Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 7/24

'Having girded your loins with truth.'

He said that the cry of lamentation passed all the way to Segor.

By these things he hinted at her unruliness;

for such a heifer is bold and unruly.

'At the ascent of Louith they shall go up weeping to you on the road to Aroniim.'

These too are names of places, through which he says come those who bring tidings of the grievous events.

Then he bids her cry out and lament the destruction of the cities and the reversal of affairs, and that 'The water of Nemerex shall be dried up, and all the grass shall fail.'

And it is likely that these things too came to pass in this way.

Then he threatens also the incursion of the Arabs;

here too by 'Arabs' he calls the Ishmaelites.

'For the cry has joined the border of Moab to Agaliim, and her wailing reaches as far as the well of Elim.'

Every city, he says, shall lament its own evils, and there shall arise as it were a concert of lamentations.

Then he foretells the multitude of those who are slain;

for it shall be so great, he says, that even the water of Remmon shall be mingled with blood, as the Arabs advance and work the slaughter.

'And I will take away the seed of Moab, and Ariel and the remnant of Adama.'

'I will send them forth like creeping things upon the earth.'

Ariel is the city now called Areopolis; and Adama was another city of the same name as the one that of old received destruction together with the Sodomites.

The captives from these peoples, forced to bend down to the ground, he fittingly likened to creatures creeping upon the earth.

'Is the mountain of the daughter of Sion a desert rock?' Did you not, he says, mock Jerusalem, calling her a barren mountain? Learn therefore through the events that she escaped the hands of the Assyrian—rather, that she consumed his army—but you shall be like a nestling snatched away from a bird as it flies aloft.

For just as nestlings bereft of their parents are exceedingly easy to catch, so also you shall be easily captured, since you do not enjoy my providence.

'Then take further counsel, Arnon.'

'And make for them a covering of mourning continually.'

'In the noonday darkness they flee; they are beside themselves.'

In the noonday darkness there flee, properly speaking, those who do not wish to see the true light, but prefer the darkness of ignorance to the light;

yet one might also say that those who are in misfortunes see darkness at midday.

'They are beside themselves.' 'Be not led away'—this he interpreted more clearly;

'Do not expose the one who is migrating,' he says; and Symmachus renders:

'Do not drive away the outcast.' For since the Moabites in their flight took refuge at Arnon, he bids her receive them and not drive them away, for she will be benefited by them.

For this is what the following words teach:

'The fugitives of Moab shall sojourn with you; they shall be a shelter to you from the face of the pursuer, for your alliance has been taken away.'

You are bereft, he says, of any who might help you;

but if you receive these people, they will be your defenders.

Then he also foretells the destruction of the Assyrian:

'And the ruler who tramples the land shall perish.'

And teaching both where he perished and for what cause he perished, he adds:

These things he says concerning Hezekiah:

'he turned not aside to the right or the left.' Then he portrays as in a tragedy the arrogance of Moab:

'We have heard of the insolence of Moab; he is exceedingly insolent.'

'his pride they have exalted, and his insolence, and his wrath.'

By 'pride' he means that which is directed against God, and by 'insolence' and 'wrath' that which is directed against the people;

for they used to insult these and to bear them grudges.

'Not so is your divination, not so.'

Other things, he says, the oracles of the demons foretold to you, but you have seen the very opposite of them.

I think that the prophet also reminds them of the prophecy of Balaam, that 'he who arises out of Israel shall crush the leaders of Moab.'

Then again he recounts his laments, and mocks his weakness and his instability;

for he calls his vulnerability an 'earthen wall.'

He foretells also the ravaging of the land, the barrenness of what is sown, and the desolation of what is planted; and he bids the Assyrians who devour the nations trample down the vineyards; and, setting for them as it were certain boundaries, he charges them to press the war as far as Iazer.

Then he describes the wandering of the fugitives:

for some, he says, wander in the wilderness, while others even crossed the Red Sea.

