Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 1/65

[PREFACE.] The discourse of the holy prophets is ever hard to discern, being filled full of hidden meanings; and it labors, as in birth-pangs, to bring forth for us the foretelling of divine mysteries.

For the end of the Law and of the Prophets is Christ, even as it is written.

I say that those who wish to make plain such subtle and enigmatic depths of contemplation must hasten to survey them with the eye of the mind, and to do so most prudently: attending on the one hand to the exactness of the historical sense, and on the other to the rendering of the spiritual contemplation, so that from every side the profit may come forth to those who take up the reading, and that the elucidation of the meaning of the matters set before us may be seen to have nothing wanting.

Now I am aware that certain writers before me have already treated of these things, and have composed for us lengthy discourses concerning them.

Yet this, I think, would suffice to furnish others with no ignoble excuse for hesitation, and to persuade them rather to choose silence than to add, upon what others have already said, nothing new, but rather to say the very same things and to traverse the very same contemplations.

But since, even if this should be one's lot to suffer, there would be nothing at all to grieve at—inasmuch as through the agreement of many voices the hearers are the more firmly established in the truth—I now persuade myself to prove stronger than hesitation, believing that toil and sweat spent upon good endeavors are better than the idleness of snoring in sleep, and not having wholly renounced the hope of being able at times to discover something new and out of the ordinary, since God broadens the path amid the contemplations.

For it is written: Thy commandment is exceeding broad. Now the blessed Isaiah prophesied in the times of the reign of Ozias, and of Jotham, and of Ahaz, and of Hezekiah.

Come, then, let us call to mind the circumstances of each of these times, and briefly relate how each king lived out his life.

For from this we shall know that the word of the prophecy is fitting and most suited to the things done according to the seasons.

Ozias, then, who is also Ochozias, became a godly man, and he advanced at once in glory and in strength to such a point that he prevailed over the nations bordering upon Judaea; indeed he imposed tribute upon many, subjecting them of necessity to his own scepters, and he built up cities and gained others, and joined them to the borders of the land of the Jews.

Then he underwent something of what is human.

For overcome by excessive luxury and by the eminence of his renown, he in a manner grew high-minded, and being mastered by the disease of arrogance, he rose up even against the very law of God.

For he supposed that he ought to crown himself also with the honors of the divine priesthood.

For he attempted to enter into the divine temple and, by himself and of himself, to burn incense to God and unlawfully to fulfill the things ordained by law.

For this cause he was straightway smitten with leprosy, and he was most dishonored;

for according to the Law he is unclean who is overcome by the affliction of leprosy.

Then Jotham, who was born of him, succeeded to the kingdom of Ozias—a man who loved God, save that, it says, he did not remove the high places, but they of Israel still sacrificed to the works of their own hands, taking to the mountains and the hills, beneath oak and poplar and every shady tree, as Hosea says, because the shade is good.

And when Jotham had died, Ahaz succeeded to the scepter—a most abominable man, hateful to God, and full to overflowing of wickedness that had reached the extreme.

Setting up altars in Jerusalem, he commanded men to worship the things made by hand and to serve the host of heaven;

and indeed he made his own children to pass through the fire—that is, he burned them as a sacrifice to the unclean demons—and, to say it in a word, there was no manner of impiety left unpracticed by him.

Then after him reigned Hezekiah, a man godly and God-loving, a champion of righteousness, a zealot for every good, and a worker of the divine wills.

This man commanded that everything done and enacted by the transgressions of Ahaz should be undone;

for he opened the doors of the temple, then ordained that sacrifices and libations be offered to God, and that He be honored with the priestly rites according to the Law;

and moreover, after a long lapse of time, he is seen to have renewed the law concerning the Passover.

He tore down sacred precincts and altars and things made by hand, and he commanded the diviners and false prophets and the throngs of enchanters to be still; and he was a good man in the eyes of God.

Since, then, in the times of the reign of those we have just now spoken of, the God of all was at one time provoked to wrath, when Israel worshiped idols;

and at another time was softened toward gentleness, when the people were remolded toward godliness through the equity of him who ruled;

on this account the word of the prophecy is of a mixed character, and at times it makes very great threatening, as Israel behaves impiously, while at other times it brings in a word of promise concerning good things.

So that it seems to me right to crown the blessed prophet Isaiah exceedingly well, not with the grace of prophecy alone, but indeed also with the boasts proper to an apostle.

For in one and the same person he is at once both prophet and apostle, and he will make the discourses of his own writing to be not without a share in the brightness of the evangelical proclamations.

{DISCOURSE I.} The vision which Isaiah the son of Amos saw, which he saw against Judaea and against Jerusalem, in the reign of Ozias, and Jotham, and Ahaz, and Hezekiah, who reigned over Judaea. I do not think anyone would speak falsely in saying this concerning the holy prophets: that they received not only the knowledge of things to come—the Holy Spirit making the matter luminous to them and sounding it into their mind—but that at times they were also spectators of the very events, seeing that they came to pass.

It seems, then, that the blessed prophet Isaiah beheld with the eyes of his mind the sufferings that were to befall Judaea according to the seasons: on the one hand the phalanxes of the enemy laying waste the land, and on the other the cities made desolate and the houses set aflame, and all that is done by foes according to the laws of war. Thus, then, has been written down the heading of the prophecy:

The vision which Isaiah the son of Amos saw, against Judaea and against Jerusalem. And he usefully marks the times of the kings, that God may appear to speak in the prophet in a manner suited to the character of each.

Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: I have begotten sons and exalted them, but they have set Me at nought.

The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib;

but Israel has not known Me, and the people has not understood Me. What is the meaning, what is the sense, and what it may wish to signify—this it is necessary to survey.

That in every way and altogether these things will come to their fulfillment—this He signifies thereby, terrifying the hearers with the dread of suffering.

For it is impossible for God to speak falsely;

and at the same time He is establishing this also, as I suppose,

namely, that in the incurable calamities He was not ignorant that in every way and altogether those against whom the word was directed would be whetted to wrath.

He says, then, that the Lord spoke such things to them, most skillfully turning aside the anger of the unholy, and as it were entreating away their unjust wrath.

For if a mediator and minister was taken to convey from above and from God the words spoken, how could anyone justly be angry with him? Or rather, how would not the impious deeds of wrath be committed against God who spoke them?

For He had mercy on them as being wronged contrary to what was fitting and contrary to the nobility becoming and belonging to their fathers, when they were weighed down by an unwilling servitude.

But since those who had gained the upper hand acted in opposition, they were bitterly chastised, God casting upon them every manner of torment.

Just as, then, the taking-up of them of Israel became most notable, so He wishes that the manner of their casting-away should also not be unknown.

And if some should wish that the very elements be called upon through the voice of the prophet, the force of the meanings would not miss the fitting sense—provided one has considered this:

For Israel was redeemed, as I said, from the unholiness of the Egyptians through Moses.

But since Pharaoh, impiously setting himself against the biddings of God, said, I do not know the Lord, and I will not send away Israel, the creation armed itself together with its own Master against those who were hateful to Him.

For from above and from heaven very many and conspicuous signs came to pass, and likewise very many and not unremarkable ones upon the earth itself.

For heaven sent down the hail, and the earth cast forth frogs, as it is written;

and the water was transformed into blood, and as furnace soot was scattered abroad and befouled the air, boils and blisters seething up came upon the bodies of all.

Since, then, the very elements had all but toiled in vain over those who were redeemed, He says: Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. But we will approach the meanings of what is set before us in yet another way as well.

For they of Israel, having dishonored the instruction given through the Law, and having made light of the saving teachings, and having forsaken the one and natural God, offered their services to the unclean demons upon the mountains and hills, and in the most wooded ravines they burned incense and worshiped the works of their own hands.

And the God of all was indignant at these things, and very justly so, and He said to one of the holy prophets:

Arise and plead your cause before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

Hear, O hills, the judgment of the Lord, and you ravines, foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with His people, and He will contend with Israel. And we by no means say that the judgment of the Lord came to pass against the mountains and the hills through the voice of the prophet; rather He was pleading His cause against the very impiety of Israel that was enacted upon those in the mountains and hills and glens.

For he was convicted of having behaved impiously beyond measure, having built there altars and sacred precincts to the unclean demons.

by 'heaven,' plainly, the spiritual ones;

and likewise many also upon 'the earth,' on the one hand the carnal, and on the other the spiritual.

But to all these fathers, both above and below, honors are offered by the children under their hand.

And those who are honored rejoice exceedingly, and there is none among them who does not in every way and altogether count it hard to bear to be treated with ingratitude by the children.

Which very thing the God of all has suffered, and He solemnly testifies, saying, to the fathers in heaven and upon the earth:

Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken;

I have begotten sons and exalted them, but they have set Me at nought.

For Israel, having been received through grace and having been deemed worthy of the sparing that befits children, is said to have been begotten of God—the true and spiritual regeneration being brought to fulfillment upon us.

for we have been begotten of water and of the Spirit; and to the more ancient ones was given a spirit of bondage, even though the people was and was named firstborn.

But to us God has graciously given both the name and the Spirit of adoption.

For because you are sons, it says, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. For I have begotten sons, He says, and not for this cause only, but indeed I also exalted them—that is, I raised them up.

For this is what the rendering of the other translators has.

For Israel, having been redeemed, was not thereafter left without help, nor bereft of the love that is from God.

For he had been reared like a son by a father who was truly a lover of his child and most tenderly affectionate.

'For he gave them bread of heaven,' he says, 'man ate the bread of angels.' And he was nourished in yet another manner also, unto spiritual well-being, through the wisdom that is according to the Law and the instructions of the prophets, which gracefully brought him on to the knowledge of the truth, that is, of Christ.

Paul indeed writes, 'So that the Law has become our tutor unto Christ.' But he set at nought the One who begat him.

And what might be the manner of this rejection? For he turned aside to the willing worship of gods that are not gods by nature; and he became diseased in yet another way too, greatly unbridled; and, what is beyond even these in absurdity, he did not so much as imitate the goodwill of the irrational beasts, such as they would have toward their masters.

'The ox knew its owner, and the ass its master's crib; but Israel has not known me, and the people has not understood me.' For if a man buys an ox, he will assuredly have it most useful for the works of husbandry: on the one hand to plough the earth, should he so choose, and on the other to thresh it fine upon the threshing-floor and to separate the chaff from the grain.

And if someone should also buy an ass, it too is summoned by natural impulses to ready obedience, and it renders its submission as a kind of recompense for the things laid before it in its manger.

For it bears burdens willingly, and shares in its master's toil.

But so much for these matters.

But wise Israel, tutored in the Law unto the duty of knowing what is profitable, he who had thoroughly learned the glory of God through many admirable signs, comes behind the ass and the ox, and, being outdone by the seemliness of the irrational beasts, has failed to know his master.

And very fittingly (it says), 'he did not know,' he says, 'he did not understand.'

For although he had learned, as I said, the glory of God, yet because he swerved exceedingly into unbridled deviation, he became on a par with one who had never known.

For if this were not truly so, he would not have said to the wood, 'You are my God,' and to the stone, 'You begot me.' Wherefore, he says, 'the heaven was astonished at this, and shuddered exceedingly, says the Lord.'

'For my people has committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have hewn out for themselves broken cisterns, which will not be able to hold water.' And it would befit Christ himself also to say concerning them, 'But Israel did not know me, and the people did not understand me.'

For even the redemption of old came about through him.

And the Law too was laid down until a time of setting things right, even as it is written.

...those who draw near to him, and that he might deliver them from death and from sin.

But Israel did not understand him, although he spoke plainly:

'Amen, amen, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes on him who sent me has eternal life, and comes not into judgment, but has passed from death into life.' 'Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, an evil seed, lawless sons;'

'you forsook the Lord, and provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel.' Having very well set forth the manner of the rejection, and having displayed the greatness of the irrationality that was in them, he straightway shifts his discourse, on the one hand plainly unto a lamentation over them, and on the other again unto rebuke.

And it would befit, I think, the prophetic person especially all but to bewail them, and out of an exceedingly great love for God both to rise up against them and to say:

'Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, an evil seed, lawless sons.'

It follows then altogether for those who wish to reject me, God, the giver to us of all good things, that they should have their sin unwashed away, and be laden with dread and inescapable charges.

For rejection is somehow always diseased with defection, that is, with the removal from one's proper place unto anything else whatever.

For this very reason he straightway added, 'you forsook the Lord.'

And he names them 'an evil seed,' not as though they were, or had been made, such by nature, but because they have become evil sons from evil fathers, according indeed to the words of John:

for he said even to the very scribes and Pharisees who were coming to the baptism of repentance, 'brood of vipers.' For the first and original fathers were confessedly holy, but those who came after them were exceedingly abominable.

To those, then, who had been reared in the customs of the fathers and were emulating their ancestral impiety, he reasonably gave the name 'an evil seed.'

For they have forsaken the Lord, and did not cease provoking the Holy One of Israel, that is, Christ.

For they did not understand the mystery concerning him.

Therefore they have also remained in the fullness of their own sins.

And this Christ said to them:

'Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you believe that I am, you shall die in your sins.' Israel, therefore, is full of sins, and has come at last to such a pitch of baseness that it befits him needfully to be punished.

For they too have filled up the measure of their own fathers, according to the words of the Savior.

For up to a certain time and measure God makes bearable the contempt of those who offend;

but when the sin has already come to the fullness known to him, he brings on the penalties, and punishes the disobedient in proportion to the offenses.

And so indeed the prophet Zechariah, having beheld a measure, asked the blessed angel what this measure was that was going forth.

And he said to him, 'This is their iniquity in all the land.'

Israel, therefore, has remained with his sin unwiped away, and was unwilling to receive the cleansing that is through Christ, but rather, in addition to this, having forsaken him—by neither admitting faith in him, and furthermore by saying, 'Away, away, crucify him,' and, 'We have no king but Caesar.'

'Why should you yet be smitten, adding lawlessness? Every head is turned to pain, and every heart to grief;'

'From the feet unto the head there is no soundness in them; neither wound, nor bruise, nor festering blow; there is no emollient to apply, nor oil, nor bandages.' As of one single body he frames his discourse concerning the Jewish communities—the small, I mean, and the great, and those reckoned to be in the middle.

And he seems to call 'head' the one made comely by the proud distinctions of kingship.

And 'heart,' the sacred and elect tribe, that is, the Levitical, as being made wise by the Law and having the care of the whole body.

'For the lips of a priest,' he says, 'shall guard knowledge; and judgment and law shall they seek from his mouth.' And he says the 'feet' are those in the lowest positions, and who have obtained, as it were, the very lowest rank among the peoples.

...(the land), which at one time by the Babylonians, at another by the neighboring nations, and was destined to be set ablaze by the hands of the Romans on account of its impiety toward Christ; and their kingdom would be overthrown, for men of foreign birth have prevailed over them; and the works of the priesthood too would be brought to nought among them, the sacrifices overturned, the temple pulled down, no altars existing, nor priesthood, nor Manifestations (Urim), according to the prophet's word. On this account, then, he says, 'Why should you yet be smitten, adding lawlessness?' 'Every kind of wrath,' he says, 'and outrage from God has been brought upon you; harsh and successive penalties you have incurred, yet none the less are you scoffers and companions of lawlessness.'

Why then should you yet be smitten? What measure of outrage will suffice for your correction? And what terrible thing could be brought upon you at all which has not somehow already befallen you? 'Every head is turned to pain, and every heart to grief, from the feet unto the head.'

For those who had obtained the royal honor have suffered not moderately, being unable to withstand the assaults of the enemies.

The priests too have been grieved, the sacrifice being idle, as I said.

And the 'feet' too were smitten, that is, the last and lowest.

on the one hand being consumed by the swords of the enemies, on the other worn down by famines and failures of the harvest, and brought to the experience of unmitigated wretchedness.

Therefore he says, 'There is no emollient to apply, nor oil, nor bandages.'

For whenever moderate blows befall the human body, and the injury runs against a single member, then the devices of the skill of those who know how to heal are useful—such as an emollient, and bandages, and an anointing of oil that relaxes the strained parts.

But when it is diseased throughout the whole body, and is perishing within itself, what manner of treatment can profit it? For the greatness of the disease altogether overcomes the power of the aids of art.

Incurable, therefore, the multitude of the Jews, having fallen among wounds and being unbearably sick with the effects of wrath, has perished utterly, no manner of remedy having helped them.

Therefore the divinely-inspired prophets also said:

'We healed Babylon, and she was not healed; let us forsake her.' For she is likened to Babylon, the city of the nations, though she was named a holy city—especially on account of her impiety toward Christ, or also because they filled her with handmade idols, so as in no way to yield to that of the Babylonians, which is also called 'the land of graven images.'

'Your land is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your country—strangers devour it before your eyes.'

'And it is made desolate, overthrown by foreign peoples.' That which seemed to have been said somewhat more obscurely than was fitting, he now renders clear.

For what could the phrase 'there is no emollient to apply, nor oil, nor bandages' wish to signify?

He interprets it clearly, saying that their land is made desolate, and that their cities too are burned and become subject to the enemies—and that of foreign birth—so that their land has been all but wholly overturned from its very foundations.

Very often, then, it has come about that Judea was captured—by the Assyrians and Egyptians, the Syrians and Moabites, the Idumeans, and those called Philistiim, that is, the Philistines.

But having suffered little, and at times having fallen into moderate misfortunes, it recovered again, God defending it, and he who had struck himself dressing the wound.

But it perished utterly after the cross of the Savior, when Vespasian and Titus laid it waste.

For then indeed it came about that the cities were burned up, and the whole country became empty of its inhabitants, and fell under the hand of the conquerors; and most grievous was that 'before their eyes'—that is, while they looked on and grieved—the land, in a certain manner devoured and consumed, was under others.

For merely to hear of it while absent would perhaps have made the grief bearable for them.

But to see it while present, and then to be able to render no defense at all, but to be borne down, as it were, by unavoidable misfortunes—this holds a grievous and exceedingly great cause of pain.

...the passions of dishonor bring down, and overthrow every stronghold of the mind that is within us, so as in a certain manner to consume the wretched soul and to devour all its fruits, in order that it may be like a dry and dishonored land, and be found bearing thorns, whose end is unto burning, according to the words of blessed Paul.

'The daughter of Zion shall be left as a booth in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a cucumber-field, as a besieged city.' A pitiable thing;

for how is it not worthy of lamentation and wailing? For she who was of old a daughter, and honored with such a title, and who, as under a most tender father, conducted herself with God—she who was made drunk with the sparing mercy and love that came from him, and was crowned by him with glories unto lasting renown, and prevailed over her adversaries, and was encompassed by a measureless multitude of those who dwelt in her—the all-blessed and far-famed Zion, that is, Jerusalem, 'shall be left,' he says.

That is, she shall be desolate.

And she shall remain stripped both of the strength of him who saves, and of those who dwell in her.

And she shall be left thus, as a tent in a vineyard, and as a watchman's hut in a garden of cucumbers, and as a city that is besieged.

For the keepers appointed over the vineyards, while the clusters are still ripening upon them, exercise the utmost vigilance, and terrify the robbers who would fain strip them bare.

And they drive off the various kinds of wild beasts.

This is likewise the custom of those who watch over, or rather who own, the gardens of cucumbers.

But once the clusters have been gathered in and trodden, and the produce of the cucumber-gardens taken up, the care of the keepers is thereafter relaxed;

and they, forsaking their very own huts, leave the entrance free for whoever wishes to rummage after what remains.

The prophetic word teaches us that something of this kind has come to pass upon wretched Zion also.

For so long as she still bore the fruits of righteousness, God deemed her worthy of security and protection and every sparing care.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. But since Israel, though he had become a vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth, and had been fenced about and deemed worthy of a hedge,

yet brought forth thorns, was given over by God to those accustomed to do wrong. For, saith he, I will take away its hedge, and it shall be for a spoil, and I will break down its wall, and it shall be for a treading down, and I will forsake my vineyard, and it shall not be pruned nor digged. Therefore also a boar out of the wood ravaged her, and a wild ass devoured her. And that God gave up the vineyard, and it has been forsaken by him, the Saviour teaches, saying:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto her, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. And this he foretold also through the voice of the prophet, saying:

I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance.

And that in a city under siege every one of those within seeks a means of flight—how can there be any doubt of this? From this the sufferings of the land of the Jews may be inferred.

For to those under siege it seemed a thing thrice-longed-for even to be able to save one's soul alone.

But of house and possessions, or even of the city itself, they made no account whatever.

the soul that is set in order, and bows its neck beneath the Master's decrees, brings forth the fruits of piety toward him.

Even though one has been named a son or daughter of God, even though one has become Zion, which means a place of watching—that is, in lofty understanding and a most pure mind that knows how to behold mysteries;

if thereafter he be seen doing what is not lawful, provoking the Holy One of Israel, he shall be forsaken by him, and like some unguarded vineyard shall be delivered over to Satan and to the passions of the flesh, and shall be shown forth as bereft of all virtue, stripped of the ornaments that come from a good manner of life, and full of every evil.

And except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have been as Sodom, and should have been made like unto Gomorrah. Though the land was burned up because of its impiety toward Christ, yet even so the remnant of Israel was saved, God taking pity, and bestowing this too, along with the rest, as a choice gift for the memory of the fathers.

For it did not perish altogether, nor indeed was it shaken from its very foundations, but it has remained in remnants.

For of them were the divinely-inspired disciples, and indeed all who have believed in our Lord Jesus Christ.

And in the last times of the age those also shall be called who have not yet believed.

And the prophetic word will assure us of this very thing.

Yet many days shall the children of Israel abide, there being no king nor prince, no sacrifice nor altar, no priesthood nor manifestations.

And they shall be amazed at the Lord and at his good things in the last of the days. And moreover in another place the God of all things says: