(Verse 6) Those who come out from the root of Jacob will flourish and grow Israel: and they will fill the face of the world with their offspring. LXX: The sons of Jacob who come: Israel will flourish and bloom, and its fruits will fill the earth. After the Apostles, preaching the Gospel in the whole world, have said: We will make peace for Christ, peace will be made for you, those who come from the seed of Jacob and have reached the Apostolic dignity will be called sons of Jacob. Then Israel will sprout and flourish, seeing that the teachings of its children have filled the entire world, and have brought forth abundant fruits that it had not brought while remaining in Judaea.
27:7
(Verse 7.) Did he strike him according to the blow of the one striking himself: or as he killed his killers, so was he killed? This place is understood in two ways. Either against Jerusalem, so that he may say that she was not struck by God in the same way that she struck Christ and his Apostles: or against the multitude of the Gentiles, so that the Apostles and apostolic men, despite being persecuted and shedding Christian blood, nevertheless had care for their salvation and reconciled them to God.
27:8
(Verse 8) When it has measured out against the measure, you shall judge it. LXX: He will send them out, quarreling and reproaching. According to the Hebrew sense here: As Jerusalem has done, so she will receive, and according to the measure with which she has measured, it will be measured to her in return. And then she will receive a full measure, when the time of judgment comes and God has rejected her. According to the LXX, it depends on what was said earlier. For Israel will not be struck as she has struck, nor will she be killed as she has killed. He argued against the Apostles, and reproached his teachers, and commanded them not to speak in the name of Christ. Therefore the Lord will reject them and cast them out from his flock.
He meditated in his hard spirit during the heat of the day. LXX: Were you not the one who meditated on destroying them with a hard spirit, with a spirit of fury? According to the Hebrew, it is said, 'In the measure that the table is, Jerusalem will receive.' Therefore, God meditated in his hard and vehement spirit, whether speaking against her during the heat of the day, that is, in the time of persecution, when there is a more intense day of indignation and punishment. According to the Septuagint, it is said of Jerusalem, or of Israel: Were you not the one who in your most stubborn and cruel spirit, and in the fury of your blasphemies, desired to kill the Apostles of the Lord and the teachers?
27:9
(Verse 9) Therefore, because of this, the iniquity of the house of Jacob will be forgiven, and all this fruit will be removed, so that its sin may be taken away. For they have set up all the stones of the altar like scattered ashes; neither the lights nor the shrines will stand. LXX: Therefore, the iniquity of Jacob will be taken away, and this will be his blessing when I remove his sin, when I set up all the stones of the altars shattered like crushed ash, and their trees and idols will not endure. The reason why they suffer no harm even after the Jews laid hands upon the Lord is that they may obtain forgiveness if they choose to repent, so that the prayer of the Savior may be fulfilled: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). Therefore, it is said, the iniquity of the house of Jacob will be pardoned, and its sin will be taken away, so that it may deserve the blessing of God, which had been cursed upon it when it said: His blood be upon us, and upon our children (Matthew 27:25). Because through the Apostles, the Gospel will be sown from the stock of Israel throughout the whole world, and idolatry will be destroyed, and altars will be crushed to dust, lights will be cut down, temples will fall, and the knowledge of the one God under the mystery of the Trinity will be proclaimed.
27:10
(Verse 10) The fortified city will be deserted; the beautiful city will be abandoned and left like a wilderness. There the calf will graze, and there it will lie down and consume its branches. Their idols will be cut down like groves, and the flock that dwells far away will be left like a deserted flock, and it will be a long time in the pasture, and there the flocks will rest, and after a long time there will be no green in it, for it is dried up. Jerusalem, once a strong and fortified city, because it did not receive its masters but said: Come, let us kill him, for this is the heir and our inheritance (Matthew 21:38), will be deserted. And that which was once beautiful, of which it is said in Ezekiel: You ate fine flour, honey, and oil, and you became exceedingly beautiful (Ezek. 16:13), and in which dwells He of whom it is written: You are fairer than the sons of men (Ps. 45:3), will be left and abandoned like a desert, as the Lord says to the Apostles: Arise, let us go from here (John 14:31). There the calf, the Roman army, will graze, of which it is also said in another place under the name of boar: The boar from the forest will ravage it, and the singular wild beast has grazed on it (Ps. 80:14). And there he will lie down and consume its branches under the metaphor of a vine and its shoots, so that nothing green remains in it, nothing of the branches, but the enemy consumes everything. According to the Septuagint, because they did not receive a good shepherd: therefore they will be like a forsaken flock, and will be open to the bites of beasts; and nothing green will remain in them, because drought will possess everything.
