Ezekiel 5

Moreover, just as in the hair of the head and the beard there is a token of beauty and manhood, and if they are shaved off a shameful nakedness appears, and the outermost and, so to speak, dead part of the whole body is in the hair of the head and the hairs of the beard, so Jerusalem and its people, dead and separated from the living body of God, is handed over to famine and pestilence, to slaughter and the sword, to captivity and dispersion. From this dispersion, under the figure of the hairs, some part is bound in the height of the cloak, so that a small amount is again handed over to burning, from which an infinite flame and the whole devastation of punishment goes forth into all the house of Israel.

And you, son of man, take for yourself a sharp sword like a barbers' razor (or shaving the hairs), and draw it across your head and your beard, and you shall take for yourself a balance of weight and divide them. A third part you shall burn with fire in the midst of the city, according to the completion of the days of the enclosure; and a third part you shall cut down with the sword round about it; but the other third you shall scatter into the wind, and I will bare the sword after them. And you shall take from there a small number, and you shall bind them in the top of the cloak; and from them again you shall take, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them; from it a fire shall go forth into all the house of Israel. Instead of the 'three' parts of the hair of the head and of the beard, of which one is burned in the midst of the city, another is cut down with the sword round about it, and the third is scattered, to be snatched hither and thither by the wind, from which a little is taken and bound in the edge of the cloak, and again some small amount of the third part is cast into the fire, from which a flame goes forth into all the house of Israel, the Seventy translated 'four' parts; and when they had said: A fourth part you shall burn with fire in the midst of the city, and a fourth you shall slay with the sword round about it, and a fourth you shall scatter into the wind, because another fourth part remained to them, they added of their own: And a fourth part you shall take and burn it in the midst of the city, as if it were not the same as the first, and he had said one thing in the first and another in this one which has been added. Finally, in what follows too, the Lord himself explains through the prophet the αἴνιγμα [riddle] of the hairs divided into three parts, saying: A third part of you shall die by pestilence and be consumed by famine in the midst of you, signifying that famine and pestilence are the fire; and a third part of you shall fall by the sword round about you, describing the slaughters and wars outside; but the third part of you, he says, I will scatter into every wind, showing that these are the ones who are to be led into captivity. After these he says that he bares or pours out his sword, so that not even captivity should be the last of evils, and that he takes from those very ones who were scattered and made captive, and binds at the top of his cloak those who are to return from captivity to Jerusalem, and from them too takes some part and consumes it with fire and flame, signifying the Macedonians, under whom the inhabitants of Judea, and especially of Jerusalem, suffered harsh things.

But as to his saying: From it (that is, from the people of the Jews, or according to the Seventy: From her, so that the city of Jerusalem is understood) a fire shall go forth into all the house of Israel, the history of the Maccabees relates it: that a certain part of the Jews gave themselves over to Antiochus Epiphanes and stirred him up to the persecution of the people, and many other things which are written in the same history and in the volumes of Josephus, and especially the dissension of Hyrcanus and Alexander, through the occasion of which Gnaeus Pompey took Jerusalem and subjected it to Roman dominion; and afterwards, under Titus and Vespasian, the city was taken and the temple overthrown, and, after fifty years, under Aelius Hadrian the city was burned down to the ground and destroyed, so that it lost even its former name.

Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem; in the midst of the nations I have set her, and round about her lands; and she despised my judgments, so as to be more impious than the nations, and my precepts more than the lands which are round about her: for they have cast away my judgments, and in my precepts they have not walked. That Jerusalem is situated in the middle of the world this same prophet testifies, showing that she is the navel of the earth; and the psalmist, expressing the nativity of the Lord: Truth, he says, has sprung from the earth; and then, the passion: He has wrought, he says, salvation in the midst of the earth. For on the side of the east she is girded by the region which is called Asia; on the side of the west, by that which is called Europe; on the south and the south wind, by Libya and Africa; on the north, by the Scythians, Armenia and Persia and all the nations of Pontus.

She was set, therefore, in the midst of the nations so that, since God was known in Judea, and in Israel his name was great, all the nations round about might follow her examples; but she, following the impiety of the nations placed around her, surpassed even them in her wickedness. Symmachus translated this beautifully: This Jerusalem, which I set in the midst of the nations, and the regions around her, has exchanged my judgments for impieties which she learned from the nations, and my justifications from the regions which are round about her, because they have rejected my ordinances, and in my judgments they have not walked. But that what the Seventy said: My justifications unjustly from the nations, and my ordinances from the regions which are round about her, has no coherence is clear even if I keep silent.

Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have surpassed the nations that are round about you, you have not walked in my precepts, and have not done my judgments, and have not acted according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you, therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, and I myself will execute judgments in the midst of you in the eyes of the nations. And I will do in you what I have not done, and the like of which I will not do again, because of all your abominations. (In place of what we translated: Because you have surpassed the nations that are round about you, Symmachus translated: Because your multitude was from the nations that are round about you. Aquila's second edition: Because you have been numbered among the nations that are round about you; and further, LXX: "Because your occasion is from the nations that are round about you".) And the sense is: either that Jerusalem by her crimes surpassed all the nations round about, or that her multitude is to be called not the people of Israel but a crowd of the other nations, or certainly that they were turned into the number of the other nations which are round about, or that they took every occasion from the nations whom they ought rather to have taught toward the good.

