Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter 3. Synopsis of the Chapter
He prophesies the destruction of the Jews by Titus and Vespasian for the killing of Christ, yet so that the Jews who lived in the time of Isaias and heard these things from him can apply most of what he says here to themselves. Second, at verse 8, he assigns the cause of the destruction, namely the sins of the people and the stupor and fraud of the princes. Third, at verse 16, he gives another cause of the destruction, namely the bold and proud adornment of the women, whom therefore he foretells will be made bald and clothed with ropes and sackcloth.
1. For behold the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall take away from Jerusalem and from Juda the mighty and the strong, the whole strength of bread, and the whole strength of water; 2. the strong man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the diviner, and the ancient; 3. the captain over fifty, and the honourable in countenance, and the counsellor, and the wise among the artificers, and the skilful in eloquent speech. 4. And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them. 5. And the people shall rush one upon another, every man against his neighbour: the child shall make a tumult against the ancient, and the base against the honourable. 6. For a man shall take hold of his brother, of the house of his father, saying: Thou hast a garment, be thou our prince, and let this ruin be under thy hand. 7. In that day he shall answer, saying: I am no healer, and in my house there is no bread, nor garment: make me not prince of the people. 8. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Juda is fallen: because their tongue and their devices are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his majesty. 9. The shew of their countenance hath answered them: and they have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it. Woe to their souls, for evils are rendered to them! 10. Say to the just man that it is well, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings. 11. Woe to the wicked unto evil: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. 12. As for my people, their oppressors have stripped them, and women have ruled over them. O my people, they that call thee blessed, the same shall deceive thee, and destroy the way of thy steps. 13. The Lord standeth up to judge, and he standeth to judge the people. 14. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and with its princes: for you have devoured the vineyard, and the spoil of the poor is in your house. 15. Why do you consume my people, and grind the faces of the poor, saith the Lord, the God of hosts? 16. And the Lord said: Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and have walked with stretched out necks, and with wanton glances of their eyes, and made a noise as they walked with their feet, and moved in a set pace, 17. the Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of Sion, and the Lord will discover their hair. 18. In that day the Lord will take away the ornaments of shoes, and little moons, 19. and chains, and necklaces, and bracelets, and bonnets, 22. and changes of apparel, and short cloaks, and fine linen, and crisping pins; 23. and mirrors, and fine linen garments, and hairnets, and summer garments. 24. And instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle, a cord, and instead of curled hair, baldness, and instead of a stomacher, sackcloth. 25. Thy fairest men also shall fall by the sword, and thy strong ones in battle. 26. And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall sit desolate on the ground.
1. “For behold” (1). The word “for” signifies that this depends on and is connected with what went before, as if to say: I warned you to cease from Christ, and not to harass or kill him: but I know you will do the contrary, and will kill him; wherefore I foretell to you that Titus and Vespasian, in vengeance for the blood of Christ, will overthrow and burn Jerusalem. So St. Basil, Jerome, Cyril, Rupert, and the ancients everywhere. Isaias therefore does not speak of the destruction of the Jews by the Babylonians, as Haymo would have it, but by the Romans, and so on to chapter 6, as is plain from the whole course and connection of Isaias: for what he says in the next chapter of the magnificent branch of the Lord, of the book of life, of the washing away of sins in the spirit of judgment and of burning, and in chapter 5 of the song of the beloved and his kinsman, it is manifest by the common opinion of interpreters belongs to Christ and to the times of Christ and the Church. This chapter therefore foretells that God will take away from the Jews, because of the murder of Christ, first, all strength and all valiant soldiers; second, all provision of food, that they may waste away with hunger; third, prophecy and prophets; fourth, the old men and princes; fifth, counsellors; sixth, builders; seventh, pious and spiritual men; and lastly all the light of Holy Scripture, all worship of religion, all grace and favour of God. From which it will come about that, deprived of God’s help, the Jews, blind and wretched and without counsel, will rush to their own destruction, and be harassed by dire war, famine and pestilence, slain and carried off into slavery. So the Fathers already cited.
“The Lord of hosts shall take away,” etc., “the mighty and the strong.” In Hebrew, “the mighty man and the mighty woman,” or “the supporter and the supporting woman”; “strong” is therefore feminine, as if to say: God will take away from Juda mighty leaders, such as Moses, Josue and Gedeon of old, and mighty women leaders, such as Debbora, Jahel and Judith. So St. Basil. Second, Scripture is wont by both genders, masculine and feminine, to signify the whole of a thing, as in Ecclesiastes 2, and so on.
“The Lord shall take away,” etc., “the whole strength of bread, and the whole strength of water,” as if to say: God will take away from you all supplies, that you may perish by hunger and thirst; he will take from you whatever could serve for food or defence; he will bring on sterility and famine. How true this was is plain from Josephus and Hegesippus, who teach that in the siege of Jerusalem by Titus mothers devoured their own children for hunger.
Note a Hebraism. The Hebrews call “strength,” and “bread,” in Hebrew misan, that is, a prop, a staff, a stay, bread, food, and everything that sustains and props up man in life; hence bread is called a rod or staff, Leviticus 26:26; for as a staff supports an old man who is bent and tottering, so bread sustains a life that is wavering and failing. Other Fathers explain this otherwise, as if to say: I will take away the strength of bread, that is, I will make your bread lack strength, sap and the power of nourishing, so that it is vain and juiceless and does not satisfy hunger; and so too I will make water fail to quench thirst. For thus God even now makes the apples and fruits that grow in Sodom come to nothing. And so he often makes the crops, struck with blight, dry and empty within.
Allegorically, in this same siege and ever since, God has taken away from the Jews spiritual bread, that is, first, the true understanding of Holy Scripture. So St. Jerome, Cyril and Haymo. Hence Philo of Carpasia, on the Canticle, chap. 4: “It is to be noted,” he says, “that the strength of bread is spoken of first, and afterwards the strength of water is to be taken away; because when the weighty sayings of Holy Scripture are not searched out, nor carried out as they are commanded, the mind gradually falls away from knowledge, so that at length it does not understand even what is easy.” Second, the Eucharistic bread and the water of baptism. So Cyril and Basil, whom see: for he teaches admirably how God, in punishment of sins, takes away the use of the sacraments. Third, all spiritual gifts. So Chrysostom, in his third discourse Against the Jews. Thus he has now taken the same away in great part from the Greeks, Africans and Syrians, once most flourishing in holiness and learning, whom, because of the sins of their descendants, he permitted to be handed over into the hands of the Turks and Saracens.
2. The prophet.—For in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, says Sanchez, there were few prophets, namely Jeremias alone. Hence Azarias says: “There is at this time no prince, and no leader, and no prophet,” Daniel 3:38. Sanchez adds that it is said that there will be no prophets because, although there would be some, yet the people would not listen to them or take heed, as if they had not existed. For a thing is said not to have been when it was in vain, when it was useless. For if a medicine does not heal, we say there was no medicine; if no counsel was useful, that there was no counsellor; if a king is a boy or a fool, that there is no king. But I say that Isaias speaks of the destruction of the Jews, not by the Chaldeans but by the Romans: for then they had no prophets; for that Jesus who cried out continually, “Woe to Jerusalem!” as Josephus testifies, Jewish War, book 6, chap. 12, was a prophet, but rather an omen and a portent.