Ezekiel 35

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, set (or turn) your face against Mount Seir, and you shall prophesy concerning it (or to it), and you shall say to it: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, Mount Seir; and I will stretch out my hand over you, and I will make you desolate and deserted. I will demolish your cities (or in your cities I will make a waste), and you shall be deserted, and you shall know that I am the Lord. Because you have been a perpetual enemy, and have shut up the sons of Israel into the hands of the sword (or and have laid siege to the house of Israel deceitfully in the hand of the sword) in the time of their affliction, in the time of the final iniquity; therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, I will hand you over to blood (or since you have sinned in blood), and blood pursues you, and since you have hated blood, blood pursues you. And I will make Mount Seir desolate and deserted, and I will take away from it him who goes and him who returns (or men and beasts), and I will fill its mountains with its slain (or wounded) in your hills, and in your valleys and torrents those slain by the sword shall fall. I will hand you over to everlasting wastes, and your cities shall not be inhabited, and you all shall know (or you shall know) that I am the Lord. Because you have said: Two nations and two lands (or regions) shall be mine, and I will possess them as an inheritance, though the Lord was there; therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, I will act according to your anger (or enmity), and according to your zeal which you showed, holding them in hatred, and I will be made known to you when I have judged you; and you shall know that I am the Lord. I have heard all your reproaches (or the voice of your blasphemies) which you have spoken (or that you have spoken) concerning the mountains of Israel: Deserted, they have been given to us to devour. And you rose up against me with your mouth (or you spoke boastfully against me with your mouth), and you have prayed against me (or you have shouted against me) your words; I have heard. Thus says the Lord God: While the whole earth rejoices, I will reduce you to a waste; as you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was laid waste, so will I do to you: you shall be laid waste (or deserted), Mount Seir, and all Edom, and they shall know that I am the Lord. (But what is added in the Seventy, And they shall be consumed, is not found in the Hebrew.) If the word of God were always in the prophets and had a constant lodging in their breast, Ezekiel would never so often set down: 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying'; but it was because, on account of human frailty and the necessities of this life, it at times withdrew from them; therefore John the Baptist says: He who sent me to baptize, he said to me: He on whom you see the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove and remaining in him, he it is — for what is added, And remaining in him, would never be something proper to Christ, unless it sometimes withdrew from others —; besides, God also says to Moses: I will take away from the spirit that is in you — which he certainly would not have had unless it had descended to him from the Lord —.

Set, he says, (or turn) your face against Mount Seir; and he says 'turn' significantly: from one prophecy to another prophecy; and 'face': not of the body but of the mind — of which the Apostle also speaks: But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord —; and Mount 'Seir', which means 'shaggy' and 'hairy', is to be taken as the opposing power that presided over the nation of the sons of Esau and had raised itself up against the people of 'Iuda' [Judah], that is, of 'confession' and of the true faith — but if a prudent reader objects, how in this place 'Seir', that is, 'shaggy' and 'hairy', is understood in a bad sense when Elijah too was called a hairy man, I shall answer briefly: it is written of Esau that he was red and shaggy like a hide, but of Elijah only that he was a hairy man; in Esau, who, bloodthirsty and bloodstained, is compared to a shaggy hide, it is a sign of mortal works and of death itself; in Elijah, an increase of manliness, for which reason both his dwelling in the wilderness and the austerity of his way of life showed him to be not only a man but a most valiant man; moreover Jacob, who had supplanted Esau and received his birthright, because he dwelt simply at home and was not a hunter like the giant Nimrod, is for that reason called smooth and sleek —.

Now the whole prophecy of this chapter is against Mount Seir — namely of the sons of Esau and Edom, who in Greek and in our language are called Idumaeans [Edomites], because, in the time of need and distress, when Judah was being captured by the Babylonians, they insulted them, and, the people of the Jews having been cast out, they thought the land had been handed over to them to possess, and not only did they not take in his own sons, namely those of Jacob his brother, but they persecuted them and shut them up into the hands of the sword; whence Symmachus translated it more plainly: You have hated your blood, and blood pursues you —. It is prophesied, moreover, that he too is to be captured and reduced to everlasting wastes, and is to learn by the outcome of events that God is judge, because he said: Two nations and two regions are mine — either of the Edomites and the Jews, or surely of Judah and Israel, that is, of the two and the ten tribes —. And you spoke concerning the mountains of Israel, saying: Deserted, they have been given to us to devour, not considering that this blasphemy recoiled against God; hence there follows: While the whole earth rejoices, I will reduce you to a waste; and the sense is: 'When the whole land of Judea has recovered its former state, you will remain in an everlasting waste' — and what is added next: As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was laid waste, so will I do to you, is not found in the Seventy, but has been added under asterisks from the edition of Theodotion —. But the whole wrath of God against Mount Seir tends to this end: that when it has been laid waste, both it and all Edom may know that he is the Lord. These things I would say according to the history, and hastily, the sense rather than the words; I shall pass to the ἀναγωγὴν [anagogy, the higher sense], and, for the sake of brevity, touch briefly on a few points.

Let us see, then, what God commands to be said to the mountain, or against Mount Seir: 'Behold, I am against you, Mount Seir: I will not send angels, nor will I use other ministers, but I myself will come to you; and I will stretch out my hand over you, so as to take on the bearing of one who strikes, and I will make you desolate and deserted, so that you, who were wickedly inhabited and had very many companions in your impiety, to such a degree that you even built cities and claimed for yourself a dominion of your own, now, made desolate with your cities — which Jeremiah too is commanded to destroy and to dig up, so that he may build good cities in their place —, may profit in this, that you may know that I am the Lord, whom before you were laid waste you could not know'.

Now the whole cause of the sin is this: that he was a perpetual enemy; hence the psalm also says: Be angry and do not sin, so that we may quickly be reconciled with our enemies and exchange hatreds for love; but Mount Seir is not such, which, on top of its perpetual enmities, shut up, or besieged, the sons of Israel by guile in the hand of the sword; from which we understand that whoever has seized the sword against the sons of God and has done anything deceitfully and has besieged them has Mount Seir in the hand of the sword in the time of the final iniquity: when the days are most evil, and: The world is set in the evil one, and: Because iniquity is multiplied, the love of many grows cold.

There is, moreover, another sin of Mount Seir, so that, since it hated the blood of the righteous, which it longed to see poured out one by one in persecution after persecution, it suffers persecution from that very blood — whence also under the altar the souls of the saints keep crying out and beg the Lord for vengeance for their blood —.

And those who go and those who return are taken away from Mount Seir, that is, every inhabitant, or the men and beasts that are saved in the Church — of whom it is written: Men and beasts you will save, O Lord —; both of which are destroyed in Mount Seir, so that both those who seem to have some reason and those who are content with simple faith perish at God's command.

And its mountains are filled with the wounded and the slain; and not only the mountains, which have reached the summit of impiety, but the hills too, that is, the lesser disciples of Mount Seir, and the valleys, which are sunk into the depths, or the torrents, which have muddy waters, gathered from here and there and coming from pride, or, according to the Seventy, the plains, which lie midway between hills and valleys: all these, slain, shall fall by the sword of the Lord and of his outstretched and striking hand, so that they may be reduced to everlasting wastes; and if there were any cities, that is, gatherings of an evil habitation, they too are to perish and cease to hold agreement in the bad sense, and their tongues are to be divided, so that they cannot build a tower of blasphemy against God; and, reduced to a waste and a desert, let them know that he is the Lord.

Nor was it enough for Mount Seir to have said so much and done so much, as the preceding discourse has related, but this too it spoke in its pride: 'Two nations and two lands (or regions) are mine: namely, both Edom and Judea, both heretics and churchmen, I shall possess alike'. 'And this', he says, 'you said while the Lord was there, who presided over his people'.

Therefore the Lord swears and says: 'As I live, says the Lord God, according to your anger with which you raged against the people of God, and your zeal with which you persecuted the household of Christ, holding in hatred those whom you longed to possess, when I have struck you and judged you, then I will be made known to you. And you shall know that I learned of your reproaches and blasphemies not through another's report, but that I myself heard what you spoke against the mountains of Israel, saying: Deserted, they have been given to us to devour, the mountains of Israel' — we ought to understand Moses, the prophets, the apostles, whom the heretics and the prince of heretics, the devil, think have been handed over to them to devour, when either rarely anyone or no one is found in the Church who can fight for the mountains of the Lord and ward off their mangling with his voice —.

'And you rose up', he says, 'against me with your mouth, or you spoke boastfully, not, as you think, against the mountains, but through them against me; and you prayed, or cried out, against me; for all your prayers, O Mount Seir and companions of Mount Seir — of whom it was said above: I will fill its mountains and hills and valleys and plains (or torrents) —, were against me: not at all prayers and petitions, as you think, to God, but a clamor of shouting and blasphemy'.

Hence the Lord also threatens and says: 'As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel when by your persecutions it was laid waste and torn and scattered through the whole world, so will I do to you: for while the whole land of the living and the land of the saints rejoices, and all are turned to the service of God, you shall be laid waste, shaggy mountain, hairy mountain, and all Edom — namely, earthly works given over to gore and blood —, so that then you may know that I am the Lord, who have said elsewhere: I am the Lord your God'.