Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
From Ezechiel
I. Chap. vii, ver. 5 and 7. “An affliction, behold an affliction is come: an end is come, the end is come, it is awaked against thee: behold it is come,” as if to say: Thy destruction, O Jerusalem, is at hand, the end and last day is upon thee. Hence he adds: “Destruction is come upon thee, that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of slaughter is near, and not of the glory of the mountains,” in Hebrew, not of the vintagers’ song, as if to say: Lately the vintagers on the mountains sang a joyful song, now they sing dirges, and lament in them the slaughter of their own.
II. Ver. 10. “Behold the day, behold it is come, the destruction is gone forth (that is the bud of the first, namely a contracted calyx), the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded,” as if to say: The pride and impiety of the Jews first, as a bud, or contracted calyx, came forth, then blossomed, and budded into a rod, with which God scourged them. This is what he adds: “Iniquity is risen up into a rod (that is grown into a rod) of impiety.”
III. Ver. 23. “Make a chain (sum up all these threats in a short speech, as in a summary): because the land is full of the judgment (that is damnation) of blood (namely blood unjustly condemned and shed by it), and the city is full of iniquity.”
Ver. 26. “Disturbance upon disturbance shall come, and rumour upon rumour,” as if to say: One calamity shall come upon another, one rumor and sad message will soon bring on and follow another.
IV. Chap. xvii, ver. 2. “Son of man, put forth a riddle. A great eagle with great wings, long limbed, full of feathers and of variety, came to Libanus, and took away the marrow of the cedar.” This eagle is Nabuchodonosor, powerful in forces, and ruling widely, who took from Judea king Joachin, and carried him into Babylon.
Ver. 7. “And there was another great eagle, with great wings, and many feathers: and behold this vine bent her roots towards him, and stretched forth her branches to him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plant.” This eagle is Pharao, the vine is Sedecias and Judea, which implored the help of Pharao against the Chaldeans, but in vain: for both were smitten by the Chaldeans. So the Prophet explains, ver. 12.
V. Chap. xxi, ver. 21. “The king of Babylon stood in the highway, at the head of two ways, seeking divination, shuffling arrows: he inquired of the idols, and consulted entrails. On his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem.” Nabuchodonosor took an omen by two arrows, whether he should march against the Ammonites or against the Jews; and when the arrow and the lot fell toward Jerusalem, he marched against it.
VI. Ver. 25. “And thou, O profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come in the time of the iniquity of the end: Thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, take off the crown: is it not this that hath exalted the low, and humbled the high?” He speaks to Sedecias, impious and covenant-breaker, as if to say: When thou wast humble, the crown of the kingdom raised thee; now when thou art proud, the same will humble thee and cast thee from the kingdom. Hence he adds:
VII. “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it.” For “iniquity” the Hebrew has crookedness, obliquity, as if to say: I will bend and depress the crown of Sedecias a second and a third time.
VIII. Chap. xxxix, ver. 1. “Behold I come against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal, and … from the sides of the north: and I will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel.” Gog and Magog will be wild and barbarous kings and nations, who will fight for Antichrist dwelling in Juda. Hence there they will be slain by Christ, and buried in a place which will thence be called the valley of the multitude of Gog, near the city Amona, as …
IX. Chap. xl, ver. 3. “Behold there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed in his hand: and he stood in the gate. And he measured the breadth of the building with one reed, etc.” This man is an Angel representing Christ; who measures and marks out the fabric of the new temple, and all its parts. This is the idea of Christ’s building, namely of the new Christian Church, both militant and triumphant. See what is said on chap. xl.
X. Chap. xliv, ver. 1. “And he brought me back to the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary, which looked towards the east: and it was shut. And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, and it shall be shut for the prince. The prince himself shall sit in it.” The shut gate is the Blessed Virgin, from whom without commerce of man Christ was conceived, and in whom he dwelt nine months, and through whom, remaining shut, he passed and leapt into the world. The God of Israel entered by her, namely the Holy Trinity: God the Father espousing her to himself and making her his spouse; God the Holy Spirit overshadowing and making her fruitful; God the Son taking flesh in her.
XI. Chap. xlvii, ver. 1. “Behold waters issued out from under the threshold of the house toward the east, and behold the waters were flowing over, and he led me through the water up to the ankles. And again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the water up to the loins. And he measured a thousand, a torrent which I could not pass over: for the waters were risen so as to make a deep torrent, which could not be forded.” These waters and this torrent are the abyss that is impenetrable.
XII. Ver. 12. “And upon the torrent on the banks thereof, on both sides, shall grow all trees that bear fruit: their leaf shall not fall off, and their fruit shall not fail: every month shall they bring forth firstfruits, because the waters thereof shall issue out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for food, and the leaf thereof for medicine.” These trees are Christians, who, watered with the waters of the Gospel and sacred Scripture, are always green with virtues and fruitful. The fruits therefore are the works of virtue, with which the soul is fed; the leaves are the ceremonies, which confer saving instruction and medicine. Anagogically these trees and fruits are the endowments of blessedness, namely of the vision of God, which the Blessed enjoy in heaven, as is plain from Apoc. xxii, 2. Hence Ezechiel concluding this whole building of the new temple and city, in the last verse of the last chapter, says: “And the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.”