not, and did evil before me, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.'[1] Such are the words of Scripture; understand, therefore, that the seed of Jacob now referred to is something else, and not, as may be supposed, spoken of your people. For it is not possible for the seed of Jacob to leave an entrance for the descendants of Jacob, or for [God] to have accepted the very same persons whom He had reproached with unfitness for the inheritance, and promise it to them again; but as there the prophet says, 'And now, O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord; for He has sent away His people, the house of Jacob, because their land was full, as at the first, of soothsayers and divinations;'[2] even so it is necessary for us here to observe that there are two seeds of Judah, and two races, as there are two houses of Jacob: the one begotten by blood and flesh, the other by faith and the Spirit.
Chap. cxxxvi.—The Jews, in rejecting Christ, rejected God who sent Him.
"For you see how He now addresses the people, saying a little before: 'As the grape shall be found in the cluster, and they will say, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it; so will I do for my servant s sake: for His sake I will not destroy them all.[3] And thereafter He adds: 'And I shall bring forth the seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah.' It is plain, then, that if He thus be angry with them, and threaten to leave very few of them, He promises to bring forth certain others, who shall dwell in His mountain. But these are the persons whom He said He would sow and beget. For you neither suffer Him when He calls you, nor hear Him when He speaks to you, but have done evil in the presence of the Lord. But the highest pitch of your wickedness lies in this, that you hate the Righteous One, and slew Him; and so treat those who have received from Him all that they are and have, and who are pious, righteous, and humane. Therefore 'woe unto their soul,' says the Lord,[4] 'for they have devised an evil counsel against themselves, saying, Let us take away the
