Ezekiel — Chapter 47

The water flows from under the right side of the Temple, from the south side of the altar: Lapide identifies this river as the grace of the Holy Spirit flowing from Christ's wounded side (Jn. 19:34) through the Church's sacraments. He cites Augustine's Tractatus in Ioannem on the water and blood from Christ's side as the fountainhead of baptism and the Eucharist.

The water rises to the ankles, then to the knees, then to the loins: Lapide reads the four depths as the four degrees of spiritual growth — beginners (ankles), proficients (knees), advanced (loins), and the perfect who swim in the fullness of divine love (too deep to ford). He cites Bernard's De Gradibus Humilitatis and Bonaventure's Itinerarium.

The water is too deep to walk through — it is a river that cannot be crossed (torrens, qui non potest transvadari): Lapide reads the unfathomable river as divine contemplation itself — its grace is bottomless, its peace passes understanding (Phil. 4:7). The mystic who has entered this river is 'drowned' in God; this is the mystical death of which Bernard and John of the Cross write.

The water flows toward the east (oriental) region and into the Dead Sea, making it fresh: Lapide reads the healing of the Dead Sea as the conversion of the most hardened sinners through the grace of the sacraments. The Dead Sea's saltness (incapable of sustaining life) images the soul in mortal sin; the freshening waters are baptismal and penitential grace.

Wherever the river flows, every living creature that swarms will live, and fish will be very abundant: Lapide reads the abundant fish as souls won to God through evangelical preaching — recalling Peter's miraculous draught (Lk. 5:6) and the fishers of men (Mt. 4:19). The Church's missionary expansion is this river's fruitfulness.

But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt: the exceptions to the river's healing — the stagnant swamps remain salty. Lapide reads these as souls who deliberately resist divine grace, choosing to remain in the stagnation of habitual sin. Grace never coerces; those who refuse the river's flow remain in spiritual death of their own choice.

On both banks of the river will grow all kinds of trees for food, whose leaf does not wither and fruit does not fail: Lapide reads these trees as the saints — rooted in divine grace (the river), bearing perpetual fruit in good works, their leaves (words and example) healing the nations. He connects to Psalm 1:3 and Apocalypse 22:2 (the tree of life).