Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 11/65

For men who have not yet advanced to the bloom of youth, nor indeed have arrived at the measure of the age honoured with the understanding that comes as it were from time, would not be at all fit to be able to discern what may be the base thing and what the good.

But when the season already calls to this, then they make free their choice of the things to be done.

But the divine and supreme nature—not in the things according to us, but in its own heights and those befitting it—is ever untrodden by wickedness;

and it shakes off the ways of baseness, not being tempted from any quarter, nor enduring any disturbance, but rather naturally and essentially refusing wickedness.

And in no other manner, I think, than as if one should say concerning the light, that it refuses in any way to be darkness.

For it does not endure to suffer being not-light.

Therefore he indicates that it is proper to the divine nature to be ever fixed toward the good, saying that «He refuses wickedness, so as to choose the good.» And this is true also of Christ Himself.

He was, from the womb and before it—indeed even before every age—holy as God, not having slipped away from His own excellences on account of what is human;

but neither having neglected the things that are human, on account of the economy;

so that He might be believed to have become truly as we are, and might sanctify our very birth.

And he says that the land shall be forsaken concerning which he was suspicious and fearful, from before the face of the two kings.

And it is as if he should also say plainly:

Then all those who trouble the holy land shall forsake it.

For it shall no longer be passable to those who wish to lay it waste.

For when Emmanuel was born, the truly holy land and city—that is, the Church—came to be in the fair estate of hope, and has trodden down every enemy; and they, knowing her to be invincible, have withdrawn, having left her as one saved by God.

«For I will be to her,» says the Lord, «a wall of fire round about, and I will be for glory in the midst of her.»

{DISCOURSE 5.} «But the Lord shall bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon the house of your father, days which have not yet come, from the day that Ephraim took away from Judah the king of the Assyrians.» — When Achaz was greatly troubled at the concord of the two kings, Rhaasson and Phakee, the God of all promised succour:

«Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel.» But when the discourse concerning these things had been very fully carried through, He again transfers the prediction of the things to come to the very person of Achaz.

And He makes the fore-proclamation of the terrible and abominable things that shall in time befall those who have chosen to be disobedient, that they might know that it is truly bitter, and not without penalty, for those who dishonour the divine glory to give a struggle to the Lord, and to choose to worship, beside Him, others who are no gods.

That therefore, in time, Jerusalem itself, and the whole country of the Jews, was about to fall into the uttermost miseries, and to come under the hand of the enemies, He indicates beforehand in subtle detail.

But since the composition of the words is rather obscure, I shall try, as far as I am able, and before all else, to make it clear.

«The Lord shall bring,» he says, «upon you, and upon your people, and upon the house of your father, days which have not yet come, from the day that Ephraim took away from Judah.» And the sense of the verses is such:

In the times of the kingdom of Roboam the son of Solomon, Ephraim took away—that is, tore himself away, that is again, the ten tribes withdrew—from the tribe of Judah.

For they were separated, and the ten tribes departed from the tribe of Judah and dwelt in Samaria, while the tribe of Judah and the half of the tribe of Manasseh remained in Jerusalem.

But as time went on, many of the abominable things befell them.

For Samaria has been laid waste, and the peoples dwelling round about Judea also overran it — Idumeans, Moabites, and those of the Philistines.

They have therefore suffered many terrible things, and have had experience of harsh days — both these and those alike.

God, whose like have not yet come to pass — that is, such calamities as have come upon you from that time when Ephraim withdrew, or rather tore himself away, from Judah.

But what is this time of which we speak, or what are these days? 'The king of the Assyrians,' he says — that is, Nebuchadnezzar, who laid waste Jerusalem and took by force all Judea, and burned the divine temple as well, and left undone nothing at all of the bestial cruelties that he was not found to have committed against the whole nation.

'And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the flies, which rules over part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee, which is in the country of the Assyrians;'

'and they shall all come and rest in the ravines of the land, and in the clefts of the rocks, and in the caves, and in every crevice, and in every tree.' He extends the narrative and goes minutely through the onslaught of the war, and how those who shall come against them from time to time will parcel out all their land, both villages and cities.

But I think it necessary to repeat what is written in the Fourth Book of Kingdoms, for the precise clarification of what is to come.

There was, then, a son of Ahaz — of whom the discourse now speaks — namely Hezekiah; and of Hezekiah, Manasseh;

and his son was Josiah, a godly man; yet he died in the following manner.

Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, leaving his native land, marched out with his whole army and pressed on against the land of the Assyrians.

But Josiah, opposing him, died in the battle, and the Egyptian gained mastery over the land of the Jews; and he advanced to such a pitch of power that, when Jehoahaz the son of Josiah had become king, he removed him from the kingdom and carried him bound into his own country, and appointed Eliakim king, and laid tribute upon the nation, and demanded a great collection of money.

Then, after Eliakim had reigned over Judea for eleven full years in number, his son Jeconiah succeeded to the throne;

then after him Zedekiah, during whose administration of the kingdom Nebuchadnezzar made war upon Judea. He burned down all the cities, and added to the others Jerusalem itself; he took Israel captive, together with the sacred vessels, and did all those things that are recorded in the sacred Scriptures.

The force of the passage before us makes its narrative out of these histories for us.

'It shall come to pass, then,' he says, 'in that day' (that is, at that season), 'the Lord shall hiss for the flies, which rules over part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee, which is in the country of the Assyrians.' The discourse, then, has been fashioned as from a metaphor drawn from the experience of beekeepers, who by hissing carry off the flies from the hives into the fields, and again bring them back, shutting up the creatures as it were in certain pens.

By 'flies' he likens the Egyptians, as I think, on account both of their multitude and of the not very melodious quality of their speech.

And by 'bee' he means the nation of the Assyrians;

for the bee is many-colored, of good hue, and dappled in manifold ways.

And such, in respect of raiment and array, were the Assyrians and Persians;

for they were fond of adornment, and always esteemed being decked out in varied fashion, and were even goaded on toward this.

'These,' he says, 'shall all come and rest in the ravines of the land, and in the clefts of the rocks, and in the caves, and upon every crevice, and in every tree.'

For since he has framed his words as concerning flies, he persists in the figure.

and whether perchance among rocks

or in ravines, or even in thickets and wooded glens, they might hide themselves.

with no one driving off the extraordinary passions that are within us, that is, no one coming to our aid or strong enough to save.

For when God wills to afflict, who is there able to help us? 'In that day the Lord shall shave with the great and drunken razor, which is beyond the river of the king of the Assyrians, the head and the hairs of the feet, and shall take away the beard.' It is necessary for us first to compose the wording even in these matters;

and then thereafter to state what is intimated by the underlying meanings.

Therefore 'in that day,' he says — that is, at that season — with the great and drunken razor, which is the king of the Assyrians, who is beyond the river (and it is plain that this means the Euphrates), the Lord shall shave the head, and the hairs of the feet, and shall take away the beard.

And by the great and drunken razor of the king of the Assyrians, who is beyond the river, he calls his sword, which, as it were, shears away unsparingly and rejoices to be drunk with the blood of those who fall.

And this, then, is the sense of the words.

But we say that it was a mode of extreme dishonor for people to be seen at one and the same time with head and beard shaved off.

And indeed the God of all threatened, somewhere, the daughters of Zion — who exalted themselves and walked with lofty neck and with beckonings of the eyes — with the removal of their prosperity.

For he said: 'And it shall come to pass that instead of a sweet smell there shall be dust, and instead of a girdle you shall gird yourself with a rope, and instead of the golden adornment of the head you shall have baldness, because of your works.'

And some did this — dishonoring themselves over the dead as well;

wherefore also the law given through Moses enjoins upon those who have received the divine priesthood not to shave themselves for a dead person like the rest, nor indeed to mar the appearance of the beard.

And when Jerusalem had been laid waste under Nebuchadnezzar, men came up from Shechem, and from Shiloh, and from Samaria, as Jeremiah says:

'Eighty men with beards shaved, and clothes rent, and cutting themselves, and having manna and frankincense in their hands, to bring them into the house of the Lord.'

Therefore the shearing off of head and beard with a razor was a mode both of mourning and of dishonor.

The prophetic word said that the land of the Jews would from time to time suffer this.

'For she shall remain,' he says, 'with her children perished, mourning and most dishonored.'

But if anyone should wish to approach these considerations in another way as well, he will conceive something of this sort.

By the hairs of the head he perhaps means, it may be, the most honored — those who rose above the rest in wealth and in preeminence;

for there is nothing higher than the head;

and by the beard, those excelling in understanding and good sense;

for the beard is always taken in this sense in the God-inspired Scripture.

And when he also names the hairs of the feet, he signifies, as is likely, those placed in the lowest and nethermost rank.

The drunken razor spared absolutely no one, but together with the highest, it sheared off also the middle ones and the last, and the men of understanding, from the land of the Jews, so as to leave it bare and stripped clean.

For Nebuchadnezzar transported to the mountains of the Persians and the Medes nearly the whole of Israel.

'And it shall come to pass in that day that a man shall rear a heifer of the herd, and two sheep;

and it shall come to pass that, from making the most milk, he shall eat butter and honey — everyone that is left upon the land.' His aim was to make manifest the working of the razor, both drunken and great — that is, of the sword of the Babylonians.

For he says that the whole land of the Jews shall be stripped bare, and shall come to such a state of poverty and scarcity of men, that he who is left and rescued from the enemy's hand, and remains in the land, shall be master of a single heifer and two sheep — even though of old those throughout all Judea were wont to possess and to pasture very many flocks of sheep, and indeed of cattle as well.

This, then, is a clear demonstration of poverty carried to the extreme.

And that they shall be quite few in number in each place, he further demonstrates, saying:

He says that from two sheep and a single heifer there shall be so much milk that it shall suffice for all those who are left, to satiety, if indeed they should wish to make their nourishment from milk.

Is it not then evident that those who escaped the razor and remained in each place of Judea were altogether easy to count? For how many could they be, for whom the milk of two sheep and a single heifer will suffice for nourishment and satiety? What benefit, then, will come from this to us who are spiritual, it is possible to see through these very facts.

As many as, by cultivating a deafness of ear, and lifting up a proud neck against God, and by the lack of spiritual good things, shall waste away, and shall become altogether few in number, and shall be found destitute of everyone who knows how to nourish them unto sound spiritual health, and who is able — and that very swiftly — to raise them up into a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

And such as these shall hear God saying through the voice of the holy one:

'Behold, those who serve me shall eat, but you shall be hungry;'

'Behold, those who serve me shall drink, but you shall be thirsty.'

For most abundant indeed is the participation in every good thing from God, granted to those who have resolved to be minded as he is minded, to whom he himself also has called out, saying:

'Eat, and drink, and be filled to drunkenness, O my neighbors.' 'And it shall come to pass in that day that every place where there are a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels shall be for waste land and for thorns;

men shall come there with arrows and bow;

for all the land shall be waste land and thorns.' This would be the work of the great and drunken razor, and a clear demonstration of the scarcity of men in the nation.

For this reason he says also that the fairest and choicest of their possessions shall be neglected, and shall become waste land and thorns, there being, plainly, none who know how to till the ground.

'For if,' he says, 'there be in one place a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels' — so that each vine is worth one shekel (and this is a measure of valuation) — 'they shall be for waste land and for thorns;'

so that even if anyone should wish to approach the field, and merely to enter in, he would not be able to do this without arrow and bow.

For the thorns, in no way inferior to arrows and darts, would forthwith wound the feet of anyone wishing to walk about.

The wish to do what is not lawful, then, will be for us the procurer of every evil.

For we become, in a certain manner, turned into waste land, not refusing to give offense to God.

For we shall hear Christ saying:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he takes away;

and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. But when we swerve unbridled into unholiness of manners, we are filled with the thorn perceived by the mind, since every kind of baseness springs up within us.

And the end of the thorn is fire;

and the fuel of fire is useless matter.

And this the blessed Paul will make plain to us when he says:

For land that has drunk the rain that often comes upon it, and brings forth herbage useful to those for whose sake also it is tilled, receives a blessing from God;

but that which bears thorns and briers is worthless and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. And every mountain that is plowed shall be plowed, and no fear shall come there.

For from being waste and thorny it shall become pasture for sheep and a treading-place for cattle. He says that few will be those left remaining in Judea, and that they will come to such cowardice, and indeed such unmanliness, that, as though under a dreadful and unbearable terror, they will make their dwellings in the mountains, and depart from their cities and from those habitations that once were so longed for by them, and will hasten to hide themselves in woods and thickets.

For fleeing up into the high and hard-to-traverse places of the mountains, they make the ruggedness of the terrain their weapon, and count the being in the clefts of the rocks as a remedy for their fear.

This very thing the Savior himself also declared to the peoples of the Jews:

For then, he says, let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Therefore the fairest of the regions shall become waste, he says, and full of thorns, since those who remain are afraid even so much as to enter into them alone, or are not permitted to do so by the thornbush;

but rather having fled up into the mountains, there groaning they will set their hands to the labors of husbandry.

For every mountain and every hill shall be plowed, as those who have fled up into them desire to gather, not the things that make for wealth and luxury, but only what tends the necessary need of the body, and furnishes scanty and hard-won food.

What pretext, then, is there for both dwelling in the mountains and being willing to till them, even though the choicest regions have been despised? No fear shall come there, he says. This they will reason within themselves, that no fear will come upon them if they are willing to dwell there.

Then he shows the magnitude of the utter desolation.

For he says that the whole land shall become, from being waste and thorny, pasture for sheep and a treading-place for cattle—that is, into grazing-grounds for flocks—that fertile land, rich in vines, bearing olives, most abundant in trees, ever luxuriant with fruits, flowing with milk and honey, according to what is written.

Therefore, gladdening God by our obedience in all things whatsoever, we shall dwell securely in virtue as in some land or city, and shall prevail mightily over our enemies.

And nothing at all shall terrify us.

But rather we shall be cultivators of all fairness and good works, and full of the good fruit that is pleasing to God, freed from the thorn perceived by the mind, and a land of God's good pleasure, according to the prophet's word, and truly God's tilled field.

Take for yourself a scroll of a great new book, and write on it with a man's pen, that one may quickly make a spoiling of plunder.

For he is present; and make me faithful men as witnesses, Uriah, and Zechariah the son of Barachiah. Having very fittingly made the foretelling of the things that were to happen in due seasons to the land of the Jews, and having shown the magnitude of the calamity, he usefully adds the things concerning Emmanuel; and having displayed the mystery concerning him, God makes it more plainly manifest to the prophet.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. For that he shall be the mediator of a new covenant, the first being plainly abolished as having much that is ineffectual, and having grown old, and perfecting no one according to conscience, he intimates by saying:

Take for yourself a scroll of a great new book. And what would the phrase 'for yourself' signify, if not surely that? For, he says, not to those who have chosen to disobey, but to those who have honored in faith the word concerning him, will the things in the new scroll be given.

That is, the mystery of Christ shall be revealed.

New, therefore, is the scroll, and great.

For the new and fresh covenant, speaking the mystery of Christ, is not composed after the manner of the first covenant, nor indeed will it be seen to have the lowliness of the legal narrative, but rather as in eminence and height of knowledge and of doctrines.

Whence also the all-divine Paul most gladly says that he counted as loss all things that are in the law, on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.

It is plain, then, that the first having grown old, as I have said, the new and great scroll is taken as that of the second covenant, which is received upon better promises, as the most holy Paul says.

And the scroll is written with a man's pen.

then indeed, then, there is need for us of a pen that is not human and after our own manner.

My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. For no one knows the Son except the Father;

but neither does anyone recognize who the Father is except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son may will to reveal him.

But whenever we make our discourses concerning his becoming man, then indeed, then, there is need of a human pen;

which indeed the wise John also did, saying:

The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. And it is nothing at all difficult to announce also in our human words his death according to the flesh, and his resurrection from the dead, and that as a firstfruit, as it were, and a first-offering of human nature being renewed unto incorruption, he ascended to the Father, and sat down in the heavens.

And he shall come in due seasons, and shall sit as judge.

Therefore with a man's pen the Spirit-inspired writers write the things concerning the incarnation of the Only-begotten.

Make me faithful men as witnesses, Uriah, and Zechariah the son of Barachiah. But one must know that at that time, in which the word concerning these things came from God to the blessed Isaiah, Uriah was a certain prophet, while Zechariah indeed was a priest and a teacher of the law.

There are taken, therefore, as testimony concerning Christ, both the sacred initiation and understanding, or rather foretelling, that comes through the law and the holy prophets.

For Christ is the end of the law and of the prophets.

We say that some such thing was shown to the holy apostles at the time of the transfiguration of Christ on the mountain.

For it is written that, After six days Jesus took Peter, and James, and John his brother, and brings them up into a high mountain apart;

and he was transfigured before them.

And his face shone as the sun, and his garments were white as the light.

And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him. Observe then how Moses and Elijah—that is, priesthood and law (for Moses is both), and moreover Elijah, taken as representing the person of the holy prophets—were speaking with one another about the departure, he says, which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem.

And what kind of departure? Plainly the consummation of the economy: the cross, the death, and the return to life from the dead, the ascension into the heavens.

For all these things the law prefigured through a shadow, and the bright and great choir of the holy prophets foretold.

And I went in to the prophetess, and she conceived in the womb, and bore a male child. That not of blood and flesh, nor indeed of the will of man, was the birth of Christ according to the flesh accomplished, but that it was something novel and unwonted, and beyond the laws of human nature, God revealed to the prophet.

For he himself, he says, who says:

Take for yourself a scroll of a great new book, went in to the prophetess.

Observe then, how with a man's pen the mystery of Christ is written also in words such as ours.

For the phrase 'he went in' is customary for divine Scripture to use in place of 'he came together,' or rather, 'he had marital union.'

Accordingly the prophet sees a semblance of union having taken place with the holy Virgin, whom he says to be also a prophetess, teaching a true thing;

then he also says that a conception took place, and that a son was born.

And very swift is the rendering of the vision, setting all things before the prophet unto knowledge.

For that of the Holy Spirit that all-holy body, united to the Word, was framed together, how could anyone doubt? Therefore the working of the Spirit, through which the body in the holy Virgin was fashioned, was obliquely signified by the semblance of union.

For in this respect also Christ became the firstfruit of those sanctified in the Spirit, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God;

and we are in these things through him.

But it is necessary to note that he commanded Uriah and Zechariah to become witnesses to him, that one might quickly make a spoiling of plunder.

And he added that, For he is present. For the law bore witness, and indeed the proclamation of the holy prophets, that Christ, when born, would despoil Satan, and plunder his vessels, as he himself says—that is, would make his own those who once were his worshipers.

For this the Christ himself also declared, saying by way of example:

Or how can anyone enter into the house of the strong man, and plunder his goods, unless he first bind the strong man, and then he will plunder his house? And in saying, For he is present, he promised that the manifestation of Emmanuel would be not far off.

This same thing he is found saying also to the blessed Habakkuk:

Yet a little while, he that comes shall come, and shall not tarry. And the Lord said to me:

Call his name, Quickly-despoil, Swiftly-plunder.

Is then his first name, that is, Emmanuel, a vain one? And would the name 'Quickly-despoil, Swiftly-plunder' be most especially fitting? We do not say this, but rather that.

It is customary for the God-inspired Scripture to call the God of all beings by various names, and, as it were from the things done in various seasons, sometimes to devise the appellations.

This has been observed also in the case of Christ himself.

For he is true God; and that, being God by nature, the Word became with us when he appeared in our likeness, the name Emmanuel signifies most clearly indeed.

But since He became man, He despoiled Satan, and moreover He rescued from that one's wickedness those who had of old been plundered and were enslaved to him through sin; and this the words would make plain: 'Swiftly despoil, sharply take the spoil.'

And that, as God, He was about to accomplish by an unspeakable power the redemption of those upon the earth, He foreshows, saying:

For the divine word is always in some way hidden beneath obscurities;

but whenever we take it in a spiritual sense, then indeed we shall by all means behold the truth.

And for this reason it is called the land of graven images;

for there were altars and sacred precincts everywhere, and those who were accustomed to haunt the precincts — I mean the tribes of false prophets, and those whose art tends toward sorcery.

And the whole of their power consisted in the demons worshipped by each people, and in Satan who is the leader of these.

And likewise He shall also take the spoils of Samaria.

That is, He shall set free the captives, having waged war on their behalf.

In the presence of the king of the Assyrians.

That is, the spiritual one, I mean Satan.

Because the worshippers of idols also placed upon them all their hope of salvation;

And that Christ despoiled Satan straightway upon being born, is easy to see.

'Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men came from the east to Jerusalem, saying:'

'Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the East, and are come to worship Him.' They accordingly worshipped Him and offered gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

Do you see how He despoiled Satan and sharply took the spoil? And that the very aim of His coming among us looks to the redemption of those who had fallen into the spiritual captivity, Christ Himself would signify, speaking through the voice of Isaiah, saying:

Having ascended on high, He led captivity captive. And this He Himself taught, saying:

When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Myself. And the Lord spoke again unto me, saying:

And he shall go up over every ravine of yours, and shall walk over every wall of yours, and shall take away from Judaea a man who shall be able to lift up his head, or capable of accomplishing anything.