Commentariorum In Malachiam Prophetam Liber Unus

The Prologue of Saint Eusebius Hieronymus, Presbyter of Stridon, Commentaries on the Prophet Malachi, to Minervius and Alexander. One Book.

PROLOGUE

We wish to interpret the last of the twelve prophets, Malachi, whose name the Seventy translated as "his angel," saying: The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel in the hand of his angel; for which in Hebrew is read MALACHI, which is more correctly and expressly rendered "angel," that is, "my messenger." Nor is it to be supposed, according to the opinion of certain men (the Origenists), that an angel came down from heaven and assumed a human body, in order to speak to Israel the commandments that are from the Lord. For if names are to be interpreted, and from names the order of history, not spiritual understanding, is to be woven together, then both Hosea, who is called savior, and Joel, which is interpreted "the Lord God," or "beginning," and the rest of the prophets will not be men, but either angels, or the Lord and Savior, because this is what their names resound. Finally, apart from the Seventy, other translators rendered the name MALACHI just as it is read in Hebrew. But the Hebrews reckon Malachi to be Ezra the priest, because everything that is contained in his book, this prophet also commemorates, saying: The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts (Malachi 2:7).

The time and the title also agree: as we said in the Psalms, those which have no titles are to be believed to belong to those whose earlier psalms are marked with names. Therefore Malachi, that is, Ezra, must be believed to have been after Haggai and Zechariah, who prophesied under Darius. And for this reason he has no title, because his book serves as his title: in which we learn that in the reign of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, Ezra son of Seraiah, and of the others, up to that place where it is said: "Son of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest," went up from Babylon at the beginning, and the king gave him according to the hand of the Lord his God all his petition; and there went up with him from the sons of Israel, and from the sons of the priests, and from the sons of the Levites, and from the singers, and from the gatekeepers, and from the Nethinim to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, and they came to Jerusalem in the fifth month: that is the seventh year of the king, because on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem. These things, my Minervius and Alexander, united not so much by blood as by religion, I briefly set forth in the Preface, lest I should abandon the work of the prophets I had undertaken and sweat over an extraordinary labor for you: so that, setting before you the words of Malachi, first according to the Hebrew truth, then according to the Seventy interpreters, supported by the aid of your prayers, I may explain what follows.

Origen wrote three volumes on this book, but he did not touch the historical sense at all, and according to his custom he was wholly occupied in allegorical interpretation, making no mention of Ezra; but he thought that the one who wrote was an angel, according to that which we read concerning John: Behold, I send my angel before your face (Matt. 11:10). This we do not accept at all, lest we be compelled to take up the falls of souls from heaven. I do not know whether I have read other commentaries on this prophet, except the short book of Apollinaris, whose work must be called not so much an interpretation as the points of an interpretation.

THE BOOK BEGINS.

(Chapter 1, verse 1.) "The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel, in the hand of Malachi." The Septuagint: "The assumption of the word of the Lord upon Israel, in the hand of his angel." What "burden," that is, weight, signifies, which in Hebrew is MASSA and is so called by Aquila, or what "assumption" means, which both the Septuagint and the other translators rendered, we have discussed in the other prophets. For Nahum also writes: The burden of Nineveh: the book of the vision of Nahum the Elcesite (Nahum 1:1). And Habakkuk: The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw (Hab. 1:1). And Zechariah: The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus its resting place (Zech. 9:1 and 12:1). And again in what follows: The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel.

Let us therefore be content with that explanation, and for now let us say only this: that the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel—or, as the Septuagint has it, upon Israel—is indeed heavy, since it is called a burden, but it has something of consolation in that it is taken not against Israel but to Israel. For it is one thing when, for example, we write to this person or that, and another when we write against this person or that, because in the one case there is a share of friendship, in the other an open confession of enmity. And it must be known that after Israel was led away into captivity—that is, the ten tribes—the former name is used indiscriminately, and the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin are also called Israel. But when it says, In the hand of his angel, or Malachi, understand "hand" as meaning works. Hence also the word of God came to be in the hand of Haggai, and in the hand of Jeremiah, and in the hand of Moses. For in those whose hands are iniquity, and whose right hand is filled with gifts, and whose hands are full of blood, in them the word of God is not made; but in him who washes his hands among the innocent. With these waters Pilate also attempted to wash his hands, so as not to consent to the blasphemies of the Jews, and of these waters the Psalmist rejoices, saying: He has brought me up over the waters of refreshment. Concerning this water the Lord promises through the prophet: I will sprinkle you with the purest water. But he who is a sinner is made drunk with the Babylonian cup, and it is said of him: Thorns spring up in the hand of the drunkard.

The Septuagint has: "Lay it upon your hearts." This is not found in the Hebrew, but I think it was added from Haggai, where we read: "And now lay it upon your hearts from this day and upward" (Haggai 2:16). After the title, then, of the prophet, or the preface, it must be understood in two ways: "Lay it upon your hearts," that is, take note and consider what was said above: "The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel in the hand of his angel." Or: diligently take note of what is to be said afterward, so that you may come to know them not with the ears of the body but with the understanding of the mind and heart, and make for yourselves treasuries in which to receive the riches of the words of God; and let wisdom act with confidence, when you have been enlarged and your heart filled with the words of God, and you have driven out the wicked thoughts that proceed from the heart—murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts (Matthew 15)—and the rest, and you fulfill what was spoken by the Savior: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (Luke 8:8). (Verse 2.) "I have loved you, says the Lord. And you said, In what have you loved us? Was not Esau a brother of Jacob, says the Lord: and I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated? And I made his mountains a wilderness, and his inheritance into dragons of the desert. But if Idumea says, We are destroyed, but returning we will build what has been destroyed: thus says the Lord of hosts: These shall build, and I will destroy: and they shall be called the borders of impiety, and the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.

And your eyes shall see, and you shall say: May the Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel. The Septuagint has: "I have loved you, says the Lord: and you said, In what have you loved us? Was not Esau the brother of Jacob? says the Lord: and I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated: and I set his borders in desolation, and his inheritance in the dwellings of the desert. Because Idumea shall say, She is destroyed: let us return and rebuild the desolate places: these things says the Lord almighty: They shall build, and I shall destroy: and the borders of iniquity shall be called by them, and the people over whom the Lord has been prepared forever. And your eyes shall see, and you shall say: The Lord has been magnified beyond the borders of Israel." Israel, that is, Judah, to whom the word of God and the vision of the Lord used to come, is compelled to bear his burden and the most grievous weight of punishments, so that he may lay aside the more grievous sins, and may perceive through torments what he did not perceive through benefits. And lest the punishment seem unjust against his own people, the Lord adds: I have loved you: for whom the Lord loves he rebukes: and he chastises every son whom he receives: and by saying I have loved, he denies the present while he confesses the past. And they answer with the recklessness by which they sin, forgetful of his benefits: In what have you loved us?

To these things the Lord says: To pass over the rest, and that you recently came from the Babylonian captivity, I will trace your beginnings before you were born—indeed, before Rebecca brought forth Esau and Jacob from her womb (Gen. 25)—I loved you in Jacob; in Esau I hated the Idumeans. The apostle Paul, winnowing this passage in a mystical disputation, writes to the Romans, joining together two testimonies at once, from Genesis and from Malachi: "But also Rebecca, having conceived by one act of intercourse with Isaac our father. For when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might remain, not from works but from him who calls, it was said to her, that the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (Rom. 9 and following). For what is said here, "as it is written," refers both to the book of Genesis and to the prophet Malachi. Not only, he says, did I love Jacob before he was born, and hate Esau before he was brought forth from his mother's womb; but I have preserved my love and my hatred in their descendants: hatred in Esau, whose mountains, which are called Seir, I have reduced to a wilderness, and whose cities I have made desolate, and held by serpents and beasts. But if Edom, that is, Esau, shall say: We have indeed been destroyed, to the anger of God, we will rebuild the cities again: know this by the Lord's foretelling, that while they build, I will destroy, and eternal desolation of them shall approve my anger.

Therefore the hatred is shown to be in Esau, but the love in you—that is, in Jacob—I will prove by what follows. When those have been destroyed and reduced to desolation, your eyes will see, and you will say: The Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel; and from the comparison of the evils which your brother suffers, you will perceive God's benefits toward you. The Jews flatter themselves falsely, that Edom means the Romans and Israel means themselves, and that this is prophesied for the consummation of the world: namely, that once the Roman empire is destroyed—that is, Idumaea—the kingdom of the world will come to the Jews. These things we have spoken as far as we could, laying the foundations of history; now let us come to the spiritual understanding. Israel—a man, or a sense that perceives God, or, as I rather think, the most upright of God—is loved by the Lord, and wishes to know the reason for his love toward himself. And the Lord answered that Esau and Jacob were born from one stock—that is, that vices and virtues proceed from one fountain of the heart—while from the freedom of the will we turn toward either side as we wish; but the vices are born first, through infancy, boyhood, and youth, which a stronger age afterward corrects and supplants. The elder brother is hairy and bloodthirsty (Gen. 25): he delights in hunting, forests, and beasts. The younger is smooth and simple, and dwells innocently at home. God sets the borders of Idumaea—that is, of the earthly and bloodthirsty land—in desolation, and allows nothing to grow from the earth, and for it to be perpetual.

But if shameless malice tries to rebuild what has been destroyed by the word of God, the Lord declares himself the adversary of those things which are being restored from vices. And after all things of hostile boundaries have been overthrown, then we can see the eyes of Israel, and all the saints say: Let the Lord be magnified in their boundaries, who behold God in mind. Furthermore, the love and hatred of God arise either from foreknowledge of future things or from works; otherwise we know that God loves all things, and hates nothing of those things which he created (Wisdom 11); but he properly claims for his own love those who are enemies and rebels of vices. And on the contrary he hates those who desire to build again what has been destroyed by God. But God is said to hate, as to weep, to grieve, to be angry: so that when we hear of his hatred toward the wicked, we may understand those things which God hates and flee them.

(Verse 6.) "A son honors his father, and a servant his lord: if therefore I am a father, where is my honor? and if I am a lord, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts." The Septuagint: "A son glorifies his father, and a servant will fear his lord. And if I am a father, where is my glory? And if I am a lord, where is my fear? says the Lord almighty." Although before you were born, I began to love you in Jacob as sons: nevertheless choose by what name you call me, either I am your father, or your lord. If a father, render the honor due to a father, and offer piety worthy of a parent.

If he is Lord, why do you despise me? Why do you not fear the Lord? He speaks, moreover, to those who had returned from the Babylonian captivity under Zerubbabel and Jesus the son of Josedek, and Ezra the priest, and Nehemiah (I Esdras III), and who, having built the altar, had not yet built the temple, nor had they built up the walls of the city, and nonetheless remained in their former sins, honoring God neither with love nor with fear. But what we have called glory, or honor, is in both Greek and Hebrew CHABOD, one word; but we, in accordance with the propriety of the Latin language, have set down "honor." For even in the Gospel, where the Lord and Savior says: Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you (John XVII, 1), it is read among the Greeks as, that is, glorify. Which passage most of the Latins have translated as "honor." And at the same time let us consider that son and servant in the Holy Scriptures are made so by will, not by necessity of nature. For he who has received the spirit of adoption is turned into a son of God; but he who has received the spirit of servitude unto fear is made a servant of God (Romans VIII). God therefore wills first that we be his sons, and do good by will; if we wish to attain this, that he at least have us as servants, and that we withdraw from evils through the fear of punishments. We read of sons in a bad sense: We were sons of wrath, and sons of Gehenna (Ephesians II, 3), whom the Pharisees, who compass sea and land, begot as worthy of torments (Matthew XXIII).

And Judas the traitor is called a son of perdition (John 17); and in the eighty-eighth Psalm it is written concerning the Lord: The son of iniquity shall not add to harm him (Ps. 88:23). In Hosea too they are called sons of fornication, who were born of a harlot mother, of whom it is written: Your mother has played the harlot (Hos. 2:5). And in the Gospel the Jews are reproached as sons of the devil: You are born of your father the devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father (John 8:44). In a good sense we read of sons, as sons of God: As many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God (John 1:12). And sons of wisdom, as the Gospel proclaims: Wisdom is justified by her children (Matt. 11:19): And sons of Abraham: Amen, amen, I say to you, God is able from these stones to raise up sons of Abraham (Matt. 3:9). And sons of the Apostle: My little children, for whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you (Gal. 4:19), and many things of this kind. Therefore a son honors, or glorifies, his father, according to that which is written: So let your light shine before men, that they may see your works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16).

A servant too honors his master, but not with the same love as a son does; rather, the implied sense is: a son honors his father, a servant his master. And yet God almighty, knowing the difference between a son and a servant, requires glory from a son and fear from a servant: for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Sirach 1:16), so that we may pass from the fear of servants to the glory of sons.

(Ver. 7.) "To you, O priests, who despise my name, and you have said: In what have we despised your name? You offer polluted bread upon my altar, and you say: In what have we polluted you? In that you say, the table of the Lord is despised." The Septuagint: "You, priests, who despise my name, and you have said: In what have we despised your name? Offering polluted loaves at my altar, and you have said: In what have we polluted them? In that you say, the table of the Lord is despised: and the things that have been placed upon it, you have despised." But what follows: And the things that have been placed upon it you have despised, we have marked with an obelus, because it is not found in the Hebrew, and has been added from what follows. To you, therefore, O priests, who despise my name, this word is directed: you who, having returned from Babylon, out of fear of your past servitude, ought to have turned to the Lord with a whole mind—and not only have you failed to do this, but imitating Cain (Gen. 4), you answer God with proud words, and you question him whom hidden things do not escape, and you say: In what have we despised your name?

so that by the shamelessness of your dissimulation you may cover the wound of your conscience. Do you wish, then, to know in what way you have despised my name? You offer polluted bread upon my altar—that is, the showbread, which according to the Hebrew traditions you yourselves ought to have sown, yourselves reaped, yourselves ground, yourselves baked; and now you take whatever people from among the crowd, and with reckless voice you answer and say, "In what have we polluted them," or "you"? For when the sacraments are violated, he whose sacraments they are is himself violated. But what follows: "In that you say, the table of the Lord is despised," we can interpret thus: that those who returned from Babylon, with the temple not yet built, dwelling in huts and amid the ruins of the ancient city, had built only an altar, not of the same glory as the former one had been, and they thought the sanctity of religion was lacking because the ambition of building was lacking. We have drawn faint outlines, upon which the spiritual explanation must be impressed. The divine word rebukes negligent bishops, and presbyters and deacons, or else, since we are a priestly and kingly race, all who have been baptized in Christ and are reckoned by the name of Christ—why do they despise the name of God? And to those who ask in what they have despised his name, he shows the causes of the offense: "You offer," he says, "polluted bread upon my altar.

We pollute the bread—that is, the body of Christ—when we approach the altar unworthily, and, filthy, drink the pure blood, and say, "The table of the Lord is despised"; not that anyone would dare to say this, or utter in a wicked voice what he impiously thinks, but the works of sinners despise the table of God. We can also put it another way: the teacher of the Church who makes the spiritual bread and divides it among the people—if, either for human glory or for the gain of the world that follows upon glory, he speaks among the people and flatters the rich, and honors sinners, and, according to James, receives those who come to him with gold rings (James 2), and drives away the holy poor—despises the name of God, and pollutes the bread of teachings, and hurls insults against God himself, thinking the table of his Scriptures to be shared with the table of idols and of secular doctrine.

(Verse 8.) If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it to your leader, if it pleases him, or if he will accept your person, says the Lord of hosts. The Septuagint: "For if you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it to your leader, if he will accept you, if he will accept your person, says the Lord almighty." Concerning the diversity of victims, and which ought either to be offered or not to be offered, we learn more fully in Leviticus (Leviticus 21 and 23).

Therefore the priests and Levites, the gatekeepers and singers, and the Nathinnaei and servants of Solomon, whose return from Babylon Ezra records, were offering unlawful sacrifices to God—namely blind and lame ones, and ones worn out by various weaknesses (1 Esdras 2); for this is what he calls "languid," comprehending all of them in one word. If, he says, you were to offer gifts of this sort to your ruler, would he not reject them? Would he not think an injury had been done to him? And do you dare to offer to God what you would not dare to give to men? It would take long now to unfold the mysteries of all the sacrifices; I will speak only of those contained in the present chapter. Blind is the sacrifice of the soul that is not illuminated by the light of Christ, nor has an eye gazing from the Gospel (Matthew 6). Lame is the prayer of one who asks, when he comes to pray with a double mind, and hears with the Jewish people: How long will you limp on both feet (3 Kings 18:21)? And languid, and covered with every infirmity, is the prayer that does not have the power of Christ God, and the wisdom of God. Prayers of this sort, which are without the light of truth, and do not have the firm footsteps of wisdom, and waste away with various weaknesses—if they are offered to the leader of the churches, or to any learned and wise teacher, will they not be rejected, and fall back in contempt upon him who has dared to offer such things?

(Verse 9.) "And now entreat the face of God that he may have mercy on you: for this has been done by your hand, if by any means he may accept your faces, says the Lord of hosts. Who is there among you that would shut the doors, and kindle my altar for nothing?" The Septuagint: "And now entreat the face of your God, and beseech him: these things have been done in your hands, if I may accept your faces from among you, says the Lord almighty: because even among you the doors shall be shut, and my altar shall not be kindled for nothing." In this place the Septuagint translators differ greatly from the Hebrew truth; and it is necessary that where the interpretation is different, the sense also be different. Because you have offered blind and lame and feeble victims—for you have done all these things that I have said—repent, if by any means God may have mercy on you; for there is no one among you, down to the lowliest ministry—I do not say the high priest, not a priest, not a Levite, not a singer, but not even a gatekeeper, and he who puts fire under the altar to burn the burnt offerings—who does not receive from me the wage of his labor. But in saying this, he signifies the tithes of all the fruits which are offered by the peoples. From this it is shown that the service is more acceptable to the Lord which does not demand a wage in the present. Hence also the Apostle preaches the Gospel for nothing (1 Thess.

(II); and night and day he labors with his own hands, lest he be a burden to anyone, and he testifies that this glory of his—preaching the gospel freely among the Gentiles—is by no means to be emptied out (II Thess. III). Furthermore, the Septuagint suggests a far different meaning: O priests, who sacrifice the weak victims, turn to repentance, and entreat the face of the Lord, and pray for the works of your hands. But as for what follows: If I receive your faces from among you, I do not know whether it fits an exhortation to repentance. For no one says: Pray to me, and I will not spare you. There follows: In you the gates shall be shut—namely, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Whence the Savior says: I am the gate (John X, 9). Or otherwise: the gates of the Scriptures shall not be opened to you, nor will you be able to discern the holy of holies, nor to know the Lord's sacraments; nor to kindle his incense at the altar, because your prayers will not reach him. And this word which is said, and which we too have translated as "freely," those who follow the understanding that we now set forth render as "grace," so that, namely, they may not have grace to serve at the altar of the Lord.

(Verses following.) "I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand: for from the rising of the sun even to its setting my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place sacrifice is offered, and a pure offering is offered to my name, because my name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord of hosts. And you have polluted it, in that you say: The table of the Lord is defiled, and what is placed upon it is contemptible, together with the fire that devours it. And you have said: Behold, it is from labor, and you have blown upon it, says the Lord of hosts. And you have brought in from robberies the lame and the sick, and you have brought in an offering: shall I accept it from your hand? says the Lord." The Septuagint: "My will is not in you, says the Lord almighty, and I will not accept sacrifice from your hands, because from the rising of the sun even to its setting my name is glorious among the Gentiles: and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice, because my name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord almighty. But you have defiled it, in that you say: The table of the Lord is polluted, and the foods placed upon it are despised, and you have said: These things are from affliction, and you have blown upon them, says the Lord almighty. And you were bringing in robberies, and the lame and the weak, and you were offering sacrifice: shall I accept these from your hands, says the Lord almighty?

