Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 60/65

to those upon the earth, that we might be enriched by his poverty; that, having believed in him, we might wash away the defilements of sin — since the Law given through Moses was powerless to be able to take away sins — that by the death of his own flesh he might abolish death, and overturn corruption, and forge anew unto incorruption those held fast by death, and make the man upon the earth a citizen of heaven, and join through himself to God the Father the one who was long a fugitive, and proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and heal those broken in heart, and empty Hades, and remove Satan from his rule and rapacity over all.

My servant, then, shall understand, he says.

For there is nothing whatsoever devoid of understanding — that is, devoid of wisdom — in the things that were done for our sake.

For he made all things in wisdom, according to the voice of the Psalmist.

For this cause, he says, he shall be exalted, and shall be glorified exceedingly.

And that this is so according to truth, we have believed.

But so that the word from God the Father might be entirely true and beyond all reproach, he necessarily added that: As many shall be astonished at you, so shall your form be dishonored, without glory from men, and your glory from men.

For those who have recognized his manifestation, and have been able to behold with the eyes of the mind the greatness of the God-befitting authority that is in him, are astounded at the dispensation;

such as was the prophet Habakkuk, when he said:

Lord, I have heard the report of you, and I was afraid;

I considered your works, and I was amazed. But those who did not understand his glory, but remained unbelieving and without understanding, unholily condemned him to dishonor and disgrace, naming him a Samaritan, a glutton and a drunkard, and one born of fornication, and, besides these, a sinner.

Therefore, as many shall be astonished at you, so also among men shall your form be dishonored, and your glory from men.

But just as this shall come to pass, so also shall many nations marvel at you, and kings shall shut their mouths.

For the all-daring Jews, though themselves worthy of no account, dared to mock him utterly, and often, letting loose against him their unbridled tongue, assailed him with impious and reviling words.

But very many kings, fearing him as God, and offering glory to him as to the King of all, shall shut their mouths — that is, they shall say nothing discordant, nor shall they utter any of those things which do injury to the glory of Christ.

And that the divine and sacred and saving proclamation — that is, the evangelical one — shall not come at all from among those with whom his form was dishonored, but rather from among those who shut their mouths and were struck with wonder at his glory, he made plain by saying that: Those to whom nothing was announced concerning him shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand.

For the things concerning Christ were announced to those of Israel through both the Law and the prophets, but to the nations by no means.

But these, he says, shall rather see the salvation that is from him;

and those wholly deaf to his mysteries — these shall understand them, having believed, of course.

For faith is the root and the nurse of understanding, and, as it were, the gateway that brings those who receive it into godliness and life.

And so the prophet Isaiah says: If you do not believe, neither will you understand.

Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We announced before him as a plain, as a root in a thirsty land. Much and continual has ever been the discourse of the holy prophets concerning the Savior of us all, and they did not cease to admonish and to announce very clearly, both that the Word, being God, would come in due seasons in human form, and that he would work wonders in a manner befitting God.

And both that and this he accomplishes: calling those who have gone astray into the straight road, and justifying by faith the ungodly.

But these prophecies profited very little those of the blood of Israel, who looked much toward disobedience;

for instead of seizing the prophetic foretelling, and gathering life-giving knowledge, and laying it up in their own hearts, they on the contrary leaped upon the mystagogues and fell upon them, saying most bitterly:

Speak other things to us, and announce to us another delusion. And so the prophet Jeremiah, as if borne down into despondency by the immeasurable cruelty of the Jews, says somewhere thus:

As what manner of man did you bear me, one being contended with and judged in all the earth? I neither profited any, nor did anyone profit me.

My strength failed among those who curse me. And, to sum up, the whole choir of the saints, as making their discourse concerning Jerusalem, say:

We would have healed Babylon, but she was not healed.

Let us forsake her, and let each of us depart to his own land;

for her judgment has drawn near to heaven, it has been lifted up as high as the stars. For in these words they name Jerusalem 'Babylon,' as being eager to imitate the ways of that city, and falling in no way short of the country of the nations — at least as regards degeneracy, and the refusal to endure honoring the Law, that is, the profit of the prophetic tutelage.

This same sense is what the force of the verses now before us also holds.

For he brings the charge against Israel as having wholly turned aside to disobedience, and he says:

But no one has believed, and to no one has your arm been made manifest, O arm of the Lord and God of all.

It is the custom of the God-inspired Scripture to call the Son the arm of God the Father, as has been shown in very many places.

But as though someone were objecting and saying:

You indeed, O prophets, have received the hearing that comes through the Spirit, and have been enriched with the knowledge of the mystery;

did you then proclaim the mystery to the rest? Yes, they say, we announced it, and we did all but solemnly testify, saying: We shall be before him as a plain—that is, as a field flourishing and fruitful, or even as a root in a thirsty land—the Only-begotten watering us, that is, with divine and ineffable words, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.

For of old the whole earth was, as it were, dry and barren, and like a thirsty land, having no cultivated fruits.

But since it has been enriched with the rain from Christ—the spiritual rain, that is—and with the supply that comes through the Holy Spirit, we flourished like a root, that is, like a fair and blossoming herb.

And indeed one of the holy prophets said to us:

And all the nations shall call you blessed, because you shall be a land in which is my delight, says the Lord Almighty. And by 'the land of my delight' he means the fruitful and most fertile;

for such a land is welcome to husbandmen.

And that the once thorn-bearing, dry, and waterless land has been transformed into the most fertile, and into the ability to abound in spiritual harvests, the God of all makes clear, speaking through the voice of Isaiah:

And it shall be, instead of the bramble the cypress shall come up, and instead of the fleabane the myrtle shall come up. For the bramble and the fleabane are kinds of thorns, and the dry and waterless land somehow ever nourishes them;

but the myrtle and the cypress are conspicuous in gardens.

When the thorn, then, has been removed, he says, the most fragrant of plants will thereafter spring up, when the thirsty land [or

thirsting] becomes watered, God saying: I will make the desert into marshes, and the thirsty land into water-conduits.

I will set in the waterless land the cedar, and the box-tree, and the myrtle, and the cypress, and the white poplar.

Therefore we announced that, having believed in Christ himself, we shall be before him—that is, being watched over by him—as a plain, as a root, that is, as an herb in a land once thirsty, yet made watered by him.

He has no form nor glory;

and we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty.

Come then, let us again consider this, as best we can.

For he confessed that 'We also announced,' that is, we made the foretelling complete, how he would come in due season.

But perhaps someone might say to this:

What then, if the Word, being God, came down from the heavens crowned with glory befitting God, and, resplendent in unapproachable light, appeared to those on the earth, and was unable to be looked upon because of the excess of his glory? And indeed, when he came in the form of fire upon Mount Sinai, there was darkness, and gloom, and tempest, and fire darting on high, and smoke, and very many other things besides these, productive of terror and dismay in the extreme, so that the sight became unbearable to those who beheld it.

And indeed those of Israel begged that there should be a mediator, saying to the most excellent Moses:

You speak to us, and let not God speak to us, lest we die. There is no wonder, then, he says, if you indeed foretold him, but he was seen by those on earth having glory that cannot be looked upon, and became bearable to no one.

What then do the prophets do? Warmly they meet the objection, saying:

The disobedience is without excuse, the apostasy has no pretext, he has no form nor glory.

For he was not, he says, in form and in glory befitting God.

For he emptied himself, being made in the likeness of men;

and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself.

And these things we say, not having the tradition from hearsay alone, but having beheld with our very own eyes the one who is proclaimed.

We saw him, and he had no form nor beauty—beauty, that is, that befits God—but his form was dishonored.

For human things are small, and cheap, and utterly dishonored, in comparison with the divine and supreme excellence, and the surpassingly bright beauty of the nature that is above all things;

Fair in beauty beyond the sons of men.

Failing beyond all men—clearly, that is, his form—as though they had also said:

For it is possible to see certain men among mankind conspicuous for the brilliance of their dignities;

raised on high by the retinues that come from wealth, and given wide room, or in some other manner being among earthly eminences.

But Emmanuel was not among these, but in a small and abased station, so as to seem inferior to other men.

For he did not spring from a wealthy mother, the holy Virgin, but passed through all lowly things, that he might exalt what is lowly, and render enviable what is dishonored.

And for another reason too: being God the Lord and King of all, what need would he have had of the splendor found among men? A man in stripes, and knowing how to bear infirmity;

because his face is turned away, he was dishonored, and was not esteemed. Having said, 'We also saw him, and he had no form nor beauty,' in what condition of countenance they beheld the one proclaimed, they clearly declare.

For he resembles, they say, a man who is indeed in stripes, yet nobly bears infirmity, that is, ill-treatment.

For perhaps they beheld the countenance of the Savior downcast, and as of one in tumults and dismay, seeing that he was already about to suffer death upon the tree;

when he also said, at one time: Now is my soul troubled; and again at another:

My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.

And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour;

but for this cause I came to this hour. And one of the holy evangelists said that, when the time was drawing near at which he was about to suffer, he began to be sorrowful and sore troubled.

For although being God by nature, the Only-begotten Word of the Father, and being incapable of sufferings, and grief, and, in a word, of all such things, he yet permitted our nature not to be without feeling when temptation assailed it, proving through all things that he became like us, and was not—as some thought fit to imagine—a shadow and phantom seen upon earth, but became man in very truth.

And his face is turned away, he says.

And the phrase 'is turned away' stands for 'was put to shame,' he was dishonored, and was not esteemed.

For Pilate indeed sent Jesus to Herod;

but he, it says, having set him at nought, sent him back.

For he reckoned Jesus to be nothing, and his face was also dishonored—clearly when the spittings were cast upon him, and Pilate's soldiers beat him down, and said:

Prophesy to us, Christ, who is it that struck you. And he was dishonored in another way too, enduring the injuries of scourges, and the blows from the servants.

He said, then, through the voice of Isaiah:

I gave my back to scourges, and my cheeks to blows, and I did not turn my face away from the shame of spittings. Therefore, as I said, the divinely-inspired prophets seem, clearly in the vision that comes through the Holy Spirit, to have seen the Son—that is, his face not freed from a dejection befitting a man—inasmuch as the time was already at hand at which he had to suffer, that by the death of his own flesh he might abolish death, having removed sin from the world.

He bears our sins, and is in pain for us;

and we accounted him to be in trouble, and in stripes, and in affliction.

But he was wounded for our sins, and was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his stripe we were healed.

We all like sheep went astray;

a man went astray in his own way, and the Lord delivered him up for our sins. Our Lord Jesus Christ endured the cross, despising the shame, and became obedient to the Father unto death, and bore with the impiety of the Jews, that, as I said just now, he might take away the sin of the world, since the letter of the law—that is, the worship according to the law—had no power to accomplish anything toward this.

For it was impossible that the blood of goats and bulls should take away sins.

He suffered indeed outside the gate, that, as Paul says, he might sanctify the people through his own blood;

for he suffered, not rather for himself—far be it indeed—but for all that is under heaven.

And the all-wise Paul will bear witness, writing concerning God the Father, that: He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, that with him also he might freely give us all things. And he himself somewhere says, through the lyre of the Psalmist, to the Father and God who is in the heavens:

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.

In whole burnt offerings and offerings for sin you took no pleasure, then I said:

In the roll of the book it is written concerning me, that I should do, O God, your will—this I desired. For since the worship according to the law was of no avail to those on earth for the taking away of sins, seeing that ox-sacrifices and slaughterings of sheep were undesired by God, the true Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world, offered himself for a fragrance of sweet savor on our behalf;

then, having endured the death of the flesh, he set free the whole world under heaven from both death and sin.

For One who is worthier than all suffered on behalf of all, that He might have dominion over all and reign as King.

And Paul confirms this again in what he writes:

One died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Rightly, then, does the prophet say that this One who is stricken, who knows how to bear infirmities, who has His face turned away, who is dishonoured and not esteemed, bears our sins and suffers pain for us; and we accounted Him to be in travail, and in stripes, and in affliction. Consider once more, I pray you, with what consummate skill the prophetic word here proceeds.

For he takes on the persona of those who did not know the mystery of Christ, but supposed that in His suffering He had become subject to it as one paying the penalty of His own sins.

For we accounted Him, he says, to be in travail, and in stripes, and in affliction; that is, we supposed that this suffering had befallen Him as sent from God, as on account of certain sins, and that for the sake of that sin He came to be in travail, and in stripes, and in affliction.

...for us, and He was bruised for our iniquities.

Then he gives further reasons as well, from which one may see that it was for the sake of our salvation and life that He who knew no sin came to be in suffering.

For in time past we stood at enmity with God, fighting against His sacred laws, refusing to bear the yoke of obedience, and shunning to serve Him.

But it was necessary, he says, that those who had slipped into such insolence should be corrected with the scourge;

that, departing from evil deeds, we might dissolve our enmity and be at peace with God, by bending our neck to Him and endeavouring to accomplish what is pleasing to Him.

But this chastisement, he says, which it were rather fitting should be laid upon those who had sinned, that they who warred against God might be reconciled, came upon Him.

And this, I think, is the meaning of: The chastisement of our peace was upon Him.

And he sets forth the sense of the passage more plainly by immediately adding: By His stripes we are healed.

For He suffered, as I said, on our behalf.

For we all like sheep went astray;

each man has gone astray in his own way; and the Lord delivered Him up for our sins.

We, therefore, went astray; we departed from the living God, following after our own pleasures.

But the Lord of all, that is, God the Father, on account of our sins delivered Him up, that He might free us from judgement and save those who believe.

And knowing this, Christ Himself said:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For as the rain comes down, or the snow from heaven, and does not return until it has saturated the earth, and made it bring forth and bud, and given seed to the sower and bread for food;

so shall the word be that goes forth out of My mouth;

it shall not return until it has accomplished all that I willed. As by a clear example most familiar to all, he seeks to give full assurance of how great is the power of His purposes.

For rain or snow falls from heaven, and no one could hinder what is sent down by God;

rather, the purpose of Him who sends it down runs on to its fulfilment;

for He makes all the earth fruitful, so that the husbandmen come to have great abundance both of seed and of food.

For when the season comes in which the well-nourished ear of grain may spring up from the earth, the husbandmen seek not only what may suffice for food, but also whatever may again be enough for them when the season summons them to their needful toil.

Even so, He says, no one could shut up My word, nor could it turn back—that is, it shall not cease—until it has come to the fulfilment of what seems good to Me.

For as the prophet Isaiah says: What God the Holy One has purposed, who shall scatter it, and His uplifted hand, who shall turn it back? For who shall be so great as to withstand the divine decrees and rise up against the sovereign counsels? No one at all.

Therefore, whatever proceeds out of the mouth of Him who is in truth God, this shall wholly and in every way run on to its fulfilment;

for it belongs to Him to be able to accomplish all things, and, beyond this, to be incapable of falsehood.

Yet God the Father sent down to us who are on earth a certain rain, as it were divine and spiritual—the consolation that comes through Christ, or rather the bountiful supply of the gospel proclamations—through which the whole earth has become fruitful and most productive.

You have visited the earth, and made it drunk with water; You have greatly enriched it;

saturate its furrows, multiply its produce; in its raindrops it shall rejoice as it springs up. And indeed, through the voice of Moses too He says: My utterance shall come down like rain, and let My words descend like the dew. And the all-wise Paul also writes to certain ones:

...that we may have the life-giving bread, and moreover also seed for the sower.

For those who preside over the peoples, and are skilled in the sacred doctrines, and are able to instruct others, and weave for the peoples under their charge the word of mystagogy, sow in their hearts the seed which they have stored up for them, having first heaped it up in their own souls.

For as the all-wise Paul says: We are God's husbandry; for we are fellow-workers with God who sows in us both accurate knowledge of doctrinal skill, and understanding of a holy manner of life, and a longing for every good thing;

and this One is Christ, who indeed says concerning Himself:

The sower went forth to sow his seed. And I will make My ways and My commandments prosper.

For with gladness shall you go forth, and with joy shall you be taught. Having promised that they shall by all means and in every way obtain mercy, once they have washed off the filth of sin, and then, having become clean, shall be joined to Him spiritually—and that those who were far off shall be near, and shall be enriched by His bounties—and having inserted in the midst the things by which they might be able to believe that He is also incapable of falsehood, being God by nature and Lord of the powers, He takes up again what follows, namely the enumeration of the spiritual gifts of grace that shall be given to them.

For I will make My ways and My commandments prosper, He says;

this is a great and estimable good, and a gift from heaven;

For to those who wish to transfer from worldly pleasure-seeking into a seemly life, the matter is not without ruggedness,

nor even passable at the beginning.

For the sweetness of ingrained habit sets itself against them, as it were, and drowns with sorrows the mind that is in them.

For the passions of the flesh are not easily escaped, nor is the running toward virtue an easy course even for those who are willing.

But when God makes the way prosper, and renders the difficult and steep places smooth and easy to travel, one may very readily escape even the assaults of the passions, and most vigorously leap up to the heights of the virtues.

The high mountains are for the deer. What then does God promise to those who believe in Him? I will make My ways and My commandments prosper, and you shall not go forth in sorrow, but you shall be taught with joy.

This, I think, is what the prophetic Scripture said again elsewhere:

The way of the godly became straight, and the way of the godly was made ready. For the way of the Lord is judgement.

And another of the holy prophets says: Straight are the ways of the Lord, and the righteous shall walk in them, but the ungodly shall be weak in them. For unless God smooths their ways for them, they could not have strength to travel through them.

That it is, as I said, a gift from heaven to be able to walk the divine ways and to fulfil the commandments, by which one might make one's way to God, He taught, speaking as concerning the Synagogue of the Jews:

Therefore, He says, when I make the commandments prosper, you shall go forth with gladness; that is, you shall be superior to sorrow, you shall not be bitten at heart, being come outside the passions, and hastening over to the better and admired life.

How sweet, he says, are Your oracles to my throat!

sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth. And he affirmed that he rather rejoiced over them, and very sensibly so, as over all wealth;

and they might be understood as going forth in joy in yet another way;

for, being delivered from the ancient deception, they seize with joy the calling that comes from God; and that this is true one may see from the very facts.

For the mountains and the hills shall leap up, receiving you with joy, and all the trees of the field shall clap with their branches; and instead of the thornbush shall come up the cypress, and instead of the bramble shall come up the myrtle.

By mountains here he perhaps means the powers that are above and in heaven, which indeed have been appointed by God for the succour of those upon the earth.

For they are ministering spirits, sent forth to serve for the sake of those who shall inherit salvation; and they rejoice even over one sinner who repents.

Yea, and they might fittingly be likened to mountains, inasmuch as they have obtained to be exceedingly lofty in respect of the greatness of the virtue that is in them.

Or else you shall take as mountains those who hold the teaching office in the Churches, and who think nothing of things that grovel on the ground, but rather seek the things above, and have leapt up away from earthly things;

and as hills, those who are surpassed by their eminence, and who, as it were, are seated beneath their glory.

For there are degrees in the Churches, both of honour and of ministries;

these, he says, are the spiritual mountains, and together with them the hills shall leap up—that is, they shall spring up in exultation, rejoicing, clearly, over your conversion and calling, and shall receive you with joy;

for we are not moderately gladdened whenever any of those who have gone astray, forsaking their continued abiding in mist and darkness, dart toward the light of the true vision of God. Thus the all-wise Paul too addressed them, saying:

My joy and my crown. But also all the trees of the field, he says, shall clap with their branches.

And you shall understand the trees of the field to be those who are numbered among the peoples.

For the garden of the Saviour is well-flowering.

And indeed, since the bride described in the Song of Songs is flourishing and fruitful, she says:

Let my beloved come down into his garden, and eat the fruit of his choice trees. Therefore the spiritual trees shall clap with their branches, he says.

For those who have believed rejoice, just as of course do the mountains and the hills also — that is, those who have been allotted to lead peoples — over the salvation of those who are called unto life, and over the consummation of the undefiled initiation into the mysteries, through which the divine light is instilled into them.

Then, that there will be a very great transformation of those who have been called, unto that which is incomparably better, he straightway makes plain, saying that instead of the thornbush there shall be a cypress, and instead of the fleabane a myrtle shall come up.

The thornbush and the fleabane, they say, are bitter and unapproachable thorns —

(variant: 'to be cast away') — and they do not by any means flourish in ground tilled by husbandmen, but delight in barren and briny soil.

Such were those who went astray and served the creation instead of the Creator.

But since they have been called unto the knowledge of the truth, having ceased to be thornbush and fleabane, they have been transferred, in a spiritual sense, into the tall and most fragrant of plants.

For they are designated cypress and myrtle.

Great, therefore, is the wonder of Him who tills the Church, that is, of Christ.

For He transforms the thorns into the noble and choice among plants, and, in a fatherly manner, presents some in place of others.

And we shall find that this very thing has come to pass also among those who are of the blood of Israel.

For Matthew and Paul, who were once thornbush and fleabane —

for the one was a tax-collector, and the other a persecutor and an insolent man —

have become luminaries of the whole world, and they diffuse the fragrance of Christ in every place, both among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, as the most holy Paul says.

And that He who is the bestower and president of all these things shall be established in unending glory and permanence, he teaches, saying that 'the Lord shall be for a name, and for an everlasting sign, and it shall not fail';

and by 'name' he here means the glory, and by 'sign,' as I suppose, the splendour that comes through the Cross, through which we have also been saved, and in which we shall be unceasingly.