Commentaria in Isaiam
Assur. Literally he means Sennacherib and the Assyrians, who were as the rod and the axe, as he says in verse 15, which God used to punish and cut off other nations: for his swelling words in verse 8 are similar, indeed the same, as the words of Sennacherib in 4 Kings 19:13. So St. Basil, Jerome, Cyril, Haymo and others.
Allegorically, Assur was Titus, Adrian and the Romans, by whom the Jews were overwhelmed in their final destruction. So Justin, Against Trypho, St. Chrysostom. Symbolically, the proud Assur is the devil, who has afflicted Christians with calamities, and daily afflicts the Church of Christ, and therefore God threatens him with the last judgment and the punishment of eternal fire. So Nazianzen above, Origen, homily 11 on Numbers; Eusebius, book 4 of the Demonstratio, chapter 9; Hilary on Psalm 118, letter ain.
Tropologically, Assur the rod of God’s wrath is the Turk, and any tyrant. So Attila, asked by St. Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, who he was, answered: “I am Attila, king of the Huns, the scourge of God.” So Tamerlane, Totila, the Huns, Goths and Vandals were the scourge of the world. So when the Hebrews sinned God sent against them as a scourge now Chusan Rasathaim king of Mesopotamia, Judges 3:8; now Eglon king of Moab, same place, verse 12; now Jabin king of Chanaan, Judges 4:2; now the Madianites, Judges 6:1; now the Philistines, Judges 13:1. So Nabuchodonosor is called “the hammer of the whole earth.”
The rod of my wrath. The wicked are the rod and the instruments by which God punishes and exercises men, above all those whom he loves, by permitting and loosening the reins of their power, covetousness and cruelty; God is not therefore the author of tyranny and sin, as Oecolampadius would have it, but the permitter and director.
Note: Assur is called a rod with respect to the more tender children, but a staff with respect to obstinate sinners: he is called the “rod of wrath” because God uses him only when greatly angered. For this is what he says: “My indignation is in their hand,” as if to say: By his hand, work and arms I carry out my indignation, and avenge sins and sinners.
6. To a deceitful nation. To the Jews, who, wholly made up of hypocrisy, have so often broken the faith given to me, and lied that they would worship me and observe my precepts, while they neglect them and worship idols, against whom, therefore, kindled with just wrath, I will send this rod. So St. Jerome. Whence follows:
And I will give him charge against a people of my wrath (against the Jews, with whom my wrath is angry), to take away the spoils. Note: Every and any providence of God is called God’s charge, order, command, and his most high dominion and empire, by which, first, he holds, comprehends, restrains or loosens all things and wills, even of the wicked; secondly, by which he drives and directs those that are evil in themselves toward this part and nation rather than that, for example to attack the Jews rather than the Egyptians; either effectively through the devil, or objectively by himself, namely by presenting to their minds those things by which, through conditional foreknowledge, he foreknows that they will incline of their own accord and freely to this part; thirdly, by which he orders all these things to the just chastisement of the wicked, for example of the Jews; consequently wicked tyrants, such as the Assyrians, are for the same reasons called the rod, the axe and the arms of God the avenger. So David, 2 Kings 16, says: “The Lord hath bid him (Semei) curse David.” He bid, that is, he ordered by his providence for my punishment, by which he permitted him, ready to curse, to pour out his cursing upon me, to punish my adultery and murder. So Hugh of St. Victor, treatise 4 On the Sacraments, part 5, chapters 26 and 29. See Canon 30.
And tread it down (the people of the Jews). Some expound it that he should only tread on it, but not consume it. Better others: as if to say: So that he may prostrate, cast down and trample it, as dung, mire and the vilest things are wont to be trodden. So something is said to be removed or cut off like dung or a dunghill, 3 Kings 14:10. Likewise to become dung of the earth, Psalm 82:11.
7. But he shall not take it so, namely that he is only my rod to chastise the Jews and other nations; for he will wish to destroy them altogether, and will think that these things are done by his own strength, and of his own doing, not by God, as follows:
Symbolically, all this fits the devil aptly, whose hatred against God, and therefore against the whole human race, is insatiable. Whence Job says of him, chapter 40, verse 18: “Behold, he will drink up a river, and not wonder: and he trusteth that the Jordan may run into his mouth”; on which words see St. Gregory and Philip the Priest.
The proud man “casts forth bombast and words a foot and a half long,” as if to say: Did not I, Sennacherib, bring destruction on Charcamis, and Emath, and other most strongly fortified cities, and also conquer Damascus and Samaria with equal strength and success? What then will hinder me from conquering Juda and Jerusalem?
The Septuagint, for Charcamis, render, the regions which are above Babylon, as if to say: Have I not carried my arms above the Persian Gulf beyond Carmania? So some. But it is better with St. Jerome to take Charcamis as a city of Syria so called, situated on the bank of the Euphrates.
So Calano. Supply: was taken by me. Calano is a city near Babylon; afterwards it was called Ctesiphon, and was the royal seat of the Parthians, as Pliny testifies, book 6, chapter 26. The Septuagint teach that near this city the tower of Babel was built; and they rightly say near, because Ctesiphon is only three miles distant from Babylon; for which reason Nazianzen, in his oration, calls the tower of Babel the tower of Calane. Calane was different from Seleucia, though some confuse these two cities from a misunderstanding of St. Jerome’s words.
Moreover do not believe Annius of Viterbo, who writes that Babylon enclosed within one circuit of walls a whole tetrapolis, or four huge cities, namely Babylon, Arad, Achad and Chalanne; for that Chalanne was distinct from Babylon St. Jerome teaches in the Hebrew Places, and Pliny, book 6, chapter 26.
And as Arphad, so Emath. As if to say: Emath as well as Arphad was subdued by me. Arphad is a city not far from Damascus, of which Jeremias 49:23. Wrongly the Septuagint have Arabia for Arphad.
Emath is twofold: one lesser, which was afterwards called Epiphania, of which Amos 6:15; the other greater, which was afterwards called Antioch, which Josephus, book 2 of the Jewish War, chapter 1, writes was the metropolis of Syria, and held the third place among all the cities of the Roman empire. Isaias seems to speak of this one.
10. As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idol. As the kingdoms of the Gentiles given to idols, which worshipped a great multitude of idols, I subjected to myself, with many of those idols too, so that I seem to have subjugated to myself not only kingdoms but their tutelary gods and deities, so likewise I shall subject to myself Jerusalem and its images, and those of Samaria, if any remain, nor will it be able by them to be freed from my hand; especially since I have already subdued Samaria and taken away most of its images: why then should I not do the same to Jerusalem, which worships the same gods and images as Samaria? For this Sennacherib thought, because the Samaritans and Jews were sprung from the same fathers and patriarchs: and it was partly true; for Achaz had brought idols into the temple, 4 Kings 16:15; but his son Ezechias had already removed them, 4 Kings 18:4.
12. And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have performed all his works. When through the Assyrians he shall have besieged and afflicted Jerusalem, and carried off wealth and spoils from it, 4 Kings 18:15, as if to say: When I shall have used the rod of Assur, and scourged the Jews with it, then I will cast the rod itself into the fire, as parents do with the rods with which they have scourged their children.
I will visit the fruit of the proud heart. That is, upon the thoughts and works of the most proud heart of Sennacherib: for these are “the fruit of the heart,” as the leaves and apples are the fruit of a tree and root. The glory of the haughtiness of the eyes is the lifted brow. For lifted eyes are sure signs of an arrogant and proud mind. Hence gather how much a man can do in those things for which he is destined by God as an instrument; but if he attempts more, he labors in vain, indeed often brings destruction on himself, because he has not God as favorer or patron. So Sennacherib conquered the kingdoms to which he was destined by God; but when he wished to overthrow Jerusalem against the will of God, he was struck by an Angel.
I have pulled down. The Septuagint render, I shall shake, I shall trample. So St. Basil, Cyril and others; wrongly therefore the Royal Bible reads, I shall persuade.
14. And my hand hath found as a nest. As if to say: I subdued the kingdoms as easily and quickly as a countryman gathers eggs or young birds in a nest, which, being unfledged, cannot make a noise, nor do their mothers dare to resist with their wings or to cry out with their beaks: so no one dared to open his mouth or mutter against me and my victorious forces.
All the earth (the wealth and peoples of the whole earth) have I gathered. By plundering wealth, by subduing peoples.
Open the mouth, and make a noise. Gannire is properly of foxes; yet it is said also of dogs, as the yelping of dogs does; thence it is transferred to birds (as here), so that gannire is the same as garrire, to chatter; and this the Hebrew mefatsfets signifies, and the Greek likewise. Finally it has been carried over to men. Whence Terence in the Adelphi: “What does he yelp?” Moreover gannire is here taken for oggannire, that is, to growl against and resist. For so foxes and dogs are wont to growl against strangers and foreigners.