1Aleph. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is the mistress of the Gentiles become as a widow: the princes of provinces made tributary!ALEPH. Come mai siede solitaria la città già piena di popolo, la signora delle nazioni è come vedova: la donna di Provincie è obbligata al tributo?HOW doeth the citie ful of people, sitte solitarie: how is the ladie of the Gentiles become as a widow: the princesse of prouinces is made tributarie?Prologus. Et factum est, postquam in captivitatem redactus est Israël, et Jerusalem deserta est, sedit Jeremias propheta flens, et planxit lamentatione hac in Jerusalem: et amaro animo suspirans et ejulans, dixit: Aleph. Quomodo sedet sola / civitas plena populo ! / Facta est quasi vidua / domina gentium; / princeps provinciarum / facta est sub tributo. 2Beth. Weeping, she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: there is none to comfort her among all them that were dear to her: all her friends have despised her, and are become her enemies.BETH. Ella piange inconsolabilmente la notte, le sue lagrime bagnano le sue guance: non v'ha tra tutti i suoi cari chi la consoli: tutti gli amici suoi la han disprezzata, e son divenuti suoi avversari.Weeping she hath wept in the night, and her teares are on her cheekes: there is none to comfort her of al her deare ones: al her freindes haue despised her, and are become her enimies.Beth. Plorans ploravit in nocte, / et lacrimæ ejus in maxillis ejus: / non est qui consoletur eam, / et omnibus caris ejus; / omnes amici ejus spreverunt eam, / et facti sunt ei inimici. 3Ghimel. Juda hath removed her dwelling place, because of her affliction, and the greatness of her bondage; she hath dwelt among the nations, and she hath found no rest; all her persecutors have taken her in the midst of straits.GHIMEL. Disperso andò Giuda, perchè straziato con molte maniere di servitù: pose sua stanza tralle nazioni, e non trovò requie: tutti i suoi persecutori lo strinsero da tutte parti.Iudas is gone into transmigration because of affliction, and the multitude of bondage: she hath dwelt among the Gentiles, neither hath she found rest: al her persecuters haue apprehended her within the straites.Ghimel. Migravit Judas propter afflictionem, / et multitudinem servitutis; / habitavit inter gentes, / nec invenit requiem: / omnes persecutores ejus apprehenderunt eam / inter angustias. 4Daleth. The ways of Sion mourn, because there are none that come to the solemn feast: all her gates are broken down; her priests sigh; her virgins are in affliction; and she is oppressed with bitterness.DALETH. Piangono le vie di Sionne, perchè nissuno più concorre alle sue solennità: tutte le sue porte distrutte: i sacerdoti gementi, le vergini nello squallore, ed della oppressa dall'amarezza.The waies of Sion mourne, because there are none that come to the solemnitie: al her gates are destroyed: her priestes sighing: her virgins lothsome, and herself is oppressed with bitternes.Daleth. Viæ Sion lugent, eo quod non sint / qui veniant ad solemnitatem: / omnes portæ ejus destructæ, / sacerdotes ejus gementes; / virgines ejus squalidæ, / et ipsa oppressa amaritudine.
5He. Her adversaries are become her lords; her enemies are enriched; because the Lord hath spoken against her for the multitude of her iniquities; her children are led into captivity, before the face of the oppressor.HE. I suoi nemici la signoreggiano; que', che la odiano, si sono arricchiti; perchè il Signore pronunziò contro di lei per le molte sue iniquità. I suoi fanciulli sono stati condotti in ischiavitù, cacciati dal persecutore.Her aduersaries are made in the head, her enemies are enriched: because our Lord hath spoken vpon her for the multitude of her iniquities: her litle ones are led into captiuitie, before the face of the afflicter.He. Facti sunt hostes ejus in capite; / inimici ejus locupletati sunt: / quia Dominus locutus est super eam / propter multitudinem iniquitatum ejus. / Parvuli ejus ducti sunt in captivitatem / ante faciem tribulantis. 6Vau. And from the daughter of Sion, all her beauty is departed; her princes are become like rams that find no pastures; and they are gone away without strength before the face of the pursuer.VAU. Perde la figlia di Sion tutta la sua beltà: i suoi principi son diventati come arieti, che non trovan pastura: e sono andati privi di forze innanzi a chi stava loro alle spalle.And from the daughter of Sion al her beautie is departed: her princes are become as rammes not fynding pastures: and they are gone without strength before the face of the pursewer.Vau. Et egressus est a filia Sion / omnis decor ejus; / facti sunt principes ejus velut arietes / non invenientes pascua, / et abierunt absque fortitudine / ante faciem subsequentis. 7Zain. Jerusalem hath remembered the days of her affliction, and prevarication of all her desirable things which she had from the days of old, when her people fell in the enemy’s hand, and there was no helper; the enemies have seen her, and have mocked at her sabbaths.ZAIN. Gerusalemme ha in memoria i giorni di sua tribolazione, e la sua prevaricazione, e tutti que' beni, ch'ella ebbe fin dagli antichi tempi, quando il suo popolo per man nemica cadeva, privo di chi l'aiutasse. La videro i nemici, e si burlarono de' suoi sabati.Ierusalem hath remembred the dayes of her affliction, and preuarication of al her thinges worthie to be desyred, which she had from the daies of old, when her people fel in the enimies hand, and there was no helper: the enemies haue sene her, and haue scorned her sabbathes.Zain. Recordata est Jerusalem dierum afflictionis suæ, / et prævaricationis, / omnium desiderabilium suorum, / quæ habuerat a diebus antiquis, / cum caderet populus ejus in manu hostili, / et non esset auxiliator: / viderunt eam hostes, / et deriserunt sabbata ejus. 8Heth. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore is she become unstable; all that honoured her, have despised her, because they have seen her shame; but she sighed, and turned backward.HETH. Peccato grande fu il peccato di Gerusalemme, per questo ella non ha avuto stabilità. Tutti que', che le davano lode, la han disprezzata, perchè han vedute le sue brutture: ella perciò so spirando ha rivolta indietro la faccia.Ierusalem hath sinned a sinne, therfore is she made vnstable: al that did glorifie her, haue despised her, because they haue sene her ignominie: but she sighing is turned backward.Heth. Peccatum peccavit Jerusalem, / propterea instabilis facta est; / omnes qui glorificabant eam spreverunt illam, / quia viderunt ignominiam ejus: / ipsa autem gemens / conversa est retrorsum.
9Teth. Her filthiness is on her feet, and she hath not remembered her end; she is wonderfully cast down, not having a comforter: behold, O Lord, my affliction, because the enemy is lifted up.TETH. La sua immondezza è fin ne' suoi piedi, ne ella si ricordò del suo fine. Or ella è altamente depressa, senza avere chi la consoli. Mira, o Signore, la tribolazione mia; perocché il nemico è divenuto insolente.Her filthines is on her feete, neither hath she remembred her end: she is pulled downe excedingly, not hauing a comforter: see ô Lord mine affliction, because the enemie is exalted.Teth. Sordes ejus in pedibus ejus, / nec recordata est finis sui; / deposita est vehementer, / non habens consolatorem. / Vide, Domine, afflictionem meam, / quoniam erectus est inimicus. 10Jod. The enemy hath put out his hand to all her desirable things: for she hath seen the Gentiles enter into her sanctuary, of whom thou gavest commandment that they should not enter into thy church.JOD. Il nimico mise la mano sopra tutto quel, ch'ella avea di più caro, ed ella ha veduto entrar nel suo santuario le genti, le quali tu avevi ordinato, che alle tue adunanze non si accostassero.The enimie hath thrust his hand to al her thinges worthie to be desyred: because she hath sene the Gentiles enter into her sanctuarie, of whom thou gauest commandment that they should not enter into thy church.Jod. Manum suam misit hostis / ad omnia desiderabilia ejus, / quia vidit gentes / ingressas sanctuarium suum, / de quibus præceperas / ne intrarent in ecclesiam tuam. 11Caph. All her people sigh, they seek bread: they have given all their precious things for food to relieve the soul: see, O Lord, and consider, for I am become vile.CAPH. Tutto il suo popolo è in sospiri, e cerca di pane, tutte le cose più preziose hanno date per aver cibo da ristorarsi. Mira, o Signore, e considera com' io sono avvilita.Al her people sighing, and seeking bread: they haue geuen al precious thinges for meate to refresh the soule, see ô Lord and consider, because I am become vyle.Caph. Omnis populus ejus gemens, / et quærens panem; / dederunt pretiosa quæque pro cibo / ad refocillandam animam. / Vide, Domine, et considera / quoniam facta sum vilis ! 12Lamed. O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow: for he hath made a vintage of me, as the Lord spoke in the day of his fierce anger.LAMED. O voi tutti, che passate per questa strada, ponete mente, e vedete, se v'ha dolor simile al mio dolore; perocché il Signore, secondo ch'egli predisse, mi ha vendemmiata nel giorno dell'ira sua furibonda.O al ye that passe by the way, attend, and see if there be sorow like to my sorow: because he hath made vintage of me, as our Lord hath spoken in the day of the wrath of his furie.Lamed. O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, / attendite, et videte / si est dolor sicut dolor meus ! / quoniam vindemiavit me, / ut locutus est Dominus, / in die iræ furoris sui.
13Mem. From above he hath sent fire into my bones, and hath chastised me: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate, wasted with sorrow all the day long.MEM. Dall'alto mandò un fuoco nelle mie ossa, e mi gastigò: tese una rete a' miei piedi, e mi fe' cadere all'indietro. Mi ha posto in desolazione, mi ha fatto tutto di consumar di dolore.From on high he hath cast a fyre in my bones, and hath taught me: he hath spred a net for my feete, he hath turned me backward: he hath made me desolate, al the day consumed with sorow.Mem. De excelso misit ignem in ossibus meis, / et erudivit me: / expandit rete pedibus meis, / convertit me retrorsum; / posuit me desolatam, / tota die mœrore confectam. 14Nun. The yoke of my iniquities hath watched: they are folded together in his hand, and put upon my neck: my strength is weakened: the Lord hath delivered me into a hand, out of which I am not able to rise.NUN. Venne sopra di me ad un tratto e il giogo di mie iniquità. Egli colle sue mani ne fe' un fascio, e le pose sopra il mio collo. Le mie forze sono mancate. Signore mi ha consegnata a tal mano, da cui fuggir non potrò.The yoke of mine iniquities hath watched: they are folded together in his hand, and put vpon my necke: my strength is weakened: our Lord hath geuen me into the hand, from which I can not rise.Nun. Vigilavit jugum iniquitatum mearum; / in manu ejus convolutæ sunt, / et impositæ collo meo. / Infirmata est virtus mea: / dedit me Dominus in manu / de qua non potero surgere. 15Samech. The Lord hath taken away all my mighty men out of the midst of me: he hath called against me the time, to destroy my chosen men: the Lord hath trodden the winepress for the virgin daughter of Juda.SAMECH. Il Signore mi ha rapito dal seno tutti i miei principi. Ha chiamato contro di me il tempo, in cui distruggere tutti i miei campioni. Il Signore ha pigiate le uve per la vergine figlia di AIN.Our Lord hath taken away al my magnifical ones out of the middes of me: he hath called a time against me, to destroy mine elect: our Lord hath troden the winepresse to the virgin the daughter of Iuda.Samech. Abstulit omnes magnificos meos Dominus / de medio mei; / vocavit adversum me tempus / ut contereret electos meos. / Torcular calcavit Dominus / virgini filiæ Juda. 16Ain. Therefore do I weep, and my eyes run down with water: because the comforter, the relief of my soul, is far from me: my children are desolate because the enemy hath prevailed.AIN. Per questo io piango, ed acque sgorgano dagli occhi miei, perchè si è ritirato da me il consolatore, che ravvivi l'anima mia. I figli miei sono periti, perchè il nimico l'ha vinta.Therfore am I weeping, and mine eye shedding teares: because a comforter is made far from me, conuerting my soule: my children are become desolate because the enemie hath preuayled.Ain. Idcirco ego plorans, / et oculus meus deducens aquas, / quia longe factus est a me consolator, / convertens animam meam. / Facti sunt filii mei perditi, / quoniam invaluit inimicus.
17Phe. Sion hath spread forth her hands, there is none to comfort her: the Lord hath commanded against Jacob, his enemies are round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.PHE. Sionne stende le mani, ma non havvi chi la consoli. Il Signore ha convocato contro Giacobbe i suoi nemici, che lo circondassero: in mezzo a questi Gerusalemme è come una donna nella sua immondezza.Sion hath spred forth her handes, there is none to comfort her: our Lord hath commanded against Iacob, round about him are his enemies: Ierusalem is become as a woman polluted with menstrous floores among them.Phe. Expandit Sion manus suas; / non est qui consoletur eam. / Mandavit Dominus adversum Jacob / in circuitu ejus hostes ejus; / facta est Jerusalem / quasi polluta menstruis inter eos. 18Sade. The Lord is just, for I have provoked his mouth to wrath: hear, I pray you, all ye people, and see my sorrow: my virgins, and my young men are gone into captivity.SADE. Giusto è il Signore, perchè io violando la sua parola lo esacerbai. Popoli tutti udite, vi prego, e ponete mente al mio dolore: le mie vergini, i miei giovani son' iti in ischiavitù.Our Lord is iust, because I haue prouoked his mouth to wrath: heare I beseech al ye peoples, and see my sorow: my virgins, and my pong men are gone into captiuitie.Sade. Justus est Dominus, / quia os ejus ad iracundiam provocavi. / Audite, obsecro, universi populi, / et videte dolorem meum: / virgines meæ et juvenes mei abierunt / in captivitatem. 19Coph. I called for my friends, but they deceived me: my priests and my ancients pined away in the city: while they sought their food, to relieve their souls.COPH. Ricorsi agli amici miei, ed ei m'ingannarono. I miei sacerdoti, e i miei anziani si son consumati nella città in cercando cibo da sostener la loro vita.I haue called my freindes, they haue deceiued me: my priestes and my ancientes are consumed in the citie: because they haue sought meat for themselues, to refresh their soule.Coph. Vocavi amicos meos, / et ipsi deceperunt me; / sacerdotes mei et senes mei / in urbe consumpti sunt, / quia quæsierunt cibum sibi / ut refocillarent animam suam. 20Res. Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled: my heart is turned within me, for I am full of bitterness: abroad the sword destroyeth and at home there is death alike.RES. Mira, o Signore, com' io son tribolata: le mie viscere sono scommosse, il mio cuore è sconvolto dentro di me, io son piena di amarezza. La spada uccide al di fuori, e in casa è l'immagine della morte.See ô Lord that I am in tribulation, my bellie is trubled: my hart is ouerturned in myself, because I am ful of bitternes: the sword killeth abrode, and at home it is lyke death.Res. Vide, Domine, quoniam tribulor: / conturbatus est venter meus, / subversum est cor meum in memetipsa, / quoniam amaritudine plena sum. / Foris interfecit gladius, / et domi mors similis est.
21Sin. They have heard that I sigh, and there is none to comfort me: all my enemies have heard of my evil, they have rejoiced that thou hast done it: thou hast brought a day of consolation, and they shall be like unto me.SIN. Hanno uditi i miei gemiti, e nissun v'ha, che mi consoli: tutti i miei nemici hanno sapute le mie sciagure, ne hanno goduto, perchè questa è opra tua: manderai il giorno di consolazione, e diverran simili a me.They haue heard that I doe sigh, and there is none to comfort me: al mine enimies haue heard mine euil, they haue reioyced, because thou hast done it: thou hast brought a day of consolation, and they shal be made lyke to me.Sin. Audierunt quia ingemisco ego, / et non est qui consoletur me; / omnes inimici mei audierunt malum meum, / lætati sunt quoniam tu fecisti: / adduxisti diem consolationis, / et fient similes mei. 22Thau. Let all their evil be present before thee: and make vintage of them, as thou hast made vintage of me for all my iniquities: for my sighs are many, and my heart is sorrowful.THAU. Siati presente tutta la loro malizia, e trattali come me hai trattato per le mie iniquità: imperocché continui sono i miei sospiri, ed è angustiato il mio cuore.Let al their euil enter in before thee: and vintage them, as thou hast vintaged me for al mine iniquities: for my sighings are manie, and my hart is sorowful.Thau. Ingrediatur omne malum eorum coram te: / et vindemia eos, sicut vindemiasti me / propter omnes iniquitates meas: / multi enim gemitus mei, / et cor meum mœrens.
1:1
Haydock
Tributary. It had been so to the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Chaldeans, 4 Kings 24:1. From this and similar passages, it would seem that the city was still existing: yet in others it appears to have been demolished. Here then the prophet declares what it had been: (Calmet) unless he wrote part after the death of Josias. (Haydock)
Worthington
The beholders are astonished at the change and misery of the city. (Worthington)
1:2
Night; privately, or without ceasing.
Friends, who had made a league with Sedecias, Lamentations 27:3., and 48:26.
1:3
Calmet
Rest. Many returning to join Godolias, Lamentations 40:7. (Calmet)
1:4
Calmet
Feast, thrice a-year. This was the most charming sight, when all the nation met to adore God, and to renew their friendship with one another. (Calmet)
1:5
Calmet
Lords. Literally, "at the head," (Haydock) which Moses had threatened, Deuteronomy 26:1, 43. (Calmet)
Worthington
This would be most cutting. (Worthington)
1:6
Calmet
Beauty; princes' palaces, but particularly the temple, ver. 10. (Calmet)
Worthington
Rams, fleeing from place to place to seek relief. (Worthington)
1:7
Of all. She compares her past happiness with her present chastisement.
Juvenal v
Sabbaths, or days of rest. The pagans derided them as so much lost time. Ignava et partem vitae non attigit ullam. (Juvenal v.; Seneca, apud St. Augustine, City of God 6:11.)
Calmet
If none of their legislators thought of such an institution, it was because they had not the spirit of Moses: their feasts were dissolute. (Calmet)
1:8
Calmet
Unstable. Hebrew also, "removed," (Haydock) like a woman unclean. (Calmet)
Buxtorf
Such were excluded from places of prayer, and were not allowed to touch a sacred book, or to pronounce God's name. Their husbands could not look at their face, nor give them any thing, but laid it down for them to take. (Buxtorf, Syn. 31.)
Calmet
No condition could be more distressing. (Calmet)
1:9
Haydock
End in her prosperity, to avert this misfortune. (Haydock)
Haydock
Idolatry is a spiritual adultery, (Worthington) and one of the worst species of filth. (Haydock)
1:10
1:11
Calmet
O. Hebrew of the Masorets, "It is." (Calmet)
Haydock
Protestants, "Is it nothing to you, all?" etc. (Haydock)
Calmet
But the Vulgate is much clearer, and approved by many Protestants, lu being often used as an exclamation, Genesis 17:18. (Calmet)
Haydock
Vintage. He has plundered all, ver. 22. (Haydock)
Worthington
The king took a great deal, and his general the rest, 4 Kings xxiv., and xxv. (Worthington)
1:13
Theodoret
Bones: fortresses. (Theodoret)
Calmet
I am like one in a burning fever, Ezechiel 24:4. (Calmet)
Haydock
Chastised. Literally, "instructed." This is the good effect of affliction. (Haydock)
1:14
Watched. This metaphor is not too harsh, Lamentations 31:28. The Masorets prefer, (Calmet) "is bound by his hand." (Protestants) But miskad is explained (Haydock) by the Septuagint, etc., in the sense of the Vulgate. God lays the yoke on my neck suddenly. My iniquities are like bands, and Nabuchodonosor has power over me.
1:15
Mighty. Hebrew, "magnificent" princes, (Luke 22:25.) or warriors.
Time of vengeance. All is animated. Hebrew also, "a troop" of Chaldeans, Lamentations 2:22.
Juda. God, as the first cause, punishes the Jews by war.
1:17
Then. They surround the city, to starve the inhabitants, ver. 8.
1:19
Calmet
Me. Egypt attempted to relieve Juda, to no purpose, ver. 2. (Calmet)
Worthington
It could not, or at least did not, prove of any service to the Jews, Lamentations 2:18. (Worthington)
1:20
Worthington
Alike, by famine, etc. (Calmet) (Worthington)
Virgil
Ubique pavor et plurima mortis imago. (Virgil, Aeneid ii.)
1:21
Done it. They conclude that I am cast off for ever. But when I shall be comforted, their turn will come; (Calmet) or rather they will feel the scourge soon after me.
Consolation. Hebrew, "which thou hast appointed." (Haydock) (Chap. 48:26., etc., and Ezechiel xxv., etc.)
1:22
Calmet
Let. He prays not for their ruin, but predicts it; and wishes rather that they would be converted. (Calmet)
1:1
Aliph.
1:2
Beth.
1:3
Some Iewes seing their bretheren ledde captiues into Babylon, went into Aegypt, but there also were in miserie.
Ghimel.
1:4
Daleth.
1:5
It is a desolate miserie when enimies obtaine dominion.
He.
1:6
•au.
Fleing from place to place to seeke relife.
1:7
Zain.
1:8
Heth.
1:9
Idolatrie which is spiritual adultrie.
Teth.
1:10
Iod.
1:11
Caph.
1:12
Lamed.
First Nabuchodonosor tooke away much treasure 4 Reg 24 afterwards his capitaine Nabuzardan spoyled al 4 Reg. 25.
1:13
Mem.
1:14
Nun.
1:15
Samech.
1:16
Ai•.
1:17
Phe.
1:18
Sade.
1:19
Aegypt wherin the Iewes trusted to sinde ayde, could not, or at least, did not helpe them Iere 2. v. 18. & 37. v. 4. & 6.
Coph:
1:20
Res.
At home i• famine.
1:21
Sin.
1:22
That.
1:1
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 21.12
… But since the Sextuses and Pyrrhos, and the antithetic style, like a dire and malignant disease, have infected our churches, and babbling is reputed culture, and, as the book of the Acts says of the Athenians, we spend our time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. O what Jeremiah
1:2
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 Concerning Repentance 2.6
45. Jeremiah knew that penitence was a great remedy, which he in his Lamentations took up for Jerusalem, and brings forward Jerusalem itself as repenting, when he says: “She wept sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks, nor is there one to comfort her of all who love her. The ways of Sion do mourn.”
1:4
St Gregory of Nyssa † AD 395 Funeral Oration on Meletius 1
… But now our wound is beyond healing; our Elijah has been caught up, and no Elisha left behind in his place. You have heard certain mournful and lamenting words of Jeremiah, with which he bewailed Jerusalem as a deserted city, and how among other expressions of passionate grief he added this, “The ways of Zion do mourn
1:16
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 Concerning Repentance 2.6
… “She wept sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks, nor is there one to comfort her of all who love her. The ways of Sion do mourn.” And he says further: “For these things I weep, my eyes have grown dim with weeping, because he who used to comfort me is gone far from me.”
Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 Register of the Epistles of St. Gregory the Great 1.6
… For I reflect to what a dejected height of external advancement I have mounted in falling from the lofty height of my rest. And, being sent for my faults into the exile of employment from the face of my Lord , I say with the prophet, in the words, as it were of destroyed Jerusalem, He who should comfort me hath departed far from me (
1:18
St Melito of Sardis † AD 180 Melito, the Philosopher 9
The mouth of the Lord —His Son, or word addressed to men. In the prophet, “The mouth of the Lord hath spoken;” and elsewhere, “They provoked His mouth to anger.”
1:20
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 Concerning Repentance 2.6
46. But let those who repent learn how they ought to carry it out, with what zeal, with what affection, with what intention of mind, with what shaking of the inmost bowels, with what conversion of heart: “Behold,” he says, “O Lord, that I am in distress, my bowels are troubled by my weeping, my heart is turned within me.”
1:1
1. HOW. — This is the voice not of one inquiring, but of one marveling and astounded at so great a calamity and overthrow of so great a city and commonwealth, as Jeremiah had said in chapter XVIII, 16: "Every one that passeth by her shall be astonished, and shall hiss, and wag his head." Moreover, in this calamity the Prophet marvels at so calamitous and almost incredible a change of state in all things, but especially in three things in which the majesty of Jerusalem shone forth, namely first, in the multitude of people, which has now been reduced to desolation; for this is what he means when he says: "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people." Second, in the wisdom of the king and magistrates, by which it formerly excelled the nations as if it were their mistress, and now it is bereft of them. Whence he says: "She is become as a widow, the lady of the Gentiles." Third, in the empire by which it was wont to rule over many not long ago, and now it serves the Chaldeans and pays tribute; for this is what the verse concluding the third aleph says: "The princess of the provinces is made tributary," as if to say, Could it be that magnificent and renowned Jerusalem, the holy city, the emporium of Syria, the paradise of Asia, the eye of the East, the queen of the world, the stronghold of religion, the torch of faith, the pillar of sacred things, the pillar of the Church, the throne of God, the delight of men and Angels, could be profaned by God and the Chaldeans, overthrown, burned? so that so many millions of men who were in it should be reduced to so few, vile and poor souls? so that David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, and other most illustrious kings and princes of it should in this ruin of the kingdom all perish as it were together? so that that vast and noble empire of Solomon should fall and serve the Chaldeans? SITTETH SOLITARY THE CITY. — "Solitary" first, as if deserted by its own citizens, and therefore mourning; second, as if cast down from the throne of glory and kingdom; third, as if menstruous, and on account of menstruation polluted and unclean, for thus Jerusalem is called in verse 17, or as if leprous (for lepers dwell alone outside camps and cities) and separated from the fellowship and protection of God and the Saints, and therefore as if cast out and excommunicated. She is become as a widow, — as if to say, Jerusalem as a widow is bereft first, of her king, namely Zedekiah now captured; second, of her high priest, namely Seraiah now slain by the Chaldeans; third, of other princes and magistrates now likewise either slain or captured. For these are as it were the husbands of the commonwealth, which when they are taken away becomes as a widow. This sense is especially natural and genuine. Second, "widow," because she is forsaken by God who was the husband of the Synagogue, say Rupert, Bonaventure and Dionysius; whence he says as if because her husband, namely God, is not dead, but has only repudiated her as an adulteress and exposed her as prey to the Chaldeans. Third, widow is opposed to the voice lady of the Gentiles: for in Hebrew it is rabbati baggoim, that is, great, that is, many to the Gentiles, as if to say, Jerusalem, which formerly was frequented by the Gentiles, both by proselytes and those converted to Judaism, and by Gentiles, flocking to it for merchandise, wisdom, or other reasons, as to the most noble emporium, is now bereft of them. Thus the Chaldean and Origen. Whence in Hebrew a widow is called almana, that is, bound, and silent, that is, a servant, which formerly was a mistress. For a widow seems to have her hands bound, as much as her mouth, so that she cannot defend herself in judgments and repel her injuries; but of all SITTETH. — He speaks first of Jerusalem as of a matron greatly afflicted and mourning: for she on account of mourning and weakness and shame (if violated, as Jerusalem was violated here with the temple) is wont to sit and weep. It can, however, second, with Maldonado, be understood that siteth means lieth: for to sit, as also to stand in Scripture sometimes does not signify a certain position, but only presence, so that it is the same as to be present and to be there, whether one stands, or sits, or lies, as if to say, How doth Jerusalem lie prostrate, which formerly stood, nay raised its head above all nations? Thus he said in chapter XXVIII, 18: "Come down, and sit in the dust, O inhabitant of the daughter of Dibon." Thus Vespasian, having conquered Judea, caused a coin to be struck, in which Judea was depicted as a woman sitting and leaning upon a palm. For the palm is the emblem of Judea, because it is fertile. seems exposed to calumnies and robberies, and given as prey, because her guardian and avenger, namely her husband, has died. Such was Jerusalem here. Note: to quasi, that is to say, Jerusalem is not properly a woman and a widow, but a city similar to her. Again, she is not completely widowed and desolate, because after seventy years of captivity she will again be filled by the aid and will of God with an abundance both of princes and natives, as well as of nations flowing to her. Others explain to quasi, that is to say, Jerusalem is not truly a widow, but as it were, because she is an adulteress and unfaithful. But this is more subtle than solid; for he deals with punishment, not with the guilt of Jerusalem. A PRINCESS AMONG THE PROVINCES HAS BECOME TRIBUTARY.—That is to say, Jerusalem, which under David and Solomon ruled over the Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, Ammonites, Idumaeans, and other nations and provinces, as is evident from II Kings viii and III Kings ix; now serves the Chaldaeans, barbarians and infidels, and pays tribute to them. Note: Tribute is called in Hebrew mas, from the root masas, that is, he melted; therefore mas signifies not only a tax from resources, but every contribution, and every personal burden, by which the tributary in the servitude of someone consumes, melts and exhausts himself and all his possessions: which happens, for example, when someone is condemned to cultivate fields and vineyards, to work in metal mines, to make bricks, to bear burdens, etc., as happened to the Hebrews in Egypt, Exodus 1. Allegorically, the Synagogue was a type of the Church; let it therefore now be said of the Church, which once flourished in Greece, Asia, Egypt, Africa, England, Scotland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden; but now suffers the yoke of the Turks or of heresy: "How does the city sit alone?" etc. Thus Victor of Utica adapts these laments to Africa afflicted by the Arian Vandals, at the end of book III of his History of the Vandals: "Be present," he says, "angels of my God, and see all Africa, once supported by the ramparts of so many Churches, now desolate from all; adorned with so many orders of priests, now sitting widowed and cast down. The enemy has sent forth his hand against all her desirable things. All her beauty has gone forth from before her, etc. Intercede, Patriarchs; pray, holy Prophets; be, Apostles, her advocates. Especially you, blessed Peter, why are you silent for your sheep? You St. Paul, teacher of the Gentiles, recognize what the Arian Vandals do, and your sons groan mourning in captivity." Tropologically, a soul full of people, that is, of good thoughts and affections as if of citizens, is deprived and desolated of these by sin. Secondly, mistress of nations, that is, of vices and passions, which she governed by reason and fear of God, now is widowed of all this dominion, indeed even of God and of the empire of reason. Thirdly, a princess in provinces, that is, a soul commanding her powers and members, has become the slave of the demon: "Serving as many scepters as she has been given to vices," says St. Jerome, in which she pays tribute, when she expends and exhausts all her riches and strength with them. Therefore pride holds a scepter in the soul of the impious; avarice also holds a scepter, lust, and other vices: the impious serves as many tyrants as he obeys vices. For the scepter and dominion are taken from reason, and it is delivered to concupiscence, just as if someone were to take the crown from an excellent queen and place it on the head of a most wanton harlot: for reason is a queen, concupiscence is a harlot. Thus St. Chrysostom, homily 11 on the epistle to the Romans. Whence St. Augustine, tract. 41 in John: "Take away," he says, "the kingdom of sin, do not give strength to your concupiscences: by following them, you add strength to them; by giving them strength, how will you conquer, when you nourish enemies against yourself with your own strength?" To this sinful soul therefore Jeremiah, that is, the preacher, speaking with compassion and wonder, says: "How does the city sit alone full of people? she has become as it were a widow, mistress of nations," etc. Concerning the gravity of sin, see what is said on Jeremiah II in the preface.
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2. WEEPING SHE WEPT. — First, R. Solomon thinks that by this doubling a twofold weeping is signified, one on account of the destruction of the temple, the other on account of the destruction of the city. But I say it is a Hebraism. "Weeping she wept," that is, she wept continually and abundantly, namely the city Jerusalem, that is, the few citizens left in Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Second and more simply, to the city itself through prosopopoeia, for the sake of pathos, there is given here life, voice, weeping, etc., because to the city is attributed the person of a matron once happy and glorious, now vile, miserable and weeping, as I said in verse 1. IN THE NIGHT. — The Chaldean thus explains it: When Moses, he says, sent spies into the promised land, and they reported that the land was difficult of access, the Jews wept that night on account of sadness: at which God, being angry, commanded that they should bewail on that night the future desolation of the temple. But these are fables of the Jews. Jerusalem wept therefore "in the night," that is, in calamity, whose symbol is night, say Rabanus, St. Thomas and Lyra. Second, "in the night," because on the night of the ninth day of the month of Ab, Jerusalem was captured; wherefore then her weeping began. Thus some Hebrews, and the Chaldean also hints at this, nay the Scripture itself, Jeremiah LII, 7. Third and most simply, "in the night," because night, on account of silence, solitude, freedom from labor, tranquility, collection and contraction of the mind, is more apt for meditation, compunction and tears. Thus Origen, Isidore, St. Thomas and others. He alludes to the voice of a widow: for thus he called Jerusalem, verse 1; for a widow is wont especially at night to remember her husband and the companionship of the marriage bed, and to experience and bewail her widowhood, as the bride says, Canticles III, 1: "In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth." Fourth, Sanchez adds a new reason: Because, he says, just as it was unlawful for servants to complain of the dominion of their masters, however cruel and harsh; so also lovers, as Jeremiah said in chapter IV, 30, because they drew her as adulterers to their idols and vices: but now, having become enemies, they abandon her made a widow by destruction, nay they despise, mock and assail her. Thus St. Thomas, Hugh, Bonaventure, Lyra and Dionysius. For this is the just punishment of harlots and adulteresses, that honey be turned to gall for them, lovers into enemies, flatterers into mockers. to mourn before them, or to show languor of spirit, was a capital crime. Thus before King Ariovistus no one was permitted to utter a sound in extreme sorrow, much less to weep, says Caesar in book I of the Gallic War. Thus Jerusalem here, subdued and enslaved, dared not weep before the Chaldeans by day: she weeps therefore at night. Thus among Sophocles Electra calls Niobe happy, to whom it was permitted to weep for the death of her children. HER TEARS ARE ON HER CHEEKS, — namely they cling and persist, as if to say, She weeps perpetually, perpetual streams of tears flow from her eyes down her cheeks; so that she does not care to wipe them away, because new ones always flow, and others continually succeed others. Otherwise Hugh and Sanchez: Tears cling to the cheeks, because the barbarous Chaldeans do not permit her leisure to wash her face; or rather, because she herself, wholly absorbed in mourning, does not care for cleansing and beauty, but shows and professes her sorrow by perpetual tears. THERE IS NONE TO COMFORT HER. — This is added to the sum of her sorrow, that she has no one to comfort her. For since sadness is as it were a burden weighing down a weak mind; when friends grieve with the sorrowful, they seem to help him in bearing the burden, and he himself is relieved, feeling that he does not bear his burden alone, especially because from this he sees that he is loved by them, from which he is affected with a certain tacit delight, which diminishes sadness. Thus from Aristotle St. Thomas, II II, Question XXXVIII, article 3. Hence also St. Gregory, book V of the Morals, chapter III, says: "The visitation of one laboring is the alleviation of labor," much more the visitation and consolation of one grieving is the alleviation of grief. Wherefore David in the person of Christ complains, Psalm LXVIII, 21: "I looked for one that would grieve together with me, and there was none: and for one that would comfort me, and I found none." And in hell one of the greatest punishments of the damned is, that they have no one in heaven, or on earth, who would have compassion on their extreme torments even by a nod; but all praise in them the just judgment of God, and deem them worthy of these and greater punishments. From all her dear ones. — First, the dear ones and friends of Jerusalem are here called priests and prophets, says Hugh. Second, the idols of the gentiles which they worshipped, and in which the Jews hoped: for with these as with her lovers Jerusalem committed fornication; but now in her destruction she was abandoned and forsaken by them. Thus Rabanus. Third, these dear ones are guardian angels, say St. Bonaventure and Dionysius. Fourth, more plainly Origen: The dear ones of Jerusalem, he says, are the neighboring Jews of other cities. Fifth, Olympiodorus thus explains it, meaning: In the destruction of Jerusalem one did not console another, friend did not console friend, because all alike were made desolate. Sixth and most aptly, the dear ones and friends of Jerusalem are here called the neighboring nations, and formerly friends to the Jews, now enemies; because they laid waste the Jews with the Chaldeans. Such were the Idumeans and the Egyptians. These indeed were the companions of this matron, namely Jerusalem. The same thing happened tropologically to the sinning soul; for this soul, having committed fornication with creatures and pleasures, soon suffers from them bitterness, horror, nausea, and other torments of body and soul, by the just judgment of God, especially in sickness and death. The same thing is clearly represented in two beautiful parables by Barlaam to King Josaphat in Damascenus, chapters xiii and xiv of their History.
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3. JUDAH HAS MIGRATED BECAUSE OF AFFLICTION. — The Chaldean, Vatablus, Dionysius and Isidorus thus translate: Judah went into captivity, because he himself afflicted orphans and widows, and treated Hebrew servants with harshness, and did not let them go free at the time appointed by the law and by God, as is evident from Jeremiah XXXIV, 14. Second, Lyra and Rupertus: "Because of affliction," they say, that is, that he might be afflicted and serve the Chaldeans on account of his sins. Third, Origen: "Because of affliction," he says, that is, because he afflicted, that is, debased himself, and served sins. Fourth, most excellently Rabanus, Hugh, St. Thomas, Dionysius and Isidorus thus explain it, meaning: Judah, that is, many of the Jews, in order to escape the affliction, burdens, tributes, servile ministries in building ramparts, tilling fields, carrying bricks and mortar, cleaning and fortifying camps, which as slaves they were about to undergo, or were already undergoing, as they had undergone in Egypt, Exodus 1 and v, in order, I say, to escape such servitude, so varied, hard, and manifold of the Chaldeans; they migrated partly before the destruction of Jerusalem, partly during it, and after it, to neighboring nations, namely Ammon, Moab, and especially the Egyptians: but neither did they find rest there, because the Chaldeans pursuing them apprehended them there, that is, them, namely the Jews: for he now speaks of them in the masculine, as of a man and a people; now in the feminine, as of a matron: for such is a city and a nation. ALL HER PERSECUTORS APPREHENDED HER IN THE MIDST OF STRAITS, — in a place hemmed in on all sides by dangers so that she could not escape, for example in a narrow space enclosed on both sides by walls; thus indeed were the Jews fleeing into Egypt: for neither could they return to Judea, because it itself was held by the Chaldeans; nor could they remain in Egypt, because it was being laid waste by them. In these things therefore that saying was true: He fell upon Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis. And this: Fleeing from ashes he fell into coals. Note in the Hebrew a beautiful and forceful paronomasia. For מצרים metsarim, which signifies straits, alludes to מצרים Mitsraim, that is, Egypt, meaning: The Jews migrated into Mitsraim, that is, into Egypt, as it were into metsarim, that is, into their straits, like mice into their mousetrap, namely into the captivity and sword of the Chaldeans, which apprehended them there. Jeremiah had foretold this and threatened it to them, chapter XLII, 11, and chapters XLIII, XLIV and XLVI. Tropologically, many flee from the Church to heretics, on account of the strict servitude of the Church's commandments; but there too they fall into greater perturbations of soul and conscience. Second, when a pious soul is afflicted by God, if it wishes to flee from him, it will fall into greater afflictions: for while it shakes off one cross, it incurs another more grievous. Third, a Religious who flees the labors of Religious life will find greater straits in the world of a tormenting conscience, of friends and cares; likewise afflictions and temptations from the flesh, the world and the demon.
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4. THE WAYS OF SION,—that is, the ways to the temple which was on Mount Sion. Thus Origen, Hugo, Lyranus and Dionysius. Secondly and better, Sion, that is Jerusalem, whose principal part was the citadel and Mount Sion. Thus Theodoret, Hugo, St. Thomas and Bonaventure. These ways to Jerusalem mourn metaphorically, that is they are deserted and desolate, just as meadows laugh when they bloom. For the citizens of the city and the crowds of the ways are as it were the soul and life: whence with these removed they appear to mourn and die. Otherwise Lyranus: The ways, he says, mourn, that is the grasses and abundant herbage, as it were hair like those mourning, produced abundantly, because they were trodden by no footstep. But truly those mourning among the Hebrews did not nourish their hair in mourning, but cut it, as is evident from Job 1, 20; Jeremiah VII, 29; Micah I, 16. Secondly, the ways of Jerusalem mourn metonymically, because they excite mourning in those considering both the former frequency and concourse to solemnities, namely the Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, to which all Jews not only from Judea but from the whole world flowed to Jerusalem; and the present, with the city and temple overthrown, desolation. ALL HER GATES ARE DESTROYED.—Gates serve first for the appearance and adornment of the city; secondly for defense: whence formerly they were high and fortified like citadels; thirdly for the senate and judgments: for judges formerly conducted these matters at the gates, because access to them was free to all both natives and foreigners; fourthly for markets, festivals, games, and every gathering and assembly of the people. In the gates therefore destroyed, all these things are likewise destroyed and overthrown. Whence in chapter V, 14 he says: "The elders have failed from the gates, the young men from the choir of singers." Thus St. Thomas. HER PRIESTS GROANING,—because they are removed from their office; or rather, as the Chaldean, because their sacrifices and all sacred rites cease: for while these flourished, those sacrificing sang hymns and psalms and rejoiced; now with these taken away, they are silent and groan. Her virgins (which in the festivals of the city and temple were accustomed to lead choirs and sing the praises of God, I Kings XVIII, 6, now) are squalid; in Hebrew nugos, that is afflicted. Allegorically virgins are nuns and others who have dedicated their virginity to God; these become squalid when they fail from their former purity and seclusion, and pursue worldly familiarities, urbanities and conversations, and thus turn their face from God their spouse to men. Secondly and adequately, the virgins of Jerusalem, which were formerly wonderfully beautiful and most zealous of splendor and adornment, now reduced to the power of the barbarian Chaldeans and made their handmaids, many also violated by them, mourn and become squalid. This is what Isaiah threatened to the proud and adorned daughters of Sion, chapter III, verse 24: "And instead of a sweet smell there shall be a stench, and instead of a girdle a rope, and instead of curled hair baldness, and instead of a stomacher a sackcloth." Wherefore "she herself," the mother Jerusalem, most loving of her daughters, seeing their squalor and filth, is wholly "oppressed with bitterness." Tropologically the ways to life, virtue and heaven are virtues, faith, justice, mercy, etc.; these mourn because they are deserted and neglected by men. Secondly, the gates, that is the senses are destroyed, when through them the enemy, sin and death, have entered into the soul. Thirdly, the priests groan, that is the mind and spirit, which were accustomed to offer to God meditations, oblations and prayers; now overwhelmed by sin they groan and neglect them. Fourthly, the virgins, that is pure and heavenly thoughts become squalid; hence all things are bitter to the sinner. Again, the gates of Jerusalem are the virtues of the soul. The gate of the foundation is humility: the high gate on Mount Sion is charity: the gate of the temple is religion: the gate of the valley is knowledge of the Creator through the beauty of creatures; in this are two doors, one of the creature, the other of the Creator; the gate of the dunghill is confession, through which the filth of the soul is cast out: the gate of the fountain is the outpouring of tears: the gate of the flock is care for feeding one's own soul and those of others: the gate of the fish is temperance and observance of fasts: the gate of the horses is strength and alacrity for fighting against the enemy: the eastern gate is faith: the gate of pottery is consideration of human fragility: the gate of the corner is mutual beneficence: the middle gate is moderation. All these are destroyed by sin.
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5. HER ENEMIES HAVE BECOME HER HEADS, — that is, have become her superiors, and they rule over Jerusalem; whereas the Jerusalemites were once lords of affairs, now they are cast down, and have become a tail: for they are slaves of the Chaldeans. So tropologically, to the sinful soul enemies dominate, namely demons and concupiscences. Hear St. Gregory, book I of the Morals, XIX: "Her enemies have become her heads, as if to say: When a good work is undertaken not with a good intention, the spirits opposing it hold dominion from the very beginning of thought: and they possess it all the more fully, inasmuch as they hold dominion from the beginning." Where St. Gregory, by head, tropologically understands the beginning of action and intention: For, as St. Bernard says, in the book On Precepts and Dispensations, "a perverse intention utterly condemns a good work." For just as from a muddy well whatever comes forth is turbid: so from a corrupt mind nothing but corruption proceeds. HER ENEMIES HAVE BEEN ENRICHED — by the spoils of Jerusalem. In Hebrew it is שלו scalu, that is, they have prospered, they have conquered and plundered her successfully, and thus from her spoils "have been enriched." BECAUSE THE LORD HAS SPOKEN, — that is, He Himself threatened these very things to the Jews, if they should turn away from Him and His law, through Moses, Deuteronomy XXVIII, 13, and Leviticus XXVI, and elsewhere: and now recently through me Jeremiah, through Isaiah and other prophets. The Septuagint, the Chaldean and Vatablus translate: Because the Lord afflicted or humbled her. For the Hebrew הוגה hoga they derive from יגה iaga, that is, he grieved and caused to grieve. Our translator, however, properly derives hoga from הגה haga, that is, he meditated, he mused, he spoke. HER LITTLE ONES (who scarcely begin to speak and walk, and to whom therefore enemies, even though barbarians, are accustomed to spare) HAVE BEEN LED INTO CAPTIVITY BEFORE THE FACE OF THE OPPRESSOR, — before the Chaldean enemy, driving them like cattle and threatening them into Chaldea. For he was thinking to snatch them away, not like a shepherd, but like a robber, or to kill them. Tropologically, the little ones, novices in faith or religion, are led into captivity, when by the sins of the elders and their wicked examples they are drawn away into dissolution and crimes.
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6. AND THERE HAS GONE OUT FROM THE DAUGHTER OF ZION ALL HER BEAUTY. — Note first: The daughter of Zion is Jerusalem, because she herself was in the valley, and as it were under the protection of the ark and the mount of Zion, as if under her mother. Thus Lyra and Hugh. Second, Origen and the Chaldean: Daughter, that is, the assembly and people, which in the city of Zion, as if a fetus in the mother's womb, was contained. Third and best, Jerusalem, a most beautiful city, is called "daughter," because the Hebrews metaphorically call beautiful and beloved cities daughters. Thus the daughter of Babylon is the city of Babylon, or Babylon itself, beautiful and lovable as a daughter. BEAUTY, — that is, first, kingdom, say the Hebrew and Vatablus; second, Lyra, kingdom and priesthood; third and more fully, St. Thomas, Hugh, Dionysius and Bonaventure, "all her beauty," that is, all the ornament both of the temple and of houses, and of citizens, and of magistrates, and of priests, and of virgins, and of the polity and all things. HER PRINCES HAVE BECOME LIKE RAMS. — The translator reads אלים elim, that is, rams: already others with different pointing read אילים aialim, that is, as if stags, namely timid and fleeing, Zedekiah and the princes of Judah have become. Thus the Chaldean and Pagninus. For this reason Achilles, rebuking Agamemnon in Homer, says he has a stag's heart, that is, to be most timid. Our translator better renders, "rams without pasture," that is, without food and pasture, as if to say: The princes of Jerusalem, like emaciated rams, were worn out by hunger and weariness, when they went captive into Babylon, so that, with the Chaldeans urging them on to go hastily, they could scarcely walk. Thus Origen, Hugh, Lyra and Dionysius. Tropologically, the soul is the daughter of Zion, that is, of contemplation, and daughter of Zion, that is, citizen of heaven, which before through meditation sucked the milk of Angels, now through sin has lost all the beauty of virtues, by which she pleased God and Angels before all creatures: for a soul adorned with the grace of God is a most beautiful queen, surpassing all natural beauty of Angels and all creatures. The reason is, that through grace we become "partakers of the divine nature," as St. Peter says; and consequently most excellently and proximately we participate in the supernatural and supreme beauty of God, which transcends all natural and created beauty immeasurably. See this beauty of the bride described in the Song of Songs. Second, the princes, that is, reason and will, in her are worn out by hunger of spiritual things. Hence third, whither the demon impels them, thither they are borne in thought and affection: for they lack the strength and fortitude to resist; they had this from grace, by which now they are despoiled. These things apply to all, but especially to prelates: for these, as rams, ought to go before the flock, lead, defend, and feed it by word and example; but if they go to the pastures of pleasures, they are threatened by the enemy pressing from behind with hunger and death of spirit both their own and that of their subjects. Thus St. Jerome.
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7. REMEMBERED. — The Hebrews and Vatablus translate quite aptly: Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction, in which she paid the penalty of her transgression, all her desirable things; in the possession of which she once exulted, now by the loss of these same things she is tormented, as if to say: In the days of her affliction she remembered her ancient prosperity, and the remembrance increased her sorrow, as is said in Psalm CXXXVI, 1: "Upon the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, when we remembered Sion." But the Septuagint, the Chaldean, and our Vulgate translate in the genitive, "remembered the days of her affliction." The words therefore of this verse, being involved, are thus to be arranged and explained, as if to say: Jerusalem remembered first, these past days, in which she was perfectly afflicted; namely when the people fell into the hands of the Chaldeans without a helper: for this is her fresh wound, and as it were still flowing and living. Second, she remembered at the same time the cause of such great calamity, namely her transgression. Third, finally she remembered all the desirable ornaments, which were in the city and temple from the time of Solomon. Consider therefore how sad she is, when she sees herself despoiled of all things, and how she torments herself, in that she did not value so greatly and preserve such great benefits of God. Thus Paschasius, Lyra and Dionysius. When King Lysimachus, overcome by thirst, delivered himself with his army to the enemy, and having drunk water exclaimed: "O good gods," said he, "for how small a pleasure have I lost so great a kingdom, and made myself a slave instead of a king!" Let Jerusalem say the same: let the penitent soul say the same. Note first: For transgression, in Hebrew it is merudim, which Vatablus properly translates, rebellion, namely in violating God's law and worshipping idols. But the Septuagint translates it as apōsmōn, that is, their expulsions, that is, as Pagninus translates, their destitutions, wanderings and migrations; namely these take merudim, that is rebellion, metonymically for the punishment of rebellion, which was exile and dispersion among the nations. Note second: By desirable things are understood the riches and delights, which each one in the destruction now lost remembers and mourns. Second, as Vatablus says, these desirable things are the kingdom, priesthood, peace, victory, prophecies and other ornaments of that people; as also of the temple, namely feasts, oblations, sacred vessels, vestments, etc. The Hebrews refer "when the people fell" to what follows, then the enemies mocked her sabbaths. Better the Roman, Septuagint, Origen and others refer it to what precedes, as if to say: Jerusalem remembered the days of her affliction, etc., then, when the hostile sword raged against the people with impunity, and there was none to bring her help; and when the enemy insolently mocked her, her feasts and her religion. HER ENEMIES SAW HER (The Chaldeans, say Hugo and Dionysius. Better, Castro says, enemies, namely the neighboring Idumeans, Moabites and Ammonites): AND MOCKED HER SABBATHS, — that is all her feasts, worship and religion of the Jews, thus all the Latins. The Chaldeans therefore appear to have mocked both circumcision and other rites of the Jews; then properly the worship of the sabbath, which indeed they worshipped God in this sacred rest; and thus they compelled them to labor on the sabbaths equally, indeed more than on other profane days. For thus the Gentiles mocked the Jews, because they spent the seventh day, and consequently the seventh part of time and life in idleness; whence they called them Sabbatarians. Hear Juvenal, satire 5, depicting a Jew: See what I said concerning the sabbath, Deuteronomy V, 12. But the Hebrews and Greeks take sabbata appellatively, and translate cessations, vacations, vacancies, namely that all business, commerce, lawsuits, markets, etc., now cease in Jerusalem, as the Lord had threatened, Leviticus XXVI, 33, or, as Tropologically, the penitent soul, while it sees itself afflicted on account of sins, either by vices or by the troubles of vice, groans while it remembers both the sins and the happy state of Adam, and the virtues and benefits of God which it has lost, in the manner of St. Job chapter XXIX, verse 2, in that the enemy has snatched from the temple of its soul the altar of incense, that is sacrifices and prayers; and the candlestick of light, that is understanding of divine things; and the table of shewbread, that is the virtue of almsgiving; and other vessels, that is virtues: then finally in that demons mock its religion and cessation from good works. The same can be applied to the damned soul. Hear St. Gregory, V Morals, cap. XXII: "The enemies," he says, "seeing the sabbaths, mock them, when evil spirits draw the very leisure of rest into illicit thoughts, so that each reprobate soul, the more remote it is from external actions in serving God, the more does it serve their tyranny by illicit thinking." For idleness is indeed the devil's cushion, the fountain and source of evil thoughts and all sin. But properly the Turks, heretics and other infidels mock the sabbaths, that is the feasts of Christians, while they themselves, given over to lascivious spectacles, drunkenness and lust on feast days, shamefully idle away their time. Thus also a Turkish legate mocked and derided the revelries of Christians: for when he was in Paris at the court of the King of France, and saw on those days the remarkable wantonness of Christians and their drinking bouts, and immediately after on Ash Wednesday their modesty and gravity, he said: What has happened to the Christians? Yesterday they appeared drunk and mad, today they appear sober and sound: what is this ash of such virtue that, sprinkled on their foreheads, by a wondrous transformation has made them wise from foolish, modest from wanton, chaste from lascivious? "For why should not the enemy mock what the beloved rejects?" says St. Bernard, sermon 46 in the Canticles.
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8. SHE HAS SINNED A SIN, — that is, as Vatablus says, perpetually, continually and gravely she has sinned. By sin he understands by antonomasia idolatry, as it were spiritual fornication: for he speaks of Jerusalem as of a daughter who is a harlot and adulteress. THEREFORE SHE HAS BECOME UNSTABLE. — Vatablus: Therefore she has been tossed about variously, as if to say, Therefore the Synagogue, moved from her place, and carried captive into Babylon, because she departed from her foundation, namely from God. For as a ship, abandoned by its pilot, is tossed about by all winds and waves: so also Jerusalem, and any city abandoned by God, her ruler, is tossed about and driven by the waves of wars and tumults. This was threatened to her by Jeremiah cap. XXXIV, 17, and by Moses Deut. XXVIII, 25. Note: The impious in their misfortunes impiously accuse fate and God of harshness; but the pious truly and piously turn these things back upon themselves and their sins. Secondly, Origen, Pagninus and Vatablus translate: Therefore she has become in commotion, that is a shaking of the head, that is derision and mockery to the nations, as follows here and in the next chapter, 15. Thirdly, aptly the Hebrew נידה nida signifies one separated from the fellowship of others, namely one menstruating, and thus Our translation renders it verse 17; whence as if of such a one he adds: "They saw her shame, and filthiness on her feet," as if to say, Jerusalem has sinned a sin, and is polluted with unclean blood; therefore she has become in separation and isolation. Tropologically, the soul on account of sin, especially of pride, becomes unstable, and rushes from one vice into another, until at length God lays bare openly her shame, and then confused and penitent she turns backward, and returns to God, as follows. Furthermore the cause of this instability in the sinner is: first, because the sinner tears himself away from God, who says: I am who am, namely always stable and the same; and who is אמת emet, that is truth, stability, constancy both of himself and of all things: for God alone establishes and stabilizes the angels, the heavens and other stable things. Whence the Psalmist sings Psalm XVIII: "I will love thee, O Lord, my strength: the Lord is my firmament, and my refuge." Hence also that holy man used to say: My mind is fixed and solidified in God. What Lucan sang of Mount Olympus, lib. II Pharsalia: "Olympus exceeds the clouds," and therefore in it there are no winds, no rain, no snow. This St. Augustine said of heaven, lib. I On Genesis against the Manichees, cap. XV: "Olympus exceeds the clouds: the highest regions hold peace." And the Wise Man, Eccli. XXIV, 11: "In all these I sought rest, and I shall dwell in the inheritance of the Lord." And the Psalmist, Psalm LXXV, 3: "His place is made in peace, and his abode in Sion." And Psalm LXXII, 28: "But it is good for me to adhere to God: to put my hope in the Lord God. For what have I for myself in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth? God of my heart, and God that is my portion forever," "God of my heart," because thou alone fillest and equallest my heart, nay surpassest it. We read of St. Deicola the abbot, that his face was always cheerful and smiling; and when the reason was asked of him, he said: "No one can take Christ from me." This is what the Psalmist again says rejoicing in Psalm CII, 2 and 5: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, who filleth thy desire with good things." Secondly, because the heart of man is unstable, in that it is most ample and immense; because it is capable of infinite things: whence it has in itself a perpetual fountain and source of infinite desires; wherefore this fountain, since it is immense and infinite, no creature or created pleasure, being finite and very limited and narrow, can satisfy and fill; but God alone, who is equally immense, from whom the sinner turns away, and this is what St. Augustine says in book I of the Confessions: "Thou hast made us, O Lord, for Thee, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." And in tract. 24 on John: "He who wishes to rejoice in himself will be sad; but he who wishes to rejoice in God will always rejoice: because God is eternal." Whence wisely admonishing he adds: "Dost thou wish to have eternal joy? Cleave to Him who is eternal." And again in the Soliloquies, cap. XXX: "The rational soul," he says, "was made capable of Thy majesty, so that it can be filled by Thee alone, and by no other." St. Bernard follows St. Augustine as his master, who in a sermon on that passage, Behold we have left all things: "The rational soul," he says, "can be occupied with all other things, but cannot be completely filled." For what the Wise Man says in Ecclesiastes V, 9: "The covetous man shall not be satisfied with money," the same thou mayest say of others: The ambitious man will not be filled with honors, nor the glutton with feasts, nor the drunkard with wine, nor the fornicator with lusts, etc. St. Bernard gives the reason: "For the bread of the soul is justice, and blessed are they who hunger for it: for they shall be satisfied." The same, in the book On Loving God, cap. III, says: "The soul can be puffed up by any temporal thing, but cannot be satisfied; because these are not the natural foods of the soul." St. Augustine therefore concludes, or whoever is the Author of the book On Spirit and Soul: "Why therefore dost thou wander about through many things, little man, seeking the goods of thy soul and thy body? Love one good, in which are all goods, and it suffices: desire the simple good, which is all good, and it is enough." Thirdly, because every created pleasure, which the sinner pursues, is fleeting and evanescent, and mixed with much bitterness and pain, into which it almost always ends: "For sorrow occupies the extremes of joy." When the sinner sees this, after having had the pleasure of sin he loathes it, and seeks another: when he sees this too soon vanish, in like manner he loathes it, and thus goes to another and another always, at first loving, soon nauseating; and thus amid alternating desires and loathings, by which he is continually tossed about, the wretched man wanders and errs, seeking rest, and finding it not. Fourthly, because as one virtue leads to another, so one vice leads to and inclines toward another. For as there is a concatenation of virtues, so also of vices, concerning which see Origen, homil. 23 in Numbers. Fifthly, because remorse and anguish of conscience do not allow the sinner to rest. Whence the sinner, partly seeking rest, partly wishing to flee or shake off these anguishes, transfers himself from one pleasure to another, from one sin and place to another; but the unhappy man carries his stings with him everywhere: for this reason Cain the parricide became a wanderer and fugitive, Genesis IV, 14. Luther, in order to overwhelm these remorseful feelings, was assiduous in taverns, but afterwards they attacked him more fiercely. Sixthly, because the sinner labors and is tormented by many depraved desires, and so sin is nothing other than a disordered ferment and desire of the soul, namely a fever of the soul, as St. Ambrose says. As therefore fever is a vicious and raging heat, which, as long as it lasts, cannot be extinguished by any water, by any cold; but causes the fevered person always to thirst, and with corrupted appetite now to desire water, now wine, now beer, this or that, and always to drink and never to be satisfied: so precisely is it in sin and the sinner. And this is what Isaiah says in cap. LVII, 20: "But the wicked are like the raging sea, which cannot rest, and its waves cast up mire and dirt." Seventhly, because the just soul through sin loses its virginity, that is innocence: and becomes a harlot, that is light and wanton; and therefore seeks other and other lovers: for lust is insatiable. To this Jeremiah properly alludes: for he compares Jerusalem to a harlot. THEY SAW HER IGNOMINY,—that is her nakedness and turpitude: for Scripture compares idolaters to a harlot, to whom God threatens ignominy, that is the uncovering of the turpitude of her thighs and legs; as even now sometimes harlots and thieves are exposed in public in the theater, the mockery of all. Thus Jerusalem, stripped and despoiled of her possessions on account of most shameful sins, was very ignominious. Hence, like a matron whose turpitude and nakedness is exposed to the mockery of all, for shame she turns her face backward, and tries to hide and conceal herself. Others explain it: She turned herself or was turned, first, from evil to a good life. Thus Origen and Olympiodorus. Secondly, from glory and prosperity into captivity. Thus St. Thomas and Lyra. Thirdly, as if to say, Going into captivity, she frequently looked back bidding farewell to her country. But the first sense, which I gave before, is the literal and genuine one.
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9. HER FILTHINESS IS IN HER FEET. — In Hebrew בשוליה besculeha, that is, in the hems of her, which are namely in the edge and extremity of the garment around the feet. Thus Pagninus, Brixianus and others. For filthiness in Hebrew is טמאתה tumata, that is, her contaminations, namely menstrual blood, or rather blood and filth from fornication and childbirth, which flow from a woman in childbed after delivery onto the edge and hems of the garment, as if to say: Just as in the hems of a fornicating woman in childbed stained with blood, namely at the feet, her filthiness appears, by which her fornication and childbirth are revealed: so in her feet, that is in this extreme punishment of Jerusalem, by which she herself is led publicly, with naked and filthy feet, as a slave and bondwoman, into captivity, her sins are revealed by which she deserved this, as Hugo and Bonaventura say. Therefore the filthiness of the feet signifies that she is foul and abject; so that all not only mock her, but also jeer at and abominate her. Secondly, the Chaldean, Lyra and Vatablus explain it thus, as if to say: Just as an impudent woman is not ashamed to carry menstrual blood publicly in her hems; so Jerusalem sinned without any shame and fornicated with idols, as with her lovers. Thirdly, Paschasius and Hugo: The filthiness, they say, are sins in the feet, that is, in the teachers and apostles, who ought to be to others a way and feet unto good; for these by their filthiness and scandals turn them away rather and lead them astray. But this sense is not literal, but mystical. NOR DID SHE REMEMBER HER END, — that is, of this extreme punishment, namely captivity, as if to say: When she was in her delights and sins, she did not think what would become of her, what end her so many crimes would have; even if the Prophets threatened it to her and set it before her eyes; which indeed she was to be punished and destroyed, after she had completed her crimes, like Sodom and Gomorrah, as if to say: She sinned so that she seemed not to remember that there is a God, who would finally punish her, just as those who said: "How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?" Psalm LXXII, 11. Thus the Chaldean, Hugo, Bonaventura, Lyra, Dionysius and Vatablus. From the Hebrew you may translate: Her filthiness is in her feet, because she did not remember her end, as if you were to say: Therefore she boldly defiled herself with sins, because she did not think of their punishment, and that she would be punished most severely on account of them. Otherwise Sanchez, as if to say: The servitude of Jerusalem will be long-lasting, whose end she will not remember, because she will not see freedom, which is the end of servitude and exile, except after a long time, in a new age as it were, when these have died away, and there will be a new generation of men. Allegorically Paschasius: Judea did not remember Christ, who is the end of the law. Tropologically St. Thomas and Rabanus: Jerusalem and the sinful soul did not remember her end, that is, her death and final judgment. Thus those two elders burning with lust for Susanna: "They perverted their own sense, and turned away their eyes that they might not see heaven, nor remember the just judgments," Daniel XIII, 9. For the most efficacious remedy against sins is meditation on the last things. See the sayings at Deut. XXXII, 29. Albert the Great teaches in the book On Plants that a raven does not return to its nest if ash and glass dust are placed in it: thus the demon flees from the nest of our heart, if placed in it is the memory of ash and dust, into which glass is to be converted; but we are glass, indeed more fragile than glass. SHE IS BROUGHT DOWN MIGHTILY. — The Hebrew, Chaldean and Septuagint: she descended wonderfully, or fell with marvels, that is, she fell most gravely, fell with an admirable fall, all marveling at such a fall of the most flourishing Jerusalem: The Jews translate, he makes light of marvels (for this is what the Hebrew פלאים pelaim signifies), says Leo Castrius in book II of the Apology, page 196. Which you may rightly adapt to the Jews despising Christ and his miracles, indeed calumniating them and saying: "In Beelzebub he casteth out devils." For this reason therefore they were cut off by Titus. BEHOLD MY AFFLICTION, — that you may have pity, and may deliver me from it. The Prophet, in the name of Jerusalem, turns himself to God, that he may deliver himself from such a calamity. For God always sees all things speculatively; the Prophet therefore prays that he may see, that is, seeing and pitying may relieve the sufferings of his nation. THE ENEMY HAS EXALTED HIMSELF. — In Hebrew it is הגדיל higdil, that is, he has magnified himself, the enemy has insolently exalted and boasted himself, as if by his own strength rather than yours he has cast me down.
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10. HE HATH SENT HIS HAND, — namely the Chaldeans, and the neighboring Ammonites and Moabites joining themselves to them, plundered the desirable things which were in the city, and especially the vessels of the temple and the books of the law, says Lyran. BECAUSE SHE SAW (Jerusalem herself, as is evident from the Hebrew feminine ראתה raata, that is, she saw, that is, she was forced to see, which she had never seen before) NATIONS, — namely the Chaldeans, say Rabanus and St. Thomas, or more properly the impious and unclean nations, namely the Ammonites and Moabites, to whom on account of their crimes and hatred of the Jews entrance into the Church, that is into the assembly and congregation of the Jews, was forbidden, so that they might be inhabitants and citizens of the Jewish people of Jerusalem, as I said in Deuteronomy XXIII, 3. She saw these not only entering the Church itself, namely the assembly of the people, but what is far more unworthy, freely and boldly entering the very sanctuary itself, namely the holy temple. It is therefore an argument from the lesser to the greater; for here the Church is one thing, the sanctuary another. Thus the Chaldean, Theodoret, Olympiodorus, R. Solomon, Lyran, Vatable and Isidore. Otherwise Paschasius, Hugo, St. Thomas and Maldonatus explain it, so that the word because gives the reason for the plundering, as if to say: Because the Jews brought in uncircumcised and forbidden nations into the temple, as appears in Ezekiel XLIV, 7; hence by them that very thing was plundered: just as God permitted the Babylonians to plunder the treasures of King Hezekiah, which he himself had shown to them, Isaiah XXXIX, 2, 4, 5. Thirdly, the same Paschasius and St. Thomas: God permits infidels and heretics to plunder temples and cities, because the nations, that is the priests, living impurely after the manner of the gentiles, dared to enter the sanctuary and to handle the sacred altars, vessels and victims with polluted hands. But this sense is symbolic.
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11. SEEKING BREAD. — He speaks of the famine which was in Jerusalem at the time of the siege, IV Kings, chapter XXV, 3. THEY GAVE ALL THEIR PRECIOUS THINGS FOR FOOD. — Thus the sinner for bread, indeed for one crumb of consolation, namely for slight delights, for a little gluttony, pride and ambition, a point of honor, gives all his desirable things, and indeed expends all his strength, and even sells his very soul to the demon. I AM BECOME VILE, — with all the vileness which I have hitherto recounted and lamented. Thus also the Septuagint. But the Chaldean and Vatable translate: Because I was a squanderer (for the Hebrew זוללה zolela also signifies this); therefore namely I am justly punished with this vileness and famine. The Arabic translates: See, O Lord, that I have become as a harlot to all who pass by the way; that is, as a vile servant, whom all abuse for lust.
