Commentary on Isaiah 2.2.10–2.2.18

and God the Creator of all. For either this, he says, or perhaps he wishes to show that those who had once conquered Israel and carried him off from Judaea, and subjected [them] to …, … by Cyrus, plainly when the Persians and Medes had driven them out. For in that day, that is, at that time, you will be released from your pain and your wrath, that is, from the wrath that hung over you, the divine wrath plainly; for you will escape the bitter slavery and be released from your labours. But come, again remoulding as far as we can the thickness of the history, let us look at such an event in a spiritual contemplation. They were captives, given over to the worship of idols and revering the powers of the very one who had defrauded them. But the Creator of all had pity on them as wronged, and sent us from heaven as redeemer his own Son, “in the name of the Lord”, that is, not as one of the holy prophets but in the glory of lordship; and he sacked, as some boastful and insolent city, … with his armed warriors, that is, the holy apostles, who, having laid waste as it were the whole land of the devil, brought back with them, as into a holy city, the spiritual Jerusalem (I mean the Church), those who had been deceived and were held under the yoke of slavery; and these were multiplied on the land of God and became male and female slaves. And those who formerly had them under their hand as captives, that is, the servants of the demons, who taught their customs and netted people into destruction, have become captives, that is, they have been conquered by the preaching of the holy apostles and [have come] under Christ … from the hard slavery which they had already served before coming under the Lord and his armed warriors.

“And you will take up this lament against the king of Babylon, and you will say in that day: How the exactor has ceased, and the taskmaster has ceased! God has broken the yoke of sinners, the yoke of rulers, striking a nation in wrath with an incurable blow, smiting a nation with a blow of wrath, which did not spare; he has ceased, though confident.”

He says that the calamities of war came upon the Babylonians to such a pitch of harshness that even those who, it was likely, having suffered things beyond bearing, would all but dance over him as he lay, these in turn would now grieve, and come to pity at the multitude of what had befallen them; or else that they would lament them in another sense, once fallen, not at all pitying them, but rather rejoicing and mocking those caught beyond their hope. He also weaves the lament for them, and a song fitting what has happened. For you will say, he says: “How the exactor has ceased!” He says “has ceased” euphemistically, meaning “has perished and come to an end”. He calls the Babylonian exactor and taskmaster, who out of very great arrogance laid the yoke of his greed not only on his neighbours, but sent his tax-collectors even into very distant cities and lands and exacted tributes and dues. They wonder, then, how such a one has ceased, and the hand that grasped at everything has come to an end. And since they were not ignorant of the causes of his fall, they point them out and say: “God has broken the yoke of sinners, the yoke of rulers.” You hear how he calls them rulers, [for they had a] mind … subjecting to their own yokes practically everyone throughout the whole earth. For to rule was at times their only aim. But God, he says, struck the haughty race, that is, striking a nation with an incurable blow. And he who greatly trusted in himself and was proud, and did not willingly cease, has ceased, that is, goes off to the end most fitting for him, having suffered an incurable blow of wrath, all sparing

being removed. But it would be fitting for us too to say these things, and as it were to raise the shout of victory over Satan, an exactor and taskmaster, and a very bitter one. For he presses on the mind of each one, turning it aside from the best and good pursuits (I mean those in piety and righteousness), carrying it off as it were by force to what seems good to him, and, like some bitter tax-gatherer, demanding from each diligence in sin. But the Saviour broke the yoke of sinners, casting that one off and rather putting us under his own yokes, and striking a nation with an incurable blow. What nation? Surely that of the demons, whom he also commanded to go off into the abyss; and indeed he brought the most grievous torments upon them; at any rate they cried out, saying: “Ah, what have we to do with you … us.” “The whole earth cries out with gladness, and the trees … You have come here before the time to destroy.” This too is part of the lament. And as far as the account of the history goes, there was gladness in all … of the taskmaster, who demanded from all that they must be subject to him; whom the prophetic word also calls trees of Lebanon, surely those in office and in power among the nations, being compared to cedars. [So, then,] he says, rejoicing over you they say: “Since you have fallen asleep, the one who cuts us down has not come up.” And if anyone should wish to apply such a word only to … … great in the land of the Phoenicians, with cedars and … So the divinely inspired Scripture very often compares it to the land of the Jews, because there are very many in it most distinguished in power and glory, and others too raised on high in the [honours] of the priesthood and as it were most fragrant. Indeed the prophet Zechariah compared Judaea to Lebanon, and those in it to cedars and oaks and pines, and the army of the Romans, which after the cross of the Saviour burned up their whole land, to all-devouring fire. He speaks thus: “Open your doors, O Lebanon, and let fire devour your cedars. Let the pine wail, because the cedar has fallen. Wail, oaks of Bashan, because the dense forest has been torn down.” Let the word, then, be that of the Jews, as from the trees of Lebanon, rejoicing and saying to the Babylonian and those around him: “Since you have fallen asleep, the one who cuts us down has not come up.” And the figure of speech has stayed very elegant.

For since the voice came as from trees of Lebanon, for this reason they say: “The one who cuts us down has not come up.” For after the return of those of Israel from Babylon, war from the Assyrians was no longer stirred up against them. And we too will fittingly say to Satan, we who were once sacked by him but now have a mind settled in Christ, and a mind secure in piety and rooted: [“The one who cuts us down has not] come up.”

“Hades below was embittered on meeting you; all the giants who ruled the earth rose up together with you, those who raised up from their thrones all the kings of nations. All will answer and say to you: You too have been taken, as we were, and you have been reckoned among us. Your glory has gone down to Hades, your great gladness; beneath you …”

It is the custom of the divinely inspired Scripture sometimes to personify, and as it were to fit voices to the things themselves, as in: “Be ashamed, Sidon, said the sea; and the strength of the sea said: I have not been in labour … virgins.” For it attaches the word on this matter to the city of the Tyrians, sacked at a certain time by the Babylonians; and we say that the word suits the nature of the events. So too the prophet Micah somewhere brought in Jerusalem speaking to Babylon: “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy, because I have fallen; and I will rise. For if I sit in darkness, the Lord will give me light. I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I sinned against him, until he justifies my cause; and he will execute my judgement and bring me out into the light. I will see his righteousness, and my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who says to me: Where is the Lord your God? My eyes … will look upon her; now she will be for trampling, like mud in the streets. A day of the smearing of brick; that day is yours.” That is, the day on which Cyrus and the Medes together with the Persians took the land of the Babylonians. So now too, no less, the blessed prophet personifies; and he says that [Hades] was embittered, that is, … consider the arrangement of the word. For he shows by this that he was bloodthirsty and full of blood, so that almost all of Hades, that is, those in Hades, had become the work of the cruelty that was in him. For the boaster did not cease cutting down nations and kings utterly and filling Hades with wretched souls. All the giants, then, he says, that is, those who had become notable for strength and ruled many nations, but had been destroyed by you, will answer and say: “You too have been taken, as we were.”

For you were a man, they say, but you did not deign to know this and to think it; you would not even have supposed that anyone would be stronger than your brow and your irresistible hand, and that there is something stronger even than death, perhaps you did not put outside your hope; and hardly, and against your will, the Median sword persuaded you to learn by experience that you too were like us. So you have been taken, as we were. “Your glory has gone down to Hades”, meaning: it has been put out by death, and the grim power of corruption has been brought upon it. It will see your gladness, having barely been put out of the way. “And beneath you will be spread … and the worm will be your covering.” And this is common. For when human bodies have once suffered death, rotting and the worm will come upon them in every case. But it is well said of him, as by way of bitter reproaches. For those who have fallen into forgetfulness of their own weakness, and out of very great arrogance [do not think] that they will suffer the things [of mortals] …, as having learned these things barely by suffering them, when they ought to have known them and chosen to think more modestly. He, then, he says, who lived wantonly in degenerate and royal luxuries, will lie together with the others without a shroud, and deemed worthy of none of the customary rites for the dead.

“How has the Morning Star, who rises in the morning, fallen from heaven! He who sends to all the nations has been crushed to the earth!”

