Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
God threatens Israel with destruction because, without consulting Him, they created Jeroboam and his successors as kings, and with them worshipped golden calves. Whence He says: They shall sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. Second, He reproves them for seeking the friendship of the Assyrians and purchasing it with tribute; and therefore He predicts that they will be destroyed by those very people, with their cities and shrines likewise destroyed, which both Judah and Israel had magnificently built. Note: He compares Israel and its works and idols: first, in verse 6, to spider webs; second, in verse 7, to wind and whirlwind, and a vanishing stalk; third, in verse 8, to an unclean vessel, that is, a chamber pot; fourth, in verse 9, to a wild donkey.
First, the Prophet is stirred up to announce evils to Israel, which: first, are proven just on account of the law violated by the Israelites, 1; second, are contested by them with the objection of their faith, 2; third, are confirmed by the repetition of guilt and indication of punishment, 3; fourth, are specified as to the offenses committed, namely the creation of kings and princes done without consulting God, 4; fifth, the worship of golden calves begun, continued, and long-established, 4-6.
Second, the plagues sent in consequence are enumerated: first, fruitless or plundered harvest, 7; second, ignominious contempt among neighboring nations, whose help and friendship
Vulgate Text: Hosea 8:1-14
1. Let the trumpet be in your throat, like an eagle over the house of the Lord: because they have transgressed My covenant and violated My law. 2. They shall call upon Me: My God, we have known You, Israel. 3. Israel has cast away the good; the enemy shall pursue him. 4. They themselves reigned, and not from Me; princes arose, and I did not know them; from their silver and their gold they made idols for themselves, so that they might perish. 5. Your calf has been cast away, O Samaria; My fury is kindled against them. How long will they be unable to be cleansed? 6. For it too is from Israel: an artisan made it, and it is not God; for the calf of Samaria shall become spider webs. 7. For they shall sow the wind and reap the whirlwind: there is no standing stalk in it; the sprout shall not produce flour; and even if it should, strangers shall eat it. 8. Israel has been devoured: now it has become among the nations like an unclean vessel. 9. For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild donkey alone by itself: Ephraim has given gifts to lovers. 10. But even though they have hired nations with a price, now I will gather them: and they shall rest a little while from the burden of king and princes. 11. Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, the altars have become an occasion of sin for him. 12. I shall write for him My manifold laws, which have been regarded as foreign. 13. They shall offer sacrificial victims, they shall immolate flesh and eat it, and the Lord shall not accept them: now He will remember their iniquity and visit their sins: they themselves shall return to Egypt. 14. And Israel has forgotten his Maker and built shrines: and Judah has multiplied fortified cities: and I will send fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his buildings.
Verse 1: IN YOUR THROAT
1. IN YOUR THROAT -- that is to say: Put the trumpet to your mouth, or rather with the loudest voice and trumpet-like cry, as if you had a trumpet in your throat, proclaim and declare what follows, namely: The enemy shall come "like an eagle over the house of the Lord." Thus in Isaiah LVIII, 1, God says and commands: "Cry out, do not cease; like a trumpet lift up your voice." The Septuagint translates: In their bosom like earth. St. Jerome confesses he does not know why they translated it thus, for there is nothing like it in the Hebrew. I suspect that instead of שפר scophar, that is, trumpet, they read עפר aphar, that is, dust of the earth; and instead of חכך chickecha, that is, in your throat, they read חיקך chekecha, that is, in your bosom.
Theodoret refers this to the end of the preceding chapter, in this sense: That mockery shall rebound upon their own bosom; for they shall become like impassable land; for the enemy shall come like an eagle. Moreover, Theodoret, mixing the version of Theodotion with the Septuagint version, reads: like earth in the way, like a trumpet; the Syriac translates: Let your thunder be like a trumpet, and like an eagle over the house of the Lord; the Arabic: And it was in their openings like earth, and like eagles in the house of the Lord.
LIKE AN EAGLE OVER THE HOUSE OF THE LORD. -- Understand: the enemy shall come, shall fly, shall swoop. For he compares him to an eagle, which, raised on high, swoops down suddenly like a missile upon its prey -- namely upon lambs, goats, and hares. By the eagle many understand Nebuchadnezzar; for he devastated and burned the house of the Lord, that is, the temple, and the same is compared to an eagle by Ezekiel, chapter XVII, 3, Jeremiah, chapter XLVIII, 40, and Habakkuk, chapter I, 8. So say St. Cyril, Theodoret, Jerome, Theophylactus, Albert, Hugh, Lyranus, Vatablus, and Ribera. But Nebuchadnezzar overthrew the kingdom of Judah, not Israel, which is continually being discussed here.
Second, Arias takes it as Sennacherib, who after the Israelites were destroyed invaded Jerusalem and the temple. Others take it as Shalmaneser, who overthrew "the house of the Lord," that is, Israel, which was the people whom the Lord inhabited.
Third, a Castro explains it here, as if to say: Shalmaneser shall come with such forces and spirit that he will seem about to destroy not only Samaria but also Jerusalem and the temple; whence from the Hebrew you may translate: Like an eagle even to the house of the Lord, that is, he shall come even to Judah and the temple, but since God still spares the Judahites and the temple and turns him away from them, he will not actually invade Judah and the temple.
Finally, some understand by the house of the Lord the shrine of the calves: for the idolaters called this the house, that is, the temple of the Lord.
Fourth and best, joining the first exposition with the second, by the eagle understand the enemy in general, both the Chaldean and the Assyrian -- namely Nebuchadnezzar, who overthrew Judah and the temple, and Shalmaneser, who overthrew Israel. For the Prophet speaks briefly, confusedly, and concisely, and from time to time mixes Judah with Israel, and threatens both with enemies and destruction; though he more frequently prophesies against Israel, as he presently returns to it here. For the destruction of Israel was prior, near, and related -- a kind of prelude to the destruction of Judah -- because both the Judahites and the Israelites transgressed the covenant and law of God, as follows.
Moreover, the house of the Lord is here called the temple, which from its origin and God's institution was common to Judah and Israel; hence symbolically both Israel and Judah were the house of the Lord: because God dwelt in both peoples chosen by Him through His worship and temple. Thus in Jeremiah XII, 7, it is said: "I have forsaken My house; I have abandoned My inheritance;"
they sought, 8-10; third, the harm born both from evils, namely idolatrous altars erected, and from goods, namely laws given by God but despised, 11, 12; fourth, God's turning away from sacrifices and turning toward punishing the sins of the Israelites, 13; fifth, the devastation of both kingdoms decreed, 14.
that is, I have forsaken Judea. And chapter XI, 15: "What is it that My beloved has done many crimes in My house (in the holy land)?" Thus throughout the Prophets, the people of God are called the house of Jacob, the house of Israel, the house of Judah. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The Assyrian and Chaldean enemy shall come with great force, ferocity, and speed, swooping like an eagle upon its prey, to plunder the house of the Lord, that is, the holy land of both the two and the ten tribes, and indeed to burn God's own temple. Why the Chaldeans are compared to an eagle, I have explained in Ezekiel XVII, 3.
