以賽亞書註釋 第 1 章 第 36/65 段

'As birds flying, so shall the Lord shield over Jerusalem, and He shall deliver, and preserve, and save.' The prophet threw in the rebuke in between—the one, I mean, against those going down to Egypt, and indeed against those who chose to have as their helper an Egyptian man and not God.

And he said that they shall perish together with those who promised to defend them.

Then again he brings the discourse back to what was said at the beginning;

for having said that the Assyrians shall inherit a deep ravine, he plainly foretells that God will also come to the aid of those who reverence Him, and will contend on behalf of those in Judea, and will thus spring upon those who wish to wrong her, just as indeed a lion over its prey, roaring something great and terrible against those who oppose it.

to make its onset upon the shepherds.

'Thus,' he says, 'shall the Lord come down to wage war upon Mount Zion,' that is, Jerusalem, 'upon her mountains.'

'As birds flying, so shall the Lord shield over Jerusalem.'

For birds rear their young in the mountains, and among the thickets of plants they fix fast their nests.

But if some other bird or a serpent should wish to plunder the young, the mother that bore them fights fiercely in their defense, and makes manifest the power of the tender love within her, flying around and twittering, and all but making the fullest possible assault upon the one who wishes to harm them.

'So,' he says, 'the Lord of all shall shield Jerusalem, and shall deliver, and preserve, and save.'

And these things came to pass when Babylon had been sacked, and Cyrus had released Israel from captivity.

For it returned home while Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel—who was of the tribe of Judah—administered the kingdom among them, and while Joshua the son of Jozadak the high priest exercised the priesthood.

But when they wished to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, some of the neighboring peoples set upon them, wishing to hinder them;

yet no one prevailed, since God strengthened Israel.

And such also was the power of our Savior's aid that came upon us.

For he who was reckoned to be the god of this age took us all captive;

but Christ leapt upon him like a lion, or a lion's cub, and brought him to nothing by the word of His power.

And He waged war upon Mount Zion—that is, He contended on behalf of the spiritual Zion, which is the Church of the living God, and like a nest of His own He mightily saved it.

For the father of sin, out of exceedingly great arrogance, declared:

'I will seize the whole inhabited world with my hand as a nest;'

'and as forsaken eggs I will take them up, and there is none who shall escape me, or gainsay me.'

But the Savior and Lord of all gathered together those who believed in Him, in the manner that a bird gathers her young under her wings, and set them outside all treachery.

For He delivered and preserved for Himself the whole earth, and saved all that is under heaven.

'Turn back, you who devise the deep and lawless counsel.' While God says that He will wage war upon Mount Zion, and will spring upon those who wrong Israel—that is, those who believe in Him—after the manner of a most valiant lion, and adds moreover that He will also shield, and preserve, and save;

again the prophet cries out against those who will not endure to believe, that the right hand of God is all-mighty, and will easily save whomever He may choose from their enemies.

'O you, then,' he says, 'who are diseased with so shameful and most abominable unbelief, who have forsaken the God of all, and senselessly scrape together aid from men, and who somehow—I know not how—have honored the lawless and ridiculous scheme concerning this: turn back to God, take better counsel, and say, you also:'

'O Lord God of hosts, blessed is the man that hopes in Thee.' 'For in that day men shall cast away their handmade things of silver and of gold, which their hands have made, and Assur shall fall;'

'not the sword of a mighty man, nor the sword of a man shall devour him, and he shall flee, though not from the face of a sword;'

'and the young men shall be given over to defeat, for they shall be encompassed by a rock as by a palisade, and shall be overcome;'

'and he that flees shall be caught.' Now too the discourse returns to the aim it had set before itself.

'For the Lord shall shield Jerusalem,' he says—that is, He shall contend on behalf of His own Church, which is His city.

And He shall deliver those who believe in Him, and preserve them for Himself, and reckon them as His own inheritance, and besides this shall also save them.

In what way? For they shall free themselves from profane and abominable idolatry, and shall no longer serve the works of their own hands, whether they be of gold and silver, or in some other manner wrought at great cost.

Before [the Savior's] sojourn, the race of men was frenzied about these things, and some served the creation, and apportioned to the elements of the world the glory that befits God, as the prophet says:

'Their silver and their gold they made into idols for themselves.'

But when Christ shone forth, the whole earth became free from such shameful and loathsome charges.

For the sacred precincts have been overthrown, together with the altars and the works of men's hands; and there has been done away the error of Satan of old, which once defiled the whole earth.

Now when the works of men's hands have been destroyed, he says, there shall perish together with the error also its inventor, that is to say, the spiritual Assur, Satan, or the Assyrian.

