Ezekiel 7

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: And you, son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel: The end has come, the end upon the four 'wings of the earth'. These we have translated 'regions of the world': namely the east and the west, the south and the north; of which wings Isaiah also speaks: Lord, from the wings (or ends) of the earth we have heard wonders, which were being wrought throughout the whole world by the apostles; and of the saints it is written: If you sleep in the midst of the lots, wings of a dove silvered over, and its hinder parts in the greenness of gold; whence the Lord too, when he had drawn near and seen Jerusalem, wept and said: How often I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not?; he it is who, in the song of Deuteronomy, spread out his wings, took them up and bore them on his shoulders. A certain writer sets down as the spiritual wings of the earth, by which we fly up to heavenly things, four kinds of believers: the house of Aaron and the house of Levi and the house of Israel and those who fear the Lord — of whom the psalmist sings: House of Israel, bless the Lord; house of Aaron, bless the Lord; house of Levi, bless the Lord; you who fear the Lord, bless the Lord —, understanding by Aaron the priesthood, by Levi the temple-keepers and ministers, by Israel the whole people, by those who fear the proselytes. We, however, think it should be explained simply: that after the threat against the mountains of Israel the prophetic word is directed to the whole land of Israel, whether of the ten or of the twelve tribes, and that the prophet by no means announces a captivity to come but sees one already bearing down. For in the fifth year of Zedekiah Ezekiel began to prophesy to the captives in Babylon, and in the ninth year Nebuchadnezzar came and besieged Jerusalem, and he took it in the eleventh year of Zedekiah. From this it is clear that the end had come and drawn near, not upon mountains and hills and crags and valleys, but upon the four regions of the land on every side of Israel; not of the whole earth — for had he said that, it could have been believed to concern the whole world —, but simply of the land, which signifies Israel; for thus he had begun: Thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel: The end has come, the end upon the four regions of the land.

Now the end is upon you, and I will send my fury against you, and I will judge you according to your ways, and I will set against you all your abominations. And my eye will not spare you, and I will not have mercy, but I will set your ways upon you, and your abominations will be in your midst, and you shall know that I am the Lord. (In this chapter, in the Seventy translators, the order has been changed and confused, so that the first things are last and the last either first or in the middle, and the middle things themselves are moved now to the end, now to the beginning; wherefore we, following both the Hebrew itself and the other translators, have set down the order of the truth.) To the land of Israel, then, the word is directed: that the end and consummation has come upon it, and that the Lord sends forth his fury against it, a fury not unjust nor coming merely from indignation, but full of equity and reason, so that he may judge it according to its ways and show it all its abominations, that it may remember its works and understand what wrong it has done.

And as for his saying: My eye will not spare you, and I will not have mercy, like a most merciful physician who wishes to cut away rotten flesh and to burn out decayed wounds with the cautery, he does not spare so that he may spare, he does not have mercy so that he may have mercy the more, lest anything rotten remain in the body that would corrupt the living flesh by its nearness. But the Lord strikes the one whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives; to this understanding belongs that saying: I will strike and I will heal, for every medicine has bitterness for a time, but afterwards the fruit of the pain is shown in health; something of this kind God speaks through Amos: Since I have known you out of all the tribes of the earth, therefore I will avenge upon you all your sins; for the Lord knows those who are his. 'And her ways', he says, 'and the course of her whole life, and her abominations and stains I will set in her midst', so that the former sins may be set before the eyes of the sinful woman, who is punished for her healing; and when the Lord has done this, those who have been tormented will know that he himself is the Lord. That testimony too sounds this very thing: I will avenge Jacob according to his ways, and according to his devices I will repay him.

Thus says the Lord God: One affliction, an affliction, behold, comes. The end comes, the end comes; it has awakened against you, behold, it comes. Crushing comes upon you who dwell in the land. (These words are not found in the Seventy, but in their edition they were added under asterisks from the translation of Theodotion; let us, however, follow the Hebrew.) In place of 'affliction', which we have put for the sake of clarity following Symmachus, who translated κάκωσιν [ill-treatment], both in the Hebrew and in the Greek κακία or πονηρία is written, that is, 'malice'. And it is said that the time of the final sin of the land of Israel has arrived, so that it no longer escapes the sentence of God which it had long been deserving. And because it had not yet filled up its sins, the punishment was for that reason being deferred, according to that which is written: For the sins of the Amorites are not yet complete; whence the Lord too says to the Jews: You also, he says, fill up the measure of your fathers. Misery, then, has come upon you, affliction has come, and captivity has come. And lest you think that I am again threatening things to come, I point with my finger and show it: Behold, it comes, the end comes, the end comes; he who until now seemed to you to be dozing and at rest has suddenly awakened against you and risen up.

We can also interpret this place spiritually against the people of the Jews, upon whom came the end and consummation from the blood of Abel the righteous to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom they slew between the temple and the altar. For as long as they did not lay hands on the Son of God, the Lord's sentence dozed for them and was put off; but when they killed the heir so that the inheritance might perish, then it awoke against them, and the whole order and tangle of miseries rose up, because they did not seek heavenly things but desired to cling to the earth.

'Crushing' has come — which in the Hebrew is called 'sephphira', and which Aquila translated προσκόπησιν, that is, 'contemplation' and 'looking forward' — which you, ever fearful, dreaded would come upon you — and which Theodotion translated πλοκὴν, that is, the 'order and connected web' of all evils —. Further, what is said: Upon you who dwell in the land, we ought to take according to that saying of the Ἀποκαλύψεως [Revelation] of John: Woe upon all who dwell on the earth — for the saint is not a dweller on the earth but a stranger and sojourner, and he says: I am a stranger and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. For this reason Abraham too is called 'a Hebrew', that is, περάτης, and 'sojourner' and 'passer-through' and 'wayfarer', hastening to pass from the present age to the things to come —.

The time has come, the day of slaughter is near, and not of the glory of the mountains. The Hebrew word 'adarim', which we, dividing it into two words, the first 'ad', the second 'arim', have translated following Theodotion as 'glory of the mountains', Symmachus turned into 'postponement' and said: And the time is near, a day of haste and not of postponement. (But the Seventy translated thus: The time has come, the day has drawn near, not with disturbance nor with pains.) Theodotion: The time has come, the day of famine is near, and not of the glory of the mountains. And the time of slaughter and of famine is proven even now in the Jewish people, which has neither prophets nor the word of God by which the soul of believers is fed. By the mountains understand the teachers and those who have knowledge of the Scriptures, of whom it is said in another place too: You give light wonderfully from the everlasting mountains. But the Seventy, who said: Not with disturbance and not with pains, signify this: that they have such ignorance of God and blindness of soul that they are neither disturbed in their crimes nor tormented by the pain of repentance.

Now from near at hand I will pour out my wrath upon you, and I will unfold my fury upon you, and I will judge you according to your ways, and I will lay (or give) upon you all your abominations. If we wish to reckon from the fifth year of the exile of King Jeconiah to the ninth year of the reign of Zedekiah, when Nebuchadnezzar came and besieged Jerusalem, there will be three years in between. Hence it is rightly said: 'Now from near at hand I will pour out my wrath upon you; I will by no means foretell things to come to you nor threaten things that will happen long afterwards; now I will fulfil my fury upon you: and this fury and wrath is not without judgment, but is so that it may repay your ways upon your head and make you feel all your abominations'. We can also speak of the final captivity: that after the killing of Christ, when the end came upon them and sin awoke against them, there was fulfilled that which the apostle Paul writes: Now the wrath of God has come upon them to the end; when Jerusalem was encircled by Titus and Vespasian and its desolation came and there was fulfilled: Behold, your house will be left to you deserted, then they were judged according to their ways and the blasphemies by which they denied the Lord, and they felt the fury of God, and all his indignation was poured out upon them and they received back their crimes, so that the destruction of the temple remains until the consummation.

And my eye will not spare, nor will I have mercy, but your ways I will lay (or give) upon you, and your abominations will be in your midst, and you shall know that I am the Lord who strikes. The causes of the severity and harshness, or, as the heretics think, of the cruelty of God, in that 'my eye will not spare, nor have mercy', he adds, saying: 'I will give you your ways, and your abominations will be in your midst, so that you may feel what you have done and, seeing your abominations set either before your eyes or in the midst of all, may correct your error by repentance, and, withdrawing from your former works, when you hate what you have done, then you will know that he himself is the Lord who strikes for this reason: to correct, and: He chastises every son whom he receives'.

But the Seventy, according to that sense in which it is written: For you do not know what the coming day may bring forth, said: 'Behold, the day gives birth to what it had conceived long before, and the end comes, and the encompassing has gone forth, which is to encompass and hold all your evils (or, as Symmachus translated, inspection, so that the Lord may see all that you have done and consider your works and render to each what he deserves)'. And on what they likewise translated: The rod has blossomed, we can use that testimony: Do not take the rod away from your son, and that of the apostle: What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?; and God too resounds through the mouth of the psalmist: I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges; but my mercy I will not take away from them.

Behold the day, behold, it comes, contraction has gone forth; the rod has blossomed, pride has budded; iniquity has risen up in the rod of impiety: not from them, and not from the people, nor from their noise; and there will be no rest for them. (LXX: "Behold, the day gives birth, behold, the end comes, the encompassing has gone forth, and the rod has blossomed, pride has budded, injury has been roused, and it will crush the strength of the wicked, and not with disturbance nor with haste, and they are not of them, nor is there beauty in them.") 'The day', he says, 'has been contracted and shortened, and the captivity presses close at hand; the rod which for a long time threatened you has blossomed, and from the blossom it is bringing forth the fruit of blows; your pride has budded what you deserved, so that over the rod of your impiety, with which you impiously beat those subject to you, there rises up iniquity which is not from the wretched people, nor from those who are led like brute animals by their teachers, nor from their clamor and noise with which they shout in vain, led astray by the priests and Pharisees, so that they cried out with one voice and said: Crucify, crucify such a one; hence there will be no rest for them, but everlasting captivity'.

For this reason, then, the Lord visits and strikes: that all the pride which long lay hidden, shut in, may spring up and lie open, and injury may be roused against the pride that has sprung up and is budding, and the strength of the wicked may be crushed, not with disturbance nor with haste; for the end of the blossoming rod is health and correction, which comes not by the merit of those who are corrected, nor by a beauty which they do not have in themselves, but by the mercy of the Lord. A difficult place, and one in which the Hebrew and the Seventy differ greatly; many things have been added to the Seventy from the edition of Theodotion, so that they might seem to have some coherence.

The time has come, the day has drawn near. It is not only to Jerusalem that it is said that the time of its captivity has come and the day has drawn near on which it is to be walled in by the Babylonian army; but to him too who exulted over his barns built and enlarged, the Lord speaks: Fool, this night your soul will be taken from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?; whence the apostle too: The time, he says, has been shortened; and in another place: For the figure of this world is passing away; and it must be noted that he did not defer it to the future but spoke of the present, 'is passing away', and that daily 'the figure of the world' slips by: for it never remains in the same state, but the figure of things growing and diminishing ever flies past and is changed; whence the Lord too: Heaven, he says, and earth will pass away. But if these things, by which all that is in the world is contained, pass away and go by, what in human affairs can be everlasting?

Let him who buys not rejoice, and let him who sells not mourn. It is natural to rejoice in the purchase of possessions and to mourn in their sale. But when slavery and captivity are pressing, both joy and sorrow are vain in either case. Hence the apostle too: The time has been shortened; for the rest, let those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who weep as though they did not weep, and those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, and those who buy as though they did not possess, and those who use this world as though they did not make full use of it; for the flood too overwhelmed those buying and selling, as the Lord says in the Gospel.

For wrath is upon all its people. (This is not found in the Seventy.) For 'people' one may also take 'multitude' and 'crowd' according to the Hebrew: for this is what 'amona' signifies. And the reason is clear why he who buys ought not to rejoice and he who sells should cease to weep: because the wrath of God is shortly to come upon the whole multitude of the land of Judea, or of Jerusalem; for this is understood from the preceding words, in which it is written: Thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel, and the rest.

For he who sells will not return to what he has sold. He speaks according to the Hebrew custom: for every purchase used to return to the seller in the fiftieth year, the year of release, which among them was called the jubilee; before the year of release comes, then, when possessions return to their former owners, captivity will burst in, which will take away the whole accustomed life of the city. But what the Seventy translated: For he who buys will not return to the seller, though according to the history it does not hang together at all, according to anagogy can have this sense, so that we may say that he who had been deceived by heretical error, when he has understood the fraudulence of his teacher, by no means returns to the seller, that is, to the teacher, but despises and scorns him.

And still their life is among the living: for the vision to all its multitude will not go back. Just as the possession will not return to its former owner, since the overthrow of the city is impending, so the vision and prophetic threat, which is directed to the whole multitude of the city, will by no means go back and become void, but will be fulfilled in fact, while those to whom the prophetic word is directed are still living. And he says this to show the captivity is imminent, lest according to their custom they should say: 'This vision is for many days hence and will be fulfilled after long times'. We can also say this: that after the prophetic vision withdrew from the Jews — The law, indeed, and the prophets until John the Baptist —, after the killing of the Savior it by no means goes back to them, nor do they any longer deserve to have prophets. And significantly: 'To all', he says, 'the multitude the vision will not go back'; therefore it will go back to those of the Jews who believed in the Lord, namely the apostles, and the remnant of the Jewish people which has been saved out of Israel. (But neither are these two verses found in the edition of the Seventy.)

And a man in the iniquity of his life will not be strengthened. (LXX: "And a man in the eyes of his life will not obtain.") And the sense according to the Hebrew is: his iniquity will not profit a man, nor will it furnish him any strength; according to the Seventy: even the man who desired what he thought precious in the world will not obtain it, but, as liberty perishes, all that is beautiful will be lost. Now the ambiguity of the Hebrew letters 'iod' and 'uau', which are distinguished only by size, caused some to translate 'iniquity' and others 'eyes'.

Sound the trumpet, let all be made ready. (LXX: "Blow the trumpet and judge all things.") Of the blast and sound of trumpets we read in many places, as there: Lift up your voice like a trumpet, and elsewhere: Blow the trumpet at the new moon, on the notable day of our solemnity, and in the apostle: For the Lord himself, at the command and at the voice of the archangel and at the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and in the Gospel: Do not blow a trumpet before you; and the history of Numbers tells of beaten and silver trumpets, which are compared to the prophetic word and to the apostolic teaching. And now it is commanded that all be made ready for wars at the signal of the blast of the horn. But as for what the Seventy said: And judge all things, no one doubts that it befits the power of the apostles, who, after the trumpet of the angels has sounded, are to judge the twelve tribes of Israel on twelve thrones; one of whom, Paul, said: We shall judge angels, and elsewhere: In you the world will be judged. But according to the present sense, those who are bound to this office are bidden, by irony, to blow the trumpet, so that all may be made ready against the Babylonian army.

And there is no one who goes to battle; for my wrath is upon all its multitude. (These words too are not found in the Seventy.) God had commanded that they sound the trumpet to make ready an army which could resist the strength of the Babylonians, but it did no good to have commanded it, since there is no one among the people who dares to go forth to wars. And the people has been unnerved and lacks the strength to fight for this reason: because the whole wrath of God is upon all its multitude, that is, understood, of the city of Jerusalem or of the land of Judea; but also of the Jerusalem of our land: when either public persecution or the incitements of various vices strive to overcome us, in vain do the teachers sound the trumpet and hasten to make us ready for wars, since there is no strength in the people, which has been withdrawn for this reason, that present sins have deserved the wrath of the Lord.

The sword without, pestilence and famine within; he who is in the field will die by the sword, and those who are in the city will be devoured by pestilence and famine. And those of them who flee will be saved, and they will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all trembling, each in his iniquity. (The Seventy were entirely silent about 'doves of the valleys', or, as Theodotion translated, 'meditating'.) And what we have translated: All trembling, each in his iniquity, Theodotion translated thus: All murmuring, each one in her iniquity, so that under the metaphor of meditating doves he signifies that each one of the people weeps for his own sin and understands and perceives why he suffers these things. Now the three parts — of some who are to die in the city by pestilence and famine, and of others whom the sword will kill outside, and of those who have escaped captivity by flight — we read of above; of these, he who is saved will pass over to the mountains and, like murmuring doves, will trembling bewail his sins. Tropologically, however, it is to be understood thus: that he who is in the field and the plain, outside the bounds of the Lord's city, which means the Church, is struck by the adversary's blade; but he who in the city has acted negligently and has not prepared for himself the foods of which it is written in Proverbs: He who works his land will be filled with bread, he will die by famine and pestilence; while the few who have escaped either the sword of the heretics or the famine and death of their own sloth will not be saved except on the mountains, and if they have taken the wings of a dove and flown away and found rest — doves which, as long as they are in the valleys, tremble and dread every single thing, whose innocence we are commanded to imitate, and of which it is written in the psalm: If you sleep in the midst of the lots, wings of a dove silvered over, and its hinder parts in the paleness of gold, in whose form the Holy Spirit descended and remained upon the Lord Savior; and beautifully, following Theodotion, we shall call a meditating dove him who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night, and of whom it is written: The mouth of the righteous will meditate wisdom.

All hands will be weakened and all knees will flow with waters. And they will gird themselves with sackcloth, and dread will cover them. (For 'knees flowing with waters' the Seventy translated: Thighs will be defiled with moisture.) When all have trembled and fled to the mountains, the hands of all will be weakened, and no one will be able to resist the enemy, and through the greatness of their fear urine will defile their knees, nor will the bladder be able to hold back the waters flowing forth; they will gird themselves with sackcloth, and trembling will possess all things; granted that this was done in that people not only under the Babylonians but also under the Romans, when the wrath of God came upon them to the end. But also in our Judea, in which is the confession of the Lord, when iniquities have multiplied and the love of many has grown cold, all hands of good works will be weakened, and all knees, or thighs, will flow with waters, those of the men who seek unlawful couplings and whom Scripture in the law calls γονορρυεῖς, that is, 'suffering a flow of seed' and 'unclean'; hence those who are such ought to gird themselves with the sackcloth of repentance and to dread the judgment to come, and he who does this will deserve to hear Isaiah saying: Be strengthened, weakened hands and feeble knees, be made strong.

