Commentary on Isaiah 4.1.1–4.1.8

Discourse 1. God, being Lord, has appeared to us, according to the Scriptures, and through him the flock of those who were wandering has been gathered as in a net into the grace that comes through faith. For he was the expectation of the nations, and through him the God and Father called those in mist and darkness to the light of the truth. This too he made plain to us in the preceding words, where he says briefly: “I, the Lord God, have called you in righteousness, and I will take hold of your hand and strengthen you, and I have given you as a covenant of the race, as a light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out from bonds those who are bound, and from the house of prison those who sit in deep darkness.” For our Lord Jesus Christ has been appointed by the God and Father as a covenant for the race according to the flesh, I mean those from Israel, to whom God of old also made a promise through one of the prophets, saying: “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will accomplish for the house of Israel and for the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers.” For the divine Moses was a minister of shadow and type, remaining within the measures of a servant, but Christ, as Son and Lord, has become the arbiter of a new covenant. New, I say, because it reshapes man into newness of holy life and, through the gospel way of life, shows him to be approved and a true worshipper: “For God is spirit,” it says, “and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” He has been appointed, then, as a covenant of the race and as a light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind and to bring out from bonds those who are bound. For Satan, the author of evil, darkened the hearts of the nations: “For they became futile in their reasonings, and claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.” But the true light, that is, Christ, rose upon us as a spiritual morning star and as the sun of righteousness, … of the true …; he freed from bonds those held inescapably in the cords of their own offences. That those, then, who of old served the creation rather than the Creator, who had darkness in their mind, who had been persuaded to worship the works of their own hands, who were far from God, will be called through faith in Christ and will come to know the King and Lord of all, the word of the prophecy shows very well. For it commands those who have received mercy from God to glorify him, and speaks thus:

“Sing to the Lord a new hymn, his dominion; glorify his name from the end of the earth, you who go down into the sea and sail it, the islands and those who inhabit them.”

The hymn is new, and fitting for the newness of the events. “For if anyone is in Christ,” as it is written, “he is a new creation; the old things have passed away, and all things have become new.” Those of Israel's blood were redeemed from the greed of the Egyptians, with the all-wise Moses as mediator at that time, and were rescued from brick-making and from fruitless sweat … and from the inhumanity of the ruler; they were led through the middle of the sea, ate the manna in the desert, drank water from a rock, crossed the Jordan with dry feet, and were brought into the land of promise. All these things are new in our case, and incomparably better than the old. For not from fleshly … earthly pursuits that come from love of the flesh … Egyptians, nor a tyrant, impious indeed and savage, yet a man like us, but rather the wicked and unclean demons that drive us into sin, and the one set over their herds, that is, Satan. We have crossed the surge of the present life as if it were a sea, and … We have eaten the spiritual manna, the bread from heaven that gives life to the world; we have drunk water from the rock, from the streams of Christ, spiritual ones, clearly. We have crossed the Jordan, counted worthy of holy baptism; we have entered into the … which the Saviour himself also mentions, saying: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” For new achievements, then, the hymn had to be new, from “his dominion,” that is, from those who have come to be under him and are ruled by him; and the hymn, that is, the glorification fitting him, was to arise not only in the land of the Jews, but from the end of the earth, clearly to the other end, that is, over all the earth under heaven. For of old God was known in Judea, and his name was great in Israel alone. But since we have been called through Christ to the knowledge of truth, … heaven and earth have become full of his glory. For so somewhere the psalmist too says: “The whole earth shall be filled with his glory.” Who, then, are those who command his name to be glorified from the end of the earth, who set up songs to him and … spiritual, who go down into the sea and sail it, the islands and those who inhabit them? He has in mind, I think, the holy apostles. For they did not preach Jesus and the grace through him in Judea alone; rather, crossing even the sea, they proclaimed the gospel in the lands of the nations. They reached even as far as Illyricum and beyond, so that … the islands in the sea … proclamations, nor indeed those who inhabit them. Historically, then, you will apply the words in this way. But you will understand the words of the prophecy, if you like, in another way too. For the inspired Scripture often likens this world, that is, human life, to a sea, as is sung in the Psalms: “This is the sea, great and wide; there are creeping things without number, small living things with great.” It maintains that our life resembles a sea, perhaps because of the instability of its affairs, its ups and downs and great confusion. Those sail across such a sea who are not submerged by it but, as it were, swim to the surface and free themselves from worldly distractions. These, having obtained help from God and always remembering the gifts given through Christ, glorify him; and the islands, that is, the churches, kept safe as it were in the spiritual sea and receiving those tossed by the storm of the evil spirit, these glorify Christ, or rather those who inhabit them. For when we say, or name, “churches,” we mean the holy worshippers in them. It should also be known that “islands” is the name given to all villages or cities that lie in the midst of a great and wide desert.

“Rejoice, O desert, and its villages, its encampments, and those who inhabit Kedar. Those who inhabit Petra will rejoice; from the tops of the mountains they will shout. They will give glory to God; they will proclaim his virtues in the islands.”

The blessed prophets, weaving their discourses about the coming of our Saviour, very often make mention of the calling of the nations. For Christ was, as I said, the expectation of the nations. Yet they do not address their words about such matters simply to all the nations and peoples throughout the inhabited world. For it was not reasonable, with a countless multitude filling the earth under heaven, to choose to be so minute as to mention all of them by name and by race; rather, they often took the lands bordering on Judea, which were given heavily to idolatry, and then said that these would be called in due time, and so declared the whole by a part. Of those bordering … the desert lying to the south, which the nations of the Saracens and Arabs inhabited, they say that its inhabitants would in due time obtain the grace and salvation that come through Christ. The names of the villages, that is, the small towns in the desert, are Epauleis, Kedar, and Petra, which lies in the land of the Arabs to this day and is so named. Those of whom the passage speaks, that is, their inhabitants, were, as I said, very superstitious, and wholly given over to the unclean spirits. But since they were to come to share, as I said, in the calling and salvation that come through the gospel proclamation and faith in Christ, the prophet, as one with beautiful feet, for here he proclaims good things, very fittingly lifts his cry on high, as it were, and says: “Rejoice, O desert, and its villages, encampments, and those who inhabit Kedar; those who inhabit Petra will rejoice.” The thing is a great and admirable proof of our Saviour's power and supremacy, that he easily softened hearts so hard and unteachable and persuaded them to leave their ancient deceit, to choose the better, and to be brought over to the truth. This too he foretold to us through the voice of Ezekiel, saying: “I will draw out the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,” that is, a tender one, “so that they may know me, that I am the Lord.” He signified, then, that they too will be called, by saying, “Rejoice, O desert,” and what follows. But those who shout from the tops of the mountains, giving glory to God and proclaiming his virtues in the islands: who they might be is worth seeing. Nothing prevents us from understanding them too as those who were called, the inhabitants of Petra, a country and city so lofty and elevated, who no longer weave hymns and songs to the falsely named gods but rather glorify the God who enlightened them and drew them in the net to the truth. Or those who shout from the tops of the mountains might be said, and very rightly, to be the divine disciples. To them the prophet also says elsewhere: “Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good news to Zion; lift up … Lift it up, do not fear.” For they preached with great boldness and wished to escape the notice of no one, but were conspicuous to all everywhere, like a city set on a mountain; and their word was not spoken in a corner or in secret, but with great boldness, as I said just now. For the Saviour himself also commanded them this, saying: “What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light, and what you hear in the ear, proclaim on the housetops.” They gave glory to God, then, and proclaimed his virtues in the islands. For the word of the holy apostles and evangelists … of the Saviour …: they speak of his ineffable divinity and hymn his virtue that is above the world, not placing him among things that have come into being, but beyond everything called into existence, and in natural identity with the God and Father; at other times again they narrate his divine signs that surpass wonder and speech. For raising the dead from tombs, using the sea as dry land and making it walkable for his own feet, rebuking winds, and with a word crushing

Satan, achieves for him a glory befitting God.

“The Lord God of hosts will go forth and crush war; he will stir up zeal, and will shout against his enemies with strength. I have kept silent; shall I always keep silent and endure? I have been patient like a woman in labour.”

Here too the passage proceeds in good order, and its arrangement is not unworthy of wonder. For the sacred ministers of our Saviour's oracles were to proclaim his virtues to all everywhere and to speak of these very things with great boldness. But it was necessary to realise that the enemies of the truth would by all means and in every way rise up against their so venerable zeal and eagerness, and would plot in many ways against the Saviour's glory: men, clearly, corrupt and superstitious, instruments of diabolical perversity and shield-bearers of his wickedness, or perhaps with them the very bands of the demons too, when their glory and the gain from their greed … under heaven was being shaken. That they will be impossible for the enemies to capture, and that no one will overcome them while God fights beside them, the prophet shows in these words, saying that the Lord of hosts will go forth and crush war. He says “will go forth” as of one of the kings on earth falling irresistibly on the enemy's battle-lines together with the armies under his sceptre. That the Lord of hosts will certainly prevail he made clear by saying that he will crush war. For the power that comes from God is not easy for anyone to face, or rather nothing that exists can bear it, whether wicked powers, even Satan himself, the apostate and vagabond, or certain earthly men who care for what those powers want; but they will be taken, and that without toil and without dust: “For who will turn back the high hand?” as it is written. That for those who oppose the choir of the holy apostles the war was, and is to this day, not against the holy angels only but against the Lord of hosts himself, the prophet has assured us by saying that he will go forth to crush war. “He will stir up zeal,” he says, that is, provocation: either his own against the enemies, as is written in the words of Zechariah, “I have been jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great zeal”; or that of those who contend for his glory, clearly those who revere him, of whom the most holy … was one, a chosen … having … for this, and if he endured: “[Who will separate us] from the love of Christ? Affliction, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” And again: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” So, we say, the holy martyrs too became zealots, who proved stronger than Satan and fought against his power for the sake of godliness toward Christ. For they kept the faith and the genuineness of their love for him. “He will stir up zeal,” then, he says, “and will shout against his enemies with strength,” putting “will shout” for “will raise the battle cry.” This voice is most fitting for victors …

“I have kept silent; shall I always keep silent and endure?”

“I have been patient like a woman in labour.”

From this one could very well see that at that time, when the multitude of the nations was in error, with Satan seizing them as plunder and blackening them with the darkness of sin, and carrying them off even to not knowing who is by nature and truly the God of all, the God who is beyond all wished to come to their aid; yet he held the matter back and plainly waited patiently, awaiting the time fitting for his help; and this was the time when his only-begotten Word became flesh and was made man. For then, then indeed, he took the field against those who had conquered us, rescued us from their perversity, took hold of us and saved us, and brought us under his own yoke. In the time that is past, then, when those on earth were being seized as plunder and Satan was devouring all like a lion, he says: “I have kept silent; shall I always keep silent and endure? I have been patient like a woman in labour.” See, then, how great a care the God of all took for those on earth, although, as the Psalmist says, no one was doing kindness, but all had turned aside, to the last one, and had become entirely worthless. And, if it were possible for him to be capable of the pangs of grief, he would have suffered them, and that for our sake; yet he kept his help, as I said, for the fitting time.

“I will make astonished, and dry up together; and I will make rivers into islands, and dry up marshes.”

What “I will make astonished” may signify here must be looked into. For either he says this: those who now hold power over those on earth I will cast out, and make them be outside the rule they have acquired over all, as it is said: “… will be cast out”; or you will understand “I will make astonished” in the sense of: I will make those who see what has been accomplished marvel at the ways of my dispensation and the surpassing greatness of my unspeakable power, just as the prophet Habakkuk too was astounded at these very things, saying: “Lord, I have heard the report of you and was afraid; I considered your works and was astonished.” Or, if anyone pleases, you will understand “I will make astonished” in yet another way: those who now wander, who are in darkness and diabolical mist, I will transfer to the knowledge of truth and to the divine and spiritual and heavenly light; those who are now defiled and have a loathsome and unclean mind I will change to an incomparably [better] disposition …, to choose rather to do good. “I will dry up together” again signifies something of the kind that the force of what follows will make clear. For, he says, “I will make rivers into islands and dry up marshes.” Who might be the rivers made into islands, and the marshes dried up? We say, then, that the poets and men of letters among the Greeks were heralds of the polytheistic error. For they made gods of the creation and brought countless gods into human life. They were like rivers, giving the deceived a drink of “muddy overthrow,” as it is written, flooding the mind of their admirers with the streams of elaborate words, by this holding them fast in error and setting before them, as a kind of food, the sweetness and charm of their own fine style. They might fittingly be likened, then, to rivers and marshes, that is, thickets or groves that have a great abundance of flowering grass. Such rivers, then, God promises to change into islands, that is, to show them dry and waterless, and to make the marshes as it were dry; which has indeed happened.

For the fine style of their eloquence is now idle. No one at all adheres to them; those who once wandered have, as it were, kicked away what is rotten and profane, and seize upon wisdom. Paul, at any rate, writes: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” We say, then, that the rivers made into islands are the discourses of the wise among the Greeks that held men fast in Greek deceit. Or else, in what went before, we granted that the churches of Christ are other islands, receiving those who sail, spiritually and figuratively, clearly, and putting in, as at safe harbours, with the teachers in them, and escaping the evil spirit that always raises storms against those who go down to the sea in ships and do business on many waters. The surge of our life and the turmoil of earthly affairs must be likened, as I said, to a sea. The marshes too are dried up, that is, the pastures of the things that were once under Satan's hand, so that they may now come to be under the chief shepherd of all, I mean Christ. He does not, like those false shepherds, carry off his own flock into thorns and thistles, but rather pastures them among lilies; for divine and sacred things are, spiritually, most fragrant …

“And I will lead the blind in a way they did not know, and I will make the darkness into light for them, and the crooked things into straight. These words I will do, and I will not forsake them, says the Lord God.”

For when the Lord of hosts has come to crush war, and the enemies have been overthrown, and the marshes have withered, in the sense of the interpretation we gave just now, those who had been reduced to the rank of captives taken by the spear, and were subjected to the devil's perversities, are surely redeemed; and being blind, for the apostate blinded their hearts, they are now led by Christ into ways, clearly, that they did not know before. These are the gospel oracles, the life of understanding and virtue, and the beauty of the good life that befits the saints. The divine Paul, at any rate, addressed those from the nations: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” The darkness has become light for them, then; that is, their situation has changed into its complete opposite. For the ignorant have become wise; those who once wandered have come to know the straight ways of all righteousness; those who knew nothing of good things have been shown to be skilled in all virtue and diligent in the pursuits that lead to godliness. The crooked things have become straight for them, that is, what was difficult, hard to accomplish, and rough has become level and smooth. Something of this kind is also hinted at in the preaching of John the Baptist: “For every ravine shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough into smooth ways.”

For hills and hollows make a road uneven. But where there is no mound and no hollow, the road is surely straight and easy to travel, and free of every difficulty. This too the blessed prophet Isaiah himself says somewhere else: “For the way of the godly,” he says, “has become straight, and the way of the godly is prepared.” For truly the way of the gospel life is not rough and hard to walk, but rather smooth and, as it were, level for those who love the excellent life. God promises, then, to bring these words, that is, the promises, to their fulfilment, and not to forsake them, that is, to be with them always, as in the saying: “Behold, I am with you all the days, until the end of the age.”

“But they have turned back. Be ashamed with shame, you who trust in carved images, who say to molten images, ‘You are our gods.’”

Very opportunely he shifts his words to … leading by the hand to the knowledge of God, and to the need to carry out … they were, and having embarked on the ways of polytheism they went down into the pit of destruction; and for this reason, and very fittingly, they offended God, who had shown them every forbearance and goodness. Having foretold, then, that the nations will be called in due time and will tread ways they did not know, and that the darkness will become light and the crooked things straight, the word uncovers the ignorance of those of Israel's blood, saying: “But they have turned back.” The word “they” must be taken emphatically, that is: those who were schooled by the divine law, who had come under my hand and had obtained Moses as mediator, who heard expressly: “The Lord your God is one Lord, and you shall have no other gods besides me.” These, while the multitude of the nations was in good hopes, turned back to …, taking up again the blemish of their ancient deceit. And the true proverb befell them: “A dog returning to its own vomit, and a sow that has washed to wallowing in the mire.” Our Lord Jesus Christ too said something of this kind, showing Israel running back to its ancient impiety: “For when the unclean spirit has gone out of a man,” he says, “it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it returns to the place from which it came out. And when it comes it finds it unoccupied and swept. Then it takes along seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.” For they had served the gods of the Egyptians, but the demon was cast out when they were called to the knowledge of God, through the law, I mean. Yet they fell sick again with the slander of having gone astray, and still worse, when, knowing the God who is God by nature, they became apostates, honouring as gods those who are not gods. “Be ashamed with shame,” then, he says, “you who trust in carved images,” and attach the venerable name, that is, the glory, of the Godhead that is above all to things cut and made by hand.

“You deaf, hear, and you blind, look up to see. And who is blind but my servants? And deaf but those who rule them? … and you did not keep watch; your ears are opened, and you did not …”

He calls those who worshipped idols deaf and blind, very well. For as the all-wise Paul writes: “The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that the illumination of the gospel of Christ should not shine on them.” The force of the passage would fit those of Israel above all: although they could grow rich in mind with the divine light, since the law poured into them the radiance of the knowledge of God, they foolishly loved to walk in darkness and to settle into the snares of deceit. But they are blind in another way too. For although nothing prevented them from seeing the Creator of created things by analogy from their beauty, for, as the all-wise Paul writes, “his invisible attributes, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, his eternal power and divinity,” they slid into such ignorance as to say to molten images, “You are our gods.” That the prophet's word is not now about the multitude of the nations but about those of Israel's blood, he showed by saying: “And who is blind but my servants? And deaf but those who rule them?” For the multitude under their hand was blinded, having fallen into this through the negligence of its guides. For it was they who had become the cause of the people's ignorance and the leaders of their straying. And those who ruled them were deaf, that is, those who had received the office of leading; for although they saw the glory of God, and had gained long experience, they turned to apostasy. For they would not obey God, who says plainly: “You shall have no other gods besides me.” But since, though they knew my oracles, they went over to apostasy together with those yoked under them, he is all but astounded, saying: “The servants of God have been blinded.” And what was the occasion of their blindness? “You were carried into this willingly,” he says. “For although you had seen very many times and could have kept watch, and although you knew how to hear, that is, to understand what is written, you did not keep watch against suffering the sentence, nor did you make it your study to do well, opening wide, as it were, your hearing to the sacred laws.” The charges against the Jews, then, admit no excuse. For though they could know the truth and had obtained the law as their guide to it, they became like those who have no eyes and whose ears are set on their heads in vain, because they would not listen to the sacred laws.