Commentaria in II Esdrae (Nehemiam)
10. Go, eat fat things.—So the Christian law forbids fasting on Sunday, on account of the joy of the feast.
So St. Thomas, 2–2, question 147, article 5, reply to 3.
Be not sad—because although it is right to mourn and weep, yet on this feast day of the New Moon, on which we recall the benefits of God, both old and new and continual, conferred upon us, we should rejoice, not mourn.
For the joy of the Lord is our strength.—The joy of the Lord can be taken in two ways. First actively, which is the joy with which the Lord rejoices when he sees us in adversity of a great and brave spirit, not small and abject. For this goad sharply pricks pious souls, so that in whatever adversity and tribulation they do not lose heart, but strengthen it, so as to rejoice and exult in it, if they think it pleasing to God, and that God rejoices and delights in our fortitude and joy in adversity: so Sanchez; second, the joy of the Lord is passive, that which is conceived of the Lord or from love of the Lord, reverence, imitation and obedience; as if to say: God rejoices on feast days, because on them he is more worshipped, adored and invoked by the faithful: wherefore he likewise desires that the faithful imitate this his joy, and put it on, and rejoice on the feast day, and rejoicing sacrifice to him peace victims from which they may eat gladly, and as it were feast with God himself. For by this joy is gained strength of mind and body, both for fulfilling the law of God, and for bravely bearing whatever adversities (by which we are now oppressed); indeed for lightening and dispelling them by this joy, and for having them removed by God. For if God sees us glad and rejoicing, and therefore strong and constant in the law and in the worship of his feasts, he will remove from us the plagues which he has sent upon us for our sad and faint-hearted neglect of them. For as sadness makes men gloomy, faint-hearted and slow, so on the contrary gladness makes cheerful, magnanimous and quick worshippers of God and keepers of the law; hence Vatablus renders: The joy of the Lord is your strength: and explains: by divine joy you will be made stronger in spirit and more alert. For joy multiplies, rouses, sharpens the vital and animal spirits and diffuses them through the whole body, that they may quicken it, rouse it, and make it eager for work; but sadness thins the same spirits, narrows, weighs, withdraws them, so that the whole man is gloomy, heavy, contracted and unfit for every good. Wherefore the Apostle exhorts the faithful to this perpetual joy, saying: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice,” Philippians 4. See what I said there. Add that God constantly supplies new grace, new powers, new strength to those who rejoice in him and in what is his, by which they become generous, strong and alert for all things, however sad and arduous. For God, being the highest, most liberal and most joyful Lord, wills to be served by us his servants in gladness, exultation and jubilee, according to that: “Serve the Lord in gladness.” And that: “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye just,” chapter 31, verse 14.
13. That Esdras might interpret to them the words of the law—to resolve the doubts that had arisen in them from the previous day’s reading of the law, especially about the rites of the imminent feast of Scenopegia, or Tabernacles, which the law prescribes, Leviticus 23, where I treated of them at length.
15. And proclaim a voice—that is, publish it everywhere by the voice of a herald, that all may assemble at Jerusalem for the imminent feast of Tabernacles, to be celebrated, according to the law, for eight days.
Bring branches of the most beautiful tree.—The Hebrew: of the oil tree, that is, a fat and oily one, which the Septuagint interpret as the cypress; Pagninus, the pine; others better, the cedar. See what is said on Leviticus 23:36.
16. And they made themselves tabernacles on the top of their houses—that is, on the roof of their house. So the Hebrews; for roofs among the Hebrews were flat, so that on them they could walk, stand, sit, spend the night and sleep in the open air. For the climate of Judea is hot and dry; hence its inhabitants at night seek the cool, clear air on the roofs.
17. From the days of Josue (that is, from the entry of the Hebrews into Chanaan, promised them by God) the children of Israel had not done so—they had not celebrated such a feast of Tabernacles with such joy, with such devotion in reading the law publicly and explaining it, with such a concourse of people flocking from every side, that they even had to build Tabernacles on the roofs: so Cajetan and others.
18. And on the eighth day the assembly—that is, a feast of the gathered peoples, of what kind it was I explained on Leviticus 23:40. The Jews in fasting and sackcloth confess their sins to God. The Levites celebrate the ancient benefits, with which God contended against the evil deeds of the people: and they renew the covenant between God and the people.
1. And in the twenty-fourth day of this month, the children of Israel came together in fasting, and in sackcloth, and earth upon them. 2. And the seed of the children of Israel was separated from every stranger: and they stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers. 3. And they rose up to stand: and they read in the volume of the law of the Lord their God, four times a day, and four times they confessed, and adored the Lord their God. 4. And they stood up on the step of the Levites, Josue, and Bani, and Cedmihel, Sabania, Bonni, Sarebias, Bani and Chanani: and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. 5. And the Levites, Josue, and Cedmihel, Bonni, Hasebnia, Serebia, Odaia, Sebnia, Phathahia, said: Arise, bless the Lord your God from eternity to eternity; and let them bless the name of thy glory, exalted above all blessing and praise. 6. Thou thyself, O Lord, alone, thou hast made heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and all the host thereof: the earth, and all things that are in it: the seas, and all that are in them; and thou quickenest all these things, and the host of heaven adoreth thee. 7. Thou thyself, O Lord God, who didst choose Abram, and bring him out of the fire of the Chaldeans, and gavest him the name of Abraham. 8. And thou foundest his heart faithful before thee: and thou madest a covenant with him to give him the land of the Chanaanite, the Hethite, and the Amorrhite, and the Pherezite, and the Jebusite, and the Gergesite, to give it to his seed: and thou hast fulfilled thy words, because thou art just. 9. And thou sawest the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry at the Red Sea. 10. And thou shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharao, and upon all his servants, and upon all the people of his land: for thou knewest that they had acted proudly against them; and thou madest thyself a name, as it is at this day. 11. And thou didst divide the sea before them, and they passed through the midst of the sea on dry land: and their persecutors thou threwest into the depth, as a stone into mighty waters. 12. And in a pillar of a cloud thou wast their leader by day, and in a pillar of fire by night, that they might see the way by which they entered. 13. Thou camest down also to mount Sinai, and spokest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and the law of truth, ceremonies and good precepts; 14. and thou shewedst them thy holy sabbath, and thou didst command them precepts, and ceremonies, and the law by the hand of Moses thy servant. 15. Thou gavest them also bread from heaven in their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock in their thirst, and thou saidst to them that they should go in and possess the land, over which thou hadst lifted up thy hand to give it them. 16. But they and our fathers acted proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments. 17. And they refused to hear, and remembered not thy wonders which thou hadst done for them. And they hardened their necks, and gave a head to return to their bondage, as it were by contention. But thou, O God, art merciful, gracious and compassionate, long-suffering and of much mercy, and didst not forsake them, 18. and that, although they had made to themselves a molten calf, and had said: This is thy God, that brought thee out of Egypt: and had done great blasphemies. 19. But thou in thy many mercies didst not leave them in the desert: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; and the pillar of fire by night, to shew them the way by which they should go. 20. And thou gavest them thy good spirit to teach them, and thou didst not withhold thy manna from their mouth, and thou gavest them water in their thirst. 21. Forty years thou didst feed them in the desert, and they wanted nothing: their garments grew not old, and their feet were not worn. 22. And thou gavest them kingdoms and peoples, and didst divide lots among them: and they possessed the land of Sehon, and the land of the king of Hesebon, and the land of Og king of Basan. 23. And thou multipliedst their children as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them into the land, concerning which thou hadst said to their fathers that they should go in and possess it. 24. And the children came and possessed the land, and thou didst humble before them the inhabitants of the land, the Chanaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings and the peoples of the land, to do with them as it pleased them. 25. So they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, cisterns made by others, vineyards and oliveyards, and many fruit trees: and they ate, and were filled, and became fat; and they abounded in delights through thy great goodness. 26. But they provoked thee to wrath, and departed from thee, and cast thy law behind their backs: and they killed thy prophets, who testified against them to return to thee; and they did great blasphemies. 27. And thou gavest them into the hand of their enemies, and they afflicted them. And in the time of their tribulation they cried to thee, and thou heardest from heaven, and according to thy many mercies thou gavest them saviours, to save them out of the hand of their enemies. 28. But after they had rest, they returned to do evil in thy sight: and thou leftest them in the hand of their enemies, and they had dominion over them. And they returned, and cried to thee: and thou heardest them from heaven, and deliveredst them in thy mercies many times. 29. And thou testifiedst against them that they should return to thy law. But they acted proudly, and hearkened not to thy commandments, and sinned against thy judgments, which a man shall do, and shall live in them: and they gave a departing shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear. 30. And thou didst prolong many years over them, and testifiedst against them by thy spirit by the hand of thy prophets: and they heard not, and thou gavest them into the hand of the people of the lands. 31. But in thy very great mercies thou didst not make an end of them, nor forsake them: for thou art a God of mercies, and gracious. 32. Now therefore, our God, great, strong and terrible, keeping covenant and mercy, turn not away from thy face all the trouble that hath found us, our kings, and our princes, and our priests, and our prophets, and our fathers, and all thy people, from the days of the king of Assur unto this day. 33. And thou art just in all that is come upon us; because thou hast done truth, but we have done wickedly. 34. Our kings, our princes, our priests and our fathers have not kept thy law, and have not attended to thy commandments, and thy testimonies which thou hast testified among them. 35. And they in their kingdoms, and in thy great goodness which thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou deliveredst before their face, have not served thee, nor returned from their wicked endeavours. 36. Behold we ourselves are servants this day, and the land which thou gavest to our fathers to eat the bread thereof, and the good things thereof, behold we ourselves are servants in it. 37. And the fruits thereof are multiplied to the kings, whom thou hast set over us for our sins, and they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, according to their will, and we are in great distress. 38. Because of all this therefore we ourselves make a covenant, and write it, and our princes, our Levites, and our priests sign it.