Commentaria in Isaiam
The consumption abridged shall overflow with justice. “Consumption,” that is, wasting, for this is the Hebrew killayon; “abridged,” that is, reduced to a few; for in Hebrew it is charuts, that is, cut short, cut off. So the seventy weeks are called abridged, that is, few; and in the persecution of Antichrist: “Unless those days had been shortened,” that is, made few, “no flesh should be saved.”
It is an enallage of quantity; for the continuous is put for the discrete, short for few. The sense then is, as if to say: In the time of Ezechias that devastation by the Assyrians, which consumed very many of the Jews and made them few, will bring it about that in the few remnants of survivors justice may abound, and by this disaster and terror compel them to God and the worship of God. Coldly and irrelevantly, therefore, Marloratus renders charuts decided, that is, decreed. For it is the fewness of the Jews that is treated here, not precisely God’s decree.
Allegorically, which is what the Holy Spirit chiefly intends here, as if to say: I will make a consumption, that is, an end, and that shortly, of Judaism and of the Jews through Titus and the Romans; yet so that the abridged, that is, a few of them, are converted to Christ; and then the justice which is of the faith of Christ will overflow, abound and be spread through all nations. This sense is full and adequate according to our Version. Secondly, Sanchez explains thus, as if Isaias foretells that small number which the nation of the Jews will add to the primitive Church of Christ, a most holy flock, for “the consumption abridged,” that is, that small number of Jews believing in Christ, which was reduced almost to consumption and to nothing, “shall overflow,” that is, shall abound, and pour itself out, “with justice,” as if to say: That fewness will abound in illustrious holiness and perfect justice.
Thirdly, others, as if to say: That fewness of the Jews believing in Christ and to be saved, in so great a multitude of those not believing and reprobate, will show how great was the justice of God, who on account of so many and so great sins cast away so great a multitude, and took so few; as if to say: Most justly, the very many others being rejected, few of them will be saved. So Forerius here, Salmeron and Gabriel Vasquez, on Romans 9. The version of the Septuagint, which St. Paul follows, favors this exposition; for they have, a word consummating and abridging in justice, of which more presently. The Syriac version also favors it, which reads thus: he cut off, cut short, drew (in Syriac geraph, that is, sweeps, brooms, rolls away by flood, as an overflowing river is wont to roll away and wash off filth) in justice; and the Antiochene Arabic: and he shall cut short the judgment of truth, because the mighty Lord shall make visitation and judgment in all the earth; and the Alexandrian Arabic: the word shall be fulfilled in truth and cut short in justice; because the mighty Lord shall bring destruction down on those who are on the earth. All these then seem to take justice as the just vengeance by which God consumed and slew the Jewish nation.
Fourthly, “the consumption abridged,” that is, the few believers, namely the Apostles, shall overflow with justice, that is, like rivers shall spread faith and justice among the Gentiles. This sense, like the second, is very fitting.
23. For the Lord the God of hosts shall make a consumption and an abridgment, etc. The Septuagint, both here and in the preceding verse, and from them St. Paul, Romans 9:27, render: the Lord shall make a word abridged, namely that double one just spoken of, that is, God will make the Jews few in the time of Ezechias, and few believers in the time of Christ. Secondly, by this word, that is, by this thing, the consumed people of the Jews can be understood, as if to say: So God will cut off his people that what shall remain of them may seem a kind of consumption, and as it were the sole trace of a vast ruin; yet this very fewness that survives will be fit to testify to the whole world of the divine justice, both that properly so called and vindictive, by which he so punished and crushed the wicked Jews, and that of justice, that is, of fidelity and mercy, by which on this occasion he called and justified the Gentiles to the same; for on account of this fewness of the Jews receiving the Gospel, the Apostles turned to the Gentiles; and so the abridgment of the salvation of the Jews overflowed into the enlargement of the conversion, justice and salvation of the Gentiles. This sense is most full, and embraces and equals both the version of the Septuagint and of Paul and our own. For as God showed justice on the impious and faithless by crushing them, so he showed justice on the pious and faithful by heaping and spreading his grace upon them; and so the justice of God overflows, that is, abounds, toward the pious as toward the impious. Moreover some learned men explain it aptly thus: for “word,” they say, the Greek is logos, that is, reckoning, account, as if to say: God is he who completes and abridges the account and tally of the Hebrews; God is he who counts the number of the sons of Israel and draws up their accounts; wherefore he will count them to the smallest reckonings, and though they be like the sand, innumerable and infinite, and destined for ruin and disaster, yet the very few whom he has chosen for himself, and written in the book of life, and so predestined, he will withdraw from the number of the perishing and save; as if to say: God, keeping the account and number, will make it small.