He recalls the same things twice and thrice—the vine of Sabama and the trees of Esebon and Eleala—demonstrating the truth of the prophecy.

'For upon your harvest and your vintage the shout of those who trample has fallen.'

For no longer will you sing the songs of the winepress, but others, trampling you down, will sing the song of war;

and you will not enjoy the gladness of the vineyards.

'My belly shall resound for Moab like a harp, and my inward parts like the earthen wall.' This prophecy, he says, having become an instrument of the all-holy Spirit, I brought to Moab like the sound of a lyre, and likewise to the wall which you built for the sake of safety.

'And it shall come to pass, when you are turned back, that Moab shall labor upon the high places, and shall enter into her handmade idols to pray, yet they shall by no means be able to deliver her.'

for after the many hecatombs and thousandfold offerings, you will not obtain aid from them.

'This is the word which the Lord spoke concerning Moab, at the time when he spoke it.'

These things, the prophet says, it was not I who foretold, but the God of all himself.

'And now the Lord has spoken, saying:'

'In three years, reckoned as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be dishonored, together with all its great wealth; and it shall be left few in number and without honor.'

He likened it to a hired laborer awaiting the appointed span of time and cheering his soul with the hope of the end.

Yet after the appointed time He does not promise her the former prosperity, but few inhabitants, and these not rulers;

for she shall be left small in number and without honour.

Knowing these things, therefore, let us propitiate the Judge by keeping His commandments, and let us come before His presence with confession, that we may escape the very experience of these sorrows, and, guided by Him, may sail through the present life with favourable winds and come to anchor in His sheltered havens, hymning Him and His only-begotten Son and the all-holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

One must know, then, that these nations continually made war upon Judea;

and for this reason the prophet, being indeed a prophet of the Jews, foretells the calamities of these nations, and in the case of some also predicts their change for the better and the piety that would come to be, so that by this means too he might spur on his kinsmen to zeal for divine things.

Tiglath-pileser, having besieged her, and having slain some and enslaved others, sent other colonists into her.

He made his campaign while Ahaz was still living.

For this too must be noted, since he made mention of the death of Ahaz.

For he wished to complete both the historical narrative and the prophecy concerning that man, and then in this way to set forth the oracles against the other nations.

Left forever for a fold of flocks and a resting-place for herdsmen, and there shall be none to drive them away;

and there shall be no stronghold for Ephraim to flee to there;

'forever' is joined not to the desolation of the city but to the kingdom.

but again it was rebuilt and had very many inhabitants, though it did not recover its former prosperity.

For of old she presided over all Syria;

for she herself held the royal seat of the king of the Syrians.

And the remnant of the Syrians shall perish.

That is to say, it shall be taken captive;

for the subject cities shared in the calamity of the mother-city.

For you are no better than the sons of Israel and their glory.

For if I handed over the people consecrated to Me, the much-renowned Israel, because of their impiety, how could I justly have spared the nation that utterly denies Me? And what Israel would suffer He makes clear through what follows;

It shall come to pass in that day that there shall be an eclipse of the glory of Jacob, and the fatness of his glory shall be shaken.

Then he teaches the ease of the victory over them;

And it shall be as when one gathers standing harvest with his arm, and reaps the seed of the ears.

Just as, he says, the farmer reaps very easily and gathers the sheaf into his arms, so with great ease shall the Assyrians overpower the ten tribes.

And it shall be as when one gathers ears of grain in a solid ravine, and stubble is left in it, or as gleanings of an olive tree that has been harvested, two or three berries on the topmost bough, or four or five left on its uppermost branches.

Few, he says, shall escape the hands of the enemy, just as certain worthless and easily-counted olives escape those who harvest, because, being raised up on the topmost branches, they are despised by them; or like some stubble left in a small ravine that is both solid and hard to penetrate.

By these things he signifies those who escape into the neighbouring mountains and in this manner secure their salvation.

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel;

they shall look to the Holy One of Israel.

For having learned by experience the weakness of the idols, they call upon the God of all as their ally.

