Come, my people, enter you into your chambers, and shut your doors about you: hide yourself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation is past.
Read Chapter 26
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Certainly there are two things that make us hope for the bliss of the just and the end of all suffering: death and the resurrection from the dead. In death is rest, as the prophet says, “My people, enter into your chambers, hide yourself a little until the indignation of the Lord pass away.” But in the resurrection there is perfect happiness in the whole person, that is, in flesh and spirit. Consequently we are not to think that both of these are to be marked by the labor of fasting but rather by the rejoicing of refreshment. - "Letter 36"
All the generations from Adam to this day have passed away; but those who were made perfect in charity by the grace of God live among the saints; and they shall be made manifest at the judgment of the kingdom of Christ. For it is written, “Enter into your chamber a little while, until my wrath and anger pass, and I remember the good day and will raise you up out of your graves.” 1 - "Clement 50"
“The hairs of your head are numbered.” If the hairs, I suppose the teeth would be more easily numbered. But there is no object in numbering them if they are some day to perish. “The hour will come in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth.” … Then shall be fulfilled what God says by the prophet, “Go, my people, into your closets for a little while, until my anger pass.” The closets signify the graves, out of which is brought forth which had been laid therein. And they shall come out of the graves like young mules free from the halter. - "Against John of Jerusalem 33"
“The hour will come in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth.” They shall hear with ears and come forth with feet. This Lazarus had already done. They shall, moreover, come forth from the tombs; that is, they who had been laid in the tombs, the dead, shall come and shall rise again from their graves. For the dew that God gives is healing to their bones. Then shall be fulfilled what God says by the prophet, “Go, my people, into your closets for a little while, until mine anger pass.” The closets signify the graves, out of which is brought forth which had been laid therein. And they shall come out of the graves like young mules free from the halter. Their heart shall rejoice, and their bones shall rise like the sun; all flesh shall come into the presence of the Lord, and he shall command the fishes of the sea; and they shall give up the bones which they had eaten; and he shall bring joint to joint, and bone to bone; and they who slept ...
When we read, “Go, my people, enter into your closets for a little while, until my anger passes away,” we have in the closets graves, in which they will have to rest for a little while, who shall have at the end of the world departed this life in the last furious onset of the power of Antichrist. Why else did he use the expression closets in preference to some other receptacle, if it were not that the flesh is kept in these closets or cellars salted and reserved for use, to be drawn out thence on a suitable occasion? It is on a similar principle that embalmed corpses are set aside for burial in mausoleums and sepulchers, in order that they may be removed from there when the Master shall order it. Since, therefore, there is consistency in thus understanding the passage (for what refuge of little closets could possibly shelter us from the wrath of God?), it appears that by the very phrase which he uses, “until his anger passes away,” which shall extinguish Antichrist, he in fact shows th...