Finally the Syrians and Arabs, Romans 9:28, render: Isaias attests the word concerning the sons of Israel by a definite and abridged word (that is, definitely and resolutely, or in defined, precise and brief and few words, namely these): “If thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved,” and they shall be preserved. This fits well the version of the Septuagint, whom St. Paul follows; but not equally the Hebrew text and the Latin version in this place, which have: “The Lord shall make a consumption and an abridgment.” These words require the sense first given: to which also the version of the Septuagint and of St. Paul can rightly be adapted; that is therefore the genuine one. Add that Isaias says that God will abridge the word (not by a word, as the Syrians have), and will make a consumption, or, as others render, a consumption of Israel. See more on Romans 9:27 and 28, where I said that the abridged word is symbolically both the incarnate Word and his Gospel. Whence the apostle St. Bartholomew, as St. Dionysius the Areopagite writes, in On Mystical Theology, chapter 1, used to say: “Theology is great and small; and the Gospel is ample and great, and at the same time brief and concise”; namely brief in words and precepts, ample in matters, spirit, teachings and degrees of all the virtues.
In the midst of all the earth, that is, in the whole land of the Jews, and wherever Jews dwell. For, as St. Jerome says on Isaias 13: “It is an idiom of sacred Scripture to signify by ‘all the earth’ the province of which it is speaking.” Again, “in the midst” does not precisely mean the middle, but what is contained in some place. For so the Hebrews say: in the midst of the people, that is, in the people; in the midst of the sea, that is, in the great and vast sea itself.
24. Therefore. Hence it is plain that the preceding words about the consumption abridged belong also to the times of Isaias and Ezechias; for these words regard that time: for he forewarns Ezechias and the people not to fear Sennacherib.
As if to say: You will be beaten, and like children you will be struck with a rod; but you will not be killed.
And shall lift up his staff over thee in the way of Egypt. By letter he will only threaten; but the threats he will not carry out; he will aim his arms and sceptre at you like a staff, but will not strike; for I will sharpen the goads of my anger and wrath, and strike him by an Angel. The history is this: when Sennacherib drew near to Jerusalem, he heard that Taraca king of Ethiopia was attacking him with war, and passing through Egypt. So by the way that leads into Egypt he set out to fight against him. On the journey, however, he wrote letters to Ezechias full of pride and threats, 4 Kings chapter 19. So St. Jerome. Whence the Septuagint render: that he may see the way of Egypt: “in the way” being read for “like the way”; for often the Hebrew bet, that is, in, is put for caph, that is, as; as if to say: As of old, when you crossed the Red Sea, Pharao king of Egypt threatened you, but his threats were vain, so it will be with the threats of Sennacherib; for as in the way of Egypt Pharao was struck by the rod of Moses and drowned, so in the same place Sennacherib will be struck by the divine rod, as is said in verse 26.
26. And the Lord of hosts shall raise up a scourge against him.
According to the slaughter of Madian at the rock of Oreb, as if to say: As God through Gedeon, not by arms but by sudden fear struck divinely and miraculously upon the Madianites, cut them down, and killed their prince Oreb at the rock, which was thence called the rock of Oreb; so too through an Angel he will suddenly and miraculously cut down the camp of Sennacherib.
And he shall lift it up; for the Hebrews often understand this, as if to say: As God of old raised and lifted his rod over the Red Sea against Pharao, bringing back the waters of the sea and drowning him with his forces, so with a like vengeance and rod he will smite Sennacherib, and that likewise in the way of Egypt; and so it was done; for when Sennacherib was returning from the Ethiopian expedition to take Jerusalem, which he had threatened, besieging the city of Lachis, he sent Rabsaces to Jerusalem, who poured out against it his threats and blasphemies against God. Wherefore God, angered, hastened his vengeance, and destroyed the whole army of Sennacherib in one night, Isaias 36 and 37.