Commentaria in Isaiam
Secondly, and genuinely, especially since the Roman editions read “to thee,” as if to say: Since I cannot contend with thee in dispute and right, I turn as a suppliant to penance and tears, that by these I may obtain from thy mercy not what is due, but grace; for all these are the words and groans of Ezechias, in sickness, and invoking God’s clemency: “I will recall to thee, therefore, all my years,” that is, all the sins which I have committed in each year, I will call to mind, I will grieve for them, and groaning I will beg pardon. St. Bernard, in the sermon On Virgins, presses the word “I will recall,” that is, “I will think again,” he says, “lest perhaps I have forgotten something, and lest anything remain unavenged and unexamined.” Hence D. Soto, on book 4, distinction 18, question 2, article 3, thought that for true contrition, which blots out sin, it is necessary that the penitent recall each sin to memory and then be contrite for all. But other theologians commonly refute this, and teach that it suffices to grieve in a general way for all. See Suarez, On Penance, disputation 4, section 6, number 9. I answer, therefore, that Ezechias recalled all his years not from obligation but from devotion (and this surely becomes a truly penitent man), that he might win more of God’s grace and favor, and so escape the sickness and imminent death predicted to him by Isaias.
Therefore all these years are the elapsed years and years of guilt: although Leo Castrius takes this of the future years of penance, as if to say: Through all my coming years, and through my whole life henceforward, I will recall past sins, and do penance; for this is the spirit of holy penitents, to mourn and lament a sin once committed through their whole life, as did St. Peter, Paul, Magdalene and very many others, and that this is to be done St. Chrysostom teaches, homily 3 on the saying of St. Paul: “Would that you could bear with me a little!” See also St. Gregory on 1 Kings, book 4, chapter 4, a little before the words: “When they shall have saluted thee, they will give thee three loaves of bread.” Hence it is plain against Luther that penance is not repentance but sorrow and detestation of sins: “For no one can begin a new life unless he repents of the former life,” says St. Augustine, book On Penance.
Morally, note that upright and just men, such as Ezechias was, who says in verse 3 that he walked perfectly before God, nevertheless often fall and sin. Again, that they often do not recognize this their lapse, especially if they bring in a habit of it, until they are admonished by sickness or some other affliction to return to their heart, and to pray to God and invoke him. For in prayer the mind is most illumined, to see the offenses, even the smallest, committed against so great a Majesty as it invokes. This is what St. Augustine says: “Woe even to the laudable life of men, if thou judge it with mercy set aside!” Whence St. Augustine, dying, continually read the penitential psalms and said that “no one, however rightly he had lived, ought to depart this life without penance.” St. Fulgentius did the same.
Hebrew, nor in St. Jerome if correctly edited, as Jansenius rightly observed. The Roman edition, however, reads “if thus,” and the sense comes to the same. Different writers translate these words variously and obscurely. More clearly and weightily, first, the Septuagint translate thus: “Lord, concerning it it was announced to thee, and thou hast raised up my spirit, and being comforted I lived.”
Secondly, the Chaldee: “Lord, of all the dead thou hast said that thou wouldst quicken them, and before all thou hast quickened my spirit; for thou wilt heal me, and wilt sustain me,” as if these were the words of Ezechias already healed, or after he had received the news of health from Isaias.
Thirdly, Forerius and Vatablus: “Lord, those live beyond these, and in all of them is the life of my spirit: thou wilt make me dream, and wilt quicken me,” as if to say: Those who shall live after these years, and trust in thee, and invoke thee, will feel the same benefit as I, and such will be their life, sound namely and vigorous, as I now live sound and alert.
Fourthly, more plainly, and more suited to the Vulgate, Sanchez translates: Lord, over and above these and those evils which I have recounted, yet the life of my spirit shall live and, amid so many and so effective causes of dying, I shall live a life, that is, to me it will be a vital and desirable life. To this version he thus adapts the Vulgate, as if to say: Lord, if life is thus lived, a life surely so vital, after so many perils, anguishes and troubles, supply, what is not to be hoped of thy clemency? Fifthly, most plainly from the Hebrew thou mayest translate thus: Lord, over (in) these it is lived, and in all these is the life of my spirit: with heavy sleep thou wilt weigh me down, and thou wilt quicken me, which our version clearly renders: “O Lord, if man’s life be such, and the life of my spirit be in such things as these, thou shalt correct me, and make me to live,” as if thou shouldst say: If such and so miserable is the condition of human life, “thou shalt correct,” that is, I give myself to thee, nay I pray and beseech, that thou correct and chastise me for my sins, and as it were weigh me down with a heavy sleep, provided thou quicken me, that is, keep me in life. So St. Jerome and Adam. For these things still belong to the time of pain, and the amplification of the sickness, and bring it to an end.
In the Hebrew the Prophet uses first the masculine gender, then the feminine, saying first, bahem, in these (masculine); secondly, bahen, that is, in these (feminine), so to speak; as if to say: In all those miseries and troubles of this life it is lived. For when the Hebrews wish to signify all things in some kind, they join the feminine gender with the masculine. See chapter 61. Thou shalt correct me: in Hebrew it is tachalimeni, that is, thou wilt make me dream, that is, thou wilt correct me with this sickness in passing, as it were through a dream, thou wilt make this correction pass and vanish like a dream, and I shall soon be restored to health. So Forerius. For the Hebrew chalam signifies to thicken, to condense what is liquid and thin: whence chalamut is called the coagulum of the egg, or the yolk, as another word is called the fluid part of the egg, namely the white; and chalom is called a thick dream, like the yolk. So Forsterus. He alludes, then, to a heavy and troublesome sleep, which is called by the Latins Incubus, by the Greeks Ephialtes (and perhaps with this or a similar soporific sickness Ezechias labored, as lethargic and dying persons commonly do from abundance or thickness of humors), which arises from thick blood and melancholic humor filling the organs of the brain, and exciting sad and heavy phantasms in the imagination; so that the dreamer thinks he is being suffocated, strangled, oppressed, is in danger of ruin, drowning, or a like death, from which he seems unable to escape; whence he groans, sobs, nay cries out: but awakened he sees it was a dream; whence he lives, and rejoices that the fear and anguish of the dream are driven away, as if to say: In like manner I, Ezechias, in sickness thought my life was despaired of: but this sickness soon passed, and I awoke from it as from a nightmare, and I was restored: healed, therefore, I now live again alert and rejoice, all fear of death and sickness driven away. So Sanchez.
Some, secondly, translate tachalimeni: thou wilt make me sleep, that is, thou wilt lead me to death: for death, especially a brief one from which one soon returns, is called sleep.
You will say: Thus it should have been said, thou hast corrected me, namely with sickness and peril of death, and not “thou wilt correct me.”
I answer: The Hebrews often interchange tenses, and take the future for the past, especially when the vau conversive is prefixed to it. For this was invented to turn the past into the future: and this vau conversive is here, if you read it with another point, namely vattachalimeni for vetachalimeni. Thirdly, Vatablus and Forerius also translate: thou wilt make me sleep and heal me; for the king did not take sleep at night. God therefore restored sleep to him, and through sleep strength and life; for this is the power of sleep. Whence the disciples to Jesus concerning Lazarus dead, whom Jesus said was sleeping, said: “Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well,” John 11:12. Fourthly, perhaps our version for chet read the similar letter he, namely for tachalimeni read tahalimeni, that is, thou wilt strike, beat, shake me, that is, correct me: this indeed seems the readiest way to reconcile our Latin version with the Hebrew text.
17. BEHOLD, IN PEACE IS MY BITTERNESS MOST BITTER, as if to say: In the midst of peace, in the flower of my age and kingdom, in which men are wont to be sound, unharmed and vigorous, I suffer the most bitter things, namely the agonies of death, and peril of death, to the threshold of death; but from it thou hast soon led me back and quickened me.
Secondly, Sanchez, as if to say: This affliction which I suffered is now in peace: for it is turned for me into joy, because I am healed. For he refers it to the time when the king was cured of the sickness, and that is sufficiently probable: for in the preceding verse the king’s complaint in sickness is ended; but this, verse 17, begins his joy at health restored. Whence the Hebrew is leshalom, that is, to peace, namely this bitterness is turned: our version, however, renders “in peace,” because lamed is often taken for beth, that is, in.