約伯倫理 第 403 章

Verse 5: Who removes the mountains, and they know it not, whom He overthrows in His fury. 6. It is foretold that the preaching of God's word shall be transferred from the Jews to the Gentiles. In Holy Scripture the loftiness of preachers is often signified by the name of mountains, of whom it is said through the Psalmist: Let the mountains receive peace for Thy people (Ps. 71:3). For the chosen preachers of the eternal country are not undeservedly called mountains, because through the loftiness of their life they forsake the lowest things of the earth and become near to heaven. But Truth removed the mountains, when He withdrew the holy preachers from the hardness of Judaea. Whence it is also rightly said through the Psalmist: The mountains shall be carried into the heart of the sea (Ps. 45:3).

For the mountains were transferred into the heart of the sea when the preaching apostles, repelled by the perfidy of Judaea, came to the understanding of the Gentiles. Whence they themselves also say in their own Acts: It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you; but because you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). But this same removal of the mountains those very ones knew not, who were overthrown in the fury of the Lord; because when the Hebrews drove out the apostles from their own borders, they thought they had made a gain, in that they had lost the light of preaching.

For, their deserts requiring it, being struck with just retribution, they were blinded with so great an error of understanding that, in losing the light, they thought this to be joy. But when the apostles had been repelled, Judaea was straightway destroyed by the Roman prince Titus, and, scattered abroad, was dispersed among all the nations. Whence also, after the removing of the mountains, it is rightly subjoined: