Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
XIX. Ver. 11. “He calleth to me from Seir: Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said: The morning cometh, and also the night: if you seek, seek, return, come,” as if to say: I, Isaias, seem to hear the Idumeans, fearful at the coming of the Chaldeans, saying to the watchman: O watchman, what hast thou seen, what hast thou perceived in the night of the Chaldeans? To whom he replies: The dawn is at hand, and yet it is still night; wherefore if you wish to run out anywhere, if to seek anything abroad, make haste, and seek, and soon return into the city, before the enemy awakening perceive it and cut off your return.
XX. Ver. 16. “Yet a year, as the years of a hireling, and all the glory of Cedar shall be taken away.” See what is said above, chap. xvi, ver. 14.
XXI. Chap. xxii, ver. 1. “The burden of the valley of vision.” Jerusalem is called the valley of vision, that is of Prophecy: for it was the seat of the Prophets. He alludes to Mount Moria, that is of vision.
XXII. Chap. xxiii, ver. 1. “The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of the sea, for the house is destroyed from whence they were wont to come.” Ver. 3. “The seed of the Nile in many waters, the harvest of the river is her revenue,” as if to say: Egypt from the waters of the overflowing Nile becomes fertile, and yields a copious harvest and crops.
XXIII. Ver. 4. “Be thou ashamed, O Sidon,” because thy colony, and as it were daughter, namely Tyre, is laid waste. “For the sea hath spoken: I have not been in labor, nor have I brought forth, nor have I nourished young men: the sea,” that is Tyre, mistress of the sea, is so bereft of inhabitants and children by this calamity, as if she had never borne or nourished them.
XXIV. Ver. 10. “Pass through thy land as a river, O daughter of the sea, there is no more a girdle for thee,” as if to say: O daughter of the sea, that is O Tyre, the Chaldean has taken from thee the girdle of the sea encircling thee on all sides: for he filled it with earth, and so took thee; pass therefore as a captive, not over the river, but over the land into Babylon.
XXV. Chap. xxiv, ver. 16. “My secret to myself, my secret to myself, woe is me,” as if to say: Woe is me, because I cannot explain the dreadful punishments decreed by God for sinners, which were revealed to me by him in secret.
XXVI. Chap. xxvi, ver. 14. “Let not the dying live, let not the giants rise again,” as if to say: Let the proud and tyrants, such as the giants were, die the eternal death in hell, and not rise again to blessed life.
XXVII. Chap. xxvii, ver. 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.” Leviathan, or the whale, is here an enigma of the devil, who is the old serpent, strong as a bar: God will slay him, when on the day of judgment he shall deprive him of all his power which he exercised in this world, and thrust him down to hell to eternal death.
XXVIII. Ver. 6. “They that rush in unto Jacob, Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with seed,” as if to say: The Apostles, who with great impetus of spirit will preach to the Jacobites, that is the Jews, will make them flourish in virtues, and will fill the world with the seed of the Gospel.
XXIX. Ver. 8. “In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it,” as if to say: with what measure thou wilt punish it, that the greatness of the punishment may equal the greatness of the fault.
XXX. Ver. 11. “In the drought thereof its harvests shall be broken: women coming and teaching it: for it is not a wise people,” as if to say: The Jews will be so afflicted with famine that, destitute of counsel, they must be taught by their wives what is to be done in so great an affliction.
XXXI. Chap. xxviii, ver. 9. “Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand the hearing?
God gives knowledge to those who tear themselves away from carnal delights.
XXXII. Ver. 10. “For command, command again, command, command again, expect, expect again, expect, expect again, a little there, a little there.” They are the words of scoffers, who in derision repeat the words of the Prophets. “Command, command again, etc.”
XXXIII. Ver. 11. “For with the speech of lips, and with another tongue he will speak to this people,” as if to say: As the Hebrews mock the Prophets with a stammering tongue, so the Chaldeans will mock them, speaking Chaldaic, not Hebrew; hence he adds:
Ver. 13. “And the word of the Lord shall be to them: Command, command again, command, command again, expect, expect again, expect, expect again, a little there, a little there: that they may go and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken,” as if to say: Because they have mocked the word of the Lord and his heralds by saying, “Command, command again, etc.,” therefore they will be laid low and taken.
XXXIV. Ver. 20. “The bed is straitened, so that one must fall out: and a short covering cannot cover both … as if to say: You cannot worship me with idols, nor place me with them in the same temple: for my temple and my religion are narrow, and hold me alone, not idols.
XXXV. Ver. 21. “For the Lord shall stand up as in the mount of divisions: he shall be angry as in the valley which is in Gabaon: that he may do his work, his strange work: that he may perform his work, his work is strange to him,” as if to say: As God in Baal Pharasim, that is in the mount of divisions, fighting for David divided and scattered the Philistines; and as in Gabaon he stayed the sun for Josue, that the Chanaanites might be slain: so now he will scatter and cut off his enemies, though this work of vengeance is as it were strange to him: for he punishes unwillingly, whose property it is to have mercy.
XXXVI. Chap. xxix, ver. 1. “Woe to Ariel, Ariel, the city which David stormed. Ariel,” that is lion, or ram of God, is Jerusalem; because in it was the altar on which rams were sacrificed to God: wherefore, defended by God, she was terrible to the Gentiles as a lion: but now forsaken and laid waste by him, she will be like a ram slain and sacrificed to divine vengeance.
Ver. 3. “And I will compass Ariel with a rampart, and she shall be sad and mourning, and she shall be to me as Ariel,” namely as a ram sacrificed to my justice.
XXXVII. Ver. 17. “Is it not yet a very little while, and Libanus shall be turned into Carmel, and Carmel shall be esteemed as a forest?” Libanus, part of Phoenicia, is an enigma of the Gentiles, Carmel of the Jews, as if to say: The Phoenicians, that is the Gentiles, will flourish through Christ in faith and grace, but the Jews, rebels themselves, will wither and turn wild.
XXXVIII. Chap. xxx, ver. 6. “The burden of the beasts of the south,” as if to say: Threats of God against the Jews, who like beasts laden with their goods flee into Egypt, which is south of Judea: for on the journey, namely in the desert, they shall meet lions, vipers and basilisks, which will tear them. This is what he adds. “In a land of trouble and distress, the lioness and the lion out of them, the viper and the flying basilisk, carrying their riches upon the shoulders of beasts, and their treasures upon the bunch of camels, to a people that shall not be able to profit them.”
XXXIX. Ver. 33. “For Topheth is prepared from yesterday, prepared by the king, deep and wide. The nourishment thereof is fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord, as a torrent of brimstone, kindleth it.” Topheth is an enigma of hell, because as in Topheth infants were burnt in honor of Moloch, so in hell the damned are burnt at the pleasure of the Devil.
XL. Chap. xxxii, ver. 14. “The joy of wild asses, the pasture of flocks, until the spirit be poured upon us from on high,” as if to say: The desolation of Juda will last, so that in it not men but wild asses will feed, until Christ sends upon them the spirit of faith and grace, to convert them to God and salvation.
Ver. 17. “And the work of justice shall be peace, and the service of justice quietness, and security for ever,” as if to say: The reward of the faithful will be that, justified by Christ, they will obtain, first, peace of conscience; second, silence, that is highest rest and tranquillity; third, secure confidence of eternal blessedness.