Commentary on Isaiah 1.6.10–1.6.17

to be seen prevailing over many in battle. “But now,” he says, “affliction will come to you from afar”; that is: your battle is not against Idumeans, the war not against Moabites, nor against any of your neighbours, whom you have at times even conquered, when you won the better verdict in battle and bound on the crown of glory; but now affliction will come to you from afar. By these words he seems to hint at the invasion of the Assyrians, or rather at that of the Romans. For these … from afar … “and where will you leave your glory, so as not to fall into the leading away?” For you have often shown your courage, he says, against those who … your cities and lands. But now where will you leave the glory you had for this? For you will all fall, and your bravery against others will profit you in no way. For what will you do so as not to fall into the leading away? By “leading away” he means what was brought on them as from the divine wrath, the calamity of the war. For when God brings punishments on those who sin, who will turn him back? Or what means will help those who are under penalty and punishment? There is none. Therefore the divine David too sings and says: “Lord, do not rebuke me in your wrath, nor discipline me in your anger.” And again: “You are fearful, and who will stand against you? From then is your anger.” No one, then, will turn back the divine wrath; but repentance, as it were, softens it. Or rather, it would not be stirred at all to begin with, if one were willing to live rightly and lawfully and according to what his oracles approve.

“In all these things the wrath was not turned away, but the hand is still high. Woe to the Assyrians! The rod of my wrath and anger is in their hands. I will send my anger against a lawless nation, and I will command my people to take spoil and plunder, and to trample the cities and make them like dust. But he did not think so, and in his soul he did not reckon so; but his mind will remove …, and if they say to him, ‘You alone are ruler,’ he will say, ‘Did I not … and I took them,’ and I will take all the lands.”

Everywhere we shall find God caring for his own glory. For he is angry if he sees some who have chosen to despise him, who are eager to count what he approves as nothing and who, as it were, let out every sail in their haste to turn aside to the most outlandish things. Yet he turns such people, one might almost say, even to their own benefit. For so blessed David too says somewhere: “With bit and bridle you will constrain the jaws of those who do not come near to you. Many are the scourges of the sinner.” And he brings punishment on those who offend, putting his own anger as a kind of rod into the hands of men who are not good, so that they may become the punishers of the impious.

But those who are taken up for this purpose think something great against those who are punished, or rather against God, who let them loose on them and passed the verdict that they must suffer; and they suppose that they have prevailed even though he wished to save. He therefore turns his anger on them, and very fittingly. And since, to the proud … to assure them that it was not the work of their strength but of his nod that they prevailed over those who were punished. The king of the Assyrians experienced something of this kind. For when he had taken Judea and laid waste its cities, he thought great things of himself, and indeed supposed that he had conquered the holy land even against the will of God, who presided over it and promised to save it. For this reason, he says, the wrath has not yet turned away, and the “woe” will be brought upon the Assyrians too. And what is the reason for it? The rod of my anger, he says, has been given into their hands, by me, plainly, so that with it they may strike those who have acted impiously toward me. I commanded them to make my people spoil and plunder, to trample the cities and make them dust. For had they not been deprived of the saving help that was always theirs and customary for them, given by me, they would never have been captured, since through me they were always stronger than their enemies. But the Assyrian himself did not think so, nor did he reckon so in his soul; rather, as far as his mind went, he “will remove,” that is, will destroy, “nations not a few.” For he supposes that no one will rise up against his forces, that he will conquer everything without toil, and will be master of every nation with no one opposing. And so insatiable is his soul, always wanting to rule over all, that if anyone came to him and said, “You alone are ruler,” that is, “Will you alone be able to rule all that is under heaven?” …, to this, he says, he will utter a haughty word, saying: “Did I not take the country above Babylon, and Calno, where the tower …, and Samaria? As I took these, I will take all the lands too.” Calno, where the tower was built by the ancients, lies in a way in the furthest parts of the East, beyond the country and land of the Babylonians. Just as, then, he says, I have set the boundaries of my kingdom from the very ends of the eastern land, and have taken Damascus and Samaria, which were helped not at all by the gods in them, so I will seize the lands beyond as well.

We must remember that Rabshakeh too, announcing the words of the king of the Assyrians, called out to those sitting on the wall: “Thus says the king of the Assyrians: Do not let King Hezekiah deceive you with words, which will not be able to deliver you; and do not let Hezekiah say to you, ‘God will deliver us.’” And after other things, again: “Did the gods of the nations each deliver his own land from the hand of the king of the Assyrians? Where is the god of Hamath and Arpad? And where is the god of the city of Sepharvaim? Were they able to deliver Samaria from my hand? Which of all the gods of these nations delivered his land from my hand, that God should deliver Israel from my hand?” The Assyrian, then, thought great things and laughed at the divine wrath … But when he grows insolent even against the divine glory itself, then, then indeed, the “woe” will be brought, and very justly, on those who choose to do this.

… Samaria. For as I did to Samaria and to her handmade things, so I will do also in Jerusalem and to her idols.”

He has just brought in the Assyrian thinking lofty and overweening thoughts. For since he had taken the cities of Samaria … of the falsely named gods, whose precincts and altars were burned again along with them; and since he was determined to bring Jerusalem itself, that is, Judea, under his hand, even if Christ, who always defends and saves it, perhaps did not will it, the prophetic word at once sets before us the reasons why Samaria itself was captured, and very many of the cities of Judea. So, very fittingly, he brings to mind the ways of impiety, and, as if aghast at the apostasy, out of his great love for God he cries out: “Howl, carved images in Jerusalem and in Samaria.” For where the God of all ought to have been honoured with fitting honours, there he is overlooked and robbed of the honour that befits him and is owed to him. For the wretched people, devoting their reverence to carved images, dared to say to the wood, “You are my God,” and to the stone, “You begot me.” So it was as if in amazement that the prophet said: “… Jerusalem and in Samaria.” He says something similar about Jerusalem through the voice of Jeremiah: “Why has the beloved done abomination in my house?” And he said somewhere through one of the prophets: “Ephraim is a watchman with God; the prophet is a crooked snare on all his ways.” For in Jerusalem they built altars and handmade things and sacrificed to Baal and to the host of heaven; and those in Samaria did these things too. “As, then,” he says, “I did to Samaria and to her handmade things, so I will do also to Jerusalem and to her idols.” For those whose daring deeds are akin may fittingly be followed by an equal punishment. So the Assyrian took Damascus and Samaria; and the way to the deed, the occasion of his prevailing, was the making of idols both in Samaria and in Jerusalem. Therefore also those who do such things … The making of idols, then, is grievous everywhere and brings us anger from God, even if one should perhaps do this in mind and heart. For those things too carry one away from love for God, bewitching the heart and leading it out to what is not fitting.

“And it will be, when the Lord has finished doing everything on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he will bring it upon the great mind, the ruler of the Assyrians, and upon the height of the glory of his eyes.”

“For he said: By strength I will do it, and by the wisdom of understanding I will remove the boundaries of nations and plunder their strength; and I will shake inhabited cities, and I will seize the whole world in my hand like a nest, and like abandoned eggs I will take it up; and there is no one who will escape me or speak against me.”

He says that the Assyrian, who thought such overweening things, will not go unpunished. For “the Lord opposes the proud,” as it is written, and he always exacts an account from those sick with boastfulness for the charges it brings, and renders them pitiable and cast down, so that they may know not to “lift up their horn on high,” as it is written, but may rather recognize their own nature and weakness. “For when he has finished,” he says, “doing everything on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,” that is, when the wrath against them comes to its end, he will then bring his hand and the striking rod “upon the great mind, the ruler of the Assyrians.” He called him a great mind not to praise him for it but rather to blame him, as being nothing else than God-hated arrogance. For he thought nothing human, but things that perhaps float above the whole created nature. He will bring it, then, “upon the height of the glory of his eyes”; by “eyes” here he means his thoughts or designs. For these were, as I said, lofty and overweening. But since he is God, and sees into heart and kidneys, and knows what is hidden, he makes these things plain to us too, and says: “For he said: By strength I will do it, and by the wisdom of understanding I will remove the boundaries of nations, and plunder their strength, and shake inhabited cities.” See how, as though he needed no help from above, he ascribes to his own forces alone the power to do everything he might wish. He supposes that he is so wise and so skilled a general that he can very easily move the boundaries of the nations to himself, break their strength, make it plunder, and shake their cities, even if they had a great many, countless inhabitants. And his boasting does not stop there. For he brags that he will grasp all that is under heaven, … very easily, … readily and without battle he has disposed of, and spread beneath the feet of the saints. For he said to them: “… and scorpions, and over all the power of the …” … he thinks, according to what came into his mind. “For I will seize,” he says, “the whole world like a nest, and like abandoned eggs I will take it up, and there is no one who will escape me or speak against me.” What terrible arrogance, what senseless reasonings! As if of a single sparrow … the

whole world, he likens all those throughout the earth to eggs abandoned by the bird that warms them, so that he may come on them like a dragon and swallow them. He hates those who speak against him, and does not expect the besieged so much as to come to words with him. These things might fittingly be applied to the person of Satan himself, for he is the father of arrogance. He imagined that he would seize the world with no one acting against him. But it did not turn out so at all; rather, the end of things turned out for him the very opposite. For Christ spoke against him on our behalf; and not only did he speak against him, but he also contended on behalf of the life of all, conquered the destroyer, and to … “Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents … of the enemy.”

“Shall the axe be glorified without the one who cuts with it? Or shall the saw be exalted without the one who draws it? Likewise if one were to lift a rod or a piece of wood. Not so; but the Lord Sabaoth will send dishonour upon your honour, and upon your glory a burning fire will be kindled.”

He plainly convicts the Assyrian of puffing himself up for nothing and of being wholly ignorant that it was not at all by his own … that he took Samaria and the other cities with it, but rather because the verdict from above brought him against those who had committed unbearable impieties, like an axe, or a rod, or a piece of wood. “Tell me,” he says, “you most senseless of all: shall the axe be glorified without the one who cuts with it?” An axe that is well sharpened and keen may be well suited to cutting down the trees in the fields. Would anyone, then, praise the axe as able to do this without the one who cuts with it? And what will the saw accomplish by itself, unless someone draws it and pushes it back again? And if someone takes up a rod or a piece of wood, will it not be the same again? The rod will lie on the ground, and the wood is thrown down; but if someone takes them and strikes some people, then indeed what is done through them will take effect. Why, then, he says, have you thought lofty things? Why do you raise your eyebrows? Do you think that you yourself, by your own power, accomplished the taking of the cities, when you were taken up as an instrument by the hand that did those things, plainly the divine hand? The glory, therefore, is not yours, but rather God's, who brought your cruelty, like an axe, or a rod, or a piece of wood, on those who had offended him. You will not be, then, he says, as you thought. You will neither remain in the same glory, nor will you flourish with such splendid honours. You will not do it by strength, nor by the wisdom of understanding will you remove the boundaries of nations. You will not seize the world like abandoned eggs. “But the Lord Sabaoth will send dishonour upon your honour, and upon your glory a burning fire will be kindled.” By his honour he means the army that acts under him and is subject to him, for he took pride in it. Fire, then, will come upon it, he says, and will burn up your honour. And in what way this happened, you will learn again before long.

“And the light of Israel will be for a fire, and he will sanctify him with a burning fire, and it will devour the wood like grass. On that day … the mountains, and the hills, and the forests. And it will devour from soul to flesh. And the one who flees will be like one fleeing from a burning flame; and those of them who are left will be a number, and a child will write them down.”

What is said is very hard to grasp, and the composition of the wording has a most difficult explanation. But we will make plain again the sense hidden in the passage, after first saying the following. Shalmaneser king of the Assyrians took Samaria, and sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem. He came, besieged it, and spoke to those on the wall the words of the one who had sent him, adding to them blasphemies against God, saying that God would not deliver Jerusalem from the hand of the king of the Assyrians. Distressed at such words, King Hezekiah made supplication to God, saying: “Hear, Lord; look, Lord, and see the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of the Assyrians sent to reproach the living God.” And God promised them salvation. And indeed an angel of the Lord went out and slew in one night from the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. When this had happened, the Assyrian was struck with unbearable fear; and when he heard the news that Tirhakah king of the Ethiopians had come out against his land, he went off in flight with the very few who were left.

This is what the prophetic word now interprets for us in riddles. For the God of all became light to Israel, appointing the law that has power to enlighten. But this light, he says, that belonged to Israel will not be light to the Assyrians … the … of what was kindled among the Assyrians will teach people everywhere that God regards Israel as his own and dedicated people. And this is “he will sanctify him with a burning fire.” For what is said to be sanctified is not always something sharing in every holiness; rather it also means what has been dedicated to God for his glory. So he says to Moses: “Sanctify to me every firstborn that opens the womb, the males, to the Lord”; and “sanctify” there means “dedicate.” The God of all, then, he says, will sanctify Israel, that is, will show it to be dedicated to himself, through the fire kindled against the Assyrians. By fire here he means the unexpected destruction. For if he did not regard them as his own people, he would not have kindled the fire against their opponents, which also consumed the multitude of the Assyrians like grass or wood.

On that day, then, he says, that is, at that point of time, “the mountains will be quenched, and the hills and the forests, and it will devour from soul to flesh.” He fitly likens to hills and forests and mountains both the multitude of the Assyrians itself and its leaders, who stand above the others like hills or mountains. But these will be quenched; that is, those who were once hot and fierce will be cooled, even against their will. That is what “will be quenched” means. For death will devour them, consuming, one might almost say, both souls and bodies. That the souls were not destroyed together with the bodies is clear to everyone; but by these words he hints at the might of the wrath. “But the one who flees will be,” he says, “like one … of them will be a number, and a child will write them down.” For very few, as I said, fled with the king as from a flame. He says they were so few in number that counting them would not be beyond the mind even of a young child, so that he could write them down or reckon them. For the tradition of the Hebrews holds that only ten in number were left, who with Rabshakeh reported to the king of the Assyrians what had happened. These were the wages of his arrogance. And the type is useful for us too. For if anyone wishes to be outside the divine wrath and not to be consumed by the evils God sends, let him firmly refuse to fall sick with what is akin and equal to their perversity.

“And it will be in that day that … of Jacob will no longer … trust in …, but will be trusting in God, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. And the remnant of Jacob will be toward the mighty God.”

When the fire has been kindled against the army of the Assyrians, he says, two things will be accomplished and come about. The boaster and destroyer will cease, even against his will, from his so terrible and hateful pride; for he will go off in fear and unexpectedly put to shame. He will know by the event itself, even if perhaps he does not wish it, that he had become an instrument of the divine wrath against those who had sinned, and that it was not at all by his own strength that he prevailed over them. This will happen to the barbarian. But for those of Israel the miracle will be of benefit: the remnant of those in Samaria, that is, of Israel, and also of Jacob, that is, again of the two tribes that were in Jerusalem, will cease from their ancient error and from cold and useless thoughts. For they will not be trusting in those who wronged them. Since the enemy fell, consumed by the hand of an angel, they came to know exactly the all-powerful right hand of the one who saves; they will make him their saviour and redeemer and place all their hope in him, spurning those who wronged them.

Who these are, and in what way they wronged them, must be said. The God of all saved those of the blood of Israel, presiding over them, defending them, and making them stronger than their opponents. But when they turned to opposing him, and some fashioned golden heifers while others worshipped Chemosh and Baal-Peor and the host of heaven, the God of all handed over those who opposed him from time to time, sometimes to the nations that lived round about Judea (Idumeans, I mean, and Moabites, and those from Elam), sometimes to those far off (the Assyrians, I mean, and the Egyptians). When war broke out, then, and was announced to those throughout the whole land, how would it not have been better for those of Israel to make their defence to the all-powerful God whom they had grieved, and to put away his anger by returning to better ways? For they ought to have removed from their midst the profane multitude of idols and inscribed him as their saviour and redeemer.

But they had very little regard for these things. They sent embassies sometimes to the Egyptians, sometimes to the Assyrians, and called for help from them. For this reason, I think, God was provoked against them still more. Those who wronged Israel and Jacob, then, were on the one hand the falsely named gods, who called down the divine wrath on them and induced them to trust in them; on the other hand those who sold them useless help for money and gifts. When the multitude of the enemy had been consumed in one night, then, he says, they will from then on be trusting in God; and having learned by experience the all-powerful right hand of the one who saved them, they will place their hope not in those who wronged them, but in the Holy One of Israel himself, in truth. “And the remnant of Jacob will be toward the mighty God.” For they will no longer take courage in wood and stones, but will rather make their strength him who has always been their helper and defender, a weapon and an unbreakable wall.

“And if the people of Israel become like the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. For he is completing and cutting short a word in righteousness, because God will make a word cut short in the whole world.”

Through these words he shows us very well that none of those who have chosen to disobey and are deeply sick with harshness and intractability would be counted worthy of the same as the obedient and docile. For the Assyrian came against the whole nation of the Jews, and his aim was to spare no one, but to shear the whole land bare, empty it of men, and leave it deserted of inhabitants. And he destroyed Samaria and took with it not a few cities of Judea; but God marvellously saved those in Jerusalem. What, then, is the reason for this? Yes, he says: since not all Israel had acted impiously, but there were perhaps some who were greatly distressed at …, and a most just verdict …, bringing the penalty on the sinners alone. That the statement is true … in the prophet Ezekiel. For he said that he saw some of Israel worshipping the sun, and heard God saying about them: “Have you seen, son of man? Is it a small thing for the house of Israel to do the lawless deeds they have done here? For they filled the land with lawlessness, and turned back to provoke me.” Then he says that he saw a man wearing a long robe and girded, and that the God of all said to him: “Go through the midst of Jerusalem, and put the mark on the foreheads of the men who groan and are grieved over all the lawless deeds done in its midst. And to these he said in my hearing: Go into the city after him, and strike, and let your eyes not spare; and do not pity elder and young man, and virgin and infants; and kill women to destruction. But do not come near any on whom the mark is.” See, then, how God seals with his own grace the pious and genuine, who are angry and lament at whatever others dare to offend him by. So even if