The burden concerning the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you are wholly gone up to the housetops?
Read Chapter 22
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
The valley of vision: Jerusalem. The temple of Jerusalem was built upon Mount Moria, or the mountain of vision. But the city is here called, the valley of vision, either because it was lower than the temple, or because of the low condition to which it was to be reduced, (Challoner) during the captivity. (Worthington)
Vision. Septuagint, "Sion. "(Haydock)
This prophecy regards the devastation caused by Sennacherib, (St. Jerome) Nabuchodonosor, (Sanctius) the Romans, (Eusebius) or by Assar don, when he took Manasses, 2 Paralipomenon xxxiii. 11., and 4 Kings xxi. 10.
Tops, to weep.
“Gog” is a Greek word translated in Latin by “roof” (tectum) and “magog” by “from the roof” (de tecto). All pride and false knowledge, therefore, that raises itself against the acknowledgment of the truth is indicated by these words. And this is the roof about which Isaiah spoke in his vision against the valley of Zion: “What has happened to you now, that you have all gone up to the empty roof?” We shall understand “roof” to refer to the leaders of heretics and “from the roof” to those who accept their teaching. How beautiful it is, after so many mystical prophecies contained in this volume, to find at last a prophecy against Gog and Magog. - "Commentary on Ezekiel 11.38.1–23"
If, as I was saying, we are in the church, if we possess the faith of the church, of the apostles, of Christ, the truths of Christian teaching, we are the mountains of Zion. We do not want to be among the valleys of Zion; we want to be mountains of Zion. Zion, indeed, has its valleys; it has plains, too. The sinner is a valley of Zion, not a mountain. Someone may interpose, “You are giving us your own opinion.” Let us call upon the testimony of Isaiah when Zion had fallen into sin, in which after many visions, the prophet mentions one against Idumea, one against Moab, one against Edom and the sons of Ammon, and lastly, “a vision of the valley of Zion.” Because Zion had descended from sublime faith, it fell recklessly from the mountain into the valley.
Before all else, then, let us flee from the valleys of Zion and come to the plains; from the plains, let us go to the hills, from the hills up the mountains. - "Homilies on the Psalms 45 (Psalm 132)"
