Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter 17. Synopsis of the Chapter
He foretells the destruction of Damascus and Syria, and likewise of the Samaritans, and that as few shall be left as few ears remain after the harvest. Secondly, he says that through this calamity a remnant shall be converted from idols to God.
1. The burden of Damascus. Behold Damascus shall cease to be a city, and it shall be as a heap of stones in ruins. 2. The cities of Aroer forsaken shall be for flocks: and they shall rest there, and there shall be none to fright them away. 3. And the help shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: and the remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts. 4. And in that day the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean. 5. And it shall be as when one gathereth in the harvest that which remaineth, and his arm shall reap the ears: and it shall be as he that seeketh ears in the valley of Raphaim. 6. And there shall be left in it as a cluster, and as the shaking of the olive tree, two or three olives in the top of a bough, or four or five on the top of its branches, saith the Lord God of Israel. 7. In that day man shall bow down to his Maker, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel: 8. And he shall not bow down to the altars which his hands have made: neither shall he look to the things that his fingers have wrought, the groves and the temples. 9. In that day the cities of his strength shall be forsaken, as the ploughs, and the corn that were left from the face of the children of Israel, and thou shalt be desolate. 10. Because thou hast forgotten God thy saviour, and hast not been mindful of thy strong helper: therefore shalt thou plant a good plantation, and shalt set in it a strange slip. 11. In the day of thy planting shall be the wild vine, and in the morning thy seed shall flourish: the harvest is taken away in the day of inheritance, and shall grieve grievously. 12. Woe to the multitude of many people, like the multitude of the roaring sea: and the tumult of crowds, like the noise of many waters. 13. Nations shall make a noise like the noise of waters overflowing, and he shall rebuke him, and he shall flee far off: and he shall be taken away as the dust of the mountains before the wind, and as a whirlwind before the tempest. 14. In the time of the evening, behold there is trouble: in the morning, and he is not. This is the portion of them that have wasted us, and the lot of them that have robbed us.
1. THE BURDEN OF DAMASCUS.—Note: The prophecies of Isaias, as of the other Prophets, were not delivered in the order in which they are collected in this volume; for Damascus was overthrown by the Assyrians before the death of Achaz, and consequently before the defeat of the Philistines, which was made by Ezechias the son of Achaz, of which he treated in chapter 14, verse 29, and much more before the defeat of Moab, of which he treated in chapters 15 and 16; for this was made The Prophet therefore here foretells the impending destruction of Syria, whose capital was Damascus, by Theglathphalasar, 4 Kings 16:9; who nevertheless left some remnants in it, which after 134 years Nabuchodonosor destroyed, as Jeremias foretold, chapter 49, verse 23; but afterwards Damascus was restored under the Macedonians and the Ptolemies, says St. Jerome, and it is still a noble city of the East, of which more is said on Jeremias 49.
Mystically, St. Bernard, in his treatise On the Eleven Burdens, in the same way as the other burdens of Isaias, he expounds this burden of Damascus thus: “Damascus is interpreted ‘pouring out blood,’ expressing that corruption innate in us, which in a certain way draws us, unwilling and reluctant, to sin. This is the law in our members, fighting against the law of our mind, and leading us captive into the law of sin which is in our members. All vital sense in the body is from blood; but vital sense in the soul is from reason. And you know how the natural motion of sin sometimes, to a kind of penalty of delight, absorbs reason itself, and renders the whole soul, so to speak, bloodless. But some feel, yet do not consent; they are assailed, but not overcome; they are burdened, but not laid prostrate. These indeed sustain the burden from Damascus, but are not Damascus. But he who consents, and offers the arms of iniquity to sin, is truly Damascene, pouring out his own blood and slaying himself with his own hands. He, without doubt, ought to know that he is to be crushed by the weight of the penalty which is described in the burden of Damascus.”
2. AROER.—This was a city of Syria, different from the Aroer, a city of Juda: so called because it was arid like a desert in which tamarisks grow. For “aroer” in Hebrew signifies the tamarisk. “Aroer” therefore was to the Syrians such as the Campine is to the Belgians.
3. THE HELP SHALL CEASE FROM EPHRAIM.—For Ephraim (that is, the ten tribes) was wont to be in alliance with the Syrians and Damascenes, especially in fighting against Juda. For Samaria, which is soon called “the glory of the children of Israel, and the glory of Jacob,” was laid waste about the same time, namely in the sixth year of Ezechias, by the same king of the Assyrians.
5. AND IT SHALL BE AS ONE GATHERING IN THE HARVEST.—Note, with St. Jerome and Haymo, that here is described, by a triple comparison, the want and fewness both of the Israelites or Samaritans and of the Syrians, to which they shall be reduced by the Assyrian ravager. The first is that they shall be as few as the ears that remain after harvest in a very wide field, for example in Raphaim, and are gathered by the poor; the second, that they shall be as few as the clusters that escape the vintagers and are left after the vintage; the third, that they shall be as few as the four or five olives that remain on an olive tree when it is shaken, either because they lie hidden under the leaves or because they are at the top or crown of the tree, so that the hand of the gatherer cannot reach them.
