Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 12/24

He therefore calls 'ass' those who believed from among the Gentiles, and 'ox' those from among the Jews, and 'water' the all-holy baptism that looses sins and purifies souls, and 'seed' the teaching word.

'Woe to him who afflicts you; but no one makes you afflicted.'

'Those who persecute you,' he says, 'are wretched and thrice-wretched, but you are blessed;

for they do wrong, but you are not wronged.'

This too the blessed Paul declared:

'In everything afflicted, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.' 'And he who rejects you does not reject.'

This also the Master said to them in the divine Gospels:

'He who receives you receives me, and he who rejects you rejects not you but him who sent you.' 'For those who reject shall be taken captive and delivered up, and like a moth on a garment so shall they be worsted.'

Symmachus rendered these words thus:

'When you have laboured at rejecting, you shall be rejected.' That is to say:

'You thrust the sword against yourself, and if you dig a pit for your neighbour, you shall cast yourself into it.'

'And just as the garment gives birth to the moth and is devoured by the moth, so you too shall be consumed by the wickedness which you have brought forth.'

But we, having learned these things, let us forsake the way of these men, and let us emulate the life of the prophets and apostles, that together with them we may enjoy the good things that have been promised, by the grace and loving-kindness of Christ who has given the promises, with whom to the Father together with the all-holy Spirit is due glory and honour and majesty, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

VOLUME 10. 'Lord, have mercy upon us, for in thee have we put our trust.'

The prophet, having foretold both the invasion and destruction of the Assyrians, and the subsequent captivity of the Jews, and the desolation of Jerusalem, then the return and the things that came to pass after the return, and the election of the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews, and the preaching of the apostles, now offers up supplication on behalf of the Jews, lamenting their unbelief and the destruction that came upon them therefrom;

for this he has also made plain through what follows.

'The seed of the disobedient became for destruction, but our salvation is from thee in the time of affliction.'

He has called them not only 'disobedient' but also 'seed of the disobedient,' since both they and their fathers held the same mind.

At that time this came to pass in the wonder wrought against the Assyrians, but in later time the apostolic wonders both stirred these to amazement and divided their evil concord;

for like a sword the divine word divided son from father and daughter from mother.

'But now your spoils shall be gathered, from small to great, in the manner in which one might gather a locust;

as from pits, so shall they mock you.'

He showed the great ease of the apostolic preaching.

For just as, he says, it is easy to gather locusts, so those men will both collect those who had become the spoils of the devil and bring them to the Saviour.

The word 'they shall mock' we found in none of the Other Interpreters.

The passage hints, as I think, at the apostolic magnanimity, on account of which they despised the whole populace of the Jews in the same manner.

Thus the blessed Stephen cried out:

'You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.' In like manner the sacred pair of apostles, Peter and John, said:

'We must obey God rather than men.' 'Holy is God who dwells in the high places.'

By 'high places' he means those lofty in mind;

for these he made into a divine dwelling-place.

...in you? The prophetic word therefore holds fast to the sequence;

for having pointed out the holy apostles, he calls them the dwelling-place of the God of all things.

'Zion was filled with judgement and righteousness.'

The churches throughout the whole world he calls 'Zion,' as we have often shown before.

But if one wishes Jerusalem to be signified here as well, the prophecy holds true in this sense also;

for within her many tens of thousands believed;

and the great James is a witness, pointing to these very multitudes when he says:

'You see, brother, how many tens of thousands there are of the Jews who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law.' It is for this very reason that the prophetic word added:

That is, in the new covenant;

for this is what the Three Translators have made plain.

For Theodotion said:

'And faith shall be your season'; while Symmachus said:

'And faith shall be of your season'; while Aquila said:

'And faith shall be your seasons.' I have set down the three renderings in order to show the harmony of the meaning;

and so the Seventy called the new covenant 'law,' which the Others named 'faith.'

'In treasuries is our salvation.'

For the good things are laid up for the saints in hope;

but hope that is seen is not hope;

'for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.' And again:

'Our life is hidden with Christ in God.'

'There is wisdom and knowledge and godliness toward the Lord;'

these are the treasures of righteousness.

For those who have learned these things shall enjoy the good things to come.

By wisdom and knowledge and godliness he calls the teaching of the Master;

for indeed the divine Apostle says:

'Wisdom was given to us from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.' 'Behold indeed, in your fear they themselves shall be afraid;'

those whom you feared shall be made to fear because of you.

And of this prophecy too we behold the fulfillment;

for those of the Jews and Greeks who of old persecuted the churches now dread and shudder before them;

and the demons who of old were terrible to men now tremble before the nurslings of true religion.

'Angels shall be sent asking for peace, weeping bitterly;'

for their ways shall be made desolate.

For he tore up from their foundations the sanctuaries of the demons.

And these very demons, once made into gods, being scourged beside the tombs of the holy martyrs, lament bitterly.

So too they besought God the Word himself when he had become man, saying:

'What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come here before the time to torment us? Permit us to depart into the herd of swine.' The fear of the nations has ceased, and the covenant with these is taken away, and they shall no longer be reckoned as men.

This again the Three rendered thus:

'He has ceased passing along the path, he has scattered the covenant, he has cast off the cities, he has not reckoned men.' For since he had said that the harmful paths were overturned, he went on to teach that those who of old traveled them departed from those roads and scattered the covenant with the idols.

And the Seventy signify this same thing, that the vain fear of the nations has ceased, and those who clung fast to error they do not even number among men.

'The earth mourned'—those who are minded on earthly things.

'Lebanon was put to shame'—the tyranny of the idols.

By these things he hinted at the barrenness of those under the law;

for Asheron belongs to their country.

'Galilee and Carmel shall be made manifest.'

He often called the wilderness 'Carmel,' having given it this name after the change of circumstances.

And to Galilee he had already foretold the good things;

for 'Galilee of the nations, the people that sat in darkness saw a great light.' And what became so conspicuous and renowned? The apostles from Galilee.

'Now I will arise, says the Lord; now I will be glorified, now I will be exalted, now you shall see, now you shall perceive.'

For I who was unknown to the majority shall be made known through the evangelical wonders, and men, being delivered from error, shall recognize me as the Maker of all things.

'The insolence of your spirit shall be in vain.'

He speaks to the Jews who both crucified him and persisted in unbelief.

'Fire shall devour you'—the eternal and unquenchable fire.

'And the nations shall be burned up like a thorn cast out in a field and consumed'—those who did not receive the saving proclamation.

'Those who are far off shall hear what I have done; those who are near shall know my strength.'

For those who meditate on the law of the Lord day and night have the more accurate knowledge; and those far off shall marvel when they hear the mystery of the dispensation.

'The lawless in Zion have departed; trembling shall seize the ungodly.'

He did not say that all in Zion would depart, but the lawless;

nor did he say that all would receive the excess of dread, but those who live with ungodliness.

Then he foretells the flame of Gehenna;

'He who walks in righteousness'—that is, who journeys along the divine road.

'Speaking what is upright in the way'—proclaiming those things which he has learned from the truth.

Having thus shown their zeal of mind for the better things, he shows also their hatred of the contrary;

'Hating lawlessness and injustice, and shaking his hands free from bribes, stopping his ears that he may not hear the judgment of unjust blood, and closing his eyes that he may not see injustice.'

He has set forth the good order of all the bodily senses;

the mouth speaking the uprightness of the doctrines, the hands abstaining from taking bribes, the ears walling off the entrances against unjust words, the eyes using the coverings given by nature and not enduring to look upon the things done unlawfully.

'This man shall dwell in a high cave of a strong rock;'

'bread shall be given to him, and his water shall be sure.'

For he has that which is unshaken, being firmly established upon the rock.

And riches are to him superfluous;

for he partakes only of what is necessary;

for 'the beginning of life for men,' according to the wise man, is 'bread and water.' And their water he also calls 'sure,' and I think that by this the mystical is signified.

Then he shows the fruits of virtue;

'You shall see a King with glory.'

He means the heavenly One, coming upon the clouds of heaven and sitting upon the throne of glory, according to the Lord's own words.

'And your eyes shall behold the land from afar.'

For, according to the divine Apostle, they do not consider the things that are seen but the things that are not seen;

for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.

'And your soul shall meditate upon fear.'

For the fear of God is the helper of virtue and the bestower of good things.

'Where are the scribes? Where are the counsellors? Where is he that numbered those who are brought up, a small and a great people?' In like manner the divine Apostle too, having shown the bodily weakness of the heralds, added:

To these words the prophet added:

'That they took no counsel, neither did he know a people of deep speech, so that one could not hear.'

And this the Three interpreted thus:

'You shall not see a people deep of lips, so that you cannot hear the speech of their tongue.' That is to say:

the heralds of the truth are of the same tongue as you, Hebrews by race, reared in Galilee, having the very same language as you; yet of your own will you do not attend to what is spoken.

For this he has made plain through what follows:

'A people that has been made vile, and there is no understanding in him that hears.'

For of their own will they deprived themselves of the divine knowledge, on account of which indeed they were cast off and became despised in the sight of all men.

Having thus shown by the prophetic word both the heralds of the truth shining forth and those who resist in shame, he again names the company of the pious, and likens Zion and Jerusalem to them, saying:

'Behold Zion, the city, our salvation;'

'your eyes shall see, Jerusalem, a wealthy city.'

Just as he named the Jews, who trace their descent from Abraham but were unwilling to emulate his faith, 'rulers of Sodom' and 'people of Gomorrah,' so he addresses the Church gathered from the nations, which received the spiritual gifts, as Jerusalem and Zion.

For indeed in what was interpreted earlier he called both the wilderness and Lebanon 'Carmel,' and Carmel itself he named a 'forest.'

And he calls the Church of God 'wealthy,' pointing to her spiritual riches.

And the Apostle bears witness to the prophecy, speaking thus:

'That in everything you were enriched in him, in all utterance and all knowledge.' 'Tents that shall not be shaken, neither shall the stakes of her tent be moved for ever, nor shall her cords be broken.'

And from this it is plain that the words of this prophecy in no way suit the old Jerusalem;

for that city was shaken and destroyed and received utter desolation, but the new — that is, the tents of God throughout the whole world — possesses that which cannot be shaken, according to the word of the Lord:

For 'upon this rock,' he says, 'I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her.' And by the stakes of the tent I judge the divine Apostles, the victorious martyrs, to be called.

For just as the stakes of tents, hidden in the earth, secure the standing of the tents, so those men, having received the end of life and having their bodies hidden in the earth, uphold the divine churches;

and to cords are likened the saving teachings of those men, which extend from the stakes to the tents, through which the faith of those who choose to live piously remains unshaken.

In the name of the Lord both the wonders were wrought, and the saving baptism is accomplished, and the mystical food is transformed;

through this name we sanctify the temples that are built for God.

'In which are rivers and channels, broad and spacious.'

The rivers are the first heralds of the truth, and the channels are their disciples and successors, who draw from them the saving streams of the doctrines, and water the divine paradise.

'You shall not go this way, neither shall a rowing ship go through it.'

'For my God is great.'

This Aquila interpreted thus:

'No ship of oars shall pass through it, nor shall an exceedingly great trireme cross it.' That is to say:

she is mightier than her enemies, and a warship of war has no passage through this river;

for the God of the churches is great, and he does not suffer them to be overlooked.

For this too he has made plain through what is added:

'The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our ruler, the Lord is our king, the Lord is our saviour; he himself shall come and save us.'

Every good passage we have obtained through him.

For this reason we also embrace his rule and his kingdom with gladness.

For he himself is the bestower of salvation to us.

Having thus shown the steadfastness of the Church, he convicts the unbelief of the multitude of the Jews:

'Your cords are broken, for they had no strength.'

Concerning the Church he said that for ever the stakes of her tent shall not be moved, nor shall her cords be broken;

but here he says that these are broken;

for she had not the strength of faith.

These things, then, are the opposite of those, and it is plain that those were foretold concerning some, and these are foretold concerning others, thus:

'Your mast is bent, it shall not slacken your sails, it shall not raise a signal, until you are delivered up for spoil.'

'Nevertheless for a while I forbear, and even at the very madness of the cross I do not bring on the punishment;'

'but nonetheless not even this long-suffering will persuade you to receive the sign of salvation, until you are delivered up to the servitude of the Romans.'

'Then many lame shall take spoil, and they shall not say:'

'The people that dwells therein is weary.'

'For their sin has been forgiven them.'

He so called it on account of the impiety which they had when they were besieging her;

and to these he says that even the sin is forgiven to those who burned down the divine temple, since that people was stripped of the divine grace.

From here the prophetic word has passed over to another subject, and foretells both the grievous things that shall come upon Judaea, and the prophecy also fits those things that shall come to pass at the time of the consummation.

'Draw near, you nations, and hear; you rulers, give heed;'

'let the earth hear, and those in it, the world and the people that is in it.'

These things too, concerning the consummation, the Master foretold in the sacred Gospels:

'Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be earthquakes and pestilences.' These things too the prophetic word taught.

And he has added that the earth shall be filled with the wounded and the dead, and their stench shall infect the air, and the blood shall soak the earth.

And he has added further that the powers of the heavens shall be dissolved, and the heaven shall be rolled up like a scroll, and all the stars of heaven shall fall as leaves fall from a vine, and as leaves drop from a fig tree.

'They shall perish, but you shall abide;'

'and they all shall wax old like a garment, and like a mantle you shall roll them up, and they shall be changed;'

'but you are the same, and your years shall not fail.' And concerning the sun and the moon he said:

'Then shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light. My sword has been made drunk in heaven;'

'behold, it shall come down upon Idumaea, and upon the people of destruction with judgement.'

By 'heaven' I think that Jerusalem is here named figuratively.

For just as the heaven is understood to be the dwelling-place of God, so also is the temple in Jerusalem.

Since, therefore, the Idumeans rejoiced over the blow dealt to the Jews and over the victory of the Babylonians, he foretells the grievous things that are to come upon them.

'Remember, O Lord, the sons of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said:'

'Lay it bare, lay it bare, even to the foundations thereof.'

'The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, with the blood of bulls and lambs, and with the fat of he-goats and rams.'

By bulls and he-goats and rams he means the rulers, but by lambs the subjects.

And by the sword of God he means the enemies.

'It was filled with blood and made fat with fatness'—this indicates the multitude of those slain.

Then he calls the slaughter of those men a sacrifice of the Lord, inasmuch as it was just and came to pass according to the divine decree.

Again, by the 'well-fed' he designates the wealthy, and he says that the land will be filled both with their blood and with their fat.

For since no one buried the bodies, the whole surface of that land was filled with the foul-smelling gore.

'For it is a day of the Lord's judgment, and a year of recompense for the judgment of Zion.'

'And her valleys shall be turned into pitch, and her land into brimstone, and her land shall be as pitch burning night and day, and it shall never be quenched throughout all time.'

Again by brimstone and fire he named the punishment and the desolation that would result from it.

For indeed, he says, the Lord rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom. And the phrase:

'it shall never be quenched throughout all time' indicates the desolation.

For indeed even to this very day most of Idumea has remained desolate.

Now Idumea is the country of Esau.

And they say that Petra is its metropolis.

'And its smoke shall go up on high, and from generation to generation it shall be laid waste, even for a long time, and none shall pass through it.'

He showed that some parts of it were utterly and forever laid waste, while others remained uninhabited for a very long time.

And the things now seen bear witness to the prophecy.

For of some villages and cities not even the traces are to be seen, while those that are inhabited have very few dwellers.

'And birds and hedgehogs shall dwell in it, and ibises and ravens shall dwell in it.'

These creatures delight to make their haunts in the more desolate places.

'And upon it shall be cast a measuring line of desolate surveying.'

But the Other Translators have rendered this thus:

'And upon it shall be stretched a surveyor's measure and stones of confusion.' The measure signifies the justice of the punishment.

'For with what measure you measure,' he says, 'it shall be measured to you again.' And the confusion of the stones indicates the demolition of the buildings.

'And donkey-centaurs shall dwell in it.'

And we have already said before that the prophetic word uses the common usage of men, and names the demons by names current among men.

We find the divine Scripture doing this also in the case of the stars.

It calls one Orion, another the Pleiad, one Arcturus, another Hesperus—not itself imposing these appellations, but following the names given by men, for the elucidation of what is said.

Then he teaches also the destruction of the kings and rulers, and that the cities shall put forth thorny trees on account of the great scarcity of inhabitants.

'And it shall be a dwelling of sirens and a court of ostriches, and demons shall meet with donkey-centaurs, and they shall cry one to another.'

'There donkey-centaurs shall take their rest, for they have found for themselves a place of repose.'

'There the hedgehog has made its nest, and the earth has kept its young ones safe in security.'

For thus, he says, it shall be so bereft of inhabitants that the hedgehogs shall breed without fear and their offspring shall enjoy safety, and the demons who transform themselves into many shapes, enjoying leisure, shall converse one with another.

'There the deer met and beheld one another's faces.'

'They passed by in number, and not one of them perished, one did not seek another, for the Lord commanded them and his Spirit gathered them together.'

'And he himself shall cast lots for them, and his hand has divided them out to graze forever throughout all time, to inherit it for generations of generations, and they shall rest upon it.'

And these things likewise indicate the desolation from inhabitants.

For the wild beasts pasture without fear, since there are none to hunt them.

And the prophetic word has made this plain also:

'and not one of them perished, and one did not seek another.'

'For the Lord,' he says, 'has given them the freedom of pasture,' having decreed for that country a desolation of men.

Having foretold these things to those people, he transfers his discourse to what was formerly desolate, and then named Carmel and Zion and Jerusalem, and says:

'Rejoice, O thirsting wilderness; let the wilderness exult and blossom as a lily.'

He exhorts it to rejoice and to imitate the flower of the lily.

And by the flower of the lily he hints at the purity that comes through baptism, wrought by the all-holy Spirit.

'And the desert places of the Jordan shall blossom and abound with vegetation and exult, and the glory of Lebanon has been given to it, and the honor of Carmel.'

He shows the wilderness blossoming and watered by the streams of the Jordan.

For those streams first received the grace of the Holy Spirit, and through them the all-holy baptism is signified.

And he says that the honor of Lebanon and the glory of Carmel have passed over into the wilderness.

By Carmel, as we have often said, he calls Judea.

For it of old was filled with the prophetic fruits.

And by Lebanon the divine Scripture often designates Jerusalem.

'to Lebanon, and it took the tender shoots of the cedar and of the cypress.' Then, interpreting, he teaches that Lebanon is Jerusalem, the eagle is the Babylonian, and the tender shoots of the cedar are the seed of the kingdom.

'And my people shall see the glory of the Lord and the majesty of God.'

And even in the present life those who have believed behold the glory of the Lord, and they shall gaze upon it more manifestly at the second coming.

'Be strong, you slackened hands and enfeebled knees.'

'Comfort one another; say to the fainthearted in mind:'

The divine word restores those who of old were defeated and had become slaves to the devil, and exhorts them not to fear his tyranny.

'Behold, our God renders judgment, and he will render it.'

And since the threat of judgment was fearful, he points out its fruit.

'He himself shall come and save us.'

For the former manifestation of our Savior brought salvation to men.

'For God did not send his Son to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved.' Judgment, then, he employed against the demons who war against us, but us he deemed worthy of compassion and lovingkindness.

Then he displays the signs of the divine coming:

'Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear.'

'Then the lame shall leap as a deer, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be clear.'

This same healing the Saviour applied to bodies also, and He offers it perpetually to souls; He caused the blind world to see again, and enabled the lame to run to Him; He persuaded her who could not endure to hear the divine oracles to hasten to the divine oracles; He taught her who lisped and divided the divine appellation into many to speak plainly, and He made her to hymn God with clear and harmonious voice.

For water has burst forth in the wilderness, and a ravine in a thirsting land.

For the proclamation of the teaching filled the whole world.

And the waterless place shall become marshes, and in the thirsting land there shall be a spring of water.

The abundance of the irrigation the word has made manifest.

And the Lord too said in the divine Gospels:

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. There shall be the gladness of birds — not of ravens and the other flesh-eating kinds, but of those that possess a winged intellect and have acquired an uplifted mind.

This is a strange and paradoxical thing to appear in a waterless land;

and he set these things down as a demonstration of the abundance of the waters.

By reeds and marshes he calls those who indeed possess the faith and have flourished in it, but do not luxuriate in the fruits of virtue.

The assembly of the Church contains these also.

And there shall be there a clean way, and it shall be called a holy way;

and no unclean thing shall pass through there, nor shall there be an unclean way there.

He calls unclean those who serve idols;

from these, he says, the divine assembly has been set free.

But the scattered ones shall walk through it, and shall by no means go astray.

I consider that by the scattered ones the holy apostles are here called;

for these He scattered throughout the whole world so as to convey the saving proclamations abroad, yet nevertheless, though scattered, they journeyed without straying;

for they had as their guide the grace of the Spirit.

And there shall be no lion there, nor shall any of the wicked beasts go up upon it, nor shall it be found there.

For by the lion, as I think, he calls the devil;

for your adversary, he says, the devil, stands like a lion waiting for whom of you he may devour. And by wild beasts he means the demons that serve under him, from whom the divine prediction declared the assembly of the Church has been set free.

But they shall walk in it, having been ransomed and gathered by the Lord;

and they shall return and come to Zion with gladness and exultation.

By Zion he means the heavenly one;

he said they would be glad and rejoicing.

And everlasting gladness shall be upon their head.

For the good things that are awaited have no end.

For upon their head shall be praise and exultation; pain and sorrow and groaning have fled away.

For that life is free from sorrow, released from cares, receiving no tempest, but having a perpetual feast and festal assembly.