Selected Notes on the Pentateuch and Other Books (Fragments on 1 Samuel – Fragments on Ezekiel)
Selected Notes on the Pentateuch and Other Books
continued
Note 8
Saul was powerful and had a crowd of helpers to do evil against David, while only two were being hunted, Samuel and David. So God’s grace made Saul prophesy, not only what concerned himself but also what was in David’s favor. It also cast him down naked, signifying in advance that he would be stripped of the kingdom.
Note 9
Here “common” does not mean the unclean but those that are not holy, in contrast with the holy loaves set out on the table. For the table always held six loaves, changed regularly, on behalf of the twelve tribes of Israel. They called these the loaves “of the presence.” So each loaf was offered for two tribes, and the six together for the twelve tribes. What good came of this? The tribes of Israel were joined together in harmony. What better thing was foreshadowed? The blessed apostles were sent out by the Savior two by two to preach first among the tribes of Israel, so that six pairs made up the number of the twelve disciples. {”Lay bread” is so called not because those who are not holy are profane, but because they are being compared [with the holy ones].
Note 10
1 Samuel 21:5–6. “Today it will be made holy because of the vessels.” He said this rather obscurely, but it means the following. “My young men have been made holy and have kept away from a woman both yesterday and the day before.” This is what his saying that the young men were purified amounts to. If they had not been, they would certainly have been made holy by eating the bread of the presentation. The priest believed what was said and gave David some of the loaves, which no one but the priests alone was allowed to eat. This belongs to prophecy that speaks through deeds. The royal tribe, that is Judah, was one tribe and the priestly tribe another. [The text here is unclear: “I mean the one with which they were going to be joined.”] The priestly dignity and the royal were to be joined and made one at the coming of our Savior from David, [who is both priest] and king together, according to the order of Melchizedek.
Note 11
1 Samuel 21:7. “The Neessar.” This shows either that Doeg the Edomite stayed there because of sin, being [attended to] and confessing before the Lord, or that, being demon-possessed like Saul, he was not [really] pasturing the mules.
Note 12
1 Samuel 21:7. Saul bears the type of the evil spirit. Israel had begun by saying then, “We have no king.” For the people of old despised the Lord who was their king, [and so] Saul was given to them as ruler. [The Greek here is repetitive and probably corrupt.]
Note 13
1 Samuel 25:22. No one urinates standing and against a wall unless he is at leisure. So this phrase describes the carefree man who expects to suffer nothing, if he belongs to Nabal.
Note 14
1 Samuel 28:11–12. The woman with the ventriloquist spirit did not bring Samuel up, for that is impossible. Nor did the one who came up speak the truth. Who this was, and by what power he came up, you should investigate.
Note 15
2 Samuel 5:6–8. David was besieging Jebus. Jebus was the name of what is now Jerusalem, when it was under foreigners. The Jebusites knew that David was a lover of the poor. So they set blind and lame men on the wall above to insult him. But when David took Jerusalem, he was so far from treating these disabled people badly that he laid down a law for his soldiers, with death as the penalty, if anyone tried to kill a blind or lame man. For he says, “Everyone who strikes a lame or blind Jebusite, let him touch him with the dagger,” that is, let him be put to death. For even though they hated David’s soul, they received mercy. Therefore he is thought worthy of honor from all [the text is unclear here], while those who insulted David, and whom he spared, say: “The lame and the blind shall not enter the house of the Lord.”
Note 16
2 Samuel 5:14. Note that Nathan, David’s son, was born to him after he captured Jerusalem and settled there. This is the Nathan whose line the blessed Luke traces, while the blessed Matthew traces the line of his brother Solomon. So from this, I mean from the sons of David mentioned here, one evangelist gives one genealogy and the other gives another.
