And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in its peace shall you have peace.
Read Chapter 29
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Remember then, that Jeconiah, rejected without any fault of his own, ceased to reign and passed into the custody of the Gentiles when the exile to Babylon took place. Now observe the symbol of things to come in the Lord Jesus Christ revealed in advance. For the Jews did not want our Lord Jesus Christ to reign over them, yet they found no fault in him. He was rejected in his own person and in that of his servants also, and so they passed into the custody of the Gentiles as into Babylon symbolically.… How then do the people of Israel, not now in symbol but in truth, pass into the custody of Babylon? Where did the apostles come from? Were they not from the nation of the Jews? Where did Paul come from? He said, “I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” Many of the Jews then believed in the Lord. From these were the apostles chosen. From these were the more than five hundred brothers, who were allowed to see the Lord after his resurrection. From these were ...
Because the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of humankind is God, of whom the sacred writings of the Hebrews say, “Blessed are people whose God is the Lord.” Miserable, therefore, are people who are alienated from God. Yet even this people has a peace of its own that is not to be lightly esteemed, though, indeed, it shall not in the end enjoy it, because it makes no good use of it before the end. But it is our interest that it enjoys this peace meanwhile in this life. As long as the two cities are combined, we enjoy the peace of Babylon. For from Babylon the people of God is so freed that it meanwhile travels in its company. Therefore the apostle also admonished the church to pray for kings and those in authority, assigning as the reason “that we may live a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and love.” And the prophet Jeremiah, when predicting the captivity that was to befall the ancient people of God and giving them the divine command to go obediently to Babylo...
He also adds, “Seek the peace of the city or the land,” “for in its peace will be your peace.” This is confirmed by the apostolic exhortation: “I urge, first of all, that intercessions, prayers, requests and thanksgivings be made for all persons, for kings and all who are in high office, that we might live a quiet and tranquil life in all reverence and chastity.” Furthermore, according to the mystical understanding, after we are expelled on account of our sins from Jerusalem, that is, the church, and delivered to Nebuchadnezzar, about whom the same apostle said “delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord,” and again, “they are those whom I delivered to Satan, that they would learn not to blaspheme,” we must not be careless or idle, so as to despair inwardly of salvation, but first we must build homes—on rock, not on sand—the kind of homes that the midwives built in Exodus because they feared the Lord. Second, we must plant g...
