Prophetic Extracts (chapter 2)

Prophetic Extracts

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Chapter 2

1a Ps. The following are the chapter headings in the second book of the prophetic extracts concerning Christ. From the Psalms. 1. From the first Psalm: on the blameless life of Christ, and on the highest virtue of his conduct. 2. On the passion of Christ, his heavenly kingdom, and the Father’s promise to him concerning the nations. 3. On the passion of Christ and his resurrection from the dead. 4. On the knowledge of God sown through him among all people. 5. On the death of Christ and his resurrection from the dead, and how he is proclaimed as lawgiver of the nations. 6. On the resurrection of Christ and the salvation of human beings. 7. On the blameless life of Christ. 8. On the coming down of Christ from heaven, his establishment over the nations and the people who did not know him, and the contradiction of the Jews. 9. On the preaching of the apostles to the whole inhabited world, and on Christ as bridegroom. 10. On Christ as king. 11. Again, on Christ as king. 12. On the events of Christ’s passion; on his apostles, the turning of the nations to God, and on another generation and a people that is to come. 13. On his taking up into the heavens. 14. On Christ and his resurrection. 15. On Christ as the beloved, the crushing of the former people, and Jerusalem. 16. On the resurrection of Christ. 17. On the events of Christ’s passion. 18. How all things were made through God the Word. 19. How, in place of sacrifices and the old worship by types, the body of Christ was offered for all. 20. On the betrayer Judas and the resurrection of Christ. 21. On Christ as the beloved, and how the same one is proclaimed both as God the king and as Christ.

1b 22. On the taking up of Christ and the calling of the nations. 23. On the calling of the nations, and on Christ as a man. 24. On the calling of the nations, the second coming of Christ, and the exposure of those of the circumcision. 25. On the betrayer Judas. 26. On Christ as king. 27. On Christ as a man, on Father and Son, and on the two covenants. 28. On the resurrection of Christ, the gospel of the apostles, and the nations. 29. On the events of Christ’s passion and the rejection of the Jewish people. 30. On the passion and resurrection of Christ, and on the generation that is to come. 31. On Christ as king, on his kingdom from eternity and without end, and on the submission of the nations. 32. On Christ as a man and son of man. 33. On the appearing of Christ. 34. On the eternal throne of Christ, how he will come from the seed of David, and on the persecutions of the church from time to time. 35. On the calling of the nations and on Christ. 36. On the sending of the Word from heaven, the calling of the nations, and the desolation of the former people. 37. On the betrayer, and the plot against Christ. 38. On two lords, Father and Son; on the existence of Christ before the ages, his eternal high priesthood, and his passion. 39. On Christ as a man. 40. On Christ as a stone, and on the “Hosanna.” 41. On the kingdom of Christ, and how it will come from David. 42. On the passion and the resurrection. 43. On the coming down of Christ from heaven. 44. On the sending of God the Word from heaven. 45. How all things were made through God the Word.

2 BOOK 2. Having set out the testimonies about our Savior from the historical writings, we will now gather, in this second part of the Extracts, the testimonies from the poetical books and add them next. We do so because these come first in time before the rest of the prophecies. So let us look first at those from the book of Psalms. 3a Psalm 1. “Blessed is the man who did not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, and did not stand in the way of sinners, and did not sit in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he will meditate day and night.” Who could be shown to have reached such an extraordinary height of virtue that he never fell into any sin at all? That, it seems to me, is what the words mean: “he did not walk in the counsel of the ungodly,” “he did not stand in the way of sinners,” and “he did not sit in the seat of the scornful.” By these words I think the psalm shows that the man who is called blessed is wholly untouched by sin. He did not merely refuse to walk in such company, nor, having walked, go further along; he did not even sit down, did not set foot there at all, and did not stand among them. Is that not a marvelous and rare thing? The praise of this man is also put in a form that stresses continuing action: he did not walk, he says, nor stand, nor sit among these kinds of wickedness. This shows that the blessed man’s virtue was settled and constant, always and in every circumstance. One may see many who have succeeded through attention and discipline, but no one like the man the psalm describes. Consider, too, what it means to flow smoothly in everything and to prosper according to God, never stumbling and never falling away from the goal of virtue, so that the psalm says of him, “and everything he does will prosper.”

3b Consider further what it means for someone to be so blended with the law of the Lord that his own will agrees with it, and to meditate on it not only through the whole day but also through the night, looking to it with the wakeful eyes of the mind. Consider what it means for him to act by it not only in his works and words by day but also in his thoughts and imaginings during sleep. Whoever considers this will know how great an achievement it is that the divine Spirit bears witness to. Now these words plainly surpass all human nature. They could fit only one man: the one who, according to the flesh, was born of the seed of David, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Of him alone the divine Spirit in Isaiah testified that “he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.” The reading of the Hebrew confirms this interpretation, for it is carefully worded: “Blessed is the man,” with the article added. It was also fitting that David, who was called the father of our Savior according to the flesh and had received the promise that Christ would be born from his seed, should dedicate to him the first fruits of his own prophecy. Anyone who wants to learn precisely how the words of the psalm apply to the Savior will find out by consulting those who have written commentaries on it.

4a Psalm 2: “Why did the nations rage, and the peoples plot empty things? The kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.” The people who heard Peter and John tell of their remarkable experiences bore witness in the Acts of the Apostles that this prophecy has been fulfilled. They gave thanks for the wonders they were hearing, and then added the words just quoted: “For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy child, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the nations and the peoples of Israel.” It was not only those who plotted against our Savior at that time who gathered against him. From that day to this, kings and rulers, whole nations and peoples, have done the same, by blaspheming him and plotting against his teaching. We must be persuaded, too, that it was not only the visible kings and rulers among men who plotted against him. Much more it was the unseen rulers of this age, who are perceptible only to the mind. They were at work then, and they are at work still. The “nations” are with them, and so are the “peoples,” that is, those of the circumcision, who studied God’s law “to no purpose” and in vain. They plotted not only against the Christ of God, but through him against the Father who sent him. About all of these the psalm goes on: “He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them. Then he will speak to them in his anger, and in his wrath he will trouble them.” After this, Christ himself instructs us about the saving work that came to him after the passion, and says: “But I was established as king by him on Zion, his holy mountain, proclaiming the decree of the Lord.” But we must not think, as the Jews do, with their earthbound notions, that the kingdom of Christ is like the kingdoms of men and will be set up on a physical mountain called Zion.

4b When he was asked whether he was a king, he answered: “My kingdom is not of this world.” For this reason he also promised the kingdom of heaven to those who believed in him. And it is not only the apostle who taught that Mount Zion is heavenly; many other prophecies teach it too. Micah, for example, first foretells that because of the ungodliness of the former people, “Zion will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will be like a hut in an orchard, and the mountain of the house will become a wooded thicket.” Then he goes on in the same way to speak of another Zion and another Jerusalem, saying: “And in the last days the mountain of the Lord will be made manifest, and peoples will come to it, and many nations will go, for from Zion the law will go out, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” So this is the Zion that is meant here too, where Christ says, “I was established as king by him on Zion, his holy mountain.” By whom was he established? Plainly by the Father who said to him, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you,” and, “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.” That the prophecy is true, and the promise does not lie, can be seen from how many in so short a time have come from every nation to the worship of God through our Savior. Otherwise, let those who shamelessly dare to deny the plain fact tell us to whom they could apply these words, if they refuse to accept that they are fulfilled in this way. Some have thought these words were spoken about King David. But they could not show that David suffered anything of this kind, as though rulers and kings, nations and peoples had plotted against him. And when, and for what great deeds of valor, did the Lord say to David, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you”?

4c How could the words, “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession,” be said of David, when his kingdom was clearly confined to Israel and the borders of Judea? Let them also explain why they do not accept the Christ who has come. Is it because he suffered? Must they then look for another Christ who will suffer nothing of the kind? But how would the prophecies be fulfilled which foretell that the Christ of God would suffer very many things? They say this in many other places, and not least in the psalm now in hand. Or should we suppose that this man sowed the teaching about the God of all throughout the world without any risk to himself? Can anyone even imagine that a merely human impulse, or the plain undertaking of some chance person, could have grown so strong and so capable? Could it, by his teaching alone, without a divinity working with him, have disposed souls of every kind among his hearers toward the God of all? Could it have sown these things long ago, and still today persuade people to abandon their ancestral customs and a life that was lawless, savage and undisciplined, and to hold to godliness alone? Could it make them value that godliness above even their own property, and above life itself, which is dear to everyone? But I do not think that anyone willing to judge even moderately fairly can fail to agree that such great things were accomplished through our Saviour with the help of a divine power above human power. From these things the divinity of the Lord who became man is demonstrated. At the same time there are clear proofs that he received the nations from the Father as his inheritance, and the ends of the earth as his possession, in agreement with the prophecy now in hand. But this is not the time to go through the whole psalm, especially since it has already received a very full exposition.

5 Psalm 3. It is easy to take the third psalm also as speaking of Christ, in keeping with the ones before it. It teaches about the plot against him in the words, “Lord, why have those who afflict me multiplied?” It also teaches about his resurrection, which is made clear by the words, “I lay down and slept; I rose up, because the Lord will take hold of me [to help me].” Every verse of the psalm could fit Christ if it received a suitable explanation. There is also good reason why it is placed third, to foretell the resurrection of the Lord in keeping with the prophecies before it. For the first psalm, as we have explained, teaches his blameless life and his sinless way of living. The second teaches what concerns his suffering. So the third, following these, foretells his resurrection. 6a Psalm 8. The opening of the eighth psalm, from the words “Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth,” seems to prophesy the calling of the Gentiles. For this reason it is titled “For the winepresses.” By winepresses we are to understand the churches throughout the world. In them the spiritual grapes of the true vine, Christ, and of his holy apostles, who are like his branches, are pressed. They yield the wine of understanding that comes from the apostles’ teachings, which produces every kind of joy. For otherwise the things said in the psalm cannot be fitted to physical winepresses. Nor does the wording contain any such meaning as it has elsewhere, whether about the vine transplanted out of Egypt, or the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, or anything like that. The words that begin, “What is man, that you remember him, or the son of man, that you visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels, you crowned him with glory and honor,” and what follows, are applied to our Saviour and Lord Jesus in the letter to the Hebrews. There, after “you put all things under his feet,” it adds: “But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” One could say that he was made a little lower than the angels not only because of the suffering of death but also because of his becoming man itself, when, being in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.

6b 2:6, and he humbled himself so far that, in place of the glory he had in the form of God, it was said of him: “We saw him, and he had no form or beauty, but his form was without honor, and lacking beside the sons of men.” In return for this the Father crowned him with glory and honor, exalting him highly and giving him the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. “And he set him over the works of his hands.” This too fits the person of our Savior, because the God the Word is in him, but it no longer fits any ordinary person. For the sacred writings are accustomed to count even the heavens among the works of God, as in the words, “and the heavens are the works of your hands.” Besides this: “He put all things in subjection under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea.” By these words it seems to be indicated, in a more allegorical way, that the more irrational kinds, like beasts, that is, lesser souls or even opposing powers, are brought under the yoke and the service of the Word.

7a Psalm 9. Chapter 5. The title of the ninth psalm is this: “To the end, for the hidden things. A psalm of David.” In place of this Symmachus has published: “A victory song, concerning the death of the son. A song of David.” The Hebrew seems to read this way, and more fully: “Lamanasse Almuth ben, a psalm of David.” It is a fine thing for those of the circumcision who use this psalm to be at a loss over what death, or which son, the psalm was spoken of to David. For to us it is plainly a prophecy of the Savior’s suffering. It seems that the Seventy also understood this, and that it was hinted at in a more veiled way. Aquila, for his part, also showing that some great act of manly courage took place in the Savior’s suffering, published it as: “To the victory-maker of the youthful vigor of the son. A song of David.” And anyone who pays attention could apply all the words of the psalm to Christ. He calls himself needy and poor, and he prophesies about his resurrection from the dead in the words: “Have mercy on me, Lord; see my humiliation from my enemies, you who lift me up from the gates of death, so that I may declare all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion.” Which Zion is meant, we showed a little earlier. The psalm also prophesies about the nations who would be saved through him, as if they were poor and needy in him. Among these words is this: “Set a lawgiver over them, Lord;

7b let the nations know that they are human.” Here it is worth pausing to notice that the nations are not subject to the law of Moses. This saying should also be brought forward against those of the circumcision who accuse the believers from the nations for not living by the law of Moses. And it should be shown that the prophetic word knew that there would be another lawgiver for the nations besides Moses, since it says, as in a prayer, “Set a lawgiver over them, Lord,” clearly meaning over the nations. It adds to this, “let the nations know that they are human.” It is as if it said: let the nations receive knowledge and understanding of their rational nature through the lawgiver who is to be set over them. This would be Christ, who gave us the common covenant when he said, “It was said to the ancients such and such, but I say this.” By a divine and unspeakable power he has been able to make his laws strong, not in one nation or two, nor in some part of the whole world, nor for only a short time. From the very working of that power one can see that it holds continually and among all the nations. But if anyone will not accept that this is so, let him show whom else he could name, other than our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, as a lawgiver set over the nations by the God of all, in keeping with the prophecy in hand, one who has become a teacher to all people of reverence toward the Maker of all.

8 Since the Lord says in the eleventh Psalm: “Because of the misery of the poor and the groaning of the needy, now I will rise up, says the Lord; I will set him in safety, I will speak boldly in him,” we ask whether this too might fit the person of Christ, who is teaching about his own resurrection from the dead. The sense would be something like this. For the sake of the nations, who were in the misery of wickedness (they are called “poor” by way of reproach, because they were deprived of riches toward God), I emptied myself and took up the struggle on their behalf even to death. Now I will rise. Having received from the Father authority over all, I will set all who have believed in me in salvation, and I will speak boldly in him, that is, either in the Father, or in what I have accomplished for salvation through so many brave deeds. That would be the sense of this verse. As for the opening words of the Psalm, “Save me, O God, for the godly man has failed,” and what follows, these show what the time was like when he suffered. For at that time the godly man had failed, and truths had grown few among the sons of men; each one spoke empty things to his neighbor. Everything that follows these words was fulfilled in that very time.

9 “I saw the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, so that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced, and my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will you let your holy one see corruption. You made known to me the ways of life; you will fill me with gladness with your face.” That these words also refer to the person of Christ, Peter bears witness in the Acts of the Apostles, where he says: “Jesus the Nazarene, a man shown to you by God with powers and wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this man, handed over by the determined plan and foreknowledge of God, you took, and nailed up by the hands of lawless men, and killed. God raised him up, loosing the pains of death, since it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says, ‘I saw the Lord always before me.’” Then, after saying some things in between, he adds these words exactly: “Men, brothers, I may speak boldly to you about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is among us to this day. Being a prophet, then, and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath that one from the fruit of his loins would sit on his throne, he saw ahead and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.” Since Peter has thus given the interpretation of the prophecy as applying to the Savior, it remains for anyone who does not treat this inquiry as a side matter either to apply every word of the Psalm to him in keeping with what Peter has taken it to mean, or to read what others have written in commentary on the Psalm. For our purpose does not allow us to say anything more on these passages than what has been said.

10 The words said in the sixteenth Psalm, “You have tested my heart, you have visited me by night, you have refined me by fire, and no injustice was found in me,” we have marked as the voice of Christ, since it is not otherwise fitting for human nature to say this. And all the words in the Psalm can be referred to the Savior by anyone who examines them carefully. 11a Psalm 17 (verse 9 of our extracts). Those of the circumcision will think that the seventeenth Psalm is spoken by no one other than David, because its title seems to point that way. But we will press them, since they cannot make this fit him: “You will rescue me from the contradiction of the people; you will set me as head of nations. A people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me. Foreign sons lied to me; foreign sons grew old.” Which nations can they show David was set over as head? Or what is this people that he had not known before, yet which served him and obeyed him at the hearing of the ear? And who are the foreign sons who lied to him, who grew old and limped away from their paths? But for us nothing at all in what the psalm says is a stumbling block when it is spoken in the person of Christ, who was set as head of the church from the nations. People who take the prophecy this way see it plainly fulfilled. For we were, truly we were, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, and for that reason unworthy of the knowledge of the word of God. But now that we have known God, or rather have been known by him, we who were once far off have become near.

