Micah 7

The unjust are scattered like chaff, while the just are like wheat. Finally, listen to the words of the Lord to Peter: Behold, Satan has desired to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. Those who are scattered like chaff will fail; but not the one who is like that grain which fell and rose again, enriched by the abundant yield of many fruits. Therefore the Prophet says: Woe is me, for I have become like one gathering straw in the harvest! Therefore, straw that is quickly burned is compared to impiety and to dust. Therefore, after he said: They will be like chaff carried away by the wind, he added the verse immediately saying: Or like the dust that the wind snatches away. Finally, so that you may know that the wicked person quickly grows weak and vanishes like dust, you have the following statement in the first Psalm: Not so the wicked, not so, that is, not like the righteous: but like the dust that the wind scatters away from the face of the earth.

Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers the clusters of the vintage in autumn. There is no cluster to eat; my soul desired the first-ripe figs. The holy man has perished from the land, and there is no upright one among men. All lie in wait for blood, a man hunts his brother to death. The evil of their hands they call good; the prince demands, and the judge is for requiting, and the great man has spoken the desire of his soul, and they have troubled it. He who is best among them is like a brier, and he who is upright like a thorn from the hedge. LXX: Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest, and like clusters in the vintage, when there is no cluster to eat the first-ripe; which my soul has suffered. Woe is me, O soul, for the reverent man has perished from the land, and there is none among men to correct; all are judged in blood, each one afflicts his neighbor with affliction, they prepare their hands for evil; the prince demands, and the judge has spoken peaceful words, it is the desire of his soul. And I will take away their goods like a devouring moth, and walking upon a rule in the day of your watching. Having foretold the captivity both of the ten tribes and of the two — for the word of the Lord came to Micah of Moresheth concerning Samaria and Jerusalem — the prophet laments that no just man from the people is found in the land who could withstand the wrath of God and set himself in the midst like a wall. In vain, he says, have I spoken; in vain have I wished to seek, as it were, the last clusters of the city already stripped of its vintage and ruined, and, since there is no cluster to eat, at least to take as food the unripe figs, which the Hebrews call bechchora, that is, the green fruit of the fig; as if he were saying: Finding no bread, because of the greatness of the famine I sought out refuse and bran.

Moreover, according to the Seventy, who disagree in certain points and at the end of the section translated altogether differently, the sense seems to me to be of this kind. The prophetic word, or the apostolic, laments over the human race in general, that the word has cast the seed of doctrines in vain, and that, instead of crops and grain, the late reaper has found scarcely empty stubble and hollow stalks, and has not been able to find even small clusters in the vineyard, and the rest up to the end of the section. For if he is blessed who speaks into the ears of one who listens, and the ear of the hearer is the desire of the wise man, and an understanding hearer is the joy of the speaker, on the contrary a bad pupil is the teacher's grief; and the words of Jeremiah also agree with this complaint: I have not profited, nor has anyone profited me. There are some who think this is said in the person of the Savior, complaining that in so great a multitude of believers, and in the whole world of the human race, he scarcely finds works worthy of his blood, he who also says in Psalm 29 (30): What profit is there in my blood, while I go down into corruption? Others, however, assert that it by no means befits his person to say: Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest, he who said in the Gospel: Lift up your eyes and see the regions, for they are already white for reaping. And elsewhere: The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. Those, then, who wish it to be understood in the person of the Savior say that it is no wonder if he says: Woe is me, he who both wept over Jerusalem and shed tears at the death of Lazarus. But that too, I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest, they refer to the consummation of the age, which they also meaningfully interpret as the harvest; and they say that this prophecy can be fulfilled at that time when, iniquity having multiplied, the love of many will have grown cold, and the Son of Man, when he comes, will find faith rare upon the earth; for then, like stubble after the harvest and like clusters after the vintage, scarcely will any be found among them who have kept the faith amid the devastation of all; and they think that this utterance, spoken in the person of the man who was assumed, is confirmed by what follows: Woe is me, O soul, the soul of which he was speaking: My soul is sorrowful, even unto death.

Who is speaking when the prophet says, "Woe is me, soul, for I have become one as gathering straw in harvest?" For did the prophet literally "gather" or even want to "gather"? Does the prophet have a farm? Anyway, the only one who rightly gathers from what has been planted for harvest is not the prophet but the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Since there are many faults among the pagan nations but also among those who are supposed to be from the church, the prophet laments and mourns for our sins when he says, "Woe is me, for I have become as one who gathers straw." Let each of us scrutinize himself. Is he an ear of corn? Will the Son of God discover something in him to pick or harvest? Do we find that some of us are those swept by the wind? Even as we have still a little in ourselves, two or three kernels, our sins are many against us. Seeing that the churches, or those so-called, are filled with sinners, he says, "Woe is me, for I have come as one who gathers straw in the harvest and as one gathering grape gleanings in the vintage." [The Lord] comes seeking fruit on the vine, for each of us is planted also as a vine "in a fertile place" or as a vine "transplanted out of Egypt," yet planted to bear fruit. He comes, he seeks in what way to pick, he discovers some "grape gleanings" and a few "clusters," neither flourishing nor plentiful. Who among us has "clusters" of virtue?

Cain and Abel followed in the generation of humankind, and Cain was the first murderer. Afterwards a deluge engulfed the earth because of exceeding wickedness of humanity. Fire came down from heaven upon the people of Sodom because of their corruption. Subsequently God chose out Israel, but even Israel became perverse and the chosen race was wounded. For, while Moses stood on the mountain before God, the people worshiped a calf in place of God. In the days of their lawgiver Moses, who said, "You shall not commit adultery," a man dared to enter a brothel and be wanton. After Moses, prophets were sent to heal Israel, but in their exercise of healing they deplored the fact that they could not overcome evil, so that one of them [Micah] says, "The faithful are gone from the earth, among men the upright are no more!" The psalmist says, "All alike have gone astray; they have become perverse; there is not one who does good, not even one." And again, "Cursing, and theft, and adultery, and killing have overflowed" upon the land. "They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons." They engaged themselves in auguries and enchantments and divinations; and again, "They fastened their garments with cords and hung veils next to the altar."

