15:12
(Vers. 12.) Will iron be bound to iron by the North Wind, and bronze? Symmachus, Will iron be harmed by iron by the North Wind, and bronze? LXX and Theodotion, If it recognizes iron and a copper covering? It is clear for the sake of variation: for the word 'Jare' () which is written in this place, depending on the ambiguity of the utterance, it can mean both friendship and malice, but if the letter 'Res' is read as 'Daleth' (which is similar to the letter 'Daleth'), it signifies knowledge and understanding. But what is said must be understood like this: Do not grieve that the people are your enemy; for if you bring them harsh news, those who are harsh cannot love you. Whether it be the Babylonians who come from the North, and are very hard, and resemble unyielding bronze, they will not be able to form a friendship with this more unyielding people. Whether it be that they are as hard as iron, that is, the people of Israel who are unworthy of the knowledge of God, who have reached such great wickedness that they are surrounded by the more unyielding metal of bronze.
15:13-14
(Verse 13, 14) I will give your riches and treasures as plunder, freely (or without payment), for all your sins and in all your territories. And I will bring your enemies (or make your enemies serve you) from a land you do not know: for a fire is kindled in my anger, it shall burn upon you. I will deliver all your substance to your enemies without any payment, because of the sins you have committed in all your territories. Therefore I will bring your enemies, or make them serve you in the land of Chaldea, because my fire, once ignited in my fury, will burn in you and cannot be extinguished. For you have provided the material for your own ardor, so that my fire may consume the wood, hay, and straw that are within you. And so, the cause of the ardor is not in the Lord, but in those who have supplied fuel to the fire.
15:15-16
(Verse 15, 16.) You know, O Lord, remember me and visit me, and protect me from those who persecute me. Do not take me in your patience, know that I have endured reproach for you. Your words have been found and I have eaten them (or consume them from those who reject your words). And your word has become joy and gladness to my heart, for the name of the Lord God of hosts has been invoked upon me. What we have said, you know, is not found in the Septuagint. But blessed is that conscience which endures reproach for God. Hence he says: Your words were found by me, which you spoke with my mouth. And I ate them, that is, they were turned into food for me; or according to Symmachus: I received them, that they might be turned into joy for me, who had long been in reproach. Hence even the Babylonians confess that what Jeremiah had predicted was fulfilled: Or this is the meaning: I experienced distress: I endured the hardships of a persecuted people; but nevertheless, I rejoiced that I obeyed your commandments: and for the sake of your name, I endured hardships.
15:17-18
(Verse 17, 18.) I did not sit in the council of the jesters, and I boasted (or feared) from the face of your hand: I sat alone, for you filled me with bitterness ((Vulgate: threat)). Why has my pain become perpetual (or why do those who distress me, find comfort) and my incurable wound refuse to be healed (or my strong wound, from where shall I be cured)? It has become to me like the falsehood of unfaithful waters (or like water that deceives and lacks faith). The Hebrews believe that these things are said from the perspective of Jerusalem: that she alone sat, and is filled with bitterness, and her pain has become everlasting; and just as waters pass by, so the words of the Prophets, with which they promised themselves prosperity, have passed falsely. But it is better, if we understand these things to be said from the perspective of the Prophet, by the words of a holy man, who did not sit in the assembly or secret gathering of those who mock, because he feared the impending hand of God; or rather, boasted that he did not have fellowship with evil. Alone, he said, I was sitting, according to what is written: I did not sit with the council of vanity, and I will not enter with those who do evil. I hated the congregation of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked (Psalm 26: 4, 5). And in another place, I am solitary until I pass through. On your face, he said, your hands, I was sitting alone (Psalm 140: 10), while I fear you, while I always expect your impending hand. I did not want to sit in the council of jesters, but I swallowed my bitterness, so that I might prepare joy for myself in the future. I had no intervals of pain, but I was constantly weighed down by unceasing misery, expecting no remedies. Those who afflicted me prevailed, and my wound became severe. But in this I had consolation, that it was like deceitful water, passing away. Just as passing waters flow and seem to vanish, so too does every attack of my enemies pass by with your help. May the Lord grant that we do not sit in the council of the mockers, or with those who do not consider the future, nor yield to adversity, but always fear God's judgment and say with the Prophet: I sat alone because I am filled with bitterness. Therefore, let him rejoice in the present time, not in the advice of the wise, but in the secret and hidden amusement of the playful; let it be good for me to adhere to God, to place my hope in God, to be satisfied with reproaches, and to await the judgment of my judge: which when the end shall come, will show by its work that all sadness and bitterness has passed like flowing waters.
