Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He threatens the destruction of Sennacherib, the enemy of God's people, and teaches that he himself, besieging Jerusalem and devouring everything nearby as certain prey, would be struck down by an Angel. Allegorically, Sennacherib was the exemplar of tyrants and of all enemies of the Church, who were punished by God with a terrible defeat and death. So Hugo, Adamus, Forerius, and others. Second, at verse 14, from the fire of the Assyrians he rises to the devouring fire of Gehenna, and rouses all sinners to guard against sins and pursue virtues by meditating upon it. Then third, at verse 16, he soars to heavenly Zion and graphically sets before the eyes its appearance and glory. Finally, at verse 23, he returns to Jerusalem under siege and plundering the spoils of the Assyrians.
Vulgate Text: Isaiah 33:1-24
1. Woe to you who plunder, shall you not also be plundered? And you who despise, shall you not also be despised? When you have finished plundering, you shall be plundered; when, weary, you have ceased to despise, you shall be despised. 2. Lord, have mercy on us, for we have waited for You; be our arm in the morning and our salvation in the time of tribulation. 3. At the voice of the Angel the peoples fled, and at Your exaltation the nations were scattered. 4. And your spoils shall be gathered as the bruchus is gathered, as when ditches are full of them. 5. The Lord is magnified, because He has dwelt on high; He has filled Zion with judgment and justice. 6. And there shall be faithfulness in your times; riches of salvation, wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord, that is His treasure. 7. Behold, the seers shall cry out abroad, the angels of peace shall weep bitterly. 8. The roads are laid waste, the traveler on the path has ceased, the covenant is broken, he has cast away the cities, he has not regarded men. 9. The land has mourned and languished; Lebanon is confounded and has become foul, and Saron has become like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are shaken. 10. Now I will arise, says the Lord; now I will be exalted, now I will be lifted up. 11. You shall conceive heat, you shall bring forth stubble; your spirit like fire shall devour you. 12. And the peoples shall be as ashes from a fire; thorns gathered together shall be burned with fire. 13. Hear, you who are far off, what I have done, and know, you who are near, My strength. 14. The sinners in Zion are terrified, trembling has seized the hypocrites: who among you can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among you shall dwell with everlasting burnings? 15. He who walks in justice and speaks truth, who casts away gain from oppression and shakes his hands free from every bribe, who stops his ears lest he hear of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes lest he see evil.
16. He shall dwell on high, the fortifications of rocks shall be his loftiness; bread is given to him, his waters are faithful. 17. His eyes shall see the King in His beauty; they shall behold the land from afar. 18. Your heart shall meditate on fear: where is the learned man? where is he who weighs the words of the law? where is the teacher of little ones? 19. You shall not see the shameless people, the people of deep speech, so that you cannot understand the eloquence of their tongue, in whom there is no wisdom. 20. Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities; your eyes shall see Jerusalem, an opulent dwelling, a tabernacle that can in no way be moved; its stakes shall not be taken away forever, and none of its cords shall be broken. 21. For there alone the Lord our God is magnificent: a place of rivers, very broad and wide streams; no ship of rowers shall pass through it, nor shall any great galley cross it. 22. For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King: He Himself shall save us. 23. Your ropes are loosened, and they shall not prevail; so shall your mast be that you cannot spread the sail. Then shall the spoils of much plunder be divided: the lame shall seize the prey. 24. Nor shall the neighbor say: I languish; the people who dwell therein, iniquity shall be taken away from them.
Verse 1: WOE TO YOU WHO PLUNDER!
1. WOE TO YOU WHO PLUNDER! — Woe to you, O Sennacherib, who have plundered Judea and now threaten Jerusalem! For there in turn you shall be plundered — not actively but passively, that is, you shall be despoiled and become prey to the Jews. Woe to you, proud one, who, insolent with victories, despise both the Jews and the God of the Jews! They in turn shall despise and scorn you, when your camps are suddenly cut down by the Angel and, as it were, blown away; indeed your own sons shall despise you, when they see you stripped of your camps and a fugitive, and they shall kill you.
Allegorically, Sennacherib was a type, first, of the devil, whom Christ despoiled, says St. Jerome; second, of the persecutors of the Church, as if to say: He who despises you, persecutes and plunders you, O Apostles, O Church! He does not despise you, but Me and Him who sent Me, and therefore he himself shall also be plundered and stripped by Me. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, Procopius.
Woe therefore to you, O Nero! You despise St. Peter and Paul, you slay them and many of the faithful, you are the first to launch a persecution against Christians: therefore you too shall be despised by God, by the Apostles, by the Senate, by the Roman people, who shall conspire for your death and drive you to take your own life by your own hand. Woe to you, O Domitian! You harass and kill Christians: you too shall be killed by your own people, and in you and yours the entire line of the Flavians shall end. Woe to you, O Aurelian, who supplant the Christians! You shall be captured by the king of the Persians and shall serve him, and shall offer your back as a footstool when he mounts his horse. Woe to you, O Decius! You burn Lawrences, you slay Christians: you too shall be cut down by the enemy in an infamous defeat. Woe to you, O Maximian, O Diocletian, O Maxentius! A Christian shall drive you to death, to the rope. Woe to you, O Julian, who declare war on Christ and despise Him as a Galilean! The hour shall come when He Himself, piercing you from heaven, shall compel you to cry out: You have conquered, O Galilean, you have conquered! Woe to you, O Valens the Arian, who persecute St. Basil and the Orthodox! The Goths shall pursue you and burn you hiding in a cottage.
Verse 2: LORD, HAVE MERCY ON US
2. LORD, HAVE MERCY ON US. — This is the prayer of Isaiah (which he inserts in passing, as if in a parenthesis, from his emotion) to God, that He may have mercy on Jerusalem besieged by Sennacherib, and come to her aid. FOR WE HAVE WAITED FOR YOU — we have placed all our hope in You, not in idols, not in the aid of neighboring kings; from You alone we have expected and do expect help and deliverance. BE OUR ARM IN THE MORNING. — The Hebrew labbekarim means "in the mornings," each morning, that is, each day, as if to say: With Your strength, as with an arm, defend us daily, from early morning until evening, against the constant and daily assaults of the enemy. So "morning" is taken in Psalm 72:14: "And I was scourged all day long, and my chastisement was in the mornings" (in Hebrew it is labbekarim); and Psalm 100:8: "In the morning (that is, daily, early and promptly), I slew all the sinners of the land." The Interlinear Gloss explains "in the morning," that is, in prosperity; for there follows, "and our salvation in the time of tribulation:" for we are tempted and assailed both by pride in prosperity and by distrust and despair in adversity, and therefore in both situations we need the help and aid of God. For rightly did Ausonius say in the maxim of Periander: If fortune favors, beware of being lifted up; If fortune thunders, beware of being submerged.
Verse 3: AT THE VOICE OF THE ANGEL (in Hebrew, from the noise and tumult that was made in
3. AT THE VOICE OF THE ANGEL (in Hebrew, from the noise and tumult that was made in the camps when the Angel struck 185,000 Assyrians) THE PEOPLES FLED. — It could secondly be rendered: at the voice of the multitude (for this is what the Hebrew hamon signifies) the peoples fled; for it is likely that with the Angel as leader, who struck the Assyrians, many Angels came, as soldiers and cohorts of God. He returns after the parenthesis to the slaughter of Sennacherib. AND AT YOUR EXALTATION (that is, from Your sublime po-
tency, by which, raising Your hand as it were, You will deal so powerful a blow and stroke upon the Assyrians) THE NATIONS WERE SCATTERED (that is, shall be scattered) — namely, those fighting in the camps of Sennacherib.
Verse 4: AND YOUR SPOILS SHALL BE GATHERED AS THE BRUCHUS IS GATHERED
4. AND YOUR SPOILS SHALL BE GATHERED AS THE BRUCHUS IS GATHERED. — The bruchus is not a locust, but similar to one; hence Hesychius says the bruchus is a species of locust, and it is without wings. Therefore it is not what the French call bruyant, or bruchus, which Flemish children call "preacher" from the murmur and buzzing it makes; for that one is winged and quite different from the locust. In the East the bruchus is common, and causes the greatest damage to the crops it devours. Hence the bruchus is named from the Greek bryko, that is, "I eat," as if brykos; whence Nicander calls it sitodoros, that is, "devourer of grain." Therefore farmers are compelled there to collect innumerable bruchi and thrust them, once collected, into ditches, burying and suffocating them with earth. As if to say: In the same way your spoils, O Assyrians, shall be gathered by the Jews with the same ease as bruchi are collected by farmers to be thrust into a pit; for you like bruchi have devastated Judea; therefore you likewise shall be driven into a pit, namely into the valley of Topheth (if we believe the Hebrews), and there, slain by the Angel, you shall be buried and become the plunder of the Hebrews. I have said more about the bruchus at Joel chapter 1, verse 4.
Verse 5: THE LORD IS MAGNIFIED (in so glorious a slaughter of Sennacherib), BECAUSE HE HA
5. THE LORD IS MAGNIFIED (in so glorious a slaughter of Sennacherib), BECAUSE HE HAS DWELT (dwells) ON HIGH (and therefore, being Himself exalted and magnificent, He does exalted and magnificent things, and from His lofty throne He looks down upon these lowly things: because all enemies and all men before Him are like locusts, indeed like fleas, which He can kill with a single flick; and) HE HAS FILLED ZION WITH JUDGMENT AND JUSTICE — as if to say: God has declared by this slaughter that He is just and faithful to Zion, because He has fully rendered her the help and deliverance He had promised through Isaiah; therefore henceforth, as long as you stand, O Zion!
Verse 6: THERE SHALL BE FAITHFULNESS IN YOUR TIMES
6. THERE SHALL BE FAITHFULNESS IN YOUR TIMES. — "Faithfulness," namely both of God, that is His fidelity toward you; and yours, that is, the confidence by which, having so often experienced God's help, you will henceforth entrust and commit all your affairs to Him, and rest in Him. Allegorically, these things look to Christ (and in Him they are more truly fulfilled), of whom Hezekiah was a type, and so by Zion understand the Church. So Theodoret, Cyril, and Procopius, as if to say: Christ will fill the Church with justice and holiness, "and there shall be faithfulness," that is, the truth of the promises made to Abraham and the Patriarchs shall be fulfilled "in your times," O Messiah, O Zion! That is, O Church, who are the bride of the Messiah! It is an interchange of person, according to Canon XVI. Polybius wisely says in Book VI: "That state of a republic is desirable and firm, in which both private life is conducted in a holy and innocent manner, and justice and clemency flourish publicly." And Plautus in his Persa: "If the inhabitants are of good morals, I consider the town well fortified." Moreover, they will be such if the ruler is such; for as Quintilius says, Declamation 4: "Such is the condition of rulers, that whatever they do, they seem to command." And Pliny in his Panegyric to Trajan: "We need not so much command as example." And Velleius, Book II: "A ruler teaches his citizens to act rightly by acting rightly himself. Let the king desire honorable things, and everyone will desire the same. For obsequiousness, as Tacitus says in Annals III, toward the ruler, and the love of emulation, is stronger than penalty from laws." Conversely, "rulers not only conceive vices themselves but also pour them into the state: and they do more harm by example than by sin" (namely, by the fault of one, all sin), says Cicero, De Legibus III. RICHES OF SALVATION, WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE — as if to say: In the time of Hezekiah, and especially in the time of Christ,
the saving riches shall not be gold and silver, but wisdom, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord — namely, that the faithful may know God, and fear and worship Him. So St. Jerome and Procopius. Vatablus renders this verse thus: there shall be stability in your time, or of your happiness, that is, you shall persevere in happiness, and the strength of your deliverances, that is, of your successes, shall be wisdom and knowledge: the fear of the Lord, that is His treasure — as if to say: Israel shall experience all prosperity, if it applies itself to wisdom and the knowledge of divine things, which follows upon the fear of the Lord. Morally, note that there is no greater treasure, nor greater gift, than the fear of God. For as St. Gregory says, Moralia VI, chapter 27: "The anchor of the heart is the weight of fear." And St. Jerome, writing to Pabiol on the 42 stations: "Fear is the guardian of virtues." And Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum, chapter 2: "Fear is the foundation of salvation; by fearing we shall be cautious, by being cautious we shall be saved: he who is anxious, he truly will be able to be secure." Indeed also St. Job, chapter 28, verse 28: "The fear of the Lord," he says, "that itself is wisdom; and to depart from evil, understanding." And Sirach 1:20: "The fullness of wisdom is to fear God, and fullness from its fruits." And verse 11: "The fear of the Lord is glory, and boasting, and gladness, and a crown of exultation. The fear of the Lord shall delight the heart, and shall give gladness, and joy, and length of days. To him who fears the Lord it shall go well in the end, and on the day of his death he shall be blessed." For "the eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear Him," Psalm 32:18; and: "The Lord is a stronghold to those who fear Him," Psalm 24:14; and: "In the fear of the Lord is confident strength," Proverbs 14:26; and: "To him who fears the Lord no evil shall befall, but in temptation God shall preserve him and deliver him from evils," Sirach 33:4. Wherefore St. Jerome earnestly admonishes Eustochium, writing to her: "I do not want you," he says, "to take pride in your vocation, but to have fear: you walk laden with gold, you must avoid the robber. This life is a racecourse for mortals: here we strive, that elsewhere we may be crowned. Do you think there is peace on earth, which produces thorns and thistles? Blessed therefore is the man to whom it is given to have the fear of God.
I shall appear, or with a different vowel pointing, arelam, that is, to whom I shall show, that is, behold my seers. Note second: By "seers" Hugo understands the Prophets; St. Thomas, the citizens dwelling in the suburbs, who, seeing so great an army of Sennacherib approaching, cried out outside, that is, outside the city, that each one might save himself by flight. Third, and more fittingly, Lyra by "seers" understands the watchmen of Jerusalem, who, seeing the great battle lines of the Assyrians approaching, cried out so that the farmers and those who were outside might take refuge in the city. THE ANGELS OF PEACE SHALL WEEP BITTERLY. — These are the envoys whom Hezekiah sent to Rabshakeh, the commander of Sennacherib, for the purpose of making peace, namely Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah; who, when they could not obtain peace from the tyrant but only threats, seeing the destruction threatening the city, wept with their garments torn, as is told in chapter 36. St. Jerome by the angels of peace understands the Angels who presided over the temple of Solomon: for they were grieved seeing it to be in danger of so great a calamity; whence in the time of Titus they cried out: "Let us depart from here," namely from the temple about to be destroyed. Allegorically, St. Jerome, Theodoret, Procopius, and Gregory, Moralia XXXIV, chapter 7, by the angels of peace understand the Apostles, who announced the peace and grace of Christ to the Jews: they wept seeing the Jews hardened, and having been abandoned by the peace and grace of Christ, they transferred themselves to the Gentiles. So St. Paul, when he wished to be anathema for the Jews, Romans 9:3.
Verse 8: THE ROADS ARE LAID WASTE
8. THE ROADS ARE LAID WASTE. — It is a mimesis: for it seems to be the voice of the ambassadors of Hezekiah weeping, as if to say: All roads are deserted from fear of the Assyrians, no traveler is seen anywhere, the covenant is broken: it is all over for us and for Jerusalem and the kingdom of the Jews. THE COVENANT HAS BEEN BROKEN. — First, Hugo understands the covenant of the Jews with God, about keeping the law of God, which because they violated it, they were devastated, according to what God threatened them with in Leviticus 26. Second, St. Thomas, Lyra, and Forerius understand the pact that Sennacherib had made with the Jews, which he violated after receiving money from them;
Verse 7: BEHOLD, THE SEERS SHALL CRY OUT ABROAD
7. BEHOLD, THE SEERS SHALL CRY OUT ABROAD. — He shows how great was the alarm and danger of Jerusalem when Sennacherib besieged it, in order to make clear how great was the faithfulness, mercy, and power of God in delivering it. Note first: For "seers" the Hebrew is erelam, which, first, the Hebrews and Arias hold to be the name of an Angel; for in Hebrew erelam is the same as "strong seer of theirs." Second, Aben-Ezra and Forerius think erelam is the same as Ariel, about which see chapter 29, verse 1, that is, "their strong lion," and so the citizens of Jerusalem are called. Third, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion take erelam as ere lahem, that is, "appear to them": whom our interpreter seems to follow, as if to say: Behold, those to whom
and he "cast away" and overturned the "cities" of Judea, and did not regard men, since he despised and contemned all the Jews, as is clear from 2 Kings 18. Third, St. Jerome, Haymo, and Sanchez understand the covenant which God made with the Jews, in which He promised to be their protector: this covenant God, on account of the sins of the Jews, annulled and broke, and did not regard the Jews as men, but as beasts, says St. Jerome, inasmuch as they, following not reason but brutal appetite and concupiscence, transformed themselves, as it were, into beasts, and therefore He cast them off and gave them over to the Chaldeans to be slaughtered; or, as Sanchez says, He regarded them not as men but as empty straws driven by the wind, or as earthen vessels of a potter that are shattered. This sense, as also the second, is fitting.
Verse 9: THE LAND HAS MOURNED AND LANGUISHED
9. THE LAND HAS MOURNED AND LANGUISHED. — The ambassadors continue to weep and to say that Judea mourns, etc., that is, that it is squalid, deserted, barren. IT HAS BECOME FOUL — as if to say: The fields are silent, no voice of farmers, who have all fled, is heard in them; and, as Cyril and Hugo say, the voices of singers and praises of God in the temple are silent. The Roman text reads obsorduit, that is, it is uncultivated, lies filled with brambles, tares, and filth. Whence our Interpreter renders the Hebrew kamal in chapter 19, verse 6, as "it shall wither;" the Septuagint, the Chaldean, and modern scholars render it: it is cut down without any compassion. What the Hebrew kamal precisely signifies is uncertain, for it is found only here and in chapter 19.
Verse 10: NOW I WILL ARISE, SAYS THE LORD
10. NOW I WILL ARISE, SAYS THE LORD — when things are desperate, I will show My faithfulness and power; with My divine hand I will remedy so great a disaster, and I will strike down Sennacherib. Note: Thus God is accustomed to allow not only cities and kingdoms, but also souls, to be driven to the extreme and to desperation by temptation, and then He comes to their aid with His powerful grace. Let us therefore say in temptation with St. Job: "As long as I hope, I breathe; even if He should kill me, in Him I will hope."
