Commentaria in Isaiam
Verse 2. Upon (that is, against) the dark mountain. By a trope he so calls Babylon, though it was situated in a plain, namely a “mountain,” for the magnificence and pride of its palaces, towers, walls, and so on. “Dark,” first, because of the dark confusion of all things in it, on account of which it is called Babel in Hebrew. So St. Jerome. Second, because it was wrapped in the darkness of idolatry and errors.
Third, “dark,” that is, calamitous; for darkness is a symbol of calamity, especially because that famous Babylon was taken by night in darkness, when no less darkness enveloped the city from the night than the minds of the citizens from confusion and drunkenness. So Sanchez.
Fourth, and more according to the letter, “dark,” because Babylon, situated in a damp and marshy place by the Euphrates, on account of the dense vapours and mists rising thence, had a cloudy and dark air, especially with the hanging gardens added, which Nabuchodonosor made for the sake of Nitocris his wife. These gardens were a wonder of the world; for they were high, and by their height brought shade and darkness upon the city, especially with the mists already mentioned, and the smoke from the hearth and fire of so many houses and kitchens.
Of these gardens hear Josephus, Antiquities, book 10, chapter 11: “Nabuchodonosor suspended stone masses on arches, resembling mountains, planted on top with various kinds of trees; and so he finished those hanging gardens, because his wife, brought up in Media, longed for a likeness of her native land.” See also Curtius, book 5, on the same.
For “dark” the Hebrew is nispe, high, lifted up; the Septuagint render, a plain; the Syriac, trodden, beaten, level, flat; the Arabic, bald, stripped, without trees. St. Jerome derived nispe from neseph, that is, twilight, which Pagninus wrongly censures. For in Jeremias 13:16 the mountains are called neseph, that is, of twilight, dark mountains. So Forerius.
Lift up a banner. God here as it were sounds the trumpet, and thereby calls forth Darius and Cyrus with the Persians and Medes to the destruction of Babylon; as if to say: You, O Darius and Cyrus, lift up a signal, that is, as the Hebrew has, a standard, against Babylon, that you may storm it; “exalt your voice,” as soldiers are wont to raise shouts when they assault a city; “lift up the hand” against the city, devoted by your sword to plunder and triumph; “let the rulers (of Cyrus) go into the gates” of Babylon, which I will open to them.
He calls them his sanctified ones, that is, soldiers designated by himself and as it were consecrated for this holy war, and for the holy vengeance of God to be accomplished; of which more at Jeremias 6:4. Hence the Syriac and Arabic render: I have commanded my holiness, sanctity, or sanctification, that is, the most holy soldiers, Cyrus most holy, as destined for the war of a most holy vengeance.
Others otherwise: the sanctified, they say, that is, those bound by a holy oath; as if to say, soldiers under oath.
Them that rejoice in my glory. Because I have given them glorious victories; for by them I have punished and subdued the Gentiles for their crimes. Glory here signifies, therefore, glorious vengeance and victory.
Verse 4. The noise of a multitude. As if to say: I seem to myself to hear in spirit the crowds and tumult of the Persians and Medes advancing in squadrons against Babylon.
The Lord of hosts hath given charge. It can be rendered with Vatablus: the Lord of hosts musters or reviews the army of war, namely of the Persians, as a general is wont to make a levy and review his forces; for God is here represented as the general of a holy war.
Verse 5. From the end of heaven. That is, from the extremity of the earth, where earth seems to touch heaven. Scripture accommodates itself to the speech of the common people, who think heaven hemispherical like an arch, and bounded where sight ends, and there joined to earth. Nor is this wonderful; for St. Chrysostom and Lactantius and others, whom our Acosta cites, book 1 On the New World, chapter 1, hold the opinion (and St. Augustine, book 2 On Genesis according to the letter, chapter 9, doubts) that heaven is not spherical, nor surrounds and embraces the whole earth; but, like a semicircle, encircles half of the earth, and is joined to it at its limits.
The Lord (namely, he is at hand to avenge the crimes of Babylon), and the instruments of his wrath, that is, the instruments of his anger, namely Darius and Cyrus with their forces, arms and chariots, fly forward like the lictors of God.
The whole land, namely that subject to Babylon, for it is of this that the question is here. The like is in verse 10.
Allegorically these things will be truer on the day of judgment, of which this is a type.
Verse 6. Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is near. For although this destruction of Babylon was 150 years away, yet this time is small in respect of eternity, indeed in respect of some kingdom; though in respect of an age and of one man it is much.
As a destruction from the Lord. The word “as” here is the mark of truth, not of likeness; as if to say: So great and so dreadful a devastation will hang over Babylon as befits an offended and angry God. Hence there is a forceful play on words: shod missaddai, that is, devastation from the devastating God shall come. On the name of God Shaddai, see what was said at Genesis, chapter 17.
Verse 7. All hands shall be faint, and every heart of man shall melt.
The heart failing, from which vital spirits are diffused to the members, and through them motion and sense, all the members collapse, tremble, are bereft of strength, and are loosened as if by paralysis. Wherefore the Septuagint for “all hands shall be faint” elegantly render, “shall be loosed,” that is, loosed as by paralysis, and they shall become like paralytics. The sense is: God will cast upon the Babylonians, as Cyrus approaches, such fear, despair and stupor, that their hands will tremble and grow feeble, and be unable to hold arms, that the mind, bereft of counsel, will be stupefied, and spirits fall and melt away. Daniel writes that this so befell Balthasar, chapter 5, verse 6.
Verse 8. Every one shall be amazed at his neighbour. For so, when things are lost, men are wont to look at one another astounded, as if stupefied and speechless.
Their countenances shall be as faces burnt. It is understood in the Hebrew manner as “like”; as if to say: Their faces will be like a burnt face, namely dry, livid, black and earth-coloured (for such is the colour of things burnt). So Joel, chapter 2, says of the Jews besieged and hemmed in by the Chaldeans: “All faces shall be brought to a pot,” that is, as Nahum says, chapter 2: “shall be as the blackness of a pot.” Burnt faces are therefore livid, bloodless and ghastly from fear, grief and anxiety.
The Hebrew is “the face of flames,” which Vatablus and Sanchez explain thus: they shall be suffused with a flame-like blush from shame, as happens to those who are caught unexpectedly in a crime or in a shameful act. So Virgil sings of Lavinia, Aeneid 12:
Her cheeks kindled and suffused, to whom a great blush added fire, and ran over her warmed face.
For the face is wont to redden and to glow with the blood which shame calls to the cheeks. Our Interpreter rightly takes by “faces of flames” faces burnt by flames, so that it is a metalepsis. Others interpret of the colour of flames, that is, of pallor, such as not only the flames themselves have, but also blacksmiths working at the fire before dawn; whose faces appear so pale and livid, as if they had become wholly bloodless.
Verse 9. Behold the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day. Some take this literally of the day of judgment, but it is plain from the preceding and following verses that it is literally said of the destruction of Babylon, which nevertheless was a living image of the consummation of the age and of the day of judgment. So St. Jerome.
To lay the land (of the Babylonians) in desolation. You will say: Even after Cyrus Babylon flourished, in the time of Alexander the Great, who again laid it waste. I answer that this devastation of Babylon was begun by Cyrus, but completed by Alexander and others, as I shall say at Jeremias 50:39.
Verse 10. For the stars of heaven. It is hyperbole and hypallage, by which Prophets are wont to signify extreme disaster, calamity and affliction. For to the afflicted, on account of the weakness of the vital and animal spirits and their return to the heart, and because of fainting and giddiness of the head, all things seem dark, indeed to whirl and be overturned. The contrary happens in joy.
Allegorically, these things, as they sound, will truly come to pass on the day of judgment, as also those said at verse 13.
Verse 11. I will visit the evils of the world. He calls Babylon the world because, on account of the multitude of men, craftsmen and wares, it was like a little world. So we call Rome, Paris, Venice, Constantinople a little world. The Hebrew word tebel, that is, world, alludes to Babel.