Hosea 5

There are some also who investigate spiritual precepts with cunning care, but what they penetrate with their understanding they trample on in their lives: all at once they teach the things which not by practice but by study they have learnt; and what in words they preach by their manners they impugn. Whence it comes to pass that when the shepherd walks through steep places, the flock follows to the precipice. Hence it is that the Lord through the prophet complains of the contemptible knowledge of shepherds, saying, "When ye yourselves had drunk most pure water, ye fouled the residue with your feet; and My sheep fed on that which had been trodden by your feet, and drank that which your feet had fouled." For indeed the shepherds drink most pure water, when with a right understanding they imbibe the streams of truth. But to foul the same water with their feet is to corrupt the studies of holy meditation by evil living. And verily the sheep drink the water fouled by their feet, when any of those subject to them follow not the words which they hear, but only imitate the bad examples which they see. Thirsting for the things said, but perverted by the works observed, they take in mud with their draughts, as from polluted fountains. Hence also it is written through the prophet, "A snare for the downfall of my people are evil priests." Hence again the Lord through the prophet says of the priests, "They are made to be for a stumbling-block of iniquity to the house of Israel." For certainly no one does more harm in the Church than one who has the name and rank of sanctity, while he acts perversely. For him, when he transgresses, no one presumes to take to task; and the offence spreads forcibly for example, when out of reverence to his rank the sinner is honoured.

Hear this, O priests, and attend, house of Israel, and house of the king; listen with your ears, for the judgment is for you; since you have become a snare to the watchtower and a net spread over Tabor, and you have turned aside the victims into the depth. LXX: Hear this, O priests, and attend, house of Israel, and house of the king; perceive with your ears, for the judgment is against you, because you have become a snare to the watchtower; and like a net spread over Itabyrium, which those who take the prey have fixed fast for the hunt. The priests of the ten tribes are summoned to judgment, and the kings: not that the priests are of the tribe of Levi, but that they are called priests by the people. Hence too the priests of Baal, the four hundred and fifty prophets whom Elijah, and afterwards Jehu son of Nimshi in the presence of Jonadab son of Rechab, killed, were called priests; but Israel too, that is, the people, is summoned to judgment; and no one is excepted, so that priests and people and kings, who had led the people astray and appointed the priests, may hear together what they have done and why they are handed over to their enemies. I set you, he says, as watchmen and princes among the people, and placed you on the lofty summit of dignity, so that you might guide the wandering people. But you have become a snare, and are to be called not so much watchmen and princes as hunters. For you spread a net over Mount Tabor, which the Seventy rendered Ἰταβύριον (Itabyrium), having this custom, that they inflect Hebrew names in the Greek tongue; just as Edom, that is, Esau, and Seir they always translate Idumaea. Now Tabor is a mountain in Galilee, situated in the plains, round and lofty, and it is bounded evenly on every side. Of this mountain we read in the psalm too: Tabor and Hermon will exult in your name. This mountain the Seventy also rendered Itabyrium in Jeremiah; on it birds are commonly caught with snares.

According to tropology, the people is accused so that it may not think itself free of the crime if it was led astray by kings and priests, whom we understand as the princes of the heretics. The princes themselves are also accused, because like a snare they caught the people and, though set as watchmen in the Church, led them into error. And on Mount Tabor, lofty and most beautiful, which is interpreted coming light, they laid ambushes, so as to drag all whom they had deceived down into the depth and sacrifice them to demons, and turn aside the victims into the abyss, lest they should ever come to their senses, lest they should look up to the Church, the house of God. Some think that Tabor is interpreted pit, that is, cistern; and that it fits the present sense that the heretics have dug a pit and fallen into the ditch which they made.

And the victims, he says, you have turned aside into the depth, so that no one should repent, nor the slain lift up his head. Both the kings and the priests prevented the people from going to the temple at Jerusalem; therefore they are said to have turned aside the victims into the depth.

And I am the instructor of them all.

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me, for now Ephraim has played the harlot, Israel is defiled; they will not give their thoughts to return to their God, for the spirit of fornications is in their midst, and they have not known the Lord. LXX: For I am your teacher. I have known Ephraim, and Israel has not departed from me, for now Ephraim has played the harlot, Israel is stained; they have not given their thoughts to return to the Lord their God, for the spirit of fornication is in them. But the Lord they have not known. O priests and kings, who have deceived my people; and you, O people, who have been deceived: you have sinned so grievously that you have not only slain the victims, but have sent them into the depth of hell. Do not think that by the greatness of your crime you have departed wholly from me. I am your teacher, or rather your instructor, who desire to amend, not to punish; and to save, not to destroy.

I, he says, know Ephraim, that is, Jeroboam, by whom the people was seduced, and all the kings who followed him both in rank and in crime; and Israel is not hidden from me, that is, the people of the ten tribes, because when the king played the harlot, Israel was defiled. The king first began to play the harlot away from the worship of God, desiring to adore golden calves, and the people willingly followed, and they accomplished an equal impiety with equal zeal.

Hence the Lord is not ignorant of the princes of perverse dogmas, nor of the people; not that they are worthy of his knowledge, but that nothing escapes him of what they do in secret, of whom some have deceived and others have been deceived. Nor will they give their thoughts to repent, they who are always advancing in perdition. For the spirit of fornication with which they played the harlot in the Church and departed from the true marriage moves in their midst; therefore they have not known the Lord.

Finally, they will not return to the Lord, because what they wanted they have found, and the spirit of fornication, which according to the Apostle works in the sons of unbelief, possesses their captive hearts; therefore, while he reigned, they did not know the Lord, or rather they forgot their Creator.

And the arrogance of Israel will answer in his face; and Israel and Ephraim will fall in their iniquity, Judah also will fall with them. LXX: And the injury of Israel will be humbled into his face; and Israel and Ephraim will be weakened in their iniquities, Judah also will be weakened with them. The word gaon the Seventy and Symmachus translate as injury, Aquila and Theodotion as pride. Whatever, therefore, Israel has done, whether acting proudly against the Lord or venerating idols to the injury of the Creator, will answer in his face, so that he may not go away unpunished, but that his insolence may be humbled; and that the people and the kings may fall together in their iniquity, or be weakened, so that those who were strong in crime may be compelled, now weak, to return to the Lord. And this will befall not only Israel and Ephraim, that is, the ten tribes and their kings, so that they are led into captivity; but Judah also, that is, the two tribes which reigned in Jerusalem, will follow the footsteps of the captives, so that those whose crimes they imitate they may imitate also in punishment. The heretics have pride as the mother of their iniquity, while they constantly boast that they know higher things and rave in insult against the Church. But their arrogance will be weakened, and the people and the teachers will fall together; Judah also, who seems to be in the house of God, and dwells in the Church not in mind but in body, and holds in error the same opinion as the heretics, in vain lays claim to the name of churchman, because he too must be punished with the heretics. We run quickly over what is plain, so that we may linger over the more obscure.

With their flocks and with their herds they will go to seek the Lord and will not find; he has been taken away from them; they have transgressed against the Lord, for they have begotten strange sons; now a month will devour them with their portions. LXX: With sheep and calves they will go to seek the Lord and will not find him; he has turned aside from them, because they have forsaken the Lord; because they have begotten strange sons for themselves, now rust will devour them, and their lots. Not only Israel and Ephraim will go with flocks and herds to seek the Lord, but Judah also, of whom it is written above: Judah also will fall with them; all of them having this one contest, that they strive to appease with victims him whom they have offended by their transgressions; and they do not find him whom they seek, because he too has departed from those who depart from him. Especially since he says elsewhere also: Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? And again: I will not accept calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks. And in Isaiah: Burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs, and the blood of goats and bulls I do not want.

The heretics suppose that they appease God by a multitude of sacrifices; and churchmen, that by alms they redeem the sins in which they persist; whereas every sacrifice blots out past crimes, not present ones; therefore they do not find the Lord, who is taken away from such men and withdraws far off. These, indeed, have transgressed against God, and have begotten strange sons not to Christ but to the devil; therefore at all times their works are accursed, and all that they do the rust of bloody color lays waste, because they are next to blood and slaughter. Now rust is properly said to come down in the night dew and to stain the grain, still milky in the ear, with the color of vermilion or of red ochre; and fittingly, according to the ἀναγωγήν (anagogy), it lays waste the lots of the heretics, of whom it is said: Their lots will not profit them.

For they have transgressed against the Lord, because, playing the harlot with idols, they have begotten sons not to God but to demons. Others think that what is meant here is what is said in Ezra, a long time afterwards, when they took foreign wives, begetting children from them, and afterwards were compelled to put them away. But here it is better to take as strange sons those who were begotten in the error of idols, or those whom they led through the fire and consecrated to idols. Since, therefore, they have done this, not long afterwards, not after endless spans of years, nor, as I was formerly accustomed, foretelling things to come long after, but now and at this present time the Assyrian and the Chaldean will come; and they will devour them with their portions, or lots, that is, with the possessions which they received in the division of the land by the measure of the line. Where we said: a month will devour them, the Seventy translated rust; whereas rust, that is, ἐρυσίβη, is certainly called hasil, as they themselves also said in the prophet Joel: What the locust left, the rust has eaten, that is, hasil. But month is called hodes; accordingly Aquila translated new moons, that is, Kalends; Symmachus and Theodotion month; and the sense is: month by month the enemy will come and will lay everything waste. Let us read the books of Kings and Chronicles, and we shall find that under King Pekah, who reigned over the ten tribes, Tiglath-pileser king of the Assyrians came and carried a great part of the people of Samaria away to the Assyrians; at which time among the Greeks it was the second year of the first Olympiad; and among the Latins — Rome not yet founded — Amulius was reigning at Alba in his twentieth year, he whom Romulus afterwards drove from the kingdom.

Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah; howl in Beth-aven, behind your back, Benjamin; Ephraim will be in desolation in the day of rebuke; among the tribes of Israel I have shown faithfulness. LXX: Blow the trumpet upon the hills, sound upon the high places, proclaim in the house of ὤν; Benjamin has fallen out of his mind, Ephraim has become a desolation in the days of rebuke; among the tribes of Israel I have shown faithful things. The months one by one, or the rust, will devour Ephraim and Israel and Judah with their portions. Therefore I command you who hear to sound not with a loud voice but with a clear horn; for clear hearing is needed, so that all who are round about may hear. Blow the horn in Gibeah, whose etymology the Seventy translated as hills; and the trumpet in Ramah, which is interpreted high places; now these are two cities in the tribe of Benjamin, neighbors to one another, that is, Gibeah, in which Saul was born, and Ramah, which is next to Gibeah, situated at the seventh milestone from Jerusalem, and which the king of Israel tried to seize, in order to shut off the going out and the coming in of the tribe of Judah. In Gibeah, therefore, and in Ramah, sound out with a clear horn and trumpet; of these the horn is a shepherd's instrument and is made of curved horn; hence it is properly called in Hebrew sophar, in Greek κερατίνη. The trumpet, however, is made of bronze or of silver, and sounds in wars and at solemn festivals. Over Beth-aven, which was once called Bethel, and is in the tribe of Ephraim, where the golden calf was, there is need not of blaring and sounding but of howling, because captivity is near. And he said beautifully that Beth-aven is behind the back of Benjamin; for where the tribe of Benjamin ends, not far off, in the tribe of Ephraim, this city was founded.

Where we translated behind your back, Benjamin, the Seventy rendered Benjamin has been moved in mind, always fitting ἔκστασιν, that is, ecstasy of mind, to Benjamin, the churchman. Hence also in the sixty-seventh (68th) psalm it is said: There is Benjamin, a youth, in ecstasy of mind. And in the blessings of Jacob, under the person of Benjamin, of which tribe the apostle Paul was, we read it written: Benjamin is a ravening wolf; in the morning he will eat the prey, and at evening he will give food. For he who in the beginning persecuted the Church afterwards bestowed the nourishment of the Gospel on believers throughout the whole world. Hence also Saul, who was of the tribe of Benjamin, prophesied in ecstasy of mind all day until evening among the band of the prophets.

Some, following the Seventy, who said house of ὢν, have interpreted Beth-aven as the city of the sun; and, calling Christ the sun of justice, they would have his city be the Church. This displeases me; for the house of the idol, which Aquila translated useless house, cannot be referred to the Church even according to tropology. But let us say this: that the heretics, who in Gibeah and Ramah promise themselves lofty knowledge, are bidden to howl in the house of the idol, and are not before the face of Benjamin, which is interpreted son of the right hand, but behind his back, where he has no eyes. For all the boasting of Ephraim, which is interpreted fruitfulness, will shortly be in desolation; and when the day of judgment, he says, and the time of rebuke has come, I will show by deeds that my words are not empty.

For this reason, then, I say and command: Blow the horn in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah, and howl in Beth-aven, because the royal house of Ephraim, or Ephraim himself, that is, the dominion of Israel, will now be in desolation, and captivity is close at hand. In the day of the rebuke and punishment of the ten tribes of Israel I have shown my words to be faithful, the words I threatened through the prophets, so that what I had foretold in word I might prove in deed.

The princes of Judah have become like those who take up the boundary; upon them I will pour out my wrath like water. LXX: The princes of Judah have become like those who move boundaries; upon them I will pour out my onrush like water. When Ephraim and Israel had been led into captivity and their land reduced to a wilderness, the princes of Judah, who ought to have wept, and to have exhorted their own people to withdraw from idolatry lest they too should suffer the like, began to rejoice and be glad that the land of those tribes lay open to them to possess more widely; and they became like those who take up the boundaries of Israel, passing beyond their own borders and desiring to extend their kingdom and possession into the places that once were Israel's. Therefore the Lord says: Upon these very princes of Judah too the Babylonians will come, and will thus overwhelm them like an onrush of water, not by their own strength but by my indignation. He says also to the princes of Judah, that is, of the Church, that they ought not to exult and to reckon the perdition of the heretics their own salvation, but rather to lament that those have perished. Hence also the apostle Paul teaches churchmen not to glory over the breaking of the Jewish branches, but rather to fear lest they too be broken. And in another place: Who, he says, is made to stumble, and I do not burn? Otherwise, upon such princes, who glory in the miseries of others and think they stand precisely because others fall, the Lord will pour out his wrath like water. For wrath the Seventy translated ὅρμημα, that is, onrush; and some think it is to be taken as a blessing, according to what we read elsewhere: The onrush of the river makes glad the city of God. But it is more correctly taken as wrath — as all except the Seventy have translated —, especially since the word pouring out goes with wrath, as the prophet says to the Lord: Pour out your wrath upon them, and let the fury of your wrath take hold of them. The princes of Judah move the boundaries which their fathers set when they exchange the truth for a lie and preach something other than what they received from the apostles.

Ephraim suffering wrong, broken in judgment, because he began to go after filth. LXX: Ephraim has oppressed his adversary, has trampled on judgment, because he began to go after vain things. If Ephraim is impious, and on account of his impiety will be in desolation, how is it now said: Ephraim suffering wrong, broken in judgment? For he who suffers wrong and is broken has his judgment unjustly overborne, all the more since a just cause is set down why he was handed over to captivity. For there follows: because he began to go after filth, that is, after idols, which are compared to filth. What he says, then, is this: Ephraim is oppressed by the Assyrians, first by Pul, then by Tiglath-pileser, afterwards by Shalmaneser; not that those who oppressed him were just, and that he was therefore handed over to them, but that those who were once my people, since I abandon them, are handed over to punishment; and in this there seems to be wrong, not in the eyes of God, who passes a just sentence, but of those who endure the torments, while they are yielded up to adversaries worse than themselves. And the Lord gives the reason why in this respect they endure wrong, and are handed over to worse men, and justice is not kept toward them: because Ephraim, that is, Jeroboam, began to go after idols and to forsake God; for it was he who fashioned the golden calves. According to the translation of the Seventy, Ephraim, that is, Jeroboam, oppressed his adversary Rehoboam, that is, the tribe of Judah, and oppressed him in this, that, having deserted Jerusalem and the temple, he followed the images of Egyptian filth. Concerning the heretics the sense is plain: that by their false sophisms and by dialectical art they often oppress churchmen; but when they have done this, they follow not the cleanness of the true faith but the filth of falsehood; and, handed over to the devil and his angels, they seem to themselves to suffer wrong, and that the truth of judgment has been broken in their case. In another way: Israel is laid waste, and all his labors are plundered when the Assyrian comes, and he loses God as his protector; and he is broken in judgment for this reason, that he followed idols.

