The Divine Institutes

Respecting this, however, Moses himself more plainly spoke to this effect, in Deuteronomy: “And Your life shall hang before Your eyes; and You shall fear day and night, and shall have no assurance of Your life.” And the same again in Numbers: “God is not in doubt as a man, nor does He suffer threats as the son of man.” Zechariah also thus wrote: “And they shall look on me, whom they pierced.” Also David in the twenty-first Psalm: “They pierced my hands and my feet; they numbered all my bones; they themselves looked and stared upon me; they divided my garments among them; and upon my vesture they did cast lots.”

It is evident that the prophet did not speak these things concerning himself. For he was a king, and never endured these sufferings; but the Spirit of God, who was about to suffer these things, after ten hundred and fifty years, spoke by him. For this is the number of years from the reign of David to the crucifixion of Christ. But Solomon also, his son, who built Jerusalem, prophesied that this very city would perish in revenge for the sacred cross: “But if you turn away from me, says the Lord, and will not keep my truth, I will drive Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have built for them in my name, I will cast it out from all: and Israel shall be for perdition and a reproach to the people; and this house shall be desolate, and every one that shall pass by it shall be astonished, and shall say, Why has God done these evils to this land and to this house?

And they shall say, Because they forsook the Lord their God, and persecuted their King most beloved by God, and crucified Him with great degradation, therefore has God brought upon them these evils.”