Note 17
2 Samuel 16:10–12. So from this too it is shown that what God does not do, but permits to happen, is said to have been done by him. It is agreed, then, that Absalom’s uprising, Shimei’s abuse, and his throwing stones at David were not God’s work. David’s words show more plainly what I mean: “Let him curse, because the Lord has told him to, so that he may see my humiliation. And the Lord will repay me good in place of his cursing on this day.” For it is clear that what was happening did not please God. And what did not please him, he would not have commanded to be done.
Note 18
If Saul, in his zeal for Israel and Judah, tried to destroy the Gibeonites, with whom Joshua son of Nun and all the people had made a covenant, and for that reason seven of Saul’s descendants, born of his daughters, were put to death, why were the tribes not held to blame? Why did people who had done no wrong pay the penalty? That seems unjust. Unless someone says that Saul, being king, was unable to stand against his fellow citizens and the tribe of Judah, and so could not keep the covenant the fathers had made with the Gibeonites. I would add to this that it was God’s own ordering that the whole family of Saul should be wiped out, everyone who at any time might be suspected of claiming the royal dignity and so of rising up against David and his sons. The words “the Gibeonites exposed them to the sun before the Lord on the mountain” mean that they killed them and did not bury them, but left them lying under the sun. “And they were loosened,” it says, “and Dan son of Joash, one of the descendants of the giants, took them.” He surely means that the giant took up the bodies that had been laid out under the sun, already broken down by the heat of the sun. {The story about the Gibeonites remains unknown. [Here] we might say that when Saul was encamped at Gabee to make war, he routed the foreigners and destroyed the Gibeonites along with them. The account is in the thirty-second, thirty-third and thirty-seventh [chapters] of First Kingdoms, where it says, “and he fought all his enemies on every side,” and so on. What the text says is this: Saul did wrong against [them], and from that same [act] came the vengeance for the injustice [done in the time of] Joshua. Those who received their being from him are not wronged when they are destroyed together with the one who stood at the beginning. For they have their non-being from the same source from which they had their being. But if they were worthy of some good because of their own conduct, they receive it later.}
Note 19
The question is asked how David, who had pardoned Shimei, commands Solomon to kill him. David was a man who held no grudges and was gentle. He gives the same command about Joab, who had labored together with him. Why, then, was this arranged in this way? David was wise, and he knew that Solomon would not let Shimei live, for fear of an uprising. For Shimei, from a position of royal dignity, would fight Solomon over the kingdom. Nor would Solomon let Joab live, since Joab had set up David’s son as king apart from David’s own mind. Joab had also killed Abner, though he had labored together with the father in many wars and had succeeded. David foresaw all this. So he got ahead of events and ordered Solomon to do what Solomon would certainly have done on his own. Then, when the men named were put to death by Solomon, he would be forgiven, as one who had carried out his father’s wish and had not moved against them on his own account.
Note 20
“And he turned back,” it says, “and slept. And the angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him.” Perhaps these were symbols of powers serving the prophet with food fitting for him. He was withdrawing from human affairs and was worthy of being taught by such beings. After this he would be able to hear, “Arise and eat,” and would find at his head unspeakable mysteries, of which the barley cake baked in the ashes was a type. And does he not eat a second time, at the angel’s command, when the angel said, “Arise, eat, for the journey is long for you”? [...] Now the [food of] the morning they brought to Elijah [...] in keeping with what the Lord had said to Moses, among which was this: “In the morning you will be filled with bread, and you will know that I am the Lord your God.” And [the other food] likewise: “Toward evening you shall eat meat.”
Note 21
This is the power of Christ Jesus, which makes men into sons. And if anyone is a man of power, he is clearly a son of Christ. But at times the powers under Christ cannot make sons. And if they do, they make not grown men but infants.
Note 22
“Spadontes” means eunuchs. He says this about the three young men and Daniel, that they were descended from this Hezekiah.
