Prophetic Extracts 4.1–4.7

“The word that came to Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem. For in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God on the tops of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations shall come to it. And many nations shall go and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will declare to us his way, and we will walk in it’; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into sickles; and nation shall not take sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more.” Let those who boast of circumcision show us what the law is, and of what sort, and to whom it will be given, which is prophesied to go forth from Zion. For “out of Zion,” it says, “shall go forth the law,” clearly other than the law given through Moses in the wilderness. And what is the word of the Lord which, according to the prophecy, no longer remains in Jerusalem, but goes out from Zion itself and moves to all the nations, and is to judge between them and (rebuke) many people, when, a most profound peace having come to the nations to be judged by the word of the Lord, those deemed worthy of the peace will change their former weapons of war and give their mind to the husbandry of their own souls? I do not know whether they have any answer to this. But we who have soundly believed in Jesus, the Christ of God, can easily smooth out the whole prophecy and show it to be truly divine and marvellous, by believing that what was prophesied has reached its end, and not falling away from the truth by postponing the fulfilment of the prophecies to unending times. For we say that at the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ, even bodily, the law of the new covenant, the law according to the Gospel, went forth from Zion and from there was proclaimed to all the nations; when also the saving Word himself, who is called the Word of the Lord, went forth from Jerusalem, where he lived and taught (according to “Behold, your house is left to you desolate”), and poured out his grace on all the nations. They, judged by him and rebuked for their former sins, coming to awareness and repentance, have ceased to occupy themselves with the wars of the passions and live in the most profound peace of soul, caring for their own understanding, its husbandry and fruitfulness. Whether one wishes to take these things according to the letter, a sound sense is given; or according to the spiritual sense, much more easily; since one should be persuaded that what is in these passages is fulfilled primarily and rather in this sense. From what has been said, the things at the beginning of the passage in hand can also be made clear. For in the last days, clearly now at the consummation of the ages, the spiritual mountain of God has become manifest, that is, the divine and heavenly Word; and his house, the church, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and for this reason said to be above the mountains. These things became manifest after the casting off of the people of the circumcision and after the kingdom of heaven was taken from them, when the words of the prophecy above the passage set out reached their fulfilment, by which it is said, “The daughter of Zion shall be left like a booth in a vineyard, and like a garden-watchman's hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city”; and when there was fulfilled, “Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give heed to the law of God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord,” and what follows, to which it adds: “Your new moons and your feasts my soul hates; you have become a surfeit to me; I will no longer forgive your sins. When you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn my eyes away from you; and if you multiply supplication, I will not listen to you; for your hands are full of blood.” See how the word, after directing all these things at them, does not here charge them with idolatry or any other sin, nor with the shedding of much blood, but of one special blood, clearly that of Christ, about which the word plainly convicts the people, saying, “for your hands are full of blood.” For this reason it next says, “How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot, she that was full of judgment, in which righteousness lodged, but now murderers?” After all this, ending, the word again foretells their casting off, saying, “For they shall be like a terebinth that has shed its leaves, and like a garden that has no water. And their strength shall be like a stalk of tow, and their works like sparks, and the lawless and the sinners shall be burned together, and there shall be no one to quench them.” Having declared so many and such great things against them beforehand, the prophecy next adds the passage we have just set out, in which it is said, “For in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest,” clearly indicating, after their complete and total casting off and desolation, the dispensations of the new covenant, under which the mountain of the Lord has become manifest to all the nations. And what mountain but the Word, God, who was in the beginning with God? He is our Saviour and Lord, as we have shown before, of whom it is said in the Psalms too, “The mountain of God, a fat mountain,” and “the mountain in which God was pleased to dwell.” Besides this mountain, the house of God too has become manifest; and the house of God would be the church, set firm on the tops of the mountains, the apostolic and prophetic words. When these became manifest, it is not Israel that has come to this very mountain, clearly the divine Word, nor the house of Jacob mentioned in many places, but simply all the nations. And it is clear how, once the things foretold were accomplished through our Saviour's appearing, and the mountain described and the house shown became manifest, we from the nations, having come to the God of the universe through faith in Christ the Son of God, formerly ignorant of such great things but now, by divine grace, knowing them, have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. And having been taught by the Word of God, who came out, or rather came down, from the heavenly Jerusalem, that “the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother,” we rouse one another toward this heavenly house of God and to Zion, itself the heavenly mountain of the Lord, and urge one another on by teaching and exhortation, saying, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will declare to us his way, and we will walk in it.” When these things had been accomplished and, by God's grace, become manifest to us all, another prophecy too reached its end, through which the saving Word himself bears witness more clearly to the passage in hand from Isaiah's prophecy, saying, “I became manifest to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me; I said, ‘Here I am,’ to a nation that did not call on my name.” If anyone does not take these passages in this way, what mountain or what house of God could he otherwise show, about which the prophecy signifies what was set out, as not then being manifest bodily? These things can also be fitted otherwise to the second coming of Christ, as things foretold that will be completely fulfilled then rather than now. It should be known that almost the same things occur word for word in the prophecy of Micah as well.