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12. O YOU ALL! — He introduces Jerusalem lamenting her afflictions, and exaggerating them through comparison with others. For "O" in Hebrew is לוא lo, that is, not to you, namely that so grave an evil should come, such as came to me; may not befall you what befell me. Thus the Syrian, Vatablus and Pagninus. But our Interpreter substituted for the cholem scurec, and for lo, that is not, read לו lu, that is would that, O if to you, namely the sense of my sorrow should come; whence the Chaldean renders it: I adjure and beseech you all who pass by, turn aside here, behold and see if there be sorrow like unto my sorrow. Thus the Septuagint are wont to render lu by al, that is if; or ia, that is would that, and thus for lo, here in the Septuagint it seems it should be read al, as if to say O if, would that; or certainly, as Maldonatus wishes, for lo, to be read disjunctly by diastole o, which corresponds to the Hebrew הוי hoi, that is alas. These are the words of the people left in Jerusalem, or of the poor of the land, who uncover their sorrow to those passing by. Thus Theodoret. Finally Sanchez thinks this to be an epitaph, which Jerusalem orders to be inscribed on her as it were tomb, in which she herself lies buried, by which she addresses wayfarers, so that they might solace her sorrow by grieving, as if to say: O you guests who pass by and behold not a city, but the shapeless tomb of a razed city! see if anyone ever had graver matter for sorrowing or weeping. Which sense is plainly pathetic. Thus throughout epitaphs the very buried themselves address the living and readers, as Ovid in this one which he had inscribed on his tomb: Tropologically, the same soul in Purgatory says the same and more, and more still the damned soul in hell. Most excellently St. Chrysostom, homily 5 to the People: Sadness, he says, is given to us that we might grieve, not over death or another thing, but only over sin; for there alone is sadness useful, whereas elsewhere it becomes useless; for by grieving I cannot recall and recover the dead, or a lost thing; but only the grace lost through sin can I recover by grieving and repenting; here therefore alone is sorrow useful. Allegorically, many adapt these words to Christ bewailing the sins of the city and the world, and to his Mother suffering with him; for the sorrow of neither had any like. For, as the Ethicist says: "The pulse of sorrow is love." That you may know how great the fever and heat is, you touch and feel the pulse: thus that you may know how great was the sorrow of Christ and the Virgin, think how great was the love of each, both mutual, and toward all men. For the measure and "ell of sorrow is love." As great the love, so great the sorrow; and conversely, as great the sorrow, so great the love. The reason a priori is, because as much as anyone loves some good, so much does he hate the evil opposed to it, and so much does he grieve if it be inflicted upon it. Therefore as much as the Virgin loved the salvation and life of Christ, so much did she grieve over his torture and death. HE VINDICATED ME, — as if to say: The Chaldean enemy or God despoiled me of all goods, as a vineyard in vintage is despoiled of all its fruit and good. The Hebrew עהלל olel signifies to glean grapes, that is to search for and gather and pluck the clusters left over in the gathering of grapes, and in the vintage: thus indeed Jerusalem was first as it were vindicated in the time of Joachin, when Nebuchadnezzar carried off from it all treasures, IV Kings XXIV, 13. But afterwards it was as it were gleaned, when Nebuzaradan under Zedekiah despoiled all that remained in it, and carried it to Babylon, Jeremiah LII, 17, and IV Kings XXV, 13. Thus vintage is taken for the same gleaning in verse 22, and chapter II, verse 20. And Jeremiah expressly threatened this gleaning to the Jews, chapter VI, verse 9: "They shall gather the vintage as in a vineyard the remnants of Israel." AS HE SPOKE. — The Hebrew הוגה hoga can again be rendered: As the Lord afflicted me, as I said in verse 5. IN THE DAY OF THE WRATH OF HIS FURY. — In Hebrew בחרון אפו bacharon appo, that is in the day of the wrath of his nose. Thus he calls wrath as if it were a flaming breath from the nostrils, and a raging spirit, which whatever it seizes, it burns. Learnedly St. Augustine in the Sentences, number 157: "The wrath, he says, of God is not a perturbation of him, but a judgment by which punishment is inflicted on sin. But the knowledge of it, and the reconsideration of worldly things, is an unchangeable reason. For neither, as with men, does God repent of any deed of his, whose judgment concerning all things whatsoever is as fixed as his presence is certain."
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13. FROM ON HIGH (from heaven) HE SENT FIRE INTO MY BONES. — The Chaldean [version reads], in my fortresses: כרך kerach or כרכא carca, in Chaldaic signifies a fortress, tower, or fortified city from roundness; for the root כרך kerach means to wrap, to coil, as if to say, God's vengeance supplied to my enemies and kindled as it were torches, by which He would not only assault and burn my flesh and skin, that is, fields and villages, but also my bones, that is, the most fortified fortresses, towers, temple, palaces, which as bones strengthened the city, and reduce them to ashes. Thus Origen, Theodoret, Hugo, St. Thomas, Bonaventure, Lyra and Dionysius. Secondly, Olympiodorus, Hugo, Paschasius, Vatablus, St. Thomas: Fire, that is, divine wrath and vengeance, He sent into the princes who were as it were the bones of the commonwealth, and strengthened and sustained it like bones. He alludes to Ezech. XXIV, 9: "Woe to the bloody city, for which I will make a great pile! Heap up the bones, which I will burn with fire: the flesh shall be consumed, and all the composition shall be boiled, and the bones shall waste away." Thirdly, Sanchez takes these metaphorically: Fire, he says, signifies keen torment, bones signify the interior parts and viscera, as if to say, God from heaven sent keen torment into my inmost parts, so that my heart seemed to die from sorrow, my viscera to dissolve from anguish. HE INSTRUCTED ME. — In Hebrew ירדנה iirdenna, that is, he ruled over it, namely fire over bone, that is, over any of my bones. Thus Vatablus, R. Solomon and Kimchi. Or rather it should be read ירדנה iardenna, that is, he made it rule, namely fire, in my bones: "he instructed" therefore, that is, he chastised, punished me with fire, just as adulterated gold is purified and as it were chastised with fire; and hard oxen are instructed, that is, chastised and tamed with a goad. Or rather Our [version] reads יורנה iorenna, that is, he instructed, that is, he taught me through this punishment henceforth not to sin, nor to worship idols: whence the Jews afterwards, after the Babylonian captivity, did not worship idols, as they had done before. Thirdly, the Septuagint, reading with different points for iirdenna, ירדנה ieredenna, from the root ירד iarad, that is, he descended, translate: He led down or caused to descend it, namely bone, that is, any of my bones. Morally, learn here: just as corrupted gold, because it is solid and very hard, must be melted and purged from dross by fire: so cities and provinces wholly corrupted in morals must be purged by fire, plague, sword from God, so that adults and elders, who nourished in vices have grown old and are incorrigible, may be consumed, and a new offspring of children may grow up, which, instructed by this calamity of the fathers, may be wise and put on good morals. Thus the Jews, passing through the Babylonian captivity as through fire, became altogether different, and so those who before it were most prone to idols, after it abhorred all idols. God does the same when He wishes to convert a soul greatly corrupted; for He afflicts and strikes it with great disease, misfortune, or other calamity, so that it may return to Him, come to its senses, and reform itself: others for the same reason He has snatched away in spirit to see the punishments of the infernal regions and the glory of the heavenly; others through efficacious impulses and meditations or preachings about death and the last things He strikes and pierces, so that they may change their life. Thus He converted Nebuchadnezzar by changing him into a beast; He made Saul into Paul by striking him down; He cured Magdalene of her vices by sending seven demons to vex her. Plutarch relates, in the book On the Delayed Vengeance of the Deity, near the end, that Thespesius was a man of wicked and deplorable life: concerning whom the oracle was consulted whether there was any hope of his amendment, and it answered: "He will be better after he is dead." Shortly after, Thespesius, struck by a severe fall, lay lifeless for three days; on the third day he came to himself: when asked how he had returned, he said that in this fall his soul had been drawn from his body and had become entirely different; for he had seen and felt all other things differently, just as if someone should fall from a ship into the sea and perceive and understand differently. And so he said he had seen the happiness of the good; the punishments of the impious, indeed of Nero, indeed of his own parent (in which vision, however, the fables of the Gentiles are mixed in), and a certain one of his relatives who had departed life approached him and greeted him: "Hail, Thespesius," to which he replied: "I am not called Thespesius, but Aridaeus;" soon the soul of his relative: "You were Aridaeus, but henceforth you will be Thespesius," that is, divine. Thus it came to pass, for he who before was impious, filthy, and altogether vicious, by this fall and rapture became pious, chaste, just, a mirror of virtues: thus must the hardening of evil habit be broken, and a hard wedge must be sought for a hard knot. Just as therefore a physician, in order to cure one laboring under the French disease or a similar one, which has infected and corrupted the blood, humors and the whole body, first exhausts all such corrupted humors through frequent purgations, through sweating, through bloodletting, through fasting; and renders the man as it were drained of moisture, and brings him nearly to the gates of death, and then thus purged restores, renews and heals him with new medicines and foods: in exactly the same way God acts, so that he may change and heal men corrupted by vices. HE SPREAD A NET FOR MY FEET. (He calls a net the snares which the Chaldeans, like hunters, had spread in all the ways of the Jews, so that no escape lay open to them; for they had occupied all the ways, so that they might intercept the Jews fleeing: hence) HE TURNED ME BACKWARD, — namely, he brought me back from flight, that is, my fugitives to Nebuchadnezzar. Thus Hugo. Secondly, the Chaldean and Maldonatus explain it, as if to say: He made me fall backward and turn my back to the enemy. Thirdly, Origen, Olympiodorus and Lyra explain it, as if to say: He turned me from glory into ignominy; so that from the throne of the kingdom and glory, in which I sat in majesty, I was cast backward and precipitated to the earth and into prison. Allegorically Paschasius, Hugo and Dionysius: God sent from heaven fire, that is the Holy Spirit in fiery tongues upon the Apostles, who were as it were the bones of the Church, and through them he instructed the Church; he spread the net of preaching, and turned me, namely the Church of the Gentiles, so that I might return to God. But because this fire is one of vengeance and punishment, it is better to explain it mystically thus: God sent fire, namely of tribulation and temptation, into the bones, that is into my strong virtues, so that he might burn out and purge the rust of vices in me, says St. Gregory, and thus I am caught as it were in a net so that I do not flee, but am brought back to God. The net therefore of God by which he hunts sinners or worldly men is commonly tribulation.
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14. THE YOKE OF MY INIQUITIES HATH WATCHED — as if to say, The yoke of punishment to be inflicted upon me on account of my iniquities, while I slept and gave it no thought, hath watched, so that, when the measure of sins appointed by God and destined for vengeance should be fulfilled, straightway at His command and at the time He fixed, it might seize me and press upon me, that is, as the Septuagint has it, God and divine justice watched to punish me quickly. Note here first: The Septuagint, for על ol, that is, yoke, reading it with another pointing as על al, that is, upon; whence they translated: God watched upon my iniquities. But our Interpreter reads more aptly ol, and translates it yoke, both because what follows is: "In His hand they are wrapped up, and laid upon my neck," therefore these iniquities bound together made a yoke, which is laid upon the neck of the sinner; and also because this yoke was threatened to the Jews by Jeremiah, chapter XXVIII, 14. Moreover Sanchez, our Interpreter, reconciling him with the Septuagint, takes the word watched actively: the Lord "watched" the "yoke," that is, the Lord watched carefully, as a watchman, and observed attentively, when the yoke would come, that is, the time destined for servitude and exile. Thus neuter verbs are sometimes taken for active ones with emphasis, as: "My tongue shall exult (that is, shall sing with exultation) Thy justice;" and: "Rejoice (that is, sing with rejoicing), ye mountains, in praise," Isaiah chapter XLIX. Thus Virgil: "Corydon burned (that is, loved ardently) for Alexis;" thus "the wind flies away (that is, causes to fly away) the chaff." For cal is put for hiphil. Yet this acceptance of the word watched seems unusual and unaccustomed. Wherefore we shall say more plainly that by prosopopoeia here vigilance is attributed to the yoke. For just as sins cry out for vengeance, so also do they watch, as if to admonish God, so that, when their measure is fulfilled, as if at a time predetermined by themselves, He might leap forth to vengeance, and execute that which He had long since decreed. Note secondly: This watching yoke is nothing other than the watching rod, seen by Jeremiah to hang over Jerusalem, chapter I, verse 11, as if to say, My iniquity has flourished, has put forth timely buds, shoots and sprouts, from which bound together God made a yoke and a scourge of chastisement, and straightway laid it upon and fixed it upon my neck. Whence R. Abraham translates clearly: The yoke of my iniquities is hastened, as if God holds this yoke in His hand, so that immediately He may lay it upon me at Jerusalem (as upon an ox bound with reins). Note thirdly: In Hebrew it is נשקד nischkad, which by shin signifies watched; some read נשקד niskad by sin, which is found here only; and thus R. Solomon, and from him Vatablus, translates: My yoke is impressed, or marked in His hand, that is, God has marked and written my sins in His hands with certain marks and points, so that He may remember them and punish them. Thus Job says, chapter XIV, verse 17: "Thou hast sealed up my offences as it were in a bag;" and Isaiah, chapter LXV, verse 6: "Behold it is written before me;" and Jeremiah XVII, 1: "The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen, with the point of a diamond." For thus the sins of each one are written in the mind and memory of God, so that they are continually before His eyes, demanding vengeance, and admonishing Him of the time of vengeance appointed by Himself, as I said a little before. Sanchez adds that the yoke is said to be marked with points, so that its weight and heaviness might be signified, namely that this yoke is distinct by holes, so that the multitude of bonds might be shown, which are inserted through each point, so that by them the sinner's neck might be more tightly bound. For as many holes as there are in the yoke, so many bonds and fastenings are usually in it. Others add that by points is signified that God notes, judges and punishes even the smallest sins, which seem to be like the point and dot of a letter, and their smallest circumstances. Thirdly, Vatablus and Pagninus translate niskad as bound, entangled, as if to say, The yoke of punishment to be imposed upon us is bound and entangled with our iniquities as with knots; of which Isaiah, chapter V, says: "Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with the rope of a cart." Wherefore for watched they read, bound, but wrongly: for the Roman Bible and other more correct ones read, watched. For he alludes to and recalls to the Jews the watching rod, which he saw chapter I, verse 11. Fourthly, the Chaldean translates: The yoke is made heavy; perhaps for niskad it reads נסח nisca, from the root לשח lasca, that is, it was heavy. Finally the Syriac translator renders it: My sins have watched (been aroused) over (against) me with my hands, like a yoke fitted upon my neck; the Arabic of Antioch: And in the night my sins have been aroused in me, and my hands have been weakened; so that I cannot be strong, that is, so that there is no strength in me to endure; the Arabic of Alexandria: And my sins have been made daily laborious, O Lord, over me, and his burdens have been strengthened, and his chains upon my neck; and this by his hand. Note morally that punishment is an inseparable companion of sin, and therefore guilt and punishment are as it were two brothers lying together, so that if one moves and rises, immediately the other awakens. Again, just as a magistrate keeps watch against thieves and robbers, so vengeance and punishment keep watch over the designs of sin, that it may seize and punish it. See what is said in Jeremiah 1:11. IN HIS HAND THEY ARE TWISTED TOGETHER,—that is to say, God has made from the punishments of my iniquities, as it were a chain and a crown of thorns, and has cast it and placed it upon my neck, so heavy, so pressing me down, that under this burden my strength is weakened, so that groaning I fall, nor can I rise again, or restore myself to liberty. Theodoret relates in the Philothea that St. Eusebius the anchorite placed upon his neck an iron yoke of two hundred pounds, so that he was always forced to look downward, and to regard the earth; because on a certain occasion he had lifted his eyes more curiously, and had looked upon those passing by. What therefore and how heavy will be the yoke which, on account of many mortal sins committed, the devil, nay God, will place upon the neck of the sinner in hell? MY STRENGTH IS WEAKENED.—In Hebrew הכשיל hichschil cochi, that is, it has weakened, cast down, prostrated (that yoke) my strength, or my powers; therefore this yoke of punishments depresses and breaks the upright necks of sinners, especially of the proud.
