Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Micah laments that he has labored in vain by preaching, because he scarcely finds anyone who has changed his depraved morals for the better; therefore, in verse 4, he threatens destruction and the Babylonian captivity: then, in verse 11, he promises deliverance from it, peace and happiness, both through Cyrus and still more through Christ, and therefore, in verse 18, he breaks forth into praise and doxology of divine clemency and beneficence.
Vulgate Text: Micheas 7:1-20
1. Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers the last clusters in autumn after the vintage! There is no cluster to eat, my soul has desired early figs. 2. The holy one has perished from the earth, and there is no upright one among men: all lie in wait for blood, each hunts his brother to death. 3. They call the evil of their hands good: the prince demands, and the judge acts for a bribe: and the great man has spoken the desire of his soul, and they have troubled it. 4. He who
Verse 1
1. Woe is me! — In Hebrew it is אללי לי allai li, that is, alas for me! For it is the voice of one groaning, not threatening. That is to say: O wretched me! For the Prophet laments, or rather the Holy Spirit through the Prophet, the scarcity of upright men, and considers this his own misery. Moreover, he compares this scarcity to the few grape clusters that are usually left behind in the vineyard by the grape gatherers.
Because I have become like one who gathers in autumn the grape clusters of the vintage — that is, after the vintage. The Hebrew literally has: Because I was like the gatherings (of fruits) of summer, like the gleanings of the vintage. Which the Syriac, Arabic, Septuagint, Chaldean, and others expound thus: Because I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest, and like one who gathers grape clusters in the vintage — so that there is a double comparison, namely that God compares Himself first to a gleaner, who after the harvest makes a gleaning and gathers the few ears of grain left behind by the harvester; second, to a grape gleaner, who picks the few grapes remaining after the vintage. But these interpreters supply much that is not found in the Hebrew. Moreover, in the Hebrew, as they now read it, God is compared not to the gatherer, but to the gathering itself of fruits, which indeed seems less fitting to say. Wherefore our translator more correctly, for מספי aspe, that is, gatherings, reading with different vowel points מספי osephi, translates it as "gathering" or "one who gathers." For osephi is a benom, or qal participle, having an appended paragogic yod. Again, for קיץ kaits, that is, summer, he translates "autumn," because the time of fruits is in autumn, and thus autumn fruits are called fruits of summer; for we then distinguish the year into two parts, namely summer and winter, and under summer we include the earlier part of autumn and the later part of spring, when the air is warmer; under winter, however, we include the later part of autumn and the earlier part of spring, as being colder. Learnedly, therefore, for kaits he translates "in autumn," understanding the preposition ב, that is, "in," which the Hebrews are accustomed to understand implicitly, so that קיץ kaits stands for בקיץ becaits. He therefore translates with a single continuous reading and a single comparison: "Because I have become like one who gathers in autumn the grape clusters of the vintage." Hence fittingly, not about ears of grain, but about grapes alone, there follows: "There is no cluster to eat." That is to say: Gleaning the vineyard, I sought grapes, and I did not find even one cluster that I might eat. Now symbolically, by grapes and clusters he means faithful, just, and holy men, and their pious and holy works; for these are produced from the vineyard, that is, from the Church, and from the vine, that is, Christ, as grapes most pleasing to God. Thus the bride in Song of Songs 1:13 says: "A cluster of henna is my beloved to me, in the vineyards of Engedi." And in chapter 7:7, in turn the bridegroom says to the bride: "Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts like grape clusters." I reviewed the reasons and analogies of this vine and grape in Ezekiel 15, at the end.
Wherefore the Chaldean translates: Woe is me! because I was when the good were failing, at the time when the merciful perished from the earth; behold, like summer fruits, like grape clusters after the vintage. There is no man who has good works; yet my soul desires the good. That is to say: I, Micah, was like a poor grape gleaner; for after the vintage he hopes to find at least some clusters in the vineyard that escaped the grape gatherers, and he seeks and finds them; so also I hoped that at least a few Jews would be converted by my sermons, admonitions, and threats; but "there is no cluster," that is, I find not one, or scarcely one, who has converted and changed his life; wherefore I groan and weep: "Woe is me!" alas for me, I have wasted my oil and labor.
Allegorically, the same thing happened to Christ in His preaching; for He converted few among the Jews in His whole life. Hence He Himself allegorically applies verse 6 of Micah to His own times, citing it in Matthew 10:33, about which more shortly.
Here note the deep pathos of God and of Christ, since they attribute to the devil the vintage of the vineyard, that is, of the Church, inasmuch as he gathers all the grapes and therefore has full wine presses with grapes and wine; but to Themselves they ascribe only the gleaning, as those who gather the few left behind by the devil, because they escaped his eyes and hands. For the greatest part of men serves the devil, and becomes his food and prey; hence they will be pressed and trampled by him in the wine press of hell. But only a small portion goes to Christ; for many are called, but few are chosen. To the devil, then, as the vintager, go those large and numerous clusters; to Christ go only the remnants, the few and poor, as to a gleaner — as if to say: Christ is left with not a cluster, and scarcely a few berries; for a few berries and grains do not deserve the name of cluster. For those great and fat clusters have become the share of the foxes. Hence the Arabic translates: The extreme part (the last portion) my soul desired. This is what Isaiah laments in chapter 24:13: "As when a few olives remain, and grape clusters when the vintage is finished."
Wherefore, tropologically, if a teacher and preacher, after many labors and years of teaching and preaching, converts only a few, let him not be surprised — he is not better than Micah, nor than Christ. Let him therefore be content with their lot, and expect from God a full, indeed a fuller, reward; for God rewards not the fruit, but the labor; and labor without fruit is greater and more burdensome, and for that reason deserves a greater reward.
Morally, as eagerly as we desire early figs above all fruits, so eagerly does God desire the conversion of sinners, and so eagerly should a preacher desire the same, as another Micah.
There is no cluster to eat — that is, fit to be eaten; because if there are any, they are either unripe, or sour, or corrupted and rotten from rain. Thus Micah found some Jews good in appearance, and listening to his sermons; but sour with inner malice and superstition, or rotten with gluttony and lust, as Lyranus and Rupert explain.
My soul desired early figs (in Hebrew בכורה biccura, that is, first fruits, or first produce). — But by first fruits the Hebrews understand figs, as Vatablus rightly noted; not that in Palestine figs are the first of all fruits, as some have thought; for plums and the like come earlier, just as in Italy, as Palestinians and Jerusalemites assured me at Rome. Fr. Melchior van Helmont, a Belgian Franciscan, who lived for a long time in his convent in Jerusalem, affirmed to me at Rome that the first fruits of that land are peculiar to it, and are called muze, and that they are similar in taste to figs, but longer than figs; and if they are cut open, they display a cross; and the natives report that this was the forbidden fruit which Eve ate. They are called early, then, because figs alone bear fruit twice; for they give their earlier fruits in summer, namely in July, and these are called biccura, that is, first fruits or early figs; the later ones in September. Moreover, early figs are more flavorful; for they are like the flower of the fig tree, and are more eagerly desired on account of their novelty, as I said on Jeremiah 24:2. Wherefore it is surprising that St. Jerome in his Commentary translates biccura as "unripe figs" or immature figs, as if God were saying: "Not finding bread because of the greatness of my hunger, I sought out scraps and bran." For he himself in the text translates biccura as "early figs," which are certainly ripe and pleasant to the taste. And so others everywhere translate biccura. The sense therefore is, that is to say: I, Micah, as if famished, after so many sermons and labors, desired early figs even in autumn; for although they are early for others in summer, yet I, even in autumn (for none ripened for me in summer), will be content with a few ripe ones — that is, I desire the conversion and salvation of at least a few, however late and tardy, so that at least this reward and consolation may be given for my labor; but I could not even obtain this.
Moreover, symbolically, early figs, says Arias, were the first fathers and Patriarchs, namely Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and others, who as the first believers were most sweet to God and most pleasing by their piety and holiness. Micah therefore wishes for the golden age of the Patriarchs to return, for the first and ancient faith, piety, and integrity of our ancestors to return. In a similar way the poet Juvenal wishes, Satire 13: Would that the first earth had borne me among those heroes. For, as Horace sings, Book III, Ode 6: What has destructive time not diminished? / The age of our parents, worse than our grandparents', / Has produced us, more worthless still, / Soon to give birth to a yet more degenerate generation.
Verse 2
2. The holy one has perished. — In Hebrew חסיד chasid, that is, pious; the Chaldean, merciful; the Septuagint, reverent; the Tigurina, benign; Vatablus, holy.
And the upright man. — The Septuagint, reading sin instead of shin, that is, reading ישר iasar for ישר iascur (for sin is equivalent to the letter samech), translate: And there is no one correcting among men. That is to say: There is no censor who punishes and corrects the vices of men. Thus Ovid, in Book I of the Metamorphoses, laments that with the golden age there perished faith, piety, and virtue, and that there succeeded the iron and bronze age, in which: In the place of virtues / there came frauds and deceits / and treachery, and violence, and the wicked love of possessing.
All lie in ambush for blood (in Hebrew, for blood, that is, for the life of their neighbor). Hence the Chaldean: All lay ambushes for the purpose of shedding the blood of the just. Wherefore, explaining further, he adds: each man (that is, everyone) hunts his brother to death — just as a fowler hunts a bird to kill it. The Hebrew and Chaldean: A man hunts his brother for cherem, that is, for extermination, to destroy and exterminate him as though he were accursed; Pagninus and Vatablus translate: He hunts with a net, to ensnare him; just as a fowler ensnares a bird. But the Hebrew cherem properly and commonly signifies extermination, not a net, except improperly, as is clear from Habakkuk 1:47.
Verse 3
3. The evil of their hands they call good (that is, the evil works which they do with their hands, they call good. That is to say: They not only do evil, but also defend it and call it good. So St. Jerome. Second, the Septuagint translates: They prepare their hands for evil. That is to say: "All raise their hands to evil, so that even one who cannot do evil, nevertheless sins in will while he prepares his hands," says St. Jerome. Third, Rabbi David fittingly and in connection with what follows translates: They join their hands for evil, in order to do it well, that is, to accomplish it and bring it to effect. Hence the Tigurina translates: They are diligently intent and active in the evil of their hands; because indeed they recruit suitable associates and powerful agents for themselves, and together with them conspire in the evil that they have determined in their mind.
For) the prince demands (from the judge that unjust tributes, goods, or the life of the innocent, or some similar impious or unjust thing be adjudged to him); and the judge is ready to render (that is to say: The judge renders what the prince unjustly demands; he renders it, I say, in hope of reward, or of a like judgment, or of the favor he expects from the prince: "So that they may offer mutual favor for their crimes, and defend themselves in one another's guilt," says St. Jerome. Hence from the Hebrew you may translate: The judge, for a bribe, judges; that is, as the Chaldean translates: The prince demands, and the judge says: Do for me, and I will repay you. Finally) the great man (that is, one of the magnates or rabbis) has spoken the desire (in Hebrew הות hoffat, that is, corruption and depravity; so Vatablus) of his soul (namely, if he is asked about this demand of the prince, and about the unjust judgment of the judge who unjustly adjudicates the matter to him, he does not answer according to justice, law, and the will of God; but according to his own flattery, ambition, and avarice; namely, he approves and defends both the unjust demand of the prince and the sentence of the judge, in order to gain their favor or to share in the plunder. Hence Pagninus translates: And the great man says: Bring gifts): and (for this reason) they have confounded (the Chaldean, corrupted) it — "either the city, or the truth, or the land, of which he said in verse 2: The just man has perished from the land," says St. Jerome.
In Hebrew, more fittingly and expressively, it reads ויעבתוה vaieabtuba, that is, they thickened, entangled, complicated — they made it like a rope, namely haffat, that is, corruption; with a triple mouth, namely of the prince, the judge, and the great man, as though tripling and strengthening it with a triple cord, to show that what is evil is good, and what is unjust is just, according to the saying: "A threefold cord is not easily broken." For the root עבת abat means to braid cords or branches; hence עבות abot are called cords, because they are braided. This is what Isaiah says in chapter 5:18: "Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with a cart rope." For Micah, as is his custom, alludes here to Isaiah. So Lyranus, Vatablus, Marinus in the Lexicon, and other more recent authors.
And the upright. — The Septuagint, reading sin instead of shin, namely reading ישר iasar instead of ישר iascur (for sin is equivalent to the letter samech), translate: And one who corrects among men does not exist, that is to say: There is no censor who chastises and corrects the vices of men. So Ovid, in Book I of the Metamorphoses, laments that with the golden age perished faith, piety, and virtue, and that the iron and bronze age succeeded, in which: "In place of virtues there entered fraud and guile, and treachery, and violence, and the wicked love of possessing."
All lie in wait for blood (in Hebrew, for the blood, that is, the life, of their neighbor; hence the Chaldean: All lay snares to shed the blood of the just. Wherefore, explaining further, he adds): each man (that is, everyone) hunts his brother to death — just as a bird-catcher hunts a bird in order to kill it. The Hebrew and the Chaldean: A man hunts his brother to cherem, that is, to extermination, so as to destroy and exterminate him as if under a ban; Pagninus and Vatablus translate: He hunts with a net, to ensnare him; just as a bird-catcher ensnares a bird. But the Hebrew cherem properly and commonly signifies extermination, not a net, except in a loose sense, as is evident from Habakkuk 1:47.
3. The evil of their hands they call good (that is, the evil works which they perform with their hands, they say are good; that is to say: They not only do evil, but also defend it and say it is good. So St. Jerome. Second, the Septuagint translates: They prepare their hands for evil, that is to say: "All raise their hands to evil, so that even one who could not do evil, nevertheless while he prepares his hands, sins in will," says St. Jerome. Third, Rabbi David aptly and connectedly with what follows translates: They join their hands for evil, that they may do it well, that is, that they may carry it out and bring it to effect. Hence the Tigurina translates: They are diligently intent and vigorous for the evil of their hands; because indeed they recruit for themselves suitable associates and powerful accomplices for it, and together with them conspire for the evil which they have planned in their minds. For) the prince demands (that the judge award him unjust taxes, goods, or the life of the innocent, or some similar impious or unjust thing); and the judge is ready in rendering (that is to say: The judge renders what the prince unjustly demands; he renders it, I say, in hope of reward, or of an equal judgment, or of favor, which he expects from the prince: "So that they may extend mutual favor to their crimes, and defend themselves in one another's sin," says St. Jerome. Hence from the Hebrew you may translate: The judge judges for recompense; that is, as the Chaldean translates: The prince demands, and the judge says: Do for me, and I will repay you. Finally) the great man (that is, some one of the magnates or Rabbis) has spoken the desire (in Hebrew הוה hoffat, that is, corruption and depravity; so Vatablus) of his soul (namely, if he is consulted about this demand of the prince and the unjust judgment of the judge awarding him the matter unjustly, he does not respond according to justice, law, and the will of God; but according to his own flattery, ambition, and avarice; namely he approves and defends both the unjust demand of the prince and the sentence of the judge, in order to win their favor or to share in the plunder. Hence Pagninus translates: And the great man speaks: Bring gifts): and (for this reason) they have confounded (the Chaldean: corrupted) it — "whether the city, or truth, or the land of which he said in verse 2: The just man has perished from the earth," says St. Jerome. In Hebrew, more aptly and significantly it is said ויעבתוהה vaieabtuba, that is, they have thickened, entangled, and complicated it, they have made it like a rope, namely the haffat, that is, the corruption; namely with a threefold mouth, that is, of the prince, the judge, and the great man, as with a threefold cord tripling and strengthening it, to show that what is evil is good, and what is unjust is fair, according to the saying: "A threefold cord is not easily broken." For the root עבת abat means to plait ropes or branches; hence עבות abot are called ropes, because they are plaited. This is what Isaiah says in chapter 5:18: "Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as if with a cart rope." For Micah here alludes to Isaiah in his usual manner. So Lyranus, Vatablus, Marinus in the Lexicon, and other more recent authors. Pineda explains this passage somewhat differently in his commentary on Job chapter 22:8, number 6, as if Micah here censures princes who indulge and grant everything to their court harpies, that is, to their familiars and flatterers, to the harm of the commonwealth and the poor. So he expounds it thus: The prince (a man who is a prince and great before his king and supreme judge) "demands (from the king), and the judge (supreme) is ready in rendering (easily assenting and granting without sufficient knowledge of the case and matter demanded); and the great man (the chief men and those familiar to the king) has spoken the desire of his soul (what they crave, this they ask; and what they ask, they obtain more quickly than it can be spoken) and they have confounded it," namely the commonwealth, by stinging and tearing the poor and sucking their blood. Hence there follows: "He who is best among them is like a thorn-bush; and he who is upright, like a thorn from a hedge." But since the prince is commonly greater than the judge, the former exposition seems plainer. The Belgians aptly call such associates in crime 'Vandregisilos.' For the name Vandregisilus is formed from these three Flemish words, van de by gesellen, that is, one of three associates, as Hutterus and others have noted in their Origins of Flanders.
Here the Prophet passes from the murders and crimes of the people to the crimes of the magnates, such as we also not infrequently observe in this age; for the children of this world are wise in doing evil, and therefore with so many counsels and associates, or powerful supporters, they bind it as if with ropes, so that no one can overturn it, no one can resist them; but He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them, as Micah beautifully shows in what follows. So Queen Jezebel caused the innocent Naboth to be condemned and stoned by the judges, in order to seize his vineyard and hand it over to her husband Ahab: the chief men of Samaria approved this murder and plunder, but immediately the watchful eye of God sprang to vengeance, and through Elijah He struck her with the thunderbolt of a curse. Wherefore Jezebel, shortly after being stripped of kingdom and life by Jehu, was devoured by dogs in the very same field that she had taken from Naboth, 3 Kings 21:23.
St. Gregory says admirably, Homily 9 on Ezekiel: "Neighbors, he says, must be tolerated everywhere, because there cannot be an Abel whom the malice of Cain does not trouble. But there is one thing, namely the power by which the company of the wicked must be avoided; lest, if perchance they cannot be corrected, they draw others to imitation, and since they themselves are not changed by their own malice, they pervert those who have been joined to them." And St. Isidore, Book II of the Soliloquies: "Standing before fire, he says, even if you are made of iron, you will eventually melt; one near to danger will not long be safe: often familiarity has entangled, often it has given occasion for sinning, often what the will could not accomplish, constant association has overcome;" and shortly after: "It is better to have the hatred of the wicked than their company; just as the common life of the saints has many good things, so the company of the wicked brings very many evils." Thus in either direction the power of association is great. Wherefore Cassiodorus wisely says, Book II of his Letters: "To man himself, he says, the divine has given double hands, paired ears, twin eyes, so that the duty might be performed more robustly which was to be accomplished by the partnership of two." And Hugh, Book III On the Soul: "A lovable companion, he says, is helpful to all and burdensome to none; because he is devoted to God, kind to his neighbor, sober toward the world; the Lord's servant, his neighbor's companion, the world's master; he regards what is above him with joy, what is equal with fellowship, what is below with service."
Verse 4
4. He who is best among them is like a thorn-bush. — The Septuagint: like a consuming moth. The sense is, that is to say: He who among these unjust and rapacious magnates seems the best, that is, the least evil, if compared with the rest who are more rapacious, nevertheless like a thorny and rough thorn-bush pricks and wounds his neighbors. For the paliurus is a kind of harsh and sharp thorn, commonly called holly, about which Virgil says, Eclogue 5: "The thistle rises, and the thorn-bush with sharp spines." And he who is upright is like a thorn from a hedge — that is to say: He who among them seems more upright and fairer than the rest, that is, less unjust, is nevertheless twisted, and pricks and injures like a thorn. Consider then what sort, how biting and harmful the rest must be, who are worse than these, and especially those who among them are the worst and most harmful. Again, just as a thorn snatches the wool of sheep and tears the sheep, so these men snatch the substance of the simple and tear them, says Rabbi David. The Hebrew has: Their upright one is a hedge, namely thorny and prickly. Hence Pagninus translates: Their upright one is rougher than walls of thorns; and the Tigurina: He who is upright is thornier than a hedge woven of thorns, that is, sharper and more harmful; the Syriac and the Antiochene Arabic: They despised their goods, like a scrap of cloth consumed by moths; but the Alexandrine Arabic: I will destroy their goods like a moth (or rot) that eats and creeps in beams, like the day of ambushes.
Second, more precisely and fittingly: "He who is best," that is, most kind and most gentle among them; he is nevertheless sharp "like a thorn-bush" in pricking: "and he who is upright," that is, who seems pleasing, agreeable, pleasant, and mild among them, nevertheless pricks and afflicts "like a thorn." Thus often "good" is taken in the sense of gentle and mild, as in Psalm 72:4: "How good is the God of Israel!" — good, that is, gentle, kind, beneficent, "to those who are upright in heart," who present to God a heart that is fair, calm, gentle, and friendly. For God is upright to the upright, good to the good, mild to the mild, kind to the kind; but conversely He is sharp to the sharp, fierce to the fierce, cruel to the cruel, as David sings in Psalm 17:26 and 27.
The day of your watchmen, your visitation has come. — In Hebrew מצפיך metsappecha, that is, of your watchmen. Hence the Tigurina clearly translates: The day of your watchmen and of your visitation has come; explaining which Vatablus says: Shortly, he says, the day will be at hand which your false watchmen, that is, your Prophets, predicted would be entirely prosperous for you; but falsely: for that day will be one of visitation, that is, of punishment, on which God will exact penalties from you and cut you down through the Chaldeans. And the Chaldean: The evil day on which you expected good, the day of the visitation of your wickedness has arrived, that is, it is at hand and imminent. He speaks of the destruction not of Samaria, as St. Jerome, Remigius, and Hugh think, but of Jerusalem, as is clear from what follows, where he promises liberation from captivity; for this happened to the inhabitants of Jerusalem carried off to Babylon, not to the Samaritans carried off to Assyria.
Now shall be their ruin. — For "ruin" the Hebrew has מבוכתם mebucha, which the Septuagint and Syriac translate as weeping, from the root בכה bacha, that is, he wept; Pagninus: desolation; others: siege; Marinus: confusion; others: distraction; properly the Chaldean and Vatablus: perplexity. For he opposes this perplexity as a fitting punishment against their binding together and conspiracy in evil, of which he spoke in verse 3: "They have confounded it;" in Hebrew, they entangled it. That is to say: The prince, the judge, and the magnates, colluding and conspiring in the plunder and despoiling of the poor, so strengthened this their crime and entangled it as with three ropes, that it seems inextricable and no one can resist or escape it; therefore I will tear apart these their ropes, and in turn I will entangle them with a rope, not threefold, but a hundredfold, of the Chaldeans besieging and surrounding them on every side, so that they cannot escape their snares and hands; but they will be so perplexed that they will not know where to turn, what plan to adopt, or where to flee. Much more, in a tropological sense, God will perplex them at the hour of death and on the day of judgment, when in fear and anguish they will say to the mountains: "Fall on us," and to the hills: "Cover us" (Apocalypse 6:16).
Verse 5
5. Do not trust a friend (in Hebrew רע rea, that is, an associate; for he looks back at the association by which the prince, judge, and magnates conspire in plunder, and he proceeds to dissolve and punish it), and do not put confidence in a leader: from her who sleeps in your bosom, guard the doors of your mouth. — Various interpreters explain this verse in various ways and adapt it to the text. First, St. Jerome, Remigius, Hugh, and Lyranus refer these words to the false prophets, that is to say: Do not believe them, because if among men joined either by kinship or by alliance, such as friends, leaders, spouses, and daughters-in-law, trust is rare, as experience testifies, how much rarer will trust be in false prophets, who invent dreams in order to flatter and fleece the purses of their people.
Second, others more correctly take these words in a general sense, as censuring the faithlessness of the people of that age, that is to say: At this time the perfidy of men is so great that neither associate can trust associate, nor wife husband, nor subject leader, nor mother-in-law daughter-in-law; because a man's own household members are his enemies. Therefore he acts wisely who regards everyone with suspicion, entrusts his confidence to no one, trusts himself to no one, but looks after and provides for himself. This is what Jeremiah laments in the same age, chapter 9:4: "Let everyone, he says, guard himself from his neighbor, and let him not have confidence in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully," etc. Clearly similar to these are the words of Micah that follow: "For the son treats the father with contempt, and the daughter rises up against her mother." If these are taken exactly as they sound, they signify nothing other than the malice and perfidy of that age. This sense, therefore, as it is simpler and plainer, so it also seems more genuine; for it explains and amplifies what he said in verse 2: "The holy man has perished from the earth, etc. Each man hunts his brother to death." And that of verse 3: "He who is best among them is like a thorn-bush," etc. And in this sense Christ seems to cite these words of Micah in Matthew 10:34, about which more shortly. And this sense, inasmuch as it is general, embraces all the others, especially the third, which I shall now assign. Ovid similarly describes such an iron age of the world and of men, Metamorphoses I: "They live by plunder; the guest is not safe from his host, nor the father-in-law from his son-in-law; even the goodwill of brothers is rare; the husband plots the wife's destruction, she the husband's; fearsome stepmothers mix livid poisons; the son inquires into his father's years before their time; piety lies vanquished, and the maiden Astraea, last of the heavenly beings, has left the earth dripping with slaughter."
