Commentaria in Isaiam
Hear the same St. Augustine, on Psalm 130: “It is excellently called the rope of sinners,” he says; “for to make a rope twisted, threads are added, and not straight threads but twisted: perversity joined to itself is drawn out at length, and thinks not of cutting off what it has woven ill, but of adding, prolonging, extending, that it may have at the end that by which its hands and feet may be bound, and it be cast into the exterior darkness.” The same, on Psalm 52, citing this place of Isaias: “Woe,” he says, “to those who draw their sin as a long rope! what else is it than, Woe to those whose hands join iniquity? but you do not wish your bonds to be broken now, because you do not feel your bonds; they even delight you, and are pleasures to you; you will feel them at the end when it shall be said: Bind his hands and feet,” and so on. The same again elsewhere: “Like a rope,” he says, “which grows from many very small threads into a great one, sins are always drawn as with a long rope, so that they grow strong into the thick cable of the cart”: by which, namely, sinners are firmly bound to the cart of punishments and torments, so that, as the car rushes headlong into everlasting damnation, they are dragged along no otherwise than tied beasts of burden.
19. That say: Let him make speed, and let his work come quickly, that we may see it.—It is the voice of the Jews mocking the words of the Prophet; for they say: Let the wrath, the punishment and the captivity of God come, which thou, O Isaias, and ye Prophets threaten, and continually thunder at us as inevitable, and fixed by the eternal decree of God, and laid upon our necks; as if to say: In vain you boast these things, your threats are empty, we are not moved by them; we are sufficiently provided and armed against them, and against all enemies; let Titus come, he will experience our strength, he will see how well fortified and impregnable Jerusalem is. So the impious, indeed atheists, think God idle, and not caring for human affairs: as Epicurus set the highest happiness of God in his being free from all business. Hence they say: “Let him make speed, and let him come quickly”; because from his tardiness they gather that God’s threats are vain, which he does not at once carry out. So St. Peter, 2 Epistle 3:4, brings in the impious speaking, that since the world was created all things continue in the same manner and course, and therefore in vain after so many ages the day of divine judgment is awaited.
20. Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil!—Aquila translates: Woe to those who say to the evil man: Thou art good; and to the good man: Thou art wicked! Behold, to this the cord of sins comes, of which in verse 18, that at length they call evil good, and excuse their crimes, and say they are virtues; and this they learned from their father the devil, of whom St. Gregory, homily 8 on that of Psalm 100: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land: “Our enemy,” he says, “so skilfully disguises himself that he makes our faults seem virtues; so that each looks for rewards from that for which he deserves to undergo eternal torments. For often cruelty in avenging vices is practised and thought justice; and the immoderate anger of the zealous is believed merit; likewise lavish giving is mercy; tenacity, thrift; obstinacy is reckoned constancy.
Such are,” says Blessed Maximus, in his sermon On the Wicked, “flatterers, who call a buffoon gracious; one who speaks obscenely, civil; the irascible, energetic; the stingy, provident; the prodigal, liberal. Such praisers with their mouth bless them indeed, but with their heart curse them: for by this praise they bring on all curse upon their life; indeed they make them liable to eternal damnation, approving the vices themselves.”
21. Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes,—who govern yourselves by your own human and political counsel, not by the law and will of God, not by divine prudence and counsel; who attribute more to your own judgment than to the Prophets, while you call good evil, and evil good! See St. Basil, question 207.
22. Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine (you gluttons, who are weak, feeble, inept and silly for everything! you are strong and wise only in wine), and stout men at mingling drunkenness.—In Hebrew, for mingling, that is pouring in, sicera, that is wine, beer, and whatever can intoxicate. Hence the ancient Greeks aptly render sicera literally, as the Latins render it inebriant. For the ancients, being sober, were wont to mix wine with water; hence to mix signifies to give to drink, or to pour in. So You are strong and vigorous not against enemies but to drain cups: you are giants not for fighting but for drinking.
Second, and properly, you are strong at mixing sicera, that is various liquors and intoxicating drinks: for example, you mix various strong wines, which by themselves and because of this mixture strike, disturb and intoxicate the brain the more. Similar is Psalm 74:9; Isaias 29:14. And this is properly the Hebrew mesech, whence the Latin misceo.
24. Therefore as the tongue of the fire devoureth the stubble, —that is, the flame of fire, which has the appearance of a tongue: for it is red, and tends to a point; hence it is said to lick with its tongue; as if to say: The Romans will so burn this vineyard, luxuriant and running wild with vices, like dry stubble, that scarcely a trace of it will remain. This may be seen today in the old city of Jerusalem, whose ruins hardly exist: for the Jerusalem which is now seen is a new city.
So shall their root be as ashes, and their bud shall go up as dust.—As if to say: So the whole plant, or tree, with root and bud and shoots, that is the whole Jewish people with its families and stocks, shall perish by slaughter, vanish and go into smoke. It is a hyperbole.
25. The mountains were moved.—So horrible will be the destruction of the Jews by Titus that even the mountains seem to be disturbed and amazed; and if they were endowed with sense, they would in fact be disturbed and tremble. It is a hyperbole. See Canon 32. Arias Montanus takes by “mountains” leaders and princes.
And their carcasses were become as dung,—as if to say: Their corpses rotted and stank like dung. So, tropologically, the brother of St. Bernard called an embracing woman “dung wrapped up,” as is had in book 1 of his Life, chap. 6. For what is a beautiful body but a sack of dung, a whitened sepulchre, a case and food of worms?
His hand is stretched out still,—because to this day God still punishes the Jews with exile and blindness; and, as Daniel says, chapter 9, verse 27: “Even to the end shall the desolation continue.”
26. And he will lift up a sign,—as if to say: God, as leader of war, himself will sound the trumpet, himself will go before, himself will cause a military standard to be raised among the nations afar off, to summon the Gauls, Spaniards and other nations to the army of the Romans, that it may come in haste against the Jews: he will do this, I say, in the manner and way which I said at Canon 56. Lyranus and Sanchez take all these things of the destruction by the Chaldeans; but from what has been said it is plain that it treats of Titus and the Romans. Again he alludes to ship-masters: for at their whistle sailors stand ready to do their commands; as may be seen in triremes. Finally he alludes to shepherds, who in spring are wont with a whistle to lead the flocks from the folds to pasture: which voice of the shepherd they hear, and obey and follow, John 10.
27. There is none that fainteth, nor that laboureth among them.—It is a hypotyposis, by which he graphically depicts the strength, speed, eagerness, courage and fierceness of the Roman army against the Jews.
28. The hoofs of their horses like the flint,—because Judea is stony, and therefore not suited to cavalry raids; hence he attributes to the hoofs of the Roman horses a hardness like flint.
30. And they shall make a noise,—with great noise and force Titus with the Romans shall rush upon it, namely the Jewish people.
And the light is darkened.—It is a hyperbole, as if to say: Because of the greatness of the devastation and tribulation, the very light will seem dark to the wretched and astonished Jews, and night. See Canon 32.
… he had said, now he narrates more plainly, describing the very army of the enemy by whom he had decreed to strike his people and cut down the great tree. If, however, you would take this of the Assyrian army, let it be for you as a type of the coming of the Romans. And he will whistle (as if to say: with the slightest sign, as with a whistle, he will summon) to it—namely the army of the Romans, and Titus against the Jews. He alludes, says Cyril, to the whistle of bee-keepers, who lead bees out to flowers and pasture, and lead them back with a whistle. Hence chapter 7, verse 18: “The Lord shall hiss for the fly,” he says, “that is in the land.” Meanwhile note that it is no harder for God to number an innumerable multitude of enemies and arm it against any kingdom, than it is for a man to whistle; and as on a ship at the whistle of the master all the servants are at hand to do his commands, so the Lord from afar and from the ends of the world summons whom he will, as he who can “call those things that are not, as those that are.” (The same.)