Commentary on Isaiah 5.3.21–5.4.7

“Not even if you bend your neck like a ring and spread under you sackcloth and ashes”: that is, even if you practise the utmost humbling and travel an unbearable road of toil, with such shameful charges upon you, “not even so will you call it an acceptable fast.” For if you are willing, he says, to speak the truth, not even you yourselves would name it an acceptable fast.

“… says the Lord; but loose every bond of injustice, undo the knots of violent contracts, send away the broken in release, and tear up every … your bread …, and bring the homeless poor into your house; if you see one naked, clothe him, and from those of your own seed …”

… for those who did not know the manner of true fasting that it be shown them by God. For from him comes all wisdom and understanding, and the way to every excellent thing whatever is shown by him. The divine David at any rate sings and says: “Guide me, O Lord, in your way, and I will walk in your truth.” So he rejected the most unskilful and in no way profitable fast of the Jews, and shows the force of the true one. “For loose,” he says, “every bond of injustice,” that is, rid yourself of wanting to take advantage of anyone. For greed is a bond of injustice, and so is attacking some who are weaker and binding them as it were in inescapable entanglements of charges, so as to make them terrified and so to seek to take from them whatever one wishes. “Undo the knots of violent contracts.” Violent contracts are … the commercial ones; and besides these the other so-called givings and takings, which involve certain excesses and make those accustomed to practise them lovers of shameful gain. “And send away the broken in release,” he says, that is, those who suffer crushing or weariness from the bond of injustice or from the violent contracts. Release them in freedom, that is, … to give rest henceforth to those who toil. “And tear up every unjust document”: I think he means the bonds of moneylenders, often drawn up without even the payment of as much money as the document has swollen to. And when you have kept away from these, he says, then add what is lacking. And this is to bear fruit to … the good things of love to one's neighbors. For love is the fulfilment of the law, as it is written. And the fulfilment of love toward brothers, and the proof of the compassion honored by God, is to break bread for the hungry, to take the homeless poor into one's house, to clothe the naked, and to give those of one's own seed, that is, one's kin, sufficient care, I think, and to share with them the breadth of the plenty given by God. Observe that keeping away from evils is not the same as doing good. Nor would it suffice anyone as a boast before God not to have done what is bad; it must surely and in every way be followed by fulfilling good works and holding fast to the pursuits that lead to piety. For to undo the knots of violent contracts and every bond of injustice, and to tear up every unjust document, is nothing else than merely departing from wickedness. But to choose to fulfil the works of love, by breaking bread for the hungry, taking the homeless poor into one's house, clothing the naked, and bearing with those of one's own seed, gives clear proof of the best noble deeds. Therefore the old law, being a tutor to lead to Christ, did not bring the fulfilment of the good to those of that time, but taught them rather to depart from wickedness first. For “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not swear falsely” has this force. But perfection and the fulfilment of every good were reserved for the oracles given through Christ, from which we have learned to fulfil the works of love toward God and our brothers,

“… your healings shall spring up quickly, and your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of God shall clothe you. Then you shall cry out, and God will hear you; while you are still speaking he will say, ‘Here I am.’”

If, he says, you fast purely, and show God your hands washed clean and your mind freed from all filth, that is, when you wash away [the fault] of [driving] those under your hand into lawsuits and fights and [making them] follow your wishes and pleasures, when you break your bread to the hungry, clothe the naked, and bring the homeless poor into your house, then your light shall break forth early. The saying carries very great emphasis. For he did not simply say, “Light will be given you by God”, but rather “it shall break forth”, like a flash of lightning sent down from God with a rush and at speed; by which the eagerness of the giver is clearly shown. And by saying “early” he teaches that it will come down even before its time. For God, the steward of our affairs, the giver of spiritual gifts, knows, he knows the time that befits his bounty toward each. But if someone becomes noble and good, the rewards from him will be given too, so that his healings also spring up in him like ears of grain, that is, the casting off of every sickness; and when one is freed from … he will surely bear the fruit of desire and eagerness for every good thing. So when the divine and spiritual light has shone in us, the healings too spring up with it everywhere and wholly, as God dresses our wounds and unnerves the passions, and puts in their place within us the will to do good and to excel in righteousness. That is why he says, “Your righteousness shall go before you.” It will go before, plainly by making the road to godliness easy beforehand, changing the rough into the smooth and passable, levelling the uphill, and as it were directing our course toward all that is best. And he adds something else: “For the glory of God”, he says, “shall clothe you”, that is, shall surround you and make you admired, and … a common benefit to many. For the radiance of the saints benefits those who look on them not a little. So Christ said to the holy apostles: “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” We shall therefore be radiant, as the glory from God surrounds and as it were clothes us, which he would grant to those who take care for righteousness. When these things are yours, he says, then you shall cry out, and God will hear you; while you are still speaking he will say, “Here I am.” For “he hears the prayers of the righteous”, as it is written. And as the Psalmist says: “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears toward their prayer.” For he will nod assent to those who ask, since he is good, but not to all at once. But to those who have excelled in righteousness he holds out their requests without any delay, and lends them his ear, so that at each of their requests they rejoice and say: “He heard my voice from his holy temple, and my cry before him will come into his ears.” So the cry “Here I am” while the righteous man is still speaking and stretching out his supplications plainly presents the unhesitating bounty and great readiness of God who gives.

“If you take away from yourself the bond, and the stretching out of the hand, and the word of murmuring, and give your bread to the hungry, and satisfy the humbled soul, then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your darkness [shall be] as midday, and your God shall be with you continually.”

The choicest lessons, even if they are often repeated to some, still have their profit. So the all-wise Paul writes to those who believed through him: “To say the same things to you is not irksome to me, and for you it is safe.” So he comes to us telling us in many ways by the same things, both making plain the roads to good repute and describing the splendour of the rewards to be given to the saints, so that he may make them still more eager to choose to do the things by which they would become venerable, and find the bounty that is from above and from him. So: “If you take away from yourself”, he says, “the bond and the stretching out of the hand.” And by “bond”, I think, he means the depravity of the gentiles, their perversity and contentiousness, and the making as it were of bonds of business against some people, and the search for crooked devices, so as at times to bind some people fast, and [to entangle] a person in inescapable circumstances …, if indeed one has the aim of being looked upon by God and longs for his gifts. And by “stretching out of the hand” he perhaps means the taking of bribes and the desire for shameful gains. For we sometimes say of some people that they keep their hand stretched out to receive, and of those who shake off bribes, that they keep their hand drawn in. And it is said of the leaders of the synagogue of the Jews: “Its leaders judged for gifts, and its priests divined for silver”, and that they have become partners of thieves, loving gifts, pursuing reward. And the inspired Habakkuk said somewhere: “Before me judgement has come about, and the judge takes.” So the name, that is, “the stretching out of the hand”, will signify the taking of gifts, which he commanded to take away, that is, to put away. Or in another way it signifies retaliation, repaying evil for evil. So the Psalmist said of some: “He stretched out his hand in repaying.” And he adds: “They profaned his covenant.” So the stretching out of the hand would also signify, as I said, the repayment someone might make by bringing the effects of anger back on others. And we remember the Saviour himself saying: “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also.” For to know how to endure wrongs, and not to love retaliating against those who have hurt us, but rather to be disposed toward them without remembering the wrong, would be proof of gentleness and of complete freedom from anger.

He also wants us to take away words of murmuring. For we must submit to the divine laws with a cheerful mind, and make no accusation against the excellent way of life, as though all but shaking off the yoke, while the mind sinks down to desire for the worse, and praises love of pleasure rather than self-control, and the things in the world … This is what those of Israel did as they crossed that deep desert. For when God sent the manna down to them, they let in the inclination to baser things, saying: “Would that we had died, struck by the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate bread to the full.” But murmuring against God turned out to their destruction: they perished by the serpents. That is why the most wise Paul too says: “Do not murmur, as some of them murmured and perished by the serpents.” So it befits one who desires noble deeds [to be] of cheerful mind. And having taken away the word of murmuring, if you give your bread to the hungry and satisfy the humbled soul, that is, if you become a lover [of the poor] and generous, and love your neighbour as yourself, then your light shall rise in the darkness. And how is this? As day comes out of night, so in us, when the spiritual darkness is driven out, the divine light enters in its place, so that it seems to be at midday, that is, at the height of brightness. For the sun's disc at midday then most of all sends its keenest light upon those on earth. So your God shall be with you continually. And this too is very great, besides the rest. For what good thing does not belong to those who have obtained this? Or of what gifts will a person not be full, when God, who is able to do all things, is with him, distributing with a rich hand the things of which he is supplier and giver, warding off the attacks of temptations, and making him so strong as to stand up even to Satan himself and to the assaults of the passions?

“And you shall be filled as your soul desires, and your bones shall be made fat, like a well-watered garden and like a spring whose water has not failed, and your bones shall spring up like grass and shall be made fat …”

And with what will you be filled? he says. Plainly with divine gifts and food fit for saints. For as Christ himself said somewhere: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds through the mouth of God.” This was written long ago, as in a type, for those of the blood of Israel too, when God sent the manna down from heaven; for in a way it might be understood as bread of angels and bread of heaven. And if there are some on whose mind the divine light has flashed richly, and who have gained an exact and blameless knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, these too we say have been filled, and have come to satiety of the delight that is from above and from God. But Israel has fallen away from this, while the gentiles have come into its possession and holding through faith, as have all who approach the saving word of the gospel. So our Lord Jesus Christ said to the holy apostles: “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given”, plainly to those who disbelieved, to whom the divine word also proclaimed: “Those who serve me shall eat, but you shall hunger; behold, those who serve me …” and they thirsted, having had no share in the good things through the Spirit, and being wholly without taste of the gifts through Christ, that is, of the divine instruction of the gospel. For he said somewhere through one of the holy prophets: “Behold, I bring a famine on the land, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord; and from the east to the west they will run about seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.” For the heavenly … has been taken away from the herd of the Jews … But it has been given, as I said, to those who love Christ, to whom he also proclaimed, saying: “Eat, and be drunk, O neighbours.” So the inspired David too sings, as one who

had a share in such venerable and abundant bounty: “You prepared a table before me in the face of those who afflict me; you anointed my head with oil, and your cup that makes me drunk is as the best.” So all who have gained knowledge of his divine mysteries, that is, have been filled with them, have had their bones made fat. The saying is shaped from those who are used to living in fleshly luxury. The soul of such people would become like a well-watered garden, that is, in bloom, full of fine trees, adorned with varied kinds of flowers, and bearing every sort of fruit. For gardens without water are very unsightly: they are dry and empty of all fruit, or perhaps even short of plants themselves. But those [rich] in water, as I said, are crowned with fruits. And the church has become Christ's garden; taking up her part, the bride in the Song of Songs [says: “Let my beloved come down] into his garden and eat the fruit of his fruit-trees.” For what the tree-fruit, that is, beautiful fruit, is among plants, that, in the souls of the saints, is virtue, beautiful and most sweet to God. So your soul, he says, will be like a well-watered garden, and also like a spring whose water has not failed. Such were the inspired initiators into the mysteries, sending out the streams of godly teaching as from an ever-flowing spring, their own heart, and watering richly the souls of those taught. And the distributor of such excellent gifts will confirm it himself, saying: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from his belly.” And again: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him, it will become in him a spring of water leaping up to eternal life.” Such we say were the holy apostles and evangelists, and all who are ambassadors of the divine word, being excellent partly in skill in doctrine, partly in the splendour … of works.

“… and they shall spring up like grass, and shall be made fat, and they shall inherit generations of generations”, he says. In these words he seems to point to the mystery of the resurrection. For the body will rise then, like grass in a field which withered and closed up in the winter season, but when the fair weather of spring smiles grows up again and as it were returns to the beauty that is natural to it. And the bones, when they have sprung up like grass, will be made fat, he says, plainly by the life-giving grace from God. For the inspired David sings somewhere and says: “You will send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you will renew the face of the earth”, that is, of those on earth. Then we shall inherit generations of generations, plainly living long when death has been abolished and corruption wholly done away. And in very many places of divinely inspired Scripture the spiritual bones of the soul are said to be certain of its active powers and energies, as in the saying: “God scattered the bones of men-pleasers.” For God does not scatter the bones of the body, but rather shatters the powers of their soul, so that they can accomplish nothing of what they look to, and nothing done among them tends either to the glory of God or to the benefit of their soul. And again the inspired Psalmist said: “Because I kept silent, my bones grew old from my crying out all the day”, that is, falling into human faintheartedness, I fell silent from glorifying and praying; “my bones grew old”, that is, the powers of my understanding, or of my soul, were weakened. These, then, though sometimes slackened through sloth, spring up again like grass in a short time, as God makes them fat with the consolations through the Holy Spirit and strengthens [the soul] again, so that through this we are made heirs of the life of long ages; for that, and nothing else, is what “to generations of generations” means.

“And your eternal deserts shall be built, and your foundations shall be for generations of generations, and …”

The saying comes to us through two further examples, and the beauty of the hidden meanings shines out. For the saying is shaped as of a city once laid waste and wholly shaken down, so that it was even left without walls. For your deserts, he says, shall be built as eternal ones; that is, you will not be bare of the good thoughts that dwell in your heart, nor without walls … For Christ will become for you a foundation and continual safety, and you will be like a populous city with countless inhabitants. For the souls of the saints are full of words and thoughts, plainly those about God. And these are very many, and come with complete exactness, running about through it up and down, and showing it full of every good. And besides this you will be called a builder of fences, and you will make the paths between cease. For very many are those who cut paths across deserted gardens; for if no one at all stands over them or fences them in closely, they would not stop those who wish to walk through the middle. But if they come under a careful gardener, then they cease lying under the feet of the many, plainly because a fence has been raised; for so the paths through the middle [cease]. You will be, then, he says, like a careful gardener raising fences and stopping … soul, inclining to sloth and to the outlandish … of pleasures, for this reason has no defence, but is like a garden walked through by anyone at all. But when, coming to its senses, it leaps out of the snares of wickedness and takes hold rather of the will to do good, and raises for the mind, as a kind of fence, the safety that comes, I mean, from the fear of God, and drives out of the understanding the thoughts that once mastered it, which went as it were through the middle of it, keeping it under their feet and making it a thing trampled by their mastery, then it will be called a builder of fences. And one must know that the wicked and hostile powers too sometimes overrun the wretched soul, breeding foul pleasures and carrying it off tyrannically wherever they wish, as through a garden laid waste [for want of the] fence which the divine fear raises in us. And you will apply such a saying also to each of the holy initiators into the mysteries. For they became builders of fences, securing the souls of those taught by admonitions to virtue, so that they keep their understanding [safe] in some way against the attacks of pleasures and against buffoonery, and against those used to empty talk, who peddle the correct word of the faith, knowing neither what they say nor what they make assertions about.

“If you turn your foot away from the Sabbaths, so as not to do your wishes on the holy day, and call the Sabbaths delightful, holy to your God, you shall not lift your foot … your mouth, and you shall trust in the Lord, and he will bring you up onto the good things of the land, and feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.”

The inspired Paul, pushing aside the shadow of the law as ineffective, transfers what is in it into spiritual contemplation. For one would not see him accepting either circumcision according to the flesh or idleness according to the Sabbath; rather he is seen [to honour another] circumcision. For he said: “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward, in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; his praise is not from men but from God.” And about the Sabbath: “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his own.” So if anyone ceases from his own works, that is, from his own wishes, and gives the sacred decrees the right to rule, he thus keeps Sabbath spiritually and truly celebrates a holy day. The saying of the prophecy in hand shows us this too. For if you turn away, he says, your foot from the Sabbaths, so as not to do your wishes on the holy day. And “you shall turn your foot away from the Sabbaths” would be nothing else, I think, than not to do whatever one may wish and not to walk the paths of one's own desires. For that the aim of human wishes looks toward love of pleasure the all-wise Paul will confirm, writing: “For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I hate, that I do. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members.” So those who wish to be well pleasing to God must fight down their own will very vigorously, and, following his divine laws everywhere, run the admirable road of righteousness. And he calls “delightful Sabbaths” those that have nothing of self-will. And a hard and harsh will is to refuse to submit to whatever God wills. Since Israel was such, he convicted it, saying: “I know that you are hard, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your forehead bronze.” So compliance, docility and a yielding manner make the Sabbath rest delightful to God, that is, the spiritual Sabbath-keeping; and those who wish to accomplish it blamelessly will not lift their foot to work, that is, they do not walk in active deeds, but rather keep the pure and profitable rest, rest, I mean, from things most shameful, foul and hateful to God. And he wants such people to be seen to be superior to anger and wrath, and to have a door and a bar on the tongue.

“For you shall not speak a word … of your mouth”, he says. So here he cuts away two terrible and most grievous things; whoever departs from them will be perfect before God. For one of the holy apostles said: “If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also.” And he who is superior to anger is surely also seemly, if the converse is true too; for it is written: “A wrathful man is not seemly.” So God wants those who keep Sabbath spiritually, holily and delightfully to be gentle and to have virtue in the highest degree, and he commands them to trust, not in wealth or worldly powers, not in bodily strength, nor in anything else of that kind, things which, like the grasses in the fields, are short-lived and quick to wither, but rather in the Lord, the supplier and ruler of all good cheer. And he shows with what sort of things he crowns people who are used to living so, by saying: “He will bring you up onto the good things of the land, and feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father.” For the God of all promised the land of promise to the fathers of the Jews, and indeed they were brought into it under the command of Joshua after Moses, the revealer of sacred things. How then, in the verses before us, [does he promise it] as to people who had not yet received the lot promised to the patriarch? … [not about the] promise made by God to the inspired Jacob, that is, to Abraham and Isaac, but rather about that [land] which the Saviour himself indicated to us, saying: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” And that the promises will reach their fulfilment wholly and surely he confirms by saying: “For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.” And it is impossible for the divine words to fail, for God is truth.

“Is my hand not strong to save? Or has he made his ear heavy so as not to hear? Your sins stand between you and God; because of your sins he has turned his face away from you so as not to have mercy. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with sins. And your lips … meditates; no one speaks just things, nor is there true judgement. They trust in vain things, and speak …”

In the verses a little above, … in strength, and do not spare; lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their lawless deeds, and to the house of Israel their sins.