And I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like rottenness to the house of Judah. LXX: And I am like a disturbance to Ephraim, and like a goad to the house of Judah. In the Hebrew language a moth is called As; recob is rottenness and decay; of which the one consumes garments, the other wood; for which the LXX translated ταραχὴν, that is, tumult or disturbance, and goad. And it must be noted that the moth is referred to Ephraim, and rottenness to the house of Judah. Just as, therefore, the moth consumes garments, and rottenness or decay consumes wood (both of which happen over a long time), so God, giving the ten tribes, and afterwards the two, room for repentance over a long time, and calling them to salvation, while they treasure up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath, becomes as it were a moth and rottenness; not that God is a moth or rottenness, or a disturbance or a goad, but that to those who suffer punishment all these things seem so. First, therefore, Ephraim and Israel were consumed, then the house of Judah also followed; not Judah himself, but his house; otherwise there is reserved from the race of Judah the one for whom it was laid up. And he was the expectation of the nations. But when the heretics, who are understood as Ephraim, have been punished, Judah too, that is, those who remain with the Church and are held fast by either the errors or the vices of the heretics, will be subject to a like sentence.

And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his bond; and Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to the avenging king; and he will not be able to heal you, nor will he be able to loose the bond from you. LXX: And Ephraim saw his infirmity, and Judah his pain, and Ephraim went to the Assyrians, and sent envoys to King Jareb; and he will not be able to free you, nor will he make the pain cease from you. "Envoys" is not found in the Hebrew. And where the Seventy put Jareb, we, following Symmachus, have translated "avenger"; for Aquila and Theodotion rendered "judge". That Jareb signifies avenger and judge, the name of Gideon shows: when the worshipers of Baal demanded him for punishment, because he had overthrown the grove and the altars of Baal, his father answered: Let Baal avenge himself, or let Baal judge him; and he was called, it says, Jerubbaal, that is: let Baal avenge himself. Ephraim, therefore, perceiving his infirmity, and Judah his bond, because he had been bound together with the ten tribes in sin, sought help not from God, who was able to loose them, but from the king of the Assyrians. We read that under King Menahem, who ruled over the ten tribes, Israel sent gifts to the Assyrians; and that Judah, under King Ahaz, begged the protection of Tiglath-pileser, king of the Assyrians, who, since God opposed them, were not able to free them, nor to loose the bond of captivity. We can also refer the bond, for which in the Hebrew is written mezur, and which Aquila rendered ἐπίδεσιν or συνδεσμὸν, that is, a binding together or a conspiracy, to that time when Rezin and Pekah son of Remaliah laid waste many thousands of men of the tribe of Judah, in that Judah in vain begged against the two kings the help not of God but of the Assyrians. Some, according to tropology, refer Ephraim and Judah to the heretics and to churchmen; because both they and Judah, bound together by the bonds of sins, according to what is written: Each one is bound fast by the cords of his own sins, sent to Assyria and to the avenging king, that is, to the devil, of whom we read: That you may destroy the enemy and the avenger. And because they did not entreat the true helper or judge, therefore he made them remain in the pain of sickness and in the bonds of their offenses. I have read in someone's commentaries that King Jareb is interpreted as Christ. And because there follows: He will not be able to heal you, he argued from this that Christ cannot heal the heretics or the sinners among churchmen in the time of judgment, where there is no mercy, according to what is written: But in hell who will confess to you? And that he cannot heal or free them is by no means through his own weakness, but through the desert of those who have asked for help too late. Just as the Lord too is said not to have been able to do signs in his own country; and the cause why he was not able, he explains: Because, it says, they did not believe in him. Let him have said these things; let us interpret the avenging king in a bad sense. In place of what we have expounded as Jareb, that is, avenger, others wrongly read Iarim, with the letter mem, which is translated "forests"; whence Kiriath-jearim is interpreted "village of forests".

For I am like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion's whelp to the house of Judah. I, I will seize and go; I will carry off, and there is none who may rescue. Going, I will return to my place, until you fail and seek my face. LXX: For I am like a panther to Ephraim, and like a lion in the house of Judah. And I will snatch, and go, and carry off, and there will be none who may rescue; I will go and return to my place, until they perish and seek my face. While they go to Assyria and send to the vindicating or avenging king, who will not be able to heal them nor to loose the bond that binds them, I will show that, when I oppose, all the help of men is vain; for I will be like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion's whelp to the house of Judah. For lioness, which in Hebrew is called sohel, the Seventy rendered panther, which is said alike in Greek and in Latin, and can be taken both as the name of a beast and as "every beast"; so that whatever is savage in beasts you may recognize in the indignation of God. Nothing is swifter than the panther, nothing stronger than the lion; in the panther is signified the swift destruction of the kingdom of Samaria by the Assyrians; and in the lion is shown the most mighty kingdom of the Chaldeans, which some time afterwards came against Jerusalem and Judah. And because he had said that he was a lioness or a panther, and a lion, he keeps the metaphor, and says: I, I will seize and go; I will carry off, and there is none who may rescue. It is asked: if, when God seizes, carries off and holds, no one can snatch from his hands, according to what is written: No one can snatch out of the hand of my Father, how was Judas snatched from the hand of God by his betrayal? To which we will briefly answer that no one can snatch from the hand of God; but that he who is held can, by his own will, fall out of the hand of God.

To the heretics too, and to a negligent Church, God is turned into a panther and a lion; and he will take from them the prey which they formerly snatched from the Church, so that those who had perished while free may be saved by being captured; and he will by no means dwell in the conventicles of the perverse, but will return to his place, of which he says: I am in the Father and the Father in me, and he will spurn and despise them, until they fail in their impiety and seek through repentance him by whom they had been abandoned. Others think that the place of God is heaven, to which God, offended by those who dwell on earth, returns, and will make them perish who, by the greatness of their sins, have turned the most merciful Lord into the rage of wild beasts against themselves.

It seems that the saying refers very suitably to the mystery of Christ and the redemption through him, pointing to the conversion to God. For the face of God we seek signifies most certainly the Son himself, "who is the image, and the radiance, and the very seal of the Father's nature." Thus the true face of God and Father is the Son, inasmuch as he is recognized in him: "And who saw him, saw the Father." The psalmist thus calls him when he cries out to God of all, saying: "Cause your face to shine upon your servant." Indeed, just as from the person of those who were already transformed according to the Son through the Spirit: "The light of your face, O Lord, has been marked upon us." Or as the prophet says: "The light of our face, the anointed Lord."

"They seek early" seems to indicate here that they, as if awakened from the sleep of thoughtlessness which was in them, and further as if brought from night and darkness to light and day, will call out to one another that it is fitting to return to the Lord. This is a return to the senses of those fallen into deception and those taken up by the worship of idols. For the fruit of vigilance is at present seeking to get out of the gloom which is demonic.

And as for what follows: Going, I will return to my place, by the place of God we ought to understand his magnificence and majesty; so that he no longer, by way of dispensation, descends to men, is angry, has mercy, forgets, becomes like a panther, is turned into a lion, is changed into beasts; but disregards human affairs and allows those whom he formerly protected to be subjected to their enemies, so that they may waste away, and fail, and perish, and afterwards seek the face of the Lord, and say: Make your face shine, and we shall be saved. And: Show us, O Lord, your mercy, and grant us your salvation.

In their tribulation they will rise early to me: come, and let us return to the Lord, for he has seized and he will heal us; he will strike and he will cure us; he will make us live after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight; we shall know and we shall follow, that we may know the Lord. LXX: In their tribulation they will watch early for me, saying: let us go and return to the Lord our God, for he will scourge and he will heal us; he will strike and he will cure us; he will make us whole after two days; on the third we shall rise again and we shall live before him and we shall know; let us pursue, that we may know the Lord. Therefore God has handed Ephraim and Judah over to captivity, and there is none who can snatch from his hand, and he will return to his place until they fail; and they will seek his face, so that him whom they had not felt as gracious and present, they may seek again as angry and absent; and in their tribulation, when the light of repentance has risen for them, they may rise early to him, according to what we read in Isaiah: In tribulation I remembered the Lord. And in the first of the psalms of ascents: To the Lord I cried when I was in tribulation, and he heard me.