Commentary on Obadiah
Latin source: Jerome's commentary on Obadiah, with a prologue to Pammachius (written at Bethlehem in 396, replacing the allegorical commentary of his youth), from the critical text of M. Adriaen, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 76 (Turnhout, 1969), pp. 349–374, verified against the page images, with the edition's few evident misprints corrected. Each lemma gives Obadiah in Jerome's own version from the Hebrew and then, after "LXX:", in his Latin of the Septuagint; all Scripture is translated as Jerome quotes it, from his own Latin. Italics mark the lemmata and the other Scripture he quotes. Greek words are kept as printed, with an English gloss in parentheses. This English translation is released into the public domain.
Prologue
When I was a little child, I spoke as a little child, I understood as a little child, I thought as a little child; after I became a man, I put away the things that were a little child's. If the Apostle makes progress and, forgetting daily the things that are behind, stretches himself forward to those that are before, and, according to the precept of the Lord and Savior, holding the plough-handle, does not look back, how much more ought I, who have not yet come to the age of the perfect man and to the measure of Christ, to deserve pardon because in my youth, roused by ardor and zeal for the Scriptures, I interpreted the prophet Obadiah allegorically, though I did not know his history. My mind was burning with mystical knowledge, and because I had read that all things are possible to those who believe, I did not know that the gifts are diverse; I knew the literature of the world, and on that account I thought I could read the sealed book. Foolish I was: the twenty-four elders, holding bowls and harps in their hands, and the four living creatures full of eyes rise up from their throne, confess their want of skill, sing glory to the Lamb; and to the rod from the root of Jesse, and I thought that I was able, because I believed, I in whose hand the word of God did not come, nor could I say: From your commandments I have understood, nor did I remember that beatitude of his from the Gospel: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Not yet had the coal taken from the altar cleansed my lips. Not yet had the error of my old ignorance been circumcised by the fire of the Holy Spirit, and boldly I was saying to the Lord: Behold, here am I, send me. I hoped that what I had written lay hidden in my little book-chests, and I had vowed to the flames the first rashness of my little talent, when suddenly a copy was brought from Italy by a certain young man of as many years as I myself had once been when I wrote it, who praised my little work. I confess I was amazed that, however badly someone has written, he finds a reader like himself. He was extolling it, and I was blushing; he was raising its so-called mystical senses to the sky, I, with lowered head, was kept from confessing my shame. What then? Do we condemn the things in which we played as boys? By no means. For we know that into the tabernacle of God both gold and goats' hair were offered alike. We read in the Gospel that the two mites of the poor widow were approved more than the substance of the rich. Both then we gave what we had, and now, if indeed we have made some progress, we render to the Lord what is his. For by the grace of him I am what I am. Nor do I deny that through these thirty years I have sweated in his work and labor. The Father is merciful; he quickly receives the son who returns, nor does he wait until someone opens the door: he himself goes out to meet him, makes ready the ring and the robe, and although the brother is jealous and calls him a whoremonger and a spendthrift, over his salvation the symphony of the angels' gladness and of all the powers resounds in the heavens. This is that time, my Pammachius, sweeter than this light, when, having left the school of the rhetoricians, we were borne along by different pursuits, when Heliodorus, dearest of men, and I together wished to dwell in the desert of Chalcis in Syria; what I thought lay hidden has been made public. I shall walk again in my old footsteps, correcting, if it can be done, the crooked strokes of the letters. I was an infant, I did not yet know how to write, my hand faltered, my fingers trembled. Now, even if I have made no other progress, at least I have that saying of Socrates: I know that I do not know. Your Tullius too says that certain unfinished and rough things slipped from him when he was a very young man. If he could say this, both of the books to Herennius and of the books on Rhetoric, which I for my part think most perfect, in comparison with the skill of his old age, how much more freely shall I profess both that the one was the work of a boyish talent and that this is the work of a ripe old age. In the books against Marcion, too, Septimius Tertullian underwent this same thing, and Origen in the Song of Songs, and Quintilian in the twelve books of the Training of the Orator. From these it is clearly shown that each age is perfect in its own kind and ought to be judged by the number of its years. But it is now time to set forth the opening of Obadiah and, with the help of your prayers, for whom this volume is written, to cross the rugged sea and the winding whirlpools of the world.
1:1
The vision of Obadiah. The Hebrews say that this is the man who, under Ahab king of Samaria and the most impious Jezebel, fed a hundred prophets in caves, who had not bowed the knee to Baal and were of the seven thousand whom Elijah is shown not to have known; and his tomb, together with the mausoleum of the prophet Elisha and of John the Baptist, is held in veneration to this day in Sebaste, which was once called Samaria. Herod, king of Judea, son of Antipater, called it in the Greek tongue Augusta, in honor of Augustus Caesar. Therefore, because he had nourished a hundred prophets, he received the prophetic grace, and from a leader of the army he becomes a leader of the Church. Then he had fed a little flock in Samaria; now he feeds the Church of Christ in the whole world; and φερωνύμως (true to his name), just as Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles was crowned with martyrdom, so this man too was called the servant of the Lord. Furthermore, that, seeing against Idumea, he does not see a burden, that is λῆμμα, and a weight of Idumea, according to the rule and distinction that we wrote of in Nahum, has this as its cause: either that Edom, that is Esau, the son of Isaac and the brother of Jacob, is not reckoned among the foreign nations, whence too his land is not given to Israel for a possession, nor is Israel let loose to make war against him, and arms against a brother are forbidden; or certainly it is a vision not of Idumea, which, had it been so written, could have raised a question, but of Obadiah, that is, of the servant of the Lord, which he sees for the nations to whom the Lord sent an envoy, and to whom it is said: Arise, and let us rise up against her in battle. For the destruction of Idumea is the vision of Nahum. But if it is asked why The vision of Obadiah is set in the title, and nothing that was seen is shown afterwards, as in that passage of Isaiah: I saw the Lord of hosts sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and in Ezekiel: The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God, and at once it is added: And I saw, and behold, a carrying-off wind was coming from the north, and a great cloud, and brightness round about it; whereas after the vision of Obadiah there follows immediately: Thus says the Lord to Edom, and again: Behold, I have given you small among the nations; we shall take an example from Deuteronomy, in which not things but words are seen: Take heed, he says, to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest perhaps you forget the words which your eyes have seen. And John in his epistle: What we have seen, he says, with our eyes, what we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life. And Moses says that he saw the voice of the Lord which spoke to him. If, then, after the vision there are brought in the things that were said, and things that are usually perceived by the ears are seen by the eyes of the mind, rightly does the seer, since prophets were formerly called seers, mark the vision at the head of the title.
