Commentaria in Isaiam
What ship, destitute of a pilot, tossed and covered by the waves, is not safer than a drunkard?” And further: “Drunkenness is a voluntary demon, put upon souls through pleasure, the mother of wickedness, the enemy of virtue.” Of drunkenness I shall say more on Daniel 5. Moreover see on it St. Chrysostom, homily 71 to the People, and St. Ambrose, in his book On Elias and Fasting, chap. 15. Hence the Greek Poets called wine “Bacchus fire-born,” both because near Vesuvius and Etna, mountains most noted for their fires, excellent and burning wine, as if fiery, is produced; and because it kindles the fires of quarrels, lusts and all crimes, so that it seems fiery and born of fire. Alexander the Great obscured all his virtues by wine-bibbing; and, kindled by it, he killed his friends. Androcides the wise wrote to Alexander: “When you drink wine, king, remember that you drink the blood of the earth. As hemlock is poison to man, so is wine.”
which Christians once used at banquets, music to cheer the guests, as I said.
And the work of the Lord you regard not.—“The work of the Lord” is twofold. First, of creation and governance, as if to say: You, given to feasts and drunkenness, do not regard the heaven, the earth, and what is created in them, that from them you may know and praise God the Creator. For God gave man an uplifted countenance, unlike cattle, which look prone on the earth, that he might look at heaven and the Ruler of heaven, love and worship him; as if to say: You cast down that lofty mind to feeding and drunkenness, so that after the manner of beasts which go out in the morning to pastures and eat all day, from morning till evening you drink, and have no time to spend in contemplating the works of God. Rightly Claudian, book 3, On the Rape of Proserpine:
What did it profit to have drawn the mind upward, what to have raised the lofty head, if after the manner of cattle you wander through pathless places?
The works of God, therefore, are creatures, which lead us to the Creator, as streams to the fountain. Hence Trismegistus said that “the world is a mirror of invisible things.” And Anaxagoras said that “he was born to see the sun,” and from so wonderful a star to contemplate its wonderful Maker. “The heavens shew forth the glory of God.” And “The invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity,” Romans 1. But most of all he calls “the work of the Lord” the provident and beneficent governance of God, by which both animals and men, especially the Jews in Chanaan, with yearly harvest and fruits, as by a new work of creation every year he fed; which therefore he willed to be recalled at table, that from these they might acknowledge God the giver and give him thanks: “When thou shalt have eaten and art full,” he says, “thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the excellent land which he hath given thee,” Deuteronomy 8:10. But the Jews here, cast down to food and belly, and forgetful of God, abused his creatures for their gluttony and surfeit against the will of God. Hence, pressing and explaining it, he adds: “And the works of his hands you consider not.”
The second “work of God” is the work of redemption through Christ, of which Habacuc 3:2, according to the Septuagint: “I have considered thy works, and was afraid,” as if to say: You, O Jews! O drinkers! consider not the mystery of the redemption of Christ, the blood shed for you, Christ suffering on the cross, thirsting, given vinegar and gall to drink. The former sense is the more genuine.
Third, Forerius and Sanchez not badly understand “this work of God” not of the past, nor of the present, but of the future and they understand it, namely the vengeance of God hanging over them. For so “work” is taken in verse 19, as if to say: You indulge harp, timbrel and wine; nor do you consider how great a destruction hangs over you from an angry God.
13. Therefore is my people led away captive.—Note that here and in what follows past tenses are put for future, on account of the certainty of the prophecy; for what he foretells is as certain as if it had already been done: “is led away” therefore means will be led away; “they have perished,” will perish; “were dried up,” will be dried up; “hath enlarged,” will enlarge; “hath opened,” will open. See Canon 12.
