3 For thus saith the Lord GOD; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.
(Verse 3) Because thus says the Lord God: The city from which a thousand went out shall be left with a hundred, and the city from which a hundred went out shall be left with ten in the house of Israel. Similarly in the Septuagint. The divine word gives the reasons why the fallen house of Israel shall not rise again, and why the wandering or cast-down virgin of Israel shall not have a saviour. It says: The city, it says, from which a thousand went out shall be left with a hundred, and the city from which a hundred went out shall be left with ten in the house of Israel. So that where there was once a multitude, because of excessive desolation, scarcely a tenth part remains. And let us not leave the letters of the sacraments of numbers untouched: the number seven is proven to be holy, even the Sabbath, on which God rested from all his works (Gen. II). And it commands that no servile work be done on it, except only that which pertains to the soul: and that we not bear burdens on it (Num. XV). Hence, even in the wilderness, the one who gathered wood on the Sabbath, which is destined to burn, is condemned by the judgment of the Lord. And seven weeks complete the number of holy Pentecost: and the Jubilee year of remission and the sounding of trumpets is woven with this number. In the seventh month, the tabernacles are also set up, and the Hebrew, after serving for six years, will be set free in the seventh year. This is also known in secular philosophy and in the books of the physicians, of whom Galenus, very eloquent and learned, wrote three books on judgments and critical days, in which he shows the power of the number seven, saying that the most intense fevers are resolved on the seventh day: or if the magnitude of the harmful fluid and phlegm is so great that it is in no way consumed by the heat of the first week, the last day of the second week is awaited, that is, the fourteenth. But if this disease, as Hippocrates says, conquers, they pass to the twenty-first day, that is, to the end of the third week: so from the beginning of the world, the days being numbered, all labors and troubles rest on the seventh number. Finally, the captivity of the people of Israel, the destruction of the temple, was completed in the seventieth year of desolation, and seven planets are said to wander according to the number of days. Tullius gives a more detailed account of the mysteries of this number in Scipio's dream, and Plato's Timaeus is very obscure, which even Cicero's golden mouth does not make clearer. Therefore, just as the number seven has its sacrament, so it is sanctified and perfected, and, so to speak, is the true number, which is preserved by union, and is enclosed within the majesty of one God. Hence the Son says: I am in the Father, and the Father in me (John 14:11): desiring that all should be one with the Father, he speaks to him: Father, grant that just as I and you are one, so may they be one in us (ibid. 17:21). Therefore, the first beatitude is to be in the first number, which is one and true; the second, in the second, that is, in the decade; the third, in the third, that is, in the hecatontade. For just as the decade is completed by the tenth union, so the hecatontade is built from ten decades. The fourth number, which is contained in a thousand, consists of ten hecatontades. Therefore, when someone repents, they rarely return from the thousand and fourth number to the hundredth and third number. Again, he who is in the hundredth, scarcely returns to the second number of the first decade, and so it happens that the house of Israel, which had fallen, cannot rise again, and the virgin of Israel, who had gone astray, does not have a restorer on the earth. For once someone has departed from union and has lost the glory of most pure virginity (of which the Apostle says: For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin, 2 Corinthians 11), they will not be able to regain their former state and the blessedness of union. And it will scarcely be granted to them to return from a thousand to a hundred, and from a hundred to ten. I have spoken these things briefly so that I may not appear to have completely avoided tropology in this chapter on account of the difficulty of numbers.
[AD 420] Jerome on Amos 5:3