This text is from St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444), one of the most important Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church. The text is excerpted from his Commentary on Isaiah (Commentarii in Isaiam). While Cyril originally wrote in Greek, the translation is of the Latin text found in Migne's Patrologia (which has the Greek and Latin side by side). Cyril's exegesis is characterized by strong Christological focus, emphasizing the unity of Christ's person (God and Man) and often interpreting prophetic passages through the lens of the Incarnation and the Harrowing of Hell.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Isaiah 42:1-7
Is 42:1: "Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; Israel my chosen, my hand has assumed him. I have put my Spirit upon him; he shall bring forth judgment to the nations."
Is 42:2: "He shall not cry out, nor yield, nor shall his voice be heard outside."
Is 42:3: "A broken reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not extinguish, but he shall bring forth judgment in truth."
Is 42:4: "He shall shine forth and shall not be broken, until he establishes judgment in the earth; and in his name the Gentiles shall hope."
"He promised before, saying: 'I will give the principality to Sion'": And who finally He is, He demonstrates manifestly. The Prince and Governor is not one who ascends to the principality as if led to this; for He was and is always King and Lord of all, the Word from the Virgin. But after He was made man, He assumes the proper measure of humanity. For thus we can truly and undoubtedly believe Him to have been made in our likeness. Therefore, where it is said He received empire over all things, this will be to receive it according to the dispensation in the flesh, not from divine preeminence, from which He is understood to be Lord of all.
"Jacob my servant... Israel my chosen": Moreover, He calls Him Jacob and Israel as one born from the blood of Jacob according to the flesh, who was also surnamed Israel.
"I will uphold him": Moreover, He says "I will uphold" and names Him "chosen." For the Father was cooperating with the Son, as if with His own power; He was working miracles. He is also truly chosen, because He is "beautiful in form above the sons of men" (Psalm 44:3), and accepted as one who is beloved, in whom indeed God and the Father acquiesced. Hence He said: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).
"I have put my Spirit upon him": Moreover, that He was anointed in human manner and is said to have been partaker of the Holy Spirit, even though He Himself gives the Spirit and sanctifies creation, He declares when He says: "I have put my Spirit upon him." For when He was baptized, the Spirit came upon Him from heaven in the species of a dove and remained upon Him (John 1:32). But if He receives the Spirit at the time when He was baptized, according to the measure of humanity, this also may be among other things. For not insofar as He is God was He sanctified when He received the Spirit (for He Himself, as I said, is the one who sanctifies), but insofar as He appeared man by reason of the dispensation.
"He shall bring forth judgment to the nations": He is anointed therefore that He may also bring forth judgment to the nations. By these words He calls judgment "just judgment." For He justified them, Satan being condemned, who had occupied them as a tyrant. Which He Himself taught us, saying: "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself" (John 12:31-32). For He condemned him at the head, as I said, who occupied the orb of the earth and kept the deceived in servitude by holy judgment.
"He shall not cry out, nor yield, nor shall his voice be heard outside": For the Savior and Lord of all wandered in much submission and humility, and as if without noise and injuring no one, but in silence and quiet, so that He might not break the broken reed and might not extinguish the smoking flax. That is, lest He should set His foot upon the most abject and those most timid in suffering damage.
"What therefore will He do and what will He administer to the nations?"
"In truth he shall bring forth judgment": Here judgment seems to signify law. For it is written concerning the God who is the ruler of Israel and of all: "There He gave him judgment" (Psalm 147:20), and again: "Judgment and justice in Jacob You have made" (Psalm 98:4). Therefore, judgment or law, truly He shall bring forth in shadows and in types through evangelical oracles, by which He indicated the way of conversation acceptable to Himself, and He transferred the worship of the law in the letter into truth. But the miserable Jews raged against Him and dared to afflict Him with the death of the flesh.
"But He resplended as light and was not broken": That is, destruction did not conquer Him, nor did the insolence of those who plotted against Him overcome Him. For death was loosed and He revived divinely, and He trampled the enemies, and His passion became the occasion of salvation to the whole orb of the earth.
"He shall not be broken until he establishes judgment in the earth": Nor indeed should you think He defines some time in which He is to be wounded, after He shall have established judgment in the earth. But He says this rather: He shall be superior to adversaries and so conquer that He is even about to establish judgment through the whole earth. For the Gospel was preached through all the earth, and He fixed His prophecies as it were. For it is written: "Your justice is forever, and Your law is truth" (Psalm 118:142).
"In his name the Gentiles shall hope": For having acknowledged that He is truly God, and although He appeared in the flesh, they shall place hope in Him. As the Psalmist says: "In His name they shall rejoice all the day" (Psalm 43:9). For we are called Christians and in Him we have all hope.
Is 42:5: "Thus says the Lord God, who made and fixed it, who established the earth and the things that are in it, and who gave spiration to the people who are in it, and spirit to those who tread upon it."
Is 42:6: "I the Lord God have called you in justice, and I will take hold of your hand and strengthen you. And I have given you for a covenant to my race, for a light to the Gentiles."
Is 42:7: "That you may open the eyes of the blind, that you may bring out the bound from chains, and from the house of custody those sitting in darkness."
"Thus says the Lord God..."
There were many pseudoprophets and false vates in Israel at diverse times. On this account it happened that those who were sent by God and who were truly prophets, and who spoke in the Holy Spirit, were not believed. And what is incredible, Christ Himself was harassed with taunts as if not sent by God, as if He were not truly holy, as if He had not performed those miraculous deeds by the prerogative of divinity. Namely, the princes of the Jews, although they saw prodigies, nevertheless now claimed that He cast out demons in Beelzebub the prince of demons; now again they spoke among themselves: "If this man were from God, He would not have loosened the Sabbath."
Against these things Christ strove often to defend Himself and to prove that He was not such as those were who seemed to be sent by God only by opinion. He said therefore: "The thief comes not but to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they may have life" (John 10:10). And again: "I am come in the name of My Father" (John 5:43).
Therefore, that He might have the heavenly Father Himself as witness to Him, even through the holy prophets, usefully and necessarily He said: "I the Lord God, who fixed the heaven, who made the earth most stable and unshaken, who live and give life and give spiration to all. I the Lord and God of all have called you in justice."
"I the Lord God have called you in justice": For He did not come of His own accord, as those pseudoprophets who speak from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. But "I have called you," that is, from mere benevolence and good pleasure of Mine I have brought you in justice.
"I will take hold of your hand and strengthen you": I will be a helper to you and I will make you omnipotent. Nor do we say these things as if the Father knew the Son to be weak and imbecile and destitute of aid. For He is the Lord of Hosts and the invincible right hand of the Father, by which all things are led into existence. But He speaks again as if to one of our condition, insofar as He appeared man and is seen to be strengthened somehow by the Father on account of the humanity. For thus He is said to have raised Him and given glory to Him and made Him stronger than the snares of the slayers. For if He humbled Himself and willingly gave Himself to this emptying, it is necessary plainly that the mode and measure of the emptying appear, and from the very facts the humility be understood.
"And I have given you for a covenant to my race, for a light to the Gentiles": See however how He says this as if concerning a man: "I will take hold of your hand and strengthen you," and soon He shows Him to be God by nature and truly Son and light from light. For He says: "I have given you for a covenant of the race, for a light to the Gentiles, that you may open the eyes of the blind."
For the Only Begotten Word of God came into this world with flesh and men of His own race, that is, of Israelitic blood. For from these He appeared according to the flesh, born of a woman. He gave a new covenant, formerly announced by the voice of the prophets. He was made also a light to the Gentiles; this too is divine. For to be a lawgiver and to render void the shadow of the most wise Moses, and to add new things to the ancient by most divine power, and to be able to illuminate those who are versed in darkness and open the eyes of the blind—since divine and celestial light shone forth to the Gentiles—is it not by a manifest sign and argument that He both is God and from God according to nature?
"That you may bring out the bound from chains, and from the house of custody those sitting in darkness": Moreover, that He preached to the spirits in hell and appeared to those detained in the house of custody, and liberated all from chains and necessity and pain and punishment, He proceeds to show when He says Him to bring out the bound from chains and from the house of custody those sitting in darkness.
CONTINUE
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