CHAPTER 3

From Numbers.

It is foretold that Christ would come into Egypt, and would return from thence again.

[Passage quoted, Num. xxiv. 3-9.]

THE oracle in the previously-quoted prophecy, in saying (d) that the Lord would come into Egypt, foretold the journey of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He went into Egypt with His parents. Here we have the prophecy of His return from Egypt in its natural order, when He came back with His parents into the land of Israel, in the words: "God led him out of Egypt." For our Lord and Saviour Jesus, the Christ of God, was the only one of the seed of Israel and of the Jewish race, Who has ruled over many nations, so that it is indisputable that He is the fulfilment of the prophecy which says, literally, "that a man will come from (424) the Jewish race, and rule over many nations." If He be not, let him who will suggest some other famous man among the Hebrews, who has ruled over many nations. But this he cannot do, for such a man never existed. But with regard to our Saviour, truth itself will shout and cry aloud, even if we say nothing, shewing plainly that His Divine Power through the human body He took of the seed of Israel according to the flesh has ruled, yea, and even now will rule many nations.

He it was, then, and none other, Whom the prophecy foretold, in Whose time the kingdom of Gog should be exalted concurrently with the growth of Christ's power. (b) It is said that by this figure the Hebrews disguised the - 157 - Roman Empire, which grew concurrently with the teaching of Christ. And the Prophet Ezekiel also mentions Gog, naming him Ruler of Ros, Mosoeh, and Thobel, probably disguising the city of Rome under the name of Ros, because empire and power are signified in Hebrew by that word; by Mosoeh, he meant Mysia and the (c) adjacent nations, which are now subject to Rome; and by Thobel Josephus means Iberia, saying that the Thobelian Iberians sprang from Thobel. He says that Gog, the ruler of all of them, will be exalted at the coming of the Christ prophesied, Whom God led out of Egypt, when, as Matthew records, Herod laid a plot against Him when He was a Child, and Joseph informed by God took the young Child and His mother, and afterwards returned into the land (d) of Israel.

And Christ possessed "the glory of an Unicorn," because in Him was pleased "to dwell all the fullness of the Godhead," in the words of the Holy Apostle. And, therefore, as accounting the God of the Universe and His Father to be His Horn, He was called "Unicorn" also in other Scriptures.

And He, the Word of God, defeated with shafts of mind and spirit His enemy and opponent the devil, and all the invisible and evil powers around Him with greater invincible might, and even now rules over many nations whose gross fleshly instincts He fines down and makes them fit to tread the narrow way of eternal life. (425)

And moreover He too, the Man who came from Israel, Who ruleth many nations, having lain down, "rested as a lion," he says, plainly indicating the dispensation He had accepted, according to which like a kingly and terrible wild beast He rested, for none were able to remove His rule and His Kingdom, and all who blessed the Christ, glorifying the greatness of their teaching by word and deed, received in return the blessing of God, increasing and multiplying daily, according to the divine commandment, "Increase and multiply and replenish the earth," which in them is fulfilled more truly and divinely. While in contrast (b) to them, they who since their original plot against Him - 158 - even until now curse Him in their synagogues, have drawn down the curse of God on their heads from that day to this. Wherefore they do not cease to behold the utter desolation and destruction of their kingdom and of their Temple of old so venerable. And it is worth comparing with this prophecy that of Jacob to Judah, which I have already shewn to be most clearly applicable to our Saviour, and to recognize (c) the agreement of the two. For as we have here, "A man shall come forth from his seed," i. e. Jacob's, so we had there, "From a slip, my son, thou hast ascended," said by Jacob to the subject of the prophecy.

As we read too in this prophecy, "And he shall rule many nations," in the other we have similarly, "And he (d) shall be the expectation of nations." Again this one says, "He shall eat the Gentiles his enemies, and with his darts he shall shoot his enemies," just as the other, "Thy hands shall be on the back of thine enemies"; while, "The whelp of the lion of Judah," and, "Falling down thou didst couch as a lion, and as a young lion who shall arouse thee? "in the other prophecy are, I think, identical with the words in the one before us, "Lying down he couched as a lion, and as a lion's whelp, who shall raise him up? "I have set these passages side by side, so that the proof concerning our Saviour may rest on a firmer foundation, established on the agreement "of the mouth of two witnesses."

All therefore that I have deduced from the prediction (426) of Jacob would apply to that of Balaam, because of the similarity of their sayings. And if it was then established by a lengthy demonstration that the former were fulfilled in our Saviour, it follows that this is also true of the latter.