In a certain way, there is a circumcision that is both carnal and spiritual. Concerning the spiritual circumcision, it is said by the apostle Paul, For we are of the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh.^[1] And further, for the sake of distinguishing the spiritual Israel, it is said of the carnal, You see Israel according to the flesh,^[2] and You are Gentiles according to the flesh.^[3] Thus Moab is to be taken here in a spiritual sense, which is interpreted as from the father,^[4] that is, the paternal waters, conceived by incest and drunkenness, because he was brought forth when the father was in a certain sense absent, that is, unawares. In many places of Scripture we read concerning Moab, especially in the book of Numbers, where Balak, the king of the Moabites, invited Balaam the soothsayer for the purpose of cursing. Balaam prophesied mystically, among other things, against Moab: A star will arise from Jacob, and a man will rise up out of Israel, and he will strike the leaders of Moab.^[5]

Indeed, it is not inappropriate that the author of the abyss, the devil, should be identified with the abyss, as he is also called death, being the head of death: Where, O death, is your sting?^[1] And the voice of death or the abyss groans with pain, since he sees that the power to prey upon the people he possessed from the beginning is being taken away. But if, perchance, you have little faith in my own words, we can produce the testimony of Isaiah: Shall the prey be taken from the strong, or will the captive be rescued from the mighty? But thus says the Lord: ‘The captives will indeed be taken away from the strong, and what was stolen by the mighty will be rescued.’^[2] For no one denies that the mighty cry in protest and suffer as a result of losing their spoils, except those who think that the devil is of lesser malice or that he is altogether uninvolved. But persons with such opinions are inept and deceived. Turn instead to the teachers of truth, whose knowledge I can only introduce to you, that it might be yours, reader, to explore within more attentively. Jeremiah uses Moab as a figure for the prince of the world in describing his devastation and groaning: There is lamentation in all the dwellings of Moab and in its streets, for I have shattered Moab like a useless vessel, said the Lord.^[3] Isaiah also bears witness to the coming destruction: Moreover, Moab’s army wails; its soul groans for itself, and again: Everyone wails upon its roofs and in its streets. In this way, they suffer that they were despoiled of the people. Daily they groan over their plundering. Consequently, they do not cease to attack us also, in the hopes that they can recapture something of what was taken from them.