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| Of the 3d, 41st, 15th, and 68th Psalms, in Which the Death and Resurrection of the Lord are Prophesied.
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Chapter 18.—Of the 3d, 41st,
15th, and 68th Psalms, in Which the Death and Resurrection of the
Lord are Prophesied.
About His resurrection also the
oracles of the Psalms are by no means silent. For what else is it
that is sung in His person in the 3d Psalm, “I laid me down and
took a sleep, [and] I awaked, for the Lord shall sustain me?”1097
Is there
perchance any one so stupid as to believe that the prophet chose to
point it out to us as something great that He had slept and risen
up, unless that sleep had been death, and that awaking the
resurrection, which behoved to be thus prophesied concerning
Christ? For in the 41st Psalm also it is shown much more clearly,
where in the person of the Mediator, in the usual way, things are
narrated as if past which were prophesied as yet to come, since
these things which were yet to come were in the predestination and
foreknowledge of God as if they were done, because they were
certain. He says, “Mine enemies speak evil of me; When shall he
die, and his name perish? And if he came in to see me, his heart
spake vain things: he gathered iniquity to himself. He went out
of doors, and uttered it all at once. Against me all mine enemies
whisper together: against me do they devise evil. They have
planned an unjust thing against me. Shall not he that sleeps also
rise again?”1098
These
words are certainly so set down here that he may be understood to
say nothing else than if he said, Shall not He that died recover
life again? The previous words clearly show that His enemies have
mediated and planned His death, and that this was executed by him
who came
in to see, and went out to betray. But to whom does
not Judas here occur, who, from being His disciple, became His
betrayer? Therefore because they were about to do what they had
plotted,—that is, were about to kill Him,—he, to show them that
with useless malice they were about to kill Him who should rise
again, so adds this verse, as if he said, What vain thing are you
doing? What will be your crime will be my sleep. “Shall not
He that sleeps also rise again?” And yet he indicates in the
following verses that they should not commit so great an impiety
with impunity, saying, “Yea, the man of my peace in whom I
trusted, who ate my bread, hath enlarged the heel over me;”1099
that is,
hath trampled me under foot. “But Thou,” he saith, “O Lord,
be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them.”1100
Who can
now deny this who sees the Jews, after the passion and resurrection
of Christ, utterly rooted up from their abodes by warlike slaughter
and destruction? For, being slain by them, He has risen again,
and has requited them meanwhile by temporary discipline, save that
for those who are not corrected He keeps it in store for the time
when He shall judge the quick and the dead.1101
For the Lord Jesus Himself, in
pointing out that very man to the apostles as His betrayer, quoted
this very verse of this psalm, and said it was fulfilled in
Himself: “He that ate my bread enlarged the heel over me.”
But what he says, “In whom I trusted,” does not suit the head
but the body. For the Saviour Himself was not ignorant of him
concerning whom He had already said before, “One of you is a
devil.”1102
But He
is wont to assume the person of His members, and to ascribe to
Himself what should be said of them, because the head and the body
is one Christ;1103
whence
that saying in the Gospel, “I was an hungered, and ye gave me to
eat.”1104
Expounding which, He says, “Since ye did it to one of the least
of mine, ye did it to me.”1105
Therefore He said that He had
trusted, because his disciples then had trusted concerning Judas;
for he was numbered with the apostles.1106
But the Jews do not expect that the
Christ whom they expect will die; therefore they do not think ours
to be Him whom the law and the prophets announced, but feign to
themselves I know not whom of their own, exempt from the suffering
of death. Therefore, with wonderful emptiness and blindness, they
contend that the words we have set down signify, not death and
resurrection, but sleep and awaking again. But the 16th Psalm
also cries to them, “Therefore my heart is jocund, and my tongue
hath exulted; moreover, my flesh also shall rest in hope: for
Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou give Thine
Holy One to see corruption.”1107
Who but He that rose again the
third day could say his flesh had rested in this hope; that His
soul, not being left in hell, but speedily returning to it, should
revive it, that it should not be corrupted as corpses are wont to
be, which they can in no wise say of David the prophet and king?
The 68th Psalm also cries out, “Our God is the God of
Salvation: even of the Lord the exit was by death.”1108
What
could be more openly said? For the God of salvation is the Lord
Jesus, which is interpreted Saviour, or Healing One. For this
reason this name was given, when it was said before He was born of
the virgin: “Thou shall bring forth a Son, and shalt call His
name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins.”1109
Because
His blood was shed for the remission of their sins, it behoved Him
to have no other exit from this life than death. Therefore, when
it had been said, “Our God is the God of salvation,”
immediately it was added, “Even of the Lord the exit was by
death,” in order to show that we were to be saved by His dying.
But that saying is marvellous, “Even of the Lord,” as if it was
said, Such is that life of mortals, that not even the Lord Himself
could go out of it otherwise save through death.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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