Commentaria in Isaiam
It is asked, sixthly, why God used this sign? The Hebrews fable that ten hours were taken from the day on which Achaz was buried, lest so impious a king have his funeral rites performed in royal fashion: wherefore, lest the order of times remain disturbed, as many hours were added to the day on which the pious Ezechias, son of Achaz, was healed. But these are the usual Jewish trifles. I answer, therefore, that God used this sign to show both the Jews and the Babylonians and other nations that he is the true God, the Lord of heaven and earth, and thus to call them to faith in him and his worship, as he called the three Magi to Christ by a star. Secondly, he wished to declare how much he makes of his “elect,” worshippers “and friends,” as for whom he inverts the whole course of nature. So St. Dionysius, who says: “This miracle, surely, rightly terrified the Babylonians then, and without a battle of Ezechias (as one who was thought equal to God, and above other mortals in virtue).”” Achaz commanded the altar of God to be taken away, and of it God says: “But the brazen altar shall be ready at my will,” which Lyranus explains thus: “The expositors commonly say that of this altar Achaz made that famous horologe, of which chapter 20.” If this is true, God rightly wished to give this sign to Ezechias, the son of Achaz, on this horologe of his, as made out of his property, namely out of his altar; and at the same time silently admonished him to restore the sacred thing sacrilegiously usurped by his father, and to give it back to the temple.
Finally, as God added 15 years of life to Ezechias on account of his piety, so he has taken away and takes away the same from impious kings. So the Emperor Anastasius, says Zonaras, saw a terrible man with a book, who said to him: “Behold, on account of the perversity of thy faith I blot out fourteen years of thy life.” And having learned by an oracle that he was to perish by fire, he opened in the palace a cistern called the Cold, with many channels, that it might quench fire if it came on, but in vain: for he was struck by heavenly fire, namely lightning. So also Cedrenus.
Morally, this sign indicated how highly God esteems his own, how powerful, how pious he is, and consequently how worthy to be loved and worshipped.
Tropologically, it hinted to those who turn to God with Ezechias by penance that their former merits and perfection are restored.
Anagogically, that in eternity fifteen years of life, that is, eternal years, are to be restored to us: for fifteen is made up of seven and eight: the seventh day is the sabbath, the eighth is the Lord’s day: each of which is a symbol of resurrection and of eternal rest. So Angelomus and the author of On the Wonders of Holy Scripture.
Allegorically, it represented Christ about to descend ten lines, that is, to the very lowest beneath all the choirs of Angels and men in the passion; and thence again about to ascend to the Father. So Angelomus, Eucherius and Bede, whom hear: “The first step of the descent (of Christ) from God was in the Angel; because he was the Angel of great counsel (and the Angel had borne the part of Christ-God in the Old Testament). The second was from the Angel into the Patriarchs: because in all, as the Apostle says, 1 Cor. 12, he himself worked. The third was in the giving of the law. The fourth in Jesus Nave, to bring the people into the land of promise. The fifth in the Judges; because in them he himself reigned. The seventh in the Prophets; because through them he was announced. The eighth in the Pontiffs; because through them the high Priest himself was represented. The ninth was in the man whom he assumed. The tenth in the passion which he sustained. By the same steps he again ascended into heaven.” Perhaps the Babylonians, then rising and lifting their crests, thought of subjugating Judea, as not long after they did; but by this sign they were restrained by God. Dionysius adds that hence the Persians celebrate the memory of a threefold “mithras,” that is, of the sun, namely advancing, going back, advancing again; or rather because this day was as it were threefold, as he himself holds.
“This sign of the shadow and the sun God used rather than another: because, as Angelomus and the author in Augustine, book 2 On the Wonders of Scripture, 27, teach, this sign was a type of the present time and the future; that as the sun returns the shadow returns to its beginning, so also the life of Ezechias would return to the years unwoven (as the king here hints, verse 19), and to us living in the hebdomad and ogdoad (for fifteen is made up of seven and eight, each of which signifies eternity, or the eternal sabbath, and the eighth of rest), the spans of life are prolonged through the resurrection of Christ.” This sign, therefore, literally signified as it were that the web of Ezechias’s life was to be woven again, and that our life is not true life, but only a shadow of true life and of eternity, say Angelomus and the author of On the Wonders of Scripture.
9. THE WRITING OF EZECHIAS THE KING, as if to say: This is the song of thanksgiving which the pious Ezechias composed himself, or rather through Isaias, in thanksgiving to God for health restored, and which he ordered to be written, or engraved on bronze, and publicly set forth, as a perpetual proclamation and monument of the divine clemency. So also the Gentiles, hanging painted tablets in the temples of the gods, testified that they had received from the gods the benefits painted on them, as Mercurialis teaches at length, On the Art of Gymnastics.
Note: The style and brilliance of the song seem to argue that Isaias was its author, who turned into an elegant song what the king had said in plain and unadorned speech. Many, however, hold that Ezechias composed all this word for word: indeed there are some who think the Book of Judges was written by Ezechias, as Sixtus of Siena testifies, book 2, under Ezechias. Hugh moreover thinks that the Proverbs of Solomon and the Books of Kings were collected and arranged into one by him. For this is hinted in Proverbs 25:1. But there it says: appointed men.
10. I SAID, both with the mouth and with the heart, as if to say: I thought it was altogether over with my life; that I must die an untimely death in the flower of my age. On this song of Ezechias St. Bernard wrote a sermon which is extant, page 91, in which he expounds the whole mystically. Moreover in this song the king first describes his sufferings in sickness, his despair of life, groanings and penitence; secondly, verse 17, he tells how he was wonderfully healed by God; whence he celebrates his clemency, and promises to celebrate it all his life.
IN THE MIDST. For Ezechias was then thirty-nine years old, which age is as it were the middle of human life; for the full span is that noted in Psalm 89:10: “The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years; but if in the strong, fourscore;” secondly, it can be translated with Forerius, in silence, or in rest; for death is called “sleep” and silence, and the dead are silent. Whence Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, says St. Jerome, reading dumi (silence) instead of demi, translate, in my infirmity and silence; others reading dami translate, in my blood; so that the sense is, says St. Jerome: “In the blood of my days, when my gore, and my destruction, shall be awaited;” Pagninus translates, in the cutting off of my days; Clarius, in the cutting short; Marcerus, in silence and cessation; Brixianus, in imagination; Agellius, in my stupor. The Hebrew word demi is found nowhere except here: hence its so various interpretations; but above all we should trust St. Jerome who translates “in the midst.” For many words and meanings of words, which among the ancients were common and in use, have now gone out of use and are hidden from us. Our Augustine de Quiros here conjectures that demi is rendered by our version “midst” because it properly signifies “rest, cessation, silence”: and Ezechias was 39 years old, which is the age of rest and cessation, that is, full, mature, vigorous and flourishing, and therefore the same is the middle of human life, which is bounded by 80 years; and for this reason he thinks our version translates “in the midst.” But what I have said is plainer; and perhaps from the Hebrew demi the Latin dimidium and medium was derived, which accordingly passed by common use into many other languages: as also the Hebrew sac, that is, sack; and keren, that is, horn, and some similar words. For the Hebrews seem to have called demi, that is, cut off, the half, because the half is the halved cutting-off of the whole; and because many things, when divided, are wont to be cut in the middle. Finally, the whole, when cut, is thereby halved, and sundered into two halves (whether equal or unequal). So indeed we commonly speak. For the root dama signifies to cut off, to cut into, to cut asunder, and thence to halve.
Morally, St. Jerome teaches that Saints are given long life by God, that with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob they may die in a good old age, full of days: but that for sinners life is cut off in the very course, and as it were halved. The same St. Gregory teaches, Morals, book 33, chapter 24.
The Septuagint translate, on high: for taking resch for the similar letter daleth, instead of bidmi, that is, in the midst, they read beromi, that is, on high. The sense comes to the same: for in the middle of life is the acme, that is, the vigor of age; and then one is as it were at the summit, where he takes his stand and remains some years, after which he gradually declines and fails. So Leo Castrius. But Cyril expounds “on high” thus, as if to say: Raised to the height of kingdom, glory and happiness, behold, I fall. Theodoret, however, thus, as if to say:
When I swelled and proudly lifted myself on high, then I was humbled by God, and struck with a deadly sickness, I SHALL GO TO THE GATES OF HELL, I shall go to the sepulchre in body, in soul to hell; for heaven being closed before Christ, all, even Saints, went down to hell, namely to the limbo of the Fathers. It was therefore the same then to go to hell as to die and go to the sepulchre.