Let our course take us to regions above, because it is better to ascend. Finally, as was read today, Woe to them that go down to Egypt. Surely it is not wrong to go to Egypt, but to change to the ways of the Egyptians, to change to the violence of their treachery and to the ugliness of their wantonness—this is wrong. He that changes in this way descends, and one who descends falls. Let us keep away, then, from the Egyptian who is a man, but [let us] not [keep away] from God. Even the king of Egypt himself fell under the dominion of his own vices and in comparison with him Moses was accounted a god, ruling over kingdoms and subjecting powers to himself. So we read that it was said to Moses: I shall make you a god to Pharaoh.^[1]

In place of the last clause [But you have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, says the Lord.] the true Hebrew text (which is not preserved in the Greek and Latin versions) gives the following: you have forsaken me, yet return, and I will receive you, says the Lord.^[1] Isaiah also speaking in the same sense uses almost the same words: Return, he cries, O children of Israel, you who devise a deep and sinful counsel. Return to me, and I will redeem you. I am God, and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is nothing beside me. Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth.^[2] Remember this and show yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O you transgressors. Return in heart and remember the former things of old: for I am God and there is none else.^[3]

If the breads of the furnace^[1] that were baked in secret signify the interior devotion of the mind of the faithful confirmed by the fire of charity, breads which were also commanded by the law to be offered in the sacrifice of the Lord,^[2] it is most fitting that the hearts which were made to burn constantly with the flame of intimate love and virtue and to beget words are symbolized through the furnaces in which the same breads were baked. The prophet spoke beautifully about these things when he referred to the Lord whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem. It is also written: Did our hearts not burn within us when he spoke along the way and opened the Scriptures to us?^[3]

Of this love that is begun here to be perfected from the sight of the Lord in the eternal kingdom Isaiah rightly speaks, saying, The Lord lives, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem. It is, however, greater to be a furnace than a fire because a fire can also be small, but a larger flame is kindled in a furnace. Zion truly is said to be speculation but Jerusalem the vision of peace. Truly we sometimes catch a glimpse of our peace here in order there later to see it fully. Therefore through the Lord’s love the fire is in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem because here we burn in some measure with the flames of his love when we glimpse him, but there we shall burn totally when we shall fully see him whom we love.

The prescription of the law must be taken in the more spiritual sense. For there is a spiritual seed which through charity and the fear of God is conceived in the womb of the soul, which in turn travails and brings forth the spirit of salvation. It is in this sense that the passage is to be taken which reads, Blessed is he who has seed in Zion and kindred in Jerusalem. What, indeed! Even though one is a fornicator, a drunkard or an idolater, will he be blessed, provided only that he has seed in Zion and kindred in Jerusalem? No one in his right mind would say that.