Commentary on Jeremiah 1.22–1.54

[22] “Be astonished, heavens, at this, and you, its gates, be desolate exceedingly, says the Lord. For my people has done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water.” The Septuagint: “The heaven was astonished at this and shuddered beyond measure and exceedingly”; the rest likewise. The heaven, to which it was said, “Give ear, heaven, and I will speak”, and, “Hear, heaven, and give ear, earth”, seeing God's commands trampled, shudders and cannot hide its astonishment. For the whole creation groans together and grieves over the sins of men. God's people did two contrary things: first, that they forsook God, who is the fountain of life and gave the command, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt”; second, what is written in the same place, “You shall have no gods before me”; in place of which it followed demons, whom he calls broken cisterns because they cannot keep God's commandments. And this should be noticed: that a fountain is everlasting and has living waters, while cisterns and pits are filled either from torrents, or from the muddy waters of the earth, and from rains. He calls those the gates of the heavens of which it is written in the twenty-third psalm too: “Lift up your heads, O gates, and the king of glory shall come in”; for which the Septuagint translated, “Lift up your gates, O princes”; of these more will be said in its place. And let it trouble no one that Aquila and Symmachus interpreted “heavens”, but the Septuagint and Theodotion “heaven”. For the Hebrew “samaim” is of common number, and both “heavens” and “heaven” are called by the same name, like Thebes, Athens, Salonae.

[23] “Is Israel a slave, or one born in the house?” I think that it was from this place that the Jews, lifted up into pride, said to the Saviour: “We are the seed of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone; how do you say, You will be free?”, not knowing that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin, and that each one is a slave to that by which he is overcome. So those born of Abraham, the friend of God, became by their own fault like sons of Ham, to whom it was said: “Cursed be Canaan; he shall be a slave to his brothers.” [24] “Why then has he become a prey? Lions roared over him and gave their voice; they made his land a wilderness, and his cities have been burned, and there is no one to dwell in them.” The divine word asks, so that it may itself answer. He calls the princes of Babylon lions, who made his land a wilderness and destroyed his cities by fire. Or certainly, according to the higher sense, let us understand by the lions the hostile powers or the leaders of the heretics, who, laying waste the land of the church, have ravaged all its cities with heretical fire, and with that fire of which it is written: “All adulterers, their hearts are like an oven.” For they truly give their voice, and in this same prophet, in the figure of the partridge, they cry out and gather what they did not hatch, and make riches not with justice. And for this reason his cities have been laid waste and destroyed: because they do not have God as their inhabitant, as Scripture says: “and there is no one to dwell in them.”

[25] “The sons also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have defiled you even to the crown of the head. Has not this been done to you because you forsook the Lord your God at the time when he was leading you on the way?” This, which we said, “at the time when he was leading you on the way”, is not found in the Septuagint. He names two very great cities of Egypt, Memphis and Tahpanhes, and says that their sons defiled Israel even to the crown of the head, in the sense in which Isaiah put it: “From the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is no soundness in him.” Such was the lust of the Egyptians, who are “great of flesh”, that they spared no member but defiled everything. According to the letter, refer it to the idols of the Egyptians; according to the spiritual understanding, to the teachers of perverse doctrine, who pollute the purity of the church with their own foulness. These things will happen to her because she forsook the Lord her God, and above all at the time when she ought to have followed him as her guide.

[26] “And now what have you to do with the way of Egypt, to drink the water of Sihor? And what have you to do with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of the river?” For “Sihor” we interpreted “muddy”, which the Hebrew word signifies; for this the common edition has “Gihon”. Since above he had put the sons of Memphis and Tahpanhes, who defiled Israel to the crown of the head, he now names Egypt itself more plainly. And no one doubts that the Nile has muddy waters, and that the river of the Assyrians signifies the Euphrates, as Scripture says that the land of promise extends from the torrent of Egypt to the great river Euphrates. But those who have forsaken Christ, the fountain of life, and have dug for themselves the pits of the heretics, which cannot hold the waters of doctrine, must necessarily lie subject to lions, who reduce their land to a wilderness and destroy all their churches; and they must be defiled to the crown of the head and drink muddy waters and the streams of the Assyrian river and of the north, from which evils blaze up upon the earth.