The Morning Star is the most brilliant of the stars; it rises a little before dawn, and is as it were a herald of the radiance of the sun. That it shines with rich light this very fact would show, that it appears a little before dawn. For while it is still night and the darkness is at its height, the stars in heaven have a more conspicuous brilliance; but when day is near, and the sun's disk has come as it were to its first edges, the light of each is somehow drawn in, yielding to what excels and overcome by the greater brightness. But the light of the Morning Star is so abundant … that it appears … even at dawn and makes its appearance close to the rays of the sun. He compares the Babylonian, then, to the Morning Star, because he excelled the others, and none of those in office or kingship was seen to be like him, and he was as conspicuous and as visible from afar as the Morning Star would be considered among all the other stars. But he who was surrounded by such glory, he says, and raised on high, has fallen as from heaven, and has been crushed to the earth, as one who sends to all the nations. “Sends” means “commands”, or it may be meant in another way. For it always seemed good to the tyrants of the Babylonians to bring every nation of men under their own hand, and that all lands should come under the yokes of slavery.

Sending, at any rate, to all the nations, they asked for a clod of earth and for water in a vessel, as though seeking the whole from the part (I mean earth and sea), as being masters of all.

“But you said in your mind: I will go up into heaven, above the stars of heaven I will set my throne; I will sit on a lofty mountain, on the lofty mountains toward the north; I will go up above the clouds, I will be like the Most High. But now you will go down to Hades, and to the foundations of the earth. Those who see you will wonder at you and say: Is this the man who provoked the whole earth, who shook kings, who made the whole world desolate and pulled down its cities? He did not release those in affliction.”

He says that he was caught by unexpected calamities, and that, having met with strange things beyond his hope, through them he barely learned from events that he was a man and like those who had died before him. For as far as words of arrogance went, and a God-hated mind, filled with boastfulness to the utmost, it seemed a small thing to you, he says, to give way to the heights of the divine supremacy; you supposed that perhaps even heaven itself would be within your reach; in your ignorance you rashly thought yourself someone equal to God and above creation; you thought you were above the clouds and would sit on the very stars. But you have been caught, having had such thoughts in vain. The end of events has refuted your rash counsel; for you will go down to Hades, and to the foundations of the earth. And he says this perhaps to signify the lowest place, that is, the outer darkness. You will be a marvel to those who see you, he says, and very fittingly. For sudden [reversals] most of all … But what is the marvel, and what would they say about him? For they will say: “Is this the man?” Now that he has suffered they barely call him a man, perhaps having long been afraid to say it. “But is this the man who provoked the whole earth, who shook kings, who made the whole world desolate and pulled down the cities?” They fittingly wondered that one man had provoked the whole [world] under heaven, shaken kings, made the world empty of its inhabitants, and shaken down the cities. And what else besides these? “He did not release those in affliction.” Since some of the copies have “those in deportation”, if anyone wishes to understand it so, we will say that the word “deportation” would signify the captivity and removal of those of Israel; for they were carried off from Judaea to the land of the Assyrians. But if the sacred text says “those in affliction”, you will no less understand those who were under the affliction of the Lord's wrath. For wrath had been brought upon them because of much sin. These Nebuchadnezzar did not release, that is, he did not let them go from their misery.

For the wicked wretch had to be seen not only as boastful but also as fighting against God, as having ravaged the earth, hard and pitiless, and in no way knowing how to pity those who were in the extremest calamities and were faring wretchedly. And one might very fittingly apply what was said historically to the head of him who crushed all things, I mean the dragon, the author of evil. For he was an exactor and taskmaster in the ways we have already described; but he has ceased and been removed, God striking him in wrath with an incurable blow, and he has stopped cutting down, like some strong woodcutter, the spiritual cedars, which blessed David also mentions when he says to the God of all: “The cedars of Lebanon, which you planted.” And since the wretch has gone down into Hades, surely condemned, there, as is likely, the wicked powers under him [seeing him] having suffered, perhaps even lamented, saying: “You too have been taken, as we were, and you have been reckoned among us,” and what follows. For as far as glory went, he was notable among the angels and conspicuous among the powers above, just like the Morning Star among the stars. But he fell and was crushed, having had overweening thoughts and having dared to seize the honour and glory that befit the supreme nature alone, as far as the power of his attempts and the mind in him went. But, as the prophet says, he has gone down into Hades and to the foundations of the earth, he who once shook the whole earth, who made the world as a desert; for he made the [world] under heaven a desert empty of the true knowledge of God, having no worker of virtue at all. And he did not release those in affliction. But the Lord has granted this to those who have believed in him, saying to those in bonds: “Come out”, and to those in darkness: “Be uncovered.” And indeed to those who had come under divine wrath because they had behaved like drunkards toward the divine laws, he forgave their charges without remembering wrongs, and freed from punishment those who through human weakness had been brought under many …

“All the kings of the nations have fallen asleep in honour, each man in his own house. But you …”

… shows his calamity; and what I said is true, [that it would be strange] if the one so conspicuous and so proud, and raised by incomparable eminence so as to seem set on high, did not happen to meet the same lot as the others. For they, he says, have fallen asleep not without honour, nor anywhere outside the dwellings most dear to them. But you have no share even in these: that is, you are stinking and unpleasant to look at. For what could be more loathsome than a dead body with no shroud? You will lie, then, together with the others who became the work of the Median sword, with no one lamenting over you, not [receiving] what [is due] to the dead, but so pitiable and cast out that you differ in nothing from the

others, who came under your hand and were utterly obscure. It is necessary to know that the lament will stop at this point.

“As a garment soaked in blood is no longer clean, so neither will you be clean; because you destroyed my land and killed my people, you will not remain for all time.”

… is, and one would see them dyed into those who did them, like a dye. He shows that they had done things deserving the indignation that came to its end, and deserving a punishment equal in weight to the charges. You will not, then, be freed from your offences, he says, nor would you become clean and fit to be pitied. You will be so defiled, and will have the charge of bloodshed so indelible, just like a garment soaked in blood. For you destroyed the holy land, and you killed the people allotted to me: “For when the Most High divided the nations,” he says, “when he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; and his people Jacob became the Lord's portion, Israel the measured lot of his inheritance.” It is utterly dreadful, then, to rise up against the land of the Lord, that is, the Church, and to carry out deeds of bloodshed against the people allotted to Christ. For he who is caught in such monstrous charges will in no way be clean. But someone, I think, might say, having considered the calamities that came on Judaea and on Jerusalem itself: Did he then ravage the land of the Jews and take the holy city without God permitting him to do it, or rather without God giving it to him? And yet the prophet Isaiah himself tells us: “The Lord will whistle for the flies which rule part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee which is in the land of the Assyrians, and they will all come and rest in the ravines of the land, and in the holes of the rocks, and in the caves, and in every cleft, and on every tree.” How, then, does the Babylonian, who served the divine nods, bear a charge that cannot be escaped, and is punished so terribly that nothing is seen beyond the wrath brought upon him? Yes, and very fittingly. For the God of all wished to rebuke Israel when it had turned aside to apostasy, and by measured afflictions to persuade it to run back to the worship it was used to, I mean the worship of the law. But he, although brought for this, was implacable like a wild beast and gave unbridled rein to his anger; and indeed he is accused, God saying clearly: “I have been jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great jealousy, and with great anger I am angry with the nations that join in the attack; because I was angry a little, but they joined in the attack for evil.” And just as God raised up Pharaoh, who was a vessel of wrath and anger and already liable to punishment for his own faults, as he himself says, so as to show in him both his own power and the exactness of his just judgement, so you will understand in the case of the Babylonians too. For being vessels of wrath and deserving to be punished justly, they were brought against Jerusalem, so that, having disciplined Israel, they might after this themselves be required to pay the [penalty] that most befitted them and …

“Evil seed, prepare your children to be slaughtered for the sins of your father, that they may not rise and fill my land … And I will rise up against them, says the Lord Sabaoth, and I will destroy their name and remnant and seed.

Nebuchadnezzar did dreadful things against every nation, and those who came after him and from him, down to Belshazzar, following their father's perversity, went beyond what he did; they were cruel and harsh against every nation, and they pressed hard upon Israel, even though they were in captivity and held under the yoke of slavery. And they had such high thoughts, even against the very glory of God, that the wicked Belshazzar, making a drinking party for his nobles, brought the holy vessels out into the midst and drank from them together with his concubines and consorts; at which time also the knuckle of a hand came out, as Daniel says, and made writing on the wall: Mane, Thekel, Phares; which the divine Daniel interpreted, saying that his kingdom had been divided and given to the Medes and Persians. They say, then, that the race of Nebuchadnezzar perished root and all at that time, and that of Belshazzar too, so that no one at all of their blood after them mounted the royal thrones among them. This, I think, the prophetic word shows us through the words before us. See how the divine wrath went against all the evil seed. “Prepare,” he says, “your children to be slaughtered for the sins of your father.” For since the fathers were ungodly, the whole race that would have come from them has been brought to an end. For what reason? “That they may not rise,” he says, “and inherit the land and fill the land with wars”; that is, that they may not become zealous followers of their fathers' [ways], and fill the land with war just as those did, and become its masters. “And I will rise up against them, says the Lord Sabaoth, and I will destroy their name and remnant and seed.” For just as God promised those kings of Israel who pleased him that sons to the fourth generation would sit on their thrones, extending the blessing also to the race that would come from them, so he cuts off the increase of the race of those who had been exceedingly ungodly. “For the ungodly,” it says, “will perish root and all from the earth.” Let, then, the enemy of all hear too, the inventor of sin, who has become for us the cause of all evils: “As a garment soaked in blood will not be clean, so neither will you be clean, because you destroyed my land and killed my people.” For he was not content with turning the beginning of our race aside to transgression, but he also led the whole [world] under heaven astray from God, and, having carried man on earth away from love of him, he made him his own worshipper and sent him down into the pits of destruction. He will not, then, be clean, nor has he remained for all time; for [God did] not [endure] his greed for ever, and cut short the impulses of his perversity against us. For he has perished together with his

own children, that is, the unclean demons, cast down into Tartarus, as the disciple of the Saviour says, so that they may not rise and inherit the land and fill the land with wars. For they have been thrown out of their tyranny over us, and Christ has become our peace. For as blessed Paul writes: “The peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our thoughts.” In what way it came about that they suffered this, the God of all himself will make clear to us, saying: “And I will rise up against them, says the Lord Sabaoth, and I will destroy their name and remnant and seed.”

“Thus says the Lord: And I will make Babylonia a desert, so that hedgehogs dwell there, and it will be as nothing; and I will make it a pit of mud for destruction.”

This seems to be a kind of summing-up of what was said at length. For it shows nothing else than surely this, that the land of the Babylonians will be wholly deserted by men but full of animals, for whom the desert is a dear dwelling. And since, as is likely, it has a very great flow of waters (and they say that a river cuts it in two), it came about, since no one channelled the stream of the waters to the places where it ought to go, that the water spread over all of it and produced a multitude of marshes, so that the city once brilliant and famous, named queen of the others and most glorious, became a pit of mud, and to destruction for those who fall into it.

“… so it will be, and as I have planned, so it will remain: to destroy the Assyrians on my land and on my mountains; and they will be for trampling, and their yoke will be taken away from them, and their glory from …”

The blessed Isaiah prophesies in the reign of Uzziah and Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah; and he seems to have made these words, I mean those against Babylon or the whole land of the Assyrians, while Uzziah, who is also Azariah, was still alive and held the royal honour. But since, in the reign of Hezekiah, Sennacherib the Assyrian made an expedition against Judaea and took very many … cities of Samaria, and was refuted by the hand of God when he leapt even upon Jerusalem itself (for in one night a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the foreigners died, consumed by the hand of an angel), for this reason, so that nothing of what God had said for the comfort of Israel might seem to fail, he proclaims this too beforehand and says: As I have said, so it will be. For the land of the Babylonians, he says, will settle into a pit of mud; it will be laid waste, and that will remain; and in every way and altogether, he says, what I have planned and ratified by my own decrees will come to its fitting end: to destroy the Assyrians on my land and on my mountains; and they will be for trampling; and their yoke will be taken away, and their glory from their shoulders. For Rabshakeh had been sent by Sennacherib from Lachish to Jerusalem. Then, having surrounded the whole [city] round about with the [forces] of the Babylonians, he talked nonsense against the glory of God beyond all measure, and uttered words that befitted a barbarian mind: “Do not let Hezekiah deceive you,” he says, “saying that God will rescue you from the hand of the Assyrians”; and, seeking to throw the yoke of slavery on those who had been free from of old, [he expected] great glory, that is, renown, for himself and for his own master. [But] “rising in the morning,” it says, “they found all the bodies … dead.” And he learned by experience that the one who protects the saints is all-powerful, and that nothing withstands his divine nods.