Allegorically, so few will be those who are to be saved and elect, as few as the ears, grapes and olives that remain after harvest, and, as St. Jerome says from others, the remnant of Israel shall be saved; for many are called, but few chosen. So Blessed Nilus, a man of wonderful sanctity, who flourished six hundred years ago, and was the founder of the monastery of Crypta Ferrata near Tusculum, in which I saw and venerated his tomb; when he was visited by the chief men of the Emperor Constantine, from the book and teaching of St. Simeon he said to them: “Understand that unless you are endowed with virtue, and great virtue, no one will deliver you from the pains of hell”; and he added: “Of ten thousand men scarcely one is saved,” and that St. Basil, Chrysostom, Ephrem and others assert this. And when he was asked by those chief men whether Solomon was saved or not, he answered: “We read nothing in Holy Scripture that after his sin he did penance, as Manasses did. Who then can say of him that he is saved?” So his Life has it, and from it Cardinal Baronius, in the year of Christ
6. OR FOUR OR FIVE ON THE TOP OF ITS BRANCHES (the olive’s) ITS FRUIT,—that is, the olive’s, as if to say: As four or five fruits of the olive, that is, olives, which remain on the olive tree. Another reading translates: on its fruitful tops (of the olive). So Vatablus.
7. IN THAT DAY SHALL MAN BOW DOWN,—as if to say: The remnant of the Samaritans from this calamity, and some Syrians also, who have escaped the hands of the Assyrians, forsaking the deceitful idols which could not save them from this destruction, shall flee to God, the true refuge and protector in adversities, and embrace his faith and worship. This was done at the warning and urging of Ezechias, 2 Paralipomenon 30 and 31. So St. Jerome. Hence he adds: “They shall look to the Holy One of Israel,” that is, they shall return and be converted to him from whom they were before turned away.
9. THE CITIES OF HIS STRENGTH SHALL BE FORSAKEN,—as if to say: The Assyrians, like a torrent, shall overrun and overthrow Syria and Samaria in one rush, so that from fear and dread of them the strongest cities of Israel shall be deserted by the fleeing citizens, like those which the Chanaanites, terrified, once abandoned at the coming of the children of Israel from Egypt, and left their ploughs and crops, and fled into the woods and thickets, says St. Jerome.
10. BECAUSE THOU (O SAMARIA) HAST FORGOTTEN GOD THY SAVIOUR,—because thou hast forsaken the ancestral faith and religion of the true God, who is wont to be a defence to thee in adversities.
10. THEREFORE SHALT THOU PLANT A GOOD PLANTATION,—First, St. Jerome judges it to be irony. Hence the Septuagint, for “faithful,” translate “unfaithful,” and this is soon called a strange slip, that is, a bastard and adulterous one. By these he plainly understands wild plants and degenerate trees, namely that God will bring barrenness on account of the sins of the inhabitants.
Secondly, and more aptly, Sanchez: A faithful field, he says, is one that does not deceive the farmer’s hope and labour, but returns to him what it received with interest and abundant fruit; an unfaithful one is that which returns nothing, or, if it yields something, produces it not for the owner but for a stranger. Hence for “a strange slip” it might be translated from the Hebrew, “thou shalt sow a strange crop”; and so it came to pass; for what the Israelites sowed, strangers, namely the Assyrians, reaped. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Into fields planted and tilled by thy hand strangers shall rage, and though the plant be in itself faithful and will yield fruit, yet it will be unfaithful to thee, because not thou but strangers shall gather it. This the Lord had threatened them, Deuteronomy 28:51.
Thirdly, some refer this to the sons of the Israelites, whom they, the worst of men, begot as the worst, degenerate from the holiness of the Patriarchs and as it were spurious. But this sense is not literal but symbolic.
11. IN THE DAY OF THY PLANTING SHALL BE THE WILD VINE (as if to say: When thou hast planted a vine, thou shalt find growing from it not a vine but a wild vine): AND IN THE MORNING THY SEED SHALL FLOURISH,—as if to say: It shall flower before its time, and therefore shall be precocious, and shall not ripen. Such, tropologically, are those who are wholly given to studies, and do not refer them to the glory of God, to their own and others’ salvation, nor season them with virtue and piety; for these give flower but not fruit; the flower passes away, and all the labour is consumed in a certain vain knowledge and empty speculation.
Secondly, as if to say: In the day when thou seemedst to sow or plant a faithful and fertile plant and vine, thou in truth hast planted a wild vine, which will delight thee with empty hope and appearance, but will give thee bitter fruit; for it will flower indeed, but when it comes to fruit and harvest, the enemy will carry it off, which will bring thee grief of heart and bitterness. For the Prophet speaks, as is his custom, in parable.
IN THE DAY OF INHERITANCE.—That is, when the time shall come of possessing and inheriting it, namely the time of harvest and vintage.
at being plucked by the enemy; it is a prosopopoeia. Or “it shall grieve” means thou shalt grieve, seeing thy harvest gathered by strangers, so that it is an enallage of person; thirdly, and most plainly, “it shall grieve” means it shall make thee grieve, for in Hebrew it is kaab, in Piel, which is active.
12. WOE TO THE MULTITUDE (so the Roman text, not “multitude,” as the Plantin has) OF MANY PEOPLE.—Some think Isaias here passes to Sennacherib and foretells his punishment; for he laid waste Judea and Syria. Hence he says, “and he shall rebuke him,” that is, God shall restrain and check him in the evening, that is, in the night, by slaying 185 thousand, so that in the morning he must flee in utmost confusion. But this transition seems harsh and unusual. Wherefore we shall say better that the Prophet here goes on to threaten the Damascenes and Israelites, who often conspired against Juda. Hence he compares the abundance, onset and roar of their army to the waves of the sea; these God has rebuked, that is, crushed and ground down, through the Assyrians; just as dust is scattered by the wind, and a whirlwind by a violent tempest, and that “in the evening and in the morning,” that is, in a very short time; for this the proverb signifies, chapter 38, verse 12, and Note: Of this army he now speaks in the singular, saying: “He shall rebuke him”; now in the plural, saying: “Many peoples shall make a noise.”