Chapter XXX.
But now, the younger ones ridicule me at times. It is evident.
I did not think it worthy to place among the dogs of my flock those whom their fathers were not even deemed worthy to be compared to dogs.
The strength of their hands was considered worthless to me, and their very lives were deemed unworthy. Destitute and barren of food. That is, despised for the shamefulness of their lowliness.
They were gnawing in solitude, wretched with calamity and misery. And they were eating herbs and the bark of trees, and the root of juniper was their food. Those who seized these things from the valleys, when they found each one, ran to them with a shout. Because of misery and greed, they even attacked those things that were outside of food, whether of men or beasts, as if they were feasts and delicacies, sucking moist valleys because of extreme poverty.
They lived in the deserts of rivers, and in the caves of the earth, or on the sand. They delighted in such places. They also, as he says, dwelled in barren and waterless places, or in ditches, like sudden openings in the earth: which are watered by the rains of the mountains.
And they considered it a pleasure to be under the shade of brambles. If they were covered with leaves of the cheapest plants in their heat.
Sons of fools and ignoble people, they do not obey in the land. Now I have become a verse in their song, and I have become a proverb to them. They abhor me and flee far from me, and they are not afraid to spit on my face. They are obscure and completely unworthy of remembrance.
For he opened his quiver, and afflicted me, and put a bridle in my mouth. I consider the quiver to be a multitude of blows, or the devil himself, or his power, should be understood in this place. Just as Job says, God opened it, while the devil exercised his power around him, and afflicted him with the arrows of torment. Moreover, he also put a bridle of silence in his mouth so that he would not speak.
To the right of the rising sun, my misfortunes immediately arose. That is, at the very moment of happiness, which is considered most severe, they emerged, either by divine permission or imposed by divine power. For He Himself is the rising sun from on high, He Himself is the right hand and power of the Most High.
My feet stumbled and were crushed, as if by the waves of their paths. That is, my misfortunes, constantly repeating and afflicting me, have overturned all the right paths of my conduct like waves.
They have scattered my paths, they laid wait for me, and prevailed, and there was no one to help. That is, my paths, by which I was advancing on the way of justice with daily progress, have been disturbed by my enemies, unexpectedly causing harm to me, as if bursting forth from ambush, with my closest ones denying me the assistance of solace.
As if a wall had been broken and a door opened, they rushed upon me and threw themselves into my miseries. With such a swift assault, he said, those predicted evils rushed upon me that no resisting obstacle could prevent them from overwhelming me from above.
I am reduced to nothing. It has taken away my desire like the wind, and my salvation has passed like a cloud. As a result, I waited for your rewards for the keeping of your commandments, together with salvation, but you snatched them away with the force of the wind, and with the speed of a passing cloud, you allowed them to be carried away.
But then within myself my soul withers away, and the days of affliction possess me. It withers away, that is, it dissolves from the strength of its intention.
At night my soul is pierced with pains, and those who devour me do not sleep. It is evident that worms were eating his flesh, keeping the nights sleepless.
In the midst of their multitude, my garment is being consumed, and they have girded me with the tunic as if with a noose. A multitude of crawling worms, always in motion, and running through the various openings of my wounds, has also worn away my clothing, while it does not cease to creep through me. It torments and tortures me incessantly, devouring without end, as if it were one continuous wound encompassing me from every side.
I have been compared to mud, and likened to ashes and dust. He claims to have been brought to the extreme of worthlessness, who would putrefy and stink with wounds and pus, just like mud, and dry up the corruption of his flesh with the filth of dust.
I cry out to you, and you do not hear me: I stand, and you do not look at me. In the cry there is the intention of the one praying to God. Indeed, in that he claims to stand, he said that he has an unwavering perseverance towards God. He freely speaks of his confidence in his righteousness before God: this is what the holy Job says.
You have changed towards me into cruelty, and you oppose me with the hardness of your hands. You have lifted me up and, like setting me against the wind, you have cast me down violently. It says that God, who is kind and merciful, is hard and cruel in prospering times when his hand endures hardness and heavy punishments and torments.
I know that you will hand me over to death, where the house is established for every living thing. After the sin of our parent, he said, the house of the underworld is established, that is, death itself, not created by its condition. Therefore, you also wanted me, as a son of sinful Adam, to go there according to a just sentence.
However, not for their destruction. He prophesies the reconciliation of the world to come in Christ, saying that men will not be brought to eternal destruction, but will be called back from the underworld at some point.
You stretch out your hand: and if they fall, you yourself will save them. If after redemption, by which we are saved through faith in Christ, human beings fall again through sin, you will save them yourself, lifting them up with the hand of your mercy through repentance.
Once I wept over him who was afflicted, and my soul had compassion on the poor. I expected good things, and evil came to me; I awaited light, and darkness broke forth. It happened that instead of the expectation of good things, with which I consoled the miserable, I now endured all evils, and instead of the light of prosperity, I encountered the darkness of torments.
My insides have boiled without any rest: the days of affliction have overtaken me. When he says that the days of affliction have overtaken him, I think he wants to indicate the time of judgment: he seems to have said it because he believed that it had not yet come to him; where he also indicates the great pain of hell when he compares his punishments to theirs.
I was walking sadly, rising without rage, and shouting in the crowd. Sad and affected by sorrow, because I did not know the deserved punishment, and without the anger of madness, I was rising with the strength of my soul: because God had taught me patience, so that I could bear it calmly, shouting and begging for public satisfaction.
I was a brother of dragons, and a companion of ostriches. Afflicted with the torment of punishments, I tempered my pains with hissing: as dragons are said to do when they are captured by elephants. As the prophet says: I will make a wailing like dragons: which they do as I said, when they are killed by elephants. And a companion of ostriches: I have become foolish and senseless, like the ostrich, the most foolish bird, so that they think that I have labored in vain because of the pain.
My skin has blackened upon me, and my bones have burned from the heat. And this was part of her cruel punishment, that I, placed in filth, would suffer the scorching rays of the sun on my bare bones for a long time.
My harp has turned to mourning, and my organ to the voice of those who weep. With these things, he says that the joy of his happy days and prosperity has been turned into mourning.
The exposition relates to the person of Christ.
Who can grant me to be like the previous months, etc. In the assumption of the man Jesus Christ, that is, Adam the second, or the last: it is the voice of Adam the first created recalling what he lost, and to what good he may regain. For he had lost, through the evil of disobedience, the good of immortality and the delights of paradise: he desires for this to be restored to himself through Jesus Christ our Lord. By taking upon himself the Son of God becoming the son of man, he also took upon himself the prayers of the human race.
When his lamp shone above my head, and by its light I walked in darkness. It signified the glory of divine grace, by the name of the lamp which had flourished in paradise.
As I was in the days of my youth, when God was secretly in my tabernacle. By the term 'youth' we can understand the beginning of Adam, or even happiness itself: where, before sin, with youthful vigor, continually flourishing without any defect of age, it is said to have been as in the days of youth.
When he was omnipotent with me, and my children were around me. The children of Adam, the virtues of the soul are to be understood. But we do not absurdly consider the children of Christ to be angels who ministered to him in the days of his flesh, or the apostles, or all the saints.
When they were washing my feet with butter, and the rock was pouring streams of oil for me. Therefore, the feet of the Savior, the preachers of truth, who proclaim the Gospel to the whole world, they are to be understood: Therefore, Jesus Christ, our Job, washed and wiped away these feet of his with milk or butter, when he made them sincere and pure from the pressures of tribulations, teaching them through his spirit, a life of simple innocence. In this way, the feet of the announcer of peace will be cleansed. So that they would not be contaminated with the clay of carnal wisdom: 'The rock,' he says, 'poured streams of oil for me.' Therefore, the rock, that is, the Church, founded upon Christ, the strongest rock, pours forth the grace of the Holy Spirit, like streams of oil: which was declared on Pentecost, in the house of Cornelius, and in those twelve, or in the whole Church, and is declared even today.
When I was approaching the gate of the city, they placed a chair for me in the street. Like a king, and as the Lord of the first city of his Church, Christ proceeded to his gate; that is, at the time of his beginnings, when he was preparing for his entrance, he said to everyone: Come to me all you who labor and are burdened. The elevated chair, however, is to be understood as the knowledge of Christ: and the street of the city, either because he publicly preached or according to the sense of the Psalmist: Your command is exceedingly broad. Which is not only extended into a triple exposition, but also into a discussion.
The young men saw me and hid, and the old men stood up. John writes to them saying, I write to you, young men, because you are strong and have overcome the evil one. They, through faith in the Lord, see the Savior in spirit and hide in the earth of their bodies: restraining and suppressing vices by fighting within themselves: mortifying themselves from sins and worldly desires: hence the prophet says, Ascend you into the earth. But the elderly sons, consummated and perfect, who are daily lifted up in mind to heaven and stand in the Lord, with an unshakable faith of life.
The leaders ceased to speak, and placed their finger on their mouth: the chiefs restrained their voice, and their tongue clung to their throat. In my coming, he says, the prophecy of all my saints was concluded and sealed, which was prefigured in the silence of Zachariah. Indeed, the prophecy was closed in the mystery of the announcers, but it was revealed in the mysteries of the sacraments. The leaders and chiefs of that people of the Jews were kings, priests, and prophets. Whether princes and leaders, powerful and eloquent individuals of this world can be understood, who, due to the deception of seduction, held positions of power among the people. They were silenced at the coming of Christ.
The ear listening blessed me. The people of the nations, to whom my Gospel was announced through preaching, received it. They, giving praise for their redemption, blessed me by giving thanks.
And the eye that sees, gave testimony to me. Indeed, the people of the Jews, to whom I was foretold by my prophets, were giving testimony to me in the presence of my coming.
I have provided assistance to the poor who cried out, and to the orphan who had no helper. These poor and orphaned individuals should be understood as the people of the saints: those who, due to the humility of their spirit, are called poor. And they are called orphaned because their father is temporarily absent, and he says: I will not leave you orphans.
The blessing of the boy, or as others have said, the doomed boy, came upon me, and I comforted the widow's heart. A faithful and holy orphan: the boy, because of his reciprocal innocence, was named thus. Yet he was also called the lost one, because he was purchased by the blood of the Lord.
I am clothed with justice and it has covered me like a diadem with my judgment. Therefore, the Lord says, this is the robe of my mercy, it has clothed me like a garment. And with my judgment like a diadem. This, I say, is the garment in which the righteousness of the Father is revealed through the Gospel: in the Church, it says it is surrounded. Its clothing had the appearance of his garment on the mountain of transfiguration.
I was an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame. I am a light, he says, to the sinner walking in the darkness of his vices, and I became steps to the one stumbling on the paths of my teachings. Hence he himself says: I am the way.
I was the father of the poor, that is, of those with humble hearts.
And when I did not know the cause, I diligently investigated. Therefore, I carefully searched for the cause of sins, desiring to grant the mercy of my compassion, so that I may search for the root of wounds in order to heal them: so that, as I interrogated the sinner, confessing their faults, I may free them from all sins and offenses. Or differently: Our Lord Jesus Christ did not know the causes of sin, which the Jews sought from Him.
I crushed the teeth of the wicked, and took away his prey. We rightly consider this wicked devil, whose teeth and molars are for destroying cruel and fierce movements of the mind. About such teeth, he says, the human race, like a captured prey, was taken away, liberating it from the certain destruction of death. All the teeth of the wicked are the devil's. It can also be understood as any heretic, in whose teeth clear doctrine is felt. But in the mountains, remote and secret and abominable mysteries lie hidden.
And like a palm tree I shall multiply his days. Therefore, after the humility of the Church, which the Lord indicated earlier in the nest, He wanted to show the glory of its height in the palm tree: whose rough root seems to be in the earth, from which it is also called a nest: but with beautiful foliage under the sky, when it is glorified by the resurrection, it will obtain the height of the palm tree, that is, it will achieve the merits of its virtues, which are signified by the palm. Or this nest can be understood as the Jewish people. Therefore, in this nest, he was willing to suffer and die for us, as he said to the Jews: 'I will die, and in their minds I will be crucified:' where, in accordance with human nature, I was born and lived among the Gentiles, where the palm of my victory and the banner of the cross were erected, I will multiply days, saying to them: 'Behold, I am with you all days until the end of the world.'
My root is open beside the waters, and dew will delay in my harvest. So it will be in the nations, a root, that is, the faith by which I desired to please; that all the holy ones in the past pleased: that the people, that is, the nations, may believe in me, to whom certainly in eternal retribution, the dew of grace and gift will flow abundantly from me as the giver. Whether the root of my charity and love, which is fixed in the hearts of those who love me, is open in them to the waters of my words.
