(marg.) What is the meaning of this third deed, according to the Greeks, the Hebrews, and the Latins?
The Greeks say [that] a prophetic oracle is here poured forth, by which it is handed down [that] from this time God announces war against the Amalekites, and begins to wage [it], and will wage [it] ever further into future generations. In the same way Josephus [too]: προεφήτευε Μωυσῆς, πανωλεθρίᾳ τοὺς Ἀμαληκίτας ἀπολουμένους, καὶ μηδένα αὐτῶν ὑπόλοιπον [ἐσόμενον] — “Moses prophesied [that] the Amalekites would perish by utter destruction, and [that] none of them would be left remaining.” And this prophecy the Rabbis too acknowledge — Salomon [Rashi], Abenezra [Ibn Ezra], the rest. But what [of] that ἐν χειρὶ κρυφαίᾳ? Eugubinus [Steuco] reads, in certain copies, ἐν χειρὶ κορυφαίᾳ, and interprets [it] “with a lofty hand” — so that, just as elsewhere it is said “with an outstretched arm,” so also in this place [Amalek] is handed down [as] about to be destroyed by a certain supreme force. But because the Royal Bible and the corrected Septuagint express κρυφαίαν χεῖρα [a hidden hand], it must be known, first, [that] they seem to have read in the Hebrew iad cesoviah [יד כסויה], which is “a hidden and secret hand”; and likewise [that] they saw the preposition hal [על] prefixed to these words, or took [it as] interposed in that manner in which, among us, in these and other similar phrases, it is interposed — “In all things, [it comes] to our ears.”
Next, it is called a hidden hand, because the strength and power of God, by which he was about to cut off that nation, does not fall under human sense, nor is perceived except in [its] effect. The time, too, at which that hand was about to be exerted against them was not openly foretold; but when [it was] least thought of, it at last touched and crushed them.
But the Hebrews, and those who embrace their opinion, hold [that] here [there] is a rite of a certain oath — because that is wont to be done by the lifting-up of the hands and fingers. But others hold [that] this [oath] was conceived by Moses — as, in that version of theirs set down above, they said, or rather [as] indicated by a paraphrase (as Vatablus says): as if Moses lifted [his] hand to the throne of God, or placed [it] upon it, and so swore [that] it would truly be that the Lord would wage war against the Amalekites.
(col. 88)
But others attribute the same oath to God himself — as if he too had placed [his] hand upon his throne, or moved [it] to the throne: so that in these words there was a double act of God. One, of swearing upon the throne; the other, of the announcement of the Amalekite war, about which he swears. And these [things are] more consonant with the text than those which make Moses the one swearing. And so the Chaldee paraphrast [renders it]: “With an oath,” he says, “it was said, from the face of the Terrible One — whose majesty is upon the throne of glory — that battle be joined, from the face of the Lord, against the men of the house of Amalek, that he consume them from the generations of the age.” And in [R.] Eliezer (ch. 44), R. Sila says: “The holy God, blessed [be he], willed to destroy and scatter the whole seed of Amalek. What, therefore, did he do? He stretched out his right hand, and grasped the throne of his glory, and swore [that] he would destroy and scatter all the seed of Amalek from this age, and from the age to come.”
How our Latin text can admit the Greeks’ opinion, I do not sufficiently see — about which something will again be signified afterward, in the following question, and in [question] 27. But that latter [reading] of the Hebrews can suit it [the Latin] excellently. For “the hand of the Lord alone” is the hand of God placed on the throne for swearing, or [is God] swearing by the throne. But swearing what? This very [thing]: “And the war of the Lord was with Amalek.” Yet [there] are two other not inconvenient expositions of the same Latin text. One, of the [interlinear] gloss and of Lyranus: “The hand of the Lord alone — that is, [his] power and might — is on the throne of God; and through this the Lord himself will wage war against Amalek.” So that thus, namely, the cause and manner may be explained of that which was said [in] v. 14, [that] the memory of the Amalekites [was] to be blotted out. The other: God the omnipotent resides on his throne, and is not idle, but will make perpetual war against the Amalekites. Or [thus]: “the hand of God — that is, [his] omnipotence — is on his throne, by no means idle,” and ceasing from no vengeance on the enemies of his people. “But because he will hereafter stir up a most grievous war against the Amalekites”: and by that very [war] he will scatter them “from generation unto generation,” that is, “forever.” But because God has none greater by whom he may swear (Hebrews 6, v. 13), he is wont either to swear by himself — as is said there, from Genesis 22 — or by his own things and attributes, which are the same with himself: as [in] Amos 9, “by his highness”; Ezekiel 18, “by his life”; Jeremiah 51, v. 14, and Amos 6, “by his soul”; here, “by his throne.” That in oaths of this kind the hand is raised as a custom, we see here in Germany daily, when even two fingers are raised — as also in England, [and] one [finger], in Oleaster (on Genesis 14). And therefore Abraham too, swearing (Genesis 14): “I have lifted up,” he says, “my hand to God.” And the Lord himself (Deuteronomy 32): “I will lift up my hand to heaven, and I will say: I live forever.” And indeed to swear would be in no way necessary for him; yet he grants this to the weakness of our diffidence, and for [our] consolation — that we may put a most firm faith in his sayings, as the Apostle teaches in the same chapter (Hebrews 6). But the Tremellian and Junian exposition, through the addition of Amaleki, is easy and clear — and would be easier and clearer, if, instead of the Hebrew names of God, it were said: “Because the hand of Amalek was against the throne of God, the war of the Lord shall be against Amalek from age unto age.” And our version can rightly take on this sense too, because “the hand of the throne” can be said [to mean] “the hand against the throne,” just as “the war of the Church” [means] that is, against the Church…
(col. 89)
…the Church — [just as] “the Turkish war” [means], that is, [war] against the Turks.