Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Under the parable of two harlots, namely Oholah and Oholibah, he describes the fornication, that is, the idolatry, of both the ten and the two tribes, that is, of both Samaria and Jerusalem; indeed he asserts that Jerusalem surpassed Samaria in wickedness. Wherefore, in verse 22, he threatens her, just as he did Samaria, with the punishment of adulteresses and murderesses, namely stoning, fire, the sword, and destruction.
Vulgate Text: Ezekiel 23:1-41
1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2. Son of man, there were two women, daughters of one mother, 3. and they committed fornication in Egypt, in their youth they committed fornication: there their breasts were pressed, and the breasts of their virginity were broken. 4. And their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her younger sister: and I had them, and they bore sons and daughters. Now their names were: Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah. 5. And Oholah committed fornication against Me, and was mad upon her lovers, upon the Assyrians who were her neighbors, 6. clothed in purple, princes and magistrates, young men of desire, all horsemen, riders of horses. 7. And she bestowed her fornications upon all the choicest sons of the Assyrians: and with all on whom she doted, she was defiled in their uncleanness. 8. Moreover she did not abandon the fornications she had committed in Egypt: for they also had lain with her in her youth, and they had bruised the breasts of her virginity and had poured out their fornication upon her. 9. Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the sons of Assur, upon whom she had doted. 10. They uncovered her shame, took away her sons and daughters, and killed her with the sword:
and they became infamous women, and judgments were executed upon her. 11. And when her sister Oholibah saw this, she was more mad with lust than she: and her fornication was beyond the fornication of her sister 12. which she shamelessly offered to the sons of the Assyrians, to commanders and magistrates who came to her, clothed in rich garments, to horsemen who rode on horses, and to young men all of handsome appearance. 13. And I saw that she was defiled, that both took one way. 14. And she increased her fornications: for when she saw men painted on the wall, images of the Chaldeans expressed in colors, 15. and girded with belts on their loins, and dyed tiaras on their heads, all having the appearance of commanders, the likeness of the sons of Babylon and of the land of the Chaldeans, where they were born, 16. she doted upon them with the lust of her eyes, and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. 17. And when the sons of Babylon came to her, to the bed of love, they defiled her with their debaucheries, and she was polluted by them, and her soul was sated with them. 18. She also laid bare her fornications and uncovered her shame: and My soul departed from her, just as My soul had departed from her sister. 19. For she multiplied her fornications, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had committed fornication in the land of Egypt. 20. And she doted upon their embraces, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. 21. And you revisited the wickedness of your youth, when your breasts were pressed in Egypt and the breasts of your virginity were broken. 22. Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will raise up all your lovers against you, with whom your soul was sated: and I will gather them against you on every side; 23. the sons of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans, nobles, tyrants, and princes, all the sons of the Assyrians, young men of handsome form, commanders and magistrates all, princes of princes, and renowned horsemen: 24. and they shall come against you equipped with chariots and wheels, a multitude of peoples: with breastplate, shield, and helmet they shall arm themselves against you on every side, and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge you with their judgments. 25. And I will set My jealousy against you, which they shall exercise upon you in fury: they shall cut off your nose and your ears, and those who remain shall fall by the sword: they shall take your sons and daughters, and your remnant shall be devoured by fire. 26. And they shall strip you of your garments and take away the vessels of your glory. 27. And I will cause your wickedness to cease from you, and your fornication from the land of Egypt: and you shall not lift up your eyes to them, and you shall remember Egypt no more. 28. For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those with whom your soul was sated. 29. And they shall deal with you in hatred, and shall take away all your labors, and shall leave you naked and full of shame, and the shame of your fornications shall be revealed, your wickedness and your fornications. 30. They have done these things to you because you committed fornication after the nations, among whom you were defiled with their idols. 31. You walked in the way of your sister, and I will give her cup into your hand. 32. Thus says the Lord God: You shall drink your sister's cup, deep and wide: you shall be laughed to scorn and had in derision, for it is most capacious. 33. You shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow: with the cup of grief and sadness, the cup of your sister Samaria. 34. And you shall drink it and drain it to the dregs, and you shall devour its fragments, and you shall tear your breasts: for I have spoken, says the Lord God. 35. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have forgotten Me and cast Me behind your body, you also bear your wickedness and your fornications. 36. And the Lord said to me: Son of man, do you not judge Oholah and Oholibah, and declare to them their abominations? 37. For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands, and with their idols they have committed fornication: moreover they offered to them for devouring the children they had borne to Me. 38. And they also did this to Me: they defiled My sanctuary on that day and profaned My sabbaths. 39. And when they sacrificed their children to their idols, they entered My sanctuary on that day to defile it: and these things they did in the midst of My house. 40. They sent for men coming from afar, to whom they had dispatched a messenger: and behold they came — for whom you washed yourself and painted your eyes with antimony and adorned yourself with women's finery. 41. You sat upon a most beautiful bed, and a table was set before you: My in-
Verse 2: Two Women
2. TWO WOMEN — two nations, two commonwealths, namely Judah and Israel, that is, the two and the ten tribes.
DAUGHTERS OF ONE MOTHER — namely of the Synagogue, or of Sarah; "daughters," I say, by nature: but figuratively they were daughters of Egyptian paganism, from which, as follows, they learned idolatry as from a mother. So he said in chapter XVI, 3: "Your mother was a Hittite."
With a similar riddle and figure, Theodectes in his play about Oedipus, as Hermippus attests, described day and night: "There are, he said, two sisters, of whom one gives birth to the other, and she who is born kills her parent." For day gives birth to night, and night to day: and day kills the preceding night, and night kills the preceding day.
Note: He describes the shamelessness and malice of the Israelites and Jews through these two women, because "fire, the sea, and woman are the three greatest evils," as the old proverb has it. Euripides, as cited by Planudes in the Life of Aesop, among all evils assigns the first place to woman, especially a harlot. For he sings thus:
With much fury the angry sea rages, And the rush of rivers, and the fierce assault of fire, Bitter poverty, and many other bitter things: But nothing so bitter and harmful as a wicked woman.
To this belongs that saying of Plautus in the Truculentus:
I consider a harlot to be Like the sea: whatever you give, it devours; it is never full.
AND THEY COMMITTED FORNICATION — mystically, that is, they worshipped idols.
3. THERE THEIR BREASTS WERE PRESSED. — Note: Erect and firm breasts are signs of virginity; loose ones, of corruption, for then they fall, as if to say: Israel lost her virginity in Egypt, that is, the original worship of the true God, in her youth, that is under Moses; whence she loosely flowed into various errors, which, like milk, she gave to others to drink, just as a harlot suckles her son at her breasts. So Theodoretus.
Verse 4: OHOLAH THE ELDER, AND OHOLIBAH.
4. OHOLAH THE ELDER, AND OHOLIBAH. — The Scholiast and Polychronius maintain that these were real harlots in Egypt. Better do St. Jerome and others judge them to be a parable, with names invented for a mystery; for these are Hebrew names, not Egyptian.
OHOLAH. — In Hebrew, אהלה ohola means 'her tent,' namely of Samaria; it is in Dan and Bethel, containing the golden calves. She is the elder sister, because more numerous, containing namely ten tribes, while the other contained only two.
Oholibah. — In Hebrew, אהליבה oholiba means 'my tent is in her': for God had His temple in Jerusalem. By Samaria he means the ten tribes, by Jerusalem the two: because Samaria was the capital and metropolis of the ten tribes, Jerusalem of the two.
Allegorically: Oholah is the synagogue of heretics, which fashions and worships the idol of its own heresy; Oholibah is the Church of the orthodox: for this is the tabernacle of God; but if somewhere, as in Greece, it deflects into schism and heresy, it sins more gravely and is punished more severely than Oholah. Tropologically, Oholah is the unfaithful, Oholibah the faithful. Again, Oholah is the layman, Oholibah is the cleric and Religious. If the latter falls away from God through impiety, he sins more gravely and is punished more severely than the layman.
I HAD THEM — as wives, when under Joshua, David, and other pious leaders, they served Me as God, Lord, and their husband.
5. OHOLAH THEN COMMITTED FORNICATION AGAINST ME — against Me: the Chaldean says, from my worship; the Septuagint, from me, as if to say: Oholah, that is Samaria, brought adulteries and adulterers, namely idols, upon my marriage. Rabbi David translates, under me, that is under the veil and covering of the marriage entered into with me, just as adulteresses are accustomed to cover their adulteries with the veil of marriage, and to attribute to their husband the offspring conceived from adultery. So Jeroboam adorned his idols, that is the two golden calves, with the name of God, and proposed them to the people for worship, saying: "Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt," 3 Kings XII, 28.
UPON THE ASSYRIANS WHO WERE HER NEIGHBORS — that is, those coming to her, as our translator renders in verse 12, and allied to her. So Maldonatus. Others, like Vatablus and Rabbi Solomon, say: Whom she loved as neighbors, that is, those close and similar in character and customs, though geographically distant.
cense and My ointment you placed upon it. 42. And the voice of a rejoicing multitude was in her: and upon the men who were brought in from the multitude and came from the desert, they put bracelets on their hands and beautiful crowns on their heads. 43. And I said to her who was worn out in adulteries: Now even she will commit fornication in her fornication. 44. And they went in to her as to a harlot woman: so they went in to Oholah and Oholibah, the wicked women. 45. Therefore just men shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses and with the judgment of those who shed blood: for they are adulteresses, and blood is on their hands. 46. For thus says the Lord God: Bring a multitude upon them, and deliver them to tumult and to plunder: 47. And let them be stoned with the stones of the peoples, and let them be pierced with their swords: they shall kill their sons and daughters, and burn their houses with fire. 48. And I will take away wickedness from the land, and all women shall learn not to do according to their wickedness. 49. And they shall lay your wickedness upon you, and you shall bear the sins of your idols: and you shall know that I am the Lord God.
Verse 6: Clothed In Purple
6. CLOTHED IN PURPLE — etc. Just as women are usually inflamed by the luxury of clothing, the titles of honors, youthful age, and vigorous body, so the power of the Assyrians had seduced the Israelites.
Verse 7: AND SHE BESTOWED HER FORNICATIONS UPON THEM.
7. AND SHE BESTOWED HER FORNICATIONS UPON THEM. — That is, to them, as verse 12 explains, that is, with them, meaning: she prostituted herself to them, committed fornication with them, who were "young men of desire," that is handsome, lovable, alluring, meaning: enticed by their beauty, wealth, and dress, she worshipped their gods, that is their idols, and committed fornication with them. For he is speaking of the worship of idols.
And with all — that is, she was defiled in the uncleanness of all her lovers. It is a Hebraism: for 'their' is redundant, and 'with all' must be resolved as 'of all.'
Verse 8: Moreover She Did Not Abandon The Fornications She Had Committed In Egypt
8. MOREOVER SHE DID NOT ABANDON THE FORNICATIONS SHE HAD COMMITTED IN EGYPT — as if to say: Samaria, along with the idols of the Assyrians, retained also the idols and superstitions of the Egyptians, with which she had been imbued from her infancy. For they had deflowered her, inasmuch as they were the first to teach her to worship idols.
THEY POURED OUT — that is, they transmitted to her and imbued her with all their fornication, that is, superstition and idolatry. The word 'poured out' signifies the abundance of fornication, that is, of idolatry, says St. Jerome; for Egypt devised various superstitions and monstrous gods: wherefore by Juvenal, Satire XV, it is rightly called insane:
Who knows not, Volusius of Bithynia, what mad Portents Egypt worships? Part adores the crocodile: This one fears the ibis, glutted with serpents, etc.
Verse 10: THEY (THE ASSYRIANS) UNCOVERED HER SHAME.
10. THEY (THE ASSYRIANS) UNCOVERED HER SHAME. — The Chaldean says, her nakedness, namely her private parts. For they captured Samaria, despoiled it, treated it shamefully, and thus laid bare her fornications, that is her idolatry, on account of which she was so severely treated by God, who by just judgment punished and devastated her through those whom she had impiously loved, 4 Kings chapter XVII, 6. For the Assyrians dealt with Samaria just as an adulterer who, sated with the adulteress's lust, strips her and drives her away naked. So tropologically the devil, the world, and the flesh do to sinners. Whence St. Jerome says: "Whatever is said tropically of Jerusalem can also be referred to the soul, which, having been joined to God's embrace by virtues, afterward committed adultery in vices and departed from Him, and when all her crimes were laid open, she was stripped, disgraced, and exposed to all."
THEY KILLED HER (Samaria) — that is, they devastated, burned, and destroyed her.
AND THEY BECAME INFAMOUS WOMEN (Samaria, namely, with her sister Judah, or rather with her daughters, as preceded; for he treats of Judah in what follows, meaning: Samaria with her sons and daughters became famous both for her crimes and for her punishments. For) JUDGMENTS (that is, as the Septuagint has it, punishments) THEY EXECUTED (the enemies) UPON HER — namely upon Samaria.
So St. Jerome says, meaning: Samaria was so devastated as an example to the whole world, that all might beware of fornication, that is, idolatry.
11. HER FORNICATION (namely, increasing it) BEYOND THE FORNICATION OF HER SISTER — namely Samaria, as if to say: Jerusalem was more madly devoted to idols than Samaria, and she who should have become better by her example became worse.
12. SHE OFFERED HERSELF TO THE SONS OF THE ASSYRIANS — namely, to commit fornication, that is, her fornication, as preceded.
Verse 14: EXPRESSED IN COLORS.
14. EXPRESSED IN COLORS. — In Hebrew, painted with vermilion. For in the Trojan era, says Pliny, Book XXXIII, chapter VII, vermilion was in honor and use: for nobles and statues of the gods were customarily tinted with it; because gold seems not only to gleam but also to glow when mixed with vermilion, as if with burning coals: and vermilion closely resembles blood, and mixed with white lead it vividly reproduces the rosy color of human flesh.
THE APPEARANCE OF ALL COMMANDERS. — She saw men painted girded with belts (for by apposition this refers to 'the appearance') and their tiaras like those of commanders, or, as the Hebrew has it, of officers of the third rank, and these were dyed. For only kings wore white ones, as I said at chapter XXI, 26. He describes the attire of the Chaldeans, painted on the wall so lifelike that they appeared not to be painted but to be born and native in the land of Babylon. For this is what he adds:
THE LIKENESS OF THE SONS OF BABYLON AND OF THE LAND OF THE CHALDEANS, WHERE THEY WERE BORN. — It is an apposition, meaning, as Prado says: These tiaras of gods painted on the wall were similar to those which, by the custom of their homeland, the noble youths of Babylon and other cities of Chaldea were accustomed to wear, in which they were born — namely the youths themselves, or also the painted men themselves, that is, the gods of the Chaldeans, who were not imported from elsewhere but originated in Chaldea, and there divinity and sacrifices were first decreed for them.
Secondly, more plainly and fittingly, these things should be referred not to gods but to Chaldeans, meaning: These youths painted on the wall of the Jews were similar to the noble sons of Babylon in their native land, as the Hebrew has it, that is, they were adorned just as nobles are dressed and adorned in Chaldea. Therefore these youths seem to have been not gods but noble Chaldeans of outstanding beauty and distinguished by Babylonian dress, by which the Jews were enticed to love them and their gods.
Verse 17: TO THE BED OF LOVE.
17. TO THE BED OF LOVE. — The Hebrew word דודים dodim signifies both breasts and loves: for breasts are symbols of love. It therefore means the bed of love, says Vatablus. Thus he calls Jerusalem herself, or rather her shrines and temples, into which the Chaldeans brought their pollutions, that is, the sacred rites of their gods, says Polychronius.
Physicians and doctors note, as Hippocrates in Book V of the Aphorisms and Galen in his Commentary, that the breasts correspond to the womb, and therefore the seat of pleasure is in them: for veins and arteries extend from the womb to the breasts, and therefore according to the quality of the fetus the breasts either swell or languish and droop; at the time of conception the veins again fill and engorge. "Common," says Galen in his Commentary V on Hippocrates' Book VI On Common Diseases, "are the veins to the breasts and the womb, and when blood is carried to one part, the other dries up."
Hence in Scripture the breasts and bosom are a symbol of love and desire. As here and in verse 3: "In their youth they committed fornication, there their breasts were pressed and the breasts of their virginity were broken." Proverbs V, 19: "Let her breasts intoxicate you;" and chapter VII, 18: "Let us be intoxicated with breasts." Wherefore, Hosea chapter II, 2 signifies that adultery consists in wantonness and a delicately adorned face and in the breasts: "Let her put away, he says, her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts." Hence Juvenal, in Satire VI, noted the monstrous lust of Messalina by her bared breasts. Therefore breasts in Scripture signify loves and pleasures, Isaiah LXVI, 11: "That you may suck and be filled from the breast of her consolation;" and verse 12: "You shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you." Ezekiel XVI, 8: "Your time, the time of lovers;" in Hebrew, your time, the time of breasts. Finally the bridegroom has breasts and bosom, that is, loves, Song of Songs chapter I, verse 2, and chapter VII, verse 12. For Galen also, at the end of his book On the Use of Parts, teaches that in humans the breasts are rightly placed on the chest by nature, whereas in other animals they hang at the lower part of the belly; because in man there is a special harmony between them and the heart: and the heart is the seat of love and of hotter blood. So Pineda on Job XL, 11.
Tropologically St. Jerome says: "Do we not, he says, send messengers to the Chaldeans, who are interpreted as demons, when we open to them and offer them the breasts in the breast, where the lodging of the mind is, to be broken, running through pleasures from one to another in the manner of fornicators?"
AND HER SOUL WAS SATED. — "For pleasure is not perpetual, but quickly satiates," says St. Jerome. The Hebrew says: and her soul departed from them. So: their bed; in Hebrew, upon their concubines, meaning: among all the concubines of the Chaldeans, Judea was the most wanton in idolatry, because beyond all nations, who were like concubines subject or addicted to the Chaldeans, she herself worshipped the idols of the Chaldeans.
Verse 20: Whose Flesh Is As The Flesh Of Donkeys
20. WHOSE FLESH IS AS THE FLESH OF DONKEYS — that is, whose members are large, like the members of donkeys. It signifies the lustful and libidinous. For donkeys among all beasts have the largest genitals. Hence the Emperor Commodus was called onos, that is donkey, because of the size of his member. So St. Jerome.
Morally St. Bernard, in his book On the Nature and Dignity of Divine Love, chapter II, says: "Whose spirit, he says, is like the spirit of beasts," or of cattle; their "flesh is like the flesh of donkeys."
AND THEIR ISSUE (namely of seed) — like the flood and inundation of the seed of horses, says Vatablus. For the horse rushes uncontrollably into lust. Hence the Egyptians, signifying a lustful person, painted a horse, and called such people 'horse-mad' and 'horse-whoremongers.' So Pierius, Hieroglyphics IV. Metaphorically, through the members and instruments of lust, he signifies the profuse idolatry and superstition of the Chaldeans, which the Jews extravagantly followed. At the same time he incidentally, as if literally, censures the licentiousness of the Chaldeans: for idolatry and heresy are followed by corruption of life, wantonness, and lust, says Polychronius; for the symbol of this is the member of the donkey. Hence the lustful after death have often appeared in the flesh and form of a donkey. So Blessed Peter Damian, Bishop and Cardinal of Ostia, in his letter to the brothers of the hermitage, and from him Baronius, in the year of Christ 1034, relates of Benedict IX, the Pontiff of his time, first Pope, then condemned as Antipope: "As a certain man, he says, was on a journey, it happened that he was passing by a mill riding on horseback: and behold, he suddenly beheld a monstrous creature. At the sight of it, terror instantly seized him and he trembled with astonishment. The monster appeared to terminate in the ears and tail of a donkey, but the rest was a bear. And when the traveler, terrified at this portent, stood frozen, and fearfully took to headlong flight, the misshapen prodigy formed words of a human voice. 'Do not, he said, O man, be afraid; believe without doubt that I was once a man, just as you now are; but because I lived like a beast, after the end of life I deserved to bear the appearance of a beast.' When the man then inquired who he had been: 'I,' he said, 'was Benedict in name only, who recently unworthily held the summit of the Apostolic See.' Being asked what retribution he suffered: 'Now,' he said, 'until the day of
Judgment, through thorny and barren places, through sulfurous regions exhaling foul odor and consumed by fires, I am dragged and pulled along. After the Last Judgment, the irremediable torment and the irrevocable cauldron of the abyss of hell will devour both my body and soul together, so that no hope of recovery remains for me hereafter. After these and similar words he vanished." Damian then asks why this wretched man appeared in the form of a donkey and a bear, and answers: "Because that miserable man, from the very beginning of his Pontificate until the end of his life, lived in the mire of lust, it was not unfitting that he was seen beginning from the ears and ending in the tail of a donkey. For the donkey is a lustful animal, as the Prophet says: 'And the flesh of donkeys is their flesh.' And that he bore the appearance of a bear in the rest of his members teaches that he led a carnal life in all things. For the bear when it gives birth does not produce a cub but a lump of flesh, which it shapes by licking and lapping." I could recount similar apparitions that have occurred in this age, were I not sparing the honor of distinguished families.
Verse 21: YOU REVISITED (you repeated the ancient idolatry in Egypt, so
21. YOU REVISITED (you repeated the ancient idolatry in Egypt, so the Chaldean says. Or "you revisited," that is, you caused to be revisited, and recalled to God's memory: namely, you caused God to visit and punish) THE WICKEDNESS OF YOUR YOUTH.
22. YOUR LOVERS, WITH WHOM YOUR SOUL WAS SATED. The Hebrew says: from whom your soul departed, meaning: just as a harlot, sated with one lover, seeks another, so you, sated with the Chaldeans, flee from them to the Egyptians: whence the Chaldeans, not tolerating this contempt of themselves, as God tolerated it, will invade Jerusalem by force of arms.
Verse 23: PRINCES OF PRINCES.
23. PRINCES OF PRINCES. — The Septuagint says, tristatai. "For which, says St. Jerome, Latin simplicity translated 'three officers.' Tristatai is a Greek name for the second rank after royal dignity, of whom it is written, 1 Chronicles XI: 'Nevertheless he did not attain to the first three' — who were the commanders of cavalry and infantry, and of tributes, whom we now call magistrates of both branches of the army and prefects of the grain supply." So far St. Jerome. The Chaldean, thinking the Hebrew names to be proper names of nations, translates: I will raise up against you the Pekodites, the Shoites, and the Koites.
RENOWNED HORSEMEN — outstanding and celebrated cavalrymen.
Verse 24: Equipped With Chariots And Wheels
24. EQUIPPED WITH CHARIOTS AND WHEELS — that is, with chariots and wheels.
AND I WILL SET JUDGMENT BEFORE THEM. — The Scholiast says: through them I will judge you; I will allow them the trial, the sentence, and the punishment of your case, so that they may treat and punish you at their pleasure. For 'to give before someone,' in Hebrew, means to place something in another's power, judgment, and discretion, as in Deuteronomy XXX, 15: "I have set before you life and good, and on the other hand death and evil."
THEY SHALL JUDGE YOU WITH THEIR JUDGMENTS. — The Chaldean says, with their laws, meaning: at their pleasure and out of their hatred, they will most cruelly punish and crush you; whereas I, God, though provoked and jealous, only chastise, I do not crush.
Verse 25: AND I WILL SET MY JEALOUSY AGAINST YOU (He calls
25. AND I WILL SET MY JEALOUSY AGAINST YOU (He calls jealousy the jealous vengeance, or the punishment arising from jealousy), WHICH THEY SHALL EXERCISE (that is, they will exercise and carry out, as the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the Chaldean have) UPON YOU IN FURY — not so much Mine as theirs. Hence in Hebrew literally it reads: And they will deal with you in fury, that is, they will rage and savage you, as soldiers inflamed with fury savage citizens when they take a city by force. Hence Maldonatus, following the Hebrew, takes 'jealousy' to mean the Chaldeans as ministers of God's wrath, just as Assyria is called the rod of God's fury, Isaiah chapter X, 5.
THEY SHALL CUT OFF YOUR NOSE AND YOUR EARS — because the Chaldeans killed some Jews, and mutilated others in their nose and ears as a disgrace. He alludes to the punishment of adulteresses, whom the Egyptians would mutilate by cutting off the nose, as Rhodiginus teaches, Book XXI, chapter XXV. Or secondly, meaning: They shall render you most ugly, as a woman with her nose and ears cut off. Thirdly, many take the nose to mean the king and the kingdom, who in the people stands out as the nose does in the face; and the ears to mean the High Priest, through whom, as through ears, the people heard the voice of God — all of which God took away and cut off from the Jews. So the Hebrews, the Chaldean, Maldonatus, and Prado. Indeed St. Jerome also takes the nose for the king and the ears for the judges. This sense is apt, but symbolic.
Blessed Peter Damian aptly applies these oracles of Ezekiel to John, Bishop of Piacenza, the Antipope, who after expelling Gregory, a relative of the Emperor Otto, seized the chair of the Roman Church as a thief and tyrant: "But shortly after, when the Roman populace came to their senses and grew enraged, they rushed upon him, laid hands on him, gouged out his eyes, and cut off his ears and nose. He therefore experienced what the Lord threatens both then to him and now to you through Ezekiel chapter XXIII, saying: They shall come upon you with chariots equipped, and a whole multitude of peoples, with breastplate, shield, and sword they shall arm themselves against you, etc. They shall cut off your nose and your ears. After the Romans had thus repaid the Pontiff as described, they immediately set him backwards on a donkey, a glorious rider, and holding in his hands the tail of his mount, they drove him through the public street of the entire city, compelling him to chant: 'Let such punishment befall whoever seeks to drive the Roman Pope from his throne.'" So he writes to the Antipope Cadilus, Book I, Epistle 21.
YOUR REMNANT (that is, the remains of the city, namely the temple, palaces, and houses, emptied of inhabitants who were either killed or carried away) SHALL BE DEVOURED BY FIRE.
Verse 27: I Will Cause Your Wickedness To Cease
27. I WILL CAUSE YOUR WICKEDNESS TO CEASE — meaning: Then you will be ashamed of your idolatry, then you will rest and cease from it, since its disgrace will be revealed at that time in such a disgraceful punishment and overthrow of you; so that it is a hypallage: "I will cause your wickedness to cease," that is, I will cause you to cease from your wickedness.
Secondly, more simply, Maldonatus says it is a Hebraism, meaning: I will take away, remove from you your wickedness, I will purge you through punishments, so that nothing of the old wickedness remains in you.
NOR SHALL YOU LIFT UP YOUR EYES TO THEM — namely to the gods of Egypt; for these are understood by the fornication of Egypt which preceded, meaning: You will not invoke them, you will not trust in them. For to lift up one's eyes is a symbol of hope and invocation.
AND YOU SHALL NOT REMEMBER EGYPT (that is, the fornication, namely the idolatry of Egypt).
28. I WILL DELIVER YOU INTO THE HANDS OF THOSE WHOM YOU HATE — namely into the hands of the Chaldeans, with whose lust, that is idolatry, your soul, that is your desire, was sated.
Verse 30: THEY HAVE DONE (that is, they will do) THESE THINGS
30. THEY HAVE DONE (that is, they will do) THESE THINGS TO YOU.
31. IN THE WAY OF YOUR SISTER (meaning: you have imitated the ways of your sister Oholah, that is, the idolatry of Samaria): AND (that is, therefore) I WILL GIVE HER CUP INTO YOUR HAND — that is, I will afflict you with the same punishments. Note: He calls the measure of punishment decreed by God a "cup." This is called a cup, says Prado, alluding to the cup of wine that was given to those condemned to death to drink first, so they might endure it more bravely. Hence the cup signifies the penalty of death, or the decree and destiny of execution: or rather, as the same author judges, there is an allusion to fellow-drinkers who compete in draining cups. For we, as it were, pledge a cup of pleasures to God: He in turn gives us a cup of vengeance to be drained to the bottom, just like the former cup of pleasures. But this is rather forced: the first meaning I mentioned seems general and most apt. For there is an allusion to the master of the feast, who was called the symposiarch or master of ceremonies: for he gave each guest his own cup of wine and tempered it according to each one's age, appetite, and taste. So God, according to each one's merits, tempers and distributes the cup, that is, the lot, of punishments or rewards. See Psalm XV, 5, and chapter LXXIV, 9. Hence it follows: "You shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow."
Verse 32: YOU SHALL DRINK YOUR SISTER'S CUP (you shall suffer the
32. YOU SHALL DRINK YOUR SISTER'S CUP (you shall suffer the same punishment as Samaria) DEEP (in the magnitude of punishments) AND WIDE — for the ample time of a captivity of 70 years.
WHICH IS (so the Roman edition reads, not 'you are') MOST CAPACIOUS — that is, very great, namely the mockery. But from the Hebrew one may plainly translate: which, namely the cup, is most capacious. The translator therefore retains the Hebrew gender. For 'cup' in Hebrew is feminine: therefore 'which,' that is 'who,' namely the cup, is great for holding, or encompassing. Maldonatus reads it differently: 'who are most capacious,' meaning: O Jerusalem, who are now very large and most densely inhabited, you shall become a hissing and a wonder because of the desolation to which your enemies will reduce you.
Verse 33: WITH THE CUP, etc., OF SADNESS.
33. WITH THE CUP, etc., OF SADNESS. — The Septuagint says: of destruction, or of annihilation, by which you are to be utterly destroyed and annihilated; in Hebrew it reads: the cup of desolation and devastation.
Verse 34: You Shall Drain It To The Dregs
34. YOU SHALL DRAIN IT TO THE DREGS — meaning: You shall drain the entire cup of punishments, you shall suffer the utmost evils.
