In this chapter the prophet begins to punish the great vices, namely the fruits of unbelief, at the same time also unbelief itself.
V. 1. Hear, O children of Israel, the word of the LORD.
The one who preaches must be sure that he speaks the word of the Lord, so that he can always say: This is what the Lord says. - "For there is no faithfulness" (veritas). There are two Hebrew expressions which mean truth, emeth and aemuna. Paul translates aemuna by "faith," since he says [Gal. 3, "The righteous shall live by his faith." But it actually means truth in an active way, as GOD is true in His truth. The faith (fides) of Christ, the faith that is directed toward Christ. Emeth, however, means the truth in a suffering way, as when God pours it into our hearts and makes us true, as, the truth of God, the faith of God, the mercy of God is not that which is in God, but that which He pours into our hearts and communicates it to us in this way. "The righteous shall live by his faith," that is, in the power by which he adheres to divine truth. - "There is no
Word of God" (notitia). The knowledge of God is that we know that we are nothing, that we live, work and are active only through the mercy of God, in short, when we recognize God and God's goods in us through faith.
V. 2. One blood debt comes after another.
The guilt of the blood and the guilt of the vengeance that should have been taken. Therefore, the voice of blood is the cry because of the blood that has not been lamented, not avenged. Hence the opinion: there is no one who punishes the guilty; they all murder and rob, no one resists.
V. 5. I will execute your mother (Tacere faciam).
In Hebrew it means silent (silere) and actually means "to be still". Therefore also Virgil says: "The silent shadows", because they are nothing. But here it actually means "to be nothing," so that the opinion is: Today I will silence your mother, the synagogue, and make her so completely nothing that nothing will be heard from her, namely her worship.
V. 6. Therefore I will also reject you, that you shall not be my priest.
That is, because you have forsaken me, your God, the living source, and have turned to your works, I will leave you to your thoughts, and you may have for yourself a priesthood of your own, which shall be yours and not mine, and I will take my knowledge away from the priest. For he is a priest who has the right knowledge of God and the sound understanding of the Scriptures. Those who have this have God and are blessed; those who do not have it have the devil and their own teachings.
V. 7. I will put their honor to shame.
That is, they set up for themselves a brilliant and splendid worship, many sects, many works in which they trusted; all this I will put to shame and nothing.
V. 8. They devour 1) the sin offerings of my people.
They feed themselves gloriously on the sins of the people, that is, they have established a worship that is nothing but sin, from which they live splendidly; they have enough through this perverse worship. The people turn their attention to feeding those who maintain and preserve this worship. And they [the priests] make their souls eager (sublevant animas eorum), that is, they give them such teachings by which they believe to live godly and holy and even to have God Himself already gracious and favorable, but they shut their mouths (suspendunt eos), 2) that is, they deceive, cheat and defraud them.
V. 10. that they will eat, 3) and not be satisfied.
I will bring this people and its priest into such hunger and lack of all things that they shall eat and drink, but never be satisfied. I will lessen this fornication, that is, idolatry, but I will
is 60lN64nnt to read what Luther has in his Latin Uebersetzung; Vulgate: Lonisäsut.
2) For this translation, see the previous scripture.
3) Instead of luandiEt in the original, rnanänosut will be read.
not make him stop completely. In the meantime, there will always be the desire that they would like to perform it, but they are not able to, so that the opinion is: "It does not want to come as much as they want. This is what is happening nowadays: the mass priests 4) and the monks would like to continue to deceive the people with their fictitious hypocrisy, so that they would sell them their lead and their prayers, but they cannot; God has diminished to some extent what they desire, but has not made it stop altogether.
V. 11. Fornication, wine and must make mad.
The Prophet appropriately turns a proverbial saying against the priests and idolaters, as if to say: "What else can you swine do but, despising knowledge, pursue your lusts, since this is your one desire, that you may always be swine and fornicators? We see that nowadays there is nothing more unlearned and unskilful than our monks and priests, who are neither fit to govern a community nor even a household, and whose one ambition is to be excellent drunkards, gluttons and fornicators.
V. 12. My people ask their wood.
That is, they go to ask their wood for advice and receive revelations (oracula) from their stick. Disdainfully, the prophet here calls their god a wood that grew in the woods or in their home. He speaks of the wood from which a staff could be made as soon as a god. So it happens also nowadays that we get answers from our own presumption: As long as you have worn this garment, as long as you have prayed, so you are holy.
V. 13. Up on the mountains.
4) Instead of saeriüd in the original, read saeriüeuli.
the custom, if they do not know what kind of tree it is, to call it terebinthus. I believe that it is either the oak or the beech. - "For they have fine shades." To their ungodly being they chose especially such oerter, where would be both pleasantness and delight. The ungodly doctrine wants to be so sure of its pleasure that it chooses not a bad but an exquisite pleasure, and that in the most comfortable places.
V. 15. Do not go to Gilgal 2c.
That is, stay in Jerusalem, do not seek other places for your worship. Jerome calls BssthEl instead of BethAven, because they are neighboring cities; and besides, nothing special happened in it, that for its sake a separate service should have been established. For the Jews were in the habit of setting up their own services in places where something special had happened, or where prophets or kings or a glorious victory had taken place. I think that the prophet in a great displeasure called it BethAven, which means a house of ungodliness, and not BethEl, which means a house of God 2).
1) Instead of st, we have assumed sa.
2) In the original: §auäii instead of: Oei.
V. 16. So 3) the Lord will also feed them.
Jerome interprets this of the Assyrian 4) captivity. I understand it this way because "to feed a lamb" does not have an evil meaning in Scripture, as if to say: Let Israel go their perverse and ungodly ways; the LORD will feed you like a flock of lambs. You will be a lovely flock, which the Lord will feed in a spacious and lovely place, if you do not turn away from Israel.
V. 19. The wind with its wings will drive them bound.
Everything is said of Israel and Judah. The wind will therefore drive Israel bound with its wings. "The wind has seized him" 2c., that is, they will be carried away by the wind like a bird that the wind carries away with force. For they are carried away by the wind, the impetuous urge of fornication, to all shameful deeds. Therefore, away with them, they may perish as they wish, if only they do not drag Judah with them.
3) In the original: Non instead of: Nune.
4) Due to the previous redaction we have put riaea instead of: L^riaea in the original.