Commentary on Jeremiah 1.85–2.7

[85] “For my foolish people has not known me; they are foolish and senseless children; they are wise to do evil, but they have not known how to do good.” The cause of the destruction, the devastation, the flight and the trumpet is that the people became foolish, not by nature but by the bent of its will. And this very foolishness is proved by the fact that they did not know God; and instead of wise sons they became foolish and senseless sons. For what greater foolishness can there be than that, when the ox knows its owner and the ass its master's crib, Israel did not know the Lord, and despised him when present whom it always longed to see? And as for what is added, “they are wise to do evil, but they have not known how to do good”, here wisdom is to be taken for wickedness, as the sons of this world are wiser than the sons of light, and the unjust steward is said to have done certain things wisely, and the serpent in paradise is read to have been more prudent than all the beasts. That, then, is true wisdom which is joined to the fear of God; otherwise, where there are snares and evasion, it should be called not wisdom but cunning and craftiness. For what we said, “for my foolish people has not known me”, the Septuagint translated, “for the princes of my people have not known me”, so that the fault is rather the teachers' than that of a people without knowledge of God.

[86] “I looked at the earth, and behold, it was empty and nothing; and at the heavens, and there was no light in them. I saw the mountains, and behold, they were moving, and all the hills were shaken. I looked, and there was no man, and every bird of the sky had gone away. I looked, and behold, Carmel was a desert, and all its cities were destroyed before the face of the Lord and before the face of his fierce anger.” The prophet sees in the spirit what is to come, so that the people, hearing it, may be terrified and, having done penance, may not suffer what it fears. The earth is empty, its inhabitant destroyed; the heavens have no light, since the people sees nothing for the greatness of its terror. The mountains and hills themselves have unsafe hiding places, and by hyperbole they seem to be moved and shaken. He looked and gazed round here and there, and not even a bird could be found: for even the dumb elements feel God's anger, and irrational creatures are terrified. That this is true the whole world now shows: when a multitude of men has been slain, the birds too, which usually follow the inhabitants, have gone away and perished. Carmel itself, which overlooks the great sea, planted with olives and thick with shrubs and vines, will come to such desolation that it has the waste of a wilderness; and all the cities will become deserted. And the cause of all the evils is that the Lord's anger was roused by the fault of the sinning people. Whatever we have said of Jerusalem and Judea according to the historical sense, let us refer to the church of God, when it has offended God and has been laid waste either by vices or by persecution, so that where there was once a choir of virtues and joy, there a multitude of sins and sorrows dwells. [87] “For thus says the Lord: The whole land will be desolate, but I will not make a full end. The earth will mourn, and the heavens above will grieve, because I have spoken, I have purposed, and I have not repented, nor have I turned back from it.” With God's mercy mixed with his anger, the whole land is forsaken, but not utterly ended, so that there may be some who understand his mercy. The heaven too will seem sad above, and the earth itself will mourn, because the Lord's sentence has come to its end and he has not repented of what he purposed and spoke. God is said to repent when a foretold sentence is taken away and raging anger does not come to its end. He threatened through Jonah, and a multitude of tears and groans overcame the impending sword.

[88] “At the sound of the horseman and the one shooting the arrow (or: bending the bow) the whole city (or: region) has fled; they have gone into the woods and climbed the rocks” (what follows, “and they have gone into the glens” or “caves”, was added by the Septuagint); “all the cities are forsaken, and no man dwells in them.” The divine word describes the army of the raging Babylonian: from fear of it the whole people left the city and climbed every height, and yet could not escape the Lord's anger. Whatever, as we said above, is understood historically against Jerusalem, refer to the church, when it has offended God and been handed over to enemies, either in a time of persecution or certainly by vices and sins.