Thus says the Lord God to Edom: A small prophet by the reckoning of verses, not of meanings. For otherwise, as among the three books of Solomon the Song of Songs is the more difficult the shorter it is; and what meaning the Epistle to Philemon held, we have set out. The word of the Gospel, too, though shortened, is narrower than the straggling works of the Law. So this prophet too, as a servant of the Lord, like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Moses the servant of God, and the Apostle the servant of Christ, sees those things, hears those things, that are worthy of prophetic service. Many think, following the meaning of the name, that this is that servant of the Lord to whom it is said in Isaiah: It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. But if we understand it so, we shall have to seek another envoy who was sent to the nations. And while we follow tropology, we lose a most manifest prophecy. We ask, therefore, who this Edom, or Idumea, is, to whom the Lord now speaks through Obadiah. In the book of Genesis we read most plainly that Esau the son of Isaac was called Edom because he sold his birthright for the red food of lentils. For Edom means πυῤῥὸς, that is, red. In the same volume it is written that this same man was called Seir, that is, hairy, because he was shaggy and did not have the smoothness of Jacob. One and the same man, therefore, is called by three names, Esau, Edom, Seir; and he possessed the region which is now called Gebalene and lies in the territory ἐλευθεροπόλεως (of Eleutheropolis), where the Horites had dwelt before, who are translated free men, whence the city itself also afterwards obtained its name. What, then, is called Edom in Hebrew and ἰδουμαία (Idumea) in Greek is now a little village of Palestine, the name having been so given by its founder, whom Latin and Greek history also mention. This is he to whom it is said through Amos: For three crimes of Edom, and for four, I will not turn him back, because he pursued his brother with the sword, and violated his mercy, and held his fury still further, and kept his indignation to the end. In Isaiah too, according to the Hebrew, we read: The burden of Dumah: he calls to me out of Seir: Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? And Jeremiah agrees with the same prophecy with a like voice, saying: Is there no more wisdom in Teman? and the rest, up to the end of that same prophecy, where it is said: And the heart of the mighty men of Idumea shall be in that day as the heart of a woman in labor. Except that the order is changed, and except for other things which seem to differ, a great part of Obadiah is contained in the volume of Jeremiah. These are the mountains of Seir against which the face of Ezekiel is strengthened, and it is said: I will make mount Seir desolate and deserted; and a little after: You shall be scattered, mount Seir, and all Idumea. It would be long if I chose to sift all the Scriptures and bring into the open what they say about the mountains of Seir, and above all Malachi, where at the very beginning it is written: Was not Esau Jacob's brother, says the Lord, and I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated? And I made his mountains a waste, and his inheritance a place for the dragons of the desert. But if Idumea should say: We are destroyed, but we will return and build the things that are desolate; thus says the Lord of hosts: They shall build, and I will destroy; and they shall be called the borders of impiety, and the people with whom the Lord is angry for ever. Since, then, we have learned that the land of the Idumeans is hostile to the land of promise, and we read that Esau is the enemy of Jacob, and that they are the people with whom the Lord is angry for ever, we ought to know that, by the laws of tropology, the word was spoken either against the Jews — who are the rivals of the Christians and persecute their brother Jacob, the supplanting people that snatched the birthright from them —, or certainly against all heresies and doctrines contrary to the truth, which seem indeed to be near to us but are rather hostile, and strive to drive out from the paternal inheritance the simple man, the dweller in the house of Jacob. Furthermore, because Idumea means both earthly and, on account of the color red, can also be understood as bloody, for this reason the Savior, carrying back to the Father the victory over the world, when the angels were crying out: Open your gates, O princes, and the king of glory shall enter in. And in Isaiah, astonished, they were asking: Who is this who comes up from Edom, with garments tawny from Bozrah, so beautiful in a white robe? And one spoke to him face to face: Why is your clothing red, and your garments like those of men who tread in the winepress? He himself speaks in triumph, displaying the palms of his cross: I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the nations there is no man with me. There are those who refer Idumea to the flesh, and think that the soul is called out to fight against it, so that, mortifying our members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, we may attain eternal victory in Christ. The Jews dream in vain that this prophecy is made against the city of Rome and the Roman empire; and that in what is written in Isaiah, The burden of Dumah, with the stroke of a letter slightly changed, res can be read in place of deleth, and it sounds Rome, since the letter vau in their language is taken both for u and for o.
