PREFACE.

Praise of the prophet Isaiah. - That the saints and the prophets are animated by a great love towards the people.

The excellent merit of this prophet is seen very well in his works, but what makes him see no less perfectly is the testimony of the one who, more than any other, was able to appreciate his qualities. I mean St. Paul, whose Holy Spirit dictated the words. Isaiah's frank language, his thought always free, his high sentiments, the clarity of his prophecies on Christ, all his qualities, the Apostle shows them by one word, saying, "Isaiah is not afraid to say . I was found by those who did not seek me, I showed myself to those who did not ask me. His compassion for the ills of his brethren is great too. he not only rose up against the madness of the people, he did not only, in a free language and with a high thought, announced to the Jews the punishments that would punish them, but when what he had predicted happened he suffers, he is tormented no less than those whom misfortune oppresses, and he moans more painfully than those unfortunate ones. This, indeed, is what almost all the prophets and saints have done: their affection for those whom they were charged to lead surpassed the tenderness of the fathers for their children; nature is less strong than their charity. He is not, no, there is no father who is inflamed with love for his children like those for the people they ruled: for they were willing to die, moaning, lamenting, sharing their captivity and their misfortunes, doing and (338) suffering all, to put an end to the anger of heaven and the misfortunes they were experiencing. There is nothing that makes us more able to command than to have a soul full of wisdom and mercy. So the great Moses was placed by God at the head of the Jewish people only after having manifested by his actions how much he loved this people, and later he said to him: "If you forgive them their fault, forgive them; otherwise, erase me also from the book you wrote. And Isaiah himself, seeing the Jews perish, exclaims: "Let me go, I will shed bitter tears; do not trouble yourself to console me for the ruin of the daughter of my people. Jeremy uttered long moans when the city was overthrown. Ezekiel went off with the Jews, seeing it as less painful to live in a foreign land than in his own country, and finding that the greatest alleviation of his troubles was to be with the unfortunate and direct their affairs. And Daniel for their return remained without food for twenty days and more and showed all his love for them by begging God to deliver them from this captivity. This is in a word that all saints shine. For example, when David sees the anger of the sky melt on the people, it is on himself that he wants to call this plague, saying: "It is I pastor who sinned, it is I pastor who did evil, and these, who are my flock, what have they done? May your hand dwell on me and on my father's house. And Abraham, far from danger, having no fear of sharing the punishment of the Sodomites, began, as if he had been in the midst of danger, to invoke and supplicate God, and he would not have ceased to employ and actions and words to avert this terrible conflagration, if God, after having dismissed him, had finally left. The saints of the New Testament showed even more virtue, because they had received more graces and were called to longer combats. It is for this reason that Peter, hearing Christ say that it is very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, was anxious, and trembled and addressed this question: "Who can be saved? "? And yet, as far as he was concerned, he had to be full of confidence. It was because these saints considered their own interest less than they cared for the whole earth. And St. Paul, in the whole course of his epistles, shows us the same concern, he who in the vision of Christ preferred the salvation of men: "To die and to be with Jesus Christ is the best, but to remain in my flesh is more necessary because of you. It is this same virtue which the Prophet shows when he exposes the revelations of God so frankly, when he addresses his reproaches to sinners, when, in frequent circumstances, and by long speeches, he tries to appease God irritated against the Jews: what we can see especially at the end of the prophecy. But finally let us approach the beginning of the prophecy.

CHAPTER 1. VISION OF ISAIE.

ANALYSIS.

1. The Prophet calls his prediction a vision, to signify that it is an anticipated view of events.

2. The Prophet, leaving aside men, gives the floor to the elements: it is a sign of the indignation that animates the Prophet, and at the same time it is a means of inspiring men with the shame of being endowed with reason, they have swallowed themselves by sin beneath creatures deprived of feeling.

3 and 4. Table of the ingratitude and depravity of the Jews. God, by the mouth of the Prophet, their address of sharp reproaches, where is still noticed tenderness; it is the language of an outraged friend, but no outrage is repulsive. The sacrifices of. the Old Testament were not pleasing to God by themselves. Reason for their institution. Why the old law allowed divorce.

5. Prayer is of no use to a sinner who remains in his sin.

6 and 7. The power of free will is the essential condition of virtue.

8. We sin not only by doing evil, but by failing to do good. - Reply to an objection from the Jews. Turpitude and vanity of idolatry.

1. He calls his vision prophecy either because he had before him many future events, and so Micah saw the scattering of the people, Ezekiel the captivity and prevarication of those who worshiped the sun and Thamuze; or because the things that the prophets heard coming from God, they were no less sure than the vision itself and produced an equal certainty, which could not take place outside the divine intervention. They heard otherwise than the rest of men, for Isaiah said, "He has added an ear to me to hear. (Isaiah, L, 4.) By calling his prophecy "vision," he makes his story more credible, he excites the listener's attention, and makes him think of the author of the vision. All those who bring us oracles from God are above all careful to establish this point, that they say nothing that comes from their own funds, but that their words are only divine revelations, that writings come down from the sky. So David said, "My tongue is the pen of a writer who writes quickly. So do not think that the letters come from the pen, but from the hand that holds it, that is to say, not from the language of David, but from the grace that move it. Another prophet who wanted to show the same thing said, "I was a goatherd, snatching sycamores. (Amos, VII, 14.) So that we must not judge these words according to the rules of human wisdom. And this very word was not enough for him, he added: "The Spirit of the Lord filled me with strength, judgment, and power. For grace has made them not only wise, but strong not according to the body, but according to the soul. As they had to address a daring and impudent people, altered from the blood of the prophets, delighted in massacring the saints, they certainly needed a lot of strength not to fear his anger. Therefore the Lord said to Jeremiah, "I have placed you as naked iron cotton sea and as a wall of brass; And to Ezekiel "You live in the midst of scorpions, do not fear in front of them and do not fear them. And when Moses was sent, it is not only in my opinion because he feared Pharaoh that he wanted to refuse his mission, but because he feared the Jewish people. This is why, in talking with God, without even thinking of the king, he inquires with great care what he will have to say to those who will not recognize him as God's envoy, and it was for the to convince that he received the power of miracles; and it was with reason. For if only one of them who had even been saved by him frightened him to the point of flight, what should he not have felt in thinking of all this turbulent people? So besides the Spirit of wisdom, he also received the Spirit of strength, as another prophet said of himself. "The Spirit of the Lord filled me with strength, judgment, and power (Micah III, 8); And another "The word of God was heard by Jeremiah son of Chelcias (Jeremiah 1: 1); And yet another: "Inspiration against Nineveh: book of Nahum's vision of Elcesai. (Nahum.) The latter, while using another term, utters the same thing as the first: he calls inspired those whose Spirit has seized. It is because in speaking thus they were dominated by the Holy Spirit that he called the operation of grace. It is for the same reason that St. Paul places at the head of all his epistles his title of an apostle; what the prophets did by using the words vision, speech, inspiration, speech; he does so by using the word apostle. If he who says vision, word of God, announces nothing that comes from him, he who is called an apostle, that is, sent, neither teaches a doctrine of his own, but the doctrine of the One who sent him. The function of an apostle consists precisely in giving nothing that comes from oneself. This is why Christ says, "Call no one your master on the earth, only one is your Master, and he is in heaven (Matt XXIII, 10); He shows us that what we teach has its beginning and root in our heavenly Master, although the ministers of the word are men. "What does Isaiah live? How do the prophets perceive what they see, it is not for us to say: our speech is powerless to explain the mode of their vision; he alone knows him who has experienced it. If (340) our nature, whether it acts, or remains passive, has secrets that no one can account for, how could we explain how to operate the Holy Spirit? If, however, it is necessary, by obscure images, to try to show it not in a clear light, but as in enigmas, it seems to me that the prophets are experiencing something analogous to what is done in pure water that comes to illuminate the rays. of the sun that their souls purified first by their own virtues, and also made apt to reflect the divine light, then receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, and with it the knowledge of the future.

"Son of Amos. Why does he mention his father? It is to prevent misunderstandings that would result from homonyms, or to teach us that the baseness of the father does not offend the merit of the son: for the nobility is not to be born of illustrious parents, but to make oneself illustrious. -even. Although of an obscure birth, Isaiah did not fail to become more illustrious among all, thanks to the singular brilliancy of his own merit: "That he saw concerning Judea and Jerusalem. "

Why does he name both places separately? Because punishments must be distinct and inflicted in different times; God, by regulating things thus, had shown his wisdom; he did not want to destroy them all at once, but slowly and gradually so that the misery of those who would be taken captive would inspire repentance to those who remained. That if they did not profit from the remedy as they should have, the car is to these patients and not to the divine Doctor. God has the same conduct in all circumstances and in all times, and he never punishes at the same time all those who have committed the same crimes; for otherwise it would have been a long time since our whole race had disappeared; but he punishes some here below, and by this he softens to themselves the chastisement of the other life, while he gives to those who witness to their punishment an admirable opportunity of conversion; as for those whom neither their own nature nor the wisdom of this conduct can bring back to good, he reserves them for the inevitable and terrible day of judgment. "In the reign of Uzziah, and Joathan, and Achar, and Hezekiah, reigning in Judea. He did well to mention time, since he thus calls the attention of the studious reader to the history of past events. The prophecy will be all the more intelligible and clearer: for knowing the state of things and what was wrong with the Jews, we shall judge better of the remedies which the prophets have brought. "Listen, heaven, and you, earth, listen, for it is the Lord who has spoken (2). This beginning is full of anger; for if he had not been swept away by an indescribable fury, how would he have left men to address the elements? He does so not only to show that he is irritated, but also to shame those who should hear him, by showing them that, honored by reason, they have, however, degraded themselves beneath the insensible elements. This is, moreover, a customary thing for other prophets. Thus the Prophet sent to Jeroboam, instead of addressing him whom he comes to take back, addresses the altar. And Jeremiah dismisses the earth saying, "Earth, earth, earth, write that this man is proscribed. And another says again. "Listen, abysses, foundations of the earth; I begot sons. He does not speak here of a benefit which he has granted to all men, that of existing, but of a special benefit to the Israelites, that of having made them his children. Everywhere the Lord begins with benefits; when he created man, he filled with honor the one who did not yet exist, saying, "Let us make man in our image and likeness. Under the New Testament he does more: for they are not men who have done nothing, but men who have committed an infinity of sins, whom he regenerates in the waters of baptism; here you see the same thing, since he honors with his adoption men who not only did not do good but who had fallen into evil, and yet if he honors them before they could to deserve is not that he deprives them of reward when they have merited; on the contrary, it grants them greater rewards. "And I raised them. The benefits bestowed in Egypt, the benefits bestowed in the desert, the benefits bestowed on Palestine, he recalls all in one word; for it is the custom of God, whose benefits are so numerous to refrain from reminding them at length and (341) minutely. "And they despised me. "They have," he says, "transgressed my law, abandoned my precepts. "The ox knows who he belongs to, and the donkey the stable of his master." "

Comparisons, especially those made of inferior things, only make the accusation more vivid; This is how Christ says, "The Ninevites will rise to judgment with this generation and they will condemn it," and in another place: "The queen of the south will rise to judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. (Luke, XI, 31-32.) And Jeremiah said again, "Go to the Isles of Cosim and cast your eyes on Cedar. Send in to know if these nations will ever change their gods; but my people have changed their glory, and that will serve them no good. He shows that the law is not hard, and how little it requires men, that animals deprived of reason and the stupidest animals observe easily. But, you will say, it is the nature that operates in them. What nature does in them, the free will can do it in us. "The ox knows who he belongs to. It is not on the excellence of his gifts but on the excess of their malice that he bases his accusation. In the same way that he addressed himself to their elements for confusion, so it is not to men, but animals and stupid animals that he compares them, and finds them inferior to them.

3. So does Jeremiah, when he calls the turtledove and the swallow (Jeremiah 8: 7), and Solomon when he sends the lazy sometimes to the ant, sometimes to the bee. (Prov.VI, 6.) "Israel did not know me. The crime is aggravated when they are intimate friends, filled with favors, who, all together, rush into evil. He does not say Jacob, but "Israel," so that this name which recalls the virtue of the patriarch inspires his descendants with more confusion. To this one his virtue was worth the blessing expressed by his name, and these by their malice reject it. "And my people did not understand me," he said, more brilliant than the sun. " Misfortune ! sinful nation (4). This is still the habit of the prophets, of crying over men suffering from incurable evils. So does Jeremiah in many places; so Christ when he says, "Woe to you, Corozin! woe to you, Bethsaida! This is another way of teaching: for he whom reason has not been able to bring back, often tears bring him back. "People filled with iniquities. This makes the accusation more serious; they sinned all and even the last excesses. "Nasty race. It is not that he blames them for their origin, but he shows that since their first age they are sinners. When John says "Serpents, a race of vipers (Matt 3: 7)," he does not accuse their nature: for he would not have said to them, "Make worthy fruits of penance," if they had been wicked. by nature of birth. Likewise, by saying here "wicked race," the Prophet does not reproach them for their birth. "Son without law; He does not say "transgressors," but "without law," which are no better than if they had never received the law. He thus notes the corruption (1) of the will. "You have abandoned the Lord and you have angered him. He speaks thus emphatically, for the name alone of God sufficed to justify the accusation. Jeremiah makes the same reproach in these terms: "Because they have moved away from him and have become attached to the" demons. (Bar IV, 7, 8.)

"The saint of Israel." Here again, which aggravates the accusation, is that they knew him well as the Master of all things. "They turned back (5). Why do you still hit, you who constantly add to your prevarications? What a sad state when the same punishments do not make it better! Certainly, it is one of the forms of benefit that punishment. They will not be able to say that he has granted them only honors and goods, and that when they have sinned, he has abandoned them; but by the honors he has attracted them, by the fear of punishments he has desired to bring them to penance, and in either case they have proved themselves incorrigible. He used all the treatments, he cut, he burned, and the disease did not disappear; what shows that the disease is incurable is that it is rebellious to remedies. "Every head is sick and heart filled with sadness (6). From the feet to the head there is nothing healthy in him, no wound, no tumor, no inflamed wound. He then recalls the punishments and punishments; for this is not a small mark of his love and honor. I hit them all, he said, I overwhelmed them with pain. If all heads are sick, how is there no injury or tumor? The wound appears only when the rest of the body is healthy; but if he is covered with wounds, one will not be able to distinguish one in particular. That means that the whole body is covered with ulcers, that there is not a healthy place next to another patient, but that everything is inflamed, that everything is a tumor. "You can not apply anything softening. Here is more serious. It is far less unfortunate to be ill than to be able to undergo treatment, especially when the doctor is so tall. "No oil, no tapes. It is to speak by emphasis that he continues the metaphor; this is the merit of this figure. "Your land is deserted (7). These events, he does not tell them as past, he announces them as future, although he uses the time of the past. The prophets use it to frighten the listener and to show how much what they predict is certain. Just as past things can not have not existed, so the things that the prophets have announced must exist, can not fail, unless by chance those who are to be punished do not repent. "Your cities are burned. He did not destroy them entirely, he allowed ruins escaped from the flames of the barbarians to remain upright, because they would touch more those who would see them. "Foreigners devour your country before your eyes, and it is deserted because it has been ravaged by foreign peoples. This is the height of misfortune for men to be spectators of evils which reach them, instead of learning them by fame alone. "The daughter of Zion remained abandoned like a tent in a vineyard and like a hut in a field of cucumbers (8). "

4. The images do much, especially those of the Holy Scripture, to make more striking what one says. The Prophet calls Jerusalem daughter of Zion because she is placed at the foot of this mountain. "Like a tent in a vineyard and like a hut in a field of cucumbers. The fruit once removed, and the winemakers taken away, what are the buildings of the city for? "Like a city besieged. This figurative expression marks their weakness and their abandonment. For, having no one to come to their aid, they were obliged to remain shut up in the enclosure of their ramparts, which now made all their security. "And if the Lord of hosts had not left some of our race, we would have been like Sodom, and we would have become like Gomorrah." It is a constant habit of the prophets to say not only what sinners will suffer from evils, but also what they deserve to suffer so that in the very time of their chastisement they render to God frequent thanksgiving. what he laughs inflicts on them a punishment far inferior to their crimes. This is what Isaiah says here, that their sins would have deserved not the evils he has just recalled, but the complete extinction of the whole race, as it had happened to Sodom. But the mercy of God did not permit it, it only sent a punishment much lower than the faults. And since there is much connection between the Old and New Testaments, St. Paul used the same means, and with more reason than the prophet. For just as at that time, without the mercy of God, all would have perished, so in the time of Christ, without charity, all men perished in a still more frightful manner. "He has left us some of our race." He speaks of those who were saved from captivity. "Hear the word of the Lord, princes of Sodom; pay attention to the law of our God, people of Gomorrah (10). After saying that they were worthy of Sodom's punishment, he shows that their crimes were no less daring than those of Sodom, which is why he understands them with one and the same apostrophe. This is what the Prophet means, otherwise his word would be irrelevant. By this name of princes of Sodom it is not the inhabitants of this last city, but the Jews whom he wishes to designate; what follows clearly indicates this. He speaks of sacrifices, of oblations, of all this legal worship, of which there was no trace among the Sodomites. These words, the law of our God, prove that this is the meaning.

"What have I to do with the multitude of your (343) sacrifices? says the Lord. I have enough burnt offerings from your rams; the fat of the lambs, the blood of bulls and goats, I do not want it any more. The whole psalm XLIX resembles these passages; the terms differ, but the thoughts are the same. For this verse of the psalm, "He will call heaven from on high and the earth to judge his people," looks like this: "Listen, heaven, and you, earth, lend ear, because the Lord talked; And the rest is not the same. If David said, "I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices, for your burnt offerings are always before me." Isaiah said the same, "What am I to do with the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord. David said again, "I will not receive with pleasure from your house the calves, nor from your flocks the goats." And Isaiah: "The burnt offerings of the rams, the fat of the lambs, the blood of the bulls and goats, I do not want any more. As they were continually reproached with want of virtue, and answered for every justification that they continually offered sacrifices, these two prophets, or rather all the prophets, took away their defense. Whence it is evident that these sacrifices were instituted not for themselves, but to lead men to other works of virtue. But because they neglected the things necessary to stop at these observances, God declares that he will no longer accept them. "Not even when you come in my presence (12). When you come to the temple, he means. "For who has claimed these things out of your hands? And yet all Leviticus rolls on it and rules what regards the sacrifices. And in Deuteronomy, as in many other books, there are here and there a great deal of laws on this subject. How, then, can he say, "What did these things claim from your hands? This is to teach you that God had not made this legislation for what it was worth by itself, but to condescend to the weakness of the Jews. Just as he did not want the woman, once united to man, to be divorced, and yet allow it to avoid greater evils, to prevent men from slaughtering their wives, if, while hating them, they were obliged to keep them at home; so that, to prevent the Israelites from sacrificing to the demons, he would receive what he did not like, so that what pleased him was done. This is what the prophet Amos shows us with these words: "Have you offered me sacrifices and victims during the forty years of the desert? Jeremiah also says, "This is not what I commanded your fathers. "

5. As it is in this way that the demons were honored, it is to remove from the weak every subject of scandal that he thus speaks by all the prophets. The demons were angry with those who did not offer them these sacrifices, and always we are represented to them asking for fat and smoke and saying: "It is the honor which is attributed to us (1). God, on the contrary, did not ask in principle these sacrifices, and when he commanded them, he showed that it was not for himself that he allowed them, and yet another proof is that he He soon put an end to it, and when it was offered to him, he did not accept it; in a word, he showed us by every possible means that this mode of adoration was unworthy of the grandeur of his worship. So he wants us to say now: I tolerated these things because of you, but I did not need them. "You will not come to tread my courts. He either predicts captivity or forbids them to enter his courts because they do not do so with a right heart. "If you offer me flour, it's useless (13). For among the commandments, some have reason to be in themselves, others in other things; for example, to know God, not to kill, not to commit adultery, etc., all these commandments are ordained for themselves and for the utility they contain; On the contrary, to offer sacrifices, to bring incense, to keep the Sabbath, and all such things, all these commandments were not given simply and absolutely for the things they prescribed, but for their observation to drive the Israelites away from the worship of God. demons. But since they kept these last precepts without reaping the fruits of them, and were none the less attached to demons, it is with reason that God rejects these observances; for it is with good reason that a tree is cut down, which bears leaves and branches, but bears no fruit. Because if the farmer cares for a tree, it is not for the bark and the wood, but for the fruit he expects. "Your incense is an abomination to me. Do you see him? He is less pleased with the nature of what is brought to him than with the dispositions of those who offer. So he calls the smoke and odor that rose from the sacrifice of Noah a pleasant fragrance, and here he gives incense the name of abomination. For as I said, he looks less at the nature of gifts than at the dispositions of those who give. "Your Neomenies and Sabbaths" (14). Notice that he does not reject anything that is necessary, but only those rites that Christ descended among us to make disappear. Thus St. Paul, who spoke vehemently when he fought against the Jews, recalls not only these things, but others, and says that those who have no virtue in themselves, needlessly keep these observances. "If you bear the name of a Jew, and rest on the law, and boast in God, and know his will; and that, instructed by the law, you know how to discern what is useful. (Romans II, 17, 18). And again: "In truth, circumcision is useful if you keep the law; but, if you violate it, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. (Ibid, 25.) And he says that if the law has been entrusted to them, their unbelief will not be punished for it; it is also what David says in these terms: "God says to the sinner, Why do you speak my righteousness? (Ps. Xlix, 16.) Seeing them proud to hear the law read, they who were empty of all good work, St. Paul breaks down their pride by saying: "You who teach others, you do not instruct So not yourself! You who cry to others not to steal, you steal! Like David when he says, "If you saw a thief, you ran with him and made a covenant with the adulterers." (Ps. Xlix, 18.) "I abominate your great days," Pentecost, it means, the Feast of Tabernacles. Passover and other holidays. "Your fasts, your rest, your feasts, my soul hates them. He talks to them like a man would do. "You have become dependent," an object of disgust, of hate. See his unspeakable forbearance, to have borne them in spite of their many sins, and to have avenged himself only when these sinners provoked him by the excess of their iniquities. "I will not forgive your sins anymore. I will not suffer them anymore. David says the same thing: "You did these things and I killed myself. (Ps. XLIX, 21.) "When you extend your hands to me, I will turn my eyes away from you, and when you multiply your prayers, I will not listen to you (15). From which it is evident that prayer is useless, however long it may be, if the one who prays remains in his sins. Nothing is equal to the virtue and the testimony of the covers. "Your hands are full of blood," that is, murderous; but instead of loopholes, he said full of blood, to show that they make iniquity their occupation and always with ardor.

6. This is yet another proof of his gentleness, to see him give the reason for these menaces; for he says for what causes he regrets the prayer. "Wash yourselves, be pure (16). How, after saying, "I will not forgive your sins," does he give this advice and how, after showing them that they are incorrigible, does he ask them to correct themselves? God, when he threatens, makes despair of salvation, in order to increase fear, and, far from remaining silent, then, he tries to restore hope so as to lead to repentance. Everywhere we can see the same behavior. With regard to the Ninevites, he did the same thing not by words, but by effects. In his words he had promised nothing good; on the contrary, he had only allowed the punishment to be seen after the threat; and when these barbarians had given what they could, his anger soon calmed. This is what David says in Psalm XLIX; for I said above that this psalm is entirely like this beginning of Isaiah; and as Isaiah says after calling back the Lord's threats. "Wash, be clean," so David, after saying, "I will rebuke you, I will put your iniquities before you," says: "The sacrifice of praise will honor me, and this is the way in which I will show the salvation of God (Ps. xlix, 21, 23), "calling to praise the glory given to him by the covers and the knowledge of divine things.

And so that by this words, "Wash you, be clean," they do not hear their usual purifications, he adds: "Take away from your eyes the corruption of your souls, and correct you from your sins. By this he shows that virtue is easy and that the will is free, since it was in their power to convert. "Learn to do good (17). So their malice was so great that they did not even know virtue anymore. This is how David says, "Come, children; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. (Ps. XXXIII, 12.) Of all the sciences it is the most sublime and the one that demands the most application, because it has to overcome many obstacles, the resistances of nature, the torpor of will, pitfalls of the devil and the tumult of business. Baruch also says, "This is our God; no one is comparable to him; he has found all the ways of science. "Seek justice (Baruch, III, 36, 37); That is, to avenge those who experience injustice, which requires a lot of care and a watchful soul. That's why he says, "Look. There are many things that obscure the law, for example, gifts, ignorance, power, shame, fear, acceptance of persons: so much vigilance is needed, "Deliver the oppressed." . This bids on the above; he asks not only that one proposes oneself, but that one executes what is right. "Judge the fatherless, and do justice to the widow. God takes care that no one is mistreated, especially among those who, besides these mistreatments, have to bear another misfortune. The widow and the orphan are very unfortunate; but when they are mistreated by others, it is like a double shipwreck: "Come and enter together in discussion; says the Lord. (18) It is remarkable that everywhere in the prophets, God seeks nothing so much as to avenge the oppressed. This is so even more so than in Isaiah, for example, in Micah, when the Jews say, "Shall I sacrifice to him for my ungodliness my firstborn, and for the iniquity of my soul, the fruit of my bosom?" The prophet adds: "I will tell you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord expects of you, nothing but to act according to justice and to love mercy and to be ready to follow. the Lord your God. And the prophet David also says, "I will sing before you mercy and justice, O Lord. "

" Come. It is only after having provided them with the means to justify himself, that he brings them to court, and that after having taught them how they can divest themselves of their crimes, lest, finding them without excuse, he should be compelled to condemn them. "And enter into discussion; As if he were saying, let's start the judgment. This good judge is a lawyer and a doctor. Then to show that, whatever our good deeds, we still need his charity to be delivered from our sins, he says: "When your sins are like scarlet; I will make you as white as snow; You see it, it takes diametrically opposite qualities, and promises to change one into the other. "And when they are like vermilion, I will make them white like wool. It is therefore very meritorious the protection which is granted to widows, since of a soul so corrupted as to be tainted by iniquity, it makes a soul not only pure, but so brilliant. "If you will listen to me, you will eat the goods of the earth (19), and if you do not want to listen to me, the sword will devour you: for it is the Lord who uttered it with his mouth ( 20). Because these rude men looked upon it as less desirable and less sweet to free themselves from their sins than to enjoy the pretended goods of the present life, with the first thing he promises the second, and makes it depend on that one.

