The land was at rest as long as sin was at rest. But the land is said to be disturbed, meaning those who inhabit the land, when the souls of the people began to move and to dislocate in sin. This is why the text was written this way: The land was at rest for forty years. And the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. And Midian ruled over Israel. As long as there was justice in the land, therefore, that is, in those who inhabited the land, the land is said to be at rest. But when iniquity arose and they did evil in the sight of the Lord, then the Lord is said to have delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. Nor are the Midianites said to have ruled over the people of the Lord as long as they observed the commandments of the Lord. But when they began to neglect the divine mandates, the hand of their enemy became stronger and more powerful against them. Yet, whereas their bodily enemies arose and strengthened against them when the first people failed, against us, on the other hand, who are called the spiritual Israel, a spiritual enemy will arise and the hand of demons will be strengthened when we neglect the commandments of God and hold the precepts of Christ in contempt, and we will be delivered to our own enemies when we forsake God’s grace.

When Jerubbaal,^[1] as we read, was beating out wheat under an oak, he received a message from God in order that he might bring the people of God from the power of strangers into liberty. Nor is it a matter of wonder if he was chosen for grace, seeing that even then, being appointed under the shadow of the holy cross and of the adorable Wisdom in the predestined mystery of the future incarnation, he was bringing forth the visible grains of the fruitful corn from their hiding places and was [mystically] separating the elect of the saints from the refuse of the empty chaff. For these elect, as though trained with the rod of truth, laying aside the superfluities of the old man together with his deeds, are gathered in the church as in a winepress. For the church is the winepress of the eternal fountain, since from it wells forth the juice of the heavenly Vine.

Gideon, moved by that message, when he heard that though thousands of the people failed, God would deliver his own from their enemies by means of one man, offered a kid, and according to the word of the angel, laid its flesh and the unleavened cakes upon the rock and poured the broth upon them. And as soon as the angel touched them with the end of the staff which he bore, fire burst forth out of the rock, and so the sacrifice which he was offering was consumed. By which it seems clear that that rock was a figure of the body of Christ, for it is written: They drank of that rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.^[1] This certainly refers not to his Godhead but to his flesh, which watered the hearts of the thirsting people with the perpetual stream of his blood.

Even at that time was it declared in a mystery that the Lord Jesus in his flesh would, when crucified, do away the sins of the whole world, and not only the deeds of the body but the desires of the soul. For the flesh of the kid refers to sins of deed, the broth to the enticements of desire, as it is written: For the people greedily lusted, and said, ‘Who shall give us flesh to eat?’ ^[2] That the angel then stretched forth his staff and touched the rock, from which fire went out, shows that the flesh of the Lord, being filled with the divine Spirit, would burn away all the sins of human frailty. Wherefore, also, the Lord says, I have come to send fire upon the earth.^[3]