Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues to prophesy against the Israelites and Jews, indeed from verse 10 onward he prophesies only against Judah and Jerusalem. For he says, verse 10: You who build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. And verse 12: Sion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become a heap of stones. See what was said at the beginning of chapter II, and what will be said at verse 12. First, therefore, he censures the nobles, both lay and ecclesiastical; namely the princes of the priests, for perverting justice and oppressing the people. Then, verse 5, he accuses the false prophets, who flattered the people and prophesied favorable but false things for the sake of gain. Therefore, he says, I am filled with the strength of the Spirit of the Lord, to announce to Jacob his crime, and to Israel his sin, and finally he threatens Jerusalem and the temple with destruction.
Vulgate Text: Micheas 3:1-12
1. And I said: Hear, O princes of Jacob, and you leaders of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know judgment, 2. you who hate good and love evil: who violently strip the skin from upon them, and their flesh from upon their bones? 3. They have eaten the flesh of My people, and have flayed their skin from off them: and they have broken their bones, and have chopped them in pieces as for the kettle, and as flesh in the midst of the pot. 4. Then they shall cry to the Lord, and He shall not hear them: and He shall hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved wickedly in their devices. 5. Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead My people astray: who bite with their teeth and preach peace: and if anyone does not put something into their mouths, they consecrate war against him. 6. Therefore night shall be for you instead of vision, and darkness for you instead of divination, and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be darkened over them. 7. And they shall be confounded who see visions, and the diviners shall be confounded: and they shall all cover their faces, because there is no answer from God. 8. But I am filled with the strength of the Spirit of the Lord, with judgment and power: to declare to Jacob his wickedness, and to Israel his sin. 9. Hear this, you princes of the house of Jacob, and you judges of the house of Israel: who abominate judgment and pervert all that is right. 10. You who build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. 11. Her princes judged for bribes, and her priests taught for hire, and her prophets divined for money: and they leaned upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No evil shall come upon us. 12. Therefore, on your account, Sion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple as the high places of the forests.
Verse 1
1. HEAR, O PRINCES OF JACOB, AND YOU LEADERS OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL — that is, the princes of the ten tribes, and the leaders of the two tribes: for by Jacob he means the ten tribes, by Israel Judah and Benjamin, as I said at the beginning of chapter II. The Septuagint, instead of princes, translates archai, which the Vatican version renders as beginnings; better, the Royal version renders as principalities.
IS IT NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW JUDGMENT — "to know" both speculatively and more especially practically, that you may actually exercise judgment, that is, do what is just, and what is prescribed and commanded by the law of God, especially concerning justice and the rights owed to one's neighbors, so that, for example, you render to each one what is his, do not oppress the poor, and punish those who oppress them. So Theodoret, Lyranus, Arias, and others.
Verse 2
2. YOU WHO HATE GOOD AND LOVE EVIL. — The words good and evil can be taken both in the masculine and in the neuter gender: for because these princes loved wickedness and hated goodness, hence consequently they loved wicked men and hated good men and citizens. For like loves like, and hates what is unlike. Furthermore,
virtue or vice is not loved in the abstract, but in the concrete; namely in its subject, that is, in the good or evil man. Truly St. Prosper, Epigram XXXII:
The impious part of the world is hostile to the part of the pious, Nor can it tolerate minds unlike its own. Laughing at those unwilling to use present riches, etc.
This is what is commonly said: "The donkey is beautiful to the donkey, and the pig to its own; the jackdaw sits with the jackdaw, and the chatterbox with the chatterbox; the cicada is dear to the cicada, the ant to the ant; the thief knows the thief, as the wolf knows the wolf." So today we see many hate religious men, because they themselves are irreligious, and secretly perpetrate unchaste and other crimes, which naturally generate in them an antipathy and aversion to chaste and holy men; especially those who censure and attack the same crimes. Of this matter I have great experience in many instances.
YOU WHO VIOLENTLY STRIP THEIR SKINS FROM UPON THEM (namely of Jacob and Israel, whom he named in verse 1, that is, of the Samaritans and Jews) AND THEIR FLESH FROM UPON THEIR BONES? — This is a continuous metaphor, or allegory. For kings and princes in Scripture are called shepherds, just as Homer everywhere calls Agamemnon, king of the Greeks, poiména laon, that is, shepherd of peoples: because what the shepherd does for the sheep, the king ought to do for his subjects: namely, to feed, direct, protect from beasts and wolves, and to live from the milk and wool of the sheep. For, as Tiberius Caesar, according to Suetonius in his Life, used to say: "It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his flock, not to skin them," not to cut up their flesh and bones: because princes ought not to plunder their subjects, nor seize their goods, nor suck them dry with excessive taxes and burdens, like leeches, so as to reduce them to leanness and poverty. For in this way they harm not only their subjects but also themselves. The leanness of the sheep is the leanness of the shepherd; and the poverty of the subject is the poverty of the prince. Rightly therefore Micah here reproaches the princes of Israel and Judah with this very thing. Whence the Chaldean, clearly explaining this figure, translates thus: Seizing the possessions of My people, and taking away their precious money, and consuming their remnants, and crushing them as members are crushed inside a pot, and pieces of flesh inside a cauldron.
Therefore by skin, flesh, and bones he means the substance, that is, the possessions of the common people, which the nobles plundered and divided among themselves, to squander them lavishly on display, luxury, banquets, and feasts. For this is what the following words mean: "And they have chopped them in pieces as for the kettle, and as flesh in the midst of the pot." Wherefore what St. Jerome, Haymo, Remigius, and Hugh understand by the pot and kettle as Jerusalem, in which the poor were as it were chopped up and cooked by the more powerful, seems less genuine and more symbolic. For the pot, which is an instrument of the kitchen, signifies banquets and feasts, which are cooked and prepared in pots. Note the catachresis by which he calls the possessions skin,
flesh, and bones; because, just as a man consists of and lives by these, so too by his possessions. For from these a man procures sustenance, that is, food, and consequently blood, flesh, skin, and bones for himself. Whence among the Greeks bios means both sustenance and life; because life subsists from sustenance. "Money," says the moral philosopher, "is a man's soul, blood, and life:" therefore whoever takes it from a poor man takes his life. Furthermore, in skin, flesh, and bones there is a climax, or gradation: for it is less to skin a man, more to cut and eat his flesh, and the most extreme thing to devour him down to the bones; indeed, to debone him and crush his bones to suck out the marrow. The sense therefore is: The nobles of Israel and Judah seize their goods so greedily and rapaciously, that they seem not only to skin them, but also to strip their flesh, indeed to devour them down to the bones, and even to debone them. This is what Ezekiel reproaches the same people with, chapter XXXIV, 2: "Woe to the shepherds of Israel, etc. You ate the milk, and you covered yourselves with the wool, and you killed that which was fat: but my flock you did not feed."
Tropologically, heretics and seducers who entice others into heresy, lust, theft, murder, and other crimes, strip them of their skin, despoil them of their flesh, and debone them. For the skin is the outward virtue and comeliness in the composition of the face, gait, movements, and members: in short, the skin is modesty. Likewise the external ceremonies, which heretics condemn and eradicate. The flesh represents the inner virtues, but the more tender and soft ones, such as almsgiving, temperance, justice. The bones are the harder and stronger virtues, such as penance, mortification, contempt of the world, martyrdom. So St. Gregory, on the First Penitential Psalm, explaining verse 2: "Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled," that is, he says, "the virtues of the soul have been darkened, and the diminished virtues have been disturbed together (by sin, to which the tempter and seducer entices): for charity is confounded, humility is assaulted, fortitude is cast down, chastity is attacked. By bones we understand virtues, by which indeed we sustain the soul: for just as in bones is the strength of bodies, so in virtues is found the strength of souls." Whoever therefore strips these virtues from his neighbor, who for example leads him into the sin of immodesty, skins him: but whoever drags him into gluttony and avarice, strips his flesh: and finally whoever entices a holy and religious man to violate his vows, to renounce his profession, or even his faith, this one debones him.
Verse 4
4. THEN (when God's vengeance, which I here continually hold over them, shall fall upon them) THEY SHALL CRY TO THE LORD (but in vain; for) HE SHALL NOT HEAR THEM — because they would not listen to Him warning them of these things through me.
AND HE SHALL HIDE HIS FACE FROM THEM. — "His face," that is, His favor, care, providence, help, presence, and beneficence (for the face is the symbol of these things) He will withdraw from them. For just as
the sinner turns his face away from God, and disobedient and rebellious turns his back to Him: so in turn God, to the sinner when he is afflicted and calls upon Him, withdraws His face, that is, His grace and help, and shows the back of abandonment, forgetfulness, and rejection. Which is a tremendous punishment, according to Proverbs chapter I, 24: "Because I called and you refused: I stretched out My hand, and there was none that regarded. I also will laugh in your destruction, and will mock when that which you feared shall come upon you," etc.
Verse 5
5. THUS SAYS THE LORD CONCERNING THE PROPHETS (that is, about the false prophets, or to, against the false prophets) WHO LEAD MY PEOPLE ASTRAY — by flattering them in their sins, promising impunity, prophesying that all things will be prosperous and happy for them.
WHO BITE WITH THEIR TEETH (that is, they gnash against me and other true Prophets, who threaten war to Israel, while they promise peace and prosperity to them. So Rabbi David and Lyranus. Or, as Albert and Hugh say, who gnash and threaten all manner of adversity to those who bestow no gifts upon them: but to those who do bestow them) THEY PREACH PEACE — that is, all manner of prosperity. Second, Theodoret, Vatablus, and Clarius: "Who bite with their teeth," as if fawning and flattering those who give gifts; whence they preach peace and prosperity to them. For so dogs, donkeys, and horses bite with their teeth at those who continually feed them, that is, they pretend to bite, as if fawning familiarly, and asking from them food to chew. Third and genuinely, meaning: While they "bite with their teeth," that is, devour the things that have been given to them by the generous, they prophesy to them and "preach peace," namely that all things favorable and fortunate will come to them. On the other hand: IF ANYONE DOES NOT PUT SOMETHING INTO THEIR MOUTHS (for them to bite and devour), THEY CONSECRATE WAR AGAINST HIM — that is, they proclaim and declare war against him, both because they threaten him with enemies and all adversity, as an impious man who has neglected and despised them as pious and holy Prophets of God; and because they stir up lawsuits and wars against him, saying: This man is impious, and an enemy of the Prophets and servants of God; he is greedy, inhumane, and deserves to be driven from the city, harassed, plundered, etc., just as famous and able-bodied but impatient and hot-tempered beggars do, of whom it is rightly said: "Even a beggar in his own place can do a great deal." So St. Jerome, Remigius, Arias, and others. Whence the Chaldean translates: Whoever offers them a banquet of meat, to him they prophesy peace; and whoever offers them nothing, against him they stir up or prepare war.
For to consecrate war means to prepare, or to proclaim and preach, the holy war of the holy God against the impious through the holy Prophets. See the comments on Jeremiah chapter VI, 4.
Verse 6
6. THEREFORE NIGHT SHALL BE FOR YOU INSTEAD OF VISION, AND DARKNESS FOR YOU INSTEAD OF DIVINATION. — Note the beautiful antithesis of punishment to guilt, which, fittingly opposed in equal measure to the guilt, appropriately chastises and punishes it. For the sense is: You, O false prophets, flattering Israel in their sins and promising them peace, you seemed to yourselves to see day and light, that is, truth and prosperity: but I say and affirm that your vision is night and darkness, that is, error and falsehood, and therefore I will punish you with black and dreadful night, that is, with terrible calamity, destruction, and captivity; so much so that because of anguish, terror, and sorrow, the sun will seem to you to set at noon, and the day to be darkened: and then you will be confounded; because it will be evident from the very outcome that your oracles were lies, and lying flatteries: wherefore in shame you will cover your mouths and faces, which uttered these false oracles: "because there is no answer from God," meaning: It will be evident in reality that your prophecies were not the responses of God, but the inventions and fabrications of the devil, or of your own vain and lying brain. For light is partly a symbol of truth, partly of joy and happiness; night is partly a symbol of falsehood and lies, partly of calamity and disaster. So St. Cyril, Theodoret, St. Jerome, Haymo, Remigius, and others. See the comments on Amos chapter VIII, 9: "The sun shall go down at midday, and I will make the earth dark in the day of light."
Verse 7
7. THEY SHALL ALL COVER THEIR FACES. — The Hebrew and Chaldean: They shall cover their lip, that is, their lying lips with which they uttered false oracles: for, as was said before, they "shall be confounded" and shall blush vehemently when their fraud and falsity has been detected; and from the impudent shamelessness they had just before, they shall cover their mouths and faces with their hands and cloaks held before them. So St. Jerome, Clarius, Vatablus, Palacius, Ribera, and others. Arias translates: They shall cover their mustache. For the false prophets walked about trimly groomed and nourished mustaches on their lips, like suitors of Penelope; such can still be seen as ministers of the word not of Christ, but of Calvin. The Septuagint, as to the substance, renders the same sense, but as to the words, translates contrarily: They shall all open their lips against them. For this is what they literally have: All shall curse them, as if the Hebrew ata meant both to cover and to open: for Hebrew words often have two contrary meanings.
Delrio explains it differently, Adage 992: "They shall cover," he says, "their faces," as convicted criminals condemned to death; for it was customary to veil the face of such persons, as was done to Haman, Esther chapter VII, 9, and to Susanna, Daniel chapter XIII, 32, and Ezekiel chapter XII, 6, and to Christ, Matthew chapter XXVI, 66 and 67. Hence that ancient and ill-omened Roman sentence and pronouncement: "Let his head be veiled, let him be hanged from the ill-fated tree." This sense is learned and probable; but the former, being more genuine, is accordingly more probable: for the repeated word they shall be confounded indicates that the subject here is shame rather than death.
Verse 8
8. BUT I AM FILLED WITH THE STRENGTH OF THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD, WITH JUDGMENT AND POWER. — He sets himself against the false prophets, meaning: They flatter you and prophesy soft and favorable things: but I am filled with the Spirit of God, which is strong, that is, stern, threatening, and sharp; so that freely, fearlessly, sharply, and constantly
I may declare God's judgment and power, that is, His just and mighty vengeance, which He will execute through the Assyrians and Chaldeans upon you, O Israelites and Jews. Note here three qualities necessary for a true Prophet, teacher, and preacher, opposed to the same number of vices in the false prophets. The first is fortitude, by which he is neither won over by blandishments and gifts, nor yields to threats and punishments, but freely and constantly censures crimes, even of the powerful, and threatens them with God's wrath and vengeance. This is opposed to the false prophets' cowardice in part, by which they preach pleasing things, fearing the offense of the rich and powerful; and in part to their greed, by which for the sake of gifts they prophesy prosperity to the same. The second is judgment, by which they both distinguish true things from false, so that they preach only what is true and certain; and distinguish greater sins from lesser ones, to censure the former more sharply and the latter more mildly; and prudently and discreetly admonish and teach all persons according to each one's character, understanding, and condition; and finally, as if constituted and inspired by God, they pronounce judgment, that is, the sentence of condemnation and destruction, upon the wicked. This is opposed to the false prophets' lies, lack of discernment, and flattery. The third is power, namely strength of mind and effectiveness of speech, which no one can resist. This is opposed to the false prophets' cowardice and vain chattering flattery. But let the Prophets know that these qualities are not their own, but belong to the Spirit of God, and are breathed into them by Him. Such was the unconquered, keen, and fiery spirit of Elijah, about whom Sirach chapter XLVIII, 1 and 6 says: "And Elijah arose like fire, and his word burned like a torch. By the word of the Lord he shut up the heavens, and three times brought down fire from heaven. You who cast down kings to ruin, and easily broke their power." Such was Isaiah, chapter LVIII, 1: "Cry aloud, do not cease, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to My people their crimes, and to the house of Jacob their sins." Such was Jeremiah, chapter VI, 11: "Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary of holding it in," etc. And verse 27: "I have made you a strong tester among My people, etc. Call them rejected silver, because the Lord has cast them away." Such was St. John the Baptist, saying in Matthew chapter III, 7: "Brood of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come?" Such was Paul, who disputing about chastity, justice, and judgment, struck and made tremble the governor Felix himself, though an unbeliever and an impious man, Acts chapter XXIV, 25. Such were the Apostles, who, having received the Holy Spirit, in a vehement spirit shattered the ships and kings of Tarshish, as can be seen in the Acts of the Apostles. Such will be Elijah and Enoch at the end of the world, contending against the Antichrist, of whom it is said in Revelation chapter XI, 5: "And if any man will hurt them, fire shall come out of their mouths, and shall devour their enemies."
Verse 10
10. YOU WHO BUILD UP SION WITH BLOOD. — So also the Syriac and Arabic. The Prophet passes from the twelve tribes to the two alone. For it is probable that he had often proclaimed what preceded by preaching now to the ten tribes, now to the two; and finally, when the ten tribes had been carried off into Assyria, he impressed the same things upon the two alone who remained. The sense therefore is: You, O Jews, build magnificent houses and palaces in Jerusalem, and furnish them with every precious article of furniture, by sucking out the means, labors, and blood of the poor through unjust taxes, judgments, usury, frauds, oppressions, etc., according to that saying of Sirach chapter XXXIV, 25: "The bread of the needy is the life of the poor: he who defrauds them of it is a man of blood. He who takes away the bread earned in sweat, is as one who kills his neighbor." So St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, Haymo, and others. For those so unjustly despoiled not rarely die of hunger and miseries, or of grief and indignation. Whence the Chaldean translates: Building their houses in Sion with blood poured out. Such are those who convert to their own use the goods of hospitals, orphans, widows, monks, and other things by which the fatherless, the aged, the sick, the poor, etc., ought to be nourished; who, as is said here, are not only thieves but also robbers and murderers of the poor.
This is what Jeremiah reproaches King Joakim of Judah with, chapter XXII, 13: "Woe," he says, "to him who builds his house in injustice, and his upper rooms not in judgment! He will oppress his friend in vain, and will not pay him his wages." See the comments there.
Note: This prophecy, as is evident from Jeremiah chapter XXVI, 18, was delivered by Micah under King Hezekiah, who fortified the walls of Jerusalem against the Assyrians, and therefore destroyed the houses close to the walls, which tend to be those of the poor, lest the enemy occupy them, and so that from their stones and materials he might restore the walls. For this is what Isaiah says, chapter XXII, 10: "And you have pulled down the houses to fortify the wall." Whence Sanchez suspects that the princes of Hezekiah and the overseers of public works are here censured, for having destroyed these houses of the poor and not paid them their price from the public treasury. Otherwise, when a siege is imminent, it is lawful to demolish houses close to the walls that pose a danger to the city.
Morally, tyrants build and increase their territories, dominions, and kingdoms through slaughter, robberies, and unjust wars. So Theophylact on Habakkuk, chapter II, 12. Again, such are the princes who increase the revenues of the treasury through unjust taxes, as if through robberies. Wherefore Blessed Isidore of Pelusium, book I, epistle 37, rightly applies and hurls these words of Micah against Bishop Eusebius, who was building a church in Pelusium from the oppressions of the poor. Third, such are judges who from unjust fines build fine walls and buildings, who corrupted by bribes acquit the guilty and condemn the innocent. Fourth, those who confer offices and benefices upon unworthy relatives, or upon those joined in a partnership of sin and who serve their lusts and desires. So Pope Adrian VI raised none of his relatives to honors or wealth, constantly saying that "he did not wish to build Sion with blood;"
by which saying and deed he won for himself a great reputation of sanctity, especially with the addition of a wonderful modesty and restraint of a humble spirit. For this reason we read inscribed on his tomb in Rome: "Here lies Adrian VI, who considered nothing more unfortunate in his life than that he had to rule." Wherefore, Onuphrius relates, when his cousin's son, who was studying literature in a school in Siena in Tuscany, came suddenly to Rome uninvited, having abandoned his studies, he immediately had him placed on a hired horse and sent back; repeatedly upbraiding his levity of mind, and sternly admonishing him to take from himself a timely example of modesty and temperance. Others too, relatives of no remote degree of kinship, who had come on foot from Germany to Rome in hope of higher fortune, he rebuked in a remarkable way, and giving each of them woolen cloaks and a frugal provision for the journey, ordered them likewise to return to their homeland on foot. By the testimony of which deeds he was accustomed to detest the lavish generosity of certain previous Popes toward their relatives, as burdensome and ruinous to the state. Something similar is also reported of Pope Clement, the fourth of that name, who when likewise pressed by friends to bestow yet more upon a certain relative of his who already held three benefices, answered: No, he said, I will not obey flesh and blood, but rather God; nor is he a worthy successor of Peter who gives more to kinship than to Christ." So far Onuphrius in the Life of Adrian VI. Fifth, those who under the pretext of spiritual gain would enter suspect houses, or converse too freely with unchaste persons. Sixth, those who under the pretext of religion would desert parents suffering extreme need, when they could be of use to them: or would persuade their children that the alms with which needy parents should be helped should rather be diverted to material temples and to priests; whom Christ reproaches in Matthew chapter XV, 5. So Delrio, Adage 993.
