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O Chromatius, my venerable father, we are writing a second book on Habakkuk, dedicating a special work to his hymns, and his epic and modeled psalter, i.e. in a lyrical spirit, speech, straining all our strength. So, let the hydra hiss and Sardonapalus, more shameful in his vices than in name (from Cicero), attack us, and we will trample under foot our begun path and with the help of your prayers, as a husband who has gained the upper hand over the flesh with virtues, we will begin to explain the most obvious of the prophecies about Christ of the eighth prophet, corresponding to the day of the resurrection of Christ. Hab.3:1: Prayer of the prophet Habakkuk due to ignorance. LXX: “Prayer of the Prophet Habakkuk with singing.” Aquila, Symmachus and the Fifth Edition were translated as we are: for the sake of ignorance; Theodotion alone translated: ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐχουσιαμῶν, i.e. “for those who work voluntarily” and: “for those who sin voluntarily.” We say this because you need to know that except for the Seventy, no one translated with the words: “Prayer with singing.” Indeed, in Hebrew there are the words: аl segionth (צל שניובות), which mean ἐπὶ ἀγνοημάτων - we translated: “due to ignorance.” And the meaning of this will be this. At first the prophet recklessly exclaimed: “How long, Lord, will I cry, and You will not hear, I will cry loudly to You, enduring violence, and You will not save?” And then in the second complaint: “Why don’t you look at those who do wrong, and remain silent when the wicked torments the one who is more righteous than he?” To this or to which he heard the answer: “Write down the vision, and clearly place it on the boards,” and then the remaining words: “Whoever does not believe, his righteous soul will not be in him: the righteous will live in faith or from his faith. And then he learned that either Nebuchadnezzar, or the devil, or the Antichrist was appointed for the judgment of sinners, and the mighty one for the correction of the nations. Now the prophet repents and mourns what he said recklessly: he asks forgiveness for the fact that he ignorantly did this in order to later receive mercy. For the same reason, David says: “Do not remember the sins of my youth and my ignorance” (Ps. 24:7). There are those who think that the prophet offers a prayer so that through the coming of Christ the delusion of people will be destroyed: because it is as if the name of the prophet is indicated in the table of contents, that in the prophetic spirit he prays for the destruction of darkness and the restoration of light, for the destruction of ghosts and the sending down of truth. But that this is a prophecy, which is shown by the entire text of the song, and especially by the following words: “Among two living creatures you will be known” and the words: “When summer approaches, you will be known.” And about judgment in the words: “When my soul is in turmoil due to anger, You will remember mercy.” And again about the coming of Christ in the words: “God will come from Teman and the Holy One from a mountain covered with shadow and dense forest.” The words also refer to the future: “The tents of the land of Midian will shake... and mounting Your horses and stretching out Your bow over the kingdom.” If anyone asks why Theodotion alone translated “for those who do it voluntarily,” then we can say that this indicates either the confession of the prophet, who, not out of any necessity, but voluntarily, sinned with malice against the judgment of God, or the future faith of the pagans, who, voluntarily leaving behind their former error, will believe the One who is promised in the hymn. In Psalm XVI we read: “The Prayer of David”, likewise in another: “The Prayer of David”, and in LXXIX: “The Prayer of Moses the man of God” and in CI: “The prayer of the poor man, when he is tormented and before the face of God he pours out his petition.” And wherever the word prayer appears in any other place, in none of them does it read “prayer with chant,” and I don’t know whether it would be decent to pray with chant. Unless, perhaps, according to the text of the Seventy, we should say that the prophet prays for the coming of Christ and prophesies about it with joy, psalm and song, so that on the one hand in prayer he diligently entreats the Father, and on the other hand in song he praises the Father, who will send the Son, and the Son, who is to come. This is regarding the inscription above the chant. Let's now see what the chant says. Hab.3:2: Lord, I have heard Your hearing, and I was afraid: Lord, revive Your work in the midst of years. LXX: “Lord, I heard Your hearing and was afraid - I thought about Your works - and I was amazed among the two living creatures You will be known.” Instead of what we, Aquila and Theodotion translated: “revive it,” Symmachus translated: “revive it again,” resurrect it. And the words found in the Seventy: “he pondered and was amazed” are not found in the Hebrew text, nor in any of the translators, so if we destroy what is not in the Hebrew, then, according to the translation of the Seventy, it can be read like this: “Lord, Your works among the two living creatures will You be known,” and since this is completely incomprehensible (ἀδιανόητον), then they were the above words are added. In Hebrew we read: Adonai, i.e. "Lord", phalach, i.e. “Thy work”, bacereb, i.e. “in the middle”, sanim, i.e. "years", heieu, i.e. “give it life” [ בךרב שינם הייהו (והוה)בּּצ לק ]. We say this in order to clearly know that in the translation of the Seventy something superfluous has been added. The Jews, in a historical sense, explain this passage as follows: “Lord, I heard Your hearing and was afraid.” “I heard,” he says, “about the punishments that You prepared for Nebuchadnezzar and the devil, and among which You indicated the following: “Woe to the one who multiplies what does not belong to him” (Hab. 2:6), secondly: “Woe to the one who stores up wicked avarice for his house” (Hab. 2:9), thirdly: “Woe to the one who builds a city on blood and prepares a fortification on iniquity” ( Hab.2:12), fourthly: “Woe to the one who gives drink to his friend, mixing his gall and making him drunk” (Hab.2:15) and fifthly: “Woe to the one who says to the tree, “Awake,” and to the silent stone, “Arise”” (Hab.2:19). And since I am terrified that the great dragon will be struck with such great plagues, I humbly ask You, Lord, to fulfill what you promised, and at the end of time to give Your Christ. For You said that the vision is still far off and will be revealed at the end and will not deceive. Fulfill what You promised, i.e. fulfill Your promise; Let not your word die in vain, but be fulfilled in deed. – As for us Christians, this prophecy can also be understood in relation to the resurrection of the Savior, namely, that He, who died for us, would rise from the dead and rise again. But, according to the Seventy, the meaning is completely different, and therefore we must present the interpretation of the popular edition (Vulgatae). Lord, I heard Your word in the Scriptures, and since You gave me an ear, according to what was said by the prophet Isaiah: “He gave me an ear to hear” (Is. 50:5), then I listened as You pleased that Your word should be heard, and diligently contemplated Your works (let it not be said to me: “They do not contemplate the works of the Lord, neither do they meditate on the works of His hands”), and from the creations I came to know the Creator, and came into complete amazement at Your individual works and at what You do every day in the universe and, having lost human consciousness, I came into a sacred confusion of mind. Or it can be understood this way: struck with amazement, I am carried away with trepidation to praise You: “Among the two living creatures You will be known.” Many people think that this refers to the Son and the Holy Spirit, because the Father is known through the Son and the Holy. Spirit. They think that this is the same as the two Seraphim in the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 6) and the two Cherubim in the Book of Exodus (Exodus 25), who look (or: let him look) and stand, and hide against each other, and in the middle of them is the Word, and the two seraphim in the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 6), covering the head and feet of the Lord, fly only in the present age and proclaim the mystery of the Trinity to each other. And one of the seraphim, who is called “fiery,” will be sent and will come to earth and cleanse the mouth of the prophet and say: “I came to send fire to the earth, and as I want it... to burn” (Luke 12:49). Others think so and use many passages of Scripture for this interpretation. Then a simple interpretation and common presentation refers this passage to the Savior, because He was known during the crucifixion in the midst of two thieves (Mark 15; John 19). Those who have a better understanding of the matter say that in the original church, which was composed of circumcision and uncircumcision, the Savior was known and became an object of faith for the two nations surrounding him from here and there. There are also those who understand two covenants by two animals. The Old and the New, which are truly spiritualized and have life, which breathe, and through which the Lord will be known. Among the years You will make it famous. LXX: “When the years draw near, You will be known.” When, he says, the time comes and You actually fulfill what You promised, You will show that what You promised was true. Or it can be understood this way: when the end draws near, and when Your Son comes at the last hour to destroy sin, You will be known more clearly. - What follows: When the time comes, You will be revealed when my soul is troubled. With the exception of the Seventy, neither in the Hebrew nor in any of the interpreters does this place exist. And its meaning is this: when the time comes about which it is said: “At the favorable time I heard you,” i.e. time of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 6:2), then, O God the Father, Your name will be known, which was previously hidden from men, and about which it is said in the Gospel: “Father, I have revealed Your name to men” (John 17:6). The next insertion: “When my soul is troubled,” in the edition of the Seventy Interpreters is connected with the subsequent passage, so that it can be read thus: “When my soul is troubled in anger,” and then a punctuation mark, then the words follow: “You will remember mercy.” This means precisely that to punish a prophet, only spiritual confusion is enough, and when his soul is in confusion from the wrath of God, then punishment is no longer imposed on him, but God’s mercy excludes anger. Even God’s wrath has limits: according to how much, for what time, for what reasons and to what people it is sent down, as it is written about this: “You will feed them with the bread of tears and give us tears to drink in measure” (Ps. 79:6). Therefore, if a prophet becomes distraught under the wrath of God, and if the one who is distraught is worthy to receive pardon, what can we hope for, or rather, what should we fear, all of whose deeds are worthy of the wrath of God? Further according to the Hebrew text: “When you are angry, remember mercy.” – We should not think that God has forgotten about His mercy and only remembers it after anger; it only means that we, having been punished, think that He forgets, just as the famous words of the prophet say: “How long, O Lord, will You forget until the end?” (Ps. 12:1). For if we ever drown in temptations, as in waves, and if the stormy aspirations of demons rage against us, we turn to Him as to one sleeping: “Lord, arise, why are You sleeping?” At the same time, pay attention to God’s mercy; he did not say: “You will remember mercy when you are punished,” but: “When you are angry.” In fact, someone who is angry sometimes does not kill, but only threatens. Realizing this, the Apostle says: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people” (Rom. 1:18). And where it opens, it is not yet imposed, it does not strike; but it is revealed to frighten, but it is no longer imposed on those who are frightened. Hab.3:3: God will come from the South, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Always. LXX: “God will come from Teman, and the Holy One will come from a mountain covered with shadow and dense forest. Diapsalma". Aquila, Symmachus, and the Fifth Edition used the very Hebrew word theman (תיםן); only Theodotion interpreted the meaning of the word theman, saying: Eloim “will come from the south and the Holy One from Mount Paran, finally.” From this we see that only the Seventy translated: “from a mountain covered with shadow and dense forest.” And what the Seventy translated with the word: διάψαλμα, while we with the word: “always”, Symmachus translated: “forever”, Theodotion: “finally”, the Fifth Edition retains the very Hebrew word sela (זלח). – So, God will come from the south, i.e. from the noon country, from the clear light and from those who are called “sons of days.” Therefore, in the book of Song of Songs, the bridegroom stirs up the north wind and calls on the south, saying: “Arise, O North! and come, O South, blow upon my garden, and my fragrances will flow” (Song. 4:16). God is always in the south. “Where,” he says, “are you grazing? Where are you lying?” – in the south ( Song 1:6 ). And to Abraham, when he was under the oak tree, God came no other way than from the south (Gen. 18). Likewise, Joseph, who was the prototype of the Savior, arranged a feast for his brothers in the land of midday (Gen. 43). So, the knowledge of God the Father for those who are worthy of it will come in full light; and the knowledge of the Holy, i.e. The Son of God will come from a shady mountain covered with a dense forest. A shady mountain covered with a dense forest signifies either the Father Himself, full of virtues and all wisdom and covering everything with His greatness, and spreading His wings and warming His chicks, or at least signifies paradise and heavenly villages, full of angels, full of virtues, full of the most fruitful trees. ABOUT! if also I were worthy that, in response to my call to expound the Scriptures, the Father and the Son of Him, about whom it is written: “Be... holy, just as I am holy” (Lev. 20:26), descended in clear light - descended from the heights of a mysterious, cloaked language, sometimes only explained by the context of the testimony of the Scriptures, and that after the coming of the Father and the Son the listener would turn to their dwellings and so that in this The word of Scripture was fulfilled: “I and My Father will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). But since instead of the words: “a shady mountain and covered with a dense forest,” the Hebrew uses the word: “Mount Paran,” and Paran means: “the mouth of one who sees,” then quite consistently, in accordance with our translation, the meaning is obtained that the knowledge of the Son comes from the words of an enlightened man; and not from all his speech, but only from that which is full of light, has many eyes, so that it reaches the ears of those listening completely pure and understandable. And you understand his words: “from the mountain” in the sense of sublime dogmas. I heard one Jew talk about this place like this: “Bethlehem, in which the Lord and Savior was born, is in the South; This is what the words mean: “The Lord will come from the South,” i.e. will be born in Bethlehem and will rise from there.” And since He who was born in Bethlehem once gave the law on Mount Sinai, He is the Holy One who comes from Mount Paran, because Paran is a place adjacent to Mount Sinai. And the inserted word: “diapsalma”, or: “always”, has the following meaning: Born in Bethlehem and who gave the law at Sinai, i.e. on Mount Paran, in all good deeds there is “always” the culprit and the giver, both in the past, and in the present, and in the future. About the word “diapsalma”, which in Hebrew means sela [סלה], there was a more detailed discussion in the interpretation of the Psalter. At the same time, note, regarding the translation of the Seventy, that “diapsalma” is used only in the Psalter and in the present place. From here it becomes clear that Seventy was absolutely correctly inscribed above the prayer of Habakkuk; "with chants." Hab.3:3–4: The heavens were covered with His glory and the earth was filled with His praises. His brilliance will be like light: in the hands of His horns. In this lies His strength. LXX: “The heavens were covered with His virtue, and the earth was filled with His praises, and His radiance would be like light, horns in His hands, and He placed strong love in His strength.” Instead of what was translated by the Seventy: “and He placed strong love in His strength,” we said: “In this is His hidden strength,” Aquila translated: “And He laid down the secret place of His strength,” Symmachus: “And He laid down His hidden strength.” Only Theodotion says, according to our translation: “and in this is the hiding place of His strength.” In fact, the word sam (שם), according to the peculiarities of the place it occupies, means both: “laid” and: “there”; in the present place it is better to translate it: “there” than “laid”, so the meaning and location of speech will be as follows: in the hands of His horns, and there, i.e. implied in the horns, His strength is hidden. According to the Hebrew text, it is clear that at the coming of Christ everything will be filled with glory, as according to this it is said in the Gospel: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace” to people of good will (Luke 2:14), and in another place: He created peace in heaven and on earth by the blood of the cross and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty: for His speech is swift. And in another place: “O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is Your name throughout all the earth” (Ps. 8:2, 10) and then in the eighteenth psalm: “Their sound has gone through all the earth, and to the ends of the circle of the earth” or: “To the ends of the earth their words” (Ps. 18:5.). His brilliance, like the sun of righteousness, shone with clear light; and the horns in His hands are the signs and victorious trophies of the cross, and in these horns His strength is hidden: For when “He was in the form of God, He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking on the form of a servant: He was in obedience to the Father even to death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:6-8). So, for a short time His power was hidden on the cross, namely: when He said to the Father: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death” (Matthew 26:38) and: “Father..., if it is possible, then let this cup pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39), and on the cross itself: “Father! Into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46). Then, according to the text of the Seventy, we must notice that in the words: “His virtue covered the heavens,” what is covered is less than what it is covered with, however, in the case when what is covered is completely covered, and not only partially. So, when the power of God covers the heavens, His power is greater than the heavens, since the heavens are covered with it. We have read more than once that the heavens are those who bear the image of Him who is above the heavens, and which proclaim the glory of God. And that the power of God is the Lord the Savior, this is shown by the Apostle in the words: “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). This power is, as it were, the mother of all private, or spiritual, virtues; so, for example, virtue is called wisdom, strength, justice, temperance, truth, holiness, redemption: Christ “has become for us wisdom from God, righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). So, these particular virtues in which Christ is revealed (corresponding to the success of those who receive Him either as wisdom, or as strength, or as righteousness, etc. etc.) are contained in one common power of God, i.e. in the Lord the Savior. In the same way, by earth we understand that those who were initially called earth because of the image of the earth, and to whom it was said: “You are earth and you will go to earth” (Gen. 3:19) at the coming of Christ will be filled with the praises of the Lord. When the heavens are covered with the power of God (namely, completely covered and clothed on all sides), and when the whole earth is filled with the praises of God, then His radiance will be like the light of the sun. And that God the Savior is the image of God and the radiance of His glory, the Apostle also speaks about this: After He revealed to us the radiance of the glory of God, He returned to its former greatness (Heb. 1:3). For although we “knew Christ in the flesh, now we no longer know” Him in the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16), but in the Spirit, for without Him there was nothing that was. “In Him was life, and life was” the light of people (John 1:3–4) Showing this, the Savior says more clearly in the Gospel: “Father! glorify Me with the glory which I had with You before the world began” (John 17:5), so that after ascending into heaven the radiance became what light was, i.e. The Son began to be what the Father was. And the following words: “Horns in His hands” are common in Scripture, so that the word “horns” is always used instead of kingship; for the words of Anna in the first book of Kings: He exalted “the horn of His Christ” (1 Samuel 2:10) designate the greatness of the kingdom of Christ, and in the book of the prophet Daniel, ten horns designate ten kingdoms (Dan.7:17–25). Also now it is said: “The horns are in His hands,” as in another place we read what is written: “The heart of a king is in the hand of God” (Prov. 21:1), in the meaning that the mind and control of the heart of a holy man, who strives for the kingdom of heaven and who, while still on earth, rules over the body without sins, does not wander outside, but is under the protection of God. And since in both the Hebrew and other editions it is not written: “The horns are in His hands,” but: “in His hand,” which is expressed by the word Jado, then we must understand by His strong and strong hand - His Son, and say that in this hand are laid all the kingdoms of heaven and the kingdoms of those who strive to ascend to heaven; Isaiah also speaks about this: “The Beloved had a vineyard on a spur, in a fertile place” (Is. 5:1), i.e. in the sense - in the kingdom. I believe that for this reason not a single animal with horns in the book of Leviticus is placed among the unclean, and that in the Psalms this is precisely what is meant by “unicorn” (Ps. 21:22, 91:11), or ῥινοχερότα, as well as the words: “In You we will pierce our enemies with the horn” (Ps. 43:6). The words, according to the translation of LXX: “and he laid down the love of his mighty strength,” even these words should be understood in relation to Christ, namely that for this purpose God the Father covered the heavens with His power, and filled the earth with praises, and made His radiance like light, and set up the kingdom in the hand of His Son, in order to encourage people to love His Beloved, and to love not with weak love, but firmly and strongly, so that no one could steal from His hand those who would love Him greatly and would be attached in love to Him. On the contrary, the devil forces us to love the world and, instead of love for virtue, to love vices and also to love not with weak love, but firmly, so that it can be said about us: “And the devil put strong love for his atrocities.” Hab.3:5: Death will come before Him, and the devil will appear before His feet. LXX: “The word will go before Him and follow His steps into the field.” In place of the word we translated “death” in Hebrew there are three letters: “dalet, bet” and “res”, and without any vowel; these letters, if read dabar (רבד), mean: “word”, and if deber, then “ulcer”, which in Greek is expressed by the word λοιμός. Finally, Aquila also translated: “Destruction will come before