the rods with which they will shortly be scourged, both in this life and in the next. Did not the proud Haman prepare rods for himself, indeed a cross, when he erected the same for Mordecai and the Jews? Did not Adam and Eve, by their pride and by eating the forbidden fruit, prepare rods for themselves and all their posterity, with which to this day we are all miserably scourged? Scripture inculcates this elsewhere with other proverbs and metaphors.
First, of ropes, Proverbs 5:22: The wicked man "is bound by the ropes of his own sins." 2 Samuel 22:6: "The cords of hell surrounded me." Secondly, of chains. Proverbs 7:22: "Not knowing that the fool is drawn to chains." Isaiah 25:7: "He shall cast down on this mountain the face of the bond tied together." Ecclesiastes 7:27: "Her hands are chains." Wisdom 17:17: "All (the Egyptians) were bound by one chain of darkness." Thirdly, of burden. Galatians 6:5: "Each one shall carry his own burden." Fourthly, of snares of death. 2 Samuel 22:6: "The snares of death came upon me." Proverbs 21:6: "He shall be thrust toward the snares of death." 1 Corinthians 15:56: "The sting of death is sin." Romans 5:12: "Through one man sin entered this world, and through sin death." Fifthly, of a stone. Ecclesiasticus 27:28: "He who throws a stone on high, it shall fall upon his own head." Sixthly, of a thorn. Hebrews 6:8: "The land that brings forth thorns and thistles is reprobate and near to a curse." Nahum 1:10: "As thorns embrace each other, so their banquet of those drinking together; they shall be consumed like dry stubble." Psalm 58:10: "Before your thorns could feel the bramble." Seventhly, of a worm. 1 Maccabees 2:62: "His (the wicked man's) glory is dung and worms." Eighthly and often, of seed and harvest. Hosea 8:7: "They shall sow the wind and reap the whirlwind." Hosea 10:13: "You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity, you have eaten the fruit of lying." Proverbs 22:8: "He who sows iniquity shall reap evil." Conversely, to the just it is said, Hosea 10:12: "Sow for yourselves in justice, and reap in the mouth of mercy." And Galatians 6:8: "He who sows in his flesh, from the flesh shall reap corruption: but he who sows in the spirit, from the spirit shall reap eternal life." Ninthly, most beautifully and effectively, of fire, which Isaiah says the wicked kindle for themselves, chapter 50, last verse: "Behold, all you who kindle fire, girded with flames, walk in the light of your fire and in the flames which you have kindled." Our sins, therefore, are the logs by which the pyres of the Chaldeans, the Turks,
...of heretics, enemies, and demons against us are stoked, and day by day inflamed. Therefore, "remove the logs from the fire, if you wish to extinguish the flame." Let crimes cease, and wars and plagues will cease.
The rod has blossomed — as if to say: Now you celebrate the Floralia, soon you will celebrate the Virgalia (rod-festival); celebrate the Saturnalia now, soon you will celebrate the Funeralia. For among the Romans the Floralia were annual feasts and games in honor of Flora, who, having amassed great wealth from the art of prostitution, when dying wrote the Roman people as her heir. In the same way, those who licentiously serve their belly and lust say, Wisdom 2:7: "Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments; and let not the flower of the time pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither: let there be no meadow that our luxury does not pass through." But soon, in chapter 5:2, of the same it is said: "Seeing this, they shall be troubled with horrible fear, etc., saying within themselves, repenting and groaning in the anguish of their spirit, etc. We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity, etc. What has pride profited us? Or what has the boasting of riches brought us? All those things have passed like a shadow." And verse 22: "There shall go (sent against the wicked by God the avenger) direct bolts of lightning, and as from a well-bent bow of clouds they shall be exterminated: the water of the sea shall rise against them," etc. This is the rod which the flower of concupiscence germinates and produces for the very sinner himself. Truly these are, as is commonly said, "the flowers of the Samians." For by this name was called a place on the island of Samos, where men feasted and indulged in pleasures with women: by which delights the Samians, having become effeminate, were subdued by the Persians and reduced to slavery.
Pride has sprouted — your pride has grown into a rod and a scourge, as I have already said. Otherwise R. David, Maldonatus, and Vatablus: for they think there is a repetition here; what he previously called the rod, they say he now calls pride, because the king of Babylon was proud. Hence Vatablus for "pride" translates "man of pride," namely Nebuchadnezzar, who is preparing to attack you, O Jerusalem. Of whom Jeremiah says, 50:31: "Behold I am against you, O proud one, says the Lord." Therefore what he previously said, "has blossomed," he now says, "has sprouted." Hence the Chaldean translates: The ruler has sprouted, the wicked one has appeared. So also the Greeks take these things as referring to Nebuchadnezzar, meaning: "The rod has blossomed," that is, the scepter or kingdom of Babylon, "pride has sprouted," that is, the proud Nebuchadnezzar has grown in kingdoms and riches.
Verse 11: Iniquity has risen into a
11. Iniquity has risen into a rod of wickedness (that is, with the scepter of the wicked one, injustice has grown. But these increases) are not from them (they do not come from the Chaldeans, nor from the multitude of the peoples, nor from the noise and tumult of armies; but from God, who made him and them your scourge. And therefore) there shall be no rest among them — that is, the Chaldeans shall not rest until they capture and devastate the city. So also Delrio, adage 714, who also in the word "blossomed," that is, grew in strength and glory, thinks there is an allusion to the rod of Aaron, to indicate that Nebuchadnezzar was chosen by God to punish and afflict whomever God wills. But it is better to take these things as referring to
Note: This rod of wickedness signifies the crimes, especially the pride, violence, and injustice by which the judges and powerful among the Jews oppressed the poor, bent their rights and judgment, and twisted them in favor of the rich. Hence consequently this rod signifies the scourge with which God will chastise these violent men. Hence verse 11, the Hebrew has: There has risen
...the Jews, as I said, and it will become clearer from what follows. Add that the former sense is far more elegant and profound; for it beautifully explains how the pride and iniquity of the Jews made a scourge for themselves, not God.
Iniquity has risen into a rod. In Hebrew lematte, that is, into a rod, meaning: Their iniquity has grown into a rod with which their very impiety is scourged. Iniquity therefore is the root budding into shoots of wickedness, which finally thicken into rods with which it itself is chastised. See what was said at verse 10. So the Hebrews, Vatablus, Maldonatus, and others. For "into a rod of wickedness," one can translate "into an evil rod," that is, one striking sharply, inflicting sharp pain.
Not from them (namely, there shall not be anyone among the judges and princes who will escape the rod, that is, the scourge of God, nor even) from the people. Nor from the tumult. That is, neither from joy, dances, singing, nor from the pomp of trumpets and musicians,
...namely, anything shall survive or remain. Secondly, the Septuagint translates, not with perturbation, nor with haste — supply, Nebuchadnezzar shall take you, but quietly and easily. Thirdly, R. David thinks the Hebrew mehemehem is formed from hem doubled, hence he translates, not from those, those, meaning: No one from them and their stock shall remain. So also the Chaldean.
And there shall be no rest among them. There is a triple reading and translation here. Our translator reads noach, that is, rest, meaning: I will not give them rest, I will always afflict them. Secondly, the Hebrew now has noah, that is, lamentation. Hence Vatablus and R. David translate, there shall be no mourning or lamentation, meaning: So great shall be the multitude of the dying, and so great the calamity of the survivors, that the living shall not mourn the dead, and the dead shall lack a decent burial, that is, funeral rites and the solemn procession of mourning, as Jeremiah threatened them, chapter 16:4, and chapter 25:33. Thirdly, the Septuagint with other vowel points reads nave, that is, beauty, ornament. Hence they translate: neither shall there be beauty in them. The first reading is plainer and more suited to the context.
Verse 12: Let the buyer not rejoice
12. Let the buyer not rejoice (because the Chaldeans will plunder the thing he bought); and let the seller not mourn — that is, let him not grieve, because even if he had not sold, he would have lost the thing sold, with the conquering and plundering Chaldean seizing it.
For the wrath of God is upon all the people — namely of the region, that is, of Judea; for in Hebrew it is a feminine pronoun. Vatablus translates: For wrath is upon all the multitude or upon all its people, meaning: God in His wrath will deliver their wealth to the enemy; hence let those possessing it not rejoice, nor let those transferring or losing it grieve. The Prophet writes this to the Jews living securely in Judea and not fearing the enemy. Just as conversely, Jeremiah writes to the Jews who were captive in Babylon, chapter 29:5: "Build houses, plant gardens, take wives," as those who would remain long in captivity.
13. He who sells shall not return to what he sold — as in the jubilee a thing sold would return to the seller, according to the law of Leviticus 25:40.
And yet their life is among the living. Meaning: They will remain alive, and yet they will never return to the goods they sold, not even in the jubilee, so that their life may be poor and wretched, and rather a prolonged death than a life.
For the vision (this threatening prophecy) shall not return empty and void, but shall be fulfilled. There shall not be merely words and threats; but the reality itself, and blows shall follow. It is a metaphor from an arrow, which when it does not pierce the target, bounces back with an empty strike: or from an envoy, soldier, or servant who is sent back to his master with the task undone. Again, to return is for a word to be recalled to the mouth of the speaker; which we commonly say: To eat one's words, that is, to retract them, meaning: God will not recall His words, He will not retract His threats and decrees.
Secondly, the Chaldean and Hebrews translate: The vision concerning the whole multitude, and yet it shall not return, that is, the possession of their goods shall not return to the multitude. For the Hebrew chasa signifies both to seize and to see. Hence chason denotes both seizure and vision.
No man shall be strengthened in the iniquity of his life — so as to resist the Chaldeans and protect and retain his wealth from them, meaning: Iniquity shall not add strength to the wicked man; or rather, in (that is, because of) his iniquity no man shall be strengthened or prosper; but he shall fall and succumb to the enemies and become their prey.
Verse 14: Sound the trumpet
14. Sound the trumpet. It is sarcasm, meaning: Blow your horns, O Jews, summon soldiers, seize your spears and shields: behold the enemies are at hand, behold Nebuchadnezzar rushes in — why do you hesitate? He responds: There is no one who goes to battle, all lose heart; because God, on account of their crimes, strikes them with fear and terror, as Moses threatened them, Deuteronomy 32:30. That this is the meaning is clear from verses 16 and 17.
For My wrath is upon all the people. In this chapter God repeatedly, at verses 8, 12, and 14, redoubles His wrath. The question therefore arises whether there is truly and properly wrath in God? Lactantius, in his book On the Wrath of God, chapter 4, reports the Epicureans, and in chapter 5, the Stoics, denying that there is wrath in God; but he himself teaches that wrath is properly in God: "Because wrath," he says, "is a movement of the soul rising up to restrain sins." But in God there is such a movement: therefore wrath is properly in God, though not frenzy, which connotes perturbation and precipitancy. The same teaches Peter Gregory in his Syntaxis
...a sign, when one's hair loses its beauty. For the Hebrews, both men and women (among the Greeks only women, says Plutarch, Problems 13), nurtured their hair. Hence the sign of adversity was shaving or baldness. See Deuteronomy 14:1, Isaiah 15:2, Jeremiah 47:5, and 48:37. On the contrary, the Romans in prosperity trimmed their beard and hair, but in mourning let them grow.
of the wondrous art, book 11, chapter 21, from the fact that Scripture everywhere attributes wrath to God.
But the common view of the Fathers and the Scholastics is that wrath is not in God properly, but metaphorically; because He rebukes, punishes, and kills the guilty, as if He were angry with them. For "wrath," says Aristotle, book 1 On the Soul, chapter 1, text 16, in the body "is an effervescence of the blood around the heart;" but in the soul it is "the desire to inflict pain in return upon an adversary." Cicero, as Lactantius attests: "Wrath," he says, "is the desire for vengeance." Damascenus, book 2 On the Faith, chapter 16: "Wrath is the desire for retribution and vengeance because of an injury received." Horace: "Wrath is a brief madness." Wrath therefore presupposes pain in the angry person; but God is incapable of pain: therefore also of wrath. Again, wrath revolves around vengeance that is arduous and difficult: but in God, as there is no desire or lust for vengeance, so neither is any vengeance arduous or difficult. The definition of wrath that Lactantius gives is therefore incomplete and insufficient. For wrath connotes a passion that is effervescent, agitated, and turbid, and no such thing exists in God, whose mind, even when He punishes His wicked enemies, is most serene and most peaceful. So teach Origen on Romans 1, St. Chrysostom in his sermon On Repentance, Basil on Psalm 37, Damascenus book 1 of the Faith chapter 25, Cyprian in his letter to Demetrianus, Ambrose on Psalm 37, Jerome on Psalm 29, Augustine book 13 of On the Trinity chapter 16, and others whom St. Thomas follows, Part I, Question 20, article 1, ad 2, and Gabriel Vasquez, Part I, disputation 84, chapter 4.
