Jeremias 51:9
We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed: let us forsake her, and let us go every man to his own land: because her judgment hath reached even to the heavens, and is lifted up to the clouds.
Open Jeremias 51:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Curavimus Babylonem, et non est sanata : derelinquamus eam, et eamus unusquisque in terram suam : quoniam pervenit usque ad cælos judicium ejus, et elevatum est usque ad nubes.
- Septuagint (Swete) shown from Jeremias 28:9
- ἰατρεύσαμεν τὴν Βαβυλῶνα, καὶ οὐκ ἰάθη· ἐνκαταλίπωμεν αὐτὴν καὶ ἀπέλθωμεν ἕκαστος εἰς τὴν γῆν αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἤγγικεν εἰς οὐρανὸν τὸ κρίμα αὐτῆς, ἐξῆρεν ἕως τῶν ἄστρων.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- רפאנו אֶת בָּבֶל֙ וְלֹ֣א נִרְפָּ֔תָה עִזְב֕וּהָ וְנֵלֵ֖ךְ אִ֣ישׁ לְאַרְצ֑וֹ כִּֽי נָגַ֤ע אֶל הַשָּׁמַ֨יִם֙ מִשְׁפָּטָ֔הּ וְנִשָּׂ֖א עַד שְׁחָקִֽים
Haydock's commentary
We. The guardian angels, or Jews reply. Miracles are lost on her.
Heavens. Her crimes call for punishment, Genesis xviii. 21., and Jonas i. 2.
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion 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).
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 John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter XXXI. On the fact that those men are more to be pitied to whom it is not given to be subjected to those temporal temptations
But we ought to consider those men truly wretched and miserable in whose case, although they defile themselves with all kinds of sins and wickedness, yet not only is there no visible sign of the devil’s possession shown in them, nor is any temptation proportionate to their actions, nor any scourge of punishment brought to bear upon them. For they are vouchsafed no swift and immediate remedy in this world, whose “hardness and impenitent heart,” being too much for punishment in this life, “heapeth up for itself wrath and indignation in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,” “where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.” Against whom the prophet as if perplexed at the affliction of the saints, when he sees them subject to various losses and temptations, and on the other hand sees sinners not only passing through the course of this world without any …
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, How those who fear scourges and those who contemn them are to be admonished
But, on the other hand, those whom not even scourges restrain from iniquities are to be smitten with sharper rebuke in proportion as they have grown hard with greater insensibility. For generally they are to be disdained without disdain, and despaired of without despair, so, to wit, that the despair exhibited may strike them with dread, and admonition following may bring them back to hope. Sternly, therefore, against them should the Divine judgments be set forth, that they may be recalled by consideration of eternal retribution to knowledge of themselves. For let them hear that in them is fulfilled that which is written, If thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar, as if with a pestle pounding barley, his foolishness will not be taken away from him ( Prov. xxvii. 22 ). …