Commentary on Jeremiah 4.40–4.56

[40] "Go up to Lebanon and cry out, and in Bashan lift up your voice, and cry out to those who pass by, for all your lovers have been crushed! I spoke to you in your prosperity; you said: I will not hear! This has been your way from your youth, that you have not heard my voice. The wind will feed all your shepherds (or: lovers), and your lovers will go into captivity; and then you will be confounded and ashamed of all your wickedness. You who sit in Lebanon and nest in the cedars, how you groaned when pains came upon you like the pains of a woman in labor!" By personification of Lebanon and Bashan, regions and mountains beyond the Jordan, the word is directed to Jerusalem, that it trusted in Egypt in vain; or to Jehoiakim himself, who was reigning in Jerusalem at that time and had been made king by the Egyptians, that he hopes in vain for the help of the Egyptians, and that they too are to be conquered by the Babylonian king and led into captivity. And as for his saying, "I spoke to you" (that is, God himself through the prophets), or, "They spoke to you" (so that "my prophets" is understood), "and you in your prosperity said: I will not hear," he accuses her of pride, that by the greatness of her riches she was led into contempt of God; and he tells that not only at this time but from the beginning, when she was brought out of Egypt, she did not hear God's voice; and so all her shepherds and princes have been scattered here and there and have put their necks under the Babylonian captivity. And what he adds, "You who sit in Lebanon and nest in the cedars," strikes at the arrogance that had grown from the abundance of all things, and that, like a woman in childbirth, sudden pain and sudden captivity come upon her. Where we said "cry out to those who pass by," and the Hebrew has meabarim, the Seventy and Theodotion rendered "beyond the sea," Symmachus "from the opposite side," to signify that the prophet's voice should reach from Jerusalem to Mount Lebanon and Bashan. [41] "As I live, says the Lord, though Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, from there I would tear him off (or: you), and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life and into the hand of those whose face you fear, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon" (which is not in the Seventy) "and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will send you (or: cast you out), and your mother who bore you, into a foreign land where you were not born, and there you will die; and to the land to which they lift up their soul to return, there they will not return." He had said above, "To the house of the king of Judah you shall say these things," and then, "Go down to the house of the king of Judah," and again, "Thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah"; and in reverse order, after he had spoken of Zedekiah, who was the last of the kings in Jerusalem, he goes back to Jehoiakim his brother, who reigned before him. When that prophecy is complete, he now speaks to the son of Jehoiakim, the grandson of Josiah, the king of Jerusalem, Jeconiah, who is also called by another name Jehoiachin, who was captured by Nebuchadnezzar with his mother, princes, craftsmen, and many nobles, led into Chaldea, and died there. This then is what is said: "Even if Jeconiah were in my hand as a ring does not leave the hand of its wearer and slips from the finger with difficulty, still I will tear him off and hand him over to the Babylonian king, and there he will die with his mother and all his companions, and he will not see again the land of Judea which he longs for." The wretched Grunnius, who opened his mouth to slander holy men and taught his tongue to lie, translated into Latin one book of Sextus the Pythagorean, a thoroughly pagan man, divided it into two volumes, and dared to publish it under the name of the holy martyr Xystus, bishop of the city of Rome; in which there is no mention of Christ, none of the Holy Spirit, none of God the Father, of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; and with his usual rashness and madness he named this book "The Ring"; it is read through many provinces, especially by those who preach apatheia and sinlessness. As, then, the Lord threatens to cast Jeconiah from his hand and finger like a ring, so I beg the reader to cast away this wicked book, or, if he will not, to read it as he reads the other books of the philosophers, not as a church book. In commentaries and explanations, whose custom is to set out the various opinions of interpreters, I am accustomed to mix in language of this kind: "some say this," "others assert that," "some think thus." The wretched Grunnius himself, and many years later a disciple of Jovinian and of him, have slandered and still slander me for putting my own opinions under others' names, which I do out of kindness, so as not to seem to tear anyone by a definite name. Since, then, kindness has been turned into slander, I now say both to him who is dead and to him who lives and tries to restore his heresy: their master Origen refers this place to Christ, that he was torn like a ring from the hand of God the Father and sent into the land of captivity, into the valley of tears, and handed over to the cross; and that his mother too (no doubt the synagogue) was captured and cast out. And he is not afraid, in saying this, to understand what follows, "Land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord: Write this man abhorred," or "barren," and the rest, of the Lord of majesty. He writes this, so that his disciples may not dare to deny it, in the fifth book of the Stromateis.

[42] "Is this man Coniah an earthen and broken vessel? Is he a vessel without any pleasure (or: usefulness)? Why have he and his seed been cast off and thrown out into a land which they did not know?" For what we said, "Is he an earthen and broken vessel?", Symmachus translated, "Is he refuse, or worthless and discarded rubbish?"; for which there is nothing in the Seventy, but they interpreted only this: "Jeconiah is dishonored like a vessel in which there is no use." And though this is said of Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, does anyone dare to refer it to a type of Christ, and, because the apostle says that the Lord and Savior is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, that is, wisdom, the Word, truth, life, and righteousness, to call him the ring that is thrown or torn from the Lord's hand and handed over to King Nebuchadnezzar? "He and his seed," he says, "have been cast off and thrown out into a land which they did not know"; and no one doubts that this happened to Jeconiah. Jeconiah is interpreted "the Lord's preparation"; in the present place the first syllable, that is, the Lord's name, is taken from him, and he is called Coniah, so that "prepared for perdition and destruction" may be understood. [43] "Land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord: Write this man barren, a man who will not prosper in his days. For there will not be of his seed a man to sit on the throne of David and to have power any more in Judah." If I wished to note place by place how much the Seventy have either omitted or changed, it would be long, especially since the careful reader can consider from both editions what has been changed, what added, what taken away. For "barren" the Hebrew has a word which Aquila's first edition interpreted "barren," his second "not growing," Symmachus "empty," the Seventy and Theodotion "abominable" and "disowned." And the question arises how the prophecy can stand that no one was born of his line who sat on the throne of David or was prince any more in Judah, when the Lord and Savior was born of his seed, about whose birth Gabriel says to Mary: "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." We can say, then, that what is missing in the Seventy, namely "in his days he will not prosper" (or: "will not grow"), made the question for those who did not know it. For the Seventy translated: "Write this man a disowned man, for there will not grow from his seed a man to sit on the throne of David, a prince any more in Judah"; which is put twice in the Hebrew, and those who first wrote it, thinking it an addition in the Greek books, took it out. Let us answer, then, that in Jeconiah's days no man succeeded him who sat on his throne, but much later one was born of his seed who obtained his throne. It can also be solved thus: no man and human being will sit on the throne of David, but God will sit, and his kingdom will not be fragile and brief, as David's was, but everlasting and heavenly, as Scripture says: "He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." So Jeconiah was born of Jehoiakim, Shealtiel of Jeconiah, Zerubbabel of Shealtiel, and so in order we come to Christ. But in the days of Jehoiachin no son succeeded him as king, as he himself had succeeded his father; but he was in captivity, and Shealtiel and Zerubbabel too, and until Christ no one held royal power. This is so because in the Hebrew it is written: "in his days," and at the very time when he lived there will not be a man to sit on the throne of David. For all were captives, and of David's line no one thereafter held rule in the land of Judea. Hence Josephus too reports that the rulers were of the priestly family and the tribe of Levi, whom Herod, son of Antipater the proselyte, succeeded; and afterwards, under Vespasian, the kingdom of this race, or rather the semblance of rule, was entirely wiped out. [44] "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and tear the flock of my pasture (or: O shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture), says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to the shepherds who feed my people: You have scattered my flock and driven them away and not visited them; behold, I will visit upon you the wickedness of your pursuits, says the Lord. And I will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fields (or: restore them to their pastures), and they will grow and multiply. And I will raise up shepherds over them, and they will feed them; they will fear no more and will not tremble, and none will be missing from the number, says the Lord." The prophetic word is to the shepherds, or about the shepherds; and because we read it written of Jeconiah, the next-to-last king of Judea, who was of David's line, "Land, land, land, hear the words of the Lord! Write this man disowned (or: barren), and there will not be of his seed a man to sit on the throne of David," and all hope of the Jewish kingdom had been cut off, the word passes to the leaders of the church; and, the synagogue with its shepherds being abandoned and condemned, the word is addressed to the apostles, of whom it is said: "And I will raise up shepherds over them, and they will feed them; they will fear no more and will not tremble, and none will be missing from the number, says the Lord." For the apostles will feed the church's flock confidently and without any fear, and the remnant of the people of Israel will be saved from all lands and will be brought back to their fields or pastures, and will grow and multiply. But upon the bad shepherds, the scribes and Pharisees, the Lord will visit because of the wickedness of their pursuits. We can also understand this tropologically of the leaders of the church who do not rule the Lord's sheep worthily: that when they are cast off and condemned, the people may be saved by being handed to others who prove worthy, and the remnant may be saved. Shepherds who teach heresy destroy the sheep; those who make schisms tear and scatter them; those who separate them from the church against justice drive them away; those who withhold the hand from penitents do not visit them. On all of these the Lord will have mercy, restoring their former pastures and taking away the bad shepherds. [45] "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will raise up for David a righteous branch (or: a righteous rising), and he will reign as king and be wise (or: understand), and he will do judgment and justice on the earth. In those days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell confidently; and this is the name by which they will call him (or: he will call him): The Lord our righteous one," or "our righteousness," which in Hebrew is said sadecenu. What is wrongly added in the Seventy, "among the prophets," must be cut off entirely; for another passage follows, which they have omitted, and when it is finished comes the title, "To the prophets" or "Against the prophets," of which we shall speak in its place. So, the shepherds of the synagogue, that is, the scribes and Pharisees, being cast off, and the remnant of Israel saved, and the apostles of the gospel set in place of the former rulers, there is brought in the shepherd of shepherds, the prince of princes, the King of kings and Lord of lords, namely Christ our Savior, who is properly "the righteous branch" or "the righteous rising," of whom we read: "In his days righteousness will rise," and in another place: "Behold a man, the Rising is his name, and from beneath him he will rise and build the temple to the Lord." And as in Isaiah he is called Emmanuel, that is, "God with us," so in Jeremiah he receives the name "our righteousness"; hence the apostle too says: "who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." Opposed to him, the Antichrist and the devil who dwells in him are called in Zechariah "the foolish shepherd." "And he will do," he says, "judgment and justice on the earth"; for the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. In those days both the two and the ten tribes, Judah and Israel, will be saved together, and from two rods, according to Ezekiel, one rod will be made. And his name, if according to the Seventy the Lord will call him, will be called Josedec, that is, "the righteous Lord"; if according to the Hebrew, which says "they will call his name," he will be called "The Lord our righteousness"; for this is what adonai sadecenu means, for which Symmachus rendered: "Lord, justify us!"

