Commentarium In Joel Prophetam

COMMENTARY ON THE PROPHET JOEL

When I approached these prophetic matters—hidden things, or, to speak more fittingly, their groves—as an inquirer bold indeed, yet bound by the supports of religion rather than of rashness, if I were permitted to enjoy their senses, clear not with common light but venerable with hidden splendor, I would have chosen which Edition to take up (for there are rather more than a few): I noted, of course, the last one, which is called according to the Hebrew, because in it there was greater integrity of expressions, which would express either the affection of the teacher or the threat of the one warning. By the judgment, then, of that Translation itself we have discovered that the order of the Twelve Prophets among the Hebrews is different from what the more common Edition contains. By this fact—that the titles of the times are not prefixed as indices in all the prophets—it is by no means uncertain in which ages each of them prophesied: since tradition handed down by hand commends that under those kings of theirs, who are read without titles, the teaching flourished, under whom those who are furnished with titles prophesied before them. Accordingly, blessed Joel too—whether he is seen to be a contemporary among contemporaries with the holy Hosea, whom we read before him—is confirmed: namely, enduring the cruelty and insults of the same kings, accusing the same sacrileges of the raging people, announcing the same torments hanging over the guilty.

CHAPTER ONE

He begins, then, from a feeling rather than of one admiring and, as it were, of one commiserating:

Verse 1. — The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Fatuel. This, he says, the eternal Teacher imposed as a duty of teaching, or rather of censure, upon his servant; for by the name of "word" he indicated at once the whole doctrine which he is about to see. The prophet's father is also mentioned not without reason; but since, whenever not only the virtues but even the greater names of those who are strong in holiness are mentioned, let an equality of dignity be made for them with their parents, and so let both they and their parents—whether just men, or prophets, or judges—be reckoned. This cause, then, of a root worthy of praise in its shoot, is taught as both honorable and weighty. But as for the fact that certain commentators have also pursued the etymologies of names, gathering, that is, the seeds of praises from them—namely, that Joel means "beginning to transfer," Fatuel "the breadth of God," and the rest in this manner—as these are puerile and inept, so they seem to involve more trouble than profit.

Verse 2. — Hear this, you elders, and give ear, all inhabitants of the land, whether such a thing has happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers. He enters in the manner of a public speaker, about to narrate the magnitude of the calamity that has befallen the Israelites. Behold, he says, I anticipate the voice of your weeping, and what was to stir up indignation, the complaint, I first declare: that you have not been subject to one kind of blows alone, but that the calamities stirred up, like foaming waves, have each time driven away preceding miseries by new ones. Therefore, all inhabitants, come together now to hear: either you who by old age have gathered the many dangers of this life, or you who, though you have fewer years, are yet able by living memory to hold fast, if you have received from your parents anything similar to what has flowed together into the present age. Indeed, what shall I say? Let us consult the annals alone, as if seeking the consolations of examples, since I perceive that the miseries of our people have ascended to such a heap that nothing like it could exist even among future generations. And so the elders and the inhabitants of the land, who are commanded either to perceive with the ears or to hear, do not signify different merits or pursuits, but they are simply commanded to hear. Such is that passage: Hear this, all you nations: give ear, all you who dwell in the world, both earth-born and sons of men, together, rich and poor (Psalm 48).

By many means, certainly, he signified nothing other than the men whom he calls together by judging. I noted this briefly because certain people believed there was great difference in these terms, on account of which they expend very many useless words. But let us hear what the prophet sets forth with such a compass of admiration.

Verse 4. — What the locust left, the grasshopper ate; and what the grasshopper left, the bruchus ate; and what the bruchus left, the blight ate. He comprehends the various kinds of calamities which he laments were brought upon the people of the Jews: when each of these falls upon them, they so consume the fruits and the hope of the year that they crush the hearts of farmers with grief and dread alike. That these misfortunes happened to them not once but in very many periods, we gather both from the prophet himself whom we are expounding and from Deuteronomy declaring it. Hence we also refute the opinion of those who reckon that all these things were said concerning enemies. For they have thought that the grasshopper, the locust, the bruchus, and the blight carry the signification of the Assyrian, the Chaldean, the Macedonian, and the Roman people: by whose resources, to be sure, the commonwealth of the Jews was worn away, believing, namely, that under the description of locusts the succession of enemies was made public. Which they would surely have suspected by some consequence, if the Jews had endured no calamities except from enemies.

But when they are taught to have endured both a most severe famine and a prodigious drought, as in the times of the blessed Elijah, and sudden death and various forms of corruption, what need was there to apply that scarcity as well—although he made mention of locusts and bruchi—to the incursions of the nations? Understanding the prophetic words, then, in a simple way, rather than transferring them now to one thing and now to another, as one pleases, let us take the locusts and the caterpillars not as armored horsemen or shield-bearing foot soldiers, but as tiny creatures with few feet and small wings; these had then so succeeded one another for the torment of a profaned people that they diligently kept their turns in doing harm, and whatever had remained from those before, all of it the ones that followed consumed. This destruction, surely, the holy Joel beholds in prophetic vision as more impending than already brought in; and therefore, while those of whom he speaks lie numb in wretched security, he himself, as one kindly disposed and dismayed by such a spectacle, cries out:

Verse 5. — Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you who drink wine in sweetness: for it has perished from your mouth. The complaint, once begun, is thoroughly moral in its scope: in a common calamity it first addresses those who, we are taught, will bear the same calamity more grievously than others. For scarcity bites more sharply at those accustomed to luxuries, and for the luxurious not only want but even frugality itself is a torment. Since, then, he was about to describe the hardships of destitution, he began with those of moderate means, and the losses of pleasures fell only upon those who could be affected, not in common with all, but only the debauched; and he esteems them so cheaply as to declare that they wished to live for pleasure alone. And, as the condition of such people deserves, he adds that they should grieve and awake, when the loss of those things is imminent in which they had taken pains to slumber as their companions. No care, he says, has hitherto held you intent upon your pursuits, nor has the conscience of such great crimes stirred the goad of compunction in you; but you have been slaves to all desires, as though you were free from righteousness. The patience of the eternal Judge has been overcome by the shamelessness and obstinacy of sinners: he has determined to subdue you with blows from a weak position, and to withdraw the very first instruments of the pleasures which you abuse. Although, to be sure, the course of this scarcity reaches even to those of moderate and modest means, nevertheless its very beginnings will torment you.

Those, therefore, whom the discipline of righteousness has taught nothing, let them at least begin to be stirred by the goad of fear, and give tears to their vices, which you did not give to your duties; and you who never grieved for wounded innocence, weep at last for drunkenness left desolate. Awake, you drunkards, and weep: wail, all you who drink wine in sweetness, for it has perished from your mouth. He says: You have furnished the causes of a most grievous offense by the pursuit of luxury; and not content with sumptuous and seasonable banquets or with simple drunkenness, but having corrupted wine by mixing in sweet things, you have prepared by artifice a provocation to feasting, so that every span of life might be squandered between wantonness and drunkenness. Behold, now the time of such vengeance has come, which, by laying waste the fruits of the earth, may take away above all the instruments of pleasures. He says, therefore, that you will be the first to be vexed by this distress, because for those ignorant of frugality the experience of punishments becomes a diminishing of their supplies. And since, forgetful of reason, you have made yourselves like brute beasts, at least on those very couches and beds on which you lie, wail, all you who drink wine in sweetness, for it has perished from your mouth. When the reproach of the censor is mingled with the prophetic denunciation, he shows that man, placed in honor, did not understand (Psal.

and for this reason let him be compared to the brute beasts, to which he has made himself like; he drinks, as we said, the losses of life, the damages of life, so that because luxury scarcely wakes at the very crash of the mass of vengeance, because it does not know how to weep, at least let it howl: such is that passage in the psalm: They shall suffer hunger like dogs, and shall go around the city (Ps. 58). It was fitting, then, that the reasoning of compunction should stir you rather than that distress should arouse you with the bites of pain: but since by excessive wailing you have lost counsel, so that you can no longer foresee, but only feel, wail, you who are perishing, who did not fear when warned. And what is the cause of such tears?

Verses 6–8. — For a nation has come up upon my land, strong and innumerable: its teeth are as the teeth of lions, and its grinders as the whelps of a lion. It has made my vineyard a desert, and has barked my fig tree: stripping it bare, it has spoiled it and cast it away: its branches have become white. Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

In those times indeed which are contained under the title of the blessed Hosea, the eruption of the Assyrians is also reported to have been frequent; but because the founder of things was not afflicting the despisers of his law by one kind of means, therefore among the hostile devastations we gather that these plagues also occurred, which the prophet announces; in the description of which, to be sure, being intent he expended much effort, doubtless by the counsel and art of a physician: so that he might stir up in the hearts of his hearers that saving fear which compels enticements to shudder, and might not pass over the goads of the threatened terror in the brevity of a brief indication, but might teach the hearer to linger in the consideration of things, for whose correction all this circuit of plagues was being prepared. Nor, content only to have described, he proceeds also to magnify by the weight of words what he has done. Finally, to the swarm of locusts he assigned the name of a nation, as if advancing by squadrons and maniples, and whose novelty would be no less a cause of dread than its magnitude. For if you consider its efficacy rather than its members, you will see that its teeth are to be compared to the cubs of lions, nay rather to the very lions skilled in preying: for it is not more difficult for the crops to be laid waste by these than for the herds by those. And by how much less it costs to supply flocks for the sustenance of mortals than fruits, by so much greater are the troubles caused by the ravager of fruits than of flocks, and the throats of beasts gaping for blood. The locust itself, raging, consumes the milk of fruits and grasses, and therefore also the flocks, which it does not chew.

it kills those that do not chew. For it strips all the woods of their green, and as it were by the violence of disaster it imitates the very condition of nature: so that just as when the sun has turned toward winter, the sap of the trees is driven inward, and thus, with the honor of their leaves laid aside, the trunks stand bare—which, if one ignorant of farming should look upon them, he despairs that they can grow green again—so that column of ruin, whose coming I lament, will consume not only the tender grasses but even the ripened vineyards, nor will the vintage, whitened with apples, temper it; for it will ravage the sweet figs with its bitter tooth, and so with devoted effort it will pursue the whole bark, through which, surely, the vital sap could flow in, so that the forest is seen white instead of green. Since, therefore, the earth does not restore the fruit entrusted to it, nor does the fruit bend the spontaneous vine-branch, nor does the year supply the solace of apples to its sickened cultivators, what remains, my people, except that you pursue your calamity with tears—but tears so abundant and so many, as are wont to be shed by women whom the mourning of widowhood has oppressed and who are deprived of the company of those men to whom they had been joined from the time of their virginity.

Verse 9. — Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth: the sacrifice and the libation have perished from the house of God. The discourse has aptly moved on to the region: for since he had said that the mourning of widowhood of the whole nation was to be equalled by the lamentations of all, he resolved why he had brought forward this similitude by mentioning the region. For as often elsewhere, so also in the blessed Hosea, our God declares that he has taken the Synagogue to himself as it were in the place of a wife: but that she, in the manner of adulteresses, violated the covenants of that union, and subjected herself to the worship of various gods. Therefore, since here too, from the beginning of the impending calamity, he has proceeded in his narrative to an immense extent, and after the losses, as it were, of the first drunkenness, which he marked out as to be mourned by the luxurious, the misery of destitution has been brought in most abundantly, the cultivated places and the haunts of the ravager alike being laid waste, through which not only the common sustenance, but not even those things which were to be offered according to religion, would remain; therefore he is addressed as it were after the likeness of a widowed woman, inasmuch as she is seen to be tormented by the departure of her husband for this reason, that she has lost the instruments of oblation and of ceremonies, by which through daily sacrifices she believed that she both pleased God and clung to him.

Verses 10–12. — The priests, the ministers of the Lord, have mourned. The region has been laid waste, the land has mourned, because the wheat has been devastated, the wine has been confounded, and the oil has languished. The farmers are confounded, the vinedressers have howled over the grain and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vineyard is confounded, and the fig tree has languished, the pomegranates, and the palm, and the apple tree, and all the trees of the field have dried up, because joy has been confounded from among the sons of men. It had come to such public want, with the locust, the grub, and the blight laying all waste, that a scarcity even of victims followed, and the loaves of the Presence were not set upon the altar; accordingly the chief priests and the Levites were mourning. But the rest of the people, as though repudiated by an eternal spouse, groan like widows (as we have said), because the land itself, having lost all its adornment of greenness and fertility, is covered with the squalor of what shines bare. For the reaper did not snatch the grain from this sad devastation, nor did the vine, which had stood weighed down, bring its fertility through to sweet must; but it so deceived its cultivators with frustration that its own lie seems to blush for shame. A like envy struck the olives, the pomegranates languished with the berries, nor could any kind of fruit endure in better condition; but with the joys and hopes of mortals, the shoots perished as did the grasses.

It is not a time for sorrow to be concealed; put on the dress and mind of all who mourn, for a most hideous kind of end is imminent for those whose hope for the year is as much to be lamented as the reality itself.

Verses 13–14. — Gird yourselves and wail, you priests; howl, you ministers of the altar; go in, lie down in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, because sacrifice and libation have perished from the house of your God. Sanctify [variant: Sacrifice] a fast, call a assembly, gather the elders, all the inhabitants of the earth, into the house of your God, and cry out to the Lord. Having set forth the magnitude of the calamity, he had described weeping as imminent for all the peoples, but because to be moved by the mere spectacle of tears is the office of one who pities rather than of one who teaches, whereas the prophet, clothed in a father's heart, seeks nothing except what is for their benefit, now too he leads them in order to lamentation, so that they not spend the time in empty weeping, pursuing their miseries with mournful voices—which indeed would befit both religious and brave minds—but ordering the very gifts of tears according to the rules of the sacred law, let them prepare a harvest of joys, and let them indulge the mind in grief only so much as suffices to appease the judge's indignation, grieving over the loss of things. Therefore, he says, you priests, changing soft garments for rough, put on the dress and mind of those who mourn, but also, as is especially pertinent to your care, mourning that there is lacking that by which you may serve the divine worship.

But as regards the people: Sanctify a fast—that is, proclaim it with such a declaration that if anyone perhaps should despise it, he is charged as one who has violated what is holy. This is what he says: Sanctify a fast. At the same time, he says, gather all—that is, not only those strong in age, but also those whom either infancy or old age holds weak—summon to the sharing of this duty, in proportion to the greatness of the danger. For it follows that the affliction of all should avert that calamity which was going to rage against all in common. Nor should the opportunity of subtle understanding slip past us: the fast is indeed commanded to all in common. Gather, he says, the elders, all the inhabitants of your land into the house of your God. But if that destitution (which was described above) was holding the whole region within its borders, so that not even the solemn sacrifice could be offered, how is a fast again commanded to the same peoples by the circuit of a great sanctification, when for those established in such great want it would surely have been more difficult to prepare food than to continue fasting? Therefore we ought to notice that it is one thing to be hungry and another to fast: the latter looks to the exercise of virtue, the former to the anguish of mortality. Therefore the affliction of the guilty does not please the Lord, but the correction of the penitent's fruit; nor is there need of wasting away, but of compunction, for those who are to be healed.

For the filth of luxury is by no means dispelled by the distress that is common to good and bad alike, but only by discipline, which is a friend to noble minds. And therefore, he says, I ask for a fast that comes from duty, not the hunger that for the most part results from punishment; or, I say, procure a fast even for the hungry, so that what want had made burdensome, devotion may make fruitful. But we have said these things for the edification of our hearers. Otherwise, the sequence of the prophetic utterances can be set forth to greater advantage. For he announces the calamity as impending rather than already rushing upon them, and he reminds the priests in his mind to summon the people to fasts and to meet with lawful supplications those calamities which they hear to be imminent.

Then follows: [Vers. 15–18.] — Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as a devastation it will come from the mighty. Have not foodstuffs perished before your eyes, joy and exultation from the house of your God? The beasts have rotted in their dung, the granaries are demolished, the storehouses are scattered, because the wheat is confounded. Why has the animal groaned, why have the herds of cattle bellowed? Because there are no pastures for them; but even the flocks of sheep have perished. After the prophet has set forth the attire of mourners, namely that they should be covered with sackcloth, that is, clothed in haircloth, now he also adds the prayer they ought to perform, and, repeating the cry of one in grief twice and three times, he has expressed as it were the force of the blows with which the plagues are struck.

For no other reason, surely, than that the proclamation of the coming calamity might stir up fear and compunction in the hearts of those who hear it—as if he were saying: Trust my eyes, trust my senses, as with prophetic gaze I behold not only what has been brought upon us but also what is yet to come; namely, that the weight of a calamity that cannot be endured is pressing upon us, and at each of its blows we collapse, as it were, convulsed in our inmost being. For the caterpillar and the locust, the beetle and the blight will follow one upon another in such a way that the cessation of the preceding plague, which seemed to promise some breathing-space, brings only heavier torments upon the wretched. And that day of the Lord, on which he has appointed to take vengeance on the guilty, is not terrible with some slight affliction, but it brings that devastation which the most powerful of avengers would inflict. Against its forces, neither the boldness of those who resist could stand, nor could the cunning of those who hide themselves withdraw anything. Therefore what he says, "Devastation will come from the mighty one," you may also take as a comparison, so that we may know the chastisement will be no less effective than if the victorious fury of some most powerful king were unleashed. Of this character also is that passage in the psalm: The Lord was roused as one that sleeps, as a mighty man overcome with wine; and, He smote his enemies in the hinder parts, he put them to everlasting reproach (Ps.

Or certainly, let us understand the mention of "the powerful one" as made not by way of example but as a unique case—one who accomplishes not merely one or two things, but all that he wills without difficulty—and thus the powerful one may be seen to have described the Almighty. For the day of the Lord is near, and devastation will come from the powerful one. Have not your food supplies perished before your eyes? He says: It is not a time for you to fear some moderate hindrance, and for calamity to be brought upon fruits that are to be gathered but have not yet been gathered—but before your very eyes, so that you may trust in provisions already stored away; and I proclaim that scarcity threatens not only private houses but even the treasury of the temple, so that all joy—or rather, all consolation—may perish. And indeed, when the crops have been taken away, the herds will not supply the deficiency, because the mountains, having grazed them to destruction, declare their ruin, and the consumption of their greenness. As these evils draw near, the prophet shows that he is being struck—which applies either to the judgment of spiritual senses, of those who extend themselves far beyond these bodily senses, or to the splendor (as we have said) of the description, stirring up in the hearts of the peoples a feeling of dread. Therefore he assumed, as it were, the appearance of one asking a question, by saying: Why has the beast groaned, why have the herds of the cattle bellowed? so that he might add on the part of the one answering: Because there are no pastures for them. But the flocks of sheep also have perished.

Therefore, although intolerable affliction surrounds me on every side, I lift up my hands, my cries, and my prayers to you, the one Lord; and I implore you, prostrate in mind and body, that you may now look kindly and gently upon the calamities of the land. For behold, the beautiful flame of the desert has consumed it. In this very place let the attentive hearer inquire how it is that the beauty of fields is proclaimed in desert places, which this strange burning has enviably consumed—especially since no complaint of fire had preceded it anywhere. The sequence of the reading therefore shows that here the beauty of fields means leafy forests and pleasant pastures. But the reason he praised the pleasantness not of cultivated land but of desert country is that he had made mention of herds and flocks; because since we delight in groves and pastures, when these have been ruined by some disaster, those creatures too are reduced to exile. But he used "fire" for the devastation that the locust and the grub had brought, as we also read in the psalm: He made their rains hail, a consuming fire in their land, and he struck their vines and shattered every tree of their borders. Therefore, since the locust and the grub have so consumed all the forests and the green things of the fields that they seem not eaten but burned up, consequently even the wild beasts have come to the dangers of famine, and, taught by natural instinct, they look up to you alone, that you, being propitiated, may bring remedy to their danger. The sacred songs indeed bear witness with truth and sweetness.

All things wait upon you, that you may give them food in due season. When you give, they gather it; when you open your hand, all things are filled with delight; but when you turn away, they are troubled. You will take away their spirit and they will fail, and they will return to their own dust (Ps. 103). Accordingly, the herds of wild beasts likewise seek remedy from you, though they lack clear voices, yet by the various sounds of their throats; just as the threshing floor of the lands, made ready and having received seeds, awaits either dew or rain by which the shoots may be brought forth. But if you consider well, our hearer, you will see that there is weight in the example: for he has compared the thirst of souls to the natural appetite of the elements, which is certainly much more vehement. But let us see the rest as well.

CHAPTER II.

Verses 1-2. — Blow the trumpet in Zion, wail on my holy mountain, let all the inhabitants of the earth be troubled, because the day of the Lord will come, because the day of darkness and gloom is near, a day of cloud and whirlwind: as it were morning spread over the mountains. When, he says, the time of great devastation draws near, let the inhabitants of the city and of the fields come together, and by prayers and tears anticipate the time of the announced calamity.

If I could explain its bitterness by speaking before the actual experience of these things, there would seem to me to be such darknesses of anguish as would occur if blackness were doubled, as when murk and shadows make the night denser; indeed, if you were to join thick clouds twice over and whirlwinds together, so that, with the consolation of the stars wholly shut out, through the blind air the terror of lightning flashes. Yet these images have labored to indicate only the quality of the evil, whose bitterness is increased beyond measure as to its quantity. For thus the force of the evil of which we speak has filled all the spaces of our region, as if, with its boundaries extended, it had poured over all the mountains and hills at bright morning, that is, at the glowing dawn. Therefore it compared one [thing] both to night and to light, not to introduce something contrary, but to express its extent and bitterness by the diversity of the comparison. A numerous and strong people: there was none like it from the beginning, and after it there will be none throughout the years of generation and generation. That this account was composed more about locusts than about enemies, the progress of the discourse shows. For the very swarm of locusts and grasshoppers, whose invasion is described as having produced manifold calamity, it has now set alongside a armed and roaring army: which it certainly could not have introduced by way of comparison, if the description had been composed about soldiers.

He therefore continues, I say, to explain the effect of the evil through various forms, and he says what kind of face of the lands it found when it came, and what kind it left when it departed. Nothing, he says, like our ancestors' [sight?], nothing like our [customs?] will it see.

Verse 3 — Before his face a devouring fire, and after him a burning flame: as a garden of pleasure the lands before him, and after him a solitude of desert: there is no one who may escape him. By "before his face," what he said, he wished to indicate that very incursion of locusts—not, of course, that another conflagration perished the face of the locusts, and that they thereafter corrupted the burnt fields—but thus, he says, will their incursion lay waste whole regions, as not less than fire has consumed. And because the efficacy of fire is not proven, but rather it is wont quickly and utterly to consume light things of any kind, like leaves, like stalks, like chaff, with crackling and flying flames; but those things which have more firmness of material, it overcomes with a greater delay of fire: therefore, both before and after, he declares the flame to prevail. But keeping the order of amplification by art, after he compared the locust to fire, he says the region which was laid waste could have been compared to pleasant and well-watered lands. As a garden of pleasure the land before him, and after him a solitude of desert: there is no one who may escape him. So that then indeed the force of the raging evil may appear, in that it consumed those things which had been too pleasant.

Verses 4–11. — Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like horsemen so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots over the tops of the mountains they shall leap, like the noise of a flame of fire devouring stubble, like a strong people prepared for battle. At the sight of him all peoples shall be in anguish, all faces shall be changed as into a pot. Like strong men they shall run, like warriors they shall climb the wall; each man shall walk in his own ways, and they shall not turn aside from their paths. No one shall press upon his brother; each shall walk in his own track; but even through the windows they shall fall, and shall not be destroyed. They shall enter the city, they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up the houses, they shall enter through the windows like a thief. At his sight the earth trembled, the heavens were shaken, the sun and moon were darkened, and the stars withdrew their brightness. And the Lord has given his voice before the face of his army, because his camps are exceedingly many, because his words are strong and effective. For great is the day of the Lord, and very terrible: and who shall endure it? A little earlier I warned that it would become more and more apparent, as the discourse progressed, that the narrative was set forth simply concerning locusts and grasshoppers, not concerning armies of annates (as some have supposed). Therefore, to signify their force and effect, he gathered together similitudes of armed men and horsemen.

