The Right Hand and the Left Hand

God transfers men from the earthly place to the high heavens. If he says 'work', he does not mean it by number, but by kind or even by genus. In their light—for we take the fathers to be wise—we say that in the days they lived, dazzled by the true light of the sun of righteousnessn the light of their life, which they were not envious to share with us.

He said, and he remembers: seven nations under the later called holy land he brought down (Ps 105:23). They were hidden, having been led in by God into that land. Moses, therefore, without neglect, prays to repeat the mystery: 'Having led them in, hide them in the mountain of your inheritance, O holiness, Lord, which your hands prepared' (Ex 19:4). See that no one living externally and hearing is able to enter into the holy mountain. The crowds in the parables, therefore, hearing and being outside, did not enter into the holy mountain, where the parables were made clear. It is necessary, therefore, to be led in first, and then thus to be hidden.

Your hand destroyed nations, and you hid them. Not of God in the ancient days. He was ancient of days (Dan 7:9), and we do not say that he was in ancient days, but he was ancient of days; for he was before days, before all time; and being existing before the ages is the same as the ancient of days, as it is said: 'the one existing before the ages''Your hand' therefore 'destroyed nations'. Your punishing power. Those who serve with punishments, angels, are able to be called hands of God, just as we say the hand of a king, and we do not mean the limb of the body of a hand.

And Job, concerning the punishing power—and he himself was the devil—was saying: 'withdraw your hand' (Job 2:3). This therefore he says: 'your hand', that is, the punishing power, or the active power of the persecutors, or your ministering power, 'destroyed nations'. And take the destruction of the nations by way of ascent as the death of men, by doing and the expulsion of life, according to which the nations were strangers to God. 'And you hid' our fathers. And the nations are destroyed because of the evil which they have; for their evil was a land and a city. And those are being hidden by no other than his right hand. But it is not the same...

One hand and the right hand: for the right is always a hand, but not every hand is right; for we have things to say that are performed by the right hand in a praiseworthy manner. Thus it is said in the Psalms: 'You held the right hand of me' (Ps 118:17). The right is the practical power of the good, but the left is the opposing one. And since things done happen from disposition and from thought, which is called 'heart,' it is said that the wise man has his heart to the right, but the fool to the left; here we do not take the places of bodies. But the wise man has a mind thinking rightly, having understanding concerning the intelligible things. But the heart of the fool is to the left, turning only toward the material.

Often the left is found in the writings not regarding pride, but regarding humiliation, as it says in the Song of Songs: 'His renown is upon my head, and his right shall embrace me' (Song 7:1). And concerning her wisdom it is said: 'For length of days and years of life are in the right' (Prov 3:16)—and the length is the immortal, the things not being destroyed—'but in her left, wealth and glory.' And it gives wealth that is sensible. And these gifts of the hand of wisdom on the left are not trivial.

3–4 You harmed the people and drove them out; for they did not inherit the land by their sword, and their arm did not save them. Those whom you drove out, you drove out having harmed them. But you brought harm upon them so that they might be disciplined. Often harm disciplines; for we do not speak here of harm from sin, but of harm from corrective discipline. Since, therefore, they did not attend to the corrective discipline as is necessary, they were moreover driven out and rejected. 'For they did not inherit the land by their sword' (Ps 106:11). Our fathers, having taken the history of those driven from the land, did not possess the land taken from them by their own war, nor by their own power; 'for not by their sword, nor their arm' prevailed over them, 'but your right and your arm and the light of your face' (Ps 106:11). There is the light, and the salvation.

Through which, therefore, the harm and the driving out happen, is simply a hand. Thus also in one of the Psalms concerning Christ it is said: 'And he shall put his hand in the sea and his right in the rivers' (Ps 74:3). There where there is salt and brine, the hand is simply placed against the evil powers; evil...