'Why,' he says, 'should I complain that you have not walked in my precepts and have not done my judgments, when you have even surpassed all the nations round about in your wickedness, and have not done what they often did by the natural law written in their hearts? Therefore not through angels nor through any ministers, but I myself will execute judgments in you, with all looking on, such as I have not done in you before and will not do again'. And by saying 'judgments' he shows the truth of the sentence, lest his wrath should seem to exceed the measure of the punishments.

Nor did he do in any nation such things as he did in Jerusalem; and the mighty shall suffer torments mightily; and: The like, he says, I will not do again. He said well: I will not do the like, for after the killing of Christ he was going to do much harsher things: for it is one thing to have worshiped idols at times, for which they had been punished before, and another to have slaughtered the Son of God.

Therefore fathers shall eat sons in the midst of you, and sons shall eat their fathers, and I will execute judgments in you, and I will winnow all your remnants into every wind. To what he had said above: Because you have surpassed the nations that are round about you (or Because your occasion is from the nations that are round about you), you have not walked in my precepts, and have not done my judgments, he has referred 'therefore' three times. First thus: Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, and I myself will execute judgments in the midst of you; secondly: Therefore fathers shall eat sons in the midst of you; thirdly: Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, unless because you have violated my holy place with all your offenses, and the rest. Yet it must be noted that where things are seemly and honorable, and in accordance with the merit of those who undergo them, God professes that he does them himself; but where they are sad and not worthy of God, he says indeed that they happen, but not by him, as in the present passage: Therefore fathers shall eat sons in the midst of you, and sons shall eat their fathers; for he did not say: 'I will make fathers eat their sons in the midst of you, and sons eat their fathers'; but what was seemly and did not seem unworthy of the majesty of God, he says he does himself, for there follows: And I will execute judgments in you, and I will winnow all your remnants into every wind. Something of the sort we shall be able to find also in the curses of Deuteronomy, and especially in that passage: Those who glorify me I will glorify; but those who despise me shall be brought to nothing; for those who glorify him he himself glorifies, but those who despise him will not be despised or brought to nothing by the Lord — for this is what would have followed for him to say —, but they will be brought to nothing absolutely, not by God but for their own deserts and sins. We read in the volume of Kings that, under the compulsion of famine, a son was devoured by his mother; Josephus too records many things of this kind done in the siege of Jerusalem; but when fathers ate their sons or sons their fathers, no history relates, unless perhaps it is to be believed that in many evil necessities these things too were done. This very thing can also be referred to our Jerusalem, when masters against disciples, that is, fathers against sons, and disciples against masters, that is, sons against fathers, are stirred up in mutual strife, and that is fulfilled which is said through the Apostle: But if you bite and accuse one another, see that you are not consumed by one another. Hence the prophet too sang in mystical speech: When those who afflict me drew near against me to eat my flesh, and Job says something similar: If indeed my maidservants have said: Who will give us of his flesh, that we may eat?, and concerning masters who pursue gain from their disciples and have no care for their salvation it is said: Who devour my people like a meal of bread, of whom the Apostle too says: And they eat, he says, the houses of widows. We can understand the fathers who ate sons and the sons who ate fathers not only in the Babylonian but also in the Roman siege; what is said: And I will winnow all your remnants into every wind, pertains rather to the Roman captivity, when they were scattered throughout the whole world, and this is the dispersion of the hair of head and beard into every wind.

Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, unless because you have violated my holy place with all your offenses and with all your abominations, I too will break (or according to the Seventy I will cast you off), and my eye shall not spare, and I will not have pity. This is said properly to Jerusalem: 'Because you have violated my holy things by deserting me, and have worshiped idols in my temple, I too will break all your idols and crush and cut them down, or I will cast you off because you first cast me off, and my eye will not spare when I see you submitting your neck to famine, the sword and slavery, nor will I have pity, because you do not deserve mercy', for it is written: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. This same thing must be understood in the Church too, that God could daily say to masters and priests who have acted negligently: 'Because you have violated my holy things with all your offenses and with all your abominations which you have committed, I too will crush and break you, and I will repay through myself what you perpetrated against my people. Concerning this the same prophet speaks more fully against the shepherds: that they clothe themselves with the wool of the sheep and feed on the milk and the cheese, and do not seek out the broken and sick flock.

A third part of you shall die by pestilence and be consumed by famine in the midst of you, and a third part of you shall fall by the sword round about you, but the third part of you I will scatter into every wind, and I will unsheathe the sword after them. And I will fulfill my fury and make my indignation rest upon them, and I will be consoled; and they shall know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal, when I have fulfilled my indignation upon them. (The Seventy, because above they had set down four parts, whereas the prophetic word proved that there are only three, in the ravaging by burning and by sword and by dispersion, so that superfluously the one part of burning was divided into two parts, in this place too divided that same first part into two, so as to say: A fourth part of you shall be worn away by death, and a fourth part of you shall be consumed by famine in the midst of you, and a fourth part of you shall fall round about you, and a fourth part of you I will scatter into every wind; although what we have set down: And a fourth part of you shall fall by the sword has been added from the edition of Theodotion under asterisks.) But it is clear, as the Hebrew truth contains, that there are three parts, of the first of which it is said: And a third part of you shall die by pestilence and be consumed by famine in the midst of you. And it would have been much better to translate what is written than to seek a defense for a thing badly translated; nor do we say that this was done by those to whom antiquity has given authority, but that it was corrupted over many centuries by the fault of copyists and readers, although both Aristeas and Josephus and the whole school of the Jews assert that only the five books of Moses were translated by the Seventy; and since we have spoken of this point above, it seems that it should now be passed over.

This only I will add, which is necessary, regarding what he says: And I will fulfill my fury and make my indignation rest upon them, and I will be consoled; and they shall know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal, when I have fulfilled my indignation upon them: how the fury and indignation and zeal of God are to be understood, we have often explained, namely that God speaks with human affections, not that he himself is angry, but that we, through punishments and torments, may feel God to be angry. Zeal, moreover, is to be taken under the μετάφορᾳ [metaphor] of a husband and wife: a husband, as long as he loves his wife, is jealous; if he has neglected her, he says what we shall say in what follows: My zeal shall depart from you; and I will no longer be angry with you. And as to what is joined: And they shall know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal: not those who have been consumed by famine and pestilence, nor those who have fallen by the sword round about the city, but those who will be scattered into every wind will, by the deaths of others and by their own miseries, feel God angry, whom they were unwilling to feel merciful.

And I will give you into a desert, (and what follows:) and into a reproach to the nations which are round about you (is not found in the Seventy, in place of which they added of their own: and your daughters round about you; and again according to both editions:) in the sight of everyone passing by. Now it profits Jerusalem that all the vices in her should be made desolate and reduced to a desert, and that she should recognize her own sins, so that she who ought to have been an example of virtues to the other nations may be an example of miseries. Her daughters, moreover, we can understand as cities or villages, or as the churches scattered throughout the whole world, so that whoever is a pilgrim of this age, and says with the psalmist: I am a sojourner and a pilgrim, as all my fathers, and of whom it is said: Those who passed by did not say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you, may see her reproach and grieve.

And you shall be a reproach and a blasphemy, an example and an astonishment among the nations which are round about you (in place of which in the Seventy is read: And she shall be στενακτὴ — that is, 'worthy of groaning'; and from Theodotion there has been added: — καὶ δηλαϊστὴ, a word of which we have no knowledge; in place of which the three other translators rendered 'blasphemy', which in the Hebrew is called 'geddupha'. And there follows:), when I have executed judgments in you in fury and indignation and in rebukes of wrath, which I the Lord have spoken. That Jerusalem is worthy of groaning when she has offended God, and he has executed judgments in her in fury and indignation, Paul too testifies, who says: We were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest, and again: We who are in this tabernacle groan, being burdened; and we speak with Jerusalem: I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him. Δηλαϊστὴν or δηλαίαν some wish to be understood as 'unhappy' and 'wretched', others as 'conspicuous' and 'exposed to miseries'.

When I send the most evil arrows of famine, which will be deadly, and which I will send to destroy you, and I will gather famine upon you, and I will crush the support (or staff) of bread. That famine and pestilence and most evil beasts and whatever other evils we endure in this world come because of our sins is manifest. Hence also that famine which is recorded to have happened in Ruth, and in the volume of Kings under Elijah, when the heaven was shut for three years and six months, and under Elisha, whose incredible want a sudden abundance made good, was sent by the judgment of God. And this was not only done then in Jerusalem, but is done also in our Jerusalem, in which, because of the greatness of our sins, first a famine of hearing the word of God is sent; then death follows the famine, so that we who did not hear: Taste and see that the Lord is sweet, may afterwards experience: The death of sinners is most evil. Of the support and staff of bread we have spoken above.

And I will send upon you famine and most evil beasts, even to utter destruction, and pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you; I the Lord have spoken. That most evil beasts are brought upon a land of desolation which has been laid waste by famine, sword and pestilence, the present times also show, when dogs, domestic animals, are roused to madness against the flesh of their masters, and the land is filled with bears and wolves and all other kinds of beasts; and by pestilence and blood passing through it he signifies disease and the sword. But into our Jerusalem too most evil beasts are sent, when we are given over to passions of ignominy and to a reprobate mind and to the consciousness of sins, which torment and tear apart our soul. Dissensions, heresies, schisms, rivalries, envies, sorrows, detractions, many desires, avarice — which is the root of all evils —, these are most evil beasts; and when they are in us, we deserve to hear: 'Your transgression shall chastise you', and we pray and say: Do not deliver to the beasts a soul that confesses to you.