Furthermore, He says pointedly and wisely: "From her who sleeps in your bosom," that is, from your wife, as the Chaldean translates (for thus it is said in Deuteronomy 13:6: "The wife who is in your bosom;" and chapter 28:54: "To the wife who lies in his bosom"), "guard the doors of your mouth," that is, do not trust your wife, do not reveal your secrets to her: for the mouth is like a door, which closes the thoughts of the heart by silence, as a door does, or opens them by speaking; hence it has its own bolts and bars, namely the lips and teeth, by which nature admonishes us to keep the mouth and tongue shut, especially in the presence of women. For a woman is inconstant and garrulous: "Woman is ever a fickle and changeable thing," says Virgil. So Delilah betrayed Samson, when he had revealed to her that his strength lay in his hair, Judges 13. So Jezebel ruined Ahab, when he had revealed to her that the cause of his sadness was his desire for Naboth's vineyard, 3 Kings chapters 15 and 16. Wherefore Cato, according to Plutarch, grieved about three things: first, that in this life so uncertain, he had remained without a will even for a single day; second, that he had traveled by sea and ship where he could have gone by land and on foot; third, that he had revealed his secret to a woman.
Truly Antiphanes says in Stobaeus: "What do you say? When you want some matter to remain hidden, will you reveal it to a woman? But what difference is there between telling a woman and telling all the heralds in the marketplace?" See Plutarch, Book On Garrulity. Seneca wisely says: "If you want another to be silent about something, be silent about it first yourself." And Valerius Maximus, Book 6, chapter 11: "Silence is the best and safest bond in managing affairs." See St. Augustine, Book 19 of the City of God, chapter 5, where in treating this passage of Micah, he illustrates it with two sayings of the pagans. One is from Terence in the Adelphi: "I married a wife — what misery I saw there!" — nay, what misery did I not see there? And in the Eunuch: "In love all these vices are present: injuries, suspicions, enmities, truces, war, peace again: have these not filled all human affairs everywhere?" The other is from Cicero, Book On Friendship: "There are no more hidden snares than those which lurk under a pretense of duty, or under some name of close relationship. For one who is openly an adversary you can easily guard against."
To this pertains the exposition of Arias, which is partial: he thinks that here it is signified that subjects and common people should beware of dealings with princes. That is to say: Do not, O common people, involve yourselves in the affairs of princes, either by entering into friendship with them, or by showing enmity by detracting from them and criticizing their deeds among your friends, wives, children, etc.; because these people will not keep silent what they have heard, but partly from garrulity, partly from malice, by which, angry and offended at you, they wish to harm you, they will tell these things to others,
and these to still others and others, so that the matter reaches the ears of the princes, who will avenge themselves and punish you severely, according to Ecclesiastes 10:20: "Even in your thought do not detract from the king, and in the secrecy of your bedchamber do not curse the rich: for the birds of the sky will carry your voice, and he who has wings will report the matter."
Third, others think that these words regard and explain the bitterness of the visitation, that is, the punishment and devastation, or as it is in Hebrew, the perplexity of the Jews, especially the magnates, in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, which was just mentioned above. That is to say: So great will be the calamity, so great the famine, so great the anguish, so great the perplexity of the citizens, especially the magnates — who had entangled and plundered the poor by their counsels and conspiracies — in the siege of Jerusalem, that each person will be anxious only for himself, and will care for no one else, not even a friend, a leader, a wife, or a daughter-in-law; indeed he will not trust anyone with the means of sustaining his life, or his plans for escape; but he will hide the bread he has from them, so that he alone may eat it and sustain his own life; he will keep secret and reserve for himself the hiding places, or the routes and means of escaping the hands of the Chaldeans that he has found or devised, lest they be snatched away from him by a friend or wife. So Theodoret, a Castro, Ribera, and others. Hence there follows:
Verse 6
6. For (in such great famine, turmoil, and anguish) the son treats (that is, will treat) the father with contempt (so as to quarrel and fight with him over bread, and snatch it from him), and the daughter rises up (that is, will rise up) against her mother (for a similar reason): and the enemies of a man (that is, of anyone, as the Chaldean translates) are his own household members — supply: will be; because the members of the household will everywhere contend and fight among themselves over bread, a hiding place, or any similar thing necessary for preserving life in such great peril.
Allegorically, this discord and fight of the Jews over bodily matters, that is, over material goods, represented the spiritual discord and fight (that is, over faith and spiritual goods) of the faithful and the unfaithful, namely the persecution of unbelievers — even parents, brothers, and relatives — against Christians, whether Jewish or Gentile, in the time of Christ and the new law, especially when on account of them they incurred danger to their reputation, goods, and dignities, or even to their lives. And in this sense Christ cites these words of Micah in Matthew 10:34: "I came not, He says, to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies shall be those of his own household." That is to say: I came to send separation and strife between brothers and parents, in matter similar to what Micah predicted for the Jews, but dissimilar in cause. For that of the Jews was due to their malice; or, as others say, due to the siege of the Chaldeans, in which they were so afflicted by famine, plague, and the sword, that even brother snatched bread, house, and fortress from brother, son from father, daughter from mother, to save himself. But this strife of Mine and of Christians will be on account of faith, piety, and the worship of God on the part of the faithful, but on account of malice equally on the part of the unfaithful. I came therefore to send a sword, that is, separation and discord in faith and religion, so that I might properly separate My faithful ones from the unfaithful through faith; but they, taking from this an occasion for quarreling, will separate themselves from the faithful by their unbelief, hatred, and persecution, by which they deprive them of goods and life. And this latter is what Christ chiefly intends, and it more closely corresponds to the mind of Micah, from whom Christ borrowed this: "For I came to set a man against his father, etc., and a man's enemies shall be those of his own household." "For it will happen, says St. Chrysostom in his Oration Against the Jews, that in the same house one will be faithful and another unfaithful, and the father will want to drag his son into impiety. Predicting this, He says: The power of the Gospel will so prevail that sons also will despise their parents, daughters their mothers, and parents their children; indeed, they will risk their lives and everything for the sake of piety." Hence Christ adds: "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me" — "his cross," so that he may be prepared for My sake, and for My faith and service, to bear beatings, reproaches, and even the harshest and most ignominious death, such as that of the cross: "because just as I have brought you the highest beatitude, so I ask of you a singular obedience and devotion, that you may be lions in My army," says St. Chrysostom. The same St. Chrysostom, Homily 36 on Matthew: "A man's enemies are those who are in his house." "By these words, he says, the Prophet endeavors to make the one who was about to receive His sayings superior to all things. For it is not dying, but dying badly, that is the evil. Therefore He said: I came to cast fire upon the earth — by which words He wishes to signify the greatness and ardor of the charity which He demands. For since He Himself loved us in a wonderful manner, He therefore desires to be loved by us also with a singular charity." Christ, therefore, does not misuse the words of Micah, as certain interpreters have asserted; but He rightly applies them to His own age and His own purpose, that is to say: Now through the preaching of My Gospel there will be a strife of brothers and parents such as Micah once predicted: although for a different and more pious cause. Wherefore it is now likewise permitted to employ this celebrated maxim of Micah, which has passed into a common proverb: "And a man's enemies shall be those of his own household." For this is a general maxim and gnome, which has application in every place, matter, and time, when the question of mine and yours is debated and litigated in the same house or assembly: for then everyone, fighting for himself and his own interests, has as enemies not strangers, but members of his own household, who strive to snatch it away and claim it for themselves. Wherefore, in an anagogical sense, this gnome is most true in hell, where the greatest enemies are those who in this life were the greatest friends, namely parents, brothers, household members, and associates in crime, on account of which they were condemned to hell.
have been damned. For these, like dogs, snarl at one another, curse, and reproach each other, saying: Cursed be you, father, who did not chastise me when I was wanton, but raised me in crime, so that I became fuel for hell. Cursed be you, brother, who invited me to harlots and drunkenness by word and example. Cursed be you, wife, who urged me to amass wealth by fair means and foul. Cursed be you, daughters: because for the sake of adorning and enriching you, I unjustly seized the property of others, pursued usury and unjust gains, on account of which I now burn in eternal fire.
Verse 7
7. But I will look to the Lord. — In such great evils he gives sound counsel and example alike. That is to say: In such great calamity and siege of the Jews, of which I spoke in verse 5, and in such great malice and perfidy, by which brother betrays and destroys brother, father his son — I, Micah, and those holy and wise men like me, will look not to parents and friends, as being treacherous, but to God, with the attentive eyes of the mind rather than of the body, invoking Him alone, commending ourselves to Him, seeking and expecting from Him alone help and deliverance from such great evils, according to that most wholesome counsel of Jehoshaphat, the pious and prudent king, in afflicted and almost desperate circumstances: "In us indeed there is not such great strength that we can resist this multitude which rushes upon us; but since we do not know what we should do, this alone remains to us, that we direct our eyes to You" (2 Chronicles 20:12). For God in desperate situations is the only refuge and asylum, and He delights to help in them, in order to show His supreme power and beneficence, especially toward those who believe, hope for, and ask for it. Therefore at such times one must supremely avoid distrust and despair, and must supremely arouse a certain hope and confidence in God; which, if it is present, will certainly draw forth God's help, even through a miracle, as happened to Lot besieged by the Sodomites (Genesis 19); to Moses and the Hebrews by Pharaoh (Exodus 14); to Judith and Bethulia besieged by Holofernes; to David besieged by Saul (1 Kings 23:27); to the Maccabees besieged by Antiochus; to Hezekiah besieged by Sennacherib (Isaiah 38:14). This is what is commonly said: "God from the machine," that is, appearing and helping unexpectedly.
I will wait for God my Savior — namely, literally, for God, who will deliver me and those like me both from the Chaldeans and from the perfidious Jews. Allegorically, I will wait for Christ, who will deliver us from the captivity of the devil and from the assault of all the wicked. Hence Christ was called Jesus, that is, Savior of the world. Micah speaks literally in the person of Jerusalem (that is, of her faithful and pious citizens) besieged by the Chaldeans, laid waste, and carried off to Babylon, as St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rupert, Hugh, Lyranus, and others note; for what follows is clearly the words of Jerusalem. For she says:
Verse 8
8. Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy, because I have fallen (Jerusalem calls her enemy not Rome, as the Jews wish, but either Babylon her destroyer, as St. Jerome, Remigius, Vatablus, and others hold; or rather Edom: for Babylon was the enemy of all nations, but Edom was the particular and ancestral enemy of the Jews, who therefore rejoiced and applauded at their destruction; hence almost all the Prophets reproach her for this, and therefore threaten her with a similar destruction, as Obadiah does throughout his entire prophecy. Wherefore verse 12: "You shall not look down, he says, on the day of your brother, and you shall not rejoice over the sons of Judah on the day of their destruction, etc. For the day of the Lord is near upon all nations: as you have done, it shall be done to you; your recompense shall be turned upon your own head." And the Psalmist, Psalm 136:7: "Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, on the day of Jerusalem, who say: Raze it, raze it, even to its foundation." Jeremiah chapter 44:12, Amos chapter 1:11, and others have similar passages. The sense, therefore, is: Do not rejoice in my destruction, O my enemy, O rival Edom: for although I have fallen, yet after 70 years God will again raise me up and restore me through Cyrus. Then) I shall rise when I sit in darkness (namely in the dark prison of Babylon; because) the Lord is my light — not formally, but causally; that is, God will illuminate me as I sit in the darkness of captivity, as the Septuagint and the Chaldean translate, and will restore me to light, that is, to joy, liberty, and happiness, and as it were to life (for light is the symbol of these things, just as conversely darkness is the symbol of sadness, captivity, adversity, and death). So David, placed in darkness, that is, in afflictions, looking to God as to a light, says: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 26:1).
Morally, St. Ambrose on Psalm 37, on the passage: For in You, O Lord, I have hoped, citing these words of Micah: "The ruin of weakness, he says, is not grievous if there is also a striving of the will. Have the will to rise, and One is at hand who will cause you to rise again." And shortly before: "Because even if I have sinned, You forgive sin; even if I have fallen, You raise me up; so that those who rejoice in the sins of others may have no cause to exult. For we who have sinned more have gained more, because Your grace makes us more blessed than our innocence could. Let penitent sinners hear this, let them hear and rejoice."
Verse 9
9. I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against Him. — "The wrath" by which He chastises, devastates, and carries me, Jerusalem, off to Babylon through the Chaldeans. That is to say: I, Jerusalem, will bear the wrath, that is, I will endure the punishment of destruction inflicted on me by the anger of God. For Micah speaks in the person of Jerusalem, that is, of her pious and faithful citizens, who in her destruction were stripped of their goods and liberty. Hence it is clear that pious and holy men bear the wrath of God when they are punished for their sins. From this it follows that God, although He pardons the penitent sinner's wrath, that is, the guilt, does not however immediately pardon all the wrath, that is, the punishment, as the heretics claim. For there is a twofold wrath of God. The first is the hatred by which He hates the sinner as His enemy, and wills for him the greatest evil and destruction, when He destines him for hell: this is removed through repentance, by which He is reconciled to the sinner and returns to grace with him. The second wrath is that by which He does not wish to leave the penitent, though reconciled, unpunished, but on account of past sins wills some evil for him, namely chastisement, when He destines him for disease, famine, despoilment, captivity, etc. This is the wrath that Micah and the Saints bear.
You will say: Through repentance all offense is removed from the mind of God, so that He is no longer offended with the sinner, but fully pardons his sin and is entirely reconciled with him; therefore all wrath is likewise removed. I respond to the antecedent: There is a twofold offense, just as there is a twofold wrath. The prior offense, or taking of offense, is the enmity and hostility itself: this is entirely removed through repentance. The posterior offense is the will to chastise and punish with some temporal penalty the pleasure that the sinner perceived in the act of sinning. This remains and persists in the mind of God until the sinner expiates it, or God pardons it; just as David pardoned the prior offense of Absalom when he received him, though a fratricide, into grace, but not the posterior one; for he said: "Let him not see my face" (2 Kings 14:24). In part, therefore, he was still offended with him, because he did not wish to see him. So David himself bore this wrath and offense of God; for when, rebuked by Nathan for his adultery and murder, he repented and said: "I have sinned against the Lord," he immediately heard from him: "The Lord also has taken away your sin: you shall not die. Nevertheless, because you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, on account of this word, the son who has been born to you shall surely die" (2 Kings 12:13). Wherefore David, although he already knew that his sin had been forgiven as to guilt, nevertheless still implored the wrath, that is, the vengeance and punishment of God, saying: "O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your fury, nor chastise me in Your wrath" (Psalm 6:1). "Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy. And according to the multitude of Your compassions, blot out my iniquity. Wash me yet more from my iniquity" (Psalm 50:1), that is to say: You have washed me by wiping away the guilt, but wash me yet more by wiping away all wrath and punishment. Furthermore, Gregory of Valencia, in his Treatise On Satisfaction Against the Heretics, chapter 3, demonstrates by this argument that this chastisement of God is rightly called wrath, and truly proceeds from the wrath and angry disposition of God: To be angry, he says, or to be hostile toward someone, is to will that some evil befall him; but God wills that the penitent, though reconciled to Him, should suffer this evil of temporal punishment, indeed He positively sends and inflicts it upon him when He chastises him; therefore by this very fact He is in some way angry with him, and there is still in God toward him an offense for which compensation ought to and can be made. Hence the Syriac and Arabic translate for "wrath": I will bear the plague of the Lord.
Morally, penitents themselves say the same thing when they are afflicted by God with disease, poverty, persecution, and other tribulations, and especially with the recurring temptation of that concupiscence to which they once consented: "I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against Him." I will take up unwillingly the bed on which I willingly lay, and I will walk. So St. Mary of Egypt suffered keen temptations of lust for as many years as she had lived in it, namely seventeen. So the holy Maccabees ascribed their martyrdoms to their sins out of humility (2 Maccabees 7). I have known religious men who, whenever anything adverse befalls them, immediately say: My fault; this is the just punishment of my fault. So the Emperor Maurice, seeing his five sons killed before his eyes by the Emperor Phocas, cried out: "You are just, O Lord, and Your judgment is right." For he had formerly resisted Pope St. Gregory in the rights of the Church, and therefore was punished by God with this penalty; indeed he himself sought it, in order to redeem the future and eternal one. So Baronius from Theophanes, in the year of our Lord 602.
St. Basil applies these words to the sick in his Longer Rules, question 55: "Diseases, he says, are often the scourges of sins, by which nothing else is accomplished except that we change our life for the better, etc. Therefore those who are of this kind ought, setting aside the remedies of physicians, to bear in silence the hardships brought upon them, whenever they perceive that they have sinned; and to imitate him who said: 'I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against Him'; and also to amend the wicked pursuits of their life, and to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance."
Until He judges my cause (and vindicates it: for although I am justly punished with respect to God, against whom I have sinned, nevertheless I suffer these things unjustly from the Chaldeans and the Edomites, whom I in no way harmed, and who have no right to my destruction and plundering. For the Chaldeans had no just title of war by which they could justly and lawfully invade and devastate the Jews. Moreover, God will judge and vindicate my cause when) He brings me forth into the light (namely into freedom from the Babylonian prison; for then) I shall see His justice (namely His just vengeance, by which He will render like for like to the Chaldeans, when He devastates them through Cyrus, just as they devastated us; and to the Edomites, when He leaves them in captivity — having been carried off equally by the Chaldeans — and does not bring them back to their homeland, as He will bring me back. Again, when He subjugates them to me and to my law through Judas and the other Maccabees, 1 Maccabees 5:3. Then, therefore) my enemy (that is, hostile Babylon, or rather the rival and envious Edom) shall look on (with grief and shame at her own defeats and miseries), and shall be covered with confusion, she who (now insulting me) says to me: Where is the Lord your God? (Let Him deliver you from this destruction.)
For she will see my freedom and happiness under Cyrus; and then her envy will burst. For) my eyes shall look upon her (that is to say: I, restored again to the height of Zion and of happiness, shall look down upon Edom lying on the ground, afflicted, and almost lifeless, and I shall say): Now she shall be trodden down like the mud of the streets — she who once proudly despised, mocked, and afflicted me. For shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Chaldeans trampled Edom, and afterwards the Maccabees did the same.
Verse 11
11. The day for your walls to be rebuilt. — First, Theodoret continues to apply these words to Edom, that is to say: The day of the Chaldean siege will come upon you, O Edom, on which you will restore your walls and the ruins of your fortifications, in order to protect yourself and resist the Chaldeans: but in vain; for the Chaldeans will either tear down or scale your walls, and will capture and plunder you. Second, St. Jerome, as with the preceding, takes these words also of Babylon, that is to say: The day will come upon you, O Babylon, when Cyrus and Darius will besiege you, and consequently when you will be forced to restore your walls. But in vain: for Cyrus will capture and devastate you. "On that day the law shall be far off," that is to say: Henceforth you will not impose laws and decrees upon Cyrus and the Persians, but will receive them from them. Third, and genuinely, with the same St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Remigius, Rupert, Hugh, Clarius, Ribera, and others, take these words of Jerusalem and her restoration by Ezra and Nehemiah, that is to say: Shortly, O Jerusalem, destroyed and carried off to Babylon, a joyful and happy day will come for you, on which, released by Cyrus and sent back to your native soil, you will restore the walls, that is, the ruins and the remaining walls of your buildings left from the burning.
On that day the decree shall be far off. — That is, the imperious command, as Theodotion and Symmachus translate, namely of the Chaldeans, who tyrannically ruled over you. That is to say: You will no longer be subject to the authority, laws, and edicts of the Chaldeans. Hence the Tigurina translates: The day is come for your hedges, torn down by enemies, to be repaired, on which day the decree shall be far off; Pagninus: On that day when the Lord shall build your walls, the tribute shall be removed, that is to say: You will no longer pay the tribute that you used to pay to the Chaldeans.
Verse 12
12. On that day (of freedom and return from Babylon to the homeland) they shall come to you from Assyria (so it should be read with the Roman, Hebrew, and Greek texts, not "Assyria shall come to you," as many read. The sense is, that is to say: On that day of your restoration, O Jerusalem, you will not only be freed from the enemy and from his yoke, law, and dominion; but also your captives scattered through Assyria, Media, Persia, etc., will return from there to you, and to the other fortified cities of Judea, and from them they will spread out) as far as the river (namely, the Jordan, says St. Jerome, or rather as far as the Euphrates, for the Jordan was not a boundary, but rather the middle of the Holy Land; the boundary set for it by God to the east was the Euphrates, Joshua 1:4. So the Chaldean and Vatablus. And from one sea you will spread your citizens to the other sea, namely from the Sea of Galilee, which is to the east, to the Mediterranean Sea, which is to the west; and from one mountain to another, namely from Mount Lebanon, which is the boundary of Judea to the north, to the mountain of Edom, which is its boundary to the south. So Theodoret, that is to say: You will spread, O Jerusalem, O Synagogue, throughout your entire land and dominion once assigned to you by God, in every direction to all the regions of that world. For he notes here the four boundaries and limits of the Holy Land promised to the Jews: its boundary to the east is the Sea of Galilee, or Tiberias; to the west, the Mediterranean Sea; to the north, Lebanon; to the south, the mountains of Edom.) From mountain to mountain. — For this the Hebrew has הר ההר har haar, which Pagninus and Vatablus translate: As far as Mount Hor. But Mount Hor is nowhere given as a boundary of the Holy Land, and is far distant from it, being situated in Arabia. Again, Vatablus applies all these words to the Chaldeans and their victories, that is to say: This affliction of the Chaldeans will extend to the Holy Land; for they will devastate everything from Assyria to the fortified cities of Egypt, and to Judea and its borders. But that these words refer to the restoration of Jerusalem is clear from verse 11: "The day for your walls to be rebuilt," O Jerusalem. For this day is the same as that one, on which he predicts that her citizens, fugitives from Assyria, will return to Jerusalem. The same is clear from verse 14 and following. Moreover, a Castro takes "from mountain to mountain" as meaning the mountain of mountains, namely Mount Zion, which is situated in the midst of mountains and rises above them like a king and prince. Third, some more recent commentators expound "from mountain to mountain" thus: From Mount Carmel to Mount Lebanon. But neither Zion nor Carmel were boundaries of the Holy Land; rather they are situated in its center. Therefore the first sense, which I assigned at the beginning, is the genuine one. For some understand by Assyria Sennacherib, and thus expound: The day of the siege and devastation of Sennacherib will come upon you, O Jerusalem, who will trample the law of God and the holy land; for he will capture all the fortified cities of Judea, whence the entire land will be laid waste. This sense, I say, is less fitting; for, to pass over other things, he already dealt with Sennacherib and his slaughter long ago in chapter 2:13.
Verse 13
13. And the land shall be desolate ("the land" — not Judea, but the land hostile and enemy to her, from which the Jews, freed by Cyrus, will return joyfully and happily to Jerusalem and restore it. That is to say: When Jerusalem is restored, then Babylon, which devastated it, will be laid waste by Cyrus) on account of its inhabitants (on account of the wicked Chaldeans, who afflicted the faithful and pious people of God), and on account of the fruit of their thoughts — namely on account of their perverse deeds: for these are the fruits and effects of wicked thoughts and machinations. That is to say: Babylon will be devastated on account of its tyranny and crimes.
Verse 14
14. Shepherd Your people with Your rod (These are the words of the Prophet's prayer, by which Micah beseeches God to feed and govern the Jews with His pastoral rod, that is, with His fatherly providence and His scepter, which He gave to the tribe of Judah and to the posterity of David, as Theodoret thinks, namely through Zerubbabel and his descendants — the Jews, who are God's people, His inheritance, and His Church), dwelling alone in the forest — that is, those who, being alone and destitute of all help, are held captive as if in a forest among wild beasts, namely among the Gentiles and idolaters of Babylon. So Vatablus and Dionysius. Or, those who, separated from the nations, worship You alone and live with You as with their shepherd, just as sheep are alone in a forest with their shepherd. So Theodoret and Clarius.
In the midst of Carmel. — Refer these words not to "they shall feed," which follows, nor to "dwelling," which precedes, but more remotely to "shepherd," according to the Roman text. That is to say: Come, O Lord, let the Jews return to Carmel and to their fields and cities, and there shepherd them as in Carmel, that is, abundantly and plentifully. For Carmel, being a fertile mountain with rich pastures for flocks, is a symbol of fertility and abundance. Or more forcefully: O Lord, shepherd Your Jews in Babylon, as if placed in a rough and thorny forest; shepherd them, I say, there so securely and generously, as if they were in their native Carmel, grassy and luxuriant. Make Babylon a Carmel for them, just as You made the Babylonian furnace a dewy garden, indeed a paradise, for the three youths (Daniel 3:50). So God turned the burning coals into roses for St. Tiburtius the martyr; and fire into dew and refreshment for St. Lawrence; indeed He changed torments into joys, the rack into a feast, and crosses into delights for St. Cecilia, St. Agnes, St. Lucy, and other holy Virgins and Martyrs. Such is the power and might of our God, such His goodness, such His sweetness toward His faithful ones and children. The former sense is somewhat more favored by what follows:
They shall feed (the Jews, when You have brought them back from Babylon to Judea) in Bashan and Gilead (which are rich mountains, abundant in cattle — Bashan, that is, in Bashan. That is to say: Just as sheep feed and grow fat in Bashan and Gilead, so too the Jews there will be fed by God with the same abundance of sheep and every kind of provision) according to the days of old — that is, as they once fed there under David and Solomon. Or, "they shall feed," that is, they shall feed upon "Bashan and Gilead" and the other most fertile mountains and fields of Judea, that is, they shall gather and eat the rich harvests, produce, and fruits of Judea. He continues with the metaphor of the shepherd, sheep, and pastures: for he has compared God to a shepherd, the Jews to sheep, and Judea to the pastures of Carmel, Bashan, and Gilead, upon which the sheep feed.
Verse 15
15. As in the days of your coming forth from the land of Egypt — that is to say: Just as I miraculously led the Jews out of Egypt through so many plagues and wonders performed by Moses, so likewise I will lead their descendants out of Babylon through many marvels, indeed miracles. For first, I will win over for them Cyrus and Darius, though idolaters, to free them from Babylon. Second, on their journey and return I will be with them, so that little ones, women, the aged, and the weak may complete it joyfully and eagerly without harm, though it is long and arduous, just as their fathers completed the journey in the desert when they traveled from Egypt to Canaan. Third, when they have arrived in Judea, I will restrain the neighboring, hostile, and envious nations, so that they cannot harm them nor hinder the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple. For that these things happened thus is clear from 1 Ezra chapters 4 and 5, and Baruch chapter 5. So Theodoret, Lyranus, and Vatablus.
Allegorically, Christ accomplished far more wondrous things than Moses or Ezra in the liberation of men from the captivity of the devil; for, not to mention the wonders of the Incarnation, Nativity, preaching, Transfiguration, Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the miracles performed by Him during His life, after His death through a few lowly and poor Apostles He overthrew all the power and wisdom of the world,
Allegorically, St. Jerome, Haymo, Remigius, Rupert, Hugh, and Arias consider these to be the words of the Eternal Father to Christ His Son. That is to say: I appoint You, O My Son, now incarnate, as My shepherd, and I command You to feed My sheep, namely the faithful Christians, with the pastoral staff, that is, with the evangelical authority, which I deliver to You in its fullness. Hence Christ, departing to heaven, transferred this authority in the very same words to St. Peter, and appointed him as vicar in this pastoral office, saying: "Feed My sheep" (John 21:17).
indeed of hell and the demons, and subjected kings and wise men and the entire world to His saving cross. So St. Jerome, Haymo, Albert, Rupert, and others. Hence there follows:
Verse 16
16. The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might — because, that is, through it they were unable to harm the Hebrews, nor afterwards to conquer the Christians. For they will see a far greater strength and power given by God to the Hebrews, and to the Apostles and Christians, by which they, unconquered, will overcome all things, so much so that even through death and martyrdom they will overcome the tyrants, and convert many of them to the faith of Christ and to the Church. For, as Tertullian says: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians." And as St. Gregory says: "Individual grains, when they fall, rise up multiplied." And as St. Leo says in his Sermon on Saints Peter and Paul: "The Church is not diminished by persecutions, but increased." So too the virtue of each faithful person in it "grows when agitated by adversity," which otherwise withers without an adversary.
They shall put their hand upon their mouth — that is to say: Out of confusion, consternation, and admiration at such great wonders, they will be struck dumb and stupefied, so that they dare not even mutter.
Their ears shall be deaf — that is to say: In like manner they will become deaf, so that, as if stunned, they lose the use of mouth and ears, and can neither speak nor hear. Second, as if from envy and grief they will stop their ears, so as not to hear these wondrous things and the prosperous successes of the Hebrews in Jerusalem, and afterwards of the Christians under the law of the Gospel: for these things will torment the idolatrous and envious nations, and will be like stakes in their eyes and like thunder in their ears.
Verse 17
17. They shall lick the dust like serpents. — This is a catachresis, signifying the utter subjection of the nations under the victorious Jews, such as befell them under Judas, Jonathan, and their successors, as is clear from the Books of Maccabees. That is to say: The Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, and other neighboring nations, once hostile, will be so struck with fear of Judas, Jonathan, and the Jews, that they will prostrate themselves on the ground before them as suppliants, and after the custom of nations will strike the earth with their foreheads, and so seem to touch and lick the earth with their mouths. The same was more truly fulfilled allegorically in Christ and the Apostles: for of these the Psalmist says in Psalm 71:9: "Before Him the Ethiopians shall fall down: and His enemies shall lick the dust." And Isaiah chapter 49:23: "With their faces bowed down to the earth they shall worship you, and lick the dust of your feet." See what was said there. So St. Jerome. Thus a ship is said to lick or lap the shore when it sails close to the coast; and a river to lick the land that it washes; and a flame to lick whatever it touches or breathes upon. So Virgil, Aeneid II: "A flame, he says, was seen to lick the hair of Iulus and to feed about his temples."
He alludes to serpents, which properly lick and eat the earth, according to Genesis 3:14: "You shall eat earth all the days of your life."
As creeping things of the earth they shall be disturbed in their dwellings. — Some read "driven forth" (proturbabuntur). So Haymo, Remigius, and the older codices; which some explain thus, that is to say: Just as certain lands, such as Malta, by the blessing of St. Paul; Ireland, by the blessing of St. Patrick; Ibiza in the Balearic Islands, according to Solinus the Polyhistor, chapter 26; and sealed earth, which physicians commonly use — do not permit venomous creatures or serpents, but drive them away and repel them: so the Jews returning from Babylon to Judea will drive out the nations that had occupied it, and will force them to yield to them their ancestral place and land. But the correct reading with the Roman texts is "they shall be disturbed" (perturbabuntur), that is, they will be struck with a kind of sacred horror and reverence, both for God and for His faithful people, namely the Jews, and allegorically for the Apostles and Christians. For in Hebrew it is ירגזו iirgezu, that is, they shall tremble. Hence the Septuagint translates: They shall be disturbed in their enclosures; the Chaldean: They shall be shaken from their dwellings; the Tigurina and Vatablus: They shall tremble in their strongholds, that is, in the cities in which they will be shut up out of fear. That is to say: Just as serpents and creeping things are terrified at the sight of a man and fearfully hide themselves in their dens and caves, so the nations will be terrified and will reverence the Jews returning from Babylon, and allegorically, much more, the Apostles and holy Christians. Hence there follows: "They shall fear the Lord our God." Sanchez adds that there is an allusion to stags, which by their breath draw serpents out of their caves. "The breath of elephants draws out serpents; that of stags likewise burns them," says Pliny, Book 11, chapter 53. Hence the stag is called ἔλαφος ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑλεῖν ὄφεις, that is, from drawing out serpents. That is to say: The Maccabees will draw their enemies from their hiding places as easily as stags draw serpents from caves by their mere breathing. Allegorically, this is more truly said of the Apostles, who converted barbarous nations from their caves and barbarism to civilization and holiness.
They shall fear the Lord our God. — So it should be read with the Roman, Hebrew, and Septuagint texts; not "they shall desire," as the Plantin and many other editions of the Bible read. In Hebrew it is: Before the Lord our God they shall tremble, so the Tigurina; or, as Pagninus: From the Lord our God they shall be terrified. This fear and dread is a sign both of terror and of reverence. For in Scripture, the fear of God is the same as reverence for God; and to fear God is the same as to revere God. He alludes to the Chaldeans, Persians, and other nations converted to Judaism under Cyrus (1 Ezra 6:21) and under Esther (chapter 8:47).
And they shall fear you — O Israel, O faithful people, O Church.
Verse 18
18. Who is a God like You? — These are the words not of the terrified nations fearing the God of Israel, but of the Prophet, who from such great clemency and generosity of God toward His people, by which He preserved and advanced the Jews freed from Babylon, bursts forth joyfully into a doxology and praise of God. So Theodoret, Lyranus, and Vatablus. And at the same time he allegorically prophesies of Christ and Christ's redemption. Hence the Chaldean translates verse 19: His Word will return to have mercy on us, that is to say: The Word of God will become incarnate, and thus will return to us to redeem us. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, Hugh, and very many others expound this of Christ. For it is Christ who takes away our iniquities and casts into the depths of the sea all our sins; namely He Himself is the truth promised to Jacob, and the mercy promised to Abraham.
Who takes away iniquity and passes over — that is, overlooks, dissimulates, pardons; the Septuagint: transcends; the Chaldean: lets go; Vatablus: forgets and puts under His feet (for in Hebrew it reads: He passes over sin, that is, trampling it, destroying it, and grinding it down) the sin of the remnant of His inheritance — that is, the sin of Israel, or of the people left and remaining after the captivity. By "sin," understand both the guilt: for many of the Jews, afflicted by the evil of captivity, came to their senses and did penance with Daniel, chapter 9; and the punishment of the guilt, namely the Babylonian captivity: for God took this away when He restored the Jews to freedom.
He will not send His fury any further — such as He sent through the Chaldeans; supply: unless the Jews return to their crimes, as in fact they did: wherefore He sent an even greater fury upon them, when He utterly destroyed and annihilated them through Titus and the Romans. Wherefore these words are more truly fulfilled allegorically in Christ and in Christians.
Verse 19
19. He will put down (in Hebrew יכבוש iichbos, that is, He will subdue, put under His feet, trample) our iniquities. — So Vatablus. The Septuagint: He will submerge; the Chaldean: He will subject our iniquities to His mercy. For His mercy, being as it were far greater, dominates over all sins, and by dominating pardons and abolishes them.
