Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Lyranus and Arias hold that in this entire chapter the literal sense treats of Christ and Christians, namely that the sins of Christians are accused, which Christ will judge on the day of judgment, when He will condemn the wicked and save the pious. On the contrary, others explain this whole chapter as concerning the crimes of the Jews, for which they were punished with the Babylonian captivity, and their liberation from it, return, and happiness. But the middle way must be taken: namely, at the beginning of the chapter he treats of the Jews, but in verse 8, he transitions to the Christians, whom God will substitute in the Church and in the blessing of Abraham for the impious Jews, and will take them to Himself. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Haymo, Vatablus, and Dionysius.
I say therefore, at the beginning of the chapter he accuses the sins of Jerusalem, and especially the plundering of the princes, the injustice of the judges, the insane oracles and lying promises of the prophets, the impiety of the priests: and that she, although she had seen the neighboring impious nations punished and devastated by God, nevertheless did not repent by their example. Therefore in verse 8, he threatens her and the nations with vengeance, but divine vengeance, namely that God through Christ will destroy paganism as well as Judaism, and will subject all nations, even the most barbarous and remote, to Christ, and will convert them from idols to God, that they may serve Him with one shoulder, as well as the Jews who will receive Him: which will happen especially at the end of the world, when believers will be saved, but unbelievers will be rejected by Him and consigned to eternal fire. and serve Him with one shoulder. 10. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, My suppliants, the children of My dispersed ones, shall bring Me an offering. 11. In that day you shall not be put to shame for all your doings, in which you transgressed against Me: for then I will take away from your midst the proud boasters of your pride, and you shall no longer exalt yourself on My holy mountain. 12. And I will leave in your midst a poor and needy people: and they shall hope in the name of the Lord. 13. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, and a deceitful tongue shall not be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and shall lie down, and there shall be none to make them afraid. 14. Give praise, O daughter of Zion: shout for joy, O Israel: be glad and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. 15. The Lord has taken away your judgment, He has turned away your enemies: the king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst, you shall fear evil no more. 16. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear: O Zion, let not your hands be weakened. 17. The Lord your God in your midst is mighty, He will save: He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will be silent in His love, He will exult over you with praise. 18. The triflers, who had departed from the law, I will gather, because they were of you: that you may no longer bear reproach over them. 19. Behold, I will slay all who afflicted you at that time: and I will save her that limps: and I will gather her that was cast out: and I will make them a praise and a name, in all the land of their confusion. 20. At that time, when I bring you back, and at the time when I gather you: for I will give you a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I shall have brought back your captivity before your eyes, says the Lord.
I say therefore that at the beginning of the chapter he accuses the crimes of Jerusalem, and especially the plundering of the princes, the injustice of the judges, the mad oracles and lying promises of the prophets, the impiety of the priests: and that although she had seen the neighboring impious nations punished and devastated by God, she nevertheless did not come to her senses by their example. Therefore at verse 8, he threatens vengeance upon her and the Gentiles, but a divine vengeance, namely that God through Christ will destroy paganism as well as Judaism, and that He will subjugate all nations to Christ, even barbarous and most remote ones, and will convert them from idols to God, that they may serve Him with one shoulder, as well as those Jews who will receive Him: which will especially happen at the end of the world, when the believers themselves will be saved, but the unbelievers will be rejected by Him and consigned to eternal fire.
Vulgate Text: Zephaniah 3:1-20
1. Woe to the provoking, and redeemed city, the dove! 2. She has not hearkened to the voice, and she has not received discipline: she has not trusted in the Lord, she has not drawn near to her God. 3. Her princes in her midst are like roaring lions: her judges are evening wolves, they left nothing for the morning. 4. Her prophets are senseless, faithless men: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have acted unjustly against the law. 5. The just Lord in her midst will not do iniquity: morning by morning He will bring His judgment to light, and it shall not be hidden: but the unjust man has not known shame. 6. I have destroyed nations, and their corners are laid waste: I have made their ways desert, so that there is none who passes by: their cities are desolate, with no man remaining, nor any inhabitant. 7. I said: Surely you will fear Me, you will receive discipline: and her dwelling shall not perish, for all the things for which I have visited her: but rising early they corrupted all their thoughts. 8. Therefore wait for Me, says the Lord, for the day of My resurrection in the future, because My judgment is to gather the nations and assemble the kingdoms: and I will pour out upon them My indignation, all My fierce anger: for in the fire of My zeal all the earth shall be devoured. 9. For then I will restore to the peoples a chosen lip, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord,
ferred, that the Church would suffer or has suffered these things because she raised herself up in pride." And shortly after: "For where the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit previously dwelt, and His angels presided over their ministries, then beasts shall dwell, about which the Prophet in Psalm LXXIII laments, saying: Do not deliver to the beasts the soul that confesses You." And further: "Let us say that through the soul from which Christ has departed, and which was previously the temple of God and ceases to be so, the serpent passes, and hisses in it, and vomits the poison of his malice, and not only does this, but also moves his works, which are tropically called hands," according to Proverbs XVIII, 21: "Death and life are in the hands of the tongue."
Verse 1
1. WOE TO THE PROVOKING ONE! — In Hebrew morea, that is, the one who makes bitter, who namely embitters God your husband by your adultery, that is, you irritate and provoke Him to anger: for this is bitter and full of gall. Hence the Chaldean translates: Who multiplies provocation with anger; the Zurich Bible: Woe to the rebellious one! For the root mara means to make bitter, to make sour, to offend, to rebel. Hence Naomi: "Do not, she says, call me Naomi (that is, beautiful), but call me Mara (that is, bitter), because the Almighty has filled me with great bitterness," Ruth I, 20. Pagninus and the more recent translators render not the word, but the thing and meaning, when they translate: Woe to the defiled, woe to the polluted one! For she was a provoker of God because she was defiled and polluted with crimes.
The Septuagint translates: Woe to the illustrious one! Others: Woe to the monstrous one! For they derive morea from the root raa, that is, he saw, as if to say: Woe to Jerusalem, which is conspicuous and monstrous in her crimes, namely adulteries, that is, idolatries, and therefore unfaithful and rebellious to God her spouse, provoking Him to bitterness and wrath! The word morea alludes to Mount Moriah, that is, of vision, or illustrious, which was in Jerusalem, of which I spoke at Genesis XXII, 14, as if to say: O Jerusalem, in the time of Abraham and Isaac, who were faithful and obedient to Me even unto death, you were Mount Moriah, that is, of heavenly vision: but now, unfaithful, through disobedience and apostasy you have become morea, that is, bitter and a provoker of bitterness.
AND REDEEMED. — So also the Chaldean and the Septuagint translate, for gaal means to redeem. The more recent Rabbis, and following them Pagninus and the Zurich Bible, translate polluted, or contaminated: for gaal means both: for it alludes to galal, that is, to roll, to roll back: hence gaal means to roll back to oneself a thing that had passed to another, that is, to redeem: and again, to roll and wallow a thing in menstrual blood, dung, or other unclean matter, that is, to pollute and contaminate, as the adulterous Jerusalem wallowed and polluted herself in the filth of idolatry with the various gods of the nations. Our Vulgate translation, as it is more proper, so it is more effective and vigorous. For it reproaches Jerusalem and convicts her of ingratitude, because although she had been redeemed by God from Egypt, and freed from the hard yoke and servitude of Pharaoh in the time of Moses; and likewise from the Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, and other nations in the time of the Judges, David, and Solomon, nevertheless she has very gravely provoked God to indignation by her idolatry and sins, and continues to provoke Him daily.
THE DOVE. — So the Hebrew iona is also translated by the Septuagint and St. Jerome in his Commentary. But the Chaldean, the Rabbis, and following them Pagninus, the Zurich Bible, and Vatablus translate it as molesting one, who harasses, plunders, and oppresses the poor, from the root iana, that is, she caused labor, afflicted, oppressed. More fittingly our Vulgate translates dove: for to this Israel to you." And further: "Let us say concerning the soul from which Christ has departed, and which had formerly been the temple of God but ceases to be so, that the serpent passes through it, and hisses in it, and vomits the venom of his malice, and not only does this, but also moves his works, which are figuratively called hands," according to Proverbs 18:21: "Death and life are in the hands of the tongue." And below: "Let us say that the Church will suffer or has suffered these things because she has lifted herself up in pride." And shortly after: "For where formerly the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwelt, and His angels presided in their ministries, then beasts will dwell, about which the Prophet in Psalm 73 laments saying: 'Do not deliver to beasts the soul that confesses to You.'"
1. Woe to the provocative and redeemed city, the dove! 2. She did not hear the voice, and she did not accept discipline: she did not trust in the Lord, she did not draw near to her God. 3. Her princes in her midst are like roaring lions: her judges are evening wolves, they left nothing for the morning. 4. Her prophets are mad, faithless men: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have acted unjustly against the law. 5. The just Lord in her midst will not do iniquity: morning by morning He will bring His judgment to light, and it will not be hidden: but the wicked one does not know shame. 6. I have destroyed nations, and their corners are laid waste: I have made their streets desolate, so that none passes through: their cities are made desolate, with no man remaining, nor any inhabitant. 7. I said: Surely you will fear Me, you will accept discipline: and her dwelling will not perish, on account of all the things for which I visited her: but rising early they corrupted all their thoughts. 8. Therefore wait for Me, says the Lord, for the day of My resurrection in the future, for My judgment is to gather the nations, and to collect the kingdoms: and I will pour out upon them My indignation, all My fierce anger: for in the fire of My zeal all the earth will be devoured. 9. For then I will restore to the peoples a chosen lip, that all may call upon the name of the Lord, and serve Him with one shoulder. 10. Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, from there My suppliants, the children of My dispersed ones, shall bring Me an offering. 11. In that day you shall not be put to shame for all your inventions by which you have transgressed against Me: for then I will take away from your midst the boasters of your pride, and you shall no longer exalt yourself on My holy mountain. 12. And I will leave in your midst a poor and needy people: and they shall hope in the name of the Lord. 13. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, and a deceitful tongue shall not be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and shall lie down, and there shall be none to make them afraid. 14. Praise, O daughter of Zion: shout for joy, O Israel: rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. 15. The Lord has taken away your judgment, He has turned away your enemies: the Lord the King of Israel is in your midst, you shall fear evil no more. 16. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear: Zion, let not your hands be weakened. 17. The Lord your God in your midst is mighty, He will save: He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will be silent in His love, He will exult over you with praise. 18. The triflers, who had departed from the law, I will gather, because they were of you: that you may no longer have reproach over them. 19. Behold, I will destroy all who afflicted you at that time: and I will save the lame: and her who was cast out I will gather: and I will make them a praise and a name in every land of their confusion. 20. At that time when I shall bring you, and at the time when I shall gather you: for I will give you a name, and a praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I shall have turned back your captivity before your eyes, says the Lord.
Verse 1. 1. WOE TO THE PROVOCATIVE ONE! — In Hebrew morea, that is, "she who embitters," who namely embitters God your husband by committing adultery, that is, you irritate and provoke Him to bile: for this is bitter and full of gall. Hence the Chaldean translates: Who multiplies provocation to anger; the Zurich Bible: Woe to the rebellious one! For the root mara means to embitter, to make bitter, to offend, to rebel. Hence Naomi said: "Do not call me Naomi (that is, beautiful), but call me Mara (that is, bitter), for the Almighty has filled me with great bitterness" (Ruth 1:20). Pagninus and the more recent translators render not word for word, but the substance and meaning, when they translate: Woe to the defiled, woe to the polluted! For she was an embittering of God because she was defiled and polluted with crimes.
AND REDEEMED. — Thus also the Chaldean and Septuagint translate, for gaal means to redeem. The more recent Rabbis, and Pagninus and the Zurich Bible following them, translate it as "polluted" or "contaminated": for gaal signifies both. It alludes to galal, that is, to roll, to roll back: for gaal means to roll back to oneself a thing devolved to another, that is, to redeem; again, to roll and tumble a thing in menstrual blood, dung, or some other unclean thing, that is, to pollute and contaminate, just as the adulterous Jerusalem rolled and polluted herself in the filth of idolatry with the various gods of the Gentiles. Our version, as it is more proper, is also more effective and vigorous. For it rebukes Jerusalem and accuses her of ingratitude, because although she had been redeemed by God from Egypt, and freed from the harsh yoke and servitude of Pharaoh in the time of Moses; as well as from the Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, and other nations in the time of the Judges, David, and Solomon, she nevertheless very gravely provoked God to indignation by her idolatry and sins, and daily provokes Him still.
DOVE. — Thus the Hebrew iona is also translated by the Septuagint and St. Jerome in his Commentary. But the Chaldean, the Rabbis, and Pagninus, the Zurich Bible, and Vatablus following them, translate it as "the oppressor," who harasses, despoils, and oppresses the poor, from the root iana, that is, "she caused to labor, afflicted, oppressed." Our translator more aptly renders it "dove": for to this Israel is likewise compared in Hosea chapter 7:11, saying: "Ephraim has become like a seduced dove." So too Zephaniah here compares Jerusalem to the same, as if to say: Jerusalem, foolishly abandoning the true God and following the vain gods of the Gentiles, has become like a dove, as the Arabic of Alexandria translates, senseless, without prudence, without understanding, which allows itself to be deceived, and of its own accord rushes into the snare and to death. See what was said on Hosea 7. Otherwise St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, and Lyranus say, as if to say: Jerusalem, which formerly, when she worshipped Me, was like a beautiful dove, simple, innocent, and pure white, has now ceased to be a dove and has become like a dark, malignant, thieving, and black crow. Third, the Syriac and the Arabic of Antioch translate: Alas, the well-known and redeemed city, the city of Jonah, that is, Nineveh, which to this day is called by Easterners the city of Jonah, both because Jonah prophesied in it, and because Jonah in Hebrew means "dove," which the Ninevites and Assyrians worshipped, because they said that their queen Semiramis had been transformed after death into a dove, as I have said elsewhere. They therefore hold that this prophecy is directed to Nineveh.
Verse 2
Verse 2. 2. SHE DID NOT HEAR THE VOICE — of God, inviting her through me and other Prophets to repentance and reconciliation: just as a dove, lured and seduced by a bird-catcher, does not hear the voice and whistle of its master calling it back to the dovecote. So the Chaldean, Hugo, and Vatablus.
SHE DID NOT TRUST IN THE LORD. — The Hebrew: She did not hope in the Lord, that is, Jerusalem did not place her hopes in God, but in her own riches, forces, princes, peoples, and allies, as if by these she were unconquerable and sufficiently fortified against the Chaldeans and other enemies. Therefore God permitted her to be captured and laid waste by them, to show that her hopes had been vain, and to punish her distrust in God and neglect of God.
Morally, learn here that it is a grave injury to God, and it greatly stings Him, if we do not trust Him, and turn our hope away from Him and fix it upon creatures. For this distrust arises from a defect of faith, namely that by living faith we do not believe that God is omnipotent, supremely provident, and beneficent, and that He is able and willing to help us if we implore His aid, and that we prefer men or other creatures to Him, as if they could or would more readily assist us: which persuasion is certainly unfaithful and an insult to God. Therefore God is accustomed to punish it, and to cause the creatures in which we hoped to abandon us, deceive us, indeed attack and overthrow us. On the contrary, He prospers those who fix their hopes in Him; for "no one has hoped in the Lord and been confounded" (Sirach 2:11). Therefore Jeremiah 17:5: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a tamarisk in the desert, and shall not see when good comes: but shall dwell in dryness in the desert, in a salt land and uninhabitable. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence," etc. See what was said there.
Thus the Psalmist: "In You, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be confounded." Thus St. Barbara, a frail and tender virgin, when she was being horribly torn by the executioner with iron combs and burned with blazing torches, with her heart and eyes fixed on heaven, invoking Christ her Spouse, said: "O good Jesus, You see the secret of my heart, that I have fixed my hope in You alone: therefore do not abandon me; for without You I am weak and feeble, but with You I am strong and robust. For I can do all things in You who strengthen me." The same was the hope, voice, and prayer in the torments of all the martyrs, which made them unconquerable, and stronger and loftier than fires, lions, hooks, and racks.
SHE DID NOT DRAW NEAR TO HER GOD — so as to hope in Him, to invoke Him, to obey Him, to love Him, who is her and our supreme good. So Plato, in the dialogue entitled Philebus, teaches nothing else than that happiness consists in drawing nearer to God, and drawing true good from Him, and thus becoming divine and most like to God: and that we draw near to God through virtue. For God, he says, is the supreme good, whose conditions are these: that He is self-sufficient, supplying all things to all others, perfect, beautiful, constituted in a harmonious order, the end of all things, and therefore to be chosen and sought by all. He therefore who departs from God, departs from good, and approaches evil, namely sin, death, the devil, and hell.
Verse 3
Verse 3. 3. THE PRINCES. — What he said in verse 4 about the whole, namely that all of Jerusalem is corrupt and wicked, he here explains part by part, and begins from its head, namely from the leaders, both secular and ecclesiastical; to show that what Isaiah said about his own time in chapter 1:6: "From the sole of the foot to the top of the head there is no soundness in it," is still true. First, therefore, he here censures the cruelty of the princes, who like lions despoiled and devoured the people. So St. Jerome. Allegorically, he censures their successors and posterity, namely the tyranny and savagery of the princes and pontiffs in the time of Christ. For the most ferocious lion was Herod the Ascalonite, who with monstrous cruelty killed all the children from two years old and under in Bethlehem on account of Christ, and who, to say nothing of other things, when dying ordered all the chief men of the Jews to be killed, so that the Jews could not rejoice at his death, but would, willy-nilly, mourn over the slaughter of their own, as Josephus reports in Antiquities book 17, chapter 8. Lions were Annas, Caiaphas, and the others, who drove Christ to the cross, and the Apostles to scourging and to death. For they roared when they cried out: "Crucify, crucify!" So Lyranus.
IN HER MIDST — that is, just as a lion rampages in the midst of animals, and seizes and tears apart now this one, now that one, as it pleases; so the princes of Jerusalem plunder now these, now those citizens and poor people.
HER JUDGES ARE EVENING WOLVES, THEY LEFT NOTHING FOR THE MORNING. — From the princes he descends to the judges, who were followers of the princes in injustice and rapacity, as if to say: Just as light-shunning wolves prowl in the evening, and then, rabid with hunger from the day's fasting, they prey and devour the entire prey, so that they do not even leave the bones (for this is what the Hebrew garemu signifies) to eat in the morning; but in the very night in which they hunted the prey, they devour it all; so too the unjust judges by their unjust judgments plundered the goods of the poor with such greed that they left nothing remaining. So St. Jerome takes the evening wolves to mean bad prelates and judges, "who accept bribes and sell justice, and turn the small properties of the Church and the things donated to God into their own profit, so that the poor have nothing to eat in the morning; who as if in night and with no one seeing plunder everything, and with the manner of wolves seize everything, not leaving even small morsels of food for the needy." Who the evening wolves are I discussed at Habakkuk 1:8.
Verse 4
Verse 4. 4. HER PROPHETS ARE MAD. — From the secular magistracy he passes to the ecclesiastical, namely to the prophets and priests, and he rebukes their faithlessness and impiety in their duties; the prophets, because they are mad, that is, they are driven, indeed agitated, not by the spirit of God, but of the devil. Hence Aquila translates "seized by enthusiasm, and struck by fanatical frenzy"; the Septuagint "spirit-bearers" (actively), or rather passively "spirit-borne," with the accent on the antepenultimate, that is, carried and driven by a spirit. In Hebrew it is pochazim, which Pagninus translates "contemptible"; the Zurich Bible, "frivolous"; Vatablus, "men of nothing." For these prophets, since they were the most vile and ignorant, pretended to rave and be driven by the prophetic spirit, or truly, by compact with a demon, seized by him they prophesied as if raving, that is, they spoke strange and outlandish things, as Virgil narrates of the Sibyl in Aeneid book 6:
"Not one expression, not one color remained, her hair did not stay in order; but her breast heaved, and her fierce heart swelled with fury, and she seemed taller, nor sounding mortal, when she was inspired by the nearer breath of the god."
And further:
"The prophetess rages, if she could shake the great god from her breast, all the more he wears out her foaming mouth, taming her fierce heart, and molds her by pressing."
Properly pochazim means rash and headlong men, who boldly and recklessly for the sake of their passions blurt out, assert, divine, and swear anything; for just as pachad signifies precipitancy from fear or reverence, so its cognate pachaz denotes precipitancy from rashness and audacity. Hence our translator aptly renders it "mad"; the Syriac translates: "Her prophets are wanton, shameless"; the Arabic: "Nineveh's prophets are in an unclean spirit, a foolish nation." Hence the same are "faithless men"; the Hebrew, "men of transgressions," that is, transgressors, says Vatablus; the Septuagint, "men of contempt"; the Chaldean, "lying men"; because they lie that they are sent by God, and in His name say: "Peace, peace," and promise all prosperity, when God through me and other Prophets threatens destruction.
THE PRIESTS. — From the prophets he passes to the priests, in whom he censures two things. First, that they profane and pollute "the holy," namely the sanctuary, or the temple, by treating the sacred things and sacrifices unworthily, and diverting them not to God's use but to their own use and luxury, practicing usury, simony, plundering, sacrilege, conducting profane business there, living scandalously. Second: "They have acted unjustly against the law"; in Hebrew chamesu, that is, they have oppressed the law, they have done violence to the law; because they boldly transgress it, violate it, contaminate it, and are the guides and authors, indeed the teachers, of the people to do the same; to such an extent that they pervert the law through their false expositions and traditions fabricated for profit, as Christ reproaches them in Matthew 5:21 and chapter 33:16.
Verse 5
Verse 5. 5. THE JUST LORD IN HER MIDST WILL NOT DO INIQUITY — that is, God, because He is the most just judge, as well as omniscient, will therefore not unjustly but most justly, although most severely, punish impious Jerusalem. That He is omniscient, he rightly proves: because, he says, He is in her midst, that is, God residing in His temple looks all around Jerusalem, and sees all the crimes that are perpetrated everywhere in it: therefore He does not lack knowledge, nor awareness of the crimes, just as He does not lack the power and equity to punish and avenge them. Note the litotes, or meiosis: "He will not do iniquity," that is, He will exercise the highest justice, when He severely chastises so many and such great crimes that are committed in His city before Him and under His gaze. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, Arias, and Clarius. The Chaldean also agrees, who translates: The pure Lord said He would place His majesty in her midst: therefore before Him falsehood is not done, that is, it ought not to be done, as if to say: No one should be so brazen and shameless as to dare to sin in Jerusalem, in the sight and before the eyes of the living God.
