Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He soars to Christ, and foretells that the Church will be raised like a mountain by Christ, and that all nations will flow to it, who will turn wars into peace, swords into ploughshares. Second, at verse 6, he returns to his own times and accuses the crimes of his people. Third, at verse 10, he foretells the disaster and devastation to be brought upon the Jews by the Chaldeans. Finally, at the last verse, he soars to Christ and warns them not to provoke and embitter Him, as He is God.
Vulgate Text: Isaiah 2:1-22
1. The word which Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2. And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. 3. And many peoples shall go, and shall say: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4. And He shall judge the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more to war. 5. O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. 6. For You have cast off Your people, the house of Jacob: because they are filled as of old, and have had soothsayers like the Philistines, and have cleaved to the children of strangers. 7. Their land is filled with silver and gold: and there is no end of their treasures: 8. and their land is filled with horses, and their chariots are innumerable; and their land is filled with idols: they have adored the work of their hands, which their own fingers have made. 9. And man has bowed down, and man has been humbled: therefore forgive them not. 10. Enter into the rock, and hide in the pit from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of His majesty. 11. The lofty eyes of man are humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. 12. Because the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and high-minded, and upon every one that is arrogant: and he shall be humbled. 13. And upon all the tall and lofty cedars of Lebanon, and upon all the oaks of Bashan. 14. And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the elevated hills. 15. And upon every lofty tower, and upon every fortified wall, 16. and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon everything that is beautiful to behold. 17. And the loftiness of men shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day: 18. and idols shall be utterly destroyed: 19. and they shall go into the caves of rocks, and into the pits of the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of His majesty, when He shall rise up to strike the earth. 20. In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which he had made for himself to adore, to the moles and to the bats. 21. And he shall go into the clefts of rocks, and into the holes of stones, from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of His majesty, when He shall rise up to strike the earth. 22. Cease therefore from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is reputed as exalted.
Verse 1: The word which Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem
1. The word which Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem — to come about not now, but in the time of the Messiah, when from Judah Christ, the Apostles, and the new Church will be born. For that this is the subject here is clear from the following verse, when he says: "And in the last days," etc., and he treated of the same in the end of the preceding chapter, verses 26 and 27; so these words pertain to that. Hence the Septuagint for "and it shall be" translates: "because it shall be," as if giving the reason for what was said at the end of the preceding chapter. Note: "word," that is, vision, namely what was seen, or the thing seen. See Canon 1.
Again, symbolically, St. Jerome says: "Here it is called a word rather than a vision, because in the former chapter Isaiah sees a vision, but here the Word that was in the beginning with God (not in Himself, but as made flesh He taught us in the Church), and in that chapter, threatening the Jews, He comes to the salvation of the Gentiles: in this one, beginning from the salvation of the Gentiles, with Israel punished, He gathers believers from both callings into the Church of Christ."
2. And it shall be. — The word "and" is redundant through a Hebraism, and is the beginning of the prophecy; for the Hebrews are accustomed to begin a book or oration with ו (ve), that is, "and."
In the last days — in the last time, namely of the Messiah. It is a synecdoche. For "days" and, as St. John calls it, the "last hour," is put for the last, quite extended period of the law of Christ. So St. Augustine, epistle 80 to Hesychius.
Note: The time of Christ is called "the last," that is, the later or following (for this is all that the Hebrew אחרית acharit means), even if it is not properly the ultimate and last. So Jacob dying said to his sons, Genesis 49:1: "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days," that is, in the following times, namely after my death. Second, the time of Christ is properly called "the last," both because Christ is the end of the law and the Prophets, and because it is the last with respect to the origin and duration of the world,
The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared. — The Hebrew מכון (nachon) means not only prepared, erected, directed, but also founded, fortified, furnished, strengthened, and established; so that no forces, not even the gates of hell, can prevail against it. So also elsewhere "to prepare" is often taken for "to establish," as in Proverbs 8:27: "When He prepared, that is, founded, the heavens, I was present." Psalm 23, verse 2: "Upon the rivers He prepared, that is, established, it," namely the earth.
One may ask: Who is this mountain? Some, indeed the Jews, reply that it is Zion, which under the Messiah, they say, will be placed upon Mount Carmel and Tabor, and will be raised up three leagues. But these are their usual foolish tales. See Galatinus, Book V, chapter 3.
Second, some Catholics by the mountain understand the glory of Zion, which it received when Christ was presented in the temple, taught at the age of twelve, performed many miracles, and finally sent the Holy Spirit from heaven upon the Apostles. But this sense is symbolic.
Third, St. Cyprian, or whoever is the author of the book On Sinai and Zion, say this mountain is the cross of Christ. Again, St. Gregory, Book I on 1 Kings, says this mountain is the Blessed Virgin: for her holiness shone above all Saints and Angels, and towered like a mountain. For she herself "raised the summit of her merits above all the choirs of Angels up to the throne of the Deity," says St. Gregory in Book I on Kings, chapter 1, near the beginning. But these too are symbolic and mystical.
Fourth, St. Jerome, Basil, Rupert, and many other ancient writers judge this mountain to be Christ. For He is the mountain on the top of mountains, that is, of the Apostles and Prophets, whom He surpasses and excels with His doctrine and grace. This sense is connected with the following: for Christ is the head of the Church; hence Christ and the Church are considered as one thing, according to the rules of Ticonius in St. Augustine. Whatever therefore is said of the Church is also said of Christ: and vice versa.
Fifth, and most aptly, Cyril here, and Eusebius, Book II of the Demonstration, chapter 32, and Athanasius, at the beginning of the epistle to Epictetus, by the mountain understand the Church; for this is the house of the Lord, most lofty and most conspicuous, just as if it were situated on a mountain. It is
through frauds, injustices, and plunder, acquired, and consequently the very frauds, injustices, and plunder themselves, and other works of impiety, as if to say: You thought all these things were most strong and would be perpetual; but I will destroy them and burn them through the devastation of Judea, like tow that is consumed by a light flame; I will burn them, I say, both through the Babylonians, and more properly through the fire of hell: for this will properly be inextinguishable, in which the works of the impious, and all their glory, wealth, and strength will be burned up in the impious person himself. So St. Basil, whom St. Jerome and Haymo follow, who intermingle both senses here. Hence the Chaldean also renders: "The impious and their wicked works shall be burned." Sanchez takes this differently: The strength, he says, is the walls and towers, the fire is sins, as if to say: The walls, which otherwise would laugh at their enemies, will now be tow: because, even if no enemy were to attack them, yet your sins like enemies raging within would consume them and reduce them to ashes, just as fire consumes dry stubble; but this seems to be mystical.
He flies to Christ, and predicts the Church as a mountain to be raised by Christ, and that all nations will flow to it, who will turn wars into peace, swords into ploughshares. Second, at verse 6, he returns to his own times and rebukes the crimes of his people. Third, at verse 10, he predicts the calamity and devastation to be inflicted on the Jews by the Chaldeans. Finally, at the last verse, he flies to Christ, and warns them not to provoke and exasperate Him, inasmuch as He is God.
1. The word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw, concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2. And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. 3. And many peoples shall go, and shall say: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4. And He shall judge the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more for war. 5. O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. 6. For Thou hast cast off Thy people, the house of Jacob: because they are filled as of old, and have had soothsayers like the Philistines, and have adhered to the children of strangers. 7. Their land is filled with silver and gold: and there is no end of their treasures: 8. and their land is filled with horses: and their chariots are innumerable; and their land is filled with idols, they have adored the work of their hands, which their fingers have made. 9. And man hath bowed himself down, and man is debased: forgive them not therefore. 10. Enter thou into the rock, and hide thee in a pit dug in the ground from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of His majesty. 11. The lofty eyes of man are humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be made to stoop: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. 12. Because the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every proud and high-minded one, and upon every arrogant one: and he shall be humbled. 13. And upon all the tall and lofty cedars of Lebanon, and upon all the oaks of Basan. 14. And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the elevated hills. 15. And upon every high tower, and upon every fortified wall, 16. and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon everything that is beautiful to behold. 17. And the loftiness of men shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day: 18. and idols shall be utterly destroyed: 19. and they shall go into the caves of rocks, and into the chasms of the earth, from the face of the dread of the Lord, and from the glory of His majesty, when He shall rise up to strike the earth. 20. In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his images of gold, which he had made for himself to adore, moles and bats. 21. And he shall enter into the clefts of rocks, and into the caverns of stones, from the face of the dread of the Lord, and from the glory of His majesty, when He shall rise up to strike the earth. 22. Cease therefore from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is reputed high.
1. THE WORD THAT ISAIAH THE SON OF AMOS SAW, CONCERNING JUDAH AND JERUSALEM — what was to come, not now, but in the time of the Messiah, when namely Christ, the Apostles, and the new Church would be born from Judah. For that this is the subject here is clear from the following verse, when he says: "And it shall be in the last days," etc., and he treated of the same at the end of the preceding chapter, verses 26 and 27; therefore these words pertain to that. Hence the Septuagint, instead of "and it shall be," translate because it shall be, as if giving the reason for what was said at the end of the preceding chapter. Note "word," that is, vision, namely something seen, or a thing seen. See Canon I.
Again, symbolically, St. Jerome says: "Here it is called a word rather than a vision, because in the previous chapter Isaiah sees a vision, but here the Word that was in the beginning with God (not in Himself, but as made flesh He taught us in the Church), and in that vision, threatening the Jews, He comes to the salvation of the Gentiles: in this one, beginning from the salvation of the Gentiles, with Israel punished, He gathers believers from both callings into the Church of Christ."
Verse 2: And it shall be
2. And it shall be. — The word "and" is redundant by a Hebraism, and is the beginning of the prophecy; for the Hebrews are accustomed to begin a book or discourse with ve, that is, and. In the last days — in the last time, namely of the Messiah. It is a synecdoche. For days, and, as St. John calls it, "the last hour," is put for the rather prolonged last time of the law of Christ. So St. Augustine, epistle 80 to Hesychius.
Note: The time of Christ is called "the last," that is, later or following (for the Hebrew אחרית acharit means only this), even though it is not properly the ultimate and last. Thus Jacob on his deathbed said to his sons, Gen. XLIX, 1: "Gather yourselves together, that I may declare to you what shall befall you in the last days," that is, in the times following, namely after my death. Second, the time of Christ is properly called "the last," both because Christ is the end of the law and the Prophets, and because it is the last with respect to the origin and duration of the world, and of the preceding ages and states: that is, if you divide all time from the origin of the world into first, middle, and last; or into the law of nature, of Moses, and of grace: for then the law of grace is the last, nor will any other law or state succeed it. Therefore the Jews argue in vain: The last time has not yet come, therefore the Messiah has not yet come.
THE MOUNTAIN OF THE HOUSE OF THE LORD SHALL BE PREPARED. — The Hebrew מכון nachon signifies not only prepared, erected, directed, but also founded, fortified, furnished, established, and stabilized; so that no forces, indeed not even the gates of hell, can prevail against it. Thus elsewhere also "to prepare" is frequently taken for "to establish," as Proverbs VIII, 27: "When He prepared, that is, founded, the heavens, I was present." Psalm XXIII, verse 2: "Upon the rivers He prepared, that is, established, it," namely the earth.
You will ask: What is this mountain? Some, indeed the Jews, answer that it is Zion, which under the Messiah, they say, will be placed upon Mount Carmel and Tabor, and will be raised up three leagues. But these are their usual nonsense. See Galatinus, book V, chapter III.
Second, some Catholics understand by the mountain the glory of Zion, which it received when Christ was presented in the temple, taught at the age of twelve, performed many miracles, and finally sent the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles from heaven. But this sense is symbolic.
Third, St. Cyprian, or whoever is the author of the book On Sinai and Zion, says this mountain is the cross of Christ. Again, St. Gregory, book I on I Kings, says this mountain is the Blessed Virgin: for her holiness shone above all the Saints and Angels, and towered like a mountain. For she herself "raised the summit of her merits above all the choirs of Angels even to the throne of the Godhead," says St. Gregory in book I on Kings, chapter 1, near the beginning. But these too are symbolic and mystical.
Fourth, St. Jerome, Basil, Rupert, and many other ancients judge this mountain to be Christ. For He is the mountain on the top of mountains, that is, of the Apostles and Prophets, whom He surpasses and excels by His teaching and grace. This sense coheres with the following: for Christ is the Head of the Church; hence Christ and the Church are considered one thing, according to the rules of Ticonius as cited by St. Augustine. Whatever therefore is said of the Church is said also of Christ: and conversely.
Fifth, and most fittingly, Cyril here, and Eusebius, book II of the Demonstration, chapter XXXII, Athanasius, at the beginning of the epistle to Epictetus, understand by the mountain the Church; for this is the highest house of the Lord, and most conspicuous, just as if it were situated on a mountain. It is a catachresis. See Canon VI. Hence the Septuagint, instead of "prepared," translate it as manifest.
(1) This is therefore the first of all the visions or prophecies that lasts until chapter VI, and contains prophecies uttered under the reign of Uzziah, concerning Christ the Lord, the end of all the prophets, concerning the dignity of the religion He instituted and of His Church, concerning the devastation of Israel on account of their enormous crimes, and concerning the holy remnants that were saved, so as to fill the whole world with faith and knowledge of the truth. In the first part of this chapter, Isaiah predicts auspicious things for the Gentiles, namely: first, the Church of Christ, visible and openly set forth for those who would one day freely approach it, verse 2; second, that they would eagerly hear it as the teacher of truth, verse 3; third, that under this teaching they would steadfastly cultivate peace and friendship, verse 4; fourth, that the Jews would be invited to frequent the same Church, verse 5. In the second part, he prophesies calamities for the Jews, for, lest anyone wonder that the Gentiles who were ignorant of God should be bathed in divine light before the Jews, he first gives the cause of their rejection on account of condemned arts, abominable crimes, verse 6, earthly pursuits, verse 7, and idolatry, verses 8-9; second, he announces the vengeance of the divine judge, not to be averted by flight, verse 10; nor to be restrained by the greatness, breadth, or beauty of the accused, verses 11-17; nor to be checked by the power of idols, verses 18-20; nor to be endured by human protection, verse 22.
He alludes both to the temples and altars of the ancients, which were erected on mountains, for they sacrificed there, and hence they were called the High Places; and to Mounts Zion and Moriah, as I shall presently say, as if to say: The High Place or altar of the Lord, namely the Church, will raise itself far above the peaks of the other high places. Hence it is clear that the Church of Christ is visible, and that the church of the Novatians, which shuns the light and claims to be invisible, is not the Church of Christ, but of the Antichrist.
Anagogically, this mountain is the kingdom of heaven, namely the Church Triumphant, says St. Bernard, in his sermon on the text: "Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? For there will be there, he says, a mountain of peace, a mountain of joy, a mountain of life, a mountain of glory. And all these mountains are one mountain of consummate happiness."
This is ON THE TOP OF MOUNTAINS. — The Church is on the top of mountains: First, because by its height, dignity, and glory it surpasses the mountains of the Jews, namely Zion, on which was the citadel of David, and Moriah, on which the temple was erected; and so Zion and Moriah are subject to the Church, as to their summit and head, and to what they foreshadowed: just as in a ground plan the model of a house is subordinate to the structure and house that it delineates, foreshadows, and represents. For thus a shadow is subordinate to its body, and an image is subordinate to its exemplar. So Sanchez.
Second, because it likewise surpasses all the temples and sacred rites of the Jews and Gentiles. Third, because its teaching, life, and morals far tower above and excel all philosophy and wisdom, all genius, all religion and assembly of the ancients, and also all places and mountains sacred to any worship; since it is cast down from heaven, supernatural and divine. So Cyril, Jerome, Basil, and others. Fourth, from St. Augustine and Procopius, Leo Castrius says: The mountains, he says, are called the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, and other illustrious Saints; because although they dwell in body on earth, yet in mind, in their manner of life, and in virtues they transcend the stars: upon these mountains the Church is built, as the highest mountain: the hills are the lesser Saints.
AND ALL NATIONS SHALL FLOW UNTO HIM. — Note the miracle: for rivers flow downward, but here they will flow upward, ascending to the highest mountain. The grace of Christ does this, which lifts hearts upward. Again, by "shall flow" is signified the abundance and the rapid course of all nations to the Church, like a river. Third, "shall flow" signifies that this course will be spontaneous, as if to say: To the Church, as to a mountain of wisdom and virtues, against nature upward, by the force of heavenly grace, from all the nations of the world very many will gather themselves, with that inclination of mind, striving, and impetus with which rivers are wont to flow down from mountains into the lowest valleys. This is what Christ says, John IV, that He would give water springing up, namely unto eternal life; and John XII: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself." Indeed, Euripides in the Medea says: "Upward, he says, the springs of the sacred rivers are borne." Now "they shall flow," not all at once, but successively: for first the Jews came to Christ, then the Samaritans, soon the Syrians, then the Greeks, the Latins; now the Indians, Japanese, and Chinese.
Verse 3: AND THEY SHALL SAY: COME, AND LET US GO UP TO THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LORD (to Ch...
3. AND THEY SHALL SAY: COME, AND LET US GO UP TO THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LORD (to Christ and the Church), AND TO THE HOUSE OF THE GOD OF JACOB. — It is a mimesis. He alludes to Bethel, where Jacob saw God leaning upon a ladder, Genesis XXVIII, 17, and said: "This is none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven," and thence he called the place Bethel. Hence the Church is called "heaven," and by Christ "the kingdom of heaven;" for in heaven, as in His house, God dwells. For, as St. Bernard says, sermon 27 on the Canticle: "The Church in its universality is a kind of immense heaven, stretched from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth," Psalm LXXI. In this heaven the moon is faith, the evening star is hope, the sun is charity, the stars are the individual virtues and the individual Saints. For Bethel means the house of God, namely the Church. The sense therefore is, as if to say: The Apostles of Christ preach to us not some unknown God, but the very same one whom our father Jacob worshipped. Again, they invite us to that Church in which Jacob lived, and which his Bethel prefigured. Therefore, since God has now fulfilled this figure and revealed Christ in the flesh, let us hasten to Him and His Church; which, as Jacob once did in type, so now he would do in reality if he were alive. The house of the God of Jacob, then, is now the Church, for example, the church of St. Peter, and of St. Paul, of St. John, etc. Thus with Galatinus, book V, chapter V, we must answer the Jews who object that Christians do not say: Let us go up to the house of the God of Jacob; but rather, to the Church of St. Peter, of St. Paul, etc., namely that these are now one and the same thing.
AND HE WILL TEACH (the God of Jacob) US HIS WAYS. — This is the voice of the Gentiles flowing to Christ and the Church, as if to say: Plato taught us, Socrates taught us, Aristotle, Diogenes, Pythagoras and others taught us, they promised us true wisdom and the way to virtue and salvation, but falsely; for, as the Psalmist says, Psalm CXVIII, 85: "The wicked have told me fables: but not as Thy law." And Baruch chapter III, verse 22: True wisdom "has not been heard in the land of Canaan, nor has it been seen in Teman." Again, Abraham taught us, Jacob taught us, Moses taught us; but to perfect us, to teach Christian and complete wisdom, to open heaven, to confer grace and strength to accomplish in deed the things they taught — these they could not do: "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ," John I. These therefore, as guides and leaders, directed us to Christ. Come then, act, without hesitation, without delay come, let us joyful and eager ascend with Jacob our father to Bethel, to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of God, let us ascend to our Messiah, to Christ, the true teacher of the world: He will teach us in the Church the ways of God, the ways to heaven, the knowledge of the Saints; He will at the same time confer grace, so that we may easily enter upon this way, indeed
let us run, not with steps of the body, but of the mind, namely by believing, hoping, repenting, loving, obeying, and living piously and chastely, and let us invite others to do the same: for this is the meaning of "come, let us go up." For it is the duty of a Christian to care not only for his own salvation, but also for that of others; and for this the grace of Christ anticipates and urges us.
Morally, it is the duty of a Christian always to ascend to greater and better things. Hence St. Augustine on Psalm XLV, on those words: "Come and see the works of the Lord: What is, he says, Come, let us go up? Come, that is, believe; let us go up, that is, let us advance and strive for perfection."
FOR OUT OF ZION SHALL GO FORTH THE LAW (not the Jewish, but the Christian law; namely the law of grace, the life-giving law, given to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews), AND THE WORD OF THE LORD (the Gospel and the preaching of the Gospel) FROM JERUSALEM — when namely the Apostles, having received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, will go forth from Jerusalem and Judea, and divide and disperse themselves through all the regions of the world, to fulfill the command of Christ, Matthew XXVIII: "Go therefore and teach all nations," as if to say: Come, let us go up to Zion, that is, to the Church born in Zion, because from there will go forth the law of grace and salvation. Therefore the cavil of Musculus is frivolous: that it does not say, from the Tarpeian rock, not, from the Capitol and Rome, but, from Zion shall go forth the law. For it is certain that the first heralds of the Gospel, namely the Apostles, went forth from Zion into the whole world, not from Rome: but when, having left Zion, they established the head of the Church at Rome, thenceforth preachers went forth from Rome, sent by the Roman Pontiff to all nations, as Baronius teaches, and all the Annals of all nations. For the Christian Zion is Rome.
Verse 4: AND HE SHALL JUDGE THE NATIONS
4. AND HE SHALL JUDGE THE NATIONS — namely the God of Jacob (of whom verse 3 speaks) through Christ and His Apostles and their successors.
The word "shall judge" can be taken here in four ways. First, as if to say: Christ will pronounce a just sentence in favor of the Gentiles against the slanderer the devil, and will acquit them by His just judgment. So Sasbout. For this is what "to judge" sometimes means, not only when joined with the dative, but also with the accusative, as Psalm XLIII, 1: "Judge me (that is, pronounce a just sentence for me), and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy;" and Psalm LXXI, 4: "He shall judge the poor of the people, and shall save the children of the poor." Where note in passing, that in the Psalms, as in verses, the second hemistich often explains the first, indeed says the same or nearly the same thing as was said before, but in different words, as: "O God, attend to my help," is the same as what follows: "O Lord, make haste to help me. Create a clean heart in me, O God," is the same as what follows, "and renew a right spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation," is nearly the same as what follows, "and confirm me with a sovereign spirit." For a joyful spirit confirms the Saints, and animates them to constancy and every good, just as conversely a sad spirit casts down the mind, so that it cannot persevere in good works.
Second, "He shall judge," that is, He shall vindicate the Gentiles from the tyranny of the devil. For thus Gideon, Samson, Jephthah, and others are called judges, that is, avengers of Israel. Thus it is said in Psalm XXXIV, 1: "Judge (that is, vindicate), O Lord, those who harm me, fight against those who fight against me."
Third, and more simply, "He shall judge," that is, He shall rule and have dominion; thus again Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and others are called judges, that is, princes and rulers of Israel. By "to judge" therefore is signified here the full dominion of Christ over all nations, as also in Psalm LXXI, 1: "O God, give Thy judgment to the king, etc., to judge Thy people in justice."
Hence it follows: "And He shall rebuke many peoples," namely the Scribes, Pharisees, and any other unbelievers and disobedient people, even philosophers and wise men. For Christ will rebuke these, both here through Himself and the Apostles, and other heralds, either so that they may be converted, or so that they may be confounded; for this is what Christ says of the Holy Spirit whom He was to send: "When He comes, He will convict the world of sin," John XVI, 8; and also at the general judgment, when He will condemn them. So St. Basil and others.
Fourth, and more sublimely, "He shall judge the nations," that is, He shall settle and resolve the disputes and hatreds of the nations by just judgment, and shall "rebuke" and restrain those who stir up disputes and wars. Hence the Septuagint translates, He shall judge between the nations. So Tertullian, book III Against Marcion, XXI, and Athanasius, book I On the Incarnation of the Word, as if to say: Christ through the evangelical law of charity, modesty, justice, meekness, and patience, will resolve all the quarrels and dissensions of the nations, root out hatreds and antipathies, restrain the quarrelsome and fierce, and will cause them to live together amicably in the same Church as brothers — Romans and Greeks, Jews and Gentiles, Spaniards and French, Germans and Gauls, English and Scots, etc. — because instead of the spirit of anger, pride, aversion, and revenge, God will put in them the spirit of gentleness, humility, love, and concord: whereby will come to pass what Isaiah says, chapter XI, verse 6: "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them. The calf and the bear shall feed: their young shall rest together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox." Again, by this spirit will come to pass what follows:
AND THEY SHALL BEAT THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOUGHSHARES, AND THEIR SPEARS INTO PRUNING HOOKS. — With discords and wars ceasing, soldiers will become farmers, and will convert their weapons into mattocks, ploughshares, and pruning hooks: because all will devote themselves to concord and peace, and in peace will cultivate the land and fields. "For whence are wars and quarrels among you? Are they not hence? From your concupiscences, which war in your members?" says St. James, chapter IV. Thus of a sword forged into a pruning hook in time of peace, Martial sings, book XIV, Epigram 34:
The sure peace of my leader has forged me for gentle uses:
I am now a farmer's tool; before I was a soldier's.
On the contrary, of a pruning hook forged into a sword in time of war, Virgil sings, book I, Georgics:
And the curved pruning hooks are forged into a rigid sword.
And Ovid, I Fasti:
The hoes lay idle; mattocks were turned into javelins,
And a helmet was made from the weight of a rake.
And Joel, chapter III: "Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your mattocks into spears." The preamble and, as it were, the beginning of this Christian peace was the peace of the entire world, which existed at the birth of Christ: "Let us turn back, says St. Jerome, the histories of the ancients, and we shall find that up to the twenty-eighth year of Augustus Caesar, in whose forty-first year Christ was born in Judea, there was discord in the whole world, and individual nations burned with zeal for fighting against their neighboring peoples, so that they were both slaying and being slain. But when the Lord and Savior arose, when under the governor of Syria, Quirinius, the first census of the world was made, and the peace of the Roman Empire was prepared for the evangelical teaching, then all wars ceased, and they no longer trained in towns and villages for battle, but for the cultivation of fields." Hence of the time of Augustus, Virgil sings, book I of the Aeneid:
Then the harsh ages shall grow mild with wars laid aside:
The gates of war shall be closed, etc.
Not long after Augustus, the Temple of Peace was restored at Rome by the Emperor Vespasian, whose magnificence the ruins of today attest. Of it St. Jerome writes thus on Joel: "Vespasian and Titus, having built the temple of peace at Rome, placed the vessels of the temple of Jerusalem, and all the gifts in its shrine, as Greek and Roman history relates."
Moreover, that Paul among others did this, Tertullian teaches, Against the Gnostics, chapter XIII: "Paul, he says, the Apostle, from a persecutor, who formerly shed the blood of the Church, afterwards exchanging the sword for the pen, and converting the blade into a plough, a ravening wolf of Benjamin, thereafter himself also bringing food."
Symbolically, Pintus says this: The Apostle, he says, Romans VI, asserts that the members of a sinful man are swords and weapons of iniquity, with which he wounds and injures his own soul, when they ought to be weapons of justice, with which he would fight against vices, and in which he would carry God, according to that passage I Corinthians VI, 20: "Glorify and carry God in your body." Nothing else, therefore, is it to beat swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, than for all the senses and members that were weapons of the devil to become ploughshares cleaving and ploughing the field of the Lord with works of charity, and to be turned into pruning hooks harvesting the fruits of piety most pleasing to God.
NEITHER SHALL THEY BE EXERCISED ANY MORE FOR WAR. — You will ask: How is this true? For after Christ there have been and are wars not only between Christians and unbelievers, but also among Christians themselves.
First, the Anabaptists, Erasmus, Agrippa, and formerly the Manicheans, respond that war is evil in itself; whence it was indeed permitted to the Jews, as being imperfect, but was forbidden and abolished by Christ and the Apostles. More foolish and more shameless, or rather more impious, was Luther, who abolished not only offensive war, but also defensive. For his paradox is this: "It is not permitted to resist the Turk invading Christians." The reason is: "Because the Turk is the scourge of God; whoever therefore resists him, resists God." But by the same reasoning he would have concluded that neither the devil nor any criminal is to be resisted, whom nevertheless God commands to be restrained, indeed killed. Therefore, just as God wills to permit the Turks to harass us with war, as the devil and the impious tempt and vex us: so conversely He wills that we resist them, unless He expressly reveals the contrary, as He revealed to the Jews that He wished them to surrender Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar. Thus God left some Canaanites in Judea, so that in them He might instruct and exercise Israel, and compel them to His worship, as well as to lawful military service, Judges III, verse 1. This therefore is an error and heresy, which is sufficiently refuted by the wars of the Maccabees, of Joshua, of Constantine, and of others, undertaken not only with God's permission, but also at His command.
Hence, second, more catholically and truly, Cyril responds that after Christ under the new law there are not so many wars, nor so great, nor in the very bowels of the world, as there were before Christ. Thus in IV Kings VI, 23, the Syrians are said to have come no more into the borders of Israel, because they came more rarely than before: for it is established that they did come at some point. But, even if this is true, it nevertheless does not satisfy, nor does it exhaust the force and depth of the prophetic statement.
Third, St. Jerome and Eusebius, book I of the Preparation, I, respond that this is to be taken of the birth of Christ, when with the gate of Janus closed for the third time, there was the deepest peace in the world for a long time. But neither does this explanation adequately match Isaiah's words: for in them not a long-lasting, but an absolute and eternal peace seems to be promised. For this is what the phrase "no more" signifies. Add that this peace is here indicated as not preceding Christ, but as being brought in through the rebuke and reproach, that is, the preaching of Christ already born; for he says: "And (Christ) shall judge the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples, who, rebuked and converted by Him, shall beat their swords into ploughshares, etc., neither shall they be exercised any more for war."
I say therefore from Canon VI, that when God promises something to the Synagogue or the Church, however ample and universal the words may be, yet it is to be understood only of the good and upright, who keep the covenant and friendship with God who promises and makes the pact. This peace therefore here promised, and sung by the Angel at the birth of Christ, flourishes universally and perpetually among the true faithful of Christ, who follow the institution, teaching, and laws of Christ their King and Teacher (for these everywhere inculcate peace, concord, and charity), about whom Isaiah has been speaking here thus far. For these, having tamed pride, avarice, and other evil motions of the soul and desires through the holy discipline of Christ, both with themselves, and with God, and
with other people maintain perpetual peace, and, if out of necessity they bring a lawsuit or a just war against someone unjustly invading them or their property, they abstain from hatred, desiring not to harm another but to recover their own: and so they seek not war in itself, but through war, peace and justice. So Tertullian and Athanasius above, and Irenaeus, book IV, chapter LXVII, and Origen, book V Against Celsus.
It is therefore not true and just wars, such as even the most pious Emperors waged, but ambitious, unjust, and tyrannical wars, by which the innocent were attacked out of lust for dominion — these Isaiah here predicts will be overthrown and abolished by Christ and the law of Christ — such as were waged before Christ by Nimrod, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Caesar, and other Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, and Romans: whose wars were not so much wars as banditry, as St. Augustine teaches, book III of the City of God, chapter XIII and following. Christians therefore, who out of lust for dominion or enrichment, or out of envy — lest a neighboring prince become too great and powerful — wage unjust war against him, are not so much Christians as Pagans.
Morally, learn here how great a good peace and concord is, as being that for which Christ came into this world. This is what the Angels sang at the birth of Christ: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will." Where the phrase "of good will," St. Ambrose and some others refer to "men," in this sense, as if to say: Peace be to men, not to all, but to those who are of good will; or, as St. Leo says (sermon On the Nativity of the Lord), peace be to men, which namely makes them to be of good will. But because the Greek εὐδοκίας and the Hebrew רצון ratson in Sacred Scripture is almost never attributed to men but to God, and signifies God's grace, benevolence, and good pleasure toward men; hence better Theophylact, Euthymius, Nyssen, and others give this sense: "Peace be to men," to men, I say, whom God pursues with this grace, and good will and benevolence without any merit of theirs, so as to give them such a Savior and Reconciler, who will establish peace among men, God, and the Angels, between heaven and earth. Thus men of good will are elsewhere called children of love, that is, children willed and beloved by God. See the commentary on Ephesians I, 9. For this reason again Christ, departing from the world, left us peace by testament, and made us heirs in it of Himself and all His goods, saying: "My peace I leave you, My peace I give unto you." This is what the Apostle says: "Let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts," Colossians III, 15. See the commentary there.
So our Maffei, book VII of the History of the Indies. Alfonso, king of Aragon, used to say: "I am accustomed to give peace, not to sell it:" for he was unwilling to accept from the Venetians the large sum of money he could have extorted for peace; rather he gave it freely. Frederick III, Duke of Saxony, a lover of peace, built no fortresses or fortifications, indeed he leveled to the ground those built by others; nor did he accumulate money, but spent it on useful and pious purposes. When asked why he did this, he replied: "Lest I, once slightly offended, trusting in my fortresses and money, too easily harass my weaker neighbors with war and violate peace with them." Which indeed he would not have done if deprived of fortresses and money, which is the sinew of war: for he well knew that
Peace is the best of all things That it is given to man to know; peace alone is more powerful Than countless triumphs: peace is able to guard safety, And to make citizens equal.
The Emperor Jovian said: "I hate, he said, every kind of contention, but uniquely embrace and love concord." So Socrates, book III, chapter XXI; namely:
There is no safety in war; we all beg you for peace.
Thus the Blessed Nazianzen, on account of rivals, for the sake of peace yielded the Archbishopric of Constantinople: "If, he said, this storm has arisen because of me, cast me into the sea;" and to the Emperor Theodosius: "I do not seek money, he says, nor honors, but I beseech to be freed from the Bishopric; let envy cease, let the Bishops cultivate peace; you especially strive for this: suppress the war of the priests, you who have restrained the audacity of the barbarians, adorn the greatest trophies of your empire with one thing, namely the concord of the Bishops; this is the gift I ask from you, this last favor extend to me." So Gregory the priest in his Life.
The brothers Marcus and Marcellian, nailed to stakes, sang alternately that psalm: "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity!" And when they mocked their torments, Diocletian was ashamed, and ordered them both to be pierced with lances. Let Christians say the same, and by this concord and peace they will overcome the Turks, heretics, and all enemies.
Do you want examples even from Gentiles? The Emperor Probus used to say: "Soon we shall have no need of soldiers." He hoped for such great peace that there would be no need for an army. Would that God might send this mind upon all the princes of our age! So Vopiscus.
Croesus, captured by Cyrus, by this argument preferred peace to war, that "in time of peace sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons." Philo says: "Peace, he says, even when joined with great loss, is better than war. Peace is the greatest and most divine good, which no mortal can provide." Antoninus Pius used to acclaim that saying of Scipio: "I prefer to save one citizen than to kill a thousand enemies;" preferring peace to war, of course, and feeling that in war itself, this should be the commander's first concern: that victory be achieved with the least possible loss of citizens. So Julius Capitolinus.
So Barnagasius, the general of the army of the king of the Abyssinians, about to enter into a treaty with the Portuguese commander, grasping a cross on his knees, said: "The peace which Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the human race, left to His disciples, let the same be between us, who profess the same worship and faith." So our Maffei, book VII of the History of the Indies.
The Emperor Otho, when he saw that the empire must either be laid down or defended with a great slaughter of citizens, had resolved to die voluntarily; when friends and soldiers urged him not to despair so quickly of the outcome of the war, he said that his life was not worth so much to him that a civil war should be born because of it. Who would not admire this spirit in an Ethnic prince, and one only thirty-three years old? Cicero, book VII to Atticus, epistle 14: "Even an unjust peace, he says, is more useful than the most just war." Livy, book XXX: "A certain peace, he says, is better and safer than a hoped-for victory. The former is in your hand; the latter in the hand of the gods." Therefore "do not so covet what belongs to others that you fight over your own." For, as Homer says, Iliad VI: "Mars is impartial and slays also the slayer."
Antisthenes "said that the concord of brothers among themselves is a stronger fortification than any wall."
Musonius used to say that no marriage is honorable without concord, nor any partnership useful. But that the wicked cannot nourish concord among themselves: just as a straight piece of wood cannot fit together with a crooked one, nor two crooked pieces with each other.
Isaeus, when the Spartans were thinking of surrounding their city with walls, recited that verse of Homer: "Shield pressed on shield; helmet on helmet, and man on man." And he added: "Stand thus for me, Spartans, and we are girt with walls." So Philostratus in the Sophists.
Scilurus, having eighty male sons, on his deathbed handed a bundle of javelins to each one and ordered them to break it. When each one refused it as impossible, he himself drew out each javelin singly and easily broke them all, admonishing his sons with these words: "If you are in concord, you will remain strong and unconquered; but if you are torn apart by dissensions and sedition, you will be weak and easy to conquer." So Plutarch in the Apothegms.
King Micipsa, on his deathbed, exhorted his sons to concord with this golden maxim: "By concord small things grow; by discord the greatest things fall apart." So Sallust in the Jugurthine War.
The Emperor Severus, on his deathbed, called his sons M. Antoninus and Geta and said: "Make sure you agree with each other, enrich the soldiers, despise all the rest." He advised well: for one later killed the other, and destroyed both himself and his family. So Dionysius and Xiphilinus in the Life of Severus.
Verse 5: O HOUSE OF JACOB, COME, AND LET US WALK IN THE LIGHT OF THE LORD
5. O HOUSE OF JACOB, COME, AND LET US WALK IN THE LIGHT OF THE LORD. — This is the voice of the converted Christian Gentiles to the Jews: for it began at verse 3 and ends here, as Rupert holds, or rather it is the voice of the Prophet Isaiah himself, inviting his own Jewish descendants who would live in the time of Christ to the light of the Christian faith, as if to say: O sons of Jacob! O descendants of the faithful and holy Patriarch Jacob, receive the light, that is, the Gospel of Christ: do not in this yield to the barbarian and idolatrous Gentiles: rather, with them and for their sake, approach your Messiah, so that by Him you may be illuminated with the light of faith, grace, and salvation, just as they are.
Verse 6: FOR THOU HAST CAST OFF THY PEOPLE, THE HOUSE OF JACOB
6. FOR THOU HAST CAST OFF THY PEOPLE, THE HOUSE OF JACOB. — Vatablus translates, but Thou hast cast off; but the Hebrew כי means for, not but. You will ask, of what does the word "for" give the reason? Some respond: of the burning and destruction of Jerusalem, which he treated at the end of the preceding chapter; for these words pertain to that. But this is too remote and forced: for chapter II, verse 1, follows: "The word of the Lord, etc."
I say therefore, the sense is, as if to say: Let no one wonder that I Isaiah, or the Gentiles, who formerly were ignorant of God, should exhort the Jews, to whom alone God was known, to the recognition of the true light, namely Christ, saying: "House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord," because Thou, O Lord, hast cast them off, namely Thy people, that is, Thou hast already begun to cast them off, and wilt wholly cast them off at the time of the Babylonian captivity, and absolutely at the time of Christ: for here Isaiah returns to his own times, and preaches to his own people as usual. He adds the reason, namely the multitude of sins — soothsaying, obscenity, avarice, pride, idolatry. So Forerius. Hence it follows,
BECAUSE THEY ARE FILLED AS OF OLD — as if to say: Just as the ancestors and parents of the Jews, so also their descendants are filled with wealth, and consequently with the sins that wealth usually brings, namely with idols, as the Chaldean translates (for these are the old and ancient sins of the Jews, as is clear from the golden calf, which they worshipped at Sinai), and with soothsaying, as the Septuagint translates, and with the other things that follow. So St. Jerome and others, and it is clear from what follows. For "as of old" the Hebrew is מקדם mickedem, that is, from the East, say Lyranus and Vatablus, as if to say: They are filled more with diviners and soothsayers: for the Orientals were devoted to soothsaying. Hence Balaam the soothsayer is said to have lived in the regions of the East, Numbers XXIV. But the Septuagint and the Chaldean agree with our Interpreter, who translate mickedem as from the beginning. For kedem means before, beginning; and because the beginning is the East, hence it also signifies the East.
Scipio's saying: "I prefer to save one citizen than to kill a thousand enemies;" preferring peace to war, of course, and feeling that in war itself, this should be the commander's first concern: that victory be achieved with the least possible loss of citizens. So Julius Capitolinus.
the Gospel of Christ: do not in this yield to the barbarian and idolatrous Gentiles: rather, with them and for their sake, approach your Messiah, so that by Him you may be illuminated with the light of faith, grace, and salvation, just as they are.
AND THEY HAVE HAD SOOTHSAYERS LIKE THE PHILISTINES. — AUGURY is divination performed from the chattering or gestures of birds; for augury is so called as if avigerium (bird-bearing): thence augury was extended to signify any kind of magic and divination, and even conjecture; hence Cicero says, Philippic IV: "O my always vain, yet most true auguries of future things," that is, conjectures.
AND THEY HAVE ADHERED TO THE CHILDREN OF STRANGERS. — First, as if to say: They joined themselves to foreign nations in the worship of idols: so some say. But this is more obscure and far-fetched, especially since he shortly after clearly rebukes their idolatry, at verse 8.
Second, therefore, and better, Cyril with the Septuagint takes this of the marriages that the Jews contracted with foreigners contrary to the law of Exodus XXXIV, 16, and thence begot children half-Jewish and half-Gentile: for these children were foreign, that is, of foreign stock, because born of a foreign mother, and the Jews adhered to them as to their own offspring.
Third, properly and genuinely, St. Jerome, Rupert, Haymo, and St. Thomas, or rather Thomas the Englishman, think the Jews are here reproved for abominable pederasty, that is, sodomy with boys: a sin which the Jews learned from neighboring Gentiles, and which so prevailed among them that they purchased foreign slaves for this purpose, says Haymo, and this is what the word "foreign" signifies. Thus Augustus Caesar, Hadrian, Trajan, and others were pederasts. Hear St. Jerome here: "To such an extent, he says, the Greeks and Romans once labored under this vice, that even the most renowned philosophers of Greece publicly kept concubines; and Hadrian, learned in the arts of philosophy, consecrated Antinous as a god (as Jupiter did his Ganymede), and established a temple, sacrifices, and priests for him, and from him a city of Egypt (Antinopolis) and a religion received its name. Among the prostitutes too, in the arched recesses of the theaters, boys stood exposed to public lust: until under the Emperor Constantine, with the Gospel of Christ shining forth, both the unbelief and the baseness of all nations were destroyed."
This exposition is confirmed first, because we often read in Scripture of the prostitution of youths among the Jews; and of the effeminate, for whom shrines were built not only in the city, but also next to the temple by Menelaus the impious pontiff, so that they turned the temple virtually into a brothel, as is clear from II Maccabees chapter IV, verses 9 and 12. Second, because for this reason, at chapter I, 10, he called them rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah. Third, because in Hebrew the word is, they were glued together; and Symmachus translates, they applauded the foreign boys.
Verse 7: THEIR LAND IS FILLED WITH SILVER AND GOLD
7. THEIR LAND IS FILLED WITH SILVER AND GOLD. — The first sin of the Jews, for which they were cast off by God, was soothsaying; the second, pederasty; the third is this, namely avarice and the insatiable desire of having, which nowhere fixes a limit or end to wealth, but the more it has, the more it strives to have and accumulate.
Note morally: He does not say, The heart is filled, but the land, with gold; for it is possible for the land to be filled with gold, but the heart of the greedy man cannot be filled with it. Not without reason did Plato and Archytas of Tarentum compare the soul of a covetous man to a perforated vessel, on account of its insatiable and infinite abyss of desire. The whole world does not fill the heart of man: as a symbol of this, the world has a round shape, the heart a pyramidal one; but a spherical figure cannot fit a pyramidal one. Then shall we be satisfied, when we shall enjoy God in glory. "I shall be satisfied, says the psalmist, Psalm XVI, when Thy glory shall appear." Since therefore paltry and perishable riches do not satisfy the mind, but rather irritate and inflame it, why do you so greatly covet them? Why do you seek treasures on earth, when you have your portion in heaven? The poor of Christ are perishing from hunger and nakedness, and you are hoarding in a chest the money by which they could live. Do you not understand that in your chest you have the life of the poor locked away? What do I say locked away — nay, buried. What is the chest of the miser but a tomb, where the life of the poor is buried? Why do you bury their life, indeed your own life and yourself? Your treasury is a tomb of your very self. For where your treasure is, there also is your heart. I do not say this, but Christ, Matthew VI, 21. So Hector Pintus.
Truly the Apostle said that avarice is the service of idols, and that desire is the root of all evils.
Verse 8: AND THEIR LAND IS FILLED WITH HORSES: AND THEIR CHARIOTS ARE INNUMERABLE (tha...
8. AND THEIR LAND IS FILLED WITH HORSES: AND THEIR CHARIOTS ARE INNUMERABLE (that is, very many — it is a hyperbole). — This is the fourth sin of pride. For God had forbidden the kings and great men of the Jews, Deuteronomy XVII, verses 16 and 18, to multiply horses and chariots for themselves, both lest they should grow proud with them for show, and lest they should place their hope of victory in time of war in them rather than in God. So St. Jerome, Basil, and others. See the commentary on Deuteronomy XVII, and Exodus XIII, 13. Forerius and Sanchez explain this differently, as if to say: I, God, gave the Jews an abundance of gold, silver, and horses; why then do they flee to idols, and seek things from them, indeed convert them to their use, and from the gold I gave them, forge idols?
AND THEIR LAND IS FILLED WITH IDOLS. — This is the fifth sin of the Jews, namely idolatry.
Verse 9: AND MAN HATH BOWED HIMSELF DOWN (to idols) (the commoner), AND MAN IS DEBASED
9. AND MAN HATH BOWED HIMSELF DOWN (to idols) (the commoner), AND MAN IS DEBASED — namely the leading man and prince, as if to say: Both nobles and common people worship idols by humbling themselves before them. These things pertain to the times not of Christ, but of Isaiah. For now the Prophet flies from one thing to another, now mingles both, according to Canon IV. For St. Jerome notes that the Jews after their return from Babylon never, and consequently not even in the time of Christ, voluntarily and by common consent worshipped idols, and this Tobit predicted, last chapter, verse 8; and that this actually happened is attested by the Jerusalem Talmud as cited by Galatinus, book IV, XXIII, and R. Samuel of Morocco, from a Jew become a Christian, book On the Coming of the Messiah, chapter I, who thence concludes that not idolatry, as of old, but the killing of Christ is the cause of the ruin and desolation that the Jews suffer everywhere to this very day. Calvin twists these words against the veneration of holy images. For he thinks that here every sign of reverence given to works of hands, that is, to statues and images, is condemned. But the deceiver errs and deceives. For only idols are condemned here, not images: because not these, but those are the gods of the nations made by their hands. For he says: "Their land is filled with idols." For idols are the works of the hands of men, not only materially, but also formally; because they received not only the sculpture or painting of their material, but also their form, namely the name and divine power of God, from men, when of themselves and in the truth of the matter they are nothing, as the Apostle says, I Corinthians chapter VIII, verse 4. To bow down to these, therefore, that is, to adore them with divine worship, is a crime.
FORGIVE THEM NOT THEREFORE. — Isaiah says this out of zeal, as if to say: Destroy, O Lord, such criminals, cut off the idolaters. Again, the word "forgive" can be taken prophetically for "Thou wilt forgive" [i.e., future tense]. Hence the Septuagint change the person, and so translate: I will therefore not forgive them. As if God were here speaking and threatening, and predicting the future vengeance, which would be irrevocable.
Verse 10: ENTER INTO THE ROCK, AND HIDE THYSELF
10. ENTER INTO THE ROCK, AND HIDE THYSELF. — This is sarcasm, as if to say: Because of these crimes of yours, and because you despise my warnings and are unwilling to repent, a certain and terrible vengeance of God awaits you, O Israel, a certain destruction: for this God will hurl and thunder against you, to lay low your pride, to break your stiff neck; to escape which you will flee into caverns, caves, and ditches, and there you will hide, but you will not escape: for there the enemies will search you out and slaughter you, so that even if salvation itself (as the saying goes) wished to save you, it could not.
Note: He speaks of the Chaldean destruction and the Babylonian captivity, and describes their terror, and in it the dread of the Jews, with a vivid hypotyposis in this verse and the following ones up to 21. Further also, namely to the destruction by the Romans, and to the future destruction on the day of judgment, of which the Chaldean was the type (for which reason the Prophets often intermingle these destructions), the Prophet's vision extended. See Canon IV. For that Simon and others hid for a long time in a pit in the ground is attested by Josephus, book VII of the War, chapter XVI, who also in book I, chapter XII, teaches that Judea, being rugged, abounded in caves, and that the Jews in their extreme misfortune were accustomed to flee to them, since they could hardly be approached or stormed by the enemy; where he also describes their form and location: hence Josephus himself too, when Jotapata was captured, hid himself in a well and a cave, from which he was summoned and brought to Vespasian, as he himself relates, book III of the War, chapter XIV. Thus the widow of Hector, hiding her son in the recesses of a tomb, said to him:
If the fates help the wretched,
You have safety: if the fates deny you life,
You have a tomb.
FROM THE FACE OF THE FEAR (that is, from the face of terror, that is, the terrible one) OF THE LORD (which will strike dread in you and in the whole world): AND FROM THE GLORY OF HIS MAJESTY — which namely will show His glorious justice against the Jews, when He will pursue and slay them through the Chaldeans, such strong, warlike, and glorious soldiers. The Chaldeans, therefore, are here called the "fear" or terror, and the "glory of the Lord," by metonymy; because, sent by God, they will strike terror into the Jews and exercise upon them the glorious vengeance of God.
It could, secondly, be that "fear" is taken here properly, as if to say: Flee from the face of fear, that is, on account of the fear and dread conceived from the glory full of majesty, which the face of God, that is, God present and pursuing you, will show in punishing you through the Chaldeans. For "the worst prophet in doubtful times is fear," says Plautus in the Mostellaria. Hence also Ovid, book II On Love:
Wretched, I fear many things, because I have done many things boldly. And I am tormented by the fear of my own example.
But the former sense is more fitting, and agrees better with the expression "from the face of."
Verse 11: THE LOFTY EYES OF MAN ARE HUMBLED
11. THE LOFTY EYES OF MAN ARE HUMBLED — that is, they will be humbled: for prophetically the past tense is used for the future because of the certainty of the future event: this is clear from what follows. The sense is, as if to say: The Chaldeans will humble, cast down, and trample all the Jews, both commoners and nobles and leaders (for these are called "men" [viri], just as commoners are called "men" [homines]): this destruction and calamity will seize all, both small and great and haughty, and then God alone, exercising this vengeance, will appear powerful, terrible, and glorious, and those who were previously swollen and stiff-necked will acknowledge God as the avenger, and will bow down as suppliants before Him. Hence the Septuagint translates: "For the eyes of the Lord are lofty, and man is lowly." But the word Lord, as it is not in the Latin, so neither is it in the Hebrew or Chaldean.
He adds the reason:
12. BECAUSE THE DAY OF THE LORD. — "The day of the Lord" is the day of judgment and vengeance that God will exercise through the Chaldeans: and allegorically the day of the last judgment; then God through Christ will most severely and harshly avenge these crimes of the Jews and other impious people, and will prostrate and crush all the proud.
Verse 13: AND UPON ALL THE CEDARS OF LEBANON
13. AND UPON ALL THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. — Lyranus takes this plainly in the literal sense of the weapons and other military machines of the Jews made from the cedars of Lebanon and from the oaks of Bashan, which were destroyed and broken by the Chaldeans. But better, others take the cedars, oaks, mountains, and hills figuratively and symbolically, to signify the king, nobles, and princes, who stood out above the rest in honors and wealth: for thus these things are taken in Ezekiel XVII, 3, and elsewhere. Hence
Note with Cyril, the Chaldean, and Eusebius, book VIII of the Demonstration, IV, that by Lebanon is understood the city of Jerusalem, and not the temple, as St. Jerome holds in Zechariah XI; and this first, because Jerusalem was situated on the summit of Mounts Zion and Moriah, which are like Lebanon. Second, because in it there were many magnificent houses made from the cedars of Lebanon. Third, because the city itself, built of white stone, with the whiteness of its walls and buildings, presented to those viewing from afar the appearance of the snowy Mount Lebanon. Now the king and princes in it, as in Lebanon, are called cedars and mountains, because they towered above the rest in glory and dignity, as well as in pride and haughtiness, just as mountains tower above valleys, and cedars above other trees.
AND UPON ALL THE OAKS OF BASHAN. — "Bashan" was the kingdom of Og the giant, whom Moses slew and gave his kingdom to the Gadites, Reubenites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, Joshua XII, 4; it contained part of Gilead, Trachonitis, and Gaulanitis, and was most fertile and rich in pastures. Hence the Hebrews use Bashan and Carmel proverbially for rich and fertile land: whence the rams, bulls, and cows of Bashan are called rams, bulls, and cows that are well-fattened and fat, as St. Jerome and Symmachus translate. By "the oaks of Bashan" therefore understand people in Judea who are, first, strong, warlike, and proud. So St. Basil. Second, rich and abounding in wealth and luxuries. Third, shamefully given over to luxury and lust. Hence Bashan in Hebrew signifies shame: for from wealth and luxury one goes to gluttony and shameful sensuality. See Canon XIX. All these, therefore, God will cast down and crush through the Chaldeans.
Verse 15: AND UPON EVERY HIGH TOWER
15. AND UPON EVERY HIGH TOWER. — For the Chaldeans cast down the towers and walls of the city.
Verse 16: AND UPON ALL THE SHIPS OF TARSHISH
16. AND UPON ALL THE SHIPS OF TARSHISH. — "Tarshish," that is, of the sea. So the Septuagint, St. Jerome, and the Chaldean. For from Tarshish, the grandson of Japheth, Genesis IV, the Cilicians descended, and thence their capital was called Tarsus. So St. Jerome in the Hebrew Questions on Genesis, and Josephus, book I of the Antiquities, chapter VII. Thence because the Tarshishites and Cilicians were powerful in ships, and masters of the sea, Tyre also, Isaiah XXIII, is called in the Hebrew the daughter of Tarshish, which our translator renders, "daughter of the sea." That the Tarshishites formerly held wide dominion is clear from what is said of Holofernes, Judith chapter II: "He plundered all the children of Tarshish;" and Solinus, chapter XLI: "Cilicia, he says, formerly extended to Pelusium in Egypt." Further, by synecdoche, the entire Mediterranean Sea itself, and finally the Ocean and any vast sea was called Tarshish. Thus Jonah fled to Tarshish, that is, to the sea. Thus are mentioned ships and kings of Tarshish, that is, of the sea and the islands. Thus the fleets of Solomon are said to have sailed to Tarshish, that is, to the Indian Sea. Finally, hence the chrysolith stone is called in Hebrew Tarshish, because it is of a marine color, that is, blue. Isaiah therefore here signifies that the fleets of the Egyptians and Tyrians, and others wishing to help the besieged Jews, were to be routed and destroyed by the Chaldeans. So Cyril.
Sanchez notes that the ships of Tarshish are called great, strong, and powerful ships, which can plough the vast sea exposed to raging winds. For he says "Tarshish" to distinguish them from the papyrus skiffs that abound on the Nile and in Egypt, and from the fishing boats that were in Judea and Gennesaret. Hence it is said in Psalm XLVIII: "With a vehement wind Thou shalt break the ships of Tarshish," as if to say: Ships, however strong and firm, will not withstand the avenging and hostile hand of God. Sanchez adds that by the ships of Tarshish are signified the great ships of the kings of Judah, which, as formerly in the time of Solomon, carried a great quantity of gold into their treasury. But since this refers to the times of Zedekiah and the besieged Jerusalem, when the Jews were very poor, so that they do not seem to have had such great fleets: hence these words seem rather to refer to the fleets of the neighboring Tyrians and Phoenicians, as I said.
Verse 18: AND IDOLS SHALL BE UTTERLY DESTROYED
18. AND IDOLS SHALL BE UTTERLY DESTROYED. — This happened first, and properly, after the devastation of the Chaldeans, and the Babylonian captivity, as I said at verse 9.
Second, this happened after Christ under the Emperor Theodosius the Elder, who by public edict abolished idolatry not only for the Jews, about whom the text here properly treats, but also for the Gentiles throughout the whole world, as is clear from books X, XI, and XII on Pagans of the Theodosian Code.
Third, and most fully, this will happen on the day of judgment; for then the impious will flee into caves and caverns from the face of the wrath of God, as follows, and they will say "to the mountains: Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us."
Verse 20: WHICH HE HAD MADE FOR HIMSELF TO ADORE, MOLES AND BATS
20. WHICH HE HAD MADE FOR HIMSELF TO ADORE, MOLES AND BATS. — Thus the Egyptians and other foolish people formerly worshipped crocodiles, monkeys, cats, scarabs, moles, mice — that is, their images and idols — as gods, as St. Augustine teaches at length, City of God, book IV, chapters VIII and XI. St. Jerome takes it differently. Idols, he says, are metaphorically and with sarcasm called moles and bats; because like moles and bats they lack eyes and sense and mind. Forerius likewise thinks that by moles and bats, which are as it were winged moles, and therefore light-shunning and darkness-loving, the devil is signified, who is the prince of darkness, so as to shoot in the dark at the upright of heart.
Morally, moles are people debased in earthly things and in the belly, as idolaters often were, imitating their idols. For it is written: "Let those who make them become like them." I saw at the College of Louvain a lay gardener who was called the mole of our garden, because he was perpetually bent over the earth with breast and body, digging it, sowing, hoeing, weeding, watering, etc. In the same way, those who always gape after earthly goods are moles.
Bats are those who love darkness, and who are amphibious, that is, they partake of something spiritual and something carnal. Thus Varro: "I have become, he says, a bat; I am plainly neither among the mice, nor among the birds." For the bat is so called because it flies out at evening: hence it has wings and flies, which does not agree with mice; but it gives birth to living young, not eggs, in which respect it agrees not with the nature of birds, but of mice. Second, the bat nurses its young at its breast with milk, while birds insert food into the mouths of their chicks. Third, it has teeth, which birds lack. Fourth, it has a head similar to a mouse, and wings not of feathers, but of membranes: it is therefore a winged mouse.
Apply this here to similar wavering and inconstant people, who are neither fish nor flesh, neither heavenly nor earthly, but a mixture of both.
Wherefore St. Basil beautifully compares the devil and his cronies here to the bat. For the bat, he says, flees the light, and the devil is a light-shunner. Second, the bat has a fleshy membrane for wings, and the devil, though indeed incorporeal, does not fly forth on wings kindled by any desire for God: but fixed to and pining away in desire for material things, he has hardened like thicker flesh. Third, the bat is both a flying creature and a quadruped, weak in feet and in flight: so too the devil is neither angel nor man, who has weakened the powers of mind and soul by sinning. Fourth, the bat has teeth, which birds lack: and the devil has an appetite for revenge, which the Angels lack. Fifth, the bat gives birth to living young, not eggs; and the devil most quickly brings his malicious operation to completion. Those therefore who fall down in veneration before demons may allegorically be called bats. Thus far St. Basil.
Verse 21: AND HE SHALL ENTER INTO THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCKS
21. AND HE SHALL ENTER INTO THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCKS. — He repeats and drives home what he said at verse 10, because it is terrible, in order to strike the hearers with awe. Thus let preachers frequently drive home to the people the vengeance of God and the remembrance of the last things.
Verse 22: CEASE THEREFORE FROM MAN, WHOSE BREATH IS IN HIS NOSTRILS
22. CEASE THEREFORE FROM MAN, WHOSE BREATH IS IN HIS NOSTRILS. — For breath, the Hebrew is נשמה neshamah, that is, respiration. This is the conclusion and epiphonema of the whole chapter, and it is a prophecy about Christ, say Origen and Jerome, and the ancient Rabbis. For the Prophet flies and flies back to Christ as to his target, according to Canon IV, as if to say: Since in this chapter I have prophesied that Christ will raise up the Church, as a mountain and house of the Lord; and that He Himself will overthrow the entire state and Synagogue of the Jews: for this reason I seriously warn and command you to cease from vexing and killing Christ, who according to the flesh is indeed a fragile man, says St. Jerome, and has a human soul and breath, which breathes through the nostrils (as the Septuagint has), just like other men (hence Lamentations IV, 20, Christ is called "the breath," that is, the respiration "of our mouth"), but according to His divine nature and majesty He is exalted, or, as the Hebrew has, exaltation itself,
(1) Ancient peoples, when pressed by some calamity and forced to flee, were accustomed to carry with them the statues of their gods.
is exaltation and sublimity (of which presently). For Christ above all is the one who, as is said at verse 19, will rise up to "strike the earth," namely on the day of judgment: He also, inasmuch as God, will bring upon the Jews through the Chaldeans all that devastation which I predicted from verse 10 to 22. This sense is indicated by the Alexandrian Arabic version, which reads thus: from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of His majesty, when He shall arise to rebuke the earth concerning man (that is, for man, on account of man) who breathes air (odor, wind; breath) through his nostrils; for with whom (or in what) is he to be measured?
Note: The phrase whose breath is in his nostrils signifies not only the humanity of Christ, and likewise His long-suffering and patience, but also His magnanimity, anger, indignation, and vengeance. For the Hebrew אף aph, that is, nose and fury, often signifies this: for fury often reveals itself through a flaming nose. Hence it is said in II Kings XXII: "Smoke ascended from His nostrils;" and Martial:
Do not provoke the smoking nose of a living bear:
and of the horse, Virgil, book III of the Georgics:
He cannot stand still, his ears quiver, and his limbs tremble, And pressing the collected fire, he rolls it beneath his nostrils.
Which also Job, chapter XXXIX, verse 20, says: "The glory of his nostrils is terror;" so also Plautus says: "Hunger and delay drive bile into the nose." Likewise "spirit" often signifies fury, as Isaiah XXX: "His spirit is like an overflowing torrent;" and Judges VIII, 3: "And their spirit with which they swelled against him subsided." The sense, therefore, is, as if to say: Do not persecute Christ, because although He may be meek and humble, He is nevertheless also magnanimous, and His patience when injured becomes fury. The same is said in Psalm II: "Embrace discipline (in Hebrew: kiss, or adore the Son) lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish." So Sanchez, and Delrio, adage 139, and Luis of Leon, on Canticle VII: "Cease, he says, from the man, whose spirit is in his nostrils, that is, from a man of great and mighty spirit, who is endowed with a great and lofty soul. For, as it follows, He is exalted. For the nose signifies wrath,
and also the gravity and majesty of countenance, which arises from the fervor and abundance of spirits. For frequent and abundant breath is a sign of a great soul," as is evident in the horse. This is very apt.
Others translate differently. The Chaldean translates quite the opposite: cease for yourselves, lest you be subjected to a man when he has become terrible, whose breath is in his nostrils; because today he is alive, and tomorrow he is not; and he is considered as nothing. And the Antiochene Arabic version: abstain from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: he himself is but as a vessel.
Arias Montanus translates: cease from Adam, namely from imitating the old Adam, so that you may put on the new and heavenly Adam, namely Christ, for in what is he himself esteemed, as if to say: Because the old Adam is of no worth before God and the Saints.
Leo Castrius translates: do not trust in man, namely in Caesar, saying: "We have no king but Caesar;" because he, being a man, is of no worth; he also has spirit in his nostrils, that is, anger: because he will punish and destroy you. The Jews also explain it thus, except that they understand by man not Caesar, but the king of Assyria or Egypt.
FOR HE IS REPUTED HIGH. — For "exalted," the Hebrew is במה, which with dagesh and segol is now read במה bamme, that is, in what. So also the Chaldean translates, and Aquila (and he did this out of hatred for Christ, says St. Jerome), and indeed the Septuagint. But, as St. Jerome rightly teaches, then the sense does not cohere; for what does it mean to say: Cease from the man, because in what is he himself esteemed? that is, because he is of no worth. For no one thus praises someone by saying: Take care not to offend him, because he himself is absolutely nothing. For this would be said foolishly; hence St. Jerome concludes that it should not be read bamme, but במה bama, that is, exalted, height, sublimity: for Christ, as God, is exaltation itself and divine majesty.
Symbolically, St. Gregory, XXXI Morals, chapter XIII: "The spirit of our Redeemer, he says, is said to be in His nostrils; so that by it His knowledge is designated as foreknowledge: because whatever He came to know in the nature of His humanity, this indeed He foreknew before all ages from His divinity." Hence he adds: "Because He Himself is reputed exalted, as if to say: In lower things He foreknew from above what was to come, because He came down to the lowest from the heavenly realms."