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15. HE TOOK AWAY (in Hebrew סלה silla, that is, he trampled, he cast down) MY MIGHTY ONES, — אבירי abbirai, that is, my strong ones, namely leaders and soldiers, just as grapes are trampled in the winepress; whence follows: "The Lord hath trodden the winepress." In the same sense the Chaldean translator rendered the Hebrew silla as gathered; and the Septuagint ἐξῆρεν, that is, plucked off. HE CALLED (by calling, that is, by commanding, he brought) TIME, — namely of ripeness and vintage, that he might trample me, that is, the time appointed and fixed by him for my punishment. For in Hebrew it is מועד moed, that is, appointed, namely a fixed time, or place, or soldiers; whence Vatablus translates: He called upon me the congregation of the Chaldeans. Yet our author more rightly, with the Chaldean and Septuagint, translates moed as fixed time. For this word signifies either place or time: here, however, it cannot signify place. Note: Time here can be expounded in five ways. First, "time," that is, vengeance which is wrought in time. Thus it is said in Luke XXI, 24: "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the nations be fulfilled," that is, the time of vengeance to be taken upon the nations. Ezekiel XXX, 3: "The day of the Lord approacheth, a day of clouds: it shall be the time of the nations," in which namely God will punish the nations through the Chaldeans; and cap. XXII, verse 4: "Thou hast brought on the time (that is, vengeance) of thy years." Jeremiah XXVII, 7: "All nations shall serve (Nebuchadnezzar) and his son, until the time of his own land come;" that is, the vengeance and desolation of Babylon through Cyrus. Secondly, "he called time against me," that is, he sought opportunity and fit time to punish me. Thus it is said in Ezekiel VII, 7: "The time (opportunity) cometh, the day of slaughter is near." For this is the time of vintage, that is, of vengeance. He adds moreover: "The Lord hath trodden the winepress." Thirdly, "he called time," namely the year and day appointed for my destruction. Thus it is said in Psalm LXXIV, 3: "When I shall receive the time, I will judge justices." Ezekiel XXI, 25: Whose "day cometh at the time of iniquity predetermined." This sense is most genuine. Fourthly, "he called time against me," that is, soldiers, namely the Chaldeans, at the time fixed for my desolation; whence Pagninus translates: He called the congregation against me, as if to say, God appointed to the Chaldeans the time and day in which I was to be laid waste, and brought that time, and called them forth to hasten the punishment. Thus Amos says in cap. V, 18: "Woe to them that desire the day of the Lord!" And because they mocked and said that this day would come late, the Prophet says to them: "Why would you have it? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light." Sinners are wont to hasten against themselves the time of divine wrath, increasing their crimes daily, and filling up the measure of their vengeance appointed by God. Ezekiel VII, 10: "Behold it cometh: the destruction is gone out, the rod hath flourished;" in Hebrew it is, destruction hath gone out, and thus St. Jerome reads it, as if to say, The time of your calamity is shortened and cut short, the day of vengeance is at hand, "the rod hath flourished," namely that which hath long threatened you with a plague: your pride hath sprouted, and punishment hath flourished; whence the Prophet adds: "Make an end, for the land is full of the judgment of bloods, and the city full of iniquity," as if to say, There is no more time for contending and defending yourselves, because the land aboundeth in crimes: therefore end the dispute, bring sentence of condemnation upon it. And below: "The time cometh, the day of slaughter is near." Fifthly, "he called time," namely wretched and calamitous. Thus it is taken in Psalm LXXX, 16: "The enemies of the Lord have lied to him, and their time shall be for ever," that is, the misery and desolation of the Jews shall last unto the end of the age, as Theodoret expounds it. Anagogically, God will call time against the impious on the day of judgment. For then time will be accuser and witness against the impious, and will reprove them, in that they have spent the short time given by God to merit eternal beatitude in vain and damnable pleasures. Rightly therefore St. Paul admonishes, Ephesians V, that we redeem the time, because the days are evil. See the remarks there. For, as Virgil says: But meanwhile it flees, it flees, irretrievable time. And Horace: The past hath been; the future is not, but will be; the present which is, what is it but one now and a moment of time? See how little thou hast of time: we are changed and we run, and unknowing we arrive at the bounds of death. Hippocrates said concerning medicine: "Life is short, art is long, experiment is dangerous, opportunity is fleeting, judgment is difficult: therefore the greatest care must be applied." Let the faithful say the same to themselves concerning the art of living well and earning merit in this brief time. O Christian! take note of the brevity of life, and the long and difficult art of serving God: experience is arduous, and meanwhile the opportunity of doing good slips from our hands, oh how many have begun well, but did not persevere! Apply therefore the greatest diligence, that you may be able to grow rich in good, to acquire the gains of merits, to discharge the debts of sins. Behold now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation: there will come a day when you will not have time, nor an hour, nor a moment for repenting, for doing good, for saving your soul. While therefore you have time, work good, live for God, live for heaven, live for ETERNITY. St. Bernard said: "I have lost the time of living, because I lived wastefully." What shall we sinners and sluggards say, who are lazy in all good? THE LORD HAS TRODDEN THE WINEPRESS FOR THE VIRGIN DAUGHTER OF JUDAH. — Vatablus translates: As if in the winepress he pressed the daughter of Judah, so that, just as wine is expressed from grapes in the winepress, so from this devastation the blood of the Jews may be expressed, not only of men, but also of virgins and maidens. Thus Hector Pintus. Whence the Arabic Antiochene version translates: As a winepress the Lord has trodden me. The virgin daughter of Sion weeps over this. Less correctly the Arabic Alexandrian version refers these things to the enemies of the Jews, and translates: He made (the Lord) my enemies like a winepress that is trodden. Secondly, the Chaldean thus explains: God permitted the virgins of Judah to be violated by the Chaldeans: They defiled, says he (the Chaldeans), the virgins of the house of Judah, until the blood of their virginity was poured out, as wine flows from the winepress. Thirdly, the winepress in Scripture signifies grave punishments and torments, says St. Jerome in Isaiah LXIII, Rabanus, Theodoret and others: for those who tread grapes leave not even one grain unexpressed. God has therefore trodden the winepress of the Jews, that is, he sent this severe captivity upon the Jews, so that not one grain, but only a few berries, that is, the poor, were left in Judea to till the land. Thus Hugh, Bonaventure, Lyra and Dionysius. Fourthly and best, as if to say: Just as if you tread grapes, you draw out wine; so if you press sins in the winepress of divine justice and judgment, you will draw out nothing other than the wrath and vengeance of God. In this way God has already trodden the sins of the virgin daughter of Sion, that is, of the people of Jerusalem, by treading the sinful Jews themselves. Thus Origen and Olympiodorus, as if to say: God brought the Chaldeans as vintagers, who tread the winepress for the Jews, that is, they lay them low, tread them, afflict them. He alludes to conquerors, who are accustomed to lay low and tread upon enemies: just as David laid low the Ammonites, and made iron-wheeled carts pass over them, I Paralipomenon XX. Furthermore, the dative "for the virgin" has this force, as if to say: Jerusalem incurred no expense in treading her winepress; because God brought her vintagers, who trod it freely and willingly. He speaks of the greatest damage as if of the greatest benefit, ironically. For the sense is: The Lord has trodden the winepress of Jerusalem, and expressed the most bitter wine, namely from the grape of gall and the most bitter cluster, with which he made the Jews themselves drunk unto drunkenness and madness. Thus Christ for us and for our sins was pressed in the winepress of the cross, and the Saints with Christ are here pressed in the winepress of affliction, that the wine of consolation may be expressed in them. Hear St. Augustine in Psalm LV: "You have become God's grape that you may be trodden. I was a grape, I shall be wine, but first I must be trodden." Where Note that these things pertain to Christ allegorically, not properly and directly, but only indirectly. For properly they pertain to the Church mixed with sins and sinners; to Christ indeed, because he himself took upon himself the sins and sufferings of the Church to be expiated, so that what Christ says is reckoned to be said and lamented also by the Church; and conversely what the Church says, Christ says.
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16. I AM WEEPING. — The Chaldean translates: Both my eyes pour forth tears like a fountain of waters. The Hebrew עין ain signifies both eye and fountain. St. Leo shows the force of these tears in St. Peter weeping after the denial of Christ, sermon 9 On the Passion: "Blessed, says he, O Apostle, are your tears, which had the power of sacred baptism to wash away the guilt of denial, and the fountain of charity washed away the words of fear." See the sayings at Jeremiah IX, 1. THE COMFORTER IS FAR FROM ME, HE THAT SHOULD CONVERT MY SOUL, — namely he who should bring back my soul, as if departing from my body on account of sorrow, through consolation; so that it might return as if to the body, and in it refreshed and revived might rest peacefully, as if to say: The sorrow is so great that it takes away my life, nor is there anyone to comfort and soothe it. MY CHILDREN ARE DESOLATE. — In Hebrew שוממים somemim, desolate; the Septuagint ἠφανισμένοι, struck with grief and fear, stupefied, so that they know not what to do or where to turn.
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17. EXPANDIT SION MANUS. — As one in childbirth or dying, with strength dissolved, collapses, and stretches out her hands, both to beseech aid from those standing by, and because, abandoned by the vital spirits, she suffers a fainting of strength and soul, so that she cannot hold and control her hands and limbs, but allows them to be stretched out and scattered. Thus the Chaldean, Paschasius and Hugh. For this is what Jeremiah says in chapter IV, 31: "The voice of the daughter of Sion dying, and stretching out her hands: woe is me, because my soul hath fainted because of the slain!" Otherwise also Sanchez: Sion, he says, stretches out her hands to the Chaldean enemy and conqueror, as one conquered and suppliant, but in vain; for the barbarian breathes nothing but wrath. Secondly, Theodoret and Pagninus translate: Sion strikes, breaks, claps her hands because of mourning and sorrow. Thirdly, Vatable translates: Sion broke bread with her hands, namely, bread; as if to say, it is customary for bread to be broken by others for those mourning; but Sion has no comforter, but she herself must break bread for herself. The first sense is most fitting. MANDAVIT, — by his command he called and sent enemies against me. It is a metalepsis, as if to say, God is he who, as it were a leader, conscripted the Chaldeans, led them into battle, and commanded them to rage against the Jacobites. FACTA EST JERUSALEM QUASI POLLUTA MENSTRUIS INTER EOS, — that is, she became abominable, like a menstruating woman, as Theodoret and Lyran say. Or rather, as if to say, the neighboring enemies, such as the Moabites, Ammonites and others, expelled Jerusalem, that is, the Jerusalemites, from their midst and from their vicinity into captivity, just as a menstruating woman is expelled from the company of men, according to the law of Leviticus XV, 19. For the Hebrew נדה nidda signifies one separated and cast out, because excommunicated. Tropologically St. Jerome notes that menstruation signifies desires and works both carnal and bloody; and therefore those polluted by them are called both libidinous and murderers.
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18. QUIA OS EJUS AD IRACUNDIAM PROVOCAVI. — In Hebrew, because I rebelled against his mouth, or because I exacerbated, embittered his mouth (for this is properly what מריתי mariti means) and provoked it, namely by this very fact that I transgressed the law laid down by his mouth, and despised the threats of Jeremiah and the Prophets, I provoked him so that by his mouth he would bear the sentence of destruction against me. Thus Theodoret, Lyran and others. Sanchez adds, as if to say, the mouth of the Lord full of sweetness, I made bitter to myself by sinning. For it itself drips with honey and nectar: but I, while I offer him my gall and wormwood, thus embittered it, so that upon me he poured forth words full of gall, and full of wrath concerning slaughters, fires, destruction. I therefore by my crimes forced and compelled him to these things. Otherwise Origen, Hugh and Bonaventure: The mouth of the Lord, they say, are the Prophets, especially Jeremiah, whom the Jews exacerbated so many times, especially when he warned them from God's mouth not to flee to the Egyptians; they did this against his will. These are the words of Jerusalem: therefore R. Solomon wrongly thinks these are spoken by Jeremiah in the person of King Josiah, who, warned by God not to fight against the king of Egypt, refused to obey, and thus was killed in battle, IV Kings XXIII, 29. The author of the book On the Essence of Divinity, in St. Augustine, understands by the mouth of the Lord Christ, whom the Jews lacerated with so many injuries. But this sense is mystical.
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19. VOCAVI AMICOS. — By friends Theodoret understands idols; Origen, the Assyrians and Chaldeans; others, the Ammonites; St. Thomas, domestic friends; most rightly the Chaldean, Paschasius, Hugh, St. Thomas, Lyran and others understand the Egyptians, who, when they had come to the aid of the Jews besieged by the Chaldeans, seeing their forces and strength, turned back, and did not dare to help the Jews, or were unwilling, as is evident from Jeremiah XXXVII, 6. Thus in the hour of death we shall call upon friends whom we have cultivated, namely the world and the flesh, but they will abandon us. See what is said at verse 2. We heard recently in Belgium a distinguished man, in death calling upon and imploring the aid of his wife: Dearest spouse, help me in these straits; and when she, weeping, said: Can I help you, dearest husband, in an incurable disease? He called upon his firstborn son: Son, help, snatch me from these straits; I have labored for you night and day, and often exposed my life to danger; and when he likewise groaning said: Would that, my father, I could snatch you from death! but this has exhausted my strength. He called upon the second, then the third, and the other sons and daughters in order, then servants and handmaids, addressing each one individually and imploring his aid: and when each one, grieving, gave the same answer, and said that there was no remedy against death, he exclaimed: O vain cares of men! O how much emptiness is in things! behold I, to you, O wife, to you, O sons and daughters, have labored, sweated, spent strength and life, and perhaps even pledged my soul: and behold this is my reward, that in this last hour, imploring your aid, I find it not. O how much better it would have been if I had served God! if I had prepared friends on earth and in heaven, who in this moment would be present to me! O if it were permitted to live, how wise I would be! QUÆSIERUNT CIBUM. — Supply, and found it not, as if to say, they were consumed by hunger.
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20. BEHOLD, O LORD. — That is, look upon us with a benign countenance, have mercy on us, bring aid to the afflicted. Here Jeremiah employs an apostrophe frequently directed to God, to show to what refuge one must flee in afflictions, namely to God. MY BELLY. — In Hebrew, my bowels are troubled, namely with sorrow, groaning, sobbing, like water disturbed or boiling; for this is the Hebrew חמרמר chamarmar. MY HEART IS TURNED WITHIN ME. — That is, my heart has turned itself within me to mourning, and is tormented. "Turned" therefore, that is, troubled and overwhelmed by sorrow, and therefore as if lifeless. Others explain it: My heart has turned itself to repentance. But the former sense is the genuine one. BECAUSE I AM FULL OF BITTERNESS (of heart, namely sorrow). — Secondly, it can be translated with Pagninus, Vatablus, and the Chaldean: Because rebelling I have rebelled, or embittering I have embittered, that is, I have provoked the Lord: thus Our author translates it, verse 18. Thirdly, most excellently, joining both together, you may explain it thus, as if to say: I grieve not so much on account of the evils which I suffer, as because I have provoked and embittered God. Thus a Castro. WITHOUT (that is, in the streets) THE SWORD HATH SLAIN (in Hebrew שכלת scikela, that is, bereaved, namely of children, me the mother Jerusalem) — Of the Chaldeans. AND AT HOME THERE IS DEATH LIKE UNTO IT. — Because there my citizens and children die of hunger, Jeremiah XIV, 18: thus the Chaldean, Olympiodorus, Hugh and Vatablus; or, as others say, they die at home from terror, by which they expect death and the sword of the Chaldeans breaking in at every hour. Thus tropologically the sinner is shaken without by divine scourges, within by fear of damnation, and will be shaken more when dying he goes to judgment. Hear St. Bernard (or the author of the book On the Interior House, chapter XXXVIII): "On all sides," he says, "there will be straits for you; on this side will be accusing sins, on that side terrifying justice; below an open horrible chaos of hell, above an angry judge; within a burning conscience, without a burning world. If the just man is scarcely saved, how will the sinner thus caught turn himself? To hide will be impossible, to appear intolerable." Somewhat differently St. Gregory, III Morals XXIV: "Often," he says, "we are worn down without by scourges, and wearied within by carnal suggestion. For this reason it is that Jeremiah laments saying: Without the sword slayeth, and at home death is like unto it. For without the sword slayeth, when striking us outwardly vengeance pierces us: but at home death is like unto it, because although he endures scourges, yet within his conscience is not clean from the filth of temptation." How true this is, anyone experiences in himself, or has experienced at some time.
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21. THEY HAVE HEARD. — Namely my false friends and the unfaithful, namely the Egyptians, of whom verse 19. Thus St. Thomas; likewise the neighboring Idumeans and Ammonites, thus Paschasius and Hugh, as if to say: Wherever I turn, I find myself desolate and afflicted: for if I turn to friends, they withdraw themselves, nor do they console me; if to enemies, they rejoice and mock me. BECAUSE THOU HAST DONE. — As if to say: Because they themselves see that you have done and sent this plague upon me: for those whom you despise and afflict, commonly men despise and afflict, and that by your just judgment and the merit of the afflicted. THOU HAST BROUGHT (after 70 years of desolation) THE DAY OF CONSOLATION. — In Hebrew, the day which you have called, that is which you have named, and from eternity have appointed; in which namely you will summon against Babylon Cyrus, the Persians and Medes, that they may free me from captivity: which day will be for the Chaldeans my enemies a day of destruction, and then they will become like me in desolation and miseries. Thus Rabanus, Hugh, Dionysius, Lyra. Secondly, more clearly and more aptly to the preceding, as if to say: To the neighboring Egyptians and Idumeans, when they rejoice in my desolation, you will bring, O Lord, the same Nebuchadnezzar, who will devastate them in the same manner: "and they shall be," that is so that they may be, "like unto me," as Jeremiah predicted in chapter XXV, verse 29. This therefore will be a day of vengeance to enemies, as the Chaldean translates it, but to us a day of consolation: "For the just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge: he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner," Psalm LVIII, 11. Note, for "like unto me" Theodoret and Olympiodorus read, alas! for they read in the Septuagint, δί μοι; but it should be read with the Roman and Complutensian Bibles and Origen, ὅμοιοί μοι, that is "like unto me," as the Hebrew and Latin have it.
