That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;
Read Chapter 1
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
No one should swear just because God swore to Abraham. For just as God’s anger is not anger, nor does anger imply passion but signifies power exercised in punishment or some similar motion. So neither is an oath an act of swearing. For God does not swear but indicates the certainty of the event—so that which he says will necessarily come to pass. For God’s oath is his own word, fully persuading those that hear and giving each one the conviction that what he has promised and said will certainly come to pass. .
Christ is mercy and justice. We have obtained mercy through him and been justified, having washed away the stains of wickedness through faith that is in him. .
That he would save us Literally, salvation from our enemies. The construction and sense is, that God, as he had declared by his prophets, would grant us salvation, or would save us. (Witham)
This is not to be understood of temporal, but of spiritual enemies. For the Lord Jesus, strong in battle, came to destroy all our enemies, and thus to deliver us from their snares and temptations. (Origen, hom. xvi.)
He is that King of Glory, the Lord strong and powerful, the Lord powerful in battle. (Psalm xxiii.)
Union of God and man took place according to the good pleasure of the Father, the Word of God foretelling from the beginning that God should be seen by men, and hold converse with them upon earth, should confer with them, and should be present with His own creation, saving it, and becoming capable of being perceived by it, and freeing us from the hands of all that hate us, that is, from every spirit of wickedness; and causing us to serve Him in holiness and righteousness all our days,