Commentary on Jeremiah 0.1–1.21

After the explanations of the twelve prophets, Isaiah, Daniel and Ezekiel, I am putting the final hand to Jeremiah, and I send you, brother Eusebius, short commentaries on him, dedicating them to you so that you may join the evangelical man to Matthew the evangelist, whom I expounded many years ago in condensed form at your urging. And because the volume is very long, and in most places the history it holds is plain, I warn your prudence not to look here for a broad explanation, especially of things that have already been said in the other prophets and are clear to the understanding of themselves. So I shall try to write by the hand of secretaries in such a way that nothing is lacking in the sense, though much is lacking in the words. I will prepare for you the warp and the woof and the threads; you yourself must make the most beautiful garment, so that you may be able not only to hear us but also to teach others. The little book of Baruch, however, which is commonly joined to the edition of the Septuagint and is not found among the Hebrews, and the pseudepigraphal Letter of Jeremiah, I have decided not to expound at all. Rather, I have decided to set in order from the Hebrew sources the order of Jeremiah, confused by the error of copyists, and to fill in the many things that are missing, so that you may hold a new prophet made from the old one, and a true one in place of one corrupted and falsified, making light of the rage of detractors who slander not only the words but even the syllables of our words, thinking they know something if they disparage other people's works. So recently an unlearned slanderer has burst out who thinks my commentaries on Paul's letter to the Ephesians should be censured, and, snoring in his excessive madness, does not understand the laws of commentaries, in which many opinions of different people are set down, with their authors' names either suppressed or stated, so that it is the reader's judgment to decide what he ought chiefly to choose; though in the first book of that same work I said in a preface that I would state either my own views or others', and that the commentaries themselves belong as much to the ancient writers as to us. Not seeing this, his forerunner Grunnius once tried to pick it to pieces, and I answered him in two books. What this man brings out as if it were his own has also already been cleared, when another made the charge; to say nothing of the volumes against Jovinian, in which he is pained that virginity is preferred to marriage, marriage to a second marriage, and a second marriage to many marriages. Nor does this most stupid man, weighed down with the porridge of the Scots, remember that we said in that very work: “I do not condemn those twice married, nor even those thrice married, and, if it can be, those married eight times; I will add something more: I receive even a fornicator who repents. Whatever is equally permitted must be weighed in an equal balance.” Let him read the apology for that same work, which Rome gladly received many years ago against his master, and then he will notice that he blasphemes with other people's voices, and is so unskilled that he does not even have curses of his own, but uses against us the rage of enemies long since buried. But now the work set before us must be undertaken.

[1] “The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin; to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign; and it came in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the carrying away of Jerusalem in the fifth month.” The other prophets, such as Isaiah, Hosea and Joel, were before the captivity of the ten tribes of Israel or of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin; others after the captivity, such as Daniel, Haggai and Zechariah; but Jeremiah and Ezekiel wove their prophecy while the captivity was impending, one of them in the land of Judah, the other in Babylon. Jeremiah began to prophesy while still a boy, in the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, and he prophesied under his rule for nineteen years, and afterwards under Jehoiakim his son for eleven years, and under Zedekiah, who was the last of the kings of Judah, for eleven years, until the fifth month, when Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians. The three months each of Jehoahaz and Jeconiah, one of whom was led into Egypt and the other with his mother into Babylon, are counted in the years mentioned above. And so from the beginning of his prophecy to the captivity of Jerusalem, in which he too was taken captive, he prophesied for forty-one years, besides the time when he was led into Egypt and prophesied there in Tahpanhes, as this very volume contains. For “the words of Jeremiah” the Septuagint put “the word of God which came to Jeremiah”, with this sense, namely, that “the words of Jeremiah” are the word of the Lord. He was of the race of priests who lived north of Jerusalem, at the third milestone, in the little village of Anathoth. And at the same time there is the wonderful mercy of the Lord: when captivity was already near and the Babylonian army was besieging Jerusalem, he nonetheless calls the people to repentance, preferring to save those who turn rather than to destroy those who offend. For “carrying away”, which all the others translated with one voice, the Septuagint put “captivity”. After the beginning of Jeremiah's prophesying, in the thirty-fifth year of his prophecy, Ezekiel began to prophesy in Babylon to those who had been taken captive with him.

[2] “And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came out of the womb I sanctified you, (I gave you as a prophet to the nations).” Not that Jeremiah existed before his conception, as heresy suspects, but that the Lord, for whom things not yet done are already done, foreknew that he would exist, according to what the apostle says: “who calls the things that were not as though they were.” That he is sanctified in the womb we must take according to that saying of the apostle: “But when it pleased him who set me apart from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the nations.” John the Baptist too is sanctified in the womb, receives the Holy Spirit, is moved in the womb, and speaks through his mother's mouth. And when he said, “I gave you as a prophet to the nations”, he means us to understand what we shall read later in this prophet: that he prophesied not only to Jerusalem but also to many nations round about. Some understand this place of the Saviour, who was properly the prophet of the nations and through the apostles called all nations. For he truly, before he was formed in the virgin's womb and before he came out of his mother's womb, was sanctified in the womb and known to the Father, since he is always in the Father and the Father always in him.

[3] “And I said: Ah, ah, ah, Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am a boy.” The Septuagint: “And I said, O Lord God, I do not know how to speak, for I am young.” He shrinks from an office which on account of his age he cannot bear, with the same modesty with which Moses too says that he is of thin and feeble voice. But Moses, as a man of great and robust age, is rebuked; to this one pardon is given for his boyhood, which is adorned with modesty and shame.

[4] “And the Lord said to me: Do not say, I am a boy; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” “Do not consider your age,” he says, “for you have learned through another prophet: ‘a man's grey hair is his wisdom’; only let there be will in you to go; you will have me as companion, and with my help you will accomplish everything: ‘open your mouth, and I will fill it.’ And do not consider the multitude of those to whom and against whom you are to speak, but me, who am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” Now the Lord delivers, not so that the prophet is free of persecutions and distresses, since we read that he suffered much, but so that by enduring he may overcome everything and not give way to distress.

[5] “And the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: Behold, I have given my words in your mouth.” It is to be noted that here the hand of God is sent to touch the prophet's mouth, and it is said to him: “Behold, I have given my words in your mouth”, whereas in Isaiah it is written: “And one of the seraphim was sent to me, and in his hand he had a coal, which he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said: Behold, this has touched your lips, and it will take away your iniquities and cleanse your sins.” For there, because he was of firm and mature age and himself simply confesses that he has unclean lips and dwells in the midst of a people having unclean lips, one of the seraphim is sent, to touch his mouth not with a hand but with tongs and a coal, and to take away iniquities and cleanse sins. Here, however, the very hand of God is sent, through which he made all things, and which in another place is called his arm, not to take away sins, which in his boyhood he had not committed many of, but to give the grace of speaking. Ezekiel, again, devours a book written inside and out, containing both divine mysteries and plain history. Jeremiah's mouth is touched and the words of the Lord are given, so that he may receive confidence in preaching. And fittingly, according to the letter, a hand is sent, so that, seeing the likeness of human limbs, he may not dread the touch of the hand.

[6] “Behold, I have set you today over nations and over kingdoms, to root up and to pull down and to destroy and to scatter, and to build and to plant.” This, which we have added from the Hebrew, “scatter” or “put down”, is not found in the Septuagint. And it should be considered that two glad things follow four sad ones. For good things could not be built unless evil things had been pulled down, nor the best planted unless the worst had been rooted up. For “every plant which the heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up”, and the building which has no foundation on the rock but is built on sand is undermined and pulled down by the word of God. That which Jesus will consume by the breath of his mouth and destroy by the coming of his presence, namely every sacrilegious and perverse doctrine, he will destroy for ever. Further, the things that are raised up against the knowledge of God and trust in their own wisdom, which with God is foolishness, he will scatter and put down, so that in their place humble things may be built, and in place of the higher things which have been pulled down and rooted up, there may be built and planted the things that befit the truth of the church; and so that what the apostle says may be fulfilled: “You are God's building, God's field.” Many understand this place of the person of Christ. For “Jeremiah” is interpreted “exalted of the Lord”, who pulled down the kingdoms of the devil, which the devil had shown him on a high mountain, and destroyed the hostile powers, blotting out the handwriting of errors on the cross. Of these the psalm too speaks, after the historical sense: “Why have the nations raged, and the peoples devised vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together.” In place of these, rooted up, pulled down, destroyed and dragged down to lower things, the church of God is built and planted. But about the person of Jeremiah there is no doubt; for we read in what follows that he receives in his hand a cup full of wine and is ordered to give it to drink to all the nations round about.

[7] “And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said: I see a watching rod. And the Lord said to me: You have seen well, for I will watch over my word to perform it.” For “watching rod” the Septuagint translated “a rod of nut wood”. We must therefore take pains that the Latin reader may briefly understand the Hebrew word-play. “Saced” means “nut”, while “watch” or “watchful” or “to watch” is called “soced”. Hence in later passages too the watching leopard is put with this name. So from what is called “nut” the name played, through the likeness of the word, on the meaning of “watchful”. This indeed is also written in Daniel according to Theodotion, where from the trees schinos and prinos, that is, the holm-oak and the mastic, splitting and sawing asunder is decreed for the adulterous elders. Otherwise too, at the beginning of Genesis, from “man”, which is said “is”, woman is called “issa”, as it were a “virago”, because she was taken from man. For “rod of nut wood” Aquila and Symmachus translated “watching rod”, but Theodotion “of almond”. The rod watches, observing all the people's sins, to strike and rebuke offenders. Hence the apostle too writes to those who sin: “What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?” This is the rod or staff of which David too speaks: “Your rod and your staff, they have comforted me.” And he fittingly put “have comforted”: for the Lord rebukes in order to amend. And just as the nut or almond has a very bitter rind and is enclosed in a very hard shell, so that when the harsher and hard parts are removed the sweetest fruit is found, so all rebuke and the labour of self-control seems bitter for the present, but bears the sweetest fruits. Hence too that old saying: “the roots of learning are bitter, the fruits sweet.” Some understand the watching rod, the rod of nut wood, of the Lord, of whom Isaiah says: “A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse.” Hence also Aaron's rod, which was thought dead, is related to have blossomed, at the resurrection of the Lord.

[8] “And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying: What do you see? And I said: I see a boiling pot, and its face is from the face of the north. And the Lord said to me: From the north evils will be opened (or: will blaze up) upon all the inhabitants of the earth.” Torments are given to sinners by certain steps, so that little by little they may come to salvation: those who would not be amended by the striking rod are put into a bronze, boiling pot, of which Ezekiel writes more fully. It is kindled from the face of the north, signifying the Babylonian king and the city of Jerusalem. And it is fittingly added: “from the north evils will blaze up upon all the inhabitants of the earth”, either of the land of Judea or certainly of the whole earth. Of these it is also written in the Apocalypse: “Woe upon all the inhabitants of the earth.” For the saints are not inhabitants of the earth but strangers and sojourners, one of whom says: “I am a stranger on the earth and a sojourner, like all my fathers”, and another: “My days are few and evil, in which I sojourn on the earth.” Hence Peter too writes his catholic letter to the strangers and sojourners of Pontus, Galatia and Cappadocia. And according to the mystical senses Solomon says: “The north wind is a hard wind, but by name it is called favourable”, namely by those who have grown stiff with its cold and lost the warmth of faith.

[9] “For behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord; and they will come, and each will set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem and upon all her walls round about and upon all the cities of Judah. And I will speak my judgments with them concerning all the wickedness of those who have forsaken me and have poured libations to strange gods and have worshipped the work of their own hands.” No one doubts that many nations and the kings of the individual nations were subject to the Babylonian king; when Jerusalem was besieged, they set their thrones and tents round about it, especially at the exits of the gates, so that none of those who were shut in could break out; and not only Jerusalem but all the cities of Judea were surrounded by a like siege. “And when”, he says, “the city has been taken, then I will speak to them, that my judgments were right and each received what he deserved, not for the other vices to which the human condition is subject, but above all for idolatry, through which, forsaking me, they worshipped the works of their own hands.” Some take this place in a good sense, namely that those who have been cooked through in the bronze pot by torments and purified are afterwards princes of Jerusalem, and that after the Lord has had mercy on them, he then reproaches them for having forsaken him and worshipped images. But this is a forced and perverse interpretation: let not an unlearned expounder make false charges. [10] “You therefore gird up your loins and arise, and speak to them all that I command you.” Job is commanded to gird his loins, and the apostles, with girded loins (which Elijah and John the Baptist mortified with leather girdles), to hold lamps in their hands, namely of the gospel preaching. Whoever, then, is going to speak the words of God ought to gird his loins, knowing that all the devil's power is in the loins, and that the righteous man says in the psalms: “My loins are filled with mockeries.” And when he has girded his loins, let him hear what is written: “Arise, you who sleep, and rise up, and Christ will give you light”, so that, always watching and rising from sleep, he may speak what God has commanded him. [11] “Do not be afraid of their faces; for I will not make you fear them”, or, as the Septuagint and the other translators have it: “lest perhaps I make you fear.” And the sense according to our translation is: “Do not be afraid of their faces; with me as your helper you will not be able to fear them”; according to the Septuagint: “Do not be afraid of their faces; have confidence in my command; for if you do not offer what you have, so as to cease from fearing, I will forsake you and hand you over to fear, and in a way I shall seem to make you afraid, when I leave you to dread.” This signifies that truth is always bitter, and that the multitude of men is not to be feared, who when rebuked do not bear correction but lay snares for the one by whom they are corrected. And what follows in the Septuagint, “for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord”, is not found in the Hebrew here. And the sense is: “I will deliver you, not in that no one will lay snares for you, but in that by enduring the snares you will not fall into sin.”

[12] “For I have made you today (or: behold, I have set you this day) a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall over all the land: against the kings of Judah, its princes and priests and the people of the land. And they will fight against you and will not prevail, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.” The divine word describes why the prophet ought not to fear. “I”, he says, “have set (or: given) you today”, that is, in the present life, while it is called today, “as a most firm city”: not as a single house, nor a tower or some walls, but a whole city, which, set on a mountain, cannot be hidden, of which it is written: “Glorious things are spoken of you, city of God”, and: “I am a strong city, a city besieged.” “And an iron pillar”, he says, of which the apostle writes: “the pillar and bulwark of the truth.” Hence Peter and John, who were reputed pillars of the church, gave to Paul and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship. Nor is this enough, but “a bronze wall”, he says, which is harmed by no rust, nor perishes when beaten by rains, but grows stronger with age. And you will be such against kings and princes and the people, not of any place you like, but of the land: those who mind earthly things and do not know heavenly things, who bear the image of the man of dust and not of the heavenly man. These, he says, “will fight against you and will not prevail.” Why, I ask? What is the cause of such great strength, that neither kings nor princes nor priests nor peoples prevail against one man? It follows: “For I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.” If ever the kings of Judah (which is interpreted “confession”) and its princes and priests and peoples, that is, bishops and presbyters and deacons, and the common, base and ignoble crowd, wish to rise against a holy man, let him have firmness of faith and cease to fear, for with the Lord's help he will overcome.

[13] “And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying.” This is not found in the Septuagint, but was added under asterisks from Theodotion's edition. He interpreted the Hebrew word “carath”, for which we said “cry” or “proclaim”, as “read”; for because of its ambiguity it signifies reading and crying out and proclaiming. The ears of Jerusalem we should take as the ears of its inhabitants.

[14] “Thus says the Lord: I have remembered you, pitying your youth and the love of your betrothal, when you followed me in the wilderness, in a land that is not sown.” The Septuagint: “Thus says the Lord: I have remembered the mercy of your youth and the love of your perfection.” This is said more fully in Ezekiel, when the Lord joins Jerusalem to himself in marriage and, in the figure of a wife, unites her to his embraces; or, to show a more ardent affection, he calls her a girl, a young maiden, and betrothed: for what we have not yet possessed we desire the more, in order to possess it. “When”, he says, “you followed me in the wilderness, and, like betrothal gifts and a dowry, I distributed to you the ornaments of the law and the necklaces of words.” And he refers all this not to her merit but to his own mercy, through which love also followed. This too, which we have set down, “in the wilderness, in a land that is not sown”, is not found in the Septuagint.

[15] “Israel is holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of his harvest; all who devour him will offend; evils will come upon them, says the Lord.” When he calls Israel the first-fruits of the Lord's harvest, he shows that the people gathered from the nations came after the first-fruits, according to what is written in another place: “Remember your congregation, which you possessed from the beginning.” First-fruits are owed to the priests and not to enemies. What follows, “all who devour him will offend; evils will come upon them, says the Lord”, has this sense: as those who devour the first-fruits, not being of priestly stock, are guilty of a crime, so those who defile Israel will be subjected to evils, according to what the holy man says in the twenty-sixth psalm: “While the wicked draw near against me to eat my flesh, those who afflict me, my enemies themselves have been weakened and have fallen.” For they will not be immune from punishment just because they carry out God's sentence, and evils will come upon them; “for it must be that offences come, but woe to him through whom the offences come!”

[16] “Hear the word of the Lord, house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: What iniquity did your fathers find in me, that they went far from me and walked after vanity and became vain?” Another prophet too bears witness to this sense: “My people, what have I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Answer me; for I brought you out of the land of Egypt and freed you from the house of slaves.” Both names, Jacob and Israel, are put, not according to the two and the ten tribes, but for the whole people, since Jacob himself was afterwards called Israel. He traces the offence from the fathers, not that the sins of the fathers are imputed to the sons, but that the sons, bearing the likeness of their fathers, are punished both for their own and for their parents' crime. We often read that God has mercy on sons for the sake of holy fathers. The fathers of the sinful people forsook God, and not briefly but for a long time, and in place of God followed vanity, namely idols, which profit their worshippers nothing, and became like them, according to what is written: “Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them.”

[17] “And they did not say: Where is the Lord, who made us go up from the land of Egypt, who led us across through the wilderness, through a land uninhabitable and pathless, through a land of thirst and the image of death, through a land in which no man walked nor any human being dwelt?” For “human being” the Septuagint rendered “son of man”, and for “image of death” “shadow of death” was added from Theodotion. Since this is clear according to the historical sense, we must consider according to the higher sense that, as long as we are in this world and are being led out of Egypt, we go up little by little: first we pass through deserts and an uninhabitable land, which the saint ought not to inhabit, and a pathless one, to show the difficulty of the journey; through a land of thirst, where we always desire greater things and are not content with what is present; and the image or shadow of death, for we are always in danger, and everywhere the devil lays his snares; through a land in which no man walked, he who is of the perfect age in Christ (for we shall all rise “to the perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ”); and in it the one who is a man of God, or son of man, never dwells, but always hastens to greater things. From this it is clear that perfection is not on the way but at the end of the way, and in the dwelling prepared for the saints in the heavens, to whom it is said: “You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.” In vain, therefore, does the new heresy, sprung from the old, suppose that there is perfect victory here, where there is battle and contest and the outcome of things to come is uncertain.

[18] “And I brought you into the land of Carmel, to eat its fruit and its good things; and you entered and defiled my land and made my inheritance an abomination.” “For the labour of a very hard journey I gave you abundance of all things”; for this is what “Carmel” means, which in Hebrew is called “Chermel” and in our language sounds “knowledge of circumcision”. And as that people polluted and violated the holy land, fertile in all things, by idolatry, so we, receiving the knowledge of true circumcision, eat its fruit, and, if negligence creeps in, we defile God's land and make his inheritance abominable.

[19] “The priests did not say: Where is the Lord? And those who held the law did not know me, and the shepherds transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed idols.” After such great benefits they turned the privileges of their dignity into contempt, so that the priests did not seek the Lord, and the teachers of the law, who ought to teach others, did not know him, and the shepherds through negligence became transgressors, and the prophets, who discourse among the peoples, spoke not for God but for an idol, and venerated their own fictions. These words must be used against the teachers of our own order, who devour the people of God like a meal of bread and by their evil works do not call upon the Lord.

[20] “Therefore I will still contend with you in judgment, says the Lord, and I will dispute with your sons.” So as not to seem to strike by power, he contends by reason as with equals, according to what David sings and the apostle takes up: “that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.” And by putting “still” he testifies that he has often done it. And by adding “with your sons” he shows a like obstinacy in the sons of the wicked. He secretly signifies that their sons too, at the Lord's coming, followed the ancient denial of God.

[21] “Cross over to the islands of Kittim and see, and send to Kedar and consider carefully, and see whether such a thing has been done: whether a nation has changed its gods (or: its gods), and they indeed are not gods; but my people has changed its glory for an idol (or: for that which will not profit).” He makes a comparison of something that cannot be compared, and sets the true God beside false ones. “Go”, he says, “to the islands of Kittim”, which we should take to be those of Italy or of the western parts, from the fact that the island of Cyprus, in which a city is called by this name, is near the land of Judea; Zeno, the chief of the Stoics, also came from it. Kedar is a region of the wilderness and of the Ishmaelites, whom they now call Saracens; against it a prophecy of this very prophet is woven in the last parts, and David mentions it, saying: “I have dwelt with those who dwell in Kedar; my soul has long been a sojourner.” And the sense is: “Go either to the west, or send into the wilderness, and see whether any nation has done what you have done. For none of them has despised its gods or exchanged wooden and stone ones for golden ones in comparison, but each has followed and kept the ancient error which it received from its ancestors; and this certainly though none of them is a god, but images of men made by hand. But my people has changed the truth for a lie and has preferred an idol to me, which will not be able to profit them in the time of need.” We can say this also against those who follow vices with greater zeal than virtues, whom the apostle admonishes, saying: “I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. As you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and to iniquity for iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.”