Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 4/24

and the mountain was called Somoron from the man who first possessed it, and the city from the mountain.

And Samaria is the place now called Sebaste.

He says, then, that Samaria rules over the ten tribes, and over Samaria the son of Romelias, and 'I will not permit these very men to overstep the boundaries.'

And knowing their unbelief, he added:

'And if you do not believe, neither will you understand.'

'If you do not believe, you will not endure'; but Theodotion:

'If you do not believe, neither will you be found trustworthy'--for salvation is the fruit of faith--; and according to the Seventy:

'You shall not understand,' which shows that the knowledge of divine things comes through faith.

'And the Lord continued to speak to Ahaz, saying:

"Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height."'

'Since you disbelieve what has been said,' he says, 'and consider my promise to be a lie, I will confirm my words by a miracle.'

'Ask, then, whatever sign you wish, whether heavenly or earthly;

for this is what he means by "in the depth or in the height."'

And both of these he granted to his son Hezekiah the king: in heaven he commanded the sun to turn back, and on earth he chastised the Assyrians, and moreover he bestowed upon him bodily health as well.

'I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.'

But these words he used not as one who believed even apart from a sign, but as one contradicting.

This Symmachus and Aquila rendered more clearly:

'Is it not enough for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?' He says: 'Does it not suffice you to contradict the prophets, to resist the divine servants, but you also openly disobey the Master himself when he commands? Yet nevertheless, even though you are unwilling, he will give you a sign, new and marvelous.'

'Behold, the virgin shall conceive in her womb and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.'

This is truly a sign, both in the depth and in the height.

For indeed Theodotion and Aquila rendered it thus:

'Make it deep unto Hades or lift it high above.' And Emmanuel both descended into Hades and ascended into heaven, and raised up into the heavens Adam who lay in Hades.

But I marvel at the shamelessness of the Jews who do not accept the prophecy concerning the virgin;

for Aquila, they say, and Theodotion and Symmachus rendered it not 'virgin' but 'young woman.'

But they ought first to have recognized that the testimony of the seventy men is more trustworthy than that given by three, especially since it holds agreement amid so great a multitude.

And they have their credibility from the time as well;

for before the incarnation of our Savior they translated the divine Scripture into the Greek tongue, having no pretext for malice.

In addition to this, the divine grace also cooperated with them in the agreement.

But Theodotion and Aquila and Symmachus translated the divine Scripture after the Master's manifestation, and, holding the opinions of the Jews, maliciously overthrew the prophecies concerning the Master.

Yet even so, not even this obscured the truth.

For indeed Moses the lawgiver is shown to have set down the term 'young woman' in place of the designation 'virgin':

'For if,' he says, 'anyone finds a young woman in the field and lies with her, do such and such.'

Yet let us not even grant that the lawgiver said this.

For the designation 'sign' suffices for the demonstration.

For this birth is called a sign, and a very great sign;

and no one calls a sign that which happens every day;

for if the birth is not of a virgin but of marriage, how is that which proceeds in the customary way according to nature called a sign? But let us for the present leave aside the accusation against the Jews, and let us hold to the interpretation.

Having foretold the virgin's conception and the marvelous birth, the prophet also appended the name:

for he named the infant Emmanuel.

Then at the same time he foretells both the human and the divine things:

'Before He knows or chooses wickedness, He shall choose the good.'

This is not according to man, but above man.

For a man requires time and the measures of age, and only then does he learn what is good and what is wicked;

but Emmanuel, straightway from His swaddling-clothes, rejected the choice of the worse.

Having thus given the sign, He foretells the deliverance:

'And the land which you fear shall be forsaken before the face of the two kings.'

Since a little later other enemies were about to come upon them, He foretells these things also, teaching that the Maker of the universe is ignorant of nothing that concerns the whole, but that He Himself governs all things and directs them toward what is profitable.

'But the Lord shall bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon your father's house, days which have not yet come, from the day that Ephraim was taken away from Judah—even the king of the Assyrians.'

'From the day that Ephraim was taken away from Judah'—thus Symmachus rendered it:

'from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah.'

And who is this? The king of the Assyrians.

And according to the Seventy He says such days: 'God shall bring upon you such days as you have not seen, from the day that Ephraim withdrew himself from you.'

And what are these? The king of the Assyrians, bringing the evils upon you in them.

For it was not Ephraim who took away the king of the Assyrians; rather, God shall bring the king of the Assyrians, and through him such evils as Judah had not seen after the separation of Ephraim.

'And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the flies that shall rule over part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the country of the Assyrians.'

Instead of 'that shall rule over what is in part of the river of Egypt,' Theodotion said:

By 'flies' He calls the Egyptians, as having done the lesser harm, and by 'bees' the Assyrians;

for the sting of the bee is more severe.

The history of the Books of Kingdoms makes mention both of the Egyptians and of the Assyrians.

For Pharaoh Necho, king of the Egyptians, both slew Josiah and, having stripped his son Joachaz of the kingdom, took him captive, and compelled Judah to pay tribute;

and the Assyrians, first with Sennacherib laid waste the other cities of Judea, and after that, together with Nebuchadnezzar, besieged Jerusalem itself, burned the divine Temple, and led away as spear-won captives those who had escaped death.

Teaching of this multitude, He added:

'And they shall come and shall all rest in the ravines of the land, and in the holes of the rocks, and in the caves, and in every cleft, and in every tree.'

After these things He foretells the utter dissolution of the Assyrians:

'In that day the Lord shall shave with the hired razor beyond the river of the king of the Assyrians the head and the hairs of the feet, and shall also take away the beard.'

By the 'hired razor' He calls the king of the Medes and Persians.

For this one, having become the instrument of justice, dissolved the kingdom of the Babylonians;

and He stripped the feet of their hairs, taking away the manhood of those who campaigned under him.

And He shall also take away the comeliness of the beard—that is to say:

He shall show the enemies to be women instead of men.

'And it shall come to pass in that day that a man shall rear a heifer of the herd and two sheep;'

'and it shall be that, from their making abundant milk, he shall eat butter, for everyone left upon the land shall eat butter and honey.'

After the return of Nebuchadnezzar from Judea, all those who had escaped were gathered together, and, living in the utmost poverty, they dwelt in Judea, procuring their necessary sustenance from a few flocks.

And since the land was no longer being tilled because of the desolation of its men, the flocks had abundant grass in plenty, and the greater nourishment caused the milk to gush forth as from a spring;

for which reason even the few sheep fulfilled the need.

And this is plain from what follows;

for again He plainly shows the barrenness of the land:

'And it shall come to pass in that day that every place, wherever there be a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels, shall become barren ground and thorns.'

For even that which is of good soil and deemed worthy of much toilsome cultivation shall receive utter desolation.

'With arrow and bow shall men enter there, for all the land shall be barren ground and thorns.'

It is the assault of the enemies that brings about the desolation.

'And every mountain that is ploughed shall be ploughed;'

'fear shall not come there, for it shall be, from barren ground and thorns, for the pasture of sheep and the treading-place of oxen.'

He says the same things in different words: that even the mountains, which have been greatly ploughed and deemed worthy of much care, where of old there was no fear, these too, because of the great desolation, shall become a grazing-ground of herds and flocks.

But if one should wish to understand the passage also in a figurative sense, he will find even so the truth of the prophecy;

for the people of the Jews was a ploughed mountain, being tilled by the Law and the prophets, living in security under a free polity, while it enjoyed the divine alliance.

But this mountain has been deprived of its husbandmen because of its unfruitfulness, and has become a grazing-ground for irrational reasonings.

Having thus foretold these things to the Jews, He again takes up the discourse concerning Emmanuel:

'Take to yourself a great new scroll, and write in it with a man's stylus:'

'Swiftly to make plundering of spoils;'

'And make for me faithful witnesses, men: Urias the priest, and Zacharias the son of Barachias.'

The fourth Book of Kingdoms makes mention of Urias the priest, and the second of the Chronicles of Zacharias the prophet.

And they flourished together in the times of Ozias and Joatham and Achaz.

And since He had already foretold the birth from the Virgin, and what was said was beyond nature, He teaches the manner of the conception.

And just as, when the holy Virgin received the marvel of the good tidings and inquired:

'How shall this be to me, since I know not a man?'—the holy Gabriel taught the manner of the conception, saying:

'The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you; wherefore also the holy thing that is born shall be called the Son of God'—so here too the prophetic word teaches those who disbelieve the prediction to believe, displaying the divine manner and introducing the all-holy Spirit expressly declaring:

'And I went in to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son.'

Then the prophet is commanded also to give a name to the one born:

'Call his name: Swiftly-spoil, quickly-plunder.'

And the deed becomes for him a name;

for it is the very voice of the Lord:

'Unless one enter into the house of the strong man and bind the strong man, how shall he plunder his goods?' And immediately upon being born, He drew the first goods of the devil, the Magi, to worship.

