Send forth the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Zion.” The interpretation that we provide is not history but prophecy. For every prophecy is enveloped in enigmas and precise statements; while it is speaking of one thing, it moves to another, for if it were to preserve the written order it would be a narrative, not a prophecy. This then is the meaning: O Moab, in whom the lion is about to rage and from whom no one who remains can be saved, take consolation in this: the immaculate Lamb who will take away the sins of the world, he who shall rule the world, will come forth from you. From the rock of the desert—that is, from Ruth, who was widowed when her husband died—Obed was begotten from Boaz and Jesse from Obed and David from Jesse and Christ from David. We will interpret the mount of the daughter of Zion to be either the city of Jerusalem herself or, according to a holy understanding, the church which should be established at the summit of the virtues.
Then, as for Job, that pattern of patience, what mysteries are there not contained in his discourses? Commencing in prose the book soon glides into verse and at the end once more reverts to prose. By the way in which it lays down propositions, assumes postulates, adduces proofs and draws inferences, it illustrates all the laws of logic. Single words occurring in the book are full of meaning. To say nothing of other topics, it prophesies the resurrection of humankind’s bodies at once with more clearness and with more caution than anyone has yet shown. “I know,” Job says, “that my redeemer lives, and that at the last day I shall rise again from the earth; and I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh shall I see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another. This my hope is stored up in my own bosom.” I will pass on to Joshua, son of Nun3—a type of the Lord in name as well as in deed—who crossed over Jordan, subdued hostile kingdoms, divided the land among the conquering people and who, in every city, village, mountain, river, hill-torrent and boundary which he dealt with, marked out the spiritual realms of the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, of the church. In the book of Judges every one of the popular leaders is a type. Ruth the Moabite fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah: “Send you a lamb, O Lord, as ruler of the land from the rock of the wilderness to the mount of the daughter of Zion.” Under the figures of Eli’s death and the slaying of Saul, Samuel shows the abolition of the old law. Again in Zadok and in David he bears witness to the mysteries of the new priesthood and of the new royalty. The third and fourth books of Kings called in Hebrew Malachim give the history of the kingdom of Judah from Solomon to Jeconiah, and of that of Israel from Jeroboam the son of Nebat to Hosea, who was carried away into Assyria. If you merely regard the narrative, the words are simple enough, but if you look beneath the surface at the hidden meaning of it, you find a description of the small numbers of the church and of the wars that the heretics wage against it. The twelve prophets whose writings are compressed within the narrow limits of a single volume have typical meanings far different from their literal ones. Hosea speaks many times of Ephraim, of Samaria, of Joseph, of Jezreel, of a wife of whoredoms and of children of whoredoms, of an adulteress shut up within the chamber of her husband, sitting for a long time in widowhood and in the garb of mourning, awaiting the time when her husband will return to her. Joel the son of Pethuel describes the land of the twelve tribes as spoiled and devastated by the palmerworm, the cankerworm, the locust and the blight. He predicts that after the overthrow of the former people the Holy Spirit shall be poured out upon God’s servants and handmaids;8 the same spirit, that is, which was to be poured out in the upper chamber at Zion upon the 120 believers. These believers rising by gradual and regular gradations from one to fifteen form the steps to which there is a mystical allusion in the “psalms of degrees.” Amos, although he is only “a herdsman” from the country, “a gatherer of sycamore fruit,” cannot be explained in a few words.
(Verse 2) And it shall be, like a flying bird, and like young birds flying from the nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be in the crossing of the Arnon. They will return to the order they had taken: When I have set, it says, those who fled from Moab, and the remnants of the land, against the fiercest lion, who will break their limbs and bones, then the fearful shall fly away, and all the daughters, that is, the towns and cities of the province of Moab, shall migrate in the crossing of the Arnon, which is the boundary of the Amorites and the Moabites. However, transcensum et hic ponens, captivitatem significat.
[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 16:2