Commentaria in Isaiam
17. A thousand men shall flee for fear of one (supply “shall flee”: for what follows is to be repeated by zeugma): and for fear of five you shall flee—namely many, as the Septuagint has, or all together; as if to say: One Chaldean will terrify and put to flight a thousand of you, and five Chaldeans will put your whole flock to flight. So St. Jerome. For “a thousand men” the Hebrew has eleph echad, that is, a thousand one, or one thousand. So the Septuagint, the Chaldean and our version. Vatablus renders differently: a thousand shall flee as if at the rebuke of one. And differently Sanchez, as if to say: A thousand men from the face of the terror of one, that is, rather, from the face of the terror of one, five thousand men shall you flee.
Till you be left as a mast on the top of a mountain—as if to say: As when a ship is broken, and the planks and all the other tackle are floating about and perishing, the sailors raise and set up only the mast on a hill, or hoist some other sign on a height, to be a token to seafarers that the place is dangerous because of sandbanks, rocks, shoals and the like, so you few survivors of this disaster shall be as a sign of the wrath of God, that others, by the example of your calamity, may avoid and beware of the same. So St. Jerome. The destruction of Jerusalem is compared to the wreck of a ship, from which the mast, that is, a few, escaped, that, scattered through the world, they might be the witnesses and heralds of the Jewish disaster.
18. Therefore the Lord waiteth that he may have mercy on you—as if to say: Because so great a disaster is to come, therefore God waits, that, warned here by Isaias, you may do penance, and God, taking pity on you, may remove this disaster.
And therefore shall he be exalted (that is, will lift himself up, as it were withdrawing himself and his hand, and, as Vatablus renders, will hold back the blow), sparing you—so in Osee 11 it is said: “And I will be to them as one that lifteth up,” that is, raising on high and removing, “the yoke on their jaws”; others on the contrary say “he shall be exalted,” that is, God will lift his hand on high, as threatening a heavy blow, to terrify and move you to compunction, that you may escape the blow; others, “he shall be exalted,” that is, God shall be glorified by his clemency and by his putting off the punishment, “sparing you”; for God is most exalted in showing mercy and sparing. So St. Jerome.
For the Lord is a God of judgment—because God is not moved by fury, but judges and avenges with just judgment and equity; hence he defers the punishment and tempers it with indulgence. Others say: “For the Lord is a God of judgment,” that is, because God is faithful and just, fulfilling his promises; hence he waits for Jerusalem to repent, and so spares it; for he has promised it his help, favor and salvation.
Blessed are all they that wait for him—this is an epiphonema on what goes before, as if to say: Wretched and unhappy are you and shall you be, O Jews, who hope in men and flee for refuge to the Egyptians! But blessed, once, twice, thrice and four times blessed and happy are they who hope in the Lord, who wait for him and for his help.
19. For the people of Sion shall dwell in Jerusalem— He proves what he said, that they are blessed who hope in God and wait for him, from the fact that the people of Sion, that is, the true and faithful Jews, who hope in God, shall dwell in safety in Jerusalem under Ezechias, not fearing the threats and forces of Sennacherib. So Forerius. Second, Procopius, St. Thomas and Hugh refer this to the Jews returning from Babylon to Jerusalem under Cyrus. Third, and chiefly, the Prophet understands under these symbols that the people of Sion, that is, the faithful and Christian people, shall dwell peacefully in Jerusalem, that is, in the Church under Christ, who shall be its master and teacher, as follows; for he passes to Christ in his usual way. Hence St. Jerome, Procopius, Cyril, Theodoret and others refer all that follows from this place to the end of the chapter literally to Christ and to Christ’s grace, redemption and salvation; but so that the Prophet alludes to, and as it were touches in passing, its type, namely the happiness of those returning from Babylon under Esdras and Jesus the son of Josedech.
At the voice of thy cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer thee—so the Lord presently heard Ezechias crying and praying in the siege of Sennacherib, and delivered him, Sennacherib being slain; so also in Babylon he heard the captives crying, and brought them back to their country; so, and much more, he hears the faithful Christians who call upon him, the water of short affliction—but the Hebrew has, he will give you lechem tsar umayim lachats, that is, the bread of anguish or tribulation, and the water of straitness, or rather of oppression, as the Septuagint here and our version render it at 3 Kings last chapter, verse 27. Such it is if the bread is strait, that is, restricted and meager, and the water short, that is, scanty and small, so that they cannot satisfy hunger and thirst; as if to say: You shall indeed suffer, O Jews, under Sennacherib, as in some want, hunger, thirst and the like;
but God will be with you, will protect you, and will give you doctors and teachers, namely Esdras, Jeremias, Daniel, Ezechiel, Aggeus, Zacharias, Malachias and other Prophets, who will always be present to you, and even from behind will not cease to admonish in season and out of season, that you may walk straight in the way of the Lord, and not turn aside to idols; and then, for the strait bread and water, God will give you abundance of things, as he did with the Jews returning, as is plain from Zacharias 8:11 and Aggeus 2:17; and then to Ezechias under Sennacherib, as is plain from 4 Kings 19:29. So St. Thomas, Procopius, Hugh, Lyranus.
These things are truer at the time of Christ, who is the perpetual doctor and teacher of the faithful through all ages; as if to say: God will give the faithful the teacher Christ, says St. Jerome, and the Holy Spirit and the Apostles.
Second, St. Cyril, Procopius and St. Jerome understand by the strait bread and short water the Gospel, and the brief doctrine of the Gospel, which in chapter 10, verse 23, the Septuagint called an abbreviated word, which succeeded the long and winding precepts of the law; for this, like bread, feeds souls. But “short bread” does not here signify properly small bread, but the bread of affliction, as is plain from the Hebrew; although the Gospel too is the bread of affliction, because it bids us mortify the flesh, bear the cross, and endure hard things for Christ.
Third, St. Cyril and Leo Castrius: This strait bread, they say, is Christ, who came down from heaven, and made himself strait to an infant’s body, to the manger and to the cross; again it is called strait, he will give to the unbelievers as teachers Elias and Enoch, as the Fathers say, of whom St. Jerome makes mention.
And he shall not cause thy teacher to fly away from thee any more.
That is, thy teacher shall not fly away from thee. So Vatablus.
21. And thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing behind thy back—this is a periphrasis for a teacher, or master and tutor, who is wont always to be present with his disciples, and to follow them, admonishing them from behind, and so on. Second, morally, Hugh says: God follows the sinner as if from behind, that first he may allure him to himself. “We truly turn our backs, as it were, to the face of the teacher,” he says, “when we despise his word, whose precepts we spurn; and yet he does not cease to call us.”
On the contrary, St. Jerome takes the back not of the sinner but of God; for God, offended by the sinner, goes away and turns his back to him, but so that, loving him, he looks back in hope, and turns again toward him, and by nod, gesture and voice calls him back to himself.
This is the way, walk ye in it—this way is the doctrine of the law and the Prophets, and above all the Gospel doctrine of Christ, in which we walk when by persevering in it we proceed to perfection and to heaven. So the rule and institution of St. Benedict, which embraces the counsels of Christ, appeared as a shining way; for when, as St. Gregory relates, book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 37, St. Benedict had departed this life, on the same day two of his monks seemed to see a certain broad and straight way, spread with cloaks and shining with countless lights, and a certain old man standing by who said: “This is the way by which Benedict, beloved of the Lord, ascended into heaven.”
…still more under Christ you shall defile, that is, you shall cast away as defiled, you shall burn your graven things, that is, your idols, and their precious garments, and you shall hold them as most filthy things, such as are menstrual rags.
“Thou shalt say to it,” namely to the graven and molten thing, that is, the idol.
23. And rain shall be given—God gave rain and fertility to the Jews under Esdras; but a better rain: grace of the Holy Spirit gave rain to the earth, that is, to the souls of the faithful under Christ, that they might bring forth the fruits of good works. So St. Cyril.
The strait bread is the Eucharist, or Christ in it, who is to be received with penance and tears; or the water of straitness is baptism, which looses and delivers the oppressed from the demon; or it is the blood of Christ in the Eucharist, in which we recall the straits of his passion, that we may be encouraged to endure similar things bravely for him. This sense is fitting allegorically. Tropologically, the strait bread and short water is poverty, hunger, thirst and every strait and tribulation sent by God to purge and prove his own; and then he is wont likewise to give teachers and preachers, who strengthen the afflicted, console, teach and perfect them.