A Ver. 7. "Fear before the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is near, for the Lord has prepared His sacrifice, He has sanctified His called ones." The prophetic word often calls even the slaughter of the lawless a sacrifice; and this can be found in other prophets, and also in the divine Ezekiel. He calls the enemies "called ones," and he has set "sanctified" in place of "separated." Thus also he says through Isaiah: "They are sanctified, and I lead them,"* instead of "set apart for this." For since that which is truly holy is separated and removed from profane things, he calls those who are set apart for punishment "sanctified," as being set apart by the God of all Himself. Thus also he has misused the name "sacrifice." Thus also "anathema" has a double sense; for he has called not only that which is dedicated to God "anathema," but also that which is alienated.
B Ver. 8, 9. "And it shall be in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, and I will take vengeance upon the princes, and upon the king's house, and upon all those who are clothed in foreign garments. And I will take vengeance upon all manifestly, upon the porches in that day, who fill the house of their God with impiety and deceit." Since in the days of Josiah the pious king the sentence of punishment was brought forth, and the king himself was not guilty of these things—but his sons and descendants, who lived in lawlessness, paid the penalty for what they had dared—he with good reason did not say, "I will take vengeance upon the king," but "upon the house of the king, and upon the princes." Now, some have said that "foreign garments" are those procured from robbery and greed; some, those made for the sake of extreme licentiousness. For men who live in lawlessness wrap themselves in the garments of women, and women who are likewise reared in lust put on the garments of men. To me, however, it seems that the word hints at something else as well. For the law forbids garments interwoven with linen and wool; C and it is likely that those who boasted in wealth and were consumed in luxury had imitated the dress of the neighboring nations, and upon tunics made of linen had woven a certain varied and superfluous ornamentation of purple wool, which was directly contrary to the divine legislation. He therefore threatens these, and also those who enter the divine temple with impiety and deceit. By "deceit," however, he implies that they had a feigned pretense of piety, but secretly embraced the worship of idols. Because of these your iniquities, he says,
Ver. 10. "And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, a voice of a cry of them piercing from the gate, and a wailing from the second, and a great destruction from the hills." For when the enemies have broken through D the wall and opened the gates, with a shout and with clamor
* Isa. XIII, 3. ▼ Deut. XXII, 11. [alt-version omitted]
A you shall be struck down; and even if some of you seize the mountain tops or ascend the high houses, they shall undergo the same destruction.
VERS. 11. "Wail, you who inhabit the broken [city], for the whole people of Canaan has been likened [to you], all those who were lifted up by silver have perished." He called Jerusalem "broken" because of the disaster that had befallen it, and he exhorts them to wail for it, as it has been made desolate of inhabitants. For because they imitated the impiety of the Canaanites, they suffered the total destruction of the Canaanites, and their wealth did not help them at all.
VERS. 12. "And it shall be in that day, I will search Jerusalem with a lamp." No one, he says, of those who are guilty of wrongdoing will escape punishment, but I will deliver them all to the slaughter. He has placed this figuratively, using a metaphor taken from those who use a lamp to look for lost things, and who do not give up B before they find them. "And I will take vengeance on the men who despise their own observances." By "observances" he means the lawful things which the Law commanded to be guarded. "Those who say in their hearts: The Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil." Here he accuses those who reject Divine Providence and who dare to say that things happen as they may; and that the God of all neither does good nor punishes—to whom He threatens plunder, and the destruction of houses, and the fruitlessness of their labors. "For they shall build houses," he says, "and shall not dwell in them; and they shall plant C vineyards, and shall not drink their wine." And so that they might not think that the punishment is delayed, he added:
VERS. 14. "For the day of the Lord is near, great and near and very swift." He called it "great," not as one bringing partial discipline, but total punishment; then, to strike even sharper fear into the hearers, he discourses about that very day.
VERS. 15, 16. "The voice of the day of the Lord is bitter and hard, the powerful [day] is appointed; that day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and necessity, a day of misery and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and mist. A day of trumpet and D cry against the fortified cities, and against the high corners." By "high corners" he means the towers, and by "trumpet and cry" the approach of the enemies; and by "darkness and gloom, and cloud and mist," he called the onslaught of evils: when these have arrived, neither is the sun bright to those who see, nor is the day clear, but everything seems full of darkness. And teaching this, the Prophet added:
VERS. 17. "And I will bring distress upon men, and they shall walk—"
their silver, and their gold, shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath: for the whole earth shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy, because He shall make a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land." He says that riches will be useless even to the wealthy; for they shall not obtain deliverance from evils by means of their money, but they shall be consumed by the divine wrath as if by some fire, which will bring sudden destruction upon those dwelling in this land. Where He has thus threatened harsh things, He offers them an exhortation to repentance. B
CAPUT II
VERS. 1, 2. "Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired. Before you become as the passing flower, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you." C Some, not understanding the passage, have substituted "pray" for "gather together"; but most copies have "gather together" (compuncti/bound together). The word figuratively indicates a healing that is understood through medicines and bindings. For we find this also in the divine Isaiah; for, showing that the wounds of the Jews could not be healed, he cries: "There is no plaster to apply, nor oil, nor bandages." "Gather yourselves together therefore," he says, "with the medicines and bandages of repentance, O you who are ignorant and unlearned in good things, and go before His face in confession, lest you fall away like spring flowers, when the divine wrath comes upon you." D
VERS. 3. "Seek the Lord, all the meek of the earth." "Look," he says, "to the vileness of your nature, and to the clay which is your forefather, and seek the Creator who has made you abound with so many and such great blessings." Afterward, he also explains the method of seeking God. "Work judgment, and seek justice: seek meekness, and answer them." "Follow," he says, "right judgments and justice, and embrace a meek and moderate life; and establish yourselves to pursue these to the end." For this is what "and answer them" signifies. Then he shows the fruit of these things: "That you may be hidden in the day of the Lord's wrath." (VERS. 4.) "For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ascalon a desolation; and Azotus shall be driven out at noonday, and Accaron shall be rooted up." For if you use the aforementioned repentance, you shall obtain salvation, while the cities of the aliens shall undergo the predicted evils.
A Verses 5, 6. "Woe to you who inhabit the sea coast, O sojourners of the Cretans! The word of the Lord is upon you, O Chanaan, land of the Philistines, and I will destroy you out of your habitation. And Crete shall be a pasture for flocks, and a fold for sheep." He calls the maritime region the "sea coast" (the "funiculus" or measuring line of the sea); for holy Scripture calls a portion a "line" because the land was described by a line, and to each was allotted the portion befitting him. Since, therefore, God had left the Philistines, who derived their lineage from Chanaan, in the maritime region, having assigned this land to them as a kind of lot, He called them the "sea coast." And by "sojourners of the Cretans" he signifies colonists; for it is likely that some from Crete arrived and settled in the maritime cities. Therefore, by Chanaan, and the sea coast, and Crete, and the sojourners of the Cretans, he named the maritime regions of Palestine, upon which he threatened desolation.
Verse 7. "And the sea coast shall belong to the remnants of the house of Juda; they shall pasture upon them; in the houses of Ascalon shall they lie down in the evening, from the face of the sons of Juda; for the Lord their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity." These things found their end after the return (from Babylon). For we find in the books of the Maccabees that Jonathan and Simon captured Gaza, Ascalon, and Ptolemais, and brought them under their own rule. B But the precise and indisputable end of the prophecy is to be seen after the ascension of our Savior and the preaching of the holy apostles. For these, stemming from the Jews, "lay down in the evening" in these cities; that is, before the evening of the consummation, when the God of all visited the nations and liberated them from bitter servitude and captivity. Hence he passes sentence against the Moabites and Ammonites; for these, being related to Israel and deriving their lineage from Lot, rejoiced at the calamities (of the Jews) and used blasphemies against the God of all, as though He had provided no help to the Jews. Therefore God says:
Verses 8-10. "I have heard the insults of Moab, and the reproach of the sons of Ammon, with which they reproached my people, and magnified themselves over my borders. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, that Moab shall be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon as Gomorrah, and Damascus [is] winnowed away, as a heap of the threshing-floor, and destroyed forever; and the remnants of my people shall plunder them, and the remnants of my nation shall possess them. This shall be to them for their insult, because they reproached and magnified themselves against the people of the Lord Almighty." D The Moabites and Ammonites had their own kings, and Damascus was queen of all
A Syria, but the Babylonians destroyed all these things. To the Jews alone, however, the God of all granted the return through Cyrus the Persian. They flourished B once again, recovered their former dominion, and struck fear into all these nations; they held possession of what belonged to the others, and those others could not withstand them. For which reason the divine word predicts C that the Moabites and Ammonites would be delivered to utter devastation, and that Damascus would be compared to a heap of chaff winnowed from a threshing floor. These things they endured in the incursion of the Chaldeans. He says that Damascus would be destroyed for all time, because from that time and in the time that followed, it lost the dominion of its kingdom and no longer ruled over the subject nations, but became tributary to those who reigned: the Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonians, and in the present time, the Romans. But yet, even here the prophecy attained its exact end through the holy apostles and the saints who succeeded the apostles; for the divine Apostle also called these a "remnant." Having set forth the prophecy which cries out explicitly, "If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved," D he interprets it, saying, "Even so then at the present time also, a remnant according to the election of grace has come to be." This also is what the Master says through the blessed Sophonias: "And the remnant of my people shall possess them." Afterwards he interprets it more clearly:
11. "The Lord shall appear unto them, and shall destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth; and they shall worship him, every one from his place, all the islands of the nations." These things do not admit even the shameless contradiction of the Jews. For if they should say that after the return from Babylon many of the nations who had believed in the God of all offered the legal worship in the temple at Jerusalem, they will be clearly convicted of lying. For the prophetic word says that "they shall worship him, every one from his place." This, however, has come to pass not according to the law, but according to the evangelical teaching; for the law brought all together into that one temple. But the Lord says in the Gospels to the Samaritan woman: "Amen, amen I say to thee, woman, that the hour is coming, when neither in Jerusalem, nor in this place, but in every place they shall worship the Father." This also the inspired Sophonias proclaims: "The Lord shall appear unto them;" that is, he shall appear to all those aforementioned: the Philistines, the Palestinians, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Damascenes, and all the other nations. "And he shall destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and they shall worship him every one from his place, all the islands of the nations."
A And to this he adds:
VERS. 12. "And you, O Ethiopians, are the wounded of my sword." This statement declares that the ranks of the demons were also dispersed by the virtue of the saving cross, and that those who bore a black soul and were hostile to God were smitten by the divine blow. Having thus prophesied concerning the salvation of the nations, he transfers the discourse to the sequence of the history, and threatens destruction to the Assyrians; for Nineveh had not yet paid the penalty.
VERS. 13, 14. "And he will stretch out his hand over the north, and destroy the Assyrian, and will make Nineveh a desolate place, without water, as a desert. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of it, and all the beasts of the earth; and chameleons and hedgehogs shall lodge in its stalls, and a beast shall cry in its pits, and ravens in its portals, because the cedar is its height." All the things previously mentioned are signs of desolation: the grazing of flocks, the dwellings of diverse animals, and the nests of ravens. But all these things, he says, it will suffer because of the pride of its soul; for the height of its elated mind was like a cedar. Then, explaining this more clearly, the prophet B adds:
VERS. 15. "This is the contemptuous city." This means: the city that considered every other city and kingdom to be paltry and small. "Which dwelt in hope," that is, which thought it would never endure anything sad or bitter. "Which said in its heart: I am, and there is none after me." Afterwards, deriding it by irony, he says: "How has it been reduced to a solitude, a pasture for beasts!" Then he adds the things that are accustomed to occur: "Everyone that passes by it shall hiss, and move his hands." For most men are accustomed, in calamities that happen beyond hope, both to hiss and to wave their hands. After having thus foretold concerning Nineveh, he turns his prayer towards Jerusalem.
CAPUT III. C
VERS. 1. "O illustrious and redeemed city, the dove!" A city truly worthy of lamentations and tears, which, while it delighted in a happy state, was preeminent and very famous, and had often obtained salvation from the God of the universe and possessed spiritual gifts. For I suspect that the prophet signifies this by the "dove," or else the adornment and beauty of the city; for this animal is also beautiful. And it is likely that this also is indicated by it: just as the dove willingly dwells in separate houses, so when you used to worship with piety, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, in the temple D
A dedicated to me, you were constant. Afterwards he explains the transgressions, and first indeed the disobedience.
Ver. 2. "It did not hear the voice." Then the rudeness and ignorance, "Neither did it receive discipline." In addition to these, the unbelief: "It has not trusted in the Lord, and has not drawn near to its God." Then the ferocity and injustice of the rulers:
Ver. 3. "Its rulers in it are as roaring lions." And the lawlessness and violence of the judges: "Its judges, like the wolves of Arabia, did not leave [anything] for the morning." And the lying and godless character of the diviners:
Ver. 4. "Its prophets are spirit-bearers, men of contempt." For he calls the false prophets prophets. Then also the impiety and unholiness of the priests: "Its priests pollute the holy things, and act impiously against the law." B But, he says, when all these things are dared in it,
Ver. 5. "The Lord is just in its midst, and will not do injustice: morning by morning he gives his judgment into the light, and it is not hidden; and he has not known injustice in exaction, nor injustice in eternity." He will bring punishment, he says, very quickly upon those who have dared such great evils; for by the word "morning, morning," he has signified speed; and the phrase "into the light" means openly, and not in secret. He will do these things, he says, destroying the audacity of injustice, and not allowing it to prevail until the end.
Ver. 6. "In corruption I have pulled down the proud; their corners have perished; I will make their ways desolate so that no one passes through; their cities have failed because there is no one who survives, nor anyone dwelling." C Just as corners bind [together] the structures of buildings, so successes support the powers [of governments]. Therefore, delivering those who live in pride to corruption, I will pull down their height to the ground, so that not even their memory is transmitted to those who follow, and I will deliver their cities to complete desolation. Thus the lover of mankind, having made threats, again exhorts and suggests that they fear the things that have been spoken, and accept the appropriate instruction; to flee the destruction of the threatened evils, which lawlessness has brought forth; not to procrastinate, nor to delay, but quickly to offer repentance. "For 'prepare yourself,' he says, 'rise at dawn.'" That is, "Show quickly the things of repentance." "All their vintage has perished." Do not fear, he says, the Assyrians, whose D multitude I destroyed before your gates; for their vintage, and those who escaped that punishment, I will deliver to the Babylonians.
Ver. 8. "Therefore wait for me, says the Lord, in the day of my resurrection for a testimony, because my judgment is for the congregations of nations, to welcome kings, to pour out upon them all the anger of my fury, because in the fire of my zeal all the earth shall be consumed." Do not think, he says, that I am neglectful of human affairs, but wait, and you shall see me rising up, and judging justly, and destroying unjust kingdoms, and as with a certain fire, cleansing the whole world with my zeal. And explaining this more clearly, he added:
Ver. 9. "For then I will turn to the peoples a tongue for their generations, that all may call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him under one yoke." Aquila, and Theodotion, and Symmachus have interpreted this more clearly. For Aquila and Theodotion say: "Then I will turn to all the peoples a chosen lip;" but Symmachus: "Then I will turn among the peoples a pure lip;" and a pure lip is that which does not name gods, but [one] God. Such things also God has said through Isaiah: "The stammering tongues shall learn to speak peace." And again:
"The tongue of the stammerers shall be clear." He will therefore convert those tongues, which had been educated in the worship of many gods, and will make them chosen and pure, so that "all may call upon the name of the Lord, and all the nations may serve Him under one yoke." And indeed also A those who
VERS. 10. "From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia I shall accept [those] supplicating me; the sons of my dispersed ones shall bring sacrifices to me." For those who inhabit the furthest parts of the earth, having received the discipline of the preachers dispersed by me, will offer to me the sacrifice of praise. For so also Symmachus interpreted it: "From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia, those supplicating me, the sons of those dispersed by me, shall bring a gift to me." The sons born to the heralds of piety, whom I dispersed into all the nations, will offer spiritual gifts to me. B
VERS. 11. "In that day you shall not be ashamed because of all your endeavors, by which you have acted impiously against me, because then I will take away from you the insults of your arrogance, and you will no longer boast upon my holy mountain." When these things happen and the nations enjoy salvation, you also, who inhabit Jerusalem, receiving the salvation which is through faith, will depart from your former impiety, and you will no longer despise my commandments, nor will you boast because of the old temple. And because not all were about to receive the evangelical C teaching, he predicts this also in explicit words:
VERS. 12, 13. "And I will leave in you a people meek and humble, and the remnant of Israel will reverence the name of the Lord; and they shall not do iniquity, and they shall not speak vain things, and there shall not be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue; because they themselves shall graze, and shall lie down, and there shall be none to make them afraid." D
A These words also clearly point out to us the apostolic choir, which the Lord, pronouncing blessed, said: « Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. » And again: « Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. » The blessed Sophonias calls this people meek and lowly; for the Israelite people was not of this kind, but a foolish and unwise people. And according to another prophet: « His neck is an iron sinew, and his forehead is brass. » He calls these free from iniquity, having a tongue delivered from deceit. Having therefore received such a people, instead of the wicked, and the bold, and the impious,
14. Rejoice, daughter of Sion; proclaim, daughter of Jerusalem; be glad and take delight with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem.
For God has shown thee to be pure from idols, and has delivered thee from the slavery of the baleful demons.16-18. « In that time the Lord will say to Jerusalem: Be of good courage, Sion; let not thy hands be relaxed; the Lord thy God is in thee, the Mighty One will save thee; he will bring joy upon thee, and will renew thee in his love, and will rejoice over thee with gladness as in a day of festival, and I will gather thy broken ones. » I know indeed that some have interpreted these things of the return from Babylon, and the renewal of Jerusalem, and I do not gainsay what has been said; for the prophecy applies also to the things which happened then. But a more accurate outcome can be found after the incarnation of our Saviour; for then he healed those who were broken in heart through the laver of regeneration; then he renewed the nature of men, having loved us so much as even to give his soul for us. « For greater love, » he says, « can no man show than this, that a man should lay down his soul for his friends. » And again: « So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. » Thereafter he threatens both those who then heaped reproaches upon Jerusalem, and those who dared to do the very same thing afterwards against the heralds of the truth; for the prophecy is twofold. D « Woe! who has received reproach over her? » (verses 19, 20). « Behold, I do in thee for my own sake, » says the Lord, « in that time, and I will save her that is crushed, and will gather her that was cast out, and I will make them a boasting, and renowned in all the earth; and they shall not be put to shame. In that time, when I shall have done well to you, and