O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations shall come unto you from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things in which there is no profit.
Read Chapter 16
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Further, Jeremiah says of Christ, “Behold the days come, says the Lord, and I will raise up to David a just branch. A king shall reign and shall be wise. He shall execute justice and judgment in the earth. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Israel shall dwell confidently. This is the name that they shall call him: The Lord our just one.” On the calling of the Gentiles that he foresaw and we today see as realized, the prophet had this to say: “O Lord, my might and my strength, and my refuge in the day of tribulation; to you the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say, ‘Surely our ancestors have possessed lies, a vanity that has not profited them.’ ” - "City of God 18.33"
As in the provocation and in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your ancestors put me to the test, let such no more be your ancestors: do not imi-tate them. They were your ancestors, but if you do not imitate them, they shall not be your ancestors. Yet as you were born of them, they were your ancestors. And if the heathen who came from the ends of the earth, in the words of Jeremiah, “To thee shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: ‘Our fathers have inherited nought but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit,’ ” if the heathen forsook their idols to come to the God of Israel, ought Israel, whom their own God led from Egypt through the Red Sea, in which he overwhelmed their pursuing foes, whom he led out into the wilderness, fed with manna, never took his rod from correcting them, never deprived them of the blessings of his mercy, ought they to desert their own God, when the heathen have come to him? - "Expositions of the Psalms 95.11"
So the shepherds came from nearby to see, and the Magi came from far away to worship. This is the humility for which the wild olive deserved to be grafted into the olive tree and against nature to produce olives, because it deserved to change nature through grace. They come, you see, from the uttermost bounds of the earth, saying, according to Jeremiah, “Truly our fathers worshipped lies.” And they come, not just from one part of the world, but as the gospel according to Luke says, from East and West, from North and South, to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. - "Sermon 203.3"
Having been brought near, they make Christ their glorying. For again, God the Father has said of them, “And I will strengthen them in the Lord their God, and in his name shall they glory, says the Lord.” This also the blessed psalmist teaches, speaking as it were to Christ the Savior of all and saying, “Lord, they shall walk in the light of your countenance, and in your name shall they exult all the day, and in your righteousness shall they be exalted. For you are the glorying of their strength.” We shall find also the prophet Jeremiah calling out to God, “Lord, my strength and my help, and my refuge in the day of my evils, to You shall the heathen come from the ends of the earth, and say, ‘Our fathers took for themselves false idols, in which there is no help.’ ” - "Commentary on Luke, Homily 4"
Them. After the captivity many were converted, Esther viii., and 1 Esdras vi. 21. Edom was forced to receive circumcision. But this was nothing in comparison with the crowds which embraced the gospel.
For I am very much God’s debtor, who gave me such great grace that many people were reborn in God through me and afterwards confirmed, and that clerics were ordained for them everywhere, for a people just coming to the faith, whom the Lord took from the utmost parts of the earth, as he once had promised through His prophets: “To you the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say, ‘How false are the idols that our ancestors got for themselves, and there is no profit in them.’ ” And again: “I have set you as a light among the Gentiles, that you may be for salvation unto the utmost part of the earth.” - "Confession 38"
