以賽亞書註釋 第 1 章 第 1/24 段

But since I know that many of the poor also give freely from what they have, and that the righteous Judge commends their intention and measures out the recompense accordingly, I too undertake to overstep the bounds of my poverty and to share with my fellow believers the few crumbs I have received.

For I have learned that the Master exacted from his servants not only the profit of the five and the two talents, but also brought forward the one who had received but a single talent, and, finding his idleness, imposed upon him the uttermost punishment.

This above all strikes me with dread; this fear drives out the fear of my poverty and compels me to venture boldly upon a task suited to those who are well provided.

I take courage also in the power and grace of my God;

for to him all things are most easy and exceedingly ready, seeing that he granted even to a donkey a human voice for a little while, and made a barren rock give forth a spring of sweetest and most abundant waters.

So bountiful a provider of good things is he that he granted the grace of prophecy not only to the saints, but even gave to a tongue trained in the false utterances of divination a true oracle and a foretelling of things that would come to pass after long ages.

Knowing this ocean of loving-kindness, I open my mouth and wait for the streams to flow.

I shall imitate too that widow who, bringing the prophetic blessing to her oil, filled from a scanty trickle as many vessels as she had gathered, and paid off her debt.

For I too shall cast into the vessel of my soul the prophetic blessing, and I believe that the interpretation will gush forth;

for what the divinely inspired Elisha was able to do, the most divine Isaiah too will be able to accomplish.

For it is his prophecy that I shall now attempt to interpret;

for the meaning of the other prophets—God be praised—we have already unfolded, so far as we could, save for the wondrous Jeremiah, taking the greatest care above all for brevity and clarity.

And now too the loving God will surely impart to us a ray that illumines and lays bare the hidden things.

For thus, having found the treasure of the all-holy Spirit, we shall set it before those who love learning.

But before all else we shall state the subject of the prophecy;

for thus the detailed interpretation will become easy to survey.

THE SUBJECT OF ISAIAH'S PROPHECY. All the divinely inspired prophets not only foretold what would befall Israel, but also prophesied the salvation of the nations and announced beforehand the appearing of the Master;

but most of all the most divine Isaiah was entrusted with this foretelling.

For he foretells all things clearly:

concerning the Ammonites and the Edomites, and many other things besides;

but above all he laments the final utter destruction of the Jews, which they endured as they paid the penalty for their madness against the Master.

Now of the prophetic composition, some parts are plain and have their meaning laid bare, while others are spoken figuratively and require interpretation.

I therefore shall attempt to speak of some things briefly and to expound others at greater length;

yet even in these I shall take care for brevity so far as I am able.

VOLUME I. The vision which Isaiah son of Amos saw, which he saw against Judaea and against Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah and Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah, who reigned over Judaea.

He calls the foreknowledge of things to come a 'vision.'

For just as the eyes of the body, when in a healthy state, see the things set before them, so the seeing faculty of the mind, illumined by the divine Spirit, beholds as present the things that are not present.

He says, then, that he saw certain grievous things against Judaea and against Jerusalem.

By 'Jerusalem' he means the mother-city, and by 'Judaea' the cities and villages that belong under her.

For he began his prophecy under Uzziah, and it continued until Hezekiah.

Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.

These same witnesses Moses too, the great one, called upon when he was commanded.

Go down and call heaven and earth to witness for me: thus did he begin his solemn testimony;

Give heed, O heaven, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words from my mouth. And having added other things to these, he went on to say:

And indeed the prophet Jeremiah too—or rather God through him—having again accused the people of impiety, added these words as well:

The heaven was astonished at this, and the earth shuddered exceedingly, says the Lord. Of these words the God of all reminds them, after the completion of the events, through the tongue of the prophet:

Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.

For it is not a man, he says, who speaks, but God through a man.

He calls heaven and earth to witness, not as though they were living beings, but as encompassing the whole visible creation and enduring for the longest time.

We find too that Jacob and Laban made a heap of stones and called it a witness;

but they gathered the stones for the sake of remembrance—for stones are not living—while they entrusted the true witness to the Overseer of all things.

So he too called these great elements to witness.

And he confirmed his words by his deeds;

for when the Jews nailed the Saviour to the cross, the earth was shaken, calling the testimony to mind; and heaven, since being on high it could not convey this perception to men, showed the sun that traverses it stripped of its rays, and brought on darkness as a witness against the impiety.

I begot sons and raised them up, but they set me at naught.

For I not only brought them into being, but also deemed them worthy of every care, and made them conspicuous through my providence of every kind;

but they proved ungrateful toward their benefactor.

And fittingly, in accusing them of ingratitude, he calls heaven and earth into their midst;

for through these they reaped benefits of every sort.

For heaven from above supplied them with the food of manna;

For he commanded, it says, the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, and rained upon them manna to eat, and gave them the bread of heaven. And the earth bore for them in the wilderness the supply of waters they needed, and offered them in Palestine an abundance of fruits of every kind.

They also received first the dignity of adoption as sons;

for it says, Israel is my firstborn son. Yet even so nothing persuaded them to take on a grateful mind.

For it says, The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib;

but Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood.

For these creatures, though bereft of reason and mind, know their feeder, and, partaking of his care, are gratefully disposed toward the provider of it; the ox knows the herdsman, yields to his voice, and the donkey runs to its accustomed crib;

but these men, though drawing from a fountain of good things, were unwilling to acknowledge the provider of those streams.

So too through Jeremiah he compares them to birds and declares them more irrational than these:

For it says, The turtledove and the cicada and the swallow have known the times of their coming, but my people has not known the judgments of the Lord. But I marvel at the goodness of the loving Master;

for he does not simply call them 'people,' but calls them with the possessive pronoun.

And the ungrateful people does not say, 'my God,'

yet the loving God says, 'my people.'

And what follows shows his unspeakable mercy;

for he weaves laments for those who were unwilling to be saved;

and laments belong to those who love, not to those who hate.

Woe to the sinful nation, a people full of lawlessness, an evil seed, lawless sons;

you have forsaken the Lord and provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel.

This Symmachus rendered more clearly:

They forsook the Lord, they reviled the Holy One. For not only did they, forsaking their Maker, offer to idols the worship due to God, but they also reviled him who became man and was working out the salvation of all men, mocking him and calling him now a deceiver and demoniac, now a Samaritan, and now, jeering, they said:

Aha! you who destroy the temple and raise it up in three days, come down from the cross. And he names them an evil seed, not to insult their forefathers, but to expose their own wickedness.

Thus also John the Baptist called them a brood of vipers, while the Lord called them an evil and adulterous generation.

For neither did they preserve the nobility of their forefathers.

Then he portrays one who is angered against another, and who now converses with that other, now with himself, and he adds:

They were estranged and turned backward,

that is, forsaking me they went over to the adversaries.

For this he says elsewhere also:

They have turned their backs to me and not their faces. Why should you be stricken any more, adding to your iniquity? The whole head is in pain and the whole heart in sorrow;

from the feet to the head there is no soundness in him.

By 'head' he means the kings and rulers, and by 'heart' the priests and teachers.

For what the heart is to the body, that are priests and teachers to the people;

and what the head is to the body, that are kings and rulers to their subjects.

He therefore laments their insensibility,

for, he says, what further punishment am I to bring upon them? I have brought many and of every kind, and they have persisted, sick with incurable maladies;

for the disease encompasses all the members, head and heart and feet alike;

on which account I despair of their recovery.

For there is neither wound nor bruise nor festering sore; it is not possible to apply an emollient, nor oil, nor bandages.

Symmachus has rendered these words more plainly:

There is nothing sound in him, but a wound and a bruise and a blow of stripes, neither bound up nor softened with oil. He means: the excess of the wounds overpowers the strength of the remedies.

'Why should you be stricken any more, adding to your iniquities?' Fittingly he enumerates the kinds of punishment:

Your land is desolate, your cities are burned with fire;

strangers devour your country before your very eyes, and it is made desolate, overthrown by alien peoples.

I have brought upon you this catalogue of evils, and yet you are unwilling to learn the cause of them.

These things befell them also when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Babylonians, marched against them;

and the kings of the Romans brought against them the saving cross.

And we see even to this day foreign nations dwelling in their cities and possessing their land.

Having spoken these things concerning Judea, he also foretells the desolation of the city:

The daughter of Zion shall be left as a booth in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

By 'daughter of Zion' he names Jerusalem.

For just as he calls men 'sons of men' and prophets 'sons of prophets,' so also he addresses the same city as both 'daughter of Jerusalem' and 'daughter of Zion.'

She flourished of old, when the vineyard bore its ripe fruit;

but when that fruit had been gathered, she remained desolate like the booth of a vineyard.

For the vinedressers hedge their vines about with walls and fences whenever they are laden with fruit, and pitching lofty booths they sit in them keeping watch over the fruit;

but when they have gathered it in, they take down the booth and leave the vine unguarded.

So too the vineyard of Israel, as long as it held the blessing promised to the nations, enjoyed every care;

but once that blessing had been gathered, and those who believed unto it had been chosen out from it, it was deprived of the hedge and deprived of the temple, and that far-famed house has remained such as those who come there behold it.

And unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have become as Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.

When God delivered Sodom and Gomorrah to the fire, none of the inhabitants was saved;

only Lot did not share in the destruction, having no kinship with them.

But out of Israel many myriads were saved, when the Roman generals and emperors, marching against them, both burned their cities and shot down the greater part of the inhabitants, while those who were left they carried off into slavery.

For the Lord had foretold to the holy apostles and to those who believed through them the things that were to come, and he charged them to reap salvation through prudent care:

For when, he says, you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand; and again:

Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let him who is on the housetop not go down to take away his goods out of his house. Those, then, who believed in the Lord enjoyed salvation through their faith;

and that seed, through which God promised the blessing to the nations, he did not allow to be blotted out from memory like the Jews, in the manner of Sodom and Gomorrah.

They did not receive a punishment equal to that of the Sodomites—for that seed did not permit it—yet fittingly they receive the appellations of the Sodomites and Gomorrhites.

For since they took great pride in the root of Abraham, yet did not emulate the faith of Abraham, they are justly cast out from kinship with Abraham.

So too the divinely-inspired John the Baptist cries out:

Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and do not presume to say within yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father';

for I say to you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And to the prophet Ezekiel God commands to say to Jerusalem:

Your seed and your origin are of the land of Canaan;

your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite;

and Sodom again he names as her sister.

For whose lawlessness they emulated, of these they are justly to receive the appellation.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says the Lord.

From this we learn clearly that God did not ordain these sacrifices to be offered to him because he took pleasure in sacrifices, but because he knew their weakness.

For having been reared in Egypt and having learned to sacrifice to idols, they wished to enjoy that same manner of worship.

Wishing therefore to deliver them from that error, God tolerated both sacrifices and musical instruments, overlooking their weakness and guiding along their childish disposition.

After the passage of many years he forbids all the worship of the Law.

Whole burnt offerings of rams, and fat of lambs, and blood of goats, I do not desire, not even should you come to appear before me.

For of the one the blood and the fat were offered, and the kidneys and the lobe of the liver, while the whole was consumed by fire.

Then he shows more plainly the superfluity of the sacrifices:

You shall not continue to tread my court.

For the Romans, having overthrown the divine temple, by law rendered it inaccessible to them.

And of necessity he made mention of these things because of the shamelessness of the Jews, lest they should say:

This offering indeed he does not wish us to bring, but by that other he is served.

So in what follows he says through the prophet:

I will not accept, he says, calves out of your house, nor he-goats out of your flocks;

for mine are all the beasts of the field, the cattle upon the mountains and the oxen.

I know all the birds of the heaven, and the beauty of the field is with me.

If I were hungry, I would not tell you;

for mine is the world and the fullness thereof.

'Offer to God a sacrifice of praise,' he says; and again:

'Sacrifice and offering you did not desire; whole burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Your new moons and your sabbaths and the great day I cannot endure; fasting and idleness and your feasts my soul hates.'

Behold, he casts out even their much-vaunted feasts:

the feast of Passover, that of Weeks, that of Tabernacles, and besides these that of Trumpets and that of Atonement.

For by 'the great day' he names the great feasts, and by 'fasting' the day of Atonement.

And universally he declares that he has come to hate every feast and every sabbath.

'You have become to me a surfeit; I will no longer forgive your sins.'

'I have taken my fill of you,' he says, 'and I turn myself away from you utterly, because of the excess of your transgressions.'

'When you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn my eyes away from you;'

'and though you multiply your supplication, I will not hearken to you.'

'For your hands are full of blood.'

Having gone through all these things — both the dissolution of the Law and the destruction of the Temple — he taught the form of sin on account of which they underwent manifold punishments; and he accuses them not of the worship of idols, nor of adultery and covetousness, but of murder;

for the frenzy against the Lord is more grievous than all impiety and lawlessness.

'His blood be upon us and upon our children.' This blood deprived them of their former good fortune; this blood rendered them exiles from the inhabited world.

But nevertheless, being a lover of mankind, he points out to them the way of salvation:

So that they might not suppose that he was prescribing the lustral washings according to the Law, he added necessarily:

'Remove your wickednesses from your souls, from before my eyes.'

'And I know your hidden reasonings; nothing of your wicked designs escapes me;'

'therefore by the washing of regeneration cleanse your souls.'

'Cease from your wickednesses.'

For besides casting away one's former deeds, one must flee the practice of the like.

'Seek out judgment, deliver the one who is wronged, give judgment for the orphan and vindicate the widow.'

'And come, let us reason together, says the Lord.'

But so that they might not be afraid on hearing the reproofs, he promises a bounty of good things:

'And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as wool.'

'In bringing you into court,' he says, 'I will not exact penalties for the things you have dared to do, but seeing your repentance I will imitate the dyers, and by the washing of the all-holy baptism I will change the hue of the blood, and I will not permit you to bear the perpetual reproach of your murder.'

'For paradoxical is my art:'

'for whereas dyers dye things rose-colored, saffron-colored, violet-colored, and purple, I make the red thing snow-white.'

Then also he promises to grant them the enjoyment of present good things, as to those who gape after these:

'And if you are willing and hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land.'

But to those who will not obey he threatens:

'But if you are not willing, nor hearken to me, the sword shall devour you.'

And teaching that these words were not his own but of the God of all, the prophet added:

'For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.'

This same lovingkindness the Master used also when he was nailed to the cross:

For he said, 'Father, forgive them;'

'for they know not what they do.' After the cross, however, and the death and the resurrection and the ascension into the heavens and the descent of the divine Spirit and the marvelous wonders of the apostles, he deemed those who believed worthy of salvation;

for of these are the three thousand and the five thousand whom the pair of the foremost apostles caught in their net; of these are the many myriads whom the divine James pointed out to the inspired Paul; of these is the blessed Paul himself;

for like a savage wild beast he was tearing apart the flock of the Lord, but having been deemed worthy of the divine calling, he suffered with joy the very things which with joy he had once inflicted.

These, then, the Master according to his own promise deemed worthy of salvation; but the others, according to the prophecy, he delivered up to the sword.

'How has the faithful city Sion, full of judgment, become a harlot? In her righteousness once lodged, but now murderers.'

Since he saw them contradicting and not obeying, nor consenting to be washed and to reap salvation, he laments and bewails their change for the worse.

'Your silver is worthless;'

'your tavern-keepers mix the wine with water.'

He is making no accusation against tavern-keepers or money-changers, but against priests and teachers who adulterate the divine Law and mingle in their own doctrines.

For this same accusation the Lord also brought against them in the sacred Gospels:

'Why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?' For just as one who mingles some other material with gold or silver renders it base and worthless, and one who mixes wine with water spoils the quality of the wine, so the teachers of the Jews corrupted the divine Law by composing their own reasonings to accompany it and by attaching their mythical second-legislations.

'Your rulers are disobedient, partners of thieves, loving bribes, pursuing recompense, not judging for orphans and not attending to the cause of widows.'

Necessary too is the accusation of these things;

for faith alone does not suffice for salvation, but there is need also of practical virtue.

For this reason, having in the foregoing commanded them to come to the saving baptism, he also prescribed for them the other forms of virtue.

After the accusation, however, he brings on the threats of punishment:

'Woe to the mighty ones in Israel, for my wrath shall not cease among my adversaries; I will execute judgment upon my enemies.'

Theodotion rendered it 'Lord of the powers,' while Aquila rendered it 'Lord of hosts;'

for indeed we are accustomed to call the military musters a 'power.'

But the King of the heavens has as his invincible host the invisible powers.

And he names the same one also 'Sovereign of Israel,' inasmuch as through the marvelous wonders which he wrought on behalf of Israel he displayed his own power.

He calls them 'adversaries' as ever setting themselves against him, and 'enemies' as being hostile.

'And I will bring my hand upon you, and I will purge you to purity; and the disobedient I will destroy, and I will remove all the lawless from you, and I will humble all the proud, and I will restore your judges as at the first and your counsellors as from the beginning.'

Again he made mention of the judgment, and promised that the worthy he would indeed purge with fire, yet not unto burning up, but would make them best and approved.

For such is the grace of baptism;

wherefore also the most divine John the Baptist cried out, saying:

'I indeed baptized you with water unto repentance;'

'but he who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandal-strap I am not worthy to loose;'

'he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.' And when the all-holy Spirit descended upon the day of Pentecost, there appeared among the apostles tongues as of fire, being distributed.

For this reason, through the fire, he promises purification to those who believe, but to those who out of arrogance contradict he threatens humiliation.

those who received the proclamation, whom he likens to the sacred prophets.

'And after these things you shall be called City of Righteousness, faithful mother-city Sion.'

It is not greatness for her, nor the beauty of buildings, nor a multitude of inhabitants that he promises, but righteousness and faith;

wherefore all men run together to her, longing to see not the greatness of ramparts, nor the height of towers, nor the glittering of columns and marbles, but the tomb of the Master and the figure of the Master's cross, and that little and much-celebrated manger.

For with judgement shall her captivity be saved, and with mercy.

And the lawless and the sinners shall be crushed together, and those who have forsaken the Lord shall be consumed.

For having tempered justice with mercy, to those who had dared the cross and afterward repented He was reconciled, and receiving their repentance He granted them salvation; and those who had suffered those dreadful things and had been made captives He did not destroy together with the rest, but the others He handed over to utter perdition.

Fittingly then, in the present passage also, He made mention of these things.

For since, as though burning with zeal for the Law, they did not receive Christ the Saviour when He came, He reminds them of their great impiety: that they filled the city with idols, and planted groves for the idols, and in the marketplaces and in the houses and upon the housetops offered sacrifices to demons; and while doing these things they did not reckon it a transgression of the Law.

But when the Lawgiver Himself arrived, they supposed that faith in Him was a transgression of the Law.

Then again he adds the prediction of their desolation.

For they shall be as a terebinth that has cast off its leaves, and as a garden that has no water.

Passing over all the fruit-bearing trees, he likened the desolation of the city to a terebinth, and to a terebinth stripped bare of its leaves;

for it is a plant that grows in dry places, having withered branches.

He likened them also to a waterless garden;

for they no longer enjoy the prophetic streams, nor do they receive the dew that is borne down from above.

And their strength shall be as a stalk of tow, and their works as sparks of fire.

Easily kindled is the stalk of tow.

Fittingly, then, he compared their strength to this stalk, and to fire their wicked works;

And the lawless and the sinners shall be burned up together, and there shall be none to quench them.

For when God punishes, who is the deliverer? So also through the great Moses He said:

I will kill and I will make alive; I will smite and I also will heal;

and there is none who shall deliver out of My hands. Knowing these things, then, it is fitting to be afraid and to tremble;

for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Here indeed the prophet brought his first vision to a close;

and let us give those who will meet with this book a little rest, sending up glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

VOLUME II. The word that came to Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem.

In the reign of Uzziah — for in that reign he began his prophecy — he was commanded to convey these words also, yet not at the same time;

for which reason he again employed another preface.

That in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God shall be on the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills.

He foretells the conspicuousness and renown of true religion, and that the worship of idols shall be extinguished, while the house of God shall receive from all the reverence that is due.

For on the mountain peaks and lofty hills they set up shrines for the idols, and planted groves, and offered them the worship that is rendered through sacrifices.

But after the manifestation of our Saviour, their falsehood was refuted, and the beauty of the truth was displayed, and we behold the fulfilment of the prophecy.

By 'the last days' he means those after the manifestation of the Lord.

So also through Joel the prophet He says:

In the last days I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh — and this had its fulfilment on the day of Pentecost — and the divine Apostle:

In many parts and in many ways of old God spoke to the fathers in the prophets; in these last days He has spoken to us in a Son. And all the nations shall come to Him, and many peoples shall go and shall say:

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will declare to us His way, and we will walk in it.

These words admit of a twofold interpretation, and of each we behold the fulfilment;

for whether we understand Jerusalem to be the mountain of God, we see those who have believed running thither, running from all the inhabited world, and arriving as those who have received the proclamation and have seized upon the blessing that sprang up from there;