As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant I have sent forth your prisoners out of the pit in which is no water.
Read Chapter 9
Bede
AD 735
It was fitting that the herald of his resurrection is reported to have been sitting, so that by sitting he might prefigure him who, having triumphed over the author of death, would ascend to his seat in the everlasting kingdom. Concerning this he said a little later, as he appeared to his disciples, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me”; and the evangelist Mark says, “The Lord, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at God’s right hand.” [The angel] was sitting upon the stone with which the tomb was closed, but which had been rolled away, to teach that [Christ] had cast down and triumphed over the closed places of the lower world by his power, so that he might lift up to the light and the rest of paradise all of his own whom he found there, according to the prophet’s [statement], “You also because of the blood of your covenant, have led your prisoners back from the pit, in which there is no water.”
The sun was darkened because of the Sun of justice. The rocks were rent because of “the spiritual rock.” Tombs were opened, and the dead arose, because of him who was “free among the dead.” He “sent forth his prisoners out of the pit, wherein there is no water.” Do not be ashamed, then, of the Crucified, but say with confidence, “He bears our sins and carries our sorrows, and by his bruises we are healed.” Let us not be ungrateful to our Benefactor. Again, “For the wickedness of my people was he led to death; and I shall give the ungodly for his burial, and the rich for his death.” And Paul says clearly “that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.”
Water; from limbo, (St. Jerome;; Worthington; St. Thomas Aquinas, iii. p. q. 52. a. 1; Calmet) and purgatory. See St. Augustine, de Genesis xii. 23.,ep. 99. (Menochius)
Christ delivered the ancient patriarchs by virtue of his covenant, just sealed with his blood. Hebrew at present reads, "and as for thee, Sion, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners", delivering the Hebrews out of Egypt by the paschal lamb. (Chaldean) But this text is suspected, as St. Jerome remarks no variation.
