Complete Works of Saint Jerome, Vol. IV

that is, vinacia grape-skins/husks, Theodotion interpreted it as gigartodes grape-stone/seed: only the LXX translated it as "the unfaithful or disobedient," interpreting the meaning rather than the words. Because He had said above: Your silver is turned into dross, He now maintains the metaphor so that He might turn His hand upon it, that is, extend His hand to punish and purge, and smelt away all 28 filth and the vices of sins: so that with the tin separated, pure silver might remain, which cannot happen without fire: by which He signifies that they will suffer torments. We also read in Malachi regarding the Lord:

He shall go forth like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' herb, and He shall sit refining and purifying like silver and gold: and He shall purify the sons of Levi (Malachi 3:2, 3),

so that after they have been purified, it may be said of them:

And they shall be to the Lord offering sacrifices in justice.

B Ezekiel also says that the whole house of Israel is mixed with copper, and iron, and lead, and tin, and is to be purified afterwards: so that after it has been purified, it may know that He is the Lord (Ezekiel 22:18). But even in the Gospel, the same meaning is shown under a different metaphor:

Whose winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will clean His threshing floor, and He will clean the wheat, and gather the grain into the barns: but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:12).

(Verse 26.) > And I will restore your judges, as they were before, and your counselors as of old.

In the faithful city of Zion, which afterwards became a harlot; and in place of the righteous, or justice, murderers dwelt in it. Therefore the Lord turns His hand to smelt it to pureness and take away all its tin, and to restore its judges, as they were from the beginning, and counselors as of old. The former judges were Moses, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the others from whom a book of the Holy Scripture also took its name: and afterwards David and other just kings. He will therefore restore the likeness of the Judges: either after the Babylonian captivity, as the Jews wish, Zorobabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and the other princes who led the people until Hyrcanus, whom Herod succeeded in the kingdom: or certainly, more truly and correctly, the Apostles, and those who believed through the Apostles and were constituted as princes of the Churches, as we said at the beginning of this D vision, that both the threat and the promise pertain to the time of the Lord's passion and to the contention that founded the Church after His passion.

A This 29 prophetic discourse clearly embraces the Church, which is about to believe in the Lord both from the Jews and from the Gentiles. But the city of the righteous, that is, of the Lord Savior, or she herself shall be called righteous, of whom it was said: A city cannot be hidden that is set on a mountain (Matthew 5:14). Calling her "faithful" also, or "metropolis" according to the LXX, he shows that she is to be so named by those who are about to believe in the Lord.

(Verses 27-29.) > Zion shall be redeemed in judgment, and they shall bring her back into justice, and he shall crush the wicked and the sinners together, and those who have abandoned the Lord shall be consumed; for they shall be confounded by the idols to which they have sacrificed, and you shall blush over the gardens which you had chosen.

Not all shall be redeemed, nor shall all be saved, but the remnant, of whom it was also spoken above. They shall be brought back in justice when the wicked and sinners have been crushed, and those who abandoned the Lord have been consumed. And when those who are saved have been saved, those who previously sacrificed to idols shall be confounded: and they shall blush in the gardens which they had chosen. He signifies places of luxury, groves? and woods.

(Verse 30.) > For they shall be as a terebinth with falling leaves, and as a garden, or paradise, without water.

Even today, the Jews, reading the Holy Scriptures, are a terebinth, or an oak, as Symmachus interpreted it. And according to the Gospel (Matthew 21), the fig tree which withered, in which, when the Lord sought fruit and did not find it, He cursed it with eternal dryness. But even the very leaves and fruits of words have now ceased among them: the irrigated garden also, that is, the knowledge of the Scriptures, or the paradise of diverse trees, which is without spiritual grace, does not even bring forth the greens of which the Apostle speaks: He who is weak, let him eat greens (Romans 14:2): and with the roots dried up, all the greenness has turned into aridity and squalor.

C (Verse 31.) > And your strength shall be as the spark of tow.

For "spark" (or "tinder"), Symmachus interpreted it as apotinagma a shaking off/the dust or dross: when tow is combed, whatever it has that is dirty is cast away. Therefore, all the strength and pride of the sinners and wicked of Israel, who abandoned the Lord and were therefore consumed: and they sacrificed to idols, and they shall blush in the gardens 30 which they chose; they shall be reduced to the sweepings of tow, which are devoured by a light fire. For it follows: And his work, that is, of your strength or of the idolatry in which you had wandered, a small spark shall consume.

And both shall be kindled together: and there shall be no one to extinguish them.

Namely, the knowledge of the Jews, and...