Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He exhorts the Jews to repentance, that they may escape the slaughter of the Chaldeans which the neighboring nations are about to undergo. Hence, in verse 4, he threatens destruction to Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Ammon, and Moab; and in verse 12 to Ethiopia; and in verse 13, even to Nineveh itself, mistress of the world; at the same time consoling the Jews with the disaster and destruction of these peoples, who were hostile to the Jews.
He exhorts the Jews to repentance, so that they may escape the destruction of the Chaldeans, which the neighboring nations are about to undergo. Hence, in verse 4, he threatens destruction upon Gaza, Ascalon, Azotus, Accaron, Ammon, Moab, and in verse 12, Ethiopia, and even in verse 13, upon Nineveh itself, the mistress of the world; at the same time to console the Jews with the calamity and destruction of these peoples, who were hostile to the Jews.
Vulgate Text: Zephaniah 2:1-15
1. Assemble yourselves, gather together, O nation not beloved. 2. Before the decree brings forth -- the day passes like chaff -- before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord's indignation comes upon you. 3. Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth, who have worked His judgment: seek the just, seek the meek; that perhaps you may be hidden in the day of the Lord's fury. 4. For Gaza shall be destroyed, and Ashkelon shall be a desert; they shall cast out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron shall be uprooted. 5. Woe to you who inhabit the seacoast, O nation of the lost! The word of the Lord is upon you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines, and I will destroy you so that there shall be no inhabitant. 6. And the seacoast shall be a resting place for shepherds and sheepfolds; 7. and the coast shall belong to him who remains of the house of Judah: there they shall feed; in the houses of Ashkelon they shall rest at evening, for the Lord their God will visit them and will turn away their captivity. 8. I have heard the reproach of Moab and the blasphemies of the children of Ammon, with which they reproached My people and magnified themselves against their borders. 9. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall be like Sodom, and the children of Ammon like Gomorrah, a dryness of thorns and heaps of salt and a desert forever. The remnant of My people shall plunder them, and the residue of My nation shall possess them. 10. This shall befall them for their pride, because they blasphemed and magnified themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts. 11. The Lord shall be terrible over them, and shall diminish all the gods of the earth; and men shall adore Him, each from his own place, all the islands of the Gentiles. 12. You Ethiopians also shall be slain by My sword. 13. And He shall stretch forth His hand over the north, and shall destroy Assyria, and He shall make the beautiful city a wilderness, and impassable, and like a desert. 14. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of it, all the beasts of the nations; both the pelican and the hedgehog shall lodge in its thresholds; a voice of singing in the window, a raven on the lintel, for I shall diminish its strength. 15. This is the glorious city that dwelt in security, that said in its heart: I am, and there is none other besides me. How is it become a desert, a lair for beasts? Everyone who passes through it shall hiss and wave his hand.
Verse 1
1. Assemble -- in Hebrew התקוששו (hithkoshesu), that is, gather, unite yourselves into an assembly, as straw and chaff are gathered and bound into bundles. Hence the Septuagint and the Chaldean translate: Gather together and συνδέθητε, that is, be bound together. For some incorrectly read συνδεύθητε, that is, pray together, says Theodoret. For he exhorts the people to come together all at once into the temple and there unanimously through common prayer and repentance to appease God, and as it were to do violence to Him, and so to avert the threatened evils and wrest the scourge from His hand. That is: "Assemble in the Church, unite yourselves with charity and peace," says St. Jerome -- namely, just as grains are gathered into heaps and straw into bundles, so you should come together through mutual and common efforts of charity and piety into one religion, one church, one litany, and one supplication, so that by this union you may prevail against the wrath of God and reconcile God to yourselves. Therefore the Rabbis, and after them Pagninus, the Zurich Bible, and Vatablus, translate less correctly: Search yourselves, and then search others -- so that you may first cleanse your own conscience, then that of others, and lead them to repentance. For the Hebrew קוש (kos) does not mean to search the conscience, but to gather, heap up, and assemble.
Tropologically, St. Jerome applies these words to anyone departing from this world: "O you who, occupied with worldly affairs, run about in all directions, return to the churches of the saints, and join yourself to the life and company of those whom you see pleasing God; and force the loose members of your soul, which do not cohere with each other, into one structure of wisdom; and cling to its embrace, and hear mystically: Be strengthened, you loose hands, and you weak knees, be made firm. And do not glory in the goods of the flesh, and in its flower that passes away. For all flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen; but the word of the Lord endures forever." He then adds another application: "We can," he says, "use this chapter at the appropriate time, whenever we see someone devoted to worldly honors and occupied with amassing riches, rarely or never coming to church, and say to him: Gather yourself and join yourself to the people of God, you who do not hear the Lord's commands, before your glory passes away, before the day of the Lord's fury comes upon you."
O nation not beloved. -- In Hebrew לא נכסף (lo nichsaph), that is, as Pagninus translates, a nation not desirable -- meaning: O Jews, you are a nation worthy not of God's love but of His hatred, and hated and loathed by God because of your sins. Hence the Septuagint translates: an uneducated nation -- one that ignores and rejects the teaching and discipline of God. The Zurich Bible: a nation not desiring -- namely God and the law of God. The Chaldean: a generation unwilling to turn to the law. The Syriac: a nation not corrected -- that is, not disciplined, without training. The Arabic Antiochene: a nation that is not tested -- that is, not examined by trial or affliction. The Arabic Alexandrian: a foolish nation. It is litotes, or understatement: less is said and more is understood. "Not beloved" means unlovable, incapable of being loved, hateful, odious. So Plautus in the Bacchides: "I live unbelievable, out of my mind, unlovable, graceless." And Virgil in Aeneid VI, of the Styx:
And the marsh with its gloomy, unlovable wave, that is, the marsh utterly horrible and hateful. The same author in Georgics III:
Who does not know harsh Eurystheus, or the altars of the unpraised Busiris?
"Unpraised" means reviled, infamous, and most wicked: for Busiris used to slaughter his guests at the altars for the gods, and when he tried to do the same to Hercules, he was slaughtered by him. So Scripture often calls an idol or a sin "vain" or "useless," meaning most harmful and injurious. Secondly, the Jews are called "a nation not beloved" because they were hated by all other nations, both on account of their difference in religion and faith, and because they had no commerce, kinship, or connection with them, but rather shunned them. So Pineda, Book I, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 1.