Him”; Symmachus: “Death will come before Him”; Fifth edition: “Death will walk before Him.” Only LXX and Theodotion translated word (speech) instead of death. In addition, in the next section of the verse, where we read: “the devil will appear before His feet,” LXX was translated differently, according to their interpretation we will explain later. Aquila instead of “devil” translated: “flying”, and Symmachus, Theodotion and the Fifth Edition: “flying”, which in Hebrew is called rezeph (רשף). The Jews convey that just as in the Gospel Beelezebub is called the prince of demons (Matthew 12:24), so Rezeph is the name of a demon who has authority over others and, due to excessive speed and impetuosity, is in various respects called a bird and a flyer; he is the one who, under the image of the serpent in paradise, addressed words to his wife and received his name from the curse with which he was condemned by God, because “Rezef” means “crawling on the belly.” So, what has been said means this: Immediately as soon as the Lord comes and is baptized in the Jordan and as soon as the voice of the Father sounds during the descent of the dove: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17), when leaving the water the devil will come out to meet Him and death and that ancient serpent who tempted him for forty days in the desert will stand before His feet. If, according to LXX, we read: “The word will pass before him, and after his steps he will go out into the fields,” then this means that the word of God before His coming, which is now allegorically called a face, will precede Him and prepare the hearts of believers in order to correct the wrong and level the uneven, and so that the soul of the listener, as if similar to a cultivated field, can perceive the spiritual seed. Hab.3:6: He stood and measured the earth, looked, and scattered the nations. The age-old mountains were crushed and the hills of the world were bent from the ways of His eternity. LXX: “He stood, and the earth moved; he looked, and the nations melted away. The mountains were crushed by violence and the eternal hills of His everlasting path melted away.” Standing and contemplating everything and measuring with his eye the entire volume of the world, the Savior scattered many nations. And because of their dispersion and humiliation, the mountains of this world were broken in pieces and the hills of this world were bowed down. Indeed, there are other hills and mountains over which the Bridegroom jumps and runs, described in the book of Song of Songs (Song. 2:8), and regarding which it is said in the second power psalm: “I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from which help will come to me” (Ps. 120:1). And the mountains of the century are the same as the shadowy mountains about which Jeremiah warns us, so that our feet do not stumble on them (Jer. 31:9). These are the hills over which Saul reigned when he killed the priests of God (1 Samuel 22:17); for “Gabaa” means precisely “hill.” And he says very accurately: “the hills of the world were bowed down,” because before the coming of the Savior they stood with their necks raised high, and no one could humble their arrogance. And they are broken and bent from the ways of His eternity, i.e. God, because His eternity deigned to descend upon us, or because from the beginning of the world, even before His incarnation, He came to the saints and in the hands of some of them became the word of God, and in all those who conquer, He was the winner: His eternal path bent the hills and crushed the mountains. We said this in a figurative sense according to the Hebrew text. Then, according to the text of LXX, after the Word of God appeared before the face of God and appeared on the plains, God the Father came to where a place was prepared for Him for His Word and came in the footsteps of His Word and stopped; never preceding Him, but always waiting for It to prepare the way. And where He stands in the footsteps of His Word, immediately the earth, i.e. the affairs of the flesh and body will be in confusion, because they do not have the strength to withstand the presence of God. And when they fall into confusion, then God, by the power of His Word and His presence, will look at all spiritual peoples, by which we can understand their thoughts and their many different speculations, which will immediately scatter and disappear. And if anything has risen on earth contrary to the knowledge of God and occupied the ears of those who listen, it will be crushed and turned to dust when God comes, preceded by His Word. After the crushing and destruction of the mountains from the sight of God, without a doubt, the hills will be destroyed and reduced to nothing. For they are not the mountains of God, but the mountains of this age; and the eternal way of God, looking to what His Word precedes, and especially to the hills of this world, will crush and destroy them. By mountains one can also understand demons who act in heretics and rise up against the knowledge of God; at the same time, the hills are other fortifications of demons, which cause people to be carried away by physical beauty, honors, wealth, nobility of the family and other blessings of the world. We can see how after the coming of the Word of God and in the presence of God the Father, the souls of people will be confused, and everything earthly will be scattered, and former thoughts will turn into nothing. Then the demons will be confused, the heights of this age will be reduced to nothing, and all the knowledge of the heretics, which was previously so arrogant, will be humbled, crushed and destroyed with the coming of the Word of God. And what previously seemed beautiful and great will be discarded as insignificant and despicable. And this happens as a result of the coming of God and the presence of Christ, according to this and in another place it is written: “I will dwell among them, and will walk among them, and will be their God, and they will be My people” (Lev. 26:11-12). Hab.3:7: Because of iniquity I saw the tents of Ethiopia, and the tents of the land of Midian will be thrown into confusion. LXX: “Because of grave disasters I saw the settlements of Ethiopia, the settlements of the land of Midian will tremble with fear.” Ethiopians, black or: “blackest” loving darkness, alien to all light, feeding on the flesh of dragons, about which it is written: “You gave it to the Ethiopian peoples as food” (Ps. 73:14) designate demons; whoever in this world becomes their home will work for riches and honors, this is more clearly shown by one word “untruth.” “For every rich man is either unjust himself, or is the heir of an unjust man.” Look how people cross seas, guard at the doors of noble people, endure everything that is difficult to endure even in the position of a slave, in order to collect wealth or achieve some kind of honor, and how, after achieving this, they indulge in luxury, pleasures and all kinds of iniquities, so that with a luxurious life they squander what they collected through avarice. Thus, with their labors they create a convenient place of residence for demons, and those that were supposed to be the church of God become the dwelling of the Ethiopians. But in the following words: “The tents of the land of Midian will be thrown into confusion,” or: “the villages of the land of Midian will tremble with fear,” by the settlements of the land of Midian we mean the same ones that we meant by the settlements of the Ethiopians. After they have become rich and by hook or by crook have reached the highest degree, in the consciousness of their sins they will begin to fear either death or judgment and with feverish trembling, like robbers in prison, they will suffocate from the fear of eternal torment. In our language, “Midiam” means: “due to judgment,” i.e. condemnation; which shows that from the fear of judgment and eternal punishment they will always be in a state of fear and from daily horror they will endure the torment that they, according to their own consciousness, or inner feeling, deserve. Hab.3:8-9: Has Thy anger, O Lord, broken out on the rivers, or Thy wrath on the rivers, or Thy indignation on the sea, that Thou hast ascended or mounted Thy horses and brought salvation to Thy chariot? You will guide your bow with strength, the vows that you have made to the nations. Always. LXX: “Has Your wrath broken out on the rivers, or Your wrath on the rivers, or Your aspiration on the sea, because You or: Who mount Your horses and this Your ascent is salvation. You will point your bow with strength at the sceptres, says the Lord. Diapsalma". Where the Seventy translated “diapsalma”, and Aquila: “always”, and the others, as above, translated in a similar way. Since the speech is in a hurry to move into a figurative (mysterious) sense, I, having only briefly covered the literal meaning of the passage, will continue as in other places. Just as You dried up the Jordan and the Red Sea, fighting for us, not because you were angry with the rivers and the sea, and not because inanimate objects could in any way incur Your anger; so even now, mounting Your chariots, grasping your bow, You will give salvation to Your people, and You will forever fulfill the oaths that You swore to our fathers and to the nations. And his words: “Has Your wrath broken out on the rivers, O Lord? Or is Your fury on the rivers, or is Your desire on the sea? spoken in the sense of doubt and have the meaning of a question rather than a statement. Indeed, there are good rivers and there are bad rivers. There is a worse sea and there is a better sea. Here is an example of good rivers: “The rushing of the river makes the city of God glad” (Ps. 45:5), and whoever drinks of the water of the Lord will have rivers of water flowing from his belly, rushing into eternal life (John 4:14); We see an example of bad rivers in the case when Pharaoh in the book of Ezekiel says: “The rivers are mine and I created them” (Ezek. 29:3, 9), a dragon lives in them and much like that. And that the sea is understood in a good sense is evidenced by the twenty-third psalm, which speaks of the church in a figurative sense as οἰχουμένη, i.e. about the universe: “The earth is the Lord’s and its fullness, the universe and all who live on it... He Himself founded it on the sea and prepared it on the rivers,” i.e. the universe (Ps. 23:1–2). And what is founded by God on the sea and prepared on the rivers is, of course, understood in a good sense. The same is true of what is said about the vineyard that was brought from Egypt: “You spread its branches to the sea and its shoots to the river” (Ps. 79:12); in my opinion, the words “to the sea” can be understood in a good sense. And we affirm that those divine words that are clearer than others and give, as it were, drink to the thirsty, are called rivers; and the sea in Scripture refers to those words that are full of sacraments, placed in the depths, about which the Apostle says: “O depth... of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom. 11:33) and the prophet exclaims: “Out of the depths I have called to Thee, O Lord” (Ps. 129:1). This is said regarding the fact that the sea can also be taken in a better meaning. And that it is also accepted in the opposite sense, there is a lot of evidence of this, among which there is the following in the Psalms: “This sea is great and spacious... ships will sail there, small animals with great ones. That dragon whom You created to mock him” (Ps. 103:25-26). This is also evident from the Gospel, when the Savior forbids the winds and the sea and says to him: “Be silent and dumb” (Mark 4:39); and what is forbidden is evil, as, for example, in the words of the prophet Zechariah: “May the Lord rebuke you, the devil!” (Zechariah 3:2), and in the letter to Timothy: “Reprove, comfort and rebuke” (2 Timothy 4:2). So, when the prophet asks: “Has Your wrath broken out on the rivers, O Lord! Or is Your fury on the rivers? Regarding the rivers, we will argue that if these are the rivers of Egypt or the Red and Bloody Sea, then the Lord strikes them with His wrath and rushes with all swiftness against the abysses that rise against the knowledge of God. Therefore, “the sea saw and ran” (Ps. 113:3), unable to withstand the presence of God. And the Jordan returned back, retreating before the glory of the people passing through it; it is divided into two parts by Elijah and Elisha. But let us say more clearly: by the rivers at which God is angry, you understand the eloquence of heretics, rushing against the truth and the church. And in the souls of those people who are surrounded by every wind of teaching and are always heaved by anger and plunged into the salty and bitter abyss, you see that sea against which the aspiration of the Lord and which feels His coming, and knows within what limits and boundaries it will be contained, and which will hear the words: “Thy waves will be broken in you.” And if the sea and rivers are good, it is because Jesus is washed in rivers, and on this kind of sea He builds His church. The following words follow: “Because You ascend upon Your horses, and Your ascent is salvation.” I ask about the horses on which the Lord ascends, and I think that these are nothing other than the souls of the saints on which the Word of God ascends to save them and others through them. Let us present examples of horses from Scripture. In the book of Song of Songs, the Bridegroom says: “I have made you like My horses in Pharaoh’s chariots, my beloved” (Song.1:8). This does not mean that Christ the Church, or the Word of God, equates the soul - which He calls His bride - to the chariots of Pharaoh, but that every soul, even if it were holy and perfect, in comparison with God is like a chariot or draft cattle. Therefore, Moses says to the Lord: “I am a man ἄλογος,” i.e. foolish (Ex. 4:10) and David says: “I have become like cattle before You” (Ps. 73:22). Not that he is cattle in the ordinary sense, but that he is cattle before God. These horses are the opposite of those horses that Pharaoh has, and about which it is said: “He threw horse and rider into the sea” (Ex. 15:21). This kind of mounting a horse is not salvation, but destruction. Let us also look for other horses on which the Lord mounts. In the book of Kings we read that Elisha's servant rose early in the morning and saw an army surrounding the walls of the city, and horses and chariots (2 Kings 6:15). And after the prayer of the man of God his eyes were opened: “He looked,” it says there, “and behold... the mountain was filled with horses, and chariots of fire were around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17). Pay diligent attention to the fact that horses and chariots appear, and yet on so many thousands of horses and chariots there is not a single rider. The rider and driver of these horses is the One of whom The psalmist exclaims: “He who sits on the Cherubim, show yourself” (Ps. 79:2). Elijah was caught up into heaven with this kind of horses and this kind of chariot (2 Kings 2:11). Seventy: “brazen”, then we will try to give an explanation of this in the interpretation of the book of this prophet (Zech. 1:8), if God wills to prolong our life. And John saw white horses and their riders (Rev. 6:2). In my opinion, of these, the white horses are the bodies of people rising in glory, and the riders are the souls of saints. And the one who is a sinner like me will sit on a black horse, and regarding him it will be said: “All who mounted their horses dozed off” (Ps. 75:7). About horses of this kind it is said: “A horse is unreliable for salvation” (Ps. 32:17), for the flesh reveals lust against the spirit, and its wisdom is hostile to God. This is said about those who love the body and sit on black horses. And we will prepare our souls for horses and chariots of the Lord; He ascended to Paul, ascended to Peter, and walking on chariots of this kind, enlightened the whole world. Straining His bow or His arrows onto sceptres, i.e. against the kingdoms against which Jeremiah was sent, He shook them, overthrew them and destroyed them (Jer. 8). He did this so that sin would not reign in our mortal body. And under the scepters, i.e. the kingdoms of the devil, which He showed to the Lord, you understand various sins - stinginess, luxury, anger, slander, theft, perjury, against which the Word of God, sitting on his horses and chariots, directs the destructive arrows of his lightning, but does not release them, so that the one who was frightened by the tension of the bow would not be struck by the power of the arrows. And He does this “always” - the word that Aquila used instead of “diapsalm”, For He always abides or abided in His saints, He is always fully armored. And He mounts the horses, preparing sharp arrows against their tongue, and rushes everywhere to save the world. Hab.3:10: You will divide the streams of the earth. LXX: “The earth will be cut by streams.” Since the Lord raised His bow in order to fulfill His oaths before the tribes - the oaths that He swore, it is consistently said: “Thou shalt cleave the streams of the earth,” i.e. You will divide and scatter the kings who rebel against Your people. And according to the text of the Seventy, who said: “The earth will be divided by rivers,” we will first present an example in order, as it were, to reach a higher one by steps. In the books of those who compiled volumes about miraculous events, and who brought the Greek Olympiads to the present day, outlining what new happened in individual years in the world, we read that among other events, as a result of the movement of the earth, rivers broke through that were not there before, and on the contrary, others were swallowed up and went into the abyss, because all earthly veins supposedly have waters hidden inside them, like blood in the human body, and these waters when the earth shakes break through and become rivers. If we understand this, we will see that the soul by its nature has rivers and streams within itself, but due to our laziness they are hidden and do not flow. When it is shaken by the preaching of the Word of God and raised up from its former state, then what it hid breaks out of it and flows to restore the strength of those who drink or are able. This interpretation, I think, also applies to the fact that Isaac’s servants are again digging up the wells dug by Abraham, but then covered with earth by the Philistines (Gen. 26:15–18). While Abraham was alive, his wells were not filled up; after his death and after the wells are filled up, a dispute occurs if the slaves dig again, and the Philistines oppose this. But if Isaac himself comes and digs a well and finds water, then the Philistines do not have the strength to resist it. Pay attention to Peter and Paul, and you will not doubt the rivers of Christ. Look at all the apostles, and you will understand that there are no longer four rivers coming out of the paradise of the Scriptures, but twelve streams each. Before the earth began to move, these rivers were hidden, and since they were in the veins of the earth, they did not supply drink to the thirsty. But after the earth and the entire universe were shaken during the coming of Christ, they suddenly broke through and what was then written was fulfilled: “He turned the rivers into deserts and the springs of water into dry land, the fertile land into salt marsh, because of the wickedness of those living on it” (Ps. 107:33-34). He turned the desert into watery swamps, and the dry land into springs of water; and forced the thirsty to live there; and they built a city to live in. For after the Lord came into the world and what He said in the Gospel was fulfilled: “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who had not seen would see, and those who had seen would become blind” (John 9:39). Then the land of Israel, in which rivers formerly flowed and watered the entire people of Judah, dried up, and all its springs dried up. And the whole world, which was deserted and barren and did not have the waters of the Divine preaching, turned into swamps filled with waters, and had as many sources as it gave birth to teachers; and to them, i.e. rivers and springs, it is not enough that they irrigate the peoples of the whole world; but gathering into one people those who in certain parts of the world thirsted and suffered famine from the lack of the Word of God, they built a church, which is called a city to dwell in, and which is gladdened by the rushing of the stream (Ps. 46:5). Hab.3:11–13: The mountains saw you and were sad; the abyss of the waters passed by: the deep gave its word: the height stretched out its hands: the sun and the moon stood still in the place of their dwelling. In the brilliance of Your arrows they will go, in the radiance of Your shining spear. Shocked with wrath, You will trample the earth, and You will amaze the nations with rage. You came out for the salvation of Your people, to salvation with Your Christ. You have shaken the head from the house of the wicked and exposed the foundation even to the top. Always. We offered the text of only one of our publications, so that according to it, i.e. according to the Hebrew text, establish the sequence of this section, and then talk about the text of the Seventy, section by section, according to punctuation marks. The mountains saw You, O God, and were saddened, namely: the high kingdoms and exalted rulers of this age and the four chariots of Zechariah, which come out of the mountains of brass (Zech. 6:1.) They saw You and were shocked. And the depths of the water passed by, that is, all their aspiration and persecution with which they tormented Your people passed by after they saw You. Then the abyss, i.e. hell, - praised You; then the exalted ones, i.e. the angels began to applaud to proclaim the winner, as if by some kind of gesture and jumping with raised hands. Your sun and Your moon and all the light with which You shone before Your people before, and which after that, due to the severity of wickedness, were completely covered with the horror of darkness, now again received their light and began to shine with their former brilliance. Thy arrows and Thy lightning spear, i.e. Thy plagues and Thy admonition have shown light to Thy people. And then, with the brilliance of Your arrows and the flash of Your spear, which struck them down in order to correct them, Your people began to walk in Your fear. So, when you avenge the iniquity of your people, you will trample upon the kingdoms of the earth, and you will make all nations marvel at you, for you came to the salvation of your people and came to them with your Christ. True, in Hebrew it is written: “You went out to save your people with Jesus Christ,” but this is because “Jesus” means “Savior.” And at the coming of Jesus Christ, Your Son, You defeated the Antichrist in the house of the wicked, i.e. in this age, which lies in evil; or struck the devil himself, who is the head of wickedness, and exposed his foundation to the top (to the neck), i.e. He made his secrets open, not for a little time, but forever, for this is what the word sela means, i.e. Always. LXX: “The nations will see You and will mourn”, or: “they will be tormented by the sufferings of the mother in childbirth”, because ὠδινήσουσι means both. Consequently, after the earth dissipates and rivers come out of it, those nations who drank from the rivers of God will see God and will suffer childbirth. Precisely because they see God, they directly perceive and conceive and say: “Because of Your fear, O Lord, we conceived in the womb, labored and gave birth: we will bring forth the spirit of Your salvation on the earth” (Is. 26:17-18). “Blessed,” he says, “are the pure in heart, because they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). So, these peoples, purified by the streams, have not yet seen God, but only have to see, and when they see, they will conceive in order to be able to bear the fruits of the teachings. But since they are called nations, and it is impossible for nations to contemplate the face of God, although in the words: “they will see” and “they will give birth,” the speech is aimed at future; then in a figurative (mysterious) sense it is better to follow the Hebrew text, which says: “The mountains saw You and gave birth”; in fact, it is natural for the mountains to contemplate God and give birth to sons, whom they conceived from the Word of God. LXX: “Scatter the waters of the path.” There are various waters; some are eternal, others are short-term. About the eternal waters that flow from the springs of Israel, it is said: “The earth will be divided into rivers.” About those who came out suddenly and flowed only for a short time, it is said: “All streams flow into the sea.” For the end of such waters is disappearance. So, God will disperse all the waters that have been polluted by perverse dogmas, when He destroys the counsels of princes and the wisdom of this world. If you ever see that some heresy flourished for a short time, and then was scattered by the grace of God, then say that the words have been fulfilled: “You will scatter the waters of the way.” And by this word: “way” you can mean: “the devil’s,” so the meaning is this: The waters on which the devil walked, and which provided a convenient path for many, i.e. opened up to many errors, the Lord will divide and scatter. Therefore, other interpreters, wanting to describe the fury of the heretics, translated: “Strike”, or: “the rush of the waters will pass by.” For they are carried away in the swift current of eloquence and violently carry them along when they find someone frivolous on their way. LXX: “The abyss gave its voice, the height of its imagination.” The word “abyss” is often used in a good sense, often in a bad sense, and sometimes in an indifferent sense. In a good sense in the words: “Your judgments are a great deep” (Ps. 35:7) and: “the deep calls upon the deep” (Ps. 42:8), etc. In a bad sense in the words: “The waters saw You, O God” (Ps. 77:17), etc. But the demons also beg the Lord so as not to be cast out into the abyss (Luke 8:31), and the book of Genesis says: “The deep over which was darkness” (Genesis 1:2), however, I don’t know if in these places it can be understood in a good sense. In an indifferent sense it is used in the words: “The fountains of the deep were opened, and the gates of the heavens were opened” (Gen. 7:11). The same thing in the one hundred and forty-eighth psalm: “Dragons and all the deeps: fire and hail and stormy wind” (Ps. 149: 7-8), unless what is denoted by the words: “dragons, fire and hail” should not be understood in a bad sense. I don’t know whether this can be said in view of the fact that all this, together with others, proclaims praises to the Lord. So, if we understand the deep in a good sense, then we must say that after the waters of the evil (or: the most evil) way were dispersed, Your wise men saw You and the height of the knowledge that they received from contemplating You (because the mountains saw You and gave birth) and proclaimed with the praises of their voices what they previously knew about You. And he beautifully calls the unexpected flight of imagination “height,” according to the words of Jesus the Son of Sirach: “Who searches the abyss and wisdom?” (Sir.1:2; Eccl.1:2). Therefore, from a mediocre mountain (Ps. 41:8; Phil. 2:7), i.e. from taking on the human body, which Daniel calls a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, i.e. without a marriage union (Dan.2:37, 45). The Abyss - Christ, calls upon the Father - another Abyss, with the thunder of His shutters opening, to give the word to those who preach the gospel with much power. Of course, the abyss can also be understood as the New Testament, which, as a testimony to the small Mountain from which the prince of Tire was overthrown, calls upon the abyss of the Old Testament, so that through the strong gates of Christ, i.e. through the Apostles, preaching was more solid and effective. If anyone wants to understand the words: “The deep has given its voice, the height of its imagination” in a bad meaning, then let him use the proof that after the scattering of the waters, the paths, which are undoubtedly understood in a bad meaning, and this last, immediately following must be understood in the opposite meaning. At the same time, pay attention to the fact that he did not say: “his height,” but: “the height of his imagination,” i.e. shadows and images. Indeed they seem to have height and knowledge of the Scriptures. But all their loftiness in comparison with the truth turns out to be fiction, and in vain she raises her voice, because the waters of the path have already been dispersed. Let us ask: can imagination be found anywhere in the Scriptures in a good sense? And when this is found only occasionally, or not found at all, then, of course, we will interpret both “abyss” and “imagination” in a bad sense. LXX: “The sun rose, and the moon stood in its rank.” If we follow a simple interpretation, we will understand that these words show the increase of the sun and the moon, for, according to the words of Isaiah, in the next century the sun will shine seven times, and the moon will shine with the light of the sun (Is. 30:26). For the creation will be freed from the bondage of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:21), - the creation which is now subject to vanity, because of Him who subjected it in hope of freedom - when, at the end of the world, every creation will be set free; then both the sun and the moon will be freed and will return to their rank. If we wish to understand by this the Sun of righteousness - Christ, and by the moon, which is illuminated by the light of this Sun - the church, then it will not be difficult to say that it is illuminated by the true light, and the light of men, and the radiance of the glory of God, and the radiance of the eternal light, and that in the present century it either increases or decreases according to whether it is oppressed or promoted. When the Sun rises and, as the Apostle says, God exalts Him and gives Him the name that is above every name (Phil. 2:9), then the church, which at present cannot maintain its order, will return to its proper order and will no longer depart from it; but he will remain in an unchanged position and hear along with Moses: “Stand here with Me” (Exodus 34:2). LXX: “In radiance or in the light Your arrows will go, in the lightning brilliance of Your weapons.” The arrows of God, or His constantly flying spears, are sent not to destroy, but to enlighten. In contrast to these arrows and spears, Christ is called the chosen arrow, crying through Isaiah: “He has made me a chosen arrow; in His quiver He hid Me and said to Me: It is of great significance for You to be called My servant” (Is. 49:2-3). This arrow will have or has many arrows to send into the world. Therefore, the bride, wounded by the chosen arrow, says: “I am wounded by love” (Song. 2:5); According to this, we can say: “I am wounded by integrity, I am equal to wisdom.” The Queen of the South was also wounded by this arrow of wisdom, and was beside herself with amazement when she found in the real Solomon more than in the one about whom rumor told her (1 Kings 10:7). So, these arrows, sent for light, rush forward in the flash of lightning of His weapon, that is, God. Indeed, whoever is armed to resist the tricks of the devil, and girded with the full armor of which the Apostle speaks (Eph. 4:11), arrows of light will fly to him, so that it can be said to him: “You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). On the contrary, whoever is sinful and groans because he lives in the villages of Kedar, arrows of the strong are sent to him, sharp with burning destructive coals (Ps. 119:4-5), so that he will first be struck by the power of the word of God and begin to say: “I was in misfortune when a thorn pierced me” (Ps. 31:4), and then after his defeat, a cleansing one is sent to him through Seraphim burning coal, i.e. the fiery word of God, so that it would cleanse not only the lips - Isaiah had only them unclean (Is. 4) - but also all parts of his members, and lead to the complete absence of sins. LXX: “In your threat you will make the earth low and you will captivate the nations in rage.” These words can be understood in relation to the end of the world, when, as a result of frequent wars and the beating of many people, a small number of them will remain, and those who did not want to be part of the people of God, but remained unbelieving pagans, will be brought down into the depths of hell by the fury of God’s wrath. But it is better to understand by the earth reduced by threats the earthly deeds and those sinful people who, being in the church, do not wait until they are carried away by the wrath of the Lord, but knowing from the Scriptures what punishments weigh upon sinners, they repent and little by little reduce their earth and rush to heaven. If any of us is struck by the fear of the Lord's threats, for that reason the earth diminishes; on the contrary, whoever stubbornly remains among the pagans and does not want to be among those whose land is diminished, and among the people of God, about whom it is said: “The nations will see you and will be tormented with the pangs of childbirth,” he, along with the pagans, will be dragged to the place of punishment. LXX: “Thou hast come forth to save Thy people, to save Thy anointed ones.” First, let's see how many different anointed ones there are, and then we will discuss how the Lord came out to save His anointed ones. In the Old Testament, the anointed ones are called, firstly, the patriarchs, about whom it is written in the Psalms: “And I reproached the kings for them with the words: Touch not My anointed, and do not harm My prophets” (Ps. 105:14-15). Also in the first book of Chronicles, all those who came out of Egypt are called anointed (1 Chronicles 16:22). In the book of Exodus, the priestly anointing is also arranged (Exodus 30:23–30), with which after, as stated in the book of Leviticus, the priests are anointed (Lev.8:12 et al.). There is another anointing with which kings are anointed for the kingdom, which falls into two types. In fact, if David and Solomon are anointed, i.e. “mighty in hand and peaceable” (1 Samuel 16:13; 2 Kings 1:3–9), then they are anointed with a horn of oil; if it is Juy and Hazael, then oil is poured on their heads from a small vessel in the form of lentils (2 Kings 9:3); that was the name of the clay vessel, i.e. lentils. And Cyrus, king of the Persians and Medes, who freed the people from captivity - although many are mistaken and think that this is written about the Lord the Savior - heard the following words through the prophet Isaiah: “This says the Lord to My anointed Cyrus, whose hand I held, so that before him the nations would submit” (Is. 45:1), etc. And at the end it says: “You did not know Me,” which cannot be attributed to the Savior. There is a prophetic anointing; A command was given about him to Elijah, so that he would anoint Elisha as a prophet (1 Kings 19:16). But above all kinds of anointing there is a spiritual anointing, which is called the oil of joy; with this anointing the Savior is anointed, to Whom it is said: “Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of joy above Your companions” or His own (Ps. 44:8). And by accomplices I mean those to whom John says: “And you have the anointing of the Holy One” (1 John 2:20), and then a few words later: “This I have written to you about those who deceive you; but the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you need no one to teach you; but just... the anointing will teach you about everything; and it is true and not false, and as it has taught you, continue in it” (1 John 2:26-27). And so that some who have lost the anointing of baptism do not despair of restoring the anointing, it is written in the book of Leviticus that when a leper expelled from the camp comes to the priest and his leprosy is cleansed, the priest pours oil on his left hand and, having wet his finger, sprinkles the oil seven times before the Lord, and also touches the ear of the leper and his right hand and right foot, and that from the anointing will remain to be placed on his head (Lev.14:16-18). When he has completed all this in accordance with the rules of the ritual, he must offer a burnt offering for him, and he will be called God’s anointed. I want to say something, but I am afraid not to give the negligent a reason for temptation - this is precisely that in the sacred Scriptures we find the same person anointed more than once. Finally, David is anointed three times (2 Samuel 5:3, 12:20); but we will not refer this to the one who has sinned, and is as if anointed again (for for the leper, when he has lost the first anointing, it is enough that he be anointed a second time; but we will refer this to the one who prospers day by day, and whose anointing increases more and more, and who from the oil of the leper ascends to the level of the oil of the people and the saints, and from the oil of the people passes to the oil priests, and from the priests he ascends to the high priestly anointing, from the high priest to the king, from the king to the patriarchs, and from the patriarchs he continues to ascend to Christ and is anointed with the oil of joy (Ps. 44:8), and the one who is anointed with this last oil becomes one and the same spirit with God, and where the Father and the Son are, there he will also be. But, in truth, this happens rarely and is only the object of people’s desires. believers. However, I don’t even know whether such an action can be carried out. In fact, he says: “God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of joy more than Your companions,” i.e. such oil, which they, Your partners, either could never receive, or received only rarely. – So, God came out of His place to save these anointed ones, as Micah says: “And He will go out from His place to save” (Micah 1:3). Indeed, since those who needed salvation did not want to approach Him, He Himself descended from the place of His greatness in order to bring those who were outside to the land of the meek and the land of the living, from which Adam was expelled, from which Cain also came out and settled (Gen. 3:23, according to the text of LXX) in the land of Naid. But, as we said above, it should be noted that where LXX was used in the plural: “to save Thy anointed,” in the Hebrew text there is: lajesua eth messiach ( לישע את םשיחק ), which Aquila translated: “to salvation with Thy Christ,” i.e. not that God came out to save the people and save His Christ, but that He will come to save the people with His Christ, according to which the Gospel says: the Father is in Me and “I am in the Father, and the Father who abides in Me, Himself does the works” (John 14:10). The Fifth Edition translated in the same way: “Thou hast come forth to the salvation of Thy people, to salvation with Thy Christ.” Theodotion, as a truly poor man and Ebionite, just like Symmachus, professing the same teaching, expressing the thought of the poor, translated as the Jews: “You came out to save Your people, to save Your Anointed” and: “You came out to save Your people, to save Your Anointed.” I intend to say something incredible, and yet absolutely true: these half-Christians translated in Jewish, and the Jew Aquila interpreted as a Christian. The sixth edition, setting forth in the clearest manner the mystery of redemption, translated from the Hebrew: “Thou hast gone out to save thy people through Jesus Christ,” which in Greek is expressed by the words: διὰ Ιησοὔν τὸν σου. This meaning can be understood to mean that the Father will come out with the Son from the church of Judea and from the rituals of this people with the words: “Your house is left empty for you” (Luke 13:35) and will go to save the Gentiles in order to save those who believe through Jesus Christ His Son. LXX: “I have sent death upon the head of the wicked.” But let us think about what is said about that common death by which we all die, by which Abraham died and will be united to our fathers (Gen. 25:8), the prophets also died, Christ Himself died (John 19:33); but death was sent on the wicked (1 Samuel 2:9), so that those who first lived in unrighteousness died in sin, then lived to justice. This is exactly what Anna shows in her prayer with her words: “The Lord kills and gives life” (1 Samuel 2:6). In fact, He kills sinners, sending death to the head of the wicked in order to revive them for righteous judgment. May I be allowed to say something bolder: Christ came into the world in order to bring down death, and just as He Himself was once killed by sin (1 Pet. 3:18), so they too will die in unrighteousness; and those who became partakers of His death will also be partakers of life. And according to the Hebrew text, we will understand by the head - in the words: “I have struck the head of the house of the wicked” - the prince of this world, and by his house - the world and every soul of the sinner, in which the devil has refuge. Thus, the head in the house of the wicked is slain so that after it is defeated and cast out from there, the house will be the house of God, so that justice may dwell in it and he will walk in it. And it is worthy to think in this way about God, who came out to save His people with His Christ, so that, having struck the head of this world, He Himself became the head for us, He is the head of every man and His Church. So, if anyone still considers himself the house of the wicked, let him earnestly ask for the coming of Christ, so that the head of the wicked may be erased from him. LXX: “You have placed shackles on your neck forever.” The Lord imposed the chains of love, so that, putting aside the previous burden and throwing away the heaviest yoke that oppressed us, we would take upon ourselves the light burden of the yoke of Christ and, harnessed to His chariot, would bear the most excellent Charioteer. Even Theodotion takes this in a good sense and says: “You have decorated the foundation to the very top”; Fifth edition: “You have exposed or freed the base to the top,” sela, i.e. "Always". Since the foundation of Christ, which was in the souls of individual people, was covered by foreigners with earth, the earth thrown in a heap rises, and a better foundation is revealed, and is decorated, so that what was hidden before is now revealed and acquires its shine, and this is done forever, which in Hebrew is called “sela.” Pay attention to the fact that LXX, prompted by the force of circumstances, in this place translated “sela” with the word “forever” or: to the end, although previously they constantly translated this word with the word “diapsalma”. Hab.3:14-16: You have cursed his sceptres, the head of his warriors, who come like a whirlwind to scatter me. His joy is like the joy of one who devours the poor in a secret place. You have made a way for Your horses across the sea, through the depths of the great waters. I heard, and my insides trembled: my lips trembled at the sound of Your voice; Let destruction penetrate into my bones and let pus creep from under my feet, so that I may remain calm in the day of my suffering. Its Vulgate has the words: “Mine, so that I may join my people who are ready to go.” – And now we have presented only one Hebrew text, so we will discuss the translation of the Seventy separately, for it differs in many ways from the translation of all the others. “You have cursed,” he says, “the sceptres,” i.e. his kingdom, undoubtedly wicked, about which he said above: “You have struck down the head of the house of the wicked; exposed the base even to the neck.” And by wicked we mean either Nebuchadnezzar or every enemy of the people of God. You cursed not only his sceptres, but also the leader of the warriors whom You struck, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, i.e. to completely defeat Israel and take them into captivity to different places. Thus those who devoured the poor and conquered Israel rejoiced, as if they were doing it in a secret place and tormenting us without knowing You. But You came into battle for Your people and, leading Your chariots into the waters, i.e. among many nations, You made a way for them in the depths of many waters, i.e. so that You trample them and scatter them, as it were, with mud with the hooves of your horses and the wheels of Your chariots. And in the following words, “I heard and my insides trembled at the sound of the voice,” as if it were implied: “Your,” “my lips trembled. Let destruction penetrate into my bones and let pus creep from under my feet, so that I may remain calm in the day of suffering, so that I may approach our girded people,” the meaning is this: Now we willingly endure all kinds of oppression and, under the influence of Your threats, we tremble with all the depths of our being; Now my lips tremble, and the fear of a trembling thought is indicated on my face; and not only this I ask, or at least I desire, but also something else: let destruction pass through my bones (or: into my bones) and let festering worms crawl from under me, i.e. I willingly endure what Job suffered: I want not only my flesh, but also the marrow of my bones to undergo decomposition, and for my bed to be covered with pus and countless worms, so that after enduring all this, I can calm down in the day of sorrows, suffering, extreme need and oppression, and so that I can go among our people, girded for the journey - i.e. brave, warlike, and defiantly challenging to fight. And he says beautifully: “so that I may go out,” for they always go on their way to a people girded; an elegant word for “our” people, who were in sorrow and willingly endured oppression, who prepared future rewards for themselves with present disasters; he boldly tells ours that he himself should fall asleep like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in a good old age, many years old, and venerate himself to his ancestors. But if someone says: “Here, when you don’t know something when presenting history, you get entangled in the networks of allegory and mix figurative interpretations into history,” let him know that historical images are not always allegory, because often history itself is presented under well-known images and, for example, under the image of a woman or one husband, an entire people is spoken of. So now we can say on behalf of the people: “I willingly submit to captivity, with a calm spirit I endure the oppression and oppression of the very heavy yoke of the Babylonians and with joy I endure (or will endure) everything that constitutes an extreme and grave need, just to calm down at the time when you curse the scepters of the wicked, and when your horses will trample the depths of many waters, and to return then to the land of promise with Your saints Zerubbabel and Joshua the son of Jozedek, with Ezra the priest and Nehemiah.” In order not to seem completely disdainful of history, until now we have in some way used violence against the mind and carried into captivity thoughts not related to it; and now let us turn to the Seventy Interpreters and to the figurative (mysterious) meaning. LXX: “You divided the heads of the mighty in stupor.” Just as Christ is the head of the entire Church and every person (1 Cor. 11:3), so the head of all the demons that rage in this age is Beelzebub, the prince of demons, and their individual legions have their own heads and their princes. So, for example, the spirits of fornication have their leader, the spirits of avarice have their leader (ἄρκοντο), the spirits of vanity, the spirits of lies, the spirits of avarice, the spirits of unbelief have the leaders of their malice. So, the most merciful God, who sent death on the heads of the wicked and raised the shackles to the very neck, finally separates the heads of the powerful, inducing numbness, so that he first separates the princes from the subordinates and, as it were, beheads the body, and then the best head is placed where the most wicked head was. Let us take an example to make what we have said more clear. If a tyrant is ever killed, then his images and statues are also overthrown, and only by changing their appearance and removing the head are they attached to the face of the one who won the victory, so that after the head is removed, another head is placed on the previous body. I readily attribute this to gatherings of heretics, for after the separation of heretical leaders from other nations, Christ begins to be the head in their place. At the same time, pay attention to the meaning of St. Scripture, namely: it does not say: “You cut off,” or “cut off the heads of the mighty,” but “divided”; indeed, what is divided is not so much cut off and discarded as divided into parts. So, just as during the pandemonium (Gen. 11) the tongue, evilly united, was divided, and the most unholy union was cut by a beneficial division, and these heads, apparently having agreement with their bodies or among themselves (for there are many heads of heretics who, although they have different views, yet rage with one, so to speak, language of blasphemy against the Church) are divided into parts and, having separated from the deceived bodies, give place to the Good Head. We can apply this passage in the case when we see that kings and their leaders shed Christian blood, and then retribution from the Lord followed. - which we recently saw in Julian, and before him in Maximian, and even earlier in Valerian, Decius, Domitian and Nero, - we can say with joy and singing to the Lord: “You divided the heads of the mighty in stupor,” i.e. in the amazement of the believers, or of all nations, who did not think that they could be struck so quickly. When I was still a youth and still practicing grammar, and all the cities were still desecrated by the blood of victims, suddenly, during the most cruel persecution, the death of Julian was announced, one of the pagans, not without cunning, exclaimed: “How do Christians say that their God is lenient and patient (ἀνεξίχαχον)? There is nothing more angry and more obvious in rage: He could not postpone vengeance for his insult even for some short time.” He said this jokingly. But the Church of Christ sang with joy: “Thou hast divided the heads of the mighty in stupor.” May I also be allowed to say something similar: “Oh Lord! stripped Ahab and Jezebel to the amazement of all” (1 Kings 21:18). True, I am not the prophet Elijah, but these Ahab and Jezebel killed Naboth and captured his vineyard and turned the garden into a place of fun for themselves. Let a certain Thy servant Obadiah be found to feed Thy needy and needy; Let the blood of the harlot be given to dogs, and let the wicked and stingy Ahab be killed by the arrow of the Lord. LXX: “They will be shaken in her (or: in him), they will open their bridles like a beggar who eats secretly (or: in a secret place).” When the heads are separated from the bodies and separated in torpor, which in Greek is indicated by the word ἐν ἐχστάσει - why, in accordance with this word, the word ἐν αὐτῆ agrees, i.e. “in it” - then they will open their bridles, or theirs (for one can understand both), so that, leaving the power by which they previously ruled over the bodies subject to them, they give way to a better horseman and a better driver. And they will do this like beggars who eat or: a beggar who eats in a hidden place, without freedom and a certain abundance of food, but only food, the smallest, eating which in a hidden place, they do not want to pay anyone’s attention to what they are doing. This passage can also be explained in another way: when the heads are divided in torpor, as if separated from the rest of the body, they will open their mouths, which were bound, as it were, with a bridle of condemnation, and, like those who eat, they will chew with crushed teeth, strongly desiring to eat, but not having the strength to do so. Understand that after the coming of Jesus Christ, the heads of the demons will again want to have their former power over the nations that were previously subordinate to them and separated from them. But since they are cut off from the bodies, they will not have full power to devour them: they eat like the poor, and they are not only poor, but also poor in a secret place; they are poor because they have lost their former wealth; they eat in a hidden place because they are always in ambush to kill the innocent in a hidden place. These heads have the same teeth as the arrows. And even though they had previously said: “I will rise above the stars of heaven, I will build my nest on high and hold the whole world in my hand like an egg,” but they will be thrown down from their height and, losing their former adornment and all the wealth of their house, like the poor, they will only secretly try to eat and bite. I know that the Hebrew text disagrees with much of what it says. But what should I do, who is asked to interpret both the Hebrew text and the well-known scriptures accepted throughout the world at one time? LXX: “And You brought Your horses over the sea, disturbing many waters.” After God sent death on the heads of the wicked, and cut off the heads of the mighty in torpor, and crushed them on the sea. For in the Psalms it is written: “You have crushed the heads of the dragon” (Ps. 73:14) after beating the princes, or crushing them, and after defeating the strong, an invasion is made on his house and all his precious things are plundered (Mark 8:2). And by precious things and the house of a strong man and the utensils of a prince, what else can we understand if not the abyss of this world, in which the dragon dwells? So God, the excellent Horseman and the superior Driver, introduces His horses, i.e. angels, and the highest powers in the sea of ​​this world, so that they may trouble many waters, i.e. demons and hostile forces. If we want to understand this place in relation to the coming of Christ, according to what is written in the Apocalypse (Rev. 19:11-15), that the Word of God sits on a white horse and is followed by the whole army on white horses, then we will see how Christ ascended the Apostles, saying to them: Behold, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” and “Go, baptize all nations,” etc. (Matthew 28:19–20). And then He will mount one snow-white horse, by which I mean none other than the Apostle Paul, sitting on which He went around the whole world. The Word of God will ascend on His horses, so that many waters may be troubled, i.e. or many peoples who were previously at sea and slavishly obeyed the dragon, “For broad and broad is the way that leads to death” (Matthew 7:13), will first be confused, leaving their long-standing delusion, and then in confusion they will lift up the coming Horseman; or the demonic legions of which I spoke before will no longer dominate the sea, but will retreat in confusion, in fear of the wounds inflicted by the warring Horseman. Oh, that the Word of God would also come upon me and, with the sharp edge of my mouth, strike him who reigns over many waters, so that during the death of their king, the waters that were under his command would in confusion present their necks to my Horseman, and that, harnessed together to one chariot, we would become Cherubim of the Lord, which means “multitude of knowledge.” In fact, only among those who are united by the bonds of broad knowledge does such an embellished Horseman rush. LXX: “I stood on guard, and my belly was afraid because of the voice of the prayer of my lips, and trembling came into my bones, and my strength was troubled under me.” or, as we find standing elsewhere, ῆ ἓξις μου, which we cannot translate with the words: “the position of my body,” because different instances give different words. But these words can also be spoken on behalf of the prophet in connection with his superiors, and precisely like this: O Lord, since You sent death on the heads of the wicked and raised bonds even to their necks, and divided the heads of the mighty in stupor, and brought Your horses to the sea, troubled many waters; Then I guarded my heart with all fear, and my insides trembled, and all my strength, or the position of my body, came into confusion, for fear of suffering such calamities. However, this place can be considered as having an independent beginning of thought, i.e. as if the prophet was talking about his fear, how he was afraid that he had sinned, or: so as not to sin in something, and under the influence of the sounds of prayer from his lips he feared God so much that trembling entered his bones, and placed under the high hand of the Lord he was shaken with all the strength of his soul, or his whole body. We must understand his words: “Trembling has entered my bones” as words used for greater expressiveness (ἐμφατιχώτερον) in order to see the power of the fear of God, penetrating all the powers of the soul, and moving the whole person so that he does not do anything displeasing to God. And since in a figurative sense, Scripture also means members of the soul by the members of the body, then by the trembling womb we will understand that power of the soul that perceives spiritual food, and by the lips those lips with which the mind speaks to itself; under the bones are solid, fundamental teachings on which the entire structure of mental life rests. - I said this briefly. And if someone finds something more reasonable and true compared to this, then prefer to agree with his explanation. LXX: “I will rest in the day of my suffering, so that I can go up to the people of my migration.” Since I kept my heart with all fear and my belly was afraid at the voice of the prayer of my lips, and trembling entered my bones and my strength, or the position of my body, was bent, and since, as a result of such fear, I became a stranger to sins, now I confidently say: “I will rest in the day of my suffering, so that I can go up to the people of my migration, that is, to the one who, like me, wanders in this world.” But I will ascend to him, because I am placed below, and I will rush with all my strength towards him, as if heading from a lowly place to the most elevated possible, so that at a time when others are in suffering and a cramped situation, I have only the concern of ascending, in order to thus rest with the people of my wanderings in the most elevated places. In my opinion, the day of suffering is the day of the end of the world, about which Isaiah says: “The day of the Lord is inevitable, a day of wrath and wrath to turn the whole circle of the earth into a desert and destroy sinners” (Is. 14:6-7). Hab.3:17: For the fig tree will not produce blossom, and the vines will not bear fruit; the olive tree will fail, and the fields will not produce grain. The small livestock will be destroyed from the pen and the large livestock will not be in the stalls. LXX: “For the fig tree will not bear fruit, neither will there be fruit (or: shoots) on the vines; the olive trees will deceive and the fields will not produce food: there is not enough for the sheep to carry, and there are no oxen in the stalls.” According to the Hebrew, according to which we said above: “Let destruction penetrate into my bones, and let pus creep from under my feet, so that I may remain calm in the day of my suffering, so that I may join my people, ready for the journey,” or ours, ready for the journey, the preceding and the following are connected as follows: I therefore wanted to endure suffering at the present time, and then rise to a strong people, because the day of suffering and need will come; and when others are oppressed, I will rejoice in Your greatness: “For the fig tree will not produce blossom, and there will be no shoot on the vines: the olive tree will deceive, and the fields will not produce grain,” and so on. Since these words differ only slightly from the LXX translation, we will discuss them simultaneously. When the day of suffering comes, and I rise to my people who once wandered with me, or when the day of the defeat of Judah and the first people comes, and when the daughter of Zion is abandoned like a tent in a vineyard and like a hut in a garden, and like a city that is taken by storm, I, chosen from among a perishing people, about whom Isaiah says: “If the Lord ... had not left us seed, then we would have been like Sodom and would have become like Gomorrah" (Is. 1:9), I will join the disciples of Christ; and since He teaches them on the mountain, I will approach the mountains, leaving below the confusion and those who are exhausted. For the fig tree, to which the hungry man came, did not bear fruit, as the Gospel says, the Lord did not find fruit on it and cursed it with the words: “You will not bear fruit forever” (Matthew 21:19). Consider carefully the words: “You will not bear fruit forever”; does not say: “forever and ever,” but only until this age passes and the fullness of the pagans comes in; then this fig tree will bear its fruit, and all Israel will be saved. This is the fig tree to which the Lord passes for the third time and wants to destroy it as not bearing fruit, and about which the gardener, who had supervision over it, begs that the Lord give it time, and says: Lord, “leave it for another year, until I dig it up and cover it with manure, maybe it will bear fruit; and if... not, then You will cut it down” (Luke 13:8–9). This gardener is either Gabriel or Michael, to whom the people of Judah are entrusted: he asks the Lord with compassion and says: “Lord, give him time to repent and do not destroy them, maybe they will bear fruit, and if not, then you will punish them.” He says, “if they bear fruit,” he did not say that they will persist; neither did He say: “If they bear fruit, they will remain as they were”; but he said: “maybe they will bear fruit” and the thought was interrupted, as if it were implied that then You will transfer them to the church of the pagans and transplant them into another vineyard. The Lord came the third time and did not find fruit in them, namely: the first time He gave the law through Moses, the second time He spoke through the prophets, the third time He came Himself, and finally the fourth time, after His suffering, having given them forty-four years for repentance, He subjected them to destruction, since they bore no fruit. However, this conclusion appears to be our understanding. In fact, the parable does not indicate what the Master would do next; In the parable, the gardener only appears to be pleading. As a result of this, we make the remark that those who bore fruit from this fig tree were added to the people of the pagans, to which the prophet ascends, saying: “I will rest in the day of suffering, so that I can go up to the people of my pilgrimage.” And those who did not bear fruit and remained in their bitterness were subject to destruction. This is also what John’s voice means in the Gospel: Behold, “the ax is laid at the root of the tree or tree. Every tree that does not produce fruit (or: does not produce good fruit) will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10; Luke 3:9). Regarding the fig tree we said, showing that this is the Jewish people. Let's say about the vineyard; and everyone who reads Isaiah will understand this: “A vineyard was created for the Beloved on a spur, in a plentiful place” (Is. 5:1) and then: “And I looked for it to bear fruit, but it brought thorns,” and instead of truth - cries (Is. 5:2); and in Jeremiah: “I planted you, a fertile true vine, how did you turn into a bitter foreign vine” (Jer. 2:21), and even more clearly in the psalms: “You transplanted a vine from Egypt, threw away the pagans and planted it” (Ps. 79:9). This is precisely the vine to which the Father often sent slaves (Matthew 21:33-40) to gather from it the wine that gladdens the heart of man; but since she turned to bitterness and finally even dared to kill the Son of the Master of the house, bringing not grapes, but thorns, and instead of righteous judgment - cries: “Crucify, crucify Him,” and: “We have no king except Caesar” (John 19:6, 15); then: “The boar uprooted her from the forest, and the wild beast devoured her” (Ps. 79:14). Under the olive tree, the people of the synagogue will easily be seen by those who read from the Apostle (Rom. 11:17) about the broken branches of the olive tree and regarding us, grafted in from the wild olive tree; Thus we will understand by the branches the multitude of the Jews who are cut off, and by the roots the election of the apostles, firmly holding; we will remain grafted into them, if we create fruit, then it will be said about us: “Your sons are like the young shoots of an olive tree around your table” (Ps. 127:3). Many people think to understand the fig tree, the olive tree and the vineyard in relation to the sacrament of the Trinity, precisely in such a way that by the fig tree, because of the sweetness of the fruit, the Holy Spirit is understood; under the vineyard is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who says in the Gospel: “I am the true vine” (John 15:1). The olive tree is God the Father Almighty, from whom everything is enlightened, and from whom light emanates, and to whom we can say: O olive tree! “in Your light we will see light” (Ps. 35:10), i.e. in the Son we will see the Holy Spirit. To these trees abundant in fruits and the most abundant vineyard, - as the book of Judges says, - unfruitful trees come and ask that they reign over them (Judges 9:8). But the olive, fig, and vineyard never dominate over the trees of the forest, which are preserved for the fire; but rather they are ruled by a thorny tree, covered with thorns, similar to the heretic who lives in Babylon and is constantly in the ravines. This tree not only has thorns, but also contains fire, which inflicts wounds and burns everything it touches. Therefore fire came out and destroyed the trees of the forest. But you should know, in accordance with the above understanding, in which the words: “The fig tree will not produce fruit, and there will be no shoots on the vines,” we attribute in the synagogue that this is not talking about fruits, but about good deeds. The riddle is fully explained on the olive tree in the words: “The business of the olive tree will deceive.” In fact, the fruits that they were supposed to bear are revealed in deeds: the olive tree, which promises one thing and does another, will deceive. These are they who say to Moses: “Whatever the Lord commands, we will do” (Ex. 24:7), and who do not want to believe in the One who was proclaimed by Moses. And the fields will not bear fruit either. Please note that Jerusalem, once located on the mountains, and: “the mountains around it”, and: “its foundations on the holy mountains” (Ps. 125:2, 86:2), is now called lowland and field; it does not feed not only people - rational animals - but even small and large livestock, bulls, about which Solomon speaks in parables: “Take care of those countries that are in the fields and cut the grass and prepare hay so that you can have sheep for food” (Proverbs 27:25-26); Likewise, there will be no oxen in the pens: for where the pens are full, the strength of the oxen is clearly revealed (Proverbs 14:4). The ox is fit for work; he bears the yoke of the Lord; Blessed is he who sows seed in the tracks of the ox. But all this will be taken away from the people who acted unrighteously before God their Creator. Therefore, if you want or do not want to understand the day of suffering as the day of the end of the world, then you will attribute everything said to those who, although they say that they belong to the church, do not have righteous deeds. And the fig tree, and the vineyard, and the olive tree - namely, the Sacrament of the Trinity - will not bear fruit in such people, and they not only have no food and fruit for rational creatures, but even life for flocks and livestock in their fields, and their pens are empty, and instead of spending time on the high mountains, they spend it in the valleys and in low-lying places. Hab.3:18–19: But I will rejoice in the Lord and be glad in my God Jesus. The Lord God is my strength, and will make my feet like the feet of a deer, and the conqueror will bring me to my heights, singing psalms. LXX: “I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will rejoice in the God of salvation, or: My Savior, the Lord God is my strength, and will put my feet to the end: He will set me on top of the heights, so that I may overcome in His song.” Since the fig tree, the vineyard and the olive tree do not bear fruit in the sense indicated, and the fields of the Jews do not produce life, then, after the sheep had been released from the sheepfold and the cattle from the folds, and after they had heard from the Lord: “Your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:38), and after the people were given up into captivity and scattered throughout the whole world, a prophet from the people of Judah - The prophet, whose name means “embrace” (because he loved the Lord, clung to him, and united with Him), on behalf of the apostles and the people who believe in Christ, says: “But I will rejoice in the Lord, I will rejoice in my God Jesus.” Instead, LXX was translated: τῶ Ζωτῆρ´ μου, i.e. "My Savior." Gabriel translates the same thing in the words: “And he will be called Jesus, for he will save his people” (Matthew 1:21). God the Lord is my strength, i.e. I will have no other power except in Christ, and will consider all the justifications of the law as invalid. “And he will make my feet like the feet of a deer” to trample on the asp and the basilisk and, like an inexperienced child, put his hand into a hole and pull out a snake and play with a poisonous reptile (or: and Judas from a poisonous reptile) “for my Beloved is like a wild goat or a young deer” (Song. 2:9). And since He Himself is a deer, He also granted me that I could be a deer with high antlers, cloven hooves, chewing plant food and could drive away snakes with my smell; which deer is spoken of in the seventeenth Psalm: “Who has made my feet like the feet of deer and will set me on the high places” (Ps. 17:34), and in the twenty-eighth: “The voice of the Lord who perfects the deer” (Ps. 28:9). So, He will place my feet among His other deer and lead me to heaven, so that among the angels I will sing the glory of the Lord and proclaim peace on earth to people of good will. And I will sing His victory, the triumph and conquest of the cross. Thus, everything said according to the text of the Hebrew and the Fifth Edition will be attributed to the time of the Jewish defeat and the coming of the Lord. If we want to understand this in relation to the end of the world, then this passage should be stated as follows: Just as in Egypt, according to the story of the book of Exodus (Ex. 9), the people of Israel rejoiced in the Lord and rejoiced in God their Savior, when Egypt was shaken, and when God struck their vineyards and their fig trees, and killed the firstborn of people and animals with hail, and destroyed the Egyptian fruit with worms and locusts, and the fig tree in Egypt did not bear fruit and there were no shoots on the vines, and the olive tree was deceiving (if only somewhere in Egypt it was found), and their fields did not produce food (or fruit) and had a shortage, because their flocks had no food, and there were no bulls in the stalls: so at the end of the world, when with the increase of unrighteousness, love grows cold ( Matthew 24:12) and the fig tree will not bear fruit, and the vines will not have clusters, and the olive tree will deceive, and the fields will not produce crops, etc. next then; then the one who is found righteous and worthy of God’s election will say with joy: “I will rejoice in the Lord and rejoice in God my Savior. The Lord is my strength." And as if placed by God above the destruction of the world, in order to then ascend to the heights and be exalted to the highest limit, he will say: “And he will set my feet to the end of the world, he will set me on top of the heights,” so that I, - when the winner (ἀγωνοθέτη) Jesus, who was the first to prevail in the struggle, will be assigned to those who sing, will prevail in His singing, so that my hands will compose beautiful works on zither, harp and all kinds of organs, and that I write a song of praise to the Conqueror. And finally, I, who at the beginning exclaimed: “How long, Lord, will I cry and You will not hear, and I will cry out to You, enduring violence, and You will not save?” and having begun to study about the truth and about His judgment, then I will praise His truth and surpass the rest of the singers in my song. You might be interested in: