Zephaniah 3

Woe, provoking and redeemed city, the dove. She did not hear the voice, and did not accept discipline; she did not trust in the Lord, she did not draw near to her Lord. Her princes in the midst of her, like roaring lions; her judges, wolves of the evening, they left nothing for the morning. Her prophets mad, faithless men. Her priests have polluted the holy, they have acted unjustly against the law. The just Lord in the midst of her will not do iniquity. In the morning, in the morning he will give his judgment in the light, and it will not be hidden; but the unjust one knew no confusion. I have destroyed the nations, and their corners have been scattered; I have made their ways deserted, because there is no one who passes; their cities have been made desolate, with no man remaining, nor any inhabitant. I said: Yet you will fear me, you will accept discipline, and her dwelling will not perish because of all the things in which I visited her. Nevertheless, rising at dawn, they corrupted all their thoughts. LXX: O illustrious and redeemed city, the dove, she did not hear the voice, she did not accept discipline; she did not trust in the Lord, and did not draw near to her Lord. Her princes in her like roaring lions, her judges like wolves of Arabia, they did not leave anything till the morning; her prophets bearing the spirit, men who are despisers. Her priests pollute the holy things, and act impiously against the law. But the just Lord is in the midst of her, and will not do iniquity. In the morning, in the morning he will give his judgment in the light, and he is not hidden, and he does not know iniquity in exaction, nor injustice for ever; I have pulled down the proud, their corners have been scattered, I have destroyed their ways, so that they may not pass through at all; their cities have failed, because no one remained, nor dwelt there. I said: Nevertheless you will fear me, and you will accept discipline, and you will not perish from his eyes in all the things in which I have taken vengeance upon her. Prepare yourself, rise up at dawn, all their clusters have perished. Many think that, because of the sequence of the discourse, this is said against Nineveh, of which it was said above: And he will destroy the Assyrian, and will make Nineveh a wilderness. But Scripture would never call Nineveh a dove, although some think that in Jeremiah the words from the face of the sword of the dove were said about Nebuchadnezzar. But it should be known that others, on the contrary, assert that in place of dove, Ἑλλάδα, that is, Greece, can be understood there, so that the sense is: From the face of the sword of Iona, that is, from the face of the sword of Greece. For Iona signifies both dove and Greece. Hence even to this day the Greeks are called Ionians, and the sea is called the Ionian Sea, and among the Hebrews their old name remains. So too the Roman princes, retaining an ancient name among the barbarian nations, are called Caesars. The whole discourse, then, is against Jerusalem: Woe, city once a dove, always sinning, and handed over to captivities, and redeemed again by the Lord. Woe, provoking city, which is said more expressively in Hebrew, mara, that is, παραπικραίνουσα, which we can render making God bitter, that is, by your fault turning the sweet and merciful Lord to bitterness, so that he who wishes to have mercy is compelled to punish.

But the illustrious city, redeemed by the blood of Christ, is clearly understood, in keeping with what was said above, as the Church, which is also called a dove because of the simplicity of the multitude of believers within her.

Nor let it disturb anyone, as I have often said already, that I interpret these things as spoken against the Church, since he knows that in the holy Scriptures Jerusalem always bears the type of the Church; whoever sins away from her is either led off into Babylon, or, if he chooses of his own accord to go down to Jericho, is wounded by robbers. For what is so illustrious as the Church, which has been founded in the whole world, so redeemed by the blood of Christ, and a dove because of the grace of the Holy Spirit, as the Church gathered from the nations? In her very many who say that they believe in Christ have neither heard his voice, nor received discipline, nor wished to be near him.

[Jerusalem] was like this for refusing to the end to hear the word of the prophet sent to it and not accepting in any way the instruction from that source. Though seeming to undergo a change for a while, once more it went back to its characteristic wickedness; at any rate, it took no account of God's sending the prophet, nor did it make the decision to pay attention to him later, despite having such a remarkable experience. On the contrary, it forsook him completely and declared war on him, attacking Jerusalem after the annihilation of the ten tribes, the city in which the temple of God was to be found.

She did not hear the commandment of the Lord, and when rebuked she would not accept discipline; nor, when evils pressed upon her, did she ever trust in the Lord her God; nor did she walk behind him; nor, when he said: I am the Lord who draws near, and not from afar, was she herself willing to draw near to him.

She did not hear the voice of the Lord, nor was she willing to accept discipline, nor did she trust in the Lord, because she would not draw near to the Lord her God so as to merit pardon of sins. For in vain does anyone say that he hears the voice of the Lord his God and trusts in the Lord, when he destroys faith by his works, and is joined to mammon more than to the Lord his God, and approaches him with a double heart, and believes that he can serve as a soldier under two masters, the world and God.

Her princes are like roaring lions. We have no doubt about the roaring and the ranging of lions when we see her princes thunder so against the peoples subject to them, and crush the common people with a tyrant's voice and rabid abuse, that you would think it not a shepherd among his flock, but a lion gnashing its teeth among the little sheep. Her judges too are like wolves of Arabia, killing in the evening and leaving nothing for the morning; not looking toward the rising of the sun, but lingering always in darkness, and turning the small possessions of the Church, and the things brought as offerings to God, to their own gain, so that the poor have nothing to eat in the morning; they lay everything waste as if in the night, with no one seeing; and when, after the manner of wolves, they plunder everything, they do not leave even small portions of food to the needy.