Selecta on Job
Note 1
Chapter 1. “The horsemen made three heads for us and surrounded the camels.” So he made the camels fall under the horsemen. The donkeys and the yoked oxen he put under those who took captives. The sheep he hated, and for that reason he brought fire down on them. He was also plotting against the sons, and he was looking for a moment to destroy them. If he had found them reading, he would not have touched the house, and he would have had no ground to kill them. If he had found them praying, he could have done nothing against them. But when he found an opportunity, he prevailed. What was that opportunity? It was drunkenness; it was a banquet. As for the Spirit’s mention of the corners being struck, take note that hypocrites stand and pray in the broad places of the corners. Everyone who has not set foot on the straight way makes use of corners. A broad corner is wickedness that is great and unrestrained.
Note 19
1a Chapter 19. “How long will you wear out my soul?” Heavy loads laid on the bodies of animals make the animals that carry them grow weary. In the same way there are some heavy words. When someone hears them, he grows weary, as if pressed down by the weight of what the words can do. These are words spoken with reproach and harshness, or in abuse. So it is now with the words spoken by Baldad. Job felt them like a heavy burden, and being worn out in his soul he says, “How long will you wear out my soul?” and, “Will you weigh down your words against me like a heavy load?” You see that the words of the tyrant of the Shuhites were tyrannical words, and Job, hearing them, says what is set before us. For nothing else strikes a person’s soul as a harsh word does. Often someone has endured tortures inflicted on his body and yet has not endured words. The perfect athlete, though he grows weary, still endures harsh words. To endure insult is the mark of a great man. That is why the Apostle, among his own deeds of courage, says, “When reviled, we bless; when slandered, we appeal.” Here too it is Job, the noblest of athletes, who speaks. His book contains nothing so remarkable as his courage and his endurance.
1b Even so, he feels the weariness he has suffered from the harsh word of those who came to visit him. The heaviness of a word is like a burden laid on the soul and makes it weary. That is why he says: “Why, my friends, do you add the toil of the soul to the pains of the body, pricking me more with your words than the sufferings prick the body?” “You speak against me.” Often someone speaks against another when that other is doing wrong. But when he has lost all shame, he says it to his face, not to expose him or to tell the truth, but to reproach and insult him. “I will cry out, and nowhere is there judgment.” If I cry out now, my judgment does not come anywhere. I am still contending. It is as if he were saying: “I have cried out like an athlete in the stadium, and my judgment does not arise anywhere, for I am still wrestling. If I do not finish the match, the judgment that brings the crown does not come.” We say this so that we do not accuse God because Job suffers so much and “nowhere is there judgment.” That is, there is nowhere any decision granting him freedom and release from his troubles.
Note 20
1a Chapter 20. “If his gifts go up to heaven.” The heretic too: when he prays, when his sacrifice goes up with lofty speech, when he seems to be firmly established, then in the end he will perish. For his prayer is counted to him as sin. We who belong to the Church and know his errors will say: where are such people, who dream and fashion errors for themselves? In their stumbling they do not rest their mind on the truth. They become like a dream that has flown away, which will not be found. David sings something similar: “But the enemies of the Lord have failed. At the very moment of being glorified and exalted, they failed; like smoke they failed.” And again: “Like a dream of those who awake.” “Wealth gathered unjustly will be vomited up.” I know of another wealth that is gathered unjustly, the wealth found in the words of the heretics. They hold teachings in their bellies that are opposed to the doctrines of the truth. These are not sweet but are “the gall of asps,” that is, they are evil. It is said in Deuteronomy, in the song of Moses, about the wine of their teaching: “For their vine is from the vine of Sodom.” But the good God will not allow them to keep unjustly gathered wealth in themselves forever. He will make them vomit it up. For by God’s kindness an angel will drag them out onto the very house that was badly built:
1b That house is the church of the wicked. So Job goes on: “Out of his house,” and so on. See how much is laid up even for the one who holds other teaching, because of his ungodly doctrines. Let us therefore watch ourselves, so that we are not robbed by plausible arguments from heretical teaching and fall away from the mystery of the Church. “May he not see the milking of the herdsmen.” The one who teaches other doctrine does not see the milking of herdsmen either. The herdsmen are souls that are pastured under the good shepherd and find pasture. The doctrines against God have nothing sweet in them; they are harsh and dense. For “he shattered the houses of many who were powerless.” And if the teacher of other doctrine finds you anywhere weak in the faith, weak in sound teaching, he robs you. It is truly said of the teacher of those who hold other doctrines that he shattered the houses of many who were powerless. He snatches away the way of life of the easily deceived, and afterward he cannot make it stand, for falsehood cannot make anything stand. “May a day of wrath come upon him.” On that day the divine judgment is stirred up against him. Whether it is the man from the circumcision who has acted impiously against God, or the one who holds other doctrine, or anyone ungodly in whatever way, his portion is the one shown in what was said above.
Note 21
“Why do the ungodly live, and grow old even in wealth?” By saying “grow old in wealth,” he means that they are not newly rich. From youth to old age they have gone on being wealthy. “They take up the psaltery and the harp.” Fathers have another kind of happiness, and so do their children, a joy filled out by pipes, harps and drums. These charm the ears, stir up the pleasures of the soul, and bewitch those present with undisciplined music. The children of the ungodly make it shamelessly, laying their hands on the tightened strings and clapping to the sound of the instruments. “They finished their life in good things.” That is, they had no break in their prosperity. They went on to the end of a full life, luxuriating in bodily goods. The end of their life became the end of their happiness, since their good fortune lasted until death. “And they fell asleep in the rest of Hades.” That is, resting and cheerful until death, they go down to Hades untroubled. Or it means that death itself is not bitter to them; they die as though falling asleep. Or it means that other people suffer and are worn down while they live, and rest only when they die, whereas these men, of whom he is speaking, spent their whole life in good cheer and so came to the rest that is in death.
Note 22
1a Chapter 22. “Is it not the Lord who teaches?” This is a sound teaching: a human being cannot be the true teacher of virtue. The one who teaches a person knowledge is, as it is also written in the Psalms, none other than God. God teaches by shining into the soul of the one who learns from him, and by lighting up the mind with the true light, his own Word. So even if righteous men teach us, having received the grace of teaching, it is still the Lord who teaches us through them. Even the understanding itself, and the opening of our hearts to receive the divine lessons, comes about by divine grace. “Or will he reprove you, making an account of you?” To this we would say that God does not reprove the ungodly because he worries that he himself might be harmed. He reproves him because he takes account of the one he provides for and does good to. “You took pledges from your brothers for nothing.” Eliphaz supposes this about Job, because he knew he was rich and suspected that he had grown rich from sources of this kind. So he says, “You took pledges for nothing,” that is, when nothing was owed to you. Then, adding to this, he charges him with another sin: “You stripped the naked of their clothing.” Sometimes one may take garments from someone who is not naked but rich, who has many clothes laid up. But suppose someone has only one tunic, and I strip him of that tunic on the excuse of demanding what is mine, having no pity on that naked man. Then I have taken away the clothing of a naked man. Many such things happen among us when we lend, when we have people in debt to us. Often our debtor is desperately poor and cannot repay. And we shut up our compassion. We do not see that he is feeding a wife and children, and that they are barely fed from the few small coins he gets. Yet we demand payment harshly, sometimes even when we have more than enough ourselves. So Eliphaz brings this charge against Job: “You stripped the naked of their clothing.” Perhaps he also calls it taking away when someone does not give a cloak to the naked. For the person who does not clothe the naked, and the one who does not feed the person who needs bread, is a defrauder and a greedy man.
1b “And you admired the faces of certain people.” This too is another sin, for admiring a person’s face is a sin. Someone is rich, so I admire his face, but I trample on the poor man because he has no standing. “So the Almighty will be your helper.” Eliphaz states a sound teaching here. He thinks Job is suffering because of his sins, and that by enduring he is purified through the suffering itself. Purified like gold in a furnace, he is shown to be approved, having put away everything foreign and become unmixed with any evil. So Eliphaz says that if you also endure what has happened to you, God will give you back purified, like refined silver. And once purified, you will have boldness, as one who has put away his sins. You will lift your face cheerfully to heaven and make your prayers with a conscience that does not condemn you. If you vow or promise anything to God, he will strengthen you to carry out your promises to him. For he is “the one who works in us both the willing and the working, for the sake of his good pleasure.” Where the text reads “He will grant you to fulfil your vows,” Theodotion rendered it, “And you will decree a word, and it will stand for you.” That is, whatever you arrange and set down will not fall through. To put it simply, God will provide you with a whole way of life that suits a righteous man. All your ways will prosper, guided by the divine light, or else your deeds will be bright and glorious. “Because he humbled himself, and you will say, ‘He was arrogant.’” Eliphaz seems to speak about someone else, but the word is aimed at Job. He means that these things will come to the one who repents, because he humbled himself and said that he justly underwent what he suffered, since he had been arrogant. “And he will save the one with downcast eyes.” That is, the humble-minded man, who looks down because of a troubled conscience and lack of boldness, like the tax collector who was justified in the Gospels.
Note 27
Chapter 27. Job added this in his opening words: the devil received authority over Job and tested him night and day. First he did it through things outside him, then through his own body, and after that through his friends. When he had tried Job through his wife and saw that Job was not beaten, he brought three friends. They were not enemies, and they did not hold scheming doctrines. What they said was true, but it was not offered in the right way or at the right time. Through them he wanted to make the righteous man say something against Providence, to turn him to impiety because of his labors and to make him lose heart because of his pains. But look at what this unbreakable man of steel says after the words of the three. Eliphaz had finished three speeches, Bildad three, and Zophar two. Job says: “I am not conscious of having done anything out of place.” Paul said the same thing later, and added: “But I am not justified by this.” The righteous man spoke with great confidence, both about his former life and about his conduct at the time of his trial, so that he could say: I am conscious of nothing against myself.
Note 29
Chapter 29. “The mighty ceased speaking.” Or, according to the rest of the editions, “the rulers.” [These words are corrupt or obscure in the Greek; I give the sense.] “...what was conceived...” The same thing happens in the soul that loves learning. It conceives the word, and as the word is declared it shapes it and gives it form in order. When, after shaping and forming it, the soul hands it over complete, then it gives birth. Until it gives birth, it is weighed down in labor. “I will speak, that I may find rest, opening my lips.” The one who has an understanding hearer, and is full of words, finds rest in speaking. He has, as it were, emptied himself and thrown off the excess.
Note 35
1a Chapter 35. “Look up to heaven.” The one who looks up to heaven is not the one who lifts his bodily eyes and sees the sky. Dogs and donkeys have that kind of looking up. No lover of the world looks up to heaven. Only the one who loves neither the world nor the things in the world does. Again, the clouds are not simply high above us. But if I look at the life of Moses and how he pleased God, and then at my own smallness and lowliness, I see the cloud high above me. If I come to Jesus the son of Nave, and to the lives of the prophets, and examine their deeds, then I do what is written and learn how high the clouds are above me. “If you sinned, what will you do?” So he asks: do you know, if you have sinned, what you will do to undo the sin? If you sinned in words, heal it with better words. If you sinned in deeds, heal yourself with different deeds. But if our lawless acts are many and incurable, then it is for the incurable things, which we cannot heal ourselves, that Jesus Christ came from heaven, to heal what cannot be healed. So the words come true: “Blessed are those whose sins have been forgiven.”
1b “He who sets night watches.” See how Elihu goes through praises and hymns of God, saying of him, “He who sets night watches.” Do you want to see how God sets night watches? This whole age is night; it is darkness. The light is being kept for you. For now you see through a mirror, but one day you will see the light. So the whole age is night, and there is need of appointed watchmen, so that the watchmen of the night may guard those who are in the night from robbers, from wild beasts and from enemies. Who are the watchmen? The angels who encamp around us. “He who separates me from the four-footed creatures of the earth.” According to the others: “teaching us above the beasts of the earth, and making us wise above the birds that fly through the air.” For man alone is honored with reason. By the account of creation, then, we have been set apart from all living creatures. But if you are a sinner, a fornicator, inclined downward, you have not been separated from the four-footed creatures of the earth. You have been compared with the beasts and have become like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding, and like the stallion mad after mares.
Note 40
1a Chapter 40. “No, gird up your loins like a man.” The full prizes of the contest are kept for those who have competed well, and they come after this life. Even so, God’s grace already gives the contestants a down payment. So when Job fought the greatest fights, God gave him a foretaste and a pledge of the prizes. Job lost his possessions and glorified the one who had given them. He buried his children and thanked the one who had taken them. He fell sick, so that worms poured out of his body, and he was still not beaten by his sufferings. Then God spoke with him out of a cloud and a storm. Job had heard the earlier words. He ought to have answered God, but he stayed silent, as one who had no boldness to speak. He did not yet know the saying, “Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice.” Yet God gives him freedom to speak. His kindness is so great that he takes on the face of one who is not judging but being judged together with the man. Other passages of Scripture teach this too, such as “Come, let us reason together,” and “My people, what have I done to you?” God is already giving Job a prize, because he questions a human being, asks him for an answer, and gives him authority to reply. If Job had not been victorious, he would not have received it. If he had not endured, he would not have heard, “Gird up your loins like a man.” Do not keep silent. Be courageous in facing the questions. For whoever has loins that are not girded and tightened but loose cannot answer God reasonably. So let no one answer God until he has become a man, mature in spiritual stature, and has girded his loins.
1b “Do not set aside my judgment.” Do not suppose that what you endured was decided against you without reason, and do not set my judgment aside. Let us remember this saying as a useful one whenever God judges that we should suffer something: to lose a child, to lose a position of authority, to fall ill in the body, or to undergo anything of that kind. None of these things can happen to us unless God judges it so. Since none of them happens apart from God’s judgment, he says to the one who suffers, “Do not set aside my judgment.” That is, do not disown what I decided about you. He means the present dealing. “Do you think I have dealt with you for any other reason than that you might be shown to be righteous?” I make my defense to you: you were righteous, but you were not plainly seen to be. You had endurance, and I had to give an occasion for your endurance to shine. You had courage, but it was hidden in you, and the troubles that came on you showed your courage. Let us remember these things in times of hardship. Let us take it that we hear God present and saying to us, “Do you think I have dealt with you,” that is, allowed the trial, “for any other reason than that your righteousness might be made clear to those who do not know it?” “Take up your height.” The lines can also be understood like this: you have defeated the tempter. Take back your height. Take back your strength. Be crowned. Put on splendor. The insolent one marched out against you, but you humbled the proud one and turned him back far away in shame, together with his battle line.
