Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary: Isaias
Chapter 26
Ver. 1. Day. Under the law of grace, Christians sing this and such like canticles. (Worthington) --- Sion. This word is not in Hebrew, &c., though it be understood. (Calmet) --- Other nations have their respective cities. All Christians admit this one. (Worthington) --- The captives continue to return thanks. Yet the Holy Ghost speaks chiefly of the Church, and of the general resurrection. (Calmet) --- Bulwark. Faith and good works. (Worthington)
Ver. 2. Truth. The Jews who returned from Babylon, were more virtuous than their ancestors, as the prophets intimate; though they have Christians principally in view.
Ver. 3. Away: condemning the virtuous, as if they were fools. (Menochius) --- Symmachus, "our work, or fiction, is taken away." Hebrew may have other meanings. (Haydock)
Ver. 4. You, people of Juda.
Ver. 5. High: Nabuchodonosor and his empire.
Ver. 6. Needy. The Jews shall behold the ruin of the city by Cyrus, (Calmet) who was of a contemptible nation. (Haydock)
Ver. 7. In. God will remove every obstacle, at their return.
Ver. 9. Night of distress.
Ver. 10. Justice. Clemency would therefore be ill placed. If the Israelites had not been led away captives, would they ever have been reformed?
Ver. 11. Not see. Let them perish, or live to witness the glory of the Jews.
Ver. 12. Works, both in punishing and rewarding. (Calmet) --- God crowns his own gifts. (Estius)
Ver. 13. Lords of Babylon, (Calmet) and our own passions. (Haydock)
Ver. 14. Giants; the proud emperors of Babylon, whom thou wilt destroy. Septuagint, "physicians;" as Rephaim has also this meaning.
Ver. 15. Nation of the Jews. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "add evils to them, O Lord; add evils to the nobles of the land." (Haydock) --- Hebrew may have the same sense. --- Ends: princes, or the Chaldeans, sending them also into captivity; or thou hast propagated thy Church over the world.
Ver. 16. They. Septuagint, "We," &c. (Calmet) --- Affliction is a wholesome medicine. (Haydock)
Ver. 18. Wind. Our expectation of aid from others has been disappointed. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "the spirit of thy salvation, which thou hast wrought on the earth. We shall not fall, but the inhabitants of the earth shall fall." (Haydock) --- Their copies must have been different from ours. --- Fallen. The Chanaanites are left for our trial and punishment. (Calmet)
Ver. 19. Dead: a civil death, shall regain their liberty; and those who have left this world in a state of virtue, shall be happy. --- Ruin. Cyrus liberated the Jews, having conquered Babylon.
Ver. 20. Away, and Cambyses be destroyed, Ezechiel xxxviii. 11. (Calmet)
Ver. 21. Shall cover her stain no more. This is said with relation to the martyrs, and their happy resurrection. (Challoner) --- The blood of the saints shall demand vengeance. (Calmet)
Bible Text & Cross-references:
A canticle of thanks for the deliverance of God's people.
1 In that day shall this canticle be sung the land of Juda. Sion, the city of our strength, a Saviour, a wall, and a bulwark, shall be set therein.
2 Open ye the gates, and let the just nation, that keepeth the truth, enter in.
3 The old error is passed away: thou wilt keep peace: peace, because we have hoped in thee.
4 You have hoped in the Lord for evermore, in the Lord God, mighty for ever.
5 For he shall bring down them that dwell on high; the high city he shall lay low. He shall bring it down even to the ground; he shall pull it down even to the dust.
6 The foot shall tread it down; the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.
7 The way of the just is right; the path of the just is right to walk in.
8 And in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, we have patiently waited for thee: thy name, and thy remembrance are the desire of the soul.
9 My soul hath desired thee in the night: yea, and with my spirit within me, in the morning early, I will watch to thee. When thou shalt do thy judgments on the earth, the inhabitants of the world shall learn justice.
10 Let us have pity on the wicked; but he will not learn justice: in the land of the saints he hath done wicked things, and he shall not see the glory of the Lord.
11 Lord, let thy hand be exalted, and let them not see: let the envious people see, and be confounded: and let fire devour thy enemies.
12 Lord, thou wilt give us peace: for thou hast wrought all our works for us.
13 O Lord, our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us, only in thee let us remember thy name.
14 Let not the dead live, let not the giants rise again: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and hast destroyed all their memory.
15 Thou hast been favourable to the nation, O Lord, thou hast been favourable to the nation: art thou glorified? thou hast removed all the ends of the earth far off.
16 Lord, they have sought after thee in distress; in the tribulation of murmuring thy instruction was with them.
17 As a woman with child, when she draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs, so are we become in thy presence, O Lord.
18 We have conceived, and been as it were in labour, and have brought forth wind: we have not wrought salvation on the earth, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen.
