Mercy for the Ignorant, and Heedful Listening

… the people of Israel from their close bond with God. This has been said plainly, so that God may be seen in every case to have given a just verdict.

For it was necessary, truly necessary, that those who had held ungodliness toward God in honor should be put outside his sparing mercy and love; but that those who through ignorance had been caught in the pits of sin and had fallen under the devil's hand should be pitied by the Creator of all, and called to the knowledge of him and to the light of the truth.

This, I think, is found in the words of the all-wise Moses too, where he says: 'They provoked me to jealousy with what is no god; they angered me with their carved images. And I will provoke them to jealousy with what is no nation; with a senseless nation I will anger them' (Deuteronomy 32:21). And the divine Psalmist said somewhere: 'They embittered him with their carved images, and with their practices they provoked him to jealousy; and the Lord God saw and disregarded them, and utterly rejected Israel' (Psalm 78:58–59; compare Psalm 106:29).

If we should also add some spiritual contemplation to what has been said, let us guard against having the devil's snare in mind and heart, and the wicked idols that arise in the imaginings of our thoughts and call us to licentiousness and to monstrous pleasures, so that we may not fall to Satan and become the plunder of demons. For it is written: 'If the spirit of the ruler rises up against you, do not leave your place, for healing will put an end to great sins' (Ecclesiastes 10:4).

'Who among you will give ear to these things? Listen to what is coming' (Isaiah 42:23).

It is the custom of the divinely inspired Scripture to say 'give ear' when someone receives a word about necessary matters not carelessly or negligently, but soberly, so as to keep what has been told stored up in mind and heart. Such is what is said through the voice of the Psalmist: 'In my heart I have hidden your sayings, so that I may not sin against you' (Psalm 119:11). And in the forty-eighth psalm it is written: 'Hear these things, all you nations; give ear, all who dwell in the world' (Psalm 49:1).

To hear is common to all who have once taken a voice, or some other sound, into the ear; but to give ear is, as I said, to lodge in the mind something of what God has declared.

So the prophetic word here seems to be looking for those who listen more fairly, that is, more wisely, since it tells what befell the people of old for the safety of those to come. As Paul says: 'These things happened to them as types, and they were written for our warning, on whom the ends of the ages have come' (1 Corinthians 10:11). For we must not read the accounts about Israel to no purpose, but receive them for the good of the soul, and firmly refuse to be caught in the same faults, so that we may not fall into the same misfortunes as they did.

'Who …' (Isaiah 42:24).