Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter 10
He passes from Israel to Juda, that is, from the ten tribes to the two, whose sins he rebukes, and threatens them with the Assyrian, namely Sennacherib: then, in verse 8, he rebukes Sennacherib himself, who attributed his victories to his own strength and wisdom, for stupidity and madness, and threatens him with exile, but to the remnant of the Jews, in verse 21, he promises deliverance. So St. Jerome, Cyril and others. Allegorically the Apostle, Romans 9:27, refers this to the rejection of the Jews, yet so that the remnant, that is, the few of them who believe in Christ, shall be saved.
1. Woe to them that make wicked laws: and when they write, write injustice: 2. To oppress the poor in judgment, and do violence to the cause of the humble of my people: that widows might be their prey, and rob the fatherless. 3. What will you do in the day of visitation, and of the calamity which cometh from afar? to whose help will you flee? and where will you leave your glory, 4. That you be not bowed down under the bond, and fall with the slain? For all this his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 5. Woe to the Assyrian, he is the rod and the staff of my anger, and my indignation is in their hand. 6. I will send him to a deceitful nation, and I will give him charge against a people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the prey, and to tread it down like the mire of the streets. 7. But he shall not take it so, and his heart shall not think so: but his heart shall be set to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few. 8. For he shall say: Are not my princes altogether kings? 9. Is not Calano as Charcamis? and Emath as Arphad? is not Samaria as Damascus? 10. As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idol, so also their idols of Jerusalem, and of Samaria. 11. Shall not I, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols? 12. And it shall come to pass, that when the Lord shall have performed all his works in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, I will visit the fruit of the proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of the haughtiness of his eyes. 13. For he hath said: By the strength of my own hand I have done it, and by my own wisdom I have understood: and I have removed the bounds of people, and have taken the spoils of their princes, and as a mighty man have pulled down them that sat on high. 14. And my hand hath found the strength of the people as a nest: and as eggs are gathered that are left, so have I gathered all the earth: and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or made the least noise. 15. Shall the axe boast itself against him that cutteth with it? or shall the saw exalt itself against him by whom it is drawn? as if a rod should lift itself up against him that lifteth it up, and a staff exalt itself, which is but wood. 16. Therefore the sovereign Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall send leanness among his fat ones: and under his glory shall be kindled a burning like the burning of a fire. 17. And the light of Israel shall be as a fire, and the Holy One thereof as a flame: and his thorns and his briers shall be set on fire, and shall be devoured in one day. 18. And the glory of his forest, and of his beautiful hill shall be consumed from the soul even to the flesh, and he shall run away through fear. 19. And the remnant of the trees of his forest shall be so few that they shall be easily numbered, and a child shall write them down. 20. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and they that shall escape of the house of Jacob, shall lean no more upon him that striketh them: but shall lean upon the Lord the holy one of Israel in truth. 21. The remnant shall be converted, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. 22. For though thy people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them shall be converted: the consumption abridged shall overflow with justice. 23. For the Lord the God of hosts shall make a consumption and an abridgment in the midst of all the land. 24. Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of hosts: O my people that dwellest in Sion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall strike thee with his rod, and shall lift up his staff over thee in the way of Egypt. 25. For yet a little and a very little while, and my indignation shall cease, and my wrath shall be upon their wickedness. 26. And the Lord of hosts shall raise up a scourge against him according to the slaughter of Madian at the rock of Oreb, and his rod over the sea, and he shall lift it up in the way of Egypt. 27. And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from thy shoulder, and his yoke from thy neck, and the yoke shall putrefy at the presence of the oil. 28. He shall come into Aiath, he shall pass into Magron: at Machmas he shall lay up his carriages. 29. They have passed in haste, Gaba is our lodging: Rama was astonished, Gabaath of Saul is fled. 30. Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim, attend, Laisa, poor Anathoth. 31. Medemena is gone away, ye inhabitants of Gabim, take courage. 32. It is yet day enough to stay at Nobe: he shaketh his hand against the mount of the daughter of Sion, against the hill of Jerusalem. 33. Behold the sovereign Lord of hosts shall break the vessel with terror, and the high of stature shall be cut down, and the lofty shall be humbled. 34. And the thick of the forest shall be cut down with iron, and Libanus with its high ones shall fall.
1. Woe to them that make wicked laws. Sanchez extends this up to verse 3 and interprets it of Israel; whence some copies, according to Lyranus, refer these words to the end of chapter nine, and begin chapter ten at verse 3.
Others better interpret it of Juda: for so everything in this chapter will be connected. He rebukes, then, the injustice of the Jews under Achaz and Ezechias, by which they plundered orphans and widows, and by their thefts and false accusations pretended wicked laws.
Allegorically, he rebukes the impiety of the Jews in the time of Christ, who by Corban and other wicked traditions and interpretations of the law compelled men to transgress the law of God; so St. Jerome and Cyril; and who after Christ’s death maliciously invented many things against him, and slandered his faithful, and who finally made very impious statutes against Christians in their synagogues, and persecuted them most cruelly, as St. Justin testifies in Against Trypho.
3. What will you do in the day of visitation (that is, of punishment, in which God will draw the sword of vengeance against your iniquity) and of the calamity coming from afar (that is, from Assyria)?
And where will you leave your glory? Your wealth, namely, your position and pomp, in which you glory. As if to say: What will your ill-gotten riches then profit you, what honors, what offices? for the enemy will plunder or overthrow all these.
Tropologically, Nazianzen, and his interpreter Nicetas, in the oration On the Plague of Hail, refer this to sinners and to the last judgment.
Note here the sycophancy of Oecolampadius. “Most foully,” he says, “does Antichrist abuse this place to confirm his see and primacy.” Thus he calls St. Symmachus the Pope, who in that place (which he has also in the book of the Synod), having said that the Roman See is judged by no mortal but is subject to the judgment of God alone, adds that of this See of Peter it seems to have been foretold through the Prophet: “If this is humbled, to whose help will you flee? where will you leave your glory?” He says it because he held that what the Prophet had said of another matter could be applied to individual Churches, for which, if refuge to the Roman See is removed, all hope of refuge on earth is taken away: and it would be removed if the Roman See had to be judged by men; for these men would in turn have to be judged by others, and those by others, and so appeal would go on to infinity. But Symmachus did not say this as wishing it to be the literal sense of the Prophet. For “foretold” is here taken broadly: for since the words of Holy Scripture are written for every age, man and sex, they are therefore said to foretell what fits each time and age, and can be adapted to it and said of it. Why then does the sycophant complain? Is Symmachus alone Antichrist to him, when so many other most holy Pontiffs, such as Innocent, Gelasius, Antherus, Nicholas, Sixtus, have professed the same, as is found in the same question.
4. That you be not bowed down under the bond. That is, take care lest you be led away captive: for captives put their necks under the yoke, and walk bent by their chains.
5. Woe to the Assyrian. Some render it “O Assyrians! come, destroy the kingdom of the Jews,” as though the Hebrew hoi were an adverb of exhorting or calling. Better our version, the Septuagint and the Chaldee render it “woe”: for he threatens the Assyrians with disaster, for these causes. First, because though they were the rod and scourge of God, yet the chastisement of the Jews which God justly intended they carried out tyrannically, and served not God but their own ambition. Secondly, because they transgressed the limits of vengeance set by God, and raged more against the Jews than was granted them by God. For on a like ground Zacharias says, chapter 1: “I am angry with a great anger with the rich nations: for I was angry a little, but they helped forward the evil.” Where note the kindness and clemency of God, who threatens the Assyrians before he threatens the Jews with being punished by the Assyrians.