Commentary on Isaiah 2.4.14–2.4.21

God, then, commands the prophet to take on the dress that is fitting and customary for captives, that is, nakedness and bare feet. For the victors make little account at all of those who are taken; and those who have fallen into this misery, whether they are nobly born according to the flesh or of the common multitude, are held together in one single [garment] of wretchedness, having no clothing or anything else that makes for their adornment or rest, but going uncared for to whatever pleases their captors, as men who go under compulsion. The divine prophet, then, as I said, is commanded to take the sackcloth from his loins … to go out of Jerusalem naked and barefoot. And he did this, not caring much about seeming to be decent, and putting nothing before what pleases God, even if it seemed something grievous and full of reproach. But perhaps someone will say to this: “Why did he not rather simply foretell to those of Israel what would befall the Egyptians in time? Yet the renowned … went about naked and barefoot.” To this we say that they did not obey the words of the prophets, and rather rebuked those who wished to foretell what was to come, saying: “[Speak to us] other things …” This is why, quite clearly, the self-controlled, orderly man, full of every virtue, crowned with prophetic grace and renowned in asceticism, takes off even his sackcloth, not a soft garment but rather a thick and cheap one, looses the sandals from his feet, and walks in such a guise, so that those who see him, marvelling at this very thing, may ask the reasons, and, eager to know why he had done this, may be fully assured that their hope in men is vain, and that they ought rather to long for prosperity from above and to love to make God, who always saved them, their helper. While the blessed prophet, then, went about Judea naked and barefoot, and no small terror came upon those who saw him, the Lord said, it says: “As my servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot, three years there will be signs and wonders for the Egyptians and the Ethiopians.” For, as I said before, the king of the Assyrians, having ravaged the country of the Egyptians in a few years, three, and also the Ethiopians who live near it and are neighbours to the Thebaid, having a very great body of captives and having revelled in the calamities of the Egyptians, then indeed returned home again in splendour.

“And the Egyptians will be defeated, put to shame over the Ethiopians in whom the Egyptians had trusted; for they were their glory. And those who dwell in this island will say: Behold, we were trusting to flee to them for help, and they could not be saved from the king of the Assyrians; and how shall we be saved?”

… and these, who are Ethiopians, have practised shooting arrows most skilfully … fighting with poison; and if they so much as graze someone, the one struck will surely die, and will fall at once as if bitten by a snake. It was, then, the custom and practice of the Egyptians, when war and battle threatened, to hire the phalanxes of the Ethiopians and to think highly of them; but they were taken together with them, overcome by the courage of the Assyrians. The Egyptians, then, he says, will be put to shame over the Ethiopians in whom they trusted. For when these too had been taken and conquered, those who dwell in this island will say: “Behold, we once trusted to flee to them for help, who could not be saved from the king of the Assyrians; and how shall we be saved?” He names Egypt an island because it is [surrounded by water] everywhere; and he brings in its inhabitants condemning their hope in the Ethiopians. For if they themselves were taken, he says, how could they save those who trusted in them? It is good, then, to hope in the Lord rather than to trust in man; and, as the prophet Jeremiah says: “Cursed is the man who has his hope in man and makes flesh the strength of his arm; but blessed is he who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord will be his hope.” The prophetic word somehow always benefits us; even if … the history, yet the benefit from it is not small. For Paul says that things happened to those of old as types, but were written for our admonition.

Having very well completed the discourse about the Egyptians, I mean, and having told when and how they will be called through faith to the knowledge of the one who truly is God, the prophet passes on to another vision, the one concerning the wilderness. And here he does not simply mention to us an uninhabited and desert land; he names as wilderness the land of the Babylonians, which once had inhabitants beyond number, terrible and most warlike, but was so desolated, the wrath from above having been brought upon it, that it was left empty of men … of Cambyses. The prophet also mentions him elsewhere, saying: “Thus says the Lord to my anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, that nations may obey before him; cities will not be shut.” He took by force the city that was once boastful and exalted itself over every nation and was hard to face in battles, I mean Babylon. The prophet now too mentions it, and names it wilderness. And he narrates clearly in what way it slipped into such misery, for two reasons, as I think. Either to turn the Jews from their hope: for “Ephraim was a senseless dove,” as one of the holy prophets says; “it called on Egypt and went to the Assyrians”; or to comfort them in their grief, because their country had been sacked, the temple itself burned, and they had been carried off as captives of the spear, with their wives and children, to Babylon. This was the act of one teaching plainly that God will rise up even against those who sacked them, if they choose to live according to the law and to become genuine keepers of his divine commandments. The prophet, then, narrates.

The height of the vision has changes of persons. At one time, as an eyewitness of what is to come and already a spectator, he explains what was shown him by God; at another he announces beforehand by the prophetic Spirit what will happen in time; and sometimes he brings in the person of the Babylonians, lamenting [their] calamities. As one who has seen, then, the expedition of the Persians and Medes, and also of the Elamites, against Babylon, he says thus: They will ride and pass through the wilderness, as if a storm of winds should pass through the wilderness, raising the dust and all but throwing everything into confusion. And he adds: “For fearful and harsh is the vision that was announced to me.” For the mere sight of the enemy alone, and the most valiant multitude of the fighters, is quite enough [to strike terror] into those who see them. But he says not only that he saw, but also, “it was announced to me”; for together with the sight he was taught the outcome of the affairs, plainly by God. “The one who sets aside sets aside, and the one who acts lawlessly [acts lawlessly].” The boldness of the invaders, he says, is unrebukable. For they are not kindled to gentleness by human reasonings; nor does any of them consider anything of what has come upon them; but he acts lawlessly without restraint and sets aside as seems good to him, with no sparing at all. For they do not look to mercy, but their zealous work will be, he says, to act lawlessly and to set aside. He said something of this kind also through his own voice to the inhabitants of Assyria: “Behold, I bring upon you the Medes, who do not regard silver, nor have need of gold. They will shatter the bows of the young men.” For when God brings wrath upon those who offend, nothing will be able to help. Rather, a beastlike mind … in those who wish to ravage those against whom they run.

“Upon me the Elamites, and the envoys of the Persians come upon me. Now I will groan and comfort myself. Therefore my loins are filled with faintness, and pangs have seized me like a woman in labour. I did wrong so as not to hear; I was eager so as not to see. My heart wanders, and lawlessness drowns me; my soul stands in fear.”

The word here has the force of personification. For the Assyrian is brought in, both fearing the attack and not ignorant of the phalanxes of the enemy and against whom their aim in war is directed. For not against any others, but upon me, he says, the Elamites … and I will comfort myself. For to those who have fallen into the utmost calamity, weeping and lamenting seems to be a kind of consolation; for tears come from pain. And it is a strange thing if the Assyrians lament, who had always been hard and haughty, raising their brows very high against all the nations and thinking that resistance could not easily face them. But those who are so bold and have thoughts beyond man … prepare a lament for themselves, and before the trial of war they are broken down into weakness. For “my loins are filled with faintness, and pangs have seized me like a woman in labour.” But for what reason, he says, will such things happen to you, O Assyrian? You might tell the one who asks. Yes, he says; for I know that I have offended through much sin the God who rules all. “I did wrong so as not to hear; I was eager so as not to see.” In this, he says, I wronged myself, that I practised much hardness of hearing, and made it the work of my zeal not to see, that is, who is God by nature and truly. For I heard of the worship of the Jews, I took the holy city by force, I sacked the temple. From hearsay I had a modest knowledge of what was commanded to those of Israel. More than that, the prophet Jonah too

was sent by God, preaching and saying: “Yet three days, and Nineveh will be overthrown”; and, at once terrified by the threat, I repented, but I did wrong again by not listening, and I made it my zeal not to see what it was necessary to see. For my heart has wandered, and sin has sunk me under water, burying me in a way. This is why my soul stands in fear; for I have come into the terrors of the last things. These, then, would be the words of the Assyrians. For it is the custom of the holy prophets to put words into the mouths of persons, for the benefit of their hearers.

“Prepare the table, drink, eat; rise up, you rulers, prepare shields.”

I said that the word of prophecy sometimes varies very well among many differences of persons; and those who wish to understand and report rightly must surely watch such things exactly. For so the [interpretation] would be clear, having nothing steep that would make what is said difficult. He has brought in, then, the person of the Assyrians weeping over themselves, broken down into cowardice and in labour with unbearable fear at the evils to come. Then he mentions the time at which it will happen that they are taken and fall into incurable calamities, and also makes plain the very cause of the [wrath] that came upon them. For the blessed Daniel wrote: “Belshazzar the king made a banquet for his great men, a thousand, and the wine was before the thousand.” Then he says that he unholily brought out the holy vessels that had been taken from Jerusalem in time, and he and his concubines and his wives drank from them. This was nothing other than boasting against the glory of God and exalting himself against the one who presides over those of Israel, as [though he were] in no way able to help his own people. While Belshazzar, then, was drinking and all but laughing at the holy vessels, “the knuckles of a hand,” it says, “appeared and wrote on the wall, Mene, Tekel, Peres”; and the divine Daniel, interpreting the writing, said to the Assyrian: “God has broken up your kingdom and divided it, and it has been given to the Medes and Persians.” This history, as I think, he now recalls, and the prophet says, as to the rulers themselves, or great men, and to Belshazzar: “Prepare the table, drink, eat; rise up, you rulers, prepare shields”: revel, he says, at prodigal tables (the saying is somehow in the manner of custom); gorge yourselves drinking insatiably. And what after this? Wars will follow the festival, and the suffering is not far off; but from the very drinking you will run to arms and seek shields. For it is truly most grievous to exalt oneself against God and to grow bold against a glory beyond which there is nothing among things that are. Israel was given over to the Assyrians, God having brought this necessity upon them. But it was not [right] that those who had taken them should fall into such ignorance and senseless thoughts as to think that they too suffered captivity … through much sin, [and not by the will] of him who is above all and presides over creation as God.

“For thus the Lord said to me: Go, set yourself a watchman, and whatever you see, announce. And I saw two mounted horsemen, a rider [on a donkey and a rider on a camel] …”

It is the custom of the holy prophets, at the time of divine sight or visions, to gather their mind as it were within themselves and to observe with undistracted thought what is shown by God, and, as if they had come to be on high and in some unspeakable lookout, to listen to the divine words. Indeed one of the holy prophets said: “I will stand at my watch, and mount upon a rock, and look out to see what he will say in me, and what I shall answer to my reproof.” The prophet now teaches something of this kind, and says that he heard from God: “Go, set yourself a watchman, and whatever you see, announce”; not to set someone else to the divine sight, but, as it were a watchman standing on high in his mind, to observe what will be and to receive with his sight the spectacle of events. I saw, then, he says, [a rider on a] camel. And what this is the lament of the Assyrians will clearly teach. For he said: “Upon me the Elamites, and the envoys of the Persians come upon me.” The Elamites are a barbarian nation, practised in riding camels. And who else would the rider of the donkey be but the chosen men of the Persians? They say these go into battle mounted on mules and in litters, so that no toil may unnerve them. And when they see the battlefield, then [they get down] from the litters … By the rider of a donkey, then, he means the one mounted on mules. Or, in another way, it is likely that the prophet saw the throng of the enemy mounted on horses, and a multitude of camels and mules following, made ready perhaps for carrying off the spoils. For he says this somewhere else: “In affliction and distress, a lion and a lion's whelp; from there also asps and offspring of flying asps, who carried their wealth on donkeys and camels.” For he called Cyrus a lion and a lion's whelp, and the Persians and Medes under him; and asps and offspring of flying asps, that is, those practised in darting swiftly and moving like winged creatures, [he called] those from the other …

“Listen with much listening, and call Uriah to the watchtower of the Lord.”

The prophet has acknowledged that he saw certain nations for whom it is customary to ride on camels … two mounted horsemen, of camel and of donkey; and who these would be we have said already before. And since he has once seen, he is at last commanded to hasten to learn the outcome of the attack and the dreadful narratives of the calamity of the Chaldeans. For such listening is in truth “much.” Accordingly, the things that befell Babylon were dreadful, beyond all words, and reached the height of evils. For Cyrus took it in such a way as to leave it desolate

entirely, killing those in it, and netting even out of the caves themselves those who expected to be able to escape notice altogether. Indeed the God of all said to him: “I will give you dark treasures; hidden, invisible ones I will open to you.” And somewhere the person of Jerusalem is brought in, speaking as to Babylon: “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy, because I have fallen; I shall also 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 executes judgement for me, and brings me out into the light, and I shall see his righteousness. And my enemy will see, and will be clothed with shame, she who says to me, Where is the Lord your God? My eyes will look upon her. Now she will be trampled like mud in the [streets]. A day of the smearing of brick: your wiping out” is that day, plainly the day on which it was sacked by the Persians and Medes and Elamites and made desolate, as I said. Listen, then, he says, with much listening, that is, to the long and dreadful [tales] of its capture … They say that Uriah was one of the most distinguished of those who served in holy things according to the law. Take, then, he says, as witness of the watch, or vision, shown to you, Uriah, and let him learn from you what will be. For since, disobeying the narratives of the prophets, they said, “Speak to us other things, and announce to us another deception,” for this reason the God of all, very providently, made the most honoured among the Jews witnesses of what was shown in time, as in prophetic vision, to those who had the spirit of prophecy, so that, if they would not be persuaded by their words, they might at least trust those who were honoured among them with the priesthood according to the law.

“… and upon the camp I stood all night; and behold, he comes …”

The prophet, having been commanded to set himself a watchman and to announce clearly whatever was shown him by God, [says]: I stood all through the day and through the whole night … Who, then, is “he”? The Persian and Elamite, or the leader of the army, that is, Cyrus.

“And he answered and said: Babylon has fallen, and all its images and its handmade things have been shattered to the ground.”

When the prophet says, “Behold, he comes, a rider of a pair,” having seen very well in what way the attack will be carried out, and that not long hence, God at last answers and says: Babylon has fallen, that is, the boastful one, the insolent one, the hammer of the whole earth, as Jeremiah says; she who trampled on all the nations like a beast, who raised her neck proudly, who levelled countries and cities. She has fallen, he says, that is, she lies utterly [prostrate], and is seen lying at last under the feet of her captors. And all her images and handmade things have been shattered. For it is a land of carved images, as another of the holy prophets says; and she trusted greatly in the falsely named gods, and, expecting to be saved by their help, she was trampled with them, and together with her own …

“[Hear, you who are left and you who are in pain,] hear what I heard from the Lord Sabaoth; [the God of Israel has announced to us].”

Israel was carried off captive, and much sin [caused] it to fall into such long calamities. Many indeed remained in Jerusalem and in Judea, but they went on groaning and in pain, their country sacked, the temple itself burned, and Jerusalem made desolate by force. The prophet, then, usefully weaves the vision as a remedy of help for their comfort, and says to them: Hear, you who are left and in pain, hear what I heard from the Lord Sabaoth. The God of Israel has announced to us. For he knew, he knew, that the calamity of the Babylonians would bring them joy, and that the narratives of what befell those who had grieved them would be a kind of comfort to those so sacked.

I think it necessary to narrate beforehand the subject of the vision before us; for so, and not otherwise, will readers understand. Isaac, then, had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau was surnamed Edom, that is, “earthy”; for such was his life, and he sold his birthright for a single meal, as it is written. But Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in a house; for so the sacred Scripture said of him. From Jacob, who was also renamed Israel, came the Jews; and from Esau, that is, Edom, the Idumeans, or the Hagarenes; and these are the Saracens. So the Idumeans were brothers and near kin to those of Israel; and the country of the Jews and that of the Idumeans bordered on and adjoined one another. But neither kinship nor living as neighbours secured unity of mind for the two races. For they were divided also by the customs of the Greeks … they [overran] the country of the Jews frequently and dared to do the most shameful things of all to them. Indeed, when those of Israel, having thrown off the yoke of the Egyptians' greed, were going up into the land promised to their fathers, “Moses,” it says, “sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying: Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the hardship that has found us; and our fathers went down into Egypt, and we sojourned in Egypt many days, and the Egyptians ill-treated us and our fathers; and we cried to the Lord, and the Lord heard our voice, and sending an angel he brought us out of Egypt; and now we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your borders. We will pass through your land; we will not go through fields or through vineyards, nor will we drink water from your cistern; we will go by the king's highway; we will not turn aside to the right or to the left until we have passed your borders. And Edom said to him: You shall not pass through me; otherwise I will come out against you in war.” Do you see how hard and pitiless the Idumeans were, and that toward brothers? But their charges do not stop here; they did another thing too, unholy and cruel. The Babylonian took the country of the Jews, burned the temple, ravaged Israel, and did things beyond all words against its inhabitants. Then some of those who had escaped the Persian sword hastened to flee, as to a country bordering on the Jews and as to brothers and kinsmen; but they, though they ought to have helped them as brothers, pitied them in their misery and welcomed them kindly, leapt on them like beasts and made the fugitives the work of their cruelty.

And for this very thing the God of all accused them severely through the voice of the prophet Obadiah. For it is written thus: “In that day, says the Lord, I will destroy wise men out of Idumea and understanding out of the mount of Esau; and your warriors from Teman will be terrified, so that man may be cut off from the mount of Esau, because of the slaughter and the impiety against your brother Jacob; and shame will cover you, … from the day when you stood opposite, on the day when foreigners took captive his strength, and strangers entered his gates and cast lots over Jerusalem, and you were like one of them.” See, then, how they became imitators of the Persian cruelty, and, those who expected to be saved, and for this reason came to them as to brothers and neighbours, they killed without pity. So the Babylonians, having taken the country of the Jews and then returning to their own land, made [the capture of Idumea] a side-work of the road, without effort, God letting his wrath loose upon them. [For it is written:] “And the day of the Lord is upon all the nations; as you have done, so it will be done to you; your recompense will be returned upon your head.” … the subject of the vision before us … to say what is written.

“To me he calls from Seir.”

This is the voice of the God who rules all, speaking to the prophet as though at any moment … of war, [and turning to] flight all who dwell in it. Seir is a very great mountain of Idumea, below which there is said to be a splendid city of theirs. Since, then, those of Mount Seir, that is, the Idumeans, were about to turn to flight at any moment, To me, he says, call, that is, let those fleeing from there come to Judea. For just as they mocked those of Israel who fled to them, so, he says, they will be laughed at when they do the same, [fleeing] the hand of the Babylonians.

“Guard the battlements. I guard in the morning and the night.”

The word is addressed to the Idumeans, God all but reproaching them for the idleness of their labours on defending themselves against their enemies, while they in no way longed for salvation and help from him. For when the attack of the Assyrians was about to come, they blocked the entrances of their cities and kept guard on the battlements. But the thing was useless to them; for their cities were taken, and no one at all was saved. The word from God to them, then, is spoken in an ironic manner: Yes, he says, you plan right and reasonable things; guard the battlements. Then, as from them: “I guard in the morning and the night.” “But unless the Lord guards a city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” For they ought rather to have sought help from above and from God, and not to have trusted in stones. For they say that the walls of their cities were so shaken that no stone was seen lying upon a stone.