Commentaria in Isaiam
Thirdly, and truly according to the letter, he calls Abraham “the just one,” because among unbelievers and the impious he alone almost lived faithful and just: hence he is called “just,” Wisdom 10:5, as Lot is called “just” among the Sodomites, in the same place, verse 6. Again he is called just because he was as it were the father of faith and justice, spreading it among the Chanaanites and his descendants. Lastly, because he begot Christ the just one, and justifier of the world. Whence for “just one” the Hebrew is tsedek, that is, justice; for this, dead in the world, God raised up through Abraham, and as it were built up again. God therefore called Abraham from the East, that is, from Mesopotamia, which is east of Palestine, “to follow him”; for Abraham followed God who called him, with blind obedience, “not knowing whither he went,” Hebrews 11:8. For “him” the Hebrew is leraglo, that is, to his foot, as if to say: God showed and as it were went before Abraham in the way, and Abraham, like a blind man, treading foot to foot in his footsteps, followed securely and confidently. So the Chaldee, St. Thomas, Hugh, Lyranus, Forerius, Sanchez and others.
Vatablus translates and explains a little differently, in this manner: Who raised up justice from the East (that is, the just Abraham)? He proclaimed it at his foot, that is, Abraham preached justice in all the places through which he passed and in which he dwelt. Justice, he says, he calls the worship of the one God. For he who does not render to others what is theirs is unjust; therefore also he who defrauds God of his honor, as if to say: That glorious Patriarch Abraham lived among you idolaters, although idols did not make him renowned, but God: which, though you know it, you yet have not left your idols, so as to follow Abraham, just and blessed by God. So far Vatablus.
HE SHALL GIVE THE NATIONS IN HIS SIGHT.—“He shall give” means he gave; for all these things, though future, are to be explained by the past, both because the past “raised up” has preceded, for the things that follow are joined to it by “and,” and so must be explained in the same manner and tense; and because past verbs follow: “Who hath wrought and done these things,” etc. See Canon 13. So the Chaldee, Forerius and Vatablus, who aptly translate thus: He delivered, or was delivering, the nations before him, and made him rule over kings, so as to give them as dust to his sword, and as stubble to his bow. He pursued them, and escaped unharmed by a way which his feet had never before entered. He speaks first of the victory of Abraham, which he won swiftly, easily and without bloodshed over Chodorlahomor and the three other kings, in freeing Lot his nephew, Genesis 14:15, as if to say: Who made Abraham superior to those four kings proud of their victory? Did the worship of idols do this? By no means; but I: and you therefore worship me, not idols, and you will experience like things. Secondly, he speaks of the victories, often miraculous, which Abraham’s descendants, namely Moses, Josue and the Hebrews, won over the Amalecites, Chanaanites, Philistines and other nations. For what was conferred on his descendants is reckoned as given to Abraham. So the land of Chanaan was promised not to him but to his descendants, Genesis 12:7. See Canon 34.
HE SHALL GIVE THEM AS DUST TO HIS SWORD.—“Dust,” namely “driven by the wind,” as follows; for this must be supplied here by zeugma, as if to say: As easily as the wind sweeps away and scatters dust and stubble, so easily did Abraham and the Hebrews cut down their enemies.
3. HE SHALL PASS IN PEACE,—Forerius and Vatablus translate, peace, that is, wholeness, shall pass, that is, Abraham came out of the battle whole and unharmed with his men. For the Hebrews often put abstract terms for concrete ones. Secondly, our version, by supplying “be,” that is, “in,” which is frequent in Hebrew, translates “he shall pass,” that is, “he passed in peace,” that is, peacefully, wholly and happily, with none of his men lost. So peacefully the Hebrews, under the leadership of Josue, occupied Chanaan, God fighting for them, and routing and putting the Chanaanites to flight.
NO PATH SHALL APPEAR IN HIS FEET.—First, it can be a hypallage, as if, with the words turned about, he said: He passed so swiftly in assailing the kings that his feet did not appear on the path, that is, he left no footprints on the path; for hypallage is familiar to the Hebrews.
Secondly, properly, as if to say: God led Abraham and the Hebrews so sound, vigorous and whole, both through the Desert and through Chanaan as victors, that no mark of the path and of so long a way appeared on their feet. For neither did callus form on their feet, nor were shoes or garments worn out by age, just as if they had traveled no way; for this is what is said in Deuteronomy 29:5: “He hath brought you forty years through the desert: your garments are not worn out, neither are the shoes of your feet consumed with age”; and Deuteronomy 8:4: “Thy foot is not worn.” So Sanchez.
Forerius and Vatablus translate otherwise, namely: His feet had never before entered this way, as if to say: Abraham went by an unknown way, and waged an unaccustomed war, for never before had he entered battle; therefore the greater was this his victory, the greater also God’s favor and protection toward him. For under God’s leadership he obtained the victory.
4. WHO HATH WROUGHT AND DONE THESE THINGS, CALLING THE GENERATIONS FROM THE BEGINNING?—Forerius puts the question mark after “done?”, as if it were answered next: He does it who calleth the generations from the beginning. But the Roman Bibles and others put this mark after “from the beginning.” The sense is, as if to say: Who brought it about that the Hebrews, unarmed and timid, drove out so many nations from their regions, and obtained so many victories unharmed, and this in a continuous series of generations from Abraham their father to Ezechias of the present day? Surely none other than God, who calleth the generations from the beginning, who namely has called and chosen all the Hebrews begotten of Abraham down to now to be his people, and who, as to Abraham, so to his descendants, as long as they worshipped him and hoped in him, conferred benefits.
Note: “calling the generations” means creating, and, as the Chaldee has it, ordering the perpetual course of generations, so that one continually succeeds another. It is a metalepsis. “Calling” means foreknowing, foreseeing, and placing each one by one in its order, so that he can distinctly designate and call each, and in fact does call and bring forth each in its own time, as if to say: Who is it that causes other generations to succeed others in unbroken series? For example, who is it that brought it about that in its time Abraham should come, then Isaac, soon Jacob, afterwards Moses, Josue, David and the rest down to the present Isaias and Ezechias, and after Ezechias will in like manner bring in others and others, and at last Christ, say Cyril and Procopius, whose generations likewise he will order, so that in his Church, first the Apostles, then the Martyrs, soon the Doctors, and others after others, succeed in their order to the end of the world? Who, I say, has ordered all these generations from Abraham, indeed from Adam to Ezechias, and in like manner from him to Christ and the end of the world, if not God, who, as St. Paul says, is “King of ages,” that is, the author, creator and ruler of the ages, who by his providence disposes in a fixed series the ages, and the things that are to be in any age? The reason of which is that, as St. Dionysius says, On the Divine Names, chapter 5, in God and about God all being, every being and subsistent thing, is and as it were revolves. For as the felloes of a wheel revolve about the axle, the circle of the circumference about the center, the heavens in the world about the earth: so all times and ages, past, present and future, revolve in a fixed order about the eternity of God; for this, always stable and the same, is present to every time, and encircles and embraces every time. This is what Boethius sings, book 8 On Consolation:
O thou who governest the world by perpetual reason, Sower of earth and heaven, who bidest time go forth from eternity, and, remaining steadfast, givest all things to be moved, beginning, bearer, leader, path, goal, the same.
Finally, St. Jerome, Cyril and Theodoret, who take these things of Christ, explain: Christ will pass so easily and swiftly as a victor, and will subject enemies and nations everywhere to his faith, that he seems not so much to have walked as to have flown, or, like the sun, in a moment to have pervaded and occupied all with his light; for his spiritual victory is described by arms and bodily things, because he alludes to the arms and victories either of Abraham or of Cyrus, who also was a type of Christ.