Because they had not knowledge.—Because, serving his belly, he did not regard the work of the Lord, of which in verse 12, as though he knew not that he was created for heavenly and eternal, not for fleshly and perishing food. Hence the Septuagint translate, because they knew not the Lord feeding and nourishing them, but, cast down to food, gave themselves up as slaves to their gluttony; nor did they acknowledge God their Creator and so munificent a giver.
And their nobles have perished with famine.—So great was the famine at Jerusalem, besieged by Titus, that mothers killed and ate their children, as Josephus testifies. The Hebrew has, and the men of his glory are men of famine, that is, the men of his glory, the glorious, are men of famine; as if to say: Those whom glory once made famous, famine now makes famous.
14. Therefore hath hell enlarged her soul,—that is, her bosom and capacity; or “her soul,” that is, herself (see Canon 19), as if to say: For this cause hell has enlarged itself immeasurably, to swallow up innumerable souls. It is a hyperbole and prosopopoeia, by which a soul, a mouth, greed and gluttony for devouring are given to hell: as a hungry and gluttonous man sitting at a sumptuous table widens his throat and the gape of his mouth: so by the Poets Orcus is called rapacious and devouring, and to three-headed Cerberus gaping mouths are given, and Solomon, Proverbs 30:16, calls hell “insatiable,” for hell has an insatiably hollow throat.
Second, Sanchez: “Hell hath enlarged her soul,” that is, her mouth: for the soul, that is the breath or panting, is enlarged when the mouth is opened widest, so that the latter half of the verse is an explanation of the former after the Hebrew manner; as if to say: The avaricious, the powerful and the rapacious gape endlessly after the wealth of the poor and devour them as if they were hell, and “the sepulchres of the poor,” says St. Ambrose. Rightly, therefore, and fittingly another hell is prepared for them, which likewise gapes always with open mouth, and enlarges itself immeasurably, and devours them most greedily. They would be insatiable beasts: therefore I will open to them the belly and throat of insatiable hell (as of a most voracious beast), and will hand them over to it for food.
Third, the same Sanchez takes by hell the common sepulchre of the Jews, which was in the valley beyond the Kedron, in that part which is called Gehenna or Topheth, as is plain from 4 Kings 23:6, as if to say: So great will be the slaughter of Jews, noble and common, so great the multitude of corpses, that the common sepulchre of the Jews, namely Gehenna, will not be able to hold it, but will have to enlarge itself very widely: so also Jeremias, chapter 7, verse 32, predicts that the Jews will be buried in Topheth, because there they sacrificed their infants to the idol Moloch. But the first two senses are the more genuine.
Tropologically, it is easy here to apply with St. Jerome to sinners, who have not the knowledge of God, as though they were born for their belly and not for God: these are foolish, because, bound with the cords of their sins, they are hurried in chains to gaping hell, and since their number is huge, hell opens its mouth and soul without limit to swallow them.
15. And man shall be bowed down, and man shall be humbled.—Haymo notes that when “man” is joined with “vir,” by “man” the commoners are signified, by “vir” the nobles and chief men, as if he said: All, both noble and ignoble, without distinction, will be punished and humbled, and will descend into hell: and so God, the just avenger, will be praised by all, “and shall be exalted in this his judgment” and just vengeance; and “shall be sanctified,” that is, shall be declared holy, and as holy be celebrated by all, “in this his justice.”
17. And the lambs shall feed according to their order, and the waste places turned into plenty strangers shall eat.—As if to say: “The lambs,” that is the poor and gentle, before oppressed by the more powerful, now that these are slain or taken captive, shall feed at large. For Nabuzardan left of the poor of the land vinedressers and husbandmen, 4 Kings 25; and the possessions deserted by their owners, now bearing abundant harvest, shall come into the hands of strangers, namely the Chaldeans, or the Romans.
Second, St. Thomas explains thus: “The lambs shall feed,” that is, shall be eaten by your enemies, “according to their order,” because the better will be eaten first. But “shall feed” here is the same as “shall eat,” not “shall be eaten,” as is plain from the Hebrew.