(Verse 27, 29 onwards) Therefore speak to the house of Israel, son of man, and tell them: Thus says the Lord God: Moreover, your fathers have blasphemed against me and have treated me with contempt, even as they spurned me. And I brought them into the land that I had lifted my hand to give them ((Vulgate adds: that land)): they saw every high hill and every leafy tree, and there they offered their sacrifices and presented there the irritation of their offerings, and they placed there the fragrance of their sweetness, and they poured out their ((Vulgate is silent on this)) libations there. And I said to them, 'What is the high place to which you are going?' And its name was called the High Place until this day. Therefore speak to the house of Israel, son of man, and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: As for your fathers, they have provoked Me to anger by their iniquities, by the fact that they have fallen away from Me. So I brought them into the land that I had lifted My hand in an oath to give them.' They saw every high hill and every leafy tree, and there they offered their sacrifices. They also presented there the provocation of their gifts, and they set there their pleasing aroma, and they poured out there their drink offerings. And I said to them: What is abbana, because you enter there? And they called its name abbana until this day. I wanted, he said, to scatter them in the wilderness, and to give them not good precepts, so that they would sacrifice to idols what they should have offered to me, and consecrate all their first-fruits to them by fire, so that I might kill them and destroy them. But when he says, I wanted, he shows that he did not do what he wanted. And that which follows: 'And they shall know that I am the Lord,' is not found in the Septuagint. For it did not seem fitting to them to know after their destruction that he himself is the Lord. But you, son of man, speak again to them, that is, to the elders of the house of Israel, who have come to inquire of you: Your fathers, from whom you have descended, have also blasphemed against me and held me in contempt; after I brought them into the land which I had given them to possess, they turned against me to provoke me. For when they saw every high hill and leafy tree, they would sacrifice on the mountains and in the groves and thickets, and offer victims to the idols, and pour out libations. And when I saw this, I said to them: What is this, Bama? for it is called high: or why do you enter into such a place which you have chosen for yourselves in all the hills, so that even today these places are called Bamoth, and the ancient error retains its original name? Regarding Bama, which we translate as excelsum, there is an error in the Septuagint edition, where it is written as ἀββανὰ, which does not resonate in the Hebrew language. Bama can mean 'in which' if the two syllables are divided into two words, but in the present context, that sense does not fit. However, wherever it is written in the Books of Kings and Chronicles: 'The people still sacrificed and offered incense on the high places,' Bama in the singular and Bamoth in the plural mean 'high places.'
(Verse 35, 36, and following) And I will bring you into a desert of peoples, and there I will judge you face to face. Just as I contended with your fathers in the desert of the land of Egypt, so I will judge you, says the Lord. And I will subject you to my scepter, and I will bring you into the bonds of the covenant, and I will choose from among you the transgressors and the wicked: from their place of residence I will bring them out, and they will not enter the land of Israel, and you will know that I am the Lord. Thus says the Lord: I will do for you who are in Babylon, and now serve idols, what I did for your ancestors in Egypt. I will lead you into the desert of the peoples, and there I will judge you face to face, just as I contended with them in judgment when they came out of Egypt. And after I have judged you, I will subject you to my scepter and rule, and I will make a covenant with you and bring you into your land with the bonds of love, so that bound by my love, you will never be able to depart from me. But I will choose from among you the transgressors and the wicked, who persist in the hardness of their hearts in evil deeds, not for possession, but for rejection. And I will indeed bring them out of the land of their dwelling, so that when they are brought out, they will not enter the land of Israel; but they will perish in various regions. And by the distinction between good and evil, you shall know that I am the Lord, who judges all things. The rest of the discourse hastens, and we briefly go through each point, in order to provide only the meaning to the readers.
(Chap. XXIX.—Vers. 1, 2.) In the tenth year (or according to the LXX, the twelfth), in the tenth month (or, according to the Hebrew, the twelfth), on the first (or one) day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt, and say: Thus says the Lord God. After Sidon, which is also situated on the coast of Phoenicia, the word of the Lord came to the prophet in the tenth year of the captivity of King Jehoiachin, in the twelfth month, and on the first day of the month, that he should set his face and strengthen himself against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and speak concerning him, and concerning all Egypt, against all of Egypt province. And prophesy regarding what will happen to them. But if we must say something about the numbers, which place does one hold among ten days: hence, at the beginning of Genesis, it is not said: There was evening and morning, the first day, but one day (Gen.1), in order to teach that the same day is always repeated: the tenth number holds the same order among ten decades, which is a hundred, and this number is taken up by the sacrificial lamb, so that it is sacrificed on the fourteenth day, and in this way it continues through its decades, with the order of its numbers proceeding to a thousand and ten thousand, and one hundred thousand, and beyond. But after the tenth year, the twelfth month is placed, so that the perfect number of twelve apostles and prophets (who are contained in one volume) may be shown. Moreover, according to the Septuagint, the tenth month, which is called Tebeth in Hebrew (), and in Egypt týbi, is called January by the Romans, because among them it is the door of the year: with all heat removed, it contains the beginning of winter cold. Let it suffice to have spoken about numbers. Moreover, that must be especially sought after, whether the Pharaoh referred to in Exodus, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and many other places, and in the Song of Songs is the same person or different individuals. And it seems to me that this word does not refer to a single person, but rather signifies the royal dignity among the Egyptians, like how the Romans called their emperors and kings from the first Caesar, Gaius Caesar, and the second, his adopted son Octavian, who was later named Augustus. And among the Syrians, there was Antiochus, among the Persians, there were the Arsacid kings, among the Philistines, Abimelech, and after Alexander, in Egypt, there were the Ptolemies until Cleopatra, who, when defeated at Actium, made Egypt a Roman province. Therefore, in the present time, the word of the Lord is directed against every king of Egypt, who is interpreted as the destroyer, the slayer and maimer, cutting and dividing all things with a sword. This is to be understood in a mystical sense referring to the power to which Egypt is subject. For no man would dare to say: 'The rivers are mine, and I have made them,' nor would the great dragon be called, sitting in the midst of its rivers; but Egypt is called Mizraim in Hebrew, and it is translated into our language as afflicting and troubling, narrowing down and oppressing those who are subject to it, and not lifting its eyes to heaven but, according to the Gospel and the example of that woman whom the devil had bent double for eighteen years, always sinking down to earthly things (Luke 13).' Let us therefore see what is the threat against Pharaoh and all of Egypt.
[AD 420] Jerome on Ezekiel 20:27-29:29