[27] “Your own wickedness will rebuke you (or: your transgression will teach you), and your turning away will reprove you. Know and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and that the fear of me is not with you, says the Lord God of hosts.” It is to be noted that wickedness or transgression, after it has glutted the transgressor and, like the quails, has come even to nausea, teaches the one who does penance; he is commanded to see what he has left, what he has followed, and how, despising good and sweet things, he has chosen evil and bitter ones. All this happened because he forsook the Lord his God, and the fear of him is not with him. For “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”; because he did not have it, he is handed over to evil and bitterness.

[28] “From of old you have broken my yoke (or: your yoke), you have burst my bonds (or: your bonds), and you said: I will not serve. For on every high hill and under every leafy tree you prostrated yourself as a harlot (or: there you will be poured out in fornication).” He speaks to Israel as to a harlot, because she broke the marriage covenant and said, “I will not serve” (understood: the Lord, or her husband), but on every high hill and under every leafy tree she prostrated herself to idolatry; for pleasant and lofty places are always dedicated to idols. This can also be said of the one who from the beginning was a Christian and partly trained in the sacred writings, but afterwards, from desire for worldly literature, which is signified by the hills, and for the pleasant things of eloquence, which are shown in the leafy trees, prostrates himself to demons, who, under pretext of learning and lofty knowledge, pollute the souls of believers and make them spread their feet to everyone who passes by.

[29] “But I planted you a choice vine, wholly a true seed; how then have you turned into a degenerate, strange vine?” The Septuagint: “But I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true; how have you turned into bitterness, a strange vine?” For “choice” or “fruitful” vine the Hebrew has “sorec”, which is put in the song of Isaiah. It is a kind of the best vine, with whose shoot the Lord says he planted Israel too, and he marvels how the true seed and the choice vine has turned into bitterness and so become a strange vine. And let no one be secure, if even the Lord's planting, the true seed, the sorec vine, is so changed by its own fault that through bitterness it departs from the Lord and becomes a strange vine. And in this the mercy of the Creator is to be considered: that he who said in the gospel, “I am the true vine”, granted also to his disciples and to the people believing in him to be a choice or true vine, if it is willing to remain in what it was planted.

[30] “Though you wash yourself with nitre and multiply for yourself the herb borith, you are stained in your iniquity before me, says the Lord God.” For “herb borith”, which we rendered as it stands in the Hebrew, the Septuagint translated poa, to signify the fullers' herb, which, according to the custom of the province of Palestine, grows in green and moist places and has the same power for washing dirt as nitre. Our “nitre” and “fullers' herb” is repentance. The church's word too, which rebukes and reproves and corrects the offender, resembles a more biting nitre. One who is stained with the light dirt of sins is cleansed by lighter admonitions. But grave sins, which drag to death, cannot be washed away either by nitre or by the herb borith, but need heavier torments. “For the fire will test what sort of work each one's is, and it will be revealed in fire.” And he fittingly added, “you are stained in your iniquity before me”: even if you seem clean to men, you are not clean to me, who know the consciences of each. Hence in another place too it is said: “No one living shall be justified in your sight.” For such men do not walk on the narrow and strait way that leads to life, but on the broad and spacious one, by which very many enter, which leads to death. Hence it is also significantly named “the common burial-ground”, or according to the historical sense, because there a multitude of the people was slain and perished by the evil of idolatry.

[32] “A swift runner, tangling her ways; a wild ass used to the wilderness, in the desire of her soul she snuffed up the wind of her love; no one will turn her away; all who seek her will not tire; in her months they will find her.” The Septuagint: “At evening her voice howled; she widened her ways over the waters of the wilderness; in the desire of her soul she was carried by the wind; she was handed over. Who will turn her back? All who seek her will not labour; in her humiliation they will find her.” In this place the Septuagint edition differs much from the Hebrew truth; yet each has its own sense. Because he said above, “I am not defiled”, and spoke as to a woman who had behaved shamefully, he describes her fornication. “As a light roe”, he says (which we called by the common term “runner”, and Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion more expressively translated dromas, “running”), “unfolds her ways and is carried swiftly to pasture, and as a wild ass used to the wilderness draws in, in the desire of her soul, the winds or the breath of her love” (for among the Hebrews both “wind” and “spirit” are called by one name, “ruha”), “so too Israel or Jerusalem was carried with all her force to the desire of lust and burned with every love of idols; and there is no one who can turn her from this rush by his warnings, not that the prophets' inability caused this, but the perverse wickedness of her who desires.” Whoever seeks her, he says, will not labour greatly: “in her months” and in her uncleanness they will find her; for which Aquila interpreted neomēnia, that is, “the Kalends”, Symmachus “month”, the Septuagint and Theodotion “humiliation”. Further, according to the Septuagint the sense is this: the harlot Jerusalem, like that woman described in Proverbs, howled with her voice at evening and called lovers to lust, opened the ways of her foulness and spread her feet to everyone who passed by. And the place had the pleasantness of flowing waters, which becomes more delightful when there is wilderness all around, so that no one sees the woman committing fornication. “In the desire of her soul”, he says, she was led by a … or perverse spirit, or drew in the coolness of love, or certainly sang the songs of her foulness. “She was handed over”, he says, to her vices and to lust; no one will be able to turn her back; all who wish to find her will find her in the abasement of foulness, so that she can never be sated with the love of pleasure.

