Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 62/65

For they slew Him indeed, but He did not remain held fast by death;

for He rose again, and gave the vineyard to other husbandmen, having wickedly destroyed those wicked, ungrateful men, the murderers of the Lord.

O then, ye lawless sons, he says, O seed of adulterers and of a harlot!

And in these words he calls adulterers those who were appointed to lead — the scribes and the teachers of the Law — who all but committed adultery against the Synagogue, even while speaking to her the things from the divine Law.

But rather they turn aside to what is not lawful, and teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

And fittingly is the Synagogue of the Jews called a harlot, since she received the seeds of the adulterers, and set at nought the law of all-wise Moses.

For this cause too, very fittingly, he calls them lawless sons.

Tell then, wherein, he says, did ye take your delight, and against whom did ye open your mouth, and against whom did ye let loose your tongue?

Many a time, he says, ye uttered many revilings against the holy prophets; but those were genuine servants to the God who is over all, yet servants, and set under a yoke, and having the measure of humanity; and their offences were against fellow-servants.

But now, against whom did ye let loose your tongue? For ye were unwilling to receive Him who saves;

for ye would not endure Him who orders men aright unto godliness through the evangelical oracles.

You who call upon the idols beneath leafy trees, slaughtering your children in the ravines amid the rocks.

That is your portion, this is your lot; to those you poured out drink offerings, and to those you offered up sacrifices.

Shall I not then be angry over these things? Upon a high and lofty mountain, there is your bed, and there you brought up your sacrifices, and behind the posts of your door you set your memorial. By declaring them to be slayers of the Lord, He shows that their God-hating malady, and their readiness for bloodshed, was no new thing among them, but rather was present in them from long ago and from of old.

For you are those who, according to the former times, He says, call upon the idols beneath leafy trees.

For although the Law given through Moses awarded them what was profitable, and expressly declared, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve, they slid down into such madness—or rather into an ungovernable impiety that surpassed all measure—that they even became makers of idols, and performed sacred rites to them, and called upon them, that is, taught others to worship beneath leafy trees, and to crown these things with honours befitting God alone.

The God of all makes this plain through the voice of Jeremiah, saying:

Have you seen what the house of Israel has done to Me?

they went upon every high mountain, and beneath every leafy tree, and there they committed fornication. For seizing the summits of the mountains and the most verdant of the groves, they built altars and sacred precincts, and there they brought sacrifices and drink offerings to the unclean demons.

And there are also those who did not spare their own children.

This too God Himself said somewhere through one of the holy prophets, exposing the cruelty of those accustomed to do such things:

for the calves have failed. You therefore, He says, are those who call upon the idols, slaughtering their children beneath leafy trees in the ravines amid the rocks.

What then follows upon these things? That is your portion, this is your lot.

For you have bowed down, He says, to vain things;

and you shall have such a portion, and your lot shall be vanity.

Or perhaps He wishes rather to signify this:

You slaughtered their children in the ravines, He says.

Therefore that is your portion, this is your lot; that is, you shall be entangled in equal evils, and the slaughter shall become your portion and lot.

Shall I not then be angry over these things? He says;

is not the wrath against you well-founded, and does not the sentence have a reasonable ground? Upon a high and lofty mountain, there is your bed; there you brought up sacrifices, and behind the posts of your door you set your memorial.

That they slept upon the mountains for the sake of dreams, the prophetic word has declared to us in very many places.

And they say that Israel slid into such error that they even carved the forms of the idols upon their doors and doorposts, so that both entering their houses and walking outside they might see them, and hold them in unceasing remembrance.

And this matter might most reasonably be reckoned to them as a clear proof of utter godlessness;

for they called the carved images of the idols things of salvation ...

You supposed that if you departed from Me, you would have something more.

You loved those who lay with you, and you multiplied your fornication with them, and you made many those who are far from you, and you sent ambassadors beyond your borders. Every unnatural pleasure, and every vice, bewitching the human mind, all but promises some experience of a good thing, and that one will partake of things not formerly known, and will be in a better state than before.

For having thus taken one captive, it thereafter carries him off wherever it may choose.

But the senseless, having learned by experience where evil lies, scarcely and with difficulty return to their first estate;

whereas those who with the eyes of understanding survey full well the end of each matter, do not tolerate being carried away;

rather they keep the mind unstricken, seeing before experience what follows after it.

But such was not the Synagogue of the Jews;

for she was under the hand of the God who is mighty in all things, and clothed with the glory that comes from Him; she was formidable and unbearable to her neighbours, holding a thrice-longed-for hope, and full of every prosperity.

For following the Law given through Moses, she served the God who is by nature and in truth God;

and for a time she continued unwilling to call any other God alongside Him, or to know how to worship such.

But when she was invited by certain teachers and unholy shepherds, she fell into apostasy from God, and bowed down to the works of her own hands;

supposing perhaps that she would even be in a better state, having slid away from the love toward God.

Concerning these things He accuses her, saying:

You supposed that if you departed from Me, you would have something more.

But the things she expected from so cold and vain a hope did not come to pass for her;

for they became rather immersed in every evil.

They gained therefore nothing superfluous toward prosperity, having cast away what was genuine, and counting the stability found in these things as of almost no account at all.

And what is yet more paradoxical than this: You loved, He says, those who lay with you, and you multiplied your fornication with them;

and He discourses as toward a woman who is a harlot.

... [stripping them] of their genuineness toward God, and sowing as it were the seeds of impiety, and persuading them to bear fruit for Satan the charges of drunken outrage against God.

And we say that the fornication of certain ones is multiplied, that is, their apostasy from God, when the force of the charges is seen to be not of one kind and one form only, but as being accomplished out of exceedingly great perversity, and travailing with many things against them, for which one might justly, and very rightly, blame those who do them.

It altogether follows upon choosing to serve Satan that one endures to do nothing wholesome;

and that one is flung, as it were, into every way of profane and abominable pleasure;

and concurrent with such charges would be also the other evils of this kind: sorceries and necromancies, and the useless little myths of prodigy-watchers, false prophecies and incantations, and the slanderous fabrications of astrologers, and the observance of days, and moreover of hours, of seasons and of years.

Thus, He says, multiplying your own fornication, you made many those who are far from you.

And who these might be, it is necessary again to see.

For either He means the holy prophets, who, seeing her going beyond all effrontery and driving on to the utmost limit of all godlessness, departed from her as from one defiled, all but crying aloud and saying:

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

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

for her judgment has reached to heaven, and is lifted up even to the stars. (For since Babylon was named the land of graven images, and Jerusalem was diseased with this beyond all measure, on this very account the divinely-inspired prophets, and very fittingly, call her Babylon.) Or else perhaps she made many those far from herself.

For busying themselves with the objects of worship of the neighbouring nations, and with the falsely-named gods among each of them, they sent for these;

and they attached themselves to them and served them, some these, some those.

And indeed God said somewhere through the voice of Jeremiah, that According to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah, and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you set up altars to burn incense to Baal. And this too I think is made plain by the words, You sent ambassadors beyond your borders.

For not being content with the gods present among themselves, they sent for, as I said, many others also, each according to what was supposed by them to be well.

Or perhaps the phrase, You sent ambassadors beyond your borders, might indicate that the deeds of fornication were done among them beyond all measure, so that the saying might be as a kind of parable and a customary expression, spoken of those who in each of their affairs go beyond what is fitting.

And you turned away, and were brought low even to Hades.

By your many journeys you grew weary, and you did not say:

Because you did these things, therefore you did not entreat Me;

whom, standing in awe, did you fear, and lie to Me? What is the end of the apostasy from God, of the immeasurable fornication, and of the unholy undertakings, that is, of the turning away from what is better to what is worse? Utter abasement, and to sink, He says, into the lowest pit of destruction.

For since you were unwilling to remain exalted, and to hold your prosperity unshaken, on this very account you have become lowly.

For that some of Israel were exalted, as far as concerns the glory that comes from God, would be clear, since He says concerning them through the voice of Isaiah:

I have begotten sons, and exalted them. Therefore she has an abasement that is self-invited;

for she acted impiously toward the God who exalts;

and in what manner she was brought low, He shows immediately:

By your many journeys you grew weary.

For coming, as it were, into every way of destruction, they spent the vigours of the soul upon nothing profitable—clearly the intelligible vigours—and toiled not moderately, setting their zeal upon ruinous matters.

... everywhere, that the mind that is in them has neither support nor stability.

This same thing happens to us also amid the extravagant places of pleasures.

