Commentaria in Isaiam
TO A NATION EXPECTING (some read, expecting expecting, that is, plainly and altogether expecting; for the Hebrews double kav kav) AND TORN,—that is, soon certainly to be torn, and already torn in God’s foreknowledge and decree. Note: the Hebrew kav, first, signifies a stretched thing, such as a line; thence, secondly, hope and expectation; for the hope of one who hopes stretches the mind like a line toward the thing hoped for. Word for word, therefore, the Hebrew may be translated thus, with Vatablus, Pagninus, Forerius and others: to a nation of line, line, and of treading down. A nation of the line is one to which, by the line, as by a rule, punishment and vengeance has been measured out and apportioned by God according to its demerits, that is, decreed. It is a metaphor from craftsmen and architects; for these build and construct by the line, as by square, plumb-line, rule and guide. So also God, by the line of merits or demerits, destines to each, and builds and fashions, reward or punishment. So in chapter 34, verse 11, it is said: “A line shall be stretched out upon it, that it may be brought to nothing, and a plummet unto desolation”; that is, as the Chaldean translates, the line of desolation shall be stretched upon it, and the plummet of destruction. And, as the Septuagint has it, the measuring-cord of the geometry of the desert, that it may be demolished by just measure and reduced to a desert. So in 4 Kings 21:13 it is said: “I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria,” that is, by the same line, or rule and measure of punishment and devastation, I will demolish Jerusalem as I demolished Samaria. Again, as craftsmen mark with thread or line the material to be cut or hewn, so God as it were outlines the nations which he destines for destruction and decrees to hew. That this is the sense is clear, first, from this, that a little before he called this nation “torn and rent,” and adds “plundered.” For thence emaciated, exhausted and thinned men were called “of one line,” as if of one single line, says Delrio, adage 724. Secondly, because the Chaldean translates: a people oppressed and plundered; the Septuagint, a nation without hope (that is, despaired of, bewailed) and trodden down; the Syriac, a nation stripped of hair, whose feathers are plucked, and uprooted; the Arabic, a nation without strength, base, despised (or worthless, absurd).
Thirdly, because our version translates: a nation expecting.
For the Ethiopians are called a nation expecting, namely the coming of the Assyrians, because they fear them, and eagerly await the outcome of their expedition. Again, they “expect,” that is, they shall experience the certain defeat which the Assyrians will inflict on them. So of the ambassadors of Ezechias to Sennacherib it is said, chapter 33, verse 7: “The angels of peace shall weep bitterly.”
Otherwise Sanchez: They expect, he says, every year the inundation of the Nile, that by it the fields may be enriched with mud and made fertile. Secondly, he says, for “a nation expecting” the Hebrew is “a nation of line, line,” according to Forerius, Pagninus and Vatablus; as if to say: The Ethiopians, as also the Egyptians, because they lie by the Nile, which overflowing covers the fields, therefore use the line, or rule and gnomon, by which the spaces of the fields are measured, that each may know what was and is his. Hence Strabo, book 17, and Diodorus, book 1, teach that Geometry arose among them from this inundation of the Nile.
The Ethiopians and Egyptians are a nation that uses lines and other geometrical instruments, to designate to each his own fields and boundaries, which the Nile, having left its bed, had overwhelmed, confused and obscured. Moreover, as by the papyrus vessels he shows their infirmity, so by the slime and mud of the Nile, and by the line that measures the fields, he shows the foulness of the region and its uncertain and unstable fortune. So far Sanchez.
WHOSE LAND THE RIVERS HAVE SPOILED.—It signifies the overflowing Nile, which by its inundation overwhelms Ethiopia, as also Egypt. Symbolically it signifies the forces of the Assyrians and Babylonians, coming together in bands, about to overwhelm the Ethiopians like rivers.
3. ALL YE INHABITANTS OF THE WORLD.—God goes on to speak, as if to say: When I shall send the Assyrians and Babylonians as my ambassadors, then all nations shall see the bitter war which through them I shall wage against the Ethiopians.
