Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Habakkuk complains about the depravity of the Jews, namely that among them there is no place for law and reason, but the desire for wealth and honor reigns with impunity, and therefore the unjust prevails against the just, and perverse judgment issues forth. To this God responds, in verse 5, that He will punish this depravity through the Chaldeans, and will avenge it by the destruction of Judea. Wherefore he remarkably exaggerates the power, speed, industry, ferocity, and cruelty of the Chaldeans. Terrified by these threats, Habakkuk, in verse 12, prays to God that He would chastise His people as a father with a rod, not slay and destroy them with the sword, since the sins of the Jews are less than the crimes of the Chaldeans: lest, while purging the lighter faults of the former, He permit the graver ones of the latter to be perpetrated.
Vulgate Text: Habakkuk 1:1-17
1. The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw. 2. How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and You will not hear? I will cry out to You suffering violence, and You will not save? 3. Why have You shown me iniquity and labor, to see prey and injustice before me? And judgment is given, and contradiction is more powerful. 4. Therefore the law is torn apart, and judgment does not reach its end: because the wicked prevails against the just, therefore perverse judgment goes forth. 5. Look among the nations and see: wonder and be astonished: for a work is done in your days which no one will believe when it is told. 6. For behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation, marching over the breadth of the earth, to possess dwellings not their own. 7. He is horrible and terrible: from himself his judgment and his burden shall go forth. 8. His horses are lighter than leopards, and swifter than evening wolves; and his horsemen shall spread themselves: for his horsemen shall come from afar, they shall fly as an eagle that hastens to eat. 9. They shall all come for prey, their faces are like a burning wind: and he shall gather captivity as the sand. 10. And he shall triumph over kings, and tyrants shall be his laughing stock: he shall laugh at every stronghold, and shall heap up an earthwork and take it. 11. Then his spirit shall be changed, and he shall pass through and fall: this is his strength, of his god. 12. Are You not from the beginning, O Lord my God, my Holy One, and we shall not die? Lord, You have appointed him for judgment: and made him strong, that You might correct us. 13. Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and You cannot look on iniquity: why do You look upon those who deal unjustly, and are silent while the wicked devours him who is more just than himself? 14. And You will make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the creeping things that have no ruler. 15. He lifted up all of them with his hook, he drew them in his dragnet, and gathered them into his net: for this he will rejoice and exult. 16. Therefore he will sacrifice to his dragnet, and offer incense to his net: because through them his portion is made rich, and his food choice. 17. For this reason therefore he spreads his net, and will not cease to slay the nations continually.
Verse 1
1. THE BURDEN WHICH HABAKKUK SAW. — For "burden" the Septuagint translates λῆμμα (lemma), that is, "assumption" or "taking up," by which God, seizing the mind of Habakkuk with prophetic grace and drawing it away from human affairs, carried it— away to contemplate divine and future things, says Theodoret, whom St. Peter, in St. Clement's book of Recognitions, calls the sixth sense: "There is," he says, "also another sixth sense, that is, of foreknowing: for these five senses are capable of knowledge, but the sixth is capable of foreknowledge, which the Prophets possessed." Furthermore, the "burden" is a burdensome and threatening prophecy. See what was said at Nahum 1:1.
Verse 2
2. HOW LONG, O LORD. — Some think the Prophet had foreseen the destruction of Jerusalem about to come through the Chaldeans, and had ardently and frequently prayed to avert it; and when he saw that he was not heard, but that the immovable sentence of destruction remained, he here complains to God about it, not from impatience, but from grief and compassion for his people. So Vatablus and Ribera. Indeed St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, Hugh, and Lyra hold that the Prophet said these things after Jerusalem had been devastated, and complains that God permitted it to be so devastated by faithless and impious Chaldeans.
Better, St. Chrysostom, Nazianzen, Theodoret, Theophylact, Guevara, and a Castro, whom I cited in the Prooemium, hold that the Prophet complains about the moral depravity of his own age and his own people, namely that, although he had often prayed to God to check and restrain it, he had not been heard, but rather saw the crimes themselves increasing and multiplying. For the words clearly signify this when he adds: "The law is torn apart; because the wicked prevails against the just, therefore perverse judgment goes forth." He speaks therefore not of the tyranny and violence of the Chaldeans, who were lawless, but of the perversity of the Jews, who violated the law they had received from God by oppressing the just and perverting their causes and judgments. Hence the Septuagint translates: "Against me judgment has been given, and the judge accepts." He complains therefore about the Jewish people, that although it is faithful and chosen by God, yet it is full of violence, robbery, and crimes, and he torments himself because God does not purge and free it from these. Therefore God responds to him in verse 5, that He will punish and expiate these crimes through the Chaldeans. He says therefore: "How long, O Lord, shall I cry," that You would cause these robberies and crimes in Your people to cease, "and You will not hear?" that is, You do not hear me as I cry out continually,
I WILL CRY OUT TO YOU, SUFFERING VIOLENCE. — In Hebrew: I will cry out to You chamas, that is, "iniquity" or "violence," as if to say: Seeing continually so many robberies and injuries, at each one I cry out "chamas" and say: Behold, Lord, chamas! Behold chamas! Behold new violence, behold new robbery and new crime! For each individual crime of my people so afflicts me that I seem to suffer violence from them. Hence the Chaldean translates: "I cry aloud in Your presence; is there, O Lord, with You the power to save?" As if to say: I see, Lord, that in Your and my people there is no reverence for God, no shame or fear of men, but they perpetrate injuries and iniquities with brazen face, trample divine and human laws, afflict and oppress the rich and powerful over the poor and innocent, and scrape together their goods now by force, now by fraud; indeed, by craft or arms they seize magistracies and the helm of the state, and gain supreme power. You see the same things, O Lord: why then are You silent? Why do You dissemble? Why do You not remedy such great evils? Does Your providence, Your vengeance, so sleep that You allow the innocent to be oppressed and the guilty to rule? I suffer violence, I am afflicted and tormented, and cannot bear it: for zeal for Your house consumes me. You too suffer violence: how do You endure it? You seem either unable or unwilling to defend and save the innocent against tyrants and the wicked. For Habakkuk, and good and zealous Prophets, grieve not only for those who are harmed and suffer injury, but even more for those who harm and injure: for, as Aristotle says: "It is a lesser injury to suffer wrong; it is a greater injury to inflict wrong." And Socrates in Plato's Gorgias: "He who does wrong," he says, "and is unjust, is altogether wretched above all others; but more wretched still if he never pays the penalty for his wrongs; less wretched, however, if he does pay and receives just punishment from gods and men." And Cato used to say that he preferred to receive no thanks for a benefit conferred, than to pay no penalty for a crime committed: signifying that nothing is more dangerous than impunity, which always invites one to worse things, as Plutarch reports in the Apophthegms. at what time I should give what you ask, and I do not show mercy now, because that mercy would be cruelty, and your own will acts against you. So also our God, knowing the weight and measure of His clemency, sometimes does not hear the one who cries out, in order to test him, and to provoke him more to prayer, and as if refined by fire to make him more just and pure." So far St. Jerome.
Verse 3
3. WHY HAVE YOU SHOWN ME INIQUITY? — Some put emphasis on the word "shown," as if this connects what follows to what precedes, as if to say: You are so angry at Your people that it is not enough for You not to grant my prayers and cries: You also wish to stop my mouth, lest I cry out; lest by chance — such is Your goodness and clemency — You turn away Your wrath. For when You show me such great and numerous crimes of the people, and set them before my eyes, it is as if You put a bridle and chains on my lips. For who, when he sees such great iniquity of the people, and the injuries by which they have assaulted and continue to assault Your holy name, would dare to interpose himself as intercessor for them, or even to come before Your face? Do You then wish to destroy this people with no one interceding? So Martin de Roa, Book I, Singularia, ch. 2. Secondly, and more simply, "You have shown" means "You have exhibited," that is, You have permitted to be exhibited and done, as if to say: Why do You permit, why do You allow such great iniquity, which, shown and exhibited before my eyes, grievously torments me?
AND LABOR. — "Labor" here can be taken passively, for the grief and trouble of those who suffer the violence and injuries of the wicked; hence the Septuagint translates: "Why have you shown me labors and the griefs of the afflicted?" For these move me to compassion and to a similar grief. Or rather, it is taken actively for the affliction which the guilty inflict on the innocent. Hence the Chaldean translates: "I behold workers of the labor of falsehood," as if to say: Why do I see the wicked afflicting the pious? For it is Yours, O Lord, to exact penalties from them. So Vatablus and Pagninus, who for "labor" translate "perversity." For violence and injury, and indeed any sin, is called in Scripture amal, that is, "labor," both because it begins and is carried on with labor, and ends in labor and grief. For how many and how great are the labors and griefs that the greedy man undertakes, running across lands and seas even to the Indies to heap up riches? The lustful man to satisfy his lust; the glutton his appetite; the wrathful man to fulfill his anger and vengeance? Truly they purchase a small pleasure with great labor, which then turns into eternal labors and torments. Also because on others whom he afflicts or scandalizes, he inflicts grief and labor: for the labor of the one doing wrong and injuring is also the labor of the one suffering and bearing the injury, for these are connected and correlative. And finally, because for the Prophets and holy men zealous for God and justice, the wrong inflicted, whether actively by the injurer or passively by the sufferer, arouses immense grief. Hence Habakkuk, explaining this labor of his, adds:
TO SEE PREY AND INJUSTICE (in Hebrew, chamas, that is, force, violence, injury, oppression) BEFORE ME — that is, "in my presence," as the Hebrew and Chaldean have it, as if to say: while I watch, groan, and resist. So sin is called "labor" or "pain," Psalm 7:15: "Behold, he has brought forth injustice, conceived sorrow, and brought forth iniquity." Psalm 10:7: "His mouth is full of cursing, and bitterness, and deceit: under his tongue is labor and sorrow." Psalm 54:11: "Day and night iniquity shall surround it upon its walls, and labor is in its midst, and injustice." Psalm 139:10: "The labor of their lips shall cover them," as if to say: by their own deceits and deceitful lips they will be caught; their tricks will fall back on their own heads. Ecclesiastes 10:15: "The labor of fools shall afflict them." Isaiah 59:4: "They have conceived labor and brought forth iniquity." This is what the wicked will say groaning on the day of judgment: "We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and walked through hard ways, but the way of the Lord we have not known. What has pride profited us? or what advantage has the boasting of riches brought us?" Wisdom 5:7. For the great labor of the wicked ends in greater, indeed eternal grief: but the small labor of the pious ends in immense and eternal joy.
AND JUDGMENT IS GIVEN, AND CONTRADICTION IS MORE POWERFUL. — In Hebrew: And strife arises, and contention exults, or lifts itself up, so that it becomes more powerful and prevails over others. For instead of "judgment," in Hebrew it is rib, that is, litigation, quarrel — that is, as he explains by adding, "contradiction"; Pagninus translates: "contention," as if to say: The perverse, who sow and press lawsuits and quarrels, are more powerful than the just, the simple, and the peaceful, and supplant and despoil them in judgment and litigation. Hence the Chaldean translates: "Plunderers and robbers are before me, and with contention and pride they themselves prevail." So we often see the proud and shameless obtain by contention and quarreling what they cannot achieve by right and reason: because grave and modest men do not wish to quarrel with them, nor to have their heads battered by their importunate clamoring. Hence, to free themselves from them, they give them what they demand. Vatablus translates: "Why is there one who takes up strife and contention?" — understand, against me.
Verse 4
4. THEREFORE THE LAW IS TORN APART. — The Septuagint: "the law is dissipated"; Vatablus: "the law is weakened"; the Chaldean: "the law languishes"; the Tigurina: "therefore the law has no force" — both because the wicked with their power pervert laws and rights, judgments and judges, as St. Jerome, Theodoret, Hugh, and Lyra say; and because the pious, seeing the impious prevail through their impiety, grow languid in their zeal for the law and for piety, and incline toward the party and lot of the wicked. So Clarius, Arias, and others. Thus says Seneca in the Hercules Furens: "Right lies in arms; fear crushes the laws." And Ennius: "Wisdom is removed from the scene; affairs are conducted by force. Not by right do they join battle hand to hand, but rather by the sword they seek redress."
AND JUDGMENT DOES NOT REACH ITS END. — So also the Septuagint, as if to say: On account of this power and perversity of the wicked, judgment cannot achieve its end, which is that justice should prevail and rule in a lawsuit, while injustice and violence are overcome and proscribed; that the just should be defended, the unjust punished; that people should live justly and peacefully, with law and justice reigning. For the end of judgment is justice, says St. Ambrose, Sermon 16 on Psalm 118. The Tigurina translates: "Judgment does not have effective execution"; because the powerful and wicked impede and invert it with their bribes, and their force and power. Secondly, Clarius, Arias, and Vatablus explain it differently, as if to say: Therefore wicked men tear and violate the law, because they think that judgment, that is, the just vengeance and punishment of God, will not reach them unto the end, that is, forever; that God will never punish them, or that He does not exist, but all things are governed by chance; or that He does not care for human affairs; or that He has handed them over to some perverse demon to be governed. Thirdly, for "unto the end" the Hebrew is lanetsach, which can be translated "unto victory." Hence one could clearly translate thus: "And judgment, namely just judgment, does not reach victory"; because it is overcome and overwhelmed by overflowing injustice, that is, by unjust powerful men. The first meaning is the genuine one, and the Latin version and Septuagint require it.
BECAUSE THE WICKED PREVAILS AGAINST THE JUST (in Hebrew: because the wicked surrounds like a crown — that is, as the Tigurina translates, circumvents, hems in, and oppresses the just), THEREFORE PERVERSE JUDGMENT GOES FORTH — as if to say: Because the wicked oppress the pious, therefore judges and judgments are perverted, so that they render unjust sentences in favor of the wicked and to the harm of the just. He repeats and emphasizes the same thing. Vatablus explains it differently, as if to say: Because men see the wicked prevail over the pious, therefore they perversely judge the judgment of God to be unjust, that is, that God does not care for the just nor punish the unjust, for the reasons just stated. He speaks not of Nebuchadnezzar oppressing the Jews, as St. Jerome and his followers hold; but of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the Jews oppressing their own simple and poor citizens. So Theodoret, Theophylact, and the others cited above. Here ends the Prophet's complaint to God about the tyranny and domination of the wicked over the pious: there follows God's response to it.
Morally, learn here not to scrutinize, but to admire the secret of God's judgments, by which He permits the pious to be oppressed and the wicked to prosper and rule. For many, wishing to scrutinize this but unable to penetrate it, fell so far as to doubt God's providence — whether there was some Divine Power presiding over the universe, whether God cared for human affairs, or whether, walking about the hinges of heaven, He neglected them and despised them as unworthy of Himself. So Ovid, Book III of the Amores, Elegy 8: "Since evil fates snatch away the good, forgive my confession: I am tempted to think there are no gods."
Now the reasons why God permits these injuries and crimes of the wicked against the pious, besides the hidden ones which God keeps in His mind, are various and have been revealed to us by Him. The first is to show His long-suffering, impassibility, and loftiness — namely, that He is not touched, pricked, afflicted, or disturbed by these crimes, but in most serene glory stands far above the rights and wrongs of mortals. For just as the sun, illuminating sewers, is not defiled by their filth, so neither is God stained or touched by the crimes of the wicked whom He sustains. "As light is illuminated by nothing, but manifests itself: so God, who can be illuminated by no works of men (nor obscured either), alone illuminates Himself by His own divine essence," says Philo, Book I, On the Monarchy. Again, St. Anselm in Cur Deus Homo says: "It is impossible for God to lose His honor. For either the sinner willingly pays what he owes, or God takes it from him unwillingly. Just as man by sinning seizes what is God's, so God by punishing takes away what is man's."
Second, to give the pious material for patience, constancy, and virtue, while He allows them to be harassed, afflicted, and tormented by the wicked. Wherefore Seneca in his book On Providence says: "Nothing is more unfortunate than the man to whom nothing adverse has happened, for the gods have judged badly of him." And again: "You would rightly call those wretched who grow torpid from excessive prosperity, whom, as in a sluggish sea, a listless calm detains." Diodorus the philosopher, as cited by Anthony and Maximus in the sermon On Good and Bad Fortune, used to say it was a sign of a more fortunate disposition to bear misfortunes with dexterity than to govern great prosperity with prudence. For, as Epictetus says in the Enchiridion, "the fool, enjoying the pleasure of prosperity too much, as of drunkenness, becomes more foolish." More brilliantly, St. Augustine, Book IV of the City of God, ch. 3: "Whatever evils," he says, "are inflicted on the just by unjust masters, is not the punishment of crime, but the testing of virtue. Hence the good man, even if he serves, is free; but the wicked man, even if he reigns, is a slave — not to one master, but, what is more grievous, to as many masters as he has vices." The same, Book XIII, ch. 4: "Now," he says, "by the greater and more wonderful grace of the Savior, the punishment of sin has been turned to the uses of justice. For then it was said to man: 'You shall die if you sin'; now it is said to the martyr: 'You shall die, lest you sin.'" Again, the wicked are the rod and scourge of God, with which, like a father, He chastises and amends the sins of His children, as through the Alans, Vandals, and Goths He punished the sins of Christians — on which subject Salvian writes much in eight books On Providence. So of Sennacherib it is said in Isaiah 10:5: "Assyria, the rod of My fury." So Attila, king of the Huns, said he was the scourge of God. So Nebuchadnezzar was the rod of the watchful one, or, as others translate, of the watching one, namely God (Jeremiah 1:11).
Third, because God waits for the wicked with long and divine patience unto repentance, and therefore chastises them with the remorse of conscience, which is no small punishment for crimes. For, as Pythagoras says in Stobaeus, Sermon 24: "The wicked man suffers more evil afflicted by conscience than he who is chastised in body and beaten with scourges." Just as a boy is beaten with rods to amend his fault, so also the wicked man is scourged by his conscience to change his mind and correct his morals. But if they refuse to repent, He finally punishes them so severely that He compensates for the delay of punishment with its severity. Rightly says Zonaras, Book III: "Even if providence invades the unjust more slowly, granting a space for repentance, yet unless they depart from malice, it overtakes them with slow step and exacts the penalties." And Virgil, Aeneid I: "But hope for gods mindful of right and wrong." More divinely the Apostle, Romans 2:4: "Do you not know," he says, "that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?" that is, strives to lead you: "but according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up for yourself wrath on the day of wrath."
Fourth, to show that all the riches, pomps, and prosperities of this world are to be despised as things of small moment: for He often gives them to His enemies and denies them to His friends. Truly St. Augustine on Matthew chapter 27: "If you had," he says, "the wisdom of Solomon, the beauty of Absalom, the strength of Samson, the longevity of Enoch, the riches of Croesus, the good fortune of Octavian: what do these profit, when at last the flesh is given to worms, and the soul to demons, to be tormented without end with the rich man?" The same on Psalm 36: "Smoke," he says, "bursting forth from the place of fire, rises high, and by its very rising swells into a great ball; but the larger that ball grows, the more empty it becomes: so the wicked man, the more he is exalted, the more quickly he fails." And Constantine Manasses, Annals, p. 160: "Prosperity," he says, "is like heavy lead; if it does not find a strong man equal to bearing the burden, it hurls him headlong to the ground and crushes him." And Sallust in the Catiline: "Prosperous times fatigue the minds of the wise." And Tacitus, Book I: "Prosperous times test the soul with sharper goads; because miseries are endured, but by prosperity we are corrupted." Hence Menander: "Wretched," he says, "is the wicked man, though fortunate." And Publilius: "The joys of the wicked quickly fall into ruin." And Ausonius: "No one will long be fortunate in crimes." The Psalmist: "I saw," he says, "the wicked exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon: and I passed by, and behold he was not: I sought him, and his place was not found" (Psalm 36:35).
Fifth, to allow the wicked their freedom and show how great is the force of concupiscence contracted from Adam's fall, which drives men to so many robberies, violences, and crimes, more harmful to the one doing injury than to the one suffering it: and that from this mortals may recognize their own foolishness, weakness, and wretchedness, and seek and earnestly beg for the wisdom and grace of Christ the Redeemer.
Brilliantly St. Athanasius in his sermon On the Passion of the Lord: "Just as," he says, "if someone seizes a serpent with his hand and tries to throw it at another, he himself is thoroughly bitten; or if someone holding fire in his hand wishes to harm an enemy, he does not realize that he himself is utterly burned; so malice wars against those who use it, and harms more those who hold it than those against whom it is directed." The same teaching, using the same simile of fire and other similes of a pit and of poison, St. Augustine demonstrates and declares in
Psalm 34. Indeed, Seneca says: "That venom which serpents contain without harm to themselves they pour out to harm others; but malice drinks the greatest part of its own poison itself." For sin is a sweet poison which brings bitter death to the sinner. Sin is a most bitter wound of nature. Sin is the greatest fever, plague, and death of the soul. Sin is the most hostile enemy of man, which separates him from God and hands him over to the devil in bondage. "All iniquities press us as with certain fetters, and strive to bind us with the nets of sins," says St. Augustine, Sermon 175 On the Times. The same, Sermon 139: "The cause of all our evils is sin."
Sixth, to show that the present time is the time for doing good or evil, for meriting or demeriting. The following age, however, will be that of judgment, rewards, and punishments, in which He will reform, correct, and restore to equity all the perverse judgments of men, according to that saying: "When I shall receive the time (of judgment), I will judge justices." Hence St. Augustine on Psalm 7: "Let no one," he says, "congratulate the man who prospers in his life, whose sins lack an avenger and have a praiser. This is a greater wrath of the Lord: for the sinner has provoked the Lord to endure this, that is, to not endure the scourges of correction." And St. Gregory, Book V of the Moralia: "God," he says, "strikes some things and leaves other things unavenged. Because if He cut away nothing, who would believe that God cared for human affairs? And again, if He struck all these things, what would remain for the last judgment?" A wise man said that the glory which awaits the saints and those who endure patiently is so great that it would be astonishing if all the demons and wicked men, indeed even rocks and elements, did not rise up against them and afflict and torment them, so that they might merit such great glory; and conversely, that the punishments which await the wicked are so great that it would be astonishing if they did not abound in the greatest delights and everything were not turned into honey and roses for them, so that some small pleasure might counterbalance so great a weight of hell. For just as the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that will be revealed in the saints, so the pleasures and pomps of this age are not worthy to be compared with the future hell that will be revealed in the wicked and damned. A prudent man, therefore, will rather sympathize with their present happiness than envy it.
Verse 5
5. LOOK AMONG THE NATIONS — that is, look at the nations, as the Chaldean translates; for the Hebrews construct verbs of contact or adherence, whether physical or spiritual (such as the act of looking), with beth, that is "in," governing the ablative or accusative. Here God responds to Habakkuk's expostulation about why He allows the wicked Jews to prevail over the pious. He responds that He will not permit this for long, but will soon punish them through the Chaldeans; and this is the burden which he saw and which Habakkuk sets as the title, as it were, of his prophecy.
You will ask: who are these nations that He commands to be looked at? First, St. Jerome with his followers, thinking these words were said after the destruction of Jerusalem to console the Jews, takes "nations" to mean the Moabites, Ammonites, Egyptians, and others whom Nebuchadnezzar conquered, as if to say: Do not marvel, O Jews, that you were destroyed by the Chaldeans, for by the same all other nations neighboring you, who far surpassed you in strength, numbers, and glory, were also destroyed. Secondly and genuinely, these nations are the Chaldeans: for they are the burden which God threatens against the wicked Jews, as if to say: Do not complain, Habakkuk, about the wickedness of the Jews, as if I will let it go unpunished; for I will immediately punish it. Behold, look at the nations and armies of the Chaldeans, which I am bringing to destroy wicked Judea. So the authors cited at verse 2. Hence, explaining these nations, he adds: "For behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter nation," etc.
Note: For "in the nations" the Hebrew is baggoim, and so read Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, the Chaldean, and our Vulgate, all of whom translate "in the nations." But the Septuagint reads bogedim, reading the related letter daleth in place of vav; and bogedim means "despisers" and "transgressors"; or, as others in St. Jerome translate, "calumniators" or "decliners." St. Paul follows the Septuagint, Acts 13:40, saying: "See therefore that what was said in the Prophets does not come upon you: 'See, you despisers, and wonder and perish.'" You will ask: which reading is the genuine and canonical one here? Ribera and others answer that the true reading is baggoim, that is, "in the nations"; because so read our Vulgate, Aquila, and most others already cited. Yet the reading of the Septuagint, namely bogedim, although less literal, nevertheless agrees with the sense of the prophetic words; because from what precedes and follows it is clear that these things are said to despisers, namely the Jews, who despised the laws and ordinances of God. But this response is not satisfactory, because from it follows that the Septuagint and St. Paul followed not the true but a false reading of Sacred Scripture; for in place of baggoim, which is the true reading, they read bogedim; whence it follows that their version is not genuine or canonical, but rather is distorted and corrupted. For in place of "in the nations," as the text of Scripture has, they substituted "despisers." Others add other things, but they do not untie the knot; indeed they entangle it further. Secondly, others respond that "nations" here means the same as "despisers," as if to say: "See among the nations," that is, see the nations, namely the Jews, who like the Gentiles despise right and law. This response would be convenient if the word "despisers" were in the accusative case; but it is in the nominative, as is clear from the Greek καταφρονηταί. Hence thirdly, one might better respond that the Hebrew Scripture was variable, or at least ambiguous, and this by the intention of the Holy Spirit, who willed that both transla- tions, namely ours and the Septuagint, to be signified and established; so that the letter daleth was ambiguous: for if its head is shorter, it is vav; if longer, it is daleth. Hence through vav one could read baggoim, through daleth bogedim, with different sets of vowel points. Or certainly the Prophet placed both readings, namely putting one in the text without vowels (for these did not originally exist in the Hebrew text) and the other in the margin, signifying that it could be read either way. Hence in verse 43, bogedim is in the Hebrew. For the Hebrews in Scripture have their keri and ketib, by which in many places of the Hebrew text they write one way and read another: namely, they write in the text the familiar reading, but note the true and genuine one in the margin. Greek and Latin writers likewise do the same when words are similar, differing by only one or another letter, and both suit the present context and each has its own force and meaning. Such is that saying of Cicero: "I always wander here" (where "erro" can also mean "I am an error"); and of the Satirist: "This beggar" (mendicus), signifying that the doctor (medicus) is a beggar. So in Genesis 47:31, Jacob is said to have adored מטה, which our Vulgate reading mitta, that is, "little bed," translates: "He turned toward the head of the bed"; but the Septuagint, and from them St. Paul in Hebrews 11:21, reading with different points matte, that is, "staff," translate: "He adored the top of his staff," namely Joseph's: therefore both readings and translations are canonical, as I showed at Hebrews 11. So in Proverbs 3:12, our Vulgate reading keab, that is, "as a father," translates: "As a father delights in his son." But the Septuagint, and from them St. Paul in Hebrews 12:6, reading with different points kieb, that is, "he afflicts, he scourges," translate: "He scourges every son whom He receives." Therefore both readings and translations are canonical.
You will say that in these places only the vowel points are changed, while the same consonants remain, which alone the Hebrews value; but here in baggoim and bogedim, the very consonants are changed, namely vav to daleth. I respond first, the change is equally great whether you change vowels or consonants; for between mitta and matte the difference in pronunciation and meaning is as great as between "bed" and "staff"; between kieb and keab as great as between "he scourges" and "as a father". Secondly, in Hosea 13:14, our Vulgate reads ehi, that is, "I will be"; hence it translates: "I will be your death, O death!" But the Septuagint, and from them St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:55, read with transposed consonants aie, that is, "where"; hence they translate: "Where, O death, is your victory?" And yet both readings and translations are canonical. So in Isaiah 8:9, our Vulgate reads rou, through resh, that is, "assemble"; but the Septuagint, reading deu through daleth, translate, "know." So in Isaiah 3:12: "Women have dominated them"; for nascim, that is, "women," the Septuagint and Aquila read nogescim, that is, "exactors, usurers." So in Lamentations 2:7, our Vulgate reads niets, that is, "he despised": "He cursed His sanctuary"; but the Septuagint, reading mer, translate: "He shook off, cast out His sanctuary."
Leo Castro cites more examples in his Prolegomena to Isaiah, chapters 23 and 24. There he also adds that when there is a double reading in the Hebrew, each reading bears admirable mysteries, and therefore by the abundance of the Holy Spirit it was brought about that in many places there is intentionally a double reading, so that there may be a double meaning and a double mystery revealed. St. Augustine adds in Book XVIII of the City of God, chapter 44, that the Septuagint translators did not translate certain things differently from the Hebrew of their own accord and from their own brain, but from the prompting of the Holy Spirit. For writing about the passage of Jonah the prophet, which the Septuagint translate thus: "After three days Nineveh will be overthrown," while the Hebrew reads: "After forty days Nineveh will be overthrown," he adds that here two mysteries were signified by the Holy Spirit — one through the Septuagint, the other in Hebrew through the prophet Jonah (hence he seems to hold, as other serious men have held, that the Seventy themselves had the assistance of the Holy Spirit and wrote from His inspiration, and therefore were, as it were, prophets and sacred writers) — namely, that the Septuagint signified that Christ would rise after three days; but the Hebrew, that after 40 days He would ascend into heaven: "In 40 days," he says, "seek Him, in which you can also find three days; the former you will find in the ascension, the latter in His resurrection." The same is found in Book I of Questions on Genesis, ch. 169. So here, for "in the nations" the Septuagint translates "despisers," because after their manner they look to the times of Christ and censure the Jews, who would be despisers of Christ and the Gospel, taking the occasion from the similarity of the Hebrew words baggoim and bogedim; especially because baggoim can be so explained as to be the same as bogedim in the nominative, namely if you interpret thus: "Look, O Jews, who are baggoim, that is, among the nations, that is, like the nations, bogedim, that is, despisers of God and men." Hence if you admit both readings, you will very aptly arrange both thus: "Look, bogedim (despisers), baggoim (among the nations), that is, you who among the nations and like the nations, indeed beyond the nations, despise the laws and commands of God." Or rather, as if to say: "Look, O Jews, despisers of God, at the nations, that is, at the Gentiles, namely the Chaldeans, who will drive you out of Judea; likewise the nations who in the time of Christ will drive you out of the Church and out of the blessing and inheritance of Abraham, namely out of faith, salvation, and God's election." And so this is the meaning of the version of the Septuagint and St. Paul. The Prophet accuses the impious Jews, who pervert right and law, of audacity and contempt toward the Lord, says St. Jerome, because they dared to despise the majesty of God, as if He did not care about His laws nor would punish their violators; for they freely preyed upon others as if there were no providence, no deity to avenge the injuries of the innocent — as if to say: You, O Jews, who are despisers of God and men, behold the dreadful work of vengeance by which I will chastise this contempt of yours. For I will bring the Chaldeans, who will utterly destroy you along with Jerusalem. Furthermore, St. Paul rightly applied the same to the Jews of his own age, who disbelieved in Christ and despised Him, because the ancient Jews who despised the Prophets were a type of the Jews who spurned Christ; hence the destruction of the former by the Chaldeans prefigured the destruction of the latter by Titus and the Romans. This is what Paul threatens them with, saying: "See therefore that what was said in the Prophets does not come upon you: 'See, you despisers, and wonder, and perish; for I am working a work in your days, a work which you will not believe if anyone tells it to you,'" as if to say: See, O Jews, that you do not despise Christ and the Gospel which I announce to you. For if you spurn it, God will likewise spurn you, as He spurned your fathers. He will cast off and reject you, and will destroy your kingdom, temple, and nation through the Romans, just as He destroyed your ancestors through the Chaldeans; and in your place He will substitute the Gentiles and adopt them as His sons and heirs, so that, with you expelled, they may be His people and Church, as the true Israelites and children of Abraham through faith.
WONDER AND BE ASTONISHED. — In Hebrew hittammehu temahu, that is, as Pagninus translates, "wonder, wonder," that is, wonder greatly and be astonished; for the doubling of the same verb among the Hebrews signifies the vehemence of the action and a quasi-superlative degree. The Septuagint and, from them, St. Paul translate: "Wonder and perish," because for he they read cheth, that is, for temahu they read timchu, or temachu, meaning "be blotted out, be destroyed." For timchu is the future form from the root macha, meaning "he blotted out, destroyed." You see here again a double reading and translation, plainly different: namely temahu, that is, "wonder"; and timchu, that is, "perish" — both canonical. Now "perish" means you will be destroyed and blotted out, both you by the Chaldeans, and your descendants by Titus and the Romans.
A WORK. — Namely of the destruction and devastation of Jerusalem and the temple, and of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, to be carried out by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans. Hence, explaining, he adds: "Behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans." This allegorically was a type and prelude of the destruction of Jerusalem to be accomplished by the Romans, and of the spiritual devastation, that is, the blinding and rejection of the Jews destined to occur in the time of Christ, as St. Paul teaches in Acts 13:41. Leo Castro adds, Book V of the Apologeticus, no. 147, that by "Chaldeans" the Romans are literally meant, the devastators of the Jews in the time of Christ; because, he says, St. Paul explains this passage of the Romans in Acts 13. But this is not very probable. For St. Paul and the other Apostles not infrequently cite the Prophets not in the literal but in the allegorical sense.
IT IS DONE — that is, it will soon be done. He speaks prophetically, namely of the future through the past tense, because of the certainty of the future, as if it had already been done. WHICH NO ONE WILL BELIEVE WHEN IT IS TOLD. — The Hebrew and Septuagint: "which you will not believe if it is told," or "if anyone shall tell it," namely before it happens. For when it does happen, you will not only believe it but see it with your own eyes. For the Jews could not believe that the temple of God and the holy city would be handed over by God Himself to the faithless and impious Chaldeans, and by them utterly overthrown and burned. For this seemed to them so extraordinary and unexpected that it surpassed all belief; indeed they would sooner believe the sky would fall. Hence those cries of theirs that drowned out the threats of the Prophets: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" (Jeremiah 7:4).
Verse 6
6. FOR BEHOLD, I WILL RAISE UP THE CHALDEANS — "I will raise up," namely indirectly and objectively, by adding to the Chaldeans courage, arms, and allies; and stripping you, O Jews, before them, so that they may with certain hope devour you and all that is yours; and directly ordering this to your just punishment and deserved chastisement. See Canons 35 and 36, which I prefixed to the Major Prophets. The word "I will raise up" has emphasis, as if to say: The Chaldeans are enjoying quiet, indulging in leisure and sleep, and are not thinking of invading Judea; behold, I will rouse them from this leisure and sleep; for I will put into their minds the thought of Judea's riches, of the crimes that provoke My wrath, of its weakness to resist, and of similar things which will stir the Chaldeans to attack it in war.
A BITTER NATION — that is, fierce and ferocious, which with its arms traverses and goes around, and subdues for itself the breadth of the whole earth, namely all the regions surrounding and adjacent to it, so that they might not only plunder them, but also firmly "possess" them as "dwellings" formerly "not their own," but now theirs, as captured in war. Truly the Poet said: "Wickedness arms the wicked against the wicked."
Verse 7
7. TERRIBLE. — The Septuagint: "illustrious"; for both meanings are contained in the Hebrew nora. For if you derive it from the root raa, meaning "he saw," it means "visible, conspicuous, illustrious"; but if you derive it from the root iare, meaning "he feared," it means "terrible," as the Tigurina translates.
FROM ITSELF ITS JUDGMENT AND ITS BURDEN SHALL GO FORTH. — For "burden" the Hebrew is seet, which first, Symmachus translates dogma, that is, "decree"; the Chaldean: "a definite sentence"; secondly, Vatablus: "excellence and magnificence," as if to say: The glory and greatness of empire which it will achieve will come forth from itself, not from outside; that is, the Chaldean nation will obtain world empire by its own virtue, not by the resources and forces of others. Thirdly, our Vulgate with the Septuagint better translates "burden" or "weight"; for this is what seet properly means, or mussa, from the root nasa, meaning "he bore, he carried." Now St. Jerome, Remigius, and Lyra take this burden passively, as if to say: The Chaldeans are preparing for themselves judgment and a burden, namely God's vengeance and destruction, which they themselves will bear. For just as they burden others with their defeats, taxes and harsh burdens, so likewise they will be burdened in the same way by Cyrus, who will subjugate Babylon. Better, Theodoret, Theophylact, and Hugh take this burden in an active sense, namely what the Chaldeans impose on other nations conquered by them. For the discussion here is about their strength, empire, and victories, hence Symmachus translates: "It will judge for itself and will execute its own decree," as if to say: The Chaldeans put all right in arms; they are not led by reason or by laws; but according to their lust for domination and tyranny they decree whatever they wish concerning other nations, and what they have resolved they immediately execute, imposing it as a heavy burden upon them. "Judgment" therefore means the decree of the Chaldeans about devastating, plundering, and killing other nations; "burden" means the execution of this decree. Hence St. Jerome also explains it thus, as if to say: The Chaldeans impose "judgment," that is, judges; and "burden," that is, those who burden, namely exactors, on other nations from their own people, who oppress and plunder them with their exactions and taxes. The meaning therefore is: "judgment," by which the Chaldean nation condemns, punishes, and destroys other nations, while it has mercy on and spares others; and "burden," or yoke, with which it oppresses the nations, "shall go forth from itself," that is, from its own will alone, arising not from reason but from mere caprice. So the rebellious Jews say in Jeremiah 44:27: "We will do every word that goes forth from our mouth," that is, we will do whatever pleases us, not you, not God. A similar phrase is found in Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3, and elsewhere. Hence fourthly, seet can be translated "exaction" or "tribute," as if to say: The Chaldean nation will appoint judges and exactors from itself and its own people, not from other peoples, to preside over the nations it has subjugated and to exact tribute from them; just as the Romans everywhere through the provinces appointed governors, praetors, proconsuls, and procurators from their own nation, namely Romans and Italians; for they trusted their own more than foreigners.
Verse 8
8. HIS HORSES ARE LIGHTER THAN LEOPARDS. — The leopard is a fierce and spotted animal, whose female is called pardalis and panther, of which Pliny, Book 10, ch. 73, writes: "In the same Africa leopards sit in dense trees, and hidden in their branches leap down upon passersby, and attack from their perch among the birds." That leopards in Brazil leap from trees upon passing Portuguese soldiers and tear them apart was told to me in Rome by our Fathers who had lived a long time in Brazil. Hence by Claudian leopards are called "thunderbolt-like," because like a thunderbolt they rush down from on high upon those below. So Alexander of Macedon, who was the thunderbolt of war (whom therefore Apelles painted holding a thunderbolt striking the world, because he most swiftly and powerfully conquered and subjugated it), is compared to a leopard in Daniel 7:6, as I explained more fully there. Where note, politically and morally: in battles and in accomplishing any affairs, speed is of great importance, so that what you have maturely deliberated, you swiftly execute. Hence Alexander, when asked by what means he had obtained world empire, answered: "By never delaying," that is, by speed, with which like a thunderbolt he struck through and destroyed everything. So Julius Caesar, when he had conquered Pharnaces in the first engagement, as Plutarch says in the Apophthegms, wrote to his friends: "I came, I saw, I conquered." Which Charles V the Emperor, having won the most rapid victory over the German heretics, more piously adapted thus: "I came, I saw, God conquered," indicating the supreme speed of the achievement.
SWIFTER THAN EVENING WOLVES. — For "swifter" the Hebrew is chaddu, that is, "sharper" (hence the Arabic of Antioch translates, "the deaf more sharply than honey flies" — but this is beside the point, for the discussion here is not about deaf men and flies but about leopards and wolves) — sharper both in teeth and appetite, for tearing and rending prey; hence the Tigurina translates "more eager"; and sharper in feet and running. Hence our Vulgate with the Septuagint most aptly translates "swifter." It is a metaphor from sharp swords, which pass lightly and swiftly through what they cut, says Vatablus, or rather from sharp arrows, which swiftly cut through the air and fly past.
You will ask: what are "evening wolves"? Many, following Gesner in his work on the Hyena, think they are a certain species of wolf that is more ravenous in the evening and therefore preys and rages more at that time. Guevara thinks they are hyenas. There are two kinds of wolves, he says: one commonly called wolf, the other called hyena. The first, at dawn, its digestion now complete, begins to be hungry; the second exercises its rapine at night, because its eyes are weak and dim-sighted, and therefore it sees better at night than by day: "For day to it is night, and it follows dark shadows everywhere, loathing the gleaming light," says Oppian, Book III, On Hunting. For the hyena is crueler, more voracious, and craftier than the wolf (hence it changes into a thousand colors, if we believe Pliny, Book 11, ch. 37), and is the implacable enemy of dogs. It even imitates human vomiting to lure dogs, and devours them when they are drawn in by its false sobs. It also lays snares for men, follows the stables of shepherds, and by constant listening learns their calls, which it can reproduce in imitation of the human voice, so that it may rage at night against a man cunningly summoned. For it is so greedy for human flesh that it even digs up graves and pulls out corpses. So Pliny, Book 6, ch. 30; Solinus, Polyhistor, ch. 40; and others. The Septuagint and the Arabic of Alexandria, for ereb, that is, "evening," reading with different vowel points arab, translate "wolves of Arabia," that is, predatory and thieving wolves. For the Arabs were infamous for robbery; hence "Arab" is taken for "robber," just as "Canaanite" for "merchant," "Boeotian" for "dull person," and "Chaldean" for "soothsayer," says Delrio. For, as Aristotle says in the book On Wonderful Things Heard in Nature, there is in Arabia a certain kind of hyena which, when it has spotted a beast or a man, makes them grow numb and cling to their tracks so that their bodies can- not move. So also Aelian and Solinus, Polyhistor ch. 40, write that hyenas have a soporific power, by which they make dogs and men torpid, stupefied, and speechless, and thus capture and suffocate them. Herodotus, Book 4, and Pliny, Book 6, ch. 30, relate the same. Hence Caelius, Book 29, ch. 6, writes that the hide of a hyena is not struck by lightning. Indeed Horus Apollo in the Hieroglyphics says: If anyone wraps the skin of a hyena around himself, he will pass intrepidly through the midst of enemies unharmed (I would rather believe this than put it to the test! Certainly Polish cavalry, to terrify the enemy, put on and display wolfskins). Accordingly, for the Egyptians the hyena's skin was a hieroglyph of intrepidity and constancy in calamities. That the same is effective against the barking and biting of dogs, even rabid ones, Pliny and Oppian attest. And yet the hyena's heart is very large, as is the case with other timid animals, such as mice, the hare, the donkey, the deer, the panther, and the weasel, say Aristotle and Pliny, Book 11, ch. 37. That the hyena changes sex in alternate years and is both male and female, Oppian, Pliny Book 8 ch. 30, Horus, and others report; but Aristotle, History of Animals Book 6 ch. 32, considers this to be fictitious. Furthermore, Habakkuk rightly compares the horses of the Chaldeans to hyenas: because hyenas have manes like horses, but with stiffer and longer bristles, extending along the entire back.
Against this opinion one thing objects, namely that hyenas are not wolves, but a species of animal different from wolves. Guevara responds that hyenas are also counted under the name of wolves. He proves this from Oppian, Book 3, On Hunting, whose Greek verses John Bodin rendered in Latin thus: "Now tell, O Goddess, of two destructive kinds of wolves, bearing arms fitted with serrated teeth: namely, slaughterers of sheep (common wolves) and blind hyenas." But, as Ribera rightly observes, the word "wolves" is not in the Greek. Oppian therefore only means to say that in the farthest parts of Ethiopia there are two kinds of wild beasts that have serrated teeth, namely the wolf and the hyena. It could however be said in favor of Guevara that hyenas, even if they are not strictly wolves, are nevertheless classed with them. Hence Gesner, in his work on the Wolf, counts among beasts related to the wolf: hyenas, lynxes (which are also called "canary wolves"), panthers, lycaons, and thoes, which are born from the hyena and the wolf. For the hyena is similar to the wolf, says Philoponus, and from him Niphus. And Aristotle, History of Animals, Book 6, ch. 32: "The hyena," he says, "is close in color to the wolf, but shaggier and equipped with a mane along the entire back." Hence the Arabs call the hyena "alzabo," which is the same as the Hebrew zeeb, that is, "wolf"; for "al" is the article which the Arabs commonly prefix to nouns. For the wolf and the hyena have many things in common, namely: first, size; second, color; third, voracity; fourth, the ambushes they lay for other animals — the wolf for flocks of sheep and goats, the hyena for dogs and sometimes for men; fifth, both have serrated teeth and similar genitalia; sixth, both roam at night in search of food — the wolf driven by pressing hunger, the hyena of necessity, since it sees more keenly at night and is confused during the day, like cats. All these things from Aelian, Pliny, Aristotle, Oppian, and Solinus, Gesner reports in his works on the Wolf and the Hyena; from which he concludes with probability that evening wolves are hyenas.
Secondly, others here generally take "wolves" in the proper sense and consider the Chaldean cavalry to be compared to them. For wolves are noble, fierce, and cunning, says Aristotle. Hence Isidore, Book 12 of Origins, ch. 2, thinks wolves are called "lupi" as if "leopes," because, as with lions, their strength is in their feet; for whatever they press with their feet they kill. Moreover, wolves are most voracious and almost insatiable: they devour rather than eat; they gulp down fur and bones and pass them out whole again. Now "evening" is a common epithet of wolves, for they prowl in the evening and at night. Hence Virgil, Georgics 1: "Through the night cities resound with howling wolves." And the wolf is called in Greek lykos, that is, "shining." For its eyes, like those of a goat, gleam and shoot light at night, so says Pliny, Book 11, ch. 37. Wolves are therefore called "evening" because during the day out of fear of hunters they rest fasting in their lairs; hence in the evening and at night, rabid with hunger, they go out for prey and tear and devour whatever they encounter. So St. Jerome. Others, still more ravenous, having consumed their evening prey at night, go out again for prey in the morning and could be called "morning wolves." How great the ferocity of wolves is at night, Virgil graphically describes in Aeneid Book 9: "And just as a wolf lurking by a full sheepfold, when he howls at the pens, enduring winds and rains, past midnight, the lambs safe under their mothers bleat; he, rough and relentless in anger, rages at those out of reach: the accumulated frenzy of hunger gathered over a long time and his jaws dry from blood torment him."
In the evening therefore the wolf is most keen, most daring, and most savage, since he wishes to sate not only his hunger but also his cruelty. Hence at night he covers many miles, and when he reaches a sheepfold or other prey, he goes around all the places, tries every entrance, runs about on all sides, and surveys everything, so that he may break in and seize the prey. Hence Jeremiah 5:6 calls the evening wolf a "wolf at evening," namely raging and prowling; and Oppian, Book 1 On Hunting, calls the wolf nyktiporos, that is, "a night-walker."
All these things are easily adapted allegorically to the devil, and tropologically to gluttony and wickedness: for the symbol, image, and example of both is the evening wolf. For the devil too is nocturnal and walks about in darkness (Psalm 90:5-6). Hence at Compline the Church warns and sings that verse with the force "of a siege engine," that is, of a cannon, when it hurls a ball, says Isidore, Book XII, ch. 7. He alludes to the eagles which the Chaldeans bore on their standards, just as the Romans did afterward: hence the standard-bearer of the battle line was called the eagle-bearer (aquilifer). Hear Ovid, Book IV of the Fasti:
The Parthian held the Roman standards, the glory of war, And the enemy was the standard-bearer of the Roman eagles.
And Lucan, Book 1:
When the well-known eagles gleamed, and Roman standards.
Hence Ezekiel ch. 9, and Jeremiah often call Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans eagles. Note: In the leopards of the Chaldeans he indicates their cruelty, in the wolves their voracity, in the eagles their rapacity. Wherefore Jeremiah, ch. 5, v. 6, compares the same to a lion, a leopard, and a wolf: "Therefore a lion from the forest struck them (the Jews), a wolf at evening laid them waste, a leopard watching over their cities."
Furthermore, he fittingly compares the cavalry and horses of the Chaldeans to the leopard, wolf, and eagles; because the war-horses of the Chaldeans are swift in speed and fierce in spirit; they become more ferocious through the habit of conquering; they delight in shed blood, and exult at the sound of bugles and trumpets, as Job says, ch. 39:21, and Virgil, Book III of the Georgics:
If from afar any weapons have given a sound, He cannot stand in place, his ears twitch, his limbs tremble, And pressing he rolls the gathered fire beneath his nostrils.
And he adds that the horses of the Chaldeans surpass all others:
The Armenian and Parthian horses at the waters of the Euphrates Surpass the Sicilian.
Oppian teaches the same more clearly, saying:
Those who dwell by the green waters of the Euphrates Use great-spirited horses in wars against lions. Their eyes flash gray-green, and a great strength in the breast Raises bold spirits to fiery battles. To this is added swiftness of pace, and that they can Fearlessly endure the mouth of a lion, and its proud roars: While other horses cannot tolerate the threatening snarls.
St. Peter says: "Brothers, be sober and watchful; because your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour." For in the evening he tempts men to gluttony, lust, quarrels, and murders; whence the Poet:
Night and love and wine counsel nothing moderate: The one lacks shame, Bacchus and love lack fear.
Moreover, the devil often transforms himself and his sorcerers into wolves; for such are lycanthropes, that is, men who by magic with the help of a demon transform themselves into the appearance and ferocity of wolves, and attack and tear apart sheep and men, about whom Delrio writes much in his Magical Disquisitions. Hence also the pagans believed that remedies against sorcery were provided through wolves. Whence Pliny, Book XXVIII, ch. 10: "They say, he writes, that the dried snout of a wolf resists spells, and for this reason they nail it to the doorposts of farmhouses. The same effect is believed to come from the skin of the neck taken whole; for so great is the power of this animal, beyond what we have reported, that its footprints trodden upon bring numbness to horses." Hence also the wolf is commonly believed to render a man hoarse or speechless, if it sees him first. Whence that saying of Virgil, Eclogue IX:
The voice of Moeris too Now flees him; wolves saw Moeris first.
Where Servius teaches this clearly, and Isidore, Book XII of the Origins, ch. 11, who also adds: "Whence it is said of one who suddenly falls silent: 'The wolf in the fable.' Certainly if it senses that it has been seen first, it lays aside its bold ferocity." And Pliny, Book VIII, ch. 22: "In Italy too, he says, the gaze of wolves is believed to be harmful, and to take away the voice of a man whom they look upon first, for the moment." Thus the devil closes the throat of the sinner, having cast in shame and fear, lest he confess his sin and seek pardon, help, or counsel for his evil. Moreover the devil, like the hyena and the wolf, feeds on the corpses and deaths of men; he lies in ambush for the dogs, that is, the preachers, so that with them overthrown or removed, he may seize the sheep. Hence also he imitates their voices, while he transforms himself into an angel of light. For he deceives many wise men by the appearance of good, with which he conceals his deceits. The evening wolves, therefore, tropologically are demons, says St. Jerome. Likewise rapacious prelates and judges. Furthermore, heretics: for Christ compares these to wolves in Matthew 7:15, who, clothed in sheep's skins, deceive the unwary, and under the appearance of truth, cast darkness. Hence also they are accustomed to hold their gatherings at evening. For heretics, like hungry and gaping wolves, circle the folds of the Church, to tear away the faithful from them and destroy them, and in the manner of Arabs, with robberies and slaughter, they ravage the territories and kingdoms of Catholics, as in our age in England, Scotland, Holland, France, Hungary, etc., we have seen them do.
THEY SHALL FLY LIKE AN EAGLE — which is rapacious and fierce, swooping swiftly from on high upon a hare or other prey with force "like a siege engine," that is, a cannon when it hurls its ball, says Isidore, Book XII, ch. 7. He alludes to the eagles which the Chaldeans bore on their standards.
Verse 9
9. ALL SHALL COME FOR PLUNDER. — The Zurich Bible: Each one of them comes for this, to inflict violence. Vatablus: All shall come for plunder, namely to despoil the Jews. Pagninus: The whole nation shall come for the sake of robbery.
Morally, St. Augustine on Psalm 123: "Therefore, he says, the greater robber seeks you, because he found a lesser one: therefore the greater eagle seeks you, because you first caught the hare: the lesser was your prey, you will be prey for the greater."
THEIR FACE IS A BURNING WIND. — Understand the mark of comparison "as" or "like," as if to say: The Chaldeans, like a burning wind, or like blight, shall dry up and lay waste all things. Pagninus translates: From before their faces they shall come toward the East. The Chaldean: Their appearance is very similar to a violent wind, which gathers like sand the captivity. The Zurich Bible: Whatever is opposed to their faces becomes wilted, as if blight had scorched it. Vatablus: The appearance, or the opposition of their faces, shall be like the East wind. This wind in the Holy Land is most violent. The meaning is, as if to say: The assault of the advancing Chaldeans will be intolerable, as in Judea the East wind is. Likewise at Genoa, and in some places of Italy, the whirlwind is tempestuous, which by the Greeks is called ecnephias, because it bursts from a cloud; to such an extent that it lifts stables with horses into the air, carries them off, and dashes them down, as grave and reliable eyewitnesses assured me at Rome.
AND HE SHALL GATHER CAPTIVITY LIKE SAND — as if to say: Just as the wind in Judea gathers sand, so the Chaldeans shall gather captives from it. So the Chaldean and the Zurich Bible. He suggests there will be very many captives, as sand is very abundant. It is a metonymy; for the abstract is put for the concrete, "captivity" for "captives." Thus Christ ascending in triumph to heaven is said to have led captivity captive, that is, to have led away the saints as captives, whom He rescued from the captivity of the devil and made His own, captives now by a better lot, inasmuch as He vindicated them into the freedom of the sons of God, Ephesians 4:8. Note: He now speaks of the Chaldeans in the plural, saying: they shall spread out, they shall fly, they shall come; now in the singular, saying: he shall gather, he shall triumph, he shall carry away, meaning the army, or certainly their leader and king, namely Nebuchadnezzar. All these things are easily applied tropologically to the devil, whose minister and scourge Nebuchadnezzar was: for he rages like a leopard, wolf, and eagle, captures very many, and plunges them into the abyss, playing and laughing.
Verse 10
10. AND HE — namely Nebuchadnezzar, the prince of the Chaldean nation. Note: Scripture speaks alternately now of the nation, now of its prince. For these are politically one, namely one army, one empire, which depends entirely on its prince, just as the whole body depends on the head. This is true in wars, where the cause of victory is a spirited, vigilant, and sagacious commander. Hence that famous saying: "An army of deer led by a lion is stronger than an army of lions led by a deer."
TYRANTS SHALL BE HIS LAUGHINGSTOCK, as if to say: Nebuchadnezzar will hold kings and princes in derision, making them his jesters, his grooms, indeed his footstools; as Shapur did to the Emperor Aurelian, and Tamerlane to Bayezid, the emperor of the Turks. So St. Jerome. Secondly, "laughingstocks," or as in Hebrew, they shall be his laughter: because he, being most powerful, will laugh at their arms and forces. Whence explaining he adds:
HE SHALL LAUGH AT EVERY FORTRESS — as if to say: He shall despise any fortifications whatsoever, and shall storm them as if laughing and playing. So Theodoret, Vatablus, and Arias. The Septuagint translate significantly: Tyrants shall be his zaiyna, that is, playthings; as the Emperor Zeno, defeated in battle, said: "Man is a plaything of God." The Syriac and Arabic: He shall mock kings, and shall scoff at princes.
HE SHALL HEAP UP AN EARTHWORK AND TAKE IT. — An earthwork (agger) is said to be heaped-up, that is, piled-up earth, according to that saying of Virgil, Aeneid IX: "And they fill the ditches with an earthwork." Where Servius says: "An agger, he says, is the heaping up of any material, with which ditches or valleys can be filled." Habakkuk signifies especially the earthwork which the Chaldeans heaped up over thirteen years around Tyre, so that they might fill in the sea that surrounded it, and thus make the island into a mainland, which they could invade on foot and conquer, as they finally did, about which I commented on Ezekiel 29:18. Again, generals when they lay out a camp are accustomed to surround and fortify it against enemy attacks with an earthwork, that is, a rampart and ditch like a city. Whence Virgil, Book VII of the Aeneid:
And first on the shore he surrounds the site In the manner of a camp with battlements and an earthwork.
Moreover, they are accustomed to besiege and assault cities by means of earthworks. Whence Cicero, letter to Cato, Book XIII: "I surrounded it with a rampart and ditch: I enclosed it with six forts and very large camps: I assaulted it with an earthwork, siege sheds, and towers." Thus Virgil in the Sixth Aeneid calls the Alps earthworks, that is, walls and defenses of Italy.
In Hebrew, for "earthwork" there is עפר aphar, that is, dust, which Christopher a Castro explains thus, as if to say: Nebuchadnezzar will make very high earthworks of dust, so that by its scattering, brought about by the blast of an opposing wind, he might fill and choke the eyes, nostrils, and throats of those resisting; by which stratagem Sertorius conquered the Charatini, as Plutarch narrates in his Life. Wherefore it is a military axiom that "a commander must seize the advantage of sun and wind," so that he has both favorable to himself and adverse to the enemy. But our translation is better, and signifies the common camp earthwork: for this is made of earth, dust, stones, wood, and every material. Add that the Hebrews call any earth aphar, that is, dust. Whence Adam is said to have been made from dust, that is, from earth, according to that saying of Genesis 3:19: "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return."
Verse 11
11. THEN HIS SPIRIT SHALL BE CHANGED — as if to say: Nebuchadnezzar, elated by so many victories, will not contain himself, but will adopt a lofty spirit, thinking himself to be some unconquerable divinity, and therefore he will wish to be worshipped in the golden statue which he will erect, and will compel all to worship it, Daniel 3:1. Wherefore, with God taking vengeance, his human spirit will be changed into a bestial one, so that from a man he becomes like an ox, and therefore will be expelled from the kingdom, will pass away and fall, and like a four-footed beast will live in the forests with wild animals, Daniel 4:30. So St. Jerome, Albert, and Lyra. In a similar manner, on account of so many victories and so great a monarchy, the spirit of the Chaldean nation will be changed into pride and arrogance, and therefore its empire will pass away and collapse in Belshazzar, to be cut off by Cyrus and the Persians, say Arias and Vatablus. Whence the Chaldean translates: On account of the exaltation of his spirit, the kingdom was transferred.
Differently the Septuagint: Then he shall change his spirit, and shall pass through, and shall be appeased: This is the strength of my God. Which Theodoret thus explains, as if to say: When God shall have sufficiently chastised the Jews through the Chaldeans, then He shall change His wrath into mercy, and shall be merciful, and shall soften their bitter sufferings, namely when He shall bring Cyrus as liberator, who will give unconquerable strength, and thence most glorious victories.
AND HE SHALL FALL. — In Hebrew אשם ascham, that is: first, he shall offend; second, he shall expiate the offense, by metonymy, since "offense" and "sin" in Leviticus often signify the sacrificial victim for sin: whence the Septuagint translate, "he shall be appeased"; third, ascham in Hebrew is often used for the cognate schamam, that is, to fail, to be desolated, to collapse: for guilt and punishment are related, that is, offense and desolation: for the latter is the inseparable companion of the former, just as the executioner accompanies the condemned man whom he leads to punishment; whence our translator rightly, with Aquila and Symmachus, translates for "he shall offend": he shall fail, he shall collapse, especially because failure and ruin are the offense and sin, not of custom and vice, but of nature. From these three meanings arises a threefold translation and interpretation here. For first, the Chaldean translates: He offended and sinned, because he multiplied glory to his god; because, namely, he assiduously worshipped his own gods, not the true God. Second, the Septuagint: Then he shall change his spirit, and shall pass through, and shall be appeased: this is the strength of my God, as if to say, according to St. Jerome: God, when the punishment of the Jews through the Chaldeans has been accomplished, shall change His spirit of wrath into a spirit of mercy: whence He shall pass over them and no longer punish them, but shall be appeased toward those sufficiently punished. Third, our translator most fittingly translates, "and he shall fail," or collapse, according to the sense assigned shortly before. For thus ascham, that is, to offend, often signifies to fail; as: "And they shall not offend," that is, they shall not fail, "all who hope in Him," Psalm 33:23. Similar is Ezekiel 6:6, in the Hebrew, Joel 1:18, and elsewhere.
THIS IS THE STRENGTH OF HIS GOD — which, namely, he boasts belongs to his god, which he attributes as received from his god, as if to say: So weak, small, and brief is the strength, victories, and triumphs of Nebuchadnezzar, which he ascribes to his god, namely Bel. For, as I said shortly before, all this will soon collapse in Belshazzar, when Cyrus slays him. It is irony and sarcasm, or hostile mockery. Differently, a Castro explains, as if to say: Nebuchadnezzar, elated by victories, will grow proud, and will fall into wickedness, so that, forgetting the true God, he attributes his victories to the power of his god Bel. The Septuagint translate: This is the strength of my God, which Theodoret explains thus: The Prophet, he says, astonished at God's mercy, changed from wrath in Cyrus the liberator of the Jews, exclaims: This is the strength of my God. To You alone, O Lord, belongs the power both to punish at will and to change vengeance into mercy. But the Hebrew has "his god," and the Chaldean, "his idol." Therefore our translation and explanation is more authentic. Whence also the Syriac translates: His strength shall be overcome along with his god. The Arabic: His strength shall obey God, not his own fictitious god, but the true God of Israel.
Verse 12
12. ARE YOU NOT FROM THE BEGINNING, O LORD? — The Prophet, after the prophecy about the strength and tyranny of the Chaldeans and the destruction of the Jews by them, here grieving and groaning over it, turns to prayer, and beseeches God to avert so great a slaughter of the Jews, and not to allow these threats to be fulfilled, but to have mercy on His people and spare them, as if to say: You, O Lord, are our God; You are worshipped by us as holy in Your holy temple. You are that holy ancient one of ours, who loved our fathers and chose their seed after them. You are the one who entered into a holy covenant with them, and holily promised to be the God of them and their posterity. You sanctified us as a people unto Yourself, and separated us from the other unfaithful and impious nations as Your own possession, and adorned us with Your holy law, prophets, sacrifices, miracles, and very many benefits, and bound us most closely to You and Your holiness: therefore You will not allow us to be devastated by the impious Chaldeans: wherefore, with You protecting us, as we hope and beseech, "we shall not die," as they threaten. Differently, Joannes Alba, Electorum ch. 64: "Are you not from the beginning?" He says A is put for "before," as if to say: You are before every beginning of things, You are eternal. And because "eternal" signifies for the Hebrews that which is great in its kind, hence to be from the beginning, or to be eternal, signifies to be most powerful. "Eternal" can also be taken for "merciful," as if to say: Are You not, O Lord, supremely powerful and merciful? Indeed. Show then to us wretched and nearly consumed Your omnipotence and mercy, which You have always shown from the beginning until now to us and our fathers. So Alba, who also adds: likewise "holy" signifies great, kingly, and powerful; and "holy" means that which is great and excellent.
Note first: He says "we shall not die," assertively, but not "may we not die," optatively, even though he is beseeching the same thing; for the efficacy of the prayer, so that he might signify a certain hope and, as it were, faith in not dying, and by this constrain God not to let them die. For who has hoped in God and been confounded? For, as St. Bernard says in Sermon 3 On the Annunciation of the Lord: "God places the oil of mercy in the vessel of trust." More readily we shall say that the word "numquid" (are not?) which preceded must be repeated, as if to say: Shall we not die, since we have You as our holy and eternal God and protector? The Vatican Syriac, for "we shall not die," has "without law." The Arabic: "without likeness." For thus the Syriac translates: Since You are from the beginning, O Lord, my holy God, without any law, that is, You are constrained by no law, no decree, no determination, no fate.
Note second: For לא נמות lo namut, that is, "we shall not die," some manuscripts read לא תמות lo tamut, that is, "You shall not die," as if to say: You, O Lord, as You are holy, so too are You immortal: wherefore do not permit us to die, and to be killed by the Chaldeans: for they, just as their gods, so also they themselves, as they are impious, are likewise mortal, weak, and corruptible, and shall be destroyed by You, and shall be condemned to present and eternal death. Whence the Chaldean translates: You are God, the true judge over all Your creatures, and holy in Your works: Your word endures forever, O Lord, as if to say: Preserve us, as You promised; You are faithful and steadfast, therefore make us steadfast: You are immortal, therefore do not allow us to die, but make us like Yourself, and as it were immortal.
Note third, a fourfold antithesis. For he opposes God to idols and to men: first, that God is "from the beginning," that is, from eternity, as if to say: God is eternal; idols and the Chaldeans are temporal, and will last for a brief time; second, God is the creator and lord of all; idols and the Chaldeans are creatures and servants; third, He is God immense, immortal, omnipotent, etc.; they are petty formations of men, perishable, weak; fourth, God is holy, and by His essence the highest and most perfect holiness itself; they are impure and wicked, as if to say: Destroy therefore, O Lord, the idols and the Chaldeans, who are in so many ways diametrically opposed to You and Your enemies. Furthermore, for greater pathos, greater emotion, and greater supplication, so as to coax grace from God, he calls Him "my God, my holy one," not "our": both because the Prophet here speaks in the person of the people, which collectively is one and singular — for he takes upon himself and puts on the person of the people, as one and the chief member of the people, so that in himself and with himself he may constitute the whole people as a supplicant before God, and thus offer to God prayers armed with the number of so many heads, and extort pardon; and because God is so much the God, that is, the father, provider, guardian, friend, etc., of each faithful and just person, as if He were God of that person alone. Thus St. Augustine says, Book III of the Confessions, ch. 11: "O You, good and omnipotent one, who care for each one of us as if You cared for him alone; and for all as if they were individuals." And St. Paul says that Christ is his own: "Who loved me, and delivered Himself for me," Galatians 2:20.
LORD, YOU HAVE APPOINTED HIM FOR JUDGMENT. — It is a concession, as if to say: We confess that You, O Lord, sent Nebuchadnezzar "for judgment," that is, for just punishment, so that through him, as through a rod, You might chastise our sins and those of other nations, and therefore You made him strong.
YOU HAVE ESTABLISHED HIM — You have strengthened and reinforced Nebuchadnezzar with so many resources, forces, troops, dominions, and victories.
Verse 13
13. YOUR EYES ARE TOO PURE TO LOOK UPON EVIL. — "To look upon," that is, to approve and to favor. It is a catachresis; for those things which we approve and which please us and are agreeable to us, we gaze upon continuously and gladly; but from those things which are hateful and disagreeable, we turn away our eyes. Whence Virgil:
The goddess, turned away, held her eyes fixed on the ground.
And it is commonly said: "Where the eye is, there is love; where the hand is, there is pain." The meaning is, as if to say: Your eyes and Your mind are most pure and most just; therefore You cannot look upon and see evil, that is, sin and injustice, with favorable and kindly eyes, so as to favor it and fight for it. Why then do You look upon the Chaldeans committing iniquity, violent and unjust, and permit them to devour us? For granted that we are sinners and unjust: yet compared to the Chaldeans, who are idolaters and tyrants, we are better and more just. Let it suffice, therefore, O Lord, that You lightly chastise our sins through them; but do not allow us to be destroyed and scattered through them. For thus You will appear to favor tyrants and idolaters against Your own faithful and worshippers; and the idolaters will boast that You favor their tyranny and idolatry; or certainly that You cannot or will not help the people devoted to You.
Note: The Prophet here does not murmur against God, as Calvin blasphemously claims, but out of grief he freely complains, entreats, and amicably remonstrates with God that He wishes to punish and devastate the Jews through the Chaldeans, who are worse than the Jews. Thus David grieves over and marvels at the prosperity of the wicked in Psalm 72:12, Jeremiah ch. 12:1, Job ch. 21:7. Differently, St. Jerome responds that these things are said by the Prophet: "Not because he himself feels this way, but because he expresses human impatience in his own person; just as we frequently see the Apostle taking upon himself the various views of men and now saying: 'I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin,' Romans 7. And as if he were foolish: 'Brothers, I do not reckon myself to have apprehended.' And again as if he were perfect: 'Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded,' Philippians 3. And: 'But these things, brothers, I have figuratively transferred to myself and Apollos for your sake, that in us you may learn,' etc."
YOUR EYES ARE TOO PURE TO LOOK UPON EVIL. — For since You are purity and holiness itself, You utterly hate all sin, and therefore: "You shall destroy all who work iniquity," Psalm 5. For just as light is opposed to darkness, and naturally turns from and hates it, and beauty is opposed to ugliness, and purity to stains and filth, and uprightness to crookedness, and life to death, and goodness to malice, so also holiness turns from and execrates all sin. Therefore, just as God necessarily loves holiness with an infinite love, so He necessarily hates perfect and mortal sin with an infinite hatred. Of which hatred He gives many signs. For God: first, on account of mortal sin, deprives a man of an infinite good, namely the possession of God Himself; second, because on account of it He inflicts upon the sinner infinite torment and disgrace, namely the eternal fires of hell; third, because even if someone had infinite merits, God would nevertheless abolish them all on account of one mortal sin; fourth, because He willed His Son to undergo infinite humiliation and affliction to destroy sin. For such was His incarnation and death, because, as the Apostle says: "He emptied Himself," that is, from everything He made Himself as it were nothing and naught, Philippians 2. The saints emulate God, who therefore immensely hate sin, both in themselves and in others, and therefore strive in every way to have it abolished, while by their zeal they preserve the just in justice, and lead sinners from sin to justice.
Furthermore, holiness consists in conformity with the eternal law, which is in the mind of God. For he is perfect and holy whose will and works conform exactly to the eternal law, that is, to the mind and will of God. For since the will of God is in reality the same as His mind and intellect, and therefore is necessarily and essentially conformed to the eternal law, and corresponds to it equally; hence likewise it is the measure and rule of all holiness; and because this conformity in God is infinite, hence likewise infinite is His holiness. Therefore, secondly, holiness consists in love and union with God, who is the origin and fullness of holiness. Holiness, therefore, is the love of God: "For holiness is complete purity," says St. Dionysius, ch. 12, On the Divine Names. Now, just as impurity is born from contact with lower things, that is, from love of and attachment to feasts, lusts, vain honors, and other earthly and base goods; so purity arises from contact with higher things, that is, from love of and attachment to God, and to divine and heavenly things. Therefore he is pure and holy who clings to God with his whole affection; and the more he transfers all his affection to God, the holier he becomes day by day, as he directs each thought, desire, and work to God, so that day by day he draws closer and closer to Him. For thus he imitates God, of whom it is said in Psalm 144: "The Lord is just in all His ways, and holy in all His works"; and His commandment follows: "Be holy, because I am holy," Leviticus 11.
Verse 14
14. AND YOU MAKE MEN LIKE FISH. — First, as if to say: Why do You permit, O Lord, that, just as a fisherman catches fish with no one defending them, so Nebuchadnezzar catches, seizes, and despoils all nations? For these are his fish. So Rupert and Vatablus. Where note the remarkable allegory: The fisherman of God is Nebuchadnezzar; the hooks are his deceits and tricks; the nets and seines are his arms, soldiers, and open violence; the fish are the Jews and other nations, which, like fish (who belong to no master, nor have a leader or protector, but become the possession of whoever first takes them, namely the fisherman who catches and draws them from the waters), he thus subjugates, tramples, and kills, as if they were truly fish and creeping things, not men. Hence also through the fish gate the Chaldeans burst into the city, as I shall discuss on Zephaniah 1:40.
Secondly, more genuinely and forcefully, as if to say: Why do You permit, O Lord, that, just as larger and stronger fish, such as whales, sea-wolves, and octopi, devour the smaller ones, so more powerful men and tyrants, for example the Chaldeans, devour those who are weaker; so that among men, just as among fish, not justice but strength, force, and tyranny should prevail, and he be master who excels in power? So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, and Theophylact. Hence that proverb of Polybius, commonly used: "The bigger fish swallow the smaller." St. Basil says excellently, Homily 7 on the Hexaemeron: "The greater part of fish, he says, devour one another, and the smaller among them is food for the larger. And if it happens that one who had overcome a smaller becomes the prey of another, then both are swallowed together, and both enter the belly of the last fish that swallowed them. What then do we men do differently, when we inflict violence upon our inferiors?"
Symbolically, the Prophet fittingly compares men to fish, because of many analogies. The first is: Just as God created a multitude of men, so also a multitude of fish; fish are many, and men are many. The species of fish are extremely varied; likewise varied are the ranks, degrees, temperaments, languages, families, and nations of men; the sea is the world of fish, the earth is the world of men. For all the species of animals that are on land are proportionally also in the sea, such as pigs, dogs, horses, calves, and even sea-men, as Pliny shows with many examples of Tritons, Nereids, and Sirens in Book IX, ch. 5, and Olaus Magnus in his book On the Northern Peoples. Moreover, "the greatest part of fish are gregarious, and no flock lacks a leader," says Aristotle, Book VIII, History of Animals, ch. 18. Thus also men have their republics and kingdoms, and in all of them there is a leader and prince.
Second: Men in the world are tossed about by the various surges of temptations and changes, just as fish in the sea; and as fish play in those waves, so also men play in theirs, and in both the wisdom and power of God plays, Proverbs 8:30.
Third: Fish are watery and abound in moisture: likewise in most men, especially in winter, phlegm predominates, from which nearly all the elderly, and very many young people, die and are suffocated by catarrh. Wherefore the Philosopher, defining man, says: "Man is the plaything of fortune, the image of inconstancy, the mirror of corruption, the spoil of time, the slave of death, a passing traveler, a plaything of God; the rest is phlegm and bile."
Fourth: Just as fish are generated from water, so they live in the same (for they die outside it), and from it they are fed and nourished, as Rondelet teaches, Book I, On Fish, ch. 13; for although seawater is salty, and therefore unfit for nutrition, since its nourishment is a sweet liquid; yet in the midst of the salty waves a great deal of sweet moisture is contained and mixed in, which the fish convert into their usual nourishment; for which reason they frequently migrate to the Black Sea, and grow fat there, because that sea is abundantly washed by fresh waters, as Aristotle teaches, Book VIII, History of Animals, ch. 13. And in ch. 2, he proves that there is sweet liquid in the sea from the percolation of water. For if you mold a thin vessel from wax, and lower it into the water suspended by a cord for a day and a night, sailors, and those who inhabit the dry shores of the sea, lacking a supply of fresh water, dig wells barely three cubits deep at the shore and draw from the sea a pleasant and sweet liquid, which, filtered through the sand, is separated from the saltiness. Nor is it surprising that fish are nourished by water; because very many animals live by the mere breathing of air alone. Pliny writes, Book VII, ch. 2, that the Astomi live by breath and smell alone, which they draw through their nostrils. But this is perhaps fabulous; yet it has been recorded by others who were more ancient than Pliny that in the swooning and fainting of the soul, strength is most effectively restored and revived by the application of fragrances. That a certain priest at Rome lived for forty years by the breathing of air alone is most certainly attested by the custody of Pope Leo and many princes, and by the history and credibility of Hermolao Barbaro. A girl in Gallia Narbonensis three years ago we all heard of, and many of us saw her; and at Speyer in Germany we learned from learned men of another, who for many years lived healthily with no food or drink other than air. We also saw another, who is still living today, who reached the tenth year of her age on the same manner of sustenance, then having grown up, married, and raised happy offspring. For indeed if subtle air can nourish men, much more can denser water nourish fish. So far Rondelet. The same examples of the priest and the girls are narrated and confirmed by our Delrio, Book II of Magical Disquisitions, Question 21. But he attributes the cause of the fasting to a phlegmatic constitution, namely a raw, viscous, and thick phlegmatic humor, by which the natural heat was fed; and this seems more probable. In this, then, fish are similar to men, that both are nourished and live by moisture, whether it be airy or watery. For air and water are neighboring and kindred elements; for air is subtler water, and water is denser air. For our elements do not have the primeval purity and simplicity in which they were created, but are mixed with many exhalations, vapors, and earthly substances, and therefore can serve as food for living things, and have the power to nourish. Indeed, plants, serpents, and reptiles live and are nourished by earth.
Fifth: The larger fish devour the smaller, and so do men, according to the saying: "Man is a wolf to man." Again, just as the whale swallows nearly all fish, even the largest: so also the devil, who, like a whale in the sea of this world, preys upon any souls whatsoever, even of kings and princes, and even of saints, according to that saying of Psalm 104:26: "This dragon whom You formed to play with." Hear Aristotle, Book IX, History of Animals, ch. 2: "The larger fish wage war against the smaller; for each larger and stronger one devours the smaller and weaker." The same author, Book VIII, ch. 2: "One, he says, eats another of its own kind, except the mullet, but especially the conger eels."
Sixth: Fish are mute: so also men before God, however wise and holy, fall silent like little fish, and when He reproves them they place, with holy Job, ch. 39:34, their hand upon their mouth: and on the day of judgment before Christ the judge, all shall fall silent like fish, 1 Samuel 2:9; Matthew 25:46.
Seventh: Fish have near the head two fins, like two feathered wings, with which they furrow the sea as with oars: so also man has two arms, with which he performs all his works. Moreover, the fish directs the course of its ship, as it were, with its tail, as with a tiller and rudder; whence from the swimming of fish men learned to build ships and to furrow the seas with them. For a fish is like a ship swimming and sailing in the sea, as Pliny says of the nautilus fish and shell, Book IX, ch. 29, 30, and 33; likewise men propel themselves wherever they wish with their feet. Again, just as some birds are semi-fish, because they fly in the air and swim in water, such as divers, ducks, and coots; so conversely there are fish that are semi-birds, because they have enormous fins, like feathers, with which they fly over the waters like birds, such as I saw at Rome in the library of the Duke of Altemps. Symbolically, birds are angels, who dwell in the upper air and fly to God: fish are men, who are tossed about in the sea of this world. Therefore, just as angels are semi-human, when they assume a body and converse with men; so conversely men are semi-angels, when, raised by the wings of contemplation, they fly to God.
Eighth: Fish brood upon the waters with their bellies; so also many men brood upon watery pleasures. "Whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things," Philippians 3:19. For this reason Christ, made man, was made a fish of this world, so that from watery and earthly men, as from fish, He might make them ethereal and heavenly. Wherefore the name of Christ was ICHTHYS, that is, fish, as is clear from the acrostic of the Sibyl, whose first letters combined displayed these words: Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter, that is, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior: if you join together the initial letters of these Greek words, you will have ichthys (fish). Eusebius records this acrostic in Book IV of the Life of Constantine.
Hence also Christ chose fishermen and made them apostles, whom "He sent, very few in number, with the nets of faith to the sea of this world, and thus caught so many fish of every kind, and all the more wonderful the rarer they were, even the philosophers themselves," says St. Augustine, Book XXII of the City of God, ch. 5. And On the Words of the Lord in the Gospel according to John, Sermon 59: "The words of fishermen are now read, and the necks of orators are bowed."
St. Chrysostom says brilliantly in his sermon On St. Andrew, which is found in Surius under November 30: The Apostles, he says, were fishermen, but their instruments were new and unusual. For instead of a fishing rod they use preaching; instead of a line, memory; instead of a hook, power; instead of bait, miracles; instead of a rock, the heavens, from which they carry on this kind of fishing: instead of a boat they have an altar; instead of fish they catch even kings; instead of a seine they spread out the Gospel; instead of skill they employ divine grace; instead of the sea they deal with human life; instead of nets, the cross, as a kind of seine, as they are accustomed. Who ever saw living men caught like fish by dead fishermen? O great power of the Crucified One, O excellence of divine dignity, O supreme benefits of the Apostles! Nothing in life can compare to the height of apostolic grace."
Ninth: A fish needs salt lest it rot; so also a man needs prudence. Again, a fish first rots and stinks from the head; so also a man from his reason and will, by which he allows himself to be conquered and corrupted by desire. For just as fish are soft, so also are effeminate men; hence both are caught by enticements and allurements as by snares. In the same way, monasteries, colleges, religious Orders, and republics derive vice and ruin from the head. For as long as they have good, vigilant, and energetic leaders, magistrates, and princes, they flourish and remain in good repair; but when they receive corrupt, or idle and lax ones, all rigor of discipline, and consequently the vigor, integrity, and dignity of the republic, like salt dissolved in water, is dissolved and vanishes.
Tenth: Fish "wander and roam about, especially those that feed on flesh," says Aristotle, Book IX, History of Animals, ch. 37. So also men wander, especially those eager for profit and pleasures. Again the same author, Book VIII, ch. 12: "Just as some men, he says, return to their homes in winter, while others who are rulers of a larger province change their seat for a time, so as to stay in cool places in summer and warm places in winter, etc. So also fish in winter come from the deep to the shores for the sake of warmth: conversely, in summer they leave the shore for the deep, avoiding the heat."
Eleventh: "Fish have small fins for swimming: they lack feet, being not land-dwellers, but aquatic." But man, because he is earthly, is a pedestrian: "For the addition of feet is useful for movement which takes place on the pedo, that is, on the ground: whence the name given to feet," says Aristotle, Book IV, On the Parts of Animals, ch. 13.
Twelfth: Some fish breathe and sleep, like man. Hear Aristotle, Book VI, History of Animals, ch. 12: "All those that have a blowhole breathe and take in air: for they do not lack a lung. And indeed a dolphin has been seen sleeping with its snout above water and snoring." Pliny teaches the same, Book IX, ch. 7, and proves it from the panting of fish in summer, their yawning, and the blowing of bubbling waters.