7. Then, to show how easy virtue is, he places it in the will alone. But as the hope of these goods might have softened the spirits, it ends with frightening things to make more striking the power of the one who made these revelations. "How did she become a prostitute, the faithful city of Sion (21)? This question shows the pain of the one who makes it and the insensitivity of the Jews and what is unexpected in this event. St. Paul makes a similar question to the Galatians: "I am astonished that you are changing so quickly," which is like an accusation and an exhortation to bring to virtue. This word doubtless astonishes: but, as it is intermingled with praise, a new accusation strengthens the other. We do not seek so much to correct those who are worthless; who have never led but an abject life, than those who, after having shown themselves at first virtuous, then turned to evil. He calls him a prostitute, not that he wants to speak of the prostitution of the body, but of the ingratitude of the soul, which is much worse than the other prostitution. There it is on the man, here on God that the insult falls. And if Isaiah and the other prophets speak thus, it is because God had deigned to let himself be regarded as the husband of this city to show his ineffable charity for the Jews, and the prophets often speak of the Lord and Jerusalem as a husband and wife, not to lower their speech to human grossness, but to bring the Jews by familiar examples to the knowledge of the love of God; at the same time they wanted, by this shameful appellation of prostitute, to bring them to blush of themselves. "Faithful," that is to say, religious and full of virtue: which further shows that he does not speak of the prostitution of bodies, since otherwise he would have had to say the chaste city; for this word would have been opposed to prostitute; but to show that by prostitution he meant impiety, he uses the opposite word, faith. "Full of iniquity," that is to say, of justice. Here is another great accusation against this people, not only had he rushed into all kinds of iniquities, but he had abandoned all the virtues, that precious treasure of all the goods he held in his hands, he had rejected it to reduce itself to the most frightful miseries. "In which" lived justice. She remained there, said he, she lived there, that is to say, she was planted there, rooted, and the citizens put all their ardor to keep it. By emphasizing the praises of the past, it makes it more clear that change was guilty, and at the same time gives hope, since it shows sinners that it would be easy to regain what they lost. "And now it's the home of the murderers; Homicide, he means. "Your money is impure (22)," that is, false, altered, mixed. "Your merchants mix their wine with water. He has been calling out from the beginning that he has not pointed out their wickedness in each of his species, but that he has told them, in a general way, that they are contempters, a perverse race, ungodly sons, terms which are more like insults than accusations, it indicates here the various kinds of their crimes, and places in the first place what is in the beginning, in the middle and at the end of sins, the love of money, and fraud in contracts. Some who do not understand the ineffable charity of God have taken this term in the apagogic sense. Never, they say, would the great, the sublime Isaiah have spoken of the deceits of the bankers, the tricks of the innkeepers; but he calls money the oracles of God, and wine his doctrine which they mixed of their comments. For me, without rejecting this interpretation, I say that the other is truer. Not only is it not unworthy of a prophet to speak of these things, but it is very worthy of him and of the charity of God. And why extend to this point? When the only-begotten Son of God came to bring us his sublime teachings and to plant the pure life of angels on our earth, he often spoke of measures, and of things that seem still smaller, greetings, of the middle place, of the first rank. Those things that seem small, if neglected, become the source of great sins. But if all these things were to be settled in the New Testament, much more so in the Old, when the hearers were rude, and their whole life was confined to following these laws, since they had been instructed especially in to move away from all injustice, to do no harm to one's neighbor, not to crush the poverty of the poor by fraudulent mixtures.

8. The contempt of these laws caused cities to be overthrown, kings thrown from the throne, implacable wars lit, and their observation more than once brought the peace, order, and security necessary for virtue. "Your princes are unruly (23). This is proof that the disease, the evil is very great, when the doctors even work to increase it. It is up to kings to repress the evil instincts of their people, to direct them towards good, and to make them subject to the laws; but when they themselves are the first to break them, how can they teach others to submit? When they say, "Are unruly," he means, do not obey the law, reject the yoke of precepts; it is also what St. Paul reproaches them by saying: "You who instruct others, do you not instruct yourself? When, then, is the root corrupted, what are the branches waiting for? "They are the accomplices of thieves. Here is what aggravates the fault is that, far from preventing crimes, they favor them; Far from making war on thieves, they are in league with them, and run to a perversity entirely opposed to the virtue of princes. "Love the present. Here again is a new vice engendered by the love of money, vice which, under an honest appearance, under the benevolence of benevolence, hides the most sordid avarice. "Only seek gain. Grudge against their enemies, hasten to render evil for evil, a very grave sin. Also, the New and Old Testament care to repress it. "Let no man," he says, "form in his heart bad designs against his brother. (Zac VII, 10.) For it is necessary that the people, and still more the prince, be pure of all enmity, he who must warn his subjects to submit to justice any private hatred, lest the port should become an enemy. pitfall. "Do not do justice to the orphans. That is to say, do not help them to obtain justice. "And the cause of the widow has no access to them. "

Notice that the Prophet points out as an evil not only to do bad deeds, but also to not do good ones, a doctrine that we find in the New Testament. For those who did not feed the hungry poor, though they did not take away the good of others, but only because they did not give their goods to those who were in need, are sent to the fire of hell; likewise the Prophet blamed the princes of Zion not for what they are either avaricious or tyrants, but for not granting their protection to those who need it. "And this is what the Master says, the Lord of hosts, the strong of Israel," 24 that is, of the people. It is not without reason that he uses this term, the Fort, but to remind them of the benefits they have obtained against all hope and the terrible punishments they have endured; as after having often and much sinned, after having experienced the long-suffering of God, they have fallen into sluggishness, he wants to show them that God can avenge himself when he pleases, that he does not need favorable times, opportune circumstances, that everything is under his hand and at his disposal. "Woe to those who command in Israel! my fury against my enemies will have no end. What is more unfortunate than those who have God as an enemy? "No longer will he have an end," he says, not that he wants to throw them into despair, but that a more strongly impressed fear will bring them to repentance. For these words "my fury will have no end," are less terrible than these, "against my enemies. There is nothing that irritates God, like the injustice done to the poor. "Woe to those who command! He said, not to condemn all power, but the power that does evil. The force of which he speaks here is not the force of the body, but the force which circumstances give. "And I will do justice to my adversaries. I will punish my enemies; he calls his enemies the enemies of the poor, those who mistreat them; and he uses this expression to show the greatness of the wrongdoing. "Thou shalt put my hand on you, and I will purify you by fire." Know from there that the wrath and vengeance of God, whatever they may be, is not for evil and punishment, but for the very punishment of those who are punished. "And I will cleanse you," he says, "by fire. So it is not when we are punished, it is when peach holes that we must cry, since in the second case we are defiling ourselves, while in the first we are purifying ourselves. What is the virtue of this purification? To make sure there is no trace of defilement in you; because fire is gold, punishment is for sinners. "Those who disobey, I will lose them, I will remove from among you all the ungodly and I will humble all the beautiful. "The incorrigible," he said, "and those who will not give way to self-punishment, I will lose. What does it do for them to live, since they use their lives only to procure evil and of themselves and others? And those whom the punishment of those hardened can make better will remain. It seems to me that he is referring here to captivity. "And I will restore your judges as they once were, and your counselors as they were in principle."

9. Here he announces the return. When the incorrigible will have disappeared, and those who are capable of improvement will have become better, he shows (and this is the moment) how he will complete the cure; it will be by giving good leaders and good advisers, so that, all the body having felt the effect of the remedies and good doctors continuing their care, all the members return from all sides to the health. It is not a slight blessing to (348) procure good princes. "And after that you will be called the city of justice and Zion the faithful city. And yet we do not find anywhere that this name has been given to the city of Jerusalem. What shall we say then? May the Prophet give it to him because of the facts that she will witness.

This will not be of much use to us when the Jews ask us for the interpretation of Emmanuel's name. As Isaiah predicted that Christ would be called that and nowhere has he received this name, we will tell them that he calls the event itself, as in the passage we are examining. "By justice and mercy it will be delivered from captivity." (27) "By justice," that is, by the punishment, the punishment, and the persecution that it will suffer his enemies. "By mercy," that is, by charity. He promises them two great favors, which captives will be punished, and that they will then enjoy a great peace, two things of which one alone would be enough to make them very happy, and which together give an unimaginable joy. And to show again in another way that after this long captivity, they should their return not to what they would have by a proportionate punishment, expiated their faults, but to his only goodness, that their salvation would be the work of his goodness and not the result of a compensation and a kind of exchange, he adds: "by mercy. "The wicked and the sinners will be broken at once. Third benefit: there will be no one left to seduce and entice them; the teachers of iniquity will be gone. "And those who have abandoned the Lord will perish entirely. These impious ones, he means.

"For these idols they have searched for will be their confusion (29). There are some who try to adapt these words to the present time; for me, without stopping to refute them, I continue. This is what he predicts should happen when the enemy raids. And when barbarians roam their lands, besiege their cities, hold them all as if caught in a net, while no one will come to rescue them and put an end to this storm because they will be abandoned by God, then the only experience will shame the servants of idols. "What they sought; For which they showed so much zeal.

"And they will blush these statues," which they did. To accuse, he has only to tell. For it was sufficient even before misfortunes had come to instruct these impious ones, it was enough to confound them to show them that these idols are the work of men. What more shameful indeed than to make a god! "And they will blush gardens where they surrendered so eagerly. Not only did they worship statues, but even trees in the gardens. "They will be like the terebinth that has lost its leaves." 30 These idols or those who live in the city. He borrows his comparison from this tree, because it grows in this country and is not uncommon because it has many flowers and foliage in the favorable season, and is very ugly on the contrary, when he lost his leaves. "And like a garden without water. This second image is clearer than the first and confirms what I said about that one. For there is nothing more pleasant than a verdant garden, and there is nothing more sad than a bare garden: the city of Sion has been in these two conditions. At all times she had been good, brilliant, adorned with a thousand beauties; and she has become more vile, more dishonored than any other, having suddenly lost so many ornaments. "And their strength will be like dry tow (31). His previous images showed ugliness, this one weakness, all are very energetic, clear and striking. "As the tow is dry," that is to say, weak. "And their works as a spark of fire. Here he shows that their evils come from them, that they themselves have drawn captivity on their heads, that they have themselves lit the fire that devours them. As sparks light a fire where they fall, so their sins, by accumulating, inflamed the wrath of God. "The wicked and sinners will burn together without anyone to extinguish the fire. If he still seems to deprive them of all hope of salvation, it is always for the same reason, not for them to despair, but for them to be struck with a strong fear, to shake their softness. And from there we can take another lesson, that one can not overcome his power, and that when he punishes and punishes, no one can oppose him and put an end to evil.

CHAPTER TWO A WORD THAT IS ADDRESSED TO ISAIA, THE SON OF AMOS.

ANALYSIS.

1. In this chapter the prophet foretells the vocation of the Gentiles, the spread of evangelical truth in the world, and the peace that will reign. If, in speaking of the establishment of the Church, he still pronounces the names of Judea and Jerusalem, we must not be surprised, it is the Church herself that these expressions designate; thus many prophecies concerning the patriarchs did not come true until long after them in the person of their descendants.

2. What is meant by these words: In the last days. The mountain of the Lord is the Church.

3. Of these words: And all nations will come to her, the speaker draws against Judaism an argument difficult to refute.

4. Another powerful argument against the Jews, taken from these words: For Zion will issue the law, and from Jerusalem the word of the Lord.

5. State of the Empire at the time when St. Chrysostom was speaking. From the war among the ancient peoples.

6. The Prophet reproaches the Jews for their impiety.

7. They violated their law in every way, they drove insanity to adore idols, works of their own hands.

8 and 9. The vengeance of God will be on Jerusalem.

1. This title teaches us clearly that the prophets did not give at once their prophecies, but that inspired in different times, they published, on several occasions, different parts which gathered then formed all the book that bears their name. This is why Isaiah begins as we have just seen. This is not the only proof that makes us what we are going forward, clear and obvious; the Prophet still tells us this by mentioning the times, saying earlier: "The year Nathan came to Azoth (Isaiah, CCI); Now: "And it came to pass, in the year that King Uzziah died, that I saw the Lord seated on an elevated and sublime throne. (Isaiah, VI, 1.) For if the Epistles of St. Paul and the Gospels were composed of a single jet, it is not the same with the prophecies, but, as I have just said, they have been made in various times. So the Prophet begins his story with another title. A new proof that these are detached parts is that what he is going to talk about is far removed from what he said above and much more sublime. The vocation of the Gentiles, the brilliancy of preaching, the knowledge of the religion spread throughout the earth, the peace reigning here below, is its subject. And if, while preparing to treat this matter, he makes mention of Judea and Jerusalem, you must not be surprised, his words were a prophecy disguised under these names. In the same way David, composing psalm LXX1, gave him the title, On Solomon, which does not prevent him from speaking of things so sublime as they can not suit Solomon or even any man. These expressions, "His name existed before the sun, His throne existed before the moon (Ps. LXXI, 17, 15)," and the like, no one, no matter how foolish, will apply them to a man. Likewise Jacob: when he announced what Isaiah will speak to us here, and other events even greater, since, besides the vocation of the Gentiles, he predicts the passion, the resurrection and the time of the advent of the Messiah, he did not do it in an open manner, but concealing these things under the name of his son, as if he had only announced what was to happen to Judah; but, as the event proved, he prophesied things that looked only at Christ. Indeed, Judah was not the expectation of the nations, his tribe did not shine when the Jewish nation lost independence; but all this was realized by the coming of Christ.

That if the Jews had the impudence to (350) reject this interpretation of the prophecies, what has just been said would suffice to refute them; We must carefully explain the prophecies, weigh all the terms with the proper attention, and compare the prediction with the event. And in order to bring more proof than it takes to close their mouths, choosing my examples in what has been predicted not of Christ, but of their patriarchs, I will strive to make it clear to them that most prophecies have been made under the name of tribal chiefs and have only been realized in their descendants. And when I have reported one or two testimonies, I will have reached my goal. When Jacob, having called Simeon and Levi, told them what was to happen to them, he said, "Simeon and Levi, brothers (Genesis xvii. Then, after reproaching them with their iniquity, and the unjust slaughter of the Sichemites, he continues, "I will divide them into Jacob and scatter them in Israel." This was certainly not done for Simeon and Levi, but for the tribes who descended from them. For the tribe of Levi was scattered, so that each of the other tribes had the tenth; it was almost the same with the tribe of Simeon, who was scattered among the others, and who did not obtain a compact territory like them. Jacob, who had received blessings from his father, did not see any of them come to life. His father had predicted a long prosperity, a perpetual domination over Esau; and yet he lacked necessary things, he lived in domesticity, and far from dominating his brother, he ran the greatest danger, and once he met him, he was seized with such fear that he felt too happy to have been able to escape him. What will we answer to that? That prophecy is only a lie? No, but she usually assigns to some people what should happen to others and that she changes the names. This is what happened again for Chanaan. We do not see him anywhere as a slave to his brothers; and however far the curse was withdrawn, it is fulfilled in the Gabaonites, descendants of Chanaan. Noah's words were a prophecy in the form of a curse.

2. When, then, so many great examples show us that many things predicted for them have been accomplished in those, and that the prophets change the names, what is there any wonder at all? what does Isaiah, though speaking of Judea and Jerusalem, have in mind only the Church? As he addressed ungrateful men who killed the prophets, burned their books, overturned the altars, a veil covered their eyes when they read the Old Testament, as St. Paul says. For they would have annihilated the Bible if they had understood the strength of the prophecies concerning Christ. If, despite his presence, his miracles, the evident proofs of his power, his union, and his intimacy with the Father, they could not venerate him, if they did not cease to pursue him until they If they had crucified, would they have spared those who spoke of him, and even without this motive, they tormented continually? Also, it was under names that were familiar and known to all, that they hid their prophecies. That the prophecies do not relate to Judea and Jerusalem is what we will fully demonstrate by examining each expression. "In the last days the mountain of the Lord will manifest itself to all eyes (2). See the accuracy of the Prophet who, not only announcing the event, even predicts the time. What St. Paul says "When the fullness of time came (Galati IV, 4)," and again in another place, "in the dispensation of the fulness of the times (Ephesians I, 10)," it is this that the Prophet expresses in these terms "in the last days. The mountain designates the Church and her invincible dogmas. Even when countless armies would attack a mountain, darting arrows, throwing javelins, maneuvering machines of war, what would all these efforts lead to a shameful retreat of these armies after the complete exhaustion of their forces? So it was with all those who declared war on the Church, they did not shake it, and after the loss of their power they withdrew covered with confusion, exhausted by the blows that they bore, weakened by the features they launched, vanquished, they who exercised persecution by those who suffered it: a strange victory, impossible for men and given only to God alone.

What is admirable is not that the Church has conquered, but has conquered in this way. Pursued, hunted down, struck with (351) thousand ways, not only did she not weaken, but she took further increments, and her patience alone defeated her adversaries; that is what the diamond makes art iron: struck, it breaks the one who strikes it; this is what the sting does to the recalcitrant; he does not become dull, he sorted his feet with blood, the one he reaches. This is why the Church is called a mountain. If the Jew does not want to admit this metaphor, let him be confused by himself. The Prophet says that wolves and lambs will have common pastures, that God will whine the flies and bees with a whistle, that he will bring down on the Jews the violent waters of a river because they have rejected the water of Siloë. (Isaiah XI, 6, LXV 25, VII, 18, VIII, 6.) These words taken literally are not intelligible; but stick to what they mean, and that is when you will understand the future differently. What, do they mean? By the wolves and the lambs the Prophet hears the characters of men, some cruel, others full of sweetness; by the flies, the impudence of the Egyptians; by the river, the violence of the barbarian army; by the fountain of Siloë, the clemency and moderation of the leader of the people of the King of the Jews. No one, however wise, will contradict us on this point. So, just as he designates all these things under foreign names, he has also expressed allegorically by this word "mountain" the stability, the invincible force, the height, the impregnable, the indomitable power of the Church. Another prophet also likens to a mountain those who believe in God to show that they are invincible. "It will manifest itself to all eyes." Our words are useless for explaining these words, for the very state of things makes a voice sound louder than that of the trumpet to publish the glory of the Church; the sun and its light are less visible than it. "The house of God will be established on the top of the mountains. "

3. How will a Jew interpret this? Because the temple is not on the top of the mountains. But the power of the Church rises to the heavens, and just as a house on the top of a mountain can be seen by all, so much more is the Church visible. to all eyes. "And it will rise above the hills. Here again is a circumstance which has never been applicable to the temple of Jerusalem, even at the moment of its greatest splendor. How to apply it to a temple that the Jews themselves have often dishonored and that the hands of the barbarians have destroyed? But our powerful Church has been much more often and more terribly tested; however, it never gave in to the attacks of its enemies, and their efforts themselves only served to raise it up and make it more visible. Then legions of martyrs, multitudes of confessors met, souls harder than iron and surpassing in brightness the stars: their bodies were torn to pieces, but their soul, far from being vanquished, triumphed and was crowned. Whoever has ever seen, who has ever heard that men who received death received a crown, that men who were slaughtered won the victory, and that an army became so much more illustrious, that the enemies had killed him more men ?

"And all nations will come to her. As he advances the Prophet becomes more explicit, he reveals his thought more fully, holds a clearer and cleaner language to shut the mouths of the Jews. For whatever their impudence, they can not apply these words to their temple. Indeed, it was forbidden, and this defense was perfectly followed, to receive the nations in this temple. And what am I saying, to receive the nations in the temple? As for the Jews themselves, the law prohibited under the most serious threats all commerce with the nations and severely punished the transgressors! The prophet Haggai has only this goal in all his prophecy, to blame, to take back, to judge these illicit alliances. But for us it is not so; the Church opens her bosom with the utmost ease, and receives with open arms every day all the nations of the earth. For the first teachers of our doctrine have received this command from the Son, and it is (his mouth that they have heard this saying: "Go and teach all nations." (Matt xxvIII, 19.) See also as the Prophet speaks not only of the vocation of the Gentiles, but also of their prompt and eager obedience.He does not say "shall be brought," but "will come, a truth which another prophet shows us in (352) terms more The fellow will no longer teach his fellow-citizen, nor his brother, saying, "Learn to know the Lord, because all will know me from the least to the greatest." For the Jews the elements were changing. their nature were continual threats, repeated chastisements, frequent wonders, warning prophets, the fear of the legislator, imminent wars, incursions of barbarians, the wrath of God manifested, f the souls sent by heaven, and they remained no less hard-headed and uncircumcised of heart, as St. Stephen says, obstinate and stubborn, while for the nations it suffices for a word, a word, and all come together. to the Church. This is what David says with these words: "The people that I did not know became my servant" (Ps. XVII, 45). And admiring his obedience, he adds: "No sooner had he heard me obey. Jacob also indicates the same thing under this figure: "He will bind his donkey to the vine, and the young of his donkey to the branch." Who has ever tied to a branch, and attached to a vine a donkey that did not damage the fruit? In animals it does not happen, but in men it is often done. The Jews, whom a thousand chains subjugated, shook the yoke, broke the bond, as the Prophet says; but the nations, who did not know this necessity, listened with docility, like a colt tied to the branch, without the precepts charging them; Far from it, they stood near the vineyard and showed admirable docility. "Many people will come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob (3). See them indulging in their feasts, holding their assemblies, exciting one another, and becoming all the teachers of one another; see not one, not two, not three, but many running together. Because, he says, there will come many different peoples and countries, which has not happened for the Jews; if some came, it was only a small number of proselytes, obtained with great difficulty; it was not the nations that were called, but the proselytes: "Proselytes will come to you and be your servants. (Isaiah, LIV, 15.) If the Prophet continues the same metaphor and calls the house of the God of Jacob to the mountain, do not be surprised. For, as I have said, he renders his prophecy sometimes clearer, sometimes more obscure; more obscure, to give the most intelligent the means of understanding what is said; clearer, in order to repress the discontent and the troubles which the ungrateful would like to excite; it is thus that everywhere he varies his language.

4. Do not be surprised, my dear brother, by what he said, "God of Jacob; For the only begotten Son of God was God of Jacob. He gave the law and did all the signs that the descendants of Jacob saw; This is easy to see in the Old Testament: for the New the Jews ignore it. Jeremiah says, "I will make a new covenant with them, but not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers (Jeremiah XXXI, 31, 32)," showing that he was the author of one of them. as of the other law. He adds that he delivered them from the bondage of Egypt: "The day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. If it is he who brought them out of Egypt, it is he who has worked so many wonders both in Egypt and in the desert. - "He will show us his way and we will walk there. Do you see how they ask for another law? For holy scripture ordinarily calls the commandments of God; if he had wanted to speak of the Old Testament, he would not have said: "He will make us known; Because this ancient law, all of them knew it clearly, fully.

These are not sophisms, but solid proofs, made to convince even the most obstinate. Not content to mention only this new way, he still says what way he wants to speak and indicates many signs that distinguish it. For he continues in these terms: "The law shall come from Zion, and the word of the Lord of Jerusalem. To this the most impudent Jews can not answer. Indeed, that these words were said of the New Testament; This is clearly indicated by the place and the time and the condition of those who received the law and the events. who followed her. And first the place, the mountain of Zion. The law of Moses was given to the ancestors of the Jews on Sinai. How, then, can he say "Zion?" And (353) without being satisfied with the place, he still mentions time, because he does not say, "The law is gone out," but "the law will come out," this who looks at the future time and not a past event. But when the Prophet spoke thus, the law was given for many years, and the New Testament was to be given long after. So he does not say, "Has gone out," but "will come out," that is to say, in the course of time. He returns again to the mention of the place and says: "And the word of the Lord will come out of Jerusalem. It is here especially that it clearly indicates to us one of the distinctive characters of the New Testament. Sometimes it was sitting on the mountain that Our Lord dictated sublime and heavenly precepts, sometimes it was in Jerusalem that He did it. After the indication of the place and the time, the Prophet gives that of the persons who were to receive the new law, and thus closes absolutely and in any case the mouth to the contradictors. Who are the disciples of the Gospel? The Hebrew people, the children of the Jews? No, but the nations. He adds, "He will exercise his judgment among the nations." 4 The essence of the law is above all to condemn those who fight it. Now it is not a question of the ancient law; that's what the things themselves show. We do not keep the Sabbath, the circumcision, the feasts, nothing of all that the Jews observed. We heard Paul say to us, "If you are circumcised, Christ will serve you nothing (Galatians 2); And again: "You observe certain days, months, times and years; I fear I have worked in vain among you. (Galatians, IV, 10) It is therefore evident that he speaks of the new law, since he will exercise his judgment among the nations, according to what St. Paul says: "In the day when God will judge what he There is hidden in men. How will he judge, tell me? according to the Old Testament? No, but "according to my gospel. Do you see that if the words are different, your thoughts are the same? Isaiah says, "He will exercise judgment among the nations. St. Paul says, "He will judge according to my gospel. "And he will convict a great multitude," his adversaries, those who transgressed the law. This is what Christ teaches us in these terms: "I will not judge you; but the word that I have announced will be your judge. »(John, XII, 48.)

"And they shall smite plowshares and their spears with their swords. One people will no longer draw sword against another people, and they will no longer practice fighting. The Prophet did not content himself with the first clues; As the truth is rich in testimonies which make it known, Isaiah still points to the New Testament by another mark, but so brilliant that all the earth has been able to observe it. What is this brand? Peace and the cessation of wars. When these things happen, he says, the world will be in such tranquility that war money will be used to forge instruments of agriculture. Something that we do not see anywhere in the history of the Jews; far from it, during all the time of their existence as a nation, they never ceased either to carry the war abroad, or to receive it, and constantly they were harassed by enemies, sometimes more, sometimes less long time. And the very peoples of Palestine often attacked them with so much force that they made them run the greatest dangers.

5. This is attested by the books of kings, which contain only stories of wars; this is what the prophets attest to us, either when they tell the story of the past, or when they predict future events; in a word, from that day when they shook the yoke of the Egyptians, their entire history was but a war. But today it is no longer the case; on all the earth reigns peace. If there are still some wars, they do not look like those of the past. Then we were going to break cities against cities, countries against countries, peoples against peoples; the same nation was divided into a great number of parties. Read the book of Joshua and Judges, and you will see that wars Palestine had to support in a short time. Even worse, the law ordered everyone to take up arms and no one was exempt from this duty. And it was not only among the Jews that this custom existed, but all over the world; the rhetors themselves and the philosophers who possessed only their cloaks, covered themselves, when the war called them, with the shield, and marched in the ranks of the army, and this philosopher (354) of Athens, so peaceful and so wise, Socrates, the son of Sophronicus, appeared twice on the field of battle. And the most illustrious of their orators, Demosthenes, often came down from the tribune to go and fight. But if the law exempted neither the speakers nor the philosophers, there were few clones who enjoy this exemption. Today you do not see the same things happening anymore. Since the sun of righteousness has shone upon us, cities, peoples, nations, all are so far removed from the war and its dangers that they no longer know how to handle weapons; but, tranquil in the bosom of their cities and under the protection of their walls, they intend to recount distant wars, all the people live in peace, having no longer to deal with this terrible duty. If there are still wars today, it is at the extremities of the Roman Empire, and no longer, as formerly, in every city, in every province. Then, as I said, in the same nation there were continually numerous seditions and party wars; but now all that the sun illuminates, from the Tigris to the British Isles, and besides, Libya, Egypt, Palestine, in a word all that is subject to the scepter of the Romans lives in peace; you know that the cities enjoy a profound tranquility and that they know the war only to hear about it. Christ could remove these last remnants of war; but he allowed, for the punishment of those indolent people whom peace would sleep, he allowed, I say, the incursions of the barbarians. The words of the Prophet, for those who understand them well, announce (I have already said) that there will be only seditions of little importance. For he did not say, "There will be no more war; But: "One people will no longer draw the sword against another people," and afterwards it shows how free the peoples will be, "they will no longer practice fighting," save a few knotted men, to this profession. "And now, house of Jacob, come and walk in the light of the Lord (5.)" He rejected his people, the house of Jacob (6). After completing his prophecy on the Church, he returns to history, as if to repeat his words. For it was the custom of the prophets to shade the prophecies either by the terms they used or by passing abruptly from one subject to another. Thus suddenly interrupting his prophecy, and without transition, as if he continued the same subject, Isaiah comes to give warnings to the Jews: "Now, house of Jacob, come and walk in the light of the Lord," c. that is to say, in his commandments, in his law: for "the precept of the law is a lamp, a light, life, a rebuke, and a discipline" (Prov.VI, 23); David also says, "The precept of the Lord is filled with light, he gives light to the eyes (Ps. And again: "Your law is a lamp that illuminates my feet and a light in my paths. (Ps. CXVIII, 105.) Everywhere you will see the same name given to the law. Thus St. Paul says: "You flatter yourself to be the guide of the blind, the light of those who are in darkness, the doctor of the ignorant." (Romans II, 19, 20.) the sun does not illuminate the eyes of our body as the precepts of the law illuminate the eyes of our souls.

6. To show that even before the reward, before the day of remunerations, the precepts bring their reward, in the very time when they are fulfilled, he calls them light. For just as the eye is strengthened by this alone that it is enlightened, so our soul, by that alone that it obeys your law, derives the greatest fruit; it is purified there, removed from evil and brought to virtue. On the contrary, the prevaricators,. even before the day of vengeance, they are punished by that alone that they prevaricate, since they are in a worse condition than men plunged in the darkness, that they are filled with fear, fear, remorse, that in at midday they fear everyone, those who know their sin, as those who do not know him. "He rejected his people, the house of Jacob," that is to say, he let him go, abandoned him, despised, deprived of his kindness. Then, after having frightened them, he tells them the cause of this abandonment, so that they correct what they have done wrong. What is this couse? "Because their land, like the land of strangers, is covered with their omens. In the first place he reproached them with their fraud, their avarice, their contempt for widows; he reproaches them here with their bad beliefs and those remnants of impiety which led them little by little to the false worship of demons. Then, in (355) the intention of beating them hard, he says not only that they are giving themselves to the augurs, but that "their country is filled with them. Their malice has increased to the greatest extent, he means; just now he said people, not only sinful, but full of sins, so here he says earth "full of omens. Then, in order to bring out the reproach of their conduct, in a still more striking way, he adds: "As from the beginning. From the beginning? When? When they did not yet know the Lord, yet had not received his law, or experienced his benefits, when they were still in the midst of the nations: this is their great crime, not to have become, after so much care and goodness, better than they were before having received its benefits. And without stopping there, he adds, to frighten them, "like the land of strangers," and by this comparison he aggravates the accusation. This is what St. Paul does continually, for example, when he says, "I do not want, my brethren, that you are ignorant of those who sleep, so that you do not grieve like all others do. who have no hope (I Thess., IV, 72); And again: "Let every one of you know how to possess his body holy and honestly, and not in the passion of lust. (Ibid, 4.) And without being satisfied with this, he adds these words: "Like other nations that do not know God. (Ibid, 5.) For this reproach ordinarily stings even those who have fallen very low.

But if the Jews suffer these reproaches, what indulgence, what excuse will we find, who, showered with so many graces, clothed with so much honor, having received eternal hopes, have fallen into the same miseries as themselves? Many, still today, worked by this disease, ruin themselves their existence, abandoning themselves to the madness of auguries; besides offending God, they gain only pains which they could have avoided, and lose all the vigor necessary to the combats of virtue. For the devil strives by all means to persuade these fools that he does not depend on them to be virtuous or vicious, that they have not been endowed with free will, and this to obtain these two frightening things, which they recoil before the struggles required by virtue and abandon their liberty, one of their most beautiful prerogatives. This is the fatal result which, by omens, by omens, by the observance of certain days, by the hateful belief in destiny, and by many other practices, he has already reached: he has upset everything. This is the object of the vehement objurgations of the prophet who wants to tear the root of evil. "And many foreign sons were born to them. "

7. What to say, "foreign sons? God had forbidden them, because of their inconstancy and fragility, to have relations with the rest of men, lest by this commerce they should allow themselves to be led to idolatry. As far removed from being able to straighten others, they were not even able to resist the training of the bad example. God establishes a law to protect them, he first removes them from the commerce of other nations, and thus separated from the rest of the world, he applies himself to directing and training them. It would have been to wish that with all these measures they could preserve the discipline to which God had subjected them. If they despised the other precepts, they no longer respected this one, they entered into relations with the neighboring peoples, took women from the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the other idolatrous nations, and having entered into their kinship, they admire among them teachers of iniquity and lost their greatness and purity. "Their land was filled with gold and silver and their treasures were infinite (7). "Their country was full of horses and their chariots were innumerable (8). But what does it mean, one might say, the reproach of having riches, of owning horses, especially for this people, who were not yet called to a life so perfect? What to answer to this? That it is not the use he blames, but their intention that was not right. Just as, when he says, "Woe to the mighty (Is. It is not the authority he attacks, but those who use it badly; likewise here he blames the Jews not because they have treasures, but because they amassed them superfluous, and well beyond what was necessary. "Their treasures," he says, "were infinite." And besides, he blames them for their pride in their wealth and the multitude of their horses, they gradually learned not to put their hope in God anymore. ; it is also what another prophet says: "Woe to those who trust in their strength and who glorify themselves in the abundance of their riches! (Psalm XLVIII, 7.) And in another place: "It is not in his great power that a king will find his salvation, and the giant will not be saved by his extraordinary strength. Psalm XXXII, 16.) And in another Psalm it is said again: "He does not like to be trusted by the strength of the horse, and it does not please him that man should the agility of his legs. The Lord looks with pleasure on those who fear him. (Ps. CXL, 10.)

"Their country was filled with idols, execrable works with their hands, and they loved what they had formed with their fingers. Like a skilful doctor, the Prophet indicates the cause and source of the disease. As he was going to reproach them for their impiety, he has just indicated the source of their illness, avarice, excesses of every kind, illicit alliances, and shows them that they have thus gradually slid to the bottom of their the abyss and ended up worshiping idols. Then to mock their worship he adds "works of their hands. For what can be more ridiculous than to see the creative man of a God? Scripture often calls abomination idols; Beyond it calls the abomination of desolation the idol placed in the temple: "When you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, let him who reads understand. After having diverted them from sensible things, he forbids them to make any image; and he gives it the name of an abomination to drive them away from (ungodliness, for to have a thing in abomination is to hate it with force, as impure, as execrable.) What is hateful and worthy of execration, Scripture calls it an abomination, and so it is with every idol: "They worshiped what they had formed with their fingers." 9 And they humbled themselves, and men humbled themselves. God's worship is a matter of relief, that of idols lowers and humbles: what is lower than the fallen man of the way of salvation, having God as an enemy, prostrating himself before inanimate things and worshiping stones! God has called us to such He has raised us above heaven, but the demon lowers his servants to make them more foolish than unfeeling things, and the Prophet says, "Men have humbled themselves." heal those who still have some sense, but as most men fear less sin than punishment, he announces in these terms the punishment: "I will not forgive them. They will not have to hope for indulgence, pardon or negligence to punish; they will give a severe account of their crimes, they will expiate them. "And now enter the caves, hide yourself in the earth not to see the terrible face of the Lord (10). After mocking the madness of the idolaters, having shown their madness and the vanity of idols, since they are the work of men, he comes again to attack them with these words, and leaving to experience the care of justifying what he said, he adds: It was not enough to have shown the error and madness of idolaters, by that only idols are made; but since, heavy and blinded by impiety as if by a kind of intoxication, they do not perceive the clearest and most obvious things, so many calamities will melt on the city that the most stupid will learn how insane they are. and how great is the power of God.

8. Also before speaking of the war, he indicates the consequences; told them to enter the caves, to hide even under the ground, and why? To teach them how much will be the implacable then the wrath of God. "Hide yourself," said he, "into the bosom of the earth, not to see the terrible face of the Lord, nor the glory of his power, when he will rise to strike the earth. He does not simply say before his great power, but before the glory of his power, his actions, his victories will be great! they will have splendor and splendor! It seems to me that he indicates here the victory of Hezekiah, that he hears by the earth, the multitude of men who dwelt on it, by the earth struck by their ruin, by resurrection the help by which God saved his people. For David said, "May God arise and his adversaries be routed (Ps. LXVII, 2)! And again: "Arise, O God, judge the earth" (LXXXI, 8), "where he expresses the acts of God by images borrowed from men. - "The eyes of the Lord are high and the man is nothing (11). And so that none of his hearers will refuse to believe his words (for many this event was unexpected and quite unexpected), the Prophet recalls the power of the One who acts and the weakness of the one who suffers. There is, he says, (357) nothing higher than God, nothing lower than man. Do not be surprised, therefore, that being so great and so strong, he can so humble men so weak. And it is with reason that he says: "The eyes glued Lord are high; He did not say power, but the eyes of the Lord, because his sight alone is enough to make all obstacles disappear. That's what David says in other words, "He who looks at the earth and trembles" (Ps. CIII, 32); And another prophet again: "I will look on him and I will triumph over him. »(Hosea, XI, 4.)

"The greatness of man will be lowered, and the Lord alone will be exalted on this day. After this unexpected victory, this triumph, so brilliant and so admirable, the demons were vanquished, the idols slaughtered, the false prophets had their mouths closed, the barbarians saw their tyranny broken, and every enemy's mouth of God was shut up. This is why he says, "The Lord alone will be exalted on this day. Henceforth, there will be no contradiction or doubt about the power of God, when events have brought him so much into evidence. By herself she is elevated, her greatness has no beginning, she still exists, and if one says that she is exalted, it is in the thought of men, because the enemies and the contradictors , realizing the facts, will recognize her humbly and bless her properly. "The day of the Lord of Hosts will break out on all the proud and the proud, on all the insolent and the proud men, and they will be humbled (12). It will burst forth on those of the cedars of Lebanon which are large and high and on all the oaks of Casan (13), on all the high mountains and walls (14), on every high tower (15), on all the ships and on what makes ships beautiful (16). And the greatness of man shall be low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. "17 By walls, by cedar, by hill, by oak, he hears the mighty, and by the height of these trees he refers metaphorically to their power; and speaking of ships and the beauty of ships, they are the richest among the people he hears.

9. What he means is this: That all great, all-powerful, all-righteous, all-rich, every man, so to speak, clothed with power and dignity, will disappear at this time and faint and in all these greatness nothing will be able to shield anyone from the anger of God, neither the force of the body, nor the military skill, nor the abundance of riches, nor the possession of power, nor the power of a great army, or anything like it. He calls them cedars of Lebanon either because these trees grow in abundance on this mountain, or because the announced events will arrive soon; by the ornaments of the ships, he hears the greatness which the generals give to their riches, their arms, their satellites. It seems to me also that the invasion of the barbarians will be of long duration. "And they will hide all their idols (18); they will carry them into the caves and clefts of the rocks, into the dens of the earth, to make them disappear from before the terrible face of the Lord, from the glory of his power, when he will rise up to strike the earth (19 ). "Very far," he said, "that the gods bring some help to men, they themselves will need the help of men and hidden hiding places to disappear" from the terrible face of the Lord, from the glory of his power. when he will rise to hit the ground. Because, lest these things be attributed to the incursion of barbarians and we believe that this fear is the effect of their power, it goes back to the God of the universe, saying that He is the one who directs this war, and it is his power which, dwelling on sinners, puts them in danger. "In that day man will reject his abominable idols of silver or gold that he had made himself to worship vain things and bats (20), and they will enter the cracks of stones and caves rocks so as not to see the terrible face of the Lord and the glory of His power when He will rise up to strike the earth (21). He has mocked them enough, showing them that they have hidden with their gods, that they have penetrated into the bosom of the earth, that the richness of the matter of their idols has not relaxed them in any way whatsoever. who overwhelmed them. He called their idols bats, either because of their weakness, or because of the darkness of error, or because the demons are nothing but in the darkness. For just as bats hate the sun and the light, while they love darkness, (358) even demons and those whom they have trained love and seek vice and all that is contrary to the good. while they hate virtue and the works of light, and when they shine, they hide at the earliest, while he who loves virtue feels no discomfort, no fatigue. It is enough for him to appear to dispel these shadows. "Cease to hope in the man whose life is but a breath," and what case did they make of it (22)? Here it seems to me that he points out to Hezekiah that fear and terror had reduced him to nothing but a breath of life. The barbarians, having taken it as if in a net, thought they were already holding their prey, and looked upon the siege and capture of the city as costing them no effort, and precisely the opposite happened. This is why the Prophet said: "Stop putting your hope in the man whose life is only a breath, and what case did they make of it? That is to say, they did not make any case. For they thought they were taking everything away from the race, and it was precisely the opposite that happened, and the one among us who seemed nothing and that we thought easy to attack, shone more than all the others, because he was supported by the power of God.

CHAPTER THIRD. 1. "HEREAS THE MASTER, THE LORD OF THE ARMIES, WILL REMOVE THE JUDEH AND JERUSALEM" THE STRONG MAN AND THE STRONG WOMAN.

ANALYSIS.

1. The Prophet continues to enumerate the punishments that will burst forth as a punishment for corruption and luxury. The Lord of Hosts will take from Jerusalem and Judah courage and vigor.

2. He will also remove the prophets and the wise.

3. He will give them to lead young people without caution.

4. There will be no respect among the people. The young men will despise the old men, and the dark men the highest personages.

5. The wicked lower virtue, and only with difficulty bear his presence.

6. The Prophet represents God under the figure of a judge sitting on his court.

7 and 8. The luxury of the women of Jerusalem at the time of Isaiah.

9. Unlawfulness of women in the time of St. Chrysostom; these Christians are more guilty than the women who lived before the Gospel.

10. The speaker develops the idea that the more graces we have received, the more rigorous our account of our sins will be.

1. Just as a skilful physician, whether by burning or cutting, or by giving bitter remedies, seeks only the health of the sick whom he nurses, so our God, in his charity, punishing. various inconstant and sinful Jews, sometimes frightened those ungrateful by the invasion of the barbarians, sometimes before this invasion even stops them by other threats, to maintain in them an ever new fear by always showing them new calamities which would strike them. . Now, therefore, he threatens them with the infirmity of famine, drought, deprivation not of the necessary things, but of those which are nevertheless useful for the preservation of life. Famine is not the only evil to be feared; it is no less fatal to have no one at the head of affairs; for then the very abundance of things is sadder than famine. What is the point that everything flows as if it were a source, if it arises from civil wars, if the sea is agitated and in the midst of the fury of the waves there is neither commander nor pilot, nobody finally soothe the storm and calm down? When hunger comes on top of that, see the excess of evil. God threatens all these calamities, and the first is also the most serious. "Here is the Master, the Lord of hosts. The prophets constantly use the word "here" when they want to fully certify to the listener the truth of what they say. It is not only here, but previously, and even from the beginning, that it has been seen that the infirmity of the body was often only the punishment of faults, for example for Cain; as he made of his strength a use contrary to reason, it was with good reason that it was withdrawn from him. Likewise the paralytic of the pool; that his sins were the cause of his paralysis, Christ affirms it: "Behold, you are healed, sin no more. (John, V, 14.) And Paul says, "There are many among you who are infirm. They had indeed sinned by bringing to the participation of the mysteries an impure conscience. And he delivers to the infirmity of the body the fornicator to whom he had announced that this would be a punishment for his crimes. Yet it is not everywhere the result of sin; it is sometimes a trial that will later be crowned, as it happened to Lazare and job. It is not only infirmity, it is also the other evils of the body that come to us because of our sins, like the leprosy of Uzziah because of his impudence, the paralysis of the hand of King Jeroboam because of his arrogance and his pride. And the language of Zechariah, why was she chained, except for the sin that he had committed in his soul? As health, strength, body and prosperity became an opportunity for the Jews to take pride in themselves, the Lord cuts the evil in its root by warning them, making them better and giving them goods greater than those which he takes them away. What harm is there to the body suffering if the soul is brought to virtue? And so that they could not regard this infirmity as a natural thing, the Prophet foretold it; and it is not to men alone that this threat is addressed: the punishment extends to women, since both sexes are defiled, and in the following it is addressed to women to because of the excesses of their faults, and he reproaches them for the crimes which have overthrown the city from top to bottom. He also threatens them with the plague, for it is the plague which he seems to me to indicate by these words: "I am going to remove the strong man and the strong woman," or some other infirmity of the body which will not yield to the art of medicine. For such are the plagues sent by God. "The strength of the bread and the strength of the water. It is a terrible punishment to see the disappearance, not the substance, but the strength it contained, so that the very sight punishes us because our hunger can not be satisfied and shows us that it is there an effect of divine wrath. "The giant and the powerful. Scripture generally calls giant any man strong or who surpasses the others by the proportion of his members. Indeed, when she says in the story of creation: "They were men called giants (Gen. VI, 4)," it is not that she makes us see in them another race, but she we show them strong, robust and vigorous. "The man of war and the judge. It is an unbearable punishment, it is the mark of complete ruin; the walls and towers are standing, and yet the city could fall with its inhabitants into the hands of the enemies! For the safety of the cities does not lie in the stones, in the wood, in the walls, but in the wisdom of their inhabitants, and when they are such, they will be, in the presence of the enemies, the best bulwark of their homeland; when on the contrary they are without wisdom, the city more wretchedly uses than if it were besieged.

2. Also, for these sinners and for all those who will hear it, it is a great lesson of wisdom that the Prophet gives, teaching that one should not put his trust in the greatness of a city, in the ditches and machines that defend it, but in the virtue of good people. He tells them, then, to frighten them that the Lord will take away from them that which protects them, not only men who know how to fight, but even judges (360) who are no less useful to states than men of war, since they ensure the preservation of peace and that often they divert wars imminent. As iniquities continually tend to produce these wars, it is possible for the guardians of the law, for men who are perfectly acquainted with the law, to remove any cause of war; rhyming most sins? Why, then, does God remove them from the Jews? Because they did not listen to them. His teachings are very useful to those who listen to them, but when he speaks to the Jews, he spreads a sort of darkness over his words, since they do not listen to them with attention: this is how these excellent gifts and who bring us salvation, they often withdraw them when those to whom he has departed do not profit. "The Prophet and the diviner. It is not a weak sign of anger to see the prophecies cease. When God hated the Jewish people because of the sins of the children of Helius and the perversity of the multitude, the prophecy ceased, "The word of the Lord was precious; we did not know any more vision. (I Kings, III, 1.) Precious, that is rare. The same thing happened under Ozias; they could have, if they had wished, removed from this circumstance (the great goods, in fact, to learn to know the things of God, to guard against future dangers, to learn from what is obscure, when it will be necessary or attacking the enemies or resting, how they could chase the evils that overwhelmed them, all this gave them a great facility in obtaining salvation, but as they did not put into practice what they had learned, he took away the means of learning it again, this shows the charity of God, of this God who knows the future, and who knows how the Jews would use his gifts, granted them nevertheless. With the Prophet he says he will remove them still the diviner.

Here it seems to me that he calls soothsayers those men who, through their wisdom and experience, enter the future. Another thing is the word of the diviner, another thing that of the Prophet; one speaks inspired by the Holy Spirit and utters nothing from his own background; the other, taking as a point of departure past events, and having as its guide only his intelligence, foresees many future events, as it is natural for an intelligent man to foresee them. But from one to the other there is a great distance, the whole distance that exists between human intelligence and divine grace. And in order to make this clearer by an example, let us represent Solomon and Elisha: both of them made known the hidden things, both revealed secrets, but not by the same means; one would only be of his intelligence and judge courtesans from what he knew of nature; the other without having recourse to reasoning (and what reasoning could have revealed to him the flight of Giesi?), enlightened by grace, saw what was happening far from him: - "The old man and the chief of fifty men. Then he adds that he will also remove the old men and the heads of fifty men. By old men it does not mean simply those who have reached advanced age, but those with white hair unite the wisdom that suits white hair. And speaking of the chief of fifty men, he does not only designate the chiefs of fifty men, but the chiefs whoever they may be. There is nothing, nothing more terrible than anarchy, as there is nothing more dangerous than an unmanned ship. And without stopping, he threatens them again to take from them a last protection, the men of good advice, who are not less useful to the States than the refined ones. "I will remove," he says, "those admirable sages who give good advice and the expert architects," not those who build houses, but those who have business experience, a vast science, and who could administer the business. State with intelligence.

3. And with those, "The wise listener. If this alone is wanting, even in the midst of the abundance of all the others, the cities will derive no advantage from it; that there are prophets, counselors, powerful, if there are no hearers, all will be vain and useless. And here this word I will remove seems to me to mean I will leave, I will give up, as Saint Paul says: "He delivered them to a reprobate meaning (Romans 1, 28)," not that he precipitated them into madness but he left them and abandoned them in the madness where they were. "I will give them young men for princes. Here is worse and more unfortunate than anarchy. He who has no leader is deprived of a driver; but he who has a bad one has only one conductor who will precipitate him into the abyss. (361) If he says: "Young people," it is not to scorn the youth, but to better show the folly of these leaders. Certainly we see wise young men, as well as foolish old men; but because this is rarely done, and the opposite happens much more often, he uses this name to designate fools. Timothy, still young, ruled churches with more wisdom than thousands of old men had done; Solomon, who was only twelve years old, spoke to God, enjoyed great credit, was proclaimed and crowned king, admired for his wisdom even the barbarians who came to contemplate him, not only men, but also women who had come running. from afar, whose journey had only this purpose, to hear and learn something from his mouth; then, grown old, lost much of his virtue. And his father, Blessed David, did not commit this disastrous crime either in his childhood or in his youth; he had passed that age when he sinned. He was still a little child when he won this admirable victory, that he overthrew the barbarian, that he showed so much wisdom, and his youth did not prevent his beautiful actions. And when Jeremiah wished to apologize because of his age, God does not admit this reason; but he sent him to the Jewish people, and told him that his youth would not be an obstacle to him, provided he were endowed with firmness. It is at this age, or rather at a much more tender age, that Daniel judged the old men. Josiah was not yet twelve years old when he ascended a royal throne; and at that age he showed himself wise, but afterwards a negligence which continually worsened corrupted all virtue in his soul. What about Joseph? Was it not in his youth, and again, in an extreme youth, that he had to sustain this hard struggle, not against men, but against the tyranny of nature, and that he came out of the midst of the flames and a fiery furnace more terrible than the Assyrian furnace, without having felt anything and as intact as the three children. The bodies of these had not been damaged, not even their hair, it seemed as if they were coming out of the water rather than the fire; likewise he who escaped the enemy's Egyptian hands withdrew without his innocence having suffered either from the touch, from the words, nor from the sight, nor from the clothes, nor from the perfumes which light the fire of the passions. a fire more terrible than that of branches and pitch, nor, finally, of its young age, as it happens too often to men. And these three young people in their prime of life were able to master gluttony, to trample under foot the fear of death, to despise so many an army and a king whose anger was more terrible than these flames, and without frightening them. they always kept a free soul. It is not therefore to despise the youth that he speaks thus, for St. Paul, when he says: "Not a neophyte, lest he be puffed up with pride. in the condemnation of the devil (I Tim. III, 6), "does not mean to designate a person young as to age, but planted, that is to say, educated for a short time; for to plant in his language is to instruct and teach, as when he says: "I planted, Apollo watered. "(I Corinthians III, 6.) And Christ also calls it planting:" Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be torn out. If, however, by the word "Neophyte" he had heard a young man, he would not have brought up Timothy, still young, so young that he said to him, "Let no one despise your youth." I would not have raised him to this dignity, and would not have entrusted him with the care of so many churches.

"And mockers will dominate them. You see, it's not the young age he despises, but the evil. This single added word makes his thought clearer. For by scoffers he hears here deceivers, scoffers, flatterers, all those who finally, by their words, give themselves up to the devil. "All the people will rush, man against man, neighbor against neighbor." For just as, when the beams that support a building are rotten or removed, the walls crumble necessarily since nothing holds them back any more, so after the disappearance of all those whom the Prophet has just recalled The chiefs, the councilors, the judges, the prophets, there will be nothing that prevents the nation from falling into dissolution, from being delivered to an immense ruin.

4. "The child will rise up boldly against the old man and the last of the people against the nobles. The young man, he means, will rise up against the old man, despise him, scorn him. This is what, even (362) before the arrival of the enemies, is more terrible than the war. When, in fact, old age is despised by youth, and vile and abject men trample under foot those who are honored by all, the city where these things are happening is not in better condition than if it were abandoned to the omens. . "Everyone will go to his brother or the one who lives all the same roof as his father, and tell him: you have a garment; be our leader and live under your rule (6). He will then answer and say, "I will not be your leader, for there is no bread or clothing in my house. I will not be the leader of this people (7). Here it seems to me that Isaiah prophesies either a terrible siege which will reduce the inhabitants to the last extremities, or, if there is no siege, an intolerable famine, and an almost absolute lack of necessary things. He used popular language: As many say: If we offered to sell the whole city for a penny, she would find no buyer, so to show the extreme misery into which she had fallen, the Prophet says: If one offered to sell dignities for a garment or a bread, there would be no buyer, so great is the scarcity of necessary things! "Because Jerusalem falls into dissolution," 8 that is to say, was abandoned, deserted; the providence of God has abandoned it. "And Judea falls; It is filled with troubles, tumult, confusion, and disorder. "And their sinful tongues refuse to obey the Lord's commands. Here he indicates the cause of their ills, the intemperance of their language. It is also what Oses reproaches them in these terms: "Ephraim was; annihilated on the day of his punishment; I made the tribes of Israel see the truth of my threats. Malachi also says the same thing: "The prophets blame those who by their words irritate God. And you said: How did we irritate him? In what you said: All those who do evil are considered good in the eyes of the Lord and he delights in them. Where is the God of justice? In this accusation he addresses to them two accusations; it is that they are not content to disobey and transgress the law; they should blush and be ashamed, hide and humble themselves; far from it, they add to their first faults, and after having broken the precepts, they add to their disobedience impudent words, like a wicked servant who, leaving without fulfilling the orders of his master, would add to that insolence. "Also in her glory she was humbled and the confusion of her face testified against them (9). "

He speaks of the future as of a past, according to the habit of the prophets. He calls captivity the humiliation of his glory. For it is not a slight humiliation for those who were counted among the kings of the earth to be enslaved to profane and barbarous men. Here he means by confusion of the face that which gives rise to sin. That was their life. As they were the first to be shamed by actions, God, in order to punish them, deprived them of their glory, thus inducing them to a lesser punishment than they had inflicted themselves. For they were not ashamed of the foreign land, as living in their homeland multiplied their iniquities. There their perversity was repressed: here it was constantly increasing. The Prophet, therefore, gives them a great lesson when he teaches them not to wait for retribution to flee vice, to humble themselves and to blush, not when the barbarians carry them captive, but when the tyranny of sin keeps them enslaved. . "They have published their sin, as in Sodom, and they have not hidden it. What I have said often, I repeat again, is to show the divine clemency that the Prophet announces not what they will suffer, but the punishment they deserve. Their crimes equaled those of Sodom, but their punishment was much weaker. The Lord did not destroy them entirely, did not overthrow their city from top to bottom, did not remove the remnants of their nation. These words: "They have published, they have not hidden," the Prophet uses it to speak the language of men. God, indeed, does not wait for the crime to be made to know him (for does he not know all things before they are made?); but Isaiah speaks thus to show the greatness of evil.

5. Just as Moses said, "The cry of their iniquity has come up to me" (Gen. xviii. 20), "it is not that he is relegating God far from men, or shutting him up. in the sky, but it is because he wants to show greatness (363) their sin; likewise here, these words: "They have announced," are intended to show the excess of their malice. In fact, the light sins can escape the knowledge of the neighbor, while the largest and the most enormous are known and obvious to all, even if there is no one to be the object of an accusation, of a blame. They announce themselves, they discover themselves. Also, as the Prophet wants to show the greatness of the faults here, he says: "They have published, they have not hidden," as if he were saying: it is with boldness, with insolence that they have sinned, without shame without disguising anything, but hurting their study.

"Woe to them, because they have harmed themselves, saying, Let us chasten the righteous because he troubles us (10)! It is the height of the misfortune to see not men who not only sin, who sin with boldness, but also who chase those who could take them back. Those whom the frenzy carries off, often strike the doctor: even if sinners show that they are incorrigible, it is above all by expelling the just. For such is virtue; his sight alone is enough to afflict the wicked. Such is malice; without even being blamed often, she can not stand the presence of those who do good. But it is a double crime to chain the right and chained it as inconvenient. So the Prophet, seeing that they brought iniquity to its last limits, begins by pitying them, not by accusing them or taking them back, and he says, "Woe to them! And he skilfully adds "because they hurt themselves. At first glance, this machination seems to be hatched against the just; but considering it more carefully, we shall see that it is not the one who suffers it, but those who do it. Let us learn from this that the just, even when subjected to a thousand evils, suffers no injury from those who attack him; but they pierce themselves with a sword, as did the Jews of whom Isaiah speaks. They did not harm the right while chaining him; but they rushed themselves into greater darkness, since they rejected the light. "And they will eat the fruit of their works. For such is wickedness; she finds in herself her punishment. What he says is this: They will enjoy the fruits of their works, placing themselves in greater solitude and preparing for more precipices. "Woe to the impious! he will suffer ills proportionate to the works of his hands (11). Do you see that we give ourselves the measure and that we ask the cause of our punishment? So the Prophet again began his complaints, his moans and tears because the Jews were harming themselves and compromising their salvation more than their most bitter enemies could have done; and what's more unfortunate than that? "My people, the exactors rob you (12). It is a good teacher to bring in his words variety, not to be always irritated, nor to show any indulgence, but to employ sometimes one, sometimes the other way. so that variety brings better utility. That is why the Prophet does not always accuse, but sometimes moans, how to accuse who is all the better, while causing less pain, and what is astonishing. is that a deeper injury causes less pain. And not only does he groan, but still he heals, another no less amazing way of instructing. What is it? Not to blame everyone together, but to separate the people from their leaders and accumulate accusations on their heads. This means is so useful that Moses used it very often. Although the charge should fall on all, yet he directs it only against the chiefs; for Moses, seeing that the people, above all, were guilty of prevarication, and that Aaron did not deserve so much blame, leaves out those who were the most guilty, and addresses the one who was less guilty, leaving to the the conscience of them, the care of judging themselves by the reproaches of the latter, and of condemning themselves to a greater punishment; and that's what happened. He no longer needed to speak to the people; but it is enough for this few words which he addressed to Aaron to contain, as one man, so great a multitude, and. to bring him so much audacity to extreme humility and fear. This is what Moses foresaw, and that is why, just down from the mountain, he throws the tables of the law and shouts to Aaron: "What did this people do to you so that you made them happy? of his enemies? (Exodus XXXII, 21.)

6. The prophet Isaiah does the same and imitates (364) this saint in two ways. Moses did not just accuse; he took the outside of a distressed person and so he charged. Isaiah imitates him in these two things when he says: "My people, the exactors rob you. He accuses them, and it is to appear to testify to the people of compassion that he speaks thus. By collectors he. seems to designate usurers; for me, I would willingly believe that it indicates thieves and miseries, or, if it is not this sense, the receivers of taxes. Notice here his prudence. It's not that he blames the thing, but the abuse of it. He does not say, in fact, demand your good, but rob you, that is to say, rob you of what you have, deprive you of everything on the pretext of taxes. It is to the reapers that he borrowed this metaphor. To strip a field completely is to collect after the harvest the ears that have escaped the workmen; it's leaving nothing on this field. This is what the tax collectors did, since they removed all the property and sent the stripped citizens back. "And the recipients dominate over you. And what is worse is that they have not shown themselves only greedy for property, but have carried their tyranny further by subjecting free men to servitude. "My people, those who flatter you are deceiving you. Here Isaiah seems to me to indicate the false prophets, or those who speak to make themselves agreeable: what becomes the cause of extreme corruption. Also, to show how harmful it is, he adds: "They break the path by which you must walk; That is to say, they do not let you walk straight, because they deflect you, discourage you, and take away your vigor. "But the Lord is ready to come to judge you, and it is his people whom he will call to judgment; the Lord will come to judgment with the elders of his people and their princes. "

He continues to employ the same kind of accusation, the leader not against the people, but against the elders and the chiefs and making his word more frightening. On the other hand it is God whom he shows judging, condemning, and accusing of the evils which they had done to the people those who harmed him. That is why he says, "But the Lord is ready to come and judge." As he spoke in vain to accuse, since he was addressing people who regard the accusation as something not serious and let it be frightened that by punishment he says that we will not confine ourselves to accusing, but that a punishment is reserved for sin; he who condemns, will chastise himself and judge the prevaricators. This shows us how much God is filled with charity, since he consents to enter into judgment with them and seeks to confound them, which must certainly cause great pain to men who have kept their good sense. It is not only for the motive of which I have spoken so loudly that he speaks to princes and elders, but also to teach to all that the judgment of the chiefs will be more severe than that of the subjects. These will answer only for themselves, and they will answer for themselves and for the people whose direction they have taken; and it is not without reason that the ancients will be subject to such a rigorous judgment. Because what authority does in chiefs, age does it in old men. Certainly the young man who sins gravely deserves punishment; but he to whom age has brought more cam, who is more besieged to me by furious passions, but for whom it is easy to live as a sage, and who can abstain from the things of the age, will be justly punished with more severity if he. shows in old age the same license as young men. "But why have you set my vineyard on fire, and why are your houses filled with the remains of the poor? Everywhere God shows the care he takes of the oppressed, care no less great than when it comes to sins committed against him; even more, he sometimes punishes more gravely the faults against the neighbor. Is a woman adulterous, allowing her husband to dismiss her? Is she unfaithful? He does not allow it, and yet the fault of infidelity is directed against him, while the other is only directed against a man. If your sacrifice is ready, he orders you to leave it there and not to offer it until you are reconciled with your brother, if you have offended him. And when he judges the one who owed ten thousand talents, after having recalled by how many faults he had been offended, he does not call him even the meanest, far from it he immediately reconciles himself with him and remits all his debt to him; but for the hundred denarii required of his companion, he calls him a wicked servant, the book of executioners, and, he says, he will not release him until he has paid all the debt.

7. And when Christ himself received a blow, far from doing anything to the slave who had thus struck him, he contented himself with replying gently: "If I have spoken ill, bear witness of evil, but if I have spoken well, why are you hitting me? When Jeroboam wanted to seize the prophet who reprimanded him, the Lord paralyzed his hand, teaching us that we must reciprocate him, that is to say gently endure the insults that we are made and punish with force those that are directed against God. Also, although in his law he has seconded the love of the neighbor, he declares him similar to the first, and if he is severe in demanding one, he is not less obliged to demand the other. . Of the one he says, "With all your heart and with all your soul; On the other, "like yourself. XXII, 37, 39.) And on the other hand you can see in many places how carefully God asks us to give back to others what we owe them. See here as he presses with force, as he accuses with vehemence, as he resorts to very harsh words. "But you," he said, "why did you set my vineyard on fire? What would have been done by some barbarous and cruel enemies, you have done to your own fellow-citizens. He calls the people his vineyard, because he has healed and surrounded him with his divine protection. And, to reinforce the accusation, he does not say: Why did you ruin your fellow slaves, your neighbor, your brothers; but why did you ruin my property and dispel it? Then to show what kind of fire it is, he adds: "Why are your houses filled with the remains of the poor? Hail does not ravage the vines, just as injustice makes the soul of the unfortunate and the poor that it fills with a pain more unbearable than death. Theft is always an evil, but especially when the one who is the object is in the last misery. It is not only to blame them that he speaks thus, laughing to correct them, by putting before them the spectacle of theft. For after these words it is the sight of the thing put before the eyes by a vivid painting which is the most adapted to penetrate a sinner who would not have lost all feeling. "Why do you oppress my people (15)? He perseveres in the same charge, saying above my vineyard and here my people. "Why do you work to confuse the face of the humble? "

Those whom you must correct, you repel them; those you had to take up, you break them. For while robbing them, they despised the humble and treated them more shamefully than slaves, joining pride to greed and losing all prudence by that alone that they had acquired unjust wealth. To avarice comes the disease of pride, and the more wealth is accumulated, the more this disease increases. "This is what the Lord, the Lord, the Lord of hosts says. What armies is it? Angels, archangels, powers, and thus he raises the hearer from the earth to heaven, makes him think of his great power, so that struck by this spectacle he produce works of wisdom and that he sees well that the Divine patience is the effect not of impotence, but of long-suffering. "This is what the Lord says:" Because the daughters of Zion boasted, and walked with their heads high, waving and measuring their footsteps, dragging their tunics as they stomped their feet. rhythmically. And God will humble the Princesses of Zion and the Lord will unmask them on this day. And the Lord will make the glory of their garments, their finery, their braids and their ribbons of head, their croissants, their necklaces, the ornaments of their faces and the arrangement of an ornament of glory, their bracelets, their rings, their networks, their rings and their right arm bracelets, their dangle earrings, their purple dresses, their coats for the home, their Laconian crêpes, their linen fabrics, their hyacinth-colored fabrics or their scarlet dotted with gold and precious stones and their summer garments embellished with gold. And instead of a pleasant fragrance there will be nothing but dust and you will not gird off a belt, but rush, and your curly hair disappearing leave only a bald head because of your works and instead of a purple tunic you will cover yourself with a hair shirt. Such will be the punishment of your luxury. And the most beautiful of your sons, the one you love will fall by the sword and the mighty of you will fall by the sword and be humbled. And the vases where are (366) contained the makeup of which you raise your beauty will weep and we will leave you alone and you will be stretched on the ground (16-26). It is an unusual thing that the Prophet did here in addressing women so long, which we do not notice in any other place in the Scriptures. What is the cause?

8. It seems to me that at that time the softness of women was great and that they contributed very little to the malice of men. That is why he addresses them in particular to reproach them for their great crimes, and when he begins to speak to them, it is still in the name of God. "This is what the Lord says: Because the daughters of Zion boasted, and walked with their heads high. The first of the vices he takes from them is pride and arrogance. Certainly this vice is very serious wherever it occurs, but especially when it is women who are guilty of it. A haughty woman, by the very fact that she is lighter and less reasonable, allows herself to be easily dragged down, submerged herself and sinks, because, like a violent wind, pride and arrogance precipitate her into the abyss. The Prophet seems to address the women of Jerusalem; so he says: the daughters of Zion. "They walked with their heads up. Here he mocks them, showing the pride of women who, unable to contain this passion in themselves, let her escape from the outside and make her appear in the attitude of their bodies. And this pride does not only make them proud, but also unclean; what Isaiah will say and show in what follows. For he adds: "Making signs of the eyes; It is the characteristic of women who want to be sought after by turning their eyes here and there, thus showing their softness and their bad passion: there is no greater index of sluggishness and impurity. "Measuring their steps and dragging their tunics. This accusation is serious, though perhaps it does not seem so; it is, in fact, the mark of extreme corruption, of softness, of impurity, of dissolution, of dragging one's tunic. This is what a profane writer reproached his opponent by saying, "Leaving your cloak down to your heels. "

"Striking together with the foot in rhythm. It is still the same indecency that manifests itself. For there is nothing, neither the eyes, nor the clothes, nor the feet, nor the gait, nothing, I say, that can not manifest either virtue or vice. Because the senses are like the heralds of the soul that lives in us. And just as painters mixing a few colors draw all the images they want, so do the movements of the members of our body express themselves outside and render the feelings of the soul sensitive to the gaze. This is why another wise man says: "The garment of the man, the laughing of the teeth and his gait make me know who he is. (Eccl XIX, 27.) "And God will humble the princesses of Zion, and the Lord will unmask them on this day, and the Lord will make the glory of their garments disappear. To these two passions, pride and impurity, he contrasts the two remedies which suit them, with pride, humiliation, and the search for the beauty of their clothes, their annihilation. A war will come, he says, and everything will disappear. The haughty and proud women, suddenly struck by fear, will be delivered from their illness; as for those whom slackness and disorder corrupted, when they fell under the yoke of servitude, they will be delivered from their impurity.

To give his word more gravity and to strike the minds of his listeners, he successively indicates all these ornaments of women, ornaments for the eyes, ornaments for all the parts of the body. He then goes to the ornamentation of their houses. For not satisfied with adorning their bodies, they carried their shameful passion to adorn the walls, and thus employed their riches in useless expense, they who curled their hair, wanted to spread everywhere the nets of their coquetry. He reproaches them by saying that he "will make the glory of their clothes, their adornments, their braids and their bunches disappear. Their bunches are either an ornament of the head or the shape affected by the ribbon that held the hair. "Their croissants": it was an ornament resembling the moon and placed around the neck. "And their necklaces. Perhaps it means sickle-shaped ornaments. "And the ornaments of their faces. Here I think he wants to indicate the makeup and the colors. "And the arrangement of an ornament of glory," that is, enshrined in gold. "And their bracelets," the gold jewels that surrounded their arms. "Their rings," placed (367) around the wrist. "Their golden networks," around the head. "Their rings and their bracelets of the right arm," those who are called dexiaria. "Their earrings, their purple dresses, their coats for the house, their pancakes of Laconia." Such was their fury of libertinage that they were not satisfied with what their country produced, but that they were going to seek foreign ornaments and that they brought them from beyond the seas. Because between Palestine and Laconia there is a great distance, an immense sea.

9. It is not without reason that he designated the country without indicating the name of the ornaments to show how much their luxury exceeded the limits. "Their linen fabrics, their hyacinth and scarlet-colored fabrics, their linen fabrics dotted with gold and precious stones, and their summer garments embellished with gold. There is nothing, either in the clothes or in the rest of the toilet, which has escaped them; they had exhausted all luxury, carried away by this tyrannical passion for unbridled impurity.

But if, before the times of grace and our religion so perfect, these things were already blamed, what pardon will these women who are called to heaven, to longer fights, to the imitation of angels, far surpass this license? and even that of the courtesans of theater? And the sad thing is that they do not believe in sinning. So we must fight them with the word of the Prophet. It is not only against the Jews, but against the women of today that this word will be pronounced: "Instead of a pleasant perfume, there will be nothing but dust. Do you see how he condemns perfumes and how he announces that this research will be punished? The dust of which he speaks here is that which was raised by the overthrow of the city and the incursion of the barbarians. They destroyed the city by iron and fire, overthrowing some parts and burning others. This is what the Prophet foretold in these terms: "Instead of a pleasant perfume there will be nothing but dust and you will not gird a belt, but a rush; Putting before them the spectacle of captivity and their transmigration into the land of barbarians. "And your disappearing curly hair will leave only a bald head," whether their hair fell as a result of this catastrophe, or that the enemy had cut it, or cut it themselves. For it was once the custom in mourning and the misfortune of shaving and cutting one's hair. Job, for instance, had his head shaved when he heard the misfortunes of his children. And further on, the Prophet says that they will put on a hair-shirt, and that they will groan while cutting their hair. Another also says, "Pull off your hair, cut it off entirely to mourn your children who lived in delights. "And instead of a purple tunic you will cover yourself with a hair shirt." Are not these things terrible and unbearable? But for us the punishment will not stop there; the poisoned worm, and the endless darkness will reach us. These Jews endured captivity, servitude, and extreme evils for their adornment: for this was the cause of their punishment, and the sin which God particularly pursued, Isaiah teaches us when he, after this enumeration, says, indicating the cause: "Such will be the punishment of your luxury. If, I say, the Jews, for being adorned, suffered such a punishment that they saw their country overthrown from the ground up, and after having known such delights they fell into slavery, servitude and exile, that they were taken to a foreign land, that they perished by famine, pestilence, and a thousand other kinds of death, do you not see plainly that the same faults will bring us much more severe chastisements? ? For if we receive greater honors, we will also receive more severe tortures.

That if your toilet has not yet attracted you to these evils, do not be proud of it. For this is what God usually does: He punishes one or two prevaricators to show others what plagues await them. And to make clearer what I say, the inhabitants of Sodom once committed horrible sins; they also suffered a terrible punishment when the fire of heaven struck them, and their cities, the inhabitants, and the earth itself were consumed with their bodies. But what? Are there not yet after them who dared to commit the same sins? Yes, there have been many and all over the world. Why were they not punished in the same way? Because they are reserved for another more severe punishment. God has not renewed this punishment so that those who will have the same audacity, even if they do not suffer the pain here below, know well that they will not escape. Would it be reasonable indeed that those who, before the time of grace, of the law, the prophets, sinned, suffer so much evil, while the sinners who followed them, after being the object of a so much love without such an example made them wiser, which certainly aggravates their sin, would avoid the punishment reserved for their faults? Why have not they been punished yet? To teach you that they are reserved for a much more terrible punishment. ,

10. That there are punishments more terrible than those of Sodom, Christ teaches us in these terms: "There will be less to suffer for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for this city. So that the women who are parenting today, if they do not suffer what the women who were then doing, were no more brothers. Patience and long-suffering prepare a fiery fire and a greater flame. That's what happened to Ananie and Saphire. It was at the beginning of this epoch when the Gospel spread that, guilty of lies, they died immediately, while afterwards many who committed the same crime suffered nothing. Could one then explain how a judge so just and who uses the same measure to everyone would punish those who are less guilty, while he would let out those who have sinned more seriously? Is it not obvious that, since he has fixed a day when he must judge the universe, he delays the punishment of the latter only in order that so much patience makes you better or that, if they persevere in the same faults, are they all the more terribly punished? Therefore, when after our sins we are not punished as those who once committed the same faults and suffered from them, let us not be more tranquil, but on the contrary that our fear increases. It is, so to speak, the promulgation of a law of God that their punishment: he warns us all and tells us: I have punished him who sinned from the beginning so that if you sin after him, you know what wait for you, you convert and become better. For the same mistakes are reserved the same punishments, although they do not follow immediately. It is not without reason that I stopped on this passage: because this frightening evil has penetrated into our houses, thanks to the softness of women, I mean the refinements of the toilet which increase the expenses, which precipitate in Inopportune prodigalities, which become daily the occasion of struggles, discord, lawsuits, which make the poor die of hunger. Because when the bride forced her husband to spend all his money and even more for the shame of his body (because this gold shining on them is their shame), the hand can not open for the alms. And from there many other kinds of sins; but leave it so that experience will teach it to those who expose themselves to these evils, and speak of what follows.

After saying what will be the captivity and declaring that she came only to punish the unbridled luxury of his women, he completes the painting of misfortune by saying: "And the most beautiful of your sons, the one you love, will fall by the sword, and the mighty of you will fall by the sword. That is more frightening than captivity: for there are cases where life is harder than death. When, besides captivity, they will still have to groan over premature deaths, imagine what will be their misfortune, since an uninterrupted series of evils adds suffering to suffering. If there were only servitude, it would already be an intolerable evil, and when such a misfortune happens to men who lived free, it is a life more cure than death. But behold, he says, the two things will be together. But should we not say that it is a double, a triple, a quadruple misfortune when it is a son, the most beautiful of all, the most darling who dies, and that of the hand of the barbarians and not by the common law of nature? And add that all those of the same age will perish too; so that they have no hope, as to what concerns at least the help and assistance of men. "And they will be humiliated. And the vases where the beauties of which you lift up your beauty are crying, and you will be left alone and you will lie down on the ground. So many traits complete this dismal picture, inspire fear, and make anxiety more acute. The Prophet puts misfortunes before his eyes, he paints the scourges, going everywhere and collecting the details of this calamity, and this, because of the insensitivity of the listeners. It would have been (369) desirable that, touched by these threats, the daughters of Zion had risen up courageously, anticipating the calamities that were about to melt on them. And so, he adds (which must certainly make them understand their misfortune), that they will see the golden vases, a remembrance of their former prosperity, so that this sight may come to remind them of their misfortune. For misfortunes make us feel especially their sting when we compare them with our former happiness, and this comparison makes the wound deeper. This is what Job once said in his pains: "Who will give me to be as in the days of old? (Job, XXIX, 2.) And he enumerates all his riches, the goods that flowed to him from all sides, honors, revenues, all the brilliancy he enjoyed, so that this comparison shows better the gravity of the misfortunes that overwhelm him. This is what the Prophet does when he speaks of these vessels, and not content to talk about them, he adds that they are crying. Nothing is more eloquent than a way of speaking that personifies inanimate objects. Already he makes the vines and the wine groan, to better touch his listeners and sting their insensibility. What to say: "We will leave you alone? "You will be deprived," he said, "of the assistance of your allies, and of the benevolence of God, deprived of all your splendor, surrounded on all sides by your enemies, encircled in the midst of barbarians. Then, to show the excess of his humiliation, he says: "And you will lie on the ground. He does not say, You will fall, neither, You will be hasty, but it is a term much more apt to show the full extent of his humiliation that he has resorted to.

CHAPTER FOUR. "IN THAT DAY SEVEN WOMEN WILL TAKE A MAN AND THEY WILL TELL IT: WE WILL FEED OURSELVES AND WE WILL KEEP OUR CLOTHING ON OURSELVES. ONLY AGREE THAT WE USE YOUR NAME AND DELIVER OUR OPPROBRE. "

ANALYSIS.

Continuation of the vengeances of God. Consoling assurance of the advent of the Messiah.

He wants to show how, by the effect of the war, men will have become rare and how few will be reduced to the Jewish people. For these women do not say that they need the assistance that women usually receive from men, they simply ask to be delivered from idleness, and they will be happy. This is what it means: "Deliver us from our reproach. For formerly one considered viduity as a reproach. "In that day God will shine in the council with glory on earth to exalt and glorify those of Israel who have been saved (2). After having frightened them with the threat of misfortune, having sufficiently represented their misfortunes, and at length detailed these terrible evils, he now comes to speak of better things. It is a good doctor not only to cut and burn, but also to soften by suitable remedies the pains that these operations have caused: this is what Isaiah does. He does not say that all this history will lead to a sad denouement, but that when the evils are gone, the goods will come in their turn; and not only will the evils cease, but great glory and great glory will surround the survivors of Israel. This is what he means by "the Lord will shine," his light will make the darkness of sorrow disappear; bring back the day in all its splendor, and render the Jews illustrious. These words "in the council" show us that he will do it with intelligence, with the wisdom that suits him "Then all those who will remain in Zion and remain in Jerusalem will be called saints, they who have been written, in Jerusalem among those to whom God wishes to preserve life (3). "

So that you may know that those who have escaped the danger do not owe their salvation to pure chance, but to the divine will that protected them and did not let them perish in the midst of danger, he says, "They will be called all those who have been written in Jerusalem among those to whom God wishes to preserve life; Those who have been separated, chosen, marked to suffer no harm. It is not without reason that he calls them saints, he wants to show that what saved them is not simply the choice that was made of them, nor simply the will of God, but also their virtue, that which preceded, or that which was to follow these calamities. Although some were already good and virtuous, nevertheless these events were to render them better and more vigilant. For just as the gold thrown into the fire loses all defilement, so the righteous become more righteous in the trials, because they leave there all that could remain to them lukewarm. "Because the Lord will wash the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and cleanse them of the blood that is in their midst, by a spirit of justice and by a spirit of ardor." "

Isaiah seems to me to indicate here a double purification: first they will be punished for their sins, and then this punishment will make them more perfect for the future. I call Jerusalem blood, killings, unjust killings. Then, to make the accusation worse, he said, "Who is in their midst? For it was not in secret that they shed blood, but they cruelly exceeded the brigands, and those who lay their ambush on the highways. They choose for their packages the darkness of the night and a deserted place; but they committed their iniquities in the public squares, in the middle of the city, in the tribunals themselves. But this defilement, he says, war will remove it. In the time of prosperity he justifies the past misfortunes, sent, he says, to wash, to purify, to burn and to remove all stain, to relieve them of the shame they felt for so many faults and murders. But what do these words mean: "By a spirit of justice and a spirit of ardor? He continues the metaphor of metals subject to the action of fire. Just as in this operation the air entering the crucible with great force excites the flame, gives to the coals more activity, and thus removes all filth from the metals; In the same way the divine wrath and the incursion of the enemies was for the city like a fire, not like a fire which makes perish, but a fire which burns, which purifies, which chastens, which corrects. Because these words: "spirit of justice," mean spirit of punishment, punishment, revenge. - "And the Lord will come. By his presence, he hears his action. "And behold, the whole mountain of Zion, with all that surrounds it, shall be covered with a cloud in the daytime, and in the night as smoke and the light of a fire that burneth; for God will protect this place from all its glory. It will be a shadow that will defend against the heat during the day, it will be a retreat and a hidden place to cover storms and rain (5, 6). "

What he refers to as a cloud is that well-being that comes from the cessation of evils; by fire he hears the presence of God and the consolation that he will bring. Indeed, what is a cloud in the heat, a brilliant fire is in the shadow and darkness of a deep night. One makes the heat disappear, the other the darkness. So the Prophet likens the glory of God to the brightness of fire and the cessation of evils in the shadow of a cloud. Then to show that it is not gradually and as the evils disappear, but that this change will take place suddenly, at the moment when the dangers will be most pressing, so that this circumstance even teaches them that this It is not the chance that produced this improvement, but the power from above, he adds: "Like a fire that burns during the night, so will the change. It will be like a shadow during the day. What shade will it be? the help and help of God. who, like a shadow in the heat, like a roof or sine cave during a violent storm, shelters: whoever takes refuge there: the protection of God does not allow that these suffer any harm, even during a war as disastrous, those, I say, that from the beginning she wanted to save.

CHAPTER 5. "I will sing to my beloved vine the song of my beloved. ".

ANALYSIS.

1. Comparison of Israel with a sterile vine. The prophet gives his canticle prophecy, although he has nothing but reproaches to make, threats to launch; Why that ?

2. God enumerates, in a manner of reproach, the blessings with which he has filled his people.

3 and 4. The Prophet denounces the misfortunes that will melt against the Jews to punish their ingratitude.

5. Woe to those who get drunk!

6. Woe to hardened sinners, to liars, to scorners, to those who call well what is evil, and bad what is good!

7 and 8. Woe to those who make their religion, their morality and their justice their own!

1. After having frightened the Jews with the threat of dreadful misfortunes, rejoiced by the announcement of great goods, and treated them with various treatments, the Prophet resumes his speech, and this in a way that resembles beginning of the prophecy. As in this beginning, he recalled the blessings of God to them, saying, "I have begotten sons, and have brought them up; And putting before them the iniquities they dared to commit, he adds. "They have despised me; And again: "Israel did not know me, and my people did not understand me; Likewise here, in different terms, it is true, but with identical thoughts, Isaiah shows us the same thing as first. But why, since he is about to accuse, does he call his accusation? Moses was right in giving this name to the song he had composted; with Mary, since it was a song of victory; he was right to begin with these words: "Let us sing a hymn to the Lord, because he has burst forth his greatness and glory by throwing the horse and the rider into the sea. Exodus XV, 1.) And Deborah, after this marvelous victory and this unexpected triumph, was right to make this song of triumph heard, and to bring back to God all the glory. (Jug V.) But Isaiah is going to accuse, office which calls for a vehement language, a firm and severe tone, and yet he announces to us that he is going to sing, and he cries his reproaches. But he is not the only one to act thus: Moses, the great Moses, who had composed a triumphal canticle, also composed, to quote the Jews, this long song filled with reproaches, where it is said: "Is this what do you render to the Lord? This people is mad and foolish (Deut, XXXII, 6); Then he accumulated the accusations and ordered the people to sing him, and we too are still singing him.

Why do they have with reproach composed a hymn? In this they showed spiritual wisdom, and they wanted to bring great good to the souls of their hearers. For as there is nothing so useful as the continual memory of one's sins, and that nothing produces a memory as lasting as singing, wanting to avoid that accusations all too often repeated would discourage the Jews and keep them from running away. the continual memory of their iniquities, the Prophet disguised the shame of this memory under the hymn; to soften the pain that they could not have endured, he composed hymns so that forced by their desire to sing, forced, I say, to repeat them incessantly, they recollect them incessantly and that the memory their continual sins were to them like a continual lesson in virtue. You know that (372) most men do not even know the rest of the holy books by name, while all are constantly mouthing the book of psalms and canticles we are betting: so the experience itself shows us how much the songs are useful. This is why the Prophet says here: "I will sing to my beloved vine the song of my beloved. To my beloved vine the song, "I will sing about my beloved. I will sing for him, he says, and I will take for my songs or himself or what relates to him. How is it that, on the point of accusing this people, he calls it a dear and beloved vine? Do not be surprised. Admittedly, he can not begin with a more serious charge than to reproach them for not having become better, after having received from God so many marks of affection. This is what another prophet says in these words: "I have found Israel as bunches of grapes in the wilderness and their fathers as the first figs on a fig tree (Hosea, IX, 10); He indicates by the choice of these fruits how good they are, and filled with good qualities, not, no doubt, by their own virtue, but by the goodness of God. What he says is here in other words: I loved him, as one who finds a bunch of grapes in the desert, or a fig of first fruits on a fig tree. These comparisons, it is true, are not worthy of God, but they are well suited to their greed. "And for them," he adds, "for them whom he pursued with so much love, they turned away from him and found Beelphégor. It is in these terms that he addresses this beloved and beloved people, pointing out to the Jews that God did everything for them, even though they had not started first, God having warned them still. And far from showing themselves worthy of this benefit, their works have shown only their ingratitude. "My beloved had a vine planted as on a horn, in a fertile place. By this word of vine he shows all his solicitude and care for them.

2. And without stopping there, he enumerates all the blessings with which they have fulfilled them; he begins by indicating the choice of place: "As on a horn, in a fertile place," indicating by the second word the nature of the ground and by the first its position; it is also what David in his Psalms says of Jerusalem: "Jerusalem is surrounded by mountains and the Lord is around his people. "(Ps. CXXIV, 2.) he strengthened it, he means, by the very choice of the place, but, without being satisfied with this, he became himself his main defense: he indicates in fact by this word, as on a horn, that this place is impregnable; but what is most remarkable is that it indicates divine protection by the metaphor it uses, a metaphor borrowed from the horn of an ox. It is a proverb commonly used when speaking of those who have taken refuge in a safe place. As indeed the bull is the strongest of the animals and in him the strongest part is the horn, which it uses like a weapon, many use this figure, and the Scripture often designates by keras monokerotos, those who are safe. These words: "On a horn" signify, in safety, in a high place: what amounts to what is said in the first chapter: "I begot sons and I raised them. "" In a fertile place, "or as Moses says," in a land where milk and honey flow. (Exod III, 8.) "I have surrounded her with a hedge and a palisade. The hedge is either a rampart, or the law, or Providence; for the law was for them the strongest of the walls. "I have surrounded her with a palisade," that is to say, I have given her an assured rampart; for, as it is often easy to cross the wall of a city, I have surrounded them, he says, with another means of defense. "And I planted it with sorec. He continues his metaphor, which we must not interpret word for word, but of which we must content ourselves with seeing the goal. By sorec it means here a vine frank and good breed, whose plant is chosen, tried and of excellent quality, because there are many kinds of vines. "I built a tower and made a press in the middle. "

Some of them mean the temple and the winepress, the sanctuary, because there were gathered the fruits of the virtue of each one, the offerings and all the sacrifices; for me, as I have already said, and repeat it again, I only attach myself to the object of allegory. By all these details he wants to hear only one thing; he has filled them with all his benefits, and has shown them, in all things, his love. I did not crush them with work, I did not overwhelm them with fatigue, I did not build them, or dig the earth, or plant; On the contrary, I delivered them the completed work. And her charity was not limited to that, but "I waited for her to produce grapes," and I waited patiently for the time when she would bear fruit. I used patience, this word: "I waited" the mark enough. "She only worn thorns. He shows their life sterile, desolate and without virtue. What indulgence will they be worthy of those who are cultivated with so much care to give only these fruits? "And now, man of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, be judges between me and my vineyard." One must have a well-assured right to establish the guilty same judges of what they have done. " And now; I do not speak of old things, it is today that I am ready to submit to your judgment, for I do not cease to fill you with blessings, and you never fulfill your duties. "What more will I do to my vineyard? For I have waited for her to produce grapes, and she has produced only thorns. The construction of this sentence may seem a little obscure: so it must be made clearer. This is what he means: What should I do that I did not do? That is to say, what motive did I give them to sin thus? What can they pretend? Can they claim that they sinned because they were forgotten in certain things? "What more will I do to my vineyard than I have done? What I did, here he is, he says; however, I am not content with the testimony of facts, or even with that of my speech; but if I have not done all that was to be done, I ask you to tell me, I make you judges you who have enjoyed these benefits, you who are witnesses, you who have known them by experience, you who are not strangers and for whom they are not unknown things. - "Now therefore I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard (5). As he has won, won his cause, and demonstrated their ingratitude, he now carries his sentence, he says what he will do, not just to condemn them, but so that the fear of these threats will make them more moderate. "I will pull out the hedge and it will be exposed to looting; I will destroy her wall and she will be trampled underfoot. "

3. I will deprive it of my help, of my help, I will not grant them my benevolence any more, and the experience of the contrary will teach them what goods they formerly enjoyed; they will know it when they are exposed to looting. - "I will give up my vineyard; it will neither be pruned nor plowed. "6 I repeat that he uses the same metaphor. However, by looking more carefully, we see that he speaks of doctrine and commandments. They will no longer enjoy the same goods as before, they will have no more doctors, leaders, prophets to correct them and take care of them. For as those who tend a vineyard dig, cut, so those who direct souls threaten, frighten, teach, accuse; but, he says, they will be deprived of all this, transported to a foreign land. "And the brambles will cover it like an abandoned land, and I will command the clouds not to pour out their rain on it." He wants to indicate either the desolation of the city, or the abandonment where they will be, where will their soul to each; by the clouds some hear the prophets who bring the rain from above and transmit to the people what has been revealed to them. But these, he says, will no longer fulfill their usual ministry. If there were one or two who accompanied them in their exile, at least the crowd of prophets was silent.

"The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant that is his delight. I waited for Israel to do righteous deeds, and did iniquity; instead of righteousness, he produced only blatant injustice. "7 As these names present many metaphors, vines, towers, press, hedge, furrow, size of the vine, for fear that some insane From that time it did not seem that it was indeed a vineyard, the Prophet was careful to give at the end the interpretation of everything. "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel." I do not speak of plants, he means, of an inanimate creature, of stones, of walls, but of our people. That's why he added, "And the men of Judah are the plant that is his delight; For Judah surpassed the ten tribes; the temple and all that was used for worship was there; he flourished more than the rest of Israel, and this tribe was more royal and more powerful. He used the word "which is his delight" to reproach them, for what they showed to the one who loved them so much. (374) Indeed, when people love each other, they can not, even in reproaches, hide the excess of their love. This makes us discover a second teaching that is not to be disdained. What is it? It is to know when and where the places of Scripture can be used for allegorical interpretation; that it is not in our power to regulate this manner to our liking, that it is necessary above all to attach ourselves to the very thought of the Scriptures, and to use allegorical interpretation only as far as we shall be authorized by the sacred text itself.

What I mean, here it is. Scripture uses the terms vine, hedge, press; and, instead of letting the listener free to apply these figures to things or persons he would like, she herself indicates in advance the interpretation, saying, "The vine" of the Lord of armies, c is the house of Israel. When Ezekiel speaks of a huge eagle, with large wings, which goes to Lebanon and removes the end of the branches of a cedar (Ezek XVII, 3), it does not leave the listener the care to interpret this allegory, but he himself indicates what he means by this eagle and this cedar. Our prophet, a little further, speaks of a river that spreads violently over Judea, and not wishing to allow everyone the freedom to apply this figure as he pleases to whom he would like, he declares who is king that he designates by this river. And such is the constant practice of the Holy Scriptures, that to allegory is joined his interpretation, lest the unordered imagination of the researchers of allegory not go at all and without motive to go astray and rush to adventure. And do you wonder if the prophets did it, when the author of the Proverbs did not do otherwise? After saying, "A dear doe, a way of delights be with you; that the source of this water is for you alone (Prov.V, 19), "he indicates to whom these words apply, to a legitimate and free wife, and not to a woman of fornication, to adultery. In the same way Isaiah declares here who this vine represents. Then after having recalled the crimes, he announces the punishment; and at the end he says again to explain his conduct: "I have waited for them to do righteous deeds, and I see nothing but iniquity, and they bring forth fruits of righteousness, and they only produce blatant injustice. . It is with justice, he means, that I will punish them. For I have waited for them to do righteous deeds, that is to say, full of equity; and they have produced only the opposite, ungodliness, injustice, glaring iniquities. Through these glaring iniquities, he hears the passion of riches, unjust anger, senseless fury, struggles, disputes. "Woe to those who join house to house, who add down to earth, to take something away from their neighbor (8)! After having said that they are guilty of gross iniquities by the passion of riches, he indicates a sort of sin which contains a monstrous iniquity. And he begins again his groans, to show how great are their faults and incurable their diseases.

4. These crimes, we now see them committed by those who abuse their wealth, who want to seize the possessions of their neighbors, not to put themselves in safety, but to harm others and who, like an invading fire , ruin all their neighbors. "Will you live alone on the earth? All this has gone up to the ears of the Lord of hosts. Which means that their efforts will be in vain, useless and without result. As punishment and scourges are less apt to convert these sinners than to know that they will not enjoy their plunder, the Prophet addresses this threat to them and tells them that they work, that they make themselves unhappy. that they accumulate injustice on injustice, but that the enjoyment of their crimes will be delighted to them. Because, he means, this eye that does not know sleep will not close on their mistakes. This word "ascended" does not indicate that crimes have just been revealed to God, but although the punishment is near, they will receive their reward. "If they have many houses, all great and beautiful they will be, they will become deserted, without a single man living there. "

This is the effect of the passion to amass; when it brings new wealth, it neglects the former. This is what Isaiah says by saying: When you raise splendid buildings and you acquire the goods of others, you will lose yours. They will be standing, those houses that no one will inhabit, but which will so clearly accuse the captors, for their very solitude, so great and so prolonged, will be like a monument to their sin. "For ten acres of vines shall scarcely fill a small vessel of wine; and he that sows six measures shall gather only three. From the desolation of the city it passes to that of the countryside, in order to make on the listener more impression. Because, he says, the houses will have lost their inhabitants, and the earth its productive force. In the beginning, as punishment for Adam's sin, she bore brambles and thorns, and then, because of Cain's crime, she only gave products disproportionate to the culture she received and the native fertility that remained. There are many other circumstances in which one can see the earth chastised by the crimes of men. And why do you wonder that the iniquity of men prevents its fertility and fertility, when you know that by us it has become corruptible and that by us it will become incorruptible? Because since it exists only because of us and to serve us, the modifications of its existence also come from the same principle.

The same thing happened under Noah. When the malice of men came to an end, everything was corrupted, seeds, plants, animals, earth, sea, air, mountains, forests, hills, cities, ramparts, houses, towers, and everything was covered by this terrible deluge. . And when the human race had to multiply again, the earth returned to the old order and recovered its first beauty. All these events took place because of men, as it is easy to see. Caria mer withdrew and it appeared afterwards, the sun and the moon stopped and left their usual course, the fire received the same properties as the water, the earth that the sea, the sea that the earth; finally, everything, to put it in a nutshell, is transformed to accommodate the needs of man. So, since man is more precious than all the rest, and everything exists only for him, today the Jewish people have sinned, God stops the fertility of the earth, and, in spite of the fatigues and the reiterated works, he does not let not his entrails give their usual product, so that we know that it is not the art of culture, nor the oxen and the plow, nor anything like it, but the Master of all these things that spreads the goods with a liberal hand and who, when he wants it, stops the course of these largesses. - "Woe to those who get up in the morning to run after the palm wine and stay until the evening, so that the wine warms them! The lute and the harp, the flutes and the drums do not miss in their orgies; but they have no regard for the shadow of the Lord, and they do not consider the works of his hands (11 and 12). "By reproaching them for their pride, he indicates the source of the evil. It is drunkenness, the mother of a thousand evils, especially when it is audaciously carried to such an excess.

5. See how carefully he makes his reproaches. It's all day, he says, that they use that. It is not only during the necessary meals that they do it; but all hours are for them an hour of drunkenness; from the beginning of the day, especially when they should make a return on themselves, they abandon themselves to wine, and whether they want it or do not want it, they stay until the evening riveted to this chain. As for once they have sunk themselves into the abyss of drunkenness, that they have lost their reason, that they have reduced their souls under the hard slavery of this passion, like a ship without ballast, deprived of a pilot and sailors, who wander here and there, that the current of water carries everywhere, the gulf of drunkenness engulfs them. This is why the Prophet said, "Woe to those who get up in the morning to run after the palm wine!" They did not satisfy a need, they did not wait for the necessity to be felt, but it was their only business and their occupation is to get drunk all the time. That's why he says, "To run after the palm wine. Palm wine is the juice that is extracted from the fruit of this tree, by crushing and pounding it, which has the nature of wine. It is soporific and produces drunkenness. But without paying attention to any of this, they continued their pleasure and stayed until evening. "So that the wine warms them up. Such is the nature of drunkenness; the more satisfied it is, the more it increases, and the thirst it produces is difficult to bear. Then he addresses to them a second accusation which is not less than the first. "The lute and the harp, the flutes and the drums do not miss in their orgies. This is what another prophet reproaches them in these terms: "You drink the purified wine, you perfume the most precious oils, you give your voices with the sound of the musical instruments. You look at this life as (376) stable and as not finishing. It is the mark of extreme madness and a soul without vigor to make his house a theater and to engage in such songs. If drunkenness darkens, the music weakens the vigor of the spirit, it breaks the strength of the soul and the door to the last iniquities.

"They have no regard for the work of the Lord and they do not consider the works of his hands. He means by that or his miracles or the spectacle of nature. How could they contemplate him, who make day by day, and who at night look like corpses? How could they see the sunrise, the dazzling beauty of the sky, the variety - the stars shining in the evening, the order and subordination that reigns in all creation, they who have lost the external sight and turns it interior? It is therefore a great crime that they have committed to spend their lives without contemplating the wonders that God has produced, and to consume their time in the darkness of drunkenness. "My people have become slaves because they have not known the Lord (13). He speaks of the future as a past and announces the punishment of this crime. Drunkenness alone can already be a link of punishment, since it fills the soul with trouble, and the intelligence of darkness, makes it captive, causes it a thousand diseases and inside and out. Paul knew that malice alone is a punishment; This is why he says, "Thus receiving in themselves the reward due to their misguidance. But as their insensibility was brought to this point that they were punished and did not feel it, they were sick and did not know it, he adds the threat of corporal punishment: "My people were taken captive because they did not know the Lord. And a crowd of men died from hunger and lack of water. "

Notice that the very order of his threats is a warning, and that he does not inflict (the most serious retribution): it is not captivity that punishes them first, but hunger and thirst. so that they stay at home by becoming better and that their incorrigible vices do not attract the army of barbarians.But since they have not given in and they have not taken advantage of this delay, it inflicts them and lastly, before coming to this point, he depicts in vivid and energetic terms the torment of hunger: "Hell," he says, "has enlarged his soul;" He has a soul, but the Prophet uses a prosopopoeia to threaten better, he wants to make his word expressive and throw a strong fear in the minds of the listeners, so he adds for the same purpose: "And he opened his mouth for not to close it again, "as if he were talking about some monster and he put before them the punishment that awaited them. It is serious that he does not content himself with opening his mouth, but that he always holds it gaping, without being satiated everywhere what falls into it. "And all will come down there, illustrious, great, rich, those who are the plague of Israel." - And to teach us that it is not the course of nature that will bring this event, but that this scourge will come from God, that this punishment will be sent by the sky, the Prophet announces that he will reach the illustrious, the powerful, those who upset everything, who throw confusion into the Jewish nation.

6. He calls the "plague" of Israel those who, far from keeping in themselves their wickedness, communicate it to others. Such is the character of the plague. As soon as she leaves a body, she spreads among others. "And those who rejoice in it. He who lives in delights and joy, who thinks he is safe from all event, he himself will fall and be captive. "The man will be humbled, the great will be despised and the eyes of the superb will be lowered. And alone, the Lord of armies will be glorified by this judgment (15, 16). See again how God seeks their good. He does not seek their complete ruin, he does not want all the people to perish, but he leaves some, so that the sight of the punishment of those who have been exterminated makes them better. This is what he gives to hear by saying: "The man will be humbled," that is to say, the one who will remain, who will remain. "And the Lord of hosts shall be glorified by this judgment, and the holy God shall be glorified in righteousness. He indicates two things which will result from it, namely, that men will shed their pride and become better, and that God will be a subject of admiration for all; for if he is "exalted and glorified," it will be by this punishment, by this punishment. What does this word mean by (377) this judgment? That is to say, by this vengeance.

"And they shall be scattered like bullocks, and the lambs shall feed in the deserts they have left." It indicates the small number of those who will remain, and the immense desolation of the country. "Woe to you who pull down your wickedness like a rope, and as with a belt your sins; who say, "Coming soon, what God must do, that we may see him; that the projects of the saint of Israel are realized so that we know them (18, 19). The prophets, in vain, threatened and predicted terrible things, but the false prophets who spoke only to be agreeable, and who deprived the people of all energy, said that they were deceiving, and that they themselves were alone in the truth. . Many, seduced by lies, did not believe. Besides, the prophecies not being realized at the moment when they were announced, since the proper of the prophecy is. to announce the events long beforehand, as the prophets continually threatened famines, pestilences, wars, without ever being able to show them, many took the opportunity not to milk and said: Vienna what you announce; if you say: true, that your words are fulfilled; show us in actual events the will of God. Then that they had divine patience a pretext not to believe and that their sins they added two others, first incredulity, then the indifference that brought this unbelief, it is with The reason is that the Prophet moaned on them, saying: You draw the wrath of God on you, and you aggravate your malice. Since you do not believe our words, you only have to stand the test of events. So it is you who draws evils, refusing to believe our words. This is why he says: "Woe to you who pull your iniquities like a rope! That is to say, the punishment of your iniquities. You draw from afar, he means, as with a rope, the punishment which your sins have deserved, as with the strap which fixes a heifer under the yoke, thus marking the zeal and the ardor which they put to sin. You are like the one dragging a burden by means of a strong belt, and so by your unbelief you draw on you the wrath of God. He then indicates how they attract him: "Soon comes what God has to do, so that we may see him! This is what another prophet reproaches them in these terms: "Woe to you who desire to see the day of the Lord. What will it serve you for today? There is only darkness without light, darkness without clarity. These unbelievers also said, "When will the day of retribution and vengeance come?" (Amos, V, 18, 19). Woe to you who call evil good and good evil, which turn light into darkness and darkness into light, which turn sweetness into bitterness and bitterness into sweetness (20). It's always the same thought. After accusing them of insulting and misleading prophets, of honoring the false prophets and of overthrowing the order of things, he still calls them unhappy because their judgments are corrupt. "Woe to you who call evil good (he means by that the words of the false prophets), and good evil (the words of the prophets), who change the light into darkness and darkness into light, which turn sweetness into bitterness and bitterness smoothly! The words of the prophets are hard, it is true, but there is nothing sweeter than them, since their threats must divert the unpleasant events. The words of the false prophets are sweet: but there is nothing more bitter than them, since these pleasing words will bring about too real punishments.

7. See how wisely the Prophet showed the falsity of their judgments. As they moved away from some, because their words were harsh and they drew nearer to others, because they showed more gentleness and complacency, he makes them see that it is quite the opposite, that the prophets have only sweetness and false prophets only bitterness. We will also reason about light and darkness. Some led to error, others to truth; some, binding them, so to speak, their hands, delivered them chained to the obscurity of slavery; the others did nothing to bring them to the light of your freedom. Since, therefore, the Jews had a false and unfavorable opinion of them, he rightly reproves them by saying: "Woe to those who make light darkness and darkness light! (378) Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and cautious before themselves (21)! It is not a slight fault to think oneself wise and not to be able to contain one's thoughts. This is where he comes from what he reproaches, I mean to call evil good and bad good, etc. It is also what Paul reproaches to the profane philosophers "By saying themselves wise, they became crazy. And the Proverbs say again, "I have seen a man who thinks he is wise; there is more to hope from him who has no sense. This is what Paul recalls again in these terms: "Do not be wise in your own eyes (Romans XII, 16); And again: "If any one of you seems wise according to this century, let him become mad to be wise. (I Corinthians III, 18.) That he does not confide, he means, to his own wisdom or his own thoughts, but that he rejects them and that he delivers his soul to the lessons of the 'Holy Spirit. Then, then, that there were among the Jews men who despised the prophets, because they were shepherds and goatherds, men who wanted to draw their wisdom only from themselves, an obvious sign of their folly, and who rejected the prophetic word, it is with reason that Isaiah moaned on them, saying, "Woe to those who are prudent in themselves and wise in their own eyes! Woe to those of you who are strong and drink wine, who are powerful and drunk with palm wine (22).

Do not be surprised if after having talked so much about the drunkenness a little higher, it comes back again on the same subject. Because this wound is serious and difficult to close, it must be washed often. It is serious and difficult to close, because most do not regard it as a sin, although it is the most serious of all sins, and that it leads to a thousand disorders. That's why he says, "Who drink wine, who are powerful and who drank palm wine. It is a double danger that the tyranny of drunkenness and the excess of power, All men need to keep their presence of mind, but especially those who are clothed with dignities and great power. so as not to be carried into the precipice by the weight of their charge, as by an irresistible stream of furious waters. "Which, for presents, justify the ungodly and who delight his own justice." It is a double crime to absolve the guilty and to condemn the innocent, and this double crime comes from the same origin, the present. "Therefore, as the straw is consumed by fire, and is devoured by the burning flame ..." The punishment will be prompt and the revenge easy; this image shows that their ruin will be complete.

8. That's what fire and flame, and straw, and everything else mean. "Their root will be reduced to ashes and their flowers will fall like dust. F that which is firmly fixed will perish, what is brilliant will be withered, what is beautiful will pass and flow. "For they did not obey the law of the Lord of hosts, and were indignant with the word of the holy of Israel. This word is the law. "And the Lord of hosts was angry with his people; he laid his hand against them, and he struck them; he was angry with the mountains, and their corpses were thrown like dung in the middle of the road. And all this has not satisfied his wrath, "but his arm is still lifted up." (25) The Prophet thus indicates a terrible war in which they will not be allowed to bury corpses, not that God wants revenge on the dead, but so that the punishment of others teach the living to correct itself. And see how this language is severe. He does not say that they will be deprived of burial, but that the dead will be cast with more contempt than manure, which is for the living the most terrible spectacle, even more terrible than death. But what is more serious is that all these punishments did not make them better and that they persevered in the same conduct., Then that they did not become better, it threatens them again the most serious plague, barbarians. This is why he adds: "Therefore he will lift up his standard among the nations far away." (26) For fear that the length of the road will leave the culprits in their indifference, he adds that God will bring the barbarians so easily that he who, raising the standard, is immediately followed by armed and equipped people; it is the same for horses trained in battle. As soon as the standard is raised for departure, they rush out of the gates. The Prophet, therefore, makes two things sound, that it is easy for the barbarians to come to the call of God, and that they would long ago have come (379), had his long patience not kept them.

Then he goes on and shows them that it is easier still: "With a whistle he will call them ends of the earth. Do not be surprised if, speaking of God, he uses such gross words; he proportionates his language to the stupidity of the hearers, and wants only one thing, to make them understand that it is easy for God and that they will not escape punishment; so he adds: "And immediately these nations will come with speed; they will not feel hunger or fatigue; they will not sleep. This language is hyperbolic. How could these strangers escape hunger and sleep, since they were men, and subject to the common miseries of our nature? But, as I have said above, he wishes by all these details only to show the promptitude of the invading army, its facility, its rapidity. They will not leave the harnesses with which their loins are girded and the cords of their shoes will not break. Their arrows are sharp and their bows still tense. The feet of their horses are as hard as the rock and the wheels of their tanks as fast as the storm. They rush like lions and present themselves as lion cubs. They will seize their prey by shouting like a ferocious beast, and will carry it away without anyone else taking it away. In that day they will leap upon Israel with cries similar to the rustling of the waves of the sea. They will cast their eyes upward to the sky, down to the earth, and there will be only deep darkness in their desolation (27-30.)

The Prophet uses all these details to make his language more imposing, and the terror stronger, by successively traversing each part, first the resolution, then the force, the arms, the horses, the chariots; he wishes by this long enumeration to print a deeper fear, and by these striking images put the thing under the eyes. So he compares the invaders to lions, and without stopping there he makes the roar heard, shows the anger of the monster; he continues the metaphor and uses only figures. From there he passes to the sea, saying that there will be a noise, a tumult, as when the sea is furious and its waves are raised; in a word, he resorts to everything to increase the fear and make these fatal events avoided. And what is most unfortunate is that these unfortunate people will find no help either on earth or in heaven, but deprived of any help from above, any help from below, they will fall prey to their enemies. Their misfortune will be a frightful darkness for them, not that the sun disappears in their eyes, but because at midday their disposition of mind makes them find darkness instead of light: effect that affection and pain produce often in us. And to teach you that this darkness comes, not from the air, but from the mindset of the Jews, the Prophet adds: "Deep darkness in their anguish. "

CHAPTER 6. "AND IT ARRIVED THE YEAR THAT MOURUT OZIAS. ANALYSIS.

1. Vocation and consecration of Isaiah for the prophetic ministry. How to hear these words: I live God.

2. Office of Heavenly Powers.

3. Seraphim can not stand the sight of God; what, then, is not the madness of the Anomean heretics who boast of contending with God at their ease and knowing Him perfectly?

4. The great benefit of confession.

5. Isaiah's excellent arrangement for the prophetic ministry: Here am I, Lord, send me.

6. Message that Isaiah receives from God for the Jews.

1. Why does the Prophet, who ordinarily designates armies, speak of the life of kings, despatch it by the death of Uzziah? For he does not say, "It happened during the life of Uzziah," nor "under the reign of Uzziah," but "when he died." Why does he do this in this place? It is not without reason or motive, but by a hidden design. What is it? This Uzziah, whom his good fortune had exalted, which his prosperity had intoxicated, had become too proud. Because he was king, he thought he could sacrifice, he threw himself into the temple, entered the holy of holies, and although the high priest wanted to stop him and defend him the entrance to the sanctuary, he had not taken it into account, and, persisting in his mad enterprise, he had rejected the words of the pontiff. To punish him for this impudence, God had struck him with leprosy on his forehead. For wanting to usurp the honor of others he had lost his own. For not only did he not obtain the priesthood, but became impure, he was driven out of the palace, and he spent the rest of his life, hidden in a house, unable to bear his shame. The people all. He was also punished, because he had despised the laws of the Lord and had not avenged the honor of the outraged priesthood. And how was he punished? By the cessation of the ministry of the Prophets: God in his anger did not answer anything to them any more. He did not do it for ever, however, but he put the term of the king's life to end this punishment. When this one came out of life, God also came out of his wrath and opened the doors of prophecy somehow again. It is to remind us of this that the Prophet recalls the year of the king's death. Here is the beginning of his prophecy: "It happened that in the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting. And yet Christ says, "Nobody has ever seen the Father; the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father is the one who made him known. (John, II, 18.) And again: "No, that no one has seen the Father, but he who is of God, because he has seen the Father. (John, vil. 46.) And he himself said to Moses: "No one can see my face and live yet. How can Isaiah say that he saw the Lord? "I saw," he said, "the Lord. He said nothing contrary to the words of Christ, nothing that suited them. Christ speaks indeed of a clear sight, such as no one has ever had; but none other than the Son has seen this divine nature uncovered and without shadow, and the Prophet says that he has had a view according to his own nature. He did not see what God is, but he saw it as in the figure, and God had been willing to lower himself as much as the weakness of the Seer wanted. That neither he nor the other prophets saw divinity uncovered, their words clearly show. "I saw," he said, "the Lord sitting. Praise God does not sit down; it is a figure borrowed from the body. And not only "sitting," but "on a throne. Now, nothing can contain God how could it be contained somewhere, the one who is present everywhere, who fills everything, "in whose hand are the limits of the earth? (Ps. XCIV, 4.) This shows that if this vision took place, it was because God was lowering himself. This is what another prophet, speaking in the name of God, says: "I have multiplied the visions (Hosea, xii, 10); That is to say, I let myself be seen in various ways. If it were his pure substance that one had discovered, one would not have seen it in various ways. But to show that it was by condescension that he allowed himself to be seen by the prophets, sometimes in this way, sometimes from this other, conforming these visions to the various circumstances, he said: "I have multiplied the visions, and the prophets have represented to you under different images. I did not seem like I was, he meant, but I complied with the weakness of those who looked at me. So you see, sometimes seated, sometimes armed, sometimes covered with white hair, sometimes in the open air, sometimes in the fire, now; diverting, sometimes on cherubim, sometimes at last, more brilliant than the most brilliant metals. To say why it appears sometimes armed and covered with blood, sometimes in the fire, sometimes turning away, sometimes in the sky, sometimes on a throne, sometimes on the cherubim, this is not here the place, lest the off -work does not absorb the work. However, the present vision demands that (381) we examine it. Why then does he appear seated on a throne, and surrounded by seraphs? He borrows the customs of men, because he addresses men. As he was going to speak of great things which concerned all the earth, or Jerusalem in particular, he pronounces a double sentence, the one by which he announces a great punishment to the capital and to the whole nation, the other by which he promises to the earth a great benefit, great hopes and immortal honor.

2. When rendering a sentence, it is customary not to do so in secret, but to sit on an elevated platform, to be surrounded by all, and to open the curtains. It is to imitate those judges of the earth that God is surrounded by seraphim, and that he sits on a high throne to pronounce his judgment. And to show you that this is not a conjecture, but it is the custom of the Lord to do so, I want you to see the same thing in another prophet. When, in the prophet Daniel, he is on the point of pronouncing an important sentence about the punishments and punishments that the Jews have attracted and the great goods that are going to be given to the earth, we see here also a thrilling throne and splendid, legions of angels that surround him, multitudes of archangels, the only Son sitting next to the Father, books that are open, rivers of fire that roll their terrible waves, all the device finally d a formidable tribunal. And our passage is quite similar to that one, or rather that one is clearer still, the times having become closer and the prophecy having come to an end. But let the studious men make the comparison of these prophecies, to seize their likeness, let us hasten to return to the first, and let us stop with every word as much as possible. This is how everything we said will become clearer for you and for us. What does the Prophet say? "I saw the Lord sitting. To sit on a throne is always the mark of a judge, according to the words of David: "You have sat on a throne, you who judge justice; And this one from Daniel: "The thrones were brought and the judges sat down." This state of sitting alone marks yet another thing, according to the same prophet. What? Fixity, firmness, solidity, eternity, endless life. That is why it is said: You are seated for eternity, and we perish (1). You, you live, you are, you live, you always stay the same. He does not speak of the siege, the opposite member shows it well. He does not say indeed, we are standing, but we perish. To sit on a throne is therefore to judge; This is why the Prophet sees God seated on a high and high throne; perhaps the meaning of these two words is not the same. The throne was high, that is to say, large, very long; high, that is to say placed at an unspeakable height. "And the house was filled with his glory. " Which house? Tell me. The temple. As from there came the subject of his anger, it was right that it was there that he showed himself in this admirable vision. What he calls his glory is that splendor, that inaccessible light which, despairing of being able to give by word, he calls glory, and not only glory, but glory of God. "Seraphim were standing encircled at the turn of him. What does he call seraphim? These incorporeal and celestial powers, whose name alone indicates virtue and happiness. For this word of the Hebrew language is interpreted by mouths of fire.

What does this circumstance teach us? The purity of this nature, his vigilance, his diligence, his agility, his strength, his simplicity. Likewise the prophet David, to show how the ministry of the powers from on high is quick, quick, active, says, "Who serve you the winds to make them your messengers, and burning flames to make them your ministers (Ps. CIII, 4); Words by which he shows us their velocity, their lightness, their rapidity. It is the same with those powers who, by pure songs, praise the Lord, continually fulfill this office, constantly offering him their praises and homage. What shows their dignity is that they are placed near the throne. As well as in the service of the kings of the earth, those who are higher in dignity, stand near the throne; Thus these heavenly powers, because of their superior virtue, surround the throne from on high, endlessly enjoying unspeakable happiness, and eternally delighting in this sublime ministry. "One had six wings and the other six, of two they veiled their feet, of, two they veiled the face, and of the two others they flew. They cried to one another and said: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of armies. The earth is full of his "glory. What do these wings tell us? These powers have no wings since they have no body; but by these sensible figures, the Prophet wants to make us understand hidden things, he condescends by that to the weakness of those who listened to him, and yet, by this condescension, he makes us understand excellently thoughts that surpass all intelligence.

3. What do these wings mean? The elevated and sublime nature of these powers. Thus we are shown Gabriel flying and descending from heaven, to teach us his speed and lightness. And will you be surprised if the Prophet uses these expressions in speaking of the powers that serve God, when he did not disdain to lower himself to this means, by speaking of God himself, of the God of the universe? For, wishing to show either his incorporeality or the speed with which he is present everywhere, David says: "He who walks on the wings of the winds (Ps. CIII, 3); The winds, however, have no wings, and God does not walk on their wings. How, indeed, would it be, since it is present everywhere? But, as I said before, the Prophet condescends to the weakness of the listeners and uses things that they can understand to elevate their thought. It is thus that, in order to show the assistance he receives and the safety that this help gives him, he uses the same expressions, saying, "You will protect me in the shade of your wings. Here the Prophet does not only wish, by means of these wings, to make us understand the elevation and sublimity of these powers, but also another thing which must strike us with terror. He shows us that, although this vision was only a shadow, an act of condescension, yet the celestial powers themselves were incapable of rising to that height of God which was lowering. For if they hid their feet and their backs, it was because they were frightened, that they dreaded splendor, that they could not endure the brilliancy which issued from the throne. So they made themselves as a bulwark of their wings to darken the brilliance of this vision; they felt what we feel when thunder roars and lightning shines, and we bend down to the earth.

Now, if the seraphim, these great and admirable powers, could not look with trembling God sitting and seated on a throne, if they hid the face and the feet, who will say the madness of those who boast to know perfectly God, who make curious inquiries on this immortal nature? "From the other two they were flying, and they were screaming. What does this flight mean and what does it mean? That they are constantly around God, that they do not depart from him, that their office is always the same, sing incessantly with him and praise continually their Creator. For he did not say, "Shouted," but "shouted," that is to say, they constantly fulfill this duty. "One to the other and they dared: Holy, Holy, Holy. This indicates that their agreement was perfect and their agreement to praise God complete. This song is not only a praise, but a prophesy of the goods that the earth will receive and a very just expression of the dogma. But why, after saying "Saint" once, were they not silent? why did not they stop even after saying it twice? why did they repeat it three times in a row before taking a break? Is it not obvious that it was because they were singing a hymn to the Trinity? So Saint John applies this hymn to the Son, Saint Luke to the Holy Spirit, and the Prophet to the era. And the rest expresses the same thought. For after this song they add: "All the earth is full of his glory. These words are an exact prophecy; they predict the future knowledge which was to fill the whole earth with the glory of God, whereas on the contrary, in antiquity and at the very moment when these words were pronounced, the whole earth, and even Judea, was filled with iniquity, and no one glorified God. And the Prophet testifies, who says, "Because of you, my name is blasphemed among the nations. (Ps. LII, 5.) When was the earth filled with her glory? When this hymn was brought to earth, when men sang with the heavenly powers, that they have heard more than one song, resound that same praise. (read if an impudent Jew refuses to believe me, to show me when the earth has been filled with the glory of God, this glory which comes from knowledge, but he could never show it to me, when he would deny me a thousand times. "The top of the (383) door was shaken by the sound of this great shout." Do you see the clarity of the prophecy and how things follow each other? When this song had sounded and the earth had been filled from the glory of God, the Jewish nation disappeared, as indicated by the top of the door shaken.

4. Indeed, it is a sign that the temple will be abandoned and overthrown; when the temple is overthrown, all the rest will disappear. And to teach you that the New Testament abrogated the Old, the Prophet said, "The top of the door was shaken by the sound of that loud cry," that is to say, when this hymn of praise came true hear, when grace shone, when the glory of God spread over all the earth, the shadows vanished. "And the house was filled with smoke. In my opinion, this prophesies the ruin that will reach it, the fire that foreigners will put in it, and the fire that will devour it. "Then I say, Unhappy that I am! My affliction is great, I am a man, of unclean lips, living in the midst of a people whose lips are unclean, and who have seen with my own eyes the Lord of Hosts. This vision terrified, stupefied the Prophet; she has given him a strong fear, she makes him make a confession, and thanks to her, he knows better the weakness of his nature. "So are all the saints; the more they are honored, the more they humble themselves; Abraham, when he speaks to God, is called earth and dust; Paul, after having been judged worthy of this admirable vision, is called aborton; in the same way Isaiah deplores his condition, first of all because of his nature: "Unhappy that I am! My affliction is great, I am a man; Then, because of his dispositions: "I who help unclean lips." He calls his impure lips relatively, it seems to me, to the inflamed tongues of these excellent powers, and so to their homage so perfect. Then, without stopping there, he makes humiliating confessions in the name of all the people, and adds: "I who live in the midst of a people whose lips are impure. Why does he here accuse their lips? To mark that he does not dare to speak. The three children in the furnace used almost the same expressions: "We are not allowed to open our mouths. And when the time had come to sing and praise, to see the angels perform this office, it is not without reason that he speaks from the lips, since it was for them especially to fulfill this ministry. This is why he calls his impure lips; and if he also calls those of the people impure, it is not for the same reason, but because the people were addicted to iniquity. "And I saw with my own eyes the King, the Lord. This is what makes me moan and cry; it is because I have been judged worthy of this honor, and I am unworthy of it, of that honor which surpasses both my merits and my nature. And when he says, "I saw," he does not mean to speak of a complete view, but of that which was possible for him.

And see how his confession is rewarded. He accused himself and immediately he was purified; for when he had spoken these words, "One of the seraphim," said he, "was sent to me; he had in his hand a coal which he had taken with tweezers from above the altar. And having touched my mouth, he said to me, "This coal has touched your lips, that it has taken away your sins, and has cleansed your iniquities." (6,7) "Some say these were symbols of future mysteries: the altar, the fire that burned there, the servants, that mouth purified by fire, and those sins erased; for us, let us relate to the story, and say why it happened. The Prophet will be sent to the Jewish people to announce terrible and terrible things. Seraphim are sent to him to fill him with fear and frankness. And so that he should not pretend, like Moses, that he had a slender voice, or like Jeremiah that he was too young and say that he had impure lips, that he could not execute the order that he had received, the seraphim come to blot out his sins, not by their own power (this belongs only to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit), but by the mission they had been given and the coals that they bring him. For the seraphim does not say, "I wipe out," but "behold, this charcoal wipes away your sins and cleanses your iniquities." By the command of Him who sent me. Why does the seraph, to take this coal, use a tweezer? An intangible power can not be afraid of burning itself with a coal. Why does this happen? It's another new condescension. So he will take it on the altar where sacrifices of worship and atonement were offered. If you ask why the mouth of the (384) Prophet was not burnt, I will answer you first of all that this fire was not a sensible fire, although it had the appearances, then that when God operates some you must not do curious and difficult research on your operation.

5. What do I say, one has sometimes seen a fire burning and sensible to reproduce the effect which is peculiar to it on bodies delivered to it? If, then, in this furnace filled with branches and pitch, the flame forgot its own nature, why surprise you that in such an extraordinary circumstance fire, far from consuming, only served to purify? "I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who shall go to this people? Do you see what the vision produced, the good that the fear has done? The same thing happened to Moses. If he saw neither the seraphim nor God seated on a throne, the sight that appeared to him was not less strange, it was even so amazing that no one could have contemplated it. For "the bush burned, without being consumed. (Exodus III, 2.) And yet, after this great prodigy, and although God had greatly encouraged him, the great Moses hesitated, he imagined a thousand pretexts to escape his mission: "I have," he said. , "The voice is small and the tongue awkward." (Exod IV, 10, 13.) Another prophet says. "Choose another, Lord, to send it. It is Jeremiah who speaks thus in alleging his youth (Jeremiah I, 16.) Ezekiel, although he had received a precise order, still remains seven days near the river, full of hesitation and not feeling the same. force to accomplish his mission. And God says to him again, "I made you to watch over the house of Israel; And again: "I will ask you again of their souls" (Ezek III, 17, 18.) Jonah did more than refuse, he fled. What ! Is Isaiah more bold than they all, bolder than the great Moses? Who would dare to say it? Why, then, does one hesitate after having received the order, while the other, without an evident command, ardently embraces this office of prophet? God does not say to him: Go, but he only says, "Whom shall I send? And Isaiah leaves immediately. Some say that after having sinned by not taking back Uzziah from his sacrilegious daring, he wanted to repair his fault, accepting with eagerness the mission that he did. He gave God to appease him; for this reason his lips, he said, were impure, because he had not spoken frankly. But I can not agree with this opinion; Paul is more worthy of faith, he who calls Isaiah man without fear: "Isaiah does not fear to say. It is afraid that he did not end his life with a natural death, but the Jews inflicted the last punishment on him, because they could not bear his energetic tanning. Besides, the Scripture nowhere says that he was present when Uzziah showed his daring, or that the seer himself was silent: those who affirm it make only a base conjecture. What shall we say then? That the ministry of Moses and this one are not alike. One is sent to a furious and foolish king in a foreign and barbarous country, the other is sent to his compatriots, who had often heard the prophets and received their instructions for a long time the obedience of the one did not require the same courage as that of the other. Some still say that it was another cause which gave him this boldness. As he had confessed in his name and in the name of the people, and a seraphim had been sent to him to purify his lips, he hoped that the same favor would be given to the people and that he would be a deputy to announce it to him. This would be the reason why he would have shown no sign of eagerness. If the saints love God, they are also the ones who love men the most. Also, as Isaiah hoped that he would have to announce to the people the forgiveness of his sins, he hastened to exclaim: "Here am I: send me. "

Besides, he had a brave soul against danger, which is what his whole ministry shows us. Since, after his promise, he no longer dared to refuse, he received his sad message. But see how wisely God is handling it! He does not tell him at once: Go and say, but he holds him for a moment in suspense before revealing to him what order he will give him, what mission he must confide to him. Then, when he sees him ready to obey, he declares to him the evils which will strike at the Jews. What are they? "Go and tell this people: You will hear and you will not understand; you will look and you will not see. For the heart of this people is hardened, their ears are clogged, and their eyes closed, lest their eyes see, and their ears hear, and their hearts understand, and not become converted (385) and that I do not heal them (9, 10). "All commentary is useless, since this passage has had such eminent interpreters, I mean, John, the son of thunder, and Paul, who knew so well the Old and the New Testament. The latter, addressing Rome to persons who had listened to him, but who could not bear his doctrine, had said to them: "The Holy Ghost has said, You will hear and understand nothing. As for the son of thunder, as the Jews saw miracles and did not believe, heard the doctrine and did not embrace it, they had seen Lazarus risen and they wanted to kill the Christ who had restored him to life; Jesus had cast out demons and they called him possessed of the devil; he had offered them to his Father, and they called him a seducer; they adopted opinions contrary to the truth about him. John reminded them of this prophecy in the following terms: "The prophet Isaiah said it well: you will hear and not understand; you will see and not discern. (John, xii, 38, 40.)

6. As in them the inner eyes of the soul were blinded, it was of no use to them to have open eyes of the body, if their judgment was corrupted. This is why they heard without understanding and saw without discerning; and the Prophet indicates the cause which resided not in the corruption of their senses, nor in the depravity of their nature, but in the blindness of their heart. "The heart of this people is hardened; But this hardening is caused by sins and passions. It is from him that St. Paul says: "I could not speak to you as to spiritual men; you could not stand this language and you can not yet. (I Corinthians III, 1.) And he indicates the cause in these terms: "Since there are between you lawsuits, jealousy, rivalries," are you not carnal men? These, too, blinded by hatred and envy, a prey to a thousand other passions, had lost the eye of their intelligence, and could no longer have a clear view of things. so their thoughts about the things they saw were moving away from the truth and contradicting each other. The prophet, who knew their condition perfectly, discovered in advance the cause of the evil. But see to whom are entrusted the two prophecies! it is the seraphim who manifest the one who looks at the Church and the goods promised to the earth, saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of armies, all the earth is full of his glory; As to whoever looks upon the captivity and chastisements of the Jews; they leave it to the Prophet and thus teach us the superiority of the Church.

"And I said, How long, Lord? Do you see that our conjectures were well founded, when we said that the Prophet had shown much readiness to obey? After learning things very contrary to those he expected, I mean plagues, disasters, he wants to know how far punishment will go; for he dares not undertake to turn away from them all the wrath of the Lord, because God first showed him that their sins deserve no pardon. Their crime, in fact, was neither robbery nor the spirit of robbery, but an affected disobedience, a spirit of contradiction that was systematically opposed and biased against what God was doing. This is what the Prophet says in these terms: "lest their eyes see, their hearts understand, they convert, and I heal them. "As if they feared," he said, "to learn what to know, they put all their care to blind their intelligence. As the crime was serious and the punishment inevitable, the Prophet wishes to learn what he still does not know; but while wanting to learn from it he begs. Since he did not dare to show clearly that he was begging, he imagines questioning on the pretext of learning, "How long, Lord?" And he says, "Until the cities are deserted and deprived of their power. inhabitants, until the houses no longer have any dwelling there; and the earth will be deserted. And then God will banish men far from their land, and those who have been left on the earth will multiply: for one tenth will remain. And this very part will be smitten, and it will become like the fruit of the terebinth or as the acorn out of its envelope, and the race which will be born from it will be holy (11-13). After this prophecy, he returns to the story, foretells the defeat of the ten tribes, then the patience with which God, because of this captivity, will make use of the two tribes; then how will the latter be taken away, in their turn, because they have not (386) removed from the celestial patience any profit, how finally their debris will flourish again. When he says "until their cities are deserted and deprived of inhabitants," he announces the ruin of the ten tribes. Indeed, all of them, I repeat, had disappeared, and violently removed, all had been taken to a foreign country, so that all the cities were deserted and no one was there to produce fruit necessary to those who remained. So saying, "Until the cities are deserted and deprived of inhabitants, until the houses have no one to live in them," he announces captivity. And when he says, "Then God will banish your men away from their land," he announces either complete happiness for all, or the prosperity of the two tribes after the departure of the ten others. And in fact, having been delivered from Sennacherib and the army of the barbarians, having obtained this unexpected victory, they saw their number increase prodigiously, and their life prolonged, because no war disturbed them more. Then saying "he went away," he wants to speak of men or armies. And to make you see that he speaks of the two tribes, he adds, "there will remain one tenth," calling tenth what exceeds ten, which is above ten, that is to say, the two tribes. This is how Paul says "more than five hundred brothers (I Corinthians XV, 10)," that is to say, a number greater than five hundred. "And this very part will be smitten, and it will become like the terebinth," that is to say, the two tribes. "Or like the glans out of his envelope. Just as this fruit, once taken out of its envelope, is unpleasant to see, so they will be an object of ridicule and mockery, when they are banished from their city and deprived of their glory. "And the race that is born of it will be holy. These evils, he says, will be neither without cure nor without term; their race will be holy and it will remain, that is to say, it will be firm, fixed, motionless, and it will be able to wait for the face of events to change. It is true that they will lose their prosperity; but they will not have to suffer extreme ills; they will remain and remain until they return to their first way of life and their first holiness.

CHAPTER 7. "AND HE ARRIVED DURING THE DAYS OF ACHAZ, SON OF JOATHAN, SON OF OZIAS, KING OF JUDA. "

ANALYSIS.

1. God uses the prophecies already accomplished to make those who will only receive their fulfillment believe in a distant time. Sometimes, as in the New Testament, he unites a miracle and a prophecy, so that those who see the miracle will believe in the prophecy, and those who will witness the fulfillment of the prophecy also believe in the miracle wrought in union with the prophecy. prophecy.

2 and 3. Prediction of the ruin of Ephraim and Syria.

4-7. Promise of the Emmanuel: This is why the Lord will give you a sign himself. Behold, the Virgin will conceive in her bosom and give birth to a son, whose name will be called Emmanuel, etc. Very interesting commentary of this important passage.

8-9. Prediction of the Assyrian invasion.

1. I will repeat here what I have already said many times, that the purpose of the prophecies was not only to teach the Jews the future, but to make sure that this knowledge was advantageous to them, that fear caused by threats made them wiser, that the hope of rewards made them more zealous for virtue, and that they knew by what power and what God's providence was over them. Such is the reason for the kind of prologue which opens this prophecy; it was to prevent us from believing that these events happened (387) at random and without rule, according to the course of nature or a certain order of things, and to teach the Israelites that they were directed from above and by the will of God, which should singularly help them to know God. But, as I have already said above, the prophecy did not have its proof at the very moment and the words preceded by much the events, so that when they arrived, some were already dead and could not judge the truth of what they had heard, see what God does and what means He takes. He joins prophecy to prophecy, the nearest to the most distant, showing thus by those whose current generation will see the realization, the faith that must be given to those who will arrive much later. In the Gospel, it is by another means that he reaches the same end; there he binds miracles to prophecies and confirms one by another. This is what I mean: a leper approaches Jesus and is cleansed; then the servant of the centurion is delivered from his sickness; these were great miracles; but without stopping at the miracles, he adds a prophecy. For when the centurion had shown that faith so vivid, so admirable, by which he deserved that his servant be healed, Christ added: "Many will come from the East and from the West and will have their place in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham. Isaac and Jacob, while the children of the kingdom will be banished. With these words, Jesus prophesies the vocation of the Gentiles and the reprobation of the Jews, events which are now realities and are to everyone's wishes more clear than the sun; but then they were obscure, and the unbelievers refused to admit them; so Christ, by the miracle he did then, led his hearers to firmly believe what he proclaimed for a more distant time, just as today seeing the fulfillment of the prophecy, we believe more firmly the miracle that took place then. What could the unbeliever answer? That the leper has not been cleansed? Let him see the truth of the prophecy and make it believe in the miracle. What could contemporary Jews have answered? That what he announced was not true? But they had only to see the purified leper, and learn from what had been done to him not to refuse to believe what they did not see; to assure them of the prophecy they had the miracle, as those of today have the prophecy to assure them of the miracle. Do you see one thing confirm the other?

The same conduct is seen in the Old Testament. When Jeroboam gave himself up to these excesses of madness and raised these golden calves, a prophet came to announce the future to him and on arriving he did a miracle, so that no one would refuse to believe in things that were to arrive at the end of three hundred years; he broke the altar, threw away the fat of the sacrifices, and paralyzed the king's hand, thus giving, by the wonders of that moment, a clear proof of the reality of the things which were to come long afterwards. Such has often been the conduct (the God in the Old and New Testaments, of God who, by these various means, provided for our salvation, which is what happens here and even in a more extraordinary way; only by a miracle, he made both a prophecy and a miracle, but to interpret this story better, let us look closely at it: "It came to the time of Ahaz the son of Joathan the son of Uzziah king of Judah; And it came to pass, I say, that Basin king of Syria, and Phacena the son of Romelie king of Israel, went to Jerusalem to attack it, and they could not take it; from David, whom Aram had made with Ephraim (1, 2). "It is a story that these words, an exposition of facts, but for the one who has intelligence, penetration, there is He will see the wisdom of God and His providence over the Jews, He did not repress this war from its origin, and He did not allow the enemies to seize the but, while making threats, he prevented the effect, for he only wished to awaken the Jews, to bring them out of their torpor and to show his power, since, even when the danger has become imminent, he can deliver as easily as if the same danger were yet to be born, something you may notice in many circumstances, for example, in the furnace of Babylon, in the lion's den, and in rags on other occasions. These kings came, they besieged the city, but all their efforts only led to attacking the walls and frightening the besieged.

2. And this shows us that the crime of the ten tribes was not only to have lit a civil war and to have taken up arms (389) against their brethren, but also to have bound themselves with the peoples born of Another family, of another race, to have taken as their allies nations with whom all communication was forbidden to them, to have placed their camp beside them, and to have besieged the city with them. For they made Basin, a stranger, walk against their metropolis. And the forces of the combatants were unequal. In some, an innumerable multitude, cities, nations, peoples; among the others, none of this, but only one city, the capital, so that the strength of God might appear with more brilliance. Nobody, indeed, raised his arms against these enemies, nobody attacked them, no one worried them, and yet their perverse efforts did not succeed. "For," said the Prophet, "they could not take it. And what prevented them? Only the hand of God, who invisibly pushed them away. However, as I said, he made the evil disappear without immediately removing the fear. "And it was told at the house of David that Aram had leagued with Ephraim. And the heart of the king and the heart of his people were seized. When God prepares himself to do something amazing, he does not immediately perform the miracle, but he first lets those who are to collect the fruit, how much their evils are serious, so that after their deliverance they are careful not to show the slightest ingratitude. Since, in fact, most men, either out of pride or negligence, forget their evils when they are delivered from them, or, if they do not forget them, attribute to themselves all the glory, God let them first feel their troubles and then deliver them from their enemies, which he did especially in this circumstance. He let fear take possession of hearts, he delivers them in prey to a great dejection, and then he sends deliverance. This is what happened to the great David. The Lord was to lead him to battle and raise a shining trophy by his hands; but he did not do so from the commencement of the war; At first he left the Israelites a prey to fear for forty days, and when they regarded their salvation as desperate, that the barbarian Goliath threw them a thousand insults without anyone daring to rise up and march against him; then, I say, while they themselves confessed their defeat, and their helplessness had become evident, he sent to the war this young man and made him win this astonishing victory. And if after all this, after such a proof of helplessness, Saul, when he was delivered, let himself go to hatred and jealousy, and set up ambushes for David; if he allowed himself to be conquered by his passion and was ungrateful. to his benefactor, what would he not have done if he, if his army had not so highly confessed their cowardice?

ou will see God doing so in many other circumstances, especially in this one. He intended to deliver the Israelites from this war and to remove from them all danger; but he lets them feel their troubles first. "The heart of the king and the heart of his people were seized and trembled, as the trees of the forests shake with the wind tremble. It is the characteristic of the prophecy to reveal the hidden things. She shows us the disposition of everyone and, for clarity, she adds an image to show how extreme this fear was. Their heart, she said, was agitated; they were in utter prostration, they despaired of their salvation, they thought they were in extreme danger, they were not expecting anything good, all were betrayed by their own thoughts. What does God do? He foretold their deliverance, and immediately he worked it, so that they could not attribute to any other the lifting of the siege, and he sent his prophet to announce the future. "The Lord said to Isaiah, Go to meet Ahaz, and Jasub your son, who dwelt at the pool on the top of the field of Foulon, and say to him, 'Do not be in the agitation or terror, and your soul does not fall into despair and have no fear of these two smoking sticks; for when my anger is gone up, I will save you again (3: 4). What is it to say, "Go ahead? ". The king, agitated by fear and fear, was not tranquil; he could not remain in his palace; but, what the besieged usually do, he continually goes out to visit the ramparts, the gates, running on all sides, meaning ceases in agitation to know where the enemies were; wherefore he saith unto him, Go to meet. What does it mean to say, "You and Jasub, your son who stayed with you?" Jasub, in the Hebrew language, means conversation and way of life. This is how Jesse sending David told him, "You will know their condition," that is, you (389) will tell me how they are doing and what they are doing.

3. And here again, it seems to me, the Prophet is commanded to take a large number of witnesses, so that after the event the king can not be ungrateful, as if the prophet had not nothing announced. Here is what he means: Go to meet you and those who are with you, those of the people who have remained. Do not be surprised if he calls the people his son; for he said before, "Here I am," I and the children that God has given me "(Isaiah, VIII, 18.) And certainly the saints were really fathers and surpassed, by their charity and their love for this people all those to whom nature has given the name of father. He said: "who have remained," because the war had taken away many, "on the way to the field of the Foulon. This seems very difficult to explain, that besieged people confined in their city and not even daring to look beyond the walls, have shown themselves out of doors, for today this road is situated outside the gates. What is the solution of this difficulty? It is because formerly the city had a second wall; she had two enclosures of fortifications, and you will easily see it by the words of another prophet, if you want to pay attention to it. This prophet therefore goes out to lift up these slaughterings and tries to give them hope for the future. Be quiet, says the Lord, and do not be afraid; he calls these two kings fire; and so he marks with one stroke and their strength and weakness. For he adds "smoking," that is to say, close to extinction. Then, to show that it was not by their power, but by God's permission that they had come to attack the city, he said: "When my anger is mounted, I will save you again. The son of Aram and the son of Romelie, united in a sinister design, as well as Ephraim, said against you, We will go up to Judea and ravage her. acting by mutual agreement, we will make it fall into our traps and we will establish there for king the son of Tabéel. This is what the Lord of Hosts says: These thoughts will not subsist and have no effect. Damascus will remain the capital of Syria and Basin will reign in Damascus, and in sixty-five years, Ephraim will cease to be in the rank of peoples. Samaria will be the capital of Ephraim, and the son of Romelie will reign in Samaria. And if you do not believe, you will not understand (5, 9). "

Here again, the Prophet gives his prophecy an excellent confirmation. After he has excited fear, put under the eyes of imminent evils, made hope for goods still far removed and surpassing all expectations, as the hearers were not very firm in their faith, here is the means he employs It gives, from the reality of future events, the most striking proof, by making known the very designs of the enemies. He makes known the thought that they had while walking on the city, what they said to each other, the pact they had made before leaving and it shows or that it was a betrayal (acting of by mutual agreement, we will make it fall into our trap), or that a foolish pride had seized them, since they believed they needed no weapons, no fight, no fight to take the city. It is enough for us to show ourselves, to speak; we will take them all and we will go away. Then, as often happens to boasters, swollen with pride by this very hope, they think of a king, as if the city were already taken, and they seek what master to give to this capital. This, he says, is what they do; but God will confuse these projects. This is why he says, "This is what the Lord says," and without stopping there, he adds, "armies. When, indeed, he wishes to announce something great, he recalls the power of God, his dominion over all things, this astonishing and admirable strength. What does God say? "These thoughts will not subsist and have no effect: Damascus will remain the capital of Syria. His power, he means, his authority will be limited to Damascus and will not go further. "And Basin will reign in" Damascus, "and Basin will continue to be the king of Damascus, that is, he will remain in his present possessions, without acquiring greater power. "And in sixty years Ephraim will cease to be of the rank of peoples. "

4. It is a very great proof of the truth to see the prophets assign the precise time in advance, and thus give those who desire it the means to ascertain the value of the prophecy. For today, he says, they will only withdraw from the city; but in sixty-five years the kingdom of Israel will perish; the enemies will take them and take them all. But until this ruin they will not have anything more than what they have now. These words are said to completely reassure Ahaz. Indeed, if the Prophet were content to say: in sixty-five years your enemies will perish, the king may have said to himself: But what! if they are to perish only after having conquered us, what advantage will it accrue to us? Be quiet, says Isaiah, even for the present moment; later they will perish entirely, and for the moment they can not grow. But Samaria will be the capital of Ephraim, that is to say of the ten tribes (there was their government), and they will not extend beyond; and the king of Israel shall reign in Samaria, and repeat here what he says of Damascus, to show that they have nothing more than what they have now. Then, as the things he had just announced surpassed all human intelligence and all reasoning, he is right to add. "If you do not believe, you will not understand. Do not seek, he means, how nor in what way will these things happen; for it is God who will do them, it is only necessary to believe and to think of the power of the one who will act: that is all the proof of what I have announced. This is also why the prophet David says, "I believed, that's why I spoke. (Ps. CXV, 10.) And Paul, taking this word with good reason, gives him still more meaning, saying, "Having the same spirit of faith, as it is written, I have believed, that's why I spoke, and we too believe and that's "also why we talk. Indeed, if faith were necessary for these ancient things, as far removed from those of the New Testament as the earth is far from heaven, how much more is it not necessary for these truths? so high and no intelligence has ever understood. This is what the Apostle says in what follows: "What the eye has not seen, what the ear has not heard, what is not mounted in the heart of the man, this is what God has prepared for those who love him. (I Corinthians II, 9)

"And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, and he said, Ask the Lord your God to show you a wonder, whether in the depths of the earth or in the highest heaven. And Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. And Isaiah said, Hear now, O house of David: Is it not enough for you to weary the patience of men, without boring that of God? So the Lord will give you a sign himself. Behold, the Virgin will conceive and she will give birth to a son who will be called Emmanuel "(10-14). Great is the condescension of God and great also the ingratitude of the king. The latter must, on hearing the Prophet, no longer doubt his words; that if he retained doubt, he should have driven him away, as many Jews did, on seeing a miracle. For God, in his love for men, did not refuse prodigies to these rude men, crawling and attached to the earth; this is what happened, for example, to Gideon (1). As Ahaz was very rude, incredulous, see how condescending God is. He himself attracts and excites him to ask for a miracle; certainly it was not a little prodigy to have revealed his secrets, to have unveiled all his thoughts, to have manifested all his hypocrisy. When the Prophet had said to him, Ask a miracle, this ungodly man made the believer, and said, I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord; see how vehemently the Prophet resumes it; and it is with good reason that, after showing his hypocrisy, he accuses him with more severity. This is why he does not judge him worthy of an answer and addressing the people he says: "Listen, then, house of David: Is it little for you to weary the patience of men, without boring that of God? ? And how do you tire that of God? This is obscure; We also make every effort to clarify this word. This is what he means: are they my words? Are these my thoughts? If it is a fault worthy of blame to refuse without any motive, for no reason, to believe men, how much more to believe God! To lose patience is, therefore, nothing more than to be incredulous. Is this, he says, a weak crime? Is it a slight fault to refuse to believe men? But if this is serious, how much more refuse to believe God!

5. The Prophet spoke thus to teach everyone that he had not been deceived, and that he judged not from the words that he had heard, but from the thoughts of Ahaz. This is what Christ has done so often in the Gospel. Before manifesting itself by miracles, he reproaches the Jews for their wickedness, although they had not yet shown it outside: this is what happened, for example, when the paralytic was cured. In fact, after having told him: "My son, trust me; your sins are given to you, "as they said in themselves," This one blasphemes, "Christ, before strengthening the paralytic, addresses them to them:" Why do you think evil in your hearts? He gives them the greatest proof of his divinity by showing them that he knows secret thoughts. "For it is written, only you know the courses. "(III Kings, VIII, 39.) And David said again," God who scrutinizes hearts and loins. God often gave this knowledge to the prophets to show that their words were not human, but that they came from above, from heaven. That is why this Isaiah with the great voice, after having shown so much sweetness in speaking to the king, to have removed him from danger, to have reassured him for the present, and to have given him as a pledge of the truth of his prophecy the revelation of the designs formed by the enemy, the discovery of treason, the announcement of a complete and absolute ruin for Israel, the precise determination of the time, Isaiah, I say, without being content with that, is going to still further, he does not wait for the king to ask for a miracle, he exhorts him despite his excessive disbelief; moreover, he leaves him the master of the choice: he does not tell him "such or such a miracle," but "whatever you want." The Master is rich, his power infinite, his power unspeakable. Do you want it in the sky, nothing opposes it; on the earth, no obstacle. This is what these words mean "or at the bottom of the earth or in the highest heaven. As he himself did not decide, the Prophet, far from being silent, added a severe reproach, and that, to convert the king, to show him that he had not been able to deceive, to give the change on his he announces an ineffable event, he prophesies the salvation of the earth and the renovation of all things, and he says that this sign will not be for Ahaz alone, but for all the people.

In the beginning he addressed the king; but when he had revealed his unworthiness, he spoke to all the people: "So," he said, "he will give a sign, not to the law, but to you. Who are you? To you who are in the house of David. It is from there as from a stem that this sign will emerge. And what sign? "Behold, the Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son who will be called Emmanuel. It must be observed, as I said above, that it is no longer in Achaz that this sign is given. This is not a conjecture: see the accusations and blame of the Prophet: "Is it little for you to weary the patience of men?" And he adds, "This is why the Lord will give you a sign . Behold, the virgin will conceive. If she had not been a virgin, it would not have been a sign. For a sign must come out of the usual order of things, from the ordinary course of nature, to have something strange, even strange, to be noticed by everyone who sees and hears it. That's why it's called a sign, because it means. But it would not mean if it remained hidden in the usual order of things. So if the Prophet had spoken of a woman giving birth according to the ordinary course of nature, why call "sign" something that happens every day? So he does not say in the beginning, here is a virgin, but "here is the virgin", wanting to mark by the addition of the article that this virgin was remarkable and alone among all. That this addition has the indicated meaning, we can see in the Gospel. When indeed the Jews sent to ask John, "Who are you? They did not say to him, "Are you Christ," but, "Are you the Christ? They did not say, "You are a prophet," but: "Are you the Prophet? John, I, 19-25. That is to say, Christ, the Prophet par excellence. St. John does not say beginning with the Gospel: "In the beginning was a Word," but: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in God. (John, I, 1.) Similarly here, Isaiah does not say: Behold, a virgin, but "Behold the virgin," and he puts forth, as it was worthy of a prophet to do, "Here is that. These events indeed, he saw them almost, he pictured them by the imagination, they were obvious to him. your prophets saw future events more clearly than we see what is happening before our eyes. Our senses can be wrong; the grace of the Holy Ghost removed them from error.

6. And why not add that this conception would take place by the virtue of the Holy Spirit? It was a prophecy, and it was necessary to speak in an obscure manner, as I have often said, because of the grossness of the hearers, lest an exact knowledge of (392) things should cause them to burn the books. saints. If they did not spare the prophets, for all the more reason they would not have spared their books. This is not a simple conjecture because another king, in the time of Jeremiah, tears the Bible and delivers it to the flames (Jeremiah, XXXVI, 23.) Do you see this intolerable madness, this senseless anger? It is not enough for him to make the book disappear, he burns it to satisfy a delirious passion. Nevertheless this admirable prophet, even while remaining obscure, knew how to indicate everything. A virgin, while remaining a virgin, how can she conceive if not by the virtue of the Holy Spirit? For to break the laws of nature could belong only to the one who made them. So, saying that the virgin will bear, the Prophet has unveiled everything. After this birth, he predicts the name of the child, not the one given to him, but the one that suited him. As he calls Jerusalem the city of righteousness, not that it ever bore that name, but because all things gave it to it, because it had to change and become better and fulfill all righteousness, so still that he calls her a prostitute, not because she has been so appointed, but because her perversity deserved her name, as her virtue that of a city of justice, so, for Christ, he gives her the name that the nature of things indicated. For it was then that God was with us, when he appeared on earth, conversing with men, and showing them the greatest affection. It is not an angel, it is not an archangel who is our companion, but it is the Master himself who comes down and comes to straighten everything, who speaks to the courtesans, who eats with the publicans, who enters in the houses of sinners, which allows all thieves to speak to him with confidence, which attracts to him the Magi, who goes everywhere and reforms everything, and unites our nature. But the Prophet announces all and this childbirth and the ineffable, immense goods that flow from it. Indeed, when God is with men, there is no need to fear, to tremble, but everything becomes reassuring: that's what happened to us. These ancient and incurable evils have been taken away from us; this sentence against the whole human race has been erased, sin has lost all strength, and the devil has all tyranny; the paradise closed to all was opened for the first time to a murderer and a robber, the vaults of heaven have given us passage, the man has mingled; to the choirs of the angels, our nature has been carried to the throne of the king; the prison of hell has become useless; from death there remained only the name, the thing has disappeared; the choruses of martyrs, women have broken the sting of hell.

It is in the anticipation of these events that the Prophet shuddered with joy and gladness, and with a word he tells us everything, announcing Emmanuel to us. "He will eat butter and honey; before knowing or choosing the wrong, he will choose the good. For before distinguishing between good and evil, the child will depart from evil to seek good (15:16). As this child was not to be simply a man, not only a God, but a God in a man, it is with reason that the Prophet presents the thing under several faces, sometimes under this one, sometimes under this one. and speaks of strange things, lest the greatness of the miracle prevent them from believing it. After having said that the Virgin will give birth, which is already above nature, that this child will be called Emmanuel, which is above all expectation, he wants to prevent that by hearing this word Emmanuel, one does not to embrace on the Incarnation the errors of Marcion and Valentin, and he gives the Incarnation the best proof, he draws it from the need of food to which the God-man will be subjected. What does he say indeed? "He will eat butter and honey. It does not suit the deity, but our nature. It is still for the same reason that the Word did not immediately form a man to live in him, but that he shut himself up in the bosom of a woman, and that for nine months, that he was born, was enveloped in langes, was nourished as one is in the first age, to close the mouth to those who would try to deny the Incarnation. Enlightened by divine grace, the Prophet saw all this; but instead of speaking only of this birth and of this miraculous birth, he speaks of the food which the man-God will take in his first age, still clothed in his swaddling clothes, a food similar to that of other men, and which does not will be nothing extraordinary. In him everything was not different from us, but not everything was alike. To be born of a woman is our condition; of a virgin, it is above our nature. To take food (393) according to the ordinary laws of nature and the same food as other men is our condition; but to be a stranger to all vice, to have never given the slightest sign of perversity, is extraordinary, astonishing, and suitable only to him. This is why the Prophet mentions one and the other thing. It is not, he says, after having tasted the evil that he departs from it, but from the beginning and spoke virtue from above he practiced all virtue. This is what Christ said himself: "Which of you will convict me of sin? And again: "The prince of this world comes and he has nothing in me. (John, VIII, 46 and XIV, 30.)

7. The very Prophet that we explain did not he say. "He has not done iniquity, and lies have not been found in his mouth. (Isaiah, LIX, 9) It is also what he says in the present passage that before even knowing or choosing the wrong, when he is still in this age of innocence, at the beginning of his life, he will embrace virtue and have nothing in common with vice. "For before distinguishing between good and evil, the child will depart from evil to seek good. He repeats in the same terms the same thought and insists on the same idea. As his words proclaimed a sublime thing, he endeavors, by repeating it, to make her believe. What he said above: before knowing or choosing the wrong, he says again in these terms: "The child, before distinguishing. And he insists again, "Good and evil, will depart from evil to seek good. This was the distinctive character of the child-God. It is that which St. Paul continually points out, and St. John, on seeing Christ, raises his voice to shout, "Behold the Lamb of God, he who takes away the sin of the world. (John, I, 29.) But he who removes the sin of others is even more sinless himself. It is also this character on which, as I said above, St. Paul continually insists. As the Christ was to die, the Apostle, lest anyone should believe that death was the punishment for his sin, continually recalls his innocence, to show that his death was the ransom of our sin. So he says: "Christ, risen from the dead, no longer dies: for if he is dead, it is for sin that he is dead. (Romans vi., 9, 10.) And this death, he means, he did not endure as being subject to it and because of his sin, but because of the sins of all. If, therefore, he were not subjected to the first, he is more than proved that he will not die.

"The country for which you tremble before these two kings will be abandoned. What the Prophet does in all circumstances, he does here again. After announcing future events, he returns to the present. I have shown for a long time that he had done it, with regard to seraphim, as he acts here. He first prophesies the goods that the whole earth was to receive, and then he addresses the king. That's why he says, "The country will be abandoned. What is to say, "abandoned? He will not be attacked, he will be free, he will have nothing to fear, nothing to suffer from the evils of war. "The land for which you tremble," for which you are in terror and anguish "before these two kings" of Syria and Israel. But so that the announcement of happy events does not soften the king, and that the peace does not make him indolent, the Prophet throws in his soul a new anxiety by words: "But the Lord will make come on you, on your for the people of your father's house, such days as there were none like them, since Ephraim brought the king of Assyria from Judah (17). By this he indicates this invasion, in which the barbarians overthrew the city from top to bottom and carried off all the captive inhabitants. And he announces it, not for it to come, but so that fear makes them better, they remove these evils from their heads. As nothing had been able to correct them, nor the goods which had been left to them without any merit on their part (which shows the disposition of mind of the king and the excess of his incredulity), nor the threat of danger. Frightening, and they had resisted these two salutary remedies, Isaiah now announces a deeper disaster, and that to cut off all corruption and cure these incurable patients. What do these words mean, "from the day that Ephraim brought the king of Assyria from Judah? The barbarians came in the design of removing the whole nation; but they left Judah and his two tribes to cast themselves on Israel. Here is what the Prophet means: From the day when the ten tribes will draw on them, by the enormity of their faults, the army of barbarians who will first come against you, and where they will be taken (394 captivated, from that day you must fear and tremble: for this army will come forward and come against you, if you do not change. And he said, From that day God will bring them. For it was not at the same time that the Israelites that the two tribes were removed; but the interval was not long.

8. And this is what he says, These days were appointed; but God waited, took patience, even though their faults merited chastisement: often, when the day of punishment is fixed, God waits, he temporizes again, a very evident proof of his charity for men, a clear sign against those who do not do not want to take advantage of his forbearance. Already, says the Prophet, the threat is made, already the sentence is carried, already the wrath of God lights up, he shows them the vengeance, so to speak, at their doors, to excite them to repentance, to make them better, to give them a strong fear by the ruin of others, and to prevent them from being spared by the chastisement which had beset others, became even more careless than in the past.

"And in that day, the Lord will blow the flies that dominate the tip of the river of Egypt with a whistle (18). You see, I was right in saying that it is to increase their fear that God makes them threats from this day forward. The following produces the same effect, he increases by his words their terror by showing them the armies they dreaded so much, this invasion so easy (what was to terrify them), the large number of these barbarians, what should do them lose all insurance; all these things he indicates in what follows. See, "In that day the Lord will blow the flies with a whistle. He called flies the Egyptians, because of their shamelessness and their effrontery, and also because, continually repulsed, they continually returned to the charge, without letting them breathe, offering them a thousand traps, constantly harassing them in misfortune, as flies attack wounds. God, he says, will bring them. But instead of saying he will bring them, he says: "He will bring them with a whistle," to show how easy this invasion will be, how invincible is the power of God, to whom it suffices to make a sign for that everything follows. And it is with good reason that he takes advantage of this to threaten the evils they have already experienced. "And the bee who is in the land of Assur. The Syrian and the Hebrew read, say, not the bees, but the wasps. As the Jews did not know these people well, the Prophet imparts to them in this figure a greater fear, showing them by this animal how terrible, frightening, inevitable the enemies will be, how deep their wounds will be and their sudden presence.

"They will come and rest in the gorges of this country, in the hollows of the rocks, in the caves, in all the holes, on all the trees (19). After having announced how frightening the presence of the enemies will be, and their rapid march, he says what will be their multitude. He does not say, they will camp, but "they will rest," not as if they had come to an enemy country, but as if they lived in their own homes, not as if they had to work and fight, but as if they ran in front of a certain victory and assured booty. That is why he says: "They will come and rest," which is only suitable for conquerors, for men who have won a victory, and who rest after many struggles and fatigues. And it will not be in the plains alone that they will rest; but as this multitude is innumerable and the country is not sufficient to contain it, abysses, rocks, mountains, forests, everything, in a word, is an asylum for these barbarians. Even if the enemies were not so terrible, and the Jews so weak, it would be enough to frighten them; but when these two things are united, the multitude and the power, when (still more frightful) is the wrath of God that leads them, what hope of salvation can be preserved? These words "in all the holes, on all the trees" contain a hyperbole: for they were not going to rest on trees; but, as I said above, there is both hyperbole and continuation of the metaphor taken from the wasps.

"In that day the Lord will use as an intoxicated razor (20). He has just printed a lively fear of these armies; he renews it now, by acting the very sky, showing that they are not some Egyptian or Persian barbarians, but God (395) himself who fights against the Jews. He calls his razor anger before which nothing can resist, which no one can sustain, who advances and ruins everything without experiencing the slightest difficulty. Just as the hair can not withstand the razor's edge, but it yields and falls immediately, so the Jews will not be able to resist the wrath of God.

9. This intoxicating razor thus indicates the wrath of a God full of fury, ready to avenge himself, a sentence that will be executed. "Beyond the river of the king of the Assyrians," that is to say, beyond the Euphrates, as was Judea and all Palestine compared to those who come from Persia. All this, he says, will be destroyed entirely. By these words head, hair, beard, feet, he designates the whole country under a metaphor borrowed from the human body, and he embraces in these words the whole country, as he did in the beginning when he said: "Any head is languid and heart-broken. From the feet to the head, there is nothing intact in him (Isaiah, I, 5, 6); He spoke not of a man, but of the whole country, which he compared to one body. This is what he means here, to know that the whole earth will have to undergo exemplary punishment. He borrows on one side his images with a razor, on the other side to the human body, to show that the judgment carried by God will produce an effect more terrible than the razor, that it will make men disappear and all that bring the earth, to leave it deserted and uninhabited. He is still using another image to express this desolation. He does it so that fear always grows and stays, and to prevent terror from diminishing as a result of such a long speech. It seems to some that these words contain the promise of certain goods; but a deeper examination shows that there is only the description of extreme desolation. What does he say indeed? "At that time a man will feed a cow and two sheep, and because of the abundance of their milk, he will feed on butter; for all who are left on the earth will eat butter and honey (21:22). "

This indicates, as I said above, great loneliness. In fact, the land which produces wheat and barley, being devoid of inhabitants, will furnish the animals with abundant and abundant food, which two ewes and a cow feeding on them will give to their possessor fountains of milk. Thus the abundance of food for the animals is an obvious mark that the men will have disappeared. And here is what honey says; bees usually like to live in deserted places because they find abundant food there and nobody disturbs them. And to better convince you that the Prophet speaks of extreme loneliness, see the following: "And at that time, in the places where one thousand thousand vines had been sold thousand shekels, it will grow only brambles and thorns. . We will enter only with the bow and the arrows, because brambles and thorns will cover the whole earth (23-24). "This is the mark of a great misfortune when not only the mountains and forests, but the arable land itself and the one just waiting for the crop produces brambles. It is not without reason that he spoke of the price of the vines, it is to show us the fertility of the land and the care of the farmers. Well ! he says, "even those places so fertile, so worthy of the care of the laborers, will be so abandoned that they will produce thorns in the place of the vines, and will cause those who approach them so much terror that no one will dare to enter them defenseless and without weapons. These words mark how the place will be deserted and ferocious animals will live there. After having troubled the souls and throwing fear into the hearts, the Prophet softens a little, to announce also happy events, the prosperity which will follow, and to make understand by one as by the other situation the God's power. But he insists on the frightening things and only scratches the happy ones. Why that ? Because it was mostly a reprimand that the people needed to be treated. At this moment, too, after administering this remedy unceremoniously, wishing to allow the listeners to breathe a little, and to excite them still to virtue, he announces happy events by saying: "Every mountain will be cultivated by the plow. In the same way that, during the wrath of God, even the arable land has been abandoned, so when it is appeased, the hard earth will become like loose earth, and like it will be plowed and seeded. When these things happen, their consequences will also occur, peace, abundance, confidence, security, in a word, the state of the past, (396) "Fear will be banished. This infertile land covered with brambles will turn into pasture for the sheep and be trampled by the oxen (25). By these details the Prophet still indicates abundance, as he will say further. "Happy who sows all the waters and sends the ox and the donkey to his pasture. In fact, just as in order to depict loneliness, he speaks of sirens and onocentaures, likewise, to depict peace and tranquility, he speaks only of domestic and tamed animals. , fit for field work; he shows them filling all the places, to make understand the culture and its consequences.

CHAPTER 8. 1. "AND THE LORD TELL ME: TAKE A BOOK OF NEW PAPER, BIG, AND WRITE IN KNOWN CHARACTERS, THAT IT SHOULD HAVE TO TAKE UP THE POCKET AND THE STRIPES. - 2. HERE IS TIME: TAKE ME FOR WITNESSES OF FAITHFUL MEN, URIE THE PRIEST AND ZACHARIA, THE SON OF BARACHIE. - 3. I HAVE APPROACHED THE PROPHETTOS AND SAME AND SHE WAS A SON. AND THE LORD SAYS TO ME: CALL IT: HATE TO TAKE THE STORES AND SHARE THE POULTRY. 4. BEFORE THE CHILD KNOWS TO APPOINT HER FATHER AND HER MOTHER, WE WILL TAKE THE POWER OF DAMASCUS AND THE STORIES OF SAMARIA BEFORE THE KING OF THE ASSYRIANS. "

ANALYSIS.

1. Purpose of the prophetic ministry. Precaution to be taken by the Prophet so that one can not revoke in doubt his prophecy and to assure him an irrefutable character of authenticity.

2. At the first signal that God gives them, the Assyrians will come in crowds like flies.

3. Invasion of Israel and Syria.

1. According to the literal meaning, it seems that these prescriptions are different and have nothing in common between them; but if you want to examine the thoughts, you will find that they come together and have the same goal. But it must be said first of all in what design the prophetic ministry has been introduced into the world. What is the mission of prophecy; that's what to say. Ordinarily, God is slow and tardy in punishing the wicked, as he is quick to reward virtue. So men with little energy let themselves be carried away, seeing that the punishment does not immediately follow the faults. Now, to be silent that he is patient, and that one must not make of his long-suffering a pretext for vice, God uses the prophecy, not to inflict penalties, but to teach sinners what is wrong with them. wait, so that the threat makes them better and makes them avoid real punishments; and it is only when they remain insensitive that he ends by chastising them. The demon, seeing this design and knowing how beneficial this ministry is to men, sends out false prophets, to contradict those who announce famines, pestilences, wars, and to prophesy great prosperity. As God wants, by inspiring the fear of words, to avoid real punishments, the devil strives to do the opposite; his speeches please, they soften men, and God sees himself in the necessity of punishing them. Then, when those who believe the false prophets, and who, making no case of virtue, have persecuted in their faults, have drawn severe punishments, and that finally the truth is brought to light while the lie is confused, the demon employs still other traps to complete the ruin of those who allow themselves to be caught. He persuades them who are easily deceived, that these unfortunate events must be attributed to the anger of the rejected and despised demons. It is to prevent this cunning that God makes men announce far in advance the evils that will come to them or rather that will seize them, so that it is not possible for those who deceive men, to attribute the events to the anger of the demons. It is not by guesswork that I say it: for hear the words of Isaiah: "I know that you are hard, that your neck is like an iron bar, that you have a brow of brass. That is why I spoke to you from the beginning so that you do not say: These are my idols who did these things, these are my images cut and thrown out of cast iron that gave it to me. You have not known or heard them. (Isaiah, XLVIII, 4, 5, 8.)

As, therefore, according to what I have said above and what this passage attests, the Jews opposed the prophecies to each other, the true prophecy hastens to remedy this error, announcing the events well in advance . As it was to be presumed that the ungrateful would have said: You have not predicted it, we have not heard it, you are forging these prophecies after the event: for you do not know the future; How will we know that you have spoken in advance? In this language, God opposes a peremptory answer and closes these impudent mouths. He not only orders his prophets to speak, but he orders to write the prophecies on paper and not only to write, but also so that we can not say that it was done afterwards, he orders to take as witnesses men whom their dignity and conduct render worthy of faith. "Take me as witnesses," said he, "faithful men, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah," so that when events come to pass and the wicked say, "These things have not been predicted in advance, the book is produced and that men who have witnessed its composition close these impudent mouths. This is why God says, "Take me a new book of paper," that it may not perish after a while, but that it remains a long time, and that its very character accuses the detractors. "And write with a man's style, with a feather, what must happen. And what must happen? There will be war, victory won by the barbarians, sharing of remains, removal of loot. Write, he says, all these things, that you must hasten to take the spoil: for here is the time. What does it mean, "Here's the time? This word makes us understand two things, that already the greatness of faults demanded punishment, and that punishment is imminent. God's patience makes him temporize: for he desires that they correct themselves and render punishment useless, and on the other hand it is easy for him by his sole will to make everything run. Indeed, when it came to the barbarians who were to invade, he said: Do not think that the length of the road and the multitude of the army are causes of delay, as often happens in what they do. men.

2. But for God, even that which is distant is present, so easy is it in a moment, in a second, to bring and bring from the ends of the earth even innumerable multitudes. "Take me as witnesses of the faithful men, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Barachias. Witness what? From the time, so that if one comes to recuse these books, the men who attended their composition and therefore know well the time, can, when rising impudent opponents, close them the stuffy. The following has the same purpose and contains more obvious proof. How and in what way? "He approached," he said, "the prophetess. He thus calls his own wife, perhaps because she participates in the prophetic spirit: for it is not only to men that graces are communicated, but also to women. It is not like in temporal things where the sexes are distinguished, where some have to fulfill the duties of men, the others of women, without being able to change their role; It is not so in spiritual things; but everything is common, wreaths and fights. Volts will see this in the Old and the New Testament and for all positions tic life. Having approached her according to the law of (398) marriage, he made her pregnant. And when that woman gave birth to a son, he gives her a strange, extraordinary name, a prophetic name. What does he say indeed? "Call him, hasten to take the spoils and share the spoils," so that if one challenges the book, at least the very name of the child, prophetic name, imposed well before the events, and since then still in use, silence even the most daring. It will be evident that the Prophet did not forge it afterwards, but that he had foreseen these events for a long time, and those who even study to disregard the care of which they are the object will be forced to believe, since, even before the events, they will have seen the child bear this name, and consequently continually announce the misfortunes to come.

Then he clarifies the meaning of the prophecy by accurately indicating the time of these misfortunes - "For before the child knows how to name his father and his mother, the power of Damascus and the remains of Samaria will be carried to the king of the Assyrians. . This is what he means: at a time when his age will be very little advanced, where he will not be able to speak again, the victory will be won, the trophies will be raised, not that this child can himself arrange the army. and defeat the enemies, but in this time, that is, before the child can speak; everything will be delivered to the enemies. "The Lord spoke to me again, and said to me, Because this people rejected the waters of Siloam, which flowed gently, and because it was better for them to have King Basin and the son of Romelia, the Lord will melt down on him the king of the Assyrians, like the great and violent waters of a river (5-7.)

God, more often than not, announces not only the punishment, but indicates the cause for the instruction of the hearers; that's what he's doing here too. After having spoken of the pillage exerted by foreigners and the invasion of the barbarians, he indicates the cause of this war. What is it? The ingratitude of the inhabitants of the city. As they had, he said, a gentle, easy, human king, and they broke away to call tyrants, to try to pass under a foreign domination, because they were tired of their happiness, eh good ! I will accomplish their desire superabundantly, bringing into the midst of them a barbarous and cruel man. He uses metaphorical expressions to portray the character of the native king and the power of the barbarian king; it acts like this, as I have already said, to give his word more strength and expression. This is why he says, "Because this people rejected the waters of Shiloh," a passage where he does not hear about water, but where, to make understand the sweet and human character of the king, he compares it to the still tranquil current of this quiet and quiet spring, and he designates the king by the word of Siloë, the cause of his mildness and moderation: a great lesson for subjects who, having to endure a light yoke, wished to rise up and give themselves to foreign kings. Since they do not want, said he, a gentle and humane king, but they ask for Basin and the son of Romelie, I will send them the king of Babylon; and the violence of his army is rendered by the image of a river with abundant and impetuous waters.

3. Then, interpreting his metaphor, he says: "The king of the Assyrians. Do you see how certain is what I said above, that everywhere Scripture itself gave the key to the metaphors it employed? That's what she's still doing here. She spoke of a river, but, without continuing her metaphor, she said which river, "the king of the Assyrians, with all his glory." He will come down in all your valleys and he will surround all your walls. And he will remove from Judea all those who can lift their heads or do anything. And his army will be so numerous that it will cover all your country. To show that all this will happen, not by virtue of man, but because of God's wrath, he does not represent him as an enemy who needs to fight in pitched battles, but as a man who comes to remove a booty all prepared. He will not stand under arms, he will not put himself, says the Prophet, in order of battle; but this multitude will cover the face of the earth and will easily overcome. Then, even in the midst of anger, there is still clemency. God does not threaten the Jews with the ruin of their capital, he announces only exile and captivity, wanting that the punishment of those who will be removed corrects those who remain. "He will take away from Judea all those who can lift their heads. "All the mighty," he said, "those who plunder and carry away everything, those who are the plagues of the people, he will throw them into chains and slavery, so that their subjects may breathe a little and the The fear they feel when they see others taken away and the preservation of their own freedom makes them better. This is why he says, "Who can do anything," that is to say, he who is strong, who can act, who is capable of some work. And even before they are kidnapped, he said, perhaps you will be frightened enough at the sight of this barbarian who will cover his country with his troops. That is why he adds: "His army will be so numerous that it will cover all your country. God is with us. Know ye, nations, and ye shall be vanquished: Hear it to the ends of the earth, and in spite of your strength you shall be conquered; and if you prevail a second time, you will be defeated a second time. The designs which you have formed, the Lord will dispel them; the words that you have spoken will have no effect, because God is with us (8-10). "

I seem to prophesy here the victory of Hezekiah, this brilliant feat of arms and its cause. If they have, it seems, weapons, many soldiers, military experience, we have the most powerful auxiliary, that is, God. The barbarian came, as the Prophet had made the threat, and he went after taking many cities; but when he came back again, he felt a very different fate. This is what the Prophet announces, as well as the cause of this victory, and he addresses himself to the barbarians themselves. May this first victory, he says, not make you proud, for in your present incursion we have a powerful auxiliary. Know it then and withdraw: for you do something impossible. Then he shows the cause of this victory, he says that fame will publish these great deeds to the ends of the earth "Hear him to the ends of the earth." Nobody indeed was without learning what s then went to Jerusalem; This is why the Prophet said: "Hear him to the ends of the earth, in spite of your strength you will be defeated. The barbarian grew up; fame because of his power. Now, in this place he calls strong, not those whose body is robust, but those whom the abundance of their riches and the brilliance of their glory point out. "And if you prevail a second time you will be defeated a second time. The designs that you form, the Lord will dispel them; the words that you have spoken will have no effect, because God is with us. "As their plans were evil, that they intended to return home only after overthrowing the city from top to bottom, the Prophet speaks of their plans and said: Everything will remain the word; Then, as the things which he announces go beyond human nature, he resorts, in order to make his word believe, to the greatness of the one who will accomplish everything, and often repeats "because God is with us," and that he will dispel all these machinations himself. To him be glory.