For falsehood in Scripture often signifies any sin whatsoever; for sin is a practical lie, which is committed against the law and against the right judgment of reason. Let clerics and religious note this and apply it to themselves, and say: How shall I dare to sin in a Religious house, in a temple, where God resides, where He looks around at everything like a lion with terrible eyes, to tear apart and mangle the violators of the holy place and the despisers of Himself?
Otherwise Vatablus says: "In her midst," that is, God deigns to honor Jerusalem with His presence, His care and familiarity; He dwells in her midst as a companion, friend, indeed protector, guardian, and father; therefore that He punishes her, He does not do out of hatred, but out of love, both for her and for justice: therefore no one will consider Him to be doing injustice when He severely chastises her according to her deserts. Hence it follows:
MORNING BY MORNING (that is, very quickly, says Theodoret. Again, not only secretly, but openly in the morning and manifest light, says St. Jerome, God) WILL BRING HIS JUDGMENT (that is, His just punishment, by which He will chastise Jerusalem, and will bring it forth and) GIVE IT TO THE LIGHT. — Second, "morning by morning," that is, every morning, meaning God daily, and as it were every morning, produces some example of His judgment, by which He now severely punishes and destroys this, now that wicked person; now this, now that nation, and it "will not be hidden," in Hebrew "does not fail," for always some public example is produced to terrify the wicked; and yet "the wicked one does not know shame," that is, he does not know how to blush, but boldly and shamelessly continues to heap crimes upon crimes. So Clarius, Arias, and Vatablus. This sense connects well enough; for future tenses among the Hebrews are often taken for the present, when continuity, custom, and habit are signified; as here "morning by morning he will give his judgment," that is, he is accustomed to give and produce it. But since the passage properly concerns Jerusalem, which is threatened with a future but imminent destruction; therefore the former sense seems more fitting and genuine, according to which explain what follows thus.
BUT THE WICKED ONE DOES NOT KNOW SHAME — that is, the people of Jerusalem are so wicked and impious that they are not ashamed, nor do they repent of their crimes, even though on account of them they hear from the Prophets that judgment, that is, the vengeance of God, is at hand for them, and they see nations like themselves being punished and destroyed by Me for the same reasons, as follows. Otherwise the Roman Septuagint, referring these words to God bringing forth His judgment in the morning, thus translates: He knows not iniquity in exaction, nor injustice in contention.
Verse 6
Verse 6. 6. I HAVE DESTROYED NATIONS. — By "nations," first, the Samaritans can be understood, who were neighbors of the Jews, and had already been cut off on account of idolatry by Shalmaneser and carried away into Assyria, as if to say: See, O people of Jerusalem, what happened to your neighbors and brothers, namely the ten tribes: for the same will happen to you unless you correct your life. For "your own house is at stake when the neighbor's wall is on fire." Moreover, he calls them "nations," not Israelites, both because they had already defected from the ancestral faith, religion, society, and kingdom of Israel and David through schism, and had made a new republic and an idolatrous church, as the Gentiles do; and because after the destruction they had been mixed with the nations, namely with the Assyrians in Assyria, and with the Cutheans in Samaria. For Shalmaneser transferred the Samaritans to Assyria, and likewise the Assyrians, namely the Cutheans, to Samaria, and in this way mixed both peoples together, as is clear from 2 Kings 17.
Second, St. Jerome takes "nations" to mean the Jews whom Sennacherib devastated and destroyed, so that Jerusalem alone remained untouched by him, the angel protecting it on account of the piety of Hezekiah and the prayers of Isaiah, when 185,000 Assyrians were slain (Isaiah 37:36). These are likewise called "nations" because they lived in a gentile and impious manner, as if they were Gentiles, not Jews. For in Scripture the Jews are often called by the names of nations whose worship, customs, and life they imitated. Hence they are now called Amorites, now Hittites (Ezek. 16:45); now Sodomites and Gomorrites (Isaiah 1:10).
Third, properly by "nations" can be understood the Syrians, Armenians, Parthians, and others who lie between or adjacent to Babylon and Jerusalem, whom Nebuchadnezzar, as nearer, first subjugated before invading the Jews, who were more remote. For God wished all of these to be set before the Jews as an example, so that by their slaughter they might come to their senses and return from idols and crimes to God. But in vain; for as preceded: "The wicked one," fixed and hardened in his iniquity, "does not know shame."
Otherwise a Castro: for by "nations" he understands the Philistines, Ammon, Moab, the Ethiopians, and the Assyrians, about whom he spoke in the preceding chapter, verses 4, 8, 11; for although these were cut off by the Chaldeans after the destruction of Jerusalem, yet God had long before predicted and promised their destruction as enemies to the Jews, who had often endured their hostility and plundering. But then the word "I have destroyed" must be taken not properly, but as "I have decreed to destroy, I have predicted and promised that I will destroy," as if to say: I promised you, O Jerusalem, that I would destroy the nations hostile to you, and would destroy their empires, so that you who had not recognized Me through punishments might at least recognize Me through benefits: but you did not care about these promises, or about Me who made them, indeed you despised them.
AND THEIR CORNERS ARE LAID WASTE. — By "corners" he means the citadels and fortifications, which are erected at the borders of regions as outer defenses, for the protection of the region. The Chaldean translates "palaces." Tropologically, St. Jerome says: "I think it also profits the proud to be pulled down from their arrogance, and to have the alleys and corners destroyed, so that afterwards they may walk on a straight path." And shortly after: "Therefore the paths of the proud are laid waste, and their corners, so that they may not walk in pride and perversity, and their cities which had been badly built in arrogance and pride are destroyed, lest they stand and have the worst inhabitants."
Verse 7
Verse 7. 7. I SAID (that is, I warned the Jews through Jeremiah and other Prophets to desist from the idols and crimes of the Gentiles, lest they incur similar punishments and be destroyed like them, and to fear and worship Me, lest) HER DWELLING (should perish) — that is, your dwelling, namely your city, your houses, your temple and your walls, O Jerusalem. For the Hebrews frequently use enallage, changing the second person to the third, and vice versa, especially for emotional effect, as here God, as if indignant, turns His face and speech away from the Jews, and speaks in the third person about those to whom He had begun speaking directly in the second person, who are now to be overthrown for their idolatry, and therefore treated as strangers. I warned them, I say, that they might not perish; because I said I would be content with the punishments by which I "visited," that is, punished them through Shalmaneser and Sennacherib: but so far were they from heeding these warnings of mine and correcting their ways, that at dawn, that is, earnestly, without delay, hastily, they all the more corrupted them and acted worse. For the work that is done at dawn is dear to the heart and is the object of care, and is done earnestly and hastily, since it is before the day and before all the day's works; indeed at dawn all the works of the whole day are usually planned, ordered, and begun. Therefore he emphatically says: "Rising at dawn they corrupted all their thoughts"; the Zurich Bible: all their pursuits; Pagninus: all their works — for these flow from the thinking, planning, and ordering that is done at dawn. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Albert, Hugo, and Vatablus. Otherwise the Septuagint, who join these words with what follows, about which shortly.
Verse 8
Verse 8. 8. THEREFORE WAIT FOR ME, SAYS THE LORD, FOR THE DAY OF MY RESURRECTION IN THE FUTURE. — "WAIT," namely eagerly, pant and gape for Me. For the Hebrew chaca means to pant and gape for a person or thing, in order to seize it: for it is derived from chec, that is, the throat, the palate, which, when it hungers, gapes for food, as chicks with open mouth and throat gape for the food that the mother brings. With equal, indeed greater eagerness the faithful ought to pant after God and Christ, and gape for Him: because He alone is the food, refreshment, and satisfaction of the soul. Again, for "in the future" the Hebrew is lead, which the Septuagint translates "for a testimony," from the root ud, that is, to testify: whence ed, that is, a witness. But Pagninus, Vatablus, and Clarius, following Rabbi David, translate "for prey" or "for spoils," from the root avad, that is, to despoil, to plunder, to pillage. Hence they translate: Wait for Me, says the Lord, for the day when I will arise for spoils, or for plunder, so that it is the same as Psalm 67:19: "You ascended on high, You led captivity captive: You received gifts among men."
Therefore, first, the Chaldean, Cyril, and Sanchez explain these words of the plundering of Babylon by Cyrus, as if to say: Be of good courage, O Jews who are to be led away to Babylon: wait for Me there. For after 70 years I will arise as your avenger, and I will overthrow and plunder Babylon through Cyrus, and I will deliver you from there, so that then, returning home unanimously and joyfully, you may all worship Me with one shoulder, and there may be no unfaithful or impious person among you. But even if this is alluded to, yet at that time God did not pour out His zeal and spirit upon all nations; nor did He cause all to worship Him with one shoulder: on the contrary, shortly after, the Jews were afflicted by Antiochus, and finally overthrown by Titus and the Romans. Therefore the Jews expect these things from their Messiah yet to come; but wrongly and in vain.
Therefore the common opinion of the Greeks and Latins, indeed even of the Hebrews, is that these most august promises pertain to the times of Christ, and have been fulfilled by Him in His first coming, and will be more fully fulfilled in His second. The Prophet therefore leaps here, as is customary, to Christ and the time of the new law. For in Christ, who is the end of the law and the Prophets, Zephaniah, Obadiah, and the other Prophets conclude, and close their oracles. He therefore calls it "the day of My resurrection": First, properly, the third day from Christ's death, on which He rose from the dead.
The sense therefore is: Since I warn you in vain through the Prophets, O Jews, since I cry out in vain for you to return to Me, for this reason I will exercise upon you and upon all the nations a new and divine, not human, kind of vengeance. For I will send Christ, who will subject many Jews and all nations to Himself and to Me, and will compel them to renounce paganism, as well as you to renounce Judaism, and to embrace Christianity, so that all may serve Him and the true God with one shoulder; but the rebellious and unbelieving Jews, indeed the Christ-killers, I will most severely punish and cut off through Titus and the Romans, and having rejected and reprobated them, I will substitute the Gentiles, as stated in verse 9, who will succeed to the blessing promised to Abraham, and will be the sons and heirs of the kingdom of God, namely of the Church both militant and triumphant. Hence Eusebius in his Demonstration of the Gospel book 2, chapter 17, St. Augustine in the City of God book 18, chapter 33, St. Jerome, Remigius, Hugo, Arias, Ribera, and others teach that here are predicted the resurrection of Christ, the rejection of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles.
Second, this will be more fully accomplished in the second coming of Christ for judgment, namely in the universal resurrection, which is called the day of the resurrection of Christ, both because through Christ, and through the grace and power of Christ, all men will rise again — for the resurrection of the Church, as the body, is the resurrection of Christ, as the head; for Scripture, as Ticonius notes in the Rules of Sacred Scripture, attributes to Christ what belongs to the Church, and vice versa, on account of Christ's supreme union with it: for He is the head of the Church, its spouse, father, soul, spirit, and life; and also because the resurrection and glory of Christ will appear to the whole world on the day of judgment, when He will show His judicial power, given to Him in the resurrection by the Father, by which He will judge all nations, as Zephaniah here adds. The sense therefore is: I have often addressed your and other vices, and instills in them the spirit and life of faith, grace, chastity, humility, and the other virtues. Hence He adds:
FOR IN THE FIRE OF MY ZEAL ALL THE EARTH WILL BE DEVOURED. — The Chaldean: For in the fire of My zeal all the wicked of the earth will be consumed: for thus I will convert among all nations one chosen speech, that all may pray in the name of the Lord. This is the zeal of God, by which He fights more against vices and demons than against men; indeed He fights for men: just as a physician fights against the disease, not against the sick person, but for the sick person. This vengeance of God upon sins and demons is therefore mercy and grace toward sinners. See Canon 46, which I prefixed to the Major Prophets. This is the zeal that Christ showed in His first coming, which is properly what is treated here. For in that coming He gave to all nations a chosen lip, He converted the Ethiopians and all nations, etc., as Zephaniah extensively predicts in what follows. But in His second coming He will show the zeal of His wrath against the unfaithful and impious, by which He will condemn them on the day of judgment and drive them into hell, and therefore through the fire of the world's conflagration, which He will send forth, all the earth will be devoured and burned. So Lyranus and Vatablus.
Verse 9
Verse 9. 9. FOR THEN I WILL RESTORE TO THE PEOPLES A CHOSEN LIP (the Arabic: a chosen tongue; Symmachus: Then I will convert among the peoples a pure lip; Aquila and Theodotion: Then I will turn to all peoples a chosen lip), THAT ALL MAY CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD (that is, the name of the Lord, in Hebrew Jehovah, meaning: That all may invoke the true God) AND SERVE HIM WITH ONE SHOULDER. — For "chosen," as our translator, Aquila, and Theodotion render it, the Hebrew is berura (for which the Septuagint read bedoro, that is, "in his generation"), which can secondly be translated as pure, chaste, clean, spotless: so Symmachus, Arias, and the Zurich Bible; the Chaldean translates "clear." The sense is: God through Christ will remove the diversity of minds, religions, idols, and languages, by which this one adored and invoked Jupiter, that one Mars, a third Saturn, a fourth Milcom, a fifth Diana, etc., and He will cause all to unite in the same faith and worship of the one true God, and invoke Him with one chosen, holy, and divine lip, saying: God, who are one in essence and three in persons, namely Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, have mercy on us. For Him alone they will serve with latria, that is, all will worship and adore Him with one shoulder, that is, with unanimous consent, agreement, and harmony. It is a metaphor from porters, who together with one shoulder, as it were, support a great burden: or certainly from oxen yoked together to a cart, who bear its yoke with equal burden, as with one shoulder, and pull it forward with equal effort and pace. Hence the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic translate "with one yoke," namely of Christ, which is sweet, and throws off the many and harshest yokes of the devil. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, the Chaldean, Haymo, Hugo, Vatablus, and others. Newly, John Alba in Electorum chapter 67 says: Lip, that is, tongue, is sometimes taken for law
O Jews, your crimes have been reproved through the Prophets; but in vain: therefore wait for Me as avenger on the day of judgment, when I, rising and as conqueror, will lead after Me all the hosts of those rising, and as judge will sit in the valley of Jehoshaphat, into which I will collect and gather the Jews and all nations, to condemn the unfaithful and unbelieving (then therefore you, O rebellious Jews, will pay the penalty for your rebellion, ingratitude, and obstinacy), but the believing and faithful I will bless and glorify, so that in heaven I may give them a chosen lip, with which they may perpetually praise and bless Me. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Haymo, Lyranus, Clarius, and Vatablus.
Moreover, on both days of resurrection Christ comes for prey, as Pagninus and the Rabbis translate. For in His first coming He plundered the Gentiles and their regions, when He subjected all to Himself through the Apostles, according to Isaiah 8:3: "Call his name" (of Emmanuel, that is, of Christ to be born), "Hasten the spoils, make haste to plunder." Again, on the day of resurrection He plundered limbo and hell: for from there He as victor led out with Himself the souls of the Holy Fathers, that He might lead them with Himself in triumph to heaven. But in His second coming for judgment, He will plunder all the unfaithful and impious, and deliver them to hell. Furthermore, on both days Christ comes for a testimony, as the Septuagint translates; because each day will testify and demonstrate to the world that Christ is the Christ, that is, the Son of God, the judge, avenger, and lord of all. In a similar way God avenged with mercy the unbelief of Ahaz, by promising not so much to him as to his posterity the birth of Christ, His grace, and salvation. "Is it not enough for you to be troublesome to men, that you must be troublesome to my God also? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (Isaiah 7:13-14).
FOR MY JUDGMENT — that is, because I have judged and decreed to gather the nations and kingdoms, and to pour out upon them My wrath and indignation, says Arias and Vatablus, namely by overturning their idols, temples, kingdoms, and customs, and by converting them to the faith, worship, and kingdom of Christ, so that they may submit to Him, and put on His Christian and holy ways, and worship and praise Him with one chosen lip. Therefore some wrongly explain it thus: I will gather the Jews dispersed throughout the whole world for celebrating Passover in Jerusalem, so that in it they may be enclosed, captured, and killed by Titus and the Romans. For the Prophet says the contrary: "That I may gather the nations," not the Jews, "and collect the kingdoms." Hence about the same he adds:
AND I WILL POUR OUT UPON THEM MY INDIGNATION. — This indignation is a divine vengeance, not a human one, as I said: for God avenges Himself in such a way that He destroys enemies by making them friends; He kills the unfaithful by converting them and making them faithful: because namely in their mind and heart He kills impiety, idolatry, lust, pride, and other vices, it is taken. He therefore calls the chosen lip the perfect law, accomplished in every respect, most holy, namely the Evangelical law. For God gave this to all peoples, whereas He gave the Mosaic law to the Jews alone. "And they shall serve Him with one shoulder," that is, with one hand, one consent, or one gift and one sacrifice: for this is called a hand, because it is offered by hand. Finally, "hand" is often used for work, as if to say: They shall serve Him with hands, that is, with holy operations and works, which helping one another harmoniously they will perform as with one and the same hand. So Alba says, symbolically rather than literally.
It is wonderful how powerful and how much one shoulder of all conspiring for the same burden can bear. This can be seen in religious orders, congregations, and families in which spirit and charity flourish. Golden is the saying of King Micipsa, when dying, exhorting his sons to mutual love and assistance: "By concord small things grow; by discord the greatest things fall apart." So Sallust in the Jugurthine War. "Tyrrhenian stone, however large, floats; when broken into pieces, it sinks: thus we are sustained by concord, by discord we sink," says Pliny, book 2, chapter 106. Just as you can easily break individual spears, but not when they are bound together: so you can easily overcome the discordant, but not easily the concordant, says Plutarch in his Moralia. For united force is stronger than itself divided; hence it sustains and overcomes many things which when divided it cannot. Tiresius, asked by Scipio Africanus for what reason Numantia, previously unconquered, had been subjugated and destroyed by him, replied: "Concord provided victory, discord destruction." The Emperor Severus, dying, called his sons Marcus Antoninus and Geta and said: "See to it that you agree among yourselves, enrich the soldiers, despise all the rest." So Xiphilinus in his Life. Agesilaus, asked why Sparta was not surrounded by walls, showed the armed and united citizens: "These," he said, "are the walls of the city." So Plutarch in the Apophthegmata. What does an army of commanders and soldiers united in the same cause not overcome, what does it not surpass? Isaeus the sophist, citing Homer's words: Shield pressed upon shield, helmet upon helmet, and man upon man, said: "Thus stand for me, O Spartans, and we are walled about." So Philostratus in the Sophists.
He alludes to the unity of speech and language, which existed in the state of innocence and the law of nature. For in paradise Adam and Eve worshipped with the same faith, lip, and tongue, namely Hebrew, and their posterity would have worshipped the true God. This lip through the sin and pride of the builders of the tower of Babel was corrupted, defiled, and divided into about 70 lips and tongues, which God then imparted to as many families, as I said on Genesis 11:7. Here therefore God promises that through Christ He will restore that primeval, unanimous, chosen, and pure lip, and He fulfilled this when on Pentecost He imparted the Holy Spirit to the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire, with which they might purely and ardently celebrate the true God, and teach all nations and impel them to worship the same God with the same lip and tongue, so that as with one mouth, as well as mind and faith, they might confess, praise, adore, and invoke Him. The one chosen lip is therefore the one confession of God, praise, invocation, and proclamation.
Furthermore, some add, according to Galatinus in De Arcanis Fidei book 12, chapter 3, that by one lip can be understood the Greek language, in which the Apostles first began to spread the faith of Christ through Greece, Asia, and neighboring regions. For the Greek language, after the empire of Alexander the Great and the Greeks, occupied a large part of the East. Others understand the Latin language, in which all the faithful under the Roman Pontiff worship and invoke God and Christ throughout the world. This is not incongruous nor absurd; for although properly by one lip is signified the uniformity of worship and faith, namely that all will uniformly worship the one God, even though they call upon Him differently in their own languages; nevertheless, consequently, there is also implied a uniformity of language, namely that the Church and Evangelical doctrine, and the faith and religion of Christ, has always flourished in one language, namely first in Hebrew, then in Greek, finally in Latin and Roman; just as before Christ it flourished in Hebrew alone, namely in the family of Eber and Abraham, who alone was chosen by God from all nations for His worship, praise, and service. Hence his language also is called the chosen lip. For the unity of language greatly contributes to the association, union, and unity of the Church, for example the Latin language, which the Latin Church uses everywhere among the nations in the sacrifice and ecclesiastical office, and which all priests and educated men know. For, as St. Augustine says in The City of God, book 19, chapter 7, "the diversity of languages alienates man from man, etc., so that a man would more willingly be with his dog than with a foreign man"; and, as Pliny says, "so that a foreigner is not in the place of a man to a stranger. Hence that diversity of nations and so many languages, etc., which distinguished us from beasts, has made among men themselves another distinction equally great as from beasts," he says in book 11, chapter 51. Therefore Rome, once mistress of the world, "was eager to impose not only her yoke, but also her language upon conquered nations through the peace of society," says Augustine in the same place; so that the Romans made Spain and Gaul entirely Latin, abolishing the ancient languages of those peoples; and in the senate they heard no ambassadors unless they spoke in Latin; namely they were striving that there be one language by which all nations might mutually understand each other. But they were plainly and fully unable to achieve this; for this is the work of a higher and divine power. Therefore the Holy Spirit gave the Apostles the gift of tongues, by which they were understood by all nations, and in turn understood all. God, says St. Augustine on Psalm 54, divided languages at the building of the tower of Babel, "lest by understanding each other they should create a pernicious unity. Through proud men languages were divided; through humble Apostles languages were gathered together. The spirit of pride scattered languages, the Holy Spirit gathered languages together. For when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, they spoke in all languages, they were understood by all, the scattered languages were gathered into one. Therefore, if they still rage and are Gentiles, it is expedient for them to have divided languages. If they want one language, let them come to the Church; because even in the diversity of languages of the flesh, there is one language in the faith of the heart." The same author on Psalm 44, explaining the verse: The queen stood at your right hand in gilded garments, surrounded by variety: "Various languages," he says, "make the variety of the garment of this queen. But just as all the variety of the garment agrees in unity, so also all languages tend to one faith. Whatever the variety of languages may be, one gold is proclaimed, not different gold, but variety made of gold: gold is wisdom. For all languages proclaim the same wisdom, the same doctrine and discipline; there is variety in languages, gold in the meanings."
Anagogically, the Blessed in heaven serve God with one lip, because with harmonious heart and mouth they ceaselessly sing Alleluia, praises, and hymns to God, and jubilate saying: Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, who has called us to a share in the lot of the saints, indeed of the blessed. "Blessing and brightness and wisdom and thanksgiving, honor and power and strength to our God for ever and ever, amen" (Revelation 7:12). And: "You have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation: and You have made us a kingdom and priests to our God: and we shall reign upon the earth" (Revelation 5:9).
Arias, a Castro, and Galatinus in the cited passage add that the Blessed in heaven will praise God in the same language which was primordial in paradise, and is therefore called holy, especially because in it the ancient Sacred Scripture was written, namely Hebrew, on which see what was said on 1 Corinthians 13:8.
Tropologically, a faithful person has a chosen lip when he sincerely confesses to God and speaks holy things that pertain to God, when he conducts conversations about pious matters, when he soothes the angry, consoles the afflicted, and converts sinners. To this the Prophet opposes in verse 13 the deceitful tongue.
Verse 10
Verse 10. 10. BEYOND THE RIVERS OF ETHIOPIA. — There is a threefold exposition here, which nevertheless coalesces and ends in one common and universal meaning. For some by this phrase understand Egypt; others Abyssinia and Africa; others India. First, Egypt lies beyond the waters of the Nile, which rises in Ethiopia and from there flows down into Egypt, as if to say: The Egyptians will be converted to Christ and will bring Him offerings. A Castro adds that the Hebrew chus, that is, Ethiopia, does not signify in Scripture the Ethiopia below Egypt, which is now called Abyssinia, where Prester John reigns; but Arabia, in which among others dwelt the Midianites, who in Scripture are called Ethiopians. Hence of Pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea it is said in Psalm 73:14: "You gave him as food to the peoples of the Ethiopians," namely to the Arabs dwelling along the Red Sea. For Cush the son of Ham, who gave his name to Ethiopia, never entered Egypt or Abyssinia, but with his sons Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, Sabteca, and Dedan, established his dwelling between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea. This tract of land is therefore called Cush, that is, Ethiopia, namely Arabia, in which is the Gihon, a river flowing from paradise. The river Trajan, Lake Sirbonis, the Arabian Gulf, and also the man-made canals called Dioryges, all of which Scripture comprehends under the name of rivers. Moreover, beyond these rivers is Egypt. Therefore Zephaniah seems to speak here of Egypt, as does Isaiah chapter 18:1. These are from a Castro. But his reasoning is not conclusive. For all of Ethiopia is called Cush in Hebrew, even though Cush the son of Ham with his immediate sons did not inhabit all of it; just as the same region is called Ethiopia from Aethiops the son of Vulcan, if we believe Pliny, book 6, chapter 30, even though Aethiops occupied not the whole but only a part. Therefore, just as the Abyssinians are called Ethiopians in Greek and Latin, so the same are called Cushites in Hebrew. For Tirhakah king of the Cushites, that is, Ethiopians, seems to have come from Abyssinia (2 Chronicles 14:9). And Nebuchadnezzar after laying waste to Egypt devastated the neighboring Ethiopia, namely Abyssinia (Isaiah 20). And St. Jerome, Augustine, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Anselm, Toledo, Barradius, Ortelius, and others, cited by Fr. Pineda in De Rebus Salomonis book 5, chapter 14, section 5, number 21, hold that the Queen of Sheba came from Abyssinia to Solomon; finally, although the sons of Cush dwelt near the Red Sea, yet their posterity spread as far as Ethiopia, since it was nearby. Hence the king of Ethiopia formerly extended the borders of his kingdom to the Red Sea. For from whom were the Ethiopians descended, if not from the posterity of Ham and Cush?
Second, St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, Hugo, Emmanuel, and Ribera properly take Ethiopia here to mean that which is below Egypt in Africa, namely Abyssinia; for this was near, known, and famous to the Jews. Thus the sense will be: The Africans, who are beyond the rivers of Ethiopia with respect to Judea and Egypt, indeed even the more distant peoples situated across the sea, such as the Brazilians, Peruvians, Mexicans, and all the West Indians, will be converted to Christ and will bring Him offerings.
Third, others, whom a Castro favors, think that here Eastern India is indicated, as far as Japan and China; for the rivers of Ethiopia here are said to be the Tigris and Euphrates, which first flow through Chaldea (where Nimrod son of Cush reigned) and Mesopotamia, then through the middle of Arabia, which, as I said, is called Cush in Scripture, that is, Ethiopia, beyond which rivers lies all of Asia and India as far as China. The Chaldean agrees, who translates: Beyond the rivers of India; and Arias and Vatablus, who explain these words of the Indians, as if Indian Ethiopia is meant here, whose rivers are the Tigris, Indus, and Ganges, which, although more unknown to the Jews in Zephaniah's time, is nevertheless very well known to Christians, to whom Zephaniah prophesies. Hence the Sabaeans are also Indians, as well as Persians, Arabs, and Abyssinians, as Pererius teaches from Beroaldo and Dionysius on Genesis chapter 25:5.
The sense therefore is: The Eastern Indians, Japanese, and Chinese will be converted to Christ, and will come as suppliants to the Church, bringing their offerings, as has been done in this century, and as we see happening daily. This opinion is supported by the fact that some sons of Cush, such as Havilah, dwelt toward India, and that St. Cyril, Theodoret, Procopius, and others, cited by Pineda in the passage already cited, number 23, call the Sabaean nation "Indian Ethiopia." Finally, the Portuguese, who subjugated and converted the East Indians, Japanese, and Chinese, sail to them by going around Ethiopia, indeed all of Africa. In their regard, therefore, the Indians can be said to be situated beyond Ethiopia and Africa. In sum, by this phrase Zephaniah means to say that the most remote nations, such as the Ethiopians and those who dwell beyond Ethiopia, whether Arabian, African, or Abyssinian, namely the Garamantes and the Indians, are to be converted to Christ. For the Jews considered the Ethiopians to be the last of men, according to the saying of the Poet: "And the Morini, the most remote of men." Properly and precisely, however, by Ethiopia Zephaniah understands not that which is below Egypt, namely Abyssinia, but the Arabian, as a Castro said in the first exposition. For he alludes, as I shall say shortly, to the Jews led through Arabia into Babylon and dispersed throughout the entire East, whom Cyrus brought back, and much more Christ, into Jerusalem, that is, into the Church, to offer offerings, vows, and sacrifices to the true God. Nevertheless, by these he understands, by analogy, any peoples and nations beyond Ethiopia, scattered in India and at the farthest edges of the world. For he predicts that all of these will be converted to God through Christ and the Apostles. So Mariana and others.
FROM THERE MY SUPPLIANTS, THE CHILDREN (so read the Roman editions, although St. Jerome in his Commentary reads "daughter") OF MY DISPERSED ONES SHALL BRING ME AN OFFERING. — Pagninus, the Zurich Bible, and Vatablus, following Rabbi David as usual, translate thus: Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia the Atharaei, the daughter of Putsai, shall bring me an offering, as if Atharaei were the name of a people descended from a people called Putsai, who would bring an offering to the Lord. But neither Scripture, nor Josephus, nor anyone else mentions these peoples. Therefore our translator, the Chaldean, Symmachus, the Septuagint, the Zurich Bible, and others take these names not as proper names of a people, but as common nouns. For Atharai in Hebrew means "suppliants," and putsai means "dispersed." Hence from the Hebrew you may translate word for word with St. Jerome: Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants (who are) the daughter of the dispersed (that is, the assembly and congregation of the dispersed; or rather daughter, that is, the dearest progeny, namely the dearest children of the dispersed, as our translator, Symmachus, and others render it) shall bring an offering to me, which St. Jerome explains thus: O Israel, O Synagogue once my daughter, whom I have now dispersed throughout the whole world, although you envy, although you are tormented by jealousy, nevertheless from Ethiopia victims will be brought to Me, that is, from the Gentile people. But the Vulgate reading has "sons," not "daughter," which reading does not admit this sense.
I say therefore: The Prophet alludes to the Jews led away by the Chaldeans into Babylon and dispersed through the East, whom God brought back to Jerusalem through Cyrus, who there offered their sacrifices in thanksgiving to the Lord. Hence the Chaldean translates: From beyond the rivers of India with mercies shall the captivity of My people who were led captive return, and they shall bring them there as offerings. But by these, whom he only briefly touches upon, he means any peoples dispersed throughout the whole world, even the most remote dwelling in the Indies. For of these he predicts that through the preaching of the Apostles, and through the calling and grace of Christ, they will come to the Church, and in it will offer their vows and gifts to the Lord. For this is what St. John says in chapter 11:51: "He (Caiaphas) prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not only for the nation (of the Jews), but that He might gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad." So Hugo, Arias, Clarius, and others. Secondly, with Theodoret, the "dispersed" could be taken as the Apostles: for Christ dispersed these throughout the whole world; their sons are the apostolic men and preachers who succeeded the Apostles in the office and zeal of converting souls, as if to say: The Apostles, and the apostolic men who will succeed them, will convert even remote and barbarous nations, such as the Ethiopians, Indians, Japanese, Chinese, etc., and will offer them as a gift, indeed as a holocaust most pleasing to God, as St. Paul did, who says in Romans 15:16: "That I may be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, sanctifying (in Greek leitourgon, that is, sacrificing) the Gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be made acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit." Therefore the Chaldean and the Septuagint translate in the accusative case; the Chaldean indeed: They shall bring them there as offerings; the Septuagint: I will receive my dispersed ones, they shall bring me an offering. Let therefore the Xaviers, the Gaspars, and their followers, who with great spirit, labor, and zeal seek the Indies, congratulate themselves; let them know that they are the successors, posterity, and sons of the Apostles; let them consider that they are offering to God a gift and holocaust most pleasing to Him, namely the souls of unbelievers created in God's image, for whom Christ assumed flesh and immolated Himself on the cross to the Father; let them know that they are fulfilling what is lacking of the labors and sufferings of Christ in the Church; let them know that they are propagating His kingdom to the uttermost ends of the earth.
Mystically, Christ leads the Ethiopians beyond Ethiopia into brightness, when He brings the unfaithful and those blackened by vices to faith, chastity, and virtue; for then He "cleanses all the blackness of the soul," says St. Jerome, "and the foul color, and the poison of the dragon with which we had been stained by vices and sins, restoring to us a chosen lip, that is, a clean and bright one; and He causes us to leave behind in the rivers of Ethiopia the teachers of perverse doctrines by which we were formerly irrigated, and with those formerly dispersed of Israel to bring offerings to Christ." So St. Augustine in Confessions book 9, chapter 2, says that by the example of Victorinus and others, whom God had made bright from dark, he was pierced as by divine arrows and burned to convert his own blackness of unbelief and lust into the purity of faith and a chaste life. Let therefore whoever is penitent and justified say with him: I was an Ethiopian; God in baptism, whether of water or of tears, has washed me white: He has restored to me in place of a black garment the bright garment of innocence, indeed the very skin; I was black, now I am bright and beautiful, because I have washed and whitened the garment of my conscience in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14). Thanks be to God, who has called me out of darkness into His marvelous light: henceforth I will live not in an Ethiopian manner, but brightly, and I will follow that word of the Apostle: "You were once darkness: but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light: for the fruit of light is in all goodness and justice and truth" (Ephesians 5:8).
I once dwelt beyond the dark rivers of Ethiopia, namely beyond the waters of the Nile, which because it is turbid and muddy is called in Hebrew sichor, in Greek melas, that is, "black"; when I was living in dark gloom and ignorance of God; when the surges and motions of anger, pride, gluttony, lust, and other dark desires flowed into me. But Christ by His grace has led me beyond these rivers to the bright waters of the Jordan, and there has washed and whitened me by baptism: He has placed me in Jerusalem, that is, in the Church, and in the quiet of a pure conscience, where the rushing of the river makes glad the city of God; where the bright rivers of grace, love, chastity, and other virtues will flow and rain from heaven into my soul.
Verse 11
Verse 11. 11. IN THAT DAY YOU SHALL NOT BE PUT TO SHAME. — He speaks to Jerusalem, that is, to the Jews who do not remain in Judaism, but receive Christ and believe in Him, as is clear from verse 13, as if to say: O Jerusalem, now you are confounded and ashamed on account of the idolatry and crimes by which you have transgressed against Me. But come, lift up your face, hope for better things: the Messiah promised to you will come, who will wash away all your crimes with His blood in baptism, and will adorn you with His grace, so that now appearing not sordid but beautiful and gracious in the sight of God, of the angels, and of men. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Hugo, and Lyranus.
Otherwise Vatablus says: Christ will come who will pour out His grace upon you, by which it will happen that you will strive for good works and avoid all the sins by which you previously used to transgress against Me.
FOR THEN I WILL TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR MIDST THE BOASTERS OF YOUR PRIDE. — He gives the reason why through Christ the confusion of Jerusalem will cease; because Christ will take away from her pride, which is the mother and origin of all crime and confusion, and therefore He will take away "the boasters of your pride"; the Septuagint: contempt, mockery, derision, your insults; because the proud praise and flattery of the boasters is in reality nothing other than mockery and insult; the Chaldean: the lots of your glory; the Zurich Bible: those who insolently exult in you; Pagninus: those who exult in your pride, that is, who exult and rejoice on account of your dignity, excellence, and magnificence, says Vatablus, and who extol, trumpet, and proclaim it with boastful speech. He censures the proud and supercilious princes of the Jews, especially the Scribes and Pharisees, says St. Jerome, Remigius, Hugo, and Lyranus, who with full cheeks proclaimed the excellence, wisdom, religion, sacred rites, and temple of Jerusalem, and boasted of themselves as its teachers, priests, and princes, and despised all other nations, and especially Christ Himself. For these fostered the pride and arrogance of the people of Jerusalem, from which all evil arises. Hence this arrogance made them incapable of the faith, grace, and salvation of Christ. Christ removed these, and substituted for them the humble Apostles, who would teach the people of Jerusalem modesty and humility, which is the cause of all good; because it wins the grace of God and of men, and is therefore the first disposition for receiving the doctrine, justice, and salvation of Christ. Hence He adds:
YOU SHALL NO LONGER EXALT YOURSELF ON MY HOLY MOUNTAIN. — The holy mountain is Zion, on which the temple stood; for the Jews perpetually boasted of themselves on account of the temple, and said: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" (Jeremiah 7:4). Christ removed this boasting when He destroyed this temple through Titus and the Romans, and when on Zion He established His Church, to which He transferred and enrolled believers from the Jewish temple, in which as in a school of humility He teaches the Jews lowliness of mind, so that in faith and religion they may not set themselves above the Gentiles, as they are accustomed to do; but may humbly with them submit to the grace of Christ, which calls and justifies Gentiles as well as Jews, excluding circumcision and the Mosaic law, through which the Jews thought themselves justified; but falsely, as the Apostle teaches in his epistles to the Romans and Galatians. So Remigius, Haymo, Hugo, and Lyranus. Morally, learn here that pride displeases God everywhere, but especially in a holy place, namely the Church or a religious community, that is, if clerics and religious contend for the first place.
Verse 12
Verse 12. 12. I WILL LEAVE IN YOUR MIDST A POOR AND NEEDY PEOPLE — that is, in place of the boastful and proud Scribes and Pharisees, I will give you My Apostles and poor disciples, both properly so called — for the first believers, leaving all their goods, followed Christ and the Apostles as poor people — and poor, that is, meek and humble, as the Septuagint and Theodoret translate, for poverty is the friend and mother of humility. The Chaldean translates: those enduring violence and insult, just as the Apostles and disciples suffered harsh words as well as beatings for the faith of Christ. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Vatablus, Arias, and others.
Verse 13
Verse 13. 13. THE REMNANT OF ISRAEL SHALL NOT DO INIQUITY (that is, the first faithful and Christians called and gathered from Israel by Christ, and they were few, especially the Apostles, will be so holy that they will guard against all sin, that is, mortal crime — and even deliberate venial sin — deceit and falsehood, indeed they will abominate them): FOR THEY SHALL FEED AND SHALL LIE DOWN — in the fold of Christ, namely in the Church, where like sheep they will be fed by Christ the shepherd with doctrine and divine and heavenly grace, which will make them holy, as well as safe and secure, inasmuch as they have placed all their hope in Christ, from whom they know they are governed, fed, protected, and filled with all good things, both in this life and more so in the future. So St. Jerome, Remigius, and others.
Verse 14
Verse 14. 14. PRAISE, O DAUGHTER OF ZION. — He calls the primitive Church the daughter of Zion. For Christ gathered her from the Jews on Zion, and so caused the old Zion to pass into the new, namely the Synagogue into the Church. For the old and new Church is the same, that of the Jews and that of the Christians. For the Jews before Christ believed in Christ to come: while the Jews called by Christ believed in Christ now present. Therefore the Church of both is the same; because the faith, hope, charity, justice, glory, and blessedness of both are the same; and the same Christ governs, justifies, and blesses both. For this reason the Church of Christ is truly and properly called the daughter of Zion; because it took its origin from the Jews on Zion, which if modern Jews would consider and grasp, they would no longer be Jews but Christians.
The Prophet therefore, foreseeing the happiness of the Church to be established by Christ, exhorts her to exult and rejoice with all her heart as she contemplates it. Hence the Chaldean translates: Sing hymns, congregation of Zion, and exult, Israel: rejoice and be glad with all your heart, congregation of Jerusalem; the Septuagint: Rejoice, daughter of Zion, proclaim, Jerusalem; exult and delight (the Zurich Bible: exult) with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem. He adds the reason for such great joy and jubilation: Because, he says, Christ will take away from you all evil and will confer all good. For first:
Verse 15
Verse 15. 15. THE LORD HAS TAKEN AWAY YOUR JUDGMENT. — By "judgment" he means the sins for which judgment, that is, condemnation and punishment, was deserved, and which was adjudged or certainly to be adjudged to her. It is a metonymy. So St. Jerome. Second, "judgment," that is, the condemnation and punishment itself, meaning: Christ will take away from you and wash away in baptism all guilt and the punishment of preceding crimes. Hence second:
HE HAS TURNED AWAY YOUR ENEMIES — namely the demons and vices: for Christ will free you from their miserable servitude, and will break their strength, so that not they over you, but you over them may have dominion. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, and others. Hence the Chaldean translates: He has uprooted your enemies; the Septuagint: The King of Israel has redeemed you from the hand of your enemies; Pagninus: He has emptied out your enemy; the Zurich Bible: He has warded off your enemies, that is, turned away, expelled, cast out; for averruncare is said from "averting," says Varro, and from runca, which is an instrument of vine-dressers by which they turn away and cut off the shoots of vines. Hence Averruncus was for the pagans a god who warded off evils, that is, turned them away. So Varro, book 6. Our Averruncus is Christ, of whom St. Anthony, as St. Athanasius testifies, used to say: "When the Lord came (Christ in the flesh), the enemy was destroyed, and all his strength withered." Hence the Prophet adds a third thing about Him:
THE LORD THE KING OF ISRAEL IS IN YOUR MIDST — that is, Christ the Lord, who is the King of Israel, that is, of the faithful people, is in your midst, O Zion, O Church, to rule you as king, feed you as shepherd, nourish you as father, love you as spouse, and defend and protect you as captain. Hence, secure under His wings and arms, "you shall fear evil no more," because He will either drive it away from you, or give you strength to overcome it, so that you may endure diseases, exiles, martyrdoms, and any adversities not only patiently, but even cheerfully, and in them may glory and exult with St. Paul. So St. Jerome. Therefore, driving home and emphasizing this same point, he adds a fourth thing:
Verse 16. 16. DO NOT FEAR; ZION, LET NOT YOUR HANDS GROW WEAK — on account of tribulations and persecutions that arise, but generously overcome and despise them, so that God may delight and rejoice over you and your piety, love, constancy, and victory. He adds the reason: Because "the Lord your God in your midst is mighty, He will save." What then should you fear, you who have so mighty a leader? What should you dread, when Jesus, that is, the Savior, indeed salvation itself, fights for you?
Hence He adds a fifth good and endowment, saying:
Verse 17. 17. HE WILL BE SILENT IN HIS LOVE. — Thus it must be read with the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the Roman editions, not "your" love, as some read. Now there is a threefold exposition here. First: God will be silent about your past sins, which you formerly committed; He will not bring them up again, He will not reproach you with them, indeed He will not even mention them, but will wrap them in silence, erase and abolish them, because He will love you. So St. Jerome and Remigius; hence the Chaldean: He will hide your offenses in His mercy, meaning: If the soul, polluted by adultery, that is, by crime, returns to the grace of God her Spouse, He will not remonstrate with her about the past injury, since it has been forgiven; but rather He will say what Christ said to the Magdalene: "Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much." Another in the Royal Bibles: With joy He will subject your crime to mercy, that is, He will subject the crime to His mercy. Hence Cassiodorus on Psalm 31: "O ingenious simplicity, and purity more cautious than much equivocation, to reveal one's fault! For those who have condemned themselves by their own confession, Christ is not judge but advocate." Second: "He will be silent," that is, He will be stable and firm in His love for you; He will always love you, and by no chance or event will He ever revoke or diminish His love; but as a stone rests at the center, so Christ will be silent and rest in His love for you. Third: When in temptations, afflictions and labors, He will often be silent, will dissemble and allow you to be afflicted, to labor and sweat, because He loves and chooses you for great glory and a crown. So St. Anthony, fiercely scourged, wounded, and pierced by a crowd of demons invading him in various forms of lions, wolves, bulls, serpents, scorpions, leopards, and bears, when "undaunted he endured with watchful mind," says St. Athanasius, "he saw a ray of light flowing toward him. Immediately he understood the presence of the Lord, and drawing long sighs from the depths of his breast, he said: Where were You, good Jesus? Where were You? Why were You not here from the beginning to heal my wounds? And a voice came to him: Anthony, I was here, but I was waiting to see your contest. Now, however, because fighting manfully you did not yield, I will always help you, and I will make you renowned throughout the whole world." So St. Catherine of Siena, bravely repelling and overcoming the flames of lust sent by the demon, after her victory deserved to see Jesus, and when she complained: Why, Lord, did You abandon me in this battle? she heard: I did not abandon you, for I was in your heart, and I held it firm and strengthened it, lest it yield and consent to the enticements. We read similar things in the Lives of the Saints. The Septuagint translates: He will renew you in His love, meaning: He will love you with a new love, as if you were another person and a new bride newly wed to Him, and He will inspire in you that you in turn may love Him with new love and fervor, and strive to accomplish and endure greater and more heroic things for Him. Learn here that tribulations, if the faithful soul endures them bravely for the love of Christ, unite and betroth the soul anew, as it were, to Christ, so that as a new bride she may say to Him with Zipporah the wife of Moses: "You are a bridegroom of blood to me because of the circumcision" — because of tribulations (Exodus 4:25).
