Chapter 1

Theophylact of Ohrid, Exposition of the Prophet Micah

1 Argument

¹ There is one aim for all the divine prophets: the betterment of their hearers, who are guided both toward the knowledge of God and toward a zealous life. Many prophets arose, and some were even contemporaries of one another, not superfluously nor in vain; but since God testified to the people through many mouths that, if they would not depart from the idols and choose to live rightly, they would draw down evils upon themselves, while he himself would be without blame. Therefore, in order that they might be put to shame before so many heralds who announced beforehand things grievous and fearful, and through these struck them with fear, and that those hitherto unfeeling and hardened might abstain from their wicked habit—for this reason he sends many prophets. Physicians do the same, aiding those who are more severely ill with more remedies; and so too we set over children many instructors and admonishers. And so this holy prophet Micah, now in our hands, was sent to the two tribes that inhabit Jerusalem, and to the ten in Samaria, bringing the same charges as Joel and Amos and Hosea; for he was very nearly their contemporary, even if those slightly preceded him, having begun their prophecy in the reign of Uzziah. Now Uzziah was the father of Jotham, in whose reign this Micah prophesies. He gives signs beforehand of the coming of the Savior, in one place in shadowed form, in another more plainly; and he also builds up toward a moral way of life. You will inquire whether this was the Micaiah who prophesied to Ahab the evils that would befall him, and was struck on the cheek by the prophet Zedekiah. For if this man was that one, how is it written that he prophesied in the days of Jotham? For Jotham is many years later than Ahab. Either, then, he is not the same; or he is indeed the same—since this is also the opinion of Epiphanius of Cyprus, who studied most diligently the writings of the Hebrews, from whom he himself sprang—but, having prophesied earlier, without writing, in the time of Ahab, he later began to make a written prophecy in the days of Jotham; so that, with respect to prophesying in writing, this man comes after the prophets mentioned, though not simply with respect to the time of his life.

2 Chapter One

¹ The word of the Lord, which came to Micah. He turns the hearer to attention, all but saying this: Do not suppose the word to be mine, but the word of the Lord of all. So that you must be sober, and listen more attentively. He is Lord, having authority, able to punish the despiser. And if the Lord is the Spirit, observe that he rouses us to hear spiritually the things about to be said. Do not remain, he says, in the letter, but receive what is to be said as a word of the Spirit, all things summed up into one Word, concerning whom Isaiah also said that The Lord will make a shortened word upon the earth. For if you believe in your heart, and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. And since ‘Micah’ is interpreted ‘humbling’ or ‘one humbled,’ understand the Word of God to be indicated here—the one born of a woman, whose soul magnifies the Lord, because he looked upon the humiliation of his handmaid—both of her who says these very things, and simply of human nature; and because he put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the humble; and since[1]a broken and humbled heart God does not despise, and the Word of God comes to be in everyone who is humbled, giving him grace, and making him wise, and giving him understanding, and revealing to him the things which he hid from the wise and prudent. And if, through the active discipline, I have also humbled your body, buffeting it and bringing it into bondage, receive also the word of the contemplative discipline. For toward the man who is well-fed and lives in luxury, who though living is dead even while he lives, such a word could not come.

² The son of Morathi. The other translators of the Hebrew edition, by saying ‘the Morathite,’ give us to understand that Morathi, the father of the prophet, was not a man, but the place from which he set out.

³ In the days of Jotham, and Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Not in vain were the kings enumerated in whose reigns Micah prophesies, but because great wars occurred in their times. For indeed, in the reign of Jotham, Pekah son of Romelias, and Rezin king of Syria, marched against Jerusalem; then, when Jotham had died, Ahaz reigned, who, while the war still continued, having made the Assyrian his ally by means of money, brought down Rezin. And after this, when impious kings reigned in Samaria, the Assyrians came upon them and inflicted not a few evils on the ten tribes. He mentions Hezekiah also, on account of the miracle in the time of Sennacherib. Fittingly, then, did he make mention of these kings. For the things that would come to pass in their times, upon the ten tribes and upon the two, he foretells; and hear also what follows:

⁴ Concerning the things which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. For he beheld them, as in a vision; the things that were to be and to come to pass he not only knew, but even saw as though already present. Therefore, that they might not come to pass, for this reason the word of the Lord came to the prophet, and the prophet announces it to those who were going to suffer these things, if they did not amend. Know, however, that the greater part of what is said looks toward Jerusalem.

⁵ Hear, all you peoples. Since he prophesies concerning Jerusalem and Samaria, fittingly he calls not one people to the hearing, but peoples—those, I mean, of the two kingdoms. And since ‘to hear’ signifies two things in Scripture—both simply to give ear, and to obey—here he requires the peoples not simply to hear, but to obey and to attend to the things spoken. He adds, then:

⁶ And let the earth give heed, and all that are in it. The earth, that is, of Jerusalem and of Samaria. And making his discourse clearer, he said: All that are in it; for surely the element earth was not going to give heed. And perhaps someone will say that the discourse is brought by the prophet toward what is more fearful. For since the earth too will be destroyed, set ablaze by the enemies and its fruits laid waste, he calls it also to give heed. And it is a prophetic idiom to call the elements as witnesses: Hear, O heaven; and give ear, O earth, as Isaiah says; and this same prophet, in what follows, calls the mountains to judgment. The prophets do this, putting to shame those who are ensouled and rational. And so now too he exhorts the earth to give heed first, then those in it, showing that it was for their sake that he made mention of the earth at all, that, standing in awe of him, they might attend to the things to be said.

⁷ And let the Lord God be among you for a testimony, the Lord from his holy house. Let each of you reckon, he says, that it is not I, Micah, a man like yourselves, who testify these words to you; but the Lord himself bears witness to you from the holy house—that is, from the temple—making this attestation. So that you ought to give heed; for it is the Lord who speaks. He speaks from the house which you raised up, in which you were commanded to honor him, from which house he ever speaks to the prophets. And if you should understand the house to be heaven, this makes the discourse far more worthy of credence. For the one who speaks does not utter his voice from earth, but from on high, as the true God. And since the prophecy also contains certain great mysteries concerning Christ, for this reason he calls together not only those under the law, whom he names ‘peoples’ (because the proselytes too were ranked with the noble Jews), but also the whole earth, into which went out the sound of the apostolic preaching, that the whole earth might be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. And the only-begotten Lord and God became a testimony, inasmuch as he testified through the Gospel how one must be saved, and inasmuch as he witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession in his own times. And both these things are from the flesh, which is his holy house. For if he had not been made flesh, he would neither have preached the Gospel nor have suffered for us. But also, as many of the faithful in the Church as are chosen peoples—that is, who are under the kingdom of Christ—let them hear the things said; and as many as have become earth outright, let them attend to this attestation, which the Lord makes from his holy house—that is, the prophet. For the saints are houses of God.

⁸ Because, behold, the Lord goes forth from his place. The word ‘because’ take either as narrative, equivalent to ‘that,’ as though the prophet were saying: Hear, that the Lord goes forth; or take this very word as causal, as though he were saying this: Give heed, because it is no small thing that happens, nor such as to be despised, but the Lord goes forth from his place. Now properly, in the case of God, there is neither standing still nor motion; but by metaphor and figure these things are said of him; just as now too he calls ‘going forth’ the movement that comes out of long-suffering and stillness. For that toward which he was of old long-suffering, he says, now he has been moved against those who have offended him.

⁹ And he will mount upon the heights of the earth, and the mountains will be shaken beneath him. He will trample down, he says, those who are eminent, or even those who reign in Samaria and Jerusalem, and those who are lifted up in dignities and exalted like mountains; he will shake them away and remove them from the glory now belonging to them.

¹⁰ And the valleys will melt, like wax before the face of fire. By ‘valleys’ he names the lowly of the people, those who are subject to the lofty and to the rulers, as the valleys are to the mountains. And these too, he says, even if for the present they are hard and unyielding toward submitting to God, nevertheless will melt like wax under the wrath of the Lord, which burns them up after the manner of fire.

¹¹ And like water carried down in a descent. That is, they will go down to the depths in such a way as water borne down a slope; for by ‘descent’ he names a place that slopes downward. Or, because they will swiftly be resettled into the land of the Persians and Medes, after the manner of water carried down. The only-begotten Son also went forth from his place, the Father’s bosom, being seen upon the earth and dwelling among men; and he mounted upon the heights of the earth—of the legal polity, I mean—teaching us to pursue it in a lofty manner, and not lowly and earthly, attending to senseless sacrifices and circumcisions and the other things of that kind. The saying, You shall not swear falsely, is like a kind of earth lying below; but the saying, Do not swear at all, is a height of earth, and so are all other such sayings. He also shook the mountains on the day of the cross, on which he also removed the adverse powers from their authority against us. And those who are subject to these wicked mountains, like valleys, and who receive all the depravity flowing upon them from these—the Pharisees and Scribes—melted before the face of the fire of his divinity. For when he had risen as God, their counsels were brought to nothing, and flowed away like water. David too seems to say the same things concerning these: They shall be brought to nothing like water passing through; like wax that is melted, they shall be taken away. And understand that the Lord also goes forth from his place—that is, from his own height—and the earth and lowliness of human nature is exalted, and then he mounts upon its heights; for unless he too should condescend, and we be lifted up, his goodness remains unmingled, and his love for mankind incommunicable; and not finding heights of earth, he no longer mounts; for it is the lofty things that receive his mounting. Then indeed our mountains too are shaken—wealth and glory, which appear to us unstable and inconstant—when the divine glory is revealed, which is the truly stable and abiding. And they come then to be beneath the Lord, when we use them well, and according to the commandment of the Lord: wealth, for supplying the needy with what they need; and glory, for siding with the more lowly against the more powerful. And our valleys too—the dispositions that receive the confluence of the passions—melt, as though that fire of Gehenna were lying before our eyes.

¹² For the ungodliness of Jacob is all this, and for the sin of the house of Israel. He gives us hence to understand that the things he said concerning mountains and valleys were not about these inanimate things, but about men who were going to suffer certain dreadful things. For what was going to befall the ungodly in Samaria, or those sinning in Jerusalem, if the mountains were shaken and the valleys melted? By ‘Jacob,’ then, he calls the ten tribes in Samaria, which he also says were ungodly, as having departed from God to the idols; and by ‘Israel’ the two in Jerusalem, which he blames as having sinned, which is lighter. For the one who has departed entirely from God is ungodly; but the one who stumbles in the working of the divine commandments sins. For this reason, to those who were ungodly he assigns the natural and lower name, ‘Jacob’; but to those in Jerusalem the more spiritual and more honorable one; for having the divine temple, they had many godly men.

¹³ What is the ungodliness of the house of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the sin of the house of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? That is, the things done in Samaria, these were ungodliness, for they served idols; and the things practiced in Jerusalem, these were sin. For indeed they wronged and overreached the poorer sort, and did many such things—unless perhaps someone will say that he most emphatically declared the cities themselves to be, the one ungodliness, the other sin; so as to show that these had become ungodliness itself and sin itself.

¹⁴ And I will make Samaria like a watchman’s hut in a field. Those who guard the fruit-harvest, setting up some cheap huts and remaining in them, keep watch as long as the fruits are there; but after the season of the fruit, they leave these huts deserted. He threatens, then, that the divine angels who guard the people in Samaria will withdraw and leave it deserted, so that it will be broken down like a hut.

¹⁵ And for a planting of a vineyard, and I will pull down her stones into a chasm, and I will uncover the foundations of the earth. That is, just as those who are about to plant a vineyard cut up the suitable place with plows, turning it up and down, so too will Samaria suffer. For it will be dug down, and will have neither walls nor houses; nor even the altars of the idols and the precincts. But also her stones will be pulled down—that is, demolished into a chasm, namely a sufficient depth—so that the foundations too are uncovered, and it seems thereafter to be suitable for the planting of vines.

¹⁶ And all her carved images they will cut to pieces. Those whom they expected, he says, to be saviors for them, as gods, these the Babylonians will cut to pieces: some, as being of wood, for burning; others, as being of gold and silver, for an abundance of wealth.

¹⁷ And all her hires they will burn with fire; and all her idols I will make into an annihilation. Because she gathered from the hires of fornication, and from the hires of fornication she heaped them together. The temples, he says, and the altars, and the votive offerings which she dedicated to the idols as a kind of wage, as to benefactors and suppliers of all manner of goods—these the Babylonians will burn. For indeed she gathered and heaped together much wealth, beheld in votive offerings and treasures; that is, she collected and piled it up for the honor of idols, from such-like hires of their fornication—that is, of their idolatry. For giving costly hires to the demons, as to benefactors, as has been said, she gathered together many votive offerings. And it is likely that the harlots too, receiving wages for their licentiousness, offered firstfruits from these to the idol of the licentious demon, of Astarte, that is, of Aphrodite. Or you will understand ‘the hires’ in another way also: for their gold, he says, and their silver, and their wine, the enemies will burn—the things which the Israelites supposed were given to them as hires by the idols, on account of their idolatry. Then, as though deriding Israel, God says ironically that the wealth which she gathered she had from the idols, as it seemed, who gave it to her as the wage of fornication—that is, of idolatry—and from such wages she ‘heaped together’; that is, she became something firm and compacted and steadfast. The worship according to the law became like a watchman’s hut, accounted of some worth as long as the law had its season; but when that passed away, like the fruit-harvest (for this too is short-lived, and provides no solid nourishment), then it too was forsaken, when also her stones were pulled down—that is, the weightier matters of the law, which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear. And her foundations were uncovered—the Spirit, which until then lay in hiding; and it became truly a planting of a new vineyard, of the people from the nations, when the Pharisaic teaching was burned by the fire of the Spirit, which sat upon the apostles; for which teaching they were receiving hires from the people, out of which they gathered wealth and ‘heaped it together,’ perverting the ways of the Lord, the straight and simple ones, and advancing into disputations and convolutions of words. As a watchman’s hut is forsaken by the Lord, so too is a soul that does not keep the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, and the rest which are enumerated by Paul, but cherishes the short-lived and transient fruit of this age, which resembles the fruit-harvest, producing swelling and inflation in those who take it to themselves. But perhaps this forsaking is profitable to her. For her stones are pulled down—which is the hardening of her heart—and her foundations are uncovered, when she confesses her reasonings, which are the foundations of deeds; and then she becomes a planting of a vineyard, receiving Christ, who said to his disciples: I am the vine, you are the branches. Such a soul, when it served the enemy, received hires from him—wealth, perhaps, and glory—as he fawned upon her through these, as though saying to her: All these things I will give you, if you fall down and worship me; all of which such a soul gives over to the fire of the Gospel, which the Lord came to cast upon the earth; for wherever the evangelical word enters, there wealth and glory are consumed.

¹⁸ For this cause she will lament, and mourn, and go barefoot and naked. Because, he says, she committed fornication away from me, and gave wages to the idols, the votive offerings; or because she supposed she had from them, as wages for her worship, both wealth and the other goods; for this cause she will fall into calamities, and lament, and mourn, and go barefoot and naked—which means, she will be led away into captivity. For such is the appearance of captives. So too Isaiah, intimating the captivity that was to come upon the people, said: He walked about Jerusalem naked and barefoot.

¹⁹ She will make a wailing, like that of dragons. He shows the magnitude of their affliction by these words. For they say that dragons, when they are struck, make painful hissings, and beat the ground with their tails.

²⁰ And mourning, like that of the daughters of the Sirens. The Greeks say that the Sirens are certain winged creatures of human form, knowing how to sing sweetly and bewitchingly; but the divinely inspired Scripture calls ‘sirens’ the more talkative of the little birds, those wont to be tuneful; or sometimes the halcyons themselves, which sing mournful songs. Since, then, those who mourn are wont to lament with some melody, for this reason he made mention of these melodious creatures.

²¹ Because her plague has prevailed, because it came as far as Judah, and reached as far as the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem. Here he signifies, on the one hand, the captivity brought upon Samaria by Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser, the kings of the Assyrians; for he names that a ‘plague’ which prevailed over her, because they were given over to utter destruction by Shalmaneser. And he signifies also the assault of Sennacherib, when he came upon Judea and seized some of the outlying cities, and reached even to the gates of Jerusalem; for he besieged it through Rabshakeh, who served as his lieutenant. And you can understand the ‘plague’ also as idolatry, which, beginning from Samaria, in the end devoured Jerusalem too. The Jews mourn and lament even now, but their mourning is full of the venom of the dragon. For not bearing to submit to Christians, they seek their ancient glory, and go barefoot. For they did not bind their feet with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, but destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known; and they are naked, as not having put on Christ. And these things have come upon them because their plague has prevailed—the plague with which they were stricken in the matter of Christ, who worked miracles—which passed as far as Judas the traitor, and reached the gate of the people, the broad way, I mean, of life, walking which they bore a grudge against Christ, who said: Enter through the narrow gate; and this, though they inhabited Jerusalem, the city of the great King, in which righteousness was begotten. In her too there laments the wailing of dragons even the man who grieves with the grief of the world, mourning either over loss of money, or over desire of glory, or over some other such thing. This wailing belongs to demons, the intelligible dragons. This mourning is also that of the daughters of the Sirens—of souls most akin to the pleasures of life, which are the Sirens. Observe, however, that the Sirens have daughters, not sons; for nothing male is an offspring of pleasure. Such a man will go the last road of life, barefoot indeed, as not having willed to place beneath his feet the leathern life, and thereby to procure safety for his own steps (for one then guards the feet of the soul, when he will set the things of the flesh beneath them, so that, trodden under by them, they are made subject to them); and naked, as having no covering for the unseemliness of his works. I say something of this sort: Often a man who sins in one thing succeeds in another; and at the judgment, when the better deeds are weighed against the wicked, some help comes to him. But whenever someone departs thither without help, having received in his lifetime whatever good he had, he goes, with respect to that wealth, naked, having only the works of shame uncovered.

