LIBER ISAIAE PROPHETAE

( Vide Hieron. in Isa., Operum tom. IV. )

1231BIsaiah was born at Jerusalem of noble stock, and there he prophesied: under king Manasseh, cut into two parts, he met his death. And he was buried beneath the oak of Rogel, beside the crossing of the waters which king Hezekiah had once blocked up with cast dust. For God makes the spring Siloam for the Prophet's sake, since before he died he prayed a little while that he might deign to fashion waves there. And at once he sent down to him from heaven living water, whence that place obtained the name Siloam, which, if one interpret it, sounds "sent down." Under king Hezekiah also, before he had built the pool and the fish-ponds, it was brought about by Isaiah's prayers 1232Bthat a scanty water should well up, because the people was being held in a siege of enemies, and lest the city itself should perish, forsaken of waters. In everlasting memory of which thing the people carefully gave the Prophet back to the soil in that place with glory and honor, so that through his intercessions, even to the consummation of the age, the fruit of water of this kind might be obtained, to whom, that is, they credited the use they had received. And the monument of Isaiah stands next to the burial-place of the princes, behind the tombs of the priests, toward Notus and the southern quarter. For Solomon, in building Jerusalem, raised up the mausolea of the kings, according as David had prescribed them.

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1231C(HIERON. in Isa. ) Isaiah, a man noble and of urbane eloquence, having nothing of rusticity in his speech, is to be called not so much a prophet as an evangelist: for he pursues the mysteries of Christ and of the Church so clearly that he might be thought to be weaving a history of things past. Now he prophesied in Jerusalem and in Judah, the ten tribes not yet being led captive; and of both kingdoms he wove his oracles, now mingled together, now apart. And although at times he looks to the history then present, and signifies the return of the people into Judaea after the Babylonian captivity, yet he bends all his care upon the calling of the nations and the coming of Christ.

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VERS. 1.-- The vision of Isaiah, etc. There are three kinds of vision: the first bodily, by which we see heaven and earth and things of this sort; the second spiritual, by which we see, as in dreams, the images of men and things of this sort; the third intellectual, which is in the reason, by which we know the Creator, and, the Holy Spirit 1232Crevealing it, understand anything at all. "To see" is also often put for "to understand": whence we often ask, saying: Seest thou, that is, understandest thou? Prophets too are hence called seers, that is, understanders. This vision Isaiah saw by the Holy Spirit, that is, at his intimation, he understood the things that were to come upon them. Whence at the beginning he does not set down visions as Daniel does, nor does he say what he saw; but at once he says: Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth.

(HIER. in Isa., tom. IV). Not only Isaiah, etc., as far as they were not therefore ignorant, according to Montanus, who saw in this way.

(ID., Ibid. ) "Isaiah" is interpreted, etc., as far as and 1232Dwhen he shall have done all things, he says: I am an unprofitable servant; what I ought to have done, I have done. [Vulg. Lc 17:10 has the plural, "We are unprofitable servants: what we ought to have done, we have done."]

The son of Amos. (ID., ibid. ) Amos, the father of Isaiah, is not the third of the twelve Prophets, etc., as far as they contend that they were Prophets.

Upon Judah and Jerusalem. (ID., ibid. ) Isaiah principally 1233Aconcerning the two tribes, etc., as far as that these things were foretold for the correction of the two tribes.

The vision of Isaiah, etc. (HIER., ibid.) For Judah, in whom the two tribes are signified, etc., as far as of which: Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for thy light is come.

In the days of Ozias. (ID., ibid.) Ozias is himself the man who is also Azarias, etc., as far as so that our histories may appear more ancient than those of the Gentiles.

VERS. 2.-- Hear, O heavens, etc. (ID., ibid.) Above, who the Prophet is, etc., as far as since this belongs to the power of God, and not to earthly understanding.

The Lord hath spoken. (ID., ibid.) Not to you, but to me, that what I have heard in the spirit I may report to you, who do not deserve to hear him yourselves.

I have brought up sons. (ID., ibid.) In that he says: I 1233Badopted them as sons, etc., as far as whence: He gave them power to be made the sons of God.

VERS. 3.-- The ox hath known, etc. (ID., ibid.) Whence: Thou shalt not plow with a calf and an ass together (Deut. XXII) [Vulg. Dt 22:10 reads in bove, "with an ox"]. Like Ebion, etc., as far as to whom it is said: Come to me, you that labor and are burdened.

The ass. The Gentile, or the wanton man converted, unclean before, burdened with sins, who has believed the incarnation of Christ, who as soon as he was born was laid in a manger, that by the bridle of his own flesh he might feed all men.

Israel. (HIER., uti supra. ) The Scribes and Pharisees, having the key of knowledge and of the law. Whence they were called Israel, "those who see God."

He hath not known me. Whose day, that is, Abraham saw and was glad (Joan. VIII); whose coming 1233Cthe choir of the Prophets, in awaiting it, foretold.

VERS. 4.-- Woe to the sinful nation, etc. (HIER., ibid.) In this title he records the person, the cause, and the time; secondly, he makes them attentive; thirdly, he tells what the Lord has spoken; fourthly, as though in transports, he rebukes the sinful nation. Woe to the nation. etc. He threatens everlasting destruction, because they reject the Son, who brought salvation.

With iniquity. (ID. ibid.) Whence: Iniquity sitteth upon a talent of lead (ZACH. V); whence elsewhere: As a heavy burden they are become heavy upon me (Psal. XXXVII).

Wicked. Others, "of the most wicked," so that the fault should not be of the seed, but of the malice of those who by their own will have forsaken God. For the nature of the good and of the evil is not to be thought different.

1233DThey have blasphemed. Saying: Thou hast a devil, and Thou art a Samaritan (Joan. VIII); and We have no king but Caesar; and Is not this the son of the carpenter?

They are gone away estranged. (HIER., ibid.) They who were called the portion and the sons of God (Joan. XIX; Matth. XIII). It is said of them: The strange children have lied to me (Psal. XVII), whence: No man putting his hand to the plow, etc. (Luc IX), whence the Apostle: Stretching himself out to the things that are before, forgetful of the things behind (Philip. III).

VERS. 5.-- For what shall I strike you, etc. (ID. ibid.). As if he should say, etc., as far as but that there is now no place fit for healing he shows thus: Every head is sick etc.

Every head is sick. (ID., ibid.) Just as gladness 1234Aof mind sometimes softens the pains of the body, etc., as far as whence: From the sole of the foot, etc.

VERS. 6.-- A wound and a bruise. (ID., ibid.) As if he should say, etc., as far as and they slew the merciful physician who had been sent to them.

Nor dressed with medicine. (ID., ibid.) Whence: We have healed Babylon, and she is not healed, the city, that is, of confusion and of vices, etc., as far as and he expressed the irremediable captivity of the Jews.

VERS. 7.-- Your land is desolate, etc. (ID., ibid.) These things were fulfilled in part under the Babylonians, etc., as far as whence: Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain, etc.

VERS. 8.-- The daughter of Sion, etc., (ID., ibid.) With the affection of a most loving father. And: For we are all by nature the sons of God 1234B(Joan. XIV), but by our own fault we are made strangers. Whence Babylon is often called daughter.

VERS. 9.-- Unless the Lord. (ID.) This from the person of the Prophet, etc, as far as so the Almighty, [he] is the Son of the Almighty.

VERS. 10.-- Hear the word. (ID.) The remnant being saved, etc., as far as and now he is discerned by the mind, when he is believed to be invisible.

VERS. 11.-- I am full. (ID.) As if he should say: Do you think that I have need of these things, or take delight in them? But I am full, that is, I have need of nothing. For mine is the earth and the fulness thereof. Or, I am full, that is, affected with weariness, because you do not offer rightly.

The holocausts of rams, etc., as far as: To judge for the fatherless, etc. He rejects the sacrifices of the Jews, he commends the obedience 1234Cof the Gospel: The holocausts of rams, etc. He points to the last destruction of the temple, which endures for ever. For after the Babylonian captivity the temple was built by Zorobabel, and sacrifice was offered in it for a long time.

(ID.) The holocausts of rams. It can also be taken of those who, while they despise the precepts of God, wish to appease him by a multitude of sacrifices, and to buy themselves licence to sin. Or of those who offer robbery and avarice upon the altar, and bestow them on the poor.

I would not. Using the past tense, he shows that he never loved the sacrifices of the Jews, but bore with them for a time on account of what they signified; and that, the true sacrifice being fulfilled, he reckoned them as nothing.

VERS. 12.-- When you came. (ID.) God did not 1234Dseek these sacrifices as though he were in need; but that they might not sacrifice to demons, and that through carnal and typical things they might come more easily to the spiritual and true sacrifice.

Who required? Let the Ebionites hear this, who after the passion of Christ think that the law is to be kept: let their fellows hear this, who decree that it is to be kept only by the Israelite race.

VERS. 13.-- The new moon, etc, The feast of the new moon, which they used to celebrate at the beginning of the months: Neos, new, mene, moon; whence: Blow up the trumpet to the Lord on the new moon (Psal. LXXX).

Your assemblies are wicked, etc. (ID.) Because they do not offer spiritual victims; whence: A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit (Psalm. L).

1235AVers. 14.-- My soul hath hated. (ID.) Ανθρωποσπαθῶς. Not that he has a soul, but he speaks after our manner; as if to say, I have utterly hated.

I have labored, etc. (HIER.) Symmachus. I have failed in pitying, etc., as far as but thou art saved by my help alone.

VERS. 15.-- For your hands are full of blood, etc. (ID.) Of the Prophets, and at last of their Lord, etc., as far as they keep watch in prayer by day and by night.

VERS. 16.-- Be washed, etc. As if he should say: This I have hated: the truth of the Gospel pleases me: Be washed, in the blood of Christ, in the water of baptism. Be clean, abiding in innocence of life. For baptism alone avails unto the remission of sin, whence: Unless a man be born again (Joan. III), etc. And 1235Belsewhere: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, etc.

(HIER., ubi supra ). The chief order, etc., as far as but also in the sight of God, from whom nothing can be hidden.

Cease to do perversely. (ID.) It sounds that saying of the Gospel, etc., as far as whom they follow in the Apocalypse who shine with the whiteness of virginity.

VERS. 17.-- Learn to do well. (ID.) Not trusting in nature, etc., as far as the thresholds of masters must be worn away.

Seek judgment, etc. (ID.) To the victims of the Jews the commandments of the Gospel succeed. Provision is made for orphans and widows, so that the martyrs, secure concerning their wives and children, may go forth to their battles.

VERS. 18.-- As scarlet, etc. (ID.) The same thing is the scarlet grain 1235Cand the scarlet, and the little worm, namely a great sin, and murder and adultery, etc. But what is signified by snow, this is signified by wool: the purging, that is, and the washing away of sins.

As snow. Because they shall be cold against the incitements of vices: And as wool, because they are clothed against the cold of faithlessness.

White wool, etc. (ID.) Of which the garment of Christ is made.

VERS. 19.-- If you be willing and will hear, etc. (ID.) Free will is preserved, etc., as far as religion might pass over to the praise of God.

(ID.) Morally; the faithful soul, and full of judgment, while it obeys God, God dwells in it, who is the justifying justice; but if it withdraws from God, not by place but by desert, it is inhabited by malignant spirits, who are the murderers 1235Dof souls.

VERS. 21.-- Justice. (ID.) Justice, in the Hebrew sedek צדק, which rather signifies "the just," so that we may understand that the Lord tarried in her, of whom: But the just man, what hath he done? which in Ezechiel is signified by Ooliba, which is interpreted tabernacle, or my tabernacle in her.

VERS. 22.-- Silver, etc. The bright, that is, and the shining have turned back to vices.

Into dross. (ID.) Dross, in Hebrew siggim (סגים) : which is the rust of metals, or the refuse and filth that are burned off by fire.

Thy wine, etc. Others: Thy vintners mingle wine with water. Symmachus: Thy wine is mingled 1236Awith water. Morally: Thy wine is mingled with water: because the precepts of Holy Scripture, by which they ought to correct their hearers, he softens to the will of those hearers, and, his own meaning being mixed in, he corrupts the wine. Thy wine, etc. Heretics too corrupt the Gospel, worst of vintners, making water out of wine, whereas the Lord turned water into wine, at which the steward of the feast marvels: and the queen of Saba, at Solomon's banquet, praising his cupbearers and the servers of the wine.

VERS. 23.-- Companions of thieves. (ID.) Receiving from the Scribes and Pharisees the gifts which they were taking away from the poor. In the passion of the Lord also they were unbelieving, unwilling to believe in Christ; and companions of thieves, that is, of the Scribes and Pharisees and of Judas the traitor, Companions of thieves, etc. We too ought to beware that we do not receive gifts from 1236Bthose who gather riches out of the tears of the poor, lest we be companions of thieves, and lest it be said of us: If thou didst see a thief, thou didst run with him, etc.

They follow after rewards. (ID.) Because they do not count them friends, etc., as far as that is, bear it patiently.

VERS. 24.-- The Strong One of Israel. (ID.) LXX: Woe, ye strong ones of Israel, etc., as far as or in character.

Ah, I. (ID.) With the affection of a loving father he laments and strikes them (though they be enemies), because they perish and will not repent.

I will comfort myself, etc. (ID.) He comforts himself by vengeance, etc., as far as wherein he signifies that they shall suffer torments.

VERS. 25.-- Thy tin. (ID.) The false doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees, which is like 1236Cthe true, as tin is like silver. And I will give the pure and perfect knowledge of the law and of the Gospel.

VERS. 26.-- And I will restore thy judges, etc. (ID.) Not only after the captivity, as Zorobabel, Esdras, and the others who ruled over the people down to Hircanus; but also after the coming of the Lord, the Apostles and the other doctors of the Church.

The city of the just, the faithful city Sion, shall be redeemed in judgment. [Vulg. divides otherwise, closing Is 1:26 with "the faithful city" and opening Is 1:27 with "Sion shall be redeemed in judgment."] The Church, in which they are called back to living justly. For a city is a gathering of men for living justly.

VERS. 30.-- As an oak with the leaves falling. (ID.) As from an oak shaken by drought, etc., as far as it does not bring forth even herbs, which a sick man might eat.

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VERS. 2.-- In the last days. (HIER.) Of which Jacob, etc., as far as: it grew into a great mountain.

A mountain. Mountains, the angels, the prophets, the patriarchs, the apostles, the martyrs, and the rest who shone forth with miracles. Hills, the lesser, receiving their light from the greater.

And it shall be exalted. (ID.) Above all the saints, because of his fulness all receive (of whom: The mountains round about it ), who are called mountains from Christ the mountain.

VERS. 3.-- The house. (ID.) Which is said for this reason, that we may receive the Old Testament, and may not, after Manichaeus, seek another house than the house of the God of Jacob.

1237AHis ways, which others have trodden. The Lord too, going up into the mountain, taught his disciples. First, then, the ways must be learned; afterward one must walk in the paths.

Out of Sion. (HIER.) Not from the rock Sina, but from mount Sion, in which is Jerusalem, in which is the temple and the religion of God. The Lord also taught in the temple, because it was not fitting that a Prophet should die outside Jerusalem.

The law and the word. As above, he set the word and the law together, so that the princes might hear the word, and the people take in the law with the ear. For he who shall have kept the law will come through to the word of God; the law will go forth from the word as from a fountain, that it may water others.

VERS. 4.-- And they shall stand fast their swords. [Vulg. Is 2:4 conflabunt, "they shall beat (their swords into ploughshares)"] (ID.) All zeal for warring shall be turned into peace, etc., as far as let us eat at the time of harvest, that is, 1237Bof death.

VERS. 5.-- O house of Jacob, etc. (ID.) After the calling of the nations and the showing of the mountain of God, he invites his own people, who are of Jacob, that, going out from the darkness of unbelief, they may receive the light of Christ.

In the light. (ID.) Whilst you have the light, believe in the light. Come ye to him and be enlightened, etc. As if he shall say: He that doth evil hateth the light: but come with me, let us walk in the light of the Lord, who saith: I am the light of the world, etc.

Vers. 6.-- For thou hast cast off. After he had exhorted them, he saw in spirit their hardness, and suddenly turning the eyes of his mind to the Lord, he says: For thou hast cast off, etc., as if he should say, and therefore they are to be exhorted, because thou hast cast off, etc.

1237CBecause they are filled up, as of old, etc. (ID.) The Romans, that is, casting out, the Jews: foreigners dwelt in Judaea, brought in from every quarter by Titus and Vespasian, or by the other princes. Or, before they were laid waste by the Babylonians, they committed these things under impious kings.

As the Philistines. (ID.) The Philisthiim, who are today the Palestinians, because the Hebrew tongue has not the letter p., but in place of it uses the Greek φ.

With boys, etc. He signifies the lust of the conquerors against the Jewish nation. For the Greeks and the Latins labored long under this vice: but under the emperor Constantine, and with the Gospel flashing forth, this baseness was carried away together with the rest.

VERS. 7.-- The land is filled. (ID.) Both the avarice of the Romans and that of the Jews is censured; for the Greek 1237Dand Latin histories bear witness that nothing is more avaricious than either nation: among the idols, avarice is condemned.

VERS. 8.-- With horses, and innumerable. (ID.) And this against the Lord, who forbade that chariots and horses should be multiplied: for these animals were given for helping, not for growing proud; whence they are also called beasts of burden.

VERS. 9.-- He hath bowed himself down. Where once was the temple and the religion of God, there is the statue of Hadrian and the idol of Jupiter.

Therefore not. Isaiah does not curse, but blesses, etc., as far as and they are filled with idols, etc.

From the face of the fear of the Lord. From the wrath of judgment.

And from the glory of his majesty. Because he shall come with great power and majesty.

1238AVERS 11.-- The lofty eyes, etc. (Hier.) Neither riches, nor power, nor nobility of birth shall save any man; one captivity shall come upon them all. These things can also be taken of the day of judgment, when every creature shall be humbled in the sight of God, and shall perceive that it is nothing in comparison with him.

But the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

VERS. 12.-- Of the Lord of hosts. Wherever he speaks of the victory or of the vengeance of the Lord, he records him as the Lord of hosts, that we may not doubt of the victory of him whose power is so great.

VERS. 14.-- The high mountains. (HIER.) According to the variety of virtues, some are called the mountains of the good, others hills. According to the diversity of vices, some are the mountains of the impious, others allii hills, to whom it is said: I will bring upon 1238Byou the sword, etc.

And upon every tower. (ID.) To the letter: when the Romans came, both the towers and the walls were overthrown from their foundations, etc., as far as lest a perverse teaching prevail over the truth.

VERS. 16.-- Ships. (ID.) Josaphat had ships which he used to send to Tharsis, etc., as far as there are also good ships, of which it is said: They that go down to the sea in a ship, etc.

Tharsis. (ID.) Of any sea whatever, etc., as far as if it is said otherwise, it is Syriac.

VERS. 17.-- Every one shall be bowed down. (ID.) Allegorically: human speech seems reasonable, etc., as far as by that also, by which they had been framed, they shall be utterly crushed.

1238CVERS. 18.-- And the idols utterly. This in the captivity of the Chaldeans, etc., as far as this is to be referred especially to the former sense.

(BED.) Solomon built a thing in Jerusalem, Astaroth the idol of the Sidonians, etc., where (if I am not mistaken) it is shown that Solomon never perfectly repented, because he did not destroy the idols which he had built.

VERS. 20.-- To adore moles. (HIER.) Not in fact, but like moles, etc., as far as by which one comes to the truth.

VERS. 22.-- Cease ye therefore. Because these things shall come to pass unless you cease. Cease therefore, that you may not rage against Christ, who seems a mere man: because he breathes through his nostrils and lives like other men.

High. The Lord is high above all nations. 1238DAnd the Most High himself hath founded her (Psal. CXII, LXXXIX). Yet the Hebrew signifies excelsum, not excelsus. For he is height itself, not merely high.

VERS. 1.-- For behold. Thus far they think it is spoken of the judgment, etc., as far as after all the gifts of grace were taken away from the Jews.

VERS. 2.-- The valiant man. (HIER.) There is not among the Jews one who wars for the law, one who judges according to it: for they are all empty and foolish.

And the diviner. Because sometimes they divine true things, as Balaam, and the soothsayers of the five cities of the Palestinians, by whose counsel the ark of the Lord was sent back; as though he should say: 1239ABoth the true prophets and the false shall be taken away from the Jews.

The ancient. Whom the LXX have rendered "presbyter," etc., as far as because he would not hear the presbyters.

VERS. 3.-- The prudent man. A teacher or a hearer, etc., as far as who might discern by what spirit the prophets were speaking.

Concerning architects. Christ himself is called the Son of the carpenter: and in Paralipomenon we read of the valley of craftsmen. For there were craftsmen there whom knowledge did not puff up, but they followed the humble Christ.

VERS. 4.-- And I will give. children. (HIER.) Whereas the rest in the person, etc., as far as the Apostle forbids that a neophyte be chosen bishop, lest he grow proud like the devil.

The effeminate. The LXX, "mockers," etc., as far as the holy state of the Church is thrown into confusion.

1239BVERS. 6.-- He shall take hold. (ID.) To the letter, etc., as far as and let our ruin be propped up by thy help.

VERS. 7.-- He shall answer. (ID.) This is not in the Hebrew, but is added from the LXX. For according to the Hebrew it is joined thus: In that day he shall say:

I am no healer. Let us not at once acquiesce in the judgment of the multitude, etc., as far as: Seek not to be made a judge, lest perchance thou be not able to offer iniquities (Eccl. VII). [Vulg. Sir 7:6 nisi valeas virtute irrumpere iniquitates, "unless thou art strong enough to break through iniquities"]

VERS. 8.-- For Jerusalem is ruined. From the person of the Prophet. As if he should say: Therefore they shall not find one who is willing to come to their help, because they blasphemed the Lord, saying: Thou hast a devil (Joan. VIII), and the like.

Because the tongue. Although the Romans, so far as concerned themselves, came to the siege on account of the tribute that was being refused, yet the death of the Lord was chiefly the cause.

1239CVERS. 9.-- The acknowledging. They shall acknowledge that this has befallen them because of their sins, or they shall always have their sins before the eyes of their mind.

Woe to their soul. (ID.) The LXX: Woe to their soul, for they have devised a most wicked counsel against themselves, saying: Let us bind the just man, for he is unprofitable to us (Sap. I).

(ID.) Let us beware, then, lest we be exactors among the people; lest, after the impious Porphyry, matrons and women be our senate, who should bear rule in the Churches, and the favor of women pass judgment upon the priestly rank.

VERS. 12.-- And the way of thy steps, etc. (ID.) He, then, is the ecclesiastical teacher, etc., as far as of which: I am the way, the truth, and the life (Joan. XIV).

VERS. 13.-- He standeth up to judge. (ID.) Now as it were 1239Dangry, etc., as far as he comes against the princes and the presbyters that he may judge them, giving them room for defense.

VERS. 14.-- For you have eaten up. (ID.) I judge that there was between the elders and the princes of the old people what there is between the presbyters and the bishops of our own time.

My vineyard. (ID.) Thou hast brought a vineyard out of Egypt. The vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth is the house of Israel (Psal. LXXIX).

VERS. 15.-- Why do you grind my people? Our own princes too, etc., as far as they make them to be the riches of themselves or of their own.

VERS. 16.-- Because they are lifted up. This can be referred chiefly to the wives of the Scribes and Pharisees, and to others as well: for whose delicacies and luxury their husbands used to despoil the poor. Lest, then, they should think themselves 1240Afree from sin, the Lord says: Because, etc.

VERS. 17.-- He will make bald. What is hidden shall lie open, and the foul baldness shall appear. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed.

VERS. 18.-- In that day, that is, of the Babylonian captivity, or more truly when they were taken captive by the Romans, and lost all their ornaments.

Of the shoes. Which in the wilderness were not worn away, etc., as far as so that in place of matronly cleanness there may be a turning to the filth of the earth.

VERS. 21.-- Rings. By which we are sealed unto the malice [malitiam; read militiam, "the warfare"] of Christ, whom the Father hath sealed. The prodigal Son too received a ring together with the robe, and shoes.

1240BJewels on the forehead. By which our faces and our head are adorned.

VERS. 22.-- Linens. (HIER.) That we may fully enjoy broad delights in the Lord.

VERS. 23.-- Fillets. Which bind fast the mind that flows hither and thither.

Theristra. A woman's garment, most fine, and transparent to the sight, suited to summer, and from that it is named: for theria is what summer is called.

VERS. 24.-- For a stomacher, haircloth. By which the breasts are chastened, lest they grow rank.

VERS. 26.-- And they shall mourn and. Whosoever shall have given his place to the devil, and shall not have kept his heart with all watchfulness, his gates shall mourn, and, the bridegroom being absent, he shall be always in grief, and falling down he shall sit 1240Cin the dust.

Her gates shall mourn, and she shall sit desolate on the ground. Metonymically: the judges, the kings, the princes who used to sit in the gate.

VERS. 1.-- And seven shall take hold. (HIER.) When Nabuchodonosor [took] Sedecias the king, etc., as far as in this place we can understand more of them.

Seven women. (ID.) The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: The spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of godliness, and the Spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him. Which are called women, because no one is begotten unto God save through the Spirit: and in the plural, because the gifts are many, though the Spirit is one.

1240DOur bread. Our bread is Christ, the rod from the root of Jesse, and the flower; the bread of the women is the Father, as he is also of Christ, who says: My food is to do the will of my Father (Joan. IV) [Vulg. Jo 4:34 voluntatem ejus qui misit me, "the will of him that sent me"]. We will eat our own bread, the body of Christ.

We will be covered with our own garments. With the ornaments of the virtues.

Let thy name be called upon. Let us be called Christians from Christ.

Take away our reproach. Which we suffer from the Jews as though we were without God, etc., as far as we are often compelled to change our lodging.

Take away. Because false doctrines shall rise up against wisdom, and against the rest of the women, that is, the virtues: to each one its own contrary rises up, when false virtues steal away their name.

1241AVERS. 5.-- A cloud, that is, the overshadowing of the Spirit, that in prosperity they may not be lifted up, just as for the children of Israel there was a cloud by day, a fire by night.

And smoke, etc. (HIER.) Whence: The house was filled with smoke (Exod. XIII); and elsewhere: He toucheth the mountains, and they smoke (Psal. CIII).

For over all. Very many of the Jews, etc., as far as but we to the first coming of Christ.

VERS. 1.-- I will sing to my beloved, etc. (HIER.) A canticle is sometimes in gladness, sometimes in sorrow, as this one is, namely the one which he composed who, seeing the city, wept, saying: For if thou also hadst known, etc. (Luc. XIX).

VERS. 2.-- A chosen vineyard. (ID.) Another edition, the vineyard 1241BSorec, which is a kind of the best vine, most fruitful with unfailing fruits; all the things that are said of the vineyard are referred to the state of the soul, which, planted by God, brought forth not grapes but wild grapes: and it was handed over to the beasts to be trodden down, nor did it receive the rain of doctrine, because it despised the gifts that had gone before.

VERS. 3.-- Now therefore, O inhabitants, etc. In like manner Nathan questions David, that he may pronounce sentence upon himself as though upon another.

VERS. 4.-- Is it that I looked for, etc.? This, according to some, he said above within himself; but here he asks others what he had been thinking.

VERS. 5.-- And now I will show you. As if he should say: Because you will not answer, therefore I will answer for you.

1241CI will take away, etc. That is, that they who have not felt God through benefits may feel him through punishments; and therefore he threatens a penalty, that they may be turned to repentance.

VERS. 6.-- And the clouds. (ID.) Which under Elias, etc., as far as when they had not the prophets, and drove the apostles away.

VERS. 7.-- The house of Israel, etc. (ID.) From the time the kingdom was divided, etc., as far as because Christ was born of them.

Behold a cry. Wherewith it cried out against the Lord and shouted, saying: Away with him, away with him, crucify him; or, they made a cry in place of justice, because they slew Christ, whose blood cries to the Lord: The voice of the blood sanguis of thy brother Abel crieth to me from the earth (Gen. IV).

1241DVERS. 8.-- Woe to you that join. This especially to the Jews, who were most avaricious, etc., as far as until the earth fail, that is, human sense and speech.

VERS. 9.-- In the ears. (ID.) As if the prophet should say: These words I have heard with my inward ears, which are of the Lord of hosts.

Unless the houses, etc. The pomp, that is, and the structure of heretics, as far as which is bound together by unity in comparison with a manifold number.

VERS. 10.-- For ten acres. (ID.) The barrenness of the land, which is to follow upon the captivity, is shown.

VERS. 11.-- Woe to you that rise up. As if he should say: Captivity is at hand, etc., as far as they do not understand the works of the Lord in themselves.

1242AVERS. 17.-- And the lambs shall feed. (ID.) According to the history it is the same as above: strangers devour your country before your face.

Strangers: The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, etc. For gathered out of the whole world, etc., as far as so that the lambs should take the places of the bulls.

VERS. 18.-- Woe to you that draw. These things to the princes of the Jews, etc., as far as they anathematize the name of Christians.

With cords of vanity. (ID.) In which they were, etc., as far as we are held as though by the strongest chains.

VERS. 19.-- Woe to you that call. (ID.) This especially against the Jews who chose Barabbas and condemned Christ; generally, to all who justify the unjust and condemn the just. Evil, darkness, 1242Bbitter, are set down in a like signification and figure. In Barabbas we understand the devil, of whom: Deliver us from evil.

VERS. 21.-- Woe to you that are wise. The wisdom of God being despised, etc., as far as they neither enter in unto Christ, nor permit [others] to enter.

VERS. 22.-- Drunkenness. Wine contains every vice. Drunkenness (which in Hebrew is sicera ) signifies all the things that overturn the state of the mind. Out of the abundance of bread and wine the sin of the men of Sodom grew.

VERS. 23.-- You that justify the wicked for gifts. It was said above that instead of grapes they brought forth thorns, and hay, and wood, and stubble, and briars that were to be burned, because they did not only these things, but also cast away the law 1242Cand blasphemed the word of God. Of which: Out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

VERS. 24.-- Their root. (ID.) A crooked thought, out of which the work proceeds like a bud.

VERS. 25.-- Therefore was he angry. (ID.) It is to be noted that he does not reproach them with idolatry and the other sins, but with this, that they cast away the law of the Gospel and blasphemed the holy word of the Lord: who had been angry against the princes and the mighty, who were wise in their own eyes and followers after gifts; whom the tongue of fire devoured, that the mighty might mightily suffer torments.

He was angry. (ID.) Not that he lies subject to human passions; but we who transgress, unless we have heard the Lord being angry, do not fear.

1242DAnd he struck, etc. He speaks things to come as though past, with a prophetic certainty.

VERS. 26.-- And he shall whistle to him from the ends of the earth, etc. (ID.) The Hebrews understand this place of the Babylonians, etc., as far as he joins himself to the people in affection, and says:

VERS. 30.-- We shall look. Not daring to look back upon heaven, whose inhabitant, God, we have offended; and our light, which we always had in God, is darkened with the gloom of tribulations.

VERS. 1.-- In the year, etc. (HIER.) Ozias himself is Azarias, etc., as far as falling upon his face, he cries out with a loud voice to the Lord.

1243AKing Ozias. The king, namely the leper, who usurped the priesthood.

I saw the Lord. Christ, namely. The Son was seen in the habit of one reigning; the Holy Spirit spoke, because of the fellowship of majesty and the unity of substance.

Upon a throne high, etc. (HIER.) He who sees the Lord reigning in the heavenly powers sees him upon a throne high and lifted up, which are the Thrones and the Dominations, etc.

Some say that the seraphim are powers in heaven attending upon God and praising him, which are sent upon ministries chiefly to those who have need of purgation, and, for certain sins, in part to punishments.

(ID.) Cherubim, a multitude of knowledge, upon whom the Lord 1243Bis shown to sit after the manner of a charioteer, whence: Thou that sittest upon the cherubim, etc. But the seraphim, apart from this place, I do not remember to have read in the canonical Scriptures. They err therefore who are wont to write in their prayers: Thou that sittest upon the cherubim and seraphim.

VERS. 2.-- They stood. (ID.) That is, they stand attending upon God; they fly, showing forth God; they lay bare as it were the middle part; they do not make manifest the things that are veiled; they do not veil the things that are known.

Six wings to one. (ID.) Victorinus understands the twelve apostles. But we, the twelve stones of the altar which iron did not touch, and the twelve gems in the diadem of the priest.

(ID.) The angels are said to have wings, because they dwell in the higher places, 1243Cor because of their swift running to and fro in all things, as the winds also are called winged.

With two they veiled his face. What things were before these I know not, etc., as far as the angels also and the preachers teach nothing thereof; likewise:

They veiled the feet. (HIER.) What is to be after this world we know not: the middle things, however, which were made in six days or ages, or are made; we know only With two they veiled, because we have knowledge of the present alone.

(ID.) My Hebrew has entered by a far other way, etc., as far as and then, being truly purged in the lips, I said to the Lord: Behold I, send me.

VERS. 3.-- And they cried. (ID.) They do not say it lightly, but pronounce with a cry a confession salutary for all: 1243DHoly, holy, holy, because they themselves also, namely the seraphim, are holy: for nothing is holier than these: but they marvel that the Son so humbled himself and underwent the cross, and became known to earthly things.

Holy, holy, etc. The mystery of the Trinity. In both Testaments the Trinity is preached, the Lord Christ, namely, who here is of four letters, which is set down properly of God: Iod, He, Iod, He; that is, two ia, which doubled make the ineffable name of God.

The whole earth is full. (ID.) And it shall be filled, etc., as far as after two and forty years from the passion of the Lord.

VERS. 4.-- The lintels. In the Old Testament the Lord spoke, etc., as far as which taking up 1244Awe say: We know in part, and we prophesy in part (I Cor. XIII).

VERS. 5.-- Polluted. (ID.) This he says because of the fellowship of the people, with whom he was constrained to speak. It is harmful to live with sinners.

I dwell. Note that one must not tarry with sinners.

And I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of hosts: and one flew to me. So Abraham, after he had seen the Lord and heard his voice, confesses himself to be ashes and dust, because however great the dignity of men may be, it grows cheap in comparison of him.

VERS. 6.-- Of the seraphim. (ID.) Seraphim with m we say in the masculine gender, with n in the neuter gender plural. Seraphim, however, can be said in the singular, as 1244Bcherubim and cherub.

And in his hand. That is, by his working, that is, of Christ. The coal, that is, charity, which with the tongs, that is, the teaching of the two Testaments, he had taken from the altar, and had set before Isaias for an example.

A coal. (ID.) The Seventy: a carbuncle, a fiery stone, which because of its flame-like colour is called igneous.

With tongs. (ID.) This is the ladder of Jacob, the sword twice sharpened, etc., as far as comprehending the word of God with the double edge of the precepts.

From the altar. Which John saw in the Apocalypse, which is full of fiery coals, wherewith sins can be purged.

VERS. 7.-- Behold I have touched thy lips: whence: What may be given to thee, or what may be added to thee for a deceitful tongue? 1244CThe sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals that lay waste (Psal. CXIX). [Vulg. Ps 119:3 apponatur, "may be set beside"] This is the word of God, of which it is said: Thou hast coals of fire, thou shalt sit upon them, these shall be to thee for a help.

And the iniquity shall be taken away. (ID.) Jeremias, who was a boy, and therefore almost free from sin, is purged by the touch of a hand alone. But to Isaias, who says: I am a man polluted in the lips, an angel is sent with a coal.

VERS. 8.-- Whom shall I send? He does not compel, but seeks the will: for the will alone deserves the reward. But Isaias, as one purged, offers himself of his own accord.

Send me. (ID.) He thinks that he is to announce good, etc., as far as that it was not of rashness but of obedience that he offered himself.

1244DVERS. 9.-- Hear ye that hear. (ID.) Luke according to the Seventy in the Acts of the Apostles: With the ear you shall hear, and shall not understand, etc., as far as and he uses Greek testimonies rather than Hebrew.

VERS. 10.-- Blind, etc. (ID.) To which is like, etc., as far as nor is it cruelty of God, but mercy, the unbelieving being blinded, to enlighten the humble.

And he be converted. Although the sin be grievous, if anyone be converted, he can be saved: but these, for the greatness of their crime, are unworthy of penance.

VERS. 13.-- And still. And in place of, that is, still out of that nation a tithing, as if still a tenth part of that nation shall remain.

And it shall be. Under Hadrian Judaea was laid waste again, 1245Ain the fiftieth year indeed after the captivity of the Romans. For they were forbidden by public laws to enter Judaea.

VERS. 1.-- And it came to pass in the days of Achaz, etc. (HIER.) The things that are written up to this place were seen under Ozias and Joathan his son; those that follow, under Achaz, a most impious king, who, being forsaken by God, is overcome by his enemies.

Achaz. Who shut the doors of the temple and adored the Baalim, consecrated his son to an idol, took away the brazen altar, and set an altar of idols in the temple. Rightly therefore was he forsaken by the Lord: And his enemies rose up against him (II Par. XXVIII).

He went up, a second time. For first the Assyrians of the tribe of 1245BJuda, etc., as far as Herod and Pilate were made friends in the passion of Christ.

VERS. 3.-- He was forsaken. By his own brother Rabsaces, who had gone over to the Assyrians, as the Hebrews hand down.

Jasub thy son. (ID.) Who is interpreted a remaining companion and one that turns back, who was the people of Juda that was to be delivered out of the hands of the two kings.

In the way. There Rabsaces, afterward at the command of Sennacherib, blasphemed the people of God.

VERS. 4.-- Of two tails. Two tails, etc., as far as and he was led with the ten tribes into the mountains of the Medes and the Persians.

VERS. 6.-- Tabeel. (ID.) Tabeel, the good God, as if he should say: There let us set the idol of our God; or, to the letter, he so calls the Son of man.

1245CVERS. 8.-- Yet sixty, etc. As if he should say: In the meanwhile they shall be content with their own borders, and Rasim shall rule over Damascus as over the metropolis of Syria, and Samaria shall be the head of the cities of Ephraim, and in it in the meanwhile the son of Romelia shall reign.

Sixty-five years. From the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Ozias, when he was struck with leprosy, from that time Joathan his son reigned seven and twenty years, his father being yet alive. After his death, sixteen years; after whom Achaz other sixteen; afterward, Ezechias reigning, six years. Ephraim, that is, the ten tribes led into captivity, ceased to be a people.

VERS. 11.-- Ask thee a sign. (ID.) That he who did not believe the prophet might be terrified by the authority of the Lord; 1245Das if he should say: It seems hard to thee that most powerful kingdoms should be brought to an end in a short time, and that thou shouldst be delivered, and thy people; but ask thee a sign.

Ask thee a sign. Moses received a sign from the earth, etc., as far as it looks to both the death of the Lord and his ascension.

I will not ask. Not humbly, but proudly. For many are read to have asked signs of the Lord and to have received them; but Achaz answered thus, as having authority: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Or, he feared that in the sign God should be glorified and the idols made cheap.

VERS. 14.-- Behold a virgin shall conceive. (ID.) In Hebrew alma; in Latin also alma is called holy, etc., as far 1246Aas that it arose by violence is plain even to fools.

Emmanuel. (ID.) Some say that Isaias had two sons, etc., as far as for the sake of which the Word was made flesh.

VERS. 15.-- To reprobate the evil. (ID.) As if he should say: Set in the swaddling-bands of infancy he shall have the discernment of good and evil. By these words we perceive that the infancy of the Saviour did not diminish the divine wisdom in him, although it be said: But the child advanced in age and wisdom, [Vulg. Lc 2:52 Et Jesus proficiebat sapientia, et aetate, et gratia, "And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace"] that the truth of the human body might be proved: for infancy is no prejudice to the divine wisdom.

VERS. 16.-- He shall be forsaken, etc. (ID.) as if he should say: The land of Syria and of Samaria shall be laid waste from the invocation of his name, and the house of Juda shall be delivered from the two kings.

1246BVERS. 18.-- The fly. (ID.) That is, the Egyptians, an unwarlike people and foul with idolatry. We read that Josias was slain by the Egyptians and the people of Israel subjugated; and not long after in time Nabuchodonosor with an innumerable army took Jerusalem, burned the temple, and set Assyrian inhabitants in Judaea.

VERS. 20.-- A razor. (ID.) The king of the Assyrians (who in Jeremias is called the dove of God), in him as in a most sharp razor, and in those who are beyond the river, namely the Assyrians, the Lord shall shave in Judaea the head and the hairs of the feet, namely all the strength of kings and of princes and of their subjects.

VERS. 22.-- He shall eat butter. He shall be delighted in 1246Cthe passion of Christ or in his own. For butter is made out of many mixings.

VERS. 25.-- And all the hills that shall be raked with the hoe. (ID.) The plains being left for fear of enemies, they shall flee to the mountain places, tilling the rough parts of the mountains with their own hand; they shall sustain a wretched life. The rest shall be for pastures.

VERS. 1.-- And the Lord said to me: Take thee. (HIER.) First the prophet foretells to Achaz the things to come, etc., as far as whence again the virginal birth is described.

Quickly the spoils. (ID.) This is the name of the child, as if he should say: Suffer not the devil to reign any longer; and send not angels, send not Prophets, but come down thyself.

1246DVERS. 2.-- Urias, etc. (ID.) Urias, the light of the Lord; Zacharias, the memory of the Lord; Barachias, the blessing of the Lord: by these witnesses the nativity of the Lord is proved. Whence, to two witnesses going to Emmaus, beginning from Moses and the prophets, he discoursed of the things which had been said of himself.

VERS. 3.-- To the prophetess. (ID.) To the Holy Spirit, from whom is all prophecy, which in Greek is of the neuter gender, pneuma; in Hebrew of the feminine, Ruach; in Latin it is of the masculine gender, and therefore it is allotted by different positions, for it is of none. Or to Mary, whom no one doubts to have been a prophetess.

VERS. 4.-- The child. (ID.) Isaias therefore is commanded, etc., as far as he should save the house of David by invocation alone.

1247ABecause the people hath cast away the waters of Siole. (HIER.) In which the blind man washed himself, etc., as far as he attempted to possess Juda, his own land. [Vulg. Is 8:6 populus iste aquas Siloe, "this people the waters of Siloe"]

VERS. 7.-- The waters of the river. (ID.) The army of Sennacherib, whose power, seizing the land of Samaria, is compared to the flooding of a river.

VERS. 9.-- Gather yourselves together, O ye people. (ID.) As if: Against Emmanuel you can do nothing, etc., as far as because perversity cannot overcome what is right.

VERS. 12.-- Say ye not. (ID.) As if he should say: Fear not the conspiracy of the two kings against Juda: a conspiracy is the consent of many unto evil.

Fear ye not, neither be afraid. Thou and the peoples that are with thee, because they seem to be feared; because the beginning of wisdom 1247Bis the fear of the Lord.

VERS. 14.-- For a stone. (ID.) Which the builders rejected, etc., as far as joining sins to sins and bound with the snares of their offences.

To the two houses. Or in the two families, etc., as far as through their own traditions they scattered and defiled the precepts of the law.

VERS. 16.-- Seal the law. As if he should say: Open it, Lord, to my disciples, etc., as far as we can also understand doctrines.

VERS. 18.-- My children, born of God. The other Prophets and their disciples. Some read this of the two sons of Isaias, etc., as far as who were for a portent of worldly wisdom and of the pride of the Jews. [Vulg. Is 8:18 Ecce ego et pueri mei quos dedit mihi Dominus, "Behold I and my children whom the Lord hath given me"]

VERS. 20.-- Thou shalt not be to them. (ID.) That is, if this people 1247Cwill not seek the truth from the Lord, it shall not have Christ, namely the light of truth, which it neglects. [Vulg. Is 8:20 non erit eis matutina lux, "there shall not be for them the morning light"]

VERS. 21.-- To his king. To the devil and to the traditions of the fathers, that is, to ancient errors.

VERS. 1.-- In the first time, (HIER.) These two tribes were led into captivity by the Assyrians, etc., as far as it first saw the light of Christ preaching.

The land of Zabulon. (ID.) In which Christ first preached and wrought miracles: for there he turned water into wine, and chose the apostles.

The way of the sea. The sea in this place is the lake of Genezareth, which is made by the inflowing of the Jordan. Upon whose shore is Capharnaum, 1247DTiberias, Bethsaida and Corozain, in which the Lord chiefly abode; and so: The people that walked in darkness saw a great light.

Of the Galilee of the Gentiles. There are two Galilees: one of the Gentiles, near to the Tyrians in the tribe of Nephtali; the other about Tiberias and the pool of Genesareth, in the tribe of Zabulon.

VERS. 2.-- In the region of the shadow of death. (ID.) They are in the shadow of death who still live in sins: in the region of the shadow of death, they who have already gone down to the lower regions with dead works.

VERS. 3.-- Thou hast not magnified the joy. To us, concerning the salvation of the Jews; for although they rejoice over the conversion of the Gentiles, yet they grieve over the rejection of the Jews.

1248AThey shall rejoice before thee, etc. The prophet to Christ, concerning the disciples.

VERS. 4.-- For the yoke. (ID.) Christ has a yoke, but a sweet one; the devil also, but one unbearable by its burden. And Christ has the princedom upon his shoulder, upon which he bore the cross; and the devil upon his shoulder a rod, wherewith he is proud.

Of the exactor. Of him, namely, that exacts. For daily he exacts from posterity, with usury, the coin of sin which he committed to the first man.

VERS. 5.-- For every violent plundering. (ID.) As if he should say: The human race which the devil has plundered, the Lord shall take away from him violently, that is, powerfully, and shall thrust him down with tumult into hell. Whence both of him and of his members it is said: 1248BTheir memory hath perished with a noise (Psal. IX).

The garment mingled. (ID.) The devil, who is full of the blood of all, who is a murderer from the beginning; or men, with whom the devil is clothed about as with a garment, whose hands are full of blood.

VERS. 6.-- A child is born to us. Not to the Jews, to us, etc., as far as but to them that see not, he seems not to rise. [Vulg. Is 9:6 Parvulus enim natus est nobis, "For a little one is born to us"]

The princedom upon his shoulder. (ID.) While he was being led to the gibbet, he bore the cross, upon which he merited the princedom.

(ID.) The Seventy: The angel of great counsel. Which is not had in the Hebrew; but, terrified by the majesty of the names, they did not dare to say of the child that he was openly to be called God. Therefore for these six names 1248Cthey put this, the angel of great counsel.

VERS. 7.-- The zeal of the Lord. (ID.) The prophecy began from Emmanuel, where it is said: Ask thee a sign from God. Here it is ended.

VERS. 8.-- The Lord sent a word. (ID.) The Hebrew word (דבר) Dabar, etc., as far as they despise the Church, and think her simplicity to be unskilfulness.

VERS. 10.-- The bricks are fallen. (ID.) They said above, etc., as far as we will fortify the people out of strong and warlike princes.

The cedars. That is, we will set over them unconquerable princes out of ourselves.

1248DVERS. 1.-- Woe to them that make. (HIER.) Very many think that these things are still said against the ten tribes, etc., as far as when the day of the captivity, or of the judgment, shall have come.

VERS. 5.-- Woe to Assur. (ID.) Thus far against the ten and the two tribes, etc., as far as and he not only led captive, but in part destroyed.

VERS. 7.-- But he. (ID.) So the philosophers, so the heretics, and so the persecutors of the Christian name: when God permits some to be scourged by them, they rage against all, and desire not to scourge but to kill; and when a few are overcome they take boldness against all.

VERS. 9.-- Are not my princes together. The order is: Kings are my princes, that is, serving me: 1249Afor he brought many kings with him, whom he had subjugated.

Damascus. Damascus is the metropolis in Syria: Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, founded it; in it Rasin reigned.

VERS. 10.-- As my hand hath found. The voice of Sennacherib marvelling at his own power. He fulfilled fully the things he had said. For he plundered all the cities of the ten tribes, and of Juda and Benjamin, except Jerusalem, and the lower part of it, which Sobna the scribe delivered to him.

VERS. 12.-- When the Lord shall have accomplished. The overthrows, namely of the city, and also the siege, when Rabsaces came and did the things which are recounted in what follows.

1249BVERS. 14.-- That should yelp. To yelp belongs to foxes, or, as others say, to birds.

VERS. 16.-- And under his glory. Jerome says, according to the Hebrews, that the bodies of the slain Assyrians were burnt up by heavenly fire and reduced to dust, their garments unhurt; and that the Jews, coming and seizing the top of the garments, shook out the dust.

(HIER.) Some will have it that this king signifies the contrary fortitude, etc., as far as for the Hebrews hand down that only ten of his army remained.

VERS. 17.-- And there shall be a light. The Hebrews say that it was Michael the archangel, to whom the custody of that nation was committed, as Daniel says.

1249CVERS. 18.-- And the glory of his forest. Carmel is a great mountain, fruitful in trees. As it were an innumerable army (like the timber of the woods), it shall perish both in body and in soul.

Unto the flesh. (ID.) The heretics also, when the ecclesiastical doctrine has shone forth and their snare has been laid open, shall come to so great a solitude that, out of a forest and unfruitful trees and an innumerable multitude, scarcely a few shall be left who follow their error.

VERS. 20.-- And it shall be in that day. (HIER.) When Phacee and Rasin were minded to come, etc., as far as but let them put their hope in God.

VERS. 21.-- The remnant shall be converted. According to Josephus, an innumerable multitude of the Jews being slain, 1249Dwe understand that a few were saved in the apostles and in apostolic men.

VERS. 22.-- The consumption abridged. The perfecting of the things which had been foretold of Christ so long a time before, completed in three years and a half.

Justice, because, being unjustly slain, he justly overcame death and the devil, and redeemed the world by his death.

VERS. 23.-- For the consummation. (ID.) To the letter. He did it, because so great a multitude, except ten, he slew in the short space of one night.

VERS. 24.-- Upon thee in the way of Egypt. Of the captivity of the ten tribes, etc., as far as he took and overthrew.

VERS. 25.-- A very little and a moment. This was fulfilled a long time after; but all ages 1250Acompared to eternity (in which all things are present) are momentary.

VERS. 26.-- His rod into the sea. (ID.) As if: Before he come upon thee, he shall set upon Tharaca, king of Ethiopia, and shall cross the Red Sea, and shall lift up his rod over Egypt, and so with a great army shall return against Jerusalem. [Vulg. Is 10:26 virgam suam super mare, "his rod over the sea"]

VERS. 29.-- They have passed over in haste. Gaba the seat, etc. The past for the future, after the prophetic manner.

VERS. 31, 32.-- Be strengthened; it is yet day. (ID.) After Sennacherib had pitched his tents in Nobe, wishing to storm Jerusalem in the morning, he ceased not until the middle of the night to threaten the desolation of Jerusalem, saying: Behold, shall this city alone be able to be delivered out of my hand?

1250BVERS. 33.-- Behold the sovereign Lord of hosts, etc. He said the name of the child that was to be born of a virgin, etc., as far as and let Libanus with its cedars be cut down.

VERS. 1.-- And there shall come forth a rod. (HIER.) Up to the beginning of the vision of Babylon the prophecy is of Christ, which we expound by parts, lest we confound the memory of the reader.

Shall come forth. The Jews interpret the rod and the flower to be Christ himself, etc., as far as and thou art my firstborn Son, who reignest for ever.

VERS. 2.-- And shall rest. (ID.) Because in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead.

The Spirit. As the word of the Lord is called light, life and resurrection, etc., 1250Cas far as these are the seven eyes upon one stone, according to Zacharias.

VERS. 3.-- And the spirit shall fill him. (ID.) Spiritually, for the sake of the little ones who have need of fear, which perfect charity casts out. For he that fears has punishment, and is not perfect in charity.

Not according to. He shall not accept the person, because God is not an accepter of persons, but in every nation he that fears God is acceptable to him.

He shall reprove. (ID.) The Pharisees, and them that reproved the apostles apotolos, when, walking on the sabbath through the corn, they plucked the ears with their hands and rubbed them and ate.

VERS. 4.-- The rod of his mouth. (ID.) By the rod the sentence of judgment can be understood. For in the beginning of his preaching 1250Dhe said: Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven shall draw near; [Vulg. Mt 3:2 appropinquavit, "hath drawn near"] and he subjoined: Every tree that doth not bring forth good fruits shall be rooted up and cast into the fire. [Vulg. Mt 3:10 Omnis ergo arbor quae non facit fructum bonum, excidetur, "Every tree therefore that doth not bring forth good fruit shall be cut down"]

VERS. 5.-- He shall slay the wicked one. For if Michael shall slay him (as some say), yet God himself shall do this in Michael.

Faith. (HIER.) The faithful, by working well, shall cleave to him who was made wisdom, justice and sanctification, who says: I am light and life.

VERS. 6.-- The wolf with the lamb. (ID.) Paul with Peter, whence: Benjamin a ravening wolf. And: Feed my sheep. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb. It was not the lamb and the kid that dwelt with the wolf and the leopard, but the wolf and 1251Athe leopard imitate the innocence of the lambs and the kids, namely Christ.

The wolf shall dwell. (HIER.) Our judaizing Jews, etc., as far as nothing evil, save baseness.

(ID.) The calf and the sheep, the humble and the innocent, etc., as far as let the Church furnish this in the world.

VERS. 7.-- The lion as the ox, etc. (ID.) For the princes of this world, and other simple folk, are content with the surface of the history; for they do not understand the wheat and the marrow, that is, the inner sense.

VERS. 8.-- The infant. Christ, or the apostles, children in malice, perfect in understanding: who cast out demons from possessed bodies.

Of the basilisk. The basilisk, the king of all serpents, etc., as far as from possessed bodies, namely.

1251BThe hand. That is, the divine power: he shall deliver up captive the asp or the basilisk thereupon seized, that is, the devil.

VERS. 9.-- For it is filled. After his manner, at the end the prophetic words are laid open, lest they be taken to the letter.

VERS. 10.-- Who standeth for a sign, whence: Behold this child is set for the ruin and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted (Luc. II). The Seventy: Who shall rise up to be a prince, etc., as far as the same signifies a sepulchre. For a sleeping and a rest, with another word but the same sense, we have rendered sepulchre.

VERS. 11.-- The remnant. (ID.) The Apostle: The remnant shall be saved. For the histories relate that the apostles, 1251Cspread abroad through the whole world, preached the Gospel: and indeed they penetrated the Persians and the Indians, so that Ethiopia gave her hand to God.

VERS. 12.-- A sign. Of the cross, in which is the victory, that all may know in what the devil was overcome.

From the four quarters. (ID.) This seems to have been fulfilled at Pentecost, etc., as far as that the calling of the whole world might be shown.

VERS. 13.-- And it shall be taken away, etc. (ID.) When Isaias foretold this, between the two and the ten tribes there was an implacable discord; but they that believed were made peaceable in the faith of Christ and the unity of charity.

VERS. 14.-- The precept of the hand, etc. What they command, they do; and they teach both by word and by example.

VERS. 15.-- The tongue of the sea. (ID.) Which praised idols. 1251DThe sea, that is, the people of Egypt (which above all others worships idols), that it may praise and fear God, and condemn and cast away idols.

And he shall lift up. As Idumaea, and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall give their hands to the apostles, so also the Egyptians.

And he shall strike. That is, he shall lessen it by setting seven princes for one, etc., as far as that they might pass over dry-shod.

That they may pass through it, etc. Under a metaphor the Nile is said to be divided and cut into parts, etc., as far as the Lord preparing the way by the Gospel.

VERS. 1.-- I will give thanks to thee. (HIER.) As, the Red Sea being passed, 1252Athey said: Let us sing to the Lord, etc. So, the kingdom of the world being destroyed, the Church says: I will give thanks to thee.

VERS. 3.-- Out of the fountains of the Saviour. (ID.) Whence: Bless ye the Lord from the fountains of Israel, etc., as far as that the prophecy may agree with the Gospel.

VERS. 1.-- The burden of Babylon. (HIER.) Babylon, the metropolis of the Chaldeans, etc., as far as who says: All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me.

VERS. 7.-- They shall be dissolved, etc. Because no work worthy of the justice of God shall be found.

VERS. 8.-- Burnt. As it were coals, by excessive grief, or in very fact. For many were burnt. Burnt with fire. With the fire which they kindled for themselves, because they cannot say: 1252BThe light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us (Psal. IV), and: But we, beholding with open face the glory of the Lord (II Cor. III). [Vulg. 2 Cor 3:18 Nos vero omnes, revelata facie gloriam Domini speculantes, "But we all, with open face beholding the glory of the Lord"]

VERS. 10.-- The sun is darkened. These things can be referred to the day of judgment, when all the lights shall be seen to be darkened in comparison of the brightness of Christ.

VERS. 11.-- And I will visit the evils of the world. I will take vengeance that I may correct, etc., as far as: But my mercy shall not be taken away from them.

And to rest. As if he should say: This I will do, that he who is proud may be humbled.

VERS. 12.-- A man shall be more precious than gold, etc. (ID.) All rare things are precious, that is, a man of Babylon shall be found more rarely than gold. Likewise the word of the Lord is called precious, that is, they were rarely found. In the day of 1252Cjudgment also the Lord shall visit the evils of the world, and shall make the arrogance of the demons to be still, and few elect shall be found because of the persecution of Antichrist.

VERS. 13.-- I will trouble the heaven, etc. Not that they are animate, but because of the indignation of the Lord, who looks upon the earth and makes it tremble. Perhaps, the captivity being at hand, the heaven was moved by thundering and the earth by shaking. It can be read of the day of judgment.

VERS. 14.-- The fleeing doe. The doe is the devil, or perverse doctrine, whose masters are signified in the doe, which in Greek is called δορκὰς.

VERS. 17.-- Behold I will stir up, etc. We read in Genesis X that Madai also, the son of Noe, was the author of the Medes: who is interpreted measure, or from a powerful or a strong one. Therefore against the Babylonians, who are confounded in mind, 1252Dthere are stirred up by the powerful and strong God fortitudes for punishing, which shall render to every one according to his works.

VERS. 19.-- And Babylon shall be that city, etc. (ID.) It was not afterward rebuilt, etc., as far as to be devoured by wolves and dogs.

VERS. 21.-- Beasts, etc. By all these beasts that shun the light we understand the fortitudes of demons or of angels, to whom they are delivered up for punishment.

Ostriches. Of which there has been treatment enough in Job: which are not raised higher from the earth, although they seem to have wings.

Hairy ones. Wild shaggy men, who are also incubi, or satyrs, or kinds of demons.

1253AVERS. 22.-- Owls in the houses. Of the bigness of a raven, but sprinkled with spots, which with their beak set in the marsh make a horrid screeching.

Sirens. They are serpents crested and winged, like other sea-fishes, in the shape of a woman; or portents of the devil, which by sweet singing deceive men, the shipwreck of this world, as they pass by with ears not closed.

VERS. 1.-- Jacob. Note the propriety of the words. Jacob, who is still in the wrestling, he has mercy on: Israel, who received the name after the victory, he chose.

VERS. 4.-- How, etc. Marvelling how the waster of lands, etc., as far as but the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed.

The exactor. (HIER.) Who exacts to the last 1253Bfarthing from his debtors, who say that word: Forgive us our debts (Matth. V). To him shall the debtors be delivered; to him Paul delivered the fornicator of Corinth.

VERS. 5.-- The staff. He calls Nabuchodonosor, or the devil, because as through the one the impious are scourged by God, so through the other in the punishments of hell, or daily by suggesting sin, by lying in wait.

VERS. 8.-- The fir trees also. The princes of divers nations afflicted by him; or the sons whose fathers he slew.

Since thou hast slept. Because, the strong man being overcome and his vessels plundered, his satellites fell down; whence: Go into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matth. 1253CXXV). [Vulg. Mt 25:41 Discedite a me maledicti in ignem aeternum, "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire"] Note that the death of death is called a sleeping.

Who should cut down. Whence the psalm: The shadow of it covered the mountains, and its branches the cedars of God (Psal. LXXIX.) These, sinning at some time, the Lord delivers over to punishment to be bruised: whence it is said: The Lord shall crush the cedars of Libanus (Psal. XXVIII). [Vulg. Ps 28:5 confringet Dominus cedros Libani, "the Lord shall break in pieces the cedars of Libanus"]

VERS. 9.-- Hell. The inhabitants or the princes of that hell beneath thee. For hell is under the earth, in which that rich man was seen by Lazarus; whence the Lord drew out his own bound ones, and left the devil bound.

All the princes. Even though these things were not done, yet they could have been done. It is a solace of the wicked to have their enemies as companions of their punishments.

VERS. 10.-- Thou art wounded. Thou who didst seem immortal and God. We, by reason of the weakness of our senses, thought 1253Dthat it was not possible to resist the power of God, and that thou alone didst remain in thy height.

VERS. 11.-- Beneath. (ID.) Rottenness, the moth and the covering of worms, etc., as far as who said to Christ: All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me (Matth. IV).

VERS. 12.-- Who didst rise in the morning. (HIER.) These are the false apostles, etc., as far as and in the sides of the north, in the cold places.

VERS. 13.-- I will ascend into heaven. (ID.) He was in the firmament; he desired to ascend into heaven, where is the throne of the Lord. All these things are to be referred to the heretics, who, though they be below with their prince, boast themselves to be on high.

1254AIn the sides of the north. Whence: From the north evils break forth, and the pot of Jeremias is kindled. Of which: I will say to the north: Give up: that is, restore the captives.

Of the clouds. That is, of the prophets, of whom: I will command my clouds that they rain no rain upon it (Psal. XXXV). And thy truth even unto the clouds. Judas was a cloud with the other apostles, but by his own fault he received the devil for his rider.

VERS. 15.-- But yet thou shalt be drawn down to hell. Thou who couldst have ascended by virtues shalt fall by vices. The saints have the wings of a dove and of an eagle, that they may fly and rest: the wicked are sunk as lead in the mighty waters, and go down into the deep as quas a stone (Zach. V). Iniquity sits upon a talent of lead.

1254BThou shalt be drawn down. Christ unwilling; he came down willingly.

The deep. To the lowest and worst punishments. For the higher the step, the heavier the fall.

Of the pit. That is, of hell, etc., as far as but through lukewarmness and the pretence of faith they are rejected by the Lord.

VERS. 16.-- Is this the man. (ID.) Not God; whence: An enemy man hath oversown cockle (Matth. XIII).

VERS. 17.-- The cities. (ID.) The churches, that he might make them synagogues of the devil, and might pollute the cleanness of the faith with heretical perversity.

To his prisoners not. Whom the apostles loose, imitators of their master, etc., as far as but he shut them up in darkness, so that he did not open even to Evilmerodach his son.

VERS. 18.-- All the kings. (ID.) The kings of the nations, 1254Cetc., as far as nor does he rest in death from torments.

VERS. 19.-- But thou. He seems to agree with the fable, etc., as far as thy father shall live again.

As a carcass. (ID.) By the multitude of sins my sores are putrefied and corrupted (Psal. XXXVII). Virtue is of a sweet odour.

VERS. 20.-- Fellowship. Of burial, namely. For one is the punishment of the author, another of him who was compelled by the authority: This is the sword wherewith very many were wounded and slain.

For thou the land. As if: In thy pride the kingdom of the Chaldeans has been destroyed, which would still have remained, unless thy pride had not been.

1254DThe people. Which God had committed to thee to be corrected and ruled.

Thou hast slain. Not reserving the living for God, but preparing companions for thy own punishment.

He shall not be called. Therefore he shall not be called, for ever, etc., as far as all the offspring is destroyed, for the pride and impiety of the father.

VERS. 21.-- For the iniquity: (ID.) The Seventy: For the iniquity of thy father. Which some not understanding, the Hebrews will have the dragon, who reigns in the sea, whom they call Leviathan, to be the father of the devil; according to that: Because he is a liar and his father (Joan. VIII), which by understanding ill they deprave.

VERS. 23.-- And I will make. There is nothing in it but the royal 1255Ahunting, and it is shut in with brick walls repaired after very many years.

For a possession for the hedgehog. The world also is possessed now by the hedgehog and by marshes, that is, by unclean spirits; but at the end of the world the Lord shall sweep it, that is, shall purge it with the fire of purgatory.

VERS. 24.-- The Lord hath sworn. Thus far of Babylon and of the kings, etc., as far as and this in the land of Juda and in his mountains, as the Lord had foretold.

VERS. 25.-- In the mountains. Note the propriety, etc., as far as but also those who have advanced in virtues.

VERS. 26.-- This counsel, that is, let his yoke be taken away, etc., as far as to pertain generally to the whole world.

1255BVERS. 28.-- In the year in which he died. From the beginning of the book up to this place Isaias prophesied under Ozias, Joatham, Achaz; up to the end, under Ezechias, the things foretold and in part fulfilled.

Achaz. While he was living, reigning among sinners: neither the burden against the aliens, nor the word of God (according to the Septuagint) could come to the Prophet.

VERS. 29.-- Rejoice not. The king being dead, his enemies rejoice, as though they were to make some gain out of the new state of things: hence the Philistines, whom Achaz afflicted, rejoice at his death and insult the Jews, because, the ripened king being lost, they are subject to his son, in whose reign they think that they can invade their borders.

The rod of the striker. (HIER.) The yoke of God being cast off, etc., as far as and out of them flying serpents, or such as should swallow up 1255Cbirds.

VERS. 31.-- Howl. (ID.) As if: O Philistines, bewail your misery, which comes through Sennacherib.

Howl, O gate; cry, O city. The Philistines falling by a draught, etc., as far as a soul filled with evil thoughts.

For from the north a smoke. The arrows of the devil blazing up, who is hurtful to the eyes and contrary to the light. From the north the pot of Jeremias is kindled.

There is none that escapeth his troop. None but Jerusalem, etc., as far as and that Jerusalem alone is to be delivered.

VERS. 32.-- To the messengers of the nation. To the angels who are set over cities and nations: each one marvelling why Sion alone has avoided, or escaped, the bitterness of the smoke.

1255DHe hath founded Sion. Upon the foundation of prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, which are Christ.

VERS. 1.-- The burden of Moab. This is the vision of Isaiah had concerning the burden, that is, concerning the destruction of Moab. Moab, the son of Lot, whose offspring and province was called Moab: in it is Ar, which is now Ariopolis the metropolis.

The burden of Moab. (HIER.) There is a circumcision carnal and spiritual, etc., as far as Lot too, when Sodom was perishing, came into Segor, and the sun rose.

1256AAr, that is, adversary, etc., as far as afterward they were laid waste by the Chaldeans.

VERS. 2.-- The house is gone up. To the high places, in which it had been proud, that it might not sacrifice, but that it might bewail where it had sinned.

Dibon. (ID.) Their flowing: A lie passes and flows away, and never remains in the same state; but the word of the Lord is compact and stable. Whence manna is seen as it were ice: it does not flow, but stands firm.

Upon Nabo. (ID.) Because the sense of all this prophecy also is one, etc., as far as when their soul shall have howled to itself.

VERS. 3.-- Every howling. Another reading: Every one howls, Moab namely, and so it shall go down into weeping. 1256BAs if: It goes up to the high places, that it may weep before the idols. But when it found no help there, it went down to weeping into the land or into its own house.

VERS. 4.-- Hesebon shall cry out. From the beginning of the kingdom, which is in Hesebon, as far as Jasa the city, where it ends, everywhere clamor, everywhere mourning.

The ready men of Moab shall howl. Away from their wives, brave warriors. Hence Abraham is said to have chosen the home-born servants of his house ready, that is, without wives.

VERS. 5.-- My heart to Moab. That is, that I may provoke them to repentance, etc., as far as which is interpreted the lion of God.

Unto Segor. (ID.) Segor is one of the five cities of the Sodomites, etc., as far as if after the deliverance she had not sinned.

1256CVERS. 6.-- Nemrim. Nemrim is a town upon the sea, etc., as far as and therefore the grass shall wither.

VERS. 7.-- And their visitation. Visitation in evil: I will visit their iniquities with a rod (Psal. LXXXVIII); visitation in good: The Orient from on high hath visited us (Luc. I).

To the torrent of the willows. Thus far concerning the captivity of the Moabites by the Assyrians, now concerning that which was by the Chaldeans.

VERS. 8.-- Its howling. As if: therefore shall Moab howl, because where there was riot before, and delight by reason of the watered places and the pleasantness of the springs, there now are streams of blood.

VERS. 9.-- The water of Dibon. Dibon, silence; Dibon, weeping; and yet it is one city.

• 1256D

VERS.--1. Send forth the lamb. (HIER.) For this reason the prophets are scarcely understood, etc., as far as who may bear rule in the whole world.

The rock of the desert. (ID.) Ruth, namely, because according to the precept of the Lord, etc., as far as for as Christ came for either people, so he willed to be born of either.

To the mount of the daughter of Sion. Jerusalem, or rather the Church, which is in contemplation as it were the daughter of watching. In Jerusalem also he chiefly preached, wrought miracles, suffered, died, and rose again, and redeemed the human race.

VERS. 2.-- So shall they be. So shall they pass over into captivity 1257Aby Arnon: which is the boundary of the Moabites and of the Amorrhites.

(HIER.) Arnon (which is interpreted illumination) of those who, their errors forsaken, pass over to the knowledge of the truth.

VERS. 3.-- Take counsel. Do nothing without counsel, and be not carried about with every wind of doctrine; follow the angel of great counsel.

Gather counsel. [Vulg. Is 16:3 coge concilium, "call the assembly together"] Out of the straying, namely, and the erring, by making a Church.

Set as night. Thy tabernacle, namely, in which thou didst think to rest, etc., as far as that it may receive and hide with itself the fleeing people of God.

VERS. 4.-- My fugitives. Who have fled from me, who have gone out from the Church, who have followed their own sense, 1257Bnot the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

For the dust is at an end. He passes suddenly to the slaying of Sennacherib, who is dust and wretched, because his glory is as dust which the wind casts forth from the face of the earth, and he passed wretchedly from this light, slain by his own sons in the temple of his god.

VERS. 5.-- And he shall prepare. [Vulg. Is 16:5 Et praeparabitur, passive, "and a throne shall be prepared"] The Jews expound this of Ezechias, who, after the death of Sennacherib, reigned in peace. But they are better referred to Christ, and some things are referred to the first, some to the second advent.

VERS. 6.-- He shall sit upon it. Resting and judging, upon the hearts of the good.

We have heard the pride of Moab. After the manner of Scripture, because it had announced glad things, lest it should make them negligent, it terrifies 1257Cwith a threatening.

And the indignation. (ID.) Against God he set his mouth in heaven, disparaging the prophets. Adding that word of the Gospel: All who came to thee before me were thieves and robbers. [Vulg. Jo. 10:8 Omnes quotquot venerunt, fures sunt, et latrones, "All, as many as came, are thieves and robbers"] He calls Moses and David murderers, Josue a man of blood.

VERS. 7.-- He shall howl. One to another, that is, all the diversities of heretics and of philosophers shall bellow against one another in torments.

Upon the walls. Not built of squared stone, as they are the temple of God, in which the stones are so polished that neither hammer was heard, nor axe.

VERS. 8.-- The suburbs of Hesebon. All their thoughts (which is what Hesebon signifies) do not belong to the city of God; of which: The stream of the river maketh joyful the 1257Dcity of God (Psal. XLV); but they are suburbs, that they may be believed to belong to the city of the Lord.

Sabama. Lifting up height, etc., as far as the lords of the nations, therefore, the apostles and apostolic men, cut off the shoots of the vine of Sabama.

They wandered. Ranging over the whole land of Moab.

In the desert. That at last they might not have those whom they should slay.

The branches. He pursues the metaphor of the vine.

They passed over the sea. (ID.) That they might see the wonders of the Lord in the deep of temptations, delivered out of them.

VERS. 9.-- The vine: The vine of Moab, from the neighbourhood of the place, is such as Sodom.

Sabama. He who lifts himself up against the sentence of God.

1258AVERS. 10.-- From Carmel. Carmel is a mountain between Phoenicia and Palestine overhanging Ptolemais, in which Elias prayed. And it is often put for any fertility whatever; whence here also: Gladness and rejoicing shall be taken away from Carmel (III Reg. XVIII), that is, the fertility in which the Moabites rejoiced.

He shall rejoice. Because heretics boast that they have the knowledge of the spiritual circumcision.

The voice. Lest the poisons of the dragon be pressed out thence, and the drinkers be slain.

VERS. 11.-- My belly. The prophet, who as a harp, composed by the musician's art, and conceiving from the fear of God, begets many children, that every string may render its own sound.

And the bowels. As a harp does not 1258Bsend forth a composed sound, etc., as far as and James, to whom one is lacking, to him all are lacking.

VERS. 12.-- Her holy things. To the holy thing, namely, of the Church, which she shall endeavour to make her own, she shall not prevail: for we do not at once perfectly take hold of virtue.

She shall not prevail. In them, namely, they shall not find the help in which she hoped, and so it appeared, because she worshipped in vain.

VERS. 13.-- This word. In the preface, etc., as far as. For what had begun for thee, here is completed.

VERS. 14.-- In three years: as if he should say: As few clusters remain, etc., as far as but, his error forsaken, converted, for three years only he is left small and slight and inglorious.

Of a hireling. (ID.) False doctrine does all things for the sake of gain, 1258Cetc., as far as it is a lighter sin to sin openly than to feign sanctity.

VERS. 1.-- The burden of Damascus. Behold Damascus. (ID.) Damascus, the metropolis of Syria, etc., as far as but because they did not do penance they were led captive.

VERS. 2.-- Aroer for the flocks. The tamarisk, which is a fruitless tree, springing up in deserts and in rocky places, as if he should say: All the Syrians shall be fruitless and desolate. Others say that from this tree hatreds are stirred up by evil arts.

VERS. 3.-- And the kingdom. That sin may not reign in her who before loved blood.

The remnant of Syria. Ironically, for a disgrace, etc., 1258Das far as both therefore were led captive in disgrace.

VERS. 4.-- And it shall be in that day. (ID.) When Syria shall have been laid waste by the Assyrians, etc., as far as others were carried over into Cyrene, which is a region beyond Egypt.

It shall wither away. (ID.) They shall not have prophets, nor signs, nor powers, nor kingdom, nor priesthood; but the whole body of the nation shall wither.

VERS. 5.-- In the harvest. Of the nations it is said: The harvest indeed is great, the labourers, however, few (Matth. IX). But those poor men gather the leavings of the harvest, which have been saved by the apostles, and the very rare ears. Nor on the mountains, but in the valley of Raphaim, that is, in humility, in the truth of the letter. For Raphaim sounds giants.

VERS. 6.-- As the shaking. (ID.) When the people 1259Aof the Jews had been struck down, the olive tree, which under Moses had had six hundred thousand armed men, and under David, when Joab numbered them, a people beyond counting, offered scarcely a few fruits to the Saviour.

Of two or three. Of Paul and Barnabas. And of three, Peter, and James and John, who beheld the Lord transfigured on the mountain, and saw the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue raised up.

Or four. (HIER.) These are the remaining nine, among whom Matthias obtained the place of Judas the traitor. These, unknown to us by reason of the diversity of graces, were parted into four or into five, that they might show forth in themselves the number of the Gospels and the volumes of the law, as preachers of either Testament.

VERS. 7.-- In that day he shall bow down. As if he should say: 1259BThe Lord hungering, scarcely a few, etc., as far as as is read in Paralipomen., and they cast away the idols.

VERS. 9.-- In that day they shall be. When the Assyrians rushed in, and laid waste not only Damascus, but also the land of the ten tribes.

Ploughs. (ID.) Of the Amorrhites. This against the ten tribes, as if he should say: As of old, when the children of Israel came, the Amorrhites fled and left their ploughs, so now the ten tribes, when the Assyrians come.

VERS. 10.-- A faithful planting. A planting is faithful when one plants and tills, and gathers the fruit. The planting is unfaithful, and the seed a stranger's, when a stranger gathers: Every planting which my Father hath not planted shall be rooted up (Matth. XV). [Vulg. Mt 15:13 Pater meus caelestis, "my heavenly Father"]

A stranger's seed. Not receiving the Father, because thou dost not receive 1259Cthe Son; for he who believes in the Father, believes in the Son. A stranger's seed, of blasphemy against Christ.

VERS. 11.-- In the morning thy seed. (ID.) When, namely, the shoot shall have been seen, etc., as far as that all the saints are saved with the branches of the wild olive, the root.

VERS. 12.-- Woe to the multitude. Sennacherib and his army, etc., as far as desiring to crush and to seize upon all things.

VERS. 13.-- He shall be caught away. He was caught away from Jerusalem, when he fled with a few into Ninive. From the world he was caught away, when he was quickly slain by his own sons, as is plain.

VERS. 14.-- This is the portion of them that have laid waste. The prophet in the person of Israel, as if he should say: Thus is 1259DGod wont to bless our enemies.

VERS. 1.-- Woe to the land. (ID.) Because he had spoken of the rest of the persecutors of the Church, etc., as far as as though by straying he had done useless things.

Woe to the land of the cymbal of wings. [Vulg. Is 18:1 cymbalo alarum, ablative] He turns again to Egypt, and calls it, etc., as far as they took away from them the fear of the Lord.

VERS. 2.-- In vessels of papyrus, that is, in ships made of papyrus, etc., as far as it passes by and slips away.

VERS. 3.-- A nation waiting and trodden underfoot. For all heretics promise themselves great things, etc., as far as that is, they hear their doctrine.

1260AVERS. 4.-- A cloud of dew. Welcome to the wearied reapers, to whom it affords refreshment, and by moistening makes the dry stubble fit for cutting: so my word against Egypt shall be welcome to all that believe in me, and to the Assyrians the victory given them by me.

VERS. 5.-- Little branches. (ID.) Useless: whence: I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman: every branch in me not bearing fruit he will take it away, and every one that beareth fruit he will purge it.

VERS. 6.-- And all the beasts of the earth. Hyperbolically. For not all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon him. But he signifies both a slaughter beyond measure, and a very great multitude of beasts about to come upon them, for whom the corpses shall suffice for food in summer and in winter.

1260BVERS. 7.-- In the time. The Prophet returns to the people of Israel, and promises them good things, saying: In the time, as if he should say: When Egypt has been laid waste, Juda shall hope no more in its shadow; but he would offer to the Lord the gift of faith and of good works. Which was fulfilled in the seventieth year after the captivity, under Zorobabel and the other leaders.

VERS. 1.-- The burden of Egypt, etc. (ID.) It is to be known that many things which are here said belong to Egypt historically; but, both here and in other places, many things of the Scriptures are set down which cannot stand according to history, so that by the necessity of the matter we are compelled to seek a higher understanding.

Behold the Lord shall ascend, etc. (ID.) Egypt, darkness 1260Cor sorrow, etc., as far as and the hearts of the wise men of Egypt melted with dread.

The idols of Egypt. Idolatry, feeling itself broken, so that even the magi, taught by the demons, or, according to the prophecy of Balaam, understanding that the Son of God was born, who should destroy the magic art, came into Bethlehem and adored the Child.

VERS. 2.-- And I will make to run together. (ID.) Whence in the Gospel: I came not to send peace upon the earth, but the sword: for I came to separate a man from his father, etc., (Matth. X). [Vulg. Mt 10:35 adversus patrem suum, "against his father"]

VERS. 3.-- And it shall be broken asunder, etc. (ID.) The will of Egypt shall be divided into contrary things, so that they shall not be great in their own sense as before, but, sundered by the spiritual sword, shall know that their counsel has been cast headlong.

1260DVERS. 4.-- Of cruel lords. Egypt was delivered up to many lords. First to the Assyrians, afterward to Nabuchodonosor, thirdly to Alexander, at the last to the Romans, when Antony and Cleopatra were overcome by Augustus. The Chaldeans were the crueller, the Romans the mightier.

VERS. 5.-- And it shall be dried up. It is wont to happen, when captivity comes by the wrath of God, that pestilence follows upon his indignation, and that the elements rage against sinners. When therefore the captivity came by the Chaldeans or the Romans, perhaps both the Nile and the springs were dried up. Hyperbolically also, by reason of the exceeding tribulation, the rivers can be said to have failed, and the springs and the brooks to have gone dry.

VERS. 11.-- Foolish. When the Babylonian 1261Aor the Roman captivity came, all the counsels of the magi failed.

The princes of Thaneos. (HIER.) Of a lowly commandment; for all heretics teach a lowliness contrary to loftiness, and drag men down to the lower regions, and the princes are of a lowly commandment and cast down.

The son of the wise. Each one said these things to Pharao, etc., as far as and they boast that the great gods, Isis and Osiris and Typhon, were the founders of their nation.

Of ancient kings. As if he should say: I have the knowledge of the Scriptures together with worldly wisdom.

VERS. 14.-- Drunken and vomiting. (ID.) With the madness of dragons, that at last after the vomiting they may understand their drunkenness. For as long as they shall have been drunken, they shall have neither beginning nor end.

1261BVERS. 15.-- That refraineth. (HAYMO. in Isa.) In place of what Jerome ought to have rendered, etc., as far as others, out of wantonness, know not what they do.

VERS. 16.-- Women. Whom Egypt loves, whom alone Pharao wills to live, the men being slain. The devil kills the virtues, and preserves the vices.

VERS. 17.-- The land of Juda to Egypt. The knowledge of the Scriptures, the law and the prophets; the Gospels shall be to Egypt for a festival when she shall have known herself, or for a terror when she shall have understood that she held lies.

For a dread. Others, for a festival, etc., as far as by promising them help.

VERS. 18.-- Five cities. Some understand the five books of Moses, etc., as far as because they are changed from vices to virtues.

1261CThe tongue of Chanaan. [Vulg. Is 19:18 lingua Chanaan, the bare place-name; Migne prints an adjectival form] It is asked why not the Hebrew tongue, etc., as far as and those who delight in an unclean touch.

VERS. 19.-- In that day. (ID.) Onias the priest, not understanding this, etc., as far as and that they have kept their own tongue until this day.

And a title. The title of the Lord is the evangelical and apostolic doctrine, which is unto the ends of the earth, whence: Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth (Psal. XVIII). Or the title beside the boundary of faith is good work, which ought to be extended as far as faith also, or the imitation of the passion of Christ.

VERS. 20.-- For they shall cry out. When the evangelical doctrine shall have grown, and persecution shall have pressed in, then they that have believed shall cry out to God the Father.

1261DVERS. 23.-- In that day. Before the coming of the Lord, the several nations, etc., as far as who run to and fro from kingdom to kingdom.

And the Egyptians shall serve. Not that they were afterward subjugated, etc., as far as of the same condition with them.

In that day it shall be. (ID.) He shall not be vexed in the midst by the Assyrians and the Egyptians in turn, but he shall be a third with them, serving, namely, the Romans.

VERS. 25.-- Blessed. These regions had abounded above all other monarchies, and therefore they deserved to be blessed.

VERS. 1.-- In the year. (ID.) These are Assyrian 1262Anames, etc., as far as he overcomes those who are in bondage to generation and to lust.

In the year. Azotus, the mightiest city of the Philistines out of the five, etc., as far as which the Lord spoke through him.

When he had sent. Beautifully is the king of the Assyrians called Sargon, that is, prince of gardens, to whom Achab is like: who desired to turn the vineyard of Naboth into a garden; which he, understanding it tropologically, chose rather to die than to do, lest the paternal inheritance and the ancient possession should be turned into the delights of an impious king.

VERS. 2.-- Go and loose. The prophet is commanded that, his sackcloth and his shoes laid aside, etc., as far as for there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed.

And he did so. A wondrous obedience: a man most noble was clothed 1262Bin sackcloth alone, as the Hebrews hand down. Whose daughter King Manasses took in marriage; he did not blush to walk naked, judging nothing more honourable than to obey the Lord.

VERS. 3.-- Unshod. (ID.) It is to be noted that before Azotus is taken, etc., as far as to which it hastens, either to stand or to walk.

VERS. 4.-- To the disgrace. Because they could not eat the pasch of the Lord, which he ate with his loins girded, holding a staff in his hand, with shoes on his feet, lest, passing through the wilderness of this world, he be bitten by serpents.

VERS. 6.-- Was this then. [Vulg. Is 20:6 Ecce haec erat spes nostra, "Behold, this was our hope"] The providence of God is to be marvelled at, etc., as far as in the end it shall perish utterly, when the kingdom of Christ shall have shone forth.

• 1262C

VERS. 1.-- The burden of the desert of the sea. Of Babylon, called a sea for the multitude of its people.

It cometh from the desert. In which the Lord was tempted, in which the Israelites were struck by serpents.

VERS. 2.-- He that is unbelieving. A general sentence, as though it were the fault of individuals that they are overwhelmed in the storm.

Go up, Aelam. The LXX: The Aelamites and the legates of the Persians. Aelamites, despisers. Go up, as if he should say: O Persians and Medes, fear not, mount your horses, besiege Babylon. Go up. Trusting in the strength of God, he speaks boldly against his adversaries.

All the mourning. Whereby it made thee and other nations to mourn; 1262Dor, that none may now mourn, pressed by the power of Babylon; or, that it may be afflicted with so great evils that it dare not mourn against thee.

VERS. 5.-- Prepare the table. As if he should say: O Persians and Medes, take food, etc., as far as wherein ye may quench the fiery darts of the devil.

Behold, etc. What may fall upon him after the table; or, behold, O Balthasar, what he has written on the wall: Mane, Tethel, Phares. [Vulg. Dn 5:25 Mane, Thecel, Phares]

VERS. 6.-- A watchman. Those who watch are called prophets.

VERS. 7.-- A rider. Cyrus the prince was ruling over the Medes and the Persians, etc., as far as the letter, namely, and the spirit, refer to the two Testaments.

1263AVERS. 8.-- A lion. The same is a lion for the strength of his mind, who is a watchman by the prerogative of contemplation.

Upon the watchtower of the Lord. That is, set by day in contemplation, ready by days and by nights to hear and to speak the things which he shall have commanded.

Standing all the nights. That I may keep myself from all sin, that I may be worthy to hear the word of the Lord.

VERS. 9.-- Behold this man cometh. What follows, he signifies that he has seen, namely that the Saviour comes, sitting upon a two-horse chariot, and joining two animals, that is, an ass and a camel, to one chariot.

It is fallen, it is fallen. When Cyrus and Darius were laying Babylon waste, the idols also were broken in pieces, the temple of Bel being overthrown and burned with fire.

VERS. 10.-- My threshing. As if he should say: O people, 1263Bwho art to be stored up in my barns, whom I have threshed with divers straits, that I might beat out the chaff and gather the pure wheat into the barns, the things which I have heard from the Lord, from the God of Israel, etc.

VERS. 11.-- The burden of Duma. The LXX: Of Idumaea, etc., as far as the burden of Duma crieth to me.

He crieth to me. (HIER.) God, namely, my keeper, etc., as far as he speaks thereafter to the nations: If ye seek me, seek more earnestly (Joan. IX). [Vulg. Is 21:12 si quaeritis, quaerite, "if you seek, seek"]

VERS. 12.-- The morning cometh, etc. As if: to my people I will give the light of gladness, etc., as far as by working, and so I will hear you.

VERS. 13.-- The burden in Arabia. The Arabs are the Saracens, etc., as far as thence God addresses the fleeing Jews thus:

1263CIn the thicket at evening. O ye Jews, who shall flee the Babylonian siege in the thicket, that is, ye shall sleep in the woods of the Saracens, fleeing the Chaldeans in the paths of Dodanim, which is interpreted among the near of kin or the kindred, that is, in the way which leads to your kinsmen the Saracens. [Vulg. Is 21:13 in semitis Dedanim]

Evening. (ID.) Which is the beginning of night. He who begins to sin is in the evening; he who has come to the height is in the middle of the night. In the middle of the night the firstborn of Egypt are slain. Peter denies; when the light is now near, he repents.

In the paths. (ID.) Because evening is the beginning of evils, etc., as far as when he rebelled against his father.

VERS. 14.-- Meeting him that is thirsty, bring. This can be said against those who have given themselves over to idleness and sloth and are content with their own salvation, and reach out no hand to the penitent and the converted.

1263DBring water to him that is thirsty. To your brethren, wearied with the burning of the sun and with thirst, bring water, lest they perish in the wilderness.

VERS. 16.-- Yet in one, etc. As if he should say: Because ye have not had mercy upon them, ye shall soon endure the misery of captivity. A year after the captivity of the Jews and the overthrow of Jerusalem, these also were laid waste.

As in the year of a hireling: (ID.) which is: As a hireling his year, etc., as far as and shall have eaten the heavenly bread.

VERS. 1.-- The burden of the valley. Jerusalem, once the mistress of the nations, etc., as far as who have fallen from the lofty sense of the Scriptures to the lowest things.

1264AThe valley of vision. The LXX: Sion, that is, of the watchtower, namely of the Church.

What aileth thee also. As if he should say: Since philosophy and worldly wisdom, disputing of lofty things, despises the simplicity of the Church, why dost thou also follow after high things?

VERS. 2.-- Full. The doctrine of the heretics is full of much talking and of clamor.

Thy slain. (HIER.) Of the valley, namely of Sion, by their own will, that is, they went over to the heretics. In comparison with those who have been conquered after a battle, they are more unhappily wounded who give themselves up of their own accord: as in martyrdom, he who denies after torments is more lightly punished than he who denies Christ without compulsion.

VERS. 3.-- All the princes, etc. As is read in Jeremias, 1264BSedechias by night through a hole in the wall, etc., as far as and they were led into Babylon.

They fled. In flight of one mind, whose prince is the fleeing dragon, the crooked serpent.

VERS. 5.-- And of weepings. (ID.) The LXX: Of error. Not that weeping and error are from the Lord, but from the occasion of the Scriptures which he gave them to read there arises an occasion of error, and they can say: Why hast thou made us to err from thy way? (Isa. LXIII.) [Vulg. Is 63:17 Quare errare nos fecisti, Domine, de viis tuis, "Why hast thou made us to err, O Lord, from thy ways?"]

VERS. 6.-- Elam. A city in the province of Persia, in which are the best archers: Elam took the quiver. Elam, their ascent, that is, the pride of the heretics, took the quiver, that he may shoot in the dark at the upright of heart. [Vulg. Ps 10:3 ut sagittent, plural, "that they may shoot"]

The wall. He stripped bare the bulwarks of the Church with his shield, that is, by his assault.

1264CVERS. 8.-- The covering. The temple, which before was covered and shut against the nations and the polluted.

The armoury. Beside the temple was a house which David built for the storing of arms, about which were many trees; whence it is called the house of the forest. It too was not of stone, but of wood: for from the moisture of the mortar and of the stones (as they say) iron rusts.

VERS. 9.-- And you gathered together. The land of promise, although most rich, etc., as far as the lower, which could be taken by the enemy, the upper, which could not.

VERS. 11.-- And a pool. (ID.) Not a well which has living and eternal water, but broken pools which cannot hold water.

Between two walls. That is, both the New and the Old 1264DTestament: they made for themselves new waters, which they think are more inward and contain greater mysteries than the Old Testament.

VERS. 12.-- And the Lord God of hosts shall call. Daily the Lord provokes the heretics to repentance, etc., as far as but, making light of it and despairing, they said: Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die (Jerem. XXXIV).

VERS. 14.-- Ye shall die. (ID.) To your vices, or ye shall go down with them to the lower regions, etc., as far as the things which are here said do not belong to the captivity made in the time of Ezechias.

VERS. 15.-- Sobna. (HIER.) Turn thee now, etc., as far as whence the Lord threatens him with these evils

1265AVERS. 16.-- What dost thou here? As if he should say: Why dost thou wish to build thee a house? etc., as far as than which it is to be called a sepulchre and a memorial.

VERS. 18.-- Crowning he will crown thee. Thou, namely, who once hadst the crown of the pontiff, and the sanctification in a plate of gold (in which the name of God was written), shalt be crowned with tribulation and anguish.

With tribulation. In place of the golden plate in which the name of the Lord was written, which the priest bore on his forehead once in the year.

As a ball. As a sphere cannot stand in a sloping and spacious place, so thy people shall be scattered to the ends of the world.

VERS. 20.-- My servant Eliacim. By Sobna the proud, etc., as far as the son of Helcias, that is, of the father 1265Bof the Lord.

VERS. 22.-- The key. By the key which he bears upon his shoulder, the sceptre of the kingdom and the sign of victory, that is, the cross we can understand, which Christ himself bore upon his own shoulder.

The house of David. He calls the house of David the house of the Lord, in which was the golden key.

And he shall open. Whence: He that openeth and no man shutteth, shutteth and no man openeth. What he unlocked in his passion cannot be shut; what he shut in the ceremonies, no man shall open.

VERS. 24.-- And I will hang upon. [Vulg. Is 22:24 Et suspendent super eum, "And they shall hang upon him"] Whence in the Gospel: All the people hung upon him. [Vulg. Lc 19:48 omnis populus suspensus erat, audiens illum, "all the people was in suspense, hearing him"] To-day also they hang upon the word of his wisdom.

VERS. 25.-- The peg shall be taken away. The things which are said, etc., 1265Cas far as the Jews shall be converted to the faith.

VERS. 1.-- The burden of Tyre. Tyre, the most noble city of the Chananites, etc., as far as this misery Isaias foretells: The burden of Tyre, etc.

Howl ye. In the Greek more openly: Howl, ye ships of Carthage: ye, namely, who were wont to come to Tyre for the sake of trading. Carthage was a colony to the Tyrians, built and tilled by them.

Ships of the sea. In Hebrew Tharsis, that is, the exploring of joy or contemplation, because the contemplation of joy and of gladness shall be turned into tears.

VERS. 3.-- Trading. (HIER.) Traders, etc., as far as and they pass over from other vices to others.

The seed of the Nile, the harvest of the river, the fruits, etc. It is so construed: 1265Dthe seed of the river Nile was her harvest and her fruits, namely Tyre's. The land of the Chananites, in which Tyre is, is unfruitful: Egypt, which the Nile waters, is fruitful in fruits, which Tyre used to exchange with the Egyptians.

VERS. 4.-- The sea. Of the world, namely, in which are small living things with the great; the dragon (whom the Lord formed to make sport of him), seeing those taken by the hunters of Christ who had been taken by the demons, says to the strength contrary to the hunters (which Sidon signifies): Blush, O Sidon.

I have not been in labour. As if he should say: It has profited nothing to have been in labour, to have brought forth and nourished up young men, because Tyre was taken without defence.

VERS. 5.-- When it shall have been heard in Egypt, etc. 1266AThis is understood both of all the vices and of the heresies, because when one is taken another is greatly afraid, and in the confusion of the one the other feels that it is to be taken.

VERS. 6.-- Pass over, howl, ye that dwell. As has been said above, when they could not resist Nabuchodonosor, those hastened who were able to go on board the ships: the rest remained in the city.

VERS. 7.-- Is not this your city, which gloried from the days of old in its antiquity, etc. As if he should say: This I therefore command, because your city Tyre, its old error laid aside, shall pass over to the truth.

VERS. 8.-- Her princes, her traffickers, the nobles of the earth, etc. (ID.) Among other traders, or even in kingdoms.

VERS. 9.-- That he might bring down to disgrace, etc. The Lord is not the author of disgrace, but he shows what 1266Bis disgraceful, according to that word: He shall defile him with defilement, not that the priest is the author of the defilement, but that he shows him defiled whom many thought clean.

VERS. 10.-- The river. Of the Babylonians. Upon the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, while we remembered Sion (Psal. CXXXVI).

No girdle any more for thee. The strength of resisting, for with a girdle we bind up the loins: in the loins we are said to have strength.

VERS. 11.-- He hath troubled the kingdoms. Namely of the Egyptians and of the Moabites, and of the others round about. For when Tyre had been taken and overthrown, the other kingdoms were troubled with fear. The kingdom of Egypt also was given to Nabuchodonosor in place of Tyre overthrown.

1266CVERS. 12.-- The daughter of Sidon. (ID.) In the land of Chanaan are Tyre and Sidon; whence: The Chananite woman went out of the borders of Tyre and Sidon, meeting the Saviour (Matth. XV).

Pass over. Often we see certain men pass over from their own purpose to another, from soldiering to trading: from lawsuits to arms they change their industry, that they may change their ill fortune. But, by God's dispensation, all things fall out contrary, that, constrained by miseries, they may trust not in themselves, but in the Lord the Creator.

VERS. 13.-- There was no such people. Until the death of Nabuchodonosor the Chaldeans and the Assyrians were the mightiest above all; afterward the people of the Greeks and of the Romans was mightier.

They dug through. When Nabuchodonosor invaded Tyre 1266Dwith a fleet, he overthrew not only the wall, but the houses also; and what was the trafficking of the cities became for seventy years the drying of nets.

VERS. 14.-- Ships of the sea, etc. In Hebrew Tharsis, etc., as far as the churchman destroys and subjects it to himself.

VERS. 15.-- Seventy years. (HIER.) Tyre, once straitened, etc., as far as who then may not have hope of salvation, if he shall have sung well, if he shall have well composed the strings, that is, the virtues?

(ID.) The seventh and the seventieth, which is completed either by single days or by seven decades, signifies perfect penance, so that, the time of penance being fulfilled, Tyre is by right restored to her ancient state.

1267AThe song of a harlot. Who, forsaken by her lovers, is wont to compose songs for her consolation, and to call to mind things past; so also Tyre, returned.

VERS. 16.-- Take thee a harp. [Vulg. Is 23:16 Sume citharam, without tibi] The things which follow concerning this burden look to the return of Tyre.

Sing well, often, etc. [Vulg. Is 23:16 frequenta canticum, "repeat the song"] He admonishes her always to sing the song of her miseries, lest she suffer the same again. For they say that this is the nature of music: if it find a man glad, it makes him gladder; if sad, it renders him sadder.

VERS. 18.-- And her trafficking shall be, and her hire. As Jerome says on Jeremias, etc., as far as they sacrificed their hire to the Lord.

VERS. 1.-- Behold the Lord shall make naked, etc. (HIER.) 1267BAfter the particular rebuke of the several nations, etc., as far as he passes over from the Egyptians and many others to the general burden of the last judgment.

VERS. 2.-- It shall be. (ID.) All alike shall either be rewarded for their good deeds or damned for their evil ones. There shall be no difference between the noble and the base-born, the priest and the layman, the servant and the lord, etc. For all shall stand on equal terms before the tribunal of Christ; nor shall there be any respect of persons with God.

So the priest. A good people with a good priest shall receive the crown of life; the wicked together shall bear the torments of hell without respect of person.

The earth. (ID.) Earthly works shall be brought to nothing, so that, the image of the earthly man being abolished, the image of the heavenly may remain. For flesh and blood shall 1267Cnot possess the kingdom of God, because this mortal shall put on immortality.

VERS. 6.-- A curse shall devour the earth. As in the beginning God blessed every creature, so in the end he curses those who are earthly; and not sojourners, but dwellers in the earth: those also who sin in it, forgetful of their condition, raging against one another. And few shall remain, who have the image of the heavenly.

VERS. 7.-- The vintage hath mourned, the vine hath been made weak. (ID.) At the consummation, the remembrance of the world's past delights shall be matter of torment; whence the rich man clothed in purple, who had received good things in his lifetime, lifting up his eyes out of hell, beholds Lazarus at rest (Luc. XIX); whence: Woe to you that are filled, for you shall hunger (Luc. VI).

All have groaned who shall rejoice, [Vulg. Is 24:7 qui laetabantur corde, "who rejoiced in heart"] etc. This testimony 1267Dwe press upon those who at banquets riot not only in gluttony and drunkenness, but in the ears, so that through all the senses the strength of the soul is softened.

VERS. 10.-- The city of vanity is broken down. The world, in which all things are vain, vanity of vanities and all is vanity.

VERS. 11.-- There shall be a crying over wine. By wine, error; for drunken men go astray. By the streets (which in Greek are named from breadth) we understand the spacious and broad way which leads to death. Over these, then, who have gone astray in the broad and spacious way of this world, there shall be a cry of grief in the day of judgment.

VERS. 13.-- In the midst of the earth. Jerusalem, which is (as they say) the navel of the earth. And many suppose that the Lord, being about to judge upon Mount Sion, 1268Afrom which he ascended, shall sit in the air, shall come in a cloud.

As if a few olives, etc. Few being left, when persecution shall have devoured the earth, etc., as far as the clusters also being gathered, scarcely a few remain on the empty vines.

VERS. 14.-- And they shall praise: when the Lord shall have been glorified. (ID.) They shall praise who shall be able to remain and to flee the oppression of Antichrist, or the burning of the hell that hangs over them.

They shall neigh. By the likeness of horses, showing forth the greatness of their gladness.

VERS. 16.-- From the ends of the earth we have heard praises, the glory of the just one. In Hebrew, the wings of the earth. Now the wings or the ends of the earth are the prophets and the apostles, who fly from earthly things to heavenly, and bound the manner of living by certain ends of precepts. The saints therefore say: 1268BAs from the prophets and the apostles we have heard, so now do we see it fulfilled.

My secret to myself. (ID.) He can neither fully declare the rewards of the good, nor the punishments of the wicked, which he foresees in the spirit; and thence he grieves, saying: Woe is me.

VERS. 17.-- Fear and the pit. These things may be referred both to the times of the martyrs, etc., as far as so also shall it be in the time of Antichrist.

VERS. 18.-- They are opened, etc. That God may see the iniquities of Antichrist and judge them. For while he does not punish sins, he makes as though he did not see them.

The foundations of the earth. The princes of the world, earthly works.

VERS. 19.-- With breaking shall it be broken. Not that the earth is reduced to dust, or to nothing, but because all earthly things shall pass away. And as a drunken man knows not 1268Cwhat he does, so all who dwell in the earth shall be drunk with the greatness of their evils and shall be astonished at all things.

VERS. 20.-- A tent of one night. (ID.) Which is carried off by the traveller, so that no trace remains, so shall the figure of this world pass away (I Cor. VII), and the earth shall be deserted so that there be no dwelling of men in it any more.

VERS. 21.-- And it shall be, etc. As if he should say: The windows of heaven are opened, so that, the Lord looking upon the sins of the earth, every figure of earthly works may pass away and fall, and not rise again in its former stature. The Lord therefore shall visit in that day upon the host of heaven, that he may judge not only earthly things, but heavenly.

Upon the host. (ID.) My sword is inebriated in heaven. The stars are not clean in his sight. And in his angels he found depravity (Isa. XXXIV, Job. XV, IV). [Vulg. Job 15:15 caeli non sunt mundi, "the heavens are not clean"]

1268DThe kings of the earth. (HIER.) The rulers of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Ephes. VI); whence in Daniel: The prince of the kingdom of the Persians went out to meet me, and the prince of the kingdom of the Medes (Dan. X) [Vulg. Dan. 10 has neither this sentence nor any prince of the kingdom of the Medes; 10:13 sets princeps regni Persarum and 10:20 princeps Graecorum]

VERS. 22.-- And they shall be gathered together. (ID.) Origen says that, after this sentence: Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire (Matth. XXV), after many days, that is after a thousand years, they are to be visited and set free. But the Church does not receive this. For it has been said: The wicked shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting (Matth. XIII). [Vulg. Matt. 25:46 Et ibunt hi, "and these shall go"] Now what is everlasting lacks all end, and as the joy is everlasting, so also is the punishment.

One bundle into the pit. [Vulg. Is 24:22 unius fascis, "of one bundle"] Whence: Bind them in bundles to burn.

1269AAnd after many. It is to be noted that he does not add: by the Lord or by the angels, etc., as far as which has been left to the Lord's judgment.

VERS. 23.-- And it shall blush. Whence the creature groaneth and travaileth, etc., as far as such as was Abraham, dead in a good old age.

VERS. 1.-- Amen. (HIER.) A Hebrew word, which the Lord often uses in the Gospel: Amen, amen, that is, truly, truly, I say to you.

VERS. 2.-- A city. Overthrown by Nabuchodonosor, it was restored by Nehemias and by Jesus the high priest. Overthrown by the Romans, it was restored by Aelius Hadrian; but not in the same place, nor to its former state.

And for ever. (ID.) That the fable of the thousand years' reign 1269Band of the golden and jewelled Jerusalem may rest.

VERS. 10.-- And Moab shall be threshed, etc. (ID.) Although he was speaking generally of the consummation of the world, etc., as far as by Moab therefore we rightly understand the devil, always the adversary of the sons of God.

Straw in a wain. Straw is threshed by iron-shod wains, that the beasts may the more easily both feed upon it and chew the cud.

VERS. 1.-- In that day, etc. (ID.) This may be referred both to the present Church and to the day of judgment. Now the Church sings a new song: the nativity of Christ, his passion, his resurrection, his ascension. For it is old that the old man should go down to the lower regions; new, that he should ascend to heaven.

The city of strength. The voice of the just, both now and in the 1269Ctime to come.

VERS. 2.-- Open ye the gates. This song suddenly changes the persons.

The gates. Of justice; whence: Open to me the gates of justice. The gates of life and of justice, etc., as far as and through many gates to him who says: No man cometh to the Father but by me (Joan. XIV).

VERS. 3.-- Peace. (ID.) The repetition is a confirmation. He has this of whom it is said: Man, man of the children of Israel (Ezech. XIV); [Vulg. Ezech. 14:4 Homo, homo de domo Israel, "man, man of the house of Israel"] and elsewhere: A man, a man whose wife shall have defiled the bed (Num. V), [Vulg. Num. 5:12 Vir cujus uxor erraverit, "a man whose wife shall have gone astray," without the doubled Vir] that a twofold man and a twofold husband may obtain a twofold peace.

VERS. 6.-- The foot shall tread it down, etc. Because Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled (Luc. I). We may refer these things also to the contrary powers.

1269DOf the needy. (HIER.) Of the apostles, whom the Jews drove out of their borders, who, imitating the poverty of the Lord, obtained the privilege of his virtue.

VERS. 9.-- My soul hath desired, etc. Not the flesh; whence: My soul hath thirsted after God, the living fountain (Psal. XLI). [Vulg. Ps 41:3 ad Deum fortem, vivum, "after God, the strong, the living"] The flesh lusteth against the spirit (Gal. V).

VERS. 10.-- Let us have mercy. (ID.) The Lord to the prophet: Shall we have mercy on the wicked man, so that he may learn, namely my clemency, while he himself is saved? as if to say, this is better.

And the just man shall not learn, etc. As if he should say: How shall he be able to know thy justice, having experienced thy clemency?

And he shall not see. The Lord to the prophet, as though it were better 1270Athat he should see, and blush for his own evils. And he shall not see, as if he should say: it suffices for his punishment, that he shall not see me reigning in heaven with my saints. The Septuagint: The wicked man shall be taken away, that he may not see the brightness of God.

VERS. 11.-- Let them be confounded that are envious. The Septuagint: Zeal shall lay hold on the untaught people.

VERS. 12.-- Lord, thou wilt give. (ID.) It is to be noted that after he has rendered our works to us, he is also about to give peace, and that they therefore ask for peace because he has wrought in them. They say that they, namely, have borne torments, that afterwards they may obtain mercy.

VERS. 13.-- Lord, they have possessed. (ID.) The demons, whom we worshipped in idols. The Septuagint: Lord, apart from thee we know no other, not absolutely another, but apart from thee: for the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father.

1270BOnly in thee let us remember. (ID.) We ask nothing else, save that after our errors we may be worthy to remember thy name.

Thou hast destroyed all. (ID.) The Septuagint: Their male, etc., as far as he interpreted the memory to be the male, against that word: Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

VERS. 15.-- Hast thou. He did not do penance, and this is: Hast thou, etc., as if he should say: Security begets negligence, negligence contempt.

VERS. 18.-- And we have brought forth. Others punctuate thus: And we have brought forth the spirit, we have not wrought salvation in the earth. [Vulg. Is 26:18 Salutes non fecimus, plural, "we have not wrought deliverances"]

Spirit: salvation, etc. That we may believe with the whole mind, and that we may learn through torments through him by whom we have not felt benefits.

VERS. 21.-- The earth shall disclose. (ID.) Then earthly men 1270Cshall not be able to hide those whom they killed, because then all things are open; or, the earth which received the blood of the martyrs and covered it, shall then be disclosed when they rise again.

VERS. 1.-- In that day, etc. (ID.) The Hebrews hand down that the devil, etc., as far as that the sword may be brought upon him.

The bar. (HIER.) The Septuagint: The fugitive. For then he shall flee, etc., as far as but the serpent, because he pours in his snares softly.

The whale. The Hebrews, Tanniu; whence the Hebrews used to tell in fables that Leviathan dwelt under the earth and in the air, but Tanniu in the sea.

VERS. 2.-- The vineyard of pure wine shall sing. To which Jeremias offers a cup of the purest wine. Merum in Greek, purum in Latin.

1270DVERS. 5.-- Or rather? The voice of the Father deliberating, etc., as far as who are not saved by the authority of the law.

VERS. 6.-- Israel, that is the people of the Jews converted, seeing that the world has flourished by the teaching of their sons.

VERS. 9.-- Therefore. As if he should say: Therefore shall the iniquity be forgiven to the house of Jacob: and the rest, on account, namely, of the merits of the apostles, who throughout the world broke to pieces the altars of the idols.

VERS. 11.-- They shall be broken. (ID.) As Delbora went to war and judged the people to the shame of the Jews; and when the captivity of the Chaldeans was at hand, Olda prophesied while the men were silent: so, when the captivity of the Romans was at hand, women perhaps came and taught them.

1271AWomen. The diverse Synagogues; or plainly women, who with bared breasts strike their bleeding arms.

Teaching her. (HIER.) It is a great unhappiness for a people, and a reproach, to learn songs of lamentation from women.

VERS. 12.-- From the channel. The Septuagint: from the Euphrates, etc., as far as because it has turbid waters, and not perpetual.

VERS. 1.-- Woe to the crown of pride. (ID.) Up to this point unto the consummation of the world, etc., as far as nor had he the fruit of penance unto salvation.

Of the most fat valley. Gethsemani, by its fruitfulness of produce; through it lay their ascent into the city, and there some pitched tents, for sport's sake, while they tarried in the city.

1271BVERS. 5.-- In that day. (ID.) According to the prophecy, when the Lord, etc., as far as for the Scribes and Pharisees were drunk with wine and strong drink.

VERS. 6.-- Strength to them that return. (ID.) The wars of Ezechias are not read of, but the Lord waged war for him, a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrians being slain, whose spoils the Jews gathered: and they returned with joy to the gates of Jerusalem.

VERS. 8.-- For all. While they do not digest the food of the Scriptures, nor make it life-giving to the body, but cast it out unripe and stinking, so that the Lord finds no place in them.

VERS. 9.-- Them that are weaned from the milk, that are drawn away. Not others, because they cannot bear it. For these are they who are now able to use solid food; to others the Apostle says: I gave you 1271Cmilk to drink, not meat (I Cor. III).

VERS. 10.-- For command, command again, command, command again; expect, expect again, expect, expect again, a little there, a little there. (ID.) As if he should say: You cannot be taught, because, mocking the prophets (through whom the Lord foretells to you the evils that are to come upon you, that you may do penance and be delivered), you object, command, command again; as if to say: O Prophet, enjoin what thou wilt, threaten what thou wilt; yet these things which thou threatenest do not come to pass.

VERS. 11.-- For in the speech. As if he should say: You say these things to your own hurt, because the Lord shall no longer foretell evils to you, but shall bring them at once. And this is: For in the speech of the lip and with another tongue they shall speak to this people, [Vulg. Is 28:11 loquetur, singular, "shall he speak"] etc.

1271DVERS. 16.-- A stone. The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.

VERS. 19.-- Vexation alone shall give understanding to the hearing.

VERS. 21.-- For as. David, coming upon the Philistines gathered together by the help of the Lord, divided the living from the dead and scattered the perverse places; whence that place received the name Baalphrasim.

A strange work. (ID.) The proper work of God is to have mercy, to spare, to pardon. Not his own, but strange, is it to be angry, to punish.

(GREG.) He shall come into the world, that he may do his own work, namely that he may redeem the human race; but that work of his is alien to him: for it does not befit the Godhead to be spat upon, to be scourged, to be crucified.

VERS. 24.-- Shall all the day. (HIER.) God, kind and merciful, 1272Aploughs the human race like a husbandman with the ploughshare of preaching, that it may bring forth the fruit of good work; he breaks it up with the lash of tribulation, and corrects it now with pestilence, now with captivity; and this is: Shall all the day, etc.

VERS. 25.-- Gith and cummin. Gith and cummin, which are beaten out with a rod, etc., as far as having the key of knowledge.

VERS. 29.-- And this hath come forth from the Lord God. [Vulg. Is 28:29 a Domino Deo exercituum exivit, "from the Lord God of hosts"]

VERS. 1.-- Woe to Ariel. (ID.) To Jerusalem, with the affection of one that suffers with her: If thou also hadst known (Luc. XIX); Ariel, the lion of God; for Jerusalem, the lion of God, was most powerful and most strong.

He took by storm. (ID.) Since she was most powerful, the blind and the lame resisting, when Joab first climbed the heights 1272Bof the roofs.

A year is added. When they were in captivity under Nabuchodonosor, they had neither temple nor sacrifice, and this for many years: and this is, a year added to a year.

VERS. 3.-- As a ball round about thee. Retaining the ancient likeness of the temple, not its magnificence.

VERS. 4.-- Of the python, etc. (ID.) The pythoness who was at Endor raised up Samuel by necromancy, nay rather a demon: and she foretold things to come of this kind among that people. Mania, madness, whence the Manichees; manthos, divination.

VERS. 6.-- In thunder. The Romans were seen to rush in with thunder, and the earth to be moved at their coming, and 1272Cwith the flame of fire, because they burned both the city and the temple.

VERS. 9.-- Be astonished and wonder. (HIER.) After the overthrow of Jerusalem and of the temple, that is of Ariel, the prophecy is directed against the Scribes and Pharisees.

VERS. 11.-- For it is sealed. These things were fulfilled when they lost both their dignity and their priesthood, and the city was destroyed and the temple, by the princes of the Romans.

VERS. 13.-- Forasmuch as this people draw near. (ID.) The Lord uses it in the Gospel of Matthew, etc., as far as having used his own words.

With their lips. (ID.) The Septuagint. With their lips they honour me, but their heart is far from me: and in vain do they worship me, teaching the precepts of men and doctrines.

1272DVERS. 14.-- For shall perish. (ID.) From this place the Apostle takes a testimony: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will reject: [Vulg. 1 Cor. 1:19 prudentiam prudentium reprobabo, "the prudence of the prudent I will reject"] the same sense in other words: Truly God wrought a great miracle among the people, that at one and the same time the city should burn, and the temple fall down, and all the knowledge of the masters perish.

VERS. 15.-- That you may hide from the Lord. (ID.) As though God did not see. By this error Adam and Eve hid themselves: Cain also said: From thy face I shall be hidden.

VERS. 16.-- Perverse is, etc. (ID.) That the Creator should be ignorant of the creature; whence the Apostle: O man, who art thou that repliest to God? doth the thing formed say to its maker: Why hast thou made me? (Rom. IX.) [Vulg. Rom. 9:20 figmentum ei qui se finxit: Quid me fecisti sic?, "to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus?"]

1273AVERS. 17.-- In a little and a short while. (HIER.) A little and short is the time from when this was foretold up to the ascension of the Lord: for all times, compared with eternity, are short and of a moment.

Libanus into Carmel. Libanus, a mountain in Phoenicia, etc., as far as if she were with an adulterous husband.

VERS. 21.-- And they have turned aside in vain from the just man. The demons attempted, etc., as far as the Scribes and Pharisees turned aside in vain from the just man, saying: We have no king but Caesar (Joan. XIX).

VERS. 22.-- He redeemed Abraham. From the fire of the Chaldeans, etc., as far as for in their tongue fire is called ur.

VERS. 1.-- Woe, ye apostate children, saith the Lord. 1273B(ID.) After the prophecy against Ariel and the rest, etc., as far as they fled into Egypt: and this is: woe, ye apostate children.

VERS. 2.-- Who walk. As Jerome says: Jeremias went with them, etc., as far as: that you might dwell in your own land.

For they were in Thaphnis. As if he should say: Have you therefore withdrawn from me, that you might flee as far as Thaphnis and Anes? Thaphnis is a city in which the magicians wrought signs against Moses; Anes is situated in the borders of Egypt: perhaps, troubled with fear, they did not dare to remain in Thaphnis, and fled as far as Anes.

VERS. 6.-- The burden of the beasts of burden. (ID.) After the ten burdens of the various nations, he sets down an eleventh burden, of the two remaining tribes, which were left 1273Cwhen Sedecias and the other princes had been led into Babylon.

In the land. (ID.) The desert through which the pontiff Joanna the son of Chareas and the other leaders led the remnant into Egypt against the precept of the Lord; or, Egypt itself, in which they endured many tribulations and straits.

VERS. 8.-- Now therefore. (ID.) The Lord to Jeremias, or to Isaias according to the Hebrews, etc., as far as because I did them good, I taught them well, and they despised it.

VERS. 12.-- Because you have rejected the word. (ID.) Heretics also and every teaching contrary to the truth, etc., as far as and at least to offer muddy and scanty water to the thirsty.

VERS. 13.-- As a breach falling. As if to say: As a breach in a very high wall which has drawn a long 1273Druin can hardly be repaired and receive its former beauty, so shall a sudden destruction come upon you.

VERS. 19.-- Weeping he shall in no wise weep. [Vulg. Is 30:19 plorabis, second person, "weeping thou shalt not weep"] (ID.) The Jews refer this to that time when under Zorobabel, etc., as far as in the watchtower, namely, and the vision of peace, that is the Church.

VERS. 21.-- Behind the back. In the first condition, as it were in the face, Adam heard from the Lord, etc., as far as and this is: Thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing behind the back.

Nor to the right hand. On either side, whatever is beyond measure is in fault. Nor to the right hand, etc., is one to turn aside, but one must walk by the public road, that is the royal one, which does not deceive.

VERS. 22.-- And thou shalt defile the plates. (ID.) The idols, 1274Anamely, which the craftsman's tongue shall have fashioned after the likeness of truth, thou shalt break to pieces in the splendour of eloquence (which silver signifies) and in the reason of wisdom (which gold signifies), and shalt scatter them, and shalt judge them unclean.

VERS. 23.-- And rain shall be given. (ID.) In the volume of Kings it is written, etc., as far as for unless they have cast off vices, the virtues do not enter in.

He shall feed. Some contend that these things were fulfilled hyperbolically in Judaea in the times of Cyrus, who released the captivity of the people.

VERS. 24.-- Mingled provender. Isaac sowed barley, etc., as far and as through the chaff and the barley they advance little by little, and pass over to the wheat.

VERS. 25.-- And there shall be. In the day of judgment upon the mountains 1274Band the hills there shall be streams, etc., as far as for he that shall drink of its waters shall not thirst for ever.

Of the slaying of many. (ID.) For many are called, etc., as far as whose tongues were confounded in Babylon, and upon whom the tower in Siloe fell.

VERS. 26.-- And there shall be light. When they shall receive the reward of their labour, because the creature shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption. It is no wonder if the moon receive the brightness of the sun: Because the just shall shine as the sun (Matth. XIII).

VERS. 27.-- Behold the name of the Lord. The Son in the name of the Father, for the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is one: whence: Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: not in the names, but in the name which is God.

VERS. 28.-- His spirit as a torrent overflowing. 1274C(HIER.) As an overflowing torrent, when it has come up to the neck, chokes a living creature, so the spirit of the wrath of God shall choke the wicked in the judgment. Signifying that the end of all things has come, as a torrent chokes him to whose neck it has come; so the judgment of God shall pass over no man unpunished.

Which was in the jaws. That they might be carried about at the will of the devil, these things the Lord shall destroy in the day of judgment, or in the preaching of the apostles when the nations shall have come to the faith, and shall leave their idols.

VERS. 29.-- You shall have a song. After the punishment of the wicked he treats of the glory of the saints. As the children of Israel, when the Red Sea had been crossed, when they had seen Pharao and the Egyptians drowned, said with gladness: Let us sing to the Lord, for gloriously, etc.; so in the day of judgment, 1274Dwhen the world has been passed over and the devil condemned with his members, the saints shall exult with gladness in the praises of God; in the same manner also in the conversion of the nations.

As one that goeth. It was commanded the children of Israel that they should offer to the Lord the tenth of their goods, glorifying the Giver of good things: so the saints in the judgment shall offer their sheaves, exulting and praising God, and the converted nations likewise.

VERS. 33.-- Of brimstone. In hell there is an intolerable stench and an inextinguishable fire.

VERS. 1.-- Woe to them that go down into Egypt. (ID.) He has treated of the glory of the good and of the punishment of the reprobate; now he returns to the remnant which was left 1275Ain the land of Juda, when Sedecias and the others had been led into Babylon. But first he warned them not to go into Egypt: now, because they have gone, he threatens evil.

They have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel. They sought not with the heart, but with words; for they said to Jeremias: Pray for us to the Lord, what we ought to do? and they refused to obey. To which is like: They have not called upon God. Which was said of wicked priests.

VERS. 2.-- But he that is wise. Whence Jeremias: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, etc., as far as the place where the Lord was crucified is specially called Sodom and Egypt (Apoc. XI).

VERS. 4.-- For thus saith. (HIER.) This of those who, led into captivity with Sedecias, after seventy years, by the Lord's mercy, returned, when the Israelites and the Egyptians had been slain in 1275BEgypt, in whose help they trusted.

VERS. 5.-- So shall the Lord protect. Thus did the Lord against the Samaritans, who attempted to hinder the building of the temple. And in the time of the Machabees he routed many by a few.

VERS. 6.-- Turn ye again. In prophecy he keeps neither the order of time nor of history, etc., as far as so with the whole affection of the mind they might return.

VERS. 9.-- Fire is in Sion. Sion, the Church, in which is a fire and a furnace to devour sinners, that is, to consume wood, hay and stubble.

VERS. 1.-- Behold, in justice shall he reign. (HIER.) The prophecy concerning those who had gone down into Egypt being finished, he begins 1275Cconcerning the coming of Christ and of his apostles.

VERS. 2.-- And a man shall be as. (ID.) As if he should say: He shall be as safe in tribulations as one who, fleeing the wind and the whirlwind, hides himself in a safe place; and who finds the purest springs in the desert; who avoids the heat of the sun by an overhanging rock.

VERS. 9.-- Women. (ID.) He addresses the matrons who are to be taken captive by the Romans, that they may do penance; or, by the women he marks the Synagogues, or the cities of Judaea. Rise up, ye rich women: After the calling of the nations, over whom Christ has ruled in justice, the discourse is directed to the rich women.

VERS. 10.-- After days and a year. Whence: Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation (II Cor. VI); and elsewhere: The acceptable year of the Lord (Isa. LXI).

1275DAfter days. That is, the preaching of Christ. For those who were impenitent, although not straightway led captive, yet were straightway troubled, because they refused to receive the preaching of the Lord.

VERS. 12.-- Mourn upon the breasts. Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. [Vulg. Is 32:12 continues super regione desiderabili, super vinea fertili; the words Migne sets here are Luke 23:28]

VERS. 14.-- Of the wild asses. (ID.) Of any wild beasts and birds whatsoever, which dwelt there for a long time.

VERS. 15.-- Until there be poured out. Let the Holy Spirit, at the preaching of Elias and Enoch, come down upon us, as In Pentecost upon the apostles. And the prophet joins himself to them by suffering with them.

1276AThe desert. The solitude, namely, of the nations shall be turned into the riches of Israel, and Israel shall be reputed among the nations.

VERS. 17.-- And the service of justice. That we may pray in silence, not in the streets, not crying out, not in much speaking.

VERS. 18.-- In tabernacles. (ID.) Already he dwells confidently in the mansions of heaven, whence: In my Father's house there are many mansions (Joan. XIV); or, in the Churches which hope trustingly in the Lord.

VERS. 19.-- Hail, as if he should say: When the Christian people shall have sat in the beauty of peace, then the wrath of God shall rage against the wood.

VERS. 20.-- Blessed are you that sow. (ID.) In the exposition of Ecclesiastes. That master is held worthy of blessedness who sows upon the watered breast of his hearers, 1276Bthe people being gathered together both from the Jews and from the nations.

VERS. 1.-- Woe to thee that spoilest. (ID.) Against Sennacherib: these things may also be referred to any plunderer and to the devil himself.

VERS. 2.-- O Lord, have mercy on us. (ID.) In the person of the people besieged by Sennacherib, or rather, of the apostles and of all the faithful.

In the morning. Those who were left of the army of Sennacherib; they saw their companions dead and were turned to flight.

VERS. 3.-- Of the angel. Of Michael, namely, who is the prince of the Jews, or of Gabriel, the strength and leader of battles.

VERS. 4.-- The bruchus. From the locust the bruchus is born, etc., as far as the dead also beget bruchi.

1276CVERS. 6.-- In thy times. O Ezechias; or, in his times, according to others, namely of the people set free.

His. (HIER.) Of salvation, namely: for without fear neither wisdom nor knowledge profits anything, whence: Thou shalt have many good things if thou fear God (Tob. IV); [Vulg. Tob. 4:23 multa bona habebimus si timuerimus Deum, first person plural, "we shall have many good things if we fear God"] and: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psal. CX).

VERS. 8.-- The covenant. Which the Lord made with Abraham, namely: I will multiply thy seed as the stars, etc. (Gen. XXII); [Vulg. Gen. 22:17 sicut stellas caeli, accusative, "as the stars of heaven"] and elsewhere: Thou shalt dwell in this place from henceforth and for ever (Zach. XI).

VERS. 9.-- Libanus. The temple: Basan, the country of Og, which Moses gave beyond the Jordan to the two tribes and a half: this also most fruitful. Carmel, a mountain of the land of promise, most fertile. By these things therefore we ought to understand that the Jews have lost all fruitfulness.

1276DVERS. 14.-- Which of you shall be able. He recounts the mighty works of God and calls God a fire.

VERS. 17.-- The land. Of the living. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land, or, being placed in heaven, they despise earthly things.

VERS. 20.-- A tabernacle that. (ID.) The tabernacle which the Jews had through the desert, etc., as far as but the Church is founded immovable upon the firm rock.

VERS. 22.-- For the Lord. (ID.) He shall judge the world in justice. [Vulg. Ps 95:13 judicabit orbem terrae in aequitate, "shall judge the world in equity"]

VERS. 23.-- Thy tacklings are loosed, etc. He returns to the earthly Jerusalem, and speaks of her under the figure of a ship: the things above were said of the city of our solemnity 1277Awhich the Lord surrounds with his rivers.

VERS. 4.-- All the host of the heavens. (HIER.) The sun, and the moon, and the stars shall seem to be darkened, when the true light, which is Christ, grows bright. The evil spirits also, their power lost, shall be shut up in hell.

And they shall be folded together as a book. Not the inner one, namely, etc., as far as for nothing shall afterwards be written in them.

VERS. 6.-- In Bosra. (ID.) In the city of the world fortified against God. For Bosra means fortified, or from God; for the world is made firm by the will of the Lord; whence: He hath founded it upon the seas: and: I have established the pillars thereof. Bosra and Edom the masters of the Hebrews will have to be understood as Rome, and will have all things to be said of her which are contained in the following chapter.

1277BVERS. 8.-- For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of retribution. [Vulg. Is 34:8 annus retributionum judicii Sion, "the year of the recompenses of the judgment of Sion"] After the general vengeance upon the world, he returns to Jerusalem, to whom he was speaking first, and describes her destruction in plain speech, which was wrought by the Romans.

VERS. 11.-- The ibis. A water-bird hostile to serpents: Josephus says that these birds were carried by Moses into the war against the Ethiopians; because serpents abound in that land through which he was to go.

VERS. 12.-- Her nobles. For the apostles had already passed over to the nations: other faithful, by the admonition of the Holy Spirit, when the captivity was at hand, passed over the Jordan into the kingdom of Agrippa, who had peace with the Romans.

1277CVERS. 1.-- Shall rejoice. The captivity of the Jews having been set forth, he treats of the conversion of the nations.

VERS. 2.-- Saron. Of the people of the Jews; whence: Saron shall be as a desert (Isa. XXXII). [Vulg. Is 33:9 factus est Saron sicut desertum, past tense, "Saron is become as a desert"]

VERS. 7.-- The greenness of the reed. The fulfilling of Scripture, which is signified by the reed; and the help of the intention, which by the rush: for the reed and the rush spring up and grow green beside the waters.

VERS. 1.-- And it came to pass. (HIER.) The books of Kings and of Paralipomenon agree, etc., as far as he besieged Jerusalem.

VERS. 3.-- Sobna. (ID.) Sobna the scribe, another man, not the proud one, who, as the Hebrews hand down, terrified by the threatening of Rabsaces, delivered up the lower part of the city, 1277Dthe citadel and the temple remaining.

VERS. 4.-- Thus saith. As perhaps he had heard from his father, thus saith the Lord: and that his words might have greater weight, he marks the arrogance: Thus saith the great king, as it were the contrary power.

VERS. 6.-- Behold thou trustest. (ID.) He lies plainly. For nowhere is it read that Ezechias put his hope in Egypt.

VERS. 8.-- Neither wilt thou be able. Not from weakness, but from the keeping of the precepts of the Lord, who through Moses commanded concerning the king of Israel, saying: Thou shalt not multiply to thyself horses, and chariots, nor many wives. [Vulg. Deut. 17:16–17 non multiplicabit sibi equos… Non habebit uxores plurimas, third person, and with no mention of chariots]

VERS. 16.-- Make a blessing with me, etc. Praise me, bless me. Or as another 1278Aedition has it: Do what is useful for you, that you may receive me and peace may remain with you.

VERS. 1.-- And it came to pass, when king Ezechias had heard it, he rent his garments. (ID.) They rend their garments, because they had heard Rabsaces blaspheming. The king rent them, believing that this had come about from his own sins and the people's.

VERS. 2.-- Isaias the son of Amos. In the book of Kings it is read, who sent to Isaias the prophet. But here, because Isaias is weaving the history about himself, he names himself not the prophet, but the son of the prophet.

VERS. 4.-- For the remnant. For the ten tribes had already been led away, the cities of Juda and Benjamin laid waste: the lower part of the city also delivered into the hands of the enemy by the wicked and proud pontiff Sobna. Lift up thine eyes, etc.

1278BVERS. 7.-- Behold I will give him a spirit, etc. As if he should say: I will not tell all the things that I shall do to the Assyrian, lest I seem to boast of my own power, but this one thing: Behold I will give.

VERS. 8.-- And he found. That Sennacherib king of the Assyrians fought against the Egyptians, etc., as far as the writers of Chaldean history.

VERS. 15.-- He prayed. (HIER.) Now more secure of deliverance. For before he went up, but he is not read to have prayed, because for his own sins he feared that these things would come to pass.

VERS. 18.-- For truly, O Lord: it is proved by many histories that the kings of the Persians came into Greece, and overthrew and spoiled the temples.

VERS. 21.-- And he sent. The history of the book of Kings and of Paralipomenon is mingled with the prophecy, because there is 1278Ca prophecy concerning the deliverance of the city, concerning the destruction of the Assyrian, concerning the turning back of the sun, and concerning the years added to Ezechias.

VERS. 22.-- The daughter of Jerusalem. She who before had not answered, is now sure of the vengeance, secure of the punishment.

VERS. 25.-- And I have dried up. So great was the army that they dried up the streams, and therefore made wells by the scarcity of water.

VERS. 29.-- Pride. (ID.) I will bear it no longer, that thou mayest know that thou couldst not do these things by thy own strength, but by my will. For the wicked nations and the unfruitful trees deserved to be cut down by thee, as by an axe.

VERS. 30.-- But to thee. (ID.) All these things the Prophet speaks to Ezechias by messengers, what Sennacherib said, what the Lord answered him: now he turns his words to him himself, lest he doubt of the things to come which he 1278Dforetold. For in this above all were the prophets believed, because they testified not only of things far off to come, but of things to be fulfilled close at hand.

And in the year. That is, when the harvest was at hand, the Assyrians rushed in, and laid waste the harvests, and the vineyards, and the olive groves: and because of the length of the siege, what was found from the grains they had for food in the first year and the second; for since in the year of the siege they could not sow, they took what they found from the fruits and the crops.

VERS. 33.-- Therefore. (ID.) He returns to his purpose, and after the hope of things to come he shakes off the present fear. For the gladness over those things which he was promising as future will not be so great as the care over the things at hand

VERS. 35.-- For my own sake. He signifies that they are preserved not by 1279Atheir own merit, but by God's clemency, nay rather by the memory of David their father. Wherein they are admonished of their own negligence, and of his faith and justice, which God so loves that he protects the posterity of the saints for the merit of the saints.

VERS. 37.-- And he returned. Therefore he was spared, that he might know the power of God and check the blaspheming mouths, and might proclaim the majesty of him whom before he had despised.

VERS. 38.-- His sons. Envying (according to the tradition of the Jews) Asaraddon, etc., as far as spared by his sons to be slain in the temple of his own god.

Ararat. (HIER.) A level region of Armenia, through which flows the Araxes, of incredible fruitfulness, at the foot of Mount Taurus, which stretches as far as there. But the ark of Noe was not carried to the mountains of Armenia generally, 1279Bwhich is called Ararat, but to the highest mountains of Taurus, which overhang the plains of Ararat.

VERS. 1.-- In those days he was sick. (HIER.) Because he did not render worthy thanks to God for the victory, but vanished away in pride, as the book of Kings and of Paralipomenon discloses; whence: Whom God loves, he chastises, lest he be lifted up into pride after incredible triumphs.

Thou shalt die. To which is like: Ninive shall be overthrown: and many things foretold under a threat, and not fulfilled; God not changing his sentence, but provoking us to the knowledge of himself. For the Lord is patient over wickedness.

VERS. 2.-- To the wall. (ID.) Of the temple, namely, beside which Solomon built his palace.

VERS. 3.-- I beseech thee, O Lord. Being about to go to the Lord, 1279Che recounts his works. Happy the conscience which in the time of evils can remember good things.

I beseech thee, O Lord. Hearing that he was to die, he does not ask for many years, but leaves it to God's judgment what he may be pleased to grant: he knew that Solomon had pleased God, because he had not asked for a greater number of years of life.

And what is good. He destroyed the idols of his father, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord which the other had shut, he broke to pieces the brazen serpent which the Jews worshipped in Gabaon, and scattered it to the wind.

And he wept. He wept because he was dying without children, etc., as far as and that we read of very many raised up after death.

VERS. 4.-- And the word of the Lord came. In a reversed order the history is here related, which in the volume of Kings 1279Dis read in better sequence.

VERS. 5.-- Behold I will add to thy days. According to what was seen, etc., as far as and concerning the years added to Ezechias.

VERS. 7.-- And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord, that the Lord hath done this word which he hath spoken. [Vulg. Is 38:7 faciet, future, "that the Lord will do"] (ID.) Of the present time, namely, and of the future, that as the sun turns back to its own beginning, so the life of Ezechias may return to the years that have run out. To us also, living in the seventh and the eighth age, may the spaces of life be prolonged after the resurrection of Christ.

VERS. 10.-- I said. (ID.) When God had given Ezechias the victory without toil, etc., as far as sinners die in the midst of their days.

In the midst of my days. Whence: Wicked and deceitful men shall not 1280Alive out half their days, because they do not fulfil the works of the virtues, nor amend their faults by doing penance.

To the gates of hell. I sought. Where the house appointed for every living man was set before the coming of Christ.

VERS. 11.-- Of quiet. Some copies have: My generation is at rest, which Jerome also once translated, deceived by the ambiguity of the word, and afterwards corrected.

VERS. 15.-- He shall answer me. (ID.) What I have done amiss I shall amend, be thou my surety and protector: For it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy (Rom. IX).

When he himself. These things justly to me, as if he should say: nothing remains but patiently to endure and to entreat him who is strong, who did what he willed.

1280BI will think over. What is past does not help him that endures; whence the saying of Epicurus is foolish, who asserts that present evils are lessened by the remembrance of past goods.

In the bitterness of the soul, as if he should say: and these too in bitterness, because a present tribulation feels nothing of past good, and human happiness is always sprinkled with some adversities.

VERS. 18.-- For hell shall not confess. The damned without end neither do penance in hell, nor render praises to God.

VERS. 19.-- The living, the living, etc. Not hell nor death velmors.

The father to the children. Whence: ask thy father, and he will declare, etc.

VERS. 21.-- Upon his wound. The Hebrews say 1280Cthat Sehin (שחין) sounds an ulcer, not a wound, etc., as far as when God shall have made it.

VERS. 1.-- At that time. (HIER.) It has been said above that Asaraddon succeeded Sennacherib, etc., as far as and, his manly strength being lost, he is reduced to a womanish softness.

VERS. 2.-- And in all his power. (ID.) In the treasures of the house of the Lord, in which he chiefly offended. For this was not of his power. Yet already he had taken the plates of gold from those doors of the temple.

In his treasures. He is silent about the treasures of the Lord, fearing to be blamed, because, namely, he showed them whatsoever he had in his power, that is, the furniture of the temple; 1280Dwhence:

VERS. 7.-- And they shall be eunuchs. (ID.) The Hebrews hand down that this was fulfilled in Daniel and his companions, who, when Joachim the son of Josue had been taken, were taken with their people and led into Babylon and made eunuchs, or emasculated; yet it is not to be thought that they were eunuchs in body, but in mind, like those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven (Matth. XIX).

VERS. 8.-- Let there be peace only. He ought to have confessed his sin with David, and turned away the wrath of God from his posterity, or to have suffered with Moses, who says: Forgive them this trespass, or blot me out of the book which thou hast written (Exod. XXXII). Because he did not do this, therefore he does not answer him; but, turning to the people, he says: Be comforted, etc.

• 1281A

VERS. 1.-- Be comforted. As if he should say: Because your king has no compassion upon you, be comforted in Christ. It can be referred to the Gentiles, of whom the Lord says through Zechariah: I will gather together the people of the east, and they shall be to me for a people, and I will be to them for a God (Zach. VIII) [Vulg. Zach. 8:7 has salvabo populum meum de terra orientis, "I will save my people out of the land of the east"].

Speak ye to the heart. (HIER.) He speaks to the heart who comforts one that is sorrowful, as it is said of Sichem: Sichem spoke to her heart, and comforted her (Gen. XXIV) [Vulg. Gen. 34:3 tristemque delinivit blanditiis, "and soothed her sadness with flatteries"; the quoted words stand nowhere in the Vulgate].

Jerusalem. Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and by the Romans, in body and in soul; the Church tormented in body by persecutors, straitened in mind.

Her malice. Malice is affliction, as in that place: If there is evil in a city which the Lord does not do (Amos. III).

It is forgiven. The cause of consolation, the remission of sins, 1281Betc., as far as because they are purged and loosed by punishments.

VERS. 3.-- The voice of one crying. (ID.) Mindful of this voice, the Jews sent to John to ask him: Who art thou?

VERS. 4.-- Every valley shall be exalted. He that exalts himself shall be humbled, and he that humbles himself, etc. This the masters cry even to this day in the desert of the Churches of the Gentiles.

VERS. 5.-- And all flesh shall see. From the first coming, caught up suddenly to the second, he says: And all flesh shall see.

The mouth of the Lord. The prophets who preached the Christ to come, namely the salvation of our God.

VERS. 6.-- What shall I cry? (ID.) Not without cause does he ask: for when he had offered himself of his own accord, saying: Behold 1281CI, send me: he announced hard things to his own people, and now he fears the same.

All flesh. He who bears the image of the earthly, etc., as far as so man, through the successions of his ages, loses his comeliness and falls into death.

VERS. 8.-- But the word of the Lord. The Word is Christ with his body, which is the Church.

VERS. 9.-- Sion. (ID.) By Sion and Jerusalem he understands the apostles and the other teachers, whom he admonishes to preach the things they have received from the Lord, and, ascending the summits of the virtues, to teach by word and by example.

VERS. 11.-- His flock, etc. Now by contemplation, in the time to come by vision itself: now by teaching, afterward by saving or by satisfying.

Them that are with young. Teachers daily bringing forth sons to God.

1281DVERS. 12.-- Who has measured? (ID.) Lest there be any doubt about the calling of the Gentiles, the greatness of him who calls is described.

With his fist. A pugillus is the fist with the fingers drawn in; a palmus is the hand stretched out from the thumb to the least finger, so that by the palm and by the fist we may know the heavens stretched out and the globe of the earth.

VERS. 13.-- The spirit of the Lord upon me, in that he has anointed me: to preach to the meek he has sent me: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. [Vulg. Is. 61:1 names the agent, eo quod unxerit Dominus me, "because the Lord hath anointed me"; the closing clause is Is. 11:2]

VERS. 15.-- As a little dust. (ID.) The Hebrews think that by this word the finest dust is meant, etc., as far as and the poverty both of the Greek and of the Latin tongue.

VERS. 16.-- Libanus shall not suffice. Libanus is a very great mountain, 1282Amost rich in pastures and in trees; but although all its trees be cut down for the burning, and all its beasts be sacrificed for a holocaust, yet for filling or for appeasing the power of his majesty they do not suffice.

VERS. 19.-- Surely not. He refutes the folly of the Gentiles, that they may withdraw from idolatry.

VERS. 20.-- Strong wood. (ID.) In Hebrew mesuchan (מסכן), because it is a kind of wood that cannot rot, of which idols are chiefly made: and he says this so that, the idols being rejected, the teaching of the Gospel may be received and the glory of the Lord revealed, that all flesh may see the salvation of God.

VERS. 21.-- From the beginning. Of the law of Moses, or from the beginning of the world in the very creatures, which all in their own manner proclaim their maker.

1282BVERS. 22.-- Upon the circle. Hence some contend that the earth is as it were a point and a globe.

As locusts. In comparison with him, or considering the greatness of the earth.

A tabernacle. Hence also they contend that heaven is after the likeness of a sphere, and that its hemisphere overhangs the lands.

VERS. 23.-- Who brings forth the searchers of secrets. God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world, and this is: Who brings forth the searchers of secrets, as though they were not (I Cor. I).

VERS. 25.-- To whom have you likened me, made me equal, says the Holy One. As if he should say: Why do you compare God to a likeness, and do not from the greatness of creatures understand God the creator? If you do not believe words, believe your own eyes, and from the 1282Cservitude of all the elements consider the omnipotence of the Lord.

VERS. 26.-- In number. (ID.) To him are numbered the things which Abraham could not number: and they serve in an assigned office, as the sun fulfils the course of heaven in one year, and the rest in their own manner.

Their host, etc. The angels, namely; whence: Thousands of thousands ministered to him (Dan. VII). Hence too he is called Lord Sabaoth, that is, of the host, or of the armies, or of the powers.

VERS. 27.-- Why sayest thou, etc. (ID.) When the prophet said these things, etc., as far as we are without a judge, and are afflicted undeservedly.

My way. Good works: earthly things do not pertain to God, he does not consider what each man does. Hence a man is unjustly oppressed, like beasts of burden and fishes, without one to rule them.

1282DVERS. 28.-- He created. He knows all things, contains all things, dispenses all things by his majesty.

Of his wisdom. (ID.) From this place another saying of the Apostle seems to be taken: Incomprehensible are his judgments, and his ways unsearchable: as if he should say: God alone is eternal and impassible; all other things shall fail.

VERS. 30.-- The children shall faint. Those, namely, who rejoice in the health of the body, and think that childhood and youth are perpetual.

VERS. 31.-- They shall change. That they may be strong in God, they shall become weak to the world, and after the death of the flesh they shall become immortal.

As eagles. As the eagle, according to the natural philosophers, when its beak, hooked by excessive age, has been dashed against a flint, 1283Ais made new, so they who mortify the oldness of sin by the rock, which is Christ, being dead to the world are made new to God; whence: Thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle's (Psal. CII).

VERS. 1.-- Let the islands be silent. (HIER.) Because the Gentiles are in the salt sea, namely those who are beaten by the salt and bitter waves of the world.

VERS. 2.-- Who has raised up from the east. (ID.) Certain of the Hebrews refer this to Cyrus king of the Persians, etc., as far as who from the beginning knew these things.

VERS. 3.-- A path under his feet. He shall not feel the labor or the weariness of that life: He rejoiced as a giant to run the way.

VERS. 5.-- The islands saw. (ID.) That is, the nations round 1283Babout, etc., as far as and he strengthened him with the nails of the commandments, that he might abide in the fear of the Lord.

VERS. 8.-- And thou, Israel, my servant. (ID.) The Lord speaks lovingly to the apostles, etc., as far as afterward, being chosen, we are joined into the friendship of God.

VERS. 9.-- And from afar. Already the Jews are scattered even to the ends of the earth, and thence unto the end many are called.

VERS. 14.-- Worm of Jacob. (ID.) The apostles are called worms, as imitators of him who says: I am a worm and no man (Psal. XXI). And as a worm penetrates the earth, so does their preaching the hearts of those who hear.

You that are dead of Israel. Like him who says: I die daily for your glory, brethren (I Cor. XV) [Vulg. 1 Cor. 15:31 per vestram gloriam, "by your glory"]; and elsewhere: And I live, now not I; but Christ lives 1283Cin me (Gal. II).

VERS. 15.-- I have made thee as a threshing wain. The churchman has the teeth of preaching, etc., as far as that those ill gathered together may be well divided.

VERS. 19.-- I will give in the wilderness the cedar. (ID.) The varieties of the trees signify the diversity of spiritual grace, lest even one string be wanting from the harp of the Lord, and any virtue of the graces seem to be lacking to the Church: and the loftiness of these, as it hastens to heavenly things, the olive tree enlightens, the fuel of light, the rest of him who labors or is wearied.

The thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree. The Seventy: Sethim, which is a tree like the white thorn, etc., as far as and therefore it signifies the comforters of holy Church.

VERS. 22.-- Declare ye. (ID.) He signifies that 1283Dthe idols have the power neither of hearing nor of answering, etc., as far as it is plain that the idols lost their voice after the coming of Christ.

VERS. 23.-- If you can. Neither can the demons, save by the permission of God, in that they attend upon the idols; for they could destroy neither the swine nor holy Job's beasts without the permission of God. Paul too delivered certain men to Satan.

VERS. 25.-- I have raised up. (ID.) He still speaks against the idols and against their worshippers, etc., as far as that they may believe in him who came from the rising of the sun.

VERS. 26.-- Who has declared from the beginning? as if he should say: There was none among the Gentiles who declared the coming of the Son. But if there is one who has declared it, we shall say 1284Athat he is just; at the coming of the Son, the demons, who in the idols announced things to come, had fallen dumb.

Hearing your words. Because the brute hearts of the Gentiles understood their own error, and forsook the false oracles.

VERS. 27.-- The first shall say to Sion. They signify the Church; behold, sons have stood by, namely thine, whom I have given to thee by my faith, namely the apostles, by whose preaching sons have been born to thee.

VERS. 29.-- Behold, all are unjust. Whatever we have said of the idols or of the Gentiles, let us refer to the heresiarchs and to the doctrines of depravity; because, while Christ announces peace to the Church and shows the truth, they themselves follow errors, and are compared to the wind and to the whirlwind.

1284BVERS. 1.-- Behold my servant. (HIER.) It is to be noted that the apostles are called Jacob, Israel, and the seed of Abraham, to whom afterward, as to servants and men, it is said: Fear not, worm of Jacob, etc. But Christ is called not the seed of Jacob or of Israel, but the servant.

I have given my Spirit. In the conception; whence: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, etc. (Phil. II). And it shone forth in the baptism, when the Spirit in the likeness of a dove rested upon him (Luc. I).

VERS. 3.-- Smoking flax. The priesthood now almost extinguished; and of flax is the priestly vestment made.

He shall bring forth judgment. He shall judge, namely, not fearing the Scribes and the Pharisees.

VERS. 4.-- He shall not be sad. (ID.) This Matthew 1284Cdid not set down; or else the words between the one judgment and the other were taken away by a copyist's error. And the sense is: he shall preserve at all times an evenness of countenance; which the philosophers falsely boast of Socrates, namely that he was neither sadder nor gladder than his wont.

Judgment in the earth. Whence: For judgment I came into this world, that they who do not see may see, etc. (Joan. IX).

VERS. 6.-- Justice. It was just that he who was despised by the Jews should pass over through the apostles to the Gentiles.

VERS. 7.-- The bound. With the cords of sins: in the Gospel, the Lord loosed him whom Satan had bound.

VERS. 8.-- To another. The Son and the Holy Spirit is not another than the Father in the Godhead, and therefore has the same glory 1284Dand the same praise.

1284DVERS. 9.-- I will make known to you. That you may know that I am the Lord, and there is none other beside me: and that you who behold the former things fulfilled may believe the things to come which I promise.

VERS. 10.-- A new thing. In the newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter; and not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New.

You that go down into the sea. (ID.). First fishers of fishes, afterward of men; whence, according to the letter: they crossed many seas.

VERS. 11.-- Cedar. The son of Ismael: from him the Saracens, who are better called Agarenes: but by the name of the free woman they have veiled the shame of the handmaid. For Ismael was the son of the handmaid Agar, and from her the Saracens. For he begot twelve princes. By his name too the province itself is called.

1285AFrom the top of the mountains. (HIER.) Go up upon a high mountain. From the top of the mountain. [Vulg. Is. 42:11 de vertice montium, plural, as in the lemma just quoted] From the height of virtue and of contemplation, that they may teach by example also the things they preach.

VERS. 13.-- He shall cry out. Whence: They have provoked me with that which was no God (Deut. XXXII); and I will provoke them with a foolish nation.

VERS. 14.-- As a woman in labor. The birth of my counsel I will pour forth into the light as a woman her infant; so will I bring forth the grief I have dissembled.

VERS. 16.-- In the paths. (ID.) In the knowledge of the prophets, who are the paths to Christ, when they foretell his nativity, his resurrection and his ascension.

VERS. 17.-- Let them be confounded. When the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in. Then Israel also, being converted, shall repent of its 1285Berror, who before served idols.

VERS. 22.-- A snare to the young men. He returns to the preaching of the Lord, rebuking the Scribes and the Pharisees: for these were snares to the simple, that they might not be converted to the Lord.

VERS. 23.-- Who is there. The prophet exhorts them, that at least some may hear and understand the cause of their captivity and beware.

VERS. 25.-- Upon him. That what he had before passed over in silence he might now no longer pass over in silence, and might rebuke not with words but with torments.

And he knew it not. As the histories relate, neither did the Gentiles understand that this was done in vengeance for the Son, nor did the Jews, blinded by their own malice.

1285CVERS. 1.-- And now these things. Above he spoke of the captivity of the Jews who would not believe; now he addresses the primitive Church, which is of the Jews, that they may understand the Creator of their soul and of their body.

Creating thee, Jacob. Jacob is the supplanter, Israel the man seeing God. These are the apostles and apostolic men, who both supplanted vices and deserved to see God.

VERS. 2.-- Through the waters, etc. (ID.) According to the Hebrews: Through the waters the Egyptians, etc., as far as these kingdoms too the apostles passed through by preaching, and the Lord everywhere with them.

VERS. 3.-- I have given a propitiation. That from thence thou mayest gain for thyself mercy and a crown, by preaching, namely, to the Egyptians, and to the Ethiopians (who are almost the last) and to the Sabaeans: and Saba is a city situated on the borders of Ethiopia: Their sound has gone forth into 1285Dall the earth, and unto the ends, etc.

VERS. 5.-- From the East. Many shall come from the East and from the West, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, from all the parts of the world, that is. [Vulg. Matt. 8:11 multi ab oriente et occidente venient … in regno caelorum, "in the kingdom of heaven"]

VERS. 8.-- Bring forth. The voice of the Father to the Son concerning the Jews who are blind in mind. And note that the calling of the Jews was made first, then that of the Gentiles.

VERS. 9.-- All the nations. The prophet speaks to the Gentiles, rebuking them for idolatry and marvelling that none among the Gentiles could foreknow this; but only the people of God, who received the law of God, had prophets.

VERS. 10.-- There was not formed. Certain manuscripts have plasmatus; but it does not fit well, though it can be expounded thus: Before me no 1286Aidol was formed, because I made man just, by whom an idol was unjustly formed.

VERS. 12.-- I have declared and have saved. Through the prophets the nativity of the Son, the calling of the Gentiles, the casting out of demons.

VERS. 14.-- Thus says the Lord the Savior, etc. [Vulg. Is. 43:14 redemptor vester, "your redeemer"] These things, namely, which follow: the Father to the apostles. For your sakes, that is, you who are my witnesses, you who preach the Gospel. To whom he said: Fear not. The Chaldeans in the ships. According to the history, the Chaldeans abound in rivers, and are vigorous with ships, and thence take glory.

VERS. 15.-- I am the Lord your Holy One. Formerly to the sons of Israel, now to you, apostles, the demons having been cast out in the world and all the princes conquered.

1286BVERS. 19.-- I do new things. Many things that refresh souls, not bodies: of old I brought forth from the rock one fountain only, to refresh bodies.

VERS. 20.-- Dragons and ostriches. The malignant, the venomous, who abode in the solitude of the Gentiles, brutish through the blood of idolatry and the savagery of their manners.

The ostrich has the appearance of wings, but lacks flight. So the hypocrite has the appearance of holiness, but does not have the thing itself.

VERS. 22.-- Thou hast not called upon me. (HIER.) He speaks to the Jews, who before the coming of the Lord worshipped idols; or to those who after his coming would not believe.

Neither hast thou labored. I have not made thee labor after the coming of the Son, that thou shouldst offer costly things, because: A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit, etc. (Psal. L.) Or: Thou hast not labored in me only, thou who didst offer to idols.

1286CVERS. 23.-- In incense. By the incense and the cane, which is a shoot of an aromatic tree, understand all spices.

VERS. 25.-- I am he. (ID.) As if he should say: Thou hast made me labor under the burden of thy sin; therefore I no longer call thee my servant, nor my child, but simply name thee Jacob and Israel, that I may show and convict sinners.

VERS. 26.-- Bring me back to remembrance. The good things I have done for thee. What more ought I to have done for thee, and did not do? [Vulg. Is. 5:4 Quid est quod debui ultra facere vineae meae, et non feci ei, "for my vineyard … for it"] Or: If thou hast anything of justice, I will gladly receive it.

VERS. 27.-- Thy father. Abraham, namely, who, when the Lord promised the land of promise, answered: Whereby shall I know that I shall possess it? [Vulg. Gen. 15:8 unde scire possum quod possessurus sim eam] Or Abraham himself, who is said to have sinned by doubting at the promise of a son; or the people in the desert by murmuring against God, as if he should say: he shall recognize one begotten of sinners.

1286DInterpreters. As if he should say: inter partes, that is, those who bear peace between the parties.

VERS. 1.-- And now hear, Jacob. He addresses the first believers from among the Jews, the others being hardened, with a certain privilege of name and dignity of honor; the choir of the apostles, namely. Hear, Jacob my servant. The first is servitude, the second election.

VERS. 2.-- From the womb thy helper. In which thou didst seize thy brother's heel; or, in the beginning of the Church thou didst escape the hands of the persecutors.

And most upright, whom I have chosen. Israel, according to the Hebrew verity, is upright or most upright. As for what is said before, a man seeing God: 1287Athat is held not from the proper meaning, but from the sound of the word.

VERS. 3.-- I will pour out my Spirit. Namely in baptism, through the imposition of hands.

VERS. 4.-- As willows beside the running waters. The willow is an unfruitful tree, etc., as far as which quickly believed when the apostles preached.

VERS. 5.-- This one shall say. He describes the variety of them that believe.

And in the name of Israel he shall be likened. That they may receive the law, and the prophets, and the graces of the Holy Spirit which were promised to Israel.

VERS. 6.-- I am the first and I am the last. After the calling of the Gentiles, who, having cast away idols, believed, he acts against those who would not be converted.

1287BBesides me there is no God. He does not say that he alone exists, but that beside his power and his wisdom there is no external God, condemning the opinion of many gods and their images.

VERS. 12.-- He shall hunger and shall faint. (HIER.) With the hunger and thirst of the craftsman, etc., as far as whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their confusion.

VERS. 23.-- Shout, ye ends of the earth. (ID.) The angels preside as it were over the inhabitants of the earth; or the apostles, or the prophets, over whom others also are agreed to be; whence it is said to the Ephesians: Super aedificati Built up upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, etc.

VERS. 24.-- Thus says the Lord the Redeemer, etc. (ID.) Above he spoke of the overthrow of idols, and of the redemption of a repentant Israel: but now of the greatness of his own 1287Cpower, lest anyone doubt of the salvation he promises.

VERS. 26.-- I who say. He speaks of the restoration which was made by Zorobabel and the other leaders, Cyrus permitting it: though the captivity was still to be fulfilled.

VERS. 27.-- Thy rivers. Under Darius, namely, and Cyrus his grandson. For on the night in which Balthasar was slain by them, the river Euphrates, which flowed through the middle of the city, was divided into streams by their army, so that they might enter the city through its channel.

VERS. 1.-- Thus says the Lord to his Christ. Among the Romans the diadem, among the Jews the anointing, makes both kings and priests, from which they are also called christs. Cyrus is a christ, 1287Dnot by anointing, but by dignity.

And the backs of kings. (ID.) What city did not lie open to him? Which of the kings did not turn his back? What walls, before impregnable, were not overthrown by his siege? But you will find these things more fully fulfilled in the history of Xenophon.

VERS. 3.-- Hidden treasures. Of all the cities, so that, having cast away idols, and invited by benefits, thou mightest perceive one God, who foretold thy name beforehand, before thou wert.

VERS. 4.-- And I have called thee. (ID.) As I called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, etc., as far as but the Son, Christ, is anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows.

VERS. 5.-- Beside me. Because the Son and the Holy Spirit are in the Father; for beside my word and my reason 1288Aand my power and the wisdom that is in me, there is no other God.

VERS. 6.-- That they may know. Esdras says that Cyrus wrote to all the nations that there is no God but the God of Israel. Or, from the freeing of the captives the clemency and power of God became better known to all. Josephus, moreover, in the book of the Antiquities says that the people was released for this reason, that Cyrus read in the book of Isaiah the things which the Lord had said of him before through the prophet.

VERS. 7.-- Darkness. The night, or the captivity. As if: taking pity on the penitent, I bring them back from captivity; being angry, I take sinners captive.

Evil. (ID.) War, that is, affliction, according to what is said: Sufficient for the day is its own evil. Let them therefore be confounded who judge God to be the author of evils. 1288BFor here evil is set down not as the contrary of good, but for affliction and for war.

VERS. 8.-- Drop down dew, ye heavens. (ID.) Of the coming of Christ, signified through Cyrus, because he will free the human race from the captivity of the devil, he fitly adds these things. Or these words may cling to what goes before, so that, as Cyrus loosens the captivity, heaven and earth rejoice by metonymy.

And the clouds. The prophets, watering our hearts with a saving rain, and announcing the nativity and the resurrection and the ascension of Christ; whence: I will command my clouds that they rain no rain upon it; [Vulg. Is. 5:6 et nubibus mandabo, with no meis] and elsewhere, Thy truth unto the clouds.

I have created him who: was, namely, a worm, and is read to have sprung from the earth according to his humanity.

VERS. 9.-- Woe to him that gainsays: as if he should say: 1288CBelieve the things I foretell, namely that Christ is to come, because, Woe to him that gainsays his maker (Psal. XXXV) [Vulg. Is. 45:9 fictori suo, "his fashioner"]; or Cyrus, to whom, through the deliverance of my people, I shall lay all kingdoms under.

VERS. 10.-- To the woman, what dost thou bring forth? The man has power over the woman, the woman power over the man.

VERS. 11.-- His fashioner, that is, of the Son according to his humanity in the virginal womb; whence: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, etc.

VERS. 12.-- And to all their host. On this occasion some think that the stars are rational; for they say that he would not command anything to senseless things, which would not understand the commands.

VERS. 13.-- I have raised him up. (ID.) As if he should say: I who did the things said above; what wonder if I both send the Son 1288Dinto the world to redeem the human race, and raise him from the dead?

I will direct his ways. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth (I Petr. II).

He himself shall build. (ID.) Of whom it is said: Thou hast not known me. Nor did he himself build the city or the temple, but permitted it to be built: nor was this completed in his time, but in Ahasuerus's.

VERS. 14.-- The labor of Egypt. The worship of idols. For it labored much in performing the sacrifices of idols. But when the apostles preached they were converted, and above all kingdoms the religious orders of monks abound there, so that where sin abounded, grace also might more abound (Rom. V) [Vulg. Rom. 5:20 Ubi autem abundavit delictum, superabundavit gratia, indicative and without et].

1289AVERS. 19.-- Not in secret, etc. (ID.) Of old on Mount Sinai he said to one people only: Thou shalt not have strange gods (Exod. XX) [Vulg. Exod. 20:3 Non habebis deos alienos coram me]. But the Gospel he preached through the apostles to all nations, whence: Their sound has gone forth into all the earth (Psal. XVIII).

I have not said. (HIER.) First indeed I came to the Jews: and I admonished them that, leaving the shadow of the law, they should follow the truth.

Declaring right things. That the creature may adore the Creator, that, the figures being left behind, it may follow the truth of the Gospel.

VERS. 20.-- They have not known. Certain men, remaining in error, were unwilling to know, weighed down, that is, by the burden of images, and hoping in those in whom there is no salvation.

VERS. 21.-- Take counsel together. That you all, going through the world, may announce the same thing. For from this they together composed 1289Bthe creed concerning the Trinity and the unity, concerning the communion of the Church, concerning the general resurrection.

I have foretold it. That the Gentiles were to be saved, but that the idol is nothing: when I spoke to Abraham, or when I gave the law. [Vulg. Is. 45:21 praedixit illud, third person, "he foretold it"]

VERS. 23.-- Shall go forth: into the world, visibly, in the flesh.

The word of justice, the son until he shall have fulfilled obedience, etc., as far as which the Jews, showing the pride of their mind, do not do at all.

VERS. 25.-- In the Lord, he shall say. All the nations, even the barbarous, confessing not in synagogues but in churches.

VERS. 1.-- Bel is broken. (HIER.) After the calling 1289Cof the Gentiles is subjoined the destruction of the idols.

Nabo. Nabo is gold, etc., as far as and the prophecy of the demons and the divination of the magi came to nothing.

To beasts and to cattle. (ID.) For they worshipped beasts and cattle, and their region gave to very many towns the names of the beasts and cattle which they worshipped, as, namely, Leonata from the lion, and others of this kind.

VERS. 2.-- And their soul. Not that the images have a soul, etc., as far as which he subjugated to the devil and to the demons.

VERS. 3.-- House of Jacob. He does not say, Jacob, my servants, my elect, with an addition of honor, but simply: and he addresses them as carnal and as departing from his commandments.

1289DYou that are carried. You who are borne like an offspring conceived, through the desert as far as the land of promise. For he waited for them long and patiently, both in the land of promise and, after the passion, for two and forty years.

VERS. 5.-- To whom have you likened? He inveighs chiefly against those who in the time of Achaz and Ezechiel worshipped idols in the corners of the streets, in gardens, in groves upon the housetops.

VERS. 8.-- Remember this. Because I have begotten you and have carried you even to old age, forsake the idols you have made, and return to the worship of the one God.

To the heart. To understanding, you who have lived as it were like beasts, venerating images, dashing yourselves like madmen against wood and stones.

1290AVERS. 10.-- Declaring. Through the prophets, that when I shall have fulfilled the things foretold through divination, that is, through a prophet foretelling things to come, I may prove my divinity.

The last. We are they upon whom the ends of the ages are come (I Cor. X). And elsewhere: But when the fulness of time came, God sent his Son (Gal. IV). And John: Little children, he says, it is the last hour (I Joan. II).

Counsel: of redeeming the world through the Son; as if: I now declare my counsel established, so that when you shall have seen the effect, you may know that there is no God save him who knew the things to come and commanded them to come to pass.

VERS. 11.-- Calling a bird from the east: (ID.) According to the Hebrews, Cyrus king of the Persians, etc., as far as and him whom the Magi, coming from the east, adored.

VERS. 12.-- Hard of heart. You who always resist the truth, 1290Bfirst the prophets, at last the Son also.

VERS. 1.-- Come down, sit, etc. (HIER.) Because we are all creatures of God; nor, as the heretics hold, is the nature of Babylon damnable; or else because of the luxury and adornment of that most powerful city, which, already old and near to its setting, boasts itself a maiden and a girl.

VERS. 2.-- Meal, or rather, offer intercourse to the Medes and Persians, who are most ardent in this. According to this the Hebrews say that the Philistines, when they had torn out Samson's eyes, compelled him to grind, that is, to have intercourse with their women, that from him they might get men of great and unconquerable stature.

VERS. 3.-- And he shall not resist, as Moses did to God when he willed to blot out the sons of Israel. But it signifies the angel 1290Cset over Babylon, who says with the others: We have healed Babylon, and she is not healed.

VERS. 5.-- Sit. The speech is referred to Babylon, and he addresses her as one once a queen, now a handmaid. Sit, lowly and vile. Be silent, as one sorrowful, considering thy misery.

VERS. 6.-- I was angry. He renders the reason why he so afflicted the Chaldeans, lest he should seem to have done it without cause, who works nothing without cause; and that the Chaldeans might know that they did not overcome the people of God by their own strength.

VERS. 9.-- Suddenly. By the unforeseen inrush of Cyrus and Darius. For she did not fear that she could be overcome by the Medes and Persians (who in comparison with her were of no strength, and were themselves subject).

VERS. 11.-- Thou shalt not know the rising. Unlooked for the calamity shall come, 1290Dforetold neither by the magi nor by the soothsayers; for they did not fear a despised and subject people.

VERS. 13.-- The augurs of heaven. The astrologers, who judge that all things are ruled by the stars. As if he should say: As though they did not provide all things for thee? These are commonly called mathematicians, who think that worldly affairs are ruled by the course of the stars; whence: From the east came magi saying: We have seen his star in the east (Matth. II). Or else, stirred up by the oracle of Balaam, who said: A star shall rise out of Jacob (Num. XXIV).

VERS. 14.-- They are become as stubble, etc. The Seventy: Having coals of fire, thou shalt sit upon them, these shall be to thee for a help. As if: the Gazareni and the magi lead thee by error into pride. But the burning 1291Aof Babylon calls to repentance through punishments.

VERS. 1.-- Hear these things. (HIER.) It is the custom that when the carnal Israel is treated of, Jacob or Israel should be named simply and without an addition of name, as in this place, where he addresses those who are called Jacob or Israel only in name.

And out of the waters of Juda. He makes mention of Juda, because when the ten tribes had been led captive, Juda and Benjamin and the Levites remained in the land of promise, and had a king of Juda.

VERS. 2.-- For of the holy city. (ID.) As if he should say: You boast that you are the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and that you have the privilege of the Lord of hosts, whereas you take to yourselves, empty as they are for you, the appellations of Jacob, of Israel, and of the holy city, of God 1291Balmighty.

VERS. 3.-- The former things from that time. I foretold that the Babylonians were to be overcome, and suddenly I shall do what I threatened: so that when the things foretold shall have come, thou mayest know that they befell neither by chance nor by the nod of thy gods.

The former wonders, namely those which I did in the midst of them from the time they went out of Egypt, and when the captivity by Nabuchodonosor was at hand: but now, before they are taken captive, he foretells their deliverance and the devastation of the Chaldeans; whence suddenly, namely, the things I foretell as coming, I have wrought.

VERS. 4.-- An iron sinew. Hence Stephen: stiffnecked and uncircumcised in hearts (Act. XVII) [Vulg. Act. 7:51 incircumcisis cordibus et auribus, ablative, "and ears"].

Thy forehead brazen: whence Ezechiel: For all the house of Israel is of a hardened forehead (Ezech. III), etc. And 1291CJeremias: Thou hast had the forehead of a harlot woman, thou wouldst not blush (Jer. III).

VERS. 6.-- And they are kept. As if he should say: I was about to announce very many things, but because thou dost not remember what I say, what I was about to say I keep in reserve.

VERS. 9.-- For my name's sake. Namely, that it be not profaned: I will put far off; I have done it: [Vulg. Is. 48:9 longe faciam furorem meum, "I will put my fury far off"] my fury, that is, that I should not destroy thee, because thou hast adored the calf: and with my praise (that thou mightest praise me, namely): I will bridle thee with my law.

VERS. 10.-- In the furnace of poverty. (ID.) By purging thee through poverty, giving thy riches to the enemies; or in Egypt, where it is shown that very many are tempted by riches and by poverty.

VERS. 12.-- Hear me, Jacob. (HIER.) He is still speaking to the same men, 1291Detc., as far as but he calls them the called.

1291DVERS. 14.-- Assemble yourselves, all of you. Why then does earth and ashes glory, and one ignorant of his own frailty?

He has announced these things. That Cyrus should destroy Babylon, or that my Son was to be born of a virgin.

The Lord has loved him. These things belong properly to Christ. Yet they can be referred to Cyrus and to Darius, as far as that place: His way is made straight.

His own: because he shall take it. Or, the Son, in redeeming the world, who also cast out the Chaldeans (that is, the demons); whence, the prince of this world shall be cast forth.

VERS. 15.-- I have called him. Cyrus, or the Son, saying through Gabriel: And thou shalt call his name Jesus.

VERS. 16.-- He has sent me. (ID.) He distinguishes the whole Trinity briefly, fully and plainly.

1292AVERS. 17.-- I am the Lord. Who promise to Israel the things to come. He renders the reason why he had afflicted them before.

VERS. 21.-- They did not thirst. (ID.) Of those coming from Egypt, according to the letter, etc., as far as filled with the water of wisdom.

He clove the rock. The rock was Christ. The divine word is cloven into parts, so that what we cannot take in whole, we may take by parts.

And the waters flowed out. One of the soldiers opened his side with a lance, and immediately there came forth the blood of our redemption, and the water of baptism, [Vulg. Jo. 19:34 exivit sanguis et aqua, without nostrae redemptionis and baptismi] dedicating to us baptism and martyrdom.

VERS. 1.-- Hear, ye islands. (HIER.) After the calling of the remnant of Israel and the objection of the unbelieving (concerning whom, There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord ), under the name of the 1292Bislands he addresses, in the person of the Son, the Churches from among the Gentiles.

VERS. 2.-- A sharp sword. I came not to send peace, but the sword (Matth. X), separating, that is, the evil from the good.

VERS. 3.-- I will be glorified. Which he was not in the other servants: Father, I have glorified thy name (Joan. XVII.) And elsewhere: Arise, my glory (Psal. LVI), etc.

VERS. 4.-- And I said. (ID.) As though he said: How have I glorified thee, I who could not call back to thee a great part of the Jews? But here man's free choice is shown: for it is God's to call, ours to believe, yet with him helping, that the just may obtain the reward of their will.

Therefore my judgment, etc. (ID.) The Father shall judge whether 1292CI have done for them all the things I owed: I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me. And elsewhere: I have glorified thee upon the earth (Joan. XVII).

My work. Others: My labour and my sorrow: because he wept over the city, and said in the Psalm: What profit is there in my blood? (Psal. XXIX.) According to the Hebrew, hanging on the cross far from my salvation are the words of my lamentations.

VERS. 5.-- Glorified. As though he said: I have lost the Jews, but I am glorified among the Gentiles, whence, All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. (Matth. XXVIII).

VERS. 7.-- Abhorred. Christ and his Nazarenes, whom the Jews daily curse in their synagogues, because on their account they lost their kingdom, their place and their nation.

Kings. The prophet to the Son. Kings shall see thee coming to judgment: Kings, namely the apostles and the others 1292Dwho shall judge with the Lord.

VERS. 8.-- In an acceptable time. Of the Passion, of the Resurrection, in which it pleased God to redeem the human race.

VERS. 16.-- Behold, in my hands, etc. (ID.) From this we learn that Jerusalem is not to be sought in the region of Palestine: which is the worst of the whole province, roughened with rocky mountains, and suffers a want of springs.

VERS. 17.-- Thy builders. The apostles and others: By the fault of the Jews, that is, of the Scribes and Pharisees, thou wast destroyed; by the preaching of certain Jews, that is, of the apostles, thou wast gathered together both from the Jews and from the Gentiles.

VERS. 18.-- All these are gathered together. The Jews out of every nation, etc., as far as daily they are gathered to the faith of the Church.

1293AWith an ornament. With the various graces of the Holy Spirit, with which the bride's array is adorned, of which it is said: The queen stood on thy right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety (Psal. XLIV).

VERS. 21.-- I am barren. Because after Aggeus, and Zacharias, and Malachias, who is also Esdras, they had no prophets to nourish them in the law, until John the Baptist.

VERS. 23.-- Queens. The same, but more affectionately. Whence: The queen stood, etc. She, namely, who daily nourishes the little ones of Christ and leads them to the perfect age.

They shall adore. They shall venerate, according to that: They shall adore the footstool of his feet [Vulg. Ps 98:5 adorate, "adore ye" — an imperative, here made a future, matching the lemma Adorabunt] (Psal. XCVIII), in which foot majesty is signified.

The dust of thy feet. (HIER.) They shall cleanse away, that is, all 1293Bearthliness by word and by example, according to what is said, Whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed (Matth. XVI), etc., whence: Shake off the dust of your feet [Vulg. Matt 10:14 excutite pulverem de pedibus vestris, "shake off the dust from your feet" — the proof-text conformed to the lemma the dust of thy feet] (Matth. X).

VERS. 25.-- For thus saith the Lord. (ID.) He answers the question, namely that these things are fulfilled at his coming.

VERS. 26.-- With their own flesh. Not by another's death, but by his own, etc., as far as lying open to the bites of savage beasts.

The mighty one of Jacob. I who gave Jacob strength to wrestle, etc., as far as thou shalt prevail, as it were by prayer also, against Esau whom thou fearest.

VERS. 1.-- Thus saith the Lord: Who is he? (HIER.) After the calling of the Gentiles, after the taking of the strong one, 1293Cwhose spoil has been divided to the apostles, he speaks to the people of the Jews concerning Sion, which said above: The Lord hath forsaken me, etc.

I have sold. But I am carnal, sold under sin (Rom. VII). He who commits sin is the servant of sin (Joan. VIII). Whence: Let not sin reign in your body [Vulg. Rom 6:12 in vestro mortali corpore, "in your mortal body"] (Rom. VI).

VERS. 2.-- Because I came. (ID.) That is, that you may know that I have not repudiated your mother, but that she withdrew of her own will: after many benefits I took flesh, and no longer through the prophets, but present myself I spoke.

There was not a man. To Herod because of his malice, etc., as far 1293Das concerning all in common: The vision of the four-footed beasts in the desert (Isa. XXX.)

I called. As though he said: Ye rational ones, Incline your ear to the words of my mouth (Psal. LXXVII). He that thirsteth, let him come and drink [Vulg. Jo 7:37 Si quis sitit, veniat ad me et bibat, "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink"] (Joan. VIII), and the like.

Is it that. (ID.) He inveighs against those who thought, etc., as far as that he may give me more than twelve legions of angels? (Matth. XXVI).

VERS. 3.-- I will clothe the heavens with darkness. The philosophers say that the clouds are lifted on high no more than ten stadia from the earth, and that the brightness of the sun is hidden: thus, when the light of heaven is shut out, the lower air is darkened. I will clothe. The saints, that is, so that they may know themselves sinners.

And I will put sackcloth. That they may do penance in fear and in haircloth.

1294AVERS. 4.-- The Lord hath given, etc. (ID.) Although these things can be referred to Isaias, yet properly they are referred to Christ, as though he said: I who once wrought such things can now also work the like; my power is not diminished.

VERS. 9.-- As a garment. (ID.) A garment is consumed by age and by the moth. The Jews too were called to penance for forty-two years after the Passion: at last, being negligent, they were crushed when the Romans came, and devoured by the moth of an evil conscience.

VERS. 10.-- Who is there among you. He who fears is not perfect, etc., as far as he keeps the souls of the saints whole and chaste and pure.

Who hath walked in darkness. The Gentile people in darkness, etc., as far as I call to penance; for I will not 1294Bthe death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live [Vulg. Ezech 33:11 nolo mortem impii, sed ut convertatur impius a via sua, et vivat, "I will not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live"; Ezech 18:32 nolo mortem morientis] (Ezech. XVIII).

VERS. 11.-- Behold all you, as though he said: Exhortation profits nothing, nor is there hope of salvation after such crimes: They have all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together (Psal. XIII).

Kindling a fire. They kindled the fire of the city by which it was burned by the Romans, etc., as far as so for sinners the diverse matter of their sin is kindled more or less.

You shall sleep in sorrows. Because neither by benefits nor by torments would they receive the Son of God, whence, Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire [Vulg. Matt 25:41 Discedite a me maledicti, "Depart from me, ye cursed"] (Matth. XXV).

VERS. 1.-- Hearken to me, you that follow that which. (HIER.) Look unto the rock. Christ. Of which, And the rock 1294Cwas Christ, out of which you are hewn (I Cor. X), from Christ called Christians.

And to the cavern of the pit. On account of the digging of Christ's side, etc., as far as we are born through the laver of baptism.

VERS. 3.-- Joy and gladness. Note that in Sion, which is compared to the paradise of God, there ought to be so much joy and gladness and thanksgiving and the voice of praise, that what they are to do in heaven with the angels they should meditate on continually upon earth.

VERS. 5.-- My just one. Justifying all, or justice elegantly: not that one nation, but that the whole world may be saved.

VERS. 6.-- The heavens like smoke. (ID.) It is written of the saints, etc., as far as yet some take "to perish" and "to grow old" for abolition and death.

VERS. 9.-- Arise. The voice of the prophet and of the faithful people 1294Dbeseeching the coming of Christ, in whom help had been promised.

VERS. 12.-- Who art thou that thou shouldst fear man, etc., as far as that they may blush and do penance.

VERS. 17.-- Arise, arise. (ID.) He exhorts to penance those who denied him in the Passion; or who persisted in unbelief, crying, Crucify him, crucify him (Joan. XIX), etc.

The chalice of wrath. (ID.) Physicians are wont to give a most bitter antidote, etc., as far as whence it is not clear that this is said of the last captivity.

VERS. 22.-- Behold. (HIER.) He foretold the captivity to come; now he exhorts to penance, that they may escape.

VERS. 23.-- I will put. According to the letter they humbled them, 1295Aetc., as far as and in the judgment they shall be humbled altogether.

VERS. 1.-- Arise, arise. The prophet exhorts those who believed after the Ascension, when the apostles were preaching.

For he shall no more add. These things to the heavenly Jerusalem, which no unclean person enters.

VERS. 2.-- Shake thyself. A soul defiled with filth loses its former brightness, etc., as far as not with corruptible silver and gold, but with the blood of the immaculate Lamb.

VERS. 3.-- For nothing. You had neither the profit nor did you escape the loss, when you delivered up the Son of God.

VERS. 4.-- Into Egypt. (HIER.) He accuses the Jews, and foretells things to come, etc., as far as that even in his own land 1295Bhe may oppress him, and calumniate him?

VERS. 5.-- What have I here? (ID.) Nothing here, he says, do I find among them, etc., as far as that they fastened their Redeemer to the cross.

VERS. 7.-- How beautiful. (ID.) Of him who had said above: I myself who spoke, behold I am here, the prophet testifies that he himself preached the Gospel upon the mountains.

Of him that announceth, Christ, by himself, by the apostles, to whom he says: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you (Joan. XIV). Sitting upon whom the Lord preached: they are also the feet of Christ, by carrying his preaching.

VERS. 8.-- The voice of the watchmen: (ID.) of the apostles and of the others who are always in the watchtower, that they may foresee all things and advance those subject to them.

VERS. 9.-- 1295CRejoice. He consoles the primitive Church, etc., as far as by the multitude of the Gentiles it has been both repaired and multiplied.

VERS. 10.-- The arm. In my arm shall the Gentiles hope (Psal. XCVII). And elsewhere: Thy arm with power (Psal. LXXXVIII).

VERS. 11.-- Depart. (ID.) This the Jews refer to themselves, etc., as far as being admonished by the Holy Spirit.

Go forth, preaching the Gospel in the whole world, Go ye, teach all nations (Matth. XVIII).

The vessels of the Lord. (ID.) The temple of the Lord is holy, which you are: vessels, that is, of gold and of silver, whence Paul is called a vessel of election; or the vessels of the Lord, the armour of God, the breastplate of justice, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

1295DVERS. 13.-- Behold he shall understand: lest it be doubted who said, I who spoke, behold I am here: and that he is the arm of the Lord, the Father plainly teaches.

VERS. 14.-- As they were astonished. The order of the history is not kept. For above the prophet was speaking in the person of the Father concerning the Ascension of the Son, and suddenly he returned to the Passion.

1296DVERS. 1.-- Who hath believed? (HIER.) The prophet in the person of the prophets complains that few of the Jews believe what they hear from them concerning the coming of the Son.

And the arm of the Lord. (ID.) The Father announced to the world that his Son would come; and before the scandal of the cross he sent ahead the glory of him rising again. He shall be lifted up and shall be exalted [Vulg. Is 52:13 sets the two verbs the other way about, exaltabitur et elevabitur], 1296Aetc. The choir of the prophets therefore answers that they have fulfilled their office and announced the arm of the Lord.

VERS. 2.-- A shrub. Symmachus, a branch; signifying the man who came forth from the womb of the Virgin.

To a thirsty one. Aquila, pathless, where the privilege of virginity is shown, because without seed he was created from earth that was before pathless.

VERS. 5.-- By his bruises. (ID.) It is plain that, just as his body was torn and scourged, so his soul truly grieved for us, lest in Christ part be believed truth and part falsehood.

VERS. 7.-- He opened not, etc. To Pilate or to Herod. For he answered few things, lest the salvation of the human race be deferred.

And as a lamb. (ID.) In figure of whom the people of Israel 1296Bate the lamb in Egypt (Exod. XII). This is the lamb who taketh away the sins of the world [Vulg. Jo 1:29 peccatum mundi, "the sin of the world," in the singular] (Joan. I), who was slain from the beginning of the world (Apoc. XIII), who feeds us with his flesh and his blood, and clothes us with the fleece of his protection.

VERS. 8.-- From judgment. The judge of all found no truth of judgment, but was condemned without fault. Whence the prophet marvels that the God of all delivered himself over to the Passion.

VERS. 9.-- He shall give the wicked. (ID.) That is, the Gentiles, who are without piety, to God the Father, because dead and buried he acquired them; and the rich, namely the Jews, who glory in the riches of the law and of the prophets.

The rich. The Scribes and Pharisees, glorying in the riches of the doctrine of the law.

VERS. 10.-- A long-lived seed. The word of the Gospel, 1296Cnamely, which shall not grow old, as the Old Testament did, whence: He that sowed went out to sow his seed [Vulg. Lc 8:5 Exiit qui seminat, seminare semen suum, "He that soweth went out to sow his seed" — a present participle where Migne prints a perfect] (Luc. VIII.)

VERS. 11.-- He shall be filled. With the faith of the Gentiles, whence, hungering and thirsting above Jacob's well, he would not use the food that had been bought, because he was already filled with the faith of the Samaritan woman and of those who were coming out to him from the city.

VERS. 12.-- And with the wicked. That he might redeem the wicked from sin, being made all things to all: For he bore our sins in his own body [Vulg. 1 Petr 2:24 peccata nostra ipse pertulit in corpore suo super lignum, "himself bore our sins in his body upon the tree"] (I Petr. II). Whose imitator Paul says: I became all things to all, that I might gain all [Vulg. 1 Cor 9:22 ut omnes facerem salvos, "that I might save all"; lucrifacerem, "gain," stands at 9:19 and 9:22a] (I Cor. IX).

He prayed. Father, forgive them. At this voice, according to the Gospel of the Nazarenes, many thousands of the Jews standing about the cross believed.

1296DVERS. 1.-- Praise, thou barren. (HIER.) Thus far concerning the Nativity, the Passion, the Resurrection, etc., as far as gathered together both from the Jews and from the Gentiles.

Praise, thou barren. The Apostle, according to the Seventy: Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou that travailest not, for many are the children of the desolate (Gal. IV), etc. But we, brethren, after Isaac, are the children of the promise.

VERS. 3.-- For to the right hand: to all the places of the world. Or, neither lifted up by prosperity, nor broken by adversity. Or, to the goods of the future life and of the present.

VERS. 4.-- Fear not. (ID.) When the tower of Babel was being built, etc., as far as who a cord.

VERS. 6.-- For as a woman. (ID.) They who follow 1297Atropology, even in the most difficult places, etc., as far as he holds out the robe and the kiss.

VERS. 9.-- As in the days of Noe, etc. That the congregation of the saints may believe the mercy of the Lord to be everlasting, and that they are forsaken but for a moment, that they may become the friends of God by an eternal covenant: he sets forth the examples of the fathers.

VERS. 14.-- Depart far off. (HIER.) He has consoled the Church from among the Gentiles, promising her spiritual graces: now he teaches what she is to do, that she fear not her adversaries.

VERS. 15.-- Behold, an inhabitant. This the Jews turn to themselves, as though there were to be proselytes from among the Gentiles in the time of their own Christ.

VERS. 16. Behold I. Not that I am the cause of their perdition, but the adversary who fights is the cause of perdition to the conquered, of reward to the conquerors.

1297BVERS. 17.-- This is the inheritance. Lest the just man, being afflicted, fail, he adds the rewards.

VERS. 1.-- All you that thirst, come. (HIER.) Because he had said that the vessel fashioned against the Church was to be broken, and every tongue armed against the knowledge of God to be overcome, he calls believers to the river of God, which is filled with waters.

Eat ye. By hearing, by speaking, by reading, by meditating, by working, by keeping in the heart. For the divine Scripture is both drink, when open, and food, when hidden. It is also both the water and the bread that came down from heaven.

Why do you weigh out silver. You weigh the sacred words, but not the refreshment. You who keep the appearance of the letter alone lose, from the spiritual understanding, the fatness 1297Cof the inward refreshment.

VERS. 4.-- Behold, a witness. He challenged the Jews to believe, but because he knew that, when they did not believe, the Gentiles were going to believe, he says that he has sent his Son to announce his precepts to the peoples.

VERS. 5.-- The Lord thy God. (ID.) When he is called Father, the Father of Christ is called, according to the divinity, the Father of glory; according to the humanity, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

VERS. 6.-- Seek ye the Lord. These things pertain to the Jews or to the Gentiles specially, and to each one generally. The prophet to the Jews: Seek ye the Lord, as though he said: The Gentiles receive the mercies of David, and you disdain them; but do penance, and be converted while you have time.

1297DWhilst he is near. (ID.) Lest by your vices he withdraw, who draws near to those who draw near to him, and runs to meet the returning son with gladness.

VERS. 8.-- For not. Do not think that what I promise is hard: consider that between my counsels and yours there is much difference: and as great as is the diversity of nature, so great is that of will.

VERS. 10.-- And how. (ID.) By another likeness he shows that he is abundant in pardoning.

Bread to the eater. Whence Solomon: Cast thy bread upon the waters, for in the multitude of days thou shalt find it [Vulg. Eccle 11:1 Mitte panem tuum super transeuntes aquas, quia post tempora multa invenies illum, "upon the waters that pass by… after many times"], that is, pour out the bread of thy doctrine and spiritual grace upon all, because in the last day thou shalt receive rewards

1298AVERS. 11.-- It shall not return. But after it has fulfilled my will upon earth, it shall return and sit at my right hand, according to that, Sit thou at my right hand, etc.

VERS. 12.-- The mountains, namely the souls of the saints, which for the variety of their virtues are called mountains and hills.

VERS. 13.-- Instead of the nard. Nard, full of prickles and of stings. The fir, tall, lofty, apt for building houses, rich in pitch.

And the Lord shall be. Others. And the Lord shall be for a name and for an everlasting sign which shall not fail.

VERS. 1.-- Thus saith the Lord. Keep ye judgment. (HIER.) The prophecy of the Gentiles being ended, who at the coming of Christ are changed from nard and nettle into fir and myrtle: he speaks to the hearers of that 1298Btime, that they may prepare themselves for the coming of the Saviour, who is mercy and justice.

Keep ye judgment. (ID.) Not accepting the person in judgment. For the judgment is the Lord's, who judges those who judge good things.

VERS. 2.-- That keepeth the sabbath. (ID.) Let it not be, that is, of the six days in which the world was made. Of which the apostles were not, to whom it is said: If you were of the world, the world would love its own, etc. I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you (Joan. XV).

VERS. 3.-- And let him not say. (ID.) This against the Jews, who claimed the coming of Christ for themselves alone, and forced others to despair. But there is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek (Rom. X).

The eunuch. (ID.) For the kingdom of heaven, they who 1298Cmortify their members upon earth, etc., as far as which is said of the seed of a spiritual work, not of offspring.

VERS. 4.-- For thus saith the Lord. (ID.) He set forth two, namely proselytes and eunuchs, etc., as far as lest they think themselves subject to the curse of the law.

VERS. 6.-- And the children of the stranger: after the eunuchs he passes to the strangers and promises rewards.

For servants. Such as Paul, who says of himself: Paul, the servant of Christ Jesus; and Moses, the servant of God.

VERS. 7.-- Their holocausts. Mortify your members, which are upon the earth (Colos. III). And That you present your bodies a victim living unto God [Vulg. Rom 12:1 hostiam viventem, sanctam, Deo placentem, "a living victim, holy, pleasing unto God"]. The holocaust is offered whole to God, and is burnt. A part of the victim is given to the priests. He renders a holocaust to God who leaves the world, that he may always be free for prayer. A victim, 1298Dhe who serves God and disposes justly the things that are of the world.

Upon my altar. The faith upon which all things are offered, without which it is impossible to please God. Whence: But the just man shall live in his faith.

VERS. 9.-- All ye beasts. The voice of the prophet, who calls the Romans to the destruction of Jerusalem, whom almost the whole world served. Or, by the beasts, the demons: to whom the Jews were handed over to be devoured.

VERS. 10.-- Blind. Not having Christ the true light, or faith and the other virtues.

Dogs. (ID.) As dogs guard the flock, so ought prelates to guard the people. Most impudent dogs. Which is: As dogs without discernment often pursue even good men, so the Jews too impudently cried out, 1299ACrucify him, crucify him (Luc. XXIII), nor were they sated with reproaches against the Lord.

VERS. 12.-- Come, let us take. Thus did they pervert who ought to have corrected. And because all had sinned, they were handed over into the hands of the Romans.

VERS. 1.-- The just perisheth. (HIER.) These things the Jews refer to Isaias, who was cut in two with a wooden saw by Manasses, that most impious king, and to the other prophets, whom he himself slew, men of mercy. But more truly this is said of him who is supremely just.

And there is none. On account of the blind watchmen and the dumb dogs.

That considereth: because the blind and the dumb, being ignorant of wisdom, consider not the things that are God's.

1299BVERS. 2.-- Let peace come, let him rest in his bed, who hath walked in. (ID.) The prophet prays that Christ may come, and, rising from the dead, may rest in his bed in glory, namely of the Father's majesty, or in the Church, in which he walked in uprightness.

VERS. 6.-- A libation. Wine, oil and liquids of this kind: a sacrifice of bread, a victim and things of this kind.

VERS. 7.-- Upon a high mountain. Heretics also, etc., as far as that they be trodden down by men.

VERS. 8.-- And behind the door: As though he said: Not only upon the mountains didst thou adore idols, but thou didst also set them behind the door, that going in thou mightest see them and always adore them.

Because thou hast uncovered beside me. The metaphor of an adulteress, as above of a harlot, etc., as far as laid open to all who enter.

VERS. 9.-- 1299CThou hast sent legates. That they might bring far-off idols, as though those near at hand did not suffice. And in this he signifies the gods of the Babylonians and the Egyptians.

VERS. 10.-- Thou hast laboured in the multitude of thy way. He who walks by the king's highway does not labour. There is one way of truth, which says: I am the way, the truth and the life (Joan. XIV): many are the ways of worldly men, whence, My ways are not as your ways [Vulg. Is 55:8 Non enim cogitationes meae cogitationes vestrae, neque viae vestrae viae meae, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways"] (Isa. XL).

VERS. 13.-- But he that hath confidence in me. (ID.) They who did not worship idols, or who, led into captivity, repented, and returning under Zorobabel and the other leaders, adored their God in his own place according to the Hebrew.

He shall possess thy holy mountain, [Vulg. Is 57:13 possidebit montem sanctum meum, "MY holy mountain"; Migne prints tuum] namely the law of the Old and of the New Testament; for both were given 1299Don a mountain. And he invites to the height of the rewards, or to Christ.

VERS. 14.-- And I will say, I, Christ, that is, to the apostles, I have made a way, by preaching well: furnish the road by way of example to them by working well; take away the stumbling-blocks by washing away sins through baptism, by removing the worship of idols through preaching.

VERS. 15.-- For thus saith. His rebuke against Jerusalem being ended, he comes to those who trust in the Lord, for whose return he had commanded the road to be prepared. Whence he both begins from the praises of God, and shows in order what he has promised to the returning people.

VERS. 16.-- For I will not contend for ever. (ID.) I will not keep my anger for ever, nor 1300Aplead against my creature, but I will strike in the present, that I may heal in the future.

For the spirit. Peace, joy, the life of all, etc., as far as specially to the Jews.

VERS. 17.-- I hid from thee, etc., namely my help, that thou mayest desire it the more, saying: Show thy face, and we shall be saved (Psal. LXXIX).

He went away. (ID.) Which one understanding said: All the day I went sorrowful (Psal. XXXVII).

VERS. 19.-- I created: as though he said: The deliverance from captivity, which through Jeremias I promised after seventy years, I have fulfilled in deed

I created the fruit of the lips, peace.

VERS. 20.-- But the wicked. Above concerning those who did penance in the captivity, and were therefore delivered, and 1300Bconcerning those who believed after the Ascension. Here he speaks specially of those who remained in their unbelief.

VERS. 1.-- Cry. (HIER.) The Lord to the prophets or to the apostles: the former chapter being ended, in which peace is announced to the just, and no rest to the wicked.

As a trumpet. (ID.) Where to the apostles, etc., as far as so let Israel, dead by sin, hear his own crimes.

To my people. As if he said: Let them see what a Father they have lost, who calls even sinners his people.

VERS. 2.-- As. That is, why should I not hear them as I hear those who do justice in the Church, 1300Cliving justly and piously, confessing Christ true God and true man.

They ask. (ID.) Another rashness of the Jews, as though, trusting in a good conscience, they demand a just judgment, according to that: Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in my innocence.

VERS. 3.-- Why have we fasted. They have forgotten the ancient history, that the Lord had no regard to the gifts of Cain, because he did not divide rightly with his brother, to whom he grudged charity towards God.

Behold, in the day. A fast acceptable to God is to abstain not only from foods, but from all unlawful things.

You exact. He who exacts from one who has not, does violence to God.

VERS. 4.-- Do not fast as until this 1300Dday. Lest he seem to reprove fasting, he teaches how one ought to fast.

VERS. 5.-- Is this such a fast.

VERS. 6.-- The bundles. (ID.) We understand sins, etc., as far as despise not the household of thy own seed.

VERS. 7.-- Break thy bread to the hungry. (ID.) We break bread to the hungry, etc., as far as but the fullness of the soul.