16. And they shall be on the mountains like doves. The Jewish fugitives shall be like trembling doves, which from the valleys where they dwell, fly to the mountains in fear of the fowlers. Others interpret: they shall be like doves fluttering on the mountains, which when a storm threatens, descend to the valleys, as to a sunny place.
Note: For "doves of the valleys," Theodotion translates, doves meditating and murmuring, that is, as Theodoret says, sighing, groaning.
Verse 17: All hands shall be weakened
17. All hands shall be weakened. In Hebrew, they shall become limp, that is, they shall be feeble and unwarlike; the Jews shall not be able to fight or stand firm because of fear. For fear recalls the animal spirits to the fearful and afflicted heart to console and sustain it, which causes the hands, feet, and other external parts to become weak and limp.
All knees shall flow with water — that is, with sweat, from severe anguish; or rather with urine, from terror. So St. Jerome and the Greeks. Hence the Septuagint translates: All thighs shall be defiled with moisture. Aristotle gives the reason why the bladder loosens in fear, in his Problems.
Verse 18: Dread shall cover them (it
18. Dread shall cover them (it shall surround them on every side, overwhelm them, and cover them entirely like a garment). On every face shame — embarrassment and blushing: "The conscience of the sinner shines forth in his face," says St. Jerome.
And baldness on all their heads. Baldness of the head, says St. Jerome, is a
Verse 19: Their silver shall be cast outside
19. Their silver shall be cast outside — so they may be swifter for flight: "That what was formerly for luxury may not be a burden," says St. Jerome. Secondly, Theodotion and Polychronius explain it, meaning: From extreme famine and desperation, they shall cast away gold and silver; for to those about to perish it will be no more useful than a dunghill. This exposition is better, for it follows: "Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them, etc., and their bellies shall not be filled." To which add: Thirdly, "their silver shall be cast outside" by the Chaldeans seizing it and loading it onto their horses and chariots.
And their gold shall be for a dunghill. In Hebrew lenidda, that is, for removal, for separation; and, as R. David says, for agitation and deportation, meaning: It shall be transferred to Babylon. Hence secondly, lenidda means the same as "for uncleanness"; hence our translator renders it here "dunghill." By uncleanness, however, he means the profanation and pollution by which the gold and silver of the Jews, that is, of the people of God, was plundered by the uncircumcised and unfaithful Chaldeans, and therefore filthy and unclean ones. For by this very fact, the gold that previously seemed quasi-sacred appeared to be profaned, polluted, defiled, and cast as it were upon a dunghill, in the opinion and estimation of the Jews and of the old law, meaning: The Jews labor under the accursed hunger for gold, and on account of gold they violate My laws, to amass it by right and wrong; therefore I will profane that gold, and will deliver it to the impure and unclean Chaldeans, so that for the Jews their gold previously so lovable may become detestable. That this is the meaning is clear from verse 20, where likewise concerning the ornament of jewelry he says: "Therefore I have given it to them for uncleanness (in Hebrew lenidda): and I will give it into the hands of strangers (Chaldeans) to be plundered, and to the wicked of the earth for spoil, and they shall defile it." Hence the Chaldean and Septuagint translate: I will give it to them for contempt; for the Jews despised and abominated things made unclean and profaned by the nations. Otherwise Maldonatus: For contempt, he says, because the gold shall be despised by the Chaldeans, so that they will refuse to accept it as ransom, and on account of it spare the lives of the Jews, according to Isaiah 13:12: "A man shall be more precious than gold, and a human than fine gold of Ophir," meaning: The Chaldeans shall value taking the life of their Jewish enemies more than receiving gold from them, especially because by killing them they shall at the same time gain possession of their gold.
Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's fury — when the Lord, as if in a rage, shall besiege them through the Chal-
...deans, and shall consume and destroy them with famine, pestilence, sword, and fire. The same thing Zephaniah threatened and foretold to them, chapter 1:18: "Their silver," he says, "and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath." For so great shall be the wrath of God indignant at sins that he adds: "In the fire of His zeal all the earth shall be devoured, because He shall make a speedy end of all the inhabitants of the earth." Let the greedy note this, let the wicked note it: from the wrath of God, from death, from hell, neither riches, nor grandchildren, nor sons, nor wives, nor relatives, whom they wickedly wished to enrich at the cost of their own souls' perdition, shall be willing or able to deliver them. Wisely therefore Ecclesiasticus 5:10 says: "Do not be anxious about unjust riches," to heap them up for yourself and yours by right and wrong: "for they shall not profit you in the day of reckoning and vengeance." And Proverbs 11:4: "Riches shall not profit in the day of vengeance: but justice shall deliver from death." What vanity therefore, what folly, to wickedly gather things that create ruin and hell for the one who gathers them, and cannot deliver him from it! Christ cries out: "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, yet suffer the loss of his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The Psalmist cries: "A brother (son, grandson, wife) does not redeem — shall a man redeem? He shall not give God a ransom for his soul." Father Abraham neither wished nor was able to free the rich man from hell: much less Lazarus; much less riches and pleasures. This is the worm of conscience that gnaws the damned to the bone, and shall gnaw for eternity: Why, fool, have you sold your most precious, eternal, and unique soul for so cheap a price, namely white and red earth (for that is all that silver, gold, riches, and pleasures are) to the devil and to hell? Why for a brief and spurious pleasure have you called down upon yourself eternal and inescapable fires? You could have used these things rightly at God's nod and in His service, and with them merited eternal glory, to be placed among the Angels and the Blessed: you, fool, preferred to abuse them, and therefore with demons and the damned shall be your eternal lot, where "their worm does not die, and the fire is not extinguished." Alas! senseless one, why were you so improvident and cruel to yourself? Why did you squander your blessedness for such cheap bait? Why did you exchange and procure for yourself a most wretched eternity for a momentary pleasure? What does pride profit you now? What the boasting of riches? What the splendor of grandchildren and family? These things have passed like smoke, like a dream, like a bird flying past, Wisdom 5:8.
Truly St. Augustine says: "The greedy man, before he gains his money, loses himself: before he seizes anything, he is seized." And H. Pintus here says: Rivers, however sweet, when they finally enter the sea, become most bitter. So the riches and prosperities of the world, in the course of life, which like a river flows past, delight their possessors as if in passing; but at the end, when they reach the sea of death, into which all the rivers of pleasures and goods of this life finally flow, they become sad, bitter, and intolerable. Again St. Augustine in Psalm 30: See, he says, "lest while you collect (riches) you yourself be collected: lest perhaps, when you wish to be a plunderer of a lesser one, you become the prey of a greater one." The same elsewhere: "The greedy man uses God and enjoys money," because he serves God for the sake of money. And: "The greedy man has a full barn, but an empty conscience." The poets depicted avarice through Tantalus, who they say was condemned in the underworld, so that standing in the Eridanus of the underworld, he might enjoy neither the waters present nor the orchards nearby, but be tortured with perpetual thirst. Hence Horace, Satires 1: "Why do you laugh?" O greedy man, "with the name changed, the story is told about you." For since the greedy here perpetually thirst for riches, in hell they are tortured with extreme thirst. Therefore Plato in the Cratylus writes that Tantalus was so called as if Talantaton, that is, most unhappy.
Their soul — the appetite of the soul, that is, their hunger.
Because it has become the stumbling block of their iniquity. That is, gold and riches became for them the occasion of avarice, injustice, luxury, and especially of idols, which they cast from gold, meaning: Because they seized gold, hence their gold shall be seized; because they sinned through gold, hence they shall be punished through gold and stripped of it. Truly Chilon said, as reported by Plutarch in his Apophthegms: "As gold is tested by the touchstone, so man is tested by gold. For just as the Lydian stone by friction reveals what quality the gold is, so gold by its contact proves what sort of man one is, and whether cupidity or continence, vice or virtue, is his."
Verse 20: The ornament of jewelry (the
20. The ornament of jewelry (the jewels which I gave them for ornament, they themselves turned to pride and vanity, that is, into proud adornment, both their own and of their idols. The Septuagint translates, the choice things of their adornment (namely feminine adornment: for in Greek it is kosmos, that is, ornament, feminine adornment. Not therefore of the world, that is, the globe, as St. Jerome understood it) they set for pride, and the images (some read, and imaginations, that is, images which they imagined and fabricated) of their abominations and idols ("and" means "that is," meaning: of abominations, that is, of abominable idols) they made from it. For just as at Sinai they cast a golden calf from their jewelry, Exodus 32:2; so also they did in the time of the Prophets. Thirdly, for "ornament" the Hebrew is tsebi, that is, glory, beauty, ornament. Now, because the glory of the Jews was the temple; hence it is sometimes taken for the temple, even for Jerusalem, as I shall show in Daniel 8:9. Hence the Hebrew and Vatablus translate: And He (God) had set the glory of ornament for them as their pride, that is, God had given them a glorious and magnificent temple, but they made their abominations in it: because they placed and worshipped idols in the temple, as Jeremiah charges them, chapter 32:24.
Of abominations — that is, of idols. So Theodoret and Apollinaris.
That (namely those idols made of gold, I gave) — Thirdly and best, you may take it both actively and passively; or more plainly: "that," namely "the ornament of jewelry" from which they cast idols: but the meaning comes to the same thing. These things therefore I gave them, namely to the Jews, as uncleanness. Symmachus translates, for nausea; the Chaldean, for contempt, so that the ornament of jewelry, namely the idols made from it, they may abominate as dung, when they see themselves because of those things, and with them, being captured. See what was said at verse 19.
Verse 21: To the wicked
21. To the wicked. The Septuagint has, to the pestilent, that is, to the most pestilential Babylonians, raging like a plague. "Which we know was done both by the Babylonians, and by King Antiochus and Gnaeus Pompey, and finally under Vespasian and Titus, when the temple was captured and destroyed, and everything was perpetrated that the following words of the Prophet encompass," says St. Jerome.
They shall defile — they shall profane, and shall seize as profane what you worshipped as holy.
Tropologically, when a sinner abuses riches and other gifts of God for pride and other sins, our riches are given into the hands of demons, to use them at their pleasure; and to the wicked of the earth, that is, to vices and sins, which defile them; so that the place which ought to have been a place of holiness becomes a place of filth, according to the Gospel: "My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves."
Verse 22: I will turn My face from them
22. I will turn My face from them — from the Jews. They shall violate (that is, profane) My secret place. The Septuagint has, My visitation, that is, the temple, in which I visit the people and am visited by them. For the armed and bloodthirsty Chaldeans shall enter the Holy of Holies, which is secret and hidden, and shall slaughter whomever they meet there. So Theodoret.
Raiders — soldiers sent forth. The Hebrew paritsim, that is, breakers-in, marauders, plunderers; Symmachus and Theodotion translate, those breaking in and pestilent.
Verse 23: Make the chain
23. Make the chain — that is, conclude all the threats and punishments upon Jerusalem in a brief speech, which follows immediately at verse 24 and following. The Chaldean and more recent translators render it, make a chain; so that you may show it to the Jews as a sign that they shall be captured and bound, just as Jeremiah made and wore chains by God's command, chapter 28:13. Symmachus and Theodotion translate, make a fastening; the Septuagint, phyrmon, which St. Jerome translates as perturbation; Theodoret, defilement; fittingly, so that the land defiled by so much blood may be disturbed, and polluted by the slaughter of its citizens.
For the land is full of the judgment (that is, condemnation) of blood — or, of blood unjustly condemned and shed by judgment, that is, the land is filled with murders. So the Hebrews and the Chaldean, so that "judgment" is taken actively. It can secondly be taken passively: "the judgment of blood," that is, the blood and slaughter for which they are to be judged and condemned.
Note: Because murder is an enormous crime, hence blood, or the shedding of blood, signifies any enormous crimes, as I said on Isaiah 1:15.
Verse 24: Pride
24. Pride — the magnificent and proud temple, in which they boast and glory as if they were impregnable, saying: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." So the Scholiast. Hence it follows: "The Chaldeans shall possess their sanctuaries." Secondly, properly and simply, "their pride" I shall crush and cast down.
Sanctuaries. That is, the sanctuary, which had three parts, and as it were three sanctuaries, namely the court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. Others say "sanctuaries" which they fabricated for their idols.
25. When anguish comes upon them. The Chaldean translates: Destruction comes. For so the Hebrew kephad is translated by our translator, Isaiah 38:12. The Septuagint translates contrarily: Mercy shall come.
They shall seek peace — both by prayer and by payment from the Babylonians, but there shall be no one to grant it. This is what Jeremiah says, chapter 14:19: "We looked for peace, and there is nothing good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble." See how Ezekiel confirms the oracles of Jeremiah, so much so that he uses the very same words and sentiments as him, and this frequently.
Verse 26: Trouble upon trouble
26. Trouble upon trouble — that is, as the Chaldean has it: Destruction upon destruction; the Septuagint: Woe upon woe; R. Solomon: Disaster upon disaster; Vatablus: One calamity upon another shall come.
And rumor. That is, a report and evil tidings about the coming and cruelty of the enemy, one upon another shall arrive. The same Jeremiah foretold in chapter 50:46.
They shall seek a vision — a prophecy, how they might escape the disaster, and they shall not find one. The same Isaiah foretold in chapter 3:1 and 2, and Daniel narrates that it was accomplished and fulfilled, chapter 3:38.
The law — the interpretation of the law: the Chaldean has, teaching, meaning: There shall not be learned priests and elders who can by their wisdom avert the disaster, or give counsel for escaping.
Verse 27: The king shall mourn
27. The king shall mourn. In Hebrew iitabbal, that is, he shall be consumed with grief.
He shall be clothed with sorrow — with a garment of mourning; in Hebrew it is shemama, that is, with stupefaction, meaning: He shall be filled with sorrow to the point of stupor, so that from the vehemence of grief, he may appear to be dazed, thunderstruck, and out of his mind.
The hands of the people of the land shall be troubled. The Septuagint has, they shall be loosened — they shall have no strength nor spirit to fight for their country, with affairs being desperate, meaning: All the Jews, both nobles and commoners, shall mourn, all shall be stupefied, all shall faint with fear and terror.
According to their way — according to their actions and crimes.
According to their judgments. According to their deserts, according to which judgment is rendered and sentence pronounced. Hence Vatablus explains, meaning: In proportion to their crimes, for which they deserve death; or rather: According to their judgments, etc., meaning: In the manner in which they judged others, I too will judge them: in the manner in which they, while judging, treated others, I too will treat them. They oppressed the poor — they too shall be oppressed; they did not listen — they too shall not be heard; they rejected the law — and they shall be rejected; they killed — they shall be killed. So Prado. For this is the just law of retaliation, as I showed in Exodus, chapter 21:23: "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth
for tooth," etc. Likewise that law of Genesis 9, given by God soon after the flood: "Whoever sheds human blood, his blood shall be shed." So the brothers, who had delivered Joseph to chains and captivity, were by him justly consigned to an equal imprisonment, Genesis chapter 42:16-17. Similar, but more illustrious, was the example of St. Ephrem, which I reviewed in the same place. So the Jews, who killed Christ like a Paschal lamb at Passover, were likewise at the taking of Jerusalem by Titus at Passover, slaughtered and killed like Paschal victims of divine justice; indeed by the just vengeance of God it came about that, just as they had mocked Christ crowned with a crown of thorns, clothed in a purple cloak, and bearing a reed as a scepter, greeting Him: "Hail, king of the Jews" — so also shortly afterward their king Agrippa, though absent in Alexandria, was publicly mocked in the theater by a comedian who assumed his character, in exactly the same manner as Christ was crowned and mocked, as Philo narrates in his Against Flaccus.