Commentaria in Isaiam
In particular, by the feet Procopius and St. Augustine, on that of Psalm 90: “lest thou dash thy foot against a stone,” understand the Apostles, through whom Christ traversed the world, whom Saul wished to trample down: but in vain. For of these it is said, chapter 52:7: “How beautiful are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings...” “that preacheth peace!” Christ, therefore, is a swift plunderer; whence he gave him the name, chapter 8:3: “Make speed to take away the spoils: Make haste to the prey.” This sense is apt, but allegorical rather than literal.
I THE LORD, THE FIRST AND THE LAST,—as if to say: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,” Apocalypse 22:13. “I am he. Before me there was no God formed, and after me there shall be none,” Isaias 43:10, as if to say: I create, preserve and dispose all the ages, because I am the first and the last; I go before and follow all the ages. I am he from whom are all things, in whom are all things, about whom are all things. This the idols and gods of the Gentiles do not do; for these are made and carved by the Gentiles themselves: they are therefore younger than their makers; how then are they first and last? how could they order all the ages, indeed their own worship and worshippers from the beginning? The Septuagint reads, I God the first, and in the things that are to come I am, as if to say: I was, I am, and I shall be through every age, I am eternal. So also the Chaldee referred this to the eternity of God.
So Plato, book 4 of the Laws, says there is an old proverb about God, that he himself contains and embraces the beginning, middle and end of all things. So Theocritus in his Encomium of Ptolemy says:
Among men let Ptolemy be called first, last and middle.
Literally the Hebrews have: I the Lord, the first, and with the last I myself, understand: I shall be, as if to say: I am first, because I created all things; and after the last, and after the consummation of the age, I shall be: I am the last, I am eternal, without beginning and end. So Vatablus. And consequently I am alpha and omega, I am the sum of all things, I am the prow and stern of the universe, head and heel. All things proceed from me as from a fountain, and are referred to the same as to a harbor of happiness. The nations, hearing from afar of the victories granted not only to Abraham but also to Moses at the crossing of the Red Sea and in the desert, and to Josue in Chanaan, and to others of their descendants, acknowledged the power of the God of the Hebrews, and struck with awe feared him; yet by custom they persisted in their idolatry, and persist for ever, and to defend it exhort one another; and since they have nothing by which to defend their idols solidly, or to establish their divinity, so that they may seem to have some firmness, they make their image, of itself futile and about to fall, of strong material, and cover it with plates, and join and fasten it with nails.
Those who refer this to Christ explain it thus: The nations saw the glory and miracles of Christ, and through them came to Christ, and yielded to the preaching of the Gospel and the victory of the word of God. So St. Cyril, Jerome, Procopius, Haymo, Adam, and St. Augustine, book On the Unity of the Church, chapter 7. But because it follows: “Every one... shall say to his brother: Be of good courage,” namely that you may make an idol; hence you may better take this of the Gentiles, who, roused at the fame of Christ and the Gospel, rose up from their paganism against Christ, as almost all the Emperors did in the first three hundred years of the Church, until Constantine.
BE OF GOOD COURAGE.—This is the voice of idolaters wishing to defend their idols bravely against God, who shows his divinity and power by so many victories and miracles, and exhorting one another to this and to make their fabrication firm and elegant, that all together they may strenuously and bravely insist on setting up idols. This is clear from what follows. In like manner after Christ and against Christ idolaters did the same, as is plain in Acts 19:27, in the workmen of Diana. So Lyranus, Arias, Forerius and Vatablus.
7. THE CRAFTSMAN ENCOURAGED,—as if to say: One craftsman, a worker in bronze, who uses the hammer and anvil, that is, the hammerer, encouraged another smith, his companion or helper, who was likewise forging the same idol (for as some idols were cast from molten metal, and some were joined together, so some also were beaten out with a hammer upon an anvil), to go on together briskly and eagerly in making and fitting the idol; and to unite its parts with glue, saying in the manner of one gluing (for this is the Hebrew laddebek) “It is good”; the Septuagint, the soldering is good; in Greek, that is, the joint or casting; Symmachus, Aquila and Theodotion, it is good for the gluing together. Come then, let us use this glue and join the parts of the idol excellently; and at length he fastened the idol so fitted to the wall with nails, that it might be firm and immovable. The sum is, as if to say: Smith encouraged smith, hammerer hammerer, and urged him on to guard and make idols.
8. AND THOU, ISRAEL, MY SERVANT.—Having shown the Gentiles the vanity of idols, in that they can give their worshippers no help or aid, God turns to the Israelites his worshippers, and confirms them in his worship, faith and hope, promising that he will be their God and protector, as he was Abraham’s.
Allegorically, by Israel he understands the spiritual Israel, namely Christians, who imitate the ancestral faith of Abraham and Israel, that is, Jacob; for he rises by degrees to them, indeed St. Cyril, Jerome, Theodoret, Pope Eusebius, letter 1, Decretals, and St. Augustine, book On the Unity of the Church, chapter 7, take this of them literally. See Canons 8 and 22, as if to say: Christians, living not only in Judea but anywhere among the farthest nations, I have taken hold of, and through all adversities, hardships, enemies and dangers I have kept them safe, protected them and led them as it were by the hand, as my friends, to whom I show the highest love, affection and fatherly care. Of this affection and care of God for his faithful the Prophet treats through the six following chapters, in which he wonderfully consoles the Apostles and us the faithful, and raises us to hope against all afflictions, temptations and martyrdoms, and encourages us to preach the word of God freely in them. So the Fathers already cited.
9. IN WHOM I HAVE TAKEN THEE.—The Septuagint, Chaldee, Vatablus, Forerius and others translate more clearly, whom (namely Israel) I have taken. But the sense is the same, indeed more significant, if you translate with our version, “in whom,” namely Abraham, as if to say: When I called Abraham from the ends of the earth, that is, from remote Chaldea, I called his sons in him at the same time, and took hold of his whole posterity.
10. AND THE RIGHT HAND OF MY JUST ONE HATH UPHELD THEE.—In Hebrew, of my justice, as if to say: I have upheld thee with my just and faithful right hand; for with the same fidelity with which I upheld and protected Abraham, I upheld and protected his descendants, as I had promised Abraham. So the Septuagint, Chaldee, Vatablus and Forerius.
But the word justice can be taken for “just one,” as it is taken in verse 2, and the sense comes to the same. Wherefore by “the just one” Lyranus understands Moses, Hugh Cyrus, St. Jerome, Haymo and others Christ, more genuinely according to the letter St. Thomas and others Abraham; for verse 2 has treated of him up to now. Yet so that through Abraham he rises and tends to Christ. For the Prophets are wont, by rising gradually from the type to the antitype, from the shadow to the truth, at last to embrace both in the literal sense, as he here embraces both. See Canon 5. Of both, therefore, I shall explain this and what follows literally with Forerius, as if to say: With the right hand with which I upheld Abraham, and much more Christ, I upheld their sons and descendants, who were contained in them as in their parents and their loins. Where, therefore, Abraham, and likewise Christ, held out his right hand to God, that is, embraced the knowledge and faith of God, and committed himself and his own to his help, grace and guidance; in that right hand God embraced his whole family. So Forerius, Sanchez and others.
I AM WITH THEE: TURN NOT ASIDE.—The Septuagint translate, for I am with thee: I do not deceive.
11. BEHOLD ALL SHALL BE CONFOUNDED,—God protecting his own and fighting for them. These then are the things that God hurls against the enemies of his faithful: shame, ignominy, destruction, and every kind of consumption and abolition, as he abolished Pharao and the Egyptians in the Red Sea, the Chanaanites in the land of promise.
12. THEY SHALL BE AS NOTHING,—they shall be things of naught, soon to be nothing.