O Adonai The Divinity of the Christ
The second of the Great “O” Antiphons addresses Christ under one of the most solemn titles of divine revelation:
O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.
The invocation of Adonai situates this antiphon within the deepest reverence of Israel’s faith. “Adonai,” meaning “Lord,” was the sacred substitute spoken aloud in place of the divine Name, YHWH, which was held too holy to pronounce. To address the Messiah as Adonai is therefore no poetic flourish: it is an explicit confession of His divinity. The antiphon does not merely say that Christ acts on God’s behalf; it identifies Him as the Lord who revealed Himself to Israel from the beginning.¹
Isaiah gives classic expression to this divine kingship when he proclaims: *“The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.”*² The threefold office—judicial, legislative, and royal—belongs properly to God alone, and yet the antiphon dares to apply it to Christ. This is because the Messiah does not merely administer God’s kingdom; He is its living embodiment. In Him, the theocracy of Israel—never fully realised under earthly kings—comes to its perfection.
The prophets foresaw this rule as one marked by righteousness rather than force. Isaiah describes the coming King who *“shall judge the poor with justice … and strike the earth with the rod of his mouth.”*³ This “rod” is not violence but the divine Word itself. Christ reigns by truth, converting the faithful and exposing the wicked, a kingship exercised most fully not from a throne but from the Cross. When He announces, *“The kingdom of God has come near,”*⁴ He reveals that divine sovereignty begins in the hearts of men, even as it awaits its visible consummation at the end of the ages.⁵
The antiphon then names Christ as Dux domus Israel, the Leader of the House of Israel. This recalls the ancient promise that Israel’s true ruler would arise from David’s line. Micah foretold that from Bethlehem Ephrathah would come one *“whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting,”*⁶ a prophecy explicitly applied to Christ in the Gospel according to St Matthew.⁷ Bethlehem is not merely the birthplace of the Messiah; it is the city of David, anchoring Christ’s kingship in both historical lineage and eternal pre-existence. He is David’s Son and David’s Lord.⁸
The antiphon then turns backward in time to one of the most mysterious moments of Old Testament revelation: the burning bush. “Who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush.” Scripture tells us that *“the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush,”*⁹ yet the voice that speaks from the fire identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.¹⁰ This is no created angel, but the Angel of the Covenant—the eternal Word—revealing Himself before the Incarnation. The Fathers consistently recognised here a theophany of the Son.¹¹
The bush that burns without being consumed has long been understood as a figure of the Incarnation: the divine fire dwelling within created nature without destroying it. Moses is commanded to remove his sandals because he stands on holy ground, for God Himself is present.¹² St Stephen, in his final testimony before the Sanhedrin, explicitly links this event to Christ and to Israel’s resistance to God’s saving action.¹³ Thus the antiphon quietly affirms that the Christ who comes at Christmas is the same Lord who spoke from the fire, led Israel through the desert, and bore with them in their infidelity.¹⁴
From Sinai, the antiphon moves to the gift of the Law. “And gave him the law on Sinai.” The giving of the Law was not an arbitrary imposition but an act of redemption. Israel, freed from Egyptian slavery, was given a way of life ordered toward communion with God. Obedience led to life; disobedience to death.¹⁵ Yet the Law, though holy, could not heal the human heart. It pointed beyond itself to the One who would fulfil it.¹⁶
Christ does not abolish the Law; He perfects it. As He Himself declares, *“Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”*¹⁷ He is the living Law, the Wisdom of God in whom the commandments find their true meaning. What was written on stone at Sinai is written on flesh at the Incarnation and inscribed upon hearts by grace through the Cross.¹⁸
The antiphon culminates in its final plea: “Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.” This phrase deliberately echoes the Exodus, when God delivered Israel *“with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.”*¹⁹ Yet the Church now understands that this definitive act of deliverance is accomplished not through signs and plagues but through the crucifixion.
Christ’s arms, stretched wide upon the wood of the Cross, become the true outstretched arm of God. St Peter declares that *“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,”*²⁰ while Christ foretells that when He is lifted up from the earth, He will draw all men to Himself.²¹ In that single gesture—arms opened in sacrifice—the Law is fulfilled, kingship is revealed, and salvation is accomplished.²²
Thus O Adonai confesses that the Child awaited at Christmas is none other than the Lord of Sinai and the Redeemer of the Cross. He who once spoke from fire now comes in flesh; He who gave the Law now fulfils it; He who delivered Israel now redeems mankind. The Church’s cry in Advent is therefore not nostalgic but urgent: come, Lord, and do again what only You can do—save.
- Exodus 3:14; Deuteronomy 6:4; cf. Jewish liturgical usage of Adonai in place of the Tetragrammaton.
- Isaiah 33:22.
- Isaiah 11:4–5.
- Mark 1:15.
- Luke 17:20–21; 1 Corinthians 15:24–28.
- Micah 5:2.
- Matthew 2:6.
- Psalm 110:1; Matthew 22:41–45.
- Exodus 3:2.
- Exodus 3:6.
- St Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chs. 56–60; St Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV.10.
- Exodus 3:5.
- Acts 7:30–53.
- Isaiah 63:9.
- Leviticus 18:5; Deuteronomy 28.
- Romans 7:12–13; Galatians 3:24.
- Luke 24:44.
- Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10.
- Exodus 6:6.
- 1 Peter 2:24.
- John 12:31–33.
- Psalm 22:16; Mark 15:25; Revelation 21:5
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