Commentariorum In Micheam Prophetam Libri Duo

Again, in the place where I and Aquila translated it, "in his spears," with "of the land of Nimrod" understood, Symmachus rendered it "within his gates"; Theodotion, "in their gates"; the Fifth Edition, "in their daggers," as we might say. In the Hebrew, however, is placed BAPHETHEE. At that time, then, there will be peace, when the remnant of the brothers of Christ have been converted to the children of Israel, and the Assyrian has come into our land, and, aided by the Lord, we shall swiftly crush beneath our feet the one who wished to trample our houses. For the Lord himself says: "We will raise up against him seven shepherds, and eight leaders of men," or "bites of men." But "we will raise up"—I and my Son and the Holy Spirit—according to that which is written in Genesis: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." And at the beginning of Obadiah: "Arise, and let us go up against her in battle." The seven shepherds I consider to be all the patriarchs and prophets and holy men who served the week, that is, the Old Testament. But the eight bites of men, or eight leaders of men, and, as Symmachus translated it, "anointed ones," are all those of the New Testament who from the apostles down to this present age have bitten the Assyrian and torn him with their teeth. Whence also in Ecclesiastes it is commanded: "Give a portion to seven, and also give to eight.

And in the temple of Ezekiel, which is interpreted as the Church and the heavenly Jerusalem, one ascends by seven and eight steps (Ezek. 40). And in the Psalter there are fifteen steps, by which we climb the hebdomad and the ogdoad to sing praises to God. On the eighth day the spiritual circumcision is celebrated, and in the temple of the Jews the sabbath is destroyed, and certain psalms are inscribed "for the Octave." Therefore these seven shepherds and eight bites of men will feed Assur with the sword. For the living and effective word of God, and sharp above every two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12), was sent by him who came to send a sword upon the earth, so that two may be divided into three (Matt. 10). And they will feed the land of Nimrod (which is interpreted as "temptation descending") in his pit; for the land of the giant and hunter and of him who is proud against the Lord is not on the mountains but in the pits. This one fell like lightning from heaven, and is always occupied among the beasts; and because he is a hunter, he ranges through the fruitless trees and the forests. As far as I can recall in my memory, I have never read of a hunter in a good sense. Ishmael and Esau were hunters (Gen. 16 and 27), and they went before as a type of the Jewish people, of whom one is the son of the Egyptian woman, walking according to the flesh and living according to the flesh; the other lost his birthright for a lentil dish, and envying his brother's blessings, put him to flight into Mesopotamia. Therefore the land of Nimrod is brought down into its pits: for he who digs a pit will fall into it (Prov.

(26:27); and he who opened a pit and dug it out will fall into the pit he made, and his sorrow will return upon his own head, and his iniquity will descend upon his own crown (Ps. 7:16–17). And when the Assyrian has been pierced through by seven shepherds and eight bites, Christ has freed us from the hand of Assur, who had come up against our land and desired to trample the borders of Israel. But as for what Symmachus says—"And they shall pasture the land of Assur with the sword, and the region of Nimrod within its gates"—this is to be understood as meaning that the strong man is bound in his own house, and the adversary is wounded. And according to Aquila and the Fifth Edition, by the daggers and lances of the seven shepherds and the eight anointed men he is pierced through.

(And the following verses.) "And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples, like dew from the Lord, and like drops upon the grass, which does not wait for man, and does not look for the sons of men. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forests, and like a lion's cub among the flocks of sheep, which, when it has passed through and trampled down and seized, there is none to rescue. Your hand shall be exalted over your enemies, and all your foes shall perish. And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that I will take away your horses from your midst, and I will destroy your chariots, and I will destroy the cities of your land, and I will tear down all your fortifications, and I will take away the sorceries from your hand, and there shall be no divinations in you.

And I will make your carved images perish, and your statues from your midst, and you shall no longer adore the works of your hands. And I will uproot your groves from your midst, and I will break down your cities, and I will execute vengeance in fury and indignation upon all the nations that have not heard. The Septuagint: "And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like dew falling from the Lord, and like lambs upon the grass: so that no one may be gathered together, nor be among the sons of men. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts, in the forest, and like a lion's cub among the flocks of sheep: as when he passes through and dividing seizes, and there is none to rescue. Your hand shall be lifted up over those who afflict you, and all your enemies shall perish. And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, I will slay your horses from your midst, and I will destroy your chariots, and I will overturn the cities of your land: and I will take away all your fortifications. And I will take away your sorceries from your hands, and those who speak shall not be in you: and I will destroy your carved images, and your statues from your midst, and you shall no longer adore the works of your hands: and I will cut down the groves from your midst, and I will demolish your cities, and I will execute vengeance in wrath and in fury upon the nations, because they did not hear.

When we have been freed from Assur, when he comes upon our land and ascends above our borders, and when we have been freed by the Lord who raised up against him seven shepherds and eight bites of men, the remnant of Jacob—whom we understand to be the apostles, and the first Church from among the Jews—will be in the midst of many peoples, like dew falling from the Lord. For the hearts of the peoples were burning with the fiery darts of the devil, and all the nations, committing adultery against God, had hearts like a furnace set ablaze with fire (Hosea 7). Hence the dew falling from the Lord became the healing of the weak. And what we read concerning Ananias, Azarias, and Misael (Daniel 3), that the spirit of the hissing dew extinguished the furnace of fire, let us understand this generally of all: that in the midst of all the nations the teaching of the apostles was like dew from the Lord. But what follows: And like lambs upon the grass, so that no one may be gathered together nor be among the sons of men—let us understand this of those who from among the nations refused to believe, that the apostles and the remnant of Jacob are over them like lambs cropping the grass and cutting down the herb with their teeth. And they will do this so that those who refused to be angels, receiving the spiritual dew, may by no means be gathered together among men nor be reckoned in the rational part, but it may be said of them: They are not in the labor of men, and they will not be scourged with men (Psalm 72:5).

And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations like a lion among the beasts of burden in the forest, and like a lion's cub among flocks of sheep. For the Lord Jesus, of whom it is prophesied in Genesis: Judah is a lion's cub; from the shoot, my son, you have gone up; lying down you slept like a lion and like a lion's cub (Gen. 49:9). And in another place: Lying down he rested like a lion, and like a lion's cub, who shall rouse him (Num. 24:10)? He gave also to his apostles, to whom he had said: Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19): so that just as no one can resist a lion among the beasts of burden, and a lion's cub among the sheep, so they, freed from the hand of Assur and from the hand of the devil, might seize the beasts of burden and the flocks: for the Lord will save men and beasts (Ps. 35). And they would seize them, not to kill them, but to divide them, that is, to separate them from the unbelievers, and there would be none to resist them. But by the lion and the lion's cub, thus among the beasts of burden and among those over whom it ranges, the hand of God is exalted over those who had either God or the remnant of Israel before their tribulation. And all his enemies shall be scattered, not that the enemies perish and cease to be, but because in that they are enemies they perish. As it is written to the Thessalonians: Whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the spirit of his mouth (2 Thess. 2:8). This slaying signifies not annihilation, but the cessation of the most wicked life by which they formerly lived evilly.

Finally he adds: And he will destroy by the splendor of his coming. But he would never destroy, if "slaughter" meant annihilation, since they would have already ceased to exist. So here too the consumption of enemies is to be understood according to the Proverbs of Solomon, in which it is written: Destruction dwells with the impious—it will not be perpetual, it will not reduce them to nothing, but it will dwell with them as long as the impiety that is in them is consumed. For God created man that he should not perish, and he did not make death. After this, it follows: And it shall be in that day, when your hand has been lifted up over your enemies, O Israel, and all your enemies have perished, I will cut off your horses from your midst—that is, the wanton impulses from the principal ( ) of your heart, rushing forth like horses with their reins broken—and your chariots, in which you took pleasure in your vices, and, joining sins to sins, were carried along as if triumphing in a four-horse chariot. And I will destroy the cities of your land—for you did not build the city whose stream gladdens the impulse of God (Ps. 45), the one set upon the mountains (Matt. 5), and the heavenly Jerusalem, but the one Cain had built (Gen. 4). Hence they are called the cities of the land, built by earthly works. And I will take away, he says, all your fortifications—namely your riches, and the pomp of the world, and the eloquence of rhetoricians, and the snares of dialecticians, in which you trusted as though in fortifications.

And I will take away the sorceries from your hands, by which either you yourself were being deceived by others, or being deceived you were deceiving others, and those who speak, or those who pronounce, shall not be yours. Now the world is full of those who speak and pronounce; they speak what they do not know; they teach what they have not learned: they are teachers, when they were not disciples before. When therefore God has taught man knowledge, false presumptions shall cease, and perverse doctrine shall be taken away. And I will destroy your graven images and your titles from the midst of you. Our graven images are those which have been made by those who speak, or which we ourselves fashion for ourselves. Hence it is commanded in the Law (Exod. 20), that we should not make for ourselves a graven image, and that we should not set up titles in our land (Lev. 26): and you shall no longer worship the works of your hands (Deut. 5). Unhappy is the human condition, full of foolishness and error: it knows that doctrines have been composed from its own sense, it does not ignore that an idol has been fashioned by itself, and it worships the works of its hands as God, and man is bowed down, so that being deceived he may deceive. There is added in the promise which is directed to the remnant, that is, to Jacob: And they shall cut down the groves from the midst of you, and I will destroy your cities, so that all the trees of the forests, and the groves which it is forbidden to plant in the temple of God, and the cities evilly built, which he had previously called the cities of the land, he may destroy and consume. But after he has done this for the remnant of Jacob, then he shall turn to the nations which the apostles, like lambs, have grazed as grass.

And because they were unwilling to receive the dew of speech, he says, I will execute vengeance in anger and in fury among the nations, because they were unwilling to hear. Hence also the prophet says: O Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury, nor chastise me in your anger (Psalm 6:1). This has been discussed according to the Septuagint translators, because it is a spiritual understanding, and we ought to join the sense with the preceding chapters. But the Hebrews dream delusions of this kind: after those seven whom they imagine and wish to be shepherds, and eight princes, have conquered the men of the Assyrians, and have fed the land of Nimrod with their swords, and this has happened when the Assyrian came into the land of Judah: then, they say, when Christ comes, all the remnant of Jacob that could have survived among the nations will be in blessing, like dew coming from the Lord, and like rain upon the grass, and they will by no means hope in men and in the sons of men, but in God. And they will be among the nations and peoples bloodthirsty and cruel, and taking vengeance on their former masters, like a lion among the beasts of the forests, and like a lion's cub among the flocks of sheep, and there will be no one who can resist their strength. Then, O God, or O Israel, your hand will be exalted over the Assyrians, and all your enemies and foes, who now possess you, will perish. Namely, in that day, when you have been freed from the nations, I will take away your horses and your chariots, which are in the midst of your cities.

Not that Israel had horses and chariots at that time, but the horses and chariots of the Assyrians that move about in the midst of your cities; and I will destroy all your cities, and the fortifications you dedicated to idols; and I will take away the magicians and soothsayers from your land, and I will cause all your carved images and statues to perish, and you shall no longer adore the works of your hands. I will also uproot and overturn all your groves, and your cities that you dedicated to idols. And when I have done this to you, and have been so appeased that whatever evil is in you is taken away: then also in my fury and indignation I will take vengeance on you from all the nations that were unwilling to hear my word. Let carnal Israel answer at this point, whether it says these things have been done or are yet to come. If it recalls things done, let it produce the history, let it give the authority of the ancient books: let it teach that all nations and the Assyrian were once subject to Israel. But if, pouring itself out in vain hope, it thinks that what is said is yet to come: when Christ shall have come, what idols of Israel will then be taken away, which it does not now worship? what groves will be cut down, which it does not have? what cities will be overthrown, which were overthrown long ago? what soothsayers will be taken away, which, since it does not have them, it should not even boast of having? yet for so long a time the daughter of Zion has been forsaken, and sits without an altar and without priests; and while others eat their fruits, they themselves, with dry throats, promise themselves things to come that they do not know.

(Cap. VI.—Vers. 1, 2.) « Hear what the Lord speaks: Arise, contend in judgment against the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear (Vulg.· Let them hear), O mountains, the judgment of the Lord, and the strong foundations of the earth, because the judgment of the Lord is with his people, and he will be judged with Israel. » LXX: « Hear what the Lord has spoken: Arise, to judge at the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, O mountains, the judgment of the Lord, and ye valleys, the foundations of the earth, because the judgment of the Lord is against his people, and he will be judged with Israel. » For "the strong foundations of the earth," which the LXX interpreted as "and ye valleys, the foundations of the earth," Symmachus and Theodotion translated as "and the ancient foundations of the earth"; but the fifth edition set down the Hebrew itself, ETHANIM, the foundations of the earth. The prophet's first utterance, then, is: Hear what the Lord speaks. Then God speaks to the prophet: Arise, contend in judgment against the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Again the prophet, as he had been commanded, speaks to the mountains, and not only to the mountains but also to the strong foundations of the earth, and says: Hear, O mountains, the judgment of the Lord, and ye strong foundations of the earth. And he gives the reason why he summons them to hear: because the judgment of the Lord is with his people, and he will be judged with Israel.

Instead of the mountains to which the prophet speaks, and instead of the strong foundations of the earth, the Seventy translated hills and valleys, understanding, as it seems to me, that the people had done nothing worthy of the hearing of mountains, but rather of hills, which are lower than the height of mountains, or of valleys sunk down in the depths. Arise, he says, contend in judgment at the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. He is commanded to arise who either sits or lies, or sleeps, or is dead, according to that which the Apostle says: You who sleep, lift yourself up, and rise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you. Rise from the dead, that you may walk in newness of life, that, forsaking the earth, you may strive toward higher things. And contend in judgment against the mountains, which I think signify none other than the angels to whom the administration of human affairs has been entrusted, the Canticle of Deuteronomy agreeing with this same point: When the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the earth according to the number of the angels of God. These are the ministering spirits, sent to minister for the sake of those who are to possess the inheritance once their debts are paid. And contend in judgment, so that whether mountains or hills are found not to have governed the peoples worthily, either it may seem to be my own fault, who appointed such rulers, or the blame may be taken from the people and referred to the princes.

Let us read the Apocalypse of the apostle John, in which the angels of the churches are praised and accused for their virtues and vices, over which they are said to preside. For just as sometimes the fault is the bishop's, sometimes the people's; and often the teacher sins, often the disciple, sometimes it is the father's fault, sometimes the son's, so that they may be either well or badly instructed: so in the judgment of God, the charge will be referred either to the angels, if they have not done all that pertained to their office, or to the people, if, while those did everything, they themselves scorned to listen. There are those who interpret the mountains and hills and the strong foundations of the earth as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the rest of the patriarchs, before whom, as it were auditors and summoned to judgment, the case of the people of Israel is to be threshed out. Others judge the mountains, hills, and valleys to be angels, as we said above, who either serve God in the heavens, or preside over men upon this earth, or, established among the dead, are called the foundations of those who by their own fault proved earthly: concerning which foundations of the earth we find it written elsewhere: Fire is kindled from my fury, and it shall burn down to the lowest hell: it shall devour the earth and its foundations (Deut. 32:22). The strong and ancient foundations of the earth (by reason of which the earth has not yet passed away, and, hanging over the void, stands balanced) are the merits of the righteous, of whom the Apostle speaks: Built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20).

Just as, therefore, the apostles and prophets and the whole chorus of martyrs are the strong foundations of the earth, so according to the Septuagint the valleys and steep places—which in Greek are called more significantly [than in Latin]—are the foundations of those who received the image. The judgment of the Lord, therefore, is with his people, and he will be judged with Israel. He who could, as God, inflict punishments for the crimes of a sinful people does not wish to appear powerful but just, and he summons sinners to judgment, according to that prophetic saying: Come, and let us be judged, says the Lord, and even now he compels the people of Israel, with the angels present and all creation, to answer if they have anything to say, so that God may be justified in his words and prevail when he is judged.

(Verse following.) My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I been troublesome to you? Answer me, because I brought you out of the land of Egypt, and from the house of those serving I freed you, and I sent before your face Moses, and Aaron, and Miriam. My people, remember, I pray, what Balak king of Moab devised against you, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, from Shittim to Gilgal, that you might know the righteous acts of the Lord. Septuagint: My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I grieved you, or in what have I been troublesome to you? Answer me, because I brought you out of the land of Egypt, and from the house of slavery I redeemed you, and I sent before your face Moses, and Aaron, and Miriam.

My people, remember what Balak, king of Moab, devised against you, and what Balaam, son of Beor, answered him, from Shittim to Gilgal: that the righteousness of the Lord might be known. For "righteousnesses," or "righteousness," Symmachus translated as "mercies," and where the Septuagint has "Shittim," all of them rendered the Hebrew SETTIM itself. There is also a place where Balak, king of the Moabites, gathered his army against Israel, [named] for the trees which are even today produced throughout the desert of Mount Sinai. For where the Septuagint has either the ark of the Testament, or the altar and tabernacle, and the other things which are reported to have been made from incorruptible woods, the Hebrew has the woods of Shittim, which resemble the tree that we commonly call white thorn. Whence I think that the Septuagint also translated it as such, that is, lentisk; but that by degrees, through the error of copyists, it came about that they read "funes" (ropes) for "lentiscis" (lentisks). God therefore speaks to the people of Israel, and summons them to judgment, and grants them license to dispute against him. "My people, what have I done to you that I ought not to have done? Or in what have I grieved you?"—although this is not found in the Hebrew. But a father grieves a son who has been scourged, and the shepherd visits the iniquities of the sheep with the rod. "In what was I troublesome to you?" or, as it is written more significantly in the Hebrew, "with what labor did I oppress you?

Will you interpret my benefits as an insult, and, desiring the melons and flesh of Egypt, will you grieve that you were led out of the land of Egypt and freed from the house of bondage by my help, because I gave you as leaders Moses my friend, and Aaron my priest, and Miriam my prophetess? But if this seems small to you, remember that time when Balak king of Moab hired Balaam the diviner against you for a wage, and see how against his own will, desiring to curse you, the soothsayer blessed you (Num. 22): from Shittim to Gilgal, surveying the whole army of Israel with his eyes, and changing places, as though I could not go with the one going and pass over with the one passing over; and this I did, that my mercy and righteousness might be known to you, who love you so much that, though I am daily blasphemed by the mouth of blasphemers, I did not permit you to be cursed by your enemy. The Hebrews expound this passage, where it is said, from Shittim to Gilgal, that you might know the righteousnesses of the Lord (Num. 25), thus: from the time when you committed fornication in Midian, up to the time when Saul was anointed king at Gilgal (1 Kgs. 10), recall in memory what evils you have done, and how many good things I have done for you, and you will know my mercy in these things. This, according to the history, God may have spoken to carnal Israel.

But we who desire with unveiled face to contemplate the glory of the Lord, and truly have Abraham as our father, let us hear God disputing against us when we have sinned, and reproving us by the greatness of his benefits. For we once served Pharaoh, and for the Egyptian people we made bricks from mud and clay; and he redeemed us who gave himself as a ransom for all, so that we who had been redeemed by the Lord might say, whom he redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and whom he gathered from the lands: For his mercy endures forever (Ps. 106:1). He also sent before our face Moses, the spiritual law, and Aaron the great priest, not bearing the typical Ephod and the truth, but having on his forehead the seal of holiness which God the Father sealed. And he sent Mary, the prophecy of the prophets, and not only granted this to us, but also delivered us from the hands of the enemies. For let us consider what he thought against us, who wished to devour and to lick up our assembly, the true Balac, the devil. For Balac is interpreted as, that is, licking, king of the paternal water: since Moab, according to another etymology, is called paternal water.

Since therefore Balac was lying in wait for us, and he was lying in wait through his vain people—which is the meaning of Balaam—God did not permit us to be subject to his curses; but on the contrary he blessed us, compelled by the truth of the matter itself—the vain people of the nations, born from him who is in the skin: for Beor means "in the skin," always devoted to the flesh and the works of death. And the vain people, sprung from him who is wholly in the skin, answered on our behalf—always changing places, or standing upon thorns, or upon cords, so that we may also follow the error of the Vulgate edition. Now thorns, according to the Savior's saying, are the cares of this world, and riches, and pleasures, in which the vain people is caught (Matt. 13; Mark 4). But that it stands in cords—that is, in the bonds of sins; for each one is bound by the cords of his own sins (Prov. 5). And Isaiah is a witness, saying: Woe to those who draw out their sins like a long rope, and their iniquities like the strap of a yoke for a heifer (Isa. 5:18). If therefore it stands, it stands only in thorns and in cords; but if it wishes to go around, it has no stable step, but always fluctuating and wavering, it comes all the way to Galgala, which is interpreted—that is, "rolling" or "of flying things.

If at any time we see certain men rise up against us and thirst for our blood with greedy jaws, and by the unforeseen dispensation of God those who came against us are made to be for us, let us say, Balaam has come from the cords all the way to Galgal, so that the justice of God may be known.

(Verses 6, 7.) «What worthy thing shall I offer to the Lord? Shall I bow the knee to the most high God? Shall I offer him whole burnt offerings and yearling calves? Can the Lord be appeased with thousands of rams, or with many thousands of fat he-goats? Shall I give my firstborn for my wickedness: the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul?» The Septuagint: «With what shall I lay hold of the Lord? Shall I receive my most high God? If I lay hold of him in whole burnt offerings, in yearling calves? May the Lord receive in thousands of rams, or in ten thousands of fat he-goats? If I give my firstborn for my impiety: the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul.» God had summoned the people to judgment: he, knowing his sin, does not wish to contend but to entreat, and yet even in these very prayers he has no confidence. For to me that is worthy which can be offered to God for sin, and no humility can wash away the stains of offenses, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and calves, and whole burnt offerings with marrow, and the blood of rams and fat he-goats to cleanse the filth of the soul (Hebr. X). Shall I, he says, give my firstborn for my wickedness, as King Moab is described as having done (IV Reg. III)?

or the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul, which Jephthah did, offering his daughter because of the rashness of his vow (Judith XI)? We therefore, who are of the people of God, knowing that no living person will be justified in his sight (Ps. CXLII), and saying: I have become like a beast before you (Ps. LXXII, 23), doing penance for our sins, do we doubt and say: How shall I apprehend the Lord, how shall I receive my God on high? How shall I be able to hold him as he flees? With what great purity shall I be able to prepare a lodging for the Trinity? Or shall I apprehend him in whole burnt offerings, so that I may offer myself wholly to him as a burnt offering, or in yearling calves, so that, leaving milk behind and coming to solid food, I may be made worthy of the acceptable year of the Lord? If I offer a thousand rams, if ten thousand he-goats, and, understanding the whole of Leviticus's victims spiritually, I present them in me, and if a thousand fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand (Ps. XC), yet I shall be able to give nothing worthy by which I may apprehend or receive God. If I give my firstborn for my impiety, and the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul, I shall indeed give whatever is first in me, but for my own sin and impiety I shall offer nothing worthy to God. Hence also David prays and says: Wash me more and more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my iniquities, and my offense is always against me (Ps. L, 3).

For the sin of the soul, blood alone is worthily offered; and it is blood—not of calves, not of rams, not of goats—but one's own blood that is worthily offered, as the prophet says, asking: What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? and afterward answering: I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints (Ps. 115:12, 13, 15). Yet even that blood we do not give, but give back. And what comparison is there, when the just one died for sinners, the Son of God for men—that we should not die for the confession of his name, though we are sinners and men?

(Ver. 8.) "I will judge you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: surely to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitously with your God." The Septuagint: "It has been announced to you, O man, what is good, or what the Lord requires of you, except that you do judgment, and love mercy, and be ready to walk with your God." Because you doubt, O people of Israel—nay, the whole human race (for I am by no means speaking to the people of the Jews, but this discourse will run on generally to every man)—how you can appease God for your sins, if you do not even have victims by which your impiety may be compensated: I will answer you what God requires, nay, I have already shown it beforehand in the law.

For it is written in Deuteronomy: And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, except that you fear the Lord your God, and walk in all his ways, and love him, and serve the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul, and keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his ordinances, whatever I command you today, so that it may go well with you? The Lord requires this of us, and having regard for our salvation, he asks to receive what benefits the one who gives it: that we should do judgment—that is, that we should do nothing without reason and counsel, that the mind should first judge what it is going to do and afterward complete it in action; that we should love mercy, and not be merciful as if compelled or out of necessity, since God loves a cheerful giver. Nor should we say, Go today, and come back tomorrow, and I will give you. And when we have done judgment and loved mercy, what reward will we receive? We will walk with the Lord God, as Enoch walked with God according to the testimony of the Hebrew books, and pleased him, and was not found, because God took him away. For you have said, In what shall I overtake the Lord, or in what shall I lay hold of him? I promise you something greater: do judgment, and love mercy, and you will walk with your God. Or certainly, to walk with God is not a reward but a commandment.

For just as we are commanded to do judgment and to love mercy, so we are instructed to be prepared to walk with the Lord our God; we ought not to sleep at any hour, nor be secure at any time, but always to await the father of the household coming, and to dread the day of judgment, and in the night of this world to say: I sleep, but my heart keeps watch (Song 5:2). The word ESNE, which the Seventy translated as "to be prepared" and which we have rendered as "to walk with care," Theodotion expressed more significantly as "and take care diligently, that you walk with your God." Or, as the fifth edition translated it, "to act with care," and to have this concern, that you walk with your God. For he who says that he believes in Christ ought so to walk as he also walked (1 John 2:6). And the apostle Paul says: Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ (1 Cor 11:1).

"The voice of the Lord cries out to the city, and there will be salvation for those who fear your name." The Seventy: "The voice of the Lord will cry out to the city, and he will save those who fear his name." In the Hebrew this is the beginning of another chapter; but among the Seventy interpreters it is the end of the preceding one; and it has this meaning: Nothing else, O man, does your God require of you, except that you do judgment, and love mercy, and be prepared to walk with your God.

For the voice of the Lord is heard in his city, the Church, and daily resounds in the Holy Scriptures, that not only those who love mercy, but also those who are lower and still fear the name of the Lord, may be saved by his teaching and clemency. But if this is the beginning of the following chapter, let us set it forth according to the historical sense—what is said to Samaria, the metropolis of the ten tribes, which was captured when Micah prophesied—and let us say: the Lord rebukes Samaria and threatens her with the plagues that are to come, so that the people of Judah, hearing, or those who fear the name of the Lord, while others suffer punishment, may themselves, seized by fear, obtain salvation. For when the pestilent man is scourged, not only the wise but even the fool will become more prudent (Prov. 19). And you may apply this generally both to sinners and to the righteous, so that the torments of others become an example to the rest. Indeed the Lord in the Gospel interprets this concerning those on whom the tower in Siloam had fallen (Luke 13): that they were not the only sinners in the whole people, but that their punishment might provoke the rest to repentance.

(Verse seq.) «Hear, O tribe, and who will approve it? Fire is still in the house of the wicked, treasures of wickedness, and a measure small but full of wrath. Shall I justify the wicked balance, and the deceitful weights of the bag? In which his rich men are filled with iniquity, and those dwelling in her spoke lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. And I therefore have begun to strike you with destruction for your sins. You will eat, and not be satisfied, and your humiliation will be in your midst; and you will seize, and not save; and those you have saved, I will give to the sword. You will sow, and not reap: you will tread the olive, and not be anointed with oil; and the new wine, and not drink the wine. And you have kept the precepts of Omri, and every work of the house of Ahab; and you have walked in their desires, that I might give you over to destruction, and those dwelling in her to hissing, and you shall bear the reproach of my people.» The Septuagint: «Hear, O tribe, and who will adorn the city? Is there not fire and the house of the wicked storing up wicked treasures, and with injury iniquities? If the wicked shall be justified in the balance, and in the bag deceitful weights, from which they have filled the riches of their impiety, and those who dwell in her have spoken wicked things, and their tongue is exalted in their mouth.

And I have afflicted you with destruction because of your sins: you will eat and not be satisfied; and I will cast you out into yourself, and you will take hold and not save; and whoever have been saved will be handed over to the sword: you will sow and not reap; you will press the olive and not be anointed with oil; and the grape, and you will not drink wine; and the statutes of my people will be scattered, and every work of the house of Ahab; and you have walked in their counsels, so that I might deliver you into destruction, and its inhabitants into hissing, and you will receive the reproaches of the peoples. The Septuagint disagrees greatly with the Hebrew truth in this chapter, especially at the beginning: «Hear, O tribe, and who will adorn the city?» And «the statutes of my people will be scattered.» In place of this we have set down, for the sake of the sequence of the sentence, «And keep the precepts of Omri,» although it is also written in the Hebrew: «And the precepts of Omri have been kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab.» For if AMMI were written in the Hebrew, the Septuagint would rightly have translated it «of my people»; but as it is, since AMRI is written, and with the letter RES added, it signifies not the name of the people but the father of Ahab, about whom the history of Kings narrates (3 Kings 16), it is beyond doubt for anyone that this is an error. Finally, after the name of the father the son is placed, and it is said: «And all the works of the house of Ahab.» Let us return, then, to the beginning of the chapter. And first, discussing according to the letter, with you praying, let us strive to attain the spiritual sense.

Hear, you ten tribes of Samaria, to whom the Lord brings his charge: still the fire, that is, iniquity, is in the house of the wicked Amri, and the treasures of impiety persist in the royal house. Do you wish to hear one by one the evils with which your city is filled? Learn: a measure too small that provokes God's wrath, a fraudulent scale and differing weights; and those who sell their wares by one weight and buy by another (Prov. 11; Deut. 25). And if the poor were doing this, poverty could defend the crime by necessity. But now its rich men are full, not so much of riches as of iniquity; because all riches, while they despoil others, are begotten in iniquity. Lying follows the gathering of riches, and the hand accustomed to store up treasures possesses a fraudulent tongue. Truth begets poverty, lying begets riches. When your princes were doing this, I was unwilling to overthrow you at once; but little by little I began to strike, and to warn with various blows. I sent famine upon you, I sent thirst, I sent diseases, and hostile devastation round about: the field brought no grain, the pressed olive yielded no oil, the barren vintages denied wine. Against iniquities, and deceitful measures, and fraudulent weights, I brought these punishments. Because you have kept all the ceremonies of idolatry which the impious king Amri had established (3 Kings 16 ff.), and every work of the house of Achab and Jezabel.

You have not kept my law; I was driven by your crime to give you and your inhabitants over to hissing, and you bore the reproach of my people, while, captured by the Assyrians, you are conquered as if you were the people of God; and on account of you my name is blasphemed among the nations (Rom. 2). It must be noted in the present passage that where it reads, "And you shall bear the reproach of my people," or as the Seventy translated it, "you shall receive the reproaches of the peoples," instead of "of my people," AMMI is written in Hebrew. If, therefore, AMMI means "my people," there is no doubt that above, in place of Amri, "my people" has been wrongly translated. Up to this point I have set out what seemed to us according to the Hebrew; now, returning to the translation of the Seventy interpreters, let us discuss each point as best we can. The tribe of Samaria is called to hear, which cut itself off from the people of God. And it is said to it: in vain you fashion idols for yourself, you compose golden calves with an artisan's hand, and by imitation you wish to build another capital in rivalry with Jerusalem; for who will be able to adorn the city? Is it not the fire that is kindled by the burning darts of the devil; and the house of the wicked, which according to its hardness and impenitent heart treasures up for itself wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God (Rom. 2)? And it increases iniquity by injury, so that it not only plunders from the house of God, which is the Church, but also with pride and arrogance lays waste the things of others.

Can he be justified who, without scales and weight, fraudulently gathers his riches from the testimonies of the Scriptures—riches that are the treasures of iniquity? For since the Lord commands, "There shall not be in your bag a great weight and a small" (Deut. 25:14), these men, for the sake of shameful gain, always accept persons in judgment, and in the same case they judge the rich and the poor differently and differently—not according to the matter, but according to the diversity of their means; and the inhabitants of their city, which they think is adorned by themselves with depraved dogmas and perverse doctrine, speak a lie and set their mouth on high, and despise the simplicity of the ecclesiastical people. Whence the most merciful God does not strike them all alike, but strives to admonish them gradually through plagues, saying: "And I will begin to strike you with perdition because of your sins"; and the sense is: O city which the heretics wish to build up, I will strike you, that you may perish—not an abolition, but according to that which you are as a sinner. It follows: "You shall eat, and you shall not be satisfied." For they read, and do not understand; and feeding on the words of the Scriptures, they suffer a lack of the truth. "And I will cast you out," he says; "and you shall take hold, and you shall not save; and whoever have been saved shall be delivered to the sword." I will leave you, he says, to your own judgment; and after you have sought many things and found nothing, understanding your error, you will see that you cannot be saved out of all your dogmas.

But whoever have thought themselves satisfied, and have not been cast out from themselves, nor grasped the truth, will be handed over to the sword, and will be instructed by punishments. You will sow therefore, O tribe, and O most wicked city, which heretics build up with fire, and iniquity, and insults, and a deceitful balance, and a fraudulent bag; you will sow, and not reap; you will press the olive, and not be anointed with oil; and the grapes, and not drink wine. For it is profitable to you, once the error is known, that you not have disciples, that you not anoint your head with the oil of sinners, that you not make drunk those drinking the wine of Sodom. And the statutes of my people will be scattered, whether of Omri, and all the works of the house of Ahab, of those who have stood as patriarchs and princes in heresies. These we can refer either to the contrary virtues, or to the heresiarchs, as was Marcion and Basilides, and recently Arius, and Eunomius. And you have walked in their wills, namely of Omri and Ahab. And well does he say, in their wills. For the doctrine of wicked teachers is not the doctrine of God, but the inventions of their heart. And I will deliver you into perdition, that you may perish according to that which you are, heretical. And your inhabitants into hissing, or that you may follow the hissing of the good shepherd according to Zechariah, who says: I will hiss for them, and gather them, because I have redeemed them (Zech. 10:8). Or certainly into the hissing of the dragon, that is into the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved (1 Cor. 5), and being corrected they may learn not to blaspheme (1 Tim. 1).

And they will suffer all this so that they may understand their error, because they have borne the reproaches and sins of all nations and many peoples. I know that some have applied to the Church the things which we have interpreted concerning heresies. But how the name of Omri and Ahab, the princes of Samaria, can be applied to Jerusalem and Judah, under whose names the Church is interpreted, I do not sufficiently understand.

(Chapter 7, and following verses.) "Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers grape-clusters in autumn at the vintage: there is no bunch to eat: my soul has desired the first-fruits of the fig. The holy man has perished from the earth, and the upright is not among men. All lie in wait for blood, a man hunts his brother to death. They call the evil of their hands good; the prince demands, and the judge is in the giving back, and the great pouch is the desire of his soul, and they have troubled it. He who is the best among them is like a brier; and he who is upright, like a thorn from a hedge." The Septuagint: "Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest, and like grape-clusters in the vintage, when there is no bunch to eat, the first-fruits which my soul has suffered. Woe is me, O year, for the reverent man has perished from the earth, and there is none to correct among men: all are judged in blood: each one troubles his neighbor with trouble, they prepare their hands for evil; the prince demands, and the judge speaks peaceful words; the pouch is the desire of his soul.

And I will take away their goods like a consuming moth, and one walking upon the rule in the day of your watch. With the captivity of both the ten tribes and the two foretold (for the word of the Lord was made to Micah the Morasthite concerning Samaria and Jerusalem), the prophet laments that no one just from among the people is found in the land, who could resist the wrath of God and set himself in the middle like a wall. In vain, he says, have I spoken; in vain have I wished to seek, as it were, the last clusters of the city already harvested and lost; and since there is no bunch of grapes to eat, at least the unripe figs, which the Hebrews call BECHCHORA, that is, the coarse figs, to take for food; as if he were saying: Not finding bread because of the greatness of the famine, I have sought after refuse and bran. The holy one has perished from the land, and the upright one is not among men: everywhere snares, everywhere deceit; innocent blood is shed; because of avarice and lust brotherhood is ignored; and not only do they do evil, but they also defend it, and with names changed, they say that what is evil is good. The princes themselves do not receive gifts from those who offer, but compel their subjects to give, and demand them. And the judge is in the giving, judging another in such a way as he himself is judged by another, so that they may lend mutual favor to their crimes, and defend themselves in another's crime. Whoever is great, and as it were most learned in the law, speaks not the will of God, but his own.

And they have thrown it into confusion—whether the city, or the truth, or the land of which it is said above: The holy one has perished from the land. For he who is the best among them is like a piercing brier, both holding fast and wounding the one who draws near to him, and seizing him with a hooked tooth; and he who is found upright is like a thorn from a hedge, so that pain is found where help was thought to be. This is according to the Hebrew. But according to the Septuagint, who disagree in certain places and at the end of the chapter have translated altogether differently, the sense seems to me to be of this kind: the prophetic or apostolic word laments the human race in general, because it has cast the seed of teachings in vain, and instead of crops and instead of grain the late harvester has found scarcely empty stalks and useless stems, and has not been able to find even small clusters in the vineyard, and the rest up to the end of the chapter. For if blessed is he who speaks into the ears of the hearer, and the ear of the hearer is the desire of the wise man, and the understanding hearer is the joy of the speaker, then by contrast the bad disciple is the grief of the teacher, with the words of Jeremiah also agreeing with this complaint: I have not profited, nor has anyone profited me (Jer. 15:10). There are those who think this is said in the person of the Savior, complaining that in so great a multitude of believers and throughout the whole world of the human race he finds scarcely works worthy of his blood, who also says in the twenty-ninth psalm: What profit is there in my blood, while I descend into corruption (Ps. 29:10)?

Although others assert that it is by no means fitting to that person to say, Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest—he who spoke in the Gospel: Lift up your eyes and look at the regions, for they are already white for reaping (John 4:35). And elsewhere: The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few (Matthew 9:37). Those, therefore, who wish this to be understood in the person of the Savior say that it is no wonder if he says, Woe is me, since he also wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19) and shed tears at the death of Lazarus (John 11). But that too—I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest—they refer to the consummation of the age; and they interpret it significantly as the harvest, and say that this prophecy can be fulfilled at that time when, with iniquity multiplied, the love of many has grown cold (Matthew 24), and the Son of Man, when he comes, will find rare faith on the earth (Luke 18). For then, as it were after the harvest, stubble, and as it were after the vintage, grapes—scarcely will those be found in them who have kept the faith amid the devastation of all; and they think that this utterance, spoken in the person of the man he assumed, is confirmed by what follows: Woe to me, my soul—of which he was speaking: My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matthew 26:38). The one returning from the land has perished—either with Antichrist killing the saints, or with all things collapsing before the magnitude of scandals.

And there is no one to correct, among men: all are judged in blood, not in light and small sins, but in the greatest and those pertaining to blood. Neither neighborhood, nor friendship, nor kinship will delay the crime: all will lift up their hands to evil, so that even he who could not do evil, nevertheless, while he prepares his hands, sins in will. The prince himself demands, and the judge speaks peaceful words: for he receives gifts, the desire of his own soul. Because this is manifest, and I guard against the envy of princes and judges, leaving it to the reader's understanding, I will add only this: Gifts blind the eyes even of the wise (Deut. 16:19): they also give life to the soul which they ought not to have given life to, and they kill the soul which by its own merit and virtues lives, and they do this on account of the gifts which they shamelessly demand, and more shamefully receive. To these the Lord threatens, saying these things: And I will take away their goods, which they think are goods, which seem good to them.

But in truth, those things will never be called good which both despoil the giver and kill the receiver; although it is not so much a threat as a blessing, to take away evils from them, and for the Lord himself and the divine word to enter into their consciences, and like a moth to consume whatever is perverse, and to make a devastation of foul and evil thoughts, and to walk upon the norm and rule of truth, to draw back to the right those very persons who were being led by depraved opinions; and to do this in the light of truth, and in that day when those who are holy, and chosen from the Church, shall ascend to the watchtower, and in the sublimity of their doctrines and works shall dispute concerning heavenly things.

(Verses 5-7.) "The days of your watchtower, your visitation has come; now shall be their devastation; do not believe a friend, and do not trust in a leader. From her who sleeps in your bosom guard the bars of your mouth; because the son does insult to the father, and the daughter rises up against her mother; the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; the enemies of a man are his own household. But I will look to the Lord; I will wait for God my savior: my God will hear me." The Septuagint: "Woe, woe, your vengeances have come, now shall be their weepings: do not believe in friends, nor hope in leaders. From her who sleeps with you, beware lest you trust her, because the son does insult to the father, and the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; the enemies of a man are the men of his household.

But I will look to the Lord, I will wait for God my savior: my God will hear me. Apart from the beginning of the chapter, in the remaining parts both editions agree, and for the present, according to the historical sense, the day of the watchtower of Samaria, or of Jerusalem, which she had often expected and feared would come, and her visitation, signifies captivity, saying: Your devastation has come; now will be their devastation, that is, of the inhabitants, or siege: for MABUCHA in Hebrew sounds rather as siege and guard than as devastation. Do not believe any voices of the prophets, nor lend your ear to the deceiving flattery of diviners: for if among dear names and the affection of blood-relationship faith is rare, how much more among those who, flattering you, lie for their own prey, and, as to the sick, command not what is useful but what is pleasant and pleasing! Do not believe a friend; for Achitophel too rose up against David (II Kings XV), and the true Achitophel, Judas, against Christ (Matthew XXVI). And do not trust in a leader, as the men of Shechem trusted in Ahimelech (Judges IX). For they themselves made him king, and were oppressed by him. From her who sleeps in your bosom, guard the bars of your mouth: lest you suffer what Samson suffered from Delilah (ibid. XVI). For the son does insult to the father; Absalom, namely, to David: he defiled not only the kingdom, but also his father's concubines by incestuous intercourse (II Kings XVI).

The daughter rises up against her mother; for this, in the meantime, we find no testimony from the holy Scriptures. Such examples are found in daily life that we ought rather to mourn that there are so many than to seek for them. The daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, as the wife of Esau rose up against Rebekah (Gen. 26). A man's enemies are the men of his own household. Here I do not seek examples, since they are more numerous than that we should need testimonies. Since therefore these things are so, do not believe, Samaria and Jerusalem, the false prophets. But I, says the prophet, will look to the Lord, I will exult in God my Savior, or my Jesus, and my God will hear me. There follows the exposition of the Seventy, who said, Woe, woe, the avenging punishments have come upon you, that is, the punishments that are to be inflicted for crimes. Vengeance is mine, he says, and I will repay, says the Lord (Rom. 12:19; Deut. 32:35). And in another place: The days of your retribution have come (Hos. 9:7). For the Lord executes vengeance for those who cry out to him day and night and say: How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth (Rev. 6:10)? The avenging punishments have therefore come, and now there will be the weeping of them, that is, of the punishments, so that those who laughed before may lament, and immediately departing from the world may endure torments, which that rich man once clothed in purple and abounding in delights endures in hell (Luke 16), where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8, 13).

But what follows, "Now they shall be," understand either at the end of each one's life, or at the consummation of all things and on the day of judgment, when general vengeance shall come upon all. Do not therefore believe friends, because every friend supplants by supplanting, and is a friend for the sake of something. He is not so much a friend of the one whom he pretends to love (for from love he is called a friend) as of the thing which he loves. When a certain man was asked what a friend was, he answered: Another self. But if the example of the Pythagoreans is raised against us, who gave themselves as sureties for one another to the tyrant, we say that the sentence was not pronounced by God generally against all friends and affections of charity, nor against every time, but concerning that of which the Apostle says: In the last days perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than of God (2 Tim. 3:1-4), and the rest. For then brother shall deliver up brother, and father son, and mother daughter, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household (Matt. 10:35-36). But even now faith is rare: when one thing is on the lips and another in the heart; the honey of the tongue conceals the poison of the mind. Many are the friends of the rich, but from the poor even those who seem to be friends depart.

Hence it is said: If you have a friend, possess him in temptation (Sirach 6:7). I have read in a certain Controversia: "A friend is sought for a long time, is scarcely found, and is with difficulty kept." Theophrastus wrote three volumes on friendship, preferring it to every charity, and yet he testified that it is rare in human affairs. There is also Cicero's book On Friendship, which he inscribed to Laelius; in it, that which is commanded among our people—that a friend should be to us like old wine, and that we should drink it in sweetness—is set down in almost the same words. Friendship either takes equals or makes them; where there is inequality, and the eminence of one and the subjection of the other, there is not so much friendship as flattery. Hence we read elsewhere: Let a friend be one and the same soul. And the Lyric poet, praying for a friend, says: Guard, he says, the half of my soul (Horace). Do not therefore believe in friends, that is, in those men who pursue friendships for gain. If you wish to delight in true friendship, be a friend of God, like Moses, who spoke to God as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33:11). Be a friend, like the Apostles, to whom the Savior said: I will no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master wants; but I will call you friends, because you have persevered with me in all my temptations (John 15:15). Delicate is the friendship that follows the felicities and riches of friends. Men of this sort do not seem to me to love friends, but themselves.

Let us consider the Lord's words more attentively: But I will call you, he says, friends. He gives the reasons why he calls them friends: Because you have persevered with me in temptation—and it did not stop at this point, but, he says, in all my temptations. For it sometimes happens that one who has persevered with us in one temptation, overcome by others, withdraws. Secondly it is commanded: And do not hope in leaders: for cursed is the man who has hope in man (Jeremiah 17:5). In man hope is vain, and true hope is in God. Hence Paul also says: And from among yourselves men will arise speaking perverse things (Acts 20:30). And the Lord himself through the prophet: The leaders of my people have not known me, they are foolish sons and not understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have not known (Jeremiah 4:22). Leaders, he says, of mine they were called, and leaders of my people; but because they did not know me, and by their deeds destroyed the title, therefore they are foolish sons and not understanding; they have prudence for this reason alone, that they may subject to themselves the simple flock and trample it under their feet; but to do good and to rule the people they have not known. Do not believe in leaders—not in a bishop, not in a presbyter, not in a deacon, not in any dignity of men. Nor do I say this, that you ought not to be subject to such ranks in the Church: for whoever curses father or mother shall die the death (Leviticus 20:9); and the Apostle teaches that those set over the Church are to be obeyed (1 Peter

but that it is one thing to honor leaders, another to place hope in leaders. Let us honor the bishop, defer to the presbyter, rise for the deacon; and yet let us not hope in them, because vain is the hope of man, and sure is the hope in the Lord. The third commandment: From her who sleeps with you, guard yourself, lest you believe her. Whence also the Apostle calls women a weak vessel (1 Thess. 4), and commands that honor be shown them by their husbands. For the man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man (1 Cor. 11). And: The wife, he says, should fear her husband (Eph. 5). It is the wife's part to fear and with fear to love her husband; the husband's part only to love, because love is the mark of the perfect. Husbands, he says, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them (Eph. 5:25); even though they provoke to anger and do such things as deserve to endure bitterness. For this is what it means: nevertheless, do not repay them in bitterness. But also Solomon in Ecclesiastes: And a man, he says, one among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I did not find (Eccles. 7:29): perhaps taught by his own example that women are not to be trusted, through whom he had offended (1 Kings 11). But also the sublime poet (not a second-rank one, as Lucilius suspects of Ennius, but the first Homer among the Latins): Woman is ever fickle and changeable. Greek and Latin histories are full of how many men were deceived by their wives and how their lives were betrayed.

But the examples of the Scriptures testify both concerning Dalila, whom we mentioned above, and concerning another woman before Dalila, who by her tears over seven days betrayed Samson's secret and by feigned love discovered what was hidden. Hence Samson afterwards says: Unless you had ploughed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle (Judg. 14:19). To this point the instruction is given, that we should not easily believe friends, nor leaders, nor wives. And a reason is given that does not sufficiently correspond to the proposition; for it says: Because the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are those of his own household. For what has it to do with a friend, a leader, a wife, if son and daughter and daughter-in-law rise against father and mother and mother-in-law? It seems to me, then, that it can be joined with the preceding as follows: Do not believe friends, and leaders, and wives, who can change and are so for a time: since even a son and a daughter, forgetful of their upbringing and infancy, rise against the authors of their life and of their bodies, and do insult to those whom it is a crime even to injure with a look. But this exposition in no way fits the daughter-in-law rising against her mother-in-law, and the man whose enemies are those of his own household. Terence in the Hecyra: although this is ambiguous, yet it is almost natural: that the daughter-in-law hates the mother-in-law, and the mother-in-law the daughter-in-law. The prophetic discourse has described these things concerning the consummation and end of the world, and what kind of generation will precede the coming of Antichrist.

Now it must be argued according to the earlier interpretation, in which we spoke about heretics: Hear, O tribes, and who has adorned the city? Was it not fire and the house of the impious? And again, concerning the Church: Woe is me, for I have become like one who gathers stubble in the harvest. And again: Woe is me, O my soul; the reverent one has perished from the earth, and there is none among men to correct. And thereafter: The prince demands, and the judge has spoken peaceful words, the desire of his own soul. Whence a double curse follows: Woe, woe, your vengeances have come, now their lamentations will be, and let us say what is written concerning heretics: Do not trust in friends, O simple peoples, nor in wicked leaders who promise themselves to be friends and princes of heresies; for they seek not your salvation but their own gain, and they trample with their feet the deceived flock; and to her who sleeps in the place, take care that you trust her in nothing—which I can understand as nothing other than the flesh—so that we do not easily trust the blandishments of the flesh, lest the hardness of mind and manly constancy be subdued by her enticements and grow soft. For the Son who was born of God, having neglected his Creator, blasphemes him by whom he was made, as the Scripture says: Did not one God create you? Was he not one father of you all (Malachi 2:10)? And the soul despises the heavenly Jerusalem and contemns the mother, the Church; and whoever has contemned her is warned by death.

And the daughter-in-law rises up against her mother-in-law: which, according to the tropological sense, seems difficult to understand; but whoever has read the Song of Songs, and has understood the bridegroom of the soul to be the Word of God, and has believed the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which we have recently translated (in which, from the person of the Savior, it is said: Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me up by one of my hairs), will not doubt to say that the Word of God was born of the Spirit, and that the soul, which is the bride of the Word, has as its mother-in-law the Holy Spirit, who in Hebrew is spoken of in the feminine gender, BUA. The heretics, therefore, since they previously believed in the Scriptures, which were written and published by the Holy Spirit, transfer themselves to new doctrines, and to the leaven of the Pharisees, and the commandments of men; and while they despise the Word of God, they do injury to their mother-in-law. And lest perhaps you doubt that the Word and Son of God is born of the Holy Spirit, consider the words of Gabriel to Mary: The Holy Spirit, he says, will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: therefore that which is born of you, the holy one, will be called the Son of God. After these things follows: A man's enemies are the men of his own household. Which seems to us to be expounded thus according to the tropological sense: Every man's head is Christ; and Christ is the head of the Church.

These are often the enemies of this man, who are thought to be in his house, that is, in the Church, and indeed they do not depart from the head, but they think contrary to their own head—those who, without a teacher and without the grace of the Lord, promising themselves knowledge of the Scriptures by their own judgment, are puffed up and know nothing, and are sick over questions and contentions and battles of words; these, though truly standing in the house, are enemies of the truth. But we ought to know that in the Gospel there are nearly the same words which we now read in the Prophet, and according to the context of that passage they have another meaning; whether these were taken from the prophet, or are commands given by his own authority, it is for the Lord to know, who spoke both in the Prophets and in the Gospels. For there the Lord says: I came to divide a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are those of his own household (Matthew 10:35, 36).

Having set these things forth (if indeed we have been able to grasp the sense of the Scriptures), the holy one, understanding that charity has grown cold, and that in the consummation of the world men are not lovers of God but lovers of themselves—while other friends and leaders and wives believe, and son and daughter and daughter-in-law rise against father and mother and mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are those of his own household—himself believes in the Lord, and his whole contemplation is in his God. And although he is pressed by the tribulations and straits of the world, yet, apart from him who says, "Fear not, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33), having confidence in nothing else, he waits for God his Savior, and believing in him and ever directing his eyes to him, he hopes that he will be heard whenever he calls upon him.

What is this? All mothers-in-law hate their daughters-in-law.

(Following verse.) "Rejoice not, my enemy, over me, because I have fallen: I shall rise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord is my light: I shall bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he judges my cause and executes my judgment, and brings me out into the light, and I shall see his justice, and my enemy shall look and shall be covered with confusion, she who says to me: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes shall see her; now she shall be trodden down like the mud of the streets: a day when your walls shall be built.

In that day the law will be far off; in that day it will come to you from Assyria, and as far as the fortified cities, and from the fortified cities as far as the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. And the land will be a desolation because of its inhabitants, and because of the fruit of their thoughts. The Septuagint: "Do not exult over me, my enemy: because I have fallen, and I shall rise again: because if I walk in darkness, the Lord will enlighten me. I shall endure the anger of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he justifies my cause, and makes my judgment, and brings me out into the light, and I shall see his righteousness, and my enemy will see me, and confusion will cover her, who says to me: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes will see her, now she will be for trampling, like mud in the streets, the day of the blotting out of the brick, your destruction, and that day will repel your statutes, and then cities will come into confinement and into division by the Assyrians, and your fortified cities into division from Tyre as far as the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain; and the land will be for scattering with its inhabitants, because of the fruit of their devices." It seems to me, according to the letter, that Jerusalem is speaking against Babylon and the other nations, which had exulted over her: Do not rejoice in my ruin; because, with the Lord showing mercy, I shall rise again; after I have sat in captivity, he will bring me out of the darkness, and he will be my light.

I will endure the anger of the Lord, because I know that I have deserved what I have suffered, until I take vengeance on the nations and my judgment is accomplished. For I know that he will bring me out into the light, and I will see his justice, and my enemy Babylon will look on, and the other nations round about, and she who now speaks insultingly will be covered with confusion: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes will see her, and not after a long time, but now and at present, trodden down like the mud of the streets. Thus far Jerusalem, or the prophet has spoken in the person of the people. Now God is introduced as answering Jerusalem: O Jerusalem, the days have come for your walls to be rebuilt, which had been destroyed by the ravaging Babylonian.

In that day the law, or the precept and command, as Symmachus and Theodotion translated it, saying, will be far off, and the sense is: You will by no means be subject to the empire of the Babylonians. In that day when your walls are built, they will come to you from Assyria and from the fortified cities—from the fortified cities, I say, all the way to the Jordan, which the people also crossed before, and from the Red Sea and all the nations all the way to the Dead Sea, which is near your land, and to Mount Zion, from the mountains of the Persians and Medes, to which they had previously been deported; and the remaining land of the Chaldeans, and of those who had laid you waste, will be made a desolation because of its inhabitants and because of their evil deeds. The Jews promise this to themselves even to this day, and in that passage where we have expounded: In that day the law will be far off, as it has seemed to us, and as the wiser among them argue, some foolishly lie and say: In that day when the walls of Jerusalem have been built by Christ, the holy Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets, which are now held by us, will be taken from our hands and handed over to the people of the Jews. For what is said according to the Septuagint, the days of the plastering of the brick, your blotting out, we should understand as said not to Jerusalem, as we have expounded according to the Hebrew, but still to Babylon, that it too is to be destroyed and trampled down after the manner of a brick. And that day will drive away the ordinances—not the ordinances of God, but those ordinances which you, O Babylon, had commanded to be observed against the law of God.

And your cities will come into confinement, or into division, with the Assyrians attacking you (since Babylon was a city of the Chaldeans, not of the Assyrians). And your fortified cities will be given over to division by the hostile army, from Tyre as far as the river Tigris, which you go around, and from the Great Sea as far as the Red Sea, which, for those journeying to India by that route, touches your regions. And from mountain to mountain: that is, from the mountains of Judea as far as the mountains of Media and Persia, all Mesopotamia and the entire region which is now held by you in between will be subjected to the empire of the adversaries. And the land will be turned into desolation because of the most wicked fruits of your pursuits. Where the Seventy translated "from Tyre," let us know that in the Hebrew it is written MASOR, which word, if it is divided into the preposition MA and the noun SOR, is understood as "from Tyre"; but if it is a single word, it means "fortification." Accordingly all translators, not "from Tyre" as the Seventy have it, but "fortification" and "circuit of the walled city" have rendered it. This, according to the Hebrew, and the vows of the fleshly Israel and the people of the mutilation, the idle discourse has, as it were, prefaced out of superfluity. Now let us come to the spiritual understanding, and with the Holy Spirit himself expounding, by whom the Scriptures were written, let us labor even at the most difficult passages.

Every soul is, it seems to me, a Jerusalem, in which the temple of the Lord was built, along with the vision of peace and the knowledge of the Scriptures; and afterward, overcome by sins, she is led into captivity and handed over to torments, and she says against Babylon—that is, against the confusion of this world—and against the opposing power that presides over this world: Do not gloat over me, my enemy, for I have fallen, and I shall rise again; for the Lord lifts up the fallen, and he speaks through the prophet: Shall not the one who falls rise again? And: I do not desire the death of the sinner, only that he turn back and live. But if you despise me for this reason, because I endure torments, learn through Ezekiel that punishments are first inflicted on the holier ones, and it is said by the Lord: Begin with my saints. For if I walk in darkness, the Lord is my light. For although the rulers of these darknesses have deceived me, and I sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and my feet have stumbled on the dark mountains, nevertheless for those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, light has arisen, and the light shines in the darkness. And: The Lord is my illumination and my salvation, whom shall I fear; and I shall speak to him and say: Your word, O Lord, is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths. For he himself commanded me, placed in the darkness of this age: Let your loins be girded, and lamps burning in your hands.

It follows: I will endure the anger of the Lord, because I have sinned against him: until he justifies my cause, and makes my judgment, and brings me out into the light; and I will see his justice. Every correction, for the present, seems not to be of joy, but of sorrow, and afterward it will yield the peaceful fruit of justice to those who have been instructed through it. The soul, therefore, sensing that she has sinned, and that she has the wounds of sins, and that she lives in dead flesh, and that she needs the cautery, says steadfastly to the physician: Burn my flesh, cut away the wounds, constrict all the humors and what is harmful with a harsh dose of hellebore. It was my fault that I was wounded; let it be my pain that I endure so many torments, so that afterward I may receive health. And the true physician now shows to the one who is safe and secure the reason for the remedy, and rightly teaches that he has done what he did. Finally, after the tortures and punishments, when the soul has been brought out of the outer darkness, and the last quadrant has been repaid, she says: I will see his justice, and I will speak: Your judgments are justified, O God. But if Christ has been made for us by God wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1): she who says that she will see justice after the anger of God promises herself the sight of Christ. And these things pertain only to the penitent. Otherwise, it is much better not to have wounds, and not to need the physician. Healing is not the blessedness of the healed, but a consolation after pain. Therefore let the one who has been healed beware, lest he sin again, and lest something worse happen to him again.

We read in Leviticus (Lev. 13), if indeed we read with open eyes and the veil placed in the Law does not shut out the gaze of the inner eye, that leprosy is wont to be generated in a welt and in the scar of a burn, and that the color of the hair changes, and that a fresh foulness is added to the former disfigurement of the scar. This is for the reason that no one, feeling secure about repentance because after sin he can say, "I will endure the anger of God, because I have sinned against him, until he justifies my cause," should sin and need the cautery, and be wounded again in the senatus. But when the Lord has brought us out into the light, and we have seen his justice, then our enemy Babylon will see, and will be covered with confusion, she who formerly spoke to us: "Where is your God?"—thinking that Jerusalem cannot be healed after her wounds. And our eyes will look upon her, and she will be for trampling underfoot, like the mud of the streets. And because the end of all punishments is the beginning of good things, and pain profits toward health, bricks will be made from her mud, and the forming of the bricks will be her smearing. And in that day she will cast off her old errors, and her cities, which had been badly fortified, will come into a conclusion, or into a division, and will be divided by the Assyrians; from Tyre also, which is interpreted, that is, distress, other strengths will rise up, and there will be sedition up to those who delight in the rheum of this world, and generate lusts in men.

And from sea even to sea, and from mountain even to mountain, wars will rise up against one another, so that bitterness may fight against bitterness, and sublimity raising itself up to be humbled may strive against another height, and then may truly be fulfilled: Come, let us go down and confound their languages, so that each may not hear the voice of his neighbor (Gen. 11:7); for it is profitable that the worst powers not have concord among themselves. And when Satan has been divided against Satan, then at last his whole kingdom will be destroyed (Matt. 12). And what often happens in great armies, that when the tyrant has been killed, his satellites divide the kingdom among themselves and rise up against one another, and there is civil war among them: this will also happen at the consummation of the world, when Jerusalem has been built with walls, and Babylon has fallen, and the Assyrians and Tyrians from the river, and from the sea, and from the mountains—that is, all the nations of demons—will fight against one another, and when their kingdom has been scattered, the kingdom will become the Lord Jesus's, and every knee will bow, of those in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2). But so that you may know that the end of this sedition is the advancement of the virtues, the land of Babylonia will then be a desolation with all its inhabitants, and it will by no means produce Babylonian fruits.

(And the following verses.) «Feed your people with your rod, the flock of your inheritance: those dwelling alone in the forest in the midst of Carmel: they shall feed in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old: according to the days of your going out from the land of Egypt, I will show him wonders. The nations shall see, and shall be confounded over all their strength. They shall put their hands upon their mouth: their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like serpents: like the creeping things of the earth, they shall be troubled out of their houses. They shall dread the Lord our God, and they shall fear you.» The Septuagint: «Feed your people with your rod, the sheep of your inheritance, those dwelling alone in the forest, in the midst of Carmel they shall feed, the Bashanites and the Gileadites, as in the former days, and as in the days of your going out from the land of Egypt, I will show them wonders. The nations shall see, and shall be confounded in all their strength; they shall put their hands upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the ground like serpents, which drag the earth: they shall be troubled in their confines: they shall dread the Lord our God, and they shall fear from you.» What is said here: Feed your people with your rod, God the Father speaks to the Son, that is, to our Lord Jesus Christ, so that, since he is the good shepherd and lays down his life for his sheep (John X), he may feed his people with his rod, and the sheep of his inheritance. And lest we think that the peoples are the same as the sheep, we read in another place: But we are your people, and the sheep of your pasture (Ps. XCIV, 7).

The people" refers to all who are rational, but "the sheep" to those who do not yet use reason, content with simplicity alone, and they are called [the sheep] of God's inheritance. But both the people and the sheep need the pastoral rod, of which the Apostle also speaks: "What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?" (1 Cor 4:21). For this reason, I think—because the people of Israel were stiff-necked and always sighing for the fleshpots of Egypt—Moses used the rod of the law, the striking rod, not only against the Egyptians, whom he struck with ten plagues, but also against the people in the wilderness, shattering all vessels of clay and things fragile. But from the hands of the apostles of the Lord Savior, who spoke wisdom among the perfect (1 Cor 2), the rod was shaken out, because perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4). But if anyone objects to us, asking how it is now said to Christ, that is, to the good shepherd, who is certainly greater and better than the apostles, that he should use a rod, when it is a greater advance to have no rod than to strike peoples and sheep with a rod, we will answer them according to what the Lord promises to his apostles, that they would perform greater signs among the peoples than he himself did (Jn 14).

And because the Lord was still speaking to the carnal Israel, and not yet to him who could perfectly know the mysteries, it was for this reason that it was said of him that he should feed his people and his flock with a rod, but that the rod was shaken from the hands of the apostles; and the severity of the Law was tempered by the clemency of the Gospel. Furthermore, these peoples and these sheep are struck and fed with a rod for this reason, because they had dwelt alone in the forest. This we can indeed also understand of those who, separating themselves from the Church, give themselves over to banquets and friendships with the Gentiles; and also of those who, out of hatred for the human race, desire a solitary life, such as we read that Timon had at Athens: not that the solitary and prophetic life which Elijah (1 Kings 17 and 19) and John (Matthew 3 and 11) had is to be condemned, but because if a man despises others, is himself proud, and dwells in the forest of vices, he is to be corrected with a rod. He who dwells alone and does not dwell in the forest is in praise of virtues; but he who is alone and does not do the works of justice, and enjoys only the pleasure of quiet, and does not toil in the work and labor of Christ, nor seek food with his own hands as the Apostle commands (1 Cor. 4), and is lifted up in pride: this man dwells in the forest and is occupied among unfruitful trees.

But nevertheless, because he is a good shepherd, and his rod strikes for this reason, that he may correct, the prophetic word promises better things and says: In the midst of Carmel they shall feed the Bashanite and Gileadite, according to the days of eternity, and according to the days of your going out from Egypt. Carmel is interpreted as knowledge of circumcision; Bashanitis, confusion; and Gilead, migration of testimony. Therefore the people of God, and the sheep of his pasture, who previously were fed without the Lord's flock and, outside his Church, were occupied in the forest of errors, afterward shall be transferred to the knowledge of true circumcision, and shall serve God in spirit, and shall glory in the Lord, and shall not trust in the flesh, and shall be the true circumcision, and not a cutting. And when they have been fed with spiritual circumcision, understanding their former sins, they shall be confounded in their vices and shall blush, and they shall be in the confusion that leads to life (Sirach 4), because there is also another confusion that leads to death, in which Og, king of Bashan, once dwelt, since Bashan is interpreted as confusion; from which most wicked confusion the Lord also promises that he will deliver his people: The Lord said, I will bring back from Bashan, I will bring back from the depth of the sea (Psalm 67:23).

And when we have known the true circumcision, and have been put to shame for our sins, then we shall be in Gilead, which is interpreted as the transgression of testimony, in the Church of Christ, to which the testimonies of the Law and the utterances of the Prophets have passed over, and this shall be done for us according to the days of old, according to the days when we came out of the land of Egypt, of which Moses says: Remember the days of eternity, not the days of this world, which are called evil, but the everlasting days. But he remembers the days of eternity who does not look upon things present, and has risen with Christ, and sits with him in the heavenly places, already in his mind presuming himself freed from the days of the present world. The divine word also promises that he will show to his people and to the sheep of his inheritance wonderful things: Then, it says, the nations shall see, and they shall be confounded in all their strength, because they had once laid waste and prevailed against the people of God, and their confusion shall have profit, when they have understood their own evils. For they shall place their hands upon their mouth, and their evil works shall take away from them all freedom of speaking. But just as the hand of the impious nations closes their mouths, so the hands of the righteous shall open their mouths, receiving from good work the ability to speak with God. Their ears also shall become deaf, because malice has not only blinded the sight of their eyes, but has also made their ears deaf; for they were unwilling to hear the voice of the charmers, and of the enchanter enchanting wisely.

And according to Isaiah: With their ears they have heard heavily; although it is much less to hear heavily than not to hear at all, and to become deaf so as not to hear the word of truth. After such great evils it is said of them that they will lick the ground like serpents, which drag the earth, walking on their belly and eating earth all the days of their life. And doing the works of the flesh, that is, earthly works, and dragging with them their own use until the day of vengeance and visitation of the Lord—not dust, not the small traces of earth, but the whole ground. And when they have done this and come to the judgment of God, and have been shut up and thrown into confusion, they will be confused for as long as the earth which they dragged like serpents has remained in them. But when that has failed, they will be astonished and marvel, not in the Lord their God (for they will not yet deserve that the Lord their God be called theirs), but in the Lord our God. And suddenly it is said to Christ, and it is spoken to him: And they will fear because of you. For the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And these things will happen so that the nations may see and be confounded in all their evil strength, and put their hands over their mouth, and grow deaf in their ears, and lick the earth like serpents that drag the ground, so that first they may be shut up, and being shut up may be thrown into confusion; then, terrified, they may be astonished at the Lord God of the saints, and finally they too may fear him. This is according to the Septuagint.

Furthermore, because our edition does not differ much from theirs, at least in the present passage, let us consider that what was said in those passages was also said in this one.

(Verses 18-20.) "Who is a God like you? who take away iniquity, and pass over the sin of the remnant of your inheritance. He will not send forth his fury any more; for he is willing to show mercy. He will return, and have mercy on us: he will lay aside our iniquities, and cast all our sins into the depth of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, which you swore to our fathers from the days of old." The Septuagint: "Who, O God, is like you? taking away iniquities, and passing over injustices for those who are left of your inheritance? He did not hold back his anger as a witness, because he is willing to show mercies. He will return, and have mercy on us, he will sink our sins: and all our sins will be cast into the depth of the sea. He will give truth to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, as you swore to our fathers according to the former days." The prophet, understanding that the multitude of the nations was for this reason thrown into confusion at his conclusion, so that they might be astonished and fear God, and that for this reason the Lord rages, so as to take away sins and grant salvation, praises the Lord and marvels, and says: Who is a God like you? taking away iniquities, and passing over injustices: so that, just as the destroyer in Egypt passed over the people of Israel, and I did not lay them waste (whence from the passing over, phase [Exod.

(12), that is, pascha, it received its name) so may you spare the nations, by no means imputing their iniquities to them. Furthermore, what follows: "To those who are left of his inheritance, he did not hold his wrath as a testimony," this is the meaning: If he spared the nations, which were unwilling to believe in his Law, and those who are superfluous and the remnant left over from the people, he was unwilling to impute their iniquities to them, nor did he bring his wrath against them as a testimony of just punishment, what will he do for his own flock, which grazes in the midst of Carmel, and in Bashan, and in Gilead? For he is willing to show mercy, and opening himself he will have compassion on us, and our grave sins and the iniquities which sit upon him as if by a talent of lead, he himself will bear, and will sink in the sea, and will not allow them to appear (Zech. 5). He will give truth to Jacob, and mercy to Abraham; so that to the supplanting people, both new and always placed in struggle, he may render his truth in Christ, and to the multitude of the nations (for Abraham is called the father of many nations) he may grant mercy, as he swore to them who stood as the fathers of our faith according to the ancient days: because out of the whole multitude of men he saves some in truth, others in mercy.

Furthermore, where we have translated "He will no longer send forth his fury," for "no longer" Symmachus rendered "forever," Theodotion "to the end," the Septuagint and the Fifth Edition "as a testimony"; in place of this the Hebrew has LAED ( ), and it can be understood both as "no longer" and as "forever" and as "a testimony." Let me also say at the end of the volume, sealing the labor of my little work with an invocation of the Lord: O God, who is like you? Take away the iniquity of your servant; pass over the sin of the remnants of my soul, lest you send your fury upon me, nor chasten me in your wrath; for you are merciful, and your compassions are many. Return, and have mercy on me; cast down my iniquities, and send them into the depth of the sea, so that the saltness and bitterness of vices may perish in the false region. Give the truth which you promised to your servant Jacob, and the mercy which you pledged to your friend Abraham, and free my soul from the persecutors of your prophets, Ahab and Jezebel, as you swore to my fathers in the days of old, saying: As I live, says the Lord: I do not desire the death of the sinner, only that he turn and live (Ezek. XXXIII, 11). And elsewhere: As soon as you turn and groan, you will be saved (Isa. XXX, 15). Then my enemy will see and be covered with confusion, she who now says to me: Where is the Lord your God (Ps. XLI, 4, 11)? I will see your vengeance upon her, and she will be like the mud of the streets and will be trampled down, so that she may no longer build cities for the Egyptians out of mud and straw.