The prophet persists in proclaiming the future captivity which he has always threatened above. And he begins here again another sermon, in which he comprehends at the same time the two tribes [Judah and Benjamin], both those which were in Samaria and those which were in Israel, and says beforehand that all shall be desolated and carried away by the Assyrian. We will stick to this simple understanding, that the Babylonian captivity is understood, not the last one, as some want, 2) because necessity does not force us to depart from this simple text. But he prophesies against the princes and nobles of the people, who lived splendidly and had all riches in abundance, but in this he does not accuse them of ungodliness, that they were rich, but that they had obtained this wealth by fraud and robbery or oppression of the poor, 3) as we have seen above. Otherwise, having wealth is not evil, but having unjustly acquired wealth and abusing it is indeed evil 2c.
V. 1. Woe to the proud in Zion, and to those who rely on Mount Samaria).
The word confiditis need not be connected with the following, but this is the opinion: you are insolent and stiff-necked, you are extraordinarily proud, that is, you who are on Mount Samaria, that is, you who dwell securely in your kingdom.
Who boast of the noblest among the Gentiles, and walk in the house of Israel.
1) Instead of the following sentence D.: But he begins here a new sermon, in which he understands at the same time the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel, and says that all shall be devastated and carried away by the Assyrian.
2) D. omits "do not - want".
3) From here to the end of the paragraph has D>: and abused to splendor, to court, to wrong against others 2c. as we have seen above.
4) Vulgate: Oonüäitis in monto Kamarias. This is what the interpretation refers to. Luther interprets it like this: You are full of self-confidence who are on the mountain of Samaria.
5) This blanking out is indeed not bad: You are hopeful and walk with pride in the house of Israel. But according to the Hebrew it can also be read like this: you enter the house of Israel for your own sake, that is, you seek your own in the kingdom of Israel, you turn everything to your advantage, since to enter and go out, to speak in the Hebrew way, means to have one's way, as Lucas also said in the Acts of the Apostles [Cap. 1, 21. 9, 28.] spoke, and Deut. 28, 6. "Blessed shalt thou be when thou goest in, blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out." So also here, as if he wanted to say: You take everything for your tyranny, you seek only your own 2c.; everything you do, you do for yourselves, that you benefit only yourselves.
V. 2 Go to Calne and see.
6) Here you see what he wanted, since he said: Ye enter for yourselves into the house of Israel. But it is the opinion of this passage: your kingdom is small, but nevertheless you feed so many princes and mighty plunderers that far mightier kingdoms would hardly be able to feed them. Just as if we were to say of Germany that Deutsch-
5) D. has this passage quite differently: What the Latin translator has given: optimales eapila popuiorum, translate so: Those who consider themselves the best among the people, they go along according to their favor in the house of Israel. For the prophet has the hope of the Jews in mind, that they boasted that they were God's people before all the Gentiles, as today our adversaries boast against us of the name of the church. Not only does he punish this presumption, but also the ungodly doctrine that they taught everything they wanted for profit.
6) All Dietrich brings about the second verse is this: "Go to Kalne." He makes a conclusion from the greater to the lesser. Behold the neighboring kingdoms of the Gentiles, which have been far greater, mightier, richer than the festering one, which is surrounded on all sides by enemies: and yet, when the evil day of visitation *) came, they were laid waste for their sins. And yet you, with your sins so great, let yourselves dream that all is well, you fear nothing for yourselves, but spend, heap up riches" builds Magnificent Houses 2c. This is the very simple opinion of the prophet.
The first is that the country fed so many bishops, magicians of the people, that to feed them, the riches of the Assyrian people would hardly have sufficed 2c. About "Kalne" the interpreters go extraordinarily far apart; consult them. - "Hemath" is a country, now called Antioch, in Syria. 1)
Which have been better kingdoms than these (Ad optima quaeque).
That is, look at these kingdoms, look at the princes, compare everything that is best in those kingdoms with your kingdom, and you will see that you far surpass them, both in princes and in splendor 2c. For you can read it also in the male gender: the best.
And their limit is greater than your limit.
This is what Isaiah Cap. 5, 8. says: "Woe to those who move one house to another and one field to another until there is no more room", that is, you rob everything for your own benefit, so that there is no place left for the poor. So here: "your border," that is, the border of your possession is very large 2c.
V. 3. who respect you far from the evil day. 2)
That is, keeping to the day of captivity, you will all be taken away.
And always seeks to regiment iniquity.
Thus it is said in the Hebrew: and you go to sit in unrighteousness, that is, all that you deal with, all your intentions are directed to that you may become rich, that you may have abundance of all things, whether this be rightly or wrongly. You think that there is nothing in it, however you arrange the matter 2c. 3)
1) The Zwickau manuscript offers: "Hemath" is the country in which Antioch is located, in Syria, a very famous kingdom.
