Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
Parables and Similitudes Collected from Isaias
I. Chap. i, ver. 3. “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel hath not known me:” more ungrateful and stupid, therefore, than the ox or the ass.
II. Ver. 5. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad. From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head there is no soundness therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores,” as if to say: The whole commonwealth of the Jews, and their whole body politic, princes and priests as well as laity, are corrupted by crimes, wounded and festering.
III. Ver. 8. “And the daughter of Sion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,” as if to say: Jerusalem will be desolated, and become like a vineyard or garden, deserted and squalid after the grapes and fruits are gathered.
IV. Ver. 9. “Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrha.” The seed means the few left from the destruction, whom God preserved as seed and offspring of the nation. For unless God had willed to preserve the nation, all the Jews would have perished, as all the Sodomites and Gomorrhites perished.
V. Ver. 10. “Hear the word of the Lord, ye princes of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrha,” as if to say: Judea was equal to Sodom and Gomorrha in impiety; it would therefore have been equal also in punishment and destruction, had not God preserved the seed of the nation, on account of Christ who was to be born of it, according to the promises made to David and Abraham.
VI. Ver. 18. “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be as white as wool,” as if to say: If you repent and change your ways, I will cleanse your conscience, wounded and bloodstained with so many crimes, so that it becomes pure and white as snow, and white wool.
VII. Ver. 21. “How is the faithful city, become a harlot?” as if to say: How is Jerusalem, once the faithful spouse of God, now like a harlot committing fornication with idols?
VIII. Ver. 29. “For they shall be confounded for the idols to which they have sacrificed, and you shall be ashamed of the gardens which you have chosen, when you shall be as an oak with the leaves falling off, and as a garden without water,” as if to say: In gardens under the oaks you have raised altars, and sacrificed to idols: therefore you shall be made desolate like an oak in winter, when the leaves fall; and like a garden withering in summer from drought, for lack of water.
IX. Ver. 31. “And your strength shall be as the ashes of tow, and your work as a spark: and both shall burn together, and there shall be none to quench it,” as if to say: I will destroy your idols, which you think most strong and invincible, and your works and wealth, and burn them like tow, which is consumed by a slight flame.
X. Chap. v, ver. 28. “The hoofs of his horses (Nabuchodonosor’s will be strong and hard) shall be like the flint, and his wheels like a tempest. His roaring like that of a lion, etc. We shall look to the earth, and behold darkness of tribulation, and the light is darkened in the mist thereof.” These parables are clear.
… after the preaching of the Gospel, of grace and salvation) before thee, as they that rejoice in the harvest, as conquerors rejoice after taking a prey, when they divide the spoils. For the yoke of his burden, and the rod of his shoulder, and the sceptre of his oppressor thou hast overcome, as in the day of Madian,” as if to say: As once in the day of the conflict with the Madianites, thou, O Lord, by Gedeon didst overcome and rout them, and so didst take their yoke, rod and sceptre from the necks of the Jews: so in the day on which the true Gedeon, that is the destroyer of iniquity and sin, namely Christ, shall do battle with the demons, with the princes, with the Jews and the impious Gentiles, thou, O Lord, shalt be with Christ, to rout these his enemies and ours, and to shake off from the necks of the faithful the yoke and sceptre of them, as of exactors and tyrants.
XII. Ver. 18. “Wickedness is kindled as a fire, it shall devour the brier and the thorn, and shall be kindled in the thicket of the forest, and shall be folded together in the ascending of smoke,” as if to say: As a fire kindled in a forest first seizes on briers and thorns, then feeds upon the whole forest, so that the whole thickness of the wood is wrapped up in the pride, that is in the loftiness and height of the smoke: so wickedness has gradually pervaded the people, so as to involve all Israel, and accordingly its punishment too will involve the same.
XIII. Chap. x, ver. 14. “And my hand hath found the strength of the people as a nest: and as eggs are gathered that are left, so have I gathered all the earth: and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, etc.” Sennacherib took nations and kingdoms as easily as a fowler takes the eggs and young of a bird in the nest, which the bird itself dares not scream at or rather chatter at. But God checks this arrogance of the barbarian king, saying:
XIV. Ver. 15. “Shall the axe boast itself against him that cutteth with it? or shall the saw exalt itself against him by whom it is drawn? as if a rod should lift itself up against him that lifteth it up, and a staff exalt itself, which is but wood.” So thou also, O Sennacherib, must not glory, nor take from me and ascribe to thyself so many victories and destructions of nations: for thou wast only an axe, and as it were a saw, with which I cut and sawed the nations like wood; and like a staff and rod, with which I scourged them.
XV. Ver. 16. “Therefore the sovereign Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall send leanness among his fat ones: and under his glory shall be kindled a burning, as the burning of a fire. And the light of Israel shall be as a fire, and the Holy One thereof as a flame: and his thorns and his briers shall be set on fire and shall be devoured in one day,” as if to say: God will smite Sennacherib’s soldiers with heat and pestilence, which will parch and burn them as fire is wont to blast and burn thorns and briers in a forest.
XVI. Chap. xiv, ver. 4 and 8. “How is the oppressor come to nothing (the king of Babylon), the tribute hath ceased? The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers. The fir trees also rejoiced over thee, and the cedars of Libanus: Since thou hast slept, there is none come up to cut us down. Hell below was in an uproar to meet thee at thy coming, it stirred up the giants for thee. All the princes of the earth are risen up from their thrones: and they shall say to thee: Thou also art wounded as well as we, thou art become like unto us. Thy pride is brought down to hell, thy carcass is fallen down.” He figuratively introduces here kings and princes in hell, receiving and mocking the slain king of Babylon.
XVII. Chap. xvi, ver. 2. “And it shall be that as a bird fleeing away, and as young ones flying out of the nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be at the passage of Arnon.” The sense is clear.
XVIII. Ver. 8. “The vineyard of Sabama the lords of the nations have destroyed, its branches (so the shoots of the vine are called) reached even to Jazer: they wandered in the desert, its branches are left, they have passed over the sea,” as if to say: The people of Moab, laid waste by the Chaldeans, will be led captive by them across the waters to Babylon.
XIX. Chap. xvii, ver. 6. “And there shall be left in it (in Israel) as a cluster of grapes, and as the shaking of the olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the bough,” as if to say: In the destruction of Samaria and the ten tribes, so few Israelites will be left, as few clusters are left in a vineyard after the vintage, and as few olives are left on the olive tree when it is shaken. So allegorically many are called, few chosen and to be saved.
XX. Chap. xviii, ver. 4. “I will rest and consider in my place, as the noonday light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest,” as if to say: I, God, will clearly behold, as in the light of noonday, the slaughter of the Egyptians: and I shall be serene in peace and refreshment, while the sun and the heat of destruction burn them.