Commentaria in Isaiam
In the Hebrew, however, there is a beautiful paronomasia; for aman in the qal signifies to believe, in the niphal to be firm, stable, to stand and to continue. The Septuagint render, if you will not believe, you shall not understand, which St. Augustine, Chrysostom, Cyprian and other Fathers often cite.
11. ASK THEE A SIGN.—Achaz was unbelieving as well as impious, and as distrustful of the prophet Isaias and the help of God: God therefore offers him through the Prophet a proof by a sign and miracle, as if to say: Ask, for the confirmation of my prophecy and of the truth which I have foretold, namely that you are to be freed and your enemies overthrown, whatever sign you please: do you wish that the earth be split and hell lie open with a great chasm, or that the heavens be opened, or that the sun stand, as it did for Josue, and as I shall do again for your son Ezechias? Say, choose, I will give and effect what you choose. So the Chaldean and Abulensis on this place of Isaias.
12. I WILL NOT ASK.—St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 8, verse 4, and others, think that Achaz out of modesty and humility would not ask a sign, lest he seem to tempt God: but because his impiety in the following verse flares up, and because Achaz was an idolater, it seems truer that he answered so from hypocrisy and impiety; because, turned away from God and distrusting him, he trusted demons, and had resolved to consult his idols and to implore the help of the Assyrians. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Basil, Rupert. Secondly, Forerius and Sanchez think that Achaz, trusting in his wealth and the help of the Assyrians, was unwilling to commit this matter wholly to God, lest he seem to tempt God by a miracle, when he could use human means and aids, by which he thought he would accomplish it. But the king’s impiety and the rebuke of Isaias that follows show that he went further, especially because Achaz easily saw that there was no tempting of God here if he accepted the sign which the Prophet offered freely; he says, therefore, feignedly: “I will not tempt the Lord.”
13. HEAR YE THEREFORE, O HOUSE OF DAVID: IS IT A SMALL THING FOR YOU TO BE GRIEVOUS TO MEN?—As if to say: By your impiety, unbelief and distrust, O Achaz, and you his nobles and counsellors, who distrust my oracles and despise them as false or vain, and therefore despise and reject the signs I offer; not only to me but also to God, from whose mouth I speak and promise these things, you are grievous, unbelieving and injurious, and, as the Septuagint render, you give a contest, as if they said: You seem to wish to wrestle with God, and to weary and vex him, while you incessantly provoke him by your impiety, and now most of all when you despise him freely promising such great things, nay accuse him of falsehood or impotence, as if he could not free you from Rasin and Phacee.
14. THEREFORE THE LORD HIMSELF SHALL GIVE YOU A SIGN.—As if to say: Because you, O Achaz, with your people, do not do what you ought, to go to meet your God, and do not believe that God can free you from Rasin, therefore God will do something worthy of himself, not what he owes, but what he mercifully decrees, namely he will give, far more wonderful and powerful than this deliverance of yours foretold by me here, a sign of his power, goodness and mercy; he will give it, I say, to you not in your own person, because you are unbelieving and unworthy, but in your descendants, according to Canon 34, so that when they see this sign, namely that through Christ they have been freed from far more powerful enemies, namely death, sin and the devil, of which this deliverance of Jerusalem from the invasion of the Syrians and Samaritans is a type, then they may believe that I have truly prophesied, as well of this type as of its antitype, that is, as well of this deliverance from Rasin and Phacee as of the redemption of the human race from the power of the devil through Christ. For the Prophet flies off, in his manner, from the type to the thing signified, namely to Christ, according to Canon 4. A like sign, not previous and foretelling, but following and as it were posthumous, that is, commemorative and confirmatory of the preceding prophecy, namely of the deliverance of Jerusalem from the siege of Sennacherib, is given to Ezechias, 4 Kings 19:29: “And this shall be a sign to thee: Eat this year what thou shalt find: and in the second year such things as spring of themselves: and in the third year sow and reap.” And this harvest came after the Angel struck down 185 thousand in the army of Sennacherib. A like sign is given to Moses, about to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, Exodus 3:12: “And this thou shalt have for a sign, that I have sent thee: When thou shalt have brought my people out of Egypt, thou shalt offer sacrifice to God upon this mountain.” A like sign was given to Saul, 1 Kings 10. This sense is full and obvious. Add that, when King Achaz rejected the sign offered him by God, the Prophet calls him back to the foundation of the covenant, which not even the impious would dare openly to reject, namely the Messias, on whom depended the salvation of all the people, and this the Jews believed and hoped. The sense, then, is, as if to say: You indeed, O impious king, by rejecting the promise, would wish to overturn the decree of God: but in vain. For his ordinance will remain holy and inviolable; nor will thy perfidy and ingratitude hinder God from being the perpetual deliverer of his people. For at length he will raise up from a Virgin the Messias, redeemer and saviour of Jews and Gentiles.
As if to say: God, being magnificent, that he may overcome your impiety, confirms by his piety and liberality what he said through me about your deliverance and the destruction of Syria and Samaria: and so he establishes this very sign of the greater benefit which he now designates and promises, and which I subjoin here when I say: “Behold a virgin shall conceive.” Which words, down to verse 16, are to be expounded by the genitive, thus: God will give you this your deliverance as a sign of the virgin’s conception, of Emmanuel to be born of the virgin, and of his being fed with butter and honey until he passes beyond infancy. Hence, explaining and designating this sign, in verse 16 he says: “For before the child (Emmanuel, whom I promise) know to refuse the evil and to choose the good, the land which thou detestest shall be forsaken of the face of her two kings,” as if to say: The sign which I promised in verse 14 I so explain: Syria and Samaria will be left as if desolate, while they are laid waste by the Assyrians: for this devastation will be a sign of the Emmanuel to be born, who shall lay waste the devil and plunder his kingdom. This verse, therefore, depends on the following verses 15 and 16, and there is fulfilled.
Whence from the Hebrew, in place of “himself,” it can be rendered “itself:” (namely what I have just said of the true deliverance and the destruction of your enemies) God will give you the sign of that which follows, namely that a virgin shall conceive.
Thirdly, the sense will be fullest if you join both the aforesaid: for the word sign is here taken indeterminately and broadly, so as to be the same as a new thing, a wonder, a portent, and it suits the type as well as the antitype; for this deliverance of Jerusalem from the Syrians and Samaritans was a sign of the future deliverance of the human race from sin and the devil through Emmanuel Christ, as well as conversely: hence Isaias so joins and weaves together both in this chapter, as if it were one and the same, and each wonderfully agrees with and answers to the other.
For first, as it was a wonderful kindness of God to deliver the Jews from Rasin and Phacee, so it was a wonderful one, indeed greater by analogy, that he delivered men through Christ from the tyranny of the devil. Secondly, as God here permitted the Jews, because they did not believe God’s promises, to be led captive into Babylon, so he permitted their posterity in the time of Christ, for unbelief, to be captured and laid waste by the Romans. Thirdly, both here and there was Emmanuel, that is, God with us.
For these reasons, therefore, this sign of a virgin bringing forth Emmanuel is given here by God, rather than any other.