And they shall no longer trust in the altars, nor in the works of their hands which their fingers made, and they shall no longer look to the trees nor to their abominations.

They shall learn accurately that the one class are lifeless plants, while the other, the hand-made idols, have borrowed their substance from the material and their form from the craft.

Then he foretells the desolation of the cities and compares it to that former desolation which they themselves brought upon the Amorites and Hivites when they were delivered from the slavery of the Egyptians.

For just as, he says, you overthrew those nations and divided up their cities among yourselves, so now, when you yourselves have become captives of the spear, others shall dwell in these cities;

and those called Samaritans dwelt in them.

And he teaches the cause of this;

Your ungrateful disposition shall breed these calamities for you.

He changed the tense and put the future in place of the past.

Since, he says, you became ungrateful toward your Benefactor, you planted unbelief and sowed impiety.

But you shall pluck fruits corresponding to your plantings and your seeds.

But on the day on which you plant, you shall be led astray;

and if you sow in the morning, it shall blossom unto harvest;

and on whatever day you reap, you shall receive your portion, and as a father of a man shall allot to his sons.

For the error is the cause of such a sowing, and the sowing procures the harvest;

and such a harvest is the fruit of the wicked farmers, kept in store not only for themselves but also for their sons.

He necessarily shows the fruits of the evil husbandry, and sets a lament before the prediction, and—that I may not lengthen my discourse by expanding on what has been plainly stated—he likens the multitude of the enemy to a surging sea, and their bands to the waves, but those being warred upon to the finest dust, which the wheel of a wagon has ground fine and a violent wind has scattered;

and he says that the chaff's dust suffers this same thing under the wind.

This is the portion of those who plundered you, and the inheritance of those who took you as their inheritance.

And we have already said before that these, coming all at once, both shot down and led away captive many myriads of them.

Woe to the land, the wings of ships, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.

and, eager to obtain this quickly, he sent the envoys by way of the sea.

He called the ships 'wings,' since the men dwelling on the earth, wishing to accomplish quickly the tasks set before them, using ships as though they were a kind of wings, traverse even a long road with the greatest speed.

He who sends hostages to all the nations on the sea, and papyrus letters upon the water.

Symmachus and Theodotion rendered the 'papyrus (byblinas)' letters as 'papyrine (papyrinas)';

for this is manufactured from the papyrus-plant.

And by 'hostages' he called the envoys who were sent to the Egyptians and the Ethiopians;

he who sends ambassadors on the sea.

For swift messengers shall go to a nation lofty and strange, a difficult people, beyond which is a nation without hope and trodden down.

By these words he hinted at the weakness of the Egyptians.

He called this nation 'difficult and lofty,' signifying its heaviness toward its subjects, and 'without hope' as being able to furnish no hope of salvation to those who take refuge with it;

and 'trodden down' signifies that it is easily subdued and easily captured.

for he has made this clear through what follows;

whom all the rivers of the land have plundered.

He calls the kings 'rivers of the land,' those who at various times prevailed over them.

For indeed Nebuchadnezzar overthrew them, and after this Cambyses and other kings of the Persians, and moreover the Macedonians also compelled them to serve.

As an inhabited land their land shall be inhabited, when a signal is raised from a mountain, when it shall be heard like the sound of a trumpet.

No longer, he says, shall they be under a king of their own, but they shall serve like the other nations.

And their servitude shall be conspicuous, like a signal raised upon a high mountain, and proclaimed on every side as if by a trumpet.

For there shall be security, he says, in My city, like the light of the noonday heat and like a cloud of dew on the day of harvest.

He likens the calamities of the others to scorching heat and harvest, but the providence which Jerusalem has obtained to light and dew.

For before her ramparts the many myriads of the Assyrians fell.

'When the blossom is completed and the unripe grape shall blossom—the flower producing the sour grape—then he shall take away the little clusters with pruning-hooks, and shall remove the tendrils and cut them off, and shall leave them together for the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth.'

