Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
XIII. Chap. xii, ver. 5. “If thou hast been wearied running with footmen, how canst thou contend with horses?” If you cannot do the lesser, how will you do the greater? if, O Jeremias, you will not bear the persecutions of your fellow citizens the Anathothites, … Tropologically, if you cannot endure lying words, how will you endure scourges and martyrdom?
XIV. Ver. 13. “They have sown wheat and reaped thorns: … but shall feel adversity: their happiness shall be turned into misery, plenty into want, sowing into … how wilt thou bear the violence and fury of the Hierosolymites?
XV. Chap. xiii, ver. 16. “Give glory to the Lord your God, ” worship God, and obey him, “before it be dark, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains,” to which you will flee in the destruction of the city: “you will look for light, and he will turn it into the shadow of death, and into darkness.” The shadow of death is an enigma of the saddest things, and of the highest anguish and danger. Hence he adds:
Ver. 25. “This is thy lot, and the portion of thy measure from me, saith the Lord, because thou hast forgotten me, and …
XVI. Chap. xv, ver. 12. “Shall iron be joined with iron from the north, and brass?”
… are the Jews, as well as the northern Chaldeans; therefore they cannot be allied, nor will a covenant made between them last.
XVII. Ver. 19. “If thou wilt separate the precious from the vile, from the scoffing, impious and unbelieving Jews, if thou separate, if thou consecrate thy mind and mouth to me and my word, not to trifles and vanities, thou shalt be as my mouth: because thou shalt use the same conceptions and speech as I, and I through thee, as through my mouth, shall announce my words to them and the whole world; and its efficacy and fruit shall be what he adds: “They shall be turned to thee, and thou shalt not be turned to them.”
XVIII. Chap. xvii, ver. 11. “The partridge hath hatched eggs which she did not lay: so is he that hath gathered riches, and not by right: in the midst of his days he shall leave them, and in his latter end he shall be a fool,” as if to say: As a partridge stealing others’ eggs hatches the young by sitting on them; but these, when they grow up and hear the voice of their true mother, fly away to her: so riches got by theft and fraud will fly from thieves and cheats to other true owners.
XIX. Ver. 12. “A glorious high throne from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary,” as if to say: I do not fix my hope in man, but in God, and to his throne I send my prayers: for thence I expect holiness, liberty, and every good.
XX. Chap. xviii, ver. 14. “Shall the snow of Libanus fail from the rock of the field? or can the cold waters that gush out and run down be taken away? Because my people have forgotten me,” as if to say: As the snow and waters of Libanus cannot fail, so neither in me, who am the fountain of living water, can the flow of goods and benefits to men fail, especially to the faithful, as the Jews are. How then can they forget me and theirs?
XXI. Chap. xx, ver. 3. “The Lord hath not called thy name Phassur, but fear on every side. For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will send thee a terror, thee and all thy friends: and they shall fall …
XXII. Ver. 14. “Cursed be the day wherein I was born: the day wherein my mother bore me, be it not blessed.” This curse is an enigma of evils and miseries, into which by birth we enter as by a door. Hence he soon adds:
“Why came I forth out of the womb, to see labour and sorrow, and that my days should be consumed in confusion?”
XXIII. Chap. xxi, ver. 8. “Behold I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.” The way of death is: “He that shall abide in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.” The way of life is: “But he that shall go out and flee over to the Chaldeans that besiege you, shall live, and his life shall be to him as a spoil,” as if to say: If you resist the Chaldean, you will be slain; if you yield to him, you will live: for God wills that you submit to him, and willingly undergo this penance of subjection and captivity for your sins.
XXIV. Chap. xxii, ver. 6. “Galaad, thou art to me the head of Libanus,” as if to say: As Galaad is the head of Libanus, so the royal house of David is the head of Jerusalem.
XXV. Ver. 19. “He shall be buried as an ass is buried (in a dunghill, king Joakim slain by the Chaldeans), rotten and cast forth without the gates of Jerusalem.”
XXVI. Chap. xxxi, ver. 22. “A woman shall compass a man.” Namely the Blessed Virgin shall conceive and bear Christ.
XXVII. Ver. 23. “The Lord bless thee, O beauty of justice, O holy mountain,” as if to say: God bless thee, O Church, who art adorned with all justice and holiness.
XXVIII. Chap. xlvi, ver. 20. “Egypt is a fair and beautiful heifer, the destroyer shall come to her from the north,” as if to say: Egypt exults in wealth and delights like a wanton heifer; but soon Nabuchodonosor coming from Chaldea will restrain her, who with his goads will so prick her that she knows not whither to turn.
XXIX. Chap. xlviii, ver. 11. “Moab hath been fruitful from his youth, and hath rested on his lees: neither hath he been emptied from vessel to vessel, and hath not gone into captivity: therefore his taste hath remained in him, and his scent is not changed,” as if to say: Moab, neighbor to Sodom, drew from her evil savors and odors, that is evil morals and loves, on which as on lees she always sat; because she was never transferred from vessel to vessel, that is because she never left her seat and neighborhood to Sodom, nor ever went into captivity. Therefore, that she may change these morals, I will transfer her to Babylon, as wine flat on its lees, to change and mend its taste and smell, is poured from them into another vessel. Hence he adds:
XXX. Ver. 12. “I will send him men that shall order and lay out flagons, and they shall lay him along, and shall empty his vessels, and break their flagons in pieces,” as if to say: I will send him Chaldeans, who like travellers will lay out flagons, as if about to pour wine from one into another; but in truth they will drain the wine and shatter the flagons, that is they will plunder and consume the citizens and wealth of Moab.
XXXI. Chap. li, ver. 7. “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, that made all the earth drunk; of her wine the nations have drunk, and therefore they have staggered,” as if to say: God gave to the Jews and the other nations to drink the cup of his wrath and vengeance, golden and shining outwardly, which they drained and were confounded, and from grief became as if drunk and out of their senses. This cup is war and slaughter, which to all …
XXXII. Ver. 9. “We have cured Babylon, but she is not healed: let us forsake her, and let us go every one to his own country: for her judgment,” that is her punishment and wound, “hath reached even to heaven.” It is the voice of the Angels, or rather of the neighboring nations, who as physicians wished to cure Babylon, and defend her against Cyrus; but seeing her calamity and destruction, they fled and returned to their own.
XXXIII. Ver. 13. “O thou that dwellest upon many waters, rich in treasures, thy end is come, the measure of thy cutting off by the cubit.” It is an enigma of Babylon and her destruction, as if to say: O Babylon, who art surrounded by the Euphrates, and aboundest in wealth, the calamity is come that will make an end of thee and cut thee off, and that “by the cubit,” that is equal, and measured as if by the foot to thy crimes.
XXXIV. Ver. 41. “How is Sesac taken, and the praise of the whole earth surprised? Sesac” is an enigma of Babylon; for if you exchange the first letters of the alphabet with the last in reverse order, “Sesac” is the same as “Babel.” Hence he adds in explanation: “How is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations?”
XXXV. Ver. 60. “Jeremias wrote all the evil that was to come upon Babylon, in one book, and he said to Saraias: When thou shalt come to Babylon, and shalt see, and read all these words, thou shalt say: O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place, to destroy it. And when thou shalt have made an end of reading this book, thou shalt tie a stone to it, and shalt cast it into the midst of the Euphrates.” He explains this symbol and enigma when he adds: “And thou shalt say: Thus shall Babylon be drowned, and shall not rise again from the affliction that I will bring upon her, and she shall be dissolved.”