Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
XV. Chap. ix, ver. 6. “A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.” All these titles are hieroglyphs of Emmanuel, that is, Christ: for he, first, was born a child and the son of a Virgin. Second, he is given to us. Third, he bears the cross on his shoulder, as the badge of his government. Fourth, he is and is called Wonderful, Counsellor, God, etc.
XVI. Chap. xvi, ver. 1. “Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion,” as if to say: Grant, O Lord, that from Ruth the Moabitess, who once migrated from Arabia Petraea into Judea, that is, from her posterity, Christ may at last be born. For Christ is the lamb who subjects the world to God and to himself.
XVII. Chap. xix, ver. 1. “Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud, and will enter into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence,” as if to say: God, borne through the camp of the Assyrians as upon a swift cloud, will vanquish Egypt and its idols. Allegorically, Christ, carried in the arms of his holy mother and brought into Egypt, cast down the idols.
XVIII. Chap. xx, ver. 2. “The Lord spoke (to Isaias): Go, and loose the sackcloth from thy loins, and take off thy shoes from thy feet. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said: As my servant Isaias hath walked naked and barefoot, for a sign and wonder of three years upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia: so shall the king of the Assyrians lead away the captivity of Egypt, and the transmigration of Ethiopia, young men and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks bare, to the shame of Egypt,” as if to say: By God’s command, for three days Isaias walked naked, to signify that for three years the Egyptians and Ethiopians were to be stripped and despoiled by Sennacherib of their wealth and garments.
XIX. Chap. xxii, ver. 22. “And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder (Eliacim): and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open,” as if to say: I will appoint Eliacim high priest and prince of the temple. “And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to the house of his father. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house, divers kinds of vessels, etc.” The same is said under another symbol of a peg, namely that Eliacim shall be prince of the temple.
XX. Chap. xxv, ver. 6. “The Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this mountain a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of wine purified from the lees.” This feast is what Christ sets before us in the Gospel and the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.
XXI. Ver. 7. “And he shall cast down in this mountain the face of the bond wherewith all peoples were tied, and the web that he began over all nations. He shall cast death down headlong for ever: and the Lord God shall wipe away tears from every face.” This bond is original sin with its followers, namely concupiscence, actual sin, death, etc.
XXII. Chap. xxvi, ver. 1. “Sion the city of our strength, a saviour; a wall and a bulwark shall be set therein.” Sion, our strength, is the Church; whose wall and bulwark is Christ, into which the just enter. Hence he adds: “Open ye the gates, and let the just nation that keepeth the truth enter in. The old error” of idolatry, of errors and vices, “is passed away: thou wilt keep peace; peace, because we have hoped in thee.”
XXIII. Ver. 19. “Awake, and give praise, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is the dew of light,” as if to say: As our dew brings light and life to plants, so your grace, O Lord, brings life and glorious resurrection to the dead.
XXIV. Ver. 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,” as if to say: sleep there a little while, until I punish the impious: for when this is done, I will rouse you from the sleep of death to blessed life.
XXV. Chap. xxvii, ver. 2. “In that day the vineyard shall sing to him,” as if to say: The Church, Leviathan being slain, that is, the devil, will sing and rejoice over him, that is, over herself.
XXVI. Chap. xxviii, ver. 1. “Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower, the glory of his joy, who were on the top of the fat valley, staggering with wine,” the most fertile and glorious of the Samaritans: for God will cut them off by the Assyrians.
XXVII. Ver. 5. “In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the residue of his people: and a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and strength to them that return from battle to the gate,” namely to the soldiers of Ezechias, returning in triumph to Jerusalem after Sennacherib was slain.
XXVIII. Ver. 16. “Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation: he that believeth, let him not hasten.” This corner stone of Sion, that is, of the Church, is Christ, who in himself, as in a corner and foundation, binds together Jews and Gentiles, that they may constitute one house, that is, the Church.
XXIX. Chap. xxxi, ver. 9. “Saith the Lord, whose fire is in Sion, and his furnace in Jerusalem,” as if to say: The Lord said he would smite the camp of Sennacherib, and deliver Jerusalem and the temple from his hand; because in it is his fire and furnace, in which he is continually worshipped, while his sacrifices and victims are burnt there. Wherefore God will protect this city of his, and will destroy the Assyrians.
XXX. Chap. xxxiii, ver. 20. “Look upon Sion, the city of our solemnity: thy eyes shall see Jerusalem, a rich habitation, a tabernacle that cannot be removed: neither shall the nails thereof be taken away for ever, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.” This Sion is a hieroglyph of the heavenly country, and of eternal blessedness.
XXXI. Chap. xxxiv, ver. 6. “A victim of the Lord in Bosra,” as if to say: The impious Idumeans will be slain and sacrificed to God as victims, to God’s justice and vengeance: hence in explanation he adds: “And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.”
XXXII. Ver. 9. “And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.” This was true in the destruction of Idumea, but will be truer in the destruction of the world, and in hell.
XXXIII. Ver. 11. “… the bittern and the hedgehog, the ibis and the raven shall dwell in it … one shall cry to another,” as if to say: Idumea will be so desolated as to be the habitation not of men but of demons and wild beasts.
XXXIV. Chap. xxxv, ver. 1. “The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily. It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise: the glory of Libanus is given to it: the beauty of Carmel and Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God.” This wilderness is a hieroglyph of heathendom, which, having seen and heard Christ and his Apostles, brought forth the lilies of chastity and the buds of all virtues. Hence he adds: “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free. In the dens where dragons dwelt before, shall rise up the verdure of the reed and the bulrush. And a path and a way shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way: the unclean shall not pass over it. And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and shall come into Sion with praise, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.”
XXXV. Chap. xxxvii, ver. 7. “This shall be a sign to thee” of recovered health. “Behold I will bring again the shadow of the lines, by which it is gone down in the dial of Achaz, by the sun, ten lines backward.” This going back of the shadow and the sun was therefore a hieroglyph of the return of health, of years and of life to king Ezechias.
XXXVI. Chap. xl, ver. 3. “The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain.” This voice was a hieroglyph of St. John the Baptist, whose preaching, food, clothing, and whole life was nothing else than a loud and continual voice of penance and contempt of the world, preparing men to receive grace and salvation from the Messias.