Commentary on Isaiah 5.4.8–5.4.14

“They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, as a people that has done righteousness and has not forsaken the judgement of its God. They ask me now for just judgement, and desire to draw near to God, saying: ‘Why is it that we fasted, and you did not see? We humbled our souls, and you did not know?’ For in the days of your fasts you find your wishes, and you goad all those under your hand; you fast for lawsuits and fights … this is not the fast that I have chosen, says the Lord.”

We said, interpreting the force of the prophecy as far as possible, that, setting themselves against what was decreed through the all-wise Moses and counting right living of very little account, they did … practising a manner of …; then sometimes, when war was announced, they considered abstaining from food, thinking that by bare and mere fasting, that is, going without food, they would set the judge on their side. Then they murmured when they missed their hope, and indeed [said: “Why did we fast, and you did not see? We] humbled our souls, and you did not know?” See, then, see the inspired prophet rebuking them out of great love for God, and saying: “Is the hand of the Lord not strong to save? Or has he made his ear heavy so as not to hear?” For the all-powerful right hand of the Lord has not grown weak, he says, nor [has his] ear … “But your sins stand between you and him.” So if anyone takes away the division and removes what walls off the knowledge of God, that is, sin, the Saviour is not far off, but will surely receive the supplications. For in him there is both all power and the readiness to accept … kindly the prayers of those in distress. What sins, then, stand between God and those of the blood of Israel he adds, saying: “For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with sins. And your lips have spoken lawlessness, and your tongue meditates injustice.” For they killed holy prophets sent by God, and they also spoke against him. So Jeremiah said: “My strength has failed because of those who curse me.” But passing over such things, he seems now to charge them with the impiety against Christ: their hands [are defiled] with blood, … and their lips [have spoken] lawlessness, and their tongue has meditated injustice. For they did not stop fighting, reviling and slandering Christ, at one time disparaging his divine signs and telling lies against his mighty works befitting God, at another accusing him and saying: “Away, away, crucify him!” At another … For this reason, because Christ endured an unjust sentence, the prophet cries out with a boldness befitting a saint: “No one spoke just things, nor is there true judgement. They trust in vain things and speak empty things.” And what was their vain trust? For they supposed that by putting the heir out of the way they would hold his inheritance; and saying such empty things to one another, the wretches acted impiously against him. So either the prophetic word charges those of the blood of Israel with the impiety against Christ, or [it says] that they would be found in no way fair-minded, since they have hands defiled with blood, and lips and a tongue that know how to meditate nothing else than what looks toward impiety, lawlessness and injustice, and that besides this they have become unjust judges, plainly taking gifts and being overcome by shameful gains. For it is said somewhere else: “How has the faithful city Zion, full of judgement, become a harlot, in which righteousness lodged, but now murderers? Your silver is counterfeit; your innkeepers mix the wine with water; your rulers … disobey, partners of thieves, loving gifts, pursuing reward, not judging for orphans and not attending to the cause of widows.”

“For they conceive trouble and bring forth lawlessness. They have broken asps' eggs, and they weave a spider's web, and he who was about to eat of their eggs, having crushed one, found it addled, and found in it a basilisk. Their web shall not become a garment, nor shall they be clothed from the works of their hands.”

It is the custom of divinely inspired Scripture, in a way, always to call envy “trouble”. And the expression is very apt, for envy melts and withers the hearts of those who admit it. Something of the kind the Psalmist too says of someone, that is, of the people of the Jews: “He conceived trouble and bore lawlessness.” For having first been in labour with envy against Christ, they brought forth the impiety against him, that is, the lawlessness. For by their attempts they would be caught all but saying that prophetic word: “… is.” And we shall find [this] in their councils too, against the Saviour of us all, Christ: “What are we doing? For this man does many signs. If we let him go on like this, the Romans will come and take away both our nation and our place.” And one of them, Caiaphas, became the inventor of the impiety against Christ; for he said in turn: “You know nothing at all; it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish.” From what has been said, then, one can see most clearly that, having conceived trouble, that is, having first been in labour with trouble against him, they brought forth lawlessness. What, then, does the prophetic word indicate to us in these words? “They have broken asps' eggs, and he who was about to eat of their eggs, having crushed one, found it addled.” For the Jews thought their plans against Christ would come to a favourable end for them and would benefit the whole nation. But they missed their aim, and it befell them to suffer something like what those suffer who, out of great folly, break asps' eggs. For when they have crushed them they will find nothing else but a basilisk in it, that most grievous offspring of a snake, and an addled egg besides. So the end of their daring deeds against Christ was unprofitable for the Jews, or rather it brought them destruction. For it turned out for them like a snake, an acknowledged failure, the one that carries them off to the trap of Hades. And that the plotting against Christ was entirely useless he shows at once by another example: “For they weave”, he says, “a spider's web.” For the spider, I mean that small and most worthless creature, … in the idler corners of rooms …; and these, though made with very great labour, profit them nothing at all; for they will not be a covering for their maker, but are easily torn as a covering, and finer than art itself. So, he says, are the inventions of the Jews too, plainly those against Christ. For weaving deceits and plaiting lies, they thought, as I said, that by encompassing him with death in the flesh they would achieve something profitable for themselves, and the … from their own attempts …; but the end turned out [contrary] to what they hoped. For they have been stripped of the favour from above, and have cast off their protector, that is, Christ. For those who wish to accomplish good works will have a covering from them, as God grants them this too; but for the workers of evil what comes from their deeds will not be a covering; rather they will be bereft of the covering that comes from God.

“For their works are works of lawlessness, and their feet run to evil, swift to shed blood, and their thoughts are thoughts from murders; destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no judgement in their ways. … and they do not know peace. Therefore judgement has departed from them.”

Each of the Jewish offences is enumerated in detail, so that, since they have been cast out of fellowship with him, they may be shown to have suffered this by a just sentence. For he says that all their works are works of lawlessness, and in these words the denunciation of their whole life together has proved true. And he runs over each of the charges as follows, saying that their feet run to evil and are swift to shed blood, and that they have had thoughts set on murders. See again, I pray, that, although the offences are very many, he mentioned first their readiness, I mean, to kill so as to destroy. For he said that their feet run to it, and that they are sharp, that is, swift, to admit thoughts of blood and murders. And he insists that destruction and misery are in their ways, and that they do not know peace, or the way of peace. For what they did unholily … of misery for them, or rather brought [it] on others through them. They were surely busybodies, and stitchers of lawsuits, and very sick with contentiousness; and the occasion of this was the desire for gains and the taking of gifts. So very fittingly he says: “There is no judgement in their ways.” And here he calls righteousness “judgement”, that is, the most lawful and irreproachable way of life. For so the inspired David says somewhere of the commandment given through Moses: “You have done judgement and righteousness in Jacob.” So there is no uprightness, that is, righteousness, in their ways. For they are perverse, and they flee peace, that is, they refuse to be peaceable toward others; or here he calls our Lord Jesus Christ “peace”, whom they would not know, digging the pit of destruction for themselves. “For that reason”, he says, “judgement has departed from them”, that is, for this cause righteousness departed from them, or the knowing how to do the things that win the crown of righteousness for those who have chosen to accomplish them. And the Jews are outside all spiritual skill, and even the ability to know how rightly to carry out anything pleasing to God has as it were flown away from their understanding.

“While they waited, light became darkness for them; waiting for brightness, they walked in untimely darkness. They will grope like a blind man for a wall, and as if they had no eyes they will grope, and … dying, they will groan; like a bear and …”

… their [life] accursed, and having shown it to be most lawless. For he said that their works are works of lawlessness, and, having listed them in detail and what they are, he also sets out the loss worn into them as a result, and the requital of their unbridled wickedness, that is, the fruits of the impiety within them. For the Jews were expecting the enlightenment from Christ. They heard holy prophets crying out openly: “Be enlightened, be enlightened, Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you”, and: “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened”; and as far as the [prophecies] of the holy prophets went, the wretches were not without good hope. So the leaders of the synagogue of the Jews once said to one another: “Does the Christ come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from Bethlehem, the village?” And that Samaritan woman, speaking to Christ himself, clearly confessed the force of his coming. For she said: “We know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” So they were expecting, as I said, the enlightenment from Christ, but their hope turned out wholly the opposite. For they did not receive the true light, but, settling as it were a self-invited darkness in their own minds, they became blind, and guides of the blind, according to the Saviour's word.

So while they waited for light, that is, while they hoped for or expected it, darkness came upon them, and waiting for brightness they walked in untimely darkness. The prophet puts the same thing again in another way, or about the same subject, making the sense of what was said plain. For those who expected brightness walked in deep darkness; that is what the word “untimely” shows. Then, displaying the greatness of the blindness that had come upon them, he said that they will grope like a blind man for a wall. For that is how those whose eyes are sick with blindness sometimes walk. And though it is noon, he says, they will fall as at midnight. By “noon” he usually means the very middle of the day, when the sun's disc, at the height of the sky, sends its keenest ray upon those on earth and as it were flashes round everything with richer beams; and by “midnight” the very middle of the night, when deep darkness is poured over everything under heaven. At noon, then, he says, that is, when the most abundant light, plainly the divine and spiritual light, was shining over the earth under heaven through the Saviour of us all, Christ, the Jews will fall like blind men who do not even know where they are going. For they would not obey Christ when he said: “While you have the light, walk in the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you.” So they were overtaken by the darkness, since they would not consent to walk in the light. And they will suffer something else too. For they will groan as those who are dying, he says, that is, as those held fast by a heavy and unrelenting disease. And they will go like a bear and a dove together; not as two creatures walking with each other, of which one might be taken as the bear and the other as the dove, but each of them at once, in his habit and in the mind within him, being a bear and also a dove. For since he said that they groan, he shows very well what kind of groaning theirs will be, and how great. For they say that bears, if they are robbed [of their cubs] by …, are filled with unmixed fury, roam the mountains and glens, and leap uncontrollably on whoever meets them; and somewhere through one of the holy prophets the God of all indicates something of this kind, saying of those of the blood of Israel: “I will meet them like a bear at a loss”, that is, cruelly and savagely. And doves send out a voice over their nests. Such the Jews became. For when their whole country had been sacked together with the holy city, I mean Jerusalem, and the temple itself had been burned, they had a savage mind against those who had taken it, yet they lamented it in its suffering like doves. For it is written: “And they shall be on the mountains like moaning doves.” Or perhaps we shall think that the prophetic word indicates something else in these words. For they will go, he says, like a bear and a dove, that is, they will live in savagery of mind yoked with folly; the bear is the image or example of savagery, and the dove of simplicity and folly. So it is said of Israel through one of the holy prophets: “And Ephraim was like a silly dove, having no heart.” And we shall find that the Jews are in truth, as it were, savage fools. For the understanding and gentleness that come from Christ are not in them; for they denied him, who is the supplier of wisdom and understanding and makes tame and gentle those who love him. So the prophet Jeremiah said of them at one time: “Every man has been made foolish, without knowledge”, and at another: “What wisdom is there in them, since they have rejected the word of the Lord?”

“We waited for judgement, and there is none; salvation has stood far off from us. For our lawlessness is great before you, and our sins have stood against us; for our lawless deeds are in us, and we have known our injustices. We acted impiously and lied, and departed from behind our God. We spoke unjust things and disobeyed; we conceived and meditated judgement from the heart, and righteousness has stood far off.”

The word of the holy prophets always loves the truth. For the Spirit of truth, that is, of Christ, speaks in them. For this reason, whenever they mention the rejection of the Jewish nation and the wrath brought upon them for their impiety toward Christ, they usefully recall also their return that will come in the last times of the age, and their calling in Christ through faith. Most providentially, then, so that no one may suppose … to make confession clearly. For it is written: “Tell …”; he all but presents them saying to God: “We waited for judgement, and there is none.” And by judgement they mean righteousness, plainly that through Christ, which they expected to receive; but it is not among them, and they became hard and disobedient. That is why he says: “Salvation has stood far off from us. For our lawlessness is great before you, and our sins are in us.” For since they have wholly fallen away from him who justifies by faith, they have also become far from the salvation that comes from him, not having cast off the defilements of sin nor rubbed off the charges of lawlessness, but having the filth from these as it were melted into them. That is why Christ addressed them, saying: “Truly I tell you that unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.” So, since they did not believe, they died in their sins. And since they acted impiously against Christ in many ways, they also make confession of these very things. For they say: “We have known our injustices; we acted impiously and lied, and departed from behind our God.” For they acted impiously, telling intolerable lies against the glory of the Saviour of us all, Christ, and departing from the will to follow him. And they confess further: “We spoke unjust things and disobeyed; … unjust words from our heart.” For they spoke unjust things against Christ: at one time, disparaging his glory and slandering his divine signs, they said that he casts out demons by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons; at another, bringing forth unjust words from their own heart; for they accused him, daring to call him …, and they slandered him before Pilate too, saying: “He stirs up the crowds and forbids giving tribute to Caesar.” That is why they say: “We departed from behind our God; we spoke … we meditated from our heart words of injustice, and we turned judgement back, and righteousness has stood far off”; that is, we threw righteousness behind us, and as it were turned our backs on it, turning away. Therefore it has stood far off from us. These, then, are the voices of people who repent and seek to find mercy from Christ. For repentance is a saving thing, and … of offences: “… your lawless deeds first, that you may be justified.” And the inspired Psalmist said: “I said, I will declare my lawlessness against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my heart.”

“For truth has been consumed in their ways, and they could not go by a straight path. And truth has been taken away, and they turned their mind away from understanding; and the Lord saw, and it did not please him, that there was no judgement. And he saw, and there was no man; and he observed, and there was none to help. And he defended them with his arm, and established them with mercy. And he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and set the helmet of salvation on his head, and clothed himself with a garment … recompense, reproach to the adversaries. And those from the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and those from the rising of the sun the glorious name. For the wrath of the Lord shall come like a violent river; it shall come with fury.”

Having recalled what those of Israel will say at the time of their calling, when they ask the God and Father for the grace of salvation through Christ, the prophet again transfers the words to his own person and accuses those of Israel, or rather agrees that they have become wicked, apostates and enemies of the truth. And he insists, saying that truth has been consumed in their ways; it was gone. For there was no truth at all in their deeds, that is, the law of truth. Therefore they could not pass through by a straight road. For those who had wholly slipped away from knowing how to live lawfully and by what seems good to the truth (and the law of God is everywhere called truth), how could they have gone straight to what is fitting? Or how could they not have had crooked and perverse ways? And by adding, “Truth has been taken away, and they turned their mind from understanding”, he shows that truth had wholly departed from them, and they had turned away altogether from being able to understand the things that lead to salvation. These things, he says, the Lord saw, and it did not please him. For there was no judgement among them, that is, just judgement and law. Then: He looked, he says, and there was no man; he observed, and there was none to help. For since he is compassionate, as God he sometimes remits the charges even of a whole city for the sake of one man found righteous in it. So he said through the voice of Jeremiah: “Run about in the ways of Jerusalem, and search in its squares, and see if you can find a man, if there is one who keeps faith and loves mercy, and I will be merciful to it, says the Lord.” And to Sodom too he promised to remit the punishment by fire if they had five righteous men among them, that is, one righteous man in each city. So he observed, he says, and there was no man, there was none to help. For the righteous man, who has lulled the divine wrath and is enough by himself to appease God, surely helps those for whom he offers his prayers. But since there was no one of that kind, he defended them, he says, with his arm, that is, with his power, and he also established them with mercy. For he did not destroy Israel root and all, but, being a lover of humankind, he saved a remnant, and kept his promise to their holy fathers unfailing. Then the prophet says that he put on a breastplate and set on a helmet and a garment of vengeance, as one about to repay recompense, reproach to the adversaries. For he all but said that the God of all became a war-leader against them, in full armour and well versed in tactics. And by this he shows the onset of the wrath upon them. For the all-mighty drew up against them, to whom it is justly said: “You are fearful, and who will stand against you because of your wrath?” And when the punishments have been brought on the Jews, those from the west and from the east will fear the glorious name. For the wrath will come, will come, he says, upon the disobedient, like a most violent river sweeping everything down, its streams rushing on irresistibly.

“And the deliverer shall come for the sake of Zion, and shall turn away impieties from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them, says the Lord: my Spirit, which is upon you, and the words which I have put in your mouth, shall not fail from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your seed; for the Lord has said it, from now and for ever.”

Just as a little above he clearly recalled the wrath that would be brought on the Jews (for they killed the Author of life and raged unholily against the Saviour and Redeemer of all), and then foretold the mercy and love for humankind that will be given them in later times (for he said: “And he defended them with his arm, and established them with mercy”), so here too, [having said] that the wrath of the Lord would come down on them like an unbearable and most violent torrent, and having said … he speaks of the blessing that will be given them in the last times of the age. For “the deliverer shall come for the sake of Zion”. For the only-begotten Word of God came down from heaven and lowered himself into emptying, becoming man, in order to call Israel before the others, and to save the multitude of the gentiles too. And the all-wise Paul will bear witness, writing: “For I say that Christ became a servant of the circumcision for the sake of the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.” And we remember Christ himself saying: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” So the deliverer will come, plainly delivering from sins, from death and corruption, from the devil's cruelty, from the deceit and overreaching of the demons. “And this is my covenant with them” … what is [spoken] and promised by God will wholly and surely be firm, and will not be denied. What, then, will the covenant from me be? he says. “My Spirit, and the words which I have put in your mouth, shall not fail from now and for all time.” For the clearest proof that the human race has been redeemed, and before the others those of Israel who believed, is the sharing in the Holy Spirit, through whom the boast of adoption is brought in, and the speaking with the tongue of the word of faith, as the all-wise Paul wrote: “For do not say in your heart”, he says, “‘Who will go up into heaven?’, that is, to bring Christ down; or ‘Who will go down into the abyss?’, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does the Scripture say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart; because if you say ‘Lord Jesus’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses to salvation.” So we have received from God the word of faith, that is, the confession; and it is a saving thing, and brings righteousness. For so Christ justifies the ungodly, he who cried long ago: “Behold, I have wiped out your lawless deeds like a cloud, and your sins like darkness.” Let this word of faith be in us continually, and it will not cease from our mouth. And we shall hand it on to generations of generations; for so those after us too will be justified.