The rule of the Scriptures is: where a most manifest prophecy is woven concerning future things, we are not to diminish what has been written by means of uncertain allegory. Therefore here the Lord's speech is properly addressed to the priests of the Jews, who offer the blind and the lame and the sick for sacrifice, so that they may know that spiritual victims are to succeed carnal victims. And no longer the blood of bulls and goats, but incense—that is, the prayers of the saints—is to be offered to the Lord, and not in one province of the world, Judea, nor in one city of Judea, Jerusalem, but in every place an offering is to be offered, not unclean, as by the people of Israel, but clean, as in the ceremonies of Christians. For from the rising of the sun even to its setting the name of the Lord is great among the Gentiles, as the Savior says: Father, I have manifested your name to men (John 17:6). And whereas, he says, my name is to be great among the Gentiles, you princes of the Jews have polluted it and do pollute it. For thus he weaves the prophecy of future things that he does not abandon the present time. For this reason, then, O priests and princes of the Jews, in every place a clean offering is offered to me, and my name is great among the Gentiles, because you say: The table of the Lord is contaminated, and what is placed upon it is contemptible, together with the fire that devours it. The people, returning from Babylon, built only an altar of chance and unpolished stones, according to the book of Ezra (1 Esdras

without a temple, without city buildings, without the construction of walls, and he thought the worship of religion was lesser because the temple's adornment was lacking. To these the Lord speaks: You think the altar is polluted, and the holocausts and victims that are placed upon it; also that the fire which devours the victims is polluted; and you do not understand that almighty God seeks not gold, gems, and a multitude of sacrifices, but the wills of those who offer. But they think that not the altar but the table should be understood, on which the loaves were placed—how they can interpret what follows, with the fire that adorns it, I do not see at all; for fire does not devour the loaves of the presence, which they always exchanged new for old, and when taken away they passed to the use of the priests (Lev. 24). Or certainly it must be understood thus: You have polluted my name in that you say: What does it profit if we offer the best? Whatever sort the things offered are, they must be devoured by fire. But the fruit of the altar is fire, and the food of fire is the victims or holocausts. Nor does the impiety of the former speech suffice, but you have even said this: Behold, from labor, and you have blown upon it, says the Lord of hosts.

The meaning of this utterance is: You have said, "We have returned from captivity, we have been prey to our enemies, we have labored greatly on the long journey, we are poor, whatever we were able to have has been consumed by the toil of the road; whatever sort of things we have, we offer"; and by saying these things you have puffed away your sacrifices, that is, you have made them worthy of my puffing away; or, as it can be read in the Hebrew: "And you have puffed away me" by saying these things; you have done injury not to the sacrifice, but to me, to whom you were sacrificing. Therefore I will by no means accept it from your hand, says the Lord almighty. Some think that what is said specifically to the Jews, because their victims are unclean and polluted, and that the sacrifice is transferred to the Gentiles, ought to be understood concerning the priests of the Church, who negligently offer victims to the Lord. But if we accept this, then the victims must again be transferred from the Church to another religion. And just as the Law gave way to the Gospel, so again things that are not going to be would succeed the Gospel. They also refer the contaminated table of the Lord to the holy Scriptures, if they are understood otherwise than as they have been written.

(Ch. II—verses 1, 2.) "Cursed is the deceitful man who has a male in his flock, and who, making a vow, sacrifices a weak one to the Lord. For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is terrible among the nations. And now this commandment is for you, O priests: If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it upon your heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts: I will send poverty upon you, and I will curse your blessings, and I will curse them, because you have not laid it upon your heart." The Septuagint: "And cursed is he who was powerful, and had a male in his flock, and his vow was upon it, and he sacrifices a weak one to the Lord: for I am a great king, says the Lord almighty, and my name is illustrious among the nations. And now this commandment is for you, O priests, if you will not hear, and if you will not set your heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord almighty: I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessing, and I will curse it, and I will scatter your blessing: and it shall not be for you; because you do not lay it upon your heart." What is written, "and I will scatter your blessing," has been added by the Septuagint, and is not found in the Hebrew. Whatever the human mind can devise in excuse for its sin, and defend itself with a false satisfaction, the divine word, foreseeing this, reproves and condemns.

And the meaning is: Because you offer the blind and the lame and the sick, and this itself not from your own possessions but from plunder and spoils and the tears of the miserable, and besides you say, "We offer from labor and poverty what we have": therefore I say generally, so that your own conscience may convict you. Surely you plead poverty, and the injury of captivity, and the meagerness of your household substance: hear what I bring forward: "Cursed is the deceitful man who has a male in his flock, and making a vow sacrifices a weak one to the Lord." If you do not have a male, the curse harms you not at all. But by saying these things, he shows that they have what is best, and offer what is bad. To you, therefore, O priests, this commandment is given, you have done what is impious in contempt of me. But because I prefer the repentance of the sinner to his death, even now I say: If you will not hear me, nor understand, so as to give glory to my name, which is terrible among the nations, I will truly send want upon you, so that no longer lying, but compelled by the need of all things, you may say that you do not have the best things to offer. And I will curse, he says, your blessings, that is, those things which you now possess by my blessings; or whatever is blessed by you, it will be cursed by me. And I will curse them, that is, understood, your blessings; because you were unwilling to understand what is said; for this is what is meant: You have not laid it upon your heart.

We can understand the cursed and deceitful man as the Jewish people, who, though they had in their flock the male, the Lord and Savior, and the spotless lamb who takes away the sins of the world (John 1), and were admonished by the foretelling of all the prophets to sacrifice and receive the ram that was caught by its horns in the thicket of Sebec (Gen. 22), were unwilling to do this; but they sacrifice a weak victim to the Lord, crucifying the Savior, and choosing Barabbas, the author of robbery and sedition (John 18), who according to the mystical understanding is referred to the devil. And when they despised these things and preferred the devil to the Savior, the name of Christ is horrible among the nations, which received the passion of the Lord and venerate him with fearful honor. Of us too it can be said: If, created wise by God and having a nature suited to sacred disciplines, we neglect our own talent and give ourselves over to vices and luxury, then, having the male, we sacrifice a weak victim to the Lord. But our prayer is weak and spotted when it is corrupted by anger, envy, enmities, and other disturbance of the mind—if, when offering our gift at the altar and remembering that our brother has something against us, we do not first go and make satisfaction to him (Matt. 5:23). Whence the Apostle also commands: I wish therefore that men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands without anger and disputation (1 Tim. 2:8).

And the shepherd of our thoughts and of the virtues is the understanding, of which it is said in the hundred and second Psalm (verse 1): Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name. If he has ruled his flock well, that blessing is fulfilled in him: Blessed shall be the herds of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep (Deut. 28:4). But if, having by nature the male, that is, the strong, rigid, and robust, he offers as a sacrifice the light or, through excessive softness, the effeminate and wanton, or the weak and corrupted by various disturbances of the soul, he will feel that what is written has been fulfilled in him: The mighty shall suffer torments mightily (Wis. 6:7); and: To whom they have given more, they will require more from him (Luke 12:47). Whence it is said specifically to the priests that, if they are unwilling to hear and to keep in their heart, so as to give glory to the name of the Lord through good conduct, but on the contrary his name is blasphemed among the nations because of them (Rom. 2), he will send upon them want of all good things, and turn their blessings into a curse. Those who abuse health for lust, and turn riches into luxury, and defile a good reputation by sordid conduct—these change the blessings of God into a curse. Or certainly, because the command was given specifically to the priests, their blessings are turned into a curse when they do not bless the saints from a true affection of heart, as Isaac blessed Jacob, and Jacob the patriarchs, and Moses the twelve tribes (Gen. 27 and 49, and Deut.

XXXIII), but by sweet words and blessings they deceive the hearts of the innocent (Rom. XVI), and those who act wickedly are blessed by them, and they flatter sinners provided they are rich and they wink at their vices, of whom it is said: My people, those who call you blessed deceive you, and they undermine the paths of your feet (Isa. III, 12).

(Vers. 3, 4.) « Behold, I will cast forth an arm upon you, and I will scatter upon your face the dung of your solemnities, and it shall take you up with it. And you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant might be with Levi, says the Lord of hosts. » The LXX: « Behold, I will separate a shoulder for you, and I will scatter the stomach upon your face, the stomach of your solemnities, and I will receive you together: and you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my testament might be with the Levites, says the Lord almighty. » Because he speaks to the priests: I will cast forth, he says, upon your faces those things which you consider holier in the law, and which were granted to you by God as a gift of virtues from the sacrifices: the arm, for which the LXX rendered shoulder, that is, the right shoulder of the animal. And I will scatter, he says, that is, the stomach; or according to the Hebrews, the dung, that is, PHARES, calling the thing contained by the name of the container; for both the shoulder and the breast, and the tongue, and the stomach, and those things which are described in Leviticus, the priests received from the sacrifices (Lev. VII and IX).

He testifies that all these things are cast away for their sins, and cast into the faces of the priests (Num. 18), so that those who offer are of the same sort as the things which are offered (Deut. 18). And he will take you, he says, with him, that is, the dung of your solemnities, so that your foul faces may be defiled by the filthy mixture of dung, and from the very fact that I cast you away, you may understand that it is I myself who once chose your father Levi, and through Levi, Aaron, and granted to you the glory of the priesthood, so that my pact or testament might be with Levi, and he might minister to me in an eternal priesthood. It should be noted that BRITH is the Hebrew word. Aquila translates it as pact. The Septuagint: always, that is, testament, and in very many places of the Scriptures, testament does not mean the will of the dead, but the pact of the living. But God willed that all men indeed, but especially priests, should have no blemish, and should adorn either the shoulder or the arm with good works. In the little breast is signified a good conscience; in the tongue, holy confession; so that what we believe in the heart unto righteousness, we may confess with the mouth unto salvation (Rom. 10). In the belly too, to have nothing deadly, but that which sustains and invigorates our life; for unless foods are digested in the belly, and the body is irrigated by their juice, it is weakened in strength and is carried toward death.

But we have come to do everything the opposite way, so that the Lord may cast his arm against us, or separate our works from the works of the saints; and we, to whom it was commanded to anoint our head (Matt. 6) and to wash our face from the filth of sins when fasting, and with unveiled face to contemplate the glory of the Lord (2 Cor. 3), now say: Confusion of my face has covered me (Ps. 43:16), and like Cain our face has fallen (Gen. 4), nor can we fulfill what was commanded: Lift up your eyes and see (Jer. 13:20); but we have faces smeared and polluted with the dung of vices, and we say: My wounds have rotted and become corrupt because of my foolishness (Ps. 37:6). Whence all these things have been turned into dung, as the Scripture says: And he will take you away with him as dung—namely that by which our faces have been smeared, we who ought to have come full and clean into the solemnities of God, and either to eat the flesh of the lamb with our feet shod (Exod. 12), or to make atonement through seven weeks, to offer to God the fruits of our works (Lev. 23), or to live in the tabernacles of this world as transients, and to say: I am a stranger and a sojourner, like all my fathers (Ps. 38:13).

And because, where we have translated "he will take you with him, the dung," the sound translators of the Seventy interpreted it as "and I will take you together," the meaning is added that after the priests have been covered with foulness and disgrace, and have understood their sin and done penance, then they are taken up by the Lord; and what follows agrees with this sense: "And you shall know that I sent this commandment to you." But the former interpretation seems to me the true one, lest among the words of threatening he should have placed the words of one coaxing, especially since the things that follow also sound of God's indignation.

(Vers. seqq.) "My covenant was with him of life and peace, and I gave him fear, and he feared me, and he was in dread before the face of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and turned many away from iniquity. For the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts." The Seventy: "My testament was with him of life and peace, and I gave him fear that he might fear me, and he was in dread before the face of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips. Walking in peace he directed his way with me, and turned many away from iniquity. For the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and the law shall be sought from his mouth: because he is the angel of the Lord almighty.

The perfect priest's office is described from the person of God—what sort of man he ought to be, and what sort he willed him to be whom he commanded to be. For above he had said: "That my covenant might be with Levi, says the Lord of hosts"; and through Levi the patriarch it comes down to his descendants, Aaron and Eleazar, Phinehas and the rest who are of his stock in general. Now at the end he says: "You have made void the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts." From this it is clear that everything said through Levi pertains to the priests and especially to the high priest. We read in Numbers concerning Phinehas, who struck Zimri together with the Midianite harlot with a dagger: "Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has caused my fury to rest from the children of Israel, because he was jealous with my zeal against them, and I did not destroy the children of Israel in my zeal," saying thus: "Behold, I give him a covenant of peace, and it shall be for him and for his seed after him, a covenant of an everlasting priesthood: because he was zealous for his God, and made entreaty for the children of Israel" (Num. 25:13). But let us not think the covenant or pact of life to be that which is common to us with beasts and all living creatures, but that of which it is said: "I am the life" (John 14:6). For our life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3); of whom we can say that he himself is our peace, as the Apostle confirms: "For he himself is our peace" (Eph. 2:14).

The Lord therefore gave to Levi, and through him to his descendants, that they should fear him—for "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Ps. 110:10)—and that they should be in dread of his face, or draw back and shrink from it, showing the dread of the mind by the horror of the body, according to what is written: "Upon whom shall I rest, except upon the humble and quiet and one who trembles at my words" (Isa. 66:2). The law of truth was in his mouth—that is, the teaching of the peoples—which in a priest ought to be defiled by no lie, but to proceed wholly from the fountain of truth. And iniquity was not found in his lips, so that he might imitate his Lord, of whom it is said: "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth" (1 Pet. 2:22). In peace and in equity he walked with me, so that he himself might have peace within himself and make others peaceful, and accept no man's person in judgment, and for that reason walk with God, as Enoch walked, who was translated to the Lord and was not found (Gen. 5). And he turned many away from iniquity. Whoever is a priest and does not rebuke those who do wrong has neglected the office of a priest. The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge; he did not say, "shall bring forth," but "shall keep knowledge"—that they may speak in due time and give the household servants their food in due season. And they shall seek the law from his mouth. The same is written in Haggai: "Ask the priests for the law of the Lord" (Hag. 2:12). It belongs to a priest, when questioned, to answer concerning the law.

But if he who is diligent in other matters pleads ignorance in the holy Scriptures, he boasts in vain of a dignity whose works he does not display. This is what the apostle Paul writes to Titus: that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict (Tit. 1:9). And to Timothy: Since from infancy you have known the sacred writings, which can instruct you unto salvation, so that you may reprove those who sin before all (2 Tim. 3:15). There follows: Because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts. Ezra, the priest of God, explains his own name—that is, Malachi, which is interpreted as "angel of the Lord"; but an angel, that is, a messenger, is most truly called the priest of God, because he is a mediator between God and men, and announces his will to the people; and for this reason the breastpiece is on the priest's breast (Exod. 29), and in the breastpiece doctrine and truth are placed, so that we may learn that a priest ought to be learned and a herald of the Lord's truth. Some falsely think that what is said to Levi and through Levi to the priests should be understood of Christ, not noticing that the things which follow are contrary to the person of Christ.

(Verses 8, 9). "But you have departed from the way, and have caused many to stumble in the law: you have made void the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore I also have made you contemptible and lowly before all peoples, inasmuch as you have not kept my ways, and have accepted persons in the law." The Septuagint: "But you have turned aside from my way, and have made many weak in the law, you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord almighty. And I have given you contemptible and dissolute among all nations, because you have not kept my ways, but were accepting persons in the law." That these things do not pertain to the person of Christ, nor to those who are dedicated to his worship, even if I were silent, the prudent reader understands. And the sense is: I wished to make you what is contained in the previous chapter, and of which I spoke through Moses in Deuteronomy: Give Levi his doctrine, and truth to the just man (Deut. 33:8, according to the LXX), and the rest: but you have departed from the right way, or have turned aside, though I said: Do not turn aside either to the right or to the left (Deut. 5:32); and you have made many weak in the law, or have caused many to stumble, as Aquila and Symmachus translated. To turn aside to the right is to abstain from foods which God created to be used; to condemn marriage, and to fall into that which is written in another place: Do not be overly just (Eccles. 7:17).

To turn to the left is when someone gives himself over to luxury and lust, and causes many to stumble in the law; for whom it would be better that a millstone be tied around his neck and he be cast into the sea, than that he cause one of the least to stumble. But they make many weak, who, when those believing in Christ have received the strength of faith, cause them to be weakened by the negligence of their conduct; to whom it is most rightly said: You have made void the covenant of Levi, the covenant of life and peace, and the rest, which we have said pertain to the office of the priest. For this reason, he says, I also have made you contemptible and lowly before all peoples, so that they might despise you, and instead of honor and glory, might trample you as cast-down and lowly. Just as you have not kept my ways, and have accepted faces in the law. Among all the sins of Levi, or of those who are priests of God from Levi, that is placed both last and greatest: why they accept faces in the law, so that they consider not causes but persons, and despising the just poor, they receive and honor the wicked rich. To whom it is said in the eighty-first psalm: How long will you judge iniquity, and take up the faces of sinners? and Paul to the Galatians: God, he says, does not accept the person of a man. And the apostle James more fully reproves and condemns this sin.

But whatever is said to the former people, let us think it said also to us, so that we may withdraw more cautiously from vices, and not show partiality in the law, nor, we who are worshippers of God, prefer falsehood to truth.

(Following verses.) «Was not one Father of us all? Did not one God create us? Why then does each one of us despise his brother, violating the covenant of our fathers? Judah has transgressed, and an abomination has been made in Israel and in Jerusalem: because Judah has defiled the sanctification of the Lord, which he loved, and has taken a daughter of a foreign god. The Lord will destroy the man who has done this, the teacher and the disciple from the tabernacles of Jacob, and the one offering a gift to the Lord of hosts.» The Septuagint: «Was not one Father of all of you? Did not one God create you? Why have you each abandoned his brother, so that the testament of your fathers should be made abominable? Judah has been forsaken, and an abomination has been made in Israel and in Jerusalem, because Judah has defiled the holy things of the Lord, in which he delighted, and has found foreign gods. May the Lord destroy the man who does these things, until he is driven out from the tabernacles of Jacob, and from those who offer sacrifice to the Lord almighty.» Before we dispute concerning the present chapter, the tradition of the Hebrews must be set forth, or rather the truth of Scripture must be explained.

We read in the volume that is prefaced with the title of Ezra, from the person of Ezra himself speaking: The princes came to me, saying: The people of Israel is not separated, and the priests and the Levites, from the peoples of the lands, and from their abominations, namely of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite, and of the Ammonites, and the Moabites, and the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, and have mixed the holy seed with the peoples of the lands. The hand also of the princes and magistrates was in this first transgression. And when I had heard this word, I tore my cloak and my tunic, and plucked out the hairs of my head and of my beard, and sat down mourning. And again in what follows: And there were found of the sons of the priests, who had taken foreign wives: of the sons of Jeshua, the sons of Jozadak, and his brothers, Maaseiah, and Eleazar, and Jarib, and Gedaliah, and they gave their hands, that they would put away their wives, and for their offense they would offer a ram from the sheep. At the end also of the chapter, after the enumeration of those who had taken foreign wives, Scripture records: All these have taken foreign wives: and there were among them women who had borne children.

Having therefore returned from the Babylonian captivity, both the princes and the priests and Levites, as well as the rest of the people, cast off their wives of the Israelite stock, who, because of the poverty and hardship of the longer journey and the frailty of their sex, could not bear the toil, were covered with dust, and had contracted weakness and disfigurement of their bodies; and they had joined in marriage with foreign women, either those flourishing in age or those more beautiful in bodily adornment, or the daughters of the powerful and wealthy. And so Ezra the prophet rebukes them, and calls them to divorce their new wives, so that they may take back the wives whom they had dismissed: "Is not," he says, "one father Abraham of us all?" Of whom it is written in Isaiah: "Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you, because he was one, and I called him" (Isa. 51:2). "Has not one God created us, who chose our race from Abraham? Why then do we despise our old wives, and cast off the daughters of our brothers, so as to abandon the covenant of our fathers, and not take wives according to the law? Judah has transgressed" (for this is the tribe that returned from Babylon with the priests and Levites, and an abomination was made in Israel and in Jerusalem. By no means in the ten tribes, which were held by the Assyrians; but in those who, at the command of King Cyrus, under Zerubbabel, and Ezra, and Nehemiah, returned from Babylonia.

Because Judah has defiled the sanctification of the Lord, which he loved, and has taken a daughter of a foreign god, by mingling the seed of Israel with foreigners and Gentiles—that is, the daughters of the heathen who serve idols—by taking them as wives. Therefore, because they did this, the word of the prophet is directed to them, and they are drawn back from sin by curses. May the Lord destroy the man who has done this. How beautifully he did not cut off pardon for the error, nor did he say, "May the Lord curse him who has done this," but "who has done this," extending the curse into the future, so as to provoke sinners to repentance. The teacher, he says, and the disciple from the tents of Jacob, whether he be a priest or a layman, will be struck with one curse, and there will be no distinction of punishment among them, in whom the sins are equal. And the one who offers a gift to the Lord of hosts: it is understood, May the Lord destroy him also who wishes to offer a gift at the altar on behalf of such men, whose only remedy is not to do what they have done. Some, not understanding this passage nor knowing the truth of the history, understand what he says—"Is there not one father of us all?"—as referring to Abraham, so as even to call Abraham the father of the Gentiles, according to what is written: "God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham" (Matt. 3:9). Or at least they affirm one God the Father, according to what we read in Deuteronomy: "Is not he himself your Father, who possessed you, and made you, and created you?" (Deut. 32:6).

And again: You have forsaken the God who created you (Ibid. 18). And elsewhere: I have begotten sons and exalted them, but they themselves have forsaken me (Isa. 1:2). And in the volume of the Psalms: Foreign sons have lied to me; foreign sons have grown old, and they have limped from their paths (Ps. 17:46). And departing from this one father, those who sinned have made for themselves many fathers of their vices: for everyone who commits sin is born of the devil (John 3:8). And what follows: Why does each one of us despise his brother, violating the covenant of our fathers? they have interpreted thus, saying that we are all begotten from one father, that we ought to be one, and to have one lip of confession; but afterwards, through pride and the building of the tower against God, we were divided into many languages and opinions (Gen. 11). They also refer this to almsgiving, saying that we despise our brothers when we do not share with them what we have received from God for sustaining life. And they go on to assert that our brother, according to the Scriptures, is called the Lord, who commanded Mary Magdalene to announce to his brothers that the Lord had risen (John 20), and who speaks in the Psalm: I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the Church I will sing to you (Ps. 21:23).

The Jews therefore forsook their brother, and defiled the covenant of their fathers, which God had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that in their seed, which is interpreted as Christ, all nations should be blessed. These things they suspect in various ways, because they do not find the certain way. Finally, even this which follows according to the Septuagint—Judas has been forsaken, and an abomination has been made in Israel and in Jerusalem—they explain thus: that the Jews were deserted because they blasphemed the Lord Savior, and they endured what is written: According to the multitude of their impieties, drive them out, because they have provoked you, O Lord (Ps. 5:11), so that they were scattered as wanderers and fugitives into all provinces. For they defiled the holy things of the Lord, loving and devising for themselves alien gods in place of the Son of God: for he who does not receive the Son does not receive the Father who sent him (John 5:23). And therefore, because they did this, they were to perish for so long until they were humbled, either by the injury of captivity or by the consciousness of their sins; and they were to be cast out from the tabernacles of Jacob, so that, with the temple and altar destroyed, sacrifices should no longer be offered among them. Nor are they content with this explanation (because Judas is interpreted as the confession of the Lord), but they transfer it to a penitent understanding: that one who, after he has confessed the Lord, if he sins, makes an abomination in Israel and in Jerusalem—in the sense of one seeing God, and in the vision of peace.

For he defiles the mysteries of Christ by receiving His body and blood unworthily (1 Cor 11), because he has loved vices and has devised for himself alien gods, having as many gods as he has sins. According to the apostle Paul: "Their god is their belly" (Phil 3), and according to Peter: "By whatever a man is overcome, to that he is also enslaved" (2 Pet 2:19). And whoever does this will be cut off from the Church and from the tabernacles of Jacob, who supplants vices and sins, until he is humbled for his own good, and a victim is offered on his behalf to the Lord Almighty.

(Following verses.) "And this again you have done: you covered the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and groaning, so that I will no longer look upon the sacrifice, nor accept anything pleasing from your hand. And you said: For what reason? Because the Lord has testified between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have despised: yet she is your partner and the wife of your covenant. Did not one make her, and the remnant of his spirit is his? And what does the one seek but the seed of God? Guard therefore your spirit, and do not despise the wife of your youth. If you have had her with hatred, put her away, says the Lord God of Israel; but iniquity shall cover his garment, says the Lord of hosts: guard your spirit, and do not despise her." The Septuagint: "And these things which I hated, you have done: you covered with tears the altar of the Lord with lamentation and groaning—still with labors: worthy to look upon the sacrifice, or to receive what is acceptable from your hands.

And you have said, “For what reason?” Because the Lord has testified between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have abandoned, and she is your partner, and the wife of your covenant; and no other did so, and the remnant of your spirit. And you have said: “What else besides offspring does God seek?” And guard in your spirit, and do not abandon the wife of your youth; but if, hating her, you have sent her away, says the Lord God of Israel, impiety will cover your thoughts, says the Lord almighty: and guard in your spirit, and do not abandon her. Let us interpret the history, and fitting brief meanings to each little verse, let us set forth what has been handed down to us from the Hebrews. The abandoned wives of the Israelites, seeing women of foreign nations on the couches of their husbands, fled to the help of God alone, prostrate day and night before the altar of the Lord, and by their tears, groaning, and wailing they made an accusation against His providence, that He did not look upon human affairs and did not help their miseries. Whence God says that He cannot receive the sacrifice and victim from the hands of the priests who committed these things, hindered by the weeping and lamentations of the wives, and furthermore that they ask for what reason He does not receive sacrifice from their hands, and immediately He adds: Because the Lord has testified between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have despised, saying: For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh (Gen.

Malachi 2:14); and therefore she is called a partner, and a wife of conjunction and of covenant, who was made by God from the rib of the man. And the remnant of his spirit—whether of God, as some think, or of the husband, as others suspect—because on account of affection they seem in a certain way to be one soul in two, joined in spirit, united in mind. Since therefore one made both, the man and the woman, for this reason the conjunction of both was made by God, so that children might be born. For what does the one God seek except the seed of God, that is, sons begotten from the Israelite stock? Since therefore you have fertile wives and rejoice in children, why do you seek the beauty of wives, which is suited to harlots, not to wives? And so God commands through the prophet, and says, "Keep your spirit"; lest you be led away by lust, lest you be overcome by the love of foreign women. And do not despise the wife of your youth, so that she who was first joined to you in virginal marriage may persevere even to old age. But it could happen that the princes, priests, Levites, and people would answer: God commanded through Moses that when we have hated our wives, we should send them away. And it must be read: You say to me, "It is written: When you have hated your wife, send her away, says the Lord God of Israel" (Deut. 24:1 ff.). And immediately he answers: This indeed was commanded in the law, but because of the hardness of your heart.

What the Lord pursues more fully in the Gospel: But whoever, except for the cause of fornication, unjustly puts away his wife (Matt. 5:32), iniquity shall cover his garment, that is, the body with which the soul is clothed, says the Lord of hosts: so that in that wherein he sinned, in that same thing he may be punished. Wherefore, this little question being resolved, he inculcates and repeats what he had said above: Keep your spirit, and do not despise—either the keeping of your spirit, or certainly your wife, if she is poor or deformed. What we have expounded specifically according to the book of Ezra concerning wives who have been put away, others think was said generally against those who plunder what belongs to others, and, gathering riches unjustly, dare to offer gifts to God, which he says he can by no means receive, being prevented by the tears of those who have been laid waste, and by weeping and groans; and that this passage corresponds to that testimony: Honor God with your just labors (Prov. 3:9). But they also insert this sense: that those who, because of the loss of their property, and the death of their children, and shipwreck, and the other things that pertain to the loss of worldly goods, are turned to weeping and give themselves wholly over to lamentation and groans, and do not with strength of mind and hope in God and the rewards of things to come despise all things—even if they direct their prayer to God, it is not received by him, because they are defiled by lamentations shameful and unbecoming to a man.

But what follows: Because the Lord has testified between you and the wife of your youth, or of your adolescence, whom you have despised; and she is your partner, and the wife of your covenant or testament; and no other has done so; and the remnant of your spirit—they interpret this in such a way as to call the wife of adolescence the natural understanding and the law written in the heart, which is implanted in all men. Hence even the Gentiles, not having the law of God, do the things that are of the law; and concerning this wife it is proclaimed in Proverbs: A wife is joined to a man by God (Prov. 19:14); and we are commanded to drink from our own waters and fountains, and that no one be a partner in drinking, and that we rejoice with the wife of our adolescence. This wife compels even unbelievers to say: God judge, and God see (Judg. 11:27); and I myself permit all things to be judged between me and you, of which Ecclesiastes also speaks: And live life with the woman whom you have loved all the days of your vanity, which have been given to you under the sun (Eccles. 9:9). This wife is the remnant of our spirit, because she is always joined to our understanding; and if she withdraws from us, we immediately offend God, and our impiety covers us. Hence again it is brought forward: Keep your spirit, not the flesh, in which those who are cannot please God (Rom. 8:8); not the soul: for the natural man does not receive the things that are of the spirit (1 Cor.

14); but the spirit: Because the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be expressed (Rom. 8:34).

(Ver. 17.) "You have made the Lord to labor in your words, and you have said: In what have we made him labor? In that you say: Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such are pleasing to him: or certainly where is the God of judgment?" The Septuagint: "You who provoked the Lord in your words: and you said, In what have we provoked you? In that you say, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he is pleasing to himself in these things; and where is the God of justice?" The seventy-second Psalm sets forth this passage more fully, whose beginning is: How good is God to Israel, to those who are upright of heart! But my feet were almost moved: my steps were almost poured out: because I was jealous over the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners: because there is no regard for their death, and firmness in their plague. They are not in the labor of men, and they will not be scourged with men (Ps. 72 and following). And then: And I said, Therefore I have justified my heart without cause: and I have washed my hands among the innocent.

Therefore the people, having returned from Babylon and seeing all the nations around them, and the Babylonians themselves, serving idols, abounding in riches, flourishing in body, possessing everything that is thought good in the world, while they themselves, who have the knowledge of God, are covered with squalor, hunger, and slavery, are scandalized and say: There is no providence in human affairs; all things are borne along by uncertain chance, nor are they governed by the judgment of God; rather, evil pleases him and good displeases him: or certainly, if God judges all things, where is his fair and just judgment! A mind of this kind, unbelieving of things to come, daily raises this question against God, when it sees the wicked powerful and the saints lowly; the former flowing with all things, the latter not even having what is necessary for food; and sometimes, with deaf ears and blind eyes and ulcers in every part of their limbs, and oppressed by sickness, such as Lazarus is read of in the Gospel (Luke 16), who before the gates of the rich man in purple desired to sustain his needy soul with the crumbs that are thrown away from the remnants of the tables; while the rich man was of such ferocity and cruelty that a man does not pity a man whom even the tongue of dogs pities, not understanding the time of judgment, nor that those things are truly good which are perpetual, they say: Evil pleases him, and where is the God of judgment?

(Chapter III—Verse 1.) "Behold, I send my angel, and he will prepare the way before my face: and immediately the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire." The Septuagint: "Behold, I shall send my angel, and he will prepare the way before my face: and suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, and the angel of righteousness whom you desire." The Lord explained this in the Gospel concerning John the Baptist, saying: "This is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send my angel before your face, and he will prepare your way before me" (Matthew 11:10); nor did he use the same words that the Septuagint translators rendered. Mark the evangelist also, weaving together two testimonies, of Malachi and of Isaiah, under the speech of a single prophet, began thus: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Behold, I send my angel before your face, who will prepare your way" (Mark 1:2). This, though in different words, we read in Malachi. But what follows: "A voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord; make straight his paths" (ibid. 3), is spoken by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 40:3), and immediately, explaining which of the two testimonies is being spoken of: "John," he says, "was in the wilderness, baptizing and preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins" (Mark 1:4).

But the evangelists also interpreted the prophecy of the prophets concerning John, and while they agree in meaning, they differ in words. For in place of what the Septuagint translated as "Make straight the paths of our God," Mark and Luke said "Make straight his paths." But John says, "Direct the way of the Lord." From this it is clear that the apostles, the evangelists, and the Lord Savior himself did not follow the authority of the Septuagint translators, who, having knowledge of the Hebrew language, do not lack it; but they translated from the Hebrew what they read, not caring about the syllables and points of words, provided that the truth of the meanings is conveyed. We have shown that they did this in many places, and especially in the book which we have written, On the Best Kind of Translating, it has been approved by many testimonies at once. Therefore what is said here: "Behold, I send my angel, and he will prepare the way before my face," is said in the person of Christ, because he sent John to preach in the desert of Judea the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. But what follows: "And immediately the ruler whom you seek will come to his temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire," he speaks of himself as if of another, according to the custom of the Scriptures. And it is beyond doubt to anyone that this ruler is the Savior, who is the Creator of all things, and is called the angel of the covenant and the angel of great counsel.

But others think that what is said, "Behold, I send my angel, and he will prepare the way before my face," was spoken in the person of the Father; and what follows, "Immediately the ruler whom you seek will come to his temple, and the angel of the testament whom you desire," they understand as said by him concerning the Lord Savior. Now John prepares the way and makes straight the paths of our God in the hearts of believers, in which God previously could not walk because of their depravity and unbelief. But they interpret the temple either as the Church or as each one of the believers in the Church: "You are being built up as spiritual houses, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Christ Jesus" (1 Pet. 2:5). But to those who have believed: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16). The Jews understand what is said, "Behold, I send my angel," as said concerning the prophet Elijah, and what follows, "Immediately the ruler whom you seek will come to his temple, and the angel of the testament whom you desire," they refer to their own Christ, whom they say is to come in the last time. But I wonder how the outcome of events does not teach them the truth. For what temple of his will the ruler find, when it has been destroyed to its foundations? Or if it is to be built up by another before Christ comes, what more will their Christ do, when all things have been restored by another?

Our Lord in the Gospel, interpreting John the Baptist as the prophet Elijah, says: "If you wish to know, he is Elijah who is to come" (Matthew 11:14), of whom this same prophet whom we have now been discussing also writes at the end: "Behold, I send to you Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes" (below, 4:5). But in what way Elijah is John, he has given us the way of understanding, recalling that he came in the power and spirit of Elijah.

(Following verses.) "Behold, he comes, says the Lord of hosts, and who will be able to conceive of the day of his coming? And who will stand to see him? For he is like a refining fire, and like the fuller's herb. And he will sit refining and cleansing like silver, and he will purge the sons of Levi, and he will strain them like gold and like silver: and they will be offering sacrifices to the Lord in righteousness. And the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem will please the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in ancient years. And I will come to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, and those who defraud the wages of the hired worker, the widows and the orphans, and oppress the stranger: and they have not feared me, says the Lord of hosts. For I am the Lord, and I do not change." The Septuagint: "Behold, he will come, says the Lord almighty, and who will endure the day of his entrance? Or who will be able to bear to look upon him?

Because he himself enters like the fire of a refiner, and like the herb of those who wash: and he will sit refining and cleansing like silver, and like gold, and he will cleanse the sons of Levi, and he will pour them out like gold and like silver, and they will be offering sacrifices to the Lord in righteousness: and the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will come near to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the evildoers, and against the adulterers, and against those who swear falsely in my name; and who defraud the hired workers of their wages, and oppress widows by their power, and strike the fatherless and pervert the judgment of the stranger, and who do not fear me, says the Lord almighty: for I am the Lord your God, and I do not change. Above we read that a question was raised against the Lord by those who say: Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such people please him, or certainly if they displease him, where is the God of judgment? that is, where is the truth of justice? To resolve this, the word of the Lord responded: I will send my angel, who will prepare my way, and the ruler whom you seek will come to his temple, who is the judge of truth, of whom it is said in the Psalm: O God, give your judgment to the king: and your justice to the son of the king (Psalm 81:1). For the Father judges no one; but he has given all judgment to the Son (John 5:22).

And he is the angel of the covenant whom you seek, to whom evil things are not pleasing, who does not accept a person in judgment (Col. 3:25), who is changed by neither mercy nor severity: For the cup is in the hand of the Lord, full of pure wine mixed, and he has inclined it from this to this (Ps. 74:9), that is, mercy tempers justice, and justice tempers mercy. Therefore he himself will come at once and swiftly to his temple, that is, the Church. And who will be able to think of the day of his coming? If no one can think of it before the power of his majesty, who will be able to bear it? And who will stand to see him, that is, who will be able to behold him in his brightness with bleary and blinded eyes, who is the sun of justice, and in whose wings is healing? He himself will come like a refining fire, and like the herb of fullers (below, II). For fire will burn in his sight, and a mighty tempest around him (Ps. 49). Then he will call heaven from above, and the earth, that he may judge his people; rivers of fire will draw before him, rolling along each of the sinners. But the Lord is called fire, and a consuming fire (Deut. 4), that he may burn up our wood, hay, and stubble. And not only fire; but also the herb of fullers, which in Hebrew is called BORITH, and the Seventy translate it as the herb of fullers.

He himself is a refining and consuming fire for those who sin gravely; but for those who commit lighter sins, he is fuller's herb, so as to restore purity to those who have been washed, according to what is written in Isaiah: The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from their midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning (Isa. 4:4). Those who have filth need the spirit of judgment, that they may be washed; those who are full of blood need the spirit of burning, that the blood which has been smeared on them outwardly may be taken away. And he will sit as a refiner and cleanser like silver, so that, according to Ezekiel (ch. 22), whatever is mixed into our gold and silver—that is, into our understanding and eloquence—as bronze, tin, iron, and lead may be thoroughly refined in the furnace of the Lord, so that pure gold and silver may remain. Hence the Lord also says in the Gospel: I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled (Luke 12:49); and he will purify the sons of Levi. For it is time that judgment begin from the house of God (1 Pet. 4:17). And elsewhere it is written: Begin from my sanctuary (Ezek. 9:6). But by the sons of Levi understand every priestly dignity. If, however, priests are to be purified and strained, so that pure gold and silver may remain, what must be said of the rest?

When they have been cleansed and refined, then they will offer just sacrifices to the Lord, and their sacrifice will be pleasing, which they offer for Judah and Jerusalem—that is, for those who confess the Lord and behold His peace in their mind—as in the days of the world and as in ancient years; so that just as they pleased God in the beginning, so after sin and repentance they may begin to please Him, when they have been purged of every filth of sins. And I will come, he says, to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness. How great is the dread of judgment, when He Himself is both witness and judge! He is a witness, moreover, against all sorcerers and adulterers; for these crimes are committed in secret, and therefore they are brought into the open, lest they lie hidden for long. After the sorcerers are placed the adulterers, after the adulterers the perjurers, after the perjurers those who oppress the wages of the hired worker and refuse to pay what they owe for the labor of his work. Widows also and orphans—it is understood—they oppress, and they crush the stranger and the foreigner, or certainly the catechumen, who has not yet been made a citizen in the city of Christ. And if they have not done all these things, this one crime alone is enough for their punishment, that they did not fear the Lord. Let us therefore by no means think that perjury, and not paying the wage to the one who labors, and oppressing the widow and the orphan, and crushing the foreigner and the stranger, are light sins—things which are compared to sorcery, and poisons, and adultery.

We understand these things both according to history and according to tropology, so that what was said at that time to the leaders of the Jews is now said to the leaders of the Churches. And what follows: I am the Lord and I do not change, he sets down for this reason, because above he had said: He is like a refining fire, and like the fuller's herb, lest we think that he changes the nature of his divinity, when for our sake he is called either an angel, or fire, or BORITH.