[33] “Keep your foot from going bare and your throat from thirst. And you said: I have despaired, I will by no means do it; for I have loved strangers and after them I will walk.” The Septuagint: “Turn back your foot from the rough way, and your throat from thirst. But she said: I will act manfully, for she loved strangers and walked after them.” Those who are to keep the Passover are ordered to have shoes on their feet, and the apostle proclaims shod the feet of those who are made ready for the gospel, so that, while they walk through the wilderness of this world, they may not lie open to venomous creatures, which must be trodden and crushed by the gospel foot. We keep our throat from thirst when we receive the commands of the Saviour, who says: “Whoever thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” She, in despair of better things, refused to do what the Lord commanded, and set out the reason, saying, “I have loved strangers and I will follow them”, thinking by a shameless confession to escape her crimes. Further, according to the Septuagint, the way of sinners is rough, and it is turned by the Lord into a level way. Whoever follows heretics is marked by the description of these verses, because he said: “I have despaired” (or: I will act manfully in my evil purpose) and I will be strengthened in my error. And it must be that one who follows a doctrine foreign to the church's loves strangers and follows their footsteps, either demons or the leaders of heretics, who are strangers to God. [34] “As a thief is ashamed when he is caught, so the house of Israel is ashamed, they, their kings, princes and priests and their prophets.” Although the face of thieves is shameless and brazen, yet it blushes when caught in theft. So Israel too, saying to a log, “You are my father”, and to a stone, “You have begotten me”, so as to call those his parents whom he himself made, is ashamed when caught in his idolatry. And lest we think he says this of the common people, he puts their kings and princes and priests and prophets. Let us use this testimony whenever our rulers, and those who are thought leaders in the church, are caught in shameful sins.

[35] “They have turned their back to me and not their face.” Those who cast the words of God behind them turn their back against him and not their face. For when a master gives a command, it is a sign of obedience if one hears with head bowed toward him; but if one turns his back, it is a sign of contempt, as it is written in another place: “And they turned to me a shoulder that drew away.” “So far”, says God, “have they despised my commands that they did not even wish to hear them, but showed the swelling of their mind by the gesture of their body.”

[36] “And in the time of their affliction they will say: Arise and deliver us.” Those who did not perceive God through benefits, let them perceive him through torments.

[37] “Where are your gods which you made for yourself? Let them arise and deliver you in the time of your affliction.” It is a shameless request, in the time of need and distress, to seek help from him whom they despised in peace. And it should be read with the feeling of one rebuking: “Let your gods which you made for yourself deliver you, so that, since God is the creator of men and man has made a god, necessity may prove what those can do whom you worshipped before when you were secure.”

[38] “For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah.” The individual cities worshipped either the same or separate and different gods, so that they did not seem to agree even in impiety, but superstition, fighting against itself, followed different errors. And what follows, “and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem they sacrificed to Baal”, was added by the Septuagint.

[39] “Why do you wish to contend with me in judgment? You have all forsaken me, says the Lord.” Human perversity is prone to excuse itself, so that whatever men suffer deservedly they seem to suffer unjustly, and they refer their own fault to God's judgment. “In vain, therefore,” he says, “do you put forward complaints and accuse the judge as unjust, since what you suffer comes from your impiety.” And what follows, “and you have all acted wickedly against me”, was likewise added by the Septuagint.

