Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter Twenty-one
He returns to the destruction of Babylon, which with great pathos he describes graphically, and this because about this time Ezechias cultivated a league and friendship with Merodach king of the Babylonians, and showed his ambassadors all his treasures, for which cause he was rebuked by Isaias, 4 Kings 20:12. Lest therefore he and the Jews rely too much on them, and be too familiar and friendly with them, he foretells their ruin. He foretells therefore that Babylon is to be overthrown by the chariot of a camel and an ass, that is, of Darius and Cyrus. Secondly, he prophesies against Idumea. Thirdly, against Arabia.
1. The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds from the south come, it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land. 2. A grievous vision is declared unto me: he that is treacherous, dealeth treacherously: and he that is a spoiler, spoileth. Go up, O Elam; besiege, O Mede: I have made all the sighing thereof to cease. 3. Therefore are my loins filled with pain, anguish hath possessed me, as the anguish of a woman in labour: I fell down at the hearing, I was troubled at the sight. 4. My heart failed, darkness amazed me: Babylon my beloved is become a wonder to me. 5. Prepare the table, behold in the watchtower them that eat and drink: arise, ye princes, take up the shield. 6. For thus hath the Lord said to me: Go, and set a watchman: and let him tell whatsoever he shall see. 7. And he saw a chariot with two horsemen, a rider upon an ass, and a rider upon a camel: and he beheld them diligently with a great deal of attention. 8. And a lion cried: I am upon the watchtower of the Lord, standing continually by day: and I am upon my ward, standing whole nights. 9. Behold, this man cometh riding in a chariot with two horsemen: and he answered and said: Babylon is fallen, is fallen: and all the graven gods thereof are broken unto the ground. 10. O my threshing, and the son of my floor, that which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared unto you. 11. The burden of Duma. He calleth to me from Seir: Watchman, what of the night? watchman, what of the night? 12. The watchman said: The morning cometh, and also the night: if you seek, seek: return, come. 13. The burden in Arabia. In the forest in the evening you shall sleep, in the paths of Dedanim. 14. Meeting the thirsty bring ye water, ye inhabitants of the land of the south, meet with bread him that fleeth. 15. For they are fled from the face of the swords, from the face of the sword that hung over them, from the face of the bent bow, from the face of the grievous battle. 16. For thus hath the Lord said to me: Yet a year, as the years of a hireling, and all the glory of Cedar shall be taken away. 17. And the remnant of the number of the strong archers of the children of Cedar shall be diminished: for the Lord the God of Israel hath spoken it.
1. THE BURDEN OF THE DESERT OF THE SEA.—He calls Babylon sea, first, because as the sea swallows all rivers and is not filled, so Babylon swallowed the wealth of all nations, and was not satisfied; secondly, because it was situated beside the Euphrates, for every abundance of waters is called sea by the Hebrews; thirdly, and more genuinely, it is called sea on account of the multitude of its inhabitants, the breadth of its streets and houses, and the concourse of all nations to it: for so we say that Rome, Venice and Paris are a sea, are a world, on account of the throng of men. So St. Jerome, Cyril and others; fourthly, on account of the motions and waves of wars, by which, like the sea, it was continually agitated and agitated all nations.
Secondly, he calls Babylon a desert, as a noun, that is, wilderness and solitude; for this the Hebrew midbar signifies; because it was to be reduced by God the avenger to a desert and solitude. So St. Jerome.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: This is the burden, that is, the threatening and heavy prophecy against Babylon, which, though it was the sea of nations, shall now be laid waste by God, so that it may seem to be a wilderness and desert.
Note: Prophecies were uttered by the Prophets at different times; hence it is not wonderful if they repeat the same more obscurely; as Isaias, what in chapters 13 and 14 he clearly foretold of the destruction of Babylon, here obscurely repeats and replicates. See chapters 3 and 4. Add that it is not known whether this prophecy is earlier or later than that of chapter 13; for in the collection of the prophecies the order of time has not been kept, as appears in Jeremias.
Mystically, St. Bernard, in his discourse On the Burden of the Desert of the Sea, sermon 6, thus discourses: “The deserted sea is the multitude of the reprobate, who, forsaken by God and separated from the number of the saints, press the holy Church by their weight and persecution, themselves afterwards to be punished with the weight of penalties which are noted by the Prophet in this burden. Moreover, they are sea who are shaken by the tumults of various passions and vices. They are always in motion, ever wandering, never stable, never remaining in the same state; now they swell with pride, now boil with anger, now are sad, now light, now pressed with silence, now dissolved in laughter; they transgress the precepts of the elders, and disturb the peace of the brethren. As long, however, as they fear, as long as they grieve, as long as they admit correction, and do not flee satisfaction, they are not a deserted sea. But if, coming into the depth of evils, they despise; if, rebuked, they cry out against it, and answer nothing honourable, nothing quiet, nothing moreover orderly, but swollen, puffed up even against him by whom they are rebuked, rise up in words of indignation, so that it is necessary to leave them to themselves, you may not doubt to name them a deserted sea.” Then, enlarging on their burden and punishments, he adds: “Woe to them, for, forsaken by God, they are abandoned by men according to the desires of their heart, that they may go in their own inventions. To whom also the Lord by the Prophet: I will take away my zeal from you, and will be angry no more. You know, dearest brethren, how heavy a burden those who are such lay on the shoulders of the saints. Under this burden the Prophet groaned, who said: The wicked have wrought upon my back. Truly they work upon our back who are such, burdening us with their daily insults, who add sins to sins, join contempt to contempt, insolent, proud, detractors, hateful to God, not obeying their elders, not accommodating themselves to their companions. Let such know that they shall incur the weight of penalties which he beholds in the burden of the desert of the sea.”
AS WHIRLWINDS FROM THE SOUTH COME, IT COMETH FROM THE DESERT.—“From the desert” is to be referred both to “whirlwinds come” and to “it cometh.” The Africus is a wind blowing from Africa, and therefore a west wind, but lateral, verging toward the south. It is turbid and stormy, whence Horace, book 1, Odes, ode 3, and Virgil, Aeneid 1, call the storms raised by the Africus African storms: “And the Africus thick with storms.” The sense is, as if to say: As, when the Africus blows, a huge, sudden and stormy tempest of sand rises from the desert, so (for by a usual Hebraism a mark of likeness, so or thus, is understood) this burden, and this whirlwind of the Persians, comes, that is, will come, from a similar desert, which will bring a similar tempest on Babylon. So St. Jerome. For the whirlwind is a most rapid and violent wind, which turns in a circle and carries off everything in its way.
He calls Media and Persia a desert, both properly, because between them and Babylon vast deserts lie; and metaphorically, because the Medes and Persians will be destructive to Babylon like a whirlwind that comes from the desert.
He alludes to the sands of the desert, for example of Pharan and Arabia, which the Hebrews crossed coming from Egypt into Chanaan, so that it was most apt for them; or of the province of Cyrenaica, which, when the South wind blows, rolls huge waves of sand like a raging sea, as Pliny testifies, book 2, chapter 45; Pomponius Mela, book 1, chapter 8; Solinus: the soldiers led against the Ammonians, when the South wind blew, were so buried by sands, he relates, that not one escaped or remained alive. In like manner therefore he teaches that the Chaldeans are to be overwhelmed by the Persians; for this is what Jeremias foretold of them, chapter 51, verse 36: “And I will make her sea a desert, and dry up her vein, and Babylon shall be into heaps,” namely of sands, says St. Jerome here.
2. A GRIEVOUS VISION (for Babylon to come) IS DECLARED UNTO ME,—to Isaias, for the words are his; not Babylon’s, as some will have it.
HE THAT IS TREACHEROUS DEALETH TREACHEROUSLY (in Hebrew, He who is a transgressor to others is a transgressor to Babylon: the Hebrew bagad signifies to transgress, to break faith, to rebel, to shake off the yoke): AND HE THAT IS A SPOILER, SPOILETH,—as if to say: The Persians and Medes, a faithless and treaty-breaking people, do not keep faith with Babylon, as neither with other nations; and as they are wont to plunder other nations, so shall they lay waste Babylon. For that the Medes and Persians were confederates of the Babylonians is clear from this, that Nabuchodonosor with Cyaxares king of the Medes stormed Ninive and overthrew the monarchy of the Assyrians, as St. Jerome, Eusebius and others teach, whom I shall cite on Jeremias. Hence Nabuchodonosor also married Nitocris, daughter of Cyaxares; hence also the Elamites, that is, the Persians, came with the Chaldeans against Jerusalem, as is said in the next chapter, verse 6. Wherefore this sense is genuine. So Adam and others.
Secondly, Sanchez thinks that these words are to be understood of Gadatas and Gobryas, who deserted from Balthasar to Cyrus, and were the first to creep into Babylon and into the palace, and there slew Balthasar, as Xenophon teaches, book 7 of the Cyropaedia. Sanchez adds that in the word shadad, that is, “spoileth,” there is an allusion to Casdim, that is, Chaldeans, as if to say: The two Chaldean princes already named shall prevaricate against their king, and according to their name shall be Casdim (Chaldeans), that is, devastators of Babylon.
Thirdly, the same Sanchez prefers this explanation to all others, by which the former part is referred to the Babylonians; as the Babylonian is unbelieving and acts faithlessly, so the Persian or Mede is a spoiler and lays waste. Hence it is “the transgressor transgressing, and the spoiler spoiling,” that is, as that man, namely the Babylonian, obstinately transgresses and sins against God and men, so this man, namely Cyrus, shall obstinately lay him waste.
Fourthly, Vatablus translates: the prevaricator shall be prevaricated against, and the waster shall be wasted, that is, a waster will come or arrive. It is a proverb, as if to say: the Chaldean, who used to do injury to others, shall be injured by the Persians; he who laid others waste shall himself be laid waste.
Fifthly, Forerius translates: the plunderer is plundered, and the waster wastes; and St. Jerome in his Commentary: Strike, you who strike; lay waste, you who lay waste; as if to say: O Medes and Persians, who strike and lay waste other nations, strike and lay waste the Babylonians; this is your office, this is your allotted portion; adorn it.
GO UP, ELAM; BESIEGE, O MEDE. As if to say: Come now, O prevaricator, O waster of Babylon! You, I say, O Elam, that is, Persian, and you, O Mede, invade the city that is hateful to me and doomed to your slaughter. For Mede the Septuagint translate Persian, perhaps, says Leo Castrius, alluding to the Greek word meaning to lay waste and destroy, as if to say: the Medes shall be Persians, that is, destroyers of Babylon. So in Apocalypse 9 that angel is called in Hebrew Abaddon, in Greek Apollyon, in Latin destroyer or exterminator.
I HAVE MADE ALL THE SIGHING THEREOF TO CEASE. “Thereof” may mean, first, of the Persians and Medes, as some think; secondly, of the Jewish people, whom Isaias always bore in his mind and heart; thirdly, and more aptly, of Babylon. I have made the sighing to cease, because she will be overwhelmed by the Persians so suddenly that, struck with astonishment, she will be unable to weep and groan; or I will take away the sighing, that is, the public and funereal lamentation, as if to say: I will cause the Chaldeans slain by the Persians to lack burial rites and funeral pomp and mourning. So Sanchez. Fourthly, and best, Vatablus takes this actively, as if to say: I have made the sighing of Babylon cease, by which, through her tyranny and oppression, she forced others to weep and groan. Hence the Chaldee translates: all who groaned before the face of the king of Babylon I have made to cease, he being, of course, put to death.
THEREFORE ARE MY LOINS FILLED WITH PAIN. Cyril and Adam think this is a personation, the Prophet speaking in the person of Baltasar when he saw the hand writing on the wall: Mane, thecel, phares, and, Daniel explaining it, learned that destruction hung over himself and his kingdom.
But because there follows, set the table, which was done before the hand wrote these things, St. Jerome judges better that these are the words of Isaias, who loves Babylon, though she is an enemy of his own people, and who, in his usual way, sympathises with her, when he saw in spirit that she was besieged by Cyrus and made a wonder, that is, was gripped by astonishing distress.
He mentions the pain of the loins because he alludes to the pains of women in labour, as he explains presently; these are most violent in the loins, for in childbirth the loins are wonderfully convulsed, so that they seem plainly to be dislocated and torn apart.
I WAS TROUBLED AT THE SEEING IT. Hence it seems that the sight of Babylon in flames was set before the eyes of Isaias’s mind by God.
4. MY HEART FAILED, DARKNESS AMAZED ME.—From fear a darkness was poured over my eyes, and from it stupor and horror in my mind.
BABYLON, MY BELOVED. In Hebrew, for Babylon there is neseph, that is, darkness, obscurity. So he called it “the dark mountain” in chapter 13, verse 2, for the reasons given there. St. Jerome adds that it is called “darkness” because it raised the summit of its pride up to heaven, where our eye grows dim. Hence, secondly, Vatablus, Adam and others translate: the twilight, or the night of my desire, he has turned for me into fear; and they explain it as the words of Baltasar, as if to say: The last night, in which I thought to feast and rejoice, God has turned for me into mourning and horror. This sense is very fitting if we look to the Hebrew. Thirdly, Sanchez thinks that the destruction of Babylon is called twilight because it was, as it were, the dawn of light, that is, the beginning of the joy which the Jews were to have from the liberty that was to follow under Cyrus. The twilight of desire is therefore the beginning of a liberty so much desired. This was turned for Isaias into fear and mourning, because he grieved that the Jews had to be freed at the cost of so great a grief and loss to the Chaldeans. The Septuagint, reading by transposition nephes, that is, soul, translate: My soul stood in fear.
MY BELOVED. Some think this is said ironically and by antiphrasis: beloved, that is, a city hateful to me and to the Jews. Secondly, Sanchez thinks that the “my” is paragogic; for it answers to the Hebrew iod, which here is not an affixed pronoun but a paragogic letter. A like case is in Canticles 1:9, “to my horsemen,” where the iod, that is, “my,” seems to be paragogic. Babylon is therefore called beloved absolutely, in Hebrew chiski, that is, desirable, on account of her wealth, beauty and delights.
IS MADE A WONDER TO ME. Babylon, for the splendour of her walls and houses, was one of the seven wonders of the world; now she is a wonder of ruin, distress, fear and trembling; for this is the Hebrew charada.
5. SET THE TABLE, BEHOLD IN THE WATCHTOWER. It is irony, as if to say: Go on, Baltasar, spread the table, feast, and meanwhile station watchmen to look out from the watchtower, lest Cyrus, who besieges the city, attempt some inroad into it. These will cry out with me to you and your companions: Arise, you princes, who feast and drink in luxury with Baltasar, take up the shield, the enemy is at hand, he has entered Babylon, he is rushing upon the palace; meet him as he rages in the city. So say Vatablus, Adam and others. Xenophon, book 7, relates that it so happened, and that Baltasar had posted these watchmen; and that the Persians who burst into the palace found the king with a drawn sword, and there slew him.
St. Thomas, Hugh and Sanchez take the watchtower otherwise, namely for the wall, as if to say: Look out, O Baltasar, and behold on the wall the hand of God writing: Mane, thecel, phares, and threatening you with destruction; hence in Hebrew it is, watch the watching, or see the vision.
YOU THAT EAT AND DRINK: ARISE. St. Thomas, Hugh and Haymo think that Cyrus and Darius, invited by Baltasar to a banquet, attacked and killed Baltasar after the drinking, and that this is foretold here by Isaias. But neither Scripture nor Xenophon nor anyone else says any such thing; on the contrary they assert the opposite, that while the king was feasting, Cyrus had turned the Euphrates into trenches already prepared, and entered the city dry-shod with his men through its bed. Add that Babylon was not taken at the banquet, nor the king slain there, but a long time after the banquet, namely after he had seen the hand writing on the wall, had called the wise men to explain the writing, and, when no one could, had summoned Daniel, who read and explained the writing and was therefore honoured by the king; all of which took much time. Therefore Cyrus could not have killed the king at the banquet. So Lyranus and others.
Secondly, Sanchez refers “eating” to the Babylonians and “arise” to the Persians, as if to say: While the Babylonians eat and drink, arise, princes of the Persians, take up arms, invade the city. But the sense which I gave a little before seems more connected and genuine.
TAKE UP THE SHIELD. The Interpreter seems to have read mischu, that is, draw, draw to you, seize; hence the Septuagint translate, prepare; others read mischu in the sense of anoint the shield, as if to say: Do not anoint your head and body in the usual way, O guest of Baltasar! Do not season your dishes more daintily, but anoint the shields, take up arms; it is the time not for feasting but for fighting. Again, anoint the shield; for soldiers are wont to anoint their arms so that they may be polished and shining. Hence Virgil, Aeneid, book 7: