Commentaria in Isaiam
1. And it came to pass in the days of Achaz the son of Joatham, the son of Ozias, king of Juda, that Rasin king of Syria, and Phacee the son of Romelia king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to fight against it: but they could not prevail over it. 2. And they told the house of David, saying: Syria hath rested upon Ephraim: and his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind. 3. And the Lord said to Isaias: Go forth to meet Achaz, thou and thy son that is left, Jasub, to the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the way of the fuller’s field. 4. And thou shalt say to him: See thou be quiet: fear not, and let not thy heart be afraid of the two tails of these firebrands smoking with the wrath of the fury of Rasin king of Syria, and of the son of Romelia. 5. Because Syria hath taken counsel against thee, unto the evil of Ephraim and the son of Romelia, saying: 6. Let us go up to Juda, and rouse it up, and draw it away to us, and make a king in the midst thereof, the son of Tabeel. 7. Thus saith the Lord God: It shall not stand, and this shall not be. 8. But the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus, Rasin: and within threescore and five years, Ephraim shall cease to be a people. 9. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria, the son of Romelia. If you will not believe, you shall not continue. 10. And the Lord spoke again to Achaz, saying: 11. Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God, either unto the depth of hell, or unto the height above. 12. And Achaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord. 13. And he said: Hear ye therefore, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God also? 14. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel. 15. He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good. 16. For before the child know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good, the land which thou detestest, shall be forsaken of the face of her two kings. 17. The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon the house of thy father, days that have not come since the time of the separation of Ephraim from Juda, with the king of the Assyrians. 18. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly, that is in the utmost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assur: 19. And they shall come, and shall all rest in the torrents of the valleys, and in the caves of the rocks, and in all bushes, and in all holes. 20. In that day the Lord shall shave with a razor that is hired, in them that are beyond the river, in the king of the Assyrians, the head, and the hair of the feet, and the whole beard. 21. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep: 22. And for the abundance of milk he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that shall be left in the midst of the land. 23. And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place where there were a thousand vines, for a thousand pieces of silver, shall be for briers and thorns. 24. With arrows and bow shall they enter thither: for briers and thorns shall be in all the land. 25. And as for all the mountains that shall be raked with the rake, the fear of thorns and briers shall not come thither: and it shall be for the pasture of oxen, and for the treading of the sheep.
1. AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THE DAYS OF ACHAZ.—The preceding prophecy, chap. 6, happened to Isaias in the year in which Ozias died: from that to this, therefore, sixteen years had passed, in which Joatham the father of Achaz reigned. That Isaias prophesied some things under Joatham is clear from chap. 1, verse 1; what they were is not clear: for the order of times is not kept in the order of the chapters, as is clear in Jeremias: some think the vision of the preceding chapter happened after Ozias was dead, when Joatham was already reigning.
AND RASIN WENT UP.—See the history, 4 Kings chaps. 15 and 16, and 2 Paralipomenon chap. 28, where it is said that Judea, because of the sins of Achaz, God punishing gravely and often, was laid waste by the kings of Syria and Samaria, and at length, when Achaz feared siege and destruction from them, he implored the help of Theglathphalasar king of the Assyrians.
AND THEY COULD NOT PREVAIL OVER IT.—It is a prolepsis: these words are to be placed later; for this prophecy of Isaias came first, and was the cause of this deliverance: for when the rumour of war was already upon them, and the fear of Rasin and Phacee gaping after Juda, Isaias promised that God, who had before sent Rasin and Phacee into Judea to punish it, would now protect it, and render their efforts vain, because they, not by the sending and nod of God, as before, but by their own motion and ambition, were plainly thinking to destroy and overturn Judea. So St. Thomas.
2. AND THEY TOLD THE HOUSE OF DAVID.—That is, the two tribes that adhered to the stock of David, when the ten others made a schism and created for themselves a king, Jeroboam. Secondly, and more aptly, “house,” that is, the royal family of David, namely King Achaz and his brothers and kinsmen. Hence follows: “And his heart was moved,” namely the king’s. See Canon 17.
