Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 15/24

'Do good and do ill, and we shall marvel and behold together; for whence are ye, and whence is your working?' If ye will not, He says, demonstrate your own strength from knowledge, then do this at least from power.

'But I will kill and make alive; I will smite, and I will heal, and there is none who can deliver out of My hands.' Since ye are destitute both of knowledge and of power, I will convict your emptiness.

'They have chosen you as an abomination out of the earth.'

Whether of gold or silver or tin or bronze, they have their nature from the earth;

for each of these is from the earth.

He names the idol an 'abomination' as being full of abominableness.

'But I raised up him that is from the north and him that is from the rising of the sun, and they shall be called by My name;'

'let the rulers come as the potter's clay, and as the potter treadeth the clay, so shall ye be trodden down.'

To the idols He threatens dissolution.

And by 'him from the east' He calls the righteousness that hath dawned, concerning which He had already spoken before:

'Who raised up righteousness from the east?' And by 'him from the north' the Church gathered from the Gentiles, to which came He who is from Teman, or, according to the Other Interpreters, from the south-west.

For 'God shall come from Teman,' that is, from the south.

By thus appearing from the south, the Master Christ, finding her frozen through the deception of the idols and warming her with His noonday rays, brought her back to life.

By her and by her rulers, priests, and teachers the multitude of the idols was trodden down.

'For who declared the things from the beginning, that we might know, and the things beforehand, and we shall say that they are true?' Your reputed oracles, He says, are full of falsehood.

'There is none who foretelleth, neither any who heareth your words.'

And the outcome bears witness to the word;

for the oracles everywhere on land and sea have ceased, and those who once gaped after such things have been taught anew the truth.

'I will give a beginning to Zion, and I will comfort Jerusalem in the way.'

The first-fruits, then, of the teaching I will bring to Jerusalem.

So also in the holy Gospels He said:

'I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Jacob.' For 'from the Gentiles, behold, there was none.'

For those of the Jews who first believed became heralds to the Gentiles.

'And from among their idols there was none who declared.'

Many times He held up their ignorance to ridicule.

'Whence are ye? They will surely not answer Me;'

'for they that make you are unrighteous, and they that fashion you are vain.'

Fittingly He shewed both the insensibility of the idols and denounced the impiety of those who fabricated them.

For the former are lifeless, while the latter are exceedingly foolish and impious.

Having convicted their error, He points to the Bestower of the peace and truth that have dawned.

'Jacob is My servant, I will uphold him; Israel is My chosen, My soul hath accepted him;'

'I have put My Spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.'

'He shall not cry, nor lift up, neither shall his voice be heard without; a bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, but he shall bring forth judgment unto truth; he shall look up and shall not be broken, until he have set judgment on the earth;'

'and in his name shall the Gentiles hope.'

This testimony the divine Evangelist also set down;

for having said that the Lord, healing many, charged them that they should tell no one, he added the foregoing words.

One must know, however, that Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion set down neither the word 'Jacob' nor 'Israel,' for neither does it stand so in the Hebrew.

Following these, the divine Evangelist also said:

'Behold My servant whom I have chosen, My beloved in whom My soul is well pleased.' And that none of these things fits the Jews, the very words of the prophecy make plain.

For what is more insolent than they? What more frenzied? But the prophetic word bears witness to all the gentleness and meekness of the Saviour.

This same one also declared the judgment that should come upon the enemies of the Apostles.

He calls Him 'servant,' or, according to the Other Interpreters, 'slave,' with respect to His humanity;

for in this respect He also names Him 'Jacob' and 'Israel,' as having sprung according to the flesh from Jacob who is also Israel.

In this way too He receives the all-holy Spirit, not as God—for as God He lacks nothing—but as man, that He might become a type for those who have believed in Him.

To this meekness both His words and His deeds bear witness.

For He says, 'Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.' Thus, when He received the blow upon the cheek, He said to the one who struck Him:

'Friend, if I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong;

why do you strike Me?' And though He was able to consume with thunderbolts those who raged against Him, and to crush like a bruised reed and to quench like smoking flax, He endured their madness;

for He knew the end of what was taking place and the truth that would be brought to birth from it.

Thus also, having been delivered up to death, He shone forth again and filled the earth with truth, and made the nations depend upon the hope that is in Him.

For this is what the prophetic word declared:

'In His name the nations will hope.'

And this also plainly refutes the folly of the Jews;

For what nations hoped in their name? And what nation did not make war against them? But in the name of our God and Saviour all the nations hope.

'Thus says the Lord God, who made the heaven and fixed it fast, who established the earth and the things in it, and who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who tread upon it.'

For God not only made the creation, but also gave it its endurance, and it remains for as long a time as He Himself wills.

To all men He gave breath, but the all-holy Spirit not to all, but to those who tread upon the earth—that is, upon the earthly mind.

'I the Lord God have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand and strengthen you, and I have given you for a covenant of a race, for a light of nations.'

It is to the one whom He called Servant that He says these things, and He speaks to Him as to a man.

And many such lowly expressions we find even in the divine Gospels;

for it says, 'The child grew and became strong in spirit, and the grace of God was upon Him'; and again:

'Jesus advanced in stature and in wisdom and in favour with God and men.' Thus too, when praying, He said:

'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.' That these were human matters, I think that even those who make war against the deity of the Only-begotten and dare to call it a creature will confess.

And here therefore He says these things to Him as to a man:

'I have given you for a covenant of a race, for a light of nations.'

And the word 'race' bears witness to His nature;

of this kinship the blessed Paul also made mention:

'Whose are the fathers,' he says, 'and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever, amen.' For the same One is of the Jews according to the flesh, yet is God over all, as begotten of God the Father before the ages.

Then He foretells the miracles that were to come:

'To open the eyes of the blind, to lead out from bonds those who are bound, and from the prison-house those who sit in darkness.'

Here He calls 'blind' those whose faculty of understanding is in a bad condition, and these same ones He calls also those fettered with the chains of sin and held fast in the darkness of error.

These He freed from the gloom of ignorance and, having burst the bonds of sin, He brought them to the light of truth.

'I am the Lord God, this is My name;

My glory I will not give to another.'

And to show concerning whom He is speaking, He added:

'Nor My praises to graven images.'

For the Son has the glory of the Father and will appear in the glory of the Father;

for the deity of Son and Father is one.

But if God says that He will not give His glory as to another, and yet the Son is shown to have the glory of the Father, it is plain that He is not another according to substance, but has the same nature as the Father.

'The things from the beginning, behold, they have come, which of old,' He says, 'He foretold.'

'And new things which I now declare, and before they are declared they were made known to you.' New to those ignorant of the prophetic oracles, but plain to those who have believed them;

'For of old,' He says, 'I told them to you.'

But since He announces new things, He fittingly bids them offer a new hymn to God:

'Sing to God a new hymn.'

'His dominion is glorified on high, His name is glorified from the end of the earth.'

'All the earth worships His name.'

'You who inhabit the sea and sail upon it, the islands and those who dwell in them.'

'Rejoice, O wilderness, and its villages, the encampments and those who dwell in Kedar.'

'Those who dwell in Petra will rejoice, from the top of the mountains they will cry out, they will give glory to God, they will declare His praises in the islands.'

By 'Kedar' he calls the descendants of the Ishmaelites, and 'Petra' is the metropolis of the Idumaeans.

By these words too, therefore, the prophetic word showed the knowledge of God that was poured out upon the whole inhabited world.

And we ourselves also behold the fulfilment of the prediction;

for not only the inhabited world, but also the uninhabited land and all the islands have partaken of the streams of truth.

But I would gladly inquire of a Jew what gladness the prophetic word proclaims to Ishmaelites and Idumaeans, and how the islands hymn the God of all.

But leaving them for the present, let us hold fast to the truth.

'The Lord God of hosts will go forth to crush war, He will stir up zeal, He will give a signal and cry out against His enemies with strength.'

For He Himself dissolved the might of death, He Himself checked the course of sin, He Himself put an end to the tyranny of the devil, He Himself quenched the error of the idols.

'Shall I be forever silent and hold back? I have endured like a woman in labour.'

'For a long time I bore with it, I exercised the utmost long-suffering, I endured being despised.'

'I will make Myself known and will astound and will dry up all at once; I will lay waste mountains and hills and dry up all vegetation, and I will turn rivers into islands and dry up marshes.'

for He abolished the shrines of the idols that were honoured on the mountains and the hills, and consigned their memory to oblivion and dried them up like grass; and the doctrines of the philosophers, which were like the streams of certain rivers, He brought to a stop and left not even a slight moisture in them.

In the same way He also says, 'I will make the marshes of poetry dry.'

'And I will lead the blind in a way they did not know, and paths they did not know I will make them tread.'

Again He calls 'blind' those sick with unbelief and maimed in the faculty of understanding.

These He promises to guide into the way they did not know;

for they did not know the path of truth, but walked the byways of deception.

'I will turn the darkness into light for them.'

'Having freed them from their former ignorance, I will count them worthy of the divine knowledge;'

for ignorance resembles darkness, and knowledge light.

'And the crooked places into a straight way.'

For He has made the hard-to-travel road of self-control and temperance and righteousness easy to travel, having joined to the labours of virtue the hope of the good things to come.

'These are the things which I will do for them;

and I will not forsake them, says the Lord.'

I will deem them worthy of these good things continually, and I will extend all my care over them even for the time to come.

But they themselves turned away backward.

While I bestow these good things upon the nations, the Jews, who possess the promises and behold these great wonders, turned to the contrary, refusing my guidance.

But let us, who enjoy such great blessings, walk the straight way, following God who guides us and supplies the light and who promises everlasting life, that we too may obtain this life by the grace and lovingkindness of the Saviour who upholds us; with whom to the Father, together with the all-holy Spirit, belong glory and might and majesty, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

VOLUME 13. Be ashamed with shame, you who trust in graven images, who say to the molten images:

Having foretold the conversion of the nations, he turns his discourse toward the Jews.

For concerning them he had already said,

having seen the turning of the nations.

He has called the idols graven and molten images.

For some of them are fashioned out of wood and stone, others out of gold and silver and bronze and tin.

You deaf, hear; and you blind, look up to see.

And who is blind but my people, my servants, and deaf but those who rule over them? He calls those who reign and the rulers 'those who rule,' and he names them deaf as those unwilling to give heed to the prophetic words.

And the rest of the multitude he addressed as blind, since they see the weakness of the idols and yet are unwilling to perceive it.

Who is blind but he who has forsaken? And the servants of God have been blinded.

Who is blind but the perfect one, and blind as the servant of the Lord? For even if the nations likewise go astray, he says, nevertheless they do not bear an equal charge.

For it does not have prophets bearing the torch toward the truth, nor has it been deemed worthy of so great a care.

And 'the one who has forsaken' has the same sense, that is:

he who, called by God, tore himself away from the service of God and chose the worship of the idols.

You have seen many times, and you did not keep watch;

your ears are open, and you did not hear.

For they saw the wonders and enjoyed the divine teachings, yet they applied neither their ears to the words nor their eyes to the works.

The Lord our God willed it, that you might be justified and magnify praise.

He clearly showed the aim of praise.

For he who offers this hymn reaps the profit of the hymn.

And he saw, and the people became a spoil and a prey.

And he taught us the divine purpose and the free will of the human creation.

He himself, he says, willed that you should be justified by choosing godliness; but you, having walked the contrary way, reaped destruction.

For the snare is everywhere in the chambers and in the houses alike, where they hid them.

He calls the error concerning idols a snare;

for just as the snare catches the kinds of irrational beasts, so error catches the race of men.

And the prophetic word taught that everywhere they worshipped the idols.

They became a spoil, and there was none to deliver.

For having departed from my worship, they did not enjoy my providence.

A plunder, and there was none who said,

These things they endured at the hands of the Babylonians and afterward of the Romans, with none to defend them nor any exacting penalties for their impiety.

Who among you is there that will give ear to these things, will attend and hearken for the things to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to those who plunder him? Having said these things by way of question, he clearly points out the one who did this, and he shows also the reasonableness of the cause.

Was it not God, against whom they sinned, and in whose ways they were unwilling to walk, nor to hearken to his law? The lawgiver gave them up, he says, since they loved lawlessness.

And he brought upon them the anger of his wrath, and war prevailed against them, and those who consumed them round about with fire.

For not only did those from afar come against them, but even their neighbours joined battle with those enemies, ravaging and burning and destroying their land.

And each of them did not know, nor lay it to heart, and it was kindled among them.

But they were unwilling to perceive the cause of their sufferings.

And this same disease the Jews have even now;

for having been driven out of their much-talked-of mother city and utterly stripped of the divine care, they do not perceive the cause of their evils.

And now thus says the Lord God, who made you, Jacob, and who formed you, Israel:

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name: You-are-mine.

And the lover of mankind, though he chastens, does not forsake mercy, but he himself is the first to do what he lays down as law—for he says: Reprove, rebuke, exhort.

Here he consoles those who had been enslaved and taken away to Babylonia.

And since they were reckoned the people of God, he fittingly said:

I have called you by your name: You-are-mine.

This is what he means: You had the name of being called by mine.

I am yours, and the rivers shall not overwhelm you.

For thus he says: You passed through the Red Sea and the river Jordan.

And if you pass through fire, you shall not be burned up, the flame shall not consume you; for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who saves you.

And witnesses are the noble witnesses Ananias, Azarias, Misael, who through their hope in God prevailed over the flame.

I made Egypt and Ethiopia and Syene an exchange for you.

Both the Hebrew and the Other Translators have rendered Syene as Saba;

and this too is an Ethiopian nation.

And the word foreshadows the conversion of the nations;

for since you resist, he says, and are unwilling to believe, I shall fashion for myself another people out of diverse nations.

Since you became honoured before me, you were glorified, and I loved you.

He recounts the benefits which they enjoyed;

having been loved by me, he says, and chosen, you became distinguished and much renowned.

And I will give many men for you, and rulers for the sake of your head.

He means the Babylonians, whom he delivered up to Cyrus.

Fear not, for I am with you; from the east I will bring your seed, and from the west I will gather you.

These things received their fulfilment after the overthrow of the Babylonians;

for Cyrus commanded them to return to Judea.

Then, when these had returned from the east, those who had fled at the time of the war and had taken refuge in the west returned as well, having learned, as was to be expected, of the peace of Judea.

Yet truly and properly the word signifies those who were called from all the world through the sacred apostles and obtained salvation;

for indeed in each city they first offered the divine teachings to the Jews.

He summoned the kings from the regions of the earth;

for Babylon lies to the north of Jerusalem, while Egypt lies toward the south.

And to these He says, 'I will command that My people be brought back, and that these not resist.'

'Bring My sons from a land far off, and My daughters from the ends of the earth, all who are called by My name;'

'for in My glory I have prepared him, and I formed him, and I made him.'

'I led forth a blind people, and their eyes are likewise blind, and they have ears that are deaf.'

He both displayed His own providence and reproved their unbelief;

'For I,' He says, 'deemed them worthy of every care, yet they persisted in being blind and deaf;'

for they neither beheld the wonders nor gave ear to the divine oracles.

'All the nations were gathered together at once, and rulers shall be gathered from among them.'

These, then, are blind and deaf, but all the nations came to know their own God, and one Church was constituted out of all, and even the rulers of the Church are from these very nations.

And we behold the fulfillment of this prophecy as well;

for Syrians preside over Syrians, Cilicians over Cilicians, Romans over Romans, and barbarians over barbarians.

And He calls the priests 'rulers.'

'Who will declare these things among them, or who will make known to you the things from of old? Yet you neither call to mind the things that have already come to pass, nor do you wish to learn beforehand the things that are to be.'

'Let them bring forth their witnesses, and let them be justified; and let them hear and speak the truth.'

for through these He both foretold to them and solemnly bore witness.

And the first of these was the blessed Moses, for to him first He said:

'Go down and solemnly charge this people.' And he, in charging them, foretold both the estrangement of these and the transformation of the nations.

'Be My witnesses, and I too am a witness,' says the Lord God, 'and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He.'

'If you wish,' He says, 'to have Me as a witness to your judgment, first bear witness yourselves to My truth;'

'for when this comes to pass, not I alone shall bear witness, but also My chosen servant.'

And He so calls neither Moses nor any other of the prophets, but the Master Christ.

And He calls Him thus not as God but as man;

for He is named 'chosen' insofar as He is man.

This pair we find also in the sacred Gospels;

for the Master Christ, conversing with the Jews, said:

'In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true.'

'I bear witness concerning Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness concerning Me.' So too here:

'I am a witness,' says the Lord God, 'and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He.'

'Before Me there was no other god, and after Me there shall be none.'

'I gave the old covenant, I will also give the new; I have wrought the wonders in Egypt, I will free you from the bondage of the Babylonians.'

'I am, I am your God, and besides Me there is none who saves.'

And these words proclaim the one Godhead.

For that the Master Christ too is named Savior by the divine Scripture, I think even the disciples of Arius and Eunomius agree;

but if there is none besides Him who saves, and Christ too is named Savior, then plainly He is of that same nature.

But if He is not, according to the argument of the blasphemers, then neither is He a Savior, according to the pronouncement of the prophecy.

But if He is a Savior, then He is of the same essence, of which alone it is proper to save.

'I foretold, and I brought about the outcome.'

'I reproached, and there was no stranger among you.'

For 'I reproached' the Three rendered 'I made to hear,' in the sense of 'I bore witness.'

And 'I reproached' bears the same meaning;

for whenever they sinned, they were reproached.

But He means this: that when I was giving the law, no strange god was present.

'You are My witnesses, and I am the Lord God.'

'You know clearly,' He says, 'that no other sought you out, but that you enjoyed My providence alone.'

'and there is none who delivers out of My hands; I will act, and who shall turn it back?' These things He also said through the blessed Moses:

'I will kill and I will make alive, I will strike and I will heal, and there is none who shall deliver out of My hands.' Thus says the Lord God who redeems you, the Holy One of Israel:

'For your sake I will send to Babylon, and I will stir up all the fugitives, and the Chaldeans shall be bound in ships.'

He foretells the overthrow of the Babylonians and the enslavement of the Chaldeans.

'These things,' He says, 'they shall suffer for your sake, since they were unwilling to perceive that it was with My consent they conquered, and that they took you captive after you had been rejected by Me.'

'I am the Lord God, your Holy One, who appointed Israel your king.'

This Symmachus rendered thus:

'I am the Lord your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King'; and the Rest agree.

'For I,' He says, 'formed your forefather and willed to be your king.'

Thus says the Lord, who made a way in the sea and a path in mighty waters, who brought forth chariots and horse and a great and mighty multitude:

He calls to remembrance the wonders that came to pass in the days of Moses, and that strange and marvelous highway which the Mosaic rod prepared, on which He cast Pharaoh's chariots and his host into the sea.

'But they were laid to sleep and shall not rise, they were quenched like a quenched wick.'

Concerning the Egyptians He says these things, that in attempting to pursue Israel they underwent utter destruction.

'Remember not the former things, and consider not the things of old;'

'for behold, I am doing new things which shall now spring forth, and you shall know them.'

'More worthy of wonder,' He says, 'than the things that have come to pass shall be the things that are to be done by Me.'

'And I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the waterless place.'

Some have supposed these things to refer to the return from Babylon, but not rightly;

for at that time He granted them neither a strange way nor rivers as they returned.

But He calls the nations 'the wilderness,' the preaching of the apostles 'rivers,' and the unerring journey 'the way.'

And this the words that follow also make clear:

'The beasts of the field shall bless Me,' those who of old had lived a bestial life.

'The daughters of ostriches' the Rest rendered as 'ostriches.'

Now this creature is a land animal, yet it nonetheless partakes also of the winged nature.

Such are those who spend their life in mere words and stand gaping toward the earth.

Yet even to these the word promises a transformation.

'For I gave water in the wilderness and rivers in the waterless place, to give drink to my chosen race, my people whom I acquired for myself, that they might declare my virtues.'

His 'race,' according to the human nature which He assumed, is the whole nature of mankind; but more nearly it is the nation of the Jews, for it is manifest, he says, that our Lord Jesus sprang from Judah.

For it is evident, he says, that our Lord Jesus has arisen from Judah.

'I chose you.' For it is not only now, together with the other nations, that I have deemed you worthy of the saving call.

'Nor did I make you toil, O Israel; you did not bring me sheep for your whole burnt offering.'

For these things you were offering to the idols.

'Nor in your sacrifices did you glorify me.'

For I have no need of glory brought in from outside.

'You did not serve me with gifts, nor did I weary you with frankincense, nor did you purchase for me incense with silver, nor did I desire the fat of your sacrifices.'

These things the Master set forth at the very opening of this prophecy.

'But in your sins and in your iniquities I stood before you.'

'I am He, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and your sins I will not remember.'

'I do what befits myself; being a lover of mankind I employ mercy, and I do not simply forgive sins, but I even wipe away their very stains and consign the memory of them to oblivion.'

'But you, remember, and let us be judged together.'

'You,' he says, 'do not forget your faults, but keep a secure remembrance of them, so that you may ever know the greatness of my benefaction and may flee from doing the like.'

But since He had reminded them of judgment and had fittingly instilled fear, He teaches those who are liable the manner of victory.

'Do you first declare your iniquities, that you may be justified.'

'I do not wish to conquer you,' He says, 'but I welcome my own defeat.'

'Learn how it is possible for you to win: confess first the things wherein you have failed, and I will extend to you the vote of pardon.'

'If you hide them, I will convict you; if you confess them, I will wipe them away.'

Then the Judge offers a defense on behalf of the punishment that had befallen them.

'Your fathers first sinned, and your rulers transgressed against me, and your rulers defiled my holy things, and I gave over Jacob and Israel to be destroyed, to reproach.'

These things He spoke to those in Babylon.

'It is not I,' He says, 'who am the cause of these calamities, but your fathers and your priests, who transgressed my laws.'

For on account of their lawlessness the much-renowned Israel became an object of reproach.

'But now hear, O Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen.'

'Thus says the Lord your God who made you and who formed you from the womb.'

Continually He calls to mind both the creation and the providence that followed the creation.

'Fear not, my servant Jacob, and beloved Israel whom I have chosen; for I will give water in thirst to those who journey in the waterless place.'

'Not only you,' He says, 'will enjoy my good things, but even the waterless nations will, through your descendants, drink the waters of salvation.'

'I will place my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessings upon your children.'