And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary His mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against. The form for the sacerdotal blessing is prescribed in Numbers 6:24, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," &c.
Blessed them. That Isaiah , Joseph and Mary, not the Child Christ, say Maldonatus, Francis Lucas, and others; for the Child, as his Saviour and his God, he venerated and adored, desiring to be blessed by Him, and not presuming to bless Him. Jansenius, however, thinks that the word "them" includes Christ.
And said unto Mary His mother, rather than to Joseph, both because she was the true and natural mother of Jesus, while Joseph was only nominally His father, and also because Joseph seems to have died before the thirtieth year of Christ, when the things here foreshadowed were accomplished, so that the Blessed Mary alone experienced them in herself. To her alone, then, did Simeon here foretell both the ...
Is set for the ruin. Christ came for the redemption and salvation of all men: but Simeon prophesies what would happen in consequence of the wilful blindness and obstinacy of many. (Witham)
Not that God sent his Son for the fall of any man; but that many, by their own perverseness, in wilfully refusing to receive and obey him, would take occasion of falling. (Challoner)
And for a sign which shall be contradicted, to signify that Christ, and his doctrine, should be as it were a mark, or butt, against whom the Jews should discharge the arrows and darts of their malice. (Witham)
Hence St. Paul, (2 Corinthians ii. 16.) We are to one the odour of death unto death, but to the other the odour of life unto life.
