Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter 8
The Prophet continues the birth of the virgin and the nativity of Emmanuel. Whence he is commanded to write in a book his name: Make speed to take away the spoils, make haste to take the prey. Secondly, in verse 6, he threatens the unbelieving with the Assyrians, whose destruction, however, he announces a little later. Thirdly, in verse 11, he warns them not to fear the conspiracy of Rasin and Phacee, but the God of hosts. Fourthly, in verse 19, he threatens destruction to those who put their faith not in God but in pythons, and consult them.
1. And the Lord said to me: Take thee a great book, and write in it with a man’s pen: Take away the spoils with speed, make haste to take away the prey.
2. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Urias the priest, and Zacharias the son of Barachias.
3. And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said to me: Call his name, Hasten to take away the spoils: Make haste to take away the prey.
4. For before the child know to call his father and his mother, the strength of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of the Assyrians.
5. And the Lord spoke to me again, saying:
6. Forasmuch as this people hath cast away the waters of Siloe, that run softly, and hath rather taken Rasin and the son of Romelia:
7. Therefore behold the Lord will bring upon them the waters of the river strong and many, the king of the Assyrians, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and shall overflow all his banks.
8. And shall pass through Juda, overflowing, and going over shall reach even to the neck: and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Emmanuel.
9. Gather together, O ye people, and be overcome: and hearken all ye lands afar off: strengthen yourselves, and be overcome: gird yourselves, and be overcome.
10. Take counsel together, and it shall be defeated: speak a word, and it shall not be done: because God is with us.
11. For thus saith the Lord to me: As when he took my hand strong, and instructed me, that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying:
12. Say not: A conspiracy: for all that this people speaketh is a conspiracy: and fear ye not their fear, and be not afraid.
13. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14. And he shall be a sanctification to you. But for a stone of offence, and for a rock of ruin to the two houses of Israel, for a snare and a ruin to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15. And many of them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken in pieces, and shall be snared, and taken.
16. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.
17. And I will wait for the Lord, who hath hid his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
18. Behold I and my children, whom the Lord hath given me for a sign, and for a wonder in Israel, from the Lord of hosts who dwelleth in mount Sion.
19. And when they shall say to you: Seek of pythons, and of diviners, who mutter in their enchantments: Should not the people seek of their God, for the living of the dead?
20. To the law rather, and to the testimony. And if they speak not according to this word, they shall not have the morning light.
21. And he shall pass through it, he shall fall, and be hungry: and when he shall be hungry, he will be angry, and curse his king, and his God, and look upward.
22. And he shall look to the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, weakness and distress, and a mist following, and he shall not be able to fly away from his distress.
1. Take thee a great book. God commands Isaias to roll a large parchment into a cylinder (for such were the books of the ancients, whence elsewhere they are called a volume) and to write in large letters these five words: “Make speed to take away the spoils, make haste to take the prey,” and that With a man’s pen, that is, with a reed or stylus, and consequently in the characters and letters in use among men, that is, openly and clearly, so that it can be read and understood by all. Whence the Chaldee renders it, in clear writing; and this first, that this writing may be a public testimony of this prophecy and promise, by which, if it should be found false, it may be convicted of falsehood; but if it be found true, as it certainly will be, it may obtain authority, renown and veneration among all.
Secondly, that it may be handed down to future ages, indeed to eternity. All this was done not in fact but by vision, as will presently appear; yet this vision was to be set publicly before all and recorded for posterity by Isaias in this book and chapter; and this the man’s pen and the witnesses called, and so on, signified symbolically.
Make speed to take away the spoils, make haste to take the prey. The cause and mystery of this writing Isaias will hear explained in verses 3 and 4; for in verse 3 he saw that this would be the name of the child to be born, and for the reason that we shall hear in verse 4.
2. And I took unto me witnesses, namely of the writing, or rather of the approach to the prophetess, of which follows, that by witnesses I might authentically record all this and consign it to future ages. These witnesses too were called by Isaias not in fact but by vision, as I shall show in verse 3.
2. Urias the priest, and Zacharias the son of Barachias. These witnesses were grave men and beyond all exception, indeed they seem to have been Prophets, to whom the same was revealed that is here revealed to Isaias, and who prophesied the same of Christ. Whence they are shown to Isaias here in vision, as are the things that follow, just as at the transfiguration of Christ Moses and Elias were witnesses, to signify that the law and the Prophets bear witness to Christ and end in him. So St. Cyril and Basil. For Urias, as a priest, was a teacher of the law like Moses; Zacharias was a Prophet like Elias.
Who this Urias was, and likewise who this Zacharias was, is uncertain. Some will have this Zacharias to be the one who is the last among the minor Prophets; for both were sons of Barachias, and that one, like this, joyfully foretold the birth of the Messias and the redemption of men, though long after Isaias (namely after two hundred years, for he prophesied after the end of the Babylonian captivity), of whom more presently. But St. Jerome thinks this Zacharias to be that priest who with others under Ezechias purified the house of God defiled by Achaz, 2 Paralipomenon 29:13. There was a third Zacharias, son of Joiada, but he had been dead a hundred years, slain by king Joas, who was the grandfather of Ozias. Finally, he could have been another, unknown to us, yet known and famous in this time, who had a father named Barachias, like that last of the Prophets. Further, this Urias seems to some to have been the high priest, then indeed a faithful man, who nevertheless after this prophecy, namely after Damascus was taken by the Assyrians, from fear of king Achaz erected at his command an altar to idols after the rite of the Damascenes and Gentiles, 4 Kings 16. But how would God have called and employed such a one, so light, timid and inconstant, for such great matters, as a faithful witness, who was so unfaithful to God and so easily turned from faith in God to idols? Others, perhaps more probably, think this Urias to be that Prophet who lived long after Isaias, in the time of Jeremias, and foretold many evils that were to befall the two tribes, and for that reason was put to death by king Joakim, as Jeremias testifies, chapter 26, verse 20. The same writers hold that Zacharias the son of Barachias, the other witness of Isaias, is the Zacharias who is the last among the minor Prophets, of whom I spoke a little before. For since these witnesses were shown to Isaias in vision, it is no wonder if men not yet born but to be born are cited; for to God whatever is to come is present. And God did this, first, that Isaias by this prophecy might confirm the future prophecy of Urias and Zacharias, and they in turn by their oracles the prophecy of Isaias, already past. Secondly, because this prophecy of Isaias embraces two things chiefly, namely the calamities impending upon the Jews, which Urias copiously foretold, and the future deliverance through the coming and birth of the Messias, which Zacharias joyfully sang, chapter 2, verse 10: “Sing praise and rejoice, O daughter of Sion,” and chapter 9, verse 9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion.” This is the opinion of St. Chrysostom, Procopius, the Chaldee, and R. Akiba in Galatinus, book 7, chapter 16.