For no one, when gathering the vintage of his own vineyard, harvests the grapes while they are still in blossom or still sour, but harvests them ripe; nor indeed does he cut off the shoots together with the grapes.

Therefore in a figurative manner he foretells what shall be done by the enemies, and he calls the parents 'shoots,' the infants of those parents 'little clusters,' the weapons of war 'pruning-hooks,' and those left for the birds and beasts the fallen corpses.

For this he has made clear through what follows:

'And all the birds of heaven shall be gathered together against them, and the beasts of the earth shall come upon them.'

'In that time gifts shall be brought to the Lord of Sabaoth from a people afflicted and plucked, and from a great people, from now and unto the age to come.'

By 'a people afflicted and plucked' he means the people of Jerusalem.

For this people passed its days in struggle and fear, while the cities under her were captured—whence the term 'plucked' fits her.

And by 'a great people' he calls the Christian people, of which the whole inhabited world is full.

For this people offers gifts to the Lord unto the age to come, and hearing in the churches of the marvellous overthrow of Sennacherib, requites in hymns the mighty and man-loving Master.

'A nation that hopes and is trodden down, which is in the region of the river of his land, to the place where the name of the Lord of Sabaoth is invoked, Mount Zion.'

Symmachus interpreted this more clearly: 'A nation that hopes and is plundered, whose land the rivers have plundered.' He calls the hostile kings of the Assyrians 'rivers,' and by the 'plundered and hoping nation' he means the people in Jerusalem.

For their king, the admirable Hezekiah, being adorned with piety, guided them into the straight way.

These, he says, having beheld the things done against the Assyrians, shall keep a most great feast, offering sacrifices and gifts to the Saviour.

'Behold, the Lord sits upon a light cloud, and shall come to Egypt.'

The history of the sacred Gospels bears witness to the prophecy;

for an angel enjoined Joseph to betake himself to Egypt with the child and its mother.

By 'a light cloud' he calls the human nature which God the Word assumed;

for the conception received no marital rain.

Then he teaches the effect of the Master's coming:

'And the handmade idols of Egypt shall be shaken before his face.'

The facts bear witness to the prediction;

for their polytheistic error has been quenched, and he who sits upon the light cloud is worshipped by them.

'And their heart shall be vanquished within them.'

There is a defeat even better than victory.

This too the prophetic word enjoined the nations in what was said before to accept:

for he said, 'Know, O nations, and be vanquished.' And here, then, he teaches that those who formerly contradicted and openly said,

'I do not know the Lord,' were vanquished and cry out:

'The Egyptians shall be stirred up against the Egyptians, and a man shall war against his brother, and a man against his neighbour;'

'city against city, and district against district.'

'And the spirit of the Egyptians shall be troubled within them, and I will scatter their counsel.'

This too the Lord foretold in the sacred Gospels:

'That I came not to cast peace upon the world, but a sword, to set a man at variance from his neighbour, a son from his father, a daughter from her mother, a bride from her mother-in-law.' For having divided the concord of impiety, through those very nurslings of impiety he proclaimed the truth;

and having scattered the harmful concord, he introduced the profitable unanimity, and set the pious against the impious, the law of faith against the law of unbelief.

'And they shall inquire of their gods and their images, and of those who cry out from the earth, and of the ventriloquists.'

But those who disbelieve, he says, shall wander about after the oracles, and shall have recourse to necromancy, and call upon belly-diviners, seeking out certain devices against piety.

'But I in another way also will soften their disobedience:'

'For I will deliver Egypt,' he says, 'into the hands of harsh men, harsh masters, and harsh kings shall lord it over them.'

By these words he hinted at the Roman empire;

for like that, he says, it shall grind down all things and subdue them.

And fittingly he joined this prophecy also to the prediction concerning the Lord.

For while Augustus was reigning the virginal birth took place;

and Augustus, having utterly abolished the kingdom of the Egyptians, delivered it to prefects of the empire.

'And the Egyptians shall drink the water by the sea, but the river shall fail and be dried up.'

The prophet foretold in what was said before:

'That the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as many waters cover the seas.' This water, he says, shall transform Egypt too, and this alone shall be drinkable for them;

but what they formerly drank—that is, the streams of the polytheistic error—shall be undrinkable.

For he calls the error a 'river,' and its manifold by-paths 'canals.'

'And the rivers shall fail, and the canals of the river, and every gathering of water shall be dried up, and every marsh of reed and papyrus.'

'And all the green grass round about the river, and everything sown along the river, shall be dried up by the blasting wind.'

Very fittingly he likens impiety to reed and papyrus and green fodder.

For the error is fruitless, and the things sown through it he has called 'blasted by the wind.'

For the worship of idols brings to men no participation in good things, but a crop of evils.

'And the fishermen shall groan, and all who cast a hook into the river shall groan, and those who cast dragnets and casting-nets shall mourn.'

By 'casting-net men' and 'fishermen' and 'hook-hunters' he calls the priests of the idols.

For these, when the error ceased, groaned and lamented, no longer having the resources of their gain.

For deceiving the multitudes and, as it were, netting them, they transferred to themselves the wealth of those people.

'...fine linen; and those who work at them shall be in pain.'

for these too, by their eloquence, cooperated with the error.

wherefore he called the flax 'split.'

And these too are put to shame when the impiety of their doctrines is refuted, and they are grieved, being unable to contend against the truth.

'And all who make beer shall be grieved and shall be distressed in their souls.'

Beer is a contrived drink, not a natural one;

and it is sour and foul-smelling, and produces harm, not benefit.

Such too are the doctrines of impiety, not resembling wine that gladdens the heart of man.

Then he teaches that the rulers of Tanis also—this was a city that anciently reigned over Egypt—acting foolishly, shall be put to shame, and shall be unable to bring forward any device against the heralds of piety.

Then he refutes their arrogant mind-set:

'We are sons of the wise, sons of kings from the beginning? Where are your wise men? Let them announce to you and tell you what the Lord of Sabaoth purposes against Egypt.'

For neither astrologers nor oracle-mongers will be able to teach you the dispensation of God.

In addition to this, he also foretells the division of the Egyptians that is to come, and the removal of the kingship.

'The princes of Tanis have failed, and the princes of Memphis have been exalted, and they lead Egypt astray tribe by tribe.'

'For the Lord has mingled for them a spirit of error.'

The truth does not lead astray, but it leaves those who oppose and contradict it without a guide.

And these men, being deprived of the one who steers them, are naturally led astray.

This he has also made clear through what follows.

'And he has led Egypt astray in all their works, as a drunken man is led astray, and one who vomits at the same time.'

He left them without a guide because of their deeds.

And indeed the drunkard receives his affliction by his own choice.

Showing the excess of their error, he likened them to a man without self-control who drinks and vomits at one and the same time, whom not even his vomiting turns away from drinking.

For these men too, though they endured many calamities on account of their impiety, persisted in their impiety to the utmost, while the aforementioned princes were the cause of the deception, teaching them diverse doctrines of ungodliness.

For some made a god of a dog, others of a lion, others of an ape; some of a wolf, others of a sheep—things contrary to one another.

'And they lead Egypt astray tribe by tribe.'

It was not, then, the Lord who led them astray, but the teachers of these men.

And the Lord bore with their ingratitude.

'And there shall be no work for the Egyptians which shall make a head and a tail, a beginning and an end.'

He says their counsels shall be without accomplishment, and there shall come confusion of rulers and ruled.

'In that day the Egyptians shall be as women, in fear and trembling before the presence of the hand of the Lord of Hosts, which he himself shall lay upon them.'

By 'the hand of the Lord' he called the Roman empire, the dread of which broke down the pride of the Egyptians and made them like women.

'And the land of the Jews shall be a terror to the Egyptians.'

'Everyone who names it to them shall be afraid, because of the counsel which the Lord of Hosts has purposed against it.'

Some say that the events concerning Sennacherib are signified by these words, and that when these things were everywhere reported, the Egyptians feared the Jews.

But I do not find this to be so.

For after these things the Egyptians made war against the Jews and led away Jehoahaz their king as a captive, and

they slew Josiah and cast fear upon the Jews.

I think, therefore, that the prophet is foretelling that the Egyptians, being freed from their error and receiving the apostolic preaching, shall fear the land of Judea, inasmuch as in it the Saviour of the world was both born and endured the saving Passion, and moreover as it was sanctified by the Cross and the Tomb and the [place of the Resurrection].

'In that day there shall be five cities in Egypt speaking the language of Canaan and swearing by the name of the Lord of Hosts.'

'One city shall be called City of Asedek.'

'Asedek' is interpreted 'city of righteousness.'

For indeed Melchizedek too, according to the divine Apostle, is named 'king of righteousness.'

By the 'language of Canaan' he means Hebrew, since the Hebrews settled in Canaan.

Some have said that these things came to pass in the time of the Macedonians, but the interpretation does not accord with the prophecy.

For he speaks of a change of the Egyptians, not foretelling a colonizing settlement of the Hebrews.

These things too, then, reached their fulfillment after the manifestation of our God and Saviour.

By the 'five cities' he does not mean some fixed number, but he thus called the complete number.

For the senses of a man are also five:

sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing.

But if anyone wishes the number of the five cities to be a fixed number, not even so will he attach falsehood to the saying.

For few were those who from the beginning received the saving preaching, but the seeds of piety gradually increased.

And by 'one city called Asedek,' that is, 'city of righteousness,' he does not mean some single, special city, but rather 'one' in the sense of 'each one.'

'In that day there shall be an altar to the Lord in the land of the Egyptians, and a pillar to the Lord at its border.'

But if the Jews should say that the things done under Onias were here foretold, they fall wide of the truth.

For since the Law plainly declared that one ought not to sacrifice to God in every place, but set apart one place for the sacrifices, what took place in Egypt was outright contrary to the Law.

And the prophetic word would not have foretold unlawful things as though they were lawful.

He speaks in the singular and not in the plural, since he also often names the Church throughout the whole world in the singular; as the divine Apostle says, 'which is the Church of the living God,' and,

'Upon this rock I will build my Church.' And we too, when we pray on behalf of the holy and only and catholic and apostolic Church, say [it thus].

So then here too, by the one altar he signifies the many, and by the one pillar the many houses of prayer.

'Because they shall cry to the Lord on account of those who afflict them, and the Lord shall send them a man who shall save them; judging, he shall save them.'

Neither does this fit Onias.

For it was not when the Egyptians supplicated God that he was sent to their aid, but he had gone off fleeing into Egypt.

Now some of the interpreters have said that the Lord is signified by these words, but I do not admit this sense.

For he himself was not sent into Egypt, but he himself sent a man.

And before the others, the blessed Mark the evangelist led them and set in order their sacred throne.

'And the Lord shall be known to the Egyptians.'

'And the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and shall offer sacrifice and gift.'

By 'day' he calls the season, and by 'sacrifice and gift' the mystical liturgy.

'And they shall vow vows to the Lord and shall pay them.'

By 'vows' he calls the promises, which many call 'pledges.'

This the Psalmist also makes clear:

'I will pay you my vows, which my lips have uttered and my mouth has spoken in my affliction.' And he makes clear what he promised:

'I will offer up to you burnt offerings full of marrow, with incense of rams; I will offer to you oxen with goats. And the Lord shall smite the Egyptians with a plague, and shall heal them with a healing; and they shall turn to the Lord, and he shall hearken to them and heal them.'

By 'plague' he means the removal of the kingdom, and by 'healing' the divine knowledge.

For having dissolved their kingdom, he taught them piety.

'In that day there shall be a way from Egypt to the Assyrians, and the Assyrians shall enter into Egypt, and the Egyptians shall go to the Assyrians.'