Thirteenth: Fish grow old like men. So Aristotle, Book VIII, History of Animals, final chapter: "Fish deteriorate, he says, with age: and indeed old tuna are unfit even for salting; for much of the flesh wastes away: for what happens in other fish is shown by the hardness and size of their scales in old age. An old tuna has been caught whose weight was about fifteen talents, and the distance of the tail five cubits and a palm."
Fourteenth: Men have many and numerous teeth, and the front ones sharp for cutting and chewing food: likewise fish have many teeth, and those sharp and serrated. Whence Aristotle, Book III, On the Parts of Animals, ch. 1: "All fish, he says, have serrated teeth, with the one exception of the fish called scarus: many also have teeth on their tongue and palate. The reason for this is that, since they live submerged in water, they admit moisture with their food and must spit it out as soon as possible; for they cannot linger in grinding, since the moisture rushes into their stomach; therefore all their teeth are everywhere sharp and numerous; namely, so that by their multitude they may cut into small pieces what they cannot grind by friction. Moreover, they are hooked, since nearly all the strength of fish resides in their teeth."
Fifteenth: Men suffer from diseases, and so do fish; yet they are immune from pestilence. So Aristotle, Book VIII, History of Animals, ch. 19: "No pestilential disease, he says, seems to affect fish universally, etc., yet they too are thought to fall sick; and indeed fishermen take it as a sign of disease when they have caught some that are emaciated and similar to the sickly, and changed in color, among many fat and healthy ones of the same kind." The same author adds a little earlier that summer rains are more beneficial for fish, and a more serene winter: "To sum up, I would almost say, he says, when the year goes well for men, then it also happens that fish fare happily." Furthermore, Pliny, Book XX, ch. 11, reports that fish when sick are cured by green celery; the same author teaches that fish are of great use in human medicines, Book XXXII, ch. 5.
Sixteenth: Fish have a heart and its position similar to man. Hear Aristotle, Book III, On the Parts of Animals, ch. 4: "The heart, he says, in other animals is in the middle of the chest; in man alone it inclines slightly to the left, so that it may moderate and compensate the cooling of that part: for of all animals, man has the coldest left side. In fish also the heart holds a similar position. In these alone the point of the heart looks toward the head, since that is the forward part: for motion is directed the same way." Again, fish reproduce like men; for they have distinct sex, some are males, others females; and the eggs of females are not perfected for generation without the male, as happens with hens and birds, according to the same Aristotle, Book VI, History of Animals, ch. 11, and Book IV, final chapter, where he teaches that female fish are larger than males, but that for food, males are superior to females, except for the catfish, the same author asserts in Book VIII, ch. 19.
Seventeenth: Every kind of fish is voracious and gluttonous, according to Aristotle, Book III, On the Parts of Animals, ch. 14; likewise prolific and fruitful, for they abound in moisture; so also men are inclined to gluttony and lust. Again, fish "have slippery eyes, on account of the thickness of the surrounding moisture," says Aristotle, Book II, ch. 13; so also with men. Whence many rightly groan and say that saying of Lamentations ch. 3:51: "My eye has plundered my soul." And verse 48: "My eye has brought down streams of water at the destruction of the daughter of my people."
Eighteenth: Fish have memory and lead a life close to human reason. Some have denied this; but St. Augustine testifies that it is most certain, and that he learned it by experience, Book III, On Genesis taken literally, ch. 8: "For the spring of the Bullensian regions is nearly full of fish. Men are accustomed to look down from above and toss them something, which they either snatch up as they converge, or fight among themselves to seize. Accustomed to this feeding, when men walk along the edge of the spring, the fish also swim together back and forth with them, expecting them to toss something, whose presence they sense. Therefore fish do not entirely lack memory, nor is the sensation of their soul too sluggish." I myself have frequently experienced the same thing in fish ponds. Wherefore the same author, Tractate 123 on John: "They saw, he says, coals placed, and a fish laid upon them, and bread. The roasted fish is Christ who suffered. He Himself is the bread that came down from heaven. Men are called fish." Hence the ancients, being temperate and chaste, ate not meat but fish, as being easy to digest and cooling both the natural heat and the fires of anger and lust; witness Athenaeus in his Banquet of the Wise, Books 3, 4, and 8. Conversely, as the same author says in Book 7: "Any fish delights in human flesh." Pliny recounts an augury of fish, Book IX, ch. 16: "During the Sicilian war, he says, while Augustus was walking on the shore, a fish leaped from the sea to his feet; by which sign the seers responded that Neptune was adopting him as his own, having rejected Sextus Pompey. So great was the glory of naval power that those who held the seas at that time would be at Caesar's feet." The same author, ch. 42, has wonderful things about the cunning of fish, such as the pinna, the torpedo, the turbot, the stingray, etc. The same, ch. 53, reports that some fish lived sixty years, which is the age of men. The same, Book X, ch. 45, says that sea calves and many other fish can be tamed and become gentle. And ch. 70, he says that in Caesar's fish ponds, some fish, when called by name, would immediately swim up. The same, Book IX, ch. 8, narrates from Maecenas that dolphins feed from the hand of men, receive boys on their backs and carry them, and love them so much that they die when the boys die.
Nineteenth: St. Augustine on Psalm 64: "The sea, he says, is used figuratively for this world, bitter with salt, turbulent with storms, where men, made perverse and wicked by their desires, have become like fish devouring one another. Behold the evil sea, the sea fierce with waves. Behold with what sort of men it is filled. Who desires an inheritance, except by the death of another? Who desires profit, except by the loss of another? How many desire to be exalted by the downfall of others! How many, in order to buy, wish others to sell their possessions? How they oppress one another, and those who can, devour! And when one larger fish has devoured a smaller, it too is devoured by a larger. O evil fish, you want prey from the small one, you will become prey to the great one!"
Finally, St. Bernard, in a sermon On Blessed Mary, p. 394, assigns a threefold fish-pond and threefold fish for men: "The first flood, he says, is of vices; the second, of tribulations; the third, of misery and darkness. The first is of sin, the second, of the world, the third, of hell. The fish of the first are pleasures, of the second, wicked temptations; of the third, perpetual torments. Hence in the Gospel concerning those who fish well, trample vices, overcome temptations, and avoid eternal torments, it is said: They chose the good into their vessels, but cast the bad forth," Matthew ch. 13:47. Whence it is clear that the reprobate and damned themselves are the fish who swim, are tossed, and boil in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, Apocalypse ch. 21:8. By far the greater part of men, indeed the greatest and almost innumerable, wallows and burns in this lake. Come, O Lord, will You make men like the fish of the sea? And would that they were fish of the sea! Would that they were devoured by a whale! But now they are fish, indeed bellows and fuel of hell, the cart and slaughterhouse of the devil, indeed of many thousands and millions of demons: where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. Come, O Lord, will You allow hell to enlarge its soul, and open its mouth without any limit, to swallow up so many nations and peoples, whose number is like the sand of the sea? Spare, O Lord, spare Your creatures, whom You created in Your image, whom You destined for heaven like stars, whom You redeemed with the precious blood of Your Only-Begotten Son. Stop up this monstrous mouth of Tartarus, lest it swallow so many souls. Send forth Your Spirit upon us, so that, shaken by the meditation and horror of this flaming lake, we may avoid sins, resist concupiscence, give ourselves to penance, and take up a holy life as the road to heaven; so that we may deserve to be transferred there, and there, like heavenly fish in the river of paradise, Apocalypse ch. 22:1, that is, in You and in the vision, enjoyment, and eternal joys of You, to swim forever. Amen.
AND LIKE A CREEPING THING HAVING NO RULER. — A creeping thing is an animal that does not walk on feet but crawls and creeps on its belly, as serpents, worms, and earthworms do; or certainly one that has such tiny feet that it seems not so much to walk as to creep, as is the case with the lizard, weasel, mouse, mole, etc. These are the creeping things of the earth: for the creeping things of the sea and rivers are fish. Furthermore, the Prophet, in order to represent to God the injuries, afflictions, and sufferings of men, compares them not only to fish but also to creeping things, which are weaker than fish and more liable to injury. For first, fish can hide themselves from fishermen and voracious fish in the vastness or depth of the sea or rivers; but creeping things dwell on the land and have small burrows, in which they are immediately discovered and caught; second, many fish, namely those that travel in schools, such as herrings, dolphins, and mullets, have their own leader, albeit one like themselves, unarmed, weak, and improvident: but creeping things have no leader, but creep about solitarily, and are exposed as prey to all; third, fish can escape an enemy by swimming and, as it were, fly away: but creeping things, because they creep, are slow-moving, and therefore cannot escape by flight. The meaning, therefore, is this, as if to say: Why do You permit, O Lord, that the Jews and the nations should be trampled, crushed, and killed by the Chaldeans, just as creeping things (for example, frogs, earthworms, slugs, which have no prince to protect them from harm) are trampled and crushed by travelers, or by more powerful creeping things, such as serpents? For these, says Theophylact, "because of the bitterness of their nature, do not have leaders, being devoid of mixture and society, and raging with mutual hatred among themselves. For animals placed under a leader are more tame, thereby indicating a nature and disposition that loves companionship and society, and follows the flock and the herd." Whence by these he tropologically understands brutish and mute, fierce and serpentine men, who rage against one another.
Tropologically, see again here how wretched the human condition is: for men are like creeping things. Whence Jesbaham, that is, sitting in the seat, the first of David's mighty men, is called "the most tender wood-worm," 2 Samuel 23:8. And this: first, because man when he is born is like a creeping thing; for he creeps on the ground with his hands and feet. Hence that riddle of the sphinx about man: "In the morning a quadruped, at midday a biped, in the evening a triped." For man in the morning, that is, in infancy when he is born, relies on hands and feet like a quadruped: then in youth he walks as a biped: in the evening, that is, in old age, he walks as a triped: because besides his two feet he acquires a third, namely a walking stick on which he leans.
Secondly, because most men crawl on the earth with their hands, feet, and whole body, and indeed with their mind: for they think of nothing but earthly things, all their labor and occupation is in the earth, and many, thrown forward on their bellies, strive for nothing but to fill and stuff their bellies with earthly delights.
Thirdly, which is what the Prophet properly means here, because men, just like creeping things, are exposed to the injury and plundering of the more powerful. The Turks, Tartars, and Indian kings lead into battle three hundred and five hundred thousand men, and throw them before their enemies like fleas, to be slaughtered on their behalf. Are these not creeping things before their kings, just as before their enemies? Slaves and bondsmen condemned to gold mines and metal works; tenants bound to cultivating the fields of their lords; servants and workers assigned to the earthly and base commands and services of their masters, are they not like creeping things of the earth?
Finally, Guevara probably understands by "creeping thing" the fish of the sea, which do not have a ruler, namely a powerful one to protect them and vindicate them from plunder, so that it is the Prophet's usual epanaphora: for all that follows concerns fish and the fisherman to whom he here compares Nebuchadnezzar. Thus fish are called creeping things in Psalm 104:25: "This great and wide sea with its mighty hands: there are creeping things without number." So the meaning will be, as if to say: Will You then, O Lord, hand over us, Your faithful, to the barbarian Chaldean like fish, which are nothing but the vile and wretched creeping things of the sea, to be caught and devoured? Will You then throw us, who are Your own possession and Your inheritance, before the monstrous tyrant as a sumptuous feast of fish? Will You then set Your beloved Israel before this most savage beast to be swallowed, so that you may fatten it with such precious food? God forbid, O Lord, God forbid. Thus it was a maxim of Pope Pius II: "Litigants are birds, the court is the threshing floor, the judge is the net, the lawyers are bird-catchers. Therefore dignities must be given to worthy men, not dignities to unworthy men. The burden of the Pontiff is heavy; but blessed is he who bears it well."
Verse 15
15. THE WHOLE — namely the whole catch of fish, the entire haul, that is, all the fish, that is, all the nations, this great fisherman, namely Nebuchadnezzar, has caught with his hook, seine, and net. The word "the whole" denotes his insatiable greed and rapacity, on account of which, while he seized everything, he lost everything, according to that saying of St. Cyprian, Book V, Epistle 2: "While insatiably we want much, we lose all." And that saying: "The camel desiring horns lost even its ears." Most true, therefore, is that paradox: "In doubtful cases, half is more than the whole." About which Hesiod says: "Fools, he says, do not know how much more the half is than the whole." For it often happens that one who desires more greedily loses even what he has. This can be seen in litigants, who while they desire everything, often lose everything, either by the sentence of the judge, or by the enormous costs they spend on the lawsuit, according to that saying of Ecclesiastes 4:6: "Better is a handful with rest, than both hands full with labor and affliction of spirit." And that of Proverbs 15:16: "Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great and insatiable treasures." And ch. 16:8: "Better is a little with justice, than much revenue with iniquity." And Sirach 14:9: "The eye of the covetous man is insatiable in his portion of iniquity: he will not be satisfied until he consumes, withering his own soul." Truly the Philosopher says: "Every virtue is a mean." And rich is the mind content with its own possessions and sufficient unto itself: poor is the one who desires more. Pittacus, when the people of Mytilene offered him much, accepted only a little, saying: "Small gifts are divine, which no one envies: wealthy possessions are not usually one's own." So Probus in his Life of Thrasybulus.
HE LIFTED UP WITH A HOOK. — A hook is a curved instrument to which bait is attached; and while the fish swallow it, they fit themselves onto the barb and become impaled, and thus are led and drawn out by the hook of the fisherman. Whence gifts are called "hooked" that are given in such a way that they attract greater things to themselves, and, as the saying goes: They catch a fish with a little fish; for they give small things in order to receive great ones. A seine is a net, but a smaller one, for example, one that a single fisherman can spread with both hands and again raise and draw in. A net is larger. Therefore by hook, seine, and net are signified instruments of fishing, small, greater, and greatest. By all these he means the forces and troops of Nebuchadnezzar, with which he captured nations and, as it were, fished them out. For his whole army was, first, like a single hook in the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, since it depended entirely on him and was placed in his power and hand; yet the same, on account of its innumerable soldiers, cohorts, and squadrons, was like an immense seine and net, woven of very many threads and meshes. Second, because he captured small cities with small forces, as with a hook, and great ones with great forces, as with a seine and net. So St. Jerome.
Third, by these three he alludes to the three expeditions that Nebuchadnezzar made into Judea. For first, in the third year of his reign he invaded it; but carried off only a few, namely Daniel with his companions, Daniel 1:1; then, therefore, he fished as with a hook. Second, in the eighth year of his reign he returned, killed King Jehoiakim, and carried away his son Jehoiachin (or Jeconiah) with many others as captives to Babylon; this, therefore, was fishing with a seine. Third, in the eighteenth year of his reign he captured and overthrew Jerusalem, blinded King Zedekiah, killed his sons and other princes, and transported all the rest to Babylon, 2 Kings 25. This, therefore, was fishing with a net, by which he enclosed, overthrew, and captured all of Judea and likewise the remaining nations. Finally, Ribera understands by the hook the deceits and tricks, and by the seines and nets the open violence of Nebuchadnezzar. For the hook, being small, is more hidden than nets, and catches fish more secretly.
Note: A sagena in Greek is a type of fishing net: in Latin it is called a verriculum (drag-net), because it sweeps fish from the sea or river, and gathers them into itself, that is, into its corner, about which Manilius says in Book V:
It is caught, surrounded by the vast seine.
Whence, explaining further, he adds: "And he gathered them in his net." For when the seine is dragged by the fishermen through the sea or river and sweeps it, the fish fleeing from it are gathered into the narrow and angled nets, set in certain places, toward which the seine drives them. Therefore by the hook, seine, and net, with which fishermen entangle and ensnare fish, he signifies all the arts, forces, and engines, both smaller and greater, which Nebuchadnezzar used to conquer and capture all nations. Whence Delrio, Adage 1000: "With the hook, he says, the citizens of towns captured individually seem to be lifted up; but with the seine, a whole nation is drawn away at once, carried into captivity." Second, by the hook, as small and hidden, can be understood his tricks, deceits, and stratagems; by the seine and net, open, public force and battles. Third, others understand by the seine and net the idols, namely Bel, to whom the Chaldean ascribed his victories. Whence he adds: "Therefore he will sacrifice to his seine and offer incense to his net," namely to Bel. So Remigius and Lyra.
Fourth, St. Jerome and Remigius distinguish these three things thus: "Just as a fisherman catches with a net what he could not catch with a hook, and what escapes the net is surrounded by wider seines; so Nebuchadnezzar conquered with larger forces what he could not overcome with smaller, to such an extent that he laid waste everything and made the entire human race his prey."
Somewhat differently the Chaldean: All, he says, are like a fisherman, who when he catches a fish, gathers it with a hook into his seine, and casts it into his net.
He fittingly compares Nebuchadnezzar to a fisherman, because he reigned in Babylon, which lies along the Tigris and Euphrates: his army to a seine, because he surrounded, overthrew, and captured the Jews and the nations like fish. The Wise Man says brilliantly, Ecclesiastes ch. 9, v. 12: "Man knows not, he says, his own end; but as fish are caught with a hook, and as birds are caught with a snare: so are men caught in an evil time, when it suddenly comes upon them."
Verse 16
16. THEREFORE HE SHALL SACRIFICE TO HIS SEINE. — By the seine, St. Jerome and others understand the god of the Chaldeans, to whom they ascribed their victories and to whom they sacrificed in thanksgiving: and this god was Bel. But Guevara thinks this goddess was Derceto, the mother of Queen Semiramis, whom the Syrians fabled to have been turned into a fish: therefore they depicted her with the face of a woman but the rest in the form of a fish, and established a notable temple to her at Ashkelon near a lake full of fish. Hence Pliny called Atargatis "prodigious"; for she was a monster compounded of a woman and a fish. Athenaeus reports that Atargatis was called in Syriac from atar, that is, "without," and gatis, that is, "fish," as if to say, "Without fish," because she was worshipped with abstinence from fish. Some think Dagon, the god of the Philistines, of whom 1 Samuel 5:4, is the same as Derceto; for Dagon in Hebrew signifies a fish, and he had the form of a fish. So from Diodorus, Xenophon, Pliny, Cicero, and Ovid, Guevara, who therefore judges that here there is a metonymy; for the seine and net are used for fish. Of which kind is that saying of Virgil:
Now pour libations to Jupiter from the bowls, that is, the wine contained in the bowls. Furthermore, the fish, namely Derceto, is named here before the other gods of the Chaldeans for this reason, as if to say: Nebuchadnezzar will attribute his victories not only to King Bel, but also to mute fish (namely Derceto), and will sacrifice to them; how foolish this is, who does not see? For how can defenseless fish defend others, who cannot defend themselves from fishermen, but are caught by their seine and net whenever it pleases? See then, O Lord, this stupid impiety of his, and as one jealous for the wrong done to You and to Your divinity, avenge it, and free us, who are devoted to You, from his hands and claws. So Guevara. But since Derceto was a goddess of the Syrians, not of the Chaldeans (for their idol was Bel); and since, in explaining this seine, the Prophet adds: "Therefore he shall spread out his seine"; but he does not spread out his goddess, rather his forces: hence it is better and more genuinely understood that by the seine is meant military industry, arms, forces, and the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, to which he attributed his victories, as if to say: By my own military valor I won so many triumphs; that valor, therefore, is my god, I acknowledge no other. Whence the Chaldean translates: Therefore he sacrifices to his weapons, and burns incense to his little net. Thus Mezentius says in Virgil, Aeneid X:
My right hand is my god, and the weapon which I hurl as a missile.
Such princes, political and atheistic, we still see today. And Antiochus, or rather Antichrist, shall worship the god Maozim, that is, strength, namely his own military forces, Daniel ch. 11:38. So Ribera, Emmanuel Sa, Mariana, and others.
Differently, Joannes Alba, Electorum ch. 65, explains these words, namely: "to his seine" and "to his net," he says, is put for "from his seine" and "from his net," as if to say: He sacrifices, namely to his gods, he offers them sacrifices from his seine and his net, that is, from the spoils of the nations which he has fished out, that is, devastated and despoiled. But here, by supplying many words, he overturns the Vulgate translation: for to sacrifice to a net is to sacrifice to the net itself, not to the gods from the net. For who would otherwise understand this phrase?
BECAUSE BY THEM HIS PORTION IS MADE FAT — as if to say: He has acquired for himself rich and sumptuous feasts, namely the choicest wealth of all nations, as his portion and lot, by means of this seine and net of his. Whence, enticed by them, he does not cease to spread it further and further, in order to capture more kingdoms and propagate his empire far and wide. This is what he says: "and his food is choice." Tropologically, St. Theophilus of Alexandria, Paschal Epistle 2: "The food of the devil, he says, are the deniers of God, as Habakkuk speaks: His food is choice. But the execrable food of all the impious is the devil himself, as the Prophet's oracle thunders: You gave him as food to the peoples of Ethiopia."
Note: St. Jerome must be read cautiously here toward the end of the chapter; for he seems to deny that God has knowledge and providence over fish, gnats, and minute things; which is a manifest error: for God cares for and feeds sparrows, lilies, grass, etc., as Christ says in Matthew 6:29-30, and Matthew 10:29. Therefore St. Jerome must be cleared on two counts: first, that he is speaking not of knowledge in general, but only of that knowledge which God would acquire anew, as new fish and gnats are born, just as we acquire knowledge. For this is temporal; hence it does not exist in God; for God from eternity, at one and the same time, knew all future things. Second, that he means to say that God on the side of the effect does not have as great a providence and care for fish as He has for men, to whom He gives greater helps and benefits, and especially assigns a greater guard of angels: for each man has a guardian angel, but not every fish. That this is what St. Jerome means is gathered from his own words, when he says: "Moreover, it is absurd to bring down the majesty of God to this, that He should know (that is, that He should learn by experience and counting, as if He had not known before; for this is unbecoming to His majesty: since otherwise all eternal knowledge befits Him supremely, and is proper to Him; or rather, that He should know, that is, that He should care and strive to know, that He should notice with a special gaze, that He should fix His knowledge and eye upon them attentively and solicitously, as He fixes it upon man) from moment to moment how many gnats are born, how many die, what the multitude of bedbugs, fleas, and flies on earth is, how many fish swim in the water, and which of the smaller ones should yield as prey to the larger. Let us not be such foolish flatterers of God that, while we drag down His power to the lowest things, we are injurious to ourselves, saying that the providence over rational and irrational creatures is the same. For which reason that apocryphal book must be condemned as foolishness, in which it is written that a certain angel, named Tyri, presides over reptiles; and in like manner that proper guardian angels are assigned to fish also, and to trees, and to all beasts." Behold, this is what St. Jerome means, namely that individual fish do not have guardian angels and other particular aids of God, which men have; in which sense the Apostle said, 1 Corinthians 9:9: "Does God care about oxen?" For otherwise, that the general knowledge and providence of God extends to fish and all creatures, even the most minute, shortly before
St. Jerome expressly affirms, just as also in his commentary on Matthew ch. 10, explaining that saying: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and one of them does not fall to the ground without your Father? "The meaning, he says, is this: if small and worthless animals do not fall without God as their author, and in all things there is providence, and the things that are to perish among them do not perish without God's will; you who are eternal should not fear that you live without God's providence." Therefore St. Jerome here denies only the knowledge and providence of flies and fish newly acquired in God, or rather one so particular as He has for men, as if God had to be occupied at every moment in tracking down, caring for, and feeding flies and fish; just as a shepherd is occupied in inspecting and feeding his sheep. For this knowledge and care is unworthy of God; just as it was unworthy of the Emperor Domitian to be occupied for whole hours in counting and catching flies, while neglecting the affairs of the empire. Whence the proverb: "Not even a fly," according to Suetonius in his Life. For the general providence of God suffices for the care of these things, namely by preserving and continuing the course of the universe and nature, originally established by Him; for from that follows the number and succession of gnats.
Verse 17
17. THEREFORE HE SHALL SPREAD OUT HIS SEINE. — The Chaldean: Shall he (for in Hebrew there is the interrogative he) therefore send his armies (these, then, are his seine), to consume nations perpetually, and that without any mercy? As if to say: He will certainly send them. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Theophylact, Remigius, Albert, and Hugh. Differently, Clarius, Vatablus, and Arias, as if to say: Just because he attributes these plunderings and victories to his own forces, shall he be permitted by You, O Lord, to continue in this pride of his, and in this plundering and slaughter of nations? As if to say: By no means: it is time for You to bring him down, restrain, and chastise him.
Note: For "spread out," the Hebrew has יריק iaric, that is, "he shall empty." For fishermen are accustomed to empty their nets full of fish, and then spread them out again for another catch. Thus Nebuchadnezzar, having conquered one city and nation, would empty out its wealth and send it to Babylon; and again would invade another nation with his army, about to empty and fish out that one in the same manner, that is, to plunder it. It is therefore a metalepsis: for from the antecedent is understood the consequent, namely from the emptying the spreading, from the despoiling of one nation the invasion and plundering of another.
Morally, learn here how great is the force of ambition and avarice: for these have driven tyrants into so many plunderings and wars. Seneca says brilliantly, Epistle 94, near the end: "A frenzy of devastating others' possessions, he says, drove the unhappy Alexander, and sent him toward the unknown. Do you think the man was sane, who begins with the disasters of Greece, in which he was educated; who seizes from everyone what is best for them? He orders Sparta to serve, Athens to be silent. Not content with the destruction of so many cities, which Philip had either conquered or purchased, he casts others in other places, and carries his arms around the whole world: nor does his weary cruelty ever stop; like savage beasts, which bite more than hunger demands. Already he has thrown many kingdoms into one; already Greeks and Persians fear the same man; already even nations free from Darius receive the yoke. Yet the same man is indignant that beyond the Ocean and the sun he must turn his victory from the footsteps of Hercules and Bacchus; he prepares to do violence to nature itself. He does not wish to go, but he cannot stand still: no differently from weights hurled headlong, whose end of movement is to have fallen." Then from Alexander he passes to Pompey, Caesar, and Marius: "Neither was it valor or reason that persuaded Gnaeus Pompey to undertake foreign or domestic wars; but a mad love of false greatness, now he went to Spain and the Sertorian wars, now to gather pirates and pacify the seas. These were the pretexts, for continuing his power. What drew him to Africa? What to the North? What to Mithridates and Armenia, and every corner of Asia? An infinite desire of growing, since to himself alone he seemed too little great. What drove Gaius Caesar equally into his own fate and the public's? Glory and ambition, and no limit to rising above others. He could not bear one man before him, when the republic bore two above itself. What do you think drove Gaius Marius, consul once (for he received one consulship, the rest he seized), when he was cutting down the Teutons and Cimbri, when he was pursuing Jugurtha through the deserts of Africa, to seek so many dangers — the instinct of virtue? The army led Marius, ambition led Marius. These men, while they shook everything, were themselves shaken in the manner of whirlwinds, which spin what they have seized, but are themselves spun first, and for this reason they strike with greater force, because they have no control of themselves. And so, when they had been destructive to many, they themselves also feel that pestilent force by which they harmed most people. There is no reason to believe that anyone becomes happy by the unhappiness of others."