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22. LET ALL EVIL ENTER IN. — Namely, both the guilt of my enemies and the punishment with which they afflict me, my miseries insulting, and me together with the Chaldeans laying waste and plundering, that is to say, Remember, consider and take notice, O Lord, of their malice and injuries toward me, that Thou mayest punish them as Thou hast punished me. GATHER THEM AS THOU HAST GATHERED ME. — He calls gathering the gleaning, by which after the collection of grapes the few remaining clusters are gathered, that is to say, In like manner mayest Thou lead the remaining ones of them (the Idumeans and Egyptians) into captivity or death, as Thou hast led my remaining ones. See the words at verses 5 and 12. You will say: How does Jeremias here curse his enemies; for this is against charity, and is a kind of vengeance. Hugo answers, first, that these are the words of the captive people; but among the common people many are wicked and vindictive. Second, Rabanus, Paschasius and Dionysius take the imprecation here for a prediction: "gather," that is, Thou shalt gather, "them." Third, Origen thinks these are the words of the Prophet, asking for the punishment of enemies, that through it they themselves might repent and be amended from their sins. Fourth and most rightly we shall say these are spoken by Jerusalem and by the Synagogue from zeal for justice, and in them only is it asked that God exercise just vengeance upon the proud enemies, and humble the unfaithful, and punish them according to their deserts. We heard recently in Belgium of a notable man, in death calling upon and imploring the aid of his wife: Dearest spouse, help me in these straits; and when she weeping said: Can I help thee, dearest husband, in an incurable disease? He called his firstborn son: Son, help, rescue me from these straits; I have labored for thee night and day, and have often exposed my life to danger; and when he likewise groaning said: Would that, my father, I could rescue thee from death! but this has exhausted my strength. He called the second, then the third, and the other sons and daughters in order, then servants and handmaids, addressing each one individually and imploring his aid: and when each one grieving responded the same, and said that there is no remedy against death, he exclaimed: O vain cares of men! O how much emptiness is in things! behold I have labored for thee, O wife, for you, O sons and daughters, I have toiled, I have spent my strength and my life, and perhaps I have even pledged my soul: and behold this is my reward, that in this last hour imploring your aid, I find it not. O how much better it would have been if I had served God! if I had prepared friends on earth and in heaven, who in this moment would be present to me! O if it were permitted to live, how wise I would be! THEY SOUGHT FOR MEAT. — Supply, and found it not, that is to say, They were consumed by hunger. 20. BEHOLD, O LORD. — That is, look upon us with a benign countenance, have mercy on us, bring aid to the afflicted. Here is a frequent apostrophe to God, that Jeremias might show to what one must flee in afflictions, namely to God. MY BELLY. — In Hebrew, my bowels are troubled, namely with sorrow, groaning, sobbing, like water disturbed or boiling; for this is the Hebrew חמרמר chamarmar. MY HEART IS TURNED WITHIN ME. — That is, my heart has turned itself within me to mourning, and is tormented. "Turned" therefore, that is, troubled and overwhelmed with sorrow, and therefore as if lifeless. Others explain: My heart has turned itself to repentance. But the former sense is the genuine one. BECAUSE I AM FULL OF BITTERNESS (of heart, namely sorrow). — Second, it can be turned with Pagninus, Vatablus, the Chaldean: Because rebelling I have rebelled, or embittering I have embittered, that is, I have provoked the Lord: thus Our version turns it, verse 18. Third, most rightly, joining both together thus explain it, that is to say, I grieve not so much on account of the evils which I suffer, as because I have provoked and embittered God. Thus a Castro. WITHOUT (that is in the streets) THE SWORD HATH KILLED (in Hebrew שכלה scikela, that is, bereaved, namely of sons, me the mother Jerusalem) — of the Chaldeans. AND AT HOME THERE IS DEATH LIKE UNTO IT. — Because there my citizens and sons die of hunger, Jeremias XIV, 18: thus the Chaldean, Olympiodorus, Hugo and Vatablus; or, as others, they die at home from terror, by which they expect death and the sword of the Chaldeans breaking in at every hour. Thus tropologically the sinner without is shaken by divine scourges, within by fear of damnation, and shall be shaken more in death going to judgment. Hear St. Bernard (or the author of the book On the Interior House, chapter XXXVIII): "On all sides," he says, "there will be straits for thee; on this side will be accusing sins, on that side threatening justice; below an open horrible chaos of hell, above an angry judge; within a burning conscience, without a burning world. If the just man is scarcely saved, the sinner thus caught—in what direction will he turn himself? To hide will be impossible, to appear intolerable." Otherwise St. Gregory, III Morals XXIV: "Often," he says, "we are worn down by scourges without, and wearied by carnal suggestion within. Hence it is that Jeremiah laments, saying: Without the sword killeth, and within death is like unto it. For without the sword killeth, when striking us outwardly vengeance pierces us: but within death is like unto it, because indeed we endure scourges, and yet within our conscience is not clean from the filth of temptation." How true this is, anyone experiences in himself, or has experienced at some time. 21. THEY HAVE HEARD. — Namely my false friends and the unfaithful, to wit the Egyptians, of whom verse 19. Thus St. Thomas; likewise the neighboring Idumæans and Ammonites, thus Paschasius and Hugh, as if to say: Whithersoever I turn, I find myself desolate and afflicted: for if I turn to friends, they withdraw themselves, nor do they console me; if to enemies, they rejoice and mock me. BECAUSE THOU HAST DONE, — as if to say: Because they themselves see that thou hast done and sent upon me this plague: for those whom thou despisest and afflictest, men commonly despise and afflict, and that by thy just judgment and by my deserved affliction. THOU HAST BROUGHT (after 70 years of desolation) A DAY OF CONSOLATION. — In Hebrew, a day which thou hast called, that is which thou hast named, and from eternity hast appointed; in which namely thou shalt convoke against Babylon Cyrus, the Persians and Medes, that they may free me from captivity: which day shall be to the Chaldæans, my enemies, a day of destruction, and then they shall become like unto me in desolation and miseries. Thus Rabanus, Hugh, Dionysius, Lyra. Secondly, more clearly and more aptly to the preceding, as if to say: To the neighboring Egyptians and Idumæans, when they rejoice in my desolation, thou shalt bring, O Lord, the same Nebuchadnezzar, who shall lay them waste in the same manner: "and they shall be," that is that they may be, "like unto me," as Jeremiah foretold cap. XXV, verse 29. This therefore shall be a day of vengeance to the enemies, as the Chaldee translator renders it, but to us a day of consolation: "For the just shall rejoice when he shall see the vengeance: he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner," Psalm LVIII, 11. Note, for "like unto me" Theodoret and Olympiodorus read, alas! for they read in the Septuagint, δί μοι; but it should be read with the Roman Bibles, the Complutensian and Origen, ὅμοιοί μοι, that is like unto me, as the Hebrew and Latin have it. 22. LET ALL EVIL ENTER. — Namely both the guilt of my enemies, and the punishment by which they afflict me, my miseries by insulting, and laying waste and plundering me with the Chaldæans, as if to say: Remember, consider and take notice, O Lord, of their malice and injuries toward me, that thou mayest punish them as thou hast punished me. their malice and injuries toward me, that thou mayest punish them as thou hast punished me. GATHER THEM AS THOU HAST GATHERED ME. — By gathering he means the gleaning, by which after the collection of grapes the few remaining clusters are gathered, as if to say: In like manner the remaining ones of them (the Idumæans and Egyptians) lead thou into captivity or death, as thou hast led my remaining ones. See what is said verse 5 and 12. Thou wilt say: How does Jeremiah here curse his enemies; for this is against charity, and is a kind of vengeance. Hugh answers, first, that these are the words of the captive people; but in the common people many are wicked and vindictive. Secondly, Rabanus, Paschasius and Dionysius take the imprecation here for a prediction: "gather," that is thou shalt gather, "them." Thirdly, Origen thinks these are the words of the Prophet, asking for the punishment of enemies, that through it they themselves may repent, and amend from their sins. Fourthly and most rightly we shall say these are spoken by Jerusalem and by the Synagogue from zeal for justice, and in them only is sought that God exercise just vengeance upon the proud enemies, and humble the unfaithful, and punish them according to their deserts.
Machine translation from the Latin, not reviewed.
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Huic autem operi praemittitur prooemium, in quo describitur tempus: postquam in captivitatem. Auctor. Sedit Jeremias, more plangentis, quasi in terra. Isa. 41: descende, sede in pulvere, virgo filia Babylon. Materia: planxit lamentatione. Jerem. 9: super montes assumam fletum ac lamentum, et super speciosa deserti planctum: quoniam incensa sunt, eo quod non sit vir pertransiens. Auctoris affectus: amaro animo. Infra 5: replevit me amaritudinibus, et inebriavit me absynthio.
Dividitur iste liber in partes duas. In prima propheta deplorat populi miseriam; in secunda, oratione convertit se ad divinam misericordiam, cap. 5: recordare, domine, quid acciderit nobis. Prima dividitur in tres. In prima plangit miseriam servitutis; in secunda miseriam destructionis, 2 cap.: quomodo obtexit caligine in furore suo dominus filiam Sion; in tertia miseriam obsidionis, 4 cap.: quomodo obscuratum est aurum? Prima in duas. In prima deplorat propheta gentis suae dejectionem; in secunda inducit plebis, vel civitatis, conquestionem, ibi, o vos omnes qui transitis. Prima in duas. In prima plangit servitutem; in secunda prosequitur per partes, servitutis magnitudinem, ibi, migravit Judas, et cetera. Circa primum duo facit. Primo ostendit populi servitutem, seu abjectionem quantum ad amissionem gloriae; secundo quantum ad violationem amicitiae, ibi, plorans ploravit et cetera. Ostendit autem gloriam suam ex tribus. Primo quia populosa civibus: quomodo sedet, vilis et dejecta, sola, desolata habitatoribus. Baruch 4: ego autem derelicta sum sola, exui me stola pacis. Plena, quondam. 3 Reg. 4: Juda et Israel innumerabiles. Isa. 22: urbs frequens, civitas exultans. Secundo quia honorata principibus: erat enim civitas regalis et sacerdotalis: facta est quasi vidua, regibus, vel sacerdotibus. Isa. 47: venient tibi duo haec simul in una die: sterilitas, et viduitas. Domina gentium, quondam ei subditarum. Ezech. 5: ista est Jerusalem in medio gentium posita. Tertio ditata tributis: princeps provinciarum, quas tributarias fecerat. 2 Reg. 8: factus est Moab, et Siria, David serviens sub tributo. Vel in quas Salomon regnum suum diviserat, singulis singulos praepositos praeponens. 3 Reg. 4: facta est sub tributo, Chaldaeorum. Proverb. 12: manus fortium dominabitur, quae autem remissa est, tributis serviet. Huic autem versui praeponitur littera aleph, quae interpretatur doctrina, ad ostendendum quod quia populus caruit doctrina Dei in observatione, quam tenebat in cognitione, ideo captivatus est. Isa. 5: propterea captivus ductus est populus meus, quia non habuit scientiam. Sciendum est etiam, quod cum plerumque utatur coloribus, et locis rethoricis in hac lamentatione, est quartus locus conquestionis. Allegorice civitas, praesens Ecclesia, plena, populo, ex diversis gentibus congregata, domina gentium, fidei obedientium, princeps provinciarum, diversarum Ecclesiarum, quibus vivendi viam decernit, facta est sola, destituta Angelorum custodia, vel auxilio, vidua, subtracta sponsi praesentia, tributaria, tyrannis exposita. Moraliter civitas, anima, plena populo, bonarum affectionum, domina gentium, vitiorum, princeps provinciarum, sensuum, desolata, bonorum suffragiis, vidua, sponsi amplexibus, sub tributo, vitiorum.
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Hic plangit violationem amicitiae: et primo ostendit amicorum necessitatem: plorans, quasi continue diversis adversitatibus pressa Jerusalem, in nocte, privatim, propter timorem hostium, vel in adversitate, in maxillis, quia non erat qui abstergeret. Ps. 6: lavabo per singulas noctes lectum meum. Secundo auxilii subtractionem: non est qui consoletur eam, auxilium contra hostes praebens, ex omnibus caris, Aegyptiis, et aliis eis foederatis. Eccl. 4: vidi calumnias quae sub sole geruntur, et lacrymas innocentum, et consolatorem neminem. Tertio affectus immutationem: omnes amici. Job 19: fratres meos longe fecit a me, et noti mei quasi alieni recesserunt a me. Huic praeponitur littera Beth, quae interpretatur domus, quia domus Jacob est plorans. Tertius decimus conquestionis locus. Allegorice. Ecclesia plorat adversitates, in maxillis, praelatis, ex omnibus caris, Angelis sanctis, spreverunt, conformantes se divinae justitiae. Moraliter anima plorat, in nocte, peccata, in maxillis, conscientia, in qua loquitur hominis operatio: ex omnibus caris, privatis affectionibus, spreverunt, affectus pravae delectationis.
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Hic prosequitur miseriam servitutis per partes, ut ostendat ipsius magnitudinem. Et dividitur in duas partes. In prima plangit ipsam quantum ad hominum oppressionem; secundo quantum ad bonorum direptionem, ibi, manum suam misit hostis ad omnia desiderabilia ejus. Prima in duas. In prima plangit oppressionis miseriam; in secunda ostendit miseriae rationem, ibi, peccatum peccavit Jerusalem. Circa primum duo facit. Primo plangit eorum miseriam quantum ad praesentia quae sustinebant; secundo quantum ad praeterita quae recogitabant, ibi, et recordata est Jerusalem dierum afflictionis suae. Circa primum tria ponit. Primo miseriam servitutis quantum ad fugientes; secundo quantum ad remanentes, ibi, viae Sion lugent etc.; tertio quantum ad captivos, ibi, facti sunt hostes ejus in capite. Circa primum tria ponit: primo fugam: migravit, fugiens a terra sua ad terras vicinas, propter afflictionem, in personis, et multitudinem servitutis, in tributis, quam in terra sua a Chaldaeis patiebantur. Isa. 16: habitabunt apud te profugi mei. Moab esto latibulum eorum. Ibid. 21: qui habitatis terram Austri, cum panibus occurrite fugienti: a facie enim gladiorum fugerunt, a facie gladii imminentis. Secundo plangit fugientium imminentem angustiam: habitavit inter gentes, Moabitas et Ismahelitas, nec invenit requiem, quia ibi quoque angustiam passa est ab illis. Deut. 28: in gentibus quoque illis non quiesces: neque erit requies vestigia pedis tui. Tertio praedicit angustias, superveniente hostium potentia: omnes persecutores, Chaldaei, apprehenderunt eam inter angustias, quas ab illis ad quos fugerant patiebantur, sicut in Aegypto. Jerem. 42: gladius, quem vos formidatis, apprehendet vos in terra Aegypti, et fames pro qua estis soliciti, adhaerebit vobis. Ezech. 6: qui quaerunt eam non deficient, in menstruis ejus quaerent eam. Huic versui praeponitur littera ghimel, quod interpretatur plenitudo: quia ex multitudine peccatorum passi sunt plenitudinem miseriae. Matth. 23: et vos implete mensuram patrum vestrorum. Luc. 6: in qua mensura mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis. Decimus conquestionis locus. Allegorice Judas, Ecclesia, quae Christo conjungitur, migravit, de hostibus in hostes, apud quos requiem petit, et non invenit, sed ab omnibus ad libitum opprimitur. Moraliter Judas, anima quae Deum confiteri debet, migravit, ad vitia, inter gentes, vitia, vel Daemones, requiem, illudentibus vitiis, vel Daemonibus, persecutores, Daemones, apprehenderunt, in morte.
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Hic plangit miseriam remanentium, primo quantum ad peregrinos quibus frequentabatur. Viae Sion lugent, luctum excitant, ad solemnitatem, triplicem, Pascha, Pentecosten, Scenopegia. Isa. 33: dissipatae sunt viae, cessavit transiens per semitam, irritum factum est pactum. Secundo quantum ad personas quibus civitas ornabatur, scilicet principibus: omnes portae ejus destructae, quia judicia in portis fiebant. Isa. 3: maerebunt atque lugebunt portae ejus, et desolata in terra sedebit. Sacerdotibus: sacerdotes ejus gementes. Joel 2: inter vestibulum et altare plorabunt sacerdotes. Virginibus: virgines ejus squalidae, et deturpatae. Job 30: squallentes calamitate et miseria, et manducabant herbas arborum. Mach. 1: et ingemuerunt principes. Tertio quantum ad populum, quo replebatur: et ipsa, plebs, vel civitas, oppressa amaritudine. Ruth 1: valde amaritudine me replevit omnipotens. Huic praeponitur littera daleth, idest tribulatum, quia plangit destructionem templi, habentis tabulata cedrina et deaurata, ut dicitur 3 regum 6. Octavus locus conquestionis. Allegorice viae, ducentes ad caelum, Sion, prophetae et praedicatores, ad solemnitatem, caelestis patriae; portae, praelati Ecclesiae, introducentes, sacerdotes, qui sacra ministrant, virgines, quae in Ecclesia primum gradum obtinent: isti omnes pro peccatis concutiuntur, quibus concussis, et ipsa plebs subdita, amaritudine repletur. Unde Exod. 32: Moyses tabulas fregit. Moraliter viae sunt animae virtutes, ad solemnitatem, contemplationis, portae, sensus, sacerdotes, animae in sanctitate divinae religionis, virgines, in puritate conscientiae; quibus concussis, ipsa anima vitiorum amaritudine opprimitur.
