Micah 4

The prophet Micah employed the symbol of a high mountain to speak of the gathering of the nations in Christ. He has this to say: "And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared in the top of the mountains and high above the hills; and people shall flow to it. And many nations shall come in haste, and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for the law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations afar off.' "

And it shall be in the last of days, there shall be the mountain of the house of the Lord, prepared on the top of the mountains, and lofty above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it; and many nations shall hasten, and they shall say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and he shall judge among many peoples, and rebuke strong nations even afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into mattocks; nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall not learn to make war any more; and a man shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken; for all peoples shall walk, each in the name of his god; but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and beyond. In that day, says the Lord, I will gather her that halts, and her whom I had cast out I will gather, and her whom I had afflicted; and I will make her that halts a remnant, and her that had labored a mighty nation, and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and even forever. LXX: And it shall be in the last of days, the mountain of the Lord manifest, prepared upon the top of the mountains; and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and peoples shall hasten to it, and many nations shall go and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will show us his way, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he shall judge among many peoples, and reprove strong nations even afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plows and their spears into sickles; and nation shall no more take up sword against nation, and they shall by no means learn to make war; and each shall rest under his vine, and each under his fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid, for the mouth of the Lord Almighty has spoken these things; for all peoples shall go, each his own way. But we will go in the name of the Lord our God forever and beyond. In that day, says the Lord, I will gather her that is crushed, and her that had been cast out I will receive, and those whom I had driven back; and I will make the crushed one a remnant, and the one driven back a strong nation, and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion, from this time forth and even unto the age. Because the princes of the Jews abhorred judgment, and had perverted all that was right, and had built Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity, and had not only done these things but had also judged for bribes, and the priests of Jerusalem had given answers for hire, and her prophets had divined for money, and on their account Zion had become like a plowed field, and Jerusalem had fallen into heaps of stones, and the mountain of the temple of God, made desolate, into the high places of the forests: therefore now, their house being forsaken and deserted, when the Son of God, going out of the temple, said: Arise, let us go hence, and: Your house shall be left to you deserted. The angels too, as Josephus relates, said: Let us pass over from these seats, and in place of Mount Zion the mountain of the Lord has been lifted up, of which it is said to the prince of Tyre. And you were wounded on the mountain of the Lord. But this mountain of the Lord was shown in the last of days, when the kingdom of heaven drew near. For indeed at the consummation of the ages, for the rejection of sins, our Savior appeared through his own victim, and came at the eleventh hour to hire laborers. And when his passion was accomplished, John says: It is the last hour; for in six thousand years, if five hundred years are allotted to each hour of the day, the time of the faith of the Gentiles will consequently be called the last hour. And manifest, he says, shall be the mountain of the Lord, prepared upon the tops of the mountains. He will be manifest who before had been hidden, and prepared not only on the mountains but upon the tops of the mountains, Moses and the prophets, who prophesied of him. For although all that they wrote is holy, yet in comparison with the prophecy in which they prophesied of the coming of the Savior, the rest is lowly, and by no means reaches up to the tops of the mountains. And it shall be exalted, he says, above the hills. He appeared indeed as a man, and took the form of a servant, humbled even unto death, and the death of the cross; but the Father exalted him, and gave him the name which is above every name; and the whole life of men, compared with his manner of life, is called plains and valleys. To this mountain, therefore, which is prepared upon the tops of the mountains and exalted above the hills, all peoples shall hasten, or, as it stands in the Hebrew, shall flow; that is, innumerable crowds shall gather after the manner of rivers. Now the peoples shall hasten when there believed in him alike Parthians and Medes, Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya which is near Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. Do not those seem to you to have hastened to the mountain to whom it was said: Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men; and at once they followed the Savior? And again Scripture relates of James and John that, leaving the boat and their father and the waves of the world, they hastened to the mountain. And Matthew the publican, on hearing: Follow me, at once ran. That passage too in the Gospel, when great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem, and Judea and beyond the Jordan, and he healed them, proves that the peoples were hastening.

On my holy mountain, on the high mountain of Israel, says the Lord God, there all the house of Israel shall serve me: all, I say, in the land in which they shall please me; and there I will require your firstfruits and the beginning of your tithes in all your sanctifications. In an odor of sweetness I will receive you, when I have led you out from the peoples and gathered you from the lands into which you were scattered, and I shall be sanctified in you in the eyes of the nations. And you shall know that I am the Lord. Of this mountain, on which all the house of Israel is to serve God, Isaiah and Micah sang with one voice: In the last days the mountain of the house shall be manifest on the summit of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall go and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and again Isaiah: Go up onto a high mountain, he says, you who proclaim to Zion; lift up and exalt your voice, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem. This mountain, Zion, we understand either as the Church, which means 'watchtower' and is set on the height of holy doctrines, or as the Lord Savior himself, in whom the firstfruits and the tithes and all worship are turned into an odor of sweetness, so that all the nations round about, seeing that the people of the Lord has been saved, may glorify God, and those who have been saved may know that he is the Lord.

It must also be known that the Jews and the heirs of their error refer both this section which we have now expounded and the one like it in Isaiah to the thousand-year reign of Christ and of the saints; and that what is said: All peoples shall walk, each in the name of the Lord his God, they interpret in this way: that each nation is to be tormented with its idol and sent into the fire of eternal punishment. But they are refuted by what follows: this is said not of the end of the ages but of the first coming of Christ, in which the remnant of her that halts is gathered, and the nations are saved first. Isaiah, then, set down a testimony of this kind: The word that came to Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem: for in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God upon the summit of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall come to it. And many nations shall go, and shall say: Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God of Jacob, and he will announce to us our way, and we will walk in it; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many nations, and reprove a very great people, and they shall beat their swords into plows, and their hunting-spears into sickles, and nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall not learn to make war any more. Significantly it is said here that the word of God, going forth from Jerusalem, judges among many nations, and properly reproves the people of the Jews. For us, as sinners, he will judge according to the measure of our works; but them, as impious men and deniers, he will not judge, but will reprove them as condemned.

After the experience of the troubles in which they would find themselves, made captive first by the Assyrians and later by the Babylonians, such a great transformation would occur regarding this place that the mountain on which God was reputed to dwell would become famous and would be shown to be superior to all the mountains and far surpass all mountains and all hills on account of the glory enveloping it as a result of the divine compassion. Large numbers from all quarters, even from foreign peoples, would hasten to assemble to reach this mountain of God, on which God is believed to dwell, and learn how they should regulate their lives and live as they ought.

The evangelical and divine preaching coursed to the ends of the earth, according to the Lord's prophecy contained in the sacred Gospels: "This good news will be preached to all the nations in witness to them." And he urged the holy apostles in the words, "Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I commanded you." This evangelical law and apostolic preaching began with Jerusalem as with a fountain and traveled across the whole world, offering irrigation to those who made their approach with faith. It is also possible to see the divine houses situated in the middle of cities, villages, fields and remote areas, conspicuous for their size and beauty, so that they are illustrious and famous even on the highest mountains.

And while the peoples hasten, very many nations also shall go to the mountain, namely the whole world believing in him, and they shall say, calling one another to the standard of the gibbet: Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord. There is need of an ascent for anyone to be able to reach Christ, to the house of the God of Jacob, the Church, which is the house of God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. Moreover, that Jacob signifies the Savior we have also said above: Jacob my servant, I will receive him. And they will say this also to those to whom they had spoken: Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord and into the house of the God of Jacob, and they will add: That they may show us his way; understand this either of the angels who preside over the churches, or of the holy Scriptures, which show beforehand the way of the Lord, and him who says: I am the way. And let us walk in his paths, namely in the apostles, through whom we have believed in Christ. For out of Zion went forth the spiritual law, passed over to the Gentiles, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, who will judge among many peoples.

And when the Spirit of prophecy speaks as predicting things that are to come to pass, He speaks in this way: "For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." And that it did so come to pass, we can convince you. For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God; and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ. For that saying, "The tongue has sworn but the mind is unsworn," might be imitated by us in this matter. But if the soldiers enrolled by you, and who have taken the military oath, prefer their allegiance to their own life, and parents, and country, and all kindred, though you can offer them nothing incorruptible, it were verily ridiculous if we, who earnestly long for incorruption, should not endure all things, in order to obtain what we desire from Him who is able to grant it.

For Micah announced that the new law would be given in this way: "The law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and he shall vanquish and rebuke nations." For that prior law that was given through Moses was given not on Mount Zion but on Mount Horeb. And the Sibyl showed that this would be destroyed by the Son of God. "But when all these things have been fulfilled which he spoke, at that time then the whole law is destroyed."

After the experience of the troubles in which they would find themselves, made captive first by the Assyrians and later by the Babylonians, such a great transformation would occur regarding this place that the mountain on which God was reputed to dwell would become famous and would be shown to be superior to all the mountains and far surpass all mountains and all hills on account of the glory enveloping it as a result of the divine compassion. Large numbers from all quarters, even from foreign peoples, would hasten to assemble to reach this mountain of God, on which God is believed to dwell, and learn how they should regulate their lives and live as they ought.

The Father indeed has given all judgment to the Son. And he will rebuke strong nations even afar off. For the Lord catches the wise in their craftiness and has known the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. And he discerns among the peoples who are worthy of salvation and who unworthy, and at his coming all eagerness for war will be turned to peace. Swords will be changed into plows, spears will be forged into sickles, nation will cease to war against nation. No one will learn to fight, the need of fighting being laid aside. And so great will be the rest that not only in the cities but in the hamlets too and in the fields each one will be secure; and this will come to pass because the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And first, according to the letter: before a child was born to us, whose government is upon his shoulder, the whole world was full of blood; peoples fought against peoples, kings against kings, nations against nations. In short, even the Roman Republic itself was torn by civil wars, with Cinna and Octavius and Carbo fighting; Sulla and Marius, Antony and Catiline, Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey, Augustus and Brutus, and the same Augustus and Antony, in whose battles all the kingdoms shed blood. But after Rome, with a view to the rule of Christ, obtained a single rule, the world was made open to the journeys of the apostles, and the gates of cities were opened to them, and for the preaching of the one God a single rule was established. This saying too: They shall beat their swords into plows, and their spears into sickles, can also be taken tropologically, so that we say that at the faith of Christ anger and unbridled abuse have been laid aside, so that each one puts his hand to the plow and does not look back behind him, and, breaking the darts and spears of insults, desires to reap spiritual fruits, so that, others having labored, we may enter into their labors, and it may be said of us: But coming they shall come with exultation, carrying their sheaves. Now no one fights against another, for we read: Blessed are the peacemakers. No one learns to contend to the subversion of the hearers, but he sets silence on his mouth, and is silent, because the time is evil. And each shall rest under his vine, to press the wine that gladdens the heart of man, under that vine whose husbandman is the Father, and under his fig tree, plucking the sweet fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace and the rest. And all these things will come to pass, according to both expositions, because the words of the Lord are true, and for him to have said is to have done.

He is indeed the field blessed by the Lord: not this earthly one, or rough with woods, or rocky with torrents, or marshy with stagnant waters, or barren of crops, or useless for vines, or infertile with stony gravel, or gaping and dry from drought, or soaked with blood, or uncultivated with thorns and brambles: but that field, of which the Church says in the Canticles: I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and fortitude of the field. For this is the field of which the Lord says: 'And the appearance of the field is with me'. In this field is found that grape which, when pressed, shed blood and cleansed the world. In this field is that fig tree under which the saints will rest, refreshed by the sweetness of spiritual grace. In this field is that fruitful olive tree, flowing with the ointment of the Lord's peace. In this field flourish pomegranates, which cover many fruits under the protection of one foundation of faith and nourish them with the embrace of charity.

However, since here in Genesis we read that paradise was planted by God in the East, and there the man whom God formed was placed; we can now find the author of this paradise. For who else could have created paradise but the all-powerful God, who spoke and things came into being, never needing those things which he desired to be generated? Therefore, he himself planted the paradise of which Wisdom says: Every planting that my Father has not planted will be rooted up. Good planting of angels, good saints. For saints are called under the fig tree and vine in that future time of peace, in which there is a type of angels.

These are the mysteries of Scripture. Who can conceive the charm of the mysteries of Sacred Scriptures of which it is said: "Every one under his vine and under his fig tree."

The vine, and that not in a few places, refers to the Lord himself, and the fig tree to the Holy Spirit, as the Lord "makes glad the hearts of men," and the Spirit heals them. Hezekiah is commanded to make plaster with a lump of figs—that is, the fruit of the Spirit—that he may be healed. According to the apostle this healing begins with love. For he says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." On account of their great pleasantness, the prophet calls these spiritual fruits figs. Of them Micah also says, "They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid." Now it is certain that those who have taken refuge and rested under the Spirit and under the shadow of the Word shall not be alarmed or frightened by the one who troubles the hearts of humankind.

They who are eager to go up into the mountain of the Lord and wish to learn thoroughly his ways promise a ready obedience, and they receive in themselves the glories of the life in Christ and undertake with their whole strength to be earnest in all holiness. "For let everyone," he says, "in every country and city go the way he chooses and pass his life as seems good to him, but our care is Christ, and his laws we will make our straight path; we will walk along with him; and that not for this life only, present or past, but yet more for what is beyond." It is a faithful saying. "For they who now suffer with him shall walk with him forever, and with him be glorified, and with him reign." But "they" make Christ their care who prefer nothing to his love, who cease from the vain distractions of the world and seek rather righteousness and what is pleasing to him, and to excel in virtue. Such a one was the divine Paul, for he writes, "I am crucified with Christ; and now no longer I live, but Christ lives in me." And again: "I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified."

All peoples shall go, each in his own way, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God unto the age and beyond. While all the nations, they say, go according to their own error, we have hastened to the mountain of the Lord, and have said: Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God of Jacob and we will walk in the name of Christ our Lord, for he himself is the mountain who is God.

In that day, in which the sun of justice will shine, she who had before been crushed will be gathered, and she who had been driven out will be received; and the crushed one will be gathered for this, that she may be made a remnant, and the forsaken one a strong nation. Unless indeed the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah. But according to the Hebrew it is beautifully put: I will gather, he says, her that halts, and her who had walked badly, and to whom Elijah had said: How long do you halt? Whose foot, which had caused stumbling, had been cut off. Her whom I had cast out, and to whom I had given a bill of divorce, I will gather; and her whom I had afflicted with various captivities, or had handed over to the devil and his angels. And lest the careful reader at once object to us: How do you assert that she who halts has been gathered, and that she who had been cast out has been collected, when the Jews remain in unbelief? Let him hear that this is said of the first Church of Christ, which believed from among the Jews, to which the apostles too belonged, concerning which Luke writes in the Acts of the Apostles that in one day three thousand believed, and elsewhere five thousand, and of whom James says to Paul: You see, brother Paul, how many thousands there are of the Jews who believe, and all these are zealots of the law. But consider also the prophetic precision: he did not say, I will make her that halts wholly saved, but I will make her that halts a remnant, so that the remnant and the elect may be saved, and her that had labored a mighty nation, namely the Christian name, which not the sword, not fires, not torments shall overcome. Look at the faith and the passion of the martyrs, and you will not doubt about the mighty nation. And the Lord shall reign over them, that is, over many nations, and over the halting remnant, in Mount Zion, in the Church, in the watchtower, in the contemplation of the virtues, from the present age and even into the future. But if anyone wishes to understand what is said: I will gather her who was crushed, and the one cast out I will receive, and the rest, of the human soul, that before the coming of Christ it served various passions and vices, and like a straying and sickly sheep was torn by the bites of wolves, he will not err, provided he knows that she who had been crushed and afflicted will afterwards be under the reign of the Lord, and will live in Zion, and is to be carried back on the shoulders of the good shepherd to her former mountain.

Now it is evident that no one can terrify or subdue us who have believed in Jesus over all the world. For it is plain that, though beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to wild beasts, and chains, and fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession; but the more such things happen, the more do others and in larger numbers become faithful, and worshippers of God through the name of Jesus. For Just as if one should cut away the fruit-bearing parts of a vine, it grows up again, and yields other branches flourishing and fruitful; even so the same thing happens with us. For the vine planted by God and Christ the Saviour is His people. But the rest of the prophecy shall be fulfilled at His second coming. For the expression, "He that is afflicted [and driven out]," i.e., from the world, [implies] that, so far as you and all other men have it in your power, each Christian has been driven out not only from his own property, but even from the whole world; for you permit no Christian to live.

"And you, O tower, O cloudy shepherd of the daughter of Zion, your time shall come." These words refer to the impious king Zedekiah, whom the prophet calls "tower" because the people of Judea stayed under his shadow, and "shepherd" because of his administration of the kingdom, and "cloudy" because of the error of idolatry to which he adhered. Again, in the symbolic meaning of his words he calls the devil a cloudy shepherd, because in an allegorical sense he always attacks the daughter of Zion under a cloudy sky. And, after catching her, he drags her away from the light—indeed the one who acts maliciously hates the light. But later, the supreme and legitimate prince of the mystical Jerusalem destroyed this tyranny with his advent and drove the obscure shepherd away.

And you, tower of the flock, cloudy one of the daughter of Zion, even unto you it shall come; and the first power shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. Now why are you drawn together in grief? Is there no king for you, or has your counselor perished, because pain has seized you like a woman in labor. LXX: And you, tower of the flock, murky daughter of Zion, to you it shall come, and the first principality shall enter, the kingdom from Babylon of the daughter of Jerusalem. And now why have you known evils? Was there no king for you, or has your counsel perished, because pains have seized you like a woman giving birth? The tower of the flock, cloudy or squalid, which in Hebrew is called ophel, we ought to take as no other than that of which Isaiah says: And I built a tower in the midst of it, that is, of the vineyard. Now the vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel. As long as this tower has a winepress, that is, the altar, and a wall round about, namely the help of the angels, and the devil, the boar, does not enter the vineyard, it is not squalid, it is not dark, but, having received its name from the Lord who shines upon it, it is called a city which, set on a mountain, cannot be hidden. The tower, then, once of the flock and of the people of God, because the most wicked tenants killed the son of the householder, is now squalid and abandoned, and under the name Ariel cries out from the earth in Isaiah. And this tower belongs to the daughter of Zion, or, as Symmachus rendered it into Greek: She herself is the daughter of Zion, and even unto her shall come God, or the first power, which power is the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. Now there came to this tower the first power, or the first principality, he who had said: I am alpha and Ω, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. And he who, in the person of the man he had assumed, says in Proverbs: The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways for his works, or, as it is written in the Hebrew: The Lord possessed me: for canani means not he created me, but he possessed me and held me. And the first power came, and the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem, so that after the first there might be a second as well; for just as he himself says with confidence: I am the light of the world, so he also grants to his disciples that they too should be called the light of the world, and he says to them: You are the light of the world. And calling himself the true vine in the Gospel, he says of believers through Jeremiah: But I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true. And though he is the living bread coming down from heaven, he granted to his disciples that they should be called bread. Hence the apostle Paul too says with confidence: For we all are one bread. In this way, then, the first power and the kingdom enters into Jerusalem, so as to make those who believe in her a power and a kingdom. But as for what is read in some books: And the first principality shall enter, the kingdom of the daughter of Zion, from Babylon, let us know that it has been added, since it is found neither in the Hebrew nor among the other translators. And it seems to me indeed that it was thinking of the Babylonian captivity, because the people, going out from there, came to Jerusalem.

Some think that the squalid or dark tower, and the daughter of Jerusalem, are to be understood of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of the saints, of which the Apostle also says: You have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, which remains squalid so long as her sons are not brought back to her, and king and counselor are not in her, and pains lay hold of her as of a woman in labor, because she has given birth in vain, seeing so many sons slain.

There follows: And now why are you drawn together in grief? Or, as it is written in the LXX: And now why have you known evils, you to whom, he says, the Lord is to come, and the first power and the kingdom? Why now are you drawn together in grief, or why have you known evils? At once it is answered and said: Because there is no king for you, and your counselor has perished, because pain has seized you like a woman in labor. Or surely, though you have all these, by your own fault you do not deserve the help either of the king or of the counselor. As for his saying: Why have you known evils, it is to be taken in this sense: that everyone who deserves and suffers evils is said to know evils and to be ignorant of good things. According to what is written also in the first book of Kingdoms (1 Samuel): The sons of Eli, sons of pestilence, did not know God. And elsewhere: He who keeps the commandment shall not know an evil word. And to sinners: Depart from me, says the Lord, you who work iniquity, for I do not know you. On the contrary, of the Lord: Him who had not known sin he made sin for us, God the Father being understood. But the King and angel of great counsel is understood to be the Savior, who perished for an unbelieving people, which pains seized like a woman in labor; for Israel, thinking that it held dominion, was suddenly laid waste. And as a woman giving birth cannot escape pain, so it could not avoid or put off the impending captivity and the army surrounding the city. Let us read the Scriptures, and we shall never find that holy women, except Rachel, gave birth with pain; and she, because she was on the road, and in the hippodrome, that is, the course of the horses that are sold in Egypt, bore a son of pain, whom his father afterwards called son of the right hand. Eve, cast out of paradise and hearing: In pains you shall bring forth, is described as having given birth in pain. The wife of Phinehas, bent over and not raising herself, like that woman in the Gospel whom the devil had bound, gave birth after she had learned that the ark of God was taken and of the ruin of the people. But Sarah, because she was holy and the ways of women had ceased in her, says when Isaac was born: God has made laughter for me, for whoever hears will rejoice with me. The pains, then, that seized the tower of the flock are the pains of the underworld and the pains of death, which surrounded indeed and hemmed in even the Savior, but could by no means seize him, as he himself says in Psalm 17 (18): The pains of death surrounded me, and the torrents of iniquity troubled me, and the pains of hell hemmed me in.

"Writhe and groan, O daughter Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go forth from the city and camp in the open country; you shall go to Babylon, and there you shall be rescued." The meaning is that you will go into captivity, people of Zion, to be deported to Babylon, but after years you will come back from there, not with the soldier hastening after you, but with that leader who by ascending into heaven made captivity his own prisoner. You will follow him together with Paul's brothers-in-arms and the princes of our army, who captivate all minds to the respect of Christ.

Be in pain and toil, daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go forth from the city, and dwell in the country, and come even to Babylon; there you shall be delivered, there the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies. LXX: Be in pain, and act manfully, daughter of Zion, like a woman giving birth, for now you shall go forth from the city, and dwell in the plain, and come even to Babylon; from there he will deliver you, and from there the Lord your God will redeem you from the hand of your enemies. She who is commanded to be in pain, or to be in labor, and to whom is then added, act manfully, is not commanded in vain; but it is so that, bearing her pains patiently, she may go forth from the city, and dwell in the plain or in the country, and come even to Babylon, and when, enduring captivity for her sin, she has bravely borne what was inflicted, then the Lord may deliver her, and her God redeem her from the hand of her enemies, so that, after she has been delivered, she may say to those who mock her: Do not mock me, my enemy, for I have fallen and I shall rise again; for even if I walk in darkness, the Lord is my light. I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he justifies my cause, and executes my judgment, and brings me out into the light, and I shall see his justice. And my enemy shall behold it, and shall be covered with shame. Hence in the psalms too it is sung with a fitting voice: Not forever will he be angry, nor to eternity will the Lord threaten. And that Be in pain, and act manfully pertains to the salvation of the one who is in pain and acts manfully, Joshua son of Nun too is witness, to whom the Lord says: Be strengthened, and act manfully. And the daughter of Zion is in pain and acts manfully, because she went forth from the city unshod and naked, and is to be led captive into the plain of Shinar, and to be in Babylon until Zerubbabel comes, and Ezra, which means helper, and delivers her from the hand of the Chaldeans. Since this is plain according to the letter, it seems to me to mean that the soul, driven out of the Church for sin, and handed over to the enemy and avenger for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved, goes forth from the city which the rush of the river makes glad, and dwells not on the mountain, where it had been before, but in the plain, in which the army of the Assyrians roams, and is in the confusion of its own vices; and that, after it has worn fetters, and dragged the mill, and made flour for the Babylonians, returning to itself it says: How many hired servants of my father have their fill of bread, and I perish here with hunger. And that afterwards, returning to the father's house, it is received by a most merciful father, and redeemed from the hand of a most harsh master. Let us give an example, so that what is commanded to the daughter of Zion, when it is said: Be in pain, and act manfully, like a woman giving birth, we may refer not to her punishment but to her benefit. Paul says to the Galatians: My little children, with whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you. And he was in pain so long, and in labor so long, until he begot again through repentance those who had perished through sin. Suppose a physician says to a man in a fever, or to a wounded man: Be in pain and act manfully, endure thirst, bear the cautery, so that a surer health may follow.

Now many nations are assembled against you. That is, in the meantime a mix of many different nations invades you under the command of Gog. Again there shall be profanation in Zion, and the eye shall gaze upon it, which means the holy places of Zion will be violated and greatly despised by those who did not know that they would have been thrashed by the revenging justice of God like sheaves gathered on the threshing floor.

And now many nations are gathered against you, who say: Let her be stoned, and let our eye look upon Zion. But they have not known the thoughts of the Lord, and have not understood his counsel, for he has gathered them like hay of the threshing floor. Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and your hoofs I will make bronze, and you shall break in pieces many peoples; and you shall slay to the Lord their plunder, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth. LXX: And now many nations are gathered against you, of those who say: Let us insult, and let our eyes look upon Zion. But they did not know the thought of the Lord, and did not understand his counsel, for he has gathered them like sheaves of the threshing floor. Arise and thresh them, daughter of Zion, for I will make your horns iron, and your hoofs I will make bronze, and you shall break in pieces many peoples, and you shall vow to the Lord their multitude, and their might to the Lord of the whole earth. O Jerusalem, O daughter of Zion, who will come even to Babylon, and there will be delivered, and the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies: now, meanwhile, many nations are gathered against you, who speak as of an adulteress and say: Let her be stoned, and let our eye look upon her. Or, as it is written in the LXX: Let us insult and rejoice, and let our eyes look down upon Zion; and they did not know the will and counsel of the Lord, that the nations were gathered against you for this very reason, that you might crush them like hay or stubble of the threshing floor. Arise, therefore, daughter of Zion, and with the iron horns, which I promise to give you, and with the bronze hoofs, which you are to receive, winnow and crush the peoples, and slay them to the Lord of the whole earth. For he delights in such a sacrifice and such an offering. The Jews, seeing that these things have not yet been fulfilled, promise this there, at the future coming of Christ, and say that all nations will serve the Jewish people, and that the very empire of the Romans, which they interpret under the name of Edom, is to be crushed by their hoofs and winnowed by their horns. How foolish this is, is easily proved from all the Scriptures; but that belongs to another time. We, therefore, who follow not the letter that kills but the spirit that gives life, say that against the daughter of Zion, which is interpreted as the Church, many nations of demons are gathered, and in the present age, which is set in the evil one, they insult her and rejoice in the slaughter of her sons, not knowing the thoughts of the Lord, nor recognizing his counsel. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty. He will therefore gather them like sheaves of the threshing floor, so that whatever they seemed to have that is thorny and rough, empty and light, she may crush with her hoofs and winnow with her horns, and the pure grain that remains may be offered as gifts to the Lord.

"For I will make your horns, which the Babylonians broke, iron. You shall beat in pieces many people, and shall devote their grain to the Lord." This will happen when, after taking possession of their land and wealth, you pay the tithe to the Lord of the entire earth. As I have said, God showed a sign of such great prosperity to the Jews who would be coming back from captivity. He also reserved the same thing for his church.

Now, as to what he signifies by saying: And you shall break in pieces many peoples, and you shall consecrate to the Lord their multitude, and their might to the Lord of the whole earth. Let us read Numbers, and Joshua son of Nun, and the first book of Kingdoms (1 Samuel), and we shall see how, from the subjugated nations, when all had perished by the edge of the sword, gold and silver, and a fixed number of the spoil, of men as well as of beasts, was consecrated to the Lord. In short, Achar too, who stole something from the accursed thing of Jericho, troubled the people, and from his sin a name was given to the valley, emec achor, that is, the valley of tumult, or of disturbances. And that you may know that, according to the LXX translators, who said: You shall consecrate to the Lord their multitude, and their might to the Lord of the whole earth, the consecration ought to be taken in a good sense: Theodotion rendered gifts for multitude; the Fifth Edition, profit, that is, ὠφέλειαν; Symmachus, gain, that is, τὸ κέρδος αὐτῶν.