Verse 11: YOU SHALL CONCEIVE HEAT
11. YOU SHALL CONCEIVE HEAT. — God, rising as avenger on behalf of the Jews, here attacks the Assyrians. Note: To conceive heat is to plot slaughter, plunder, fires, and everything hostile; the offspring of this conception is the execution and effect itself, as if to say: You have conceived in your mind, O Assyrians, the destruction and burning of Jerusalem; but you shall bring forth stubble, that is, an empty and futile thing. Your spirits, so threatening and burning, shall go into the wind; all your attempts and machinations shall be in vain. It is a proverb. Second, fittingly Forerius, Sanchez, and Delrio, Adage 758, as if to say: The fire that you have conceived in your mind, O Assyrians, shall not inflame Jerusalem so much as you yourselves; for you are the stubble worthy and destined for burning. In a similar way he said in chapter 11, verse 18: "Wickedness is kindled like a fire; it shall devour the brier and the thorn." Learn from this that the wicked man begets for himself the evil he plots against another, and that a wicked thought is like a fire that blasts and burns the very one who thinks it. By a similar proverb we say: "The blacksmith is bound by the fetters he himself forged; and the thrush brings evil upon itself, because from its droppings bird-catchers make birdlime with which they catch it. Similar are: To warm a serpent in one's bosom, to feed wolf cubs." And that passage in Sirach 42:13: "From garments comes the moth, and from a woman the iniquity of a man." And that
passage of Job chapter 14, verse 28: "I who am to be consumed like rottenness, and like a garment that is eaten by moths." For just as a garment breeds the moth that consumes it, so the mortal body breeds from itself the putrid humors that corrupt it; for we carry death in our entrails. Thus anger destroys the angry man, by making him rush upon swords and death; thus lust destroys the lustful, and every crime thrusts the criminal toward the fires of Gehenna.
Verse 12: AND THE PEOPLES SHALL BE AS ASHES FROM A FIRE
12. AND THE PEOPLES SHALL BE AS ASHES FROM A FIRE — as if to say: The Assyrians shall perish and be burned, like thorns gathered together, to be turned into ashes by fire. Vatablus renders it: and the peoples shall be like firings of lime, that is, similar to stones that are burned to make lime. The Hebrews relate that the Assyrians were burned by the Angel with a hidden fire, for example, a plague, as Berosus reports in Josephus, Book X, chapter 2. And indeed Isaiah implies this, since he so often threatens them with fire. THORNS. — That is, they shall be like thorns. For the Hebrews often leave understood the markers of comparison: so, just as, as it were.
Verse 13: HEAR, YOU WHO ARE FAR OFF
13. HEAR, YOU WHO ARE FAR OFF. — Here, after so great a slaughter of the Assyrians, there is an exclamation by which, turning to the Jews and other nations, he warns them to fear God and His vengeance and fire, especially the eternal fire. 14. THE SINNERS IN ZION ARE TERRIFIED — as if to say: Certain Jewish hypocrites and impious men were terrified seeing so great a slaughter of the Assyrians, and feared that God might strike them too, being impious, with equal fury. They would have wished, therefore, that God were not so near. To them God responds that if they escape that temporal fire of God, they shall fall into the fires of eternal Gehenna. So Adamus and Forerius. Where note morally: He who wishes to dwell with God should know that He is a fire burning and consuming whatever is carnal and sinful in man; therefore for him who does not wish to endure this fire, an eternal fire is prepared. This sense the words seem to demand; for he says: "They are terrified," not slain or burned. However, second, St. Thomas, Hugo, and Sanchez refer these words to the Assyrians, who were terrified and slain by God at Zion, that is, near Zion. They are called hypocrites, that is, sinners. For every sinner wishes to appear good when he is evil, and therefore is a hypocrite. Again, says Sanchez, they are hypocrites because, when after defeating the Ethiopians they arrived at Jerusalem and played the role of triumphant victors, that role was feigned and masked. For they had nothing beyond the empty appearance of strength and the most vain sounds of triumphant men. WHO AMONG YOU CAN DWELL WITH THE DEVOURING FIRE? — Just as in a public execution of criminals, the preacher who leads the condemned man exhorts the people at the criminal's punishment to guard against crimes lest they fall into a similar penalty, so God here from the slaughter and fire of the Assyrians warns all the impious, as if to say: You have beheld the temporal fire that in a moment, as it were, slew the Assyrians; but learn from this spectacle. For what befell
the Assyrians — nay, far more grievously — shall befall all the impious after death; for upon them the fire of divine wrath, not earthly but infernal, not temporal but eternal, shall rage, so that they must always be tossed about in the eternal fires of Gehenna, yet never be reduced to ashes as the Assyrians were, but shall remain alive forever and burn forever. So St. Jerome, Procopius, and others. Note: God is called here a devouring fire of sins and sinners, because He is the cause of the fire of Hell, which shall burn the damned. Otherwise Vatablus takes it as the voice of the Jews, as if to say: Who will fight for us against this army of the Assyrians, which like fire devours and destroys everything, and before which, in place of a standard, goes fire? For fire in a brazier was carried before the camps and kings of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, as Sanchez teaches from Xenophon, Curtius, and Tertullian. But this army cannot be called "everlasting burnings." WHO AMONG YOU SHALL DWELL WITH EVERLASTING BURNINGS? — What is this devouring fire? What are the everlasting burnings? Let the damned speak, who experience them, who are immersed in them. Speak, then, O Judas! O Caiaphas! O Herod! O Pharaoh! O Caesar! What are your everlasting burnings? What is your wretched and tormented eternity? We are tortured with fire and brimstone, and the smoke of our torments ascends forever and ever. Oh, if God would grant us one single wish of ours — namely, let Him fill the entire universe from earth to the empyrean heaven on every side with the finest sand (a single walnut holds ten thousand grains of sand), and let Him tell St. Michael to remove one single grain every thousand years; and when in this way, through countless thousands, indeed millions, of years, he has removed all these grains and emptied the whole world, let Him then remove one degree of our punishment, indeed the smallest portion of our penalty as well; and let Him again create another world equally great and again fill it with grains of sand, and tell St. Michael to remove a grain every thousand years, and when he has removed this whole mass of sand of the whole world, then let Him take away the second degree of our punishment; let Him create a third world; a fourth, a fifth, another and another, and do likewise; finally let Him create as many worlds as there can be grains of sand in this world, and fill each one of them with just as many grains of sand to the very top; and when, by removing one grain every thousand years, He has emptied all these heaps, all these worlds, then let our eternity be ended, let the punishments cease; and if He does not wish to make us blessed, at least let Him not torture us, indeed let Him reduce us to nothing. If this were granted to us, we would rejoice, we would exult, we would bear our cross willingly, we would endure the fires of Gehenna until all those grains of sand are consumed. But we wish in vain. After all these mountains of sand, indeed worlds, there is not yet the end, not yet the middle, not yet the beginning of our eternity, of our conflagration. After all these thousands and millions of years, as great, as
long, as whole, as infinite, our eternity remains, to be expiated by us in perpetual fire. It remains, and shall remain forever, The judgment upon Judas, and the outrage of despised Christ. O Eternity! How immense, how incomprehensible you are! O Eternity, how rarely you occupy the minds of men! As long as earth shall be earth, as long as heaven shall be heaven, as long as Angels shall be Angels, as long as God shall be God — so long shall Judas and the damned burn in sulphurous fire, in blazing conflagrations, and their torments shall have no end, forever and ever. Think on this when gluttony, lust, and ambition tickle you; say: I am not so foolish as to buy with a drop, with a single moment of foul pleasure, an eternity of sorrows, an eternity of punishment and of too-late — alas! — repentance. For the pleasures, delights, and carnal indulgences of this time are not worthy to be compared to the future punishment that shall be revealed in the damned. For what is momentary and light in the pleasure of drunkards, the proud, the lustful,
works an eternal weight of torments in them. St. Augustine truly says in his Sermon I on St. Lawrence: "Who would not be willing to be burned for an hour with the fire of Lawrence, so as not to suffer the eternal fire of Gehenna?" St. Bernard, writing to his sister, On the Way of Living Well, Sermon 67, prescribes for her this effective remedy against lust: "Let the memory," he says, "of the burning of Gehenna extinguish in you the burning of lust." Abbot Olympius, inhabiting a very small cell that was assailed both by heat and by a stinging swarm of gnats, when asked how he could remain in it for so long a time, replied: "Willingly do I endure these things, that I may be delivered from future torments. I bear the gnats so that I may escape the immortal worm; and the fire, dreading the punishments of everlasting burning." So Sophronius in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 141. The Venerable Bede in his History of the English relates that a certain old man, restored to life, withdrew into the desert, where he led a life of austerity and devotion beyond human measure. His neighbors reproached him for killing himself. To them he replied, dissolving into tears: "Oh, if it had been given to you to see what I have seen! I affirm most certainly that these sufferings are nothing compared to those eternal ones which I have seen." In the Lives of the Fathers, Book VII, page 44, twelve Anchorites, gathering together, each told his daily meditation and his daily stimulus to virtue. Finally the twelfth, having heard the other eleven, said: "You are earthly Angels and heavenly men. But I, judging myself unworthy of these things, have condemned myself to Hell, saying: Be with those of whom you are worthy; you will soon be numbered among them. Therefore I see there equal groans and unceasing tears that no one can relate. I behold some gnashing their teeth and leaping with their whole body and trembling from head to foot. And casting myself upon the ground and embracing the ashes, I beseech God that I may never experience those calamities. I see also a sea
of fire boiling immeasurably, and surging and roaring waves, so that some think the billows of fire reach up to the heavens, and in that dreadful sea innumerable men cast down by wild creatures; and all of them crying out and wailing together with one voice, such howlings and cries as no one on earth had ever heard; and burning like dry twigs of every shrub, God's mercy turning away from them on account of their iniquities. And then I lament for the human race, that it dares to speak or attend to anything, when such great evils are stored up for the world. And in these thoughts I hold my mind, meditating on grief, as the Lord says, judging myself unworthy of heaven and earth, and reflecting on what is written: My tears have become my bread day and night." Another distinguished Abbot, living austerely in the desert, when asked: "How do you endure this labor?" replied: "All the labor of my time, which I endure here, is not worthy to be compared to a single day of the torments that are prepared for sinners in the age to come." From the same work, Book V, chapter 7, On Patience. Theodoret in the Philotheus, chapter 28, relates that he saw Thalalaeus, who, though he was of very great stature, enclosed himself in a wheel that was two cubits high and one cubit wide, so that he could not raise his neck but always sat bent over with his face joined to his knees; and he had already sat thus for ten continuous years. Theodoret asked him: "Why do you afflict yourself so?" He replied: "I am guilty of many sins, and I have heard of the punishments prepared for such in the future. I have therefore chosen rather to chastise my body here with a moderate punishment than to await those far greater ones, both in quantity and in quality. For those are involuntary; and what one suffers unwillingly is far more painful than what one undertakes willingly and voluntarily. For the will makes the punishment less, indeed makes it pleasant and welcome." Finally, meditating on these things deeply and frequently, Blessed Abbot Isaiah, in Volume II of the Bibliotheca of the Holy Fathers, Oration 29, thus laments: "Woe to us, who must pass through fire boiling over the waves of the sea, so that each one of us may receive in his body according to what he has done, whether good or evil! "Woe to us, who do not consider that dark and immaterial fire, and the eternal and bitter weeping, and the gnashing of teeth. For God, removing the brightness of the flame, leaves in that fire only the power to burn and darkness, so that the impious and sinners may be tortured all the more. "Alas for me, my wretched soul! For constant pain and anguish afflict my heart, because malice has changed prudence, corruption has conquered incorruption, falsehood has covered truth, death has prevailed over life: earthly, perishable, brief things have been exchanged for heavenly and eternal ones; things contemptible and worthy of hatred have been held sweeter and more pleasant than the true love and gravity of Christ. "Woe to us, who after the lamentations have been written, and the end of the world is already approaching, we do not come to our senses,
nor do we repent of what we committed in our youth, but upon our wretched old age we daily impose greater and more grievous burdens of sins!"
Verse 15: HE WHO WALKS IN JUSTICE
15. HE WHO WALKS IN JUSTICE. — He gives here the way of escaping the devouring fire and everlasting burnings: namely, if anyone walks in justice, etc. Moreover, all these things depend upon and are completed in the following verse, as I shall say there. WHO CASTS AWAY GAIN FROM OPPRESSION. — In Hebrew: who spurns the riches of oppressions, that is, the riches that the greedy extort by force and slander. So Vatablus. AND SHAKES HIS HANDS FREE FROM EVERY BRIBE. — "There are three kinds of bribes," says St. Gregory, Moralia IX, chapter 26, "toward which men hasten through fraud: for a bribe from the heart is favor captured by thought; a bribe from the mouth is glory through flattery; a bribe from the hand is a reward through a gift. But the just man shakes his hands free from every bribe, because in what he does rightly, he seeks neither empty glory from the human heart, nor praise from the mouth, nor a gift from the hand." This sense is symbolic and moral. For literally, Isaiah is speaking of judges and the like who do not accept bribes that entice them to render judgment against or beside justice. WHO STOPS HIS EARS LEST HE HEAR OF BLOODSHED. — In Hebrew, "bloods," that is, slaughter — that is, wicked men speaking and plotting about committing murder. Otherwise Sanchez says: Lest he hear flesh and blood, that is, lest he obey the concupiscence of the flesh. So also St. Gregory, Moralia XXIII, chapter 25: "What is it," he says, "to stop one's ears lest he hear of blood, except not to give consent to the sins that suggest themselves, which are born of blood and flesh? He shall dwell on high; because although the flesh still holds him in lower things, he has already fixed his mind on sublime things. The fortifications of rocks shall be his loftiness; because he who tramples upon the objects of desire presented by earthly conversation raises himself to the heavenly fatherland by the examples of the preceding fathers. And because through the gift of contemplation he is satisfied with spiritual grace, there is fittingly added: Bread is given to him — that is, he receives the refreshment of spiritual grace, because he suspends himself from inferior goods by hoping for heavenly ones." AND HE SHUTS HIS EYES LEST HE SEE EVIL — that is, he who does not approve anything that is contrary to rectitude, says St. Gregory in the passage already cited: let him see, that is, let him approve by seeing. It is a metalepsis, as if to say: To such an upright, just, and good man, God shall not be fearsome, nor shall Hell be a terror; because such a man:
Verse 16: HE SHALL DWELL ON HIGH, THE FORTIFICATIONS OF ROCKS SHALL BE HIS LOFTINESS
16. HE SHALL DWELL ON HIGH, THE FORTIFICATIONS OF ROCKS SHALL BE HIS LOFTINESS — as if to say: He shall dwell in a lofty place, like a rock, most strong and most fortified, namely in heaven and the Church Triumphant; mystically, in God and in Christ, who, as Cyril and Tertullian say in Against Marcion IV, chapter 51, is the Rock upon which
the Church is founded, "upon mountains," that is, upon the teaching of the Apostles. Whence Vatablus, for "his loftiness," translates: his asylum or refuge. BREAD IS GIVEN TO HIM, HIS WATERS ARE FAITHFUL — that is, ever flowing, which never fail or deceive. The Chaldean renders it: sufficient food is given to him. As if to say: Nothing shall be lacking to the Blessed, such as food and drink, which in this life are most necessary for sustaining life. It is a catachresis: for the Blessed do not properly need food and drink, nor do they eat and drink; but God shall nourish, that is, preserve them without food, through Himself and through glory and the glorious endowments, forever. Otherwise St. Cyril and Procopius say: The bread is Christ, the water is the sacrament of Baptism: these two shall never fail in the Church. And Justin, in Against Trypho, says: The bread is the Eucharist. But these are symbolic interpretations, not literal.
THEY SHALL SEE THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY. — The Rabbis explain it thus: The pious Jews shall see King Hezekiah rejoicing with glory after Sennacherib is slain. But this sense is meager, though it alludes to it; for he is properly speaking of the Blessed, as is clear from what precedes and follows, as if to say: The Blessed shall see God, or rather Christ their King, now after the Cross and death crowned with glory and honor; which wondrous vision shall refresh them. For Procopius, Justin in Against Trypho, Prosper in De Praedictionibus Part III, chapter 2, and Cyprian in Against the Jews II, chapter 28, best take all these things of the glory of the Blessed; although Tertullian in his book Against the Jews refers them to the glory and miracles of Christ while He lived on earth. See Canon IX. THEY SHALL BEHOLD THE LAND FROM AFAR — as if to say: The Blessed from the empyrean heaven shall look from a distance upon and look down at the earth, as a mere point on which men walk about
like ants, and which among them is divided by iron and fire. Indeed, all who are there gaze upon those vast machineries of the heavens, shining with as many eyes as most brilliant stars, and especially they contemplate the most spacious empyrean heaven, furnished most richly with every kind of the most beautiful and excellent things; whence they look down upon the smallness of the earth, and they see and laugh at the labors and pursuits of men — that they chase flies, that they quarrel over goat's wool, that they contend over a mere point of earth, dividing it into a thousand particles even to bloodshed and death, and they say: O how narrow are the boundaries of mortals! O how narrow are the souls of mortals! 18. YOUR HEART SHALL MEDITATE ON FEAR. — It is the conclusion of the preceding, as if to say: O Zion! Or whoever
you meditate on the things I have said about everlasting burnings, about dwelling on high, etc. — if you weigh them seriously, you will surely conceive a salutary fear both of that fire and of God the Avenger. For "shall meditate," the Greek in the Septuagint is meleta, that is, I think carefully and seriously, I weigh, I attend to, I exercise myself in the emotion of the fear of God, arousing it in myself through meditation on this fire. WHERE IS THE LEARNED MAN? — as if to say: I have urged meditation on fear, because without it all knowledge, wisdom, and meditation are fruitless and vain. For where are those great and celebrated scholars, skilled in the law and teachers boasting of their empty knowledge? Where are Lycurgus, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Cicero? Where are Annas, Caiaphas, the Scribes and Pharisees, some of whom lived before and some after Isaiah? Surely they have vanished in their vanity and pride, and therefore they shall not see the King in His beauty, but shall go to the devouring fire. St. Paul cites this passage in 1 Corinthians 1:20. See what is said there. Otherwise Pagninus and Vatablus translate thus: Where is the scribe? Where is the weigher? Where is the counter of towers? As if to say: The timid and politically astute Jews who urged surrender to the Assyrians, because counting and weighing the fortifications of Jerusalem and its citizens, they thought them unable to resist — where are these men? They fled to the Assyrians, and with them either perished slain by the Angel, or fled in terror into Assyria.
Verse 19: YOU SHALL NOT SEE THE SHAMELESS PEOPLE (the Plantin edition wrongly reads "impru
19. YOU SHALL NOT SEE THE SHAMELESS PEOPLE (the Plantin edition wrongly reads "imprudent") — He returns to verse 17, as if after the parenthesis of verse 18; he returns, I say, to heavenly Zion. He alludes, however, to the Assyrians, who were shameless, arrogant, and spoke to the Jews in a foreign tongue, as is clear from chapters 36 and 37, as if to say: Henceforth you shall not see these men, O
Hezekiah, O Jews! For God will take them away. But through this he means to signify the things that take place in heaven, as if to say: O heavenly Zion! O Blessed ones! You shall not see there shameless, proud, barbarous men whom you cannot understand, devoid of wisdom, such as in this life you have often experienced with sorrow the Assyrians and other men to be; for all the citizens of heaven shall be kind, humble, affable, wise; with these shall be your conversation there — oh, how sweet! How delightful! For the Prophet has flown from Hell to heaven, at verse 16 and onwards. The same is clear from the following verse. St. Jerome and Haymo also not unfittingly refer these things to the Church Militant, as if to say: O faithful ones! O Christians! In the Church of Christ you shall not see, you shall not heed, you shall overcome, suppress, and confound the shameless Scribes, Pharisees, and the philosophers and orators of the Gentiles, who seem to themselves to be wise and to think lofty things. For God shall show through Christ and the Apostles that their worldly wisdom is foolishness and is folly, and they shall de-
monstrate that true wisdom resides in Christ crucified. THE PEOPLE OF DEEP SPEECH. — In Hebrew: a people deep in speech beyond understanding, that is, whose speech is more obscure, so that you cannot understand the "eloquence of their tongue." In Hebrew, milag, that is, stammering or lisping in tongue.
Verse 20: LOOK UPON ZION (the word "Zion" can be in the accusative or vocative case; hence
20. LOOK UPON ZION (the word "Zion" can be in the accusative or vocative case; hence there follows: "Your eyes," namely, O Zion, "shall see" — as if to say: O children of Zion! O true Israelites! Look upon) THE CITY OF YOUR SOLEMNITIES. — This city, first, with St. Jerome, can be understood as the Church Militant: it is called the city of solemnities, because for a Christian and a just man every day is a feast and a solemnity and a sabbath, in order to serve and attend to God alone. Second, it signifies the perpetual firmness of the Church, and its firm perpetuity, through the stakes and cords, by which Theodoret specifically understands the Martyrs and Apostles, who by their death — consigning their body to the earth, their soul to heaven, and the example of their virtue to posterity — strengthen the Church, just as ropes driven into the ground by stakes and drawn up along the sides of a tabernacle bind and strengthen it. Whence St. Augustine, on Psalm 33, explaining the words: "Stretching out the heaven like a hide" — after their death, he says, the hide of the dead Apostles was stretched out, and heaven, that is, heavenly teaching. For then their truth, virtue, and holiness became known. "He stretches out heaven like a hide, because the teaching was written on hides, and is stretched out; and just as the hide, so also the word of the dead is stretched out; for the Church is propagated through martyrdoms, and the blood of the Martyrs is the seed of Christians," says Tertullian. Third, it signifies the charisms of the Church, when he says that God shall be her brook, river, and most abundant fountain. Fourth, it signifies her defense, when he says that through her no ship or hostile galley shall pass, because the Lord is her judge, that is, her vindicator, against the devil. But St. Cyril, Procopius, Adamus, and others generally better refer these things to heavenly Jerusalem; for he has contrasted it with Hell, in verse 16. Whence he says: Look up, or gaze upon heaven; live mindful of heaven; live as a traveler heading toward heaven; and therefore let your life be heavenly, your thoughts heavenly, so that in all your actions you may look to heaven and breathe heavenly things. When therefore something difficult arises, when temptation assails, when a heavier cross is laid upon you, look to the heavenly city; say: I shall endure, I shall suffer, I shall overcome whatever is hard and rough: Thus one goes to the stars. Therefore he calls the Church Triumphant, first, "the city of our solemnities," because in heaven there shall be perpetual solemnity, perpetual jubilee, perpetual praise and melody of God.
Second, he calls it "Jerusalem," that is, a vision of peace. Third, "an opulent dwelling," because it abounds with every beauty, grace, glory, and all riches. Fourth, "a tabernacle that can in no way be moved," that is, firm, stable, perpetual — whereas here our houses and palaces are temporary and come to an end with time; for by catachresis this is what the stakes and cords signify, since otherwise it is clear that these are not and will not be in heaven. He gives the reason: "For there alone the Lord our God is magnificent," as if to say: There is one prince and king there, namely the Lord, whose works are all magnificent, who preserves and perpetuates all things under Himself in peace and concord, as well as in firmness and endurance. It is otherwise on earth, where many wish to be magnificent, many wish to be rulers, and then the more powerful or the more cunning overthrows the inferior, as all monarchies have been overthrown. Fifth, "a place of rivers, very broad and wide streams" — as if to say: In Jerusalem, not the earthly one (for that suffered from a scarcity of water), but the heavenly one, there shall be an immense river, like many rivers, from which very broad and wide streams shall flow in every direction; and yet through them no ship or hostile galley shall pass that might disturb the peace of the city or plunder its riches. Otherwise Sanchez says: This city abounds in all things; therefore it shall not need galleys and rowers to transport suitable goods for the use and joy of its blessed citizens. He alludes to the river of Paradise, which is divided into four streams and heads, Genesis 2; whence, alluding both to that and to this, St. John in Apocalypse 22 says: "And he showed me a river of the water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb." This river signifies the superabundance of gifts, joys, and delights which God and Christ shall pour out upon the Blessed. The river is called "of the water of life," or as others read, "of living water," which always pours forth water from itself, as from a vital heart or liver, or which always flows and never fails, and which, if it passes through a city, brings it great pleasantness and usefulness; whence it is said: "The rushing of the river makes glad the city of God." Such a river, therefore, in heaven shall be the Beatific Vision, through which God communicates Himself and all His goods to the Saints, and pours out His joys upon them; whence in Psalm 35 it is said: "They shall be inebriated with the richness of your house, and you shall give them to drink of the torrent of your pleasure." And in Isaiah 66: "I will incline over her like a river of peace, and like a torrent overflowing with glory."
Verse 22: FOR THE LORD IS OUR JUDGE
22. FOR THE LORD IS OUR JUDGE. — He gives the reason for the preceding, namely why heavenly Zion shall abound in peace, riches, and all things: because God shall be there as judge, lawgiver, and king, who shall protect and preserve it forever; but who shall resist God? Who shall provoke Him?
Verse 23: YOUR ROPES ARE LOOSENED
23. YOUR ROPES ARE LOOSENED. — The Septuagint and the Chaldean translate: your ropes are broken; Vatablus: your cables are loosened, so that they can neither firmly hold their mast nor spread their sail. The Prophet returns to the argument of the chapter, namely to the times of Hezekiah and Sennacherib, as if to say: The ropes of your tabernacle, O Zion, shall indeed be loosened by the Assyrians, so that it seems about to be pulled down — that is, by the terror of the Assyrians the spirits of the citizens of Jerusalem shall be shaken, so that they think of surrender; and "they shall not prevail," namely the Assyrians against you, says Sanchez; or rather, your ropes shall not prevail against the Assyrians; they shall not be able to keep them from the city. So that mast, which like the central pole sustains the mass of the tabernacle, shall lean forward, so that in it mi-
you cannot spread the military standard, that is, unfurl it. The forces of King Hezekiah, who was like the pillar of the state, are so cut down and collapsed that he cannot gather and marshal an army for the defense of the city; by which he signifies that the remaining cities of Judea had been captured by Sennacherib, so that the king could not summon soldiers and help from them to free Jerusalem from the siege. But then a wondrous reversal of fortune shall suddenly occur: for the Assyrians, who were gaping for the plunder of the Jews, slain by the Angel, shall become plunder and spoil for the Jews; and this shall be so easy and readily available that even the lame shall run to it, nor shall any neighbor, that is, citizen and inhabitant of the city (for this is the Hebrew sachen), excuse himself from the plundering, saying: "I languish," that is, I am weak, I cannot go to despoil the Assyrians, because "iniquity shall be taken from him," that is, the punishment of iniquity — namely, weakness, captivity, siege, and the oppression of enemies. So Sanchez.
shall be fulfilled in Christ; and then from His people in Jerusalem, namely not the earthly but the spiritual one, that is, the Church, "iniquity shall be taken away," for not the Law of Moses but the grace of Christ confers the remission of all sins. So Adamus. Otherwise the Chaldean, Vatablus, Forerius, Procopius, and others take these words not of the Jews but of Sennacherib and the Assyrians; again, they take the ropes and mast not of a tent but of a ship, as if he here compares the camps of the Assyrians to a ship that cannot avoid shipwreck. For Isaiah seems to continue in the metaphor of a hostile ship, about which he said immediately before: "No ship of rowers shall pass through it, nor any galley." Whence Forerius says: "Because he had compared tyrants to ships driven by wind with inflated sails or by oars, he persists in the metaphor and turns to the Assyrian, through whose destruction he understands the ruin of the devil and his ministers; and he compares his king to the mast of a ship, his princes to the ropes that secure the mast, his arrayed battle lines of soldiers to the sail inflated by the winds; in sum, he compares the whole Assyrian army to a ship." It is therefore a metaphor from a ship which, when it breaks apart and comes loose, its cables are loosened and broken by the force of the storm, says Procopius. For the ship here is the tyrant of the enemy; the mast is the king; the ropes that sustain it are the generals and princes; the sail is the arrayed battle lines of soldiers, says Villalpando on Ezekiel 27, page 10. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Your ropes are loosened, that is, your supports, O hostile ship and galley! That is, O congregation of Assyrians, that is, of demons, infidels, and the impious! And consequently they shall not prevail but shall break, so that you cannot spread the sail to the mast-standard, that is, the sail, in the wind, nor the banner to the soldier — for the word "standard" signifies both. As if to say: You shall utterly perish with your people and go to destruction, both in the time of Christ and the Apostles; and then many lame, that is, many weak and unwarlike, shall divide the spoils of many nations and distribute them to the Church Militant. Rather, you shall perish on the day of judgment, when the Blessed, once weak and lame, now strong and swift, shall thrust demons and the impious into Tartarus and triumph over them, and shall, as it were, divide their spoils. This sense is probable and fitting, and yields to the former only in the explanation of the distribution of plunder, which does not properly belong to the Blessed but to the Apostles and the Church Militant; tropically, however, it does belong to the Blessed. For thus in Psalm 109:6 and 7, and elsewhere, they are said to tread upon, to drink, and to wash their hands in the blood of the reprobate. Wherefore the Author of the Opus Imperfectum, in St. Chrysostom, Volume II, Homily 23 on Matthew, at the end, by this ship of the sea, that is, not of God but of the world, understands the church of the heretics. "Which," he says, "although it has the preaching of the Lord's Cross, nevertheless shows this mast of theirs to be weak; because where there is no truth of faith, the assertion of the Cross is feeble; whence its sails are inclined and loosened,
not spread, because they are directed by no breath of the Holy Spirit. And therefore this ship, having lost the rudder of true faith, with hostile spirits prevailing, is plunged into the shipwreck of eternal death — a ship that does not deserve to be steered by Christ the Lord, and becomes the prey of demons and of Gehenna."