We have heard a hearing from the Lord, and he has sent an envoy to the nations: Arise, and let us rise up against him in battle. LXX: I have heard a hearing from the Lord, and he has sent a stronghold among the nations: Arise, and let us rise up against him in battle. We have already said above that Edom is the same as Idumea, because in the Hebrew it is the man who founded it, in the Greek the city that was founded by him, that is named. Either Obadiah, then, heard, or all the prophets alike heard — for all of them write against Edom — that an envoy was sent to the nations, the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, of whom the Father also speaks through Haggai: I will move all the nations, and he who is desired by all the nations shall come. He it is who in Isaiah is written as the Angel of great counsel, and Father of the age to come. But as for the fact that, for envoy, that is sir, the Seventy translated περιοχὴν, that is, stronghold, we can say that he himself is our envoy and he himself our stronghold, saying the things which the prophetic word has woven together: Arise, and let us rise up against him, or her, in battle. The envoy who was sent to the nations says this: Arise, you who sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. And lest perhaps the fight should seem to you heavy and unaccustomed, you have me, he says, first in the battle line. I shall be the ἀρχιστρατηγος (chief commander) of the battles, I who also appeared to Joshua the son of Nun holding a sword, and, while Moses fought, overcame Amalek under the standard of my cross. Jeremiah, in his vision against Idumea, does not differ much from these words: I have heard a hearing, he says, from the Lord, and an envoy has been sent to the nations: gather together, and come against her, and let us rise up to battle.
1:2-4
There follows in the prophet Obadiah: Behold, I have given you small among the nations; you are exceedingly contemptible. The pride of your heart has lifted you up, dwelling in the clefts of the rock, exalting your throne, who say in your heart: Who will drag me down to the earth? If you are exalted like the eagle, and if you set your nest among the stars, from there I will drag you down, says the Lord. LXX: Behold, I have given you least among the nations; you are exceedingly without honor. The pride of your heart has raised you up, dwelling in the holes of the rocks, exalting your dwelling-place and saying in your heart: Who will bring me down to the earth? If you are exalted like the eagle, and if you set your nest in the midst of the stars, from there I will drag you down, says the Lord. Jeremiah, of whom we made mention above, agrees in almost the same words, saying: Behold, I have given you small among the nations: contemptible among men; your arrogance has deceived you, and the pride of your heart, you who dwell in the caverns of the rock and strive to lay hold of the height of the hill; when you have exalted your nest like the eagle, from there I will drag you down, says the Lord. In prophetic interpretation we ought to follow our custom, so as first to lay the foundations of history, then, if we can, to raise up lofty towers and the tops of roofs. O Edom, he says, though you are the least among all the nations round about, and small in number in comparison with the other peoples, you are lifted up by pride beyond your strength. And though you dwell in grottoes, nay rather in the caverns of the rocks, lowly and poor, and not possessing the lofty roofs of buildings, you are borne up on high like an eagle, and you swell so much in thought that you believe you dwell among the stars; even if, beyond nature, you could penetrate the heights of heaven, from there I would drag you down and bring you down to the earth, says the Lord God. But that which is added in Jeremiah, And you strive to lay hold of the height of the hill, has opened the riddle, signifying by the hill Mount Zion; and by this he means to be understood either the city of Jerusalem itself or the temple which was founded in it. That the eagle flies higher than all birds, even those who discuss the nature of birds have handed down to memory; and it is said to be of such keen sight that, when it is borne over the seas on motionless wing and is not visible to human eyes, from so great a height it sees little fish swimming, and when they have come near the shore, it descends like a missile from an engine and drags the prey it has seized to the shore with its wings. If we have learned the history, let us follow the spiritual understanding. Although you seem to yourself to be great, O heretic, and despise the fewness of the Church, yet you are small among the nations, and contemptible, and not only contemptible, but, with ἐπιτάσει (intensification), exceedingly contemptible. The pride of your heart has lifted you up. For which of the heretics is not lifted up into pride, making little of the simplicity of the Church and reckoning faith to be want of skill? Dwelling in the clefts of the rock, exalting his throne. Although the rock is frequently put either for the person of the Lord or for solidity, whence the prophet too says: He has set my feet upon the rock, and to Peter it is said: You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, yet it is also frequently taken in the contrary sense: I will take away, he says, the heart of stone, and I will give you a heart of flesh; and: God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham; and above all here, where he did not say, dwelling upon the rock, on which the prudent builder builds his house, but in the clefts of the rock, so as to signify the cleavings of the heresies from the rock of Christ and from the Church. Furthermore, what follows, Exalting your throne, and, Who says in his heart: Who will drag me down to the earth?, shows the swelling of the heretical mind, of men who trust in their own mysteries and secrets and, as far as lies in them — but we ought to take this hyperbolically —, promise themselves the kingdoms of heaven. Whence the Apostle writes to men of this kind: Already without us you reign; and would that you did reign, that we also might reign with you. David too says something of the kind: They have set their mouth against heaven, and their tongue has passed over the earth. If, then, they are exalted like the eagle — for they too promise themselves the likeness of eagles, which are wont to gather to the Lord's carcass — and if they set their nest in the midst of the stars, from there I will drag them down, says the Lord. For just as, while the householder sleeps, the enemy sows tares over the good seed, so that great eagle, with great wings, long in the stretch of its limbs, full of feathers and of variety, which has the way of entering into Lebanon, and takes from the top of the cedar and plants it upon many waters, so that the slips may sprout into a vine, is wont to set its nest among the stars of the Church, of whom it is also said in another place: But the just shall shine like the stars. I said above that this very thing can also be understood against the flesh: that its powers are left without defense at the coming of Christ, and that it is contemptible and subject to the rule of the soul, and is lifted up in vain, since it dwells in the caverns of the rock, whether in the senses or in the thoughts; and it wishes to lord it over the soul, exalting its throne, and not believing that its works can be overcome. To it it is said that, however much it lifts itself up and imitates the heights of the eagle and has deceived many of the saints, yet it has been overcome and cast down by the Lord. What we have understood of the heretics and of the flesh can also be understood against the Jews.