For the mind is at times carried away toward every kind of impurity; now it praises riches, now it lusts after the flesh, and is overcome by empty vainglory, and is, as it were, whirled about by every wind, according to that which was spoken through the voice of Jeremiah concerning a certain one:

In the desires of her own soul she was borne along by the wind;

she was given over — who shall turn her back? For the soul that suffers this will assuredly be delivered over to the assaults of the passions;

and this the author of Proverbs teaches, saying:

For crooked reasonings separate a man from God, and the roving of desire perverts an innocent mind. We must therefore rein in the mind, if ever it should wish to rush unchecked over the rocks, and to take delight in and hold converse with the extravagant places of pleasures, lest, worn out from long wandering, it become the devil's prey.

Having done these things, then, He says, O Jerusalem, you did not say:

I will cease to persist — that is, you did not by sober reflections cut short your advance toward more shameful deeds, you did not measure how far you had fallen away, you did not put an end to your zeal for evil things, but rather you press on the more vehemently in your wish to do the very things that ought never to have come to be at all.

For it is the work of a soul that possesses even moderate understanding not to wish to be caught by charges leading to sin;

and if perchance it should even suffer this, at least to choose to repent, and by a return to the better to rid itself of the accusations.

But if it is borne unchecked toward more shameful things, and moreover refuses the duty of repentance, one may see that it has added sin to sin, and suffered sickness upon sickness.

The God of all, then, brings accusation against those who are in such a state, and says:

Shall not he that falls arise? Or shall not he that turns away return? Why has this people turned away with a shameless apostasy, and been mastered by their own choice, and would not turn back? But because you have done these things, He says, therefore you have not made supplication to Me.

And yet how much more fitting was it, since you have dared to do such shameful and abominable deeds, to lift up your supplications and to ask mercy from God? For He receives those who are willing to repent, being good by nature, and knowing our frame, as it is written.

He said, then, through one of the holy prophets:

Return, O sons who are returning, and I will heal your breaches. It is therefore a proof of the utmost madness and of complete apostasy, that one who has fallen into so many evils should not endure even to seek mercy from God together with a confession of his offences.

For it is written: Declare you first your iniquities, that you may be justified. And someone sings in a psalm, saying:

I will confess against myself my iniquity to the Lord;

and You forgave the ungodliness of my heart. But the Jews had a certain argument, rotten and feeble and full of ignorance;

for they stubbornly maintained that they would depart from the living God and incline toward other gods, since it was reported to them that the multitude of the Babylonians would very soon be at hand.

But, O senseless one, He says, whom did you fear that you took such fright and lied to Me? The tyrant of the Babylonians is a man, and as against the divine strength, the army under him is utterly nothing.

It is He who holds the circle of the earth;

and those that dwell in it are as locusts. And again the prophet Isaiah said:

If all the nations are counted as a drop from a bucket, and reckoned as spittle, and are esteemed as the turning of the balance, to whom have you likened the Lord, and to what likeness have you likened Him? Most senseless, therefore, are those who suppose the man of the earth to be greater than God, who have belied their piety toward Him, and who imagine that they shall be saved through gods that have no being.

For what benefit could come from stone and wood? It has been said, at any rate, concerning them:

And in the time of their evils they shall say:

And where are your gods, which you made for yourself? Let them arise, and save you in the time of your affliction.

But indeed by the very facts themselves is shown what has been said concerning them by way of example:

And I waited that it should bring forth grapes, but it brought forth thorns, and not righteousness, but a cry. And the divinely-inspired Psalmist somewhere said, as from the person of Christ, concerning them:

Strange sons lied to Me, strange sons grew old, and went lame from their paths. And you did not remember Me, nor take Me into your mind, nor into your heart.

And I, seeing you, overlook it, and you did not fear Me.

And I will declare My righteousness, and your evils, which shall not profit you.

When you cry out, let them deliver you in your affliction.

For all these the wind shall take, and the storm shall carry away. God said somewhere through the voice of Ezekiel to the mother of the Jews — I mean the Synagogue:

As you have done, so shall it be to you;

your recompense shall be repaid upon your own head. Yes, and the prophet Isaiah also said:

evil shall befall him according to the works of his hands. Something of this same kind is signified now also through the passage before us.

For since you have thrust away the knowledge of Me, He says, you shall be despised by Me, and you shall undergo a penalty equal in weight to your transgressions.

