Jerome's Commentarii in Ezechielem is a fourteen-book exposition of the whole prophecy of Ezekiel, dictated at his monastery in Bethlehem between 410 and 414 and dedicated to Eustochium, the daughter of his late patron Paula. It is the second of his three great commentaries on the major prophets, following Isaiah and preceding the unfinished Jeremiah, and it was written under extraordinary pressure. In the preface to the first book Jerome records that he had begun the work only to fall silent when news arrived that Rome had been taken by Alaric; he could not bring himself to write while, in his words, the brightest light of the world was extinguished. The prefaces to later books speak of refugees from Italy arriving daily in Bethlehem, of the monks' resources strained by the duty of hospitality, and of raids that interrupted the dictation. The commentary is thus not a product of scholarly leisure but a sustained act of attention to Scripture carried out while the civilization Jerome knew was collapsing around him.
The method is the mature form of Jerome's exegesis. For each passage he sets out the text twice, in his own rendering from the Hebrew and in the Septuagint, and explains the differences between them, drawing on Jewish teachers and on the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion. He then gives the historical sense, locating the oracles in the exile under Nebuchadnezzar, before turning to the spiritual sense, which he reads as pointing to Christ and the Church. He is heavily indebted to Origen, whose homilies on Ezekiel he had translated decades earlier, but he is also willing to correct Origen where allegory seems to override the plain meaning. The opening vision of the chariot and the closing vision of the temple receive the longest treatment; Jerome notes the Jewish custom of withholding these chapters from readers under thirty and approaches them with declared caution. In the books on the restored temple and the renewed land he argues at length against a literal, earthly fulfilment, rejecting both Jewish messianic expectation and Christian millenarianism in favour of an ecclesial and heavenly reading, and he treats the prophecy of Gog as a figure of the final assault on the Church rather than a map of coming history.
The work mattered because it fixed for the Latin West both a text of Ezekiel and a way of reading him. Medieval commentators inherited Jerome's handling of the chariot and the temple, and his insistence on the Hebrew text alongside the Greek gave later readers a model of philological seriousness in the service of theology. The prefaces, moreover, remain among the most vivid Latin witnesses to the fall of Rome, and the whole commentary shows a scholar refusing to let catastrophe excuse him from the labour of understanding Scripture.
Who should read this: students of patristic exegesis, of the Latin Bible, and of how the early Church read prophecy without surrendering it to speculation; also anyone wanting to see faith and scholarship held together under historical disaster. It is dense, technical and long, and readers seeking devotional reflection on Ezekiel or an introduction to Jerome should begin elsewhere, with his letters.
Commentary on Ezekiel
by Jerome
For For students of Jerome's last years: fourteen books begun as the news of Rome's sack arrived in 410, whose prefaces record the shock; Latin only, the modern English (Scheck) being in copyright.
Jerome's Commentarii in Ezechielem is a fourteen-book exposition of the whole prophecy of Ezekiel, dictated at his monastery in Bethlehem between 410 and 414 and dedicated to Eustochium, the daughter of his late patron Paula. It is the second of his three great commentaries on the major prophets, following Isaiah and preceding the unfinished Jeremiah, and it was written under extraordinary pressure. In the preface to the first book Jerome records that he had begun the work only to fall silent when news arrived that Rome had been taken by Alaric; he could not bring himself to write while, in his words, the brightest light of the world was extinguished. The prefaces to later books speak of refugees from Italy arriving daily in Bethlehem, of the monks' resources strained by the duty of hospitality, and of raids that interrupted the dictation. The commentary is thus not a product of scholarly leisure but a sustained act of attention to Scripture carried out while the civilization Jerome knew was collapsing around him.
The method is the mature form of Jerome's exegesis. For each passage he sets out the text twice, in his own rendering from the Hebrew and in the Septuagint, and explains the differences between them, drawing on Jewish teachers and on the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion. He then gives the historical sense, locating the oracles in the exile under Nebuchadnezzar, before turning to the spiritual sense, which he reads as pointing to Christ and the Church. He is heavily indebted to Origen, whose homilies on Ezekiel he had translated decades earlier, but he is also willing to correct Origen where allegory seems to override the plain meaning. The opening vision of the chariot and the closing vision of the temple receive the longest treatment; Jerome notes the Jewish custom of withholding these chapters from readers under thirty and approaches them with declared caution. In the books on the restored temple and the renewed land he argues at length against a literal, earthly fulfilment, rejecting both Jewish messianic expectation and Christian millenarianism in favour of an ecclesial and heavenly reading, and he treats the prophecy of Gog as a figure of the final assault on the Church rather than a map of coming history.
The work mattered because it fixed for the Latin West both a text of Ezekiel and a way of reading him. Medieval commentators inherited Jerome's handling of the chariot and the temple, and his insistence on the Hebrew text alongside the Greek gave later readers a model of philological seriousness in the service of theology. The prefaces, moreover, remain among the most vivid Latin witnesses to the fall of Rome, and the whole commentary shows a scholar refusing to let catastrophe excuse him from the labour of understanding Scripture.
Who should read this: students of patristic exegesis, of the Latin Bible, and of how the early Church read prophecy without surrendering it to speculation; also anyone wanting to see faith and scholarship held together under historical disaster. It is dense, technical and long, and readers seeking devotional reflection on Ezekiel or an introduction to Jerome should begin elsewhere, with his letters.
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