AND YOU SHALL DEVOUR ITS FRAGMENTS. — This is hyperbole. For fragments cannot be devoured. The meaning therefore is: after the cup is exhausted and broken, you will be forced to lick even the drops that remain in the fragments; that is, you will be forced to drink the cup down to its very last drop. Although it can also be taken literally. For there are some drinkers so intemperate and senseless that after the wine, they swallow and gulp down the broken glass even at risk of life — such as I have seen at the Spa waters, vainly seeking a remedy for death from them, and belatedly condemning their own folly. Hence it follows: "Your breasts," from grief, "you shall tear."
Verse 35: You Have Cast Me Behind Your Body
35. YOU HAVE CAST ME BEHIND YOUR BODY — backwards, behind your back, meaning: You have forgotten Me, you have scorned Me, and you have preferred idols and pleasures to Me. So Theodoretus.
36. SON OF MAN, DO YOU NOT JUDGE? — Is it not right, O Ezekiel, that you judge, that is, reprove these harlots? God speaks now to the people, now to the Prophet, meaning: Why do you hesitate, why do you delay, O Prophet!
rather than judge and condemn these adulteresses? See what was said at chapter XXII, 2.
37. BLOOD IS ON THEIR HANDS — they stained their hands; they still have bloody hands from the blood of the Prophets and other innocents whom they killed. Prado says otherwise: To carry blood on one's hands is to glory in the murder committed and, as it were, to display the blood that was shed.
WITH THEIR IDOLS — the Septuagint says, with their thoughts, that is, as Cyril explains, with the idols they devised, which they revolve and desire in their mind and heart.
WHOM THEY BORE TO ME (meaning: the children whom they should have borne to Me as to a husband, they bore and) OFFERED (to idols) TO BE DEVOURED — that is, to be burned and consumed by fire in their honor.
38. THEY DEFILED MY SANCTUARY — both with other sins and by placing Baal and idols in the temple, as he said in chapter VIII, 10.
THEY PROFANED MY SABBATHS — because they observed not My sabbaths and feasts, but those of Baal.
39. ON THAT DAY — meaning: On the very same day on which they burned their children to the idol Moloch, they dared to enter My temple, to defile it, and to provoke Me. So the Chaldean.
THEY ALSO DID THESE THINGS IN THE MIDST OF MY HOUSE — meaning: they even sacrificed to idols in My temple, as is evident from Jeremiah VII, 30, and above, chapter VIII, 10.
Verse 40: THEY SENT (messengers) TO MEN COMING FROM AFAR (to the
40. THEY SENT (messengers) TO MEN COMING FROM AFAR (to the Chaldeans): AND BEHOLD, THEY CAME — namely the Chaldeans, your former lovers, for whom, to please them, you washed yourself, painted yourself with antimony, and adorned yourself. For they would adorn themselves when going to the feasts of idols, just as harlots adorn themselves when going to their lovers. So Theodoretus. It also signifies that the Chaldeans, just like the Egyptians, when they came to Judea, were received by the Jews with great pomp and magnificence, and the Jews showed them their treasures and riches, as Hezekiah did, Isaiah XXXVIII, 2. These, I say, came — no longer as lovers, but as your sworn enemies, raging and rushing to your destruction.
Verse 41: You Sat On A Bed
41. YOU SAT ON A BED — as a woman does. For when men reclined at table, women would sit upright, because reclining was considered improper for a woman. So Valerius Maximus, Book II, chapter I. He alludes to harlots adorning themselves with antimony and feasting with their lovers: for throughout this entire chapter he compares idolatrous Jerusalem to a fornicating harlot. He notes moreover the custom of women, who are accustomed to adorning and painting themselves marvelously, so that when seated they appear to be queens, indeed goddesses. The philosopher Ambrosius Leo investigates the reasons why women do this more than men, in Problem 199, and responds that there are two. The first is that they are lustful and desire to entice men into love of themselves. The second is that by nature they are plain and unattractive, because nature was deficient in them; hence they try to restore this deficiency with ornaments and cosmetics. He proves that they are plain: "Because, he says, they are imperfect males, and of cold temperament. Hence when all ornaments have been removed, they are seen to be dark, pale, and squalid: whence they are held in contempt and hatred. It is a sign of this that many men despise their wives, because they often see them unadorned, and turn to petty harlots, who only present themselves adorned."
THE TABLE — namely the sacred table, that is the altar, you adorned for your gods, chapter XLI, 22.
MY INCENSE (which you should have burned for Me) YOU PLACED UPON IT — namely on the table, that is on the altar of idols, meaning: You gave and burned My incense to idols.
42. AND THE VOICE OF A REJOICING MULTITUDE (singing hymns and praises to their gods) WAS IN HER — near her, around her, namely around the table, that is the altar of idols: or rather, "in her," namely in Oholibah, that is in Jerusalem, there was the voice of a rejoicing crowd, just as adulterers are accustomed to gather around harlots in the brothel, and there to rejoice and sing love songs.
AND AMONG THE MEN — the adulterers who came to her; supply: the voice of rejoicing was heard: or rather: "They placed bracelets on their hands," as follows.
AND THEY CAME FROM THE DESERT. — The translator reads scebaim with shin, or with the relative sche, schebaim, that is 'who came': or, as Maldonatus reads, with double beth sab baim, that is 'who came from all around, from every side.' Now the Hebrew has Sebaim with sin, that is the Sabeans, namely the Arabs and the Ethiopian Abyssinians. The Septuagint read sobeim,
that is, drunkards: but it all amounts to the same, meaning: Oholibah, that is Jerusalem, received the Sabeans, who according to their name were wine-lovers and given to drunkenness, and who came from the desert of Arabia to Jerusalem, meaning: Not only did this harlot love the handsome and noble Assyrians, but also vile slaves, the dregs of the world, deformed Ethiopians, and Sabean robbers: indeed she adorned them with her own bracelets and crowns, burning and insane with love. So St. Jerome and all the Latin Fathers, and the Septuagint and the Chaldean, who read 'on their hands' (masculine), although in the Hebrew it reads 'on their hands' (feminine), as if the lovers had given bracelets to the harlots, not the harlots to the lovers. Perhaps the Hebrew text is corrupted, or certainly here, as elsewhere, 'hen' (theirs, feminine) is taken for 'hem' (theirs, masculine). He notes the extraordinary lust of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. But under this he properly means idolatry, of which lust and wantonness are the cause, the companion, and the effect. So Theodoretus. Consequently the lovers are the idols, which Oholibah, that is Jerusalem, adorned with her own bracelets and crowns.
CROWNS. — In ancient times, says Athenaeus, Book XV, those who sacrificed would crown what they offered to the gods. Hence Plautus in the Amphitruo:
Garlands, ointments, crowns to bring to Venus and Cupid.
The same in the prologue of the Aulularia:
These flower crowns to be placed on our household Lar's hearth.
The same in the Pseudolus:
That this was the house of Jupiter, The oaken crown gave augury to the mind.
And Ovid, Book III of the Tristia, Elegy 1:
Let the smoking altar be encircled with flowering crowns.
Aristotle gives the reason in his book on the Symposium, namely to signify that nothing mutilated but only whole and perfect things should be offered to the gods. The crown therefore is a symbol of perfection and fullness. Hence, says Aristotle as cited by Rhodiginus, Book XXVII, chapter XXVI, they reclined at banquets wearing crowns, as if auguring the fertility of the harvest and an abundance of things. But the first origin and cause of this crowning was that, when they drank much, to prevent headaches they bound their heads with a woolen or linen band. For this was the first crown, as Festus attests. Then for pleasure garlands were added from branches and flowers — either warm ones, which gently open the pores so that the wine perspires out (a garland of nard does this), or cold ones, which constrict and restrain the power of wine (garlands of violets, roses, and ivy do this). Liber, or Bacchus, says Plutarch, Symposium III, 1, crowned the Bacchantes with ivy so that they would be less harmed by wine, since ivy with its coldness quenches drunkenness. These crowns they either placed on the head, or wrapped around the forehead and temples, or hung from the neck. So Stuckius in his Convivalia.
Verse 43: And I Said To Her Who Was Worn Out
43. AND I SAID TO HER WHO WAS WORN OUT — that is, habituated; the Chaldean says: grown old in adulteries, meaning: Is this old woman not yet sated with the filth of harlotry? Does she still rush insanely to it? Does she still commit fornication upon fornication, so as to be like a public harlot, provoking the Chaldeans and all nations to worship her demons and idols? Otherwise the Chaldean says: And I said of the assembly of Israel, whose people has grown old in sins: now she will abandon her idols and return to My worship; but she did not return.
45. THEREFORE JUST MEN SHALL JUDGE THEM — the Babylonians will demand just vengeance upon Jerusalem (just as the Assyrians did upon Oholah, that is upon Samaria). For although they are themselves equally impious and idolatrous and unjust, they will nonetheless be the executioners of God's just sentence and just punishment of the Jews. For it is fitting that the impious be punished through the impious, idolaters through idolaters, and indeed God usually punishes justly.
WITH THE JUDGMENT OF ADULTERESSES AND OF THOSE WHO SHED BLOOD — that is, with the punishment usually inflicted on adulteresses and murderers (for Jerusalem is both), namely that they be stoned and burned, as he said in chapter XVI, 38 and following.
Verse 46: BRING (that is, prophesy that a multitude shall be brought
46. BRING (that is, prophesy that a multitude shall be brought — see Canon XXIX) UPON THEM A MULTITUDE (the Chaldean says, an army, namely of Chaldeans); AND DELIVER THEM TO TUMULT. — The Chaldean says, to destruction; the Hebrew, to agitation, that is to trepidation, flight, and dispersion, according to the threats of Moses, Deuteronomy XXVIII, 23, and Jeremiah XXXIV, 17.
47. LET THEM BE STONED — as adulteresses. It signifies the ballistas with which the Chaldeans hurled stones at Jerusalem: or metaphorically it signifies the destruction of the city, by which the city was, as it were, buried under stones.
48. ALL WOMEN SHALL LEARN — all cities and provinces.
49. AND THEY SHALL LAY YOUR WICKEDNESS (that is, the punishment of your wickedness, namely the worship of idols) UPON YOU — meaning: They shall punish you according to the merits of your crimes.