The Resurrection in the Prophets

It is said, then, in the Psalms, “I lay down and slept, and rose up again, because the Lord sustained me.” And in another place, “Because of the misery of the needy and the groaning of the poor, now I will arise, says the Lord.” And elsewhere, as we said above, “O Lord, you have brought my soul up out of hell; you have saved me from those who go down into the pit.” And in another place, “Because you turned and gave me life, and brought me up again from the depths of the earth.” In the eighty-seventh Psalm he is spoken of most plainly: “He became like a man without help, free among the dead.” It does not say “a man,” but “like a man.” For in going down into hell he was “like a man”; but he was “free among the dead,” because he could not be held by death. And so in the one nature the power of human weakness is shown, and in the other the power of divine majesty. [a]

The prophet Hosea also speaks most plainly of the third day, in this way: “After two days he will heal us; but on the third day we will rise and live in his presence.” He says this in the person of those who rise with him on the third day and are called back from death to life. And they are the same people who say, “On the third day we will rise again and live in his presence.” But Isaiah says plainly, “Who brought up from the earth the great Shepherd of the sheep.” Then, that the women would see his resurrection while the scribes and Pharisees and the people disbelieved, this too Isaiah foretold in these words: “You women who come from seeing the sight, come; for it is a people without understanding.” As for the women who are said to have gone to the tomb after the resurrection and to have looked for him without finding him, such as Mary Magdalene, who is said to have come to the tomb before it was light and, not finding him, to have said, weeping, to the angels who were there, “They have taken away the Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him”: even this is foretold in the Song of Songs: “On my bed I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him in the night and did not find him.” And of those who found him and held him by the feet, it is foretold in the same book, “I will hold him whom my soul loves, and will not let him go.” Take these passages, a few out of many; for we are bent on brevity and cannot heap up more.