Commentary on Jeremiah 5.7–5.36

[7] "Nor have you inclined your ears to hear, when I said: Return, each of you, from his evil way and from your most wicked thoughts, and you will dwell in the land which the Lord gave to you and your fathers from age to age." So great was the people's hardness that it did not even take the posture of a listener and incline its ear, especially when the Lord was warning that each should return from his evil way and his most wicked thoughts. O infinite mercy, not to bring punishment for crime but to call to repentance both for evil works, which the evil way signifies, and for most wicked thoughts, which are themselves reckoned as sin even without the deed! And he promises a reward if they do what is commanded: that they will dwell in the land which was given to the fathers and taken away because of the sons' vices. And his saying "from age to age," or "from eternity to eternity," shows that God's gifts are perpetual if those to whom they are given prove worthy.

[8] "And do not go after strange gods to serve them and worship them, nor provoke me to anger by the works of your hands, and I will not afflict you. And you have not listened to me." "And I warned you of this," he says, "along with the earlier things: that you should not serve strange gods and worship them, and that by doing these things you should not provoke me to anger because of the works of your hands, so that I would do what I did not want and afflict you; and you have not listened to me." What follows, "says the Lord, so as to provoke me to anger by the works of your hands, to your own harm," is not in the Seventy.

[9] "Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Because you have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant." "Because you have provoked me to anger and done evil to your own destruction, and trampled with proud foot him who called you to repentance, I will send," he says, "to all the families or nations of the north and bring their prince Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant." The Lord sends either angels to stir up the nations, or at least moves thoughts of this kind in them, so that they do the Lord's will. And when he calls Nebuchadnezzar "his servant," he is not called servant as the prophets and all the saints are, who truly serve the Lord, but because in the overthrow of Jerusalem he serves the Lord's will; as the apostle too says: "whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." That the Chaldeans are in the north relative to the position of Jerusalem, no one doubts.

[10] "And I will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all the nations around it, and I will kill them and make them an astonishment and a hissing and everlasting desolations." These are the rewards of those who despise and refuse to hear God's words. Whatever evil, then, is brought on us, our sins have done it. And as all the nations were then brought against Jerusalem, so today they are brought against the negligent church, to kill them and make them an astonishment and a hissing and everlasting desolations, so that they may be an example and a wonder to all. A hissing is a sign of wonder and astonishment, and everlasting desolation is found in those who do not have God as their protector.

[11] "And I will destroy from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bride and the voice of the bridegroom, the sound of the mill and the light of the lamp. And all their land will be a desolation and an astonishment." This is proved today too in the conventicle of the malicious: that their teachers do not teach the word of God but hiss like a snake. Among them perishes the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, so that they never hear the apostle's words: "Rejoice; again I say, rejoice!"; the voice also of the bride, the church's faith, and the voice of the bridegroom, the Lord and Savior (for he who has the bride is the bridegroom); the sound of the mill, so that grain is not ground in it and given to the peoples to eat; and the light of the lamp, namely the teaching and knowledge of the prophets; thus it is said of John the Baptist, "He was a burning lamp," and another prophet says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet, Lord, and a light to my paths." "All the land," he says, "of the heretics will be a desolation and an astonishment, when its end has been shown to be foolish."

[12] "And all these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will visit upon the king of Babylon and upon that nation, says the Lord, their iniquities, and upon the land of the Chaldeans, and I will make it everlasting desolations. And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have spoken against it, all that is written in this book, whatever Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations." As Jerusalem after seventy years receives its former inhabitants and, its punishments completed, enjoys its former happiness because it obeyed God's sentence, so the king of Babylon, because he was lifted up into pride and thought that his reigning over the nations was the work of his own strength and not of the Lord's will, is destroyed when the Medes and Persians come. Indeed, to this day only the remains of the city of Babylon survive, and the Lord has made it an everlasting desolation and has fulfilled all the words contained in the book of this very prophet. For in what follows Jeremiah's word describes what evils Babylon was to suffer.

[13] "For they made them serve, though they were many nations and great kings; and I will repay them according to their works and according to the deeds of their hands." This is not in the Seventy. It signifies that Jeremiah prophesied not only against Babylon but also against the other nations that were in the Babylonian army and fought against the Lord's people. Accordingly, in what follows he speaks against Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar, the kingdoms of Hazor and Elam, and finally against Babylon and the land of Chaldea. [14] "For thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, to me: Take this cup of the wine of fury (or: of unmixed wine) from my hand, and you shall make all the nations to which I send you drink from it; and they will drink and be drunk (or: vomit) and go mad before the sword which I will send among them. And I took the cup from the Lord's hand and made all the nations drink to which the Lord sent me." The giving of the cup to drink, and of a cup of "pure" or "unmixed" wine, which in Greek is called akraton, is a sign of the Lord's fury, so that all the nations that fought against God's people drink from the cup of the Lord's fury, of which Isaiah too writes against Jerusalem: "You have drunk the bowl of fury, the cup of ruin, and drained it; therefore rise up!" This cup is drunk by all the nations so that they vomit and go mad. A perverse interpreter takes this in a good sense: that, like a purging draught, it forces out whatever bile, phlegm, and harmful humor is in the breast and restores former health; and in place of Jeremiah he takes the Savior, who gave drink to all the nations to which he was sent, so that, having cast off idolatry, they might dedicate themselves to the worship of God. What follows will show that this is contrary to holy Scripture; for the unmixed cup is given to drink not as a remedy, as he would have it, but as a punishment.

[15] "Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation and an astonishment and a hissing and a curse, as it is this day." "I thought," he says, "that I would give the cup only to the nations, and so I offered myself gladly for this ministry; but among the other nations, or rather before the other nations, I gave it to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and princes to drink, to make them an astonishment and a desolation and a hissing and a curse, as is proved by the present example." Hence he also says above: "You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you were stronger and prevailed!"

[16] "To Pharaoh king of Egypt and his servants and his princes and all his people (and all the mixed multitude)." After Jerusalem, Pharaoh king of Egypt and his allies drank; his princes and all his people drank, and everyone who is not indeed Egyptian but lives in its regions, whom the Seventy rendered symmiktous, that is, "mixed," a crowd not of the Egyptian region but foreign and immigrant.

[17] "To all the kings of the land of Ausitis." It is called Us in Hebrew, from which, as the history relates, Job came: "There was a man in the land of Ausitis, named Job." Yet it should be known that this verse is not in the Seventy, and that Theodotion interpreted "Us" as "island." [18] "And to all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and of Ashkelon and Gaza and Ekron and the remnant of Ashdod." He put the Philistines generally, that is, the land of the Palestinians, and specifically their cities Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, Ashdod; only Gath he passed over, which is included in "the remnant"; for this is what is written, "and the remnant of Ashdod": for the region of the city of Gath is near and bordering on Azotus, which in Hebrew is called Esdod. Isaiah too writes that the Palestinians were captured and laid waste by the Babylonians.

[19] "Edom and Moab and the sons of Ammon, and all the kings of Tyre and all the kings of Sidon." Idumea, in which are the mountains of Seir and which in Hebrew is called Edom; Moab and Ammon are the sons of Lot, next to the Dead Sea. Tyre and Sidon are the chief cities on the coast of Phoenicia, which themselves too were overcome when the Babylonian came. Carthage is their colony; hence the Carthaginians are called Poeni, by a corruption of speech, as if Phoeni; and their language is in great part close to the Hebrew language.

[20] "And to the kings of the islands which are beyond the sea." He passes to Cyprus, Rhodes, and the islands called the Cyclades; for these too were occupied by the Babylonians.

[21] "And Dedan and Tema and Buz and all who have their hair cut in a ring." These are nations in the wilderness, neighboring and mixed with the regions of the Ishmaelites, whom they now call Saracens, and of whom it is said: "who have their hair cut in a ring."

[22] "And all the kings of Arabia." This is not in the Seventy. After Dedan, Tema, Buz, and the Ishmaelites, then, the order of the regions follows.

[23] "And all the kings of the west, who dwell in the desert (and all the kings of) Zimri." This too … And what he said, "against his brother," means "I gave an unmixed drink," so that all should rage, vomit, go mad, and fight in battles among themselves. And what he added:

[27] "And the king of Sheshach will drink after them"; this is not in the Seventy, and has this sense: "All the nations round about," he says, "will be subject to the Babylonian empire, and he will subject everything to his power, so that all the nations which the preceding discourse has listed will serve him and drink of his cup"; hence in the vision against Babylon too it is written: "Babylon is a golden cup making all the earth drunk." But last of all the king of Babylon will drink this draught, when it is given him by Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians, the rider of the chariot of camel and ass. How Babylon, which in Hebrew is called Babel, is to be understood as Sheshach will not greatly trouble anyone who has even a little knowledge of the Hebrew language. As among us the Greek alphabet is read in order down to the last letter, that is, alpha, beta, and so on to omega, and again, to help children's memory, we are accustomed to reverse the order of reading and mix the last with the first, so as to say alpha omega, beta psi, so among the Hebrews the first letter is aleph, the second beth, the third gimel, up to the twenty-second and last letter, thau, of which the next to last is sin. We read, then, aleph thau, beth sin. And when we come to the middle, the letter lamed is matched by caph. And as, if it is read straight, we read Babel, so with the order changed we read Sheshach. Vowels between beth and beth and lamed, and between sin and sin and caph, are not written in this name, according to the idiom of the Hebrew language. And I think the holy prophet prudently concealed it, so as not to stir up openly against himself the fury of those who were besieging Jerusalem and were about to take it at any moment. We read that the apostle too did this with regard to the Roman empire, writing about the Antichrist: "Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what restrains, that he may be revealed in his time" (the Antichrist is understood). "For the mystery of iniquity is already at work; only, let him who now restrains restrain, until he is taken out of the way; and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the brightness of his coming." By "him who restrains" he shows the Roman empire; for unless it is destroyed and taken out of the way, according to the prophecy of Daniel, the Antichrist will not come first. If he had chosen to say this openly, he would foolishly have stirred up the fury of persecution against the Christians and the church that was then being born. We have spoken of this passage at greater length than the brevity of commentaries allows, which the Greeks and Latins will perhaps disdain because it is not in their manuscripts. But what will it profit them, since in what follows this same prophet says: "How Sheshach has been taken, and the glory of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become an astonishment among the nations!" The allegorical interpreters refer this whole place to all the nations which the devil has made drunk with the purest cup of sins; and last of all he himself will drink punishments and torments, of whom the apostle writes: "whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth"; hence in another place he says: "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." It takes great powers to be able to carry the names of different nations over into their etymologies and fit individual vices to individual names.

[28] "And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink and be drunk and vomit and fall and do not rise before the sword which I will send among you!" "After you have given the drink to all the nations," he says, "and fulfilled the Lord's command, you will again command these things in the Lord's words and say: Drink and be drunk and vomit and fall and do not rise!" If "to drink, be drunk, vomit, and fall" is a sign of health, so that like a purging draught all harmful things are expelled, how does it follow, "and do not rise"? What this draught is that makes them fall forever he states more clearly, namely: "before the sword which I will send among you."

[29] "And when they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: You shall surely drink! For behold, in the city in which my name is called upon I begin to afflict; and will you be as if innocent and exempt (or: and will you be clean with cleansing)? You will not be exempt" (or: "you will not be clean"). He shows covertly that those who were unwilling to carry out God's command by their will would receive it by necessity, and hear: "You shall surely drink. Whether you will or not," he says, "God's sentence must be fulfilled. For if the city of Jerusalem, in which the name of God was known, as the prophet says, 'God is known in Judah, his name is great in Israel,' drank the unmixed cup of fury, how much more will you not be clean, who worship idols instead of God's name!"

[30] "For I am calling a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord of hosts." This is the purest draught, this is the cup of the Lord's fury, which is called not upon Jerusalem alone but upon all the earth and all the nations round about; of which he had said above: "And I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant, and bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all the nations that are round about it."

[31] "And you shall prophesy to them all these words and say to them: The Lord will roar from on high (or: will give an answer), and from his holy dwelling he will utter his voice; roaring he will roar over his beauty (or: will answer over his place). A shout like that of those treading grapes will be raised against all the inhabitants of the earth. The sound (or: destruction) has reached to the ends (or: over part) of the earth, for the Lord has a case against the nations; he enters into judgment with all flesh; the wicked he has given to the sword, says the Lord." First let us explain as the truth of the translation has it: "To all the nations," he says, "you will prophesy and say that the Lord roars from on high," that is, gives a sign of his fury, according to what is written: "The lion will roar, and who will not fear? The Lord has spoken, and who will not prophesy?" "And from his holy dwelling he will utter his voice," so as to terrify all who hear. And he will roar over his beauty, that is, over the temple. And when he has roared, a shout like that of those treading in the winepresses will be sung, and over the mutual shedding of blood a mournful song will be raised, which Symmachus calls a chant (kataleugma?) and Aquila a song; the sound of this shout and song will reach to the ends of the earth, because the Lord has a judgment with the nations. And if the Lord has a judgment with the nations, the deserts of the nations also differ, to explain that place, as some would have it: "He who does not believe is already judged." He is judged indeed in that he did not believe; but those who do not believe will themselves be visited with different punishments among themselves. He enters into judgment with all flesh, so that no one goes away unjudged; but the wicked (that is, those who do not believe the Lord) he hands over to the everlasting sword. The allegorical interpreters, following the Seventy, expound this place so as to refer the Lord's open threat to a good sense: "The Lord," they say, "will give an answer from on high, namely to those whom he is to save, and from his holy place he will utter his voice and answer a word in his place. And they, like grape-gatherers full of the fruits of that sentence, will answer. Destruction will come upon all the inhabitants of the earth, not upon the whole earth but upon part of the earth, namely of those who do not believe; for (the Lord) will have a judgment among the nations, and he himself will be judged with all flesh; but the wicked will be handed to the sword." [32] "Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, affliction (or: evil) will go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind (or: storm) will go forth from the heights (or: ends) of the earth. And the slain of the Lord (or: the wounded by the Lord) will be on that day from one end of the earth to the other; they will not be lamented, nor gathered, nor buried; they will lie as dung on the face of the earth." Let them blush who try to do violence to holy Scripture, expounding in a good sense things that are full of threat. Of this place I think the Lord too said: "Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom," and the rest that is contained in that saying of the Gospel. Let us understand these things as having happened according to the history, when all the surrounding nations were subjugated by the Babylonian king and felt his cruel rule; or according to prophecy, as what will happen long afterward at the end of the world. And they are called slain by the Lord, not that the Lord himself strikes, but that in the destruction of the most wicked the will and command of the Lord is fulfilled. [33] "Howl (or: shout for joy), shepherds, and cry out, and sprinkle yourselves with ash, leaders of the flock (or: lament, rams of the sheep), for your days are fulfilled to be slain, and your scatterings, and you will fall like precious vessels (or: like choice rams). And flight will perish from the shepherds and safety from the leaders (or: the rams) of the flock." It should be noted that only in this place have the Seventy put "shouting for joy" in a bad sense, for which the other translators rendered "howling," as it is written in the Hebrew. Between shepherds and rams or leaders of the flock there is this difference: shepherds belong to rational beings, while rams and leaders are referred to the rich, who are themselves called part of the flock. And what he adds, "your days are fulfilled to be slain," their days will be fulfilled when their sins are fulfilled. And they will be scattered and fall like precious vessels, so that once broken they cannot be restored, and the more precious they were before, the greater the loss in their breaking; or like choice rams, so that they are a fat victim for those eager to devour them. Flight will perish from the shepherds, he says, when they have not repented; thus it is said to the Pharisees: "Brood of vipers, who showed you how to flee from the wrath to come?" And in the Psalms we read: "Flight has perished from me." "And safety," he says, "from the leaders or rams of the flock"; by a common construction "will perish" is understood.

[34] "The sound of the cry of the shepherds and the howling of the leaders of the flock (or: the shouting of the rams), for the Lord has laid waste their pastures. And the fields (or: the beautiful places) of peace have fallen silent before the wrath of the Lord's fury." Here too it is to be noted that in the Seventy "shouting for joy" is put for "howling." Between shepherds and rams there is this difference: the shepherds are reckoned those in the church who preside over the flock with wisdom, learning, and teaching; the rams, those who seem indeed to be leaders among the people but have no teaching and wisdom in them and through excessive simplicity are almost bordering on folly. When we have had peace and have not understood either the goods or the beauties of peace, but have given ourselves to luxury, idleness, and pleasures, then the goods of peace will be quiet or fall silent and be taken from us because of the wrath of the Lord's fury, and what is written will be fulfilled: "When they say, Peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them"; and when it comes all things will fall silent.

[35] "Like a lion he has left his covert (or: his lair"; and, which is truer, his tent; for this is what the Hebrew soccho means), "for their land has become a desolation (or: trackless) before the wrath of the dove (or: before the great sword) and before the wrath of the Lord's fury." The Lord, of whom he had said above, "He will roar from on high and from his holy dwelling utter his voice; roaring he will roar over his beauty," himself will leave his tent, of which it is written, "His place has been made in peace (or: in Salem), and his dwelling in Zion"; he himself will desert his seat and fulfill what he spoke through this same prophet: "I have left my house, I have abandoned my inheritance." He has left his lair like a lion, so that all the beasts have power to lay waste his land; for while the lion is guard and protector, no one dares approach it. "Their land has become," he says (no doubt either the land of the Jewish people or of all the nations), "a desolation and trackless before the wrath of the dove." No one who has read above that Nebuchadnezzar was called the Lord's "servant" will be surprised that he is understood as the Lord's "dove" (for which the Seventy translated "great sword"); though we can also take "dove" in the person of Jerusalem, which is angry and sad that she has lost the protection of her lion and that her land has come to desolation.

[36] "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the Lord, saying: Thus says the Lord: Stand in the court of the house of the Lord, and you shall speak to all the cities of Judah which come to worship in the house of the Lord all the words that I have commanded you to speak to them; do not hold back a word! Perhaps they will listen and turn, each from his evil way, and I will repent (or: rest) of the evil that I think to do to them because of the wickedness of their pursuits." This prophecy is earlier than the previous one, although it was given under the same king. For that one was given in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, but this one at the beginning of the same king, as Scripture says: "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the Lord, saying." So, as we have often said, the order of history is not to be woven in the prophets, since in the present case, under the same king, earlier things are told later and later things earlier. He who is to speak the word of the Lord must stand with Moses and hear with the psalmist: "You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God." And he is commanded to speak to all the cities of Judah, although the Seventy did not translate "cities," lest perhaps it seem unfitting to speak in the court of the Lord's house to cities that were not present; but when he speaks to the peoples and citizens, he speaks to the cities themselves. He finely stands in the court and porch of the Lord's temple, so that on the occasion of praying to the Lord and worshiping him they may be compelled to hear the prophet's words. "Do not," he says, "hold back a word; though it be sad, though the rage of the hearers be stirred against you, say what you have been commanded, fearing not the persecutions of those who are to be stirred up against you, but the command of the Lord who orders it." "Perhaps," he says, "they will listen and turn." The doubtful word "perhaps" cannot fit the majesty of the Lord, but he speaks according to our feeling, so that man's free choice may be preserved, lest by his foreknowledge, as if by necessity, he be compelled to do or not to do something. For it is not because God knows that something will be that it therefore will be; but because it will be, God knows it, as foreknowing the future. And yet it should be known, according to this same Jeremiah, that if the Lord has foretold evils and the people repents, he himself too will repent of what he threatened to do; and if he has promised prosperity and the people acts negligently, God changes his sentence and brings evils instead of good. Something like this is in the Gospel: "I will send my son; perhaps they will respect him," which is certainly said in the person of God almighty. So in the present place too he says: "Perhaps they will listen and turn, each from his evil way, so that when they have turned I too may repent of my sentence and not do what I think to do to them. And I think to do it because of the wickedness of their pursuits; if these are changed, my sentence too will be changed." Let us read the history of Jonah and Nineveh.