2) Vulgate: Hui [spuruti [stis in ckisrn nialurn - You who are set apart for the evil day. This is what the interpretation refers to.
3) The whole interpretation of v. 3. reads with D.: "You who are set apart." It pleases me that it is translated this way: and yet they are put to flight, dis-
V. 4. and sleep on ivory couches.
Now he describes their ostentation and ungodly splendor.
And do abundance (lascivitis) with your beds.
Instead of lascivitis, it should more correctly read: you are indulging in splendor or abundance. He rejects the splendor and excess of beds at court and in the royal apartments, 4) of which even our princes have an excess today.
You eat the lambs from the flock.
That is, everything that is the best. - 5) "And the fattened calves." "The best belongs to the masters."
V. 5 And play upon the psaltery, and make up songs unto yourselves, as David did.
That is, as if they were like David, they also play the psaltery, while they do nothing less. David used the psaltery to praise God, to inflame the heart against God and to awaken the spirit through the word of God, 6) but they use it for their splendor, so that it delights the ears 2c.
V. 6. You are not concerned about the harm to Joseph.
This is what I said at the beginning of this chapter: The Lord does not condemn, scatter in the evil day. That is, even though they were more powerful than you are now, they still suffered the punishment in their time, and however secure they were and thought they were, they could not escape the day of visitation. What follows: "You seek the throne of unrighteousness," is a Hebrew idiom for: you rule in an unrighteous manner, you oppress the poor with injustice 2c.
4) Instead of the following, D. has: for there must be a measure. in the effort.
5) This last piece is missing in D.
6) D. continues thus: you abuse it for splendor, so that you have a feast for the ears, as they used to do before this time also with us in the churches, since they not only did not understand or care about any verse of the Scriptures correctly, but also sang godless songs of the holy virgin and other saints, and used the music only to keep the people in the churches by this pleasure, without any sense and understanding. But at this time, after the word of God has been revealed and is understood, nothing prevents it from being adorned and practiced with honor of every kind, be it organs or other musical instruments (symphoniae), as we see David also did.
That one has wealth, but that one uses it evil, that is, only for his own pleasure, that one does not help the poor, that one is not a faithful steward of what God has given. So here he condemns this ungodliness, that they did not care for the harm of Joseph, that is, for the poor and afflicted people in the kingdom of Israel. They held no right judgment, but oppressed and afflicted the poor in the Torah, as he said above [Cap. 5:10, 11]. So today our princes suffer in all things from the same ungodliness; there is no end to their splendor of every kind, in all things they want to have abundance. In the meantime, the poor suffer cold and hunger, everywhere there is deception; they do not hear their subjects, yes, they press them with unbearable treasures and suck out everything they have. This does not need many words, since the matter speaks for itself. 1)
V. 7 Therefore they shall go in front among those who are led away captive.
That is, those will be the first in punishment who have also been the greatest in guilt.
And shall stop the feasting of the pillories.
Auferetur, that is, it will cease. It is properly read [instead of factio lascivientium in the Vulgate]: convivium pomposorum.
V. 8 For the LORD has sworn by his soul, says the LORD.
Such passages of Scripture Hilarius used to note in his books. 2) Similarly the-
1) D.f: But all this would still be bearable, if only they would not allow the churches to be so miserably devastated, since they neither teach themselves, nor even feed those who can teach. For the income of the priests' monasteries over which they preside, the land, the castles, the cities, were first given to them by godly people for the purpose of helping the church. But they will have to give an account to the one who has this title in the Psalm,*) that he will crush the kings in the time of his wrath, Ps. 110, 5.
2) D.f: to confirm the article of the Trinity, and admittedly, one cannot easily escape them.
v) The Jena and the old translator read kuvst, whereas the Wittenberg, the Erlangen and the Weimar editions read Navsnt. The former seems better to us.
he passage is the one in the first book of Moses [Cap. 19, 24.]: "The LORD caused it to rain from the LORD." See Hilarius after.
I am grief-stricken for their palaces.
Instead of domos, it should more correctly read "their palaces," that is, [the houses] magnificently built at great expense, of which they are so proud.
With everything inside.
In Hebrew it says: with all the fullness, that is, all that is in the land will perish. This is a Hebrew expression, which is also found in the Psalm [Ps. 24, 1.): "The earth is the LORD's, and all that is therein" (et plenitudo ejus).
V. 10: That every man must be taken away from his family and carry his bones out of the house.
He describes the misery of the captivity as if he wanted to say: "So great will be the misery, so great the strangulation, that because of the number of the dead there will be no room to bury the bodies of the dead, but they will be forced to burn them in the house. A harsh threat with which he frightens them.
And will say, Be satisfied; for they would not that the name of the LORD should be remembered.
The cantilevers struggle in many ways at this point. But according to my
3) D. omits the beginning of this piece and puts instead: From this one can take a twofold meaning, either that he says: They do not realize that such a great punishment is imposed by God for the sake of sins, or that he wants to punish the extreme perversity and wickedness. As if to say: they are so wicked that they do not want the name of God to be remembered, because as soon as they hear the name of God, they think they are hearing the devil. Thus in Christ's time there was the greatest licentiousness and the highest idolatry, so much so that even the heathen abused it for fornication. So also in our time, when the gospel first came forth, the mass and the invocation of the saints had come to the highest degree, and it was in truth as Jude says in his epistle fV. 4]: "They have drawn the glory of God upon their own will" 2c. The same extreme ungodliness he also punishes here, that they did not even want to hear the name of God. For it is a common way of speaking that "to remember the name of the Lord" is put for teaching and preaching. Thus in the 48th Psalm 2c.
1746" L xxv. 4 "o-4SL Interpretations on the Prophets. W. vi, M^ssss. 1747
Opinion is a Hebrew expression that is frequent in the Scriptures. Thus in the 45th Psalm, v. 18: "O Lord, I will remember thy name." And so now and then in the Psalms. Hence, "to remember the name of the LORD" is to preach and boast the name of the LORD- to spread it by preaching. Christ also used this way of speaking: "Do this in remembrance of me" [Luc. 22, 19.], that is: remember me, you shall do the word when you do this 2c. Likewise in Isaiah, Cap. 64, 5: "They that remembered thee in thy ways." 1) In this passage it seems as if the Lord wants to say: "Everything will be so full of sorrow, there will be nothing from which they can receive comfort, everything will be so full of lamentation that they will no longer remember the preaching of the name of the Lord. They will not be able to do anything but lament, they will not preach the name of the Lord because they are full of sorrow. All worship and praising and preaching the name of the Lord will cease.
V. 11. For behold, the LORD has commanded that the great haners should be protected, that they should gain clefts; and do small houses, that they should gain gaps.
That is, all houses he will turn back, both great and small, of which you now boast, and are secure in your ungodly nature 2c.
V. 12 Who can run with horses or plow with oxen on rocks?
Again a rural image of the farmer of Thekoa; everywhere this shepherd remains the same, he remembers the plow animals, the horses and cows. 2) Perhaps the prophet wanted to indicate this, that one should not use the cows for plowing, but for threshing, or: that pregnant or nursing cows are not suitable for plowing; otherwise it is certain,
1) The following to the end of the section is missing in D. 2) Here D. continues like this: But the opinion is this; on rocks no one will drive his horse to run, if he does not want to spoil himself and the horse quickly at the same time. So no one will plow with oxen on rocks, as if he wanted to say: That people 2c.
that they plow with oxen and cows. But the opinion of the picture is as if he wanted to say: This people is unskilled and unfit for 3) everything the Lord uses them for 4); they are completely unskilled for any office of God, God cannot use them. Therefore, the Lord is weary of them, despises and rejects them. They no longer please him, they no longer do anything to please God, as follows:
For you turn the right into bile rx.
Instead of in amaritudinem, it should more correctly read "in gall. This is what he said above, namely [Cap. 2, 6. 7. 5, 7.]: You afflict and tread down the miserable and afflicted, you do not hold right judgment for the poor rc. 5)
V. 13 And say, Are we not strong enough with our horns?
This is also an image that the Latins use, as if he wanted to say: "You boast of your tyranny, with erect necks you continue against the law and the Lord as if you were doing right: You continue against the law and the Lord, as if you were doing right. So you will be punished by yourselves because of your wickedness, therefore you will be led away. I will bring the Assyrian army upon you, which shall tread down all things from the entering in of the kingdom of Israel even unto the going out, so that nothing shall be left 2c. 6)
3) D. continues to the end of the passage thus: to every office of God, as a horse to run on rocks or a bullock to plow on rocks. It is not suitable for the world regiment, not for godliness and religion. In short, God cannot use them. Therefore, the Lord is tired of them, despises and rejects them, they no longer please Him, as follows:
4) Instead of sos, it should probably read like this.
5) D. f: But it does not displease me if one takes "right" after a common image for teaching, as judging stands for teaching or instructing to godliness, so that the opinion would be: "You turn right into gall", that is, you condemn the word of God and the teaching of godliness as heresy and ungodly error. And in this way it is also rightly interpreted above,
6) D. adds another passage: [V. 14. 1 "From the place where they go to Hemath to the brook in the wilderness." This is the way they were led captive through Moab to Assyria, as Isaiah chap. 15 reads.