Commentaria in Isaiam
8. “For All Tables Were Full of Vomit and Filth.”
Others translate, vomit and dung; others, dungy vomit. There was among the ancients that barbarous and swinish gluttony, which we still see among certain nations, even those who glory in the name of Christ, that they do not celebrate banquets and drinking parties unless they intoxicate themselves and their guests, indeed place vomiting-pots and chamber-pots under the table, into which above and below they pour out the wines and foods they have taken, that they may again devour and drink.
Julius Caesar used to do this, as Cicero witnesses, in the oration for Deiotarus, and Caius Caligula, as Philo witnesses in his Embassy to Caius, and Vitellius, as Suetonius witnesses in his Life. Tiberius was so given to wine that the soldiers, instead of “Claudius Tiberius Nero,” called him “Caldius Biberius Mero,” says Suetonius in his Life. Moreover Plutarch, in his book On the Precepts of Health, near the end, teaches that this was usual, saying: “The common run of men, who fill the body for the sake of emptying it, and on the contrary empty it by nature against nature for the sake of filling it, are tormented no less by surfeit than by emptiness; indeed they are burdened by surfeit as by a chain of delicacies: they always contrive emptiness as a place for pleasures.” And Seneca, Consolation to Helvia: “They vomit, he says, that they may eat: they eat that they may vomit. The feasts which they hunt for in the whole world they do not deign even to digest.” St. Bernard said that gluttons do nothing else but “take in, digest, and expel”: these, however, do not digest, but only take in and expel: wherefore they have as much stench and torment in expelling as they have savour and pleasure in taking in. Did not Diogenes say rightly: “The belly is the Charybdis of life”?
“SO THAT THERE WAS NO MORE PLACE” to vomit, as if to say: The tables, the pavement, the corners and all things are full of vomit, so that there is no clean place where one might wish or be allowed to vomit further.
9. “WHOM SHALL HE TEACH KNOWLEDGE,” etc., “THEM THAT ARE WEANED FROM THE MILK,” as if to say: God is wont to teach knowledge and wisdom to those who, torn from childish delights, from the imperfect and carnal life, are like men capable of solid food, that is, of true knowledge: but these Jews rejoice in these delights of wine and drunkenness, and do not fill themselves with the heavenly and solid; therefore, like unteachable boys, they go on, incapable of divine doctrine and admonition and of true wisdom. Paul alluded to this, saying to the Hebrews, chapter 5: “For every one that is a partaker of milk is unskilful in the word of justice.” So St. Jerome, Haymo, Dionysius and Hugo. Vatablus, Forerius and Sanchez, who read all this as a question, “Weaned from milk? drawn from the breast?”, expound the contrary, as if to say: Who will there be now who will not take my words idly and vainly, since these priests and Prophets of the Jews, who are reckoned masters in the people, are like boys just torn from their mothers’ breasts. This exposition is contrary, and fits aptly with what follows, if you read all as a question. But the Roman Bibles, the Plantin and others commonly read “weaned from milk,” etc., assertively, not interrogatively: wherefore the former sense is more apt, and is the common one of the Fathers. Moreover the Septuagint, for “knowledge,” reading ra’ah, that is, evil, translate, and shall we announce evils to him? namely that he may decline and flee them by knowledge, as the Hebrew and Vulgate have.
Allegorically and tropologically, Cyril: “God,” he says, “both calls and teaches the saints, who, weaned from the milk and breasts of the old law, have been advanced through Christ to the perfect man, that for Him they may bravely undergo every danger.” So also St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, at the words: I prevented in the ripeness and cried: “Such a weaned child,” he says, “was Isaac, who did not shrink from the sword of his father, his slayer.”
Hence St. Paula, as St. Jerome witnesses in her Life, repeated this place of Isaias according to the Septuagint in tribulations and straits: “You who are weaned from milk, who are drawn from the breast, look for tribulation upon tribulation, hope upon hope, yet a little, because of the wickedness of the lips, because of the malignant tongue.” And she used to expound the testimony of Scripture for her consolation, that it belongs to the weaned, namely to those who have come to manly age, to bear tribulation upon tribulation, that they may deserve to receive hope upon hope, knowing that “tribulation worketh patience,” etc.
10. “FOR COMMAND, COMMAND AGAIN.” He gives the reason why the Jews, like unteachable and incorrigible boys, cannot, and ought not, be taught heavenly knowledge, because they themselves deride it and its teachers.
For “command, command again,” the Hebrew is tsav latsav, command by commanding, that is, command, command again; kav lakav, expect by expecting, that is, expect, expect again. St. Jerome, Haymo and Lyranus note that in these words there is a mimesis, or ethopoeia, which is the relating of others’ sayings with derision; “Whom shall he teach knowledge?” etc., the Prophet answers:
Only those, whom he signifies by the weaned from milk, while all others know nothing but to mock the words of the Prophets, for Isaias and the Prophets often said: “Thus saith the Lord”; hence those given to wine at their banquets derisively repeated this, saying: “command, command again,” that is, command again, O Isaias, O Prophet! expect, expect again, as if they said: The Prophets deafen our ears by so often repeating: “Thus saith the Lord,” and threaten or promise what never happens, bid us wait a little, now here, now there, and nothing follows. So it still happens now and then to preachers, that the wicked laugh at, repeat, and mock their sermons and threats.
Wherefore the Jews, Rabbi David, Rabbi Abraham, and after them Vatablus, Isidorus Clarius, Pagninus and Forerius coldly translate these words of Isaias thus: Line upon line, precept upon precept, a little there, a little there, as if to say, Isaias: These must be taught like boys, rudely and very slowly, line after line, precept after precept, as boys are taught the alphabet. For that these are not the words of boys to be taught, but of mockers and scoffers, is plain from the punishment which in the next verse Isaias threatens to their jeers. Hence the Septuagint translate thus: Expect tribulation upon tribulation, hope upon hope, yet a little, yet a little, because of the mockery of the lips, and another tongue, because they shall speak to the people, saying thus to them: This is rest to the hungry, and this is contrition, and they would not hear. Where note: the Septuagint, for tsav (that is, command), read tsar, that is, tribulation; for vav and resh are letters near each other in Hebrew.
From the Hebrew kav lakav, that is, expect, expect again, the Nicolaitans formed their filthy deity Caulaucam, as if the president of concubinage, as Epiphanius teaches, Heresy 25, and Nicetas, book 1 of the Treasury of Orthodoxy, whom St. Jerome here touches without naming them.
Morally, Richardus Victorinus, and Delrio, reciting his words, adage 147, refer these words of Isaias to the slothful and lukewarm, even Religious, who put off the amendment of life.
Finally the Syriac and Arabic, reading for tsav the word meaning excrement, from the root tsa’a, to go out, translate: the Syriac thus: For dung upon dung, and dung upon dung, and vomit upon vomit, and vomit upon vomit, a little here, and a little there; the Arabic thus: With whom knowledge or doctrine is like vomit upon vomit, and dung upon dung in the privy, a little in one place, a little in another, here and there it is full of dung: so as to regard verse 8: “All the tables were full of vomit and filth.” Hence it is plain that the Syriac and Arabic take it from the Hebrew belaag sapha, that is, as Lyranus, Forerius and Pagninus have it, in stammering of lip; Arias, in lisping of lip, as scoffers are wont to speak when deriding, with a gesture of tongue and lips fashioned to stammering; which our Translator renders “in the speech of lips”: for the lispers and stammerers seem to speak and babble with the lips almost alone, as infants do when they begin to talk and stammer. Hence Sanchez, where it is said, “in the speech of lips,” thinks there is an allusion to the labial letters, which are familiar to children, namely B, M, P; wherefore they call father baba, abba, mother mama, porridge papa: for these letters are formed with the lips closed; hence they are called labials, and may rightly be called infantile. Hence the Septuagint and others plainly translate, in mockery, or derision of lip: for he who deals, lisping and stammering, with men who are grown in years but infants in intellect and morals, laughs at their infancy. For the Hebrew laag properly applies to stammerers, lispers, scoffers. And perhaps Isaias alludes to the Ephraimites who lisped: whence in Judges 12:6, for shibboleth they said sibboleth: so here for tsav, that is, command, the Jewish scoffers said lisping sav. St. Paul renders these words not word for word but according to the sense, saying: “In other lips” (hence the Chaldean translates, in mockery of speech), because he adapts the place of Isaias to the gift of tongues given to the Apostles, who spoke with other tongues not for derision but for edification.