Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
In the type of Hezekiah, the best of kings, he describes the kingdom of Christ (for he flies to Him as is his custom) and His Commonwealth, namely the Church, most excellently constituted. So St. Thomas, Hugo, Lyra, Vatablus, and Sanchez; although St. Jerome, Procopius, Cyril, and Adam take these things literally only of Christ, because certain things said here are too august to befit Hezekiah. But the Prophet mixes the type with the antitype, namely the kingdom of Hezekiah with the kingdom of Christ; hence he has some things that better suit one, and some that better suit the other, according to Canons IV and V. Second, in verse 9, he prophesies and describes the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the desolation of the Jews both temporal and spiritual: yet he consoles them in verse 13, that He will send them, and still more the Gentiles, the Holy Spirit, who will bring them justice and peace, and rich rest.
First, therefore, Isaiah depicts the flourishing state of Judea under Hezekiah or Josiah as the type, and under Christ as the antitype: first, from the justice of the king and princes, and the protection and security of the subjects, 1, 2; second, from the prompt and effective institution of salutary doctrine, which will confer benefits on people opposite to the punishments predicted in chapter 29, verses 10 and following; third, from an accurate discernment of things and the proscription of fraud and dissimulation, where he gives reasons why a good king ought not to entrust magistracies to the impious or the avaricious; fourth, from the ingenuous and provident care of public administration, 8. Second, he foretells the sad condition of the Jews, under the Babylonian captivity, or under the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus: first, announced to the cities of Judea under the figure of wealthy women, 9, 10; second, proposed for the arousing of mourning and repentance, 11, 12; third, described through the image of devastated fields, the exile and dispersion of the people, 13, 14. Third, he predicts a happier lot under the return from captivity and, in the higher literal sense, under the promulgation of the Gospel: first, on account of the conversion of things to a better state effected by God, from which both sacred and civil affairs will be most excellently administered, 15, 16; second, on account of increased peace, quiet, security, and every kind of happiness rendered as a reward of justice, 17, 18; third, on account of vengeance taken on the wicked, but salvation given to the innocent, 19, 20.
Vulgate Text: Isaiah 32:1-20
1. Behold, a king shall reign in justice, and princes shall preside in judgment. 2. And a man shall be as one who is hidden from the wind, and conceals himself from the storm, as streams of water in a thirsty land, and the shadow of a projecting rock in a desert land. 3. The eyes of those who see shall not be dimmed, and the ears of those who hear shall listen attentively. 4. And the heart of the foolish shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall speak swiftly and plainly. 5. He who is foolish shall no longer be called prince, nor shall the deceitful be called great. 6. For the fool will speak foolish things, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice hypocrisy and to speak deceitfully against the Lord, and to leave empty the soul of the hungry and take away the drink of the thirsty. 7. The weapons of the deceitful are most wicked: for he has devised schemes to destroy the meek by lying speech, when the poor man spoke what is just. 8. But the prince shall think those things that are worthy of a prince, and he himself shall stand above the leaders. 9. Rise up, you wealthy women, and hear my voice: you confident daughters, give ear to my speech. 10. For after days and a year, you shall be troubled, you confident ones: for the vintage is at an end, the gathering shall come no more. 11. Be astonished, you wealthy; be troubled, you confident: strip yourselves, and be confounded, gird your loins. 12. Mourn over your breasts, over the delightful region, over the fruitful vineyard. 13. Over the ground of my people thorns and briars shall come up: how much more over all the houses of joy of the exulting city? 14. For the house has been forsaken, the multitude of the city has been left, darkness and groping have come upon the caves forever. The joy of wild donkeys, the pasture of flocks, 15. until the spirit be poured upon us from on high: and the desert shall become Carmel, and Carmel shall be counted as a forest. 16. And judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and justice shall sit in Carmel. 17. And the work of justice shall be peace, and the service of justice shall be silence and security forever. 18. And my people shall sit in the beauty of peace, and in the tabernacles of confidence, and in wealthy rest. 19. But hail shall come in the descent of the forest, and the city shall be brought low with humiliation. 20. Blessed are you who sow upon all waters, sending in the foot of the ox and the ass.
Verse 1: BEHOLD, A KING SHALL REIGN IN JUSTICE
1. BEHOLD, A KING SHALL REIGN IN JUSTICE — namely Hezekiah, and his antitype Christ, whose princes are the Apostles, since before Hezekiah there had reigned his impious grandfather Ahaz, who polluted the city and temple with idols. These things were actually fulfilled after the slaying of Sennacherib and after the healing of Hezekiah: for then both king and people in full peace marvelously cultivated piety and justice. The Septuagint beautifully renders: archontes meta kriseos arxousi, princes shall rule with judgment, that is, they shall govern. Note: Judgment is necessary for a prince; by its absence, the people often fared very badly even under good princes — as we read of Nerva, under whom everything was permitted, so that the condition of many was worse under him than under Nero: because the lax negligence of one man was a cause of license for many wicked men.
Verse 2: AND A MAN SHALL BE AS, etc
2. AND A MAN SHALL BE AS, etc. — As if to say: Each of the faithful will be so safe under Hezekiah, and still more under Christ, as someone is hidden under a roof and safe from the wind; and as sailors conceal themselves in a harbor and are protected from the storm. Indeed, Hezekiah and Christ will be to them as a stream of water in thirst, and as shade in the desert when the sun and heat blaze. Learn here that a prince ought to be to the people: first, like a roof, which defends them from the wind and whirlwind of adversities; second, like a harbor, which receives and shelters ships from the storm; third, like a stream to the thirsty — for a prince ought to provide publicly for hunger and want; fourth, like the shade of a rock in the heat, under which a traveler hides in the desert, free from the rays and burning of the sun. For tyrants and nobles often afflict the people no less than a whirlwind afflicts a man, a storm ships, thirst a fevered person, heat a traveler. Therefore he who wishes to be a king, not a tyrant, must protect the people from these things. See what was said at chapter 4, verse 6. The Gentiles taught the same. Aristotle, Politics VIII, chapter 19, thus distinguishes the tyrant from the king: "The tyrant, he says, looks to and seeks his own advantage, but the king that of his subjects." Seneca, On Clemency: "Know, O prince, that you have been entrusted not with the servitude of the citizens, but with their protection; nor is the commonwealth yours, but you belong to the commonwealth." Cicero, On the Republic V: "The goal set before the ruler of the commonwealth, he says, is the happy life of the citizens, so that it may be firm in resources, rich in abundance, ample in glory, and honorable in virtue."
Hear Claudian to Honorius: Bear yourself as citizen and father; consult the interests of all, Not your own: let not your own losses move you, but the public's.
Hence Seneca infers, in his Consolation to Polybius, that a prince must be ever watchful: "The vigilance of that one man, he says, guards the sleep of all; his labor provides the leisure of all; his industry provides the pleasures of all; his activity provides the rest of all. Therefore he will sometimes have a relaxed mind, never a dissolved one." And he adds that this is the support of the king, the buttress of the commonwealth: "That prince's greatness, he says, is stable and well-founded, whom all know to be both above them and for them." Hence again Cyrus, according to Xenophon, Cyropædia VIII, judged "that authority is not fitting for anyone unless he is better than those over whom he rules."
Note here that in a king and ruler wisdom and prudence are especially required. For as this is "the eye of the soul," according to Aristotle, so it is also of the kingdom. Cicero said, in On the Ends V, that "prudence is the art of living, as medicine is the art of health." Another said better, "prudence is the art of governing;" for, as Menander says: "Everything that exists serves prudence." And Sophocles in the Antigone: "Prudence by far holds the first place in happiness." But against this, imprudence is unhappy, for it "hurls most things and itself headlong," says Sallust to Caesar. The reason is that "no animal is more difficult, none needs to be handled with greater skill" than man, says Seneca, On Clemency I: "Therefore prudence is the proper and unique virtue of the ruler," says Aristotle, Politics III; for more is accomplished by counsel than by arms: "One wise mind conquers the hands of many," says Euripides. And: "Many things which nature has made difficult are resolved by counsel," says Livy, Book 40. Moreover, no small part of the wisdom of princes is to have and follow wise counselors. For even if a prince is most wise: "If he does everything according to his own judgment, I will judge him proud rather than wise," says Livy, Book 44. Thus Alexander had Callisthenes, Scipio had Panætius and Polybius, Augustus had Arius and Athenodorus, David had Nathan, Joash had Jehoiada, Cyrus had Daniel, Artaxerxes had Ezra and Nehemiah — both as ornaments and as aids of the kingdom. This is what wise Ulysses meant, in Homer, Odyssey V, when he thus addresses Minerva, that is, prudence:
But I, if you thus stand by me, grey-eyed goddess, Would dare to rush into battle against three hundred men, Relying on you as my companion, O Goddess, and helper.
Verse 3: THE EYES OF THOSE WHO SEE SHALL NOT BE DIMMED
3. THE EYES OF THOSE WHO SEE SHALL NOT BE DIMMED. — He calls the Prophets "seers," as if to say: Under Hezekiah, and still more under Christ, with the morals of the people changed for the better, the Prophets will have clearer visions and revelations from God, and the people will be more capable and teachable in listening to them. He opposes this to what was said in chapter 29, verse 10, where he said that God, on account of the sins of the Jews, had closed their eyes and covered the Prophets; and to what was said in chapter 30, verse 9, where he said that they were unwilling to hear the law of God. We shall see this fulfilled in Isaiah, chapter 40 and following, where he prophesies so openly about Christ and other things that you would think you were reading history, not prophecy.