(Verse 6.) "And you, sons of Jacob, are not consumed. For from the days of your fathers you have departed from my statutes, and have not kept them." The LXX: "And you, sons of Jacob, have not departed from the sins of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes, and have not kept them." Above he had said: I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, and adulterers, and perjurers, and those who defraud the wages of the hired worker, the widows and orphans, and oppress the stranger, and have not feared me, says the Lord of hosts. And declaring himself to be a just judge, in that he does not show partiality in judgment, he added: I am the Lord and I do not change. And the meaning is: You are changed daily by sorceries, and adulteries, and perjuries, and frauds, and violence; I in judgment am changed by no variety of persons. And though I confess that I am a severe and just judge, yet, O sons of Jacob, you have not been consumed by a diversity of torments, according to that which is written in Jeremiah: In vain I struck your sons, you did not receive discipline (Jerem.

(2:30): nor do you do this recently, nor once, so that you might deserve pardon for your error, but you will have inherited impiety, from the days of your fathers, by departing from my statutes and not keeping what I commanded. But the sons of Jacob—according to the supplanter, and the twin who seized the firstborn's rights—who do not depart from the sins of their fathers, and turn aside from the statutes, and do not keep what was commanded, let us understand as those who, established in the Church, do not depart from vices, and assume for themselves the false name of the Christian religion.

(On the following verses.) "Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. And you said, In what shall we return? If a man will affix God, because you have affixed me? And you said: In what have we affixed you? In tithes and firstfruits. In poverty you are cursed, and you have affixed me, the whole nation. Bring in the whole tithe into the storehouse, and let there be food in my house, and test me on this, says the Lord: if I will not open for you the cataracts of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing unto abundance. And I will rebuke for your sake the devourer, and he will not corrupt the fruit of your land, nor will the vine in the field be barren, says the Lord of hosts. And all nations will call you blessed: for you will be a desirable land, says the Lord of hosts." The Septuagint: "Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord almighty. And you said, In what shall we return? If a man supplants God, because you have supplanted me?

And you said: In what have we supplanted you? Because tithes and firstfruits are with you, and you who see look on, and you supplant me: the year is fulfilled, and you have brought fruits into the treasuries, and there will be plunder in your houses. Return therefore in this, says the Lord almighty: unless I open for you the cataracts of heaven, and pour out my blessing upon you until it suffices, and divide foods for you, and not destroy the fruit of your land, and your vineyard will not be weakened in the field, says the Lord almighty: and all nations will call you blessed, because you will be a willing land, says the Lord almighty. And at the beginning we said that the prophet Malachi should be understood as Ezra the priest; and that all things which are written in his history are contained also in this volume: and now we say that in his times and those of Nehemiah (who clearly lived at the same time) there was a most severe famine, and because of the famine a sedition, and the poor, compelled by the necessity of things, sold their sons and daughters, and every possession, and their entire substance. Finally they say: Our sons and our daughters are very many! let us take grain for their price, and let us eat and live. And there were those who said: Let us pledge our fields, and vineyards, and houses, and take grain in the famine.

And I was very angry, says Ezra, when I had heard their outcry according to these words; and my heart took counsel with me, and I rebuked the nobles and the magistrates, and the rest. In the time of famine, then, grain was extremely dear, to such an extent that they were compelled to sell their own sons, both those who had little and those who had gathered many fruits into their barns; whether from necessity or because of the greatness of the price, they were unwilling to pay tithes to the Levites, who had no portion in the inheritance of Judah, but the firstfruits and tithes were their inheritance. And lest this be thought to be our own invention, let us set forth the testimony of Ezra: And I knew, he says, that the portions of the Levites had not been given, and that each one had fled to his own region, from the Levites and the singers and those who ministered; and I pleaded the cause against the magistrates, and I said: Why have we forsaken the house of God? And I gathered them together, and made them stand in their stations. And all Judah brought the tithes of grain, wine, and oil into the barns, and we appointed over the barns Shelemiah the priest, and Zadok the scribe, and the rest. We have heard the history of Ezra; now let us repeat the words of the prophet, looking more carefully whether the prophecy and the history agree. When it is said: Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord almighty, it is clear that those whom he exhorts to return had departed from the Lord.

And see the mercy of the Lord: he promises like for like, so that in the measure they have measured, it may be measured back to them. And as it is written in Leviticus: If you walk against me perversely, I also will walk against you with perverse fury. So now too he exhorts the people to return, that he himself may also return to them. They, not understanding that they have withdrawn from the Lord, shamelessly ask: In what shall we return? And let them say: When did we withdraw, that we should be compelled to return as of right? The Lord answers: If a man will affix God, because you affix me? The Hebrew word written HAJECBA the Seventy translated as "if he supplants"; for which Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion put "if he defrauds," so that the sense is: If a man defrauds God, because you have defrauded me? And indeed according to the order of the history, because the people were not rendering tithes and firstfruits to the Levites, the Lord says that he himself suffers the fraud, whose ministers, compelled by famine and want, had deserted the temple. For if he is visited in others in prison, and the sick man is received, and the hungry and thirsty receive food and drink, why should he not himself receive tithes in his ministers, and if they are not given, be himself deprived of his portion?

This word that we have called HAJECBA is, in the language of the Syrians and Chaldeans, interpreted as "If he shall affix"—whence we too, many years ago, translated it thus, referring what was written more to the mystery of the Lord's passion, in which men crucified God, than to tithes and first-fruits (by which one visits the prisoner and receives the sick, and the hungry and thirsty receive food and drink). Let the prudent reader ask how our interpretation agrees with what follows: "in tithes and first-fruits," and let him see whether we can say this: "That you might affix me to the cross, that you might lay criminal hands on your God, you brought about by the long pondering of many things beforehand, by withholding tithes and first-fruits—I do not say from my priests and Levites, but from me, who commanded them to be given through Moses." Let this be said by us concerning one word, leaving the judgment of understanding to the reader's discretion; now let us follow the order of the prophecy. Because you have not rendered to me tithes and first-fruits, therefore you are cursed in famine and want, and you supplant me, or defraud and deprive me, O whole nation. For the nation, which is written in Hebrew as AGGOL, the Seventy translated as "year." And the sense is: Behold, the year is completed, and you have carried off nothing into my treasuries, but into your own barns; and in place of the tithes and first-fruits, which were small if they were given by you, you have lost the fruitfulness of your possessions and all abundance of crops.

But so that you may know that this was accomplished by my anger, because you have defrauded me of my portion, I urge and admonish you to bring the tithes into the storehouses, that is, into the treasuries of the temple, and let the priests and Levites who minister to me have food; and prove me, if I do not pour out such rains that the floodgates of heaven may be believed to be opened. And I will pour out a blessing upon you even to abundance. The word "pouring out" shows the name of generosity. But it can happen that, with the fields watered by rains, there is indeed fertility; yet either the locust or the grasshopper, or the blight or the caterpillar may destroy it, and the labors of men perish; therefore he joins and says: And I will rebuke for you the devourer, namely the locust, and the rest that we have mentioned: and it shall not corrupt the fruit of your land. The vineyard also shall fill the winepresses, and all the nations round about shall marvel at the fertility of your land, to such an extent that all may desire to dwell in it, and by the abundance of all things you may be an example to all nations. What we have said concerning tithes and firstfruits, which were once given by the people to the priests and Levites, understand also among the peoples of the Church, to whom it is commanded not only to give tithes and firstfruits, but also to sell all that they have, and give to the poor, and follow the Lord Savior (Matthew 19, and Mark 10). But if we are unwilling to do this, let us at least imitate the beginnings of the Jews, so that we may give a portion of the whole to the poor, and defer the honor due to the priests and Levites.

Hence the Apostle also says: Honor widows who are truly widows (1 Tim. 5:3); and the presbyter is to be honored with double honor, especially he who labors in the word and doctrine of God. Whoever does not do this is convicted of defrauding and supplanting God, and is cursed in the scarcity of all things: so that he who sows sparingly may also reap sparingly, and he who sows in blessing may gather the fruits of blessings abundantly (2 Cor. 9:6). If at any time famine and scarcity and the want of all things oppress the world, let us know that this descends from the anger of God, who says that he is defrauded and deprived of his portion in the poor, if they do not receive alms. We can also interpret tithes and firstfruits in this way: if anyone learned and instructed in the law of God is able to instruct others, he ought not to assign to his own prudence and talent what he possesses, but should first give thanks to God, who bestows all things, and then to his priests and teachers, from whom he was taught. For if he does not give thanks, but claims knowledge for himself, he will be cursed in scarcity.

But if, understanding that God is the giver, and giving thanks to those through whom he has been instructed by God, he humbles himself and brings food into God's storehouse—that is, ministers the nourishment of Holy Scripture to the peoples in the Church—then immediately the floodgates of heaven will be opened over him, and a spiritual rain will be poured out, and God will command his clouds to rain a shower upon him, and he will enjoy an abundance of all things, and God will even rebuke the devourer on his behalf—that is, the opposing powers—and his labor will bring forth fruit, and he will obtain that which is written: Blessed is the man who speaks in the ears of those who hear (Sirach 25:12). He will also lift up his eyes and see the regions, that they are already white for harvesting (John 4), and he will gather fruit unto eternal life. Nor will the vine in his field be barren—that vine which says in the Gospel: I am the vine (John 15:1), and which speaks through the prophet: I planted you as a fruitful vine, wholly true (Jeremiah 2:21). And through the confession of humility and the giving of thanks to God and to his teachers in the Church, he will attain such great blessedness that all the nations will call him blessed, and will desire to dwell in his land and in his teaching—those who have heard him disputing in the Church.

(Following verses.) "Your words have prevailed against me, says the Lord, and you have said: What have we spoken against you? You have said, Vain is he who serves God, and what profit is it that we have kept his commandments, and that we have walked sorrowfully before the Lord of hosts? Therefore now we call the arrogant blessed, since those who do iniquity have been built up; and they have tested God, and have been made safe." The Septuagint: "You have made your words heavy upon me, says the Lord. And you have said, In what have we spoken against you? And you have said, Vain is he who serves God: and what more, that we have kept his commandments, and that we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord Almighty? And now we call strangers blessed, and all who do iniquity are built up, and they have resisted God, and have been made safe." Earlier he had said: You have made the Lord to labor in your words, and you have said, In what have we made him labor? In this, when you said: Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such are pleasing to him: or certainly, Where is the God of judgment? Now he repeats the same more fully.

For the people who seemed to have returned from Babylon to possess knowledge of God, to observe the law, to understand their sin, and to offer victims for sin, to pay tithes, to observe the Sabbath, and the other things commanded by God's law—seeing all the nations round about abounding in all things, while they themselves were set in want, famine, and misery—were scandalized at each thing, and said: What profit is it to me that I worship the one true God, abhor idols, and, pricked by conscience for my sins, walk sorrowful before God? This passage, as we said above, the seventy-second Psalm pursues more fully and at greater length. Hence the prophet, who is a spiritual physician, heals all wounds, and testifies that words of blasphemy recoil upon the Creator, and says in the person of God: Your words have prevailed against me, or have grown heavy; for according to Zachariah, iniquity sits upon a talent of lead (Zach. 5); and what is said against God is weighed down by a heavy mass of blasphemies. Those who do not understand these most weighty words and their own blasphemy ask, What have we spoken against you? To whom the Lord answers: You have said: Vain is he who serves God, and what profit is it that we have kept his commandments? In the present age they demand a reward for serving God, and therefore they do not receive it. And because we have walked sorrowful before the Lord, according to what is written in the Psalms: All the day I went about sorrowful (Psal.

We therefore call the arrogant blessed—those who are proud against God and hurl the impious words of blasphemies—since they have been built up, and after their crimes and blasphemies they enjoy every prosperity. They have tested God, or resisted God, and have been made safe. They consider salvation to be the happiness of the present age, and for that reason they are deceived by errors. We can understand these things also of the heretics Marcion and Valentinus and the rest who do not accept the Old Testament and speak against the Creator of the world, namely that they make progress in their impiety and have many partners in crime, at whom those who remain in the Church are scandalized, and, ignorant of the causes of God's judgment, they weave together the words of the prophet.

(Verse 16.) "Then those who fear God spoke, each one with his neighbor." The Septuagint: "These things spoke those who fear the Lord, each one to his neighbor." According to the Hebrews it must be understood thus: while those men were blaspheming about God's judgment, those who fear God spoke to one another, [saying] that the repayment of good or evil is not in the present and brief age, but in the future and eternal one; and that man cannot know God's judgments or dispute about his equity and justice; and the other things which a just man ought to speak with a just man. Nor did he say what they spoke; but from what he added—"Then those who fear God spoke, each one with his neighbor"—we ought to understand that those who fear God spoke those things which are contained in the utterances of all the Scriptures.

According to the Septuagint, however, it must be read, and with a subdued voice, so that we say: These are they who spoke, who wore down the Lord, each one to his neighbor: that is, those who idly boast and say, What profit was it that we kept his commandments, and walked sorrowfully before the Lord? For if they feared the Lord, they would not say these things.

(Verses 17, 18.) "And the Lord attended, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord, and who think upon his name. And they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day which I make, for a possession, and I will spare them, as a man spares his son who serves him. And turn back, and see what is between the just and the impious, and between him who serves God and him who does not serve him." The Septuagint: "And the Lord attended, and heard, and wrote a book of remembrance in his sight for those who fear the Lord, and who revere his name. And they shall be mine, says the Lord almighty, in the day which I make, for an acquisition, and I will choose them as a man chooses his son who serves him: and turn back, and see what is between the just and the unjust, and between him who serves God and him who does not serve him." When the just spoke these things, and those who fear God, each one with his neighbor, who were unwilling either to hear or to speak words of blasphemy, the Lord attended and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear and think upon his name: so that when the day of judgment comes, he may render punishments to the blasphemers and rewards to those who fear him.

But the book has been written, of which we read in Daniel: Thrones were set in place, and books were opened. And they shall be to the Lord of hosts as a special possession, those who fear the Lord, on the day when the time of judgment has come. For "special possession" in Hebrew is read as SGOLLA, which Aquila and the others translated. Therefore those who fear the Lord, who spoke with their neighbor and answered words of blasphemy, shall be as a special possession on the day of judgment, and he will spare them, because every man is under sin. Or he will choose them, as a man is accustomed to choose his son who serves him. In which there is a twofold affection: both of piety toward a son and of servitude toward a servant. And then you who now blaspheme and say, What profit was there that we kept his commandments and walked sorrowfully before the Lord? from their election and blessedness you will recognize your own misery, and, turned to repentance, you will see what is between the just and the impious, and between him who serves God and him who does not serve him.

(Cap. IV.—Vers. seqq.) «For behold, the day will come, burning like a furnace, and all the proud, and all who do wickedness, will be stubble: and the day that comes will set them on fire, says the Lord of hosts, which will leave them neither root nor sprout. And to you who fear my name the sun of justice will rise, and healing in its wings, and you will go forth, and you will leap like calves from the herd. And you will tread down the wicked when they have become ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.» The Septuagint: «For behold, the day comes burning like an oven, and it will burn them, and all the foreigners, and all who do iniquity, will be stubble: the day that comes will set them on fire, says the Lord almighty, and there will be left in them neither root nor branch. And to you who fear my name the sun of justice will rise, and healing in its wings, and you will go forth, and you will leap like calves released from their bonds, and you will trample the wicked, and they will be ashes beneath your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord almighty.» Because the wicked have made me labor by their words, and have said: Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such people please him; and, Vain is the one who serves God: and, What profit is there, that we have kept his commandments, and have walked sorrowfully before the Lord of hosts (Above, vers. 13)?

And against their rash words those who fear God have spoken, and each one has compared with his neighbor those things that pertain to the fear of God: the Lord has paid attention and heard, and a book of remembrance has been written for those who fear the Lord and think upon his name, and when the day comes he promises that they will be his own possession, and that he will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him; and he drives this home more fully, and says: Behold, the day will come, that is, the day of judgment, which will be light for the saints and darkness for sinners; and that same day will be kindled like a furnace, or an oven, so that all the impious are turned into stubble, and the furnaces are consumed by the flames. And when he has set them ablaze and burned them up, he will leave in them no root and no sprout of malice. This is what the impious will suffer on the day of judgment. By contrast, it is said what will happen to those who fear the name of God: And for you who fear my name the sun of justice will rise: he who will judge all things truly, and will allow neither good nor evil, neither virtues nor vices, to lie hidden. And there will be healing in his wings, so that those healed through repentance he may carry on his shoulders, according to what is written in Deuteronomy: Spreading out his wings he took them up, and carried them on his shoulders (Deut. 32:11). Then those who are now shut up in the world as in a prison will go forth, and they will leap like calves from the herd, or like calves set free from their bonds. Whence the Apostle says: I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Philippians).

and he will go forth and leap like a calf freed from its bonds, and like a victim of the Lord. Nor is he content with this end of joy; but he will trample the wicked, when they have become ashes. Hence also an imprecation is made for the just: But may God crush Satan under your feet quickly (Rom. 16:20). Abraham spoke to the Lord, feeling himself to be ashes in comparison with the divine majesty: I am earth and ashes (Gen. 18:27); and therefore he will see the sun of justice, and will rest among the midst of its lots, and with him carrying him he will be lifted up to heavenly things. But he who through pride said: I will place my seat above the stars, I will be like the Most High (Isa. 14:14), will be brought down to the earth, and will be like ashes under the feet of the saints, when the day of the Lord comes to judge.

(Verse 4.) « Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb, for all Israel, the precepts and judgments. » The Septuagint similarly. The retribution of merits will be just in the future, when the flame, devouring and burning the root and shoot of the proud, will consume them, and for those who fear the Lord the sun of justice will arise, and healing in its wings. Therefore remember the law of Moses my servant, which I gave him on mount Horeb, which is Sinai, for all Israel, the precepts and judgments. But when the Apostle says: We know that the law is spiritual (Rom. 7:14): and blessed David: Reveal my eyes, and I will consider the wonderful things of your law (Ps.

(118:18); and because spiritually all were eating the heavenly manna, and the whole people of Israel drank from the same spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:3-4): those who believe in Christ ought spiritually to observe the precepts of the law, which he gave in Oreb, which is interpreted as dryness, by which the moisture of all vices is dried up, and at the rays of the sun of righteousness the flux of lust is dried. But the Lord spoke to all Israel, which perceives God in spirit, and of whom it is said in the Gospel: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8).

(Verses 5, 6.) "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes; and he will turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers: lest perhaps I come and strike the earth with anathema." The Septuagint: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the Tishbite, before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes: who will turn the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his neighbor; lest perhaps coming I strike the earth utterly." After Moses (whose commandments we have taught must be observed spiritually) he says that Elijah is to be sent: signifying the law in Moses, the prophecy in Elijah, as Abraham said to a certain rich man clothed in purple: They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them (Luke 16:29).

And the Lord and Savior, transfigured on the mountain, had Moses and Elijah speaking with him in white garments, and they were telling him what he was to suffer in Jerusalem (Mark 9): for the law and the whole chorus of the prophets proclaim the passion of Christ. Therefore, before the day of judgment comes and the Lord strikes the earth with a curse—whether "utterly" or "suddenly," as the Seventy translated it; for this is what it means—the Lord will send in Elijah (which is interpreted "my God," and he is from the town of Thesbe, which sounds forth conversion and repentance) the whole chorus of the prophets, to turn the heart of the fathers to the sons—namely Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the patriarchs—so that their descendants may believe in the Lord Savior, in whom they too believed; for Abraham saw the day of the Lord and rejoiced (John 8:56); or the heart of the father to the son, that is, the heart of God to all who have received the spirit of adoption; and the heart of the sons to their fathers, so that Jews and Christians, who now disagree among themselves, may consent in equal religion toward Christ. Whence it is said to the apostles, who spread the seed of the Gospel throughout the whole world: Instead of your fathers, sons have been born to you (Psalm 44:17).

For if Elijah has not first turned the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers, when the great and terrible day comes—terrible to the saints, terrible to sinners—the true and just judge will strike, not heaven, nor those who dwell in heaven, but the earth with a curse, that is, those who do the works of the earth. The Jews, and the Judaizing heretics, think that their Elijah is yet to come and will restore all things. Hence the question is also put to Christ in the Gospel: What is this that the Pharisees say, that Elijah is to come? To whom he answered: Elijah indeed will come, and if you believe, he has already come (Mark 9:10, 12), understanding John in Elijah.