Verse 11
11. HER PRINCES JUDGED FOR BRIBES (that is, in exchange for bribes, on account of bribes), AND HER PRIESTS TAUGHT FOR HIRE (that is, in exchange for hire), AND HER PROPHETS DIVINED FOR MONEY (that is, in exchange for money). — For the "in" in Hebrew is beth of price, meaning for, on account of. He censures the princes for committing a twofold injustice in judgment: first, by selling their verdict; second, by perverting it, acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent on account of bribes. Second, he censures the teachers of the law, for selling the sacred teaching of the divine law for money, which is simony, as the theologians teach, and specifically our Lessius, treatise On Simony, doubt II, at the beginning, and doubt XIII, section 3 and 4. Third, he censures the false prophets, for selling their oracles for gold, which was likewise simony, not in the thing itself (because these oracles were not sacred, indeed not even true; because they were not suggested by God, but fabricated from their own brain), but in their own opinion and in the estimation of the common people, who considered these oracles to be true and divine. Behold, in these ways they were building Sion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity, as
was said before. For these words explain those former words, as it were the thesis through the hypothesis and through examples.
AND THEY LEANED UPON THE LORD. — In Hebrew iisseanu, that is, they leaned upon the Lord, as a sick or old man leans and rests upon his staff. So the Chaldean, Pagninus, and the Zurich Bible, meaning: These false prophets, though they are seducers and full of crimes, yet as if they were pious and holy, rest securely in God's care and providence, saying: Jerusalem is the holy city, we are the people of God, according to that saying of Jeremiah chapter VII, 4: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord." Therefore our God will protect us, and will not allow His city and temple to be destroyed, and His people to be handed over to enemies. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, Lyranus, Clarius, and others. This is the enormous impudence and presumption of the wicked, that while they most grievously offend God, they nevertheless hope, indeed do not doubt, that they will be protected by Him when an enemy or danger threatens.
Verse 12
12. THEREFORE, ON YOUR ACCOUNT (because you build Sion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity, as I said in verse 10. Hence, that you may be punished in the very thing in which you sinned, and that the punishment may level the guilt) SION SHALL BE PLOWED AS A FIELD, AND JERUSALEM SHALL BE AS A HEAP OF STONES — meaning: The Chaldeans will demolish the magnificent houses that you built in Jerusalem from the plunder of the poor, so that nothing shall remain of them except rubble and heaps of stones, and the city itself shall be laid waste and leveled, and become a field ready for the plow. Sion properly signifies the upper part of the city, in which were the temple and the citadel of David: but Jerusalem was the lower and larger part of the city, lying below the mount and citadel of Sion; often, however, by synecdoche the whole city is called Sion.
SHALL BE PLOWED — meaning: Sion will be utterly devastated by the Chaldeans, and with its walls and houses demolished, it will become as an open plain and arable field. Note: Just as it was the custom among the ancients that those about to build a city would trace and mark out its extent by plowing a furrow around it with a drawn plow, and there would encircle and fortify it with a wall and ditch; whence they called the place from which they had dug the earth a ditch. Hence Virgil:
Meanwhile Aeneas marks out the city with the plow.
So conversely, enemies about to completely overthrow and annihilate a captured city would drive the plow through it after demolishing the walls and buildings: for this was to turn a city into a village and a field. Hence Modestinus, in the law Si ususfructus, XXI, Digest, On the ways in which a usufruct is lost: "If," he says, "a usufruct is bequeathed to a city, and a plow is driven through it, as happened to Carthage, it ceases to be a city; and therefore, as if by death, it ceases to have the usufruct." And Horace, book I, ode XVI:
And the insolent army would press The hostile plow upon the walls.
And Virgil:
And the fields where Troy once stood.
AND THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TEMPLE SHALL BE AS THE HIGH PLACES OF THE FORESTS — meaning: Mount Sion, on which the temple was built, with the temple and other buildings burned, will be so laid waste that it will seem to be like a crag of ruins; just as in the forests of the mountains the ridges and crags stand out at the summit, as the high places and crown of the forest. So St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Remigius, and Arias. Second, meaning: On Mount Sion, after the temple is destroyed, trees will grow up, so that the mountain will become wild and overgrown, and become a forest. So Theodoret, Lyranus, and Vatablus.
And Isidore, book XV, chapter 1: "A city," he says, "is founded by the plow, and by the plow it is turned up." Hence the word urbs (city) is derived from urvum, that is, from the curvature of the plow, which they drew around the city: whence urvare or urbare meant the same as to define by the plow, says Pomponius the jurist. For in the earliest times they began to dig a ditch in elevated places and surround them with a rampart for their protection, and thus they began cities and towns. Hence Varro says that a city (urbs) is so called because it was marked out by the plow; and walls (moenia) are as it were defenses (munia), and a wall (murus) from fortification (munitio); and a town (oppidum), because it is fortified (muniatur) for the sake of protection (opis). For the ancients, with a bull and a cow yoked together according to the Etruscan rite, drove a furrow with an inner plow around the area within which they would build the city when founding cities. They did this for religious reasons on an auspicious day, so that the city, fortified with ditch and wall, would be prosperous. Hence the Poet:
A fitting day is chosen on which to mark the walls with the plow.
Note: This prophecy of Micah is cited by the elders of Israel in Jeremiah XXVI, 18, to defend Jeremiah who was prophesying similar things, and to save him from death. In that passage it is said to have been delivered under King Hezekiah, namely after the ten tribes were carried off into Assyria in his sixth year. Whence, setting aside Samaria as already destroyed, Micah here and henceforth until the end of the prophecy addresses and speaks to Jerusalem alone. Moreover, in the same passage the same elders say that this prophecy of Micah was not fulfilled, because the people, struck by it, did penance and obtained from God pardon and the annulment of the sentence of the city's destruction. So they thought, but falsely. For this sentence of God was not annulled, but only suspended and deferred until the times of Jeremiah, who again recalled and renewed it, chapter XXV, 11, saying: "This whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment: and all these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years." And chapter XXVI, 9: "This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be made desolate, so that there is no inhabitant." And so it came to pass in the 11th year
of Zedekiah, when Nebuchadnezzar overthrew the kingdom of Judah with the city and temple. For that Micah threatens literally the destruction by the Chaldeans, not by the Romans (as Eusebius held, book VIII of the Demonstration, chapter VIII, moved by the reasoning that Jerusalem was destroyed at that time precisely because it had been built with blood, as Micah says here in verse 10, namely in the blood and death of Christ — but wrongly; for on account of the blood of Christ Jerusalem was not built but destroyed by Titus), is clear both from the passages of Jeremiah already cited, and from the fact that in Micah's time the disaster threatening the Jews was from the Chaldeans, not from the Romans. Typically, however, and allegorically, these things look to their destruction by Titus and the Romans; for the forerunners and, as it were, antitypes of the Romans were the Chaldeans: for the Romans completed what the Chaldeans had begun, when they inflicted the full and final destruction upon Jerusalem and the Jewish state.
Tropologically, Jerusalem is the holy soul, dedicated and consecrated to God through grace: this is overthrown by mortal sin, and becomes a heap of stones and rubble, that is, an undigested mass of all passions and vices, which previously had been constructed of gems, and surrounded and as it were crowned with them, about which see Revelation XXI, 9. The gems are endowments and virtues; Sion is the mind and reason (which in a man is what the citadel is in a city, and what Sion, that is, the watchtower, was in Jerusalem) which previously provided for and arranged works of virtue; now after sin it is as it were plowed as a field by the devil, to bear tares, thorns, poisonous plants, and the venoms of sins and scandals; the temple is the spirit, which previously, clinging to God, offered Him continual sacrifices of prayer, meditation, and praise; now after sin it becomes a forest thick with useless and harmful trees, that is, thoughts and cares, in which wild beasts roam, that is, demons, who there introduce their beastly and savage ways, indeed making a beast out of a man, an idol out of a temple, a demon out of an angel.
This sad transformation and calamity of the soul Jeremiah describes and laments throughout the whole of Lamentations, where among other things he says, chapter II, 5 and 6: "He cast down Israel, He cast down all its walls: He destroyed its fortifications. And He destroyed His tabernacle as a garden, He demolished His tent," etc. And the Psalmist, Psalm LXXVIII, 1: "O God, the nations have come into Your inheritance, they have defiled Your holy temple: they have made Jerusalem as a place for keeping fruit." Isaiah has similar things, chapter I, 7 and following.
of Zedekiah, by which Nebuchadnezzar overthrew the kingdom of Judah together with the city and temple. For it is evident that Micah threatens literally the destruction by the Chaldeans, not by the Romans (as Eusebius supposed in book VIII of the Demonstratio, chapter viii, moved by the reasoning that Jerusalem was only then destroyed because it had been built in blood, as Micah says here in verse 10, namely in the blood and death of Christ, but wrongly; for on account of the blood of Christ Jerusalem was not built, but destroyed by Titus), both from the passages of Jeremiah already cited, and from the fact that in Micah's time the disaster through the Chaldeans, not the Romans, was impending for the Jews. Typically and allegorically, however, these things look to their destruction by Titus and the Romans; for the Chaldeans were the forerunners and, as it were, antitypes of the latter: for the Romans completed what the Chaldeans had begun, when they inflicted the full and final ruin upon Jerusalem and the Jewish commonwealth.
