Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He recounts the oppressions of the poor, and other injuries inflicted on neighbors by the Israelites: and therefore threatens them with captivity, not out of hatred, but out of love and compassion. Whence, verse 11: Would that, he says, I were not a man having a spirit, and that I rather spoke falsehood! Therefore, verse 12, joining joyful things to sad, he promises Christ, who will gather them from captivity into the one sheepfold of the Church, as a shepherd.
Theodoret thinks the Prophet here prophesies to only two tribes: but Rupert, Vatablus, and a Castro think only to ten. It is more correct that he first addresses the ten, then the two tribes, as Arias holds. This is proven first, because this chapter is similar to the preceding one, and is derived from it in continuous thread, connected and dependent upon it. Therefore, just as there he first dealt against the ten, then consequently or concurrently against the two tribes, so he does here also. Second, because in verse 12, and chapter III, 1, he addresses both Jacob and Israel. Therefore, just as in chapter I, 5, by Jacob he meant the ten tribes, by Israel the two, so also here. Third, because in verse 12 he says Christ will gather into His sheepfold both Jacob and Israel. But Christ gathered both the ten tribes and the two: therefore. Fourth, that he deals here not only with the ten tribes but also with the two is clearly evident from chapter III, 10, where he says: You who build up Sion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. And verse 12: Therefore, on your account, Sion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become a heap of stones.
Vulgate Text: Micheas 2:1-13
1. Woe to you who devise what is vain, and work evil upon your beds: in the morning light they carry it out, because their hand is against God. 2. And they coveted fields, and took them by violence, and seized houses, and they oppressed a man and his household: a man and his inheritance. 3. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am devising evil against this family: from which you shall not remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, because the time is most wicked. 4. In that day a parable shall be taken up against you, and a song shall be sung with sweetness, by those saying: We are utterly laid waste; the portion of my people has been changed: how shall he depart from me, when he returns, who divides our regions? 5. Therefore there shall be no one for you casting the measuring line by lot in the assembly of the Lord. 6. Do not speak, you speakers: It shall not drop upon these, shame shall not seize them. 7. The house of Jacob says: Is the Spirit of the Lord shortened, or are such His thoughts? Are not My words good to him who walks rightly? 8. And on the contrary, My people has risen up as an adversary: from above the tunic you have taken the cloak: and those who were passing by innocently you have turned into a war. 9. The women of My people you have cast out from the house of their delights: from their little ones you have taken away My praise forever. 10. Arise and go, for you have no rest here: because of its uncleanness it shall be corrupted with the worst corruption.
11. Would that I were not a man having a spirit, and that I rather spoke falsehood: I will drop for you into wine and into drunkenness: and this people shall be that upon whom it is dropped. 12. In gathering I will gather all of you, Jacob: I will bring together the remnants of Israel into one, I will place him as a flock in the sheepfold, as cattle in the midst of their pens; they will make a tumult from the multitude of men. 13. For one who opens the way shall ascend before them: they shall break through and pass through the gate, and enter by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord at their head.
Verse 1
1. WOE TO YOU WHO DEVISE WHAT IS VAIN! — In Hebrew, aven, that is, vanity or iniquity. So Pagninus and Vatablus. The Chaldean renders it as rapine; the Syriac, as fraud; the Arabic, as ignorance, folly. For he is speaking of injuries inflicted on one's neighbor. For just as in chapter I he described the sins of Israel against God, so here he recounts the same people's crimes committed against their neighbor. It is litotes or understatement, a rhetorical figure by which less is said for the sake of modesty, and more is understood: as when the Poet says: "Him not lacking in virtue (that is, him abounding and excelling in virtue) dark day carried away." So idols in Scripture are called vain, because in themselves they are vain and false gods; yet they bring not vain but real harm: namely, guilt and punishment. The Septuagint, instead of hoi, that is, woe, with different vowel points and by metathesis of the letter vav with yod, read haiu, that is, they became those who devise labors, that is, sins and crimes: for sin begets labor and sorrow both present and future.
AND YOU WORK EVIL UPON YOUR BEDS (that is, at night in your beds you devise and contrive crimes, namely frauds and oppressions of the poor, which at early dawn you eagerly and hastily carry out. For this is what follows): IN THE MORNING LIGHT THEY CARRY IT OUT. — "They carry out," that is, you carry out. It is an enallage of person: but he says "they carry out," as if turning away his face and speech from them because of the unworthiness of the matter: whence he speaks of them as of strangers and enemies, in the third person.
BECAUSE THEIR HAND IS AGAINST GOD. — "Hand," that is, counsel, machination, operation, and execution which is done by hand. Note: The Hebrew word el signifies strength, and thence God, because He is most mighty. Whence from the Hebrew it can be translated thus: Because their hand is for strength, that is, because their hands are strong, or because they are powerful in strength, as the Zurich Bible translates, and because they have the power in their hands to oppress, as Pagninus translates. So also the Chaldean, Clarius, and Arias, that is: They contrive injuries against their neighbors, and actually inflict them, because they are powerful, and no one is able to resist them. Whence St. Jerome says: "You do not consider that your hand is mighty against the Lord."
Third, the Septuagint translates this entire passage thus: They became those who devise labors, and who work evils upon their beds, and together with the day (as soon as the day dawned) they accomplished them, because they did not lift their hands to the Lord.
Where note how great is the power of prayer, and how great are the evils that follow from its omission and neglect. For these Israelites contrived and accomplished all their frauds and robberies because they did not lift their hands to the Lord, as the Septuagint translates. For if they had lifted them, partly deterred by the remembrance of God and His judgments, they would have desisted from contriving crimes; partly God, invoked by them, would have anticipated them with His grace, by which He would have called them away from evil and urged them toward good. We experience the same in reality with great sinners; namely, that they forget prayer and God, as is said of those elders who plotted against the chastity of Susanna, Daniel XIII, 9: "They perverted their own mind, and turned away their eyes, that they might not look to heaven, nor remember just judgments." And the Psalmist, Psalm XIII, when in verse 1 he had said of the wicked: "They are corrupt and have become abominable in their pursuits, etc. They have all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that does good, etc. Destruction and unhappiness in their ways," etc.; he adds the cause of these evils and crimes in verse 5, saying: "They have not called upon the Lord." On the contrary, the Psalmist himself continually prays to God, that he may be directed by Him in his thoughts and works, lest he fall into any sin. "Perfect my steps," he says, "that my footsteps may not be moved," Psalm XVI, 5. "Show me Your ways, O Lord: and teach me Your paths. Direct me in Your truth, and teach me: for You are God my Savior," Psalm XXIV, 4. "Set me a law, O Lord, in Your way: and direct me in the right path because of my enemies," Psalm XXVI, 11. He does the same often elsewhere, and in the whole of Psalm CXVIII, which is about the keeping of God's law. And St. Paul, II Corinthians XIII, 7: "We pray," he says, "to God, that you do no evil." Cassian writes, Conference X, chapter IX, that the servants of God at the beginning of each work are accustomed to implore the help of God, that they may carry it out rightly, without sin, and with virtue, and to say: "O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me," as the Church prays at the beginning of each of the Hours; and at Prime, at the beginning of the day, she prays thus: "Lord, almighty God, who has brought us to the beginning of this day, save us today by Your power, that in this
day we may turn aside to no sin, but that our words, thoughts, and works may always proceed to the doing of Your justice." Experience has taught that confessors captured by tyrants for the faith of Christ persisted strong in it and became martyrs, all who had devoted themselves to constant prayer; but that those fell who neglected to pray and to invoke the help of God. We have seen and see the same in any other temptations whatsoever. We experience the same in ourselves. As a symbol of this, it is read in the books of Maccabees that Judas Maccabeus, who obtained so many and such noble victories over Antiochus, always poured forth fervent prayers to God before each battle, except the last one in which he fell slain, because he is not recorded as having prayed then. Let us therefore pray daily with St. Ambrose and St. Augustine in the hymn Te Deum laudamus: "Grant, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin."
Verse 2
2. THEY SEIZED HOUSES — they coveted the houses as well as the fields of their neighbor, and seized them by force or fraud, to satisfy their covetousness.
AND THEY OPPRESSED A MAN BY FALSE ACCUSATION. — They oppressed him by calumny, accusing him falsely, in order to strip him of his goods, or even his life: for this is the Hebrew word asac. Whence the Zurich Bible translates, they inflict violence on everyone; Pagninus, they oppressed a man; the Septuagint, they plundered a man.
Verse 3
3. AND YOU SHALL NOT WALK HAUGHTILY. — The Chaldean and Septuagint render it as upright, that is: I will press down their erect and proud neck, I will render them humble and cast down, so that they may bow their swelling necks and bend their lofty heads.
BECAUSE THE TIME IS MOST WICKED (that is, most calamitous) — that is, it will be, meaning: I will bring upon them the greatest calamities, which shall crush and break their proud necks. So it is said in Matthew VI, 34: "Sufficient for the day is its own malice," that is, affliction and calamity. So conversely the Hebrews call good that which is prosperous and joyful, as: "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" Psalm CXXXII, 1. To this passage of Micah the Apostle alluded in Ephesians V, 16, saying: "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil."
Verse 4
4. IN THAT DAY A PARABLE SHALL BE TAKEN UP AGAINST YOU — namely a dirge, that is, a funeral lament and mournful song, to be sung commonly and everywhere. So the parable or lament is called a dirge of the destruction of Babylon, Isaiah XIV, 4, and of Tyre, Ezekiel XXVII, 2, and of Egypt, Ezekiel XXXII, 2. The reason is that, just as in parables, so in dirges similitudes, maxims, metaphors, and similar figures and devices are employed, as are used in poetry. Moreover, they are common things, which are commonly on everyone's lips; for these are called parables or proverbs by the Hebrews.
AND A SONG SHALL BE SUNG WITH SWEETNESS. — The Hebrews: And a lamentation of lamentation shall be lamented, that is, a supreme lamentation, or a most mournful one. So Pagninus, Vatablus, and others. You will ask: Why then do our Translator and the Septuagint render it as a song with sweetness; and Arias, as a lamentation with solace? I answer, because when the Hebrews repeat the same noun in the genitive, they signify something preeminent, most beautiful, and supreme in that kind, as King of kings, that is, the supreme King; Song of songs, that is, the most beautiful song. So here lamentation of lamentation is a preeminent and most beautiful lamentation: especially because every song, even if mournful and lamentable, by the very fact that it is a song, is sweet and delights the ears and mind: indeed not only the melancholy, but also pious men devoted to compunction, take more delight in funeral song and music than in festive and exultant music. For this reason the ancients employed at funerals male and female mourners singing with flutes, so that by the sound and voice of the flutes, though mournful, they might soothe the grief of parents and relatives, who accordingly so modulated and bent their voices that by their melody they might alleviate sorrow. So also by this distinguished lament the grief of devastated Jerusalem is soothed, and to her, though mourning, the mourning-woman brings a certain sweetness, and soothes her with a consolation fitting to such a place.
Otherwise Ribera says: The Hebrew nihia, that is, of lamentation, from the root naha, that is, he lamented, can be derived from the root hava, which means to break, to crush, that is: It shall be broken, that is, sung with a broken, cut, and soft voice, that is, with sweetness. Better, you may derive nihia from haia, that is, it was: so that nihia would mean the same as completed, finished, well-arranged, elegant, and therefore soothing, delighting, and sweet.
Otherwise Remigius, Albert, Lyranus, and Hugh think that this lamentation is to be taken up not by the Israelites themselves, but by their enemies the Assyrians, who imitating and repeating this lamentation of the Israelites, will sing with sweetness by way of mockery the very same thing that the Israelites will sing with grief. But others more simply hold that the Prophet assigns this lamentation not to the Assyrians, but to the devastated Israelites themselves, namely to be sung by their mourning-women and public mourners, who presided over lamentations, for the public consolation of the citizens in such a great calamity. For this is signified by the very words of the lament, which are in the first person: "We are utterly laid waste."
WE ARE UTTERLY LAID WASTE (in Hebrew, by devastating we are devastated, that is, as Pagninus renders it, we are completely devastated): THE PORTION OF MY PEOPLE HAS BEEN CHANGED. — These are the words of the Synagogue, that is, of Samaria and Jerusalem, meaning: A portion of the Israelite people was carried away by Shalmaneser into Assyria, just as a portion of the Jewish people was carried away by Nebuchadnezzar into Babylon. Second, "portion," that is, the lot and inheritance of my people, namely the fields of Samaria, were transferred from the Israelites to the Cutheans and Assyrians, just as
the fields of Judea were occupied by the Chaldeans, IV Kings XVII and chapter XXV.
HOW SHALL HE DEPART FROM ME, WHEN HE RETURNS, WHO DIVIDES OUR REGIONS? — that is: The false prophets and flatterers persuaded us, and we believed that when Shalmaneser had ravaged the fields of Samaria, carrying away a few, and we promised him tribute, he would no longer return to us, and there would be peace for us: but behold, he returns and besieges Samaria, captures it, carries away all the Israelites, and in their place brings Cutheans from Assyria into Samaria, to possess their fields as if they would be permanent inhabitants, so that no hope remains for us of returning to our own land. The Jews say the same about Nebuchadnezzar: we hoped that after Joakim was killed, and Joachin captured, and tribute imposed on us, he would not return: but behold, he returns, captures Jerusalem, blinds Zedekiah, slays his sons, carries away all the citizens, distributes our fields to strangers; therefore no hope remains for us.
To this is added the exposition of St. Jerome, Remigius, Haymo, and others, who explain these things of Sennacherib, as if it were saying: When Sennacherib withdrew from the siege of Jerusalem to confront Tirhakah, king of the Ethiopians, we Jews hoped he would no longer return: but behold, he returns, besieges Jerusalem, and divides our fields among his own.
Pagninus translates somewhat differently: How, he says, has he removed from us those whom we hoped would be restored to us? The enemy has divided our fields for himself. And Vatablus: How has he taken away from me, when he seemed about to restore (to us) our fields? He has divided, supply, our fields to others, that is: We are deceived in our hope; we hoped our fields would be restored to us, and behold into them our enemies are introduced as possessors.
Verse 5
5. THEREFORE THERE SHALL BE NO ONE FOR YOU. — These are the words of the Prophet to Samaria, or rather of Samaria and Judea to herself. For thus those who mourn in their emotion sometimes address themselves as if they were strangers, meaning: Henceforth you will not divide your land among your citizens with the measuring line, O Samaria and Judea, as you used to do before, because you will be deprived of all your possession; that is, henceforth I, Samaria and Judea, shall not divide the land among my children, because I shall be entirely deprived of it. Here ends the lamentation and dirge.
Verse 6
6. DO NOT SPEAK, YOU SPEAKERS, etc. — In Hebrew: Do not drop; they shall drop, which Vatablus translates: Do not drop for those who are accustomed to drop, that is, the Prophets; therefore they shall not drop for them henceforth; and he explains thus: They are accustomed to say to the Prophets: Do not speak, that is, do not prophesy or foretell to us, meaning: You impose silence on the true Prophets, and therefore you will be deprived of Prophets and prophecy. But better, our Translator, Symmachus, and other ancient versions translate: Do not drop, you who drop, or, by dropping. For the Hebrews sometimes use the future tense for the participle, as in Hosea chapter XII, 11, in Hebrew it reads: If Gilead is an idol, therefore they were in Gilgal in vain, they sacrificed oxen, that is, sacrificing, as our Translator and others render it. And chapter XIII, 2: Sacrifice men, they will adore calves, that is, adoring, as the Septuagint, our Translator, and others translate. Now by dropping the Septuagint understands weeping and shedding tears: for the drops of the eyes are tears. Whence they translate: Do not weep tears. But among the Hebrews, especially the Prophets, to drop is the same as to speak, to prophesy, to preach, as I have often noted. For, as St. Jerome says, "he calls eloquence a dropping, from the fact that it flows and reaches the ears of the hearers in the likeness of descending rain, especially because it is weighty, threatening, and burdensome: for drops often fall with weight, force, storm, and hail." St. Jerome, Remigius, and others think these are the words of the Prophet to the people, meaning: Do not say, O Jews, what you are accustomed to say: The Prophets predict and threaten us with evils, but we do not believe them: for it shall not drop, that is, this calamity shall not fall, upon us.
But, because he does not say: "It shall not drop" upon us, but "upon these," hence others more probably think these are the words of another Prophet or wise man to Micah and similar Prophets, meaning: Do not, O Micah, O Amos, O Joel, etc., prophesy to the Israelites, because they do not believe: whence your eloquence will not drop upon these, that is, will not instill pious admonitions in them: for shame, grief, or repentance will not "seize" them, meaning: They are obstinate and incorrigible. Wherefore the Chaldean translates: Do not prophesy prophecy, nor teach this people; for they do not accept confusion, that is: You admonish them in vain; for they have hardened their face, and in their crimes they are shameless. Whence it follows:
Verse 7
7. THE HOUSE OF JACOB SAYS (for says, in Hebrew it is heamur, that is, this is the word of the house of Jacob: for he as a demonstrative means this. So our Translator. For when the Prophets threaten them with destruction, they clamor and say): IS THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD SHORTENED? (that is: Is the spirit of God's mercy narrowed and straitened (for this is what the Hebrew word katsar means), so that He would wish to destroy us who are His people? Are) SUCH HIS THOUGHTS — as the Prophets announce to us, namely sorrowful and destructive, and not rather benign and peaceful? According to what He Himself says through Jeremiah, chapter XXIX, 11: "I think thoughts of peace toward you, says the Lord, and not of affliction." So St. Jerome, Haymo, Remigius, and others.
Second, others take he in heamur not as a demonstrative but as an interrogative or exclamatory. Whence they translate: O sayings of the house of Jacob! so Pagninus; or: Was it not said by the house of Jacob? so the Zurich Bible, meaning: Is it so, O Jacobites, that is, Israelites, that you say to the Prophets: Do not drop, that is, do not prophesy evils to us, as was said before? Is the Spirit of the Lord not shortened? that is: Even if you close their mouths and impose silence on those Prophets, can I not raise up and send in their place others more severe, who will announce harsher things? Are not these His works?
that is: Are not these threatening oracles not the Prophets' own, but of the Spirit of the Lord Himself, who speaks through their mouth? that is: You contend and fight, O Israelites, not against the Prophets, but against God; you are waging a new war of giants against God: see to it then, lest like the giants you be driven by God's thunderbolt into the abyss; for it is hard for you to kick against the goad. So Vatablus. But the former sense is the genuine one; for the expression the house of Jacob says refers not to what precedes, but to what follows. Therefore what follows: "Is the Spirit of the Lord shortened?" are the words not of God, but of the people of Israel, to whom God responds saying:
ARE NOT MY WORDS GOOD TO HIM WHO WALKS RIGHTLY? — These are the words and response of God. Note "good," that is, benign, merciful, joyful. So it is said in Psalm LXXVII, 1: "How good is the God of Israel, to those who are right of heart!" Good, that is, sweet and beneficent; and Micah VII, 4: "He who is best" (that is, most benign and most gentle) "among them is as a brier: and he who is upright" (that is, pleasing, agreeable, joyful, peaceful) "is as a thorn from the hedge." The Israelites clamored against the Prophets who threatened God's vengeance, and objected God's mercy and goodness toward His people. To these God here responds that He is good and merciful, but to the good and upright; but evil and stern to the wicked and impious, such as the Israelites were, meaning: You demand from Me and from the Prophets good words, that is, favorable and joyful oracles: but I answer that these are given by Me to the good and those who obey Me; for to them these are owed by My promise. But you are wicked and rebellious against Me; therefore expect from Me only oracles worthy of rebels, namely sad and threatening ones. Whence He adds:
Verse 8
8. AND ON THE CONTRARY MY PEOPLE HAS RISEN UP AS AN ADVERSARY. — For on the contrary, in Hebrew it is etmul, which first means yesterday, a little while ago. Whence the Septuagint, Symmachus, Pagninus, Vatablus, Clarius, and others translate: yesterday, or one day ago, that is, a little while ago, just recently, My people rose up in the manner of an enemy, both against Me and My law, and against their neighbor. Whence Pagninus translates: As an enemy one stood against another, namely stripping him of tunic and cloak, as follows, meaning: He who yesterday was My people, today rebellious against Me, rises up against Me as well as against his neighbor. So Vatablus.
Second, etmul may be compounded from et, that is, from, and mul, that is, against, meaning: On the contrary, from the opposite side, so that the sense is: I am good to the good and upright and to those who agree with Me; but you, O Israelites, are not such: rather you rise up against Me and your neighbors like enemies. What wonder then if you, being evil, experience Me as evil, that is, as a punisher, not good and beneficent! So St. Jerome, Remigius, Hugh, and others. Wherefore the Septuagint translates: And before, My people in enmity resisted against its own peace. For peace signifies and encompasses every good.
HE HAS RISEN UP AS AN ADVERSARY. — St. Jerome says: He seized tyrannical arms against Me. Therefore idolaters and sinners are tyrants and rebels who fight against God.
FROM ABOVE THE TUNIC YOU HAVE TAKEN THE CLOAK. — First, the Chaldean takes these words differently, namely as signifying not the guilt but the punishment of Israel. For he translates this whole passage thus: On account of their crimes they have been handed over to the enemy; peoples standing opposite them possess them: they take their precious wealth from them; those passing through their land boldly turn against them, as against those crushed in war. Second, Arias: meaning, Yesterday my people, faithful and obedient to me, rose up powerfully against their enemies and crushed them: but now, since they have revolted from me to idols and crimes, deprived of my help and strength, they have become most cowardly, most timid, and most feeble, so much so that if they catch sight of a garment in the distance, which some traveler carries suspended on a stick (as they do), thinking from groundless fear of enemies that it is a military standard, they flee in terror, even throwing off their cloak to flee faster. But the plain sense is what our Translator gave, meaning: You, O Israelites, were so addicted to robberies that from a passerby you would seize his cloak, that is, his outer garment, since you could not seize the inner tunic too tightly fastened to his body: and so you forced him to walk publicly half-naked, like a country bumpkin walking indecorously. Therefore the Assyrians will strip and lay you bare, both because you stripped others, and because your riches are not yours but the plunder and spoils of the poor: from you therefore, as from unjust possessors, they will fly away to the Assyrians.
Tropologically, St. Jerome refers these things to those who pervert the simple and strip them of God's grace and virtues, enticing them into heresy, lust, theft, etc.
AND THOSE WHO WERE PASSING BY INNOCENTLY (harmlessly and consequently trusting, and fearing no evil, as the Hebrew has: these, I say), YOU HAVE TURNED INTO A WAR — that is, you assailed them with war and robbery, invaded them like enemies, beat them with fists, harassed them with insults, stripped them of their clothes and possessions, like bandits and highway robbers.
Verse 9
9. THE WOMEN OF MY PEOPLE YOU HAVE CAST OUT FROM THE HOUSE OF THEIR DELIGHTS. — First, meaning: You have killed, or expelled, or thrust into prison the husbands of My people, that is, of the common folk and the poor: and not content with this, you expelled their wives from their homes, in which they lived with their husbands in love, peace, and conjugal sweetness, as in a house of delights, so that you might seize their houses and estates. So Lyranus, Arias, and Vatablus. Moreover, He calls the poor His people, because, as the Psalmist says, Psalm X, 14: "To You the poor man is left: You will be a helper to the orphan." And Christ, Matthew XXV, 40: "As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me." So Ahab, having killed Naboth, seized the vineyard of Naboth, and from it drove out his wife, now a widow, III Kings XXI, 16.
Otherwise St. Jerome, meaning: By your crimes you were the cause that respectable and wealthy matrons, dragged from their homes in which they lived delicately, were led into captivity by the Assyrians. Otherwise also Vatablus, meaning: By soliciting wives to adultery, or by falsely accusing them of it, or by making them suspect, you provoked their husbands to expel them from the house as adulteresses, and thus from their little ones you took away their praise, that is, their honor and glory; because you caused their children to be despised and abject, or illegitimate and bastards: for you forced them, expelled by their husbands, to go to other houses and other men; that is, to put it in a word, you forced them to commit adultery. Note: For you have taken away My praise forever, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 7, reading from the Septuagint (who instead of hadarai read hare, that is, mountains), reads: Approach the eternal mountains, and explains thus: He commands, he says, that shepherds drive their flock to the mountains and elevated places, that is, to show the faithful the way of arduous virtue and perfection. Whence the Syriac translates: And from their little ones you shall receive glory forever; the Arabic, they shall be clothed with glory forever.
FROM THEIR LITTLE ONES YOU HAVE TAKEN AWAY MY PRAISE FOREVER. — For the little ones would have praised Me, if they had been honorably raised by their parents in conjugal love, and made their heirs. But stripped by you of parents and goods, they groan, rage, curse you, and cry out for vengeance to heaven. So Albert and Arias. Second, you took from them My praise, both because you tore them from their mothers, deprived them of honest and pious upbringing, and raised them in your idolatry; and because you drove them to poverty, on account of which you bent them to every crime and to your will and lust. Third, "praise," that is, glory; and the Zurich Bible renders honor, meaning: You have made them despised and inglorious before Me and before themselves, by separating them from their parents, and mothers from fathers: for the goods of marriage by which God is glorified were formerly two, namely offspring and conjugal fidelity; now in the new law there are three, namely offspring, fidelity, and the sacrament. You have overturned all these things by this separation: therefore you have overturned all My glory in marriage, especially because by stripping the children of paternal goods, you have prevented them from being able to enter marriage and propagate the paternal line. For this would have been My praise as well as theirs and their glory; whence the Chaldean translates: Taking their children from them, their glory has been transferred, which they said would endure forever.
Verse 10
10. ARISE AND GO (meaning: On account of these robberies and crimes of yours, O Israelites, go into Assyrian captivity, and you, O Jews, into Babylonian): FOR YOU HAVE NO REST HERE (meaning: You, restless and turbulent, vex this land, that is, the inhabitants of the land; hence likewise you will have no quiet in it, but the Assyrian will vex you and carry you away): BECAUSE OF ITS UNCLEANNESS (namely of the land, with which you have polluted it) IT SHALL BE CORRUPTED WITH THE WORST CORRUPTION — that is, it shall be infected with the blood and putrefaction of your corpses, and shall be devastated with the utmost devastation, meaning: Because you have defiled this land with your filth and crimes, it will vomit you out and hand you over to be slaughtered by the Assyrians, so that, saturated with your blood, through just vengeance it may as it were wash away the stains with which you contaminated it, and against which you as it were committed violence. For this holy land cannot endure you so polluted and unpunished. Whence Pagninus translates: Arise and go, for this city is no rest; and because it is unclean, it will corrupt it with a very strong corruption; and the Chaldean: Arise and depart, since this land is not a house of rest for the wicked, that you may pollute it; you act ruinously to make it unclean, against it you conspire. For the Hebrew word chabal means both to be corrupted and to be bound together, and hence to conspire. Whence the Zurich Bible, instead of with a very strong corruption, translates: and a rope stretched too tight: for chebel is a rope, with which we bind and tie things together.
