Tuesday

34th Week of Ordinary Time

(I) 1st Reading: Daniel 2:31-45

Daniel Describes the King's Dream (Continuation)
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(Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar,) [31] "You saw, 0 king, and behold, a great
image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and
its appearance was frightening. [32] The head of this image was of fine gold, its
breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, [33] its legs of iron, its
feet partly of iron and partly of clay. [34] As you looked, a stone was cut out by
no human hand, and it smote the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke
them in pieces; [35] then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold,
all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer
threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them
could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain
and filled the whole earth.

Daniel Interprets the King's Dream
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[36] "This was the dream; now we will tell the king its interpretation. [37] You, 0
king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the
power, and the might, and the glory, [38] and into whose hand he has given,
wherever they dwell, the sons of men, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the
air, making you rule over them all--you are the head of gold. [39] After you shall
arise another kingdom inferior to you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which
shall rule over all the earth. [40] And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as
iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things; and like iron which
crushes, it shall break and crush all these. [41] And as you saw the feet. and
toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but
some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the
miry clay. [42] And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the
kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. [43] As you saw the iron mixed
with miry clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage," but they will not
hold together, just as iron does not mix. with clay. And in the days of those kings
the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall
its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these king-
doms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever; [45] just as you saw
that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in
pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has
made known to the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its in-
terpretation sure."

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Commentary:

2:25-35. Daniel claims no personal credit for knowing the content of the king's
dream; he makes it plain that God revealed the Secret to him; only God knows
what will happen in the "latter times" (vv. 27-28). We have entered the area of
divine revelation, which is what this book is all about -- the world of the End time,
which as yet exists only in the mind of God. Our Lord himself will say that "of
that day and hour no one knows..." (Mt 24:36).

Daniel uses the opportunity to lead the king to the true God, the God of heaven,
who knows all mysteries.

In line with the thread of the story, Daniel first tells the king about the content of
his dream (2:31-35) and then interprets it (3:13-22). The king's vision is full of sym-
bolism In the Bible, statues connote idolatry, insofar as they are graven images
(cf Ex 32), even though the passage does not expressly say that the image is an
idol. As one moves from head to feet, the metals used in the statue decrease in
value. In contrast with the materials of the statue are the stone and the mountain,
symbols of solidity and stability. The interpretation reads the metals as repre-
sentative of the various kingdoms. This is a classical symbolic image: Hesiod,
a Greek historian of the eighth-to-seventh century BC, in his book "Works and
Days", 199-201, had used the very same metals and in the same order to signi-
fy periods of history; something similar is to be found in Polybius ("Historia", 38,
22) and other classical authors. Now, in Daniel's vision, the four metals all ap-
pear together, at the same time, so to speak--a sign that, for God, history is all
of a piece.

The image with "feet of clay" (vv. 32-33) is often taken as a reminder that human
nature is frail and that nevertheless it is endowed with precious gifts from God:
"Our Lord and our God: how great you are! It is you who give our life supernatural
meaning and divine vitality. For love of your Son, you cause us to say with all our
being, with our body and soul: 'He must reign!' And this we do against the back-
ground of our weakness, for you know that we are creatures made of clay -- and
what creatures! Not just feet of clay, but heart and head too" (St. JosemarIa Es-
crivá, "Christ Is Passing By", 181).

2:36-45. Daniel is not being sychophantic by addressing the king as he does in
vv. 37-38; he is simply saying that the king has an impressive empire because
he has been given it by God, who rules over all things; he wants the king to see
that the power and glory that he enjoys are part of God's plans. The other metals
(silver, bronze, iron), as one can deduce from the rest of the book, stand for the

empires of the Medes, Persians and Greeks, though that interpretation is not
perfectly clear because the silver could stand for the empire of the Medes and
Persians together. The divided kingdom made of clay and iron is a reference to
the Greek empire after the death of Alexander the Great (cf. 11:4) and to the po-
litical marriages made between the Seleucid and Lagid Greeks (Antiochus II
marrying Bernice; Ptolemy V marrying Cleopatra: cf. 11:6, 17) that failed to bring
about unity or union. This passage would have been composed when the Seleu-
cids and Lagids were at loggerheads, and it was against the same background
that the prophecy about the end of time seeing the establishment by God of an
everlasting kingdom was made (God's action is symbolized by the stone that
strikes the image; there is no sign of any human power at work). It does not say
here who will be given the kingdom, but in the light of 7:26 and the fact that it
says that the kingdom will not be left to another people (v. 44), the implication
is that it will be given to faithful Israelites.

The symbol of the stone has a messianic dimension insofar as it is the means
by which the everlasting kingdom will be established and the previous kingdoms
destroyed. There are echoes here of images in other prophetical works and in
the psalms. Isaiah speaks of God as a "stone of offense", a stumbling-block for
Israel (cf. Is 8:14) and in Psalm 118:22 the people of God are compared to a
stone which the builders have rejected and which has become the cornerstone.
In the New Testament that stone is Christ, and the kingdom which he ushers
in is the Kingdom of God which will be taken from Israel, to be given to another
people that will produce fruit (cf. Mt 21:42-43); Christ also says that anyone who
falls on that stone will be broken to pieces (cf. Lk 20: 17-18). Using this Christo-
logical interpretation of the stone, some Fathers interpret the mountain from
which the stone comes as being the Blessed Virgin, and the stone cut off "by
no human hand" as an image of the conception of Jesus in the Virgin's womb
without the involvement of a man: "When Daniel says that the one who inherits
the eternal kingdom is like a son of man, who can he mean, if not the Lord him-
self? For he was born of a woman, like a son of man, but he showed that his
life and power were not of human origin. To say that he is a stone that moves
under no external force is a mysterious description: it means that Christ is not
the fruit of the work and will of men; he is the fruit of the providence of God, the
Father of the universe" (St Justin, "Dialogus Cam Tryphone", 76, 1).

The interpretation of the dream, the message it contains, would interest the rea-
der of the book--but not Nebuchadnezzar, who died centuries earlier. It describes
how, after the kingdoms of this world which succeed one another over the course
of history, an everlasting kingdom will be established by God himself -- a kingdom
surpassing any that man could create. A Christian will read this as heralding the
Kingdom of Christ, although that will not be an earthly, political kingdom, but a
spiritual one, as Jesus will tell Pilate at his trial: "My kingship is not of this world"
(Jn 18:36).


(II) 1st Reading: Revelation 14:14-19

The Harvest and the Vintage
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[14] Then I looked, and lo, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a
son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.
[15] And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him
who sat upon the cloud, "Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has
come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe." [16] So he who sat upon the
cloud swung his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.

[17] And another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp
sickle. [18] Then another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has power
over fire, and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Put in
your sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe."
[19] So the angel swung his sickle on the earth and gathered the vintage of the
earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God.

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Commentary:

14-20. This preliminary description of the Last Judgment is given in two scenes
--the harvest (cf. 14:14-16) and the vintage (cf. 14:17-20) --no doubt following the
prophecy of Joel about how God will judge nations hostile to Israel: "Let the na-
tions bestir themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I
shall sit to judge all the nations round about. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is
ripe. Go in, tread, for the wine press is full" (Joel 3:12-13).

In the first scene Christ himself appears, described as "son of man" (cf. Dan
7:13); it is he who will deliver the judgment (symbolized by the harvest), as in
the parable of the wheat and the weeds (cf. Mt 13: 24-30). In the second it is an
angel sent by God who gathers the grapes and puts them in the press to be trod-
den on either by God (in keeping with the prophecy of Isaiah 63:3, which says,
"I have trodden the wine press alone") or by Christ (as we are told later in Revela-
tion 19:15). In either case we are being told that Jesus Christ, true God and true
man, has been empowered to perform the General Judgment which, according
to Jewish tradition, will take place at the gates of Jerusalem (cf., e.g. Zech 14:4)
and which involves a huge bloodbath (cf. Rev 14:20).

In both scenes, an angel has the prominent role of giving the order (cf. vv. 15, 18).
The fact that he comes out from the temple and the altar shows that the outcome
is linked to the prayers of the saints and martyrs, which stir Christ to take action
(cf. Rev 8:3-4). So it is that the moment Christ is made present on the altar
through the consecration of the bread and wine the Church calls for him to come
again--calls for his second coming, the Parousia, which will make his victory com-
plete: "When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord
Jesus, until you come in glory" ("Roman Missal", eucharistic acclamation).


Gospel Reading: Luke 21:5-11

Discourse on the Destruction of Jerusalem and the End of the World
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[5] And as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and
offerings, He (Jesus) said, [6] "As for these things which you see, the days will
come when there shall not be left here one stone upon another that will not be
thrown down." [7] And they asked Him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what
will be the sign when this is about to take place?" [8] And He said, "Take heed
that you are not led astray; for many will come in My name, saying, 'I am He!'
and, 'The time is at hand!' Do not go after them. [9] And when you hear of wars
and tumults, do not be terrified; for this must first take place, but the end will not
be at once."

[10] Then He said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom; [11] there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and
pestilences; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven."

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Commentary:

5-36. The disciples are in awe of the magnificence of the temple, and Jesus uses
the occasion to give a long discourse, known as the "eschatological discourse"
because it has to do with the last days of the world. The account given here is
very similar to those in the other Synoptic Gospels (cf. Mt 24:1-51; Mk 13:1-37).
The discourse deals with three inter-connected subjects--the destruction of Jeru-
salem (which took place some forty years later), the end of the world, and the
second coming of Christ in glory and majesty. Jesus, who also predicts here
the persecution of the Church will experience, exhorts His disciples to be patient,
to pray and be watchful.

Our Lord speaks here in the style and language of prophecy, using images taken
from the Old Testament; also, in this discourse prophecies which are going to be
fulfilled very soon are mixed in with others which have to do with the end of the
world. It is not our Lord's intention to satisfy people's curiosity about future events,
but to protect them from being discouraged and scandalized about what is going
to happen in the days immediately ahead. This explains why He exhorts them:
"Take heed that you are not led astray" (v. 8); "do not be tempted" (v. 9); "watch
at all times" (v. 34).

8. On hearing that Jerusalem is going to be destroyed, the disciples ask what
sign will be given as a warning of these events (vv. 5-7). Jesus answers by telling
them "not to be led astray," that is to say, not to expect any warning; not to be
misled by false prophets; to stay faithful to Him. These false prophets will come
along claiming to be the Messiah ("I am He!"). Our Lord's reply in fact refers to
two events which in the Jewish mind were interrelated--the destruction of the Ho-
ly City and the end of the world. This is why He goes on to speak of both events
and implies that there will be a long gap between the two; the destruction of the
temple and of Jerusalem are a kind of sign or symbol of the catastrophes which
will mark the end of the world.

9-11. Our Lord does not want His disciples to confuse just any catastrophe --
famine, earthquake, war--or even persecution with the signals of the end of the
world. He exhorts them quite clearly: "Do not be tempted," because although
all these has to happen, "the end will not be at once;" in spite of the difficulties
of all kinds the Gospel will spread to the ends of the earth. Difficulties should
not paralyze the preaching of the faith.

　

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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase
The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

[참고: 이 파일은 저서명 "가톨릭 교회의 말씀 전례에 따른 성경공부 해설서"(엮은이: 소순태, 출판사: 가톨릭출판사)의 각주의 연장으로 마련되었습니다].