Verse 4: AND THE HEART OF THE FOOLISH SHALL UNDERSTAND KNOWLEDGE
4. AND THE HEART OF THE FOOLISH SHALL UNDERSTAND KNOWLEDGE. — The Jews under Hezekiah were foolish in believing the false prophets; but when these were excluded by Hezekiah and true ones introduced, from them they understood the true knowledge of God and of what should be done. And then God loosed the tongue of the stammerers, that is, of Isaiah and the Prophets, who previously were, as it were, stammerers — that is, they preached timidly, hesitatingly, obscurely, and imperfectly — so that they might plainly, readily, and swiftly set forth the oracles of God to the people. Under Christ, however, the foolish were the Gentiles, who foolishly served their idols and vices: they received the knowledge of God and salvation from the Apostles, and then the tongue of the stammerers spoke plainly, when the Apostles, previously uneducated and unskilled, having received the Holy Spirit, received tongues of fire, by which they were made eloquent and fervent to preach the Gospel throughout the whole world. So St. Jerome, Cyril, and Procopius.
Verse 5: HE WHO IS FOOLISH SHALL NO LONGER BE CALLED PRINCE
5. HE WHO IS FOOLISH SHALL NO LONGER BE CALLED PRINCE. — He does not speak of the proud Sennacherib, as St. Thomas holds, but rather, as Hugo says, of Ahaz and other impious kings, who fraudulently appointed princes and magistrates of the people — to whom the pious and wise king Hezekiah had now succeeded, who, having driven out the impious and foolish princes and teachers, substituted others like himself. Again, antitypically he speaks of the time of Christ, as if to say: Under Christ, the blind, avaricious, and deceitful Pharisees and Scribes will no longer be held as princes and teachers: for they are fools and teach foolish traditions, as follows; but the princes and teachers will be the Apostles and apostolic men. So St. Jerome, Cyril, and Leo Castrius.
Verse 6: FOR THE FOOL WILL SPEAK FOOLISH THINGS
6. FOR THE FOOL WILL SPEAK FOOLISH THINGS. — St. Thomas understands the fool as Sennacherib, whose speech to the Jews was foolish, blasphemous, and deceitful, promising the Jews provisions and many other things to bend them to surrender, which he was not going to provide, but would leave the people hungry and thirsty.
Second, others refer this to Ahaz, who foolishly led the people to idols, and thus was the author of famine, want, and other evils for them. Hence the Chaldean translates: the impious will speak impiety.
But, as I said, these things concern the times of Hezekiah and Christ, as if to say: The foolish and deceitful will not be princes and teachers in the time of Hezekiah and Christ, as they were in the time of Ahaz, Manasseh, and other impious kings: because then it will be evident through the true Prophets and Apostles that they speak foolish things, commit iniquity, are hypocrites, and speak to the Lord, that is, about the Lord (for the Hebrew lamed, that is "to," is often taken for min, that is "about," as is clear from Hebrews chapter 1:7, and chapter 4:4) deceitfully;
because they honor Him with their lips, but their heart is far from Him: and then it will be clear that by their vain teaching they had not satisfied the souls hungering and thirsting for truth. This is evident regarding the Pharisees in the time of Christ, both in temporal matters — for when they commanded children to say "corban" to a needy father, what else did they do but force the father to hunger and thirst? — and in spiritual matters: for they reduced the true and spiritual worship of God to empty washings and foolish ceremonies. The same is evident in the oracles of the Gentiles, which then fell silent; and in the doctrines of the Philosophers: for all of these were, as it were, foolish, conquered and overthrown by the wisdom of Christ and the Apostles, as the Apostle teaches in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2; wherefore the Apostles then refreshed the souls of those hungering and thirsting for God with the solid food and drink of piety; and therefore the faithful, abandoning the former teachers, flocked to them.
Note: A thing is said to be done or made when it is declared to be done or made, according to Canon 29. Hence Vatablus translates: the sordid, that is, the miser, will no longer be called generous, nor the stingy man magnificent: because the sordid man will speak sordid things, etc. As if to say: In the time of Christ, there will be room for truth, not for pretense: for then every vice as well as virtue will be revealed and made manifest, and virtue will have its praise, vice its infamy; whereas before, the false prophets called good evil and evil good, as I discussed more fully at Isaiah 10:5. Let Christians, therefore — Monks, Prelates, who are called Faithful, Saints, Benefactors, Religious, Venerable, Most Reverend, etc. — see to it that they prove themselves by their works to be such as they are called; lest they bear an empty and counterfeit name and title. Furthermore, the phrase 'the fool speaks foolish things' is a proverb, which Euripides also uses in the Bacchae: ho moros mora legei, the fool speaks foolish things; and Seneca to Lucilius: "Such was the speech of men as was their life;" and Democritus: "Speech, he says, is eidolon tou biou, an image of life." As bronze vessels are recognized by their ring, so men are recognized by their speech; for speech is the mirror of the soul and mind.
Verse 7: THE WEAPONS (that is, instruments) OF THE DECEITFUL ARE MOST WICKED
7. THE WEAPONS (that is, instruments) OF THE DECEITFUL ARE MOST WICKED. — For, as follows, he devises and contrives how to destroy the meek and poor who have a just cause, through lying and calumny. As if to say: Therefore Hezekiah will remove such judges and magistrates as crept in under Ahaz, and in place of the deceitful will appoint faithful and sincere ones. Likewise, in the time of Christ, the weapons — that is, the instruments — of the deceitful Pharisees were most wicked: for they devised by their cunning and calumnies, through friends and money, to destroy Christ and the Christians, while the meek and poor Apostles spoke judgment, that is, what was most just and equitable.
In Hebrew there is a paronomasia kelai kelai raim: kelai, that is, misers, says Vatablus, who give nothing but seize much and lock it up in a chest (for the root kala means to shut, to enclose), as the deceitful are wont to be; for those who wish to grow rich scrape together everything by fair means and foul. Rightly therefore does our translator render it "deceitful." So Arias.
Verse 8: BUT THE PRINCE SHALL THINK THOSE THINGS THAT ARE WORTHY OF A PRINCE
8. BUT THE PRINCE SHALL THINK THOSE THINGS THAT ARE WORTHY OF A PRINCE — as if to say: Hezekiah will give the pattern of the best prince, and therefore will watch vigilantly to administer the commonwealth wisely, to direct leaders and magistrates rightly, and to think upon and execute whatever things are worthy of a good prince — as a living image of God on earth, representing God to his subjects, and a certain earthly God.
Again, Christ, as another Hezekiah, the Prince of Princes, will wisely govern the Church through Himself and the Apostles, as His leaders, and will preside over them and do things worthy of a Prince.
Symmachus translates: the prince, that is, the principate, will establish, and he will stand over the principates, as if to say: Christ the King will establish principates, that is, apostolates and episcopates, in the Church, and will make the Apostles and their successors His leaders, and He Himself as hierarch and king will preside over them. So St. Jerome, Procopius, Castrius.
In Hebrew it is nadib nedibot, that is, as Vatablus translates: the generous one (prince) devises generous things, and through generous deeds rises to distinction. As if to say: Christ the Prince, in accordance with the name of prince, will generously bestow His graces, and thereby will become illustrious. For prince in Hebrew is called nadib, that is, generous; in Greek euergetēs, that is, benefactor, Luke chapter 22:28. For the virtue worthy of and proper to a prince is generosity and beneficence: for this is the mark of a broad, great, and royal soul.
Wherefore Philo, addressing the Emperor Caligula: "Those who humbly seek and desire benefits to be bestowed on them by you, O Emperor, are more to be loved by you than those who strive to offer you gifts. For to the latter you owe remuneration, but the former make God your debtor, who counts among His own what you have bestowed upon them, and who will reward the practice of your humanity and kindness with the best gifts."
The Emperor Alexander Severus was so beneficent to all that he even invited those who had no merit before him to ask, saying: "Why is it that you ask nothing? Do you wish me to become your debtor? Ask, lest as a private citizen you complain of me." He recognized that beneficence is most becoming to princes. So Lampridius in his Life. The same, when asked who seemed to him the best king, replied: "He who retains friends by gifts and wins over enemies to himself by kindnesses." So reports Maximus, Sermon 9 On Magistrates.
Alphonsus, king of Aragon, hearing that some were ungrateful for benefits received from him, said: "So be it; yet they shall never bring it about that I am not both humane and beneficent." So Panormitanus. The same: "To barking and rebellious dogs," he said, "a morsel must be thrown," as if to say: The malicious must be conquered and won over by kindnesses.
Louis XI, king of France, was generous toward men, especially holy ones; when asked the reason, he said: "Because I trust that by their prayers a long life can be obtained for me."
Here belongs the golden saying of Pacatus in his Panegyric of Theodosius: "I would believe, he says, that there is no greater happiness for princes than to have made someone happy, to have intervened against want, to have conquered fortune, and to have given a man a new destiny." He adds the reason: "For since all things revolve within him, and just as the Ocean that encompasses all things receives back from the lands the waters it supplies to them, so whatever flows from the prince to the citizens overflows back to the prince; and the munificent Emperor serves well both his interests and his reputation. For he earns glory, when he gives money that will return to him."
Verse 9: RISE UP, YOU WEALTHY WOMEN
9. RISE UP, YOU WEALTHY WOMEN. — This is a new prophecy, spoken at another time (for in arranging the writings of the Prophets, chronological order was not preserved), and a sad one — either about the destruction of the ten tribes by Shalmaneser, as Sanchez holds; or rather, as St. Jerome says, about the destruction of the two tribes by Titus and the Romans: for that this concerns the times of Christ will be evident from verse 16 and following. Now by women, St. Thomas understands the weak, soft, and effeminate Jews; the Chaldean understands the cities of Judea. Most simply, by women you may understand wealthy women, confident and proud in their riches: for here, just as in chapter 3, he threatens them with destruction and calls them to lamentation.
Verse 10: FOR AFTER DAYS AND A YEAR, YOU SHALL BE TROUBLED
10. FOR AFTER DAYS AND A YEAR, YOU SHALL BE TROUBLED — that is, after a short time determined by Me, but which I am unwilling to explain to you precisely; therefore I say: "After days and a year, you shall be troubled," and cut off by the Romans. So Hugo and Adam.
Others: "after days and a year," that is, after a long time, in which days will be added to days and years to years. So Vatablus.
Sanchez interprets differently: "After days and a year," he says, that is, after the days of one year (as a hendiadys), after one year Samaria will be overthrown, namely in the sixth year of Hezekiah: these things were therefore said by Isaiah in the fifth year of Hezekiah. Hence in Hebrew it is: after days to a year, that is, enough days to complete a year. So he.
FOR THE VINTAGE IS AT AN END, THE GATHERING SHALL COME NO MORE. — The gathering is the gleaning, which takes place after the vintage, in which the few hidden and remaining grapes are collected. Now vintage in Scripture often signifies destruction, and gleaning means the searching out and slaughter of the few who escaped the destruction. The meaning therefore is, as St. Jerome says: "After the final devastation, which will occur under Vespasian, Titus, and Hadrian, there will be no other, but your city will be overthrown once for all, so that no other captivity need be expected: all will be carried away, and no clusters will remain on the vine of the peoples to be gathered afterward." For he understands the vintage as being both of people and of grapes and fruits.
Verse 11: GIRD YOUR LOINS
11. GIRD YOUR LOINS — you who previously sat idle, like fine ladies in elegant and splendid dress, giving orders at home to servants and handmaids; now as captives lay aside this finery, and in cheap garments, like handmaids, gird your loins for performing servile labor for your Roman masters.
Verse 12: MOURN OVER YOUR BREASTS (namely, breasts drying up from famine, and over the chi
12. MOURN OVER YOUR BREASTS (namely, breasts drying up from famine, and over the children of your breasts, especially the little ones still nursing from them) — because all of these along with you will be prey for the Romans; this is what Christ foretold: "But woe to those who are pregnant and nursing in those days!" Matthew 24:19.
OVER THE DELIGHTFUL REGION — over Judea your homeland, pleasant and fertile like a vineyard, which the Romans will devastate and subject to themselves, with you driven out and slain.
Verse 13: Over the ground of my people thorns, etc
13. Over the ground of my people thorns, etc. — as if to say: Judea will be punished and devastated by the Romans, so that being uncultivated it will be filled with thorns and briars; how much more Jerusalem, which so luxuriates that all its houses seem to be full of joy?
Verse 14: FOR THE HOUSE HAS BEEN FORSAKEN
14. FOR THE HOUSE HAS BEEN FORSAKEN — that is, Jerusalem, which was formerly, as it were, My house and sacred to Me, I will forsake, and cause the multitude of the city, that is, the city of so great a multitude (it is a hypallage), in which there was so great a throng of people, to be abandoned and deserted: this is what Christ says, alluding to this passage: "Your house is left to you desolate."
DARKNESS AND GROPING HAVE COME UPON THE CAVES FOREVER. — First, Sanchez understands by darkness and groping dense trees and forests: for these bring even tangible darkness and horror to the passerby.
Furthermore, these trees grew up in caves, that is, in the ruins of the devastated and deserted city: for when great masses of masonry collapse, from the various intersections of walls, some empty spaces are left inside, or cavities in the shape of vaults and caves.
Second, more fully, Adam says, as if to say: So thick will be the rubble and ruins, both of the temple and of the houses, that they will be reduced to dens and caves so deep and blind that in them there will seem to be palpable darkness, and this in perpetuity. Hence it is clear that these things pertain to the final destruction of the Jews by Titus. From this it comes about that the place will be so desolate as to be the joy of wild donkeys, that is, so that wild and untamed donkeys and flocks will dwell and graze there.
Third, Vatablus, Pagninus, and the Hebrews translate: towers and bulwarks will be reduced to caves forever. For in Hebrew, for "darkness" there is ophel. For "groping" there is bachan, that is, testing. The Hebrews, moreover, relate that these were two towers of Jerusalem: one called Ophel, that is, darkness, because the eyes of those looking at its summit, so lofty, grew dim; the other called Bachan, because by gazing at its edge one was tested as to how firm the eyesight of each person was. As if to say: These two towers, so lofty, collapsed into the deepest caves. Let the credibility of this rest with them; for the tower of Ophel is mentioned by Josephus, Adrichomius, and other chorographers and historians; but the tower of Bachan, by no one.
Verse 15: UNTIL THE SPIRIT BE POURED UPON US FROM ON HIGH
15. UNTIL THE SPIRIT BE POURED UPON US FROM ON HIGH. — Those who refer this to the Babylonian captivity explain it thus: In Babylon we will be in prison as if dead, until God restores to us the spirit of life, that is, of freedom, and, as it were, raises us up and leads us back to our homeland, as if to say: Until from exile, as from a tomb, we come forth alive again and return to Judea.
But referring these things to the destruction by Titus, as I have related following St. Jerome, the meaning is this: this devastation will endure, and Judea will be desolate both corporally, as is evident, and spiritually — because God will leave the Synagogue and the souls of the Jews bereft of faith, grace, and salvation, until He sends the Holy Spirit upon them (even if only a few), who will convert them to Christ and salvation. For then Jerusalem will be restored, not the earthly one, but the true and spiritual one, namely the Church of God. So St. Cyril, Procopius, Theodoret. Thus Christ, ascending into heaven, commanded the Apostles to remain apart and in secret in Sion, until they should be clothed with power from on high and should receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
AND THE DESERT SHALL BECOME CARMEL — as if to say: The Gentiles, hitherto deserted, will enter into the lot and riches of Israel and the people of God; conversely, the Jews will succeed to the desolation and blindness of the Gentiles (see what was said at chapter 29:23), except for the few upon whom the Spirit will be poured from on high, so that they may believe in Christ, as has been said.
Sanchez, following St. Thomas, interprets differently: Judea, he says, which during the captivity of the Jews was uncultivated, like a forest, after their return will be cultivated and will be fertile like Carmel; and Carmel itself, previously pleasant and fruitful, after the return will be so pleasant and productive that, if you were to compare it with its former appearance, you would think you had seen a desert or a wild forest. Or rather, as if to say: In Babylon the Jews who were rich and powerful, who were like Carmel and oppressed the weaker, will be so worn down that they will become like a desert, that is, they will be equalized with the poor in spirit, poverty, and fortune — as if to say: The lot of the rich and the poor will be almost the same; hence there will be justice among them, and from this, peace, quiet, security, and wealth: for these are the fruits of affliction and poverty. So Sanchez. But the former, more sublime and authentic sense is to be followed by us.
And judgment shall dwell in the wilderness — as if to say: In the Gentile world, which had previously been deserted and barren, judgment, that is, justice, will dwell, when this wilderness shall have become Carmel, that is, fruitful and fertile through the faith of Christ.
AND THE WORK OF JUSTICE SHALL BE PEACE. — The words "work" and "service" are used metonymically for the reward and prize of work, or of the pious service of justice. Hence the Chaldean translates: those who cultivate justice shall rest, as if to say: The reward, fruit, and prize of the justice and holiness of the faithful Gentiles will be that, justified in Christ, they may obtain: first, peace of conscience and friendship and union with God, as well as peace and harmony among themselves; second, silence, that is, rest, as the Chaldean and Septuagint translate, and supreme tranquility in this their true worship, adoration, and friendship with God and justice; third, secure confidence regarding their grace in the present, and regarding their future glory and blessedness — confidence, I say, that is certain, not with the certainty of faith as the Lutherans hold, but with a moral and conjectural certainty, which does not exclude all fear and apprehension. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Procopius, Theodoret.
"The work of justice, therefore, shall be peace," etc., as if to say: In the time of the Gospel and Christ, justice will be cultivated everywhere by the Gentiles, that is, a just and holy life, and from this there will arise in the Church and the faithful: first, a threefold peace — namely, peace with God, peace with conscience, peace with neighbors; second, silence and tranquility; third, security of future glory; fourth, there will be in it a great beauty of peace and spiritual charisms; fifth, there will be tabernacles of confidence, that is, in which the faithful may dwell confidently without fear, and in which they may safely entrust themselves and their happiness; sixth, there will be wealthy rest. These therefore are the endowments and epithets both of the Church Militant and of the faithful and holy soul: for each of these possesses and holds all these things within itself. The Seventy translate: justice will obtain anapausin, that is, rest.
Second, Hector Pintus understands this as civil justice, from which peace usually arises; silence, he explains as quiet from complaints and lawsuits: because where there is great justice, there is no cry of the oppressed from judges or other powerful men.
Third, St. Jerome explains "silence" as "the brevity of faith," which is opposed to the wordiness and many ceremonies of the Jews. The Syriac translates: and the work of justice shall be peace, and the service of justice shall be silence, or rest, confidence, security, tranquility. The Arabic of Antioch: and the work (action) of it shall be in justice and salvation, and the work of truth (justice) in quiet, probity, and hope, or confidence, forever. The Arabic of Alexandria: and the work of justice shall be with truth and peace, and the act of justice shall be silence (rest) and hope (confidence) forever and ever.
Morally, St. Bernard, Epistle 89, refers these words to the virtue of silence: "To this service of justice, he says, to this mother and guardian of all virtues, I invite and summon you, and whoever are like you and wish to advance in the virtues — if not by the word of teaching, then certainly by the example of my silence, so that by being silent I may teach you to be silent, you who by your silence compel me to teach what I do not know." And the Gloss: From justifying justice, he says, will arise peace of conscience; from peace, rest and silence, so that you may be silent, and in prosperity guard against boastful words, in adversity against murmuring ones. So also Dionysius takes silence as being of heart and mouth: "We see this, he says, fulfilled especially in cloistered religious, who establish the service of justice in the observance of silence, and consider the breaking of silence a great transgression of justice." Moreover, St. Gregory, Pastoral Care III, chapter 15: The service of justice, he says, is silence; because the mind is stripped of justice when it is not spared from immoderate speech."
So St. Andronicus, with St. Athanasia his wife dressed in male and monastic garb, both during a very long pilgrimage to Jerusalem and in the same cell for twelve years, at Athanasia's request, observed perfect silence; and so restrained his eyes, mouth, and ears that he did not even know her by face, as is recorded in his Life.
Hence of Christ's bride it is said in Canticles 4: "Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; and your speech is sweet." The scarlet ribbon is silence with charity, says Richard of St. Victor, as if to say: You excel in the grace of taciturnity; from this flows your sweet speech: for the heart filled with spiritual delights pours forth through silence a good word of spiritual sweetness, consolation, instruction, admonition, and correction.
St. Ambrose, on Psalm 38, says that "the patience of keeping silent, and the opportuneness of speaking, and contempt for riches are the greatest foundations of the virtues." Smaragdus, on chapter 6 of the Rule of St. Benedict: "Taciturnity, he says, is a virtue of humility, a sign of gravity, a nurse of virtues, a guardian of souls." See what was said at chapter 30:15.
Anagogically, St. Jerome, Cyril, Procopius, and Theodoret refer these things to the heavenly rest and glory in heaven: for there the reward of the justice of the Saints will be: first, the most complete peace on every side; second, silence and supreme rest; third, the security of blessedness through all eternity; fourth, the beauty of every peace and glory; fifth, tabernacles of confidence, in which the Blessed, dwelling securely, fear no enemy and nothing adverse; sixth, there will be wealthy rest.
Hear St. Augustine, Meditations, chapters 22 and 25: "O life which God has prepared for those who love Him! Living life, blessed life, secure life, tranquil life, beautiful life, pure life, chaste life, holy life, life ignorant of death, life knowing no sadness, life without stain, without corruption, without anxiety, without disturbance, without change; life most full of every elegance and dignity, where there is no enemy attacking, no enticement of sin, where there is perfect love and no fear, where the day is eternal and the spirit of all is one, where God is seen face to face, and the mind is satisfied without failing by this food of life." And shortly after he adds: "There is the sweet festivity of all returning from this sad pilgrimage to Your joys; there the provident choir of the Prophets, there the twelve-fold number of the Apostles, there the victorious army of innumerable Martyrs, there the sacred assembly of holy Confessors, there the true and perfect cultivators of solitude, there the holy women who conquered the pleasures of the world and the weakness of their sex, there the boys and girls who by their holy lives transcended their years. Unequal is the glory of each, but the joy of all is shared; full and perfect charity reigns there. They burn with love of God, they ceaselessly love and praise God; their every work is the praise of God without end, without weariness, without labor. Happy therefore, and truly happy forever, if after the dissolution of this poor body I shall hear those songs of heavenly melody."
And St. Bernard, Meditations, chapter 4: "The reward, he says, will be to see God, to live with God, to live from God, to be with God, to be from God, who will be all in all; to have God, who is the supreme good. And where the supreme good is, there is supreme happiness, supreme delight, supreme liberty, perfect charity, eternal security, and secure eternity: there is true joy, full knowledge, every beauty and every blessedness; there is peace, piety, goodness, light, virtue, honor, joys, the sweetness of gladness, everlasting life, glory, praise, rest, love, and sweet concord."
Verse 19: BUT HAIL SHALL COME IN THE DESCENT OF THE FOREST
19. BUT HAIL SHALL COME IN THE DESCENT OF THE FOREST. — "Hail," that is, the wrath, plague, and storm of God will rage against the Jews and against Jerusalem, so that the forest, that is, their Synagogue growing wild, may be abandoned, brought low, and humiliated. See Canon 26. He returns to the destruction of the Jews, which he treated from verse 9 to verse 16.
Sanchez continues to take this as referring to the destruction of Babylon: for he says it is called a forest on account of the hanging gardens of Nitocris. The Seventy translate: but if hail descends, it will not come upon you, as if to say: For the faithful all things will be prosperous; if any hail, that is, any storm, should come, it will fall upon the faithless and the impious.
Verse 20: BLESSED ARE YOU WHO SOW UPON ALL WATERS
20. BLESSED ARE YOU WHO SOW UPON ALL WATERS. — Sanchez explains it thus, as if to say: O fortunate are those who will see that day of return from Babylon, when it will make Judea, previously barren, thorny, and uncultivated, fruitful with constant rain. They will be able to drive teams of oxen and donkeys into fields moist with heavenly dew, and having prepared the fields by that labor for receiving seed, to commit the seed to the ground. Others say, as if to say: The crops will so luxuriate that, lest from their abundance they choke one another, they will send in oxen and donkeys to graze down the first luxuriant growth.
But in our exposition it is an apostrophe to the Apostles and apostolic men, as if to say: O blessed are you who upon all waters, that is, all peoples, sow the Gospel, sending into them oxen and donkeys, that is, preachers and workers of the evangelical and salutary harvest.
To send in the foot of the ox and the ass is nothing other than to cultivate the land with a team of oxen or a team of donkeys: for they could not plow with ox and donkey together, according to the law of Deuteronomy 22:10; but separately. Again, he calls waters the land moist with water and rain: for one sows in such land, not in pure water. Note: The ox was for the ancients a symbol of plowing, and hence of harvest and fertility, as is clear from the oxen that appeared in vision to Pharaoh, Genesis chapter 41:2. Accordingly, yoked oxen on the coin of the Emperor Vespasian, and other yoked pairs on the coin of Gaius Marius, signify that they provided agriculture and the grain supply for the nourishment of the citizens.
For also among diviners, to dream of oxen plowing foretold the most bountiful harvest and abundant prosperity. Indeed, the very name of the ox (bous) was given from nourishing: for bous means 'I nourish': for by his labor in continually working the land he feeds us. Hence the Greeks call euboian a happy agriculture — those for whom agriculture is foreign, and it is also an epithet of the ox. The Romans, moreover, paid so much honor to the ox that they declare that Italy itself was once named from the Itali, as oxen were called. Indeed, among them it was formerly no less a capital offense to kill an ox than to kill a man. Noteworthy too was the custom of the ancient Germans, who sent to the bride a team of yoked oxen, a bridled horse, and a shield with sword as the dowry, so that the wife, says Cornelius Tacitus, might be reminded that she was coming to her husband as a partner in labors and dangers, to endure and dare the same things in peace as in battle; for the yoked oxen signified labor, the ready horse and given arms signified war. So Pierius, Hieroglyphics 3. There is an emblem of an ox with this inscription: "for altars and fields," representing a person living both the active and the contemplative life. For the ox works by plowing in the fields, and the same is sacrificed on the altars: hence it is a symbol of religion and the contemplative life.
Symbolically, the donkey, an unclean animal, signifies the Gentiles; the ox, a clean animal, signifies the Jews. He therefore intimates that both peoples will unite in the faith of Christ and the Gospel. So St. Cyril, Jerome, Theodoret, Procopius, and Gregory, Moralia XXXV, chapter 41; Clement, Stromateis VIII, at the beginning. Hence in the new law that old law was rescinded: "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together."
Tropologically, St. Bernard, in his sermon on St. Benedict: "Blessed are those who sow upon all waters, even those which are above the heavens, which are the angelic virtues and the heavenly peoples. So indeed: for we have been made a spectacle to both Angels and men. Let us therefore sow for men a good example through open works; let us sow for the Angels great joy through hidden sighs." And shortly after: "O race of Adam, how many have sown in you, and how precious the seed! How badly will you perish, and how deservedly, if so great a seed perishes in you, and the labor of those who sowed! The whole Trinity sowed in our land; Angels sowed equally with Apostles; Martyrs and Confessors and Virgins sowed. The Son also sowed: for He it is who went out to sow His seed. Thus the whole Trinity sowed: the Father, bread from heaven; the Son, truth; the Holy Spirit, charity."
St. Basil, on chapter 1 of Isaiah, interprets differently: Blessed, he says, is he who stirs up the ox, that is, the generous part, to the endurance of labors, and the donkey, that is, the greedy and carnal part, so that he may trample and conquer his desires. And St. Ambrose, writing to Irenaeus, interprets differently still: "The ox, he says, having horns, has fierceness; the donkey has meekness; because blessed is he who tempers both severity and meekness, so that by the one discipline is maintained, and by the other innocence is not oppressed."