Isaiah 12:2 Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song… "Behold, God is my salvation." translates this, "Behold, God is my Jesus." Jerome was right in going back to the Old Testament with the key of the New. In fact, we are entitled to begin at Genesis after we have perused the whole Gospel story with the profoundest interest and have received its spirit into our heart. The Gospels explain the Pentateuch. There are arithmetics which are awful in their initial hardness. They are all questions. Arithmetic is the most audacious interrogator I ever knew. But at the end of the arithmetic, in some cases, there is a key. What different reading! There is not a question in the whole key unless it be at the beginning of an answer, and who, having read the answer, does not feel how easy it was to have worked out the sum after all if one had only taken pains enough at the beginning? At the same time there is a strong disposition just to appropriate what the key says, and then, perhaps, to appear before the spectacled master as if we had never heard of such a thing as a key. That would be illegitimate in arithmetic. There have been young arithmeticians who have been guilty of that meanness. But we are called to look at the key in open day; we are referred to the key; we are invited and challenged to peruse it, and then to go back with the key in our hand to work out all the mystery of the lock. This is what Jerome did; so he did not hesitate to take out the word "salvation" in the second, verse and put in the word "Jesus," and say with unction and thankfulness, Behold, God is my Jesus." "His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. |
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