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Hic plangit oppressionem quantum ad captivos: et primo plangit captivitatem minorum; secundo majorum, ibi, et egressus est a filia Sion omnis decor ejus. Circa primum tria proponit. Primo hostium exaltationem in potentia: hostes, scilicet Chaldaei, in capite, quasi principantes ipsis. Et quantum ad divitias: locupletati sunt. Deut. 28: ipse erit in caput, et tu eris in caudam. Secundo assignat exaltationis rationem: quia dominus locutus est, quasi sententias contra ipsam, inspirans gentibus ad veniendum, vel praedicens per Moysen. Et hoc propter multitudinem iniquitatum: Jerem. 28: loquar adversus gentem, et adversus regnum, ut destruam et disperdam illud. Tertio proponit captivitatem, parvuli ejus, idest parvuli de populo. Isa. 6: propterea captivus ductus est populus meus, quia non habuit scientiam. Huic praemittitur littera he; idest, ista sunt judicia quae dominus per Moysen dixerat. Est octavus locus conquestionis. Hoc quod dicitur, propter multitudinem, est prima pars assumptae conditionis generalis, quae dicitur concessio. Allegorice hostes, haeretici, deficiente scientia in Ecclesia, facti sunt in capite, praevalentes in contentionibus, lucupletati, eloquentia. Dominus locutus est, permissive, parvuli, incipientes in captivitate, ab Ecclesia abducti. Moraliter hostes, Daemones, in capite, intentionem corrumpentes, locupletati, multiplicitate peccatorum, locutus, permittens, parvuli, motus et affectus, tribulantis, Daemonis. Psal. 12: qui tribulant me, exultabunt si motus fuero.
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Hic plangit majorum captivationem; et circa hoc tria facit. Primo proponit ornamentorum amissionem: egressus est a filia Sion, idest Jerusalem, omnis decor, quantum ad vasa quae ablata sunt, et thesauros, et principes, et sacerdotes cum Joachim nepote Josiae: 4 Reg. 24. Ezech. 19: auferentur vasa decoris tui. Secundo indigentia victualium: facti sunt principes ejus velut arietes non invenientes pascua, nec sibi, nec populo; quia defecit etiam panis in civitate, quando obsidebatur, tempore Sedeciae, sicut dicitur Jerem. 34. Isa. 5: nobiles ejus interierunt fame, et multitudo ejus siti exaruit. Tertio ponit captivitatem principum: et abierunt absque fortitudine, non potentes resistere, ante faciem subsequentis, fugientes, sicut legitur Jerem. ult. Fugati sunt principes in campis Jerichuntinis, Psal. 37: dereliquit me virtus mea. Huic versui hi praeponitur littera vau, quae interpretatur, et; quasi, etiam haec adjuncta sunt superioribus in vindictam nostram a domino. Et est quintus conquestionis locus. Allegorice ab Ecclesia filia caelestis Sion, a qua exemplata est, quandoque egressus est decor fidei, et principes, praelati vadunt in diversos errores, ante faciem subsequentis, Diaboli, vel haeretici fidem pervertentis, non invenientes, in Scripturis, pascua, verbi Dei et domini Jesu Christi.
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Hic deplorat miseriam ex praeteritorum memoria: et primo tangit memoriam praeteritorum, idest afflictionis praeteritae, quae memorata excitat taedium, praevaricationis, idest peccatorum, quae excitant conscientiae remorsum, desiderabilium, idest prosperitatum, quae causant et incendunt concupiscentiae desiderium. Isa. 38: recogitabo tibi annos meos in amaritudine animae meae. Secundo proponit passionem praesentium malorum: cum caderet populus ejus in manu hostili. Psal. 21: tribulatio proxima est, et non est qui adiuvet. Tertio contemptum hostium: viderunt eam hostes, et deriserunt sabbata ejus, et omnia quae ad cultum religionis pertinebant. 1 Machab. 1: dies festi ejus conversi sunt in luctum, sabbata ejus in opprobrium, honores ejus in nihilum. Expositiones litterarum loci rhetorici, et sensus mystici sufficienter tanguntur in Glossis.
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Hic ostendit causam tantae miseriae: et primo proponit ipsum peccatum; secundo peccati progressum, ibi, sordes ejus in pedibus ejus. Circa primum duo facit. Primo proponit peccatum, peccatum, anthonomastice infidelitatis et idolatriae. Proverb. 14: miseros facit populos peccatum. Secundo ponit peccati effectum. Primo instabilitatis miseriam: propterea instabilis facta est; idest, non stetit in terra sua, sed captivata est, et fugit in alias regiones. Isa. 57: impii quasi mare fervens, quod quiescere non potest. Secundo confusionis ignominiam: omnes qui glorificabant eam, benedicebant tempore prosperitatis, spreverunt illam, quia viderunt ignominiam, adversitatis. Job 29: auris audiens beatificabat me, et oculus videns, testimonium reddebat mihi. Tertio cordis tristitiam: ipsa autem gemens conversa est retrorsum, a prosperitate, qua in Deo proficiebat. Psal. 39: convertantur retrorsum, et erubescant qui volunt mihi mala.
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Hic ponit peccati progressum: et primo ponit culpam: sordes, scilicet peccatorum, in pedibus, scilicet in affectibus, quasi ad progrediendum in peccato, finis, scilicet mortis, vel judicii divini. Eccli. 7: memorare novissima tua, et in aeternum non peccabis. Secundo ponit poenam: deposita est, a statu dignitatis, vehementer, idest in extremam miseriam. Psal. 58: disperde illos in virtute tua, et depone eos. Tertio exposcit misericordiam: vide, domine, scilicet misericordiae affectu. Psal. 118: vide humilitatem meam, et eripe me, quia legem tuam non sum oblitus.
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Hic plangit servitutem quantum ad expoliationem bonorum, quam ab hostibus victoribus patiebantur: et primo ponit bonorum expoliationem quantum ad ea quae hostes auferebant. Secundo quantum ad ea quae ipsimet destruebant, ibi, omnis populus ejus gemens. Circa primum duo ponit. Primo bonorum direptionem: hostis, Chaldaeus victor, desiderabilia, scilicet thesauros domus Dei et domus regiae et omnium aliorum. Isa. 64: omnia desiderabilia vestra versa sunt in ruinas. Secundo ponit istorum prophanationem, quia vidit, scilicet plebs Judaeorum; ac si diceret: hoc ordine potuit fieri ut omnia auferrentur, etiam quae in templo erant. 1 Mach. 2: sancta in manu extranaeorum facta sunt. Vel aliter. Vidit, scilicet dominus gentes, sacerdotes verbo, sed gentiliter viventes, quando in templo idolum posuerunt, de quibus praeceperas. Levit. 22, quod homo etiam de stirpe Aaron in quo est macula, non vescatur de sanctificatis domino. Et sic, quia contra haec fecerunt, ducti sunt in captivitatem, secundum quod culpa est causa poenae.
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Hic ponit spoliationem bonorum quantum ad ea quae ipsimet distrahebant: et primo ponit distrahendi necessitatem, scilicet ex defectu necessariorum: quaerens panem. Psal. 101: percussus sum sicut fenum, et aruit cor meum, quia oblitus sum comedere panem meum. Secundo ponit ipsam distractionem: dederunt pretiosa ad refocillandam, non ad satiandam, animam, vilem vitam. Sic legitur de Aegyptiis. Genes. 48. Tertio provocat Deum ad pietatem: vide, domine. Jer. 2: quam vilis facta es nimis iterans vias tuas. Et hoc ultimum ponitur ex persona ipsius civitatis vel plebis, quae quasi propheta proponente miseriam suam, audiens sustinere amplius non possit in verba lamentationis singultans prorumpit.
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Hic ponitur conquestio ex parte ipsius civitatis et plebis: et primo conqueritur ad astantes de severitate judicis; secundo ad judicem de crudelitate hostis, ibi, vide, domine, quoniam tribulor. Circa primum duo facit. Primo proponit severitatem judicis in generali; secundo prosequitur in speciali, ibi, abstulit omnes magnificos meos. Circa primum tria facit. Primo proponit Dei indignationem, inquantum puniendo vindicavit; secundo proponit disciplinae divinae severitatem, inquantum puniendo erudivit, ibi, de excelso misit ignem; tertio proponit justitiae rigorem, inquantum puniendo officium judicis exercuit, ibi, vigilavit jugum iniquitatum mearum. Circa primum tria facit. Primo ponitur invocatio: o vos omnes qui transitis per viam, regionis hujus desertae. Jer. 22: pertransibunt gentes per civitatem hanc; et dicet unusquisque proximo suo: quare fecit dominus sic civitati huic grandi? Secundo proponitur doloris magnitudo, attendite; dum enim suum considerat dolorem, nullum similem putat. Maximus etiam fuit, quia maxima amissa; spiritualia scilicet et temporalia. Jerem. 8: super contritione Jerusalem contritus sum. Tertio ponitur Dei indignatio, quae est ratio doloris, quia vindemiavit, captivatis, et interfectis habitatoribus, sicut vineam racemis. Isa. 5: vinea domini exercituum, domus Israel est. Psal. 79: vindemiaverunt eam omnes qui praetergrediuntur viam. Locutus est, comminando per prophetas.
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Hic ponit severitatem disciplinae, inquantum quasi magister duris castigationibus erudivit: et primo ponit severitatem in corrigendo commissa: de excelso, idest in alto consilio suo, misit ignem, afflictionis, vel quo civitas et castrum, ad litteram, combusta sunt, in ossibus, idest in potentibus et munitionibus; et sic per gravia flagella erudivit me. Isa. 28: et tantummodo vexatio sola dabit intellectum. Secundo ostendit severitatem in cavendo futura: expandit rete, idest impedimentum quo a peccato retraxit. Oseae 2: sepiam viam tuam spinis. Tertio ostendit severitatem, subtrahendo consolationis beneficia: posuit me desolatam; quasi dicat: nullam consolationem post flagella adhibuit, sicut solet magister pueris facere. Baruch 4: adduxit mihi Deus luctum magnum.
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Hic ostendit rigorem justitiae ipsius Dei, inquantum judex est: et circa hoc tria facit. Primo ponit diligentem peccatorum considerationem: vigilavit, quasi vigilanter consideravit, jugum, afflictionis, mihi pro peccatis meis manibus imponendum. Jer. 1: quid tu vides Jeremia? Virgam vigilantem ego video. Secundo ponit duram poenae afflictionem: convolutae sunt, scilicet iniquitates, ad modum catenae, indissolubili vinculo, impositae, dum pro his poenam patior. Psal. 37: iniquitates meae supergressae sunt caput meum, et sicut onus grave gravatae sunt super me. Tertio excludit evasionem, tum propter debilitatem, infirmata est; tum propter hostis potestatem: dedit me dominus in manu, Chaldaeorum. Psalm. 30: infirmata est in paupertate virtus mea.
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Hic prosequitur miseriam servitutis per partes: et primo quantum ad primam captivitatem sub Joakim nepote Josiae, de quo 4 regum penult. Secundo de ultima quae fuit sub Sedecia, de qua 4 Reg. ult. et Jer. ult. ibi, expandit Sion manus suas. Circa primum duo facit. Quia primo plangit hominum captivationem; secundo consolationis subtractionem, ibi, idcirco ergo plorans, et oculus meus deducens aquas. Circa primum tria facit. Primo ponit captivitatem eorum qui erant eminentes dignitate, magnificos, principes, quorum est magna facere: quia, aliis remanentibus, ipsi captivati sunt. Isa. 3: auferet dominus a Juda et Jerusalem validum et fortem. Secundo eos qui erant eminentes in virtute: vocavit adversum me tempus, aptum destructioni, ut contereret electos, virtute praeeminentes. Psal. 74: cum accepero tempus, ego justitias judicabo. Exod. 32: ego autem in die ultionis visitabo, et hoc peccatum eorum. Eccle. 3: omnia tempus habent. Tertio eorum afflictionem, qui praeeminebant puritate, vel etiam pietate, torcular, idest afflictionem, virgini ad litteram; vel ipsi plebi, quae usque tunc quasi virgo fuerat; quae fuit etiam captivata. Jerem. 25: celeuma quasi calcantium concinetur adversus omnes habitatores terrae. Hic debet praescribi littera secundum Glossam; sed melius est quod in sequenti praescribatur, quia per tres vadit.
1:16
Hic plangit consolationis subtractionem: et primo ponit doloris planctum, plorans. Jer. 9: quis dabit capiti meo aquam? Secundo doloris materiam: quia longe factus est a me consolator, Aegyptius, convertens, a miseria quam patior, in pristinam prosperitatem. Psal. 87: longe fecisti notos meos a me. Tertio ponit illius effectum: facti sunt filii mei perditi. Ex defectu enim auxilii secuta est potestas adversarii, et captivitas populi. Jer. 50: grex perditus factus est populus meus.
1:17
Hic plangit secundam captivitatem, quae facta est sub Sedecia, quando universaliter populus captivatus est: et circa hoc tria facit. Primo plangit obsidionem; secundo captivitatem, ibi, justus est dominus etc.; tertio famis consumptionem, ibi, vocavi amicos meos. Circa primum tria facit. Primo ponit defectum amicorum qui adjuvare debuerant, et prohibere obsidionem: expandit Sion manus suas, quasi petens auxilium ab Aegyptiis. Infra ult.: Aegypto dedimus manum, et Assyriis. Vel a Deo. Isa. 1: cum extenderitis manus vestras, avertam oculos meos. Secundo ponit adventum hostium: mandavit, juste dispensando, in circuitu, per modum obsidionis, hostes, Chaldaeos. Isa. 10: contra populum furoris mei mandabo illi ut auferat spolia. Tertio vilitatem obsessorum: facta est Jerusalem quasi polluta, ad quam nullus accedit ad defendendum. Jerem. 2: omnes qui quaerunt eam non deficient.
1:18
Hic plangit captivitatem: et circa hoc tria facit. Primo confitetur judicis justitiam: justus est dominus. Dan. 9: justus dominus Deus noster in omnibus operibus suis quae facit. Secundo captat auditorum benevolentiam, provocans eos ad compassionem: audite obsecro. Jer. 4: audite, civitates Sion. Tertio plangit captivitatis miseriam: virgines meae et juvenes mei, qui potuerunt propter robur aetatis, famis mortem evadere, abierunt in captivitatem. Jer. 51: implevit ventrem suum teneritudine mea, et ejecit.
Hic plangit consumptionem eorum qui fame in obsidione mortui sunt: et primo praemittit amicorum deceptionem, amicos, Aegyptios, quia non adjuverunt, sicut sperabam. Isa. 30: Aegyptus frustra et vane auxiliabitur; ideo clamavi super hoc. Secundo ponit consumptionem ex hoc occasionatam: sacerdotes, de quibus videtur magis indignum, consumpti fame. Isa. 5: nobiles enim interierunt fame. Tertio assignat consumptionis rationem: quia quaesierunt, ad refocillandum, non ad satiandum; et non invenerunt. Vel assignat in hoc rationem culpam eorum: quia quaesierunt sibi non populo. Ezech. 34: vae pastoribus Israel, qui pascebant semetipsos.
1:20
Hic incipit conqueri ipsi judici: et circa hoc tria facit. Primo exponit propriam miseriam; secundo accusat adversariorum culpam, ibi, audierunt quia ingemisco ego; tertio petit vindictam, ibi, ingrediatur omne malum eorum coram te. Circa primum tria facit. Primo excitat attentionem: vide, domine. Psal. 30: miserere mei, domine, quoniam tribulor. Secundo proponit dolorem sub metaphora doloris interioris, et angustiae cordis, conturbatus: quam exponit: quoniam amaritudine plena sum. Jer. 4: ventrem meum doleo. Ruth 1: valde amaritudine me replevit omnipotens. Tertio assignat doloris rationem: foris interficit gladius. Deut. 32: foris vastabit eos gladius, et intus pavor.
1:21
Hic accusat aliorum culpam: et circa hoc tria facit. Primo accusat adjutoris defectum: audierunt, scilicet Aegyptii, et alii, de quibus confidebam. Jer. 31: vox in excelso audita est, lamentationis fletus et planctus. Secundo accusat inimicorum gaudium: omnes inimici mei audierunt malum meum, laetati sunt. Psal. 12: qui tribulant me, exultabunt si motus fuero. Tertio quasi securus de divina justitia, praedicit eorum interitum: adduxisti diem, hoc est adduces, propter certitudinem, consolationis, mihi similes, dolores et afflictiones. Isa. 65: ecce servi mei comedent, et vos esurietis.
1:22
Hic petit vindictam: et primo reducit culpam in memoriam: ingrediatur omne malum, peccatum. Psal. 108: in memoriam redeat iniquitas patrum ejus in conspectu domini, et peccatum matris ejus non deleatur. Secundo petit poenam, vindemia. Supra: vindemiavit me dominus, ut locutus est, in die furoris sui. Tertio assignat causam: multi enim gemitus mei, propter mala quae ab ipsis patior. Jerem. 8: dolor meus super dolores.
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · Vulgata Clementina · original Douay-Rheims (Douay 1609-10), transcription by EEBO-TCP (CC0) · La Sacra Bibbia, tradotta dalla Volgata da Antonio Martini (1769-1781) (LaParola (laparola.net), Martini OSIS text, Public domain (LaParola's electronic edition marks it 'Dominio pubblico')). Public domain.