For this He shows through what follows:

'And the Lord spoke to me again, saying:'

By 'the water of Siloam' He does not call Achaz the lawless, but the King hidden within him, called Emmanuel, who received the appellation 'Swiftly-spoil, quickly-plunder,' concerning whom it is said:

'He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall His voice be heard in the streets.' For thus here also it is called the water that flows gently.

'And it shall come up over all your ravines, and shall walk over all your walls, and shall take away from Judea a man who shall be able to lift up his head, or to accomplish anything mighty.'

'And his encampment shall be so as to fill the breadth of your land.'

These things the fourth of the Books of Kingdoms teaches, and the second of the Chronicles, and the prophet Jeremiah.

For having led away all the mighty men, he left behind a few of the poor of the land as farmers.

'Know, O nations, and be conquered; give ear, even to the uttermost part of the earth; though you be strong, yet shall you be conquered.'

The phrase 'God is with us,' Emmanuel, stands thus in the Hebrew.

Since, then, the prophet had foretold this One's conception and birth, he fittingly takes great pride in Him and exults against the enemies, and says to the Israelites and Syrians who have already been conquered:

'For if you again grow strong, again you shall be conquered.'

'And whatever counsel you take, the Lord shall scatter it; and whatever word you speak, it shall not stand fast among you; for God is with us.'

These things, then, are to be understood according to the plain sense and in keeping with the sequence of what has already been expounded.

But since the prophet has summoned those who dwell in the uttermost regions and foretells to them also their defeat, one might more truly apply these words to the holy apostles.

For those men, going about the whole inhabited world, cried out this:

'God is with us. Know, O nations, and be conquered; accept the saving defeat; submit yourselves to the Lord and beseech Him; flee the tyranny of the demons and embrace the good servitude of the Lord.'

'For even if now you contradict and plot our death, yet a little later you shall be conquered, and the Lord of all shall scatter your wicked counsels.'

'For this One is with us.'

But the Three interpreted the passage more clearly:

'Gather yourselves together, O peoples, and be conquered; and give ear, all you far regions of the earth; gird yourselves and be conquered; and again gird yourselves and be conquered.'

'For God is with us.' These things the prophetic word enjoins upon all who dwell in the inhabited world: that even if ten thousand times they gird themselves and set themselves in array against the holy apostles, in the end they shall be conquered.

For Emmanuel holds sovereign power over all.

'With a strong hand they disobey the walking of the way of this people, saying:'

'For everything that this people says is hard.'

They see, he says, the strength of God's right hand and the wonders wrought by it, yet they contradict, daring the same things as the Jews and imitating their walk.

For the Jews too charged the holy apostles not to preach Christ the Master.

'Did we not strictly charge you not to speak in this name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.' He here calls this One hard, as not pleasing to the wicked mind of the Jews.

Yet the all-holy Spirit, through the prophet, enjoins them not to fear the threats of these men.

'But their fear'—that is, the fear of this people—'do not fear, neither be troubled by them.'

So too, when the divine Paul was imprisoned, Christ the Master said to him:

'For as you have testified concerning Me at Jerusalem, so must you also bear witness at Rome.' And when He had freed from their bonds that great pair of apostles, Peter and John, He enjoined them to proclaim boldly to the people in the temple the words of life.

So here too He banished human fear, and commanded them to fear the God of all.

'For sanctify Him,' he says, 'as Lord;'

'and He Himself shall be your fear.'

Then he shows the gain of this fear:

'And if you are trusting in Him, He shall be to you for a sanctuary;'

'and you shall not meet Him as a stumbling-stone, nor as the fall of a rock.'

He Himself shall sanctify you, He Himself shall guide you and set you straight; He shall make the way smooth, and shall not let you stumble.

Of this stone the blessed Paul made mention.

For teaching the cause of the Jews' unbelief, he adduced this testimony:

'For they stumbled at the stone of stumbling.' And since the same Spirit spoke both through the prophetic and through the apostolic tongue, he fittingly added:

'But the houses of Jacob are in a snare, and they who lodge in a pit in Jerusalem.'

He said 'houses' and not 'house' because of the division of the kingdom, and he signifies at once both the house of Ephraim and the house of Judah;

for both these and those had Jacob as their forefather.

The word 'they shall be unable' Symmachus rendered 'they shall stumble,' while Aquila rendered 'they shall be scandalized.'

For having stumbled at the Lord's cross, they both fell and were crushed and were taken captive by the enemies, being caught as it were in a net together with the city.

For he called the encircling walls 'security,' since they were supposed to guard them, yet delivered them over to the enemies.

'Then shall those be made manifest who seal up the law so as not to learn it.'

