Book of the Promises and Predictions of God 2.9–2.17

That his brothers spoke against Christ the Lord and the Church in Moses. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in the book of Numbers. “Moses,” says Scripture, “was meek above all men who were on the earth.” In this meekness our Mediator resounds, to whom David says: “You, Lord, are sweet and mild.” And he himself in the Gospel: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” Aaron and Miriam spoke against Moses their brother because he had taken an Ethiopian wife. And his brothers spoke against our Lord because he ate with tax collectors and sinners. When he said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a physician but the sick; I came not to call the just but sinners to repentance,” he showed that he had taken that Ethiopian woman from the nations, who says: “I am dark and beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem.” Miriam, who had spoken against him, at once received the penalty of leprosy as punishment, which souls ought to fear that speak against Christ and the Church. For he says of such through the prophet: “Instead of loving me, they spoke against me; but I prayed.” For by Moses’ prayer Miriam was cleansed and obtained pardon, so that such a soul, with so great a high priest praying, may be healed of every fault. By divine command Moses sent twelve men chosen from the people to spy out the land of the Canaanites, and commanded them not only to look at the cities and people but also to bring back with them some of the fruits of the land. As they went and did what was commanded, a certain valley received them, from which they cut a cluster of grapes, which for its size was put on a pole, and, carrying it with pomegranates and figs, they returned to the camp, showed the fruits, and told what they had seen. In these three fruits the mysteries of Christ the Lord and of the Church resound. The cluster is Christ; the voice of the Church in the Song of Songs: “My beloved is a cluster of henna.” That it is carried on wood, recognize the Crucified. That it is between two spies, the prophet Habakkuk: “In the midst of two living creatures,” he says, “you will be known.” Again the Church says of herself in the same Song: “The vine has flowered, the pomegranates have flowered.” The fig, of whose leaves the first human transgressors made themselves aprons, shows original sin, which is absolved through the pomegranates of the Church, and the blood of the vine, which was shed for the remission of all sins. But those who had gone up with the spies terrified the people with these words: that the men of that promised land were bold, great men, and the cities fortified. They declare that they saw giants there too, in whose sight they themselves were like locusts on the earth. Struck with fear of these, the people murmured again against Moses and resolved to choose a leader to take them back to Egypt. This is the evil of those who, freed through baptism, from fear of demons look not ahead but back; forgetting God’s benefits and his wonderful deeds, and despairing that God’s promises will be fulfilled toward them, they choose to return to him whom they had already renounced, despising him in whom they had believed and denying his power. Rebuking them he says: “They have turned their backs to me, and not their faces.” And the apostle Peter: “It would have been better for them not to know the way of salvation than, knowing it, to look back from the holy commandment handed down to them. The true proverb has happened to them: The dog has returned to its vomit, and the washed sow to its wallowing in the mud.” But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who had looked over the land, lying prostrate with Moses and Aaron the priests, do the duties of piety and call the people back from the purpose of their despairing will, saying: “Do not fear the people of the land, for they are food for us. Their time has departed from them, but the Lord is with us; do not fear them.” All these things resound for the Christian people too in the overthrow of idols, that they should not be apostates from God, fearing demons from whom they have already been freed by God’s grace. Describing their empty pomp, Jeremiah says among other things: “When you have entered Babylon, you will see there gods of gold and silver carried on shoulders. But they are made by hands and empty; they can neither help nor harm, because they are nothing: so do not fear them.” “But sanctify the Lord in your hearts, and he will be your fear,” as Isaiah says. And writing of the worshipers of demons Jeremiah says: “There were those famous giants, skilled in war. The Lord did not choose them, nor give them the way of knowledge. And they perished because they had no counsel.” And Solomon: “From the beginning,” he says, “when the proud giants perished.” Against their pride the humble people of Christ rises victorious. But when the Hebrew people, indignant, wanted to stone those who were pleading with them, the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle. For so the boldness of the wicked is always checked by the presence of divine power. And when the Lord wished to destroy those who provoked him, Moses, meek above all, found what to bring forward for the grace of intercession: “The Egyptians will hear,” he says, “when you have crushed this people, and they will say: Because he could not bring them into the land he swore to them, he laid them low in the desert. And now let your hand be exalted, Lord, as you said: I am God, patient, and very merciful, and true.” Appeased by these prayers, God so tempered his anger that worthy punishment still followed the sinners. He foretold with an oath that they would not enter into the rest of the promised land, except Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh; and when all had died in the desert, their sons, obedient, received the inheritance which they, stubborn, had lost. So our Mediator, the Lord Jesus, when the same people rebelled against him and conferred with Herod about his death, spurned the Jews, dead in the desert of this life even in soul, and gave the everlasting inheritance to their sons, whom impious Herod killed in his place.

Of the confirmation of the priesthood of Christ the Lord, in the budding rod of Aaron. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in the book of Numbers. When the present judgment of God punished Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, despisers of his commandments who wished to usurp the priestly office, condemning in them all heretics, as we set out above (part 1, chapter 12), he enjoined on Moses a certain sign by which to confirm the chief of priests chosen by him. The Lord said to Moses: “Tell the sons of Israel that all their leaders shall give their rods, one for each tribe.” So Moses, receiving twelve rods, and Aaron’s rod among their rods, placed them before the Lord and brought them into the tabernacle of testimony. And it happened that on the next day Moses and Aaron entered the tabernacle. And behold, Aaron’s rod of the house of Levi had budded, and put forth a shoot, a flower, and had produced nuts. By this sign he orders the people to be quiet, saying: “Let their murmuring against me cease, that they may not all die so.” The heretics perish murmuring against the lawful priest of the Lord. That Aaron’s rod, flowering, produced nuts, these things point to our Christ the Lord as priest, of whom Isaiah says: “A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise from his root.” Whoever devoutly seeks understands that in the nut the world and the Church in the world are shown. For from two parts joined together, as within the vault of heaven and the expanse of the earth, like the four parts of the world, are contained within, as with peoples, having a thin skin in its midst, like the seas spread through the parts. The mysteries of the Church too are in it, covered by the secrets of the two Testaments, old and new, and the four horns of the cross, by which the world is redeemed, having the water of baptism in its midst, by which it ever flourishes green and fruitful. The tree of this fruit, reaching high, with shady branches, spread through slender and soft shoots, producing them like gems, either single in unity, or in twos in the two commandments, or in threes in the number of the Trinity, or joined in fours in the four Gospels, declares the beauty and wonderful works of its maker. Their juice pressed from the husk colors certain white things that are dyed, and is applied for healing to sore throats. These coverings, clothed with the leaves of green groves, refresh those burning with heat in the rest of their leaves, and temper with their breath the fevers of the sick. Not without reason the Lord commands the prophet Jeremiah to make himself a staff of nut wood, by which the whole Church in the world and the world in it may be sustained by Christ’s help and borne by his grace, which sings in the Psalms and says: “Your rod and your staff, they have comforted me.”

Of Christ the Lord, freeing from the devil’s bite, in the bronze serpent. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in the book of Numbers. Thirsting again in another part of the desert, the people murmured against Moses and against the Lord. Moses, who had already done such and greater signs, doubted that water could be brought forth from the rock which had given it before; and for this he incurred offense, because he did not glorify God before the sons of Israel; that he would not bring the people into the land of promise, the avenging divine sentence confirms. There Aaron died on Mount Hor and left his son Eleazar as priest. Moses is kept a little longer; into his place passes Joshua son of Nun, who led the people into the land of promise. Rightly was the distribution of the earthly inheritance too kept for this name, since the apostolic sentence has laid it down that there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved; which shows our leader, Christ Jesus the Lord, distributing himself to his own as an everlasting inheritance, and those who receive him say: “My inheritance is splendid to me.” While the same people was going on through certain nations which the Lord had commanded it to root out, for whom, their sins filled up through the guilt of idolatry, the end had already come, wearied by the journey and murmuring against the Lord, it was tormented in the desert by the bites of serpents; and repenting, it begged Moses with prayers to become a suppliant to the Lord for them. But God, ever merciful and compassionate, who in judging by degrees gives place for repentance, gave the remedy of a serpent lifted up on wood against the deadly bites of the serpents. For Moses is ordered to make a bronze serpent and, fixing it on a high pole, to command the people that if anyone felt himself wounded by the bite of any serpent, he should at once look at the bronze serpent, by the sight of which he would be healed at once. So that serpent, the devil, is mocked, of whom it is said through David: “The dragon which you formed to mock him.” For when in the desert of this life the devil has fixed his deadly bites through various vices in those already consecrated in baptism as in the Red Sea, let one at once look to the Lord Jesus lifted up on the wood of the cross, that is, let him not withdraw from the heavenly physician, so that everyone who sees and believes in him (as he himself says in the Gospel) may not perish but have eternal life.

That blessing comes upon those who for Christ’s sake have despised their kin. A promise made and figured. Believed and seen in Numbers. Balak king of Moab hired Balaam, a prophet from the nations (though a seer of the one true God), and invited him to curse the people blessed by God, believing he could easily overcome it once cursed. But the prophet asks the Lord whether he should go or stay. He is forbidden by the Lord to come, and sends the king word of the prohibition. With other messengers the king, promising greater gifts, presses the prophet to come. Again Balaam, with a perverse heart, asks the one who had already forbidden him, testing whether leave to go would be given. Here Scripture rightly sounds: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” So leave to go is given to the bad mind, on condition that whatever the Lord put in his mouth he should say. While he was already captive in heart to his avarice, the angel meeting him chose to show himself to the beast that carried him rather than to him; for man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he was compared to senseless beasts, and became not like them but worse. For the beast of burden (as the apostle Peter says in his letter), answering with a human voice, restrained the prophet’s madness. Then that prophet, brought before the king, while he meant to curse, blessed, counted among those whom the prophet David marks, saying: “They will curse, and you will bless”; and elsewhere: “They blessed with their mouth.” The later outcome taught this. For the prophetic blessing was fulfilled, by which God promised the nations, even through such a man, the coming of his only Son from that people. Moved by this prophecy he said among other things: “A star shall rise from Jacob, and a man shall rise up from Israel, and shall shatter all the kingdoms of the earth.” That this was said of Christ the Lord the divine Gospels attest. He, then, who wanted to curse and could not, gave the king the most wicked counsel of the serpent he had sought out: that beautiful women from among his own people, whose beauty and adornment would soften the iron and strength, should be sent to the Hebrew people to stir up lust. Persuaded by desire for them, sacrificing to idols and eating what was sacrificed, God being offended, they led almost all Israel captive into death. For when they were struck by the divine hand and a very great multitude fell in the desert, almost the whole synagogue would have perished, had not Phinehas the priest, running through with the sword those who were adulterers in mind and body, appeased God’s wrath by this deed. The apostle John is told in the Apocalypse to write to the angel, that is, the ruler, of the church of Pergamum, that there were among his people those who held the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the eyes of the sons of Israel, to eat of the sacrifice and commit sexual immorality; showing that such people exist even now, whom either the avenger consumes thus, or, rebuked under penance, the grace of the priest frees.

Of the Lord Jesus as ruler, signified in Moses’ passing. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in Deuteronomy. When Moses knew he was near his burial, he summarized the whole law for the people, and bound the whole synagogue with blessings and curses and with that terrible song of Deuteronomy, calling heaven and earth to witness that he had hidden nothing of the Lord’s commands from them and had acted with all watchful care so that nothing should arise to harm the people; and he warns that they must not depart from the Lord’s precepts nor turn aside from him in anything, and that in prosperity they must fear lest adversity follow. He adds too, with prophetic spirit, marking out the future for them: that after his death, leaving the true God, they would run after the vain and harmful idols of the nations, and, weighed down by the burden of sins from their worship, would sink to the depths; and that they would be forsaken by God if they forsook God. Having said this, sealing all the tribes with a mystic blessing, and handing over the people to be governed by Joshua son of Nun, he himself, now advanced in age, departed from this life to the Lord. Our Mediator, the Lord Jesus, too, passing from this world to the Father, commended his faith and peace to his disciples, and, as John the evangelist says, loving them to the end, instructed them. That prophetic warning too he gave to those who learned, through his apostle Paul: that after his departure fierce wolves would come in, not sparing the flock, and that from the disciples themselves false prophets would arise, speaking perverse things. Of them he says in his letter: “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the mutilation.” And commending them all to God and to the word of his grace, Paul declares that they would not see his face again, and handed them over to be governed by the Lord Jesus, who is with his own until the end of the world.

Joshua son of Nun shows the figure of the Lord Jesus conquering the earthly city. A promise made and figured. Believed and seen in Joshua. Joshua son of Nun, at God’s command consecrated by Moses’ hand, became leader of the people. For, as must often be said, it was not fitting that anyone should bring the people of God into the land of promise except him who bore the sacraments and salvation of both the name and the thing. He sends two spies into Jericho, which seemed to be the first among the cities of the promised land. Our Lord Jesus too sent two spies, to shake the earth by proclaiming his first coming, namely Zechariah the priest and his son John, of whom the same father and priest says to his son: “You, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways.” And of the same John the angel says: “He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah.” The spies of that land were received by Rahab the harlot, who hid them and freed them from their pursuers. And those whom the Lord Jesus sent a soul given to fornication received, who, awaiting the salvation of the name of Jesus, was freed from the prostitution of idolatry through the scarlet cord, the sign of his sacred blood. Such souls coming out of this fornication Tamar too, Judah’s daughter-in-law, signifies in her twins, when her younger son first began to put his hand out of the womb, and, having received the scarlet sign, was born later: showing in herself the people of the nations, which, wandering, though it had first put its hand to the rites of idols, came later to Christ, reborn in baptism through the sign of his blood. Rahab hid the spies under flax. That the spies of our Lord Jesus too were hidden under flax the prophet Isaiah testifies, saying: “A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench”: signifying the Jewish nation itself, which, like flax, smoking in sacrifices, kept all prophecy covered until Christ; and his forerunners, by whom it is preserved until now, not quenched, so that what still lies covered in it may be revealed in the future. For the woman betrayed to the spies her fellow citizens, terrified by fear of Joshua the leader, so that this too might be fulfilled which was said of our Lord Jesus: “At your face the nations shall be troubled, when you do wonders.” When the spies returned to Joshua and had told all they had done, by divine command he orders the camp of the twelve tribes of Israel to move and all to cross the Jordan together, with the ark going before, which, as has been said, already bore in figure the sacraments of our leader Jesus. While it stood in the middle of the river, the lower water flowing away in divided parts and the upper standing unmoved, the riverbed itself gave dry ground to those crossing. And at once, at the Lord’s command, Joshua ordered twelve stones to be taken from the middle of the river, one by each tribe, by which, in the sacred number, the twelve apostles of our Jesus were signified. When the people had crossed, the heap which the water had formed at God’s command being complete, the river, running back on itself, gave back the crossers joyful. Here too the likeness of baptism is expressed, so that those born in the desert, who had not known the sacraments of the Red Sea, washed in the crossing of the Jordan, received circumcision with knives of stone. For everyone consecrated in baptism under our Jesus is circumcised in heart by the rock, because all his strength is made firm on the rock. That this rock is Christ has already been shown above.

That souls are freed from the prostitution of idols through the Lord Jesus. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in Joshua. The people of God, coming to Jericho with Joshua as leader, and seeing it a city fortified on every side, besieged it. Wonderful in the divine commands the conflict seems to have been entered upon there; it was in a way a spiritual contest: with the blasts of seven trumpets seven times a day, recurring through a whole week, on the last day, as the trumpets sounded together and all shouted, that whole proud construction of walls, shaken not by human but by divine hand, fell. The city overthrown and burned with its peoples, only Rahab with her own could be freed from it through the sign of blood. With these trumpets, with this shouting of those who rejoice, at the command of the Lord Jesus our army too fights. For with the sevenfold Spirit, of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and strength, of knowledge and piety, and of the fear of God, when those sing who sing on beaten trumpets and with the voice of the horn trumpet, and the people shout in the sight of the king, the Lord, seven times a day as they say praises over the judgments of his justice, all the pride of the earthly city of Jericho is vanquished. It is burned up with fire by him of whom it is said: “Fire shall go before him and burn up his enemies round about.” In it the hope of salvation is given to the penitent soul given to fornication, when, freed by the sign of the blood of the Lord Jesus, it is said to the proud and swollen: “Harlots and tax collectors will go before you into the kingdom of God.” Such souls our Lord Jesus found, whether among the Jews or among the nations. By their example, so that one might pass from prostitution to a lawful husband, the prophet Hosea is ordered to take a woman given to fornication and to beget sons by her, so that she who shortly before had been a harlot might now be a wife, and might have sons who had striven not to have sons, and might serve no longer lust but the begetting of offspring. This is set out for us more plainly through the prophet Jeremiah, when the whole of Judea is reproached: “If a woman has been defiled, will her husband return to her? And you have committed fornication with many shepherds, and yet return to me, says the Lord.” And through Hosea: “I will call not my people, my people; and her not beloved, beloved.” The apostle Paul too rebukes such souls for their good, saying: “It is reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such immorality as is not even among the nations.” But our Lord Jesus, when he receives such by his grace to salvation, by that divinity of his power makes the harlot a virgin. Paul, as matchmaker, brings her into chaste and spiritual marriage, saying: “For I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Receiving sons from her not by flesh but by the Spirit, he makes the Church a virgin, a mother rejoicing in the fruitfulness of children. These the apostle John admonishes with him, saying: “Beloved, we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be.” And Paul adds: “But if children, then heirs; heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ.”

That all vices are to be conquered through the Lord Jesus. A promise made and figured. Believed and seen in Joshua. Joshua son of Nun conquers the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, and the other nations whose lands the Lord had promised to his people as an inheritance. And our Lord Jesus conquers idolatry, pride, envy, luxury, and the other vices, to prepare himself as an eternal inheritance for his own. Joshua son of Nun divided the land by the measuring line to the victorious people. And our people, triumphant in Christ Jesus, says: “The lines have fallen to me in splendid places; for my inheritance is splendid to me.” The Lord commands the daughters of Zelophehad, because he left no male heir, to take their father’s inheritance, so that in them souls destitute of human help might be signified, who, when God looks upon them, say: “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; it is you who will restore my inheritance to me.” Each tribe keeps the boundaries set with inviolate faith. And it is said to our people: “You shall not cross the eternal boundaries which your fathers set.” About to depart from the world, Joshua, like Moses, gave the people these last words of his testimony: that they must not depart from the Lord’s commands if they wished always to be free and safe from the plots of enemies; and he declares that he had received nothing from them nor harmed them in anything. And our Lord Jesus, passing away, binds his own by this covenant: “If you do,” he says, “what I command you, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And when he had given them power to work miracles, so that they should hope for nothing from anyone, which they had not given, he said: “Freely give.” After Joshua’s departure that people received not a leader but judges to rule them. And when our Lord Jesus passed from this world to the Father, he appointed rulers of his Church throughout the whole world.

Deborah, in the figure of the Church, overcame the enemy. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in Judges. Judah was the first among the other judges who judged Israel. From his tribe, as we have often said, the Lord Christ was presented to this world in the flesh as Judge of all souls. But the people of Israel, leaving God and forgetting the commands of Moses and Joshua, servants of God, served the idols of the nations, and punishment following them vexed them through neighboring enemies. This is done now too, when the sons of God, reborn through baptism, are entangled in vain superstitions and the cares of this world, and each one is bound with the cords of his sins. The sons of Israel cried to the Lord when they suffered oppression: “And he freed them from their distress.” Our Lord too says through the prophet: “It shall be that when you cry to me and say, Father, I will hear you as a holy people.” In its manifestation the devoted father in the Gospel receives with great compassion the lost son who, repenting, returns crying to his father. Afterwards among the judges Deborah, the prophetess, arose as a mother in Israel, who judged the people forty years. In her time divine power shut up in a woman’s hand Sisera, captain of King Jabin, who rebelled against the people of the Lord: him, that is, terrible with chariots and horsemen and to be feared with his peoples. And not with iron, but a woman fixed the man with wood, piercing his temples with a peg and a hammer; she bore the likeness of our mother the Church, so as to sound with her voice in the Psalms: “Some in chariots and some in horses, but we will be magnified in the name of our God. They were bound by the feet and fell, but we have risen and stand upright.” These and other things holy Church sings, fighting down idols and the worshipers of idols, and also her neighboring enemies, the heretics. When they pitch their camp against her, she says her heart does not fear; and, “If war rises against me,” she says, “in this I will hope.” And in another psalm: “Often they have fought against me from my youth, but they could not prevail over me.” For the just Lord has broken the necks of sinners through the wood of the cross.