Commentary on Isaiah 5.2.19–5.3.4

“For as rain or snow comes down from heaven, and will not return until it has drenched the earth, and it brings forth and sprouts, and gives seed to the sower and bread for food, so shall the word be that goes out of my mouth: it shall not return until it accomplishes whatever I willed.”

As from a clear example, well known to all, he tries to assure us how great is the power of his nods. For rain or snow falls from heaven, and when it is sent down by God no one could hinder it; it rather runs on to its end of watering the whole earth, so that the farmers come into great abundance both of seed and of food. For when the season comes in which the well-nourished ear rises from the earth, farmers seek not only what can suffice for food, but also what will again be enough for them when the season calls them to labor. So, he says, no one could hinder my word, nor would it turn back, that is, it will not cease until what seems good to me comes to its end. And the word is true; for, as the prophet Isaiah says: “What the holy God has counseled, who will scatter? And his high hand, who will turn it back?” For who will be so great as to resist divine decrees and …? So whatever goes out of the mouth of the one who is truly God will run altogether and in every way to its end; for he has the power to accomplish all things, and besides this, freedom from falsehood. And indeed God the Father has sent down on us who are on the earth, as a kind of divine and spiritual rain, the comfort given through Christ, that is, the supply of the gospel preaching, through which the whole earth has become fruitful and most fertile. The divine David at any rate sings and says: “You visited the earth and drenched it; you multiplied it to enrich it; … its …; it will rejoice in its drops as it springs up.” And indeed through the voice of Moses: “Let my utterance come down like rain,” he says, “and let my words descend like dew.” And the all-wise Paul writes to some: “May the God of peace increase your seed and multiply the fruits of your righteousness.” So we have had spiritual fruitfulness, having received into our mind the supply that comes through Christ, so that not only have we gathered the sacred food, that is, we have the life-giving bread, but also seed for the sower. For those who preside over peoples, who are knowledgeable in sacred doctrines, able to train others, and weave the word of the mysteries for the peoples under their hand, sow in their hearts the seed which they have treasured up for themselves, having first stored it up in their own souls. For, as the all-wise Paul says, “We are God's field”; for they are fellow workers of God, who sows in us exact knowledge of doctrinal skill, understanding of pure conduct, and desire for every good thing; and this is Christ, who also says of himself: “The sower went out to sow his seed.”

“And I will prosper my ways and my commandments. For you shall go out in gladness and be taught in joy.”

Having promised that those who wash off the filth of sin will be shown mercy altogether and in every way; that then, having become pure, they will be joined to him spiritually; that those far off will be near and … with the … from him, through which they could believe that he is truthful, being God by nature and Lord of the powers; he goes on again to what follows, that is, to enumerating the spiritual gifts that will be given them. “For I will prosper,” he says, “my ways and my commandments.” This is a great and desirable good, a gift of heaven; and in what way, we shall say. For those who wish to move from worldly love of pleasure to a seemly life, the thing is not without roughness, nor even passable at the beginning. For … rise up against them … and drench the mind within them with griefs. For the passions of the flesh are not easy to escape, nor for those who wish is the race toward virtue a well-trodden path. But when God prospers the way and makes the hard and uphill ways bare and easy going, one could very easily escape the assaults of the passions, and leap most nimbly up to the heights of the virtues. For it is written: “The high mountains for the deer.” What, then, does God promise those who have believed in him? “I will prosper my ways and my commandments, and you will not go out in grief, but will be taught in joy.” This, I think, is what the prophetic writing again said elsewhere: “The way of the pious has become straight, and the way of the pious is prepared”; for the way of the Lord is judgment. And another of the holy prophets: “Straight are the ways of the Lord,” he says, “and the righteous will walk in them, but the ungodly will grow weak in them.” For if God does not smooth the ways for them, they could not travel along them. For that it is a gift of heaven, as I said, to be able to walk the divine ways and to fulfil the commandments, by which one may drive toward God, he taught by saying, as of the synagogue of the Jews: “Therefore behold,” he says, “I fence her ways with thorns, and she shall seek her ways and not find them.” So, when I prosper the commandments, he says, you will go out in gladness; that is, you will be above grief, you will not be bitten in your heart, since you will be outside the passions and passing over to the better and wondrous life. For you will be taught rejoicing and delighting in the sacred words. At any rate the divine David says: “How sweet are your words to my throat, more than honey and the comb to my mouth.” And he affirmed that he rejoiced in them more, and very wisely, as over all riches. And those who go out in joy might be understood in another way too: for, being freed from the ancient deceit, they seize the call from God rejoicing, and one can see that this is true from the facts themselves.

“For the mountains and the hills will leap, welcoming you with joy, and all the trees of the field will clap with their branches; and instead of the … a name, and for an eternal sign, and not …”

By mountains he perhaps means here the powers above and in heaven, which have been appointed by God to help those on earth. For they are ministering spirits sent for service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation, and they rejoice even over one sinner who repents. Indeed they might reasonably be likened to mountains as having their station very high, and for the greatness of the virtue that is in them. Or you will take the mountains to be those who exercise the office of teaching in the churches, who think nothing low but rather seek the things above and have leapt up from earthly things; and the hills to be those inferior to their eminence, and as it were seated below their glory. For in the churches there are measures both of honor and of ministries. These, he says, the spiritual mountains, and with them the hills, will leap because of your conversion and calling, and will welcome you with joy; for we rejoice not a little when some of those who went astray give up remaining in mist and darkness and dart toward the light of the true vision of God. So the all-wise Paul also addressed them, saying: “My joy and crown.” “But also all the trees of the field,” he says, “will clap with their branches.” And by the trees of the field you will understand those who belong to the peoples. For the Savior's garden is in flower. At any rate, since the bride described in the Song of Songs is flourishing and fruitful, she says: “Let my beloved come down into his garden and eat the fruit of his fruit trees.” So the spiritual trees will clap with their branches, he says. For those who have believed rejoice, just as do the mountains and hills, that is, those who have been allotted the leadership of peoples, at the salvation of those called to life and at the completion of the spotless initiation, through which the divine light is let into them.

Then, that there will be a very great change of those called to what is incomparably better, he shows at once by saying that instead of the brushwood there will be cypress, and instead of the fleabane … they say are worthless thorns, and they do not flourish at all in places under cultivation, but delight in barren and salty ground. Such were those who went astray and worshipped the creation instead of the Creator. But since they have been called to the knowledge of the truth, they have ceased to be brushwood and fleabane, … of plants; for they are called cypress and myrtle. Great, then, is the marvel of the one who cultivates the church, that is, of Christ. For he changes thorns into the noble and choice among plants, and makes them other than they were, in a fatherly way. We shall find this has happened among those of Israel's blood too. For Matthew and Paul were once brushwood and fleabane, the one a tax collector, the other a persecutor and insolent man; they have become lights of the world, and they are a fragrance of Christ in every place, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, as the most holy Paul says. And that the provider and prince of all these will remain in endless glory and permanence, he teaches by saying: “The Lord will be for a name, and for an eternal sign, and will not fail.” By “name” here he means glory, and by “sign,” as I think, the splendor that comes through the cross, through which we have also been saved, and in which we shall be without end. For the grace that comes from him will fail us at no time and in no way.

Tome 3.

“Thus says the Lord: Keep judgment, do righteousness; for my salvation has drawn near … and my mercy to be revealed.”

Having spoken at length a little above about the calling of the nations through faith, that is, in Christ, and having completed this, he passes again to the need to admonish those of Israel's blood. For being good by nature, he wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. But since it was their custom to raise their brows over the noble birth of their fathers, and to think highly of themselves on this very thing alone, and to suppose that it would suffice them even if the boast of a good life was not seen to belong to them, he tries to convince them that their puffing up over this will be wholly vain, and declares rather that those obtain God-befitting glory who choose to fulfil what has been commanded … and love to claim the brilliance that lies in works. “Keep, then,” he says, “judgment,” that is, right judgment, or the divine judgments, plainly the commandments. “Do righteousness”; for it will not suffice merely to wish to adhere to the divine laws while failing to carry them out; they must be seen to be guardians of the sacred judgments, and besides this to be distinguished by every good work. And lest any of us should think that by these words those of Israel are being urged to keep the law, that, I mean, which lies in shadows and types (for no one is justified by the law before God, as the most excellent Paul wrote to some), he says that the salvation is near, and his mercy to be revealed. He names Christ mercy and salvation; for we have been shown mercy through him, gaining forgiveness and salvation through faith. We say that like this is what was said by God to the blessed Habakkuk: “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay.” “To be revealed” he says instead of “to be made manifest”; for the blessed prophets foretold the Savior's arrival, but he became evident to those on earth at the times the Sovereign willed. And this the divine David will teach, saying: “The Lord has made known his salvation; before the nations he has revealed his righteousness.” For Christ, who is salvation and righteousness, has been made manifest to the nations; for, as I said just now, God the Father has saved and justified us in him.

“Blessed is the man who does these things, and the man … not to profane, and keeps his hands from doing wrong.”

These words too are akin to what we said just now and come by the same path, yet the word deserves much attention. For see how he calls blessed not, surely, the one who is from the seed of Abraham, nor the one who boasts of flesh and noble birth and has a vain mind about it, but rather the one in whom distinction in good things is seen to be present, and the brilliant and conspicuous dignity of an unprofaned life. Something like this the blessed Baptist John is seen to have called out to the flocks of the Jews. For they came honoring his baptism, but it was a baptism of repentance, and he rebuked them, very sharp as they were, saying: “Offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Bear, then, fruits worthy of repentance, and do not presume to say among yourselves: We have Abraham as our father.” And Christ says: “If you had Abraham as your father, you would do the works of Abraham.” Blessed, then, he says, is not anyone who is a son of Abraham, but the one who keeps these things. And what are these? Judgment and righteousness; and besides this, keeping and accomplishing them, and holding fast to them, that is, not approaching them incidentally or carelessly, but as with all zeal, … “keeping the Sabbaths not to profane them.” Understand this again as follows: it was not permitted on the Sabbath to take thought for any of the labors or pursuits concerning the flesh. Rather one had to rest … they brought sacrifices to God, the letter of the law hinting enigmatically that from fleshly concern

to God spiritual sacrifices, and those that make a spiritual fragrant odor. The force of the rest on the Sabbath, then, was full of the rest from sins and fleshly desires. So it befits us too to keep ourselves from profaning the Sabbaths; for when we have ceased, as I said, from all earthly and fleshly concern, we keep sabbath spiritually, offering not sacrifices of blood and smoke, but gladdening him with sacred pursuits and offering ourselves up for a fragrant odor. For with such sacrifices God is well pleased, as it is written. So we must not profane the Sabbaths, and besides this we must keep our hands clean; and in what manner, he himself taught by saying, “from doing wrong.” For it is not possible to keep judgment and do righteousness while wanting to do wrong and defiling one's hand with the filth of sin. By the hand you will understand not at all the hand of the body, but in place of the hand the practical activity by which we approach each of our affairs.

“Let not the foreigner who adheres to the Lord say: The Lord will separate me then from his people. And let not the eunuch say: I am a dry tree. Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs: Whoever keep my Sabbaths and choose the things I will, and hold fast to my covenant, I will give them in my house and within my wall a named place, better than sons and daughters; an eternal name I will give them, and it will not …”

… another brow of those of Israel's blood, that is, … a pretext for boasting, rotten and stale, God sweeps away. For they thought highly of themselves, as I said, saying, “We have Abraham as our father,” and indeed, “We are a holy, chosen people, and have been appointed as God's portion.” And they shunned childlessness, since the forefather Abraham had received from God, by way of blessing, that his seed would extend to an immeasurable multitude; for God promised to make it equal in number to the stars. It had also been said to them through the all-wise Moses: “There shall not be among you one without offspring, or barren.” And that having many children was held among them a great and special thing one of the holy prophets will confirm, saying: “Their glories are from births and labor pains and conceptions.” And the prophet Isaiah says that seven women will lay hold of one man and say: “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes; only let your name be called upon us; take away our reproach.” For they did not want, as I said, to be reproached as childless and barren. Since, then, those of Israel saw fit to think highly of themselves on account of fleshly nobility and, in addition, of having many children, he of necessity removes them from this ignorance too, saying: “Let not the foreigner who adheres to the Lord say: The Lord will separate me then from his people.”

For not because he is a foreigner, that is, not of Israel's blood, is he therefore without share in the gifts from him, that is, in kinship with him, the spiritual kinship, of course. But if he adheres to the Lord, he will surely be ranked among his own and his known ones, in the holy nation and royal priesthood and God's portion, and will be counted among the children of Abraham. For not all who are from Israel are Israel, as the all-wise Paul says, nor because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children; but the children of the promise are reckoned as seed. And the promise was given by God to Abraham not for those from him according to the flesh alone, but for all who are of faith; for so was Abraham justified. So to those who walk in the footsteps of the faith of Abraham it will surely be given to be counted among his children. He will not, then, separate the proselyte from his people; rather, he will receive the one once added and called in faith, and will name him a holy people.

But if anyone is a eunuch, he says, that is, … or without offspring, let him not say to himself, “I am a dry tree,” that is, let him not grieve because of childlessness. For this is nothing before God, nor does it make anyone rejected. For what kind of virtue, or what brilliance of achievement, is having many children? These are works of the flesh, far from both blame and praise. For even if the thing was given to some by way of blessing, when the time called for it, yet it would do no wrong to those who did not obtain it. Otherwise, what kind of reproach would there be for those who died before their time, or who departed from our affairs before marriage and intercourse, and had no offspring of children? And will it benefit in any way those who love sin in this life to be fathers of many sons and daughters? Let not the one who has no children, he says, say: “I am a dry tree.” But nothing prevents us (rather, I say it is necessary) from mentioning now also those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, according to the Savior's word, to whom one might apply, very reasonably, the word of God here. “For I will give them,” he says, “in my house and within my wall a named place.” By house and wall, that is, enclosure and safety, he seems to mean the church, perhaps that above and in heaven, or that on earth, in which men are distinguished who are nurslings of chastity and gravity, crowned with the boast of continence, considering the glory that comes from it better than having many children, and in no way differing from eunuchs as regards the gravity of their conduct. These receive from God eternal glory (this is what the name shows), and the grace from him will not fail among them; for the rewards of continence are exceptional. Yet he promises the supply of such brilliant dignities not to eunuchs simply, but to those who keep his Sabbaths, plainly Christ's; and his Sabbaths, as I said, are other than those of the law. For the latter were in types, while the former shine with the beauty of the truth; and to those who choose what he wills and hold fast to his covenant. And Christ wills not what lies in shadows and in the letter of the law, but what lies in the covenant that comes from him, plainly the new and evangelical one.

“… to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants and handmaids, and all … and hold fast to my covenant, I will bring them to my holy mountain and gladden them in my house of prayer. Their whole burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar. For my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations, said the Lord who gathers the dispersed of Israel.”

These words too are to be joined to those above, so that what is said is this: Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs, and to the foreigners who adhere to the Lord to serve him. So he speaks to those from the nations, and not at all to those of Israel's blood only, who, raising their brows high, attacked the foreigners, calling themselves God's portion and inheritance and a holy people, and saying, “Blessed are we, Israel, for the things pleasing to the Lord are known to us.” It is clear, then, that the power of fleshly nobility does not join anyone to God. For not because they came from Abraham have they remained God's portion; rather, those who adhere to him would be reckoned among his people through spiritual union, even if some are foreigners, adhering to him through faith, considering servitude under him a boast, and loving his name; and to love … to run always under the yoke, not turning aside to what is unlawful, nor easily carried away so as to choose to run back to adhering to other gods, but rather having a mind firm and unshaken, and so keeping his Sabbaths, plainly Christ's, as not to profane them. For the Jews keep sabbath according to the law, keeping the flesh free of all labor and practising idleness as regards bodily works. But such sabbath-keeping was rejected by God; whereas he who has entered into Christ's rest and keeps sabbath spiritually has rested from his own works; so at any rate the all-wise Paul writes.

He promises to bring those who are now foreigners to his holy mountain and to gladden them in his house of prayer. Here, I pray, see the shadow of the law overturned and the oldness of the letter now as it were made ineffective. For all things have become new in Christ; the old things have passed away. The law forbade foreigners to enter the house of God; for it said: “An Ammonite and a Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord.” But the Savior and Lord of all, transferring our affairs into spiritual newness, promises to bring the foreigners into his holy house. For the holy mountain he says is nothing else than his own church, into which they have entered, delighting, of course, in the gifts from him and rich in the hope of the saints … And that they will live purely and have the God of all kind and gracious, he has disclosed by saying: “Their whole burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar.” The word comes as from the example and type of the worship according to the law. For of old it was the custom of those of Israel to offer rams and bulls as whole burnt offerings, and to bring sacrifices. But since, as I said, the shadow has passed, those called from the nations do not make their approach through blood, but as it were offer themselves in sacred service to God, dying to the world and living to righteousness, as it is written. And they will be acceptable, and for a fragrant odor: some making their whole life as it were sacred, so as to be understood in the rank of whole burnt offerings; others as a partial sacrifice, such as is the life of those who have married in the Lord, divided in a way between God and the world. For of the animals brought for sacrifices not the whole was given to the altars, but half, that is, a part. Acceptable, then, are the foreigners, who dedicate themselves for a spiritual fragrance. And that not only to those from