Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Tropologically, some apply this to Religion and Religious; for God has kept these upon high land, namely the state of Religion, that they may gather heavenly fruits, be fed with the honey of divine consolation, and be anointed with heavenly oil. For Religion is a high land flowing with milk and honey; it is “a fat mountain, a curdled mountain, a mountain in which it hath pleased God to dwell,” Psalm lxvii; it is “a garden enclosed,” Cant. iv, in which Religious are planted like trees, which bear fruits most pleasing to God; it is “a fountain sealed,” quenching the thirst of the world; it is “a tower of ivory,” fenced on every side with the ivory of chastity; it is “the tower of David,” from which a thousand bucklers hang, all the armour of valiant men, Cant. iv. For all armour against vices is found in Religion; as an armory Religion is the armory of the world, from which weapons are drawn against the demon, the flesh and the world. “It is a wall, upon which are built bulwarks of silver,” Cant. viii, that is, the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. “The door of heaven is joined with boards of cedar,” of all virtues. Finally of it you may rightly say with Jacob: “How terrible is this place! this is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven.” For Religion is terrible; it is a ladder leading from earth to heaven; it is an angelic state.
14. WITH THE FAT OF LAMBS, AND OF THE RAMS OF THE BREED OF BASAN,—that is, of rams which are fed on the best and fattest pastures of the region of Basan. For the Hebrews occupied Basan, King Og having been slain, and that region was most fertile and exceedingly rich in pasture; whence the cows of Basan and the bulls of Basan are called the fattest cows and bulls.
AND MIGHT DRINK THE BLOOD OF THE GRAPE.—Poetically he calls the juice pressed from grapes, namely must and wine, “blood,” because it is of the colour of blood, or red.
15. THE BELOVED GREW FAT.—All these past tenses prophetically signify the future: for Moses foresaw all these future things as surely as if they had already been done. So he grew fat, that is, will grow fat with wealth, delights and luxury in Chanaan; the beloved, in Hebrew Jescurun, that is, upright, as our version renders it in the following chapter, verse 5; and He calls Israel upright because with most upright faith and religion he worshipped the true God. Our version here renders it beloved, because jescurun also signifies directed, namely by God, that is, beloved. And this epithet suits this place better. For so sons and disciples, beloved and well treated and fed by parents and masters, are wont to kick against them. So the Apostle forbids the younger widows to be maintained by the Church, because, he says, “when they have grown wanton in Christ” (in Greek, against Christ, that is, to the injury of Christ), “they will marry,” 1 Timothy v, 11. Thirdly, jescurun may be derived from shor, that is, a bull, as if to say: Jescurun, that is, among the flocks of peoples he was as a bull, leader of the flock, that is, he was to God as a firstborn, and prince of the other nations: so Forerius on chap. xliv of Isaias.
HE DEPARTED FROM GOD HIS SAVIOUR,—that is, from his saviour. So the Septuagint; the Chaldee, he departed from God his redeemer, who, namely, redeemed him from the Egyptian bondage.
16. THEY PROVOKED HIM (provoked God to anger and indignation) BY STRANGE GODS,—namely by worshipping them.
17. THEY SACRIFICED TO DEVILS.—In Hebrew, shedim, that is, wasters, who plunder the souls, bodies and goods of all their worshippers and lay waste: for this is what the demons do, who are the greatest tyrants.
NEW AND RECENT CAME,—lately began to be gods, to be held and worshipped as such.
Such also are the dogmas or inventions of heretics, which therefore the Apostle calls profane novelties of words, devised by innovators, that is, heretics. Wherefore the Christian priests and deacons of Alexandria, when the prefect exhorted them to Arianism, answered: “Cease to terrify us with these words, restrain thyself from empty words; for we worship neither a new nor a recent God: and though thou art tossed as by waves, pouring forth foam rashly from thy mouth, and like a violent wind rushest upon us with impetus, yet we to the last breath will adhere to the doctrine of firm piety.” So Theodoret, book IV History, chap. xx.
Truly and aptly said our Ogilby, Martyr in Scotland this year: “The faith of the ministers of Scotland is only eight years old; for the two chief articles of faith which eight years ago they condemned, even in books published against them, they now believe and teach, namely that the king is head of the Church, and that Bishops and episcopacies are to be admitted.” St. Hilary said more, namely, “that the faiths of heretics are of two months and three months,” because they every year, nay every month, often change the dogmas of their faith: “The practice of innovating faith has grown strong,” says St. Hilary to the Emperor Constantius; “and faith has become the faith of the times rather than of the Gospels. It is exceedingly dangerous for us and also pitiable that there are now as many faiths as wills, and as many doctrines for us as manners.” Truly our Frusius:
Since the faith is one, which our parents taught us, / Why is that one faith now played on so many strings?
18. THOU HAST FORSAKEN THE GOD THAT BEGOT THEE, AND HAST FORGOTTEN THE LORD THAT CREATED THEE.—It is an exclamation of wonder, as if to say: How could it be, O Israel, that thou gavest to oblivion the God who travailed and begot thee, and who, most strong, produced and formed thee strong and mighty? Whence the Hebrew has thus: the rock that begot thee thou hast forsaken; thou hast forgotten the strong one who travailed with thee?
20. AND HE SAID (God, angered by the sins of the Israelites): I WILL HIDE MY FACE FROM THEM (my favour, care, protection, benefits: for the face is the symbol of these: I will withdraw and take them away from the ungrateful; and so I will look on idly) AND WILL CONSIDER THEIR LAST END,—what, namely, will at last befall them when abandoned by me, what fruit they shall reap from their idols and sins.
21. THEY HAVE PROVOKED ME WITH THAT WHICH WAS NOT GOD, etc., AND I WILL PROVOKE THEM WITH THAT WHICH IS NOT A PEOPLE.—For “provoked” and “I will provoke,” the Hebrew has kana, that is, I provoke to envy, emulation, jealousy, as when a bride sets one rival before another, she rouses him to jealousy. So the Jews, clinging to vain idols and neglecting their own true God, as far as in them lay, provoked Him to emulation and jealousy; wherefore God justly punishes them with a like emulation, as if to say: I in turn will provoke them to emulation and envy, setting other peoples before them. For I will make those who are not the people of God, nay are Gentiles and idolaters, to live happily, abound in wealth, empire and glory, nay subject and lord it over my people, the Hebrews, and afflict, plunder and slay them.
Abulensis explains this otherwise, taking “in” for “like,” as if to say: As they have provoked me with that which was not God, that is, acting regarding me, or against me, as though I were not God, and were like the idols: so I will provoke them with that which is not a people, that is, like one who is not my people, but an enemy, “and with a foolish nation will I vex them,” that is, I will so provoke them to anger, or to derision, as foolish men are provoked. For so the Babylonians and Romans held the Jews in mockery. But the former sense is plainer and more genuine.
AND WITH A FOOLISH NATION I WILL VEX THEM,—I will move them to anger and envy, setting before them a foolish, vile and inglorious nation, namely the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, etc., who may overcome and subject them.
Mansion, at the end, refers this to the calling of the Gentiles, the Jews being rejected: for in this last canticle of Moses, he says, the Synagogue is most plainly cast out and the Church joined to the Lord; nay, the Apostle teaches that this is chiefly to be referred thus, Romans x, 19: see what was said there. Whence also Theodoret, Question XLI, explains it thus: “As you, leaving the one God, set many false gods before Him, so I, leaving one people, will confer salvation on all nations: but you worshipped those who truly were not gods, nor by worshipping them could you make them gods; but I will truly fill the foolish nations with the divine Spirit, while you, seeing it, shall pine away with envy.”
22. A FIRE IS KINDLED IN MY WRATH, AND SHALL BURN EVEN TO THE LOWEST HELL (as if to say: The vengeance of my wrath and indignation is prepared against them, and shall blaze like fire, so as to reach the lowest hell; it is a metaphor and hyperbole, which is explained by the following words, namely thus), AND SHALL DEVOUR THE EARTH WITH HER INCREASE, AND SHALL BURN THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE MOUNTAINS,—namely so as to consume the lowest and deepest parts of the earth and the places of the mountains, and turn them to barrenness; for this barrenness God often threatened and often inflicted on the Hebrews for their sins.
Allegorically Procopius, Rupert, Rabanus, and Gregory, Morals XVIII, xii, take by this fire the fire of hell and of the damned.
Where note first, that this fire is said to be already kindled, both because it already exists from the beginning of the world, Matthew xxv, 41; Isaias xxx, 33; and because it has been prepared in the presence and predestination of God, to burn at its own time sinners and the reprobate.