Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He rebukes the pride of the Idumeans, because situated on a rock they thought themselves invincible: whence He threatens to drag them down from it through the Chaldeans. Secondly, at verse 10, He assigns the cause of their destruction, namely that they were inhuman and cruel toward their brothers the Jews, who were afflicted by enemies. Thirdly, at verse 17, He promises the Zionites, that is the Jews, a return from Babylon and dominion, namely that through the Maccabees they will rule over the Idumeans, Philistines, and neighboring nations, and much more through Christ they will rule over these same peoples and the entire southern region.
Vulgate Text: Obadiah 1:1-21
1. The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God to Edom: We have heard a report from the Lord, and He has sent an envoy to the nations: Arise, and let us rise up against him in battle. 2. Behold, I have made you small among the nations: you are exceedingly contemptible. 3. The pride of your heart has lifted you up, you who dwell in the clefts of the rocks, who exalt your throne: who say in your heart: Who shall bring me down to the ground? 4. If you should be exalted as the eagle, and if you should set your nest among the stars: from there I will drag you down, says the Lord. 5. If thieves had come to you, if robbers by night, how would you have kept silent? Would they not have stolen only enough for themselves? If grape-gatherers had come to you, would they not have left at least some gleanings for you? 6. How have they searched out Esau, how have they investigated his hidden things? 7. They have driven you to the border: all the men of your alliance have deceived you: the men of your peace have prevailed against you: those who eat with you shall set snares beneath you: there is no understanding in him. 8. Shall I not in that day, says the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Idumea, and understanding out of the mount of Esau? 9. And your mighty men shall be terrified from the south, so that every man may be cut off from the mount of Esau. 10. For the slaughter, and for the iniquity against your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall perish forever. 11. In the day when you stood against him, when strangers were carrying away his forces, and foreigners were entering his gates, and casting lots over Jerusalem: you also were as one of them. 12. And you shall not look down upon the day of your brother, in the day of his wandering: and you shall not rejoice over the sons of Judah in the day of their destruction: and you shall not boast in the day of distress. 13. Neither shall you enter the gate of my people in the day of their ruin: neither shall you look down upon his misfortunes in the day of his desolation: and you shall not be sent out against his army in the day of his desolation. 14. Neither shall you stand in the crossroads to kill those who flee: and you shall not shut up his remnant in the day of tribulation. 15. For the day of the Lord is near upon all nations: as you have done, it shall be done to you: your recompense shall be turned upon your own head. 16. For as you have drunk upon my holy mountain, all nations shall drink continu-
ally: and they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been. 17. And on Mount Zion there shall be salvation, and it shall be holy: and the house of Jacob shall possess those who had possessed them. 18. And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble: and they shall be kindled in them, and shall devour them: and there shall be no remains of the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken. 19. And those who are toward the south shall inherit the mount of Esau, and those in the plains the Philistines: and they shall possess the region of Ephraim, and the region of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. 20. And the captivity of this army of the children of Israel shall possess all the places of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath: and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Bosporus, shall possess the cities of the South. 21. And saviors shall ascend Mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau: and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.
Verse 1
1. The vision of Obadiah. — The prophecy is called a vision, as the Prophet is a seer. He immediately also calls it a report. I have given the reasons at Isaiah I, 1.
THUS SAYS THE LORD GOD TO EDOM. — In Hebrew, Leedom, that is, concerning Edom, or to Edom. Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, was called Edom because he was ruddy; and Seir, because he was hairy: hence his descendants, namely the Idumean people descended from him, are likewise called Edom and Seir. Now the Hebrews, both ancient, as St. Jerome attests, and modern, such as Rabbi David, Rabbi Solomon, and the like, constantly assert that the Idumeans are the Romans. First, because Edom, and by aphaeresis Duma, is Roma, if you change the letter daleth into the neighboring resh; second, because they themselves hand down — that is, they fabricate — that Julius Caesar, the first Roman emperor, was an Idumean. Others add that Aeneas was an Idumean, and that from Idumea he came to Egypt, thence to Libya, thence to Carthage, thence to Italy, and there founded Alba, from which Rome was born. So Arias reports. The origin of this opinion, that is, of this fable, seems to have been the destruction that the Jews suffered from Titus and the Romans; for from that point they called the Romans, as their most bitter enemies, the new Idumeans. Consequently, since the faithful and Christians are called Romans, from their head the Roman Pontiff, and the Roman Church, which is the mother of all Churches; hence the Jews take the Idumeans to mean Christians, whom, from hatred of Christ, they consider equally their most bitter enemies. Therefore whatever is said against the Idumeans by Obadiah and other Prophets, they judge to be said against Christians, and accordingly they await their Messiah, who will overthrow this empire of the Romans, that is, of Christ and Christians, and restore Judaism, and enrich and exalt the Jews with wealth and honors like another Solomon. So Burgensis reports here, and Galatinus, book IV, ch. XVIII. And this is the cause of the monstrous hatred toward Christians, which seems innate in them. But this dream of theirs (as St. Jerome calls it) is refuted by all the histories of the Greeks, Latins, and all nations, which assert that Rome was founded by Romulus, an Italian and Alban, that Julius Caesar descended from the Julian family of Rome, and that Aeneas was a Trojan, not an Idumean. Moreover, how far Alba and Rome are from Idumea, everyone knows. It is truly ridiculous that they transform Duma into Roma. For the letters
resh and daleth, though similar in form, are nevertheless very different in sound and meaning. They therefore do the same as if you were to transform Cyrus into Irus, a physician into a beggar, mothers into males, and (which is exactly similar in the metathesis of the same letters r and d) if you were to change Medus into merus, modus into morus, sedes into seres. Far more easily and naturally might you transform the Idumeans into the Jews, especially since these Jews are their brothers; for both descend from the brothers Jacob and Esau, and are very close neighbors in location and territory. Therefore I shall now show that the Jews are mystically the true Idumeans.
In the literal sense, then, understand here not the Romans, not the Italians, but the Idumeans, that is, the descendants of Esau, dwelling in the mountains of Idumea near Judea, Ammon, and Moab.
Mystically, the Idumeans are the unfaithful enemies of the faithful people, namely Jews, pagans, and heretics. For just as Jacob is a type of the faithful, so Esau and the Idumeans are a type of the unfaithful, as the Apostle teaches, Romans IX, 7 and 13. So Eusebius, book V of the Demonstration, ch. XXIV, Theodoret, Rupert, St. Jerome, who also draws an analogy from the etymology of the name: "Idumea," he says, "is interpreted as 'earthly,' and on account of the red color, can also be understood as 'bloody.' Therefore the Savior, bringing back to the Father His victory over the world, when the angels cried out: 'Open your gates, O princes, and the King of glory shall enter in'; and in Isaiah they asked in amazement: 'Who is this who ascends from Edom in bright garments from Bozrah? This one, beautiful in His white robe,' etc. — He Himself speaks in triumph, displaying the palms of His cross: 'I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the nations there is no man with Me.'"
Tropologically the same St. Jerome says: "There are those who refer Idumea to the flesh, and consider the soul to be provoked to battle against it, so that by mortifying our members upon the earth — fornication, uncleanness, passion — we may obtain eternal victory in Christ." For the brothers Jacob and Esau, continually wrestling with each other, are the soul and the flesh. "For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh," Galatians V, 17.
Furthermore, Hugh of St. Victor says: "Edom means 'earthly,' Esau 'bloody,' Seir 'hairy': bloody with sins, hairy with worldly affairs, earthly with cares; the bloody world indeed in its idolaters, hairy
in heretics, earthly in the carnal and pseudo-Christians." And below, at verse 17: "Jacob wrestled three times with his brother Esau, once with the angel. First in the womb, second over the dish of lentils, third over the oracle of the paternal blessing. Our Jacob, that is Christ the wrestler, is said to have already wrestled three times against the devil, and is believed certainly to wrestle a fourth time. First in the womb, second on the cross, third in the tomb, fourth at the last judgment against the troop of goats and the most wicked seed. In the womb by immunity from sin, on the cross by the acquisition of glory and the honor of the kingdom, in the tomb by immortality of life and the glory of triumph, at the judgment by the right of victory and the rigor of justice." And shortly after: "First He wrestled for you, that you might conquer the pride of the devil and his kingdoms; second, that you might overcome the luxury and glory of the world; third, that you might expel the concupiscence of the flesh and the wantonness of the senses: but the final wrestling He will do, so that, all the aforesaid being scorned, you may possess as victor the crown of glory."
A report. — Note first that these are the words not of God, but of the Prophet, as is clear from Jeremiah XLIX, 14, where he borrows the same words from Amos and applies them to himself. Whence it follows that there is a hyperbaton here, that is, an inverted order. For these words do not connect with what immediately precedes them. Thus the entire verse should be arranged as follows: "The vision of Obadiah concerning Edom. We have heard a report, and He has sent an envoy to the nations. Arise, and let us rise up against him in battle. Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I have made you small among the nations," etc. For the words of God are these: "Behold, I have made you small." But the words of the Prophet are: "We have heard a report," etc. Or certainly these words, "We have heard a report," etc., should be taken as a parenthesis, as if to say: "Thus says the Lord," and we know this because "we have heard a report" from Him. So Vatablus, and this seems more straightforward and clearer. Secondly, "report" is placed metonymically for the thing heard. Hence the Chaldean translates it as "message"; the Tigurina as "rumor"; Vatablus as "fame." Thirdly, he does not say "I have heard," but "we have heard," as if to say: Not I alone, but many Prophets with me have heard these decrees of God against the Idumeans, or will soon hear them, namely Isaiah, ch. XXI, 11; Amos, ch. I, 11; Joel, ch. III, 19; Jeremiah, ch. XLIX, 7; Ezekiel, ch. XXV, 31. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, Hugh, Lyranus, Clarius, and Arias. The Septuagint, however, translates in the singular: "I have heard a report from the Lord," and so Jeremiah has it in ch. XLIX, 14. Hence Hugh thinks that the plural "we have heard" is used for the singular "I have heard." The meaning is, as if to say: We have heard this message from God, or God has announced to us
that He has sent an envoy to the nations, who would say to them: Arise, arm yourselves for war, that with united forces and arms we may invade and devastate the Idumeans; for the word "arise" is not the voice of the nations stirring one another up to war, as Arias and Vatablus would have it; but it is the voice of the envoy, that is, of God, who through the envoy stirs up the nations to rise up with Him in battle against the Idumeans. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, and Lyranus, and this is clear from the sequence of the narrative and the context of the words.
HE HAS SENT AN ENVOY TO THE NATIONS. — You ask, who is this envoy? Albert and Arias think it was the envoys whom Nebuchadnezzar sent to neighboring nations subject to him, to invade Idumea with combined arms; secondly, Hugh, Dionysius, and a Castro think it was an angel, either good or evil, sent by God to the Chaldeans to stir them up to the destruction of the Idumeans, according to Psalm LXXVII, 49: "He sent among them evil angels"; thirdly, more simply and plainly we shall say it is a catachresis, by which the very impulse and stirring of God is called an envoy, as if to say: God stirred up the Chaldeans to wage war against the Idumeans, just as if He had sent an envoy to them. So Lyranus, Ribera, and others. That this is so is gathered from a similar passage in Isaiah V, 26: "And He will raise up a standard to the nations afar off, and will whistle to them from the ends of the earth: and behold, one will come swiftly with speed." And ch. VII, 18: "The Lord will whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." Where this summoning of God, and His stirring up of the Egyptians and Assyrians to war, is called a whistle, by which flies and bees are summoned and roused. See what is said there. But since this whistle, this impulse and stirring of God, is usually accomplished through angels, it is not wrong to understand by the envoy the angels, according to the second exposition. In like manner Nisus, eager for battle, said to Euryalus:
"Do the gods put this ardor in our minds, Euryalus, or does each man's fierce desire become his god?"
