Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 2/65

How shall I deal with thee, Ephraim? Shall I shield thee, Israel? How shall I deal with thee? I will make thee as Admah, and as Zeboim.

My heart is turned within me,

my repentings are kindled together;

I will not execute the fierceness of my anger.

I will not utterly forsake Ephraim to be blotted out, for I am God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee. Thou hearest how he declared that he would not deal with them according to the greatness of his wrath, but rather promised beforehand to have compassion.

For those of Israel disobeyed even in the wilderness, when they had come to the very waters of Jordan, and were about to inherit the land of promise.

As I sware in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest. For their carcasses fell in the wilderness, and all were consumed, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

These entered in together with the new people, and passed over the Jordan, and obtained the inheritance that is from God.

And these would be a type of the remnant of Israel, which is saved through the obedience of faith in Christ, and has crossed over the holy Jordan together with us, and is about to inherit the kingdom of the heavens.

The prophet therefore gives thanks, saying:

Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have been as Sodom, and should have been made like unto Gomorrah.

For since Israel had served idols, and had slain the prophets, and had denied Christ, and rather had even killed the Author of life, it was fitting that the God of all things should sentence the whole race to utter destruction.

But since he is good beyond all telling, he preserved the remnant, and they did not become on a par with the Sodomites, who with their whole race and whole household and their very selves

and had a sin hard to wash away.

And it will very rightly be said by us: Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up unto thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation and of the righteous judgment of God.

Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of God, ye people of Gomorrah.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs; and the blood of bulls and of goats I desire not.

Neither shall ye come to appear before me.

For who hath required these things at your hands? Ye shall no more tread my court.

If ye bring fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination unto me; your new moons and sabbaths and the great day I cannot endure; fasting and idleness, and your feasts my soul hateth. Having sufficiently terrified them with the threats of things to come, and having declared to them what would in every way and by all means come to pass in due time, unless they should choose both to think and to do the better things, and to abide by the divine laws, he shifts his discourse for the occasion, and introduces what is profitable, that they, having chosen to think the better things, might be delivered from the penalty impending over them.

For having outraged Christ as in drunken insolence, those of Israel utterly perished; and we say that they fell into this on account of the impiety of those who had been allotted to lead them.

For although they had recognized that he was the heir, they killed him.

For they wished to make his vineyard their own inheritance.

And that, following the perversities of its leaders, apoplectic Israel failed of its hope in Christ, the God of all things confirms, speaking through the voice of the prophets:

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have defiled my inheritance, they have given my desirable portion for a trackless wilderness.

It is become a desolation of destruction. And again:

Because the shepherds became foolish, and sought not the Lord, therefore all the pasture had no understanding, and they were scattered. For the shepherds were truly foolish, and became an occasion of destruction to the peoples under their hand.

And yet, how was it not rather fitting that they, being well instructed as it were through the law and the prophets in the mystery of Christ, should become for the others a way toward believing in him? But, as the Saviour says, they received glory from man, and sought not the glory that is from the only God.

For if they had believed Moses, they would have believed him, for he wrote concerning him.

They have become therefore blind, and guides of the blind.

For this cause also they slipped away and fell into the pits of destruction.

What then? The prophet attempts to reform them with good admonitions,

toward the necessity of choosing to think the better things, and of striving after the words of the Saviour.

And he usefully mingles rebuke with the admonitions to this end, as it were with a remedy variously compounded, healing the wounds of the ill-counsel that is in them.

Therefore, saith he, hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of God, ye people of Gomorrah.

Thou hearest how, to both peoples and rulers, he brings a rod springing at once from love and from a God-loving disposition, and smites their disobedience, which was grievously diseased.

And he likens Jerusalem to those most impious cities, as being full of the utmost abundance of sin, and as having no one at all within herself.

For the God of all things purposed to burn up the cities of the Sodomites, and communicated the matter to Abraham; and he said to him:

Wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked? and shall the righteous be as the wicked? And God promised that if ten righteous men should be found in Sodom, he would restrain his wrath against them.

Therefore also they paid the penalties commensurate with their own impieties.

Such was the Lord-slaying Jerusalem, having a great scarcity of the righteous.

And indeed the prophet Jeremiah made earnest entreaty concerning her:

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see, and know, and seek in her broad places, if ye can find a man, if there be any that doeth judgment and seeketh faith, and I will be merciful unto her, saith the Lord. Since, therefore, she was filthy and stained in manifold ways with the defilements of vileness, and had a great scarcity of the holy, he calls her both Sodom and Gomorrah, and upon the peoples and their leaders he lays the reproach of the uncleanness of the Sodomites.

he says: Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give heed to the law of God, you people of Gomorrah.

And fixing the eye of your own understanding upon the utterances of the all-wise Moses, perceive the mystery of Christ.

For the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brethren, like me;

him you shall hear in all things whatsoever he may speak to you. Hear, therefore, the word of the Lord; give heed to the law of God;

that is, understand for yourselves also the power of the evangelical oracles.

This is what Moses enjoined; for he is a tutor leading to Christ, and the end of the legal ordinances looks toward the mystery that is in him.

But you suppose, he says, that you are well-pleasing to God through your willingness to fulfil the things that lie in types and shadows.

Hear the words of him who once gave you that very law also as he speaks:

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says the Lord.

For if you offer them as to one who is in need, you have strayed from what is fitting, and have failed of the wise and true reckoning.

For the nature that fills all things lacks nothing whatsoever, since all things are hers, and from her they come to all others.

For what have you that you did not receive? This might fittingly be said to the nature that is a created thing.

For I have enough now, he says, and I am filled, nor would I any longer choose the sacrifices that come from them.

For how, tell me, will a ram wholly consumed in the fire profit the God of all? And what pleasure will the fat of lambs bring? And if indeed the blood of goats and bulls be offered, how could God be pleased on this account? For who has required these things from your hands? For even if Moses spoke concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifices, yet even of old this mode of worship was not willed by God.

But since it was necessary to lead them by type and shadow toward the truth, the things in the law were appointed until the time of setting right; therefore, as regards what is truly pleasing to God,

he would not have spoken at all concerning the sacrifices according to the law.

But since the mind of those then being tutored was weak, they were led by the hand through type and the shadow that lies in the letter toward the truth.

But when the time was at hand in which the beauty of the truth had henceforth to be made manifest, the type was superfluous, the shadow unprofitable.

Therefore he says: You shall not continue to tread my court.

If you bring fine flour, it is a vain oblation; incense is an abomination to me.

For we who have been made resplendent by faith in Christ, offering spiritual sacrifices to God, fill his holy courts, that is, the churches.

But the manner of the Jewish worship is altogether unacceptable to Christ in the churches.

For those wishing to offer fine flour mingled with oil, and the sensible incense, would least of all be received.

For we remember God saying concerning himself:

And we indeed celebrate the holy feasts in Christ.

The Jews, however, not departing from the things that lie in types, sound the trumpet on the day of the New Moon, reckon the Sabbath a day of rest, and honour the so-called Great Day.

This is the last day of the feast called the Feast of Tabernacles; and even if they fast to God, they beat the lowly with fists.

Therefore let them hear him saying:

My soul hates your feasts.

He says these things, transferring them from the types to the truth, and persuading them to bow the neck of their understanding to submit to the ordinances given through Christ, so that they might live together with us in the evangelical manner.

gladdening God with spiritual fragrances,

and, as it were, offering up to him as a spiritual incense the fairness in conduct: love, mutual affection, patience, self-control, and above all the rest, faith.

With such sacrifices God is well pleased, and the power of the evangelical ordinances crowns believers with such boasts.

You have become to me a surfeit; I will no longer forgive your sins.

When you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn my eyes away from you.

And even if you multiply your supplication, I will not hear you.

is deemed worthy of a word; nay rather, it comes even to be hated.

And indeed the most wise Solomon says: Withdraw your foot slowly to your friend's house, lest, being sated with you, he come to hate you. Therefore the God of all said to the Jews: I am glutted with the stale shadow, and I now count you burdensome, even should you enter to be seen by me.

I decline even the mere sight of you;

I will no longer forgive your sins.

For of old those of Israel who had impiously turned aside so as to choose to provoke the God of all against themselves, by serving the creation and even worshipping the works of their own hands, were given over to the Babylonians and carried away captive from Judea, and dwelt in the mountains of the Persians and Medes, having endured a bitter and hard-to-bear servitude.

But when the seventieth year was completed for them, the compassionate God again had pity.

And indeed, as it is written in Zechariah, the blessed angel made supplications on their behalf, saying:

Lord Almighty, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, which you have disregarded? This is the seventieth year. And to this God replied: I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy, and with great wrath I am angry against the nations that join in the assault; for whereas I was angry a little, they joined in doing evil. Therefore he then took away their sins, for the people was redeemed and brought back again to their own land.

But after the cross of the Saviour, he no longer promises to forgive them their sins, precisely because long times were to pass over them, inasmuch as they have remained subject to the impulses that spring from wrath.

For that they shall obtain mercy in the last times, being justified together with us by the grace that is in Christ, the sacred writing has proclaimed; but since, as I said, the times of wrath that have come upon them are far longer than those of old,

I will no longer forgive your sins;

and in another way too, if you will, you may apply your mind to the meaning of what lies before us.

Those of Israel used to offer sacrifices according to the ancient law, for their own transgressions.

A kid and a lamb were slaughtered, and God allowed it.

For the law of old was not incapable of aiding those of former times, since the mystery of Christ was being formed in it.

But when Christ appeared, the purification that lies in the type had henceforth to be inoperative, since the truth was now present.

Therefore, that the shadow of the law will not suffice for the forgiveness of those who do not accept the redemption through Christ, he teaches, saying:

I will no longer forgive your sins.

For while the truth was not yet present, he says, I granted that the types could benefit those held liable for sins, doing this out of reverence for the truth; but now that it is present and has been made manifest, the type is powerless, the shadow unprofitable.

And I will no longer forgive your sins; but while you lift up your hands, I will turn away my eyes; and even if you should choose to make ever so many supplications, I will not receive them.

Has then the Maker of all ceased to be kind? Or has God forgotten to have compassion? By no means, he says; for I am, I am kind and good and compassionate, only that not willingly do I turn away my eyes.

For your hands are full of blood.

You hear how he brought against them the charge of murder, keeping silent about their other offences? And yet we shall find them liable to many accusations.

For they heard: Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, a wicked seed, lawless sons.

But since they killed the prophets, and laid their unholy hands upon Christ himself, the Saviour of us all, therefore quite fittingly he brings against them the most grievous charge, the one sufficient for their utter condemnation, saying:

Your hands are full of blood.

And God the Father turns away his face, as not enduring to see the hands of the murderers still stained crimson with the blood of the Son.

Wash yourselves, become clean. Again, bringing them to remembrance of the impieties committed by them, he does not permit them to despair.

And he usefully adds the grace that springs from gentleness.

And he does not exclude from the gift set forth through Christ those throughout all that is under heaven.

For all have turned aside, together they have become worthless. And the world has become liable to God: the nations having served the creation, and those of Israel having transgressed the law given to them through Moses.

But Christ shone upon the nations, and they have been called to his marvellous light;

and those who were once not a people have become a people.

The wretched Jews, however, acted with drunken insolence against Christ, and unholily killed him who is the Author of life, even though he lived again as God.

But since He is good, and wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, He Himself widens the way of salvation and commands that accusations be repelled, since a man is justified freely and not by works of the Law.

Rather, it is through faith and holy baptism; and so He says:

'Wash you, make you clean.' This the ancient Law also foreshadowed for them as in shadows, and it proclaimed beforehand the grace that comes through holy baptism.

For God said somewhere to Moses the hierophant:

'Take the Levites from among the sons of Israel, and thou shalt purify them; and thus shalt thou perform their purification.'

'Thou shalt sprinkle upon them the water of purification, and a razor shall pass over all their body.'

'And they shall wash their garments, and shall be clean.' Then what the water of purification is, most wise Paul will teach, saying:

'For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the defiled, sanctifies unto the purity of the flesh, how much more the blood of Christ?' The Law, then, wrought a fleshly cleansing by means of the water of purification.