1. Assemble, gather together, O nation not worthy of love: 2. Before the decree brings forth, before the day passes like dust, before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord's indignation comes upon you. 3. Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth, who have practiced His justice: seek the just, seek the meek: if perhaps you may be hidden in the day of the Lord's fury. 4. For Gaza shall be destroyed, and Ascalon shall become a desert, Azotus shall be cast out at noonday, and Accaron shall be uprooted. 5. Woe to you who inhabit the seacoast, nation of destroyers! The word of the Lord is upon you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines, and I will destroy you, so that there shall be no inhabitant. 6. And the seacoast shall be a resting place for shepherds and folds for flocks: 7. and the coast shall belong to him who shall remain of the house of Judah: there they shall feed, in the houses of Ascalon they shall rest at evening: for the Lord their God shall visit them, and shall turn away their captivity. 8. I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the blasphemies of the children of Ammon: with which they reproached My people, and magnified themselves over their borders. 9. Therefore as I live, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, a dryness of thorns, and heaps of salt, and a desert even forever: the remnant of My people shall plunder them, and the residue of My nation shall possess them. 10. This shall befall them for their pride: because they blasphemed, and magnified themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts. 11. The Lord shall be terrible over them, and shall waste all the gods of the earth: and men shall adore Him from their own place, all the islands of the nations. 12. You Ethiopians also shall be slain by My sword. 13. And He shall stretch forth His hand over the North, and shall destroy Assyria: and He shall make the beautiful city a wilderness, and impassable, and as a desert. 14. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of it, all the beasts of the nations: and the bittern and the hedgehog shall lodge in its thresholds: the voice of the singing bird in the window, the raven on the upper post, for I shall waste its strength. 15. This is the glorious city that dwelt in confidence: that said in her heart: I am, and there is none other beside me: how is she become a desert, a lair for beasts? Everyone that passes by her shall hiss, and wave his hand.
1. Assemble — in Hebrew hithoscesu, that is, gather, unite yourselves into an assembly, just as stubble and chaff are collected and bound into bundles. Hence the Septuagint and the Chaldean translate, assemble yourselves and syndethete, that is, be bound together: for some incorrectly read syndeuthete, that is, pray together, says Theodoret. For he exhorts the people that they all come together in the temple, and there unanimously through prayers and common repentance appease God, and as it were force Him, and thus avert the threatened evils, and wrest the scourge from His hand, as if to say: "Assemble in the Church, unite yourselves with charity and peace," says St. Jerome, namely that, just as grains are gathered into heaps, and stubble into bundles, so you too by mutual and common pursuits of charity and piety may come together into one worship, church, litany, and supplication, so that by this union you may prevail against the wrath of God, and reconcile God to yourselves. Therefore the Rabbis, and from them Pagninus, the Zurich Bible, and Vatablus, less correctly translate: Search yourselves, and search then others, so that you may first cleanse your own conscience, then that of others, and lead them to repentance. For the Hebrew kos does not signify to search one's conscience, but to gather, to heap up, to assemble.
A NATION NOT WORTHY OF LOVE. — In Hebrew lo nichsaph, that is, as Pagninus has it, a nation not desirable, as if to say: O Jews, you are a nation worthy not of God's love, but of His hatred, and hateful and abhorrent to God because of your sins. Hence the Septuagint translates, an uneducated nation, which of course ignores and rejects the teaching and discipline of God; the Zurich Bible, a nation not desiring, namely God and God's law; the Chaldean, a generation unwilling to be converted to the law; the Syriac, a nation not corrected, that is, not instructed, without discipline; the Arabic of Antioch, a nation that is not tested, that is, not examined by trial or affliction; the Arabic of Alexandria, a foolish nation. It is a litotes, or meiosis; for less is said, and more is understood: not lovable, that is, unlovable, which cannot be loved, hateful, odious. So Plautus in the Bacchides: "Incredible, senseless, unlovable, graceless I live." And Virgil in Aeneid VI, concerning the Styx:
And the pool unlovely with its gloomy wave, that is, a pool supremely horrible and loathsome. The same, in Georgics III:
Who knows not cruel Eurystheus, Or the altars of ill-famed Busiris?
Ill-famed, that is, reviled, infamous and most wicked: for Busiris used to sacrifice his guests to the gods at his altars, and when he wished likewise to sacrifice Hercules, he was himself slain by him. So Scripture often calls an idol, or sin, vain, or useless, meaning most harmful and injurious. Secondly, the Jews are called "a nation not worthy of love" because they were hateful to all other nations, both on account of the difference of religion and faith, and because they had no commerce, kinship, or connection with them, indeed they shunned them. So Pineda, Book I, De Rebus Salom., chapter 1.
Verse 2
2. Before the decree brings forth, etc. -- that is: Gather together for public prayers and lamentations, before God by His decree brings forth and produces the day of destruction and the Babylonian captivity, which will pass by like dust -- in Hebrew כמוץ (cammots), that is, like chaff and husks -- meaning, it will be like a whirlwind that violently scatters dust and chaff, and passes most swiftly, mixing everything up, darkening, snatching away, and carrying off. So say St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Hugh, and Lyranus. But the Septuagint paraphrastically, instead of dust, gives another image -- namely, of a flower: Before you become like a flower that passes in a day -- which blooms in the morning and falls in the evening of the same day -- meaning: Lest like spring flowers you immediately wilt, with the divine wrath shaking you off like a whirlwind. there stream together decrepit old women and old men covered with rags and years, demonstrating in their bodies and attire the wrath of the Lord. A crowd of wretched ones gathers, and with the cross of the Lord gleaming and its resurrection shining forth, with the banner of the cross also gleaming from the Mount of Olives, to bewail the ruins of their temple — a wretched people, and yet not pitiable, etc., and does anyone doubt, when he sees these things, about the day of tribulation and distress?" of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and equally or similarly, of the day of its destruction by Titus and the Romans, of which St. Jerome says: "Even to the present day, he says, you may see Jews prohibited from entering Jerusalem except for lamentation; and so that they may be permitted to weep over the ruin of their city, they pay a price, so that those who once bought the blood of Christ, may now buy their own tears. You may see on the day when Jerusalem was captured and destroyed by the Romans, a mournful people coming,
2. BEFORE THE DECREE BRINGS FORTH, etc. — As if to say: Assemble for public prayers and lamentations, before God by His command brings forth and produces the day of destruction and of the Babylonian captivity, which will pass like dust — in Hebrew cammots, that is, like chaff and husks — that is, it will be like a whirlwind that violently scatters dust and chaff, and passes most swiftly, mixing, darkening, plundering, and carrying away everything. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Hugo, and Lyranus. But the Septuagint paraphrastically gives another simile instead of dust, namely that of a flower: Before, they say, you become like a flower passing in a day, which on the same day it springs up in the morning, withers in the evening, as if to say: Lest like spring flowers you immediately wilt, with the divine wrath shaking you off like a whirlwind, says Theodoret. Similarly the Chaldean adds another simile of a shadow: Before, he says, the edict of the house of judgment goes forth against you, and you become like chaff which the wind blows through, and a shadow which passes from the face of day, namely before the fierce wrath of God comes upon you: for it will be implacable, and will give no place for supplication or repentance.
Verse 3
3. SEEK THE LORD, ALL YOU MEEK OF THE EARTH — as if to say: All indeed, but you especially who are humble and meek, seek God by supplication, and weary Him with constant groans, if perhaps you can soften and appease Him who is indignant against the whole people. Note here that no one can soften the wrath of God and render Him propitious to an entire nation, except the humble and meek, such as Moses was, Numbers XII, 3, and Exodus XXXII, 32.
Who have practiced His justice. — "Justice," that is, what is equitable and just, namely what the law sanctions and commands. So in Psalm CXVIII, the law of God is often called "justice." So St. Jerome, who, explaining, adds:
SEEK THE JUST (in Hebrew tsedec, that is, justice), SEEK THE MEEK — in Hebrew anava, that is, meekness; Pagninus renders it, humility; others, poverty, as if to say: Be just and meek, do works of justice, and do so meekly; let your conduct be just, as well as mild, modest, and composed in all acts, movements, and manners. For humility and meekness produce this composure of manners. So Theodoret.
Otherwise St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, and Hugo, who by justice and meekness understand God, who is Himself uncreated and immeasurable justice and meekness, as if to say: Seek God by doing justice, that is, just works: for He is most just as well as most meek. Therefore, because He is most just, He will regard just works; because He is most meek, He will mercifully receive penitents into grace. These two things, therefore, will hide and protect you from His wrath and fury.
Or, as if to say: Propitiate the Lord with prayers and just deeds: perhaps He will protect you by some reason known to Himself, which we are unaware of: for to flee to neighboring nations will not be permitted, because Gaza will be destroyed.
Note: There were five satrapies of the Philistines, whose chief cities were these five: Gaza, Accaron, Azotus, Ascalon, Gath: in which names there is an elegant wordplay in Hebrew. For he says azza azuba, Gaza will be deserted, or, to imitate it in Latin, Gaza erit vasta, or vastata: perhaps he also alludes to the Persian word gaza, which means riches, as if to say: Gaza once had its gaza (treasure), and had stored it up; but now it will be deprived of it, and will be deserted: indeed some think Gaza was named from the Persian gaza, on account of the city's opulence. But Gaza had this name in the time of David, before the kingdom of the Persians. Therefore the true etymology of Gaza is Hebrew. For in Hebrew it is called azza, that is, strong: for it was eminently fortified by position and by art. Instead of Azza, the Septuagint said Gaza, because they often turn the Hebrew letter ain into G, as for Amora they translate Gomorrah, for omor they translate gomor.
Azotus shall be cast out at noonday — as if to say: The Chaldeans will conquer the Azotians not secretly and by stealth, but openly in broad daylight, in pitched battle. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, and Hugo.
ACCARON SHALL BE UPROOTED. — In Hebrew there is a wordplay, Accaron teacer, as if to say: Accaron, which in Hebrew is named from uprooting, and means the same as uprooting, shall be uprooted by the Chaldeans, that is, utterly overthrown.
Morally, Lyranus says: By Philistia, he says, which is interpreted as falling by drink, drunkenness is well signified, to which follows the destruction of bodily strength. Proverbs XXIII, 29: "Who has woe? Whose father has woe? Who has quarrels? Who has pitfalls? Who has wounds without cause? Who has bloodshot eyes? Is it not those who linger over wine, and study to drain their cups?" And this is signified by the destruction of Gaza, which is interpreted as strength. Secondly, upon drunkenness follows the dulling of discernment, which is signified when it adds: "And Ascalon into a desert;" for Ascalon is interpreted as weighing; but the acts of hu- must be weighed with the judgment of discernment. Thirdly, through drunkenness the friendship of charity is destroyed. III Esdras III, 22: "And they did not remember, when they had drunk, either friendship or brotherhood: but not long after they took up swords;" and this is signified by the destruction of Azotus, when it says: "Azotus shall be cast out at noonday;" for commonly around midday men fall into drunkenness. Fourthly, through drunkenness bodily substance is consumed. Ecclesiasticus XIX, 1: "A drunken worker will not grow rich;" and this is signified when it says: "And Accaron shall be uprooted." For Accaron is interpreted as pasture of the flock, and corresponds to temporal substance, through which all things pertaining to livelihood are obtained.
"I have heard the reproach of Moab," etc. Here is described the destruction of four nations. The first are the Moabites, who are interpreted as from a father; therefore they signify blasphemers, to whom it is said, John VIII, 44: "You are of your father the devil." The second are the Ammonites, who are interpreted as peoples of sorrows; therefore they signify the envious, who grieve over the good fortune of others. The third are the Ethiopians, who are interpreted as darkened, and therefore signify heretics, who are obscured by the darkness of errors. The fourth are the Assyrians, who are interpreted as watchful makers; therefore they signify thieves, who keep watch at night to do evil. These four types of men are, by divine judgment, to be eternally condemned unless they repent. Thus far Lyranus.
Verse 5
5. The seacoast — that is, the portion or maritime coast. It is a metonymy: for since in ancient times they measured and divided fields and estates with cords, hence a cord signifies a portion of a possession, or the hereditary lot that falls to each in the division, as in Psalm XV, 6: "The lines have fallen to me in goodly places," that is, as the explanation adds: "Indeed my heritage is fair to me." The meaning is, as if to say: Woe to you, Cerethites, who dwell along the maritime coast of the Mediterranean Sea! For Nebuchadnezzar will destroy and lay you waste.
A nation of destroyers. — In Hebrew, the nation of the Cerethites. Now the word Cerethim can be taken in two ways. First, as the proper name of a nation. So the Hebrews, Clarius, Vatablus, Arias, Pagninus, and the Septuagint take it, who translate it, neighbor of the Cretans. The Cerethites therefore are the same as the Cretans.
Secondly, as a common noun. Hence Aquila, the Fifth Edition, and Theodotion translate it, a nation of perdition; our Vulgate, a nation of destroyers; the Zurich Bible, a destroying nation. For Cerethim is derived from carat, which means to cut off, to kill, to destroy; from this are derived the Cerethim, as if to say: Destroyers, cutters-off, killers, who destroy, kill, and devastate all and everything: for the Cerethites were a fierce and warlike nation. Zephaniah alludes to this etymology, as if to say: O Cerethites, you were once Cerethim, that is, destroyers and devastators; now you will be ceruthim, that is, cut off and devastated: once you destroyed others, now you yourselves will be destroyed; for the Chaldeans will kill you and cut you off. Hence Symmachus translates, an exterminated race; Arias, a nation to be killed, because destined for destruction by the Chaldeans.
You may ask, what nation were the Cerethites? First, St. Jerome, Ribera, and Clarius hold that all the Philistines are called Cerethites, that is, cutters-off, because they were fierce and mighty in war; hence they waged continual wars with the Jews, and often dominated them, as is clear from the books of Judges and Kings. For Zephaniah seems shortly to call these Cerethites Canaan and Philistines.
