Commentaria in Isaiam
Part polish the light shields and bright spears with rich fat
And Vegetius, book 2, chapter 14: “Let the decurion,” he says, “compel the soldiers to polish their breastplates, lances and helmets often; for the brightness of arms brings very great terror to enemies”; and: “Who would believe a soldier warlike, through whose neglect iron and arms are fouled with mould and rust?” Hence the Chaldee translates: polish, and make the arms bright. So Sanchez. He notes the sloth of the Babylonians, who let their arms be covered with rust, so that they had to be fitted and polished when they were needed and when hands were to be joined with the enemy. Again, anoint the shield; perhaps a shield made smooth and slippery with oil will elude the enemy’s darts and turn aside blows, to which roughness usually opens a way. For this is why the ancients anointed their shields, say Forerius, R. Solomon and Vatablus. Secondly, Hector Pintus and Pagninus say: Anoint the shield, that is, anoint another king in place of Baltasar, who is just about to be slain, who may be a shield to you; that is, anoint Cyrus, submit yourselves to him. For at the making of a king, they say, it was the custom to anoint him and his shield, say Vatablus and R. Solomon, and so they explain 2 Kings 1:21: “For there the shield of the valiant was cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.” But there the “anointed” is to be referred to Saul, not to the shield.
6. GO, AND SET A WATCHMAN. These things are said in a comic, or rather tragic, tone, as if to say: I told you, O Baltasar, Look out from the watchtower; now, because of the danger that threatens, I say again: Set a watchman, and set me, if you please; that is, if you will read or hear this my prophecy, I, Isaias, will be to you a most true and most faithful watchman. Hence in the next verse Isaias announces that he has watched the enemy’s chariot, which was drawn by an ass and a camel, with two horsemen. Less fittingly, therefore, do some take the watchman to be God, or an Angel, who watches these things and tells Isaias, that he may announce them to the Chaldeans.
7. AND HE SAW A CHARIOT OF TWO HORSEMEN. These two horsemen are Darius and Cyrus, who, in one chariot as it were, that is, with one army and their forces joined, advanced upon Babylon and took it by storm. This chariot was drawn by an ass and a camel; the ass signified the Persians, the camel the Medes.
Secondly, and more aptly: I saw a chariot, that is, I saw the chariots of the two horsemen, namely a chariot drawn by asses, on which sat Cyrus the Persian; and a chariot drawn by camels, on which sat Darius the Mede; yet these chariots were alike and equal, so that they seemed to be one and the same chariot; hence the Hebrew is, I saw a chariot of a pair, or a like pair, of horsemen. Each king, therefore, had his own chariot, as is clear of Achab and Josaphat fighting against Ramoth Galaad. Again, the same chariot could not be drawn by an ass and a camel, which is far larger and has a quite different gait from an ass. Hence Symmachus, for two riders or horsemen, translates two chariots. For the Hebrew is, I saw a chariot, that is, chariots, of a pair of horsemen, namely the chariot of the ass and the chariot of the camel, as if to say: I saw two chariots, one drawn by asses, the other by camels. So Vatablus, Forerius, Pagninus, and also Cyril and Procopius.
The Medes are compared to the camel, and Darius their king; because the Medes were warlike and powerful, and Darius, sprung from royal blood, was illustrious and high-minded. So St. Jerome.
But Cyrus and the Persians are compared to the ass, because the Persians had until this day been abject and ignoble. Secondly, because they were a laborious people, patient of hardships; thirdly, because they won the empire not so much by military skill as by strength of body and the multitude of men, or by the cowardice of those with whom they fought. For the same reasons they are compared by Daniel, chapter 7, to a bear; fourthly, because although the earlier Persians were most temperate and very frugal, as Xenophon testifies, the later ones dissolved in luxury and lusts, as is plain from the times of Xerxes and Darius Codomannus, etc.; nay, Theodoret, on Leviticus, Question 24, says: “The Persians to this day are joined in marriage not only with their sisters but with their mothers and daughters.” So also Augustine in the same place, Question 58. For lustful men are compared to asses. Hence Ezechiel 23: “their flesh is as the flesh of asses”; “flesh,” that is, members so great, says St. Jerome. Finally, Eusebius, book 9 On the Preparation, last chapter, from Alphaeus and the annals of the Chaldeans, teaches that Nabuchodonosor, seized with prophetic ecstasy, foretold to the Chaldeans: “There shall come a Persian half-ass, who will lay on you the yoke of slavery”: Cyrus is meant, who is called a half-ass, that is, a mule, begotten of a mare and an ass, or of a she-camel and an ass, because Cyrus was born of a mother, Mandane, the daughter of Astyages king of the Medes, and of a father of obscure Persian stock. Hence some think that one and the same Cyrus is here called the rider of the ass, because, born of Persians, he ruled them; and the rider of the camel, because, born of a Median mother, he came to the kingdom of the Medes at the death of his uncle Darius. But it is truer that two riders or horsemen are put here, namely Darius and Cyrus.
Allegorically, Hesychius, book 2 on Leviticus 11: Christ, he says, is the rider of the camel, that is, of the Jewish people, who bore the heavy yoke of the law, and was of distorted and proud manners, like a camel; and he is also the rider of the ass, an unclean animal, that is, of the people of the Gentiles, and out of these he made one two-horse chariot for the Church; or, as Castrius says, Christ is the rider and lord of the camel, that is, of the heavenly Angels, and of the ass, that is, of earthly men. Finally Alcazar, on Apocalypse 17, note 4, beautifully applies this to Saints Peter and Paul, who overthrew mystic Babylon, that is, Rome and idolatry, and subjected it to Christ. For the rider of the ass is St. Peter, as the Apostle of the Jews, who like an ass were accustomed to the burden of the law. The rider of the camel is Paul, as the Apostle of the proud and untamed Gentiles; nay, he contends that this sense is the literal one; but from what has been said it is clear that it is mystical.
AND HE BEHELD. Not Cyrus, but the watchman, that is, Isaias, who here, according to the office he assumed a little before, watches and announces the coming of Cyrus; hence he cries out like a lion, as follows. Isaias speaks of himself in the third person, which is frequent in Scripture and among the Hebrews.
8. AND A LION CRIED. Some, such as Vatablus, explain it thus: The watchman cried: The Lion, that is Cyrus, is coming, preparing destruction for you, O Chaldeans! Hence Aquila translates: call the lion; Symmachus: call the lioness; Theodotion: call Ariel, as if to say: Call Cyrus, that he may rush like a lion upon Babylon. Secondly, and better: Isaias cried and roared like a lion; for Isaias, set as watchman and Prophet, always keeping watch for the visitation of God and most boldly foretelling things to come, is rightly compared, as a guardian of men, to a lion; because the lion is ever watchful, since he has very short eyelids and gleaming pupils, so that even sleeping he seems to be awake. Hence the ancients believed that the lion never sleeps; for which reason the Greeks used to paint two lions on the doors of temples, as guardians of the place, as we still see done at the gates of many palaces, cities and temples.