Chapter 34. The Millennium Is Proved from the Prophets and the Parables.
Chapter 34
1. Isaiah himself announced such future joy in the resurrection of the just. He spoke as follows: The dead shall rise, and those who are in the tombs shall rise, and they shall rejoice who are on the earth. For your dew is health to them. Ezekiel said the same: Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, and I will bring you home into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves. I will raise my people from the graves, and I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you upon your own land; then you shall know that I am the Lord. And again, the same one said: Thus says the Lord God, “When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest my holiness in the midst of the Gentile peoples, then they shall dwell in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob. And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses, and plant vineyards. They shall dwell securely when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God, and the God of their fathers.”
Shortly before, we showed that the Church is the offspring of Abraham, for this reason, too, that we may know that <there is one God> in the new covenant and the old who will assemble from all the Gentiles those who will be saved—raising up children from stones. Jeremiah said: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, “As the Lord lives, who brought up the people of Israel <out of the land of Egypt”; but, “As the Lord lives who brought up the children> out of the north country, and out of all the countries where he had driven them, and he shall restore them to their land which he gave to their Fathers.”
2. Isaiah declares that the whole creation, according to God’s will, will tend toward growth and development, so that it can produce and ripen such fruits: And upon every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks of running water, in the day of the slaughter of many, when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, in the day when the Lord binds up the hurt of his people, and heals the wound inflicted by his blow. Now, the pain comes from the wound by which man was struck in the beginning in Adam when he was disobedient; that is, death, which God healed by raising us from the dead and restoring us to the inheritance of the Fathers, as is contained in the blessing of Japheth “God enlarged Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem.” Isaiah also spoke of that: Then you shall delight in the Lord, and he will make you ride upon the whole earth; and he will feed you with the heritage of Jacob.
That is what the Lord also said: Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, he will gird himself, and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants!
John too, spoke of the same thing in the Apocalypse: Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection. Isaiah announced even the time when these things would happen: Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” Until cities lie waste without inhabitants, and houses without men, and the land is utterly desolate. And the Lord removes men far away, and they are multiplied that were left on the earth.
Daniel, likewise, said the same thing: And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kings under the heavens shall be given to the saints of the Most High, and his kingdom shall be everlasting, and all dominions shall serve him and obey him. And lest the promise be thought to have been given for the present time, the Prophet was told: But you go your way, and you shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.
3. Now the promises were announced not only to the Prophets and the Patriarchs but also to the churches gathered together from the nations, which the Spirit calls also islands, because they are placed in the midst of a turbulence and endure the tempests of blasphemies, and are safe ports for those in dangers and a refuge for those who love the height [of Truth] and who try to shun the profundity of error.
Jeremiah puts it thus: Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it on the islands afar off; say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock. For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from the hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall come to the good things of the Lord, to the land of grain and wine and fruits and herds and flocks; their life shall be like a fruitful tree, and they shall be hungry no more. Then shall the maidens rejoice in the company of the young men, and the old men shall be merry; and I will turn their mourning into joy, and I will make them rejoice; and I will magnify and feast the soul of the priests of the sons of Levi; and my people shall be satisfied with good things.”
In the preceding Book we have shown that the Levites and the priests are all disciples of the Lord, who also profane the Sabbath in the temple, and that, without fault. So, such promises most clearly signify a feast with this creation in the kingdom of the just—a feast God promises to serve them.
4. Likewise, Isaiah said of Jerusalem and its king: Thus says the Lord: Blessed is he who has children in Zion, and servants in Jerusalem. Behold a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. And of the preparation by which it will be renewed he said: Behold I will prepare for you a precious stone, and [lay] your foundations with sapphires, and I will make your pinnacles of agate, and your gates of carbuncles, and your well of precious stones. All your sons shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the prosperity of your sons. In righteousness you shall be established.
Again, the same one said: Behold I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and [be glad] in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping, and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant or an old man who does not fill out his time, for the young man shall be a hundred years old, and a sinner a hundred years old on dying shall be accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruits. <They shall drink wine>. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not prepare the ground and another eat; for like the days of the tree of life shall the days of my people be; and they shall <make use of> the works of their hands.