27:11
(Verse 11) In the dryness of its harvest, women who come and teach her will be crushed. For the people are not wise; therefore, the one who made them will not show them mercy, and the one who formed them will not spare them. LXX: Women coming from the spectacle, come: for the people do not have understanding; therefore, the one who made them will not show them mercy, and the one who formed them will not spare them. This is what is said, 'In the dryness of its harvest, they will be crushed,' for which it is interpreted by the Seventy, there will be nothing green in it because it has withered, according to the Hebrew, it is joined to the following; according to the LXX, it is joined to the previous meaning. Let us therefore speak first according to the Hebrew. When the time of drought and harvest of Jerusalem comes, and to speak more clearly, the time of desolation will come, a multitude of synagogues from all over the world will come together to lament for Jerusalem and to console its evils. Whether he speaks openly about women, who, with their breasts exposed, strike their bleeding arms, and the prophecy of the Lord will be fulfilled: Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children (Luke 23:28). And a great unhappiness of the people is to learn the songs of lamentation from women; just as the people of Israel were rebuked when, in the book of Judges (Judges 4), the Lord brought salvation through the hand of the woman Deborah, and during the nearby captivity, when the men were silent, the woman Holda prophesied (2 Kings 22). Therefore, the women will be worn out by a long journey, weakened by frailty, hunger, and filth, and they will teach the pitiful people, because they are not a wise people, nor have they understood their Creator, who, neglected and despised by them, will not show mercy to their deeds, and will not spare his creation. According to the LXX, it is said of Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, and the other women, who first saw the Lord rising, and held his feet, and deserved to hear from him: Do not be afraid: Go, tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me (Matt. XXVIII, 10). Concerning these women, long before they were born, the prophetic word foretells and calls them from the sight of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection, to preach the Gospel and, according to the Hebrew, to teach Jerusalem or the land of Israel, that he is the Lord and God. For at that time the people of Israel did not have wisdom, when the Lord suffered, and the prophetic prophecy was fulfilled: Save me, O Lord, for the holy one has failed (Psalm 11:1). And: They have all gone astray, they have become useless together, there is no one who does good, not even one (Psalm 13:4), the women are called from the show, so that they may announce to the Apostles what they themselves saw. But Israel, of whom it was said (above, 1:3): Israel did not know me, and my people did not understand, provoked their most merciful Creator and Maker to bitterness, so that he would not show them any mercy. These things are indeed said piously; but how they agree with the others, and how they are adapted to the times of the consummation of the world, is a difficult interpretation.
27:12
(Verse 12) And it shall be on that day, the Lord shall strike from the channel of the river to the torrent of Egypt. LXX: And it shall be on that day, the Lord shall shut off from the channel of the river to Rhinocorura. If it had not joined together, on that day, through which we are taught, the things that are to be connected with the things that were said earlier, we could have explained it as the proper sense of this chapter; but now all things must be referred back to the earlier ones. For the fortified city shall be desolate, and the beautiful city shall be forsaken like a desert, and there the calf shall lie down, and it shall devour the branches of the vine, and all things shall become dry, because there is no people who have understanding, and because of their foolishness, they have not obtained any mercy from their Creator. Therefore, the Lord will strike or close off from the channel or stream of the river to the torrent of Egypt, so that in all of Judaea, which was once the promised land, no teaching may be found, no knowledge of the Scriptures, of which the Apostle speaks: In order that we may not pay attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth (Titus 1:14); and again: For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision (Ibid., 10). But the riverbed, or the stream of the river, next to the Euphrates, we can call it, as it is written in the seventy-first psalm: He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth (Psalm 71:8). Others think it is the Jordan. And it should be noted that in the borders of Judea, it is called a river; in the borders of Egypt, a torrent, which has turbid waters and is not permanent. Instead of the torrent of Egypt, the seventy translators translated it as Rhinocorura, which is a town on the border of Egypt and Palestine, expressing not so much the words of the Scriptures as the meaning of the words. But what we said, he will strike, for which the LXX translated συμφράξει as concludet: Aquila and Theodotion interpreted as ῥαβδήσει, which can be understood as either he will strike with a rod or he will count the number of his flock with a rod, so that it is not taken in a bad but in a good sense.
