Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter 27
Argument. Hitherto he has treated of the avenging of the world; now he treats of the overthrow and destruction of the devil, who is the prince of this world; which Christ began in this life, but completes on the day of judgment, of which the Prophet here properly speaks. In like manner, in chapter 13, having treated of the destruction of Babylon, he soon after, in chapter 14, treats of the destruction of the king of Babylon. Secondly, in verse 2, he introduces the canticle of the vineyard, that is, of the Church of the Blessed, wonderfully blessed by God. Thirdly, in verse 6, he foretells that the Apostles will fill the world with the seed of the word of God at the time when the city of Jerusalem shall be laid waste, and that then the remnant of the Jews will be converted. Finally, in verse 12, he teaches that the exiled and fugitive Jews will come to the Church of Christ.
1. In that day the Lord with his hard, and great, and strong sword shall visit Leviathan the bar serpent, and Leviathan the crooked serpent, and shall slay the whale that is in the sea. 2. In that day there shall be a vineyard of pure wine, sing ye to it. 3. I am the Lord that keep it, I will suddenly give it drink: lest anyone visit it, I keep it night and day. 4. There is no indignation in me: who shall make me a thorn and a brier in battle? I will march against it, I will set it on fire together. 5. Shall he not rather take hold of my strength, make peace with me, make peace with me? 6. When they shall rush in unto Jacob, Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with seed. 7. Hath he struck him according to the stroke of him that struck him? or is he slain as they slew that were slain by him? 8. In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it: he hath meditated with his hard spirit in the day of heat. 9. Therefore upon this shall the iniquity of the house of Jacob be forgiven: and this is all the fruit, that the sin thereof should be taken away, when he shall have made all the stones of the altar as stones of ashes broken in pieces, the groves and the temples shall not stand. 10. For the strong city shall be desolate, the beautiful city shall be forsaken, and shall be left as a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and shall consume the tops thereof. 11. Its harvest shall be broken with drought; women shall come and teach it: for it is not a wise people, therefore he that made it shall not have mercy on it, and he that formed it shall not spare it. 12. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall strike from the channel of the river even to the torrent of Egypt, and you shall be gathered together one by one, O ye children of Israel. 13. And it shall come to pass: In that day a great trumpet shall be sounded, and they that were lost shall come from the land of the Assyrians, and they that were cast out into the land of Egypt, and shall adore the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
1. “HE SHALL VISIT” (punish and as it were slaughter) “WITH HIS SWORD,” that is, with His strength, His forces and arms; for the arms of God are His power itself, which is omnipotent and effective of itself, and needs no external arms.
Theodoret, Nazianzen, Basil, Tertullian, and from them Leo Castrius, take the sword to mean Christ. The Arabic version has: In that day the Lord will command, with His drawn, great, powerful sword, over the viper and king of serpents, and over the dolphin; and He will slay the dragon who is in the sea. A most powerful and proudest mountain, namely Lucifer, who in this world, like whales in the sea, runs about to devour all things, and who is the head of the demons and of the wicked, and has as it were made them one body with himself.
LEVIATHAN is the whale or great fish, so called from the vastness of its body; for Leviathan in Hebrew signifies their coupling; and the whale has vast parts of its body cohering and coupled one to another; or because it couples and draws all things to itself to fill its gullet, as powerful tyrants do. Hence “Leviathan” here signifies the devil. For the proud grow into the head of this dragon as a crown, the luxurious into the belly, the rapacious into the hands, those who wander toward vain and perverse things into the feet. So Leo Castrius. The sense is, as if to say: Go on, strive, my elect, against the devil; for though the struggle with him is difficult, yet I will be present to you, and shortly, namely at the end of the world, I will take away all his force and power, and overthrow him. Some of the moderns take Leviathan to mean the Turk. For he has seized many kingdoms. He has joined nations to himself; and he is a long serpent, because of his far-extended empire; and he is crooked, if you look at the situation of the regions he occupies. For his head appears, as it were, in Greece, Thrace, Macedonia and the rest of Europe; his body stretched out somewhat in Asia Minor, which is now called Anatolia; his belly, winding, is seen through Syria and Phoenicia; his tail follows in a long train through Egypt and the Libyan coast, where he gathers himself as in a coil. He has his seat in the sea, namely in the very jaws of the Pontus and Propontis, that is, at Constantinople. This one God, at a time fixed by Himself, will visit and destroy.
SERPENTEM VECTEM. The devil is called a Serpent, on account of cunning and the poison of sin, which he craftily pours into men. He is called a bar, first, for his strength; hence Theodotion translates, a strong serpent; secondly, because by his power and the prison of hell he shuts in many; hence Symmachus translates, a shutting serpent. For the devil, says Sanchez, shuts the doors of hell and of sin (that none may come out), so firmly and narrowly that only by the hard and great sword of God could that bar be broken, to give men a free and unhindered way; thirdly, because he passes from the end to the end of the world; whence others translate, a long serpent; others, a penetrating one, for his venomous bites or his violence.
The Septuagint, a fleeing serpent, that is, from place to place; though mystically St. Jerome explains it thus: Because on the day of judgment he will flee, who was never accustomed to flee. Finally, for “bar” Forerius translates, rounded, or slippery, which easily flees and slips away; the Syriac translates, a leaping serpent. Hear what a bar, and how long and terrible, the devil is. Theodosius the Abbot, in Sophronius, in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 13, relates this of himself: Before I passed to the solitary life, being in an ecstasy I beheld a man whose appearance surpassed the brightness of the sun; he, holding my hand, said: “Come, for you must fight and wrestle.” And there was a place full of men, on one side in white clothing, on the other in black. When he had thrown me into the theatre, I saw a man of wonderful size, an Ethiopian, whose most hideous head pierced the cloud. Then that youth who had appeared to me said: “With this one you must wrestle.” I, who was terrified at the sight of that tall man, began to tremble and fear, saying: “What man, clothed with mortal condition and weakness, could wrestle with this one? Not the whole race of men, if it gathered into one, is able to resist him.” But the youth said to me: “You must by all means wrestle with him. Enter therefore with all eagerness and confidence; for as soon as you have attacked him, I will be your helper, and I will lay up for you the crown of victory.” So when I entered the contest, and we began to wrestle with each other, at once that illustrious judge of our contest was present, and gave me the crown; and that dark multitude, the great throng of Ethiopians, vanished, wailing; but the remaining part, the white-robed, gave thanks and praises to him who had helped me and given me the glorious victory.