Commentaria in Isaiam
Others, “after days and a year,” that is, after a long time, in which days shall be added to days, and years to years. So Vatablus.
Otherwise Sanchez: “After days and a year,” he says, that is, after the days of one year (as a hendiadys), after one year Samaria will be overthrown, namely in the sixth year of Ezechias; these things therefore were said by Isaias in the fifth year of Ezechias. Hence in Hebrew it is, after days to a year, that is, days which suffice to complete a year. So he himself.
For the vintage is at an end, the gathering shall come no more.—The gathering is the gleaning that is made after the vintage, in which the few grapes that lie hidden and the remnants are collected. Now the vintage in Scripture often signifies destruction, the gleaning the searching out and slaughter of the few who have escaped destruction. The sense therefore is, as St. Jerome says: “After the last devastation, which will happen under Vespasian and Titus and Adrian, there will be no other, but once your city will be overthrown, so that no other captivity is to be expected: all will be carried away, nor will clusters remain in the vineyard for the peoples who are afterwards to be gathered.” For he understands the vintage of men as well as of grapes and fruits.
11. Gird your loins—you who before, idle, sat at home like ladies in adorned and splendid dress, commanding servants and maids, now, as captives, lay aside this dress, and gird your loins with a mean garment, like maidservants, to render servile service to your Roman masters.
12. Mourn for the breasts (namely withered with hunger, and for the sons of your breasts, especially the little ones still hanging at them)—because all these with you shall be prey to the Romans; this is what Christ foretold: “And woe to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days!” Matthew 24:19.
For the pleasant land—for Judea, your country, lovely and fertile like a vineyard, which the Romans will lay waste and subject to themselves, you being expelled and slain.
13. Upon the land of my people shall thorns come up, and so on—as if to say: Judea will be punished and laid waste by the Romans, so that, uncultivated, it will be filled with thorns and briers; how much more Jerusalem, so luxuriant that all its houses seem full of joy?
14. For the house is forsaken.—that is, Jerusalem, which once was as my house, and sacred to me, I will forsake, and I will cause the multitude of the city, that is, the city of so great a multitude (a hypallage), in which was so great a throng of people, to be left and deserted: this is what Christ says, alluding here: “Your house shall be left to you desolate.”
Darkness and groping are come upon her dens for ever.—First, Sanchez by darkness and groping understands dense trees and forests: for these bring a darkness even palpable, and horror to the passer-by.
Moreover these trees grew up in the dens, that is, in the ruins of the wasted and deserted city: for when great masses fall, from the various meeting of the walls some empty spaces are left within, or cavities like vaults and caves.
Second, more simply, Adam, as if to say: So dense will be the rubbish and ruins both of the temple and of the houses that they will be reduced to caves and dens so deep and blind that darkness may seem palpable in them, and that for ever. Whence it is plain that this belongs to the last destruction of the Jews by Titus. Hence it comes that the place is so deserted as to be “the joy of wild asses,” namely that wild asses of the woods and flocks dwell and feed there.
Third, Vatablus, Pagninus and the Hebrews render, towers and bulwarks shall be reduced to perpetual caves. For in Hebrew, for darkness there is ophel; for groping there is bachan, that is, trial. The Hebrews relate that there were these two towers at Jerusalem: one called Ophel, that is, darkness, because the eyes of those looking at its summit were dimmed, it was so high; the other called Bachan, because in looking at its top it was tested how firm was each one’s eyesight; as if to say: These two towers, so lofty, have fallen into the deepest caves. Let the credit of this rest with them; for the tower of Ophel is mentioned by Josephus, Adrichomius and other geographers and historians, but of the tower of Bachan, no one.
15. Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high.—Those who refer this to the Babylonian captivity explain thus: In Babylon we shall be in prison as dead, until God restore to us the spirit of life, that is, of liberty, and we come forth as if risen again from exile, as from a sepulchre, and return into Judea.
But referring this to the destruction by Titus, as I have done with St. Jerome, the sense is this: this devastation will last, and Judea will be desert both bodily, as is plain, and spiritually; because, namely, God will leave the Synagogue and the souls of the Jews without faith, grace and salvation, until he send the Holy Spirit upon them (though upon a few), who will convert them to Christ and salvation: for then Jerusalem will be restored, not the earthly but the true and spiritual one, namely the Church of God. So St. Cyril, Procopius, Theodoret. So Christ, ascending into heaven, bade the Apostles remain apart and in secret in Sion, until they should be endued with power from on high, at the time when they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
And the desert shall be as Carmel, and so on.—Those hitherto deserted shall enter into the lot and wealth of Israel and the people of God: on the contrary, the Jews shall succeed to the desolation and blindness of the Gentiles (see what was said, chapter 29, verse 25), except a few, upon whom the Spirit shall be poured from on high, that they may believe in Christ, as has gone before.
Otherwise Sanchez, from St. Thomas: Judea, he says, which in the time of the captivity of the Jews lay uncultivated, like a forest, after their return will be tilled, and will be fertile like Carmel; but Carmel itself, before pleasant and fruitful, after the return will be so pleasant and fruitful that, if you regard the aspect of the former time, you would think you had seen a desert or a dreadful wood. Or rather, as if to say: In Babylon the rich and powerful Jews, who were as Carmel, and who oppressed others of lower estate, will be so ground down as to become as a desert, that is, to be made equal with the poor in spirit as well as in poverty and lot; as if to say: Almost the same will be the lot of rich and poor: hence there will be justice among them, and thence peace, silence, security and wealth: for these are the fruits of affliction and poverty. So Sanchez. But the former sense, being more august and genuine, is to be followed by us.
16. And judgment shall dwell in the wilderness.—In that land, which before had been desert and barren, judgment shall dwell, that is, justice, when this wilderness shall have been made Carmel, that is, fruitful and fertile through the faith of Christ.
17. And the work of justice shall be peace.—The words work and service are put metonymically for the reward and fruit of the work, or the justice of pious service. Hence the Chaldean renders, they that worship justice shall be at rest; as if to say: The reward, fruit and prize of the justice and holiness of the faithful Gentiles will be that, justified in Christ, they obtain, first, peace of conscience, and friendship and union with God, likewise peace and concord with one another; second, silence, that is, quiet, as the Chaldean and Septuagint render, and the highest tranquillity in this their true worship, adoration and friendship of justice and of God; third, secure confidence of his grace in the present and of his glory and beatitude in the future: a confidence, I say, certain not with the certitude of faith, as the Lutherans maintain, but with moral and conjectural certitude, such as does not exclude all fear and dread. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Procopius, Theodoret. “The work of justice shall be peace,” and so on, as if to say: In the time of the Gospel and of Christ, justice, and a just and holy life, will be everywhere practiced by the Gentiles, and thence in the Church and among the faithful there will arise, first, a threefold peace, namely peace with God, peace with conscience, peace with neighbors; second, silence and tranquillity; third, security of future glory; fourth, in it there will be the great beauty of peace, and of spiritual gifts; fifth, there will be tabernacles of confidence, that is, in which the faithful may dwell without fear, confidently, to which they may safely entrust themselves and their happiness; sixth, there will be wealthy rest. These then are the endowments and epithets both of the Church militant and of the faithful and holy soul: for each obtains and possesses all these in itself. The Septuagint render, justice shall obtain rest.
Second, Hector Pintus by justice understands civil justice, from which peace is wont to arise; silence he explains as freedom from complaints and lawsuits: because where there is great justice there is no cry of the oppressed against judges or other powerful men.
Third, St. Jerome explains “silence” as “brevity of faith,” which is opposed to the verbosity and many ceremonies of the Jews; the Syriac renders, and the work of justice shall be peace, and the worship of justice silence, or quiet, confidence, security, tranquillity; the Arabic of Antioch, and his work (action) shall be in justice and salvation, and the work of truth (justice) in quiet, probity and hope, or confidence, for ever; the Arabic of Alexandria, and the work of justice shall be with truth and peace, and the act of the just silence (quiet) and hope (confidence) for ever and ever.