Is 49:1. “Listen, O islands.”
Here the prophet passes from shadow to truth, from Cyrus to Christ, from the Synagogue to the Church. Therefore, just as he addressed the Jews at the beginning of the preceding chapter saying, “Hear this, O house of Jacob,” so here he addresses the Gentiles, even those most remote and hidden away, saying: “Listen, O islands, and pay attention, peoples from afar.”
For these words do not pertain to Cyrus, as Hugo maintains, nor to John the Baptist, as others claim, but to Christ, as is clear from the words themselves and from Acts 13, where verse 47, “I have set you as a light to the Gentiles,” is explained of Christ; and from 2 Corinthians 6, where verse 2, “In an acceptable time I heard you,” is interpreted of the time of the Christian Church; and from Revelation 7, where verse 16, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst,” is understood of the blessed and triumphant Church of Christ in heaven.
Christ, therefore, is introduced here as if delivering a sermon to all humanity, in which He gives the reason for His mission, coming, and office—namely, that He might call all the Gentiles to God and to salvation, and that He might substitute and incorporate them in place of the Jews into the true Church of God.
“The Lord called me from the womb.”
That is, He spoke to the Virgin Mother through the Archangel Gabriel: “You shall call His name Jesus” (Matthew 1:21). As if to say: just as I named Cyrus from the womb—indeed, before the womb—saying, “I have called you by your name” (Isaiah 45:4), and likewise Israel, saying, “Forming you from the womb, your helper” (Isaiah 44:2), and again, “You who are borne by me from the womb” (Isaiah 46:3), so also from the womb—indeed, before I was conceived in the womb—God called me Jesus, that is, Savior. This means He designated and destined me to be the avenger and redeemer of the human race.
For God calls things as they are, or as they will be—indeed, as He Himself will make them to be. God’s naming is effective; God’s speaking is doing. Thus Jerome, Cyril, and Ambrose teach (on Psalm 35).
Is 49:2. “He made my mouth like a sharp sword.”
That is, my words, as the Chaldean translates—like the edge of a sharp sword. This alludes to the Hebrew phrase “to strike by the mouth of the sword,” meaning by the edge of the sword. To this edge the mouth of Christ is compared.
Again, this alludes to Cyrus as a type of Christ, of whom it is said in Isaiah 45:2: “I will go before you and humble the glorious ones of the earth; I will break bronze gates,” and so forth. In the same way God gave Christ swords and weapons by which He subdued the whole world.
The sense, therefore, is this: Behold, I Christ come to inflict slaughter—not of bodies, but of souls. For I come to slay sins and vices, so that the flesh, that is, the animal life, may perish and the spirit may live. The preaching of Christ, that is, the Gospel and the word of God, cuts away and slays crimes, passions, and lusts; it also strikes down the reprobate and demons, especially on the day of judgment.
This is what Christ means when He says: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword; for I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Matthew 10:34). With this sword of the mouth Peter slew Ananias and Sapphira; Paul struck Elymas blind. Thus Jerome, Cyril, and Procopius explain.
This is also what Paul says in Hebrews 4:12: “The word of God is living and effective, and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even to the division of soul and spirit, joints also and marrow.”
To this John alludes in Revelation 1:16: “From His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword.” And Paul arms the Christian soldier with Christ’s armor when he says: “Take the helmet and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17).
Thus in these words and those that follow, the power, energy, and efficacy of Christ’s preaching are described. The Church applies these words to St. John the Baptist, not in the literal sense but by accommodation, because he was Christ’s precursor and “the voice crying in the wilderness.” In the same way these words are applied to the Apostles and other powerful preachers of Christ, as frequently happens in the Divine Office, where many things said in Scripture of particular persons or saints are adapted to others who are similar. Thus what is said of Abraham, “No one like him was found in glory, who kept the law of the Most High” (Sirach 44:20), is applied to all Confessors.
“In the shadow of His hand He protected me.”
First, shadow means protection. Hence the Septuagint translates: “In the protection of His hand He hid me,” so that the lowliness of my flesh might be covered by the power of my divinity. Hence the angel says to the Virgin Mother who was to conceive Christ: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). Thus Jerome and Procopius.
For shadow is a symbol of protection, because shade protects human beings from the sun, which in Judea is intense, and because birds shade their young with their wings to protect them (Matthew 23). Therefore, “in the shadow of His hand,” that is, with His hand overshadowing and placed before me, He protected me. Thus it is said of Christ in Lamentations 4:20: “In His shadow we shall live among the nations.”
Second, more aptly and forcefully, the shadow of the hand signifies the scabbard of a sword, which is held under the left hand as if hidden (this is what the Hebrew term properly signifies). The metaphor of the sword is continued: the sword is hidden in its sheath under the left arm, so that it may easily be drawn out by the right hand.
For just as Christ soon calls Himself “an arrow hidden in the quiver of God,” so here He calls Himself a sword hidden in the sheath, concealed under God’s hand. As if to say: I am a sharp sword, because I am the most powerful sword of God. God hid me in His sheath, as in the shadow of His left hand, so that when He wills, He may draw me forth with His right hand, unsheathe me, and cause me to cut and pierce all things.
“And He made me like a chosen arrow.”
This again alludes to Cyrus, who was as it were the sword and arrow of God. For a soldier has two weapons: the sword for close combat, and the arrow for distant and swift attack. Thus to Christ the leader is given a sword in Psalm 45:4: “Gird your sword upon your thigh, O Mighty One.” Then arrows are mentioned in verse 6: “Your arrows are sharp; peoples fall under you.”
Christ, through Himself and through the Apostles, powerfully and swiftly subdued both nearby and distant nations and subjected them to the faith. Thus He fought and conquered both at close range with the sword and from afar with arrows. So explain Forerius, Vatablus, Sanchez, and others.
For chosen, Forerius and Vatablus translate polished, burnished, shining, by which the sharpness, speed, brilliance, and strength of the arrow are signified. Soldiers polish swords and arrows both for ornament and to sharpen them, so that they may break and pierce everything. This is precisely what the Hebrew word bārûr signifies. Hence the Vulgate and the Septuagint, which translate “chosen,” seem to have read bāḥûr.
Christ, therefore, is the Father’s sword and polished arrow, chosen above the Apostles and other saints, whom God hid in His quiver—both in His foreknowledge and providence, as Cyril and Lyra say, and in human flesh. This arrow He shoots wherever He wills, and by His words, blows, and wounds He pierces, compunctions, and wounds the minds of the faithful with His love, killing their vices and sins. Thus Jerome, Procopius, Cyril, and Chrysostom teach.
Chrysostom adds that with this arrow Jeremiah was wounded when he said, “I have not been troubled, following you as shepherd” (Jeremiah 17:16); and David when he said, “My soul clings to you”; and Peter when he said, “Lord, you know that I love you”; and Paul when he cried, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” These are arrows of love, whose target is the heart, so that they give life by killing, as Ambrose says. “How blessed it is to be wounded by this arrow!” says Origen (Homily 2 on the Song of Songs).
By this arrow Augustine too was pierced when he heard of the conversion of the two court officials who, after reading the Life of St. Anthony, abandoned the court and consecrated themselves to God in solitude (Confessions, Book 8, chapters 6 and 8). By this arrow Mary Magdalene was struck and poured forth floods of tears, which were the blood of a wounded heart flowing through her eyes.
Here note the efficacy of these arrows of Christ: they so strike and subdue hearts that those very hearts themselves soon become arrows, subduing others to His love—thus Magdalene, Paul, and the Apostles, wounded by Christ’s arrows, were made arrows themselves, drawing others to His love. This is why Christ is here called “a chosen arrow”: whoever He touches becomes an effective arrow, and thus His army grows and quickly fills the whole world and subjects it to Him.
For this is the nature of Christ’s love: it is not content with one’s own salvation, but thirsts for the salvation of all and strives for it with all one’s strength.
Is 49:3 “And He said to me: You are my servant, Israel.”
Christ is called the servant of God because, although He was in the form of God, He willingly, out of love for us, took the form of a servant. See what was said at Isaiah 42:1.
Again, He is called Israel, that is, an Israelite, because He was born of the seed of Israel and Judah, as Jerome says. Second, because He was sent primarily to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Third, because Jacob, or Israel, was His type. For just as Jacob wrestled with the angel, God’s vicar and messenger, and prevailed, and was therefore called Israel, that is, one who prevails with God, so much more was Christ Israel, because He prevailed over God—over God’s wrath—by His obedience unto death, even death on the cross, making God favorable to humanity and annulling the sentence of condemnation pronounced against us. See chapter 21.
“In you I will be glorified.”
For Christ, while enduring labors and crosses in this world, sought nothing other than the glory of God, that through them He might glorify the Father. Hence He says in John 17:4: “I have glorified you on earth.”
Second, the sense is: You are indeed my servant, but you are also my whole glory and splendor, because in you alone I have shown the world the abyss of my goodness and love. And the world, recognizing this in you, subjected itself to me and glorified me together with you. Thus Forerius.
Is 49:3 “And I said: I have labored in vain.”
This is the voice of Christ lamenting, as though He were saying that His very great labors and weariness—those which He expended in teaching, preaching, traveling about, and suffering—had been fruitless among the Jews. For only a few of them were converted. Thus writes St. Jerome.
“Therefore my judgment is with the Lord.”
That is to say: I, Christ, have manifested Your name, O Father, to men, namely to the Jews; I have done everything I could for their salvation, even unto the cross and death itself, on which, bowing my head, I cried out: “It is finished” (cf. John 19:30). Therefore I commit the judgment of this cause to You, O Father: You judge whose fault it was that so few were converted and saved through my works. Judge and punish those who despised my labors and rendered them fruitless, says St. Jerome.
Meanwhile, “my work,” that is, the reward of my work—so says the Chaldean—“is with my God,” that is, it is kept safe with You, O Father, fully and intact for me. For You reward good works according to the labor, not according to the outcome or visible fruit, which often is not in the power of the one who works, but is frustrated by hard-hearted hearers or envious adversaries.
Let apostolic men take note of this and imitate Christ: those who either here, or in India, or among barbarous nations, undergo immense labors, often with little apparent fruit. Their reward and apostolic crown are nevertheless preserved whole for them with God.
Secondly, Sanchez also explains it thus: “Judgment” here means covenant or agreement. My covenant is with God the Father: namely, that just as I glorify Him, so He in turn glorifies me. And indeed He abundantly fulfilled this, since the reward of my work remained with God and was given to me when He glorified me at my baptism, saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him” (Matthew 17:5), and again at my death, by bringing darkness over the whole earth, and most especially in my resurrection, by raising me gloriously.
Thirdly, Forerius understands the Hebrew מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, “judgment”) as meaning state, condition, office, or course of action, for it is often used in this sense. The meaning then is: Do not think that because I labored in vain among the Jews, therefore I was not sent by the Father, or that I handled the task entrusted to me improperly, or that I failed in any way. For my condition, my state, my office, my actions—all were disposed and ordered by God the Father, from whose judgment and ordinance I did not deviate even by the breadth of a fingernail. For “as the Father commanded me, so I do, and I always do.” Nevertheless, the first interpretation is the clearest and most natural.
“And now the Lord says.”
Here God is introduced as if responding to Christ’s complaint that He labored in vain among the Jews. In the following verse, Christ sets forth and justifies His cause.
Is 49:5 “Forming me from the womb as His servant, to bring back Jacob.”
From this it is clear that Christ was sent by the Father primarily and directly—so to speak, by office and by express commission—to teach and save the Jews, for to them the Messiah had been promised. Therefore Christ received from the Father the command to teach the Jews, which He fulfilled personally and through His apostles during His earthly life.
Hence He commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles … but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5–6). But when the Jews rejected His Gospel, God so willed, and Christ ascending into heaven commanded the Apostles to preach to the Gentiles and to the whole world: “Go therefore and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Thus St. Paul says in Acts 13:46: “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you; but since you reject it … behold, we turn to the Gentiles.” For thus the Father commanded Christ, and Christ commanded us: “I have set you as a light to the Gentiles.”
“And Israel will not be gathered.”
So read the Hebrew, Symmachus, Theodotion, and others (one can add the Dead Sea Scrolls which Lapide, a 17th century scholar, would not have been aware of). Therefore others err who, by wrongly inserting an aleph to read “not,” translate it oppositely: “and Israel shall be gathered.” The sense is: I sought the lost sheep of Israel, that I might bring them back into the fold and Church of God; but they were unwilling. Therefore they will not be gathered—that is, they refuse to be collected and assembled into it.
Note: The above mentioned Hebrew texts all record the Hebrew word Lō’ (לֹא - Not), yet Jewish scholars insist that it be read as Lô (לוֹ - To Him). The two words are what linguists call homophones: they sound exactly the same but are spelled differently and have opposite meanings. Jewish scholars appeal to their oral traditions and explain: In ancient Hebrew, the letter Aleph (א) in Lō’ and the letter Vav (ו) in Lô could sometimes be used as "vowel markers." Because both words were pronounced identically as "Lo," a scribe listening to a dictation or copying from a faded scroll could easily write the wrong one. I'll merely note here that the Hebrew syntax makes the reading "will not be gathered" more probable.
“Yet I am glorified in the eyes of the Lord.”
Both because I performed glorious signs and miracles before the Jews—by which I convicted and confounded their unbelief and obstinacy—and because God the Father handed over to me all the nations of the world in place of the Jews. For the conversion and salvation of the Gentiles was a great glory and joy for Christ. He adds the cause:
“And my God has become my strength.”
That is: I do not attribute this glory to myself, but to God the Father, who gave me strength and power to acquire it and to accomplish the work of human redemption. Haymo understands this strength as that by which Christ, through divine power, was raised from the dead and resurrected.
Is 49:6 “It is too little.”
The Hebrew נָקֵל (naqel) means small or insignificant. Forerius translates it as unworthy or dishonorable. As if to say: If it seems dishonorable that you were not able to bring back Israel, behold, I give you as a light to the Gentiles; thus I overwhelm and compensate that seeming dishonor with far greater glory.
“The dregs” (faeces).
Hebrew נְצוּרֵי (netsure), meaning those preserved, survivors, namely the remnants left after so many slaughters and destructions, especially those under Titus and Vespasian. Our translator rightly renders it dregs, that is, vile and insignificant remnants of Israel. For the Jews have now become so cast down, exiled, and miserable that they seem to be the refuse of all nations, the very sweepings of the world.
“Behold, I have given you as a light to the Gentiles.”
That you may be like a spiritual and divine sun of the world, and a “light for revelation to the Gentiles,” as Simeon sings (Luke 2:32).
“That you may be my salvation.”
The Septuagint reads: “that you may be for salvation.” See how dear and precious our salvation is to God, since He calls it His own. “I desire,” says St. Jerome, “that my salvation may fill the whole world.” Behold the magnificent glory of Christ! Is it not glorious that one crucified man is worshiped as God throughout the whole world? That barbarous nations are brought to Him and to God through His disciples? Is it not glorious that instead of one corner of Judea, He occupies the ends of the earth and the boundaries of the world? For what the Apostles did, Christ Himself accomplished in them, speaking and working through them.
Is 49:7 “Thus says the Lord … to the despised soul.”
That is, to the vile Jews, now as it were contemptible slaves—so some explain with St. Jerome. St. Thomas refers this to the Jews liberated from Babylon; Hugh of St. Victor refers it to Cyrus.
But I say that the discourse refers to Christ and His disciples. For Christ was despised by Herod, Annas, Pilate, and Judas—“like a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people” (cf. Isaiah 53). “Despised and the last of men … we thought him like a leper, struck by God and afflicted.” Such also were the Apostles and the first Christians under the pagan emperors and tyrants.
Thus Christians are called “a nation abhorred” and “a servant of rulers.” Aquila and Theodotion translate: “He who despises the soul that is abhorred by the nation, the servant of princes.” This refers to Christ and His Christians, who for redeeming the human race became like servants, slaves—indeed like beasts—spat upon, crowned with thorns, beaten, mocked by the Jews, and who gave His soul unto death into the hands of the princes of the Jews and Pilate. So teach St. Jerome, Cyril, Procopius, Eusebius, Tertullian, and many others.
Hence the Septuagint translates: “Sanctify the one who despises his own soul, who is abhorred by the nations, the servant of rulers.” This is what Christ foretold: “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (Luke 21:17); and again: “The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2). That this actually happened to the Apostles is clear from Acts 2 and following, and 1 Corinthians 4.
The sense therefore is this: although Christ and the Church now seem despised and trampled underfoot, and although the whole world rises against them in hatred—as Cyril says—and Christians are tortured with insults and torments like worthless slaves or sheep destined for slaughter, the sweepings of the world—yet this miserable condition will not last long. For I will soon reverse their fate and make kings honor and adore them.
“Kings shall see and arise; princes shall adore.”
That is, kings and rulers will rise up and, in reverence, bow before you, O Christ, and before the Church. As it says later (v. 23): “With their faces to the ground they shall bow to you and lick the dust of your feet.”
Secondly, St. Jerome and Procopius refer this to the Day of Judgment, when Christ, the Apostles, and the martyrs—seated on glorious thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel—will judge even Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, Nero, Decius, Diocletian, and all kings and tyrants who once persecuted them, compelling them to stand as defendants and suppliants before their tribunal.
“Because of the Lord.”
That is, the Lord will be the efficient cause of this reversal: kings who were once hostile will then adore Christ and His Church, because He is faithful to fulfill what He has promised.
Forerius explains differently: princes rendered this honor to the disciples of the Lord because they recognized them as chosen by God—from signs, wonders, immense patience in suffering, unheard-of meekness, and other heavenly gifts, which even barbarous peoples and kings themselves could not help but admire. From these things they clearly understood that all this proceeded solely from the work and power of God, who is faithful and generous toward His saints and elect—and thus they were moved to love and worship Him, not by compulsion, but freely.
Comments
Post a Comment