[46] "Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and they will no longer say: The Lord lives, who brought the sons of Israel up out of the land of Egypt; but: The Lord lives, who brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel out of the land of the north and from all the lands to which I had driven them; and they will dwell in their own land." This whole passage is not in the Seventy. Its sense is that the people of God is freed not through Moses from Egypt but through Jesus Christ from the whole world, into which it had been scattered; which is fulfilled in part even now in the world and will be fulfilled wholly when they come from the east and west, north and south, and recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; so that, after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel may be saved.

[47] "To the prophets," or "among the prophets," or "against the prophets." This title, as we said above, is placed in the Seventy's edition as the end of the preceding passage, where we read: "And this is the name by which the Lord will call him: Josedec, among the prophets." Many, not knowing this, invent various ravings of explanation; and it would have been much better simply to confess ignorance than to make others heirs of their own unskillfulness. The word is against the prophets, or rather the false prophets, of Jerusalem and Samaria, whom he now calls "prophets" by the common and ordinary name, of whom it is written in what follows: "And among the prophets of Samaria I saw iniquity," and immediately: "And among the prophets of Jerusalem I saw horrible things." When he puts the conjunction "and," he shows that what was said above concerned the Lord's prophets, who themselves too became like the false prophets.

[48] "My heart is broken in the midst of me (or: in me); all my bones tremble (or: are shaken); I have become like a drunken man and like a man soaked (or: overcome) with wine, before the face of the Lord and before the face of his holy words," or "and before the face of the beauty of his glory." Having considered the face of almighty God, that is, the Father, and having considered the face of the Son, who according to the apostle is called "the radiance of his glory" and "the form of God's substance," the prophet shudders in soul and body and understands that he is nothing; as it is said in another place, "I have become like a beast before you"; or he offers God the sacrifice of his conscience and humility, according to what is written in the Psalms: "A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God has not despised." The bones that trembled or were shaken let us understand to be those of which the same David sings: "All my bones will say: Lord, who is like you?" He has become like a drunken man and like a man soaked or overcome with wine, having no understanding and no wisdom; for the Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain. But if this is so, where are those who preach perfect righteousness in man? And if they answer that they say this of the saints, not of themselves, surely I think no one is holier than Jeremiah, who, a virgin, a prophet, and sanctified in the womb, prefigures the Lord and Savior by his very name; for Jeremiah is interpreted "the Lord's exalted one." [49] "For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse (or: the oath) the land has mourned; the fields (or: pastures) of the desert are dried up. Their course has become evil and their strength unlike." What we have set down from the Hebrew, "for the land is full of adulterers," is not in the Seventy, who said "oath" for "curse." And he gives the reasons: that because of adulteries and curses, or superfluous swearing, or rather perjuries, barrenness of the crops followed. Whatever you understand of the land of Judea according to the letter, refer to the congregation of believers: that because of adulteries and lies or perjuries there is barrenness of the virtues and gifts of God in the churches. [50] "For both prophet and priest are polluted, and in my house I have found their evil, says the Lord. Therefore their way will be like a slippery path in darkness; they will be driven on and fall in it, for I will bring (or: bring in) evils upon them, the year of their visitation, says the Lord." When evils are found in the church of God, and especially in its leaders, let us know that this is fulfilled: "Both prophet and priest are polluted; in my house I have found their evils, says the Lord." The house of Christ is the church, of which Paul too writes to Timothy: "that you may know how one ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." In the prophet understand the teacher, in the priest the dignity of the ministry; if they agree together with a depraved mind, their way will be slippery and in darkness, and they will not have the Lord, who says: "I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me may not remain in darkness." Hence the holy man, fleeing all darkness, says: "The light of your face has been sealed upon us, Lord; you have put gladness in my heart." But when they are in darkness and on the slippery way, that is, heretical error, they will be driven at every motion and fall; and the Lord brings evils upon them, not that the things the Lord brings are evil, but they are evils to those who undergo the punishments; otherwise the same things are both evil and good: evil for those whom they torment, good for those whom they correct. And it should be noted that the correction and chastisement of sinners is called the year of the Lord's visitation, according to what is written: "I will visit their iniquities with the rod and their sins with stripes; but my mercy I will not scatter from him."

