以賽亞書註釋 第 1 章 第 8/65 段

he usefully enumerates those things by which it was fitting to see that one condemned in no small measure, and not for chance offences merely, but for the most utterly lawless deeds, and for those most abhorred especially by God who loves virtue.

Woe to those who join house to house, and draw field near to field, that they may take away something belonging to their neighbour. For it is, generally speaking, characteristic of those who wish to be rich—and who have moreover obtained the power to that end—always to want to heap yet more upon what has already been acquired, and to make their substance appear in ceaseless increase.

And so they are forever fastening themselves upon those who border on them and are their neighbours;

eager to make the houses in the cities more spacious, forcibly oppressing the masters of the fields that adjoin them, and joining these to their own.

For a rich man is an insatiable thing, if somehow the power to accomplish easily whatever he wishes lies ready at hand for him.

For he never ceases from leaping upon what belongs to his neighbour;

and he ever thirsts for what is not yet present, and longs for what has not yet been procured.

'Woe therefore,' He says, 'to those who wish to join their own houses to others', and fields to fields, that they may take away something belonging to their neighbour.'

For they are ever eager somehow to make a pretext for the necessity of gaining more—namely, that others ought not to be their neighbours;

then they oppress the weaker, and unrighteously take advantage of them as they at times cry out in lament, and clamour against the malice that is in these men.

'And in what way?' perhaps you will say.

As the wronged evidently cry aloud.

The disciple of the Saviour has written for us something of this kind:

'Come now, you rich men, weep and howl over the miseries that are coming upon you.' And in addition to this he says:

'Behold, the wages of the labourers who reaped your lands.'

And that He does not stand aloof from the things upon the earth, He Himself gives assurance, saying:

'I am a God who draws near, says the Lord, and not a God from afar.' Let them therefore hear, those who wish to be covetous, and to do violence, and to plunder their brethren:

'Shall you dwell alone upon the earth?' For the God of all is present.

But it must be understood that, in keeping with what is likely and most refined, the prophet here intimates something to us:

'O you rich,' he says, 'why do you seize what belongs to your neighbour, and hate the one who is near? It shall assuredly come to pass that you too shall dwell alone in the land, all the others being driven out.'

You will therefore render the land bereft of its inhabitants.

It is therefore best and wise to lay claim only to those things which suffice for a measured self-sufficiency.

For 'better is a small portion with the fear of the Lord, than much produce with unrighteousness.'

And if indeed one ought also to speak taking something from the sacred writings: a certain one of those in Samaria reigned in the days of Israel, who, having raised for himself a most costly house, falls from it and perishes forthwith.

'You built for yourself a well-proportioned house, airy upper chambers, fitted with windows, panelled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.'

'You shall not reign, because you were provoked to anger in Ahaz your father.'

'It would have been better for you to do judgement and goodly righteousness.'

For treasures shall not profit the lawless, according to that which is written;

'but righteousness shall deliver from death. For if there be many houses, they shall become desolate, great and fair though they be;'

'and there shall be none dwelling in them.'

'For where ten yoke of oxen work, they shall make one jar;'

'and he who sows six artabae shall make three measures.' For the accusations of the more powerful, of their covetousness against others, have—so he says—confessedly been heard in the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

Has He then kept silence, has He passively let it pass, and put a bridle upon His wrath? By no means, He says.

And a clear proof of this is His declaring the zeal of those who lust after what belongs to others to be, in this respect, in vain.

For what profit is there in joining house to house, and in furnishing hearths splendidly and ambitiously, if—so He says—there will be no one to dwell in them, war having consumed both small and great? And what benefit is there to them of their most spacious fields, when God does not allow them to bear good fruit, on account of the covetousness of those who possess, or rather have seized them? For it shall be, yes it shall be, that in such barrenness are the things in the fields, that of twenty calves, that is ten yoke, labouring in the vineyards, one jar shall scarcely be produced;

and though six measures be sown, one shall see the yield of fruits to be but half the casting of the seed.

But sufficient, I think, for the labour of ten yoke of oxen would be a very great extent of vine-planted land, and likewise very many plots fit for ploughing.

The possession, therefore, is unprofitable, and the toil of covetousness is in vain, if no one will dwell in the houses in the cities.

Nor indeed shall the things in the fields flourish, since God brings them to ruin, and convicts the injustice of the insatiable.

But since each of us also has in his own soul a spiritual field, and works the sowing of righteousness, let us guard against giving offence to God.

For then, yes then, as in a house that is secure and firmly founded, we shall dwell in virtue that is manifold and richly varied, and we shall abound, like valleys, with wheat;

and the God of all shall bless our sowing, and increase the fruits of our righteousness, even as the inspired Paul says.

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

for the wine shall inflame them.

For with lyre and harp and timbrels they drink their wine, and with pipes; but the works of the Lord they do not regard, nor consider the works of His hands. He joins to the first charges yet other and most grievous accusations against the rich:

to be lovers of pleasure, and to revel in luxury, in revellings and unceasing drunken bouts, and to be defiled with the evils that spring from love of the flesh;

and to think that they must do this continually, at absolutely every season.

For wealth is competent to whet the appetite for luxuries, and to do away with any surfeit of them.

But he who sows to the flesh, as Paul says, shall from the flesh reap corruption. For the end of temporary luxury shall be a long and continual weeping, and the fruit of fleshly pleasure is destruction.

The prophet therefore writes for us of the insolence of the Jews, and their dissoluteness in luxuries, and their being poured out into profligacy.

'For,' he says, 'assigning every season to gluttony, they seek strong drink at dawn, and prolong their carousals throughout the sun's courses, remaining until the very evening.'

For the wine shall inflame them.

For confessedly wine, drunk to excess, produces a certain burning in the entrails.

But it shall inflame the lovers of drunkenness in yet another way, for it shall be to them an occasion for the One who chastises to that end.

For they shall be utterly and altogether burned, being sent into the everlasting flames prepared for the devil and his angels.

For this reason the drunkard also, together with the other profane, shall be without portion in God's sight, and shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens.

For see how great in its seasons was the dissoluteness of the Jews toward the pursuit of luxury.

For where there is the strumming of the lyre, and the sound of timbrels, and the accompanying cries of the pipers, with rhythmic movement and clapping, there assuredly is also every kind of uncleanness, and the things done by them in secret, which it is even shameful to speak of.

And this harms them, that they are unable to behold the glory of God, nor indeed to gaze intently upon His works.

For just as the eye of the body, whether dust has fallen into it, or rheum has flooded it, or a wound afflicts it, cannot see clearly;

so also the human mind, if it be thickened by the luxuries of the flesh, cannot open its eyes toward God, nor indeed fix an accurate gaze upon the things done by Him;

For He is known from the beauty of created things;

and he who ascribes wonder to the things made by Him would marvel at Him most richly indeed.

For as the blessed Paul writes:

'His invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.' And it is likely that the prophet was arraigning the Jews as those who love drinking bouts, and who gather themselves most eagerly together to luxuries;

nor even to consider them in their mind, that is, to look toward the things to come — that is to say, the things that shall befall them as from the divine wrath, which he also calls the works of the hands of God.

For He makes peace for those who love Him, but for those who provoke Him He fashions evils.

For if they had beheld the works of the Lord that were to come upon them, they would not have endured their drinking-bout, but tears would have been their earnest care, and lamentation their friend, together with labours and prayers and the works of repentance, which are sweeter than the evils of dissolute living.

Therefore my people were led captive, because they had no knowledge of the Lord.

And a multitude of dead came to be, through famine and thirst for water.

And Hades enlarged its soul, and opened wide its mouth, so as never to cease.

And the glorious and the great and the rich and her chief men shall go down.

And man shall be brought low, and each man shall be dishonoured.

And the lofty eyes shall be brought low, and the Lord of Sabaoth shall be exalted, and God the Holy One shall be glorified in righteousness. For to those who wish to live luxuriously, wealth ends in ruin and arrives at the very last of evils — this is what the divine word teaches us in these matters.

For since those of the land of the Jews, being more distinguished than the rest, had abandoned as unprofitable the duty of attending to the works of God and of gazing upon the works of His hands, having made it their practice to reckon this as nothing, and gave themselves over to continual revels, and desired to be drunk in the most dissolute fashion amid the sound of flutes, and spent whole days at this —

some shall be captives and shall serve their enemies, but so great a multitude of dead shall lie throughout all the land, of those perished by famine and thirst, that Hades shall well-nigh riot with a wide and insatiable mouth, gulping down open-jawed those who descend, and shutting them away in its own treasuries.

For whenever you hear of the soul of Hades being enlarged, one must suppose that it means nothing else than what I have just said.

For the God-inspired Scripture sometimes uses these words figuratively, and as it were by metaphor, even of things that have no soul, indeed of things not even reckoned in the class of living beings — or even of those that truly are such.

For what soul does Hades have? Rather, Hades is a place, and the joyless prison-house of wretched souls.

Therefore the souls of those who live in luxury in this life shall depart into Hades, and shall as it were fill up its soul.

And the divinely-inspired psalmist hints at some such thing to us, speaking, I think, concerning every soul that is pleasure-loving and sin-loving:

He shall enter as far as the generation of his fathers; unto everlasting he shall not see light.

For just as of the saints, when they depart from our affairs, the sacred Writing says that they are gathered to their fathers —

for it is said somewhere to the blessed Abraham:

And you shall be gathered to your fathers, nourished in a good old age — so too we say that those who die in sins run off to the generation of their fathers, calling their fathers those who pass their life in a kind that is alike and in every way equal and similarly disposed.

But if it be said that there is a multitude of dead through famine and thirst for water, we say this: what Josephus wrote, who set forth to the world in tragic style the greatness of the calamity of the Jews —

namely, that when Jerusalem was besieged, women devoured the little ones they had borne, and all were overcome by famine and by the necessity that yields to the teeth.

And that this happened not in Jerusalem alone, but also in the other cities of Judea, how or on what ground could anyone doubt? Very many, then, as there were, have been consumed by the war and have fallen by the sword;

but of those who thus perished, the savagery of the famine destroyed even more.

But if anyone should say that there also came to be a scarcity of spiritual waters and of the divine nourishment for the impious Jews —

and that they thus perished, and as it were sank down into Hades, precisely through not being made alive through Christ, after the likeness of those who have believed in Him —

he would not miss the truth.

For it has come to pass that they suffered this also.

But who might be understood to be those who go down, for whom Hades itself enlarges its own soul, and opens wide its insatiable mouth? He adds, saying:

The glorious and the great and the rich and her pestilent ones.

For since they were the leaders and the most distinguished of all throughout the whole land, it was fitting that through them the subject people should be well guided;

but they became types and, as it were, a pattern to the rest of the accursed life, and to them the sacred oracle says somewhere:

Because you have become a snare to the watchtower, and as a net stretched out over Itabyrion, which those who hunt the prey have fixed. You see how they have become a snare and a hunting-trap to the rest, because the subject people ever tend somehow to follow the fair dealing, and indeed also the negligence, of their leaders.

Therefore, as having become the cause to themselves and to all the rest that they must perish, they shall go down first and press on ahead into Hades, since the divine wrath in a manner leaps upon them even before the others.

And they shall be punished not because they became rich and glorious, but because they were pestilent — that is, destroyers and ruiners both of themselves, as I said, and of the common multitude.

But those who puff themselves up greatly, he says, shall be humbled and dishonoured.

For whom does the terror of death not humble? Or what uplifted eye, gazing on high, does a dreadful and unbearable calamity not lull to sleep? And when all these things have come to pass, he says, the Lord of Sabaoth shall be exalted, in that day — that is, at that time in which the things foretold against them shall run to their fulfilment —

in judgement and in righteousness, having with a right and holy verdict punished the arrogant people, the disobedient and pleasure-loving.

We must therefore renounce luxuries, and let us be earnest to put as far away as possible our useless — or rather most abominable — love of the flesh, that the insatiable Hades may not revel over us as well.

For we remember the Saviour saying:

Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation. And again, Blessed are you that mourn now, for you shall laugh — for the labour shall end in refreshment, and the completion of good sweat shall be for us the procurer of luxury that lasts unto eternity.

For he that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, as it is written;

and he that sows to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. And those who were plundered shall feed as bulls, and lambs shall eat the deserted places of those who have been taken away. While the land of the Jews was still established and was at the height of its prosperity, the neighbouring nations round about warred against those of the blood of Israel.

But since the God of all was the one who shielded Israel, He so prevailed over their adversaries that they conquered without a battle, and struck terror into all, and plundered their lands, and laid waste their cities, and drove off and carried away with full authority the possessions of others.

But when they had committed impiety against Christ, and were given over to the armies of the Romans for destruction and plunder, their cities were burned with fire, and all their possessions were plundered by the conquerors.

Then, when the Roman army had withdrawn a little, those who had long ago been plundered came running, searching through cities and houses, and gathered up what remained, and carried it off into their own lands.

And the God of all hints at some such thing to us, speaking through the voice of the prophet:

Glean, glean as a vine the remnant of Israel;

turn back as one who gathers grapes to his basket. Since, then, it shall not suffice for them to suffer only the things from the Roman army, but there shall be added also the things from the cruelty of their bordering enemies, he foretells, saying:

And those who were plundered shall feed as bulls. For those who long ago, he says, were ready to be plundered by them, because God defends them, shall graze over their land as bulls — that is, terrible and haughty, and holding an irresistible resistance.

And lambs shall eat the deserted places of those who have been left behind.

And by those left behind he means the besieged.

Therefore, he says, lambs shall feed on the desolated cities of the besieged — that is, again, those from among the nations.

But since again he has framed his discourse for us as concerning bulls, he has kept to the figure, and has added lambs, that we may understand the exceedingly strong as calves,

and those not so, but ranking lower in lesser strength, we call lambs.

Thus too the wicked and unclean powers shall graze upon the heart of each of the negligent, as calves and lambs.

And their food is the pleasure-loving disposition, and the inclination of a mind that looks toward transgression.

Let the things He will do draw near in haste, that we may see, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know. The Maker and Lord of all, overcoming by His gentleness the weakness of man's nature, spoke to the men of old through the holy prophets the things by which it was likely they would pass over to the better, forsaking the worse, and would cease from baseness and sin, but rather would live in virtue and would choose to set the good aright.

And for this cause, at one time He set before them the rewards prepared for the saints;

but there was no means capable of thrusting away the corruptions of the Jews.

For having turned aside to love of gain and to luxuries, and being now sick with the utmost madness against God, they savagely assailed the holy prophets.

And some, utterly disbelieving the things spoken through them, would say:

Speak to us other things, and declare to us another delusion; while others, all but even accusing the long-suffering of the divine nature, laughing at one another as was fitting, would say:

But the days are far off, every vision has perished.

And indeed God said somewhere to the blessed Ezekiel:

Son of man, behold, the house of Israel that embitters Me, saying they say:

The vision that this man sees is for many days, and he prophesies for far-off times.

Thus says Adonai the Lord:

None of my words which I shall speak shall be prolonged any more;

for I shall speak a word, and shall do it, says Adonai the Lord. But others again, all but despairing of their own salvation and life, grew insolent against the wrath, and indeed even said:

'Let the season of war come quickly; those who wish to lay us waste will not find us unmanly or faint-hearted at every sound.'

'We too are seasoned in war and well versed in the arts of tactics.'

Those who have thought such things he justly pronounces wretched, and says:

'Woe to those who draw their sins along as with a long cord, and their iniquities as with the strap of a heifer's yoke.' By 'sins' and 'iniquities' he here means the punishments, that is, the chastisements incurred for their sins—punishments still far off and not yet near, because God still wills to bear with them patiently, yet in a manner drawn on by the men themselves, through their willing to fall even into the movements that spring from divine wrath.

For my part I think that to each such person we may most fittingly and truly say:

'Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation and righteous judgment of God.' For they draw upon themselves, as I said, the season of chastisement, perhaps growing faint-hearted because he is going to punish them, and did not lay the penalties upon them unrestrainedly while they went on transgressing.

'They draw their sins, then, as with a long cord, and their iniquities as with the strap of a heifer's yoke.'

For just as men, subjecting heifers, that is oxen, to the yokes, sometimes drag them along with much force and bind them fast to their labours,

in the same manner, I think, those men too, subjecting themselves to the things that were about to befall them from divine wrath, kept saying:

'Let what he will do draw near quickly, that we may see it, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it.' Those who say this and are so minded, another of the holy prophets also pronounces wretched, saying:

'Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord!'

'and this is darkness, and not light, and gloom having no brightness in it.'

It is necessary, then, for those who learn that God has been grieved, at once to repent and rather to appease him with unceasing prayers, and not to provoke him further when he has already been stirred;

nor indeed to despise him when he threatens;

for he is long-suffering and abundant in mercy, taking away iniquities and passing over acts of injustice;

and sometimes, at the small tears of those who have sinned, he passes over to that serenity most dear to him.

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

'Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.' Through these words too he convicts of being utterly without understanding those who draw their sins along as with a long cord.

The 'woe' therefore fittingly belongs to those who are so minded.

For, unholy and without understanding, they have become judges against themselves.

For in calling evil good, reckoning darkness as light, and firmly maintaining that the bitter is sweet and the sweet bitter, by choosing to suffer the calamities that come from war—when it was possible for them easily to escape the evil—and by thrusting aside even the very illumination that is through Christ, they remained in darkness.

And what does the prophet say? 'When they waited for light, it became to them darkness;'

'waiting for radiance, they walked in darkness.' And they slipped down into such ill counsel and savagery of mind that, even when the gentleness of God and the sweet hope arising from it lay before them for their enjoyment, they themselves rather chose the bitterness that comes from being chastised, and to be worn down by such dreadful evils.

And he says that they suffered this because they became wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.

It is true that, according to the word of the writer of Proverbs, 'Wisdom that will not be corrected goes astray.' Burdensome and harmful is the love of self-conceit in those accustomed to act thus, and the attributing to one's own judgment alone the appearance of knowing what is beneficial.

So also sacred Scripture says:

'The presumptuous and scornful man, the boaster, shall accomplish nothing at all.'

Having this sickness in mind and heart, the teachers of the Jews would not receive the counsels that came from the Saviour.

For they were indeed—yes, they were—prudent not so much in the sight of the Lord as in their own sight, haughty and thinking highly of themselves on account of their knowledge of the divine laws, yet knowing nothing at all of the whole.

For they were blind guides of the blind, according to the very word of the Saviour.

'Woe to those among you who are strong, who drink wine, and to the mighty ones who mix strong drink;'

'who justify the ungodly for the sake of gifts, and take away the righteousness of the righteous.' The more prosperous and more renowned of the synagogue of the Jews, who held pre-eminence over the rest in the knowledge of the divine laws and rendered the judgments among them, were greatly slandered, as stretching out an insatiable hand for bribery, and readily selling their vote to those who wished to wrong their brothers;

and yet the law says plainly:

'Judge a righteous judgment.' And that what I say is true, the prophet Habakkuk will confirm, saying:

'How long, O Lord, shall I cry out, and you will not hear? I shall cry out to you when I am wronged, and you will not save? Why have you shown me toils and troubles, to look upon misery and ungodliness? Judgment has gone forth against me, and the judge takes bribes.'

'Therefore judgment goes forth perverted.' And the divinely inspired Isaiah himself also somewhere says to Jerusalem, that is to Zion:

'Your rulers are disobedient, companions of thieves, loving gifts, pursuing recompense;'

'they do not judge for the orphans, and give no heed to the cause of the widow.' These things they did, overcome by shameful gains;

and perhaps unholily amassing means for drinking-bouts and luxuries, and gathering them from acts of injustice.

For he accuses them through the voice of the prophet, saying:

'And binding their garments with cords, they made them into curtains close by the altar, and drank wine gained from false accusations in the house of their God.'

'Woe therefore,' he says, 'to the prosperous and mighty, to those who elaborately prepare strong drink, to the wine-lovers who love drunkenness, to those who take away the righteousness of the righteous'—that is, to those who condemn the one who has been wronged, but assign a righteous verdict to those accustomed to grasp for more.

And this, I think, is what it is to call openly evil good and good evil, and darkness light and light darkness, the bitter sweet and the sweet bitter.

One must know that the mighty shall be mightily tested;

and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand far more, according to the word of the Saviour.

For the chastisement will not be in equal measure for both the leaders and those set under their hand;

for the latter will sometimes plead that they perhaps did not know the will of their lord;

but the former, though knowing full well and exactly, did not do it.

For this reason they will justly endure the more grievous movement of him who chastises.

On account of all these things, like readily combustible material and after the manner of stubble, they shall be fuel for fire, and the loosed flames shall devour them, so that together with the roots the fruits that come from them shall be consumed—that is, they shall perish together with those who begot the offspring from them—and they shall be scattered like dust or ashes by the assaults of a most violent wind.

By a 'loosed flame' he means one that is quenched by nothing.

For fire sometimes falls upon standing corn or upon vineyards;

but it has not become fully kindled, since many come to the rescue and do not allow it to advance, nor to spread over the fields unchecked.

But when no one exerts himself, that is, checks the onward course of the flame, then indeed, then it becomes something kindled and let loose, and, being unbridled, it moves against everything whatsoever that lies near.

Therefore, since, when God who is all-powerful subjected them to the calamities of war and chastised them with a holy sentence, there was absolutely no one to come to their aid;

for this very reason, quite fittingly, he names his wrath a 'kindled flame.'

For as the blessed Moses says:

'You are fearful, and who shall withstand you from your wrath?' It is necessary, then, using all our strength, to avert his wrath;

for it is a fearful thing and hard to escape;

and indeed we have been taught to say in our prayers:

'O Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury, nor chasten me in your wrath.' For it is not—it is not—being disciplined that is grievous.

But burdensome and hard to bear is that this should be done against us in wrath and fury;

so also the prophet said:

'Discipline us, O Lord, yet in judgment and not in fury, lest you make us few.' 'For they did not desire the law of the Lord of Hosts, but provoked the oracle of the Holy One of Israel.'