The Reversal of Israel's Fortune

These things are certain and unshakeable, from which we shall not depart because of what has happened, even though these things happening are contrary to us now. For they say we have been left abandoned from you and, in our absence, the shame that once seized the wars stands against us, and we have become humbled by those whom we previously mastered, and we have been torn apart by those whom we used to tear apart. For in this, even more, the power that once belonged to the Israelites is demonstrated by God, through which, being left behind, they are defeated; just as for man, to be left behind has become the occasion of death, demonstrating that the resurrection comes from God in no other way.

We were seized by cowardice, he says (Ps 43:12), being unable to defend ourselves against those devouring us like sheep; a cowardice which even Moses threatened to bring upon them because of their lawlessness, saying that the sound of a rushing leaf would pursue them. And we have become, he says, captives and have been scattered among the nations, those who previously were driven out from the nations and possessed the holy land.

This analysis of honor is like a man being made of clay and returning to clay; so also regarding the people Isaiah says: We became as we were from the beginning, when you did not begin us and your mercy was not called upon us. They were sold for nothing, as Isaiah also says (Ps 43:13a); and he says they were sold because of their sins, just as Paul says concerning man: I am flesh, sold under the power of sin. But this is the alienation of becoming slaves to men instead of God, which Jeroboam threatened, along with his people through the prophet Shemaiah, that they would become slaves to the Egyptian king Shishak, and would know the slavery of God and the slavery of the kings of the earth.

For such a thing is a parable, being remembered in the oracles (Ps 43:15); just as Jeremiah says against the false prophets: A curse shall be taken upon you in your captivity, O Judah, in Babylon, saying, 'The Lord will do to you as He did to Zedekiah and to Ahaziah, whom he made kings of Babylon to be burned in the fire, because of the lawlessness they committed in Israel.'

Grant these things now, and most justly: how they, like sheep, were being eaten up when they led Christ as a lamb to slaughter, but were also handed over to the Gentiles as the Lord was betrayed for silver, and by some means cast into death, mocking just as they were making mockery and head-movements when the Lord was crucified (Ps 43:18-21).

This alone remains for Israel as a hope for the calling back of the remnant, which the foretold prophecy says: not to turn toward the customs of the Greeks according to the idolatry they had established, nor to deviate from the commanded way of piety toward one God, even though they were thus humbled and made to dwell in exile and placed under the power of those who kill; which was most certainly guarded regarding Ananias, Azariah, and Mishael, who remained in the fire for the sake of not accepting worship. It is not pious, then, how even the remaining Jews in the present time behave; indeed, it is the very thing that they do not entirely abandon—not walking into idols or even the Greek disease regarding melodies—but the impiety toward Christ is, and thus is most harmfully convicted, that even while not worshiping idols as before, they are enslaved as never before (Ps 44:2).

Having remembered the evils of the Israelites before this and leaving behind the redemption which began for the sake of evils, beginning from the Gentiles and also taking a not small share of them (for many also are those having believed from the Jews), he performs a sort of initiation regarding these things, promising a good word concerning the arrival of the King, who surveys the works of the righteous for his inspection and, as if being heard by them, grants to them the divine fullness, because he has come to pay what is not truly fulfilled in men, which is lawful to divine purity and, from him, a sanctifying reception. He seems to intend to say many things quickly, imitating one revealing these things with the sharp pen of a scribe.

Isaiah foresees his outward appearance, omitting among the sons of men the dishonor of prophesying according to the flesh, while David interprets the divine beauty, which was also revealed by Isaiah through the King that he shall be seen with glory (Ps 44:3ab). And this indeed reveals the secret glory and the beauty of the invisible, while it announces the manifestation of that beauty through words and works, for the sake of...