Fifth and best, the whole verse can be connected (as it is often connected in the Bible without a middle punctuation) and explained thus: "Let the trumpet be in your throat like an eagle:" that is, sound and raise your voice "over the house of the Lord." For the cry is said to be properly the voice of eagles. Whence the author of the Philomela says: While eagles cry, the vulture is known to caw.
And Homer in the Iliad: "and she herself (the eagle) flew crying on the gusts of wind." Some have called the eagle's voice a reverberation, because of the heavy noise so hostile and terrible to birds of other species, especially harmful ones, that it is said to slow their movement and stun them -- fitting indeed for the royal bird; indeed the serpent itself, hearing the eagle's cry, stricken with terror, is said to hide immediately in its lair. But this is true only of the degenerate eagle, which they call the vulturine eagle or sub-eagle. For the true eagle, so far from uttering any voice or singing, is considered by naturalists to be nearly mute, or barely vocal, and this from greatness of soul, by which, superior to hunger and thirst, it knows how to govern and moderate the feelings and desires of the soul: for voices of this kind usually indicate feelings of an intemperate and powerless soul, namely want, or desire, or fear, or joy. So Aldrovandus from Pliny and Aelian, in his work on the Eagle, page 33.
Moreover, Aristotle, in Book IX of the History of Animals, chapter XXXII, thinks that the melanatus, or dark eagle, which he calls generous and free from envy, does not cry or murmur because, being modest and not at all petulant, it can moderate and restrain its feelings better than the others. This sense seems plain and fitting. For the Prophet is commanded to cry out like a trumpet in the manner of an eagle, to represent the blare of the trumpets of the Chaldeans and Assyrians, who like fierce eagles will swoop down upon Samaria, Judea, and the temple.
Whence John seems to allude to this, Apocalypse VIII, 23: "And I saw and heard the voice of one eagle flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice: Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth!" For this eagle will be the Prophet, foretelling the calamities threatening the world in the time of Antichrist, just as Hosea here foretells the disasters impending over Israel: see the commentary on Apocalypse VIII. Moreover, in Scripture the sub-eagle is not rarely called an eagle, as in Matthew XXIV, 28: "Wherever the body (carcass) shall be, there also shall the eagles be gathered,"
namely vulturine eagles, or sub-eagles; for the true eagle, being noble, does not seek carrion but living prey, and eats only what it has killed itself, as Aristotle, Pliny, and other naturalists attest. Allegorically, Leo Castrius says: The eagle signifies the army and standards of Titus and the Romans; for on these they carried eagles -- as if to say: The Romans will devastate Jerusalem and the temple, and in it will place their standards, namely their eagles, because the Jews killed Christ.
Verse 2: THEY SHALL CALL UPON ME (when they perceive destruction threatening them, and...
2. THEY SHALL CALL UPON ME (when they perceive destruction threatening them, and shall say): MY GOD, WE HAVE KNOWN YOU, ISRAEL -- that is to say: We who are Israel, that is, of Israel, namely the children and heirs of Jacob the patriarch, call upon Your help: because we have known and worshipped You, O our God; for You imparted to us the knowledge and worship of Yourself through Moses and our fathers. Lactantius rightly says, Book I, chapter 1: "There is no sweeter food for the soul than the knowledge of truth" -- especially of the first uncreated Truth. He says "my" in the singular for "our," because he looks to the name Israel, which is likewise singular in form but plural in meaning: for it signifies the whole people. Hence he says "they shall call" in the plural.
Here from the whole assembly of the Hebrews, both the two and the ten tribes, Hosea descends and leaps to one part of it, namely to Israel, that is, the ten tribes; for against these he principally prophesies, because they initiated the idolatry and schism at that very time when Hosea lived and preached these things; whereas the two tribes turned to idols after Hosea's death, under kings Ahaz and Manasseh.
So say St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, Haymo, Hugh, Ribera, and others. The Chaldean translates: At every time when I bring distress upon them, they were before Me saying: Now we certainly know that there is no God for us besides You: redeem us, for we are Your people Israel. But in vain will they cry out and call upon Me; he adds the reason, saying:
Verse 3: ISRAEL HAS CAST AWAY (for) THE GOOD -- namely God, and His faith and religion....
3. ISRAEL HAS CAST AWAY (for) THE GOOD -- namely God, and His faith and religion. For God is every good, both His own and ours, so that each of us should rightly say with St. Francis: "My God, my love, and my all." Second, "Israel has cast away the good" of virtue and piety, as well as of My divinity. Therefore I likewise will cast him away and reject him from Me, and once this is done, "the enemy shall pursue him." He adds the first cause and source of evil, saying:
Verse 4: THEY THEMSELVES REIGNED, AND NOT FROM ME
4. THEY THEMSELVES REIGNED, AND NOT FROM ME. -- First, the people are here reproved for having created their own kings without consulting God, and schismatic ones at that: whence they immediately defected with them from God to the idols of the calves, and made a schism from the faith as well as from the house of David, III Kings XII. So say St. Jerome, Theophylactus, and Theodoret. Note here: For "reigned," the Hebrew and Chaldean is המליכו himlichu, that is, they made to reign, they set up kings for themselves. Wherefore Origen, homily 4 on the Book of Judges, and Cyprian, epistle 55, read: They set up a king for themselves, and
not through me; a prince, and not through my counsel; the Chaldean says more clearly: They created a king for themselves, and not by my decision; they set up princes for themselves, but not by my will. Moreover, Origen and St. Jerome think that Saul is reproved here, when the people asked Samuel for a king. For then God said to Samuel: "They have not rejected you, but Me, lest I reign over them." But this event was already obsolete and had been corrected through David, whom God Himself substituted for Saul and commanded to be anointed king by Samuel: nor was Saul the cause of schism and idolatry, but rather he kept both Judah and Israel in the worship of the one God.
Better therefore do the same St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, Haymo, Lyranus, Hugh, and Ribera, with the Rabbis, judge that Jeroboam is reproved here; for he was created king by Israel and made a schism both from Rehoboam and the line of David, and from God, His worship, and His temple, by erecting golden calves in Dan and Bethel.
You will say: Jeroboam was designated king by God through the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite. For when the garment was torn into twelve pieces, Ahijah said to him: "Take ten pieces for yourself. For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon, and I will give you ten tribes." Wherefore Abulensis, on III Kings XII, Questions VIII and IX, judges that the ten tribes lawfully made the schism from Rehoboam and chose Jeroboam as king. His reason is: Because, he says, those tribes were free and the people were free; but Rehoboam wanted to reduce them to servitude and rule them as a tyrant, not as a king: therefore they could withdraw from him and create a new king for themselves. For the people or the commonwealth gave the empire over itself to princes and kings -- that is, the power and right of governing the people -- but under certain just conditions: whence they can also take it away from them, or di-
minish it, if they abuse it and become tyrants. For the people did not give themselves absolutely to the king, as one gives gold or a horse to a friend, so as to transfer all his right to him and never be able to revoke it; but with certain pacts intervening, among which the first is that he be justly governed by him, and that he be defended against enemies by him; and if the king neglects or violates this, the people can revoke the power they gave him and depose him from the kingdom. So says Abulensis.
For the response, note: There are two opinions about Jeroboam, both probable. The former asserts that he was created king both by God and by the people; the latter judges that he was created by the people alone, not by God.
First, therefore, Pineda, Book II, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter II, responds thus: Jeroboam, he says, received from God the right of kingship over the ten tribes through the ministry of the prophet Ahijah, who said in III Kings XI, 37: "But I will take you, and you shall reign over all that your soul desires, and you shall be king over Israel." But afterward by the votes of the people he did not so much receive the right of kingship as its possession, III Kings XII, 20: "When--
all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembled congregation; and they made him king over all Israel." This pertains not so much to the right of kingship as to a certain solemnity of inaugurating the king and exercising the royal office. For this reason Origen, Cyprian, Theophylactus, and Theodoret teach that this passage in Hosea VIII, 4 should be understood thus: "They themselves reigned, and not from Me," that is, without consulting Me, by their own whim and the rashness of their desire they made Jeroboam king. For God complains not about Jeroboam himself, to whom the right of kingship had been divinely conferred; but about the ten tribes, who, led more by anger and impatience of soul than by any suitable reason, had defected from the house of David and allowed themselves to be governed by another king. Hence in the Hebrew, for "reigned," it is המליכו himlichu, that is, they made to reign, they created a king. So says he.
Others on the contrary, and perhaps more probably, judge that Jeroboam was created king not by God but by the people, and that God merely predicted this, III Kings chapter XI, 37; for those words: "You shall reign and shall be king" are only a prediction and promise of the kingdom, not its bestowal and the creation of a king: of a kingdom, I say, to be given by the people through their schism and defection from Rehoboam, which however God intended to permit and not prevent, because through it He wished to punish the idolatry of Solomon, as He Himself had foretold to him in III Kings XI, 11. Therefore what He says: "But I will take you" is the same as: But I will cause you to be taken up; thus I will dispose the minds of the people and all affairs, and direct them by My providence, so that you, and not another, will be taken up as king. The same, nothing else nor more, God signifies when He says in III Kings XII, 24: "From Me this word has come to pass," namely the schism of Israel, by which they created a new king for themselves--
This opinion is clearly favored by our version here, which reads: "They themselves (namely Jeroboam and his successors, the kings of Israel) reigned, and not from Me." For the Hebrew himlichu means both "they reigned" and "they made to reign": for it is often taken in the kal signification, although it is hiphil. The history in the book of III Kings also supports this; for since in chapter XI the Lord merely predicted and promised the kingdom to be given to Jeroboam through the people, and nowhere actually anointed or created him king, but in chapter XII, the people alone, making a schism from Rehoboam by themselves without consulting God, made him king; it clearly seems that he was created king by the people alone, not by God. But the people sinned in creating him king, because they did it rashly, without the counsel and consent of God. For in so grave a matter they ought to have consulted God according to ancient custom through the High Priest or through a Prophet. For God had instituted the kingdom of the Hebrews through Samuel and had willed it to be one, not two: for the Hebrews were the people and kingdom of God. And therefore this kingdom was not merely human, as is that of other nations, but also spiritual and divine. The Israelites therefore sinned who, without consulting God, changed this kingdom--
and made it merely human, and divided it, and created for themselves a new king. Thus the people and clergy would sin if they were to depose the Pontiff, even one ruling tyrannically: for the Pontiff receives authority and power from God, not from the Church, and therefore can be deposed by God alone. Jeroboam also sinned: because although he knew that the kingdom had been predicted and promised to him by God, nevertheless he entered upon it without God, and was not anointed by the High Priest or a Prophet, but, created by the voices and acclamations of the tumultuous people alone, he accepted and usurped it. It was different with Jehu, who, the schism having already been made and the kingdom of Israel already established, was created and anointed king by God through a Prophet, IV Kings IX, 6.
Therefore what God says to Jeroboam through Ahijah, III Kings XI, 31: "I will tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon, and I will give you ten tribes" -- understand not actively through Me, but objectively and permissively through Israel, that is, through the people. For I will set before their eyes and minds the imprudent and tyrannical response and government of Rehoboam, from which it will happen that the people, turning away from him, will turn to Jeroboam and create him king: which I will permit in order to punish the sins of both Solomon and Rehoboam. Therefore just as Christ says that because of men's malice and weakness it is necessary for scandals to come, yet woe to that man through whom the scandal comes! so given the harshness of Rehoboam and the people's aversion to him, it was as it were necessary that another, namely Jeroboam, be created king by the people: yet woe to him who was the cause and occasion of this creation! For it was done while God was angry and therefore unwilling; hence the Israelites are not recorded as having consulted God, nor did they create a king from His oracle or direction, but by their own and rash impulse they suddenly created a king for themselves. So say St. Jerome, Theodoret, Cyril, Vatablus, Ribera, a Castro, and others.
God therefore predicted to Ahijah and Jeroboam that he would become king through a tumult of the people, but He Himself did not by His own act constitute him king. And so God here reproves first the people, for having divided the one kingdom of David established by Him into two without His consent, and for having made a schism from him and erected a new scepter and kingdom for themselves by creating Jeroboam as their king -- especially because through this schism He foresaw that he would introduce a schism in faith and idolatry. And so the people sinned against a right not human but divine, and consequently against religion, not against justice. God therefore rightly complains that the kings in Israel did not reign from Him, as the kings of Judah reigned; because He Himself did not institute the kingdom of Israel, as He instituted the kingdom and kings of Judah.
Second, He reproves the very kings of Israel, for having reigned not from God but from themselves: because some of them tyrannically seized the kingdom, such as Zimri, Omri, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, and Hoshea, under whom Hosea prophesied these things, IV Kings XV and following. Others, such as Jeroboam, Jehu, etc., although they seemed designated or chosen by God, nevertheless entered upon the kingdom not so much from divine authority and will as from their own desire and lust for reigning--
they entered upon it: whence they immediately defected to idols, as follows. Wherefore the Septuagint translates: From themselves they reigned, and not from Me; princes arose, and they did not inform Me. Finally, they reigned, that is, they administered the kingdom, not from Me, that is, not according to My law and will, but according to their own tyranny and impiety, especially because by their laws and edicts they sanctioned idolatry. So says Sanchez.
Tropologically, it is easy to apply this to tyrants who either invade a kingdom or administer one legitimately obtained in a tyrannical manner, especially those who introduce heresy, schism, and sacrilege into the kingdom; and likewise to those who seek rule and government from ambition rather than virtue, and seize principality or prelacy, against whom St. Gregory says, Part I of the Pastoral Rule, chapter 1: "The Lord complains through the Prophet saying: They themselves reigned, and not from Me; princes arose, and I did not know them. For they reign from themselves, and not from the decision of the supreme Ruler, who, supported by no virtues and not at all divinely called, but inflamed by their own desire, receive rather than attain the summit of governance. Yet the interior Judge both promotes and does not know them; because those whom He tolerates by permitting, He assuredly does not know by the judgment of reprobation."
And St. Bernard, On Conversion, to Clerics, chapter XXVII, reproving clerics who seek prelacies: "You take, he says, and do not receive the keys. About whom the Lord complains through the Prophet: They themselves reigned, and not from Me; princes arose, and I did not call them. Whence such burning desire for prelacy, whence such impudence of ambition, whence such madness of human presumption? Would any of you dare, without the command, or even against the prohibition of any earthly ruler, to seize his ministries, snatch his benefices, administer his affairs? Nor should you think that God approves what in His great house He endures from vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. Many indeed come, but consider who is called."
St. Cyprian more fittingly applies this to Fortunatus and Felicissimus, and other schismatics who were attempting to overthrow and seize the pontifical chair of St. Cornelius, the legitimate Pope. Whence, writing to Cornelius, epistle 3, Book I, he has this golden saying: "For heresies have not arisen nor have schisms been born from any other source than from the fact that the priest of God is not obeyed, and one person is not considered the judge in the Church at any given time in the place of Christ. If (let heretics take note of this) the whole brotherhood would obey him according to the divine teachings, no one would stir up anything against the college of priests: no one after the divine judgment, after the vote of the people, after the agreement of the co-bishops, would set himself up as judge no longer of the bishop but of God; no one by dissension would rend the Church of Christ; no one, pleased with himself and puffed up, would separately establish a new heresy outside." And further: "Clearly bishops (who are schismatic) are not made by the will of God; but those who are made outside the Church, but who against the disposi-
tion and tradition of the Gospel are made -- as the Lord Himself sets forth and says in the Twelve Prophets: They set up a king for themselves, and not through Me."
The Gentiles saw the same thing in shadow, who assert that legitimate kings and princes are given and created by God. Thus Callimachus: "Kings are from Jupiter." And Homer everywhere calls kings diogeneis, born of Jupiter, and diotropheis, as if nurslings of Jupiter. Romulus too, the first king of the Romans, established this law: "That no one should enter upon kingdom or magistracy unless God Himself should authorize it," as Pomponius Laetus reports, On the Roman Magistracies. The Emperor Titus, according to Suetonius in his Life, chapter IX, did not kill two patricians conspiring against his life, but warned them to desist, saying: "Supreme power is given by fate, and it is vain to attempt the deed from hope of obtaining or fear of losing it." Pliny in his Panegyric to Trajan: "God gives the prince," he says, "who acts in His stead toward the human race."
I DID NOT KNOW -- practically, that is, I did not approve the princes of Israel. So say St. Jerome, Vatablus, and the others cited a little earlier. Thus Christ will say to the reprobate: "I do not know you," that is, I am against you, Matthew XXV, 12. St. Gregory lists many similar phrases in Book II, Moralia IV.
FROM THEIR SILVER AND THEIR GOLD THEY MADE IDOLS FOR THEMSELVES (that is, from their own gold and silver they fashioned idols for themselves) SO THAT THEY MIGHT PERISH -- that is, to their destruction; or, whence they will perish. For the word "so that" signifies the outcome and effect, not the cause. The Hebrew has it in the singular, so that it might be cut off, that is, so that it might perish, namely their silver and gold, when it is either seized by the Assyrian enemy or consumed by fire. Wherefore some less correctly refer this to the people, in this sense: They devoted their entire supply of gold and silver to the making of idols, so that they greatly diminished their wealth. For the Hebrew יכרת carat means to cut off, to cut down, to destroy; and it pertains to the enemies. Whence it follows: "Your calf has been cast away," which you fashioned from your gold.
Morally, properly speaking, the avaricious make gold and silver their idol; because they love, seek, and guard it above all things, and often prefer it to God: whence avarice is called by the Apostle "the service of idols," Ephesians V, 5. See the commentary there.
Verse 5: YOUR CALF HAS BEEN CAST AWAY, O SAMARIA
5. YOUR CALF HAS BEEN CAST AWAY, O SAMARIA. -- In Hebrew: He cast away (namely God) your calf, O Samaria! because He caused it to be captured together with you by the Assyrians. The Septuagint, reading with different vowel points mi zenach, in the imperative, translates: Cast away your calf, O Samaria! R. David and Arias translate: It will distance itself from you, or, your calf will cast you away, namely the Apis which you worship, which you love, and in which you place all your hope. For the Hebrews lack grammatical cases: whence עגל eghel is both "calf" in the nominative and "calf" in the accusative. Moreover, take the past tenses as futures: "has been cast away," that is, "will be cast away"; "cast away," that is, "will cast away." For it is a prophecy.
HOW LONG WILL THEY BE UNABLE TO BE CLEANSED? -- that is to say: How long will this obstinate will to worship calves and idols last? Certainly until the destruction and Assyrian captivity: "What such great madness," says St. Jerome, "that while I give room for repentance, they refuse to return to sanity?" The Chaldean connects this with what precedes, and thus translates: My fury kindled against them, as long as they were unable (because they obstinately refused) to purge themselves from idolatry. In Hebrew it reads: Until when will they not be able to acquire innocence -- that is, how long will the Israelites have impure and unclean souls on account of idolatry? So says Vatablus.
Verse 6: FOR IT TOO IS FROM ISRAEL
6. FOR IT TOO IS FROM ISRAEL -- that is to say: This idol of the calf is the work and invention of Israel, namely the Apis of the Egyptians; just as the other idols of other nations are also foolish inventions. This is clear from what follows. For the Egyptians first fashioned this calf: then the Hebrews departing from Egypt formed the same in the desert, Exodus XXXII, 4. Jeroboam imitated them and fashioned the same when he made the schism from Rehoboam and Judah. The sense is, as if to say: Apis is not God, is not a divinity; it has nothing of divinity or power from itself, but was made and formed into a god by the foolish Egyptians and Israelites.
FOR THE CALF SHALL BECOME SPIDER WEBS. -- He proves that Apis is not God, because it will be destroyed by the Assyrians, as if to say: Although this golden calf is now esteemed as a god by the Israelites, yet soon it will be destroyed by the enemies and blown away like a spider's web, or like threads flying through the air in autumn, which by the wind are scattered into atoms and into--
thin air and vanish. He means to say: The idol is a useless, fleeting thing, and therefore incapable of helping itself or its worshippers -- plainly weak and powerless.
For "spider webs" the Hebrew is שבבים scebabim, which R. David, Arias, and Vatablus translate as fragments that can be torn apart, bits; the Chaldean as boards; Symmachus as unstable; the Fifth Edition as wandering and fluctuating; the Septuagint as planon, that is, deceiving or misleading -- as if to say: The Assyrians will shatter and carry away captive the Apis that deceives the Israelites. R. David, R. Abraham, and from them Pineda on Job XVIII, 5, translate it as sparks, as if to say: The Samaritans made a golden calf, shining and sparkling; but the sparks of its splendor will rage against its own worshippers, like sparks of fire. Moreover, they themselves, like the lightest sparks, will immediately perish and be extinguished. Morally, the sinner who by usury, fraud, etc., prepares for himself wealth, benefices, and dignities with great labors and troubles -- what does he weave but spider webs? which will soon be blown away and vanish by the wind of human accidents, and especially of death; nor will they be able to cover or clothe him at God's judgment; indeed, like sparks they will kindle for him the fire of hell: see the commentary on Isaiah chapter LIX, 6.
Verse 7: THEY SHALL SOW THE WIND AND REAP THE WHIRLWIND
7. THEY SHALL SOW THE WIND AND REAP THE WHIRLWIND -- that is to say: They have labored in vain worshipping Apis; for they will reap no fruit from it except the whirlwind of destruction and captivity. Note the beautiful metaphor, borrowed from a farmer sowing and reaping, which is frequent in Scripture; for "to sow" signifies to work; "to reap," to receive the reward of one's work; "wind," a vain, sterile, futile work; "whirlwind," calamity, namely captivity. So say Mariana and others.
Again, there is an allusion to wind, which, like a seed conceived and generated within the earth from exhalations, when it erupts into light and air, stirs up dust and excites a destructive whirlwind. This proverb therefore signifies that the labor of idolaters and the impious in worshipping their idols is not only fruitless but also harmful. For what fruit can one who sows the wind expect, except an earthquake and a cloud of dust? For the cause of these is wind enclosed within the earth. Whence the Alexandrian Arabic translates: They sowed the wind, and they shall be swept away in destruction; the sheaf shall not be filled with barley; while the Antiochene Arabic says: Their greater plains sowed, so that (the calf of Samaria, which preceded) might pasture on them; but they had neither reed nor strength to act.
Antonius Fernandius notes, in vision XIII, section IV, that a whirlwind scattering dust fittingly represents the tribulations by which man is tossed about -- man, I say, who is dust and ashes from that primeval curse of sin. Whence comes that passage in Psalm I, 4: "Not so the wicked, not so: but like the dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth." Where St. Hilary says: "So that the punishment may be a mockery; for the lightest dust of the earth, chaff, and other refuse of this kind are nothing but the playthings of swift winds."
And what is man after sin, if not a mere plaything of temptations and calamities pressing in from every side and dragging him hither and thither? This is what Isaiah says, chapter XXI, 1, announcing the most wretched destruction of Babylon: "The burden of the desert sea. As whirlwinds come from the south, from a terrible land."
St. Gregory asks, regarding Job XXXVIII, 1: "And the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said" -- why did God speak from a whirlwind? And he answers: because He was speaking to one being scourged; for that storm of evils with which God was scourging Job still endured; and therefore no throne was more fitting for the One scourging from which to speak than the whirlwind.
Tropologically, those sow the wind and reap the whirlwind who do good in order to pursue empty glory or sordid gain: for these things, like a whirlwind, agitate them with a thousand blasts and fevers of cares, anxieties, and sorrows. So says Cyril. Similarly Theophylactus, whom hear: "The one who sows in the flesh, and reaps corruption from the flesh, sows light and empty things destined to be corrupted by winds, receiving this harm from the spirit or blast of wickedness. Nor does he now have the strength to do a work that nourishes the soul. For he cannot say with St. Paul: I can do all things in Him who strengthens me, Christ. If he ever does anything good, not doing it according to this divine aim but for some human glory or another reason not commendable, he gives it over to the demons."
Note here that Theophylactus, as usual, follows the Septuagint version. For the Septuagint translates thus: They sowed what is corrupted by wind, and their overthrow shall receive it. Explaining this tropologically about heretics, St. Jerome says: "These people sow the wind, or anemophthora, that is, seeds corrupted by the wind, which have no marrow, which the Greeks call enterionen; and therefore, sowing empty things, they receive empty and vain things; indeed, sowing in the flesh, they reap corruption from the flesh, and are carried about by every wind of doctrine." Thus the harvest corresponds to the sowing.
THERE IS NO STANDING STALK IN IT; THE SPROUT SHALL NOT PRODUCE FLOUR. -- From the Septuagint, St. Cyril reads and explains, as if to say: They will be like a sheaf of ears of grain lacking kernels, which are useless for making bread. This proverb is similar to the preceding one, indeed it is a part and explanation of the preceding, as if to say: The idolaters sow the wind and reap the whirlwind; because from their seed no stalk and sprout will grow that matures into grain and a harvest, so that flour and edible bread may be made from it; but the whole stalk will go into a sprout and an empty ear -- as if to say: All their work, namely the worship of idols, will bring them no fruit, no divine help, no consolation, no good; and specifically a stalk and sprout producing flour, that is, a harvest and crop, and the abundance of things and wealth which they hope for from these gods of theirs, it will not give them. Whence the Chaldean translates: The enemy will plunder or scatter all their wealth and crops.
God, so that they become utterly poor. It is a synecdoche: for from the stalk and sprout he leaves us to understand the harvest and all wealth. So say St. Jerome and Rufinus, whom hear: "In your land, he says, nothing of fertility or firmness will remain, as happens with a stalk whose height, through some injury of the air, has not produced a full ear of grain. And so you too will obtain no profit, nor will any industry of cultivation yield results."
He speaks, as I said, about idols and idolaters: but by parity and similarity, says Delrio at adage 948, you may apply this proverb to the ostentation of virtue that is not solid, and to things destined to last only briefly and not to reach a happy outcome -- such as are usually ill-gotten riches, immoderate diligence, intemperate studies, precocious talents of children, sermons, disputations, and writings beyond one's powers, beyond one's learning and talent. About which the saying of Ptolemy in his prologue to the Almagest is true: "He who extends his knowledge beyond the skill that is in him is like a weak shepherd with many sheep; for he cannot govern, feed, or fatten them." Wherefore St. Gregory, Book VIII of the Moralia, chapter XXVIII, tropologically applies these words of the Prophet to hypocrites: "The stalk, he says, has no sprout when life lacks the merits of virtues. The stalk does not make flour when one who prospers in the present age understands nothing subtle and yields no fruit of good works. But often even when he has produced some, strangers eat it; because even when hypocrites display good works, the desires of evil spirits are satisfied from these. For those who do not seek to please God through these works feed not the lord of the field but strangers. And so the hypocrite, like a fertile but neglected vine branch, cannot preserve the fruit, because the grape of good works lies on the ground. But yet he is fed by this very folly of his (as Job says), because for his good works he is honored by all, surpass-
Finally, Leo Castrius, by the stalk and sprout not producing flour, understands the dreadful famine with which the Jews were punished by God for killing Christ, when, besieged by Titus, they wasted away from hunger to such an extent that mothers even ate their children.
Verse 8: ISRAEL HAS BEEN DEVOURED (that is, the wealth, strength, fame, and glory of...
8. ISRAEL HAS BEEN DEVOURED (that is, the wealth, strength, fame, and glory of Israel have been worn away and consumed by the Assyrians -- as if to say: Israel, mixed with idols and nations, has lost the proper and noble name of Israel), AND HAS BECOME LIKE AN UNCLEAN VESSEL -- full of filth and dregs, namely a chamber pot, so that he alone receives the filth, disgrace, and reproaches of all nations--
for other translators rendered it as "chamber pot," as Rufinus attests. The same may rightly be said of any faithful person defiled and polluted by sins. An unclean or useless vessel, as the Septuagint translates: "The Hebrews call it a chamber pot," says St. Jerome, "which we are accustomed to use for throwing out excrement." And Rufinus: "Never," he says, "was Israel assigned an honorable office, so that after the marks of liberty and dominion, he might at least be liberally reckoned among servants; but like a vessel fashioned for nature's necessities, he was filled with the filth of insults." Thus Varro, Plautus, and others call a most vile and sordid man a chamber pot, and say: "He is not a man, but a chamber pot." Whence also Martial: May I perish if you are worthy of providing a chamber pot to Pylades, or of feeding the pigs of Pirithous.
Thus the Jews, captured by the Romans for having killed Christ and condemned to hauling dung, were made stable hands and chamber-pot attendants. Whence Juvenal, Satire III: Jews, whose furniture is a basket and hay. Moreover, they contracted a stench proper to their whole nation, which they cannot wash away except by baptism, if they convert to Christ. Whence they are called malodorous by the poets, and we find them such by experience. Thus Martial, Book IV, epigram IV, joins the fetid breath of the Jews with a drained swamp, with sulphurous water, with a smoking lamp wick, with fox dung, with a viper's den. And Fortunatus, Book V of Poems, epistle to Gregory: The Jewish odor is washed away by divine baptism, and a new offspring, restored, rises from the waters. Surpassing ambrosial dews with sweet fragrance, from the anointed head the scent of chrism breathes forth.
In the same way sinners, especially harlots, are the chamber pots of men, indeed of the devil, says Delrio, adage--
949; for the belly of the glutton and the lustful person -- what else is it but a chamber pot, a latrine, a sewer? Therefore when he is forced to visit, inspect, and smell it often throughout the day, let him consider that such is his belly, and much more so his soul. Here belongs that meditation of St. Bernard: "Consider, O man, what you were, what you are, what you will be. You were fetid seed; you are a vessel of dung; you will be food for worms." Thus Blessed Jacopone overcame the temptations of gluttony by repeatedly pressing putrid meat to his mouth and nostrils; and a certain monk in the Lives of the Fathers, Book V, treatise 5 On Fornication, section 22, overcame the fire of lust by smelling the purulent corpse of a woman he had loved.
Moreover, how vile and infamous this name and service of the chamber pot is was taught by a Spartan youth who, as Plutarch reports in the Laconic Apophthegms, having been captured and sold by Antigonus, obeyed his buyer in all things that were not unbecoming to freeborn men: but when ordered to bring the chamber pot, he refused the service, adding: I will not serve. When the master rose the boy said: You will find out whom you bought--
and at the same time, climbing to the roof, threw himself down headlong, preferring to die rather than serve so basely.
Verse 9: FOR THEY HAVE GONE UP TO ASSYRIA, A WILD DONKEY ALONE BY ITSELF
9. FOR THEY HAVE GONE UP TO ASSYRIA, A WILD DONKEY ALONE BY ITSELF -- that is to say: Israel sought help from the Assyrians for this purpose, that like a wild donkey, that is, a forest ass, it might shake off every yoke of God's law and live free, and do whatever it pleased after the manner of wild donkeys and of the nations, whose idols give them this license to sin. So say Theodoret, Theophylactus, Arias, Vatablus, Ribera, and a Castro. Hence by God's just judgment, Israel, abandoned, will be alone like a wild donkey, deprived of the help both of the Assyrians and of God whom it forsook. You may say the same of heresy and the heretic.
St. Jerome, and from him Haymo, Hugh, and Lyranus, explain it differently: "They have gone up, he says, that is, they will go up, imitating a solitary wild donkey, by no means like sheep pastured by the Lord, but badly abusing their freedom, and they are led into captivity" -- as if to say: The Israelites will go up as captives into Assyria, because they wanted to live like free wild donkeys, without the yoke of discipline; and therefore they purchased the friendship and help of the Assyrians with great gifts and tributes. Whence the Chaldean translates: They will go up to the Assyrians because they walked in the will of their own soul, like a wild untamed donkey. The Septuagint translates: Ephraim has sprouted (borne fruit, produced offspring) by himself.
For Oppian relates that the male wild donkey is so jealous that it castrates its own male foals with its teeth, lest they be able to breed, so that it alone may enjoy its females. Whence it is also called solitary; for although it goes surrounded by a troop of females, it alone wants to rule and enjoy them, and does not tolerate another male as a rival or competitor. It goes alone, therefore, not from the company of female wild donkeys, but from that of male ones. Hear Solinus, Polyhistor, chapter XXX: "Africa has wild donkeys, among which each male rules over a herd of females; they fear rivals in their lust. Hence they watch over their pregnant females, so that when males are born, if any opportunity arises, they may cut off the hope of breeding with a bite; the females, guarding against this, hide their offspring in remote places." Pliny reports the same, Book VIII, chapter XXX.
Allegorically, Leo Castrius says: After killing Christ, Israel is a solitary wild donkey, because it alone persists stubbornly in its error and Jewish perfidy; and does not share with all the other nations in the religion and worship of God.
Tropologically, you may easily apply this to the proud, especially apostates from the faith or from a religious Order; whence Rupert says: "The wild donkey, that is, a rural ass, signifies a stupid and proud man, as it is written in Job chapter XI, 12: The vain man is lifted up in pride and thinks himself born free like a wild donkey's foal;" and further: "He is called a wild donkey, that is, an ass -- but a proud one; an ass through stupidity, but unbridled, and a scorner of the Lord's manger, or ignorant through pride; solitary, a fugitive from God his ruler, and alone, as being a deserter of God and deserted by God." See also St. Gregory on the cited passage of Job, Book X of the Moralia, chapter XV.
EPHRAIM HAS GIVEN GIFTS TO LOVERS -- namely the Assyrians, whose help and friendship they sought, and therefore worshipped their idols. For thus to Pul, king of the Assyrians, they gave a thousand talents in tribute, and therefore Menahem, king of Israel, imposed a tax of fifty shekels on each person, IV Kings XV, 19 and 20.
Verse 10: BUT EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE HIRED NATIONS WITH A PRICE (that is: Because with...
10. BUT EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE HIRED NATIONS WITH A PRICE (that is: Because with gifts and payments they hired the Assyrians, lest those hired seem to have been hired in vain), NOW (against the very Israelites themselves, for the destruction of Samaria) I WILL GATHER THEM. -- So say Arias, Clarius, Vatablus, and Pagninus. He says "them" (masculine), not "them" (feminine, as should have been said, since he refers to nations), because the Hebrew גוים goim, that is, nations, is masculine. Second, more plainly by "them" understand Ephraim, that is, the Israelites. So say the Chaldean, St. Jerome, Theodoret, Haymo, and Lyranus -- as if to say: "Now I will gather them," namely the Israelites into Samaria and other cities, so that in those garrisons, aided by the Egyptians against the Assyrians, they may fortify themselves and rest a little from the tribute and gifts which they were paying to the king and princes of Assyria; but this rest will be brief, for it follows immediately that they are besieged, conquered, and devastated by the Assyrians indignant at the rebellion: see IV Kings XVII.
Thus heretics, to shake off the yoke of faith and of Catholic princes, implore the help of the Turks; and so they seem for a little while to rest from the yoke and burden; but soon they submit to a far heavier Turkish yoke, as we see and mourn happening in Hungary.
AND THEY SHALL REST A LITTLE WHILE. -- Note: For "they shall rest," as our version and the Septuagint translate, the Hebrew is ויחלו vaiachelu, which if derived from חול chul means to suffer, to be tormented; if from חול chol, in the hiphil it means to begin. Whence Arias and Pagninus translate: They shall suffer and be tormented a little because of the burden of king and princes -- as if to say: They will grieve briefly over the tribute they pay to the Assyrians, but shortly afterward they will grieve far more when they are devastated by the same. Others translate: They shall begin from the burden of king and princes (namely from the tribute they pay to them, supply) to be free and to rest, as our version translates. Again, Clarius translates: Both the king and the princes shall begin to burden them (with tributes); and R. David, Vatablus, and Pagninus: They shall begin to complain and murmur a little because of the burden of king and princes, namely because of tribute -- as if to say: They already begin to be weighed down and to complain about tributes, but they will complain much more when they are soon destroyed and led away into captivity. Thus the impious, says a Castro, begin to taste in the burdens that weigh them down the anguish and torments of the approaching eternal exile and the prison of hell.
Thus a thief hanging from the gallows cries out in fact to all: Beware of theft, lest you be hanged as I am. Herodotus reports, Book II, that the Assyrians depicted the disaster and heavenly vengeance against king Sennacherib with this inscription: "Looking upon me, be pious." And Virgil, Aeneid VI: And most wretched Phlegyas admonishes all and bears witness with a great voice through the shades: Learn justice, having been warned, and do not despise the gods.
Verse 11: BECAUSE HE MULTIPLIED
11. BECAUSE HE MULTIPLIED -- that is to say: Israel had enough idols and altars; what need was there to multiply them to the point of madness, and to heap sins upon sins, so as to hasten upon themselves God's wrath, vengeance, and destruction? Wherefore they will be punished manifoldly. St. Ephrem truly says, treatise On the Fear of God, tome III: "He who does not like to serve the one Lord," he says, "will serve many; and he who does not wish to be subject to one superior will be subjected to many."
Verse 12: I SHALL WRITE FOR HIM MY MANIFOLD LAWS, WHICH HAVE BEEN REGARDED AS FOREIGN
12. I SHALL WRITE FOR HIM MY MANIFOLD LAWS, WHICH HAVE BEEN REGARDED AS FOREIGN. -- Here the sense of the preceding sentence, otherwise left hanging, is completed -- as if to say: Because Israel multiplied altars, therefore I too will multiply capital laws against him. Note: He alludes to the writing of the law on stones done by Moses at God's command, Deuteronomy XXVII and XXVIII; and this for the perpetual memory of the law among the Israelites, so that they might impress upon their hearts the law and its rewards, if they observed it, and its punishments, if they neglected it, and keep it constantly before their eyes. The sense therefore is, as if to say: My laws and their manifold punishments I formerly wrote through Moses on stone; and now I will write them on the backs of the Israelites with a rod and iron pen -- namely those manifold plagues described by Moses, I will inflict on them by the enemy's sword, because they forgot, neglected, and despised My laws as if they were foreign. Therefore understand laws here as penal laws, that is, punishments decreed by law--
against those who violate it: it is a metonymy. So says Rufinus. For just as a pious man is like a living law, which by his conduct proclaims what must be done, what the law, what God, what religion demands -- as St. Augustine teaches in his book On Lying, chapter XV, and St. Gregory, homily 40 on Ezekiel: "In the lives of the saints," he says, "we learn what we should read in Scripture." And Philo, in his book On Abraham, says that the written law is a commentary on the lives of the saints; so an impious man punished by the law is a living law, crying out to others to flee impiety, lest they incur the same punishments. Thus a thief hanged from the gallows in fact proclaims to all--
Vatablus and other more recent scholars translate differently, namely: I had prescribed for them rubbe, that is, manifold things, or more excellent things, or axioms of My law, but they regarded them as something foreign -- as if to say: I gave the law to Israel like a pearl, and I wrote it with My own finger; but he rejected it as foreign, as though it did not pertain to him. What more then shall I do for him? Shall I write another law? By no means, because he will despise it in the same way. So say St. Jerome and the Syriac, which translates: I wrote for him a multitude of my laws, and he regarded my very words as foreign.
But this sense does not cohere with the word "because," nor with the preceding verse; and it adds a question mark, which the Bible lacks, for these words are read assertively, not interrogatively. More probably, Sanchez takes these as spoken ironically by God, as if God were reproaching His own plan for laboring to correct the morals of Israel, when they would be no better for it anyway -- as if to say: I will write new laws for Israel, which he will despise just as he did the old ones; I will not write them. A similar irony is in Isaiah XXVI, 10: "Let us have mercy on the impious, and he will not learn to do" justice. And in Virgil: Behold for whom we have sown our fields! Now, Meliboeus, graft your pear trees, set your vines in rows. Thus it is commonly said: "Raise wolf cubs, and dogs to tear you apart."
Verse 13: THEY SHALL OFFER SACRIFICIAL VICTIMS (of My sacrifices and offerings, as the...
13. THEY SHALL OFFER SACRIFICIAL VICTIMS (of My sacrifices and offerings, as the Hebrew adds), AND THE LORD SHALL NOT ACCEPT THEM. -- In Hebrew: The Lord will not desire them, or will not take pleasure in them -- as if to say: If ever they sacrificed to Me and not to idols, they did so to feast on the sacrificed meats, not to appease Me. So says Vatablus. Note: The Samaritans, along with their idols, also worshipped the true and ancestral God, and from time to time sacrificed to Him, as is clear from IV Kings XVII, 33. But because they did this not for God's sake, to worship Him--
but for the purpose of feasting and preparing lavish banquets from the sacrifices, for this reason God here reproves them and threatens them with destruction. So say St. Jerome, Vatablus, Ribera, a Castro, and others.
THEY THEMSELVES SHALL RETURN TO EGYPT -- that is to say: They will be forced to flee and return to Egypt. So it happened; for after the destruction of Samaria, many Israelites who escaped from it fled to Egypt to save themselves, and there they died and were buried in Memphis, as will appear in chapter IX, 3. So say St. Jerome, Theophylactus, Theodoret, Arias, and Vatablus. The Judahites did the same after the destruction of Jerusalem, as is clear from Jeremiah chapter XLIV, 12. For Egypt was the perpetual and common refuge and asylum of Israel.
Second, St. Jerome also explains it thus, as if to say: They will return to that manner of living which they followed in Egypt; for they will worship idols and put on the vices of the nations, as they did in Egypt. Third, Lyranus and Sanchez say: They will return to Egypt, that is, they will soon suffer such things among the Assyrians as their fathers suffered from the Egyptians, namely harsh servitude, sordid tasks, poverty, famine, etc. -- so that in the Hebrew manner a mark of similitude, "as" or "like," is to be understood. They will go to Assyria as to a new Egypt, that is, a new prison. The first sense is the plainest, and is supported by verse 6 of the following chapter: "Egypt shall gather them; Memphis shall bury them."
Verse 14: ISRAEL HAS FORGOTTEN HIS MAKER
14. ISRAEL HAS FORGOTTEN HIS MAKER -- God His Creator, who had made him His own special people and had chosen him from all nations, as Moses both foretold and reproached them in Deuteronomy, the whole of chapter XXXII, especially verse 18: "You have forsaken the God who begot you, and have forgotten the Lord your Creator."
AND HE BUILT SHRINES -- namely temples or sanctuaries for idols, spurning God; for he placed all his hopes in idols. "Shrines" (delubra) are said to be the places before altars, because in them there were labra, that is, basins and vessels for washing the corpses of the dead, says Asconius in his Divination; or, as others say, from the washing of both corpses and the hands of priests before sacrifice. Wherefore they erected shrines near the tombs of the great, and there they sought oracles in dreams through necromancy. Whence Isaiah, chapter LXV, 4: "Those who dwell," he says, "in tombs and sleep in the shrines of idols" -- to seek divination. Festus, however, thinks delubrum is so called as though delibratum, that is, a peeled staff, which they venerated in place of a god. But Servius says: A delubrum, he says--
is so called because under one roof it embraces multiple deities, as is the Capitol, in which are Minerva, Jupiter, and Juno.
AND JUDAH HAS MULTIPLIED FORTIFIED CITIES (trusting in them, not in God, that he would be safe from the Chaldean enemy; therefore I) WILL SEND FIRE UPON HIS CITIES, AND IT SHALL DEVOUR THE BUILDINGS (in Hebrew ארמנות armenoth, that is, palaces, magnificent buildings) OF IT. -- God did this through Nebuchadnezzar. So say St. Jerome, Hugh, Lyranus, and others, although Haymo and Hugh think this was also done through Sennacherib, who captured all the fortified cities of Judah except Jerusalem. Understand the cities and palaces as referring both to Judah and equally to Israel; for just as He blamed both for forgetting and neglecting God, so He equally condemns both as guilty to the destruction and burning of their cities and buildings.
Therefore some less correctly refer the cities to Israel and the palaces to Judah; because, they say, Hosea uses the Hebrew "Israel" in the masculine gender and "Judah" in the feminine, understanding the land of Judah. But this reasoning does not hold; for Hosea here uses "Judah" in the masculine gender, saying: Judas, הרבו hirba, that is, he multiplied cities -- for hirba is a masculine verb; in the feminine one would have to say הרבתה hirbeta, as those skilled in Hebrew know. Again, when he says: "I will send fire upon the cities," he plainly means those about which he just said: "Judah multiplied cities"; for in the Hebrew the same word מרכים arim appears in both places. Therefore he means the cities of Judah. If anyone wishes to distinguish them, it is better, with Arias, to refer the cities to Judah and the buildings or palaces to Israel in the reverse way: for ארמנות armenot, that is, palaces or grand houses and temples, are היכלות hechalot, that is, basilicas, shrines, and temples, which he just said Israel had built.
But, as I said, it is more true that the cities and the buildings or palaces refer to the same -- namely first to Judah, then equally to Israel. Whence the Septuagint also translates: I will send fire upon his cities, and it shall devour its foundations -- for foundations belong to cities, which the fire sent by the enemy will devour along with the cities. Moreover, the Prophet speaks about Judah, just as about Israel, now in the feminine gender, meaning the land, as when he says ארמנותה armenoteha, that is, its buildings, in the feminine; now in the masculine, meaning the people, as when he says הרבו hirba, that is, he multiplied; and עריו arau, that is, his cities, with a masculine affix or pronoun.