Haymo of Halberstadt (c. 778–853) was a German Benedictine monk, theologiia, and Bishop of Halberstadt, known for his scholarly contributions during the Carolingian
Renaissance, particularly his biblical commentaries and role in founding
the cathedral library. A student of Alcuin and close friend of Rabanus
Maurus, he served at Fulda, became abbot of Hersfeld, and was appointed bishop around 840/841, focusing on preaching and teaching.
“At the former time the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali was relieved, and at the latter time the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, was made heavy. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death a light has arisen.”
At the former time it is said to have been relieved of the burden of sins, because in the regions of the two tribes the Savior first preached the Gospel. Hence also in the sixtieth Psalm it is said: Bless the Lord from the fountains of Israel. There is Benjamin the younger—that is, Paul—in an ecstasy of mind, of whom it is said elsewhere, Whether we are beside ourselves, it is for God (2 Corinthians 5). The princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali, their leaders. In these tribes were villages from which our apostles, as leaders, believed—according to Symmachus—promptly hearing the Lord: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4). And they immediately left their father and the boat.
At the latter time the faith of the Jews was made heavy in error, with many remaining therein. The sea here means the Lake of Gennesaret, formed by the Jordan flowing through it, on whose shore Capernaum, Tiberias, Bethsaida, and Chorazin are situated, in which places the Lord dwelt especially, so that the people who were sitting or walking in darkness might see a light—not a small one, as that of other prophets, but a great one, as of Him of whom it is read in the Gospel: “I am the light of the world” (John 8).
And upon those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death a light has arisen. I think that this distinction exists between death and the shadow of death: death belongs to those who, together with works of death, have gone down to hell—for the soul that sins shall die (Ezekiel 18); but the shadow of death belongs to those who, although they sin, have not yet departed from this life, for if they wish, they are able to do penance.
For although the saints rejoiced in the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith of Christ, they were nevertheless greatly distressed for the Israelite people who held the preaching of the Lord in contempt, from whose lineage they themselves had sprung, as the most eminent of teachers says: “I myself could wish to be anathema for my brothers, who are Israelites” (Romans 9).
“They shall rejoice before you.” The prophet makes an apostrophe to the apostles of Christ, saying: “O Lord Jesus, your apostles shall rejoice before you as harvesters rejoice in the harvest.” He calls the Gentiles the harvest, and the peoples the harvesters, as the Lord himself says in a certain place: “The harvest indeed is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Matthew 9; Luke 10), and so forth. The spoils are men who had been held captive by the enemy: as victors rejoice when dividing spoils. Spoils is plural, but it can also be taken in the singular—this spoil. He calls the apostles victors because they conquered the temptations of the flesh and the devil himself. He calls them victors because they took away the spoils from the devil—that is, the human race which he had held captive—and restored it to God.
The yoke and the rod of the devil—that is, his domination and power—and the scepter, that is, the empire which he held over the whole world—you have broken, O Lord Emmanuel. This is an apostrophe addressed to Christ. The oppressor means the one who exacts, for an exactor properly is one who demands or compels peoples to pay royal tribute. And the devil was such an exactor, who compelled the whole world to do his will.
“As in the day of Midian.” We read in the Book of Judges that the Midianites used to come into the promised land at harvest and vintage time, gather the fruits of the land, and then return. When they did this repeatedly, an angel of the Lord was sent to Gideon, saying (Judges 6): “Hail, mighty man of valor.” And he replied: “Where,” he said, “are the signs and wonders which the Lord showed to our fathers when they came out of Egypt with a mighty hand?” And the angel said: “Go in this strength, and with three hundred men you shall deliver Israel.” And so he did.
Choosing three hundred men from Israel in the manner described in the narrative, he commanded each one to hold a jar in one hand, with a light inside it, and a trumpet in the other. And when they sounded the trumpets and held up the lights, after the jars were broken, the army of the Midianites was thrown into confusion, and they killed one another. Thus the Jews gained victory on that day without the shedding of the blood of their own people.
This is what the prophet means: that just as that victory was achieved without the blood of the Israelites being shed, so Almighty God gave victory to his elect, conquering the devil and casting him back into hell, or overthrowing the multitude of peoples engaged in battle. For every violent seizure with tumult speaks of the devil himself. And the sense is this: the spoils, that is, the human race which the devil had plundered, when Jesus the Savior comes, He will take away from him by force and violence, and will cast him—or shut him up—with tumult, that is, with great noise, into hell, as the Psalmist says (Psalm 9), both of the reprobate and of the devil: “Their memory has perished with a crash.”
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