Commentary on Jeremiah 6.34–6.49

[34] "And I understood that it was the word of the Lord, and I bought the field from Hanamel, the son of my uncle, which is in Anathoth, and I weighed out the silver to him, seven staters and ten pieces of silver. And I wrote it in a deed and sealed it and called witnesses and weighed the silver on the scales. And I took the sealed deed of possession, the terms and conditions and the open seals." It was indeed hard and almost inconsistent and laughable that he who was prophesying that Jerusalem was about to be taken, and that all were to be led captive or perish by sword, famine, and pestilence, should buy a field in Anathoth which he would not possess. "But I understood," he says, "that it was the word of the Lord, and that my purchase was to be fitted to the Lord's argument and prophecy; and so I submitted to his command to buy, and not in vain had God's word come to me about such a matter; and I weighed out seventeen shekels of silver," which we have rendered "staters." A shekel has twenty obols, as is written at the end of the book of Ezekiel. And the prophet bought with "seventeen" shekels, the number in which the Lord's servant David sang on the day when the Lord rescued him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul, and said: "I will love you, Lord, my strength! The Lord is my firm foundation and my refuge and my deliverer; my God is my helper, and I will hope in him; my protector and the horn of my salvation." That ten is a mystical number the Decalogue shows, which was written on tablets of stone by the finger of God, and the day of fasting and atonement in the seventh month; and that seven too, in which is the true sabbath rest and repose, is holy, we prove by many testimonies of the Scriptures, of which I would have set down at least a few, were it not idle to teach what is known. In this number, then, a possession is bought by a prophet and priest, and it is written in a deed and sealed, and witnesses are called and the silver carefully weighed, so that all the rights of sale and purchase are kept and the possession is certain, strengthened by stipulations and responses. Let those hear this at least who try to claim false wills for themselves, and sometimes not even wills, with witnesses called in!

[35] "And I gave the deed of possession to Baruch son of Neriah son of Maaseiah, in the sight of Hanamel my cousin, and in the sight of the witnesses who were written in the deed of purchase, in the sight of all the Jews who were sitting in the court of the prison." Although the possession was at once to be left, or rather to be bought for posterity, and bought by one who had no sons (for he had not taken a wife), yet, obeying the Lord's command, he performs everything in due form and gives the sealed deed of possession to Baruch son of Neriah son of Maaseiah. Baruch in our language is called "blessed"; he was the son of Neriah, which is interpreted "my lamp," as the prophet says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a burning light to my paths"; and Neriah, Baruch's father, was the son of Maaseiah, that is, "of the making" and "of the work of the Lord." Let us notice, then, with what great privileges of virtues the disciple Baruch served Jeremiah, as David says: "He who walks in a blameless way, he served me"; hence Elisha too, the minister of Elijah, so pleased God that after his master's translation he deserved to receive a double spirit. I say this as a warning to those who make use of the services of bad men and do not dare to cast off those whom they know to be joined to them by the glue of a bad conscience. The deed is handed to Baruch, so great and such a man, while Hanamel, who had sold, looked on, and the witnesses who had signed and whose names were contained in the deed of purchase, "and in the sight," he says, "of all the Jews who were sitting in the court of the prison," who namely had either come to comfort the prophet or, out of zeal for the fear of God, wished to hear the Lord's words. [36] "And I charged Baruch before them, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, this sealed deed of purchase and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, so that they may last many days. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards will again be possessed in this land." In the presence and sight of all whom the previous discourse has named, Baruch, the minister and disciple, is commanded, not by the words of his teacher but by the command of God who orders it, to take the deeds, one sealed and the other open (this custom of purchases is kept to this day, that what the seals hold closed within, an open copy shows to those who wish to read it), both in an earthen vessel, so that they may last many days. Firm, then, and to come long afterward was the possession that was guarded with such care, so that the deeds of purchase would neither lie open to plunder if kept outside nor be dissolved by the moisture of the earth if buried. All this is done so that those who saw it might understand that Jerusalem would be inhabited again and fields possessed; which, though they ought to have understood it of themselves without Jeremiah's word, yet they are reminded by the Lord's words, and it is said to them: "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards will again be possessed in this land." This is what Jeremiah had said earlier, "I understood that it was the word of the Lord"; and therefore he bought a field which he would not possess.

[37] "And I prayed to the Lord, after I had given the deed of possession to Baruch son of Neriah, saying: Alas, alas, alas, Lord God (or: you who are, Lord God)! Behold, you made heaven and earth by your great strength and your outstretched (or: lofty) arm; nothing will be difficult (or: impossible) for you" (or, according to the Seventy, "nothing is hidden from you"), "who show mercy to thousands and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them; most mighty, great, powerful" (which in Hebrew is called gibbor), "the Lord of hosts (or: of powers) is your name; great in counsel and incomprehensible in thought, whose eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of Adam (or: of men), to repay each according to his ways and according to the fruit of his devices." After the purchase of the field was duly performed, and after the Lord's sentence in which he promised that houses, fields, and vineyards would again be possessed, the prophet prays to the Lord and expresses the grief of his heart with groans, saying, "Alas, alas, alas, Lord God," for which the Seventy translated ho ōn, that is, "who are, Lord God," according to what is said to Moses: "Go, say to the people of Israel: He who is has sent me"; not that others do not exist, but it is one thing to subsist by the kindness of the Creator, another by eternity of nature. He praises God and from the creation proclaims the Creator; and first he extols with his voice his power and mercy and justice toward the whole human race, then passes to Israel and describes in solemn speech how much he has given it; and after such great benefits he says that, unmindful of his goodness, they provoked his mercy to bitterness, so that the city is besieged and, before the enemy breaks into it, has been consumed by sword, famine, and pestilence. All this he set first in order to add consequently what seemed to amount to a reproach of the divine sentence: "And you say to me, Lord God: Buy the field with silver and call witnesses, when the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans?" This in the meantime is the whole summary of this place; now let us return to particulars. "You made heaven and earth by your great strength": John too says of the Son, "All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made"; for this is the "strength" of the Lord, as the apostle proves: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." "And by your outstretched or lofty arm," each of which is a sign of one who strikes; this is the "arm" of which Isaiah too speaks: "And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" "Nothing will be difficult for you" (for what is impossible with men is possible with God), or "from whom nothing is hidden," according to the psalmist's saying: "For darkness will not be dark to you, and the night will be lit as the day." "Who show mercy to thousands and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them." Great is the Creator's mercy, to extend his mercy to a thousand generations and to show justice at once in the next generation; which itself, however, is mixed with mercy: for he does not punish the offender at once, but waits for repentance, so that, if the children imitate the vices of their parents, a long-delayed punishment is repaid. "Most mighty, great, powerful, the Lord of hosts (or: of powers) is your name!" These names indicate the Creator's power; but properly the name of God is "Father," which is revealed in the Gospel by the Lord, who says: "Father, I have made your name known to men." "Great in counsel": and does anyone dare to thrust himself into the Lord's secret and judge his judgments? "And incomprehensible in thought": him whom thought does not comprehend, how can speech comprehend? "Whose eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of Adam": in vain, then, does man think he can hide from God's knowledge. And what he adds, "to repay each according to his ways and according to the fruit of his devices," indicates that sometimes, because of his exceeding wisdom, his judgments seem unjust; a place which the apostle explains more fully to the Romans: "Do you not know that God's kindness leads you to repentance? But by your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God." The later the punishment of sinners, then, the more just it is, like Pharaoh, who, warned and not punished by ten plagues and persisting in hardness, was at last overwhelmed by the waves of the Red Sea.

[38] "Who set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt to this day, and in Israel and among men (or: the earth-born), and made a name for yourself as at this day; and brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and with wonders and with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror. And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. And they went in and possessed it; and they did not obey your voice and did not walk in your law; all that you commanded them to do, they did not do; and all these evils have come upon them." From the general he passes to the particular, and runs briefly through what he especially gave to Israel. "Who set," he says, "signs and wonders in the land of Egypt," by which Egypt was afflicted, "to this day, and in Israel and among men," or "the earth-born." "To this day" is to be joined with what follows, so that we read: "and in Israel and in all mortals your signs are fulfilled daily"; or otherwise: "You performed signs and wonders not only in Egypt, but to this day the same strength of your mercy has saved your people, and you help the whole human race by the Creator's power." And it is to be noted that he separates Israel from "men" and the "earth-born," according to the saying: "Israel is my firstborn son." "And you made a name for yourself as at this day": "your praises," he says, "are celebrated in the speech of the whole world." "And you brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt": he finely said "your people"; for at the time it was brought out it was serving the Lord's commands. "You brought them out with signs and wonders, by which Egypt was struck, and with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror," when he provided a way for the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea and overwhelmed the Egyptian army. "And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them," namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So they received the land of promise not by their own merit but by the virtues of their fathers. "A land flowing with milk and honey"; for they could not yet take solid food, but were nourished with the honey and milk of infancy; or certainly with honey and milk, that is, the richness and abundance of all things. "And they went in and possessed it"; and at once between possession and disobedience there was nothing in between; for richness breeds security, security negligence, negligence contempt. "And they did not obey," he says, "your voice and did not walk in your law." In vain, then, did they promise in the wilderness, saying, "All that the Lord commands we will do"; the reward lies not in the pledge but in the work; this is to beat back the shamelessness of those who think that a man can fulfill all that he has promised to do. "All that you commanded them to do, they did not do"; and surely they had promised to do it; "and all these evils have come upon them": evils to those who suffer them, but according to the Lord's sentence "goods," for he repays each according to his ways.

[39] "Behold, siege works have been built against the city to take it, and the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword and famine and pestilence; and whatever you have spoken has happened, as you yourself see. And you say to me, Lord God: Buy the field with silver and call witnesses, when the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans?" It was the tenth year of King Zedekiah; for so it is written: "The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah; at that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison." And rightly it is now said: "Behold, siege works have been built against the city to take it, and the city has been handed into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they have none to conquer, only to capture; for they have already been consumed by sword, famine, and pestilence, and whatever you said we see fulfilled. How then do you say to me, Lord: Buy the field with silver and call witnesses, when the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans?" So he does not reproach, but asks; and he wishes not so much himself to learn as others, who were sitting in the court of the prison and perhaps silently found fault, how the same prophet, whom they believed to announce the truth, should both say that the city was to be taken and buy a field as if he would possess it.

[40] "And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying: Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; will anything be difficult (or: impossible) for me (or: will any word be hidden from me)? Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans and into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it. And the Chaldeans will come (or: will enter) fighting (or: the Chaldeans will come) against this city, and set it on fire and burn it, with the houses on whose roofs they offered to Baal and poured drink offerings to strange gods to provoke me." He joins joyful things to sad ones, and after the overthrow of Jerusalem promises the captive people a return. And first he sets out the causes of the offense and of God's fury, so that the greater the guilt of the sinners, the more ample the Creator's mercy toward sinners. "I," he says, "am the Lord, the God of all flesh"; not of all nations, or of the people of Israel, or certainly, as he often says of the saints, "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob," but "God," he says, "of all flesh," so that he may be believed to have made both rational and brute animals. For there are some who confess the Creator's providence as far as rational beings, but assert that brute beasts perish or live by chance; and the prophetic word declares that there is nothing which escapes God's providence and knowledge, because some things were created for their own sake, others for the use of men. "Will anything be difficult for me (or: impossible, or certainly hidden from me)?" We have also said above: "What is impossible with men is possible with God." "Word" here and in many other places we should take for "things." And what does it mean, that the word came: "Therefore thus says the Lord"? What had gone before, that he should put the causal conjunction, saying, "Therefore thus says the Lord"? "Because," he says, "it is my care to rule all things, to order everything, and to repay each according to his ways, therefore I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans and into the hand of the king of Babylon, and they will take it"; for first it is surrounded by an army and taken in Nebuchadnezzar's absence, and Zedekiah is led to Riblah and there handed over to the king. "And the Chaldeans will come," he says, "fighting against this city." Aquila is better, who for what is written "will come" translated eiseleusontai, that is, "will enter" the city; for they were not absent so as to "come," since they had surrounded Jerusalem, as Scripture testifies, "At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem," and then, "Behold, siege works have been built against the city to take it, and the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans." How then will they "come," who were present? But those who were besieging the city "will enter," he says, "and take it, and set it on fire and burn it to the ground" (for the Hebrew word bau by its ambiguity means both "will come" and "will enter"), "and the houses on whose roofs they offered to Baal, the idol of the Sidonians, and poured drink offerings to strange gods to provoke me, so that they seemed to do it not by error of religion but out of a kind of rivalry and to insult the Creator." And as the world is written to be going to perish, according to what is written, "Heaven and earth will pass away," because it lies in the evil one, so the very houses and places in which crimes were committed lie under God's wrath. There are some who contentiously refer to the places themselves the saying of Scripture, "the place where the Lord and Savior was crucified is spiritually called Gomorrah and Egypt"; others think the whole world is signified under the name of Egypt and Gomorrah: for as Gomorrah was destroyed by divine fire, so the world too is to be burned by God's judgment.

[41] "For the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah were continually (or: only) doing evil in my eyes from their youth." The Hebrew word ach Aquila interpreted plēn, which signifies the conjunction "nevertheless"; Symmachus's first edition, the Seventy, and Theodotion interpreted "only"; Symmachus's second edition rendered holōs, which we too have followed here, so as to say "continually." Let us speak first, then, according to the Hebrew: "The sons of Israel and the sons of Judah continually doing evil. Both the ten and the two tribes," he says, "did evil without ceasing, and they had continual perseverance in the worst works." But if it was continual and always in the whole people, where is everlasting righteousness? But according to the Seventy, who said, "only doing evil," a question arises: had the other nations not done evil at the time when Israel and Judah were sinning? It is solved thus: he who has the knowledge of God and departs from him alone sins in the eyes of God; while those who remained unbelieving sin as if he did not see and neglected them. Hence David too, a holy man, because he had fallen into sin with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, says afterwards in repentance: "Against you only have I sinned and done evil before you," that is, "in your sight." Then it is joined: "only doing evil in my sight from their youth." What follows, "the sons of Israel, who until now provoke me by the work of their hands, says the Lord," is not in the Seventy and has been added from the Hebrew. And because they offended continually from their youth to the present day, therefore God's sentence is just, and Scripture rightly adds:

[42] "This city has been to me a provocation of my fury and my indignation from the day they built it to this day, when it is taken from my sight." If from the time when the city's foundations were laid until this day, when it was taken and burned and removed from the Lord's sight, it was always in vice and provoked the Lord's indignation against itself, where (as we have often said) is the rest from sins?

[43] "Because of the evil of the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah, which they did to provoke me to anger, they and their kings, their princes and their priests and their prophets, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem." Because he had said above, "This city has been to me a provocation of my fury and my indignation from the day they built it to this day, when it is taken from my sight," and had shown in general that no one was without sin, he now lists them part by part, kings and princes and priests and their prophets, and, comprising everything in one word, says: "the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem." And he finely did not say "my kings and my princes and my priests and my prophets," but, because they sinned, "their kings and their princes and their priests and their prophets."

[44] "And they turned their backs to me and not their faces." According to what is written elsewhere: "And they turned against me a retreating shoulder." For he who prays bows his neck and falls prone to the ground; but he who turns his back shows by the very gesture of his body that he disregards the one who threatens. "And this," he says, "they were doing."

[45] "When I taught them early and instructed them, and they would not listen to receive instruction." "Putting to flight the darkness of error and all worship of idols, refuting it by my sentence, I wished daily to enlighten their hearts and to teach what is right." And to preserve free choice, he joins and says: "and they would not listen to receive instruction." There follows:

[46] "And they set their idols in the house on which my name is called, to defile it." Not only at that time did Judah set in the temple of God the statue of the idol which we read of at the beginning of Ezekiel, but to this day in the house of God, which is interpreted as the church, or in the heart and soul of believers, an idol is set up when a new dogma is constructed and, according to Deuteronomy, is worshiped in secret. "Do you not know," he says, "that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?"

[47] "And they built the high places (or: altars) of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Ennom, to initiate their sons and their daughters to Moloch." For "initiate" the Hebrew has ebir, which Aquila and Symmachus interpreted "make pass through," the Seventy and Theodotion "offer." Of the "valley of the sons of Ennom," which in Hebrew is called Gehenna, we have spoken more fully above: that it lies below the springs of Siloam and, by its pleasantness, because it is a well-watered place, provoked the people to luxury, which the worship of idols follows. And it is to be noted that "altars" and "high places" are called bamoth in the Hebrew language, because of those who are in doubt what this word means in the books of Samuel and Kings. Moloch is the idol of the Ammonites, which is translated "king"; and divine Scripture signifies that the people served in that very place not only the idol Baal but also Moab and all the demons.

[48] "Which I did not command them, nor did it enter my heart, that they should do this abomination and lead Judah into sin." Properly, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin venerated the images of demons in the shrine of Baal and Moloch; but it is plain that the ten tribes, which were called Samaria, Joseph, and Ephraim, worshiped the golden calves in Bethel and Dan. And so great was the evil done by the people that God testifies that he never thought, nor did it enter his heart, what they would do. But all these things are said anthropopathōs.

[49] "And now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say that it is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword and by famine and by pestilence." As to those who hoped for help and trusted in the strength of their walls it is prophesied that Jerusalem is to be overthrown and the people about to be captured and, before captivity, to perish by sword, famine, and pestilence, so to those who despair and expect no salvation after the city's overthrow he promises his help; so that confidence and pride merit a just sentence, and despair and humility the help of God.