The holy man has perished from the land, and there is no upright one among men; everywhere ambushes, everywhere fraud, innocent blood is shed, for avarice and lust brotherhood is disregarded; and they not only do evil things but also defend them, and, exchanging the names, they say that what is evil is good. The princes themselves do not receive gifts from those who offer them, but compel their subjects to give, and demand them. And the judge is for requiting, judging another in the same way as he himself is judged by another, so that they may grant one another's crimes mutual favor and defend themselves in another's crime. Whoever is great and, as it were, most learned in the law speaks not God's will but his own. And they have troubled it, either the city or the truth, or the land, of which it is said above: The holy man has perished from the land.

The one returning has perished from the land, either because the Antichrist kills the saints, or because all fall away at the greatness of the stumbling-blocks. And there is none among men to correct; all are judged in blood, not in light and small sins, but in the greatest and in those that concern blood. Not neighborliness, not friendship, not kinship will hold back the crime; all will raise their hands to evil, so that even he who has not been able to do evil nevertheless sins by his will while he prepares his hands. The prince himself asks, and the judge speaks peaceful words; for he receives gifts, the desire of his soul. Since this is plain, and I am wary of the ill will of princes and judges, I leave it to the reader's understanding and will add only this: Gifts blind the eyes even of the wise; they also give life to a soul to which they ought not to have given life, and kill the soul that lives by its own merit and virtues, and they do this for the sake of gifts which they shamelessly demand and more shamefully receive.

For he who is best among them is like a brier, pricking and holding fast, wounding whoever comes near it and seizing him with a hooked tooth; and he who has been found upright is like a thorn from the hedge, so that pain is found where help was thought to be. This according to the Hebrew.

These the Lord threatens, saying: And I will take away their goods, which they think goods, which seem goods to them. But in the truth of the matter those things will never be called goods which both despoil the giver and kill the receiver; although it is not so much a threat as a blessing to take away evils from them, and for the Lord himself and the divine word to enter into their consciences and, like a moth, to devour whatever is perverse, and to lay waste their plunder and their evil thoughts, and to walk upon the norm and rule of truth, drawing back to what is right those very men who were led by depraved opinions; and to do this in the light of truth, and on that day when those who are holy and chosen from the Church will go up to the watchtower and, in the loftiness of their doctrines and works, will discourse on heavenly things.

The day of your watching, your visitation, comes; now shall be their devastation.

Do not believe a friend, and do not trust in a leader. From her who sleeps in your bosom guard the bars of your mouth, for the son does insult to the father, and the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are his own household. But I will look to the Lord, I will wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. LXX: Woe, woe, your vengeances have come, now shall be their weeping; do not believe in friends, nor hope in leaders. From her who lies with you, beware lest you believe her, for the son does insult to the father, and the daughter rises against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own household. But I will gaze upon the Lord, I will wait for God my Savior? My God will hearken to me. Except for the beginning of the section, in the remaining parts both editions agree; and for the present, according to the history, he signifies the day of the watching of Samaria, or of Jerusalem, which she had often expected and feared would come, and her visitation, the captivity, saying: Your laying waste comes; now shall be their devastation, that is, of the inhabitants, or their siege: for mabucha in the Hebrew means rather πολιορκίαν and φρούρησιν, that is, siege and guard, than devastation.

There follows the exposition of the Seventy, who said: Woe, woe, your vengeances have come, that is, the punishments that are to be inflicted for crimes. To me, he says, belongs vengeance, and I will repay, says the Lord. And in another place: The days of your retribution have come. For the Lord executes vengeance for those who cry out to him day and night and say: How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Therefore the vengeances have come, and now shall be their weeping, that is, the weeping of the vengeances, so that those who laughed before may lament, and, as soon as they go out of the world, may endure torments, such as that rich man, once clad in purple and abounding in delights, endures in hell, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. But as for what follows: Now shall be, understand it either of the end of each one's life, or of the consummation of all things and the day of judgment, when general vengeances will come upon all.

Now we must discuss it according to the earlier interpretation, in which we spoke of the heretics: Hear, O tribe, and who has adorned the city? Is it fire and the house of the wicked? And again, of the Church: Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest. And once more: Woe is me, O soul, the reverent man has perished from the earth, and there is none among men to correct. And thereafter: The prince asks, and the judge has spoken peaceful words, by the desire of his soul. Hence a double curse follows: Woe, woe, your vengeances have come; now shall be their lamentation, and let us say that it is written of the heretics: Do not believe in friends, O simple peoples, and in depraved leaders who promise that they are friends and princes of the heresies; for they seek not your salvation but their own gains, and they trample the deceived flock under their feet; and in her who sleeps with you beware of believing anything; I can understand her to be nothing other than the flesh, so that we may not readily believe the blandishments of the flesh, lest the hardness of the mind and its manly constancy, subdued, should grow soft by her allurements.

A threefold war is threatening us: domestic, civil, and military. The first is with the flesh, which has many troops. This servant-maid is ever-willing to give access, as did Eve. Hence, Against her who lies in your bosom guard the portals of your mouth.

Therefore believe none of the voices of the prophets, and do not lend your ear to the deceiving flattery of the diviners, for if among dear names and the affection of kinship faith is rare, how much more so among those who, flattering you, lie for their own booty, and, as for sick men, prescribe not what is useful, but what is delightful and pleasing. Do not believe a friend; for indeed Ahithophel rose up against David, and the true Ahithophel, Judas, against Christ. And do not trust in a leader, as the men of Shechem trusted in Abimelech. For they themselves made him king, and were oppressed by him. From her who sleeps in your bosom, guard the bars of your mouth, lest you suffer what Samson suffered from Delilah.

Therefore do not believe friends, for every friend supplants with supplanting, and he who is a friend for the sake of something is not so much the friend of him whom he pretends to love, for a friend takes his name from love, as of the thing that he loves. A certain man, asked what a friend was, replied: Another self. But if the example of the Pythagoreans is set against us, who gave themselves to the tyrant as sureties for one another, we say that the sentence was pronounced by God not generally against all friends and the affections of love, nor against every time, but concerning that time of which the Apostle says: In the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, covetous, disdainful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, not keeping covenant, informers, incontinent, harsh, without kindness, traitors, wanton, puffed up, lovers of pleasures rather than of God, and so on. For then brother will hand over brother, and father son, and mother daughter, and a man's enemies will be his own household. But even now faith is rare, when one thing is on the lips and another turns in the heart, and the honey of the tongue covers the poison of the mind. The rich have many friends, but from the poor even those who seem to be friends depart. Hence it is said: If you have a friend, possess him in temptation. I have read in someone's declamation: "A friend is long sought, scarcely found, hard to keep". Theophrastus wrote three volumes on friendship, preferring it to every other love, and yet he testified that it is rare in human affairs. There is also Cicero's book on friendship, which he entitled Laelius, in which that precept of our own writers, That a friend should be to us like old wine, and that we should drink it in sweetness, is set down in almost the same words. Friendship either finds equals or makes them; where there is inequality, the eminence of one and the subjection of the other, there is not so much friendship as flattery. Hence we also read elsewhere: "Let a friend be the same soul". And the Lyric poet, praying for a friend: Preserve, he says, the half of my soul. Do not, therefore, believe friends, that is, those men who seek gain from friendships. If you wish to delight in true friendship, be a friend of God, like Moses, who spoke to God as a friend to a friend. Be a friend, like the apostles, to whom the Savior says: No longer will I call you servants, because the servant does not know what his master does, but I will call you friends, because you have persevered with me in all my temptations. Dainty is the friendship that follows the good fortune and the riches of friends. Men of this kind seem to me to love not their friends but themselves. Let us consider more attentively the words of the Lord: But I will call you, he says, friends. And he gives the reasons why he calls them friends: Because you have persevered with me in temptation, and he did not stop there, but in all, he says, my temptations. For it sometimes happens that one who persevered with us in one temptation is overcome by others and withdraws. Secondly it is commanded: Nor hope in leaders: Cursed indeed is the man who puts his hope in man. Hope in man is vain, and true hope is in God. Hence Paul also says: And from among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things. And the Lord himself through the prophet: The leaders of my people have not known me; they are foolish sons, and without understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have not known. They were indeed called my leaders, he says, and leaders of my people, but because they did not know me, and destroyed the name by their deeds, therefore they are foolish sons and without understanding; they have prudence only to this end, that they may subject the simple flock to themselves and trample it under their feet; but to do good and to rule the people they have not known. Do not believe in leaders: not in a bishop, not in a presbyter, not in a deacon, not in any dignity of men. Nor do I say this meaning that you ought not to be subject to ranks of this kind in the Church: Whoever indeed curses father or mother shall die the death; and the Apostle teaches that those set over us in the Church are to be obeyed; but I say it because it is one thing to honor leaders, another to have hope in leaders. Let us honor the bishop, defer to the presbyter, rise for the deacon, and yet let us not hope in them, for hope in man is vain, and sure hope is in the Lord. The third command: From her who lies with you, guard yourself, lest you believe her. Hence the apostle also calls women the weaker vessel, and commands that honor be shown them by their husbands. For man was not created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man, and: The wife, he says, is to fear her husband. It belongs to the wife to fear, and to love her husband with fear. To husbands it belongs only to love, because love is of the perfect: Husbands, he says, love your wives and do not be bitter towards them, even though they provoke you to anger and do such things as to deserve to endure bitterness. For this is what παραπικραίνεσθαι means; yet do not repay them in kind with bitterness. And Solomon too, in Ecclesiastes: And one man, he says, out of a thousand I found, and a woman among all these I did not find; taught perhaps by his own example that women, through whom he had offended God, are not to be believed. And the sublime poet too — not another Homer, as Lucilius supposes of Ennius, but the first Homer among the Latins —: A varied and changeable thing ever is Woman.

The Greek and Latin histories are full of how many men were deceived by their wives and had their lives betrayed. From the Scriptures, moreover, the examples both of Delilah, whom we mentioned above, and of another woman before Delilah bear witness, who wrung from Samson his secret of seven days by her tears, and by feigned love discovered what lay hidden. Hence Samson afterwards says: If you had not tamed my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.

Thus far it is commanded that we should not readily believe friends, leaders, wives. And a reason is given that does not quite answer to the proposition; for he says: For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises against the mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are his own household. For what has it to do with a friend, a leader, a wife, if son and daughter and daughter-in-law rise up against father and mother and mother-in-law? It seems to me, therefore, that it can be joined with what precedes in this way. Do not believe friends, and leaders, and wives, who can change and are only for a time, since even son and daughter, forgetting their upbringing and their infancy, rise up against the authors of their life and of their bodies, and do insult to those whom it is a crime to hurt even by a look. But this exposition by no means fits the daughter-in-law rising up against her mother-in-law, and the man whose enemies are his own household. Terence in the Hecyra: What is this? All mothers-in-law hate their daughters-in-law; and although this is ambiguous, yet it is almost natural that the daughter-in-law should hate the mother-in-law, and the mother-in-law the daughter-in-law. So much for what the prophetic word may have described concerning the consummation and end of the world: what kind of generation is to precede the coming of the Antichrist.

[In spiritual discipline], the disposition of the doer is given more weight than the thing that is done. Even the truth at times is found to have harmed some people and a lie to have helped them. For one time King Saul was complaining in the presence of his retainers about David's flight, saying, "Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and vineyards and make all of you tribunes and centurions, since you have all conspired against me, and there is no one to inform me?" What but the truth did Doeg the Edomite tell him when he said, "I saw the son of Jesse in Nob, with Ahimilech the son of Ahitub the priest. He consulted the Lord on his behalf and gave him provisions and he gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistines as well"? For this truth he deserved to be uprooted from the land of the living, and of him it is said by the prophet, "Therefore God shall destroy you forever, pluck you up and remove you from your tent and uproot you from the land of the living." For indicating the truth, then, he was everlastingly uprooted from the land in which Rahab the harlot was planted, along with her family, because of her lie. In the same way we remember that Samson in most ruinous fashion delivered over to his wicked wife a truth that had long been concealed by a lie. Therefore the truth that he had very heedlessly disclosed to her brought about his own undoing, because he failed to keep that prophetic command: "Keep the doors of your mouth from her who sleeps at your breast."

Just what is the work of the axe? The excision of the soul that is incurably fruitless, like the tree even after the dung has been applied. And what does the sword do? The sword of the Word cuts through defenses. It does the work of separating the worse from the better. It actually creates a division between the faithful and the unbeliever. It may even stir up the son and the daughter and the bride against the father and the mother and the mother-in-law, the young and fresh against the old and shadowy. Accordingly, what is the latchet of the shoe, which you, John, who baptized Jesus, may not let loose? You who are of the desert, without food, you, the new Elijah, you who are more than a prophet, inasmuch as you saw him of whom you did prophesy, you the mediator of the Old and New Testaments. What is this latchet? It is precisely the message of the advent, the incarnation. No one can make it happen—neither those yet carnal and babes in Christ nor those who are akin to John in spirit.

A man, then, who remains the same and yet prattles to himself about the change for the better that he has undergone in baptism should attend to what Paul says: "If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself." For you are not what you have not yet become. The Gospel says of the regenerate, however, that "he gave all those who received him the power to become God's children." Now the child born of someone certainly shares his parent's nature. If then you have received God and have become his child, let your way of life testify to the God within you. Make it clear who your father is! The marks by which we recognize God are the very ones by which a son must show his relation to him. "He opens his hand and fills everything living with joy." "He overlooks iniquity." "He relents of his evil purpose." "The Lord is kind to all and is not angry with us every day." "God is straightforward, and there is no unrighteousness in him." This is what fathers do for children. Similar sayings are scattered through Scripture for our instruction. If you are like this, you have genuinely become a child of God. But if you persist in displaying the marks of evil, it is useless to babble to yourself about the birth from above.

For I have come to separate a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies are those of his household. This passage is written in nearly the same words in the prophet Micah. And note, wherever a testimony is set down from the Old Testament, whether the sense alone agrees or the wording as well.

For the son does insult to the father; Absalom, namely, to David: he defiled not only the kingdom but also the concubines of his father by incestuous intercourse. The daughter rises up against her mother: although for the present we find no testimony of this in the holy Scriptures, there are so many examples of it in daily life that we ought rather to mourn that they are so many than to search for them. The daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, as the wife of Esau rose up against Rebekah. A man's enemies are the men of his own household. Here I do not seek examples, since there are too many of them for us to need testimonies.

For the son who was born of God, neglecting his Creator, blasphemes him by whom he was made, as Scripture says: Has not one God created you? Is not one the father of all of you? And the soul despises the heavenly Jerusalem, and scorns her mother the Church, and whoever despises her shall die the death. And the daughter-in-law rises up against her mother-in-law: this seems difficult to understand according to tropology; but whoever has read the Song of Songs, and has understood the bridegroom of the soul to be the word of God, and has believed the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which was published and which we lately translated, in which it is said in the person of the Savior: Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me by one of my hairs, will not hesitate to say that the word of God arose from the Spirit, and that the soul, which is the bride of the word, has as her mother-in-law the Holy Spirit, who among the Hebrews is called by a word of feminine gender, rua. Heretics, therefore, although they formerly believed in the Scriptures, which were written and published by the Holy Spirit, transfer themselves to new doctrines, and to the leaven of the Pharisees, and to the commandments of men, and while they despise the word of God, they do injury to their mother-in-law. And lest perhaps you doubt that the Word and Son of God is born of the Holy Spirit, consider the words of Gabriel to Mary: The Holy Spirit, he says, will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy thing that will be born of you will be called the Son of God. After this there follows: A man's enemies are the men of his own household. This it seems to us should be expounded thus according to tropology: The head of every man is Christ; and Christ is the head of the Church; his enemies are often those who are thought to be in his house, that is, in the Church, and they do not indeed withdraw from the head, but they think against their own head: those who, without a teacher and the grace of the Lord, promising knowledge of the Scriptures by their own judgment, are puffed up and know nothing; and they languish over questions and contentions and battles of words: those who, though they truly stand within the house, are enemies of the truth. We ought to know, moreover, that in the Gospel there are nearly the same words that we now read in the prophet, and that according to the context of that place they have another sense; whether they were taken from the prophet or commanded on his own authority, it belongs to the Lord to know, who spoke both in the prophets and in the Gospels. Now there the Lord says: I came to divide a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are his own household.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. [Micah 7:6] He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Since, then, these things are so, do not believe, Samaria and Jerusalem, the false prophets. But I, says the prophet, will look to the Lord; I will exult in God my Savior, or my Jesus, and my God will hear me.

These things having thus been set forth, if indeed we have been able to reach the sense of the Scriptures, the holy man, understanding that love has grown cold, and that at the consummation of the world men are not lovers of God but lovers of themselves, while others believe in friends and leaders and wives, and son and daughter and daughter-in-law rise up against father and mother and mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are his own household, himself believes in the Lord, and all his contemplation is in his God; and although he is pressed by the tribulations and pressures of the world, yet, having confidence in no one except him who says: Do not fear, I have overcome the world, he waits for God his Savior, and believing in him, and ever directing his eyes towards him, he hopes that he will be heard as often as he calls upon him.

Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; for though I have fallen, I will rise again. The ruin of weakness is not severe, if there is also not a desire to not rise from it. Have the will to rise, there is someone present who will make you rise.

Now let us come to the spiritual understanding, and, with the Holy Spirit himself expounding in what sense these things were written, let us toil even in the most difficult places. It seems to me that every soul, a Jerusalem in which the temple of the Lord was built, and the vision of peace, and the knowledge of the Scriptures, and which was afterwards overcome by sins, led into captivity and handed over to torments, speaks against Babylon, that is, the confusion of this world, and against the opposing power that presides over this world: Do not insult me, my enemy, because I have fallen, and I shall rise again; The Lord indeed lifts up those who are dashed down, and he speaks through the prophet: Shall he who falls not rise again? And: I do not desire the death of the sinner, only that he turn back and live. But if you despise me for this reason, that I endure torments, learn through Ezekiel that punishments are inflicted first on the holier, and that the Lord says: Begin from my holy ones. For if I walk in darkness, the Lord is my light. For although the rulers of this darkness have deceived me, and I sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and my feet have stumbled on the dark mountains, yet to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death a light has risen, and the light shines in the darkness. The Lord is my illumination and my salvation; whom shall I fear; and I will speak to him and say: Your word, O Lord, is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths. For he himself commanded me, placed as I am in the darkness of this age: Let your loins be girded, and burning lamps in your hands.

Do not rejoice over me, my enemy, because I have fallen; I shall rise; when I sit in darkness: the Lord is my light. I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he judges my cause and executes judgment for me; he will bring me out into the light, and I shall see his justice, and my enemy will look on, and she will be covered with confusion, who says to me: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes will look upon her; now she shall be trodden down, like the mud of the streets, the day for your walls to be built. On that day the law shall be far off; on that day they will come even to you from Asshur, and as far as the fortified cities, and from the fortified cities as far as the river, and to sea from sea, and to mountain from mountain. And the land shall become a desolation because of its inhabitants, and because of the fruit of their thoughts. LXX: Do not insult me, my enemy, because I have fallen, and I shall rise again; for if I walk in darkness, the Lord will enlighten me. I will endure the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he justifies my cause, and executes judgment for me, and brings me out into the light, and I shall see his justice, and my enemy will see me and confusion will cover her, who says to me: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes will see her, now she shall be for trampling, like mud in the ways, the day of the daubing of brick, your blotting out, and that day will thrust back your ordinances, and your cities will come into enclosure and into the division of the Assyrians, and your fortified cities into division from Tyre as far as the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain; and the land shall become a ruin with its inhabitants because of the fruits of their devisings. It seems to me that according to the letter Jerusalem is speaking against Babylon and the other nations which had insulted her: Do not rejoice at my ruin, for, the Lord having mercy, I shall rise; after I have sat in captivity he will bring me out of the darkness, and he will be my light. I will endure the wrath of the Lord, because I know that I deserved what I have suffered, until I am avenged on the nations, and judgment is executed for me. For I know that he will bring me out into the light and I shall see his justice, and my enemy Babylon will look on, and the other nations round about, and she will be covered with confusion, who now says insultingly: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes will see her, and not after a long time, but now and at present, trodden down like the mud of the streets.

We sometimes bear illness as a punishment for sin intended for our conversion, "for whom the Lord loves," says the Scripture, "he chastises." Again Scripture teaches, "Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and some have died. But if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged, we are chastised by the Lord that we be not condemned with the world." Consequently, when we who belong to this class have recognized our transgressions, it may be fitting that we should simply bear in silence and without recourse to medicine all the afflictions which come to us, remembering the words of the prophet: "I will bear the wrath of the Lord because I have sinned against him." We should, moreover, give proof of our amendment by bringing forth fruits worthy of penance, remembering the words of the Lord: "Behold, you are made whole; sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to you." Sometimes also, when sickness afflicts us at the request of the evil one, our benevolent master may condescend to enter combat with him, treating him as if he were a mighty adversary and confounding his boasts by the heroic patience of his servants.

There follows: I will endure the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he justifies my cause, and executes judgment for me, and brings me out into the light; and I shall see his justice. All correction for the present seems to be a matter not of joy but of sorrow, but afterwards it will yield the peaceful fruit of justice to those who have been trained by it. The soul, therefore, perceiving that it has sinned, and has the wounds of sins, and lives in dead flesh, and needs cautery, says steadfastly to the physician: Burn my flesh, cut away the wounds, bind up all the humors and the noxious ῥεῦμα (flux) with a harsh draught of hellebore. It was my fault that I was wounded; let it be my pain that I endure so many torments, and afterwards receive health. And the true physician shows the soul, now safe and secure, the reason for the remedy, and teaches that he rightly did what he did. In short, after tortures and punishments, the soul, brought out of the outer darkness, and having paid the last farthing, says: I shall see his justice, and I will say: Your judgments are justified, O God. But if Christ has been made for us by God wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption, he who says that he sees justice after the wrath of God promises himself the sight of Christ. And this holds only of penitents. But it is much better not to have wounds, and not to need a physician. Healing is not the blessedness of those who are healed, but a solace after pain. Therefore let him who has been healed beware lest he sin again, and something worse befall him once more. We read in Leviticus, if indeed we read with open eyes, and the veil that is placed upon the law does not shut out the gaze of the inner eye, that leprosy is wont to arise in the weal and scar of a burn, and to change the color of the hair, and that a new foulness is added to the former disfigurement of the scar. This is so for this reason: that no one, secure about repentance because after sin he can say: I will endure the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he justifies my cause, should sin and need cautery, and, once healed, be wounded again.

But when the Lord has brought us out into the light, and we have seen his justice, then our enemy Babylon will see, and will be covered with confusion, she who formerly said to us: Where is your God, thinking that Jerusalem after her wounds could not be healed. And our eyes will look upon her, and she will be trodden down like the mud of the streets.

For as to what is said according to the Seventy, The day of the daubing of brick, your blotting out, let us understand that it is said not to Jerusalem, as we expounded according to the Hebrew, but still to Babylon: that she too is to be blotted out, and trodden down like brick. And that day will thrust back the ordinances: not the ordinances of God, but those ordinances which, O Babylon, you had commanded to be observed against the law of God.

Thus far Jerusalem has spoken, or the prophet in the person of the people; now God is brought in answering Jerusalem: O Jerusalem, the days have come for your walls to be built, which had been destroyed by the Babylonian when he laid you waste. On that day the law shall be far off, or the precept and command, as Symmachus and Theodotion translated, saying ἐπιταγὴν καὶ πρόσταγμα; and the sense is: You will by no means lie subject to the rule of the Babylonians; on that day on which your walls will be built, they will come to you from Asshur, and from the fortified cities; from the fortified cities, I say, as far as the Jordan, across which the people also passed before, and from the Red Sea; and from all the nations as far as the Dead Sea, which is near your land, and to Mount Zion, from the mountains of the Persians and the Medes, into which they had earlier been carried away; and the land will be the remnant of the Chaldeans, and of those who had laid you waste, a desolation, because of its inhabitants, and because of their evil works. This the Jews promise themselves to this day; and in that place in which we have expounded: On that day the law shall be far off, as it seemed to us, and as the more prudent among them discuss it, some lie frivolously and say: On that day on which the walls of Jerusalem have been built by Christ, the holy Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets, which are now held by us, will be taken out of our hands and handed over to the people of the Jews.

And since every end of punishments is the beginning of good things, and pain advances toward health, bricks will be made from her mud, and her daubing will be the shaping of bricks. And on that day she will cast off her old errors, and her cities, which had been badly fortified, will come into enclosure, or into division, and will be divided by the Assyrians; from Tyre too, which is interpreted συνοχὴ, that is, distress, other powers will rise up, and there will be sedition even as far as those who delight in the flux of this age and beget lusts in men. And from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain, wars will rise up against one another, so that bitterness fights against bitterness, and a loftiness that exalts itself and is to be humbled contends against another height; and then truly it may be fulfilled: Come, let us go down and confound their languages, so that each may not hear the voice of his neighbor; for indeed it is profitable that the most wicked powers should have no concord among themselves. And when Satan has been divided against Satan, then at last his whole kingdom will be destroyed. And what frequently happens in great armies, that when the tyrant has been killed his attendants divide the kingdom among themselves and rise up against one another, and there is civil war among them, this will happen also at the consummation of the world, when the walls of Jerusalem have been built, and Babylon has fallen, and the Assyrians, and the Tyrians, from the river, and from the sea, and from the mountains, that is, all the nations of demons, will fight among themselves; and, their kingdom having been scattered, the kingdom will be the Lord Jesus', and every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. But that you may know that the end of this sedition is the advance of the virtues, the land of Babylon will then become a ruin with all its inhabitants, and will by no means bear Babylonian fruits.

And your cities will come into enclosure, or into division, with the Assyrians attacking you — since indeed Babylon was a city of the Chaldeans, not of the Assyrians —. And your fortified cities will be for the division of a hostile army, from Tyre as far as the river Tigris, by which you are encircled, and from the Great Sea as far as the Red Sea, which, on the flank, for those traveling to India, touches your regions. And from mountain to mountain; namely, from the mountains of Judea as far as the mountains of Media and of the Persians, all Mesopotamia and the whole region which is now held by you in the middle will be subjugated to the rule of your adversaries. And the land shall become a desolation because of the most wicked fruits of your pursuits. Where the Seventy translated from Tyre, let us know that in the Hebrew there is written masor, a word which, if it is divided into the preposition Ma and the noun Sor, is understood as from Tyre; but if it is one word, it means a fortification. In short, all rendered περιοχὴν, καὶ περίφραγμα, καὶ πολιορκίαν, not from Tyre, as the LXX did, but a fortification and the circuit of a walled city. Let this, according to the Hebrew and the hopes of carnal Israel and of the people of the concision, be what our leisurely discourse has played through as a prelude, as it were from superfluity.

