Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He describes the wickedness and malice of Jehu and of idolatrous Israel, comparing it first to a heated oven; second, to leaven, verse 4, and to a cake baked under ashes, verse 8; third, to a seduced dove without sense, verse 11; fourth, to a deceitful bow, verse 16.
Vulgate Text: Hosea 7:1-16
1. When I would have healed Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim was revealed, and the wickedness of Samaria, for they have wrought falsehood: and the thief has entered in to plunder, the robber is outside. 2. And lest perhaps they say in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own devices have surrounded them, they have been done before My face. 3. By their wickedness they have made the king glad, and by their lies, the princes. 4. All of them commit adultery, like an oven heated by the baker: the city rested a little from the mixing of the leaven, until the whole was leavened. 5. The day of our king: the princes began to rage from wine: he stretched out his hand with mockers. 6. Because they applied their heart like an oven, while he was lying in wait for them: all the night he slept baking them, in the morning he himself was kindled like a flaming fire. 7. They were all made hot like an oven, and devoured their judges: all their kings have fallen; there is none among them that calls upon Me. 8. Ephraim himself was mixed among the peoples: Ephraim became a cake baked under ashes, not turned over. 9. Strangers devoured his strength, and he knew it not: yes, gray hairs are spread upon him, and he is unaware. 10. And the pride of Israel shall be humbled before his face, yet they have not returned to the Lord their God, nor sought Him in all these things. 11. And Ephraim became like a silly dove without sense: they called upon Egypt, they went to the Assyrians. 12. And when they shall go, I will spread My net over them: I will bring them down like the birds of the air, I will strike them according to the report made to their assembly. 13. Woe to them, for they have departed from Me: they shall be wasted because they have transgressed against Me, and I redeemed them; and they have spoken lies against Me. 14. And they have not cried to Me with their heart, but they howled in their beds: they chewed the cud over wheat and wine, they departed from Me. 15. And I taught them, and strengthened their arms; and they devised evil against Me. 16. They returned to be without a yoke; they became like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This is their derision in the land of Egypt.
Verse 1: WHEN I WOULD HAVE HEALED ISRAEL, THE INIQUITY OF EPHRAIM WAS REVEALED
1. 'WHEN I WOULD HAVE HEALED ISRAEL, THE INIQUITY OF EPHRAIM WAS REVEALED.' — Many understand this of the time of Jeroboam, who made the schism from Rehoboam, and having become king of the ten tribes introduced idols, namely golden calves into Israel, as if to say: When I wished to heal Israel from the crimes and idolatry which Solomon had introduced by worshipping the gods of his foreign concubines, 3 Kings chapter 11, verse 31, then Jeroboam burst forth, descended from the tribe of Ephraim, who erected golden calves in Dan and Bethel, and all Samaria followed him, working falsehood, that is, worshipping the idols of calves. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Haymo, Hugh, Lyranus, Clarius, and Ribera. Theodoret, Theophylact, Arias, and Sanchez join in this view, who understand this of Jeroboam and all the other kings of Israel; for they emulated Jeroboam as their leader in crime and idolatry. But against this stands the fact that in the time of Jeroboam, Samaria did not yet exist, because it was founded 60 years later by Omri, the father of Ahab, 3 Kings chapter 16, verse 14. Moreover, God then wished to heal not only Israel but even more Judah, who was the source of the evil and idolatry; nor was the iniquity of Ephraim then 'revealed,' as if it had previously been hidden and concealed, but rather it began to exist and come into being.
I say therefore that the Prophet speaks of the time of Jehu: for under Jehu he began to prophesy; hence he names him at the beginning of the prophecy, saying in chapter 1, verse 4: 'Yet a little while, and I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.' For through Jehu, God wished to heal and root out idolatry: hence He commanded him, 2 Kings chapter 9, verse 6, to overthrow Baal and the house of Ahab, and to kill his 450 prophets; which Jehu indeed performed at the beginning of his reign. But soon, fearing the same thing as Jeroboam — namely, that if the people returned to God and His temple in Jerusalem, they would likewise return to the kingdom and king of Judah — for this reason he relapsed into idolatry, and offered the golden calves to the people
of Jeroboam to be worshipped. Wherefore God here thunders against him. Moreover, God here assumes the role of a physician, who took Jehu as His surgeon to cut away the rotten members of Israel and heal the rest. For He alludes to Ramoth-Gilead, where Jehu was made king, 2 Kings chapter 9, verses 1 and following; for in Gilead there were the best spices and medicines, as well as surgeons and physicians. Hence Jeremiah says of it in chapter 8, verse 22: 'Is there no balm in Gilead? or is there no physician there? why then has the wound of the daughter of my people not been healed?' See what is said there. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: When through Jehu as My surgeon in Gilead I wished to heal the wound of Israel's idolatry, and through him had cut away Ahab and Jezebel (who, being a Tyrian, had been the torch and instigator of the worship of Baal the god of Tyre) and his progeny, namely seventy sons, the kingdom of idolatry seemed now overthrown, and all idolaters, fearing Jehu as the avenger and destroyer of the Baalists, fled or hid; but behold Samaria, which was the capital in Ephraim — namely the royal counselors and other politicians in Samaria — fraudulently suggested and persuaded Jehu to establish the worship of the calves in his kingdom, if he wished to preserve it and his position. For they said political expediency required this; otherwise the people, if permitted to return to the worship of God in Jerusalem, would likewise return to their former scepter and kingdom, namely to the house of David. Struck and captured by this political and satanic counsel, Jehu yielded to their opinion and restored and sanctioned the worship of the calves. Then therefore the wickedness of Samaria was revealed, which Jehu had shortly before suppressed and which therefore had been hiding, after the Samaritans craftily drew Jehu into their idolatry, and this shortly before this prophecy of Hosea; for he prophesied under Jeroboam the great-grandson of Jehu, as is clear from the Proem.
So even now we see politicians persuading princes to adopt heresy in order to protect or increase their position and power. Thus heresy was introduced into Holland; for those who desired to rule there brought in heresy under the pretext that if the Dutch permitted the Catholic faith, they would certainly come under the Spanish yoke: for Catholics, they said, driven by scruple of conscience, would wish to return to their ancestral and legitimate prince, namely the King of Spain; therefore, to exclude the Spaniard, we must exclude the Catholic faith. The same was the false reasoning of Elizabeth, Queen of England. For since she, on account of her illegitimate birth condemned by the Roman Pontiff, was incapable of the kingdom, in order to avert the thunderbolt of the Pontiff and the papists and to establish the kingdom for herself, she made a schism from the Pontiff and the faith and introduced heresy; and therefore God immediately cut down her kingdom and lineage, just as He once cut down the house of Jeroboam, Ahab, Jehu, and other kings who rejected the worship of God and sanctioned the worship of idols. The same has happened to the Dutch who, having cut off their own head, are headless, and fight among themselves with heresies and deadly hatreds, by which they will consume themselves unless they return to the unity of the ancient religion, as well as the commonwealth, and to their ancestral head. May God grant them to be of the same mind.
'FOR THEY HAVE WROUGHT FALSEHOOD.' — In Scripture, just as truth is threefold — of the mind, of the mouth, and of works: of the mind, when its knowledge corresponds to and conforms to its object, that is, when the mind knows things as they truly are; of the mouth, when words conform to the mind; of works, when deeds conform to their rule, namely right reason, duty, and law — so conversely, falsehood is threefold: of the mind, of the mouth, and of works. Of the mind, it is error by which the mind does not conform to its object, that is, by which it judges falsely about a thing; of the mouth, it is a lying utterance, by which one speaks contrary to what one thinks; of works, it is a crime by which a man deviates from his duty, from right reason and law. In all three ways it can be understood here. For the Samaritans, introducing idolatry and a false religion, brought error in faith upon the mind; blasphemy upon the tongue, by which they scorned God and praised idols; and crime in works, namely in the sacrifice and external worship of idols.