HE WILL EXULT OVER YOU (God and Christ) WITH PRAISE — praising your patience, your struggle, your victory, and the grace of the Eternal Father, which He gave you for these things. The Septuagint translates: He will rejoice over you with delight, that is, delightfully, and He will greatly rejoice and delight in you; the Zurich Bible: He will exult over you with jubilation; Vatablus: He will exult over you with song, meaning that from joy and gladness He will seem to sing. It is a metaphor from people who show their joy with gestures.
Morally, note how Christ and God delight in our virtue and endurance, so that He seems to exult, sing, and jubilate. Who therefore would not strive for good works? Who would not suffer any hardships for love of Him, to offer and present to His God and His angels this delight, this joy, this jubilation? So Christ declares that there is joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance (Luke 15:7). So St. Paul exhorts the Hebrews in chapter 13:16 to works of charity, that they may please God by them: "Do not forget beneficence and fellowship: for by such victims God is won" (the Syriac scaphar, that is, He is pleased, delighted, gladdened). And Isaiah 62:3, 4, and 6: "You shall be a crown of glory in the hand of God, etc. You shall be called 'My delight is in her,' etc., because the Lord was pleased with you, etc. Your God shall rejoice over you." And chapter 65:19: "I will exult in Jerusalem and rejoice in My people." And Moses, exhorting Israel to keep God's law: "The Lord will turn back, he says, to rejoice over you in all good things, as He rejoiced in your fathers" (Deuteronomy 30:9). And the Psalmist: "The Lord shall rejoice in His works" (Psalm 103:31). And Psalm 44:9: "Myrrh and aloes and cassia from your garments: from which the daughters of kings have delighted you in your honor." Finally, the Apostle rouses the Romans in chapter 12:1: "I beseech you, brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, etc." So the martyrs rejoiced in their martyrdoms, because they offered themselves to God as living victims, in which He supremely delights, as a sweet fragrance. Hence Tertullian in Apologeticum chapter 50, speaking of the martyrs' struggle and "victory, says it has both the glory of pleasing God and the prize of living forever." And St. Cyprian, book 4, epistle 1, to Rogatianus and the other confessors imprisoned and candidates for martyrdom: "What is more joyful and sublime than now to kiss your mouths, which have confessed the Lord with a glorious voice? O blessed prison, which your presence has illuminated, etc., where now the temples of God are established, and your members sanctified by divine confessions!" Let therefore the humble, patient, poor, obedient person say: I will humble myself to the abyss, I will suffer hardships, I will endure hunger and thirst, I will obey unto death, so that by my humility, patience, poverty, obedience, etc., I may gladden and delight my God, so that I may set this sweet feast before Him, so that I may feed and delight His eyes with this spectacle. For if servants do the same for their cardinals and princes, what is it fitting for me to do for the Lord my God?
Pagninus translates differently, namely: He will cause you to exult in praise, meaning: God will cause you to exult in tribulations and labors, so that you may give Him thanks for them, and praise and jubilate to Him, as the three youths did in the Babylonian furnace (Daniel 3:51). Hence St. Jerome: "He will exult over you in praise, either because you are praiseworthy, or because you sing to Him with your praises."
Verse 18
Verse 18. 18. THE TRIFLERS, WHO HAD DEPARTED FROM THE LAW, I WILL GATHER. — For "triflers" the Hebrew has the same word nuge, for which the Septuagint translates diescorpismenous, that is, "broken ones." The translator in the Royal Bibles renders it "the dispersed"; Aquila, "the transferred"; the Chaldean, "those who tarried among you during the times of your solemnity"; Pagninus, "those afflicted with grief"; the Zurich Bible, "those torn away from a place I will gather"; Vatablus thus translates and explains: those afflicted with sorrow from the appointed time, that is, the Jews who were already wearied with the tedium of waiting for the appointed day of the coming, not of Cyrus, who would free them from Babylon (as Theodoret holds), but of Christ, I will gather into the Catholic Church; others translate: squalid, sorrowful, afflicted; for nuge is derived from iaga, that is, to grieve, to suffer, to be afflicted. Hence Clarius expounds these words of the resurrection, as if to say: Those consumed with squalor and dead, who have departed from the established assembly of men, I will raise up in the resurrection, and will gather them into the valley of Jehoshaphat, thence to heaven. But St. Jerome holds that nuge is the same as the Latin nugae ("trifles"), and that the Latin word is derived from the Hebrew nuge. Again, the Hebrew moed means the same as "appointed," "decreed," or "testimony," that is, the law. Therefore nuge mimmoed means "triflers," that is, sinners and frivolous persons, who for trifles, that is, for the most trivial and deceitful reasons and pleasures, depart from the law of God and prefer them to God. He refers to the Jews, who for trifles, that is, the trivial goods of the earth, departed from the law which they had promised to keep; and who on account of their trivial traditions spurned Christ, whom the law pointed to. So Xenarchus calls poets trifles in Athenaeus, book 6: "Furthermore, the poets themselves are trifles." For these are nightingales perching on trifles, about which Pliny speaks in book 10, chapter 29. And Aristophanes in the Clouds calls Socrates a high priest of trifles, as the author of frivolous subtleties. Plautus also calls trifles of the theater the daily insults that were hurled at prostitutes, pimps, and parasites by the actors of comedies. Cicero, book 6, To Atticus, epistle 31: "His friends are mere trifles." And book 1, To his brother Quintus, epistle 38, he calls trifles men of no worth, and plainly ridiculous: "I embraced," he says, "the greatest trifles with every courtesy." The ancient lexicographers treat these four as equivalents: nuga, nuga, nugax, nugalor; and interpret them as worthless, good-for-nothing, base.
Hear St. Jerome: "The triflers, or, as Aquila translates, the transferred, who departed from you, I will gather; because they were of you: that is, those who through vices and sins had fled from your bosom and had come under the power of demons, when the condition of all is restored, will come to you, and you will no longer suffer reproach over your lost sons. What we have called nugae (trifles), let us know that in Hebrew it is the same Latin word (namely nuge), and therefore we have left it as it was in the Hebrew, so that we may know that the Hebrew language is the mother of all languages."
For properly nuge signifies the sorrowful, those consumed with grief, the squalid, as our translator renders it in Lamentations 1:4, and the wasted, who seem to be shadows rather than men: thence by catachresis it means the cast-off, the worthless, and those of no value, which is what trifles are. That this is so is clear from Isaiah 51:23, where it says: "And I will put it in the hand of mogaich (which, like nuge, descends from the root iaga), that is, of those who humiliated you," as our translator, the Septuagint, and the Chaldean render it. And in Lamentations 3:33, the Septuagint translates the same word as "humiliated"; our translator as "cast off": therefore moge in the active Hiphil means "humiliating"; while nuge in the passive Niphal means "humiliated, despised, worthless, and triflers." For St. Jerome asserts this, who received it from the Hebrews, and he is certainly to be believed, even though this meaning is not elsewhere found expressly stated. For the Hebrew language has been greatly cut down, and is not found in pure form except in Sacred Scripture. Moreover, just as in Latin the word nugae alludes to non ago ("I do nothing"), as if to say: Trifles are things that accomplish nothing; so also the Hebrew nuge alludes to en iaga, that is, "he does not labor." Therefore both in Latin and in Hebrew, triflers are said to be men and frivolous things who for trifles, that is, for the most trivial and deceitful reasons and pleasures, depart from the law of God and prefer them to God.
The Jews are fittingly called trifles. First, because they are the most abject and worthless of mortals, as can be seen in Rome, whose "basket and hay are their furnishings," as the Poet says: hence they are contemptuously called verpi, apellae, recutiti, trifle-sellers. Therefore this is the voice of the Jews in Wisdom 2:16: "We are esteemed as triflers," in Greek eis kibdelon, that is, as spurious, or as dross, or as rust, as if to say: We are esteemed as bastards, or as refuse and trifles. So Emmanuel and Mariana, who interpret nugae as lost men.
Second, because the Jews abound in trifles and fables. Hence the Hebrew nuge can be derived from haga, that is, to chatter, to murmur, to tell stories. For by God's just judgment it happened that, since they departed from truth, the law, and Christ, they fell into errors, fables, fabulists, and impostors. Rabbi Solomon and other Rabbis, as well as the Talmud, so abound in these things that they seem to be patchworks of fables, which the miserable common people believe as if they were oracles. From these and other newly invented fictions Mohammed pieced together the Quran, which is like the law and Sacred Scripture of the Turks and Saracens. Truly the Psalmist says in Psalm 118:85: "The wicked told me fables, but not like Your law." Heretics do the same; for when they depart from the true faith and law of God, they go off into errors and fables. Well known from Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius, and others are the fables of Simon Magus, Saturninus, Carpocrates, Montanus, Marcion, the Gnostics, the Manicheans, and the Valentinians, who invented thirty aeons as if they were gods, but in reality were prodigies of names rather than divinities.
Morally, learn from this the corruption of human nature through sin, by which it loves trifles more than serious and useful things, to such an extent that men are here called by the Prophet not triflers, but the very trifles themselves. Splendidly St. Jerome says in his Preface 12 on Isaiah: "There is no writer so unskilled that he does not find a reader like himself; and far greater is the portion of those who turn over the Milesian tales than the books of Plato: for in the one there is play and amusement, in the other difficulty and sweat mixed with labor. The Testament of Grunnius Corocotta the Piglet is chanted in schools by troops of cackling boys"; and indeed it still survives in libraries, as in our own Roman library among the ancient inscriptions, in which the Piglet, about to be slaughtered by the cook, thus distributes his bequests: "To my father Verrinus Lardinus I bequeath thirty bushels of acorns, and to my mother Verrina Scropha I bequeath forty bushels of husks, and to my sister Verrina thirty bushels of barley. And from my entrails I will give to cobblers bristles, to brawlers headbutts, to the deaf little ears, to lawyers and the verbose a tongue, to sausage-makers intestines, to boys loins, to runners muscles, to hunters ankles, to thieves hooves," etc. I relate these things both so that St. Jerome's reference to this testament may be understood, and to give an ancient example of the trifles the Prophet speaks of, by which we may see how trifling is the nature of man, who has preserved these trifles through so many centuries.
Pliny, book 30, chapter 2: Apion, he says, having summoned Homer from the underworld, asked him nothing else than in what country and from what parents he had been born. So certain people, even men of the highest rank, having convened a council of the most serious men, consult about mere trifles, that is, about idle and frivolous matters. Moreover, the greater part of mankind and its gatherings are occupied with trifles; it is trifling, trifle-bearing, and trifle-selling. Martial, who is so avidly read and thumbed by many, what is he but the father of jests and trifles? Hear him about himself at the beginning of book 9:
"I am he who is second to none in the praise of trifles: Whom you do not admire, but, I think, reader, you love."
Hear the Satirist in the poem titled "Trifles":
"Accept: there is a price for trifles, and the clever buyer hardly hopes for more profit from other merchandise. For in human life, without trifles there is no pleasure. Witness will be the one who chatters trifles to a charming friend, Pyramids are trifles, the wonders of the world are trifles. The nightingales' better years are spent in trifles. The great school of philosophers lives and dies in trifles. Trifles are pleasant to the eyes, theaters are to be viewed for trifles. Beauty is a brief trifle, but one that is said to have overthrown Troy, etc. Nobility is a distinguished trifle, and the origin of a race traced from Promethean ancestors and the blood of Pyrrha. Captivated by trifles was the dolphin that carried Arion. Mercury boasts of trifles, Apollo boasts of trifles. Remove trifles, and you will remove all poems: The eloquent Cicero will become a speechless infant. We seek trifles in the blood of the Tyrian shell. Ambrosia and nectar are trifles, banquets of the gods. Crystals formed by Riphaean frost are trifles. Trifles are the amethyst, onyx, beryl, jasper, agate, And a trifle the pyrope trembling with fire-vomiting brilliance; Fame promising a name enduring after death, And vows are trifles; trifles the fortune that bestows proud riches and governs the world with a nod."
Seneca, book 1, epistle 1: "A great part of life," he says, "slips away from those who act badly, the greatest part from those who do nothing, all of it from those who are doing something else." And Cato: "It is better to be idle than to do nothing." He does nothing who occupies himself with trifles and frivolities. The emperor Domitian, according to Suetonius in his Life, while bearing the burden of so great a Roman empire, when he should have been handling the most important affairs, often spent many hours catching flies: hence when people asked who was with Domitian, the answer was: "Not even a fly," because he killed both men and flies, so that no one else remained. Therefore he in turn was killed by his steward Stephanus. The emperor Heliogabalus had all of Rome searched for spiders, and their webs collected and weighed, so that he might know how great was the weight and number of them all. So many today turn business into leisure, serious things into trifles. Do you pursue glory, do you pursue honor, do you pursue a prelacy? You are catching a fly. Do you pursue gluttony and lust? You are catching a putrid spider. Do you pursue silken, golden, purple garments? You are catching spiderwebs. Are these not trifles? Yet in these things many voluntarily waste and cheerfully consume the time that God has given us for earning eternity. Truly the Wise Man says: "The fascination of trifling obscures what is good" (Wisdom 4:12), meaning: The spell of vanity and trifles obscures those things that are truly good and honorable. For the appearance of the pleasure that is in trifles and the vanity of sin fascinates the mind, so that it does not see or consider this frivolity and the ugliness of sin, just as it does not see the beauty and excellence of virtue. Truly men seem bewitched, and their mind dazzled by the enticements of creatures as if by conjuring tricks, while like brutes they rush into their pleasures and delicacies, even though they know that through them they are rushing into hell and eternal fire. Wisely Aeschines says in epistle 5: "To regard very trifling things as very important is the mark of a certain pusillanimity and ignorance." St. Augustine confesses and laments that this happened to him as a young man in Confessions, book 8, chapter 11: "The trifles of trifles," he says, "and the vanities of vanities, my former girlfriends, held me back." Let us shake off with St. Augustine these trifles of trifles, and fix our mind and life on heavenly and true goods, on true strength of soul and magnanimity, on contempt and disdain for all worldly things, on the exercise of arduous and heroic virtues.
Moreover, how much trifles are to be avoided by the faithful, St. Bernard teaches with grave censure: "Trifles," he says, "if they arise, are perhaps sometimes to be endured, but never to be repeated. Frivolity must be carefully and prudently interrupted. One must indeed break out into something serious, which they may hear not only usefully, but also gladly, so that they may desist from idle things." So the author of the Life of St. Bernard, book 3, chapter 3. The same in his Apology to Abbot William: "Nothing of the Scriptures, nothing of the salvation of souls is discussed, but trifles, and laughter, and words are spoken into the wind. While dining, the ears are fed with rumors as much as the throat with food." The same, in On Conversion, to the Clergy, chapter 12: "It is an entirely frivolous, empty, and trifling consolation, and I know not what worse curse I could wish upon him, than that he should always have something to seek, who, fleeing the peace of pleasant rest, delights in restless curiosity. It is clear even from this very fact that there is no delight in all these things, of which only the passing is pleasant. Truly it is vain labor that is undertaken through the pursuit of vanity. O doxa, doxa, says the Wise Man (namely Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, book 3, prose 6), among thousands of mortals it is nothing other than a vain puffing up of ears." Famous is that saying of Astydamas:
"Garrulity is the perambulation of the tongue. You pursue trifles when you philosophize at the wrong time."
And that saying of Euripides:
"You indeed have a fluent tongue, like a wise man, But in your words there is no mind."
Nicostratus aptly calls these triflers and chatterers "swallows." Clement of Alexandria speaks seriously and truly in The Instructor, book 2, chapter 5: "Since all words emanate from thought and character, it cannot happen that any ridiculous words are uttered that do not proceed from ridiculous character. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." St. John Chrysostom, explaining Ephesians 4:29: Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth, says: "Whatever kind of heart each person has, such words he speaks and such works he does." Therefore light and frivolous words and deeds are signs of a light and frivolous mind. Wherefore St. Basil in his Exhortation to a Spiritual Son says: "Do not wish to jest continually like a child, because it does not befit one who strives for perfection to jest like a child." St. Thomas Aquinas gave these two signs by which one can recognize whether someone has advanced much in virtue: "If you see someone delighting in light words and trifles, and bearing it ill when he is despised, know that he is not perfect, even if he works miracles." For which reason St. Jerome says: "Happy is the tongue that knows how to weave discourse only about divine things." And St. Basil in his treatise On Renunciation of the World: "If futile conversations are being held, do not pay great attention to them; but if you hear mentioned things pertaining to the salvation of the soul from the divine Scriptures, let whatever is spoken about worldly things be bitter to your taste, and on the contrary, let the things narrated by men who cultivate piety be like honeycombs."
In the Lives of the Fathers, book 3, number 36, it is related of a certain holy man in the monastery of St. Pachomius, who, when conversation among the monks was about Sacred Scripture and holy things, saw "angels rejoicing with a cheerful countenance: for they delighted in the words of the Lord. But when they spoke about anything else among themselves, immediately the angels departed farther away, indignant against them; and the most filthy pigs, full of disease, came and wallowed among them. For the demons in the form of pigs delighted in their superfluous and vain talk. The blessed elder, seeing these things, went away to his cell, and through the whole night with great weeping and wailing groaned and lamented our miseries. He said therefore: Beware, brothers, of much speaking, and restrain your tongue from idle conversations, by which the evil destruction of the soul is generated; and we do not understand that through these things we are hateful both to God and to the holy angels."
St. Hugo, abbot of Cluny, who lived in the time of St. Anselm, and was seen by angels being carried to heaven together with him, often warned Durannus, Bishop of Toulouse, to restrain himself from the trifles and ridiculous words to which he was accustomed; otherwise he would appear after death with swollen lips and a foaming mouth. "The Bishop did not correct himself: hence, after he died, he appeared to a certain priest named Signinus, and, as the saint had foretold, he displayed a face with ulcerous swollen lips. He tearfully sought the help of the Father whom he had refused to hear. Signinus reports to the Father what he had seen; the abbot takes pity, and hastens to heal the excess of the mouth by the silence of seven brothers. He selects seven brothers, to whom he prescribed seven days of silence for the Bishop. One of them transgresses and breaks the silence. The Bishop returns to Signinus, accuses the broken silence, complains about the transgressor, and blames the delayed healing of his mouth on the disobedience of the seventh. When Signinus again reports this to the father, the abbot investigates the transgression. The transgression is found, and another seven days is dedicated to silence. When this was completed, the prelate appeared a third time, giving thanks to the abbot; clothed in a pontifical robe, he showed that his mouth was healed." Therefore St. Hugo, avoiding trifles more than before, dealt with serious matters: "He diligently devoted prayer to God, reading to himself, and counsel to his neighbor. He utterly abhorred falsehood and pretense; he condemned sloth and idleness; he fed the poor with a generous hand; he comforted the sick with pious solicitude; he consoled the afflicted; he protected orphans and widows. He was severe toward the vicious, most mild toward the penitent; a judge in the castigation of discipline, a teacher in doctrine, a parent in charity, a minister in service. He was indeed so attentive to many things that he seemed hardly less devoted to each individual," says Hugo, his contemporary, in his Life.
THAT YOU MAY NO LONGER HAVE REPROACH OVER THEM. — For the trifles and the trifling Jews and sinners are a reproach not only to themselves, but also to their mother, namely Zion. Again, among the nations it is a reproach to you, Zion, that you are of such little virtue and zeal that you could not convert these sons of yours to Christ as you did the others; therefore this reproach will be removed when, with the inspiration of God's grace, you convert them with greater zeal.
Verse 19
Verse 19. 19. I WILL DESTROY ALL WHO AFFLICTED YOU — that is, I will destroy your persecutors, O Zion, O Church of Christ, namely the Jews through Titus and the Romans. So Lyranus and Vatablus. And the Gentiles, such as Nero, Aurelian, Decius, Maximian, Diocletian, etc., I will destroy through the Romans, Persians, Goths, and fully through Constantine the Great. So Theodoret, Remigius, and Haymo; and finally on the day of judgment, I will punish with eternal death all the impious without exception, your enemies.
AND I WILL SAVE THE LAME (namely the people, not so much the Jewish, who inclined partly to Moses, partly to Christ, as Arias holds, but the Christian people in the primitive Church, who, fleeing persecutions, went into remote mountains, forests, and cities, and, wearied by the toil of pilgrimage, limped. Hence follows): AND HER WHO WAS CAST OUT, I WILL GATHER. — The Zurich Bible: and her who was dragged far away I will collect. For the Jews cast Christians out of their synagogues; the Gentiles out of their cities and places, as if to say: I will gather the Church, namely the assembly of the faithful cast out by persecutors, and will restore them to their city, place, and homeland, so that there they may be in honor, praise and glory, where before they were subjected to confusion, reproaches, and beatings. This was accomplished through Constantine. So Theodoret, Remigius, and Vatablus.
Mystically, God gathers the limping sinners, who had adhered now to God, now to the devil, now to Christ, now to the flesh and the world. And who had therefore been cast out from God's grace and house, when He efficaciously calls them to Himself, and firmly binds them to Himself, as He called and bound St. Mary Magdalene.
Verse 20
Verse 20. 20. AT THAT TIME. — Repeat: "I will destroy all who afflicted you, and I will save the lame," etc.
WHEN I SHALL HAVE TURNED BACK YOUR CAPTIVITY — by which in the primitive Church you, O Christians, under Jewish magistrates and Gentile emperors were as captives and oppressed: for I will cause through Constantine that you attain freedom, indeed that you rule over the unbelievers, and occupy their temples, and publicly worship Christ gloriously and magnificently. So Lyranus and Vatablus. Second, this captivity can be understood as the servitude of the devil and of sin, from which Christ brings us to the freedom of the children of God through grace in this life, and through glory in the next, where after many labors and struggles, He will free us from the servitude of the body, of afflictions, and of death, and will bestow upon us heavenly crowns and honors, and will bless us for eternity. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Hugo, and others.