Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
XXI. Ver. 5. “For before the harvest all was flourishing, and the sprouts were budding forth ripe, and the little branches thereof shall be cut off with pruning hooks: and what is left shall be cut off and shaken out. And they shall be left all together to the birds of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth,” as if to say: The Egyptians flourished, and promised as it were a great harvest of wealth and glory; but like early fruits they were cut off by the Assyrians, and did not come to maturity.
XXII. Chap. xxii, ver. 17. “Behold the Lord will cause thee to be carried away (O Sobna) (to Babylon), as a cock is carried away, and as a cloak he will lift thee up,” as if to say: As easily as a mantle or garment is lifted and carried off, God will lift and carry thee out of Judea.
XXIII. Ver. 18. “He shall crown thee with a crown of tribulation: he will toss thee like a ball into a large and wide country.” The sense is plain.
XXIV. Chap. xxiv, ver. 2. “And as with the people, so with the priest: and as with the servant, so with his master: as with the handmaid, so with her mistress: as with the buyer, so with the seller,” as if to say: The destruction of the world will be universal and common, nor will it distinguish servant or handmaid from master or mistress, but will involve all alike as equals in the same calamity.
XXV. Ver. 20. “With shaking shall the earth be shaken like a drunken man, and shall be removed like the tent of one night: and its iniquity shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and shall not rise again,” as if to say: The earth shall be shaken with so great an earthquake that it will seem torn up and overturned from its foundations, and that on account of the crimes which its inhabitants have committed on it.
XXVI. Ver. 23. “And the moon shall be ashamed, and the sun confounded, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Sion,” as if to say: The sun and moon will be darkened, and so seem to grow pale and be suffused with shame, on account of the crimes of the inhabitants of the earth, which on the day of judgment God will lay open to the whole world and punish. Hence … in the gathering of one bundle into the pit, and shall be shut up there in prison, and after many days they shall be visited,” as if to say: The wicked, bound as in a bundle, shall be cast into the fire of hell, that in it they may be continually shut up and burn: for “after many days they shall be visited,” that is, they shall be punished through all ages for ever.
XXVII. Chap. xxv, ver. 5. “Thou shalt bring down the tumult of strangers, as heat in a thirsty place: and as heat under a burning cloud, thou shalt make the branch of the mighty to wither,” as if to say: As a burning cloud scorches vineyards, so Christ on the day of judgment will burn up all the delights of the wicked, in which they took their pleasure.
XXVIII. Ver. 10. “And Moab shall be threshed under him (under God) as straw is broken in pieces with the wain. And he shall stretch forth his hands under him as he that swimmeth stretcheth forth his hands to swim,” as if to say: The demons and all the wicked shall be so trodden down by Christ the avenger, that they will have the look of a man plainly vanquished and desperate, such as is the look of a shipwrecked man swimming in a shipwreck.
XXIX. Chap. xxviii, ver. 2. “Behold the Lord is mighty and strong, as a storm of hail; a whirlwind that breaketh down, as the rush of many waters overflowing and sent out upon a spacious land,” as if to say: God will mightily lay low through the Assyrians the fields of Samaria, as hail, a whirlwind and an overflowing river are wont to lay low the glad crops and the labors of oxen.
XXX. Ver. 24. “Shall the ploughman plough all the day to sow, shall he open and harrow his ground? Will he not, when he hath made plain the surface thereof, sow gith, and scatter cummin, and put wheat in order? And he will instruct him in judgment, his God will teach him,” as if to say: The impious say: There is no God; because he often overlooks crimes, and does not punish them at once. To these I answer: As the husbandman does not always plough, but now ploughs, now sows, now reaps, now threshes, and does each thing in its season, so God too has his own opportunities, and knows when he ought to overlook, when to punish. For God acts, but is not anxious, nor does he make a tumult; but he knows the times and opportunities for doing a thing.
XXXI. Chap. xxix, ver. 5 and 7. “And the multitude of them that winnow thee shall be like small dust: and as a passing ember, and as a dream of a vision in the night shall be the multitude of all the nations that have fought against Ariel,” as if to say: The enemies who laid waste Jerusalem shall be crushed and vanish like dust, ashes and a dream, whence he adds:
XXXII. “And as he dreameth that is hungry, and eateth, but when he is awake, his soul is empty: and as he dreameth that is thirsty, and drinketh, and after he is awake is still faint with thirst, and his soul is empty: so shall be the multitude of all the nations that have fought against Mount Sion.”
XXXIII. Chap. xxxi, ver. 4. “As if a lion roar, and the lion’s whelp upon his prey, and when a multitude of shepherds run together against him, he will not be afraid at their voice, nor be dismayed at their multitude: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon Mount Sion.”
XXXIV. Ver. 5. “As birds flying” protect their young, and fight for them with beak and claws against the hawk: “so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem, protecting and delivering, …
XXXV. Chap. xxxii, ver. 2. “And a man” hidden under the shadow and wings of the pious king Ezechias, and protected, thus secure, “shall be as one hidden from the wind, and hiding himself from a storm, as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a rock that standeth out in a desert land.”
XXXVI. Chap. xxxviii, ver. 12. “My generation (the age of my life) is taken away, and is rolled up away from me, as a shepherd’s tent.”
“My life is cut off, as by a weaver: while I was yet but beginning he cut me off: he broke all my bones as a lion.”
XXXVII. Ver. 14. “I will cry like a young swallow, I will meditate,” that is, meditating, I will
XXXVIII. Chap. xl, ver. 11. “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young.” The shepherd here is Christ, the lambs are Christians, the ewes with young, or pregnant, which bear lambs, are the Apostles and apostolic men: all these Christ feeds, carries and directs.
XXXIX. Ver. 12. “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him?” as if to say: God is so powerful that he holds up heaven and earth with three fingers; so wise that no one can give him counsel, nay all the wise receive and beg their wisdom and counsel from him.
XL. Ver. 15. “Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance,” if compared with the greatness and immense majesty of God: “behold the islands are as a little dust. And Libanus shall not be enough to burn, nor the beasts thereof enough for a burnt offering,” if it were to be offered to God according to his excellence and dignity. “All nations are before him as if they had no being, and are counted to him as nothing and vanity.”
XLI. Ver. 22. “It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing.”
XLII. Ver. 23. “He that giveth the searchers of secrets as if they were not, and hath made the judges of the earth as vanity.”
XLIII. Ver. 26. “He that bringeth out their host (of the stars and other created things) by number, and calleth them all by their names.”