[40] “In vain have I struck your sons; they did not receive discipline”; for which the Septuagint put: “you did not receive.” And the sense in the Hebrew is: “Those very ones who were struck would not receive discipline”; but in the Septuagint: “I struck your sons so that by their death you might be taught; and lest perhaps you should say, You wished to correct sinners, learn by the blows on your sons that I desired to cure you with a harsher remedy.” [41] “Your sword has devoured your prophets.” “Not my prophets but yours; not my sword but yours, which you have suffered for your sins, has devoured them.” Further, the Septuagint do not have “your”, but simply translated: “The sword has devoured your prophets”, to show either the enemy's sword or my sword, by which your sins are pierced. [42] “Like a ravaging lion is your generation.” The Septuagint: “like a ravaging lion, and you did not fear.” “The sword”, he says, “which devoured your prophets” (no doubt he means the soothsayers of Baal and of the idols) “ravaged everything like a lion; and yet your generation, which ought to have been amended by the slaughter of a few, all persevered in crime.” But according to the Septuagint the sense is this: “So the sword of the Lord, which showed the sword of the enemies, devoured and tore your false prophets like a lion, which most greedily tears the prey it has found; and yet not even by the punishment of your prophets could you be turned to better things.”

[43] “See the word of the Lord: Have I become a wilderness to Israel, or a late-yielding land? Why then has my people said: We have withdrawn, we will no longer come to you?” The Septuagint: “Hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord: Have I become a wilderness to Israel, or a land full of thorns? For my people has said: We will not serve, and we will not come to you.” Moses too saw the voice of God, and John the apostle says that he saw and handled the Word of God. He marvels how the people of Israel regarded God as a wilderness, while they followed idols as if they were the crowds of cities. A late-yielding land is one that does not receive the rains of doctrines nor the discipline of the gospel; and full of thorns, because it had not been cultivated. The people, then, once God's, is the more wicked in this, that it withdrew from the Lord and will no longer return to its God. It is a great offence to refuse to appease one whom you have offended.

[44] “Will a virgin forget her ornament, or a bride the sash of her breast? But my people has forgotten me days without number.” Through these words we learn that Christ is the bridegroom of the virgin church, which has no spot or wrinkle. And if he is the bridegroom, these are his words, of whom John the Baptist too says: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom.” So he who withdraws from the Lord loses his ornament and lets go the understanding of doctrines, which is signified by the breast. Hence John the evangelist too reclines on the Lord's breast, and among other things the breast of the victims is set apart for the priests. And the greater the number of times in which we forget God, the greater the punishment of the sin, which could not be tamed even by the length of ages.

[45] “Why do you strive to show your way good, to seek love? You who have even taught your wickednesses to your ways, and on your wings (or: in your hands) has been found the blood of the souls of the poor and innocent; I did not find them in pits, but in all these, under every oak.” “In vain”, he says, “you wish to defend yourself with the art of words and to show your works as good, so as to earn love; you who have even taught others your ways and been an example of evil works to all. And indeed on your wings, or in your hands, has been found the blood of the innocent, whom you sacrificed to idols, or whose souls you destroyed by the likeness of sacrifices.” “The poor” we put from the Hebrew; they are not found in the Septuagint. “These poor and innocent”, he says, “I did not find slain in pits”, which commonly happens through the ambushes of robbers, “but in all the things I mentioned above, or under the oak”, which in Hebrew is called “ella”, which also means “these”, so that the sense is “in all these, or under oak and terebinth”; “under whose shade and leaves, as in pleasant places, you enjoyed the crimes of idolatry.”

[46] “And you said: I am without sin and innocent, and therefore let your anger be turned from me. Behold, I will contend with you in judgment, because you said: I have not sinned. How exceedingly vile you have become (or: since you have despised exceedingly), repeating your ways!” These words must be used against those who will not acknowledge their sins, but in the time of affliction and distress say that they suffer unjustly what they suffer, and provoke God's anger the more, since it is another and greater sin not to mourn what they have done but to put forward vain excuses for sins. “I will contend with you in judgment”, he says, “because you said: I have not sinned”, as if there were anything greater than this sin: to have one thing in the conscience and to bring out another in speech. Let the new heresy, sprung from the old, hear that God's anger is greatest at refusing to confess sin humbly and boasting shamelessly of righteousness.

