Psalms 108:9

"Into Idumea I will stretch out my shoe." "Idumea" is interpreted "earthly and bloody." The merciful God wills to possess not only heavenly things, but also earthly ones. "The foreigners have been made friends to me." He speaks of us, who have believed from among the Gentiles.

For who does not know that sandals are made from dead animals? But the Lord coming incarnate appeared as if shod, because in his divinity he assumed the dead flesh of our corruption. Hence also through the Prophet he says: "Over Edom I will extend my sandal." For by Edom the Gentile world is signified, and by the sandal the assumed mortality is designated. Therefore the Lord asserts that he extends his sandal over Edom, because when he became known to the Gentiles through flesh, divinity came to us as if shod.

"Moab is the pot of my hope." A great mystery is recognized in few words. I beg you, pay careful attention: since it profits both me who speak, and you who hear. "Moab" is interpreted "from the father." "AB" means "father," "MO" means "from." Who is this one "from the father"? He who lost his father, who abandoned his father, who did not return to his own father, and is not worthy to be called Manasseh. Who is this Moab? An enemy of the Lord, of whose lineage, even to the fourth generation, and the tenth, and even forever, he shall not enter into the church of the Lord. Who is this Moab? He who is born of an unclean coupling in a dark cave. For from Lot and from his daughters two were born, Moab and Ammon, and Moab is the elder son. See, then, how a mystery is hidden in the letter. In darkness, in a cave: not in the sun, not in the light. "Moab," then, is interpreted "the devil," who has forgotten his father. In fine, Absalom too, who persecuted his own father, is interpreted "the devil." How, then, is this Moab "the pot of the Lord's hope"? "Pot" (lebes) is interpreted "cooking-pot" (olla). How is a cooking-pot the hope of the Lord? Is it, then, credible that Moab, who is interpreted "the devil," should be the pot of the Lord's hope? How is he the hope of the Lord? The Apostle says: "Whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." The devil is, as it were, the Lord's torturer-examiner. Those who do not walk rightly toward God are handed over to the devil. Why? That they may perish forever? And where then is the clemency of God? where is the merciful father? where is he who makes his sun rise over the just and sinners, and rains upon sinners and the just? What he says is this: I hand over, he says, sinners to the devil, that, being tormented by him, they may be converted to me. It is said also in Jeremiah: "What do you see, Jeremiah?" "A boiling pot," he says. See, then, that into this pot flesh is cast. This is written in Ezekiel. "And I cast," he says, "flesh into the pot": that it may become soft, and the hard may be converted to the Lord, and from a heart of stone may become a heart of flesh, so that where before it could not be written upon because of hardness, afterward it may be written upon because of softness. "I will kindle," he says, "this pot, and I will boil down the flesh and the bones, until they lose all moisture and…