Jerome

"Ephraim has provoked me to anger with his bitter words; his blood will be on him, and his Lord will repay him for his contempt." Likewise Septuagint. Therefore when I had so helped Ephraim that I had led the naked, the exiled and the lonely to a rich and a masterful Lord, and had made him the parent of many sons, Ephraim deserted me, indeed provoked me to anger: and with his bitterness made bitter what was sweet. Whence his blood will come upon him, that is, he will be the cause of his own death, according to what David says to him who reported to him the death of Saul, and remembered that he had killed the king of Israel: "Your blood be upon your own head" (2 Kings 1:16). Not my opinion, but the blood of Saul (i.e. "Al" for Saul) will be spilled because of your blood. And what follows: "And the Lord will restore his reproach to him," is consistent with the meaning spoken by Nathan to David: "Because you have blasphemed the enemies of the Lord's name, because of this" (1 Kings 12), that is, because of this sin in which you killed Uriah, the blasphemy and reproach itself, by which the Lord was blasphemed, will be turned on your head. Always heretics provoke the merciful Lord to anger, and they who prefer the repentance of the sinner to death, force to punish the hardness of their own hearts, and their blood, with which they have shed both their own and that of many, will come upon their heads, and the reproaches with which they blasphemed the Lord, their Lord will restore to them, not because He is their Lord, but because He was once their Lord.

"While Ephraim was speaking, horror invaded Israel, and he sinned in Baal and died, and now they have added more sins. They made an idol for themselves from their silver, resembling the idols made by craftsmen. They say of them, “Let them sacrifice humans and adore calves.”" LXX: "According to the word, Ephraim received justification in Israel, and placed it by Baal, and he died, and now he has appointed himself to sin, and they have made for themselves a molten image of gold and silver, according to the likeness of idols, the work of craftsmen complete; they say to them, 'Offer men, for the calves have failed.'" Because the seventy [translators] interpreted "Slay ye men, for the calves are failing," and we render [it], "Slay ye men that worship calves"; and Symmachus has interpreted [it], "Slay ye, men, [those] who worship calves"; so that the sense is, "Slay, that is, sacrifice to the idols, and thus let the distinction follow: rational animals, [namely] men, worship calves; mute animals [worship calves]." Therefore, when Ephraim spoke, that is, Jeroboam son of Nabat from the tribe of Ephraim, horror invaded Israel, that is, the ten tribes. For "horror," which is said in Hebrew Rathath, which Symmachus and Theodotion interpreted as "tremor"; while wishing for something, they translated δικαιώματα, that is, "justifications," in the LXX. And so great a horror invaded Israel, that he sinned and offended God in Baal and died, losing him who said, "I am the life" (John XIV, 6). For every soul that sins shall die (Ezekiel 18). And the Apostle said: "But she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, let her trust in God, and continue in supplications and prayers night and day. For she that liveth in pleasures is dead while she is living" (I Timothy 5:5-6). And not only was he dead in Baal, but he also added sins to sins, so that from the silver which the Lord had given, idols were made, the work of men's hands. To which they themselves say, that is, the priests and princes who ought to have taught the people good things: "Slay men, worshipping calves"; which is also said in the Psalms: "They sacrificed their sons and daughters to devils" (Psalm 106:37). Because we translate it according to Symmachus and Theodotion, as "adoring;" but Aquila interpreted it as καταφιλοῦντες, that is, "kissing." For those who adore, they are accustomed to kiss their own hand; which Job denies having done, saying: "If I have kissed my hand with my mouth and my right hand the envious man hath deserved it" (Job 31:27-28). But, as some believe, if demons speak to the people saying, "Sacrifice men, for the calves have failed," then their appetite is revealed of those who are nourished by the blood of the victims and the smoke of the holocausts because as the victims run short, they desire to have men sacrificed to them, not only with their death but also with their blood. But, as the heretics spoke, rather the leaders of the heretics, that is, Ephraim, horror and trembling invaded the unhappy people; and they fell into idols, which they fashioned from their own hearts, and died with the people they seduced. And it is not enough to have fallen, but they also turn the tongue that they received to sing to God into images of idols, and compose dogma with eloquent words similar to truth, which is nothing else but an invention of human wickedness. And they command their disciples, that they themselves also sacrifice men, that is, are furious against the Church of God, and lead them to heretics, and kill those whom they have deceived; And what follows, "The calves have failed," has this meaning: Do not seek those whom you have deceived from the Gentiles, who are called brute animals; but seize them, sacrifice them, who are established in the Church, are considered in the name of Christ, and are called men.

