Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
XLV. Ver. 20. “And the Lord shall give you bread in short measure, and water in distress,” that is, scant and small, as if to say: He will afflict you with hunger and thirst. For the bread of straitness, or of anguish and distress; and water of tribulation, as others render it, that is, sparing and foul, is the food and drink of those who are shut up in prison, and there pine and are chastised.
XLVI. Ver. 21. “Thy ears shall hear the word (of God, like a schoolmaster) of one admonishing behind thy back: This is the way, walk ye in it.”
XLVII. Ver. 26. “And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.” Namely, after the day of judgment and the renewal of the world.
XLVIII. Chap. xxxi, ver. 3. “Egypt is man, and not God: and their horses flesh, and not spirit,” as if to say: Vain therefore and frail is your hope, O Jews, and your refuge in the Egyptians.” XLIX. Chap. xxxii, ver. 6. “The fool will speak foolish things.” L. Ver. 7. “The vessels of the deceitful are most wicked.” LI. Ver. 8. “The prince shall think of such things as are worthy of a prince.”
LII. Chap. xxxiii, ver. 1. “Woe to thee that spoilest, shalt not thou thyself also be spoiled? and thou that despisest, shalt not thou thyself also be despised? when thou shalt have made an end of spoiling, thou shalt be spoiled: when being weary thou shalt cease to despise, thou shalt be despised.”
LIII. Ver. 6. “And there shall be faith in thy times: wisdom and knowledge are the riches of salvation: the fear of the Lord is his treasure,” as if to say: In the time of the Messias God will faithfully give the goods which he promised through him, namely spiritual riches, wisdom and the knowledge of salvation, and the fear of the Lord.
LIV. Ver. 11. “You shall conceive heat, you shall bring forth stubble: your breath as a fire shall devour you,” as if to say: Vain shall be your hopes and your endeavors, by your own vain spirit and effort you shall perish, and be burnt like gathered thorns turned into ashes.
LV. Ver. 14. “Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” This adage is all too clear to the damned, and to voluptuaries soon to be damned will be all too clear.
LVI. Chap. xxxvi, ver. 6. “Behold thou trustest in this broken staff of reed, that is, in Egypt: upon which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharao king of Egypt to all that trust in him.”
LVII. Ver. 12. “My master hath sent me, to speak, etc., to the men that sit on the wall, that for hunger “they may eat their own dung, and” for thirst “drink their urine.”
LVIII. Chap. xxxvii, ver. 3. “The children are come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth,” as if to say: We labor and are in travail with war against Sennacherib; but we cannot bring it forth and finish it.
LIX. Ver. 26. “And it is come to pass that fortified cities of warring hills should be rooted out,” as if to say: God by his just judgment permitted and brought it about that hills, that is princes, who before fought among themselves, should be rooted out, and many fortified cities cut off.
LX. Ver. 29. “I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy lips, and I will bring thee back by the way by which thou camest,” as if to say: I, God, will turn thee about, O Sennacherib, like an ox with a ring driven into his nostrils, and like a horse with a bit in his mouth, and force thee to return into Assyria. “The zeal of the Lord of hosts” toward his people, to save them, “shall do this.”
LXI. Chap. xxxviii, ver. 1. “Take order with thy house (O king Ezechias), for thou shalt die, and not live.”
LXII. Ver. 17. “Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter,” as if to say: I, Ezechias, sick in the flower of my age and kingdom, suffer most bitter things.
LXIII. Ver. 18. “For hell shall not confess to thee, neither shall death praise thee: they that go down into the pit shall not look for thy truth,” as if to say: Not the dead but the living look for it, that thou mayest be present with me and my parent David, with the promised Messias, and cause him to be born of my seed, that so we may publicly praise thy fidelity and mercy.
LXIV. Chap. xxxix, ver. 8. “The word of the Lord is good which he hath spoken,” concerning the plundering of my treasures; “only let peace and truth be in my days,” as if to say: I ask only that I may live unharmed, which God promised me; after I am dead, let God send this slaughter and plunder.
LXV. Chap. xl, ver. 2. “Speak ye to the heart (that is, comfort) of Jerusalem, and call to her: that her evil (that is, her misery and affliction) is come to an end: she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.”
LXVI. Chap. xli, ver. 23. “Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that you are gods:” For divination is the testimony of divinity, says Tertullian.
LXVII. Ver. 24. “Behold you,” O idols, O gods of the Gentiles, “are of nothing, and your work is of that which hath no being: he is an abomination that hath chosen you.”
LXVIII. Chap. xlii, ver. 8. “I am the Lord, this is my name: I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven things.”
LXIX. Ver. 18. “Hear, ye deaf, and ye blind, behold that you may see. Who is blind but my servant? and deaf, but he to whom I sent my messengers? Who is blind but he that is sold? and who is blind but the servant of the Lord? Thou that seest many things, wilt thou not observe? thou that hast ears open, wilt thou not hear?”
LXX. Chap. xlii, ver. 22. “But this is a people robbed and wasted, they are all the snare of young men,” as if to say: Israel, so beloved by God, on account of its sins made itself a prey both to demons and to the Romans; hence it fell into the snare of the strongest young men, and is kept in prison.
Ver. 24. “Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Did not the Lord himself, against whom we have sinned?”
LXXI. Chap. xliii, ver. 24. “Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thy iniquities.” The sinner as it were compels God to serve, that is, to yield, and by his general concurrence to cooperate with his lusts and sins. Again, God labors, and as it were serves, in so many and great sins of men, both in bearing with them and in correcting them. For many by their sins daily weary the patience of God.
LXXII. Chap. xlv, ver. 9. “Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it: What art thou making, and thy work is without hands? Woe to him that saith to his father: Why begettest thou? and to the woman: Why dost thou bring forth?” as if to say: So neither ought men to cry out against God, or murmur, on account of the lot he has given them, though it be mean, poor and wretched. For he is our father and mother: he the potter, we the clay.
LXXIII. Ver. 15. “Verily thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel the Saviour.”
LXXIV. Ver. 24. “Every knee shall be bowed to me, and every tongue shall swear (that is, worship me).”
Ver. 26. “In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and praised.”