Chapter XII · Location 12 of 14
Chapter 12 · Open to readFrom Zacharias · Douay–Rheims / Challoner (1749–1752)
How does protection precede mourning?
Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary
Lintel and stone imagery leads to grace, prayers and families mourning apart.
Chapter breakdown
The heading interprets church protection against persecutors and Jerusalem’s mourning. The Creator of heaven, earth and human spirit announces Israel’s burden. Jerusalem is a lintel of surfeiting, with Juda in the siege against it. The edition describes blood-seeking entrants stumbling like drunk men and says it seems to allude to Antiochus and Machabean victories. Jerusalem becomes a burdensome stone tearing those who lift it as earth’s kingdoms gather against her. Horses are astonished, riders maddened and nations’ horses blinded while God opens his eyes upon Juda. Governors ask Jerusalem’s inhabitants to be strengthened for them in God. They become furnace among wood and firebrand among hay, devouring neighbors as Jerusalem is inhabited again.
God saves Juda’s tabernacles as in the beginning, preventing David’s house and Jerusalem’s glory from boasting against Juda. The one who has offended becomes like David and David’s house like God and an angel in their sight. God seeks to destroy attacking nations. Grace and prayers are poured on David’s house and Jerusalem; they look upon the one they pierced and mourn as for only son and firstborn. Lament resembles Adadremmon near Mageddon, identified by the edition as Josias’s death and mourning place. The land mourns families apart: David, Nathan, Levi, Semei and all others, with their women apart. This is separated family mourning, not a supplied solitary meditation practice; tabernacles as in the beginning does not say rural dwellings saved first.
The story inside
The Antiochus allusion is qualified. The text names one who has offended. Adadremmon’s note recalls Josias.
Lessons worth keeping
- 1The Antiochus allusion is qualified.
- 2The text names one who has offended.
- 3Adadremmon’s note recalls Josias.
Test your recall
Which four houses mourn apart?
Source edition and notes
Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.
Lines 103886–103888
12:1. The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel. Thus saith the Lord, who stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundations of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man in him:
Lines 103899–103902
12:3. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone to all people: all that shall lift it up shall be rent and torn, and all the kingdoms of the earth shall be gathered together against her.
Lines 103918–103920
12:7. And the Lord shall save the tabernacles of Juda, as in the beginning: that the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, may not boast and magnify themselves against Juda.
Lines 103930–103934
12:10. And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace, and of prayers: and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the firstborn.
