21:18-24
(Verse 18 and following) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: And you, son of man, set before yourself two ways, and let the sword of the king of Babylon come. From one land they will both go out, and by hand he will take a decision: he will cast lots at the head of the city's road. You shall set a road, so that the sword may come to Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, and to Judah, and to Jerusalem, the fortified. For the king of Babylon stood at the crossroads, at the head of the two roads, seeking divination, mixing arrows. He questioned the idols, consulted the entrails. To his right, a divination was made concerning Jerusalem, to set up battering rams, to open the mouth in slaughter, to raise the voice in lamentation, to set up battering rams against the gates, to heap up a siege mound, to build fortifications. And it will be as if he is consulting in vain their oracle, imitating the rest of the sabbath, but he himself will remember the iniquity in order to capture it. Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Because you have brought your iniquities to memory and have revealed your transgressions, and your sins have appeared in all your thoughts; because of this, I say, you will be taken captive by the hand. I know that in this place, according to the Septuagint interpreters, I have read the diverse exposition of a certain law, Rabbath of the sons of Ammon, referring to the Gentile people. But to Judah and Jerusalem, to those who gather under the name of Christ, and to those who give dignity to his name, the king of confusion, the devil, stands at the head of every road and lies in wait in secret. And he fulfills that verse: 'They have placed a stumbling block in my path' (Ps. 139). And he stands at the crossroads, desiring to hold onto those who are his, or to acquire new servitude for himself. And he always goes to the right, namely, to those who are situated on the right side, in order to conquer them, to exult in their destruction, to take miserable Jerusalem by force and by the gathering of earthly works. And first of all, so that it seems that he is doing nothing, and striving in vain. But by recalling their iniquities, those who dwell in the Church, indeed even bring to mind the opposing powers with their evil works, they bring to light all the sins of the people and their thoughts, and for this reason they are captured, because they have heaped up old crimes with new ones. Another person may have said this: the truth of the history begun by us must be pursued. When, he said, the divine word had spoken to me: Prophesy, son of man, and speak to the sword and say: Sword, sword, and the rest that the prophecy of the sword contains; a second time the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Do you want, son of man, to know who this sword is, and to learn more clearly the person of the raging sword? Listen to what I say: set up two roads, so that through them the sword of the king of Babylon may come, who will indeed go by one route of the Chaldeans, but when he comes through the desert and wilderness to the crossroads of the land of Arabia, which is called the sons of Ammon, one road leads to Jerusalem on the right side, but the left leads to Rabbath of the sons of Ammon, which is the capital city and is now called Philadelphia: remember, he says, the annihilation that happened to the Assyrian king when 185,000 were killed in one night, he will fear to turn to the right and go against the heavily fortified Jerusalem; but he will stand at that junction, and according to the customs of his people, he will consult the oracle, to send his arrows into the quiver, and mix them, or label them with the names of each, to see whose arrow comes out, and which city he should besiege first. Now the Greeks call this kind of divination belomancy, or rhabdomancy. Therefore, he consulted the idols and examined the entrails. The divination pointed to his right, indicating that he should march against Jerusalem, besiege it, build ramparts, set up battering rams, construct fortifications, surround the city, open his mouth for slaughter, and stir up the roaring and howling of his exultant army. By doing this, he said, he would appear to the inhabitants of Jerusalem to consult an oracle in vain and, like someone spending his time on Sabbath leisure, to engage in play and accomplish nothing. But the king of Babylon, not relying on his own strength, but on the wickedness of the people, which he knows has offended God, and has added sins of the fathers to new offenses, and all their transgressions have been revealed; and for this reason he will not hesitate in victory, because he trusts in the wickedness of Jerusalem. These things, according to the Hebrew, from which the Septuagint diverge in many places not so much in meaning as in words.
21:25-27
(Verse 25 onwards) But you, profane and wicked ruler of Israel, whose day has come at the appointed time of iniquity. Thus says the Lord God: Remove the turban and take off the crown. Is this not the one who exalted the lowly and humiliated the proud? I will bring upon it injustice, injustice, injustice, and this will not cease until the one comes to whom judgment belongs, and I will give it to him. Septuagint: And you, profane and unjust ruler of Israel, whose day has come, at the end of the time of iniquity. Thus says the Lord God: You have removed the diadem and placed the crown. This will not be the same. You have humbled the high and exalted the lowly. I will bring upon her iniquity, iniquity will I bring upon her: and she will not be like this until the one to whom it is due comes: and I will give it to him. Symmachus interpreted this passage as follows: But you, profane and unjust ruler of Israel, whose day comes at the appointed time of iniquity: Thus says the Lord God: She has removed the diadem and taken the crown: neither this nor that: she will raise up the lowly and humble the exalted. I will commit iniquity, iniquity, iniquity upon it. And this was not that one, whose judgment is, whom I am about to give. After the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the captivity of the people, the speech is directed to the leader of Israel, whom no one doubts is signified by Zedekiah, in whom the reign of the kings of Israel from the lineage of David ended. The day, says he, has come upon you, which has been predetermined for a long time in you, and because of you the priesthood and kingdom of the people of Judah have come to an end. For indeed the cidaris is the distinguishing mark of the pontiff: the crown, that is, the diadem, the sign of the king. Is this not the cidaris, and this crown that did nothing by judgment; but for the imitation of the Babylonian king, whom he wanted to exalt, and whom he wanted to humble? Therefore, not once, nor twice according to the Septuagint, but three times I will put iniquity before you forever, which was not immediately taken into account by you, but until Christ comes, whose judgment it is, and the Father gives him the kingdom and the priesthood, or the Church gathered from the Gentiles: For the Father judges no one; but he has given all judgment to the Son (John 5:22). And in another place: God, he said, give your judgment to the king, and your justice to the son of the king (Ps. 72:1). This is the one to whom the power and eternal priesthood have been entrusted, of whom Jacob also spoke: The ruler will not fail from Judah, nor the leader from his thighs, until the one to whom it has been entrusted comes; and he will be the expectation of the nations (Gen. 49:10). In the place where we have interpreted: Is not this, beautifully translated by Symmachus, neither this, nor that. For he had said: Take away the crown, remove the diadem, he added, neither this nor that, that is, the kingdom will cease, and the priesthood. Hence those who were kings and priests until the coming of Christ, among whom one high priest Hyrcanus placed a diadem on his head, wanted in vain to claim both this and that, since the kingdom was not owed to him after Zedekiah, but to the one to whom it was entrusted, and who was the expectation of the Gentiles, about whom Malachi speaks: You, priests, who defile my name (Mal. 1, 6). And a little while later: My will is not in you, and I will not accept sacrifices from your hands. For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name is great among the nations, and in every place a clean offering is sacrificed and offered to my name. This clean offering, without the blood of goats, rams, and bulls (Ps. 49), is fulfilled in the coming of Christ, when he came as the desired one of the nations, and the sun of righteousness rose, in whose wings there is healing (Hagg. 2).
21:28-32
(Verse 28 and following) And you, son of man, prophesy and say: Thus says the Lord God to the sons of Ammon and to their disgrace. And you shall say: Sword, sword, draw yourself out for slaughter: hone yourself to kill and to shine. Although they seem vain to you and their divinations are lies, so that you may be given over to the necks of the wicked wounded, whose appointed day has come in the time of iniquity. Return to your sheath, in the place where you were created: in the land of your birth I will judge you. And I will pour out my indignation upon you; I will blow upon you the fire of my wrath, and I will deliver you into the hands of brutish men, skillful to destroy. You shall be fuel for the fire; your blood shall be in the midst of the land; you shall be forgotten, for I the Lord have spoken.” The sword of the king of Babylon has been at the head of the two roads, in the fork of the two ways, to use divination. He has shaken the arrows; he has consulted the household gods; he has looked at the liver. When it is conquered and captured, it is predicted that both his kingdom and priesthood shall perish forever. The rest belonged to the sons of Ammon, and the order of division itself demanded what had happened on the left path. Therefore, the prophet is commanded to speak to the sons of Ammon, and to their reproach, that they themselves are to be captured, and he directs the same sword speech to them: Oh sword, sword, which is ready for slaughter, which is sharpened, so that you may shine and kill: although idols may have responded to you, and everything that is answered by demons is empty, so that you may threaten the necks of the wounded, and fulfill what the Lord had threatened long ago; nevertheless, after completing your work, which you have done against the sons of Ammon, return to your sheath, that is, to Babylon, to the place where you were made and created: so that in the land of your birth I may judge you, and I will pour out my indignation upon you, and you shall be captured by the power of the Medes and Persians. What is said more fully in the book of Isaiah, in a vision against Babylon: Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them. And a little later: And Babylon, that glorious one among kingdoms, renowned for its pride among the Chaldeans, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, it shall never be inhabited until the end (Isa. XIII, 17 et seqq.). And because once he was speaking in the person of the sword about the king, or rather the kingdom of Babylon, it retains the metaphor. In the fire, he says, of my wrath I will blow upon you; to make you be consumed by fire and delivered into the hands of ignorant and foolish men, who do not have the skill to forge swords and sharpen them; so that you may no longer be sharpened, polished, and shine for killing; but be the food of fire, and let your blood, which you have shed before all who watch, overflow within you; and be consigned to eternal oblivion, and perish forever, for I the Lord have spoken, and what I have spoken, I have done.
22:1-16
(Chapter 22, Verses 1 onwards) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: And you, son of man, do you not judge the city of blood, and show her all her abominations? And say: Thus says the Lord God: The city that sheds blood within herself, so that her time may come, and that has made idols against herself to defile herself. In your blood that was shed, you have sinned, and you have defiled yourself with your idols that you have made. You have brought near your days, and have come to the years of your punishment; therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mocking to all the countries. Those who are near, and those who are far from you, will triumph over you (or mock you), you sordid noble, great in your destruction. Behold the princes of Israel, each one in his own arm was in you to shed blood. They have dishonored father and mother in you (or cursed father and mother). They have slandered the stranger among you. They have oppressed the orphan and the widow (or oppressed). You have despised my sanctuaries (Vulg. you have despised and polluted), you have profaned my Sabbaths. There were detractors (or thieves) in you to shed blood, and they ate on the mountains in you. They committed a crime (or, as it is more significantly in Hebrew, a heinous act), in your midst. They uncovered the shame of their fathers in you, and they humiliated the impurity of menstruation in you. And each one committed an abomination with the wife of his neighbor, and the father-in-law defiled his daughter-in-law wickedly. He oppressed (or humiliated) his own sister, the daughter of his father, in you. They received gifts from you to shed blood. You took interest and excess, and greedily slandered your neighbors (or and I will complete the fulfillment of your evil in your oppression); you have forgotten me, says the Lord God. Behold, I will clap my hands over your greediness which you have done, and over the blood which was shed in your midst. Will your heart endure, or will your hands prevail in the days I will bring upon you? I, the Lord, have spoken and I will act. I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you through the countries, and I will remove your impurity from you. I will possess you in the sight of the nations. (or according to the first edition of Aquila and Theodotion: And I will defile you, or according to Symmachus: And I will wound you in the sight of the nations) And you will know that I am the Lord. And you, he said, son of man (I will use the familiar term for you), judge the city of blood, and show it all its abominations, so that it may know that it deserves its imminent captivity, and that it has brought on its own ruin through much bloodshed. First and foremost among its sins, you have worshiped idols instead of God; and you have also defiled with your own hands the time appointed for your years, which was long spoken of and delayed, in order to bring about repentance. But you, according to your hardened heart, treasure up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath (Romans II). Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mockery to all the lands around you, both near and far. They will triumph over you and mock you. Filthy, noble, great in destruction. Filthy because you have ceased to be clean. Noble in evil, for once you surpassed all cities in nobility. Great in destruction: the higher you were, the harder you fell. And meanwhile, without mentioning everything else, I will mention a few things that have happened to you. Your rulers, judging not with justice but with the strength and might of the arm, shed innocent blood in you. Others have treated their father and mother with disrespect, even cursing their parents, as Scripture says: 'Whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death' (Exodus 21:17). They have oppressed the stranger and the foreigner among you, as if their suffering and exile from their homeland were not enough for them. They have saddened and oppressed the orphan and the widow among you: so that those whose entire estate is in the justice of the law, would not only be saddened, but oppressed by you. You have despised my sanctuaries and holy things, and you have defiled my sabbaths: so that you would not distinguish between the holy and the polluted, between the decreed day of religion and the rest of the sabbath for the worship of God, and the other days on which it is allowed by law to work and serve the needs of the flesh. The detractors, whether according to Symmachus and Theodotion, were deceitful, because it is said in Hebrew: Rachil, and they were murderers in you, to blaspheme God, or to do all things with deceit or violence. And the wise men devoured on high mountains, and with pride elevated against God, they committed wickedness or incest in your midst, such things as rarely happen in corners and secret places, when they are avoided by evil-conscious men, you have done openly. The following discourse explains what incest is: They have exposed the more modest parts of their father in you, they have unlawfully joined with their stepmother, and have defiled the impurity of menstruation within you, showing no regard for nature, nor granting any truce to indecency, clinging instead to the wife of their nearest kinsman. And what is even more wicked, the father-in-law has burned with desire for his daughter-in-law, and the brother has disregarded the rights of his sister: he violated his sister, not one born of the same mother, but rather the one born of the same father. They accepted gifts in order to shed innocent blood. They turned the necessity of the poor into profit, in order to receive interest and abundance; and because of greed, they slandered friends. 'But you, O Jerusalem, have done this,' he says, 'because you have forgotten me. For the memory of God excludes all crimes.' Therefore, I have taken on the appearance of an angry Lord, and I have clapped my hands against your greed and against the blood that was shed among you, so that you may understand and comprehend whether I can endure my anger with either mind or hands. For I have spoken, and I will do it: and after thou shalt be taken, Jerusalem, I will scatter thee into nations, and I will fan thee in the air, and thou shalt be moved to and fro in every wind: and my wrath shall be accomplished in thee, and my indignation shall rest in thee. And I will do, so that I may signify: and I will cause my indignation to rest in thee, and my wrath shall depart from thee, and I will be pacified, and will be angry no more. And my wrath shall rest in thee: and my indignation shall depart from thee, and I will be pacified, and will cease to be angry. And they shall know that I the Lord have spoken it, and have done it, saith the Lord God. But if we follow the interpretation of Symmachus and Theodotion, of whom one says, 'And I will wound you, or kill you,' and the other, 'I will defile you before the nations,' all things must be interpreted in a negative sense. Although this is contrary to this meaning, which was stated above, 'And I will cause your filthiness to cease from you.' For the ceasing of filthiness is the restoration of purity. I have discussed both editions equally, in order to avoid the extent of the books.
22:17-22
(Vers. 17 seqq.) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, the house of Israel has become like dross to me. All of them, copper, tin, iron, and lead, are in the midst of the furnace; they have become silver dross. Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Because you have all become like dross, behold, I will gather you in the midst of Jerusalem as a gathering of silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead in the midst of the furnace, to kindle a fire in it for melting. Thus I will gather in my fury and in my wrath and I will rest and melt you, and I will kindle you in the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst, like silver melted in the midst of a furnace. So you shall be in its midst, and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have poured out my indignation upon you. The Hebrew word Sig (), Symmachus translates as dross, Aquila's first edition as grape stone and γίγαρτον, which signifies both grape seed and grape stalk. But the second translation of it, and the Septuagint's rendering, means a blending. Furthermore, it signifies dross, filth, and the waste of metals; so that subsequently, with the nearby captivity, or rather the impending destruction of the city, fire is applied: so that during the process of blending, pure silver remains, which had been mixed with and defiled by copper, tin, iron, and lead: three of which, copper, tin, and lead, are fusible substances, and are dissolved by fire. But truly, iron between the anvil and the hammer becomes soft and thin, and takes on various forms, according to the will of the craftsman. Just as, therefore, silver, which the aforementioned metals have tarnished, is put into the furnace, so that, with the impurities and foreign materials removed, it may remain pure, thus, he says, I will gather you in the midst of Jerusalem, and I will surround Babylon with siege, in order to kindle in you a fire for refining. And just as there the immense heat of flames is present, here hunger and pestilence will do the same: so that after I have gathered you and set you on fire with the fire of fury, then I will rest, and with the punishment of your contempt, I will restrain the pain. And I will do all this, so that after I have poured out my indignation upon you, the end of your torment may be known to me; and you shall know that I am the Lord, the judge of all and the avenger. And as for what is said to be a refiner, we read in many places, but especially in Malachi and Isaiah, of whom one says: 'Behold, the Lord will come like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap, and he will sit refining and purifying like gold and silver, and he will refine the sons of Levi.' (Mal. III, 1, 3). Moreover, the Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion and cleanse the blood from their midst, with the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning (Isa. IV, 4). And I believe this to sound like what is said in the Psalms: Examine me, O Lord, and test me (Ps. XXV, 2). After which it is said: Burn my kidneys and my heart, so that all the harmful fluids of the loins may be dried up, along with their wicked deeds, and the coverings that have been placed (Ps. XXV, 2). What we understand about Jerusalem, let us understand also about the state of souls, which were created pure by God: they have received gold in sense and wisdom, and silver in speech and eloquence, so that they may express with words what they have conceived in their minds. We read of silver: The speech of the Lord is pure speech; silver tried in a furnace of earth, refined seven times.\nSimilarly, the seventy-seventh psalm mentions gold and silver, where it is written: If you sleep among the nations wilees, and the wings of a silver dove, and its back parts are in greenness, or in the color of gold.\nFor all the glory of the daughter of the king is within, which speaks in the Song of Songs: The king has brought me into his chamber. He who has slept and rested between two Testaments will immediately assume the silver wings of a dove, and with gold in the treasure of his heart, he will shine with radiant light. I believe this has the meaning that for sinners and those who have earned the offense of God, the sky is made of brass and the earth is made of iron, especially the land of Egypt, from which the Lord brought forth Israel, as if from a fiery furnace. In Zechariah, also, wickedness sits upon a talent of lead (Zech. V). And in the Song of Exodus it is said: They were submerged like lead in violent waters (Exod. XV, 10). For they were burdened with the weight of their sins, and they could say: Heavy burdens are weighing down on me (Ps. XXXVII, 6). However, just as the appearance of gold deceitfully imitates the likeness of adulterated copper, so does tin simulate the whiteness of silver, which the simple and rustic cannot easily discern. And it often happens that gold and silver, mixed with heretical wickedness, are separated by the fire of the Holy Spirit and the judgment of the Lord, and pure gold and silver remain, of which the prophet says: I gave them silver and gold, but they made Baal out of them (Hosea II, 8). To whom is it similar: 'I led them out with silver and gold, and there was no feeble one among their tribes' (Psalm 104, 37). Let the end of all punishments be to know that the Lord himself is God. We read about a tin stone, or a tin mass, in Zechariah (Zechariah 4), which we have interpreted in its proper place.
22:23-31
(Verse 23 and following) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, say to him: You are unclean land, not cleansed on the day of wrath. The conspiracy of the prophets within it, like a roaring lion seizing its prey: they have devoured souls, taken riches and precious things, multiplied widows within it. Its priests have despised my law and defiled my sanctuaries. They have not kept a distance between the holy and the profane, and they have not understood the difference between the unclean and the clean. They have turned their eyes away from my sabbaths, and I have been defiled among them. Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves tearing the prey to shed blood, and to destroy souls, and to get dishonest gain. And her prophets have daubed them without tempering the mortar, seeing vain things, and divining lies unto them, saying: Thus saith the Lord God: whereas the Lord hath not spoken. The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have done violence to the needy and poor, and have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. And I sought among them a man who would interpose a wall, and stand opposite me for the land, so that I would not destroy it, and I did not find one. So I poured out my indignation upon them, I consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I repaid their deeds upon their heads,’ says the Lord God. A diligent listener could inquire about the impurities that violate the purity of silver, and have been mixed with copper, lead, tin, and iron. Therefore, what is expressed there under the image of a city and a furnace, is proclaimed as under the likeness of land that is not irrigated and does not receive rain. We should understand those rains about which it is written: I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it (Isa. V, 6); we expect when a temporary and late rain is given to us, about which it is written: You will separate voluntary rain, O God, for your inheritance (Ps. LXVII, 10). But it is a day of fury, which each person procures for themselves with a multitude of sins. We desire to know what the scum of the city is, which is the hardness and foulness of the earth, full of thorns and briers. The conspiracy, he says, of the Prophets, or according to the LXX, the leaders in the midst of it having the likeness of a lion, about which Peter writes: Our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about (I Peter V, 8). This lion and all its companions do not seek to devour bodies, but souls, and they receive rewards and judge everything by money. That this indeed happened to the people of the Jews at that time is beyond doubt. For the Lord brought evil upon them because of the priests, and the rulers, and the prophets. But in our Jerusalem we often see this: those who, according to the Seventy, devour souls in power, and accept payment to make many widows who have lost the Lord as their spouse. However, this is the faction and conspiracy of these prophets, that they may be each other's supporters and do all things for the sake of filthy gain. The priests who should be the leaders of the temple, from whose mouth the knowledge of the Law is sought, violate the sanctuaries, and there is no distinction between the holy and the profane except for money. They turn their eyes away from the Sabbath, and they do not recognize the rest of God which is in the knowledge of the Scriptures; neither do they say with the prophet: Open my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law (Psalm 118:18). Nor do they say what the Apostle says: But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18). Among such prophets and priests, the Lord's mediator is defiled, of whom it is written: But there stands among you one whom you do not know (John 1:26). Therefore, prophets or leaders are compared to lions. But the princes whom we understand to be of a lower rank imitate the rapaciousness of wolves, so that they shed not the blood of bodies, but of souls, and they greedily pursue gains, not at all satisfied with that: 'They who serve the altar, live by the altar' (1 Corinthians 9:13); but after they have approached the ministry of God, they gather the riches of Croesus. Even those prophets who foretell future events anointed them without moderation, as we have already said, of the prophesying prophets, who anointed a wall without the mixture of plaster, which is dissolved by rain. They see such things as empty, and not so much prophesy as they divine falsehood, saying to the miserable land: 'Thus says the Lord, the Lord promises this', when the Lord has not spoken to them. But the people of the land are not of God, but rather imitators of earthly works, rulers and priests, who by deceit and power do all things: not oppressing the rich, but rather the poor, of whom it is written: 'But the poor cannot endure a threat.' And: The redemption of a man's soul, by his own wealth (Prov. XIII, 8). They also oppressed the stranger and foreigner, who had not yet become a citizen of the Church, but only a listener, and who had the beginnings of faith, with slander: so that after they had gone through the sea and the dry land, they would make him a proselyte and make him a child of hell. Among such a multitude of vices and crimes, I sought for a man who could resist my anger, and who could stand against my fire and my burning, like Moses, and Aaron, and Samuel; but I could not find one. And he spoke to Moses, saying: Let me alone, that my wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them (Exodus 32:10). And because I could not find anyone who resisted and held me back, I poured out my indignation upon them, and consumed them, not without measure and judgment, but to repay their ways upon their own heads, attributing their own sins to them as authors, or certainly to the heads of the people, the leaders, princes, and prophets, of whom none dared to resist the angry Lord, and for whose sake the land remained barren and desolate, not deserving to receive the rain of the Lord.
23:1-10
(Chapter 23, verses 1 onwards) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother. And they played the harlot in Egypt, in their youth they played the harlot. There their breasts were pressed and their virgin bosoms were broken (or, as it is in the Septuagint, There their breasts fell and there they were deflowered). Their names were Oholah the elder (or, the elder sister), and Oholibah her sister. And I took them (whether they were given to me) and they bore sons and daughters. And their names were Samaria Oolla and Jerusalem Ooliba. Therefore, Oolla prostituted herself with me and she went mad (or went away) to her lovers in Assyria, who approached her, dressed in purple, rulers and officials, all young men, choice horsemen. And she gave her fornications over them, all the elect sons of Assyria, and in all on whom she had been mad upon with her uncleanness (or inventions), she was defiled. Moreover, she did not leave her fornications which she had in Egypt. For they also had slept with her in her youth, and they broke the breasts of her puberty (or they also deflowered her): and they poured their fornication over her. Therefore, I handed her over to the hands of her lovers, to the hands of the sons of Assyria, on whose lust she had gone mad. They uncovered her shame; they took away her sons and daughters, and killed her with the sword. And she became a byword among women; judgments were executed upon her. The Scripture testifies that the twelve tribes of Israel, which were united in Egypt, later divided into two and ten tribes, called Judah and Israel, as recorded in the books of Kings and Chronicles. The tribe of Judah ruled from the line of David, with Rehoboam as the son of Solomon in Jerusalem, where there was a temple and priests, and a large part of the tribe of Levi. But in Samaria, Jeroboam the son of Nabat from the tribe of Ephraim and Joseph ruled over the ten tribes; of which Samaria is now called Oolla, which in our language means tabernacle: but Jerusalem is called Ooliba, which means my tabernacle in it. For indeed, even among the ten tribes, there was a tabernacle not of God, but of idols. For Jeroboam had set up golden calves in Dan and Bethel in order to turn the people away from the worship of God. Let us therefore speak about each. These two women, Samaria and Jerusalem, were daughters of the same mother from the lineage of Israel, and they committed adultery in Egypt during their youth. For they would not have received the Law when they were brought out of Egypt and gathered at Mount Sinai, which prohibited them from worshiping idols, unless they had worshiped Egyptian idols while in Egypt. However, the mother of both could be Chethaea, of whom we read above: Your father was Amorrhaeus, and your mother was Chethaea (Above, XVI, 3). But when it is said: Let each one remove the abominations of Egypt from his sight, it signifies that in Egypt the Israelites worshipped idols and fell there, whether their breasts of virginity were broken or not. And Samaria is said to be greater and older, either because of the multitude of the ten tribes, or because after the death of Moses from the tribe of Ephraim, Joshua the son of Nun led the people: hence we read that Jeroboam, who split them, was from the house of David (3 Kings, XII). And God had them, whether they were made by him, when they groaned from the works of Egypt, serving clay and brick. And afterwards they bore sons and daughters, either in the wilderness or in the promised land. And first Oolla, that is, Samaria, fornicated against God, when she went mad for the Assyrians, who were dressed in her hyacinth garments, not just any people, but leaders and magistrates, not those worn out by age, but all young men, chosen horsemen, from whom she followed idols and from whom she demanded help against the command of God. Those who came and defiled her, did not leave anything that she had done in her youth in Egypt. For even the Egyptians had sexual relations with her in her youth, of whom she worshiped their idols; and there, her virginity was taken and her breasts were broken. And there was such an abundance of fornication, that it is said that they did not fornicate with her, but rather poured out their own fornication upon her. Therefore, she was delivered to her lovers, Phul, Theglathphalassar, and Salmanasar, in whose lust she went mad, and they uncovered her shame, metaphorically, like that of a harlot woman (2 Kings 17 and 18, 1 Chronicles 5). However, the revelation of the city is that it is captured, and they took captive its sons and daughters, and they slaughtered it with the sword, so that it is butchered as an example for all women, and it is celebrated in a negative way by everyone's speech. Those who carried out judgments and vengeance in it, so that they left nothing of salvation in it; but to this day, ten tribes are held captive in the mountains and cities of the Medes, to which they were transferred. We have discussed more fully the allegorical meaning of Joseph, Ephraim, Samaria, Jezreel, and Israel, and how they are contrary to the house of David and Jerusalem, which signifies the Church. The psalm, which is the seventy-seventh, speaks of this: The sons of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle (Psalm 77:9). And again: He rejected the tabernacle of Joseph and chose the tribe of Judah (Ibid., 67). For God has chosen the house of confession, which is the Church, and rejected the tabernacle of Joseph, which signifies increase. They, neglecting the Law of God, added golden calves to their worship, and they are called Oolla, which means tabernacle, not of God, but of error and demons. And the elder and older sister, because of the multitude and captivity by the Assyrians, committed fornication against God, for she abandoned the truth of faith and went mad for the leaders of the heretics, who were clothed in hyacinth, promising her lofty and heavenly things; and the climbers, of whom it is said: These are in chariots, and on horses (Ps. XIX, 8), chosen sons of the Assyrians and leaders and magistrates, who promise themselves knowledge and eloquence. But he did this because he had the same fornications that he had in Egypt, that is, before he believed, and he still lived in the world, he also practiced them in heresy. And she was deflowered (or They were deflowered) by Assyrian men who persist in wickedness, whether as avengers. For our adversary, the devil himself, is an enemy and avenger (I Peter V). They shattered the breasts of Samaria; and they destroyed her virginity that she had in the Church. Therefore, they were delivered to their lovers, according to the Apostle who writes: I have delivered them to Satan, so that they may learn not to blaspheme (I Tim. I, 20). And: I have delivered them to the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved (I Cor. V, 5). They uncovered the shame of miserable Samaria, and they displayed all its turpitude, leading captive the sons and daughters who were born to it, endowed with knowledge and deceived the simple and inexperienced, and killed it with a spiritual sword. They are celebrated in speech throughout the whole world in a negative light, and they become infamous among all the teachings of the world, so that the depravity of that woman may serve as an example for all.
23:11-21
(Vers. 11 seqq.) When her sister Oholibah saw this, she became more wicked than her, and her desire for sexual immorality surpassed that of her sister. Shamelessly, she displayed her prostitution to the sons of Assyria, to their captains and leaders who came to her. She was dressed in various (or costly) garments, riding on horses with riders, all of them handsome young men. And I saw that both of them had defiled the same path, and they multiplied their sexual immorality. And when she saw the painted figures on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with colors, having their loins girded with belts, and their heads covered with painted turbans, in the likeness of the rulers (or of the most miserable) of the Babylonians and the land of the Chaldeans, where they were born, she was inflamed with lustful desire for them. And she sent messengers to them in Chaldea. And when the sons of Babylon came to her, to the bed of her prostitution, they defiled her with their harlotry, and she was defiled by them, and her soul turned away from them. And she uncovered her fornication and revealed her disgrace, and my soul withdrew from her as my soul withdrew from her sister. For she multiplied her fornication, remembering the days of her youth when she played the harlot in the land of Egypt. And she went crazy with desire for their lovers, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose genitals are like the genitals of horses. And you visited the wickedness of your youth: when your breasts were conquered in Egypt, and the breasts of your puberty were broken. According to the letter, the interpretation is easy, that when Oholibah, that is, Jerusalem, in which was the tabernacle of God, saw the stripes of her sister, she was not warned by example to turn away her foot from error; but she increased her sister's prostitution. For she once made idols outside in Dan and Bethel: but she frequently worshiped the statue of Baal in the high places and in the temple of God, and fornicated with the Assyrians. But the idol of Baal, or Bel, and (to speak plainly) Belis, is the religion of the Assyrians, consecrated by Nino the son of Belis in honor of his father. And he shamelessly offered his prostitution to the Assyrians, to leaders and magistrates, who were clothed in various and multicolored garments, and to horsemen and young men who were distinguished in appearance by all. So that the prostitution of both sisters became one. And in this way Jerusalem increased its own prostitution, for seeing the images of the Chaldeans on the walls, she became crazed with desire and, deceived by their appearance and clothing, sent messengers to them, seeking help: who came and defiled her. And because pleasure is not perpetual, but quickly brings satiety: she, defiled and saturated with them, departed from their company. Therefore, even I, seeing her turpitudes and fornications made public to all, withdrew from her, so that I, who had surpassed the crimes of my sister, would also surpass her in the magnitude of punishments. Her audacity was of such great extent that she committed all the errors of her youth in a more serious age: and she indulged in Egyptian vices, even following the lusts of the Chaldeans. For he once went mad in the company of Egyptians, whose flesh resembles that of donkeys, and with such a copious flow of semen, and genitals so large, that they surpass even the deformity of horses. Nor did his wickedness cease in his youth: on the contrary, after she became mine, she returned to surpass her former lust in the desert and in the land of promise, where she was deflowered, and her breasts were broken, and all the adornment of her virginity was destroyed. Furthermore, according to tropology, it is difficult to understand how the Church conquers heretical desire unless perhaps we can say this: the servant who knows his master's will and does not do it will be beaten with many stripes (Luke 12:47); and that heretics commit unspeakable acts outside the ark, and perish in shipwreck: but those who follow true faith, if they imitate the vices of Assyria and Chaldea and follow the discolored images of sins, are worthy of greater torments. Shall we not send messengers to the Chaldeans, who interpret as if they were demons, when we open to them and offer them our breasts to be broken in the inner chamber of the mind, and having been satiated with pleasures, we pass from one to another; and not so much do we desire fornication as we desire the number of prostitutes, and we have come to such madness that after much time in the service of the Lord's day, we return to Egypt and do the things that we did in the world before we received the name of faith?
23:22-27
(v. 22ff.) Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will stir up against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side: the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. And they shall come against you from the north with chariots and wagons and with a host of peoples. They shall set themselves against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet; and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments. And I will give them judgment, and they shall judge you with their judgments, and I will put my zeal in you, which they shall exercise against you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and what remains, they shall cut off with the sword. They shall take your sons and your daughters, and your last will be devoured by fire, and they shall strip you of your garments, and they shall take away the vessels of your glory. And they shall make your wickedness cease from you, and your prostitution from the land of Egypt. You shall not lift up your eyes to them, nor shall you remember Egypt anymore. LXX: Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will stir up your lovers against you, from whom your soul has turned away, and I will bring them against you from every side, the sons of Babylon and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and men of renown, mounted on horses. And they shall come against you from the north with chariots and wagons and a host of peoples. They shall set themselves against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet; and I will commit the judgement to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgements. And I will execute judgment in fury and anger upon them; then they shall know that I am the LORD, when I lay My vengeance upon them. Because you remembered the flesh of the Egyptians and imitated the filthiness of the unclean nation, which venerates the images of all beasts, therefore I will bring against you your lovers, with whom you were satisfied, and you departed from their covenant, so that as great as your love once was, you will be turned into such hatred. Sons, I say, of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans, nobles, tyrants, and princes; for whom in Hebrew it is written, Phacud () and Sue () and Cue (), which the diverse Orientals understand, since we do not find such names either in the Book of Kings, or in the Chronicles, nor indeed in Jeremiah, who describes the captivity of Jerusalem, or in any place of the Holy Scripture. It is not surprising that the Septuagint itself used Hebrew names, since Symmachus and Theodotion also agree on the same words. They all say that the Assyrians, the horsemen, and the young men, in their distinguished form, are the leaders and magistrates, or the tristates, whom we have interpreted as the princes of princes. We read about them also in Exodus (Exod. XV, 4). The chosen ones are translated as ascensores tristatas (τριστάτας), for which Latin simplicity translates as ternos statores. But the name is sad among the Greeks, the second rank after royal dignity. About whom it is written: However, it did not reach the first three, who were the leaders of the cavalry and infantry and the tribunes ((or tributes)) (I Chronicles XII, II Kings XXIII): whom we call the magistrates of both military forces, and the prefects of the title of the annual tax. They all, he says, armed with breastplates, helmets, and shields, besieged you all around in their chariots and on their horses, and I will give them judgment, so that you will be judged by those whom you have left behind, and whose covenant you have made void: and they will judge you with their judgments as an adulteress. And I will set my zeal against you, which they will exercise with you in fury. For my zeal is among the enemies, even faith not being preserved. 'I will cut off your nose and your ears,' he says, 'like an adulteress caught in adultery, so that you may cease to please when disfigured. For just as all the beauty of the face consists in the beauty of the nose, and in the ears, from which depend the unions and the pearls in women, so the dignity of the king and the judges, which is marked in the mouth and the ears, will be cut off by their sword.' They will take your sons and daughters. 'Your sons,' he says, 'and your daughters, not mine, because they were conceived in adultery, and they will devour the rest with fire. And they will strip you of the garments with which I adorned you, and the vessels of your glory, which I granted to you, gold and silver, for use in the ceremonies of the temple, of which it is written: 'I gave them gold and silver, and they made them into Baal' (Hosea II, 8). But I will do all these things, so that your lost beauty and bewitched face may finally be at peace, and your wickedness and fornication, which you learned and practiced in Egypt, may cease. After you have lost your nose and ears, you will no longer dare to raise your eyes to the Chaldeans, nor show your ugliness to your former lovers. And you will no longer remember the lust of the Egyptians, whose indulgence in flesh you delighted in. All the things that are said about the punishment of the adulteress, and how she is disgraced because of adultery: so that she may no longer boast in her beauty, but be ashamed in her disgrace, which she has earned through the greatness of her pleasures. Whatever is said metaphorically about Jerusalem, and can be understood in reference to the soul, which, having been joined to the virtues and united to God, later adulterated them with vices and turned away from Him, and with all her crimes exposed, was uncovered, dishonored, and shown to all, so that she may desist from her wickedness to some extent: let her not boast in the dignity of her name, but rather be afraid because of her guilty conscience and remember Egypt, and dare not lift her eyes to heaven. And so his nose is cut off, and his ears are amputated, because he had turned the fragrance of good odor into a foul smell, and he had heard the judgment of blood, which we understand not only from smell and hearing, but also from sight, whereby, because they had made evil use of it, Samson and Zedekiah are deprived. Moreover, God made them deaf and dumb (Exod. IV, 11): lest their speech spread throughout the land, and every touch will be taken away from those who have completely lost their life. And let these things be done, so that everything may be purged by fire, and let the fornication of Egypt perish: nor can it any longer raise its eyes to evil.
23:28-35
(Verse 28 and following) For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom your soul is sated. And they will deal with you in hatred, and they will take away all your labors, and they will leave you naked and full of shame, and the shame of your fornications will be revealed. Your wickedness and your fornications have done this to you, because you have prostituted yourself to the nations, among whom you have defiled yourself with their idols. You have walked in the way of your sister, and I will give her cup into your hand. Thus says the Lord God: You shall drink the deep and wide cup of your sister. You shall be a laughingstock and a mockery, a very large mock. You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of mourning and sadness, the cup of your sister Samaria. And you will drink it and gulp it down to the dregs, and you will devour its fragments, and you will tear your breasts (or as the Septuagint translated: I will take away her feasts and new moons); for I have spoken, says the Lord God (Vulgate adds God). Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself also bear your wickedness and your adulteries. It is profitable for Jerusalem to have enmity against the Assyrians and the Chaldeans, and to not remember Egypt; but rather, to be delivered into their hands for punishment, those who hated her: to whom it is not given before, unless their souls are satisfied with them, so that after repenting of their old sins, then they may be cleansed with punishments, and may destroy all the works which she acquired by her harlotry: and may see her nakedness and shame; and may know that the Lord did not do all these things for her, but rather her adulteries, by which she committed adultery among the nations whom she enumerated above, so that she would worship their idols. In the streets, she says, you have walked with your sister Samaria: therefore you must drink the cup of her sins, which you have followed. However, there are many examples of the cup, which is often received for punishments and torments, among which is this: The cup in the hand of the Lord is full of mixed wine, and He poured from this into that: but its dregs were not emptied, all the sinners of the earth will drink from it (Psalm 75:8, 9). And in Isaiah it is called the cup of ruin and the goblet of fury (Isaiah 51:17). And God spoke to Jeremiah, saying: Take the cup of wine from my hand, and you shall drink to all the nations, to whom I will send you. And they shall drink, and vomit, and become mad (Jerem. XXV, 15). Just as certain purgatives are given, so that the harmful humor that is in the body may be expelled: so the Lord also gives the most bitter cup of torments, so that he may take away from sinners whatever is of gall and bitterness, and restore them to their former health. And the cup itself will be deep and wide. Deep, in the magnitude of punishment; wide, in the length of captivity. But when, he says, you have become drunk and been seized by pain, and you drink the cup even to the dregs, and you have drunk so much that you devour even the fragments of the cup itself: then you will be disgusted by your former fornication, and you will tear the breasts that were broken in Egypt, and those that were subdued and bruised by your lovers: whether I take away all your feasts and new moons, so that instead of celebration and joy, you will have eternal lamentation and sorrow. Since you have done these things, and have forgotten about me, and have cast me behind your body, or backwards, because of the sins of the body, or behind the genitals, which indicate the filthiness of shame: Therefore, you are the gate of your own wickedness and impiety, namely the punishments that you have deserved because of your impiety and wickedness. This can be understood significantly in regard to Jerusalem, which drinks the cup of her sister Samaria to the last drop, and has drunk the dregs of her torments to the very bottom.
23:36-49
(Verse 36, 37 onwards) And the Lord said to me, saying: Son of man, do you judge Oholah and Oholibah and announce to them their crimes (or iniquities): for they are adulteresses (or have committed adultery), and there is blood on their hands, and they have committed adultery with their idols (or inventions): moreover, they have offered to devour (or have led) their sons whom they have borne to me through fire. But they have also done this to me, they have defiled my sanctuary on that day: and they have profaned my Sabbaths. And they sacrificed their sons to their idols, and entered my sanctuary on that day to defile it, and they did these things in the midst of my house. They sent messengers to men who were coming from afar, to whom they had sent a message. So behold, they have come, and you washed yourself (or, when they came, you immediately washed yourself): and you painted your eyes with antimony, and you adorned yourself with feminine beauty. You sat on a beautiful bed, and a table was set before you. You have placed my incense and my ointment upon her, and the voice of the multitude was rejoicing in her (or with a composed voice was she rejoicing); And indeed in her were brought together crowds of men, and they came from the wilderness (or drunk from the wilderness): they placed bracelets upon their hands, and most beautiful crowns upon their heads. And I said to her who was worn out with adultery: Now she will commit fornication in her own fornication even more. And they entered into it: as they would enter to a prostitute, so they entered to Oolla and Oolibah, wicked women (or to commit iniquity). Therefore, the righteous men (Vulgate inserts 'to them') shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of those who shed blood, for they are adulteresses, and blood is on their hands. For thus says the Lord God: Bring upon them a multitude and deliver them to tumult and to plunder, and let them be stoned with the stones of the people, and let them be pierced with their swords; they shall kill their sons and daughters, and burn their houses with fire, and I will remove wickedness (or impiety) from the land, and all women shall learn not to commit according to their wickedness (or impiety). And they shall bring your wickedness (or impiety) upon you, and you shall bear the sins of your idols, and you shall know that I am the Lord God. As I have often mentioned, I have connected the small discrepancies in the Septuagint edition with the Hebrew text, avoiding annoyance to the reader. Therefore, it follows that one who separately described the adulteries of Samaria and Jerusalem should also announce their punishments. However, all things are said as if to adulteresses, and by way of recapitulation, their crimes are briefly presented so that the stoning of the people may justly follow according to the command of the Law towards adulteresses. (alternative reading: adulterers) Therefore, since they are adulterous, bring forth a just sentence. For they are committing adultery with idols, and there is blood on their hands, namely the blood of those they sacrificed to idols, so that they would consecrate the sons they had borne to me to demons. They did not do this outside or in the mountains and woods, as they often used to do; but in the end they defiled my temple, so that they would place a statue of Baal in it. And they profaned my Sabbaths, so that neither the place nor the time of worship would be observed among them. But they were not content with present adulteries alone, nor were they satisfied with sacrificing my sons to their idols or demons; but they also indulged in foreign pleasures, worshipping the images of the Assyrians and Chaldeans. And when they came, Oholibah, you filled the entire attire of an adulteress upon them, to wash your body, to line your eyes with antimony: to assume a feminine appearance, to sit on a bed prepared for lust, to set out feasts to restore the strength of your lovers broken by pleasure; my incense and the ointment which I had specially ordered to be made (Exodus 30), and to exterminate that soul from the people, which had wanted to do this for private use, you offered to idols; to gather a multitude of people, and to sing with every kind of music: so that you would please your lovers not only by sight, but also by hearing and smell, and all the senses, who came to you drunk: not having any urban elegance, but having the appearance of desert and solitude, resembling peasants and brigands. And you, wicked sisters, have fallen into such great madness of pleasures, that you would place your bracelets and necklaces on the hands and heads of your lovers, or even on yourselves, so that you may be defiled in full adornment. Therefore I say to you, either Jerusalem or Samaria, or both: You have burned your forehead, so that you may not be polluted in secret, and you avoid the gaze of your husbands or other men; but you are publicly prostituting yourselves like harlots, eagerly desiring to be polluted by those who enter to you like prostitutes. Therefore, I will deliver you to be punished by those to whom you have willingly submitted yourselves. For they are righteous men, who, at my command, torture adulterers and murderers. For thus says the Lord God: Gather, by the prompting of your voice, O prophet, a multitude of peoples against them, and first let all their possessions be plundered; then let them be stoned and pierced with swords, and let their sons and daughters be killed, and let their houses be burned. And all these things shall be done so that impiety may be eradicated from the earth, and all women and the entire province placed far away may learn to avoid similar punishments: so that after you have received what you deserve and have carried the crimes of your idols, then you may know that I am the Lord. However, all these things were said figuratively and under the guise of adulteresses against Samaria and Jerusalem, because they were handed over to the Assyrians and Chaldeans, led into captivity, and their cities were burned with fire: the people who worshipped the idols of demons instead of God were killed. These things can also be understood after the coming of Christ, because righteous men from the peoples of the nations themselves judge the Samaritans and the Jews by comparison with themselves, and hand them over to be devoured, to whom the Lord said (Matt. XXIII, 38): Your house shall be left to you desolate. And: When you see Jerusalem surrounded by an army, know that its desolation is near (Luke XXI, 22). For even until this day they are adulterated and are oppressed by stones from the whole world. Since they sent messengers to those who were far away, and could not say: I am a approaching God, and not a God from afar, says the Lord (Jeremiah XXIII, 23): and they prepared themselves for their beloved demons: and they turned all the worship and adornment which they had received from God as natural good, into the worship of demons, and they offered their works and adornment, which we understand as bracelets and a crown, to adulterous lovers, whose punishment is a source of fear for the nations, indeed for those among the nations who have believed, lest they suffer similar consequences if they do the same things that Samaria and Jerusalem did. Then, when they have received their crimes, the wickedness will be taken away from those by whom the veil that was placed before the face of Moses (Exod. XXXIV) has been taken away from their eyes, so that they may recognize that Jesus Christ Himself is the Lord, whom they denied to be the Son of God (II Cor. III).
24:1-14
(Chapter 24, Verse 1 onwards) Then in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 'Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day. And speak a parable to the rebellious house and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: Set on the pot, set it on and also pour water into it; put in it the pieces of meat, all the good pieces, the thigh and the shoulder; fill it with choice bones. Take the choicest of the flock; pile the logs under it, boil it well; let the bones be cooked in it.' Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Woe to the city of blood, the pot whose rust is in it, and its rust has not gone out of it! Empty it part by part; pour out its blood upon the bare rock; no lot has fallen upon it. For her blood is in the midst of her; she put it upon the bare rock; she did not pour it out upon the ground, to cover it with dust. I have set her blood upon the bare rock, that it should not be covered. Because of this, says the Lord God: Woe to the city of blood, whose pyramid I will make great. Gather the bones that I will set on fire, the flesh will be consumed, and the entire composition will be cooked, and the bones will decay. Also place it on empty coals, so that its bronze heats up and melts, and its pollution is melted in its midst, and its rust is consumed. It has been labored greatly, and its excessive rust has not gone out, nor through fire. Your filthiness is detestable, for I desired to cleanse you, but you are not cleansed from your impurities; nor will you be cleansed until I have made my indignation rest upon you. I, the Lord, have spoken: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not pass by, nor spare, nor have mercy. According to your ways and your doings I have judged you, says the Lord. LXX: And the word of the Lord came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, saying: Son of man, write down the name of this day, for on this day the king of Babylon has exerted his strength against Jerusalem from this very day, and speak a parable to the rebellious house, and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: Set the pot, set it on, and also pour water into it; gather the pieces into it, every good piece, thigh and shoulder; fill it with choice bones. Take the choicest of the flock, and pile up the bones underneath it; let it boil well, and let the bones be cooked in the midst of it. Therefore, thus says the Lord God: O city of blood, the pot in which rust is, and rust has not come out of it: by its parts it has brought it forth; the lot has not fallen upon it, because its blood is in the midst of it. On a bare rock I have set it; I have not poured it out on the ground, that it may be covered with dust. That it may rise up in fury for vengeance, I have set its blood on the bare rock, that it may not be covered. Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Woe to the city of bloodshed! I will also make the pile of wood great. I will kindle the fire, so that flesh may be consumed and bones may be burned. I will set the city on fire and burn it completely. Its copper will become hot to melt, and its impurity will be consumed in its midst, and its rust will be eliminated. Its rust will be humbled and there will be no more great rust. Its impurity and contamination have brought you low, because you have not been cleansed from your impurity. And what will happen if you are not cleansed beyond until I fulfill my fury in you? I, the Lord, have spoken, and it will come to pass; I will not delay, nor will I have pity, nor will I relent. According to your ways and according to your deeds I will judge you, says the Lord God. Therefore I will judge you according to your blood and according to your thoughts; you are unclean and vile, and exceedingly provocative. ** Most of these additions are from Theodotion, and the Hebrew word Zemma (), for which we have interpreted as abominable uncleanness. And that which has been added by them, which is not contained in Hebrew, and should be noted with an obelus: Therefore I will judge you according to your blood, and I will judge you according to your thoughts, unclean and infamous, and excessive to provoke. Let us then speak about each one. In the ninth year of the captivity of King Jehoiachin (for in the fifth year he began to prophesy) and in the tenth month of the same ninth year, on the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Ezekiel, who was in the region of Babylon, and He said to him: Son of man, write down this very day for yourself, and know that today the king of Babylon has begun to besiege Jerusalem in the region of Judah, and to fortify it with an army; and describe this siege by means of a parable and a proverb, which in this present place signifies a metaphor and a translation. He said, 'Put a bronze pot, that is, a cauldron, and fill it with water, and cut up the bodies of the fattest animals into pieces, both the thigh and the leg and the arm, and carefully separate the flesh from the bones, and after putting the meat in the cauldron, put the bones under or arrange them around the cauldron, and make layers, and piles of bones, so that the boiling of the cauldron may bubble up not once, but frequently, and the meat may be cooked thoroughly inside, and the bones may be solidified below by the fire.' But you, O prophet, wish to know who this pot is, or what kind of flesh or bone it may be? Speak these things, says the Lord God: Woe to the city of blood, that is Jerusalem, to the pot whose rust, that is excessive wickedness, is in it, and though fire is placed under it, its rust has not gone out from it. For they have persisted, even the captives and the crucified ones, in their former wickedness. Consume it in parts and individually, let no one remain safe. The fate did not fall upon her so that some would perish, and others would be saved, but a universal destruction came upon all. For her blood, that is, her murders, and the deaths of her sons, are in the midst of her. She poured out this blood upon the clearest rock, so that it would be evident to all, and the earth would not cover it with dust: for my indignation would not pass, but my vengeance would hasten upon the most exposed blood. For it is natural that if blood is poured onto the earth, the ground would absorb the moisture of the blood, or gradually be covered by the earth and dust. But when blood is spilled over a very clear rock with no cavity, it flows and occupies a wide seat. This indicates that it has committed not hidden, but public murders, according to what is said to Cain: The blood of your brother cries out to me (Gen. IV, 10): therefore say to the city, not of one blood, but of many bloods: Behold, I will make a great pyre in you, or I will raise a tower, which the common people call a bonfire, and I will burn not only soft and tender flesh in you, but also the hardest bones in such a way that nothing remains in you that is not consumed by fire. And when both the flesh and bones have been consumed and burned, place the empty cauldron on hot coals, so that the brass may also heat up and be consumed, and with the brass consumed, may its rust also perish, that is, may it be burned with the city's fire and may wickedness perish with the city. But what profit is there in having done what was commanded? Not even through fire could the rust and wickedness of the cauldron, and of the city, be removed; but it remains in that impure and abominable state: for this is what the token signifies. And he directed his anger against the city itself, that is, against the city itself. I wanted to cleanse you, but you have not cleansed yourself from your filth, and you will not be able to be cleansed until I have fully vented my anger upon you. I am the Lord, and my judgment cannot be ignored. The siege of the city is now upon you, and I will do what I have threatened: I will not pass by your crimes as I have often done in the past. I will not spare you any longer, and I will not be appeased even if you multiply your prayers. Instead, I will repay you for your ways and your inventions. Indeed, I will judge you according to your deeds and your thoughts, so that in this also I may show my mercy, like a physician who does not spare rotten flesh in order to save healthy limbs. He does not spare in order to spare; he is cruel in order to show pity; he does not consider the patient's pain, but the health of the wound, according to the Gospel saying that he would rather one member be lost than the whole body perish (Matthew 5). It should also be noted how from the beginning of the prophecy until the present day, when Jerusalem began to be besieged, the captivity comes in order. First the sword is drawn; then two paths are set, one leading to Jerusalem, for which the lot falls to Nebuchadnezzar; silver is melted in the city, as well as bronze, tin, lead, and iron; the land is not watered, but occupied by thorns: afterwards, under the name of the two sisters Oolla and Oolibah, the sins of Samaria and Jerusalem are told, how the former was captured, and the latter to be captured. At the end of the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Ezechiel and those with him were put into captivity, having surrendered themselves with king Jechoniah. It is shown on what day the city began to be besieged, and a representation of a pot is set up; just as the flesh and bones piled up in the pot are burned by fire, so the whole city will perish with its inhabitants, and none of those who are besieged will remain, but they will be consumed by hunger, sword, and pestilence, and the remaining part will be led captive to Babylon. Could this same prophecy also pertain to the time of the Lord's passion, for which Jerusalem was surrounded by an army and its children were killed, and Tito, the son of Vespasian, laid siege to it, and no one escaped for safety, and the temple was destroyed; and after fifty years, under Hadrian, the city was consumed by eternal fire? But when Ezekiel beheld this present captivity in Babylon, and Jeremiah sets forth in the beginning of his volume, 'What do you see, Jeremiah?' And he answering, said, A boiling pot, and its face from the face of the north. (Jeremiah 1:13). There are those who, according to tropology, transfer the whole passage to the end of the world (or age), and the number nine, which signifies punishment and sufferings in holy scripture, and always follows justice, they temper with the mercy of the tenth month and the tenth day. For this reason, punishments are inflicted on the sick, so that health may follow pain. Therefore, the world which is situated in evil (1 John 5:19) will be set ablaze by the divine fire of judgment; and the city of blood will be placed upon the coals of fire, so that what is written in Isaiah may be fulfilled: 'You have coals of fire, sit upon them; they shall be a help to you' (Isaiah 47:14). And this is difficult to understand, how both the coals and the bones will be consumed, with which even the Pharisees are filled, about whom the Lord speaks in the Gospel: 'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, who are like whitewashed sepulchers; which inside are full of uncleanness and dead men's bones' (Matthew 23:27), unless it be said that the rust and filth of the world will not be consumed, but evil will remain even after the severity of judgment. It is easily solved, if we understand the Apostle's statement: God has concluded all under sin, that he may have mercy upon all (Galatians 3:22). For the creature is subject to vanity (Romans 8:28). And the blood that was shed on the face of all creation is presented, that the crimes of all may be revealed. But we can receive the purest rock, and the Lord Savior, who followed the people of Israel in the wilderness, of whom it is written: They drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4): that in him all things may be revealed; and that which is written may be fulfilled: There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. And he says that the Lord does not have mercy, nor overlook the sins of the world; nor spare the wicked, nor be appeased, so that the ways of the wicked may perish, according to what is placed at the end of the first psalm: And the way of the wicked will perish.
24:15-27