Commentaria in Isaiam
15. “WOE TO YOU THAT ARE DEEP OF HEART, TO HIDE YOUR COUNSEL FROM THE LORD.” In Hebrew, Woe to you that go deep, or, as Vatablus, that bury yourselves in the depth, as if to say: Woe to you who enter counsels so deep and secret that you think the eyes of God cannot penetrate to see them, but that they are hidden from Him.
Note, “hide,” that is, think hidden, either practically or also speculatively: for it signifies not a real act, because this is impossible, but a mental one, according to Canon 29. Behold to what point the impiety and folly of the wise and the mockers comes, to say: There is no God, there is no judge, no avenger of crimes; that so they may freely rush into all lusts and crimes. So in Job 22:14 the wicked say: “The clouds are his covert, and he doth not consider our things, and he walketh about the poles of heaven.” And Ezechiel 9:9: “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Juda is exceeding great, and the land is filled with blood, and the city is filled with perversion: for they have said: The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not.”
“WHOSE WORKS ARE IN THE DARK”: who flee the light, seek darkness, that they may do shameful things, which they conceal, or think to conceal, from men and from God.
16. “AS IF THE CLAY”: as if to say: These impious men and atheists, denying God’s knowledge and providence, act as if the blind clay should say to the potter: Thou hast no eyes, thou hast not the knowledge and art of forming me, and of making of me an earthen vessel; hence he says: “Thou understandest not,” the Chaldean, thou understandest me not; the Septuagint, thou hast not made me wisely.
17. “IS IT NOT YET A VERY LITTLE WHILE, AND LIBANUS SHALL BE TURNED INTO CHARMEL, AND CHARMEL COUNTED AS A FOREST?” In a short time Charmel, that is, Judea, will be laid waste by the Chaldeans, so as to be like Mount Libanus, uncultivated and desert. So Sanchez.
Secondly and genuinely, as if to say: After a short time, namely after 700 years (for these are a little thing in the eye of the Prophet raised before God, in respect of eternity, says St. Jerome, and in respect of the time through which the law of Christ is to last), “Libanus,” that is, the sterile and uncultivated nations, will be cultivated by the Apostles, and become fertile in good works through faith; the field before fertile, namely the Jews, once abounding in holy Patriarchs, Prophets and other upright men, will become sterile, and degenerate into a fruitless and uncultivated forest. Note: Isaias here prophesies the reprobation of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Procopius, Theodoret and Castrius, who also add that “Charmel” signifies Juda, because Carmel is a mountain in Judea, and that fertile, whence in Scripture it is a symbol of fertility, of which Jeremias 2:7, and because Charmel in Hebrew is composed of kar, that is, lamb, and mol, that is, circumcised; whence Charmel signifies lambs, and sacrifices, and circumcision, and the old law: but “Libanus” signifies the Gentiles.
First, because Libanus was a mountain in Phoenicia, inhabited by Gentiles. Secondly, because as Libanus flourishes with pines, cedars and incense-bearing trees (hence lebanon, frankincense, says Masius), so the Church flourishes with the odour of virtues and the sanctity of illustrious men. Thirdly, Libanus may come from laban, white, from its white incense or snow; hence by anticipation it signifies the Gentiles to be whitened by the baptism of Christ. Fourthly, lebana is the moon, which receives light from the sun: so the Church receives the light of faith from Christ, says Leo Castrius. But this seems foreign. Tropologically, Charmel, minds fruitful in good works, become through sloth Libanus, sterile and cold. Or, taking Libanus for a mountain, Charmel for a plain: the proud will be humbled, the humble exalted, rough places made plain.
18. “AND IN THAT DAY THE DEAF SHALL HEAR.” The Gentiles are here called deaf and blind, on account of the ignorance and darkness of unbelief; but these through Christ have heard, seen and understood the words of the book, namely the oracles of sacred Scripture and of the Prophets, which were veiled and unknown to the Jews. So St. Jerome, Procopius, Cyril, Theodoret. This is what Christ says, John 9:39: “For judgment I am come into this world: that they who see not may see, and they who see may become blind.” This is the miracle of verse 14: through Christ doctors became stupid, and fishermen and rustics wise doctors.
19. The Gentiles made gentle by Christ, who with a mild spirit obey the Gospel, and commit themselves to be formed and taught by it, here “shall add,” that is, increase, the Church’s “joy”: the same are the “poor men,” both in means and in spirit; both those who before had been destitute of faith and grace, and oppressed by sins as by foreign debt by the devil; these now freed from them by Christ “shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel,” that is, in God, who sanctifies true Israelites, and is worshipped by them. So Christ says: “I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise…”
20 and 21. “FOR HE THAT DID PREVAIL IS BROUGHT TO NOTHING,” that is, because the prince of this world, namely the devil, who most proudly mocked them, is cast down. Secondly and properly, as if to say: Because the Jews, who were the ministers of the devil, and prevailed over the Gentiles in religion and knowledge until Christ, and who were the mockers of the Prophets, saying: “Command, command again,” etc., have failed, “and all they are cut off” (by Titus) “that watched for iniquity” (that is, who were wholly intent on evil, so that in the early morning they thought of nothing else than how by day and night to fulfil their desires): “that made men sin by word” (by which they taught others the doctrines and commandments of men, not of God; and by which they turned men away from piety and the worship of God, by their flatteries, evil counsels, threats and mockeries): “and supplanted him that reproved them in the gate” (that is, the Prophets who reproved their crimes in the gates, that is, publicly even before judges (for judgments were held in the gates of cities) and princes, they mocked and vexed, by contriving calumnies against them, and false accusations, by which they brought them to condemnation and death. So they killed Amos, Jeremias, Isaias, Zacharias and others): “and declined in vain” (rashly, without cause) “from the just,” that is, from equity and justice; or rather “from the just” as an adjective (for this the Hebrew tsaddik signifies), that is, not to hear the just, namely the Prophets justly reproving them, and above all Christ, who is the just one of the just, says St. Jerome.
22. “HE THAT REDEEMED ABRAHAM,” who freed Abraham and led him out of Ur of the Chaldees.
“NOT NOW SHALL JACOB BE CONFOUNDED.” First, Cyril and St. Thomas expound, as if to say: “Not now shall he be confounded,” that is, Israel will do penance for its sins, and for Christ slain, but at the end of the world, when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have entered into the Church: for then, acknowledging its crimes, it will be confounded and repent.
Secondly, Procopius, Adamus and Pintus take this of the Gentiles, as if to say: Jacob, that is, the Jacobites or Jews, will be confounded not now, that is, not in the time of Isaias, but in the time of Christ, “when” they shall see “his children,” that is, the Apostles, born of their race, sanctifying, that is, preaching and celebrating the name of the Lord, and of His Christ. He calls the Apostles the work of the hands of God, namely of Christ, because Christ had instructed and formed them, before rude, to be Apostles. Christ is called the Holy One of Jacob and God of Israel, because He was born of Jacob, and because Jacob and all the Jacobites received their holiness from Christ. This sense is genuine.
Thirdly, Forerius expounds: “Jacob shall not be confounded,” as if to say: The conversion of the Gentiles to Jacob and the Jews will not be a shame, but a glory; because the Gentiles, gathered by faith into the family of Abraham, Jacob and their descendants, will increase it both in number and in glory.
24AND THEY THAT ERRED IN SPIRIT SHALL KNOW UNDERSTANDING,—that is, in mind, soul, intellect. Lyranus, Forerius, Adamus and others take this of the Gentiles: for these erred in the worship and nature of the gods; these also are called murmurers, that is, grumblers and scoffers at Judaism and the Jews, whom they loaded with great abuse, as is plain from Tacitus, Martial and Juvenal. But taught by the Apostles they received understanding, that is, they understood why God wishes to be worshipped, and what is the true religion and worship of God; namely, they received the faith and law of Christ, by which they joined with the Jews in one religion and one Church.
Secondly, St. Thomas, Cyril, Sanchez and others more aptly take this of the Jews (for it is of them that the preceding verses immediately speak), who, seeing so many Gentiles converted by the Apostles, were themselves converted to Christ: for throughout this chapter he has called the Jews erring and murmurers, that is, murmurers against God and mockers of the Prophets; but these, taught by the Apostles, became intelligent, praisers and preachers of God and of Christ. Juvenal, in his fourteenth satire, thus laughs at the Jews among other things:
Some, whose lot it was to have a father who fears the sabbaths,
Worship nothing but the clouds and the divinity of heaven.