Jeremias 17:1
The sin of Juda is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond, it is graven upon the table of their heart, upon the horns of their altars.
Open Jeremias 17:1 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Peccatum Juda scriptum est stylo ferreo in ungue adamantino, exaratum super latitudinem cordis eorum, et in cornibus ararum eorum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- The Septuagint has no verse matching this one here: it lacks the verse, or carries it elsewhere in its own order.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- חַטַּ֣את יְהוּדָ֗ה כְּתוּבָ֛ה בְּעֵ֥ט בַּרְזֶ֖ל בְּצִפֹּ֣רֶן שָׁמִ֑יר חֲרוּשָׁה֙ עַל ל֣וּחַ לִבָּ֔ם וּלְקַרְנ֖וֹת מִזְבְּחוֹתֵיכֶֽם
Haydock's commentary
The. Grabe (de Vit. p. 8.) observes that the four first verses were omitted in the Septuagint by some careless transcriber, long before the days of Origen, who restored them from the Hebrew and the other Greek versions. On such occasions his work was very useful; but the marks being soon neglected, great confusion ensued. (St. Jerome) (Kennicott, Dis. ii.)
Grabe has restored these verses in his edition. (Haydock)
Eusebius (Dem. x.) and Theodoret acknowledged them; and Nobilius found the first verse thus expressed in many copies, (Calmet) as it is in Grabe: "The sin of Juda is expressed in writing with a finger nail of adamant, cleaving to the breast of," &c. (Haydock)
Altars, to appear more conspicuously to the latest times. This excited God's indignation. (Calmet)
These figurative expressions shew the inveterate malice of the people. (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Ambrose On the Holy Spirit, Chapter III. The same Unity may also be recognized from the fact that the Spirit is called Finger, and the Son Right Hand; for the understanding of divine things is assisted by the usage of human language. The tables of the law were written by this Finger, and they were afterwards broken, and the reason. Lastly, Christ wrote with the same Finger; yet we must not admit any inferiority in the Spirit from this bodily comparison
14. Now it was written on tables of stone, because it was written in a type, but the tables were first broken and cast out of the hands of Moses, because the Jews fell away from the works of the prophet. And fitly were the tables broken, not the writing erased. And do you see that your table be not broken, that your mind and soul be not divided. Is Christ divided? He is not divided, but is one with the Father; and let no one separate you from Him. If your faith fails, the table of your heart is broken. The coherence of your soul is lessened if you do not believe the unity of Godhead in the Trinity. Your faith is written, and your sin is written, as Jeremiah said: “Thy sin, O Judah, is written with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond. …
St Ambrose Sermon Against Auxentius on the Giving Up of the Basilicas
23. The Lord Jesus shut a few out of His temple, but Auxentius left none. Jesus with a scourge drove them out of His temple, Auxentius with a sword; Jesus with a scourge, Mercurius with an axe. The holy Lord drives out the sacrilegious with a scourge; the impious man pursues the holy with a sword. Of him you have well said to-day: Let him take away his laws with him. He will take them, although he is unwilling; he will take with him his conscience, although he takes no writing; he will take with him his soul inscribed with blood although he will not take a letter inscribed with ink. It is written: “Juda, thy sin is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond, and it is graven upon thy heart,” that is, it is written there, whence it came forth.
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).