Commentaria in Isaiam
27. Why Sayest Thou, O Jacob, and Speakest, O Israel?
MY WAY IS HID (that is, the manner of my life, my state, my condition) FROM THE LORD.—This is a mimesis. For he imitates the voice of the Jews who were living like Epicureans, and who, pressed by adversity, thought that they were neglected by God, that God had no care or providence of them, as if to say: Since God is so great, and so powerful and wise, as even other nations confess, why do you, O Jacob, that is, you, the two tribes already afflicted by the Assyrians, and you, O Israel, that is, you, the ten tribes already led away into Assyria by the same, say: God does not care for our affairs, does not consider with what evils we are afflicted, what captivity oppresses us, does not see our miseries, does not heed them: “He walks about the poles of heaven,” he neglects our affairs, and does not look on them? So St. Cyril.
AND MY JUDGMENT IS PASSED OVER FROM MY GOD.—He repeats the same in other words, as if to say: Our judgment, that is, our cause, our right and our justice, is no concern of God, whether we live justly or unjustly, whether we are afflicted justly or unjustly. Hitherto we have been held the people of God; behold, now we are oppressed by impious enemies and tyrants; God permits them to do this to us; therefore he has no care for us. Note: in the word “passed over” there is a hypallage: for the judgment passes over, because the judge passes it over and goes by it, as if to say: God passes over my cause, neglects it, does not wish to judge, and does not attend whether my enemies deal with me justly or unjustly. These are the words of a people losing heart in captivity and affliction, and distrusting and complaining of God’s providence. Secondly, Sanchez says “passed over” means passed by and lay hid. For so we commonly say: That thing has escaped me, that is, is hidden from me. To these complaints the Prophet replies, and says:
28. THE LORD IS THE EVERLASTING GOD.—In Hebrew, Jehovah is the God of eternity, as if to say: God, and God’s virtue, strength and wisdom, are eternal: therefore what he once had, the same he now has, namely care and providence of you and of all things. For since he is eternal, he does not grow weary in governing, does not fail, does not labor, does not grow old; but equally always fresh, vigorous, active and unencumbered he rules all things; especially since, as his power, so also his wisdom is immense and unsearchable; and therefore no thing, no counsels of men, no frauds, no secrets can be hidden from it. For God is Lord not of time, not of an age, but of all eternity.
29. WHO GIVETH STRENGTH TO THE WEARY,—as if to say: Not only is God himself not wearied, but he restores strength and courage to the weary.
AND TO THEM THAT ARE NOT (who seem not to be, who are so weak and feeble that they seem about to fall into nothing, God gives) STRENGTH.—Again, to those who are not he gives being, and at once strength, when he creates and produces them.
From this verse the Hebrews took a formula for blessing God: “Blessed is he who gives strength to the weary, and multiplies strength to him who has none”; which they are accustomed to write in brief by the initial letters alone, in Hebrew letters, at the end of books.
30. THE YOUTHS SHALL FAIL.—He declares how much greater are the strengths God gives his own than those nature confers: Boys, he says, and young men, vigorous and robust, are wearied by labor, broken by infirmity, and fall: and those who hope in the Lord, and expect strength from him, even if they are languid, weary and weak, shall be strengthened, and in an aged or boyish body shall have strength and more than youthful spirits.
31. BUT THEY THAT HOPE IN THE LORD SHALL CHANGE (in Hebrew yachaliphu, that is, shall renew, repair, make whole: it is a metaphor from arms, which, when broken or blunted, are exchanged for new and whole ones: for this is what yachaliphu signifies) STRENGTH, both of mind and of body. To this St. Paul alludes, saying: “When I am weak, then am I powerful.” For his weakness was made up by the virtue of Christ. And again: “Although our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed.” The sense of the Prophet, then, is, as if to say: In adversity, O Hebrews, do not fall in spirit, fix your minds firmly in God, rest on his providence, hope and implore his help: for those who thus hope in the Lord, though they be weak, fallen and almost shattered, shall receive from him their former strength. Again, as St. Gregory explains, Moralia, book 19, chapter 16: “They change strength, because they who were lately strong in the flesh strive to be strong in spiritual work.”
Anagogically, the Saints in heaven shall change strength, where the body, which here “is sown in weakness, shall rise in power,” as the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians 15:43: namely, the weak shall rise strong, the sick well, the earthly heavenly, the carnal spiritual. Wherefore Blessed Dionysius the Carthusian, who on the whole of Holy Scripture and many other books left commentaries, a man as illustrious for self-contempt and holiness as for learning, foreseeing the time of his death, which befell him in the year of the Lord 1471, for a whole year before his death sang three songs, with tears and groans. The first was: “Eternal rest give to them, O Lord”; by which he knew for certain that he should die in that year. The second: “Mary anointed the feet of Jesus”; by which he hoped to obtain from Christ the pardon of his sins. The third: “The Saints who hope in the Lord shall change strength”; by which he trusted that he would obtain, with the Saints, immortal strength, as the Chronicle of the Carthusians of Peter Dorland, book 6, chapter 24, has it.
THEY SHALL TAKE WINGS AS EAGLES.—For “they shall take” the Hebrew is yaalu, that is, they shall make to ascend. Hence Vatablus translates, they shall lift up wings, as if they had had them before, but let down and drawn in by weariness. But better and more significantly the Septuagint translate, they shall put forth wings like an eagle, new ones namely, while in old age the old feathers fall from them. This our translation signifies when it says: “They shall take wings as eagles.” See how much grace surpasses nature, as much as the eagle surpasses other birds, especially in this, that, weak and aging, it renews its life, feathers and youth, as if to say: Those who hope in the Lord, by the help of grace received from him, will so bravely and promptly overcome labors, hardships and adversities of every kind, and will accomplish the way of the divine law not so much by walking and running as by flying, and Scripture gives the wings of an eagle, and that because Christ fills their breasts with strength. So Procopius, Theodoret, Cyril and St. Thomas, who by “eagles” understand not only eagles but also Angels, winged and swift like eagles. So Plato gives wings to poets, by which they seek heaven. The Chaldee: they shall run upon the wings of eagles. Which can be explained, first, thus, as if to say: They will be swifter than eagles. Secondly, as if to say: As the eagle carries its young on its wings and transports them most swiftly, so God will receive and carry on the wings of his providence the faithful who hope in him, so that they may fly most swiftly out of captivity and all adversities. Again, the Saints take, that is, renew, their feathers, and, laying aside the old, take new ones like eagles.
The manner of the renewal of youth in the eagle is thus described by St. Jerome: “When the eagle has grown old, its feathers and eyes grow heavy. It seeks a fountain, and lifts up its feathers, gathers heat into itself: in this way its eyes are healed; it plunges itself three times into the fountain, and returns to youth. Whence in Psalm 102 it is said: Thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s.”