On every face shame, and on all heads baldness. The blush of the face is a sign of shame, and the consciousness of sins shines out in the face, and there is hope of salvation when shamefacedness follows wrongdoing; hence to her who with hard heart gloried in her sins it was said: The face of a harlot has become yours, you do not know how to blush. Baldness of the head too signifies mourning, when the hair loses its comeliness and we lose the beauty of our locks; accordingly it is said to Jerusalem: For the ornament of your head you have baldness, because of your works, and another prophet: All heads, he says, in every place will be shorn, and every beard will be shaved; Micah also to the same Jerusalem: Make yourself bald, he says, and be shorn for the children of your delights; enlarge your baldness like the eagle; and over the dead baldness is commanded to be made, but only the holy, that is, the Nazirites, and those who have been found worthy to attain the high priesthood of the Lord, do not shave their heads, for they neither have works of death nor are unclean, because they are Nazirites, that is, holy ones of the Lord; and if anyone dies beside them, all the former days of their sanctification will not be reckoned; Samuel was a holy one of God, and therefore possessed everlasting ornaments of the head, and he heard that saying from the Song of Songs: Your locks are black as a raven; but Samson, because he lost his hair, lost his strength, and as his hair gradually grew back his former strength returned, so that in dying he killed many more than while alive; Elisha, though he had baldness of body, nevertheless, because he was a Nazirite of the Lord, enjoyed the locks of the head; hence the little boys, because they were little and had not yet reached a man's age, mocking his baldness and saying: Go up, baldhead, go up, baldhead, were torn by the bites of wild beasts, whose dwelling is the glades and forests.

Their silver will be cast outside, and their gold will be in the dunghill. (LXX: "Their silver will be cast into the streets, and their gold will be for contempt.") As flight and captivity compel them, they will cast their riches, the weights of gold and silver, into the streets, desiring only to save their lives, so that what were formerly their luxuries may not be a burden. Otherwise, according to anagogy, all the silver of the captives and of those fleeing from Jerusalem will be cast into the streets, onto the broad and spacious way that leads to death, because they have abandoned the narrow path of salvation; but all the gold will be for contempt and will be reckoned as a dunghill and uncleanness: for what is outside the Church of the Lord cannot have cleanness.

Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them on the day of the fury of the Lord. (And this is not found in the Seventy.) No one doubts that in the time of siege and famine gold and silver do not deliver the hungry, and that teeth dashed against the most precious metal are blunted as on the hardest stone. Accordingly there follows:

They will not satisfy their soul, and their bellies will not be filled. By present evils we have learned that many rich men, amid silk, gems and weights of gold and silver, worn out by want, have had the end of beggars. But that the silver and gold of those who are outside the Church do not deliver the souls of their possessors on the day of the fury of the Lord, but that they have everlasting hunger and are tormented with an empty belly, is shown by that testimony in which it is said: The ransom of a man's soul is his own riches. His own riches are those which the truth of Christ has taught us, who commanded us to make for ourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity, who may receive us into the eternal tabernacles.

For it has become the stumbling block of their iniquity. 'Therefore', he says, 'neither will the soul of those who possess gold and silver be satisfied nor their belly be filled: because this very gold and silver has become the stumbling block of their crimes'. And he signifies the idols which, fashioned of gold and silver, condemn their own makers. (But the Seventy translated: For torment was their iniquity, so that the wicked may be tormented in their own error and understand that they have wickedly turned the gifts of God into blasphemy).

And the ornament of their necklaces they set for pride, and they made of it the images of their abominations and idols. (LXX: "The choice things of the world they set for pride, and the images of their abominations and their stumbling blocks they made of them.") 'What I', he says, 'had given as an ornament and as riches to those who possessed them, they turned to pride, so that from the very things by which they could have freed their soul through almsgiving and good works they took material for arrogance; then from the gold and silver they made idols and turned my gifts into images of demons'. But as for what the Seventy said: The choice things of the world they set for pride, it is to be referred to gold and silver, than which nothing in the world is thought more precious; and as for what follows: Their stumbling blocks, let us know that it was added from the edition of Theodotion. And the tropology is easy: that the gold and silver, the senses and words of the Scriptures, which are the choice things of the world and have been given to us for an ornament, the heretics have set as tinder and material of pride, and have made of them images of their various doctrines and of their abominations and stumbling blocks, so that through the very things by which they could have worshiped and adored God, by these they offended God.

For this reason I have given it to them for uncleanness. And I will give it into the hands of strangers to be plundered, and to the impious of the earth for a prey, and they will defile it. (LXX: "For this reason I have given them to them for uncleanness. And I will hand them over into the hands of strangers that they may plunder them; and to the pestilent of the earth for a prey, and they will pollute them.") 'Because from the gold and silver, that is, from the ornaments of the necklaces which I had given them, they made for themselves images of their abominations and idols, for this reason I have given those things to them for uncleanness and for dung', for which Symmachus translated nausea, wishing to express the filth of idols. 'And I will hand them over', he says, 'into the hands of enemies that they may plunder everything, and so that I may not so much defile them as show to have been defiled the things which earlier seemed most holy'. We too are handed over into the hands of enemies and of those estranged from God, when we make our ornaments into images of demons, and all our glory is possessed by the impious or the pestilent of the earth, so that they may subject us to their power.

And I will turn away my face from them, and they will violate my secret place; and there will enter into it emissaries (or, as the Seventy translated, rashly, or, as Symmachus and Theodotion, 'those bursting in' and 'the pestilent') and they will defile it. 'When', he says, 'for the causes given above, the abominations of the people, I turn my face away from them and by no means judge them worthy of my eyes, then they will violate my secret place (which signifies 'the Holy of Holies', for which the Seventy translated vision, to show that the presence of God had been in the holy places), and the impious and pestilent of the earth will burst into those places which, apart from the priests and the high priest alone, no one else dared to enter'. This we know was done both by the Babylonians, and by King Antiochus and Gnaeus Pompey, and, finally, under Vespasian and Titus, when the temple was taken and overthrown, and all things were perpetrated which the prophet's following discourse embraces. At our evil works too God turns away his face, and because his face is turned away, therefore the secret place of God is violated, so that in place of the priests and saints of God the pestilent enter and defile all things, so that what ought to have been a place of holiness becomes a place of uncleanness, according to that Gospel saying: My Father's house will be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers.

Make a conclusion, for the land is full of the judgment of bloods, and the city is full of iniquity. (LXX: "And I will bring disturbance, for the land full of the judgment of bloods, and the city full of iniquities.") The Hebrew word 'arethic' Aquila translated 'conclusion', Symmachus and Theodotion καθήλωσιν, that is, 'nailing fast', for which the Seventy put φυρμόν, which we have rendered as 'disturbance'. 'Therefore, O prophet, conclude my wrath upon the land of Judea and upon the city of Jerusalem in a brief word: so that, as the land is full of the judgment of bloods — for all are judged in blood, shedding innocent blood, as Scripture records the Jews also did in the person of Naboth —, so their own gore too may be shed and the city shown to be full of iniquity — for under Manasseh too the city of Jerusalem was filled from gate to gate with the blood of the prophets —. And conclusion and disturbance and nailing fast will come upon them, so that no one can escape the impending miseries'.

And I will bring the worst of the nations, and they will possess their houses. (And this is not found in the Seventy.) 'In place of priests and prophets I will bring the Babylonians, the worst of all the nations, that they may possess your houses and subject you to slavery'. But our houses too, that is, our souls — for we are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us —, the worst demons will possess, if our land is full of bloods and our dwelling full of iniquity.

And I will make the pride of the mighty cease, and they will possess their sanctuaries. (LXX: "And I will turn away the roaring of their strength, and their holy things will be polluted.") All pride offends God. Therefore the worst of the nations will possess the houses of the mighty and the proud and will take hold of their sanctuaries, because the unclean man enters the place of holiness and defiles it with his uncleanness. And significantly, because the holy things of God had been polluted and the secret place violated, he did not say: 'They will possess my sanctuaries', but: 'their' sanctuaries, which after their defilement ceased to be 'mine'.

Anguish is at hand. (LXX: "Propitiation will come.") — According to the preceding order Aquila and Theodotion rightly translated that 'anguish' is at hand, and Symmachus 'grief'; but the Seventy, in the midst of all the sorrowful things, put a word of gladness, so that the mind of the mourner may be sustained and may hope for better things amid adversities, and for the Lord propitious, of whom it is written: The Lord raises up those who are dashed down. — We, however, following Symmachus, have joined the former sentence to the latter, so as to say: As anguish comes upon them, they will seek peace and there will be none, which according to the Seventy cannot stand at all: for if 'propitiation will come', how 'will they seek peace and not find it'? And he will seek peace and not find it who heard from the apostles: Peace to this house, and did not keep it nor make it rest in his mind; but, put to flight by evil works, it cannot be found. And it is that peace which surpasses all understanding, which the Savior, ascending victorious to the Father, left to the apostles.

Trouble upon trouble will come, and report upon report. (LXX: "Woe upon woe will be, and messenger upon messenger.") Just as it is said to the saints: Rejoice, again I say: rejoice, and of them it is written: They will go from strength to strength, so that they may heap future goods upon present goods, so also to these, upon whom anguish has come and who have sought peace and not found it, there will come trouble upon trouble, or woe upon woe — according to what is written in Revelation too: One woe has passed, and another woe will come —, and report will come upon report, and messenger upon messenger — according to that saying of blessed Job: While one was still speaking, another messenger came, adding evils to evils, and describing the roaring and the throng of the approaching Babylonian —.

And they will seek a vision from the prophet, and the law will perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders. Properly, each thing is sought from each: the prophecy of things to come is sought from the prophet; the interpretation of the law is the priest's office; prudent counsel is what mature age searches out, according to that which is written: In the counsel of the saints and in the congregation, great are the works of the Lord. And these things were sought from the prophets and elders and priests not only at that time, when the Babylonian army was coming against Jerusalem, but they are required daily in the churches, which, if they have lost vision, law and counsel, boast in vain that they have prophets and priests and elders.

The king will mourn and the prince will be clothed with grief (or, according to the Seventy, with destruction; who, intending I know not what, were entirely silent about what we have expressed from the Hebrew speech: The king will mourn.) That Zedekiah mourned, and that all the princes of the people of the Jews were covered with grief, Holy Scripture records. But we can — although at first sight this may seem blasphemous — say that the king who mourns our vices and sins is Christ, who speaks in the Psalms: What profit is there in my blood, while I go down into corruption? and who, drawing near to Jerusalem, wept over it and said: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under wings, and you would not? The princes too will be either, in a good sense, the apostles who mourn sinners, or, in the contrary sense, those to whom it is said: Hear the word of the Lord, princes of Sodom. And he will be clothed, according to the Seventy, with destruction, who does not have the armor of God, nor has put on Christ: For as many as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ.

And the hands of the people of the land will be troubled. (Or, according to the Seventy, will be weakened.) When there is no vision in the prophet and no knowledge of the law in the priest and no counsel in the elders, and the king has mourned and the prince is in grief or in destruction, consequently the hands of the people too will be troubled, losing their order, or will be weakened, no longer having their ancient strength. And beautifully the people whose hands will be troubled, and whose citizenship is not in heaven, is called not the people of God but the people of the land, of whom it is written: Let those who depart be written upon the earth.

According to their way I will do to them, and according to their judgments I will judge them. (Or, as the Seventy translated, I will avenge myself on them.) To sinners God renders according to their ways, so as to keep the truth of judgment; but toward the saints he exceeds the measure of mercy: The sufferings of this time, indeed, are not worthy of the future glory which will be revealed in us. For the wages of sin is death, which the sinner receives according to his ways and his works; but the virtue of the righteous enjoys the Lord's bounty, of which Paul speaks: The gift of God is eternal life. And what he added: And according to their judgments I will judge them, sounds that Gospel saying: With what judgment you judge, it will be judged of you, and that apostolic one: In that in which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you do the same things that you judge.

And they shall know that I am the Lord. This little verse is often set down in this prophet, because the knowledge of God follows punishments and torments, so that him whom they do not understand through benefits they may come to know through torments.