Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
XLIV. Ver. 27. “Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel: My way is hidden from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, who hath created the ends of the earth: he shall not faint, nor labour, neither is there any searching out of his wisdom.”
XLV. Ver. 29. “Who giveth strength to the weary, and increaseth force and might to them that are not,”
XLVI. Ver. 30 and 31. “Youths shall faint, and labour, and young men shall fall by infirmity: but they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
“… worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have helped thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel.” He compares the abject Israelites to a worm and to the dead. “I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, having sharp teeth like a saw: thou shalt thrash the mountains, and break them in pieces, and shalt make the hills as chaff: thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel thou shalt be joyful.” He compares Israel, helped and strengthened by God, to wains that thrash the crops, and to wains that, armed with toothed saws, cut whatever they meet.
XLVIII. Chap. xliii, ver. 2. “When thou shalt pass through the waters, I will be with thee, and the rivers shall not cover thee: when thou shalt walk in the fire, thou shalt not be burnt, and the flame shall not burn in thee,” as if to say: In the midst of dangers, straits and torments I will be with thee, and defend and protect thee. “I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a mist.” For as clouds and mists are so dispersed, blotted out and vanish before the sun that no trace of them remains, so God, in forgiving sins, plainly blots out and abolishes them, so that nothing of them is left.
XLIX. Chap. xlvi, ver. 3. “Hearken to me, O house of Jacob, etc., who are carried by my bowels, are borne up by my womb,” as if to say: Whom, like a mother, I bring forth, form, bring up and cherish. “Even to your old age I am the same, and to your grey hairs I will carry you,” as if to say: From the womb to the last of life I guard, rule and care for you.
L. Chap. xlviii, ver. 18. “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments, thy peace had been as a river (abundant and overflowing), and thy justice (great) as the waves of the sea, and thy seed had been as the sand, and the stock of thy bowels like the small stones thereof, it had not perished.”
LI. Chap. xlix, ver. 15. “Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold I have graven thee in my hands. And thou shalt say in thy heart: Who hath begotten these? I was barren and brought not forth.” He compares the Church of the Gentiles to a woman first barren, afterwards fruitful.
LII. Ver. 22. “And they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and carry thy daughters upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nurses: they shall worship thee with their face toward the ground, and they shall lick up the dust of thy feet.” To the same Church God promises things so fortunate and august.
LIII. Chap. l, ver. 9. “Behold they shall all be destroyed as a garment, the moth shall eat them up.” He asserts that the enemies of Christ will be destroyed as a garment is worn out and eaten by the moth.
LIV. Chap. li, ver. 3. “The Lord therefore will comfort Sion, and will comfort all the ruins thereof: and he will make her desert as a place of pleasure, and her wilderness as the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of praise.” He compares the glory and delights of the Church to the earthly paradise.
LV. Ver. 6. “The heavens shall vanish like smoke, and the earth shall be worn away like a garment, and the inhabitants thereof shall perish in like manner,” by the fire of the conflagration at the end of the world: “but my salvation shall be for ever, and my justice shall not fail.”
LVI. Ver. 8. “For the worm shall eat them (men) up as a garment: and the moth shall consume them as wool: but my salvation shall be for ever.”
LVII. Ver. 12. “I, I myself will comfort you: who art thou that thou shouldst be afraid of a mortal man, and of the son of man who shall wither away like grass?”
LVIII. Chap. liii, ver. 6. “All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth. He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth.” He compares Christ suffering to a lamb, and to a sheep led to the slaughter.
LIX. Chap. liv, ver. 9. “This thing is to me as in the days of Noe, to whom I swore that I would no more bring in the waters of Noe upon the earth: so have I sworn not to be angry with thee (O Church), and not to rebuke thee. For the mountains shall be moved, and the hills shall tremble: but my mercy shall not depart from thee,” as if to say: As I made an eternal covenant with Noe, forbidding a flood thereafter, so with thee, O Church, a new eternal covenant, that I will never forsake thee, nor suffer thee to be overwhelmed by enemies.
LX. Chap. lv, ver. 9. “For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.”
LXI. “And as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth, etc.: so shall my word be, etc., it shall not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please.”
LXII. Chap. lix, ver. 9. “We have looked for light, and behold darkness.” Light means prosperity, darkness adversity. “We have groped for the wall like the blind, and as if we had no eyes we have groped: we have stumbled at noonday as in darkness, we are in dark places as dead men.” LXIII. “We shall all roar like bears, and mourn as doves meditating.”
LXIV. Chap. lxii, ver. 1. “For Sion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,” from praying and beseeching God, “till her just one come forth as brightness, and her saviour be lighted as a lamp.” The brightness and lamp of Sion, that is of the Church, is the Saviour Jesus: for his rising and coming, then, Isaias the Prophet prayed continually.
LXV. Chap. lxvi, ver. 3. “He that sacrificeth an ox is as if he slew a man: he that killeth a sheep in sacrifice, as if he should brain a dog: he that offereth an oblation, as if he should offer swine’s blood: he that remembereth frankincense, as if he blessed an idol.” God compares the victims of the impious Jews to the slaughter of a man, a dog and a swine, nay to things offered to idols.
LXVI. Ver. 15. “Behold the Lord will come with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind, to render his wrath in indignation, and his rebuke with flames of fire,” especially of the conflagration of the world: for when Christ comes to judgment, fire shall go before him, and shall burn his enemies round about. Hence follows:
LXVII. Ver. 18. “But I know their works and their thoughts,” supply, I will sharply punish.
For I come to gather together their works, and the doers of them, with all nations and tongues: and they shall come, and shall see my glory,” namely my demanding and severe justice and vengeance against the wicked on the day of judgment.
LXVIII. Ver. 19. “And I will set a sign among them,” both the sign of the cross, and the signs of the Holy Spirit with which the Apostles were marked at Pentecost. “And I will send of them that shall be saved to the Gentiles.”
LXIX. Ver. 20. “And they shall bring all your brethren out of all nations for a gift to the Lord, … The Gentiles will come to the Church as easily, joyfully and readily as if they were borne on horses and litters. Add that the Gospel is the vehicle in which Christ carries us to heaven.
LXX. Ver. 22. “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make to stand before me, saith the Lord: so shall your seed stand, and your name.”
It signifies both the renewal and the perpetuity of the Church through Christ.