Книга пятая

Many years have passed since the time when, at the request of my husband of blessed memory, Bishop Amabilius, to write interpretations of the ten visions of Isaiah, due to the difficult circumstances of that time, I briefly outlined my thoughts about each of them, explaining, as he asked, only the historical meaning. Now to you, most industrious Eustochia, I am forced to write interpretations of the entire prophet, and with your prayers I have already reached Babylon, which is the subject of the first of the above-mentioned ten visions. It seemed to me unnecessary to both repeat the same thing again and express divergent opinions on the same subject. Therefore, the fifth book on Isaiah will be the one that was once published separately, and after its completion, from the sixth book we will begin an allegorical interpretation, and with the same prayer to the Lord, we will strive for the heights of spiritual understanding. “You, Pope Amabilius, the pillar and name of love, the most beloved of all earthly beings to me, you have hitherto asked me in letters to interpret for you with historical explanation the ten darkest visions in the book of the prophet Isaiah, and leaving our interpretations, which, following different opinions, have compiled many books, revealed to you the Hebrew text. When I refused this and put off the most boring kind of interpretation until another time, you very often begged me, and this year you sent our son, Deacon Heraclius, to forcibly bring me to court and demand the fulfillment of the promise in the shortest possible time. What should I do? Should we take on a task in which the most learned men were exhausted, I mean Origen and Eusebius Pamphilus, one of whom wanders in the endless spaces of allegory, and after translating each name, his imagination makes the mysteries of the church, and the other, promising a historical explanation in the title, sometimes forgets the promise and deviates into the speculations of Origen? Or should I remain silent and say directly that I am incapable of this kind of interpretation, and, to the best of my ability, convince you that I am no longer able, rather than unwilling, to do so? But the first of the two is an expression of weakness, and the second of pride; As a result, I preferred that you complain better about my mind than about my will, and therefore, laying the foundations in the Scriptures, I will sketch out for you short notes of what I know. However, if either you want, or time allows and Christ deigns to our desire, then it will be necessary to build on a spiritual building in order to bring out the top and show the perfect decorations of the Church. You offered me from Isaiah visions of Babylon, the Philistines, Moab, Damascus, Egypt, the desert by the sea, Idumea, Arabia, the valley of vision and Tyre - which visions, if I want to explain at some length, will require many books, and the sea voyage of the one I hired will be postponed until another year. So, in accordance with your desire, I will accompany each testimony with short notes, not so much expressing my thoughts as leaving you to guess about them from a few words. I dictate it, and do not write it, and as the speed of the scribes’ hands, my speech quickly flows. For we do not want ours to be praised, but for the sayings of the prophet to be understood, and we do not display eloquence, but seek knowledge of the Scriptures. Let's start with Babylon." Chapter XIII. Art. 1. The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. The Hebrew word messa can be understood as both burden and heaviness. And wherever it is prefaced, the speech is full of threats. Therefore, I am surprised that LXX interpreters decided to put a vision on a sad subject; but more on that elsewhere. Now let's continue what we started. Babylon was the capital of the Chaldeans; his king Nebuchadnezzar, having defeated all the nations as far as Ethiopia, among other things, devastated Judea, and after a long siege of Jerusalem, took it in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign, and having taken him prisoner, he took him to Antioch, which was then called Reblatha, and there, having killed his sons in front of his father's eyes, he ordered Zedekiah's eyes to be gouged out, and blinded him, put him in a cage and brought to Babylon as a beast in fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah, which read: “You will enter Babylon, but you will not see it” (Jer. 34; 39; 52) 22. Thus, for the consolation of the people of Judah, the fall of Babylon is predicted - that just as during the invasion of the Chaldeans, Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrians, whose kings Thul, Tiglaphalaser and Shalmaneser took ten tribes, was destroyed: so Babylon, which was proud against the Lord, will be destroyed by the invasion of the Medes and Persians. Art. 2. On the dark mountain, raise your banner, raise your voice, raise your hand. Under a gloomy or dark mountain, which in Hebrew is nesphe, meaning Babylon, because of pride. The dark mountains that prefer sadness and darkness are those about which Jeremiah said: give glory to the Lord your God, before even your nose stumbles toward the dark mountains (Jer. 13:16). It is commanded either to the angels or to any servants of God that, at the behest of God, they, raising their hands as heralds, foretell the coming captivity of Babylon. Art. 3–4. And let the leaders enter into the gates: I have commanded My sanctified ones, and I have called My mighty ones in My wrath, triumphant in My glory. Princes and giants, according to LXX interpreters, Eusebius explains in the meaning of the forces of angels and the worst demons sent to destroy Babylon; we, following the historical meaning, say that these are the Medes. Scripture testifies about them more clearly in further words, saying: “Behold, I will raise up the Medes against them, who will not seek silver and will not desire gold” (Is. 13:17). And it is not surprising if the Medes are called sanctified for the destruction of Babylon, when through Jeremiah he called Nebuchadnezzar himself, since he served His will, destroying treacherous Jerusalem, His servant and dove. Further, with the words: My mighty and triumphant in My glory, it shows that they destroyed the power of such a high kingdom not by their own strength, but by the wrath of God. Art. 4–5. The voice of a multitude in the mountains, as if from a crowded people: the voice of the noise of the kings of the nations gathered together. The Lord of hosts gave command to the fighting army that came from a distant land, from the edge of the sky. The Lord and the vessels of His wrath, to destroy the whole earth. The invasion of the Medes and Persians is depicted: that having joined themselves with many auxiliary troops and preceded by the army of their Lord, they go to devastate Babylon in order to destroy the whole earth - not in the sense that they will devastate the whole world, but the whole land of Babylon and the Chaldeans. For such is the peculiarity of the Holy Scriptures that by the whole earth it means the land of the region in question, not understanding why some people stretch this in the sense of the ruin of all countries. Art. 6. Cry, for the day of the Lord is at hand: it will come as a destructive force from the Lord. An appeal is made to the Jewish people so that they mourn the coming disaster with a cry and do not doubt the fall of the city when the Lord comes as a desolator. Art. 7–8. Because of this, all hands will give up and every heart of man will faint and be crushed. Convulsions and pains will seize them, they will suffer; everyone will be amazed at his neighbor; Their faces are burnt. This does not require explanation: here it is briefly shown that such a severity of disasters awaits that the soldiers of Babylon will give up, their hearts will faint with fear and pain will torment their insides, like the pains of women in childbirth, and each, with an emaciated pale face, will seek help from the other, for it is natural that in threatening disasters we consider others more intelligent. Art. 9. Behold, the day of the Lord comes, fierce and full of indignation, anger and rage, to turn the earth into a desert and destroy its sinners from it. He calls the day fierce not because of its nature, but because of the fault of the people. For he who punishes the cruel is not cruel, but he seems cruel to those who are punished. For even a robber hanged on the gallows considers the judge cruel. At the same time, the desolation and desolation of the land of Babylon is announced and the reason for the devastation is stated, that all this is happening because of its inhabitants. Art. 10. Because the stars of heaven and their brightness will not give their light: the sun is darkened at its rising, and the moon will not shine with its light. The Hebrew word chisile LXX was translated by Orion. The Jew with whom I studied translated it Arcturus. We, generally following Symmachus, set the stars. The meaning is that when the fierce day of the Lord comes, and His wrath devastates everything, then for mortals, due to the greatness of fear, everything will darken, and the very sun, moon and shining stars will seem to have lost their light. Therefore, the sky is clothed in sackcloth - that is, darkness covers everything, and under the weight of disasters people do not feel anything other than what arouses their attention. Art. 11. And I will visit the evil of the world and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will put an end to the arrogance of the unbelievers and humble the pride of the strong. From this place and from the previous one, where it is written that the sun will be darkened at its rising, the moon will be covered in darkness and the stars will not give light and that the iniquity of the whole world will be visited, some think that this is not predicted about the destruction of Babylon, but about the end of the world; but without a doubt, according to the previous one, and by the world, which in Hebrew is called thebel, and in Greek οἰκουμένη, should be understood Babylon. For οἰκουμένη in our language means inhabited, and Babylon is called inhabited because of the great multitude of inhabitants, so that where before there was an innumerable multitude of people, there will be desolation and the habitation of wild beasts. Art. 12. A husband will be more valuable than gold, and a person will be more valuable than the purest gold. The reason why God will visit the universe, that is, the wickedness of Babylon, is obvious - so that, deprived of inhabitants, it will turn into a desert. Dear is called everything that is rare, as above, in the historical sense, we read that because of the rarity of men, seven women will grab hold of one man, saying: Let us eat our bread and put on our garments, so let your name be called on us, take away our reproach (Is. 4:1). And the book of Samuel contains: “the word of the Lord was precious in those days,” that is, rare. Note that in Hebrew, instead of ordinary gold, there is phaz, and instead of the purest gold, ophir. Art. 13. Moreover, I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of its place, because of the indignation of the Lord of hosts and because of the day of the wrath of His wrath. Accept it either in the sense in which we explained above about the sun, moon and universe, or hyperbolically, that from the wrath of God the sky will be cloudy, and the earth will shake, and all the elements will feel the wrath of the Creator. Art. 14. And he will be like a roe running away and like a sheep, and there will be no one to gather them. Denotes the Babylonian and Chaldean people that, in horror from the invasion of the Medes and Persians, they will take flight like a roe and a sheep from the roar of a lion and the howl of a wolf, and have no protector or leader whose order they could follow. Each one will turn to his people, and everyone will flee to their own land. When Babylon is taken and the enemy army enters its gates, all the auxiliary troops and crowds of various peoples who previously defended the city will return to their areas. Art. 15. Whoever is found will be killed, and whoever comes forward will fall by the sword. Whoever does not run away will be killed, and whoever wants to resist or return will not only not help the captured city, but will also be killed. Art. 16. Their little ones will be broken before their eyes, their houses will be plundered and their wives dishonored. This is what David prophesies about in spirit: Accursed daughter of Babylon, blessed is she who will repay thee the recompense that thou hast repaid us. Blessed is he who is his, and he will dash your babies against the stone (Ps. 139:8). So great will be the devastation of the city and the ferocity of the victors that there will be no mercy even for innocent people, all the wealth in the houses will be plundered and the chastity of wives will be desecrated in the eyes of their husbands. Art. 17. Behold, I will raise up the Medes against them, who will not seek silver and will not desire gold. What was hidden is revealed - that by strong giants we should mean not angels and demons, but the people of the Medes, whose king Darius was the first to destroy the kingdom of Babylon by killing Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, who was the son of Evilmerodach (Daniel, Chapter 5). He writes that the ferocity of the Medes and Persians is such that, because of their passion for bloodshed, they will despise gold and silver and will not value the treasures they bring at all. Art. 18. But they will kill infants with arrows, they will not spare the fruit of the womb, and their eye will not have pity on children. Babies will be killed, whose wounds will be no less than their bodies; The wombs of pregnant women will be cut open and their babies will be taken out of them, and the fierce conqueror will kill the children clinging to their breasts. Art. 19. And that glorious Babylon among the kingdoms, famous for the arrogance of the Chaldeans, will be destroyed, as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; will not be inhabited even to the end and will not be restored during childbirth. We have heard of the Medes, we have heard of Babylon, we have heard of the city famous for the arrogance of the Chaldeans; but we do not want to understand what happened, but strive to hear what did not happen. We say this not because we condemn the allegorical understanding, but because the spiritual interpretation must be consistent with the historical course of events, without knowing which many wander in Scripture like madmen. So, the prophecy over Babylon is fulfilled to this day, and just as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, so Babylon, after its destruction, will not be inhabited forever. For in his place (the Persians and Medes) made the famous Persian cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Art. 20–22. The Arabian will not pitch tents there, and the shepherds will not rest there; but there will be beasts there, their houses will be filled with dragons, and ostriches will live there, and shaggy ones will gallop there. And the owls will call to each other in his palaces, and the sirens in the churches of debauchery. Babylon will be so devastated and in such desolation that it will not be suitable even for grazing beasts of burden and livestock. For the Arabs and Saracens will not pitch their tents there, and the shepherds who go after their flocks, tired of their labors, will not rest there, but among the collapsed walls and the rubbish of old ruins they will live, which some LXX translated animals, while others put the very word written in Hebrew, wanting to understand by it types of demons or ghosts. And their houses, he says, will be filled with dragons, as we put it, and according to the translation of Aquila by typhons, according to Symmachus, who put the very Hebrew word, ohim, which LXX and Theodotion translated screams or noise. By the words: shaggy people will gallop there, they mean either nightmares, or satyrs, or some kind of forest people, which some call fauns, or types of demons. Also, instead of owls, everyone put the very Hebrew word iim; only LXX was translated by onocentaurs. Sirens are called thennim, which we will explain as meaning either demons or some kind of monsters or large dragons with a crest on their heads and flying. All this indicates signs of desolation and desolation - that in the once most powerful city there will be such desolation that, due to the multitude of demons and beasts, not a single shepherd, that is, not a single lover of the desert, will dare to enter it. From one Elamite brother, who, having left those borders, now lives as a monk in Jerusalem, we heard that in Babylon there are royal hunts and that only all kinds of animals are kept within the circle of its walls. Ch. XIV. Art. 1. His time will come soon, and his days will not be long. He says that the time is coming when he will be taken by the enemies. For after the capture of Jerusalem, a short time passed before Babylon was devastated by the Medes and Persians. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will take him out of Israel again, and cause them to rest in their land. Zephaniah speaks about this in more detail: Rejoice, daughter of Zion, preach, daughter of Jerusalem, rejoice and be adorned with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away your iniquity; He has delivered you from the hand of your enemies (Zeph. 3:14, 15). It denotes the time when King Cyrus of Persia allowed the people to return to Jerusalem. Read the book of Ezra (1 Ezra 1), Haggai (chapter 1) and Zechariah (chapter 1), when under Zerubbabel and Jesus the great priest, under Ezra and Nehemiah, the altar, church and walls of the city were restored. Art. 2. The stranger will join them and cleave to the house of Jacob, and their nations will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will have them in the land of the Lord as male and female servants; and they will take captive those who captive them and subdue their oppressors. We assume that many of the various nations came to Jerusalem with the people of Judah, believing in the God of Israel and abandoning the delusion of idols. And that they were returned by order of the king and received gifts and funds for the construction of the church, there is no doubt about that. The meaning of this passage seems to represent only the difficulty of how Israel in the land of the Lord will rule over its former conquerors, subjugate its oppressors and have them as male and female slaves - unless we should here synecdochically understand the part instead of the whole - that subsequently the Jews will be so prosperous that they will have crowds of servants and maidservants even from various surrounding nations. This can also be understood in relation to the times of Assuir (Esther 9; Jude. 13), when, after the death of Holofernes, the enemy army was defeated by Israel. That I adhere to the letter and, like a snake, eat dust, is a matter of your desire, who wanted to hear only a historical interpretation. Art. 3. And it will happen on that day when the Lord gives you rest from your labor and from your shock and from your painful slavery to which you were formerly enslaved, you will pronounce this parable against the king of Babylon and say. The speech is addressed to Israel that when she returns to Jerusalem and overthrows the yoke of slavery, she will remember the former power of Nebuchadnezzar and the glory of Babylon and will mournfully mourn her, because she will reach such a disaster that even her enemies will seem worthy of regret. Art. 4–7. How did the tormentor disappear, how did the filing stop? The Lord crushed the rod of the wicked, the reed of the rulers, who beat the nations in anger, with an inhealing blow he crushed the one who enslaved the people in rage, who persecuted cruelly: he calmed down and became silent; the whole earth rejoiced and rejoiced. These are the words of a mourning and regretful Israel, when the former ruler and conqueror of countries, who ruined everything with his taxes, is crushed and reduced to nothing. He, I say, was the reed of the wicked, he, the royal scepter and staff, fiercely struck everyone, the blow of which was unbearable, which cruelly pursued even those running - how did he calm down and resign himself, and with his fall the whole earth calmed down, emitting only a voice of jubilant joy? Art. 8. And the cypress trees rejoiced over you, and the cedars of Lebanon: since you fell asleep, no one comes to cut us down. Under the cypresses and cedars of Lebanon there are minds of the princes of the nations who fell under the blows of Nebuchadnezzar; They, uttering cries of joy, say: since you were sent down to hell, no one else could appear who would flog the great and powerful. Art. 9. Hell began to move under you; it raised giants to meet you at your entrance; all the leaders of the earth have risen from their thrones, all the leaders of the nations, everyone will respond and tell you. This should be read in the sense of figurative expressiveness (ἐμφατικῶς), like an action on stage (scenae modo), not as it would have been, but as it could have been - unless one thinks that the king of Babylon was greeted with jubilation by the souls of the kings he killed. For in adversity it brings comfort when they see that their enemies suffer the same thing. Art. 10–11. And you are amazed just like us, and you have become like us! Your pride has been cast into the underworld, your corpse has fallen, moths will be spread under you and worms will be your cover. The speech of the mighty and princes of the earth, whom I above called cedars and cypresses, addresses the king of Babylon, who was relegated to the underworld. We no longer mourn the fact that we were cut down when you fell under the same ax. All your power and your pride exalted to heaven have been cast down to the earth. Therefore, will not your corpse be subject to decay and will it not be covered with a multitude of swarming worms? You, who dreamed of having the power of God, in your death recognize your human insignificance. Art. 12–14. How you fell from heaven, the star, who rose in the morning, fell to the earth, striking the nations, saying in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the mountain of the covenant, on the ribs of the north; Will I ascend to the height of the clouds, will I be like the Most High? Instead of what we translated for ease of understanding: how you fell from heaven, the morning star, in Hebrew, when translated word for word, it reads: how you fell from heaven, cry, son of the dawn. The star is denoted in other words, and he is told that the one who was once so glorious that he was compared to the radiance of the star must lament and cry. Just as, he says, the star, cutting through the darkness, shines with its light and radiance, so your successes in the world and among the nations seemed like a brilliant luminary; but you fell to the ground, scourge of the nations, saying in your pride: I have achieved such power that only the sky and the stars remain for me, that everything in heaven must submit under my feet. However, the Jews want to be understood by the heavens and stars of God as themselves, based on the words: I will sit on the mountain of the covenant, i.e. in the church, where the laws of God are contained, and on the ribs of the north, that is, in Jerusalem, for it is written: the mountains of Zion are the ribs of the north (Ps. 47:3). And for his pride it was not enough to desire heavenly things, but he reached such madness that he acquired the likeness of God. Art. 15. But you will be cast into hell, into the depths of the pit. He who said in pride: I will ascend to heaven, I will be like the Most High, is deposed not only to hell, but also to the very last abyss. For this means the underworld of the abyss, instead of which in the Gospel we read about pitch darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Luke 13:28). Art. 16–17. Those who see you will lean towards you and look at you, (impliedly saying): is this the man who shook the earth, who shook kingdoms, who made the world a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the prison to his prisoners? And this is the voice of those who rejoice and marvel at how the devastator of everything was himself devastated. The words: he did not open the prison to his prisoners expresses the power of cruelty and severity, that he kept the prisoners in prison, and for the unfortunate ones the bonds alone were not enough, and they were also surrounded by terrible darkness. Art. 18–19. All the kings of the nations, all died in honor, (every one) a man in his own house. And you were thrown out of your tomb like a useless branch, defiled and thrown with those who were killed by the sword and descended into the foundations of the abyss; like a rotting corpse, you will not have community with them even in burial. The Jews convey the following story: Evilmerodach, who was first king when his father Nebuchadnezzar lived among the beasts for seven years, after he again became king, was imprisoned together with King Jehoiakim of Judah until the death of his father; after the death of his father, when he again ascended the throne, but was not recognized by the dignitaries, who feared that Nebuchadnezzar, who was being handed over as dead, was still alive, he opened the tomb and pulled out his corpse with a hook and ropes to confirm his father’s death. The meaning is this: while all those you killed are buried, you alone will lie unburied. And others explain this place like this: all souls in hell will receive some kind of peace, you will only suffer in pitch darkness. For you will be covered with the blood of all those killed by you, and the stench from all of them will choke you, as if littered with rotting corpses. Symmachus translated this passage as follows: and with those who are killed in war you will not be worthy of having fellowship in burial. Instead of what we put: like a useless branch and instead of what is read in the Hebrew chaneser nethab, Aquila translated: like defiled blood. Neser, in fact, is the name given to the shoots coming from the roots of trees, which are cut out by gardeners as useless: we can also understand this in relation to blood and pus. At the same time, we learn that hell is under the earth, when Scripture says: in the foundations of the abyss. Art. 20. For you have destroyed your land, you have killed your people. What do the LXX interpreters want to say, who put it: for you have destroyed My land and killed My people, there is no doubt about this, for Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the land of Judah and destroyed the people of Israel. According to the Hebrew text, the meaning is not clear how he devastated his land and killed his people, unless, perhaps, it should be taken in the sense that you ultimately destroyed those whom God gave you for correction. Or in other words: the ancient kingdom of Assyria, due to your much pride and rebellion against your God, has been completely destroyed. For if you had acted humbly and known your limits, then Assyria and Babylon would have maintained their kingdom to this day. Or this: you were so cruel towards others that in your rage you oppressed the peoples subordinate to you. Art. 21. The seed of the wicked will never be called. Prepare his sons to be killed for the iniquity of their fathers; they will not arise and inherit the earth and fill the face of the world with cities. All historical news agrees that after the murder of Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, Darius entered the kingdom of the Chaldeans, then no one from the family of Nebuchadnezzar was king. So Scripture predicts that Babylon will come to such desolation that even from the royal family there will be no one left, and for the wickedness of the father all his descendants will be destroyed. And instead of the verse we translated in the last part: and the faces of the universe will not be filled with cities, in Hebrew instead of cities there is arim, which we can translate as enemies, so the meaning is this: none of your seed will rise up as an enemy, wanting to regain the kingdom. And what is the meaning of this passage according to the Seventy interpreters, who said: evil seed, prepare your sons to be killed for the sins of your father, so that they do not rise, I am perplexed. Art. 22–23. And I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts, and I will destroy the name of Babylon, and the remnant, and the offspring, and the generation, says the Lord. And I will make it a land of hedgehogs and a swamp of water, and sweep it away with a broom, says the Lord of hosts. Herodotus and many other Greek historians say that Babylon was very large, and located on a valley in a square, from one corner of the walls to the other it had sixteen thousand steps, that is, sixty-four thousand steps in circumference. And the fortress or capitol of this city is a tower, built after the flood, which is said to be four thousand steps in height, and gradually narrows on the sides so that the weight of the upper parts is more conveniently supported on wider foundations. They describe the marble churches there, golden statues, streets shining with stones and gold, and much more that seems almost incredible. We said all this to show that under the wrath of God, all greatness is dust and like cinders and ashes. If it were possible for the barbarian peoples to enter there and look at the last traces of such a great city, then we would see the possession of the hedgehog and the watery swamps, we would see that what is now sung by the voice of Isaiah has truly been fulfilled: sweeping it away, sweeping it away with a broom, for with the exception of the brick walls, which are corrected after many years to imprison animals in them, everything in it is desert. Art. 24–25. The Lord of hosts swore, saying: Will it not be as I have planned, and will it be as I have planned in my mind, to crush the Assyrian in My land and trample him in My mountains? And his yoke will be removed from them, and his burden will be taken from their shoulders. Returns to the present, that is, to Sennacherib, king of Assyria, who devastated Samaria and Judea, and, excluding Jerusalem, destroyed everything around it; and connects with a loved one what is going to happen after a long time, in order to ease the fear of what is to come. Since the listeners could say: we are currently suffering a siege, and he promises what will follow many centuries later, the order of the prophecy is this: although after many many years Babylon will be destroyed and the entire breeding ground of the Assyrian and Chaldean tribe will completely perish, however, so that you do not fear the coming captivity, the Lord swears (Who must be believed even without an oath) that His definition is not false, and what He has decided in His mind, it is never in vain. He says this in accordance with human disposition, i.e., that He who cannot be deceived is not deceived. I will crush, he says, the Assyrian in My land and trample him on My mountains. For in one night the destroying angel destroyed one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrian army (2 Kings 19). And his yoke and the heavy power that threatened everyone will be removed from those besieged in Jerusalem, and the burden by which they were oppressed will fall mostly on himself. For when the king of Assyria fled to his own land, Hezekiah and the remnant of the people became free. Art. 26–27. This is the decree that I have decreed concerning the whole earth, and this is the hand stretched out over all nations. For the Lord of hosts has determined, and who can undo it? And His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it away? Some think that this place prophesies about the whole earth in general and that the devastation of Babylon and the Assyrian state is a prototype of the end of the world. We do not contradict them if we know that in the proper sense the entire land of Assyria is designated here and all the peoples allied with the king of Assyria are indicated. However, everything that is determined by the Lord cannot be stopped by any force, and no one can restrain His outstretched hand, prepared for defeat. Art. 28. In the year in which King Ahaz died there was such a burden. We read that at the beginning of the book of this prophet the kings are indicated: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, of whom each followed successively in a direct line of kinship, and of whom we read about the death of Uzziah above in the words of Isaiah: in the year in which King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted. From this we understand that the vision of the Lord sitting and what is commanded to the prophet, to the place where it is written: like terebinth and like an oak spreading its branches; His generation will be a holy seed - all this was prophesied under King Jotham. The third to inherit the throne was Ahaz, the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah king of Judah, Ahaz, under whom Rasin, king of Syria, and Pekah, son of Romelia, king of Israel, went to war against Jerusalem, and under whom everything else mentioned in Scripture happened. Thus we learn that everything that is in the middle between that place and the present, which we now want to explain, was predicted under Ahaz, after whose death the fourth inherited the throne, i.e. the last one is Hezekiah, under whom this entire book was written to the end. Art. 29. Do not rejoice, all the land of the Philistines, because the rod of your tormentor is broken; For from the root of the serpent will come the adder, and his seed will devour the bird. Naturally, after the death of the king of hostile peoples, the enemies always rejoice, expecting internecine wars, unrest and incompetent rule from the change in circumstances. So we see that after the death of the sinner Ahaz, who walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and was connected with them by ties of kinship, the neighboring Philistines rejoiced and laughed at Israel because, having lost a king of mature age, they submitted to the young man Hezekiah. The name Philistines, as we said above, denotes the Palestinians, whom the Vulgate calls foreigners, although this word is the name not of one people, but of all foreign peoples. Do not rejoice, he says, land of the Philistines, and do not laugh at My people, that the rod of your tormentor Ahaz has been broken, that the reed that usually struck you has apparently been broken by death, that the serpent has been killed. For instead of him Hezekiah will be born, an asp more harmful to you, (which the Greeks call the basilisk), who will kill you with his gaze and kill you with the breath of his mouth. For just as no bird can withstand the gaze of an adder unharmed, even if it were far away, it will be swallowed up by its mouth; so you too will perish completely at the sight of King Hezekiah. And he kept the metaphor perfectly, for, having named the snake and the adder, he says that birds are devoured by his mouth and breath. And that not one of the kings of Judah smote the Philistines as he did from Hezekiah, listen to the book of Kings: smite the Philistines even to Gaza, and to the border thereof, from the pillar of the guards, and even to the strong city (2 Kings 18:8). Instead of the devouring bird that we translated, saraph mophet in Hebrew can be translated flying serpent, so the meaning could be this: from the root of the serpent will be born an asp, and its fruit, that is, the asp, will be a flying serpent, by which we can mean a flying dragon. Art. 30. And the firstborn of the poor will be fed, and the poor will rest in safety. When the asp strikes you and the flying dragon devastates your borders, you will no longer build the fortress of Judas and you will not frighten my poor people with your deceit, but under the weight of your own misfortunes you will mourn your bitter fate. But the humble and poor, who trust not in wealth and power, but in My name, will enjoy a safe world and will not be afraid of the attack of any enemy. I will starve your root and kill your remnant. He says everything figuratively; and the meaning is that while the people of God will rest in safety, the root of the Philistines will dry up and all the remnant of them will be destroyed. Art. 31. The gates howl, the city howls with its voice! The whole land of the Philistines is overthrown; for smoke will come from the north, and there is no one who can escape the mass of it. He speaks of the gates instead of being in the gates, and of the city instead of the inhabitants of the city. The speech is addressed to the cities of the Philistines, that they should scream and weep, since Sennacherib comes and, like a flood, devastates everything, for under King Hezekiah the Assyrians came and among other nations devastated the land of the Philistines. Jeremiah says about them: “behold, the waters will rise from the north, and will be like an overflowing stream, and will cover the earth and all that fills it, the city and its inhabitants” (Jer. 42:7). For the Assyrians come from the north and come from its warlike fervor, enslaving Nineveh and other nations. At the time when this was foretold, smoke rose to the top, that is, the rumor gradually spread from one people to another that both the Phoenicians and the Philistines would be conquered. Art. 32. What will he answer to the messengers of the people? That the Lord has established Zion, and the poor of His people will find refuge in it. Since he said that no one would escape his mass, it seemed that the Jews were also included in this general sentence. If, he says, the angels of the Assyrian people ask why the Jewish people alone escaped them, then answer them that the Lord founded Zion and Himself covered the humble people with His power. Instead of angels (יכאלמּ), LXX was translated by kings (יכלמּ), misled by one letter aleph. Chapter XV. Art. 1. Burden of Moab; for Ar was desolate by night, Moab was silent; for in the night the wall was broken down, Moab was silent. Let it be enough to speak about burden and heaviness once. I briefly note only that the burden is always accompanied by sadness, and in the vision either immediately joyful, or after sadness, joyful is expressed. Moab is the Arabian region in which Balav the son of Beor was (Num. 22), who brought the soothsayer Balaam from Mesopotamia so that he would curse Israel, where the people devoted themselves to the service of Beelphegor (ibid. Chapter 25). The capital of this region is the city of Ar, which is now called Arsopolis from the combination of the Hebrew word with the Greek, and not because, as some think, it is the city of Ἄρεος, that is, of Mars. And how famous he was, Jeremiah testifies to this, saying: “There is no more rejoicing in Moab” and also: “You trusted in your fortifications and in your treasures”; and again: “Moab was fertile from his youth, and sat on his yeast, and did not overflow from vessel to vessel, and did not go into migration, and therefore its taste remained in it, and its smell did not change.” And in another place: “how was the mighty rod, the glorious reed, broken”? and a little lower: “We have heard about the pride of Moab, he is proud beyond measure. The arrogance and arrogance and pride and the exaltation of his heart I know, says the Lord, and his insolence” (Jer. 48:2, 7, 11, 25, 29, 30). Consequently, just as the prophet predicted against Babylon and the Philistines that they would oppress the people of Judah, so now the destruction of the Moabites, that is, Arabia, by the Assyrians and Babylonians is predicted. For they were devastated by both nations at the time when Sennacherib led Israel into captivity, and when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem (2 Kings 17 and 25). For Moab, on the occasion of the invasion of Ephraim and Judah by both enemies, rejoiced, as Jeremiah says: “Moab will strike with his hand in his vomit, and he himself will be a mockery. Was not Israel made a mockery of you, as if you had caught him among thieves” (Jer. 68:26-28). Therefore, for the words that you spoke against him, you will be taken into captivity. And the words: Ar was desolate at night, Moab fell silent constitute a decent beginning of the reproach that he was devastated in the darkness who was conceived by night from his father’s incest; unless by night we are to understand the powers of horror, and if we cannot think that since he relied on the walls, he was defeated by cunning and undermining. I heard from one Areopolitan, which the city itself confirms, that with the great earthquake that happened during my childhood, 23 when the seas all over the world overflowed their banks, the walls of this city fell that same night. Art. 2. The house and Dibon will go up on the heights in mourning over Nebo, and over Medabah Moab will cry. Do not be sad that I am following the path of history, for you yourself wanted me to do this. This refers to the royal house and the city of Divon, which go back to the idols placed in high places. Over Navo and over Medava, the famous mountains, the whole region will scream. For in Nabo there was a church of the idol Chemosh, which by another name is Beelphegor. There will be bald spots on all his heads, every beard will be shaved. Among the ancients, shaving the beard and head was an expression of sadness. Therefore, this signifies the greatness of sorrow, just as Jeremiah also exclaims against Moab: “Everyone’s head will be naked, and every beard will be shaved; “Everyone has scratches on their hands, and every back has sackcloth” (Jer. 68:37). Art. 3. At the crossroads they girdle it with sackcloth; over its rooftops and in the streets its general cry will turn into sobbing. The crying will not be private, but the general misfortune will be echoed in public sobs, and neither matrons, nor maidens, nor young children, nor the weakened legs of old people will be left in the houses; the disasters of enslavement will not dismantle either modesty or weakness. Art. 4. Heshbon and Eleala will scream. These are the names of the cities of the Moabite region, of which Heshbon was once the city of the king of Ammor, about which the same Jeremiah says: “fire came out of Heshbon, and flame from the midst of Seon” (Jer. 48:43). Heshbon means plan, and therefore Jeremiah, making a play on words, says: “They have planned evil against Heshbon” (Jer. 48:1). Their voice is heard as far as Iatza. The city of Iatza lies at the Dead Sea, where the border of the Moabite region is located. Therefore, this shows that the cries of the area will be heard to its extreme limits. Therefore, Jeremiah says: “from the cry of Heshbon to Eleala and Jazi, they uttered their voice” (Jer. 48:34). Moreover, the armed men of Moab will cry out; his soul will cry out to himself. The Hebrew word eluse, which Aquila translated ἐξώμους armed and with protruding shoulders, and Symmachus girded, according to some does not mean men, but the name of the city, which is now called Eluz and is located within the borders of Moab. We can also say that all the strength of the warriors will fall, and mutual sobs will echo throughout the country. If eluse should be translated with protruding shoulders, then this gives us the meaning that when crying everyone will bare their breasts. Art. 5. My heart will weep for Moab. The prophet expresses a feeling of condolences, either because the enemies who have suffered so many disasters are the creation of God, or because they will be struck by such great disasters that even their enemies will be worthy of regret. Jeremiah said the same thing: “therefore my heart will respond to Moab like a flute.” His poles reach Zoar, a three-year-old heifer. Jeremiah says: From Zoar to Oronaim, a heifer three years old. We talked about it in the books of Jewish Questions and now briefly note that this is the fifth small city after Sodom and Gomorrah, Adama and Seboim, saved through the prayer of Lot. It is called Vala, that is, swallowed up, since according to Jewish tradition it was destroyed during the third earthquake; This is the city that is now called Zoora in Syrian, and Zoor in Hebrew, which means small in both languages. We can understand a three-year-old heifer in the sense of full age. For just as the thirtieth year is the time of greatest strength among people, so among cattle and beasts of burden it is the third. And understand the poles in the sense of boundaries and strength, since Zoar lies on the border of the Moabites, separating the land of the Philistines from them. For when the sun rises, lamentation will rise upon Luchid. And Jeremiah says: “When Luchid rises, lament after lament rises.” We understand that this is the slope of the road leading to the Assyrians, and that captivity is signified through this. And along the Oronaim road they will raise a cry of contrition. Again Jeremiah says: “There is a voice of cry in Oronaim, desolation and great destruction.” It would be a long time to talk about everything separately, when it is obvious that this is the name of either the cities or localities of Moab, which those migrating leave. Art. 6. For the waters of Nemrim will be abandoned. This is a city near the Dead Sea, with salty and therefore barren water. The prophet is either making a play on words in relation to the name, or after the devastation something happened that had not happened before, so that the waters turned into bitterness. Because the grass dried up, there were no grains, all the greenery died. Not as some people think, that all the grass actually dried up as a result of the barren waters of Nemrim, but Scripture speaks metaphorically. And the meaning is that in all Moab and Nemrim the waters will be salty and bitter; just as no grass grows there, so drought will strike the entire region, that is, from Zoar to Oronaim, from the ends to the ends of it. Jeremiah says the same thing: “the waters of Nemrim will be very bad” (Jer. 48:34). Art. 7. According to the greatness of the matter and visiting them; they will be led to the river of willows. Instead of willows in Hebrew we read arabim, which can also be understood by Arabs. And it can also be read orbim, that is, the city lying within their borders, the inhabitants of which, as many say, delivered food to Elijah when he was on Mount Horeb 24; which name, due to ambiguity, is translated as crows and west and level places. The meaning is this: according to the severity of the illness, there will be a visit. Understand visiting here not in the sense of healing, but in the sense of punishment. I will visit, he says, with the rod of their iniquity, and with the stripes of their unrighteousness (Ps. 89:33). By the river of willows mean the rivers of Babylon, about which David says: on the willows in the middle of it our organs are hung (Ps. 137:2), or the valley of Arabia, through which the road to Assyria goes. Art. 8. For the cry will go around all the borders of Moab, its howling as far as Agallim, and its cry as far as the well of Elim. All these are almost the same names that Jeremiah gives. These are the cities and areas of Moab, which depict the cry and lamentation of the captive people. Art. 9. Because the waters of Dibon were filled with blood. Where previously there was abundance, due to the irrigation of the fields and the flowing streams everywhere, there, due to the multitude of those killed, streams of blood will flow. For I will put an appendage on Dibon, a lion on those who fled from Moab and on those who remained in the land. So that anyone does not think that this is a scribe’s mistake and, wanting to correct the mistake, does not allow it, (it should be noted that) the same city is written through the letter m and through the letter b, and of these names Dimon means silence, and Dibon means flowing. Since both names can be applied to this place due to the quietly flowing local waters, this town is still called indifferently both Dimon and Dibon. As for the words: I will put an appendage on Dibon, which could arouse bewilderment, he explained in the next verse what it is, saying: a lion on those who fled from Moab and on those who remained in the land, and that those who fled will be destroyed by wild beasts. However, the lion can also be explained in a metaphorical sense, in the sense of the king of enemies - that no one can escape from his power, like a roaring lion. Chapter XVI. Art. 1. Send the Lamb, ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert to the mountain of the daughter of Zion. What is explained is not history, but prophecy; every prophecy is covered with riddles, and due to fragmentary thoughts, speaking about one thing, it moves on to another, so that the prophecy does not turn into a narrative, if the Scripture were in order. And the meaning is this: O Moab! You, over whom the lion will rage and from whom not even a remnant will be able to escape, you must have this consolation: from you will come a blameless Lamb, who will take away the sins of the world, who will rule over the whole universe; He will come out of the rock of the desert, that is, from Ruth, who, after the death of her husband, becoming a widow, gave birth to Boaz Obed and from Obed Jesse, and from Jesse David, and from David Christ. Let us interpret the mountain of the daughter of Zion either in the sense of the city of Jerusalem itself, or, according to the mysterious explanation, the Church placed at the pinnacle of virtues. Art. 2. And it will be like a bird running away, and chicks flying away from a nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the crossing (or ford) of Arnon. He returns to the beginning of the order: when, he says, I will place for those fleeing from Moab and for the remnant of the country a fierce lion that will crush their limbs and bones, then they will fly away in horror, and all the daughters, that is, the villages and cities of Moab, will cross the ford of Arnon, which forms the border between the Ammorites and the Moabites. Putting the word transition here also means captivity. Art. 3–4. Enter into the discussion, convene a council; make your shadow like night at midday, cover those who flee, do not hand over those who wander. My exiles will live with you: Moab! Be a refuge for them from the face of the devastator, for the dust is finished, the accursed is destroyed, the one who trampled the earth is no more. Instead of accursed in Hebrew there is sod, which can be understood as devastator. He tells Moab to seek saving advice, and having gathered the elders, draw up a meeting for his salvation. Do you want, he says, to be saved and merit the mercy of God? When the flight of My people is open, in the middle of the day, be like night and shadow for them, shelter those who are running and do not hand over those who are wandering. And he immediately explains why he said this: My exiles will live with you. For after the devastation of Jerusalem and all Judah, which is adjacent to the Moabites, My people will migrate to you. Be a refuge for them and do not be afraid of the invasion of the devastator, because he will soon pass away like dust, and the desolator of the whole earth, who trampled it and brought it under his feet, will disappear with the breath of the breeze. Some interpret this passage poorly in relation to the Antichrist, so that they think that the saints at that time, due to the proximity of the city of Jerusalem to the Arabs, will go over to these latter, and that now they are commanded not to betray those who resort to them. Art. 5. And a throne will be prepared in mercy, and he will sit on it in truth, in the tabernacle of David he who judges and seeks righteousness and quickly repays what is right. The Jews interpret this passage as follows: after the expulsion of the king of Assyria, Hezekiah, a just man, will reign over Judah, and having taken the throne of David, he will judge the people subordinate to him in righteousness. Others understand about Christ. When the ashes of the Antichrist are finished off and the desolator who trampled the whole earth is crushed, then King Christ will come, who will sit in the Tabernacle of David and on the day of judgment will reward everyone according to their deeds. And there is no doubt that this section prophesies about Christ. But we can understand the same thing regarding the first coming and indicate this in the tabernacle of the Church - that the trophies of churches erected throughout the land of Moab testify to the power of Christ. Art. 6–7. We have heard about the pride of Moab, it is proud beyond measure; his pride and his exaltation and his fury are more than his strength. Therefore Moab will mourn for Moab, everyone will weep; those who rejoice over walls made of burnt bricks speak of his defeat. Again he returns to the present and denounces Moab for his pride, that he has become arrogant much more than his strength allowed him, and that for this pride Moab will weep for Moab, that is, the people for the city and the capital for the region, and throughout the whole earth sobs will be heard over the walls of baked brick, sobs about which Jeremiah said: “Therefore I will weep over Moab, and cry to all Moab, to the men of the clay wall who weep” (Jer. 48:31). This shows both the greatness of the previous prosperity and the severity of the unexpected devastation that befell. Art. 8. For the outskirts of Heshbon are laid waste, and also the vineyard of Shebam. There are only five hundred steps of distance between Heshbon and Shebamoh, and the metaphor of the vineyard signifies the devastation of the entire region. The rulers of the nations cut down its vines. He maintains the metaphor he started, showing that the kings of the nations, who devastated Moab, devastated all its villages and fortified places. They reached Jazer, wandered through the desert; its shoots were abandoned and crossed the sea. By vines and shoots we mean the people and their fugitives, and by crossing the sea - the taking into captivity to Babylon, which we will read about below: the burden of the coastal desert. Art. 9 Therefore I also will weep the lament of Jazer for you, O vineyard of Shebam; I will make you drunk with my tears, Heshbon and Elealah. The voice of a mourning prophet and the greatness of tears showing the greatness of the devastation, and mourning the vineyard of Jazer and Shebam, and Heshbon and Eleala, once the most powerful cities, cut down by the knife of the king of Assyria. For while you are gathering grapes and while you are harvesting, the voice of those who trample has fallen. Understand that those who trample grape berries and those who gather grapes in joy are enemies, and that the time of captivity will come at the very time of joy. Art. 10. And joy and rejoicing will be taken away from Carmel. It is a feature of the Scriptures that the fertile and wooded Mount Carmel, which lies near Ptolemais and on which Elijah prayed, serves as an image of fertility and abundance, and through this the prophet signifies that all joy and fertility will be taken away from the once richest cities. And in the vineyards there will be no rejoicing and no rejoicing - this means the former grape-gatherer, i.e., a resident of the Moabite region. After that he adds: Those who are accustomed to trample will not trample wine in the winepress; I stopped the trampling voice. During the grape harvest, the cheerful gatherer will not sing his kelevma 25, but everywhere there will be enemy devastation and the cries of the victors will be heard. Art. 11. Because of this my belly will groan for Moab like a harp, and my bowels against a wall of burnt brick. Lest anyone think that the prophet’s cry is an expression of joy with which he would welcome the captivity of the enemies of the people of Israel, he says that with deep and sincere heartfelt sadness he mourns the destruction of the once most powerful city. Art. 12. And it will be, although it will be revealed that Moab has labored in his high places until he is tired, and although he will enter into his sanctuaries to pray, nothing will help. It is an extreme calamity when one does not find help from those whom one has always honored with reverence. Having lost, he says, your strength after killing your soldiers, you will go to idols, you will pray in churches, but you will not find help from those who will suffer the same devastation as you. Art. 13. This is the word that the Lord spoke to Moab from that time on. Since when do you think? Of course, since Moab was created and the Lord said: “The Moabites and the Ammonites will not enter the church of God” (Deut. 23:3). Or from that time we must understand in the sense of ancient times that this Divine sentence was determined long ago, not in the sense that God’s foreknowledge caused the cause of devastation, but in the fact that future devastation was foreshadowed by the greatness of God. Art. 14. And now the Lord spoke, saying: In three years, counting the years of mercenaries, the glory of Moab will be taken away over all the many people, and it will remain small and insignificant, not at all great. This prophecy, as we said above, was addressed to the Moabites after the death of Ahaz during the reign of Hezekiah, during which the ten tribes were taken into captivity by Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. Thus, just as a mercenary waits for the sun to set or waits days and nights for the end of his work in order to receive the established payment, so Moab, in three years, with the invasion of the Assyrians, will be crushed and barely a few will remain in the country to live in ruined cities and cultivate abandoned fields. This can also be explained as a prediction about the captivity of Babylon, that after the capture of Jerusalem and after three years, Moab will be devastated by the Chaldeans, or that for three years there will be no rest for them. Chapter XVII. Art. 1–3. The burden of Damascus: Damascus will cease to be a city and will be like a pile of stones in ruins. The cities of Aroer will be abandoned to the herds, and they will rest there and there will be no one to frighten them. And the help of Ephraim will cease, and the kingdom from Damascus and the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of hosts. After Babylon, the Philistines and Moab, the speech turns to Damascus, that is, to Aram, which was once also a royal city and was the first in all Syria, until Antioch, Laodicea and Apamea flourished, which, as we know, grew stronger after Alexander and the Macedonian dynasty. So, since he always assisted the ten tribes against Judah, as the story is told in the books of Kings and Chronicles, he says that the inhabitants of Damascus are in danger of imminent devastation from the Assyrians, as the king of Assyria says: “I took Arabia and Damascus and Samaria; for as I took them and all the kingdoms, so will I take you also.” And in the book of Kings we read: and the king of Assyria went up to Damascus, and took him and put him in Cyrene (2 Kings. 16:9), and killed Racine, who was king of Damascus, which he suffered during the reign of Hezekiah in Jerusalem. Behold, he says, Damascus will cease to be a city; Captivity is already close - the king of Assyria has already moved his army. And it will be like a heap of stones, ruins - so that the walls and traces of its former greatness will be visible only in a multitude of ruins. The cities of Aroer will be abandoned to the herds. Aroer means tamarisk, which is a tree that grows in the desert and on saline soil, and through this it signifies devastation. They will rest there, meaning herds, and there will be no one to frighten them. For there will be such desolation that there will not even be anything to fear from the hidden enemy. And help for Ephraim will cease: the ten tribes will have no help from him against Judah. And the kingdom from Damascus: ἀπο κοινοῦ (in the Vulgate) is meant to cease. When he says that the kingdom ceases or ends, it does not mean devastation forever, but only that at this time God is taking away from Damascus its power, with which it previously reigned over all of Syria. And the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of hosts. Just as, he says, during the invasion of the king of Assyria, ten tribes were crushed and all their glory was taken into captivity: so the fate of those few who will live in Damascus will change - and they will have the glory of an allied people. Understand glory here ironically, instead of infamy. Yet this will come true, because the Lord said it, whose words cannot be in vain. Some consider this prophecy to be the same as that which we read in Jeremiah: Damascus is torn apart, turned to flee, trembling is embraced, and sorrow and illness have overcome it, as if it were giving birth, and also: I will kindle a fire on the wall of Damascus, and it will burn the walls of Benhadab (Jer. 49:24.27). But you should know that Jeremiah is depicted in the Babylonian captivity of the city of Damascus, that is, the few left in it by the king of Assyria; Isaiah announces the imminent captivity from the Assyrians. Others think that it is predicted about the captivity of Rome, when the people of Judea were taken into captivity and Damascus, which was ruled by Aretas, suffered a similar slavery, so that everything that is written on Damascus can be attributed to the time of Christ and to the mysteries of the apostles. Art. 4. And it shall come to pass on that day that the glory of Jacob shall diminish, and his fat flesh shall grow thin. When, he says, Damascus is taken and ceases to be a city, and the glory that crowned Israel crowns it, then all the strength, the fattest flesh, and the refuge of Jacob will become thin, for he will not have allies to devastate Jerusalem with them. We read above that Racine the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Romelia, the king of Israel, rose up against Jerusalem in war, and that it was announced to the house of David: Syria and Ephraim have come to an agreement, about whom the prophet says to Ahaz: Do not be afraid and do not let your heart be afraid of the two tails of these smoking brands - the fury of anger of Racine the king of Syria, and the son of Romelin, which Syria, Ephraim and the son of Romelia made the worst plan against you. Art. 5–6. And he will be like one who gathers what is left of the stubble, and his hand will gather the ears of corn; and he will be like one who seeks grain of corn in the valley of Raphaim. And he shall have as it were a cluster of grapes, and as two or three olives from an olive tree, or four or five fruits upon its top, says the Lord God of Israel. Those who attribute the present devastation of Damascus to the kingdom of Rome argue that this is said about the apostles - that just as a few ears of corn and olives usually remain in the field or on the trees, so the remnant of Israel will be saved, especially since it follows: on that day man will turn to his Creator and his eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel, that is, to Christ. They interpret two olive trees, and three, four and five, in the sense of the fourteen apostles, that is, the twelve who were chosen, the thirteenth James, who is called the brother of the Lord, and the Apostle Paul, the chosen vessel (Acts 7). Those who think that what was said was fulfilled during the time of the Assyrians, want to understand that during the Assyrian captivity Damascus was not completely destroyed, but after the resettlement of some to Cyrene, another part of the farmers was left in the country itself, part of which also subsequently, during the devastation of Babylon, was exterminated, until under the kings of Macedon and Ptolemy Damascus was again restored, during the coming of Christ, although it was a city, it was not as powerful as before. And the meaning is this: there will be as few people left in Damascus as there usually are after the harvest of ears of corn, which, according to custom, are collected by the poor in the vast and fertile Raphaim valley, or as few olives remain on the olive tree unnoticed by their gatherer. Art. 7–8. On that day man will rise up to his Creator and his eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel. And he will not bow down to the altars that his hands have made and that his fingers have made, and they will not look at the groves and the churches. They think that this was fulfilled in the time of Christ, when, after the destruction of the kingdom of Damascus, the eternal kingdom of Christ began and the error of idolatry was weakened. The desire of the interpreters, although good, does not respect historical consistency. We say that after the destruction of Damascus and the departure of the ten tribes to Assyria, the remaining Israelites from these tribes, as a result of the message of Hezekiah, turned to God and came to the temple of Jerusalem, as the story of the book of Chronicles tells (2 Chronicles 30). So, after the destruction of Damascus, people will turn to their Creator, that is, to the One who created them, and their eyes will be turned not to the idols that they made in Bethel and Dan, but to God, despising the churches and altars that their fingers created. Art. 9. On that day the cities of his strength will be abandoned like plows and harvests abandoned by the children of Israel, and the land will be desolate. This speaks not against Damascus, but against the ten tribes called Israel, that just as upon the arrival of the people of God from Egypt, all the nations inhabiting the Promised Land, in horror from the unexpected invasion, abandoned their plows, piles of supplies and all their work and sought salvation in flight: so the land of Israel will remain desolate for a long time. Therefore, I am surprised that instead of plows and piles of fruit, Aquila decided to translate: tiles and Emir, Symmachus the forest and Amir, LXX Amorites and Hivites. Only Theodotion put the Hebrew word: ars and Emir, which among the Jews is more accurately read: gores and Amir, i.e. plows and heaps of harvested grain. Art. 10. For you have forgotten God your Savior and have not remembered your mighty Helper. You, Israel, will endure this, he says, because you forsook God your Savior, who delivered you from Egypt, who subjected hostile nations to you, and because you did not remember your Helper. For this you will plant a reliable garden and plant an alien cutting. This should be read questioningly and ironically. Since, he says, you have forgotten God your Savior and have not remembered your strong helper, will you plant a reliable garden for this and should you not rather plant an alien cutting that will be uprooted by the enemy? Or this: my sons, who were born from the tribe of my people, you founded on the earth in order to make them alien and the worst. Art. 11. On the day of your planting, wild grapes; In the morning your seed will flourish, but the harvest on the day of inheritance will be taken away, and you will have great sorrow. Behold, he says, what fruits you will receive from your labors: your Sorek vine will degenerate into wild grapes; Although your seed will show hope during its growth, when it reaches maturity, the harvest will be reaped by others. And you will grieve greatly when you lose what you hoped for and what you almost held in your hands. Art. 12–14. Woe to the multitude of many nations, like the multitude of a roaring sea, and the noise of their masses is like the roar of many waters; the nations will roar like the roar of waters during a flood; but He will threaten him, and he will run far away, and will be caught like mountain dust by the wind and like a whirlwind during a storm. Evening - and here is confusion; morning, and it will not be. Such is the fate of those who devastated us, and the lot of those who ruined us. Those who attribute the above to the captivity of Damascus by the Romans, they also refer to the words: man will rise to his Creator and his eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel to the times of Christ and the apostles. Further: plant a reliable garden and plant an alien cutting; on the day of your planting the wild grapes they also explain in relation to the unbelief of the Jews; this same section, which we have now outlined, is explained in relation to the pagan persecutors of the church, and further: He will threaten him, and he will flee far away. We adhere to the sequence we have begun, and cover the historical foundation with a historical roof. Woe, he says, to all the nations who fought against My people, whose onslaught was so great that it can be compared to the waves of the sea. But when they come with fury and flood My land, then their prince Sennacherib, as a result of the threat of God, will flee from it and like dust scattered by the wind and like a whirlwind spins upward during a storm, so he, although he will approach Jerusalem and besiege it, will be struck by an angel; the morning will come, and he will see his strong army destroyed. Such will be the fate of those who devastated us. The prophet says this either on behalf of the people, or himself joining his people. Subsequently we read: and it came to pass that night, and an angel of the Lord came and killed one hundred eighty and five thousand from the Assyrian army. And the morning rose, and all the corpses were dead. And Sennacherib, king of Assyria, arose, and departed, and returned, and dwelt in Nineveh (2 Kings 19:35, 36). Chapter XVIII. Art. 1. Woe to the land - the cymbal of wings, which is on the other side of the Ethiopians. The Hebrew word: sel - sel, which Symmachus translated noise, Theodotion - birds, and we - cymbal. Akila translated it as a double repetition of the word shadow, since he should know that shadow in Hebrew is sel, and here this syllable is repeated. From this we can understand what was said. Woe to the land that promises help under the shadow of its wings, and which, while the Scripture says: he who lives in the help of the Most High, will dwell in the shelter of the God of heaven (Ps. 90:1) (instead of which in Hebrew it is written: “he will dwell in the shadow of the Most High”), assimilating himself to God-likeness and being in a distressed state, promises to help others. It indicates either the Egyptian city, which is now called Alexandria, or Egypt, on which Jerusalem has always leaned, like on a fragile cane, which, when broken, pierces the hand of the one leaning on it. How wonderful is this arrangement of thoughts: just as in the previous vision the prophetic speech threatened Damascus because the ten tribes, in need of God’s mercy, sought help from him; so now devastation is predicted for Egypt because, as a result of its help, they forgot to call on God’s help. For he is the land located on the other side of the Ethiopian rivers, that is, on the other side of the branches of the Nile River, which undoubtedly flows into Egypt from Ethiopia. Egypt can be called the cymbal of wings due to the rapid ripening of the fruit, since the fast and swift flight of birds makes a sound similar to the sound of a cymbal. Some, based on the following: which sends ambassadors by sea and in papyrus ships on the waters, understand the kingdom of Rome and the whole story is attributed to the times of Vespasian and Titus, by whom Jerusalem was destroyed. But this does not correspond to our faith, for the Lord to threaten the kingdom of Rome, why it destroyed the wicked people, and for Him to say that gifts will again be brought to Mount Zion - unless, perhaps, we can accept this in a spiritual sense in relation to the Church. Art. 2. Which sends ambassadors by sea and in papyrus ships across the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a people overthrown and torn to pieces, to a terrible people, after which there is no other, to a waiting and trampled people, whose rivers have cut their land. Among the Jews, Egypt, the Egyptian, and the Egyptians are called by the same word Mesraim. This should be noted so that someone does not become attached to the word when he encounters a male instead of a female, that is, instead of an earth, an inhabitant of it, because even now it is said: who sends ambassadors by sea, that is, that country of Mesraim or that Egyptian, in the sense that from Alexandria, which then, as we said, was called No, they were sent to Jerusalem, and in papyrus vessels, i.e. in letters, or on ships, promising them their help, they said: go quickly to the people of Judah, overthrown and torn apart by invasion, to the once terrible people, who were under the control of God, with which no other people can be compared in strength; to a people who have always expected God’s help and who are nevertheless trampled upon by people, whose land has been devastated by rivers, that is, by various kings. Others think that an appeal is being made to the Lord, and that the meaning is this: O God, You, Who send prophets into the sea of this age and, as if exhorting the people through messages sent overseas, command Your messengers: go quickly to My tormented and overthrown people, to the most powerful people, who was once a fear for all the surrounding nations, who always expected God’s help and according to the greatness of their sins unworthy to receive what he hopes, whose land was devastated by the kings of various nations, etc. Eusebius of Caesarea, promising a historical interpretation in the title, wanders through various meanings, and reading his books I found in them something completely different than what he promised in the title. For as soon as he does not have enough history, he turns to allegory and unites heterogeneous things in such a way that I marvel at how he combines stone and iron into one composition with new verbal skill. I noted this briefly so that no one would think that I borrowed what I said from his sources; for he says that in this section the prophecy is directed against the Jews and Jerusalem - that at the beginning of Christianity they sent messages to all nations so that they would not accept the suffering of Christ, and sent them to Ethiopia and the western country, and filled the whole world with the sowing of this blasphemy. Art. 3. All of you inhabitants of the universe living on earth, when the banner is raised in the mountains, you will see and hear the sound of the trumpet. All of you, he says, the surrounding nations, when you hear My command, like a banner raised on the mountains, and My decree sounding like the sound of a trumpet, then you will see what I have commanded. Art. 4. For thus says the Lord to me: I will rest and watch from my place. What did the Lord say to the prophet? The following: until the time determined by Me comes, I will rest in My dwelling - in the church, as the Jews think, in heaven, as we think; and I will watch, he says, what the end of all will come. How clear is the light of noon and like the mists of dew on the day of harvest. Just as noon is the clearest throughout the whole day, when the sun shines in the middle of the sky and equally illuminates the whole earth, and just as in the heat and scorching heat, when the naked harvester is exhausted from the heat and suffocating from hard work, the coolness of the dew is especially pleasant if the morning moisture makes the dried straw convenient for cutting: so My word, which I will watch from My dwelling, will come with grace to everyone. those who believe in Me. Art. 5–6. For before the harvest it has fully blossomed and the unripe fruit has grown, and its branches will be cut off with knives, and what remains will be cut off and chopped off. And it will be left together for the birds of the mountains and the beasts of the earth, and the birds will live there for a whole summer, and all the beasts of the earth will spend the winter there. Since he spoke about midday and above mentioned the fog of dew in summer and during the harvest and borrowed the comparison from agriculture, he retains this comparison in the rest, describing the pride of Egypt, the devastation of its people, and the corpses throughout the entire region that will be devoured by birds. For just as crops that grow prematurely quickly perish and as plants that send forth shoots prematurely turn out to be useless, so, he says, the Egyptian peoples, like useless branches, will be pruned with knives and all their branches will be stripped. And, so that you don’t think that he is talking about the vineyard, and not about people, he turns the metaphor into historical truth: and they will be left, he says, together with the birds of the mountains and the beasts of the earth. For birds and beasts do not devour cut branches of trees, but corpses. We will read this in more detail in Ezekiel, where he prophesies against Pharaoh and against Egypt, and we will find all this there in a very clear image (Ezek. 29). The words: birds will be on it all summer and all animals will winter on it either literally mean many killed, or by the same metaphor they show that it will be devastated by all nations. Art. 7. At that time a gift will be brought to the Lord of hosts from a nation overthrown and torn to pieces, from a terrible nation after which there was no other, from a people waiting, waiting and trampled, whose rivers have cut their land - to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to Mount Zion. After the devastation of Egypt and the destruction of its power, Israel will not rely on the shadow of its vanity, but will turn to the Lord and bring its gifts to Mount Zion, that is, to the church of God, praying to Him alone, whose help is true and eternal. We understand this to be fulfilled under Zerubbabel and Jesus, Ezra and Nehemiah. LXX, instead of what we put: waiting, waiting and instead of what was written in Hebrew: hoping, hoping, they translated opposite ἀνέλπιστον, that is, not hoping, and therefore gave Eusebius a reason to think that this should rather be understood about the pagans, who have neither hope, nor the covenant of God, nor the prophets, than about the Jews, and that in subsequently they will send gifts to the Church, which is placed on high, and spiritual sacrifices will be made. Chapter XIX. Art. 1. The Burden of Egypt. Behold, the Lord will ascend on a light cloud and enter Egypt, and the idols of Egypt will shake at His presence, and the heart of Egypt will melt in His midst. The Scriptures usually add the clear to the dark and express what was previously expressed mysteriously in clear words. Therefore, in the present place, after the threat to Egypt: woe to the land that overshadows the wings, which is on the other side of the Ethiopian rivers and other things set out in the prophetic speech, now makes the meaning clearer and turns the threat directly to Egypt - that not through the angels, but the Lord Himself will come on a light cloud, that is, fast, and will enter Egypt, and the idols of Egypt will tremble and the heart of the brave will melt away and the prophecy of Ezekiel will be fulfilled: I will destroy the graven images and abolish the idols in Memphis (Ezekiel 30:13). Some attribute this entire prophecy to the time of the Savior, when He entered on a light cloud, that is, the human body that He received from the Virgin, not burdened with any seed of human confusion, or that He was lifted up by a light cloud, i.e. a virgin body, and at His entrance all the demons trembled, and then the first fall of the demons occurred, who could not bear the presence of the Lord. Art. 2. And I will set Egyptians against Egyptians, and man shall fight against his brother, and man against his friend, city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. Upon the Lord’s entry into Egypt, with the destruction of the most powerful people, His first victory would be the discord of the Egyptians against the Egyptians and their fierce internecine war, which obviously happened during the times of the Assyrians and Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, when some were motionless and others resisted. And what this predicts about the captivity of Babylon, Jeremiah testifies to this, saying: “Egypt is a beautiful and comely heifer; a driver from the north will come to her"; and again: “the daughter of Egypt was put to shame and delivered into the hands of the people of the north” (Jer. 46:20, 24). Ezekiel, joining with equal authority of prophecy, says: “I will put an end to the multitude of Egypt by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.” And again: “I will strengthen the muscles of the king of Babylon and put My sword in his hand and break the muscles of Pharaoh. And they will know that I am the Lord, when I put My sword in the hand of the king of Babylon, and he spreads it over the land of Egypt. And I will scatter Egypt among the nations” (Ezek. 30:10, 24, 26). If we refer to the time of the Savior, then we can quote this passage from the Gospel: Do not remember that he came to bring peace to the earth: he did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to separate a man from his father, and a daughter from her mother, and a bride from her mother-in-law. And defeat a man's household (Matthew 10:34, 36). And again in another place: three will be divided into two and two into three. The father will be divided into his son, the mother into her daughter, and the bride into her mother-in-law (Luke 12:52, 58). Art. 3. And the spirit of Egypt shall be rent in her bowels, and I will overthrow her counsel; and they will question their idols, and soothsayers, and sorcerers, and fortune tellers. When civil strife begins in Egypt, since some want to submit to the king of Babylon, and others do not want to bend their necks under his yoke, or when some believe in Christ, and others resist, then the spirit of Egypt will be torn and separated, when not everyone will want the same thing, and all their advice will turn into nothing. Then they will go to their idols and ask the soothsayers, fortune-tellers, sorcerers and those knowledgeable in magic, why did this happen? Art. 4. And I will deliver Egypt into the hand of cruel rulers, and a strong king will rule over them, says the Lord God of armies. We follow a twofold understanding - either in relation to the times of the Chaldeans, when Egypt was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, or in relation to the Roman Empire, when Augustus Caesar, having defeated Anthony and Cleopatra, conquered Egypt. That the Babylonians were cruel is evidenced by all Scripture: they did not spare children, pierced them with their spears and had no compassion for pregnant women; and that the Roman kingdom was very strongly evidenced by the book of Daniel (chapter 7), depicting the fourth beast, having iron teeth and claws. Art. 5–7. And the water in the sea will dry up, and the stream will be exhausted and dried up, and the rivers will dry up, and the streams of the embankments will become shallow and dry up. The reeds and reeds will wither, the river bed will be exposed by its stream, and every irrigated crop will dry up, burn out, and there will be no more. Naturally, when captivity comes due to the wrath of God, then disasters will follow its indignation and all the elements will rise up together against those who have offended God. Therefore, another prophet (Jer. 12) wrote that there will be no birds in the air and fish in the water, so as to deprive people of everything they need. We say this if we want to accept the words of the prophet in the sense of the drying up of the Nile River and its branches. If we want to understand it in a figurative sense, then by the river we mean the kingdom, by the sleeves of its leaders, and by greenery, reeds and papyrus, all the natural blessings of Egypt, that these objects represent the works of Egypt, in which Egypt is very rich. Let us read Ezekiel, where King Pharaoh is portrayed as a great dragon living in the rivers and says: “The river is mine, and I have created myself,” and hears: “But I will put a bridle in your jaws and cleave the fish of your rivers to your scales, and I will pull you out of your rivers, and all your fish will stick to your scales, and I will cast you in the wilderness” (Ezekiel 29:3, 4). Regarding the coming of Christ, all this should be understood allegorically, in accordance with what we read above: “The Lord will make the sea of ​​Egypt desert”; and also: “The Lord will send His hand upon the mighty river of Egypt and will split it into seven valleys, so that everyone will cross it with shoes on,” that is, all the delusion of the waters of Egypt and the demonic enchantments with which they deceived the subject peoples will be dried up by the coming of Christ. We can also understand historically the words: the water in the sea will dry up - that they do not mean the great sea, but Lake Mareotis, since Scripture calls all collections of waters seas. These words can also be understood in the sense of hyperbole. The further words: the riverbed from its source will be exposed, depicting that both the river and the source will dry up together. Art. 8–10. And the fishermen will weep, and all those who throw fishing rods into the river will lament, and those who cast nets into the water will fall into despondency. And those who process flax, those who spin and weave linen, will be in confusion; and the water thereof shall wither away, all that made cages for catching fish. And take this in a double sense - that after the devastation of Egypt, when the whole country suffers from drought, the fishermen will weep and those who threw fishing rods into the river, who made nets and seines and weaved various vessels from reeds, that is, princes, royals and rulers will weep; and that at the coming of Christ, all the fishermen of the perverse kind, who, contrary to the teaching of the apostle, caught people to destruction and with foolish wisdom weaved nets and deep waters to entrap the dead in them, were put to shame, so that in the land of Egypt there are either few or no such fishermen. We see this fulfilled in practice - that here the victorious banners of the churches are raised and idols throughout Egypt have fallen. Art. 11–13. The princes of Tsoan are foolish; Pharaoh's wise advisers gave foolish advice. How will you say to Pharaoh: I am the son of wise men, the son of ancient kings? Where are your wise men now? Let them tell you and show you what the Lord of hosts has planned for Egypt. The princes of Zoan have become foolish, the princes of Memphis have faded; they deceived Egypt, the corner of its nations. That Zoan was the capital of Egypt is also shown by the Psalmist, saying that there Moses performed many miracles, which are described in Exodus: perform miracles in the land of Egypt on Poly Thaneos (Ps. 77:11). And that Memphis was devoted to sorcery, this is still shown by the remnants of the former delusion. It is briefly depicted that with the onset of the Babylonian devastation, all the advice of magicians and those who boasted of knowledge of the future will turn out to be unreasonable, and that at the coming of Christ everything will turn into nothing, when the soothsayers of Egypt will not find advice on how to crush the Christian teaching. This is a feature of the Scriptures that they use coal in the sense of royal power, since it unites peoples and forms, as it were, the strongest foundation of a whole house. Therefore, Christ, who unites the walls of two nations, is called the cornerstone (Eph. 2). The words: How will you say to Pharaoh: I am the son of wise men, the son of ancient kings, indicate that the Egyptians represent their ancestors as heroes and gods, Oros, Isis, Osiris and Typhon. Art. 14–15. The Lord stirred up a whirling spirit among him; and they caused Egypt to wander in all its affairs, as a drunken man wanders and vomits; and there will be no work in Egypt that is done by the head and the tail that is crooked and short. First, let's talk about translation, and then think about what is written. Instead of the spirit of rotation, we can translate the spirit of delusion, and also instead of what we translated crooked and short, we can put hunched and frolicking, in the designation of an old man and a child. The Hebrew word agmon, in the haste of translation, we, misled by its ambiguity, translated short, while Aquila more expressively translated στρεβλοῦντα, that is, doing nothing correctly, but doing everything wrong, in the designation of a child. So the meaning is this: the princes of Zoan became foolish, and the wise advisers gave unreasonable advice to Pharaoh, and the princes of Memphis withered and misled Egypt, the corner of the nations, because the Lord stirred up the spirit of delusion and spin among them, so that they did not know what to say and misled Egypt. And just as a drunk and vomiting person will do whatever comes to his mind and does not know where he is, but lies unconscious: so Egypt will not have any business or advice that would have either a beginning or an end and would not be characteristic of either old people or children, some of whom, due to their old age, are weak-minded and crazy, while others, due to frivolity and childhood, do not know what they are doing. This, whether you want to understand it in relation to the devastation of Babylon, or to the coming of Christ, both literally and in the spiritual sense will be in accordance with the connection of speech. Art. 16–17. On that day Egypt will be like women, and they will tremble and fear at the movement of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which He will move against them. And the land of Judah will be a joy for Egypt: whoever remembers it will tremble at the decree of the Lord of hosts, which He has decreed concerning it. I think it is better to expose even one’s own error than, being ashamed to admit a mistake, to remain in error. In what I translated: and the land of Judah will be joyful for Egypt, instead of joy in Hebrew it is agga, which can be translated both joy (which is why Haggai is translated with the word joyful) and horror, which Aquila more expressively translated with the word γύρωσιν (rotation), when someone in horror and trembling rolls his eyes and trembles at the approaching enemy. So, if we want to understand in a good way that the memory of Judas will be joy for Egypt, then we can rightly translate joy; If, as I believe, horror should be translated instead of joy, then we must understand fear or horror - that when Nebuchadnezzar comes and all the strong hands are weakened like women, then even the word of Judah will be horror for Egypt, since while he wants to help Judah, he himself has suffered such great disasters. In relation to our times, no one doubts that in comparison with Christians, all pagans are like women with unsteady thoughts, and everything they say turns into stupidity, that they are horrified by such a great conversion of the people and are surprised and understand the hand of the Lord, and each of the pagans, remembering the Christian name, realizes in fear the powerlessness of idolatry. Art. 18. On that day five cities in the land of Egypt will speak in the language of Canaan and swear by the Lord of hosts; one will be called the city of the sun. Instead of the city of the sun, LXX, I don’t know what they mean, they translated asedec, that one of our people translates the city of truth, and, misled by the fact that in Hebrew it is ares, thinks that this is land, which is written in other letters. So, Symmachus translated better: one will be called the city of the sun, for the ambiguous word ares means both tiles and the sun, since both are burned by fire and dry. Not understanding this place, Onias built a church in Egypt in the city of Iliopolis. Read the Stories of Joseph (Joseph. book 12, chapter 9). Others, by the word ares, i.e. ὄστρακον, tiles, want to mean the city of Ostracinus and other cities near Rhinocorura and Kasiya, which hitherto in Egypt obviously speak the Canaanite, i.e. Syrian language - and they think that the neighboring Syrians and Arabs were resettled in this country. Further, those who attribute the prophecy to the coming of Christ recognize in the five cities either the law of the Lord, which was first of all explained in Alexandria 26, or the five orders of the church - bishops, presbyters, deacons, faithful and catechumens; or - the spiritual understanding of the law, about which the apostle says: in the church I want to speak five words with my mind, and I use others, rather than ten words with my tongue (1 Cor. 14:19) and that one of the five cities will be called the city of the sun, that is, righteousness, in whose roofs there is healing. Art. 19–21. On that day there will be an altar of the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord on its borders. And it will be a sign and a testimony of the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. For they will cry to the Lord in view of the oppressor, and He will send them a savior and intercessor to deliver them; and the Lord will be known by Egypt, and the Egyptians will know the Lord on that day, and will honor Him with sacrifices and gifts, and will make a vow to the Lord and fulfill it. From this place until the end of the vision or burden on Egypt, both the Jews and ours want to understand everything in relation to the coming of Christ; but they put off their first aspirations for the future, and we keep them as if they had come true. Take the day instead of time, although Joseph claims that this was fulfilled under Onias, who, having fled to Egypt, with a very great multitude of Jews built a church and an altar and with vain foolishness tried to fulfill the prophecy about Christ. It speaks of one altar in the same way as one faith, one baptism and one church. And the monument to the Lord at its borders undoubtedly signifies the Gospel and the writings of the apostles. For just as, according to the tropological understanding, under the land of Judea, fear or pleasure for Egypt, the Old Testament is understood, so the history of the Gospel is indicated as a monument within the borders of Egypt. Further he adds: and it will be a sign and testimony, that is, the suffering of the Lord. Then those who have believed, while Egyptians will fight against Egyptians, man will be at enmity against his brother and city will be at war with city, those who have believed, when the time of persecution has come, will pray for the mercy of the Lord and immediately the Savior will come, that is, Jesus, for this is the meaning of this word in our language. And the Lord will be known by the Egyptians, and He will be known either by the persecutors who are defeated, or by the believers who are delivered by the help given to them. And they will honor Him with sacrifices and gifts, and they will make vows to the Lord and fulfill them. The Jews will say: the law prescribes that the altar should be in only one place, which the Lord God chooses, and that the sacrifices should be slain only by priests from the family of Levi (Deut. 26). But Isaiah clearly teaches that the Egyptians will know the Lord and will honor Him, and will offer sacrifices and gifts, will make vows and fulfill them. If the Egyptians have the priesthood, then the testimony of Paul is fulfilled on them, who says: the priesthood that is given according to need and law undergoes change (Heb. 7:12). Art. 22. And the Lord will smite Egypt with a blow and heal it; and they will turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on them and heal them. For the Lord loves him, punishes him, beats every son, and accepts him. Persecution does not serve for believers to retreat, but to strengthen and crown them. Art. 23. On that day there will be a road from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will enter Egypt, and the Egyptian will enter Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve Assur. Before the coming of Christ, each nation had its own king and no one could move from one nation to another; in the Roman Empire everything was united. Let the learned reader uncover the ancient stories, and he will learn that the whole country between the Euphrates and the Tigris belonged to the Assyrians. So, those whom the ancients called Assyrians, we call Syrians from the part, calling the whole. The words: The Egyptians will serve Assur should be understood either in such a way that the Roman legions guard Egypt with trained Syrian troops, or in such a way that both peoples conduct trade relations with each other and the cities of Syria use the products of Egypt, just as, on the contrary, Egypt is flooded with the goods of Palestine and Phenicia. Some of our people poorly attribute this to the thousand-year kingdom and, according to the custom of the Jews, preach that this will be fulfilled at the end of the world, when the Antichrist, coming from Assyria, will take possession of Egypt and Ethiopia. Art. 24–25. On that day Israel will be third with the Egyptian and the Assyrian, (there will be) a blessing in the midst of the land, which the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying: Blessed are My people in Egypt, and the work of My hands in Assyria; My heritage is Israel. Israel will by no means be crushed, being in the middle between Egypt and Assyria, while either Antioch and Demetrius pulled the kingdom of Judea to themselves, or the Ptolemies assumed power over it; but even being under the authority of Rome, and through this under the authority of Christ, Judea will be in the same condition as Egypt and Assyria, and will be blessed throughout the whole earth. For out of Zion will go the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Then the Lord will say: Blessed are My people in Egypt - when, in the presence not of Moses, but of the Lord Christ, countless thousands of people will fill the desert, and after the drowning of Pharaoh, they will say in the desert: Let us drink of the Lord, for gloriously shall we be glorified; horse and rider were thrown into the sea (Ex. 15:1). Then the work of the Lord’s hands will also be in Assyria, for these greatest nations flourish with hosts of monks, and Egypt and Mesopotamia compete with each other in equal piety. The heritage of Christ is Israel, that is, the places of His birth, cross, resurrection and ascension, places to which people flock from all over the world. Chapter XX. Art. 1–6. In the year in which Tartham came to Azoth, when Sargon king of Assyria sent him, and fought against Azoth and took it, at that time the Lord spoke into the hand of Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go, and take off thy sackcloth from off thy loins, and throw off thy sandals from off thy feet; and he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said: Just as my servant Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years, as a sign and as a sign about Egypt and Ethiopia: so the king of Assyria will lead captives from Egypt and immigrants from Ethiopia, young men and old men, naked and barefoot, with naked loins, to the shame of Egypt. And they will be horrified and ashamed because of Ethiopia, their hope, and because of Egypt, their glory. And the inhabitant of that island will say on that day: behold, they were our hope, we ran to them for help, so that they would deliver us from the king of Assyria; and how can we be saved? We have outlined the entire contents of this chapter so that everything can be considered in parts. Azoth, called in Hebrew Ezdod, was the most significant of the five cities of Palestine; Sargon the king of Assyria, called by seven names, took this city and took possession of it, sending his commander named Tartama for this. So, at the time when the neighboring city was taken, Isaiah is commanded, having taken off his clothes of sackcloth (for such was the clothing of the prophet who mourned the sins of the people) and the shoes from his feet, which LXX call kaligs, to walk naked and barefoot, representing a prototype of the captivity of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, who were allies of the Egyptians - that, like Isaiah, he walked naked and naked the loins served as an object of disgust for the spectators, so all of Egypt and Ethiopia during the Assyrian devastation will be naked and absolutely nothing will remain in the land. And let no one think that this contradicts the prosperity promised to the Egyptians above, since there it is predicted that prosperity will come after disasters, and here they talk about the upcoming captivity, when the king of Assyria, having conquered the Israelites, Damascus and the Philistines, went straight to Egypt and conquered the Egyptians as well as the Ethiopians. So that this does not seem doubtful to anyone, let us present the testimony of Isaiah himself: And Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Lovna: having heard that he had retreated from Lachish. And when we heard about Pharak the king of Ethiopia, we said: Behold, I came forth to fight with you (2 Kings 19:8, 9). And together we learn the obedience of the prophets - that the noble man (for the Hebrews say that Isaiah was the father-in-law of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah) was not ashamed to walk naked, but not recognizing anything more honorable than the commandments of God, he took off his sackcloth, and having thrown it off he was naked, although before he had only one garment, and that was sackcloth. The words: three years as an indication and omen about Egypt and Ethiopia mean that Egypt and Ethiopia will be devastated by the Assyrians within three years. Then, he says, the inhabitant of that island, that is, Jerusalem, against which the waves of neighboring nations crash, will say: was not he our hope? Was it not them who we resorted to for help, was it not them who could not get rid of the scourge of captivity? So here is the dispensation of God’s Providence, which, according to His ineffable judgment, governs the human race. Despite the wrath of God, Israel relied on Damascus, and the city that helped the wicked contrary to His will will be destroyed. Judah hoped in Egypt - and Egypt would be destroyed. The Egyptians relied on the Ethiopians - and the Ethiopians would also be defeated by the Assyrians. The Assyrians became proud, considering victory a matter of their own strength, and not of God, and they will be defeated by the Babylonians. Babylon has raised its head against God - and it will be defeated by the Medes and Persians. The Persians and Medes partly persecuted the people of God, the fiercest ram scattered all the nations in the east and west; - the goat Alexander will come and crush him with his feet. And this latter, having risen excessively, will die from poison, and his kingdom will be divided into parts, and, weakened for a long time by internecine wars, will be destroyed by the victorious Romans. And the Romans themselves, with iron teeth and claws and a bloodthirsty mouth, tormented the bodies of the saints: a stone will be cut off from the mountain without the help of hands, and the first mighty and iron kingdom, then the weak and fragile kingdom will be crushed like a shard (Daniel. Ch. 2). Chapter XXI. Art. 1. The burden of the coastal desert. If in the further verses of this section I had not read: Beloved Babylon became a wonder to me, and more; Babylon fell, and all the images of its gods were crushed on the earth, and above this: Arise, Elam, and besiege, O Mede, then I would doubt what kind of burden this is imposed on the seaside desert. So, obviously Babylon is called a seaside desert, as Jeremiah says on behalf of God: “And I will make its sea a wilderness and dry up its land, and Babylon will become heaps of sand” (Jer. 51:36, 37). It is called a sea because of the multitude of inhabitants, which is why the population of Egypt was likened to the sea above: God will make the sea of ​​Egypt desert. And that the Medes and Persians fought against Babylon and destroyed it, we read about this in the aforementioned Jeremiah: “Sharpen your arrows, fill your quivers. The Lord aroused the spirit of the kings of Media, and his intention was against Babylon to destroy her, for this is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance for His church. Raise a banner over the walls of Babylon, strengthen the guard, place watchmen high, prepare, for the Lord has thought and done everything that he has spoken against the inhabitants of Babylon” and again: “Raise a banner on the earth, blow a trumpet among the nations, sanctify the nations against him, proclaim against him the kings of Ararat, Minya and Askenes, count against him Taprasa, guide your horses like a spiny caterpillar. Sanctify against him the nations, the kings of Media, her princes, and all her powers, and all the land of her dominion. And the earth will shake and be confused, for the Lord’s plan to stay awake against Babylon is to make the land of Babylon empty and uninhabited (Jer. 51:11, 12; 27-29). Art. 1–2. Like whirlwinds come from the southwest, it comes from the desert from a terrible land. A terrible vision was announced to me. The words of the frightened people of Babylon, or Babylon itself, are quoted - that he hears that the Medes and Hamalites are preparing troops against him and are coming from the desert, and presents a comparison. As usual, he says, a strong storm comes with a southwest wind, so for me devastation comes from the desert, from a terrible land, even whose name I cannot hear without horror. A terrible vision was announced to me: for what could be more terrible than the impending captivity? He who is unfaithful deals treacherously, and he who destroys devastates. In Hebrew it can be read like this: you, who kill, kill, and you, who devastate, devastate, so that the words of the prophecy are addressed to the Elamite and Mede himself, urging him to fulfill what he began, to boldly ascend, and besiege the most powerful city. If it is read as we translated, and it is said as if in the third person: he who is unfaithful acts treacherously, and he who destroys devastates, then they should be combined with the previous words, where Babylon says that a terrible vision was announced to him. Arise, O Elam, besiege, O Mede: I have put an end to all his groaning. Do not be afraid, says the Persian and Mede, of the multitude of Babylon and do not be afraid of its former power: I have put an end to all its groaning and yoke, with which it used to oppress you before, - either that no one will groan and mourn under the yoke of Babylonian power, or that Babylon itself will be struck by such disasters that it will not even groan freely. Art. 3–4. Because of this, my loins were filled with sadness, torment seized me, like the pain of a woman giving birth; I fell when I heard it, I was embarrassed when I saw it. My heart sank, a terrible darkness enveloped me. Babylon, my beloved, has become a wonder to me. Prophets are dark because they have so many faces. Therefore, now the words of Isaiah are introduced, in a prophetic spirit mourning Babylon, since such great disasters will come to it that the one who tells about them, suppressed by horror, cannot speak; Seeing the shedding of the blood of so many people and moved by compassion (for he is a man and speaks about people), he grieves no less than a woman who usually screams during childbirth, and in confusion and trembling, falling to the ground and with darkened eyes, he does not know what to say. And instead of what we translated: Babylon, my beloved, in Hebrew it reads neseph esci, - the same word that at the beginning of the burden on Babylon we translated: on the gloomy mountain, for instead of gloomy or dark there is neseph. And this city is actually called that because of its high opinion of itself and its extreme exaltation that rose to the sky. Art. 5. Prepare the table, look from the observation tower at those who eat and drink; Arise, princes, take your shield. This place is understood in two ways: you Medes and Elamites, to whom I said above: Arise, Elam, besiege, O Mede, eat, prepare for the coming war, so that when the time of battle comes, you will not be exhausted; and after eating and drinking, get up, take up arms and conquer Babylon. The words: look from the watchtower have meaning: carefully observe the upcoming event. You can understand it this way: Babylon! Prepare a table and a feast for Belshazzar the son of Evilmerodach, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, and see what happens after this feast, at which he will serve wine to the harlots and concubines in the vessels of the Lord. Princes reclining with the king (denoting the Medes and Persians), rise and take up weapons to kill the king. We read more about this in the book of Daniel. Art. 6–10. For this is what the Lord said to me: go and set a watchman, and let him proclaim what he sees. And he saw a chariot with two riders, one sitting on a donkey and sitting on a camel. And he looked diligently, with great attention, and cried out like a lion: I stand on the watchtower of the Lord all day, and I stand on my watch all night. Here he comes, a coachman sitting on a chariot with two horsemen, and he answered and said: Babylon is fallen, fallen, and all the images of her gods are thrown down on the earth. My threshing and the son of my threshing floor! What I heard from the Lord of the armies of the God of Israel, these things he declared to you. He represents the reasons for the horror that he spoke about above, the reasons why his torment seized him, like a woman in labor, and when he heard it, he fell, trembled and was enveloped in dark horror. Thus, he says, the Lord said to me: go and set a watchman, so that in the spirit of prophecy he will foretell the future for you; and when I put him on the spytower, he saw a chariot riding with two riders and a coachman on it, and a donkey and a camel pulling the chariot. Cyrus denotes the king of the Persians and Medes, who goes with his small and great kingdom. For before Cyrus, the Persians were not famous and were considered not to occupy any place among the nations, and the Medes were always very powerful. This one coachman, who controlled the army of two nations, came to Babylon, and the watchman who was assigned to look into the distance cried out like a lion, or the prophet himself is called a lion. And since this was doubtful on behalf of the watchman who saw Cyrus approaching, the prophet himself states it more clearly and says: I stand on the watchtower of the Lord all day long, - he speaks of himself as the watchman of the Lord, who always, standing in the work of service and serving the commands of the Lord day and night, says everything that He commands. Why did he cry like a lion? Here he comes, a coachman sitting on a chariot of two horsemen,” Cyrus is indicated without a doubt. And the lion himself, who was shouting above, answered and said: Babylon is fallen, fallen, and all the images of its gods are crushed on the earth. For, with the devastation of the driver of the two-horse chariot, Babylon was destroyed forever and the church of Bel and all the idols were thrown into dust. Further: my threshing and the son of my threshing floor makes an appeal to Jerusalem and to the church located on the threshing floor of Orna, and says to him: O Jerusalem and the people - the son of my church! Let not what I said seem incredible to you, for these are not my words, O Lord, and His words are spoken through my lips. Some people think, but it is bad, that this is said not to Jerusalem, but to Babylon, about which it was said above: Babylon, my beloved, has become a wonder to me and that the meaning is this: you who crushed me and you yourself will be crushed - not according to my word, but according to the power of God, which foretells that this will befall you. And what the LXX interpreters meant in this place when Uriah was translated instead of the lion, which in Hebrew is called aria, I do not quite understand, especially when the above-mentioned priest Uriah, called as a witness, is written in different letters. Art. 11–12. Burden of the Duma. He shouts to me from Seir: watchman! How long is it night? Watchman! How long is it night? And the watchman said: The morning is approaching, but it is still night; if you ask, then ask, contact, come. Instead of the Duma LXX they put Idumea. Duma is not the entire region of Idumea, but some part of it, lying to the south, and from the Palestinian city, now called Eleutheropolis, it is twenty thousand (steps) away; Near this city there are mountains Seir, which received their name from its founder, for Seir means shaggy and shaggy, like Esau was. We talked about this people in more detail in the book of the prophet Obadiah, where it was necessary to reveal ancient history and present as evidence the same visions of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and in particular the prophecy against Mount Seir (Ezek. 25 and 35; Jer. 49), and this from the Psalms: I will stretch my boot on Idumea and in another place: the villages of Idumea and Ishmaelite, Moab and the Hagarites, Ebal and Ammon and Amalek (Ps. 59:10; Ps. 82:7, 8). And Amos says: for three wickednesses of Edomite, and for four, he did not turn away from them, having driven out his brother with the sword, “and he has insulted his mercy” (Amos. 1:11), or, as Symmachus translated, his entrails, - that he dared to fight and act hostilely against kindred peoples. Esau's region was in the country of Duma, that is, in the mountains of Seir. We think that, in accordance with the context of previous visions, this region, as the main one, was conquered by the Assyrians, or Nebuchadnezzar, and that, remembering its original origin, that it received its beginning from the line of Abraham and Isaac, asked for God's help and, forced by difficult circumstances, begged for God's mercy. So now the Lord tells us: the one who is under siege in Seir and surrounded by enemies asks for My help and says: O guardian of Israel, You, who protect Your people with a constant guard and seem to be awake at night when they sleep, so that the enemy does not break in, why do You not protect us who come from his seed? I, the protector and guardian of whom it is written: the guardian of Israel shall not slumber nor sleep (Ps. 120:4), I answer them: the morning is approaching for My people, and night for the people of Edom; To them I have given light, but I will leave you in darkness. Or this: after the night has passed, light appears. If you cry out for My help and come from the tribe of My servant Abraham, then do not only resort to Me in difficult circumstances, but turn to Me with all your soul; come and I will receive the repentant. Let this be expressed in a historical sense. By the way, some of the Jews, due to the similarity of the letters, since Resh and Dalet do not differ much from each other, read Roma instead of Duma and want to direct this prophecy against the Roman Empire in the false belief that they think that the name Idumeans always refers to the Romans. Duma means silence. Art. 13–17. Burden on Arabia. You will fall asleep in the forest in the evening, on the paths of Dodanim. Those who meet you, bring water to the thirsty; Those who live in the land of the south, meet the one who flees with bread, for they fled from the face of swords, from the face of a drawn sword, from the face of a drawn bow, from the face of a difficult battle, for thus says the Lord to me: in one more year, as in the year of the mercenary, all the glory of Kedar will be taken away, and the remainder of the number of brave archers from the sons of Kedar will be diminished; for the Lord God of Israel has spoken thus. When I searched and pondered for a long time about what kind of Arabia this is, in which the prophetic speech is addressed, whether it is the Moabites or the Ammonites, the Edomites and all other peoples who are now called Arabs, further words in the same vision: all the glory of Kedar will be taken away and the remainder of the number of brave archers from the sons of Kedar will decrease, gave proof that the Ishmaelites must be understood here. The book of Genesis teaches that from Ishmael came Kedar and the Hagarites, who are incorrectly called Saracens. They live throughout the desert, and I think the poet also speaks about them: the widely nomadic Barcaeans (Virg. Aeneid. IV) and the above-mentioned book: in the presence of all his brethren he will dwell, since the vast desert extends from India to Mauritania and the Atlantic Ocean, which, I believe, is what the title in Jeremiah means: “about Kedar and about the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon destroyed” (Jer. 49:28), and then follows: “thus says the Lord: arise and go to Kidar and lay waste the sons of the east. They will take their tents and their flocks, their coverings and all their utensils and camels for themselves” (v. 29); and again: “For Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took counsel against you and formed plans against you. Get up and go to a peaceful and carefree people, says the Lord: they have neither doors nor locks, they live alone. And their camels will be spoiled, and many beasts of burden will be spoils. And I will scatter them to all the winds, those who cut the hair on the churches; and from all their borders I will bring destruction upon them, says the Lord. And Hazor shall be a habitation of dragons, a wilderness forever; no man shall dwell therein, neither shall the son of man dwell therein” (Vv. 30–33). I have presented all the evidence from Jeremiah so that you will undoubtedly understand what kind of Kidar it is. And pay attention to how he depicted the actual Ishmaelite or Saracen people here: they live in tents, have dwellings such as and where the night forces them, they have beasts of burden, sheep and herds of camels; they have neither doors nor locks, since they live not in cities, but in the desert. So they too were devastated by the Babylonians, since the city of Hazor, which was the capital of this people in the desert, was destroyed to the ground by the Babylonians; However, while the herds of camels and sheep were taken and their coverings and tents were divided by lot, the death of not all of this people is indicated, since on dromedary camels they usually run a hundred or more miles across the vast desert in one day. All the glory of Kidarov will be taken away, he says, and by reducing the number of shooters, since they are especially skilled in military affairs, the others who will run away will remain. Having understood what Kidar is and what Arabia is and what Hazor is, let’s see what Isaiah says in the words: in the forest by evening you will fall asleep on the paths of Dodanim. The word arab, as we have often said, means I am the evening and Arabia and the raven and the plain and the west. And instead of what we translated in accordance with the LXX: you will fall asleep, you can translate: you will be, or you will live, i.e. ἀβλιϑήσεστε, which in Hebrew is called thalinu. Dodanim is translated: relatives and friends. So, the Jews who manage to escape the siege of Babylon and from the devastation of the entire province go to the neighboring desert, are now predicted that they will live in the desert of Arabia on the path that leads to the brothers. And again the speech turns to the Ishmaelites and calls them to mercy: run and bring water to the weary, thirsty brothers, for such is the heat of the sun that if you do not help, they will perish in the desert, and bring the fugitives not only water, but also bread, so that those who are exhausted by the siege will be supported by your mercy. And together he presents the reason why he commands this to be done, saying: they escaped the sword of Babylon, they escaped the bows of the Elamites, they escaped the threatening battle; do not despise the unfortunate, your captivity will soon come. For just as the year of a mercenary quickly passes, who considers all his labor to be short-lived, when he reaches the desired reward, so all the glory of the sons of Kidar will be taken away from you, your arrows will be crushed and a small number of warriors will remain. Some think that by saying: one more year, and all the glory of Kidarov will be taken away, it is not the Babylonian captivity that Jeremiah speaks of that is predicted, but the captivity of the Assyrians, who a year after devastating Judea, devastated the Saracens over a very wide area. In addition, the place where we translated: you who live in the land of the south meet the one running with bread and read as if from the person of God in an imperative sense, they claim that it can be read like this: those living in the land of the south met the one running with bread, so the meaning is that while God said to them: those who met them bring water to the thirsty, they with hostile intent brought bread without water in order to increase thirst with food. Chapter XXII. Burden of the valley of vision. LXX, although this is not in Hebrew, was translated more clearly: the word about the Valley of Zion. For this city is a nursery of prophets, a church was built in it, and there were many visions of the Lord. So, since Zion is placed among other nations and is considered one among very many, it is called not a mountain, in accordance with the prophetic: its foundations are on the holy mountains: the Lord loves the gates of Zion, more than all the villages of Jacob (Ps. 86: 1, 2), but a valley, since it is humiliated. Jeremiah says the same thing in other words, when he took a cup filled with wine and gave it to all nations and finally gave it to Jerusalem so that it drank and vomited and fell and went mad, means that it too will be devastated by the Babylonians (Jer. 25), which is more fully conveyed by the narrative of the book of Kings and Jeremiah. From this we understand that God is equally the creator of all and that He arranges everything with the same judgment, according to which He Himself says through Amos: Are you not like the sons of Ethiopia, the sons of Israel to Me; says the Lord. Was it not Israel that brought forth from the land of Egypt, and foreigners from Cappadocia, and Syrians from the land; Behold the eyes of the Lord are upon the kingdom of sinners (Amos 9:7, 8). So that the Jews do not think that they have an advantage in merit because they were brought out of Egypt, he says that other peoples were resettled to other lands by His determination. What is the matter with you, that you too are all up on the rooftops, a noisy, crowded city, a jubilant city? The Jew told me that the present vision refers not to the time when Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem and Zedekiah in chains and led the blinded one to Babylon, but to the time of Sennacherib, when the high priest Sobna betrayed most of the city and only Zion remained, that is, the fortress and the church and the nobles - like Rome, which, during the invasion of the Gauls, retained the patricians and the flower of youth in the fortress. We can also attribute this to the captivity of Babylon, although Eusebius attributes all this to the coming of Christ and thinks that this was fulfilled during the time of Vespasian and Titus. Let us touch on the particulars, briefly outlining a threefold explanation. What's the matter with you? What is Zion with you, that you too have all ascended to the housetops? When you speak, it shows that others have risen before. Are you really placed on a par with other nations, you, besieged by enemies and ascending to the rooftops, filled with the cries and sobs of unfortunate women, a once royal people? Art. 3. Your slain were not killed by the sword, nor did they die in war. All your leaders fled together and are heavily bound. All those found are equally connected, no matter how far they ran. If you date back to the time of Sennacherib, when the city was partly taken, then it is rightly said that they were not defeated by the sword and were not killed in battle, but died by treachery, when some fled from the city, while others, captured by the enemy, were imprisoned. If we refer to the captivity of Babylon, which is more correct, then we will say that they were defeated not in battle, but by siege. If, according to Eusebius, you want to understand this tropologically in relation to the coming of Christ, then you will say that they were killed not by the sword, but by unbelief, and all their princes apostatized from God and were bound by the bonds of sins, and that there was not a single one of the Pharisees who was not entangled in the nets of the devil. Art. 4. Therefore I said: get away from me, I will cry bitterly; do not strive to console me for the desolation of the daughter of my people. If, during the devastation of Babylon, the prophet cries in a sorrowful feeling and says: torment seized me, like the torment of a woman in labor, I fell when I heard it, I was embarrassed when I saw it; My heart languished, a terrible darkness enveloped me, my beloved Babylon became a wonder to me: is it not all the more true now, with the destruction of its city, that it cannot be consoled by anything and is completely given over to grief? Art. 5. For it is a day of destruction and trampling and mourning for the Lord God of hosts in the valley of vision. In accordance with the threefold understanding, he presents the reason why he said: get away from me, I will weep bitterly - because Zion has been trampled under foot and was once a mountain of visions, has now become a vale of weeping. He who tries the wall and is brave - to the mountain! And Elam took the quiver, (I see) the chariot of the horseman, and the shield exposed the wall. The army of Babylon is described entering the city, capturing the church and proudly marching through the streets on four-windowed chariots. And in the Hebrew it is beautifully depicted that the shield, usually covering something else, exposed gilded cornices and walls covered with marble inlay; The excellent meaning of this is that the shield did not cover anyone, but exposed him, since by the force of the soldiers all the wealth was dug up. If the inhabitants of the Assyrian city of Elam are indicated as participating in the battle, then this cannot be attributed to the times of the Roman destruction, unless we explain all this allegorically. Art. 7–9. And your best valleys will be full of chariots, and horsemen will set up their quarters at the gates. And the veil of Judah will rise, and in that day you will see a storehouse of weapons in the house of the forest, and you will see the breaches in the city of David, for there are many of them. Obviously depicts the captivity that took place in the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, about which Jeremiah says: Behold, I will call together all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord, and they will come and set up every throne at the entrance to the gates of Jerusalem and around all its walls (Jer. 1:15). So that we do not think that this was predicted in words, but was not fulfilled in practice, the same Jeremiah said: “in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, the city was opened, and all the princes of the king of Babylon entered and sat in the middle gate” (Jer. 39:2). Thus, around the city of Jerusalem there was then a countless army, the Holy of Holies was opened, the arsenal located in the grove was deprived of defenders by the enemy invasion and the enemy entered all parts through the broken walls. Art. 10–11. And you gathered up the waters of the lower pool and marked the houses in Jerusalem, and pulled down the houses to strengthen the wall. And they made a pond between the two walls for the waters of the old pond. But you did not look at the one who did it, and you did not see the one who did it from afar. He tells how they prepared the city for a siege: the waters of the lower pond, which could be intercepted, were transferred to the fortification located above, they destroyed the houses, built walls, and for individual families they calculated which house should have how much water, made a cistern between the two walls and restored the old pond to conserve water; but they did not turn most to the help of God, Who is the creator of the city and the owner of the pond. In other words, he seemed to say: you began to rely more on man, and not on God, the Creator of man. Some, in a mysterious sense, understand the old pond as the shadow of the law and say that between two walls, i.e. By the new and old testament, from the traditions and commandments, a pond of the Pharisees was built, which could not hold water, and that they did not turn their gaze to the Son of God and did not believe in the coming of Him, Whom they had not seen for a long time, since they were always not faithful to the commandments of the Lord. Art. 12–14. And the Lord God of armies will call on that day to mourning and mourning and cutting of hair and girding with sackcloth. And here is joy and joy - killing oxen and slaughtering rams, eating meat and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die. And the word of the Lord of hosts was revealed in my ears: This wickedness will not be forgiven you, says the Lord God of hosts. When captivity came and Jerusalem was under siege, when weapons, hunger, and thirst tormented the city, Jeremiah called the people to repentance (Jer. 34), and the kings and princes and pitiful people, in spite of this, indulged in feasts with the despair of the perishing. And nothing offends God more than exalted pride after sins and licentiousness as a result of despair, which He also speaks about through Amos: for three wickednesses and for four I will not turn away (Am. 1:4) - that I conceived and did evil and did not repent of it, and besides, I taught evil. Therefore, even now it is said: this wickedness will not be forgiven you. Allegorically, interpreters think that this was predicted about the suffering of Christ - that even after the cross of the Lord Savior God called the unfortunate people to repentance, but despite this they indulged in despair and wicked pleasures; and the beginning of this vision, where it is said: the city filled with shouting, crowded and rejoicing, refers to the time when the people, excited by the Pharisees, unanimously shouted against Jesus: crucify, crucify Him: not the imams of the king only of Caesar (John 19: 6, 7). The apostle also brought this testimony, writing to the Corinthians about the resurrection: what good is it for us if the dead do not rise; Yes, pits and pits, we will die in the morning (1 Cor. 15:32). Art. 15–25. Thus says the Lord God of armies: Go, go in to him who lives in the tabernacle, to Sovna, the ruler of the church, and say to him: Why are you here? Or is there really someone here that you have carved out a tomb for yourself here? You carved a monument on a hill, carefully (carved) a dwelling for yourself in the rock. Behold, the Lord will throw you over as a rooster is thrown over you, and like a light garment He will lift you up. The crown will crown you with misfortune, like a ball throwing you into a vast and spacious land; there you will die, and there the chariots of your glory will be a reproach to the house of your Lord. And I will drive you out of your place, and I will overthrow you from your ministry. And it shall come to pass on that day that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah. And I will clothe him with thy garment, and strengthen him with thy belt, and put thy power in his hand; and he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will put the key of the house of David on its frame, and it will open, and no one will stop it; it is a ban, and no one will open it. And I will strengthen it like a nail in a strong place, and it will be a throne of glory for his father’s house. And they will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, various kinds of utensils: every small vessel, from drinking vessels to every musical instrument. On that day, says the Lord of hosts, the nail set in the strong place will be broken, and everything that hung on it will be broken and fall and perish, for the Lord God has spoken. We said above that Sovna was the high priest who betrayed the city to the Assyrians. But since this is a Jewish tradition, Scripture does not speak about this: then we will recognize him as proud, arrogant, lust-loving and despising the people; and since he did everything depicted by the prophet, his priesthood was transferred to Eliakim the son of Helkiin, so that after his deposition there would be a new high priest. From this we understand that with all care we must eliminate pride, which offends God and cannot be safe even under the cover of the high priesthood. This is that Sovna (as some think) and that Eliakim, about whom the same prophet said: “The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh with a large army from Lachish to Jerusalem; and he stopped at the water supply of the upper pond, on the road of the whitewash field. And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, the ruler of the palace, and Sobna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, went out to him” (Isa. 36:2, 3). So, the prophet is commanded to enter the high priest, who lived, according to LXX, in the vestibule of the church, and according to Aquila in the tabernacle, instead of which Theodotion, following the Hebrew text, put: go to Socenus, what can be translated to the just and righteous (so that, i.e., by contrast we understand the unjust and vicious), - go to the high priest of the church and say to him: You live in the house of God, and the whole city is shouting about your iniquities: why are you careless in your atrocities and as if you are not afraid of captivity? Why did you carve your tomb in the rock and arrange it so luxuriously that ambition would accompany you even after death? Listen to what the Lord has determined for you: how easily a rooster climbs onto your hand and how quietly everyone wears outer clothing on their shoulders, so it will be easy to throw you into captivity. You will not have a golden crown, not a crown of the Lord’s sanctification, but a crown of sorrow and sorrow. For just as a ball, if thrown along a slope, cannot stay in place, but rolls quickly, so you will be taken into a very vast land, by which we must mean either Egypt or the fields of Babylonia. And you will die there, and there will be the chariots of your glory, all the honors and riches of which you are now proud. There you will feel the reproach of the house of your Lord, for you will suffer this because of your wickedness and for the desecration of the church of your God. I will depose you from your high rank and depose you from the office of the high priesthood, and in your place I will clothe My servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, in your garments, and will adorn him with your girdle, as Eleazar was clothed in the garments of Aaron his father. To him I will give authority over the church, to him to whom the people are not subject as a slave, but who loves them as a son. He will receive the key of My house and will carry it on his shoulder and will have the authority to perform all rites, and just as on a nail driven into the wall of the church and fixed in the strongest place hangs all the utensils of the priests and Levites, everything necessary for sacrifices and musical instruments of every kind, so all the people will depend on the authority of My servant Eliakim. The words: on that day the nail set in a solid place will be broken, and it will break, and fall, and perish, what hung on it, for the Lord God said, many refer to the Council, that when the nail is driven in - Eliakim, then the nail that was first driven in will fall. But since it follows: and what hung on him will perish, which did not happen after the deposition of Sovna: then, according to our understanding, what is said here is that after the deposition of Sovna, Eliakim received the high priesthood, whose priestly dignity was cut short with the final captivity. Those who understand everything in a mysterious sense think that in the high priesthood of Sovna the Jewish priesthood falls, and in the succession of Eliakim, which means: the resurrecting God, the secrets of the worship of the Gospel are indicated, so that the words: on that day, says the Lord of hosts, the nail set in a solid place will be broken, and it will break and fall, refer to the fall of the first people. But no one doubts that in the sense, both historical and allegorical, since he said about a nail, the metaphor continues regarding the hanging of various kinds of vessels on it - that with the contrition of some, others will be hanged on it. Chapter XXIII. Art. 1. Burden of Tyr. Shout the ships of the sea. For the house from which they used to come was destroyed: from the land of Ketim it was opened to them. Be silent, you who live on the island, Sidonian trade. The Prophet Ezekiel more clearly and more fully sets out the fall of Tire and the reasons for this fall, saying: “Son of man! Because Tire said about Jerusalem: a! A! the gates of the nations are broken down; he turned to me; I will be filled; he is devastated; For this reason the Lord God says: Behold, I am against you, Tyre; And I will raise up many nations against you, like the rising of a troubled sea, and I will break down the walls of Tyre, and destroy its towers, and sweep away its dust from it” (Ezek. 26:2-4). And what kind of many nations these are that will flood Tire like a troubled sea, is precisely shown in the following words: “Behold, I will bring Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the north, the king of kings, to Tire, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, with a congregation and a great people. He will kill your daughters who are in the field with the sword, and will surround you with siege towers, and will surround you with a rampart, and will raise a shield against you, and will move battering machines and battering rams against your walls, and will destroy your towers with his shells,” and so on, which follows until the end of the vision (Ezek. 26:7-9). For in another prophecy contemplated against the Egyptians, Scripture also says: Son of man! Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, tired out his army with great work at Tire; all the heads were bald and all the shoulders were erased; and neither he nor his army was given any reward from Tyre” (Ezek. 29:18). This shows that the Babylonian army built a rampart for a long time, so that what Alexander later did, connecting the island with solid land, Nebuchadnezzar tried to do before him (Quint. Curt. Lib. IV). And just as we read above the threats of God against Babylon, the Philistines, Moab, Egypt, the Edomites and the Ishmaelites because they rejoiced in the captivity of His people, so now a prophecy is being made against Tire, which was hostile and rejoiced in the destruction of Jerusalem, that it too will be destroyed by the same enemy. Let us read the historical works of the Greeks, and especially those that describe the wars of the Assyrian people, and we will find there that after the captivity of Jerusalem, the Philistines, the Arabs, the Damastes, and finally the Egyptians were conquered. And that these nations, and especially Tire, were always at enmity with Israel and rejoiced at its destruction, the prophet Amos speaks about this at the beginning of his book and the Psalmist briefly mentions this when he sang the praises of God: “God, who can be like you? Do not be silent and do not refrain, O God. For behold, Your enemies have made a noise, and those who hate You have raised their heads. They have formed an evil plan against Your people and have taken counsel against Your saints. They said, “Come, let us destroy them from among the people, and let the name of Israel be remembered no more.” For the tents of the Edomites, and the Ishmaelites, and Moab, and the Hagarites, and Ammon, and Amalek, the foreigners with the inhabitants of Tyre, have taken counsel together against thee; From all this we learn that the burden of God's wrath came upon the adulterous Tyre, who is depicted here under the guise of a harlot, and in Ezekiah under the image of a ship (Ezek. 26). Shout, he says, ships of the sea. Instead, in LXX we read Carthage, and in Hebrew there is Tharsis (Tarsis), which I spoke about both in the prophet Jonah and in one letter 27. But since Carthage is a colony of the Tyrians, then in the present place by Tarshish we can understand not the sea in general, but also Carthage - that the ships of the Tyrians will not come either from Africa or from the land of Ketim, by which some understand Cyprus, for to this day they have Kity 28, from which Zeno, the head of the Stoic school, came, although most of ours and the beginning of the Maccabees recognize Ketim as the islands of Italy and Macedonia. For the Scripture mentions that Alexander, king of Macedon, came out of the land of Ketim. He does not speak unfairly when he calls Tire an island, for only Nebuchadnezzar or Alexander subsequently made it solid land, building, for the purpose of conquest, many embankments on the shallow part of the sea. He also points to the trade of Sidon, in accordance with the next verse, in which he says: be ashamed, Sidon. For history says that Tire is a colony of Sidon. Art. 3. Those who cross the sea have filled you; on many waters is the seed of the Nile, the harvest of the river is the fruit thereof. That Tire loved trade and was a world market, this is proven by present times, and Ezekiel describes in a detailed speech. And that merchants, bringing goods, cross the seas, no one will doubt this, and the city itself has not so much wealth from the land of its region, which is very narrow and limited to the borders of Galilee and Damascus, as from transportation by ships. All the fertility of the Nile and Egypt goes next door to Tire. Instead of the Nile, instead of which the Hebrews read Sior, LXX and Theodotion were translated by merchants; this word means muddy, and therefore it also means the waters of the Nile, according to Jeremiah: “what is it for you and Egypt to drink the waters of Geon” (Jer. 11:18), instead of which in Hebrew there is C and op, that is, muddy. Art. 4. Be ashamed, Sidon; For thus spoke the sea, the stronghold of the sea, saying: I have not labored in childbirth, nor have I given birth, nor have I brought up young men, nor have I brought forth virgins. I said above that Tire is a colony of the Sidonians. So, listen, mother, that all the seas rustle against your daughter and in some way make a sound from those who by nature cannot speak: in vain we brought wealth, in vain we collected jewels from all over the world to Tire: this rich, this luxurious city, once famous for its large population, in which many people were born, there were crowds of youths, masses of young men, whose streets were filled with noise from the games of girls, children, young women and men, is now converted into the desert. And that personifications (προσωποποίαι) of dumb objects are made is a common thing. Art. 5. When it is heard in Egypt, they will mourn when they hear about Tire. It is clear that the Egyptians, having heard about the death of a powerful neighboring people from a long-term siege, will understand that destruction is approaching them too. Art. 6. Cross the seas, the inhabitants of the island cry out. Again, instead of the sea and Tarshish, LXX was transferred to Carthage. We read in the history of the Assyrians that the besieged Tyrians, seeing that there was no hope of salvation, boarded ships and fled to Carthage or to other islands of the Ionian and Aegean Sea. Therefore, Ezekiel says: “no reward was given to him or his army from Tyre” (Ezekiel 29:18); because all the wealth of the city was carried away and all the nobles left it empty. Art. 7. Isn’t he yours, who from ancient times has been proud of his antiquity? Tire accuses him of pride - that he was vain about the antiquity of his foundation and did not turn his eyes to God, but, boasting in the names of his ancestors, considered himself eternal. His feet will lead him to wander afar. He talks about those who remained in the city and how the captives were taken to Babylon. Art. 8. Who determined this for Tire, once crowned! Read Ezekiel again (Ezekiel 27), and from the lamentation of his prince you will learn what glory Tire possessed. He calls him crowned because just as a king among a large gathering of people raises his head, adorned with a diadem, so Tire, resplendent and distinguished by its riches, shining with gold, precious stones, silk and purple, was considered a king among all nations. Whose merchants are rulers, whose merchants are the celebrities of the earth. We are surprised that the ambassador Pyrrhus once said about the city of Rome: “I saw the city of kings.” But much earlier than those times, the merchants and merchants of Tire are described as rulers and celebrities, in order to thereby show the importance of wealth, when a merchant from Tire, according to another, can be a king. Art. 9. The Lord of hosts has determined this to bring down the arrogance of all glory and to bring all the famous people of the earth to disgrace. Since above, according to the custom of the questioner, he said: who determined this for Tire, who was once crowned, now he himself answers: the threads of fate, as madmen think, were not spun that way, and it was not the wheel of fortune that rolled like that, but this happened according to the determination of God and according to His will, who opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6), and admonishes the proud with their fate, so that through adversity they may know the power of Him whom mercy did not want to understand through good deeds. Art. 10. Pass through your land as through a river, daughter of the sea; you have no more belt. Just as, he says, a river or, as it is more expressively stated in Hebrew, a stream - for this means ior - easily crosses into a ford: so you, taken into captivity, will pass through your land, daughter of the sea, either because you form an island, or because it is written about you above: the sea, the stronghold of the sea, said: I did not suffer in childbirth and did not give birth. And what is the meaning of the addition: you no longer have a belt, Symmachus shows this more clearly: you will no longer be able to resist, that is, you will not have the strength and will not girdle your loins to fight, in order to be able to go against your enemies. Art. 11. He stretched out his hand over the sea and threw kingdoms into confusion. Who extended his hand? From the very content of the speech it is certain that this is God, about whom he said above: the Lord of hosts has determined this, that he should bring down the arrogance of all glory. So, he stretched out his hand over the whole sea, signifying all people and all countries, and brought all the nations into confusion, among which you, Tire, were thrown into confusion, or on the sea on which you are actually located. Art. 12. The Lord gave a commandment against Canaan to destroy its mighty ones. Shows what kind of sea this is, onto which the Lord stretched out his hand, saying: He gave a command against Canaan. For Tire was built in the land of Canaan. Read the Scriptures, and especially the Gospel (Mark 7), where the Syrophoenician woman, called the Canaanite woman, comes out of the land of Canaan, asking for a daughter. But since he said: he stretched out his hand, so that you would not consider the Lord to act through members and bodily functions, at the same time he added: he gave a command, so for God to do means to command. Art. 13. And he said, Thou shalt boast no more, thou maiden that suffereth reproach, daughter of Sidon; get up and swim to Ketim: there will be no rest for you there either. God, who determined to bring down the arrogance of all glory, who gave the command against Canaan to crush its mighty ones, Himself says: You will no longer boast and rely on your strength. You, maiden, daughter of Sidon, that is, the colony of Sidonians, will flee on ships to the western islands or to Cyprus and other countries of Macedonia and Greece, but even there, having God against you, you will not be able to find peace. Otherwise, everyone wandering and wandering on earth and not having a specific place of residence is constantly in distress, eternally in sorrow. Art. 13–14. This is the land of the Chaldeans; there was no such people: Assur founded it for captivity; they took away its strong men, destroyed its houses, and brought it into ruins. Cry, O ships of the sea, for your stronghold is destroyed. Since he said above: his feet will lead him to wander afar, and also: pass through your land as through a river, and since the population of Tire was of two kinds - it consisted of those who fled and sailed to Ketim, and of those who remained in the city, he speaks to both. About those who killed, he said above: get up and swim to Ketim: there will be no rest for you there either. About those who remained and were taken into captivity, he says: behold, the inhabitants of the land of the Chaldeans, the power of which no people had previously had and which was founded by the Assyrian, took away the mighty of Tyre. They destroyed not only the walls, but also all the dwellings of the city and turned it into ruins. So, since some have escaped and others are captured, then cry out to the ships of the sea or of Carthage, because your trade and colony have perished. Consider also how he praised the Chaldeans. He did not say: there will be no such people anymore, because the kingdom of the Romans is stronger and more durable, but: there was not before, denying in relation to what happened before, he admitted in relation to what followed. Art. 15. And on that day you will be in oblivion, O Tire, for seventy years, like the time of one king. From this place to the end of this prophecy, a favorable message is announced to Tire, that he must bring repentance, that he will again be restored, that the ruin of Tire will last only seventy years, just as the desolation of the church of God lasted, so that in terms of the time of ruin he will be similar to the one whose ruin he rejoiced. As for the seventy years of one king, many think that this is said about Nebuchadnezzar, since for so many years the kingdom of the Assyrian people continued in Jerusalem. According to others, this is said generally, because whoever has a long-term reign cannot pass in seventy years. Art. 16. After seventy years Tire will be like the song of a harlot. Take a zither, walk around the city, harlot, consigned to oblivion, play well, sing many songs so that you will be remembered. Since you have committed adultery with very many nations and your former lovers despise you, abandoned, naked and polluted by the uncleanness of captivity, then double your songs, walk around the city, mourn the former place of debauchery and wash away with your tears the traces of the former error, in order to be able to call upon yourself the mercy of God. Art. 17. And it shall come to pass at the end of seventy years that the Lord will visit Tire and bring it back to its goods, and will again commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the earth throughout the whole world. In a historical sense, the written monuments of the Greeks and Phoenicians agree that all this was fulfilled, because after seventy years the city was restored, received its former power and began to trade with all nations, which, I think, is called fornication because just as a fornicator enters a house of debauchery and gives payment for fornication, so traders, flocking from all over the world, take possession of all the beauty of the city, as harlots. Art. 18. And his trade and his goods will be dedicated to the Lord: they will not be hidden or stored in warehouses. For those who live before the Lord will have his trade, that they may eat until they are full and be clothed in strong clothing. We do not yet know that this was fulfilled historically, unless we can assume that after the construction of Jerusalem and the restoration of Tire, these cities were on mutual friendly relations and that the Tyrians often sent gifts to the church of God, since we also read in Ezra (Neh. 13:16) that he expelled the Tyrians who were selling fish on the Sabbath, and did not allow them to enter the city, and from one product one can also conclude about the others. The Jews postpone their empty expectations until the future, saying that this must be fulfilled after the Antichrist within a thousand years. And it is not surprising if those who, having despised the truth of Christ, are about to accept the tool of the devil, the Antichrist, imagine this way, even if Judaizing Christians claim that this is talking about a thousand-year bliss. As for me, just as in the vision of Babylon, by the image of its destruction, I understand the fulfillment of the times, and as the altar of the Lord, erected in Egypt after the destruction of idols, I attribute to the time of Christ, and in the vision of Moab I recognize the throne of the Savior, placed on His land, and in the vision of Damascus and in all the others I without hesitation recognize the sacraments of our times: so I explain the last vision, the vision of Tire in relation to the Christian time prosperity, because when it settled and returned to its previous state, then every merchant returned to his previous way of life, entered his pier, and their goods and labor began to be dedicated to the Lord. Let's look at the churches of Christ built in Tire, let's pay attention to the wealth of all of them, to the fact that they are not put aside and are not collected in treasuries, but are given to those who live before the face of the Lord, who, serving the altar, take a share from the altar (1 Cor. 9:13). The Tyrians provide assistance not for the sake of wealth, not for the accumulation of funds for the clergy, but to satisfy the necessary needs of life, so that, according to the Apostle, having food and clothing, they are content with this (1 Tim. 6:8). And note: he did not say that the trade and goods of Tire, dedicated to the Lord, should be given to those living in Jerusalem, as the Jews think, but to those living in the presence of the Lord, serving Him. For so the Lord has decreed that those who preach the Gospel should live by the gospel (1 Cor. 9:14). Serving the Lord and living before His face is not a property of place, but of merit. Hitherto the visions of Isaiah or the burdens that he imposed on certain nations, we have explained, as you wished and as we could, by historical interpretation, outlining only traces of the Hebrew original. What follows applies to all nations and to the destruction of the whole world in general. You did not ask me to write about this, and I, having barely written what you asked, did not have the leisure to dictate anything unnecessary against this, which was not asked. There is literally no such place for Jeremiah; bl. Jerome conveys with these words the general meaning of Jeremiah's prophecy. Of course, in all likelihood, the earthquake was in 344. Bl. Jerome gives here not his own opinion, but the opinion of others. This opinion is refuted as stated in the 3rd book of Kings 17, 4.6 (1 Kings 17:4,6). The word םכדיע, which always means ravens, and the fact that the prophet Elijah received food from ravens not on Mount Horeb, but by the stream Horath. Celevma (κέλευμα, celeuma) is a song of grape gatherers and sailors. Bl. Jerome means the catechetical schools established primarily in Alexandria, where the Holy Scriptures were explained. And in the book “On Famous Men,” speaking about Pantep, bl. Jerome notes that there have always been church teachers in Alexandria since the time of the Evangelist Mark. You might be interested in: