Commentaria in Isaiam
Fourthly, and most plainly, Arias Montanus says: The Idumeans inquired of their watchman, “Watchman, what of the night?” that is, what hour of the night is it? The watchman answers: “The morning cometh, and the night,” as if to say: The morning is at hand, and yet it is still night; wherefore “if you seek, seek,” as if to say: If therefore you wish to go out to plunder or elsewhere, make haste, “return, come,” that is, come again, and return quickly to the city before the enemy perceive you in the morning. It is a Hebraism, in which a verb is put for an adverb or participle: “return, come,” that is, come again, or come back.
Fifthly, Procopius and Theodoret explain it, as if to say: O Idumeans! you do well to stand at your walls, and to ask your watchman about the night and the morning: if nevertheless you seek safety and a sure way to it, come to me who am your God and watchman, do penance, renounce your sins, study justice, and so be reconciled to me; I will defend you, because you are children of Abraham and Isaac. But then this counsel and these words would be God’s or Isaias’s, whereas it is plain that they are the words of the watchman of the Idumeans, as I said.
Mystically St. Gregory, Morals book 16, chapter 25, and St. Augustine, tract 43 on John, and after them Leo Castrius, explain it, as if to say: The Prophet: O God, who art the Samaritan, that is, the keeper of men, to thee Seir cries, that is, the Gentile and sinful people: “What of the night?” what will become of so great a tribulation? how long shall we dwell in this night of ignorance, sin and misery? when will the morning come, in which Christ, the sun of justice, shall rise? To whom God answers: If you seek Christ sincerely and from the heart, persevere in seeking, and you shall find.
Again St. Gregory, Morals book 6, chapter 13: “The watchman,” he says, “came by night, because the protector of the human race appeared manifest in the flesh; and yet Judea, held in the darkness of her unbelief, did not know him. Here it is well added from the watchman’s voice: The morning cometh, and the night, because by his presence a new light shone upon the world, and yet in the hearts of unbelievers the old blindness remained.”
13. THE BURDEN IN ARABIA. That is, a threatening prophecy against the Arabs dwelling in Arabia, who are called, from their forefathers, Ismaelites and Cedarenes. For Cedar was the son of Ismael, Genesis 25:13. They were, as they still are, wild men, dwelling in tents in desert places: they give themselves to pasturing flocks, hunting and plunder; for they are excellent archers, as is said in verse 17, and Jeremias 49:28. This is according to what the Angel foretold of their father Ismael to their mother Agar, Genesis 16:12: “He shall be a wild man: his hand will be against all men, and all men’s hands against him.” Hence even now the Turk, though he is lord over Arabia, cannot with all his power subdue the Arabs and restrain them from plundering.
Mystically St. Bernard, On the Burden in Arabia, sermon 8: “Arabia,” he says, “is interpreted evening, which is the end of the day and the beginning of the night: it signifies, not unfittingly, I think, the hour of death, which lays a heavy weight of fear on almost all mortals. For who among men can escape this burden, to which the Saviour, for the sake of example, submitted himself of his own will? For as death drew near he began, as the Evangelist says, to fear and to be heavy. Under this fear the whole race of men lives, unless perhaps there be someone for whom a happy life after death is certain, and who in desire of it does not feel even the bitterness of death. Moreover the evening (which, as we have said, is the end of the day and the beginning of the night) expresses the fall of him who, after the works of light, begins those of darkness, and whose last state becomes worse than the first: he will surely be crushed by that weight which is contained in the burden of Arabia.”
IN THE FOREST IN THE EVENING YOU SHALL SLEEP. St. Jerome, Haymo, Forerius, Hugh and Sanchez understand this of the Jews, who after the devastation of Jerusalem escaped the hands of the Chaldeans into neighbouring Arabia; and that the Arabs are therefore warned to meet them and refresh and restore them in their hunger and thirst, and because they did not do so, he threatens them in verse 16 with like destruction.
But because this burden is against Arabia, not against Jerusalem, I say that it is a metalepsis, signifying the hurried flight of the Arabs when the enemy comes, since toward night they are forced to flee and sleep in the wood, and on the road that leads to the city of Dedan.
Note: It is altogether probable that not Salmanasar, as Forerius will have it, but Nabuchodonosor, when he laid waste neighbouring Idumea, Judea, Ammonitis and all the rest, laid waste Arabia also; for Jeremias foretold the same destruction of Arabia, chapter 25, verse 23, and chapter 49, verse 28, and Ezechiel, chapter 25, verse 13. And they foretell the scourge of Nabuchodonosor hanging over all nations. Cyril, however, assigns it to Darius the Mede, when he took Babylon with Cyrus.
For “in the evening” the Hebrew is baaraba, which can be rendered first “in Arabia”; secondly, it alludes to the name of Arabia, which signifies the destruction of the Arabs: at the evening, at the setting, you shall sleep, when, that is, the light and day shall set for you, both of the sun and of happiness, joy and glory; when at the setting of your kingdom you shall say:
We Trojans were, Ilium was, and the great glory of the Teucrians.
Thirdly, baaraba alludes to oreb, that is, raven, as if to say: You shall sleep in Arabia, that is, in the region of ravens, that is, you shall be hung on a gibbet, and feed the ravens on the cross; or you shall descend and sleep in hell among black and foul demons. For this is Arabia, that is, the region of ravens.
IN THE PATHS OF DEDANIM. Dedan and Theman, says St. Jerome, are in the wilderness, and seem to have been chiefly a province of the Ismaelites.
14. Meeting the thirsty, bring water (give them drink), you who dwell in the land of the South—you who dwell toward the South (where they were fleeing the enemy coming from the opposite side), and are neighbours of Arabia.
16. For yet in one year, as in the year of a hireling—that is, after a certain time fixed by God, and a short one, and perhaps a year after the destruction of Jerusalem, the glory of Cedar, that is, of the Arabs, as I said at verse 13, shall be taken away and shall fail, as the time and the gain of a hireling fail when the year is ended; or “as in the year of a hireling,” that is, in the year in which they shall be given up as a reward to their enemies the Chaldeans, in payment for the labour with which the Chaldeans served the vengeance of God in destroying other nations. See what I said at the end of chapter 26.
17. And the remnant of the number (that is, the numbered, the few of the Arabs, who are usually countless and most skilful archers, who shall be left after the slaughter by the Chaldeans) shall be diminished—that is, they shall be reduced to a small and slender number. Hence Forerius renders it clearly: and the remaining number of the bows of the mighty ones of the sons of Cedar shall be few.
But because it was not easy to believe that such a people could be conquered, accustomed as they were to the deserts, skilled in archery, and able by the speed of their horses easily to elude their enemies, and having no cities that could be besieged, he adds in confirmation: “For the Lord the God of Israel hath spoken it,” whose wrath no strength or arts can avoid. So Forerius.