²² You from Gath, do not magnify yourselves; and you Enakim, do not build up out of a house a derision. Since he had bidden all the tribes of Israel to grieve, and foresaw that the foreigners would rejoice over their calamities, he turns his discourse toward them, and says: Do not be high-minded, you who inhabit Gath (this was the mother-city of the foreigners); nor lift up lofty laughter against the Israelites out of your house; that is, supposing that you dwell in safety and abide in your habitations, do not laugh at those being led captive and rising up from their homes. And ‘Enakim’ is not, as some supposed, some other city beside Gath; but he names the inhabitants of Gath ‘Enakim,’ as being descendants of Enak the giant.

²³ Scrape the earth for your derision. That is, Instead of derision, scrape the earth—at once as mourning together with those being led captive, and at the same time considering the calamities that will befall you yourselves as well. For you will not be left unstricken, but Sennacherib will lay hold of you also—which indeed came to pass. Some take it thus: Now you build up laughter out of a house—that is, out of seeing the house of Israel led captive; but do not so; rather, as you yourselves also are going to suffer the worse, scrape down, as a kind of earth, the laughter that will be against you, and bewail your own calamities.

²⁴ She who inhabits her cities well did not come out; she who inhabits Sennan, to lament a house adjoining her, will receive from you a plague of pain. Since, he says, Sennan supposed that she dwelt well and securely in her cities, which were fortified, and for this reason did not lament the house of Israel—you who adjoin her—she too will share in your calamities, and will herself also have a plague of pain from you; that is, such as are your plagues and pains. These things are also admonitions for you, against laughing at the falls of enemies, even as a certain wise man also said: If your enemy fall, do not rejoice over him, lest the Lord see, and it not suffice him.[2] And observe the sequence of the admonition: first he forbade laughing, then he showed that not grieving together is also liable to account. For he who himself dwells well and is in prosperity is condemned if he does not grieve together with those in calamities; but when he himself even brings on the calamities, or intensifies them, of what is he worthy? And he who fattens the body, which is the house of the soul, out of this house builds for himself derision and shame in the age to come. And perhaps he likens to the Enakim also the soldiers who crucified the Lord, as being themselves God-opposing giants; whom he bids not to be high-minded that they crucified him, nor to build up and increase derision out of the flesh of the Lord, which was the house of the Godhead. For they mocked him, putting a robe about him and placing a crown upon his head; but Sennan too, he says, which interpreted means ‘rock,’ might be understood as the hard and stony Synagogue of the Jews, which did not lament the house when it was being crucified, although it adjoined her—that is, was neighbor to her and kindred (for from her is Christ according to the flesh)—or held fast to her, and did all things on her behalf. For this reason she will receive a plague of pain from you, the Roman soldiers, when she will be destroyed by your armies.

²⁵ Who began pains for her who dwells in good things? Because evils came down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem—a clatter of chariots and of horsemen. Some understood it thus: that, making his discourse toward Jerusalem, he says: Who began pains for her who dwelt in good things? That is, Who brought the pains upon Jerusalem, formerly flourishing and dwelling in peace and in many good things, save surely the Lord? Wherefore he also adds, that Evils came down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem—that is, the things that work affliction, which are a clatter of warlike chariots and of soldiers, who are carried on them and ride. But some say that God speaks to those in Gath and the rest, as follows: You suppose that you yourselves remain unharmed through the strength of your own gods, but that those of Israel were handed over to their enemies through my weakness; but you suppose wrongly. For who began good things for Jerusalem, which dwelt in pains? Who freed her from Sennacherib? No other at all than I. And she dwelt in pains because I, the Lord, permitted the evils of the siege to come down upon her, so that I, having handed her over to pains, again began good things for her; but you, when you come to be in evils, will not have one to do good to you. Evils came down upon the gates of Jerusalem also from the Lord of glory, whom they crucified; and for this reason the Christ-slaying multitude dwelt in pains; but the Church began good things for her, and the Christ proclaimed in her. For as many as, having turned, confessed Christ, came to be in the good things of the Jerusalem above. The repentant soul too dwells in pains, which, when it is at the gates of Jerusalem—that is, at the beginning of the life according to God—has evils, that is, affliction and tribulation, coming down upon it from the Lord, who commands: Enter through the narrow gate and through many tribulations, which make you enter into the kingdom. But none other begins good things for her than he who said, the Lord: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted; and, Come, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And how does he begin good things? As having inaugurated for us the way into the heavens, and having said to the thief: Today you will be with me in paradise. And where he himself is, there too will his servant be.

²⁶ She who inhabits Lachish, she is the beginning of sin for the daughter of Zion, because in you were found the ungodlinesses of Israel. Since Sennacherib sacked Lachish, while prevailing nothing against Jerusalem, and Lachish perished first, he says: Justly did you undergo this utter destruction, you who inhabit Lachish, because the ungodlinesses of the ten tribes too were found in you, and you yourself also served idols—nay rather, you became for Jerusalem teacher and originator of this ungodliness.

²⁷ For this cause you will give those sent away as far as the inheritance of Gath, vain houses. Since, he says, O Lachish, you were ungodly, you too will give those sent away—that is, led captive and resettled out of all your borders as far as Gath—on account of the vain houses of the idols.

²⁸ In vain did they prove to the kings of Israel, until I bring the heirs to you. There is also another reading: ‘until they bring the heirs.’ He explains why he named the houses of the idols ‘vain,’ and says that: In vain did they prove to the kings in Samaria; for they were nothing profited by the idolatrous houses; just as neither will you yourself be profited by these houses which you honored, as did the Samaritans. Nevertheless these things will befall you, O Lachish, until I, having freed the captives, lead them back to you, and restore them to their ancestral inheritances. Or he calls the enemies ‘heirs,’ those who were going to inherit their land. He says, then, that the kings of Samaria had the idolatrous houses, until, by the things they did, they brought the enemies upon themselves. But some take it thus: Since those in Gath said that God, being weak, was not able to deliver the Israelites, the Lord shows them that it was not through his weakness, but through their own ungodliness, that they were handed over; and he makes Lachish an example, which, having been ungodly, was handed over to Sennacherib. The prophet, then, as though exulting over these, says to God, that: You will give those sent away, O Lord—that is, as captives—the vain houses, namely the inhabitants of Lachish and of Gath; for the captivity will lay hold of the inheritance too. For Scripture knows how to name the inhabitants and the families ‘houses,’ as is plain from elsewhere, as in the phrase: The house of Levi, and the house of Aaron; and from this very prophet, who says at the beginning: What is the ungodliness of the house of Jacob, and the sin of the house of Judah? Then the prophet, lamenting, says that for the kings of Israel in Samaria the things they served as idols proved in vain, and, as it seems, they were zealous to do all the things they did, until they brought the heirs—that is, the enemies, who inherited their land.

²⁹ She who inhabits Lachish: the inheritance will come as far as Odollam. This inheritance, he says, which the enemies are about to inherit among your possessions, will not halt as far as you, O inhabitant of Lachish, but will come even as far as Odollam, which lies at the farthest bounds of Judea; so that what is said is of this sort: From one end of Judea to the other end the captivity will come. Houses ‘sent away’ are the Jewish synagogues; for he sent them away, even as he also forsook them, who said: Behold, your house is left to you desolate; which houses proved, even if in vain, to the rulers of the Israelites, until the Lord brought the true heirs, the nations. And since Aquila put ‘the heir’ in the singular, he gives us to understand that the houses will be vain—both those of the idols and the synagogues; for these too are vain. For there is one house for the Lord, which they made a hyena’s den. They will be so, then, until the heir Christ comes, whom the wicked husbandmen, seeing, said: This is the heir; come, let us kill him. This one, then, having come, will dissolve both the houses of the idols and the Jewish synagogues; and if any, having become pure of God, and having had the Spirit of God dwelling in them, then outraged the Spirit of grace, and looked to vanities and false madnesses, raging after the false pleasures of the world, both became vain houses and will be ‘sent away,’ hearing: Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness; and, Go into the outer fire; when the Judge, who is also their co-heir, will bring the heirs nearer, saying to them: Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.

³⁰ The glory of the daughter of Zion: shave yourself and shear over your delicate children.[3] Not Lachish alone, he says, nor Odollam will suffer the dreadful things; but you too, O Zion, will have experience of them. Therefore shave yourself and be shorn, taking up a mournful appearance, for the sake of the children, which formerly lived in luxury, then were to be led away into captivity and affliction.

³¹ They were taken captive away from you. Just as the eagle, he says, at a certain season is stripped of all its feathers, and is not even able to hunt in this season, until its feathers are renewed for it again; so too you, stripped of my providence, will not be strong against the enemies, but will rather be easy prey for them. Or: Precisely you too, shave yourself, and shear off all your hair, just as the eagle casts off all its feathers, because your children were taken captive, whom you reared in all luxury, never having experienced anything grievous. And they say that the eagle grieves exceedingly also at the loss of its young.

3 Chapter Two

¹ They became men who devise toils, and who work evils upon their beds, and at daybreak they accomplished them. Having told what they will suffer, he shows that they will suffer these things justly. For, he says, since the life of men is divided into these two — into night and day — by night they were planning their lawless deeds, and how they might bring toils and affliction upon someone; but by day they accomplished what they had planned, at early dawn, exhibiting no delay. And observe the phrase, “working evils upon their beds”; for instead of devising, he said working, at once to show that the thought is a work of the mind, wherefore we are also judged for it; and at the same time to make plain their effectiveness toward mischief; for their counsel, he says, was already a deed.

² Because they did not lift up their hands to God, and they coveted fields, and plundered orphans. They did not rise early toward God, so as to lift up their hands to him, as is the custom of the devout, but at daybreak they accomplished their evils. Or, that they did not seek good things from God, entreating him to become for them the provider of life’s necessities, but, being slaves to their own desires, they plundered the goods of orphans. Or they even plundered the orphans themselves — that is, they led them into slavery.

³ And they oppressed households. Not only did they harm orphans, as has been said, but they also oppressed households — that is, those of more honorable and more powerful fortune. Or because they took away the goods in the houses of the orphans, and the very houses as well.

⁴ And they seized the man and his house. They did both, he says, both plundering the man and leading him into slavery, like foreign foes, and his house as well — that is, all that was in his dwelling, and the house itself, and all who were in his house, enslaving them.

⁵ A man and his inheritance. The substance that lies in fields and possessions. The glory of the Synagogue of the Hebrews was the Law, which now, shaved off by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, is no longer glorified because of the surpassing radiance of the glory of Christ; whose children — those living in luxury and dissipation, the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose God is their belly — were led captive by the Romans, because the things they had devised by night against the Lord, having seized him with swords and clubs, these they accomplished at daybreak, leading him away at dawn to Pilate. And they did these things because they devoured the houses of widows, and were corrupted in the rest of their life, and they hated the light; for their works were evil. And if hairs are a dead and lifeless thing, and “Zion” is interpreted “watchtower,” observe that he charges the watchtower of our mind to have nothing hairy in itself. For an eye could not keep watch, nor see clearly, while it has a hair in it. But whenever it is shaved, then it becomes most keen-sighted, like an eagle, which they say is the only one of living creatures that looks straight into the rays of the sun; and so too it judges its own young, whether they are spurious or genuine. For setting them face to face with the sun, whenever it sees one not looking straight into the rays, but blinking, it strikes it and casts it from the nest as spurious. And he urges us on to the shaving on account of the “delicate,” he says, “children.” But he has delicate children who is unable to say with David: Because of the words of your lips I have kept hard ways; but who is ranked among those who wear soft garments, and pursues the smooth and pleasant life. And he accomplishes his evils at daybreak who does not even think he is doing anything base, but parades his wickedness shamelessly and with bold license, who does not lift up his hands to God. For he works nothing divine and laid up on high; but coveting the good things of the world, which is a “field,” he corrupts others too, becoming a teacher of wickedness to those who are anyhow orphans, having fallen from the kinship of the heavenly Father. And he plunders the man — the soul — and his house — the body — destroying both, and depriving him of the indissoluble inheritance on high.

⁶ Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I devise evils against this tribe, from which you shall by no means lift up your necks, nor shall you walk upright, for the time is evil. They themselves, he says, devised evils against their neighbors; behold, I too devise evils against this tribe of Judah, just as also against the other ten; and these evils will be so heavy and burdensome as to bend down your hard and arrogant necks; and you shall by no means walk upright, but stooping, because the time is evil — that is, yours — that is, hard, bringing toils. So too in Solomon the saying, An evil distraction he has given to men, some read with the acute accent, even if others read it with the penultimate accent. Something similar David also foretold concerning the slayers of God: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back continually. For their iniquities were made heavy upon them, and they did not hear the Lord, who said: Come, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And affliction is good for the proud and stiff-necked man, who thinks he walks in uprightness. Concerning whom Solomon said: There are ways that seem right to a man, but their ends lead to the depth of Hades. For being bent down and humbled, such a one will say with David: It is good for me that you humbled me.

⁷ In that day a parable shall be taken up against you. That is, you shall be on everyone’s lips, and your evils shall be broadcast to all, one recounting them to another. Or, that you shall be an example to all, so that each says: May I not suffer as so-and-so suffered.

⁸ And a lamentation shall be lamented with melody. Strangers, he says, will hold you for a parable; but your own kinsmen will compose a lamentation with melody, and you yourselves over yourselves. And lamentations with melody are mournful and more pitiable.

⁹ Saying: With misery we have been made miserable. The word, making plain the excess of their weakness, doubled the name of misery. For not simply, he says, but with real misery have we been made miserable.

¹⁰ The portion of my people has been measured out with a line. Either he speaks in the person of those lamenting with melody and saying, “We have been made miserable,” and as it were adducing the cause of their misery; and this is, “That the inheritances of my people should be measured out”; or this is said in the person of God, that I indeed apportioned the land to them, but now it is measured out by neighbors and those dwelling round about. For finding the land deserted, they distributed it among themselves for farming. But also by those who took them captive it was measured out, as they laid tributes and taxes upon those who were left, and for this reason measured the land held by each of them.

¹¹ And there was none to hinder him from turning back. Neither Chemosh, he says, nor Bel, nor any other such god of yours, was able to hinder him — that is, the one measuring — from turning back from measuring. And this he says, mocking their gods. Or, that there was none to hinder my people, so that they should not go the road to captivity, but turn back from it.

¹² Your fields were divided up; therefore there shall be none to cast a measuring-line by lot. By strangers, he says, your fields were measured out and divided up; but for you, the people, there shall be no one to cast a measuring-line, so that a lot may be apportioned to you as well. This the boastful Jews also suffered. For they were firstborn, and the measured portion of God’s inheritance, and theirs were the promises and the fathers; but having outraged Christ as drunkards, they lost the inheritance among the sanctified. And henceforth the gentiles have become fellow citizens of the saints, and heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. And David knows how to call plots and trials “lines” too, as in: The lines of sinners have entangled me; and, With lines they stretched out a snare for my feet. When, therefore, someone is plotted against by the tempter, and loses his divine portion, which, while he had it, he was able to say, You are my portion, O Lord; then the singleness of the divine portion in him is measured out and divided up into the manifold[4] and broad way of wickedness, and there is none to hinder him from turning back from such a way. But he casts a measuring-line by lot who makes the temptation brought upon him by the enemy an occasion for obtaining the inheritance in the heavens — such as was he who said: Being reviled, we bless; and, We take pleasure in weaknesses, in afflictions, and in all these things we are more than conquerors, through God who took pleasure in us. Which does not come to pass in us when our fields are divided up — that is, when our worldly deeds become portions for foxes, for the wicked demons.

¹³ In the assembly of the Lord weep not with tears. Having announced the grievous things, he brings in an exhortation that has much profit, and says that we ought not, when we assemble — that is, gathering into the temple of the Lord — to weep thus barely and superficially, and to acquit ourselves of mourning with tears alone, but to add also works of contrition and compunction.

¹⁴ Let them not weep over these things. That is, you ought not to weep over being led captive and having your land measured out, but because you provoked God; for that is worthy of tears. But the punishment for sins is worthy not of tears but of joy, because it is a relief from eternal punishment. So too Paul said: But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. For he will not put away reproaches who says: Thus has Jacob provoked the Spirit of the Lord, if these are his practices. The one who weeps barely, he says, and superficially, and circumscribes his confession with words alone, and says that “The house of Jacob” — that is, we — “have provoked the Lord,” will not put away the reproaches that are about to be brought upon him as he is led captive and otherwise afflicted, if indeed these are his practices, which were mentioned above, that “they plundered orphans,” and the rest. For then he will put away the reproaches, when he wipes out the practices. These things fit us too, who seem to confess but do not produce fruits worthy of repentance; or also those who weep, but over the failure of some perishable good, or over some unwished-for circumstance. These things are now proper to the Jews too, who weep, not on account of the abomination of slaying God, but on account of being driven and persecuted, and having no boldness against us, as also against the apostles. The prophet, then, forbids them this. For the Father, he says, who speaks and judges and declares that they provoked the Spirit of the Lord, when they said that Christ worked wonders not by him, but by Beelzebul, will not put away their reproaches, nor overlook both the things concerning the wonders and the other things which they reproached Christ with — if indeed up to now they hold such practices, and such a disposition against Christ, blaspheming him as a deceiver, and not heeding him as God.