And He will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins. — This is a catachresis, that is to say: God will cause sin to be utterly abolished, so that it no longer exists or remains. For that which is sunk to the bottom of the sea is thus abolished. Hence that saying of Horace, Book I, Ode 1: "Whether by flame, or by the Adriatic Sea it pleases." It was also the custom of the Jews that whatever was abominable, accursed, and nefarious, they would sink into the nearest salt sea, namely into the Lake Asphaltites (the Dead Sea). So from the Rabbis in the Mishnah, Arias reports. Likewise the Indians throw their sins, written out or expressed in some other symbol, into a river, so that it may carry them to the sea, where they may be pressed into eternal oblivion. Our Acosta is witness, Book V On the New World, chapter 25. But properly the Prophet alludes to the drowning of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, which was a type of baptism reddened with the blood of Christ, in which the Egyptians, that is, sins, will be drowned. Hence allegorically Theodoret and Rupert understand here by the depths of the sea baptism, that is to say: I will drown your sins in baptism, just as I drowned Pharaoh and his men in the sea. St. Basil also explains it thus, Homily 4 on Psalm 28. Hence St. Augustine, Discourse 1 on Psalm 113, teaches that, "just as the Egyptians in the Red Sea, so he says our sins have been submerged and extinguished in baptism." Note this against our heretics, who think that sins are only covered and concealed in baptism by the justice of Christ imputed to us, as if by a cloak, but in reality they remain and live in the soul through the concupiscence inherent in it. For the Prophet says the contrary here, and the contrary happened to Pharaoh and the Egyptians: for they were not covered and concealed by the waters of the sea, but killed and extinguished; therefore in a similar manner in baptism and the other sacraments, sins are not hidden but are truly destroyed and extinguished.
Verse 20
20. You will give truth to Jacob (in Hebrew leiaacob, that is, to Jacob), mercy (the Arabic: grace) to Abraham (in Hebrew leabraham, that is, to Abraham; so also the Syriac, namely by fulfilling those things) which You swore to our fathers (to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, etc.) from days of old — that is to say: You will truly and faithfully fulfill in Jacob, that is, in the posterity of Jacob, namely the Jews, those things which You mercifully promised to Abraham, Jacob, and the other fathers, both concerning the care, protection, and liberation of the Jews from captivity, for example the Babylonian captivity; and most of all concerning Christ, who was to be born from their seed — namely, that He would free us from all sins and evils, and bestow upon us every grace, salvation, happiness, and eternal glory. For this is the promise made to Abraham in Genesis 22:18, where it says: "In your seed shall be blessed" — namely in Christ, to be born from you, as the Apostle explains in Galatians 3:16 — "all nations." And hence he was called Abraham, as if אב רב המון ab rab hamon, that is, father of a great multitude, namely the father of many nations, which imitate the faith of Abraham and believe in Christ, the son of Abraham. Note: He calls the promise of God "mercy," because God freely and out of pure mercy promised the aforementioned blessings to Abraham, and because the nations share in the same, namely grace, justice, and the salvation of Christ, not from merit but from mercy. He calls the same "truth," that is, faithfulness; because it was to be most faithfully fulfilled by God, as it has now been fulfilled. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Rupert, Lyranus. But why does he attribute "mercy" to Abraham and "truth" to Jacob?
They respond, first subtly, St. Jerome and the Hebrews, that the first promise of God made to Abraham was not from his merit, nor from obligation, but from mercy; but once this promise was given, it became truth, that is, something owed from faithfulness. What therefore was grace to Abraham became truth, or fidelity, and an obligation to his grandson, namely Jacob and the descendants of Jacob. And so of God's promises, Christ especially is the mercy of God, because He was mercifully promised by God and given to the world. He is likewise truth, because in Him God faithfully fulfilled all things, and gave all the blessings that He had promised.
This is what Zechariah sings of Him and the cause of His coming in Luke 1:72: "To show mercy to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant (promise and pact);" which covenant is that great "oath which He swore to Abraham our father, that He would give to us." For in Christ all promises and magnificent pledges made to the Patriarchs and Prophets are completed and fulfilled.
He mentions Abraham and Jacob, not Isaac, both because Isaac, being in the middle between Abraham and Jacob, is included in them and understood; and because more illustrious promises were made to Abraham and Jacob than to Isaac; and finally because the promises made to Isaac descended to Jacob alone and to all his posterity: for Esau, the other and firstborn son of Isaac, was excluded from them.
Second, more solidly and truly, he attributes "truth" to Jacob and "mercy" to Abraham, because by Jacob he understands his posterity, who from him as their immediate ancestor were called Jacobites and Israelites — indeed Jacob and Israel (for Jacob was called by another name, Israel) — by their proper name. And for this reason he places Jacob before Abraham, because by Jacob he means his posterity: for they were properly called Jacobites and Israelites from him, not Abrahamites from Abraham their grandfather. For these promises were exhibited and completed not in Jacob himself, but long afterward in his posterity. So Theodoret, Albert, Vatablus, and a Castro. The sense, therefore, is, that is to say: You will give truth, that is, You will faithfully fulfill in Jacob, that is, in the Jacobites, those things which You mercifully first promised to Abraham, the patriarch and their grandfather, especially concerning Christ, and Christ's redemption and salvation.
Mystically, Jacob represents the Jews, as their proper ancestor, to whom God properly made these promises concerning Christ: hence to them is attributed truth, that is, the faithfulness of the promises. Abraham represents the nations, for hence he was called Abraham, that is to say, Father of many nations; but the nations were admitted and adopted by grace to these promises of Christ: hence to them is attributed the mercy of the same, according to the saying of Paul in Romans 15:8: "For I say that Christ Jesus was a minister of the circumcision," that is, of the circumcised, namely the Jews, "for the truth of God, to confirm the promises of the fathers; but that the nations might glorify God for His mercy." So St. Jerome, Haymo, Remigius, and Rupert.
Morally, learn here how great a benefit is the remission of sins, and what great thanks we ought to give God for it. For just as the greatest of all evils is sin, so the greatest of all goods is its remission. For sin most grievously offends that immense majesty, goodness, and holiness of God, and is a kind of deicide, indeed was truly and properly a Christicide; for it could be washed and expiated by no price except the blood and death of Christ, about which I said more at the beginning of Jeremiah chapter 2. Add that this remission does not occur except through the grace of God infused into the soul, through which we become sons and heirs of God, and so, as St. Peter says in his second Epistle, chapter 1:4, sharers in the divine nature. This is what Micah says: "Who is a God like You, who takes away iniquity?" etc. For the justification of the wicked is a greater work of God than the creation of heaven and earth, as St. Thomas demonstrates from St. Augustine, I-II, Question 113, article 9.
Moreover, God not only removes and expels sin from the soul — which is like a most destructive enemy invading and occupying it — but also so distances it from the soul that He casts it into the depths of the sea, as the Prophet says here; indeed on the day of judgment He will cast it along with all sinners into the abyss of hell. This is the truth promised to Jacob and the mercy promised to Abraham, of which Zechariah speaks in Luke 1:77: "To give knowledge of salvation to His people, in the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, by which the Rising Sun from on high has visited us. To enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to direct our feet in the way of peace." And verse 74: "That we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and justice before Him, all our days." Wherefore all the holy penitents marvelously celebrated this benefit of God in themselves. St. Peter, daily hearing the cock crow, mindful of his denial of Christ, dissolved into tears, and therefore devoted himself entirely to His preaching, love, and service, even unto death on the cross. Hence in his First Epistle, chapter 2:9 and 10, exulting in this grace and congratulating the Gentiles: "You, he says, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of acquisition: that you may proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Who once were not a people, but now are the people of God; who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." St. Paul so marvels at his own conversion, and so congratulates himself upon it, that he bursts forth into these words: "Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost; but for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show all His patience, for the instruction of those who would believe in Him unto eternal life. Now to the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." Read the entire first chapter of Ephesians, in which he is astonished at this benefit of remission and pours it forth with profound sentiments and words. St. Mary Magdalene, certain of the remission received from Christ, spent her entire life in the wilderness, in tears, thanksgiving, love, and contemplation, making her own the words of the Song of Songs 1:12: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; He shall rest between my breasts. Sustain me with flowers, surround me with apples, for I am sick with love." St. Mary of Egypt the penitent in like manner spent 47 years in solitude, continually having in mind: "I will sing the mercies of the Lord forever.
The mercies of the Lord, because we are not consumed. Draw me after You: we will run in the fragrance of Your ointments. I have found Him whom my soul loves; I held Him and will not let Him go, until I bring Him into the house of my mother and into the chamber of her who bore me." Let those who have at some time sinned, especially mortally and grievously, imitate these holy ones; and therefore let them serve God in humility, repentance, thanksgiving, love, and fervor, their whole life long, joyfully and eagerly — especially so as to draw the souls of their neighbors from the abyss of sin and offer them to God in compensation.