Through these words he has indicated those who have come to grace, as it were setting certain seals upon the law and being unwilling to conduct their life according to it.

But the Three have interpreted it more clearly:

Concerning these who are taught, another prophet also said:

'They shall all be taught of God.' 'And you shall say'—that is, the one who has believed:

'I will wait for God, who has turned away His face from the house of Jacob, and I will be trusting in Him.'

'For seeing those of the house of Jacob who disbelieved made desolate of My care, you shall believe in Me more firmly and shall await My promises.'

'Behold, I and the children whom God has given me.'

This testimony the blessed Paul applied to the Lord.

For having said, 'I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You,' he added:

'Behold, I and the children whom God has given me.' Then he offered the interpretation of these sayings:

'Since, then, the children have shared in flesh and blood, He likewise Himself partook of the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death.' And the things that follow depend upon the same sequence:

'And there shall be signs and wonders in the house of Israel from the Lord of Sabaoth, who dwells in Mount Zion.'

These children the Other Interpreters joined together with the signs.

For thus the Three in agreement said:

'as signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts who dwells in Mount Zion.' Therefore these men, even against their will, have more clearly disclosed to us the apostolic choir;

for they said that the children were given as signs and wonders in Israel.

And the outcome bears witness to the prediction;

for through these men, after the Savior's ascension, countless signs were wrought as wonders for the benefit both of Israel and of the whole inhabited world.

'And if they should say to you:'

'Call upon the ventriloquists and those who cry out from the earth, those who speak empty things, who shall cry out from the belly'—not a nation seeking its God, since they seek from the dead concerning the living. Through these words he accuses the perverse mind of the Jews.

For having been enslaved to error throughout their whole life, and having resorted to necromancies, and inquiring of the dead concerning the living, and consulting the belly-diviners, they did not believe the true wonders of the apostles.

And yet they had received the law as a helper of salvation, and this without gifts guided them to the truth;

'For he gave the law for a help,' he says, 'that they might not say, as of this word, concerning which there are no gifts to give.'

'But since you neither obey the law that guides you, nor the apostles who bear the torch toward the truth, but embrace only error, I will surround you with many calamities;'

'For hard famine shall come upon you, and it shall be, whenever you are hungry, you shall be grieved and shall speak evil of the ruler and of your ancestral things.'

But some of the copies have 'patachra.'

And this sense agrees both with the Hebrew and with the Other Interpreters;

for 'patachrē' is a Syrian word, and it signifies in the Greek tongue the idols.

This the Hebrew calls 'beloau,' and therefore the Three—Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion—rendered it thus:

And he shall curse in his king and in his gods. For indeed the Hebrew calls the ruler 'king.'

By these words he indicated the excess of the famine.

For, he says, so great shall be the want that even the rulers and the gods whom you reverence and worship shall be blasphemed.

And they shall look up to heaven above, and they shall gaze upon the earth below, and behold, sore distress and darkness, affliction and anguish and darkness, so that one cannot see.

And he that is in anguish shall not be without perplexity until the appointed time.

You will scan everything, he says—the heaven, the earth, the rulers, the idols—and everything will be for you without resource;

and the excess of the affliction will pour sudden darkness upon you, and this bounded by no fixed time, but even unto death these griefs shall drag you down; for this is what the passage signifies:

He that is in anguish shall not be without perplexity until the appointed time—that is to say:

these things are not bounded by any measure of time, but they shall always be in them.

Having thus foretold these things to the unbelieving, he passes over to the choir of the apostles and says:

Drink this first, act quickly, O land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, and the rest who inhabit the seacoast and beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

The people that walked in darkness saw a great light;

upon them that dwell in the region and shadow of death shall light shine.

Galilee was the homeland of the sacred apostles, and the holy angels are witnesses, who named them thus after the ascension of the Saviour:

Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? And Zebulun and Naphtali had received that land as their inheritance.

In that land the Master wrought most of his miracles: there he cleansed the leper, there he restored the centurion's servant to health, there he quenched the fever of Peter's mother-in-law, there he brought back to life the daughter of Jairus who had departed from this life, there he stilled the waves of the sea, there he made the loaves gush forth, there he changed the water into wine.

And this, according to the teaching of John the Theologian, was the prelude of all the miracles;

wherefore also the grace of the Spirit here cries out through the prophet to those who inhabit that region:

but act quickly—that is to say:

believe, follow, live according to the divine commandments.

He calls it Galilee of the nations, inasmuch as foreign nations also dwelt together with the Jews.

And I think that he also prophesies beforehand the salvation of the nations;

for the apostles who set out from Galilee were entrusted with the calling of the nations:

Make disciples of all the nations. The greater part of the people whom thou didst bring down shall rejoice in thy gladness, they shall rejoice before thee as they that rejoice in harvest and in the manner of those that divide the spoils.

For since not all enjoyed that ray of light, but many willingly deprived themselves of the light, these ones, he says, whom you drew by the miracles and filled with gladness, shall perpetually enjoy this gladness, imitating reapers and victorious soldiers dividing the spoils.

And the divine apostles too were called reapers;

For I sent you, he says, to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour; and again:

The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the labourers are few;

pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he may send forth labourers into his harvest; and elsewhere:

Lift up your eyes and behold the fields, that they are white unto harvest. And having also destroyed the tyranny of the devil, he distributed his spoils among the apostles:

For, he said, Go ye and make disciples of all the nations. And they rejoice, he says, because the yoke that lay upon them and the rod upon their neck has been taken away.

By 'yoke' he means the lordship of the devil, and by 'rod' the servitude to him.

From these things our Master Christ set free those who believed in him.

For he scattered the rod of the disobedient as in the day of Midian.

By 'the disobedient' he means not only the demons and their ruler, but also those among men who gainsay the preaching.

And he overthrew their dominion by means of a few, and those unarmed, just as of old, through Gideon and the three hundred torch-bearers, he struck down the many thousands of Midian.

For just as he overthrew those without weapons, so he transformed the whole inhabited world through twelve heralds, and those not armed but clothed in a single tunic, unshod, and not even commanded to carry a staff.

For every garment gathered by guile and every cloak they shall repay with restitution.

But these very invisible foes, who by deceit stripped man of his former glory and took off from him the garment of the divine image, they themselves shall pay the penalty for the things they dared, and the robe which they took they shall repay with restitution.

For having delivered over the Lord's body to death as though mortal, they shall render it back immortal;

and the guile which they used against men shall be turned against their own head.

And they shall wish that they had been burned with fire, because a child is born to us, and a son is given to us.

They are frenzied, he says, and raging, and set ablaze with envy, when they behold our gifts—the child that was born for our sake, the only-begotten Son of God who has clothed himself with human nature and is working out our salvation.

Whose government was upon his shoulder.

For having contended and wrestled, he overthrew the adversary.

But Symmachus and Theodotion rendered this thus:

And the chastisement shall be upon his shoulder. For the chastisement of our peace was upon him, according to the very words of the prophet, and he took our iniquities and bore our diseases, and by his stripes we were healed. And he is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, and he redeemed us, having become for us a curse out of the curse of the law.

The chastisement shall be upon his shoulder, or according to Aquila:

The measure came to be upon his shoulder. For to the sin of Adam he opposed his own righteousness.

we were paying the penalty, and the cross too was laid under a curse, yet the Master bore this, and so bore our sins, and thus the prophecy received its fulfilment.

For, according to Theodotion and Symmachus, the chastisement came to be upon his shoulder.

And his name is called Angel of Great Counsel.

For he announced to us the Father's counsel, according to his own words:

All things that I have heard from my Father I have made known unto you. Wonderful Counsellor, thou art wondrous.

For so we found it lying in some copies.

And so also, conversing with Jacob, he named himself:

Why dost thou ask this, my name? And it too is wonderful. And he is called Counsellor as a partaker of the Father's counsel, as knowing all things that the Father knows.

Then, the greater of the names:

But those of Aquila's party, dealing with this dishonestly, rendered it 'Mighty, Powerful';

yet it stands in the Hebrew as 'elgibbor,' and the 'el' means 'God,' even according to their own interpretation;

for the phrase 'God with us,' Emmanuel, they rendered thus.

not being under the authority of another, but himself lording it over all.

This also refutes the abomination of Arius;

for it shows him to be equal in honour, and not a subordinate servant of the Father.

For he is, according to the apostle, our peace, who made both one and broke down the middle wall of partition. Father of the age to come.

For just as Adam is named father of the present age, so he is father of the age to come.

For if any man be in Christ, he says, he is a new creation;

old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. For I will bring peace upon the rulers, peace and health for him.

So too he says in the seventy-first Psalm:

O God, give the king Your judgement, and Your righteousness to the king's son, that he may judge Your people in righteousness and Your poor in justice. And here indeed it says:

From now and unto the age; while there again it says:

He shall endure together with the sun, and before the moon, unto generations of generations. And he speaks of his rule as most great, and of his peace as unbounded: