The Two Books of the Commentaries on the Prophet Zechariah, by Saint Jerome, Priest of Stridon, to Exsuperius, Bishop of Toulouse.

Latin Text from public domain Migne Editors, Patrologiae Cursus Completus.

Translated into English using ChatGPT.

Table of Contents Prologue Book One 1:1 1:2-3 1:4 1:5-6 1:7 1:8-13 1:14-16 1:17 1:18-19 2:1-2 2:4-5 2:6-9 2:10-12 2:13 3:1-5 3:6-7 3:8-9 3:10 4:1 4:2-7 4:8-10 4:11-14 5:1-4 5:5-8 5:9-11 6:1-8 Book Two 6:9-15 7:1-7 7:8-14 8:1-3 8:4-5 8:6 8:7-8 8:9 8:10 8:11-12 8:13-15 8:16-17 8:18-20 8:21-22 8:23 9:1 9:2-4 9:5-10 9:11-12 9:13 9:14 9:15-16 9:17 10:1-2 10:3-5 10:6-7 10:8-10 10:11-12 Book Three 11:1 11:3 11:4-5 11:6-7 11:8-9 11:10-11 11:12-13 11:14 11:15-17 12:1 12:4 12:5 12:6-7 12:8 12:9 12:10 12:11-12 13:1 13:2 13:3 13:3-6 13:7-9 14:1-2 14:3-4 14:5 14:6-7 14:8 14:9-11 14:12 14:13-14 14:15 14:16 14:17 14:18-19 14:20 14:21

Prologue

During the last part of autumn, your son Sisinnius, a monk, handed me a letter of your divine indignation. Upon reading it, I was glad to know that you are safe and that you remember me and all the brothers who serve the Lord in holy places, where you make friends for yourself from unjust wealth and prepare eternal dwellings, so that you may say with David: How lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts: my soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord (Ps. 84:1). If the sparrow finds a home for itself, and the turtledove a nest where she may lay her young (Ibid.): why do you, who are the high priest of the Lord, trample the winepresses at the end of the world, so as to give the thirsty people the wine of Christ's blood, not proclaim freely and say: My heart and my flesh have exulted in the living God: blessed are those who dwell in your house (Psalm 83:3). I hear you in the valley of tears, in the place which God has set for the struggle, in order to give a crown to those who conquer, to arrange ascensions in your heart, to go from virtue to virtue, and to imitate the poverty of the Lord, so that you may become rich with Him and He may recline upon you, and be received, visited, nourished, clothed by you every day, and above all, be inflamed by the reading of the holy Scriptures. And although I wished to offer you some small gift of my talent, and the explanation I have begun on the twelve prophets has reached its conclusion, I did not want to abandon the undertaking, but rather dedicated it to your name, especially because what I was going to dictate even without you, I now dedicate to you. And I am glad that the most obscure book of the prophet Zechariah, and the longest among the twelve, is being discussed at a time when, because of the hastiness of the one who is returning, the interpretation allows no delay. But whether I want to or not, I am compelled to dictate, at least during the profitable night hours and under cover of darkness, what I will send to you. Origen wrote two volumes on this prophet, up to the third part of the book from the beginning. Hippolytus also published commentaries, and Didymus dictated books of explanations, at my request, which he addressed to me along with three others on Hosea. But their entire allegorical interpretation and historical aspects were rarely touched upon. Therefore, wishing to imitate that householder who brings forth from his treasure both new and old (Matt. 13:52), and the spouse from the Song of Songs who says, 'With the old, I have kept for you the new, my brother' (Song. 7), I mingled the tropology of our own people with the history of the Hebrews, in order to build on rock and not on sand (Matt. 7) and to lay a stable foundation, which Paul the architect writes that he himself laid (1 Cor. 3). Your kindness, not our knowledge, which is either non-existent or small, will be appreciated; but I am ready to take on a willing spirit towards you: that you may challenge us in other matters and encourage us to run in the long field of Scripture. However, if there are any to whom I have promised both the interpretation of these books and others, may they forgive my incredible love for you, and consider whatever I have written to you as written to themselves: for love is kind, love does not envy, love does not seek its own. But now it is time, as we follow the words of Zachariah, to uncover the sails of interpretation for the Holy Spirit.

Book One

Book One

1:1

(Chapter 1, Verse 1) In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, son of Barachiah, son (Vulgate: sons) of Addo, the prophet, saying. LXX: In the eighth month of the second year under Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, son of Barachiah, son of Addo the prophet, saying. In the second year of Darius, son of Hystaspis, in the seventieth year of the desolation of the temple, which was predicted by Jeremiah (Chapter 25 and 29), Zechariah himself testifies, saying, O Lord of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which you are angry? Behold, this is the seventieth year (Zech. I, 12): and there is no doubt that Cyrus, the king of the Persians, who destroyed the empire of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, released about fifty thousand captive men from Babylon into Judah: and he also returned the vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away, and ordered the temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem: and he appointed Zerubbabel, the son of Salathiel, and Joshua, the son of Josedec, as the high priest and leaders of the people who returned. Therefore, after the death of Cyrus, who reigned for thirty years in Persia, at the hands of Tomyris, the queen of the Massagetae, his son Cambyses succeeded to the throne. After ruling for eight years, Cambyses had two magi brothers as his successors, who were killed by the people. Darius, the son of Hystaspes, was then established as king of Persia by the consent of the seven noble families, in the second year of his reign the word of the Lord came to the prophet Haggai and to Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, the son of Addo. We have already spoken about the book of Zechariah. Now a few things need to be said about the title 'son of Barachiah'. It is questioned why he is called the son of Addo. There is no doubt, according to the book of Chronicles, that he is Addo, who was sent to Jeroboam, the son of Nabath, under whom the altar was destroyed and the king's hand withered, but was restored again at his prayers. Therefore, from the first year of the reign of King Cyrus until the second year of the reign of Darius, son of Hystaspis, forty years are reckoned in which the altar was constructed and the foundations of the temple were laid, with the neighboring nations in the surrounding area hindering the work, and King Cambyses of Persia, who sent letters about this matter to the rulers of Syria, Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Samaria. Super quo plenius Esdras scribit historiam. Sed Aggaeus in mense sexto in die prima ejusdem mensis prophetare exorsus est. Zacharias vero in eodem quidem anno, sed non in eodem mense: nam post duos menses octavo anni mense fudit vaticinium. Unde recte juxta ordinem duodecim prophetarum, ille decimus, et hic undecimus ponitur. Magnaeque confidentiae est, immo spei fideique in Dominum, ut quod tanto tempore praetermissum est, vel rege prohibente, vel gentibus, ad commonitionem duorum hominum facere incipiant. According to the usual practice, we have sent this following the story. Now, we must briefly discuss it according to interpretation. The eighth month among the Hebrews, called Maresvan by them, Athir by the Egyptians, and November by us, is the beginning of winter: in which, with the heat of summer consumed, all the earth is stripped of its greenery, and the bodies of mortals contract, and there is no solemnity according to the law. For it is written that every kind of male must appear before the Lord our God three times a year (Exod. XXXIV). The first feast is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Passover, which is called Pascha in Greek and Latin. The second is Pentecost, seven weeks after, in which the loaves of offering from the new crops are first presented. The third is in the seventh month, the propitiation of trumpets and tabernacles, that is, the pitching of tents, whose final day is called the day of departure and end. Therefore, the people, being in captivity and still under the rule of the Persians, with neither the temple nor the walls and fortifications of the city yet built, do not see prophecy in a time of joy, but after joy. And yet he who had the memory of the Lord, and because of the memory, the blessing, and because of the blessing, the testimony: therefore to him Zacharias, son of Barachias, son of Addo, is sent. Zacharias interprets as the memory of the Lord: Barachia, the blessing of the Lord: Addo, his testimony. Let us therefore see, the word of the Lord who was in the beginning with God the Father, what the prophet Zachariah spoke to the people.

1:2-3

(Version 2, 3.) The Lord is angry with your fathers with great anger, and you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, saying. LXX: The Lord is angry with your fathers with great wrath, and you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. And do not be like your fathers, whom the former prophets rebuked, saying. The anger of the Lord does not signify a disturbance in Him who becomes angry; but rather the merits and sins of those on whom the anger of God falls. Otherwise, the Lord never avenges in anger; but He corrects in order to bring about improvement. Hence the prophet prays in the Psalms: O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger, nor chastise me in Your wrath (Psalm 6:1). And in another place we read: Correct us, O Lord; but not in Your anger, but in Your mercy (Jeremiah 10:24). Therefore, the Lord is angry with their fathers who are now being criticized, not according to the Seventy interpreters with great anger, but simply with anger. For if he were angry with great anger, he would never have provoked the captives to repentance through Daniel and Ezekiel. And when he is angry with them, the Lord of hosts speaks to you, for which 'Sabaoth' is placed in Hebrew, which sometimes the Seventy translate as Almighty, sometimes as Virtues. And he says: Return to me, and I will return to you, according to what we read: Come near to the Lord, and he will come near to you. But to those who have turned away from me, I have also turned away from them. He commands them to return to the Lord, those who have returned from Babylon, so that the Lord will also return to them, lest the children begin to suffer what the fathers once suffered, to whom likewise the prophets of that time spoke. Note that in a few short verses and sentences, in both Haggai and Zechariah, the phrase 'says the Lord of hosts' is always added, so that they may know that it is the Lord who commands against the king's authority and the surrounding enemies; and they are encouraged by this confidence in the building of the temple.

1:4

(Verse 4) Thus says the Lord of hosts: Turn away from your evil ways, and from your wicked thoughts; but they did not listen, nor pay attention to me, says the Lord. LXX: Thus says the Almighty Lord: Turn away from your wicked ways, and from your evil inventions; but they did not pay attention to listen to me, says the Lord. The conclusion depends on the preceding statements, and what follows must be connected with what came before. For it is not Zacharias speaking to the people; but he shows what the former prophets spoke to their fathers, to which they cried out, saying: 'Thus says the Lord of hosts: Turn from your evil ways and from your wicked thoughts.' This was cried out by Isaiah, by Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Jeremiah, urging them to forsake their evil ways and abandon their wicked thoughts, in which they sinned both in action and in mind. However, they did not listen or pay attention to the Lord speaking through the prophets who spoke to them, but to me, says the Lord: I was the one speaking and being despised among them. Wherefore, the Lord also said in the Gospel: 'He who receives you, receives me' (Matthew 10:40).

1:5-6

(Vers. 5, 6.) Where are your fathers and the prophets? Will they live forever? However, my words and my ordinances that I commanded my servants the prophets, did not your fathers understand them? And they turned and said: Just as the Lord of hosts planned to do to us according to our ways and according to our inventions, He has done to us. LXX: Where are your fathers and the prophets? Will they live forever? However, listen to my words and accept my law, which I command in my spirit to my servants, the prophets who have understood your ancestors. And they answered and said, 'Just as the Lord Almighty was ready to do to us according to our ways and our inventions, so he did to us.' 'Where are,' he said, 'your ancestors who did not listen or pay attention to me?' Where are your prophets? In common it must be heard: Where are your fathers, and where are your prophets? That is, false prophets: for never would it be said of the holy prophets, 'Will they live forever?' And so, those who have sinned and refused to return to me, and those who, while sinning, deceived others with false promises, have been taken away by death, but my words, which I spoke through my prophets, endure forever, which your fathers understood and showed to be true. Your fathers, confirming the fulfillment of the prophecies of my prophets by the outcome of events, turned to repentance and said: As the Lord of hosts foretold, he has dealt with us according to our works and sins. Let us read Daniel confessing in his own person and in the person of the people to the Lord, that they did not want to hear him, and that whatever they have suffered has rightfully befallen them (Dan. III).

1:7

(Vrs. 7.) On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Sabat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, the son of Addo, the prophet, saying. LXX: On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Sabat, in the second year under Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, the son of Addo, saying. Some place the eleventh month as the twelfth month and interpret the twenty-fourth day of the same month by mathematical calculations, suspecting it to be a firm and stable number, wanting what is written to be certain and stable; but we say that in the same year, the second year of King Darius, in the third month after the first Vision, that is, the eleventh month after the eighth, which is called Sabat by the Hebrews, again the word of the Lord came to Zechariah. According to the number, it is unclean and pertains to the union of flesh and worldly things, pertaining to matter, as we often teach. But the eleventh month, which is called Sabat, and is translated in our language as "rod," signifies severity and chastisement, as the Apostle says: What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod? (1 Corinthians 4:21). And as the Psalmist says: Your rod and your staff, they comfort me (Psalm 23:4). And it is during the harshest time of winter, which is called Mechir by the Egyptians, περίτιος by the Macedonians, and Februarius by the Romans. The twenty-fourth day of the month also signifies the illustrious shadow of the night, with the moon waning into darkness and the blind and perpetual horror of the night growing. Therefore, it is fitting that those who were still in captivity, the majority of whom were in Media and Chaldea, and were exiled in Assyria, saw what follows on the second year and eleventh month, during the most severe cold, and on the twenty-fourth day of the same month, to the Jewish people.

1:8-13

(Verse 8 and following) I saw during the night: and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the ravine, and behind him there were red, sorrel, and white horses. And I said, 'What are these, my lord?' And the angel who was speaking with me said to me, 'I will show you what these are.' And the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered and said, 'These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth.' And they reported to the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, and said, 'We have gone throughout the earth, and behold, all the earth is peaceful and quiet.' And the angel of the Lord answered and said: O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Juda, with which thou hast been angry? This is the seventieth year. And the Lord answered the angel that spoke in me, good words, and comfortable words. LXX: I saw in the night: and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees, that were in the bottom: and behind him were horses, red, speckled, and white. And I said: What are these, my Lord? And the angel who spoke with me said: I will show you what these things are. And the man who stood among the mountains answered and said to me: These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to go around the earth. And they answered the angel of the Lord, who stood among the mountains, and said: We have gone around the whole earth, and behold, all the earth is inhabited and at rest. And the angel of the Lord answered and said: O Lord Almighty, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which you are angry? This is the seventieth year. And the Lord answered the angel who spoke to me, good words and consoling speeches. First, let us discuss the story: I saw, he said, during the night: not during the day, like Moses, who saw God face to face: and Isaiah who spoke: I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne (Isa. VI, 1): before the people were led into captivity, before Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple; but still, while the people were in the midst of the evils of servitude, he sees what he sees for them in darkness. And behold, a man riding on a red horse. The Hebrews believe this to be the angel Michael, who is the avenger of iniquities and sins of Israel. And the standing among the myrtle trees that were in the depths, they want to understand as the prophets and saints who dwelled among the captive people and were in the depths. But the man, that is, Michael, was followed by red and various-colored horses, and white ones, with the order, as they think, changed: so that the white ones signify the Medes and the Persians, because under them the captivity was dismissed and the temple was rebuilt; the various-colored ones, the Macedonians, some of whom were friends, others were persecutors (the last vision of Daniel [Chapter 8] speaks most fully on this matter); but the red ones signify the kingdom of the Romans, bloody and murderous, which killed the people and destroyed the temple. But others, preserving the order that was written, interpret the man who rides a red horse and the red horses as representing the four kingdoms. The first and second, the bloodshedders, are interpreted as the Assyrians and Chaldeans, whose first ten tribes were led captive by Salmanasar. The second, Judah and Benjamin, with the city of Jerusalem burned and the temple destroyed. The third and fourth, the various and white horses, are thought to represent the Medes and Persians: some of whom were merciful, such as Cyrus, Darius son of Hystaspis, and Artaxerxes, called by the Greeks Assuerus, under whom the story of Esther is fulfilled; others were cruel, such as Cambyses and the rest. Therefore, the seer and prophet sees a man riding on a red horse, followed by red, spotted, and white horses. Not knowing what he had seen, and desiring to understand the meaning of his vision, he asks, 'What are these, my Lord?' The angel who was speaking with him promises to reveal the answer. As the seer remains silent, a man standing among the myrtle trees recounts, 'These are the kingdoms that the Lord has commanded to go throughout the earth and subdue it under their authority.' Finally, the angels who presided over kingdoms and nations do not come to anyone else, but to the very man and angel of the Lord who stood among the myrtles, and they say: We have walked through the earth, and behold, all the earth is inhabited and at rest. And the meaning is: all the kingdoms under us are safe and peaceful, and no distress weighs upon them. From this response, the angel who interceded for Israel takes the opportunity to pray for the people, and says to the Lord: Since the whole world is quiet and peaceful, why, O Lord, do you not have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, especially since the time of captivity, according to your promises, has been fulfilled? And the Lord answered the angel who spoke in the prophet with good words, comforting words. Good words regarding the promises of the future, comforting words regarding the needs of the present. These, according to the letter, so that we may not see our own concealed things, which we have learned from foreign language teachers. But the teachers of the Churches understand the darkness of the mystical vision on the night when the vision is seen. For God has placed darkness as his hiding place (Psalm 18:12). And according to the Septuagint translators, it is said of him: 'The abyss is like his garment' (Ps. 103:6). But the man who was riding on a red horse is the Lord Savior, who, by taking on the dispensation of our flesh, hears in Isaiah: 'Why are your garments red?' (Isa. 63:2). This one who is now shown as red to the captive people is described in the Apocalypse of John as sitting on a white horse, wearing white garments (Rev. 3 and 6). But what is said to be standing between two shady mountains (although in Hebrew it does not have two), the New and Old Testaments understand, which is said to be covered with dense leaves, and forest, and shady woods, because it is enveloped in many obscurities. But the myrtles that were in the depths, among which it is described as standing, understand the angelic powers, which also ministered to him even in the flesh. Or certainly the mountains (to remove what is not written, two) absolutely and without number, we can understand many holy people and apostles and apostolic men, who are reported to have traveled the whole world, red, and various, and white. Some have been crowned with martyrdom and are called 'rufi'. Others, through their works, teaching, and variety of signs, are called by various names. Others have received rewards for their virginity, purity of doctrine, and pure heart that sees God. Finally, the prophet asks the same man and angel who stood among the myrtles, saying: Who are these, my lord? And the angel who spoke in him, namely the prophetic sense, promises to show what is seen. And when he had promised, he did not answer himself, but another who stood among the myrtle trees, and said: These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to walk the earth. For the apostles were sent by the Lord to complete the preaching of the Gospel throughout the whole world, and after they had fulfilled their mission, they returned to the angel of the great council who stood among them, who spoke with the Apostle: We are the pleasing aroma of Christ to those who are being saved and to those who are perishing (1 Corinthians 2:15), and among peoples of both callings. And they said to him: We have traveled the land, fulfilled the work that was assigned to us, and behold, the whole land is inhabited and at rest, which was once deserted by God. Now it is His dwelling place, resting from wars, battles of vices and sins. For He has received the inheritance of the Lord, who has returned to the Father, and who says: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave you (John 14:27). And as for the full mercy that is requested, they refer to the imminent seventieth year when God will have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with respect to that understanding: that as long as true peace comes and the Sabbath and the number of seven decades, that is, the seventieth year is fulfilled, neither Jerusalem may receive complete freedom, which is interpreted as the vision of peace and is the Church, nor may the cities of Judah, who confess the Lord, receive it. Finally, the Lord promises good words, consoling words: which we now see in part, and in part we prophesy (I Cor. XIII, 12). But when that which is perfect has come, those things which are in part will be done away with: and being delivered from the Babylon of this age, let us cry out: When the Lord brings back the captivity of Zion, we became like those consoled (Psal. CXXV, 1).

1:14-16

(Verse 14 and following) And the angel who spoke in me said to me: Cry out, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Jerusalem and Zion with great jealousy, and with great anger I am angry (alternate: I will be angry) with the prosperous nations, for I was angry only a little, but they (alternate: they themselves) assisted in bringing about evil. Therefore, thus says the Lord: I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and my house will be built in it, says the Lord of hosts, and the plumb line will be stretched out over Jerusalem. LXX: And the angel who was speaking with me said, 'Cry out, saying: Thus says the Lord Almighty: I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great zeal, and with great wrath I am angry with the nations that are above them, for I was indeed angry for a little while, but they themselves are subjected to evil. Therefore, thus says the Lord: I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and my house will be rebuilt in it,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.' Still good words, and consoling words these are, which now the prophet is commanded to cry aloud: that the Lord is zealous for Jerusalem and Zion with a great zeal. But he who is zealous, shows by loving the thing that he is zealous for, not saying, as Isaiah says, 'As a wife despises her husband, so has the house of Israel despised me' (Jeremiah 3:20). To whom the Lord spoke through Ezekiel: 'I will no longer be angry with you, and my zeal has turned away from you' (Ezekiel 16:42). Therefore, he who is jealous for Jerusalem and Zion (which are one and the same city) now becomes angry with the rich nations, whom he called upon above red, white, and various colored horses, because he himself delivered them for punishment. However, they raged against those who were delivered; here, as if wanting his son to be corrected by a tutor; there, as if wanting to kill an enemy and punish him. Similar to this is what is written in Isaiah: 'I gave them into your hands, but you showed them no mercy.' You have laid a heavy yoke on the aged and said, 'I will be mistress forever' (Isaiah 47:6). But zeal is understood in a human way, like anger. From this passage heretics are refuted, who detract from the Old Testament, claiming that God, when angry, does not want to destroy those towards whom He is angry, but to correct them. Therefore, he says, I have been zealous for Jerusalem, and with great zeal I have consumed those who opposed her: therefore, thus says the Lord: I will return not in one mercy, but in many mercies to Jerusalem, and my house, that is, the temple, will be rebuilt in it under Zerubbabel and Joshua son of Jehozadak; and the measuring line of the builders will be stretched out over Jerusalem. Jerusalem and Zion can be understood as the vision of peace and the watchtowers, which do not belong to the wars of this age, nor to the lowly and earthly, but to peace and harmony, and to the lofty heights of the heavens, the Church. Because of its vices and sins, and because of its daily cooling love, the Lord becomes angry and delivers it to persecutions, so that it may appear as gold and silver in a furnace. However, its adversaries, to whom it has been entrusted, seek to destroy it. Jerusalem will be built again with the blood of Caesar, from one gate to another. Where the Lord promising peace and mercy, says that it will be built again. And a plumb line or a cord should be stretched in it according to the measurements and orders of each. However, what a cord is, is demonstrated in the following chapter, where the prophet says: I lifted up my eyes and saw: and behold a man, and in his hand a measuring cord. But the temple of God that the adversaries destroyed can also be understood as the venerable body of the Lord, of which he himself said: Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19). What was destroyed in the passion, was raised up in the resurrection, and it was the origin and foundation of all temples, about which the Apostle also speaks: You are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you (2 Corinthians VI, 16).

1:17

(Verse 17.) Still cry out, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities shall still overflow with goods, and the Lord shall still comfort Zion, and shall still choose Jerusalem. LXX: And the angel who spoke in me said: Still cry out, saying: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Still cities shall be spread with goods, and the Lord shall still have mercy on Zion, and shall still choose Jerusalem. The angel who had spoken above to the prophet said: Cry out: Thus says the Lord of hosts, now he also urges him to cry out, not with the intensity of his voice, but with the intensity of his mind: and this is what he commands to be cried out: My cities shall still overflow with goods, which you now see devastated by the fire of the Babylonians, they shall again abound with all things, and the Lord shall comfort the present miseries with future goods, and shall choose Jerusalem, which he had recently cast away. But if we refer to the Church, to which true and eternal goods are promised, those goods must be believed, about which we read: See the good things of Jerusalem (Ps. 127:5). And in another place: If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land (Isa. 1:19). And that: Trust in the Lord, and He will exalt you to possess the good things of the earth. Which a wise man, to whom the Lord had revealed the uncertain and obscure things of His wisdom, promises to himself with hope for the future, and says: I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living (Ps. 26:13). After the fires of the most savage persecution which the Church of the Lord endured from both the pagans and the heretical Arians, peace being restored, we see the Churches of the Lord flourish, and Zion consoled, and Jerusalem chosen, which it had previously rejected. We can understand this to refer to the temple of the Lord and to each and every believer. Some interpret the consoled Zion and chosen Jerusalem, and the other things that are preached in this manner by all the prophets, as referring to the heavenly Jerusalem, which, having been destroyed through ruin, is to be restored through virtues. We will interpret all these things more correctly about the Church.

1:18-19

(Verse 18, 19.) And I lifted up my eyes and saw: and behold four horns, and I said to the angel who spoke with me: What are these? And he said to me: These are the horns that have scattered Judah, and Israel, and Jerusalem. And the Lord showed me four craftsmen, and I said: What are these coming to do? And he said, saying: These are the horns that have scattered Judah, each one by his own man, and none of them has lifted up his head, and these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations that have lifted up their horn over the land of Judah, to scatter it. LXX: And I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold four horns. And I said to the angel who talked with me, 'What are these, Lord?' And he said to me, 'These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.' Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen, and I said, 'What are these coming to do?' And he said, 'These are the horns that have scattered Judah, so that no one raised his head. And these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter it.' Four horns, the nations that lifted up a horn over the land of the Lord to scatter it. Four horns that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem, to be four nations, the Babylonians, Medes and Persians, and Macedonians, and Romans, and now the Lord, questioned by the prophet, explains, and Daniel fully repeats. He, in the vision of the image, had a golden head, and a silver chest, and a bronze belly, and legs and feet of iron and clay, these four nations he interpreted (Dan. II). And again, in another vision, four beasts, a lion and a bear, and a leopard, and another horrible beast, whose name was not given, showed the same nations under a different appearance. And let no one doubt that the Medes and Persians are one kingdom after the victory of Cyrus, who has read both secular and sacred letters. And he rightly placed horns for kingdoms, the Holy Scripture having this custom of always interpreting kingdom as horns, as in this passage: And He has exalted the horn of His Christ (Psalm 148:14). And in another place: And he raised up the horn of salvation for us, in the house of David his servant (Luke 1:69). And ten horns will reign in the end, as the prophet Daniel also testifies (Daniel 7). At that time when this vision was seen, the kingdom of the Babylonians had already passed, the Persians and Medes were pressing in, the Greeks or rather the Macedonians were to come, and then the Romans. What the Babylonians, the Medes and Persians, the Greeks or rather the Macedonians did to the Jews, Israel, and Jerusalem, a learned man knows, especially during the time of Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, under whom the history of the Maccabees is recorded. After the arrival of the Lord and Savior, when Jerusalem was surrounded and the Israelites endured, as the Gospel before tells (Luke 19), and as the Jewish historian Josephus explains in great detail. These horns scattered and dispersed Judah, almost every single man, so that none of them, burdened by the weight of great tribulation, could raise their head. The prophet himself did not see the four craftsmen or artisans whom the Greeks call τέκτονες, but the Lord showed and explained to him who these craftsmen are, whom we understand to be obedient to the Lord's authority, to rebuild what the nations destroyed. But this, for which we have been interpreted from the Hebrew: They came to destroy these things, namely, kingdoms, interpreted by the Seventy: They came to sharpen these things, in their hands. But to sharpen these things means to understand them. Or certainly, to destroy, so that all may submit their necks under the yoke of Christ, and not (as some have interpreted) when they have been sharpened, become worse. For if the angels come for this purpose, to make the wicked worse, they should not be called craftsmen, that is, destroyers of evil, and builders of good; but they themselves should be understood as wicked and destroyers. And it should be noted that these four horns of the nations, one opposed to the people of God, raised a horn; for they did not reign equally and at the same time oppress Israel, but they succeeded each other, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians. The kingdom of the Persians, the kingdom of the Macedonians; the kingdom of the Macedonians, the empire of the Romans. We have mentioned these following the order of history. But what the prophet says, that he lifted up his eyes, must be understood in a spiritual sense: I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me (Ps. 120:1). And: Lift up your eyes and behold the regions, for they are already white for harvesting (John 4:35). And that which we read in Isaiah: The holy one said, Lift up your eyes and see who has shown all these things (Isaiah 51:6). Therefore, it is necessary to lift up our eyes and have spiritual understanding, so that we may see the opposing forces that have exalted their horn against us, and concerning which the Apostle speaks: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against the spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12). These four adversaries, who always fought against the Saints, were crushed by Christ when He came. And concerning them, the Psalmist says: You shall tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and you shall trample the lion and the dragon (Psalm 90:13). We can understand four horns, which reigned against the people of God, and four passions, which the learned do not express word for word with envy, but interpret as disturbances, the affliction of the soul and joy: two present, and two future, fear and desire, of which even the illustrious poet signifies (Aeneid VI).

From here they fear, desire, grieve, and rejoice. Against these [virtues], four craftsmen, and (so to speak) doctors, and good artisans, are not perceived by the prophet, for without the revelation of God he could not yet see them on his own, but they are revealed to him by the Lord, namely the four virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, about which Cicero extensively argues in his book On Duties, also writing a separate book about the four virtues. Therefore, those who destroy vices and build virtues, and all the saints who continually restore the Church possessing these remedies, are to be called craftsmen. Hence, the Apostle spoke: Like a skilled builder, I laid the foundation (1 Corinthians 3:10). And the angry Lord said that He would remove the architect and wise man from Jerusalem (Isaiah 3). And the Lord Himself, the Son of God Almighty and Creator of all, is called the son of a craftsman. I read in someone's Commentaries that the four blacksmiths are the four Evangelists, who, by understanding the oppressed Israel, namely, seeing God, and confessing the Lord Judah, and the vision of peace in Jerusalem, restore them to their former seat, and who the sinful nations had dispersed from the Church, they brought back to salvation through the preaching of the Gospel.

2:1-2

(Chapter 2, Verses 1, 2.) And I lifted up my eyes and saw: and behold, a man, and in his hand a measuring line. And I said: Where are you going? And he said to me, to measure Jerusalem, and see how wide it is, and how long it is. (Alternate translation: And he said to me, to measure Jerusalem, and see how high it is, and how long it is.) Septuagint: And I lifted up my eyes and saw: and behold, a man, and in his hand a measuring cord, and I said to him: Where are you going? And he said to me, to measure Jerusalem, and see how wide it is, and how long it is. With his eyes raised, Quiprius had seen sad things on the four horns. Now he raises his eyes again, to see the man about whom it is written: 'Behold the man, his name is the East' (Zech. VI, 12); about whom we also read above: 'And behold, a man riding on a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom, or in the shady mountains' (Zech. I, 8). And about whom the Father speaks: 'He has built my city' (Heb. XI), of which God is the architect and builder. Here it is seen also from Ezechiel, holding a rope in his hand, and a reed measuring a cubit, to measure Jerusalem, the description of which, namely, its width and length, the same prophet continues in mystical language (Ezek. 40). Some think that this was fulfilled in part under Zerubbabel, and Jesus, and Ezra, and Nehemiah, and other leaders or kings, who ruled the people of Israel until the coming of the Lord and Savior. But others, especially the Jews, interpret it as a thousand-year kingdom, seeking physical things. But many of us refer to the heavenly Jerusalem, and say that it must be rebuilt, as it had been destroyed by the sins of the souls. The heretics suspect this. However, we interpret Mount Zion, the mother of the firstfruits and the saints, as the Church, which was built in the passion and resurrection of the Lord, and is continually being built by him who knows the measures and merits of each individual. What we said about the Church can also be applied to the souls of the believers, which are daily built by the Lord and experience His peace that was left to the apostles.

2:4-5

(Verse 4 and following) And behold, the angel who spoke to me went out, and another angel went out to meet him, and said to him: Run, speak to this young man, saying: Jerusalem shall be inhabited without walls, because of the multitude of people and animals in its midst. And I will be to it, says the Lord, a wall of fire all around, and I will be in the midst of it in glory. LXX: And behold, the angel who spoke to me stood, and another angel went out to meet him, and said to him: Run and speak to that young man, saying: Jerusalem shall be inhabited as a fruitful place, because of the multitude of people and animals in its midst. And I will be a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory within her. The angel who spoke to the prophet, and stood, or as it is read in Hebrew, went out, this signifies Jasa (the Hebrews think it is Michael). And the other angel who went out and came to meet him, they suspect is Gabriel, who speaks to Michael, so that he may speak to the prophet, about the great abundance of all things, and the multitude of people and animals, and the strength of the walls that Jerusalem will have, which at present seems to be destroyed to ashes and dust. But according to the spiritual sense, we interpret all these things in the Church, which, without a wall, or as they have translated it in the Septuagint, κατάκαρπος, that is, it may be inhabited with the abundance of all fruits and may have a multitude of people and animals, and the Lord of fire may be around it, and He Himself may move in the midst of it in glory. This is the city of which we read elsewhere: Glorious things are said of you, O city of God (Psalm 86:2). And again: Great is the Lord and exceedingly praiseworthy, in the city of our God, on his holy mountain (Ps. VII, 1). Whoever dwells in this place can say: But I, like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God (Ps. LI, 10). And: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want: he has placed me in a place of pasture, by the waters of refreshment (Ps. XXII, 1). And it shall be inhabited, it says, Jerusalem, because of the multitude of men and animals, without walls, or abundance of all kinds of fruits. A certain one, humans and animals are interpreted as two peoples, Jews and Gentiles, because those who have been versed in the Law and come to faith in Christ are called humans: but we who were in idolatry as if in the desert of the Law and solitude of the prophets, and have received his passion, should be called animals. But others want that even rational and knowledgeable in the Scriptures, be understood as humans: but that simple believers be called animals, and concerning them it is said: You will save humans and animals, O Lord (Ps. XXXV, 7). These animals, and these living beings, hear the voice of the good shepherd, and they recognize, and follow him: who himself is both shepherd, because he guides us; and door, because through him we enter the Church, and to the Father (John 10); and a wall of fire around, so that it may warm up (or may warm up) those who believe and dwell in the midst, who had previously grown lukewarm in the coldness of charity, and may be fervent in spirit. But let it consume with its fire the wolves and the most savage beasts (of whom it is written: Do not give the soul confessing you to beasts (Psalm 73, 19): and whose fruits are hay, wood, straw (1 Corinthians 3, 12): and they bring thistles and thorns); and may the one who is an adversary of the fire, be in the midst of believers with glory. But as for the wall of Jerusalem, it is the Lord, and in another place we read: Mountains surround it, and the Lord surrounds his people (Ps. 124:2). The Jews think that all these things will come about in a carnal way under the hope of a most vain promise, thinking that Jerusalem will have such great blessedness that, due to the multitude of people and all the animals, it will not be able to have a wall; but the wall will be the defense of the Lord Himself, and let it enjoy the glory of the One dwelling in its midst.

2:6-9

(Verse 6 and following) O, O flee from the land of the North, says the Lord, for I have scattered you like the four winds of heaven, says the Lord. O Zion, arise, you who dwell in the daughter of Babylon. For thus says the Lord of hosts, after glory He has sent me to the nations who plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye. For behold, I will shake My hand over them, and they shall become spoil for those who served them. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me. LXX: O flee from the land of the north, says the Lord, for I will gather you from the four winds of heaven, says the Lord. In Zion you shall be saved, you who dwell in the daughter of Babylon. For thus says the Lord Almighty: after glory He has sent me to the nations that plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye. Behold, I will raise my hand against them, and they shall become plunder for those who served them. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me. The regions of the world, which the Greeks call climates, are understood to be located near Jerusalem and the temple. Therefore, the Assyrians and Babylonians, who devastated the people of God, dwell in the land of the North. Finally, in Jeremiah (Chapter I), the pot that is filled with meat (which is understood to be the city of Jerusalem) is set on fire from the face of the North. Therefore, since the angel had commanded the angel who met the prophetic angel in Zechariah to speak to the boy (for in comparison to the angelic dignity, all human nature is called boyhood, because we do not progress from angels to us, but from us to angels), and to say to him: Jerusalem shall be inhabited without walls, and the rest. Now the same word of the Lord comes to those who live in the North: that they should gather from the four winds, to whom they had been scattered throughout the whole world, and return to Zion, those who dwelt in Babylon. Or certainly in this way: O you who have been scattered in the four parts of the heavens, flee from the land of the North, and, O Zion, who now dwells in Babylon, flee and return to your former home. And that when it is said in the vocative case 'O' for the third time, it is an exhortation to flee, so that they may know that they have been warned not once, but repeatedly, to flee. It is said in another way: Aquilo is the most violent wind, which hardens the hearts of its inhabitants and from which all the evils that dwell on the earth are kindled, and towards which, according to the same prophet Zachariah, the black horses go out to stand in their own region (Zach. I and VI). He also, who in Isaiah boasted, saying: I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, I will sit upon the mountain of the covenant, in the heights of the north (Isai. XIV, 13), boasts of having a kingdom in the coldest place on earth. We read in another place: Behold, smoke comes from the north (Ibid., 31): and it is said of those who have departed far from the holy city: Behold, these come from afar from the north and the sea (Ibid., XLIX, 12). And through Jeremiah the Holy Spirit speaks, calling those who are in captivity to return to Jerusalem: Go and read my words to the north, and you shall say: Return to me, O dwelling of Israel, says the Lord (Jer. XLVI). Therefore, it is commanded to us who dwell in the North, and have lost the heat of the Lord's fervor, who have been scattered throughout the world, and about whom the Gospel preaches, that the Lord send his angels in the four winds, and gather us, and that we, who are involved in the vices and confusion of this age, flee to the Church of the Lord in Zion, and, forsaking worldly desires, stand firm in the watchtower of its teachings and greatness. But what follows is this: Thus says the Lord of hosts, after the glory He sent Me, and so on, the voice of the speaking Savior is introduced, who says that He is sent by the Almighty God from the Almighty Father, not according to what is almighty, but according to what He was sent after the glory. Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:6). It is not surprising that Christ is called omnipotent, from whose person we read in the Book of Revelation of John: 'These things saith the faithful witness, the beginning of the creation of God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty God' (Rev. 1:4, 5). Also, what we read in the twenty-third psalm: 'Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall enter in' (v. 7). And again, it is said by other angels who were ignorant of the mystery of the assumed flesh: 'Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory,' and this refers to Christ. For wherever we read 'the Lord of hosts,' it is written in Hebrew as 'Sabaoth,' which is translated by the Septuagint interpreters as 'omnipotent.' From this we understand that wherever 'the Lord of hosts' is said of Christ, He is to be understood as omnipotent. It is not surprising if Christ is called omnipotent, to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). And who says, 'All things that the Father hath are mine' (John 17:10). But if all things, that is, God of God, Lord of the Lord, light of light, then also omnipotent of omnipotent; for it cannot happen that where one nature is, there be diverse glory. Therefore, He was sent after the glory of divine majesty to the Gentiles, who had despoiled the people of God, so that those who were once their plunderers might be slaves to them, and that the whole crowd of former slaves might know that God is omnipotent and merciful. And He says, 'He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye'; understand the touch as vexation and injury, according to what we read: 'Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm' (Ps. 105:15). For whoever touches the saints of the Lord is as if he desired to vex the apple of His eye, and endeavored to deprive him of the bright light spoken of in the Gospel, 'Ye are the light of the world' (Matt. 5:14). But God lifts His hand to strike the adverse nations and to restore His people, either in Jerusalem or in the Church. By adverse nations, according to the allegorical interpretation, understand the opposing powers, which subject sinners daily to their authority and compel them to serve themselves.

2:10-12

(Verse 10 onwards) Praise and rejoice, Daughter Zion, for behold, I am coming and will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. Many nations will be joined to the Lord on that day and will became my people. I will dwell in your midst, and you will know that the Lord of Hosts has sent me to you. The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and he will choose Jerusalem again. Rejoice and be glad, Daughter Zion, for behold, I am coming and will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. Many nations will flee to the Lord on that day and will become his people. They will dwell in your midst, and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. The Lord will possess Judah as his portion in the holy land, and he will choose Jerusalem again. And these things must still be understood from the perspective of the Lord: that he encourages his people to rejoice and be glad about their restoration from captivity to their former dwelling place, that the Lord himself will come and dwell among them, and that many nations will believe in him, as it is said: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession (Psalm 2:8); and he will dwell among them, speaking to his disciples: Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). And may the Lord possess Judah as his own portion, confessing and believing in his name, and may he not possess elsewhere, except in the holy land, which is interpreted as the Church, and may he choose Jerusalem again, which he had forsaken in temptation and persecutions. Some Jews believe that this happened under Zerubbabel and Joshua, Ezra and Nehemiah, who completed this in part, especially because Jerusalem is chosen and possessed by Judah: namely, the two tribes that returned from the Babylonian captivity and were called Judah, not Israel, because the latter are still living among the Medes. But others differ in their interpretation of the future, because they believe that there will be nations who will believe in the one sent by the Lord, and that Jerusalem must be chosen. However, since all nations have already believed in the Lord Savior, it cannot be chosen because it is completely destroyed. But rightly after the captivity, the daughter of Zion is called to rejoice, as it is said in the psalm: 'When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice, and Israel will be glad' (Psalm 53:7).

2:13

(Verse 13) Let all flesh be silent before the face of the Lord, for He has risen from His holy dwelling. LXX: Let all flesh fear before the face of the Lord, for He has risen from His holy clouds. When these things happen, and the Lord possesses His portion, Judah, and chooses Jerusalem, every human race fears the coming of the Lord, for He has risen from His holy dwelling. The Lord is said to rise, and as if awakening from sleep, when He rises for the vengeance of His people, according to what is written: Rise up, why do you sleep, O Lord? (Ps. XLIII, 23) Or according to the Septuagint, He rose from His holy clouds, understand the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, to whom the Lord commanded not to rain rain upon Israel. These are the clouds, of which it is written: And let the clouds rain down righteousness (Isaiah 45:8): for these clouds are not corporeal, in which denser air is condensed, they cannot rain down righteousness. In these clouds, and with these clouds, the Lord says in the Gospel that He will come (Luke 21). And in Isaiah we read that the Lord came into Egypt in a light cloud (Isa. XIX). Egypt is understood as the world, into which the Lord is said to have descended in the flesh, which was born from a virgin womb, not burdened by the weight of human seed and sin. But that the term 'every flesh' does not apply to all creatures, including humans, animals, birds, and fish, but specifically to humans, is indicated by the Scripture: 'To you all flesh will come' (Ps. LXIV, 3). For not all flesh of irrational animals will come to the Lord, but that which is to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and of which it is said: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy (Joel 2:28).

3:1-5

(Chapter III - Verse 1 and following) And he showed me Jesus, the great high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord: and Satan was standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan: May the Lord rebuke you, Satan, may the Lord rebuke you who has chosen Jerusalem. Is this not a brand plucked out of the fire? And Jesus was clothed in filthy garments, and he stood before the face of the angel who responded and said to those who stood before him, saying: Take away the filthy garments from him. And he said to him, 'Behold, I have taken away your iniquity, and I will clothe you with rich garments.' And they put a clean turban on his head, and they put clean clothes on him. LXX: And the Lord showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan stood at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, 'The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you!' Is not this man like a brand plucked from the fire? And Jesus was clothed with dirty clothes, and he stood before the face of the angel, and he answered and said to those standing before his face, saying: Take off the dirty clothes from him. And he said to him: Behold, I have wiped away your iniquities from you; and dress him in fine clothing, and put a clean turban on his head, and they put a clean turban on his head, and they surrounded him with garments. Before we come to the understanding of the spiritual intelligence, it must be said strictly and briefly how the Hebrews explained this passage. They want Jesus the great priest, whom the Greeks call ἀρχιερέα and the Latins call pontifex, to be understood as the son of Josedec, who presided over the people with Zorobabel. The adversary (for this is what Satan means) stood at his right hand to oppose him. And he rightly stood at his right hand, not at his left, because the accusation was true, since he himself had taken a foreign wife, as is written in Ezra and in Malachi, who follows this prophet, (1 Esdras 12 and Mal. 2). And the Lord said to Satan, the accuser and adversary, for he is the enemy and avenger, and the accuser of his brothers: Let the Lord rebuke you, Satan: for it is raining from the Lord: and let the Lord rebuke you, who chose Jerusalem. Therefore, since Jerusalem has now been chosen from among all the cities of Judah, with the Lord not imputing to her the sins she has committed, why do you attempt to bury Jesus, who escaped from the captivity of Babylon as if half burnt, like a tower which is commonly called a torch? But what follows, 'Jesus was clothed in dirty clothes,' is interpreted in three ways. Either because of illicit union, or because of the sins of the people, or because of the squalor of captivity. But the angel, before whose face Jesus stood, commanded the other angels on behalf of the Lord to take away from him the dirty clothes of which we have spoken above. When they had fulfilled the command, the same angel spoke again to Jesus: 'Behold, I have taken away your iniquity; these are the dirty clothes, and I have clothed you with new garments.' This refers to the joining of an Israelite wife to you, which the Seventy interpreted as 'ποδήρη,' which we can call a long tunic, because it flows down to the ankles and feet. And what follows: Place a clean headband over his head, because we read in Hebrew Saniph (), which is called by many a headdress, and in this they want the dignity of the priest to be understood, that he, having removed the filth of sins, may have a clean priesthood. This is how the Jews interpret it. But our argument is that the priest is great, to whom it is said: You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps. CIX, 4). But since he (the angel) cannot be seen by himself, he is shown to the prophet by the Lord standing before the angel of the Lord, whom they wish to be the angel of great counsel, not because one and another are, or that we should accept two persons in the Son; but that he is shown to be the same and as one, and is said to appear as if in the form of a defiled man and as if an angel, mediating between God and men. However, they attempt to show that he is not Jesus son of Josedech, because it is not appropriate in the present place for him to be called the son of Josedech, who in other places, and where Jesus is truly called the son of Josedech, is always considered under the name of the Father. Therefore, Jesus is seen standing and standing firmly; and Satan stood at his right hand to oppose him. For he was tempted in every way without sin. And in the Gospel, the tempter approaches him, always seeking to oppose him with his right hand and his powers. And that which follows: The Lord rebuke you, Satan, and the Lord rebuke you, who choose Jerusalem, they have said, because the Father and the Son are Lord, and in the 109th psalm we read: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. The Lord speaks to another Lord, not because the Lord who speaks cannot rebuke, but because out of the unity of nature, when the other rebukes, he himself who speaks rebukes. For he who sees the Son, sees also the Father (John 14:9); and this is he who chose Jerusalem, the Church which contemplates the peace of the Lord. But the tower taken out of the fire can rightly be understood as one who, while he is in Babylon, is not consumed by the fire of Babylon, nor touched by the flame of this world. Therefore Moses also sees a great vision in the desert, in which the bush was burning, but was not consumed (Exodus 3). This Jesus was clothed in filthy garments; although he had not committed any sin, he was made sin for us, and he himself carries our infirmities, and suffers for us, and we thought of him as being in sorrow, and in wounds, and in anguish. But he was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:4). And in the Apostle we read: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). Here in the twenty-first psalm it says: Far from my salvation are the words of my offenses (Psalm 22:1). And in the sixty-eighth psalm: O God, you know my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from you (Psalm 69:6). All the garments that are called dirty will be taken away from him when he has washed away our sins, so that because he was clothed in dirty garments, we may hear after baptism: May your garments always be white (Eccl. IX, 8): and the whole Church of believers hears through Isaiah: Wash, be clean (Isa. I, 16). And she is prophesied about in the Song of Songs: Who is this that ascends, white (Cant. III, 6)? But take the incarnation of Him, which is from the earth, and is signified in the feet. Understand the clean robe over His head, understand the splendor of divine majesty, so that he may seem to be adorned as one and the same according to man, and according to God.

3:6-7

(Vers. 6, 7.) And the angel of the Lord stood and testified to the angel of the Lord saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you walk in my ways and keep my custody, you shall also judge my house and keep my courts and I will give you those who walk among those who stand here. LXX: And the angel of the Lord stood and testified to Jesus saying: Thus says the Lord Almighty: If you walk in my ways and keep my commandments, and you shall judge my house; and if you keep my courtyard, I will give you those who dwell among those who stand here. Following the order of the proposed interpretation, the Hebrews understand the following words spoken to Jesus, son of Josedech, by the angel of the Lord: that after the removal of dirty garments and the restoration of the dignity of the priesthood, he is commanded according to what is written in the Gospel: 'Behold, you are healed, sin no more, lest anything worse happen to you' (John 5:14); and a reward is promised to him if he walks in the ways of the Lord and keeps His commandments, that he may be the judge of His house, that is, the high priest who perseveres in the temple and guards its courts and vestibules, and may the Lord grant him assistance from the number of the angels (who at that time stood before Him) to surround him and protect him from all enemy deceit. According to our companions who refer all these things to the Lord Savior, this seems difficult, what Jesus says by the angel: If he walks in the ways of the Lord and keeps his commandments, he himself should judge his house, and guard its courts, and the Lord will give to those who walk with him. This is easily resolved if we consider him who deigned to take the form of a servant (Philippians 2). And though he was rich, he became poor for us (2 Corinthians 8). Therefore, whatever is said about the members, is referred to the body: our progress is the victory of the Lord. And when we have reached the perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4), he will judge the house of God, according to what the Apostle said: But Christ as a son over His own house, whose house we are (Hebrews 3:6). And to Timothy: If I delay, that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth (I Timothy 3:15). And not only will he judge his own house, but he will also keep the courts of the Lord, about which it is written: Worship the Lord in his holy courtyard (Ps. 28:2). However, he will judge or settle the matter with his lord, and according to the merits of each, some will be given ten cities and others five (Luke 19), and some will be appointed as prophets in the Church, and others as apostles, others as teachers, others performing miracles (1 Cor. 12), some having concern for the eyes, others for the hands, others for the feet, according to what we read: God stands among the gods' assembly; among them he judges gods (Ps. 82:1). He also gave him ministers of the number of the angels, who, being constituted in the flesh, are like unto the angels, and of whom the Apostle spoke: Our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). For if the angels neither marry nor are given in marriage, and those who persevere in virginal continence are like unto the angels (Matt. 22), why should we not consider the apostles and the saints given by Jesus, who assist him in the Church, and never have wavering feet, but stand with the Lord standing?

3:8-9

(Verse 8, 9.) Listen, great priest Jesus, and your friends who dwell before you, for they are men who foresee. Behold, I will bring my servant the East, for behold, the stone which I placed before Jesus, upon it are seven eyes. LXX: Listen, therefore, great priest Jesus, and your neighbors who sit before your face, for they are men who observe wonders, that is, spectators of miracles, for behold, I will bring my servant the East, for the stone which I placed before Jesus, upon it are seven eyes. Our people in this place are being hindered by the Jews, because according to the context and the wording of the discourse, they should understand Jesus the priest as the son of Josedech, rather than the Lord and Savior. For if the discourse is about the Lord, and it is said about Christ: 'Hear, O great Jesus the priest', who is it referring to: 'Behold, I will bring forth my servant the East, who is called by another name, and he has been given before Jesus, and upon this stone there are seven eyes?' On the contrary, our opponents strive to assert that Jesus is the great High Priest, and the East, and the Stone, according to different understandings, are called Christ. But how this can be said of himself is very difficult to explain. Therefore, those who want Jesus to be the son of Josedech, the great High Priest, interpret his friends who dwell or sit before him, and who are men bearing signs, as his disciples and prophets. For prophets are placed as signs of future events. So what is it that Jesus and his friends are compelled to hear: I will bring my servant, the East, and the rest? Above, God had promised (or permitted) Jesus, the great high priest, that if he walked in his ways and kept his commandments, he would judge his house, guard his courts, and give him ministers of angelic dignity. Now he says the same to him and his friends, full felicity and perfect blessedness that will come when the East arrives, of whom it is written: Behold, a man named the East (Zach. VI, 12). And in Malachi: The sun of justice shall arise to you that fear my name, and health in his wings (Mal. IV, 2). And in Numbers: A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall spring up of Israel (Num. XXIV, 17). In the Gospel also we read very clearly about Christ: In whom the Orient from on high hath visited us: To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death: to direct our feet into the way of peace (Luke I, 78). He himself is called the Rising Sun and the Cornerstone, because he unites both peoples and joins two walls into one house: He is the stumbling stone for unbelievers, of whom it is said in the Psalms: The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone: This is from the Lord. On this stone, there are seven eyes, of which Isaiah speaks: A shoot will come forth from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and reverence for the Lord, and his delight will be in the fear of the Lord. Those who want to understand the great High Priest, and his friends the Lord Savior, and his disciples, interpret them as men of miracles, and predictors, in such a way that they refer to the apostles (or disciples who have seen his mystical signs and have known the future from the present), while in the case of the man blind from birth (John 9), they interpret the restored eyes as referring to the Gentile people, and in the case of the woman with the flowing blood (Matthew 9), they explain that the Church is freed through the works of blood. Now, what follows is understood by lovers of history about Christ, that after Jesus, the son of Josedech, they say that Christ will come. For this is what it means to be before Jesus, that is, in His presence, and to be called a stone for strength and power, by which He will shatter all kingdoms, which we also read about in Daniel, when the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands (Dan. II).

3:10

(Verse 10) Behold, I will plow her sculptured image, says the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the wickedness of that land in one day. On that day, says the Lord of hosts, each man will call his friend under the vine and under the fig tree. LXX: Behold, I will dig a pit, says the Almighty Lord, and I will investigate all the wickedness of that land in one day. On that day, says the Almighty Lord, each person will call their neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree. He had said above: behold the stone which I have given before Jesus, upon this one stone there are seven eyes. Now, accordingly, he preserves the metaphor from the stone, and says: I will engrave its sculpture; or I will carve its engraving. For what is written in Hebrew MaphatePhethee (), Aquila has interpreted as διαγλύψω ἄνοιγμα αὐτῆς, that is, I will carve its opening: Theodotion and Symmachus, I will carve its sculpture. And the sense is: I will make this stone be wounded by the key of the cross, and by the spear of the soldier, and in its passion I will take away the iniquity of the earth in one day, of which it is written: This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps. CXVII, 24). On that day of the Passion of Christ, the man who is perfect in Christ will be called, and with the apostles he will ascend to the summit of the Lord's benevolence, his neighbor, whether they believe from among the Jews or certainly the multitude of the Gentiles, under the vineyard which is called Sorec, and of which he says in the Gospel: I am the true vine (John 15:1), and its fruit gladdens the heart of man, and under the fig tree, the most sweet fruits of the Holy Spirit, so that they may rest in eternal peace and, with the suppression of the world's turbulence and the bloodshed of warriors, know themselves to be under the reign of him whose mystical name in Solomon is peace. In the same session, the prophet Micah also mentions the vineyard and the fig tree, saying: 'In that day, each person will call their neighbor and their brother under the fig tree and their vineyard, and there will be no one to frighten them away' (Mic. IV, 4). And that which is written in the Septuagint: 'Behold, I will dig a pit,' we can understand as 'pit' or 'hole' for the carving of a stone, for everything that is carved is also dug. However, if someone does not want to interpret this more contentiously in reference to a stone, but rather to have its own beginning and its own opinion, let us say that God Almighty, on the day of the passion of His Son or (as the Jews believe, at the end of the world, when He comes to judge) will dig and bring forth each person's works and will touch the whole earth on the day of judgment; for this is the one day, and on that day each of the saints will call their companions and friends, who are also holy, to rest and to rejoice in the virtue of their works.

4:1

(Chapter 4, Verse 1) And the angel who spoke to me came back and woke me up like a man who is awakened from his sleep. LXX: And the angel who spoke to me came back and woke me up as a man is usually awakened from his sleep. For wherever he had gone, in order to return he had to be with the prophet who was speaking to him, and without him he could not exist. But whenever human frailty is left to its weakness, we must believe that the help of God and his angels departs from us. Therefore, the prophet, astonished by the wonder of a great vision, was bewildered in his whole mind and could not see the clear light of truth. Thus, he is awakened from a past vision and brought to another vision as if waking from sleep, in order to see what he could not see with closed eyes. Let us say it differently. The proverb of Solomon testifies: If you sit, you will be without fear; but if you sleep, you will sleep sweetly and you will not fear the terror that comes upon you, nor the attacks of the wicked (Prov. III, 23 et seqq.) . Let us, therefore, see for what things, as if rising from sleep, the prophet may contemplate.

4:2-7

(V. 2 onwards.) And he said to me, 'What do you see?' And I said, 'I see, and behold, a golden lampstand, and its lamp on top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven pipes to the lamps that are on top of it. And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the lampstand and one on its left.' Then I answered and said to the angel who talked with me, 'What are these, my lord?' And the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, 'Do you not know what these are?' And I said, 'No, my lord.' And he answered and said to me, 'This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forth the capstone with shoutings of "Grace, grace to it!"' Then he said to me, 'What do you see?' And I said, 'I see, and behold, a golden lampstand, and a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it.' And behold, two olive trees were standing by the lampstand, one on the right side and one on the left side. So I asked the angel who was speaking with me, 'What are these, my lord?' And the angel who was speaking with me replied to me, 'Do you not know what these are?' And I said, 'No, my lord.' Then he answered and said to me, 'This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying: Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts. 'Who are you, O great mountain, before Zerubbabel? You will become a plain.' And I will bring out the stone of inheritance: the equality of grace shall be his grace. The angel who raised up Zacharias as if from a sleeping man, asks what he sees, so that when he responds, ignorant and questioning what he discerns, and says, 'What are these, my lord?' let us hear from him: This is the word of the Lord to Zorobabel: Not in an army, nor in strength; but in my spirit, says the Lord. Let us therefore discuss each point in order, first what it seems to the Hebrews, from whom we have learned in the Old Testament: then through these steps let us ascend to the heights of the Church. The solid golden candlestick represents the Law, that is, the νόμον. And the lamp, that is, the flame shining and sparkling at the top of the candlestick, represents Christ, who is the head of the Law and illuminates the entire world. The seven lamps on the candlestick represent the seven graces of the Holy Spirit, which we mentioned above, because it is said that in one stone there are seven eyes. There is no doubt that the Law was written with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. However, the seven infusions in which there is oil, which is put into lamps that shine on the candelabrum, are understood to mean that these seven graces descend from heaven to humans through the Law. But the two olive trees on the candelabrum, on the right and left side, between which the central lamp shines, are interpreted as the Law and the Prophets. And when the prophet narrated his vision, not knowing what he was seeing, he asked the angel who was speaking in himself, namely the sense illuminated by God. For this is our angel, who intelligently understands, and reveals to us the will of God, and says: What are these, my lord? But the angel does not explain the vision to the prophet, as he had been asked; but he asks the inquirer again: Do you not know what these are? And when he replied, I do not know: he himself also replied; This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying: Not by an army, nor by strength, but by my spirit, says the Lord. Therefore, the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, who spoke not in the army, nor in strength, but in my spirit, he is the interpretation of the vision: not in the army, nor in the multitude of warriors, but in the spirit of God, the people are to be led back and more fully restored, and the adversaries are to be devastated. And what follows: Who are you, great mountain, before Zerubbabel, to become level ground? This is understood as a saying to the devil, who stood at the right hand of Jesus, to oppose him, and he was lifted up against Zerubbabel and the people of Judah. But he was brought low and humiliated; and Israel is trampled underfoot, for God will bring forth the chief stone, Christ his Son, who has always been a help to the people of Israel. And by his grace, that is, the stone, he will equal the grace that he always exercised towards their ancestors. We find these things said by the Hebrews. Now let us discuss what has been written by the learned men in the Commentaries. The golden candlestick (which some call the candelabrum) is understood to represent the Church, which in the Holy Scriptures seeks the meaning and intention rather than the words themselves. The fact that gold is understood in a figurative sense is shown in the later part of the 67th psalm, where it is said that the shoulders of the dove radiate with the brilliance or gleam of gold. They understand the lamp itself to represent Christ, who shines in the Church and who said of himself: 'No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel (Matt. V, 15),' that is, under the measure of the Law; but on a candlestick, that is, on the freedom of the gospels, so that it may shine for all who are in the house. The seven lamps and their pouring vessels (also called 'suffusoria') symbolize and represent the grace of the Holy Spirit, through which the Church receives the oil of God's mercy and all virtues. The two olive trees on the candlestick symbolize Moses and Elijah, who spoke with the Lord on the mountain and foreshadowed what would happen to him in Jerusalem (Matthew 17). For the entire law and the prophets preach about the passion of Christ. Others interpret the two olive trees on the right and on the left as the Law and the Gospel, so that the Gospel is on the right and the Law is on the left. Concerning the right and left, it is said in the Song of Songs: His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me (Song of Songs 2:6). But many of our people interpret the mountain as the devil and the Antichrist, who dares to stand before Zerubbabel (from whom Christ is to be born) and raise himself up, and say in the Gospel: All these things have been given to me, and I will give them to you if you will prostrate yourself and worship me (Matthew 4:9). He who prostrates himself at the Lord's feet, and makes the proud humble and the lowly, says: 'Get behind me, Satan, for it is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve' ( Ibid., 10, and Deut. VI, 13). And they give an example in the Gospel of the lunatic whom the apostles could not heal, they ask why they could not heal him, and they hear: Truly I say to you, if you have faith like a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting (Matt. XVII, 19, 20). Here the mountain is clearly accepted as the devil. However, others, not without considerable rashness, interpret what is clearly spoken about the devil as referring to Christ, who is often called a mountain in the Holy Scriptures. It is not necessary to give examples, as there is a great abundance of them. But they are led into error because it is written in the Septuagint: Who are you, O great mountain, before the face of Zerubbabel, to be made level? Indeed, this mountain which is before the face of Zorobabel, that is, one who is descended from the lineage of Zorobabel, desires to correct the world itself. And of him it is said: 'I will bring forth the stone of inheritance of which it is written: You are the one who will restore my inheritance to me' (Psalm 15:5). And in another place: 'He has chosen for us his beautiful inheritance, the pride of Jacob whom he loved' (Psalm 46:5). And again: 'The portion of the Lord is Jacob, the line of his inheritance is Israel' (Psalm 105). And in the second Psalm: The Lord said to me, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance' (Psalm 2:7-8). But the Lord will bring forth the chief cornerstone, of which we read: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1). And: 'All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made' (John 1:3). And when he says, 'He will equalize grace to his grace,' he signifies this. We all have received from His fullness, and grace for grace, that is, grace of the Law, grace of the Gospel, so that believing in Israel may receive equal grace, and the people of the Gentiles as well. Hence, Gabriel speaks to Mary: 'You have found favor with the Lord' (Luke 1:30). And the apostle Paul writes: 'For by grace you have been saved' (Ephesians 2:8). And the evangelist John says: 'For the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ' (John 1:17).

4:8-10

(Vers. 8 seqq.) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands shall finish it: and you shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me to you. For who hath despised the day of small things? and they shall rejoice, and shall see the tin in the hand of Zerubbabel. These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth. LXX: And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands shall complete it. And you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. For who has despised the day of small things? They will rejoice and see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel: these seven eyes of the Lord, which scan throughout the whole earth. Many things are said by the Hebrews and by our own people, some of whom follow them and others reject them. Let us bring forth what pleases us, preserving the truth of history, so that from this we may recognize the one who is prophesied through history. The hands of Zerubbabel, the leader of the Jews who returned from Babylon, laid the foundation of the temple, and his hands will also complete it, reaching up to the pinnacle of the temple. They will fulfill what they began and will construct everything that was started. We read in Ezra that the temple was started and completed by Zerubbabel (1 Esdras 4 and 6). And when, says the prophet Zechariah, you see the pinnacle placed on the temple that you are now building, then you will understand that I have been sent by the Lord and that everything I have spoken, I have spoken at his command. For who despises small days? Who here is received as rare, according to that: Who do you think is a faithful and wise steward (Luke XII, 42)? And, Lord, who shall dwell in your tabernacle, and who shall ascend to your holy mountain (Psalm XIV, 1)? Therefore, rare is the one who despises the small days of this age, and thinks royal power is worth nothing. When we see the powerful of the age shining with gold, purple, and gleaming with gems, surrounded by an army, let us say within ourselves: who, do you think, despises small days? And so Jacob, understanding the brevity of human life, said: 'They are short and the worst days of my life' (Gen. XLVII, 9). Therefore, those who despise the short days (which refers to royal power, as a reminder to Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the people building the temple of God, not to fear their adversaries but to listen to the Lord encouraging them) will rejoice and see the help of the Savior, who is promised from the lineage of Zerubbabel, and is called the cornerstone and the stone of tin: For which it is written in Hebrew as Abdil (Al. Abdel), because it is the wall and strength and firmness of the believers. For just as tin protects other metals from fire, and although copper and iron are extremely hard by nature, if they do not have tin, they become consumed and burnt; so too, the strength of every angel and human, if they do not have the help of the Savior, is revealed as weak and fragile. But this stone, that is, the mass, which is called Abdil among the Hebrews, that is, tinstone, is etymologically derived from the word ἀποχωρίζων, that is separating and segregating, just as tin separates and dissociates mixed and adulterated metals through fire. Thus the true Lord, the assayer and refiner, separates good works as gold and silver from vices as lead, so that pure gold and silver may remain. In other words, ἀποχωρίζων is written as 'separating' in the Gospel: Whose winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor, and gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17), he who speaks through Jeremiah: What have straw to do with grain? says the Lord (Jeremiah 23:28). Many of us interpret Zerubbabel, who laid the foundation of the temple and completed it, as Christ. And if we accept this, we will be forced to explain what the stone of tin in the hand of Zerubbabel means. For indeed in the hand of Christ, is Christ to be approved? For although certain people have received a stone-like body of the Lord, which was not defiled by any stains of sins, nor called lead, but the purest tin. However, we have previously explained that the seven eyes that roam throughout the whole earth and judge all things are the seven spirits: and that nothing escapes God's knowledge, who is conscious of past, present, and future events, and renders to each person according to their deeds, especially when he comes in the person of the one who separates the good from the evil, and the inflator.

4:11-14

(Verse 11 and following) And I answered and said to him, 'What are these two olive trees on the right and the left side of the lampstand?' And I answered the second time and said to him, 'What are these two olive branches which are beside the two golden pipes, from which the golden oil pours out?' And he said to me, 'Do you not know what these are?' And I said, 'No, my lord.' And he said, 'These are the two anointed ones who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth.' LXX: And I answered and said to him, 'What are these two olive trees on the right side of the lampstand and on its left side?' And I answered a second time and said to him, 'What are the two olive branches which are beside the two golden pipes, which pour out the golden fluid from themselves?' And he said to me, 'Do you not know what these are?' And I said, 'No, my Lord.' Then he said, 'These are the two sons of fatness who stand before the Lord of the entire earth.' Asking the prophet what the two olive trees meant, one of which stood at the right side of the lampstand and the other at the left, the Lord or the angel of the Lord refused to answer. When the prophet understood this, he inquires a second time, saying: What are these two branches of the olive trees or two golden pipes, which in Hebrew are called Sinthoroth (in Greek, μυξωτῆρες), and which are themselves the two μυξωτῆρες upon which the two branches or two olive trees are placed, made of the purest gold. And when the prophet asked about the two branches, and was again questioned by the angel whether he knew what the two branches signified, and he said, 'No, Lord,' the angel of the Lord answered: 'These are two sons of oil, as Symmachus wished, or of splendor, as Aquila interpreted, that is, of brightness, or of richness, as the Septuagint translated, or of clarity, as Theodotion rendered: they stand before the Ruler of all the earth.' We read above about the two olive trees that were on the right and left of the lampstand. And therefore, the one who now asks about them, does not deserve to hear, because he does not remember the previous things, or because what was said there is obscure, he desires to hear more clearly here, or surely the silence of the angels confutes his stubbornness, because he claims to know greater things, although the Hebrews confirm that when he asked about the olive trees, he heard nothing, because he did not ask properly, nor did he inquire about everything he should have known. Finally, afterwards he inquires more fully, adding the olive branches or sprigs, about which he had remained silent above; for there he said: What are these two olive trees? here he asks; What are these two olive sprigs? metaphorically because, just as straight tree trunks are like ear heads, so these are covered by a certain wall of branches and leaves and rise up on high. Some of our people interpret the two olive trees as the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the middle lamp as God the Father. But I do not know how, without blasphemy, they accept one on the right, the other on the left. The branches or the clusters of olives also point to the incarnation of the Savior and the likeness of the dove of the Holy Spirit, because we cannot see the whole olives, but only a certain part and, so to speak, the little branches of the incarnation of Christ and the manifestation of the Holy Spirit shown to us. Others understand the two Testaments, the Gospel on the right, the Law on the left, because in the former there is a spiritual meaning, in the latter a physical one; and because we cannot explain the whole Gospel or the whole Law, and now we know in part and prophesy in part (1 Cor. 13:9), and we are not yet able to understand what is perfect. There are those who interpret the two branches of olives or the two ears of grain as representing the priesthood and the Law, which bring joy to the whole earth. Others believe that Enoch and Elijah, one of whom pleased God in uncircumcision and the other in circumcision, were taken up to heaven with their bodies (Genesis 5 and 1 Samuel 2). As for splendor, oil, fatness, and brightness, in Hebrew we read 'Isaar' (according to what is written in the Psalms about the joy and happiness of the saints: 'They shall be satisfied with the fatness of your house' - Psalm 36:8). The word 'πιότης' (or 'πιότητος') in Greek signifies more fatness than abundance. We have spoken these things as best we could and as far as the powers of our talent allowed, briefly touching upon the various opinions of the Hebrews and our own. If anyone should speak better or rather more truly, we willingly defer to them.

5:1-4

(Chapter 5, verses 1 onwards) Then I turned and lifted up my eyes, and behold, a flying scroll! And he said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits.” Then he said to me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. I will raise up, says the Lord of hosts, and it will come to the house of the thief and to the house of the one who swears falsely in my name, and it will remain in the midst of his house and consume it and its wood and its stones. LXX: And I turned and lifted up my eyes and saw a flying sickle. And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I see a flying sickle, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide. And he said to me: This is the curse that goes out over the face of all the land: because every thief will be punished from this until death, and every perjurer will be crucified from this until death. And I will bring it, says the Lord Almighty, and it will go into the house of the thief, and the house of the one who swears falsely in my name, and it will rest in the midst of his house, and it will consume him, and his wood, and his stones. Turning, the prophet said, to another vision, and lifting my eyes from joyful and fortunate things to sadder things, I see a flying scroll that is called Megella in Hebrew, and it is translated as διφθέρα by Aquila and Theodotion, and as κεφαλὶς by Symmachus, meaning, chapter, according to what we read in the psalm: In the chapter of the book it is written about me (Ps. XIX, 8); or according to the Seventy, δρέπανον πετόμενον, meaning, a flying sickle. For all the things that he had seen above, the construction of the temple, the coming of the Lord Savior, the liberation of the people from Babylon, had been proclaimed. Therefore, so that his heart would not be lifted up with the Apostle (to whom the angel of Satan had been given to buffet him), he also sees the things that are sad, so that whatever had increased in arrogance from the revelation of good things, may decrease from the threat of sad things. Moreover, a flying scroll is shown, in which all sins are written down, so that each person may receive according to their works, whether good or evil, as Daniel says: Thrones were set up, and books were opened. But if we take the sickle, as the LXX translated it, let us take the example from the Apocalypse of John, in which it is written: And the angel answered, and said to him who sat on the horse: Send forth thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of thy vineyard, for the grapes thereof are ripe (Apoc. XIV, 18). For sickle, in Deuteronomy we read arrows and sword: I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh (Deut. XXXII, 42). And because God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;). The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished And in Jeremiah we read: How long will you cut with the sword, or the sword of the Lord? How long will you not rest? Return to your sheath (Jer. XLVII, 6). This sword is not only called a sickle, which cuts hay, straw, and thorns; but it is also called an axe of trees, which will cut down those who have not made themselves worthy of the fruits of penance. And about whom John the Baptist proclaimed: Behold, the axe is laid to the roots of the trees: every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Matt. III, 10). This volume, in which the sins of everyone are described, or rather, the sickle that cuts down the sins of all, is sent into the vineyard of Sodom, of which it is written: Our enemies are foolish; for their vineyard is the vineyard of Sodom, and their offspring is from Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, and their clusters are bitter. The fury of dragons is their wine, and the incurable madness of asps. (Deuteronomy XXXII, 31 ff.) This sickle measures twenty cubits in length and ten in width, in a number joined together that is sad for the afflicted. For the Lord corrects in order to improve. In the twentieth, which is made up of two decades, harsh and difficult things are announced: in the tenth, that is, one decade, better and prosperous things are revealed: for Israel is taught through all kinds of scourges and punishments. At the same time, let us warn those who think small crimes like theft and perjury, that the curse which is written in the book and (by Al. a) with a sickle, be brought upon the house of the thief and perjurer, and let it remain in it, and consume all its wood and stones. But if there is such a threat of punishment for what is considered lesser offenses (such as theft and perjury), what shall we say about fornication, adultery, homicide, sacrilege, and all other crimes numbered among the works of the flesh by the Apostle (Galatians 5)? It has been said that the length of twenty cubits and the width of ten cubits correspond to the age of our Lord and Savior, that is, the number thirty. This is not for the Father to judge anyone, but all judgment has been given to the Son, and he will judge the world (John 5).

5:5-8

(Verse 5 seq.) And an angel came out who spoke to me, and said to me: Lift up your eyes and see what is coming. And I said: What is it? And he said: This is a departing vessel; and he said: This is their eye in all the land. And behold, a weight of lead was being carried, and behold, a woman sitting in the middle of the vessel. And he said: This is wickedness, and he threw her into the middle of the vessel, and he put a lead mass in her mouth. LXX: And the angel who spoke with me came out and said to me: Lift up your eyes and see what is coming out. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the measure that is coming out. And he said, This is their iniquity in all the land. And behold, a talent of lead was lifted up: and behold, a woman was sitting inside the measure, and he said, This is wickedness, and he threw her into the midst of the measure, and he threw a lead stone into her mouth. The amphora, or measure, was being carried out and was seen in the air. And so that we would not doubt by what proper term it is called, the angel himself, who showed the amphora, or measure, gives it a name and says, according to the Septuagint, 'This is their wickedness in all the earth'; according to the Hebrews, 'This is the eye, that is, the manifestation of all sins.' And behold, a woman was sitting in the middle of the amphora, or measure, which is called 'Epha' by the Hebrews, and it is often translated by the Seventy as 'οἴφι'; and this very woman was called wickedness. When she saw these things, behold, a talent of lead, that is, a mass the size of a stone, was being carried either by its own force or by the command of the Lord, or it was being carried by another whose name remains unspoken. But this angel who was speaking through the prophet, and coming out of him, showed all these things, seized the woman who was called impiety, and threw her headlong into the middle of the amphora, which was previously being carried freely, and sitting on top of the amphora, he appeared to everyone. Acne forte rursum elevaret caput, et sua iniquitate et impietate gauderet, talentum plumbi in modum gravissimi lapidis mittit in os amphorae: ut impietatem in medio opprimat atque concludat, ne quoquo modo possit erumpere. Haec quasi umbras quasdam et lineas futurae imaginis duximus, ut quod reliquum est suis coloribus impleamus. Angelus qui loquebatur in propheta, egressus de eo, et quasi cominus loquens, praecipit illi ut levet oculos suos, et videat peccata populi Israel in mensuram coacervata perfectam, et impleta delicta cunctorum: et hanc esse oculum eorum, quod Hebraice dicitur Enam (), et scribitur per Ain, Jod, Nun, Mem: Sive iniquitatem eorum; quae si per Vau litteram scripta esset, recte legeretur Onam (), ut LXX putaverunt: et hic error in editione Vulgata frequenter inolevit, ut quia Vau et Jod litterae eadem forma, sed mensura diversae sunt, altera legatur pro altera. This amphora or measure, their eye is in the whole earth, that is, a display of sins, so that the vices of those scattered and hidden might be gathered together and exposed to the eyes of all, to show what kind of people Israel was and how it had been in its land. And behold, a talent of lead was carried. For the talent of lead, we read in the following passage a lead stone. Chachar is called a talent (); Aben a stone. He is, therefore, the lead stone, which we, expressing it more clearly, have interpreted as the mass or sphere of lead, from which the heaviest weight of sins is signified. And above this measure and vessel of all sins, impiety sat in the middle, which we can also call by another name, idolatry, and denial of God. Hence, the Savior said to the Jews: 'Fill up the measure of your fathers' (Matthew 23:32). This wickedness, which sat upon the sins of Israel and boasted in its own wickedness, is later cast into the midst of Babylon and pressed down by the bad of captivity. Or according to Theodotion, it throws itself and hides in the midst of a jar, and places upon itself the heaviest weight of lead, so that it may have its mouth sealed shut and cannot boast any longer. Or surely it is oppressed by the angel of God, so that what previously rejoiced in wickedness may be silenced in eternal silence. But the following reading teaches to what place and by whom it is brought to a close.

5:9-11

(Verse 9 and following) And I lifted up my eyes, and I saw, and behold, two women coming forth, and a spirit was on their wings, and they had wings like the wings of a kite, and they lifted up an amphora between the earth and the sky. And I said to the angel who spoke to me: Where are these taking the amphora? And he said to me: To build a house for it in the land of Shinar, and it will be established and placed there upon its base. LXX: And I lifted up my eyes, and I saw, and behold, two women coming forth, and a spirit was on their wings, and they themselves had wings like the wings of a hoopoe. And they raised the measure between the earth and the sky. And I said to the angel who spoke in me: Where do they bring this measure? And he said to me: To build a house for him in the land of Babylon, and prepare it, and place it there on its foundation. Two women coming out, the Jews imagine the kingdom of the Medes and Macedonians, both of whom have afflicted the people of Babylon, and there their wickedness has established its seat. However, they craft this in such a way that what is said of themselves may not be understood as being about themselves. For indeed, the two women who depart, there is no doubt that they are to be received by the twelve tribes from the land of Judea: of whom one was taken captive by the Assyrians, the other by the Chaldeans. And in their wings was the spirit, that is, the power of the devil, of whom it is written in Ecclesiastes: If the spirit of the one who has power ascends over you, do not abandon your place (Eccl. X, 4). And in the Gospel, we read about an unclean spirit who, after being cast out from his home, wanders through desolate and dry places, and then comes back to his former home with seven other even more wicked spirits (Luke XI). Therefore, these women, carried away by this spirit as if by a gust of wind, were being borne swiftly, and they had wings; according to the Hebrew word 'Asida' (which Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion translated as 'herodion'), only the LXX translated it as 'hoopoe.' The Hebrews consider 'Asida' to be the kite, a very rapacious bird that always attacks domestic birds; as for 'herodion', those who have written about the nature of birds assume three types: one white, another starry; the third black, which is both the most savage and bloodthirsty, and is fierce and unwilling to mate, to the point that blood bursts from their eyes. But the hoopoe, which we have taken from the similarity of the Greek name (for they themselves call it 'popam' from the fact that it examines human excrement), is said to be the most filthy bird, always dwelling in tombs, always in human dung: finally it is said to build its nest out of it, and to feed its young with decaying worms from the filth. Whatever you want to understand about this bird, it is fitting for those women of Judaea and Israel who, because of their sins of prostitution, were handed over to the power of demons and led into captivity by them. And they brought a jar or measure, in which impiety was enclosed, with a mass of lead placed on top so that it could not escape, and the heaviest weight of all sins between earth and heaven. The prophet, understanding this, did not ask (for it was clear to his prophetic spirit) who these women were, nor what they represented, about which he had been previously instructed; but rather to what do they portend. Finally, it follows: I said to the angel who was speaking with me: To what place are these women carrying the jar? He replied: 'To build a house for him in the land of Shinar.' For this reason, the Seventy translated it as 'in the land of Babylon.' Shinar is indeed the plain of the Chaldeans, where those who had moved their feet from the East and were unable to stand in the service of God, built a tower of pride (Gen. 11). Therefore, the city itself is called Babylon, which means confusion, because there the languages of all were confused and mixed. Therefore impiety is attributed to these women in Babylon, so that there his house may be built, and established, and placed upon its foundation, and find eternal rest. Truly, in Babylon there is a seat of impiety, according to both history and mystical understanding. If you are willing to consider two women, the peoples of heretics and Jews (both of whom turn away from the face of God, and are carried by an uncertain spirit, and have wings like eagles, herons, and hoopoes, while always seeking riches like partridges, not with judgement, and hastening to plunder the Church, and delighting in disputes and quarrels, and leading to destruction those whom they deceive, and rolling in the mire of perpetual lust and filthiness), these women relieve the weight of the most serious impiety, and build their house in confusion, and serve the Babylonian king, so that the peoples of heretics and Jews may dwell there, where idolatry resides, serving wood and stone.

(Chap. VI.)

(Chapter VI) And I turned, and lifted up my eyes, and saw: And behold, four chariots coming out from the midst of two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of brass. In the first chariot were red horses, in the second chariot were black horses, and in the third chariot were white horses, and in the fourth chariot were dappled and strong horses. And I answered and said to the angel who talked with me: What are these, my lord? And the angel answered and said to me: These are the four winds of heaven, which go forth to stand before the Lord of all the earth. In which there were black horses, they went forth into the land of the North, and white ones went forth after them, and various ones went forth to the land of the South. But those who were the strongest, went out, and sought to go and roam through all the land. And he said: Go and walk through the land, and they walked through the land. And he called me, and spoke to me, saying: Behold, those who go forth into the land of the North, have made my spirit rest in the land of the North. LXX: And I turned and lifted up my eyes and saw: And behold, four chariots coming out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of bronze. In the first chariot were red horses, and in the second chariot were black horses, and in the third chariot were white horses, and in the fourth chariot were dappled horses. And I answered and said to the angel who talked with me, 'What are these, my lord?' And the angel answered and said to me, 'These are the four winds of heaven, who go out to stand before the Lord of all the earth.' In which there were black horses coming forth upon the land of the north, and white horses came forth after them, and diverse coming forth upon the land of the south. And the sturnini went forth, and they were considering to go about the land. And he said: Go and go about the land. And they went about the land. And he cried, and spoke to me, saying: Behold they that go forth upon the land of the north, have quieted my spirit in the land of the north. And he spoke to me, and said: Have strength, O son of man, and thou shalt see, and thou shalt hear all that I shall speak to thee: for thou art brought hither for this purpose: therefore do thou declare to the house of Israel all that thou seest. For the ones whom he had previously called above myrtle-covered or shady and wooded mountains, he now calls bronze. In the first chariot, the horses were red, bloody, and bloodthirsty, terrifying with the cruelty of Babylon. In the second chariot, black horses, the kingdom of the Medes and Persians: while sitting and getting off the chariot, he announced the death of all the Jews with a sad message, according to the edict of King Ahasuerus. In the third chariot, white horses, the Macedonians, under whose king Antiochus we read about the victory of the Maccabees. In the fourth chariot, strong and various horses. For we know that the kings of the Romans, some were merciful towards the Jewish nation, such as Gaius Caesar, Augustus, and Claudius; others were persecutors and terrible, such as Gaius Caligula, Nero, Vespasian, and Hadrian. Instead of the brave ones, whom the Eagle (Aquila) transferred as strong (kraterous) and the Seventy (Septuaginta) as fishes (psarous) in Hebrew it is written as Amasim (). And some copies have mistakenly πυῤῥοὺς, confusing the differences of colors and kingdoms, as πυῤῥοὶ, that is, red, are called not Amasim, but Adamim (). Therefore, with the prophet seeking to understand what they wanted to signify, the angel who spoke in him responds and narrates that there are four winds of the sky, that is, the four corners of the world, which the Greeks call 'climates', which attend and obey the will of the Lord. For these four kingdoms, which we mentioned, have done nothing without the will of the Lord. In which there were black horses, he says, they went out into the land of the North. How beautifully the first chariot, in which there were red horses, is passed over, and what the second and third did and the fourth is described. For at that time, when the prophet was speaking, the Babylonian kingdom had already passed, and the Persian power possessed all of Asia: under whose king Darius, in his second year, in the eleventh month (or December), on the twenty-fourth day of the month, as it is called Sabat (the Sabbath), all the things that we have mentioned above took place. In which there were black horses, going out into the land of the north: so that the power of the Medes might destroy the kingdom of the Chaldeans. And it should be noted that κλίματα, that is, regions of the world and the earth, are called by the holy scriptures the location of Jerusalem and the temple. Also, there were white people who came after them, following the footsteps of the Medes and Persians, the kings of Macedon, to subjugate the Chaldeans and Babylon under their rule. The fourth group, that is, the sturninus and various, who are called by another name, the Amasim, that is, the strong and powerful, went to the southern region and swiftly traversed the entire land. And the angel who was speaking to the prophet cried out to the Roman Empire: Go, walk through the earth and circle the lands, and with your feet overthrow all the kingdoms. And turning to the prophet, he testifies with a clear voice: Behold, those who come to the land of the North have made my spirit rest in the land to which they have gone. It has been handed down to me by the Hebrews in a very difficult place, that Alexander and all the Macedonians, that is, the white horses who went out after the Medes and Persians, who themselves also traveled to the land of the North, have caused the prophetic spirit to rest in the land of the North, because they have fulfilled the will of the God against the Medes, and in a short time the dominion of the Medes and Persians has been wiped out by the Macedonians. For a great consolation it is to those who are oppressed, if they know that their enemies will quickly perish. As we were able, indeed as we have learned, we pass on to the students of our language following the truth of the history: not seeking the chariots of Pharaoh, and the Babylonian chariots, like the explanation of Egypt with tenacious memory; for it is not what is written, but how it is written that should be considered. According to the allegory, whatever we have said concerning the four horns and the four craftsmen, let us also understand in the present place. I read in a certain volume, four chariots, in which there are red, black, white, and various horses, and strong ones, representing the four Gospels and the Apostles, each possessing various graces by the diversity of colors: some are red in martyrdom, others are dark and black, understanding the mysteries of Christ, of whom it is said in the Psalms: Darkness is under His feet (Psalm 18:9). And: He made darkness His hiding place (ibid., 18:11). Others are white. By the virginal grace; others various and strong, having the grace of diverse healings and virtues. These four chariots or cars were sent into the four winds of the sky, that is, to the cardinal points of the world, and the whole circle of the earth, to fulfill the will of the Lord: to which it is afterwards inferred by an Angel: Go, and walk through the earth, and sow the Gospel in all the ends of the earth. Also, that which follows: Behold they that go towards the land of the north have caused My spirit to rest in the land of the north, He explained thus, as if He said that the spirit of the Lord, or the angels, had rested in the land of the north, when in the land of the north, the most harsh kingdoms of the devil were overthrown by the apostolic preaching, and these were the kingdoms which the devil, showing to the Lord the Savior on a high mountain, boasted that they were given to him (Matthew 4).

Book Two

Book Two

From the obscure to the more obscure, we pass, and with Moses we enter into the cloud and darkness. Abyss calls to abyss, in the voice of the cataracts of God; and the spirit goes in circles, and returns to its own circles. We suffer the errors of a labyrinth, and blindly guide the footsteps of Christ with a thread. The helmeted guardian of the book presses on us with this difficulty.

He who has begun has half done. . . . how much more should we who have already completed a third part of the journey strive in the same way in our remaining effort, lest we lose what is past and increase the reader's desire for an unfinished work! Therefore, my venerable Pope Exuperius, be present in spirit in these prayers, although absent in body, and obtain from the Lord that the veil of Zacharias, which was placed before (or hung over) the eyes of Moses (Exod. XXXI; II Cor. III), may be removed from my face, because the common people could not bear the brightness of his countenance: so that I too, with David, may be able to say: The Lord will give the word to those who preach the Gospel with great power (Ps. LXVII, 12). This is the beginning of the Explanation of the Second Book of Zechariah, which we are dictating with such speed that there is almost no time for correction: while Brother Sisinnius hastens to go to Egypt to also bring the fragrance of the good odor, which was sent by you to the brothers there; and so that the thirsty fields may be watered not by the river of Ethiopia, but by the abundant waters of Gaul.

6:9-15

(Verse 9 and following) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Take from the exiles, from Holdai, from Tobiah, and from Idah, and come in that day and enter the house of Josiah the son of Sophaiah, who came from Babylon. And take silver and gold, and make crowns, and put them on the head of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and say to him: Thus says the Lord of hosts, saying: Behold a man whose name is the Branch, and he shall grow up from his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord. And he himself will build a temple for the Lord, and he himself will bear the glory, and he will sit and rule on his throne, and he will be a priest on his throne, and there will be counsel of peace between them both. And the crowns will be for Helem, Tobiah, and Idajah, and for Hen son of Zephaniah, a memorial in the temple of the Lord. And those who are far off will come and build in the temple of the Lord, and you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. And it will come to pass, if you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God. LXX: And the word of the Lord came to me saying: Take what is from the captivity, from the princes and from their benefactors, and from those who know them: and you shall enter on that day into the house of Josiah the son of Sophonias that came from Babylon, and you shall take silver and gold, and shall make crowns, and shall set them on the head of Jesus the son of Josedec the high priest, and you shall say to him: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold a man, the Orient is his name, and under him shall he spring up, and shall build a temple to the Lord, and he shall take upon himself the glory, and shall sit, and shall rule upon his throne. And there shall be a priest at his right hand, and there shall be counsel of peace between the two: but the crown of expectation and of benefit to him, and to them that know her, and to the beloved son of Zephaniah, and to the psalm in the house of the Lord, to them that are far off, they shall come and build in the house of the Lord. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me to you. And it shall come to pass, if hearing you will hear the voice of the Lord your God. Once I set forth the hidden doctrine of Hebrew learning, and the concealed discipline of the masters of the synagogue, namely, that which is agreeable to the holy Scriptures. To reveal in Latin. Therefore, it is necessary for me to draw lines of history in the darkest places and thus bring forth what I have learned from ecclesiastical men, leaving it to the reader's discretion as to what they should follow more. And first, the order of the reading must be restored, so that what is said becomes clear according to the letter. Take, it says, from Holdai, and from Tobia, and from Idaja, who came from the Babylonian captivity, and you shall take from them gifts that are offered, silver and gold, and you shall enter the house of Josiah, son of Zephaniah; and there you shall make crowns, distinguished by the variety of gold and silver, not one crown, but either two or more: for Ataroth, namely, στέμματα, signifies not one, but either dual or plural number. When you make the crowns, you shall set one of them on the head of Jesus, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and you shall speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for He will branch out from where He is; and He will build the temple of the Lord.”’ And when he has built that, he himself will also receive glory, that is, another crown, which in Hebrew is called 'Hod', and in another language 'ἐπιδοξότης', in another 'εὐπρέπεια', in another 'ἀρετὴ', in another 'δόξα', which all mean illustrious, beauty, virtue, or glory. They think it refers to Zerubbabel, who, rising suddenly from a low and captive state, built the temple of the Lord, and sat on his throne, ruling with princely power. And the high priest, too, said he, Jesus the son of Josedech will sit on the priestly throne, and with united minds and councils, they will govern the people of God. And there will be peace between those two, that is, between the one who is of the royal tribe and the one who is descended from the Levite line, so that they may jointly rule the priesthood and the kingdom of God's people. And you shall consecrate the very crowns that you have made of gold and silver, after they have been placed on the head of Joshua, the son of Josedech, and on the head of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, with their names from whom they have been offered, in the temple, that is, Helem, and Tobiah, and Iddo, and Hen. The second and third names are the same as above. The first has been changed, and instead of Holdai he now uses Helem. The fourth, which was not mentioned above, is Hen, of whom we will speak in the following. And after having stored the crowns in the temple of the Lord, and consecrated them for everlasting memory, the nations from all the ends of the earth, scattered afar, will come and each one will build in my temple according to their own abilities. And then, at the end of events and with the prosperity of all, you will know that the Lord has sent me, and that I have foretold everything by His command. But all these things will be if you obey the commandments of the Lord and fulfill his commands. Holdai is interpreted as the prayer of the Lord, which in Greek is more significantly called the Litany of the Lord. Tobiah is a good man, known by the Lord. Instead of Holdai, Helem is now placed in the first place, which is interpreted as a dream; and in the fourth place, Hen is added, which means grace. The crowns of these four men will be with the son of Zephaniah, whom we read above Josiah, who is the guardian and custodian of the temple of the Lord, and there they will rest with eternal station. The Hebrews Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, who came from captivity, commemorate that they brought gold and silver as gifts to the temple, as well as the crowns of the high priest and the prince. They also mention that above, Hen, that is, favor, Daniel came with a gift. And for this reason, Helem is placed in place of Holdai, so that from the interpretation of the name which is called a dream, it may be shown that Daniel was placed in captivity, and that the three boys knew the mysteries of the royal dream. For when three boys were taken, Daniel prayed to the Lord and obtained the interpretation of the dream (Daniel II). According to history, this is an attempt to explain Circumcision. However, it is necessary for us to say what our ancestors said according to the Septuagint translators. Take from the captivity and from the princes, and from her useful things, and from those who know her, gold and silver, and upon entering the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah, who himself came from Babylon, make golden and silver crowns, which you will place upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest. The captivity of the Jews, that is, confessing the Lord of the people, is due to vices and sins: those who begin to do penance, and desire the former Jerusalem, that is, the Church of Christ, forsake and abandon it in Babylon, and are offered by the princes of the captives, and by their helpers, that is, those of the captivity (who themselves were handed over to the angel of Satan for their own utility, unto the perdition of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved (I Cor. V), and by those who know it, namely, the captivity, to be turned into a good part after punishment. But gold and silver are offered by those who both confess the Lord with understanding and speech, and from them, that is, from gold and silver, crowns are made in the house of Josiah, who is interpreted as saved, and he is the son of the visitation of the Lord, that is, the oversight of the Lord. For he is visited by the Lord who had previously been seriously ill. And rightly Josiah is called saved, because he himself also returned from Babylon. And crowns are placed upon Jesus, the son of Josedech the high priest, because as we progress and return to better things, the Lord is crowned by each of our virtues. Indeed, we are crowned with the virtue of repentance, and the Savior receives a crown in each of us, according to what Paul also says: Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the righteous judge, the Lord, shall give to me: and not to me only, but also to all who love the appearing of our Lord Savior Jesus Christ (I Tim. IV, 8). From where he received the name 'crown of justice' and 'Father of the Lord Savior'. For Josedec means Lord of justice, because he renders to each one according to his works. James also speaks of this crown in his Epistle: Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he is tried, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him (James 2). And the prophet is commanded that after he has placed the crown, or crowns, upon the head of Jesus, the son of Josedec the high priest, he should speak to him, and say: Thus says the Lord: Behold, a man, his name is the Rising Sun: and beneath him will arise, and so on. We do not divide Jesus, nor can we make two persons into one person; but he himself who is called Jesus, because he saved the world, and is called the Orient, because in his days righteousness arose. And it is sung in the Psalm: Truth has arisen from the earth (Ps. LXXXIV, 12), because he, who was born from the virgin womb in the completion of the ages, has said: I am the truth (John XIV, 6), and the final hour has come, as it is written in the Epistle of John (I John II, 18): Little children, it is now the final hour, in which he has called the people standing and doing nothing from the Gentiles, and has sent them to the vineyard (Matt. XX). Moreover, if he becomes different according to the diversity of names, he will be another shepherd, another ram, another lamb, another gate, another stumbling block, and another rock of offense. Therefore, the one who is crowned with our virtues will arise and be called the East. To whom the Father spoke: You are my Son, today I have begotten you (Ps. 2:7): And beneath him a multitude of believers will arise, and he will build the house of the Lord, the Church, and he himself will receive power and beauty and progress, and the glory of each one, and he will sit and reign on his throne, on the throne of David, of whom it is also written in the Gospel: And there shall be a priest at his right hand (Luke 1), or according to the Hebrew, above his throne; for he is both king and high priest: and he will sit on both the royal and the priestly throne, and there will be peaceful counsel between the two, so that neither the royal summit may detract from the dignity of the priesthood, nor the dignity of the priesthood from the royal summit, but that both may agree in the glory of the Lord Jesus, the one and only. I read in a certain book (Zech. 6:13): And peaceful counsel shall be between two, to be referred to the Father and to the Son: because it is not His own, but the Father's will that He came to do, and the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father (ibid., 14). But the crown, that is, the sign of victory, is promised also to those who await Him and understand the benefit of their former captivity and know all the mysteries of God, so that they may be in the grace of the son of Zephaniah, that is, in the visitation of the Lord. And those who were in Babylon said (Ps. CXXXVI, 1, 2): By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows in its midst we hung up our lyres, after they had returned to Jerusalem, let them receive a psalm and a timbrel, and let them sing in the church of the Lord. And those who were far from Judaea because of great sins, let them come with true confession, and let them rebuild the house of the Lord according to their individual progress, and then the entire congregation will know with one mind that the Almighty Lord has sent a prophet to them. But all the promises will be fulfilled if they are willing to listen to the Lord and, after repentance, remain in good works.

7:1-7

(Chapter 7, verses 1 onwards) In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Casleu. And they sent to the house of God Sarasar and Rogommelech, along with the men who were with him, to seek the face of the Lord and to speak to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, saying: Should I weep in the fifth month and separate myself as I have done for many years? And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying: Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, did you really fast for me? And when you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Are not these the words that the Lord spoke by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, and her cities were around her, and the Negeb and the Shephelah were inhabited? LXX: And it came to pass in the fourth year under King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Casleu. And he sent to Bethel Sarezer and Regemmelech, and their men, to entreat the Lord, saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying: Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for many years? And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying: Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month for seventy years, did you truly fast for me? And if you eat or drink, do you not eat and drink? Are these not my words, which the Lord spoke through the prophets, who were before when Jerusalem was inhabited, and it was prosperous, and its cities around it, and the mountains and fields were inhabited? In the fourth year of King Darius, in the ninth month, which is called Casleu, (), and on the fourth day of the same month, they sent to the house of God, that is, to the temple which had already been restored by Zerubbabel and Joshua, Sarsechim and Regemmelech and the other companions who were with them, whom the Hebrews considered to be the leaders of King Darius, fearing God: so that because they had already heard that the temple was constructed, they would inquire of the priests of the house of the Lord and the prophets, whether they should weep and fast according to the ancient custom, or change mourning into rejoicing. And the understanding of those inquiring is this: In the fifth month, called July among the Romans, Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. For this reason, because of the desolation of the temple, we have fasted and mourned up until now, and have comforted our sorrow with weeping and fasting. Now because it is said that the temple has been rebuilt, and we see no reason for our sadness to continue, we ask for your response: should we continue to do this, or should we exchange our mourning for joy? And it must also be considered that weeping and fasting are called sanctification. Therefore, in Joel, it is commanded to the priests to sanctify fasting and preach healing (Joel 5). For fasting and abstinence heal the wounds of the sinner, and sanctify those who have been healed. After the Persian leaders had questioned those whom they had sent, and the legation had been completed by consulting the priests and prophets, the word of the Lord came to the prophet, commanding him to speak to the people and the priests about what they should respond to the envoys. When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month of the captivity in Jerusalem, and in the seventh month, when Gedaliah was killed by Ishmael, during the seventy years of desolation of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem, did it benefit you that you fasted? And conversely, when you eat and drink, does it not satisfy your hunger and quench your thirst? For God is not pleased by these things, but by good works, and if we follow His commandments, for food does not commend us to God. And if we do not eat, we will be weak; and if we eat, we will be satisfied. Are these not my words, spoken to you while Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were still standing, which I spoke to you through my prophets, when Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were prosperous, and the mountainous and plain regions were abundant in crops, and enjoyed a secure peace? But these were the words of the Lord, as the following Scripture testifies, desiring to judge with truth and show mercy to one's neighbor, widow, orphan, stranger, and poor, and not to plan evil in one's heart. They, he says, did not want to do this, and with deaf ears they despised my commands. Therefore, great indignation came upon Jerusalem; and just as they did not want to listen to me, so I did not hear them. And now they seek with such scrupulousness when they should fast and mourn, when I had said before through Isaiah: I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord, nor for a man to humble his soul; but to dissolve every bond of wickedness: dissolve the obligations of violent guarantors: give your bread from the heart to the hungry. If you see someone naked, clothe them; and bring the poor and the homeless into your tent. Then your temporary light will break forth, and your healing will quickly appear (Isaiah 58:5, seqq.). This is what is written in the Septuagint: Sarasar and Arabesser ((or Arbath Sager)) king of Bethel sent, none of us could explain: for neither can what is wrongly translated from Hebrew be explained in any way. Who is this Sarasar or Arabesser king? Who was the king of the province, or to which province did Bethel send a message? Or could the king of Bethel have been Arabian, which had previously been abandoned along with Judaea, and at that time was not called Bethel, which means house of God, but rather Bethaven, which means house of idols? Also, concerning what follows: In the fifth month, the consecration entered here, just as they had been doing for many years, they attempt to explain it as follows: the consecration entered, the temple vessels that had been taken by Nebuchadnezzar were restored at that time. However, they tried to refer to the days of the week for the fasts of the fifth and seventh days. But because it follows the fast of the tenth day, they were compelled to refer to months, and they completely ignored the fasts of the fifth, seventh, and thirteenth months. Therefore, we are satisfied with the earlier explanation, and we do not incline (or rather, we are not indignant) towards the false attempts of commentators that came from an error in interpretation.

7:8-14

(Verses 8 onwards) And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear. They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. And it came to pass as he had spoken, and they did not hear: so shall they cry, and I will not hear, saith the Lord of hosts. And I scattered them throughout all the kingdoms which they did not know; and the land was desolate from them, because there was no one who passed by or returned; and they made the pleasant land a wilderness. LXX: And the word of the Lord came to Zacharias, saying: Thus saith the Lord Almighty, saying: Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassion every man to his brother: and oppress not the widow, and the orphan, and the poor man: and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your hearts. And they were unwilling to pay attention, and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts. As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear, says the Lord of hosts, and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate. I wanted these things more, I sought those things that you, not doing, are handed over to captivity; and not the fasting of the fifth and seventh month of desolation and death. Judge a just judgment, so that you may not hear in the Psalms: How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked? Judge for the orphan and the widow; justify the humble and the poor (Psalm 81:2, 3), lest Isaiah also speak to you: Those who justify the wicked for bribes and take away the justice of the righteous (Isaiah 5:23); and because of you, let Habakkuk make a complaint to God on behalf of those who are oppressed: Judgment has been done against me, and the judge accepts bribes; therefore the law is useless and justice does not reach its end, because the wicked oppress the righteous (Habakkuk 1:3, 4). Nor should we consider this commandment of God to be something new; once upon a time, He had given these instructions through Moses: 'You shall judge great as small: you shall not show partiality to anyone, and you shall not have pity on the poor in judgment, for it is the judgment of God' (Deuteronomy 1:17). Each person shall also show mercy and compassion towards their brother. After the severity of judgment, let mercy follow for all, especially towards brothers, whom we perceive to be of the same blood or of the same faith as us. Also see the widow and orphan, of whom it was commanded to us: Be a father to the orphans and a husband to their mother; judge the orphan and justify the widow (Eccl. IV, 10). And do not slander the stranger and the poor, for one is made a foreigner by travel, the other is made lowly by poverty. And let not a man think evil of his brother in his heart, as it is said in the Septuagint: And let everyone not remember the wickedness of his brother in his heart (Luke X). But we must accept our brother and neighbor, or all kinds of people; because we are all generated from one parent, or those who are of the household of faith, according to the parable of the Gospel, which wants all people to be understood as neighbors, not just those who are blood relatives. And whatever anger should be resolved before the sun sets, and all the evil that we have suffered from others should be erased from memory, and we read this in many places, especially in Jeremiah, who speaks in the voice of God: And let each one not remember the malice of his neighbor in your hearts. When I commanded them to do these things, they refused to pay attention and turned their back, despising my orders, disregarding the posture of my body. For we are accustomed, when we wrinkle our forehead and contract our nostrils, to show disdain, to turn our back, according to that which is written: They turned their back to me, and not their face (Jeremiah 2:27). And they have made their ears heavy, so they could not hear, like the deaf adder that stops its ears, which will not hear the voice of charmers, no matter how skillful they might be. For they have made their ears heavy, that they may not hear, and their heart they have turned away, that they may not understand the law of God. Hence, Isaiah, threatening them, says: The heart of this people is fat, and with their ears they have been heavily affected, and their eyes they have closed, lest perhaps they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. Moreover, what is said according to the Hebrew: And they have placed their heart as adamant (or as adamant), signifies the hardness of heart, and a stony heart, that they have not been willing to receive the words of God. For indeed, the diamond is the strongest stone, which in Hebrew is called Samir, so hard that it breaks all metals and it itself is not broken by any. Hence, it is called indomitable by the Greeks. Pharaoh's heart was hardened by this diamond, so that he would not let the people of God go (Exod. 7 et seq.). And because they had, or rather they set their hearts like a diamond, willingly taking on the hardness of heart, they did not listen to the words of the Lord, which he sent in his spirit, that is, in the Holy Spirit through the hand of the prophets of old, Isaiah, Hosea, and the others, who had clean hands, as it is evident from before the captivity: therefore, great anger was brought about by great sins, and the words of the Lord have been fulfilled, in accordance with the principle of like for like, that just as they walked towards him in wickedness, so he would walk towards them in wickedness, and he would not listen to the words of those calling out, because they too had disregarded the words of the Lord with a deaf ear. Therefore, he scattered them throughout all the kingdoms that they did not know, the kingdoms of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, and other nations that were subject to these empires, and in whose lands they were scattered. And all of Judah became desolate, because it had no inhabitant, and there was no one passing through or returning. And the land, which was a honeycomb among all lands and flowed with milk and honey abundantly, they turned into a wilderness. Can we apply these things to those who, in the Church, as delinquents, were cast out from the land of confession, because they refused to hear the Lord, and turned their back on Him departing, and made heavy their ears, and hardened their heart like adamant. And the indignation of the Lord came upon them, and they were scattered throughout all the kingdoms of vices, and their land was deserted, either in soul or body, having no indwelling Lord, nor a returning spirit within themselves. And the once desirable land, which was the dwelling place of the Trinity, has been turned into a desert, the abode of dragons. Let us quickly pass over those things which are clear, so that there may be room for discussing obscure matters: for we are not writing lengthy and flourishing treatises in which eloquence plays a pleasing role, but rather we are writing commentaries, whose duty it is to pass over obvious things and discuss obscure matters.

8:1-3

(Chapter 8, Verses 1 onwards) And the word of the Lord of hosts came, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with a great jealousy, and with a great indignation am I jealous for her. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I am returned to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. LXX: And the word of the Lord Almighty came, saying: Thus saith the Lord Almighty: I am jealous for Jerusalem and Zion with a great jealousy, and with a great fury am I jealous for her. Thus says the Lord Almighty: I will return to Zion and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem shall be called the true city, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty, the holy mountain. In the book of Ezekiel (Chapter 16), we learn in greater detail how the Lord took Jerusalem, that is, the Israelite people, when they were in the wilderness like a wife, covered in the blood of idolatry, and he covered them with his cloak and loved them with marital affection. Later, we learn that she ate fine flour, honey, and oil, adorned with the most beautiful garments, and had all the jewelry and ornaments given by her husband, but she committed adultery with the Assyrians and the Chaldeans, and the Lord said: As a wife despises her husband, so Israel has despised me in the house of Israel (Jeremiah 3). But when she was delivered into captivity and mocked by her lovers, and stripped of her former beauty, after she spread her legs to every passerby and was defiled up to her head, she laments the memory of her former happiness, saying: 'I will return to my former husband, for it was better for me then than it is now.' (Hosea 2:7). And he, taking her back in marriage, to whom he had previously said, 'I will not be angry with you, and my jealousy shall depart from you' (Ezekiel 16), now speaks: 'I am consumed with zeal for Zion, with great zeal and great indignation I am consumed for her.' I was very angry that she was defiled by many lovers and stained my marriage bed. Therefore, I handed her over to her lovers, not as an adulteress under her husband, but as a harlot and worthless slave, and she was prostituted in brothels. Now I have returned to her even more, because she has repented and built a temple for me to dwell in the midst of her. And she will be called the city of truth, which was previously called the city of lies, as written in Isaiah: Truth has slept (or dozed) in her; but now murderers. And there will be a mountain, the mountain of the Almighty Lord, a sanctified mountain, in which, with the temple restored, victims are sacrificed, and the order of ceremonies is observed. This is according to the history. However, there is no doubt that Zion and Jerusalem, the watchtower and vision of peace, are able to receive the souls of the faithful, to whom, when they have sinned, the angry Lord hands them over to captivity, so that they who have not sensed God through good and prosperous things may sense Him through evil and adverse things. And when they shall have repented, the Lord will return to Zion and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, which we understand as the one and the same city, in which before reigned the vices of sins and falsehoods; afterwards Christ will dwell, who is the truth. And the mountain of the Lord of hosts shall be called the holy mountain, of which it is said: They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion (Ps. 142:1). And: Great is the Lord and exceedingly praiseworthy, in the city of our God, in his holy mountain (Ps. 47:1). About which Isaiah and Micah cry out: In the last days, the mountain of the Lord will be prepared on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills, and all peoples will flow to it, and many nations will hurry, and they shall say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob (Isaiah 2:2-3; Micah 4:1-2). Concerning this mountain and this city, and the Apostle Paul (if indeed in receiving the Epistle, he did not reject the Greek authority in the Latin language) disputing with sacred prayer says: You have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and to thousands of angels, and the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven (Hebrews 12:22).

8:4-5

(Verses 4, 5.) This is what the Lord of hosts says. Yet old men and old women will dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their many days. And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets. LXX: This is what the Lord Almighty says: Yet old men and old women will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their many days. And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets. So great, he says, will be the prosperity of all things and the peace and tranquility of war, with no enemy remaining, that old age in both sexes will reach the very last age, and trembling limbs will be supported by a ruling staff. The streets of the city will also be filled with playing boys and girls. However, this usually happens when there is security and deep peace in the cities, so that the joy of the cities may celebrate with games and dances the playful age. But if we refer to the Church, of which it is said: Glorious things have been spoken of you, O city of God (Psalm 87:3), and: The streams of the river make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling place of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved (Psalm 46:4-5), who can doubt that the streets of the Church are the virtues, in which wisdom acts confidently and is proclaimed on the heights of the walls? Therefore, the Psalmist cries out to the Lord: I hold your commandments in high esteem (Psalm 119:96). In the streets, seeking the Lord and Savior, the bride speaks in the Song of Songs: I will arise and go about the city in the streets and in its squares, until I find him whom my soul loves (Song of Songs 3:2). Therefore, the elderly men and women will dwell or sit, of whom it is written (if anyone is willing to receive the book): Honorable old age, not measured by time or numbered by years (Wisdom 4:8). But dogs are the wisdom of men, and old age is a blameless life: of which the Lord also speaks to Moses: Gather with you seventy elders, whom you know to be elders (Num. XI, 16); wherefore before Abraham no one was called old, of whom we read: Abraham died being old: nourished in good old age, old and full of days (Gen. XXV, 8). For the glory of old men is gray hair, of whom it is said: The gray hair of a man is his wisdom (Wis. IV, 8). They will hold rods and staffs in their hands because of the multitude of days, and they will say to the disciples: What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in the spirit of gentleness and meekness (1 Corinthians 4:21)? For he who speaks wisdom from his lips, the rod strikes the foolish man. And on the contrary: He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who diligently corrects him loves him (Proverbs 13:24). And not only old men, but old women will also sit in the streets of Jerusalem, which Paul describes with apostolic words: Honor, he says. See widows who are truly widows. And in another place: Let a widow be chosen not less than sixty years old, who was the wife of one husband, having testimony in good works: if she has brought up children, if she has received strangers, if she has washed the feet of the saints, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work (I Tim. V, 3, 9, 10). Such old men and old women will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, and they will hold staffs in their hands, and the streets of the city will be filled with playing boys and girls. These are the boys and girls, the old and young, whom the Psalmist exhorts to sing to the Lord, saying: Young men and maidens, old men and children, praise the name of the Lord (Ps. CXLVII, 12). And John the Evangelist and Apostle says: I write to you, young men, because your sins are forgiven you for the sake of the Savior's name: I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning (I John II, 12, 13). And of these things Solomon speaks in Proverbs: And He shall give subtlety to the innocent, and understanding to the young man. And again: Hear, O sons, the discipline of a father, and attend that you may know understanding (Prov. 1:4, 8). Concerning these boys, young men and girls, the forty-fourth psalm says, After her shall virgins be brought to the king. According to what is written: The daughters of Judah rejoiced and were glad because of your judgments. Lord (Ps. XCVI, 8). When they have heard from the Apostle: Rejoice, again I say rejoice (Philip. IV, 4), they will indicate the joy of the mind with a gesture of the body, and with a leaping dance, they will say with David: I will leap and dance in the sight of the Lord (II Sam. VI, 22).

8:6

(Verse 6) Thus says the Lord of hosts: If it seems difficult in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be difficult in my eyes? says the Lord of hosts. LXX: Thus says the Lord Almighty: If it is impossible before the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be impossible before me? says the Lord Almighty. The prophet presents, word by word and sentence by sentence, the promises of prosperity to Israel and almost incredible things due to their magnitude. Thus says the Lord Almighty, speaking in another manner: Do not think that what I promise belongs to me, and do not believe me as you would believe a man. The promises I make are of God. As I said before, the old people and the elderly will sit in the streets and hold staffs in their hands for a long time. The streets will be made narrower due to the multitude of people, and boys and girls will lead processions as if it were a festival. Jerusalem will be rebuilt and restored to its former state of happiness. To those remaining people who had come out of captivity, this seemed unbelievable when they saw the city completely deserted, with walls in ruins and burnt walls, exhibiting the hand of Babylon. Therefore, he associates: If for those of you who are the remaining captives, what I promise seems difficult or impossible, that such happiness will be in those days when Jerusalem is being built, will it be difficult or impossible in the sight of the Lord who promises these things with my own mouth? For what is impossible for men is possible for God (Matthew 19:26). We have witnessed these things fulfilled during the time of persecution in the churches of Christ, when such a rage of cruelty was stirred up among the persecutors that they even destroyed our assemblies, burned divine books, filled all islands, mines, and prisons with chained flocks of confessors and martyrs. Who would have believed at that time that the very ones who had destroyed would be the ones to build up the churches again? Not because the same men were in power, but because the same royal authority, which previously lay in wait with the rich (Psalms 10), and sought to extinguish the name of Christ as if by a senatorial decree, now constructs basilicas at the expense of the republic of the Churches, and raises up the highest, so that it not only decorates the shining ceilings and roofs with gold, but also clothes the walls with different layers of marble, and venerates the divine books, which it previously handed over to the fire, now gilded and purpled, and distinguished by a variety of gems, in the custody of the Roman state.

8:7-8

(Verses 7, 8.) Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will save my people from the land of the East, and from the land of the setting sun. And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in justice. Likewise in the Septuagint. Others say that these things were fulfilled by the Jews after the rebuilding of the temple and the city walls by Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, and the restoration of the Jewish state by the Maccabees and various princes who ruled over Judea until King Herod. Others, in talking about the completion of the world under Christ, whom they vainly wait for, mention things that are yet to be fulfilled. But we, on the other hand, say that even at that time, that is, after Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, it was partially completed and already foreshadowed in types and images when the people were brought back from captivity, dwelt in Jerusalem, and were called the people of God, and again the Lord was called their God: not in deceit and injustice, but in truth and righteousness. And now, most fully under the Lord and Savior in the Church, that is, in the true Jerusalem, the promise is being fulfilled, especially because it is said: Behold, I will save my people from the land of the East and from the land of the West, of whom the Lord also spoke in the Gospel: Many shall come from the East and the West, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. VIII, 11). And long before, the Psalmist had promised, saying: The Lord, the God of gods, has spoken and called the earth. From the rising of the sun to its setting, from Zion, the perfection of beauty, he comes. For from Zion shall come the one who delivers and turns away iniquities from Jacob, when, from the east and the west, incense is offered to the name of the Lord in every place, and a pure sacrifice, not of the victims of the old Testament, but of the sanctity of the gospel purity, of which incense and elsewhere we read: Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight. And the following speech explains what this offering is: The lifting up of my hands is the evening sacrifice. For after the shoot from the stem of Jesse has blossomed forth, who was to rule the nations, in Him the nations were to hope (Rom. XV), and from the East and the West, as well the first people as the last have believed in the Lord, and there was made one flock: then all the nations were called to joy, and stirred up to gladness, as the Prophet says: Rejoice, O nations, with His people (Ps. XXI, 28). According to what is written elsewhere: All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. And what follows: In truth and righteousness, this signifies that the shadow of the old Law departs and the truth of the Gospel comes, not in the righteousness of the Jews, but in Christian righteousness: for the Lord himself is truth and righteousness, of whom we read: Truth will spring up from the earth, and righteousness will look down from heaven (Psalm 85:11). And in the fourteenth Psalm, righteousness and truth are mentioned together: He who walks without blemish and practices righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart.

8:9

(Verse 9) Thus says the Lord of hosts: Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing through the mouth of the prophets the decrees that were made when the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid for the rebuilding of the temple. For there are seventy years for the Lord of hosts, the Almighty, and in like manner the rest were translated. When the temple was built under Zerubbabel and Jesus (for in the fourth year of King Darius, on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is called Chislev, these things are said, when the temple had already been constructed), the same prophets Haggai and Zechariah, who had encouraged the leaders and the people to build it, now encourage them to conform their faith to what had been promised in the past and what is promised for the future, and to strengthen their hands, fearing neither the attack of the Medes nor the plots of the surrounding nations. And let them be comforted by the words of the prophets from the day the foundation of the temple was laid until the day it was completed, and let them hear what follows. Briefly, we explain the history of whatever is said about Jerusalem and the temple, referring it spiritually to the Church, in which hands are strengthened through good works, and houses are founded when the foundations of faith are laid, and a temple is built when the multitude of believers is strengthened, and thus lives so as to deserve to be the temple of God.

8:10

(Verse 10.) Indeed, before those days there was no wages for humans, nor wages for animals, nor peace to the one entering and leaving because of the affliction. And I will send forth all people against their neighbors. They have all been reported to the future time, but better to the past, as it is in Hebrew, and the truth of the exposition will approve. Before the house of the Lord was founded, and the temple of the Lord was built, all your labor was in vain. And both men and animals in agriculture, in trade, and in various works, were frustrated in their empty efforts: outside there were adversaries, at home sedition disturbed the peace, and everywhere there was injustice due to the frequency of wars and domestic plots, while brother did not show faith to brother, and every kinship was hostile. Understanding this meaning, the prophet Haggai says: And now set your hearts from this day and beyond: before the stone was placed upon the stone in the temple of the Lord. When you approached a heap of twenty measures, there were ten; and you entered the winepress to press out fifty jugs, and there were twenty. I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands, and there was no one among you who returned to me, says the Lord (Hag. 2:16-17): which we can also understand in the Church and in each of the believers. Indeed, before the house of God is laid as a foundation within us, and we are built up as a temple to God, and we hear from the Apostle; You are the temple of God: and the Holy Spirit dwells within you (II Cor. VI, 16), whatever good work we seemed to have, either rational, who are called humans, or simple, who are called beasts (for you will save humans and beasts, Lord (Ps. XXXV, 7)), it has no reward from God, and there are battles and conflicts within us, and everywhere there is tribulation without the peace of Christ, which he left with the apostles as he went to the Father (John XIV), and the Lord's saying is fulfilled in us: The enemies of a man are those of his own house (Micah VII, 6). For every brother supplants with supplanting; and every friend walks deceitfully, and a man mocks his brother, and does not speak the truth, their tongue has learned to speak lies. (Jeremiah IX, 4). But if we turn to Christ, and become his temple, immediately we will hear the Apostle proclaiming: Each one will receive their own reward according to their work. (I Corinthians III, 8).

8:11-12

(Verse 11, 12): But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the Lord of hosts. For there shall be a sowing of peace. The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. LXX: And now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the Almighty Lord; but I will show peace. The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of my people to possess all these things. Before the foundations of the house of God were laid and the temple was built, there was no merchandise of men, nor merchandise of livestock, nor was there peace for those entering and leaving, and all people were in hostile disagreement with one another. But now, because the foundations of the house of the Lord are already laid and the temple is built, I will not do as I did before to those who have returned from the captivity of Babylon; but there will be peace and joy everywhere, and the abundance of the former times will compensate for the drought and famine. For the vine shall yield its fruit, and the earth shall be filled with the produce of the harvest; the presses shall overflow with wine, and the land shall be adorned with bountiful crops. With abundant rain and nightly dew, all shall sprout and grow. I will fulfill all that I have spoken and the remnants of my people shall possess. For the foundations of the house of the Lord have been laid, and the temple has been built. These same words were spoken by the prophet Haggai at the same time, who said: 'I struck you with scorching wind, mildew, and hail, destroying all the work of your hands, after the foundations of the temple were laid. Set it in your hearts from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month: from the day the foundations of the temple were laid, set it upon your hearts.' Is the seed already in the bud: and has the vineyard, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree not yet blossomed? From this day forward, I will bless you, and I will shake the heavens and the earth again (Haggai 2:18-19). Let us also say, following another explanation of the Church. Before anyone receives the faith of Christ, and the foundations of the Holy Spirit are laid in them, no one can hear, there is recompense for your work. Whether they are Jewish, or heretic, or pagan: whatever good works they do, if they do not do them in the name of Christ, they will not receive the reward of their good works. We see the virgins of the heretics, the strictness of the philosophers, the variety of observances among the Jews in regard to food; and yet, according to Haggai, we say that they eat, but are not satisfied; they drink, but are not intoxicated; they cover themselves, but are not warmed; and whoever gathers wages, puts them in a bag with holes (Haggai I). But after they have received the faith of Christ, both those who were sinners outside the Church and those within, and have been handed over to the captivity of this world and burned by Babylonian fire, and have heard the Lord preaching: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me; to preach the Gospel to the poor He has sent me, to proclaim release to captives, and sight to the blind, to heal the broken-hearted" (Isaiah LXI, 2), and when in them is fulfilled what is said through Amos: "I will turn again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the desolate cities, and I will plant them" (Amos IX, 14), then in those days righteousness and a multitude of peace shall arise (Psalm LXXI). The vine will produce its fruit, as it says in the Gospel: I am the vine, you are the branches. Every branch that remains in me, the Father cleanses, so that it may bear greater fruit (John 15:8). And when its branches, that is, the shoots and tendrils, have been cleansed, and with budding eyes begin to promise the hope of future fruit, then the flowering vines will give off their fragrance (Song of Solomon 2:13). At that time, the sun of righteousness will color the hanging clusters of grapes, as mentioned in the winepress psalms of the eighteenth and eighty-third, which are inscribed for the winepresses. The feet of the Lord, who ascends from Bosor, will crush them, in order to create the wine that gladdens the heart of man. The earth will also yield its produce, not dry and rocky and full of thorns; but good earth that gives a hundredfold and sixtyfold and thirtyfold fruit (Matt. 13): so that those who sow in tears may reap in joy (Psalm 126). And the heavens will also give their dew, of which it is written in Psalm 18: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands. About these heavens, it is said in the song of Deuteronomy: Rejoice, O heavens, with him (Deut. 32:43), that is, with the Lord and Savior, whom he foreknew and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8), who speaks with Moses: May my teaching come down like rain, my words fall like dew (Deut. 32:2). For those who were dead in sins will rise again, and those who lay in their graves will be raised up, those tombs that are full of the bones of the dead, and those who reside on the earth will rejoice. And the following statement explains the reason for their joy: For health is theirs from the dew of the rose that is from you. And all these things, namely peace and the fruit of the vineyards and the abundance of the lands, which thrive from the dew of the heavens, will be possessed by the remnants of my people, of whom Isaiah speaks: Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9). For the elect's sake, the remains were saved by grace: not by works; otherwise grace would not be grace.

8:13-15

(Verse 13 and following) And it shall be, as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you and you shall be a blessing. Do not fear, let your hands be strong. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Just as I purposed to afflict you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, says the Lord, and I did not relent, so now I have purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Do not fear. LXX: And it shall be, as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, let your hands be strong.' For thus says the LORD of hosts, 'As I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the LORD of hosts, so again have I purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear not. These things after the building of the temple promise to be in the future, that just as they were in all nations for a curse and for a hissing and for an example, the house of Judah and the house of Israel (namely, the two and ten tribes), so when they have been saved and returned to Judaea, they may be a blessing for all. Do not, he says, fear the rebellious adversaries: trust that what the Lord promises through me is true: strengthen your hands: fulfill the works that you have begun. For the cause of comfort, there is a promise of the Lord. For thus says the Almighty Lord, to whom nothing is impossible, who can fulfill what He promises: just as I have devised to afflict you and deliver you into captivity because your fathers provoked me to anger and I did not show mercy. And the Septuagint translated it as 'I did not repent', which is written in Hebrew as 'Ulo Naamathi'. But I did not show mercy in order to correct you with captivity and instruct you with all kinds of torments and afflictions. So now, at this present time, I have devised to do good to Jerusalem and the house of Judah. And it is to be noted that when he is angry, his curse is upon the nations of the house of Judah and the house of Israel, that is, all twelve tribes that were handed over to captivity. But when he plans to do good, he does not do so for Judah and Israel, that is, the two and ten tribes, namely Jerusalem and Samaria, Oollae and Oolibae; but leaving Israel in captivity, he does good to Jerusalem and the house of Judah: and he concludes by saying: Do not fear or be confident, in the sense that we have explained above. However, the Church and each individual believer can be understood in this way: that during times of persecution, they were a curse and an example to all the surrounding nations because they offended their Lord. And afterwards, they were a blessing when peace was restored. And all of this happened because the Lord, who was once angry, then had mercy on Jerusalem and on the Jews who confessed the faith of the Lord. Moreover, each of the believers who are expelled from the Church due to their sins and handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (I Cor. V), so that they may learn not to blaspheme (I Tim. I), when they have repented, they shall return to their former state and shall see the peace of God and possess the glory of their confession. The heretics falsely accuse God, saying that he is either cruel or changeable, if he either does not repent or does repent, because it is written: \"I have not shown mercy or had pity\". For if he repents, they say he is changeable; if he does not repent, they assert he is cruel. However, God regretted that he had anointed Saul as king (1 Samuel 15). And concerning the Ninevites, to whom he had proclaimed through the prophet: \"Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown\" (Jonah 3:4), it is said that he himself changed his mind when they repented, not due to a fault of his unwise mind, but due to the variation of their actions, whether good or evil. For if they have done wrong, He threatens; if they have repented of their former sins, He shows mercy. God, who is always the same and cannot be changed, does not change; but when they have turned from evil to good works, He changes His own decree. He also speaks in Genesis: The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has multiplied, and their sins are very great. Therefore I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me, and if not, I will know. What he said is this: If they remain in anger, punishment will not be lacking for sinners; if they cease from insanity, they will become most worthy of my knowledge. But the Lord knows those who are His (2 Tim. 2:19). And the Apostle writes to the Galatians: But then, not knowing God (Gal. 4:8). And since God knows all things, and nothing can escape Him, neither past nor present nor future, He says in the Gospel that the wicked do not know Him: Depart from me, workers of iniquity, I do not know you (Luke 13:27). Therefore let us understand both the knowledge, and the repentance, and the anger, and the indignation, and all the affections of God, not with the fault of human speech, but with the sense of divine majesty.

8:16-17

(Verse 16, 17) These are the words you shall do: Speak truth, each one with his neighbor. Give judgment of truth and peace in your gates. And let none of you think evil in your hearts against his neighbor. And love not a false oath. For all these are the things that I hate, says the Lord. LXX: These are the words you shall do: Speak truth, each one with his neighbor. Give judgment of peace and justice in your gates. And let none of you think evil against his neighbor in your hearts. And love not a false oath. For I hate all these things, says the Almighty Lord. I have promised that I will not abandon the remnants of the captive people and I will not act as I did in the past days. Just as I had planned to afflict them when their fathers provoked me to anger and I showed no mercy, now I have turned my thoughts to doing good to Jerusalem and the house of Judah. Therefore, in order to fulfill my purpose and not make my promises void, do these things that I command: Speak the truth with your neighbors. Let us embrace, as our nearest kin, the entire human race, for we are all descended from a single parent. Otherwise, whoever is the next closest relative should be considered, and one must lie to strangers and foreigners. The Apostle speaks of the same thing: 'Putting away lying, speak ye the truth every man with his neighbour' (Ephesians IV, 25). 'Judge ye the truth and the judgment of peace in your gates.' In judgment let truth and justice come first, and then mercy follows. For this is the judgment of peace, that the judge has the intention to reconcile the discordant, according to that Gospel: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God (Matthew 5:9). And what follows 'In your gates' is in agreement with that prophetic passage: They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth (Amos 5:10). And in another place: They shall not be put to shame when they speak with their enemies in the gate (Psalm 129:6). David also judged in the gates, when Absalom, promising the truth of judgment, laid snares for his father (2 Samuel 19). And it is asked why among the Jews in the city gates there was a place for judgment. So that farmers would not be forced to enter the cities and incur any expense, judges would reside in the city gates in order to hear both urban and rural people entering and leaving the city, and once the matter was finished, each person would immediately return to their own homes. And the evil, he says, do not contemplate against your friends in your hearts: Raah (), which all voice consonant κακίαν, that is, malice, can be understood in two ways, both as affliction and as evil. Regarding affliction: If there is wickedness in a city that the Lord has not made (Amos III, 6). And: Each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew VI, 34). Concerning evil, God speaks through the prophet Jonah: The outcry of their wickedness has come to me (Jonah I, 2). And in the Apostle, we read: They were filled with all unrighteousness and wickedness (Romans I, 29). Therefore, in both ways, one who is holy does not afflict his friend nor does he think of bringing harm upon him in his heart. And he said, 'Do not love a false oath: according to the commandment of the Lord in the Gospel: 'But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool...' (Matt. V, 34). For whoever does not swear, will never be able to perjure. Let the one who swears, hear what is written: 'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain' (Exod. XX, 7). These are all the things that I hate,' says the Lord, according to the words of Malachi: 'And you have done all the things that I hate' (Mal. II, 13; sec. LXX). In the precepts pertaining to life, which are clear, we should not seek allegory, lest, in accordance with the Comic, we seek a knot in a reed.

8:18-20

(Verse 18, 19,.) And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah, joy and gladness, and great solemnities: only love ye truth and peace. LXX: And the word of the Lord Almighty came to me, saying: Thus says the Lord Almighty. The fast of the fourth, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah, joy and gladness, and good festivals (for this is the Hebrew word Tobim (), meaning good), and be happy, and love truth and peace. To the question that Sarasar and Rogommelech asked through messengers, whether they should fast and mourn in the fifth month and the seventh month, as it is written in the Septuagint, or whether they should end the fast and put away mourning after the completion of the temple, with many things being set forth in the midst of what they would do and what they would hope for, the Lord responded through the person of the prophet: the fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth month, and the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month (for the month is understood) shall be turned into joy and gladness for the house of Judah and Jerusalem on the appointed feasts. God alone seeks the truth and peace. In this place, many of our people have said many different things, and there is disagreement among them. Some, professing obscurity, have passed over the deepest pit in their commentaries: thinking it better to say nothing at all than to say too little. Therefore, we are compelled to turn to the Hebrews and seek the truth of knowledge from the source rather than from the streams: especially since there is no prophecy about Christ, where they often twist and conceal the truth with lies; but rather the order of history is woven from what comes before and what follows. On the seventeenth day of the month of July, which is called Julius in Latin, it is believed to commemorate the moment when Moses came down from Mount Sinai and threw down and broke the tablets of the Law (Exodus 32), and when the walls of the city were first breached, according to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 52). In the fifth month, which is called Augustus in Latin, when a rebellion arose among the people because of the spies of the Holy Land, they were commanded not to ascend the mountain; but for forty years they wandered in the wilderness, with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, until they all perished (Numbers 14). In this month, both by Nabuchodonosor (Jer. LII), and many centuries later by Titus and Vespasian, the temple in Jerusalem was burned and destroyed, the city of Bether was captured, to which many thousands of Jews had fled, the temple was plowed in disgrace by the Roman governor Turannius Rufus. In the seventh month, which is called October among us, as we have said above, Godolias was killed, and the tribes of Judah and the remains of Jerusalem were scattered (IV Reg. 25). We read Jeremiah (Chapters XXXIX and XLI). In the tenth month, which is called January among us, because it is the door of the year and the beginning, Ezekiel, being in captivity, heard that the temple was destroyed in the fifth month, which we fully know from the same prophet. Therefore, this is all that is said: The days of mourning and fasting that you have had until now for sorrow, you shall know that I planned to do good to Jerusalem and the house of Judah, to turn them into joy and gladness and festive occasions, if only you love truth and peace. According to interpretation, because then we fast when the bridegroom is taken away from us (Luke 5), and we do not deserve to have his presence when the Lord returns to us and decides to bless us, all sorrow will turn into joy; and the previous hunger for the word of God, the presence of his teachings, and the satisfaction of heavenly bread, will be weighed.

8:21-22

(Verse 21, 22.) Thus says the Lord of hosts: How long will the people come and dwell in many cities, and the inhabitants go from one to another, saying: Let us go and entreat the face of the Lord, and let us seek the Lord of hosts. I myself will also go, and many peoples and strong nations will come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the face of the Lord. LXX: Thus says the Lord almighty: Yet many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will come; and those who dwell in cities will gather in one city, saying: Let us go to entreat the face of the Lord, and let us seek the presence of the Lord almighty. I will also go, and many peoples and numerous nations will come to seek the face of the Almighty Lord in Jerusalem, and to supplicate the face of the Lord. The fast of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months will be changed into the best festivities, to the extent that the cities of Judah, which were previously deserted, will be celebrated with abundant inhabitants. And one city shall go to another, and they shall encourage one another and say: Because for seventy years the ways of Zion had been desolate, since there was no one to go to the feast, all its gates were deserted, and its priests were lamenting. Now that peace has been restored, let us go to Jerusalem, where it is commanded by law that we offer sacrifices, and let our every male appear before the Lord three times a year (Exod. XXIII). And one city will say to another: Let us go and supplicate the face of the Lord, and let us seek the Almighty Lord. The other city will reply: I will also go. At that time, many peoples and innumerable and powerful nations will come to offer sacrifices to the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to supplicate His face. For the Lord is near to those who do not test Him, and He reveals His face to those who are not unbelieving. Whoever sees the Son, sees the Father as well; and the Son is the image of the invisible God, not because the Son is visible and the Father invisible, but because when the Son is mentioned, the Father is felt. For the Father does not exist without the Son. Therefore, He Himself speaks in the Gospel: Father, I have manifested Your name to men. What we have said about Jerusalem and Zerubbabel, or after Zerubbabel, is more accurately and fully applied to Christ and Jerusalem, which is understood as the Church: and then concerning the whole world and peoples and nations coming together to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord. Also during the time of persecution, as we have mentioned before, the teachers and priests of the Church boldly promise to the captives and believers that the parishes will be rebuilt and peace will be restored, and the face of the Lord is to be sought in the Churches. We pass by in order to dwell in the more obscure things.

8:23

(Verse 23) Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days, when ten men from all the languages of the nations take hold of the garment of a Jewish man, saying, 'We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.' LXX: Thus says the Lord Almighty: In those days, if ten men from all the languages of the nations take hold of the fringe of a Jewish man, saying, 'We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.' Certain Jews say that these things were completed under Zerubbabel, and after Zerubbabel. Others differ, expecting Christ to come in the future. But we understand more correctly and truly in the coming of the Lord and Savior, when He was born of the Virgin Mary. Finally, it is written: 'How long will the peoples come?' (Zech. VIII, 20) When it is said, 'How long,' it does not signify the present time in which Zerubbabel and Joshua were, but the future, when many peoples and strong nations will come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the face of the Lord. At that time, therefore, and in those days, ten men from all the languages of the nations will take hold of the edge of a man who is a Jew, saying: We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. And in Isaiah we read: Seven women will take hold of one man, saying: We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothing, only let your name be called upon us: take away our disgrace (Isaiah 4:1). Therefore, the seven women who are called there, that is, the Churches, whose number is also mentioned in the apostle Paul: for he writes to seven Churches, to the Romans, to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians. And in the Apocalypse of John, in the midst of the seven candlesticks (Apoc. I), that is, of the Churches, of the Ephesians, of the Smyrnians, of the Pergamenes, of the Thyatirians, of the Sardisians, of the Philadelphians, of the Laodiceans with variety (or truth), the Lord enters girded with the purest gold. Now in the prophet Zechariah, ten are mentioned, whom the Lord also inquired about, that if He found them in Sodom and Gomorrah, He would deliver them from destruction. For the letter Iota , from which the Savior's name begins, signifies not only the number ten among the Greeks, but also among the Hebrews. And by this mystical discourse it is shown that all those who are considered by the name of Christian, whom the Lord Himself says have left seven thousand in the time of the persecution of Jezebel and the flight of Elijah, who have not bent their knees before Baal (III Kings XIX), and who have come to the measure of a perfect man from all languages and nations, will grasp the fringe of the Jewish man, that is, of the Lord and Savior, about whom it is also said in the Psalms: 'Judah, my king' (Ps. LIX, 9). And: Judas, your brothers will praise you. And again: A ruler will not fail from Judah, and a leader from his loins, until the one to whom it belongs comes, and he will be the hope of the nations (Gen. XLIX, 8, 10): For he will be the offspring of Jesse, and the one who rises to rule the nations, in him the nations will hope (Isai. XI, 10). And when they take hold of him, they will desire to follow in his footsteps; for God is with him. Indeed, from all languages and nations, whoever believes will take hold of the Jewish man, the apostles who are from the Jews and they will say: Let us go with you, for we have heard through the prophets, and we have known by the voice of all the Scriptures, that the Son of God, Christ, is God and Lord with you. When the most manifest prophecy is fulfilled, and the coming of Christ and his apostles is preached, and the faith of all nations, we do not seek anything more. But what we said about the number seven thousand belonging to the name of Christians, calculate in Greek έπτα χίλια και Χριστιανους, and you will find the same number and sum, that is, one thousand nine hundred and forty-one. But also the parable of the ten virgins in the Gospel (Matt. XXV), which we interpret in the senses of the flesh and the spirit, if they have prepared oil of good works for their lamps, and have doubled the number five, so that they may be holy (according to the Apostle) in body and spirit, refer to the sacrament of this number. He will also receive in the future ten cities, the best governed by those who have the most excellent control of their senses (Luke 16).

9:1

(Chapter 9, verse 1) The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Adrach, and Damascus shall be his rest: for the Lord hath an eye upon men, and upon all the tribes of Israel. LXX: The assumption of the word of the Lord in the land of Adrach (or Sedrach) and Damascus shall be his sacrifice, for the Lord regards men, and all the tribes of Israel. All this vision or burden of the word of the Lord, as Aquila interpreted it, pertains to the calling of the Gentiles and the rebuilding of the Church. And the order of the words is: Assumption of the word of the Lord, sharp towards sinners, gentle towards the righteous. Adrach (for this name is composed of two whole words: Ad, sharp, Rach, gentle and tender), and not as some read it incorrectly, Sedrach. Some refer Adrach to the Jewish people and Damascus to the calling of the Gentiles. Therefore, the people, or the assumption of the word of the Lord, takes place on the land of Adrach, on which the Lord exercised both severity and mercy (Isaiah XI, 10 in the Septuagint). Austerity towards those who refused to believe: mercy towards those who have returned with the Apostles. However, Damascus is for the rest of the Lord, according to what is written in Isaiah: And his rest shall be honor. For before the child knew how to choose good or evil, and call his father and mother, he received the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria (Isa. VIII, 4). Therefore, Damascus is translated into our language as 'drinking blood' or 'the blood of a hair shirt,' in order to signify the bloody people in the former interpretation; the second interpretation associates it with his cruelty and repentance. And what follows: Because the eye of man and of all the tribes of Israel belong to the Lord, thus they have said: Therefore the temple of God must be built by both peoples, that is, by the land of Adrach and by the rest of Damascus: because whoever looks upon God, and hopes in Him, is of the nations, and is of all the tribes of Israel: or, according to the Septuagint, because the Lord equally regards all men, and all the tribes of Israel. Let us speak in another way: in the land of Adrach, the burden of the word of the Lord is heavy and of great weight. But in Damascus, his victims and sacrifices, because the Lord regards the faith of the nations and the unfaithfulness of circumcision without any partiality, and he is equally the God of all: imposing the weight of his own judgment and resting in the seat of others. The Jews say that all these things are to be fulfilled in the coming of Christ, whom they expect in the last times, and that the land of Adrach, and Damascus, and Emath, and Tyre, and Sidon, and Ascalon, and Gaza, and even Accaron and Ashdod and the Philistines, will bow their necks to the most powerful king and serve him who dwells in Jerusalem, and no one shall dare to raise a hand against Israel after they have been pacified throughout the land. Which we spiritually comprehend in the coming of the Lord and in the events of his Church.

9:2-4

(Vers. 2 seqq.) Emath quoque in terminis ejus, et Tyrus et Sidon: assumpserunt quippe sibi sapientiam valde. Et aedificavit Tyrus munitionem suam, et coacervavit argentum quasi humum, et aurum ut lutum platearum. Ecce Dominus possidebit eam, et percutiet in mari fortitudinem ejus, et haec igne devorabitur. LXX: Emath in finibus ejus Tyrus et Sidon: quoniam sapientes fuerunt nimis, et aedificavit Tyrus munitionem suam, et congregavit argentum ut humum, et aurum ut lutum viarum. Therefore the Lord will possess it, and strike its strength in the sea, and it will be consumed by fire. Emath, which is interpreted as 'wrath,' that is, indignation, is the one which received the name Epiphania from Antiochus Epiphanes, and now it is the city of Coele Syria. And thus, both Tyre and Sidon will be in the borders of Damascus, or in the borders of the land of Adrach, so that they may believe in the Lord Savior, to whom it was said by the Father: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession (Ps. 2:8). The daughters of this Tyre, that is, the souls of those who believe in Christ, will bring gifts to the king, so that what is written may be fulfilled: The daughters of Tyre will worship him with gifts (Psalm 44:13). And when the city of God, the Church, is built, of which the Psalmist sings: Glorious things are said of you, O city of God (Psalm 86:2), then the following will immediately come: Behold, foreigners, Tyre, and the people of Ethiopia, these were born there (ibid., 56:4). In two psalms it is said of aliens: Aliens serve me, or are subject to me. In the prophet Zephaniah we read about the Ethiopians: From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my worshipers, my dispersed ones, will bring me offerings (Zep. 3:10). And in the Psalm: Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God (Ps. 68:31). But the Gospel speaks of Tyre: Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes (Matt. 11:21). That Canaanite woman from the territory of Tyre and Sidon, whose daughter was badly possessed by a demon, encountered the Lord and Savior (Mark VII); and she dedicated the first fruits of faith of the Tyrians and Sidonians, so that those who did not believe at the time of Christ because they had not yet seen signs and wonders, would later see them through the apostles and believe, and be partakers of that blessedness which the Lord promised, saying: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (John XX, 29). But Tyre and Sidon (of which one signifies 'narrowness', that is, constraint; the other 'hunting', that is, hunting, according to interpretation) took for themselves such great wisdom, that they proposed to Solomon, that is, the peaceful king, their enigmas, along with their sophisms and the nets of the dialecticians and the intricate web of the sophists, which the Scripture records as their fortifications. They amassed for themselves their silver, which is the brightness of eloquence, and their gold, which is cunning of the senses, gathered together like dust and mud in the streets and roads, in order to possess the kingdom of idolatry which they had fortified. But the Apostle speaks against these fortifications: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful to God, for the destruction of fortifications: destroying thoughts and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (II Cor. X, 4, 5). And in the persona of Nineveh, which is interpreted as adorned, or beautiful (for nothing is more adorned than the world), God speaks through the prophet against the people of the world: And you will be drunk and despised, and you will seek help from your enemy: all your fortifications, like figs with their clusters, if they are shaken, they will fall into the mouth of the eater. And so the Lord will possess both Tyre and Sidon, when he strikes down their strength in the most salty and bitter sea of this age, and nothing of their former wisdom remains, that is, their swelling foolishness, through which they acquired weak fortifications, and silver and gold similar to clay. He will burn them with fire and purify them completely, as the Savior speaks of in the Gospel: I have come to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled (Luke XII, 49), according to what is written in Mark: Everyone will be salted with fire (Mark IX, 48).

9:5-10

(Verse 5 onwards) Ascalon will see it and be afraid; Gaza will writhe in agony, and Ekron too, for her hope will wither. Gaza will lose her king and Ashkelon will be deserted. Foreigners will occupy Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. I will take the blood from their mouths, the forbidden food from between their teeth. Those who are left will belong to our God and become a clan in Judah, and Ekron will be like the Jebusites. And I will surround my house with those who fight for me, going and returning, and no oppressor will pass over them anymore, for now I have seen with my own eyes. Ascalon will see and be afraid; Gaza will be very sorrowful; and Ekron, because her hope is confounded, and her king will perish from Gaza, and Ascalon will not be inhabited. Foreigners will dwell in Ashdod; and I will remove the injustice of the foreigners, and take away their blood from their mouths, and their abominations from the midst of their teeth. And they will be for our God, and they will be like a leader in Judah; and Ekron will be like the Jebusites. And I will make my house a place of honor, so that no one will pass through or return, and no oppressor or oppressor will come upon them, for now I have seen with my own eyes. Ascalon is interpreted as lowly fire, or weighed down: Gaza, strong, or empire: Accaron, barren, or uprooted: Azotus, which in Hebrew is called Esdod, fire generating, or uncle's fire, or breast's fire; Jebusaeus, it signifies trampled. We have expressed the etymologies of the names in order to briefly go through their meaning. Seeing that Ascalon and Gaza and Accaron, since Emath was in the borders of Damascus, and Tyre and Sidon, after they were struck from all sides, and all of their hay, wood, and straw burned in the fire, were possessed by the Lord, and they themselves, terrified by fear and grief and confusion, began to hope for better things. Finally, Ascalon, in which the devil had been earlier, a lowly fire, and had come to the measure and weight of sins, trembled with fear, because it had ceased to have inhabitants. And Gaza mourned greatly, repenting of its former crimes, which had once been strong and hard to tame, and had promised itself the kingdom of all, because its king and prince, contrary speech and the power of the enemy, had lost its own rule. Accaron also is barren because it had no children without the Law and knowledge of God, it was uprooted, so that it might hear that prophetic saying: Rejoice, barren one, who does not bear; burst forth and cry out, you who are not in labor; for more are the children of the desolate than of her who has a husband (Isai. LIV, I). And when Ascalon and Gaza and Accaron were terrified, and mourned, because they had no inhabitants, or had lost their king, or their former hope had been frustrated, strangers shall dwell in Azotus, where fire begets, which the Lord has sent upon the earth, and desires to burn (Luc. XII). For he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matt. 3), where 'fratruelis' and 'patruus' are translated as 'brother-in-law' and 'paternal cousin', whom the bride desires in the Song of Songs: where there is the fire of the breast and the abundant udder, of which we read in the same Song: 'He will rest among my breasts' (Song of Songs 1:12). And in the Apostle: 'I gave you milk to drink, not solid food' (1 Cor. 3:2). Because, as we said according to the LXX: 'Aliens shall dwell in Ashdod', in Hebrew it is written, 'he shall dwell' or 'sit', the 'Mamzer' shall dwell in Ashdod, for which we have substituted 'separator' shall sit in Ashdod. Understand the Lord as the separator, who separates the grain from the chaff (Matthew 3 and 13), and the good fish from the bad fish, and discern silver and gold from dirt and slag. And when he has done this, he promises other things: I will destroy the injustice or the pride of the Philistines. For this, the 70 foreigners were brought in. Philistines are translated in our language as 'falling to the cup,' because they drank from the cup of Babylon and fell down drunk. Therefore, at the time of the calling of the Gentiles and the coming of Christ, they will not have pride, but they will follow Jesus with humility and meekness. And he will take from their mouth the blood, the blasphemy, and the abominations, the worship of idols, and the eating of things sacrificed to idols, from between their teeth. So that after these things have been removed, the Philistines themselves, that is, the foreigners, will be abandoned to the Lord, and he will be the leader in Judah, that is, in the people confessing the Lord, so that the former people who were in the head, will be turned into the tail, and the last one who was in the tail, will pass into the head. And once barren Accaron, therefore, uprooted, will be as Jebus, that is, as Jerusalem. For this city is called by three names, Jebus, Salem, and Jerusalem. And I will surround, he says, my house, that is, the Church, with those who fight for me, that is, with those who serve me in various ministries and come and go at my command. Or: I will surround my house with the protection of angels, about whom it is also written elsewhere: The angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him, and he will deliver them (Ps. 34:7), so that there is no one who can attack and return, that is, who can plot against my people. Nor shall there pass over him any more the exactor, of whom Isaiah speaks: The exactor hath ceased (Isaiah 14:5), or surely one who drives out, that is, leading outwards, and dragging the bound captives into captivity: because with his own eyes, which we can understand as the prophets and all the saints, the Lord has seen the calling of the nations and the security of the Church.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth. LXX: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; proclaim, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee, just, and a Saviour, he is meek, and riding upon a young ass, and he shall destroy the chariots out of Ephraim, and the horse out of Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be destroyed, and he shall speak peace to the Gentiles, and his dominion shall be from the sea to the rivers, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. The Evangelists write that this prophecy was fulfilled when the Lord entered Jerusalem, sitting on a donkey and the foal of a donkey, and a crowd of children with palm branches came out to meet Him, shouting: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest (Matthew XXI); and when the Pharisees reproached Him for not rebuking the children who were shouting, He replied: Have you not read: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have perfected praise (Psalm VIII, 3)? Therefore, Sion exults and Jerusalem rejoices, the same city (for Sion is the citadel of Jerusalem), because its king has come, who was promised by the prophecies of all the prophets: He himself is just, the Savior, that is, Jesus, as the angel interpreted, speaking to the Virgin: And he shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins (Mat. I, 21). Also, poor or, as the LXX translated, meek, who, though rich, became poor for us, and says in the Gospel: Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart (Mat. XI, 29). And, riding upon a domestic ass or a young foal, that is, the people of both Circumcision and Uncircumcision, of whom the former had borne the heavy yoke of the Law, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: Neither we, nor our fathers, were able to bear the heavy yoke of the Law (Acts 15). Therefore, Paul also writes to the Galatians who wanted to be circumcised: Stand fast, and do not be held again under the yoke of bondage (Galatians 5:1). But the new chick, a multitude of gentiles, having no reins of the Law, nor being straightened by anyone, but always falling into precipices and whirlpools of idolatry, has learned to walk and enter the straight path by the session of the Lord. And I will destroy, he says, the chariot of Ephraim. Moreover, it is said in the person of God the Father, that the chariot, or the chariot, of Ephraim may perish, and the horse from Jerusalem. And in the meantime, according to the letter, he speaks thus: There will be no battles, with the advent and birth of Christ pacifying all. Furthermore, according to a higher understanding, Ephraim is referred to as a multitude of heresies, which is interpreted as bearing fruit, that is, abundance and plentiful crops. This is written in the seventy-seventh psalm: The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. About these chariots and charioteers, we read: Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They have bowed down and fallen, but we have risen and stand upright (Psalm 20:7-9). The horse that is lost from Jerusalem, that is whom we read about: A deceitful horse for salvation (Psalm 32:17), And in Jeremiah, those who indulged in luxury and lust, they hear: The horses have gone mad, they have become like females to me: each neighed after his neighbor's wife (Jeremiah 5:8). Hence they are called to repentance, as the Psalmist says: Do not be like a horse or a mule, which have no understanding (Psalm 32:9). When God has destroyed the chariots of Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, which were freed from such horses and chariots; they will be brought into the service of the Lord, and will become cherubim, and it will be said of them: The chariots of God are ten thousandfold, thousands of rejoicing (Psalm 68:18). And: I have likened you, my beloved, to my horse in Pharaoh's chariots (Song of Solomon 1:8). And: Ride on horses, and let your riding be salvation (Habakkuk 3:8). The bow of war will be dispersed, so that no burning arrows may be launched, which could strike the hearts of the pleasure seekers. And he will speak peace to the nations, of whom it is written: He shall be the expectation of the nations (Gen. XLIX, 10). And again: The nations shall hope in him (Isai. XI). And: His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth (Ps. LXXI, 8). This is not to be weakened by allegory, but truly believed to be fulfilled, according to what we read: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession (Ps. II, 8). In the seventy-first psalm, under the person of Solomon and the true peacemaker, it is said: And he shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth (Verse 8).

9:11-12

(Verse 11, 12.) You also, in the blood of your covenant, have sent forth your prisoners from the pit in which there is no water. Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope. Even today I declare that I will restore double to you. LXX: And you, by the blood of your covenant, have sent forth your prisoners from the pit that has no water. You shall sit in the stronghold, prisoners of the assembly, and for one day of your journey I will restore double to you. After the prophet's message, or rather God the Almighty Father Himself, has announced to Zion and Jerusalem that her king will come to them, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey, and his dominion will be from sea to sea and from the rivers to the ends of the earth, he addresses Christ Himself, of whom the prophecy is, and speaks: You also, in the blood of your covenant or pact, have sent forth your prisoners from the pit, in which there is no water. It is understood in this way: In the blood of your passion, you freed those who were held captive in the prison of hell, where there is no mercy, through your mercy. Finally, after the Lord rose, those who were held captive by the sins of Adam, or, as some would have it, the stains of error, and the chains of death, rose with him and appeared in the holy city. Concerning this blood of the covenant, he himself, indicating his coming passion, said to the disciples: Take and drink from this all of you: for this is the chalice of the new testament in my blood (Matthew 26:27-28). In this prefiguration, a lake that does not have water, Joseph was sent by his brothers into the lake (Gen. XXXVII): and Daniel (Dan. VI) and Jeremiah by the Chaldeans and the people of Judah: Benaiah also went down into the lake in the time of snow and cold, to kill a lion there (II Sam. XXIII, 20). But Jeremiah was not thrown into the water of the lake; rather, he was thrown into the mire and mud of the lake, which could suffocate him more than refresh one who was thirsty (Jerem. XXXVII and XXXVIII). Where it is written in the psalm: I am stuck in the mire of the deep, and there is no substance (Ps. LXVIII). In this lake of hell, that once rich man with a purple robe dwelled, whose boastful tongue was consumed by the fires of punishment, and he had no refreshment of any waters to such an extent that he begged for the cooling of water from the tip of the poor man's finger dipped in water (Luke XVI). And again, a word is directed to those who were bound and in need of the mercy of Christ: Turn to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope. And the meaning is: You who are now bound and held in a cruel and terrible hell, who hope for the release of your chains in the coming of Christ, turn to the stronghold, whether you will sit in the stronghold, of which it is written: The stronghold of the holy is the fear of the Lord; so that you may learn: Be to me a protector God and a fortified place, that you may save me (Ps. LXX, 3), and let the prophet also mention you: Behold, a strong city will set our salvation as its wall and bulwark (Isai. XXVI, 1). But this fortress, to which God encourages those bound by hope or bound in hope to the Church, we should not understand as anything other than the dwelling place of paradise, into which the first thief entered with the Lord (Luke 23); and for this reason they are called to the fortress by Zechariah, because even then and from that time the Lord promised that, for a brief tribulation, they would receive eternal rewards. Or, as it is read in the LXX: for one day of your pilgrimage, I will repay you double. For in comparison with eternity, everything that we suffer in the world should be called one day, not of habitation, but of pilgrimage: because we are strangers and pilgrims, like all our fathers. For in the present momentary and light tribulation, an excessive weight of eternal glory works in us, not looking at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen (2 Corinthians 4). For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

9:13

(Verse 13) For I have bent Judah for Myself as My bow, I have filled Ephraim, and will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and will make you like the sword of a mighty man. LXX: For I have stretched Judah for Myself as My bow, I have filled Ephraim, and will stir up your sons, O Zion, against the sons of Greece, and will touch you as the sword of a warrior. This refers to the time of the Maccabees, when they defeated the Macedonians and cleansed the defiled temple of idolatry after a period of three and a half years. And what follows: 'I have filled Ephraim like a bow,' they think signifies those who came from the ten tribes which are called Israel, under Hezekiah, to whom Josiah is also mentioned as having reigned: provided that they interpret the testimony in a way different from the explanation we have given, and say: 'O Christ, whom we ((or, once upon a time, hoped to)) expected to come, and who were to reign over all the boundaries of the earth: in the blood of thy covenant, which thou didst find Jerusalem to be sprinkled with according to Ezekiel [16:6], and didst make a covenant with Abraham in the divisions of the calf, the ram, and the goat; thou didst send forth thy people Israel from captivity and the land of the Chaldeans, in which there was no mercy [Gen. 15:13].' Therefore, you also, O Israelites, who were bound and hoped in the Lord, return to the most beloved Jerusalem; for today you have the Lord promising you that, for the brief injury of captivity, you will receive a double recompense, as we read in the book of Job (Chapter XLII). According to allegory, this passage can be explained as follows: Judah is stretched out in the bow, when the Lord and Savior is sent from the Father into this world, who himself is both the bow and the archer and the arrow. Arcus, as in the present place. Sagittarius, as in the forty-fourth Psalm: Your arrows sharp and mighty (Psalm 44:6), with which, when wounded, he says: I am wounded with love (Song of Solomon 2:5). But the arrow itself is the one who speaks through Isaiah: He has made me like a chosen arrow, and has hidden me in his quiver (Isaiah 49:2). The chosen arrow is the word of God; the quiver in which the arrow is hidden, is the dispensation of the assumed flesh. Thus Ephraim is fulfilled, that when he is armed and prepared for war, he himself is wounded by the arrows of the Lord, from whose tribe Jeroboam, who was received in the person of the heretics, first tore the people apart (III Kings 12). Hosea the prophet more fully explains this (Hosea 5 and 6), and what we have said above: The sons of Ephraim, aiming and shooting the bow, turned back on the day of battle (Psalm 77:9). For the Lord raises up the sons of Zion, that is, the sons of the Church, and the leaders of opposing doctrines, and all the assertions and arguments of the Gentiles are destroyed, because the Lord Himself is the sword of the mighty, of whom it is said: Gird your sword upon your thigh, O most mighty. Your beauty and splendor, understand, prosper and reign; because of truth, gentleness, and justice, and your right hand will lead you wondrously. (Ibid. XLIV, 4 et seqq.). The Ethiopians are wounded by this sword, of whom it is written: And you, Ethiopians, wounded by my sword you will be. (Soph. II, 12), those who, once wounded by Christ's sword, will cast off their dark color, and rejoicing they will say: The splendor of the Lord our God will be upon us. (Ps. LXXXIX, 17), which David also promises to himself after repentance: You will wash me, and I will be made whiter than snow. (Ibid., L, 9). This is the sword about which the Apostle writes: The living word of God, and effective, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the division of soul and spirit.

9:14

(Verse 14) And the Lord God will appear over them, and His arrow will go forth like lightning, and the Lord God will sound the trumpet, and He will go in the whirlwind of the south. The Lord of hosts will protect them. LXX: And the Lord God will appear over them; and He will go forth like a lightning arrow: and the Lord God Almighty will sound the trumpet, and He will go in the commotion of His terror. The Lord Almighty will protect them. And this passage refers to the times of the Maccabees when, as they fought against and defeated Antiochus, the Lord's battle and victory was with them. He went forth strong to battle, and His power appeared like that of lightning, and He protected the people of Judah by scattering their enemies in the whirlwind of death. But we refer all things to the understanding of the Savior, concerning whom it was said above: 'I have stretched out Judah as my bow.' With this bow stretched out, and the heretics and gentiles from the sons of Zion being killed, the glory of the Lord will appear, and He will come forth like a lightning arrow, of which we read in Habakkuk: 'With light of your arrows they shall walk, in the brightness of your flashing spear' (Habakkuk 3:11). This lightning and brightness is also called by another name, a trumpet and a shout, so that when the holy shout resounds, let the one who was previously deaf say: 'The discipline of the Lord has opened my ears, and He has given me an ear to hear.' And what follows: And he will go in the whirlwind of the south wind, or he will go in the motion of his threat. Therefore he threatens, and says, that he will bring punishments, so that he may have mercy on the penitent. Finally, he joins and says: The Almighty Lord will protect those whom he previously terrified with his threat. Let us read the story of the Ninevites.

9:15-16

(Verse 15, 16.) And they shall devour and subject to stones of slings: and drinking, they shall be intoxicated as with wine (Vulgate: with wine), and shall be filled like bowls and like the horns of the altar, and the Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people, because holy stones shall be lifted up upon his land. LXX: And they shall consume them, and bury them in stones of slings, and they shall drink their blood like wine, and they shall be filled like the bowls of the altar, and the Lord shall save them on that day as his flock, because holy stones shall roll on his land. For what we have said, they will be exalted, and it is written in Hebrew, Methnosasoth (), can be interpreted as wandering or fleeing. With the children of Zion protected, and the Lord singing, and going in a whirlwind against their adversaries, the destruction of the Greeks will be so great that I will not say by swords, but they will be crushed by the throwing of stones and the rotations of catapults, so that they will be spoils and food for their enemies. Then they will be drunk as if with wine. Not those who have been killed, but they will be drunk with their own blood; but those who conquer will fight as if drunk with desperation, and they will please the Lord like the horns of the altar, and their libation. For this is understood in the bowls, in which the offerings are poured out on the altar. The Lord will also save them like sheep and the flock of his people: for he will not fight like an armed and trained army against the Macedonians; but he will come like a flock prepared for death, and with the help of the Lord, he will prevail. And the holy stones that were oppressed (for they are called stones, on account of the hardness of trials and the courage of the soul) shall be lifted up from their humility, and they shall be on the land of his glory. Otherwise: his holy stones of the priestly race fleeing in different directions, with him granting them victory, shall attain it, let us say, according to the anagoge, nay, let us explain the prophecy enveloped in many obscurities. The sons of Zion, protected by their Lord, shall devour their adversaries, whom we understand to be the sons of Greece. And they shall subject them to stones of slings, and menaces of Scriptures, making their adversaries subject and humble: for nothing strikes so much as an example from the holy Scriptures, and a testimony emitted by the rotation of the mouth. But what is said in the Septuagint: And they shall drink their blood like wine, we do not read thus in Hebrew; but they shall be drunken with wine, so that they may hear that from the Song of Songs: Drink, O friends, and be intoxicated (Song of Songs 5:1). And so their drunkenness will please them, like a sacrificial altar; and like the horns or angles of an altar. The Lord will also save them, like a flock of his people, for the holy stones will roll upon his land, which will be so light and shining that they will not wait for the hands of builders, but will themselves hasten to be placed upon the foundation of Christ, and to be held by the corner stone, of which even the Apostle Peter speaks: 'You yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.' (I Peter 2:5). These are the stones that will cry out if the people of Judah keep silent (Luke XIX), and they will roll as long as they are on earth, for earthly dwelling weighs down the senses that attend to many cares (Wisdom IX), and the Holy One, who is in the flesh, speaks: Who will give me wings like a dove? (Psalm LIV, 7) Whoever is able, strives and rolls; and is lifted up to the heights, but is held back by the frailty of the flesh. And that earth on which the stones roll is the one of which we read: Sing to the Lord, all the earth (Psalm XCV, 1). And let all the earth adore you and sing to you (Ps. 65:4).

9:17

(Verse 17.) For what is its good and what is its beauty, except for the chosen grain and the wine that brings forth virgins? LXX: For if there is anything best from it, and if there is anything good from it, it is the grain for the youth and the wine with a good aroma for the virgins. Therefore, they say, the Maccabees, fleeing here and there with the help of the Lord, will prevail, so that, with the Macedonians expelled from the land of Israel, the temple may be purified, the precepts of the Law may be observed, and the instruction of the Scriptures may once again bring forth virgins, that is, the people of believers in one God, who were previously defiled by the worship of idols. In the chosen wheat, that is, the Bread, not young men, as the Seventy translated it, but they want it to be understood as chosen and learned men, who deserve to eat the Bread, that is, the Law of God. For wine, which in Hebrew is called Thiros, Aquila interpreted as 'oenoa', which can also refer to the abundance of the vineyard. This is what the Jews consider. But we understand the chosen wheat, whether of young men, and the wine producing virgins, or the wine of good odor for the virgins, to be the Lord and Savior, who speaks in the Gospel: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit (John 12:24). From this wheat is made that bread which comes down from heaven and strengthens the heart of man (Ps. 103). Those who are strong in Christ eat this bread, to whom John the Evangelist speaks: 'I write to you, young men, because the word of God abides in you (Al. us) and you are strong, and have overcome the evil one' (1 John 2:14). He himself is both the grain of the chosen, or the young men, and the wine that gladdens the heart of man, and it is drunk by those virgins who are holy in body and spirit, that they, being intoxicated and rejoicing, may follow the Church, and it may be said of them: 'Virgins shall be brought after her to the king, her neighbors shall be brought to thee: they shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing' (Ps. 44:15, 16). For how will those who are not joyful have joy, those who are intoxicated by the drink of the Savior, generated in virgins, and dare to say: 'Bring me into the wine cellars, comfort me with ointments' (Song of Solomon II, 4)? This wine is of good odor, as it is said in the same song: 'You shall drink of the wine of the unguentary, of the rivers of your pomegranates' (Ibidem). Those who follow the Lamb of God wherever He goes are intoxicated by this wine, dressed in white garments; for they have not defiled themselves with women: they have remained virgins (Apocalypse XIV).

10:1-2

(Chapter X, Verses 1 onwards) Pray to the Lord for late rain, and the Lord will send snow and rain showers, and every one will have grass in the fields. For the idols spoke in vain, and the diviners saw falsehood, and the dreamers spoke in vain, offering false consolation. Therefore, they have been led astray like a flock without a shepherd. They will be afflicted because they have no shepherd. Pray to the Lord for timely, seasonal, and late rain. The Lord has made illusions and will give them winter rain and grass to each one in the field. The ones who spoke have labored in vain, and the diviners have spoken false visions and false dreams, offering empty consolation. Therefore, they have withered like sheep and have been afflicted because there was no one to heal them. So the happiness that was promised in the time of the Maccabees, when the holy stones were raised up from the earth, and the Israelite nation grew greater, to the point that your virgins once again fed on the wheat of the Law, and were intoxicated with the wine of the Holy Spirit, is promised in part. However, because now is the last time of the prophets, and the world is approaching its end, and all that has been prophesied is awaiting its fulfillment: Ask the Lord to give you late rain: so that Christ, who was promised, may come and bestow upon you dews and snows, for which it is written in Hebrew Azizim (). And I do not know what they wanted, but perhaps they wanted to describe the greatness of grace and the admiration of gifts by the name of fantasy. Therefore, the Lord who makes snow and dryness for all the earth will be watered by the rain of the gospel preaching: He will give rain to the believers, and all things will be filled with abundance, so that after the nations have believed in Christ, they may understand that which they worshipped before is vain. Whether Israel itself understands, which once deceived, was held by the errors of idolatry, in vain it worshipped statues, and heard lies of the divine, and acquiesced in dreams, which Scripture commands not to believe (Deut. XIII). And for this reason they were led like a flock into captivity, and afflicted without the shepherd God, because they did not have knowledge of the Law. This whole passage is obscure and doubtful, and the reader must forgive us if in those things that are ambiguous, we proceed with a hesitant step. However, according to spiritual understanding, we can say that believers in Christ are encouraged by the Lord to ask for the latter rain at the end of the world, when the fullness of grace is to be given, and every herb will grow in its own field, so that they may say: The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want; he has set me in a place of pasture, he has nourished me on the waters of refreshment (Ps. 23:1-2). For all idols, both divine and dreamers, have spoken in vain and provided empty consolation. Those who speak about heretics, who do not understand the name Christian, nor about whom they speak, nor of whom they affirm, and they attend to erroneous spirits and the teachers of demons speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared (I Tim. IV): so that they are not led astray by the consolations of those who promise empty things, and for this reason they are handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (I Cor. V), and taken captive by the king of Babylon, and afflicted, because they do not have Christ as their shepherd, whom they falsely promise to themselves under a fake name.

10:3-5

(Verse 3 and following) My anger is kindled against the shepherds, and I will punish the goats; for the Lord of hosts will visit his flock, the house of Judah, and make them like his majestic horse in battle. From him comes the cornerstone, from him the tent peg, from him the bow of battle; from him every oppressor comes forth together, and they shall be like mighty warriors trampling the mud of the streets in battle. They will fight, for the Lord is with them. (Septuagint: My anger is kindled against the shepherds, and I will punish the lambs; and the Lord God Almighty will visit his flock, the house of Judah, and make them like his majestic horse in battle. From him he looked upon, and from him he set, and from him the bow in wrath will come forth; from him every one who brings forth together, and they shall be like warriors trampling the mud of the streets in battle, and they shall be prepared, for the Lord is with them.) And in this place there are two explanations of the Jews. For some believe that everything will be accomplished in the coming of Christ: others believe that it has already been accomplished under the Maccabees. And this is the explanation of what the Lord promises: The Lord is angry with the shepherds, rulers, and priests, and with the goats, and he visited the people, according to what is written: My people have become lost sheep, the shepherds have driven them away (Jer. L, 6), so that the disciples would be punished for the fault of their masters: not by the injustice of the judge, who renders the sins of the fathers onto the children; but because, when they sinned, the people applauded them together: and at that time, the Lord visited his goats, or the fattest lambs, and made them, according to the Septuagint, dry with drought. But afterwards the Almighty Lord visited his flock, the house of Judah: for he raised up Judas Maccabaeus, and others with him, against the leaders of Antioch, and he set them up like horses of his glory in battle, that is, those who were born of his lineage: for they oppressed the Macedonians for a long time. And what follows: From him comes the cornerstone, from him comes the peg, from him comes the bow of battle, from him comes every tax collector together, which metaphorically they understand, interpreting the cornerstone as royal power, because it encompasses the very walls. And from it, he says, comes the staff, that is, the priesthood. Read Isaiah, in which Eliakim is depicted in the temple of God as a staff (Isa. XXII). From it comes the bow of battle, the strong for war: from it also comes every exactor, which in Hebrew is written as Noges (), and Aquila interprets it as εἰσπράσσων: so that not only the strong and good, but also others unworthy of their own kind. For Judas Maccabeus and all who were leaders of his people from his lineage were angles; for they held the people in royal power, and they were the staffs themselves, and as bows of battle, because they were the strongest men, not only to arrange the army and battle line, but also to be the first to leap into battle. We can gather from this that: From him will come every exactor together (for whom the seventy were transferred): From him will come everyone who brings out together, and this means: There will be no dignity in the army that is not determined by his judgment. And there will be mighty men, trampling the Macedonians like mud on the roads in battle: they will indeed be mighty, and they will fight, because the Lord is with them. Our people refer these things to the time of persecution, because frequently even the people are handed over to the adversaries for the fault of the priests: and yet the Almighty Lord visits afterwards his flock, the house of Judah, who confesses God both in words and in heart: and he makes them like a horse of his glory in war, of which the saints say: Mount your horses, and your riding is salvation (Hab. 3:8). He himself will be both the bow and the fury of the Lord, of which it is said: I will make my arrows drunk with blood (Deut. XXXII, 42) . And again: My arrows will consume them. Concerning this bow and these arrows, we read in the seventh Psalm (Vers. 13, 14) : He stretched out his bow and prepared it; and in it he prepared vessels of death, he made his arrows burn like fire. And they will trample on their adversaries, crowned in martyrdom, and they will say: The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, from whom shall I fear? When those who do me harm draw near to devour my flesh, my enemies who trouble me shall stumble and fall. Even if armies camp against me, my heart shall not fear. Even if battle arises against me, in this I will trust. (Psalm 27:1-3) When will this saying be fulfilled: one of you will chase a thousand, and two will put ten thousand to flight? (Deuteronomy 32)

10:6-7

(Vers. 6, 7.) And the riders on horses will be put to shame, and I will strengthen the house of Judah and save the house of Joseph. I will restore them because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the Lord their God and I will answer them. They shall be like mighty warriors of Ephraim, and their hearts shall rejoice as with wine. Their children shall see it and be glad; their hearts shall exult in the Lord. LXX: And the riders on horses will be put to shame, and I will strengthen the house of Judah and save the house of Joseph. I will cause them to dwell, for I have loved them. And they shall be as when I had not cast them off, for I am the Lord their God, and I will hear them: and they shall be as valiant men in battle, and their heart shall rejoice as with wine, and their children shall see it and be glad, and their heart shall rejoice in the Lord. And they have expounded these things twice according to the higher sense, so as to either relate them as already done under the Maccabees, or as about to be transacted under Christ in the last age. And the sense is this: When Judas, who was set as a goodly horse in battle, shall tread down the adversaries as mire, and with the Lord fighting with him shall overcome: then all the horsemen of Greece shall fall, and the house of Juda and the house of Israel shall be saved together, (for he calls that the house of Joseph, that is, of the ten tribes) and I will convert them out of their captivity, wherein they were, and they shall be as they were before, when I had not cast them off: for I am the Lord their God, and I will hear them calling upon me. And Ephraim, who are now held captive, will later be released, and they will come to such great joy that you would think they are drunk with wine. And their children will witness the triumphs of their fathers, and they will rejoice in the Lord, for it is through Him that they have achieved victory. Let us look for the history of when Judah and Israel fought together against the Greeks, or when Ephraim returned from captivity in Assyria, when, according to Ezekiel (Chapter 37), the two rods, that is, Judah and Ephraim, were joined together and united as one staff. Which can be explained according to the tropology. When the Almighty Lord visits his flock, the house of Judah, then the riders of the horses will be confounded, of whom it is written: Let us sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea (Exodus 15:1). It is also sung by the voice of the Psalmist: At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both rider and horse fell asleep (Psalm 76:7). And the choir of saints repeats: Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will call upon the name of our God. They are bound, and have fallen: but we are risen, and are set upright (Ps. XIX, 8, 9). The Egyptian king relied on this cavalry; and he was thrown into the sea, like lead immersed in the depths (Exod. XV), and by his example he learned that what is written is true: A deceitful horse leads to salvation (Ps. XXXII, 17). We have interpreted these chariots and charioteers as representing the four disturbances that, unless controlled by the good reins, the charioteers are led to precipices. But there is another charioteer, of whom Elisha speaks: 'My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its charioteer' (2 Kings 2:12). Then God says to strengthen the house of Judah and the house of Joseph (1 Kings 12:16), so that, just as they were divided during the reign of Jeroboam, they will be united under the rule of Christ, and there will be one shepherd and one flock. And Judas and Joseph are given different names because they both represent a single understanding of the Savior, since Joseph provided grain to the hungry people in Egypt (Gen. XLII seqq.): and the Lord satisfied the hunger of the world with his presence. And he will convert them and have mercy on them, and they will be one as they were before he cast them out. Take all of this as a lesson in persecution, when, with all hope lost, the Lord heard his servants. And they shall be like the strong ones of Ephraim, who at first were weak and feeble, but later became strong and worthy of their name. For Ephraim means abundance. And their hearts shall rejoice when they drink the wine that is pressed from the vine of Sorec. And their children, of whom the Apostle Paul speaks, my little children, for whom I am in labor again until Christ is formed in you (Galatians 4:19). And Peter, the chief of the apostles, says: As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former ways (1 Peter 1:14). And in the Psalm we read: Come, children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord (Ps. 33:12). Therefore, these children will rejoice and be glad, and their heart will rejoice in the Lord.

10:8-10

(Verse 8 onwards) I will hiss for them and gather them, for I have redeemed them; and they shall be multiplied as they were multiplied before. And I will sow them among the peoples, and they shall remember me far off, and they shall live with their children and return. And I will bring them back from the land of Egypt, and I will gather them from Assyria, and I will bring them to the land of Gilead and Lebanon, and no place shall be found for them. LXX: I will show them signs and receive them, for I will redeem them, and they shall be multiplied as they were many, and I will sow them among the peoples, and those who were far off shall remember me. I will nourish their children and they will return, and I will bring them back from the land of Egypt, and I will gather them from Assyria, and I will lead them to Gilead and Lebanon, and none of them will be missing. They will have a sign of their congregation, either under the Macedonians, or at the consummation of the world, as I said before. 'They will have my whistle,' says the Lord, 'so that I may gather them from my whistle and teach myself to be their shepherd. For I have redeemed them and delivered them from captivity with an outstretched arm. And I will multiply them, as I have multiplied before, so that the dispersion among the nations does not appear to be division, but rather the operation of sowing and the harvest of children and grandchildren multiplied, let them live with their sons. And they shall return not only from the land of Egypt, but also from Assyria, and from both sides of the world they shall return to Judah, and to the land of Gilead and Lebanon, which the tribes of Joseph and Ephraim used to possess, and the number of those who return will be so great that the land cannot contain them. According to the interpretation, the Lord signifies and calls to those who were held captive by sins before, and he speaks to them: Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and you will find rest for your souls. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:29-30). What could be more merciful than this meaning and call, through which the scattered people are gathered? But they have congregated because the Lord has redeemed them: not with corruptible silver and gold, from their vain conversation; but with precious blood, like that of an unblemished lamb, the Lord Jesus (I Pet. I). Therefore, it says in the Psalm: Delight, deliver me from those surrounding me (Psal. XXXI, 7). And again: You have redeemed me, Lord, God of truth (Psal. XXX, 6). And he will multiply them as they were multiplied before, so that the promise made to Abraham may be fulfilled: I will multiply him, and I will bless him, and he will be blessed, so that he may become the father of many nations (Gen. XVII, 9). But we must not consider the sons of Abraham those to whom the Lord speaks: If you were the sons of Abraham, you would do the works of your father (John 8:39), but those of whom the Apostle says: All those who are of faith, they are the sons of Abraham (Rom. 8). Isaiah testifies to this multiplication in mystical language, saying: The little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation (Isaiah 60:22). However, we do not receive the multiplication and blessing of children in a carnal manner: otherwise Elijah and Elisha and Jeremiah and John the Baptist (who was greater than all born of women) (Matthew 11) would have been deprived of this blessing, but rather it is the one by which the multitudes of nations are called to faith. Finally, it follows: I will sow them among the peoples, and they will remember me from afar. They are sown among the peoples who have heard the word of the Lord: 'Go, teach all nations' (Matt. XXVIII, 19). And in another place: 'You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last' (John XV, 16). And when the apostles have been sown among the peoples, the nations and distant peoples will remember me, in accordance with this prophetic statement: 'All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.' And all the families of the nations will worship in his presence. For the kingdom is the Lord's, and he will rule over the nations (Ps. XXI, 28, 29). And what is said: From afar they will remember me, is similar to this: You who are far away, remember the Lord, and let Jerusalem rise in your heart (Jer. XXXI). The multitude of all the nations was far away, but they remembered God, because we are all born from one parent. And when the apostles were sown among all the nations, the nations that were far away remembered God and will live with their children, so that those who were previously dead in unbelief may begin to live in faith. These are the children whom Paul nourished in the Gospel, writing to the Corinthians: I gave you milk to drink (1 Cor. 3:2). And Peter, in his letter to the dispersed faithful who had been reborn, writes: Not from corruptible seed, but from incorruptible, through the living and enduring word of God, like newborn infants, so that they may desire the rational milk and grow in it for salvation (1 Pet. 1). The evangelist John also wrote to these children: Little children, guard yourselves from idols (1 John 5:21). And I will bring them out from the land of Egypt, saith he, and I will gather them out of the Assyrians. And I will bring them unto the land of Galaad, and Libanus, and place shall not be found for them. Galaad is translated into our language, a testimony of transmigration, when we transition from the carnal to the spiritual, we come from a part to the whole: we leave earthly things behind and migrate to heavenly things: but Lebanon is interpreted as 'whiteness', that is, whitening. Therefore, we are led out of the darkness of Egypt, so that after we have passed over and migrated from the world, we are whitened in the Lord, and it is said of us: 'Who is this that goes up whitened?' (Song of Solomon 8:6). Others, according to the ambiguity of the Greek language, whereby both the Phoenician mountain and the Lebanese cedar are called 'Libanus', now interpret 'thu' as 'Libanus', and believe it signifies God, so that after we have passed from the earth to heaven, the prayer of the Savior may be fulfilled in us: 'Father, grant that they may be one in us, as I and you are one' (John 17:22). Therefore, the bride in the Song of Songs says to the bridegroom: 'The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon' (Song of Songs 4:11). And when he shall bring us into the land of Gilead and Lebanon, there shall be no place found unto us, that we may be not straitened by the narrowness of the land; but let us enjoy the breadth of the heavens.

10:11-12

(Verse 11, 12) And it shall pass through the sea strait, and strike the waves in the sea; and all the deep waters of the river shall be confounded, and the pride of Assyria shall be humbled, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart. I will strengthen them in the Lord; and they shall walk in His name, says the Lord. LXX: And they shall pass through the narrow sea, and strike the waves in the sea, and the deep waters of the rivers shall be dried up; and all the injury of the Assyrians shall be taken away, and the scepter of Egypt shall be lifted up. And I will strengthen them in the Lord their God, and they shall glory in His name, says the Lord. The Hebrews narrate that the captive people of the Jews, not only to the Medes and Persians, but also to the Bosporus and the northern region, were transported by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, and afterwards partially restored by the mercy of God, when He turned them towards Himself; and this is what is now said: They shall pass over the narrow sea. The straits of Propontis, which divide Chalcedon and once Byzantium by a narrow channel. And the Lord, going before his people, will strike the waves of the sea, and all the deeps of rivers will be confounded, as it was done in the drying up of the Jordan (Joshua 3), and the people passed over the Red Sea in the desert (Exod. 24). And when he has been freed from the depths of captivity and the bitterness of evil, Assyria will be humbled, and the empire of Egypt will withdraw from them. And they will be strengthened in the Lord, and they will walk in the land of Israel in his name, says the Lord. These things, as they were handed down to us by the Hebrews, we have expressed to the people of our language, faithfully representing the words spoken to them by those from whom they were spoken. However, we who are called by the name of Christ, leave behind the letter that kills, and follow the life-giving spirit, rather comparing spiritual things with spiritual things, not the Bosporus and the dryness of the sea and the dry flow of the Jordan, which are like fables, but we seek the worthy mercy of God towards His servants, with Him leading the way and opening the path for us, we cross the sea channel, or rather the narrow sea, which is widest for sinners: For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction: and narrow is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life (Matthew 7:13). About this sea we read in the Psalms: Those who go down to the sea in ships, doing business in many waters, have seen the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep (Psalm 107:23-24). In this sea of the world, in which the number of the saints is restricted, and they are in a state of tribulation, the apostles descended, and the Lord himself, in order to free us from the bitter waves (Mark 4). In this sea, the net of the Gospel is cast (Matthew 13), which is woven with the testimonies of the Scriptures, so that it may draw out many fish that are submerged in the depths of this world, into the free air, so that they may sing praises to God. There are those who go down to the sea and work many deeds in the ships of the Churches, and they behold the wonders of God in the deep of the riches of His wisdom and knowledge (1 Corinthians 2); and in the Holy Spirit who searches even the heights of God, to whom the Lord speaks: Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men (Matthew 4:19). Concerning these fishermen who go down to the sea and are in ships, Isaiah also prophesies: They will fly in the ships of foreigners, and they will equally plunder the sea (Isaiah 11:14). For in the churches, the apostles flew throughout the whole world in order to plunder the sea and take the spoils of the dragon who ruled in the sea, of whom it is written: 'This great and wide sea, in which are creatures without number, both small and great creatures, and ships pass through it.' This dragon, which You made to play with (Psalm 103:25-26), is the vast and wide sea with small and great creatures, which interact with the dragon and are without number. But those who are on the sea and fly over the sea in ships, hear with the Savior: You rule the power of the sea: you calm the movement of its waves (Ps. LXXXVIII, 10). And when they have passed through the strait of the sea and have trampled its waves with their feet, all the deep waters, of which it is written: Who turns the sea into dry land, they shall pass through the river on foot (Psalm LXV, 6), so that the injury or arrogance of Assyria and Egypt may be humbled and depart from the holy and believing people, and those who are freed may be strengthened in the Lord and say: My strength and my praise is the Lord (Ps. CXVII, 14). And again: I will love you, O Lord, my strength (Psalm 17:1). And with Jeremiah: You are my strength, my help, and my refuge, O Lord my God (Jeremiah 16:19). Therefore, the Apostle, in whom Christ spoke, said: I can do all things through him who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). And they will not only be strengthened in the Lord, but they will also glory in him and say: But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Galatians 6:14). And: Whoever boasts, let him boast in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31). And in another place: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, and let not the strong man boast in his strength, and let not the rich man boast in his riches; but let him who boasts boast in this: to understand and know the Lord, and to practice mercy and justice in the midst of the earth (Jeremiah 9:23-24). But because it is written in Hebrew: And they shall walk in His name, it is thus understood: that Christians should walk in the name of Christ, and let the new name be written on their hearts, and let them walk with the Lord in the dignity of such a great name, as Enoch walked and pleased God, and was translated (Genesis 5).

Book Three

Book Three

My brother Sisinius urgently requests that I send him the unfinished and unpolished work so that he may have not only the opportunity to correct it, but also the opportunity to not even have to reread it. He is busy with his own work, and we are making less progress on our own task while our learning is wasted; and whatever we understand, we are not allowed to embellish with polished language. Therefore, as inexperienced individuals, not by my fault but due to the diligence of the carrier, please accept the books: while he himself hurries to divide the sacred air, he does not allow us to count our own air for you. Although a polished and well-practiced talent may be elegant, and though speech may flow smoothly from long practice, nevertheless, unless it has been carefully edited and polished by the Author's hand, it carries the stench of negligence and either indulges in excessive elegance of words or suffers from gaps in vowels or roughness in consonants. Hence it is said of Virgil that he composed his books like bear cubs with his tongue and made them better by licking, so that they would endure in eternal memory and fulfill the necessity of meter with free speech. We pass to Lebanon, and to two rods, and three shepherds, who are cut down in one month, and to thirty pieces of silver, for which the potter’s field was bought for the burial of strangers (Matt. 27), and to the foolish vessels of the shepherd, and so on to the end of the volume: which are interwoven with such great mysteries, that we need the mercy of God and your prayers, lest our course be hindered by any error, and lest there be just occasion for detractors to slander, who think that they only have tongues for the purpose of tearing apart their neighbors, and they console themselves with the rage of words on their worn-out, hardened forehead.

11:1

(Chapter 11, Verse 1) Open your gates, Lebanon, and let the fire devour your cedars. Howl, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen; the majestic trees are ruined. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has been cut down. LXX: Open your gates, Lebanon, and let the fire devour your cedars. Let the pine tree wail, for the cedar has fallen; the nobles have been crushed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the dense forest has been laid waste. Clearly, Lebanon, to which the prophetic discourse is directed, saying: Open, Lebanon, your gates, the temple of the Jews is understood, which was restored, rebuilt by Zerubbabel, again sung to be destroyed by Vespasian and Titus. And because he had metaphorically called Lebanon a temple, and he maintains the same translation in the rest, so that through cedars and firs and oaks of Bashan and a wooded grove, he signifies the leaders, priests, and people of the Jews. But Lebanon opens its gates so that the Roman army can enter, and its cedars are consumed by fire, so that everything is either devastated by the conflagration or its leaders and princes are consumed by enemy attack. The firs wail, because the cedar has fallen, and the priests and leaders mourn their people in return. And what he previously said obscurely, he now presents more clearly, because the magnificent ones have been laid waste. I desire to know which are the cedars of Lebanon that have been burned, which firs wail, and which pines have fallen; for, he says, the magnificent ones have been laid waste. Howl, O oak tree of Bazan, that is, of confusion and ignominy, for the well-fortified forest, which is called Besor in Hebrew and is translated by the LXX as wooded and cut down; for the temple, which had grown in impregnable strength and was built by various kings and princes, and later by Herod, was destroyed by the Romans' attack. Some people, not understanding this place, attribute the strength of the Lebanon, the cedars, the pines, and the oak of Bazan, along with the wooded and fortified forest, to opposing powers, about which it is said in Ezekiel under the name of Assyria and Pharaoh: Behold, Assyria is a cypress tree in Lebanon, with fair branches and a dense shade, and tall in stature, and its top was among the clouds: it was nourished by water, and the abyss made it tall, and so on, which are said about both Assyria and Pharaoh, they are thought to be spoken of either opposing powers or proud rulers and princes, about whom we also read in the Psalm: The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; indeed, the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon. And in another place: Day of the Lord of hosts comes upon all the haughty and proud, and upon all that is exalted and lofty (Isaiah 22:12, 13). And a little later: And upon all the high cedars of Lebanon (or, the lofty ones), and upon all the trees of Bashan. And about this Lebanon it is prophesied: Lebanon with its lofty ones will fall. But let us follow the earlier interpretation, especially since what follows also agrees with this meaning.

11:3

(Verse 3) The voice of the shepherds howls, because their magnificence has been laid waste. The voice of the lions' roar, because the pride of the Jordan has been laid waste. LXX: The voice of the mourners of the shepherds, because their magnificence has become miserable. The voice of the roaring lions, because the roaring of the Jordan has been subdued. This is the upper part of the chapter, and it is contained in these verses. Those he had called cedars, spruce trees, pines, and oaks of Bashan, and explaining what these trees represented, he said: Because the magnificent ones have been laid waste, now in another figure of speech he says that the shepherds, that is, the leaders and teachers, and those who were first among the people, ought to weep and mourn, because their magnificence and beauty and glory have been laid waste and destroyed: namely, the temple in which they boasted. And the voice, he says, is the roaring of lions, whom he now calls the same lions, the lofty trees, and again the shepherds. And because he had mentioned lions, he preserves the translation that he may infer: For the pride of the Jordan is laid waste, or the roaring and sound of the flowing water, which is called Gaon in Hebrew. And just as he compared the height of the temple to the elevation of the land of Judea near the height of Lebanon (for nothing is higher in the land of promise than Lebanon, nor more wooded and dense), so he joined the roar of lions to the Jordan river, which is the largest in Judea, near which the lions dwell, because of their burning thirst, and because of the proximity and wideness of the vast desert, and the reeds, and the marshes. And through the prophet it is said: The lion has come up from the Jordan (Jer. IV, 7), desiring to show that Nebuchadnezzar had left his abode, like a lion coming out of its den, against Jerusalem. Alternatively: The voice of the roaring lions, for the pride of the Jordan is laid waste. The voice, he says, of the nobles, because the temple has been destroyed, from which they always hoped for help, and which once nourished righteous ones and warriors and the powerful lions.

11:4-5

(Vers. 4, 5.) Thus says the Lord my God: Feed the sheep of slaughter, which those who possessed them were slaughtering, and they did not grieve, and they were selling them saying: Blessed be the Lord, we have become rich, and their shepherds did not spare them. LXX: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Feed the sheep of slaughter, which those who possessed them were killing, and they did not repent, and those who were selling them, said: Blessed be the Lord, we have become rich, and their shepherds were not patient with them. Where a most clear prophecy is, and the true order of history is narrated through translation, the interpretation of tropes is superfluous, such as when we say that some are good shepherds and others are bad, and this applies both to the old people as well as to the new, that is, both to the priests and rulers of the Jews as well as to the bishops and priests of the Christians, and to whoever the negligent shepherds may be, and if they scandalize one of the least of these, they themselves are the ones who slaughter the sheep and do not suffer anything on them, nor do they grieve, nor can they say with the Apostle: Who is scandalized and I am not burned (I Cor. XI)? And they sell the people entrusted to them, of whom it is written: 'Who devour my people like bread' (Ps. 52:5), and from the deaths of others they acquire riches, praising those who plunder the poor, and blessing the unjust. Let others interpret these things as they wish: let us hold the order of explanation that we once embraced. For Lebanon is laid open, and its cedars and firs are consumed by the burning flame, the howling of shepherds is heard, and the roaring of lions, for all the beauty and pride of the Jordan is laid waste and consumed. Therefore, the Lord my God spoke these words to me: 'O prophet Zechariah, this word is conveyed to you: Feed the flock of slaughter,' that is, for now let it be nurtured and grow, for it will later be killed by the enemy. These sheep and cattle, the princes of the Romans who possessed and maintained them by the right of victory, slaughtered and showed no mercy, or they sacrificed them and felt no pain, that is, they suffered no harm for so much cruelty, and they sold what they withheld not out of mercy, but for a price. We read old histories and traditions of the lamenting Jews, that in the tabernacle of Abraham (where now, every year, a very famous market is held) after the last destruction, which they endured from Adrian, many thousands of people were sold, and those who could not be sold were transported to Egypt and were cut off by shipwreck, famine, and the slaughter of nations. Therefore, these conquerors and avengers of the Lord who killed without remorse and sold cattle and said: Blessed be the Lord, we have become rich, had this belief. Because of their sins, we offended the Jews: therefore we oppressed them, and became rich from their price. It is not surprising, he says, that the enemies were killing the sheep of the conquered justly, and they did not grieve, they sold them, and they boasted in their own wickedness; since their shepherds and teachers themselves did not spare them, and because of their fault, the flock was handed over to wolves.

11:6-7

(Verse 6, 7) And I will no longer spare those who dwell on the earth, says the Lord. Behold, I will deliver each man into the hand of his neighbor and into the hand of his king, and they shall strike the earth, and I will not deliver it from their hand. And I will feed the sheep of slaughter, O you poor of the flock. LXX: Therefore, I will no longer spare the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord. And behold, I will deliver each man into the hands of his neighbor and into the hand of his king, and they shall strike the earth, and I will not deliver it from their hand, and I will feed the sheep of slaughter in Canaan. What the Seventy translated in the last chapter: 'And I will feed the sheep of slaughter in the land of Canaan', is not in Hebrew, and is not translated by any other interpreter. Therefore, since their shepherds did not spare them, but themselves devoured my first people, for this reason, I will no longer spare the inhabitants of the land of Judea, says the Lord. For he speaks of this land, of which the discourse was to him, and not of the world, as the Jews, interpreting poorly, want to distort the meaning of God into another part. For after the destruction of the temple (which happened to them because for forty-two years, from the time the Lord suffered, having received opportunity, they refused to repent), he says, 'I will send one against the other, and they will cut each other to pieces with mutual slaughter, whether in the very siege of the temple, when the Roman army will surround Jerusalem, for there will be such wars and dissensions among the Jews that the people will be divided into three parts.' We read the seven books of the Jewish captivity, and we see that this prophecy has been fulfilled, confirmed by historical truth. 'And they will fall,' he says, 'the land, undoubtedly the Romans will destroy all the land and cities of the Jews. And I will not rescue them from their hand.' Listen, O Jews, who hold vain hopes for yourselves, and do not listen to the Lord who says and affirms: 'I will not rescue them from their hands,' that your future captivity among the Romans will be eternal. And I will feed the flock of slaughter, so that the Jews may always be nourished unto death; because this is God's decree: O you who are poor of the flock, that is, the righteous of Israel, who have believed in the Lord Jesus and have received the Son of God, listen to what is being said and learn the sacraments of the following chapter. And as we read in the Septuagint: And I will feed the sheep of slaughter in the land of Canaan, we can understand that the Lord will feed and nourish the Jewish people, who are destined for death and scattered throughout the whole world (that is, in the land of Canaan and among the Gentiles), for the purpose of sacrifice.

11:8-9

(Verse 8, 9.) And I took for myself two staffs: one I called Beauty, and the other I called Cords (or Funicles); and I fed the flock. And I cut off three shepherds in one month, and my soul was grieved with them; for their soul also varied against me. And I said, I will not feed you; let it die, let it die; and let it be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another. LXX: And I will take for myself two staffs: one to be called Beauty, and the other I called Cords (or Funicles), and I will feed the sheep. And I will take away three shepherds in one month, and my soul will be embittered against them: for their soul also roared upon me. And I said, I will not feed you: that which is dying, let it die: and that which is cut off, let it be cut off: and let the rest devour every one the flesh of his neighbor. The Lord God had said: Feed the sheep of the slaughter, which their possessors have killed, and do not sin against them to glory, that a buyer may be found for them over them, and their possessors may say: Blessed be the Lord, for I am become rich: and their shepherds will have no pity for them. For I will no more have mercy on the inhabitants of the land, saith, the Lord. And this seemed to be said about one Jewish people, that having killed the prophets, they even laid hands on the Son of God and shouted with a rash voice: His blood be on us and on our children (Matthew 27:25)! Now the Creator of the universe and the Lord explains the mysteries of his world, and says that he had two staffs, one of which he called Beauty, the other Cords, and he fed the flock while being bound with these two staffs; he also cut down three shepherds in one month, and my soul was angry with them; undoubtedly the shepherds signify those whom he cut down in one month. And he explained the reason why he was so indignant with the shepherds that he killed them all in one month: 'Because,' he said, 'their souls changed towards me. And the meaning is this: They did not love me with their whole heart. The hireling shepherds loved the shepherd, not truly me. For the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:11)'. Therefore, I also expressed my indignation and spoke to the shepherds themselves, whom I had killed in my anger, or to the remaining flock after the shepherds were killed: 'I will not feed you; but let him who has chosen death die by his own will, and let them devour each other and tear each other apart with mutual slaughter.' We have said these things paraphrastically, in order to pave the way for future interpretation. The Creator and Shepherd, whose sheep know his voice and follow him, took for himself two staffs, or two rods, which in Hebrew are called Macaloth, to demonstrate the appearance of a shepherd. He called one staff Beauty, that is, he protected all the human race with his blessing, from the time of Noah, when the world was restored and sin had not yet defiled it. And for this reason, the calling of all nations is called honorable and beautiful, because nothing is more just than to equally call the parent of the universe, those whom he generated with equal conditions. And another he called the boundaries; for when the Most High was dividing the nations, and dispersing the sons of Adam, he established the boundaries of the nations, according to the number of God's angels (Deut. XXXII). And the part of the Lord became his people Jacob; the boundaries of his inheritance, Israel. And he said, 'I pastured the flock, whether it was Israel itself or the entire human race with Israel.' And he said, 'I cut down three shepherds in one month.' I read in the commentaries of someone: 'The shepherds of the Lord who were cut down with indignation are understood to be the priests, false prophets, and kings of the Jews; because after the passion of Christ, all things were cut down at once, of which Jeremiah speaks: 'The priests did not say, 'Where is the Lord?' Those who hold onto my law did not know me.' And the shepherds have transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied in Baal, and they have followed idols (Jeremiah 2:8). Not satisfied with this explanation, he wants to interpret that the three shepherds who were cut off in one month refer to those who have sinned against the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for all heretics, they sin either against one, or two, or three persons simultaneously. Let him say what he wishes, for his interpretation must not be undermined. We have three shepherds who were killed in one month, Moses seems to be, and Aaron, and Mary (Num. 20); of whom Mary died in the first month, which is called Nisan (), in the desert of Sin, and in the same place because of the water of contradiction, and in the same month, Moses and Aaron were condemned, so that they would not enter the promised land. And so it happened, that out of the three shepherds, one was struck by immediate death, and the others by the sentence of future death. And my soul was contracted, he says, against them: specifically against the three shepherds whom I had placed over my flock. Because their soul also changed towards me, for they did not glorify me at the water of contradiction. But if we refer to the people, that the soul of the people has changed towards God, it must be explained in this way: Therefore, I was angry with them, because they themselves, being wavering between me and idols, fought against me in various ways. Therefore, being angry, I said to Moses: I will not feed you: leave me, and I will destroy them (Exod. XXXII, 10). However, when he says 'Forgive me' in anger, he incites to ask and shows that he can be held back by it. 'Let him die who is destined to die, and let him be cut off who is destined to be cut off; let all bodies be destroyed in solitude, and turned against each other in sedition, like animals tearing each other with mutual bites, and let no one enter the land of promise. Some understood the two callings of Jews and Gentiles, in the first Israel, and in the last by the name Christians. But they did not pay enough attention to how the Christian calling had been previously discarded, and how the Jews remained and were fed by God.

11:10-11

(Vers. 10, 11.) And I took my staff, which was called Beauty, and I cut it in two to break the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. And it was broken on that day, so the poor of the flock, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. LXX: And I will take my beautiful staff and throw it away, to break the covenant that I had made with all the peoples, and it will be broken on that day, and the Canaanites will know that the sheep, which are being watched, are the word of the Lord. After the calling of the Israelites and the assumption of the second rod, which was called a cord, the Lord took the first rod, called "glory," and cut them off from his worship, because they worshipped idols, and all turned aside, becoming useless together (Psalm 14). And in order to make it more clear what this rod was, he added: "So that I might nullify my covenant which I made with all the people: For as soon as Israel was assumed, the multitude of the nations was cast aside: and as the daughter of the Archisynagogue was born, who is later narrated in the Gospel to be twelve years old, she began to bleed and suffer from a permanent illness (Mark 5; Matthew 9). And it was rendered null and void, he said, the covenant which I had made with all the nations. And the poor of the flock, that is, the people of Israel who keep my commandments, understood that the word of the Lord, that is, the will of the Lord, is to reject the nations that deny Him and to accept the Israelites in the line of Abraham. Because we have interpreted it, and the poor of the flock understood it thus, the Seventy translated it, and the Canaanites will know, the sheep that are entrusted to me, that some have explained: The people of the Jews will know, to whom it was said: The seed of Canaan, and not of Judah (Dan. XIII, 56); who now keep my ceremonies: whether because the Canaanites interpret it as being ready for humility, they will know those who were once ready to be humbled by the Lord and be left behind. But why they insulted us, poor people, for what we have interpreted, the reason is clear: among the Hebrews, thus, Chen () is said: Anie (), poor people; they connect those two words together, for what it is, thus poor people, that is, Chen Anie (, the name of the Canaanite people has been interpreted.

11:12-13

(Verse 12, 13.) And I said to them: If it is good in your eyes, give me my reward, and if not, stop; and they gave me my reward, thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, Throw them (Vulgate: it) to the potter, a handsome price at which I was appraised by them: and I took the thirty pieces of silver, and threw them into the house of the Lord to the potter. LXX: And I will say to them: If it is good in your sight, give those who determine my reward, or refuse. And they set my wages at thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me: Put them in the melting pot, and see if they are proven, as I have been proven for them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and put them in the house of the Lord in the melting pot. To the poor shepherds of the Israelite flock, who keep my commandments, it is the word of the Lord that I spoke, and the truths that I said, he said to them, that is, to the poor shepherds, if it pleases you (for you are men and I created you with free will, to whom I also spoke in the wilderness: If you listen to me, you will eat the good things of the land (Isa. 1)) for this assumption, by which I rejected the whole human race, and chose you as my special flock, and desired to have a small cord, give me my wages, that is, keep my commandments. But if you do not want to give payment, and it is not pleasing in your eyes to be considered in my name, openly refuse, and do what you want. And those indeed responded to Moses: Whatever the Lord says, we will do (Exod. XXIV, 3). But in the end of times, because I chose them from among the nations, and I freed them from the iron furnace of Egypt, they paid my payment with thirty silver coins, giving them to the Jewish traitor for my blood (Matt. XXVI). And he said, as the prophet said, the Lord said to me, or rather, the Savior, whose words are before, that the Father spoke to him, testifying: Cast it to the sculptor: for which in Hebrew is read Joser (), that is, the sculptor, whom we can call the maker and potter. And the meaning is: Cast my price to the sculptor, who is the Creator and maker of all things. And he did not say, put down; but, cast, so that the payment of the Lord could be judged by the judgment of the sculptor and the potter. And ironically, seeing his own worth, that is, the divine majesty, for thirty pieces of silver, and being betrayed for such a cheap price: 'This,' he says, 'is the price at which I am appraised by them; but it should be read more closely with the mockery and derision of the speaker: 'So much did my people, and the poor flock once chosen by me as children, judge me worthy of buying and selling. And I, says the Lord through the prophet, as it had been commanded to me by God, took thirty pieces of silver and did not keep them, but threw them into the house of the Lord to the potter: in the house of the Lord, I made them be given to the priests and Pharisees, the very ones who sold me, confessing: 'I have sinned, betraying innocent blood' (Matthew 27:4). But because they considered it the price of blood, they did not want to return it to the treasury, that is, the treasury; but they bought with it a potter's field as a burial place for strangers. For all of us who were foreigners and strangers to the Law have been redeemed by his precious blood, and we are buried and rest in the house of the potter and the Creator of all. For πλάστῃ and fictore, I have once interpreted as a sculptor, forced by the ambiguity of the word, which signifies both a sculptor and a maker of statues. The Jews, interpreting this passage maliciously, mention thirty pieces of silver, and they mention thirty commandments of the Law, which they are commanded to do in the Law, and again thirty-six others which are prohibited in the Law, and they say that they should return the silver of the Lord's commandments to their own goldsmith and maker: but because they did not want to do this, they were rejected. I wanted to briefly indicate what they think, otherwise I am tired of going through their tedious explanation, so let's move on to the rest.

11:14

(Verse 14) And I cut off my second staff, called 'Favor,' in order to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. Septuagint: And I threw away my second staff, called 'Favor,' in order to annul the covenant that existed between Judah and Israel. And in this place, I came across a long explanation, or rather, intricate puzzles, that I read in the volume of Ezekiel, bringing together the two staffs into one community, and all the things that should be spiritually understood about the harmony between Judah and Ephraim, fitting in with this chapter. But let us follow the order of events. After the Lord was crucified by the Jews, being valued at thirty pieces of silver, and the price of his blood was thrown into the burial place of the Gentiles, who were strangers to the Law and the commandments of God, immediately the Lord, not delaying his judgment any longer, said, 'Cut off my second staff, which was properly mine, and which clung to me in such a way that in Jeremiah it is called a loincloth and a belt and a girdle, or, using the customary word, a hip-band: this second staff, once called a rope and my portion, has been cast away by me, in order that I might dissolve the covenant and brotherhood and harmony that existed between Judah and Israel, and separate brothers from one another.' That in numbering the apostles and those who repented, Judas was called again and confessed his God; but Israel and Ephraim and Joseph were called, who, remaining in the hardness of their hearts, said: We have no king but Caesar (John 19:15). Therefore, he did not introduce it to make void the covenant or testament, which I had with Judah and Israel (for even to this day he extends his hand to those who repent), but to divide believers and non-believers from one people among themselves, saying: Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes will be those of his own household. (Matthew 10:34-35).

11:15-17

(vv. 15 seqq.) And the Lord said to me: Take for yourself the vessels of a foolish shepherd. For behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not visit those who are abandoned, he will not seek the scattered, and he will not heal the broken. And what stands, he will not nourish, and he will eat the flesh of the fat ones, and he will dissolve their hoofs. O shepherd, forsaking the flock and the idol: a sword will be upon his arm and upon his right eye, his arm will be dried up with dryness, and his right eye will be darkened with darkness. LXX: And the Lord said to me: Take yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. For behold I will raise up a shepherd in the land, who shall not visit what is forsaken, nor seek what is scattered, nor heal what is broken, nor nourish that which standeth, and he shall eat the flesh of the fat ones, and break their hoofs. O shepherd, that feedest the sheep, woe to the idle shepherd that forsaketh the flock: the sword upon his arm and upon his right eye: his arm shall quite wither away, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened. When he says, 'Take for yourself the vessels of a foolish shepherd,' it signifies that he had taken for himself two staffs, one called Favor, and the other called Union. And because he had thrown them away due to his own fault and sin, and the unity between Judah and Israel had been broken, we have been grafted into the root of the good olive tree, and blindness has come upon the house of Israel in part, until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in (Rom. 11). Now it is said to the prophet, as a most weighty foolish shepherd, or unwise, to assume the prophecy. The foolish and ignorant shepherd is undoubtedly the Antichrist; who is said to come at the end of the world, and the manner in which he will come is indicated. So we must take the shepherd's vessels, his symbols and attire, a purse, a staff, a flute, and a whistle. Just as Isaiah, in order to demonstrate the captivity of the people, enters naked (Isa. 20); and Jeremiah goes to the house of the potter, to show the destruction of the vessel which was spinning on the wheel, and to demonstrate the destruction of Israel and the power of God (Jer. 18); and Ezekiel, in order to demonstrate the overthrow of Jerusalem and the escape of Zedekiah, and the burdens of the captives, not only speaks but also demonstrates through his attire, by digging through the wall and carrying it on his shoulders (Ezek. 12); so does Zechariah take on the attire of the foolish and ignorant shepherd, to proclaim the one who is to come (Zech. 11). This shepherd will rise in Israel, for the true shepherd had said: I will no longer feed you. He is also called by another name in the prophet Daniel (Ch. IX), and in the Gospel (Mark XIII), and in the letter of Paul to the Thessalonians (II Thess. II), the abomination of desolation, who will sit in the temple of the Lord and will make himself out to be God, the one who is also referred to as the great sense through Isaiah (Isa. XXXII). And he has come for this purpose, not to heal, but to destroy the flock of Israel. For the good shepherd visits the sick sheep, seeks out the scattered ones, brings back the ones that have been left behind, and sustains the tired ones. On the other hand, the bad shepherd acts against everything, devours the flesh of the fat ones, dissolves the hooves of the rams and sheep, and perverts them so that they do not enter with a straight foot. The Jews received this shepherd, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and render useless by the brightness of his coming, so that those who did not believe the truth may not be saved but believe in falsehood and be judged because they consented to wickedness. But describing the worst, foolish, and inexperienced shepherd, the prophetic discourse is directed to him, saying: O shepherd, and idol. So wicked is the shepherd that he is not called a worshiper of idols, but he himself is named an idol, while he calls himself God, and desires to be worshiped by all. He has abandoned the flock to be devoured by beasts, which the Lord had kept for so long. A sword is upon his arm, and strength, and upon his right eye, with which he proudly claimed to see the sacraments of God sharply, and to see more than all the prophets who came before, to the extent that he called himself the Son of God. But that sword, of which we have spoken above, and of which we will now speak in part, is the one about which Isaiah also speaks: My sword has become intoxicated in the heavens (Isa. XXXIV, 5). Therefore, the sword of the Lord will be upon his arm and upon his right eye, so that its strength and all the boasting of his power may be dried up by aridity, and the knowledge which he falsely promised to himself may be obscured by eternal darkness.

12:1

(Chapter 12, Verse 1) The burden of the word of the Lord over Israel: says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him: Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, and Judah shall be in siege against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. LXX: The Assumption of the word of the Lord upon Israel, says the Lord, stretching out the heavens and founding the earth, and forming the spirit of man within it: Behold, I will bring Jerusalem to be a threshold that is moved in a circuit by all peoples, in Judah and around Jerusalem. And there will be a siege around Jerusalem, and it will be in that day, I will make Jerusalem a stone to be trampled upon by all nations: whoever tramples upon it will mock it, and I will gather all the nations of the earth against it. There are three interpretations of this passage, from the place where we read: Behold, I will place Jerusalem as a cup of intoxication to all the peoples around, until the place where it is written (Ch. XIII, v. 7): Stir up the sword against my shepherd, and against the man who stands beside me, says the Lord of hosts: Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. Others among the Jews believe that this has already been partially fulfilled by Zerubbabel, up to C. Pompey, who was the first of the Romans to capture Judea and the temple, as Josephus writes. But others maintain that when Jerusalem has been rebuilt, it will be at the end of the world: which promise is made to the wretched Jewish people, along with their blinded shepherd, whom we read about above. But others, that is, we who are called by the name of Christ, in the Church until the end of the world, remember daily to be fulfilled and to fulfill. And lest we extend the length of the volume with details, we present it in the following way: These say this, others suspect this, we feel this way, and we have presented three opinions so that the diligent reader can understand what should be fittingly attributed to whom, based on the diversity of interpretation. Therefore, the Lord who stretched out the heavens like a skin, and solidified the earth with a high mass, and formed the spirit of man within it, is the same Creator of all souls, so that he might form one living being from two substances, the soul and the body. For the spirit is often understood as the soul, as it is said: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit (Luke 23:46). And: You will take away their spirit, and they will die and return to their dust (Psalm 104:29). Therefore, this Creator of the universe and Lord testifies that He will set Jerusalem as a threshold of stumbling for all the surrounding peoples, so that whoever touches its threshold will be intoxicated and fall, or if the threshold itself falls upon him from whom it is touched. But even Judas, besieged Jerusalem, is captured by the Gentiles, and in passing into their fellowship, he will be compelled to besiege his own metropolis. Moreover, not only will the Lord make Jerusalem a threshold of stumbling for all peoples, but He will also make it a stone of burden for all peoples, and whoever wants to lift it will be torn apart by laceration. For all the kingdoms of the earth will gather against Jerusalem. It is a custom in the cities of Palestine, and even to this day throughout all Judaea, that in villages, towns, and fortresses, large stones of great weight are placed, for young men to exercise themselves and lift them according to their strength. Some lift them up to their knees, some up to their waist, some up to their shoulders and head, and some even above their heads, demonstrating the magnitude of their strength with straight and joined hands. In the citadel of the Athenians, near the statue of Minerva, I saw a bronze sphere of immense weight, which I could hardly move due to my own weakness. When I asked what it was for, I was told by the city's inhabitants that it was used to test the strength of athletes, and no one was allowed to participate in the games until their ability to lift the weight was determined. Therefore, the meaning is this: I will set Jerusalem as a heavy stone for all nations to lift. Indeed, they will lift it up, and, according to the variety of their strength, they will devastate it; but it is necessary that, while it is being lifted up, in the very exertion and elevation of the weight, the heaviest stone leaves some crack or scrape on the bodies that are lifting it. The Church can be interpreted in this way, that all persecutors who have fought against the house of the Lord will be intoxicated by the same cup with which Jeremiah offers to drink to all nations, so that they may drink, and be intoxicated, and fall, and vomit, and go mad (Jer. XXV). I know that in a time of persecution many of our people are being forced to fight against the Church; but whoever desires to lift this burden, will indeed lift it, and with his own hands will support it, for he will not go unpunished, with the sword of the Lord fighting against him. The stone of burden, which we have interpreted as best we could, the Seventy have translated as a stone trampled on by all nations. Whoever tramples on it (that is, Jerusalem) will be mocked. The meaning is clear, that Jerusalem is to be trampled upon and mocked by both enemy nations and persecutors as they please. But the higher meaning is better and truer. We will briefly explain each point, so that we may finally come to the conclusion, lest if we have written at length, the mind of the Reader be confused by the obscurity of events and the length of the discourse.

12:4

(Vers. 4.) On that day, says the Lord, I will strike every horse with dismay, and its rider with madness; but upon the house of Judah I will open my eyes, and all the horses of the peoples I will strike with blindness. LXX: On that day, says the Lord Almighty, I will strike every horse with astonishment, and its rider with madness; but upon the house of Judah I will open my eyes, and all the horses of the peoples I will strike with blindness. At that time (for that is what 'day' signifies) when Jerusalem is besieged, so that even Judas is compelled to besiege it, the Lord will strike down all the enemies' horses, both carnally and spiritually, causing them to be amazed, so that all who see them being struck down will be astonished, and their riders, under the weight of their misfortune, will be driven to madness. And the Lord will open His eyes upon the house of Judah, who were being forced to do something against their own city, so that He may have mercy on them and make them worthy by His gaze and enlighten them by the light of His eyes. But He will strike down all the horses of the peoples with eternal blindness. We have already mentioned who the spiritually understanding horses are: The deceitful horse leads to salvation (Ps. 32:17). And: Some trust in chariots and some in horses (Ps. 20:8), and similar things to these. We have also called their riders, either demons or false teachers, who will all be amazed and proven to be foolish, so that they are shown to know nothing. But palpable darkness shall overwhelm them, such as when the firstborn of the Egyptians were struck down (Exod. 11). But the house of Judah, that is, the people who confess God, appears to be among the number of persecutors, broken by the anxieties of persecution and frightened by fear. The Lord will open His eyes to look upon many, saying to Himself: Look upon me and have mercy on me (Psalm 85:16), and may they deserve to hear: The Lord will be your eternal light (Isaiah 60). This is the crushing of a very heavy stone that the Lord threatens against His adversaries, who have attempted to raise up and trouble Jerusalem.

12:5

(Verse 5) And the leaders of Judah will say in their hearts: Let the inhabitants of Jerusalem be strengthened in the Lord their God. LXX: And the tribunes, that is, the commanders, will say in their hearts: Let us find for ourselves, those who dwell in Jerusalem, in the Almighty Lord their God. When the Lord opens His eyes upon Judah and strikes all the horses of the nations with blindness, the leaders of Judah, of whom it was said above, will be besieged against Jerusalem. They will make vows in their hearts, because they will not dare to speak freely, so that Jerusalem may overcome and Judah, defeated by the enemies, may conquer with its own citizens. For this reason, as we have said, let them be strengthened, and let them translate εὐρήσομεν ἑαυτοῖς as inveniemus nobis in Latin, as it is written in Hebrew Emsa LI (), which Aquila translated as καρτέρησον μοι, that is, comfort me, so that the meaning is: The chiliarchs, tribunes, and leaders of Judea will desire, and they will make their wishes in the secret place of the mind, that God may strengthen the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the Lord their God, and they may overcome their adversaries. According to the tropology, the apostles are the leaders and tribunes, and all the apostolic men and teachers who have been in charge of Christ's army, who would not find others for themselves except those who live in Jerusalem, in the vision of peace, and who live in the Lord Almighty their God. Among these leaders was the apostle Paul, who found Titus and Timothy, Luke and Silvanus: Peter also instructed Mark, the writer of the Gospel, and the other apostles who filled the whole world with their teaching and education, so that the inhabitants of Jerusalem would have disciples.

12:6-7

(Vers. 6, 7.) On that day, I will make the leaders of Judah like a fiery furnace among wood, and like a burning torch among hay. They will consume all the surrounding peoples to the right and to the left, and Jerusalem will be inhabited again in its own place, in Jerusalem. And the Lord will save the dwellings of Judah, just as in the beginning, so that the glory of the house of David and the pride of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be exalted over Judah. LXX: On that day, I will make the commanders of Judah like a flaming firepot among wood, and like a burning torch among straw, and they will devour all the peoples of the Lord around them, to the right and to the left, and Jerusalem will still be inhabited in its own place, and the Lord will save the dwellings of Judah, just as at the beginning, so that the glory of the house of David may not be magnified, and the pride of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be lifted up over Judah. When the leaders of Judah said in their hearts: Strengthen me, Lord, those who were oppressed in Jerusalem, so that those who were overcome by their own weakness may overcome with your help. Then I, the Lord Almighty their God, will make the leaders of Judah like a fiery furnace in wood, and like a torch in straw, to devour the adversaries with whom they were joined through feigned friendship. Let them devour from the right and from the left, and let them kill all the peoples around, so that Jerusalem may once again be inhabited in its place, and may not fear hostile attacks. Let the cities, towns, villages, and hamlets of the three tribes of Judaea, which were plundered and devastated, be restored as they were before being ravaged. And let not the royal house, and the distinguished and magnificent tribe of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem boast against the tribe of Judah, for it is ruled by its own authority, governed by its own counsel; but let them know that victory belongs to the Lord in both. Whether these things are according to history or they are future events, leaving the faith of the affairs to the judgment of the Lord, and to those who have received the sacred spirit of wisdom and truth from him. We say that during the time of the Church's persecution, the leaders and officers bearing the name of Christians, about whom we have spoken above, when the Lord brings peace to Jerusalem and destroys the adversary by the breath of His mouth, will be like a blazing furnace in the wood, devouring fruitless trees, and like torches in the straw, consuming whatever grain it does not have, and carried by every wind of doctrine, they will be handed over to the fire. And the princes of Judah and the officers at their right and left will devour those who refuse to walk in the middle of the road and do not know. To be excessive in wickedness, from which the people of God refrain, we will not turn to the right or to the left, but we will walk the straight path (Numbers 20). The right path is called frugality, which the Greeks call φειδολία (sparcity); the left path is luxury; the middle path is rectitude and frugality. Therefore, all those on the right path, to whom it is said: Do not be overly righteous (Ecclesiastes 7:17): and on the left, those who hear: The ways that turn to the left are perverse (Proverbs 4:27), the devouring flame will consume, and with the enemies defeated and removed, Jerusalem, that is the Church, will regain its former glory and be in its proper state, and the tents of Judah will be saved, while the gatherings of Christians scattered throughout the world, which we desire to leave like tents and tabernacles for the house that is not made by human hands, and for the heavenly Jerusalem. Therefore, the dwellings of the common people and everyone who is called by the name Christian, and who are considered in the public eye, received the old peace when the princes of the Churches were besieged and turned to flight, so that the masters and teachers do not think that it was due to their own teaching and wisdom, but that peace was restored to the Churches by the help of the Lord.

12:8

(Verse 8.) On that day, the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and there will be those among them who stumble on that day, like David. The house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. LXX: And on that day, the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and the one who is weak among them on that day will be like the house of David; and the house of David will be like the house of God, and the angel of the Lord before them. With Judah achieving victory, and the Lord restoring its tents as they were in the beginning, so that the royal house does not boast against the people, on that day and at that time, the Lord (whose help Judah will use to devour its adversaries on the right and on the left) will also protect the besieged Jerusalem; and things will change to such great happiness and blessedness, that the one who was considered lowly will be like a royal house; and the one who was from the royal house will be like a house of God, that is, like a messenger of the Lord and of angelic dignity before those who are saved at that time. According to the anagogy: The Lord will protect the inhabitants of the Church, with peace restored to the Churches after the most severe persecution, when it will also be adorned with the interpretation of its own name: for Jerusalem is expressed as the vision of peace. And blessed will be those who fought for the Church, and confessed the Lord in persecution: so that even the least among them, who may have sinned and offended in some way, should be placed in the order of masters: and let the masters who have kept their rank be like the house of God, and like the angel of the Lord; for this is what we strive for with all our effort, placed on earth, and sweating with various labors, so that we may be transformed into angelic glory.

12:9

(Verse 9) And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications. LXX: And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem, and I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of mercy. In that day, when the Lord protects the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Lord will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. But He will crush not for destruction, but for correction, so that they may cease to wage war against Jerusalem and begin to be of Jerusalem. For if He created all things out of nothing, He did not create them in order to destroy what He created; but so that through His mercy, those things which were created may be saved. Hence, in the book of Wisdom, which is attributed to Solomon (if anyone, however, is pleased to receive the book), we find it written: He created all things that they might exist, and the generations of the world might be preserved; and there will be no deadly poison for them (Wisdom 1). For just as the Lord came to seek what was lost and saved the human race, so he also destroyed the nations, because the nations were adversaries. Therefore it follows: I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and mercy. Concerning this grace, Paul also writes: The love of God has been poured out into our hearts (or yours) through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Rom. V, 5). And in the aforementioned volume it is contained: Who shall explore the things that are in heaven, unless you have given wisdom, and sent your Holy Spirit from on high? And thus the paths of those who are on earth have been corrected, and men have been taught what pleases you (Wisdom 9:16). And in Isaiah God speaks: I have given my Spirit upon you (Isaiah 42:1). And again, the same Scripture mentions: I have given my Spirit upon him (ibid). However, the word effusion implies a sense of abundance or generosity, as is evident in what we have said: 'The love of God has been poured out into our hearts' (Romans 5:5). And in another place, speaking as if in the person of God, it is said: 'I will pour out my Spirit on all people' (Joel 2:28). The Apostle also speaks of the spirit of grace in his letter to the Hebrews: 'How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?' (Hebrews 10:29). And the Holy Spirit is said to have different graces. And the greeting of the Apostle: Grace (he says) be multiplied unto you, and peace (I Tim. I, 1): that after he hath forgiven us our sins, then peace may by mercy follow. These things the Jews partly already accomplished, and more fully commemorate in the consummation of the world. But we understand and approve that they are daily fulfilled after the advent of Christ.

12:10

(Vers. 10.) And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as one grieves over a firstborn. LXX: And they shall look upon me, because they have insulted me; and they shall mourn over him with mourning, as over a dearest one; and they shall grieve with sorrow, as over a firstborn. The Hebrew letters Daleth and Res, that is, D and R, are similar and are distinguished only by a small mark. From which it happens that the same word, when read by different people, is translated differently. Let us give one example for the sake of understanding: And the clothing, he says, was a Linen Ephod (I Sam. II, 18), that is, a linen garment, for linum is called 'linen': hence, Baddim are called 'linen garments'. In the Hebrew and Latin language, some read Ephod Bar wrongly: for Bar can mean either 'son', 'bundle of grain', 'chosen', or 'curly'. What happened there due to an error in interpretation, we have also detected here. For if it is read as Dacaru (), it is understood to mean 'they pierced or nailed', but if the order is reversed, with the letters transposed, it is understood to mean 'they danced', as Racadu (). And the error arose due to the similarity of the letters. However, the beloved disciple John, who drew wisdom from the heart of the Lord and was a Hebrew among the Hebrews (John 19), did not greatly care about what the Greek letters contained; but he translated word for word, as he had read it in Hebrew, and said that it was fulfilled at the time of the Lord's passion. But if someone does not accept it, let him bear witness, from whom John has brought forth these words in the place of the Holy Scriptures: and when he does not find, he will be forced to accept the truth with ingratitude. But the Jews will mourn as over an only begotten and firstborn, signifying the same in the Lord Savior, both only begotten and firstborn. He is called only begotten, because of the nature's property: Firstborn, according to the Apostle, of those who rise from the dead (Colossians 1). For the only-begotten, most beloved, the Septuagint translated, about whom we read in the Gospel: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17). Then they will grieve for having crucified Him when they see Him reigning in glory. The word κατωρχήσαντο, among the Greeks, is composed not from illusion, but from dance, namely that they danced against the Lord as if in jest, when they said in jest and laughed: Ah! You who destroy the temple, and in three days rebuild it: save yourself, coming down from the cross (Matthew 15:29, 30). They were speaking these and other mocking words, and dancing with a certain madness and mockery.

12:11-12

(Verse 11, 12.) On that day there will be great lamentation in Jerusalem, like the lamentation of Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. And the land will mourn, family by family: the families of the house of David separately, and their women separately (for the Hebrew word Nese, that is, γυναῖκες, signifies both). The families of the house of Nathan separately, and their women separately. The families of the house of Levi separately, and their women separately. The families of the house of Shimei separately, and their women separately. All the remaining families, each family separately, and their women separately. LXX: In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning for a bitter fruit that is cut down in the field, and the land will mourn by tribes and tribes: the tribe of David separately, and their women separately; the tribe of the house of Judah separately, and their women separately; the tribe of the house of Nathan separately, and their women separately; the tribe of the house of Levi separately, and their women separately; the tribe of Simeon separately, and their women separately; all the remaining tribes separately, and their women separately. Adadremmon, for which LXX translated as Rhoonos, is a city near Jerusalem, which was once called by this name and is now called Maximianopolis in the field of Megiddo, where Josiah, a just king, was wounded by Pharaoh Nechao (2 Kings 23:29). It is on this occasion that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations, which are read in the Church, and the book of Chronicles testifies that he wrote them (2 Chronicles 35). Just as at that time, after wicked kings, all the people's hope was in Josiah, and when he was killed, a great mourning was stirred in the city, as we read in Hebrew: The spirit of our mouth, the Lord Christ, was taken captive in our sins, to whom we said: In your shadow we will live among the nations (Lamentations 4:20) (although others, according to spiritual understanding, relate this to the Lord Jesus). In the same way, with the crucified Savior, mourning will be renewed in Jerusalem, just as it once was in the city of Adadremmon, in the field of Megiddo. And what follows: Families and families, or tribes and tribes separately: the families of the house of David separately, and their wives or women separately. This signifies that in times of tribulation and mourning we should not be concerned with marriage and wedding ceremonies. Hence in Joel, when captivity was near, it is said to the Jews: Let the bridegroom come out of his chamber, and the bride out of her room (Joel 2:16). And with the flood approaching, Noah is commanded: Enter into the ark, you and your sons, and your wife, and the wives of your sons (Gen. VII, 1). And afterwards, when the flood had ended, it is said to him: Come out, you and your wife, and your sons, and their wives (Gen. VIII, 16), so that those who were separated in the ark during the impending danger could be restored to the world and serve the future generation and their children. And this not only happens in times of distress, but also in times of prayer: when we want to supplicate the Lord, as the Apostle says to the Corinthians: Do not defraud one another, unless perhaps by agreement for a limited time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer (I Cor. VII, 5). Therefore, now the three houses of David, and the three houses of Nathan, and the three houses of Levi, and the three houses of Semei, are separated from their wives: so that they may mourn the only-begotten and first-born Lord Jesus, of whom it was said: His blood be upon us, and upon our children (Matt. 27:25). In the royal house of David, the tribe of Judah is included. In the prophetic order, the house of Nathan is described. The house of Levi pertains to the priests, from whom the priesthood originated. In Semei, teachers are accepted: for from this tribe swarms of masters have sprung up. He is silent about the other tribes, which do not have any privilege of dignity. In that which he says, 'All the other tribes, each tribe separately, and their wives separately, he includes them all without naming them. Let us say, according to the Septuagint, it is called a grove, not one tree of pomegranates, that is, of the pomegranate tree, but a place planted with these trees, about which the Bridegroom says, according to the spiritual understanding, in the Song of Songs: I went down to see in the generative stream if the vineyard had blossomed, if the pomegranates had blossomed (Song of Songs 6:10).' For the Savior descended to the stream of this world and its troubled waters, from which even in the type of him Elias is said to have drunk (III Kings 17): so that after the flowers of the vineyard and the fruit of the pomegranate tree, he might receive both, and, inebriating his Church, be heard by her, saying: 'You will give me to drink the wine of aromatics, of pomegranates of my orchard.' (Song of Solomon 8:2). Such a potion not only drives away the heat of the stomach, but is also said to heal a corrupted bowel and benefit the other viscera. Nothing is more beautiful than this apple; in its redness, it signifies the modesty of the Church: in the order of its seeds, it represents the degrees and members of the whole body, distributed through individual functions. When the Savior did not find fruit on such a vineyard and on the apple tree, he will say: Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit (John 15:2). And in another place, John the Baptist proclaims: And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees (Matthew 3:10). Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Luke 3:9). In the gathering of vices or evils, when on the day of judgment all the names of dignities will be set aside, and that which is written will be fulfilled: Behold the man and his works (Matthew 3, Luke 3); and the chaff separated from the wheat, there will be great mourning not in another place, but in Jerusalem. For indeed the plague and judgment will begin with the saints, and kings and priests and prophets and teachers will strike their chests with their hands when they see that the most beautiful evils have been cut down, and the one whom they had pierced reigning in the majesty of the Father and his own (1 Peter 4).

13:1

(Chapter 13, Verse 1) On that day there will be a flowing fountain for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for cleansing from sin and impurity. LXX: On that day there will be an open fountain for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for transformation and purification. Concerning this fountain, which is said to flow out from the house of David, it is written in the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 47) that the fountain shall burst forth in the house of the Lord and become a river, which is called the water of forgiveness and indulgence; and it shall flow to the desert and the sea, which is now called the Dead Sea, and it shall give life to all kinds of fish, and trees of various kinds shall grow on both banks, bearing abundant fruit every month. And so that we may know that the house, that is, the temple of God, is itself the house of David, which in Ezekiel is called the house of God, and in Zechariah is called the house of David: this fountain, coming forth from the house of God, is brought back to the Church and to the knowledge of the Scriptures, so that we may all be reborn in Christ, and in the water of baptism our sins may be forgiven to us. Nothing is more unclean than a menstruating woman, who makes whatever she touches unclean: and yet these impurities of Christ are washed away by baptism. For the ablution of sins and menstruation, the LXX translated it as transference and sprinkling: that we may go from the Law to the Gospel, from the letter to the spirit, from the shadow to the truth, that the future and eternal may succeed the brief and present. Moreover, sprinkling signifies the blood of the Lord, about which Peter the Apostle also speaks: Grace to you and peace be multiplied, in obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ (I Peter 1:2). And again: Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter, 18), with which whoever is sprinkled and redeemed, can say with the prophet: You shall sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: You shall wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow (Psalm 50, 9).

13:2

(V2.) And it shall be in that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will destroy the names of the idols from the land, and they shall be remembered no more; and I will also remove the false prophets and the unclean spirit from the land. LXX: And it shall be in that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will destroy the names of the idols from the land, and their memory shall no longer exist; and the false prophets and the unclean spirit I will remove from the land. On that day that is frequently mentioned, all idols will be removed from the land, including those idols of which the Psalmist says: The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands (Ps. 115:4), so that there may be no other religion except the name of the Christians, and concerning which it is written in the prophet: Wail, you sculptures, in Jerusalem and in Samaria. For as I have done to Samaria and its idols, so I will do to Jerusalem and its idols (Jer. XXX). Whether these idols, of which the Apostle speaks: Now the Spirit manifestly saith: That in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils, Speaking lies in hypocrisy and having their conscience seared (into idolatry) (I Tim. IV, 1, 2). For just as idols are made by the hand of the craftsman, so the perverse doctrine of heretics, whatever it may simulate, turns into an idol and causes Antichrist to be adored in place of Christ. For pseudo-prophets, in Hebrew the prophets are absolutely called prophets, that is, Nebim, which also means pseudo-prophets; but nevertheless even the priests of idols among the Gentiles are called prophets.

13:3

(Verse 3) And it will be, when someone prophesies further, his father and mother, who bore him, will say to him: You shall not live, because you have spoken falsehood in the name of the Lord. And his father and mother, who bore him, will pierce him when he prophesies. (Septuagint: If a man prophesies further, his father and mother, who bore him, will say to him: You shall not live, because you have spoken falsehood in the name of the Lord. And his father and mother, who bore him, will bind him when he prophesies.) With the names of the idols removed from the earth, and the false prophets, and the unclean spirit who spoke through them, if anyone should dare to go beyond and prophesy in the name of the Lord, immediately his father and mother will forget their parents, in order to hold onto the service of God, and they will pronounce a sentence of death against their own son. And the minds of all, so devoted to God, will be so pure that there will be no need for a public judgement; rather, let those who are such perish by the judgement of their relatives. Therefore, because we have said this, they will fight against him, which is the same word in Hebrew as above, Dacaru (). So in what way did the seventy interpreters use the word κατωρχήσαντο there, that is, they insulted or mocked him, and to use the word word for word, jumped against him; and here they have translated the word συμποδιοῦσιν, that is, they will hinder: when both Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotius have also translated it there and here in the same way, they have nailed it. But rightly the one who falsely prophesies is called a man, as the Apostle says: For while there are rivalries and contentions among you, are you not carnal and walking according to man (I Cor. III, 3)? And in the Psalms: But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes (Psalm 82:7). And those who are unworthy of the spirit of God shall deserve to hear: My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are carnal (Genesis 6:3).

13:3-6

(Vers. 3 seqq.) And on that day, the prophets will be confused, each one from his own vision, when he prophesies, and they will not cover themselves with a sackcloth to deceive. Instead, they will say, 'I am not a prophet, I am a farmer, for Adam is my example from my youth.' And it will be said to him, 'What are these wounds in the middle of your hands?' And he will say, 'I have been wounded in the house of those who love me.' LXX: And on that day, the prophets will be confused, each one from his own vision, when he prophesies, and they will wear a hairy garment with which they have deceived, and they will say, 'I am not a prophet, because a man has begotten me from my youth,' and I will say to him, 'What are these wounds in the middle of your hands?' And he will say: To whom have I been struck in the house of the one who loves me? Whoever attempts to prophesy and is condemned by the judgment of his parents, and approves the falsehood of his prophecy by contrary outcomes, he will be confounded by his vision, and he will no longer be covered with a hairshirt in order to lie. For this was the attire of the prophets, that when they called the people to repentance, they would be clothed in a hairshirt. Therefore, it is commanded to Isaiah to take the sackcloth from his loins, and to walk naked (Isa. XX): for it is not at all a time of repentance, but of imminent captivity. Therefore, this false prophet will by no means receive the prophet's garb, so as not to deceive the simple under a foreign guise and covering. Rather, he will find delight in tilling the earth and prove himself dedicated to agriculture, subjecting himself to the divine sentence that was spoken to Adam: 'Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread' (Gen. III, 17-18). And when he presents himself as born for this purpose, to eat his bread in the sweat of his face, another will ask him, and say: What do these wounds mean to you, and these wounds which are in the midst of your hands? And there is meaning: Why do you adhere to the gallows? Why are your hands pierced with nails? What have you committed, that you should submit to this punishment and torture? And he will answer, and say: I received these wounds and these lashes, condemned by the judgment of my parents, and of those who did not hate me, but loved me. And in the meantime, with falsehood dispelled, truth will prevail, so that even he who is punished for his own fault admits that he has suffered rightly. The Hebrews have explained this, which is written: 'They will not cover themselves with a sackcloth to lie,' saying that they will not be filled with the demonic spirit, whom we read in Isaiah as 'hairy,' so that by this occasion they may not lie about the deceptive appearance of God's words in themselves, or deny the Lord: For they lie and deny in their external appearance, as they interpret.

13:7-9

(Verse 7 and following) "I will raise up a spear against my shepherd, and against the man who is my associate," says the Lord of hosts. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones. And they shall be in all the land, says the Lord, two parts in it shall be cut off and perish, and the third part shall be left. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them as gold is tested. He will call my name, and I will answer him: I will say, 'You are my people,' and he will say, 'The Lord is my God.' Zechariah: Sword, rise against my shepherd, and against the man who is my associate, says the Lord Almighty. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will raise my hand against the shepherds. On that day, says the Lord, two-thirds will be cut off and perish, and one-third will be left. I will bring the one-third through the fire, and I will refine them as one refines silver, and I will test them as one tests gold. He himself will call upon my name, and I will answer him; I will say, 'This is my people,' and he will say, 'The Lord is my God.' Regarding the sword that the LXX translated as 'ῥομφαία' in Hebrew as 'Areb,' we found that Aquila and Symmachus translated it as 'μάχαιρα,' meaning sword or blade. And as for the phrase we translated as 'cohaerent mihi,' which means 'adhering to me,' Aquila interpreted it as 'contribulem meum,' meaning 'my fellow countryman,' and Symmachus translated it as 'populi mei,' meaning 'my people' in Hebrew 'Amithi.' The LXX translated it as 'civem ejus,' which means 'his fellow citizen,' and Theodotio translated it as 'proximum ejus,' meaning 'his neighbor.' At the end of the sentence, they read 'Jod' instead of 'Vau,' which are only different in size. If 'Jod' is read, it signifies 'my.' If 'Vau' is read, it signifies 'his.' But I marvel at certain individuals who wish to diminish this prophecy (which the evangelist Matthew related to the Lord and Savior after his disciples fled during his passion, and then he said it was fulfilled) with allegorical interpretations, and while they desire to appear to know more than others, they do not hold to the rule of truth. For the evangelist Matthew reports: Then Jesus said to them: all of you will be offended because of me this night. For it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. And again: All this has happened so that the Scriptures of the Prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples, leaving him, fled (Matt. XXVI, 31 et seq.). Nor should it be thought that this testimony is taken from another place, because in the Gospel God says of himself that he is the shepherd who is struck, and in the present place, we read that it is commanded with sword and spear: Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. This is a sword and this is a spear, and a javelin, from which in the twenty-first Psalm the Lord speaks to the Father: Deliver my soul from the sword; and my only one from the hand of the dog (Psalm 21:12). Of this javelin it is also written in the prophet Amos: They shall all die by the sword, the sinners of the land (Amos 9:10). Which cannot be taken literally: for many sinners perish in shipwreck, others by poison, these are suffocated by water, those consumed by fire. But with this sword and this spear, all sinners perish (or are punished), and the dark-skinned Ethiopians, of whom Zephaniah testifies with sacred mouth, saying: But you also, Ethiopians, will be killed by my sword (Zeph. 1:12). After the good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep (John 10:15), who spoke to the Father: Those whom you struck, they pursued, and they added to the pain of my wounds (Ps. 68:27), he was struck by the will of the Father, and the man who is united with God who said: I am in the Father, and the Father is in me (John 13:10), hung on the gibbet, and said: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit (Luke 23:46): immediately the sheep were scattered, the whole multitude of believers in Christ. And the Lord stretched out his hand, as we read in the Septuagint, to the shepherds, whom many of the Jewish rulers interpret as evil. But as it is written in Hebrew, to the children, to whom the Lord said in the Gospel: Do not be afraid, little flock (Luke, XII). And in Isaiah: Behold, I and the children, or little ones, whom God has given me (Isaiah VIII, 18). And there were two parts in all the land of the Jews and the Gentiles, who perished and failed together: for in his suffering, the voice of the Psalmist is fulfilled, saying: Save me, O Lord, for the godly one is gone (Psalm XI, 1). And: All have turned aside; they have together become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one (Ps. XIII, 3). As the nations and the Jews were perishing, the third part of the world, that is, the third people of the Christians, suddenly increased. And it says beautifully: A third part shall be left in it, that is, on the earth: because among the Jews and the nations, those who have confessed the Lord are alone reserved for the life and habitation of the earth. Moreover, the third part, so as not to be delicate and secure in confession, is tested as silver and gold are tested by fire, which the Lord desires to burn in believers (Luke 12), and which Paul desires to fervently burn (Romans 12). And so the apostles, baptized in the fire of the Spirit of the Lord (Acts 2), speak in the psalm: For you have tested us, O God, you have tried us as silver is tried (Psalm 65:10, 11). And after a little while: We passed through fire and water, and you led us into refreshment. And in another place it is said to the believer: If you pass through fire, the flame will not burn you: because I am with you (Isaiah 43:2). But the fire does not consume, and the flame does not devour, because it is the voice of the Lord who cuts off the flame of fire (Psalm 29:7). When these little ones have been tested in this way, upon whom the Lord has turned his hand, and through their calling the whole multitude of nations has believed, then the people of believers will call Christ by his name, and with him saying: You are my people, the people will respond: You are the Lord my God. The Jews refer these things to Christ: and they contend that they will happen in the last time; but the difference between us and them is that we say that they have already been fulfilled, while they mention things that are still to be fulfilled.

14:1-2

(Chapter 14, verses 1, 2.) Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when your spoils will be divided in your midst. And I will gather all nations to Jerusalem for battle, and the city shall be taken, and the houses plundered, and the women violated. And half of the city shall go into captivity, but the rest of the people shall not be removed from the city. LXX: Behold, the days of the Lord are coming, and your spoils will be divided within you. And I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken, and the houses plundered, and the women defiled. And half of the city shall go into captivity, but the rest of my people shall not perish from the city. Those whom the Lord threatens to come will divide the spoils of Jerusalem in its midst, and everything that is included in the prophetic discourse, these are the ones about whom we also read in Isaiah: The day of the Lord, the day of incurable fury and wrath, to make the whole earth a desolation and to remove sinners from it (Isaiah 13:9). But how necessary will it be for its spoils to be divided in its midst? This often happens, that what has been suddenly seized in the city is divided outside in the field or in the wilderness, lest perhaps the enemies come upon it. However, such a weight of evils will fall upon them, that the spoils will be divided among themselves as a means of securing victory. Not only will Jerusalem be captured, inciting all nations against it in battle, but the houses of those who dwell in Jerusalem will be laid waste, and the women violated, causing sorrow for their husbands and masters. They will be unable to protect their homes from pillage or their wives from the lust of the enemy, as is written elsewhere: 'Those who gather within you shall fall by the sword and your sons shall be dashed to pieces before your eyes; your homes shall be plundered and your wives violated' (Isaiah 13). Nothing can be found more cruel or wretched, where out of fear for their own lives they dare not defend the safety of their children or the modesty of their wives. This very thing, the prophet Amos, speaking against the impious priest Amaziah, says: Your wife will commit adultery in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, and your land will be measured out with a measuring line (Amos 7:17). And all these things will happen to the people of Judah: Because the nations have raged, and the peoples have planned in vain. The kings of the earth have risen up, and the rulers have gathered together as one against the Lord and against His Christ (Psalm 2:1-2). He who mocked and scorned them, and in his fury troubled them, to the extent that even the Apostle, seeing that the years appointed for repentance had already passed, and yet they persisted in denial, they who killed the Lord and persecuted the prophets and apostles, said: 'Wrath has come upon them to the end.' (I Thess. II, 16). Josephus, who wrote the history of the Jews, recounts that they endured all of this and much greater things than what we read in the prophets. Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote the Lives of the Caesars in thirty volumes from the time of Augustus until the death of Domitian, also describes how the middle part of the city was captured, while the rest of the population remained in the city. At that time and at other times, it is confirmed that the northern and lower part of the city was captured, but the hill of the temple, and Zion, where the citadel was, remained intact. The Jews claim that these events will be fulfilled under Gog: some claim it happened during the time of the Macedonians and Egyptians, and from various other peoples. Let us explain the truth of the Lord's teachings, which have been written down, in our time.

14:3-4

(Verse 3, 4.) And the Lord shall go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And the mount of Olives shall be split in two, one part to the east and the other to the sea, by a very great abyss. We should understand worthy of God the things which are said in the holy Scriptures in a human and carnal way, and which are contained in them. Otherwise, when the Apostle speaks: Who is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). And again: To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God (1 Timothy 1:17). And it is written in the Gospel: No one has ever seen God: the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him (John 1:18). And again: Not that anyone has seen God, except the one who is from the Father (Ibid., 6): just as we understand his anger and repentance, and his soul, and his hands, and his feet, and his belly, and his eyes, and the other members of his body, according to the diversity of causes and interpretations of the senses: so we also understand this which is written, The Lord will come forth, and will fight, in accordance with what we read in Habakkuk: You went forth for the salvation of your people, for salvation with your anointed (Habakkuk 3:13). And in Micah: For behold, the Lord will come out of his place, and come down and tread upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will burst open (Micah 1:3-4). Also in Isaiah: The Lord of hosts will go out and fight against the nations, and stir up zeal, and cry out against his enemies with strength (Isaiah 42:13). Therefore, God will come out of his place when he is compelled to break his peace, meekness, and clemency for the sake of correcting sinners. Although he is naturally sweet, he becomes bitter due to our fault, that is, he becomes bitter not for himself, but for those who are suffering, for whom bitter torments are. He who speaks elsewhere through the prophet: I am God, and I do not change (Malachi III, 6). And it is said to him: But you are the same, and you remain (Psalm CI, 28). And in the letter of James: With whom there is no change (James I, 17): now he goes out and fights as in the day of battle, when he submerged Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and fought for the people of Israel (Exodus XIV). And his feet will stand on those whom he has shown mercy to, and they will not be moved at all, so that it can be said again of him: And the Lord will sound the trumpet; and he will walk with the threat of his anger (Zechariah IX). He will not walk, as the sun is already setting, and darkness comes after midday, which we read that Adam did (Gen. III). And when he stands, he will not stand in the valley and low places, but on a mountain, which does not have fruitless trees and a barren forest; but where olive groves are born, which nourish eternal light, and weaknesses are dissolved, and rest is given to the weary. And the Mount of Olives itself, on which the feet of the Lord stand, is opposite Jerusalem and to the East, where the sun of justice rises, and it is planted with those olive trees of which it is said: Your children are like young olive trees, around your table (Ps. CXXVII, 3). Whose middle part will be divided towards the east, in which there are trees planted by the nations, of which one speaks: But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God (Ps. LI, 10). And the other middle part will be divided towards the west and the sea, with a very deep precipice, which is the circumcised people, to whom God speaks through the prophet: What has my beloved done in my house, committing abomination? Will vows and holy flesh take away evils from you (Jer. XI, 15); or will you escape in them? She, beloved in the house of God, committed abomination, that she might crucify the Son of God, and [said] that you, O Lord, were called the shady and wooded olive-tree, and that your branches were useless, which were broken from the good root, that we might be grafted in their place. And consider the secrets of the Scriptures, when (rather, how) the middle part, which leans towards the west, is dashed upon by salt and bitter waves, not simply said to be in the sea, but in a steep abyss of the sea, which also Micah speaks of: 'I will uncover its stones in the valley' (undoubtedly Jerusalem), 'and will reveal its foundations' (Micah 1:6). These things, as we have said in very difficult and obscure places, due to the weakness of our strength. However, the Jews following the letter of the western alphabet, try to show that the Lord is standing on the Mount of Olives, and that the mountain itself is divided into two parts, so that at the beginning of one part there is a tear against the east, and the other part stretches towards the west: and in the middle of a very steep valley, one part is divided to the north, the other to the south.

14:5

(Verse 5) And the middle of the mountain will be separated to the north, and its middle to the south. And you will flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to the next, and you will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of King Oshea of Judah, and the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. LXX: And the middle part of the mountain will incline to the north, and its middle part to the south. And the valley of my mountains will be closed off, and the valley of the mountains will reach Asael. And it will be filled as it was filled from the face of the earthquake in the days of King Oshea of Judah, and the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. Therefore, as we have said, you will flee, which the seventy and the other interpreters have translated as 'will be blocked' or 'will be filled'. And as we have stated, because the valley of the mountains will be joined up to the next one; for the next one, the seventy translators have rendered it as Asael. Aquila put the Hebrew word Asel, using the letter 'e' instead of 'i'. Theodotion used the extended form, Azel. Only Symmachus translated it as 'the next one', whom we have also followed. Let us say in a paraphrastic manner how the things that are written can come to pass: When the mountain of Olivet has been broken by a large chasm, so that one part of the chasm looks towards the East and the other towards the West, suddenly, in the very chasm itself, high cliffs on both sides will break away, and another chasm will be formed towards the North and another towards the South, and a square cliff will be made, so that the chasm stretches in four directions, towards the East and the West, the North and the South. And you will flee, he says, to the valley that is between the temple and Zion. For these two mountains, the temple and Zion, are called God's mountains; because that valley of the Mount of Olives, which is surrounded by steep mountains on both sides, will extend to the mountain of the temple, which is holy. However, the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah, is mentioned from that time, when Uzziah, who is also called Azariah in another name, attempted to claim the priesthood for himself and was struck with leprosy on his forehead (2 Chronicles 26), which we read about in the beginning of Amos (Amos 1): The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake (Isaiah 1). Finally, after this wicked king died, at whose impiety the whole world was shaken, Isaiah saw a great vision, which he interwove into his book. Let us now turn to the spiritual interpretation. After the Mount of Olives has been separated by the calling of the Gentiles to the East and the rejection of the Jews, there will again be another division of the North and the South. The North will join the West, the South to the Eastern regions; Circumcision will stand to the left, the Christian people to the right. The Church speaks of these two winds: 'Arise, O North wind, and come, O South wind' (Canticles 4:16), so that when the cold wind of the North, which represents the devil, retreats, the warm wind of the South, which the bride seeks, may come. She asks: 'Where do you feed, where do you rest at noon?' (Ibid. 1:16). Concerning this, Habakkuk speaks mystically: 'God will come from Teman' (Habakkuk 3:3), for which it is written in Hebrew: 'God from the South,' that is, from the fullest light. From which the Psalmist elsewhere exclaims: You illuminate wonderfully from the eternal mountains (Psalm 76). But when there is such a great division of two peoples in the whole world, that some are to the East and South, that is, to the right: others to the North and West, that is, to the left, then whoever is holy will flee to the valley of the mountains of God, of which we have spoken above, the temple and Zion, namely the two Testaments: because that whirlpool which before was of both mountains, extends up to Asael, that is, up to the house of God, which is near paradise, and heavenly Jerusalem, and the holy mountain, where the temple is situated. And just as at that time when under King Osias a violent earthquake terrified the hearts of mortals and scattered them in all directions, so the separation of the two peoples and again the society of believers in one faith will rest in a reconcilable place between two mountains: because both the old and the new Covenant are joined together. But what is said, 'up to Asael,' that is, 'up to the nearest,' signifies this, that indeed the two Instruments of the Law and the Gospel are joined together, but in such a way that they are more neighboring than united: for we have lost many things of the old Law, and have received the new grace. But when this has been accomplished by perfect reason, then the Lord my God will come, he says, and all the saints with him. But if we desire what we have said, you will flee, pursuing that which other interpreters have rendered, it will be closed off, or the valley of their mountains will be filled. We will say that the coming of the Savior Lord, separating two peoples, will close off and fill that chasm which divided the two peoples, so that they may walk on a level path towards each other.

14:6-7

(Vers. 6, 7.) And it shall come to pass in that day, there shall be no light, but cold and frost. And there shall be one day, which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, and in the evening time there shall be light. LXX: In that day there shall be no light, but cold and frost shall be one day, and that day shall be known to the Lord: neither day nor night, and in the evening there shall be light. Clearly it is preached about the second coming of the Savior, about whom even John speaks in his Apocalypse: Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also who pierced him (Apoc. I, 7). And the Lord in the Gospel pronounces that the Son of Man will come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (Matthew XXIV). He will come with clouds, that is, with angels, who are ministers of the Spirit, and are sent for various tasks, and with prophets and apostles, of whom it is written: Your truth reaches to the clouds (Psalm XXXV, 6). And when the day of His coming shall be fulfilled, there will be no light, but cold and frost, with the love of all growing cold, and due to the multitude of evils that are to come, everyone will grow cold, and those who lose the warmth of their former faith. But after all the sinners have contracted their cold and frost, there will be one day and eternal: neither light nor darkness, day and night succeeding; but the Lord himself will be the light of all: of whom Isaiah says more clearly: There will be no sun for you in the light of day, nor will the rising of the moon illuminate you at night; but the Lord will be your eternal light, and your God will be your glory (Isaiah 60:19). He also shouts in another place to Jerusalem: Arise, shine, Jerusalem; for your light has come, and the glory of your God has risen upon you. For behold, darkness and gloom shall cover the earth upon the peoples: but upon you the Lord shall arise, and his glory shall be seen upon you. And kings shall walk in the light of you, and nations in the splendor of you (Verse 1 and following). If darkness and gloom shall cover the earth upon the peoples, how then shall the nations walk again in the splendor of the Lord? But those nations shall be in darkness which frost and chill shall have contracted: and they shall walk in the light of the Lord, who have followed kings, apostles and prophets, of whom it is written: The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord (Prov. XXI, 1). Finally, at the time of evening, that is, the darkness and sadness of all sins, there will be light for the saints, and it will be a single and eternal day, which, if it will be known by the Lord (for He cannot be ignorant of what He created), it must be considered how He says in the Gospel that neither the angels nor the Son will know that day, except the Father alone (Matthew 24).

14:8

(Verse 8.) And it shall be in that day, living waters shall come out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea; in summer and in winter it shall be. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth.\n\nLXX: In that day living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the first sea and half of them toward the last sea; in summer and in spring it shall be so; and the Lord shall be king over all the earth.\n\nAt that time (for this refers to the day that is known to the Lord alone, in which there will be no succession of light and darkness; but there will be perpetual light, as it is written in the Apocalypse: And the city shall have no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the Lord God giveth it light (Rev. 21:23))), living waters shall come forth from Jerusalem, of which we have discussed previously, presenting the testimony of Ezekiel, of which half shall go toward the eastern sea, which the Greek books call the Asphaltic Lake, commonly known as the Dead Sea, because nothing can live in its waters. And the middle part leads to the farthest sea, which leads to Egypt, and it makes the shores of Palestine. In summer, he says, and in winter it will be so, that these waters which flow out from Jerusalem will not be frozen by the winter's cold, nor will they be dried up by the excessive heat of summer: although they have changed the springtime of winter, which does not fit the distinction of summer. And when the life-giving waters have entered both seas, and have softened the bitter waters with a sweet river: then the Lord will be king over all the earth. The water that comes forth from Jerusalem, that is, from the Church, indicates the teaching of the Savior: For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:3); according to what is written elsewhere: The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Ibid., 11:9). The middle part of these waters shall go to the Eastern Sea, to the people of the Circumcision, who were chosen in the apostles and through the apostles; and the middle part to the Western Sea, so that those who sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob may come from the East and the West. Certainly, let us understand the ancient Testament and the new Testament as the Eastern Sea and the Western Sea, which, unless it is sweetened by the river of the Savior and His spiritual understanding, is very bitter; with the letter dying, and the spirit giving life (Matthew 8). And what follows: In summer and in winter they shall be, is understood the living waters that come forth from Jerusalem, so that even in peace and in persecutions these living waters may not cease to flow. Whether because the Seventy translated it thus, or because in summer and in spring it will be as we say, during that time there will be no winter, but only spring and everlasting summer, when the voice of the turtledove will be heard in our land, and the fig tree will bring forth its ripening fruit, and the vineyards will flourish, and winter will pass away, and the rain will cease, and it will leave for itself (Song of Songs 2). During that time, spring will be necessary, because the flowers will appear in our land so that we may celebrate Easter and Pentecost, during which we pass from earthly things to heavenly things, and offer all our fruits to God. In the winter, the end of the season is the beginning of spring; in Pentecost, the beginning of summer, when we offer the labors of our hands and the fruits to God. Concerning this summer and everlasting spring, the righteous speaks to the Lord: 'You have created the dawn and the sun, you have shaped the summer and the spring' (Psalm 73:16, 17). Then the Lord will be king over all the earth, when we say: 'The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice' (Psalm 97:1). And again: 'Tell it among the nations, the Lord reigns.' For indeed, He has established the course of the earth, which shall not be moved (Ps. XCV, 10). But the true understanding of the teaching of the Savior regarding the living water will be known by those who drink it and hear the Savior preaching: If anyone drinks of the water that I will give him, it shall become in him a fountain of living water, springing up unto eternal life (John IV, 14). And again: Whoever believes in Me (as the Scripture has said), out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (John VII, 38). For just as one who drinks of his teaching will have within him a living fountain, so one who believes in him, according to what is contained in the words of Scripture, rivers of living water will flow out of his belly. Many refer the living waters to baptism, which are to be given to those thirsting in spring and summer, that is, in Easter and Pentecost, when what is written will be fulfilled: 'Be cleansed, become pure' (Isaiah 1:16).

14:9-11

(Verse 9 and following). In that day there will be one Lord, and his name will be one: and all the land will return to the desert from the hill of Remmon to the South of Jerusalem: and it will be exalted, and it will be inhabited in its place, from the Benjamin gate to the place of the former gate, to the corner gate: and from the Tower of Ananeel to the king's winepresses, and they will dwell in it, and there will no longer be a curse, but Jerusalem will sit securely. LXX: In that day there will be one Lord, and his name will be one: encircling all the land, and the desert from Gabaa to Remmon to the South of Jerusalem: But Rama will remain in place, from the Benjamin gate to the first gate, to the corner gate, and to the tower of Anamael, to the king's winepresses they will dwell in it, and there will no longer be a curse, and Jerusalem will dwell confidently. The destruction of the city of Jerusalem, and the flowing forth of the waters from its midst, which flow to both seas, the Jews and the Judaizing Christians promise to themselves in the last times, when circumcision will again be practiced, and victims will be sacrificed, and all the precepts of the Law will be observed, so that Christians become not Jews, but Jews become Christians. On that day, they say, when Christ will sit in Jerusalem, golden and adorned, reigning, there will be no idols nor diverse worship of divinity, but there will be one Lord, and all the earth will return to solitude, that is, to its ancient state. And he sets forth the names of the places from which place to which place Jerusalem is to be built: from the hill Remmon (for this is what Gabaa means, where the Maligranati tree is) to the southern region of Jerusalem. And what follows: However, Rama will remain in its place, which Aquila and others have better interpreted to mean, it will be exalted. For Rama means exaltation, according to that prophetic and gospel saying: A voice was heard in Rama, that is, it sounded on high (Matthew 2:18). Therefore, Jerusalem will be exalted and rebuilt in its original place, from the Gate of Benjamin to the Gate called the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Ananeel (not as the Greeks and Latins wrongly read it as Anamael) to the Winepresses of the King, which in Hebrew is written Ammelech (or, according to some, Amalech). And it is said that they will dwell in it, that is, in Jerusalem, and there will no longer be any curse: no hostile attack, no fear; but Jerusalem will sit or be inhabited in eternal peace and rest. The Jews dream literally and our chiliasts, who desire to hear again: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28), and for the sake of continence of this life and brief fasting, they promise themselves onions, and vulvas, and the birds of Phasis, and the attagen, not the Ionic, but the Jewish ones, concerning which the Lord can truly say: My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh (Gen. 6:3). For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh (Galatians. V, 17). And let not the book of Revelation (Chapter XX) be opposed to us, for it must also be interpreted spiritually. But we shall interpret the heavenly Jerusalem as the Church, which, though walking in the flesh, does not live according to the flesh, whose citizenship is in heaven (Philippians. III). For when the Lord Jesus shall reign over all the earth, of whom the Holy Spirit speaks to the Father through the Prophet: O God, give Your judgment to the king, and Your justice to the king's son (Psalm. LXXI, 1): then there will be one Lord, of whom it is written: Know that the Lord Himself is God (Deuteronomy. IV, 35): And His name will be one, with all false religion trampled underfoot, according to what the Prophet sings: O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is your name in all the earth (Psalm. VIII, 1)! And again: You have magnified your holy name above all (Psalm 137:3). And elsewhere: As is your name, O God, so is your praise unto the ends of the earth (Psalm 48:11); of which Habakkuk also speaks: The earth is full of his praise (Habakkuk 3:5). Of the glory of his name, God himself speaks: Apart from me, you will not know God, and besides my name, which is magnified above all (Isaiah 44:8). Then all the earth will return, in which the Jews dwelt up to the desert, that is, up to the people of the Gentiles, which was formerly deserted and did not have knowledge of the Law: from Geba to Rimmon, that is, from the hill to the high place, for we ascend from the earth and the desert to the hills, and from the hills to the mountains. And the bridegroom in the Song of Songs passes over the smaller hills and leaps upon the tall mountains (Song 1), of which it is written: He makes the mountains skip like deer (Psalm 104). But if we wish to understand the Remmon, which both words signify in Hebrew, let us say that the limits of the Church begin from the hills, so that the whole ecclesiastical order be constructed, as we have said above, when we interpreted the lament of the only-begotten, and the lament like Adadremmon. And the Church is not content with this end; but it will reach as far as the South in the fullest light, as we have previously explained. And now we remain silent about it, so as not to annoy the reader by repeating the same things often. And the Church which began from the hills will be exalted and will reach the South; and it will dwell in its place, as it is written: 'He has set me in a place of pasture' (Psalm 22:1). From the gate of Benjamin, which is interpreted as the Son of the right hand, and not the Son of days, as some suspect wrongly: for it is one thing if it ends with the letter Nun, another if it ends with the letter Mem. And it shall come to the place of the eastern and former gate, even to the gate of the corners. We begin with virtue, for this indeed signifies the right hand, and we arrive at the former gate, so that we may enter through it to the others. And immediately we encounter the gate of the corners, where the corner stone is, which the builders rejected and has become the head of the corner (Ps. CXVII, 22). This corner stone connects both walls and brings two peoples into one (Ephes. II), about which God speaks through Isaiah: Behold, I will place in Zion a corner stone, chosen and precious in its foundation; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame (Isai. XXVIII, 16). Here the cornerstone and other cornerstones wanted to be built, so that the apostle Paul might freely say: Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). These stones do not imitate the heretics, who do everything for the sake of glory and profit, and pray in the corners of the streets, leaving the straight path. For every corner breaks the straight line, and therefore the prostitute in Proverbs (Chapter 7), however we may understand her, whose feet do not rest at home, but wanders outside or lies in wait in all the corners of the streets, when she sees a foolish young man (for she does not invite one whom she perceives to be wise and mature in age, of whom it is written: The wisdom of an old man is his gray hair), she immediately seizes him, and kisses and flatters him, and leads him to the brothel, and invites him to have intercourse. Let us therefore leave behind false angles and pass on to the firm and robust angles of Christ, to which when we have arrived, we are immediately met by the Tower of Ananeel, which is interpreted as the favor of God. For what is more pleasing than the Tower of Solomon? of which it is said to the bride: 'Your neck is like the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks; a thousand shields hang upon it; all the spears of the mighty are upon it' (Song of Solomon 4:4). The Lord wants this tower to be built in the Gospel (Chapter XIV), with previous expenses and costs computed: and about which it is said to Jerusalem: Let there be peace within your walls, and abundance within your towers (Psalm 122:7), about which the saint also speaks to the Lord: You have led me, for you have become my hope: a tower of strength against the enemy (Psalm 60:4). From the Tower of Ananeel, we come to the king's wine press, for which three psalms also have a title. And the Lord says in Isaiah: I have trodden the winepress alone (Isa. LXIII, 3), so that our vineyard may abound in them, and we may press out the grapes, and in Christ's blood we may trample the reddened juice; so that we may drink the wine that gladdens the heart of man (Ps. CIII); and the bride desires the companions of the bridegroom, saying: Lead me into the wine cellar, set love upon me (Cant. II, 4). If we are made drunk by such winepresses, we will dwell in Jerusalem, where there will no longer be anathema, namely curse and abomination. And the Apostle says: If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed (I Cor. XVI, 2). And in another place: No one speaking in the Spirit of God says 'Jesus be accursed' (I Cor. XII). And for the sake of the salvation of his brothers, he desires to be accursed, imitating his Lord who, though he was not a curse, became a curse for us (Rom. IX). But when all the curse is removed, Jerusalem will dwell secure and confident, and she will fulfill that which is said of her: 'Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.' And: It is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in man (Ps. CXVII, 8): about this security and confidence the prophet Jeremiah also mentions: Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord (Jerem. XVII, 7).

14:12

(Verse 12) And this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the nations that have fought against Jerusalem. The flesh of each one standing on their feet will rot away, and their eyes will rot away in their sockets, and their tongue will rot away in their mouths (Septuagint: their mouths). The Scriptures testify to the nations that will suffer, those that will fight against the city of the Lord: 'They will stand,' it says, 'on their own feet, and their flesh will waste away and flow off, and their eyes will decay, and from their openings they will fall out; their arrogant tongue, which blasphemed against the people of God, will dissolve into pus, and within the fortification of their teeth it will decay. It is clear to everyone that the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem did not suffer these things, unless perhaps the Jews claim that those nations, which were to fight against the golden and jeweled Jerusalem, would suffer them.' But we will say that all the persecutors, who afflicted the Church of the Lord, received in the present age what they did, even if we remain silent about future tortures. Let us read the Ecclesiastical histories, what Valerian, what Decius, what Diocletian, what Maximian, what the cruelest of all Maximinus, and recently Julian, suffered: and then we will prove by facts, even according to the letter, that the truth of the prophecies has been fulfilled, that their flesh has rotted away, and their eyes have decayed, and their tongue has dissolved into filth and pus. Moreover, if the cruelty of God towards heretics seems to be shown in this saying, let it be understood that all these things happen so that good things may increase as evil things decrease. For whoever stands in the Lord and with the Lord, his carnal things flow away so that spiritual things may arise, and the eyes that were seeing poorly fall from their sockets so that others may be put in their place, who can receive the Lord with the prophet saying: To you I lift up my eyes, you who dwell in the heavens (Ps. 122:1). And the blaspheming tongue will decay, so that another tongue may be born, which glorifies God, and can say: My tongue shall meditate on your righteousness, your praise all day long (Ps. LXX, 15). Therefore Simeon, receiving the Infant in his arms and foretelling the future, says: Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rise of many (Luke II, 34), so that the evil may fall, and the good may rise. Therefore the Lord also said: For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind (John IX, 39). The people of the Gentiles did not see, but after the faith of Christ, they began to behold the light of truth, which speaks through the prophet: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for which reason he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Isaiah 61:1-2), of which it is written: The wisdom of a man enlightens his face (Ecclesiastes 8:1). And in the Psalms we read: The Lord gives sight to the blind, or makes them wise (Psalm 146). For this signifies more the wise. The Jews saw; and because they did not want to receive the light, they were covered in eternal blindness.

14:13-14

In that day there will be a great tumult of the Lord among them: and a man will seize the hand of his neighbor, and his hand will be placed upon the hand of his neighbor. But Judah will fight against Jerusalem, and the riches of all the nations will be gathered around: gold, silver, and many garments. LXX: And in that day there will be a great astonishment of the Lord upon them: and each one will seize the hand of his neighbor, and his hand will cling to the hand of his neighbor: and Judah will be prepared in Jerusalem, and the strength of all the peoples will be gathered around: gold, silver, and many exceedingly garments. When these wonders have been completed, such as the flesh of the enemies flowing away, the eyes withering away, and the tongue in the mouth of blasphemers decaying: then there will be a great tumult, or astonishment in them; for this signifies the ecstasy which the LXX translated: And each one will seize the hand of his neighbor, and his hand will be compared with the hand of another, because of fear, and the weight of evils which will come upon them. Judas will also fight against the metropolis, of which we spoke above (Chapter XII), and will receive victory granted by the Lord: the wealth of all nations that have fought against Jerusalem will be gathered, gold and silver, and a multitude of clothing, which are most precious in things. This unfortunate Judas promises to himself, hoping to receive gold which he valued the Lord for thirty pieces of silver. But we, following the established order, let us refer all these things to the blessedness of the Church, so that all who are in it may admire the subjection of the enemies and their own happiness, and each one may take hold of the hand of his neighbor, so that they may join right hands and be connected by mutual faith and kinship. And what we read in Hebrew, 'And Judas will fight against Jerusalem'; for this, the Septuagint translators rendered it as, 'And Judas will be prepared in Jerusalem'; let us accept it in both ways, that Judas, who once confessed the Lord's name, and being forced by persecutions, persecuted the people of Christ, may himself turn to joy. Certainly, Judas, being entirely repentant and faithful, should not fight against Jerusalem, but should prepare himself in Jerusalem to fight against the adversaries. And Judas himself will gather the riches of all nations around, gold, and silver, and very many garments. We have often said that gold and silver are understood in a metaphorical sense, and so too should we understand the garments, with which the Church of Christ is adorned, of which it is written: 'The queen stood at your right hand in golden robes, adorned with variety' (Psalm 45:10). The crowd of believers rejoices at seeing her dressed in these garments and says: I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and covered me with the robe of righteousness (Isa. LXI, according to the LXX). For the Lord Himself has said to her: I clothed you with embroidered work and gave you sandals of badger skin (Ezek. XVI). Let us accept these garments made of embroidered work, which are so beautiful and delicate that they appear to be like hair. The Church gathers these garments so that she may have something to clothe her people with, to whom the true preacher has said: Let your garments always be white (Eccl. IX, 8).

14:15

(Verse 15) And so there will be the destruction of horses, and mules, and camels, and donkeys, and all the livestock that were in those camps, just like this destruction. LXX: And this will be the destruction of horses and mules, camels and donkeys, and all the livestock that were in those camps, in accordance with this destruction. And the Jews strive to fulfill this, according to their carnal interpretation. Truly, the strength of the Lord is great, so that the horses, mules, camels, and donkeys, and all their livestock fall in the enemy camps, just as the men had fallen (or will fall). Great triumph, glorious victory, beasts are defeated by God fighting. Let us therefore say, according to the beginning of tropology: so that all the evils that previously fought against the Church may fall, so that the goods may suddenly arise. Finally, he who was previously a horse neighing after the wife of his neighbor (Jeremiah 5), and was carried away by lust, and lay in the filth of pleasures: when he begins to follow chastity, it will be said to him: Rise, let us go from here (John 14, 31). And: Arise, come, my love (Song of Solomon 2:10). And in the Apostle: Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light (Ephesians 5:14). And when those horses rise up that have fallen before, and have offered their soft backs to the Lord to sit upon, they shall say to God: Mount upon thy horses, and thy riding is salvation (Habakkuk 3:8). According to this sense, let us consider mules, which are barren and do not produce offspring; but they indulge in pleasure: of whom the Psalmist speaks: Be not like to horse and mule, which have no understanding (Psalm 31:9). So just as those who are inclined to lust are called horses, so we shall rightly call those who are virgins in the flesh and not in the spirit, mules. And those who are castrated not for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, but for the pleasure of men. Therefore, when these mules and eunuchs have been turned into offspring and have begotten spiritual children, they will hear through Isaiah: 'And let not the eunuch say: Behold I am a dry tree.' For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs, who keep my Sabbaths and choose the things that please me and hold fast to my covenant: I will give them a place in my house and within my walls, a name better than sons and daughters; an everlasting name will I give them, that shall never be cut off (Isaiah 56:3-5). The kings of Israel, especially David, are said to have had many male and female donkeys, which is related to Christ (2 Kings 13 and 1 Kings 3). If we understand what the running and rising horses and donkeys are, let us move on to camels, a ruminant animal that does not have a divided hoof (Leviticus 11). And let us say that all the sinners of the earth are like camels, who are weighed down by the heavy burden of sins, and they seem to read the holy Scriptures to themselves, but they do not have a divided hoof, rumination the divine words and neglecting what is written. But a camel can more rightly be called the people of the Jews, who themselves meditate upon the Law of God, and chew it over and turn it in their hearts, but do not split the hoof, so that they may believe in the Father and in the Son; and in this they are unclean, because they never separate the letter from the spirit, the shadow from the truth, and they bear the burden of the Law, and they hear through the prophet: Woe, sinful nation, people full of offenses (Isaiah 1:4). Concerning this kind of camel who chews and does not split the hoof, it is said in Proverbs as if to a son: Whoever forsakes the discipline of his father will meditate on evil speeches (Proverbs 21). Let us cross over to the donkey, who once was carried unbridled and unclean, and had many masters, and slid down the steep slopes, so that he would rise up suddenly when falling, and carry the Lord Savior, and enter into holy Jerusalem, and be received by a crowd of believing children triumphantly (Matt. XXI and John XII). It is said that the Savior tied this donkey to the vine and the vineyard (Gen. XLIX, 11), of which it is written in the Psalms: You brought the vine out of Egypt, and drove out the nations, and planted it (Ps. LXXIX, 9). To which the vinedresser himself says: I planted you a fruitful vineyard, a wholly true (Jer. II, 21). Likewise, all the beasts and animals, which the prophet comprehends under one name, are to be interpreted according to the nature of each one, and this is more fitting for the Son of God than for those things which the foolish people of the Jews presume to prophesy.

14:16

(Verse 16.) And all who remain of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. LXX: And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. All, he said, who remain from the nations that came against Jerusalem, shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles. The Jews also promise that this will happen in the empty hope of a thousand-year kingdom, the beginning of which is this solemnity: The people of Israel went forth from Egypt through a vast and terrible and broad wilderness, in which there was no house, village, town, or cave, and they made for themselves tabernacles and tents (which are now called tents from the likeness of a small bird's wing) in which they dwelt with their spouses and children, and took food, and avoided the heat of the sun by day, the dampness and cold and harm of the dew by night. And it was commanded that the feast of Tabernacles should be held on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. And when your son asks you tomorrow, saying, What do these tabernacles mean? You shall respond to him: For a long time we have been traveling in Egypt, from which the Lord brought us out into the wilderness, and therefore we set up tabernacles, so that we may remember the blessings of God at all times, when we began to dwell in cities (Deut. VI, 20, 21, and Lev. XXIII, 43). He also commanded them to make tabernacles from very beautiful wood, which the Jews call citron, and from the branches and leaves of very dense wood, and from willow and poplar. We have laid the foundations of history, so that we may move from these to spiritual matters. As long as we are in progress and in the course and struggle, we dwell in tabernacles, striving in our whole mind, so that we may move from tabernacles to a firm and stable dwelling, that is, the house of God. Therefore, holy David says in the Psalm: Woe is me, that my dwelling is prolonged (Ps. 119:5)! And: I am a stranger and a sojourner as all my fathers were (Ps. 38:31). This is spoken by someone who is in Egypt, and still living in the world. But whoever leaves Egypt, which is called Moab in Hebrew, and interpreted as tribulation; and enters the desert of vices, takes his journey, and says in the psalm: I will go through to the place of the wonderful tent, even to the house of God (Ps. XLI, 5). For it is admirable not to dwell with the Egyptians; but with Pharaoh drowned, to desire to enter the land of promise (Exod. XIV). And elsewhere it is said: How lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, indeed it even faints for the courts of the Lord (Ps. 84:1). And a little later: Blessed are those who dwell in your house, they will praise you forever and ever (ibid., 84:5). For we find written in Proverbs: The house of the righteous will stand firm, their dwelling places will endure for those who act rightly (Prov. 2:21). He promises about houses, that they remain; about tabernacles, that they have statures. And in another place the holy man says: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, and see the delight of the Lord, and visit His temple (Psalm 27:4). The one who dwells in such tabernacles, and from tabernacles goes to courtyards, and from courtyards goes to the house, and from the house goes to the temple of the Lord, ought to celebrate the feasts of tabernacles in the most beautiful wood of wisdom, about which it is said in Proverbs: It is a tree of life to all who approach it, and those who lean on it, as on a firm house (Proverbs 3:18). And in the branches of the palm trees, in which the sign of victory and the reward of virtue are contained, and in the leaves of the densest tree which the Jews understand to be myrtle, because of the mortification of the flesh and desires. Hence, it is offered to the Lord and Savior by the Magi in the form of myrrh (Matt. II). And he says, in the branches of the willow and the poplar, which some call one tree; and the name of the wood itself, which is called in Greek ἁγνὸς, indicates chastity. Doctors say, and those who have written about the nature of trees and plants, that if anyone drinks a mixture of willow flower or poplar with water, all heat will cool in him, and the vein of desire will become dry, and he will not be able to produce children. Whoever is protected by the branches of such trees should observe the feast of tabernacles, passing through the sixth month which refers to the world, and celebrating the spiritual Sabbath on the seventh day of the same month, when the moon of the night is fullest, and all its darkness is resolved by bright light. We have said these things briefly, contemplating in our mind the magnitude of the books, so that we may move on to the remaining ones.

14:17

(Verse 17) And it shall be that those who do not go up from the families of the earth to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them. LXX: And it shall be that those who do not go up from the families of the earth to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, there will be consequences for them. Because the Seventy translated 'there will be consequences for them,' it is written in Hebrew, 'Ulo Alehem Eje Gesem,' which Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion also interpreted in a similar way, and there will be no rain on them. The Church of the Lord Jesus is called the heavenly Jerusalem, of which the Apostle writes: 'But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all' (Galatians 4:26); and: 'But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem' (Hebrews 12:22). And this Jerusalem is not situated in lowly places, but on a high mountain, about which the Savior speaks: 'A city set on a hill cannot be hidden' (Matthew 5:14). Therefore those who wish to worship the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem must ascend the mountains. But those who are from the families and tribes of the land, and therefore cannot worship the Lord, no temporary or late rain will fall upon them, nor will the land be watered by the rains of the heavens. Or, as the Seventy translated, those who do not ascend from the families of the land to Jerusalem to worship the Lord Almighty King, when they are counted among those who fought against Jerusalem, their flesh will waste away, their eyes will melt, and their tongues will decay.

14:18-19

(Vers. 18, 19.) And if the family of Egypt does not ascend and does not come, there will be no plague on them, but there will be a punishment by which the Lord will strike all the nations that do not ascend to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles. This will be the sin of Egypt, and this will be the sin of all the nations that do not ascend to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles. LXX: But if the tribe of Egypt does not ascend and does not come there, there will be a punishment on them by which the Lord will strike all the nations that did not ascend to observe the feast of Booths. This will be the sin of Egypt, and the sin of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the feast of the tabernacles. Whoever is an Egyptian, and of other nations, as long as he remains an Egyptian and a foreigner, will not go up to Jerusalem; and because he cannot go up, nor raise himself to higher things, therefore the rain of the Lord's blessing will not be upon him. And this sin will be the greatest for the Egyptians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, if they do not desire to leave their lands and go up to Jerusalem, to pass through the tabernacles in Jerusalem, and find an eternal home, and if the people of other nations cease, and if they become Israelites in whom there is no deceit (John 7:24). All these things which we quickly discuss, O Jews, and our Judaizers, or rather not ours, because they are Judaizers, hope for future things bodily, certainly circumcision for themselves, and marriages promising in the reign of a thousand years, so that the curse which is written may not be fulfilled in them: Cursed is the barren one who does not bear seed in Israel; and: Blessed is he who has seed in Zion and household members in Jerusalem (Isa. XXXI, 9, sec. LXX). But if it is true, all the virgins that the thousand-year reign shall find shall be subject to eternal curses and sterility: or certainly they shall marry, to escape the curse.

14:20

(Verse 20) On that day, what is on the bridle of the horse will be holy to the Lord, and the pots in the house of the Lord will be like the bowls before the altar. And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be consecrated to the Lord of hosts. (Verse 21) On that day, what is on the bridle of the horse will be holy to the Lord God Almighty. And the pots in the house of the Lord will be like the bowls before the altar. And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord God Almighty. The Hebrew word Mesuloth was translated by Aquila and Theodotion as 'profundum', that is, 'depth'. Symmachus translated it as 'incessum umbrosum', that is, 'shady walk'. The Septuagint alone translated it as 'frenum', that is, 'bridle'; and we have followed them in this place so as not to appear to introduce anything new in a well-known question. When I asked the Hebrew what it meant, he told me that we should not read Mesuloth, but Mesaloth, which means the trappings of horses and military ornamentation, and he said that apart from this place, the word is not found at all in any volume of the holy Scriptures. But the Hebrew word for bridle is Resen, not Mesuloth, as translated by the Septuagint. And its meaning is: During the perpetual solemnity and reign of Jerusalem, when everything is peaceful and tranquil, there is no need for cavalry, which is the strongest type of warriors; but all the adornment and splendor of trappings should be dedicated to the worship of the Lord. This is what they said. As for us, let us interpret the deep and rhythmic movement of horses, σύσκιον, as representing the mystical knowledge, which even David boasted of having, saying: You have revealed to me the uncertain and hidden aspects of your wisdom (Ps. 50, 8). And the Apostle says: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out (Rom. XI, 33) ! In this deep, the prophet cried out to the Lord, and he heard him. In these depths and darkness, God placed his hiding place (Ps. XVII): Moses entered into these darknesses and divine mysteries on Mount Sinai, in order to see God (Exod. XIX): of which David also spoke in another Psalm: The judgments of the Lord are a great abyss (Ps. XXXV, 9). These secrets and sacred mysteries are known to the Lord, which the evangelist John knew and dared to say, even though the angels may not have known: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). And for this reason, it is loved by the Lord, because it had the greatest depth; and it rested on the chest of Jesus, from where it drew wisdom (John 21). But if we wish to accept the translation of the Septuagint, let us understand the bridle as the word of God, which restrains the wild horses of desire and the barren and lustful mules from vices, and restrains and does not allow them to go through dangerous paths, of which it is said: Do not be like horses and mules, who have no understanding. In freno et chamo maxillas eorum constringe, qui non approximant ad te (Ps. XXXI, 9, 10) . De hoc freno et Jacobus loquitur: In equorum ora mittimus frenos, et omne corpus eorum circumagimus (Jacob. III, 3) , ut scilicet recto gradiantur itinere, et mollia ad sedendum Domino possint terga praebere. Tale frenum et talis sermo auri et argenti varietate compositus, feros equos Salvatori praeparat ad sedendum; et sanctos facit, ac proprie illius cultui consecratos. I heard a thing, spoken in a pious sense, but ridiculous. The nails of the Lord's cross, from which Emperor Constantine made his horse's reins, were called holy of the Lord. Whether this should be understood in this way, I leave to the reader's discretion. Let us now turn to the basins that will be in the Lord's house, like the bowls of the altar. For every basin will be sanctified to the Almighty Lord in Jerusalem and in Judah. Let the bronze basins love the Egyptian pots, and meats, and melons, and garlic, and onions, and cucumbers (Numbers 11). Let us turn the Jewish cooking pots in which the meats of the victims were cooked into jars of spices before the altar of the Lord, about which the bride says to the bridegroom: My brother has gone down to my garden to the jars of spices, to feast in the gardens, and gather lilies (Song of Songs 6:1). The garden and the paradise to which the bridegroom descends to the bride is the holy reading of the Scriptures: from which he gathers lilies, and violets and roses and various fragrant spices, to fill the jars of the souls of the believers, and offer them as offerings to the Lord. When these wordplays have been turned into the vials of the Lord, and they have been able to say: 'We are the good odor of Christ' (2 Cor. 15), and because of the strength of their flesh, they have begun to bear various flowers of virtues, then they will be sanctified to Almighty God in Jerusalem and in Judea, about whom we have frequently said that Jerusalem represents the vision of peace, and Judea expresses the one who confesses.

14:21

(Verse 21.) And all the sacrificers shall come, and they shall take from them, and they shall cook in them: and there shall be no more a merchant in the house of the Lord of hosts in that day. LXX: And all who sacrifice shall come and take from them, and they shall cook in them, and there shall be no more a Canaanite in the house of the Lord Almighty in that day. For the Canaanite, Aquila interpreted it as a merchant, whom we also have followed in this place. When the pots have been turned into bowls, all the nations shall come around, whether those who have been left of all the nations sacrificing, and they shall take the bowls and cook in them the flesh of the victims, so that they do not eat the raw flesh of the lamb, but with all the moisture of the flesh cooked away by fire, what has been prepared by the fire remains to be consumed. Which are the vessels before the altar of the Lord, in which the Israelite dishes are converted, as we have said above, and now we will say in part. The bride praises her bridegroom in the Song of Songs: His cheeks are like containers of spices (Song of Songs 5). In the cheeks, the word is received, which, coming forth from the Lord, produces various ointments, and the fragrance of such a good odor will be so great that the Lord will make for himself a whip out of testimonies from the texts of the Scriptures, and he will drive out those who are buying and selling from the temple, and he will say to them: It is written, My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves (Matthew 21:13). Someone says that which is written in Daniel, although it is not read in Hebrew: 'The seed of Canaan, and not of Judah' (Dan. XIII, 56); and what is said by the prophet Hosea about Ephraim: 'Ephraim has become a partner with idols; he has set up stumbling blocks for himself, and has provoked the Canaanites to fornicate; they have committed fornication' (Hosea IV, 17-18). They apply this passage to the current situation and want every fornicator to be called a Canaanite and a foreigner, who they claim should be removed from the house of God.