Commentaria in Isaiam
2. “AND I WILL MAKE A TRENCH ABOUT ARIEL,” namely Jerusalem, first, by the Chaldeans, says St. Jerome; secondly, by the Romans, says the same St. Jerome and Cyril. To this Christ alluded, Luke chapter 19, verse 43, predicting the siege and ruin of Jerusalem by Titus.
Calvin foolishly infers from the destruction of Ariel, that is, Jerusalem, the destruction of the Roman Church. Hear him, in his usual way, exulting and mocking:
“From this one may gather how ridiculous the Romanists are today, who fasten the Church to the chair of Peter, as if God could find a dwelling in the whole world nowhere but in the Roman See. Has any promise of this kind been given to Rome, such as to Jerusalem? This is my rest for ever and ever: here will I dwell, for I have chosen it, Psalm 131:14. But if it had been given, do we not see what Isaias pronounces of Jerusalem? That God is driven out where there is no place for doctrine, where the worship of God is corrupted? What then of Rome, which has no testimony?” Foolishly, I say; for Rome is one thing, the Roman Church and the chair of Peter another. We admit that Rome, like Jerusalem, can be overthrown, and has been often overthrown: we deny that the Roman Church and the chair of Peter can be overthrown. For firm and clear is Christ’s promise to Peter: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” Matthew 16:18. The old Jewish Church heard from God: “This is my rest for ever and ever,” that is, so long as the Mosaic law and this old state of things and shadows should last. For in Jeremias 31:31 and elsewhere God teaches and foretells that it will be abrogated through Christ and the Christian Church, as the Apostle shows, Hebrews 8:7. But no Scripture teaches that the Church of Christ will be abrogated by another that is to succeed it: nay, all assert that it will be perennial and plainly perpetual. Moreover the Church is the monarchy of Christ, who in His place in this monarchy appointed St. Peter and his successors as His head and vicar. For the visible Church cannot be headless and without a visible head, or be ruled so: just as a kingdom cannot exist and be ruled without a king, or the king’s vicar. Therefore if the Church of Christ is eternal, the Roman Pontiff also, who is its head and ruler, is eternal; the Holy Spirit also, director of both, that it err not in faith and religion.
“AND IT SHALL BE TO ME AS ARIEL.” Ariel is taken otherwise here than in verse 1. First, St. Jerome thinks that there is here a question of the restoration of the temple and city, and that it is predicted that it will not attain its former splendour, hence it is not called Ariel, but as Ariel. But there is not here a question of restoration, but of the overthrow of the city.
Secondly, others take Ariel in the dative, as if to say: Ariel, that is, Jerusalem, will be, or will meet Me God, as if one should meet Ariel, that is, a most strong lion, by whom he is torn: for I will be cruel to it as a lion, indeed as a lioness while she suckles her cubs, as is said in Osee 5:14. Hence Forerius: God compares Himself, he says, to a lion, the city to prey, as if to say: Thou who to others wast a lion and plunderer, shalt to Me now, as to a lion and thy plunderer, in turn be prey.
Thirdly, others: Jerusalem, they say, “shall be to me as Ariel,” that is, as a lion; for as a lion has many carcasses around him, so Jerusalem shall be full of the corpses of its citizens. Again others: “It shall be to me as Ariel,” as if to say: I will attack this city, as a fierce and harmful lion is wont to be surrounded and attacked by shepherds: I will treat it not as Ariel, that is, as the city of God, but as Ariel, that is, as the lion of God.
Fourthly, and better, the Chaldean, Vatablus, Lyranus and Adamus: Ariel, they say, is here called the altar, as in Ezechiel 43, as if to say: As the altar is surrounded with the blood of the victims, and in it as it were swims: so I God, through the Chaldeans as my priests, will bloody this city, as an altar, with the blood of the wicked citizens, and as it were consecrate it to God, that is, to Me and to My vengeance (see Canon 36), so that, as beside the altar lie slaughtered beasts, so in Jerusalem the corpses of the inhabitants may lie. So says Jeremias, chapter 12, verse 3: “Gather them together as sheep for a sacrifice, and sanctify them for the day of slaughter.” And Isaias, chapter 34, verse 6: “For the Lord hath a victim in Bosra.”
Fifthly, very aptly Arias Montanus explains, as if to say: Jerusalem, which was once Ariel, that is, a most strong lion, will now be Ariel, that is, a cursing, so that for its sin it will be sacrificed and slain to God like a ram. Hence the Arabic translates, and it shall be (become) as the land of Ariel. He plays elegantly on the word Ariel, as if you said: “The altar was turned into a pigsty by the enemy.” So the Poet plays on the word sustulit, when he says:
Who denies that Nero is of the stock of great Aeneas? This one took up his mother, that one took up his father.
For Nero took away his mother, that is, killed her; but Aeneas took his father Anchises on his shoulders, to bring him out from the destruction of Troy.
So Argeus played on the word extinguish, making a journey through Selinus. For when he saw this elegiac verse written on a monument:
These who were perhaps extinguishing tyranny, fierce Mars laid low on the ground behind the walls of Selinus.
“You perished justly,” he said, “who tried to put out a burning tyranny: you should rather have let it burn until it all burned out.” He seized the jest from the occasion of the word extinguish: for what is oppressed is extinguished; and a fire is extinguished when, all things having been burned, it ceases.
Allegorically, Leo Castrius: The Jews, he says, who once were Ariel, that is, the lion of God, will now be Ariel, that is, a lion against God; because they will slay and crucify Christ, the Lamb of God, indeed God, and the Son of God. Hence it is said of Him in Psalm 21:14: “They have opened their mouth against me, as a lion ravening and roaring.”
3. “I WILL MAKE A CIRCLE ROUND ABOUT THEE,” that is, on every side, says Vatablus, by the Chaldeans I will gird and besiege thee as with a sphere or crown. The Septuagint, for kaddur, that is, as a sphere, read kedavid, by changing the points, and reading for resh the akin daleth: whence they translate, and I will encompass thee as David against thee, as if to say: As David besieged and stormed Sion, so I will besiege and storm thee, O Jerusalem, O Sion!
4. “THOU SHALT SPEAK OUT OF THE EARTH,” etc., “AND THY VOICE SHALL BE FROM THE EARTH LIKE THAT OF A PYTHONESS,” as if to say: O Sion, O people of Juda! who before didst lift up thy crests, and thundest with great speech and haughtiness, now in the devastation thou wilt seek crypts and caves, and there, found by the enemy and wounded to death, thou wilt groan from the earth into which thou fallest, and thy voice will be like that of a python, that is, thin and mournful, such as that of the spirits which a python, that is, a necromancer (for a python is so called from the Greek word meaning I inquire, because he calls forth the souls of the dead and asks the secrets he desires to know) calls up from hell, and makes speak under the earth, or from the belly of a man or animal (which therefore are themselves called pythons); for their voice is slender, tearful, gaping, confused, groaning: such will thy voice be, O Sion, dying under the earth. So Ovid, book 5 of the Fasti, says of the shade of Remus:
The bloody shade of Remus seemed to stand by the bed, and to speak these words in a slight murmur.
And Virgil says of the souls, or shades of the Grecian princes, meeting Aeneas in hell:
Some raise a feeble voice; the cry begun cheats their gaping mouths.
5. “AND THE MULTITUDE OF THEM THAT WINNOW THEE SHALL BE LIKE SMALL DUST.” That is, the forces of the Chaldeans winnowing and driving the Jews will be innumerable, and most swift and violent like dust raised by a whirlwind, and like ashes which in a fire are stirred up by the wind. So St. Jerome. Secondly, and better, as if to say: The Chaldeans, who “prevailed against thee,” O Sion, and winnowed thee, will soon, after thy ruin, by God the avenger be crushed and scattered, as dust and ashes are scattered and vanish by the wind. So Adamus, Sanchez and others. Here the Prophet digresses, and begins to prophesy against the Babylonians, the overthrowers of the Jews, and goes on with it as far as verse 9.