Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 49/65

They say that the Babylonians, after the city was taken, buried themselves in dark caves—especially those among them more distinguished than the rest—who, dreading death, after the manner of serpents crept down and hid themselves in every cave and cleft of the rocks, yet were not able to escape notice.

For by this means they were marked out.

And he commanded torches also to be kindled, and those who had fled in fear to be dug out from the dark recesses, and so to be subjected to bitter penalties.

But others say that he emptied out the treasures of the Babylonians which were beneath the earth and hidden.

'You shall therefore be so illustrious and renowned, that you may know that I am the Lord God, who calls your name, the God of Israel, for the sake of Jacob My servant, and Israel My chosen.'

'For I have called you to this,' He says, 'I, the only God, and I have honoured you with such splendid glories, that My household servant Israel, who is Mine, might be well treated by you.'

'I indeed have called you,' He says, 'and crowned you with glories.'

'But you did not know Me, that I am the Lord, and there is none yet beside Me, no God, and you did not know Me';

as though He were plainly saying:

'It was not in recompense for splendid deeds of valour, done with a view to piety, that you received from Me such glory as this;'

'but I have honoured you, though you knew not My deity and pre-eminence, nor were even numbered among those who worship Me, in order that they who are from the rising of the sun, and they who are from its setting, might know that there is none beside Me.'

'For if I should choose,' He says, 'to protect My own, and to accomplish the matter through those who do not know My glory, to the end that all who are throughout the whole earth may clearly know that there is no God beside Me,'

'then wherever I will, I turn the hearts of those upon the earth, so that even those who are not Mine are shown to be ministers of My desires.'

'I therefore am the Lord God, who prepared light and made darkness'—that is, day and night; or rather, light for those who have been redeemed, but darkness for those who have been laid waste.

For the one group rejoiced, as being delivered from their bonds, but the other were in inescapable calamities.

'I am He who makes peace, and creates evils.'

You will understand this too according to the same sense, as I said just now;

and 'evils'—that is, hurtful things, or rather things productive of every kind of affliction—for the cruel and savage ones, for those things that had been brought upon Israel.

For that the matter had grieved God would become plain, since He said through the voice of an angel to the prophet Zechariah:

'I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy, and with great wrath I am angry against the nations that join together in attack; for whereas I was angry but a little, they joined together for evils.' And indeed, as though addressing the Babylonians themselves:

'I gave them into your hands, but you showed them no mercy.' And that it was according to the will of God that Cyrus—bold and all-powerful, and dealing with those who suffered the cruelty befitting them—leapt upon the arrogance of the Babylonians, we shall learn from what He says through the voice of Jeremiah, addressed as it were to Cyrus:

'Bitterly assail her and those who dwell in her; take vengeance with the sword and destroy utterly, says the Lord, and do according to all that I command you.' And in addition to these things He further says:

'The Lord has opened His treasury and brought forth the vessels of His wrath, for there is a work for the Lord in the land of the Chaldeans, because her times have come.'

'Open her storehouses, search her out as a cave, and utterly destroy her.'

'Let there be no remnant of her; dry up all her fruits; let them go down to the slaughter.'

'Woe to them, for their day has come, and the time of their vengeance.' And the prophet Isaiah himself also said somewhere, as from the person of God to the Babylonians:

'Behold, I will stir up against you the Medes, who do not reckon silver, nor have need of gold.'

'They will shatter the bows of the young men, and will not have mercy on your children; nor will their eyes—that is, the eyes of the Medes—spare your children.'

'Let the heaven rejoice from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness;'

'let the earth spring forth, and let it bring forth mercy, and let it spring forth righteousness together.' It is the custom and practice of the God-inspired Scripture in very many places to carry over its discourse from things that have come to pass in particular and in part concerning certain persons, to that which is universal and touches all; and, as from a vivid image of the things done historically, gracefully to lead up the mind of those being instructed to more mystical contemplations.

Which indeed one may also see in the verses now at hand.

For a long discourse has been expended through the foregoing passages concerning Cyrus, the leader of the Persians and Medes, how he laid waste the land of the Babylonians and took it by force, and released Israel from servitude there and from the bonds of captivity;

and how he laid the foundation of the temple in Jerusalem, having been roused up also because God broke down the might of the Chaldeans, opening for him the bronze doors and shattering the iron bars.

But this was a partial narrative.

For it belonged to them alone—that they should be of good cheer and be freed from the toils of captivity—namely to those of the blood of Israel.

But henceforth he transfers the force of the concepts to Emmanuel Himself, who was appointed by God the Father, that He might proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; that He might deliver from evil those who were inescapably bound fast by the chains of their own sins, and, having shown them free from the tyranny of the devil, might prepare those upon the earth to run back to Himself, and so through Himself bring them near to God the Father.

For He became the mediator between God and men, and through Him we have obtained reconciliation in one Spirit unto the Father, and He Himself is our peace, according to the Scriptures;

He Himself built up the divine—that is, His own—temple;

that is, the Church.

For He Himself presented her to Himself a pure virgin, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but rather holy and blameless.

Therefore, as in an image—in Cyrus and in the things done by him—one may very well behold the God-befitting achievements graciously given by God to those throughout all the earth.

This, then, is the aim of the matters set before us.

And we shall interpret each of the things written, part by part, as best we can.

'The heaven from above,' He says—that is, those who inhabit the city above and possess the bright and admirable dwelling-place: angels and archangels, and those beyond these, thrones and authorities, and the rational powers, and the attendants of the highest seats.

And we say that an occasion of gladness has come even to the fathers in heaven themselves: the turning of those who have gone astray on earth back to God—the turning, I mean, that comes through Christ the Saviour of us all, the recovery of sight to the blind, and in a word the salvation of those who were lost.

For if they rejoice over one sinner who repents, how is it lawful to doubt that they are gladdened and rejoice when they see all that is under heaven saved? Therefore, He says, let the heaven from above rejoice, and let the clouds also rain down righteousness.

And we say that the clouds, spiritually understood, are the powers above, through whom the consolations that come by the Spirit are sent down after the manner of rain and drip into the hearts of those who believe; according to what is clearly said elsewhere, as concerning a vineyard, about those of Israel:

'And I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon them;'

that is to say, the holy mystagogues themselves, and those upon the earth—of whom the first and firstfruits were the inspired disciples, who, going about the whole earth, scattered abroad the divine and sacred word, and gladdening those everywhere as though a thirsty and unfruitful land, and, as it were, spiritually watering them, became for them the occasion of spiritual fruitfulness.

Therefore, since the Jews were such—and moreover had become murderers of the Lord and had insolently outraged Christ Himself, the giver of the spiritual streams—God commanded the clouds not to give the rains upon them; but upon those who believe in Him they are ordered to send them down and to water abundantly the hearts of those who come to Him.

When the rains are sent down, He says, let the earth spring forth, and let it bring forth mercy, and let it spring forth righteousness together. For it was necessary, as I said, that when the spiritual clouds watered that which is under heaven with the teachings unto righteousness, good fruits should, as from good seeds, come to light and spring up.

For just as, when the inventor of sin held sway over the earth and, through the wise of this world, was everywhere sowing abominable and profane seeds, there was none that did good, there was not so much as one, but all had turned aside and together become worthless, and the whole earth was destitute of the fruits of equity, since the teachings of righteousness had not yet been sent down after the manner of rain to those everywhere;

so, for the rest, it was fitting that there should be the fruits of piety toward God;

and we say that mercy is love, which is the fulfilment of the law, righteousness accompanying it as well—and altogether, doubtless, the righteousness that is of the Gospel;

of which Christ Himself became for us both the dispenser and the teacher.

And one might say that the mercy and righteousness which rise up from the earth, or which spring forth, is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

For He became for us from God the Father mercy and righteousness;

if indeed it is true that we obtained mercy in Him and have been justified, having received the remission of our ancient charges—that is, that we received from Him the righteousness able to bring us up to the attainment of every good, through which also we have been saved.

But if the earth is commanded to make righteousness spring up, let no one be indignant, considering that the Psalmist too says somewhere concerning God the Father, and concerning Emmanuel Himself:

'He wrought righteousness in the midst of the earth.' For Christ did not bring down His own flesh to us from above and from heaven, but rather was born according to the flesh from a woman, who also became one of those upon the earth.

When, therefore, He is said to have become a fruit and a springing-up of the earth, you will understand, as I said, that He became according to the flesh from a woman taken for this service, though she was one of those from the earth.

'I am the Lord your God who created you;'

...of us, and to count worthy of so great a sparing those who are upon the earth, as to give up His own soul as a ransom in exchange;

or rather even to endure to take the form of the servant, and to exchange the small and lowly estate of human nature for the highest glory.

For this reason He says 'I am'—which is now to be taken in the sense of 'I subsist and live,' being true God and Lord of the powers, having brought all things into being, and not having made death, but rather having created all things unto incorruption.

Then, honouring human nature, and because none at all of all the living creatures upon the earth could be set on a par with it, He says: 'What better thing did I fashion like the clay of a potter?' For we were moulded by Him, when He took dust from the earth and, like a potter, shaped it exceedingly well.

But the dignity of human nature does not stop at these things; rather there is something greater in us, a stranger's gift and a present of God's fine craftsmanship.

For we were made according to His image and likeness, and we have been enriched with the character of His glory, spiritually flashing forth in our souls, even though according to the flesh we are earth and of the earth.

Therefore man is no contemptible creature upon the earth, but rather an admirable one;

and thus God takes pride in him.

And indeed He said to the most sorely-tried Job, setting His own great works clearly before him:

'Lord, what is man, that You are mindful of him? or the son of man, that You visit him?' Then he sets forth the conspicuous glory of human nature, saying:

'You made him a little lower than the angels;'

'with glory and honour You crowned him, and set him over the works of Your hands.'

'You put all things in subjection under his feet.' Now the all-wise Paul applied some of the verses set before us to Christ.

But it might not unfittingly be said also of every man such as we are;

for there is nothing false in them.

'Will the plowman plow the whole earth all the day? Will the clay say to the potter:'

'What are you doing, that you do not work, nor have hands?' He who says to the father:

'What will you beget?' and to the mother:

'What will you travail in birth with?' Deep indeed is the saying, and overshadowed with much obscurity; yet you shall know at once its usefulness and truth;

and I think it necessary to unfold beforehand a little the aim of the thoughts.

For thus it will be easy to grasp and readily acceptable to the hearers.

Therefore the God of all redeemed Israel out of Egypt, and delivered him also from the error of polytheism and from the deceit of the demons, bringing him back by the law given through Moses into the light of the true knowledge of God.

For He taught them to serve one God, and to worship one Lord;

then, through types and shadow, He willed to lead them up to things yet greater and more perfect—that is, to the things in Christ.

For the law was a tutor, and it was laid down only until the time of reformation;

and this time was that of the sojourning of our Saviour Jesus Christ, when, having removed the shadow of the legal ordinances and the types in the letter, He brought in to those upon the earth the beauty of the worship that is in spirit and in truth, nakedly and without covering.

But at this very thing the Jews were vexed, and still advocating the types, they resisted Christ and accused Him of the abolition of the Mosaic ordinances, sometimes saying:

'If this man were from God, he would not have broken the Sabbath;' and sometimes hurling at Him words yet worse.

Therefore, since they refused to accept the benefit of the evangelical proclamations—the benefit that would raise them from the profitless shadow into spiritual fruitfulness—for this very reason He says:

'Will the ploughman plough the ground the whole day long?' O senseless ones, He says;

for the husbandman does indeed cut open the tilled soil with his ploughs, yet he does not do this without end, nor will he spend the entire season of his husbandry upon the ploughs alone,

but rather that, once it has received the seeds, the ground may also be seen to bear fruit.

Therefore the hearts of us all, once overgrown with weeds and as it were left fallow, I have first laboured over, using the Law given through Moses like a plough; and cutting them open after the manner of a farmer, I make them fit for the sowing of good seeds.

And the sower of every good thing is my own Son.

Receive, then, what comes from Him, and do not wish to cling forever to and to love the ploughing Law.

For it ploughed, as I have said, not in order that you might merely possess this;

for what benefit would there be from that? but rather that you might bring forth the fruits of the truth.

But since we too have been spiritually remoulded in Christ, that is, transformed in our very elements—some of us from Greek error into the knowledge of the truth and into a holy life, that which comes through Christ the Saviour of us all;

while those from the circumcision were transformed into the reception of the evangelical teachings and into a newness of worship, no longer possessing the joylessness of the types, but rather with the most seemly beauty of the spiritual shining forth;

and this came to us and to them, having been enriched with the regeneration through water and spirit in Christ;

but likewise to the peoples of the Jews this very grace bestowed upon these was cast off and unacceptable;

for they set themselves against, as I have said, the oracles that came from Christ.

'Shall the clay say to the potter,

What are you making, since you do not labour, nor have you hands? He that says to his father:

What will you beget? and to his mother:

What will you bring forth in travail?' For I, He says, wish to reshape them for the better, and as it were to remould them toward what is more excellent through a spiritual begetting, that is assuredly the begetting through water and spirit.

But you senselessly oppose my counsels.

Did then the clay, He says, ever rebuke the potter, as though he had no craftsman's hand, or as though he did not know in what manner he must shape what is in his hands? But has he who is about to be born, He says, ever put a question to his own father, 'Will you beget?' Then how is it that you, being as clay in the potter's hands, and not knowing at all in what manner the spiritual regeneration concerning you shall be, are not afraid to contend? and have you not rather resolved to yield to Him, as to a craftsman and a father, the manner in which these things shall come to pass? For that the Jews contended against the words of the Saviour, which He spoke to them about these matters, is not at all hard to perceive.

'Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born of water and spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' But he who senselessly leapt upon things beyond the mind rose up in opposition, saying:

'Can a man who is old enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?' And to these he added yet another mystery: 'How can these things be?' What then does Christ say to this? 'If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?' It is therefore necessary to yield to whatever God may say.

He Himself knows the way of His own works; and the things wrought by Him are not to be pried into, but with unwavering faith it becomes us, according to our measure, to honour the things that are beyond the mind.

And it is to be known that the prophet Jeremiah too was sent to the house of the potter, to behold him at his craft;

and when the clay had fallen apart and was remoulded into another vessel, God said to him:

'May I not do to you, O house of Israel, as this potter does? Behold, as the clay of the potter, so are you in my hands.' And that we are also spiritually remoulded into a holy and altogether beautiful life, Paul will make clear, saying:

'But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit;' through whom we also are regenerated, having a sowing no longer corruptible, but that which is through the living and abiding word of God.

'For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, who made the things that are to come:

Ask me concerning my daughters, and concerning my sons, and concerning the works of my hands give me command.'

'I made the earth, and man upon it.'

'I with my hand established the heaven.'

In these words a rendering of a higher meaning is seen to have come about.

The sense of the verses is as follows:

For if the clay, He says, ever rebuked the potter, and charged the hand of him who moulded it as being unskilled or somewhat too slothful;

if anyone busied himself curiously about those not yet existing or born, but expected to be born—as to what sort of children their own father would be the sower;

then do you also ask me, you who in due seasons shall be my sons and daughters:

how might it come about, and in what manner you shall be sons and daughters to me.

'Give me command also concerning the works of my hands.'

The word 'command,' He says, stands for 'ordain'; and, as though to one who does not know the way of what must be done, do not shrink from giving counsel to God.

Worthy of all admiration, then, and very fittingly, the all-wise Paul wrote thus:

'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!'

'How unsearchable are his judgments,'

'and his ways past finding out!'

But there would be nothing among our affairs that is impossible or beyond her power.

For she can do all things, possessing all-might;

or rather, she herself is all power.

For the God of all is Lord of the powers, and He alone by Himself knows the way of His own works.

Therefore the things of Him are not to be pried into, and the things that are beyond mind and reason are unattainable indeed to the understandings of men, yet are known to Him.

And so we believe that the spiritual regeneration through water and spirit has been given to those who have come to know the appearing of Christ.

Since Christ wished to make the grace plain to Nicodemus, He set forth the way of the matter;

but he, understanding nothing of what was said, denounced the words of the Saviour as impossible.

And He, to one so disposed in mind, urged him to receive the wonder by faith, saying:

'What we know we speak, and what we have seen we testify.' Therefore, if we do not understand the way of the divine works, freeing our own mind from all doubt, let us say to God:

'I know that you can do all things, and nothing is impossible to you;'

let us not question Him concerning His daughters and His sons.

Nor indeed let us give command, that is, ordain to Him concerning the works of His hands;

but as clay to the potter let us yield it to Him to do what seems good.

For He transfers our affairs without toil to whatever He wills, and remoulds the mind from the baser things to the better, and puts within us a new heart, having uprooted the former one.

And indeed He said something of this kind through the voice of Ezekiel, that: 'I will pluck out their heart of stone from their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh,' that is, tender and pliable, that they may know me, that I am the Lord. For departing from all baseness and defilements, and then refashioning their own understanding to fulfil what He wills,

and having received in addition to this also the spiritual regeneration from water and Spirit, we shall become sons and daughters of God.

For that all-might is His, He shows plainly, saying:

'I made the earth and man upon it.'

And He who is the deviser of man's origin, who brought into being that which once was not, how shall He be too weak for the spiritual reshaping? and is it not plain that at His own nod the nature of created things would pass over into anything whatsoever that is according to His will? What is there paradoxical if He remoulds the understanding of man to what seems good, He who with His own hand established the heaven? Yet we affirm the all-working hand of the Father to be the Son, through whom are all things, and in whom are all things.

'For by the word of the Lord,' He says, 'the heavens were established.'

He Himself gave command to all the stars—that is, ordained—how each of them must be.

For the sun is set for the rule of the day, and the moon for that of the night.

'The sun knows his going down.'

'Thou didst establish the sun and the moon.' Each of these, therefore, accomplishes the course appointed to it with well-ordered movement and in measured intervals of the hours.

And likewise the rest of the stars, according to the law given to them by God, rise in their seasons and set.

It was to them that God, being by nature also the Creator and Lord of all things, gave command.

I have raised him up to be a king with righteousness.

All his ways are straight.

He shall build my city, and shall bring back the captivity of my people, not with ransom nor with gifts, says the Lord of Sabaoth. Now some might perhaps say that these things were spoken concerning Cyrus the son of Cambyses, both because he released Israel and set them free from the bonds of captivity, and also because he laid the foundations of the temple in Jerusalem.

But rather the contemplation of what follows will establish the force of these thoughts as bearing not upon him, but upon Christ the Saviour of us all, who has been raised up with righteousness.

For he who is God and Lord has shone upon us, when it pleased God the Father to sum up all things in him, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth.

Therefore he has been raised up with righteousness—not a righteousness that is acquired or taught, but being himself the very righteousness itself.

And it is written elsewhere too concerning him:

Behold, a righteous king shall reign, and rulers shall rule with judgment. For the Only-begotten Word of God was always king of all together with God the Father, having under his feet the whole creation, visible and invisible; but when man upon the earth had rebelled against the kingdom under him and had made light of his sceptre, coming thereby under the hand of the devil and being entangled in the snares of sin, he who is both the arbiter and the giver of all righteousness once more brought him under his own yoke.

For all his ways are straight.

And we say that the ways of Christ are the divine and evangelical ordinances, through which, advancing into every virtue and adorning our heads with the boasts of piety, we come to the prize of the upward calling.

For there is nothing crooked or perverted in them, but they are as it were upright and easy to travel.

For it is written that the way of the godly has become straight, and the way of the godly has been made ready. For the path of the law was somehow rough, passing through many types and no small difficulty, but the way through the evangelical ordinances is smooth, having nothing at all of the steep or the rough.

The ways of Christ, then, are straight, and he himself built the holy city, that is, the Church, in which he himself also dwells;

for he dwells among the saints, and we have become temples of the living God, having Christ within us through participation in the Holy Spirit.

He has therefore laid the foundation of the Church, being himself the foundation, upon which we too are built up as costly and precious stones into a holy temple, into a dwelling-place of God in the Spirit.

And the Church is altogether unshaken, having Christ as its foundation and its immovable base;

for behold, he says, I lay the foundations of Zion, a chosen stone, a corner-stone, precious, and he who believes in him shall never be put to shame. He, then, who laid the foundation of the Church, also brought back the captivity of his people.

For when we upon the earth were tyrannized by Satan and by sin, he saved us and delivered us and brought us under his own yoke;

yet not with ransom, nor with gifts.

Thus says the Lord of Sabaoth:

tall men shall cross over to you, and shall be your servants, and they shall follow after you bound with fetters, and they shall bow down to you and shall pray in you.

For in you is God, and there was no God besides you.

For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Saviour.

All who oppose him shall be ashamed and confounded, and shall walk in shame. Having first introduced the discourse concerning Christ the Saviour of us all, and having foretold that he will bring back his people not with ransom nor with gifts, he straightway shows forth those who are to be called to redemption—clearly, that is, those from among the nations, upon whom especially Christ is seen to have shone.

I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Yet upon those first he flashed forth the divine and evangelical light.

But since, as it is written, the beloved Israel grew fat and thick and kicked (for they slew the Author of life);

on this account also, and very reasonably, Christ shone upon the flocks of the nations, and this very thing we shall find contained in the contemplation of the passages before us.

And he names those of the nations that are of all peoples the most given to superstition, in order that the power of him who calls them to repentance may be marvelled at.

For just as then above all the skill of those who know how to heal is praised, whenever they are able, using their own experience at the right moment, to rid of their sufferings some who are ill with maladies given up as hopeless;