4:30
(Verse 30.) But what will you do, O devastated one? The word 'devastated' in Hebrew is 'Sadud', which only Aquila has translated, others have translated it as 'miserable and wretched', by their own fault, for they have offended a merciful God. Finally, it follows:
When you dress yourself in scarlet and adorn yourself with a golden necklace, and paint your eyes with antimony, you are in vain: your lovers have despised you, they will seek your soul. In the form of an adulterous woman speaks: when you have once offended God, and as if you had abandoned your Creator, you in vain seek ornaments. Your lovers, the demons, have despised you, and not the filth of debauchery, but they will seek the destruction of your soul. This same thing is to be understood spiritually against those who have lost conjugal affections and the modesty of true faith. 'If,' he says, 'you clothe yourself in scarlet, that is, you assume faith in the blood of Christ; if you adorn yourself with a golden necklace, that is, you have the meditation of spiritual senses and understanding; and if you paint your eyes with antimony, that is, you have the study of mysteries and the knowledge of God's secrets, you are in vain adorned. For these things you have also prepared for your lovers; and therefore a narrow bed cannot contain both, nor does God receive the ornaments by which you pleased your lovers before.'
4:31
(Verse 31) For I heard a voice like that of a woman in labor, the anguish (or groaning) of one giving birth. The voice of the daughter of Zion, fading away and stretching out her hands: Woe to me, for my soul is faint because of the slain! Like a woman in labor, that is, one who is giving birth for the first time, she describes the city of Jerusalem lamenting and crying out. For just as a woman in labor, not yet experiencing the pain of childbirth, almost dies and endures anguish, barely able to breathe, with hands spread out, she collapses, so too the daughter of Zion, when she sees her children slain, will burst forth in these words and say (or bursts forth and says): Woe to me, for my soul is faint because of the slain! But two examples have been compared in one chapter, the giving birth of children and the mourning: so that whatever a woman suffers in childbirth, or in the deaths of children, Jerusalem may suffer in the nations.
5:1-2
(Chapter 5 - Verse 1, 2) Go around the streets of Jerusalem and look, observe, and search its squares, whether you find a man who does justice and seeks faithfulness. I will be merciful to him. But even if, by the living Lord, they say and falsely swear this. Great is the love of justice, as God did not deliver the city (Genesis 18) according to the request of Abraham and the response of God for the sake of ten righteous men, but if He finds even one in the now perishing Jerusalem who does justice and seeks faithfulness (or, as Symmachus translated, truth), then God will have mercy on Jerusalem. And because it could happen that some would be found among the people who would feign the worship of God and swear by God, this is prevented so that God is not pleased by empty words but by the truth of faith, and He says: I do not love those who swear by me and swear falsely, but rather those whose hearts and lips are in agreement.
5:3
(Verse 3) Lord, your eyes look upon faith: you struck them, and they did not hurt; you crushed them, and they refused to accept discipline. They hardened their faces like rock, and they refused to turn back. After the words of the Lord, in which he commanded, saying: Go around the streets of Jerusalem, etc., the Prophet speaks to the Lord: Lord, your eyes look upon faith, which in Hebrew is called Emuna: not the works of the Jews, in which they rejoiced according to the ceremonies of the Law; but the faith of the Christians, through which we have been saved by grace. In this chapter, we learn that punishments are inflicted in order to correct vices. Finally, it says, 'You have struck them, and they have not felt pain; you have crushed them, and they have refused to accept discipline.' Through all the torments and whips, Jerusalem is corrected, and yet they did not even have shame for their vices; but like a stone hardening their foreheads, they refused to be converted to better things.
5:4-5
(Vers. 4, 5.) But I said: Perhaps they are poor and foolish (or they were unable) and ignorant of the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God. Therefore, I will go to the noble ones, and I will speak to them: for they have known the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God. Here, the poor and the noble ones, he does not speak of poverty and wealth, but compares the people to the rulers. And the meaning is this: Seeing the stubbornness of the unfaithful people, and that with hardened face, he did not want to receive instruction, this is the reasoning I had with myself: Perhaps the common people, who are ignorant of God, cannot know the teachings, and therefore it is excusable, because due to their lack of knowledge of God, they are unable to know the commandments. Therefore, I will go to the priests and those who preside over the people, and I will speak to them. For they have known the will of the Lord and understand His judgment. However, this is said in the manner of one who is uncertain, according to the Gospel saying: 'I will send my son, perhaps they will respect him' (Matthew 21:37), so that through the ambiguity of the sentence and the suspension of words, the free will of man might be shown.