[47] “And you will be put to shame by Egypt, as you were put to shame by Assyria; for from her too you will go out, and your hands will be upon your head; for the Lord has crushed your confidence (or: hope), and you will have nothing prosperous in it.” To avoid the onslaught of the Egyptians they fled to the Assyrians, whose protection was vain; for we read that they were defeated by the Egyptians. Again, to flee the wrath of the Assyrian, they relied on the help of the Egyptians, whom history relates were overcome by the Assyrians. So they are rebuked because, abandoning hope in God, they relied on the help of men, which was all crushed and so overthrown that they could find nothing useful in it. Hence he says: “and from her too you will go out”, that is, from Egypt, as you went out from the Assyrians; “and your hands will be upon your head”, and you will mourn that you looked in vain to the Egyptians for protection. Let us recall the history, when Tamar, corrupted and violated by Amnon, her most wicked brother, put her hands on her head sprinkled with ashes and so returned to her house.

[48] “It is commonly said” (for which the Septuagint translated only “it is said”): “If a man dismisses his wife, and she, departing from him, marries another man, will he return to her any more? Will not that woman (or: that land) be polluted and defiled? But you have committed fornication with many lovers (or: shepherds).” For the word “rehim”, which is written with four letters, resh, ayin, yod, mem, signifies both “lovers” and “shepherds”: if we read “rehim”, it sounds “lovers”; if “rohim”, “shepherds”.

[49] “Yet return to me, says the Lord” (or: and you were returning to me, says the Lord). In the Hebrew he receives her even after fornication, when she repents, and urges her to return to him; but in the Septuagint he does not call her to repentance, but rebukes the shamelessness of the harlot, in that after adultery she dares to return to her husband. And where he says, “and that woman will be defiled”, for which we read “land” in the Hebrew, he leaves the example and speaks more plainly of the land of Israel, which is compared to an adulterous woman. Let us use this testimony against those who, abandoning the faith of the Lord and entangled in the errors of the heretics, after many fornications and the deceiving of souls, pretend to return to the original truth, not in order to lay aside the poison of their heart, but to insinuate it into others.

[50] “Lift up your eyes straight ahead and see where you have not been prostituted; you sat in the ways waiting for them like a robber in the wilderness (or: like a crow of the desert).” For “robber” and “crow” the Hebrew has “arabe”, which can also mean “Arabs”, a nation given to robbery which to this day raids the borders of Palestine and besieges the roads of those going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; the Lord too recalls this in the gospel. “Lift up your eyes, then, O Jerusalem, and look round here and there, and see where you have not lain prostrate in fornication. For as robbers are accustomed at evening and in desert places to lay ambushes for travellers, so you, like the harlot of Proverbs, sat in the ways at evening, to kill with your embrace the souls of those committing fornication; because of which the whole land is polluted in your fornications.” And significantly, according to the higher sense, those who promise to abandon heretical errors are commanded to lift their eyes straight ahead; for unless they begin to see what is right, they cannot condemn their former crookedness.

[51] “And you have polluted (or: slain) the land with your fornications and your wickedness; therefore the showers of rain have been withheld, and there has been no late rain (or: and you had many shepherds for your stumbling).” The land was slain or polluted because of the slaughter of those who perished by the fornication of idolatry; hence the blessing of all things was taken away, so that they suffered drought of the word of God. Or it had shepherds through whom it offended God, so that those who ought to have been teachers, to keep others from error, became authors of impiety. [52] “The forehead of a harlot has become yours; you would not blush.” The Septuagint: “The face of a harlot became yours; you became shameless toward all.” Because above she had said, “I have not sinned”, and had sinned the more by denying her crimes, he therefore now rebukes her as a brazen woman of excessive shamelessness, who is carried with brazen face not to one or another, but blushes before no one. Let us use this word against the gathering of the heretics, who glory in their errors.

[53] “Therefore at least from now on call me: My father, you are the guide of my virginity. Will you be angry for ever, or will you keep it to the end?” Let the heretics blush who will not be converted to better things nor return to their Father and Creator, and let them hear: “at least from now on call me: My father, you are the guide of my virginity.” He himself betrothed your soul to his embraces and teaches how you ought to pray and do penance. And the more merciful he is, who shows the way of salvation after fornication, the more wretched is the harlot who will not receive health after her wounds.

[54] “Behold, you have spoken and done evil things, and you were able.” “In place of words of repentance you blasphemed with words of pride, and you fulfilled your evil thought and showed your strength against your husband, so that you could do what you had handled in speech.”