While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
Ver. 5. While he yet spake] But had no answer (because he deserved it not) to so foolish a proposition. Only the Father answereth for the Son, by the oracle out of the cloud, according to that, "I bear not witness to myself, but the Father that sent me, he it is that beareth witness of me," John 8:18 .
A bright cloud overshadowed them] As a curtain drawn between them and the heavenly glory; to the contemplation whereof they were not yet sufficient. Hereby also their senses were drawn off from beholding Christ's glory, to hear the voice from heaven, which by the cloud, as by a chariot, was carried into their ears with greater sound and solenmity. Non loquendum de Deo sine lumine, was a saying of Pythagoras; God may not be mentioned without a light.
This is my beloved Son, in whom] Here God maketh use of three different passages and places of his own Book, Psalms 2:7; Isaiah 42:1; Deuteronomy 18:18, to teach us when we speak, to speak as the oracles of God, inure ourselves to Scriptural language, 1 Peter 4:11. The voice also which Christ heard from heaven at his baptism, in his first inauguration, is here repeated totidem verbis, in his transfiguration, which was no small confirmation to him, doubtless; as it was also to Peter and the rest, that this voice was the same in effect with his and their confession of Christ in the former chapter,Matthew 17:16; "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God."
In whom I am well pleased] εν ω ευδοκησα, In whom I do acquiesce, and have perfect and full complacency, singular contentment. And as in him, so in us through him, Zephaniah 3:17, he rests in his love to his, he will seek no further; efficit nos sibi dilectos in illo Dilecto, he hath made us accepted in that beloved One. Here we have God's acquittance for our better security.
Hear ye him] As the arch-prophet of the Church,Deuteronomy 18:15, that Palmoni Hammedabber, as Daniel Dan 8:13 calleth him, that excellent speaker, that master of speech that came out of the bosom of his Father, and hath his whole mind at his fingers' ends, as we say, "Hear ye him;" hear none but him, and such as come in his name and word. Haec vox hunc audite summam authoritatem arrogat Christo (saith Erasmus). At nunc videmus passim dormitari ad Christi doctrinam seu crassam ae rudem, et concionis auribus inculcari quid dixerit Scotus, quid Thomas, quid Durandus, &c. But what said St Augustine? when Manicheus, contesting with him for audience, said, Hear me, hear me: Nay, said that Father, Nec ego tu, nec tu me, sed ambo audiamus apostolum, &c. Neither hear thou me, nor I thee, but let us both hear Christ. Cyril saith, "that in a synod at Ephesus, upon a high throne in the temple, there lay sanctum Evangelium to show that Christ was both present and President there." He is Rabbenu Doctor irrefragabilis Padre Cerephino, &c. And if Popish votaries so observe their governors, that if they command them a voyage to China or Peru, they presently set forward, to argue or debate upon their superior mandates they hold presumption, to disobey them, sacrilege; how much more should we give this honour, audience, and obedience to Christ, the wisdom and word of God?