Properly therefore 'falsehood' here means the false and lying worship of idols, and the idol itself. For an idol is a false god and deity; for since it is stone or wood, it lies about being God, and sets itself against God, who is truth and the true deity. So St. Jerome, Haymo, Hugh, Theodoret, Theophylact, and others. Wherefore Socrates used to say that he would rather adore a dog than an idol, because a dog, being a work of nature and a living thing, is worthier than an idol, which is a work of art and lifeless. He also used to say that he marveled that, while the makers of statues strove with the greatest effort to make a stone as similar to a man as possible, they did not equally take care lest they themselves
become like stones both in appearance and in reality. This is what the Psalmist says, Psalm 113, verse 4: 'The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of men's hands: they have eyes and shall not see; they have ears and shall not hear, etc. Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them.' Diogenes, as Laertius attests in book 6, used to approach statues from time to time and ask something of them. When people wondered why he did this: 'So that I may accustom myself,' he said, 'not to be disturbed when I do not obtain from men what I ask.' The same man, when asked by a tyrant from what kind of bronze statues ought preferably to be made, said: 'From that out of which Harmodius and Aristogiton were cast,' implying that the statues, like the tyrant himself, should be destroyed, since those men were tyrannicides. He also used to say 'that good men are the images of the gods.' Since the gods are supremely good, it is their nature to benefit all and harm none. This image shines more brightly in wise and good men than in statues, since the gods are incorporeal. Fabius, the conqueror of Hannibal, when Tarentum had been captured and plundered, and his secretary asked what he had decided about the statues of the temples, said: 'Let us leave the Tarentines their angry gods.' So Plutarch in the Apophthegms of the Romans.
Secondly, as Clarius and Arias explain, just as 'to do truth' in Scripture means to do what each one's duty requires, so 'to work falsehood' means to act against one's duty and obligation. Thus the devil, a liar, 'did not stand in the truth,' that is, in the duty, subjection, and faith which he owed to God, John 8:44. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The counselors and chief men of Samaria transgressed their duty and the faith they owed to God and the commonwealth. For they ought to have persuaded King Jehu to adopt true religion and the true worship of the one God; but instead they led him into idolatry, and thence into destruction and ruin, both their own and that of the entire nation and kingdom. For they lied in claiming that the kingdom of Jehu would be stable if he kept the people at home in the worship of the calves so that they would not go to Jerusalem. They lied, I say, for the entire foundation of a kingdom is true religion, true faith, and the true worship of God.
St. Augustine teaches this in his books On the City of God, which he wrote on this argument, where in book 1, chapter 33, he says: 'Scipio did not consider the republic happy while its walls stood but its morals collapsed,' among which religion and piety hold the first place. And in book 2, chapter 18, having recounted the vices that invaded pagan Rome and ruined it, he adds that its empire was strengthened and established by the cross of Christ. For he says: 'In this cesspool of the worst morals, heavenly authority especially needed to come and bring aid, which would persuade voluntary poverty, continence and benevolence, justice and concord, and true piety, and the other luminous and powerful virtues of life, not only for leading this life most honorably, not only for the most harmonious society of the earthly city, but also for attaining eternal salvation and the heavenly and divine commonwealth of a certain eternal people, into whose citizenship faith, hope, and charity admit us.' And shortly after: 'For God thus showed in the most wealthy and glorious Roman Empire how much civic virtues could accomplish even without religion, so that it might be understood that with religion added, men become citizens of another city, whose king is truth, whose law is charity, whose measure is eternity.'
Thirdly, some translate: Because they do not keep faith with one another; for those who do not keep faith with God, do not keep faith with men either: wherefore where there is heresy, there likewise frauds and deceits run rampant. Castrius refers this to the Samaritans who, contrary to the pledge given to King Ahab, killed his 70 sons when Jehu ordered it, 2 Kings chapter 10, verse 7. But God had commanded these to be killed; therefore He reproves them through the Prophet here more for idolatry than for this slaughter, especially because there was danger that the impious offspring would follow the idols of the impious parent. Nevertheless the Prophet also censures this slaughter on account of the treachery, as I shall say below.
'AND A THIEF HAS ENTERED TO PLUNDER, A ROBBER IS OUTSIDE.' — The word 'and' explains the falsehood, and has the same force as 'that is,' or certainly 'and,' that is, 'therefore,' as if to say: Because the Samaritans fraudulently and deceitfully persuaded King Jehu to worship the calves (St. Jerome, along with others, as I said at the beginning of the chapter, attributes this to King Jeroboam), therefore Jehu himself, following their fraudulent counsels, secretly entered into the reins of government like a thief, concealing his hidden wickedness and idolatry; but when he had fully gained power, like a robber he openly went on the rampage, compelling all to worship his idols and despoiling or killing the unwilling. Thus Nebuchadnezzar is called a 'robber,' Jeremiah chapter 18, verse 22. See what is said there.
Secondly, explain it thus, as if to say: And, that is therefore, thieves and robbers, both domestic and foreign, invade the cities and fields of the Israelites, and lay them waste and plunder them. For when in a republic true religion is eliminated, thefts, robberies, and all manner of crimes creep in, as he said these had crept into Gilead and Samaria in the preceding chapter, verse 9. So the Chaldean, Lyranus, and Arias. Again, God sent against them Syrians and Assyrians to devastate them, as is said in 2 Kings chapter 10, verse 32. So Theodoret, Theophylact, Dionysius, and Ribera. For these are called 'robbers' in the books of Kings, that is, plunderers, marauders, whom the Belgians call vrijbuiters. The Septuagint usually translates monozônos, that is, of one, namely a distinguished, belt, as if to say, excellent in war, and who differ from others by a distinguished belt and are excellently girded and armed. So Suidas. For the Hebrew גדד gadid means a girded and light-armed soldier. Thus also in ancient times soldiers were called latrones, either from latus (side), that is, from serving,
as Festus states in book 10; or from latendo (hiding), because from ambush, in the manner of bandits, they attack enemies. Note: Jehu is here compared, first, to a thief and a robber; second, in verse 4, to a baker heating the oven of idolatry and with his leaven leavening the people; third, to a pigeon-keeper deceiving and capturing doves, verse 11; fourth, to a deceitful bow, verse 16, because by overthrowing Baal he seemed about to overthrow all idols, and then soon restored them.
Verse 2: AND LEST THEY SHOULD SAY
2. 'AND LEST THEY SHOULD SAY,' as if to say: Lest they think and complain that I am recalling the past sins of their fathers to memory, and therefore punishing the children out of vengeance rather than out of a desire to heal them, I will enumerate for them their modern impious machinations, which in these days they have shamelessly perpetrated before My face, so that they cannot deny or excuse them. So St. Jerome, Haymo, Hugh, Lyranus, Ribera, and Arias.
The Septuagint refers these words to the preceding, and translates: 'That they may sing together as those singing in their heart,' that is, as St. Jerome explains, that like accomplices they may agree with the thief and robber and sing as it were the same song with them; or, as Theodoret explains, that seeing such great calamities they may groan and sing laments, not publicly, lest the enemy mock them or punish them more harshly, but silently in their heart.
Thirdly, the Chaldean translates: Nor meanwhile do they consider in their hearts that all their evil deeds are manifest before Me; soon their evil works shall surround them (that is, the vengeance and punishments of their evil works), which lie open before Me, as if to say: Shortly it will come to pass that they see that I know and see their deeds, namely when they feel My stripes and scourges. So Vatablus.
Verse 3: 'In their wickedness they made the king glad.' — Jeroboam, says St. Jerome, or...
3. 'In their wickedness they made the king glad.' — Jeroboam, says St. Jerome, or rather Jehu, as if to say: By their evil and impious will they applauded Jehu and his princes, by defecting from their king Ahab and his royal family, and by worshipping calves instead of Baal in favor of Jehu; likewise by treacherously killing the 70 sons of Ahab entrusted to their care, and the 40 brethren of Ahaziah; for he calls this defection and treachery 'lies.' For although Jehu, anointed and made king by God through the Prophet and by God's command, ordered them to be killed, nevertheless the Samaritans did not know that this was done by God's command. For the Prophet had anointed Jehu as king in secret: therefore they killed them not by God's command but from fear of Jehu the tyrant, and therefore unjustly and treacherously. The Septuagint translates 'kings'; for they agreed in idolatry not only with Jehu but also with his predecessors and successors. Thus the fickle populace habitually flatters kings and changes faith and religion at their pleasure like a reed, as we see happening today in Germany. How true is the saying: 'After the king's example the whole world is fashioned!'
Wherefore there can be no better prayer than that by which one prays for kings and princes, both ecclesiastical and secular, that God may either bestow upon them or make them prudent, pious, and energetic.
This is what the Apostle urges, 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 1: 'I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, etc., be made for kings and for all who are in positions of authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all piety.' The pagans also saw this same truth. This is the saying of Euripides: 'The wicked ought to be governed by the good, and to submit to their betters; but if you promote the impious in the city, our whole life will suddenly be turned upside down.' This is from Plato: 'If the sowers are depraved and lost, however much they dissemble, no danger threatens the city from them; but the guardians of the laws and the city, if they are not truly such but only appear to be, will utterly destroy the whole world.' From Velleius Paterculus: 'A prince teaches by doing well; and though he is greatest in authority, he is greater still by example.' Neoptolemus in Sophocles' Philoctetes: 'To princes ascribe all things, in whose hands power lay. In short, blame them; for the city depends on the magistrate, the army on its general: the soldiers often sin following their leaders' example.'
This is what Ecclesiasticus chapter 10, verse 2 proclaims: 'As the judge of the people is, so are his ministers: and what manner of man the ruler of a city is, such are all those who dwell therein. An unwise king shall be the ruin of his people.' Hence the Arabic in this place translates: Their kings rejoiced in iniquity, and their princes in falsehood; and their confidence grunts like pigs, and as one who kneads dough and waits for it until it is leavened, so shall the days of their kings be. And the Syriac: In their wickedness they made kings glad, and in their wickedness all their princes: they burn like a blazing oven in the baking.
Verse 4: ALL COMMITTING ADULTERY
4. 'ALL COMMITTING ADULTERY,' that is, all who worship idols. It is a metaphor from a baker heating an oven, as if to say: The Israelites burn like a heated oven with the lust and ardor of worshipping idols. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Vatablus. Hence the Hebrew has: All of them grow hot with adultery (idolatry), like an oven heated by the baker. For the Hebrews call the one who cooks a baker, as did the ancient Latins. Hence Festus Pompeius says: 'We understand that among the ancients the cook and the baker were the same person.' Grammatically it signifies that the lust and desire for adultery is not extinguished by the very act of adultery, but like an oven is rather kindled more by the addition of brushwood.
Hence Salonius, in his commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon, which is found in tome 1 of the Library of the Holy Fathers, explains that passage of Proverbs 30 thus: 'The leech has two daughters, saying: Give, give, and they are never satisfied.' The leech is the devil, who always thirsts for blood, that is, desires to draw men to sins, and unceasingly kindles the thirst for sinning: the two daughters are lust and greed, which imitate the devil's thirst and ardor, saying: Give, give; because just as he is never sated with sinning, so neither are lust and greed. For the more anyone indulges in luxury and fornication, the more he delights in it. Similarly, the more anyone accumulates riches for himself, the more
he always augments them further. Hence also St. Gaudentius, Bishop of Brescia in the time of St. Ambrose, in tome 2 of the Library of the Holy Fathers, treatise 13, addressed to the Neophytes: 'The frequency of debauchery,' he says, 'does not restrain the lust of the flesh but kindles it, as the Prophet says: All who commit fornication, their hearts are like a burning oven. The rapacity of plunder likewise does not suppress greed but provokes it. For it is written: He who loves money shall not be satisfied with money,' Ecclesiastes 5. So the glutton by gluttony, the wrathful by wrath, the proud by honor, etc., are more puffed up and inflamed. For: 'The more water is drunk, the more it is thirsted for.'
'THE CITY RESTED A LITTLE FROM THE MIXTURE OF LEAVEN, UNTIL THE WHOLE WAS LEAVENED,' as if to say: Just as a baker puts leaven into the mass of flour, and then when the oven is heated he rests — for the leaven quietly and silently creeps through the entire mass, infects it with its sourness and leavens it, after which the baker puts the mass into the heated oven and bakes bread in it (hence the Syriac translates: He ceased from the city, kneading the dough until it was leavened) — so Jehu did not wish to force the people. 'For whatever is done by necessity is quickly undone; what is taken up voluntarily perseveres,' says St. Jerome. Therefore Jehu did not compel the people to worship the calves, but allowed the idolaters gradually and secretly to spread the leaven of their idolatry through the people, until by his permission and connivance, indeed benevolence, the entire people was infected and corrupted by this crime. Then, having convoked them, he sanctioned by his decree the worship of the calves, which the people eagerly received and acclaimed the king with good wishes. Hence the whole people was by him cast into a heated oven, that is, into the impetus and ardor, indeed the fury, of idolatry, and public idolatry blazed up like an oven kindled by him. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Albert, Hugh, Lyranus, and Ribera.
mixture, that is, the king rested from the mixture, that is, the corruption of the city, which in substance is the same as what our translator renders: 'The city rested,' namely with the king resting and silently dissembling 'from the mixture,' that is, from the open corruption and depravation of the king. So Ribera. For the Hebrew מעיר meir means the same as 'from the city.' More recent scholars translate it as 'from rousing,' that is, the baker rested from rousing in order to heat the oven, and they give this meaning: In places where there are public ovens, bakers are accustomed to go through the streets at night calling out to women and waking them so that they may knead the dough; after they have ceased rousing them, they meanwhile heat the oven and keep it intensely hot until the women bring the leavened dough shaped into loaves to be baked in the extremely hot oven, whose heat the Prophet here compares to the most fervent zeal of the idolaters in worshipping idols. They are, he says, like an oven lit by the baker, which he usually lights immediately after he has ceased rousing the women for the purpose of kneading the dough, and which blazes most intensely in the meantime until the bread is brought in by the women. So Vatablus and Clarius following R. David. This version agrees with what preceded: 'All committing adultery like an oven heated by the baker;' and it explains it.
But according to our translator there is here another simile, and a very apt one; for just as he previously compared the ardor of Jehu and Israel for idolatry to a heated oven, so here he compares it to leaven, which immediately pervades the whole mass. Hence the Apostle uses the same comparison, 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 6: 'Do you not know that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump.' Although it amounts to the same thing, and the second meaning contains and includes the first. Jehu therefore was like a baker who lit the oven of idolatry, both by allowing the golden calves and by his connivance in inciting others who spread the leaven of idolatry through the mass, that is, through the assembly of the people; and when all were infected by it, Jehu, by public decree, temple, and worship, put this mass into the oven of his idolatry and baked it thoroughly.
Finally, Pagninus translates: The baker ceased from the city, that is, as the Chaldean translates: They will quickly depart from their cities.
Allegorically, Leo Castrius (though he himself considers it literal) refers these words to the Jews who, swollen with the leaven of anger and pride, having corrupted the people, demanded and obtained from Pilate that Christ be nailed to the cross. Thus Plautus says: 'My wife on account of that woman lies entirely in leaven,' that is, she swells and puffs up with anger, just as leaven raises and puffs up dough.
Peter, Abbot of Celle, elegantly treats this passage of Hosea in the year of the Lord 1181, in his book On Breads, chapter 4, at the end, in tome 8 of the Library of the Holy Fathers: 'Even the Egyptian resting from exterior activity,' he says, 'while he does not notice, is leavened. Just as dough is leavened not only when leaven is mixed into it, but much more when the one who mixed it ceases from the mixture, and the dough itself, well covered, as it were sleeps while resting — so malice conceived in the mind, even if it seems for some time (perhaps because the occasion is lacking) to cease from evil work, nevertheless rages more fiercely, as it were, in the heart precisely because it does not pass into action. Hence Hosea says: The city rested a little from the mixture of leaven, until the whole was leavened, as if to say: In order to carry out the evil more studiously planned, it more cunningly withdraws its hand for the time being. For a fire fed by the heaping on of tow does not sleep but creeps; it is not extinguished but is replenished: so an evil will, like a hidden flame, eventually devours the obstacles of necessity placed upon it, and casts aside, like a torrent, the barriers of delay.' Hence he infers: Therefore one who has professed a religious life dangerously tastes the leaven of the world. A novice hears a worldly, ambitious, alluring word and is not moved; but the imagination receives the leaven, which in the cell will recur to his mind and solicit him to return to the world, to ambition, to marriage, and perhaps will overcome him. We see the same in innocent boys and girls.
To this saying of Hosea belongs that saying of Oedipus: 'By the restless, rest is often feigned.' So tropologically, heretics, says St. Jerome, at first are quiet and promise all things peacefully, but secretly they teach their doctrines, and thus the cancer gradually creeps through the peoples.
St. Jerome adds from the tradition of the Hebrews that Jeroboam (for he himself applies this to him, as I said; I apply it to Jehu), since he did not dare to change the religion suddenly for fear of sedition and rebellion, secretly sent certain men who would stir up the people to petition the king for a domestic god, namely household Lares and Penates, that is, the calf they had worshipped in Egypt. This was done with their willing consent, but especially that of King Jeroboam: 'Therefore,' he says, 'they were like a burning oven, ready to bake whatever you put in it; for they burned with desire.' So Elizabeth, Queen of England, as Sanders testifies in his book On the English Schism, having succeeded her sister Queen Mary, overturned in the first year of her reign the Catholic faith restored by Mary in England, appointing heretical magistrates who in Parliament would petition for the restoration of heresy, indeed decree it. Politically, wise and good princes should imitate this counsel of Jeroboam or Jehu, but for good ends. Thus Alfonso, King of Aragon, as Guicciardini testifies, when he was planning a war or contriving anything else, before his deliberations and the thoughts of his mind were understood, he would quietly have a rumor spread through his agents that the king had good reason to undertake such things for these or those causes. Hence it came about that his plans and undertakings were approved with the great applause and praise of all, since what was publicly proposed were things already considered just or necessary by the votes and, as it were, prejudgments of all.
In Hebrew it is a hendiadys: He rested from the city, from
ted, the people acclaimed King Jeroboam, says St. Jerome, or rather King Jehu, saying: This is the day of our king, namely a royal, joyful, and auspicious day (so the Psalmist says: 'This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it'), and then the princes too began to rage like drunkards and revelers, and forgetting God began to worship idols. And then the king himself 'STRETCHED OUT HIS HAND' (toward the cups) 'WITH MOCKERS,' that is, he began to do the same as the mockers already mentioned, namely the princes and their followers, who mocked God, or rather the king, with vain praises and acclamations, as if to say: He willingly began to drink with them, to mock, to play the buffoon, to praise idols, to scorn God. So St. Jerome, Haymo, Hugh, Lyranus, Ribera, and others. See here how flattery destroys kings and princes more than an enemy does. So Mariana.
Note: The Hebrew אלצ lets, which our translator renders as 'mocker,' signifies a proud man, a scoffer, who mocks all things divine and human, an utterly corrupt and pestilential person who, like a plague, infects and corrupts others. Such men are often found in royal courts, who completely change and deprave even good princes. Otherwise the Chaldean, Arias, Pagninus, and Vatablus explain it, as if to say: On the day they inaugurated the king, the princes began to drink with him, and thereafter they constantly devote themselves to carousing, not to the commonwealth; or, as Clarius says, they made him sick by offering him a flask full of wine, to accustom him to drinking and so enervate him, and rob him of his mind and counsel, so that he would constantly drink with drunkards, jest with jesters, and mock with mockers. For the Hebrew החלו hechelu means both 'to be sick' and 'to begin.' Again, instead of חמת chamat, that is, 'to rage' (for it is the infinitive from the root חם iacham, that is, 'he grew hot, was angry, rages'), they read חמת chemet, that is, a wineskin, a flask.
Verse 5: 'The day of our king' (It is a mimesis: for he imitates and expresses the voice...
5. 'The day of our king' (It is a mimesis: for he imitates and expresses the voice of the people applauding and congratulating both their king and their gods, namely the calves sanctioned and set up by the king, as if to say: The people, now completely corrupted by the leaven of idolatry, acclaimed King Jeroboam, or Jehu:
from among the people who might resist his will and idolatry, having learned the mind and consent of the people, he slept, that is, was secure like a man who sleeps all night), baking them (that is, allowing them to be baked by themselves, that is, to be fully leavened and become a mass of impiety: hence just as a baker, after the dough has been leavened during the night, puts it into the oven in the morning, which he had heated that same night and heats again with intense fire and flame that same morning — so Jehu cast the people, consenting and willing, into the oven of idolatry; indeed) 'HE HIMSELF WAS KINDLED LIKE A FLAMING FIRE' (as if to say: Jehu himself not only as a baker kindled the flame of idolatry by which he baked the idolaters thoroughly, but also as if converted into the very flame, he set all the Israelites ablaze. Therefore by this flame) 'ALL WERE MADE HOT LIKE AN OVEN' (with supreme ardor, by which like fire) 'THEY DEVOURED THEIR JUDGES' (enticing and compelling them so that they too would follow the raging people and worship idols with them, indeed command by their decree that they be worshipped; hence also) 'ALL THEIR KINGS' (who followed Jeroboam, or rather Jehu, into the same oven of impiety) 'HAVE FALLEN.' So St. Jerome, Albert, Haymo, Hugh, and Lyranus.
Note: Burning love is called fire and a heated oven, because love stirs a vehement motion of the heart that causes heat in a person, indeed fervor and burning. Hence in Job 31 it is said: 'It is a fire that devours unto destruction.' And that saying of the Wise Man: 'He who is not jealous does not love.' Wherefore Epictetus, when asked by the Emperor Hadrian: 'What is love?' replied: 'A trouble of an idle heart; in a boy, modesty; in a maiden, blushing; in a woman, fury; in a young man, ardor; in an old man, laughter. Why is Venus said to be married to Vulcan? To show that love is kindled by fire.' Hence Virgil, of Dido in love with Aeneas, Aeneid 4: 'And she is consumed by a hidden fire. Unhappy Dido burns. Dido in love burns.' And elsewhere: 'Meanwhile a soft flame eats her marrow, and the wound lives beneath her silent breast.' Moreover, because love is fire and heat, it softens
and melts the parts of the body; and because by that heat the vital and animal spirits are dissolved, aided toward that dissolution and consumption by the vehement thought that is fixed upon the beloved object — hence from vehement love follows fainting and languor, and weakness of the entire body, which is furthered by sadness and sickness of mind at the absence of the beloved. See Richard of St. Victor, in his book On the Degrees of Charity, chapter 4, and his book On the Degrees of Violent Charity, where he explains at length how love wounds, binds, melts, and brings about fainting and languor. The Bride felt these ardors and effects of love when she said, Song of Songs 2:5: 'Stay me with flowers, compass me about with apples: because I languish with love.' And chapter 8, verse 6: 'Its lamps are lamps of fire and flames.'
Secondly, the Chaldean and others consider this flame to be one of ambushes, injury, and violence against neighbors, which commonly creeps forth and arises from the flame of idolatry; for the Chaldean translates thus: 'Like an oven their heart burns in their ambushes; all night their fury is drawn out; until morning it blazes in the manner of a flaming fire,' as if to say: Just as a baker at night, having lit the oven, sleeps until morning, and then again stokes and increases the fire of the oven, so that the heated oven belches forth new and sparkling flames — so the Israelites rest at night, thinking and plotting ways to ambush and harm their neighbor until morning; for then each one rises to, like a kindled fire, pour forth upon his neighbor the ambushes and injuries plotted at night, and accomplish them in deed. Therefore the Israelites 'were all made hot' with this malice 'like an oven,' in order to please King Jehu, and therefore 'they devoured,' that is, killed, 'their judges;' and 'all their kings,' that is, the 70 sons of King Ahab, slain by their hands, 'have fallen; there is none among them who cries to Me,' as if to say: They gave them no time before death to turn to the Lord and call upon Him, but suddenly slaughtered them all; and thus they destroyed both their souls and their bodies. So Theodoret, Theophylact, Arias, and Vatablus.
Tropologically, an impious king, such as Jeroboam was, is the baker of the devil; for all subjects apply their heart to the king as an oven to be kindled: let the king see what fire he casts in — whether the heavenly fire of divine love or the hellish fire of vices. An impious king casts in hellish fire and thereby bakes the sweetest bread, that is, sins, for the devil, who will repay him with equal grace: for in hell he will kindle an oven for him in which he shall burn forever. So Sebastian Barradius, book 9, chapter 12 of the Concordance of the Gospels.
Verse 8: EPHRAIM HIMSELF WAS MIXED AMONG THE PEOPLES
8. 'EPHRAIM HIMSELF WAS MIXED AMONG THE PEOPLES.' — He gives the cause of such great crimes, as if to say: The reason why Ephraim, that is Israel, burned like an oven of impiety is that he entered into a treaty and friendship with neighboring peoples and nations, and by associating with them drank in their impiety and crimes, according to Psalm 105, verse 35: 'They were mixed among the nations and learned their works, and served their graven images,' etc. So Theodoret, Vatablus, and Arias.
'EPHRAIM HAS BECOME A CAKE BAKED UNDER ASHES, NOT TURNED OVER,' as if to say: Just as dough that is baked under ashes by the fire, if not turned over, is imperceptibly burned up and consumed, so Israel too, remaining in the ashes and filth of idolatry and not converting to God through repentance, will be burned up by enemies. For 'strangers have devoured his strength and he knew it not,' as if to say: The Assyrians will gradually wear down the strength of Israel and plunder him, which however he himself will not notice — namely that he is heading toward ruin and destruction, and that he is being punished by God for abandoning Him through the worship of calves. So Cyril, Theodoret, and Theophylact. Or 'he knew not,' that is, he was not wise, he did not come to his senses. Hence the Chaldean translates: The house of Ephraim is like a cake baked under ashes which is eaten before it is turned, either by a hungry person or rather by the fire in which it is baked; the peoples plundered their possessions.
Note: In the cake baked under ashes he notes many conditions of Israel. First, obstinacy — namely, that it is surrounded on all sides by ashes, that is, filth, and persists in them, and does not withdraw from them or return to God, even while it is being baked by the fire of His tribulation. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, and Theophylact. Hence tropologically St. Gregory, in book 32 of the Morals, chapter 6: 'Ephraim has become,' he says, 'like a cake baked under ashes that is not turned. From our well-created nature we have an inclination that rises toward God, but from wickedly habitual behavior there is a pleasure that presses us into the world. Now the cake baked under ashes is cleaner on the part it hides below, and dirtier on the part on which it carries ashes above. Therefore whoever neglects the inclination by which he ought to seek God, like a cake baked under ashes presses the cleaner part below; and when he willingly bears the cares of the world, he carries, as it were, heaped-up ashes above.' And in book 11, chapter 6: 'If we shake off from the mind the ashes of earthly thoughts, we turn over, as it were, the cake baked under ashes.'
Secondly, the swiftness of vengeance and destruction; for bread is baked under ashes, not in an oven, by the poor and hungry so that it may immediately be eaten by them; again, if that bread is not turned, it is soon burned up — so Israel was immediately devoured and burned up by the Assyrians. So the Chaldean, Albert, and Vatablus.
Thirdly, imprudence — namely that Israel, sitting in its sordid and ruinous desires, did not turn itself to the other side to see the disasters
and the destruction hanging over them on their account. So Clarius. For desires and sins are like a cake baked under ashes, which has two faces or surfaces: the lower one, which faces the earth; and the upper one, which clings to the fire and ashes. So the lower face of sin is earthly pleasure, which the sinner looks at and seizes; the upper face is ash, that is, death and fire — meaning punishment and hell, which certainly follows the pleasure of sin as if from behind and is connected to it. The sinner does not look at this; hence imprudent and incautious, when he least expects it, he is seized and burned up by it. Therefore the Syriac translates: Ephraim has become a cake for a child; it has been baked, it has been eaten, as if to say: As soon as it was made and baked, it was also eaten. For thus children eat a cake as soon as it is baked. The Alexandrian Arabic: Ephraim has become like a burnt place, and he himself does not change. The Antiochene Arabic: Ephraim was kindled, not turning back.
Verse 9: 'Strangers (Assyrians) have devoured his strength.' — 'Strength,' that is,...
9. 'Strangers (Assyrians) have devoured his strength.' — 'Strength,' that is, crops and wealth that strengthen him: 'For bread strengthens man's heart,' Psalm 103, verse 15. Mystically, the strangers are demons who, by suggesting desires, enervate the strength of the soul without it noticing. Hence he says: 'And he himself knew it not, thinking his adversaries were friends and considering his devourers to be table companions,' says St. Jerome. So also St. Gregory, book 34 of the Morals, chapter 3. Wherefore St. Bernard rightly, in sermon 2 On Lent, applies this to the Religious who pours out his heart upon external things and thus dissipates and loses his spiritual strength. 'Wretched,' he says, 'is the man who goes wholly into outward things and, ignorant of his own interior, thinking himself to be something when he is nothing, deceives himself. I am poured out like water (says the Psalmist in the person of a man), and all my bones are scattered. And another Prophet says: Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knew it not. For looking at the outward surface, he suspects all is well with him, not feeling the hidden worm that gnaws at his interior. The tonsure remains, the habit has not yet been changed, the rule of fasting is kept, the psalms are chanted at the appointed hours; but his heart is far from Me, says the Lord. Attend carefully to what you love, what you fear, whence you rejoice or grieve — and under the garb of religion you will find a worldly mind, under the rags of conversion a perverse heart.'
'AND GRAY HAIRS ARE SPREAD UPON HIM' (as if to say: Israel is now near to captivity and destruction, just as an old and gray man is near to death; Israel grows gray, grows old, tends toward ruin. It is a catachresis), 'AND HE HIMSELF KNEW IT NOT' — that he was near to destruction, and much less did he know that he was to be destroyed for having abandoned God and for his idols. So St. Jerome. Otherwise Haymo, Hugh, and Lyranus say, as if to say: Israel has reached gray hair, death, and destruction; and so then he began to be wise and to recognize his fault and the cause of his destruction. For no one is so foolish as not to become wise at death. Thus Ptolemy, as is found in the Life prefixed to his Almagest, used to say: 'The ulti-
mate promises of a man's gray hairs are wise, serious, as well as late and final.' But 'and he himself knew it not' does not rightly cohere with this explanation.
Tropologically, St. Jerome, referring these words to heretics and other impious men, says: 'Strangers have devoured, that is, demons, his strength; and gray hairs are spread upon him, indeed they have bloomed, that is, he has erred for a long time, and nevertheless did not know his old age and decrepitude, of which it is written in Hebrews 4: That which grows old and ages is near to destruction. Even though it is said of the just man and of Ecclesiasticus in Wisdom 4: The gray hairs of a man are his wisdom — why should it not be said of the wicked and the heretic: The gray hairs of a man are his folly? Of this old age Daniel said to the elder: You who have grown old in evil days. Hence also in the book of the Shepherd (if anyone cares to accept its reading), the Church first appears to Hermas with a gray head, then as a young woman and bride adorned with hair.'
Therefore blessed Isidore of Pelusium fittingly applies and hurls these words of Hosea against Pelagius the heresiarch, an old man grown old in evil days, when he had already exposed the heresy he had previously concealed and, like Cain wandering, was spreading it through the monasteries of Egypt, writing to him around the year of the Lord 403, book 1, letter 314: 'Gray hairs,' he says, 'are spread upon Ephraim, and he himself knew it not, growing youthful, that is, in corrupt passions. In the same way, a great multitude of years has brought gray hair upon you too, and yet you have a rigid and unbending spirit, migrating from one monastery to another and scrutinizing and exploring the tables of all.'
Verse 10: AND THE PRIDE OF ISRAEL SHALL BE HUMBLED BEFORE HIS FACE
10. 'AND THE PRIDE OF ISRAEL SHALL BE HUMBLED BEFORE HIS FACE.' — In Hebrew: the haughtiness of Israel shall answer to his face, that is, it shall testify against him openly and plainly that he is justly brought low and overthrown on account of his pride. See what was said at chapter 5, verse 7.
Verse 11: AND EPHRAIM HAS BECOME LIKE A SILLY DOVE WITHOUT SENSE
11. 'AND EPHRAIM HAS BECOME LIKE A SILLY DOVE WITHOUT SENSE.' — 'Sense,' that is, mind, judgment, prudence. A similar proverb is found in Suidas: 'A sitting dove;' for this bird, being simple, is easily deceived and caught either by a kite or by a fowler. For 'silly' (seducta) the Hebrew is פתה potha, that is, pliable, easy, seducible; the Septuagint has ἄνοος, that is, foolish, senseless, as Isidore of Pelusium reads in book 4, letter 137; Aquila and Symmachus have 'deceived;' Leo the Hebrew has 'stupid,' meaning one who easily allows herself to be captured and deceived, because she is simple and lacking heart, that is, intelligence and shrewdness; again, lacking heart means lacking a courageous spirit and memory. Hence the Syriac translates: Ephraim has become like a young dove (of small age, and therefore ignorant, inexperienced, and easily seduced, which has no heart, spirit, or strength of spirit); the Alexandrian Arabic: Ephraim has become like foolish birds, and he has no understanding; the Antiochene Arabic: Ephraim has become like a dove having no intellect, nor heart.
For first, since the dove lays eggs and hatches chicks every single month, and sees each one
snatched away. Hence Christ also, Matthew 10:16, admonishes us to join the simplicity of the dove with the prudence of the serpent, and to sharpen and guard the former by the latter — that is, we should be so simple as not to harm others, but also so prudent as not to be caught by the traps of others. For prudence without simplicity is cunning; simplicity without prudence is folly. Hence Prudentius compares Eve, deceived by the serpent, to a dove: 'Eve was a dove so bright, then made dark By the evil-counseling fraud of serpentine poison.'
Moreover, a domestic dove, enticed by the doves of another dovecote and by the whistle of a fowler, enters it voluntarily and allows itself to be captured. Finally, fowlers are accustomed to place a blinded dove in a net, which by hopping about and playing in the net and entangling itself in it, attracts other doves to the same fate. This bird is called by the Greeks παλεύτρια (paleutria), as Suidas attests, from παλεύειν which means to deceive or to lead into a snare. Hence Aristophanes, speaking of doves in his Birds, says: 'And he compels the doves tied in the net to act as decoys.' I saw similar decoy ducks in Belgium, which in lakes and marshes joined themselves to wild ducks and led them into nets, to the great pleasure and profit of their masters. So the Israelites voluntarily ran into snares and fowlers, that is, into the Assyrians and Egyptians, surrendered themselves and their possessions to them, and esteemed their enemies as friends. This is what Hosea explains when he adds: 'They called upon Egypt, they went to the Assyrians. And when they shall have gone, I will spread My net over them, and like the birds of the air I will bring them down.' This was most true of Hosea, the last king of Israel: for although he was a tributary of Shalmaneser, the most powerful king of the Assyrians, he foolishly rebelled, and against him implored the help of So, king of Egypt; wherefore Shalmaneser, enraged, overthrew Samaria together with its king and kingdom, 2 Kings chapter 18, verse 10.
Morally, such are those who do not avoid the occasions of sins, for example the company of young women or of wicked companions, but rather seek them out, whence they plunge into sins and hell. What is more foolish than voluntarily surrendering oneself to the Assyrian, that is, the devil, than voluntarily hurling oneself into eternal ruin? So Theophylact. Truly St. Augustine says, in book 1 of the Confessions, chapter 13: 'What is more wretched than a wretch who does not pity himself?' Wisely St. Ephrem admonishes, in the ode On Those Who Sin Constantly and Rarely Repent, tome 1: 'Flee,' he says, 'the scorpion, whose sting you know: flee the serpent, whose destructiveness you have proven. He who trips over the same stone a second time is blind or out of his mind.'
Thirdly, the dove denotes one who is ungrateful toward a benefactor. For the male, when he has grown stronger, drives out the father from the society of the mother and thus joins himself to her in union, says Horus, Hieroglyphics 54, and Aldrovandus in On the Dove, page 418. So Israel was ungrateful to God, who had deserved so well of him, and drove Him from the throne of his mother, namely the Synagogue, which
he had defiled and polluted with his idolatry. Fourth, the dove is senseless because, as Pliny teaches in book 10, chapter 36, and Sanchez after him, she takes marvelous delight in the variety of her colors; hence, to display these in their feathers and wings, doves with a sort of empty vanity clash and entangle them with one another so that they resound and make a racket. At the noise, hawks are aroused, which fly in and, since the doves cannot fly away with their wings entangled, easily catch them. Thus while they indulge in vainglory and their own beauty, they voluntarily bring death upon themselves. So Israel too, by his pride, boasting of his wealth and the fertility and pleasantness of his land, enticed the Assyrians to invade and capture it. So also today for many, beauty and ostentation are the cause of ruin and destruction. Truly the Poet says: 'But if the crow could feed in silence, he would have more food, and far less quarreling and envy.'
Finally, he compares imprudent Israel to a deceived and foolish dove, because there is also a wise dove, of which it is said: 'Who will give me wings like a dove, and I shall fly and rest? etc., whose feathers are silvered, and the back of whose wings shines with pale gold,' Psalm 55. So St. Jerome.
Symbolically, the heart is the ornament of the breast, and the ornament is the symbol of the heart. For nobles wore a bulla (amulet) on their breast so that, looking at it, they might consider themselves to be human and rational beings, provided they excelled in heart and mind. Again, the heart in arcane speech denotes counsel, says Pierius in Hieroglyphics 34, and conversely the bulla is said by Macrobius to come ἀπό τῆς βουλῆς (apo tes boules), that is, from counsel: therefore both the bulla and the heart are a symbol, monitor, and indicator of counsel. Hence Solomon prays in 3 Kings 3:9: 'Give your servant a docile heart,' that is, one that is wise and full of counsel, 'that he may judge Your people.' On the contrary, princes and subjects who govern or are governed without reason and counsel lack heart — who do not consider what they choose, what they do, what end the matter will have, or into what difficulties and troubles they cast themselves; but rashly, at the bait of pleasure, wealth, or honors set before them, they seize it at the cost of life, position, and soul. So Jeremiah says to the Jews, chapter 5, verse 21: 'Hear, O foolish people, who have no heart.' And the Wise Man, Proverbs chapter 6, verse 32: 'But the adulterer, for want of heart, shall destroy his soul.' And chapter 11, verse 12: 'He who despises his friend is wanting in heart.' And chapter 10, verse 13: 'A rod for the back of him who is wanting in heart.' So Plautus says of a woman: 'Whose breast might have sense, for her heart cannot,' because she has none. So Tertullian, book 4, chapter 10 Against Marcion, says he has neither heart nor brain.
Therefore the sinner who foolishly and imprudently pursues and embraces small things over great, perishable things over solid, momentary things over eternal, seems not to have a heart — because Wealth, Venus, Pride, etc., have snatched it from him. Illustrious literal examples are at hand. Gabriel Inchino, Canon of the Lateran Church, relates from Prosper, in sermon 1 On Purity of Heart, a remarkable thing about a rich miser: when he had died, his heirs opened his body and, examining each part, did not find a heart. Searching for it everywhere, they finally found it hidden and buried in a heap of his gold coins; indeed, they saw a demon in the form of a dragon sitting upon the heart and tearing it apart, and they heard him saying to them: 'This gold and silver is the price of the heart which your friend sold to me, and therefore it is rightfully mine, and I can use it as I please.' Similar is what we read in the Life of St. Anthony of Padua: for when he was delivering the funeral oration at the funeral of a certain rich miser and was pressing the words of Christ: 'Where your treasure is, there is your heart also,' seized by inspiration he said: Look at the dead man's treasure, and you will see how true this saying of Christ is — there you will find the rich man's heart. Therefore they sought it there, and found it.
St. Bernard teaches elegantly and with forceful words, in his book On the Nature and Dignity of Love, chapter 1, that the impious and carnal do not have a human heart, and that it has flowed down into their belly and been changed into something bestial. For applying to them that passage of Psalm 21: 'My heart has become like wax melting in the midst of my belly,' he adds: 'In the narrow part of the body the heart is situated, where, as if occupying the middle ground, it might govern and administer the citadel of the higher senses above and the lower body below, like a humbler people, as a sort of commonwealth, and the entire surrounding region of thoughts and actions. But melting at the fire of carnal concupiscence with a degenerate softness, it has entirely flowed down into the belly and into the midst of the belly — namely, having no taste except for the things of the belly, and from the belly confounding all things into the lower parts of the belly, degenerating everything, adulterating everything, perverting the natural affection of love into a kind of brutish appetite of the flesh — not only desiring what is unlawful with insults to the body in passions of shame, but so forgetful of its ancient nobility that he who was created for God alone is by his corruptors and those corrupted estimated to be rather the natural dwelling place of lust and the brothel of all vices. Wretched are those who, with nature protesting, have so debased themselves that they have made the place of the soul, which properly belonged to God the Creator and could be shared with no creature, the seat of Satan, the seat of filth and all uncleanness.'
11 and 12. 'THEY CALLED UPON EGYPT, THEY WENT TO THE ASSYRIANS' (as if to say: The Israelites are accustomed to call upon the help now of the Egyptians, now of the Assyrians. Hence soon, according to custom, they will call upon it again): 'AND WHEN THEY SHALL HAVE GONE, I WILL SPREAD MY NET OVER THEM,' so that they may be caught as in a net by the very Assyrians from whom they hoped for help, as is clear from 2 Kings 15:29 and chapter 17:24. So Theodoret: he calls the army of the Assyrians a net. Hence secondly, as if to say: When Hosea seeks the help of So, king
of Egypt shall call, 'they went,' that is, the Israelites will go and be led captive 'to the Assyrians.' So St. Jerome. But in this way 'they went' does not correspond to 'when they shall have gone, I will spread My net over them.' For in this sense the net was spread by God before they went and set out for Assyria, because by this net they were caught and led away.
Tropologically, those call upon Egyptians and Assyrians who seek not the favor of God but of men, who flatter them and give them gifts in order to obtain the prebend or position to which they aspire; but God spreads His net over them — namely, disgust, troubles, jealousies, ignominies, diseases, death, etc., by which they are ensnared, and live and waste away miserably.
'LIKE THE BIRDS OF THE AIR I WILL BRING THEM DOWN,' as if to say: I will bring down the Israelites from the lofty and strongly fortified city of Samaria (for this was built on Mount Shemer, and hence was called Samaria, 2 Kings 16:24), which I will give to the Assyrians to be stormed and devastated, just as birds are brought down from the highest trees by the skill of fowlers — that is, by hawks sent against them — captured and killed.
'According to the report,' as if to say: Just as Israel formerly heard and was warned by Moses, Deuteronomy chapter 27 and chapter 28, that he would be punished by God if he turned away from Him to the gods of the nations, so now he will be punished and struck by Him. So Vatablus, Clarius, and a Castro. Others explain differently, as if to say: Just as their whole assembly was heard calling out and demanding the help of their gods and of the nations, so likewise I will strike and punish them all. So St. Jerome, Haymo, Hugh, and Lyranus.
Verse 13: 'I redeemed them' (I freed them both from Egypt and from other enemies, namely...
13. 'I redeemed them' (I freed them both from Egypt and from other enemies, namely the Midianites through Gideon, the Philistines through Samson, the Ammonites through Jephthah, etc.): 'AND THEY HAVE SPOKEN LIES AGAINST ME,' as if to say: Yet they falsely ascribed this redemption not to Me but either to idols or to other nations; they lied that the gods of the nations had saved them, not I. So St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Theodoret, Cyril, Vatablus, and others. Thus the Hebrews, brought out of Egypt, when Moses was absent and was receiving the law from God on Sinai, made for themselves a calf, namely Apis, and acclaimed it: 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,' Exodus 32:8.
'THEY HOWLED,' as if to say: The Israelites howled in their miseries and afflictions, namely for lack of wheat and wine, from hunger, thirst, etc., knowing nothing else but to groan and weep, nor remembering at that time that My help should be implored. So Arias, Ribera, and a Castro. Secondly, St. Jerome, Theophylact, Hugh, and others say, as if to say: They howled after the manner of the Gentile Bacchantes or madmen, who with howling and horrible clamors demand the help of the gods, thinking that by these they will strike and pierce the ears of the gods, as happens among men.
Verse 14: OVER WHEAT AND WINE THEY CHEWED THE CUD
14. 'OVER WHEAT AND WINE THEY CHEWED THE CUD.' — He does not say 'they ate,' but 'they chewed the cud,' to show them to be like beasts, says St. Jerome, which do nothing other than eat and ruminate, that is, bring food already eaten back into the mouth and chew it again, and thus continually send and send back food from the mouth to the stomach and from the stomach to the mouth, as if to say: They think of nothing else, they dream of nothing else, than food and the belly and how to obtain it. For this they weep, for this they howl, saying with their fathers: 'Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for free; cucumbers and melons come to our mind,' Numbers 11:4. For the rest, they do not think of from whom to seek these things; or if they are given them, to whom they ought to give thanks, because 'they have departed from Me.' Hence they attribute all things to fortune or to their gods, not to My providence. So Vatablus, Clarius, and Arias.
Otherwise St. Jerome and the Chaldean say, as if to say: From the abundance of wheat and wine, which they ruminate like beasts, they kicked and departed from Me. But because they were howling from hunger, they were laboring rather from scarcity than from abundance. For 'they chewed the cud' the Hebrew is יתגררו iitgoraru, which more recent scholars also translate as 'they gathered, they assembled themselves;' but the Septuagint has 'they cut themselves,' namely with knives to placate the gods, so that they might obtain wheat and wine from them. For thus the priests of Baal did to bring down fire from heaven, 3 Kings 18:28. So Cyril and Theophylact, who adds: They mutilated themselves so as to minister more holily to the gods, as did the worshippers of Rhea the Mother. Our translator very aptly rendered it 'they chewed the cud,' because this rightly signifies the gluttony of the Hebrews, on account of which they used to murmur and howl; and iitgorara properly signifies this. For גרון garon means throat; hence גרר gorer is the same as gargarize, to soothe or wash out the throat, just as Philoxenus, as Aristotle attests in the Ethics, wished he had the throat of a crane so that he might feel the pleasure and delight of food and drink longer. And Alciatus gives this emblem of the glutton: 'With the gullet of a crane, a man is depicted with swollen belly, Who carries a heron or a pelican in his hands.' So Forster, Marinus, and the Hebrews generally in their lexicons teach that גרה ghera means pre-chewed food which an animal draws up from below and chews again, as if you were to say, 'things to be drawn up,' or the cud; for the root gor, or gorer, or gara means to draw, to attract — which in the stomach and mouth of beasts means to ruminate — and from it is derived garon and גרגרות garghera, that is, throat, gullet, because food as well as breath is drawn and drawn back through the throat, like a saw, which accordingly from the same root, from its continuous drawing and drawing back, is called in Hebrew
מגרוד meghera, as if you were to say, a sled: for to gluttons the earth, like a clock, is their gullet and belly.
15. 'And I taught them' (I taught them the law and the way of salvation through Moses. Secondly, 'I taught,' that is, I reproved and chastised their evil ways through the Prophets: for this is what the Hebrew יסרתי iitsarti means. So Leo the Hebrew. Thirdly, Arias says: 'I taught,' that is, like a physician, I gave and bestowed upon them wholesome counsel and remedies. Fourthly, 'I taught' them for war, that is, I girded and armed them with the sword, says Vatablus; for there follows): 'AND I STRENGTHENED THEIR ARMS,' that they might conquer their enemies. So David says in Psalm 143, verse 1: 'Who teaches my hands to fight and my fingers to wage war.' Therefore I taught them and strengthened them in so many and such great ways; 'AND' (that is, but they) 'DEVISED EVIL AGAINST ME,' to rebel against Me and to follow and worship the gods of the nations.
Verse 16: 'THEY RETURNED' (to their former character and their depraved nature and...
16. 'THEY RETURNED' (to their former character and their depraved nature and morals) 'TO BE WITHOUT A YOKE,' that is, to be sons of Belial, unbridled, lawless, rebels who shake off every yoke of the law and of God like an untamed heifer. Hence the Chaldean translates: They turned away so as to fall from the law. The translator reads with the Chaldean לל ol, that is, 'yoke'; others now read על al, which the Rabbis, Vatablus, Pagninus, and Clarius translate as 'the Most High,' from the root עלה ala, that is, 'he ascended on high.' They translate therefore: They return, but not to the Most High, but to the golden calves. He seems to be noting Jehu, who, having overthrown Baal and seeming about to worship the true God, soon returned to his vomit and again restored the worship of the calves which Jeroboam had erected. The Septuagint translates: They returned to vanity, that is, to idols. Tropologically, to the vain wealth and honors of the world. Allegorically, Christ taught the Jews; but they, turned away from Him, shook off His law and pierced Him with the arrows of their tongue, crying: 'Crucify, crucify Him.' So Leo Castrius, following Cyril.
'THEY BECAME LIKE A DECEITFUL BOW.' — Which, namely, although it seems to shoot and hurl its arrow in one direction, the one in which it is aimed by the archer, diverts it and bends and turns it back in another direction, indeed upon the very archer himself — either of itself, or because it aims and shoots at hard or strong material which causes the arrow to bounce back upon the shooter, as happened to the soldiers of the tyrant Eugenius fighting against the Emperor Theodosius, which miracle Claudian thus celebrates in his Panegyric: 'On your account the North Wind from the frozen mountain buried the opposing ranks with storms, and turned the deflected weapons back upon their authors, and drove back their spears with a whirlwind.' In the same way Israel and Jehu, when directed by Me toward the destruction of Baal and idols, turned back against Me, destroyed My worship, and set up altars to the calves, and defended them with his bow. Properly, a 'deceitful bow,' or a perverse, twisted, and crooked one, is one that while shooting suddenly turns elsewhere (either because of an inconsistent archer, or because of the construction of the bow, or by chance, or because of a defect in the bow) rather than in the direction in which it is aimed and pointed, and thus the discharged arrow strikes another person or even the unsuspecting archer himself. Hence the Illyrian version of Psalm 77, verse 57, has: they turned themselves into an inverted bow, such bows as are made by craft, in which the semicircle with the arrow is reflected in the opposite direction by a slight movement of the iron, and pierces the unsuspecting shooter. Thus Fenelia killed Kemethus, King of the Scots, by offering him a golden apple so craftily made that whoever touched it would immediately be pierced by many darts springing from the apple, as Cardanus narrates in book 12 of On the Variety of Things, chapter 56.
'A deceitful bow,' says St. Jerome, 'is one that strikes the one directing it and wounds its master.' So Israel, who should have armed himself against the nations and their gods, was armed against himself and his own God. For he who offends God harms himself. Hence tropologically St. Gregory, book 27 of the Morals, chapter 27: An arrogant teacher, he says, is turned into a perverse bow, because while he speaks words against pride, he plants the arrows in himself, just as a perverse bow strikes the very one who draws it — which is commonly called 'piercing the eyes of crows.' St. Cyril adds: God, he says, bent Israel — fighting against the tyranny of the devil — as His own bow against idolatry, which had occupied the entire world; but they turned to the contrary, namely to the insult and contempt of God, says Rufinus. He alludes to Psalm 77, verse 9: 'The sons of Ephraim bending and shooting the bow were turned back on the day of battle;' and to the bow of Jehu, by which he deceitfully killed Joram, king of Israel, who was crying out: 'Treachery, O Ahaziah!' 2 Kings 9:23.
Again, Israel is a deceitful bow because he sends the arrows of his trust and prayer elsewhere, namely to idols, abandoning Me, to whom he ought to have sent them, says a Castro. Secondly, a deceitful bow is one that seems taut and ready to shoot when it is actually slack and useless. Hence Theodoret reads from the Septuagint: They became like a bow not taut but slack, which inflicts no harm on enemies — although the true reading of the Septuagint version is the opposite, namely: They became like a bow stretched tight. Which St. Jerome thus explains tropologically of heretics: 'Because,' he says, 'they are always ready for fights and contentions to the destruction of their hearers.' The same are a deceitful bow, as our version has, 'because, like their patriarchs the Jews, instructed in the Sacred Scriptures, they turn the words of the law and the Prophets and the Gospel against the Lord;' for they corrupt the Scriptures and with them attack God their author and His very faith and truth. To these rightly applies Psalm 77, verse 57: 'They were turned into a perverse bow.' Where St. Augustine says: 'A perverse bow does not
for the name of the Lord, but against the name of the Lord, according to that saying: You shall have no other gods before Me. And by the bow he signifies the intention of the mind.'
Hence tropologically, those are a perverse or deceitful bow who direct toward creatures the intention they ought to have directed toward God — for example, those who direct fasting, prayers, and alms, which they ought to have directed to the honor of God, toward popular acclaim instead. So Guadalupensis.
Again, those are a deceitful bow who through monstrous ingratitude abuse their wealth and power against those by whose help they obtained them — as Claudian narrates of Eutropius and Abundantius, book 1 Against Eutropius. So Delrio, proverb 949. Thus the slanderer strikes God with the tongue which He gave for His own praise. Thus the murderer as it were strikes God the giver with his hand when he kills God's image, namely a man. Thus everyone who sins, whether by his genius, his eloquence, his wealth, or other gifts of nature or fortune given by God, fights against God on behalf of the devil.
'THEIR PRINCES' (of the Israelites) 'SHALL FALL BY THE SWORD' (of the Assyrians) 'FOR THE FURY OF THEIR TONGUE.' — Because, namely, with their insane tongue raging and indignant, they vomited forth blasphemies against Me, contending for their idols, when they sought help from them against enemies, despising Me. So St. Jerome, Haymo, Albert, Hugh, and Lyranus. Hence the Chaldean translates: On account of the depravity of their tongue. The Septuagint: on account of the ignorance (that is, stupidity) of their tongue, by which they say to wood: 'You are my god,' and to stone: 'You begot me,' says Cyril. Otherwise Vatablus and Arias take it as the fury of God, as if to say: They shall fall because by their cursing tongue they provoked the fury of God, who will destroy them.
'THIS IS THEIR DERISION IN THE LAND OF EGYPT,' as if to say: This is their ancient custom, this their inherited character; for thus they mocked and scorned Me when they dwelt in Egypt, worshipping Apis. Hence the Chaldean translates: These are their works while they were in the land of Egypt. So St. Jerome, Theophylact, Albert, and Hugh. Otherwise Clarius and Vatablus understand 'derision' passively, as if to say: They will be laughed at by the Egyptians when they seek help from them; for they will say: Go to the Lord your God, go to your Assyrians, let them help you. Or, as Lyranus says, they will be laughed at by God Himself, according to Psalm 2, verse 4: 'He who dwells in heaven shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall mock them.'