Commentary on Jeremiah 1.55–1.84

[55] “And the Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She went up on every high mountain and under every leafy tree and committed fornication there. And when she had done all these things, I said: Return to me; and she did not return. And her sister, treacherous Judah, saw that because faithless Israel had committed adultery, I had sent her away and given her a bill of divorce; and treacherous Judah, her sister, did not fear, but went and committed fornication herself too, and by the ease of her fornication she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stone and wood. And in all these things her sister, treacherous Judah, did not return to me with her whole heart, but in falsehood, says the Lord.” The torments of some are remedies for others. When a murderer is punished, he himself receives what he did, but others are deterred from crime. So when the ten tribes, which were called Israel, had been taken captive by the Assyrians, … born of the stock of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And he calls the first “faithless”, the second “treacherous”. For the one turned away from God completely, worshipping the golden calves in Dan and Bethel at once; the other, with whom were the temple and the religion of the true God, by imitating her sister gradually withdrew from the Lord, and is therefore called treacherous. According to the higher sense, the prophecy is about the heretics, who, while they think they pursue the knowledge falsely so called with heretical subtlety, go up the mountain of pride and, soothed by the pleasures of this flesh, display their fornication under every leafy and pleasant tree. When they are handed over to the devil for the destruction of the flesh, it often happens that the house of Judah, that is, of confession and of true faith, is by no means frightened by the example, but commits much greater things, and by the ease of its fornication defiles the land of the church, and commits adultery with stone and with wood, following those doctrines which are opposed to God. But if a man of the church wishes to correct the one who errs, to cut away the putrid flesh and draw back to repentance those who had followed falsehood, and they nonetheless, under the appearance of the church's truth, follow their old error, it can be said of them: “in all these things treacherous Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in falsehood.” This prophecy was made in the times of Josiah, a righteous king, under whom Jeremiah too began to prophesy.

[56] “And the Lord said to me: Faithless Israel has justified her soul in comparison with treacherous Judah.” “Israel”, he says, “is more righteous in comparison with Judah, because she perished immediately at the beginning, while this one could have been amended by her torments.” Let the new heresy, sprung from the old, note that Israel is said to be justified in comparison with one who is worse. Nor is this surprising of sisters of one nation, since Sodom too receives the name of righteousness by comparison with Jerusalem, as the Lord says through Ezekiel, “Sodom has been justified by you”, and the tax collector becomes righteous in comparison with the Pharisee. [57] “Go and proclaim (or: read) these words toward the north, and say: Return, faithless Israel, says the Lord, and I will not turn away (or: I will not set) my face from you (or: against you), for I am holy (or: merciful), says the Lord, and I will not be angry for ever. Yet know your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God (or: acted impiously), and you have scattered (or: poured out) your ways to strangers under every leafy tree, and you have not heard my voice, says the Lord.” The Hebrew word “carath” is understood both as “call” or “cry” and as “read”; hence Aquila and Symmachus interpreted “cry out”, the Septuagint and Theodotion “read”. The word is directed to the north, against Babylon and the Assyrians, to the ten and to the two tribes, and their return is foretold. “And I will not turn away my face from you”, he says, “or, I will not set my face against you, so as to receive you not with a judge's severity but with a look of mercy. For I am holy and merciful, so that I no longer remember your iniquity nor recall that you withdrew from the Lord, and that idols delighted you in his place, and that you committed fornication under every shady and leafy tree.” This may fittingly be said also to the heretics, or to the negligent in the church, who are daily called to repentance by men of the church, and to whom it can properly be applied: “and you have not heard my voice.” Every heretic lives in the north and has lost the warmth of faith, and cannot hear that saying of the apostle, “fervent in spirit”; and because he has given himself to pleasures, he has withdrawn from the Lord and scattered his ways in foreign doctrines and followed pleasure. For no heresy is built except for the sake of gullet and belly, to lead astray silly women laden with sins, always learning and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth; of whom it is truly said, “who devour my people like a meal of bread”, and whom Christ marks as devouring widows' houses. “And when”, he says, “I have had mercy on you, do not think yourself righteous, but always remember your iniquity, and know that you committed fornication against the Lord, and bow the neck of pride, so that you who offended through arrogance may appease God through humility.” And to what we said above, “and I will not set my face upon you”, the prophetic word fits: “Turn your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.”