15:19-21
(Verse 19 onwards) Because of this, the Lord says: If you turn back, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me. And if you separate the precious from the vile, you shall be like my mouth. They will turn to you, but you shall not turn to them. And I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; and they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the Lord. And I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the hand of the strong (or the pestilent). It is clear that the things mentioned do not pertain to Jerusalem, but rather the Prophet said them. To whom the Lord responded, if you turn the people away from sins, I will turn you from tribulation to joy, and you will stand before my face, just as the Angels stand in the presence of God, seeing His face daily. And if you separate the precious from the vile, you will be like my mouth. Do not think, he says, that there is no reward for good works: if you separate even my saints from the number of sinners with your words, you will be like my mouth, and you will be connected to my commandments. For indeed they should be your imitators, and not you theirs. Do not be dismayed, and say: Why has my pain become perpetual, and my wound strong or hopeless, so that I despair of being able to be healed. For I will give you like a wall of bronze, strongest, so that you may resist the adversary with all strength; and you will have me as a helper and I will free you from the hand of the wicked or the pestilence, and I will redeem you, either with my own blood or for now with my help. Let us consider what reward the teaching of a doctor has, if he is able to free someone from error and lead them out of the number of sinners.
16:1-4
(Chapter XVI—Verse 1 and following) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Do not take a wife, and there shall not be sons and daughters for you in this place. For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers, from whose lineage they were born in this land, they shall die by the deaths of sickness: they shall not be mourned, nor shall they be buried; they shall be like dung on the face of the earth. They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their corpses shall be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. If, in the time of impending captivity, the prophet is forbidden to take a wife, so as not to have the affliction of the flesh; and if he is also tormented by the sorrow of his own wife and the miseries of his children, how much more does the Apostle command (I Cor. VII) that, because the time is shortened and the consummation is at hand, even those who have wives should be as if they had none! Hence the superfluous reproach of the new heretics (Jovinians), by which we have taught that bigamy and trigamy do not come from the law, but from indulgence. For it is one thing to do what is good in itself, another to concede something so as not to do worse. For he himself gives the reasons why he wants young widows to marry, saying: For some of them have already gone astray after Satan (I Tim. 5:15). At the same time, as a teacher of self-control and perpetual chastity, he praises three or four marriages, which I will not so much call marriages as comforts for the wretched and the last hope for shipwrecked souls. Unless perhaps he grants indulgence to his Amazons, that they may experience the wars of desire until decrepit old age. But why the Prophet is prevented from taking a wife is clear, because with the nearby siege, pestilence, sword, and famine, all perish, and such is the number of the dying that the duty of burial is surpassed, but the bodies lie like dung to be torn apart by birds and beasts. And it should be noted that to waste away with sickness and long infirmity is the wrath of God. Thus, Joram son of Josaphat is consumed by illness (2 Chronicles 21). And the Apostle teaches that those who violate holy things become sick, waste away, and die (I Cor. XI).
16:5-8
(Verse 5 onwards) For thus says the Lord: Do not enter the house of the feast, nor go to mourn, nor console them, for I have taken away my peace from this people, says the Lord, mercy and compassion. And the great and the small shall die in this land, they shall not be buried, nor mourned, nor shall they make a cut in themselves, nor shall there be baldness for them. And they shall not break bread among those who mourn, to console them regarding the dead, and they shall not give them the cup of consolation for their father and mother. And do not enter the house of the feast, so that you may sit with them and eat and drink. The Apostle commands that one should not even eat with those who turn away from God (I Cor. V). Furthermore, you should not even greet such people (II John X). And the Savior prohibits the Apostles from greeting anyone on the journey (Luke X). Therefore, Elisha forbids Gehazi from greeting someone while going to heal a boy (IV Kings IV). But it is customary for those in mourning to bear food and prepare a feast, which the Greeks call 'περίδειπνα' and are commonly known as 'parentalia' by us: because they are celebrated for the parents. Scripture also says elsewhere: 'Give wine to those who are in sorrow' (Prov. XXXI, 6); so that they may forget their sorrow. Therefore, the Prophet is commanded not to console anyone from the people, not to mix with the banquets of God's enemies, and not to celebrate the rites over the funerals of the deceased. For it is one thing to forget by the common law of nature, another thing to kill by the judgement of God. 'I have taken away my peace from that people,' he says, 'and they are unworthy of mercy. I will spare no age, but both the great and the small will perish equally, so that they will even lack a burial.' 'Neither shall they shave their heads,' he says, 'nor shall there be baldness (Al. They shall make no mourning) for them.' This was the custom among the Ancients, and it still persists among some of the Jews today, that they shave their arms and make themselves bald in mourning; and we also read that Job did this (Job. 1 and 22). And it is also said of the prophets, neither shall he break bread among them, nor enter in to mourn, nor give them the cup to drink, nor go into the house of feasting, nor mix with those who are prepared for the word of God. But if this is said of those who are mourning, what will be done with heretics, whose speech spreads like cancer, and who daily lay low in the Church the dead bodies of the deceived?
16:9-12
(Verse 9 onwards) For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will remove from this place in your sight and in your days the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, 'Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?' You say to them: 'Because your fathers have forsaken me,' says the Lord, 'and have gone after foreign gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. But you have done worse than your fathers. When the Church sins, all joy and gladness are taken away from it, of which the Apostle says: Rejoice, again I say, rejoice (Philippians 4:4): The voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, of which it is written: He who has the bride is the bridegroom (John 3:29).' But if, he says, the people question you, asking why these sufferings are allowed and seeking the reasons for their miseries, you shall reply to them: Because your fathers have forsaken me, says the Lord, who preside over you in the Churches, and have gone after foreign gods, whose god is their belly, and they serve them for the sake of greed and lust, and their glory is in their shame, and they have worshipped them. For whoever is overcome by someone, becomes their servant. And they worshipped them: For each one worships what they love. And they have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. It is the duty of the priests not only to teach, but also to follow the law: so that they may teach by example, not only by words, the people who are subject to them and the entrusted flock. And lest they should say that the judgment is unjust, it brings forward the saying: 'The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge' (Jeremiah 31), and 'The teeth of the sons shall not be set on edge' (Ezekiel 18). But you have done worse than your fathers; so that just punishments should be inflicted on those who have sinned worse than their fathers.
16:13
(Verse 13) Behold, everyone walks according to the wickedness of their evil heart, so that they may not hear me. And I will cast you out of this land into a land that you and your fathers do not know, and there you will serve foreign gods day and night, who will not give you rest. Once abandoned by the Lord, they do things that are not fitting, so that they may pursue the desires of their evil heart, from which come wicked thoughts (Matthew 15), and therefore they are separated from the Church, to go into a distant land, which neither they nor their fathers knew before they sinned, to serve foreign gods, who are not gods, but are thought to be by those who worship them in error. But what he introduced: Day and night, he shows the continuous perseverance of sinners in wickedness, while they serve both in days of shame and in nights of lust. 'They will not give you rest,' he says. There is no doubt that he signifies false gods, of whom he said: 'And you will serve foreign gods there.' Therefore, whatever we sin, whatever we do day and night, and whatever evil works we commit, is the dominion of demons, who never give us rest, but always impel us to increase sins with sins, and to make a accumulation of sins.
16:14-15
(Vers. 14, 15.) Therefore, behold, days are coming," says the Lord, "and it will no longer be said, 'As the Lord lives, who brought the children of Israel up from the land of Egypt,' but 'As the Lord lives, who brought the children of Israel up from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had banished them.' For I will restore them to their land that I gave to their ancestors. Clearly, the future restoration of the people of Israel is predicted, and after their captivity comes mercy; which, according to the literal sense, was partially fulfilled under Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua and Ezra; but according to the spiritual understanding, it is more truly and perfectly fulfilled in Christ. The time will come, he says, when it will no longer be said that the people were brought out of Egypt by Moses and Aaron, but that they were brought out of the land of the North, with Cyrus, the king of the Persians, releasing the captives. And concerning all lands, he says, this will not be fulfilled in the time of Cyrus, but at the very end, as the Apostle says: After the fullness of the Gentiles has entered, then all Israel will be saved (Rom. XI, 25, 26). We can also say this about the persecutions that happen to our people, from the days of Nero, about whom the Apostle writes: And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion (I Tim. IV, 17), up until the times of Maximinus: how the Lord has had mercy on his people and brought them back to their land. Doubtless into the Church, which their fathers received, the Apostles and apostolic men.
16:16-18
(Verse 16 onwards) Behold, I will send many fishermen, says the Lord, and they will catch them. And after this, I will send them many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and from the clefts of the rocks, for my eyes are upon all their ways. They are not hidden from my sight, and their iniquity was not hidden from my eyes. And I will first repay double their iniquities and sins, for they have defiled my land with the carcasses of their idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations. There are different interpretations of this chapter. For the Jews, it is believed to refer to the Chaldeans, who are described under the name of fishermen, and later to the Romans, who are compared to hunters, and who hunted down the unfortunate people in the mountains, hills, and caves of the rocks. But the Lord says that He Himself has done this because He has looked upon their ways and has returned upon them the iniquities with which they have polluted the land by worshipping idols and defiling His inheritance with abominations. But our Prophet thinks more rightly and better that these things are prophesied about the future. For as he had said before: I will bring them back to their land, which I gave to their fathers, now he shows how they are to be brought back, that first he should send Apostles, to whom the Savior said: Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men (Matthew 4:19). And afterwards hunters, whom we can understand as either ecclesiastical men or Angels, who, when the time of completion comes, will hunt down all the holy ones from the mountains of lofty doctrines, and from the hills of good works, and from the caves of rocks, to the Apostles and apostolic men. For not only did Christ give the name Rock to Peter the Apostle (I Cor. X, Matt. XVI). In the senses of which, resting rightly, they are said to be transferred from rock. And it shows either the Apostles or those who came after them, having sins, and receiving their double injustices. For the servant who knows his master's will and does not do it, will be beaten with many blows (Luke XII). And it should be known that in Hebrew it is placed first, and in the Septuagint edition it was omitted. But when he says, 'I will first repay them double for their iniquities and their sins,' he indicates that after they have received evil, they will also receive good. However, those who will be transferred later have defiled the land of the Lord with the corpses of their idols and with their abominations they have filled his inheritance, so that the whole world may be subject to God, and may be preserved not by their own merit, but by his mercy. This we have inserted from the Hebrew: 'They are not hidden from my face,' which is not found in the Septuagint.
16:19
(Verse 19) Lord, you are my strength and my refuge in the day of trouble (or evil). All human strength, without the power of God, which is Christ, is considered weak and worthless. Therefore, we must turn to the Lord and say: Lord, you have become our refuge, from generation to generation (Psalm 89:1). And in another place: Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91:1). But this tribulation, or evil, is to be understood, of which the Apostle says: That he might deliver us from this present wicked world: And, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil (Gal. 1:4).
16:20