11b We served the one who long ago did not know us, and we obeyed him at the hearing of the ear, receiving the word of his new covenant, which he made with us. Wonderfully, after the words “A people whom I did not know served me,” which speak of our calling, the psalm sets out the matter of the former congregation through the words “Foreign sons lied to me.” This is equivalent to “I begot sons and raised them up, but they rejected me.” These also grew old, limping away from their paths, because they did not accept the Christ of God. Rejected by them, he was set by the Father as head over the nations that served him and obeyed him at the hearing of the ear, in accordance with the prophecy that says elsewhere, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.” I think too that the opening of the Psalm makes clear his deity and his coming down to human beings. These things are said in a more hidden manner and would need more than a passing, hurried explanation. They are the words from “And he bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under his feet; and he mounted upon the cherubim and flew, he flew on the wings of the winds,” and whatever else of this kind is referred to the Word of God.

12a Psalm 18 (verse 10 of our extracts). “There are no speeches or words whose voices are not heard. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” We ask whose sound has gone out into all the earth, and whose words to the ends of the world, so that no words or speeches are left anywhere without their voices having been heard. No one could point to any others than the holy apostles, in whom the prophecy has been fulfilled. Their teaching about Christ became famous throughout the whole world under heaven. For living in this world, with the divine power working with them, they proclaimed throughout the whole world faith in the Christ of God. After this prediction of the preaching of his apostles, the text goes on to teach about him, that “in the sun he set his tabernacle.” By the sun we are to understand his divinity, in which he made his dwelling and, as it were, his tent. Or it may mean the body that he took from the virgin, which was like a tent for the divine power remaining in him.

12b This same one, like a bridegroom coming out of his bridal chamber, “rejoiced like a giant to run his course.” Like a bridegroom, he rose up from the Father’s bosom for the sake of his bride, the church. Like a brave and mighty giant, he fought through the contest set before him, conquered and overcame his opponents, and rejoiced to receive his partner and bride. “His going out was from the end of heaven,” and again, “his arrival was to its end.” For no one else has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man. And again, in the words of the holy apostle, “the one who came down is himself also the one who went up above all the heavens.” And “there is no one who will be hidden from his heat.” Of this heat he himself said, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and what do I wish, if it is already kindled?” Anyone can easily work out the rest of the passage for himself on the same lines.

13 The words in the nineteenth psalm, “Now I know that the Lord has saved his anointed,” point to the salvation from death of our Savior Jesus Christ. It was also said to him, “Let us rejoice in your salvation.” And the whole passage could be applied to him, once it receives a fitting explanation. 14 The words “Lord, in your power the king will be glad,” and what follows, one could say may refer to David. But “He asked you for life, and you gave him length of days forever and ever” no longer fits David. His death is plainly shown, and the span of his life, which was not stretched out over a long time of years. So the king would be Christ, who was set by the Father to reign on the heavenly Mount Zion. He asked the Father for life, not for himself, since he himself was the life, but for all who would believe in him. And the Father gave it to him, so that all who believe in him can pass over from death into eternal life, and into the length of days with God, which are forever and ever. The rest of the psalm is said as about the king’s glory, and it is no small matter. It would fit Christ rather than David, once it receives the explanation it deserves.

15a All who have a sound faith in Christ clearly agree on this. The opening of the psalm before us, which runs, “My God, my God, attend to me; why have you forsaken me?”, was spoken by him at the time of his suffering. His cry on the cross showed this: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.” But before we begin to take the prophecy in the psalm as applying to him, let us ask those who boast in circumcision who the speaker of the psalm could be. For he is clearly no ordinary person, among the other things he says, when he says: “You are the one who drew me out of the womb; my hope was on you from my mother’s breasts; I was cast upon you from the womb; from my mother’s belly you are my God.” And he goes on: “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing your praise.” And again: “He did not turn his face away from me, and when I cried out to him, he heard me. My praise is from you; in the great church I will confess you; I will pay my vows before those who fear him.” Besides these, let them also say whether they can apply the other things in the psalm to any of the holy men. For who has ever become such a one as the word described beforehand: “All who saw me sneered at me”? Or about whom did they speak with their lips and shake their heads, saying, “He hoped in the Lord; let him rescue him, let him save him, because he delights in him”? About whom is it said that many calves, and of what kind of nature, along with dogs and fat bulls, surrounded him, and opened their mouth against him like a lion tearing its prey and roaring?

15b And then, who was it that the assembly of evildoers surrounded? They surrounded him so closely that they pierced his hands and feet, counted all his bones, and divided his garments among themselves, casting lots for his clothing. For the speaker in the psalm describes things like these. After suffering all this, he goes on to say: “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” Let them also resolve these things, and explain the rest of the psalm along with them, especially from the words “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before him,” down to “A coming generation will be proclaimed to the Lord, and they will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet to be born, whom the Lord has made.” Let them point out the generation that did not yet exist at that time but is foretold as coming in a future age. Let them point out the people who did not yet exist, but who are foreseen as being born in later times. And let them say what they would make of the church formed from all the nations through Jesus Christ our Savior. Among so many multitudes who have come to know the God of all through Christ, would they not admit that these words have been fulfilled: “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,” and “All the families of the nations will worship before him”? It is time for those who are willing to judge fairly to admit that the prophecy was fulfilled in no one else but only in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At his coming the turning of the nations began, and the prophesied generation arrived. The people yet to be born is foretold not only here but also in the hundred-and-first psalm, in the words: “Let this be written for another generation,”

15c “and a people being created will praise the Lord.” This is the people of whom it was also said in Psalm 17: “A people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me.” So this is our Savior and Lord. He took on flesh, and because of it he was called a “worm,” one who became “the form of men” and “the contempt of the people.” “All who saw me mocked me.” This was above all at the time of the passion, when the prophecy reached its end, and those passing by blasphemed him and mocked him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself.” Then too “they spoke with their lips and shook their heads” against him, saying in these very words, “He hoped in the Lord; let him rescue him, let him save him, because he delights in him.” For the Gospels record that these very things were said against him at the passion. So it fits him, and him alone, to say to the Father: “You are the one who drew me out of the womb; you are my hope from my mother’s breasts; I was cast upon you from the womb; from my mother’s belly you are my God.” Beyond this, the text teaches us that certain evil and beastlike powers also worked the plot against him. This is why he said, “Many calves have surrounded me; fat bulls have hemmed me in.” And about the assembly of the circumcision that rose up against them, he says, “Many dogs have surrounded me; an assembly of evildoers has hemmed me in.” These also “dug through” not only his hands but his feet. Or, according to Aquila, who said, “They shamed my hands and my feet.” And this was truly fulfilled when they hung him on the cross and drove nails through his hands and his feet.

15d It is good, if anyone asks for proof from Scripture that Christ was foretold to endure the cross, to bring forward, along with other passages that show this, the words “they pierced,” and even more the reading “they shamed my hands and my feet.” What follows is: “They divided my garments among themselves, and they cast a lot for my clothing.” Aquila rendered it like this: “They will divide my garment among themselves, and they will cast a lot for my clothing.” Symmachus: “They shared out my garments among themselves, and they drew lots for my clothing.” This too was fulfilled at the time of the passion. Those who crucified him took his garments and made four parts, one part for each soldier, and the tunic as well. The tunic was seamless, woven from the top all the way through. So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it, to decide whose it will be.” The evangelist adds: “so that the Scripture might be fulfilled”: “They divided my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast a lot.” So much for that prophecy. Concerning [it], the Hebrew contains something like “anna” [text uncertain]. In keeping with this, the psalm goes on, just as the Gospels do, with the words “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” This seems to me to mean something like: “Save, we beg you! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” the Father and God of all.

16 “The Lord swore to David a truth, and he will not set it aside: ‘From the fruit of your womb I will set one upon your throne.’” And again: “There I will make a horn spring up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. I will clothe your enemies with shame, but upon him my holiness will blossom.” Here too a promise about Christ is clearly given to David, with an oath from God: that Christ would be born from his offspring and would take his throne. The passages involved would need a great deal of examination, since Christ does not appear to have sat bodily on David’s throne and kingdom. We will put that aside, because it does not belong to the present work to spend our time on an exposition of the psalm that departs from the purpose we have set. But we should reason fairly. If one passage cannot be applied to Christ in a bodily way, we must not therefore brush aside the many places where Scripture speaks plainly about him. Rather, following the true account and standing by the divine Scripture itself, we should pay attention to how it prophesies at one time that he will come poor, cheap and dishonored, having neither form nor beauty, and at another time calls him an honored king. Some of these things can be fulfilled bodily, others only according to the spiritual sense of Scripture, and some we must expect to be fulfilled at his second coming. Still, our Lord was also called King of the Jews at his first coming, and not by mere chance, for Pilate ordered that this be written on his cross in Greek, Latin and Hebrew letters: “This is the king of the Jews.”

17 Psalm 141, verse 7. The words spoken here, “The righteous will wait for me until you repay me,” seem to be spoken in the person of the Savior. For whom else will the righteous wait until God repays him, if not this one? It is said somewhere of the righteous of old that, though they were well attested, they did not receive the promises, because God had foreseen something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect apart from us. It is clear that the verse looks to him, because the psalm also foretells the events of his passion, in agreement with the other prophecies. For it is written: “I will pour out my prayer before him; I will declare my affliction before him. When my spirit failed within me, you knew my paths. On this road where I was walking they hid a snare for me.” And again: “Rescue me from those who pursue me, for they have grown stronger than I am.” After these words he prays about his resurrection from the dead, and says: “Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name.” To this he adds: “The righteous will wait for me until you repay me.” So all those righteous people waited for Christ until the Father should repay him, because he emptied himself and became obedient to him even to death. What would the Father repay him with, if not the nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession? The purpose is that when the full number of the nations has come in, then all Israel too may be saved. The whole psalm could also be applied to Christ, since it contains the events of his taking on human nature, in which he was plotted against.

18 Psalm 143. In the psalm now in our hands it says, “Lord, bow the heavens and come down.” In the seventeenth psalm it says, “And he bowed the heavens and came down.” I noted the verse there, and here too I did the same, understanding that these things are said about the Word of God. For by bowing the heavens, that is, by emptying himself of the heavenly glory in which he was in the form of God, he came down to the lower parts of the earth, because of the plan of salvation he took on for the sake of human salvation. For this reason, before the verse quoted, the word says in wonder: “Lord, what is man, that you have been made known to him, or the son of man, that you take account of him?” For to this end the Word of God bowed the so-called heavens and came down: that by becoming man he might be made known to the human race, which had previously been ignorant of him. And he did not despise the one who had become the son of man, counting him as nothing, that is, every rational soul made in the image of God. You may also understand the rest of the psalm in a spiritual sense.

19 Psalm 147. I decided to mark this verse also: “He sends his word to the earth; his word will run swiftly.” Here too the Scripture teaches that the Word of God is a real subsistent being, distinct from the Father who sends him. Notice how the verse goes on: “his word will run swiftly.” This too can be seen fulfilled after the coming of Christ, since his teaching ran its course in a very short time and, within not many years, took hold of the whole earth, to the very ends of the inhabited world. 20 Ps. 148. 16. The words said here are, “Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he spoke and they came into being; he commanded and they were created.” In the testimonies about the God the Word who was in the beginning with God, we have already collected the evidence. We learned there that the Word of God is also called his “name,” according to one of the titles by which we think of him. Here, then, after the opening call, “Praise the Lord,” and after listing this and that, the Spirit goes on to command that praise be given after the Father to his name. The Spirit adds that “he spoke and they came into being; he commanded and they were created.” The one who gives the order and the command would be the God and Father of the whole universe. The one who serves is the Word of God, who carries out the Father’s will for the making of created things. It should also be noted that in Psalm 32 these very words are found: “he spoke and they came into being; he commanded and they were created.” There, however, it is said about the earth and those who inhabit the world. Here it is said about those in the heavens and in the so-called highest places: angels and powers, and also the sun, the moon, the stars, and everything else listed with them. In this the divine Scripture teaches us that, as the holy apostle says, everything was created through the Word, both what is in the heavens and what is on the earth, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and in him, and without him not one thing came into being. That is all that comes from the Psalms. Since this part of the discussion has had a sufficient and moderate length, we will make a fresh start and make our selections from the remaining books in verse, and then from the prophets.