Verse 5. 'Whose harvest the hungry shall eat, and the armed man shall snatch him away.' 5. The Gentiles eat their harvest, that is, the sacred oracles, and snatch away their riches. For the harvest of this fool had been the crop of the sacred oracle. For certain grains of the ears are the words of the prophets, which the fool had, but did not eat, because the Jewish people indeed held the Law in word, but by the loathing of its folly it fasted from the understanding of it. But the hungry man eats the harvest of this fool, because assuredly the Gentile people eats the words of the Law by understanding them, at which the Jewish crowd labored without understanding. These hungry ones for the faith the Lord foresaw, when He said through the evangelist:
'Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled' (Matthew v, 6). Of these hungry ones it is said by the prophecy of Anna: 'They that were full have hired out themselves for bread, and the hungry are filled' (1 Samuel ii, 5). But because he lost the harvest, it is rightly subjoined how the fool himself also perishes, when it is said: 'And the armed man shall snatch him away.' The ancient enemy, armed, snatched away the Jewish people, because in it he extinguished the life of faith by the darts of fraudulent suggestion, so that whence it believed itself to cleave to God, thence it fought against His ordinance. This the Truth forewarns His disciples of, saying: 'The hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service' (John xvi, 2). There follows: