以賽亞書註釋 第 1 章 第 18/65 段

And we say that the God of all was angry with those who say such things—clearly, that is, with the idolaters.

'Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools;'

'And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds and creeping things, and four-footed beasts.'

'On this account,' he says, 'God gave them over to a reprobate mind, and to passions of dishonour, to do the things that are not fitting.' For those who have obscured the divine glory, and have dedicated the surpassing beauty of the highest nature to creatures so pitiable—how should they not most fittingly be subjected to the movements of the divine wrath? 'But since,' he says, 'you have turned away your wrath, you have had mercy on me' (for I have been called into the knowledge through faith, not according to the works which we did, as it is written, but according to his great mercy);

'on this account,' he says, 'having been brought to the perception of your great munificence, I will offer to you unceasing doxology, and indeed I will say:'

'Behold my God, the Lord my Saviour; I will trust in him and be saved in him.'

For of old, falling down before wood and stones, and offering sacrifices to senseless images, they besought to be saved through them.

But since they have come to know the true God, having thrust aside the falsely-named ones, they point to him alone, saying:

'Behold my God, the Lord my Saviour.'

'No longer will I trust in wood and stones,' he says, 'but in him alone, and through him I will be saved.'

And even if he who of old defrauded and swept them away into error comes again, tempting and contending, 'I will conquer,' he says, 'for the Lord is my glory and my praise.'

Do you see how they have come to know that the giving of glory is a saving thing? For 'sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise,' he says, 'and pay your vows to the Most High. And you shall call upon me in the day of your affliction, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. And you shall draw water with joy out of the wells of salvation.' Bountiful is he who called; ready to recompense is the God who saved; he benefits those who have come to know him, and richly gladdens with divine and spiritual things those who give him glory.

For consider how the one group confessed, saying:

'Behold my God, the Lord my Saviour; I will trust in him;'

and he at once promises them both wells and water of salvation.

For it was necessary, indeed necessary, that those who had run from darkness to the light, those who had been called from Greek ignorance into the knowledge of the God who truly is, should not go without instruction and the word that gladdens and that is able to hold them fast unto godliness.

'For man shall not live by bread alone,' he says, 'but by every word that proceeds through the mouth of God.' Now he calls the life-giving Word of God 'water;'

and by 'wells' he means the holy apostles and evangelists—and I would add that he means the prophets also;

'You therefore,' he says, 'who by confessions unto faith gladden me who am by nature the God of all, shall receive in return divine and spiritual gladness, drawing the word that is able to hold you fast unto this end out of the wells of salvation'—that is, of Christ.

For he himself pointed out the holy apostles;

'The springs of the waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were uncovered.' For the springs of the waters are the divinely inspired disciples, who cause to gush forth from above and through the Spirit the words to those throughout all the earth under heaven.

And they are likewise also the foundations of the world.

For Christ is the choice stone, who is also said to have been laid by God and the Father in the foundations of Zion, that is, of the Church.

For upon him we are firmly stayed, and through faith we are built up a spiritual house into a holy temple, into a dwelling-place of God in spirit.

And the stones after him—that is, the foundations of the world—might well and most fittingly be named those who proclaim him to men throughout all the earth.

For their writings uphold us unto steadfastness and confirmation in faith and truth.

'And you shall say in that day: Sing praises to the Lord, cry aloud his name, declare among the nations his glorious deeds;'

'remember that his name has been exalted.'

'Sing praises to the name of the Lord, for he has done lofty things;'

'declare these things in all the earth.'

'Exult and rejoice, you who dwell in Zion, for the Holy One of Israel has been exalted in the midst of you.' O wondrous thing!

He who has just now been initiated, then, having chanced upon the wells of salvation and having drawn the life-sustaining stream, is seen to have received so great an increase—I mean unto being faithful and genuine—that he straightway displays even an apostolic ministry.

And not only was he eager to give glory himself alone, but he already even enjoins upon all others to do this, saying:

'Sing praises to the Lord, cry aloud his name.'

And to whom then he commands them to cry aloud, he makes plain, adding at once:

'Declare among the nations his glorious deeds.'

his power and authority.

He overthrew the invincible tyranny of the devil and of the demons;

He redeemed those who had been deceived;

He set free those held in captivity;

He proclaimed the good news of recovery of sight to the blind.

By His very deeds He has given full assurance that He is by nature and in truth God.

He raised the dead; He cleansed those afflicted with leprosy.

By a mere nod He healed those in sickness;

Therefore proclaim among the nations His glorious deeds, and keep them in abundant remembrance, for His name has been exalted.

For truly what He has accomplished is beyond the hand of man, or rather beyond every marvel besides.

Rejoice therefore and be glad, you who dwell in Zion—that is, you who hold a firm faith within the Churches;

for the Holy One of Israel has been exalted in your midst.

For even though the Holy One of Israel became man, and in the form of a servant descended to us according to the divine economy, nevertheless from the results and from the splendor of His works He was exalted in a manner befitting God;

and we have come to know who He is according to His nature.

{VOLUME 2.} The vision which Isaiah son of Amos saw concerning Babylon. Now the vision concerning Babylon, and indeed those that follow in order after it—namely those against the Edomites and the Moabites, and moreover the Egyptians, and besides these the others as well—were composed for the consolation of Israel;

yet they render the meaning of what is signified in a rather more historical fashion; nevertheless it is granted to the more thoughtful to transpose elegantly even now, from what is coarse and merely an image, into spiritual contemplation, the things that befell the ancients, which yields a most clear meaning;

which the discourse, as it proceeds, will set forth in narrative to those who read it, interpreting each of the things written as far as possible.

But I think it necessary even now to run back to the beginning of the matter, and first to recount the causes of the vision.

For Israel, having been called through the all-wise Moses to the knowledge and worship of the God who truly exists, and possessing the Law which directed him toward everything wonderful, neglected the commandment given to him, and turned instead to the precepts of the teachings of men; nay rather, casting himself into things yet worse, he slid down into the pits of idolatry.

The God of all therefore reproached, through every prophet, those who chose to do such things, and He raised a loud outcry against him for his impiety.

This people draws near to Me; with their lips they honor Me,

but their heart is far removed from Me. In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.

What has the beloved done, that there is an abomination in My house? And by "abomination" He names the idol.

Accordingly, since they had turned aside grievously into strange corruptions, and were withdrawing their neck from servitude under God, and rousing up their own proud spirit against Him as it were, He delivered them over from time to time—now to those who inhabited the neighboring region, I mean the Edomites, and indeed the Moabites, the Egyptians and those of Philistia; but at other times, bringing upon them a yet more grievous blow, He let loose against them those most savage of all peoples on earth, I mean the Babylonians, who, having ravaged the whole land of the Jews without toil, carried them off captive into a multitude greater than their own number.

But that these things would come to pass, since they were provoking against themselves the God of all, the blessed prophets foretold from time to time.

Yet they, even though the things already foretold had come to their fulfillment upon them, were nonetheless hard and disobedient, pursuing an abominable and utterly lawless manner of life.

Most wisely in His economy, therefore, the God of all, after the blow and the scourges and the calamities that befell them from time to time through their enemies, makes His proclamation also of the most delightful things and of what is able to gladden them;

He will make ready, and will loose them from the bonds of misery, and will deliver into the hands of enemies even those very ones who long ago had conquered.

For it was surely most likely that, even if they had remained incorrigible under those former chastisements, they would nevertheless henceforth choose at least to rejoice in these latter benefits, and, roused up in their hope toward the things they longed for, to honor the worship most dear to God, and to keep their mind unshaken toward Him.

Since, then, although there were many who from time to time had ravaged the land of the Jews, yet the Chaldeans especially were more merciless and more savage than the rest, and those who from time to time had reigned over Babylon—it is against these as it were the first that the word of prophecy leaps, and it says:

Cyrus, then—who was son of Cambyses his father, and of Mandane his mother, and who reigned over the Persians and the Medes—marched against Babylon and against all the land of the Chaldeans, which was broad and exceedingly great;

he took it, not by his own forces, nor because he was able to employ a mightier hand (for the Chaldean nation was something invincible and unrivaled, both by reason of its multitude and because it was exceedingly well trained in matters of tactics), but rather because God was subjecting to him those who withstood him, and shaking the impious dominions of the Babylonians;

on account, indeed, of the very great sorcery that existed among them,

and the swarm of idols greater than number;

and so it was named "a land of graven images," either because of the multitude of idols, or because each one of those who dwelt there was found in no way to differ from an idol—I mean, in respect of his having turned aside toward error uncontrollably and without restraint.

Then, in addition to these things, because, having ravaged the holy land apportioned to God—that is, Judea—and having burned down Jerusalem and the divine temple itself, they carried off the sacred vessels into their own land, and, employing unmixed fury, they slew Israel, though he was named a holy people, and a portion and inheritance of God.

For that God delivered idolatrous Israel into the hands of enemies is not unclear to those learned in the sacred writings; but those called to this task punished them not moderately.

And so the God of all is somewhere found saying, through the voice of Zechariah:

I have been jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy, and with great fury I am angry against the nations that joined together in the assault, inasmuch as I was angry but a little, while they joined together for evil. And to Babylon He says:

I gave them into your hands, but you showed them no mercy. To Cyrus, then, God delivered the arrogant and insolent one, the mother and nurse of all vileness—I mean Babylon.

And let this too become clear from what He says through Isaiah as follows:

Thus says the Lord to my christ Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, that nations may obey before him, and cities shall not be shut up;

I will go before you, and I will level mountains;

I will shatter doors of bronze, and I will break in pieces bars of iron." And Cyrus, when he had conquered, released Israel from captivity, and commanded them to go home rejoicing, and moreover to rebuild the divine temple itself.

And so the prophet Jeremiah says: The word which the Lord spoke against Babylon:

Proclaim among the nations, and make it heard, and do not conceal it;

Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, she who was fearless, she who was luxurious.

Merodach is delivered up, because a nation from the north has come up against her; he shall make her land a desolation, and there shall be none dwelling in her, from man to beast.

In those days and at that time, the sons of Israel shall come, and the sons of Judah together; walking and weeping they shall go, seeking their God;

as far as Zion they shall ask the way.

For here they shall set their face, and shall come, and shall take refuge with the Lord.

Behold, I take vengeance upon the king of Babylon and upon his land, just as I took vengeance upon the king of Assur;

and I will restore Israel to his pasture;

and he shall feed on Carmel, and on Mount Ephraim, and in Gilead, and his soul shall be satisfied. On a level mountain lift up a sign, raise your voice for yourselves, do not be afraid; encourage with the hand, open, you rulers.

I give the command, and I myself lead them.

They are sanctified, and I myself lead them.

Giants are coming to fulfill My fury, rejoicing and at the same time insolent. The blessed prophet, having his mind filled with the Holy Spirit, and having come to be amid visions of matters as though they were being written down, all but leaps up, calling out to the Persians and the Medes, as though they had already prevailed over the land of the Babylonians, to lift high the token of victory;

for this, I think, is what "the sign" means;

and to shout in triumph over the army of the Chaldeans, as though it had already fallen and delivered to them that arrogant and famed city, which the prophet Jeremiah also called "the hammer of the earth," saying concerning the land of the Babylonians:

How is the hammer of the whole earth taken and broken in pieces? For every city and land was broken in pieces, being struck in a certain manner as if by some hammer, by the rapacities of those men.

And by "a level mountain," I think, he names what is as it were low-lying, and, so to speak, in the rank of a hillock.

For indeed, they do not set up the signals—that is, the trophies, or rather the sign—by ascending the lofty mountains, but on hills not raised very high, so that thereby it may at once escape being placed too high, and yet be most recognizable to the whole army.

Lift up therefore, he says, a sign, as those who have already conquered, since God shields you.

Raise your voice—that is, shout in triumph over the phalanx of the enemies, do not be afraid.

But now do not be afraid, he says, since God is bringing forth His own wrath against their arrogances.

And what then is this? It is perhaps somewhere the custom for the leaders of tactical forces to whet with the hand, and by nods to urge on the most warlike men, and to rouse them to attacks against certain foes, when the voice is too faint to do this, as amid much tumult.

He commands, therefore, those set over affairs to make their exhortations by hands and by nods to the armies under their hand, and to whet them toward a certain invincible eagerness.

And again He cries out the words, Open, you rulers.

For either He is commanding the Babylonians themselves, as those already conquered, to open the gates and to hand over the city that was once arrogant and insolent;

or perhaps also the holy powers that, at God's command, were fighting alongside the Medes as shield-bearers, and revealing to them paths passable for cavalry, though these were exceedingly difficult.

But in order that He may show forth the unconquered hand of those who fight, He adds and says:

I marshal them, and I lead them on.

For it is all but as though He were saying something of this kind:

No throng of a Median army has deserted to your side, nor has the Persian host come upon you of its own private resolve;

or rather, it was I myself who even sanctified them for this purpose.

By the word 'I have sanctified' here He means 'I have set apart' and, as it were, 'I have chosen them' for the accomplishment of what I have purposed against you.

'They come, therefore,' He says, 'those whom I lead, like certain giants, to fulfil My wrath, rejoicing and at the same time acting insolently;'

rejoicing, that is, inasmuch as they are confident that they will prevail;

and acting insolently, in the sense of spitting upon their foes as men grievously stricken with cowardice and worth nothing at all.

For such, in a way, is ever the barbarian temper: quick to leap to the hope of being able to prevail, and forever belittling those who stand against them.

For it is above all their rage that generals them to this, and begets in them the desire for feats of valour, so as to look down upon every danger and every fear.

'A voice of many nations upon the mountains, like that of many nations; a voice of kings and of nations gathered together;'

'from afar, from the utmost foundation of heaven, the Lord and His men-at-arms, to destroy the whole inhabited world.' As though the Medes were already raising their war-cry and sending up the shout that befits battle: like a horse neighing and some men in pursuit, while others were already turning to flight, and a great and utterly confused din was being scattered abroad. 'A voice,' He says, 'of many nations upon the mountains, like that of many nations.' The voice, He says, is not such that one might reckon those crying out to be few in number, but rather that one should suppose the multitude of those shouting to be beyond counting.

The word declares at the same time that, together with those subjected to the yoke, even those to whom leadership had fallen by lot were struck down with terrors.

For it insists that the voice belongs to nations and to kings.

Those crying out, then, would be the boundless populace of the Babylonians, and along with them the more distinguished men, as they beheld their city already taken captive by the spear; or else the Persians and Medes raising the war-shout over those who had been captured.

And these, I think, He also calls men-at-arms, and a nation coming from a land afar off;

'from the utmost foundation of heaven'—that is, from the very borders of Media and from the innermost parts of the most northern land.

And since, according to the will of God, they were preparing the assault, He calls them the Lord's men-at-arms, and says that they have been led on to destroy the whole inhabited world—yet not indeed the whole of our own world.

For neither shall we find this to have been done by Cyrus and those with him.

He calls the land of the Chaldeans 'the inhabited world' because it was vast and immeasurably wide, and, as it were, rivalled the whole inhabited earth on account of the multitude of its inhabitants.

'for the day of the Lord is near, and destruction from God shall come.'

'And the ambassadors shall be troubled, and pangs shall seize them, as of a woman in labour;'

'and they shall wail one to another, and shall be amazed, and shall change their countenance as a flame.' As though every hope had been taken away, as though nothing at all remained to the Babylonians save only that they must lament, He says, 'Wail.'

And He has enjoined them, as it were, to despair of salvation, and not to attempt profitless undertakings, nor to devise resistance, since divine wrath has been armed against them and destruction has been brought upon them by the decree from on high.

And the matter is altogether irresistible;

for 'who shall turn back the lofty hand?'—according to that which is written.

'If He shut against a man, who shall open?' For what strength, or of what avail, shall wholly wage war against God? Therefore He says that 'every hand shall be loosed, and every soul of man shall lose heart;'

for when the God who is mighty over all shakes the souls of men into cowardice, who shall infuse courage—that is, render a man stout-hearted and sufficiently equipped for resistance? He says that the ambassadors shall be troubled, and shall fall into pangs as of a woman in labour, and shall wail one to another, and indeed shall be amazed, and shall change their countenance as a flame.

By 'ambassadors,' I think, He means the officiants of the idols, those most eminent among the Babylonians in the magical art, the servants of the demons; who, as was likely, when the assault of the Medes was being prepared and Cyrus together with the Persians was expected to arrive, would divine favourable outcomes and would summon the aid of the demons, offering up prayers and bringing on the customary honours—that is to say, initiation rites and profane sacrifices—promising to intercede on behalf of the whole country.

These, then, He says—the servants and suppliants of the demons, who perform the sacrifices on behalf of all—when they see their affairs turned back contrary to expectation, shall be troubled and shall be in bitter pangs, and shall wail one to another; that is, they shall cry aloud to one another the words that come as from unmixed calamity, namely 'Woe,' and the like.

And as though under a flame they shall change their countenance,

the face being blackened, so as to seem nothing else than ashes and the remnant of dust that has withered away.

'For behold, the incurable day of the Lord cometh, of fury and wrath, to make the whole inhabited world desolate, and to destroy the sinners out of it utterly.'

'For the stars of heaven, and Orion, and all the array of heaven shall not give their light;'

'and it shall be darkened at the rising of the sun, and the moon shall not give her light.'

'And I will command evils for the whole inhabited world, and their sins for the ungodly;'

'and I will destroy the insolence of the lawless, and will bring low the pride of the arrogant.' In these words He plainly endeavours to teach what is the occasion of the rulers wailing one to another, and changing their countenance as from a flame.

For since they were divining, as I said, things according to their own wish, and for all the Babylonians;

but they were disappointed of their hope;

on this account, He says, they shall be full of dejection.

For an incurable day has come upon them, the Lord of all bringing it on;

and again He names as 'day' the season in which the divine and inexorable wrath came to pass, so that the land of the Chaldeans was made desolate, and the sinners were destroyed out of it.

And it is by no means as though there were certain persons there who are set outside the wrath because they are good, that He says the sinners shall be destroyed;

rather, the name would fittingly apply to all who inhabit the land of the Chaldeans, seeing that they are all wicked and idolaters.

And since the magnitude of calamities sometimes all but fills the human mind with darkness and gloom, so that even while it is day the light of the sun seems to be absent, and to be somehow ineffectual—I mean, as to its power to illumine—yea, and the whole array of heaven, and the very orb of the moon itself;

'For the stars of heaven, and Orion, and all the array of heaven shall not give their light;'

the Babylonians, that is, shall be darkened—or rather the mind of the Babylonians;

and though the sun rise, and the moon shine forth, and although the elements have not withdrawn their light, yet, as from great terror and being subjected to the divine wrath, they have night and darkness in mind.

'And I will command,' He says, 'evils for the whole inhabited world.'

The word 'I will command,' He says, stands for 'I will threaten,' or rather 'I will order to be brought on,' so as both to take away the insolence of the lawless, and to humble the proud—that is to say, the boasters themselves.

For the nation of the Assyrians has ever been somehow overweening and utterly profligate, and, in addition to this, hateful to God.

For among them nothing of what is best was held in honour;

but rather everything that is by nature grievous to the God of all.

But it should be known that those who interpreted the divine Scripture have made mention of Orion, signifying by it one of the most conspicuous of the stars; and it is by no means that they say such things in following the idle trifling of the Greeks, but rather they used the customary name, just as, of course, it is written also in Job:

'He that maketh the Pleiades and Hesperus and Arcturus and the chambers of the south.' 'And those who are left shall be more honoured than gold that has not been tried in the fire;'

'and a man shall be more precious than the stone from Sophir.' The word 'honoured' here is what must be inquired into.

He says, then, that the land of the Babylonians, and the whole land of the Assyrians, shall be so depopulated that those living in it shall be hard to find, and the scarcity of those left remaining shall be as great as that of Indian gems and of the most approved gold.

'Therefore, as the things marvelled at by men—precious stones and gold not tried in the fire (that is, the most approved kind)—are hard to procure, so shall those be few, and scarcely so, who are left over from the war, and who have escaped the throng of the combatants;'

and, receiving into their mind the divine and ineffable power and glory, they lift up their voices on high, and devise for their narrations surpassing greatnesses.

And ever, somehow, when God is angry, the servant creation is whetted along with Him unto wrath, He who commands all things wholly rousing it up for this.

And so, at any rate, He was angry with the Egyptians, and the creation did not endure to remain inactive.

For the water was turned into blood, and the earth brought forth frogs, as it is written, and heaven sent down hailstones;

and moreover a deep and three-days'-long darkness was spread over the whole of their land.

'Therefore,' He says, 'heaven itself shall be enraged, and the earth, as it were, shall be shaken from its foundations, because of the fury of the Lord's wrath.'

For all things run together to the supreme will, and there is nothing of the things that exist which does not, at the divine nods, give way even against its own will.

'And those who are left shall be as a fleeing gazelle, and as a straying sheep, and there shall be none to gather them, so that a man should return to his own people, or a man flee to his own country.'

'For whoever is caught shall be defeated, and whoever are gathered together shall fall by the sword, and their children shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes, and their houses shall be plundered, and their wives shall be taken.' He says that those left over shall be very few in number, but that even these shall be unmanly and utterly averse to fighting, and dashed down into such cowardice that they choose to do nothing else save only to flee, like a gazelle; and to save themselves dishonourably, He says, and to renounce altogether even so much as merely to rise up against the disasters of their enemies.

And that they shall remain without an overseer and without a ruler, although they are few in number, He hints by saying that they shall be as a straying sheep, deprived of the shepherd's gentle care, and going somewhere outside the pasture, so as to have chosen to be far even from the accustomed folds.

'For there shall be none,' He says, 'to gather them, so that a man should return to his own people, or a man flee to his own country.'

And the word 'flee' (or 'pursue'), He says, stands for 'to hasten,' although the homeland is dear to all, and there is nothing better than the dwellings of one's fathers.

But even the loss of the things so very dear to them is a welcome one, he says, precisely because everyone who is taken captive perishes on the spot.

And the prophetic word affirms that something else besides will befall them, of a kind especially fitted by nature to bring grief.

For their children, he says, they shall dash to the ground before their very eyes, and they shall plunder their houses, and they shall take their wives.