Verse 11
11. WOULD THAT I WERE NOT A MAN HAVING A SPIRIT, AND THAT I RATHER SPOKE FALSEHOOD! — This can be translated from the Hebrew in various ways. First, the Zurich Bible: If I were a man following a spirit (wind, vanity), and fashioning a lie, and prophesying to you about wine and strong drink, I would be a prophet for this people, meaning: If I spoke pleasant and pleasurable things about indulging one's appetite, belly, and carnal desires, as Luther and his followers did, I would be a prophet pleasing to this people. To this the Chaldean adds: Because they went astray after false prophets, who prophesied to them with a lying spirit, and who accustomed them to wine and drunkenness, it will indeed be that just as they learned to go astray after false prophets, so the people of this generation will exult into the land of lies. He looks back to verse 6, meaning: This people, accustomed to delights, hates the true Prophets who proclaim severe things: it loves the false ones, who prophesy Epicurean pleasures. Since therefore it loves liars and lies, let it go to Assyria, which is the land of lies, that is, of idols and false prophets, and there let it feed on its lies, as a chameleon feeds on wind.
Second, Pagninus: If there were anyone who walks by the way of the wind, and has told a lie by lying, saying: I will drop for you in exchange for wine and strong drink, meaning: If any false prophet should arise, who seeks not the people's but his own gain, dropping, that is, teaching, in order to obtain wine and strong drink as the payment for his teaching, this man indeed will be accepted and honored as a Prophet by this foolish people.
Third, and genuinely, our Translator renders: "Would that I were not a man having a spirit," etc.! meaning: Would that I did not have the prophetic spirit! Would that what I prophesy about the calamity and destruction of Israel were not prophecies revealed by God; but lies suggested to me by a vain spirit of fear and cowardice! So we commonly say: Would that I were deceived: would that I were a false prophet! So Lucan says: May the gods make our deeds prosper, And let there be no truth in the entrails; but may Tages, the inventor of the art, have made these things up.
Note: Micah does not wish formally to lie; for to wish this would be a sin; but materially
only, that is, he wishes merely that the falsehood, that is, the false thing, might be so, or that what he predicts might not actually come to pass; and consequently that what he predicts, he does not predict from the Spirit of God, but from his own spirit, namely from human vain fear. He says this out of love, because he wishes his fellow citizens to endure and not be cut off or destroyed by the Assyrians; yet this was what he himself was threatening them with from God. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Haymo, Hugh, and Lyranus. Note: For a man having a spirit, in Hebrew it is a man going with a spirit, that is, one who is driven by giddiness, who does not have a stable and certain spirit, but a wandering, changeable, uncertain, inconstant one, so that he sees now what is true, now what is false, even about one and the same thing: whence it happens that what he has asserted, he immediately retracts and denies, meaning: Would that in this matter, driven by a wandering and erratic spirit, I were wandering, deceived, and in error, and that it were permitted me to retract the oracle of Israel's destruction that I have uttered! It could be translated: Would that I were a man going with wind! Or, as Pagninus and the Zurich Bible put it, walking by the way of the wind, that is, driven by the wind of vanity and vain fear, error, and falsehood (so the Flemish say of a boastful and lying man: He is windy, he breathes wind), so that driven by vain fear I might dread, predict, and announce the destruction of Israel, which will not actually come to pass. For so the melancholy, the faint-hearted, and the timid suspect and predict all sad things about themselves and others. For such sad thoughts, suspicions, and fears are produced by the melancholy humor, cold and black; just as conversely the sanguine temperament, warm and spirited, produces good, happy, and courageous thoughts and predictions, as can be seen in those who are sanguine and jovial.
I WILL DROP FOR YOU INTO WINE AND INTO DRUNKENNESS — that is, into intoxicating wine. It is a hendiadys. The sense is: I would wish not to have the spirit of prophecy, threatening and sad for you, O Israel: but nevertheless I am seized by it even unwillingly, and am compelled to drop, that is, to announce, the truth; namely the very many evils and most bitter calamities impending over you, which like wine will intoxicate you and fill you to the throat. He alludes to the master of the feast, or the president of the banquet, who measured out and mixed for each guest his own cup, dropping into it just so much wine and water as seemed fitting for his age, constitution, and stomach, meaning: I, Micah, am to you, O Israel, as a master of the feast, or rather a minister and cupbearer of the master of the feast, that is, of God. I therefore prepare for you the cup of wrath and fury, and into it I drop sharp and undiluted wine, namely slaughter and death, so that I may serve it to you by God's command, to be drunk and drained. Behold, the Prophet embraces all these things in a single word, because he is concise and full of emotion. Therefore he expresses the emotion of his soul, and its alternating feelings, concisely and with gaps; as those who are vehemently grieving, loving, or angry are accustomed to do, who now hope, now despair; now flatter, now threaten; now grieve, now laugh; now break off their words, now suppress them; now leap from this topic to that, without order or connection.
AND THIS PEOPLE SHALL BE THAT UPON WHOM IT IS DROPPED — meaning: Upon this people of Israel these drops of God and mine shall fall; namely these prophecies of threats. Israel is the one for whom I drop and instill this wine of fury; it is Israel who will drain this cup of drops, that is, of punishments, from God, and will be intoxicated by it, to the point of stupor and madness.
Verse 12
12. IN GATHERING I WILL GATHER ALL OF YOU, JACOB. — There are various expositions of this passage. First, Theodoret and Vatablus, to connect these words with what precedes, say that here is explained the cup and wine of God's wrath, which he has already said is to be dropped upon the Israelites: for this cup is the siege and destruction of Samaria and Jerusalem, meaning: I will cause that, under pressure from the Assyrian and Chaldean enemy, you will be gathered like birds into your fortified cities, which the enemy will besiege: there, from the multitude, terror, and distress, you will be in tumult. The Assyrians will take Samaria, the Chaldeans Jerusalem: King Zedekiah will flee first, breaking through the wall of the royal garden; his men will follow him, but the Lord will hang over their heads, to deliver them to the Chaldeans. See the history in IV Kings XXV. Therefore he compares the unwarlike Israel to sheep, the besieged cities to sheepfolds, the noise of the besieged to the noise of enclosed sheep; the enemies correspond to the shepherds, the enemies enclose Israel in besieged cities. But the objection stands that the Prophet's words are not sad but joyful, and promise Israel's liberation from captivity, gathering together, and restoration.
Second, others better refer these words to Hezekiah besieged in Jerusalem by Sennacherib. For then all the Jews fled into the city and were gathered together like sheep with great trembling and tumult; but the angel, striking the camp of Sennacherib, ascended before them, opening the way: for soon, when the gates were opened, the Jews went out, and before them Hezekiah, with God as guide, so that they might see the slaughter of the Assyrians, plunder their spoils, and celebrate God with thanksgiving and praises.
Third, most fittingly you may take these words of the return of the Jews from Babylon. For a little before he predicted their destruction and captivity; now, as is his custom, joining joyful things to sad ones, he says he will liberate them from there, meaning: After 70 years, I will lead back the Jews, gathered together like sheep into one, into their sheepfold, namely into Judea, with a great concourse and consequently tumult among them. Their shepherd, leader, and quasi-king Zerubbabel will open the way before them and lead them through the gate of Babylon to Jerusalem: and the Lord at the head of all will go before them as guide. But because then only the Jews, not the Israelites except very few, were gathered; and again, not all the Jews were gathered or returned, but many remained in Babylon, and others wandered dispersed through various regions; moreover, because Zerubbabel was not a king, hence this liberation and gathering of Israel was only begun and imperfect.
Fourth, therefore we are compelled to say that these things must be plainly and fully referred to Christ. For although he alludes to Zerubbabel and the Jews of that age, and touches on them in passing, yet the mind and aim of the Prophet extends further, rises higher, and is directed toward Christ, through whom this prophecy was perfectly fulfilled: for the Prophets are accustomed to direct their oracles toward Christ. The sense therefore is: Lest I cast you down too much with so many threats and calamities which I hold over you, O Israelites, come, hope for better things in time. For God after vengeance will bring forth His mercy, and will lead you back from Babylon and gather you through Zerubbabel; and much more will He gather you, namely the true Israelites, not only in the flesh but also in faith and spirit, as the Apostle says in Romans IX, 8, through Christ, who, preaching the Gospel, will convert many of you and gather them like sheep into His Church; and at the end of the world will convert all Israel and all the Jews with a great concourse, noise, and tumult; and then from Jews and all nations there shall be one flock and one shepherd; namely one Church under one shepherd, Christ. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, Haymo, Hugh, Lyranus, Clarius, Arias, Ribera, and others. For Christ, as leader and king, ascended, opening the way before them and opening the gates both of the prison and of the city; for He leads us out of prison and leads us into the city, namely the Church, through baptism and His grace; and God Himself, going before at the head of all, was the leader and director both of Christ and of this entire host.
Anagogically, Lyranus and the ancient Hebrews, cited by Galatinus, book VIII of De Arcanis fidei, chapter XXIII, refer these things to Christ's return from limbo. For Christ, rising again, led forth with Himself the souls of the Fathers, as a chosen flock, which were detained in limbo as sheep in a pen. He Himself therefore opened the way for them, and opened the gates of death and hell, when He led them to the life both of nature and of glory, into the earth, and thence into
of Christ, as to the house of tribulation and the cross.
Better the Chaldean and our Translator render it as in the sheepfold: for the Hebrew tsara means a narrow and tight enclosure, in which flocks of sheep are packed together and crowded. Whence, explaining, he adds: "As cattle in the midst of their pens." Note, he calls the particular Churches pens, in which, from the multitude, that is, because of the exceedingly great multitude and crowd of the faithful, he says there will be noise and tumult. For this noise is naturally born from abundance in a multitude.
Verse 13
13. FOR ONE WHO OPENS THE WAY SHALL ASCEND BEFORE THEM (because, as follows: "Their king shall pass before them," namely as standard-bearer and leader. For opens the way, in Hebrew it is porets, that is, breaker, so Pagninus, and one who breaks through, so the Zurich Bible; who namely breaks through and shatters and opens the gates and bars of the prison, and thus opens a way of escape for the imprisoned, who following this their porets, that is, the first breaker of the prison, likewise) THEY SHALL BREAK THROUGH (in Hebrew poretsu, that is, they shall burst through and shatter, and thus) THEY SHALL PASS THROUGH THE GATE (of the prison) AND ENTER BY IT — into Sion; namely into the common city and liberty of the faithful. Whence in Hebrew it reads going out through it, and so the Royal Latin Bible reads; for it alludes to the captivity and prison of Babylon, meaning: Zerubbabel will break through the Babylonian prison, and you following him will likewise break through the same, and from it you will go out joyfully into Sion; much more truly the antitype of Zerubbabel, that is, Christ, liberating you from the captivity and prison of the devil, unbelief, and sin by the power and merit of His cross, will break through the same, and you, strengthened and called out by His grace, will break through the same, and will go out rejoicing into the spiritual Sion, that is, into the Church, which is the free, holy, and blessed city of the living God. But most truly and most fully
Christ will first ascend from earth into heaven, and from there will send the Holy Spirit to call, direct, and lead His faithful into heaven: excited by this calling and hope, many will be converted to Him, as was said before: hence consequently the faithful Patriarchs in limbo, as if shut up and detained in prison, visited and called out by Christ, with Him going before, breaking through the wall and gate of limbo and the underworld, will escape into Jerusalem, and then into heaven. Finally, all the faithful and saints, in death and resurrection, with Christ as leader breaking through the prison of this body and mortality, on the day of judgment will ascend into heaven with Christ and after Christ. For He Himself as king will pass through and go before them, and the Lord God will be at their head, that is, He will be of all
the first, the leader and prince, and He will help, strengthen, and elevate all, that they may ascend with Him to the stars in the empyrean heaven.
Morally, the word porets, that is, breaker, signifies that the way into the Church and heaven is closed and blocked by many bars and obstacles, and that these must be broken through by the one ascending, according to Christ's saying: "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force," Matthew XI, 12. And: "I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother," etc. Matthew X, 34. And: "If any man does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple," Luke XIV, 26. But Christ, the first breaker, goes before on the way, shatters the bars, and opens the way, and supplies His followers with the strength to break through, pass through, and escape; so that no one should lose heart, but should rise to a sure hope of liberty and salvation, provided he is willing to follow Christ. This is what Habakkuk sings with joy and exultation, chapter III, 19: "The Lord God is my strength: and He will make my feet like the feet of deer. And He will lead me, the victor, upon my high places, singing in psalms." And Isaiah, chapter XLIX, 8: "I have given you as a covenant of the people, etc., that you may say to them that are bound: Come forth; and to them that are in darkness: Show yourselves." And the Psalmist, Psalm CXV, 16: "You have broken my bonds: I will sacrifice to You a sacrifice of praise."
Therefore, for one who wishes to go out from the prison of sin and the devil into the liberty of the children of God, the bars of the flesh and the world must be broken, the chains and ropes of evil passions and habits must be shattered, by which sinners are bound and constrained as if by fetters. The love of ancestral law and Judaism bound St. Paul, but when Christ shone forth, he broke and blew away this bond as if it were straw. The love of the world bound St. Magdalene, but struck with the love of Christ, she shook it off as tow of flax. A mistress bound St. Augustine, but with Christ inspiring him, he broke this chain as a spider's web. Hear him, book IX of the Confessions, chapter 1: "How sweet," he says, "it suddenly became to me to be free from the sweetness of trifles! And what I had feared to lose, it was now a joy to cast away. For You were casting them out from me, You the true and supreme sweetness, You were casting them out and entering in their place, sweeter than every pleasure, but not to flesh and blood: brighter than every light, but more inward than every secret; more exalted than every honor, but not to those who are exalted in themselves. Now my mind was free from the biting cares of ambition, and acquiring, and wallowing, and scratching the itch of lusts, and I prattled to You, my brightness, and my riches, and my salvation, the Lord my God."
You therefore, who feel yourself bound by evil habits, by friends, by companions, by the flesh, be a porets, be a breaker, do not fear difficulties; Christ will shatter the bars, level the way, open the path: just as the angel, opening the doors and breaking the bars of the prison into which Peter had been thrust by Herod, opened a way of escape, so that Peter had nothing else to do but follow the angel, Acts XII, 9; so you too have nothing else to do but to invoke Christ continually, and courageously follow Him as your leader. For if God is for us, who is against us? Consider that God says to you what He says to Cyrus, Isaiah XLV, 1: "I will subdue nations before his face, and I will turn the backs of kings, and I will open doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut. I will go before you, and will humble the mighty of the earth: I will break in pieces the gates of bronze, and will burst the bars of iron. And I will give you hidden treasures, and the concealed riches of secret places." Such a porets, that is, breaker, was St. Paul, who everywhere forcefully scattered the obstacles to the Gospel, and as the standard-bearer of all nations, opened for them the way to the Church. Whence he himself boasts, II Corinthians X, 4: "The weapons," he says, "of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, destroying counsels, and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding to the obedience of Christ."
Such breakers were all the apostles, all the early monks and anchorites, whose whole pursuit was to tame the passions of the soul, and to accustom the body to hunger, cold, heat, and every labor and penance: whence they were called ascetics, that is, exercisers. Such were the founders of religious Orders: St. Anthony, St. Benedict, St. Bernard, St. Dominic, St. Francis, St. Dominic Loricatus, and of our own order St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier, who by a wonderful power of spirit set the world on fire with the divine flame, and thereby cleared all obstacles, so that they might open the way to heaven for their followers and for all others, and go before them.