5:6
(Verse 6) And behold, these men have broken the yoke together: they have broken the bonds, therefore the lion from the forest has struck them, the wolf has laid waste to them in the evening, the vigilant leopard is over their cities; everyone who goes out from them will be captured. Because their transgressions have multiplied, their apostasies have become strengthened. Those whom I thought were teachers, have been found to be worse than the disciples, and the greater authority there is in the rich, the greater the insolence of sins. For they have broken the yoke of the Law, as the Apostle says: 'Now therefore, why do you tempt God by imposing a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But by the grace of the Lord Jesus, we believe to be saved, even as they:' (Acts 15:10-11). And they broke the bonds of God's precepts, and not of the Pharisees, of whom it is said in the second Psalm: 'Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away their yoke from us' (Psalm 2:3). Therefore, because they did these things, a lion from the forest struck them, namely the kingdom of Babylon; a wolf ravaged them at evening, signifying the Medes and Persians. For this reason, in the vision of Daniel, a bear is placed, with three rows of teeth in its mouth (Daniel 7): a watchful leopard over their cities, foreshadowing the attack of Alexander, and a swift attack from the West to India. It is called a leopard due to its variety and because it fought against the Medes and Persians with many subject nations. And four, he said, were the heads on the beast, and power was given to it. And because he does not prophesy of the future, but of the past, as if weaving a story about things that are about to happen soon, he is silent about the Roman empire, about which perhaps it is said: Everyone who goes out from them will be captured. And he gives reasons why they have suffered these things: Because their transgressions have multiplied, and they have persisted in their disobedience. Hence it is said: And their aversions have been strengthened. That which we have set forth at the beginning, the Hebrew word Soced, which means 'vigilance', is now revealed in its proper place: for where we have said 'pardus vigilans', it is written in Hebrew Nemer Soced. According to typology, those who are considered great in the Church, because they break the yoke and break the chains, are therefore delivered to the shame of sufferings, so that they do what does not befit them.
5:7-9
(Vers. 7 seqq.) How can I be propitious to you? Your sons have forsaken me, and they swear by those who are not gods. I have satisfied them, and they have committed adultery, and they have indulged in the house of a prostitute. They are lovers of horses, and they have become emissaries to me. Each one neighs after his neighbor's wife. Will I not visit them for these things, says the Lord? Will my soul not avenge itself on such a nation? Catalogue of the sins of Jerusalem: while she says that she does not know God, by whom she can be shown mercy. Your sons have forsaken me, she says. Not my sons, but yours: they swear by those who are not gods, I have fed them and they have committed adultery. Let those who received wealth from the Lord listen to this and serve luxury. The lovers of horses have become lovers of women. Concerning emissaries, it is written in Hebrew: Mosechim (), which all translated with a consonant voice, that is, pulling, to show the greatness of the genitals, as in the said Ezekiel: like the flesh of donkeys, their flesh (Ezek. XXIII, 20). This is what is written in another place: They were compared to foolish beasts, and became like them (Psalm 48:13). And it shows such madness of lust, that not only does it call desire for pleasure, but also neighing, that is, the sound of horses, and it preserves the metaphor of raging horses for lust. When you do these things, he says, are you not worthy of punishment? And note that here visitation is used as punishment and torment, according to what is written: I will visit their iniquities with a rod. And in such a nation my soul will not be avenged (Psalm 88:33)? After it is bound by sins, it is not called the people of God, but a nation from which the soul of God has departed, according to what is written: My soul hates your new moons, your Sabbaths and your festivals (Isaiah 1:13). But what is said in the Old Testament for emotion, is written in the New Testament for truth: With the Savior saying: I have the power to lay down my life, and I have the power to take it up again (John 10:18).
5:10-11
(Vers. 10, 11.) Ascendite muros ejus (sive propugnacula) et dissipate: consummationem autem nolite facere. Auferte propagines ejus (sive sustentacula) quia non sunt Domini. Praevaricatione enim praevaricata est in me domus Israel, et domus Juda, dicit Dominus. Imperat gentibus, de quibus supra dixerat: Percussit eos leo de silva, lupus vastavit eos, et pardus in civitatibus eorum, ut ascendant muros Jerusalem, sive propugnacula, et dissipent eam: consummationem autem non faciant, ut salventur reliquiae, et sit qui annuntiet in gentibus gloriam Dei, severitatique miscetclementiam. And he commanded that its branches or supports be taken away, all the help that he had lost by his own fault, because it had transgressed against God (or the Lord), the house of Israel, and the house of Judah, signifying the ten tribes and the two. Let the Church hear this, that the walls and defenses of those who have no hope in the Lord and transgress against Him may quickly be destroyed, but let there not be complete destruction because of the mercy of the judge, and not because of the merits of the offenders.
5:12-13
(Verse 12, 13.) They denied the Lord and said: He is not (or these things are not), and evil will not come upon us. We will not see sword and famine. The prophets spoke in vain and there was no answer (or response) in them. Therefore, these things will happen to them. Because they denied the Lord or lied to the Lord, and said: He is not, by whose judgment all things are done, but these things happened by chance: and the things that the voices of the prophets threaten us with will not happen, nor will we see the sword, nor will we endure the siege famine, and whatever the prophets said, they spoke in vain, and all their words were in vain, and they did not receive an answer, which means the oracle or word of God was not in them, therefore they will endure what the following passage describes. Let the negligent Church listen to this and refute the providence of God, that it may believe the things that are said, lest it endure both the sword and famine.
5:14
(Verse 14) Thus says the Lord God of hosts, because you have spoken these words: behold, I will make my words in your mouth like fire, and this people like wood, and it shall devour them. You said: The prophets have spoken in vain, and their threats will not come to pass: therefore, O prophet, I will make my words in your mouth have the power of fire, and I will turn this people into wood, so that through your words and the disbelief of the prophecy they may be consumed. Thus God is said to be a consuming fire, so that He may consume in us, if we build on the foundation of Christ, wood, hay, straw (Deuteronomy IV).
5:15-18
(Verse 15 and following) Behold, I will bring upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, says the Lord: a strong nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you will not understand, nor will you know what it speaks. Its quiver is like an open tomb, all mighty warriors. And it will devour your crops and your bread; it will devour your sons and daughters; it will devour your flocks and herds; it will devour your vineyards and fig trees; and it will crush your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword. However, in those days, says the Lord, I will not make an end of you. Not much later, and not falsely believed, the Prophets will speak to you in vain, but now I will bring upon you the nation of the Babylonians, who will come from afar: a strong nation, as it is written in Hebrew, Ethan (Gen. X), an ancient nation, once ruled by the giant Nimrod. Whose language you will not understand, as it is written in Hebrew: you will not understand what they say: for it is the solace of evil, if you have those enemies whom you can ask, and who understand your prayers. And what follows: Her quiver is like an open grave; it is not referred to as Babylon in the Septuagint edition, but it signifies the armory. There is no doubt that the kingdom of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians is extremely skilled in archery. And it also describes the devastation of the land of Judah, the slaughter of sheep, the herding away of livestock, the destruction of cities and walls, because they are all captured by the enemy sword, and yet in such great evils He does not destroy them completely; but He preserves the remaining ones, either those who were led into Babylon and sent back to cultivate the land of Judah, or those who, after the heat of persecution, have kept the faith of the Lord through flight or confession.
5:19
(Verse 19) But if you shall say: why has the Lord our God done all these things to us? You shall say to them: Just as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods (or foreign deities) in your land, so you shall serve foreigners in a land that is not yours. It is a great folly not to know why they have suffered, since they have sinned so greatly. And a brief response to those who are doubting: just as you have served foreign gods, that is, Baal, or the foreign gods of all the nations in the land of Judah, so you shall serve foreign gods in a land that is not yours, undoubtedly Babylon and Chaldea. For if a foreign religion delights you, why is it necessary to embrace distant error? Dwell with such people, indeed serve those whose gods you worship. This can also be understood about heretics, of whom it is written: They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us (1 John 2:19), that the Lord may cast out heretics from the Church, who for a long time under the name of it have worshiped the idols of their lies, so that they may worship outside what they formerly worshiped within, so that the chaff may be separated from the wheat.