AND THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TEMPLE SHALL BECOME AS THE HIGH PLACES OF THE FORESTS — that is to say, Mount Zion, on which the temple was built, with it and the other buildings burned, will be so desolated that it will seem to be like a crag of ruins; just as in the forests of mountains, ridges and crags stand out at the summit, like the high places and the crown of the forest. So St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Remigius, and Arias. Secondly, that is to say: On Mount Zion, after the temple has been overthrown, trees will grow up, so that the mountain will become wooded and turn into a forest. So Theodoret, Lyranus, and Vatablus.
Note: This prophecy of Micah is cited by the elders of Israel in Jeremiah 26:18, so that they might defend Jeremiah who was prophesying similar things, and free him from death. In the same passage it is said to have been delivered under King Hezekiah, namely after the ten tribes in his sixth year were carried away into Assyria. Whence, omitting Samaria as already overthrown, Micah addresses and speaks to Jerusalem alone here and from this point to the end of the prophecy. Moreover, in the same passage those same elders say that this prophecy of Micah was not fulfilled, because the people, struck by it, did penance and obtained from God pardon and the abolition of the sentence to destroy the city. So they supposed, but falsely. For this sentence of God was not abolished, but only suspended and deferred until the times of Jeremiah, who again revoked and renewed it in chapter 25:11, saying: "This whole land shall be a desolation and a waste: and all these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years." And chapter 26:9: "This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolated, so that there is no inhabitant." And so it came to pass in the eleventh year
And Isidore, book LXXV, chapter 1: "A city," he says, "is founded by the plough, overturned by the plough." Hence the word urbs (city) is derived from urvum, that is, from the curvature of the plough, which they led around the city: whence urvare or urbare meant the same as to mark out with a plough, says Pomponius the jurist. For in the beginning they began in elevated places to dig a ditch and surround it with a rampart for their protection, and so they established cities and towns. Hence Varro says that a city (urbs) is so called because it was marked out by the plough; and walls (moenia) as if from duties (munia), and wall (murus) from fortification (munitio); and a town (oppidum), because it is fortified for the sake of aid (ops). For the ancients, yoking oxen, a bull and a cow, in the Etruscan rite, when founding cities drove the plough around in an inner furrow, within which they would build the city. They did this for religious reasons on an auspicious day, so that the city, fortified with ditch and wall, might be fortunate. Hence the Poet:
A fitting day is chosen to mark the walls with the plough.
Tropologically, Jerusalem is the holy soul, dedicated and consecrated to God through grace: this is overthrown by mortal sin, and becomes a heap of stones and rubble, that is, an undigested mass of all passions and vices, which previously had been constructed of gems, and surrounded and as it were crowned by them, of which Revelation 21:9 speaks. The gems are the endowments and virtues. Zion is the mind and reason (which in a person is what the citadel is in a city, and what Zion, that is, a watchtower, was in Jerusalem), which previously provided for and directed the works of virtue, but now after sin is ploughed like a field by the devil, to bear tares, thorns, wolfsbane, and the poisons of sins and scandals; the temple is the spirit, which previously, clinging to God, offered Him continual sacrifices of prayer, meditation, and praise, but now after sin becomes a dense forest of useless and harmful trees, that is, of thoughts and cares, in which wild beasts, that is, demons, roam, who therein introduce their bestial and savage ways, nay, from a man they make a beast, from a temple an idol, from an angel a demon.
This sad transformation and disaster of the soul Jeremiah describes and bewails throughout the Lamentations, where among other things he says, chapter 2:5-6: "He has cast down Israel, He has cast down all its walls: He has destroyed its fortifications. And He has destroyed His tabernacle as if it were a garden, He has demolished His dwelling place," etc. And the Psalmist, Psalm 78:1: "O God, the nations have come into Your inheritance, they have defiled Your holy temple: they have laid Jerusalem in ruins like an orchard shed." Isaiah has similar things in chapter 1:7 and following.