Commentary on Isaiah 2.3.22–2.4.5

And they, aggrieved at this, after laying waste practically all of Judaea, went against the land of the Egyptians and took the whole of it without effort, God giving them the power to prevail over the hand of their opponents, because he was aggrieved against the Egyptians. When, then, [the Assyrian] was about to march against …, they set out from Judaea to announce to them the attack that would come before long. And about them the prophet says: “Swift messengers will go”, that is, quick, and as it were winged and light, announcing the calamity of the war, which is near and already at the doors. “A lofty nation, and a strange and harsh people” he calls the Egyptians: “lofty” meaning arrogant, or else frivolous and light and most senseless; “strange and harsh”, as being strange in its harshness, and having no one beyond it in this. “For who is beyond it?” he says, meaning: Who is so frivolous, ignorant, senseless, and given to a wickedness unusual among others, as the people in Egypt? For they were exceedingly idolatrous. Therefore also “a nation without hope” … Without hope, because it does not know the God who is God by nature and in truth; trodden down, because, having laid their mind very low beneath the deceits of demons, they all but lay under their feet. Or you may take what is said another way. For, falling into the hands of the Assyrians, they cast away every hope of good cheer, and were so trodden down that they could never, so to speak, recover, having fallen and been spread under the feet of the conquerors.

“… inhabited, their land will be inhabited.”

He usefully announces beforehand the manner of the capture too. For those who held the land of the Egyptians thought that their whole land was girded by very many and great rivers, and had broad and long lakes. For such lands are somehow hard to enter and not very easy to overrun for those who wish to lay them waste. But since God was angry with them, he made this too ready for the Babylonians, … made the wet land passable for them. This, I think, the prophet shows when he says in these words: “Now all the rivers of the land, like an inhabited land, their land will be inhabited.” For the navigable and always wet places, he says, will be such at the time of war that they seem already to be land inhabited continually, and simply dry ground without water. For what could the divine, all-powerful and supreme nature not accomplish?

“Like a sign lifted from a mountain, like the sound of a trumpet, it will be heard.”

The leaders of troops, at the time of war, station men on hillocks and very often have them raise a sign; and this becomes a signal to the army of a clear [command]. They also use the sounds of trumpets as signals, either rousing them to fight by some customary rhythm, or withdrawing them from the battle as seems good to them. The sign raised on high, then, is most conspicuous.

For those accustomed to do this stand on a mountain, and indeed the sound of the trumpets is audible and clear to all in the battle. The suffering of the Egyptians, then, he says, will be so well known to people everywhere that it may be compared to a sign raised on one of the mountains, and so widely heard, just like the sound of the trumpets. From such things we will learn this, and it will be of much benefit to us: in no way to whet the pure nature to anger; or else that those who in every way do what is unlawful, and … the worship that is under him, and who mould their own ways on those under divine wrath, share in their calamity and pay the same penalty to God. One may see the inhabitants of Egypt suffering this. For since those of Israel had given offence, and then they promised to save them, even if [God] did not wish …

“For thus the Lord said to me: There will be safety in my city, like the light of midday heat, and like a cloud of dew in the day of harvest it will be, before the reaping.”

The account of the history is clear; but we will tell it in passing. For God saved Jerusalem when Rabshakeh was besieging it and had set the countless multitude of the Assyrians round it. How did he save it? “For an angel of the Lord went out,” it says, “and killed from the camp of the Assyrians in one night a hundred and eighty-five thousand.” There will be, then, he says, safety in my city. And that I became the helper of those in danger will be as clear to people everywhere as the light at midday is bright and at its height. For when the sun is at midday and sends down its ray at its height on those on earth, all things are made bright with the richest light. There will be, then, he says, for those in danger, the grace and safety that I will give at that time, as though it were a cloud of dew in the days of harvest before the reaping. And what does he wish to show? I will say again. It is the custom of reapers not to put the iron to the ears before [the dew] has worked on the stalk. So for them the thing is a matter of prayer, I mean that dew be sent down by God. Thrice-longed-for, then, to those in Jerusalem was the safety that came from God, just like the dew falling in the days of harvest before the reaping.

“When the ear is completed, and the unripe grape … small, … with the pruning hooks, and he will take away the shoots, … God, they are given to their enemies for destruction … of heaven and to the beasts of the earth. And the birds of heaven will be gathered upon them, and all the beasts of the earth will come upon him.”

The sense of what lies before us is very difficult and hard to make out, and the very arrangement of the wording contributes to this. But I will try to explain it as far as possible. He frames the word, then, as from the knowledge of farmers. For it is their custom, when they see that the clusters of the vine have flowered and already have something of the form of unripe grapes, to cut away the superfluous shoots, and the small clusters that hang superfluously beside the larger, so that the larger clusters, receiving [more nourishment], may be able to come to ripeness. The God of all, he says, did something like this, either in the case of the Assyrians or in that of the Egyptians; for the word is not very clear as to against whom it would more fittingly go and be directed. We say, then, that if one chooses to understand the multitude of the Assyrians that besieged the holy city as one vine, we will find that the great cluster understood in it, that is, the one [seated] on the thrones of the kingdom, did not perish with the others, but was himself saved, while the rest of the multitude was consumed as in the rank of the small clusters; and like superfluous shoots the most cutting sword of the Lord pruned them away as with a pruning hook. For they fell, as I said, consumed by the hand of an angel, and their corpses became a feast for the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven. But if anyone should wish to say that these things were said of the Egyptians too, you will understand that the Assyrians, laying the land waste, did not destroy it all utterly or entirely, but, as though putting the sword to small clusters, the [towns] here and there or the villages, they kept within the measure of the anger of God, who loves to pity, who disciplines those who offend but very often cuts short the punishments, and does not allow those who are being disciplined to perish altogether.

“At that time gifts of an afflicted [people] will be brought, and from a great people, from now and for all time; a nation hoping and trodden down, which is in part of a river of its land, to the place where the name of the Lord …”

Having explained very well what would befall the peoples of the Egyptians at various times in war, [he speaks] also of their turning to God after this: that, sending away the ancient mist of deceit from the eyes of the mind, and bidding farewell to the worship of idols, they will go on to better things; they will recognize the God who is God by nature and in truth, the Creator and Lord of all; and, being transformed as it were into a new and choice life, they bear fruit for God in those things for which they would be approved and full of all praise, and they will bring as gifts, as it were, for an odour of fragrance to God, faith, hope, love. He calls it an afflicted people because, having endured the effects of the divine wrath, it endured very great misery. And besides this, “plucked”, perhaps showing by this their transfer to better things. For the plant is transplanted, and [set in] another [ground]; and this is the best way of farming for those who are used to tilling the soil. So too the mind of those in error is transplanted in a way, being as it were plucked out of the ancient deceit, and planted into other thoughts, and besides into excellent pursuits and knowledge, or rather incomparably better than the old. That they will bear fruit for all time means continually, with no interruption coming between, but rather always and for ever. Therefore he also calls it a great people, either signifying its numbers by this, or because it became approved, having been called through faith in Christ.

For those who once surpassed all others in the crimes of idolatry are now better and more intelligent than many, having a most ardent love for Christ and a boldness for every good thing whatever. “For where sin abounded,” it says, “grace abounded all the more.” Where, then, will they bear fruit? “To the place,” he says, “where the name of the Lord Sabaoth has been called, Mount Zion”: that is, to Mount Zion, where the name of the Lord Sabaoth would be called upon. By this he signifies the Church, the great and spiritual mountain; for there is nothing low in it, nor any doctrine that is trodden down, but whatever is great and lofty: the knowledge, plainly, of the God who truly is, and the very clear revealing of the mysteries of our Saviour. The divinely inspired Scripture very often calls the Church of Christ Mount Zion, naming spiritually, from the first Zion, the truer Zion, which means a height and a watchtower. In the middle there has been thrown in: “The nation hoping and trodden down, which is in part of a river of its land.” For the turning of the Egyptians to God began from some part of the land that lies beyond the river, so that you are to understand [the land] of the Rhinocorurans, that is, one of the cities there. For he says in what follows, in the vision on Egypt: “In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the land of the Egyptians, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. And it will be a sign to the Lord for ever in the land of Egypt.” And “trodden down”, as crushed by the calamities of war; … and “hoping”, because it too has at last set its hope on Christ, and has put its neck under his yokes, and has served

“Behold, the Lord is seated on a light cloud, and he will come to Egypt, and the things made by hand in Egypt will be shaken at his presence, and their heart will be defeated within them.”

In what way the country of the Egyptians was saved and drawn as in a net to piety, plainly through faith in Christ, though it was polytheist and terribly sick with error, the prophet tries to teach in these words. For they were as in deep darkness, wholly ignorant of the one who is God by nature and truly the Creator and Lord of all, and attaching their reverence to the creation; and going still further than this, and having a multiform swarm of idols in their shrines, so as even to fashion images of irrational animals, set up altars and sacrifice to them. Where sin abounded among them, then, grace had to abound all the more, and the physician had to shine on those so grievously sick, and the divine and heavenly light to flash upon those darkened in heart. Behold, then, he says, the Lord is seated on a light cloud, and he will come to Egypt. But what would the Lord's being seen on a light cloud mean to indicate? Come, let us say as we can. Some of the interpreters have said that the light cloud is the Lord's holy flesh, that is, the temple taken from the Virgin; and they liken it to a cloud because it is freed, perhaps, from the more earthly motions and desires, and is above, as it were on high. For the holy body of Christ, the Saviour of us all, is truly all-pure and freed from all earthly uncleanness. Others again have supposed that the holy Virgin is named the light cloud. For my part I think that by saying he is seated on a light cloud it perhaps also indicates to us a breadth of other meanings. For the blessed prophets, beholding the glory of God, wrote their visions in many ways. Isaiah says that he saw the Lord Sabaoth on a throne high and lifted up, with the highest rational powers standing around him in a circle, singing hymns to him and saying that heaven and earth are full of his glory. And the all-wise Daniel sets the Ancient of Days on a throne, and declares that thousands of thousands minister to him and says that ten thousand times ten thousand stand around; and he says he saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds, and he sets out what follows these.

Ezekiel likewise says he saw a firmament, with the seraphim beneath, and on a throne he saw a man, or the form of a man, whose upper parts he says were like amber, and from the loins to the feet like the appearance of fire. In each of such visions he neatly hints to us some showing of the God-befitting glory and of the mystery of Christ. Nothing, then, prevents us from understanding in this case too that the Lord was seen on a light cloud, most usefully and necessarily. For the cloud fills out for us a type of the spiritual rain and dew, and of saving baptism itself. Indeed the blessed Paul says that those of the blood of Israel were baptized in the cloud and in the sea; the cloud hung over them by day as they crossed that deep wilderness, and a pillar of fire went before them by night. Christ was figured through both, that is, the mystery concerning him, or as in faith and holy baptism, justification and sanctification. It was fitting, then, that the Lord, going to the cleansing and change of the Egyptians, plainly in a God-befitting and spiritual way, should be seen on a light cloud. For it was not possible otherwise to wipe away the stain that had sunk into the soul of those in error, except through holy baptism, of which we define the cloud to be a type. And the cloud is very fittingly called light. For we are baptized for the putting away of sin, and [laying aside] as it were a heavy …, we become in a way winged through it, and learn to think of the things above and to have our hearts on high. And the Lord's sitting upon the cloud, I think, shows this: sitting hints to us either rest or authority. So Christ rests, not on the worship according to the law, but rather on the perfecting through holy baptism; and so he has reigned over those on earth. And he says that the things made by hand in Egypt will be shaken at his presence. For when holy baptism had already been shown forth and Christ had at last shone forth, it was wholly necessary that the toys of the ancient deceit should vanish and the snares of the devil be seen shattered. He had netted to ruin and destruction every nation and race, so to speak, but the Egyptians above all others. For they became the most superstitious of all, and perhaps surpassed in error even the Persians and Assyrians; although the God-breathed Scripture says of the country of those that it is a land of carved images. He says that the heart of the Egyptians will be defeated, yielding, I think, the victory to the Gospel preaching, though it had of old been God-opposing and had set itself against the words of truth. We shall find that Pharaoh was clearly such. For Moses, the initiator into sacred things, said plainly: “The God of the Hebrews has sent us to you, saying: Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.” And he said to them: “Who is he, that I should listen to his voice? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.” For their heart will be defeated within them, that is, it will not remain unbroken, nor hard and unteachable, but will rather receive the saving preaching.

“And Egyptians will be stirred up against Egyptians, [a brother against his brother], and a man against his neighbour; and city will rise against city, and nome against nome. And the spirit of the Egyptians will be troubled within them, and I will scatter their counsel; and they will inquire of their gods and of their images, and of those who speak from the earth, and of the ventriloquists, and of the knowers. And I will hand over Egypt into the hands of men, [hard lords, and harsh kings] will rule over them.”

This, I think, is plainly nothing other than what Christ said: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance … [a daughter against] her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be all those of his own household.” For when the divine and Gospel preaching had already been proclaimed, men, neglecting even reverence for their parents, thought hostile and hateful thoughts, and, all but equipped with the law of war, rose up against their brothers. For some, pleading for the ancient error and the deceits of the idols, [fought] the word of faith; while others, thinking it a laughable and wholly unholy thing to choose to worship gods made by their own hands, ran to the words of truth, and, being once far off, came near and became kin through … the hope of the saints, and were made heirs of eternal life. When, then, he says, the things made by hand in Egypt have been shaken, because the Lord came into it on a light cloud, there will be a great rising up of kin and relatives, and wars both one by one and in multitudes, so that city attacks [city] and nome nome. Among those who live in the country of the Egyptians each city with its surrounding territory and the villages under it is called a nome, and this word is in common use among them. Then he says: “The spirit of the Egyptians will be troubled within them, and I will scatter their counsel.” We say that, having opposite views of one another, they were troubled not a little; and those in error, planning risings and fights against those who had believed, will find the God of all fighting against them and resisting them. For I will scatter their counsels, he says, that is, I will show all their plans idle and wholly useless … against those who are mine. In what way, or at what time at all, the Egyptians became rich in the saving preaching, the prophet is eager to make plain. And the account of the history is not useless for those who once love to learn. Vespasian, then, having ravaged the country of the Jews and burned Jerusalem, came down with his whole army into the country of the Egyptians, to subdue it too. He did this by the will of God, who was bringing all countries and cities alike under the sceptres of the Romans. The Egyptians thought they could easily escape the yoke of slavery and be wholly impregnable, because their country was girded with very many waters. But they were disappointed in their hope. For when God accomplishes something, who will turn back his high hand? as it is written. It happened, then, that all their waters, in lakes and also in rivers, disappeared entirely, so that they could be crossed on foot. And so Vespasian, finding the country of the Egyptians stripped of every difficulty, took control of it.

At that very time, then, it happened that those who carried out the sacred ministry of the divine and saving preaching came into the country of the Egyptians, netting the nations through faith in Christ for the knowledge of the truth. The Egyptians, then, he says, having learned of the all-powerful and hard-to-resist onset of the Roman army, greatly troubled and wishing to learn where the outcome of the matter would lead them, will inquire of their gods and their images, of those who speak from the earth, of the ventriloquists, and also of the knowers. For among them there were various kinds of false divination and fabricated prophets: some pretending to inquire of the dead, others belching out words from their own heart; and others again knowers, that is, those who unholily pry into the smoke of sacrifices and the quiverings in the livers of slaughtered animals. But no benefit will come to them, he says, from divination; nor will they say that those who were thought to be gods are well able to help them. “For I will hand over Egypt into the hands of men, hard lords, and hard kings will rule over them.” When you hear “hard,” do not understand most cruel, but rather unbreakable and knowing how to yield victory to no one. For such were the most glorious kings of the Romans, the divine and ineffable counsel, as I said, subjecting all things to them.

“And the Egyptians will drink the water by the sea; but the river will fail [and be dried up; and the rivers will fail] and the canals of the river, and every gathering of water will be dried up, in every marsh of reed and papyrus; and all the green sedge round the river, and everything sown [by the river, will be dried up]. … All who cast a hook into the river will mourn. And shame will seize those who work the split flax and those who work the linen; and those who work them will be in pain, and all who make beer will be grieved and will be sick in their souls.”

You will fit these words too to what we have just said. For the God who can do all things made the well-watered country of the Egyptians so dry that it could be crossed without sweat by those who wished to go through lakes and rivers. The country of the Egyptians is somehow divided: some hold the arable and most fertile land and are above all tenders of vineyards; others live by the lakes themselves, gathering what comes from them. For they are fishermen, and cutting papyrus they are makers of paper, and they work the split flax. They are called marshmen or herdsmen, for among them the herds of cattle are beyond number, and there is a very great scarcity of bread and wine and the rest. When the waters have failed, then, he says, they will drink water [by the sea].

For some sometimes dig on the shores and draw drinkable water. The rivers and all the canals will fail and be dried up. And there will be a scarcity of waters in every marsh of reed and papyrus. And everything that grows in the waters will be dried up, he says, so that the hunters of fish will groan, and those who work the split flax, and those who work them will be in great pain; and besides these, those who prepare their beer. For when the waters have failed, they will be in want of everything that knows how to gladden and richly supplies what is needed for life. This has been said clearly as far as what is shown by the history goes. But if anyone should choose to take the scarcity of waters in another way also, and go into the depth of subtler meanings, he will not go wide of the mark if he likens the waters to the old-wives' and senseless teaching among the wise men of the Greeks; the fish to the multitude of men, and also the papyrus and reed and the rest, of which the nature of water is the nurse; and the fishermen, whose work is in the waters, to those who know how to net the multitude of the herd, and prepare them to be entangled, as in nets, in words that carry them away to deceit. These will groan and be grieved and be sick in their souls, the teaching among them already somehow [failing], which we, likening it to waters, clearly affirmed, because it has failed entirely and all that was nourished by it will be dried up. These make beer; for they do not offer the wine that gladdens the heart of man, but a spurious and useless teaching, which they dignify, as they think, with subtle words. For this, I think, is what he hints by saying that they work linen, the very finest. And the split flax too. For … their things are like hair-splitting talk, but wholly useless, and [full] of cold speculations …

“And the rulers of Tanis will be foolish; the wise counsellors of the king, their counsel [will be made foolish].”

For when an inescapable calamity hung over the Egyptians, and the country was about to be taken and at any moment to put its neck under others' yokes, even if they did not wish it, the one who had been allotted to lead, being troubled, gathered those surnamed wise, that is, the magi, and asked very earnestly where the outcome of affairs would go for them, and in what way they might beat back the onset of the war. But they were so far, he says, from being able to say anything necessary, or true, that they were condemned for unmixed folly. For when God wishes to afflict, he would defeat the counsel and power of every man. “For if he shuts against a man, who will open?”