CHAPTER 23
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk. VI.
CHAPTER
From the same.
How the Lord rebukes the Jewish People, because They will not receive Him 7vhen He comes, nor hear His Call, and what He 7vill suffer at Their Hands.
[Passages quoted, Isa.
1. i, 2 a, b.] Here the Lord Himself recording plainly His Coming among (303) men rebukes the Jewish people, because they will not receive
Him when He comes, nor hear Him when He calls.
And He teaches, as if by way of apology, that this is the cause of their own rejection.
" For when I came," He says, " I was not among you as a man :
I called, and there was none that heard : therefore," He says, "ye were sold for your sins, inasmuch as ye were of yourselves divorced from my call, not that I had given you a bill of divorcement."
This is clearly (1>) addressed to the Jews, and at the same time reveals their outrages on Him at His Passion, when it says :
" I gave my back to scourges, and my cheeks to blows," and that which follows.
But these words shall be properly interpreted at leisure.
CHAPTER lU From the same.
Ho7t' the Same Lord that spaW iii the Prophets will come Among Men and be seen by Their Eyes, and he hioicn to the Gentiles.
[Passage quoted, Isa. lii. 5-10.] I'he prophecy of Christ's Passion immediately succeeds this in one and the same passage,^ which I sliall expound at leisure.
One and the same Lord, who said in the previous (304) c|uotation to the Jewish people, "Vou were sold for your sins, and for your inicjuities I sent away your mother, because I came, and there was no man :
I called and there was none ' uVii.ir.
Cf. r.E.
252.1.
Ch. 24.
GOOD NEWS FOR SION
to hear," says in the passage before us to the Jews again :
" Because of you my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles."
Then, as though having another people besides them, he adds, "Therefore my people shall know my name," and teaches that not another, but the same Lord that spoke in the prophets, will sojourn some day in our life, saying, " I am he that speak ; I will come."
And the words, "As a season (b) upon the mountains, as the feet of one preaching a message of peace, as one preaching good things, I will make thy salvation known, saying, Sion, thy God reigneth," the other translators make it clearer.
For Aquila says :
" How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him that preacheth the gospel, who publisheth peace, who preacheth the gospel of good things, publishing salvation, saying to Sion, Thy God reigneth."
And Symmachus says, " How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him that preacheth the gospel, making peace known, publishing good things, making salvation known, saying to Sion, Thy God reigneth'": and instead of " The (c) voice of thy guards is lifted, and they shall rejoice with the voice together, because they shall see eye to eye."
Symmachus translates thus :
" The voice of thy guards ; they have raised their voice.
Together will they praise :
For they will see openly."
By "guards" would here be meant the holy apostles of our Saviour, who also saw openly Him that was foretold, and raised their voice preaching to all the world.
Sion and Jerusalem that here have the good news (tl) told them the apostle knew to be heavenly, when he said, " But Jerusalem that is above is free, that is the mother of Gal. iv. us," and, " Ye have come to Mount Sion, and the city of the 26. living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable ^^*^^- *" company of angels."
^ Sion might also mean the Church ^ established by Christ in every part of the world, and Jerusalem the holy constitution which, once established of old time among the ancient Jews alone, was driven into the wilderness by their impiety, and then again was restored far better than before through the coming of our Saviour.
Therefore the prophecy says, "Let the waste places of (305) * W. II.
Ka\ nvpiitTiv ayytXoiv, TravrtyVfift Kal iKK\r)ffia— (0776X011' wai'Tiy'tpei in margin).
: /xvpt-itrtv ayyt'Xwv iravrtyvpti.
VOL. ir.