V. 2. Hear this.
He does not seem to have prophesied this in one place, but in many, as a prophet must do.
V. 3. Tell your children about it (super hoc).
Instead of super hoc it should rather be "of it" (de eo), as if he wanted to say: Do not forget this miracle. He only presents the present evil, he only tells the history 2c. 1) By these four kinds of beasts, all that is in the fields and vineyards has been consumed. An invulnerable plague is described; although it is temporal, it has brought about pestilence and famine.
V. 4. What the caterpillars leave.
Eruca is "caterpillar", "cabbage caterpillar". The others are unknown to us. If one could be presumptuous, I would say that bruchus is "the large rough caterpillar"; the Hebrew word is translated sometimes by locusta, sometimes by bruchus. - Rubigo ["gore"] wants to denote a morbid condition of the seeds, but it is not that; it is an animal which is translated sometimes by bruchus, sometimes by locusta. It is certain that there are four species of animals that consume everything that is green in the fields and vineyards. The locusts (locustae) and the beetles (bruchi) harm mainly the seeds. By these things he calls to repentance:
V. 5. Wake up, you drunkards.
As if to say, "The wine is gone." He does not mean to say that they are drunk, but to punish their habit: You who are wont to fill yourselves and are fond of wine, look to the work of GOD, what He intends to do 2c. - [In] dulcedine, is not well translated. [It should read:] You who like to drink the must when it is still young, "which is still sweet and tastes good" 2c.
1) Already here in the Altenburg manuscript the following keyword is set correctly, which is missing in our VorLage.
V. 6 For a mighty nation is coming up to my land.
Ascendet is as much ascendit. He seems to me here to speak poetically like Virgil in the fourth book of the Georgica [v. 21 sqq.] of the bees, which he calls kings 2c. As if he wanted to say: These beasts have done as much damage as if a king or a nation with a large cavalry or an army had devastated the land 2c. The animals "come along" as it were with an army; it is not less, as great damage they do, as if they were lions 2c.
V. 7. [That same thing devastates my vineyard.)
He speaks here in the person of each: "Your vineyard is gone, mine also." 2) "The vineyard" is the vine; made desolate (posuit in desertum, Vulg.), that is, "desolate"; "stripes" means: destroyed. The prophets use imagery, as do others. He repeats the same opinion, "Shew him," 2c., of fruits and green leaves. [Virgil says: 3)] "Winter has stripped the forests of their honor." - "Cast it off," that is, made it frail and a rejected one. - "That its branches stand there white," that is, without leaves. [Instead of "white" would be] better: bare. 4)
V. 8. hay, like a virgin.
He uses a simile. It is an exceedingly violent love between bridegroom and bride. She loves; no, she does not love, but she rages. As she loves him to the utmost degree while she has him, so she laments in the strongest possible way when she loses the bridegroom. ["Howl, like a virgin" is therefore:] Under-.
2) This first sentence is still drawn in the editions with -um preceding.
3) Oeoi-Mea, ub. II, v. 404.
4) Erlanger: unclus instead of: nuäus. - Here the Erlanger makes the remark: "Gap in the manuscript." But there is no gap, but a short line, because the paragraph has ended.
of which you make the greatest lamentation that there is under heaven. - [Instead of super virum pubertatis suae in the Vulgate] it is: about the husband of her youth. 1)
V. 9. [For the grain offering and drink offering is away from the house of the LORD].
"The grain offering is gone," your glory, that is, the service instituted by the Word of GOD. That will also suffer damage because the priests will not have what to offer 2c. For the firstfruits were offered to GOtte 2c. "Food offering" when, wheat, vegetables, and anything that was solid. "Drink offering" was what was poured out as, oil and wine. Therefore, this twofold offering of the priests will fall away. All this he makes great, that he may bring them to repentance 2c.
V. 10. The field is desolate.
So the field is desolate. The land stands miserable, for the wheat or grain is desolate. Languet oleum, "the oil is dull"; confusum mustum, "shamefully stands the wine". Loud sublime images: "It all stands shamefully."
V. 11. The peasants look miserable,
"that it may have mercy on me". - "That nothing may come of the harvest in the field." You see that there will be no harvest.
1) "In the manuscript there are two sentences next to each other, which the Erlangen edition has read line by line and therefore blended into each other" (Weim. Ausg.).- The whole passage reads according to the Weim. Ausg:
sn-rö i. 6. "ine ioliis. iVIklius: nuäae. - 8.
Iltitur siinilituüink: VkUknientissirnus avaor 68t Lponsi 6t 8PON8L6, Llnat, HON arnat 86Ü iN8Lnit. IIt maxirne amat, (turn üabet, ita rnaxirne planet, äuna amittit 8pon8Uin. Interäurn kae tidi rnLxiinnrn planetum, <^un1i8 68t 8ulr eoelo. 8up6r virurn 6uv6ntuti8' 8UN6 68t. In contrast, the Erlanger:
iÜ68t: 8iN6 koliis:-utitursimilituäiQk, V6ii6lN6Ntl8, IN6liU8 UNÜL6. ") 8UUHNU8 Linor 68t 8PON81 6t 8PON8N6, int6räurn tsn tibi inLxiinurn piano turn, aruat non . . . 86Ü in8anit, ut <iuaii8 68t 8ub coklo. rnaxnn6 ainat . . . Iraket ita ruaxirn6 8vp6r virurn juv6ntuti8 8UL6 68t. pian^it ciurn arnittit 8PON8UIN. We refrain from any comment on this achievement, but have considered it our duty to communicate it here in full, because we bring proof on every page where the matter is to be found in the Erlanger Allsgabe (as the most widespread next to Walch); here, however, one would search in vain.
") I-svao" in LlSvo.
V. 12: The vine also stands miserable.
Instead of vinea confusa [in the Vulgate] it should read, "The vine stands miserable, the fig tree pitiful." "The joy" is that over which they should have rejoiced. The prophet is not speaking of a human race, but of the host of beasts that ravage the fields and vineyards 2c.
V. 13 [Gird yourselves] and lament.
Plangite, "laments". Cubate, "lies." The same is repeated to produce repentance,
V. 14. Sanctify a fast.
This is a Hebrew way of speaking.
V. 15 [O woe to the day!] For the day of the LORD is at hand.
A a a, "alas" [in the Vulgate] must mean "woe, woe." 2) Here he begins to touch on prophecy. "The day" is not the last day. - "The day of the LORD" is what the Hebrews call any day on which GOD will visit home 2c., as in Peter Ep. 2:12]. "He will look for you at home with all calamity."
V. 16. [Then the food will be taken away from before our eyes].
Instead of vestris of the Vulgate] it should be nostris ["ours"]. "And from the house of our God joy and delight", 3) because the service falls away.
V. 17. The seed is rotten under the ground (computruerunt).
The interpreters diverge widely. [It should read thus:] "The seed is rotten in its soil, the granaries siud destroyed, the sheds decayed; for the grain is spoiled," 2c., as if to say, "Ye must not think that ye shall gather much this year." "The store" which we keep for daily use, is here called "grain-.
2) This first sentence is in the editions incorrectly still drawn with to the preceding verse.
3) We have inserted these scriptural words: "And -joy"; without them the sentence is meaningless. - Furthermore, according to the Vulgate we have put V68trj8 and nostris, instead of. V68tri and uostrj in the editions.
House" (thesaurus- treasure) called. What is kept for sowing has also perished, what was to be scattered as seed has perished. Secondly, [the] "store is also gone." Third, "the sheers." "You must not worry that there will be much threshing." No threshing floor will be built for threshing, nor will you store up seed 2c. Why? Because the grain "stands too shamefully." You have no hope of seed, nor of store, nor of threshing 2c.
V. 18. O how the cattle groan! 2c.
Again, he puts before the eyes: All animals will die of hunger.
V. 19. Lord, I call upon you.
"Oh have mercy, how miserable it is!" By speciosa ["meadows"] are to be understood dwellings, huts and tents;
the Hebrew word] is not well translated [by speciosa]. "The fire," I think, is here taken figuratively, as if to say: these huts are emptied as if by fire; all the trees have perished. Thus Christ [Luc. 12, 49.] uses "fire" for "a calamity." "Fire," that is, "to do a harm, to set on fire." Everything is devastated and ruined 2c.
V. 20. For the rivers of water are dried up.
[Instead of suspexerunt in the Vulgate it should be:] rugierunt, "the wild beasts cry out"; in general like the deer [Ps. 42:2]. "May you have mercy, O Lord," that the wild beasts must perish. "They have not drink," all is full of drought. He describes in the simplest terms the punishment inflicted on the land by these four kinds of beasts.