Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 16/65

having been conquered, and that rather by divine nods and by an angel's hand.

For that he may appear to know all things, and the outcome of events, even if it has not yet come to pass, having it before his eyes as God, he announces most clearly and vividly the manner of that one's flight, both the places and the lodgings, and that he will strike terror into very many cities of Judah, even though the wretch runs off as a fugitive.

"For he shall come," he says, "to the city Aggai, and shall pass over into Magedo."

These are names of cities and villages, or of places.

"And in Machmas he shall lay up his baggage."

For the Hebrews say that the Assyrian, when he came to Machmas, left all his baggage there, being afraid of an onset from those of Israel.

For he supposed that they would come running in pursuit.

"And he shall pass over the ravine, and shall come to Aggai."

"Fear shall seize Rama, the city of Saul."

"The daughter of Gallim shall flee; she shall be heard in Anathoth;

Madebena was amazed, and the inhabitants of Gibbir." The tradition of the Hebrews holds something of this sort.

For they say that [ten] alone, being saved, made their way back to him out of Jerusalem, and reported what had happened.

Then with a very few he was withdrawing back to his native land, and threw into an uproar all the villages and cities, and they made his passage—as of one in flight and cowardice—unbearable to them.

But wherever God defends and wills to save, there is nothing to grieve; rather, every hand of those who make war shall grow feeble, and strength and experience in warfare shall be rendered useless, and the art of the tacticians.

"Exhort one another this day to remain in the way by the hand."

"Exhort the mountain, the daughter of Zion, and the hills that are in Jerusalem." Having put the words together, we shall of necessity bring forward the clarification of the meaning.

"O hills," he says—that is, those who are eminent and set on high, and who rise above the rest in Jerusalem.

And by these he signifies either the holy prophets, or even the very choir of the priests.

"Exhort the mountain"—that is, my daughter Zion.

"And exhort her," all but stroking her with the hand and touching her head, "so that she may remain in this way."

And in what way is this? Clearly in trust toward God.

For it has been promised that he will deliver, and will easily save, and will cast down [al.

will cast down] the Assyrian, and will remove his fear, and will destroy the yoke, and will free them from all covetous oppression.

But these things shall be, he says, when they remain in this way—and it is plain that this means trust toward God.

For it is not possible for the truth to prove false; God will not speak falsely.

For if he should give any assent to a thing, this shall by all means come to its fulfillment, whenever we honor him with faith, and gladden with a genuine mind the One who has promised to save.

In this same manner the saints also exhort us, saying, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from us," and that, "The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about those who fear him, and shall deliver them."

"Because he has hoped in me, I will deliver him."

With the book now completed, the discourse concerned both the Assyrians and the one who governed the dominions of the Persians, who campaigned against Judah and Jerusalem, but unexpectedly suffered the things that come from divine wrath.

For Israel was saved in a marvelous manner, not by bending a bow, not by seizing a shield, not by any horseman, not by skill leading his own forces out against those ranks, not by the law of war prevailing over the hand of his adversaries, but in the power of God and by grace.

"For the angel of the Lord went forth," he says, "and slew in a single night, out of the camp of the Assyrians, a hundred and eighty-five thousand."

And when this manifest event had come to pass, those who had expected to perish were dancing for joy, and were rendering to God who had saved them the songs of thanksgiving, saying:

"Weeping shall lodge for the evening, and in the morning gladness." And besides these things:

"You have turned my mourning into joy for me; you have torn off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness." But the bold and haughty one, who cried aloud that great and vanishing boast, "I will seize the whole inhabited world with my hand, as a nest, and as forsaken eggs I will take it up, and there is none who shall escape me or contradict me"—he was convicted of having vainly thought great things of himself.

Therefore also the God of all was saying:

"Fear not, O my people who dwell in Zion, because of the Assyrians."

And the manner of the flight was also being described, as he all but shook cities and villages with his passing.

"Fear shall seize Rama, the city of Saul."

For there is every necessity that the word of interpretation be fitted to correspond to the quality and force of the matters set before us.

And since it is the custom of the God-inspired Scripture at times to make plain the mysteries through things done swiftly and historically, and to fashion images of hidden concepts, we say that the inventor of sin tyrannized against us, and cruelly and bitterly leaped upon the sanctified peoples of the Savior—that is, sanctified through the Spirit and cleansed through faith—and made war against the Church of God, shaking against her the most unholy phalanx of the spirits under his hand;

and perhaps he even supposed that he could overturn her, and that very easily—the truly august and holy city of God, the spiritual Jerusalem—but he was caught, having contrived nothing of what was possible.

For it was not possible for him to prevail to besiege and take the holy city, and to gain mastery over a right hand so exceedingly strong.

For who shall withstand God who is mighty in all things? He has therefore perished together with his own shield-bearers, and has been driven away from the flock of the godly, leaping upon it like a savage beast;

and he has been cast out of his tyranny over us.

And this the Savior taught us, saying:

"Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the ruler of this world be cast out."

'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.' For the Passion of Christ became the overthrow of death, the casting-down of the devil, and the abolishing of sin, as He was lifted up upon the Cross, while it brought down and dashed to the ground the boasting of the devil.

In due season, therefore, after those things and even now, the God of all introduces the discourse concerning the birth according to the flesh of the Only-begotten, and He foreshows the mystery through the voice of the prophets, so that when the events have come to their fulfilment, the mystery might receive from all an undisputed faith.

the Law, which was in written letters, is at length brought to its end, since the mind of those who believe is transformed, as I have said, into what is better and into a spiritual manner of life.

For all things in Christ are new.

But although it was fitting that they should yield to Him—and before all others the leaders of the synagogue of the Jews, who boasted immoderately in the honours of the priesthood—they instead set themselves defiantly against Him in youthful boldness, they resisted impiously, and forever appealing to the Law spoken through the all-wise Moses, they sought to render void, so far as it concerned them, the mystery of the dispensation in the flesh of the Only-begotten.

But this was impossible for them to accomplish; and setting their own will against the Saviour and God of all, being evil they perished miserably—partly by turning upon one another and plotting the law of war, and partly by falling into the hands of the Romans, who also burned the very Temple.

He names Him 'the Lord Sabaoth' who confounds them, striking the hearers with terror by the dread of it, lest anyone should perhaps suppose that He would prove weak, or would rather employ threats that are ineffectual and by no means bound to come to their fulfilment.

For what of the things undertaken by the Lord Sabaoth shall remain unaccomplished? And He says that those lofty in insolence shall be crushed.

For they truly became lofty in insolence, not only by slaying the holy prophets and by saying without restraint to those who counselled them most excellently:

'Speak unto us other things, and declare unto us another error'—but they even whetted their tongue against Christ Himself, lifting up their horn on high and speaking unrighteousness against God, as it is written.

But these, He says, shall be humbled, and shall fall by the sword.

But Lebanon also, He says, shall fall together with the lofty ones.

By 'Lebanon' in these words He most probably names the Temple, which has been demolished and burned, and has fallen together with those who bear a lofty brow.

For truly overweening was both the swarm of the priests, and Israel itself along with them, having dishonoured the Saviour and Redeemer of all.

And we shall find Jerusalem itself also named 'Lebanon.'

And indeed the prophet Zechariah said somewhere to her:

'Howl, ye oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest is pulled down.'

For since, likening Jerusalem to the mountain of Lebanon, he thus named her, of necessity holding persuasively to the figure of the discourse, he fittingly names by 'cedars' and 'thick forest' both the peoples in her and indeed her rulers, whom he also bids to howl, because the destroyers leaped upon them after the manner of forests.

But if anyone should choose to lay hold of a hidden contemplation, and to apply the force of what has been set forth to Satan himself and to the wicked powers under him, neither will he walk outside the probable aim.

For the malice-loving throng of the demons was crushed and destroyed, and along with them the apostate dragon himself—the lofty, the overbearing, the one likened, as it were, to the mountain of Lebanon.

For before the sojourn of our Saviour he was conspicuous to all, and being everywhere absurdly worshipped, he had snatched to himself the glory of the Godhead.

he makes the foretelling.

'Of the fruit of thy loins will I set upon thy throne.' And since it was He who implanted in the holy prophets the foreknowledge of things to come, this too was proclaimed beforehand by them, so that the mystery might be attested on every side and might be believed to have come to pass.

He says, then, that a rod shall come forth out of the root of Jesse, and that a flower shall also spring up; and not until after the glorious ones have been troubled with might, and the lofty ones have been humbled, and Lebanon has fallen together with them, does he say that the rod is then made to sprout from the root of Jesse.

But in the first passages the power of the whole matter was set forth more summarily.

For what was destined to befall those of Israel who had impiously outraged our Lord Jesus Christ, we have learned in brief compass;

but now the narrative ascends to what is, as it were, the very highest beginning of the matter—I mean the Incarnation of the Only-begotten, and the birth according to the flesh from a woman, which was to take place in the dispensation.

By 'rod,' then, he named Christ according to the flesh, who is from the root of Jesse;

and indeed, in addition to this, also 'flower'; and by the 'rod,' as is probable, it is obliquely intimated that He possesses the royal dignity.

For the rod is a token of kingship.

'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.' And the rod also in another sense, inasmuch as He holds all things and sustains them unto well-being, and makes to stand firm that which has grown weak—namely, the nature of man—all but shaken down and drunken with passions.

And He has been named through the voice of the prophets 'a glorious staff, a rod of majesty';

and 'rod' also in yet another sense, since He is the good shepherd, laying down His own life for the sheep.

It has at any rate been said to Him through one of the holy prophets:

'Shepherd thy people with a rod, thy tribe, the sheep of thine inheritance.' And if it seem good to one—since He is also a judge, and renders to each according to his works—for this reason too, and very fittingly, He will rightly understand Him to be named 'rod.'

For it has been said to Him, when Israel had outraged Him and had immoderately turned aside to disobedience:

'Thou shalt shepherd them with a rod of iron, and as vessels of a potter shalt thou dash them in pieces.' Thus also the Law of the all-wise Moses signifies Him to us;

for the rod of Aaron that budded, and that was brought into the Holy of Holies, is also taken as a type of Christ.

For it put forth almonds; and it is necessary to say what indeed is the meaning of the notions that lie in shadows.

For some touch upon natural science, and indeed one says that the almond-wood rod, if it be laid at the head of certain persons, is naturally productive of sleeplessness.

Since, then, Christ was destined, by the grace of God, as the blessed Paul says, to taste death on behalf of all, and having as it were slumbered a little while, to be roused again as from sleep, and to come back to life in a manner befitting God, once death had been trodden underfoot—

for this reason He is likened to an almond-wood rod.

He named it, then, a rod of God.

For it became to Him a rod of power, according to that which is written.

Whenever, then, the prophet, enigmatically intimating the mystery of Christ, says that the rod shall appear to us out of the root of Jesse, then indeed, then, beholding with the eyes of the mind Him who is the Only-begotten of God the Word—the One through whom are all things and in whom are all things—made flesh and become man, and having lowered Himself into a voluntary self-emptying, and having endured for our sake the birth according to the dispensation, I mean that according to the flesh and from a woman, he says together with the prophet:

'O Lord, I have heard the report of thee, and was afraid;

I considered thy works, and was amazed.' 'Rod,' then, He has been named on account of the reasons just now stated by us.

For the nature of man flourished anew in Him unto incorruption, and unto life, and unto the newness of the evangelical manner of life;

and 'flower' also in another sense, on account of the spiritual fragrance.

'For I,' He says, 'am the flower of the plain, the lily of the valleys.' And He became also for us a kind of fragrance, as it were, of the knowledge of God and the Father.

And indeed the divinely-inspired Paul writes, and says:

'Thanks be to God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us the savour of the knowledge of Him in every place; for we are a sweet savour of Christ unto God, in them that are being saved and in them that are perishing:

to the one indeed a savour of death unto death, but to the other a savour of life unto life.' To this rod, He says—that is, to the flower that was to be born from the root of Jesse—the Spirit of God, having many operations, shall rest at the appointed seasons.

For He names it a Spirit of counsel and understanding, of knowledge and wisdom, of piety and the fear of God.

And we say that the proclamation of the prophetic skill does not introduce to us Jesus as a mere man, then become Spirit-bearing, and as having become, in the order that is according to us, a partaker of the gifts that come from God; but rather it declares plainly the Word of God become man—being full of every good thing, so far as concerns His own nature, but appropriating to Himself, together with the manhood, the things of the manhood also.

For it is proper to manhood to have of itself, and as from its own nature, none of the gifts from above;

for 'What hast thou that thou didst not receive?' has been said to it, but rather to be enriched from without and by acquisition—that is, from God, plainly—with the things that are above its own nature.

It was necessary, therefore, that the Only-begotten Word of God, having lowered Himself to self-emptying, should not decline the lowliness that comes from the emptying, and, being full according to nature, should receive it on account of the human element—not rather for Himself, but for us who are in want of every good thing.

So that even if He is sometimes said to receive the Spirit—although He Himself is the giver of the Holy Spirit, and gives not by measure, but as from His own fulness distributes It to the worthy—let the 'receiving' be understood of the measures of the emptying; for thus we shall come straight to the truth.

'For they have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, there is not so much as one.' Then the Only-begotten Word of God became man, although not relinquishing His being God.

And since, although having become as we are, He was inaccessible to sins, the Holy Spirit rested upon the nature of man, as in Him who is both the first and, as it were, the second first-fruits of the race, in order that It might rest also upon us, and might henceforth abide, dwelling within the minds of those who believe.

For thus, indeed, the divinely-inspired John says that he beheld the Spirit descending from heaven upon Christ.

Just as we became joint-heirs of the evils that befell the first-formed man, so shall we be partakers of the things that came to pass, according to the dispensation, in the second first-fruits of our race, that is, in Christ.

And that He did not work a partial grace in Him, as is the case in the saints where the Spirit is said to 'rest,' but that there was the fulness of the Godhead dwelling as in its own temple in His own flesh—and that not soulless from somewhere, but rather ensouled with a rational soul—the prophet will make clear, saying:

'A spirit of the fear of God shall fill Him.' And to the one Spirit He has given the manifold operation.

For it is not that there is one Spirit of wisdom and another of understanding, or of counsel and might and the rest; but just as there is one Word from God the Father, yet He is named 'operation' in manifold ways—

for He is life, and light, and power—

so also in the case of the Holy Spirit thou wilt understand;

It is conceived in manifold ways, and It operates thus as well.

And indeed the most wise Paul, enumerating for us the various kinds of gifts:

'All these things,' he says, 'the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as he wills.' 'He shall not judge according to opinion, nor reprove according to speech; but he shall judge the lowly with judgment, and reprove the humble of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the word of his mouth, and with a spirit through his lips he shall destroy the ungodly.'

'And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and truth the girdle of his sides.' Having very rightly foretold that Emmanuel would be born in due time, he usefully goes on to add also the marks by which he might be recognized, namely from the divinely befitting virtue that is inherent in him and from the splendor manifest in his works.

For it was necessary, truly necessary, that those who possessed a prophetic foretelling should be thoroughly persuaded beforehand—those, that is, who were about to receive faith in him—as to who he was, and of what kind, and through what mighty deeds he would come.

For just as, if someone wishing to describe one of us to those who do not know him should portray him in words from what he knows, and say of him that his hair is not thick but moderately sparse, that his eye is bright and has a smiling glance, that his nose is thin, and should go through the other parts of his body as well—in the same manner, I think, the blessed prophet also, since his discourse concerns the Word who for our sake became man, enumerates on this account the signs of his divinely befitting pre-eminence and indeed of his authority, and so speaks concerning him:

'He shall not judge according to opinion, nor reprove according to speech.' This is a divinely befitting matter, akin to the supreme nature.

For to look not to the glory that is among men, but to render an upright, undistorted, and altogether blameless judgment in every case—how should this not befit the nature that is queen of all things? For she does not know how to look upon the countenance, nor does she deem worthy of honor or of a word the one adorned with the trappings of wealth or with dignities who wishes to overreach others; but she utterly condemns and declares accursed the worker of lawlessness.

'But he shall not reprove according to speech.'

And in what manner this must be understood, it is necessary also to explain this.

For very many among us deem worthy of honor those who wish to praise them, even if such men are not good in their ways; and as it were as a wage for their flattery they bestow on them the favor of sometimes even serving them, and they suppress the reproofs owed to those under them.

But no one could see our Lord and God Jesus Christ doing this.

Therefore also those who had chosen to speak fair words, yet were not in truth also good, he often removed by stern reproofs to the choice of a more temperate life.

For there once came to him some of those called Herodians—these were agents of the tax-collectors—and then, framing a bitter snare for him, they said:

'For you do not regard the countenance of men.'

'Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?' But he, in answer to these things, said, 'Why do you tempt me, hypocrites? Show me the coin of the tribute.' Consider, then, how he refutes those who flatter, and shakes off those who speak fair words.

For they were expecting to be praised, perhaps indeed dissembling, yet cultivating a clever and most glib fine speech; but he, unexpectedly, called them tempters and hypocrites.

Therefore 'he shall not judge according to opinion,' that is, he will not be a respecter of persons as judge, nor indeed will he reprove according to speech.

For he will not tolerate, he says, those who have chosen to think unholy things, yet wrap around themselves fine speech as a kind of mask of deceit and guile.

This indeed he says plainly:

'Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.' And again:

'Many will say to me in that day,' that is, in the day of judgment, evidently,

'...have we not done?' 'But then,' he says, 'I will declare to them:'

'Truly, I say to you, I never knew you.' What then, besides these things, does the impartial judge do? 'He shall judge the lowly with judgment,' that is, he will not overlook any of the lowly, but will bring forth an upright and blameless judgment upon him.

And likewise 'he shall reprove the humble of the earth;'

for just as he will not blush at the face of the rich man who wishes to overreach, but will make a just judgment concerning the lowly;

so also, he says, if anyone of those in low estate and mean condition of life should be carried outside the divine laws, and, giving himself up to the charges of unrighteousness, should be caught—he says—this one too shall be reproved.

For it is written that 'You shall not pity a poor man in judgment.' For just as distinction will not release from the accusations the man in wealth and eminence and indeed in positions of power, if he be convicted of certain outrageous deeds, so neither will meanness in low estate and humility set free from being wicked, nor indeed will it release from the necessity of being punished the one weighed down by poverty who lives a life abominable and thrice-wretched.

And to these he adds also certain other of the most divinely befitting dignities, which he says belong also to Christ the Savior of all, because he was not a mere man like us, but was, as I said, the Only-begotten Word of God incarnate and made man.

'What then will he accomplish?' he says.

'He shall smite the earth with the word of his mouth.'

And what kind of earth, then? Chiefly that which he would curse.

But what is said might be true also of every earth.

For he cursed the whole earth, that is, the nature of man, when he said in Adam:

'You are earth, and to earth you shall return.' For he cursed no less when he drowned a world of the ungodly with water.

And besides these he cursed Judea, when those who dwelt in it acted insolently toward him.

'Jerusalem, that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her;'

'how often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate.' For in the words 'your house is left to you,' the suffering of the abandonment that came upon her is made manifest.

And being abandoned by him, she was consumed both by war and by fire, and by the hands of those who slew.

And there is yet another sign besides this, and an effect of the supreme power: 'with a spirit through his lips to destroy the ungodly.'

For he rebuked the unclean spirits, and as far as concerned what was human, the voice resounded through mouth and lips, but by the ineffable power of the Spirit the multitude of the demons was shattered.

'And he shall be,' he says, 'girded with righteousness about his loins, and with truth wrapped about his sides.'

Now the girdle is a sign of rule; and for him to say that his sides are wrapped signifies nothing else than this very thing: that he will put on righteousness as a kind of belt, and together with it truth.

And it is likely that by righteousness and truth he named the new and evangelical proclamation, according also to what was said to him through the voice of the Psalmist:

'Your righteousness is a righteousness forever;'

and the old law was not truth so much as a type and a shadow;

but Christ and the things that are his are purely the truth.

'I am the truth.' 'And the wolf shall feed together with the lamb, and the leopard shall rest together with the kid; and the calf and the bull and the lion shall feed together, and a little child shall lead them.'

'And the ox and the bear shall feed together, and their young shall be together;'

'and they shall not do harm, nor shall they be able to destroy anyone on my holy mountain;'

'for the whole earth was filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as much water covers the sea.' In addition to what has already been foretold, this too is a great and exceptional sign, and one might rightly say it is a not-unmarvelous effect of our Savior's sojourn among us—and very reasonably so.

For before the Only-begotten Word of God became man like us;

before he took hold of the seed of Abraham and was made like his brethren in all things, as it is written, the whole race upon the earth—I mean the human race—was divided into two nations: into that of the Jews, and that of those who worshiped the creation rather than the Creator.

And God was known in Judea;

but a great and boundless swarm of idols was worshiped by the others;

and whatever seemed good to each was honored with the glory of God;

'for all turned aside, together they became worthless; there was none that did kindness, there was not even one.' But the Jews, through the tutelage of the law, being as it were somehow tamed and rendered gentle by the ways of righteousness, honored a manner of life befitting man;

the others, however—that is, those who served the lifeless idols, not possessing the guiding law—were terrible in their dispositions, savage and rapacious, ready for greed, impetuous toward pleasures and those exceedingly out of place, and most prone to every one of the basest things whatsoever;

of whom one was like a wolf, another resembling leopards, because their minds were all but tattooed over with very many and manifold varieties of passions;

and another was ungovernable in his disposition, effortlessly accomplishing his greed against whomever he chose, and passed his life likened to the lions.

But those who had been reared in such savage habits and manners, when Christ transformed them into a most gentle and holy life, ceased from the cruelty that was in them;

and they too honored the life befitting men, namely the life in meekness.

For they believed Christ when he said:

'Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.' Together with faith, then, they gained also the putting away of their ancient cruelty, and the becoming good and meek, and the living intermingled with the saints.

For they too received the title of fellow-citizens of the saints and members of the household of God;

this, I think, is what the prophetic word here hints at to us in many ways.