19 Thy dead men shall live, my slain shall rise again: awake, and give praise, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is the dew of the light: and the land of the giants thou shalt pull down into ruin.
20 Go, my people, enter into thy chambers, shut thy doors upon thee, hide thyself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away.
21 *For behold the Lord will come out of his place, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him: and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall cover her slain no more.
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*
21: Micheas i. 3.
Chapter 27
Ver. 1. Hard. Septuagint, "holy." (Calmet) --- Leviathan. That is, the devil, the great enemy of the people of God. He is called the bar serpent from his strength, and the crooked serpent from his wiles, and the whale of the sea, from the tyranny he exercises in the sea of this world. He was spiritually slain by the death of Christ, when his power was destroyed. (Challoner) --- It may also literally refer to Nabuchodonosor, and the king of Egypt, or rather to Cambyses, or Holofernes, but particularly Cambyses. (Calmet)
Ver. 2. Vineyard; the Church of Christ, (Challoner) or Judea. It may be the beginning of a noted song. (Calmet)
Ver. 3. Drink; or, as the Hebrew may also be rendered, I will continually water it. (Challoner) --- God will protect his people. (Calmet)
Ver. 4. In me, against the Church; nor shall I become as a thorn or brier in its regard; or march against it, or set it on fire: but it shall always take fast hold of me, and keep an everlasting peace with me. (Challoner) --- God rather speaks of the enemy. If he attempt to lay waste this vineyard, I will chastise him. (Calmet)
Ver. 6. Rush in. Some understand this of the enemies of the true Israel, that shall invade it in vain. Others of the spiritual invasion made by the apostles of Christ. (Challoner) --- Protestants, "He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root." Septuagint, "those who come are children of Jacob." (Haydock)
Ver. 7. Struck. Hath God punished the carnal persecuting Jews, in proportion to their doings against Christ and his saints? (Challoner) --- God punished Israel as a father: but he will destroy the Chaldeans, &c. (Calmet)
Ver. 8. Cast off. When the synagogue shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it in measure, and in proportion to its crimes. (Challoner) --- The Israelites have been rigorously punished. (Calmet) --- He, &c. God hath designed severe punishments in the day of his wrath. (Challoner)
Ver. 9. Jacob; viz., of such of them as shall be converted. (Challoner) --- Altar, dedicated to idols: then he shall obtain pardon. (Calmet)
Ver. 10. City. Jerusalem, (Challoner) or more probably Babylon, of which he is going to speak.
Ver. 11. Women. The princes shall be weak and irresolute. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "Hither, ye women, coming from the shew. For it is not an intelligent people."
Ver. 12. River Euphrates, even to the Nile. (Haydock) --- Nabuchodonosor laid waste all the intermediate countries. Afterwards Cyrus gave the people liberty. On the death of Cambyses, the nations were in consternation; and it was only during the peaceable reign of Darius that Israel returned, though not in a body, as the Jews had done twenty years before, chap. xxvi. (Calmet) --- By one, into the Church of Christ, John xi. (Menochius)
Ver. 13. Trumpet. The preaching of the Gospel for the conversion of the Jews. (Challoner)
Bible Text & Cross-references:
The punishment of the oppressors of God's people. The Lord's favour to his Church.
1 In that day the Lord, with his hard, and great, and strong sword, shall visit Leviathan, the bar serpent, and Leviathan, the crooked serpent, and shall slay the whale that is in the sea.
2 In that day there shall be singing to the vineyard of pure wine.
3 I am the Lord that keep it, I will suddenly give it drink: lest any hurt come to it, I keep it night and day.
4 There is no indignation in me: who shall make me a thorn and a brier in battle: shall I march against it, shall I set it on fire together.
5 Or rather, shall it take hold of my strength, shall it make peace with me, shall it make peace with me?
6 When they shall rush in unto Jacob, Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with seed.
7 Hath he struck him according to the stroke of him that struck him? or is he slain, as he killed them that were slain by him?
8 In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it. He hath meditated with his severe spirit in the day of heat.
9 Therefore upon this shall the iniquity of the house of Jacob be forgiven; and this is all the fruit, that the sin thereof should be taken away, when he shall have made all the stones of the altar, as burnt stones broken in pieces, the groves and temples shall not stand.
10 For the strong city shall be desolate, the beautiful city shall be forsaken, and shall be left as a wilderness: there the calf shall feed, and there shall he lie down, and shall consume its branches.
11 Its harvest shall be destroyed with drought, women shall come and teach it; for it is not a wise people, therefore he that made it, shall not have mercy on it: and he that formed it, shall not spare it.
12 And it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord will strike from the channel of the river even to the torrent of Egypt, and you shall be gathered together one by one, O ye children of Israel.
13 And it shall come to pass, that in that day a noise shall be made with a great trumpet, and they that were lost shall come from the land of the Assyrians, and they that were outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall adore the Lord in the holy mount in Jerusalem.