Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter Twenty-six
First, it is the canticle of the blessed, in which they give thanks to God for their happy lot. Second, at verse 10, the Prophet prays God to compel the wicked by scourges to a right life and to salvation, since prosperity leads men to luxury, while scourges lead them back to virtue and to God. Third, at verse 19, by the hope of the resurrection he exhorts the just to bear death and all hardships bravely, as men aspiring to heaven.
1. In that day shall this canticle be sung in the land of Juda: Sion the city of our strength, a saviour; a wall and a bulwark shall be set therein. 2. Open ye the gates, and let the just nation, that keepeth the truth, enter in. 3. The old error is passed away: thou wilt keep peace: peace, because we have hoped in thee. 4. You have hoped in the Lord for evermore, in the Lord God mighty for ever. 5. For he shall bring down them that dwell on high, the high city he shall lay low. He shall bring it down even to the ground, he shall pull it down even to the dust. 6. The foot shall tread it down: the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. 7. The way of the just is right, the path of the just is right to walk in. 8. And in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, we have patiently waited for thee: thy name, and thy remembrance are the desire of the soul. 9. My soul hath desired thee in the night: yea, and with my spirit within me, in the morning early I will watch to thee. When thou shalt do thy judgments on the earth, the inhabitants of the world shall learn justice. 10. Let us have pity on the wicked, but he will not learn justice: in the land of the saints he hath done wicked things, and he shall not see the glory of the Lord. 11. Lord, let thy hand be exalted, and let them not see: let the envious people see and be confounded: and let fire devour thy enemies. 12. Lord, thou wilt give us peace: for thou hast wrought all our works for us. 13. O Lord our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us: only in thee let us remember thy name. 14. Let not the dead live, let not the giants rise again: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and hast destroyed all their memory. 15. Thou hast been favourable to the nation, O Lord, thou hast been favourable to the nation: art thou glorified? thou hast removed it far to all the ends of the earth. 16. Lord, they have sought after thee in distress, in the tribulation of murmuring thy instruction was with them. 17. As a woman with child, when she draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pains: so are we become in thy presence, O Lord. 18. We have conceived, and been as it were in labour, and have brought forth wind: we have not wrought salvation on the earth, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen. 19. Thy dead men shall live, my slain shall rise again: awake, and give praise, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is the dew of the light: and the land of the giants thou shalt pull down into ruin. 20. Go, my people, enter into thy chambers, shut thy doors upon thee, hide thyself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away. 21. For behold the Lord will come out of his place, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him: and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
1. “IN THAT DAY SHALL THIS CANTICLE BE SUNG” (by the blessed) “IN THE LAND OF JUDA,” namely in Sion, that is, in the heavenly Church. There will be eternal praise and confession of God: for this Juda signifies. So Saint Jerome. Secondly, Saint Cyril adapts this also to the Church militant, which is the way and beginning of the heavenly and triumphant Church.
“THE CITY OF OUR STRENGTH SION THE SAVIOUR; A WALL AND A BULWARK SHALL BE SET THEREIN.” The Septuagint has a wall round about; Symmachus, a firmament: for this is the Hebrew chel. The word “saviour” may be referred either to what goes before or to what follows. The Roman Bibles, Saint Jerome and Adamus refer it to what goes before, and the sense is: “The city of our strength,” that is, our strength, our secure protection, and our quiet dwelling, like the city of Sion, is Christ the Lord; for he himself shall be our wall and bulwark, that is, like a most strong wall and bulwark; he will guard and fortify the blessed in heaven. In a like figure it is said, Proverbs 18:10: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the just runneth to it, and shall be exalted”; and Jeremias 1:18: “I have made thee a fenced city, and an iron pillar, and a wall of brass,” etc., “to the kings of Juda,” etc. Otherwise Saint Gregory, Homily 14 on Ezechiel: “In the holy Church,” he says, “the Lord (Christ) is set for us as a wall, and his Prophets as a bulwark; because to us, whom he himself perfectly protects, the words of the Prophets also have come for the building up of faith.” Otherwise also Saint Jerome: “The wall,” he says, “of the Church is faith; the bulwark is good works.” And Saint Bernard, Sermon 5 on the Assumption of the Blessed Mary: “The wall,” he says, “is continence, the bulwark patience.” He pursues this elegantly in Sermon 3 on the Dedication of the Church. So Alcidamas said that philosophy is the rampart and fence of the laws, as if the sum and strength of the laws were placed in it; which Aristotle, citing it in Rhetoric 3, unjustly censures.
Second, “saviour” may be referred to what follows, with the Hebrews, and that is fitter and neater, as if to say: The city of our beatitude, namely the heavenly Sion, will be so fortified and strong that no force, no age can shake it, nor can the gates of hell prevail against it. The reason is that Christ the Saviour will be its wall and bulwark, that is, its strongest guard and protector on every side. So Saint Thomas, Hugh, Forerius, Vatablus, Sanchez and others. Hence the Hebrew more significantly has for “Saviour” yeshua, that is, salvation, and gives this sense: The city is our strength, salvation will set walls and a bulwark. So Vatablus; or, as others: God will set salvation in it for walls and a bulwark, as if to say: Do you wish to know how strong that city of the blessed is? Hear: salvation itself has girded it with its walls and bulwarks; God has set salvation itself for it in place of walls and bulwarks: salvation itself, then, girds the city round about and defends it. And there is no one who can harm salvation and safety itself. Things that do not have safety may have it taken from them tomorrow, but who will shake safety itself? In like manner it is said, chapter 60:18: “Salvation shall possess thy walls,” etc., that whoever wishes to be safe and sound may flee to thee. So Forerius. Hence the Arabic also renders: The city whose salvation is strengthened (or has grown strong) they set for wall and another wall, that is, a bulwark. Our translator renders salvation as Saviour, for he is the causal salvation of the heavenly Sion, because he brings it full salvation. For salvation cannot be torn from the Saviour, nor the Saviour from salvation. He sets the city of Sion against Moab, that is, heaven against hell, the blessed against the damned; for of Moab he said: “The fortifications of thy high walls shall fall down, and be brought low, and be pulled down to the ground, even to the dust.” But of Sion, it is meant, that salvation will be its wall and bulwark, so that it need not fear ruin, destruction or disaster. By “bulwark” he understands either the rampart and the half-moon which is made before the gate and the wall, that the citizens may keep the enemy from them, or the round outworks, which like towers project between the walls, that from them the inhabitants may pierce and drive back with darts an enemy approaching the walls. So literally the Saviour was wall and bulwark to Clovis, king of the Franks, who was then still a pagan. For when he was being overcome in war against the Alemanni, he called on Jesus Christ, whom his wife Clotilda worshipped, promising that if he conquered he would be a Christian. Whereupon the fortune of the war turned and he began to conquer; the Alemanni gave way and at last submitted to him; and so he became a Christian, as Gregory of Tours relates, History of the Franks, book 2, chapter 30.