As for the saying: Her princes in her like roaring lions, I know that I will offend very many, because I interpret these things of bishops and elders, though the wicked elders who desired to violate Susanna do not condemn the other elders who have lived well. And the wicked princes whom the prophetic word describes are no reproach to good princes: For when a fool is scourged, the senseless man will be wiser; but if the senseless man becomes wiser, how much more he who is wise? But her judges and princes, taking gifts and selling justice, are they not rightly called wolves of Arabia, or evening wolves, as Symmachus translated? For they do not deserve to be called wolves of Benjamin, which seize prey in the morning and at evening give food, but evening wolves, which eat by night and leave nothing for the morning.

Her princes and judges and prophets and priests are also described, so that in the city we may understand the people, and in these titles of rank that I have mentioned, the leading men. Her princes, therefore, like lions, were always busy with plunder and with shedding the blood of their subjects; her judges were rapacious, leaving to others nothing they could seize. Her prophets, raving or astounded, which in Hebrew is said phoezim, and Aquila translated θαμβευταὶ (the astonished), spoke as if from the mouth of the Lord, and proclaimed everything against the Lord; the priests committed sacrilege in the place of the sanctuary, and while they acted against the law, they offered sacrifices according to the law.

Her prophets also, that is, the teachers who think that they teach the peoples and discourse on the Scriptures, πνευματοφόροι, that is, bearing the spirit, or spiritual — and this is to be read εἰρονικῶς (ironically) —, are men who are despisers; for what befits the Church is not to teach but to do, not to destroy words by deeds. But you, when you teach another and do not do it yourself, are to be called not so much a teacher as a despiser, of whom it is also written in Habakkuk: Look, you despisers, and behold, and wonder at the wonders, and perish. The priests too, who serve the Eucharist and distribute the blood of the Lord to his peoples, act impiously against the law of Christ, thinking that it is the words of the one who prays that make the εὐχαριστίαν (the Eucharist), not his life, and that only the solemn prayer is necessary, and not the merits of the priests, of whom it is said: And a priest in whom there is any blemish shall not approach to offer offerings to the Lord.

As for what follows: Her prophets πνευματοφόροι, that is, bearing the spirit, men who are despisers, let it disturb no one that, interpreting this of teachers, we call the same men both prophets and despisers, since the Apostle too commands: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed in the day of redemption. And David says in Psalm 50 (51): Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. For unless the Holy Spirit, when grieved, were accustomed to flee his former lodging and to abandon his dwelling, Paul would never have commanded what I said above, nor would David after his adultery have dreaded lest he lose what he had received; of which it is also written to the Hebrews: How much worse punishments do you think he deserves who has trampled on the Son of God, and has held unclean the blood of the covenant, in which he was sanctified, and has done insult to the spirit of grace? Moreover, it is written in the third book of Kingdoms (1 Kings) that the man of God, no doubt a prophet, who had said to the altar in Samaria: Altar, altar, thus says the Lord: Behold, a son of David will be born, and so on, because he despised the words of the Lord and ate with the false prophet — for so Josephus, expounding this passage, interpreted it —, was killed by a lion. And lest it be thought chance and not the judgment of the Lord, both the false prophet who had deceived him foretold that this would happen, and the lion itself, punishing the despiser, spared the ass. It is no wonder, then, if teachers who had been full of the Holy Spirit can become despisers, since among the careless, who do not keep their heart with all watchfulness, this very thing is frequently the cause of pride against the Lord and of contempt: that they have the knowledge of God, and know his great goodness, which he has hidden for those who fear him, and despise the riches of his goodness, storing up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath and of revelation. Let the priests too — who give baptism and at the Eucharist pray for the coming of the Lord, make the oil of chrism, lay on hands, instruct catechumens, appoint Levites and other priests — not so much be indignant with us for expounding these things, and with the prophets for prophesying them, as pray to the Lord, and take earnest care that they may not deserve to be among the priests who violate the holy things of the Lord. For it is not rank and the names of rank, but the work of the rank, that is accustomed to save princes, and judges, and prophets, and priests: He who desires the episcopate, he says, desires a good work. See what he said: He desires a good work, not a rank. But if, despising the work, one looks only at the rank, swiftly the tower in Siloam falls, and the heights of the cedar are struck by lightning, and the upraised neck is broken, and the swan, with neck outstretched and straining aloft, is reckoned among the unclean birds.

Therefore, because they acted unjustly, the just Lord will not do iniquity, but will render to the most wicked city what it deserves. In the morning, in the morning, that is, openly and without any ambiguity, he will pass judgment on her, and there will be nothing that can be hidden from him. And the Lord will do this so that the city, rebuked, may be converted to the better. But unjust Israel did not recognize its confusion, nor did it understand that the blows were inflicted on it for this purpose, that it might repent.

Though the princes, judges, prophets, priests of Jerusalem do these things, the Lord is nonetheless merciful and just. Merciful, in that he does not withdraw from his Church; just, in that he renders to each one what he deserves. For after the morning has come, and the night of this age has passed, he will give his judgment in the light, and neither he himself nor his judgment will be hidden.

And when he begins to demand from each one the money he had entrusted to them, he will not be unjust, nor will he make injustice prevail for ever, but he will pull down the proud princes, whom God resists, from their seats and from the height they held, and their corners will be scattered, that is, their perverse wills, turning aside from the straight road, corners in which the Pharisees too were always accustomed to pray, having despised the corner stone. But I think that it benefits the proud too to be pulled down from their arrogance, and to have their alleys and corners scattered, so that afterwards they may walk on the straight road. Then follows: And I will make their ways deserted, because there is no one who passes through, according to what is written in Psalm 1: And the way of the impious will perish. And also in Hosea, where it is said of Jerusalem committing fornication: Behold, I will close her ways with thorns, and I will block up her paths, and she will not find her track, and she will pursue her lovers, and will not overtake them, and she will seek them, and will not find them; and she will say: I will go and return to my former husband, for it was better with me then than now. Notice that unless the ways had been closed and the paths fenced off, and unless the Lord had destroyed her ways, the fornicating soul could never have said: I will go and return to my former husband. So the paths of the proud and their corners are scattered, that they may not walk in pride and in perversity, and their cities, which had been wickedly built in arrogance and pride, are destroyed, so that they may not stand and have most wicked inhabitants.

I have avenged you, he says afterwards, on the nations, and I have destroyed their empires, so that you who had not perceived me through blows might at least know me through benefits. Or else it is to be understood thus: I have destroyed all your cities, O Judah, and all the villages and tribes subject to you, and the various borderlands, and so great was the desolation of men that there was no one to dwell in your cities; and after I did this, I sent my prophets, rising at dawn and calling to repentance, and I said: I have indeed done these things to you, O Jerusalem, but I did them that you might fear me, and accept discipline, and that your dwelling, that is, the temple, might not perish because of all the crimes you had committed. But on the contrary, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, while I was calling them to repentance, rose at dawn as if on purpose and out of contention, so that with the haste with which they ought to have returned to me they might fulfil all their thoughts, and show in deed what they had conceived in mind. This according to the Hebrew.

And lest anyone think that we do violence to Scripture, let him learn from what follows. But I did these things, he says, that I might say to them: Behold, the paths of malice have been destroyed; from now on fear me, and learn discipline, lest my discipline also perish, finding in you no fruit of conversion, and all the things by which I wished to correct you be in vain, and that word which is written in Jeremiah may be applied to you: In vain have I struck your sons; you have not accepted discipline. Or else: Fear me, and receive discipline, so that all things may not perish from the sight of Jerusalem, nor she be brought utterly to desolation over these evils with which I threatened her.

Moreover, what we have expounded according to the Hebrew, Nevertheless, rising at dawn, they corrupted all their thoughts, in place of which it is written in the Seventy: Prepare yourself, rise up at dawn, all their foliage has been scattered, since it differs much from the Hebrew, and according to the LXX seems rather to agree with what follows, we will expound in what follows.

But we, who follow not the letter that kills but the spirit that gives life, nor Jewish fables, hear from the Lord: Prepare yourself, rise at dawn: all their clusters have been scattered, and, prepared, we say: My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready. And we hear the command in Proverbs: Prepare your works for your going out. And that which is said in a sacred manner in Leviticus, where in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, Aaron offers for the people the scapegoat, and that a living one, and, laying his hands upon its head, calls down upon it all the sins of the people of Israel, and hands it over into the hands of a prepared man, and sends it into the desert, this we understand of ourselves, and, preparing ourselves at the command of the true priest, we remove evil from the midst of the Church. And when we have done these things, the night passes, the day draws near, and, walking honestly as in the day, we say: O God, my God, to you I keep watch from the dawn. And at once we add: In the morning you will hear my prayer, in the morning I will stand before you, and I will see. For unless we have been prepared, the sun of justice will not rise for us. But when the sun has risen, all the clusters from the vine of Sodom are scattered and perish, so that, as the lamp of Christ shines, not only the great bunches but even what seemed to be small in us perishes.

Nevertheless, lest under the cover of abundance anyone think that we are concealing a lack of defense, we shall bring forward one testimony from the prophets, by which it can clearly be shown that they are holy prophets, divinely inspired. They predicted with a certain and most faithful prophecy that in the time of New Testament, spiritual sacrifices were to be offered not to the Father only but also to the Son by the faithful. For Zephaniah says, " 'Therefore wait for me,' says the Lord, 'for the day when I arise as a witness. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them my indignation, all the heat of my anger; for in the fire of my passion, all the earth shall be consumed. At the time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my suppliants, my scattered ones, shall bring my offering.' "

And, promising us a reward for all these things, God says: Wait for me on the day of my resurrection for a testimony; for after vices and sins God will rise again in us. And according to what he commands in another place: Be my witnesses, and I am a witness, says the Lord God, and the servant whom I have chosen, the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit is a witness for us, so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And it seems to me that the sentence stands rather in this way, and that the truth is confirmed under these three witnesses, rather than through the letter. For there were two witnesses against Susanna, and against the Lord Savior himself, and yet the word did not stand in their mouth. Against Naboth, too, almost the whole city bore witness, and the agreement of most wicked witnesses had not the firmness of truth but the conspiracy of a crime. For my judgment, he says, is upon the gatherings of the nations, that I may receive kings, namely in the place of their punishments, that I may pour out upon them my wrath, all the wrath of my fury. He who is lesser quickly earns pardon and is very near to mercy: But the mighty will suffer torments mightily. Hence the nations and the multitude of the nations are gathered to judgment; but the kings, that is, the leaders of perverse doctrines, will be brought to punishment, so that all the wrath of the Lord's fury may be poured out upon them. And this is done not out of any cruelty, as the bloodthirsty Jews suppose, but out of mercy and the counsel of one who heals. For there follows: For in the fire of my zeal all the earth will be consumed. For when the nations have been gathered to judgment, and the kings to punishment, so that wrath may be poured out upon them, and not in part but whole, and with wrath and fury joined together, whatever is earthly in the whole world may be consumed, whatever pertains to the works of the earth, that is, of the flesh; laying waste all its brambles and thorny thickets, the blaze of my zeal will devour it.

Therefore wait for me, says the Lord, on the day of my resurrection in the future; for my judgment is to gather the nations and to collect the kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all the wrath of my fury; for in the fire of my zeal all the earth will be devoured, because then I will restore to the peoples a chosen lip, that all may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one shoulder. LXX: Therefore wait for me, says the Lord, on the day of my resurrection for a testimony, for my judgment is upon the gatherings of the nations, that I may receive kings, that I may pour out upon them all my wrath, the wrath of my fury; for in the fire of my zeal all the earth will be consumed, for then I will turn among the peoples a tongue into its generations, that all may call upon the name of the Lord, that they may serve him under one yoke. The Jews interpret these things of the coming of Christ, whom they hope is yet to come, and they say that, when all the nations have been gathered and the fury of the Lord has been poured out upon them, the earth will be devoured in the fire of his zeal. And just as before the building of the tower there was a time when all peoples spoke one tongue, so, when all have been converted to the worship of the true God, they will speak Hebrew and the whole world will serve the Lord.

It should be noted, however, that in the place where we translated: I will restore to the peoples a chosen lip, instead of chosen the Seventy said: into its generation, so that of the earth is to be understood. And the error arose from this, that the Hebrew word barura, which Aquila and Theodotion translated as chosen and Symmachus as pure, the Seventy read as badura, thinking the letter res (resh) to be daleth, because of the excessive similarity of the character, which is distinguished by a small stroke. And likewise, where we translated: On the day of my resurrection in the future, all the others too translated: for a testimony. The Hebrew who instructed me in the Scriptures maintained that laed in the present passage ought to be understood rather as εἰς ἔτι, that is, for the future, than as for a testimony. For Ed, which is written with the letters ain and daleth, is understood as ἔτι and μαρτύριον, that is, both the future and a testimony. We can also expound this passage of the first coming of Christ, when, all error having been removed, the demons trampled and earthly works destroyed, the apostles spoke in all tongues, and, the old error having been removed, the one lip of confession was restored. But the kings, too, who are destroyed and consumed by the divine burning, are to be understood as the leaders of perverse doctrines.

Because bodily action is carried on by the shoulder and the arm, if the good things which he put forth with the lips he did not fulfil in deed, he wishes to himself 'the shoulder to fall,' and 'the arm to be broken in pieces.' As though he said in plain words, 'If the things that I said I refused to do, this very member of my body, which was given to me for working withal, may I lose, that surely that may fall from the body which I would not exercise to advantage.' But if this sentence of a curse is to be referred to a spiritual meaning, it is doubtless plain that the arm is joined to the body by the shoulders, and as by the arm good practice, so by the shoulder the knitting together of social life, is denoted. Whence too the Prophet, regarding the holy peoples of the Church universal, that should serve God in concord, says, And they shall serve Him with one shoulder.

And then I will turn upon the peoples a tongue into its generation, so that each one, having laid aside error, may return to the ancient speech of confessing the Lord, and at the name of Jesus every knee shall bend, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess the Lord Jesus in the glory of God the Father. And casting away the bricks and the bitumen which we had in place of stones and clay, with which we were building up the pride of our error against the Lord, let us recover the tongue which we lost before, and let us be under the yoke of Christ, who says: My yoke is sweet, and my burden is light.

Since this text did not literally refer to wild beasts, let the Jews say when this actually happened. For a wolf has never pastured a lamb. If it were to happen that they would pasture together, how would this benefit the human race? The text referred not to wild beasts but to wild people. It referred to Scythians, to Thracians, to Mauretanians, to Indians, to Sarmatians, to Persians. Another prophet made it clear that all these nations would be brought under one yoke when he said, "And they shall serve him under one yoke, and each one shall adore him from his own place." No longer, he said, will people worship him in Jerusalem but everywhere throughout the world. No longer are people bidden to go up to Jerusalem, but each one shall remain in his own home and offer this worship.

Another prophet again made clear the way God would be worshiped. "They shall each adore him in his own place and serve him under one yoke." And again another prophet said, "The virgin of Israel had fallen. Never more shall she rise." And Daniel explained clearly that everything would be destroyed—the sacrifice, the libation, the anointing, the judgment.

If anyone is able, insofar as he found that Israel is saved "after the full number of pagan nations," let him consider having passed over by reason the remaining period, when it is that "all serve God under a single yoke," according to what is said in Zephaniah, "And from the ends of Ethiopia they offer sacrifices to him," when, as it is said in the sixty-seventh psalm, "Ethiopia stretches forth its hand to God," and "to the kings of the earth" the word commands, saying, "Sing to the Lord, raise a psalm to the God of Jacob."

Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, from there my suppliants, the sons of my dispersed ones, will bring a gift to me. On that day you will not be confounded over all your devices by which you have transgressed against me; for then I will take away from your midst the boastful ones of your pride, and you will no more be exalted on my holy mountain. And I will leave in your midst a poor and needy people, and they will hope in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel will not do iniquity, nor speak a lie; and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth, for they will feed and lie down, and there will be none to terrify. LXX: From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia I will receive my dispersed ones; they will bring sacrifices to me. On that day you will not be confounded by all your devices by which you have acted impiously against me, for then I will take away from you the disparagement of your insolence, and you will no more be magnified upon my holy mountain; and I will leave in you a meek and humble people, and those who are left of Israel will revere the name of the Lord, and they will not do iniquity; and they will not speak vain things, and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth, for they will feed and lie down, and there will be none to terrify them. When the Lord has restored to the peoples of believers a chosen lip, and all have called upon the name of the Lord and have carried his yoke, then also from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, whence the queen of Sheba came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, they will bring sacrifices to the Lord: And Ethiopia will hasten her hand to God; and the Ethiopian woman will be married to the true lawgiver, who struck Egypt with ten plagues, while the synagogue of the Hebrews envies. But what he says according to the Hebrew: From there my suppliants, the daughter of my dispersed ones, will bring a gift to me, is of this kind: O Israel, O synagogue, once a daughter, whom I dispersed through the whole world, though you envy, though you are tormented by jealousy, nevertheless sacrifices will be brought to me from Ethiopia, that is, from the people of the Gentiles.

But we, taking from this fable the occasion of a true history, will say that, once a chosen lip, or a pure and white one, as Symmachus translated, has been restored to us, we leave behind in the rivers of Ethiopia all the blackness of the soul, and the foul colour, and the venom of the dragon, with which we had been dyed by vices and sins, and the masters of perverse doctrines by whom we were formerly watered, and that we, with the once-dispersed Israel, will bring gifts to Christ.

On that day, that is, when the multitude of the nations has believed, you too will not be utterly confounded over all your errors by which you transgressed against me, by choosing Barabbas and crucifying the Son of God. Then I will take away from your midst the scribes and priests and Pharisees, the boastful ones of your pride, and you will by no means boast any longer on my holy mountain, but you will have a poor people, unlettered men and fishermen, who will hope in the name of the Lord.

On that day, on which the light of Christ has risen for us, it will be said to each one of us: You will not be confounded by all your devices, namely the most wicked thoughts by which we acted impiously against the Lord; and all the pride and insolence will be taken away through which we were raised up against the Lord and against the mountain, his holy one, our Lord and Savior; and in place of proud and vain names a meek and humble people will be left in us, so that we may think nothing arrogant, nothing swollen, nothing that displeases God. And at the same time consider that on the day of judgment and in the consummation of the world all the names of dignities will be taken away, and one people will remain, and a flock under the good shepherd, which is meek and humble.

The remnant of Israel, not the multitude that cried out: Crucify, crucify him, not the high priests and the nobles, but the remnant, will by no means do iniquity, nor speak a lie in Christ, since they believe the truth; nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, since they know that every lie is from the devil; for they will feed and will say: The Lord feeds me, and I shall lack nothing; in a place of pasture, there he has set me. Beside the water of refreshment he has brought me up; he has turned my soul; and there will be none to terrify, as the faith of believers overcomes the pride of persecutors. Let this be understood of the first coming of Christ, which the Jews promise themselves at the end; and they hope that they will dwell in Jerusalem, and, after the manner of cattle, will be filled with the bodily gifts and riches of Judah and fed on green grass, and that, when all the nations have been destroyed and made subject to them, no one can remain who might terrify them.

Then also the people of Israel, when the fullness of the nations has come in, for God has shut up all under sin, that he may have mercy on all, will fear the name of the Lord. And the remnant of Israel will no longer do the iniquity through which they denied the Lord, nor speak vain things, promising themselves foolish fables; nor will a tongue of lying be found in their mouth, since Christ, who is the truth, speaks through them. For then they too will feed in one flock, and will lie down in the Church, and will not fear the onslaughts of the true Nebuchadnezzar. Seeing and reading these things, such great mysteries, let us cry out with the Apostle and say: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how inscrutable are your judgments, and your ways unsearchable. The prophet, too, perceiving this and turning it over within himself, conjectures concerning the judgments of God: In the night I was exercised with my heart, and I swept my spirit, and I was saying: Will God cast off for ever, or will he not add to have mercy any more, or will he hold back his mercies in his wrath? And I said: Now I have begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High. And the sense is: This, that I thought the Lord was abandoning sinners for ever and, with wrath taking its place, restraining his mercies, I understood to have been done for this reason, that by the change of his right hand, which is the right hand of the Most High, he might change all things and have mercy on those whom he had previously cast away. Therefore let us also, both we and the remnant of Israel, knowing that we are to render an account for every idle word, and that the Lord will destroy all lying lips, not speak vanity. For vanity of vanities, and all is vanity, and: Every living man is utter vanity. Nor let us bring forth a lie with our mouth, but, having received the power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy, let us fear no terror, nor, with Christ as our guardian, dread the snares of wolves, but let us say: The Lord is my illumination and my savior; whom shall I fear? and the rest that is contained in Psalm 26 (27).

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem; the Lord hath taken away thine iniquities. The King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more. All things are more especially applicable to the Lord Christ.

As far as the deeper meaning of the passage is concerned, it clearly commands Jerusalem to rejoice exceedingly, to be especially glad, to cheer up wholeheartedly as its trespasses are wiped out, evidently through Christ.

Take heart, O Jerusalem, the Lord will take away your iniquities. The Lord will wash away the filth of his sons and daughters by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning. He will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your sins. Choiring angels shall encircle you, chanting, "Who is it that comes up all white and leaning upon her beloved?" For the soul that was formerly a slave has now accounted its Lord as its kinsman, and he, acknowledging its sincere purpose, will answer, "Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, ah, you are beautiful … your teeth are like a flock of ewes to be shorn"—a sincere confession is a spiritual shearing. And further: "all of them big with twins," signifying the twofold grace, either that perfected by water and the Spirit or that announced in the Old and in the New Testament. God grant that all of you, your course of fasting finished, mindful of the teaching, fruitful in good works, standing blameless before the spiritual bridegroom, may obtain the remission of your sins from God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

But according to the Hebrew, the Church is commanded to praise, and Israel, seeing God with the mind, to shout for joy, and the place of peace to exult and be glad with all its heart, to which it was said: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you.

Finally, let us consider the order of the reading, and we shall see that what is said pertains not to the Jews but to the Church of Christ. For after what had gone before: My judgment is upon the gatherings of the nations, that I may receive kings, up to the place where he says: That all may call upon the name of the Lord, and serve him under one yoke, and: Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia I will receive among my dispersed ones those who will bring me sacrifices; and after the remnant of the people of Israel, believing in Christ and saved, of whom it is said: And those who are left of Israel will fear the name of the Lord, and there will be none to terrify them. The Holy Spirit, preaching of the general consummation of the world, speaks: Rejoice, daughter of Zion, proclaim, daughter of Jerusalem, rejoice and delight with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem. For every soul of the Church, which is set upon the watchtower and contemplates peace, is glad and rejoices that its iniquities have been taken away from it, and redeemed by him who redeemed all with his precious blood. For Christ has been made for us wisdom from God, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption, and the King of Israel has redeemed us, who dwells in our midst, saying: I and my Father will come, and we will make our abode with him. And: I will dwell and walk among them; and we will no longer see evils, thinking and doing virtues alone.

Praise, daughter of Zion, shout for joy, Israel; be glad and exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away your judgment, he has turned away your enemies; the King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you will not fear evil any more. On that day it will be said: Jerusalem, do not fear, Zion; let your hands not be weakened. The Lord your God in your midst, the mighty one, he will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will be silent in his love for you; he will exult over you with praise. Triflers (nugas) who withdrew from the law I will gather, because they were of you, so that you may no longer have reproach over them. LXX: Rejoice, daughter of Zion; proclaim, daughter of Jerusalem; exult and delight with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away your iniquities, he has redeemed you from the hands of your enemies; the King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you will not see evils any more. At that time the Lord says to Jerusalem: Take courage, Zion, let your hands not be weakened. The Lord your God in you, the mighty one, will save you; he will bring gladness upon you, and will renew you in his love, and will rejoice in you with delight, as on a solemn day; I will gather your broken ones. Woe to him who has taken up reproach against her. Let it not seem strange, as we have often said, that the Hebrew chapters end in one way and those of the LXX, that is, the Greek and the Latin, in another. For where the translation differs in sense, there the beginnings or the ends must also differ. The Jews promise themselves all these things together with the Christ whom they think is yet to come, things which we, who have received Christ, have already obtained together with him. If, then, any of the Christians, and especially of the new wise men, whose names I pass over in silence lest I seem to wound anyone, thinks that the prophecy has not yet been fulfilled, let him know that he bears the name of Christ falsely, and has a Jewish soul, lacking only the circumcision of the body. For if these things have not yet happened but are still to come, we have believed in the coming of the Savior in vain; but, since our believing is not in vain, we understand that the mystery has been fulfilled in us which was kept silent through eternal ages and has now been made manifest through the prophetic scriptures and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

These things, meanwhile, if we wish to take them of the second coming of the Savior. Moreover, since the prophet Zechariah exhorts Zion and Jerusalem to a similar gladness, and Matthew says that this very prophecy was fulfilled in the first coming of Christ, we are compelled by necessity, or rather led by the very order of truth, to hope for what is said in Zephaniah not as future but as done. For it is written in Zechariah: Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; proclaim, daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king comes to you, just and a savior, himself humble and mounted upon a beast of burden and a new colt. Let these things have been said according to the Seventy.

Live now in utter delight, O Jerusalem, living in complete happiness and satisfaction; for God has removed all your lawless deeds and of necessity has rescued you from the power of the foe, to whom you were subjected in paying the penalty of punishment. The Lord will now be in your midst, showing his kingship by his care for you, so that trouble will no longer be able to approach you.

The spiritual and holy Zion—that is, the church, the holy multitude of the believers—is justified in Christ and only in him. By him and through him we are also saved as we escape from the harm of the invisible enemies, for we have a Mediator who was incarnated in our form, the king of all, that is, the Word of God the Father. Thanks to him, we do not see evil anymore, for we have been delivered from the powers of evil. He [the Word] is the armor of good will, the peace, the wall, the one who bestows incorruption, the arbiter of the crowns, who shut down the war of the incorporeal Assyrians and made void the schemes of the demons.

For at the end and in the consummation of the world he has taken away her judgment, by no means judging and rebuking her, but saving her, and he has turned away her enemies, the hosts of demons. The King of Israel, the Lord, will be in her midst; she will not fear evil any more.

On that day, says the Lord, as we see peace and are set on high, let your hands not be weakened, he who also said through Isaiah: Be strengthened, weakened hands, and let your works be strong.

On that day it will be said to Jerusalem the free, who is not in slavery with her children, but who is the mother of the saints: Do not fear, Zion, for she herself is also Jerusalem; your works will by no means be weakened, nor will you do things which you will mourn having done.

I am aware that some commentators understood this [text to apply to] the return from Babylon and the renovation of Jerusalem, and I do not contradict their words: the prophecy applies also to what happened at that time. But you can find a more exact outcome after the incarnation of our Savior: then it was that he healed the oppressed in heart in the washing of regeneration, then it was that he renewed human nature, loving us so much as to give his life for us. After all, "greater love than this no one can show than for one to lay down one's life for one's friend," and again, "God so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son so that everyone believing in him might not be lost but have eternal life."

The Lord your God, who will save you, mighty and powerful, will himself dwell in your midst; he will rejoice over you with exultation and gladness, and will keep silent about your sins in the love with which he loved you; and he will exult over you with praise, either because you are praiseworthy or because you sing with your praises.

For the mighty Lord, whom no one can resist, your savior, will himself restore to you the gladness which you lost, and, the old man cast away, will make you walk in the new, and he will do these things in his love, not by your merit but by his mercy. And he will rejoice in you and delight, receiving your salvation as the richest victim of your solemnity; and he himself will say to you: I will gather your crushed ones. A heart, indeed, crushed and humbled God will not despise, and: A crushed reed he will not break.

Triflers (nugas), or, as Aquila translated, those carried away, who withdrew from you, I will gather, because they were of you; that is: Those who through vices and sins had fled from your bosom and had come under the power of demons will come to you when the state of all things has been restored, and you will by no means suffer reproaches any longer over your lost sons. What we have rendered nugas, let us know that in the Hebrew it is the Latin word itself, and for that reason it was set down by us just as it stood in the Hebrew, so that we may know that the Hebrew tongue is the mother of all tongues, a matter which it is not the time to discuss now. But I wonder that Aquila and the Seventy, where we translated they were, namely in the place where we said: I will gather, because they were of you: instead of they were chose to translate woe, or ὄι, which Aquila always uses not for lamenting but for calling and crying out. For Hai, of the verb whose beginning is sum, signifies the past tense in the plural number: they were, or they had been. I know that these things are tiresome to the reader; but if he notices that I am writing not controversies and declamations, nor exulting in commonplaces, but commentaries, and commentaries on the prophets, he will rather blame me if anywhere I have chosen to play in the manner of the rhetoricians than censure me for lingering, as is fitting, amid such great obscurities.

But since our hope is certain and the vows of the Jews are empty, let us now weave the present and last chapter according to the former understanding, and bring forward a testimony from Jesus son of Sirach: He who throws a stone on high throws it upon his own head. For since Zion and Jerusalem are set on high, whoever disparages Zion and Jerusalem and throws at her the stones of insults hurls them upon his own head, and his reproach will return upon his own head: And his pain and his iniquity will come down upon his crown. How many today reproach the soul that pursues the mysteries of God and wishes to see his peace, and say: He is mad, and drunk, and full of new wine; he flees the gatherings of men; he spurns delights, counts gold as mud, loves poverty alone. But those who are unbelievers reproach him even with the cross of Christ, and if ever they see him in distress and in temptation, they say: Where are your mercies, and the works of justice which you have performed? Why should I speak of unbelievers, when some leaders of the churches reproach men of this kind, and judge their life to be madness, and do not praise their present way of life but reproach them with their old sins? Nor do they hear that it is commanded: Do not upbraid a man who turns from his sins.

Woe therefore to him who has taken up and undertaken reproach, and has bound himself over to such a task as to disparage Zion and the city of God, for the Lord is the avenger of this injury to his city, and he will say to Zion: Behold, I will act in you for your sake, that is, I will carry out your vengeance, and I will save the afflicted one, or, as it is said in the Greek, the pressed one, so that the sense is: I will save her who at present, like the grape and the olive, has been so pressed and afflicted by temptations and pressures, as by the winepress and the beam, that she might make wine and oil, and that Jesus might drink of the wine in the kingdom of his Father, and be anointed with the oil above his fellows. I think that it was for the pressing out of such wine and oil that Job suffered many things, and that, after he had made the wine and the oil, he heard from the Lord: Do you think that I answered you otherwise than that you might appear just? As if he were speaking to the grape and the olive: Do you suppose that I pressed and afflicted and crushed you for any other reason than to press wine and oil out of you? There follows: And her who had been rejected I will receive. God seems to reject us when he leaves us to temptation. Hence Job too: The visitation, he says, of the Lord has looked upon me. And not only do the just speak and say: But now you have rejected and confounded us, as is written in Psalm 43 (44), but the Lord and Savior himself, in the person of the man whom he had assumed: But you, he says, have rejected and despised, you have put off your Christ; you have overturned the covenant of your servant. That it is the person of the just in Psalm 43 (44) who say: But now you have rejected and confounded us, is proved from what follows: All these things have come upon us, yet we have not forgotten you, nor have we acted wickedly in your covenant; nor has our heart turned back. Her, therefore, who seemed cast away in temptations the Lord will receive at the end, and will set them in glory and named in all the earth, namely the sons of the pressed and rejected one, that is, of the Church. But what other sons of the Church can we understand as named, except the apostles? Look, I pray you, at Peter and Paul and Matthew and John, and consider that what was promised to Abraham: I will magnify your name, has been accomplished in deed in them. Daily it is named in the Church, daily their name is magnified, not because it profits them to be named by us in the Church, but so that we, magnifying their name and reading over what they wrote, may obtain salvation.

Behold, I will kill all who have afflicted you at that time, and I will save the lame one, and her who had been cast out I will gather; and I will set them for praise and for a name in all the land of their confusion. At that time when I will bring you in, and at the time when I will gather you; for I will give you for a name and for praise to all the peoples of the earth, when I have turned back your captivity before your eyes, says the Lord. LXX: Behold, I will act in you, for your sake, at that time, and I will save the pressed one, and the rejected one I will receive, and I will set them in glory; and named in all the earth. And they will be confounded at that time when I have done well to you; and at the time when I have received you, for I will give you named and in glory among all the peoples of the earth, when I have turned back your captivity before you, says the Lord. And this the synagogue, which does not limp but is maimed in both feet, promises itself at the coming of its Christ, whom it hopes is yet to come; and it thinks that all the nations which afflicted Israel are to be killed by the Lord, and the synagogue saved, and she who had received a bill of divorce gathered, and that they are to be set for praise and for a name in all the land of their captivity, in which they had formerly been confounded; and that this happens at the time when the captivity has been brought back to Jerusalem, and the temple built, and the remaining order of ceremonies observed. These things it promises itself, and therefore it does not repent, and while it hopes for uncertain things, it loses certain salvation. Nor do I wonder that the synagogue says these things, which, because it does not receive Christ, suffers in its eyes, and is bleary-eyed with Leah, and is not loved by Jacob, and, with Rachel taking her place, is neglected. I wonder at Christians, or rather half-Jews, who seem to themselves to be of the Church, speaking thus and professing those things which, if they are true, we believe in Christ in vain, and our whole mystery is taken away, and we are more wretched than all men, believing that he has come who has not come.

The salvation of human beings rests with divine lovingkindness alone: we do not earn it as the wages of righteousness; rather, it is a gift of divine goodness. Hence the Lord says, "on your behalf I shall save and welcome" and make my own what has become another's, render it conspicuous, make it more famous than all others, free it from its former shame, and from being captives and slaves I shall make them free people and my own. Now, as I have said, this he both made a gift of to those returning from Babylon at that time and also granted to all people later. We who were once in thrall to the devil but are now freed from that harsh captivity and unmindful of the error of polytheism have become God's own, being famous beyond pagans and barbarians, according to the prophecy, and we who were once far off have become near, according to the divine apostle.

At that time, he says, when the pressed and rejected one has been received, and her sons set in glory — for the Lord glories in his athletes when he sees them crowned, as he gloried over Job against the devil; hence the Apostle too, exulting in the progress of his disciples, says: Yes, by your glory — those who had been your adversaries and had brought reproach against you will be confounded; and then they will see that those whom they had thought wretched are happy, and that those whom they reckoned poor and cast down have become powerful and glorious; then they will see their captivity, through which in this age they had been subjugated under a harsh rule, brought back into the heavenly Jerusalem, and themselves rising again to reproach and to everlasting confusion. Grant to us, Jesus Christ, who are pressed and afflicted and rejected in this age, that you may receive us and set us in glory; let the water-snake (excetra) be confounded in time, let the hissings cease, let the venoms grow numb, and let its confusion profit for salvation. These things according to the Seventy. But since the Hebrew, except for the beginning, about which we spoke at the end of the preceding chapter, does not differ much from their translation, I do not think it needs exposition.