Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
2. THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD HATH SPOKEN BY ME, AND HIS WORD BY MY TONGUE,—supply, hath sounded, as if to say: God hath spoken by me, and by my tongue, as an organ and instrument, hath dictated the Psalms, according to that: “My tongue is the pen of a scrivener that writeth swiftly,” Psalm 44, as if to say: I have learned and taught, not from my own mind and talent and sense, but by the inspiration of the Deity, to sing to God, and to praise God with hymns and psalms.
3. THE GOD OF ISRAEL SAID TO ME, etc., THE JUST RULER IN THE FEAR OF GOD.—Pagnini: ruler of the fear of God, as if to say: God is the “ruler” of those who fear God, or of those whom he finds founded “in the fear of God”; for these he so providently, kindly and lovingly rules and governs that he seems almost forgetful of the rest. You ask, what did God say to David? I answer: what was said in verses 1 and 2, and what shall be said in verses 4 and following, and especially the oracle of Christ to be born of him. Whence the Chaldee renders: He said that he would appoint me a king; he is the Messias, who is to arise and rule in the fear of God. Otherwise Vatablus renders: God said: Let the ruler over men be just, let the ruler have the fear of God, as if to say: God foretold that I, David, should be ruler, that is, king, just and fearing God.
4. AS THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING WHEN THE SUN RISETH, SHINETH IN THE MORNING WITHOUT CLOUDS.—First, Lyranus, as if to say: As the light of the dawn shines forth, so God spoke clearly to me David and revealed the future. Secondly and better, the Chaldee, Abulensis and others, as if to say: As the light of the morning shineth, supply, so shall my kingdom (David’s) shine and, as follows in verse 5, my house and that of other just men, and it shall be splendid, fruitful and glorious like the sun.
AND AS THE GRASS SPRINGETH OUT OF THE EARTH BY RAIN (being watered),—supply, so shall my house and posterity spring forth and be fruitful, as the following verse explains. From which it is plain that, literally, David here speaks of himself and his stock; allegorically, however, and chiefly, of Christ to be born of his stock; for the birth of Christ was from the heavenly grace of the Holy Spirit, and by his dew the Blessed Virgin conceived and bore Christ, according to that: “The power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.” And: “The Orient from on high hath visited us,” Luke 1.
Mystically Angelomus: “The morning,” he says, “is the Church, which, the sun rising, that is, Christ rising again from the dead, shines without clouds, that is, without the sin of infidelity shines in miracles. The rain is the Gospel preaching: the grass signifies the believing people, the earth the Church.”
Tropologically the same Angelomus: “He who in the fear of the Lord exercises rule over his subjects, brings forth works of light, illumined through the sun of justice; and nothing in them will remain obscure, but, watered with the shower of heavenly grace, living in the flesh he bears the fruit of the shoots of virtues.”
5. NEITHER IS MY HOUSE SO GREAT WITH GOD, THAT HE SHOULD MAKE WITH ME AN EVERLASTING COVENANT,—as if to say: I and my house are not so great, nor of so great merit, that on account of it God should make a covenant with me, and promise me a house, that is, a posterity and royal stock to be perpetuated until Christ, and thence for ever; for Christ transcends far the dignity and merits of all men. This covenant, therefore, God made with me from his mere mercy, grace and liberality, by which he willed to choose me alone out of the whole world, to serve the generation of Christ.
FOR HE IS ALL MY SALVATION, AND ALL MY WILL,—repeat, in all things firm and assured, or as went before, or fulfilled and springing up, as follows, as if to say: All things tend to my salvation, and all things succeed to me according to my wish and will, God prospering.
NEITHER IS THERE ANY THING OF IT (so read with the Romans, not “of him”) THAT SPRINGETH NOT UP,—as if to say: Whatever I will, this God favours, and all my actions, desires and intentions advance prosperously and grow up like a shoot breaking forth leafy from the earth watered by rain; for he continues in the metaphor of the shoot, whence the Chaldee renders: all my needs, and all my petitions have been made before him. So St. Dominic used to say that he obtained from God whatever he asked. Other eminent saints have said the same; for God “will do the will of them that fear him,” Psalm 144:19.
6. BUT THE TRANSGRESSORS SHALL ALL BE PLUCKED UP AS THORNS, by God, either in this life, or on the day of judgment, when he will cast them from the earth into the abyss of hell.
6. WHICH ARE NOT TAKEN AWAY WITH HANDS. 7. AND IF A MAN WILL TOUCH THEM, HE MUST BE ARMED WITH IRON AND THE WOOD OF A LANCE; BUT THEY SHALL BE SET ON FIRE AND BURNT.—It signifies that the wicked, like thorns, are incapable of gentle correction, and that contact with them is prickly; and therefore they must be dealt with not softly but rigidly, to be cut down with iron or burnt with fire: as he who wishes to remove thorns does not pluck them with his hands, lest he be pricked by them; but arms his hands with iron to cut them down, or with a lance-wood; Vatablus: a spear-shaft, with which to drive them off and remove them, lest he be hurt by them: finally, he will not carry them off, but will burn them with fire. So God will cut down the houses of the wicked, and burn them with the fire of hell; but me and my house and that of the other just he will prosper and perpetuate.
TO NOTHING.—The Hebrew: in their dwelling, that is, in their stock, they shall be burnt, and as it were reduced to nothing, as if to say: They shall utterly perish, if not in this life, at least in the future. The Chaldee paraphrases all this from verse 4 to this point elegantly, and adapts it to the just and holy, such as David was: “Blessed,” it says, “shall you be, ye just; you have made for yourselves good deeds, because you shall shine in the light of your glory like the splendour of the dawn, which advances and stands; and like the sun which shines without clouds in the splendour of its glory. Behold, like a field which waits in years of drought for rain to descend on the earth.” Then he opposes the antithesis of the wicked to the saints: “The wicked,” he says, “the doers of sin, shall be like thorns, which at their rise are soft to pull up, and every son of man spares them and lets them be; they advance and grow strong until it is not possible to approach them with the hand; and so every man who begins ... until they cover him like a garment of iron; they do not (since the Chaldee thinks the preceding negation is to be repeated here) prevail against the wood of spears and lances: therefore their vengeance need not be in the hand of man, but in fire they shall be burnt, when the house of the great judgment shall appear, that he may sit upon the throne of judgment to judge the world.”
First, that it may be known who were the soldiers and leaders by whom David accomplished such great battles, and obtained so many victories; secondly, that this praise may be given to their valour, to stir all to imitate their fortitude. Allegorically, that these valiant men of David may represent the Apostles of Christ and apostolic men, by whose heroic deeds he subdued the whole world to his faith. Tropologically, that by their example the faithful may be animated to fight bravely against the flesh, the world and the demons. “For the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away,” Matthew 11. For heaven is lofty and strong, wherefore it must be stormed by the faithful, loftier and stronger in mind. Heaven, then, is a city of the strong, in which no unwarlike and weak man is admitted, according to that of Isaias 26:1: “Sion the city of our strength, a saviour; walls and bulwark shall be set therein.” In the Life of the holy martyrs Astion and Epictetus, who most bravely endured bitter torments for Christ, repeating nothing else than “Christianity,” it is related that Vigilantius announced the death of Astion to his still infidel parents in a parable, saying that he had migrated to a far country in which he would live most happily. His mother asked, and said: “What is that country, whither my sweetest and only Astion is gone?”