¹⁵ Are not his words good and upright, and do they not walk with him? And formerly my people stood up in enmity against his peace. It must be read as a question down to “do they walk”; and what follows, in the manner of a character. For he says: My people speaks words of confession, and these words are upright, having nothing in their utterances that is crooked or blameworthy or in need of correction; but behold, through their works it appears that, like an enemy, he stands face to face against me. For this he makes plain by saying “formerly,” and he has deprived himself of peace, and handed himself over to wars and to the evils that come from wars.

¹⁶ They flayed off his skin, to take away hope, the crushing of war; therefore the leaders of my people shall be cast out from the houses of their luxury. Having accused the people as having opposed the divine laws through their works, even if they displayed a feigned intention, he now accuses the leaders, saying that the leaders became for them the cause of such a disposition; who, by persuading the people to commit idolatry, flayed off his skin — that is, my shelter, which sheltered him round about, as the skin shelters the flesh, against suffering easily — and took away from the people their hope in me, which was the crushing of war. For indeed he who hopes in idols deprives himself of hope in God, who crushes wars. For this reason, then, the leaders themselves too, the kings and priests, together with the rest of the people shall be cast out into captivity from their houses, which they built not simply thus, plainly and without elaboration, and for the need of dwelling, but lavishly, and for luxury and insolence.

¹⁷ Because of their evil practices they were thrust out. Let them not blame me, he says, that they were thrust out into Babylon — instead of “they shall be thrust out” — but their practices were such, when they themselves both practiced evils and persuaded the people to pursue the same. The words of the Christ-slaying people too were good and upright, when it said, For a good work we do not stone you, but because, being a man, you make yourself the Son of God; and again, According to our law he ought to die, because he said he was the Son of God. But these things they said to men; whereas before me, the God and Father, they appeared not as my avengers, but as enemies. Why? Because they stood up against their peace, who is Christ; and he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. For this reason the leaders of my people, the many high priests, were cast out from my people, whom, being one house to me, they themselves made many, because of hiring out the office year by year. And in this, trafficking in the Law, they reveled at the people’s expense. And often someone, even feigning kind speech toward the brethren, has words good and upright, but is an enemy through his works, thinking nothing peaceable, but by the things he does standing over against his own peace, which he speaks with his neighbors, and flaying off the skin of the poor man, both by the other means, and by crushing him in his labors, and so squeezing him as to take away from him even the more cheering hope, which becomes the crushing of the war of despair and of blasphemy against Providence. For he who is afflicted and warred upon so as to blaspheme against Providence, when he is helped by the hope of good things, crushes this war. And what follows seems to contain punishment, and let this too edify the many, since God threatens that they shall fall out from the houses of luxury. But you will also understand by “leaders” and “rulers,” in a manner worthy of the Spirit, the souls which, appointed to rule, since they did not use their rule well, falling into temptations and afflictions, shall be cast out from the houses of luxury — that is, the bodies — with which they reveled. For the soul, while the body is doing well and reveling, is glued fast to it; but when it is afflicted, considering its corruption, it is ashamed to be together with such corruption. Wherefore it will say the words of the prophet too: Woe is me, that my sojourning has been prolonged; and the words of Paul, Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And whenever Satan, transforming himself into an angel of light, seems to counsel us good things, as also to Eve, he displays good and upright words; but if we look at the things ahead, and do not remain in the things present, we shall see him an enemy, in the very while he seems to be at peace with us. For he flays off the skin and the mortification which we received when buried together with Christ through baptism, and takes away from us our hope, who is Christ, the hope of glory, who crushed the war, abolishing the enmity in his flesh, and making peace for all things, things in heaven and things on earth. For this reason, then, our present leaders, the principalities and powers of darkness, shall be cast out from the upper mansions of the paradise of luxury, in which they reveled before their apostasy, into the outer darkness. And the saying, “Are not his words upright and good, and have they not walked,” and what follows, fits Judas too, who said: For this ointment could have been sold for much, and given to the poor; and, Is it I, Rabbi? — and who then stood over against the peace whose lord he, a man, was.

¹⁸ Draw near to the everlasting mountains; arise and go, for there is no rest for you. He says to the rulers: Since you were not willing to cherish my laws and to rest in your houses, go now to the land of the Babylonians, and draw near to their mountains, those of Ararat — which he calls everlasting, either because they were about to spend long times there, or because they were renowned from of old, on account of the ark coming to rest there. For in your ancestral land there is no longer any rest for you.

¹⁹ Because of uncleanness you were corrupted with corruption; you were hunted down, with none pursuing. He adduces the cause for which they will suffer these things, and says: Because of uncleanness — of idolatry, or simply of every sin, which makes unclean the one who pursues it — you were given over to this corruption of captivity and death, and of your own choice you brought the persecution upon yourselves, by doing the things that provoke me. Mountains too were those who taught the things of the Law, inasmuch as they were set on high, and upon the seat of Moses, but temporary mountains. To those, then, who seek such mountains the Spirit now says: Draw near to the teachers of the Gospel, who are everlasting mountains; for he who sent them to make disciples of all the nations promised to be with them until the consummation of the age; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Arise from sitting beside the shadow, and go, so as to understand something beyond the letter. For in the Law, he says, there is no rest for you. For it was a yoke which not even the fathers were able to bear, because by works of the Law no flesh is justified, but in Christ, who justifies by faith, and gives rest to the heavy laden. Where? By the water of rest, in which, being baptized, we lay aside the burden of sins. And since the fool is then corrupted in his practices, when he says, There is no God; fittingly the Jews too, having said that Christ is not God, and on this account having become unclean from his blood, were corrupted with corruption both of soul and, consequently, of body, when they hunted themselves down by rising in faction, as Josephus relates. Everlasting mountains are the angels too, to whom we are bidden to draw near, becoming, while they are fleshless, scant of flesh ourselves. Arise from sin, and go on toward doing something good as well; for sin is no rest for you. And perhaps, since the disciple of Christ has affliction in the world, and through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of the heavens, the word exhorts such a one to go, and ever to strain forward, advancing in the good; for he who walks the narrow way cannot rest. Everyone, then, who sins is corrupted; for he passes into non-being — into wickedness — away from God who is, and from virtue. But he is then corrupted with utter corruption, when he also has uncleanness, which is haughtiness. For unclean before the Lord is everyone who is high-hearted, whenever, doing the evil of sin, he still also boasts in it; whereas, if while doing the evil he comes to a sense of it, perhaps he is not corrupted with utter corruption, but more moderately. The word, then, teaches those who have fallen into the depth of evils, and despise them, that “Out of uncleanness and haughtiness you have undergone total corruption.” So that, if you wish to return from corruption and to live justified, tell your sins first, that you may be justified.

²⁰ A spirit has set up falsehood; it has dripped for you into wine and strong drink. The evil spirit, he says, which works in the false prophets, set up falsehood for you, the Israelite people, like a snare. Or, that it made falsehood firm and solid in you, and dripped into you the false prophecies into wine — that is, into the rank of wine; rejoicing in which, and receiving and accepting them gladly, you became drunk, and were carried away from what is fitting. And if no one speaking in the Spirit of God says, “Anathema to Jesus”; it is plain that for the Pharisees and Scribes, who say the Lord is a deceiver and demon-possessed and an adversary of God, an evil spirit set up the falsehood against him, and dripped this into them, so that they were drunk from it, and both said and did the things of madmen, both slandering him and crucifying him. And in us too the spirit of wickedness sets up the false fantasies of this life, which are otherwise without substance, and gives them a base and fixity, and drips into us the pleasure of them, like wine and strong drink, by which we are made unsteady and reel, falling now into one form of wickedness, now into another.

²¹ And it shall be that from the drop of this people Jacob shall be surely gathered together, with all. Awaiting, I will await the remnant of Israel; I will set their turning back upon the same place. Either this drop of falsehood, he says, which this my people received, will be the cause and occasion for all of being gathered into one captivity. For even those who seemed to be left behind and to escape, these too I will await unto the same rank of captivity, and I will set together their turning back — that is, their abandonment; for all who stumbled in like measure I will likewise turn away. And from the drop of Christ’s blood too, of which the people is the cause, who handed him over to the soldiers who pierced him, there shall be gathered together everyone of Israel who has believed, with all the nations, and I will await the remnant according to the election of grace; who are those at each several time turning back from among the Hebrews, and their turning back, from the shadow to the truth, shall come to be upon the same place with the gentiles, and there shall be one flock, one shepherd. Israel, then, was like milk — or rather, all men were; but the drops of the divine blood, becoming as it were rennet to this milk, gathered together the whole world. He who considers this drop, and reckons that God poured out his blood for our salvation, shall be gathered from his diffusion and dispersion about the world, and shall be Jacob, supplanting the passions through the practical life. Then, as he advances, God will await him, and rank him among those worthy to be named Israel, and to attain to the contemplative life, and will set their turning back, by which they turned away from the things here, upon the same place, where is the dwelling of all who rejoice.

²² Like sheep in affliction, like flocks in the midst of their fold, they shall leap out from among men. He all but sets before the eyes the things to come, and says that, just as sheep quietly lying in their fold, when affliction comes upon them from some quarter—as when a wolf runs in—leap up and flee, and so secure safety for themselves; so too the Israelites shall leap out from among men — that is, the Babylonians. For they will leap out to escape them.

²³ Go up through the breach before their face; they broke through and passed through the gate, and went out through it, and the king went out before their face. And the Lord shall lead them. He all but calls out to the Babylonian: Go up through the breach of the wall, which your soldiers broke through, away from their face — that is, the Israelites’; and having broken through, they passed on and went out, fearing no one; and their king — that is, of the Babylonians — went out before the face of the Jews, when they pleaded their case before Zedekiah. And these had God as their leader, handing the Jews over to them — that is, giving the Jews into their power. Or thus also: Since Zedekiah, seeing the city being taken, broke through the gate by the palace and fled, and many others did likewise; the prophet all but addresses Zedekiah: Go up through the breach, and flee. Then he says concerning the others too, that the rest also broke through before the face of the Babylonians — that is, the city being already taken, and the enemies having them in their hands. And here he also mocks them for their folly, who hoped to escape then; so foolish were they and truly drunk from the drop which he mentioned above. And their king Zedekiah too, he says, did the same thing out of the same folly, fleeing before the face of the Babylonians, whence indeed he was captured. And whence did they do these things? From divine wrath. For the Lord led them to do these things, betraying them to the enemies. So too he went before the slayers of the Lord, to do those things by which they handed themselves over to the Romans. And he hints that in the affliction under the Romans too, many of the Jews shall leap out indeed, and leap away from the men who deceive them, the teachers of the Law; and they shall rise up from their fold and from the rest in the Law. Then he calls out to every such one: Go up through the breach — that is, of the grace of the Gospel, which broke through the fence of the Law; think higher things, do not stand below. For the apostles passed through the narrow gate before the face of the Jews, being flayed by them, and imprisoned, and stoned, like Stephen; and slain by the sword, like James; and they passed through the door also, and entered where it conveys them, concerning which Christ said: I am the door; through me if anyone enters, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. And he, being their King and Lord, led them before their face, going before his own sheep as a shepherd. And all who live according to Christ, being persecuted, receive afflictions like sheep, not striving nor crying out, but they even flee from among men. For those whose citizenship is in the heavens, having become heavenly and gods, have nothing in common with these, to whom it is said: But you die like men. Such men, having broken through every fleshly tie, by the sword which the Lord came to cast upon the earth, thus go up the divine ascent, and pass through the narrow gate, and go out through it from this world, because their King too went out before their face, giving himself as an example; that as he suffered outside the gate of Jerusalem, so we too may do, and go out outside the gate of the world, bearing his reproach, which is the cross, our boast.

4 Chapter Three

¹ And he shall say: Hear now these things, you rulers of the house of Jacob, and you remnant of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know judgment? — you who hate good things and seek evil things, who tear off their skin from them, and their flesh from their bones. As they devoured the flesh of my people, and flayed off their skin from them, and broke their bones in pieces and chopped them small, like flesh for cauldrons, and like meat for pots; so they shall cry out to the Lord, and he will not hearken to them, and he will turn away his face from them in that day, because they did wickedly in their practices. He said that the Lord shall lead them — that is, the Babylonians — as they enter the city, or as the Israelites flee. This one, then, shall say to the rulers of Jacob, the remnant of Israel hearing too — that is, the poorer of the whole Israelite race, of the twelve tribes. Or, understanding by “rulers of Jacob” those in Jerusalem, we must hear by “remnant of Israel” those left from the ten tribes that were led captive. And do not wonder if at the beginning he names the ten tribes “Jacob,” and the two “Israel,” but now we, on the contrary, take “Jacob” for those in Jerusalem, and “Israel” for the ten tribes. For chiefly he now used the names indifferently; and then, he now names the two tribes “Jacob,” the natural and lowlier name, I mean, seeing them advanced in wickedness; but the remnant of those led captive from Samaria he calls “Israel,” shaming them rather by such a name, since, having had a forefather so beloved of God as to be deemed worthy of such a title, they fell so far short of him. To the rulers, then, he speaks, as guilty of the things he will say; but to the poorer, either as those who will be witnesses, or as themselves perverted by the rulers, and needing the correction which they were about to obtain in the reproving of those. He will ask the rulers, then, he says: Were you not appointed to know judgment — that is, the distribution of what is just — so as to judge all justly? How then did you, who ought to show this to others as well, yourselves hate good things and seek evil things, being hotly disposed toward them, and use such greed against the poor as to strip them of all their possessions, and to cut off all their power? For he indicated the taking away of outward possessions by the seizing of skins; and the stripping off of power by mentioning flesh and bones being chopped small and broken in pieces. Having dared these things, then, even if you ask my alliance ten thousand times, you shall enjoy no help. These things have their occasion to be said against every ruler too, both merciless and unjust. He seizes the skins, then, who takes away the outward goods of those under his hand; and the flesh from the bones, he who also contrives famine for them by depriving them even of necessities; and he breaks the bones, who also takes away every resource and means of life, so that they cannot ever acquire anything sufficient for living; and he chops the flesh small for the cauldron, who also gathers the petty and paltry gains to himself, like some cauldron, kindled by the fire of greed. And the teachers of the Law in Christ’s time too flayed off the skin of the people, perhaps both in the manner described, and perhaps also as stripping off from them their outward decorum, and not teaching, after the manner of Paul, to do all things decently and in order, and to walk as children of light. And they devoured their flesh, perhaps both as using them harshly about their own works, and humbling them in their labors; and perhaps also as teaching them to receive the Law carnally and not spiritually, and having such teaching for their food. For as it is food to the Lord to do the will of the Father in the heavens, so those might be understood to eat the flesh of the people, the carnal mind, I mean, that tends toward the literal acceptance of the Law. And they broke the bones too — the firm powers of the soul, that is — and into their traditions and the commandments of men they tore and chopped them small, which the heretics also do, tearing apart the members of the body of the Church.

² Thus says the Lord against the prophets who lead my people astray, who bite with their teeth. Having threatened the rulers, he transfers the discourse to the prophets, and says that the prophets of deceit, uttering false oracles, and seeming as it were to kiss the people through flattery, were truly biting through prophesying harmful things. And how? Listen:

³ And who proclaim peace upon him, and it was not given into their mouth. They sanctified war against him. My prophets, he says, foretold to the people calamities and wars about to be brought upon them, as upon sinners; but the false diviners, uttering the opposite to those, emboldened the people that it would live out its life in peace, as though sinning in nothing. But such words I did not give into their unclean mouth; wherefore they sanctified — that is, set apart — war against the people. For by proclaiming peace, not allowing him to repent of his sins and turn away the divine wrath, they became to him the procurers of the evils that come from wars. And every teacher sanctifies war who shows works warring against words, such as the Pharisees, binding heavy and unbearable burdens, and not moving them with their finger; against whom Paul too says: You who teach not to steal, do you steal? Such a teacher brings the intelligible enemies against those taught by him, as being perverted by his works.

⁴ Therefore night shall be to you from vision, and darkness shall be to you from divination. By “darkness” and “night” he indicates the coming of grievous things, which came upon them, because they said, falsely, that they saw divine visions, and divined things which God did not give them. Because of the vision, then, and the divination, these things came upon them.

⁵ And the sun shall set upon the prophets, and the day shall grow dark upon them. You, he says, who say you behold peaceful visions, and divine all good things, shall be encompassed by so many evils that the very sun shall seem to set upon you, and the day to grow dark. And this they suffer who fall into excessive evils, and are confounded and darkened by grief and despondency. Or also, that fleeing the enemies, you shall pass your time in darkness; but also hiding from other men, that you may not be reproached as deceivers. He adds, then:

⁶ And those who see dreams shall be ashamed, and the diviners shall be derided, and all of them shall speak against them, because there is none who hearkens to them. So conspicuous and manifest, he says, shall your deceit be, that they shall deride you, as plainly lying; and not only shall all deride, even those who formerly attended to you as to certain divine men (for the word “they themselves” is emphatic), but they shall also speak against you, carrying your affairs up and down, and shall accuse your malice. And all shall do this; for none was left who hearkens to you; and for this reason you shall be in darkness, and the sun shall set upon you, as upon those who veil themselves, and cannot bear to be seen, or to see. And otherwise too, everyone who both sees and speaks false things has not the sun, Christ, shining upon him, who is the truth, but passes through in darkness. For he who does base things hates the light, and does not come to the light. Caiaphas too prophesied, but darkness was upon him, and the sun set — whether the intelligible, as was rendered before, or the sensible, when at the cross the signs came to pass; and the day grew dark unto the condemnation of him and of those with him.

