This is the David of whom the Gospel speaks: It will be granted to us, that, liberated from our enemies, we may serve him without fear in holiness and justice all of our days.^[1] For, just as the first Adam and the second Adam are described according to the truth of the body,^[2] so also with David and the Lord and Savior. For, since everything that Mary gave to the Lord according to the flesh came from David, whatever was of the seed of David also took its origin and conception from the Holy Spirit.^[3] And that the Lord says, I will break his yoke off of your neck, and I will destroy his hold, is undoubtedly to be understood in reference to Nebuchadnezzar as a type of the devil.

I shall raise up David their king for them. Christ the Lord brought fulfillment to the prophecy. He sprang from David according to the flesh, and he no longer shepherds only Israel but all the nations. The prophecy had a kind of outcome by way of shadow and type in the time of Zerubbabel as well.

Although we say that trial is twofold, that is, in prosperity and in adversity, yet you must know that all people are tried in three different ways. Often they are tried for their probation, sometimes for their improvement, and in some cases because their sins deserve it. For their probation indeed! We read that the blessed Abraham and Job and many of the saints endured countless tribulations. . . . For improvement, because God chastens his righteous ones for some small and venial sins or to raise them to a higher state of purity, and he delivers them over to various trials that he may purge away all their unclean thoughts, and, to use the prophet’s word, the dross, which he sees to have collected in their secret parts. Thus may he transmit them like pure gold to the judgment to come, as he allows nothing to remain in them for the fire of judgment to discover when hereafter it searches them with penal torments according to this saying: Many are the tribulations of the righteous.^[1] . . . To whom under the figure of Jerusalem the following words are spoken by Jeremiah, in the person of God: I will make a full end of all the nations among whom I scattered you, but of you I will not make a full end. I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished. . . . But as a punishment for sins, the blows of trial are inflicted, as where the Lord threatens that he will send plagues on the people of Israel: I will send the teeth of beasts on them, with the fury of creatures that trail on the ground,^[2] and In vain have I struck your children. They have not received correction.^[3] . . . We find, it is true, a fourth way also in which we know on the authority of Scripture that some sufferings are brought on us simply for the manifestation of the glory of God and his works, according to these words of the Gospel: Neither did this man sin nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him,^[4] and again, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified by it.^[5] . . . The perfect person will always remain steadfast in either kind of trial; now let us return to it once more.

A type of these events previously occurred in Zerubbabel and Ezra, when the people returned and the city was begun to be built on its heights and religion observed in the temple, all of which are contained in Ezra’s own book. But this was more fully and more perfectly completed in the Lord and Savior and his apostles, when the city was built on its heights—about which it is written, A city set on a hill cannot be hidden^[1]—and the temple was founded in accordance with its order and ceremony,^[2] so that whatever was done carnally by the people in the past would be completed spiritually in the church. Then praise went forth—or thanksgiving, for this is what thoda means—so that all of the apostles would be able to say grace and peace to you.^[3] The voice of celebration was not the kind of celebration in which people eat, drink, sleep and then get up to do it again for its own sake, but the kind of celebration that David enjoyed before the ark of the Lord.^[4] They were also multiplied and not diminished so that the entire world would believe in God the Savior. And they were glorified so that what was written would be fulfilled: Glorious things are said of you, O city of God!^[5] They were his children, that is, the apostles, as were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from the beginning, the rulers of the people of Israel. Then the Lord made a visit against all who opposed the people of God, clearly powerful adversaries.^[6] And their leader came from them—undoubtedly a reference to the Lord and Savior, who was from the Israelite race according to the flesh—and their ruler was produced from their midst. The Father united this ruler to himself and drew near to him, as the Son would say: I in the Father and the Father in me,^[7] for no one is able thus to unite his heart to the Lord or to be joined to the Father as the Son. That it also says, You will be my people, and I will be your God,^[8] we determine to have been completed partly in Israel and fully in the multitude of nations.

I will multiply them, and they will not be diminished. Their congregation will be before my face, as during the time of Moses, Aaron and Joshua.

All this and what would follow in the prophecy below was fulfilled and was accomplished in the coming of our Lord, as we have already noted above. Like many other things in the Lord’s divine plan predicted by the prophet and fulfilled by the redemption and restoration of the people of God, this passage also should not be simply understood in the sense of Israel but of people that the divine Paul calls the Israel of God who consisted of, and were gathered from, Jews and people of other nations. This passage is not simply about biological children of Abraham but about children of promise, and Paul teaches the same. Only in this more mysterious sense was the word of Jeremiah fulfilled, They would no longer serve foreigners, but they shall serve the Lord their God and king David, whom I will raise up for them. The Jews did not have peace. After they were conquered by the Chaldeans, they never were free from fear and oppression from other foreign nations. Rather, at various times they were enslaved by Persians, Greeks and Romans. These words of the prophet, Jacob shall return, have rest and should not be afraid, were not fulfilled for Jews. All prophets who prophesied after the Babylonian captivity say that during their time Jews were not free from fear and wars with neighboring nations, and they did not have even a moment of rest but were instead in fear of other peoples. And even though they served the Lord their God and did not worship pagan gods, they were oppressed.