Note 41
1a Chapter 41. “Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him like a sparrow for a child?” This describes the end of a great, strong and perfect soul. The dragon has been handed over to such a soul like a sparrow to a child. He cannot even hurt the child, since the child leads him about bound wherever it wishes and carries him around. In the same way, by the grace of the Lord, Satan has been bound like a sparrow in the hand for the little ones and nursing babies, out of whose mouth God has prepared praise. “Nations will feed on him.” The Lord is food for the faithful, and in the same way the dragon is food for the ungodly: “You gave him as food to the Ethiopian peoples.” That is, to the sons of darkness, to those who live in ignorance. For with every word we accept, we are eating either from the dragon, if we accept a vain report, or from Christ, if we accept a word that builds up and benefits. “And all that sail together will not carry one hide of his tail.” To say it more plainly: men who use their bodies as ships cannot by themselves put to death the dragon’s final and last parts. But when divine power watches over us, we are able both to bring him in whole and to put him to death. Each of us puts the devil to death, as far as it depends on himself, according to the saying, “God will crush Satan under your feet quickly.” “Who could enter into the fold of his breastplate?” The breastplate is also called the chest, where the ruling part is. His breastplate is not simple. It is deceitful and folded over. But a holy person is able to expose him and show that it is folded over,
1b for to the holy person it is not folded. “And a spirit will not pass through him.” “Will not pass through” does not mean that it does not go through and pass on. It means that nothing escapes him, and everyone must come through him. So let us prepare ourselves not to be held fast by him. “And his eyes are the appearance of the morning star.” His eyes are not morning stars, but “the appearance of the morning star.” For he disguises himself as an angel of light. He pretends to be a heavenly star, and pretends to be a sign of day. “Like burning lamps.” I think that all the ungodly who bring in godless doctrines are the mouth of the dragon. But something further can also be understood figuratively here, namely where destructive words come from. Suppose you have ever heard a speech that accuses the Creator under the pretext of Christianity. Say it advocates the teachings of Marcion, Valentinus or Basilides. When they speak evil of the Maker of heaven and earth, or say anything like it, you will see that firebrands come out of the mouths of such men. So let us guard ourselves, lest those lamps burn us, lest the coals of their fire touch us. “Before him runs destruction.” Destruction is like his forerunner and bodyguard. Wherever he is coming, his destruction runs ahead, and only then does he himself enter. Unless someone first receives destruction, he does not receive the dragon. For when someone sins, then, with itching ears, he seeks teachers, since he is on his way to ruin. In seeking teachers, after he has been ruined he finds the dragon, and receives into his own soul one who is filled with so many evils.
Note 42
Chapter 42. “And the Lord gave double.” Whoever endures every trial receives rewards for his endurance, all of them double what he had before. But the Lord gives rewards that are not merely double but a hundredfold. Yet Job would not have received double what he had before, if he had not shown double the virtue.
Fragments on Ezekiel
Note 30
The arms of Pharaoh are evil in the practice of sin, and, in the doctrines of ungodliness, the mind of the flesh. God, being good, crushes these arms. Pharaoh is a symbol of the devil, the ruler of sin among men. The Lord crushes the arm of sinners so that they cannot take hold of a sword.
Note 32
6 This especially shows the allegorical meaning of the Scripture. Pharaoh, in bodily terms, could not water the land from his excrement. Rather, it is the filthy discharge of the adversary that waters earthly things. 23 The Hebrew has “in the length of the pit.” For the word *yarekh*, pronounced with the aspirate in the Hebrew language, means both “thigh” and “length.” [Its application to the assembly, or gathering, is uncertain in the Greek.] So he calls the depth of the burial a “pit,” and the extent of the burial its “length.”
Note 44
4. Ezekiel, the son of man, describes many gates, and about each one he gave some account. Here he speaks, to those who have ears, about the gate of the sanctuary that faces east. Of this gate it is written, “This gate shall be shut,” and so on. It is not only that the Lord, the God of Israel, passes through the gate and so it is shut. The prince also sits in that gate to eat before the Lord, by the way of Ailam, which is translated “the porch of the gate.” The gate is a shut gate: it is the mysteries of God, which cannot be locked up. Knowledge has a key, as the Lord says to the lawyers. So the gate is shut to ordinary people, for what lies inside the gate is what “eye has not seen and ear has not heard,” and so on. The words in Isaiah about the sealed book carry a meaning like that of this gate. You will find this same book more plainly in the Revelation of John, together with what is written about it, and how the one from the tribe of Judah, and he alone, opened these things. For until our Lord Jesus Christ came, the law and the prophetic word were shut. A covering lay over them: the stone of hardness, which Jacob removed from the well. For in many places Scripture has opened up the meaning concerning this gate.