SYRIA HATH RESTED UPON EPHRAIM.—As if to say: Syria and Rasin its king joined himself, and, as the Septuagint render, conspired; and, as Vatablus, made alliance with Ephraim, that is, with the ten tribes, whose head was Samaria, situated in the tribe of Ephraim, namely with Phacee king of Israel, against Achaz and the two tribes of Juda and Benjamin adhering to him and subject to him. So in 1 Kings 7 it is said: “All the house of Israel rested after the Lord,” that is, joined itself again to the Lord, began again to adhere to God and worship him.
AND HIS HEART WAS MOVED (he took fright, was stricken, trembled) AS THE TREES OF THE WOODS ARE MOVED WITH THE WIND—are shaken and driven. The great trepidation of Achaz and of the Jews is signified. For as the king was, so was the people: as the lips, so the lettuces, as the proverb has it. It is for a man of courage to be stout of heart in sad affairs, and to animate the fearful hearts of the people; but the impious king himself is the first to fear, and is the author of fear to his subjects. For an evil conscience always fears.
3. GO FORTH.—The impious Achaz, afflicted, does not flee to God in the temple, but goes out of the city to deliberate with himself on how to escape this war; whence Isaias is commanded, though he is unworthy, to meet him and to promise victory.
WHO IS LEFT, JASUB THY SON.—In Hebrew it is Sear Jasub thy son: the son of Isaias was therefore called Sear Jasub. So Vatablus, Pagninus, Osorius, Forerius. Our Interpreter, with the Septuagint, shortens the name, and calls him only Jasub, both to hint the mystery hidden in the word Sear, which I shall soon explain, and because this is often done elsewhere, as when Idumea is called Duma, Isaias 21:11, Jerusalem is called Salem, Hierosolyma Solima, Ben Ammi is called Ammon, Genesis 19:38, and Bethlehemites are called Lemites in the Hebrew. So Mardochai is said to have been “of the stock of Jemini,” Esther chap. 2, that is, of Benjamin, or a Benjamite, as is explained in Esther 11.
Note: God is wont to prophesy not only through things and symbols, but also through names. So in Osee chap. 1 he bade him name his children: “Not having obtained mercy,” “Not my people.” So to Christ, in the following chapter, he gives the name: “Make haste to take away the spoils, hasten to take the prey.” So here also Isaias, by God’s prompting, gave his son the name Sear Jasub, that is, the left behind shall return, or the remnant shall be converted, to signify that the Jewish people, who survived the preceding slaughters inflicted by Rasin, Phacee and others, was to be delivered from the destruction which these two kings were now threatening them: and for this reason God commanded that Isaias the father should bring this son of his to Achaz.
The Jews fable that Isaias had two sons, namely Rabsaces, who deserted to the Assyrians, and exhorted the Jews likewise to surrender to the Assyrians, 4 Kings 18, and this one, who was therefore called Sear, that is, left behind, because when the other fled to the enemy this one was left with his father.
Others understand a son here not of the flesh but of discipline, so that son is the same as disciple of Isaias, in the way that in 4 Kings 6 the disciples of the Prophets are called their sons. So Rabbi Solomon and Rabbi David from Rabbi Jonathan. Hence the Chaldean renders: go forth now to meet Achaz, thou and the remnant who have not sinned, and thy disciples who have been converted from sin: as if Isaias were here commanded to go forth with his disciples to meet Achaz. Following this, some Catholics think that Isaias was not married, but celibate. But “thy son that is left, Sear Jasub,” plainly and simply signifies that he was the natural son of Isaias according to the flesh, not a disciple.
Tropologically, Sear Jasub signifies the just and holy, who are the true seed of God, born of God, who out of all their danger and distress will at length escape unharmed under God’s guidance.