For we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit and in fire, which all but melts down every form of the baseness within us, and consumes it as a useless heap of refuse-matter.

This too the blessed Paul makes plain, saying:

'By faith Noah, being warned by God, prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, in which few—that is, eight souls—were saved through water.'

'The like figure whereunto even baptism doth now save us—not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God.' And this very thing He counsels the peoples of the Jews to choose to do, saying:

'Wash you, make you clean'—that is, wipe away the stain, since He who has been outraged by you justifies us out of His gentleness and love toward mankind.

We find, too, that the divinely-inspired Peter rebukes them as having slain the Author of life, and as having asked that a murderer be granted to them—that is, Barabbas.

Nevertheless he rouses them to repentance:

'And now, brethren, I know that ye did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.'

'Repent therefore, and let each of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'

'For to you belong the promises, and to your children.' 'Put away the wickednesses from your souls, from before mine eyes;'

'cease from your wickednesses.' The saving and holy baptism suffices for the washing away of sin, and scours off the stain of what has already been transgressed.

But I say that those once sanctified ought, as far as they are able, to keep their own souls pure and blameless, and to remember Him who says:

'Keep thy heart with all watchfulness.' And again:

'If the spirit of him that hath power rise up against thee, leave not thy place, for healing will lay to rest great sins.' Very many indeed are the pleasures which, looking toward baser things, shake the soul of man; and before all the rest, the law that is inborn and running wild in the members of the flesh;

then, besides these, evil reasonings, which not ignobly ensnare the mind within us toward every form of baseness.

and this not only in the eyes of men, but especially in the eyes of God who knows and beholds all things.

For sometimes they feign to be good, and by pilfering the appearance of fairness, while inwardly they are ravening wolves, according to that which is written.

And concerning every such person, I think, the God of all things speaks through the voice of the prophet Jeremiah, saying:

'Their words were made softer than oil, yet are they darts.' But even though they should make every effort to be able to escape notice, He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn, and the Lord shall mock them.

For He knows—He knows the heart and the reins.

But he who is truly good will be such both with God and with men; for as Paul says:

'Providing things honest, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.' Great, then, is it to remove wickednesses from before the eyes of God.

And perhaps such a one was Nathanael, concerning whom Christ says:

'Behold a true Israelite, in whom is no guile.' 'Cease,' He says, 'from your wickednesses'—that is, forsake the perversity that is bred in you and ingrained, and change your own perversity for the better.

But if Christ says these things and brings such charges against the Jews, thou wilt consider how many things they did in their drunken outrage against Him, setting snares and digging pits.

And, so far as in them lay, and by the force of their devices, they contrived against Him every form of crookedness.

For at one time they sent some of their own disciples, together with those called Herodians, to question and to say:

'Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?' At another time again they came saying, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?'—that they might accuse Him. Let them therefore hear Him saying, 'Put away the wickednesses from your souls, from before mine eyes.'

'Cease from your wickednesses. Learn to do well, seek judgment, deliver him that is wronged, judge for the orphan and justify the widow; and come, let us reason together, saith the Lord.'

'And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.'

'And though they be red like crimson, I will make them white as wool.' Having marked off the feebleness of the worship under the Law, both by saying, 'What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, saith the Lord? I am full,' and by adding to these, 'For who hath required these things at your hands?'—in due season He again sets forth the elegance of the evangelical polity, and reveals the way of the truly holy life, no longer in figures and shadows, but in the very deeds themselves, and in the glories conceived according to virtue which possess true renown.

For what does He say? 'Learn to do well.' Does He then, tell me, one might say, wholly set us free from the commandment of the Law? Does He not permit us to gaze at all upon the things ordained through Moses? Then how did Christ say:

'Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets;'

'I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.' And how too did Paul say:

'So that the Law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good'? To such things again we shall say that the Law is good, if indeed it be understood spiritually; Christ does not remove us wholly from the Law, but rather leads us up to that which is more excellent and better, having first laid down within us, as it were a foundation, the tutelage that comes through the Law, and having shown forth beforehand to the ancients, as a kind of preliminary training for the true worship, those things that were as in shadows and figures.

Otherwise too, this must of necessity be said to these things:

The Law given through Moses teaches men to abstain from baseness and sin, and is indicative of the more shameful things.

'But I had not known sin except through the Law.' But the evangelical proclamation renders us zealous practitioners of every virtue.

Wherefore it might also be fittingly, properly, and truly named the very substance of the good.

being trained, though not yet perfectly revealing what the good ultimately is.

But the requirement not at all to be angry with one's brother, nor even to lust, sets us up in the glories of virtue.

For it is a choice thing to overthrow anger; and admirable toward this end is the power to rein in the desires toward what is base, and not to permit the mind even so much as to enter upon the beginnings of that strange and most abominable desire.

Therefore the good would truly be the evangelical teaching, and the power of the polity that is in Christ.

It must therefore be cried aloud to the friends of the letter, 'Learn to do well, seek judgment'—that is, to judge rightly.

For in addition to all their other absurdities, those who obtained the rule over the synagogue of the Jews were sick with this too, namely, not to make right judgments upon each matter;

but rather to cast their votes unjustly, and to be overcome by bribes and by the pleasure of money, and to sell out the discernment of their unholy counsel to those who wished to do wrong.

For as the prophet says, 'Her leaders judged for bribes.' Necessary, therefore, is the commandment, and not unprofitable unto righteousness for those who wish to live evangelically, namely, to judge rightly—not only in outward matters, but also in those pertaining to the mind and heart.

When God censures baseness, Satan praises it.

And the law of our Saviour persuades us to make the good the object of our love;

but that other draws us toward the contrary.

Then indeed—then—the mind is as it were a judge and arbiter within us;

and having praised the good, and assigned to it the very right to prevail, it has 'sought judgment.'

But having given to baseness the victory, it has come to be outside of judging rightly, and shall justly hear:

'Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;'

'woe unto them that call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter;'

'that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.' A boast of the Gospel, then, is it to judge rightly and to succour those who are wronged.

For this, I think, is the meaning of 'Deliver him that is wronged.' And in addition to this one must practise compassion and impartiality.

'Judge for the orphan,' He says, 'and justify the widow;'

even as the wise Paul writes to us:

'The sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.'

He promises, therefore, to those who are in a manner transferring their moorings from the discipline of the Law, through faith, to the graciousness of the life that is according to Christ, remission of the things already transgressed.

For this is the inlet of our hope, and the firstfruits of the divine gentleness toward us, and as it were a door and a way.

And that the grace which comes through faith will suffice for cleansing even those who are excessively defiled—though these are afflicted with a lesser sickness—he persuades us by saying:

'Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.'

For as Paul says, 'Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.'

'Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?' 'And if ye be willing and hearken unto me, ye shall eat the good of the land.'

'But if ye will not, neither hearken unto me, a sword shall devour you.'

'For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things.' The God of all things once addressed those of Israel through the all-wise Moses, saying:

'Behold, I have set before thy face the way of life and the way of death.' For the path leading to both has been placed within us, and the fruit of each person's inclinations—that is, of his will—may be either to live splendidly and lawfully, or, otherwise, in a manner deserving of blame.

Those who live a chosen life, most dear to God, in every way and altogether arrive at life.

But those who are overcome by pleasures leading to what is base have their end in ruin and destruction.

So then the fruit of obedience will be to eat the good things of the land prepared for the saints, of which our Lord Jesus Christ Himself also makes mention, saying:

'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' But the profitless afterthought of perversity and of a life given to sin, together with the things that come from divine wrath—the sword and destruction, as I have said—and indeed what evils of such a kind are there not? The prophet declares his own word trustworthy by immediately adding that 'the mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things.' And since it is impossible for God to lie (for He ever remains that which He is, namely Truth), how is it not necessary to understand that in every way and altogether the things foretold will come to their fulfilment? Yet it is necessary to observe this: how richly the prophetic word benefits both the souls of those who are still more simple, and indeed also those of the genuine who are already established in faith.

For since the God of all things has placed within the inclinations of those under His tutelage the power to choose the good and to depart from what is base, He has given full assurance that He has committed to each one on earth the reins of what is to be done or not done, and that whichever a man chooses, he will drive toward it with full authority.