Now someone forgets the God who is by nature and truly God, and who has authority over all things — not, of course, by coming altogether into a total oblivion that God exists (for even the demons believe and tremble, according to the word of the apostle), but rather by being sparing of the wish to be subject to Him, and taking little thought of the things ordained by Him;

so as to appear unruly and disobedient, and wholly turned aside toward everything contrary to that which he ought to have fulfilled.

And God forgets, that is, overlooks, those who are unmindful of Him, all but withdrawing His helping hand, and stripping them of all forbearance;

for he did not fear the Lord of heaven and earth, and the Maker and Fashioner of all things;

but, having as it were freed his neck from His sceptre, he served gods that have no being.

For this reason He says: You did not fear Me, and I will declare My righteousness, and your evils;

calling 'evils' the apostasy from Him, evidently, and the inclining to call gods those things which he himself had fashioned.

And the God of all promises His righteousness upon those accustomed to do such things, bringing forth a divine sentence upon them, and inflicting a punishment of equal weight.

For their reckless deeds are wrought not against one of us, but against that very Nature which is high and exalted and which rules over all things.

He shows that the invention of falsely-named gods is unprofitable to them, saying that: They shall not profit you; and that the matter is true, He further declares, saying:

But these — who? Either the gods devised by them, or perhaps those who worship them, who, like dust and ashes, are tossed about by the blasts of the winds.

And this, I think, is what is said in the book of Psalms:

Let them become as dust before the face of the wind — that is, they shall go on toward nothingness. And it is customary for the God-inspired Scripture often to liken the assaults of temptations, or rather of punishments, to a whirlwind and a storm.

But those who hold fast to Me shall possess the land, and shall inherit My holy mountain;

Cleanse the ways from before His face, and take away the stumbling-blocks from the way of My people. Necessarily these things too have been brought in after the foregoing.

For it was needful — needful indeed — that the punishment both of the lovers of sin and of the apostates should be made manifest, and also that of those who love His works.

For everyone who holds fast to God, and to perfect love toward Him, esteems nothing above what is better, and is distinguished in all well-doing;

he shall be heir of the land prepared for the saints, which the Saviour Himself also indicated to us, saying:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And by 'holy mountain' in these words I mean, perhaps, the city above, the heavenly Jerusalem, the fair city of the saints.

Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place? He that is innocent in hands, and pure in heart. Therefore to all who hold fast to God, the land of the saints shall be an inheritance, and the venerable and renowned mountain.

Now it seems that He is here making His discourse concerning those who have believed in Him from among the Jewish ranks, of whom the firstfruits and the first were the divinely-inspired disciples, clinging tenaciously to their love for Christ, holding an unshaken faith in Him, an unimpeachable submission, and an indissoluble love.

They say, indeed: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? These have become heirs of the kingdom of heaven, and have gained possession of the land above, that which is made ready for the meek.

And the name of meekness would fittingly belong to those who live the evangelical life, to whom Christ has enjoined that they must not be angry, nor indeed take vengeance on any who have grieved them, but rather be eager to do good even to those ranked among their enemies.

For He says: Do good to your enemies, and pray for those who spitefully use you, and to him that strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And it would be a proof of the utmost long-suffering and meekness to be distinguished in these things.

But to those who have gained possession of the land and the holy mountain, it shall be said, as in a promise and in hope, He says:

Cleanse the ways from before His face — this is clearly the same as: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths. And in what manner the preparation is to be made, He made plain, saying:

Take away the stumbling-blocks from the way of My people — that is, make the way of salvation through faith smooth and easy to travel for those throughout all the earth;

let there be nothing rough and uphill.

For the Law given through Moses knew not how to show mercy, and was hard to fulfil;

for we all stumble in many things, and one wholly free was hard to find, and able to accomplish it blamelessly.

And so the divinely-inspired disciples said to those who wished, after coming to faith, to slip back to the shadows of the Law:

And now why do you tempt God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear? And Paul too said that the Law was added because of transgressions.

For the Law is the conviction of sin, and those who stumbled against it stood under blame and indictment.

They therefore hindered the arduous difficulty of the life lived under the Law.

'But let it be taken out of the way,' He says.

and let the well-trodden path, passable without sweat, be shown forth — that is, the power of the evangelical way of life, which brings in the true worship.

God said something of this kind in another place too, to the holy mystagogues:

'Go through My gates, and cast the stones out of the way' — that is, rid the road of all difficulty, the road that leads toward God through worship in spirit and in truth, and through the radiance that is in faith.