Shepherd your people with your rod, the flock of your inheritance, dwelling alone in the forest in the midst of Carmel; they shall feed on Bashan and Gilead according to the days of old, according to the days of your going out from the land of Egypt; I will show him wonders. The nations shall see, and shall be confounded at all their strength. They shall put their hands upon their mouth; their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like serpents, like the creeping things of the earth; they shall be troubled out of their dwellings. They shall dread the Lord our God, and they shall fear you. LXX: Shepherd your people with your rod, the sheep of your inheritance, dwelling alone in the forest; in the midst of Carmel they shall feed on Bashan and Gilead according to the former days, and according to the days of your going out from the land of Egypt; I will show them wonders. The nations shall see, and shall be confounded in all their strength; they shall put their hands upon their mouth; their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the ground like serpents that drag the earth; they shall be troubled in their enclosures; at the Lord our God they shall dread, and they shall be in fear of you. As to what is said, Shepherd your people with your rod: God the Father is speaking to the Son, that is, to our Lord Jesus Christ, that, since he is the good shepherd and lays down his life for his sheep, he should shepherd his people with his rod, and the sheep of his inheritance. And lest we think that the peoples are the same as the sheep, we read in another place: But we are your people, and the sheep of your pasture. "People" refers to all who are rational, but "sheep" to those who, not yet using reason, are content with simplicity alone, and are called of the inheritance of God. But the people as much as the sheep need the shepherd's rod, of which the Apostle too speaks: What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in charity and the spirit of meekness? For this reason, I think, because the people of Israel was stiff-necked and was always sighing for the meats of Egypt, Moses used, not only against the Egyptians, whom he struck with ten plagues, but also against the people in the wilderness, the rod of the law, a rod that strikes and breaks all the earthen and fragile vessels; but from the apostles of the Lord the Savior, who spoke wisdom among the perfect, the rod was struck out of their hands, because perfect love casts out fear. But if anyone objects to us how it can now be said to Christ, that is, to the good shepherd, who is certainly greater and better than the apostles, that he should use a rod, when it is a mark of greater progress to have no rod than to correct peoples and sheep with a rod, we shall answer them according to what the Lord promises his apostles, that they would do greater signs among the peoples than he himself had done. And because the Lord was still speaking to carnal Israel, and not yet to the one who could perfectly know the mysteries, for that reason it was said of him that he should shepherd his people and his flock with the rod, but that the rod was struck out of the hands of the apostles, and the severity of the law tempered by the clemency of the Gospel. Moreover, these peoples and these sheep will be struck, and will be shepherded with the rod, for this reason, that they had dwelt alone in the forest. This we can indeed take also of those who, separating themselves from the Church, give themselves up to the banquets and friendships of the Gentiles, and also of those who out of hatred of the human race seek a solitary life, such as we read that Timon was at Athens; not that the solitary and prophetic life which Elijah and John had is to be condemned, but because, if someone, despising the rest, is himself proud and dwells in the forest of vices, he must be corrected with the rod. He who dwells alone and does not dwell in the forest is in the praise of virtues; but he who is alone and does not do the works of justice, and enjoys only the pleasure of quiet, and does not toil in the work and labor of Christ, nor seek his food with his own hands, as the Apostle commands, and is lifted up into pride, he dwells in the forest and moves among the fruitless trees. But yet, because he is the good shepherd, and his rod strikes for this purpose, to amend, the prophetic word promises better things, and says: In the midst of Carmel they shall feed on Bashan and Gilead, according to the days of eternity, and according to the days of your going out from Egypt. Carmel means knowledge of circumcision, Bashan confusion, and Gilead transmigration of testimony. Therefore the people of God, and the sheep of his pasture, which before were fed apart from the Lord's flock and outside his Church, and moved about in the forest of errors, will afterwards be transferred to the knowledge of the true circumcision, and will serve God in the spirit, and will glory in the Lord, and will not trust in the flesh, and will be the true circumcision, and not the concision. And when they have been fed with the spiritual circumcision, understanding their former sins, they will be confounded in their vices, and will blush, and will be in the confusion that leads to life; for there is also another confusion that leads to death, in which Og, king of Bashan, once dwelt, since Bashan means confusion; and from this worst confusion the Lord also promises that he will free his people: The Lord said: From Bashan I will turn back, I will turn back from the depths of the sea. And when we have known the true circumcision, and have been confounded over our sins, then we shall be in Gilead, which means transmigration of testimony, in the Church of Christ, into which the testimonies of the law and the utterances of the prophets have passed over; and this will be done for us according to the days of old, according to the days when we went out from the land of Egypt, of which Moses says: Remember the days of eternity, not the days of this age, which are called evil, but the everlasting days. And he remembers the days of eternity who does not look at present things, and has risen with Christ, and sits with him in the heavenly places, already anticipating in mind that he has been freed from the days of the present age.

Hear what is even more wonderful, that the hidden and veiled mysteries of the ancient books are in some degree revealed by the ancient prophets. For Micah the prophet spoke thus. "According to the days of your coming out of Egypt will I show unto him marvelous things." … Our sins are overwhelmed and extinguished in baptism, just as the Egyptians were drowned in the sea. "He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love.… You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea."

The divine word also promises that he will show wonders to his people and to the sheep of his inheritance: Then, he says, the nations shall see, and shall be confounded in all their strength, because they had once laid waste and prevailed against the people of God; and their confusion will bring them progress, when they have understood their own evils. For they will put their hands upon their mouth, and their evil works will take from them all freedom of speaking. But just as the hands of the impious nations close their mouths, so the hands of the just will open their mouths, as they receive from good work the faculty of speaking with God. Their ears too will grow deaf, because malice has not only blinded the gaze of the eyes but has also made the ears grow deaf; for they would not hear the voice of the charmers, and of the sorcerer who charms wisely. And according to Isaiah: With their ears they heard heavily, although it is much less to hear heavily than not to hear at all, and to become deaf so as not to hear the word of truth.

And these things will happen so that the nations may see, and be confounded in all their evil strength, and put their hands upon their mouth, and grow deaf in their ears, and lick the earth like serpents that drag the ground, so that first they may be shut in, and, once shut in, be troubled, then, terrified, be astonished before the Lord God of the saints, and at last they too may fear him. This is according to the LXX. Moreover, since our edition, at least in the present passage, does not differ much from them, let us consider that what has been said on theirs has been said on this also.

After such great evils it is said of them that they will lick the ground like serpents that drag the earth, walking on their belly and eating earth all the days of their life. And doing the works of the flesh, that is, earthly works, and dragging with them, up to the day of the vengeance and visitation of the Lord, not dust, not small traces of earth, but the whole ground. And when they have done this, and have come to the judgment of God, and have been shut in and troubled, they will be troubled and shut in for as long as the earth which they had dragged like serpents remains in them. But when that has failed, they will be astonished and will marvel, not at the Lord their God — for they will not yet deserve that he be called the Lord their God —, but at the Lord our God. And suddenly there is an ἀποστροφὴ (a turning of address) to Christ, and it is said to him: And they shall be in fear of you. For the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.

Wherefore let us not listen to him when we are in any of the troubles of this world, be it bodily pain, or the loss of our children, or of other necessaries, let us not listen to his words, Where is the Lord thy God? It is under severe pain that his temptations are to be feared, it is then that he seeks to turn the sick soul astray.

Wherefore the soul which has not listened to his allurements, seeing afterwards the wonderful works of God, seeing herself in heaven, and the devil creeping upon the earth, will congratulate herself saying, Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by transgression?

Who is a God like you? You who take away iniquity, and pass over the sin of the remnant of your inheritance. He will not send his fury any more, because he is one who wills mercy. He will return and have mercy on us; he will put away our iniquities, and will cast all our sins into the depth of the sea. You will give truth in Jacob, mercy to Abraham, which you swore to our fathers from the days of old. LXX: Who, O God, is like you? Taking away iniquities, and passing over injustices for those who are left of your inheritance? He did not hold his anger as a testimony, because he is one who wills mercies. He will return, and will have mercy on us, he will sink our sins; and all our sins shall be cast into the depth of the sea. He will give truth to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, as you swore to our fathers according to the former days. The prophet, understanding that the multitude of the nations was troubled in its enclosure for this reason, that it might be astonished and fear God, and that the Lord rages for this reason, that he may take away sins and give salvation, praises the Lord and marvels, and says: Who is a God like you? Taking away iniquities, and passing over injustices, so that, just as the destroyer in Egypt passed over the people of Israel and did not lay it waste — and was it not from this passing-over that the phasa, that is, the pascha, received its name? — so you may spare the nations, in no way imputing to them their iniquities.

Moreover, where we translated, He will not send his fury any more, for "any more" Symmachus rendered "forever", Theodotion "to the end", the Seventy and the Fifth Edition "as a testimony", for which laed is set in the Hebrew; and it can be understood as "any more" as well as "forever" and "testimony".

Moreover, what follows, For those who are left of his inheritance, he did not hold his anger as a testimony, has this sense: if he spared the nations, which would not believe his law, and would not impute their iniquities to those who were left over and left remaining of the people, nor brought his anger as a testimony of their just punishment, what will he do with his own flock, which feeds in the midst of Carmel, and in Bashan, and in Gilead? For he is one who wills mercy, and returning he will have mercy on us; and our heavy sins, and the iniquities that sit upon the talent of lead, he himself will carry, and will sink in the sea, and will not let them appear.

I too will say at the end of the volume, sealing the labor of my little work with an invocation of the Lord: God, who is like you? Take away the iniquity of your servant; pass over the sin of the remnant of my soul; do not send your fury upon me, nor rebuke me in your anger, since you are merciful, and your mercies are many. Return, and have mercy on me; hurl down my iniquities, and cast them into the depth of the sea, so that the saltiness and bitterness of vices may perish in a false region. Give the truth that you promised to your friend Jacob, and the mercy that you promised to your friend Abraham, and free my soul from the persecutors of your prophets, Ahab and Jezebel, as you swore to my fathers in the days of old, saying: As I live, says the Lord. I do not wish the death of the sinner, only that he turn back and live, and elsewhere: As soon as you have turned and groaned, you will be saved. Then my enemy will see, and will be covered with confusion, she who now says to me: Where is the Lord your God? I will see your vengeance on her, and she will be like the mud of the streets, and will be trodden down, so that she may no longer build Egyptian cities out of mud and straw.

For what was it Jesus' detractors said? "No man can forgive sins, but God alone." Inasmuch then as they themselves laid down this definition, they themselves introduced the rule, they themselves declared the law. He then proceeded to entangle them by means of their own words. "You have confessed," he says in effect, "that forgiveness of sins is an attribute of God alone; my equality therefore is unquestionable." And it is not these men only who declare this but also the prophet Micah, who said, "Who is a God like you?" and then indicating his special attribute he adds, "pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression."

"The Lord sits enthroned over the flood." A flood is an overflow of water that causes all lying below it to disappear. It cleanses all that was previously filthy. Therefore he calls the grace of baptism a flood, so that the soul, being washed well of its sins and rid of the old person, is suitable henceforth as a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Further, what is said in the twenty-first psalm agrees with this. For after he has said, "I have acknowledged my sin, and my injustice I have not concealed," and also, "For this shall every one that is holy pray to you," he then said, "And yet in a flood of many waters, they shall not come near him." Indeed, sin shall not come near to one who received baptism for the remission of his transgressions through water and the Spirit. Something akin to this is found in the prophecy of Micah: "Because he delights in mercy, he will turn again and have mercy on us. He will put away our iniquities and will cast them into the bottom of the sea."

He will turn again and have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot, and all our sins shall be cast into the depths of the sea. He will perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, as he hath sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.

We ought therefore to strip ourselves and give to him who is naked. One has God, another has him not at all—that contrary power, namely. And just as it is written that "we should cast our sins into the depth of the sea", so we ought to throw off from ourselves our vices and sins and cast them upon him who was for us the cause of them. "And he who has food", he says, "let him do likewise". He who has food, let him give to him who has none, so that he may bestow upon him not only clothing, but also that which he may eat.

He will give truth to Jacob, and mercy to Abraham, so that to the people that is a supplanter, and new, and always set in wrestling, he may render his truth in Christ, and to the multitude of the nations — for Abraham is called the father of many nations — he may grant mercy, as he swore to those who were the fathers of our faith according to the days of old, that out of the whole multitude of men he would save some in truth, others in mercy.