Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
Jeremias
I. Chap. i, ver. 18. “I have given thee this day for a fortified city, and for a pillar of iron, and for a wall of brass over all the land,” as if to say: I will make thee, O Jeremias, strong, as an impregnable city, an immovable pillar, a wall of brass, impenetrable and invincible by the curses of all the Jews.
II. Chap. ii, ver. 11. “Hath a nation changed their gods, and indeed they are not gods? but my people have changed their glory (of their God: for God is the glory of Israel) into an idol.”
Ver. 12. “Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and ye gates thereof, be very desolate, saith the Lord. For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” He compares idols to cracked and empty cisterns, which can give no help or water to the thirsty.
III. Ver. 20. “For on every high hill, and under every green tree thou didst prostitute thyself, O harlot,” by worshipping and adoring idols.
… thou take to thee much soap, thou art stained with thy iniquity before me,” as if to say: So great and so stubborn in thee are the stains of idolatry and crimes that they cannot be washed out with any nitre, with any soap.
V. Ver. 26. “As the thief is ashamed when he is taken, so is the house of Israel confounded, etc., saying to a tree: Thou art my father; and to a stone: Thou hast begotten me.”
VI. Ver. 30. “Your sword hath devoured your prophets, as a destroying lion your generation is not seen,” as if to say: Your citizens rage against the Prophets, as a lion rages against passers-by.
VII. Ver. 32. “Can a virgin forget her ornament, or a bride her stomacher? but my people have forgotten me days without number.”
VIII. Chap. iv, ver. 11. “A burning wind in the ways that are in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, … the enemy hangs over, who like a burning wind will not winnow and purge, but will burn up Jerusalem and the temple: hence he adds of the same:
IX. Ver. 13. “Behold he shall come up as a cloud, and his chariots as a tempest: his horses are swifter than eagles: woe unto us, for we are laid waste.”
X. Ver. 31. “I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the distress as of a woman bringing forth her first child: the voice of the daughter of Sion dying, spreading her hands: woe is me, for my soul fainteth because of them that are slain,” as if to say: Jerusalem, seeing her sons and citizens slaughtered by the Chaldeans, like a woman dying in the pain of childbirth, will faint with grief and fall.
XI. Chap. v, ver. 27. “As a net is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit,” as if to say: As fowlers deceive birds and put them when caught into a cage or net, so the houses of the Jews are full of riches gained by frauds and deceits.
XII. Chap. vi, ver. 7. “As a cistern maketh its water cold, so (Jerusalem) hath made her wickedness cold,” as if to say: As water freezes with cold into crystal, so the heart of the Jews has hardened with its malice like a stone. “Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary with holding it in,” as if to say: I burn with zeal, I cannot restrain myself from announcing to them the Lord’s fury and destruction.
XIII. Chap. xvii, ver. 5. “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like tamarisk in the desert, and shall not see when good shall come: but he shall dwell in dryness in the desert, in a salt land, and not inhabited,” as if to say: Barren and empty is hope fixed on man, but hope in God is solid and fruitful. Hence he adds:
XIV. Ver. 7. “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence. And he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots towards moisture: and it shall not fear when the heat cometh. And the leaf thereof shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it ever cease to bring forth fruit.” He compares him who hopes in God to a well-watered tree, ever leafy and fruitful.
XV. Chap. xxiii, ver. 29. “Are not my words as a fire, saith the Lord, and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” as if to say: The words of men are cold and vanishing: but the words of the Prophets, animated by the Spirit of God, are fiery and strong, so as like a hammer to break the stony hearts of men, and, broken, to set them on fire.
XVI. Chap. xxvi, ver. 18. “Sion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple as the high places of the forests,” as if to say: Sion and the mount of the temple shall be so laid waste that the city becomes a forest, and ploughland.
XVII. Chap. xxxiii, ver. 22. “As the stars of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites my ministers,” so that for multitude they cannot be numbered.
XVIII. Chap. xxxiv, ver. 17. “You have not hearkened to me, in proclaiming liberty every man to his brother, and every man to his friend (that in the seventh year of release you should let your servants go free, according to the law of Exodus xxi, 2).” For this cause, “Behold I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine,” likewise I will let you go free from my rule, and deliver you to the sword, famine and pestilence.
XIX. Chap. xxxv, ver. 5. “I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites bowls full of wine, and cups: and I said to them: Drink ye wine. And they answered: We will drink no wine: because Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying: You shall drink no wine, etc.”
Ver. 13. “Will you not receive discipline to obey my words, saith the Lord?” as if to say: The sons of Rechab obey their father in a free and hard matter: but you Jews, in an easy and necessary matter, namely to worship me and not idols, will not obey. Therefore I threaten you with destruction. “But to the house of the Rechabites thus saith the Lord, etc. There shall not fail a man of the stock of Jonadab the son of Rechab standing before me for ever.”
XX. Chap. xlvi, ver. 7. “Who is this (Pharao) that cometh up as a flood, and his waves swell as of rivers?” He compares the camp of Pharao to a swollen and overflowing river, which threatens its neighbors with great slaughter.
XXI. Chap. li, ver. 33. “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor, it is the time to thrash her: yet a little while, and the time of her reaping shall come,” as if to say: Babylon is like a threshing floor, on which soon I will thrash and afflict her citizens and nations, gathered and packed like crops at harvest, partly by slaying them, partly by winnowing and scattering them to every quarter.