Chú giải Kinh Thánh

Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: [there is] no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.

Come down. — From thy lofty top and towering state, as the head city of the world. Sic transit gloria mundi. , So fleeting is the glory of the world.

Sit in the dust. — Cyrillus wrote εν τω οκοτει . As a mourner. Job 2:8 ; Job 42:6 So Judea, being subdued by Vespasian, was pictured upon money coined by him as a handmaid sitting on the ground. Sic ruet alto a culmine Roma!

O virgin daughter of Babylon. — Thou that hast never yet been subdued. So Venice hath for her motto, ‘Intacta maneo’; so Cologne-upon-Rhine is called ‘the virgin city.’

Thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. — So as queens use to be - Cleopatra, for instance.

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Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

Take the millstone. — As the most abject slaves used to do, qui in pistrinum trudebantur. Neither is this an end of thy sorrows; for out of the mill house thou must be carried captive into a far country, and therefore, in order thereunto,

Uncover thy locks. — Cast away thy diadem.

Make bare thy leg. — Denuda turpitudinem, the Vulgate rendereth it; that thou mayest pass through the waters naked and squalid into captivity.

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Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet [thee as] a man.

Thy nakedness shall be uncovered. — Thou shalt be stripped, and worse dealt with - the ordinary lot of women prisoners. At the sack of Magdeburg by Monsieur Tilly, ladies, gentlewomen, and others, like beasts and dogs, being naked and coupled together, were led into the woods, and there ravished. Such as resisted, the soldiers stripped naked, whipped them, cropped their ears, and so sent them home again.

I will not meet thee as a man. — But as a lion rather; thou shalt have vengeance without mixture of mercy. See 2 Samuel 7:24 Isaiah 13:6 ; Isaiah 27:7-8 Hosea 5:14 . Men use sometimes to deal favourably with women, but they shall not do so with thee. Absque omni humanitatis contemperatione. - Scult. Tractabo te pro divina potentia mea. - Piscat.

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[As for] our redeemer, the LORD of hosts [is] his name, the Holy One of Israel.

As for our Redeemer, … — This comes in by way of parenthesis, for the comfort of God’s poor people.

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Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.

Sit thou silent. — Here he threateneth Babylon with loss of her former fame; she shall be buried in obscurity and oblivion, as out of sight and out of mind, no longer called the ‘lady of kingdoms,’ but a wretched drudge, ut de Hecuba tradunt tragici.

For thou shalt no more be called. — Heb., Thou shalt not add to be called. Oecolampadius senseth it thus, Thou wast wont to be called the lady of kingdoms, now they shall call thee, Non adiecies, as desperate and irrecoverable. And why?

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I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.

I was wroth. — See on Zechariah 1:15 .

I have polluted mine inheritance. — God is his people’s inheritance, and they are his; but now, for their sins, he had dealt with them as with a profane and unclean thing.

Thou didst show them no mercy. — Heb., Thou didst set them no bowels. Cruelty cries for vengeance. See Jeremiah 50:17 ; Jeremiah 51:24 .

Upon the ancient. — Who should have been borne with for their age and weakness.

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And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: [so] that thou didst not lay these [things] to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.

I shall be a lady for ever. — Presumption precedeth destruction. Psalms 10:6 Revelation 18:7

So that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart. — The daughter of pride is security, and pleasure is her niece. Isaiah 47:8

Nor didst remember the latter end of it. — Heb., Her latter end. Memorare novissima tua, et in aeternum non peccabis. See Lamentations 1:4 .

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Therefore hear now this, [thou that art] given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I [am], and none else beside me; I shall not sit [as] a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:

Thou that art given to pleasure. — Delisatula; It is not good to take pleasure in pleasure; no, not to go as far here as we may. Verecunda sunt omnia initia peecati, Sin seemeth modest at first, …

Thou sayest in thine heart, I am, — sc., The lady of the world. Heathen Rome was called by the heathens, Terrarum dea gentiumque. Rome Papal saith as much. Revelation 17:4

And none else besides me, — i.e., None worth speaking of. The Jesuits brag in like sort of their transcendent learning, and profess skill beyond the periphery of possible knowledge.

I shall not sit as a widow, — i.e., Be bereft of my monarchy, which is, as it were, my husband.

Neither shall I know the loss of children. — I shall not cease to subdue countries and kingdoms, which are added unto me as so many children.

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