Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
XXXVII. Ver. 6. “The voice of one saying: Cry: and I said: What shall I cry?” to whom God answers, cry: “All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field. The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord endureth for ever. Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion, lift up thy voice with strength, say, etc. Behold your God: behold the Lord God shall come with power, and his arm shall rule.”
XXXVIII. Chap. xli, ver. 18. “I will open rivers in the high hills, and fountains in the midst of the plains: I will turn the desert into pools of waters, and the impassable land into streams of waters. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir tree, the elm, and the box tree together; that they may see and know, and consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.” All these trees and rivers are a hieroglyph of the greenness and abundance of graces and virtues which through Christ have sprung up in the wilderness of the Gentiles.
XXXIX. Chap. xlii, ver. 1. “Behold my servant, I will uphold him: my elect, my soul delighteth in him: I have given my spirit upon him.” This servant is a hieroglyph of Christ, wherefore he adds of him:
XL. Ver. 2 and 3. “He shall not cry, nor have respect to person, neither shall his voice be heard abroad. The bruised reed he shall not break, and the smoking flax he shall not quench,” as if to say: Christ will be so gentle and patient that he will not cast away those weak in faith and charity, but will support, cherish, heal and kindle them.
Ver. 6. “I have given thee to be a covenant of the people,” that thou mightest establish and ratify the new testament, or new covenant between Christians and God; “to be a light of the Gentiles: that thou mightest open the eyes of the blind, and bring forth the prisoner out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”
XLI. Ver. 11. “Let the desert be exalted, and the cities thereof: Cedar shall dwell in houses: ye inhabitants of Petra, give praise, they shall cry from the top of the mountains.” This desert is a symbol of heathendom, which Christ, desert and barbarous, tilled and tamed, so that the Gentiles and Cedarenes, formerly wanderers, now dwell civilly in houses and cities, and there do not blaspheme, as once, but praise and glorify God.
XLII. Chap. xliv, ver. 27. “Who say to the deep: Be thou desolate. I say,” that is, I make, and in fact desolate: for God’s saying is effectual, and the same as doing; hence he adds in explanation: “And I will dry up thy rivers.”
“Who say to Cyrus: Thou art my shepherd,” as if to say: I who appoint Cyrus king, to rule my people as a shepherd, and lead them back to their country.
“Who say to Jerusalem: Thou shalt be built; and to the temple: Thy foundations shall be laid,” as if to say: I am he who will rebuild Jerusalem by Zorobabel, and restore the temple burnt by the Chaldeans.
XLIII. Chap. xlv, ver. 8. “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour.” The clouds and buds are a hieroglyph of Christ born of the Virgin: for as clouds come from heaven, and buds from the virgin earth, so the Blessed Virgin conceived Christ not of man, but by the Holy Spirit from heaven overshadowing her and coming upon her.
XLIV. Chap. xlvi, ver. 11. “Calling a bird from the east, and the man of my will from a far country.” The bird is a symbol of Cyrus, who, at God’s call, flew swiftly from Persia against Babylon, and having overthrown it, delivered the Jews thence according to God’s will: hence he is called the man of God’s will.
XLV. Chap. xlvii, ver. 1. “Come down, sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon. Take a millstone and grind meal: uncover thy shame, strip thy shoulder, make bare thy legs, pass over the rivers.” All these are hieroglyphs of captivity and servitude; from your royal throne you shall be cast down to the ground, you will go about like a half-naked slave-girl, condemned to the mill; hence he adds: “These two things shall come upon thee suddenly in one day, barrenness and widowhood.”
XLVI. Chap. xlix, ver. 2 and 6. “He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword: in the shadow of his hand he hath protected me, and hath made me as a chosen arrow: in his quiver he hath hidden me.” The sword, with which one fights hand to hand, and the arrow, with which from afar, signify the efficacy of Christ’s preaching, by which he subdued to himself both the neighboring Jews and the distant Gentiles; hence he says:
“It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel. Behold I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth.”
XLVII. Chap. l, ver. 1. “What is this bill of the divorce of your mother, with which I put her away? or who is my creditor, to whom I sold you?” The bill of divorce is a hieroglyph of the repudiation of the Synagogue, the creditor of the devil, as if to say: I did not first repudiate the Synagogue, nor reprobate the Jews, nor hand them over to the devil; but they of their own will sought this divorce, nay extorted it from me unwilling, and by their crimes delivered themselves to the devil. Hence follows: “Behold you are sold for your iniquities, and for your wicked deeds have I put your mother away.”
XLVIII. Ver. 3. “I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and I will make sackcloth their covering,” as if to say: I will clothe the heavens with a dark and black, that is, mournful garb, I will make them mourn: for sackcloth and a dark garment are symbols of mourning.
XLIX. Ver. 5. “The Lord God hath opened my ear,” that is, taught me, revealed and shown me his will; hence Christ adds, continuing: “And I do not resist: I have not gone back. I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me and spit upon me. The Lord God is my helper, therefore I am not confounded: therefore I have set my face as a most hard rock.”
L. Chap. li, ver. 16. “I have put my words in thy mouth (O Christ), and have protected thee in the shadow of my hand, that thou mayest plant the heavens, and found the earth: and mayest say to Sion: Thou art my people.” The new heavens and earth, which Christ established, is the Church, both militant and triumphant. The daughters of Sion and her people are Christians, namely the holy Martyrs, Virgins, Confessors, etc.
LI. Ver. 17. “… thou hast drunk of the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath: even to the bottom of the cup of sleep thou hast drunk, and hast drunk even to the dregs.” The cup signifies the measure of the punishment proportioned and equal to the guilt; hence he adds: “There are two things that have happened to thee: who shall be sorry for thee? desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword; who shall comfort thee? Thy children are cast forth, they have slept at the head of all the ways, as the wild ox that is snared. Therefore hear this, thou poor little one, and thou that art drunk, but not with wine. Behold I have taken out of thy hand the cup of sleep, etc., and I will put it into the hand of them that have oppressed thee, and have said to thy soul: Bow down that we may go over.”
LII. Chap. lii, ver. 1. “Put on the garments of thy glory, O Jerusalem, the city of the holy one: for henceforth the uncircumcised and unclean shall no more pass through thee. Shake thyself from the dust, arise, sit up, O Jerusalem: loose the bonds from off thy neck, O captive daughter of Sion. For thus saith the Lord: You were sold gratis, and you shall be redeemed without money.” Jerusalem is a hieroglyph of the Church, which God freely, through the merits of Christ, delivered from the state of servitude in which, like a slave, she served the Chaldeans, that is, sin and the demon, and translated her into the liberty, glory and kingdom of the Son of his love.
LIII. Ver. 7 and 10. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace; of him that sheweth forth good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign!” These feet are a symbol of the Apostles running through the whole world, and preaching the kingdom of God. Hence he adds: “And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”
LIV. Chap. liii, ver. 2. “And he shall grow up as a tender plant before him, and as a root out of a thirsty ground: there is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him: despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity.” This is a hieroglyph, nay a living image, of Christ crucified and disfigured on the tree of the cross.