[51] "And among the prophets of Samaria I saw folly (or: iniquity); they prophesied by Baal and deceived my people Israel." According to the mystical sense, I think that the prophets of Samaria properly means the heretics and all who boast of knowledge falsely so called. As the prophets of Samaria, whatever they said, prophesied by Baal, that is, by an idol consecrated to demons, so the heretics, whatever they say inside or outside the church in order to trip up the people Israel, which once saw God, speak by demons. Hence he says significantly: "And among the prophets of Samaria I saw folly"; for they do not have him of whom it is said: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

[52] "And among the prophets of Jerusalem I saw a likeness (or: horrible things): adultery and the way of falsehood; and they strengthened the hands of the wicked, so that no one turned back from his wickedness (or: from his most wicked way). They have all become to me like Sodom, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah." "Not only," he says, "are these things found in the conventicles of the heretics, but also among the prophets of Jerusalem, that is, the teachers of the church: I saw like things, or horrible things, of men adulterating the word of God and walking in the way of falsehood, so that they gave in to the deceits of the heretics and strengthened the hands of the most wicked, and added their evils to their own crimes, and led to destruction those whom they ought to have corrected. Let those who do this not think themselves unpunished! For both they and those they favor will be like Sodom, and all who live with them and do not depart from such men like Gomorrah." Let the most wicked doctrine exult, then, as much as it likes, and let the prophets of Jerusalem glory that they have prevailed by falsehood and strengthened the hands of the most wicked: their end will be like Sodom and Gomorrah.

[53] "Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts to the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood (or: with sorrows, and according to Symmachus, with bitterness) and give them gall to drink (or: bitter water), for from the prophets of Jerusalem pollution has gone out into all the land." Let us use this testimony against those who send letters full of lies, fraud, and perjury throughout the world, to pollute the ears of the hearers and injure the reputation of the simple; so that in them is fulfilled what is written: "From the prophets of Jerusalem pollution has gone out into all the land." For it is not enough for them to devour their own iniquity and to injure their neighbors, but those whom they have once hated they try to defame through the whole world and everywhere to sow blasphemies. [54] "Thus says the Lord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you and deceive you; they speak the vision of their own heart, and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those who blaspheme me (or: who cast off my word): The Lord has spoken: You will have peace. And to everyone who walks in the depravity of his heart they have said: Evils will not come upon you." So that the people might not think itself free from blame if it gave in to perverse teachers, he says: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy falsehood to you and deceive you; for the punishment will be equal for teacher and disciple. They do not speak from the mouth of the Lord, but what they have pretended in their own heart. They say to those who blaspheme me" (that is, to the heretics and the perverse) "or who cast off my word, what do they say? The Lord has spoken: You will have peace. Do not fear harsh punishments or be frightened by empty threats: you will have peace and tranquility; and whatever we say and announce to you, the Lord has spoken; nor will the evil come upon you that you fear because of a bad conscience, but the good that the Lord has spoken to you."

[55] "For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord and seen and heard his word? Who has considered his word and heard it?" Where we have translated "in the counsel of the Lord" and the Hebrew has bassod, Aquila interpreted "secret," Symmachus "discourse," the Seventy and Theodotion "substance" or "subsistence." And the sense is: "Do not believe, O untaught crowd, the prophets who announce false things to you, who say: The Lord has spoken: You will have peace; evil will not come upon you! For how can they know God's secrets, or by whose announcement have they learned the Lord's counsel? How has the word of the divine plan reached them?" Some of ours think they have found in this place where the substance of God is written of.

[56] "Behold, the whirlwind (or: the storm and commotion) of the Lord's indignation goes forth, and a bursting storm will come upon the head of the wicked; and the Lord's fury will not turn back until he has done and fulfilled the thought of his heart; in the last days you will understand his counsel." Those who had said above, "The Lord has spoken to us: You will have peace," and whom he had rebuked because they could not know the future nor know God's sentence, he now shows by the contrary to know nothing at all: for instead of peace and security a Babylonian storm is coming, and coming not upon just anyone but upon the heads of the wicked, either of the whole people or of those who announced false things to the people; nor is the wrath and fury of God to be appeased as in former times, but what he foretold and threatened very often is to be fulfilled in deed, and his thought and sentence proved by the punishments of the wicked. "When," he says, "the final time of captivity has come, and the exulting victor has taken hold of you and bound your hands with the clanking of chains, then you will understand his counsel, which you now boast in vain that you know."