13. Quest. Of the fingers, which appeared in the wall, how they were caused.
1. R. Saadiah thinketh that this was the hand of the Angel Gabriel, who is called the man Gabriel, c. 9. 21. and here it is said to be a mans band: but the same word is not vsed in both places: for here the word is enosh, home, and in the other, ish, vir: this then is but a weake reason.
2. The most thinke this was done, ministerio Angelico, by the ministerie of Angels, Oeco∣lamp. Lyran operatione Angeli, by the operation of an Angel, Pint. so also Osiand. but Daniel saith, v. 24. that the hand was sent from God.
3. Wherefore I rather thinke with Calvin, that Deus scripsit virtute su••, God did write it by his power: digiti Iehovae fuerunt, they were the fingers of God, Polan. who procured or caused by his power a mans hand to appeare: not that it was indeede a mans hand, but had the similitude thereof, Calvin.
4. Rupertus more particularly saith it was the hand of Christ, thus writing, qui per lapi∣dem de monte sine manibus, in prima, &c. be which is described by a stone cut out of the mountaine without hands, in the first vision, and is expressed by his owne name in the se∣cond (where he is called the sonne of God) and by the name of watchman, and the holy one, in the third, per manum scribentis designatur, is designed by the hand of a writer in the fourth.
5. But that is too curious, which is obserued by the ordinarie gloss. God is the writer, the hand is the sonne of God, by whome he made all things, digiti spiritus sanctus, the fingers are the holy Ghost.