Zeph 2:3–4. “Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth, who have carried out his judgment; seek the just one, seek the meek, if perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s wrath. For Gaza shall be destroyed, and Ashkelon shall become a desert; Ashdod at midday they shall cast out, and Ekron shall be uprooted.”
The Septuagint (LXX) reads: “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth; practice judgment and seek justice, and answer accordingly, that you may be protected on the day of the Lord’s anger. For Gaza shall be plundered, and Ashkelon shall be a desert, and Ashdod shall be cast out at midday, and Ekron shall be uprooted.”
The humble of the earth is so called not because of humility in the sense of virtue, but because he has been humbled by sins and therefore cannot say with Christ, “Learn from me, for I am meek (πραΰς, praus) and humble (ταπεινός, tapeinos) of heart” (Matthew 11:29). For “everyone who humbles himself shall be exalted.” And elsewhere the word is addressed to a holy person: “The greater you are, the more humble yourself, and you shall find favor before God” (Sirach 3). But he who has been humbled by sins and weighed down by the consciousness of offenses and says, “Like a heavy burden they are weighed down upon me” (Psalm 38:5), this one must hear: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). This is said at the beginning according to the Septuagint interpreters.
According to the Hebrew, however, there is another sense. For the address is made to the saints: You who keep my commandments, who are placed upon the earth and who know that everyone who humbles himself is exalted, you who have imitated my meekness and have practiced judgment—seek the Lord in your meekness. And if you wish to know who this Lord is: seek the Just One, seek the Meek One. For “the Father has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22), who will judge justly. And because you yourselves are meek, therefore seek the Meek One, so that whatever is lacking in your meekness may be fulfilled by him who is the fountain of meekness.
But this I say to you: “if perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s wrath,” that is, if perchance, because you seek the Lord and his justice and practice his judgments, you may avoid the anger of the coming day and escape the captivity that is to be brought upon the people of the Jews either by Nebuchadnezzar or by the Romans. But if anyone doubts this—those doubt who have not done his judgments—saying, “If perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s wrath, what will happen to sinners?” For such devastation will come upon the land of Judah, and such an exalted conqueror—the Babylonian army—will ascend here, that even the strongest cities of the Philistines, which have always resisted you on equal terms, will be seized by the same captivity. Thus Gaza shall be destroyed, Ashkelon shall be reduced to solitude, and Ashdod shall be led into captivity not by stealth but by war, that is, in open daylight and with manifest victory. And Ekron, which is interpreted uprooting, will suffer what its very name signifies, that is, it will be uprooted. This is according to the letter and the Hebrew truth.
According to the Septuagint, however, the humble of the earth—of whom we spoke above—are commanded to practice judgment and seek justice, which I think is none other than Christ. And because “everyone who seeks finds” (Matthew 7:8), they are to respond with what they have found to others, that is, to teach others. For “wisdom that is hidden and a treasure unseen—what profit is there in either?” (Sirach 20:32). And this, he says, I command you so that you may be protected on the day of the Lord’s anger, whether in the end of the world or in the departure of each person from this age.
For Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron will undergo different punishments. Gaza, for example, is interpreted his strength. Therefore all who applaud themselves in bodily vigor and worldly power and say to the devil, “By my strength I will do it,” will be plundered on the day of the Lord and reduced to nothing. Ashkelon, which is said to mean weighed or homicidal fire, when the day of the Lord’s anger comes, will feel the measure of its crime and will be pressed down by the same weight with which it acted. And because it burned to shed blood and scandalized souls, and because it was filled with bloodshed, “the Lord abhors the deceitful man” (Psalm 5:7). It will not be plundered like Gaza, but, reduced to the fires of Gehenna, will be burned down to dust.
Ashdod also, which in Hebrew is אֶשְׁדּוֹד (’Ešdōd), and in our language sounds like destruction from the bright light of generation, will be laid waste; for it burned with lust and raged with the fire of generation, “for all adulterers are like an oven in their hearts” (Hosea 7). And they were wounded by burning arrows, not in secret darkness, but at midday—that is, when the saints receive full light—then they will be cast into darkness and will have no share with the saints. And Ekron, which is interpreted sterility or uprooting, because it bore no fruit due to the perversity of its doctrine and uprooted many, will itself also be uprooted.
Understand all these things as referring to the vices and sins of souls, and that “the work of each will be tested on the day of judgment” (1 Corinthians 3). Then the leaders in understanding are to be discerned.
Zeph 3:10-13. “From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my suppliants—the daughter of my dispersed ones—shall bring a gift to me. On that day you shall not be ashamed of all your deeds by which you transgressed against me; for then I will remove from your midst the proud boasters of your arrogance, and you shall no longer exalt yourself on my holy mountain. And I will leave in your midst a poor and needy people, and they shall hope in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel shall not commit iniquity, nor speak lies, nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall pasture and lie down, and there shall be none to frighten them.”
The Septuagint reads: “From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia I will receive my dispersed; they shall bring sacrifices to me. On that day you shall not be ashamed of all your inventions by which you acted impiously against me; for then I will remove from you the reproach of your insult, and you shall no longer add to magnify yourself upon my holy mountain. And I will leave in you a meek and humble people, and they shall fear the name of the Lord—those who are the remnant of Israel. The synagogue, once a daughter whom I scattered throughout the whole world, shall not commit iniquity, nor speak vanity, nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall pasture and lie down, and none shall frighten them.”
When the Lord has restored to believing peoples a chosen speech (labium electum), and all shall call upon the name of the Lord and bear his yoke, then even from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia—whence came the queen of Sheba to hear the wisdom of Solomon (1 Kings 10)—they will bring offerings to the Lord. And “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to God” (Psalm 68:32). And to the true lawgiver, who struck Egypt with ten plagues (Exodus 11), an Ethiopian bride shall be joined, while the synagogue of the Hebrews looks on with envy.
But what is said according to the Hebrew—“From there my suppliants, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring a gift to me”—has this sense: O Israel, although you envy, although you are tormented by jealousy, nevertheless from Ethiopia offerings will be brought to me, that is, from the people of the Gentiles. “On that day,” that is, when the multitude of the nations has believed, you also will not be utterly confounded on account of all your errors by which you transgressed against me, in choosing Barabbas and crucifying the Son of God (John 18). Then I will remove from your midst the scribes, priests, and Pharisees, the proud boasters of your arrogance, and you will no longer boast on my holy mountain. Instead you will have a poor people—unlearned men and fishermen—who will hope in the name of the Lord.
The remnant of Israel—not the multitude that cried, “Crucify, crucify him” (John 19:6), not the high priests and nobles, but the remnant—will not commit iniquity, nor speak lies, believing in Christ the Truth; nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, knowing that “every lie is from the devil” (John 8). For they shall pasture and say, “The Lord shepherds me, and nothing shall be lacking to me; in a place of pasture he has set me; beside waters of refreshment he has led me; he has restored my soul” (Psalm 23:1). And there shall be none to frighten them, for faith conquers the pride of persecutors.
Let this be understood of the first coming of Christ, not of what the Jews promise themselves at the end—that they will dwell in Jerusalem and, like cattle, be filled with bodily gifts and Jewish riches, fed on green herbs, all nations destroyed and subjected to them, and that none will remain who might frighten them. But we, taking from this tale an occasion for true history, say that all the blackness of the soul and the foul color and the poison of the dragon with which we had been stained by vices and sins have been removed, once a chosen (labium electum)—that is, pure and bright speech, as Symmachus interpreted—has been restored to us. We leave behind in the rivers of Ethiopia the teachers of perverse doctrines by whom we were once irrigated, and together with Israel, once dispersed, we bring gifts to Christ.
On that day when the light of Christ has risen upon us, it will be said to each of us: You shall not be ashamed of all your inventions, that is, of your thoughts—namely, the most wicked ones—by which we acted impiously against the Lord. And all pride and insult by which we raised ourselves against the Lord and against his holy mountain, our Lord and Savior, will be taken away. And instead of proud and empty names, there will be left within us a meek and humble people, so that we may think nothing arrogant, nothing swollen, nothing displeasing to God.
At the same time consider that on the day of judgment and at the consummation of the world all names of dignities will be removed, and one people and one flock will remain under the Good Shepherd, meek and humble. Then even the people of Israel, when the fullness of the Gentiles has entered in—“for God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Romans 11:32)—will fear the name of the Lord. And the remnant of Israel will no longer commit the iniquity by which they denied the Lord, nor speak vanities, promising themselves foolish tales, nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, for Christ the Truth will speak through them.
Then they shall pasture and lie down as one flock in the Church, and they will not fear the assaults of the true Nebuchadnezzar. Reading these things and such great mysteries, let us cry out with the Apostle and say: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are your judgments and how inscrutable your ways!” (Romans 11:33). The prophet also, sensing and pondering the judgments of God, reflects: “In the night I exercised myself with my heart; I meditated in my spirit and said: Will God cast off forever, or will he never again show mercy? Or will he restrain his mercies in his anger?” And I said, “Now I have begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High” (Psalm 77[76]:7ff.). The sense is this: whereas I thought that God would forever abandon sinners and, anger succeeding, restrain his mercies, I understood that it came to pass so that, by a change of his right hand—the right hand of the Most High—he might change all things and show mercy to those whom he had previously cast off.
And we, together with the remnant of Israel, knowing that we must render an account for every idle word (Matthew 12), and that “the Lord will destroy all lying lips,” let us not speak vanity. For “vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2), and “every man living is vanity” (Psalm 39:5). Let us not utter falsehood with our mouth, but, having received the power “to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10), let us fear no terror, nor dread the snares of wolves, Christ being our guardian. Rather let us say: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Psalm 27:1), and the rest that is contained in the twenty-sixth psalm.
CONTINUE
Comments
Post a Comment