Commentaria in Isaiam
And I will look for him. The Septuagint, and from them St. Paul, Hebrews 2:13, render, and I will put my trust in him, as if to say: I trust that God will now free his people from their enemies; and still more that in the time of Christ, through Christ, he will convert some of the Jews, namely the Apostles, who will then convert the remnant of the Jews and all the nations, and so plunder and despoil the whole kingdom of Syria and Samaria, that is, of unbelief and of the devil.
18. Behold, I and my children. First, our Sanchez explains thus, as if to say: I will wait and hope in God; for my children bid me hope, who by their names portend salvation: as the children of Osee, in chapter 1, by their names portend the salvation of the Gentiles and the abandonment of the Jews; and so they were a wonder to Israel: for one son of mine, namely Sear Jasub, by his name signifies the remnant of the people that is to be converted; the other, whose name is “Make haste to take away the spoils,” signifies that Judea is shortly to be freed from the two kings Rasin and Phacee.
Allegorically, however, Isaias, that is Christ, hopes for the faith and salvation of the world, whose children, that is, the Apostles, became a wonder to the world. For his two chief sons are Simon, whom he called Peter for the strength and firmness of his faith, and the brothers James and John, whom he called Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder, because by their preaching they would shake and convert Jews and Gentiles. But of this sense I spoke on verse 3.
Secondly, then, and more truly, Isaias speaks in the person of Christ, as a type, and as the voice of Christ. As if to say: As I Isaias and my disciples and followers, that is, the other Prophets, such as Ezechiel, chapter 24:24, Zacharias, chapter 3:8, and others, because we despise riches and honors, and preach things so marvelous, and repugnant to the desires and ways of a hard and carnal people, are held as wonders and derided as fools, so too Christ, whose forerunner and figure I am, with his children, that is, the Apostles, on account of the novelty of his teaching, life and miracles, will seem to the proud Jews and Philosophers a wonder, a spectacle and a mockery: yet by these things many wise and pious Jews will be moved to compunction and converted, and will themselves desire to become children, that is, disciples, of Christ: for Paul explains this of Christ in Hebrews 2:10. So Origen, Basil, Cyril and the ancients generally.
Morally, Clement of Alexandria, book 1 of the Paedagogus, in the whole of chapter 5, beautifully shows how all Christians, after the likeness of Christ’s children of whom Isaias speaks, ought to be and to be called children, on account of the mind and morals: first, innocence; secondly, simplicity and candor; thirdly, gentleness and tenderness; fourthly, humility. Haymo aptly says on that text of Matthew 18: “Unless you be converted, and become as little children,” etc.: “As a little child does not covet a woman, does not seek other men’s riches, when injured does not injure, does not think one thing and say another, and when angry does not hold lasting grudges, so you too, unless you have such innocence in mind, can never enter the kingdom of heaven, which is prepared for the humble and simple.” See also St. Chrysostom there. St. Ambrose says beautifully and briefly, sermon 55: “Christian simplicity,” he says, “has its own infancy. For as an infant does not know how to be angry, does not know how to defraud, does not dare to strike back, so the infancy of Christianity is not angry with those who injure it, does not resist those who despoil it, does not fight against those who strike it. Finally, as the Lord commanded, it even prays for enemies, leaves the cloak to him who takes the coat, and offers the other cheek to him who strikes.”
Therefore God made Isaias and the Prophets, departing from the common manner of preaching, take on a new, unusual and wonderful way of speaking, acting and living, and become a wonder to Israel and to the world, that in this way they might rouse, strike, soften and bend the stupefied and hardened minds of men. So God made Isaias a wonder when he showed him his throne, his glory and the Seraphim, and sent one of them, who touched his lips with a burning coal and purified them, and said: “Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy”; and in chapter 7 foretold: “Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.”
Secondly, Isaias was a “wonder” when, clothed with sackcloth like haircloth upon the bare flesh, in the habit of penance, after the manner of a Capuchin, he preached continually to move the people to compunction. Again, when he, a noble man sprung from the royal stock, by God’s command walked through the renowned city of Jerusalem in broad daylight with his whole body naked, even the private parts, as the Chaldee has it, for three days or, as others will have it, three years, as we shall see in chapter 20.
Thirdly, Isaias was a “wonder” when to Ezechias, in despair but penitent and weeping, he added fifteen years of life, and to give credit to this prophecy of his, on the dial of Achaz he made the shadow, and consequently the sun and all the heavenly orbs, go back ten lines and hours, by a miracle unheard of for ages.
Fourthly, Isaias was a “wonder” of holiness, abstinence, mortification, and above all of mercy, by which he continually comforted those who mourned in Sion.
Finally he was a “wonder” when, again and again saying: “Thus saith the Lord,” and: “Again thus saith the Lord,” mocked by the Jews who jeered: “Command, command again; command, command again; expect, expect again,” he nevertheless constantly and freely continued to rebuke and chastise their vices, until he obtained the reward of prophecy, the crown of martyrdom, being sawn asunder with a wooden saw by Manasses.
Such were the wonders: the children, that is, the disciples and companions, of Isaias and of Christ. Was not Jeremias a wonder, to whom the Lord said: “Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations,” and: “That thou mayest root up, and pull down, and waste, and destroy, and build, and plant. I have made thee this day a fortified city, and a pillar of iron, and a wall of brass, over all the land”? Was he not a wonder when the Lord said to him: “What seest thou, Jeremias?” and he answered: “I see a rod watching,” namely the eye, power and vengeance of God keeping watch, and directing blows against the impious Jews? And again: “What seest thou?” he says: “I see a boiling caldron, and the face thereof from the face of the north. From the north shall an evil break forth,” etc. Was he not himself a wonder of continence, virginity and zeal, a merciful man, mourning like a turtle-dove and lamenting continually the sins and scourges of the people? Above all he was a wonder of patience, when for forty-four years prophesying and preaching, despised, derided, harassed and struck by princes and Jews, he bore all this bravely and meekly, when he heard: “Let us put wood on his bread, and cut him off from the land of the living,” when thrust a third time into prison, loaded with fetters, living on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, and at last in Egypt, by his own Jews, in reward of his prophecy and charity, he was overwhelmed with stones and died.
Such a wonder of abstinence and wise government was Daniel, who, brought up in the royal court among the king’s children, abstained from the royal food and wine, and living on pulse and fasting appeared fairer and fatter than the other children who ate the royal food; whence as the reward of temperance he received the gift of prophecy and of all knowledge and prudence, by which he ruled and directed the monarchy of the Babylonians under Nabuchodonosor with admirable industry and success. Again, with his three companions he was a wonder of chastity, by whose merit Daniel was unharmed by the fierceness of the lions, and the three companions by the fire, so that those whom the fire of lust had not burned, the fire could not burn.
Such a wonder was Ezechiel, when he saw the chariot of the Cherubim, and the four living creatures having a fourfold face, and the wheels full of eyes, having the spirit of life and motion. Was he not himself a wonder when, sent to the Jews of hard face and untamable heart, he put forth a book in which were lamentations, a song and woe; when he heard from God: “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel. If, when I say to the wicked: Thou shalt surely die, thou declare it not to him, I will require his blood at thy hand”; when he drew Jerusalem on a tile, and set a siege against it; when he slept on his side as God commanded, for as many years as their iniquity: “a day for a year have I given thee”; when he was commanded to eat bread covered with human dung, and by entreaty scarcely obtained that he might eat it covered with the dung of oxen instead.