From afar, from my throne, silent, indeed rejoicing, I shall behold as it were games, these spectacles of my vengeance, namely the slaughter of the Ethiopians:
AS THE NOONDAY LIGHT IS CLEAR,—as if to say: When the Ethiopians shall be in darkness, that is, in distress, I, dwelling in my clear and serene light, shall contemplate them bright, serene, indeed glorious. So Moses and the elders saw the glory of God, “as it were a work of sapphire stone, and as the heaven when it is clear,” Exodus 24:10. See what was said there. A like adage is reported to have been used by the philosopher Heraclitus. For when he laboured with dropsy, he used to ask the physicians thus: “Whether they could make dry weather out of rain, and clear sky out of cloud?” understanding by rain the dropsy, by dry and clear weather health. When the physicians did not understand, he buried himself wholly in ox-dung, that by its warm vapour the harmful humour of the body might be sweated out and dried; where, having remained buried too long, he died, if we believe
AND AS A CLOUD OF DEW IN THE DAY OF HARVEST,—as if to say: The Ethiopians shall be in burning heat, both of the sun by which they are scorched (for they lie in the torrid zone) and of calamity and destruction; but I shall be blessed in refreshment, as if I were in a dewy cloud, which in harvest time is wont to refresh the reapers; and thence I will instil some dew into the devastation of the Ethiopians, that is, bring moderation, and temper it with clemency, lest they be wholly destroyed.
5. FOR BEFORE THE HARVEST IT WAS ALL FLOURISHING.—He persists in the metaphor of the harvest, which while it luxuriates in flower, and pours out all its sap and strength into flowers, is destitute of crop and fruit. The same happens in a tree, which, before the fruit ripens, pours itself wholly out into flowers, shoots and sprigs. For of such a tree he says that “the buds shall be perfect,” that is, the unripe shoots and sprigs, though perfect in themselves, will bud, but will not give ripe fruit. He gives the cause of the Ethiopians’ defeat, namely their over-hasty boasting and provocation of their enemies. As if to say: The Ethiopians flourished and were proud, glorying confident in their strength, and promising themselves a wide empire; and therefore, hearing that Sennacherib was abroad in Juda, they prematurely moved arms and directed their line of battle against him, and challenged him to battle. But all this their flower was untimely and precocious, and did not ripen, but perished in the blade and was cut off; for first by Sennacherib, then by Nabuchodonosor they were cut off. This is what he says: “And the sprigs shall be cut off with pruning hooks,” that is, the youths and more ardent soldiers of the Ethiopians shall be slain by the swords of the Assyrians; “and what is left shall be cut down and shaken out,” that is, the remnants of the Ethiopians fled from the war the Assyrians and Chaldeans shall pursue, and partly slay, partly capture, plunder and scatter. So bold and rash youths, when they provoke strong soldiers, receive the fitting harvest of their blossoming audacity, namely slaughter and defeat.
Note: “All” means “almost all,” the greater part; for soon, in verse 7, he excepts some.
6. AND THEY SHALL BE LEFT TOGETHER TO THE BIRDS OF THE MOUNTAINS,—as if to say: So great shall be the slaughter of the Ethiopians that the corpses of the slain will suffice, through summer and winter, to feed ravenous beasts and flesh-eating birds.
7. IN THAT TIME (namely in the days of the Messias, see chapter 12), SHALL A GIFT BE BROUGHT TO THE LORD.—Prophets are wont, after sad things, to soften them by adding joyful ones; so it is done here, as if to say: After this defeat of the Ethiopians, the Ethiopians, abandoning the vain hope which they had in their own, both strength and idols, shall acknowledge the true God and worship him in mount Sion, that is, in the Church. This was done when the Eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, converted by Philip, Acts 8, spread the faith of Christ through Ethiopia; and when the Apostle St. Matthew, having gone there, converted the king and the kingdom; whence Christianity wonderfully flourished in Ethiopia. This is what the Psalmist says, Psalm 71: “Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down”; and Psalm 67: “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God.” See our Father Cotignius and others who have written on the Church and history of Ethiopia.
FROM A NATION EXPECTING.—So it must be read with the Roman editions, that is, much expecting. It is an auxesis.
“And the Lord saved Ezechias and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib. And many brought sacrifices and offerings to the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to Ezechias king of Juda: who was magnified after these things in the sight of all nations.” Isaias seems here to allude to this fact; for it is reasonable to believe that the Egyptians, freed from the fear of Sennacherib, were among those who offered victims and sacrifices to the Lord,