Chapter 14

Chapter Thirteen

¹ He received ordinances in Israel, and gave them to Baal. Having received my laws, according to which he ought to have lived and to have served me, he gave them to Baal — that is, he added himself to the idols, and as it were made covenants with them, so as to serve them.

² And he died. Both in soul, inasmuch as he became a slave of idols, and in body, inasmuch as he was delivered to the enemies. And perhaps he also makes mention of that ancient history, when, the Israelites having committed fornication — those initiated to Baal-Peor — many thousands fell, when the Israelite too, embracing the Midianite woman, was put to death by Phinehas.

³ And now they have added to sin yet more, and have made for themselves a molten image out of their silver, after the likeness of idols, the works of craftsmen finished for them. They increase, he says, their impiety; for they did not halt at the former things, nor were they brought to their senses by the death; but they made idols still — some molten, out of silver; others the works of craftsmen, that is, wooden, which they themselves finished and wrought. Which is also a shame to them, that they worshiped these things which they themselves finished.

⁴ They say: Sacrifice men; for the calves have failed. Not only, he says, did they make these their gods, but they even exhorted men to sacrifice men. For they sacrificed, he says, their sons and their daughters to the demons. Then, tearing apart and mocking their impiety as in its gravity, he says: For the calves have failed; as if he said: Have the calves so failed, O most impious ones, that you sacrifice men? But some take it thus: So many were their gods, and so many the sacrifices and the altars, that even the calves failed, and thereafter they sacrificed men; and the Hebrews after Christ sacrificed the martyrs by slaying them, because the calves sacrificed in the legal sacrifices had failed, the Law being abolished through the faith which the martyrs proclaimed. And everyone who honors pleasure as a good — being, as it were, an idol of the good and of pleasure — instead of slaughtering calves, that is, irrationality, slaughters men, killing the characteristic marks of the man, of the one who is being renewed after the image of him who created him.

⁵ Therefore they shall be as a morning cloud, and as the early dew that passes away, as chaff blown from a threshing-floor, and as vapor from a chimney. On account, he says, of this excessive impiety, for which they even become child-slayers, I will make them vanish by the assault of the enemies. For just as the sun easily consumes and disperses the early dew and the morning cloud; and just as the wind makes the chaff of the threshing-floor vanish, and the vapor of the chimney — that is, the smoke — is dissolved into the air: so too they shall be consumed by the enemies.

⁶ I am the Lord your God, who makes firm the heaven, and creates the earth.[1] You indeed sacrificed to the idols as to lords and gods; but I am the Lord your God, who makes firm the heaven — that is, who grants it its endurance. Such also is the saying, “who creates the earth” — that is, granting to the earth so to stand as it was created from the beginning, and to be harmed in nothing by time. So too the saying, “who makes his angels spirits” — that is, preserving them and guarding them according to the principles by which they were made from the beginning.

⁷ Whose hands fashioned the host of heaven. Whether the powers above and invisible, or the multitude of the stars, and the sun, and the moon, which you worshiped.

⁸ And I did not display them to you that you should go after them. Not for this, he says, did I set you as a beholder of the beauty of my creatures, that you should worship them, but that through them you should marvel at me, their Maker. For the Scripture did not say that he set them for worship, but for light. He, then, who is still earth has need to be created and to be remolded toward the better, and to become in Christ a new creation. But he who already minds the things above, and has risen above the body of lowliness, and has become a throne of God, because God rests upon him, and on this account is named a heaven (For heaven, he says, is my throne) — such a one, then, has need to be made firm, that he may not fall away from the good. And he is made firm by the word, namely when he works the virtues, together with knowing the principles of the virtues. For by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm; whereas he who does not pursue virtue according to reason is prone to fall.

⁹ And I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God but me, and there is no savior besides me. I shepherded you in the wilderness, in an uninhabited land according to their pastures.[2] After I brought you up out of Egypt, laying down the Law for you, I charged you to know no other God but me; for I said: You shall not make a likeness of anything, of all that is in heaven above, and all that is upon the earth below. And not only did I free you from the slavery of the Egyptians, but also in the wilderness and uninhabited land I shepherded the people, according to their pastures — that is, supplying them their desires according to the needs that fell out at each time: manna, when they needed bread; quails, when they desired meat; water, when they thirsted. Or “according to their pastures” stands for “according to the stations and the places” in which they encamped. For wherever the people encamped, he says, the supply followed them, fulfilling every need.

¹⁰ And they were filled to fullness. With the manna, and the quails, and the other good things of God. And the phrase “they were filled to fullness” signifies an excess, that it might both teach the rich-giving bounty of God toward them, and convict their insatiability and ingratitude.