Therefore they will be like morning clouds, and like morning dew that passes away, like dust swept up by a whirlwind, and like smoke from a chimney.” (Vulgate "passing by"). And similarly in the Septuagint: “changing only the final image, ‘and like the vapor from locusts’ or ‘from tears,’ since we find it rendered as either ‘locusts’ or ‘tears’ in most manuscripts. For, he says, they sacrificed to calves as though slaughtering men; therefore they will be like morning clouds, and like the morning dew that passes, like dust swept up by a whirlwind, and like smoke from a chimney.” "All things seem to exist for a time and then quickly pass away, in keeping with the saying, 'He caused his king of Samaria to pass like foam on the surface of water,' and again, 'The king of Israel passes away like a morning shadow.' Everyone knows that clouds, dew, dust from the ground, and smoke from the hearth, all quickly vanish, in accordance with the scripture that says, 'As smoke is driven away, so let them be driven away.'" (Psalm 68:2) However, why have the LXX rendered "fumario" as "locustas," which Theodotion translates as καπνοδόχην (the editions read καπνοδόχον)? Among the Hebrews, locust and fumarium are written with the same letters, Aleph, Res, Beth, He. If it is read as Arbe, it means "locust"; if Orobba ((Al. "arobba")), it means "fumarium": for which Aquila interprets καταράκτην and Symmachus interprets "foramen." Cataractam, however, properly signifies the hole made in the wall through which smoke comes out. But if anyone is contentious and unwilling to receive the truth of Hebrew (Scripture), let him seek after the sense of locusts; let him hear Ephraim compared to "vapour" or "air" and "wind," which is so fine and thin that it cannot be perceived coming forth from the mouth of the locust. And if he objects to this, then why did Ephraim liken himself to anything that is even smaller, such as a flea, which has all of its members, a head, eyes, feet, belly, and all the rest, which, although we do not see with our eyes, we still understand through our senses; for we feel the bites of its mouth, even though we do not see its mouth and teeth. It must be answered that the glory of the dying is compared to the vapor of the locust or the thinnest air because the locust is harmful and so hostile to humans that it causes famine and devastates cultivated crops, to the extent that it even strips trees and vines of their bark, which we read more fully in the Prophet Joel (Joel I and II). And this locust is compared to the morning cloud, dew, and heretic dust, about which it is also said in the Catholic Epistle: "These are clouds without water" (Judae XII). For they have the appearance of prophets, and of apostolic clouds, to which the truth of God has come: but they do not have water, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit, with the Lord saying in the Gospel: "He who believes in me, (as the Scripture says) rivers of living water will flow out of his belly. But this," he said, "refers to the spirit which " "those who believe in him would receive" (John 7:38-39). But as for tears, which have some resemblance in the Greek language to locusts, δακρύων καὶ ἀκρίδων, it is a clear mistake, with some thinking they mean "tears" in place of "locusts".

"But I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt: and thou shalt know no God but me, and there is no saviour beside me. I knew thee in the desert, in the land of drought. According to their pastures they were filled, and were made full: and they lifted up their heart, and have forgotten me." LXX: "But I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: thou shalt not know any god but me, and there is no savior beside me. I fed thee in the wilderness, in a land of drought. According to their pasture, they were filled, and were made full, and their heart was exalted: and therefore they have forgotten me." He who above had said, "Jacob fled into the land of Syria, and served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep. And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved. Now what hath God rendered to them? I am thy Lord God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, which commanded thee through Moses. Take heed lest thou eat and be satisfied, and forget thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; for there is no God but me, and none other can save." I am the founder of all things, I knew that whether you were fed in the desert and in uninhabitable land, where there was a shortage of everything, where there were no waters: I gave you manna from Heaven and produced fountains of water from the hardest rock. As it is also written elsewhere: "He waxed fat, and kicked, and forgot the God which he had made him" (Deut. XXXII, 15): now they also have eaten and are filled, and their heart has been lifted up, and they have forgotten Him, who they should have been mindful of His benefits. For through so great a waste of desert, where not only does no corn or trees or vines grow, but not even grass, and no waters mitigate the burning heat of the sun, the people of Israel could not have reached the land of the Jordan in forty years, unless the Lord had provided all things. The Lord also brought forth heretics from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and from the iron furnace, who had previously served the king Pharaoh and his leaders: and He commanded them in the Church not to know any other God except Him who is the creator of all things, and who knows how to save those who He created. He himself knew them and was afraid in a land of solitude; so that they may say: "The Lord feeds me and nothing will be lacking to me: he has placed me in a place of pasture: he has led me over the water of refreshment" (Ps. 22, 1-2). And he gave them the bread of angels, manna from heaven, which they had never eaten in Egypt, and water from a rock that followed them. And that rock, according to the Apostle, was Christ (1 Cor. 10): those who ate and were satisfied, and did not endure the food of the Lord. The same Apostle speaks to them: "Now ye are full, now ye are become rich: ye reign without us, and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you" (I Corinthians 4:8). For they ate the bread that descended from heaven in Holy Scripture, and as David said: "You have revealed to me the uncertain and secret things of your wisdom" (Psalm 50:8). They were filled and satiated and lifted up their heart against the Creator, and fashioned themselves another god, attributing to their own merits whatever they drank or ate, and not to the mercy of God. Therefore they have forgotten God, who commanded them to bind the words of the Law on their eyes, and in their hands, and in the fringes of their garments, lest they would ever forget their God.

