The Douay-Rheims with the Glossa Ordinaria

¹This is the blessing, wherewith the man of God, Moses, blessed the children of Israel, before his death.

v.1

VERS. 1.-- *This is the blessing.* Well did he set the blessing at the end of Deuteronomy, because Christ, when he was about to ascend into heaven after the completion of the Gospel, lifted up his hands and blessed his disciples. The blessing wherewith he blessed the sons of Israel in Deuteronomy (which is the second law) belongs to the grace of the New Testament, in which the mysteries of the ancient law are unlocked, and the true Israelites obtain, through the man Christ, the blessing foretold through Moses the man of God. And well is the blessing given when the death of Moses is at hand, because, as the shadow of the law dies, the truth of the heavenly gifts is opened. Foreseeing therefore the coming of the Saviour, and unfolding the grace of the New Testament as though it were already past, Moses, full of gladness, exults with the voice of the primitive Church, saying: *The Lord came from Sina,* etc. Another reading, etc., *as far as* whence: *Rejoice, ye nations, with his people. Because blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness,* etc. *Moses the man.* Moses signifies the law, which before its death — that is, before it was brought to an end in him — foretold that the Church was to be blessed in Christ.

²And he said: The Lord came from Sinai, and from Seir he rose up to us: he hath appeared from mount Pharan, and with him thousands of saints. In his right hand a fiery law.

v.2

VERS. 2.-- *The Lord came from Sinai.* Sinai ( ) is interpreted *my amphora* or *my measure* or *commandment.* Seir ( ), *hairy* or *shaggy.* Pharan ( ), *their fierceness* or *fruit-bearing.* Sina therefore figures the Old Testament, because, holding a fixed measure of commandments according to the decree of the decalogue, it knows how to forbid, not to help: nor does it set free by the spirit of love, but binds its subjects by the fear of punishment. Whence: *The one indeed on mount Sina, begetting unto bondage,* etc. The Lord therefore came from Sina, that is, out of the law and the prophets he became known to those who believe. For thence he comes, when there he becomes known to one who reads and understands. Whence: *He, beginning from Moses and all the prophets*, expounded to the disciples, to whose hearts he desired to come. Risen from Seir according to the flesh, that is, from the Jews, most harsh with the thornbrake of malice and perfidy, he enlightened the faithful by the rising of a new light, as the true sun of justice. Whence: *To us shall the sun of justice arise*. And elsewhere: *A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall spring up from Israel*. *The Lord,* etc. Sina is interpreted *temptation.* The Lord therefore came from Sina, because he took our flesh, in which he might be tempted. *And from Seir,* etc. Who is also Edom or Esau. This is the people of the Jews, who by the desire of the gullet lost the glory of the birthright as though for a mess of lentils, and, supplanted by the faith of the younger people, forfeited the grace of the blessing. *From Seir he arose for us,* etc. This mountain they went about for a long time, and on it received certain precepts. Seir, that is *shaggy* or *hairy,* signifies the gentile world, which was horrible with sins; from which arose the Lord, who at the end will preach to the Jews out of the Church of the gentiles, because the remnant shall be saved. *He appeared from mount Pharan,* etc. Which is interpreted *fruit-bearing,* because from the Church of the gentiles, fruitful in virtues, the faith of Christ was preached to the Jews. Christ therefore appeared from Pharan; because the more the fierceness of the unbelievers blazed against him, the higher grew the knowledge of his divinity. For the more he lay hidden amid the insults of the passion, the more he shone forth through the power of the resurrection; and they who before persecuted him with the fierceness of unbelief, afterwards clung to him with the ardour of charity; of whom it is added: *And with him thousands of saints.* *In his right hand a fiery law.* The tables, namely, in which is the law, which purges and burns away sins. The right hand of the Father also is the Son, who brought the law of charity, saying: *I came to send fire upon the earth,* etc. *In his right hand a fiery law.* The right hand, the Gospel, through which eternal beatitude is promised; which is called the right hand, not the temporal one, as in the law, which is called the left. Whence: *His right hand shall embrace me.* In this right hand is a fiery law, that is, charity kindled by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the elect. Whence he says: *The fulness of the law is love*. And elsewhere: *A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another*. This, poured into the apostles by the fiery tongues of the Holy Spirit, wrote out all the fulness of the law as with the finger of God, and made them fervent in spirit and shining in work. But because it was given not to one people, as the law of Moses was, but to all, he adds: *He loved the peoples.* VERS.--3.-- *He loved.* Whence: *Greater love than this no man hath, than that he lay down his life,* etc.. *All.* Without respect of persons; whence: *He that feareth God and worketh justice is acceptable to him*. *All the saints.* Sanctified, namely, in the name of him whose words they heard: *Be ye holy, for I am holy,* etc.. *In the hand.* That is, the power by which they are protected. Whence: *No man shall snatch them out of my hand,* etc.. These through charity are one kingdom in the hand of the Lord; whence Isaias: *And thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a diadem of the kingdom in the hand of thy God*. *And they that draw near,* etc. As if to say: Let not those be saddened who did not hear Christ teaching in the flesh, as though they were deceived by men. Through the mouth of the saints Christ speaks; through the feet the doctrine of the head is heard; whence: *He that heareth you heareth me,* etc. Or those draw near to his feet to receive doctrine who, burning with spiritual desire, keep watch day and night over the evangelical and apostolic Scriptures. But because these things have been said of the New Testament, there follows that in whose voice Moses speaks of the old law, saying: *He commanded us a law,* etc.

³He hath loved the people, all the saints are in his hand: and they that approach to his feet, shall receive of his doctrine.

⁴Moses commanded us a law, the inheritance of the multitude of Jacob.

⁵He shall be king with the most right, the princes of the people, being assembled with the tribes of Israel.

⁶Let Ruben live, and not die, and be he small in number.

v.6

VERS. 6.-- *Let Ruben live.* The salvation of the primitive Church having been foretold, he bestows their proper blessings upon the several tribes; and foretelling the true Israelites out of both peoples, he prophesies now of Christ, now of the apostles, now of the primitive, now of the whole Church. *Let Ruben live.* As if to say: Although Ruben violated his father's bed, and lost the dignity of the firstborn, yet let him live, and doing penance let him not die. The sons of Ruben, that is, the Jews signified by Ruben, violated the bed of the Father, that is, they defiled Christ his Son with unclean spittle: yet they are reserved unto penance, but few in number in comparison with the Church of the gentiles. *Ruben.* Son of vision, because his mother said: God hath seen my humiliation. This is the firstborn, signifying the elect from among the Jews, who, dead by denying and crucifying Christ, and converted by the preaching of the apostles, were made alive by the faith of Christ: these are sons of vision, because saved by the regard of the divine mercy.

⁷This is the blessing of Juda. Hear, O Lord, the voice of Juda, and bring him in unto his people: his hands shall fight for him, and he shall be his helper against his enemies.

v.7

VERS. 7.-- *This is Juda's.* Juda, who is interpreted *confession,* signifies the universal Church, in which is the confession of divine praise and the giving of thanks. Of whom his mother said: *Now will I confess to the Lord*. This is the true spouse of Christ, who, adorned with the necklaces of the virtues, is not proud, but gives thanks; and for her he prays, that she may be heard. *Hear, O Lord, the voice of Juda.* Of the kings, namely, who were of Juda, who longed for Christ; and of Christ himself, who said: *I confess to thee, Father, king of heaven and earth,* etc. *His hands.* He prayed the Lord for Juda, to whom he now promises the Lord's helps, as though Juda should not presume upon his own strength, but trust in him who said: *Be of good heart, I have overcome the world*; whose hands upon the cross fought against spiritual wickednesses, that through death he might destroy him who had the empire of death. *A helper.* That he may conquer and say: *Upon my high places the conqueror will lead me*: for he himself conquers in us, and for his own victory crowns us in mercy and compassions.

⁸To Levi also he said: Thy perfection, and thy doctrine be to thy holy man, whom thou hast proved in the temptation, and judged at the waters of contradiction:

v.8

VERS. 8.-- *Perfection.* As if to say: how perfect thou art, and how holy thy doctrine, thou hast declared through Moses. Or, from thy holy man, that is, from the Levites, is thy perfection and thy doctrine. For they ought to keep the law, to do it and to teach it. *Thy perfection.* These things are said to the choir of angels and of martyrs and of all the perfect, who fulfilled the perfection of charity by dying for the Lord; and who, renouncing the world, attained the summit of ecclesiastical doctrine, as true Levites having no portion in the land, but saying with the Prophet: *The Lord is the portion of my inheritance,* etc.; according to that word: *If any man will come after me, let him deny himself,* etc. * He that shall lose his life for my sake,* etc. But Christ is the true Levi, who did and taught all these things. To him the Levites themselves cling, imitating him even unto blood; of whose passion it is subjoined: *Whom thou hast proved in temptation,* etc. *At the waters.* It is the place where he refused to Moses and Aaron the entrance into the land of promise. *At the waters.* It signifies the law, which refused the entrance of the kingdom of heaven to those who live ill. The waters, the peoples, who contradicting cried out: *Crucify him. His blood be upon us, and upon our children*. To the sum of Levi's perfection he adds:

⁹Who hath said to his father, and to his mother: I do not know you; and to his brethren: I know you not: and their own children they have not known. These have kept thy word, and observed thy covenant,

v.9

VERS. 9.-- *Who said to his father.* When they made the golden calf, at Moses's bidding the Levites, girded with swords, slew the idolaters from gate to gate. In the avenging of idolatry they did not, as it were, know their own, because they killed without distinction. Whence: *Unless a man leave father and mother and wife and children for my sake, he is not my disciple*. *Who said to his father and his mother,* etc. In temporal things also we ought to profit more those to whom we are more nearly joined. We ought to acknowledge the bond of earthly kindred; but if it hinders the course of the mind, to ignore it, so that affection may fill the bowels of the mind, yet not turn it away from its spiritual purpose. This the cows well suggest, which, tending to the mountains under the ark of the Lord, walk with affection and with unbending resolve: going on for their calves they lowed, but, the journey once taken up, they did not turn their steps aside.

¹⁰Thy judgments, O Jacob, and thy law, O Israel: they shall put incense in thy wrath and holocaust upon thy altar.

¹¹Bless, O Lord, his strength, and receive the works of his hands. Strike the backs of his enemies, and let not them that hate him rise.

¹²And to Benjamin he said: The best beloved of the Lord shall dwell confidently in him: as in a bride chamber shall he abide all the day long, and between his shoulders shall be rest.

v.12

VERS. 12.-- *And to Benjamin.* He seems to allude to the history, because Jacob, patriarch and prophet, filled with the Spirit, loved Benjamin uniquely, and by God's dispensation the place devoted to the divine worship is decreed to be kept by his tribe; whence he adds: *As in a bridal chamber all the day,* etc. *Most beloved.* Christ is the most beloved of God the Father, who says of himself: *This is my beloved Son*. He dwells confidently at the right hand of the Father, to whom it is said: *Sit thou at my right hand*. Otherwise: Benjamin, called *son of the right hand* instead of son of sorrow, expresses Paul, made an apostle and a vessel of election out of a persecutor: for he himself was of this tribe; and it was fitting that, as the Lord's forerunner was foretold by a prophetic oracle, so the teacher of the gentiles, who was to profit the whole world, should be proclaimed among the great mysteries of the Church. In whose mind Christ dwelt with confidence, when amid innumerable perils he preached him steadfastly before gentiles and kings. Of whose soul it is said: *As in a bridal chamber he shall abide all the day.* Either enjoying with wondrous delight a marital wedlock, and making it fruitful with the offspring of the virtues, and forsaking the secret place of that most peaceful breast through the unquiet of no vice; or, sitting in it as in a bridal chamber, like a comely bridegroom, he joins to his embraces, through his preaching, the virgin minds of believers. Whence: *After her shall virgins be brought to the king*. He himself also says: *For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ*. The Divinity also dwells confidently in the humanity of Christ. *He shall abide in a bridal chamber,* signifies that in the womb of the Virgin the Church was joined to the heavenly bridegroom, she who rests confidently in the strength of Christ's power and in his works. *And he shall rest between his shoulders.* Burdens are carried upon the shoulders, and therefore in them sturdy patience is designated. And the more gladly did Christ rest in him, the harder were the labours he bore for his sake: the more closely was he embraced, the less was he torn from that embrace by any terror. Whence he says: *Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ?*

¹³To Joseph also he said: Of the blessing of the Lord be his land, of the fruits of heaven, and of the dew, and of the deep that lieth beneath.

v.13

VERS. 13.-- *To Joseph also he said.* Joseph is interpreted *increased.* This is Christ, who, cast off by his brethren the Jews, was made prince in the Egypt of this world, and freed the human race from the want of famine by the dispensation of the evangelical wheat: who is truly the Saviour of the world. *Of the blessing of the Lord be his land.* To the letter, it signifies the fertility which the two tribes out of Joseph, that is, Ephraim and Manasses, had in abundance of crops, of fruits, and of pasture for their flocks. This is Basan, a most fertile region, whence it is interpreted *fatness.* By the mildness of the sky, and by dew, the fruits, and the abundance of springs and of rivers, are delighted with man, which things are signified in the deep. *Thou hast blessed, O Lord, thy land,* namely the Church, which is filled divinely, not by its own power, but by the blessing of the virtues. Whence: *Blessed be God, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly things in Christ*. *Of the heavens.* The apostles and evangelists are called heaven because of the unity of faith and of doctrine, of whom it is said elsewhere in the plural: *The heavens declare the glory,* etc. For in them, shining with life and contemplation, God dwells as in heaven, thundering terror, raining down consolation, and flashing with miracles. *Of the dew.* Of heavenly preaching, which is of wondrous subtlety and grace, by which hearts are watered against the heat of temptation, and that they may always be green with virtues; whence: *God give thee of the dew of heaven,* etc. *Of the deep,* namely that it may become the fatter, bedewed from the spring that rises up, like the paradise of God. Whence: *A spring rose out of the earth, watering the whole surface of the earth*. From the sea his understanding abounded, and his thought from the great deep. For in vain does the word of the teacher water from without, unless the grace of the Creator waters from within. Whence he subjoins: *Of the fruits of the hills,* etc.

¹⁴Of the fruits brought forth by the sun and by the moon.

¹⁵Of the tops of the ancient mountains, of the fruits of the everlasting hills:

v.15

VERS. 15.-- *Of the fruits of the everlasting hills.* The everlasting hills are the faithful of the Old Testament, humble sons founded with unmoved firmness upon the faith of the prophets and patriarchs, with whose fruits the land of Joseph is blessed, when the Church bears fruit in faith by the doctrine of Christ's prophecy and by the example of virtue. And it is to be noted that above, in the fruits and the dew of heaven, evangelical doctrine is signified, here, in the top of the ancient mountains and the fruits of the everlasting hills, the legal and prophetic; and by both the land of Joseph is enriched, because holy Church is formed by the pages of both Testaments and by the examples of the new Fathers and the old; whence: *All fruits, my beloved,* that is, *the new and the old, I have kept for thee*, and: *Every scribe instructed bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old*. The Manichaeans therefore and the Jews (because the former do not receive the Old, the latter the New Testament) cannot inherit in this rich land.

¹⁶And of the fruits of the earth, and of the fulness thereof. The blessing of him that appeared in the bush, come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the crown of the Nazarite among his brethren.

v.16

VERS. 16.-- *And of the fruits.* The Church, fruitful in the whole world with the fruit of justice and with the largess of the charisms, has received of the fulness of her Joseph; whence there follows: *The blessing of him who appeared.* The whole Joseph, that is, head and body, is full of blessing, but the fulness of the blessing is chiefly in the head; whence: *Like the ointment on the head, which ran down upon the beard of Aaron,* etc. He, pre-eminent over his brethren, that is, over the faithful, by the privilege of grace, shone forth with the sevenfold Spirit as a true Samson, a Nazarite from the womb of the Virgin, that is, consecrated to God, as it were with his seven locks untouched. *Upon the head of Joseph,* of Christ, who is the head of the Church, in whom all nations are blessed, of whose passion and resurrection it is subjoined: *As of the firstborn of a bull,* etc. *As.* The firstborn of a bull is his beauty. It is not to be read in such a way that he is called the firstborn of a bull: but, since he is the firstborn, his beauty is the beauty of a bull, because of the horns of the cross. Christ is the fatted calf, whom the Father sacrificed for the returning Son as the firstborn out of the herd of the fathers, who on the third day was raised up and appeared in glory, who is the firstborn of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth, and who after the glory of the resurrection adds horns out of the power of the passion.