Thus says the Lord the Most High, who dwells on high forever, holy among the holy ones, resting, and who gives long-suffering to the faint-hearted, and gives life to those who are contrite in heart:

I will not take vengeance on you forever, nor will I be angry with you continually.

they turn to giving glory.

We shall find the prophet now to have experienced something of this kind:

Thus says the Lord — and He necessarily adds, the Most High — that is, the One who is beyond all things and highest by nature above everything that has been brought into being;

and by saying, 'dwelling on high,' He again intimates that the divine and supreme nature abides in unshakable pre-eminences and in ineffable heights.

And yet this, I think, is what it means for it to dwell on high forever;

for it possesses unchangeably what belongs to itself, and could never come to be in anything better than what it is; rather, it belongs to it immutably to be perpetually in the state in which it is.

He says that, being holy, He rests and dwells among the holy ones, intimating that He rejects the sons of Israel as defiled through much sin, but graciously makes His abode among those cleansed through faith and sanctified in the Spirit.

and such are all who are in obedience to God and who have a yielding mind;

these would be those who through faith have been called to the knowledge of Christ;

and they are named poor in spirit, coming by the path opposite to that of those of Israel.

For those men were boastful, both disobedient and unbroken;

but these are good, and true-hearted, and they assign to God's laws the duty of holding sway, and they place the neck of their understanding under the yoke of Christ.

And these indeed are the works of those who are in Christ.

But what does the Most High say to those who through disobedience have slipped into the charges of impiety against Him? 'I will not take vengeance on you forever, nor will I be angry with you continually.'

He does not cut off from the sons of Israel the hope of being saved;

for the remnant has been saved;

a very great portion of their multitude has been called, and they shall also be called in the last times, when God checks His anger against them and reins in the judgment, so that it is not extended against them to the uttermost.

For being good, He has kept for their fathers the unlying promise.

And He gives yet another reason, as a compassionate God.

'For a Spirit,' He says, 'shall go forth from Me.'

And in what manner it shall go forth, He made clear by saying:

For He is the Father of spirits.

He is understood, however, not as having begotten them out of His own nature, as He begot His own Son; nor do we say that they have possessed, in equal measure with the Holy Spirit, the procession — that is, the going forth — from His essence;

but rather we affirm, thinking rightly, that they came forth into being from God in a creative manner;

for He Himself made every breath.

And wherever making is at all named, there surely would be the going-out, that is, the exit — not in an essential sense, but as in a catachrestic expression signifying the act of bringing into being.

and he was grieved, and went about downcast in his ways.

I have seen his ways, and I have healed him, and I have comforted him, and I have given him true comfort, peace upon peace to those who are far off and to those who are near.

but the unjust shall be tossed about thus, and shall not be able to find rest.

There is no rejoicing for the impious, said the Lord God. The Jews have indeed paid the penalty for their outrage against Christ — penalties unbearable to any man, yet nevertheless measured out, at least as far as concerns equality with the sins committed.

But even so they boasted arrogantly against Him, saying to one another:

'This is the heir.' 'Therefore,' He says, 'because of this sin I grieved him, and I struck him, and I turned My face away from him.'

When you stretch out your hands to Me, I will turn My eyes away from you;

and though you multiply your supplication, I will not hearken to you;

for your hands are full of blood. But in later times, when Israel repents (for he shall walk downcast), the matters of the turning-away shall cease;

and he shall be received through faith, and shall be delivered from his ancient sins, since God takes pity;

and he shall also receive true comfort.

And what do we say this comfort is, if not clearly the grace that comes through Christ, justifying by faith and delivering from sins, and procuring also the sanctification through the Spirit, and the glory of adoption, and the hope of the rewards prepared for the saints? True, therefore, is the comfort, which brings in, together with all the other good things, to those counted worthy of it, also peace upon peace — that is, the perpetual and unfailing serenity of peace, which the Saviour gave both to those far off and to those near, that is, both to those from the nations and to those from the blood of Israel.

For the blessed Paul addressed the nations, saying: 'But now, once altogether, you who were formerly far off have been made near in the blood of Christ.' For inasmuch as concerned being yoked under the Law, Israel and worshipping the living and true God — according at least to what seemed right in the sacred proclamations (for it was said to them:

'The Lord your God, the Lord is one'), they seemed in some way to be near;