⁷ Unless I fill up strength in the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of power, to declare to Jacob his impieties, and to Israel his sins. The things of the false prophets, he says, are such; but I, Micah, am not so; nor will I flatter the people and lead it astray, but I will fill up strength — that is, I will take on the fullest power in the Spirit of the Lord, not in a demonic and deceiving spirit. And such a Spirit is one of judgment, because I will utter things judged and just, pleading my case against the impious and the mighty, since I will not cower, but will speak with boldness, so as to declare to Jacob his impieties — either to the ten tribes, as at the beginning he named these too, or to the two, as we said a little before; and to Israel his sins, or to those left from Samaria; and concerning this it has been said above. Such must everyone be who reproves, that he may neither utter things unjudged, nor things impossible and without boldness, so as to bow down beneath threats or afflictions.

⁸ Hear these things, you leaders of the house of Jacob, and you remnant of the house of Israel. The prophet seems to be repeating himself, and seems superfluous; know, however, that even if in the compilations of the books the discourse of the prophets appears continuous, yet the prophecies came about at various and different times; and it happened that some, ailing with the same maladies, needed the same remedies. Wherefore the things were said to these which were also discoursed to certain others. Then all were joined together, and for this reason many of the things said seem to be superfluous.

⁹ You who abhor judgment, and pervert all that is upright. Having been entrusted with judging, he says, you not only abhorred judgment — that is, just judgment — but also perverted all that is upright, which belongs to surpassing wickedness. For just as it is best not only to abhor evil, but also to make the upright crooked, which those do who not only do not themselves bring forth upright judgments, but also pervert those brought forth by another.

¹⁰ You who build Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquities. You were appointed, he says, as certain builders of Zion and Jerusalem; for every ruler is a builder, raising up what has fallen, and renewing affairs toward the comeliness and permanence of the commonwealth; but you, conducting yourselves in blood and unjust murders, established such a building — that is, commonwealth — full of bloodshed and iniquities. They built Zion with blood who added to the murders of the prophets the murder of the Lord too, whom, being a precious stone, these evil builders rejected. But he was made the head of the corner, joining the two peoples, the gentile and the Israelite, and human nature to the divine, and in short the things above to the things below. The same men built Jerusalem with iniquities too, who dishonored with a cross the one who did good, and was just, and healed every disease, and they supposed this to be the building and constitution of Jerusalem. For if he lives, they said, the Romans will come and take away our city. But if each of us has Zion in himself — the watchtower of the mind — and Jerusalem — the vision of peace — let him see, lest, heaping up flesh and blood upon the mind, and wronging the better by raising up the worse against it, he be called an evil builder, building a prison and a place of confinement. But the heretics too, pouring out the blood of souls, and wronging the truth, seem to build our Zion.

¹¹ Her leaders judged for gifts, and her priests answered for hire, and her prophets divined for silver, and they rested upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord among us? and no evils shall come upon us. Everywhere in Scripture bribery is condemned, not only in the case of those who transgress the law for gifts, but also when someone takes gifts even for judging justly itself. So too David praises a certain man, as not having taken gifts against the innocent. And hearing “priests” and “prophets,” understand the false and demonic ones. And the more dreadful thing, he says, is that, doing such things, they maintained that God was pleased with them, saying: Is not the Lord among us? For what evil, they say, do we do? Wherefore evils — that is, afflictions and tribulations — shall by no means come upon us. Something similar David too says: You supposed iniquity, that I would be like you. Let judges and priests too hear these things, and see with whom they are ranked, if they pursue the same. And what is “they rested upon the Lord”? They hoped, they were confident, they did not expect any wrath from him.

¹² Therefore on account of you Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a storehouse of fruits, and the mountain of the house as a grove of a thicket. So great a desolation, he says, on account of such deeds of yours, shall seize this much-talked-of city, that, there being none dwelling in it, the spaces within the walls, which formerly were straitened by the multitude of the inhabitants, shall be plowed and sown much like the fields in the country, and Jerusalem shall differ in nothing from a storehouse of fruits, which after the gathering of the crops is left deserted, the watchman returning home; but also the mountain of the house — that is, the high place on which the temple stood — shall be filled with plants, and likened to a thicket. And these things reached their fulfillment under Nebuchadnezzar too, when, taking the city, he led away the inhabitants captive together with the king. But it is possible to see the end of the prophecy more exactly after the Jews’ madness against the Savior; for all the things of old that were splendid were destroyed by the Romans, even the divine temple itself.

5 Chapter Four

¹ And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, established upon the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills. Having spoken of the things that would befall the Jerusalem of old, and the temple in it, he now prophesies concerning the Church of Christ, which he calls a mountain, as one that minds lofty things, and is lifted above all the matter of this life, and leads up to the heavens, and makes godlike. For its doctrine is true, rendering honor not to idols, not to creatures, but to the true God; and its life is immaterial, achieving possessionlessness and dispassion. This mountain, then, has become manifest to all men. For the Gospel was proclaimed in the whole world, and the sound of the apostles went out into all the earth. But also “established” — that is, firm and unshaken; for the Church being founded upon the confession of Peter, namely, You are the Son of God, the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. But some have understood “established” as meaning “not hindered from being seen.” For nothing shall be set before it, but it shall lie ready, to appear to all. And its being exalted above hills and mountains signifies, even according to the simpler sense, that, the Church of Christ being spread out everywhere, the divine houses raised up both in cities and in villages, conspicuous in beauty and greatness, shall be more notable and more illustrious than the very highest mountains. But if you should understand by mountains and hills the places set apart of old to the demons for altars and sacred precincts, this too is true; for the former are not deemed worthy even of a bare word, or of remembrance, while the houses of the true Church imitate both the multitude and the beauty of the stars of heaven. Mountains and hills seemed to be also the doctrines of the philosophers among the Greeks — hills, the ethical and the physical; mountains, the mathematical and the theological; but above all of these was lifted up the doctrine of the Church.

² And peoples shall hasten to it, and many nations shall go and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob. By “peoples” are meant those of the Jews who from time to time believed; by “nations,” those of the Gentiles. And all are seen to have recognized the groveling lowness of their former religion and polity; and for this reason they say: Let us go up, running back from certain low places to the heights. But first one goes up to the mountain, and then to the house of God. For if one does not receive the lofty doctrine of the Church, how shall he attain to becoming a house of God? And he fittingly makes mention of Jacob too, who, having left his father’s house, and removed to another land, and become full of toil, and served as a hireling, especially obtained the help of God, and from being obscure became most notable; just as the Church also, having left behind the doctrines of her fathers, and living as a citizen of the things above, and on this account persecuted, and becoming full of toil, attains to the glory that is with God.

³ And they shall show us his way. Who shall show it? The apostles, to whom it was said, Make disciples of all the nations. What way, but Christ, who said, I am the way?

⁴ And we will walk in his paths. That is, in the deeds worn smooth by him, moving according to the footstep of the citizenship of Christ. For on this account he did not die for us straightway upon being born, but after so long a time, that, among other things, he might also show us the ways of the best citizenship, which the prophet now seems to call “paths.” Many, then, seem to know the way, and to believe in Christ, yet they do not walk in his paths. But the word demands both — both knowledge of the divine way, and movement in the life according to it; and that, so that those who have achieved so much should not stand still, but ever walk on, advancing, and not in one path, but in all the paths of Christ, who said, He who serves me, let him follow me. And in another way: the way of the life according to God is one, in that it looks to one aim, to please God; but the paths are many, in that there are many choices of life, and various branchings.

⁵ For out of Zion shall go forth a law, and a word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. Those who exhort one another to go up tell also the cause of the going up, the going up to the Church of Christ. For no longer, he says, the old law, but another goes forth out of Zion. And there went forth out of Zion the law of the Spirit of life, and out of Jerusalem the word of the grace of the Gospel; inasmuch as the Lord too taught in Zion in the temple, and the apostles, sitting in the city of Jerusalem, received the grace of the Spirit. “Law,” then, as teaching what must be done; and “word,” as introducing right doctrine. And first “law,” then “word”; since action too comes first, then the word of theology. Many laws have what is irrational in them; but here the law has the word contemplated within it; for nothing of the Gospel is irrational. There went forth also out of the Zion and Jerusalem above the Only-Begotten, who is also “law,” as apportioning to each according to his worth — for he does not demand the same things from everyone — and “word,” as defining all things.

⁶ And he shall judge among many peoples. These things were fulfilled in Christ at many and various seasons and places: when he taught as one having authority, and when he pronounced woes upon the lawyers, and scribes, and Pharisees; and when he said, If the truth does not set you free, you shall die in your sins. He judged among many peoples also when, making the distinction concerning the eunuchs, he said, Not all receive the word; he who is able to receive it, let him receive it. For he made a distinction between those capable of virginity and those of marriage. He judged also the ruler of this world, and gave sentence for those held fast by him, and condemned him, because by him he was put to death, though he was without sin. And in the final judgment too, the word, he says, which I have spoken shall judge them; and from time to time the word of the Gospel judges the peoples in the Churches, prescribing to some what they must do, and chastising others who sin.

⁷ And he shall rebuke strong nations. For in setting forth his own laws, full of all purity and uprightness, he rebuked the nations, which used unclean laws, and persuaded them to despise these, showing that they had been deceived in vain; and yet the nations were strong — that is, not light and easily deceived, so as readily to be removed from their own religion, but noble and steadfast: such as was in the Acts the proconsul, a man of learning, such as Dionysius the Areopagite, such as the many in Corinth, such as Clement the Roman. And in another way, the savage and beast-like nations, strong also in wars, were subjected to the Gospel even unto a far land; for not as the Mosaic law was confined within Palestine, so too was the evangelical law shut up in one place, but, beginning from Jerusalem and Samaria, it passed even to the uttermost part of the earth, and laid hold of the islands beyond our sea — for such are the British isles. Hear, everyone who seeks to give laws and to teach others, that out of Zion goes forth the law, and the word out of Jerusalem. If, then, you have not yet scouted out yourself, nor attended to yourself; but neither have you yet seen peace in your soul, but have wars and confusions and disorders — neither lawgiving befits you, nor the ministry of the word; for you shall judge others and rebuke them then, when Paul cannot say against you, In that wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself.

⁸ And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; and nation shall no more lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Before the coming of Christ, frequent risings of the nations against one another took place, inasmuch as the kingdom was divided among each nation; but after the coming of the Lord, the whole sovereignty having been transferred to the Romans, a deep peace held the inhabited world; so that the instruments of war too were refashioned into the implements of farming. And in another way: since Christ commands not to demand back our own from him who takes it, and to offer to the one who strikes the right cheek the left also, and the like — what war is not done away with? And what peace is not implanted in those who cherish these divine ordinances? Therefore he also said, Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you, and, by this all shall know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. But where there is love, how is there war there? The Greek disputations, then, having contradictions and strifes, fittingly gave birth also to wars; but the faith, doing away with all inquiry, ends in a peaceful and uncurious assent. Therefore the tongues too, formerly sharp as swords for word-battling to no useful end, to the destruction of the hearers, are then refashioned into teaching plowshares, working fallow ground in the souls of the hearers, which were formerly hard and packed together, and they are cut open to receive the seed, which the sower went forth to sow; and the spears, by which souls were put to death, are refashioned into pruning-hooks, by which they are cut off from the earth, so that those who have already borne fruit worthy of the storehouses above should not be rooted in it. Such a plowshare was the tongue of Paul, working fallow ground, when he said, Having put off the old man, and having put on the new; and again, Put on the new man. Such a pruning-hook was it, cutting off from the earth, when he said, Put to death your members that are upon the earth; and, Our citizenship is in the heavens; and let us mind the things above, where Christ is.

⁹ And each shall rest under his own vine, and each under his own fig tree; and there shall be none to terrify them. A vine is the Lord, as having brought in a more austere and laborious law; for the ordinances of the Gospel are more toilsome than those of the law. But the same is also a fig tree, as a king, giving in return adoption as sons as well, in hope of which we are sweetened. Resting, then, under him, there shall be none to terrify us, neither demon nor man; for he has given us authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and he taught us not to fear those who kill the body.

¹⁰ For the mouth of the Lord Almighty has spoken these things. The prophet adds the trustworthiness of the speaker, that you may learn that nothing of the things said is false. Each of us has also a vine, the irascible faculty, as astringent; and a fig tree, the desiring faculty, as sweet. When, then, we have the peace of Christ, then, if we come to be under the irascible faculty — that is, are angry — such anger is a rest. For it is not from passion, but from divine zeal, such as was that of Moses, who said to the Levites, You have filled your hands today to the Lord, when they slew those who had committed idolatry; such as was that of Elijah, when he slew the prophets of Baal. And if we desire as David did, longing and fainting for the courts of the Lord, and toward the God, the strong, the living, and as Daniel, the man of desires, and Christ himself, with desire desiring the Passover — we shall rest under our fig tree. And since among teachers the gifts are diverse, likewise also among disciples the dispositions are diverse: one rests under a teacher more severe in judgment, and another under a gracious teacher. So too among the apostles: Peter was abrupt and fervent; Paul more gracious and more pleasant; and, even more than Paul himself, Barnabas, who is also called a son of consolation. For this reason John, who is also Mark, rested under the fig tree of Barnabas, when, leaving Paul, he journeyed abroad with him; but Titus and Timothy under the vine of Paul.

¹¹ For all the peoples shall walk every one in his own way; but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever, and beyond. Those who go up headlong to the mountain of the Lord promise to be subject to God to the end. For the other peoples, he says, as many as have not come to the faith, following the self-rule of error, shall walk every one in the way which he himself devised and chose, having gone astray of his own accord; but we will walk, and will move with the movement toward the good, having named upon us our Lord and God Jesus Christ, and being called Christians, and that not unto the present age, but yet much more; and “beyond,” that is, unto the age to come. For then, when Christ, who is our life, is made manifest, we shall always be with him, and shall enter in with him into his joy, having his name; for we too shall be sons, and gods. But some have understood this thus: that, there being a deep peace, as was said before, some shall look to farming, and certain others shall walk another way of life; but we, who are devoted to God, such as the monks and the priests, shall choose the way that is in the name of the Lord God. In the name of the Lord God walks he who carries out every deed and every movement worthily of the calling with which he was called, and who has not mammon as lord, and the belly as god, but who also gains his living from the work of his hands, and whether he eats or drinks, does all things to the glory of God.

¹² In that day, says the Lord, I will gather her that is crushed, and I will receive her that is cast out, and those whom I rejected. And I will make her that is crushed a remnant, and her that is cast off a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign in Zion from now and forever. The Jews say that the things from “The mountain of the Lord shall be manifest in the last days” up to these words are spoken concerning their condition and polity after the return from Babylon; but they are plainly convicted of deceiving themselves. For what nations, whether near or far, ran together to the temple in Jerusalem after the return from Babylon, receiving the law and word that went forth thence? And among what peoples or nations did this word judge, rebuking the things done ill by them? And how did they have a deep peace, seeing that, when they returned, the Idumeans warred against them, and the Ammonites, and the Moabites, and the Samaritans, and Gog and Magog the Scythians, and the Macedonian and the Antiochene evils came upon them? And how does each rest under his fig tree and his vine, seeing that they became sojourners and wanderers? And how do they walk forever in the name of the Lord, who have a temporary polity and kingdom? Not here, therefore, does he signify their crushed and rejected generation, but that of the nations, which, being crushed by ungodliness, and on this account rejected, was received by him who came to call not the righteous, but sinners. But also among the Hebrews themselves he healed those thus crushed and sick in their souls, and received those rejected — tax collectors, and harlots, and a robber — and he reigns over all those thus received eternally in the Zion above; for where now is the Zion below? So that you should take the “rejected” to be the Church from the nations; but “those whom I rejected,” understand of those of Israel. And what is the “remnant”? That is, unto existence and subsistence; for they shall not be brought to nothing, he says, but shall be left behind, a relic of salvation. And in another way the “remnant” signifies the election. For God rejects some and hands them over to vanishing and non-existence, but chooses others and leaves them remaining to himself, even as he says, I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal. And Paul calls those worthy to believe a remnant according to the election of grace. And the Church from the nations became a strong nation, able to do all things in Christ. Let these things build up the souls of the hearers also toward despairing of no one.

¹³ And you, O squalid tower of the flock, daughter of Zion: upon you it shall come, and there shall enter the first dominion, a kingdom out of Babylon for the daughter of Jerusalem. That he spoke the foregoing things concerning the Church from the nations is plain from these: for here he foretells gloomy things to Zion, and the construction of the discourse shows this. For observe: “And you, O tower of the flock.” For he says all but this: These things I spoke concerning another person; but you, O daughter of Zion, upon you the dominion shall come, and shall come upon the daughter of Jerusalem. Then, that you might not suppose that he means some satrapy that leads in wars, he says that This is the first kingdom, which holds the first place over all the other dominions and kingdoms — that is, Nebuchadnezzar. But some have said that the prophet spoke of a “dominion” and “first kingdom” on this account, because straightway in the beginning of his reign Nebuchadnezzar marched against Jerusalem. The Lord, then, said in Isaiah, I planted a vineyard, and dug a wine-vat, and built a tower, signifying thus the temple, by which he seemed to guard the vineyard. And he makes mention now too of this tower, which he calls the tower “of the flock” — that is, the dwelling-place of the sheep set apart to him — now become squalid, because those who were in it would not drink the living water, but acted impiously toward the Lord. Or he calls “squalid” the lightless and dark; for those who dwelt in it would not have the law, as a lamp shining in a squalid place. Every ruler and teacher, then, is set as a tower, as appointed for the security of the flock. But when the water fails it, which the Lord gives to those who believe, springing up unto life eternal (and this is the grace of the Spirit), and it becomes squalid, there comes upon it the dominion out of Babylon — the ruler of the confusion of this world, the first kingdom, which it reigned through sin before the coming of Christ, in our mortal body. But some have taken “the dominion and first kingdom” to be Christ; for he is the beginning of all things and the first king; he, out of Babylon — the confusion of this world — having put on the man, came to Zion, that he might win her for himself. For I came not, he says, except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

¹⁴ And now, why have you known evils? Was there no king in you? Or has your counsel perished, that pangs as of a woman in travail have seized you? “Knowing” signifies also knowledge simply, as in, They did not know, neither did they understand; and it signifies also the marriage-union, as in, Adam knew his wife; and it signifies also the loving relation, as in, The Lord knows the way of the righteous; like to which is, “He loves and looks graciously upon her”; and, I know you above all, and the like. And in a special manner it signifies also the disposition that comes from experience, as in, Reveal yourself to me, that I may see you knowingly; and, a tree known of good and evil; for the word makes plain the disposition that came to Adam from the experience of the tree, and Moses too sought the active experience of the contemplation of God. Thus, then, here also the Lord says to Zion: Why have you known evils? — that is, Why have you experienced afflictions? Whence came upon you this experience and partaking of tribulations? Was it that you did not have a king who ought to fight on your behalf? Was it that you did not have counselors, and on this account were handed over to toils of such bitterness, that you seem to have pangs, like a woman in travail? And indeed you did have a king; for I gave you one, just as you also asked, that he might go before your face, and war against your enemies. But also your counsel did not perish — that is, you had counselors. And these things he says by way of irony. And since they trusted in these — in the power of the king, and in the prudence of the counselors — Know, then, that neither king nor counselors are of profit, apart from my help.

¹⁵ Be in pain and be strong, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail. With the same character he says these things too. For since, he says, you were thus helped by your counselors and by the king, henceforth prepare yourself to have pangs, and be strong, so as to endure them; for do not expect release from them. And he hints that the evils are also near; for she who is in travail draws near to giving birth. Therefore he adds:

¹⁶ For now you shall go forth out of the city, and shall encamp in the plain, and shall come even to Babylon. You, he says, dwelt in the city of Jerusalem for security; but now — that is, after no long time — this city Jerusalem shall be taken, and you shall be led captive, shall be brought out of it, and shall encamp in the plain, being led away to Babylon.

¹⁷ From there shall the Lord your God deliver you, and from there shall he redeem you out of the hand of your enemies. He had not yet ceased speaking the harsh things, and straightway he adds the things of consolation. For from there, he says — that is, out of Babylon — the Lord your God shall redeem you, when you have already come under the hands of your enemies, and are securely held fast by them. These things it is likely should be understood as spoken also with respect to human nature, which, from eating the tree that is known of good and evil, knew evils — that is, came into the experience of wickedness, and was disposed toward it — though it had the mind as king, and was able to take counsel that one must not disobey God and obey the serpent. For this reason it heard, In sorrows you shall bear children; and from then it had pangs; and, cast out from the city above, in this plain, the place of corruption, it pitched its tent — its passing and unstable polity. And it came even to Babylon, and to the utter confusion of the divine properties. For it lost that which is according to the image, being compared to the senseless beasts, and to serpents, and to leopards, and becoming more senseless than the ants and the sparrows of the field, as the prophetic word sets forth; but he delivered it from there — that is, out of such incurable corruption; and he redeemed it, who laid down his own blood as a ransom for it, the Lord our God. And we are instructed also in character through these things, that we should trust neither in royal powers nor in wise counsels, but in God, who is able to deliver one who is in the very midst of dreadful things. And a deliverance and ransom laid down for us shall be our hope in him; for as he handed those who sin against him over to dreadful things, so, receiving in turn their conversion toward him, he will release them from fearful things. And to whom shall he pay the ransom, but to his own righteousness, by which we were also chastised?

¹⁸ And now many nations are gathered together against you, who say: We will rejoice, and our eyes shall look upon Zion. He makes his discourse concerning the Scythian nations, which after the return from Babylon marched against Israel, as about to destroy them utterly, and to look upon them — that is, to be gladdened in seeing what they wished.

¹⁹ But they have not known the reasoning of the Lord, nor have they understood his counsel, that he has gathered them as sheaves of the threshing-floor. They, he says, shall thus come upon you, the daughter of Zion, to do harm, and for this reason were gathered, one from one place and another from another. But they did not understand that my providence concerning you permitted this to happen, that they themselves might rather perish together. And for this reason he gathered them, that they might both pay the penalty for their other vices, and be crushed as sheaves on a threshing-floor. And God gathers, not compelling, nor forcing, but permitting by their self-chosen impulses, and yielding to free will, and thus bringing on the penalty.

²⁰ Arise and thresh them, O daughter of Zion; for I will make your horns iron, and your hooves bronze. Since he said sheaves, he fittingly adds these things in keeping with the figure: Arise, you who seem to be dead, and tread them down and crush them. For enjoying my help, you shall have an unconquerable power, like some bull having horns of iron, so as by them to ward off those who come against you, and hooves of bronze, so as to trample down and crush them.

²¹ And you shall melt down nations in them. “In them” — that is, in the horns and the hooves — that is, you shall melt down nations, which now seem to have such power.

²² And you shall grind many peoples small. As chaff, evidently; for he still abides in the figure of threshing.

²³ And you shall dedicate their multitude to the Lord, and their strength to the Lord of all the earth. Not to your own power, he says, ought you to ascribe the achievement, but to me, the Lord of all the earth, ought you to dedicate the trophy, which has come to pass over their multitude and their strength. For not only were those warred down by you many, but they were warred down not by human power, but plainly by divine. The word “you shall dedicate,” then, is hortatory, according to the idiom of Scripture, standing for “dedicate,” as in, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve, standing for “Worship and serve.” And Scripture does this, using the indicative instead of the imperative, in order to show that the matter is acknowledged, and must necessarily come to pass. And some have taken these things to refer to what happened in the case of Sennacherib, when a hundred and eighty-five thousand were slain in one night, and the wonder plainly appeared to be divine.

²⁴ Many nations were gathered together also against the Lord, raging against him — both the Roman soldiers and the Jews, who rejoiced at his crucifixion. But they did not know that, having risen, he would thresh them. For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Arise, then, O God-bearing flesh, which came forth from the ensouled Zion, Mary, whom the Lord chose, and preferred for a dwelling-place for himself, and thresh them: some unto wheat, as many as shall receive the faith; but others unto chaff, to be winnowed into every place, and to be burned up with unquenchable fire. For you have horns of iron, the power of the cross, and hooves of bronze, the feet of the apostles, who like horses went upon the much-billowed sea of the nations, troubling many waters, by which horns and hooves of bronze the fleshly grossnesses of the nations were melted down, and were ground fine, so that they became lighter and more spiritual, and were then dedicated to the Lord. For no one gross, and unmelted, and unground, is dedicated to the Lord; for God is Spirit. And when we are anxious for our soul, what we shall eat, and for our body, what we shall put on — which things are sought by the nations — many nations are gathered against us, gentile thoughts, I mean, which distract the watchtower of our mind, so that we trust not in God, who feeds and clothes, but in our own devices and cares. But when the word of the Gospel shows us that all these things the nations seek after, and we recognize such thoughts to be gentile, God is said to gather them as sheaves of the threshing-floor, that they may be trodden down by us, who have risen from the groveling mind that asks for such things, and have looked away to the lilies of the field and the birds, to which God grants shelter and food. And horns of iron are set upon him who minds the good; for the horn is of the head, in which is the governing faculty; and hooves of bronze upon him who moves firmly and powerfully, so as also to work what has been conceived. And how are the multitude of such thoughts, and their strength, dedicated to God? For when, leaving the many things aside, we seek one thing only, the kingdom of the heavens, then all these things are added to us, which those thoughts seemed to have power over.

6 Chapter Five

¹ Now the daughter of Ephraim shall be hedged in with a hedge. Having foretold concerning Jerusalem what he said, he now speaks also concerning Samaria. For he names Samaria daughter of Ephraim, as being ruled by the tribe of Ephraim, because every king seems to hold the rank of a father toward his subjects. Or he so names the tribe itself, according to the idiom of Scripture, which by periphrasis calls Zion itself and Jerusalem itself “daughter of Zion” and “daughter of Jerusalem” — unless someone shall say that he names the multitude in Zion, and that in Jerusalem, their “daughters,” as being their fatherlands. Having foretold, then, concerning Jerusalem the things, both grievous and good, that were to befall her, he now speaks also concerning Samaria, that “She shall be hedged in with a hedge” — that is, she shall be besieged.

² He has appointed a constraint upon you. If it is written “upon you,” then “upon you,” he says, means the people of Samaria; he has appointed a constraint, that is, a siege. Who? Either God, or the Babylonian. But if it should be written “upon us,” the prophet ranks himself with those of Samaria, out of brotherly love.

³ With a rod they shall strike the tribes of Israel upon the cheek. A blow upon the cheek seems a sign of insolence; but if it is done with a rod, it brings pain as well. He hints, then, that the Babylonians will deal with the ten tribes both insolently and as a punishment. And since the law is a hedge, “The daughter,” he says, “of Ephraim” — that is, the generation that apostatized from the kingdom of the spiritual David, that is, Christ, who is “mighty in hand” (for this is what “David” means) — shall be shut in by the law, not going out from it toward the grace of the Gospel. And yet God appointed the constraint, that is, the polity of the law, upon us — that is, until the time when we the prophets prophesy. But when the one prophesied of comes, John having become his forerunner, then the constraint shall be loosed; for the law and the prophets were until John. And by “constraint” he means the law, on account of the petty rules by which it confined those under it: Touch not, neither taste, nor handle, stir not from your place. With a rod of iron, then — the Roman power — they shall strike the cheeks of the Israelite mouths, of those who said, Away, away, crucify him, whose cheeks they themselves also struck. The sins too are a hedge, by which the soul is fenced in, so that there does not shine upon it the illumination of the glory of the Gospel of Christ. And he does not simply say “a soul,” but “the daughter of Ephraim” — that is, of growth and habituation in evils; and this constraint the Babylonian appointed upon us, our enemy from the beginning; for he is the cause of our being constrained by the chains of our own sins.

⁴ And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are you too little to be among the thousands of Judah? For out of you shall come forth for me one to be a ruler in Israel. Samaria, he says, shall be besieged and captured; but you, O Bethlehem, shall enjoy great glory. For do not look to the present smallness of your inhabitants, nor to the fact that you are a house little and small among the thousands of the kingdom of Judah — that is, among the tribal chiefs (and in saying this he also included Jerusalem) — for you have an occasion for distinction such as no city on earth has. For out of you shall come forth Christ, who shall rule Israel, the whole faithful people. For not all those of Israel, these are Israel. And how shall he come forth? Not by the law of human seed, but “for me” — that is, by my power, and by my Spirit, which shall compact the flesh for him, as the angel also said to the Virgin: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And in another way: the other rulers came forth for themselves, managing their own advantage in their rule; but this one shall come forth for me, bringing all things to me. And the phrase “shall come forth for me” indicates intimacy as well. Now the region was called Ephrathah, and the village Bethlehem, from which were Jesse and David, and in which the Virgin also gave birth.

⁵ His goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity. He shall come forth, he says, in the last times out of you, O Bethlehem, this ruler of Israel; nevertheless his goings forth are from the beginning — that is, they were foreordained before all the ages. Or thus: That you may not, like the weak, suppose that he then received his existence when he came forth from Bethlehem — which is what Paul of Samosata and Photinus the bishop of Sirmium suffered — he says that “his goings forth,” that is, his begetting from the Father, are “from the beginning.” Like the saying, That which was from the beginning; and when you hear “from the days of eternity,” do not suppose that he sets some temporal beginning to the begetting of the Only-begotten; but this is like what is said elsewhere to the Father, For from eternity you are. But the Jews take these things as referring to Zerubbabel, plainly fighting against the truth. For how were the goings forth of Zerubbabel “from the beginning, from the days of eternity,” seeing he was born in the times of the captivity? And how is this man “from Bethlehem,” who was born in Babylon? For so too his name is interpreted, “Babylonian seed.” But the more careful Jews did not understand the prophecy of Zerubbabel; for when they were asked by Herod, Where is the Christ born? they brought forward to him this very prophecy.[5]

⁶ Therefore he shall give them up until the time of her who is in travail. Since he said that the ruler of Israel shall come forth from Bethlehem, it was then likely that one would raise a difficulty: How then will the evils you spoke of befall the Jews, if that one is to be a redeemer? The prophet therefore says to God: “You shall give them up” — that is, hand them over to their enemies — “until the time” of the Virgin who bears Emmanuel. Or thus: Since he had spoken of a ruler about to be given, he says that in the meanwhile, until the Virgin gives birth, “You shall give them up,” namely the rulers of the Jews. For a ruler shall not fail from Judah, until he comes for whom it is laid up. But you shall give up the teachers of the law as well, until she who travails — that is, the Church of the nations, which bears according to Christ — gives birth; and from then on their statutes and decrees shall be abolished.

⁷ She shall give birth, and the rest of their brethren shall return to the sons of Israel. The Virgin, then, he says, shall give birth, and the sons of Israel shall believe — that is, the twelve apostles, and the seventy, and the five hundred to whom the Lord appeared after he rose; then the rest of their brethren shall return to these, and shall themselves also believe — which indeed came to pass, when the three thousand believed, and the five thousand, whom Peter the fisherman caught in his net, and the many myriads, concerning whom the all-glorious James says to the most divine Paul: Do you see, brother, how many myriads there are of the Jews who have believed? And those who in each generation are about to believe he calls “the rest,” as left over — that is, chosen — by God. But some take it thus: “She shall give birth,” he says — the Church of the nations — these very ones, the gentiles who believed from the beginning; and as she goes on bearing, the gentiles born from time to time (who might also be called brethren of the gentiles who believed before them — such as, for instance, those around Cornelius) shall be joined to those of Israel who believed, such as were, as has been said, the apostles and those like them. And since “Bethlehem” is interpreted “house of bread,” and the bread that came down from heaven is Christ, whose house is everyone who keeps his commandments — For I, he says, and the Father will come, and will make our abode with him — the ruler of Israel shall come forth out of this one too. For Christ is declared ruler of the contemplative part to the one who has received him through the practical life, when his pre-eternal existence is also made clear. And let the rulers of the Church be instructed — and indeed those of the world too — not to become rulers before they have shown their mind to be a house of the bread that has been given.

⁸ And he shall stand, and see, and shepherd his flock in strength, the Lord. “He shall stand” stands for, he himself shall preside over his own sheep, and he himself shall see them, not as of old through Moses, but he himself by himself. For no angel, he says, no ambassador, but the Lord himself saved them. “And he shall shepherd” — but he shall not slaughter, and sacrifice, and sell the wool, and drink the milk. “But in strength” too; for he is the power of the Father, and a strong God. But also, according to his humanity, he was not clothed with the weakness of sins, as are the other shepherds, the high priests. And he was, it says, teaching with authority, and not as the scribes. But “he shall also stand,” he says, on Golgotha, and shall shepherd in the strength of the cross his flock, us who have believed. Or he shall shepherd the Hebrews, who were formerly his flock, in the Roman strength, the rod of iron. And everyone appointed to shepherd ought to stand — that is, to be firm and not easily led astray; but also to see with the eyes of wisdom, and not to be blind through ignorance; and to shepherd, but not to sell and slaughter; and to shepherd “in strength,” that is, in Christ. For I am, he says, the door; if anyone enters through me, he shall be saved. And he shepherds in strength who does not cower before the wrath of rulers, but reproves them when they sin.

⁹ And in the glory of the name of the Lord their God they shall exist. Who? Those who are shepherded. In being called Christians, he says, in this they shall have their authority and existence. Or rather, since they walk worthily of the calling, he says that in this they shall exist as his flock, in the glorifying through their works of the name of our Lord and God Jesus Christ.

¹⁰ Because now they shall be magnified unto the ends of the earth. And this too one may now see; for as far as the Ocean both the name of Christ is magnified, and those called by it are multiplied and magnified, even though they are persecuted by the ungodly.

¹¹ And this shall be the peace, when the Assyrian comes upon your land, and when he treads upon your country. Since the things he prophesied concerning Christ were to come to pass long ages afterward, he confirms the prediction about them from the things to come to pass in that time. For that you may learn, he says, that the things I have foretold shall be, take the present things as a pledge. For there shall be a deep peace, when I have destroyed the Assyrian beyond all hope, when he comes upon you — that is, makes war upon you — and treads upon your country, that is, takes possession of it.

¹² And there shall be raised up seven shepherds, and eight bitings of men; and they shall shepherd Asshur with the sword. Seven kings, he says, I will raise up against the Assyrian (for he names the kings “shepherds”); who, having warred against him eight times, and through these eight warlike assaults, like so many bitings, having bitten through his army, shall consume him. And they shall shepherd him with the sword, following close behind him and pursuing him, who is unable to defend himself, like the sheep. And “they shall shepherd” is most apt morally.

¹³ And the land of Nimrod within its trench. By “Nimrod” he means Babylon. For Nimrod, employing tyranny, had Babylon first under his hand. For the beginning of his kingdom was, he says, Babylon, and Orech, and Chalanne. Since, then, the Assyrian had Babylon under himself, God now says that those seven kings shall humble both the Assyrian and the kings, even though Babylon has a very great trench girding its strong walls. Or thus: They shall compel the Babylonians to be confined within the trench, and not to advance further.

¹⁴ And he shall deliver you from Asshur, when he comes upon your land, and when he treads upon your borders. That one, he says, shall suffer these things; but you shall be freed from the evils that come from him not only then, when I raise up the kings against the Assyrian, but even now, when he has come upon you, I will deliver you, slaying a hundred and eighty-five thousand of his men. For here he speaks of the things concerning Sennacherib, and the destruction of his army in a single night. The spiritual Assyrian too came upon our land — I mean the flesh — making our members that are upon the earth his own. And he trod also upon our borders, the mind and the reason; for these are the borders of man, marking him off from the irrational beasts. When, therefore, he seemed to have mastered us, and the land was filled with all wickedness and godlessness, then Christ stood by us, who is our peace, and against such an Assyrian there were raised up both the seven energies of the Spirit, good shepherds, shepherding those worthy of the Spirit, and the eight bitings of men — of those who keep human dignity — that is, the five senses, ranged together with faith, hope, and love, or with the confession of the Holy Trinity; and by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, such an enemy was struck, and the land of Nimrod, that is, sin. For this is the land of the spiritual Nimrod, concerning whom it is said: He began to be a giant hunter before the Lord. For tossing his neck against God, he hunts the souls of men. And the trench of sin is the flesh, lusting against the spirit, and for this reason fortifying sin. But the Lord, having come in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in that which he assumed. Thus, then, was the land of Nimrod struck within its trench. By the seven shepherds you will understand the prophets as well; for the number seven is in keeping with the Old Testament, both for other reasons, and because it promised the good things of the present age; and the eight bitings, the words of the apostles. For the teeth are instruments, fellow-workers toward speech; and the apostles bit the Assyrian, through the things by which they proclaimed both the resurrection — which took place in the eighth, the Lord’s day after the seventh of the Sabbath, in the case of Christ, and shall take place for us all too, in the eighth after this seventh age — and along with the resurrection they preached the heavenly kingdom in that eighth. And if you reckon the things concerning Ananias and Sapphira, and the things concerning Elymas the magician, and those handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved, and that they might be taught not to blaspheme — then you will understand how the apostles also shepherded with the sword, using severity upon those who needed it.

¹⁵ And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, as dew falling from the Lord, and as lambs upon the grass, that no one may be gathered together, nor stand among the sons of men.

¹⁶ And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, as a lion among the cattle of the forest, and as a lion’s cub among flocks of sheep; just as, when it passes through and, having singled out, seizes its prey, there is none to rescue. These things can be taken according to the letter, God promising to the Hebrews who were left and kept for salvation after the overthrow of the Babylonian, such a prosperity of good things that they could even refresh others like dew and do them good, and a power over their enemies, so as to consume them, just as the lambs consume the grass of the field, that no assembly might any longer be gathered against them, nor any man stand before them; but, like a lion singling out the sheep — that is, entering into their midst, as they are separated through fear and scattered one here and another there — it seizes them, and there is none to rescue; so they too plunder the goods of their enemies. Nevertheless, in truth, these things are said concerning the apostles. For having spoken of the things to come to pass concerning the perceptible Babylonian, he runs back up to the things concerning Christ, and announces beforehand how the remnant from Jacob, the one according to the election of grace — both the apostles, I mean, and those after them from the Hebrews who shone in the Church; and indeed, simply, all the teachers of the Church. For as has been said above also, Those who are of Israel are not altogether Israel.[6] These, then, shall be dew to the nations that have the scorching heat of idolatry and of the other passions of the soul, offering to them the teaching of the Gospel, which fell upon them from the Lord; and they consumed the ungodliness, as lambs the grass, that no gathering of the ungodly might any longer be assembled or stand, but that all might be set right. And I say this, he says, not concerning demons (for those are incorrigible), but among the sons of men, who receive correction. Or: Since the benefit of the one taught is food for the one who teaches, just as the lambs, he says, rejoice — which fell upon them from the Lord, who said: Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them — they rejoice, having found grass to be food for themselves; so they too shall leap upon the disciples, that no one may any longer be gathered and numbered among the sons of men who are hard of heart, who love a lie, but that all may become sons of God, joint-heirs of Christ. Then, since in likening such teachers to dew and lambs he had not sufficiently shown the power given them by God, he adds another image, that of the lion. For the preludes of the apostles’ teaching were like dew; and they were as lambs in the midst of wolves, consuming and uprooting the grass of ungodliness by teachings and wonders. But after this, when the inhabited world had received the proclamation, and generals and kings had been enrolled among the faithful, the dread passed over to the adversaries of the truth; and some, resembling cattle, are afraid and shudder; but others, having the courage of the lion of the Church, and especially through the abundance of righteousness (for the righteous is confident as a lion), single out the lie, discerning it, and pointing it out to those formerly led astray, and plunder them, taking them captive into the obedience of Christ; and there is none who tears these away from him, as they say with Paul: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Which Christ also said: No one seizes my sheep out of my hand. But the apostles themselves were both lambs and lions: lambs toward those who wished to scourge, flay, and kill them, not resisting; but lions, as being strong against error and ungodliness, in the power of the word and of wonders.

¹⁷ And your hand shall be lifted up against those who afflict you, and all your enemies shall be utterly destroyed. These things have come to pass perceptibly as well, the kingdom having passed over, as has been said, to Christian rulers. For indeed the Greeks who formerly afflicted the people of Christ, and pulled down the temples of God, are gone and vanished; and we pull down their temples, if indeed any remnant is left. But still more they have been fulfilled spiritually. For the hand of the faithful — that is, the power that works the virtues — has been lifted up against the demons, who, persuading us to pursue evil as something sweet, afterward bring upon us the affliction that comes from conscience, leading us thereby to despair as well.

¹⁸ And I will utterly destroy your horses out of your midst, and will destroy your chariots, and I will utterly destroy the cities of your land, and will tear down all your strongholds. Those of Israel who have believed shall obtain the power foretold; but those who have continued in unbelief, such as are the present Hebrews, shall be deprived of their own kingdom; and they shall have neither cavalry, nor well-walled cities, nor such other strongholds as nature, making them of itself in the mountains or caves, gave to men to flee to in times of need. And if anyone reads the works of Josephus, he will find the truth of what is said. For even if we should not understand it thus — that the things foretold were said to some, but the things now said to others, and that those were to the faithful, but these to the unbelievers — they will seem incongruous. Yet they are spoken to one person, that of the Hebrew race. And observe also from the wording the truth of what I say; for it was to the remnant of Jacob that he promised the good things, but not simply to Jacob.

¹⁹ And I will take away your sorceries out of your hands. By “sorceries” he means the enchantments which they used, calling upon demons in all things.

²⁰ And those who utter oracles shall be no more for you. That is, diviners; and he calls these “utterers of oracles” because they seemed to be suddenly thrown into ecstasy, and, inspired, uttered forth the things which the inbreathing of the demons supplied to them. “And your diviners, then,” he says, “I will utterly destroy.”

²¹ And I will utterly destroy your carved images and your pillars out of your midst; and you shall no longer worship the works of your hands, and I will cut down the groves out of your midst. Here he plainly foreshows the abolition of idolatry; for after the incarnation of Christ, the Jews, seeing the piety of the nations, even against their will were themselves freed from the service of idols. For they are ashamed, seeing those outside the laws living soberly, to be themselves manifestly ungodly. And there are among them neither carved images, nor pillars, nor groves. For as you learned in Hosea, choosing out the tall and shady trees, these they honored. But now they have been cut down like common wood for burning, or serving for the works of carpentry.

²² And I will make your cities desolate, and I will execute vengeance in wrath and in fury among the nations, because they did not hearken. I will drive them out, he says, from their own cities, and scatter them among the nations, executing vengeance for the blood of my Son, because they did not hearken to the prophets, who spoke concerning him, and to himself crying out: I am the light of the world; and, Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you? Observe, however, how God benefits even while he punishes; for see from what things he frees them — from idolatry, sorceries, divinations. And these things might be said also with regard to human nature, whose equestrian pride and frenzy for women the Lord who was born in Bethlehem removed from its midst, and the cities which its land — that is, the flesh — had, and the strongholds of earthly and human reasonings he pulled down through those who say: Casting down reasonings, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God; and every sorcery of the beguiling pleasure that formerly enslaved humanity he removed, who says: Narrow and afflicted is the way; and, In the world you shall have tribulation; and he cut down the groves in us and the thickets of the imaginations, in which the spiritual beasts lurked.

7 Chapter Six

¹ Hear now what the Lord has said: Arise and plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, O hills, the judgment of the Lord, and you ravines, the foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will dispute with Israel. Intending to show the Israelites’ ingratitude, he introduces a tribunal and entrusts the judgment to the mountains—not that they possess a soul or reason, but because the mountains and the ravines at one time received the corpses of Sennacherib’s army, struck down by an angel, and at another the countless slain of the Scythian host. These mountains and these valleys he makes witnesses both of his beneficence and of their ingratitude toward it. And in another sense: since they, though endowed with reason, fell sick with unreason, he brings the irrational things forward to their judgment. He says, then, Arise, and plead your case before the mountains—that is, before the mountains, so that the meaning is, “Plead your case with me before the mountains as judges.” Or: “The mountains themselves will accuse you in my stead; and if it is possible for you, make your defense, and undo the accusation.” And in yet another sense: since it was on hills and mountains that the Israelites performed their rites to the demons, “These very things,” he says, “accuse you; and if you have any defense, speak it.”

² My people, what have I done to you? Or in what have I grieved you? Or in what have I troubled you? Answer me. Tell me, he says, the cause of your enmity; show whether you have experienced anything grievous from me. Then, since he must be silent, having nothing to say, he presses on, saying:

³ Because I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, and I sent before your face Moses, and Aaron, and Miriam? Did I wrong you in this, he says, that I brought you up out of the land of Egypt? Then, lest they could say, “We were harmed, being led up out of such a fertile land, which furnished us onions, and garlic, and meat, which their fathers also longed for in the wilderness?”—he added, “Out of the house of bondage I redeemed you.” For even if the land was good and fertile, yet you were not among good things; for as regards you it was a house of bondage. And not this only, but I also gave you leaders, wondrous men who conducted you safely through every danger. Nor did I deprive even the women of my providence, but I deemed these also worthy of fitting care, setting Miriam over them, who shared in the prophetic Spirit.

⁴ My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab plotted against you, and what Balaam son of Beor answered him, from the Reeds as far as Galgal, that the righteousness of the Lord might be known. He still calls them his own people, so as both to show his own kindness and their ingratitude—that they rebel against one so kind—and at the same time to shame them, that they might at some point come to their senses and turn back to him; and further, to teach us also to be thus kind toward those who are ungrateful to us, and to claim them as our own even after they have been convicted of ingratitude. What, then, does he say to this ungrateful people? “If you have forgotten the deliverance out of Egypt, remember the affair of Balaam, and how Balak king of the Moabites summoned this diviner to curse Israel by certain sorceries, and by the incantations familiar to him to wither away its strength (for such was the cursing); but I turned the curses into blessings, not for the sake of your righteous deeds (for you were ungrateful even then), but that my righteousness and truth might be made manifest. For I had promised your forefather to give you the land of Palestine; and for this reason I preserved you, fulfilling the covenants made with him.” Or thus: “Remember my benefits, so that from this, when you are condemned, my righteousness may appear—that you so forsook him who had conferred such benefits upon you.” Similar to: That you may be justified in your words. And what is “From the Reeds as far as Galgal”? They are the boundaries of those places in which Balaam supposed himself to be working his curses, removing now to one hill, now to another; for he thought that the places were harming and hindering him, and on this account, being persuaded by the demons, he kept moving from one to another. So from the place that has the Reeds up to Galgal, he went around all the hills that lay between. The mountains are also the apostles, before whom the Synagogue is judged, because it did not receive them though they were of her own number; the hills are the prophets, as inferior to the apostles; the ravines are the churches capable of holding the multitude of the faithful, which are also foundations of the earth and securities, before whom the Lord Jesus is judged against the people—he who, having done nothing grievous to it, but being himself the one who of old set it free from the Egypt of the senses, and later from the Egypt understood spiritually (for it was for this very purpose that he was made flesh), and who of old annulled Balaam’s curses wrought by sorcery, and later showed all his malicious craft to be useless, was crucified by such a people. But if certain men appointed to rule are mountains in respect of the height of their office, and foundations of the earth, as supports of the people, yet imitate ravines, as being torn apart[7] through not having the bond of love, and as readily receiving the confluence of evil—he charges them through the prophetic word to arise and be judged against these, convicting them that they displayed nothing befitting the promise, and that too though they are a people of God and called Israel.

⁵ Wherewith shall I overtake the Lord? Shall I lay hold of God my Most High? The prophet, having framed the foregoing words as from the person of God to the Israelites, now brings on the person of one repenting, and as it were perceiving that he has sinned. The prophet does this skillfully, so as to show them how one ought to repent. He says, then: Wherewith shall I overtake the Lord? “He has flown away,” he says, “from me who have sinned. How, then, shall I pursue and overtake him? And having overtaken him, shall I lay hold of him?”—that is, shall I hold him firmly, so that he may not again fly away from me.

⁶ Shall I overtake him with whole burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Will the Lord accept with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of fat he-goats? Shall I give my firstborn for impiety, the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul? Are they sufficient, he says, to dissolve the weight of sins—a multitude of calves, or thousands of rams, or ten thousands of he-goats, that is, yearling kids? Or firstborn sons brought to God and consecrated, or even sacrificed? He says this, not because God admits these things (for he showed through Abraham that he does not accept them), but he sets it down hypothetically, by way of hyperbole, since the Son is more precious than all possessions.

⁷ It has been declared to you, O man, what is good. Or what does the Lord seek from you, but to do judgment and to love mercy, and to be ready to walk with the Lord your God? The prophet answers the one in perplexity as to how he shall propitiate the Lord, that “You know, O man, what the good is; for this has been declared to you from God. Or what else, tell me, does the Lord seek from you, but to do judgment”—that is, what is just—“and to show mercy to your neighbor? And in addition to these, or even before these, not to go after other gods, but to acknowledge the true God?” For this the law says: You shall love the Lord your God, and your neighbor. And observe how the sacrifices of the law are taken away, while the spiritual sacrifice is brought in, as also in David, after casting away everything, both the calves and the he-goats, he says: Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High; and again, A heart broken and humbled God will not despise. He too does judgment who judges soul and flesh justly, giving to the one the mastery, while buffeting and enslaving the flesh. And the same man also does mercy, having mercy on himself here, that he may not be handed over there to the fire; for how shall God there spare the man who here did not spare himself? Such a one is also ready to walk with the Lord his God. Whither walk? Upward, where Christ is. For to depart and to be with Christ is better for him, and he is ever ready to journey forth, there where he shall always be with the Lord; for he is not held fast by the things here. And just as the thief, or the murderer, or anyone else doing evil, is not ready to go with the judge (how could he be, who contrives everything in order not to stand before him?), so too everyone who sins is not ready to walk with the Lord; for he hates the light, and dreads the Judge.

⁸ The voice of the Lord shall be proclaimed to the city, and he will save those who fear his name. And through these things he teaches us that the bringing of sacrifices will in no way profit the city that has stumbled; but if the name of the Lord, surely spoken aloud, shall be proclaimed and pronounced over it—as people also say that such-and-such a city belongs to John—then that city will be profited. For it seems that, because it does deeds worthy of the Lord, on this account it is called a city of the Lord. For he adds: And he will save those who fear his name—not those who are indifferent and despise deeds pleasing to God. Therefore the bare invocation of Christ will not profit even a Christian, as some suppose, so as to keep him from punishment, unless deeds be present.

⁹ … a house of the lawless one, storing up treasures of lawlessness, and with the insolence of injustice? God addresses every tribe of Israel and says: “Listen, every tribe: surely the fire of enemies setting it ablaze will not adorn a city, but will it not rather utterly destroy all its ornament, devouring it? And yet fire is bright and shines from afar; will it then adorn a city? No. But neither will a house of the lawless one, even if it be bright and conspicuous, be anything but a procurer of ruin both to itself and to the city in which it stands, if it stores up injustices”—that is, the gains amassed from unjust means—“with insolence,” which is, with arrogance and pride, and with the twisting and punishing of others. How, then, do you suppose that injustice adorns each city? The fire of envy, with which they were kindled against Christ, did not adorn the city of Jerusalem; nor did the house of the lawless Judas, who, storing up treasures of lawlessness (for having the money-box, he carried what was put into it, and pilfered), later acted insolently against his benefactor, unjustly selling his teacher for thirty pieces of silver. But neither does the fire of wrath or of desire adorn the city of each of us. For a wrathful man is unseemly, and he who desires wickedly is compared to the senseless beasts, and loses his own honor. But neither will a man who has become a house of the lawless one, of the author of lawlessness, adorn the city above, in which those who are disciples of Paul hold their citizenship, to whom it is said: You are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.

