Commentary on Isaiah 5 part 2/2

Since they used to insult the prophets and call them impostors, but honored the false prophets and turned the very order of things upside down, he laments over them on account of their corrupted judgment.

Woe, he says, to those who call the evil good, that is, false prophecy, and the good evil, that is, true prophecy;

who put light for darkness and darkness for light;

who put the sweet for bitter and the bitter for sweet.

For even if the prophets' words are burdensome, he says, yet nothing is sweeter than they, since by the threat contained in their words they ward off the actual experience that would come through the events.

And even if the words of the false prophets are sweet, yet nothing is more bitter than they, since by the charm of their words they bring on the threat that comes through deeds.

You see the prophet's wisdom, how he overturned their false supposition.

For since they paid no heed to the ones who spoke as though most bitter, but to those who seemed most agreeable and full of much sweetness, he declared that in fact the very opposite is the case:

great is the honey of the prophets, but great is the bitterness of the false prophets.

So too we must handle the discourse concerning light and darkness.

For the one group led them toward error, while the others guided them by the hand toward the truth;

and the one group, all but binding their hands, handed them over to the gloom of captivity, while the others did everything so as to lead them into the light of freedom.

Since then they held opinions about these matters that were contrary and unfitting, he fittingly corrects them, saying:

Those who put light for darkness and darkness for light.

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight!

This too is no small fault, to consider oneself wise and to entrust everything to one's own reasonings.

For from this comes that other thing:

[I mean, the calling of the evil good, and the good evil, and what follows.]

This too Paul charged against the philosophers outside the faith, saying that, Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

For from this they became fools, and the proverbial saying again declares:

I have seen a man who seemed to himself to be wise;

but the fool has more hope than he.

This too Paul charges, again saying:

Do not be wise in your own conceits;

If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.

Let him not, he says, take delight in his own wisdom nor in his own reasonings, but having lulled these to rest, let him give over his soul to the teaching of the Spirit.

Since then among the Jews too there were certain such men, despising the prophets as though they were shepherds and goatherds, but wishing to be wise on their own—which became for them an occasion of arrogance and of despising what was spoken—he fittingly laments over them, saying:

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight!

Woe to the mighty among you, who drink wine, and the men of power, who mix strong drink!

Do not marvel if, having a little before said so much against drunkenness, he again takes up the same discourse.

For since the sore was grievous and hard to yield, on this account it was necessary to keep applying the fomentation continually.

And it is grievous and hard to yield precisely because it does not seem to the many to be a sin, though it is more grievous than all sins and sprouts up countless diseases.

Those who drink wine, and the men of power, who mix strong drink.

The precipice is twofold: the tyranny of drunkenness and the excess of power.

For all men have need of sober reasoning, but most of all those who are in dignities and positions of power, lest, borne along by the swollen pride of office as by some torrent of unruly waters, they be hurled down over the cliff.

Those who justify the ungodly for the sake of bribes, and take away the just judgment of the just man from him.

The accusation is again twofold: to release the guilty and [to condemn] the guiltless.

The root of each sin is bribe-taking.

Therefore, as stubble is burned by a coal of fire and consumed by a kindled flame,

he sets before them the swiftness of the punishment and the ease of the chastisement, through the image disclosing their utter destruction.

For all these things—the flame and the coals and the stubble and what follows—have made this clear to us.

Their root shall be as chaff, and their blossom shall go up like dust.

The things that are fixed and firm shall perish, and the bright and radiant things shall be dissolved, shall depart and flow away.

For they were not willing to keep the law of the Lord of Hosts, but provoked the oracle of the Holy One.

And the Lord of Hosts was moved to anger with wrath against His people;

and He stretched out His hand against them and smote them.

And He was provoked against the mountains, and their corpses became as dung in the midst of the road.

And in all these things His anger was not turned away, but His hand is still uplifted.

Here he hints at a grievous war, one that will not even permit the bodies to be given over to burial—not so that those men might undergo punishment, but so that the living, in the calamities of others, might cut off something of their own wickedness.

And see how he made the word more grievous.

For he did not say that they were not buried, but that the dead lay cast out, more dishonored than any dung—which to the living seems the most horrifying thing of all and more grievous than death itself.

And what is worse, that not even when these things happened, he says, did they become more reasonable, but they persist in the same ways.

Since then they became no better, he again threatens them with that most grievous blow, the one from the barbarians.

Therefore He will raise a signal to the nations that are far off.

Lest the length of the way cast them into negligence, he says that it is as easy for God to bring them as it is for one who raises the signal to lead out those who are prepared and ready for the battle-line—which is just what happens in the case of racehorses.

For at the very moment the sign of release is raised, those horses immediately spring forth from the starting-gates.

Two things, then, the prophet here hints at: that it is easy for them to come when God calls, and that they would have come long ago, had not His great longsuffering held them back.

Then by his further explanation he shows the ease still more, saying:

And He will hiss for them from the end of the earth.

But do not marvel if, in discoursing about God, he has used such very crude expressions;

for he shapes his words to suit the dullness of the hearers, wishing to show one thing through all of them: that this is easy for God and that they will assuredly come.

And behold, swiftly, lightly they come.

They shall not hunger, nor grow weary, nor slumber, nor sleep.

These things are said by way of hyperbole.

For how could it be that men, who share the common lot of our nature, should neither hunger nor sleep? Rather, by all these words he sets forth the swiftness of the army, its readiness, its speed—the very thing I mentioned earlier.

Neither shall they loose the girdles from their loins, nor shall the thongs of their sandals be broken.

Whose arrows are sharp and their bows bent.

The hooves of their horses were counted as solid rock, the wheels of their chariots as a whirlwind.

They rage like lions, and stand ready like lions' cubs.

And he shall seize and roar like a wild beast, and cast forth;

and there shall be none to deliver them.

And he shall roar over them in that day, like the sound of a surging sea.

And they shall look up to the heaven above and down to the earth below;

and behold, harsh darkness, darkness in their distress.

Through all these things he swelled the discourse and heightened the fear, recounting each detail little by little—the matters concerning their resolve, concerning their strength, concerning their weapons, concerning their horses, concerning their chariots—so that by the multitude of the things said he might produce great anguish, and by the vividness of the images bring the events near to them.

Therefore he also compares them to lions, and not even here did he halt the illustration, but he even fashions the voice and the onrush of the wild beast, and

he continues in the metaphor and works the figure at great length.

And from there he leads the discourse on to the sea, saying that so great shall be the tumult, so great the turmoil, as would arise from a raging sea that stirs up its waves;

and he moves every device, magnifying the fear, so that they might have no need of the experience that comes through the events themselves.

And what is yet more grievous—that there shall not even be one to stand by them, he says, neither from the earth nor from the heavens;

but bereft both of the alliance from above and of the help from below, they shall be given over to their enemies.

And by darkness he here means that which comes upon them from the calamity—not as though the sun's ray were being extinguished, but because the disposition of those who suffer sees darkness instead of light in the very midst of noonday;

which is wont to befall those who are in pain and distress.

And that you may learn that the darkness was not of the nature of the air, but of their disposition, he added:

Harsh darkness in their distress.