THE NEW JERUSALEM AND THE EVIL Here, he concentrates his prophecy on the new Jerusalem and the house of Judah; as the soul, by the Savior Messiah came to be His spiritual Jerusalem; and united with Him to come to belong to Him like the house of Judah. Through this new position, evil stirred up against her, represented by the surrounding nations. 1‐ The nations are stirred up against Jerusalem 1 ‐ 3 2‐ The salvation of the house of Judah 4 – 9 3‐ The spirit of grace and supplications 10 – 14 1‐THE NATIONS STIRRED UP AGAINST JERUSALEM: Receiving her Christ in her, the soul comes to be the new Jerusalem, a member in the house of Judah. And as much as she gets of graces, she will face opposition from the enemies (the Gentiles), through an allowance from God to consummate the cup of the evil one, and that the Lord transfigures as the Grantor of conquest in His children. Through the oppression of the enemy against the children of God, the later would become a cup of drunkenness for the former, a very heavy stone to heave, and fire to consume. The prophet says: “Thus says the Lord who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him: ‘Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall happen in that day that I shall make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all the peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it” (1‐3) The cup of drunkenness most probably refers to the wrath of God, in that, by drinking it, man loses his consciousness and balance; as it came in Isaiah: “Awake, awake, stand up Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury; you have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, and drained it out. There is no one to guide her among all the sons she has brought forth; nor is there any who takes her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up” (Isaiah 51:17, 18); and as said by the prophet Jeremiah: “For thus said the Lord God of Israel to me: ‘Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them” (Jeremiah 25: 15, 16) So it is, when God intends to give these nations (as the symbol of the devil) to drink from the cup of His fury, to stagger, He let them stretch their hands against Judah, to fall under the wrath of God, according to the measure of their cup. Again, God likens His children to a very heavy stone, which the wicked heave to cast downward to be cut to pieces; to find themselves crushed under it. 1‐ THE SALVATION OF THE HOUSE OF JUDAH: “In that day, says the Lord, I will strike every horse with confusion, and its rider with madness. I will open My eyes on the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the people with blindness” (4) He strikes the horse and its rider, who resist the work of God in His children; by confusion, madness, and blindness; to let the enemy lose his peace, balance, and insight. At the same time, God opens His eyes on the house of Judah – His church – to become for her a Leader and a Helper. According to St. Dedymus the blind, the horses here are the demons of fault, lies, and craftiness; and their riders are those who spread the wrong and deceptive teachings. The blindness by which God strikes them is to deny them the Sun of Righteousness who grants them light. Commenting on God opening His eyes on Judah, he says: {After this God opens His eyes on the house of Judah – the church of the living God – (1 Timothy 3: 15), where the Savior who comes from the tribe of Judah reigns on those who have got wisdom from God, those who say together with Jacob: “Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father’s children shall bow down before you” (Genesis 49: 8). On the house of Judah, the watching God will open His eyes, namely His enlightened watchful hosts, to let them enjoy enlightenment and grace, so that everyone of them would pray, saying; “Oh God, Turn to me, and have mercy on me” (Psalm 86: 16).. Such a gift, all the righteous will enjoy, for “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous; and His ears are open to their cry” (Psalm 34: 15)]. God will not only be the secret of the enlightenment for the house of Judah, while striking the enemy with blindness; but He, as well, will be the secret of strength to His people, and of destruction of their enemy; “The governors of Judah shall say in their hearts: ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength in the Lord of hosts, their God” (5) According to St. Dedymus the blind: [If the Messiah is the spiritual King of His church, the disciples are the princes of Judah who receive the Lord their God as their strength in their preaching work; who grants them a fiery divine power to burn the sheaves of straw; saying: “In that day I will make the governors of Judah like a firepan in the woodpile, and like a fiery torch in the sheaves; they shall devour all the surrounding peoples, on the right hand and on the left, but Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place – Jerusalem. The Lord will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall not become greater than that of Judah” (6, 7). If the new Judah was called the little herd, yet he bears the fire of the Holy Spirit that destroys the devilish right‐hand strikes (the selfrighteousness), and the left‐hand strikes (the defilements and the evil desires), and the believer remains holding fast like Jerusalem, capable of seeing peace. According to St. Dedymus the blind: [Being spiritually the princes of Judah, it is befitting of them to destroy by their enlightened and fiery words, the barren carnal will …… By Isaiah it is said: “So the light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame; it will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in one day. And it will consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field” (Isaiah 10: 17, 18). Namely, he will wipe out the corrupt environment and works].The fire of the Holy Spirit working in the spiritual man burns the surrounding peoples right and left, namely, burns the evil intentions and works of both the soul and the body together. According to St. Dedymus the blind, the right and the left here, refer to the extreme;for the Holy Spirit burns in the believer the spirit of meanness, as well as that of extravaganza. It is amazing how God, by His fiery Spirit, as He works in the house of Judah, starts by the tents of Judah (7) before the salvation of the houses and palaces; so as no one would have to boast. He starts by the inhabitants of the tents who are without protection, so that the rich, in their conquest will not boast that it is by their strength and strongholds, houses, and palaces they have got salvation. St. Dedymus the blind, talking about the tents of Judah, saved by the Lord, says: [These tents are the virtues about which is said in the proverbs: “The tents of the upright will flourish” (Proverb 14: 11). And, concerning these tents the psalmist sings: “How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts” (Psalm 84: 1). How could it not be lovely when it packed with those who come to celebrate its feasts; for the voices of joy and the works of grace, would not appear anywhere else but in the tents of the good?! He sees, as well, in the tents of Judah, a symbol of the mortal and humiliated body, that we put on; for once it enjoys the salvation of God, he would put on non‐mortality, glory and strength, and would turn from an animal body to a spiritual one (1 bCorinthian 15: 42‐44). As to annulling the boasting of the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem over Judah, it refers to the fall of the boasting of the wise in their own eyes; for the meek and the simple will precede them, because God strongly works in him who feels weak: “In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them” (8); meaning that the weakest among them shall be like David (2 Samuel 17:8’ 18: 3), for God Himself will support him. The secret of conquest is the appearance of God from the house of David, which, according to St. Dedymus the blind, refers to St. Mary from whom the Lord came incarnated. In that day when the divine incarnation is realized, the power of God is proclaimed in the new house of David, while the devil and his works will perish, and his authority on the believer will be destroyed, saying: “It will be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem” (9) Commenting on this, St. Dedymus says: [In that day which is close at hand, when the night of ignorance and sin comes to an end, according to the words of the apostle: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light”m (Roman 13: 12). In that day, God destroys all the nations that bear the spirit of war against Jerusalem, will destroy those who are foreign to the truth and to the ministry of God, not by destroying the peoples themselves, but by uprooting the spirit of evil and ungodliness……. So our Savior and Lord came looking for our lost race, to rescue through destroying all the nations working against Jerusalem, namely, destroying the causes of evil and war, of cursed works, and heretic views. In short, we may say that, while God’s wrath comes on the oppressors, to make them drink from the cup of drunkenness and stagger; and the believer himself would be the cup (2); and while God opens His eyes on His children to support and to lead them in their spiritual war, He strikes His enemies with blindness (4). While He gives Himself to His children as the secret of strength and consuming fire, He makes His enemies (the sins) like sheaves of straw to burn (6). And while He supports the weak and stumbling of His children, He destroys the wicked in his evil. So God supports His children (the house of David) to let them enjoy His salvation through their trust in Him; as according to St. Sirenius: [Listen to what the King (God) Himself says, to encourage and to call His brave men to the spiritual war (against sin): “Let the weak say: ‘I am strong; Cause your mighty ones to go down there” (Joel 2: 11, 12 – the Septuagint version). You can see that it is only the weak and thos who suffer, who go to war in the divine battle; the weak who truly have double as what the Centurion got (Matthew 8: 9), ; who says: “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12: 10) and, “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). 3‐THE SPIRIT OF GRACE AND SUPPLICATIONS: Reigning on the house of Judah, with the abundance of His Holy Spirit, on his church, to grant her every grace, and to support her in her strife until she crosses over this world, At the same time He lets those who stabbed the Lord by the spear of their sins, fall under the eternal judgment, and to come to be in great mourning. “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications” (10). According to St. Dedymus, the spirit of grace and supplications is the Holy Spirit, Grantor of grace, given to us by the Father of compassion (2 Corinthians 3: 3): [After the destruction of the nations (the devil and his works), the Book adds that, in that day God pours on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications; for He is the Father of supplications (2 Corinthians 1: 3), and has the Holy Spirit.. About this St. Paul writes: “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5: 5). A.; and in Isaiah, the Grantor of the Holy Spirit says: “I have put My Spirit upon him” (Isaiah 42: 2); and says: “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh” (Joel 2: 28). From the words of the apostle it is understood that the spirit of grace is the Holy Spirit; saying: “Anyone who rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of tw or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose will be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God under foot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?!” (Hebrews 10: 28, 29). The Spirit of grace is also is the Spirit of supplication Spirit of supplication (of compassion), granted by the Father of compassion (2 Corinthians 1: 3). This is the fruition of the cross, poured on the church by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of grace, poured with His divine graces and heavenly gifts, and the Spirit of compassion who supports. Those who reject salvation, and aim the spear of sin, “will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Magiddo” (10, 11). According to St. Dedymus: [The Jews who killed the Lord Christ have suffered, and came to mourn as one mourns his only son, and were filled with bitterness as one for a firstborn; when “the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost” (Thessalonian 2: 16); when their homeland was taken away from them and they were scattered all over the earth. “Great mourning will be in Jerusalem”; he probably refers to “the wailing wall” to which the Jews from all over the earth come to wail on their miserable condition and their scattering. Here he describes the mourning “like the mourning of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Magiddo”, the location where the Egyptians killed king Josiah by their arrows, to be lamented by the prophet Jeremiah and others; There was such a grief that never happened since the beginning of Israel, when the royal chariot carried his body along the streets of Jerusalem to be buried. He reveals the bitterness of that mourning by likening it to the mourning of parents on their only son; when the land shall mourn every family by itself, the wife by herself and the husband by himself; for none of them can endure the comforting attempts of the other on account of what they feel. The cause of that mourning and grief is a collective sin against the Lord Christ who was pierced with a spear; saying: “They will look on Me whom they pierced” 10). Many fathers comment on this phrase concerning the encounter of the wicked with the pierced Lord, on the great day of the Lord; Of their words are: + Recognizing Him, whom they pierced, they will strike their chests ……….. Him, whom they did not recognized then, on account of that He came in the humility of His incarnation. (The scholar Tertullian) + When He comes, together with His angels to judge (Matthew 25: 31); those who pierced Him will see Him, and become confused, because it is too late to repent. + He who was judged will sit as a Judge; He who stood before the court of judgment to be judged on crimes He did not commit, will judge the true crimes. + He will come in a human form to be seen by the wicked …….who will look at Him whom they pierced with a spear ……… And to them, God will remain hidden in a body, that they will not be able to see Him in His glory (His divinity), after judgment, as will those on His right hand will be able to do. + The Son will appear to both the righteous and the wicked in the day of judgment, in the same form He has been when He suffered, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven ……… But when the righteous go to the eternal life, they will see Him, not as He came to judge the living and the dead; but He will appear as He truly is, as a reward to them. (St. Augustine) While the wicked mourn when they see the Lord carrying wounds because of them, the righteous, on the other hand, He will bring forth into His glories to enjoy what the wicked will never do.
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