¹⁷His beauty as of the firstling of a bullock, his horns as the horns of a rhinoceros: with them shall he push the nations even to the ends of the earth. These are the multitudes of Ephraim and these the thousands of Manasses.

v.17

VERS. 17.-- *Horns.* He compares Joseph to the horns of a rhinoceros, signifying that Ephraim would have the chief place among the ten tribes, over which Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim reigned in the time of Roboam the son of Solomon. *The horns of a rhinoceros.* It signifies the horns of the cross, of which Habacuc says: *There is his strength hidden*. For through the weakness of the flesh he is crowned, like a ram, with the thorns of the mockers, and by these horns he stuck fast; but by the incomparable strength of the passion he stood forth a unicorn, the conqueror of death, and of him who had the empire of death, whence: *That which is the weak thing of God is stronger than men* *He shall winnow.* By the preaching of the cross, separating the chaff from the wheat: for the word of the cross is foolishness to them that perish. *The nations. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations,* etc. For of the inheritance of the true Joseph (which is the glorious land) all these things are said; and of its tillers, gathered out of both peoples, there follows: *These are the multitudes of Ephraim.* These two tribes out of Joseph are blessed not in themselves, but in their parent. They signify the sons of both peoples, who are blessed in Christ, according to that word: *In thy seed shall all nations be blessed*. These the patriarch Jacob, blessing Ephraim and Manasses with his hands crossed in the manner of a cross, and preferring the younger to the firstborn, signified were to be blessed in the faith of Christ's cross, marking in the younger the people faithful from among the gentiles, lesser in time within the grace of Christ, but greater in faith: to whom the grace of the people of Israel passed over, of whose inestimable multitude it is said: *These are the multitudes,* etc., whence: *Many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband*. Manasses, deprived of the honour of the firstborn and yet blessed, is the Jewish people, which for the greater part of itself was reprobated for unbelief, yet in the remainder obtained the blessing, whence: *Blindness in part happeneth in Israel,* etc.

¹⁸And to Zabulon he said: Rejoice, O Zabulon, in thy going out; and Issachar in thy tabernacles.

v.18

VERS. 18.-- *And to Zabulon.* Zabulon and Issachar received their passion in Galilee, where Christ chiefly taught, whence he chose the apostles. Through them therefore the apostles are designated, and to them gladness is promised in their going out, because going out from their own borders they subjected the people of the gentiles to Christ, and in their tabernacles for the conversion of the Jews, from whom they themselves also were chosen. For both peoples therefore gladness is promised them, present and to come: because in the present they rejoiced over their conversion, and in the heavenly places they were rewarded with eternal gladness. *In the tabernacles,* of the Jews, whence: *May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Sem*: because in the churches of the Jews there dwells the breadth of the lesser people through the unity of faith.

¹⁹They shall call the people to the mountain: there shall they sacrifice the victims of justice. Who shall suck as milk the abundance of the sea, and the hidden treasures of the sands.

v.19

VERS. 19.-- *To the mountain.* Sion, namely, or Jerusalem, or contemplation and the height of the virtues. *They shall call.* Teaching that justice is only in the faith of Christ. *For the end of the law is Christ, unto justice to everyone that believeth*. On the mountain they sacrifice the victims of justice, while they teach that all who come to Christ (in whom the Church is built) are justified not by the works of the law but by the faith of Christ, according to that word: *But the just man liveth by faith*. True Christians therefore are the victims of justice, which are sacrificed by the apostles, while they are taught to mortify earthly desires, that spiritual things may be made alive; whence: *If by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live*. *There they shall sacrifice.* There is no place of true sacrifice outside the catholic Church, which is set upon this mountain. *Who suck the flood.* These tribes gave themselves to trafficking, bringing back merchandise from regions across the sea, and hidden treasures, silver, namely, gold or gems, *they shall suck as milk,* that is, they shall receive them easily. *Who suck the flood of the sea.* It signifies the calling of the gentiles. For the sea signifies the whole race of men; whence: *The kingdom of heaven is like to a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kinds of fishes*. By the sea, the world; by the net, doctrine; by every kind of fishes, every sex, age and condition is understood. The apostles therefore sucked the flood of the sea as milk, because they drew the throngs of the peoples flowing together to the doctrine of the Gospel into the increase of Christ's body. *Hidden. The Lord knoweth who are his*. *For many are called, few,* etc. The sands are the multitude of the unbelieving; the treasures, the precious souls of the elect. So therefore did they suck, that of the hearers of the Gospel some were carried over as vessels of honour into the treasures of the king, while others remained empty, like barren and useless sands.

²⁰And to Gad he said: Blessed be Gad in his breadth: he hath rested as a lion, and hath seized upon the arm and the top of the head.

²¹And he saw his pre-eminence, that in his portion the teacher was laid up: who was with the princes of the people, and did the justices of the Lord, and his judgment with Israel.

v.21

VERS. 21.-- *And he saw his principality, that in his own portion.* When kingdoms and nations had been subjected to him, his power appeared, not by the terror of arms, but by the strength of doctrine. *Laid up.* Hidden, while he writes his laws in the hearts of the faithful; whence he says: *You have the unction from the Holy One, and you have no need that any man teach you; his unction teacheth you of all things*. Or, *Laid up,* because in the law and the prophets he lay hidden in figures, and taught while concealed the things which he declared openly in the Gospel; whence: *Beginning from Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them*. *Who was with the princes of the people.* A helper, whence: *The Lord working withal and confirming the word with signs that followed*, because he says: *Without me you can do nothing*. *He did justices.* That is, justifying those who believe in him, and at length he will judge according to their merits with Israel, that is, with his people chosen for the vision of God. *Justices.* The justifications of believers. For he himself justifies the ungodly out of faith. For neither shall any flesh be justified by the works of the law.

²²To Dan also he said: Dan is a young lion, he shall flow plentifully from Basan.

v.22

VERS. 22.-- *Dan also.* Others think that by Dan is signified Antichrist, whom they reckon will be born of this tribe: he is the whelp of the lion, that is, of the devil, who shall flow plentifully from Basan, because he is full of confusion; for Basan is interpreted confusion, or fatness, or the locust. Dan also means judgment, Basan ignominy. But Dan signifies Christ, who says: *For judgment I am come into this world*. The whelp of a lion, because of his strength, and because he deigned to become a little one; but taking upon himself our weakness, he did not lose his own power, *for that which is the weak thing of God is stronger than men*. Of him it is said: *The lion of the tribe of Juda hath conquered,* etc. The ignominy of the cross indeed he bore from the Jews, who thought that his name would be blotted out by death: but he who through the weakness of that flesh was a whelp in the passion, appeared through the power of the Godhead an unconquered lion in the resurrection; whence the Apostle: *And although he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God*. He flowed plentifully, therefore, as it were out of Basan, when, coming through the ignominy of death to the glory of immortality, he watered the whole world with the streams of the Gospel; whence Isaias: *The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea*. *Dan is a lion's whelp.* This he says because of Samson, who was of the tribe of Dan, and strong as a lion, whose possession reached as far as Basan. But Antichrist shall flow plentifully from Basan, because he shall be sated with the fatness of luxury and of all the vices. *He shall possess the sea and the south.* Because his possession reaches from the southern quarter westward as far as the Tyrrhenian sea. *He shall possess the sea and the south.* For through the apostles the Church is won for Christ out of Jews and gentiles. For by the western sea (which is here understood) the Jews are figured, who serve the shadow and the copy, and have not the light of knowledge and of truth; and because for them the sun of justice has set, they have remained in perpetual darkness. This west the apostles possessed, when out of them they subjected to Christ very many enlightened by the grace of faith, that they who once were darkness might be light in the Lord. By the south is understood the Church gathered out of the gentiles, which, the veil of the law being taken away, enjoys the light of the Gospel, and lying down with the bridegroom at noon, contemplates with unveiled face the glory of the Lord.

²³And To Nephtali he said: Nephtali shall enjoy abundance, and shall be full of the blessings of the Lord: he shall possess the sea and the south.

²⁴To Aser also he said: Let Aser be blessed with children, let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.

v.24

VERS. 24.-- *To Aser also he said: Blessed be Aser among his sons, let him be pleasing to his brethren.* Aser, blessed, that is, Christ, the hope of our beatitude, whose firstfruits he showed to us in rising from the dead. He is blessed among his sons, because believers, born again through his grace, have filled the whole world with his likeness; to whom it is said: *Believe in the light, sons, that you may be of the light*. They bring forth the fruit of light in all goodness and justice and truth. And this was done because he was pleasing with true charity to his brethren, that is, to the apostles, whom he chose out of Judea, so that, the figures being despised, they might rejoice in the truth of the Gospel, and because *they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus.* And whence they had so great an abundance of charity, he adds, *let him dip his foot in oil,* etc. *And let him dip his foot in oil.* Christ our head, ascending into heaven, anointed most abundantly with the oil of the Holy Spirit the apostles — his feet, who were to go about the world preaching, while still standing on the earth — that they might fail through no labour, but be strong with the brightness of unfading joy. He furnished also the incorruptible defence of a shoe, of which it is subjoined: *Iron and brass cal.* This concerning the Church, etc., *as far as* with these shoes the true pasch is to be celebrated.

²⁵His shoe shall be iron and brass. As the days of thy youth, so also shall thy old age be.

²⁶There is no other god like the God of the rightest: he that is mounted upon the heaven is thy helper. By his magnificence the clouds run hither and thither.

²⁷His dwelling is above, and underneath are the everlasting arms: he shall cast out the enemy from before thee, and shall say: Be thou brought to nought.

v.27

VERS. 27.-- *His dwelling place is above,* etc. The body raised from the dead and placed at the right hand of the Father, of which it is said: Destroy this temple. *The arms.* The power, namely, of the passion, which defends all, and which he received on the cross with arms outstretched. *Underneath the arms.* These arms, namely, defend those who fight against the true Amalec: nor are they weighed down with weariness, as Moses's were, but lift up with unwearied strength, until they obtain the true victory. Let us venerate therefore in the highest the firstfruits of our resurrection, in the lowest the sacrament of our redemption, that we ourselves also, the adversary being overthrown, may obtain the glory of immortality; concerning which it is promised to the true Israel: *He shall cast out the enemy from before thy face.* *And alone.* Living, namely, after his own manner and by his own laws, whence Balaam: *The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations*.

²⁸Israel shall dwell in safety, and alone. The eye of Jacob in a land of corn and wine, and the heavens shall be misty with dew.

v.28

VERS. 28.-- *The eye of Jacob.* He who here sweated to supplant the vices, there shall unceasingly contemplate, with the lightest glance of the mind, the glory of Christ, who for our sake took the earth of true flesh: so that he by whose body and blood he was here fed through the sacrament of wheat and wine, may there be filled full with the perpetual vision of his divinity, whence: *I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear*. And elsewhere: *I will manifest myself to him*. Then Jacob, turned into perfect Israel, shall see God face to face, with a knowledge of God so ample, so subtle, so delightful, filled as it were with the lightest dew, that the knowledge of the preachers by which we are instructed in the present may seem to grow dark; whence: *Or knowledge shall be destroyed*. And elsewhere: *Dark water in the clouds of the air, before the brightness in his sight*; and when it shall have been come to, all this doctrine shall cease, *and they shall all be taught of God*; whence he rightly adds: *Blessed art thou, Israel,* etc *And the heavens shall be darkened,* as though the dew were poured out so abundantly for the making fruitful of the earth, that the sight of men should grow dark. In which it is signified that the Jews, since they loved earthly wealth beyond measure, were darkened, and could not know Christ; whence: *If we let him alone so, all will believe in him,* etc.

²⁹Blessed art thou, Israel: who is like to thee, O people, that art saved by the Lord? the shield of thy help, and the sword of thy glory: thy enemies shall deny thee, and thou shalt tread upon their necks.

v.29

VERS. 29.-- *Who is like to thee, O people?* As if to say: therefore blessed, therefore none is like to thee, because thou hopest for salvation not from thy own strength, but from the grace of Christ, who saveth his people from their sins. *And the sword of glory.* In the world to come striking the adversaries with irrevocable severity, when he shall avenge the blood of his servants. The sword is now hidden here in the lowliness of those who suffer; it shall be revealed in the glory of those who rise again, and therefore it is called the *sword of glory* of Israel. Christ therefore as a shield protects the one who fights, and as a sword of glory shall avenge the one who triumphs. To him, as to the head, the glory of the body is referred at the end of the prophecy, when it is said: *They shall deny.* They shall abominate and hate, like Balac, who asked Balaam to drive back the Israelites by cursing them. *Thou shalt tread.* By subjecting to the Church those who abominate and persecute her. It is to be noted that there are only eleven blessings. For Simeon is not found among these blessings, in whom Judas is excluded from the apostles, only eleven remaining. Thence also by eleven encampments the sons of Israel came from Horeb to the place in which they received Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 33

Before the first verse