Commentaria in Isaiam
Fifth, “a place of rivers, most broad and spacious streams,” as if to say: In Jerusalem, not the earthly (for this suffered a lack of water) but the heavenly, there will be a huge river, like several rivers, from which most broad and spacious streams will flow down in every direction; and yet through them no ship or hostile trireme will pass, to disturb the peace of the city or plunder its wealth. Otherwise Sanchez, as if to say: That city abounds in all things: therefore it will not require triremes and rowers to bring opportune merchandise for the use and delights of the blessed citizens. He alludes to the river of paradise, which is divided into four streams and heads, Genesis 2; whence St. John, alluding both to that and to this, in Apocalypse 22, says: “And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” This river signifies the exuberance of gifts, joys and delights which God and Christ will pour out upon the Blessed. It is called a river “of the water of life,” or, as others read, “of living water,” which always pours forth water from itself as from a vital heart or liver, or which always flows and never fails, and which, if it flow through a city, brings great pleasantness and usefulness; hence it is said: “The stream of the river maketh the city of God joyful.” Such a river in heaven will be the beatific vision, through which God communicates himself and all his goods to the Saints, and pours out his joys upon them; hence Psalm 35 says: “They shall be inebriated with the plenty of thy house, and thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure”; and Isaias 66: “Behold I will bring upon her as it were a river of peace, and as an overflowing torrent the glory.”
22. For the Lord is our judge.—He gives the reason of what precedes, why, namely, the heavenly Sion will abound in peace, wealth and all things; because God will be there judge, lawgiver and king, who will guard and preserve it for ever: and who shall resist God? who shall provoke him?
23. Thy tacklings are loosed.—The Septuagint and the Chaldean render, thy ropes are broken; Vatablus, thy cables are slackened, so that they cannot hold their mast firmly nor spread the sail. The Prophet returns to the subject of the chapter, namely to the times of Ezechias and Sennacherib, as if to say: The ropes of thy tabernacle, O Sion, shall indeed be loosened by the Assyrians, so that it seems about to be torn away, that is, by terror of the Assyrians the minds of the citizens of Jerusalem shall be shaken, so that they think of surrender; and “they shall not prevail,” namely the Assyrians against thee, says Sanchez; or rather thy ropes against the Assyrians; they will not be able to keep them from the city. So that mast, which as the prop of the tabernacle supports its mass, will lean forward, so that thou canst not spread on it the military standard, that is, unfurl it; this is, the strength of King Ezechias, who was as the pillar of the commonwealth, is so cut down and fallen that he cannot gather and array an army for the defense of the city: by which he signifies that the other cities of Juda had been taken by Sennacherib, so that the king could not call out soldiers and aid to free Jerusalem from the siege.
But then there will suddenly be a wonderful reversal of fortune: for the Assyrians, who gaped for the plunder of the Jews, slain by an Angel, will be prey and spoil for the Jews: which will be so easy and ready that even the lame will run to it and no neighbor, that is, citizen and inhabitant of the city (for this is the Hebrew sachen), will excuse himself from the plundering, saying, “I am weak,” that is, I am sick, I cannot go to spoil the Assyrians, because “iniquity shall be taken away from him,” that is, the penalty of iniquity, namely infirmity, captivity, siege and oppression of enemies.
Second, under this as a type, allegorically, and rather, he speaks of the ruin of the Synagogue of the Jews in the time of Christ, as if to say: Thy ropes shall be broken, that is, thy supports, O Synagogue! “and” (for so it must be read with the Romans, not “but,” as the Plantin editions have) “they shall not prevail,” that is, they shall not be able to sustain it: it shall have a mast or some prop, but such that thou canst not spread the sail; as if to say: Jerusalem shall plainly be straitened, fall, be laid waste and made desolate by Titus. “Then shall the spoils be divided,” that is, when the Synagogue has fallen, then the Gentiles, blind and lame in the way of virtue and salvation, shall seize the prey and spoils of the Jews, that is, the gifts promised to the fathers, that is, shall succeed to the blessing promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. “Neither shall the neighbor say: I am weak,” that is, no one shall say he is weak; all will be strong in Christ: and then from the people of his Jerusalem, namely not the earthly but the spiritual, the Church, “iniquity shall be taken away”; for not the law of Moses but the grace of Christ confers remission of all sins. So Adam.
Otherwise the Chaldean, Vatablus, Forerius, Procopius and others take these things, not of the Jews, but of Sennacherib and the Assyrians: again, they take the cords and mast not of a tent but of a ship, as though he compared here the camp of the Assyrians to a ship that cannot avoid wreck. For Isaias seems to continue the metaphor of the hostile ship, of which immediately before he said: “No ship with oars shall pass by it, neither shall the great galley.” Hence Forerius: “Because,” he says, “he had compared tyrants to ships which are borne by wind with swelling sails or by oars, hence, persisting in the metaphor, he turns to the Assyrian, by whose destruction he understands the ruin of the devil and his ministers: and he compares its king to the mast in a ship; its princes to the ropes that steady the mast; the arrayed lines of soldiers to the sail filled with wind: and finally he compares the whole Assyrian army to a ship.” It is therefore a metaphor from a ship, which, when it is breaking up and coming apart, has its ropes slackened and broken by the force of the tempest, says Procopius; for the ship here is the tyrant of the enemies; the mast is the king; the ropes that sustain it are the leaders and princes; the sail is the arrayed lines of soldiers, says Villalpando on Ezechiel 27, page 10. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Thy ropes are loosed, that is, thy supports, O hostile ship and galley! that is, O congregation of Assyrians, that is, of demons, unbelievers and the impious! and consequently they shall not prevail, but shall be broken, so that thou canst not spread the sign on the mast, that is, the sail, for the wind, nor the standard; for the word “sign” signifies both: as if to say: Thou shalt utterly perish with thine, and go to destruction, both in the time of Christ and the Apostles, and then many lame, that is, many weak and unwarlike, shall divide the spoils of many nations, and distribute them to the Church militant. Then rather thou shalt perish in the day of judgment, when the Blessed, once weak and lame, now strong and mighty, shall thrust the demons and the impious into hell, and triumph over them; and thus as it were divide their spoils. This sense is probable and fitting, nor does it yield to the former except in the explanation of the distribution of the prey, which does not properly belong to the Blessed, but to the Apostles and the Church militant; yet figuratively it belongs to the Blessed; for so in Psalm 109:6–7 and elsewhere they are said to be about to tread, to drink, and to wash their hands in the blood of the reprobate.
Wherefore the author of the Imperfect Work in St. Chrysostom, volume 2, homily 23 on Matthew, at the end, understands by this ship of the sea, that is, not of God but of the world, the Church of the heretics. “Which, though it have the preaching of the Lord’s cross,” he says, “yet shows this tree of it to be feeble; because where there is not the truth of faith, the assertion of the cross is weak: hence its sails are shown slanting and dislocated, because they are steered by no breath of the Holy Spirit. And therefore this ship, the helm of faith lost, does not deserve Christ the Lord for its helmsman, and becomes the prey of demons and of Gehenna, adverse spirits ruling it, and is sunk in the shipwreck of eternal death.”