¹¹ And their hearts were lifted up; on account of this they forgot me. This Moses too says in the song: And Jacob ate, and was filled, and the beloved kicked; which also later befell the Hebrews. For, luxuriating in the wonders of Christ — among the rest, those in the multiplying of the loaves — they were lifted up against him. So too in the Church. Often one, having received to fullness a gift of the word, and having been enriched in it in all knowledge and wisdom, uses it for the establishment of a heretical doctrine, and his heart is lifted up, exalting itself against the knowledge of God. For the Son of Man, who is Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, is not lifted up in him; but his heart is, that is, the reasonings of human and falsely-named knowledge. And such a heart of his gathered lawlessness to itself, gathering from certain sophistic premises the conclusions that result, full of all lawlessness, of which he himself will reap the fruit. And observe that, as soon as one’s heart is lifted up, by the very lifting up it forgets God; for if it remembered God, it would remember also the divine greatness, and would not think itself lofty; just as when one looks at the sun, then he does not marvel at the lamp.

¹² And I will be to them as a panther and a leopard. Since, he says, they were lifted up out of self-conceit, as making light of their enemies and reveling in my help, now I will bring upon them the Babylonians, after the manner of a panther and a leopard, setting upon them swiftly. For since God himself brings the enemies upon those who deserve affliction, he says that he himself will be a leopard and a panther.

¹³ By the way of the Assyrians I will meet them, as a bear at a loss. That is, I will bring the Assyrians upon them by the road that leads from the Assyrians into Palestine, after the manner of a bear at a loss — that is, hemmed in, and unable to flee. For then, being utterly at a loss, with unrestrained madness it sets upon those who war against it. Or “at a loss” — that is, bereft of its young, taken by the hunters, or hungering and at a loss for food. And the phrase “by the way of the Assyrians” can also be understood otherwise. For since they themselves went off to the Assyrians, seeking an alliance against the Egyptians, which he said also in the foregoing, he says: While they are going off to the Assyrians, I will set the Egyptians upon them, and they will treat them cruelly and harshly.

¹⁴ And I will break apart the enclosure of their heart. These things, he says, I will accomplish, so that I may break apart their closed and hardened heart, and open it, and enter into it, and become known to them. Or by “enclosure” he means the security, and the boldness of the heart, and the courage; so that what is said is of this kind: I will break apart all their security, and make their heart cowardly.

¹⁵ And there the cubs of the thicket shall devour them, and the beasts of the field shall tear them apart. Not only, he says, while in their own homeland will they reap the evils, but also there — that is, having come into the land of the enemies — they will have no respite from the evils; rather, those who took them captive will treat them cruelly. For he calls the enemies cubs and beasts. Or because, being cast out unburied, they will be devoured by beasts. The “enclosure of the heart” is the Law; under it they were guarded, shut up unto faith — that is, pressed together by it toward believing in Christ. He, then, broke apart this enclosure who abolished the law of the commandments in ordinances. And the letter of the Law is also a fence, not allowing one to come within and to see the things graciously given to us by God. The Lord, then, broke this apart, and gave passage to the spirit. Nevertheless, there the spiritual beasts devour those of the circumcision; that is, Although I broke apart the letter, they themselves remain there, and, as not removing, the demons devour them. The “enclosure of the heart” is also the Hellenic doctrines of philosophy and empty deceit, which set upon it the bars of their demonstrations, so that it does not receive the faith; which he breaks apart who was well-pleased, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe. But the abundance of worldly goods too is an enclosure of the heart, shutting it up in a dark and gloomy prison, so that it does not see the true light. And the Lord breaks this apart, when he says: Go, sell your possessions; and, Unless one renounces all that he has, he cannot be my disciple; and all such things. But those who do not obey are devoured there — that is, in that day, by the punishments.

¹⁶ Who will help your dispersion, O Israel? Where is the king? Let him save you in all your cities. He laments and at the same time reproaches Israel, and reminds him of his former folly, on account of which he asked to be ruled by a man, thrusting aside the kingship of God. He says, then: Who will help your dispersion, in which you were scattered, taken captive by the Assyrians and Egyptians? You asked for a king, and Saul was then given you. This one, then (not Saul at all, but he who now holds this kingship which you once asked for) — let him save you, fighting for you in all the cities in which you dwell. But some of the copies have “your corruption”; and here too the sense is the same; for the utter desolation which they had when taken captive he names “corruption.”

¹⁷ Let him judge you, whom you spoke of: Give me a king and a ruler; and I gave you a king in my anger. You asked, he says, for a king; let this one judge you — that is, avenge you. Then, as if someone said: I indeed asked, but you also gave; Yes, he says, I gave indeed, yet in anger; for I yielded to your foolish will, that through the very deeds you might be instructed that my kingship, not the human, is able to help you.

¹⁸ And I bore with, in your wrath, a conspiracy of injustice. “I bore with” stands for “I yielded, I gave in.” I bore with your unjust conspiracy — that is, your gathering, your conspiring together. For you all, having banded and conspired together, sought a king, wronging yourselves, because you set yourselves over my kingship; and I gave in, not as being pleased with this conspiracy, but as abandoning you; for it was with wrath. Does not this plainly apply also to those who said: We have no king but Caesar. For, having thrust aside the Son of God, and having inscribed for themselves the man as king, whom indeed God also gave them, subjecting them to Caesar, they were scattered; and no one helps their dispersion. And every man-pleaser suffers corruption. For he who wishes to please all, who both say and think contrary things, is divided among as many as he is eager to please. Therefore such a man is ruled by men, and those base ones, having forsaken the pleasing of God and the fulfilling of his will. Hear David too: God scattered the bones of man-pleasers. And you surely know that “bones” are often spoken of in the Scripture for the reasonings.

¹⁹ Ephraim — the sin is hidden; pangs as of a woman in travail shall come upon him. That is, the sin is not on the surface, but was rooted in the depth, and is hard to pluck out. Therefore he will have pains, like a woman giving birth. And you will understand it thus as well: Jeroboam, as we have often said, began the idolatry. He says, then, that the sin of this man was cast down like a kind of seed, and was hidden in the heart of the people, and from then on they served idols. And such a seed being there, the time of the pangs will come — that of war and of captivity. For such seeds have such pangs.

²⁰ Is this your prudent son? Read it as a question; for having said above, “Who will help your dispersion, O Israel?” he now asks: Is this your prudent son? — that is, A king from the tribe of Ephraim, will this one save you, whom you made king as prudent? For there were two sons of Joseph, Manasseh the elder and Ephraim the younger; and the king ought to have come from the tribe of the elder; but you, the people, elbowed aside the elder Manasseh, and chose Ephraim, and set up a king from his tribe, as being supposedly more capable and more fit. But this will profit you nothing. He hints also at Hoshea, reigning in Samaria, who, warred upon by the Babylonian Shalmaneser, called upon the Egyptian, as supposedly prudent. But he gained nothing from his device; for he himself too was enslaved together with the people by Shalmaneser. And it can also be read without the question, and referred to “Let him save you” and “Let him judge you”: This your prudent son. But he surely calls him prudent in irony.

²¹ Because now he shall not stand firm in the crushing of children. For how could this king Hoshea profit you, who, when your children are crushed, will in no way withstand the enemies; for he himself too will be taken captive. Hidden also was the injustice of those who killed the Lord, and full of guile and hypocrisy; for they said that, according to the Law, he ought to die, because he called himself the Son of God. But pangs of calamities came upon the people, who, as knowing the ordinances of God, ought to have been prudent. And indeed such they seemed, though not being so truly; for this people is foolish, and not wise. He did not, then, withstand the siege of the Romans, when the children were crushed, devoured by their mothers because of the famine. And if David too, speaking in the Spirit, said: I will confess my lawlessness against myself to the Lord; and you forgave the impiety of my heart; he said it truly: it is good not to keep injustice hidden, nor to shade it over with excuses, but to make it manifest and to parade it forth. Otherwise, pangs will come — that is, the evil will be more complete, and the seed of injustice, which one has hidden within himself, will be brought to its term, and it will be said of him: Behold, he travailed with injustice, he conceived toil, and brought forth lawlessness. But when our evil children — that is, our thoughts and deeds — are crushed by our man-loving Father, like clay and earthen vessels of a potter, that they may become vessels worthy of the great house of the Church, prepared for honor and useful to the Master; then indeed the injustice appears, having no substance nor reasonable cause; and though ten thousand times we hasten to hide it away, yet the word convicts it as unreasonable and without substance.

²² Out of the hand of Hades I will deliver them, and from death I will redeem them. Since he has sufficiently foretold the grievous things, he now runs back to his accustomed kindness, and says: Out of the captivity I will bring them. For he calls the captivity Hades and death. And these things came to pass typically then, at the return from Babylon; but they received their more complete and more true fulfillment after the resurrection of the Savior. For our first-fruits having risen, we all received the grace and the hope of the resurrection; just as the reviving of the bones in Ezekiel also signified both the return of Israel and the common resurrection of all. For the things that came to pass among the Jews then were types of God’s dispensation concerning all. He redeemed, then, the souls out of the hand of Hades; for these are in Hades, not in death — for they are immortal; but the bodies are in death — for these are the things that are mortal. And everyone who sins is in Hades, inasmuch as his soul, becoming formless, loses its proper form and the “according to the image”; and in death, inasmuch as the works of sin are toilsome and death-bearing. And out of the Jews too he delivered those who believed in Christ from both the Hades of the soul and the death from the Romans. For on account of the elect, he says, those days shall be shortened.

²³ Where is your penalty, O death? Where is your sting, O Hades? As certain victory-paeans and hymns he strikes up these words: Where is your penalty, O death — that is, the right which you had against those who were until now under you. Where is the sting, by which you slew those whom you swallowed? Death had indeed a right against the captive Israelites — namely sin, which was also its sting; and it had this same right against all humanity. For indeed, In the hour you eat, he says, you shall die the death. Justly, then, death held the transgressors. But he both redeemed the Israelites, passing over their lawlessnesses; and afterward he delivered all humanity, himself appearing sinless, and abolishing the right and the sting which death had against us; and this was sin. And some copies have, “Where is your victory, O death?” That is, You shall no longer conquer; for the cause of the victory is taken away; the disobedience is loosed, and sin is blunted.

²⁴ Comfort is hidden from my eyes, because this one shall rise up in the midst of brothers. This comfort and consolation of the kindlier hope at the quenching of the captivity, and the expectation of the resurrection, seems to be hidden, both from the captive Jews and from all, by their tenets. For this one — that is, death — separates the brothers of the captivity, and divides them from one another. And on this account men are without hope that there will be a release from the hardships. And in all human nature, death separating both brothers, and all men simply, from one another, the resurrection was hidden. And now too among the godless it is hidden; therefore Paul calls it a mystery. “But my mystery,” says God, “is for me and for mine.” But some read this interrogatively: Is comfort hidden from my eyes? As if, when someone was at a loss and said, How shall this come to pass? how shall death cease? God says: Is comfort hidden from my eyes? — that is, Am I not able to find comfort? I am certainly able; and it is my only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, whom I set forth as a propitiation and a Comforter. He abolishes death, and shall divide in the midst of brothers. For indeed he came to cast a sword; and on account of him brother shall deliver up brother to death, and a father his children. And from the eyes of the one who mourns and weeps on account of sin, comfort is hidden now; for in the world to come he shall be comforted. And his life is hidden in Christ, as he dies daily in the present life. And this one shall divide in the midst of brothers; for he does not allow the soul to conspire with the body. But the mind of the flesh, knowing enmity toward God, makes the outer man to be corrupted, but renews the inner day by day. He divides, then, and makes a separation in the midst of the two brothers — I mean the soul and the body; to the one giving its own, and preserving its dignity; to the other apportioning the second place, and not allowing it to live disorderly and dissolutely.

²⁵ The Lord will bring upon him a burning wind from the wilderness. Upon death, he says — that is, upon the Babylonians (for these are the ones who put Israel to death) — he will bring a burning wind, Cyrus the king of the Persians. And he made mention of the wilderness, that he might show the vehemence and violence of the wind. For from treeless places the winds are more violent.

²⁶ And he will dry up his veins, and will make desolate his springs. That is, he will destroy all the royal kindred, and will take away the resources of the tyranny — I mean wealth, and the other royal goods; for these he named, figuratively, veins and springs.

²⁷ He himself will dry up his land, and all his desirable vessels. And simply you will understand it thus, that he dried up the land, cutting the fruits and leaving it untilled, and plundered his precious vessels of silver and of gold; but you will understand also by “land” the humbler of the people, and by “his desirable vessels” those who busy themselves about the palace, the satraps akin to the Babylonian. The Father brought upon death our Savior Jesus Christ, from the wilderness of the Virgin, whom no man traversed — who is Christ, and is a wind, and a burning heat according to his divinity; for God is spirit and fire — and he dried up the springs of death, our lawlessnesses (for these are the springs of death); and all their desirable vessels — namely us — he plundered. He dried up also his land, this mortal flesh, making it no longer bear fruit unto death. For it is sown in corruption, but is raised in incorruption. He brought also John from the wilderness as a wind and a burning heat, as one going in the spirit and power of the warmth of the zeal of Elijah, and burning up through his rebukes those who heard. He dried up the veins and the springs of the death of the soul, cutting off the resources of each vice — of the tax-collectors, and the soldiers, and the rest of the people. Or are not the tax-collectors desirable vessels of such a death, prepared for destruction? Whom that one, enjoining to do nothing beyond what was appointed — that is, to exact nothing more — made into useful vessels. He dried up also the land of Herod, restraining the lecheries of the flesh, and his desirable vessel, Herodias, saying that he ought not to have her. These things the word also does in each of those who sin.