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| Figurative Style of Certain Messianic Prophecies in the Psalms. Military Metaphors Applied to Christ.
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Chapter XIV.—Figurative Style of Certain Messianic
Prophecies in the Psalms. Military Metaphors Applied to
Christ.
This interpretation of ours will derive
confirmation, when, on your supposing that Christ is in any passage
called a warrior, from the mention of certain arms and expressions of
that sort, you weigh well the analogy of their other meanings, and draw
your conclusions accordingly. “Gird on Thy sword,” says
David, “upon Thy thigh.”3286
But what do
you read about Christ just before? “Thou art fairer
than the children of men;
grace is poured forth upon Thy lips.”3287
It
amuses me to imagine that blandishments of fair beauty and graceful
lips are ascribed to one who had to gird on His sword for war! So
likewise, when it is added, “Ride on prosperously in Thy
majesty,”3288
the reason is
subjoined: “Because of truth, and meekness, and
righteousness.”3289
But who shall
produce these results with the sword, and not their opposites
rather—deceit, and harshness, and injury—which, it must be
confessed, are the proper business of battles? Let us see, therefore,
whether that is not some other sword, which has so different an action.
Now the Apostle John, in the Apocalypse, describes a sword which
proceeded from the mouth of God as “a doubly sharp, two-edged
one.”3290
This may be
understood to be the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two
testaments of the law and the gospel—sharpened with wisdom,
hostile to the devil, arming us against the spiritual enemies of all
wickedness and concupiscence, and cutting us off from the dearest
objects for the sake of God’s holy name. If, however, you will
not acknowledge John, you have our common master Paul, who “girds
our loins about with truth, and puts on us the breastplate of
righteousness, and shoes us with the preparation of the gospel of
peace, not of war; who bids us take the shield of faith, wherewith we
may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the devil, and the helmet
of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which (he says) is the word
of God.”3291
This sword the Lord
Himself came to send on earth, and not peace.3292
If
he is your Christ, then even he is a warrior. If he is not a warrior,
and the sword he brandishes is an allegorical one, then the
Creator’s Christ in the psalm too may have been girded with the
figurative sword of the Word, without any martial gear. The
above-mentioned “fairness” of His beauty and “grace
of His lips” would quite suit such a sword, girt as it even then
was upon His thigh in the passage of David, and sent as it would one
day be by Him on earth. For this is what He says: “Ride on
prosperously in Thy majesty3293
”—advancing His word into
every land, so as to call all nations: destined to prosper in
the success of that faith which received Him, and reigning, from
the fact that3294
He conquered death
by His resurrection. “Thy right hand,” says He,
“shall wonderfully lead Thee forth,”3295
even the might of Thy spiritual grace,
whereby the knowledge of Christ is spread. “Thine arrows are
sharp;”3296
everywhere Thy
precepts fly about, Thy threatenings also, and convictions3297
of heart, pricking and piercing each
conscience. “The people shall fall under Thee,”3298
that is, in adoration. Thus is the
Creator’s Christ mighty in war, and a bearer of arms; thus also
does He now take the spoils, not of Samaria alone, but of all nations.
Acknowledge, then, that His spoils are figurative, since you have
learned that His arms are allegorical. Since, therefore, both the Lord
speaks and His apostle writes such things3299
in
a figurative style, we are not rash in using His interpretations, the
records3300
of which even our
adversaries admit; and thus in so far will it be Isaiah’s
Christ who has come, in as far as He was not a warrior, because
it is not of such a character that He is described by
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