Moreover, the manner in which God stirs up kings, even tyrants, to war, in order to exercise His vengeance through them, though they are unjust, upon impious nations, I have discussed in Canons XXXVI and XXXVII, which I prefixed to Isaiah.
Allegorically, this envoy is Christ, the Angel of great counsel, who in battle conquered Edom, that is, the world, the flesh, and the devil: and He called the nations to Himself and to this war of His. Hence Eusebius takes this passage of the calling of the nations, book V of the Demonstration, ch. XXIV; so also St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, Hugh the Cardinal, and Hugh of St. Victor: "This envoy," says Hugh of St. Victor, "brought three things with him: light, ointment, bread. Light for the blind, ointment for the sick, bread for the hungry. He set forth the light on the mountain, the bread in the upper room, the ointment on the gibbet of the cross. For Christ illuminated the world, having driven away ignorance; He Himself satisfied it, having ordered concupiscence: He Himself changed it for the better, having destroyed misery. Hence He Himself says in the Gospel: I am the way, the truth, and the life; the way by illuminating, the truth by healing, the life by making happy: the first against ignorance, the second against concupiscence, the third against misery." And below he teaches that this envoy speaks to the other Persons of the Holy Trinity, and says: "Arise, and let us rise up against him in battle," as if to say: Let the Father arise by powerfully overthrowing the enemy for the Son; I will arise by wisely teaching the ignorant. Let the Father loose the chains of human captivity: let the Son illuminate the darkness of human blindness: let the Spirit supply the gifts and desires of charity."
Verse 2
2. BEHOLD, I HAVE MADE YOU SMALL. — These words belong to: "Thus says the Lord God to Edom." For here begins the prophecy and the voice of God against Edom, as I showed a little above. Vatablus, Lyranus, and Hugh explain the past tense "I have made" prophetically as the future "I will make," as if to say: For your pride I will punish you, O Edom, and I will cast you down from the pinnacle of your glory and greatness, and will make you small. But better, St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Hugh, Arias, Pagninus, and others take "I have made" in its proper sense. For he exaggerates the pride of Idumea, that though it was made small by God, it wishes to raise its head to the stars, as if He were saying: I have made you small, both in number, that is, few; in wealth, that is, poor; in strength, that is, weak and feeble, as the Chaldean translates. For the Idumeans were like our Alpine peoples, dwelling on the mountain and rock of Seir: therefore they were few, poor, and weak. Whence follows:
YOU ARE EXCEEDINGLY CONTEMPTIBLE. — The Septuagint: You are greatly dishonored; the Tigurina: You are vehemently despised, that is, despicable; the Arabic: Behold, you appear small among the nations, and you are very base.
Verse 3
3. THE PRIDE OF YOUR HEART HAS LIFTED YOU UP. — The Chaldean, the Tigurina, and others translate: The pride of your heart has deceived you; and so our Vulgate translates it in Jeremiah XLIX, 16, because the Hebrew word nasa, if you place the dot on the right horn of the letter shin, means "to deceive"; if on the left, it means "to lift up, to exalt." Both are true: for pride both lifted him up and equally deceived him: for expecting lofty things, it led him to precipices. Moreover, the cause of his pride was what he adds: "who dwell in the clefts of the rocks, exalting your throne," as if to say: You are proud, O Edom, of your strength, because you dwell on a steep and inaccessible rock, as if because of it you were safe from the attack of enemies and impregnable: but you are mistaken; for the Chaldeans, with God as their guide, will climb up this rock and cast you down from it.
For "in the clefts" the Hebrew is bechagve, which the Septuagint translates as "in the holes"; Pagninus, "in the fortifications"; the Tigurina, "in the caves"; Rabbi David, "in a circle and ring," namely at the summit of the rock and its round circumference; for chagve can be derived from chug, that is, "circle." Again, for "exalting," the Hebrew is merom, that is, "in the height of your dwelling," as Pagninus translates; the Septuagint, however, translate like our Vulgate, "exalting." Hence they seem to have read merim, which is the hiphil participle. The meaning is, as if to say: You dwell, O Edom, in steep, lofty, and inaccessible places, and there you exalt your throne, that is, your seat, or, as the Chaldean and Septuagint put it, your dwelling; and therefore you are proud, thinking yourself unconquered and invincible. So St. Jerome. In a similar manner Arimazes was proud, who, sitting on an inaccessible rock in the Sogdian region with thirty thousand armed men, when asked by Alexander the Great to surrender, mocked him and asked "whether Alexander could fly." To whom Alexander replied: "I will make you believe next night that the Macedonians can fly." Therefore he ordered three hundred very brave youths, stirred up by great promises, to secretly climb by night over the sheer rocks and pathless crags at the rear to the summit of the rock with incredible effort and daring, and through them, the enemy being unaware, he seized the rock and crucified Arimazes. So Quintus Curtius, book VII of The Deeds of Alexander.
Verse 4
4. IF YOU SHOULD BE EXALTED AS THE EAGLE. — The Syriac: If you exalt yourself like the eagle; the Arabic: If you are exalted to the eagle, which builds its nest on the highest and most inaccessible rocks and mountains, according to Job ch. XXXIX, 27: "The eagle shall be raised up, and shall make her nest on high: she dwells in the rocks, and abides in craggy flints." Pliny, book X, ch. III, calls this species of eagle the melanaaetos: "The smallest in size, blackish in color, preeminent in strength. She alone," he says, "dwells in the mountains without clamor and without murmuring." For there are other species of eagles that love woods and shores and level places, and build their nests there, as
Aristotle, book IX On Animals, ch. XXXII. Hence Pindar calls the eagle the queen of birds, the dolphin the queen of fish. And the Athenians, says Aristophanes, received an oracle that they would be the eagles of cities.
Mystically, eagles, says Hugh of St. Victor, are philosophers and sophists, when they raise the eyes of the heart to the sun of justice, when they fix the gaze of the mind unflinchingly on the very ray of truth. But the eagle is immediately drawn back from there: because after receiving the innate knowledge of truth, through the merit of their elation the philosopher and the sophist return to the darkness of errors. Hence the Apostle, Romans I, 21: "Because when they had known God," he says, "they did not glorify Him as God, or give thanks; but they became vain in their thoughts." So also today we see eagles, that is, learned and wise men, dragged down from heaven, that is, from the Church, or certainly from the state of perfection, on account of pride, and plunging into the abyss. Would that the learned would engrave in the inmost marrow of their souls that saying of the teacher of the nations: "Knowledge puffs up, but charity builds up." And that other saying: "Be not high-minded, but fear." For a learned man who is proud is small, indeed nothing, before God. But he who is as humble as he is learned, in whom humility vies with learning, is great, indeed the greatest, before God — such as were St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and others.
AND IF YOU SHOULD SET YOUR NEST AMONG THE STARS: FROM THERE I WILL DRAG YOU DOWN, SAYS THE LORD. — This is a hyperbole, as if to say: Even if, O Edom, you fix your seat on the highest mountains, where Olympus, Atlas, etc. are, indeed in heaven itself, or seem to yourself to fix it there, from there I will drag you down.
Note: He aptly calls cities set upon rocks "nests." Thus Paulus Aemilius said that "citadels" were "nests of tyrants": hence he removed them from Greece. Thus Cicero, book I On the Orator, said that Ithaca was fastened on cliffs like a nest.
Symbolically, Rupert applies these words to those who glory in the noble lineages of their ancestors, as in rocks from which they were hewn. For such people and their like seem to themselves to far surpass all other men, and to dwell among the stars. Such was the insane boasting of that Thraso — I mean Lysimachus — who, having obtained the territories bordering on Thrace, said with enormous pride: "Now at last the Byzantines come to me, since I have touched heaven with my spear." Thereupon Pasides the Byzantine, mockingly deriding the man, said: "Let us withdraw, lest he pierce heaven with the point of his spear," as Plutarch reports in The Fortune of Alexander, book II. Thus Atreus, swollen with pride, thunders in Seneca's Thyestes:
Equal to the stars I walk, and above all, Touching the lofty sky with my proud head. I dismiss the gods above, I have attained the height of my desires. O most exalted of the heavenly ones, King of kings, I have surpassed my prayers.
Ovid uses the same phrase:
Blessed in such a husband, I shall be called dear to the gods, and touch the stars with my head.
And Horace, book I of the Odes:
But if you rank me among the lyric bards, I shall strike the stars with my exalted head.
Morally, note how great is the arrogance and pride of the proud, namely that they think they can ascend to heaven, to the throne of God, and seize it. Therefore they are most hateful and odious to God, as rivals and competitors of His glory. Hence Job says of them, ch. XX, 6: "Though his pride ascend even to heaven, and his head touch the clouds: he shall perish like a dunghill in the end." Thus the highest angel, and his antitype Nebuchadnezzar, or Belshazzar king of Babylon, said in his pride: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God"; but immediately he heard: "Your pride has been dragged down to hell: the moth shall be spread under you, and worms shall be your covering," Isaiah XIV, 11 and 13. See what is said there.
Were not Origen, Tertullian, Pelagius, etc., like stars of the Church and luminaries of heaven, and yet they fell into the abyss on account of pride? Who would not tremble, who would not cast himself down to the lowest place and humble himself? This is what St. John predicts the devil will do through the Antichrist at the end of the world concerning illustrious men, Apocalypse XII, 4, when he says: "His tail (the dragon's) drew the third part of the stars," that is, of the illustrious Saints. And Apocalypse VIII, 10: "A great star fell from heaven, burning as a torch." Which Ticonius, in St. Augustine, volume IX, expounding mystically, says thus: "He says that proud and impious men have fallen from the Church; and he called it a great star, because of the persons of the wicked, and those who have power or riches."
For, as St. Augustine says on Psalm CXLVI (explaining the verse: He who numbers the multitude of the stars), "there are certain stars, lights in the Church, consoling our night, of whom the Apostle says, Philippians II: Among whom you shine as lights in the world: God numbers those stars, all who are to reign with Him, etc., He holds them numbered." The same, in his Soliloquies, volume IX, ch. XXVIII, compares the elect and the impious who are to be condemned for their crimes to stars — the former to fixed stars, the latter to falling ones — and says of them: "Yet the death of sinners is most terrible, of those, I say, whom before You made heaven and earth, according to the great abyss of Your hidden but always just judgments, You foreknew to eternal death: whose enumeration of names and wicked merits is with You, who have counted the number of the sand of the sea and measured the depth of the abyss: whom You left in their uncleanness, for whom all things work together for evil, and even prayer itself is turned to sin, so that even if they have ascended to the heavens, and their head has touched the clouds, and they have placed their nest among the stars of heaven, they shall perish like a dunghill in the end."
Whence he exclaims: "Great are these judgments of Yours, O Lord God, etc., and when I consider this, all my bones tremble: for no man living upon the earth is secure; so that we may serve You piously and chastely all the days of our life in fear, and exult before You with trembling." He adds the reason: "For we have seen many who at first in a certain way ascended even to the heavens and placed their nest among the stars, but afterward fell even to the depths, and their souls were stupefied in evils. We have seen stars fall from heaven by the force of the striking tail of the dragon, and those who lay in the dust of the earth, from the face of Your uplifting hand, O Lord, marvelously ascend. We have seen men dying, and the dead rising from death, and those who walked among the sons of God in the midst of the stones of fire, flow away to nothing like mud." He adds the root of so great an evil: "But why all these things, except because they ascended that mountain which the first angel ascended, and descended as a devil!" For it is God's way that the higher anyone raises himself, the more deeply He casts him down, because He abhors pride, according to Isaiah XXIII, 9: "The Lord of hosts has purposed this, to pull down the pride of all glory and to bring to disgrace all the illustrious of the earth." And: "He has put down the mighty from their seat," Luke I, 52. Even the pagans saw the same thing: hence Aesop, when asked what God does, replied: "He humbles the proud and exalts the humble," as if this alone were God's proper work. And Seneca in Hercules Furens:
Rule in your swelling pride, carry your high spirits, God the avenger follows the proud from behind.
The same in Thyestes:
You to whom the ruler of sea and earth Has given the great right of death and life, Lay aside your puffed-up and swollen countenances. Whatever a lesser one dreads from you, A greater Lord threatens you with the same. Every kingdom is under a heavier kingdom. Him whom the dawning day has seen proud, The departing day has seen laid low. Let no one trust too much in prosperity.
Wherefore Artabanus wisely admonishes King Xerxes in Herodotus, book VII: "You see," he says, "how God strikes with His thunderbolt the largest animals and does not allow them to grow insolent in their thoughts; but the small ones He does not even prick in the slightest? You see how He always hurls His weapons at the greatest buildings and such trees? For God loves to cut down everything that is eminent. For He allows no one to think anything great of himself, except Himself alone." Finally, St. Jerome to Eustochium, On the Guarding of Virginity: "Lucifer fell," he says, "who used to rise in the morning, and he who was nourished in the paradise of delights deserved to hear: If you are exalted like the eagle, from there I will drag you down, says the Lord. For he had said in his heart: I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, and I will be like the Most High. Hence every day to those who descend by the ladder of Jacob's dream
God speaks: 'I said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.'"
Mystically, Rabbi Haccados, in Galatinus, book VII, ch. XV: "The way of the eagle in the heavens," he says, "is the King Messiah, who after His passion will ascend into heaven, as it is said in Amos ch. IX: He who builds His ascension in heaven."
Verse 5
5. IF THIEVES HAD COME TO YOU, IF ROBBERS BY NIGHT, HOW WOULD YOU HAVE KEPT SILENT? — For "kept silent" the Hebrew is nidmeta, from the root dama, which has three meanings, namely to be made like, to be cut off, and to be silent. Hence, first, Arias translates: How would you have been made like, that is, to whom would you have been left similar? Surely to a man stripped and impoverished. Second, Pagninus and the Tigurina translate: How would you have been cut off? The Septuagint: Where would you have been cast? As if to say: How would you have been deprived of your possessions and wealth? A Castro takes it differently; for he expounds it contrarily in this way: Would you have been altogether cut off? By no means: for these thieves would only have stolen enough for themselves, and left the rest to you.
Third, our Vulgate translates: "How would you have kept silent?" And the Chaldean: How would you have been put to sleep? That is, like one asleep, or one feigning sleep out of fear, would you have kept silent? The meaning is: if thieves or nocturnal robbers had invaded your dwelling in great force, you would certainly have kept silent. For so the timid, or those unequal in strength, are accustomed to keep silent out of fear, lest, if they cry out, they be killed by the thieves and robbers, as if to say: How much more will you be silent and struck dumb with terror, when the Chaldeans, most numerous, most powerful, and most hostile, invade and despoil you, and take away not only your wealth but your life as well. So St. Jerome.
Note here the physical aspect: Fear, because it draws back the spirits and blood to the heart to strengthen it in terror, thereby induces pallor in the extremities and silence of the tongue. Thus Aristotle in his Physiognomics teaches that a strong voice is a sign of a brave man, while a weak and feeble voice is a sign of a timid one. The same author, book IV of the Ethics, ch. III: "The movement of a magnanimous man," he says, "ought to be slow, and his voice deep, and his speech deliberate: the opposite is found in the pusillanimous and timid man." For fear sharpens, constricts, and binds the mouth, the tongue, the mind, the memory, the soul, and the whole man. "Fear," says Solinus the Polyhistor, ch. VII, "destroys memory." We see this in scrupulous persons, who fear the shadows of sins, and from this fear, with their imagination and memory fluctuating, often do not remember what they have done or confessed, indeed they forget that they have confessed, and do not recall the circumstances which excused them from sin in the act committed, either wholly or in greater part: because they have only the sin and the fear of sin before their eyes, and this fear makes the apprehension so strong and vivid that they seem to see sin where it is not, and to have committed what they never even thought of. Therefore, to overcome scruples, they must lay the axe to the root and cut down fear by an opposite boldness on the advice of a prudent man.
Secondly, in the thieves he notes a stealthy and timid plundering, as if to say: Thieves attack and plunder secretly, catching people unaware and unprepared: but the Chaldeans will not attack you that way openly and in pitched battle, O Edom: you will know of their approach in advance, you will prepare yourself, you will see and feel them coming and charging, yet you will not be able to resist them, nor even escape or evade by flight. So Vatablus.
WOULD THEY NOT HAVE STOLEN ONLY ENOUGH FOR THEMSELVES? — This is a new antithesis, as if to say: Thieves do not take everything, but only what suffices for them, leaving the rest to their owners and in their places: but the Chaldeans will seize everything of yours. He illustrates this with another comparison, or rather antithesis, of grape-gatherers, saying:
IF GRAPE-GATHERERS HAD COME TO YOU, WOULD THEY NOT HAVE LEFT AT LEAST SOME GLEANINGS FOR YOU? — Indeed they would customarily have left here and there several clusters hiding under the leaves: but the Chaldeans will search out and plunder everyone and everything, leaving nothing. This is a hyperbole: nothing, that is, very little, scarcely anything. They will therefore be the most thorough gleaners, as well as vintagers, over you, O Edom. Whence follows:
Verse 6
6. HOW HAVE THEY SEARCHED OUT ESAU, HOW HAVE THEY INVESTIGATED HIS HIDDEN THINGS? — As if to say: How laboriously and thoroughly the Chaldeans will search out all the secrets and treasures of the Idumeans, and plunder them! Pagninus and the Tigurina translate: How have the possessions of Esau been investigated, and his treasures been searched out? As if to say: This was done not so much by human industry and will as by divine, namely that all that belonged to the Idumeans, even the treasures they had hidden, were searched out and found by the most thorough investigation of the Chaldeans. He shows that the Chaldeans will come not by chance, not of their own will and initiative, but by the will of God, and will take vengeance on the Idumeans, and therefore this vengeance will be exacting and severe, being divine rather than human.
Verse 7
7. THEY HAVE DRIVEN YOU TO THE BORDER: ALL THE MEN OF YOUR ALLIANCE — as if to say: Not only will the Chaldeans your enemies devastate you, but even the neighboring nations friendly and allied to you, such as the Ammonites, Moabites, etc., will join with the Chaldeans your enemies, and will mock you, and drive you out of your land to its very borders, indeed even into the land of the Chaldeans. So the Chaldean, St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, Hugh, Vatablus, Clarius, and others generally, as if to say: O Idumeans, you will be betrayed by your friends.
A Castro takes it differently: for he thinks these things pertain to the times of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, under whom he believes Obadiah lived, namely when the Ammonites and Moabites allied with the Idumeans invaded Jehoshaphat and Judah, but God fighting for Jehoshaphat and Judah and turning their ambushes against themselves, the Ammonites and Moabites rising up against the Idumeans cut them down, and then turning against each other, fell by mutual wounds, as narrated in II Paralipomenon XX, as if to say: If, O Idumeans, your own prudence could not avert the ambushes of Ammon and Moab your friends, how will you avert the final slaughter by your enemies? But in the Introduction I showed that Obadiah lived and prophesied long after Jehoshaphat: therefore he is not treating of the disaster of that time; yet he alludes to it, and brings it back to the Idumeans' minds, as if to say: Remember, O Idumeans, what Ammon and Moab, your friends with whom you had ratified peace and alliance in the time of Jehoshaphat, did to you: for the same thing will be done to you in the time of the Chaldeans, and along with them they will devastate and mock you.
THEY HAVE DECEIVED YOU. — The Septuagint: They have resisted you; Pagninus, the Tigurina, and Vatablus: They will seduce you, and the men of your peace will prevail against you, that is, those who had entered into peace with you.
THOSE WHO EAT WITH YOU SHALL SET SNARES BENEATH YOU. — So also the Septuagint; but Pagninus translates: Those eating your bread will set weakness beneath you; the Tigurina: Your bread beneath you will set a wound, that is, as Vatablus puts it: The men of your bread have inflicted a wound secretly upon you, that is, upon you unsuspecting, not thinking of any such thing, because you considered them faithful, as if to say: Those who ate bread with you — your household members and intimates, or your mercenaries — fraudulently and treacherously inflicted a wound upon you.
There is no understanding in him, — namely in the people of Idumea. This is a Hebrew change of person: for he passes from the second person to the third. For he says "in him" for "in you," as if to say: You do not know, O Edom, how to guard against your own dangers, you do not know how to take counsel for yourself: and so you will come into the power of your enemies by the treachery of your friends, and by your own lack of foresight, as well as by wicked counsels. So Vatablus. Thus God made foolish the counsel of Ahithophel, II Kings XVII.
For counsel and prudence, and the understanding and acceptance of it, is a great gift of God.
Verse 8
8. SHALL I NOT IN THAT DAY, SAYS THE LORD, DESTROY THE WISE MEN OUT OF IDUMEA? — As if to say: I will take away from them counsel and intelligence, I will deprive them of reason and prudence, so that they neither foresee the approaching enemy nor take precaution, nor can they turn back or escape the enemy present, but fall into their hands. For among the Idumeans wisdom once flourished, as is clear from Eliphaz the Temanite, and the other friends of Job, who were Idumeans: for Teman was the chief city of Idumea, so named from Teman the son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau, Genesis XXXVI, 11.
Verse 9
9. AND YOUR MIGHTY MEN SHALL BE TERRIFIED FROM THE SOUTH (the Chaldean says: the inhabitants toward the south, and therefore more remote from the Chaldeans, who will come from the opposite quarter, namely from the North, as if to say: Your mighty men shall fear, even those who are farthest from the enemy), SO THAT EVERY MAN MAY BE CUT OFF (that is, the multitude of mighty men) FROM THE MOUNT OF ESAU, — that is, from Idumea, which is situated in the mountains, which your first father Esau inhabited.
From the Hebrew it can be translated literally with the Septuagint: Your warriors shall tremble from Teman; and with Pagninus and the Tigurina: Your mighty men shall be afraid, O Teman; a city of Idumea, because by slaughter everyone shall be cut off from the mount of Esau. But since Teman in Hebrew is both a proper name, signifying a city, and a common noun signifying the south and the noonday, hence our Vulgate and the Chaldean translate: "Your mighty men shall be terrified from the south." But this comes to the same thing:
for the city of Teman was situated to the south. Note here the manner in which God overthrows kings, kingdoms, republics, and cities when He wishes to punish them: namely He takes away prudence from kings and magistrates; from citizens and soldiers He takes away courage, boldness, and strength to resist; for the Idumeans excelled in both, as did their father Esau: God took both away from them when the Chaldean enemy came. This is what Isaiah threatens Jerusalem with in ch. III, 1: "The Lord of hosts shall take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the valiant and the strong, etc., the counselor and the wise man."
Verse 10
10. FOR THE SLAUGHTER, AND FOR THE INIQUITY AGAINST YOUR BROTHER JACOB. — The Tigurina: For the violence and injustice (for this is what the Hebrew chamas signifies) with which you afflicted your brother Jacob (the Jacobites, that is, the Jews) shame shall cover you. By violence and slaughter he means, specifically, that by which the Idumeans joined themselves to the Chaldeans, and together with them stormed and devastated Jerusalem, as I said in the Introduction.
SHAME SHALL COVER YOU, — when you see yourself devastated, stripped, despoiled, and killed in the same manner by the same Chaldeans whom you had helped. The word "shall cover" signifies that the Idumeans will be completely and on every side surrounded and covered with shame as with a garment, according to Psalm CVIII, 29: "Let them that detract me be clothed with shame: and let them be covered with their confusion as with a double cloak." This is a metalepsis: for shame is used in place of destruction: for from destruction followed despoliation, from despoliation nakedness, from nakedness the reproach and mockery of enemies, from reproach shame. This is what Jeremiah threatens the Idumeans with in ch. XXV, 9: "I will make them a desolation, and a hissing, and perpetual wildernesses."
AND YOU SHALL PERISH FOREVER. — This is what Ezekiel says to them, ch. XXXV, 9: "I will make you perpetual desolations, and your cities shall not be inhabited." This is a hyperbole: for he calls "forever" a long and immemorial time. For that the Idumeans, devastated by the Chaldeans, did not perish completely nor for all ages, is clear from verse 18, where the Jews are said to be about to burn the Idumeans; and from II Maccabees X, 16, where Judas Maccabeus is said to have subjugated the Idumeans; and afterward, when Titus was besieging Jerusalem, the Idumeans brought aid to the Jews, as Josephus attests, book VII of the Jewish War, ch. XV. Finally, Daniel ch. XI, 41, says that Edom will escape the hands of the Antichrist: therefore it will endure until the Antichrist and the end of the world.
Verse 11
11. IN THE DAY WHEN YOU STOOD AGAINST HIM (when, O Edom, you stood armed against Israel and Jerusalem) WHEN STRANGERS WERE CARRYING AWAY (the Chaldeans) HIS FORCES, AND FOREIGNERS WERE ENTERING HIS GATES (Jerusalem having been captured), AND OVER JERUSALEM (that is, over the spoils and citizens whom they had captured in Jerusalem) THEY WERE CASTING LOTS: YOU ALSO WERE AS ONE OF THEM, — as if to say: You in the same manner as the Chaldeans were invading, despoiling, capturing, and devastating the Jews and the citizens of Jerusalem. Note: These past tenses must be understood prophetically as futures; "you stood" for "you will stand"; "they were carrying away" for "they will carry away"; "they were entering" for "they will enter"; "they were casting" for "they will cast"; "you were" for "you will be." For Obadiah preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, and he predicts it here, and that the Idumeans will assist the Chaldeans in it.
Verse 12
12. AND YOU SHALL NOT LOOK DOWN UPON THE DAY OF YOUR BROTHER. — The Septuagint translates all these future tenses up to verse 15 as imperatives: And do not look down upon the day of your brother in the day of foreigners, and do not rejoice over the sons of Judah in the day of their destruction, and do not speak boastfully in the day of their distress, etc., nor shall you stand in their exits to destroy those who are saved from them, nor shut up their fugitives in the day of tribulation. These words are clear: for they command the Idumeans not to continue opposing the Jews in their customary way, not to lay traps for them, not to rejoice at their calamity, not to insult them. So also St. Cyril and the Tigurina. This is what the Wise Man admonishes in Proverbs ch. XXIV, 18: "When your enemy falls, do not rejoice, and in his ruin let not your heart exult, lest perhaps the Lord see and it displease Him, and He turn His wrath from him."
Secondly, others translate these futures as past tenses: "you shall not look down" means "you should not have looked down"; "you shall not rejoice" means "you should not have rejoiced"; "you shall not boast" means "you should not have boasted," etc., against your brothers the Jews. This sense fits very well with the Hebrews and Hebraism; for the Hebrews often express the future by what is owed, as in Genesis XX, 9, Abimelech says to Abraham in the Hebrew: "Things that should not be done, you have done to us." Furthermore, this sense aptly fits with what precedes; for it says before: "You also were as one of them," to which it rightly subjoins: "And you shall not look down," that is, when nevertheless you should not have looked down upon your brother, etc. So Pagninus, Arias, Vatablus, and Prado on Ezekiel XXV, 13.
The Chaldean intended the same thing, who although verbally translates it contrarily, namely affirmatively, while the Hebrew and our Vulgate read negatively, nevertheless in reality renders the same sense. For he has it thus: "And because you saw the day of your brother, the day of his breaking, and because you rejoiced over the sons of Judah in the day of their destruction," etc., as if to say: You should not have looked with pleasure upon the day of the destruction of Jerusalem, and rejoiced in it, and yet you looked and rejoiced: therefore you likewise will be punished and cut off.
Third, most properly and plainly, take all these things as future threats and oracles, as they sound: for in this entire chapter Obadiah threatens destruction upon the Edomites. Wherefore these words, "And you shall not despise," etc., are not connected to the immediately preceding words, but to those somewhat earlier, namely: "You shall perish forever," as if to say: You shall be cut off and perish, O Edom, and then you shall no longer despise the Jews as you were accustomed to do, nor shall you rejoice in their calamity, but occupied and overwhelmed by your own calamity you shall wail and mourn inconsolably. So say St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rupert, Hugh, Lyra, and Castro. This sense is required by the Latin version, which renders all these things in the future tense, not in the past tense, and what follows. For it continues: "Because the day of the Lord is near: as you have done, it shall be done to you," as if to say: You shall be devastated, and no longer occupied with the Jews' misfortunes, but with your own, you shall groan; because the day of the Lord is at hand for you, that is, the day of vengeance and destruction by the Chaldeans. Note: When he says "you shall not despise," to despise here does not mean to contemn, but to look down upon. For the Hebrew is אל al there, that is, you shall not look upon, you shall not gaze with pleasure and joy, as if to say: When you have been cut down and laid low, O Edom, you shall no longer look down with pleasure from your rock upon Jerusalem lying prostrate, as you formerly used to look down upon her. So one standing on the summit of a mountain looks down into the valleys, says Ovid, Metamorphoses XI. And Cicero, De Arusp. resp.: "I shall raise the roof higher, not so that I may look down upon you, but lest you gaze upon that city which you wished to destroy." And Plautus in the Cistel.: "Look to the ground and look down, search with your eyes." And in the Milit.: "I confess that I looked down at you through your impluvium." So God from on high looks down upon our struggles and afflictions, while He has mercy on us and comes to our aid.
In the day of his wandering — that is, the day on which Judah, cut off and exiled, began to wander among strangers and foreigners. Whence the Septuagint translates: In the day of strangers; the Tigurine: In the day when strange things happened to him; Pagninus: In the day when he was estranged. For the Hebrew נכרו nochro properly means the same as in the day of estrangement, that is, of exile and wandering.
You shall not magnify your mouth — as if to say: Once cut off, you shall no longer speak great, that is, proud, arrogant, and bitter things against the Jews; you shall no longer arrogantly insult them, saying: "Raze it, raze (Jerusalem) even to the foundation thereof," Psalm 137. So "to magnify" is taken for "to insult," Psalm 12:4-5 and Psalm 55:13; for those who insult tend to magnify, that is, to widen the mouth, to spread the lips, and even to thrust out the tongue.
Verse 13
13. Neither shall you enter the gate — so as to plunder and slay the citizens of Jerusalem together with the Chaldeans. NEITHER SHALL YOU ALSO LOOK DOWN UPON HIS MISFORTUNES — that is, you shall not gaze with pleasure upon the evil and calamity of Judea: so Vatablus and Pagninus. It is a Hebraism, namely the beth of contact. For the Hebrews say "to look upon in misfortunes" for "to look upon misfortunes." AND YOU SHALL NOT SEND OUT — namely from the Chaldeans, so as to pursue and seize part of the army of the Jews, or those coming to the aid of Jerusalem, or those fleeing from it after its capture. So the Septuagint. The Chaldean translates differently, namely: You shall not send out, or you shall not stretch forth, your hand to seize his riches in the day of his destruction. So also Pagninus and Vatablus.
Verse 14
14. Neither shall you stand in the crossways — that is, at the turnings of the roads, or as the Chaldean, Vatablus, and Pagninus say, at the crossroads, as if to say: Henceforth you shall not stand at the corners and turnings to slay the Jews fleeing the enemy's slaughter; you shall no longer ambush them at the crossroads to kill the survivors who escaped the hands of the Chaldeans, as bandits do. AND YOU SHALL NOT CUT OFF THE REMNANT — you shall not seize the afflicted and anxious survivors, you shall no longer hem them in, as you formerly did. Pagninus and Vatablus: You shall not hand over his survivors to the enemy in the day of affliction.
Verse 15
15. FOR THE DAY OF THE LORD IS NEAR UPON ALL THE NATIONS. — St. Dorotheus in the Life of Obadiah, citing these words, explains them thus: "This was said, he says, on the surface (literally) against the Scythians, that is, against Gog and Magog; but more certainly and properly it applies to the Lord Christ, for shortly after he adds: And there shall be salvation on Mount Zion." But there is no mention here of the Scythians, Gog, or Magog; nor did they overthrow Edom; indeed Edom shall escape their hands in the time of the Antichrist, as Daniel says in chapter 11:41. Therefore, literally, he calls the day of the Lord the day of vengeance and destruction to be inflicted upon the Edomites and other nations, enemies of the Jews, by God through the Chaldeans, as is clear from Jeremiah 25:15 and 27:6. So say St. Jerome, St. Cyril, Theodoret, Hugh, Lyra, and others generally. Allegorically, the day of the Lord is the day of judgment, on which Christ shall condemn the Edomites, that is, the impious, worldly, and carnal, and cast them down into hell.
AS YOU HAVE DONE, IT SHALL BE DONE TO YOU (as you afflicted the Jews, so you shall be afflicted and devastated by the Chaldeans): YOUR RECOMPENSE (what you repaid to the Jews your brothers, namely, hatred for love, slaughter and plundering, I shall repay to you, and) shall return upon your own head. — For it is just, says Rhadamanthus as cited by Aristotle in Ethics V, that what anyone has unjustly inflicted upon others, the same he should undergo and suffer, according to that verse of Psalm 137:8: "Blessed is he who shall repay to you your recompense, which you repaid to us." Note the Hebraism: to return, or to repay a recompense, means the same as to repay with retaliation, to render like for like.
the Hebraism: to return, or to repay a recompense, means the same as to repay with retaliation, to render like for like. He adds "upon the head," because just as the head is the cause of guilt, so also "punishment follows the head;" for the head, inasmuch as all the senses, the mind, and the entire soul flourish in it, most keenly feels the harm and punishment of the whole body. Again, because the greatest punishment is that which is inflicted upon the head itself, being so sensitive.
Moreover he says: "As you have done, it shall be done to you," for: As you (plural) have done, so it shall be done to you, namely, O nations universally, as preceded, both because there was then a common proverb: "As you have done, it shall be done to you," which can be applied and explained both to individuals in the singular and to many and all in the plural; and because among the hostile nations that afflicted the Jews, the first and most bitter was Edom. Therefore he directs his speech to her, but under her, as under the head, he includes the rest. So says St. Jerome. Whence, explaining further, he adds:
Verse 16
16. FOR AS YOU HAVE DRUNK (so it should be read with the Hebrews and Romans, although the Septuagint and certain Latin versions read "you drank" in the singular) UPON MY HOLY MOUNTAIN, ALL NATIONS SHALL DRINK CONTINUALLY. — To drink in Scripture is taken in two ways, that is, in contrary senses. For first, one drinks a cup of sweet wine, when one exults, feasts, and celebrates holidays. Second, one drinks a cup of bitter wine, or of gall and the wrath of God, when on account of sins one is afflicted by God with miseries and punishments. So sinners are said to drink the cup of God's fury. Now first, some take both "you have drunk" and "they shall drink" in a bad sense. Whence the Tigurine thus translates: As you who are on my holy mountain have drunk, so shall all nations drink, as if to say: As you, O Jews, have drunk the cup of God's wrath, so shall all nations drink, that they may be devastated by Nebuchadnezzar, just as you were devastated by the same.
Which Rupert, applying tropologically to the good and the wicked, the faithful and the unfaithful, explains thus, as if to say: As the pious drink the cup of tribulation, so much more shall the impious drink the same cup offered to them by God, especially on the day of judgment. Theodoret explains in a similar way, but concerning the Edomites, not the Jews, as if to say: As you, O Edomites, drank the cup of affliction offered by God through the Chaldeans, on account of, that is because of, my holy mountain, since you devastated Zion and afflicted the Jews; so likewise shall the other nations drink the same cup, who in the same way as you afflicted the Jews.
Second, others take both "you have drunk" and "they shall drink" in a good sense, namely to signify joy, as if to say: As you, O Edomites, drank, that is, by drinking, holding feasts and celebrations, you rejoiced on account of, that is because of, Mount Zion conquered by the Chaldeans: so upon you all the nations that are in the Chaldean army shall drink, that is, they shall exult by drinking, and together with them they shall plunder you, and devour your riches, and swallow your blood, and "at last, when torment comes upon all, they too shall be as though they are not," says St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Cyril, Haymo, Albert, Hugh; for he explains what he said: "As you have done, it shall be done to you;" and this continually, namely, until they utterly absorb and consume you. For the Edomites were first devastated by the Chaldeans, then by Judas Maccabeus, 2 Maccabees 10:16; again they were completely subdued by Hyrcanus, the son of Simon (who was the brother of Judas Maccabeus), according to Josephus, Antiquities II.17, and this lasted until the destruction of the Jews by Titus, when the Edomites joined the Romans, and in their usual manner took revenge by devastating the Jews, according to Josippus Gorionides, History IV.4. Finally, they were so worn down by various rulers that now not even the name of the Edomites survives.
Third, others more aptly take "you have drunk" in a good sense, but "they shall drink" in a bad sense, as if to say: As you, O Edomites, drank, that is, by drinking and feasting you exulted with the Chaldeans and other nations over the calamity of Zion; so likewise all nations, among whom you shall be first and foremost, shall drink and swallow both the cup of God's wrath, offered to them by God, and the cup of mutual blood. For they shall slaughter one another, until all perish, so that they are no more. For the Chaldeans cut down the Edomites, the Persians the Chaldeans, the Greeks the Persians, the Romans the Greeks. And so in all cases the common proverb shall be true: "As you have done, it shall be done to you." So also St. Jerome, Remigius, Haymo, and others. The following words support this: For to the nations about to be destroyed he opposes the Jews afflicted by them, and promises them restoration and salvation, saying: "And in Zion there shall be salvation." For that "they shall drink" is to be taken in a bad sense, not a good one as the second exposition holds, is clear from what he adds: "They shall drink and they shall swallow, and they shall be as though they were not," as if to say: They shall drink the cup of God's wrath, by which they shall be consumed so that they no longer exist. Whence the Complutensian Septuagint has "they shall be swallowed up," although other codices, like St. Jerome's, have "they shall swallow;" others, "they shall ascend;" others, "they shall descend, and they shall be as though not existing." Finally, Jeremiah explains Obadiah thus in chapter 25:15: "Take, he says, the cup of wine of this fury from my hand: and you shall give it to all the nations to drink. And they shall drink, and be troubled, and go mad before the sword." And in chapter 49:12, speaking of these same Edomites, and of the cup they must drink: "Behold, he says, those for whom there was no judgment that they should drink the cup, drinking they shall drink: and shall you be left as innocent? You shall not be innocent, but drinking you shall drink." He plays on the word "drinking," for a moral reason which I shall presently bring forward; just as the Apostle plays on the word "sin," saying: "Concerning sin He condemned sin," Romans 8:3; and 2 Corinthians 5:21: "Him who knew no sin, for us He made sin." Again, by an enallage he changes the second person to the third, that is, "you drank" to "they shall drink," to signify that the Edomites especially had drunk, but that nevertheless all nations would drink with them, as he proposed at the beginning of the theme in verse 15.
Morally, learn here that the sinner who drinks the cup of pleasure will drink the cup of affliction and divine vengeance. For the same cup of pleasure and honey ends in the dregs of gall and tribulation, according to Psalm 75:9: "In the hand of the Lord there is a cup of unmixed wine, full of mixture. And He has poured it from this into that: but its dregs are not exhausted: all the sinners of the earth shall drink." Herodotus writes in book IV, and Athenaeus in book XI, that the river Hypanis flows from its sources for a journey of five days thin and sweet; but after a further journey of four days, it becomes exceedingly bitter. Such is pleasure, such is its γλυκόπικρον, that is, bittersweet. "Loves and delights quickly wither, and in all things the greatest pleasures border on disgust," says Cicero, Pro Caelio. And Boethius, book III, meter 7: Every pleasure has this property: It drives those who enjoy it with its stings, And like a swarm of flying bees, Once it has poured its welcome honey, It flees, and with too tenacious grip Strikes the wounded hearts with its bite. Thus by the eternal law of God it is ordained that illicit pleasure begets weariness, anguish, and loathing, and the furies of an avenging conscience, as though leaving behind a noble bounty of itself; moreover, the punishments and scourges with which God chastises it in this world and in the next, according to Apocalypse 18:7: "As much as she has glorified herself and lived in delicacies, so much give her torment and mourning." See what is said there. Thus Venus appears beautiful to the eyes, but poisons the soul; whereas virtue, the less it captivates the carnal eyes, the more it is an allurement of love — but a wise, sincere, and holy one.
THEY SHALL BE AS THOUGH THEY ARE NOT — as though they had never been. Whence Pagninus and the Tigurine more clearly translate: They shall be as though they had never been, as if they had never existed in the nature of things.
Verse 17
17. AND ON MOUNT ZION THERE SHALL BE SALVATION. — From here to the end of the chapter there is a twofold extreme exposition, one diametrically opposed to the other. The former takes all these things literally concerning the temporal prosperity of the Jews returning from Babylon, and considers them to have been fulfilled partly under Zerubbabel and Ezra, partly under the Maccabees over the five hundred years that elapsed from this return until Christ. So say St. Cyril, Remigius, Hugh, and others. The Chaldean, Rabbi Solomon, and Rabbi David agree, who hold that these things are to be fulfilled literally and corporeally by their Messiah who is to come at the end of the world.
The latter exposition, on the contrary, denies that these things were fulfilled temporally in the Jews; therefore it takes all these things symbolically and parabolically concerning the spiritual redemption and happiness that Christ brought. So say St. Augustine, City of God XVIII.31, Rupert, Lyra, Clarius, Arias, and Vatablus. But the middle position, which reconciles, unites, and includes both of the extreme positions just mentioned, is the true one, namely, that these things are to be taken literally concerning the safety and prosperity that God granted to the Jews after their return from Babylon. For the following words fully and plainly require the same; for it was then that this victory of the Jews over the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites began.
But mystically and fully, through this temporal prosperity is foreshadowed and signified the victory of Christ and the Gospel, by which He subjected the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and all nations to Himself and to God; for then this victory was complete, and what is predicted here was fully fulfilled. For the Prophets are accustomed to fly from the type to the antitype, that is, from Zerubbabel to Christ, and to end in Him; and in Him, by a happy prophecy and as it were a Gospel, to conclude their prophecies. So say St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rupert, Haymo, Lyra, Burgensis, Hugh, and others generally. See Canons V and VI, which I prefixed to Isaiah.
Anagogically, here is signified the salvation, happiness, glory, and triumph to be given to the elect in the heavenly Zion. Therefore Obadiah says: "And on Mount Zion," the Septuagint: But on Mount Zion there shall be salvation; the Tigurine and Vatablus: But on Mount Zion there shall be escape, that is, the remnant shall escape and be preserved, as if to say: When the Edomites and other nations drink the cup of God's wrath and are utterly devastated by the Chaldeans, then conversely the people of God, namely the Jews and the Zionites, who tasted the same cup but did not drain it to the dregs, shall be saved. For from Babylon, after seventy years of captivity, they shall return to their homeland and be restored by God to their former freedom and happiness.
But mystically and fully, the same shall be freed by Christ preaching on Zion from a greater captivity, namely that of sin, the devil, and hell, and shall be endowed with every grace and glory. So say the authors already cited. For Christ on Zion established a new Church, and called all nations to it, sending to them the Apostles, who made them partakers of the faith, grace, and salvation He had won.
AND IT SHALL BE HOLY — namely Mount Zion, on account of the temple to be rebuilt on it; or "holy," namely God, shall be dwelling on the mount and in the temple of Zion. In Hebrew it reads: and on Mount Zion there shall be escape, that is, salvation and holiness. Now holiness can be taken either properly or figuratively for the temple: for the Hebrews call the temple קדש kodesh, that is, holiness, because it is most holy, inasmuch as the holiness of God dwells in it, and is worshipped through holy sacrifices, sacraments, vows, prayers, etc. Whence the Septuagint translate: and it shall be holy. Hence the first part of the temple was called the Holy Place, the latter the Holy of Holies. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Mount Zion shall be, first, holy on account of the holy temple and worship of God to be restored on it by Zerubbabel and Ezra; second, it shall be holier when Christ preaches there; third, it shall be most holy when Christ pours out the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles there, who shall transmit this holiness to the whole world, as Theodoret says.
AND THE HOUSE OF JACOB SHALL POSSESS THOSE WHO HAD POSSESSED THEM. — "The house of Jacob" is the family, stock, and descendants of Jacob, namely the two tribes returning from Babylon. Again, the Hebrew מורשיהם moreshehem, first, means their inheritances, as if to say: The Jews shall return to their possessions which they had held in Judea before the captivity. So say Pagninus and Vatablus. Second, it means their possessors, that is, those who had possessed them. So our translator, the Septuagint, and the Chaldean, as if to say: The Jews shall recover their possessions, which the Edomites and other nations had invaded and occupied while they themselves were being carried off to Babylon, with the Edomites and other invaders and unjust possessors being expelled. So Josephus narrates, Antiquities XI.4, that Darius Hystaspis, who succeeded Cambyses the son of Cyrus in the kingdom of Persia, gave the Jews permission to rebuild the temple and commanded the Edomites, Samaritans, and Syrians to restore to the Jews the fields they had occupied, as to their ancestral owners. And not only did the Jews recover what was their own, but they also invaded and occupied what belonged to others, namely the territories of the Edomites and neighboring nations, their enemies. For he who invades what belongs to others deserves to lose his own. This was accomplished by Judas Maccabeus, 2 Maccabees 10:16, and by his grandson Hyrcanus, who completely subdued and subjugated the Edomites. So say St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, and others. Mystically, this was accomplished more fully and perfectly by Christ and the Apostles, who going forth from Zion subjected the Edomites and all nations to the true Zion, that is, to the Church and to Christ. So say Lyra, Arias, Vatablus.
Verse 18
18. AND THE HOUSE OF JACOB SHALL BE A FIRE, AND THE HOUSE OF JOSEPH A FLAME, AND THE HOUSE OF ESAU STUBBLE. — "The house of Jacob" is the two tribes, as I said; "the house of Joseph" is the ten tribes of Israel; for Ephraim, descended from Joseph, was their head, as if to say: The two tribes, namely Judah and Benjamin, together with those from the ten tribes who either before the captivity or after it joined themselves to Judah and united with him in the same commonwealth and Church in Jerusalem and Judea, shall invade Edom and set it afire or subject it to themselves, just as fire subjects stubble to itself. This was accomplished literally by Judas Maccabeus and Hyrcanus, who compelled the Edomites to be circumcised and made them Jews, as Josephus testifies, Antiquities XIII.17. Whence, when Jerusalem was besieged by Titus, twenty thousand Edomites came to the aid of the Jews, says Josephus, War IV.6. So say St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, and others. Mystically, this was accomplished by the Apostles, who with the fire of Christ's charity burned up the unbelief, vices, and idols of the Edomites, so that, dead to sins, they might live to righteousness and to God. So say Lyra, Arias, Vatablus, and others.
AND THEY SHALL BE SET ON FIRE ("the house of Esau," that is, the Edomites) among them (that is, by the flame of Joseph and the fire of Jacob); and they (the Jacobites and Josephites) shall devour them, namely the Esauites and Edomites. AND THERE SHALL BE NO REMNANT (that is, no survivor, as Aquila and Theodotion translate; or, no fugitive, as Symmachus) OF THE HOUSE OF ESAU. — The Septuagint translates: There shall be no pyrophoros for the house of Esau: pyrophoros, that is, a grain-supplier, one who furnishes grain, who has charge of conveying and measuring out provisions; whence Lucilius, who was the great uncle of Pompey the Great, in Satires IX: He is the grain-supplier, he brings with him a measure and a scraper. Rutellum or rutrum is so called from scraping, says Nonius, because it scrapes off the grain that rises above the measure. Others, says St. Jerome, read pyrophoros, that is, fire-bearer, one who can carry a little fire, and this is far more true. For it alludes to what preceded: "The house of Jacob shall be a fire," as if to say: The house of Esau shall not bear, shall not sustain, the fire of the house of Jacob, but shall succumb to it and be burned up.
You may ask, first, who is this pyrophoros or pyrphoros (for these two are the same), that is, fire-bearer? First, some take pyrophoros as a valiant soldier who breathes fire and hurls fire onto the roofs of enemies. By the name of fire, says Theodoret, strength and might is understood, as if to say: No strength shall be left to the Edomites.
Second, Castro explains it thus: There shall be no fire-bearer, that is, no survivor of Edom who might hand on the torch of life and lineage to posterity. For in Scripture the propagation of a family is called a lamp: because just as a lamp preserves fire and light, so generation preserves a family. Whence this passage: "That there may remain a lamp (that is, posterity) to David," 3 Kings 11:36, where there is an elegant allusion to the ancient rite of λαμπαδουχείν (torch-bearing), by which in the games of Prometheus (for they say he stole fire from heaven and brought it down to earth) exhausted runners used to hand the torch to fresh successors alternately, as a symbol of human propagation, according to that verse of Lucretius: And like runners they hand on the torch of life. Which Plato imitated, writing in Laws VI that citizens ought to devote themselves to begetting and raising children, so that the life they themselves received from their ancestors, they might in turn hand on to posterity like a burning torch. Wherefore the Greeks perhaps derived from Prometheus this proverb: "There is no pyrophorus," that is, there is no survivor, not even Prometheus the fire-bearer. For Prometheus is the pyrophorus, who alone survived the flood of Deucalion, and therefore is said, or rather feigned, to have restored the human race with heavenly fire, like a second Noah. For if this fire-bearer had perished, the human race would have entirely perished.
Third and genuinely, Luis de Leon, and after him Delrio at adage 984, by pyrophorus understand the ancient standard-bearer and herald of the camps, whom Alexander ab Alexandro describes thus in Genial. V.3: "The Greek custom prevailed that whenever armies in battle array prepared to engage, before the front standards there stood a soothsayer, bearing laurel branches and garlands; they called him Pyrophorus, because he carried a torch before them, and to harm him was considered the greatest sacrilege, because he performed the function of an ambassador." Alexander took this from Suidas under the word pyrphoros, who also adds that these pyrphoros soothsayers were priests, and therefore inviolable, and from this arose the proverb: "Not even the pyrphoros, that is, the fire-bearer, survived," which the Greeks used equally with the Latins when they wished to signify some cruel slaughter in which all to a man had been killed. So also Pollux and Hesychius: "Pyrphorus, he says, is one who bears fire, and alone was spared in war." Moreover Philo the Jew, in On the Life of Moses I, says that so great was the slaughter of the Egyptians in the Red Sea "that not even a fire-bearer survived the disaster to report it." St. Jerome agrees, who interprets pyrphoros as grain-supplier. "For those, he says, whom they now call agents in rebus or couriers, the ancients called frumentarii (grain-suppliers)," as if to say: Not even a pyrophoros, that is, a grain-supplier, that is, a courier or messenger, shall survive so great a disaster of the Edomites. For he is the one who the enemy deliberately spares to report the disaster. Whatever the allusion, it is certain that by pyrophoros is signified a survivor and remnant, as Theodoret notes, because that is what the Hebrew שריד sarid means, and so translate Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and all the interpreters.
You may ask, second, whether, when, and how all the remnants of the Edomites perished. Some answer that they all perished gradually, although when they perished is not established. That they perished is clear from the fact that not even the name of the Edomites survives anymore: the nation therefore perished, although a few of them, and those poor and weak, remained. But against this stands the fact that Obadiah signifies that the Edomites are to be destroyed by the Jews, so that not even one of them survives. But this appears to be false: for when the Jews were destroyed by Titus, the Edomites still existed — indeed they came to the aid of the Jews, as I said a little earlier. But after the Jews were destroyed by Titus, they could not destroy the Edomites. I therefore reply that the remnants of the Edomites perished in this sense: that the Edomites, subdued by Hyrcanus, were all to a man circumcised; and so they ceased to be Edomites and began to be Jews. This is what he said a little earlier: "The house of Jacob shall possess those who had possessed them;" and verse 21: "And saviors shall ascend Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau: and the kingdom shall be the Lord's." Where he clearly signifies that the descendants of Esau shall not perish but shall be judged, that is, governed, by the Zionites and Jews, so that they become Jews and the kingdom of God. Mystically, the Edomites converted by the Apostles and apostolic men ceased to be Edomites and began to be Christians. Finally, if any refused or still refuse to be converted, they have either perished or shall perish on the day of judgment, when Christ shall exterminate all the unfaithful and banish them to hell.
You may object: Daniel 11:41 asserts that the Edomites shall exist in the time of the Antichrist and shall be immune from his tyranny. I reply: He calls them Edomites because they are the inhabitants of that mountain and rock which the Edomites formerly inhabited, who are now a different nation and bear a different name. For these, on account of their inaccessible rocks and mountains, shall escape the camps and fury of the Antichrist.
Verse 19
19. AND THOSE WHO ARE TO THE SOUTH SHALL INHERIT (namely the house of Jacob and Joseph, that is, the Jews) THE MOUNTAIN OF ESAU, etc. — Whence the Tigurine and Vatablus clearly translate: The houses of Jacob and Joseph shall occupy the south, namely the mountain of Esau. For Judea has Edom to the south; Philistia to the west; Samaria and Galilee to the north; Gilead, Moab, and Ammon to the east. Whence in verse 20, it is said of Jerusalem: "She shall possess the cities of the south." But it is better to translate with our translator, Pagninus, and the Septuagint: The south, that is, those who are to the south, shall possess the mountain of Esau; and the lowlands, that is, those who dwell in the lowlands, shall possess the Philistines. That this is the meaning is clear if one examines the Hebrew. For Sepheta is the proper name of the lowland region of Judea, as is clear from the maps of Adrichomius, which you would correctly translate as Campania. Whence the Tigurine in the latter part follows this interpretation; for it translates: and the sloping plains (that is, the lowlands) shall possess the Philistines.
Again, this meaning is required by what follows: "And Benjamin shall possess Gilead." Therefore "the south," or "those to the south," are not the Edomites but the Jews. These are said to be to the south, not in relation to the Edomites — for in relation to them they are to the north — but in relation to Benjamin and other Jews. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Those Jews who more than others incline to the south, and therefore in relation to them can be called Southerners, shall possess Edom, as being equally southern and therefore closer to them: while the Jews who inhabit Sepheta, that is, the lowland region, namely that which is around Eleutheropolis, or that which is around Lydda and Emmaus, that is, around Diospolis and Nicopolis, shall possess the cities and fields of the Philistines, as being closer to them, namely Gaza, Ascalon, Ekron, Gath, and Ashdod: moreover the tribe of Ephraim, and the rest of Samaria, which are near them to the east. And the tribe of "Benjamin shall possess Gilead," for Gileaditis is near it.
So say St. Jerome, Ribera, and others. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The Jews returning from Babylon shall possess on all sides, in the four directions of the world, the neighboring regions of their enemies, and shall distribute them among themselves fittingly according to the situation and proximity of the place: whence Ezekiel also distributes those regions to them in chapter 47. This was partly and in a preliminary way fulfilled by the Maccabees: Judas, Simon, Jonathan, Hyrcanus, and Alexander the son of Hyrcanus. For they subdued the Edomites, likewise the Philistines, namely Ashdod and Gaza, or Gadara, 1 Maccabees 5:63 and 68, and 2 Maccabees 10:16 and 32 and following. Likewise the territory of the tribe of Ephraim and the whole of Samaria, which Hyrcanus the son of Simon completely subdued, destroying the temple on Mount Gerizim that rivaled Jerusalem, as Josephus testifies, Antiquities XIII.18. Likewise Gilead, 1 Maccabees 5:36; likewise all the territories of the Canaanites up to Zarephath, which is between Tyre and Sidon, that is, all the coastal cities of the Philistines up to Sidon, namely Jamnia, Joppa, Dor, Caesarea, Ptolemais, Tyre, and Zarephath itself, as is clear from Josephus, Antiquities XIII.23, and from Josippus IV.12. Whence later Augustus Caesar, having occupied Judea, gave all these territories subject to Judea to Herod the Ascalonite, and after his death divided them into four tetrarchies and handed them over to his sons, whom he appointed as tetrarchs, Luke 3:1.
But because the Maccabees subdued these places indeed, but did not occupy them (for the Jews did not dwell in these places, but the Philistines, Samaritans, Edomites, etc.); which however Obadiah signifies will happen, saying: "And they shall inherit and possess;" hence second, this was more fully fulfilled mystically by the Apostles, who having founded the Church in Judea, went forth from there to the neighboring Samaritans, Edomites, Philistines, and other peoples, and subjected them all. So say Lyra, Arias, Vatablus, and Castro in his paraphrase: The Apostles, he says, and apostolic men shall distribute among themselves the entire surrounding region, which they are to subject to Christ by evangelical warfare, and those who go south shall traverse Edom; those who go west, the entire land of the Philistines; those who go north, Galilee and Samaria; and those who go east shall possess for Christ the Gileadites and Arabs: specifically, "Benjamin," that is, St. Paul, born of the tribe of Benjamin, "shall possess Gilead;" because he himself converted Arabia, of which Gilead is a part: for, as he himself says in Galatians 1:17: "I went into Arabia," to preach there according to my calling and office, as was customary, and to make the Arabs Christians.
Verse 20
20. THE CAPTIVITY OF THIS HOST OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL (as if to say: This host, or troop and multitude of Israelites migrating, that is, which was formerly led captive from Judea by the Chaldeans and migrated to Babylon, finally returning from there happily and gloriously, shall possess) all the places OF THE CANAANITES (namely the entire coastal strip that extends) as far as ZAREPHATH — of the Sidonians. Therefore they shall possess more after the captivity than they had possessed before it. So say St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, Haymo, and Hugh. For Zarephath, in Hebrew צרפת Tsarphath, the Hebrews, Rabbi Solomon, Rabbi David, Lyra, Clarius, Pagninus, Arias, Vatablus, and others understand France: for this is the Zarephath of the Gauls, just as that Judean one, in which Elijah lived, was called Zarephath of the Sidonians, because it was near Sidon; perhaps because these Zarephathites sent out a colony to Gaul, just as the Tyrians did to Carthage and to Tartessus in Spain; or from the forests and smelting workshops of bronze, iron, bricks, etc., in which Gaul abounded. For they say Zarephath of the Sidonians was so named because the root צרף tsaraph means to kindle, to smelt; or for some other reason. For nothing certain can be adduced on this matter.
So by the Canaanites, Rabbi David, Arias, and others understand the Germans: for the Canaanites, after they were driven from Canaan by Joshua and the Israelites, were dispersed among various nations, namely Africa, Illyricum, and Germany, and were called Alemanns. For Alemannus in German means the same as "every man, every nation," as if to say: The evangelical preachers shall subject to Christ Africa, Illyricum, Germany, and all the Canaanites, that is, all idolatrous and impious nations, even to the Gauls, to whom came St. Magdalene, Martha, Lazarus, Maximinus, Martial, and others, who converted them to Christ. Wrongly do the Jews expect these things corporeally from their Messiah, namely that he should subject all these regions to them, and even Gaul and Spain, so that the Jews might dominate nearly the whole world.
AND THE CAPTIVITY OF JERUSALEM, WHICH IS IN BOSPHORUS, SHALL POSSESS THE CITIES OF THE SOUTH — as if to say: The Jerusalemites who migrated from Judea to the Bosphorus, returning to their homeland, shall possess the southern cities, namely their own cities, that is, of Judea, which is southern in relation to Babylon and the neighboring regions. Note: For Bosphorus, in Hebrew it is ספרד Sepharad, which Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion retained as a proper name, and, as it seems, the Septuagint; for they translate Ephrata. I suspect, with Ribera, that in the Septuagint one should read Sepharata: for so the Hebrew has it, and so the others already cited translated. Lyra holds it to be a place in Babylonia.
But our Hebrew teacher, says St. Jerome, said that the Bosphorus is called Sepharad, perhaps from סוף soph, that is, boundary, and רד rad, that is, descent, or ארץ erets, that is, of the land. For the Bosphorus is the boundary of Greece, Thrace, and other lands. Or certainly from soph, that is, boundary, and pered, that is, of division, because it divides two seas and two opposing continents, and thus separates Asia from Europe. Whence St. Jerome also adds that Sepharad in Assyrian means "boundary" universally.
Add: The Hebrew בספרד bispharad, if you look at the consonants, is nearly the same as Bosphorus. For the beth in bispharad can be taken as radical, not as the servile prefix meaning "in." Hence also the Chaldean sephara means the same as boundary, limit, port, station; while in Arabic it means passage or crossing: for saphar in Arabic means the same as "he crossed, he traversed, he sailed." Whence also the Maltese (who have many words borrowed from the Syrians and Arabs) call sepharad the crossing or swimming-across of oxen; and sepharbeim they call the swimming-across of animals: and from this some learned men think that Sepharvaim was a city near the Bosphorus, so named from the swimming of animals through those straits of the sea, which Sennacherib conquered, Isaiah 36:19. Now the Bosphorus is a narrow sea that can be swum across by oxen, says Pliny, book VI, chapter 1. It is so called because it is τοῦ βοὸς πορεία, that is, the journey and path of an ox. The Bosphorus is twofold: one is in the Propontis, which separates Chalcedon from Constantinople by a short strait — this is called the Thracian; the other is at the entrance to the Maeotian marsh, which from the neighboring peoples is called the Cimmerian, of which Ovid says: The Bosphorus and the Tanais surpass the marshes of Scythia.
It appears that the Thracian Bosphorus is meant here, for St. Jerome teaches here, and in Zechariah chapter 10, that Jewish captives were relegated and dispersed as far as there during the Babylonian captivity, as do the Hebrews, Emmanuel, and Mariana, who however holds that the Jews were relegated to the Bosphorus by the emperor Hadrian, not by the Chaldeans. Other learned men, however, think that the Cimmerian Bosphorus is meant here; for the Assyrians held dominion there and recruited soldiers from it. For the Pontic and Cimmerian peoples, from their cold and harsh climate, were hard and rough men, and therefore fierce and keen in wars. Whence Diodorus Siculus, book III, chapter 7, says that Sardanapalus, foreseeing destruction from an oracle saying that Nineveh would be taken when the river became an enemy to the city (for then the Tigris, swollen by rains, had knocked down the walls of Nineveh for twenty stadia), sent away three sons with a great quantity of gold to Paphlagonia, to Cottus the governor, the most acceptable of all his generals. Now Paphlagonia faces toward the Bosphorus and Pontus; wherefore Strabo calls this the Bosphoran kingdom. They believe, therefore, that many Jews were relegated there by the Assyrians and Babylonians, who suffered harsh treatment in a harsh region from harsh inhabitants. For there is Mount Cerberion and its town, the Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Tartarus; wherefore Homer places the seat of the underworld among the Cimmerians, whether on account of the perpetual darkness, or on account of the frequent mining of metals, or on account of the extremely dark valleys inaccessible to the winter sun; so much so that the pagans believed the gate of hell was there.
And so they understand that passage of Isaiah 28:15: "We have struck a covenant with death, and with hell we have made a pact," namely with the Cimmerians and the Bosphoran kingdom, that is, with the Assyrians ruling in Pontus and the Bosphorus. Therefore Obadiah predicts that the Jews are to be freed from so cruel and dreadful a captivity; and through this he represents that we are to be freed from death and hell by Christ: so that, just as the Jews were transferred from the harshest north to the sweetest warmth of the south, so from sin, sloth, and vices we may be transferred by Christ to the sweetest breeze and breath of the Holy Spirit, which makes us burning with the love of God and virtue. This is supported by that verse of Tibullus, book III, elegy 5: May it be granted one day to know the Elysian fields, And the boat of Lethe, and the Cimmerian lakes, that is, the infernal and gloomy ones. And that verse of Lucan: So stands the sluggish Bosphorus, binding the Scythian waves.
Moreover Pliny, book II, chapter 15, asserts that the width of the Cimmerian Bosphorus is one thousand five hundred paces. The king of the Bosphoran kingdom was later Mithridates, who was stripped of it by the Romans. The meaning therefore is: The Jews who during the Babylonian captivity were transferred to the Bosphorus shall return from there with the other Jews returning from Babylon, and shall possess the cities of the south, namely of Judea, their homeland, which is southern.
Moreover the Hebrews, the Chaldean, the Syrian, both Arabic versions, Josippus the son of Gorion, History III.15 and V.25; Rabbi Solomon, Rabbi David, Lyra, Clarius, Pagninus, Arias, Vatablus, Burgensis, Castro, Emmanuel, Mariana, and many others understand Sepharad as Spain; and so the Rabbis, wherever they are, call Spain Sepharad. For Spain is placed by geographers and ancient poets as the last part of the world; whence near Compostela there is a place that is called "the ends of the earth." The Spanish Bosphorus, therefore, is Cadiz, or the Strait of Hercules, commonly called the Strait of Gibraltar, where are the Pillars of Hercules, which he set up as the boundaries of his expedition and his victories; whence Charles V, surpassing them by sending fleets to America, took for himself this motto: "Plus ultra" (Further beyond), as if to say: I have surpassed Hercules and his pillars and boundaries.
Add to this that many believe the Spaniards originated from Tubal and the Ibeli, or Iberians, dwelling near the Bosphorus and the Black Sea, and were therefore called Iberians, as I said on Genesis 10:2. The name Sperida supports this, by which the Greeks, says Arias, call Spain: for Sperida, if you look at the consonant letters, which alone the Hebrews consider, is the same as Sepharad; although the Greeks call Spain Σπιρίδα and Hesperia, because it is a western region; perhaps from the Greek Σπιρίδα the Hebrews called Spain Sepharad; for the Phoenicians and Jews were neighbors of the Greeks.
Hear a remarkable thing from Josephus, Against Apion I: "For writers were so ignorant of the Gauls and Spaniards, etc., that they thought the Spaniards, who inhabit only the western part of the earth, were a single city, because those nations had no commerce with the rest." Again, this opinion is supported by the fact that Josephus, Antiquities XI.11, citing Megasthenes, asserts that Nebuchadnezzar after destroying Jerusalem subjugated Spain; it seems therefore that he transferred many Jews there. According to this opinion, the meaning will be, as if to say: The Jews transferred to Spain shall return from there with the others returning from Babylon under Cyrus, to the cities of the south, namely to Judea.
Mystically, as if to say: The Apostles shall hasten from Judea to Spain, and from the southern region of Cadiz and the province of Baetica to other provinces of Spain, and from there to Africa, indeed to Brazil, America, and Ethiopia (for all these are to the south), and shall subject them all to Christ, as St. James, St. Paul, and their successors did. For the great glory of the Church, equally of the Spaniards and Portuguese, is the subjugation and conversion of the New World, namely the West and East Indies. So among others says Acosta, Indian History I.15, where he says it is fitting that the conversion of so great a thing as America should be found in Scripture.
Sanchez and Ribera attack this opinion at length (although the one who composed the latter's compendium defends it). First, because only the more recent Hebrews call Spain Sepharad. It can be replied that the Chaldean interpreter is ancient, as is Josippus, and that they received this from still earlier sources. Second, because St. Jerome translates Sepharad as Bosphorus, not Spain, not Cadiz. I reply: Bosphorus is a common noun in Greek, and generally signifies straits of the sea that can be swum across by oxen; in Latin, straits between two continents are called Porthmos, just as conversely a narrow strip of land between two seas is called an Isthmus. Just as therefore there is a Thracian Bosphorus and another Cimmerian, so there is also a Spanish one, namely Cadiz, as well as an Indian one at the Strait of Magellan, and an Arabic and Persian one at the Arabian and Persian Gulfs. Again, the Hebrew Sepharad in Assyrian, as St. Jerome testifies, means "boundary" in general; but it may be that this generic name was appropriated to Spain, because from the West it is the end and boundary of Europe, for after it, and therefore after Cadiz, follows the Ocean. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The Jews who have been dispersed to all boundaries, and even as far as the Bosphorus, shall return to the south, that is, to Judea. So says St. Jerome.
Mystically, the Apostles and apostolic men, stationed at the boundaries of regions, as in the Thracian, Cimmerian, Spanish Bosphorus, etc., shall proceed from there to the southern provinces and possess them in the name of Christ. For the salvation and Gospel of Christ migrated from Canaan through the south and other regions all the way to Gaul, Germany, Spain, Africa, and America, and pervaded the whole world.
Moreover, that Sepharad is a foreign, namely Assyrian, name can be gathered from the fact that Hebrew roots are trilateral; quadrilateral ones therefore, such as Sepharad, are foreign and borrowed from another language; or else they are compounded and composed of two Hebrew roots. The more skilled Hebrews note this. Again, Hebrew names are common to many things and have multiple meanings. Sepharad therefore signifies the Bosphorus — Thracian, Cimmerian, Magellanic, and Gaditanian — and hence Spain. For Spain itself is the boundary (which Sepharad signifies) of the continent, because it is surrounded for the most part by sea, both the Mediterranean and the Ocean. And even if Spain was called Sepharad by the Jews only after the times of Obadiah and Christ, nevertheless because it is called so by absolutely all Jews of past centuries (whom we know), it must be believed that Obadiah also had it in view; because he wrote his oracles not only for the people of his own age but of ours. So Isaiah 49:12 predicted the conversion of the Chinese, and calls them in Hebrew Sinim, even though in the age of Isaiah they did not have this name, but in ours, in which we see his prophecy being fulfilled, as I said there.
You may object: Obadiah prophesies here only about the Jews, but in Spain few in number were converted to Christ; the rest remained in Judaism; whence they were ordered by Ferdinand and Isabella to leave Spain. I reply literally: very many Jews, dispersed to Spain and other shores by the devastation of Judea, returned to Judea under Cyrus and the Maccabees. Mystically, many of them were also converted to Christ. For many, expelled from Judea by the emperor Hadrian, fled to Spain. Indeed Lucius Dexter, to whom Jerome dedicates the Treatise On Ecclesiastical Writers, in his recently published Chronicle, reports that the Spanish Jews, when they heard of the miracles of Christ and the Apostles, sent an envoy to them requesting that others from among them be sent to Spain; whence St. James was soon sent, who Baronius and others also hold preached only to the Jews in Spain; about which I shall say more on Acts 12.
Finally, the Jews and Israelites understood here are not carnal but spiritual, namely believers in Christ. For these are the true Israelites, sons of Abraham, and heirs of God's promises, as the Apostle teaches, Romans 9:6 and following.
Tropologically, Hugh of St. Victor understands by these seven nations the seven capital vices, which Jacob, that is, the faithful wrestler, dwelling on Zion, that is, on the watchtower of the mind, overthrows both in himself and in others through the seven contrary virtues, and through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and through the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer, and the first seven beatitudes: First, therefore, Esau and the Edomites, burning with hatred of the Jews, denote anger. Those "who are to the south" overcome this, namely those who, expanded and kindled by the warm wind and the spirit of charity, smother all distress and all the cold of hatred and wrath. Second, the Philistines, that is, those sprinkled with ashes, or those who fall while drinking (from the root raphal, that is, "he fell," and שתה sata, that is, "he drank," as Pagninus testifies in the Interpretation of Hebrew Names), denote gluttony and gluttons. Those who dwell "in the lowlands" of frugality, temperance, and continence overcome this, and who eat field vegetables and legumes rather than meats and urban delicacies. The same, third, subdue and possess "Ephraim," that is, pride; and fourth, "Samaria," that is, envy; for Ephraim gave proud kings to Israel, and the Samaritans were envious and jealous of the Jews. Fifth, "Benjamin," that is, "son of the right hand," namely energy, diligence, and fortitude, "shall possess Gilead," that is, shall subjugate sloth; for Gilead means the same as "heap of testimony," where also Laban, weary, ceased to pursue his daughters and departed from Jacob. Sixth, "the captivity of Israel," that is, the faithful, who reckon themselves pilgrims on earth and migrate to heaven to see God and to have dominion for Him, possess all the places of the Canaanites and Zarephath, that is, they subdue all the arts and forms of avarice. For Canaanite means the same as merchant, whose characteristic vice is greed: Zarephath means the same as smelting-furnace, in which gold and silver are smelted. Seventh, "the captivity of Jerusalem, which is" in Sepharad, or "the Bosphorus," that is, the faithful, who, having conquered the passions of the soul, aspire to and migrate toward the vision of peace, and therefore withdraw as far as possible from the delights of the flesh, and constrain and tame all their senses through ox-like labors — these, I say, shall possess the cities of the south, that is, they shall suppress and extinguish all the heats of lust and carnal desire; and so, as saviors, conquerors, and triumphers over the Edomites and other enemies defeated, they shall gloriously ascend Mount Zion, that is, heaven, and there with God they shall enter the kingdom of eternal happiness, which here they began through grace and the victory over themselves and their vices.
Note the word "army" (exercitus), when he says: "The captivity of this army of the children of Israel;" for an army is called a multitude of soldiers because it becomes better through drill (exercitando). So Vegetius, On Military Affairs II: "The number of soldiers, he says, is drilled; whence the army (exercitus) received its name from the very work (of drilling), so that it might never be allowed to forget what it was called." Thus formerly the Romans (as vigorous commanders still do) kept their soldiers, especially recruits, perpetually in arms and in every kind of toil and military austerity. Hear Cicero, Tusculan Disputations II: "You see first where our armies get their name; then what labor, how great, of the march: to carry provisions for more than half a month, to carry whatever they need for use, to carry a palisade; for our soldiers count shield, sword, and helmet as no more a burden than shoulders, arms, and hands; for they say that weapons are a soldier's limbs, which indeed are carried so handily that, if need arises, they can throw down their packs and fight with their weapons ready as with their own limbs. What of the drill of the legions? What of that running? The shouting — what great labor it involves! From this comes that spirit in battle, ready for wounds. Bring an undrilled soldier in the same way — he will seem a woman." Let the soldiers and champions of Christ imitate these trained men, so that not for one day, month, or year, but continually through their whole life they handle weapons, exercise the body with hard vigils, fasts, and labors, and the soul with pious prayers, meditations, studies, and readings. So they shall become strong and invincible; so they shall overcome their adversaries, so they shall subdue all adversity and compel it to serve them. This alone the anchorites used to do of old, who were therefore called ascetics, that is, exercisers. The same is done now by cenobites and religious.
Again, army signifies a multitude: "By an army, says Ulpian, we mean not one cohort nor one cavalry wing, but many troops of soldiers." Whence Virgil, Aeneid XI: ...And now the whole army was marching across the open plains, ... Rich in horses, in embroidered garments and gold. So the soldier of Christ leads forth into battle all his senses, all the powers of his soul, all the endowments and forces of his mind, and sets them against the most numerous enemies: "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of justice," etc. (Ephesians 6:12). See what I have noted there on the full armor of the Christian soldier.
Verse 21
21. SAVIORS SHALL ASCEND (as if to say: They shall arise and come to Zion, namely to Jerusalem) TO JUDGE (that is, to coerce and subject) THE MOUNTAIN OF ESAU — namely Edom. Such were Judas, Simon, Hyrcanus, Alexander, and Aristobulus the Hasmoneans, as I said above. For to judge often means the same as to vindicate. Hence in the Book of Judges, the Judges are called avengers of the people of Israel. Mystically, the saviors are Christ and the Apostles, who, having conquered idolatry and unbelief, subjected the enemies of Israel, namely the Edomites and other nations, to Christ and to Zion, that is, to the Christian Church. So say Clarius, Vatablus, and others, and St. Augustine, City of God XVIII.31. These went forth from Zion, that is, from the watchtower of prayer, in which, animated by the Spirit of God, with fiery words as though with darts they wounded and set ablaze with the love of God the savage Esauites, that is, the unbelievers and sinners.
AND THEN THE KINGDOM SHALL BE THE LORD'S — as if to say: Then the Lord shall reign over this His people, and through them over all others, and by His subjects He shall in turn be acknowledged and worshipped. This was true in a preliminary way in the Maccabees, fully in the Church of Christ militant, and shall be most fully in the Church triumphant: "When all things shall have been subjected to Him (Christ), then the Son Himself shall be subject to the Father, who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all," says the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 15:28. So say St. Jerome and Hugh.
Less correctly the Septuagint, Aquila, and Theodotion translate "saved" instead of "saviors." For the Hebrew מושיעים mosciim is active, and means saviors, not the saved; for it belongs to the former to judge, not to the latter.
Morally, learn here first that God always tempers vengeance with mercy, indeed surpasses it, and ends in mercy: for He showed this toward the Edomites, His enemies, by making them His people and kingdom. Let kings and princes imitate the same. A hieroglyphic of this can be seen on ancient coins of Antoninus Pius: a thunderbolt placed on a cushion. Others are found in which an eagle sits upon a thunderbolt, to which a branch of olive has been added. The emperor Charles V used this in his emblem. The eagle signifies empire, the thunderbolt vengeance, the olive mercy; to signify that the Emperor ought to moderate vengeance with mercy and reason, and not to wield it except advisedly.
Seneca asks, Natural Questions II.63: "Why, he says, is the thunderbolt that Jupiter alone sends placable, whereas the destructive one is that which he deliberated about and sent with the authority of other gods also?" and he answers: "Because it is fitting that Jupiter, that is, the king, should only benefit, but should harm only when it seems right to many." Let prelates and princes learn this, so that they may hurl the thunderbolt against the guilty not indulging their own inclination, but following the counsel of the prudent, and almost unwillingly.
Again, learn here that the supreme happiness of man is if he becomes the kingdom of God, if God reigns in him and in his soul, and this first, because God is a most just and benevolent king, and therefore commands with supreme justice and sweetness; it is otherwise with tyrants, such as the devil, the world, and the flesh, who command the soul they possess with unjust and harshest demands, imperiously and tyrannically. Concerning the devil, this is clear in the case of sorcerers and witches, whom he commands to murder their neighbors, relatives, and parents, and if they do not obey, he beats them and mistreats them and treats them as his slaves. Concerning the world, it is evident: for what does not the world command the ambitious man, to obtain honors; the greedy man, to obtain riches? What flatteries, what services, what vigils, what cares, what fears, what envies, what simonies, what frauds, what usuries? Concerning the flesh, it is manifest in gluttons and the lustful, whom the flesh commands to the most shameful things, and who often bring upon themselves fevers, venereal disease, and the most bitter sicknesses and torments, and death itself.
On the contrary, of the kingdom of God and Christ the Psalmist sang, Psalm 45:3: "Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, grace is poured upon Your lips;" and verse 5: "In Your splendor and Your beauty, attend, proceed prosperously, and reign;" and verse 7: "The scepter of direction (straight, just) is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved justice and hated iniquity;" and Psalm 72:2: "To judge Your people with justice, and Your poor with judgment. Let the mountains receive peace for the people, and the hills justice," etc.; and Isaiah 11:4: "He shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity for the meek of the earth;" and 42:3: "The bruised reed He shall not break, and the smoking flax He shall not quench; in truth He shall bring forth judgment."
Second, because this kingdom of God consists in grace and virtues, namely faith, hope, charity, etc., which are the most noble gifts of the soul communicated by God, so that by them one may be directed to the service of God and one's supreme good. For God rules the mind when He inspires in it the knowledge, love, desire, worship, and union of Himself, that is, of the supreme good. Now what is better than to know the first truth? What more blessed than to love the supreme goodness? What more worthy than to worship the immense majesty?
Third, because this kingdom is directed not to the advantage of God who rules, but to the advantage of the soul that is ruled, and that the greatest advantage, namely, that by living holily and piously it may merit glory and the heavenly kingdom, in which it shall possess God and all the goods of God forever. Hence the Apostle, Colossians 1:12: "Giving thanks, he says, to God the Father, who has made us worthy to share in the lot of the saints, in light: who has rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love."
Fourth, because this kingdom does not make its subjects base but noble, indeed kings, according to Apocalypse 5:10: "You have made us a kingdom (kings) and priests to our God: and we shall reign over the earth;" and 1 Peter 2:9: "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare the virtues of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." Is not he a king who by the grace of God commands his own desires and passions? who restrains, curbs, and governs pride with humility, avarice with generosity, anger with mercy, gluttony with temperance, lust with chastity? Is not he a king who through reason, prudence, and self-control wisely and bravely commands the memory, will, concupiscible and irascible appetites, imagination, eyes, ears, tongue, mouth, and all other faculties and members? Wherefore we are rightly commanded by Christ to pray daily: "Thy kingdom come."
Where St. Cyprian truly says: "He who, he says, has already renounced the world is greater than both its honors and its kingdom; and therefore he who dedicates himself to God and Christ does not desire earthly but heavenly kingdoms," indeed "God Himself," because we shall reign in Him. And St. Ambrose, On the Sacraments VI.5: "If God reigns in us, the adversary can have no place. Guilt does not reign, sin does not reign, but virtue reigns, modesty reigns, devotion reigns." Therefore, O Lord, be our king, our lawgiver, reign in us; we offer You our souls and all their powers, endowments, and limits; we ourselves cannot govern them; that the tyrants — the world, the flesh, and the devil — should govern them, we do not wish; You, who created them and redeemed them with Your blood, govern them as Your own possession, as Your own kingdom, You who alone govern wisely, mercifully, powerfully, and profitably and happily. That famous king perceived this, who said in Psalm 23:1: "The Lord rules me, and I shall want nothing. In a place of pasture there He has placed me."
And the Apostle, who prays this one thing for his own: "But may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and the patience of Christ," 2 Thessalonians 3:5.
Come, Lord, rule our heart, that it may obey no one, surrender itself to no one but You, that by no one but by You, and by Your charity and patience breathed into us, may it be directed to undertake all difficult things for love of You, and to bear all hardships steadfastly. Rule likewise our tongue, that it may speak nothing but Your praises; rule our hands, that they may handle and accomplish whatever is pleasing to You; rule our feet, that with sure step they may be borne toward every good. To You with the Bride in the Canticles we sigh and cry out: "Draw me after You: we will run in the fragrance of Your ointments. My Beloved is mine, and I am His, who feeds among the lilies. I am my Beloved's, and His turning is toward me. Set me as a seal upon Your heart, as a seal upon Your arm." This alone is the desire of our soul, this is the sum of our prayers: that You may reign in us through grace, and make us come to Your heavenly kingdom, where there is the manifest vision of You, the perfect love of You, the blessed companionship of You, the everlasting enjoyment of You; that on that last and decisive day of the world, which shall be the horizon of blessed and wretched eternity, separating the elect from the reprobate for all ages, we may merit to hear from You with exultation: "Come, blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, in which we shall obtain certain security, secure tranquility, tranquil delight, happy eternity, eternal happiness, where there is perfect love, no fear, an eternal day, a joyful stirring, and one spirit of all," says St. Augustine in Meditations, the last chapter.