Isaiah 49:14

Jerusalem and Zion are understood in four ways in the holy Scriptures, as we have often mentioned. One, according to the Jews, which the Lord laments in the Gospel, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the Prophets, and stones those who are sent to you."… Secondly, the congregation of the Saints, who are established in the peace of the Lord and in the towers of virtues, are rightly called Zion, of whom it is said: "Its foundations are on the holy mountains: the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob." For the foundations of the Jewish Zion, which we see to be destroyed, were not loved by the Lord, nor could that which was loved by the Lord be destroyed. Thirdly, Jerusalem is called the multitude of Angels, Dominions, and Powers, and everything that is established in the ministry of God.… Fourthly, Jerusalem is called the one which the Jews and our Judaizers, according to the Apocalypse of John, think should be placed in the celestial realm as a golden and bejeweled one, which they do not understand, whose boundaries and infinite breadth are also described in the final part of Ezekiel. Therefore, since these things are so, let us now examine more closely what Zion has said: The Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me. There is no doubt that the congregation of the saints, which was once among the Jews and was abandoned by the Lord, laments this and bitterly mourns that it has been deserted and deprived of the Lord's help.

(Verse 14 and following) And Zion said: The Lord has abandoned me, and the Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing child, so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb? Even if she forgets, I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are always before my eyes. Your builders have come, and those who destroyed and devastated you will depart from you. Lift up your eyes all around and see; all these have gathered together, they have come to you.

And again speaking by the comparison of a wife, He says: "Even if she shall have forgotten, yet will I not forget thee." For who can be ignorant, that the memory of God is neither broken off by oblivion, nor yet repaired by recollection? But when He neglects and passes over some things, He is said, after the manner of minds, to forget, and when, after a long time, He visits the things He wills, He is said, after the fashion of our changeableness, to have remembered. For how does oblivion weaken the strength of that Godhead, with Which even praiseworthy memory itself has no essential agreement. For men remember no things, except those which are either past or absent. How then does God remember past things, when the very things which in themselves pass away, stand ever present at His beck? Or how does He call to mind things absent, when every thing that is, is present to Him, from the fact that it exists in Him? For if it were not present to Him, it would not exist at all; for things nonexistent He creates, by looking on them, things existent He keeps together, by looking on them.

904. And Zion said. Here he excludes their doubt. And first, that which arose from divine indignation; second, that which arose from their dejection: and you shall say in your heart (Isa 49:21); third, that which arose from the power of their enemies, where it …

12 ), and has forgotten their sins, Ps. x. Weak believers, in their despondency, are ready to say, "God has forsaken his church and forgotten the sorrows of his people." But we have no more reason to question his promise and grace than we have to question his providence and justice. He is as sure a rewarder as he is a revenger.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-citation-number+unbalanced-parens