¹⁰ Shall the lawless man be justified in the balance, and deceitful weights in the bag, from which they have filled their wealth with impiety? “Shall he be justified”—instead of, “he shall not be justified.” For it is an idiom of Scripture to use such a connective for things confessedly forbidden, as of one weighed down in disposition. He says, then, that the lawless weigher-out shall not be justified by such a balance (for how, from that by which he is rather condemned?); but neither shall the deceitful weights be justified in the bag, that is, in the acquiring of wealth. For on this very account they shall rather be condemned, because from deceitful weights they acquired wealth full of impiety. And by “impiety” he perhaps here calls injustice by way of reproof, reproaching the unjust as being impious against God through the very things by which they wrong their brethren—God who takes upon himself all that we show toward our brethren; and perhaps also because the Israelites, growing rich and going whoring after luxury, fell away into idolatry, themselves too worshiping the passion-ridden gods of the Greeks, so that their sinning might be unaccountable—on this account he said that “they filled their wealth with impiety.” And the lawless Judas spoken of above shall not be justified, when God weighs out what is his, nor shall his deceitful weights—he who was deceitful, both as stealing from the money-box, and as eating together with the one being sold by him, and afterward even kissing the one he was betraying; from which, amassing wealth, he dishonored him, crucifying God. And each of us too has a balance and weights, by which he is appointed to assign to virtue and to vice each its own. If, then, one acts lawlessly and does not render to each its own, he shall not be justified. The Greeks too, having such deceitful weights, filled the wealth of their wisdom with impiety, serving the creature rather than the Creator, and exchanging the glory of God for the likeness of corruptible man, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things. Do you see unjust exchangers and weighers-out?

¹¹ And those dwelling in her have spoken unjust things. The construction is thus: The house of the lawless one will not adorn the city, in which are the aforesaid evils, and those dwelling in her practice every slander and every falsehood.

¹² And their tongue was exalted in their mouth. That is, their tongue took great license, so as to say whatever they wished, and to make the small great, and to clothe with bulk the things falsely spoken. Those dwelling in the city of Jerusalem spoke falsehoods against the Lord: If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have handed him over to you; and their tongue was exalted, when they cried out: Away with him, away with him, crucify him.

¹³ And I will begin to smite you, and I will utterly destroy you for your sins. Since, he says, she is unable of herself to discern what is needful, I will make a beginning of punishing you, and to such a degree as to hand you over to destruction—not in anger, but laying this bitter penalty upon you because of your many sins; for to sins so great there belongs no moderate blow, but utter destruction. But perhaps this signifies that God effects the destruction upon the sins, destroying these, not those who are being punished. For how could a man properly be said to be destroyed, whose soul is immortal, and whose body is kept in the hand of God, who will render it back again?

¹⁴ You shall eat, and you shall not be satisfied. I will bring upon you frequent and successive evils, so that you may be seen to be punished, because you were not chastened; just as one who is not satiated, and on this account keeps eating, appears as though he had not yet eaten. But some say that God is threatening her with famine through these words, so that, though eating, she is not satisfied, because of the scarcity of necessities. The Hebrews even now eat the things of the law, but are not filled; for they cannot perform anything as the law enjoins. But also the prodigal, who devoured the ancestral wealth of reason and gave himself over to unreason, eating the sweet and harsh fruits of sin, such as are the husks, is not filled.

¹⁵ And there shall be darkness within you, and you shall turn aside, and you shall not be saved. Darkness and a night of calamities shall overtake you; and you shall indeed strive to turn aside, that is, to flee them, yet you shall not be strong enough to be saved. There was darkness also among those who crucified the Sun of righteousness. For they closed their eyes so as not to see, and they knew not, neither did they understand; they walk in darkness; and on this account they turned aside from the true way of Christ, and they shall not be saved, neither in this life nor, much less, in the age to come. Moreover, darkness came over all the earth while the Lord was being crucified, in case they might understand; but they turned aside. And every sinner too, when the light of reason grows dark within him, then turns aside from the good.

¹⁶ And I will thrust you out within yourself. That is, I will stir up civil wars, so that you thrust yourself out within yourself; for the men of Israel, marching against Judah, and these again against them, kept thrusting one another out of the cities. And God is said to do these things by permission. And the slayers of the Lord, in their factions, thrust one another out of the towers and the porticoes and the temple, as Josephus relates. And the sinner is thrust out of the city above, within himself—that is, he himself supplying the occasions.

¹⁷ And you shall lay hold, and you shall not be saved; and as many as are saved shall be handed over to the sword. Warring against one another, he says, you, O Israel, shall perhaps lay hold of the cities of Judah, but again Judah shall lay hold of your cities, and shall destroy you. And even if some seem to escape the afflictions of the civil war, they shall be handed over to the sword to other enemies—Syrians perhaps, or Egyptians, or Babylonians.

¹⁸ You shall sow, and you shall not reap; you shall press the olive, and you shall not anoint yourself with oil; and you shall make wine, and you shall not drink wine. And when one, having harvested, gathers no fruit worth mentioning, it is the wrath of God; but when he does not even put a sickle to the fields, it is an excess of divine indignation; and when he presses the olive, and does not receive even so much oil from the pressing as to anoint himself at least[8]—but even if he makes wine, he makes it sour wine and useless for drinking; or perhaps he cultivates it serviceable, but it is suddenly snatched away either by natural death or by the enemy’s sword, so that he has no time even to enjoy it. The scribes of the Jews sowed the slander against the resurrection of Christ, but they did not reap faith; for, on the contrary, in the whole world his resurrection is believed. The law was an olive tree, begetting the spirit; but they, pressing the law wickedly and according to the letter, and not passing over to the spiritual sense, are not anointed with the oil of gladness, so that they too, having the chrism from the Holy Spirit, might become anointed ones. They made wine (for salvation came from the Jews, from whom is Christ according to the flesh—the spiritual wine that gladdens the heart of the man who is according to truth), but they do not receive this wine. And in another way they made wine, slaying the Lord, whose blood is wine, but they do not drink this mystical wine. And he who sows to the flesh, and from the flesh reaps corruption, reaps nothing; since he reaps the things that perish. And he grieves the Holy Spirit who, through shameful deeds contrary to the laws, presses it, the Apostle saying: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit; wherefore he will not attain the gladness of the Spirit either. He makes wine and does not drink wine who teaches others but does not teach himself.

¹⁹ And the lawful customs of the people shall be done away. The unlawful customs that you had, he says, both in other matters and in offering to the idols the fruits given by me, shall be done away. For how will you offer firstfruits to your gods, when so great a barrenness has gripped you? And he well said lawful customs of the people, that you may learn that he is not speaking about those things which he himself legislated, but about those which they laid upon themselves, each inventing something different.

²⁰ And you kept the ordinances of Zambri, and all the works of the house of Ahab. Behold, from this too it is made clear about what sort of customs he spoke above. “For you kept,” he says, “the ordinances of Zambri.” This man was the father of Ahab, who emulated Jeroboam son of Nabat in impiety. And by saying “house of Ahab,” he indicates Jezebel, whose works were: the setting aside of the divine law, and the slaughters of prophets, and injustices, and acts of greed. God says these things in order to show that they themselves became the causes of this their own ruin, having emulated the impiety of those mentioned. He adds, then:

²¹ And you walked in their counsels, that I might hand you over to destruction, and those who inhabit her to hissing; and you shall bear the reproaches of peoples. It was not for this that they kept the customs of Zambri—that I might hand them over to destruction; but the words “that” and “in order that” Scripture is accustomed to set down, as we have often said in many places, whenever something results from the sequence of what precedes. So, just as here, from their walking in the counsels of Zambri and of Jezebel, there resulted their being handed over by God to destruction. Or thus: “You emulated the impious before you, as though desiring and zealous that I should destroy you”—so do you rush headlong to your own ruin. By “hissing” he means either derision (for he adds: And you shall bear the reproaches of peoples, that is, you shall be reproached not by one or two, but by many peoples), or the astonishment that is wont to arise when one sees a house or a city fallen from great splendor. The works of the house of Ahab were kept by the teachers of the law in Christ’s day, who, just as Jezebel killed the righteous Naboth, so they killed the righteous Jesus, in order to gain the vineyard. For in order that they themselves might be named teachers of the people, who were a vineyard, being called by men, “Rabbi, Rabbi,” on this account they killed the heir; wherefore they were set in destruction, and are reproached by all peoples among whom they were scattered, being more dishonored than all.

8 Chapter Seven

¹ Woe is me! for I have become like one gathering stubble at the harvest, and like a gleaning at the vintage, when there is no cluster. My soul has longed to eat the firstfruits. The prophet, having foretold the dreadful things they shall suffer, now laments that, though he employed many words, he labored to no profit. For I am like, he says, those who gather the ears of grain left behind by the reapers, escaping the sickle perhaps by their smallness; or like those who pick up the gleanings. And these are clusters having few berries, and small and ill-nourished. And they are called “gleanings,” either because they are covered by the leaves on account of their smallness—for which reason they are not even seen by the vintagers, and therefore the word is by many written with the double λλ; or also, what is truer, because it is not the firstborn of the vine (for that is a “cluster”), but grows on afterward, and on this account is both weak and few-berried. And small-berried; wherefore the word ought also to be written with a single λ. I am like, then, he says, those who gather such fruits. For I found no true fruit of obedience in those who heard—that is, a cluster. For we said that the firstborn produce of the vine are clusters. Therefore my soul longs to find firstborn fruit, and to eat it—that is, to meet with an obedient man, and to take enjoyment of him. But some have said that the prophet in these words bewails the corruption that should come upon the people thereafter, so great that few would be left, like stubble and gleanings. And you may understand that, seeing also the scarcity of the holy ones which was then, the holy one laments. For if there had been many righteous, the people would not have wrestled with so many evils. For God remits the charges when some five holy ones are found. The letter of the Law is stubble and a gleaning, just as the spirit is grain and a cluster, which the children of the Jews were unwilling to cultivate. The Lord, then, mourns these, and longs to eat the firstborn produce, such as he ate in Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the rest of the patriarchs. He also gathers stubble who gathers the deficiencies and faults of those before him, and emulates these, and not their virtues; he shall lament at the harvest, when each reaps in his own time the things done through the body. And since the leaves of the human tree are the outward display—when one has works encompassed by show before men, and for this reason becoming ill-nourished—he gathers a gleaning at that last vintage, when he shall desire to eat the firstborn produce, that is, to enjoy that purity and remission of sins which he had when he was first born in the font of baptism. But virtue too is firstborn: for God made man upright, and created him for good works; while vice is the gleaning, brought in afterward through the disobedience of men. Then, therefore, when all the forms of vice are gathered before the eyes of the man, he perceives that he has done things worthy of lamentation. But do not you wait for the awareness that shall come to be there; rather, perceiving already from here what you are then about to gather, lament, as though that time were present, and say: Woe is me! for I have become one gathering stubble, and the rest.

² Woe, my soul! for the devout man has perished from the earth, and there is none upright among men. Having said figuratively that he has no one who obeys, and having hinted at the scarcity of those who fear God through both the stubble and the gleaning, he now more plainly declares that for this reason he was lamenting: that he saw no devout man in the land of the Jews, which of old had many holy ones, nor anyone upright among the men of that time; which Isaiah also bewails: How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot? And observe: insofar as one is upon the earth minding earthly things, he is not devout, nor upright; insofar as he is among men, who became gods, and sons of the Most High, yet die, because they mind not the things divine, nor the things of the Most High, but the things of the flesh and of the body of humiliation. Having lamented, then, the prophet next also recounts the sins of those of that time.

³ All go to law for bloodshed. That is, they go to law for this, and each of them suborns the judges, so that he may bring the death-dealing vote against his adversary; for their dispute is not over small things, but over life itself.

⁴ Each oppresses his neighbor with oppression. Each, he says, appropriates his neighbor’s goods, and forces him into straits. Or also the more powerful wear down the weaker with labors.

⁵ They prepare their hands for evil. Not only, he says, do they not do good, but they even make it a necessary endeavor to keep their hands ready only for harming and oppressing men.

⁶ The ruler demands, and the judge has spoken peaceable words. Not the low and common sort alone, he says, sin in the things spoken of, but also the rulers, who ought to correct the faults of others—these too are diseased. For the ruler does not even wait for those who would bring offerings; rather, he himself demands gifts, and the judge has spoken peaceable words. The judge does not convict the wrongdoer, he says, but, taking gifts from him, he persuades the man’s opponent to make peace with him, and frames conciliatory and peaceable—that is, peace-making—words.

⁷ It is the desire of his soul. That is, the destruction of the righteous man will suffice for him. Or, that what was done by the wrongdoer pleases him, inasmuch as he too is unjust. But some understand it thus: The judge, taking gifts, speaks peaceable words—that is, pleasant and gratifying ones—to the one who gave the gifts, granting him the victory, which is the desire of his soul, that is, of the opponent.

⁸ And I will take away his good things, like a moth gnawing through and walking upon the beam in the days of watching. Since, he says, my people sin in such ways, both the subjects and the rulers, I will take away the good things of such a people—that is, I will consume them, like a moth within wood, walking upon the beam, that is, the length of the wood, and consuming it utterly. And this shall be in the days when I shall visit you. For by “watching” he means God’s oversight and manifestation, according to what is said in David: The face of the Lord is against those who do evils. But some understand it thus: I will destroy your good things, after the manner of a moth, consuming them and walking upon the beam, that is, upon the rule of right, turning neither to the right nor to the left, as in the days of the watching, that is, of the hill, or of Gibeah, in which there came to pass the hateful deed of the Levite’s concubine, on account of which, when civil war had arisen, many myriads were destroyed[9].

⁹ Woe! your retributions have come; now shall be their weepings. Like an affectionate father he weeps aloud, showing that he does not punish willingly, but under compulsion. You have sinned so greatly, he says, as to force from me the retributions, and to bring punishments upon you already. For now, he says—not after a long time—shall be their weepings, as they famish, consumed simply by one another, suffering from the enemies all the things that have been said above.

¹⁰ Do not put your trust in friends, nor hope in leaders. Guard yourself from the wife of your bosom, so as not to commit anything to her, because a son dishonors a father; a daughter shall rise up against her mother, a bride against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are all those in his house. Since the Israelites, sinning against God, and then hearing the prophets threaten them with certain fearful things, set their hopes on the powers of their own kings and on other human aids, making friends—now of the neighboring kings, now of the Egyptians, and even of the Assyrians themselves, as is said in Hosea—he exhorts them not to be deceived by such hopes. For in the time of dreadful things neither will friend stand up for friend, nor ruler for subject, nor blood-kin for one another; rather, each will work out what is to his own advantage, even if it should harm his own kinsman. But he will even rise up, and display toward him the ways of enemies. For when the Fashioner of nature is angry with someone, then his wrath alters the laws of nature, if this should seem good to him. Yet the children who rise up against fathers being punished by God shall not themselves escape the divine wrath; for if those who have no natural kinship with us are punished by God because they punish us, even though we were handed over to them, much more those joined to us by nature. For they do this not as serving God, but as fulfilling their own malice, which for a time was hidden, but, God permitting, was made manifest. And Absalom bears witness, who rose up against his father when his father had provoked God, but paid the fitting penalty before long. The Master of nature, then, must be propitiated, and one must not be over-confident in natural affections. Yet it must be known that, when this division of nature comes about for the sake of piety, it is praiseworthy, and a friend to Christ, who said that he came for this very thing, that he might work such a division among men. For a son dishonored a father when John and James, leaving their father, followed Jesus; a daughter rose up against her mother, the New against the Old, bringing in the Spirit and abolishing the letter; a bride—the Church wedded to the Son—against the mother-in-law, the Synagogue of the Hebrews who still kept the Law, which had earlier been wedded to the Father, acknowledging him alone as God; but now she has come to loathe even him. For he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. Enemies of the Lord Jesus—who became a man (that is, a human being), and played the man against the strong one within us—were all those in his house, the temple: priests and chief priests. For he came to his own, and his own received him not; but neither did his brothers believe in him. The world too is his house, as belonging to a Master, which has hated him. And he who was formerly a son of the evil father, the devil, dishonors him, whenever he takes the sword of the Gospel, which divides such kinships. And the flesh, the daughter of the pleasure that comes from sins (for in iniquities were we conceived, and in sins were we brought to birth), rises up against such a mother of hers, when we make no provision for it unto lust, but crucify it with its passions and desires. And if the world is a son of matter, to it perception was formerly yoked; and this too rises up against its mother-in-law, matter, whenever it undergoes the praiseworthy division.

¹¹ But I will look out unto the Lord, I will wait upon my Savior; my God will hear me. The prophet says these things concerning himself: Aposkopeusō[10], giving them a pattern of how one must believe in God. The friends, then, he says, and kinsmen, will be thus faithless, and for this reason vain are those who hope in them; but I will look toward the Lord, and will await the help that comes from him, not taking courage in leaders, not trusting in friends, not hoping in any of my kinsmen according to the flesh. And to one who thus hopes in him without wavering, he will surely hearken to me.

¹² Do not rejoice over me, my enemy, because I have fallen and shall rise again. Having taught the end of hope in God—the being heard, I mean, by him—he takes up the person of Zion, and addresses his words to Idumea, which was ever an enemy and foe. For do not rejoice, he says; for though I have fallen, having met with calamities, yet I shall rise again. But some say these things are spoken to Babylon: Do not exult as having conquered me; for it is not through your power that you have conquered me, but because I have fallen from my standing in God, not acknowledging God; nevertheless I shall rise from this fall. Yet it seems to me that these things are spoken rather to Idumea, as is clear from what follows. And the Church from the nations might also say to the Synagogue: Do not rejoice over me, my enemy, who abominate the nations; for I have fallen by sin and impiety, but, having turned to Christ, who is resurrection, I shall rise.

¹³ For if I walk in the darkness, the Lord is my light. Either: if I come to be in the darkness of calamities and afflictions, the Lord shall be my light, and will make me not perceive such darkness; or: Though I was darkened in mind, saying to the wood: You are my God; and to the stone: You begot me[11]; yet I shall be enlightened by the knowledge of the true God and Father. And the Church will say: Even though, held fast by the darkness of sin, I walk in it and go forward; yet the Lord, who said: I am the light of the world, he shall be light to me.

¹⁴ I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him. Looking, he says, upon the magnitude of my sins, I know the justice of the punishment, and I will endure the wrath of him who punishes me for my sins—that is, the discipline that comes from wrath. Yet the wrath does not abide unto the end; therefore do not rejoice.

¹⁵ Until he shall vindicate my cause, and execute my judgment, and lead me out into the light, and I shall behold his righteousness. I will await, he says, and endure, being punished for my sins, until he shall vindicate the cause which I have against those who afflict me. For though I have offended him, yet I also have many just claims against those, since, having suffered nothing dreadful at my hands, they treated me so inhumanly. And he will lead me out into the light of freedom from the darkness of slavery; And I shall behold his righteousness, in that he avenged me on those who so unjustly assailed me. And the Church too will say: Even though the Lord was angry with me, and, having thrust me away as one who served idols and the creation, delivered me up to a reprobate mind; yet I will endure, until he shall vindicate me by repentance and baptism, and execute my judgment, condemning the ruler of this world who deceived me, and lead me out into the intelligible light— the Father of lights. And I shall behold his righteousness, namely Christ, who was made righteousness for us from God.

¹⁶ And my enemy shall see it, and shall be clothed with shame, she who says to me: Where is the Lord your God? Idumea, he says, shall see my prosperity, and shall be put to shame, beholding God’s kindness toward me—she who now reproaches him as weak and unable to deliver me from my enemies.

¹⁷ My eyes shall look upon her. Not only, he says, shall she see my prosperity, but I too shall see her misfortune; for she shall not go unpunished.

¹⁸ Now she shall be as a thing trampled, as mire in the streets, in the day of the daubing of bricks; that day shall be your blotting-out. Just as, he says, the mire in the streets—and especially that prepared for the daubing of bricks—is trampled, that it may become more easily crumbled and serve for the work; so you too shall be trampled by all, and that day shall be your blotting-out. And the Church too will say that: My enemy shall be put to shame, beholding the glory with which I have been clothed from baptism; and my eyes shall look upon her, even as in the age to come she is sent away into the fire. For the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out, while I am brought in instead, and ranked with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. And now she shall be despised by all, as a thing trampled, as mire in the streets, which is trodden the more continually, and the more if it is prepared for the daubing of bricks. The Lord too said: Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the nations; or also that day, in which you shall be trodden down—the last day—shall be your blotting-out. Christ too is a Day, who became their blotting-out, being crucified by them. And all these things the common nature of mankind also has occasion to say to the multitude of demons hostile to it, and so does each soul that has begun to repent.

¹⁹ And that day shall thrust away your statutes. That is, your lawless laws shall be abolished. For where will you worship, or how will you perform for the idols the statutes pertaining to their worship, when you have been so handed over to ruin? But Christ also, having abolished the law of the commandments in ordinances, thrust away the statutes of the Scribes.

²⁰ And your cities shall come to enclosure. That is, they shall arrive at a siege, which came to pass in the case of the Jews.

²¹ And your strong cities shall be for the dividing of the Assyrians. From this it is made clear that all the things said concerning the enemy fit not Babylon, but Idumea. For surely the cities of Babylon were not given for the dividing of the Assyrians, but those of Idumea were divided—that is, plundered by the Babylonians, or inherited one piece by one and another by another—unless one shall call the Medes and Persians “Assyrians.” The Hebrews had strong cities, the legal commandments and observances, but they were handed over for division to the Assyrians, that is, to the nations; for we now divide and cut asunder the letter from the spirit. Human nature too had strong cities, the philosophical and the magical doctrines; but when Paul came to be in Athens and in Corinth, and proclaimed to them the unknown God, Jesus Christ, and him crucified: Dionysius the Areopagite, and the wise men in Corinth, who formerly were high-minded about these things, divided them—receiving the inquiring and contemplative part of them, but thrusting away all that tends toward demons, and error, and the abyss of perdition. And in Ephesus too those who had practiced the curious arts burned their magical books. Each soul too has a proud and lofty mind, which is likened to the Assyrians; and it has cities also, the systems of the various forms of vice within it. When, therefore, it leads over that lofty and Assyrian mind to the recognition of its own worth, and minds the things above, and things worthy of the image; then to such a mind the cities of vice are handed over for division. For the mind that minds the things above, dividing vice into excesses and deficiencies, finds the mean of the virtues.

²² From Tyre, unto the river of Syria. Since other neighboring cities also rejoiced over the calamities of the Jews, he makes mention of Tyre too, and of Syria, and of the others sacked by the Babylonians. And he says which these are, making them known by their boundaries. By “the river of Syria” he means the Euphrates.

²³ And from sea to sea. From the sea lying toward the east, as far as that toward the west.

²⁴ And from mountain to the mountain. From the mountain of the Jews, Carmel, as far as Lebanon. All the cities, then, that lie between shall be captured by the Babylonians—those that formerly rejoiced over the evils of the Jews.

²⁵ A day of water and tumult. That is, just as water borne along with a rushing sound and making tumult; so the army of the enemies shall come on, throwing all into confusion, and sacking the cities spoken of.

²⁶ And the land shall be unto desolation with those who dwell in it. The land of these cities shall itself also be destroyed, with the trees ravaged, and the fruits corrupted and set ablaze; but also those who dwell in it shall be handed over to slaughter.

²⁷ From the fruits of their practices. He shows the cause from which these things shall befall them. For such afflictions, he says, are the fruits of their works. Human nature became earth, on account of the disobedience, having heard: You are earth, and unto earth you shall return, and having minded the things of the earth; and the principalities and powers of darkness dwelt in this earth. But when there came a day of water and tumult—of the Spirit, I mean, and of the sound that filled the house in which the apostles were—the corruption of nature too was done away, and the earthly mind, with those that formerly dwelt in it; for we no longer mind as mortals, we at least who have received and keep the grace of the Spirit. The day of water—and of baptism, and of tears—and of the tumult which the word works in it, shaking it and troubling it as it repents over its former deeds, also does away with each soul that has become earth. Yet it does away, not with its substance, but with the fruits of its practices; for these are done away, but not the nature of the soul.

²⁸ Shepherd your people with the rod of your tribe, the sheep of your inheritance. Having prophesied beforehand the things that should befall the bordering nations, he henceforth announces the peace that should be the people’s after the return, all but saying these things to the whole Israelite[12] generation: that—Those shall suffer these things; but you, shepherd your people, and the sheep of your inheritance, with the rod of your tribe, that is, with the scepter of one tribe of yours, that of Judah. For Zerubbabel, being of it, shepherded the people after the return.

²⁹ Dwelling alone. That is, being in peace and quiet, and having none to war against them; or that they do not mingle with the nations, and learn their works, but are unmixed with the practices of the Gentiles. And the Father might also say to the Son: Shepherd your people, those of the circumcision who have believed, and the rest of the sheep of your inheritance—the nations, that is, which I gave you for an inheritance—with your rod, not the punitive one, with which, as a potter’s vessels, he shatters the disobedient, but the disciplinary, which is a rod of visitation. For I will visit, he says, their iniquities with a rod; but my mercy I will not scatter away from them. Shepherded with the rod of the cross are those too who can say with Paul: But God forbid that I should boast, save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. And such men also dwell alone, released from all attachment to the multitude of men and to the confusion of the multitude of affairs, and conversing with God the Lord alone—the One, and beyond the one—and themselves too becoming uniform. So David too said: I am alone; and Jeremiah: I did not sit, he says, in the assembly of those who make sport; I sat alone.

³⁰ A forest in the midst of Carmel; they shall feed on Bashan and Gilead. Since he figuratively called men sheep, continuing in the figure, he names a forest and a pasture; and by what he says he signifies that they shall be in all good seasons. For both the region encompassed by Carmel, and Bashan, and Gilead, were the fat parts of Palestine. In order, then, to show that they shall live amid abundant good things, he made mention of the forest. For they say that sheep feeding in the forest, and nourished by the acorns, grow fat; since they also run to the acorns, delighting in the fruit. And since Carmel is interpreted “knowledge of circumcision,” Bashan “shame,” and Gilead “removal of the covenant”; these things shall they feed on who are shepherded by Christ: Carmel, as having recognized what the true circumcision is, and that it is not that of the flesh, but the putting away of hardness of heart that is the spiritual circumcision which God seeks, according as it is said: Be circumcised to God; and: Circumcise the hardness of your heart; and thus, after recognizing, being themselves also circumcised of the fleshly mind of the heart, and of the veil from birth; and Bashan shall they feed on, being ashamed at their former sins, and having the grief that is according to God, which works an eternal joy; and Gilead, as inheriting the removal of the covenant; and instead of living according to the letter, and offering irrational sacrifices, living according to the spirit, and offering themselves to God a living, holy sacrifice.

³¹ According to the days of the age, and according to the days of your going out from the land of Egypt, I will show them marvels. Calling the ancient days “days of the age,” he says: According to those ancient days, in which I took your part, I will show marvels to those who have returned from the captivity. And just as, when you went out from Egypt, I allotted to you the land in Palestine; so now too you shall be masters of it, and shall gain possession of so great a land. Christ too presides over those shepherded under him, both in the present life and in the age to come. For when they mind the things above, and their commonwealth is such as of those who are in heaven, and they are dead to the world, and the world to them, and, being in the flesh, do not war according to the flesh—is not such a course of life an image of the condition of the age to come? But also, just as the Hebrews of old were freed from the slavery of Pharaoh, when he was drowned, having themselves passed through the Red Sea, and after passing through ate the manna from heaven, and drank the water from the rock; so we too, being under the intelligible Pharaoh, the ruler of dark sin, were delivered from him when he was drowned in baptism; and after baptism we eat the bread that came down from heaven—the flesh, I mean, of the heavenly Word and God—and drink the draught from the rock, the blood of Christ. For the rock, he says, was Christ. Thus, then, the marvels that befell them as types he shows truly in our case. He showed marvels also through the hands of the apostles, just as in the ancient days through Moses and Aaron.

³² Nations shall see, and shall be ashamed of all their strength. That is, they shall fall from their former strength, which is the greatest shame to them; and either they shall not even at the outset assail you, beholding my providence over you; or, having assailed and been defeated, they shall war no more, as having become powerless. This the demons too suffered, the nations implacable toward us. For all the forms of their error, in which they formerly were strong, have been abolished by the sojourning of Christ.

³³ They shall lay hands upon their mouth. Not daring to say anything against you, or to mock, or to laugh, as before. But neither do the demons speak any longer through ventriloquists, or an oak, or other things of the like sort.

³⁴ Their ears shall be deafened. Neither will they endure others speaking against you, but shall be as deaf men. The demons too were deafened, no longer having, as before, those who call upon them.

³⁵ They shall lick the dust like serpents dragging the earth. Instead of, “being dragged along the ground.” For they shall fall down, he says, after the manner of serpents dragged along the ground, unable even to lift the head, because they cower. Or he means this: that the serpents, finding no other food, lick up the dust, and drag the earth—that is, take it up into their mouth by the tongue. But the demons too formerly found food in all men (for all sinned, and came short of the glory of God; and death reigned from Adam unto Moses, over those who sinned); but now they find no food in all. For we are justified by the grace of Christ, into whose death we are baptized; and death too has been abolished. The dust, however, they lick, and the earth they drag—namely, the unbelievers, and those who lie below.

³⁶ They shall be troubled in their enclosure. By “their enclosure” he means the constraint, as in a siege, from every side. They shall be brought, then, he says, into helplessness, being enclosed and constrained on every side. The demons too were troubled at Christ, saying: What have we to do with you? and they besought that he would not send them into the abyss, which was an enclosure for them.

³⁷ At the Lord our God shall they be amazed. That is, they shall be astounded at your unspeakable kindness toward us, how you had mercy on those who so provoked you.

³⁸ And they shall fear because of you. The fear shall come upon them not from your power, but from you. Or: They shall fear you, and shall recognize you to be a fearful God—those who formerly feared the idols, and worshipped them, and supposed them to be strong gods. The opposing powers too were amazed at the Lord God, the Only-begotten, who took flesh and was called God-man, the most novel of things, and they feared because of you the Father; and this is also to have feared because of him: for the Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son. And they show it even until now, fleeing from the name of Christ.

³⁹ Who is a God like you, taking away iniquities, and passing over injustices for the remnant of his inheritance? Having looked upon the unspeakable abundance of the kindness of God, and having seen how he counted worthy of so great a mercy those who had committed unpardonable faults: thereupon he cries aloud in amazement, as from the person of the people: Who is a God like you? For you do not exact the reckonings of transgressions, but take away iniquities—that is, you wipe them out, you make them vanish; and you pass over injustices—that is, you overlook them, you reckon them as nothing. And these things you work for us who have been left from the people, whom, as remnants of your inheritance, you were pleased to bring back from Babylon. But also through baptism he takes away the iniquities of the remnant of the Hebrews, kept for salvation; concerning which it is written: The remnant shall be saved. And through repentance he passes over the injustices of all those who were not taken captive by despair, but had within themselves some remnants of a better hope.

⁴⁰ He did not keep his wrath for a testimony, because he is one who wills mercy. These things resemble what was spoken by the blessed David: He will not be angry to the end, nor will he keep his wrath forever; he has not dealt with us according to our iniquities, nor recompensed us according to our sins. And now the prophet cries that he did not retain and keep his wrath for very long, unto the reproof and testimony of the people’s lawlessness, because he wills to have mercy rather than to reprove and punish.

⁴¹ He will turn back from his wrath, and will pity us; he will sink our sins, and they shall be cast into the depths of the sea. That which God cries in Isaiah, saying: I am he who blots out your iniquities, and I will not remember your injustices; this Micah too now says concerning him, that he will not only forgive us our sins, but will also cast them out of memory altogether, and will, as it were, consign them to oblivion in the deep. For this he intimates by saying: He will sink them into the depths of the sea. For just as that which is let go into the deep of the sea is utterly invisible; so too he will consign our sins to complete oblivion.

⁴² All our sins he will give for truth to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, according as you swore to our fathers in the days of old. All, he says, our sins he will give into the depths of the sea; for it is possible to take this in common. And these things he will do that the things he promised to Jacob may appear true, and that he may show that he has mercy on Abraham and his seed. As you swore, he says, O Lord, to such fathers of ours in the times of old. So David too says: He remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, which he covenanted with Abraham, and his oath to Isaac. But there is also another reading: He will sink our sins, and they shall be cast into the depths of the sea, all our sins; and it stops at this point; so that it is understood that the prophet says that God will sink our sins; and, resuming for greater clarity, he says: Not these or those, but all. And from another beginning again: You will give your truth to Jacob, and so forth; that is, When you do this, you will give beyond dispute your truth to Jacob. And if the law works wrath when transgressed (for where there is no law, neither is there transgression); and the same is called a testimony, as testifying to the people what they ought to do, and what not, and that, if they do not serve God, they shall suffer such and such things; observe what he says: that, being compassionate and merciful, he did not retain his wrath, which the law wrought when transgressed by us, but will turn back to us whom he had turned away from, and, taking flesh, will be seen upon the earth, and will sink our sins in the font of baptism, and they shall be cast into the depths of the sea, where is the author of sin. For against him our sins were thrown up to battle, and he it is who is liable to render account for them, in return for which he defiled the creature of God with them. But thanks be to him who both had mercy on those of old, and has mercy on us, and casts our sins into the depths of the sea of his own compassions and makes them vanish; who may he also grant to us, imitating the virtue of Jacob, to trip up the passions by the practical life, and becoming emulators of Abraham, not to be drawn away together with these corruptible things, nor to deify them through our relation to them; but rather, from their unevenness, to run up to him, and to his unshaken kingdom, so that we may even be called fathers of many nations born to us, both through the good being taught by us, and through their emulating us in the good life—in which may we also be established through the grace of Christ himself, with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

9 Life of the Prophet

¹ Micah is interpreted “humility,” or “one being humbled.” This man was from Morathi, of the tribe of Ephraim; and having done much against Ahab, he was put to death by Joram his son, hurled from a cliff, because he reproved him for the impieties of his fathers; and he was buried in his own land alone, near the burial-ground of Enakim.[13]

² End of the treatise on the prophet Micah, from the voice of the most blessed archbishop of Bulgaria, the lord Theophylact.[14]