[89] “But you, laid waste, what will you do?” “Laid waste”, which in Hebrew is said “sadud”, only Aquila interpreted so; the others translated “wretched” and “pitiable”, by her own fault, since she offended a merciful God. Accordingly it follows:

[90] “When you clothe yourself in scarlet and adorn yourself with a golden necklace and paint your eyes with antimony, in vain will you make yourself fair; your lovers have despised you; they will seek your life.” He speaks under the figure of an adulterous woman: “Once you have offended God and left your Creator as if he were your husband, in vain do you seek ornaments: the demons, your lovers, have despised you, and they will seek not the uncleanness of fornication but the destruction of your soul.” The same is to be understood spiritually against those who have lost conjugal affection and the chastity of the true faith. “If”, he says, “you clothe yourself in scarlet” (take up faith in Christ's blood), “if you adorn yourself with a golden necklace” (practise meditation of spiritual sense and understanding), “and paint your eyes with antimony” (have zeal for the mysteries and for knowing God's secrets), “in vain will you make yourself fair. For you had prepared these things for your lovers too, and therefore the narrow bed cannot hold both, and God does not accept the ornaments by which you formerly pleased your lovers.”

[91] “For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labour, anguish (or: groans) as of one bearing her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion gasping and spreading out her hands: Woe is me, for my soul has fainted because of the slain.” In the likeness of a woman in childbirth, that is, one bearing her first child, he describes the city of Jerusalem wailing and crying out. For as a woman giving birth, who has not yet experienced the pain of labour, half dies, suffers anguish, can scarcely breathe and collapses with hands spread out, so the daughter of Zion too, when she sees her children slain, breaks out in these words and says: “Woe is me, for my soul has fainted because of the slain!” Two examples are compared in one chapter, of one giving birth to children and of one mourning them, so that whatever a woman suffers in childbirth or in the deaths of her children, Jerusalem suffers in her peoples.

[92] “Go about the streets of Jerusalem, and look and consider, and seek in her squares whether you can find a man who does justice and seeks faith, and I will be merciful to her. But if they say, The Lord lives, this too they will swear falsely.” Great is the love of justice: not that God, as in Abraham's question and God's answer, would free the city for ten righteous men, but if, when Jerusalem is on the very point of perishing, he finds one who does justice and seeks faith (or, as Symmachus translated, truth), God will still have mercy on Jerusalem. And because it could happen that some might be found in the people who feigned the worship of God and swore by the Lord, he forestalls this: God takes no delight in empty words but in the truth of faith, and he says: “I do not love them because they swear by me, for they swear falsely, but those whose hearts and lips agree.”

[93] “Lord, your eyes look upon faith. You struck them, and they did not grieve; you crushed them, and they refused to receive discipline. They have made their faces harder than rock and would not return.” After the words of the Lord in which he had commanded, “Go about the streets of Jerusalem”, and so on, the prophet speaks to the Lord: “Lord, your eyes look upon faith”, which in Hebrew is called “emuna”: not upon the works of the Jews, in which they exulted according to the ceremonies of the law, but upon the faith of Christians, through which we have been saved by grace. In this chapter we learn that punishments are inflicted for this purpose: that vices may be corrected. In short he says: “You struck them, and they did not grieve; you crushed them, and they refused to receive discipline.” For Jerusalem is amended by all torments and scourges; and on top of all these they did not even feel shame for their vices, but hardening their shameless brow like rock, they would not be turned to better things.

[94] “But I said: Perhaps these are poor and foolish (or: they were not able), not knowing the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God. I will go, then, to the great men and speak to them; for they have known the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God.” Here he speaks of the poor and the great not in terms of want and riches, but compares the people with its leaders. And the sense is: “Seeing the obstinacy of the faithless people, and that with hardened face it would not receive discipline, I reasoned this out with myself: perhaps the common crowd cannot know God's teaching and is therefore excusable, because through inexperience it cannot know God's commands. I will go, then, to the priests and to those who preside over the people and speak to them; for they have known the will of the Lord and know the judgment of their God.” He says this in the language of one in doubt, as in that saying of the gospel, “I will send my son; perhaps they will respect him”, so that by the uncertainty of the statement and the suspense of the words he may show the free will of man.

[95] “And behold, these have together broken the yoke more, they have burst the bonds. Therefore a lion from the forest has struck them, a wolf at evening has laid them waste, a leopard watches over their cities; everyone who goes out from them will be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied, their turnings away have grown strong.” “Those I thought teachers were found to be worse than the disciples, and the greater the authority among the rich, the greater the insolence of sins.” For they broke the yoke of the law (as the apostle says, “Now therefore why do you tempt God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are”), and they burst the bonds of the commands of God, not of the Pharisees, of whom it is said in the second psalm: “Let us burst their bonds and cast their yoke from us.” Because, then, they did these things, the lion from the forest struck them, that is, the Babylonian kingdom; the wolf at evening laid them waste, signifying the Medes and Persians, for which in Daniel's vision a bear is put, in whose mouth were three rows; the leopard watching over their cities prefigures the onrush of Alexander and his swift course from the west to India. He calls him a leopard because of his variety, and because he fought against the Medes and Persians with very many nations subject to him; “and the beast had four heads”, he says, “and dominion was given to it.” And because he is not prophesying of the distant future but is weaving the history of things past or soon to come, he is therefore silent about the Roman Empire, of which perhaps it is said: “everyone who goes out from them will be taken.” And he gives the reasons why they suffered these things: because their transgressions were multiplied and they persevered in their transgressions; hence it is said, “and their turnings away have grown strong.” What we put at the beginning, that the Hebrew word “sacad” means “watching”, is shown in the present place: for where we said “a watching leopard”, the Hebrew has “nemer sacad”. According to the figurative sense: those who are thought great in the church, because they break the yoke and burst the bonds, are therefore handed over to dishonourable passions, to do what is not fitting.

[96] “For what can I be merciful to you? Your sons have forsaken me and swear by those who are not gods. I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery and thronged in the harlot's house. They have become to me horses in love and stallions; each one neighed after his neighbour's wife. Shall I not punish these things, says the Lord, and on such a nation shall my soul not be avenged?” A catalogue of the sins of Jerusalem, while God says he does not know on what occasion he can have mercy on her. “Your sons”, he says, “have forsaken me: not mine, but yours, because they swear by those who are not gods. I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery.” Let those hear this who, having received riches from the Lord, brood over them and serve luxury. They became horses in love with females. For “stallions” the Hebrew has “mosechim”, which all with one voice translated helkontes, that is, “drawing”, to show the size of the genitals, according to that saying of Ezekiel: “Their flesh is like the flesh of asses.” This is what is written in another place: “They have been compared to senseless beasts and have become like them.” And at the same time he shows such madness of lust that he does not call it the desire of pleasure but chremetismos, that is, “neighing”, and keeps the metaphor of horses raging for lust. “When you have done these things”, he says, “are you not worthy of a fitting visitation?” And note that here “visitation” is put for penalty and punishments, according to what is written: “I will visit their iniquities with the rod.” “And on such a nation shall my soul not be avenged?” After it was bound by sins, it is no longer called the people of God but a nation, from which God's soul has withdrawn, according to what is written: “Your new moons and sabbaths and feast days my soul hates.” What in the Old Testament is said of feeling is written in the New of a reality, as the Saviour says: “I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up.”

[97] “Go up on her walls (or: ramparts) and destroy, but do not make a full end; take away her branches (or: supports), for they are not the Lord's. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have utterly transgressed against me, says the Lord.” He commands the nations of which he had said above, “a lion from the forest has struck them, a wolf has laid them waste, and a leopard in their cities”, to go up on the walls or ramparts of Jerusalem and destroy her; but not to make a full end, so that a remnant may be saved and there may be someone to announce the glory of God among the nations: he mingles mercy with severity. And by adding “take away her branches” or supports, he orders all the helps to be removed which she lost by her own fault, because the house of Israel and the house of Judah, signifying the ten and the two tribes, transgressed against God. Let the church hear this: that the walls and ramparts of those who have no hope in the Lord and transgress against him are quickly destroyed; but yet no full end is made, because of the mercy of the judge and not because of the merits of the offenders. [98] “They have denied the Lord and said: It is not he (or: these things are not so); no evil will come upon us; we shall not see sword or famine. The prophets were wind, and the answer (or: the word) was not in them. These things therefore will happen to them.” Because they denied the Lord, or lied to the Lord, and said: “It is not he by whose judgment all things will happen, but all these things happened by chance; and the things that the voices of the prophets threaten us with will not come; we shall not see the sword nor suffer the famine of a siege; and whatever the prophets spoke, they spoke into the wind, and all passed away void, and they had no answer, that is, oracle, or the word of God was not in them”; therefore they will suffer what the following word describes. Let the negligent church that rejects God's providence hear this: that it will suffer both sword and famine unless it believes that what is foretold will come. [99] “Thus says the Lord God of hosts: Because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it will devour them.” “You said: The prophets were wind, and what they threaten will not come; therefore, O prophet, I make my words in your mouth such as have the power of fire, and turn this people into wood, so that by your word and prophecy the unbelievers may be burned up together.” So God is called a consuming fire, to consume in us whatever hay, wood and stubble we have built on the foundation of Christ.

[100] “Behold, I will bring upon you a nation from afar, house of Israel, says the Lord, a strong nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you will not know, nor will you understand what it says. Its quiver is like an open tomb; all are mighty men. And it will eat your harvests and your bread; it will devour your sons and your daughters; it will eat your flocks and your herds; it will eat your vine and your fig tree; and it will crush your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword. But even in those days, says the Lord, I will not make a full end of you.” “Not long hence, nor, as you falsely believe, will the prophets speak to you into the wind, but even now I will bring upon you the nation of the Babylonians, which will come from afar, a strong nation” (for which the Hebrew has “ethan”), “an ancient nation” (over which the giant Nimrod once ruled), “whose language you will not know” (as the Hebrew has it), “nor will you understand what it says. For it is a consolation in evils to have enemies whom you can entreat and who understand your prayers.” And what follows, “its quiver is like an open tomb”, which is not said in the Septuagint edition, signifies the Babylonian armour; and no doubt the kingdom of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians is most skilled in archery. At the same time he describes the devastation of the land of Judea, the slaughter of many, the driving off of flocks, the overthrow of cities and walls, that all things are taken by the enemy's sword; yet in such great evils he does not destroy them to extermination, but saves a remnant: either of those who were led into Babylon and of those left to till the fields of the land of Judea, or of those who after the heat of persecution kept the Lord's faith either by flight or by confession.

[101] “And if you say: Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us? you shall say to them: As you have forsaken me and served a foreign god (or: foreign gods) in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land not yours.” It is great folly not to know why they suffered, when they sinned so greatly; and the answer to the doubters is brief: as you served a foreign god, namely Baal, or the foreign gods of all the nations, in the land of Judea, so you shall serve foreign gods in a land not yours, no doubt Babylon and Chaldea. “For if a foreign religion delights you, what need is there to take up a distant error? Live with such people, or rather serve those whose gods you worship.” This can also be taken of the heretics, of whom it is written, “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”: that the Lord casts out of the church the heretics, who for a long time under his name worshipped the images of their own lies, so that outside they may worship …

… what they formerly worshipped inside, and the chaff may be separated from the wheat. [Book 2, preface] The second book on Jeremiah, brother Eusebius, I am dictating in rapid speech, turning away my ears for a while, so as not to hear the report of blood and lament the souls of the slain: those who by the reputation of virtues fall daily into pride and think themselves like God, so that they attribute to all men the equality which the impious heresy of the Arians denies to the Son, and set their mouth against heaven, and leave nothing more for the future blessedness of the saints. We have answered their fury as well as we could, and, if the Lord gives life, we shall answer more fully. Now the way we have begun must be taken, and the short commentaries dictated, neither stretching the work out to excessive length nor taking away understanding by immoderate brevity; the one burdens the minds of readers, the other cuts off the desire of the studious. [2] “Announce this to the house of Jacob and make it heard in Judah, saying: Hear, foolish people that has no heart, who having eyes do not see, and ears, and do not hear!” In many ways he draws sinners back to salvation, and calls the people foolish which has forsaken the author of wisdom, and compares them to the images of which it is written: “They have eyes and do not see; they have ears and do not hear. Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them.” He addresses Judah and the house of Jacob properly, for Israel had for a long time been in exile among the Assyrians; and at the same time he gives us to understand that even without a command we ought to understand what is right by natural sense. [3] “Will you not fear me, says the Lord, and will you not grieve (or: tremble) before my face? I who have set the sand as a boundary for the sea, an everlasting command which it will not pass; and its waves will toss, and cannot prevail (or: it will be troubled and cannot), and they will roar (or: will sound) and will not pass over it. But this people has a heart unbelieving and provoking; they have withdrawn and gone away, and have not said in their heart: Let us fear the Lord our God, who gives us the early and the late rain in its season, who keeps for us the fullness of the yearly harvest.” He recounts his benefits in order to convict the ungrateful. “Will you not fear me”, he says, “I who have given you so much? I do not desire the love of the perfect but the fear of beginners: I who have set the sand as a boundary for the sea, who by my command have restrained so powerful an element and the measureless masses of its depths at the shores, according to what is written: ‘He set a command, and it will not pass away.’ Things that have no sense of hearing hear and perceive me; and the people that was once mine, made foolish by its own fault, not only despises but provokes its sweet God. They have withdrawn from me”, he says, “and turned their backs on me and gone off with hurried step, nor did silent conscience draw them back, so that they should say in their hearts: Let us fear him who gives us the early and the late rain! Through all these things I showed the good fullness of the yearly harvest.” For this, the first edition of Aquila and Symmachus interpreted “weeks”; for in the Hebrew is written “sabaoth”, which, because of the ambiguity of the word, signifies both “weeks” and “fullness”.

[4] “Your iniquities have turned these things aside, and your sins have kept good things from you.” So if ever the sea passes its bounds and the rain is withheld, it is by no means that the hand of the Lord is shortened so that he does not do these things, but our sins have turned aside these things that were coming to us, so that they went to others who had not sinned. “And they have kept back”, he says, “the good that was already coming to us”, according to what is written in the literal sense: “I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it.” We can also take the early and the late rain as the law and the gospel, and the various callings from the first hour to the eleventh, in which one reward of eternal life is promised to the workers in the vineyard. [5] “For wicked men are found among my people, lying in wait like fowlers, setting snares and traps to catch men. Like a fowler's trap full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit.” The reasons are given why the early and late rain turned away from them and all good things did not come: because impious men were found among his people. He did not say “unrighteous” and “sinners”, as the new heresy would have it, but “impious”. Impiety openly denies God; unrighteousness and sin, if they confess their error, easily bend God to mercy. And what we said, “lying in wait like fowlers”, is not found in the Septuagint; Aquila and Symmachus translated the word “iasir” as “like a fowler's net”: that even the one who seems good and upright among them lays snares like a fowler, while they hunt one another to death and fill their houses with the losses and ruin of others, so that that saying of the philosophers is fulfilled: “Every rich man is either unjust or the heir of an unjust man.” And would that these things were done only by those who seem to be outside, whom the Lord judges, and were not fulfilled in our own gatherings, which avarice, the root of all evils, possesses, so that we look not at the faces of those who come to us but at their hands!

[6] “Therefore they have become great and rich; they have grown fat and sleek, and they have passed over my words most wickedly. They have not judged the cause, the cause (or: judgment) of the orphan, they have not directed it, and they have not judged the judgment of the poor (or: of the widow). Shall I not punish these things, says the Lord, or on such a nation shall my soul not be avenged?” If I wish to note one by one the things left out in the Septuagint edition, it will take long. “Those who lay snares”, he says, “and rejoice in the stripping of others, have therefore become great and rich.” Because they did the things above, they grew fat and sleek, according to what is written: “The beloved grew fat and sleek and kicked.” “And they passed over my words”, because in the awareness of their riches they said that saying from the gospel: “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; rest, eat, drink, feast!” They passed over to their own harm, and despising all men they did not set God's judgment before their eyes. They despised the orphan and the poor; for which the Septuagint said “widows”, which is not in the Hebrew; for “hebionim” properly means “poor”, not “widows”. As for what follows, “Shall I not punish these things, says the Lord, or on such a nation shall my soul not be avenged?”, it has already been discussed above.

[7] “Astonishment and marvels have come about in the land: the prophets prophesied a lie (or: unjustly), and the priests clapped with their hands, and my people loved such things! What then will you do at the last (or: after these things)?” He had said above, “I will go to the great men and speak to them; perhaps they have known the way of the Lord”, and behold, these rather had together broken the yoke and burst the bonds. Now he describes who the great men are, namely the prophets and the priests, some of whom foretell the future, while others determine from the law what must be done. “And behold,” he says, “while they prophesied a lie, the priests applauded with their hands.” And to show that the people too is not without fault, which is led astray by such men, it is written, “and my people loved such things”: once mine, but after it loved them it ceased to be mine. What then will they do when the last time of judgment comes, or the necessity of captivity? Hence the astonishment and the marvels: that neither among the leaders nor among the people was anyone found who thought rightly.