Nor did he follow merely the ambition of narrating, but also the learning of comparing, so that he set forth what he had undertaken both magnificently and elegantly: by likening the very course of the rushing locusts to the advance of four-footed creatures, and by comparing their sound to the crackling that fire is wont to produce in stubble. And since he saw that these images were fittingly assumed, he dwelt upon them at length with great industry; and he not only compared their stridulation and onsets to fires and cavalry, but also diligently noted that they advanced not in a scattered but in a composed column, and at full pace—plainly as if some legions were marching under their standards and centurions (since the cause of terror demanded it). As a people, he says, prepared for battle, at his face all peoples shall be tormented, every countenance shall be turned into a pot. If, he says, military discipline also composes the force of troops, so that they proceed to war not as vagabonds and like robbers, but drawn up by squadrons and battle lines, with steadfast minds and ranks, before the coming of the contest the enemy is easily dissolved by fear itself, so that for the most part their faces are clothed in the livid hue of impending death: so, he says, the columns of our nation will not be able to endure even the sight of the calamity rushing upon them, but like a pot that smoke has stained, they will not only grow pale but be wholly drawn in; since neither strength in the field nor the aid of walls in the cities will avail them.

For the swarms of locusts, which I announce as coming, carrying out the task of devastation, will rush forth like the most warlike of men wherever indignation or desire has called them. Nor will they lay waste only the fields, but they will even penetrate into the chosen places within cities. No multitude of those standing in the way will be an obstacle; no barrier will delay them as they rush in; the victorious throng will advance along unobstructed paths. For this is what he says: Each one will not press upon his brother, they will walk each in his own path; but they will even fall through the windows, and will not be destroyed. Nor, he says, will they, rushing into the buildings of cities, be content with a kind of public terror; but they will enter into the inner chambers of private homes like thieves. And so a joyful anxiety will seize all the inhabitants of that region, so that the heavens seem to them to be moved, and the earth to tremble, the stars to withdraw their brightness, the sun and moon to be clothed in darkness that can be touched. But I should by no means doubt that all these things will come with so great a heap of evils, since the Almighty himself is the leader who directs these swarms, and in the destruction of the guilty he uses such an army, and he himself raises the signal of command by which they are stirred up, and supplies them with the strength by which they carry out the sentence. For great is the day of the Lord, and to be feared for the very compass of its vengeance; that its crushing ruin cannot be endured, the first aspect shows.

We can, however, transfer these laments of the blessed Joel—though they are powerful for edification even with their own thunder of severity—by a more subtle understanding as well to the figures of souls: so that through the description of the calamities which he announces hang over whole regions because of the torment of sinners, he may be believed to have signified the squalor of criminal minds. For the censure of a wise man does not judge those wretched whom he sees subdued by hardships more than those whom he sees subdued by vices. According to this rule, he both pitied and was indignant at the condition of a most profane nation, abstaining from no crimes at all, and he reproved it: announcing first that he neither remembered past things nor trusted future things, which he saw had happened in his own times—that is, by tiny worms in bulk, and creatures that scarcely receive the name of living things, such great force was brought, in the likeness of waves (by which they continually followed themselves), that they erased every prepared face and appearance of the region.

For what the palmerworm left, the locust ate; and what the locust left, the cankerworm ate; and what the cankerworm left, the blight ate. If, then, you examine human minds without prejudice and consider vices not yet punished, you will surely find in them the same condition that the wretched plague had brought upon the regions. For it brought in four kinds of corruption that bring misfortunes, joined to one another by a certain affinity—namely, the palmerworm, the locust, the cankerworm, and the blight—and these four we can fittingly apply to those four passions of the mind: hope, joy, fear, and grief. For from these four allurements, though emanating from one origin of motion (namely, that by which we are affected), all evils and diverse misfortunes are brought forth. But let us mark them out by such a division that we refer the palmerworm, which pursues only the green leaves of trees, and the locust, which advances by leaps rather than by steps, to hope and joy—sinning, no doubt, by a kind of leaping of their own; but on the other hand, the cankerworm and the blight, which consume by lying in wait and clinging fast without any eagerness for work, we separate for panic and grief. When, therefore, we see someone sinning through the things that are called pleasant, so as to be a stranger to moderation and shame, and after he has corrupted the ornaments of honesty, to submit even his patrimony and his life to shameful acts, we may well exclaim: What the palmerworm left, the locust ate.

But when you turn your attention to the other man, one so enslaved to sloth that he thinks there is no freedom at all, and who, though he himself exults in no cloak of serious dignity, if the wickedness of some superior catches him even when he wishes to hide, and demands him as either helper or minister of his crimes, or at least, when he tries to refuse, threatens him with some evil or some inconvenience, then at once you will see him go to serve even greater crimes than you had thought, and say with the prophet: What the locust left, the bruchus ate, and what the bruchus left, the rubigo ate. According to this rule, then, if we direct the keen edge of our sight over the whole life of mortals, we find that in different affairs, but in almost all their pursuits and times, we may fittingly apply these exclamations of the prophet. For by such a multiplication of vices it has been brought about that not only the grass and the sprouts, as if the generosity of nature, should perish, but the very fruits of the vineyards and the olive trees and the fig trees—which had surely been established by the gifts of religion—are corrupted, and the oaks too.

When, therefore, you have seen even those established under the Christian name, and rejoicing in the adoption of the sacraments, nevertheless having no care for virtues—indeed, the very ministers of the altar serving only ambition and luxury—then, in pity and indignation, cry out: He has made my vineyard a desert, and stripped my fig tree; he has laid it bare and cast it away: its branches have become white, the wine is confounded, the olive has languished, the farmers are confounded because the harvest of the field has perished. But this state of the churches, such as we see especially in this present storm, kindles that indignation of God which the prophet trembled at, that is, The great day of the Lord is, and very terrible, and who shall endure it? But by what gathering he is brought forth who cannot be endured, let us hear.

Verses 12–14. — Now therefore says the Lord: Be converted to me with your whole heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning, And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and be converted to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient, and abundant in mercy, and ready to spare beyond calamity. Who knows if he may turn and forgive, and leave a blessing behind him, a sacrifice and a libation to the Lord your God? Therefore, considering the array of severity with which the eternal Lord, going forth to take vengeance, is surrounded, check your minds from desperation, and by the working of a better hope know that he has terrified you not from a desire to rage, but to spare.

For he did not sound forth with such manifold crashing of stirred-up visitation, having forgotten his kindness, but so that he might stir up in you the disposition of fear. Finally, he addresses you by the very voice of things, that you may at last bring sick hearts to him, and binding his medicine to eternal virtues, you may fulfill not only the outward appearance of mourners but the whole affection, and rend your hearts rather than your garments. And when these things are exaggerated, he also elegantly admonished that, since it is the custom of those who mourn to draw their garments away from their breasts, he admonished those also, as if hands were applied to the breasts, that they might be impressed more deeply: and evidently that they should rend not only their garments but even, if it could be done, their very inward parts. He also found a word most suited to the matter at hand: Rend your hearts, and not your garments. Which certainly, beyond the ambition of the mourner, seems to indicate also the discernment of good and evil, and the separation from shameful deeds, by whose mixture they had become foul. Changed, therefore, to a better purpose, they should bewail even the things that were previously done wickedly, since for such there is a cause with the kind and merciful Lord, and one who excels over malice—that is, who willingly grants remission of that calamity which he calls malice, if he sees those whom he had rescued by threatening to be pricked with compunction. Moreover, from the usage of the Scriptures, he assumed as it were the appearance of one who doubts, saying: Who knows if he will turn and forgive, and leave a blessing behind him?

For this is surely inserted by the reverence of the one who judges, whose terror he wishes to be so great that even safe things are feared. But let him leave a blessing behind him, he says for this reason, because above he had said that the foul force of want would be brought in by the devastating locusts, so that after their passing the land would remain like a desert wilderness. Therefore now he says: Offer tears, offer groans. Perhaps the power of the announced punishment will be delighted by such sacrifices, so that if it has diminished the supply, it may not also consume the nourishment. And let him leave behind him a blessing, a sacrifice, and a libation to the Lord our God. Through the offering he has responded to what was said before. For above he had said that the magnitude of want would come to such a point that sacrifice and libation would perish from the house of the Lord; here therefore, since he was claiming the hope of consolation for those corrected and repentant, he added that he would leave a blessing, which serves the libations and the altar.

Vers. 15–17. — Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a assembly. Gather the people, sanctify the church, assemble the elders, gather the little ones, and those sucking the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber, and the bride from her bridal bed. Between the vestibule and the altar the priests, the ministers of the Lord, shall weep, and shall say: Spare, Lord, spare your people: and do not give your inheritance to reproach, that the nations may rule over it. Why do they say among the peoples, Where is their God?

It is characteristic of the prophets not to observe times, or what are called kinds of words, with anxious care in their inflection; otherwise, content to have fulfilled the sense, they use, as it were, chance expressions. Hence also now, when he had said, Let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber, and the bride from her bridal bed, he added, Between the vestibule and the altar the priests shall weep, instead of saying, let the priests weep. For content with the office of a censor, he was not curious about modes; or certainly, to show that his exhortation was effective, he said they would take care, because he had commanded them to do it. Between the vestibule, therefore, and the altar, he says, sound the assembly of those who lament: and you, the chief priests, to whom the custody of the sacred rites has been delegated, with faces wet with tears, cry out: Spare, Lord, spare your people, and do not allow those whom you have decreed to possess by hereditary right now to become a curse and a contempt to the profane nations by which we are surrounded; and if nothing else, let this at least plead for us with your clemency, that we cannot perish without insult to you. Therefore, do not allow the nations to say, Where is their God?—you who have willed that we be believed and called your servants and sons, not only by creating but also by adopting us—the God in whom they were wont to rejoice as their defender.

After he had set this forth in the office of a teacher, he immediately promises, with the confidence of one prophesying, that the prayers of the people had been effective, and that the Lord, as it were stirred by zeal for their cause, had undertaken the defense of the faithful.

Verse 18. — The Lord, he says, has been zealous for his land, and has spared his people. He says that, looking to what befitted his own dignity, he acted so that the nation which was reckoned specifically by his own name should not perish as though it lacked a defender; and he kept it from despair, and filled it with the hope of gladness. From his answer, then, there follows:

Verses 19–20. — Behold, I will send you grain, wine, and oil, and you shall be filled with them, and I will no longer give you as a reproach among the nations. And I will put far from you him who is from the North, and I will drive him into a land pathless and desert, his face toward the eastern sea, and his rear toward the farthest sea; and his stench shall rise, and his rot shall rise. Indeed, blessed Jeremiah and the other prophets say that the Assyrians and Chaldeans will come from the North. And here, therefore, the Assyrian could be understood, unless, as I noted above, it were established that other regions also were brought upon the profaned people, according to what he had ordained in Deuteronomy.

Accordingly, following the established order, let us take the locusts and the bruchus, whose removal the appeased Lord promises; and he added this, indeed, to the grace and sweetness of the deliverance, that he commanded those swarms to fall in the desert, lest the magnitude of the stench arising from the carcasses bring disease upon the inhabitants. Therefore their stench and rot shall ascend there, because it acted proudly; and by pronouncing that it acted proudly, he expressed not a vice of the mind but the magnitude of the calamity.

Verses 21–23. — Fear not, O land, exult and rejoice: for the Lord has magnified himself to do. Fear not, you beasts of the region: for the beautiful things of the desert have sprouted, for the tree has brought forth its fruit, and the fig tree and the vine have given their strength. And you children of Zion, exult and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you a teacher of righteousness. Consequently the word is directed, as it were, to the whole region, so that a renewed fertility may be promised to it, to which desolation had been announced. And the word runs through the same kinds through which it had also passed under adversity. It says, then, that the mountains are to be clothed with pastures, that the leafy face is to return to the woods, that the fig tree and the vines offer the gifts of their fruitfulness. For this is what he called their strength, which, since all things are handed over to the use of men, he rightly added: And you children of Zion, exult and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he has given you a teacher of righteousness. He has crowned the preceding admonitions altogether with a full sentence of instruction.

which, after the driving away of hardships and the most longed-for successes of prosperity, joys should be taken up by the people—but he marked out from what part they ought most especially to do so: not, certainly, because they should eagerly desire things to be enjoyed, but because they would find the teacher of Justice. And, he says, ye children of Zion exult, and rejoice in the Lord your God: because he has given you the teacher of justice. He is indeed, he says, merciful, and one who by one virtue of succoring drives away sorrows, and by a second bestows them; but you, my people, ought most especially to exult in that by which you surpass the other nations: because, namely, you have received teachers of righteous conduct, by whose instruction you might live both modestly and blessedly. Of what sort is that saying in another prophet: Blessed are we, Israel, because the things that please God are known to us (Baruch 4:4).

Vers. 24, 25. — And he will cause to descend to you the morning and the late rain from the beginning. And so the barns will be filled with grain, and the presses will overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years which the locust, the bruchus, and the blight, and the eruca consumed: my great strength, which I sent among you. Through various species he carries out what he began, and describes the future change from sorrowful things into joyful things. About to promise fertility, he foretold the timely and late rain as about to fall, saying, He will cause the morning and the late rain to descend from the beginning.

What the Septuagint translated not as "in the beginning" but as "as in the beginning," they did to convey the sense: that once the offenses by which the opportunity of the yearly seasons had been, as it were, disturbed are removed, the year may return to its own custom—unless the fields are irrigated by timely or late rains, according to the diversity of seeds. These rains will assuredly produce such great fertility that both your barns and your wine-vats will be overflowed. Therefore what he said—the timely rain and the late rain in the beginning—can be understood thus: that he seems to have indicated the order of benefits, and there is no contradiction in the seeds, as if the rain that is also called late was said to be "in the beginning"; but rather that rain is said to precede the fruitfulness of the crops, and the sense is: I will send the first rain, and afterward the joy of the fruits will follow. When this rain has filled its cultivators with joys and strength, let it pour in forgetfulness of the preceding want, and let it proceed to abolish the traces of distress: so that not only does the trouble of scarcity cease, but even the losses that had preceded are made up. For this is what he said: I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten. Not, of course, that the moments of time, but that the fruitfulness of the years, should be restored. It must also be noted that God called his strength both the great caterpillar and the locust: certainly not because worms of this kind are in any way referred to God's coeternal power, but because by their ministry and devastation they fulfilled the office of vengeance for the affliction of the guilty.

The very smallness of the caterpillars and locusts shows the power of the Creator and Avenger: when he decreed to crush peoples, he does not use the teeth of any beasts, nor poisons, but through the locust and the blight he consumes kingdoms that were wealthy a little before. And therefore it is called the power of God, whose sentence it fulfilled like a vigorous lictor.

When, then, the desired fertility has repaired the losses of those times, he says: [Verses 26–27.] And you shall eat and be satisfied, and you shall praise the name of the Lord your God, who has done marvelous things for you: and my people shall not be put to shame forever. And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and I am the Lord your God, and there is no other: and my people shall not be put to shame forever. It comes from the prophetic custom that, whenever he has promised things that are joyful, he also declares that they will remain forever. We ought to take this either under the condition alone that is celebrated in the Scriptures, that is: if they persist in the pursuits of uprightness, then even prosperity will remain; or certainly, that in accordance with the office of the prophet he always joins something from the bread of the one who wishes it. But a sense can be introduced to which indeed the very course of his speech alludes. For he had already said above: Children of Zion, exult and rejoice in the Lord your God, because he has given you a teacher of righteousness.