And you shall be gathered one by one, O sons of Israel. LXX: But you, gather together one by one, O sons of Israel. O sons of Israel, for whom Symmachus has interpreted, the house of Israel: striking your enemies from the river stream, even to the river of Egypt, that is, from the Euphrates to the Nile, you yourselves shall be gathered to the faith of the Lord one by one, because the crowd of Jews did not believe, by which it signifies that only a few of the Jews will believe in the Savior Lord. Certainly, O Apostles and apostolic men, when the multitude of Jews did not believe, you, from the whole world, whom you were able, bring back like sick sheep to the folds of the Lord, and gather them with the people of the nations, so that what the Apostle Paul and Barnabas speak to the Jews may be fulfilled: For it was necessary for the word of God to be announced to you first; but since you judged yourselves unworthy of salvation, behold, we turn to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46).
27:13
(Verse 13) And it shall be in that day: the great trumpet shall sound, and those who were lost from the land of Assyria and those who were cast out into the land of Egypt shall come, and they shall worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem. LXX: And it shall be in that day, a great trumpet shall sound; and those who perished in the region of Assyria and those who perished in Egypt shall come; and they shall worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem. In this place, the Jews make empty vows to themselves, that at the end of the world, when their Antichrist, as it is said, shall come, the dispersed people from Assyria and the land of Egypt shall gather together and come to Jerusalem, and having built the temple, worship the Lord their God. That which cannot stand completely according to the letter. For it does not only refer to the Assyrians and Egyptians, but to the whole world, which will believe in Christ. Therefore, this signifies that in the last trumpet, according to the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. XV), all those who perished in Assyria and Egypt will come to the Lord. He did not say all the children of Israel, but all those who perished, indicating the multitude of the Gentiles, who, bound by idolatry, magic, and the arts of philosophy, will come to the faith of Christ and worship Him in the Church. The great trumpet can be understood as the Gospel message, of which we also read in the same Prophet: Ascend to the high mountain, you who bring good news to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good news to Jerusalem (Isaiah 40:9). Therefore, that mountain is holy and that Jerusalem is the one of which we have often spoken: You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven (Hebrews 12:22). Up to this point, we have spoken about the end of the world starting from the place where we began: Behold, the Lord will scatter the earth and make it bare (Above, XXIV, 1), which is contained in the present volume. Now, with the help, or rather inspiration, of Christ, let us move on to the ninth, which will have the beginning of another prophecy.
Book Nine
Book Nine
Engaged with various difficulties, we dictate explanations on the prophet Isaiah at intervals. Therefore, having completed the eighth volume, we now transition to the ninth after a short period of time. Not without the bites and backbiting of the envious, who, ignorant of what they hear and speak, dare to pass judgment on what they do not know, and despise before they approve, considering themselves learned and eloquent if they criticize all the writers. Despising the envy and garrulous murmuring, let us implore the aid of God, and let us say with the imprecation of the Psalmist: Scatter the nations that desire war (Ps. LXVII, 32). For the dwelling place of the Lord is in peace, which surpasses all understanding. This is also desired by the Prophet when he cries out: O Lord our God, give us peace: for you have restored all things to us (Isa. XXVI, 12). But now let us propose the chapter of Isaiah, and let us enter with Moses into the cloud and darkness, so that our face may be glorified, and, according to the Hebrew, our face may be radiant: and may the thunders and lightnings be heard and shine forth, which the common people could not see (Exod. XIX).
28:1
(Chapter 28, Verse 1) Woe to the pride of Ephraim's crown, to the fading flower of its glorious splendor, which is at the head of the fertile valley of those who are overcome with wine. See, the Lord has one who is powerful and strong. Like a hailstorm and a destructive wind, like a driving rain and a flooding downpour, he will throw it forcefully to the ground. The proud crown of Ephraim's drunkards will be trampled underfoot. The fading flower of its glorious splendor, which is at the head of the fertile valley, will be like a fig before the fruit harvest, as soon as someone sees it and takes it in hand, they swallow it. LXX: Alas for the crown of the pride of Ephraim's hired mercenaries, the flower that falls from the glory atop the fat mountain, those who are drunk but not with wine. Behold, the strong and fierce anger of the Lord, like hail that falls forcefully, without shelter, which violently falls like a multitude of waters drawing the ground, and making space for itself: the crown of the pride of Ephraim's hired mercenaries will be trampled by hands and feet. And there will be a flower that falls from the hope of glory on the summit of the high mountain, like an early fig, which anyone who sees it before it is ripe will desire to devour it. Let us first speak according to history, then according to allegory, and finally according to prophetical vision. The divine discourse speaks against the ten tribes that were reigning in Samaria, and because of Jeroboam, who was from the tribe of Ephraim, they were called Ephraim. And he calls them the crown of pride: because compared to the two tribes, which were called Judah, they were higher in number and strength. And he says that Ephraim has made them drunk, who do not understand their Creator, but worship golden calves as their Lord in Dan and Bethel. These were once in their prime, lords and in glory, when they were ruled by David and Solomon, and they were worshiping God in the temple of Jerusalem in the twelve tribes, which were in the summit of the fattest valley, which in Hebrew is called Ge Semanim (). It signifies the place where the Lord was delivered; on top of which valley the temple of the Lord was situated. These were intoxicated by the wine of error and madness, which Jeroboam mixed for them. Therefore, the Lord threatens punishment against them, because just as a hailstorm shatters everything in its path, and the force of overwhelming waters sweeps away anything in its way, so may the Assyrian army be destroyed, and whatever remains may be transported to the mountains or cities of Media. He compares the glory of the ten tribes to a crown of various flowers, which had such beauty that just as someone, before the arrival of summer and autumn, sees a precursor fig on a tree and immediately eats it as soon as they hold it in their hand, so may the Assyrians see the ten tribes, destroy and devour them, leaving nothing of the former people in Samaria. Let this be briefly said according to history. Let's move on to the allegory. According to the exposition of the prophet Hosea, in which Ephraim and Joseph and Samaria and the ten tribes, which were separated from the body of the twelve tribes, and the temple of the Lord, we refer to the heretics, who are truly, according to the Septuagint edition, a crown of injustice, blaspheming the Lord, and doing everything for the sake of profit, and falling from the glory of the Lord: they do not follow the meagerness of manna, and the ecclesiastical humility; but they wallow on a fattened mountain, drunk without wine. Therefore, the strong and fierce wrath of the Lord, who is going to punish them, is compared to a swift hailstorm that falls not on roofs, but on the heads of mortals, and to the flooding of many waters, which drags whatever it finds in its path. This is the crown of injustice, they are called mercenaries Ephraim, who, according to the Apostle, have fallen from the flower and hope and glory of their former faith, and are involved in pride, and they are the sweetest food of the devil, who devours them daily (1 Peter 5). According to the prophecy, we can say that the crown of injustice called the Scribes and Pharisees, who blasphemed the Lord. And they were called the hirelings of Ephraim, because of Judas, who from the tribe of Ephraim and from the village of the same tribe, Iscariot, sold the Lord for a price, who truly fell as the flower of apostolic glory upon the most fertile mountain, of which we believe it is said: Jacob ate and drank, and he was satisfied and fattened, and the beloved rebelled (Deut. XXXII, 15). Or according to the Hebrew: above the valley of fatness, that is, Gethsemane: in which also the name of the place is signified, where Judas betrayed the Lord. But the valley of fatness, or of the fat ones, is said because of its fertility, and the Scribes and Pharisees who apprehended the Lord there: of whom it is written in the psalm: Fat bulls have besieged me (Ps. 21:13). This valley of fatness, that is, Gethsemane, is called in this second chapter; and I wonder how the LXX first called it a fat mountain, and later an exalted mountain. But the traitor was drunk not with wine, but with greed and the incurable madness of asps, and the food of the devil, which entered into him after the morsel (John 13), and he was entirely consumed, for his prayer was turned into sin, and even his repentance did not have the fruit of salvation. The Hebrew word Sacchore is ambiguous, and it can mean either drunkards or mercenaries. Hence, Issachar is also interpreted as being wages: and Sachar, μέθυσμα, that is, drunkenness: and the others are drunkards: only the Septuagint translated it as mercenaries.
28:5-9
(Verse 5 and following) On that day, the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory and a diadem of rejoicing to the remnant of his people, and a spirit of judgment to the one who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. But these also reel because of wine and stagger because of strong drink: priest and prophet reel because of strong drink, they are swallowed up by wine, they stagger because of strong drink; they reel while having visions, they totter when rendering judgment. For all the tables were filled with vomit and filth, so that there was no longer any place. LXX: On that day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people. They shall put away in the spirit of judgment all wickedness and forbid every deed of violence. For they are deceived by wine, they stagger because of strong drink; priest and prophet reel with strong drink, they are confused with wine, they stagger because of strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in giving judgment. All tables are covered with filthy vomit. No place is clean. After the entire land of Samaria, that is, the ten tribes, was destroyed by the flooding Assyrians and trampled underfoot, the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and devoured like a temporary fig tree, then the remaining people of Israel, that is, the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, will be the crown of victory; and the spirit of judgment will be upon the king who sits in judgment, undoubtedly King Hezekiah of Judah; and their strength, who have avenged all the populated regions and returned from battle, will be their protection within the city. The prophet speaks about what we are going to read in the same passage (below chapter 37), when 185,000 armed soldiers from the Assyrian army were destroyed by an angel striking them. But these people too, that is, Judah and Benjamin, were intoxicated with the wine of idolatry, and having despised the religion of the temple, they worshipped the idols of demons and did not recognize the Lord who sees everything. For all their tables and their whole religion were filled with vomit and filth, so that not only in the temple, but on the top of mountains and in wooded places, they filled everything with the filth of idolatry, and the Lord did not have a place of dwelling in them. Let this be said according to the letter. Furthermore, according to tropology, let us follow the previous understanding and not leave aside the untouched Seventy Interpreters. For the heretics, devoured by the mouth of the devil, who have climbed the mountain of pride, the Lord will be the crown of glory; but for those who dwell in the Church, and compared to the multitude of many wanderers, they are few in number. However, there will be a spirit of judgment over judgment: for the Lord will cleanse the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion with the spirit of judgment. But if anyone has blood, he will be cleansed not by the breath of judgment, but by the fire of purification, and he will be a strength to the people and will prevent them from being killed by those who are intoxicated with the wine of dragons and have gone astray because of their drunkenness. We have often said that wine is made from grapes. But drunkenness refers to any drink that can intoxicate and disturb the mind, which Aquila properly translated as ebriety, whether it is made from wheat, barley, millet, the juice of fruits, the fruit of palm trees, or any other kind. Therefore, the priests and prophets of the heretics lost their minds because of wine, and they were consumed because of alcohol, like Prisca and Maximilla, and their leader Montanus; and they did not know what to say. They are intoxicated by wine when they wrongly understand and distort the holy Scriptures. They are consumed by alcohol when they misuse worldly wisdom and the snares of dialecticians, which should be called not so much chains as phantasms, that is, certain shadows and images that quickly perish and dissolve. Those who believe that profit is piety and do everything out of greed will be cursed. The Apostle spoke about this phantasm, saying: 'Giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy' (I Tim. IV, 1, 2). The third explanation is that after the Lord destroyed the Scribes and the Pharisees and their companion Judas, who was a thief from the beginning, he personally carried the money of the poor in a small wallet (John XII and XIII): then there is hope and a crown of glory for those who believe in the Lord from among the Jews, undoubtedly signifying the apostles, whom he has reserved for the preaching of the Gospel and has not immediately allowed to shed their blood for Christ. For all the scribes and Pharisees, as we have said above, were drunk with wine and cider, both the priests and the false prophets. But their schemes and traps were in vain, for even Judas himself, who betrayed [Jesus], did it for the sake of money, and the priests who corrupted the betrayer with money did it out of fear of their own lowly status. For he himself, making a whip out of cords, cast out of the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep, and overturned the tables of the money changers, saying to them: It is written, 'My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a den of thieves (Matthew 21:13). According to that Hebrew interpretation, in which we have said: For all their tables are filled with vomit and filth, so that there is no more room for heretics, scribes, and Pharisees, it can be understood that we say all their doctrine and all their mysteries are filled with vomit and filth, since they do not digest the food of the holy Scriptures, nor do they make it vital for the whole body; but they bring forth unripe and fetid things, so that God finds no place in them. But I wonder what Theodotion meant when he rendered the Hebrew word, Cisoa, which Aquila interpreted as 'vomit of filth,' and Symmachus only as 'vomit.' He said, 'vomit of dysalia,' which word I cannot find in Greek literature, unless he has invented a new term for a new thing. For it is also compounded in the Hebrew language, because vomit is called CI and Soa is filthy (also rendered as filth). Therefore, whatever causes nausea and vomiting can be called δυσαλία.
28:10-13