Prophetic Extracts (chapter 1)

Prophetic Extracts

Eusebius of Caesarea

early fourth century

Eusebius gathered passages from the prophets and the Psalms that speak of Christ and the church, and explains each in turn. The work is also called the ‘General Elementary Introduction’, of which this ‘Prophetic Extracts’ is the surviving part (four books). It is little known and, as far as we have found, has not been translated into English. The extracts follow the Greek text printed in Gaisford’s Oxford edition of 1842.

Chapter 1

1a [...] having gone through the testimonies about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, both his teaching and his life, it confirmed them by clear, trustworthy and true demonstrations and arguments. Only at the end did it use very brief testimonies from the divine Scriptures, which are believed both among the Jews and among us. No other line of argument was available for setting out rich proofs from those Scriptures to people who still wholly disbelieve them. The present work is different. It has been prepared for those who ought to believe the sacred Scriptures as already divine and inspired, on the strength of that earlier demonstration. It is meant to fill up what the earlier work left lacking. It contains, in summary, a collection [...] of the prophecy about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which it seemed good to gather into one place from [...] the old covenant. [...] and in what way the things about him were also foretold through hidden meanings [...] him and the dispensations concerning him. [...] not also [...] the things that are shown to have reached their fulfillment. [...] such things [...] and scattered, not only in prophecy [...] but laid up in the histories. [...] it will be useful to not a few.

1b It is not easy, except [...] through reading the Scriptures together, for all these passages to come to hand for those who want to have them on their lips and carry them in memory. It should be known that before the present undertaking I composed the Chronological Canons. I set beside them a summary of all kinds of history, Greek and non-Greek, and through these I established the antiquity of Moses and of the prophets after him. I regard the present scattered collection as following on from those works, and so, after that one, I have naturally come to this present treatise. One might fittingly compare this work to the natural diligence of the wise bee. The sacred word in Proverbs sends us to her when it says, “Or go to the bee, and see how industrious she is, and how she carries on her work as a noble thing. Kings and private persons take her labors for health. She is longed for by all and renowned, and though weak in strength, she honored wisdom and was advanced.” Prov. 6:8. That worker is testified to have honored wisdom. She gathers what is suitable from the flourishing shoots, and from the gathering and working of everything she offers her labors, as the Scripture says, for the health of kings and private persons. In the same way, I think, these Prophetic Extracts about Christ, which are a gathering of flowers from God’s meadows of the Word, will contain the same thing. They keep the well-shaped workmanship of the wax in the plain wording. The thoughts stored up in it they keep somewhere within, in secret [storing them up], corresponding to the sweet and most healthful product of that wise bee. Which of the faithful would not agree that the saving passages about the Word of God surpass, by an incomparable excellence, every pleasure and benefit that comes through the body? They are fitted for taking in the truly profitable and healthful right teaching.

1c This wisdom must be cared for, not only by those who have advanced in character and are called “kings,” but also by those lower down, who are only now coming to the divine Word. I think this work will be especially suited to them, so that from it they may examine closely how secure the teachings are in which they were instructed. Simple and unmixed faith has its firmest assurance when a person first lays the foundations of proof by reasoning, and so gains an exact grasp and knowledge of what he believes, for the purpose of acquiring [text lost]. [Several lines are badly damaged here. The sense seems to be that,] after each [prophecy has been set out], I decided to give, by way of introduction, a very brief and concise account concerning [the following]. [It would serve as] a refutation of those who profess to believe the Scriptures as divine, yet do not accept Jesus as the one who was prophesied. [It would also raise] difficulties for them, I mean those of the circumcision and those from the heresies, [and would overturn] whatever they may say, when they try to explain the divine sayings in a rather fanciful way. There will also be, briefly, a modest explanation of our own. Sometimes it will contain proof that the sacred predictions of God have been fulfilled in our Savior alone. At other times it will set out our own judgment about the passages to be presented.

1d But since we are about to take up these matters, we must first make a necessary distinction. In some places the sacred writings teach that the Word of God existed before not only his becoming man but before every created thing. They call him God, after the Father, and Lord. The preaching of the church also contains this, in agreement with the testimony of the Gospel, which says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him not one thing was made.” In other places they announce his two comings in advance. The first is the one in which they prophesied plainly that he would have neither form nor beauty, that he would be led like a sheep to slaughter, and, saying clearly that because of the lawless deeds of the former people he would be condemned to death. The events of the time of Tiberius show that these things belong to his first coming. The second coming is no longer like the first. It is more divine and far surpassing it in glory, and it will take place with an escort of angels and the array of heaven. The reader, if he is fair-minded, ought to hold to the apostolic preaching as a rule and a goal. It guards the teachings of the truth as complete and not to be tampered with. That is, it guards what concerns the first and unbegotten nature of the God of all, and the prior existence and service of the divine Word, which he rendered in the making of all created things, as [the text says].

2a [The beginning is lost.] ...apart from the four letters of the Hebrews that cannot be pronounced. By their combination they signify the name that cannot be spoken, though it is more loosely called “Lord.” This name is never applied to an angelic power, as you will observe throughout the whole God-inspired Scripture, wherever “God” or the “Lord” indicated by the four-letter name is recorded as being used, and of whom. You must ask whether what is indicated should be referred to the unbegotten nature of the God of the universe, or to his Word. Scripture is accustomed to call this Word, who is the second cause of all things, both God and Lord, according to what the name that cannot be spoken among the Hebrews signifies. And so in the present passage the text says, “the Lord came down,” and “the Lord said.” 2b Given what is recorded here, someone might reasonably ask whether the reference is to one of the angels or to the first cause. It cannot be to angels. First, because here too “Lord” is taken from the title that cannot be pronounced. Second, because the text shows that he spoke to others who are subordinate to himself. On the other hand, to refer it to the Father and God of the universe is also unsuitable. It would not befit him to say, “Come, let us go down and confuse their tongue,” and the words “the Lord came down to see the city” could never fittingly be said of the one who holds supreme authority. It remains to understand that the divine Word is what is indicated in the passages before us. The Father entrusted him with the providence and ordering of all things. He has never ceased, sometimes by himself and sometimes through ministering angels, to serve the Father’s will in whatever contributes to the benefit and salvation of all. The matters of this passage belong to a mystical and hidden contemplation, and this is not the time to unfold them.

3a Chapter 3. The first recorded divine communication to Abraham was when the Lord said to him: “Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will magnify your name, and you will be blessed. And I will bless those who bless you,” and what follows. The second was when the Lord appeared to him and said, “To your seed I will give this land.” The third was when the Lord spoke to Abraham, after Lot had separated from him, the things that are recorded there. The fourth is the one in which it is said, “After these words the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision by night, saying, Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield.” And after other things: “I am the Lord who brought you out of the country of the Chaldeans.” The fifth was when the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, “I am your God; be well-pleasing before me,” and the rest. The sixth is the one in which the Lord appeared to him again, by the oak of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent at midday. “Looking up with his eyes, he saw, and behold, three men were standing above him. And when he saw them, he ran from the door of his tent to meet them, and bowed to the ground, and said: Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and let them wash your feet.” Then, after some other things, it is added that they got up from there and looked toward the face of Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on their way. “And the Lord said: Shall I hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing? Abraham will become a great and numerous nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed.”

3b “For I knew that he will command his sons and his household after him, and they will keep the ways of the Lord, doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him.” Then the Lord said, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has become great.” And a little later: “The men turned away from there and went to Sodom, but Abraham was still standing before the Lord. And Abraham drew near and said, ‘Do not destroy the righteous together with the ungodly, so that the righteous becomes like the ungodly. If there are fifty righteous in the city, will you destroy them? Will you not spare the whole place for the sake of the fifty righteous, if they are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the ungodly, so that the righteous becomes like the ungodly. Far be it! Will the one who judges all the earth not do justice?’” And after other things the Scripture says: “The Lord went away when he had finished speaking to Abraham. And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting by the gate of Sodom.” It is worth stopping to ask who it is that is meant in these passages, the one who spoke to Abraham. Is it some ordinary angel? Or is it the God of the universe himself? Or is it a third, besides these two: the Word of God, whom Holy Scripture is accustomed to call Lord and God, next after the supreme Father and God of the universe? We should also ask which of the three men who appeared to Abraham it was to whom Abraham said, “Lord, if I have found favor before you,” and again, “Far be it! Will you, the judge of all the earth, not do justice?” Concerning him the divine Scripture reports not only once but a second and a third time, “The Lord appeared to him.” It uses the title “Lord,” which in the Hebrew stands for the unspeakable Name, a name that is never once used of an angelic power.

3c When Lot, then, is recorded as saying to the angels who had come to Sodom, “I beg you, lord, since your servant has found mercy before you,” the word “lord” is in the Hebrew, but it is not written with the four letters which the Hebrews use for the ineffable name of God. It is written with other syllables, the ones by which a man who is called “lord” in a relative sense, such as the master of a servant, is written among the Hebrews. But the title that is written with the four letters for the authority of God has nothing like this. In the recorded appearances of God to Abraham it shows plainly that it was not an angel, nor some divine power ranking only a little above an angel, who spoke to him, but God himself. His unspeakable utterance, this very name that appears in those passages with the four letters, was worn on the forehead by the high priest alone, on the gold plate, the thing called the engraved seal, “holy to the Lord.” That it is not a matter of indifference for Scripture to use this title for angels is clear from its very careful practice. Sometimes it reports that God himself, or the Lord indicated by the four-letter name, appeared and spoke to the righteous; at other times it records that the ones seen were angels. So the one who appeared to Hagar when she was wandering was clearly an angel. It was fitting that, since she fell very far short of Abraham and could see nothing more than an angelic vision, her vision should match her condition, through the presence of an angel; but to Abraham it came through the greater appearing of God himself. The other words God spoke to Abraham would also not fit if someone tried to refer them to angels. They suit God alone to say, for example: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you,” and things like these.

3d But above all consider these words: “I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of the Chaldeans,” and “I am God; be well-pleasing before me,” and so on. No one would ever be so foolish as to suppose that an angel said these things. Again, when the three men came and stood by Abraham as he sat under the oak, Abraham went up to them, but he did not speak to all three. He spoke to one only: “Lord, if I have found favor before you.” None of the others is shown talking with Abraham. The account did not allow servants to speak in place of the lord. Only the Lord gives answer, and he is the one who also says, “Shall I hide from Abraham my servant,” and the rest. Then the men who were with the Lord, clearly the angels, turned away and went down to Sodom alone, since the Lord was not with them. (For how could the kind and gracious God take up residence among the ungodly?) He stayed on in the company and conversation of the man who loved God and was righteous. He enjoyed Abraham’s talk, and he defended Abraham’s very humane prayer. In that prayer Abraham said, “Far be it from you, you who judge all the earth,” and so showed most plainly that he knew well and exactly that he was speaking not with an angel, nor with some lesser divine power, but with God himself. Next the account, distinguishing the matters carefully, clearly calls those who went up to Sodom angels. It adds that “the two angels came to Sodom in the evening.” In what follows it records that neither the Lord nor God appeared to Lot or spoke to him, but the angels. So it is wholly clear that the one Scripture testifies appeared to Abraham was Lord and God, and not one of the angels. Now all those who want to cut apart the harmony of the old covenant with the new seize on these passages as if they had found a windfall. They think these texts clearly show that the Father of Christ, whom the gospel voice also confesses to be invisible, is different from the God of Moses and the prophets. That God, they say, appeared in various ways: now to Abraham, now to Isaac (to whom he also spoke, foretelling things like those he told Abraham), and likewise to Jacob, and perhaps also to Isaiah, who said, “I saw the Lord Sabaoth,”

3e and to the other prophets in the same way. But we have a different problem to raise. Even in the ancient prophets of God a divine saying is found, speaking from the person of God: “Because I am the Lord your God, and I have not changed.” Again: “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.” And to Moses, when he speaks to him, he says, “No one will see my face and live.” So we raise this difficulty with those just mentioned, and also with those of the circumcision, and with those who do not accept that after the unbegotten nature there pre-exists a second divinity, the Son. How is it that God, who according to these prophecies is unalterable and unchangeable, who again says he fills heaven and earth, who alone is God, and who is shown, even by the law itself, to be practically invisible (“No one will see my face and live”), was nevertheless changed? How did he, as though turning his own being around, become containable in some small parts of the earth, and get seen now by Abraham, now by the other prophets? For if these things were referred to the God of the universe, they would seem to conflict not only with the gospel voice but also with the prophetic voices, which declare him uncontainable, unchangeable, and invisible to human beings. Unless, perhaps, someone were to say that God himself was not seen by those named in the record. On that view they only had visions, so that they seemed to see and hear, but did not truly see any of the things that seemed to appear, nor truly hear. They were deceived in these matters, and only thought and seemed to hear. But that is unfitting, and foreign to the truthful and unerring nature of the God of the universe. It is also shown to be unsustainable by what is recorded of God himself saying about Abraham: “For I knew that he will command his sons and his house after him, and they will keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him.”

3f Beyond dispute, then, the Lord himself speaks these words as if about another Lord. How, then, can anyone suppose that the God of the universe said them? For what other lord besides himself could the passage be speaking of? It is clear from this that what is described does not seem to fit the God of the universe. It has also been shown that it does not fit the nature of the angels. As I said, the account knows how to tell the truth about the appearing of angels, and it marks their visions clearly. If, then, these words seem to suit neither the angelic nature nor the highest, unbegotten God of the universe, only one solution remains. We keep “unchangeable,” “unalterable” and “invisible” for the unbegotten being. The divine messages recorded as coming from God we then take to refer to the Word of God. We believe that in many ways, even before he became man, he appeared for the salvation of human beings and carried out the dealings with them that the divine Scriptures record. After the God of the universe, it is of him alone that we find the four-letter name used, since this divine designation also suits the only-begotten and heir of the Father. Abraham knew this well, for he was wise and was attested by God himself to be a prophet. He knew that the Father had given all judgment to the Son. So he worshipped him, and to him alone, out of all the others, he said: “Shall not the one who judges all the earth do justice?” To suppose that this was said to an angel, a being lower than the divine Word, would be unfitting and very unconvincing. But it is entirely fitting that the divine Word alone should also say, among the other things, “Shall I hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing?” and “For I knew that he will command his sons and his house after him, and they will keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him.”

3g It is also fitting for him to say these things as he teaches. All that people do in holiness should be referred to the reverence due to God alone, the Father of the universe. From him, while he is on earth, all good things are supplied to the godly for their benefit and salvation. The divine Word says these things as though teaching about another Lord, his own Father. For he himself confessed to his own disciples that the Father was his Lord and God, saying, “I am going up to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.” The law and all Scripture are full of this same characteristic way of speaking by the Lord, that is, by the divine Word. He speaks as if about another Lord, and it is clear that this other is the Father. The passages in this place need much deeper study, but this is enough for our present purpose.

4a Chapter 4. “And Hagar ran away from her face” — that is, from Sarah’s face. “And an angel of the Lord found her at the spring of water.” Further on it is said a second time, “The angel of the Lord said to her,” and a third time, “The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘I will multiply your seed greatly, and it will not be counted for its multitude.’” And again: “The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Look, you will conceive and bear a son, and you will call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your humbling.’” After all these words it is said, “And she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are the God who has looked upon me.’” Now if the sacred Scripture, speaking in its own voice, had not named him “Lord” when he appeared to the wandering Hagar — in the words “she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her” — someone might have supposed that Hagar was mistaken in taking the angel for God. As it is, Scripture itself testifies that the one who gave the message through the angel just mentioned was the Lord. Being Lord and God, he fittingly spoke through him of himself in the words “I will multiply your seed greatly.” It would suit God alone to say this, not an angel. It is likely that Hagar, noticing this very saying and understanding that such a voice could belong only to God, said, “You are the God who has looked upon me.” Then a second time, when she runs away with her son, it is written, “The angel of God called Hagar out of heaven,” and he spoke to her the words recorded there, among which is this: “For I will make him into a nation” — clearly meaning the child.

4b This again would not be credible if the angel were the one speaking, for the promise is once more God’s. So whose name did Hagar call, “You are the God who has looked upon me,” when here too the Scripture contains, for the Lord, the four-letter name used among the Hebrews? It is clear from what has already been set out: it is the Word who was in the beginning with God. He was present and watched over and ordered human affairs from the start. To those who had risen higher and were perfect men, such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he gave the visions himself, in person. To those who fell short of their virtue — such as Lot, and in the book of Judges Gideon and Manoah, and others like them — he used the divine angels under him as servants and ministers, and through them he gave his promises in many parts and in many ways. So it is with Hagar too: since she was not yet able to receive a vision of the divine Word himself, he delivered the recorded oracles through the angel. And if he also appears to Jacob through angels, notice that at the start, while Jacob was still being introduced, he addressed him in this way. But when Jacob had advanced and grown to maturity, he shared his own converse with him openly and uncovered, no longer through angels and interpreters but himself in person. This was the Lord and God the Word, who holds second place in the Father’s Godhead, and who thought him worthy of his own appearing.

5 Chapter 5. “The sun went out upon the earth, and Lot entered into Segor. And the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” I do not think that anyone who has once believed that the holy Scriptures are sacred and inspired by God would try to invent some objection about these passages, or to speak against what has been handed down about the Word of God: that he existed beforehand with a subsistence of his own, and that before he became man he carried out the dealings of God with human beings. For here the Scripture plainly sets forth two Lords, if indeed “the Lord rained from the Lord.” The same thing can be found in the holy apostle, who says, “May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus,” and “May he grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day.” But in these passages we should draw out a distinction between Father and Son. To the unbegotten God, the Father of all, we assign lordship and authority over all things, and over the Son himself. To the Word we assign the second place after the Father, with rule and sovereignty over everything that has come into being. Now the word “Lord” is named twice here, in the phrase “the Lord rained from the Lord.” In the Hebrew it is written twice with the four-letter name. So it is most clearly agreed that this unspeakable sign is used of two persons: evidently of God, the Father of all, and of his Word. Therefore there is no longer any doubt that, wherever such a title is applied to God, it is not taken only of the unbegotten nature, but also of the Word who was in the beginning with God.

6 Chapter 6. In the blessing given to Jacob, Isaac says, after certain other things, this: “And let nations serve you, and rulers will bow down to you; and be lord over your brother, and the sons of your father will bow down to you.” What is said to Jacob does not seem able to be applied to him at all, nor even to the people who came from him, the people of the circumcision. For what nations served him, and when? Which rulers bowed down to him? Whom were they worshiping in him? When did he become lord over his brother? Or who are the sons of his father who are said to bow down to him? Indeed, Isaac is not found to have had anyone other than Jacob except Esau alone. So why is it said in the plural, “the sons of your father will bow down to you”? I have marked these points because Christ is often called Jacob in the prophecies, as will be shown in the proper places. I suspect that these words too may somehow fit the testimonies about him. Just as the holy apostle applied what concerns Isaac to Christ, saying, “The promises were given to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say ‘and to the seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘and to your seed,’ who is Christ,” consider whether in the same way the words spoken here as about Jacob might fit Christ better. The lover of learning will find out whether this is so by examining each word according to the rules of allegory.

7a Chapter 7. “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until morning.” Then, a little further on, after Jacob says, “I will not let you go unless you bless me,” the man says to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” And he said to him, “Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel will be your name, because you have prevailed with God, and you are strong among men.” And again, a little later: “Jacob called the name of that place ‘the Form of God,’ for I have seen God face to face, and my life has been saved.” The Scripture then adds: “And the sun rose upon him when the Form of God had passed by.” Now the Lord appeared to Abraham from the beginning and often spoke with him. Three times he is recorded as having been seen by him, and not at night but in the middle of the day. The third time, indeed, he was received as a guest by him at noon itself. To Jacob, however, he first appeared at sunset, in the middle of the night, in his sleep, as Jacob was going down to Mesopotamia. In that vision he saw the ladder reaching to heaven, with angels going up and down on it and the Lord standing firmly upon it, and he heard the Lord say to him, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father,” and the rest. The sequel shows that the Lord spoke this to him through an angel. The second time was in Mesopotamia, when the Lord, who is indicated by the four-letter name, stood by him again and said to him, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.” He spoke this to him in his sleep and through an angel. Jacob himself teaches this: at the very moment of the divine voice he called Leah and Rachel, and after other things he relates to them the message he had received, saying, “And the angel of God said to me in my sleep, ‘Jacob,’” and what follows, in which he says, “I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God,

7b where you anointed a pillar for me and made a vow to me there. Now therefore rise up, leave this land, and go to the land of your birth.” After this, when he was returning from Mesopotamia, the angels of God first met him, when it was already morning. About them he said, “This is God’s camp.” It is likely that these were the same angels he had seen before on the ladder. Then the sun, which had set earlier, rose upon him after the passage set out above, in which the one who said to him, “Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel will be your name, because you have prevailed with God, and you are strong among men,” appeared wrestling with him. So after the vision the sun rose upon him. Now that he had advanced and been made perfect, God no longer spoke to him in sleep, nor at night, nor through an angel, nor even in human form. He spoke to him in the middle of the day and in the light, and said, “Rise, go up to the place Bethel, and live there.” And after all this, only then does the divine Scripture testify that God appeared to him in Luza and blessed him, saying what is recorded. We will investigate at leisure how, after this, when he was about to go down into Egypt, God again spoke in a vision and by night, saying, “Do not be afraid to go down into Egypt.” We have set these things out out of necessity, for they show that the divine Scripture does not record lightly, or in the case of ordinary men, that God was seen. It is not noted of Adam, nor of Enoch who was taken up, nor of Noah, nor even of Moses himself, that God appeared to any of them, although it is recorded that he spoke with them many times. Nor does the divine word introduce God as having been seen in the case of anyone else, except only Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

7c With Abraham, the Lord was not seen at the first time he spoke to him. He was seen at the second, and at the fifth and sixth. With Jacob, he was seen only after everything that is recorded. As for Isaac, the Lord spoke to him only twice, and it is written that he was seen by him twice, although the second time was at night. It is clear from what we said earlier about Abraham that these appearances must not be traced back to the first cause. They are the work of the divine Word, whom even those blessed and godly men were not yet able to take in. It was to these same men, to whom he is said to have appeared, that he was seen, and only after much preliminary training. Who else, then, could be the one who in this passage wrestles with Jacob, struggles alongside him, and, so to speak, fights on his side? Surely it is the holy Word of God, who spoke to the fathers in many parts and in many ways, who alone after the Father is called Lord and God. He blessed Jacob and named him Israel, adding, “because you have prevailed with God.” The godly men saw the Word of God in the same way as the apostles of our Savior, who said: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the word of life.” When Jacob beheld this Word and Life, he went on to say, “For I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been saved.”

8a Chapter 8. “Judah, may your brothers praise you. Your hands are on the neck of your enemies. The sons of your father will bow down to you. Judah is a lion’s cub. You have gone up from the shoot, my son. You lay down and slept like a lion, and like a cub. Who will rouse him? A ruler will not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until there come the things reserved for him. And he is the expectation of the nations,” and so on. We must hear these words of Jacob as spoken by the Holy Spirit, foretelling things about Christ and speaking out in his person, beginning from “Judah, may your brothers praise you.” That the patriarch was not addressing just one of his sons is plain to those who attend to the Scripture, which says in narrative form: “Jacob called his sons and said, ‘Gather together, so that I may tell you what will happen to you in the last days.’” So he promises to prophesy to them about things to come. It is also clear in another way that the words of the prophecy do not fit the patriarch Judah. When did his brothers bow down to him, or why? For what achievement did they ever praise him? And how could anyone fit the rest of the prophecy to him? Nor could anyone reasonably apply it to the tribe. Rulers of the people were not drawn only from the tribe of Judah. After Moses, the judges came from various tribes and continued as leaders for nearly five hundred years. After them Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, was the first of all to be king. Only after these did kings from the tribe of Judah reign, and not even for a full five hundred years. Then, after the captivity in Babylon, men of the tribe of Levi presided over affairs for more than five hundred years, until the coming of Christ. Why, then, does the prophecy say these things about the tribe of Judah rather than about the others? So what is described does not fit the tribe either. But we know that the true Judah, who appeared in the last days, is our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God. He is the steward of the thoughts that concern him, and he was also named Judah.

8b In the same way he is called Israel in one respect, Jacob in another, and David in yet another, so that the name changes with the sense. So here he is called Judah. The holy apostles praised this Judah and bowed down to him, and so did all who were counted worthy of the Spirit of adoption. His hands, which we take to be a symbol for his deeds, came to be on the back of his enemies. That is, the enemies of the mind turned and fled from him. He is also called a lion’s cub. This may be because of his birth in the flesh from the royal tribe and the root of David, in “the likeness of sinful flesh.” Or it may be because of the divinity, which he emptied of himself when he became man. For this reason the words “from a shoot, my son, you have gone up” were fittingly spoken by Jacob. When Jacob was pointing to the Savior’s birth from the shoot and root, he named him a lion’s cub: “A lion’s cub, Judah; from a shoot, my son, you have gone up.” But when he prophesies his rising up and his falling asleep in the passion, he calls him both lion and cub in the words, “Lying down he slept like a lion and like a cub.” For then he was lifted up not only as one born of a royal family but as one who was himself king. The nations confessed him to be the king of Israel, even though those of the circumcision were unwilling. It could also be said another way. He was taking up war against opposing powers and was about to destroy the one who holds the power of death, that is, the devil. So the divinity of the Word had to be present in the one who was born in the flesh from the shoot of Jacob. Fittingly, then, the divinity is compared to a lion, because it has mastered and conquered all wild and untamable powers. The little body he took up, from the royal tribe of Judah, is compared to a lion’s cub. But our adversary the devil is also like a roaring lion. Consider whether every sinner might not be called his cub, since everyone who commits sin is born of the devil. Now the Savior also came in the likeness of sinful flesh, and became a curse for us.

8c He also “made him who did not know sin to be sin for us.” Consider, then, whether for these reasons, on some deeper account, the prophecy declares that at the time of the passion he became not simply a lion or a cub, but “as a lion and as a cub.” For he himself compares his passion to that of the serpent when he says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.” After this, with a hint of silence, he alludes to the mystery of his resurrection by the words, “Who will raise him up?” And it is clear to us from the conclusion who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead. Plainly it was his God and Father. Next come the words, “A ruler will not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs.” If we read these from another starting point, they could be said of all those of the Jewish race who led the people. The sense of the passage would then be something like this: the rulers and leaders appointed over the Jewish people will not cease until the one comes who is the cause of the nations’ expectation, that is, Christ. When he comes, those rulers must fail. If that is so, let us look at our own times and see whether kings and leaders can be found now. But it is plain to everyone that the Jewish nation, along with the rest, is subject to the Roman governors of the provinces, and that not one of its own people has been entrusted with the authority to rule. This began from the time of our Savior’s birth. For up to King Herod we find in the histories that Hebrews, from among the Hebrews, ruled the whole nation. From Moses himself they led in succession: first those called judges, then the kings down to the captivity in Babylon. After that the high priests took over the rule and kept it until the reign of Augustus. In his time Herod, the first of foreign descent, was entrusted by the Romans with the kingship over them, and in that time our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ was born.

8d From that time until the present, then, it is plain that ruler and leader have failed among the Jews. It is clear, therefore, that our prophesied Savior has come. From his time not only have the Jewish rulers failed, but also all the worship carried out by them at Jerusalem according to the law of Moses. And the expectation of the nations, those who have taken refuge through him in the God of all, plainly began to be fulfilled in fact from the time of his coming, according to the prophecy of Jacob. This is so if we read the words “A ruler will not fail from Judah” as a separate beginning. But if we join the passage in hand to the thought before it, as following from it, then Judah is understood as the Christ, in line with what has already been set out. In that case “a ruler will not fail from Judah” should be taken of the rulers and leaders of the church after Christ. The prophecy says they will not fail until what is laid up for him comes. It is as if it said more plainly: until what is laid up for him comes, when the end has arrived and he receives the kingdom over all things. That the divine Spirit also calls the disciples of Christ “leaders” is clear from what is said of Judah: “But you, a man of like soul, my leader and my acquaintance.” We must pay attention to these things. Those who have believed the sacred words as divine and true must not be alarmed at all, nor let their faith be shaken by the persecutions that come from time to time. This applies above all to the present one, which has blown against us more fiercely than any before it. It has done such things against the churches and all the people as no one has recorded, either from Scripture or from the tradition of the ancients. We say this because it might seem that the present persecution has brought about the very opposite of what has been said. There seems now to be no gathered assembly, and no order of the church’s rulers. But the God-inspired Scripture does not lie. So we must be convinced that those mentioned have not failed altogether, even if they seem to some to have failed.

8e For the God who said to the prophet, “I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bent the knee to Baal,” when the prophet supposed he alone was left and the rest had been destroyed, is the same God who now watches over those worthy of his care. He keeps for us too a remnant according to the election of grace, those who are guarded by him and seen by him alone. Of them we ourselves might say, “If the Lord of Hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.” To think that those who lead the word, whom the prophecy calls rulers and leaders, have failed completely is quite impossible. For a limit was set on their not failing: “until what is laid up for him comes.” That is, what the Father promised to the Christ when he said to him, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” At that time every knee will bend, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Then too the expectation of the nations, of those who at the present time have believed in him, will have its season to receive the promises it hoped for, in the kingdom of heaven that it awaits. So much for these matters. As for what follows, beginning with “binding his foal to the vine,” it depends on an allegorical interpretation. We will leave it to lovers of learning to investigate. We have already said more than enough, not in keeping with the purpose we set ourselves, but of necessity, to give a clear account of this passage.

9a From Exodus. 9. “And Moses was shepherding the sheep of Jethro, his father-in-law.” And a little later: “And they came to the mountain of God, Horeb. And an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire.” And after other things: “And when the Lord saw that he was coming near to look, he called him out of the middle of the bush, saying...” And again: “And the Lord said to him: I am he who is.” And after a great deal more: “And God spoke to Moses and said to him: I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God, and my name ‘Lord’ I did not make known to them; and I established my covenant with them,” and so on. In these passages it is recorded with great care that it was not the Lord but the angel who appeared to Moses. Through the angel the Lord speaks, as through an interpreter, and so teaches that the one speaking is not some lesser power but the very One who is. He shows more clearly who “he who is” is when he says, “I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God, and my name ‘Lord’ I did not make known to them.” To me this seems to carry the following sense: “To you, for the time being, I declare my name and say only this: I am the Lord. To your fathers I did not make known my name, for they were worthy of a greater knowledge than that. But I myself appeared to them, and I established my covenant with them through myself.” From what has already been set out, it is plain who it was that appeared to the fathers. For when the matter was examined in that way, the argument showed that he is the God Word who was in the beginning with God. So the same one appears now as well, but not in the same way as to the forefathers.

9b To those men, as greater and more perfect, he appeared himself, and through himself he established his covenant with them. But in Moses’ case it was not the Lord who appeared but the angel; and it was no longer the angel who called him but the Lord. For the Lord was the one giving the orders, and the angel the one serving the divine words. That is why the holy apostle cries out so wonderfully, among other things, “ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator,” and, “For if the word spoken through angels proved firm...” So an angel is clearly introduced, and the Lord speaks through him. Nor could you find even once, in the whole of the lawgiving, the Scripture noting that God or the Lord appeared to Moses. That is said, as it plainly appears, only of the three patriarchs. From this it is clear that the whole lawgiving was handed down to the people of that time as to those who were children in their souls and were only being introduced to the faith, given to them as though through tutors and stewards. Divine things were hinted at to them in types, images and symbols, because they could not take in the more hidden and spiritual teaching. They were, after all, like children brought up in Egyptian ways and still needing much correction. So they were told that God is fire, according to the words, “Our God is a consuming fire.” That is never said of the patriarchs. Moreover, when he commands them to purify themselves so that they may see the glory of the Lord, it is not said simply, as it was of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that God appeared to them. These very things are written down with great terror and spectacle: “And it happened on the third day, as morning came, that there were voices and flashes of lightning and a dark cloud on the mountain, and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, and all the people in the camp trembled.”

9c “Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because God had come down on it in fire. Its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and all the people were greatly amazed. The sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses,” and so on. These words testify that the Lord came down. They do not say again that he was seen, which is something kept for the patriarchs alone. So the Lord was present, but the sight that appeared was not of himself. Clearly it was of the angels who surround him as his bodyguard. Through them he usefully made the sight fearful and overwhelming for the people. His purpose was to strengthen in them reverence, fear and faith in himself, so that they would guard and keep the laws about to be handed to them. That the angels who served the Lord at the giving of the law were many, Moses himself shows in the blessings, where he says: “The Lord has come from Sinai, and has shone upon us from Seir; he hastened from Mount Paran with the ten thousands of Kadesh; at his right hand were angels with him,” and so on. For this reason Stephen in the Acts, addressing the people, says: “You who received the law by the ordinances of angels, and did not keep it.”

10a From Exodus, 10. “The angel of God who went before the sons of Israel moved away and went behind them. The pillar of the cloud also moved from before their face, and went and stood behind them. It came in between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of the sons of Israel.” Then in what follows, the divine Scripture teaches what the cloud was. It says: “The Lord said to Moses: Look, I am coming to you in a pillar of the cloud, so that the people may hear me speaking to you and may believe you.” And again: “God went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to show them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light.” And again: “The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud.” From these passages it is clear that the angel who went before the sons of Israel was one thing, and the cloud was something other than that angel. The cloud was a bodily instrument of the Lord himself. By nature he is without a body and beyond every material, perceptible being, yet through it he thought fit to speak with his servant by a voice that could be heard. And the Lord himself gives Moses the reason for this arrangement when he says: “so that the people may hear me speaking to you, and may believe you.”

10b But with the people, who were more bodily in their nature, he spoke through an audible voice. With the patriarchs, who needed neither a cloud nor a pillar of fire, the manner of the appearing and of the speaking to them was different. That it was not some angelic power speaking through the cloud, but God himself, is shown, besides what has already been demonstrated, by the following passage of Scripture: “And the Lord said to Moses, Go and lead the people to the place I have told you of. Behold, my angel will go before your face.” And again: “And the Lord said to Moses, Go up from here, you and the people,” and so on, “and I will send my angel with you before your face.” It would not be fitting to say these things to an angel. They are said only to God, the Lord who is indicated throughout the whole history by the four-letter name. Then did the Maker of all things, the God of the universe, come down so far as to ride upon a physical mountain and to walk along with men like a tutor, he who fills heaven and earth? Or is this neither possible nor holy even to imagine? Is it more reverent, and also possible, to understand it of the divine Word, who serves the Father’s purpose? For since the Father himself is Lord, “Jacob became his portion, and Israel the measured share of his inheritance.” The Word cared for them as one cares for a portion and an inheritance. He emptied himself, and reduced his native greatness, so as to move among men for their salvation even before he became man.

10c If we look carefully and with a fair mind, we will find him at one time applying the commands to his own person, as when he says, “You shall not appear before me empty,” and “An altar of earth you shall make for me,” and “I will come to you and bless you.” At another time he speaks as if of another Lord, namely his God and Father. In the Decalogue, for example, he says: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” and “On the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,” and “the Lord blessed the seventh day.” And again: “Honor your father and your mother, that it may go well with you, and you may live long on the land which the Lord your God gives you.” How could it fail to be clear that these things in the Decalogue were spoken, as is believed, not through an angel but by the Lord himself? He was teaching the people reverence toward his own Father, the One on high, and the God of all.

11a 11. “Behold, I am sending my angel before your face, to guard you on the way, to bring you into the land which I have prepared for you. Pay attention to him and listen to him. Do not disobey him, for he will not shrink from you; for my name is upon him.” The Lord lays these things down for the people along with the rest of the ordinances. Now if, after the death of Moses, the same Lord who spoke in the desert had not been present with the people, and one of the angels had led them instead, there would be nothing to investigate in these passages. But the history shows that even after Moses died the same Lord spoke to Joshua. He says plainly in his oracles to him: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you, and I will not abandon you or overlook you. Be strong and take courage; for you shall apportion to this people the land which I swore to your fathers to give them.” Throughout the whole Scripture, no angel at all appears as present with Joshua or speaking to him. It is the Lord himself, the one who is indicated in Moses by the four-letter name. And it seems to me that he is the same as the one who appeared to Joshua once only, in the form of a man. For just as it is recorded that he appeared to Abraham and to Jacob, so here too he declares himself, in order to teach his servant not to think of him as the first and unbegotten God, but as the commander-in-chief of that God’s power. Now if throughout the whole Scripture of Joshua no angel at all is named as present, but only the Lord himself, who is indicated through the whole legislation of Moses—

11b Scripture bears clear witness when it says, “And the Lord was with Jesus.” Of whom, then, could it be said, “Look, I am sending my angel before your face, to bring you into the land that I have prepared for you”? It seems that these words point to no one other than Jesus himself. For he brought the people into the land of promise, as the words of God to him also show: “Be strong and courageous, for you shall divide to this people the land which I swore to their fathers.” God is then giving the people advance instructions about him: “Pay attention to him and listen to him; do not disobey him.” We should not be surprised that he called him an angel, since the prophecy also gives John this title: “Look, I am sending my angel before your face, who will prepare my way before you.” But if the passage set out above refers wholly to Jesus the son of Nave, see what the Lord says of him: “For my name has been called upon him.” What name could that be, if not the name Jesus itself? For the name Jesus did not belong to that man at the time. He was formerly called Ause. Moses was the first to name him Jesus. He was inspired by God and was plainly moved by a more divine Spirit. In this way the oracle, “my name is upon him,” would be fulfilled in the Lord who was speaking. I have often shown that this Lord is the pre-existent Word of God. Jesus was the name that Moses gave to Ause. Scripture, with great exactness, bears witness to this. It preserves the detail that Moses gave him this name at the very time when he was sending him out as an angel, in keeping with the oracle, to look over the land of promise ahead of the people.

11c So by these things Moses clearly appears to have known the title of our Saviour Jesus. In the passages we are examining, the name Jesus is found first with him. In the same way he is also seen to be the first to proclaim the name Christ. Before his time, from the beginning of the age, no one had yet been called by either name, Jesus or Christ. And he evidently honored these titles with divinely guided reasoning. To two men who stood out above all the people and were distinguished before God, and who already had names of their own, he attached these two titles. One was his own brother Aaron. The other was the son of Nave, who had earlier been called Ause. By the nod of God he had appointed them rulers over the whole nation, and he honored them with the titles of our Saviour Jesus Christ. He called Aaron “Christ” because of the image he bore of the true high priest of all things, the very Word of God, who was with God in the beginning. And he named his own successor “Jesus” because of the way he saved, himself also a type of our Saviour Jesus. When the worship handed down symbolically through Moses came to an end, and Moses died, our Saviour took over true devotion to God [in the same way]. In war he conquered and subdued all the invisible powers that opposed his word. The whole earth, among all the nations, had been held under tyranny by those powers. He made it his own possession and gave it as an inheritance to his own people, through the churches throughout the whole world.

12a 12. Whenever Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stand at the doors of the tent, and the people would stand and worship, each one from his own tent. And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as one might speak to his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. And Moses said to the Lord, “Look, you tell me, ‘Lead this people up,’ but you have not shown me whom you will send with me. Yet you have said to me, ‘I know you above all others, and you have found favor with me.’ So if I have found favor before you, show yourself to me plainly, so that I may see you and know you, so that I may be one who has found favor before you, and so that I may know that this nation is your people.” And he said, “I myself will go before you and give you rest.” And Moses said to him, “If you yourself do not go with us, do not lead me up from here. For how will it be known that I and your people have found favor with you, unless you go with us? Then both I and your people will be glorified above all the nations on the earth.” And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do this word also that you have spoken. For you have found favor before me, and I know you above all others, and you have found favor with me.” And Moses said, “Show me your glory.” And he said, “I will pass before you in my glory, and I will call out the name of the Lord before you. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will show compassion on whom I show compassion.” And he said, “You will not be able to see my face, for no human being will see my face and live.” And the Lord said, “Look, there is a place beside me, and you will stand on the rock. I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

12b Then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back parts, but my face will not be seen by you,” and so on. After this the text continues: “And the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there beside him, and he called out the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before his face and called out, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in mercy, true, keeping righteousness, showing mercy to thousands, taking away lawless deeds, injustices and sins; yet he will not clear the guilty, bringing the lawless deeds of fathers upon children and upon children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ And Moses hurried, bowed to the ground and worshiped, and said, ‘If I have indeed found favor before you, Lord, go with us, face to face.’” Moses is recorded as speaking to God with as much boldness and freedom as a man would show when talking with his friend. These words show that the prophet had made no ordinary progress. But although the Lord spoke to him face to face, he had not yet been seen by him in the way he appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For this reason Moses makes his request: “If I have found favor before you, show yourself to me plainly, so that I may see you and know you.” By this he shows that God did not grant him appearances in the same way as he spoke to him. For suppose someone thinks that God’s speaking to him face to face is the same as being seen by him, face to face, so to speak. What room would then be left for Moses’ request, “If I have found favor before you, show yourself to me plainly, that I may see you”? And how, if he had already seen him face to face, as one might suppose, does the Lord go on to say to him, “You will not be able to see my face, for no human being will see my face and live”?

12c But why was it so? Let anyone say who wishes: not even once does the text testify that the Lord appeared to him, as it is careful to say in the case of the patriarchs. Instead, these passages make it plain that although the Lord spoke to him face to face, he spoke to him through the cloud. The Scripture establishes this beforehand when it says, “The pillar of the cloud came down and stood at the doors of the tent, and spoke to Moses.” So he spoke through the cloud. He did not appear to Moses in the same way as to Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. To those men he is recorded as appearing openly and plainly, without any outward form. To Moses he appeared through what is called a form, and through the cloud, which the text also calls the glory of the Lord. It says: “When Moses was speaking to the whole assembly of the sons of Israel, they turned toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in a cloud, and the Lord spoke to Moses.” And again: “Moses went up the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord came down on the mountain, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day the Lord spoke to Moses from the midst of the cloud. The appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a blazing fire on the top of the mountain.” These passages clearly say that what Moses saw was not the Lord himself but a form of the Lord: a cloud and a fire, which the text also calls the glory of the Lord. So he saw the form of the Lord and his glory, but by no means the Lord himself, nor the Word who was speaking, who is the Lord’s own. Even so, he heard the one who spoke through the cloud. That is why it is said, “The Lord spoke to Moses face to face.” It is not recorded, however, that he appeared to him face to face. Moses asks for this as something that had not yet happened, when he says, “Show yourself to me, that I may see you plainly.”

12d In another place too the text teaches that God spoke to him mouth to mouth, but that he was not seen in the same corresponding way. He was seen in a form and through his glory, which was already given. The text says: “The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the door of the tent of testimony. Aaron and Miriam were called, and both came out. He said to them, ‘Hear my words. If there is a prophet among you to the Lord, I will make myself known to him in a vision, and I will speak to him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. I will speak to him mouth to mouth, in a form and not in riddles, and he saw the glory of the Lord. Why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’” So Moses saw the glory of the Lord, who gave him answers in a form, and he heard the Lord speaking mouth to mouth. But he had not yet seen the Lord himself, as the fathers had. It is no wonder that God is recorded as speaking to Moses mouth to mouth, since Moses teaches in Deuteronomy that God spoke face to face to the whole people as well. He says: “The Lord did not make this covenant with your fathers, but with you, who are all here alive today. The Lord spoke to you face to face on the mountain out of the midst of the fire.” Still, even if he addressed Moses and the whole people in this way, notice what is said. He is said to have spoken to them mouth to mouth and face to face. It is not said that he appeared to them without the fire or the cloud, as he did to the fathers. For the Lord is recorded as appearing to those men openly, without the covering of cloud or fire. And our Savior and Lord teaches that seeing God belongs to the perfect, those whose mind has been purified to the highest degree. He says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

12e For this reason the Lord proclaims himself as God to such men, saying to Moses: “You shall say this to the sons of Israel: The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, and a memorial for generation after generation.” Moses was zealous for the greater gifts and longed for the same progress as those men. So he asks the Lord, “Show yourself to me, that I may see you plainly [or: so as to know you].” As God the Word spoke with him, he could picture the greatness, the height, and the unspeakable and unreachable excellence. But he saw that the visions given to him came through serving angels. So he begs the Lord to show himself to him more clearly and purely. He no longer wanted it through coverings or through other servants. He wanted it openly, in the way it had been for Abraham and his company, without the form of fire and cloud. This, it seems to me, is what the words mean: “Show yourself to me, that I may see you plainly.” He had also heard the Lord say beforehand, “Behold, my angel will go before your face.” He half declines this, because he longs for the greater thing, and says: “Unless you yourself go with us, do not lead me up from here.” The Lord agreed to his request and said, “I will do this word also, which you have spoken.” Moses saw how ready the divine generosity was, how the kindness of God runs ahead of those who long for great things. Then he made himself small. He did not think himself yet worthy of the greater things, and he put forward another request, which was lacking compared with the first: “Show me your glory.” The Lord fulfils his request: “I will pass by before you in my glory, and I will call out in the name of the Lord before you,” and so on. By this he teaches that the knowledge of the Father and God of all is greater than every vision Moses had seen before. He promises to hand this knowledge over to him. Speaking of himself he says, “I will pass by before you in my glory.”

12f But about the initiation into the mystery of the Father he says, “and I will call out in the name of the Lord.” For of what Lord does he promise to call out, since he himself is the Lord who is made known by the four-letter name? Surely he promises to call out the name of the Father. And it is true that unless the Word of God first passes through someone, and unless he himself calls out the Father, it is not possible in any other way to receive the knowledge of the Father of all. For no one has known the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son may reveal him. He himself, then, is the door and the way, and only through him is it possible to see the one who is beyond all things and the highest cause of all, the Father himself. For the divine Word does come first to the souls of the blessed, like a forerunner of the Father, and shares his own glory with them. But he does not stop there and take all authority for himself. When he has prepared the dwelling and made it ready, he steps aside and hands the kingdom over to God and Father. He himself admits this when he says, “I will pass by before you in my glory, and I will call out in the name of the Lord.” Here he promises in words that he will do this. Next he adds the deed itself, where it says: “And the Lord came down in a cloud, and stood by him there, and called out in the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before his face and called out, ‘Lord, Lord, God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy, and true, and keeping righteousness, showing mercy to thousands, taking away lawlessness and injustice and sins, and he will not clear the guilty; bringing the lawlessness of fathers upon children, and upon children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.’” The Lord who is made known by the four-letter name says these things, having come down in a cloud and stood beside Moses. As he promised, he passed by before his face and called out to his own Lord and Father, the one who truly is Lord, “Lord, Lord,” the name given twice in the four-letter form. He says, “Lord, Lord, God, compassionate and merciful,” and so on.

12g But suppose someone forces the point and says that it was not the Lord but Moses who said these things. Let him take firm assurance from the words of Moses himself, who acknowledges that the words set out above belong to the Lord. In another place he prays and says, “And now, Lord, let your hand be lifted up, just as you spoke when you said: The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in mercy and true; he takes away lawlessness, injustice and sins; and he will not clear the guilty by any cleansing, but repays the sins of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation.” By these words, then, the Lord himself, who spoke the words set out above, shows most plainly and clearly that he is calling upon one greater than himself, the One who is truly Lord. It is evident that this is his own Father. Or if someone is slow to accept this, let him say whether he can bring some other explanation to bear on these passages. He must still hold that the speaker was not an angel but the very Lord who is indicated by the four-letter name. Scripture records that this Lord spoke with Moses face to face. Moses also asked him, when he declined the guidance of angels, “If you yourself do not go with us, do not bring me up from here.” But these things cannot be referred to anyone other than the God the Word alone, who was in the beginning with God. To Moses, who was reaching for great things, he disclosed the knowledge of the greater One. He was teaching Moses to know the only true God, and the God the Word whom that God sent, who is himself second after the Father, both Lord and God. The first and most necessary benefit he gave Moses was this: that Moses would never transfer his thoughts about the God of all onto the Word who spoke with him, because of the surpassing glory of what he saw. So he taught Moses to hold as first and only true God the one whom he himself called upon, saying, “Lord, Lord, God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in mercy and true.”

12h Notice carefully the word “true,” which is used in much the same way in the words “that they may know you, the only true God,” spoken by the same Savior in the Gospels. The whole people could not have taken in such things. To them, as people being introduced to the faith, the one who spoke said, “I am, and there is none besides me.” They still needed an elementary introduction to the single rule of God. They were in no condition to work out the teachings about the Father and the Son, since they had only recently left the polytheistic error of the Egyptians. The words “I am, and there is none besides me” can be taken as spoken in the person of God the Word, like the words “I and the Father are one” and “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Just as the one who has seen him has seen the Father, according to the saying “The one who has seen me has seen the Father who sent me,” so in the same way the one who heard him heard the Father who is in him, speaking the words “I am, and there is none besides me.” We have said these things, in a matter of such weight, because we want to show that beyond dispute the one who spoke with Moses was neither the God of all nor some angelic power. He was the divine Word himself. We firmly believe that he is, after the Father and Lord of all, second of all beings, both God and Lord. The evangelist John teaches us this more plainly when he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It would take a great deal of time, more than we have now, to explain what the place and the rock are, of which the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place beside me, and you shall stand upon the rock.” But the apostle made clear what the rock is when he said, “and the rock was Christ.”

12i I take the place to be none other than the rock, and to be the same place that met Jacob, where it is written: “Jacob went out from the Well of the Oath and journeyed to Haran. And he met a place.” There he saw in a vision the ladder and the Lord fixed upon it. When he woke he said, “The Lord is in this place.” And again he said, “How fearful is this place! This is nothing other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” But what is the face of God the Word, which Moses, that is the law, cannot look upon, since the law is human and rather bodily? What are his back parts, which only the law, typical and symbolic of spiritual realities, could take in? And how is it that he says, “I will cover you with my hand”? A covering and veil was laid upon the law, so that because of this veil it could see the things behind but not the things that lead the way and surpass them. Whoever cares to investigate these matters will understand them if he gives his attention to them privately, at the proper time.

13a From Numbers, the third prophecy of Balaam. 13. “A man will come out of his seed, and he will rule over many nations. The kingdom of Gog will be exalted, and his kingdom will be increased. God led him out of Egypt; his glory is like that of a one-horned beast. He will devour the nations of his enemies and suck the marrow from their fatness, and with his darts he will shoot down the enemy. He lay down and rested like a lion, like a lion’s cub. Who will raise him up? Those who bless you are blessed, and those who curse you are cursed.” This is Christ, who was born according to the flesh from the seed of Israel and who rules over many nations. For what nation has not known subjection to him, now that the word of his disciples has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the [seeds] of the inhabited world? Among very many of the barbarians themselves one can see many who have come through faith in him to the knowledge of the one God, and who for devotion to him have endured every kind of punishment, even death. So this prophecy too clearly reaches its fulfillment in our Savior. Or let someone else come forward and show to whom else it could be applied. For us it is plain that the Savior’s spiritual kingdom and lordship grows day by day among the souls that have received his word. The kingdom of Gog was also exalted at his coming. Some have taken this to be the rule of the Romans. Others take it figuratively, as the heavenly way of life according to the gospel and the contemplation of spiritual teachings, and for this reason they understand “Gog,” which is translated “houses,” to be the sign of it. Furthermore, “God led him out of Egypt.” This is so in the plain sense when Joseph, having received a message, took Mary with the child Jesus out of Egypt and returned to the land of Israel. In this the prophecy now before us was fulfilled, together with the prophecy in Hosea, which according to the Hebrew and the translation of Aquila says, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

13b It was also fulfilled in a spiritual sense, when the Father took him up from the spiritual Egypt and from the places here below, and led him to the heavens. The so-called “glory of the unicorn” hints at the deity in the Savior, which belongs to the Father’s sole rule. After this it says, “He will eat the nations of his enemies.” All the nations that have come under his teaching were once part of his enemies. After they believed in him, he made them fit, as it were, to be food for himself. He thins down and searches out their “fatness,” that is, everything material and earthly that has grown together with them. Through his own farming he produces in them nourishing fruits. He did this with spiritual and rational arrows, shooting down his own enemy, the one who ruled the nations long ago, that is, the devil. The words that begin “He lay down and rested like a lion” were said almost word for word by Jacob also, in the prophecies about Judah. We will not repeat what sense they have, since we have set it out in the passages already before us. It is plain how we who bless the Christ of God have been blessed. Even if the Egyptians loathe us, as they did God’s people of old, this too is fulfilled in us: “The more they humbled them, the more numerous they became, and they grew very, very strong.” It is also plain how those who cursed him from the beginning received the curse, by saying “Crucify, crucify him.” For the cross belonged to a curse, as in “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” But he who endured their curse has been raised high by the Father. Those cursed by God himself have received lasting destruction for ever. If anyone examines this closely, he will see the greatness of God’s power, which still pursues those once cursed by him. So much for the words, “Those who bless you are blessed, and those who curse you are cursed.”

14 “A star will rise out of Jacob, and a man will arise out of Israel. He will break the rulers of Moab and plunder all the sons of Seth.” The Word of God emptied himself, took the form of a servant, and was found in appearance as a man. He rose as no small star, not merely for Jacob but out of Jacob. He began with the bodily people of the circumcision, and then shone on all the nations. When he moved on from them, he fought no small wars. He cleared away the opposing powers and the spiritual forces of wickedness. Having defeated them, he took plunder for his own inheritance, winning back the nations that had earlier been under those powers. About these the Father promised him, saying, “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.”

15a It is Moses who says: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him in everything, just as you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘We will not go on hearing the voice of the Lord our God, and we will not see this great fire any more, so that we may not sin.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in everything they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, just like you. I will put my word in his mouth, and he will speak to them as I command him. And whoever does not listen to everything the prophet speaks in my name, I will take vengeance on him.’” Whom from Israel could anyone show to be this prophet like Moses, that is, a lawgiver, raised up for the human race, other than Jesus alone, our Savior and Lord? He has been revealed to all the nations as the lawgiver of the new covenant, the way of life according to the gospel. This fits the prophetic prayer in a psalm: “Set a lawgiver over them, Lord; let the nations know that they are men.” He also redeemed from the spiritual Egypt, from its brick-making and from bitter slavery under the spiritual Pharaoh, those who have come to the God of all through him.

15b In short, everything that Moses is recorded to have done in bodily form, our Savior and Lord carried out according to the spiritual law. So the prophet has come, the one whom Moses foretold, and who is still famous among both Samaritans and Jews. God testified about him in advance, saying, “And the man who does not listen to everything the prophet speaks in my name, I will take vengeance on him.” Vengeance has indeed been taken. The blood of all from Abel to Zechariah, who was murdered between the temple and the altar, was avenged on the generation that rose up against the Savior. This was especially so for those who dared to cry out against him, “Crucify, crucify him,” and “Take such a man from the earth. His blood be on us and on our children.” That very thing happened at once. God, just as he had said, took vengeance for the blood of Christ on those people themselves and on their children. Justice also pursued them, so that from that time until now the whole nation has not been able to lift up its head at all. Another prophecy was fulfilled too, that of Amos, who says, “The house of Israel has fallen; it will not add to rise again.” The apostle also foresaw these things by the Spirit and cried out, “But the wrath has come upon them to the end.”

16 From the Song: “Rejoice, you heavens, together with him; let all the angels of God worship him. Rejoice, you nations, with his people, and let all the sons of God strengthen themselves in him.” To whom else would the divine Spirit command the angels to bow down, if not to Christ? Clearly, at his coming the nations rejoiced with his people, the company of the righteous patriarchs and prophets. In the same Song, God speaks again about these nations, as though addressing another people: “They made me jealous with what is no god; they provoked me to anger with their idols. And I will make them jealous with what is no nation; with a senseless nation I will provoke them to anger.” It is plain that after the rejection of those people, God chose the foolish things of the world to put to shame those who were wise among them. He chose the weak things of the world, the lowborn, the despised, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that formerly counted among them. For from the time of Moses himself they had been serving idols, and provoking God to anger and jealousy, and when his Christ came they did not receive him. But the nations, through him, came to know the Father and God of all, and according to the prophecy before us, they will rejoice with his people of the saints. All the sons of God also strengthened themselves in Christ: both those who earlier prophesied about him, and all who after his coming received the Spirit of adoption and proclaimed him throughout the whole world. So much, then, for the passages from the Pentateuch. Let us now move on to the Scriptures that follow.

17 From the book of Joshua (Jesus). “And it happened, when Jesus was in Jericho, that he looked up and sees a man standing opposite him, with his sword drawn in his hand. And Jesus went up to him and said, ‘Are you ours, or one of our adversaries?’ And he said to him, ‘I have now come as commander-in-chief of the power of the Lord.’ And Jesus fell on his face to the ground and said to him, ‘Master, what do you command your servant?’ And the commander-in-chief of the Lord says to Jesus, ‘Take the sandal off your foot, for the place where you are standing is a holy place.’” Who else could the commander-in-chief of the power of the Lord be, but the Christ of God, who rules over all God’s holy and spiritual army? See also whether these words to Jesus hint that this is the same one who spoke to Moses on the mountain through the angel. For what is said to Joshua now was said in the same way to Moses by the Lord, through the angel, as he began his vision: “Take the sandal off your feet,” and so on. The Christ of God has many names, and here he is called commander-in-chief of the power of the Lord. So also in Isaiah he is called “Angel of Great Counsel,” in the passage that follows “and they will wish they had been burned with fire”: “For a child has been born to us, a son has also been given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder, and his name is called Angel of Great Counsel.” You will also find him named “angel of the covenant” in Malachi, where it says, “And suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire.”

18 From the First Book of Kingdoms, the prayer of Hannah. “The Lord went up into the heavens and thundered. He will judge the ends of the earth, and will give strength to our kings, and will lift up the horn of his anointed.” The Lord who came down from the heavens, the Word of God, has himself gone up again into the heavens. Having gone up, he thundered the proclamation of the gospel by his own divine power, so that it was heard in the whole world. He himself will judge the ends of the earth and those who live as far as its limits, since he has received all judgment from the Father. He also gave strength to his own disciples, the apostles and prophets, and to our kings. And he lifted up the horn of his anointed. This means either the people, who are called “anointed” through sharing in the Christ, or the human nature he took on, whose horn was the divinity lifted up, as the holy apostle says. And in the eighty-eighth Psalm God says something plainly similar to this about the Christ: “And in my name his horn will be lifted up.”

19a “And a man of God came to Eli and said, ‘Thus says the Lord, the Lord.’” And further on: “And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do everything that is in my heart and in my soul. And I will build him a faithful house, and he will walk before my anointed all his days. And everyone left over in the house will come to bow down to him for an obol of silver and for one loaf of bread, saying, ‘Cast me aside to one of your priestly offices, to eat bread.’” This is no one other than our Saviour Jesus Christ, the only priest of God Most High after the order of Melchizedek. According to the apostle we have him as a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. He did everything that was in the Father’s heart, becoming obedient to him even to death. So when the Father raised him up, he built him a faithful house: the church, made up of rational, living and truly faithful stones. Those who believe in him come to bow down to him, and the obol of silver is not refused [or: not turned away]. This is true of the widow who bodily brought her farthing to help those in need. It is true also, in the mind, of the soul that rests on faith alone, and of the soul that, according to its ability, contributes from its spiritual possessions what helps toward the building up and benefit of the rest;

19b So then, “God chose the foolish things of the world,” and the weak, the poor, the despised, and the things that are not. He does not look down on them, nor on souls like these. In his love for humanity the Word of God also welcomes the eagerness of such souls, and by his divine judgment he assigns each to its own place among his priestly seats according to its worth, counting them worthy of the bread of eternal life from himself. The words “and he will pass through before my anointed one all the days” are said about the saints in the church. They too are called Christs, as in the words, “Do not touch my anointed ones.” To these the Savior also said in the Gospel, “Look, I am with you all the days, until the end of the age.” These passages need fuller explanation. For now we will be content with what has been said as briefly as possible.

20a From the Second Book of Kingdoms. The Lord speaks to David through Nathan, after much else, also these words. 20. “And it will be that when your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, who will come from your own body, and I will prepare his kingdom. He will build me a house for my name, and I will set up his throne forever. I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. And if his iniquity comes, I will rebuke him with the rod of men and with the strokes of the sons of men. But my mercy I will not take away from them, as I took it away from those from whom I took it away from before my face. And his house will be made faithful, and his kingdom will stand forever before me, and his throne will be set up forever.” Similar things are said in the eighty-eighth Psalm. The Jews would do well to be puzzled over these passages. Why, I ask, would they say that God is speaking of David, or of Solomon, who reigned after him? They presumably suppose that the prophecy speaks of Solomon when it promises to make him a firstborn son. In the Psalm it says, “He will call on me, ‘You are my Father, my God and the helper of my salvation.’ And I will make him my firstborn, high above the kings of the earth.” In the passage now in hand it says, “I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.” Yet someone could say that David was no different from the other prophets in any respect. He even needed to make confession because of Uriah, saying, “Against you alone I have sinned, and I have done what is evil before you.”

20b Or was it said of Solomon? The plain history of Scripture teaches that he turned away from God and bowed to idols because of his desire for women. And how did the kingdom of David, or of Solomon, stand before God “to the age,” and how was his throne “set upright forever,” as this prophecy says? The Psalm says much the same: “I swore to David my servant: I will prepare your seed for ever, and I will build up your throne from generation to generation.” And after other words it says: “Once I have sworn by my holy place, I will not lie to David. His seed will remain for ever, and his throne will be like the sun before me.” And again: “I will establish his seed for ever and ever, and his throne like the days of heaven.” You would find similar words in Jeremiah, where it says: “Thus says the Lord: A man will not be cut off from David to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. And for the priests and the Levites, a man will not be cut off from before me to offer whole burnt offerings, to sacrifice, and to make incense all the days.” Now suppose someone compares these words with the present condition of the Jews and with their own histories from the reigns of Hezekiah and Jechoniah. In their time the kingdom of the Jews descended from David was brought to an end, at the time of the captivity to Babylon. After that the Jews were never again ruled or governed by kings descended from David, down to this day. Then it is plain that what was said does not fit David or Solomon. Otherwise it would follow of necessity that God’s prediction, made with oaths, was proved false, and that is something it is not right even to think.

20c But if we apply the “seed of David” to Christ, who was born of him according to the flesh, it is clear how this seed, that is Christ, will remain for ever. It is also clear how his throne and spiritual kingdom stand before the Father “to the age,” set upright by him and built up from generation to generation in the souls of those who believe in him. The throne of this seed of David, who has been given to us, will remain like the sun of righteousness before the Father, and like the days of heaven. For this reason the Holy Spirit says to him in another Psalm: “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the rod of uprightness is the rod of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” Christ also built the church as a house for the Father, out of living and spiritual stones, holy and virtuous souls. He raised up a temple far better than, and different from, the temporary building of Solomon, which no longer exists. The apostle also testifies that the words “I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me” belong to Christ. He took the saying from here in his letter to the Hebrews, where he says: “For to which of the angels did he ever say, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’? And again, ‘I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.’” The words that follow, “and if his lawlessness comes, I will rebuke him with a rod of men,” were spoken about the people who have believed in Christ.

20d This is because the church is called the body of Christ, as the apostle says. Notice carefully that the words about visitation are spoken of those who have believed in him, since the text says “my mercy” in a plural setting: “but I will not remove my mercy from them.” The psalm also says something clearly similar to this passage about the sons of the one the prophecy describes: “And if his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they profane my statutes and do not keep my commandments, I will visit their lawless deeds with a rod, and their injustices with scourges; but my mercy I will not scatter from them.” See how the word calls the persecutions that come from time to time “rods of men” and “touches of the sons of men.” Even so, God’s encouragements are many, and so are the consolations in the Scriptures, which do not allow us to lose heart at the persecutions stirred up against us from time to time. For just as he foretold that he would visit the people of Christ with a rod when they sin, so he also promised beforehand not to take his mercy from them. He said, “But my mercy I will not remove from them, as I removed it from those from whom I removed it.” One may ask who these were, for whom the mercy of God existed before the people from the nations, and from whom you removed it entirely. He promises to do nothing like that to the people of Christ.

21 21. “And David spoke to the Lord the words of this song.” Then, a little further on: “And he bowed the heavens and came down, and thick darkness was under his feet.” And again after this: “Deliver me from the contradictions of a people; you will set me as head of nations; a people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of an ear they obeyed me; foreign sons lied to me; foreign sons will be cast away, and they will stumble out of their enclosures.” These things are said in almost the same words in the seventeenth Psalm, and they could be examined more suitably when we gather our selections from the Psalms. For now we merely note this much. The words “he bowed the heavens and came down” can be understood of Christ’s coming down from heaven. The words “deliver me from the contradiction of a people” are spoken in his person about those of the circumcision who did not believe in him; about them he also says in Isaiah, “All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contradicting people.” The words “you will set me as head of nations,” and “a people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of an ear they obeyed me,” are prophesied of the church from the nations. The words “foreign sons lied to me” refer to the godless heresies, which have spun false stories about the Savior himself and the God of the universe. The word says that these will be cast away, having stumbled out of their enclosures, that is, having fallen from their festering and hidden false doctrines.

22 22. From the third book of Kingdoms. “And now, Lord God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you spoke to your servant David my father. For if God will truly dwell with men on the earth, then even the heaven of heaven will not be enough for you.” Similar words are spoken in the second book of Chronicles by Solomon in his prayer to God. So here too it is clearly prophesied that God would dwell with men on the earth. This too has reached its fulfilment in our time, at the coming of Christ, when God the Word became man and lived among the human race. 23 From 1 Chronicles. Through Nathan the Lord says this to David, among other things. 23. “And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your offspring after you, who will come from your own body, and I will prepare his kingdom. He will build a house for me, and I will set his throne upright. I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it away from those before you. I will establish him in my house and in his kingdom forever, and his throne will be set upright forever.” We have noted these words too. Since they are like the passages from the second book of Kingdoms set out above, and the difference between them is small, we will be content with what was said on those.

24 From 2 Chronicles. 24. “And now, Lord God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you spoke to your servant David: that God will truly dwell with human beings on the earth, if the heaven of heaven will not be enough for you.” We said what needed saying on these words once already, when we set out the passages from the third book of Kingdoms, so we will not say it a second time now. 25a From Ezra. Zerubbabel says this in his speech. 25. “Men, are not women strong? The earth is great and heaven is high, and the sun is swift in its course, for it turns around the circle of heaven and runs back to its own place in a single day. Is he not great who does these things? Yet truth is great, and stronger than all things. The whole earth calls upon truth, and heaven blesses it. All works shake and tremble before it, and there is nothing unjust with it. Wine is unjust; the king is unjust; women are unjust; the sons of men are unjust; and all their works of this kind are unjust. There is no truth in them, and they will perish in their injustice. But truth remains forever and is strong forever; it lives and prevails forever and ever. With it there is no taking of persons, no partiality. It does what is just, keeping away from all who are unjust and wicked, and all approve of its works. There is nothing unjust in its judgment.

25b Its are the strength, the kingdom, the authority and the majesty of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth.” Our Savior and Lord, who is the Word of God, is reported to have said, “I am the truth.” So it was fitting to set out these words about truth, since they show that truth has a subsistence of its own alongside the Father. For he says, “Truth remains, and is strong forever, and lives and prevails; and with it there is no taking of persons,” and so on. To this he adds, speaking of the Father, who is himself God of the Word of God and of the truth: “Blessed be the God of truth.” To this we also will add our “Amen.” So much, then, from the writing of Ezra. From Esther, however, we found nothing at all on the matter before us. After these extracts from the historical writings, let us move on to the books in verse, since these come first in time before the remaining prophecies. Of these, let us look first at the passages from the Psalms.