Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 3/24

for they cannot bear to take their fill of wealth.

And the prophet not only laments them but also shames them with what follows:

'Will you dwell alone upon the earth?' For this is to be read not as a statement but as a question.

Symmachus has made this sense clearer for us:

'Will you be settled alone in the land?' If you wish to join the neighbouring properties to your own, will you keep on doing this forever? What then—he says—will you become sole masters of the whole earth? And what profit will you reap from this? And he instils fear in them by pointing to the Judge:

'For these things—he says—have been heard in the ears of the Lord of hosts.'

Nothing of what happens escapes Him;

for His eyes behold the whole inhabited world.

And He threatens them with utter desolation as well:

'For if there be many houses, they shall become desolate—great and fair ones—and there shall be no inhabitants in them.'

'Where ten yoke of oxen work, they shall produce one jar;'

'and he who sows six artabas shall produce three measures.'

Besides desolation He also threatened barrenness;

for the chastisements are various, since the transgressions of men are various as well.

After the sin of covetousness, He now denounces drunkenness and gluttony;

'Woe to those who rise up early in the morning and pursue strong drink, and who tarry until late;'

for the wine shall inflame them.

For with harp and psaltery and drums and pipes they drink their wine, but the works of God they do not regard, and the works of His hands they do not consider.

For no one, according to the word of the Lord, can serve two masters.

For how is it possible that those who embrace a life of revelry, who give themselves over to drunkenness and lewd dancing, and who spend their days in these things, should attend to the divine oracles and reap the benefit that comes from them? As for 'strong drink' (sikera), Symmachus and Aquila rendered it as 'intoxicant.'

But I think that by these words are signified the concoctions of aperitifs (preparatory drinks);

and 'strong drink' (sikera) is properly the name given to the beverage made from dates.

'Therefore My people was led captive, because they did not know the Lord, and a multitude of the dead came about through famine and thirst for water.'

He clearly declared the cause of these evils.

But the histories of Josephus teach us more precisely about the famine, the thirst, and the captivity;

for he it was who recorded that grievous drama of the woman who devoured her own son on account of the famine.

'And Hades enlarged its soul and opened wide its mouth without ceasing.'

By these words He has signified the multitude of the dead.

He employed personification and portrayed to us death as a kind of sea-monster, holding its mouth continually open and unceasingly receiving the dead who are conveyed to it.

'And into it shall go down the glorious and the great and the rich and her pestilent ones and he that exults in her.'

He calls 'pestilent ones' not only those who destroy themselves, but also those who provoke others into the same disease.

For such is the nature of a plague;

for the sick pass on their affliction to the healthy.

'And man shall be brought low, and the strong man shall be dishonored, and the lofty eyes shall be humbled.'

By 'lofty eyes' He names the arrogant, whom through punishment He compels to look down to the earth.

'And the Lord of Sabaoth shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be glorified in righteousness.'

For those who behold the impious and lawless paying the penalty will sing the praises of the righteous Judge.

'And they that were plundered shall be fed as bulls, and lambs shall feed on the desolate places of those who were taken away.'

That those who opposed the evangelical doctrines plundered the possessions of those who had believed in the Lord, the Apostle taught us outright;

for writing to the Thessalonians he spoke thus:

'For you, my brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus;'

'for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and drove us out, and pleased not God, and were contrary to all men.' And writing to the Hebrews themselves he says thus:

'Recall the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great contest of sufferings, partly by being made a spectacle through reproaches and afflictions, and partly by becoming companions of those who were so treated.'

'For you both suffered together with the prisoners and accepted with joy the plundering of your possessions.' These men, after the destruction of the others, He likens to bulls grazing without fear;

for truly, bearing the yoke of the Lord, they cultivated all the nations.

These same He also names 'lambs;'

for thus the Lord also calls them:

'Behold, I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves.' To these He promises to give the desolate places of those who were taken and led captive.

For He named 'those taken away' as it were the hunted and the spear-captured (prisoners of war);

'their iniquities as with a long cord and as with the thong of a heifer's yoke.'

Grievous indeed is it to sin, but to persist in and to increase one's sin is far more grievous.

Such people He denounces in the present passage, as persisting in their evils and unwilling to make use of repentance, but even contradicting the prophetic predictions.

For this He made clear through what follows:

'Let what God will do draw near quickly, that we may see; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know.'

But these are the words of unbelievers who accuse the prophecy of falsehood;

and to accuse the prophecy of falsehood surpasses every excess of impiety.

From here He turned to another charge:

'Woe to those who call the evil good and the good evil, who put light for darkness and darkness for light, who put the bitter for sweet and the sweet for bitter.'

Such is the life of flatterers;

they praise the wicked, they mock the good, and they do everything for the sake of the belly.

Such too are the unjust judges, the takers of bribes, those who sell justice.

He also denounces those who swagger over their wisdom and are not persuaded by the most wise Hannah, who said:

'Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom.' For 'Woe,' He says, 'to those who are prudent in their own eyes and understanding in their own sight.'

He takes up again the charge against the drunkards:

'Woe to those among you who are mighty, who drink wine, and to the men of power who mix strong drink.'

He denounces these same men as being rulers indeed, but ruling unjustly:

'Who justify the ungodly for the sake of bribes, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him.'

For when justice holds out the winning verdict to this man, you, lawlessly snatching it away, give it to the wrongdoers.

After the charge He adds the threat of punishment:

He likens them to easily-kindled tinder, and the judgment to fire;

for just as that fire consumes both the blossom and the root,

so He calls them the 'root,' and the transient character of their prosperity the 'blossom.'

'For they were not willing to do the law of the Lord of Sabaoth, but provoked the oracle of the Holy One of Israel.'

For He Himself had given the oracles of the law.

'And the Lord of Sabaoth was angered against His people and laid His hand upon them and smote them;'

'and He was provoked against the mountains, and their corpses became as dung in the midst of the road.'

And for the sake of all the things mentioned, He filled the very mountains and the roads with the dead, flung down upon the earth like dung, according to what was said by the psalmist:

'They became as dung for the earth.' And in all these things His wrath has not turned away, but still His hand is uplifted.

For neither did they themselves desist from their lawlessness.

For this too He says in what follows:

'And the people did not turn back until they were struck.' And the phrase,

'His hand is uplifted,' He has set down by way of metaphor from those who scourge a servant with a thong or a rod and lift up their hand.

'Therefore he will raise a signal for the nations that are far off, and he will whistle for them from the ends of the earth;

and behold, they come swiftly and lightly.'

By these words he hinted at the Romans;

for the Babylonians and the Assyrians he frequently calls by name, but frequently also by their region, as when he says:

'From the north the evils shall be kindled,' and:

'I will drive out from you him that comes from the north,' and:

for just as a master summons his servant by whistling, and the servant runs to the sound with fear, so the God of all things beckons, he says, and the Romans come running together.

Then he teaches of their experience in war, their courage, and the hardship they endure on campaigns:

'They shall not hunger nor grow weary, nor slumber nor sleep, nor shall they loosen the belts from their loins, nor shall the thongs of their sandals be broken.'

Then he depicts their full array of arms in advance:

'Whose arrows are sharp and their bows bent;

their horses' hooves are reckoned as solid rock, the wheels of their chariots as a whirlwind;

they rush on like lions and stand ready like lions' cubs, and one shall seize and roar like a wild beast and carry off, and there shall be none to deliver.'

They are accustomed to raise a war-cry in battle, terrifying their opponents with a common shout.

This shout he likened to the roaring of lions;

for just as the lion, by roaring, frightens both the wild beasts and the cattle, so these men, by their very shout, will be able to prevail over their enemies.

'And he shall shout because of them on that day, like the sound of a surging sea.'

Here he showed both their multitude and their battalions likened to waves, and stunning the ears of their adversaries with their shout.

'And they shall look up to the heaven above and down to the earth below, and behold, harsh darkness, darkness in their perplexity.'

Then, he says, those who pay the penalty for their madness against me will look up to heaven, begging to obtain some help, but they will see, not my providence appearing to them like a light, but my avenging power bringing gloom upon their eyes.

Those men, then, having committed such offenses, paid this penalty;

but let us flee the imitation of their wickedness, that we may also escape the fellowship of their punishment, and with boldness behold the Master Christ, to whom, and with whom, to the Father together with the Holy Spirit belong glory, honor, and majesty, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

VOLUME III. 'And it came to pass in the year in which King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated upon a throne high and lifted up, and the house was full of his glory.'

All that has been expounded above the prophet foretold while Uzziah was reigning, but what is now read he beheld under Jotham, who, being the son of Uzziah, succeeded to his kingdom.

The prophet hints at the cessation of prophecy that had occurred because of Uzziah's transgression.

For this man, as soon as he began to reign, enjoyed God's protective care and prevailed over both the Philistines and the other neighboring enemies;

but being puffed up after his victory, he snatched at the dignity of the priesthood, and daring to venture into the innermost sanctuary of the temple, he presumed to offer the incense, which not even to all the priests was it permitted to offer;

for to the high priest alone was entrance permitted into the Holy of Holies.

And Azariah the priest tried to restrain him, and others with him who had been deemed worthy of the priesthood;

but since he would not accept even their counsel, the Master brought upon him a benevolent chastisement;

for he did not command the earth to gape open for him, nor did he bring down a thunderbolt from heaven, but he altered the color of his body and laid upon him the disgrace of leprosy.

Having received this chastisement, he at once departed from the temple, and sitting at home, he administered the kingdom through his son Jotham.

For this reason the God of all things was angry with the people and offered them no oracle, and he was also displeased with the prophet for keeping silent and not bringing forward the rebuke.

After that man's death, however, he shows this vision to the prophet.

With good reason, then, does he make mention of that man's death, teaching when he fell silent and when again he resumed prophecy.

And he says that he beheld the Lord seated upon a throne high and lifted up, and the house filled with his glory.

But one must know that he did not see the very nature of the Lord;

for 'no one has ever seen God;

the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.' And his is the voice:

'Not that anyone has seen the Father, except him who is from God; he has seen the Father,' and:

'No one knows the Son except the Father, nor the Father

unless the Son wills to reveal him.' And he revealed that he is Father, not what he is in nature.

The diverse forms of the visions also bear witness that no one has beheld the divine nature;

for the Divine is not multiform, but formless and shapeless, uncompounded and simple, invisible and unattainable.

'I multiplied visions, and by the hands of the prophets I was represented in likenesses; I was not seen';

for he fashions the appearances as he wills.

'And seraphim stood round about him, six wings to the one and six wings to the one;

and with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.'

'And one cried out to the other, and they said:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth; the whole earth is full of his glory.'

The reverence of the holy seraphim accuses the arrogant king.

For he shamelessly presumed to a ministry that in no way pertained to him, while the invisible powers, entrusted with the heavenly hymnody, revealed by their very posture their reverent awe;

for they covered their faces, as unable even to behold the radiance flashing forth from the Master's vision, and they hid their feet also, thereby signifying their servitude and manifesting their awe and fittingly fulfilling their ministry.

And their flight hints at the loftiness of their mind.

This hymn they offered, both hinting at the one nature of the Godhead by the word 'Lord'—for they offered this in the singular—and intimating the number of the Trinity—for thrice they cried aloud the word 'Holy.'

For the 'Holy, holy, holy' is indicative of the Trinity, while the 'Lord of Sabaoth' is significative of the one nature.

And the seraphim hymn the eternal nature as having filled with his glory not only heaven but the whole earth as well.

And this the incarnation of our God and Savior accomplished;

for after the Master's manifestation the nations received the ray of the knowledge of God.

'And the lintel was lifted up at the voice with which they cried, and the house was filled with smoke.'

For since the seraphim had foreshown the things that would be after the incarnation of our Savior, the joining together of the two peoples is also of necessity signified.

For at the voice by which he declared that the whole earth had been filled with the divine glory, the lintel was lifted up;

and this, having taken place, showed the need for the doors to be superfluous;

and the doors no longer being set in place, entrance into the house was thereafter open to whoever wished.

For since Uzziah, while the Law still held sway, presumed unlawfully upon the inner sanctuary, through this vision the calling of all the nations is foretold.

For let no one suppose, he says, that the glory of the God of all things is circumscribed within the temple;

for the Master of all things fills all things.

And this, too, will become evident before long;

for all people, having received the light of the knowledge of God, will everywhere raise up temples to the Creator of all things, and while those are being filled with his glory, this one will be stripped of its former glory and, instead of the divine light, will receive the smoke of the Roman fire.

And this also came to pass at the time of the cross;

For the veil was torn, and it displayed the withdrawal of the grace that had once flowered upon the Temple.

'Woe is me, for I am pricked to the heart, because being a man, and having unclean lips, dwelling in the midst of a people that has unclean lips, I with my own eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Sabaoth.'

This Symmachus rendered more clearly:

'For I am a man unclean in lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people unclean in lips.' The rendering of the Others also agrees with this.

He hints at the silence that had been kept concerning the transgression of Uzziah;

and for this reason he calls himself unclean in lips, as one who had shared in the presumptuous deed through his silence—and he lays the same accusation against the people as well—and he dreaded the divine manifestation as a judicial presence.

'...one of the seraphim, and in his hand he held a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar; and he touched my mouth and said:'

'Behold, this has touched your lips, and it shall take away your iniquities and thoroughly cleanse your sins.'

And this too discloses the fault of the silence;

for it was to no other member of the body but to the mouth that the seraph brought the coal.

And what took place also convicts the transgression of Uzziah;

for he most shamelessly presumed upon the altar, whereas the seraph, though it bears the very name of fire and has been deemed worthy of divine ministry, took the coal not with a bare hand but with the tongs, and by placing it upon the prophet's mouth it announced to him deliverance from sin.

And through these things there is also prefigured and pre-sketched the participation in our good things—the deliverance from sins which comes through the Master's body and blood.

'And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:'

'Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?' The Master says these things not because He is ignorant of whom it is fitting to send, but in order to urge the prophet to the ministry.

The prophet makes his defense for his former silence, and, though unwilling to convict a single person, he takes upon himself the reproof of the whole people.

For it is not by snatching at the honor that he runs forward self-appointed, but by making his defense for his former silence and by taking upon himself the perils that would come from the people.

'Go and say to this people:'

'You shall hear indeed, but shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, but shall not perceive.'

He foretells the contradiction that Jews would raise at the manifestation of the Master;

for indeed, though they heard the divine oracles, they did not hear, and though they beheld the ten thousand wonders, they were unwilling to understand.

For which reason the Lord in the sacred Gospels foretold:

'For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.' For those who were blind in body beheld Him with the eyes of the soul, while those who had healthy eyes of the body had the sight of their mind blinded.

And not only did they have their eyes closed, but also their ears stopped.

For this reason the Lord said:

'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.' The prophet, however—or rather the God of the prophet—teaches through what follows that these afflictions came upon them by their own will.

'For the heart of this people has grown gross, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I should heal them.'

It was not nature but their own will that wrought these afflictions;

for they were not blind by nature, but they themselves closed their eyes and heard the divine oracles heavily, as though warring against themselves and thrusting away the salvation that would come both through sight and through hearing, and through the repentance that springs from these.

And this too Symmachus stated more clearly:

'This people has made its ears heavy and has shut its eyes, lest it should see with its eyes and hear with its ears, and lest its heart should understand and it should turn and be healed.' And all these things signify not a natural weakness of the organs, but a willful unbelief;

for it says: willingly they both make themselves blind and deaf and set every means in motion, that they may not obtain salvation.

'How long, O Lord?' I asked this, longing to learn the duration of their disobedience.

'Until cities be laid waste so that they are not inhabited, and houses so that there are no men, and the land shall be left desolate.'

He says: they will persist in their wickedness to the very end, and not even punishment will effect any change in them;

for neither the sacking of the cities, nor the destruction of the houses, nor the desolation of the whole land will effect in them any perception or knowledge of their transgression.

And through these things he hints at the evils brought upon them by the Romans.

And the divine Apostle also says the same as the prophet:

'God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, unto this present day.' But the word 'gave' must not be understood in an active sense;

for if He Himself gave it and compelled them not to see, how does He exact an accounting? How does He punish the disobedient? Therefore the word 'gave' is set down in the sense of 'permitted';

for since they were disposed contentiously and quarrelsomely, He allowed them to follow their own reasonings;

for He has made the nature of men self-determining.

'And after these things God will remove men far away.'

The word 'will remove far' Symmachus rendered as 'will make distant,' that is:

He will send them forth into captivity.

'And those who are left upon the land shall be multiplied;'

'And yet upon it there shall be a tithe, and again it shall be for a spoil, like a terebinth and like an acorn when it falls out of its case.'

For Vespasian was the first who marched against them as a general;

then, after the death of Nero, leaving his son Titus behind, he himself returned on account of the kingship.

So Titus, having besieged the city and set fire to the Temple and taken many prisoners of war, returned to the metropolis of the Romans.

But those who had escaped their hands returned again and settled the city;

yet these were far fewer than the former inhabitants;

for which reason He calls them the tithe of those former ones, that is, a tenth part.

But again, when they rebelled, Hadrian brought upon them utter destruction, and he even changed the very name of the city, commanding it to be called by his own family name;

for from that it was called Aelia;

for he was named Aelius by surname.

God, declaring these things to the prophet, said that again it shall be for a spoil.

And, signifying both its desolation and the barrenness and unyielding hardness of the heart, He likened it not to a fruit-bearing tree but to a terebinth and an acorn, and to these when stripped of their leaves.

'It shall be for grazing, like an oak and like an acorn, which, when it has cast off its leaves, stands alone.' For clearly through these words He has shown that it was grazed down by men of foreign race, just as acorns are by swine, and it has remained bereft of good things, like an oak and an acorn stripped bare of fruit and leaves.

The prophet, having both seen and learned these things in the reign of Jotham—for he reigned after Uzziah—thereafter records the things that came to pass and were prophesied in the days of Ahaz—for he was the son of Jotham.

But Jotham was a nursling of piety, whereas Ahaz was diametrically opposed, being at once lawless and impious.

For which reason he did not obtain the divine care, but when war was joined and the king of the ten tribes had drawn up his forces in array—Pekah was this man's name, the son of Remaliah—he lost a hundred and twenty thousand men in the war, and the victors led away captive another two hundred thousand of women and children.

But the prophet Oded caused the captives to be released—the history of Chronicles teaches these things—saying to the victors:

'Behold, the wrath of the God of your fathers is upon Judah, and He delivered them into your hands, and you have slain among them in wrath, and it has reached even to the heavens.'

'And now you say that you will subdue the sons of Judah and Jerusalem for menservants and maidservants;'

'Is it not so that I am not with you? The Lord your God testifies;'

'there is guilt upon you against the Lord your God.'

'And now hear me, and send back the captivity which you have taken captive from your brethren, for the wrath of the Lord is upon you.' This wonderful prophet, both by pointing out the cause of the defeat—for on account of their impiety God in His anger had delivered them up—and by reminding them of their kinship, persuaded them to release those who had been made prisoners of war.

And many other such things this impious king also suffered;

for the Idumeans enslaved those who were near, and the Philistines those who were their neighbors.

But the lawless king, when he ought to have sought his alliance from God, fled instead for refuge to the king of the Assyrians.

And though not summoned he offers alliance, and though he is despised he takes forethought for others.

This is precisely what he did here as well.

For when Pekah summoned the king of the Syrians into alliance, and together with him had seized upon Jerusalem to besiege it, the impious king was, as was to be expected, thrown into terror, and the people also were afraid;

for the experience of what had already befallen them compelled them to shudder with dread.

So violently did the terror shake them that they resembled trees tossed about by a more furious onslaught of the winds.

But the loving Master commanded the prophet to do these things:

'Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Jashub your son who has been left, to the pool of the upper road of the fuller's field.'

Nowhere else was the prophet commanded to prophesy along with his child; here alone was he ordered to take his son with him, since he was about to foretell the birth of Emmanuel and to teach Ahaz that, on account of the One who was to be born from him, he would enjoy the divine care, though he himself, because of his own lawlessness, was deserving of punishment.

'Take heed to be quiet; fear not, neither let your soul be faint, nor be afraid because of these two smoking firebrands of wood;

for whenever the wrath of my anger comes, I will heal again.'

The phrase 'take heed to be quiet' Symmachus rendered 'take heed and be still,' Aquila 'take heed and keep quiet,' and Theodotion 'give heed and keep quiet.'

'Do not make war nor set your army in array, for you will conquer by keeping quiet, through my goodness.'

'I smite and I heal;

for indeed I brought upon you the former chastisement because of your lawlessness, and now I come to your defense because of the One who is to be born from you.'

'Do not, then, be afraid of these men;

for they resemble firebrands that are smoking but not blazing'--that is to say:

'they cause fear, but they will not do harm.'

'And the son of Aram and the son of Romelias, because they took evil counsel--Ephraim and the son of Romelias--against you, saying:

"Let us go up into Judea and afflict it, and having conferred with them let us turn them over to ourselves and make the son of Tabeel king over them"--thus says the Lord of Sabaoth:

"This counsel shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass."'

And he laid bare their designs and made known his own decree:

'For I,' he says, 'will scatter their counsel.'

By 'Aram' he names the Syrians;

for it was to him that he gave the kingdom of the Syrians.

'And yet sixty-five years more, and the kingdom of Ephraim shall cease from being a people.'

He foretells the captivity that came about under Shalmaneser and Sennacherib.

For Pul first imposed the tribute; after him Tiglath-pileser led certain cities into captivity; then Shalmaneser took the greater part, and Sennacherib those that were left.

'And the head of Ephraim is Somoron, and the head of Somoron is the son of Romelias.'

By 'Somoron' he calls Samaria, from the mountain;