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Chapter 47OdoC.3.47

Caput XLVI

Israel's Suffering and God's Merciful Response

Drawing on the Judges narrative, Odo recounts how Israel was afflicted for idolatry, cried out in confession, and was ultimately freed by God's compassion, interpreting the episode as a figure of divine mercy.

On the contrary, the sons of Israel were frequently afflicted on account of their sins, and were compelled to return to God. For — to pass over the other occasions — at one time, when they abandoned God and served the idols of Syria, Sidon, Moab, and the Philistines, they were handed over into the hands of those nations and violently afflicted for eighteen years. At last, crying out to God, they said, "We have sinned against you."✦ To whom the Lord replied, among other things: "I will no longer set you free. Go and call upon the gods you worship — let them set you free." (Judg.✦ 10:13, 14). But they said, "We have sinned. Do to us whatever pleases you — only set us free now." (Ibid.✦ , 15). Soon after, the text continues: "The Lord was grieved by their miseries, and he set them free" — because these things were happening to them as a figure. (Ibid.✦1

Learning from Israel's Example in Our Own Trials

Odo applies the lesson of Israel's wilderness experience to the believer's prayer in tribulation, then turns to Ezekiel and Jerome to show that even those who died in the wilderness were not eternally lost, underscoring God's enduring mercy.

, 16). And we, for our part, should say the same to the Lord when some tribulation besets us: Do with us in this present time whatever pleases you — only set us free in the time to come. Because we've mentioned the Israelites, let us now hear — to commend God's mercy further and to drive home how useful such trials are — what the Lord says through Ezekiel about them: The house of Israel provoked me in the wilderness, and I resolved to pour out my fury on them and consume them (Ezek.✦ XX, 13), and what follows on this. As blessed Jerome says when discussing this in the fourth book of his commentary, the question is how God fulfilled his promise to those whose bodies fell in the wilderness and who — except for Joshua son of Nun and Caleb — never entered the promised land. From this we understand that they truly live, that they are not reserved for eternal punishment, not blotted out from the book of the living, and not destroyed from before the Lord's presence. For if they are thought to have perished simply because they were not led into the promised land, then Moses himself perished — he who was also not led into that land. Otherwise, how would the prayers of that same Moses have been heard — the Moses who, as he prayed for God to forgive them their sin, deserved to hear: I will do as you have said (Exod.✦

God's Chastisement as Correction, Not Destruction

Odo concludes by affirming that God's dealings with his children aim at correction rather than ruin, citing Ezekiel's promise that even God's fury serves to turn idolaters back into the bondage of divine friendship.

(Ezekiel 8:10). So we should recognize that God's knowledge directed at his children or his servants is not meant for their ruin, but for their correction. Thus far Jerome. From here through the same prophet it is said: As I live, says the Lord, the thought of your mind will not happen — that you say, 'Let us worship wooden idols and stones' — because with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and in fury I will reign over you, and I will subject you to my scepter, and I will lead you into a second bondage (Ezekiel 20:32–33, 37).✦ (Ezekiel 20:32, 33, 37). What greater good is there, then, than that through the pouring out of his fury they may be kept from worshipping stones and idols, and be led into a second bondage and into the friendship of God?

Read the original Latin

Contra frequenter sunt filii Israel pro peccatis afflicti, et ad Deum redire compulsi. Nam ut de caeteris vicibus taceatur, aliquando cum Deum relinquerent, et idolis servirent, Syriae, Sidonis, Moab, et Philistin, traditi sunt in manus illarum gentium ac per decem et octo annos vehementer afflicti. Qui tandem clamantes ad Deum dixerunt: Peccavimus tibi. Quibus inter alia respondit Dominus: Non addam ut ultra vos liberem, ite et invocate deos, quos colitis, et ipsi vos liberent (Judic. X, 13, 14). At illi: Peccavimus, inquiunt, redde tu nobis quidquid tibi placet: tantum nunc libera nos (Ibid. , 15). Mox ibi sequitur: Doluit Dominus super miserias eorum, et liberavit eos, quia haec in figura contingebant illis (Ibid.

, 16). Dicamus et nos econtra Domino, cum aliqua tribulatione cingimur: Fac nobis in praesenti quidquid tibi placuerit, tantum in futuro liberes nos. Quia vero filiorum Israel meminimus, adhuc aliquid magnificentius ad misericordiam Dei commendandam ac tribulationis utilitatem insinuandam, de eis audiamus quid per Ezechielem Dominus dicit: Irritaverunt me domus Israel in deserto, et dixi ut effunderem furorem meum super eos, et consumerem eos (Ezech. XX, 13), et quae de hoc exsequitur. Quae verba, ut beatus Hieronymus in libro IV expositionis tractans dicit, quaeritur quomodo perfecerit eis quorum cadavera in solitudine corruerunt, et excepto Jesu Nave et Caleph, terram repromissionis nullus ingressus est. Ex quo intelligemus vivere eos, nec aeternis suppliciis reservatos, nec de libro viventium esse deletos, nec ante faciem Domini consumptos. Si enim ex eo quod in terram repromissionis introducti non sunt, perlisse creduntur, ergo et Moyses periit, qui in terram illam introductus non est. Alioquin preces ejusdem Moysi quomodo essent exauditae, qui cum oraret ut dimitteret eis Deus peccatum suum, audire meruit: Faciam secundum verbum tuum (Exod.

VIII, 10). Sciamus igitur Dei scientiam in filios vel famulos non perditionem esse, sed emendationem. Hucusque Hieronymus. Hinc per eumdem prophetam dicitur: Vivo ego, dicit Dominus, non fiet cogitatio mentis vestrae dicentium: Colamus ligna, et lapides, quia in manu forti et brachio extento, et in furore regnabo super vos, et subjiciam vos sceptro meo, et inducam vos in vinculis secundis (Ezech. XX, 32, 33, 37). Quae ergo major utilitas, quam ut per infusum furorem prohibeantur colere lapides, et ligna, et inducantur in vinculis secundis et amicitiae Dei?

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Judg.10.10 — Then the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD, saying, 'We have sinned against You, for we have forsaken our God and have served the Baals.'
  2. ↩Judg.10.13-Judg.10.14 — But you have abandoned me and have served other gods; therefore I will no longer deliver you. Judg.10.14 — Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen; let them save you in your time of distress.
  3. ↩Judg.10.15 — And the sons of Israel said to the LORD, "We have sinned. Do to us whatever is good in your eyes; only deliver us, please, this day."
  4. ↩Judg.10.16 — They put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD, and his soul was grieved by the misery of Israel.
  5. ↩Ezek.20.13 — But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statutes, and they rejected my ordinances—which, if a person does them, they shall live by them—and they greatly profaned my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make an end of them.
  6. ↩Exod.32.13-Exod.32.14 — Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by yourself, and spoke to them: 'I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.' Exod.32.14 — And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken to do to his people.
  7. ↩Ezek.20.32-Ezek.20.33;Ezek.20.32-Ezek.20.33 — And what rises up in your spirit will never come to pass — you who say, 'Let us become like the nations, like the families of the lands, to serve wood and stone.' Ezek.20.33 — As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you. Ezek.20.32 — And what rises up in your spirit will never come to pass — you who say, 'Let us become like the nations, like the families of the lands, to serve wood and stone.' Ezek.20.33 — As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The Latin 'in figura' signals a typological reading: the historical events prefigure a spiritual reality. The translation preserves this with 'as a figure.'

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