For he shall fall, smitten not by the sword of a man, and he shall be wretched; for he shall be borne down into Hades together with the other evil powers.

For this is what he intimates to us when he says:

'And the young men shall be for defeat'; that is, the strong and those who through covetousness held sway over those upon the earth shall be defeated and shall fall.

How, or in what manner? 'For they shall be encompassed by a rock as by a rampart.'

By 'rock' here he names for us the unbreakable and indestructible power of the Saviour.

Therefore, being encompassed by the divine power as by a rock, and as by a rampart, that is, by a palisade and an enclosure, they shall yield the victory, and none of them shall escape.

For he shall assuredly and by all means be taken, even should anyone choose to attempt this.

For this, I think, is the meaning of the words, 'But he that fleeth shall be taken.'

Who then, among them, is left to be saved, if they are encompassed by the rock as by a rampart, and no place of flight at all is granted them? But the power of the Saviour has accomplished these things, having abolished Assur, that is, Satan, and having cast down together with him the evil powers that are with him, and having encircled them as with a rampart, and shown them to be powerless, and shut them up in the recesses of Hades to be punished.

'Blessed is he that hath seed in Zion, and kinsfolk in Jerusalem.'

'For behold, a righteous king shall reign, and rulers shall rule with judgement.'

'And the man shall be one who hides his words;'

'and he shall be hidden as though from water that is borne along, and he shall appear in Zion as a glorious river borne along in a thirsty land.' Openly in these words the blessed prophet proclaims the mystery of the economy of the Only-begotten in the flesh.

For he says that those who dwell in Zion in that time shall be blessed;

and it is clear that he means the spiritual Zion, which is the Church of the living God.

For blessed they are indeed; and concerning this the Saviour himself will assure us, saying to those who have believed in him:

'Verily, verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not, and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.'

Therefore, he says, those who have obtained kinship through the Spirit with our Lord Jesus Christ, and have borne fruit in the spiritual Zion, and have obtained kinsfolk in Jerusalem—

and this is no other than Zion—

have become thrice-blessed and are in every good thing.

And we too have obtained kinsfolk, namely those according to the Spirit, the holy initiators into the mysteries.

'For behold, a righteous king shall reign, and rulers shall rule with judgement.'

For our Christ has reigned, he who is righteous and blameless, the dispenser of all righteousness, and the introducer of things above the law.

And rulers have ruled with judgement.

And the phrase 'with judgement,' he says, is equivalent to 'in a hidden manner.'

The righteous king shall indeed be a man and a brother in all respects to those upon the earth;

for the Word became flesh, according to the Scriptures.

'And he shall be one who hides his words.'

'He shall be hidden, as though from water that is borne along.'

Once again, to water borne along, or to the streams of a river rushing violently and poured out over the earth, the sacred Writings are wont to liken the onset of temptations.

Whenever, then, temptations spring up against them, he says, and are as it were like water borne along, he himself shall be hidden, that is, he shall be unconquerable by the plots of those who tempt.

But it was not possible for Christ to endure against his will any of the things that are wont to grieve.

For they took up stones, but he, as the blessed evangelist says, went through the midst of them, and passed by in this manner, that is, without concern.

'And he shall be to those in Zion as a glorious river borne along in a thirsty land.'

For very many others also have been called rivers.

'The rivers have lifted up, O Lord, the rivers have lifted up their voices.' For the voices of the holy apostles are heard afar off.

But none of them is so glorious, as assuredly is the torrent of delight, that is, Christ.

For from him, we say, to all the others also has been given the fitness for being able to initiate into the mysteries, and to instil the life-giving word of God into the souls of those who believe.

'And they shall no longer be trusting in men, but shall give their ears to hear;'

'and the heart of the weak shall give heed to hear, and the stammering tongues shall quickly learn to speak peace, and thy ministers shall no more say, Be silent.'

'For the fool shall speak foolish things, and his heart shall devise vain things, to accomplish lawless deeds, and to speak error against the Lord, to destroy the hungry souls, and to make empty the thirsting souls. For the counsel of the wicked shall devise lawless things, both to destroy the lowly with unjust words, and to scatter the words of the lowly in judgement.'

'But the godly have devised prudent things, and this counsel abideth.' The force of the passage before us would fit very well both those called from among the nations through faith, and those of the blood of Israel.

For those who served the falsely-named gods, having put their confidence in men who among them had a reputation for wisdom in appearance, and were reckoned to have an opinion of consummate learnedness, were carried away into a strange and counterfeit mind.

For they have gone astray and have said to the wood:

'Thou art my father,' and to the stone, 'Thou hast begotten me;'

and they inscribed as gods those who are not gods.

The Jews, moreover, having given heed to those to whom it fell to be their leaders, did not receive the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

For those who were versed in the sacred Writings supposed that what they themselves had devised was better, and did not fail to know what was pleasing to God and what most of all tended to the profit of the peoples under their hand.

Therefore, he says, they shall no longer be trusting in men, but shall lend their ears to the necessity of hearkening to the word of the Saviour, and the heart of the weak, at length grown manly toward understanding, shall give heed to hear; and the stammering tongues, that is, those which once knew not how to speak aright—

for it is a kind of stammering to be unable to speak anything for the glory of God, but to spend words in the praise of the falsely-named gods—

they shall learn, he says, to speak peace.

To speak peace is nothing other than to have Christ and the things of Christ upon one's tongue;

for he himself is our peace, according to the Scriptures.

But the stammering of those of Israel is the not enduring to speak the mystery of Christ.

But these too shall cease, he says, and every word of theirs shall be concerning Christ.

And that they shall no longer endure the ancient teachers, he has plainly declared, saying:

'And they shall no longer say to the fool that he should rule.'

For confessedly foolish are the wise men among the Greeks;

for the wisdom of the world has been made foolish.

And foolish also are the guides and teachers of the Jews, who have not recognized what was written through the shadow in the law, and have not understood the words of the holy prophets.

They shall therefore no longer say to the fool that he should rule, nor moreover shall the ministers of the fools say to those instructed by them, 'Be silent.'

For the wise of the world have spoken in Beelzebul, and have become the inventors of perverse and cold, and moreover unholy doctrines.

But if anyone should choose to set himself against their nonsense, and to expose it as counterfeit for being outlandishly conceived, certain of those accustomed to serve them leap up and cry out for silence, wishing the words of those men to be beyond contradiction.

At any rate they say that, when the disciples of Pythagoras spoke things at times cold and ridiculous, and disbelieved by many, it was their custom to say this, 'He himself said it,' that is, 'Be silent, and give to the inventor of the doctrine your faith even without examination.'

Therefore, he says, thy ministers shall no more say, 'Be silent.'

For the fool shall assuredly speak foolish things somewhere, and his heart shall devise vain things, having one aim, to accomplish lawless deeds, and to speak error against the Lord.

For error and nothing else are the drivelings among the Greeks, composed against the glory of God, to destroy hungry souls, and to make empty the thirsting souls.

For some at times are eager to be disciples, and then, approaching those men without discernment, they profit nothing at all, but rather are shown—although they hungered and thirsted—that to learn what is by all means necessary and useful for the salvation of the soul is somewhere at hand for them.

But the counsel of the wicked, he says, shall devise lawless things, and to this it looks: to destroy souls with unjust words, and to scatter the words of the lowly in judgment.

For those who are lovers of worldly wisdom and the shield-bearers of perverse doctrines wage war

against the teaching of the holy initiators into the mysteries—whom he also calls 'the lowly'—and they put forth every effort to scatter their words, though these words came to be 'in judgment,' that is, not carelessly, but rather with discernment, and in the wisdom that is from above and from God.

For this, I think, he teaches when he adds: 'But the godly took counsel in things prudent, and this counsel abides.'

For the vaunting, high-sounding chatter of the world's wise men has been rendered idle;

for the counsel of the godly has prevailed—that is, the teaching, or rather the preaching.

And we say that the godly are those who minister the divine and evangelical word to men throughout all the earth.

'Rise up, you wealthy women, and hear my voice.'

'Zion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Judea rejoiced'; for the smaller cities that are subject to her are always, in a manner, gathered about their mother, the one that presides over them all.

In these words, then, the very Person of the Saviour Himself has been brought before us, counselling the cities of Judea and saying:

'Rise up, you wealthy women, and hear my voice.'

He urges them, then, to choose to honour docility and to receive the words that come from Him—clearly, that is, the saving and evangelical proclamation;

that they should choose to bring the neck of their own understanding under His ordinances.

'O women,' he says, 'O daughters, hear my words in hope'—that is, not without reward, but rather upon a splendid hope.

What, then, is the thing commanded? 'Make remembrance,' he says, 'of the days of the year' in which Christ appeared and clearly proclaimed to the cities and villages throughout all Judea.

For He Himself said through the voice of Isaiah:

'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because of which He has anointed me; He has sent me to preach good tidings to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth the broken in release, to heal the crushed in heart, to call an acceptable year of the Lord.' 'Rise up, therefore,' he says—that is, be fully awake, and, having settled a good hope in your minds, remember the days of the year in which, as I said, the proclamation from Christ the Saviour of us all took place.

And He enjoins that this be done neither slackly nor negligently, but as with zeal and with earnest care;

for in this way are good things brought to success.

'The vintage is spent, the sowing has ceased, it shall come no more;'

'be astonished, be grieved, you who are confident; strip yourselves, become bare, gird your loins, and beat yourselves upon the breasts.'

'For the field of desire and the fruit of the vine, the land of my people shall bring up thorn and grass, and gladness shall be taken away out of every house.'

'A wealthy city, houses forsaken; they shall forsake the wealth of the city and the desirable houses.'

'And the villages shall become caves for ever, a delight of wild asses and pastures of shepherds.' He shows in these words that for those of Israel it will be no small harm—rather, it will be the cause of every torment and calamity—to be unwilling to receive the word from Christ.

For the cities throughout all Judea were destined to be laid waste, the hand of the Romans setting them all ablaze, so that they were seen emptied of men, both they and the choicest of the regions turned to desert; those who barely had the strength to escape betook themselves to flight, and men fell away from home and wealth, so that the city or village once teeming with people became a haunt of wild beasts.

But if anyone should wish to receive also a spiritual contemplation upon the matters set forth, he will understand this:

By 'vintage' and 'sowing,' as I think, he calls the power of that spiritual fruitfulness by which we are well-pleasing to God—not, as it were, bringing forth the thorn of manifold sin, but being honoured before God as a rich and fruitful land.

The wretched Jews, then, have fallen away from the spiritual fruitfulness;

and the spiritual vineyard has become a thorn-bearing land.

'For it waited,' he says, 'to make grapes, but it made thorns.' And it has been said also through the voice of the prophet concerning Israel, that 'they have sown things blasted by the wind, and their overthrow shall receive them.'

'The sowing has ceased'; you shall no longer be a land of good increase and nourishment of cultivated fruits.

For this reason, and very fittingly, 'be astonished'—that is, be struck with amazement and marvel.

'For you who once thought greatly of yourselves,' he says, 'because of God, when you behold your own heart made desolate of every good, then, yes then, be grieved.'

'Strip yourselves, become bare, gird your loins, and beat yourselves upon the breasts.'

'For the field of desire and the fruit of the vine.'

'The occasion of the lamentation,' he says, is that the desirable field and the marvelled-at vineyard have been utterly lost and made to vanish.

And by this he signifies Israel.

And he sets it forth clearly in another way also, and says that 'the land of my people shall bring up thorn and grass.'

For Israel was turned to desert, as I said.

For He gave up His vineyard, and commanded the clouds that they should rain no rain upon it.

And it became a delight of wild asses, and pastures of evil shepherds—that is, of the unclean spirits.

to God the Saviour of all:

'You removed a vine out of Egypt,' he says, 'you cast out nations and planted it.' Then he adds, saying:

'Why have you broken down its hedge, so that all who pass by the way pluck it? The boar from the forest has ravaged it, and the wild solitary beast has fed upon it.'

For in the very way that the owners cast aside the barren parts of their fields, and take no account of them, even though every harm should befall them;

so also our virtue-loving God gives up a soul, and shows it stripped of all sparing, if it becomes empty of the fruits that lead to well-doing.

'Until the Spirit come upon you from on high.'

'And Chermel shall be a desert, and Chermel shall be reckoned for a forest.'

'And judgment shall rest in the wilderness, and righteousness shall dwell in Carmel.'

'And the works of righteousness shall be peace, and righteousness shall hold fast repose, and they shall be confident for ever;'

'and His people shall dwell in a city of peace, and shall abide confident, and shall rest with wealth.' He also makes clear the time in which the race of Israel that disbelieved will be desolate of the spiritual fruitfulness.

For He transfers the word to those, I mean, who by their obediences have honoured our Lord Jesus Christ, and who have been cleansed through faith in Him, and have come to be also in the participation of the Holy Spirit.

'For the things foretold shall be,' he says, 'and Israel shall be turned to desert because of its stubbornness, until the Spirit come upon you from on high.'

For, as we read in the Acts of the holy Apostles:

'They were all gathered together in one place, about the days of the holy Pentecost.'

'And behold, suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a rushing violent wind, and it filled the house where they were gathered;'

'and there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and they sat upon each one of them, and they began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them to utter.' Whenever, then, he says, the Spirit of God from above and from on high comes upon you who believe, then also Chermel shall be a desert.

Now Chermel, or Carmel, is an exceedingly great mountain in Judea, thickly wooded and covered with dense forest.

He likens, then, both Jerusalem itself and all the country about her dwelling-place to Chermel, inasmuch as it too had a countless multitude of inhabitants.

'But it shall be,' he says, 'a desert, and shall be reckoned for a forest.'

For the untamed trees are cut down, and are food for the flame.

When Chermel is cut down, then, and reckoned as wild woodland, judgment shall rest in the wilderness.

By 'wilderness' he means, in an enigmatic way, the country of the nations, which the prophet Isaiah himself also mentions elsewhere, saying:

'Be glad, O thirsty wilderness.'

'Let the wilderness rejoice, and blossom as a lily.' And it is likened to a wilderness because of its barrenness, and because it is, as it were, stripped bare, and there was in it absolutely nothing standing up.

But this too has been enriched.

It has appeared, in a spiritual sense, most abounding in fair trees, because Christ dwelt in it.

And indeed He said, again through the voice of the prophet Isaiah:

'And I will make water in the wilderness, I will set rivers in the waterless land, the cedar and the box, the myrtle and the cypress and the white poplar.' For by these are signified the souls that are approved through faith in Him, and lifted up to a height by their diverse and manifold virtue.

'Judgment, therefore,' he says, 'shall rest in the wilderness, and righteousness shall dwell in Carmel'—meaning that good shall have its abode both in the wilderness and in Carmel.

Now Chermel and Carmel are not two different things, one distinct from the other, but by both is signified one and the same mountain.

How then shall it be both a wilderness and be reckoned as a forest, and in it shall righteousness dwell? We say that Israel has not utterly fallen from her intimacy with God, but the remnant has been saved, and those of them who have believed are gathered together into one flock with those from among the nations.

What then will Christ, who is righteousness, do when He has taken up His dwelling in the wilderness? He makes it plain, saying:

And the works of righteousness shall be peace.

For when our Lord Jesus Christ came, as Paul says, He preached peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near, that is, to Greeks and to Jews alike;

and righteousness established rest among us.

For having made peace with God and having abolished the enmity, we are in cities of rest and of everlasting delight.

And we have come to be, in Him, confident even unto the age, and we have dwelt in a city of peace, that is, in the Church of the living God.

For in her dwells Christ, who is peace, and we have found rest together with the riches.

For we who of old stood in want of every good thing and of all virtue, we who were godless in the world and had no hope, are now rich through Christ, and shall be yet more richly so, having obtained a most abundant increase of the gifts that come from above and from God.

But if the hail come down, it shall not come upon you.

Whenever, then, the hail is sent down, He says—that is, the things which proceed from the divine wrath—it shall not come upon you who have believed and who dwell in the city of peace; neither shall it destroy the produce of our righteousness, nor lay waste our good labours; but in equal rank with those who dwell in the forests, those also who are in the plain shall be confident.

And what does this mean? For the land adorned with dense timber is somewhat rough and not easily ploughed.

But that which is level and smooth is suited, for those accustomed to till the soil, to the production of edible seeds.

Therefore, when God gives His assent, all things shall be in fruitfulness, and the land once shown to be rough shall become a nurse of cultivated seeds.

For all things bear fruit through Christ, evidently in a spiritual and intelligible sense.

And no one sows upon thorns.

But having broken up fallow ground with new tillage, according to the prophet's word, let us sow unto righteousness, no longer living according to the flesh and in love of pleasure, but rather conducting ourselves according to the Gospel.

Blessed are those who sow upon every water, where the ox and the ass tread. Since the discourse has been turned toward the works of husbandry and the good harvests in the fields, he continues in the metaphor, and calls blessed those who sow upon water, where the ox and the ass tread.

For the God-inspired Scripture names as water for us the divine and heavenly word, and the one who initiates the saints into the mysteries.

For they too speak in the Spirit.

And the Saviour Himself confirms it, saying:

It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. For since the Word of God is life-giving, it is with very good reason likened to this water.

For water is life-giving, and the provider of all fruitfulness.

Having, then, the spiritual supply of such waters, we are accustomed to cultivate the things that pertain to virtue.

And we labour earnestly to sweat over the toils that accord with godliness; in these waters the ox and the ass tread;

that is, the people from among the Jews, and indeed also that from among the nations.

Having broken down the middle wall of partition, and having abolished the law of commandments contained in ordinances, He created the two into one new man, making peace.

For the ox is a clean animal according to the law;

and it was also offered up to God as a sweet-smelling savour.

And indeed, having commanded that the firstborn of the cattle be brought to God:

For you shall sanctify to Me, He says, every firstborn that opens the womb.

The firstling of an ass you shall exchange for a sheep; but even if the people from among the nations was perhaps unclean because of having gone astray, yet it was sanctified through faith.