Jeremias 22:10
Weep not for him that is dead, nor bemoan him with your tears: lament him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Nolite flere mortuum, neque lugeatis super eum fletu : plangite eum qui egreditur, quia non revertetur ultra, nec videbit terram nativitatis suæ.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Μὴ κλαίετε τὸν τεθνηκότα μηδὲ θρηνεῖτε αὐτόν· κλαύσατε κλαυθμῷ τὸν ἐκπορευόμενον, ὅτι οὐκ ἐπιστρέφει ἔτι οὐδὲ ὄψεται τὴν γῆν πατρίδος αὐτοῦ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אַל תִּבְכּ֣וּ לְמֵ֔ת וְאַל תָּנֻ֖דוּ ל֑וֹ בְּכ֤וּ בָכוֹ֙ לַֽהֹלֵ֔ךְ כִּ֣י לֹ֤א יָשׁוּב֙ ע֔וֹד וְרָאָ֖ה אֶת אֶ֥רֶץ מוֹלַדְתּֽוֹ
Haydock's commentary
Dead. He means the good king Josias, who by death was taken away, so as not to see the miseries of his country.
Away. Sellum, alias Joachaz, who was carried captive into Egypt, (Challoner) ver. 12., and 4 Kings xxiii. 33. (Calmet)
He was the fourth son of Josias, (1 Paralipomenon iii. 15.) and had probably the title of king after the death of Sedecias. (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 Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Rusticus
The Saviour also wept over the city of Jerusalem because its inhabitants had not repented; and Peter washed out his triple denial with bitter tears, thus fulfilling the words of the prophet: “rivers of waters run down mine eyes.” Jeremiah too laments over his impenitent people, saying: “Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for…my people!” And farther on he gives a reason for his lamentation: “weep ye not for the dead,” he writes, “neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more.” The Jew and the Gentile therefore are not to be bemoaned, for they have never been in the Church and have died once for all (it is of these that the Saviour says: “let the dead bury their dead”); weep rather for those who by reason of their crimes and sins go away from the Church, and who suffering condemnation for t …
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).