"And I will be to them like a lioness, like a leopard on the road to Assyria; I will confront them like a bear that has lost its cubs, and I will tear open their chests; there I will devour them like a lion - the wild animals will tear them apart." They were filled and satisfied; they lifted up their hearts and forgot me. But I, he said, will be to them like a lioness, or a panther, of which we have spoken more fully above: and like a leopard on the way of the Assyrians, when they are led captive by the Assyrians: and I will meet them like a bear robbed of its cubs, or an animal in need of food: and I will tear apart all their vital organs. Those who have written about the nature of wild beasts say that among all animals there is nothing more savage than a bear when it has lost its cubs or needs food; and he not only threatens the ferocity of panthers, leopards, bears, lions, and all wild beasts that are born in the forests, but he says that he will direct all of this towards them when they go to the Assyrians: lest they attribute their miseries not to the power and indignation of the Lord, but to the strength of their enemies, when they have suffered hard things there. And at the same time, let us consider what he who speakes in the Gospel to those who believe: "Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you; for my yoke is sweet and my burden light" (Matt. XI, 28, 29), now through the prophet he becomes a panther, pardus, bear and lion to the unbelievers and those who refuse to do penance: not only to the Israelites, because they were set up for idolatry in the cities or mountains of the Medes; but also to heretics because, due to the pride of their minds and the vanity of their false teachings, they have forgotten their God, have fashioned idols and have followed strange gods.

"Your destruction, Israel, only your help is with me. Where is your king? May he save you now in all your cities; and your judges, of whom you said: Give me a king and princes: I will give you a king in my fury, and take away in my indignation." LXX: "Who will help you in your corruption, O Israel? Where is your king? May he save you in all your cities and judge you as you said: 'Give me a king and prince.' I gave you a king and prince in my anger and took away in my fury." Because the seventy interpreted it as "I have had," everyone translated "I took away." Unhappy is Israel and worthy of eternal curse, who has descended into such profound impiety that he can be saved only by the mercy of God. Yet this may be read in Hebrew and understood in this sense: "May you perish, Israel, because there is nothing left for you except that you be preserved by my mercy alone." But the meaning in the LXX is different: "To your corruption, Israel, who will give assistance?" that is, who will be able to provide help for your captivity and ultimate servitude, those whom you esteemed as your princes? Where is your king, whom you said to Samuel: 'Establish a king over us, to judge us, just as the other nations have'? (2 Kings 8:5). And when he objected, you replied: 'No, but we will have a king, and we will be like all the other nations, and our king will judge us, and he will go out before us and fight for us.' Therefore, where is the promise you made that he would wage your wars, that now he may come to your aid in this time of need, and liberate all your cities from servitude? Where are your judges? Where are your kings? For you have said: "Give me a king and princes"; therefore I gave you Saul as king in my anger, so much so that in the days of the harvest I brought rain contrary to the nature of the province of Judah. "I have removed," he says, "the king in my indignation," that is to say, Zedekiah, "whom I gave in anger, and whom I took away in indignation." Others believe that Jeroboam the son of Nabat was given as king in anger, and the last king of the ten tribes, Hoshea, was taken away in indignation. What we have explained, I gave you a king and took away a king in my indignation, the Hebrews report for future times. At that time, when you said, "Give me a king and princes," I would respond to you through Samuel that I would give it to you in my fury and take it away in my indignation. Every heretic is lost and handed over to corruption; for he who corrupts the temple of God, the Lord will corrupt him: he has no aid in any other way except in the mercy of God, which he attains through penitence. This king and judges are the devil and demons, or all the princes of perverse dogmas, who could not free them in times of necessity and distress, who were given in fury, and taken away in indignation: not that the Lord wanted to have such kings: otherwise he would not take away those whom he had given willingly, but because he left them to their own wills: so that they, eating and fattening up their flesh, would become nauseous, and vomit through their noses, and begin to hate those whom they had so eagerly followed.

"The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his hidden sin is enfolded. Pangs of childbirth come for him, but he is an unwise son, for now he does not present himself at the opening of the womb." LXX: "The congregation of iniquity of Ephraim; his sin is concealed. Labor pains shall come upon him as of a woman giving birth. This is your wise son, for he will not now be able to stand the test of the sons' contrition." Just as something that is bound in the world is preserved and does not perish for the one to whom it is bound, so every iniquity by which Ephraim sinned against God is bound to him and hidden as if reserved in a pouch. Finally, when the day of vengeance arrives, and the ultimate captivity, pains like those of a woman in labor will come to him, whether they seize him. A woman in labor, long before giving birth, from the time she conceives, knows that she is going to give birth, and she expects daily that extreme torments and pains will come. So also Ephraim, the foolish son of whom we have said above, "Ephraim is a foolish dove without a heart in contrition" of "his children and his people," when the day of delivery and captivity arrives, will not be able to stand or suffer. For the 'Foolish Son,' it is read ironically in the LXX: 'This is the wise son,' that is, whom you thought wise, so that on the contrary, he may be understood as foolish. But for all heretics, iniquity is gathered, which they spoke on high; and their sin is hidden when they think they are hiding the poison of their hearts and having secrets, which, when the day of delivery comes, will be exposed by pain and effort. This foolish son is Ephraim, because he abandoned the wisdom of God, of whom it is written in Jeremiah: 'His last shall be foolish,' and he will not be able to withstand the wrath of God, in the overthrow of his sons whom he has slain and killed.

I will free them from the hand of death; I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be your death; O underworld, I will be your sting. Comfort is hidden from my eyes because He will Himself divide among brothers. According to both the understanding of Ephraim, that is, the ten tribes, and the heretics, who will not be able to bear the pain of their sons' contrition, when pains come upon them like those of a woman in labor, the Lord promises to liberate them from the hand of death and to redeem them from death. However, the hand of death refers to the works by which it kills, according to that which is written: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue" (Prov. XVIII, 21). But the Lord freed all, and redeemed in the passion of the cross and the shedding of His blood: when His soul descended into hell, and His flesh did not see corruption, and even to death and hell He spoke: "I will be thy death, O death." Therefore, I died, so that by my death thou might die. "I will be thy biting, O hell," who devourest everyone in thy jaws. And seeing the harsh necessity of death, and that there is no man who lives and does not see death (Psalm LXXXVIII), the most merciful Father remembers the ancient sentence: that in Adam we all die (1 Corinthians XV). Having understood his own weakness and the frailty of human flesh, the prophet said: 'Consolation,' he said, 'is hidden from my eyes,' with the meaning: I cannot console myself, whatever I conceive in my mind, my pain cannot be mitigated, seeing ('Al.' seeing) the dearest names separated by death: For hell ('Al.' he said) itself divides brothers. Therefore, whatever separates brothers should be called hell: especially the harlot woman, who calls the foolish man to her, saying in the wealth of her wisdom: Touch willingly hidden breads and drink the sweetness of stolen waters; and the foolish man does not know that those who are of the earth die with her, and fall into the depths of hell. For whatever is not allowed, is desired more, and what is sweet through rarity, turns bitter through frequent indulgence. And honey drips from the lips of a harlot who, for a time, fattens up the throat of the fool; but in the end, it is found more bitter than gall, and sharper than a double-edged sword. Whoever is an earthborn and does not come from heaven, falls into their embraces; they are bound with the chains of their couches, and their feet walk towards foolishness, leading those who use them to death and to hell. Between death and the underworld, there is this difference: death is when the soul is separated from the body; the underworld is the place where the souls are either held in cold storage or punished, depending on the quality of their merits. We have said this to show that death does what a harlot does. For death divides brothers, just as a woman does. In the case of brothers, understand that any brotherly love is divided: a mother is divided from her daughter, and a father from his son, and a brother from his brother. But what is death, and what is hell, the psalmist shows, saying: "There is no one in death who remembers you: in hell, who will confess you" (Ps. VI, 6)? And in another place: "Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into hell" (Ps. LIV, 16). Because we have translated: "I will be your death, O death: I will be your bite, O hell," the LXX (Septuagint) translated: "Where is your cause, O death? Where is your stimulus, O hell?" For which reason the Apostle placed: "Death has been swallowed up in" "contention; where is your contentio, death? Where is your sting, O death" (1 Co. XV, 54 et seqq)? And explaining the power of the testimony, he said: "But the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who has given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Therefore, what he interpreted as the resurrection of the Lord, we cannot nor dare interpret differently. Death, hell, and the devil may be understood, who was killed by the death of Christ, about whom Isaiah also speaks: "Death has been swallowed up by victory" (Isaiah 25:8, LXX translation). And afterwards it follows: "The Lord hath taken away every tear from every face." Now, however, some understand that the two brothers who were separated by death, according to the history of that time, are Israel and Judah, so that what was then prefigured partly may now be felt in its entirety, and that with every human race Israel and Judah must be liberated and redeemed. In the place where the LXX have translated, "Where is thy cause?" and we have said, "Thy death shall be," Symmachus has interpreted, "Thy plague will be," the fifth edition and Aquila: "Where are thy words?" which is written in Hebrew Dabarach: reading Dabar, which means "word," for Deber, which is interpreted as "death;" according to what we read in Isaiah: "The Lord hath sent death upon Jacob, and it is come into Israel" (Isaiah 9), that is, "deber," for which we have interpreted: "The Lord sent the Word into Jacob, and it came into Israel," that is, "dabar." Also for the sting which we translated as "bite," Symmachus translated ἀπάντημα, that is, "encounter:" Theodotion and the fifth edition have interpreted as "plague, and conclusion."

"The Lord shall bring upon him a burning wind, and shall wither all his veins: and shall make his sources desolate, and he shall pull down all his fences: because he hath done wickedly." LXX: "The Lord will bring a scorching wind from the desert upon them, and he will dry up their springs. Their fountains shall be desolate, the land will be parched, and all that is in it will be ruined." I have read in the comments of someone that the whirlwind which the Lord brings from the desert, is the same one who struck Job's house at its four corners and made it collapse on the feasting sons (Job 1), and that it is one of those winds which we read of in the Gospel to blow and come as a storm with heavy rain and floods, to overthrow the house built on a rock or on sands (Matthew 7). Which seems not at all to me: for it is not written in Job that the Lord brought a wind from the desert; but the name of the Lord is silent, so that the wind from the desert, which had come against the holy man by its own will, might be taken as a contrary strength, and the winds that overthrow the foundations of houses cannot be referred to the good side. It remains that we understand the burning wind that the Lord will bring from the desert, as we also read about in Habakkuk: "God will come from the South, and the Holy One from Mount Paran" (Habakkuk 3:3): which, of course, is located in the desert and at midday. And in the Song we read: "Where do you feed, where do you rest at midday" (Song 1:6)? The Lord will bring this scorching wind, which dries up the veins of death and dries up its springs, from the ascending desert: from the desert, however, of the human race, in which even the devil seeking rest could not find. Whether we understand the desert to be the virgin womb of Saint Mary, which gave birth to this flower without the seed of man, which shot up through its pure and fecund union as a simple rod and produced that flower that says in the Song of Songs: "I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys" (Song of Songs 2:2). And beautifully, as much in Isaiah as in the present place, the ascending flower is said to be the ascending wind: because it ascends from the humility of the flesh to the heights, and he led us with him to the Father, saying in the Gospel: "And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself" (John 12:32). He himself, as though a root, will ascend from the uninhabitable earth, and death will by no means have power over him, but he will come upon death, for death will find no way of power in him, and this is what is said in the Proverbs: "It is impossible to find the footsteps of a serpent upon a rock" (Proverb 30). And he himself speaks in the Gospel: "Behold, the prince of this world shall come, and find in me nothing" (John XIV, 30). He shall dry up the veins of death, and lay waste its sources. The veins of death and its sources and its sting are designated by the Apostle as sins: when these have been dried up, even death itself shall be dried up. And what follows: "He himself will plunder the treasure," "which is in every vessel desirable," is taken in a twofold sense either because they are desirable to those who dwell in death, or because we understand by the desirable vessels, saints who were perhaps bound, whom the Lord delivered and carried off from the underworld, and, as it were, valuable vessels, brought them along with him into paradise. For 'treasure' they have transferred 'earth': without doubt, 'earth' signifies death. And in Psalms we read: 'I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the livings' (Psal. XXVI, 13). And according to the Gospel: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land' (Matthew V). On the contrary, we must accept that the land of hell is not the land of the living, but rather of the dead, which is ravaged and devastated, when the souls bound at the time of Christ's death in hell are freed. According to the tropology in the same Commentaries (of which we have spoken above), we read that the scorching wind is understood as the devil and every heresiarch. We dislike this, because the devil cannot dry up the veins of death and the fountains of error, since he himself is the source and beginning of the dead. Therefore, the word of the Ecclesiasticus, 'burning wind' is to be understood as the wind that withers all the dogmas of heretics and leads them to nothingness, and tears them apart and scatters them who were gathered in death by the doctrine of heretics.

"Let Samaria be destroyed, for she has provoked her God to bitterness. Let them perish by the sword. May their infants be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women be ripped open." LXX: "Samaria will be destroyed because she has resisted her God; they will fall by the sword, and their suckling infants will be dashed to the rock, and their women with child will be ripped open." We have often said that the ten tribes are called Samaria, whose capital is now called Augusta, that is, Sebaste, from the name of Augustus. But why Samaria was called a city, we read in the Book of Kings. Therefore the prophet commands, and, to speak more truly, speaks wishfully, that Samaria may perish. And when God had prepared so many good things for her, she is against God, and follows more the idols of demons. But Symmachus did not say "perish," but μεταμελήσει that is "will repent," and she will repent of her mistake, which has turned the sweetest God into bitterness, so that her warriors perish by the sword, little ones and infants are dashed to the ground, and her pregnant and expectant mothers are torn in death. It is to be believed that all of this happened to them during their captivity and distress, when they lost their homeland and were subdued into perpetual slavery. The understanding of heretics is easy, that they are called Samaritans, since they boast of obeying God's commands, not because they are keepers of His law; but that they say they are, in the likeness of the schism of Novatians, who also call themselves καθαροὺς, that is, "pure," although they are the filthiest of all, denying repentance, by which sins are cleansed, according to what is written: "Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow" (Ps. X). And in Isaiah: "Wash yourselves, be clean" (Isaiah 1:16). However, it is not called a baptism, but rather all penance that washes away the filth of sins. Let Samaria therefore perish, because whatever she speaks, opposes her God, and turns his mercy into cruelty, so much so that even the men who have attained the perfect age of malice ("Al." warfare)) are cut down by the spiritual sword. But the little ones and infants are dashed against the rock. About which we also read in the Psalm: "Blessed is he who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock." (Ps. 136:9). Also, its pregnant animals that have conceived from evil seed, will be destroyed so as not to produce worthless offspring. Something similar is mentioned in the Gospel: "Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days" (Luke 21:23): in the days of affliction and distress. The warriors of Samaria are killed by the sword, and nursing infants are thrown down and pregnant women are ripped open, so that when the evil seed has perished and its weeds have been burnt, only the wheat remains, which is stored in the Lord's barns.

"Turn back, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the Lord; say to him, 'Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, 'Our God,' to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.'" LXX: "Convert, O Israel, to the Lord your God, because you have been weakened by your iniquities: Take with you words, and return to the Lord, say to him, 'Take away all iniquity, and receive what is good, and we will render the calves of our lips. Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more: you are our gods; for the fatherless finds mercy in you.'" As Samaria was perishing. "And men, women, and children having been killed, slaughtered, and torn apart, Israel as a whole is provoked to repentance so that he who is sick or has fallen in his iniquities may return to the doctor and receive health, or he who has fallen may begin to stand up again; and it is taught how one should do penance. 'Take with you words,' that is to say, prayers and confession of sins, and turn to the Lord both in words and in works; and say to Him: 'Take away all iniquity,' leave nothing of our weakness and former ruin, lest again the evil seed bring forth live plants. And He says, 'Accept the good': For if You do not take away our evils, we cannot have anything good to offer You, according to what is written elsewhere: 'Turn away from evil and do good, and we will offer You the calves of our lips.'" (Psalm 36:27) For the calves which in Hebrew are called Pharim, the Septuagint translated "fruit" as Pheri, by a similarity of false speech. But the calves of our lips are praises to God and thanksgiving: "For a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God" (Ps. L, 19). Therefore, with carnal victims now rejected, a pure confession is a placable sacrifice to God. Those who say they will offer calves of their lips and sing God's praises with their voice, also promise that they will not have hope in Assyria or trust in Egyptian horses, because the deceitful horse does not bring salvation (Psal. XXXII), and that they will not worship the golden calves that they made in Dan and Bethel with their own hands and, therefore, they say: "We will not say the work of our hands are our gods, for you will have mercy upon him who is your pupil (or people)," that is, the people of Israel, of whom you said: "My firstborn son is Israel" (Exod. IV, 22). "And: "I have brought up and exalted sons, but they despised me". And in another place: "Alien children have lied to me". But he is called an orphan because he has lost his father to God. However, some exposed the orphan who had left the evil father, the devil, and therefore was helped by the mercy of God. Also, the prophet speaks on a daily basis to all perverse dogma and provokes his followers to repentance, saying: Turn to your Lord God, who have fallen, or lost, the health of the Lord. Take with you words and confess the true faith: "For" ((or rather which)) with the heart it is believed unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. X). Calves and sacrifices, or the fruits of lips, are to believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and in the passion and resurrection of the Lord; whoever offers it to Him will by no means hope in the king of Assyria, of whom we have often spoken. Nor will he ascend the horse which the Lord forbids to be multiplied (Deut. XVII), as did Pharaoh who was submerged with his cavalry (Exod. XIV). For every heretic mounts horses in pride, which he himself has generated in his error. And they shall no more say: Our gods, the works of our hands, which beareth the eloquence of the craftsman is our god. The belly is the god of the glutton: and the glory of mammon is the god of the covetous, and the dogma of the heretic, which he hath forged. He that shall forsake all these, namely, Assur and the horse, and shall flee to the Lord, shall be taken care of, and shall have mercy on him.

"I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon. They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon. O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit." LXX: "I will heal their inhabitants; I will love them openly, for my anger has turned away from them. I will be like dew for Israel; he shall blossom like the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. They shall return, and sit under his shade; they shall drink and be filled with the grain, and they shall flourish like the vine; the memory of Ephraim shall be as wine. What will he have more to do with idols? I have humbled him, and I will strengthen him; I am as a cypress tree, your fruit has come forth from me." Turning to repentance, and like an orphan recognizing the father whom they had abandoned, God responded: "I will heal their contrition," or "their dwelling places" in which they had been wounded, or broken, or in which they had lived so poorly: "I will love them freely;" which the LXX translated as "confessing" or "clearly" and "openly," or "without any doubt." But the Lord loves those who love him, of whom he also says in another place: "I love those who love me" (Prov. 8:17). For I used to be angry with them because of the sins they had committed, but now I will have mercy on them because of my clemency. And I will be to them as dew, so as to extinguish the Babylonian furnace and the furnace of burning heat with my moisture, which I spoke through the patriarch Isaac to my servant Jacob: 'Your dwelling place will be from the dew of heaven.' For just as the Lord becomes for believers light, way, truth, bread, vine, fire, shepherd, lamb, gate, worm, etc. Thus, to those in need of His mercy, and inflamed with the fever of sin, He is turned to us as dew, whom Isaiah says: "For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness." (Isai. XXVI, 9) And in the Song of Deuteronomy, Moses speaks: "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass" (Deut. XXXII, 2). But when the Lord has sprinkled us with His dew, and moistened the dryness of our hearts with His rain, we will flourish, and indeed flower into usefulness, imitating the Lord and Savior, who says in the Song of Songs: "I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valley" (Cant. II, 1), and speaks to His bride, who has no wrinkle or blemish: "As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters." And when we grow in the Lord, we will send down our roots like the trees of Lebanon, which rise as high as the heavens, so sink as low in the earth, that they may not be shaken by any storm, but remain steadfast. The branches of these trees are stretched out here and there, so that the birds of the sky may come and dwell in them. And lest we might think because it was said, his root shall break forth, or his roots shall be like Lebanon, that he speaks of cedar and unfruitful trees, he likens the holy man, converted to the Lord, to fruitful olive trees, who says in another place: "But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God" (Psalm LI, 1). Five wise virgins have prepared their fruit, from which the swelling of wounds is mitigated, the limbs of the languishing rest, light is kindled in the darkness, those who fight in agony are anointed. This olive will have a fragrance like that of Lebanon or frankincense, which is a kind of incense. It is called the same thing among Greeks and Hebrews, both the mountain and the incense, or certainly the mountain of Lebanon. It is very fertile and green, protected by the thickest hair of trees, so that the olive may say: "We are the good odor of Christ" (2 Corinthians 2:16). But whoever turns to the Lord will receive the reward of his conversion, to sit in His shadow and say: "I rested and sat down under His shadow, and His fruit is sweet to my mouth" (Song of Solomon 2:3). And when they sit in its shade, they who were once dead will live again, and they will drink and be drunken with wheat, that is, with the abundance of all things. And that this drunkenness here does not mean a disturbance of the mind, but the abundance of all things, that verse declares, saying, 'You have visited the earth and made it drunk' (Ps. 64:10). And Joseph's banquet, in which it is said that he made his brothers drunk (Gen. 43). And the Lord speaking to the apostles: "Eat, my friends, and drink, and be drunk, brethren" (Cant. V,1). Whether because our Lord himself is the grain and vine, whoever believes in him is said to be intoxicated. Finally it follows: "And his memorial shall flourish as the vine, as wine of Libanus." But we can call wine Libanus mixed and seasoned with thyme, so that it has the sweetest smell, or wine Libanus which is offered to the Lord in the temple, about which we read under the name of Libanus in Zacharias: "Open," "your gates, O Libanus" (Zach. XI,1). When the abundance of things is about to come to an end, O Ephraim, you who repent and have begun to be mine, cast away your idols and despise your images; for I am the one who humbled you, and I will exalt you, and whether I hear and direct you, I will make you like a green fir tree, so that it shall be said of you according to the Hebrews in the Psalm: "The fir tree is the house of the Lord." (Psalm 104:18). Or certainly I will be as a fir tree that is dense, so that one may rest in my shade. About the juniper, which is "ἀρκεύθοις" in Greek according to the Septuagint, it is recorded that Solomon made the doors of the temple, because Christ, through whom we approach the Father, has this nature, that it always flourishes, always brings forth new fruit, and never loses its vigor. This juniper, while those resting under its shade may not be struck by the fever of this world and, like those who once hit Jonah (Ch. IV), it provides food and not only rest to those who sleep and sit; but also satiety to those who eat. Whatever we have interpreted according to allegory, in the coming of the Lord and Savior and the conversion of true Israel, can refer to heretics and Jews as well as to misguided nations and all perverse teachings: so that they attain pardon when they repent. If, therefore, the fullness of the promise has been fulfilled in the coming of the Savior and is daily fulfilled in the Church, it is to be believed that it will be more fully completed when perfection arrives, which is now in part, will be destroyed. Note that we have often said, the safety of Israel and the return to the Lord, and the redemption from captivity, is not to be accepted carnally, as the Jews think, but spiritually, as is most truly proved.

"Who is wise and will understand these things? Who is prudent and will know them? Because the ways of the Lord are straight, and the just shall walk in them; But the transgressors shall fall therein." LXX: "Who is wise and will understand these things, or prudent and will know them? For the ways of the Lord are straight and the just shall walk in them: but the wicked shall fall therein." When he says, "Who is wise and will understand these things? Who is prudent and will know them?" he indicates the obscurity of the volume and the difficulty of the explanation. But if he who wrote either acknowledges it to be difficult or impossible, what can we do, whose eyes are dimmed with blindness and filth of sins, so that we cannot perceive the brightest rays of the sun, except to say what is written: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable are His ways!" (Rom. II, 33)! For who can, without Christ teaching, know what Jezrael means: what its sister, not having obtained mercy means; what the third brother, not being my people means; who the adulteress is, who will sit for a long time without the law of God; what the covenant with the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky means; who David is to whom the people will return, whose third day will be the resurrection, and whose coming forth will be compared to the dawn: what the first and last rain means; who is the one the prophet says will come to show us righteousness, or in whose type Israel was brought up out of Egypt, and was carried in arms, and led by the ropes of love: who it is that will slay Death, and dry up his veins and springs, and will make desolate the vessels that were kept in the treasury, and other things too long to relate? Therefore, whoever is holy and just will know the right ways of the Lord. We recognize the ways of the Lord by reading the Old and New Testaments, understanding the Scriptures. In these ways, whoever walks, unless he is converted to the Lord and the veil, which was before the eyes of Moses, has been taken away from him, he will not be able to find the right path. But if he says with David: "Reveal my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law" (Ps. CXVIII, 18), he will walk in them, and he will find Christ: and he will feel offended, weakened, and fallen by the Jews and heretics, whom the Scripture now calls prevaricators or impious, according to what is written: "Behold, this one is placed for the ruin and resurrection of many in Israel" (Luke II, 34).