Although this can be understood in many ways, nevertheless, as far as the reckoning of the times is concerned, it seems to point specifically to the blessed Hezekiah: that he burned with great zeal for the worship of God, the record of the annals discloses, and his person as king, as especially the prophet Isaiah shows, seems chosen to signify a greater matter. Therefore let us transfer the things done through Hezekiah to the affairs of our Redeemer, so that what was then fulfilled in a modest measure may be seen to have gained immense heaps under the Gospel. For he is the true teacher of righteousness in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2), who was handed over for our transgressions and rose again for our justification (Rom. 4), so that, justified freely through his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 2), we might both be freed from ancient errors and be subjected to the sun of righteousness alone; and driving away all past scarcity of saving things with new fertility, we might be filled both with teaching and with abundance, as the Gospel promises: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added and given to you (Matt. 6). And so the people of his acquisition will not be crushed forever, the people that rests upon the sentence of the Redeemer: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age (Ibid. 28).

Therefore, with that leader dwelling in their midst, the companies of the faithful stand always secure and eager; and whatever adversities they have endured in their struggles, they perceive them to be so antiquated by the prosperity that follows, that they seem to have come forth only for the commendation of the joyful.

Vers. 28, 29. — And it shall be after these things: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. But also upon my servants and my handmaids, in those days I will pour out my spirit. The blessed Peter mentions this passage in the Acts of the Apostles, saying that this prophecy was fulfilled at that time when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles (Acts 2). It must be noted, therefore, that the Apostle took from the context of the prophetic speech only that which was suited to his own time, namely: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. For since the Apostles had obtained the knowledge of tongues by a miracle, the teacher of the Church shows that this foretold outpouring of the Spirit, and he called the knowledge of tongues a prophecy: which, although it discoursed not of future things but of the recent mysteries of the Lord's incarnation, nevertheless would not have happened except by the power of the Holy Spirit. But not at all content to have made mention only of the gifts, he adds also those things which looked to a display of terror.

Verses 30–31. — I will give signs in heaven and on earth: blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes: and everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so, through that whole continuous sequence, he hastens to persuade them that, since the day of the Lord—that is, the time of the final judgment—is to come with such power and crash that the stars, trembling and stricken, will make this whole fabric, as it were, burst apart, and faith alone will be what protects the companies of the pious when the world collapses, they ought to believe the Gospel if they desire to attain salvation. Therefore, since blessed Peter had taken on the care not of explaining the prophet but of preaching the Gospel, he seized from his words only as much as was useful to him; nor by this did he in any way abrogate that explanation which the context of the prophetic work provides. We give this brief reminder so that the audacity of those may be rejected who rashly and ignorantly contend that the prophet indicated only that time of which the Apostle Peter spoke—when, I say, the whole context of the work teaches that it embraces first the times of the Jewish people, and then indeed our own times as, so to speak, their culmination.

Just as, therefore, it does not prejudice the prophetic meaning, when transferred to the business of the Gospel, that the whole volume follows Jewish history, so also—indeed far more—in the case of a reader who is at any rate learned, the sequence of events is never allowed to discredit the truth, if any proclamation concerning the Gentiles can be applied to the affairs of those who believe.

Let us see, then, how the tenor of what is, as it were, a historical explanation proceeds. We gather that the holy Joel prophesied under the blessed Ezechias; in the age of this king both grievous conflicts and mighty miracles arose. Among the other disasters by which even the ten Tribes are read to have been afflicted down to their deportation, certain cities also, from the allotments of Judah and Benjamin, fell; and we find that the Jews labored under disease and want as well. Finally, when Rabsaces addressed the besieged and announced destruction unless they surrendered at once to the king of Assyria, he also foretells that they must endure the evils of famine and thirst. And for this reason, therefore, the merciful Lord promises them that, with sorrowful things changed to glad things, the losses of scarcity also will be made up. But let us hear what sequence of events and times he has set forth. I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. But also upon servants and handmaids in those days I will pour out my spirit, and I will give portents in heaven above. For the promise is furnished by the prophetic mouth.

For after he has run through the advantages of the present life, he joined to them the marks of spiritual things, in which above all the people of God were especially glorified. Accordingly he promises in order that, besides these bodily goods, as we have said, they will also be about to receive the ornaments of revelations and obtain an abundance of spiritual gifts. Therefore, in what he says, "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh," he signified both sexes and every varied age. Then follows, "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." That is, by different kinds of revelations they will see the things that are to come. But also "upon servants and handmaids I will pour out my spirit," that is, from these marks of holiness neither any age nor any condition that is thought vile will be excluded. Moreover, even upon servants, if they are found capable of such gifts, this sacred flood will pass. All these things are said to be fulfilled in the times of blessed Hezekiah, as it were only in the first degree. For because, when dangers pressed in, he was constrained into grave straits, and against hope he was defended by religion alone against neighboring nations, therefore the prophet describes that very time with great effort and under a like figure, namely to express the power of God, by whose help the city could emerge from so great a flood. According to which sense, the discourse of our prophet ran in an ordered manner.

For besides the consolation of returning abundance, he also promised the gifts of the Spirit, that is, the distinguished marks of revelations, by which that people might be shown to belong especially to God; and therefore they ought to have confidence amid adversities, since one who was dear and even precious to God could not perish vilely. Moreover, with the prophet himself, of whom we speak, attesting it, we gather that even through dreams, as it were by lesser and more familiar oracles, something was shown that was of value for consolation. On the occasion of this passage, indeed, it seems necessary to distinguish what we read in Deuteronomy, that is, that we should not believe in dreams. For how are dreams now referred to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, if there faith in them was utterly abrogated? From this it appears that, since both statements are of equal authority, a distinction must be applied by reason, and so to speak, if the case of the dreamer is consistent: so that just as those things are to be revered because of their merits, so these are to be weighed by their own measures; let us understand that some assistance came about through dreams. But if no testimony is present that either the time or the person deserves, the images of dreams are to be despised by legal authority.

But let us hear what he has already said at length. I will give, he says, portents in heaven and on earth, blood and fire and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes; and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. It is a prophetic custom that whenever God is announced either to defend or, rising in indignation, to avenge, the face of the heavens is changed and the elements themselves are described as trembling. Such is that passage in blessed David, who, fleeing the onset and appearance of the heavenly champion, says: Smoke rose up in his anger, and fire from his face blazed forth, coals were kindled by him, he bowed the heavens and came down, and the rest. According to this manner, then, as we have said, the prophet, in the custom of the law, even now before the time of the punishment to be brought from heaven, sets forth beforehand in nature the elements to be penetrated by fires, the stars to be clothed in smoke or in blood. Not that these things were brought about exactly as they are spoken, but either because such an array of the heavens would be fitting for the leader, or because his sentence would bring about so easy an effect, as if the stunned world and the rushing elements were bringing it to pass: because in the end such anxiety would seize the minds of the guilty as if the fabric of the heavens were being dissolved, and the moon were turning to blood, the earth to ashes, the stars growing black.

For what was to be feared as happening to their minds is narrated as though it were befalling the elements themselves; for that final and single convulsion is believed to be brought upon either the lands or the stars at the very end of the world. But in that time of the prophet about whom we are discoursing, it was not upon heaven and earth, as I said above, that some such disturbance fell, but upon the minds of the guilty, as upon the sun. Since we have grasped its appearance and manner, let us also investigate the sequence of the narrative.

He proclaims, then, all those things which are read to have been fulfilled in the times of blessed Hezekiah. For since the ten tribes had already been transferred to the fields of the Medes, the Assyrian army burst into the territory of Judah; and when Sennacherib was besieging other cities, he sent to Jerusalem a certain Rabshakeh with a great part of his forces, to entice the peoples to surrender, as we had begun to say above, in the Hebrew tongue, of which he was skilled; those who were in charge of the walls began earnestly to request that he speak in the Syrian tongue and not in Hebrew. Then Rabshakeh added the weight of the greatest terror, asserting that he had brought the greatest disasters and destruction, not upon a few families, but upon the entire nation, unless it accepted his rule.

By these threats both blessed Hezekiah and the rest of his people were so shattered that they turned to the prophet Isaiah with a whole flood of tears, saying: The children have come even to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring forth—that is, they had come into such a constriction of spirit as they would feel at the time of childbirth, when children are brought forth, if there were no strength in the one giving birth. Under that dread, therefore, of imminent peril, with Hezekiah and the Jews thus placed, the Sun was surely seen turned to darkness and the Moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord should come, which would transfer that mass of cruel destruction away from the people of the Jews and turn it upon the Assyrians by a sudden power. He therefore called the day of the Lord great and terrible, not because it was grievous to the faithful, but because it was to be revered for the majesty of its work.

Then follows: And it shall be: everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be salvation. On that mountain, I say, on which the crushing of the worm had promised almost no defense a little before; in that city, I say, which had conceived its peoples for freedom, like a weak mother the children to be brought forth into this world—indeed, which, destitute of the strength to give birth, threatened its offspring with certain exile—so glorious a defense suddenly appeared that apart from it there was nowhere certain salvation. And it shall be: everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Because in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be salvation, as the Lord says, and in the remnant whom the Lord has called. But all these things, which were accomplished with the highest praise of our God as champion, are taught to have been fulfilled more abundantly in spiritual gifts at the time of the Lord's Incarnation: so that even those miracles which came before in the times of the fathers seem to have had not only a historical but also a prophetic force: since they were of value for the signification of those things which would be rendered long afterward. For thus at the time of the Lord's Passion, when the author of life was entering upon a most bitter death, an unforeseen night removed the middle of the day. From the sixth hour, it says, there was darkness until the ninth hour (Matt. 27): so that what the dark portent took away from the splendor of inborn light seemed to look to the office either of one grieving or of one fearing: because they would not look upon the insult to the Creator, or the crime of the Jews, before the great and terrible day of the Lord should come: that is, before the glory of the resurrection should shine forth: or certainly that day which our Lord in the Gospel set forth, as it were, under a twofold narration. For when He was setting forth the signs of the last time, He first described the exile of the Jerusalemites, and the calamities with which the region of the Jews would be filled.

Just as therefore there he joined the end of the world to the destruction of Jerusalem, so also all this shaking of the elements and stars in the prophet will be fully accomplished at the end of the world: when, as Blessed Peter says, the heavens burning will pass away with a great rush, and the elements will be melted by the heat of fires. For then faith alone will protect its own, and whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Because in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be salvation, as the Lord said, and in the remnant whom the Lord has called. The heavenly Jerusalem, he says, which is the mother of the pious, all who will pass over to eternal joys will be enrolled in its municipality; yet all of us are called the remnant, because many are called but few are chosen. But let us look also at the rest.

CHAPTER III.

Verses 1-3. — Because behold, in those days and at that time, when I shall have turned back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will dispute with them there concerning my people and my inheritance Israel, whom they scattered among the nations, and they divided my land. And upon my people they cast lots, and they set a boy in a brothel, and they sold a girl for wine that they might drink. Having ended that which had extended at length

he returns, by a digression of meaning, to the times from which he had begun the prophecy, and dwells upon the things which he sees are soon to be fulfilled: either so that by the attention given to them he may confirm also the end of those things which he promised would come long afterward; or so that he may show that he has not laid aside his zeal for giving counsel, through the very fact that he has taken up the vehemence of the prophet; as if he were saying: If those things which are to come at some time are summoned by the reckonings of their own time, let us now carry out what is pressing and imminent. For indeed the ten Tribes have already migrated, carried off by the Assyrian, and the hostile army ravages the lot of Judah, and no hope of strength remains by which we might resist. I announce therefore that now above all a champion will come forth, and will drive back the captivity of his people—namely, of Judah—which already seemed to be hanging over them, and after the despair of its salvation he will bring about the glory of vengeance which is celebrated throughout the whole world. For when the multitude of Assyria has gathered for the siege of the Jerusalemites, let us so make them, he says, subject to punishment, that they may seem not so much stirred up for war as brought forth for a tribunal.

When, therefore, I begin to set in motion the dispute in the valley of Josaphat, I will repay the Assyrians and the various enemies what they deserve, so that the destroying ruin sent in may consume even the foremost of them, and the people left behind may be subject to the evils of captivity; and the sons of my people who sold them into slavery or shame, may themselves also suffer the judgments of the traders; and may they feel what sort the fruits of their past audacity are, who, for this reason—that they recently overran my fields—suffer the harshest dividers of their own fields.

Vers. 4–8. — But what have you to do with me, Tyre and Sidon, and all the border of the Palestinians? Will you render vengeance to me, and do you take vengeance against me? Swiftly, speedily I will repay the recompense to you upon your own head. For you took my silver and my gold, and you brought my desirable and most beautiful things into your shrines. And you sold the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, so that you might remove them far from their borders. Behold, I will raise them up from the place in which you sold them, and I will turn your recompense upon your own head. And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the sons of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a distant nation, because the Lord has spoken. The iniquity and hatred of the neighbors by whom the Jews were surrounded was often revealed even by a slight occasion. For since they could not attack the Jews with their own strength, they joined themselves to the armies of greater enemies.

Accusing their crime in this song, he says: "The tabernacle of the Idumeans, and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagarenes, Gebal and Ammon, and Amalek, and the foreigners with the inhabitants of Tyre. For Assur also came with them: they became a support for the sons of Lot" (Psalm 82). According to this custom, therefore, the neighboring nations had mixed their forces with the Assyrians to overthrow Zion, and the censure of the divine word fits them, and it demands from them, as it were, the reason for such an injury. Next, indeed, he responds to the bread of the convicted and the silent, lest perhaps they have taken up the memory of past grief: namely, when the sons of Israel, having gone out from Egypt under the leadership of Joshua son of Nun, entered the land of Promise and possessed it as handed over to them by fixed measurements. "Have you, then," he says, "prepared that time to take vengeance with a rebellious spirit? And, as if an opportunity had been found, do you strive to recover the occupied territories? But if a meditation of this kind has stirred you up, the vengeance rushing upon you will convict both your weakness and your profanity. For not only will you be able to change nothing of the ancient decrees, but you will be placed under the power of those very ones whom you think are being oppressed by your conspiracies." Moreover, he enumerates three various kinds of the evils of captivity, which are brought in, surely, according to the judgments of the guilty.

And therefore, when he had said that they had carried off gold and silver in the greed of plunderers, he added: "and you have brought my desirable things and my most beautiful things into your shrines," so as to signify either the remaining furnishings or various necklaces. Along with these, with the ornaments of houses, you also sold the pledges of the wretched; and what grief this brings to bereaved parents, you will feel by the repayment of retribution. For since he whose judgments you attempt to tear apart is avenging, the time will come when not only will the Jews obtain the joys of liberation, but we too may feed on the pleasure of vengeance, and they will sell your sons not to neighboring peoples (from whom they might hope for a return), but to the peoples of Saba, which Gentile literature has called Meroe. All of this, indeed, seems to have been fulfilled either immediately after the departure of the Assyrians, or after the return from the Babylonian captivity, in the times of the Maccabees. But it must be noted that not all the things that were done in those times are probably transferred to spiritual understanding, that is, to the signification of the evangelical gift, just as the other things we mentioned a little earlier about the shaking of the stars, the magnitude of the prodigies, and the outpouring of gifts: these both happened in those times and are believed to have been more fully fulfilled, and to be yet to be fulfilled, under the Lord's passion or at his final judgment. Not, then, I say, in that way are all the things that the prophet has added below joined to spiritual understanding.

For whom shall we suppose the Tyrians and Sidonians to be, or the remaining borders of the Palestinians that surround them, beyond the simple understanding, so as to imagine that they sold the children of the faithful? But if, because they enticed them into vices, we imagine that they even handed them over for sale, how will he threaten them with the same recompense in return, so that we, that is, might hand over their children to the Sabean merchants in exchange for their wares? Therefore that rule of understanding must be held, that when the discourse proceeds according to the simple tenor of its institutions, it sometimes sounds forth, through digressions suited to prophecy, things that can also correspond to future mysteries. But when the office has again been completed, the matter is brought back to the purpose of its own time, and proceeds by consequence, whether of threatening or of exhortation. Hence also the blessed Joel, after he indicated by the impulse of prophesying things that would come even in the last ages—but briefly—returns to the reckoning of his own time; and having threatened destruction to the neighboring enemies, he goes on to explain those joys which he had seen were already approaching, so that they may give credibility to those who will come long afterward, and so that he may pour into those for whom he prepares consolation the delight that is to be received. But he substitutes a display, as he had arranged, for the things to be announced.

Verses 9–12. — Cry this out among the nations, sanctify war, rouse the strong; let them come, let all the men of war go up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your mattocks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong. Break forth and come, all you nations round about, and gather yourselves together: there the Lord shall make your strong men fall. And let the nations arise and go up into the valley of Josaphat. With what great eagerness for war they would go up to the overthrow of Judah, he expressed by the image of this exhortation, which contains the force of judgment. Every, he says, cultivator of fields has seized arms, and they have changed their sickles into swords and their plowshares into javelins. Some also, refusing the business of war either through weakness of body or through the prejudice of old age, nevertheless ran of their own accord to battle: evidently because of the multitude of troops which both the Assyrian prince of war and the remaining petty and neighboring enemies were drawing along, supposing that they would obtain an undoubted victory; you who surely know the deep counsel of our champion. For when, he says, all your multitude has assembled at the valley of Josaphat, that is, at the siege of Jerusalem, with a proud and fierce spirit, then a just destruction will turn upon you. And because you have directed insults against me in such a way as you were accustomed to hurl weapons at those who met you, from that source you will tremble, that is, you will feel exile, from a source from which you could by no means suspect it at all.

That is, no battle lines will labor to raise standards against you, nor will any shout of fighters resound; otherwise you will all fall in one night, when the Angel strikes, and as men incapable of a great contest, with a certain contempt and mockery, the night-time and once pleasant rest will hand you over, deceived, to eternal sleep.

Verses 13–16. — Peoples, peoples in the valley of cutting: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of cutting; the Sun and Moon have been darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their splendor. And the Lord will roar from Zion, and from Jerusalem will give his voice. And the heavens and the earth will be moved, and the Lord is the hope of his people, and the strength of the sons of Israel. Rightly, he says, is the place called the valley of Jehoshaphat, the valley of cutting: for as the enemies supposed, there the cutting of the Judeans was to take place. But because a profane hope failed them, and the sentence of vengeance was directed against them, this valley will be named the valley of cutting, but of Assyria: when hostile forces had first gathered there, such anxiety and dread seized those shut up in Jerusalem that not even the great stars shone for them. But when the Almighty champion took up the work of avenging, those darknesses which anguish of mind created fell upon the minds and eyes of the barbarians: and to take vengeance, our God leaped forth with such majesty that he seemed to have uttered not only a shout like battling commanders, but even certain roars and bellowings.

Their strength and greatness, indeed, not only the hearts of men but not even the elements themselves could set forth. For he says: The Lord will roar from Zion, and from Jerusalem he will give his voice; and the heavens and the earth will be moved. And the Lord is the hope of his people, and the strength of the sons of Jerusalem. There will come about, therefore, as we have said, this conversion, so that the darkness which the people of the Jews first experienced, settled not at all upon the stars but upon the hearts of those who fear, thereafter the crowd of enemies may suffer in such a way that even the stars seem to grow dark and the elements to totter. To the sons of Israel, therefore, strength will come, and they, taught by the perils of things, will know that their God is the lord of the whole earth, who nevertheless on Mount Zion deigns to dwell because of his exceeding mercy.

Vers. 17. 18. — And Jerusalem will be holy, and strangers will no longer pass through it. And it will be in that day: the mountains will drip sweetness, and the hills will flow with milk, and through all the streams waters will go. The face, he says, of the whole region will be changed from sorrowful things to joyful ones. And since it is the peculiar distinction of our people that it be called holy, not only the Temple but also the entire walls of the city will admiration of prosperous things make so reverend that no profane person is believed able to approach it.

A pleasant freedom will be followed by abundant fertility, so that honey may seem to flow not only from beehives and trees but from the mountains themselves, and every torrent may be changed into the grace of spring-fed streams, so that, of course, they do not lose the abundance of their flowing waters. This new felicity of veins, he says, they will obtain from that fountain which bursts forth from the inner recesses of the house of God. All these things are certainly said either by way of exaggeration, or because the people, rejoicing in recovered health, experience such feelings: so that just as above, when things were sad and at the final crisis, the stars seemed to be darkened and the elements to tremble, so again, by an outpouring of joy, to the drunken milk may seem to flow from the rocks, honey from the mountains, torrents to be heaped up with springs, and with various flowers not only the meadows but even the rocks to blossom; and a fountain will also go forth from the house of God, which waters the torrent of thorns, that is, makes places that were occupied by briars suitable for cultivation, through the fact that it continually supplies the measure of its irrigation.

Here begins this passage, in which the felicity of Jerusalem is proclaimed, and also the sacraments of the Church, which has endured both the assault of the hostile power and the persecution of Jews and Gentiles alike, yet with all these things flowing away to nothing like water, it has prevailed in a wondrous manner and, as a vine, has spread out and advanced to the ends of the earth; and with the profanity of idols crushed, it has grown strong, and has taken its seat, as it were, on a throne of received dominion with narrow dignity; and as far as the rules of its instruction are concerned, it is so fortified by the holiness of the precepts that no outsider—that is, no profane or criminal person—can pass through it. What wonder! Since Christ gave himself for it, that he might present to himself a church not having spot or wrinkle (Eph. 5), but that it should stand holy and immaculate to him. This virgin, therefore, consecrated to the fellowship of the eternal king, is separated—as in the present by the instruction of the virtues from all the wicked, so in the future age by the felicity of rewards—so that no one may rest in those tabernacles except the one who enters without blemish (Ps. 14) and works righteousness. For him, then, whose citizenship has fallen to him in that eternal felicity, he will be so inebriated with the abundance of the house of God (Ps. 35) that he will drink from a kind of torrent of holy pleasure, and will perceive that pain and sorrow have alike fled away.

That blessedness, just as it will be conferred in full at the time of the resurrection, so also in this life the apostles and their disciples obtained the greatest part of it for themselves—they who spoke true things. For when they were beaten by persecutors, they rejoiced, because they had been deemed worthy to suffer insult for the name of Christ (Acts 5). From these lofty mountains of saving teachings, then, we see that honey flowed. For, as the prophet bears witness, the words of God are sweet to the mouths of the pious, beyond the sweetness of honey and the honeycomb (Psalm 18). From the hearts of the apostles, I say, life-giving streams flowed out to the world, and from the thorn-bushes into which they had fallen, I was making fields painted with flowers and laden with fruits. Why not? Since they received abundance from that fountain, from which whoever drank would thirst no more, but rivers of living water would flow from his belly (John 14). Through these increases of gifts, therefore, conspicuous to the summit of felicity, he promises the sweetness of vengeance. Verse 19. — Egypt, he says, shall be in desolation, and Idumea in a desert of perdition, because they acted wickedly against the sons of Judah. And they shed innocent blood in their land. The prophet has concluded his discourse at the prophecy of his own time. And just as above he announced to the Tyrians and Sidonians a reversal of calamity, so now he threatens the Egyptians and Idumeans for the same crimes. This indeed we will be able to transfer to the business of the Church by this reasoning, if we name the Idumeans and Egyptians as cruel and dark souls. Verses 20–21.

And Judaea shall be built up forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. And I will cleanse their blood which I had not cleansed, and the Lord will dwell in Zion. When the Assyrians, he says, and the other peoples who had joined arms with them have been destroyed by a wondrous vengeance, the inhabitants of Zion shall increase in all their hopes and deeds, and they shall take up the care of religion and, with me as their protector, become distinguished. And just as we read that this was accomplished in part under Hezekiah, so also we proclaim that it was fulfilled more abundantly under the mediator of God and men. For he died for our sins and rose again for our justification (Rom. 4), so that, justified by faith, we might have peace with the Lord; who promised that he would dwell in the midst of the city of Zion, saying, Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the age (Matt. 28).