[58] “Turn, returning sons (or: and departing), says the Lord, for I am your husband (or: I will rule over you), and I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you into Zion; and I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they will feed you with knowledge and doctrine. And when you have multiplied and increased in the land in those days, says the Lord, they will no longer say: The ark of the covenant (or: of the testament) of the Lord; nor will it come up upon the heart, nor will they remember it, nor will it be visited, nor will it be made any more.” The Jews think this was fulfilled after the return from Babylon under Cyrus, king of the Persians, and Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel; and since not all returned, that this is what is signified by “I will take one from a city and two from a family.” But it is better taken of the coming of Christ, when a remnant was saved, as the apostle says and explains: “Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.” Then they were brought into Zion, of which it is written, “Glorious things are spoken of you, city of God”, and shepherds after his heart were given, the apostles and apostolic men, and they fed the multitude of believers, not in Jewish ceremonies but in the knowledge and doctrine of Christ, sown through the whole world by the preaching of the gospel. They will have no confidence in the ark of the Lord, which was the keeper of the law of Moses, but they themselves will be the temple of God; nor will they, like the erring Nazarenes, serve sacrifices that have been abolished, but will pursue spiritual worship. Others understand this of the end of times, when, after the fullness of the nations has come in, all Israel will be saved.

[59] “At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations will be gathered to it in the name of the Lord, in Jerusalem, and they will no longer walk after the depravity of their most wicked heart.” The Lord will no longer sit upon the ark of the covenant and the cherubim, to whom it was formerly said by that people, “You who sit upon the cherubim, appear”, but all who believe with a perfect mind will be the throne of God. Or certainly, better, the whole is to be understood of the church, when all nations are gathered in the name of the Lord in Jerusalem, in which is the vision of peace, and they no longer walk after the depravity of their most wicked heart, to do what they desire, nor follow their own errors, but say with the prophet: “My soul has clung after you; your right hand has upheld me.” [60] “In those days the house of Judah will go to the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land which I gave to your fathers.” This is properly fulfilled in the coming of Christ, when men of the twelve tribes together believed the gospel, leaving the land of the north and of the hardest cold, and withdrawing from the devil's rule; then they received the land of promise, which he had promised to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I recently published a little book on the land of promise.

[61] “But I said: How (or: Let it be) I will set you among the sons and give you a desirable land, the glorious inheritance of the hosts of the nations! And I said: You will call me Father, and you will not cease to walk after me.” For “the glorious inheritance of the hosts of the nations”, which the Septuagint translated “the named inheritance of God almighty of the nations”, Theodotion translated more expressively “the renowned inheritance of the mightiest strength of the nations”, signifying Christ, who is the leader and Lord of all the nations that believe in his name and passion. He himself said to Israel, “You will call me Father”, and, “Whoever believes in me believes in the Father.” He himself promised: “I will set you among the sons”, that is, in the number of my sons who have believed in me from the people of the nations, “and to whom I have given a desirable land.” “For as many as received him, he gave them power to become children of God.”

[62] “But as a woman despises her lover, so the house of Israel has despised me, says the Lord.” This is the voice of Christ concerning the people of the Jews, to whom he had said: “I will set you among the sons and give you a desirable land, and you will call me Father, and you will not cease to walk after me.” “As”, he says, “a woman despises not her husband but her lover, once she has been joined to him, seeing him enslaved to her lust and the law of nature reversed in her favour, by which she had once been subject to her husband, as the Lord says: ‘and your turning shall be to him’; so the house of Israel, that is, the people of the Jews, despised the Lord the Saviour, to its own ruin.”

[63] “A voice was heard on the ways (or: on the lips), the weeping and wailing of the sons of Israel, because they have made their way wicked; they have forgotten the Lord their God. Turn, returning sons, and I will heal your turnings away (or: your breakings)”; for which Symmachus translated “your turnings back”. God gladly receives those who repent, runs to meet the son worn out with want and filth, at once clothes him in his former garments and restores glory to the one who returns, provided only that he returns with weeping and wailing. For by his own fault he made his way wicked and forgot the Lord his God and Father. To them the prophetic word now speaks: “Turn, returning sons.” “I call you sons because, having understood your sins, you return to your parent with weeping and wailing. And when”, he says, “you have returned to the Lord, he will heal all your breakings, or your turnings away, by which you had withdrawn from the Lord, or indeed your turnings back.” For although we return to the Lord by our own will, yet unless he draws us and strengthens our desire with his help, we will not be able to be saved. Let us understand this both of the people of the Jews returning to the Lord and of the heretics who have left the Lord.

[64] “Behold, we come to you, for you are the Lord our God. Truly the hills were lies, and the multitude (or: strength) of the mountains; truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.” Let the penitent say this, abandoning all pride and the multitude or height of the mountains and hills by which he was proud against God, and laid low in humility let him say: “truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.”

[65] “Shame has devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.” Our shame has overwhelmed all the labours of the heretics, of which it is written, “they failed searching with searching”, from the youth of those whom they had deceived, their sons and daughters, who had advanced in heresy or were held only by luxury. Hence they add:

[66] “We shall sleep in our shame, and our disgrace will cover us, because we have sinned against our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not heard the voice of the Lord our God.” Let Israel say this, which did not hear its Lord; let every heretic who does penance say this; and yet it is part of salvation to confess and know one's sins. “Tell your iniquities first”, he says, “that you may be justified.” For Israel truly sent away Christ, the Lord its God, and sinned against him, not only at that time when he was seen in the flesh, but also before his coming. Hence they say: “we and our fathers from our youth even to this day, and we have not heard the voice of our God”, who spoke to our fathers: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote of me.” [67] “If you return, Israel, says the Lord, to me, return”; for which the Septuagint translated: “If Israel returns, says the Lord, to me, he shall return.” And the sense is: “If he returns to me, he will return from captivity”; or otherwise: “when he offers what he has.” For to him who has it will be given; but from him who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away. Further, according to the Hebrew the sense is this: “If you return to me, Israel, and once desire salvation, and say that you have sinned and have not heard the voice of your Lord, turn fully: believe in him whom you denied, and then there will be full conversion.”

[68] “If you take away your stumbling-blocks from my face, you will not be moved.” So when we are moved and say, “But my feet were almost moved”, we suffer this not by weakness of nature, but because we set up our stumbling-blocks and idols against the Lord.

[69] “And you will swear: The Lord lives, in truth and in judgment and in righteousness; and the nations will bless him and will praise him.” And how does the gospel forbid us to swear? But here “you will swear” is said for confession and for the condemnation of the idols by which Israel swore. In short, the stumbling-blocks are taken away and he swears by the Lord. And as for the saying “the Lord lives”: in the Old Testament the oath serves to condemn the dead, by whom all idolatry swears. At the same time it should be noted that an oath has these companions: truth, judgment and righteousness; if these are lacking, it will not be an oath but perjury. “And when”, he says, “Israel has done this too, and through the apostles has been the teacher of the nations, then all the nations will bless, or be blessed, in him and will praise him, because salvation has come forth from Israel.”

[70] “For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow upon thorns. Be circumcised to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest perhaps my indignation go forth like fire and burn, and there be none to quench it, because of the wickedness of your thoughts (or: devices).” For what we said, “Be circumcised to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts”, Symmachus put: “Be purified to the Lord and take away the wickednesses of your hearts”, understanding circumcision as cleansing and foreskins as vice. This is commanded to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, who follow the true faith and dwell in the church: not to sow upon thorns, which the gospel word signifies, which choke God's seed, but first to break up the fallow ground, dig up all the briars and remove the thorns, so that clean fields may receive clean seed. This is what is said in another place: “Do not throw your pearls before swine, and do not give what is holy to dogs.” For how can one hear God's word, conceive the seed and bear fruit whose mind is full of the cares of the world? And what follows, “Be circumcised to the Lord and take away the foreskins of your hearts”, is commanded to no one except the man of Judah and the inhabitant of Jerusalem, that they should abandon the letter that kills and follow the Spirit that gives life. “For if you do not do this”, he says, “my indignation will go forth like fire and will burn, and there will be none to quench it.” He warns and foretells for this reason, so that he may not be compelled to act; which we see proved in the Ninevites too, to whom the sentence was foretold so that by repentance they might turn aside the impending wrath. All these evils will come because of the wickedness of your thoughts, or devices. Where are those who say that there is no sin in thoughts, since, according to the gospel truth, all vices proceed from the heart? [71] “Announce in Judah and make it heard; speak: Sound the trumpet in the land, cry aloud, and say: Gather together, and let us go into the fortified cities.” Let Judah hear this, let Jerusalem hear it, in which is the confession of faith and in which the peace of Christ dwells, and to which it was said through Isaiah: “Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good news to Zion; lift up your voice, you who bring good news to Jerusalem.” Let him cry aloud and command thus: “Let us go into the fortified cities.” The wars of the heretics are rising: let the fortifications of Christ hold us. Raise the sign of the cross on the watchtower, on the height of the church. Take courage, you who fear; do not stand still, but run to Christ's help. “I bring evil”, he says, “from the north, and great destruction”, the true Nebuchadnezzar, who is permitted by me to be in this world for this reason, that your strength and victory may be proved. [72] “The lion has gone up from his lair, and the plunderer of the nations has raised himself up; he has gone out from his place to make your land a wilderness; your cities will be laid waste, left without inhabitant.” This, as we said, is the true Nebuchadnezzar, of whom Peter too speaks: “Our adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion.” He goes up either from the abyss, in which he is bound and begs not to be sent; and the plunderer or ravager of the nations has raised himself up, of whom it was said: “He will rule over all his enemies”, and who boasts in the sight of the Lord: “I have gone round all the earth and trodden it down.” For who is there whom the devil's poisons do not touch, except him alone who can say, “Behold, the prince of this world comes and finds nothing in me”? He often makes the whole land of the church a wilderness, so that those who have gone out from the church fight against the church; of whom John the evangelist too speaks: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.” The cities of the land of Judea are laid waste and the gatherings of the heretics flourish. If anyone, then, is a supporter of the authors of perverse doctrines, it can be said of him: “The lion has gone up from his lair, and the plunderer of the nations has raised himself up”, and the rest.

[73] “For this gird yourselves with sackcloth, lament and wail, for the fierce anger of the Lord has not turned away from us” (or, as the Septuagint translated, “from you”). Otherwise we cannot escape the lion and most savage beast, unless we do penance and turn to the Lord not only in mind but also in deed. For as long as he lays waste the church and the land of Judah, and ravages Jerusalem too, God's anger is evident.

[74] “And it will be in that day, says the Lord, the heart of the king will perish, and the heart of the princes, and the priests will be astonished, and the prophets will be dismayed.” When the plunderer lays waste the Lord's church and the Lord's anger against us remains, all help will be useless. The heart of the king will perish, whose heart ought to be in the hand of God, and the heart of the princes, who were thought to be wise; for God has made foolish the wisdom of the world, because through it they did not know God. The priests too, who ought to teach the Lord's law and defend the peoples subject to them from the lion's fury, will be made foolish by a kind of stupor and turned to madness (for so the Septuagint translated, expressing “stupor” as “ecstasy of mind”), and the prophets will be dismayed, or, as Aquila translated the Hebrew word “iethmau”, will be out of their minds. For who would not go mad, would not lose heart, when he sees his princes and kings and priests and the prophets of former times under the lion?

[75] “And I said: Alas, alas, alas, Lord God” (for which the Septuagint translated: “O Lord God”), “have you then deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: You will have peace? And behold, the sword has reached even to the soul.” Because he had said above, “At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of God, and all nations will be gathered to it in the name of the Lord in Jerusalem”, and now he says, “the heart of the king will perish, and the heart of the princes, and the priests will be astonished and the prophets dismayed”, the prophet is troubled and thinks that God has lied to him, and does not understand that the one thing was promised for many ages later, while this would come in the near future, according to what the apostle too says: “Has God rejected his people? By no means.” The sword reaches to the soul when nothing living is preserved in the soul. And at the same time he shows this too: that unless the sword goes first, to cut away and purge the vices of the soul, peace and the promise do not follow. [76] “At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A burning wind (or: of error) in the ways that are in the desert, of the daughter of my people, not for winnowing and not for cleansing; a full wind will come to me from these.” When the sword has reached to the soul and the threshing floor has been finished, then a burning wind will come from the desert, not to cleanse and winnow it, so that, the chaff being scattered here and there, the wheat may be stored in the barns; but a full wind will come, not to the people but to me, so that my wheat may be scattered. “Wind” and “spirit” are called by the same name among the Hebrews, “ruha”, and according to the nature of the passage we should take it as either “wind” or “spirit”. Others expound this place thus: that after the threshing floor has been cleansed, a remnant is saved; hence it is also written, “a spirit of fullness will come to me”, as the evangelist says, “From his fullness we have all received”, and we shall obtain the grace of the Holy Spirit. According to the historical sense, take the burning wind to be Nebuchadnezzar, who consumes everything; according to the figurative sense, the hostile power, which, coming from the desert and the wilderness, where there is no lodging of God, tries to overthrow his church. [77] “And now I will speak my judgments with them.” This is an aposiopesis, like the line of Virgil: “Whom I … but it is better to calm the troubled waves.” So, about to speak of prosperous things, he checks himself and joins sad things to sad. For these are the judgments which God speaks with his former people, so that they may know that they justly suffer what they suffer. [78] “Behold, he will come up like clouds, and his chariots like a tempest; his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are laid waste.” He sees things to come as present, and describes the Babylonian army, the noise of whose chariots and wheels is compared to a most savage tempest, and the swiftness of whose horses is joined to eagles. When the prophet had said this and, as it were, pointed with his finger at the enemies coming, the people groans and feels the things not as future but as already done, saying: “Woe to us, for we are laid waste.” The same is referred to the church: that daily the army of the true Nebuchadnezzar attacks us, and the chariots of Pharaoh and all his cavalry outrun the onrush of eagles. If the man of the church understands this, believing that saying, “When you have turned and groaned, then you will be saved”, he will say: “Woe to us, for we are laid waste.”

[79] “Wash your heart from wickedness, Jerusalem, that you may be saved. How long will harmful thoughts linger in you?” To the people saying, “Woe to us, we are laid waste”, the prophet answers, or rather God through the prophet: “Wash your heart from wickedness, Jerusalem”, with that water of which Isaiah too speaks, “Wash yourselves, be clean”: the saving water of baptism, the water of repentance. He speaks to the capital of the Jews, so that by the city the peoples may be understood: “How long are you subject to wicked thoughts, which proceed from your heart?” In the holy Scriptures we should take “heart” for the soul and the mind.

[80] “For a voice announcing from Dan, and making known the idol (or: the pain) from Mount Ephraim.” The divine word now speaks according to the position of the land of Judea. For the tribe of Dan, near Mount Lebanon and the city now called Paneas, faces the north, from which Nebuchadnezzar is to come. He describes the idol, either Bel, or pain, or iniquity, as coming from Mount Ephraim; for after the tribe of Dan comes the land of Ephraim, through which one comes to Jerusalem. “Dan” is interpreted “judgment”, “Ephraim” “abundance”. So the Lord's judgment will come upon the land that offends the Lord, with every abundance of punishment.

[81] “Tell the nations: Behold, it has been heard in Jerusalem that besiegers are coming from a far land and have given their voice against the cities of Judah; like keepers of fields they have been set against her round about, because she provoked me to anger, says the Lord.” It is useful for all the nations round about to know God's sentence, and when Jerusalem is scourged, for all to receive discipline. “It is told”, he says, “by common report in Jerusalem, that enemies are coming from a far land and that the roar of a howling army is rising against her, who will besiege the city so diligently and shut it in with siege works that you would think them not enemies so much as keepers of fields and vineyards. But all this happened not by the strength of the enemies, but by the fault of Jerusalem, because she provoked God to anger.” For if the hostile powers have no power over swine, how much more over men, and men who were once of the city of God!

[82] “Your ways and your thoughts have done these things to you; this is your wickedness, because it is bitter, because it has touched your heart.” He turns to address the city of Jerusalem: that its ways and thoughts, by which it sinned in deed and in word, made all that came upon it come, and that its wickedness, which is bitter in itself, touched its heart and penetrated the inner parts of its soul. Whatever happens to us, then, happens by our own fault, who turn the sweet God to bitterness and force him to be severe against his will.

[83] “My belly, my belly, I am in pain; the senses of my heart are troubled; I will not be silent, for my soul has heard the sound of the trumpet, the cry of battle. Destruction upon destruction has been called, and the whole land has been laid waste; suddenly my tents have been laid waste, in a moment my curtains.” Where we, following Symmachus, put “are troubled”, and the Hebrew has “homa”, the Septuagint and Theodotion put maimassei, a word whose meaning I do not know to this day. Aquila put ochlazei, which itself means “tumult”. Let this be said about the word, over which I know there is great dispute among many. The voice is that of the prophet, and through the prophet of God speaking: he grieves over the destruction of his people and, like a man, his inner parts are torn, as the Saviour too grieved over the death of Lazarus and wept over Jerusalem, so as not to hide his grief in silence. And every blast of the trumpet and roar of battle troubles his feeling, while evils are heaped upon evils and the whole land of the two tribes is laid waste. “When I did not expect it”, he says, “my tents and curtains of old were plundered by the raging Babylonian, and my former lodgings fell as prey to the enemy.” God says this same thing when he sees the turmoil of sedition and discord in the church, and the partridge crying in its gatherings, and God's rest turned into wars. Hence it follows:

[84] “How long shall I see those who flee, and hear the sound of the trumpet?” Either those fleeing the Babylonian king, or those fleeing me and withdrawing from my service.