But I say that not all the Philistines, but a certain region of theirs situated to the south, is called the Cerethites. So Abulensis on I Kings, chapter XXX, Question X, Vatablus, Emmanuel, Mariana, Arias, Castro here, and Prado on Ezekiel XXV, near the end. That this is so is clear from I Kings XXX, 14: "We made an incursion, he says, to the south of the Cerethites, and against Judah, and to the south of Caleb," which verse 46 explains by saying: "Which they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah." The Cerethites therefore were the southern part of the land of the Philistines. Secondly, because from this nation were gathered the two praetorian and most valiant legions of David, and, as Josephus says in Antiquities VII, chapter XI, the royal bodyguards who serve around the court (such as the Swiss now serve among kings). For these were called Cerethi, as if slayers; and Phelethi, as if deliverers, from their strength and military valor: because they freed the king and his followers from every danger of enemies, and slew his enemies. Hence Pineda, in Book II, De Rebus Salom., chapter V, number 5, suspects that soldiers called cetrati and peltati, of whom Livy speaks in Decade III, Book I, allude in name, as well as in service, to the Cerethites and Phelethites, and that the name pelta, by which we are protected and freed from an enemy's blow, is derived from palat, that is, he freed. The Chaldean translates, archers and slingers, although that is not the etymology of the words, but a designation of their duty and office. Hear Scripture, II Kings XV, 18, when David fled from Absalom: "All his servants walked beside him, and the legions of the Cerethites and Phelethites;" and I Chronicles XVIII, 17: "Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the legions of the Cerethites and Phelethites."
Rabbi Kimchi thinks these soldiers of David were Israelites; hence Pagninus, in his Interpretation of Hebrew Proper Names, holds that the Cerethites were so called as if residents of the brook Carith in the tribe of Ephraim, where Elijah was fed by ravens, III Kings XVII, 5. But that they were rather foreigners, namely Philistines, Zephaniah indicates, and Ezekiel XXV, 16, where he calls them Palestinians. For it seems that David, when he fled from Saul to the Philistines, namely to Achish king of Gath, brought them back with him from there. For returning from Gath, a Philistine city, he brought with him six hundred men, including the Cerethites and Phelethites, whom he subsequently had as his most valiant and faithful bodyguards.
Furthermore, our Prado at the place cited holds that from these Cerethites, namely from maritime Philistia, that is, by these Phoenician Cerethites or Cretans, the island of Crete was inhabited and named.
For Crete seems to have been a colony of the Phoenicians, who were powerful in ships, and therefore, surveying neighboring islands by sailing, led colonies there: hence in Crete there was a port whose name was Phoenix, Acts XXVII, 12. Hence also Crete was called as if Cureta, from its inhabitants the Curetes, namely the Cerethites. Others, like Theodoret, on the contrary hold that the island Cretans led a colony into Phoenicia and Philistia, and therefore these Cerethites originated from the Cretans. Hence the Septuagint translates, paroikoi Kreton, that is, settlers from Crete, who namely had come from Crete to Philistia: that is, the Septuagint, says St. Jerome, "for goi, that is, nation, read ger, that is, stranger" (although the Greek paroikoi signifies not only strangers, but also neighbors, or any inhabitants, so that it is the same as the Hebrew goi). See what was said on Ezekiel XXV, 16. Hence also the Cretans excelled in seamanship, says Strabo. Hence the ironic proverb: "The Cretan does not know the sea," said of one who pretends not to know what he knows perfectly. For Crete, although it is an island, seems nevertheless to have been inhabited from the earliest times, on account of the goodness of its soil. For there is no harmful animal in Crete, and it is most fertile in the finest wine, which is commonly called Malvasia. Hence Virgil, Aeneid III:
Crete, island of great Jove, lies in the midst of the sea, Where Mount Ida rises, and the cradle of our race, They inhabit a hundred great cities, most fruitful realms.
Hence also Jupiter was a Cretan, and reigned there. Moreover, that the Cretans were once warlike, just like the Cerethites, is clear both from the histories and from the ancient epithet: for Cretan dogs are called "fighting" Cressae, of which Seneca says in Hippolytus:
Let the keen ones surpass the Molossian hounds, And let the fighting Cretan dogs strain The stout leashes on their worn necks.
Finally, Strabo in Book X celebrates the military valor of the Cretans, and their migrations to other regions.
THE WORD OF THE LORD IS UPON YOU, CANAAN (O Canaanites, who are the) LAND OF THE PHILISTINES — as if to say: The word of the Lord is against the Philistines, who are Canaanites: for Philistia was part of the land of Canaan, Joshua XIII, 3. It signifies that not the Cerethites alone, but all the Philistines without exception are to be devastated.
Verse 6
6. AND THE SEACOAST SHALL BE A RESTING PLACE FOR SHEPHERDS AND FOLDS FOR FLOCKS — as if to say: So thoroughly will the Cerethites and all the Philistines who inhabit the seacoast be devastated by the Chaldeans, that their land shall be made desolate and turned into pastures and stalls for livestock. The Septuagint again takes this to refer to Crete: And Crete, they say, shall be a pasture for the flock and a fold for livestock, which St. Jerome expounds mystically: "The Cretans, he says, are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons, as in Titus I: Who are tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by the craftiness of error: these, when they ought to have dwelt in the land of confession, that is, in the land of Judea, preferred to be settlers among the Cretans, who are beaten this way and that by the diverse waves of the sea, and ring with Corybantine brass, and are, according to the Apostle, like a clanging cymbal. And because they are settlers among the Cretans, therefore the word of God, that is, the threatening, is directed at them. And they are called the land of Canaan, always in flux, always in motion; and the land of the foreigners (Philistines); for they are strangers to God, dwelling in the seacoast and in the region of Crete. Therefore the word of God comes to them, either at the end of the world, or daily through ecclesiastical men, etc., that they may be cast out of Crete, and destroyed from their former habitations; and that region, which previously held a lost flock, may begin to be the sheepfold of Christ's flock; and Judah, that is, true confession, may dwell in the cords of the sea, as if to say: The Cretans, that is, the unfaithful, the wanderers, and the heretics, who formerly fed in Crete and in falsehood," will become the sheepfold of Christ, and there will be fed on His truth and holiness.
Verse 7
7. And the coast shall belong to him (of the sea, that is, the lot and land of the Philistines shall belong to him) WHO SHALL REMAIN OF THE HOUSE OF JUDAH — as if to say: The remnant of the Jews returning from the Babylonian captivity will possess Philistia devastated by the Chaldeans, and there, as in a desert, will pasture their livestock. This was accomplished under the Maccabees, Simon and Jonathan, who captured Gaza and Ascalon, and subdued the Philistines, as I said from Theodoret and others in the commentary on Obadiah, near the end.
Allegorically, the Apostles going forth from Jerusalem and Judah converted Philistia, and made it a fold and sheepfold of Christ. So Philip the deacon traveled through Gaza and Azotus preaching the Gospel, Acts VIII; hence it adds: "There they shall feed in the houses of Ascalon," that is, "where formerly the blood of the devil and of the slain flowed. For Ascalon is interpreted as homicidal fire," says St. Jerome.
For THE LORD THEIR GOD SHALL VISIT THEM (namely the Jews who remained in Babylon), and SHALL TURN AWAY THEIR CAPTIVITY — because He will send the captives back to Judea through Cyrus.
Verse 8
8. I have heard the reproach of Moab (whose capital is Areopolis, that is, the city of Mars), AND THE BLASPHEMIES OF THE CHILDREN OF AMMON — whose capital is Philadelphia, says St. Jerome, as if to say: I have heard the insults and abuse that the Moabites and Ammonites hurled against you, O Jews. For they insulted you when Jerusalem was being taken by the Chaldeans, therefore I will punish them through the same Chaldeans, and overthrow them in like manner. So the Chaldean, Albert, Lyranus, Arias, and Vatablus.
Note here: For blasphemies the Hebrew has gidduphim, that is, jeers, insults, abuse, which the common people call blasphemies, that is, curses.
St. Jerome and Theodoret, however, take blasphemies in the proper sense, namely those which the Ammonites will hurl against God, saying: Behold, the God of the Jews is powerless, and cannot protect them from the force of the Chaldeans. In a similar way Rabshakeh blasphemed God, Isaiah XXXVII, 10.
AND THEY MAGNIFIED THEMSELVES (in Hebrew iagdilu, that is, they magnified, actively, namely both their spirits and their mouth and tongue) OVER THEIR BORDERS — namely arrogantly and proudly mocking the Jews, and boasting that they would invade and occupy their land and territory devastated by the Chaldeans, as Ezekiel explains in chapter XXXV, 12, and Obadiah in verse 12. So St. Jerome, Albert, Lyranus, and Arias.
It can secondly be translated, they magnified, namely themselves, over their own borders, as if to say: The Ammonites spoke magnificent and proud things against my people, while the people themselves, being led away to Babylon, passed through their territory. So Vatablus.
Verse 9
9. THEREFORE AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD OF HOSTS, THE GOD OF ISRAEL (that is, the protector and avenger of Israel, who will punish and avenge the injuries and insults inflicted on them by the Ammonites and Moabites), MOAB SHALL BE AS SODOM, AND THE CHILDREN OF AMMON AS GOMORRAH — namely they shall be utterly destroyed, just as if they were struck down by fire from heaven, as Sodom and Gomorrah were struck down, to which the region of Moab and Ammon is neighboring. For in a similar manner they too will be blasted and consumed by heavenly vengeance from God through the Chaldeans. I say similar, not the same: for God did not rain fire and brimstone upon Moab, as He rained upon Sodom.
(Therefore they shall be) A DRYNESS OF THORNS — that is, they shall be so desolated that nothing shall be found in them but dry thorns. For dryness the Hebrew has mimsac, which Rabbi Solomon translates as crackling; the Chaldean, abandonment; others, departure. Properly mimsac means a running out, that is, a spreading of thorns. For the root sakac means to run out: for a thorn sows a thorn, just as strawberry plants produce more strawberries, and so it propagates itself, so that in short time it runs through the whole field and takes it over. The Septuagint for mimsac read dammesec, that is, Damascus. Hence they translate: Damascus shall be abandoned, as if this were a prophecy against Damascus.
AND HEAPS OF SALT — as if to say: The land of Moab and Ammon, because of the flooding of the neighboring Dead Sea (which is called the salt sea in Scripture), will be saline, and consequently barren; for Moab was near the Dead Sea, and Ammon near the Sea of Galilee. For heaps the Hebrew has michre, which the Chaldean, Pagninus, and Vatablus translate as a pit or mine of salt. For salt is of two kinds: marine, which coalesces from boiled-down sea water; and terrestrial, which is dug from the earth like bitite, as is done at Salzburg, which is rich in rock salt and took its name from it. Here that passage of Psalm CVI, 34 is true: "He turned fruitful land into a salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who dwelt in it." And this "forever," either properly and absolutely, as St. Jerome and Theodoret hold here; or improperly and accommodatively, namely "forever" meaning for a long time. For afterward the land of the Moabites was inhabited and cultivated, as was that of the Ammonites. The Arabic of Antioch translates: They shall be like Gomorrah, because their strength (glory) has already been corrupted; and those who gave them counsel have perished, and the corruption shall be forever; the Arabic of Alexandria: Gomorrah and Damascus shall perish like the chaff of sheaves, and their destruction shall be forever; the Syriac: Their plant (plantation) has been corrupted (depraved, adulterated), and their maluchen has perished, that is, their powder for sprinkling, that is, their splendor, beauty, and adornment. For this powder is the ash of a certain herb which the Arabs gather and burn in the wilderness, and sell in great quantities in neighboring cities. For this ash is like soap, with which silk is imbued so that it takes colors well: women also use it for cleansing many things, and even themselves; for they wash with it so as to appear clean and beautiful. Secondly, the Syriac meluch is the same as the Hebrew melach, that is, salt. Hence you may translate, their salt has perished, because their land has been sprinkled with salt, and so has been made barren and dry; therefore both the salt and the land sprinkled with salt have perished. And so it agrees with our Vulgate which translates: "Moab shall be heaps of salt," etc. Thirdly, because salt is mixed into all food, it hence signifies communion and communication, as Andreas Masius notes in his Syro-Chaldean Lexicon of the Royal Bible, page 119. Hence you may translate: There will be no communion or company of men in Moab, because in it, being devastated, there will be desolation. All these translations come to the same thing; for they signify great devastation and desolation. Morally, see here the vanity of all greatness and magnificence. A swan song recently, yet golden, was the utterance of Philip III, King of Spain, at his death:
"It is of no help to have been a king, except that in death it torments one to have been so." Hear this, O princes; hear this, O prelates: you will feel the same, you will say the same in death as this most powerful king, wise and of innocent life.
THE REMNANT OF MY PEOPLE SHALL PLUNDER THEM — as if to say: The remnant of the Jews returning from Babylon will plunder the Moabites and Ammonites. This was accomplished by the Maccabees, namely by Judas, I Maccabees V, 6, and by his grandson Alexander, as Josephus teaches in Antiquities XII, chapter XI, and in Wars I, chapter III. Allegorically, the Apostles did this more fully and better, who subdued Ammon, Moab, and the other regions of the nations to Christ. So St. Jerome, who considers this to be the literal sense, but it is more truly the allegorical sense.
Verse 10
10. This shall befall them for their pride: because they blasphemed and magnified themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts. and they called Italy, Gaul, Spain, and the other provinces of Europe islands, because these lay across the sea from them, so that they had to travel by sea to reach them as if to islands. Therefore St. Chrysostom, Oration 2 Against the Jews, teaches that the calling of the Nations is prophesied here, and the propagation of the Gospel throughout the whole world, and therefore the Apostle alluded to this passage in Titus, chapter II: "Hear, he says, how the Gospels and the Apostles agree with prophecy. Here (Zephaniah according to the Septuagint) said: The Lord shall shine forth; the Apostle says: The saving grace of God has shone forth. Here he says: Over the nations; the other: Over all men. Here he said: He shall abolish the gods of the nations; the other: Teaching us that, denying impiety and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, justly, and piously."
Verse 11
11. THE LORD SHALL BE TERRIBLE OVER THEM. — The Chaldean, Pagninus, and the Zurich Bible render it terrifying; for this is the Hebrew nora, from the root iare, that is, he feared. But the Septuagint translates nora as impavia, that is, manifest, from the root raa, that is, he saw, as if to say: God will exercise a terrible and manifest vengeance through the Chaldeans, and then through the Maccabees, upon the Moabites and Ammonites, as enemies of God and mockers of Israel.
AND HE SHALL WASTE (in Hebrew, raza, that is, He shall emaciate, shall consume with leanness, says Vatablus) ALL THE GODS OF THE EARTH — that is, of the whole world. This began to be fulfilled through the Chaldeans in Ammon and Moab, when they plundered the golden and silver idols from there, as Hugo holds: it was advanced through the Maccabees, who compelled the Ammonites and Moabites to adopt Judaism and the worship of the true God, as I said at the end of Obadiah. But this was clearly and fully accomplished throughout the whole world by the Apostles in the time of the Gospel. For then the destruction of idolatry was completed, and the true religion of God and of Christ, received everywhere among the nations, dominated the whole world. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, St. Augustine in The City of God XVIII, 33, Eusebius in Demonstration of the Gospel II, chapter XVI, and many others. Therefore the Prophet rises from the type to the antitype, from the Jews to Christ and Christians, who occupied not only Moab and Ammon, but all nations, and imbued them with the worship of God, having removed idols, as if to say: God will cast down His enemies and the enemies of His people, namely Ammon and Moab and their gods, through the Apostles, and He will cause every nation, not in Jerusalem alone, as the Jews did, but everywhere on earth, each in its own place and region, to worship, invoke, and sacrifice to Christ the true God. Hence for and the Hebrew has ki, that is, because, since; which often has emphasis, and is a mark of amplification, signifying the same as indeed, nay rather. Castro adds that it is a mark of wonder, and means what, as if to say: I said God would subdue Ammon and Moab. What? I said too little; I add much greater things: He will waste and destroy all the gods and nations throughout the whole earth. But no examples can be produced that demonstrate this meaning: for those he adduces rather show that ki has the same force as indeed.
All the islands of the nations. — The Jews, as I said on Isaiah XLIX, 1, called not only Cyprus, Crete, Sicily, but
Verse 12
12. YOU ETHIOPIANS ALSO SHALL BE SLAIN BY MY SWORD. — This does not connect with what immediately preceded about the destruction of idols throughout the whole world, but should be referred back to verse 9, as if to say: I said that the Ammonites and Moabites would be devastated by the Chaldeans; now I add and say: "But you also, Ethiopians," will be devastated by the same. For Nebuchadnezzar, in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, invaded and subdued Egypt and the neighboring Ethiopia, as Josephus reports in Antiquities X, 11, and in Against Apion I; and Isaiah chapter XX, 3, and Jeremiah chapter XXV. St. Jerome adds that the Ethiopians were afterward also devastated by Cyrus, and by Cambyses when he devastated Egypt: for Ethiopia is situated beyond Egypt, from which the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon, III Kings X, 1, in which the Abyssinians now dwell, over whom Prester John rules. This land was once hostile to the Jews in the time of Asa, king of Judah, as is clear from II Chronicles XIV, 9; and therefore it was punished and devastated by the Chaldeans.
Furthermore, Ethiopia is a part of Africa, and it is twofold: one Eastern, the other Western. Hence some Ethiopians are called Eastern, others Western: "The whole nation was first called Aetherian, then Atlantian, and soon afterward Ethiopia from Aethiops the son of Vulcan," says Pliny, Book VI, chapter XXX; although others want it to be so called from aithon, that is, I burn, and ops, that is, appearance, because it is scorched by its proximity to the sun. Hence the Ethiopians have a scorched and dark complexion; for they are subject to the torrid zone. Of whom Virgil says in Aeneid IV:
Near the Ocean's edge and the setting sun Lies the furthest land of the Ethiopians, where mighty Atlas Turns the heavens on his shoulder, fitted with blazing stars.
The Rabbis therefore are wrong to take Cushites, that is, Ethiopians, to mean the Chaldeans themselves, as if their destruction by Cyrus were here foretold. For the Ethiopians and the Chaldeans are as far apart in climate, and, so to speak, as far apart as heaven from earth.
Mystically, the Ethiopians are sinners who burn with anger or lust, and are so scorched by it that they are utterly dark and incorrigible, in whom that proverb is true: "You are washing an Ethiopian, you are whitening an Ethiopian," according to Jeremiah XIII, 23: "If can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then you too can do good, when you have learned evil;" and Amos IX, 7: "Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians to me, O children of Israel?" Such are the demons, who are therefore depicted as Ethiopians, and as such appeared to St. Anthony, St. Macarius, and other saints; whom therefore God will slay with the sword of His mouth on the day of judgment, when He will condemn them to eternal death. So Abbot Theodosius, as John Moschus relates in Spiritual Meadow, chapter LXVI, saw an Ethiopian so tall and towering that he touched the clouds with his head, and heard from an angel: "You must wrestle with this one; begin: as soon as you have begun, I will help you; and you shall overthrow and conquer him." He did so, and won. So Palladius in the Lausiac History, chapter LII, relates of Abbot Apollo, that when he prayed: "Take from me, O Lord, arrogance, lest perhaps, lifted up by pride over the brotherhood, I be deprived of every good work," a divine voice was sent to him: "Put your hand on your neck, and then place it and bury it in the sand. And when he had immediately put his hand on his neck, he seized a small Ethiopian, and buried him in the sand while he cried out and said: I am the demon of pride."
So Moschus in Spiritual Meadow, chapter CLX: "Abbot Paul, he says, related to us: While I was sitting in my cell, etc., behold through the window there entered as it were an Ethiopian boy, and standing before me he began to dance, and said to me as I was chanting the psalms: Old man, do I not dance well? But I answered nothing. Then he said: Look, you wicked old man, you think you are doing something great. I tell you that you erred even in the sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth psalm. Then rising up I prostrated myself in prayer, and he vanished." So in the Lives of the Fathers, Book V, Treatise 5 On Fornication, number 23, it is related of a certain monk that the demon of fornication appeared to him in the form of an Ethiopian woman: "She stood, he says, before him like an Ethiopian woman, foul and repulsive in appearance, so that he could not endure her stench, and he cast her away from himself. And she said to him: I am she who appear sweet in the hearts of men; but because of your obedience, and the labor which you endure, God has not permitted me to seduce you, but I have revealed to you my stench." The Ethiopians, however, who are pleased with their own looks and whose own dark color seems beautiful to them, paint the devil not dark but white; not an Ethiopian but a European and fair-skinned; so also sinners are pleased with their own deformity, and the blackness of their morals appears to them beautiful and elegant.
Verse 13
13. And He shall stretch forth (namely God, striking the Ethiopians through the Chaldeans) HIS HAND OVER THE NORTH — namely to strike also the Assyrians and their capital Nineveh; for the Assyrians are situated to the north with respect to Judea. That the Assyrians are meant here is clear from the Prophet's explanatory addition: "And He shall destroy Assyria, and shall make the beautiful city" — in Hebrew, Nineveh. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Lyranus, Vatablus, Ribera, and others. Therefore Arias and some others are wrong to take the North to mean Babylon, as if its destruction by Cyrus were foretold here. Note: After Jonah and Nahum, who prophesied the destruction of Nineveh, Zephaniah is sent here to prophesy the same thing, so that by the mouth of two, indeed three witnesses, this word of God may stand and be confirmed. Hence it follows that Nineveh was overthrown after the reign of Josiah (for under him Zephaniah prophesied) by Nebuchadnezzar, as I proved at Nahum chapter II, 1.
HE SHALL MAKE THE BEAUTIFUL CITY A WILDERNESS. — For the beautiful city, the Hebrew, the Chaldean, and the Septuagint have Nineveh, which in Hebrew means beautiful. The beautiful city here is therefore a proper noun, meaning in Latin what Nineveh means in Hebrew. For the Translator is accustomed sometimes to render the meaning of a proper name instead of the name itself, especially when there is some force in it, such as an elegant wordplay, comparison, or antithesis, as here. See Canon I, which I prefixed at the beginning. For the meaning is, as if to say: Nineveh was once Nineveh, that is, beautiful in its houses, palaces, towers, and walls; but now the Chaldeans will destroy and desolate this beauty and splendor of hers: so much so that it will become a haunt of wild beasts. Hence he adds:
Verse 14
14. FLOCKS SHALL LIE DOWN IN THE MIDST OF IT, ALL THE BEASTS OF THE NATIONS — namely of the neighboring nations, which will bring their flocks and livestock there, to graze on the grassy soil of Nineveh. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, and Lyranus. Clarius interprets otherwise, taking the flocks and beasts to mean hostile and savage nations, which, allied with the Chaldeans, conquered Nineveh. But that this is mystical is clear from what follows. Similar is that passage of Ovid, Heroides I:
The half-buried bones of men are struck by the ravens' plows, Grass conceals the ruinous houses.
The bittern. — It is a bird similar to a swan, so called from the sound it makes: for it brays like a donkey. For onos is a donkey, krotan means to sound: hence krotalos means a noise and rattle. In Hebrew it is called kaa, that is, vomiting, because in its jaws it has a crop and pouch like a womb, in which it catches small fish along with water; but vomiting up the water, it feeds on the fish. Hence this bird is called the big-throated one. Hear Pliny, Book X, chapter XLVII: "The bitterns have a resemblance to swans, and would not be thought to differ at all, except that in their very throats there is a kind of second stomach. Into this the insatiable creature packs everything, so wonderful is its capacity: then, the plundering done, it gradually passes the contents back into the mouth and transfers them to its true stomach in the manner of a ruminant." Aelian adds that pelicans (for so he calls the bitterns) fill themselves with shellfish, and when they have digested them with the heat of the stomach, they vomit them up, and so, the shells having been opened by the heat of the belly, they select from them what is edible. Therefore the bittern is an unclean bird, forbidden to the Jews by the law, Leviticus XI, 18; for it is gluttonous and an example of the glutton, as well as a symbol. Hear Alciat in his emblem on gluttony, painting it thus:
A man is painted with a crane's gullet and swollen belly, Who carries a bittern or cormorant in his hands.
The Septuagint here translates chameleon; but in Leviticus XI, 18, and Psalm CII, 7, they translate pelican; because, as St. Jerome notes there, the bittern is also called a pelican, perhaps from the white (cana) skin it has: for it is like a swan, which is entirely white and as it were hoary. So also Oppian in the Ixeutica calls the bittern a pelican, and Gessner in his entry on the bittern lists a species of bittern related to the pelican. Furthermore, this animal, like the hedgehog, because it loves solitude, hence designates the utmost desolation, as if to say: Nineveh will be so overthrown and desolated by the Chaldeans that men will no longer dwell in it, but bitterns and hedgehogs, and other light-shunning and solitary animals.
The hedgehog. — In Hebrew kippod, which Forcer at Isaiah XXXIV, 11, thinks from the affinity of the letters to be cypselos, which are birds like swallows, flying most rapidly over marshes, and called apodes (footless), because they have short feet. The Rabbis translate it tortoise, which the Italians call tartaruca; the Zurich Bible translates it beaver, which is also called fiber, an amphibious animal hostile to man, like the crocodile, of which Pliny speaks in Book XXXII, chapter III. But the Septuagint, St. Jerome, Pagninus, Vatablus, and others consistently here and at Isaiah XXXIV, 11, translate hedgehog. Now the hedgehog, whether called herix or hericius, is the herinacius, in Greek echinos, commonly called the garden piglet, an animal bristling with spines, which it either relaxes or extends at will, while it rolls itself into a ball. It is a little thief of apples, which it impales on its spines, loads itself with them, and carries them to its den, in which it hides itself for the whole winter. Hence it is a symbol of the thief and robber, who extends his thieving hands when he sees himself alone, and steals whatever he can; but when he perceives himself being seen, he draws them back and conceals them. Hear Pliny, Book VIII, chapter XXXVII: "Hedgehogs also prepare food for winter, and rolling over fallen apples, fix them on their spines, and carrying one more in their mouth, carry them into hollow trees. They also foretell the change of wind from north to south by hiding in their den: but when they sense a hunter, drawing in their mouth and feet and all the underside, where they have only sparse and harmless down, they roll themselves into the shape of a ball, so that nothing can be grasped but spines. In desperation they discharge a urine that is destructive and harmful to their own skin and spines, knowing that they are being captured for this reason. Therefore the art is to hunt them only after they have first emptied their urine, and then the chief value is in the skin which is otherwise ruined, fragile, with rotten and falling spines, even if the creature is still alive when it escapes by flight: therefore it is bathed in that noxious fluid only as a last resort." And shortly after: "When sprinkled with hot water, the ball unrolls, and being seized by one of the hind feet, it is killed by hanging and starvation: there is no other way to kill it while sparing the skin. With this skin garments are polished."
THE VOICE OF THE SINGING BIRD IN THE WINDOW — as if to say: In the windows, now deserted and desolate, little birds will settle and sing. So the Chaldean, the Zurich Bible, Pagninus, and Vatablus. Others interpret: In place of musicians and birds once sweetly singing in the window, the horrible croaking of the raven on the upper post will succeed. But interpreters generally separate and distinguish the singing voice from the raven.
The raven on the upper post — namely will croak with a sad and funereal voice. In Hebrew it is choreb, that is, heat, dryness, desolation, wasteland. So the Chaldean, the Zurich Bible, Arias, Vatablus. Secondly, Aquila translates it sword: because for choreb, with different vowel points he reads chereb: for the sword desolates and devastates everything. Thirdly, the Septuagint and St. Jerome translate raven: because for choreb with chet, they read goreb with ain, or certainly considered chet to stand for ain. For these two letters, being guttural letters of the strongest aspiration, and therefore most similar in sound, are hence from time to time interchanged, just as aleph is interchanged with he, because both are of light aspiration.
Morally, like ravens they sing cras, cras (tomorrow, tomorrow), those who procrastinate the amendment of their life and sound counsels, and put them off from day to day, of whom St. Augustine says in Sermon 16 On the Words of the Lord: "This, he says, is the very thing that kills many, when they say tomorrow, tomorrow, and suddenly the door is closed. He remained outside with the raven's cry, because he did not have the dove's lament. Tomorrow, tomorrow is the raven's call." To such people the poet Martial also thunders, Book I, Epigram LVII:
You will live tomorrow? It is already too late to live today, Postumus. He is wise, whoever, Postumus, has lived yesterday.
The same, Book I, Epigram XVI:
It is not, believe me, wise to say, I shall live; Tomorrow's life is too late — live today.
And Seneca, Epistle 12: "So, he says, every day should be ordered as if it closed the march, and completed and fulfilled life, etc. When about to go to sleep, let us say cheerfully and gladly:
I have lived, and the course that fortune gave, I have completed.
If God adds a morrow, we gladly accept it. He is most blessed, and secure in his own possession, who awaits tomorrow without anxiety. Whoever has said, I have lived, rises each day to profit." St. Marcella did this, of whom St. Jerome says in Epistle 16 to her daughter Principia: "So, he says, she spent her years and lived, that she always believed herself about to die: she put on her garments so as to be mindful of the grave, offering herself as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God." So St. Anthony at his death prescribed to his followers that every morning they should think and persuade themselves that that day would be the last of their life: therefore they should live as if they were to die on that day, as St. Athanasius relates in his Life. From our Society
Father Juan Maldonado, famous for his published books, five times daily placed before his eyes the memory, indeed the presence, of death, and investigated whether there was anything in his conscience that could distress and afflict him at the hour of death; and if he found anything, he immediately removed it through confession, or in whatever way was fitting, and so he always stood ready, at ease and secure, prepared for death. Blessed is he who frequently undertakes this examination of himself about death. Blessed is he who lives as though always about to die, and studies as though always about to live, says St. Jerome.
Symbolically, the funereal raven's cry, Cras, cras (Tomorrow, tomorrow), the slaughter and death which it senses and for which it hungers, not rarely portends things to come, or signifies things already done, as in this passage.
FOR I SHALL WASTE ITS STRENGTH. — The Translator reads arze uzzo, that is, I shall emaciate, I shall waste its strength, that is, of Nineveh. Now they read arza era, that is, I shall strip bare its cedar, as if to say: I shall destroy through the Chaldeans the roofs and woodwork of Nineveh made of cedar: hence they will collapse and fall; so that ravens will sit on the upper posts from the remaining ruin. So the Chaldean, Arias, Pagninus, Vatablus, and others. For the Hebrew arza is both a noun, the same as erez, meaning cedar and cedar timber and paneling, and a verb, meaning I shall waste, from the root raza, that is, he wasted.
Again, for era, that is, I shall strip bare, the Septuagint also read uzzo, that is, its strength, which they interpret as anastema, that is, height. So the Roman edition, or, as the Complutensian has it, anastropha, that is, coronation; for they translate, because the cedar is its height, or coronation, as if to say: Nineveh was surrounded by the tallest and strongest cedar houses, like a crown: but the Chaldeans will strip this crown from it and cast it to the ground. Arias reconciles our text with the modern Hebrew text differently, namely by saying that robur (strength) is the oak, which is a species of arze, that is, cedar. For, as Marinus says in his Lexicon: "The species of cedars are many: teassur, that is, boxwood; tirza, that is, holm oak; algumim, beros, that is, ash; oren, that is, mountain ash; berothim, that is, boxwood." But the former interpretation, which I stated, is truer, as is clear to anyone comparing the words of our Translator with the Hebrew words.
Verse 15
15. THIS IS THE GLORIOUS CITY. — It is an exclamation evoking pathos, as if to say: See to what miseries she has come, into what ruins Nineveh has fallen, that city once glorious and renowned. So Virgil says in Aeneid II:
Troy was, and the great Glory of the Trojans.
So, marveling at the same Nineveh now devastated, Nahum III, 18, exclaims: "Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the pasture of the lion cubs?" So, stunned at Jerusalem's destruction, Jeremiah in Lamentations II, 15: "Is this, he says, the city of perfect beauty, the joy of the whole earth?"
The Septuagint translates: Aute polis he phaulistria: this is that city devoted to evil, wicked and criminal, or more properly, contemptuous, as the Roman translator renders it, and mocking.
EVERYONE WHO PASSES BY HER SHALL HISS — either in mockery, or hissing at Nineveh so humiliated and devastated, as St. Jerome thinks; or rather in wonder and astonishment at such a great calamity and ruin, as Theodoret holds. Similarly he "shall wave his hand," that is, he will clap his hands, or extend them pointing to the ruins of Nineveh, either mocking and insulting, or rather being stunned and feeling compassion.
Tropologically, all the more should anyone who sees Nineveh groan and hiss and clap his hands — that is, any Church, congregation, or soul once beautiful in virtues, which was a temple of God and seat of angels, being devastated by sin through the devil, and becoming a lair of lions and dragons, especially when he sees one destined for heaven being condemned and rushing to the abyss. Groaning therefore and stunned, let him say with Isaiah XIV, 11-12: "How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who rose in the morning? Your pride has been dragged down to hell, your corpse has fallen: beneath you the moth shall be spread, and worms shall be your covering." And with Baruch III, 10: "What is it, O Israel, that you are in the land of your enemies? You have grown old in a foreign land, you are defiled with the dead; you are counted among those who go down to hell." He adds the reason: "You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom. For if you had walked in the way of God, you would indeed have dwelt in everlasting peace. Learn where wisdom is, where strength, where understanding: that you may know at the same time where length of life and sustenance are, where the light of the eyes and peace are. Where are the princes of the nations, and those who rule over the beasts of the earth? Who play among the birds of heaven, who hoard silver and gold, in which men trust, and there is no end to their acquiring? etc. They have been destroyed and have gone down to hell." Ezekiel has similar pathetic laments about the ruin of the king of Tyre, chapter XXVIII, 11; about Pharaoh and the Egyptians, chapter XXXII, 18 ff.; and St. John about the condemnation of Babylon the harlot, Apocalypse XVIII, 10.
St. Jerome takes all these prophecies about Nineveh as referring to heretics and hypocrites: "Who are, he says, hearers of the law, not doers, who boast in vain that they are beautiful, when there dwell in them flocks, that is, a multitude of vices, and brute animals serving the body, and all the beasts of the earth, which devour their hearts; and chameleons, who do not have one color, but are changed from moment to moment by different sins, now by avarice, now by luxury, now by cruelty, now by lust, now by sadness, now by exultation: and hedgehogs in their mangers, a thorny animal full of briars, wounding whatever it touches. And beasts shall lie in holes, that is, in their hearts: and ravens, unclean birds, at their gates, either in their mouth or in their ears, because they either always speak or always hear evil things. After which is in-