Commentaria in Isaiam
and can be taken prophetically. Hence the Septuagint changes the person and renders it: “Therefore I will not forgive them,” as if God were speaking here and threatening future vengeance, which cannot be recalled.
10. “Enter thou into the rock.” This is sarcasm, as if to say: For these crimes of thine, and because thou despisest my warnings and wilt not repent, a sure and terrible vengeance of God awaits thee, O Israel, and thy destruction; for God will brandish and hurl this against thee, to lay low thy pride and to break thy stiff neck. To escape it, thou shalt flee into caves, dens and pits, and there shalt thou hide, but thou shalt not escape: for there thy enemies will search thee out and slay thee, so that even if salvation itself (as the saying is) wished to save thee, it could not.
Note: He speaks of the Chaldean destruction and the Babylonian captivity, and in this verse and those following up to the twenty-second he describes with a vivid picture the terror and dread of the Jews in it. The Prophet’s view reached further also, to the destruction by the Romans and to the destruction that shall come on the day of judgment, of which the Chaldean was a type (for which reason the Prophets often mingle these destructions). See Canon 4. That Simon and others lay hidden long in a pit in the ground is attested by Josephus, book 7 of the Jewish War, chapter 16; and in book 1, chapter 12, he teaches that Judea, being rugged, abounded in caves, to which the Jews were wont to flee in extreme misfortune, since they could hardly be approached or taken by an enemy; and there he describes their form and position. Josephus himself too, when he was taken and brought before Vespasian, as he relates in book 3 of the War, chapter 14, had been hidden in such a place. So the widow of Hector, hiding her son in the recesses of a tomb, says to him:
If misfortunes help the wretched, you have safety; if fate denies life, you have a sepulchre.
“From the face of fear” (that is, from the face of terror, that is, the terrible) of the Lord (who will strike dread into you and the whole world), “and from the glory of his majesty,” who will show his glorious justice against the Jews when he pursues them and slays them by the Chaldeans, such strong, warlike and glorious soldiers. The Chaldeans, then, are here called “fear,” or terror, and “the glory of the Lord,” by metonymy; because, sent by God, they will strike terror into the Jews, and exercise on them the glorious vengeance of God.
Secondly, “fear” may be taken here in its proper sense, as if to say: Flee from the face of fear, that is, because of the fear and dread conceived from the glory full of majesty which the face of God, that is, God present and pursuing you, will show in punishing you by the Chaldeans. For “fear is the worst counsellor in doubtful things,” says Plautus in the Mostellaria. Hence also Ovid, book 2 of the Amores:
I, wretched, fear much, because I have done much wantonly, and am tormented by dread of my own example.
But the former sense is fitter, and agrees better with “from the face.”
11. “The lofty eyes of man are humbled,” that is, shall be humbled; for prophetically the past is put for the future because of the certainty of the future, as is plain from what follows. The sense is, as if to say: The Chaldeans will humble, cast down and trample all the Jews, both commoners and nobles and princes (for these are called men, as the commoners are called mankind); this destruction and calamity will embrace all, small and great, and the proud together, and then God alone, exercising this vengeance, will appear mighty, terrible and glorious, and those who before were haughty and stiff-necked will acknowledge God the avenger and bow down before him as suppliants. Hence the Septuagint renders: “For the eyes of the Lord are high, and man is lowly.” But the word “Lord” is neither in the Latin nor in the Hebrew or Chaldee. He adds the reason, verse 12.
12. “For the day of the Lord.” The “day of the Lord” is called the day of judgment and vengeance, which God will exercise through the Chaldeans; and allegorically the day of the last judgment, when God through Christ will most severely and sharply avenge these crimes of the Jews and of other impious men, and will cast down and crush all the proud.
13. “And upon all the cedars of Libanus.” Lyranus takes this plainly in the literal sense, of the arms and other engines of the Jews made of the cedars of Libanus and the oaks of Basan, which were scattered and broken by the Chaldeans. But others better take the cedars, oaks, mountains and hills figuratively and symbolically, to signify the king, nobles and princes, who stood above the rest in honours and wealth; for they are so taken in Ezechiel 31:3 and elsewhere. Note with Cyril, the Chaldee and Eusebius, that by Libanus is understood the city of Jerusalem, not the temple, as St. Jerome holds on Zacharias 11; first, because Jerusalem was set on the summit of the mount of Sion and Moria, which is like Libanus. Second, because in it were many magnificent houses made of the cedars of Libanus. Third, because the city itself, built of white stone, by the whiteness of its walls and buildings presented to those who looked from afar the appearance of snowy Libanus. Now the king and princes in it, as in Libanus, are called cedars and mountains, because they stood above the rest in glory and dignity, and likewise in pride and haughtiness, just as mountains stand above valleys and cedars above other trees.
“And upon all the oaks of Basan.” Basan was the kingdom of Og the giant, which Moses, after he was slain, gave to the Gadites, Rubenites and half the tribe of Manasses, Josue 12:4; it comprised part of Galaad, Trachonitis and Gaulanitis, and was most fertile and rich in pasture. Hence the Hebrews use Basan and Carmel proverbially for a fertile and rich land; hence the rams, bulls and cows of Basan are rams, bulls and cows well fed and fat, as St. Jerome and Symmachus render it. By the “oaks of Basan,” then, understand the men in Judea who were, first, strong, warlike and proud, so St. Basil; second, rich and abounding in wealth and delights; third, shamefully given to luxury and lust. Hence Basan in Hebrew signifies shame: for from wealth and delights men go on to gluttony and shameful lust. See Canon 19. All these, then, God will cast down and crush by the Chaldeans.
15. “And upon every high tower.” For the Chaldeans threw down the towers and walls of the city.
16. “And upon all the ships of Tharsis.” “Tharsis,” that is, of the sea. So the Septuagint, St. Jerome and the Chaldee. For from Tharsis, grandson of Japheth (Genesis 10), sprang the Cilicians, and from him their capital was called Tharsus. So St. Jerome in the Hebrew Questions on Genesis, and Josephus, Antiquities, book 1, chapter 6. Since the people of Tharsis and the Cilicians were powerful in ships and masters of the sea, Tyre also in Isaias 23 is called in the Hebrew the daughter of Tharsis, which our version renders “daughter of the sea.” That the people of Tharsis once ruled widely is plain from what is said of Holofernes, Judith 2: “And he spoiled all the children of Tharsis”; and Solinus, chapter 41, says: “Cilicia formerly reached as far as Pelusium in Egypt.” Further, from a part the whole Mediterranean, and at length the Ocean and any vast sea, was called Tharsis. So Jonas fled to Tharsis, that is, to the sea. So the ships and kings of Tharsis are the ships and kings of the sea and the islands. So the fleets of Solomon are said to have sailed to Tharsis, that is, to the Indian sea. Lastly, from this the chrysolite stone is called Tharsis in Hebrew, because it is of the colour of the sea, that is, sky-blue. Isaias therefore signifies here that the fleets of the Egyptians and Tyrians and of others who wished to help the besieged Jews would be scattered and overthrown by the Chaldeans. So Cyril. Sanchez notes that the ships of Tharsis are called great, strong and sturdy ships, able to plough a vast sea exposed to roaring winds. Hence it is said in Psalm 47: “With a strong wind thou shalt break in pieces the ships of Tharsis,” as if to say: Ships, however strong and firm, will not withstand the avenging and angry hand of God. Sanchez adds that by the ships of Tharsis are meant the great ships of the kings of the Jews, which, as formerly in the time of Solomon, brought a great quantity of gold into their treasury. But since this refers to the time of Sedecias and the siege of Jerusalem, when the Jews were very poor, so that they do not seem to have had such large fleets, it seems rather to be referred to the fleets of the neighbouring Tyrians and Phoenicians, as I have said.
18. “And idols shall be utterly destroyed.” This is first, and properly, after the devastation by the Chaldeans and the Babylonian captivity, as I said at verse 9. Second, it was done after Christ under the elder Theodosius the Emperor, who by public edict abolished idolatry not only among the Jews, of whom the prophecy here properly speaks, but among the Gentiles throughout the world, as appears from books 10, 11 and 12 On Pagans in the Theodosian Code. Third, and most fully, it shall be done on the day of judgment; for then the wicked will flee into caves and caverns from the face of the wrath of God, as follows, and will say “to the mountains: Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us.”