“Behold now, the Master, the Lord of Sabaoth, will take away from Judea and from Jerusalem the strong man and the strong woman, the strength of bread and the strength of water, the giant and the strong man, and the man of war, and the judge, and the prophet and the diviner, and the elder, and the captain of fifty, and the wonderful counsellor, and the wise master builder, and the intelligent hearer. And I will set youths as their rulers, and mockers shall lord it over them,” and what follows; to which God adds: “I will not be the leader of this people, for Jerusalem is forsaken and Judea has fallen, and their tongues are with lawlessness, disobedient toward the Lord. For now their glory has been humbled, and the shame of their face has stood against them; and they have declared and displayed their sin like that of Sodom. Woe to their soul, for they have counselled an evil counsel against themselves, saying, ‘Let us bind the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us’; therefore they shall eat the fruits of their works.” The so-called Wisdom of Solomon too has, about the righteous one, words like those said here: “Let us lie in wait for the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us and opposes our words.” There it is clear from the context that these words are said about Christ; and so the words here too are prophesied about those who plotted against him and counselled an evil counsel against themselves rather than against him. This is why the word fittingly brings the lament upon them, through “Woe to their soul,” and also sets out the punishment awaiting them, saying, “therefore they shall eat the fruits of their works”; for such things as they sowed against Christ, they will also reap at the judgment seat of God. But see whether, already in this life, after the plot against Christ, the word of the prophecy set out was not fulfilled upon them, which says, “Behold now, the Master, the Lord Sabaoth, will take away from Judea and from Jerusalem the strong man and the strong woman.” For truly the divine and heavenly grace that formerly dwelt among them has been taken away from them, and one can no longer find among them either prophet or diviner. Where is their man of war, or judge, or wonderful counsellor, or intelligent hearer? And if they seem to share in spiritual bread by reading the sacred words of God, see whether the power and strength stored up in the divine writings has not been taken away from them. Clearly, besides this, Jerusalem is forsaken, and all the rest has been fulfilled upon them because of that one sin against Christ. For “woe,” the word says, “to their soul”; and it adds the reason for the lament, saying, “for they have counselled an evil counsel against themselves, saying, ‘Let us bind the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us.’”

“My people, those who call you blessed lead you astray and confuse the path of your feet. But now the Lord will stand up for judgment and will make his people stand. The Lord himself will come into judgment with the elders of the people and with its rulers.” “Now the Lord will stand up for judgment” does not seem to refer to the God of the universe, and especially not “The Lord himself will come into judgment with the elders of the people and with its rulers.” It would fit that these things are prophesied about the Word of God, who is himself also called Lord. For the Word of God, proclaimed to all under heaven, will stand up for judgment with all, giving none of the ungodly room for defence, since his teaching has run to the ears of all. And Jesus Christ will come into judgment especially with the elders of the people and with its rulers, since they gathered against him and contrived the plot against him; who also, by calling blessed the people ruled by them, led it astray, calling the evil good and declaring the good words of our Saviour evil.

“And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, ‘Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height.’ And Ahaz said, ‘I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord.’ And he said, ‘Hear now, house of David: Is it a small thing for you to weary men, and how do you weary the Lord? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey he shall eat; before he knows or prefers evil, he shall choose the good; for before the child knows good or evil, he refuses wickedness, to choose the good.’” Let those of the circumcision who do not accept the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ say who the virgin is who, according to the prophecy, would conceive in the womb and bear the son named Emmanuel. But if they say that according to the Hebrew it is not “virgin” that is written but “young woman,” we must reply that those who first translated the Scripture by a divine dispensation were not ordinary men: they were seventy in number, selected by merit from the whole people, and had given no small proof of wisdom in their own times. And what marvellous sign would the word promise to be given by the Lord himself to the house of David, testifying beforehand as to something wonderful, if the word were about a mere young woman? Nothing prevents us, even if, as they say, the Hebrew has “young woman,” from thinking that what is said is shown of a virgin. For in Leviticus you would find that one who is admittedly a virgin, betrothed to a man but violated by another, is named a “young woman” by the Scripture. And so it would be worthy that a sign be given by the Lord to the house of David because of their unbelief: that a virgin would marvellously give birth; for which reason the one to be born is also proclaimed as someone wonderful, if from childhood and, so to speak, from his very birth he is prophesied to refuse wickedness and choose the good. And his name is wonderfully proclaimed beforehand as Emmanuel, which is “God with us”; which we too who confess him might say, perceiving his divine and ineffable sojourn among all humans through his power. Emmanuel, God with us, might also be said because the Father and God of the universe is beyond not only mortal but every rational nature, while the Son is fittingly named God with us because of his sojourn that reached as far as us. Since I remember hearing one of those of the circumcision say that these things were prophesied to Ahaz about Hezekiah, who was born of him and reigned after him, it must be observed that Hezekiah is shown to have been born long before Ahaz reigned and before this very prophecy was spoken to him. For Hezekiah succeeds Ahaz, who reigned sixteen years, being in his twenty-fifth year of age when he began to reign; so that his birth preceded his father's accession to the kingdom by nine years. But the prophecies set out are spoken to Ahaz when he was already reigning, about the marvellous and most wonderful birth of Christ that has been shown. What sense each phrase has, the lover of learning will discover by reading the exegetical works of the wonderful man on these passages.

“And the Lord said to me, ‘Take for yourself a new, large volume (of paper) and write in it with a man's pen, to make spoil of plunder swiftly; for it is at hand. And make faithful men witnesses for me, Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Barachiah.’ And I went in to the (prophetess), and she conceived in the womb and bore a son; and the Lord said to me, ‘Call his name: Plunder swiftly, spoil quickly; for before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians.’” For recording the marvel that was to be accomplished, the prophet is commanded to take a new, large, unwritten volume, by which I think the Gospel of the new covenant is shown; and also to make for the Lord faithful men witnesses, of whom one is said to be a priest, and the other was, I think, a prophet, for the Scripture of Chronicles mentions him. These too I take to be a symbol of the prophets who bore witness to the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the priests of old established as his type. After this it is said, “And I went in to the prophetess, and she conceived in the womb and bore a son,” and what follows. It is very unfitting, and foreign to prophetic dignity and purity, to suppose so offhandedly that the prophet, in the very moment of being inspired by God, went in to a woman, a prophetess herself, before the witnesses mentioned, for the sake of shameful intercourse. And what plausibility would there be in daring to say that as soon as he went in she conceived and bore a son? Rather, I think this prophecy too holds to the sense of the one set out before, in which it was said, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb.” There it was foretold that the virgin would conceive in the womb and bear a son; here the manner in which the prophecy was fulfilled is also shown: for “she conceived in the womb,” it says, “and bore a son.” Who, then, could the one be who says, “I went in to the prophetess,” but the Holy Spirit who speaks in the prophet, concerning whom it was said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”? Hence she too might not unfittingly be called a prophetess, since, having conceived from the Holy Spirit, she bore the one who there was named Emmanuel and here is called otherwise; for “call,” it says, “the name of the child born: Plunder swiftly, spoil quickly.” And truly he plundered and despoiled, by an ineffable and divine power, the opposing invisible and spiritual powers, so as to say, “I have conquered the world.” Having taken spoil and plunder from them, he proclaims release to captives, the souls long tyrannized by them, and confesses that he has received from the Father the nations as his inheritance, which might easily be called spoils, and the ends of the earth as his possession, which too might fittingly be called plunder. Besides this, “before the child knows how to call father or mother,” it says, “he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians.” These too I think are said only in the spiritual sense, either about certain evil powers, which the divine power of our Saviour brought down at his very birth, or about the different kinds of souls who have believed in him: of these, those who changed from idolatry to the life of the Gospel are presumably what is called the power of Damascus, and those from the circumcision who received the Christ of God what are called the spoils of Samaria. Having taken these souls as spoil and plunder from the spiritual enemies, in the face of the spiritual king of the Assyrians, that is, the devil, he armed them and prepared them to wage war against him. Whoever wishes may learn these things exactly from the commentaries the sacred man wrote on these passages. But if those of the circumcision demand that these things be taken more bodily, they must be asked in turn whether they themselves can show bodily in what way Isaiah went in to the prophetess, before the witnesses mentioned, for the sake of bodily union; who such a prophetess was, and how she conceived in the womb at once and gave birth immediately; and what child this was that the Lord commands Isaiah to call by the name “Plunder swiftly, spoil quickly.” What reason does so great a name have? Or how is it possible, by the obvious sense, to conceive of any child at all taking bodily what is called the power of Damascus and the so-called spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians, and doing these things before it knows how to call father or mother? And besides this, if they contradict what we have given, let them show how the Christ they expect will, when he comes, take bodily the power of Damascus according to the prophecy, and what spoils of Samaria, or before what Assyrians, when none of these is active any longer at the present time.

“Behold, I and the children whom God has given me; and there shall be signs and wonders in the house of Israel from the Lord God of Sabaoth, who dwells on Mount Zion.” The words “Behold, I and the children whom God has given me” have been rightly taken in the letter to the Hebrews as spoken in the person of the Saviour about the apostles and those who believed in him after them. Here is added, “And there shall be signs and wonders in the house of Israel”; and it is clear how at the time of the Saviour's coming signs and wonders took place (in) the house of Israel such as had never been accomplished.

“And they will wish that they had been burned with fire. For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us, whose rule has come upon his shoulder; and his name is called Angel of Great Counsel; for I will bring peace upon the rulers, and health to him. Great is his rule, and of his peace there is no limit, upon the throne of David and his kingdom, to set it right and to uphold it in judgment and in righteousness, from now and for ever. The zeal of the Lord of Sabaoth will do these things.” I think that the child mentioned here is none other than the one prophesied above to be born of the virgin, whom a little earlier the prophetess was said to bear; but above his name was Emmanuel, and after that, “Plunder swiftly, spoil quickly.” Here this same one is called, according to the version of the Seventy, Angel of Great Counsel; ※ but according to Aquila and the Hebrew itself ※ his name is Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty, ※ Powerful, Father, also Prince of Peace; and according to ※ Symmachus, the child's name will be called Marvel of Counsel, Mighty, Powerful, Father of the age, Prince of Peace. Those of the circumcision must then be asked what child they could show to whom they would fit such great things. For to us these are concepts of the divine power of Christ, those who did not believe in whom will wish they had been burned with fire rather than see their own casting off and the salvation of the nations, which the zeal of the Lord of Sabaoth is said to accomplish. Beside this you will set what is said in Moses somewhat as follows: “They provoked me to jealousy with their idols, and I will provoke them to jealousy with what is no nation; with a nation without understanding I will anger them.” But it is not for the present occasion, nor within our purpose, to make clear each phrase of the prophecy; [another occasion] will show how “upon the throne of David and his kingdom, to set it right” is said, at which those of the circumcision would likely stumble, because our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ did not sit bodily on the throne and kingdom of David. So, referring the lovers of learning to the commentaries on these passages, we shall complete our task.