My glory will always be renewed. Here we can understand glory as follows: Glory belongs to the Father, the Son, to whom the Father says: Arise, my glory, arise. But the glory of the Church is different, justified by grace.
And my bow shall be restored in my hand. We can understand this bow as the virtue by which he fights for his Church until the end of the world.
Those who were listening to me were waiting for my sentence, and they were silent, attentive to my advice. Every day Christ proclaims through the stewards of his word, and those who obey him wait for the sentence of his definition. And they were silent, attentive to my advice. By this word of silence, the obedience of the saints is signified, who are slow to speak but quick to act: or, because in the very inquiry of the law, the saints are said to be attentive.
They dared not add anything to my words. They establish the established statutes and decrees of the Church, which is the foundation of truth. However, heretics and schismatics, with the presumption of their pride, which they excel in, attempt to impose their own invented and superfluous dogmas above the words of the Lord, as if they were the fullness of doctrine.
And my speech dropped upon them. Gradually, indeed, the words of my teaching, my diligence, penetrated the hearts of the diligent: in which the progress of souls is to be understood daily in virtues. Where, like a small drop of beginnings, one arrives at a life full of perfection, as if to the rain of the heart, saturating its land with abundance.
They were waiting for me like rain, and their mouths were open as if for a late rain shower. All the holy ancient ones awaited the Savior coming in the flesh, and now all together they unquestionably await His coming for judgment: for His late rain, that is, the Gospel, opens the thirsty mouths of their hearts now, for, as Ecclesiastes says, the last words are better than the beginning of His discourse.
If ever I laughed at them, they did not believe. That is, the Jews will not believe in my joyful piety for future blessedness and the promised joys of eternity. And sinners, due to the guilt of their conscience, will scarcely believe in my mercy and that salvation can be given to them, desponding due to the magnitude of their crimes. But when I turn to those who are converting to me, I will bestow more than they can hope for.
And the light of my face did not fall upon the earth. Grace, he said, of my presence, by which I became known to the whole world, I illuminate the hearts of the faithful, for I am the light of the world, and whatever I have promised to those who keep my covenant, it will not be in vain: but it will be fulfilled entirely in the time of retribution.
If I had wanted to go to them, I would have sat first. And when I was sitting as if a king with the army surrounding, I was still a consoler of mourners. Thus it must be understood, the one who dwells among his saints, great and exalted, who are often called angels, and of whom according to another edition it says: I was like a king girded with strength, yet I did not despise those who were pricked and crushed in heart.
But now the young ones mock me in my time. We read in the Gospel how he was scoffed at and mocked.
I did not consider their fathers worthy enough to be placed with the dogs of my flock. I hold those dogs in high regard who, by keeping watch, defend the Lord's flock from spiritual beasts. Concerning them, the prophet says: 'Mute dogs, unable to bark.' I have also not placed the fathers of the Jews, who are indeed priests and rulers, with the holy guardians of my sheep, since their dignity has been taken away from them due to the malice of their infidelity. I have rejected them, so that they may not perform the priesthood for me. He also says in the Gospel: The kingdom of God will be taken from you, and so on. Where he already begins to take away the bread of the children and give it to the dogs, as it is said to him in the Gospel under the image of the Church: For even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.
The power of the hands of which I speak was worthless to me. This power of the hands was that of the Jews, who served the commands of their elders and the observances. In the time of the Lord's passion, this place can be understood in such a way that the power of the aforementioned works extended to the death of the Savior. Or it can be understood thus: when they thought that his life had ended on the cross, the power of their wicked attempts was reduced to nothing by the triumph of his resurrection from the dead.
And they themselves were considered unworthy of life, barren in poverty and hunger. In the disgraceful poverty of their vices and crimes, and in the hunger of the words of God, they became barren and beggars, so unworthy of the present life, as the prophet said to God: Scatter them in your power. Therefore, now they are among the nations like captives, leading a degenerate life.
They were gnawing in solitude, worn out by misfortune and misery, and they were eating herbs, and the bark of trees, and the root of junipers was their food. Often where God does not dwell, that is, is not worshipped, it is called solitude or desert: in which according to the Apocalypse, a woman, that is, corruption, is said to sit. For to gnaw or to nibble, teeth are necessary, since articulated speech is produced by teeth and the plectrum of the tongue, therefore by these words, the doctrine of the foretellers is signified, who, by eating and gnawing peoples like herbs and the roots of unfruitful trees, cast them into multiple errors, as it were into their own body. For they think that they are nourishing themselves if they have taken away everything vital from the men whom Scripture usually calls trees. Nevertheless, they are nourished by the roots of the juniper trees, namely by the trees that live for a long time and in whose wood fire lasts much longer than in others. These are the woods that are called arceuthina. Under the name of these trees, we can understand all the great ones among the Jewish people, whose leaders, by stealing from them the preaching of the past law, nibble away at the innermost parts, the good of God's grace.
Those who were rushing from the valleys, when they found each individual thing, ran to them with a shout. They were indeed stealing herbs from the valleys, as some other translators have said, and bark from trees. For the ones we understood through the likeness of riddles to be herbs, bark, and roots of trees, they could not find in high and similar places: but in valleys, that is, lowly places, and in lower and depressed ones, where the carnal people of the Jews were symbolized: whose understanding dwells in the sense of the western letter, as it were in lower things. Hence their leaders are plundered, while the blind lead the blind.
They lived in the deserts of the rivers, and in the caves of the earth; or on sand, which they enjoyed, and considered it a pleasure to be under bushes. They not only lived in the aforementioned deserts, where there was no cultivation, but also in the caves of the earth, and on sand, which I think should be understood in a carnal sense, where nothing rich is mixed with spiritual perception, by which it could produce the abundance of fertility, through faith, children of holiness, with grace as the mother. And for this reason, they are said to dwell in the caves of the earth, clinging to earthly senses. Concerning whom the Apostle, weeping, says: Enemies of the Cross of Christ. Likewise: Sinners are like torrents, who flow through the wilderness of knowledge in this sea of the world; therefore, they dwell in the caves of their senses, and they take pleasure in their duties to sin. They are the windows of the house, through which death enters. Whether the cave of the serpent is our chest, when we hide poisonous plans and deadly actions in it. Likewise, those who live on a sandy surface are like them, who do not cultivate their land with diligent attention to the words of God, so that, having received the fertility of abundance, they may bear the fruits of holiness.
Those who rejoiced in such things and considered them as delights under the bushes. Amidst these evils that have been mentioned above, they live exulting in joy, as if seeking virtues.
Sons of foolish and ignoble parents, who do not know how to behave on earth. In this way, the prophet had already prophesied about their fathers: A wicked and perverse generation, a foolish and ignorant people, estranged from the land of the living.
Now I am a verse in their song, and I have become a proverb. That is, in their first speech, and in their mouth I am, and I am assumed in their enjoyment of mockery.
They loathe me and flee from me, and they are not ashamed to spit on my face. But they do not hesitate to spit on the face of the Lord and Savior, as his passion clearly demonstrates to us in the Gospel.
For he opened his own quiver, and afflicted me. This quiver can be understood as the devil. And since we believe that the Savior assumed true human nature, it is not absurd to believe that he also wanted to experience the pains of the body in his passion, according to the words of the prophet: He himself bore our infirmities and took on the sufferings for us.
And he put a bridle in my mouth. He demonstrated patience in the face of insults: as the Son himself says to the Father in the psalm: For you are my patience, Lord. And in the Gospel, when Jesus was questioned, he did not respond.
On the right hand of the east, my calamities immediately arose. That is, by the will of the Father, at whose right hand the Son sits. Or this may be said, that the insult suffered by the assumed man also reached the Son of God in that part in which he is impassible, according to the Apostle saying: For if they had known, they would never have crucified the God of majesty. For he himself is the right hand of the Father, the hand and arm, through whom all things are governed: and the disciples were more at his right hand, whom they deserted at the time of his passion. Of whom he says: I looked on my right hand, and there was no one who knew me.
My feet have tripped me up and overwhelmed me. They have scattered my paths like waves on their own tracks. They have laid a trap for me and prevailed, and there was no one to help me. They have broken down the wall, opened the gate, and turned against me in my misery. The feet are a symbol of human nature, which they have crucified, or certainly the duty of preaching the Gospel. In the waves, it shows the bitter feelings of the Jews towards the preachers of the Gospel, and their restlessness.
They have also scattered my journeys. By the prophecies of my prophets, I promised them my presence in the flesh, and in the visions of revelations I often came to them. Surely, their unbelief and their wickedness have scattered my journeys. Even his feet can be understood as his preachers or apostles. And there was no one to help, for even the disciples, abandoning him, fled. Like a broken wall and an open gate, they rushed upon me, and they fell into my misfortunes, that is, through my death they fell into their own ruin, so that like the most cruel and ferocious enemies, having broken through the fortifications of cities and broken into houses, they all leaped upon my death at once. But the miseries are the sufferings, the scourges, the mockery, the insults, the blows, the spitting, the slaps, the thorns, and the ignominy of the cross.
I am reduced to nothing. The Jews, despising him, considered him as nothing.
You have taken away my desire like the wind, and my salvation has passed like a cloud. The present life can be understood as this wind, which is often called winds or spirits. Therefore, speaking from the perspective of the old man assumed in God, the man Jesus Christ says these things. However, the desire of the old man was not to lose this temporary life, which the Lord himself, close to his suffering, demonstrates by saying to the Father, 'Let this cup pass from me.' Truly, he says, not what I want, but what you want.
But now my soul is dried up within me, and the days of affliction possess me. The days of its affliction are the days of its passion. Hence the Savior says in the Gospel, 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death.'
At night, my whole being is pierced with sorrows, and those who consume me do not sleep. At night, because captured in the evening, you write throughout the night and you are heard by princes under the questioning examination. Or the night of sadness and passion, says the Lord to the apostles, who, on account of their love and my strength of charity, are called bones: they are pierced with the stings of pain and the pricks of fear, even to the damage of denial. That is, the power of their spirit has been penetrated by the wavering of faith, so that they may waver for a time of temptation in the solidity of charity. But those indeed, who seem to pursue me even to death, do not sleep: that is, they persist with all the vigilance of their minds, in order to reach me and devour me.
In the midst of their multitude, my garment was consumed. As the Jews gathered together, my flesh was afflicted with insults, nails, cross, and death.
And as if a hood of a tunic they encircled me. From all sides they surrounded me like stranglers, seeking to choke me in death, just as a mouth to a head, with strong nooses, they encircled me with false testimonies, and within my suffering and cross, they enclosed me like within a tunic.
I have been compared to mud, and likened to ashes and dust. Through the willingly embraced death, I have been compared to the lowly and the sinners, and to those condemned by God's judgment in Adam, although I am not a sinner myself, nor was I born in such a way that I was like all sinners.
I cry out to you, but you do not hear me; I stand, but you do not look at me. Likewise, in the twenty-first psalm, on the cross he cried out to the Father: My God, and the rest. And I will cry out all day, but you will not hear me, and so on. These words are spoken from the perspective of the Crucified: just like the others, which I have already mentioned above. I will cry out, he says, all day to you: that is, in the prosperous things of this life, that they may not be changed; you do not hear, in the words of sins. I will cry out and in the night, that is, in the troubles of this life, I will cry out so that they may prosper, and likewise you will not hear. And this is not enough for my foolishness, but rather that I may understand what you want me to cry out: not with words of sins from the desire for temporal life, but with words of conversion to you for eternal life.
You have changed to be cruel to me, and you oppose me with the hardness of your hand. While the Father did not spare his only Son, but handed him over for all of us: what seemed to be cruelty was actually an expression of divine mercy.
You raised me up and set me like a strong wind, You struck me powerfully. What happened, You lifted me on the cross, and to the unbelieving Jews, You cast me away.
I know that you will hand me over to death: where the home is established for every living being. Because before the resurrection of the Lord, even the righteous are believed to have been in the parts of hell.
Nevertheless, you do not lay your hand on them for their destruction, and if they fall, you yourself will save them. In this, indeed, you will hand me over to death, so that debts may not be consumed through punishment, for those who are sentenced to eternal death by divine judgment. But rather, let them be saved by my death. And as for what he says: If they fall, you yourself will save them: after the grace of baptism, he promises the remedy of salvation to those who have sinned through repentance.
Once I wept over him who was afflicted. But the Savior wept for Jerusalem for two reasons. One is that, weeping for the converted, he prayed to the Father. The other is that, grieving for the unbelievers, he wept, foreseeing as God the destruction of them due to the hardness of their unbelief.
And my soul had compassion for the poor. In the Scriptures, the holy souls are called poor, not having the spirit of pride or the sins of this world as their riches. On the other hand, all sinners are called poor: because they are swollen with the spirit of pride and are in need of holiness. As it is sung in the psalm: Sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death: being bound in beggary and iron. God, who is rich in mercy, endured sadness out of the affection of mercy for lamenting such poor people.
I was expecting good things, and bad things came to me. So I was waiting patiently, hoping to rejoice in their good conversion and perceive improvement in their behavior. But they, despising the riches of my goodness and patience, stored up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath and revelation of my righteous judgment. Therefore, these bad things of theirs are about to come into my sight, so that I may repay each one according to their deeds.
I await the light, and darkness has broken forth. I await the light of faith and holy works in them, and the darkness of their unbelief and vices has prevailed.
My insides boiled without any rest. Whether it be that, touched by pain, his inner spirit boiled with unease and anxiety over their destruction; or whether it be that, with the Word made flesh and dwelling in the name of Jesus our Savior, his insides, that is, the movements of his soul, burned incessantly with divine fire.
The days of affliction came upon me. The days of affliction will be days of judgement: in which I will judge the aforementioned nation. But yet now, and at this time, they have surpassed me with their excessive wrongdoings, so that I may render to them according to my just judgement: as happened later during the suffering, when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by the Romans.
Lamenting, I walked: rising up without madness, I cried out in the darkness. It was without any anger or rage: because He had come to forgive and pardon their sins, not to punish. The evangelist also says: Jesus stood and cried out: Let him who thirsts come to me, and drink.
I was a brother of dragons, and a companion of ostriches. In the Gospel, the Lord often refers to the Jews as serpents and vipers, saying: 'You brood of vipers.' And the prophet says: 'They have broken the eggs of asps, when he saw the multiplication of evil generations.' Also: 'The fury of dragons is their wine, and the rage of asps is incurable.' But he called himself their brother because he was born of their kin according to the flesh, of whom he says in the psalm: 'I have become a brother to my brothers, and a stranger to the sons of my mother.' And because according to the present life, in which he was mortal while he was here, he associated himself with them, he called himself a companion of ostriches, that is, he lived with his own people among fools and idiots; just as the Lord Himself says in the Gospel: Fools and blind.
My skin has been darkened upon me. In my skin, his own flesh, that is, his own Jewish nation, from whom the Savior assumed flesh, must be understood as having spoken the whole thing. But what he says upon me, my skin has been darkened, it is as if he were saying, because of me, that is, in my person, on account of hatred, persecution, and the wickedness of blasphemy, even the crimes of outrageous sin, the flesh of my race has become foul and black, like an Ethiopian not losing the color of darkness, and he is unfortunate because he contracted this darkness of night and shadow not on the surface of his body, but in his heart. Where the Lord says through the prophet: 'I have made your mother like the night.'
And my bones burned with passion. The bones of the body of the Church, whose head is Christ, are indeed holy, but the apostles in particular should be understood: by the strength and power of their holiness, all the weaker members of the Church are sustained. Therefore, the most abundant fat of their charity was kindled in the excessive heat of persecution in the passion of the Savior. Concerning these, the Lord himself says in the psalm: And my bones burned like kindling. In another psalm it says: As water I have been poured out, and all my bones have been scattered; just as the evangelist says: And when they had left Jesus, the disciples fled. But again, through the confession of his name, they were abundantly enriched with his charity, so that afterwards no matter how fervent the onslaught of persecutions, the faith of Christ in them and the goodness of charity would not wither.
My lyre has turned into mourning, and my organ into the sound of those weeping. In the lyre and organ, joy and exultation are understood. This is demonstrated by Christ when he delights in the salvation of believers, as he himself says in the Gospel, where he presents the parable of the hundred sheep, of which he says one has perished, and when it is found, he says: Amen I say to you, he will rejoice more over it than over the other ninety-nine. And when the apostles reported to the Lord that many healings had been done through them in His name, the evangelist says: In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit. Therefore, these are the names of musicians that symbolize the joy of the heart, which turned into sadness over the hardening of the unbelievers: as the same evangelist says: And he was saddened by the hardness of their hearts. But the things that follow to the end of the parable, which we have explained earlier according to the virtue of the holy Job, we have confessed that we are unable to discuss them in a mystical sense. But if someone can reasonably adapt those allegorical interpretations, I will admit to giving my assent.