Commentaria in Isaiam
9. “THEREFORE UPON THIS SHALL THE INIQUITY OF THE HOUSE OF JACOB BE FORGIVEN.” He returns to verse 6, and to the remnant of the Jews who believe in Christ, especially those who are converted by the disaster and terror of their destruction, of which he treated in the preceding verse. For he gives the cause, says St. Jerome, why, after the Jews have killed Christ, they obtain pardon if they are willing to repent. The cause is: because through the Apostles, who will be of the stock of Israel, the Gospel will be sown over the whole world, idolatry will be destroyed, groves and altars and shrines, at the time when likewise Jerusalem and its temple and altar will be destroyed, and the knowledge of the one and triune God will be preached, with this one end and fruit, that the sin of unbelief, and the other sins of the Jews, may be taken away. For when the Jews see altars and idols everywhere among the Gentiles destroyed at the time when their own temple and altar are turned to ashes by Titus, and temples raised by the Gentiles, and there the one God worshipped piously and holily, then they will be moved to believe in Christ also themselves, and so obtain the remission of sins and grace: these altars and shrines, therefore, are those of the Gentiles, not of the Jews; for we nowhere read that in the time of Christ the Jews had altars and idols. Hence Forerius, who grants that these altars are the Jews’, understands by them symbolically the avarice, envy, pride and other vices of the Jews.
Note the Hebraism: “When he shall have made all the stones of the altar as stones of ashes broken in pieces,” that is, when God shall have turned the temple and altar of the Jews to ashes, by Titus burning it, and dashing, crushing and reducing its stones to cinders.
10. “FOR THE STRONG CITY SHALL BE DESOLATE.” Jerusalem, which killed Christ, shall be laid desolate by the Romans, so that not men but calves and wild beasts shall feed there, and consume the tops of the vines, which are called shoots, as if to say: This devastation will drive the remnant of the Jews to repentance, and to Christ.
11. “IN THE DROUGHT ITS HARVEST SHALL BE BROKEN” (as if to say: The people of Jerusalem shall be afflicted with drought, want and famine; and so they shall be without counsel, as may be seen), “WOMEN SHALL COME AND TEACH IT,” namely Jerusalem, that is, that foolish women may teach their husbands and give them counsel; or he calls womanish princes, Prophets and teachers women, who destroyed Juda by their softness and sloth.
Otherwise Sanchez: for he refers this to the disaster of the Jews under Josias by Pharao, and afterwards by Nabuchodonosor, as if women are here invited to lament, and to teach others the disaster and the lamentation of so great a disaster.
The Septuagint translate, women coming from the spectacle, or from the vision, come hither, give light: which St. Jerome, Cyril, Origen, Theophilus, Procopius, Tertullian, whom Leo Castrius cites, take of Mary Magdalen and her companions, who, coming from the sepulchre after seeing the Angels and Christ, testified to all that Christ had risen, as if they were here bidden to enlighten all, even the Jews, with faith in the resurrection of Christ. Hence for “women teaching,” Pagninus, Forerius and Vatablus translate, women approaching. It is known how Magdalen as a torch, and her companions, kindled the Apostles and others by this news, with love of Christ as well as joy. But these words look to the destruction of Jerusalem; wherefore the first sense is the literal and genuine one.
“FOR IT IS NOT A WISE PEOPLE” (therefore it deserves to be ruled by women); “THEREFORE HE THAT MADE IT SHALL NOT HAVE MERCY ON IT,” namely God its maker and framer, who will punish this folly of the people.
12. “AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS: IN THAT DAY HE SHALL STRIKE.” The Hebrew has chabbat, that is, shall beat out, as olives are beaten out of the olive tree. Hence the Royal Bible for “shall strike” reads, The Lord shall beat out from the channel of the river as far as the torrent of Egypt, as if to say: God will strike the whole of Judea, which was once the land of promise, so that nothing of faith, nothing of knowledge of the Scriptures, nothing of true piety will any longer be found in it; for such the Jews now are. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Procopius. He speaks, as I said, of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus; though Sanchez thinks Isaias speaks of the destruction both of the ten tribes by the Assyrians and of the two by the Chaldeans. Hence Aquila and Theodotion for “shall strike” translate, shall strike with a rod; the Septuagint, shall shut in; others, shall dash together.
Note, by the river is taken the Jordan, or rather, as the Chaldean and St. Jerome say, the Euphrates: by the torrent of Egypt, the Nile: for between these two rivers Judea is enclosed, and these two are elsewhere set down as the boundaries of the Holy Land. I say the Nile, or rather a stream of the Nile, which is a torrent coming from the desert, entering the sea between the city of Rhinocolura and Pelusium: hence elsewhere it is called the torrent of Egypt, elsewhere the torrent of the desert: hence the Septuagint here translate, as far as Rhinocolura. For Rhinocolura is a city of Arabia Petraea, and is the boundary of Judea toward the south, or toward Egypt and Arabia. It took its name, says Strabo, book 16, from the nose, because the Ethiopians led there a colony of criminals and evildoers, whom, sparing their lives, they only cut off the noses of, and banished to this as to an exile, lest they offend others by their deformity, and that they, conscious of their crimes, now marked by so infamous a punishment, might thereafter abstain from wrongdoing and be an example and a terror to others.
“AND YOU SHALL BE GATHERED TOGETHER ONE BY ONE.” In Hebrew, one to one, that is, you shall be gathered individually. It signifies that the remaining Jews, to be gathered by Titus, either to be sold or to be led in triumph, will be few. Secondly, and perhaps more aptly, Adamus judges that Isaias speaks of the gathering to Christ and to Christianity, of which it is said, John chapter 11: “That he might gather together in one the children of God that were dispersed,” as if to say: Whoever of you are true Israelites, not in flesh but in spirit, one by one, even if few, shall then be gathered to Christ in the Church. Hence it follows:
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,” as if to say: When the trumpet of the preaching of the Gospel sounds, the children of Israel who had been led captive into Assyria and Babylonia by Salmanasar and Nabuchodonosor, from “the land of the Assyrians,” shall “come” and flock to Christ and the Church; likewise those who at the same time fled from Judea, banished, into Egypt, these “from the land of Egypt” shall come and return to Mount Sion, and to Jerusalem, that is, to the Church of Christ, and there adore the Lord. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret. What is here said of the Jews, understand by like reasoning, indeed by a greater, of the Gentiles: for the Prophets are wont to describe the redemption of Christ by the figure of a return from the Babylonian or Assyrian captivity: for this was most welcome and most desired by the Jews to whom the Prophets spoke; as the redemption of Christ from the captivity of sin and the devil is most delightful to the faithful.
Sanchez takes this literally of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity and from Egypt. Anagogically, take this of the trumpet of the Archangel, which will call together the elect, of the Jews as of the Gentiles, to the heavenly Sion, that is, to the kingdom of heaven. So St. Jerome.