1:5-6
If thieves had come in to you, if robbers by night, how would you have kept silent? Would they not have stolen what was enough for them? If grape-gatherers had come in to you, would they not at least have left you a cluster? How have they searched out Esau, tracked down his hidden things? LXX: If thieves had come in to you, or robbers by night, where would you have been cast away? Would they not have stolen what was enough for them? And if grape-gatherers had come in to you, would they not have left a cluster? How has Esau been searched through, and his hidden things been found out? Jeremiah likewise, though with the order changed: If grape-gatherers had come upon you, would they not have left a cluster? If thieves in the night, they would surely have seized what was enough for them. But I have uncovered Esau, I have revealed his hidden things, and he shall not be able to hide. What he says is this: If thieves and robbers, who are accustomed by night to dig through houses and to seize what is in the houses, had come in to you, and, hidden by the darkness, had gone round the corners of your house, they would surely have carried off what they thought could be enough for them, and would have left something in your dwelling, either through being sated or through not knowing of it. If grape-gatherers had come into your vineyard, and wished either to lay it waste as enemies or, hired by you, to harvest it, however diligent their vintage had been, they would still have left among the branches clusters hidden by the vines and leaves. But the enemies who came to you at the Lord's command — and he means the Babylonians and the army of Nebuchadnezzar — have tracked down everything, all your secrets, and have ranged through the caverns and the holes of the grottoes in which you dwell. And indeed, that we may say something also about the nature of the place, the whole southern region of the Idumeans, from Eleutheropolis as far as Petra and Aila — for this is the possession of Esau — has little dwellings in caves; and because of the excessive heat of the sun, since it is a southern province, it uses underground huts. I have uncovered, he says, Esau, that is, what was pressed down under the earth I have brought into the open, and all the things that you were shutting up have been laid open, and, since I searched out your substance together with the enemies, no secret places could hide it. Alternatively: the thieves and robbers who go out by night, because they are sons of the night and of darkness, I take to be the heretics, who preach doctrines contrary to the truth, who steal what is enough for them, and every day hasten to seize from the flocks of the Church. These, entering the vineyard of our Lord, which he brought over out of the Egypt of this world, and of whose produce he promises that he will drink wine in the kingdom of the Father, desire so to plunder everything that they scarcely leave a cluster in it. But the Lord does the contrary; for all their secrets and hidden mysteries, and those of the patriarchs of Esau — for by these I understand those who first invented heresies —, he brings into the open through his saints and through churchmen and teachers; and his first victory is that the hidden things that were covered lie open. Whence it is also said with wonder: How has Esau been searched through, have his hidden things been found out? See how Marcion and Valentinus and all the heretics, having their conscience seared, applaud themselves in doctrines of demons, and, as if initiating simple souls into certain divine mysteries, deceive them with artful speech. But when discourse has brought into the open the thirty aeons, and teams of four, and ogdoads and dodecads, and the twofold god, and the monstrous Abraxas, then the prudence of Esau will be shown to be folly, and his secrets will be tracked down.
1:7
They have sent you out as far as the borders, all the men of your covenant; they have mocked you; the men of your peace have prevailed against you, who eat with you; they will lay snares beneath you; there is no prudence in him. LXX: They have dismissed you as far as the borders; all the men of your testament have withstood you; your men of peace have prevailed against you; they have laid snares beneath you; there is no wisdom in him. Some divide what we expounded above, How has Esau been searched through, and his hidden things been caught?, so as to run on to 'as far as the borders', so that the sense is: your hidden things and secrets have been revealed as far as the borders. To us, however, it seems better that it be joined with what follows. When, then, Nebuchadnezzar came, of whom it is said in Jeremiah against Idumea: Behold, like a lion he shall come up from the pride of the Jordan to the strong beauty, for I will suddenly make him run to it, and then: Behold, like an eagle he shall come up and fly, and spread out his wings over Bozrah, and the heart of the mighty men of Idumea shall be in that day as the heart of a woman in labor, all who had before been allies of Edom and had been in the garrison of that most proud city abandoned him; and, joined to the enemies, they spread snares against him and prevailed against him, and then it was made known that there was no wisdom in Edom, since he hoped in those who were shown to be adversaries. Alternatively: when the hidden things of Esau, and his so-called magnificent mysteries, by which the peoples had formerly been ensnared, have been brought into the open, so that a churchman can say: For we are not ignorant of his wiles, they will forsake the borders of Edom and dismiss him, and, migrating as far as the borders of the Church, they will bring the most wicked doctrines into the open. Then they will mock and withstand their former master, saying that what they had learned is false; they will prevail against him, and, instructed in the faith of the Church, they will refute the false doctrine. Those who formerly ate among the heretics, not the bread of the Eucharist but the bread of mourning, and the hearth-cake that is not turned over, will propose questions from the Scriptures, will lay snares for the Idumean and earthly, and in all things fleshly, teacher — for we read in the Epistle to the Galatians that heresies are numbered among the works of the flesh —, and then it will be shown that there is no prudence in Edom.
1:8-9
Shall I not in that day, says the Lord, destroy the wise from Idumea, and prudence from Mount Esau? And your mighty ones shall fear from the South, so that the man may perish from Mount Esau. LXX: In that day, says the Lord, I will destroy the wise from Idumea, and understanding from Mount Esau. And your fighters from Theman shall tremble, so that man may be taken away from Mount Esau. When the enemy has possessed your borders, and all the men of your covenant have mocked you and prevailed against you, then wisdom will perish from Idumea, and its cunning will be shown to be folly. The Lord himself will also take away prudence from Mount Esau, that is, from the mountains of Seir, either because the city of Idumea is situated on a mountain, or because that whole region which slopes toward the south and borders on the desert is raised high with steep mountains. Hence it is also said: Your fighters from Theman shall tremble, which we have translated "south". Now, just as I had said above that Esau was called by three names, so also the tract of his kingdom which slopes toward the south is called by three terms: Darom, Themam, Nageb, all of which, according to Ezekiel, signify the south, the southwest and the noonday. But after the mighty ones of his kingdom, who dwelt in the south, have feared, then the man from Mount Esau will perish, who was accustomed both to fight for the city and to give counsel prudently. Alternatively: after those who had formerly been deceived have been converted to the Church, then, with the Lord himself doing battle, the wise of Idumea will perish, who were wise in carnal and earthly things, and prudence will be taken away from Mount Esau, the prudence which was lifted up against the knowledge of God. And those who formerly fought for Esau and Idumea with the art of dialectic, and were in the garrisons of Theman, which means consummation, will cease to fight for their former masters. Or else: those who previously promised themselves the light of knowledge, and thought that they were at noonday, will fear and be terrified, as a churchman gets the better of their sophisms, so much so that no one remains who could do battle, whether with the counsel of a king or with the strength of a fighter, for the pride of the heretics and their false doctrine.
1:10-11
Because of the slaughter and the iniquity against your brother Jacob, confusion shall cover you, and you shall perish for ever. On the day when you stood against him, when strangers were capturing his army, and foreigners were entering his gates, and were casting lots upon Jerusalem, you too were as one of them. LXX: Because of the slaughter and the impiety against your brother Jacob, confusion shall cover you, and you shall be taken away for ever. From the day on which you stood against him, on the day when aliens captured his strength, and strangers entered his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, you also were as one of them. Therefore the man shall perish from Mount Esau, and wisdom shall perish from Idumea, and prudence from Mount Esau, because you slew your kinsman and acted wickedly against your brother Jacob, when, as the Chaldeans and Babylonians were laying Jerusalem waste, and besieging the city, and entering its gates, and casting lots in the division of the spoils, you were their ally and were counted among the number of the enemy. Alternatively: All the things written above you shall suffer, O bloody, earthly, cruel Edom, because by a false and deadly doctrine, one that speaks impiety against God, you have slain your brother Jacob. We read in Solomon: There are those who speak and slay with the sword. And in another place: The venom of asps is under their lips, and: Their tongue is a sharp sword. Confusion therefore shall cover you, and you shall say: The confusion of my face has covered me, and you shall perish, not for a short time, but for ever. For, as far as lay in you, you struck your brother with an everlasting wound. But this too shall be a cause of torment: for when strangers were laying waste the army of Jacob and were entering through its gates into Jerusalem, once peaceful, and were casting lots in order to divide its spoils among themselves, you were one of the enemy. We read it, we have seen it, we prove it daily: when persecution arises against the Church, the Jews and the heretics become far worse persecutors of the Christians than the heathen. We can call the foreigners entering the gates of Jerusalem λογισμοὺς, that is, the most wicked thoughts, and we can interpret the gates of Jerusalem, that is, of the soul that is at rest and sees God, as the five senses, through which the enemies enter and divide the spoils of Jerusalem. If we have looked upon a woman to lust after her, death has entered through our windows. If we have taken in through our ears a lie and a judgment of blood, the enemy has entered through another gate. Smell also, taste and touch: if one of them has been captured either by various scents, or by sweet foods, or by soft embraces, the adversaries have entered through other gates, and they divide the spoils of wretched Jerusalem. At that time, therefore, when anyone has fallen from the Church through the onslaught of persecution and through deadly pleasures, we may see the heretics exult, the Jew rejoice and be one of the persecutors, and them reckoned in the number of the heathen.
1:12-13a
And you shall not look down on the day of your brother, on the day of his sojourning abroad. And you shall not rejoice over the children of Judah on the day of their destruction, and you shall not magnify your mouth on the day of distress, nor shall you enter the gate of my people on the day of their ruin. LXX: And you shall not look down on the day of your brother on the day of strangers. And you shall not rejoice over the children of Judah on the day of their destruction; and you shall not speak great things on the day of distress, nor shall you enter the gates of the peoples on the day of their labors. The same sense as above: when the man has perished from Mount Esau because of the slaughter and the impiety against his brother Jacob, and everlasting confusion has covered him, he shall by no means do what he did before against his kinsman; for he shall not look down on him and think him of little account when he sees his brother going into captivity; nor shall he rejoice over the children of Judah. For the two tribes, apart from the tribe of Levi, which reigned in Jerusalem and were called Judah, were captured by the Chaldeans. And you shall by no means speak great things, and, believing yourself to be as one of the victors, laugh at your brother's distress. Nor, on the day of the devastation and ruin of my people, shall you march boastfully through the gate of Jerusalem. And you shall therefore not do these things, because you too shall suffer the like. Alternatively: when you see your brother taken captive by various persecutions, and led away in bonds from the faith of the Church, following not his own city but whatever is foreign, you shall by no means rejoice, because you too shall suffer the like. For you rejoiced when Jacob was being captured, and over the children of Judah, whom we understand as the disciples of Christ, you exulted on the day of their destruction. And it is signified that the soul is placed midway between vices and virtues, and can be turned to either side from one hour's moment to the next. By no means, he says, shall you magnify your mouth on the day of distress. This we ought to take according to a twofold sense: of bodily distress, in persecutions and in sins; of spiritual distress, when the soul, captured by enemies and vices, has been led into Babylon. Nor shall you enter the gate of my people on the day of their ruin; for when either denial or pleasure has overwhelmed us, and an unhappy conscience has not kept its former strictness, then we easily slip into contrary doctrines that flatter our error, and do not cure the wound but stroke it. It is a solace in misery for one, however lost, to have something to hope for.
1:13b-14
Nor shall you too look down on his misfortunes on the day of his devastation, and you shall not be sent out against his army on the day of his devastation.
Nor shall you stand at the exits to slay those who have fled; and you shall not shut in his remnant on the day of tribulation. LXX: And you also shall not look down on their gathering on the day of their destruction, nor shall you be added to their strength on the day of their destruction, nor shall you stand at their outlets to slay those who have been saved; nor shall you shut in their fugitives on the day of tribulation. When you yourself have been captured and destroyed by the ravaging Babylonian, among the other things that you have done, do not do these that follow. You shall not look down on, nor despise, your brother Jacob on the day of his devastation, nor shall you be added to the Babylonian army, or, you shall not be sent out against the army of Judah when, overcome by its adversaries, it has turned its back. And when they begin to flee by the ways known to them, and the byways, and the paths leading to the wilderness, you shall not stand at the fork in the road, nor wait for them as they come at the crossroads, to slay those who have been set free, and to shut up others whom you have seized, and either take them captive yourself or keep them for captivity by the enemy. This we have said according to the history: for we ought to pluck briefly at the plainer matters and press on to those that are obscure. Which of the heretics does not look down on the churchmen? Which does not exult in their misfortunes, if ever, because of the sins of the people, they have been handed over to persecution, and many, either of weak faith or sown upon stony ground, have fallen into denial: you may see them exult, rejoice, think our ruin their own victory, so much so that they join themselves to the nations, and the persecution becomes more savage, whether from the Jews or from those who pretend to be our brothers and are reckoned under the same name. And when someone has slipped away, either by flight or by repentance, they stand in the byways and put forward sophisms, and bring out testimonies as if from the Scriptures, in order to offer sewn cushions to the weary and exhausted, and to put them under every elbow of the hand. And so it comes about that those who perhaps either overcame persecution by courage or escaped it through fear are, deceived by perverse doctrines, held again in the prison of errors, and this tribulation becomes far worse than that which came from the nations; for you would more easily free one captured by the heathen than one entangled in the conjuring tricks of the heretics.
1:15-16
For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations; as you have done, so shall it be done to you. He will turn your recompense back upon your own head. For as you drank upon my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually; and they shall drink and swallow up, and they shall be as though they were not. LXX: Because the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations; as you have done, so shall he do to you: your recompense shall be repaid upon your own head. Because as you drank upon my holy mountain, all the nations shall drink wine; they shall drink and swallow up, and they shall be as though they were not. And you shall cease to do these things, O Idumea, for this reason: because the vengeance of the Lord shall come upon you. For if, according to Jeremiah, those for whom there was no judgment that they should drink the cup have indeed drunk it, are you to be left as though innocent? You shall not be innocent, but you shall surely drink, as one who drinks. Further, as to what he says: The day of the Lord is near upon all the nations, let us read the same Jeremiah and we shall see the cup of the Lord passed round to all the nations. Hence it is said in the same prophet: Babylon is a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, making all the nations drunk. For the Assyrians and Babylonians held all the nations as far as the Propontis and the Scythian sea, and the Ionian or the Aegean. Let us read Herodotus and the Greek and barbarian histories, and we shall see how what is said was fulfilled under the Babylonians and Assyrians: The day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As for what follows: As you have done, so shall it be done to you. He will turn your recompense back upon your own head, this is the sense that we read in the psalm: Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom on the day of Jerusalem, who said: Empty it, empty it, even to the foundation in it. Hence the prophet also calls down a curse upon Babylon: Wretched daughter of Babylon, blessed is he who shall repay you your recompense, with which you repaid us. Blessed is he who shall take and dash your little ones against the rock. For just as you drank with the Babylonians upon my holy mountain, Zion, and rejoiced, so all the nations that the Babylonian king had with you shall turn against you and drink and rejoice. And not only shall they drink, but they shall so swallow you up that the Idumeans shall be as though they were not; or at any rate the nations themselves, when they have swallowed you up, shall be swallowed up by the Medes, and vengeance shall proceed in this circle: that you consume Israel, the Babylonian you, the Mede and the Persian the Babylonian. Let us follow the order of the interpretation. The day of the Lord is near, O heretic, upon all the nations; the time of judgment is at hand, in which all the nations are to be judged. As you have done against the churchmen, so shall your pain be turned back upon your own head, and your iniquity shall come down upon your own crown. For as you rejoiced at their slaughter and held a banquet, and upon my holy mountain, that is, the Church, drank not my cup but the devil's, of which it is said in Habakkuk too: Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink of a turbid overthrow, so all the nations, either the opposing powers assigned to punishments or whatever adverse forces there are, shall drink and swallow up your blood, and at the last, when torment comes upon all, they too shall be as though they were not. For he who perishes to Him who is, and who says to Moses: He who is has sent me to you, is said, according to the rule of the Scriptures, not to be. Hence we read in Esther as well: Do not hand over, O Lord, your kingdom to those who are not. We can also interpret this passage in another way: Because you rejoiced at the ruin of my servants, the same persecution shall come against you too, and you shall suffer whatever you have done. And just as you rejoiced against my people together with the remaining nations, so all the nations shall rejoice against you, and they shall devour and drink, and crush you with a like persecution.
1:17-18
But on Mount Zion there shall be salvation, and there shall be a Holy One, and the house of Jacob shall possess those who had possessed them. And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble, and they shall be kindled among them, and shall devour them, and there shall be no remnant of the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken. LXX: Upon Mount Zion there shall be salvation, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess those who had possessed them. And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, but the house of Esau stubble, and they shall be kindled against them, and shall devour them, and there shall be no grain-carrier for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken. When Idumea has been overthrown and devoured by the hostile nations with which it had earlier made a pact against Jacob, on Mount Zion there shall be a remnant, and there shall be salvation, and there shall be a Holy One; that is, either the Lord himself shall return to the temple which he had abandoned because of their sins, or there shall be, absolutely, what is holy, that is, the holy of holies. And the house of Jacob, under Zerubbabel and Ezra and Nehemiah, shall possess those who had possessed them as an inheritance. And the house of Jacob, that is, of Judah, shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph, that is, of the ten tribes, a flame. For of Joseph was born Ephraim, from which tribe came the rule of Samaria; but the house of Esau, that is, of the Idumeans, who had shown themselves so savage and cruel against their brother, shall be turned into stubble. And as fire and flame swiftly devour stubble, so the two kingdoms, bound in alliance into one rod, according to Ezekiel, shall lay Idumea waste and devour it, and there shall be no one left of the people who could announce the overthrow of the adversaries to the neighboring nations. For this is what the Seventy translated πυροφόρον, which we have rendered as grain-carrier, following the idiom of the old speech; for those whom they now call agents in affairs, or post-couriers, the ancients called grain-carriers. But it is better that we follow the Hebrew itself, that is, sarid, which is translated either 'remaining', according to Aquila, or 'escaping', according to Symmachus, or, according to Theodotion and the Fifth edition, 'left over'. And all these things shall come to pass because the Lord has spoken, and for him to have commanded is to have done. Alternatively: When the works of the flesh have been destroyed and the earthly empire laid desolate, there shall be in the Church the salvation of those who have not gone out from their mother. And in her shall dwell the Holy One, of whom it is said in Isaiah: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of Sabaoth, because both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one. And the house of Jacob the supplanter shall possess those who had possessed them as an inheritance, making Christians of persecutors, and receiving the Idumeans themselves into the faith of the Church: but the house of Esau shall be turned into stubble. And as straw cannot bear the nearness of fire, so the house of Esau shall not be able to bear the disputation of Jacob, which is set on fire by the word of the Lord: For the words of the Lord are tried by fire, nor the flame of Joseph, whose name means increase, and who, sold by his brothers, fed the people in Egypt; but at the first encounter their sophisms shall be turned to nothing. And they shall be devoured unto their own salvation, according to what is said in Isaac's blessing to Esau: But I have made him your lord; and I have subjected all your brothers to him as servants, and you shall serve your brother. And there shall be no remnant of the house of Esau when all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth bend the knee to Christ, and all things are subjected to him, that God may be all in all. But because Esau, through his own fault, had built upon the foundation of Christ hay, wood and stubble, therefore the house of Jacob and of Joseph shall be turned into fire and flame, imitating its God, who says: I am God, a consuming fire, so that, when the chaff of sins has been devoured, the pure grain may be gathered into the barns. All that we have said, and all that we are going to say, the Jews promise to themselves for a time to come, when in place of Christ they will receive the Antichrist; and so the prophecy of the Lord and Savior is fulfilled: I came in the name of the Father and you did not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. And whatever we have interpreted against Idumea, they dream of as being against the Roman empire; which we say has either already been done according to the history, under Zerubbabel, or at any rate, according to prophecy and the mystical senses, is done daily in the Church, and is fulfilled in each person, in the kingdom of the soul against the flesh. As for the grain-carrier, according to tropology we say that he ceases to exist among the heretics when there is no one among them who boasts that he has the grain of wheat that died in the earth, and the bread from heaven. There are some who think that the Seventy translated not πυροφόρον, that is, grain-carrier, but πυρφόρον, that is, one who can carry a little fire. Accepting, therefore, the different interpretations, we shall say according to tropology that not only the grain-carrier will cease among the heretics, but also the one who pretends to have the light of Christ. And indeed Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
1:19
And those who are toward the south shall inherit Mount Esau; and those who are in the plains, the Philistines; and they shall possess the region of Ephraim and the region of Samaria; and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. LXX: And those who are in Nageb shall possess Mount Esau; and those who are in Sephela, the foreigners; and they shall possess Mount Ephraim, and the plain of Samaria, and Benjamin, and Gilead. When Judah has returned to its kingdom, Judah which dwelt in the south and possessed the whole region, according to the division made by Joshua the son of Nun, that slopes toward the Scorpion, that is, all Acrabattene, those who were formerly confined within narrow borders shall possess Mount Esau, that is, the mountains of Seir and the hill country which Edom had possessed before. And those who dwelt in Sephela, that is, in the plains (he means Lydda and Emmaus, that is, Diospolis and Nicopolis), shall possess the Philistines, the five cities of the Philistines, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, or all that tract which, according to the Acts of the Apostles, is called Sharon. Others, however, think that it is the Sephela, that is, the level region around Eleutheropolis, that is promised; that it is to be extended to Rhinocorura and as far as the sea, that is, that those of the tribe of Judah are not only to hold Eleutheropolis but to reach as far as the coastlands, and to subjugate to their rule the Philistines, whom they had not previously held in subjection. The border of the children of Judah shall also be widened as far as Ephraim, where Neapolis now is, and as far as the region of Samaria, where Sebaste was founded. And Benjamin, whose borders spread out from Jerusalem immediately toward the north, shall possess all Arabia, which was formerly called Gilead and is now named Gerasa. According to the Seventy, however, those who are in the south shall possess Mount Ephraim, and the plains of Samaria, and Benjamin, and Gilead; whether this has been done, God will have seen. For it may have been fulfilled in part over the five hundred years up to the coming of Christ; as I know most certainly, it is fulfilled daily and is confirmed in the kingdom of the Church. For those who dwell in the south, that is, in Nageb, are also in the true light; and those who hold the plains and the low places, that is, his disciples, to whom he says: Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, shall possess Mount Esau and the Philistines, whom, on account of the pride of their doctrines and their worldly eloquence, we can take as standing for the heathen. So that on the mountain are the teachers, and in the Philistines and the foreigners the disciples, who are led by the authority of the teachers. And not only shall they possess Mount Esau and the foreigners, but also the region of Ephraim and of Samaria. Ephraim and Samaria we read often in Hosea, and we have interpreted them of the heresies which divide the Church under the Christian name. For there too fruitfulness is hoped for, and there too they promise the safekeeping of the faith. Further, Benjamin, the son of the right hand and of power, where the temple of God is, shall possess Gilead, which means the migration of the testimony, signifying fleshly Israel; for the testimony of the Lord migrated from them to us. According to the Seventy, however, those who are in the south shall possess both Benjamin himself and Gilead.
1:20-21
And the exile of this host of the children of Israel, all the things of the Canaanites as far as Sareptha. And the exile of Jerusalem, which is in the Bosphorus, shall possess the cities of the South. And saviors shall go up onto Mount Zion, to judge Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. LXX: And this is the beginning of the exile for the children of Israel, the land of the Canaanites as far as Sareptha, and the exile of Jerusalem as far as the Euphrates; they shall possess the cities of the Nageb. And those who had been saved shall go up from Mount Zion, to punish Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. In this place our translation differs greatly from the common edition; hence in the exposition of the history we must follow the Hebrew truth. Those who, according to the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, had returned from Babylon into Judea will also rightly be called the children of the exile. That whole host of the children of Israel shall possess, to the south, and to the west, and to the north, the Idumeans, and the Philistines, and Mount Ephraim, and Samaria. Benjamin also, because it borders on the wilderness, shall in particular hold Gilead. Toward the east, however, they shall rule over all that belongs to the land of the Canaanites, as far as Sareptha of the Sidonians, where the widow once fed Elijah. Further, those who had been carried away from Jerusalem itself, the mother city, to Sapharad, which we have rendered 'Bosphorus', shall possess the cities of the South, which are in the tribe of Judah; for, having returned to their own city, they shall hold the places that neighbor the city. And when these things have been fulfilled, just as in the book of Judges the Lord would send saviors to save the people from captivity, so they shall go up and come onto Mount Zion, to judge and pass sentence on Mount Esau, that is, the Idumeans, as subject to them and serving them; and once all are subdued, the kingdom shall be the Lord's. Where we have put 'Bosphorus', the Hebrew has Sapharad, and I do not know why the Seventy could have translated it 'Ephrata', since Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion agree with the Hebrew truth. We, however, learned from the Hebrew who instructed us in the Scriptures that the Bosphorus is so called; and, speaking as a Jew, this, he said, is the region to which Hadrian transferred the captives. When, therefore, our Christ comes, then that captivity too will return into Judea. We can, however, understand any place whatever of the kingdom of Babylon, although I also think something else. For it is the custom of the prophets, when they speak against Babylon, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Philistines and the other nations, to make use of their language in many words, and to preserve the idioms of the provinces. Since, therefore, in the language of the Assyrians a boundary, which in Hebrew is called Gebul, is called Sapharad, I conjecture this to be the sense: The exile of Jerusalem, which is divided among all boundaries and regions, shall recover the cities of the South, that is, of its own tribe. Now, where we have translated 'and saviors shall go up', and the Seventy rendered 'those who shall have been saved', in the Hebrew is written mosim; and these are to be understood not passively, as Aquila and the Seventy and Theodotion have it, σεσωσμένοι or ἀνασωζόμενοι (being saved), but, following Symmachus, σώζοντες, that is, actively, saviors. For σεσωσμένοι, that is, 'the saved', are called pheletim in the Hebrew tongue. Since we have interpreted according to the history as well as we could, and have steered our little boat among rugged rocks, let us spread the sails of spiritual understanding, so that, with the Lord breathing upon us and unlocking his mysteries, we may joyfully reach the harbor. At the time when Benjamin had possessed Gilead, the exile of the host of the children of Israel, or at any rate the beginning of the exile of the once fleshly Israel, shall be this: that it reaches the land of the Canaanites; and that the prophetic word, which was in danger of famine in Judea, once the fleece of Israel was dried up, passes over to the dew of the nations, and there is both fed and feeds, while it is both received by the believers and itself feeds the believers. Sareptha either is compounded of two words and means 'straitness of bread', or is a single word and is translated 'burning'. Canaan, on the other hand, is rendered σάλον, that is, 'motion', or else it is called 'merchant' and 'lowly'. Therefore the exile of the children of Israel, when they have left behind the letter that kills and have come to the Spirit that gives life, will move all the things that belong to the law. Out of many pearls it will trade for the one most precious pearl, and, having laid aside the pride of the Jews, it will pursue Christian humility; and it will come as far as the place where formerly there was tribulation of bread, and the widow woman, deserted by her maker, could barely nourish her orphaned son, and where all her sins and vices are burned up together. But the captivity or exile of Jerusalem, where once there was the vision of peace, and which is now scattered through the whole world, shall possess the cities of the south, that is, the churches of the true and perfect light, and, repenting, shall say with the bride: Where do you pasture, where do you lie down at midday? And, received with Joseph into its ancient brotherhood, it shall be made drunk with the blood of the shepherd and prince. But if, following the Seventy, we read Ephrata, no one can doubt that the faith of Christ is meant. For Ephrata means καρποφορία, that is, fruitfulness, and is δυώνυμος (having two names), and is called Bethlehem, in which the heavenly bread was born. These things having thus been done, the saviors, or those who shall have been saved from the remnant of the Jewish people, shall go up onto Mount Zion, to judge and take vengeance on Mount Esau. Just as the Lord, the Light, calls his apostles light, and says: You are the light of the world; and the Rock himself granted to Peter that he should be a rock; and the good Shepherd also bestowed on them the name of shepherds, and whatever he himself is called he granted to his servants that they too should be called; so the Savior himself willed his apostles to be saviors of the world, who went up to the watchtower of the mountain of the Church and, bringing down the pride of the Jews and of all the mountains that were raised up against the knowledge of God, prepared the kingdom for the Lord.
These things I have dictated in hasty speech over two brief night-watches, following the authority of the ancients and above all the Hebrew exposition; and I have opened my mouth, but I do not know whether Christ has filled it. Hence the wise reader ought to seek the coherence of the meaning rather than the elegance of the style. For we do not dictate with the same smoothness and arrangement of words with which we write. It is one thing, my Pammachius, to turn the stylus often and to write what is worthy of remembrance; another, with the secretaries' fingers at the ready, out of shame at keeping silent, to dictate whatever comes into one's mouth. On this prophet we both played as young men and have made bold as old men. Whoever says what is truer and better, go over to his opinion.