21 In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
(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.
(Verse 17 onwards) And it came to pass in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre; every head was made bald, and every shoulder was rubbed bare; yet he had no wages, nor his army, for Tyre, for the service that he had served against it. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will give Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon the land of Egypt; and he shall take its multitude, and take its spoil, and take its prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt for his labor that he has performed for me, says the Lord God. On that day the horn of the house of Israel will sprout, and I will give you an open mouth in the midst of them, and they will know that I am the Lord. It is asked how after the tenth year of the previous discourse, immediately the twenty-seventh year is placed, and in the following years the twelfth and the thirteenth, and in the final description of the temple, the twenty-fifth. But the solution is easy. Because both the prophecy about Egypt and the previous one, and the one that is now being spoken, are covered, although they have been made at different times: yet they are joined together because they prophesy about one province. And we often read in Jeremiah, that times are described in a preposterous order. For the deeds of Zedekiah are reported first, and then those of Joachim who came before him. But in the Psalms, because it is a lyric poem, the order of the events is not sought. So let us speak first according to the letter. When Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre, and because it was surrounded by the sea, he could not join the rams, machines, and vineyards to the walls, he ordered an infinite multitude of the army to carry rocks and mounds, and when the middle sea, or rather the narrow strait, was filled, he made the neighboring shore an uninterrupted island. When the Tyrians saw that the city was now completely finished and that the foundations of the walls were being shaken by the battering of the rams, they loaded onto ships whatever precious things they had in gold, silver, clothing, and various furnishings that the nobility possessed, and carried them to the islands, so that after capturing the city, Nebuchadnezzar found nothing worthy of his hard work. And because he had obeyed God's will in this matter, after a few years of captivity in Tyre, Egypt was given to him; and Tyrus was much more cruel to Egypt. For she was attacking Jerusalem; this one was promising empty assistance. Indeed, it is one thing to deceive weakness with hope: it is another thing to fight against the people of God. Therefore, this is what Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, says: in the siege of Tyre, he made his army serve me, so that I may fulfill my will. Every head is shaved, and every shoulder is made hairless, carrying baskets of earth and stones with which shoulders are shaved, and the head is shaved; and yet neither he nor his army found anything worthy in Tyre. And when he served me in this way, and fulfilled my will against Tyre, therefore I will give him the land of Egypt. Some say that this was accomplished under Nebuchadnezzar; others say under Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, who devastated Egypt as far as Ethiopia, to the extent of killing the sacred bull Apis and destroying all their statues. For this reason, they believe that he was turned mad by the chance of a horse and killed himself with his own dagger. Herodotus recounts this history in great detail, describing all of Egypt through its villages, castles, and towns, and revealing the origin of the Nile and the people of that land, as well as the measurement of the land around to the desert of Ethiopia and the shores of the Great Sea, bordering Libya and Arabia. But the cause of the Lord's anger against Egypt is that it deceived His people by not allowing them to hope in God and by provoking Him to anger. On that day when Egypt is captured, the horn of the house of Israel will sprout: undoubtedly indicating a royal lineage. Some refer this to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, who was descended from the line of David through Jeconiah, while others refer it to the ultimate time, when they believe that Elijah will come. But we, by understanding the Lord's horn to be Christ, interpret the present history. And when, he says, this has been accomplished first, then your mouth will be opened, and your prophecy will not hang on uncertain promises, but it will be seen accomplished in action: so that all who hear may know that I am the Lord, of whom it has been said and done. These things, according to the letter, indeed according to the truth, have been spoken as prophecies. Furthermore, from the fact that Nebuchadnezzar received a reward for his good work, we also understand that even the Gentiles, if they do something good, are not overlooked by God's judgment without a reward. Therefore, through Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar is called the dove of God because he served the will of God against the sinful people. 'And I will bring my servant Nebuchadnezzar' (Jeremiah 25).' From this, it is clear that we are condemned in comparison to the Gentiles if they follow the natural law, which we also neglect even though it is written. Paul the Apostle discusses this matter at length in his letter to the Romans. And lest we seem to overlook anything according to spiritual understanding, we inquire where we find this number, that is, the twenty-seventh. In the book of Genesis, Scripture testifies (Gen. VII) that in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the waters of the flood came upon the earth, and after seven months of the same year, which is near the Sabbath, and on the twenty-seventh day of the seventh month, the waters of the flood ceased, and Noah's ark settled on the mountains of Ararat, which are interpreted as Armenia. From this we understand that the number is average and can be applied to both, when in this and the anger of God begins from the flood, and his mercy is shown in the seventh month on the same day. And because among the Hebrews the month, which with us is measured by the Kalends, Nones, and Ides, is calculated according to the course of the moon: whence also in the Greek language it has received the name μήνη, that is, moon, it is said that on the twenty-seventh day of the moon there remained little light, so that his anger may not be without mercy. But when the whole orb of the moon is filled up, then both Easter is celebrated and all the greatest solemnities. Which we have set down strictly, so that we may know that in this number, both good and evil are contained equally. Good for Nebuchadnezzar, to whom his labor is rewarded; evil for the Egyptians, whose destruction is announced.
[AD 420] Jerome on Ezekiel 20:27-29:29