Prophetic Extracts — Book IV

Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

0| Book 4. Isaiah. As we try to gather the Prophetic Extracts from Isaiah, the only ones still left to us, we shall first set out a few points against those who are disposed to disbelieve the prophecies, to establish the truth of the prophets. And first I shall put forward a line of reasoning that those before us have also observed well. They seem to me to have put it rightly: the law itself solemnly testifies to those under the law of Moses that the nations among whom they will live will give ear to omens and divinations, "but to you," it says, "the Lord your God has not granted it so"; and further, the divine word, keeping them away from augury and from all the meddling divination worked through demons, goes on to say, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers." Now, if these things had been written down for them but had not come about in fact, and no prophetic men had been among them, could they have trusted the law, and the word that promised these things while lying so openly and so plainly? Or is it not clear that, drawn on by that very craving for foreknowledge of what was to come, they would have despised their own institutions as holding nothing true or divine, since they had no prophets among them, and would have gone over as deserters to the divinations and oracles of the nations? But in fact they evidently accepted not only Moses but many after him as prophets of God, and plainly for no other reason than that they had had proof of the divinity in them; for these men not only foretold to them what was to happen in times long afterward but also spoke in advance about ordinary matters of daily life: about lost donkeys, for example, about the gravely ill and whether they would live or not, about plenty that was to come to the people, and about countless other things recorded in the histories of their times. If these things had not happened in this way, let someone answer: on what ground, then, did they regard them as prophets and call them so, or why did they think their words worthy of being written down? And what is the reason that they handed down their writings to their own descendants after them as divine? For to suppose that, having seen nothing divine or extraordinary in these men, they formed such a view of them idly and to no purpose is the least credible thing of all. And if someone should travel back in thought to those times, what would he make of it on seeing rustic men, plain in dress, goatherds and shepherds, coming forward into the midst of the whole nation and speaking as though in the person of God, crying aloud, "Thus says the Lord"; addressing kings and the whole people with unshaken composure; displaying a wisdom beyond that of man, which is still carried in their prophecies to this day; discoursing like philosophers on countless other hidden matters through riddles and parables; delivering to the people, in the Hebrew tongue, instruction both moral and doctrinal; and on top of this showing a life in keeping with their words, speaking to everyone without flattery, and convicting the ungodly to their faces, so that they were plotted against by them even to the point of death, while they stood by the true word with strong and noble composure? Whoever considers this with a fair mind, how could he not admit that all this happened in their case by truly divine inspiration? That is why it was natural that they were admired at the time by people of sense, that their words were kept in writing among the sacred scribes, and that to this day they are believed by the whole nation to have been prophets of God; and this is shown most plainly of all by our own treatment of Christ, in which we demonstrate that the whole economy concerning him, both his teaching and the call of all the nations that came about through him, was precisely foreknown and foretold countless years before by those inspired men; and as to their sacred books, the Jews would be more credible witnesses than we are, since they cherish them and bring them forward with every reverent honor. With these points usefully set out in advance, we must proceed to our subject.

1| From Isaiah. 1. "The word that came to Isaiah son of Amos concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem. For in the last days the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, and the house of God on the tops of the mountains, and it will be raised above the hills, and all the nations will come to it. And many nations will go and will say, Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of Jacob's God, and he will announce his way to us, and we will walk in it; for from Zion a law will go forth, and from Jerusalem the word of the Lord; and he will judge between the nations, and will rebuke many a people; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles; and one nation will not lift sword against another, and they will not learn to make war any more." Let those who boast of circumcision show us what law this is and of what kind, and to whom it is to be given, this law prophesied to go forth from Zion; for "from Zion," it says, "a law will go forth," being plainly another than the law given in the desert through Moses; and what is the word of the Lord, which, according to the prophecy, no longer remains in Jerusalem but from its very Zion is removed to all the nations, and is about to judge between them, and "will rebuke many a people," when, with the deepest peace having come to the nations judged by the word of the Lord, those thought worthy of the peace, changing their former weapons of war, will turn their mind to the husbandry of their own soul. For them, then, I do not know whether there is any reply to this; but for us, who have soundly believed in Jesus the Christ of God, it is simple to make the whole prophecy smooth and to show it truly divine and astonishing, by believing that what was prophesied has also had its end, and by not falling away from the truth by putting off the fulfillments of the prophecies to unlimited times. For we say that at the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, the law of the new covenant, the law according to the gospel, went forth bodily from Zion, and from there was proclaimed to all the nations, when the saving Word himself, styled the Word of the Lord, came forth from Jerusalem, where he spent his time teaching, in accord with "Behold, your house is left to you desolate," and poured out his grace upon all the nations; and these nations, judged by him and rebuked for their former sins, coming to awareness and repentance, have ceased to be occupied with wars in accordance with the passions, and pass their life in the deepest peace of soul, tending their own mind, in husbandry and fruit-bearing. Whether one wishes to take these things according to the letter, the sense given is sound; or according to the deeper sense, it is much easier; since one must be persuaded that the matters in these passages are fulfilled chiefly and rather in accordance with this. Moreover, from what has been said the things at the beginning of the section in hand can somehow be made clear: for "in the last days," that is, now, at the completion of the ages, "the mountain" of God, the spiritual one, has become manifest, that is, the divine and heavenly Word; and "his house" is the church, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and for this reason said to be above the mountains. And these things have become manifest after the rejection of the people of the circumcision, and after the kingdom of heaven was taken away from them, when the words placed before the prophecy set out above came to their end, through which it was said: "The daughter of Zion shall be left like a booth in a vineyard, and like a watchman's hut in a cucumber field, and like a besieged city"; and when this was fulfilled: "Hear the words of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; attend to the law of God, you people of Gomorrah. What does the multitude of your sacrifices matter to me? says the Lord; and so on"; to which he adds: "Your new moons and your feasts my soul hates; you have become a surfeit to me; I will no longer forgive your sins. When you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn my eyes away from you; and if you multiply your prayer, I will not listen to you, for your hands are filled with blood." And see how the Word, having delivered all this at length, charges them here neither with idolatry nor with any other sin, nor indeed with the shedding of much blood, but of one singular blood, plainly that of Christ, concerning which the Word clearly rebukes the people, saying "for your hands are filled with blood"; for which reason it is next added: "How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot, full of judgment, in which righteousness lodged, but now murderers?" After all these things, the Word, finishing, again foretells their rejection and says: "For they shall be like a terebinth that has cast its leaves, and like a garden that has no water. And their strength shall be a stalk of tow, and their works like sparks, and the lawless and the sinners shall be burned up together, and there shall be none to quench." Having pronounced so many and so great things against them beforehand, the prophecy next adds the section just set out for us, in which it is said: "For in the last days the mountain of the Lord will be manifest." It plainly shows, after their complete and final rejection and desolation, the dispensations of the new covenant, in accordance with which the mountain of the Lord has become manifest to all the nations. And what mountain, if not he who was with God in the beginning, God the Word? He is our Savior and Lord himself, whom we have set forth before, of whom it is also said in the Psalms: "the mountain of God, a rich mountain," and "the mountain in which God was pleased to dwell." Together with this mountain the house of God also has become manifest; and the house of God would be the church, established on the tops of the apostolic and prophetic mountains of words; and when these became manifest, it is not Israel that has come to possess this very mountain (plainly the divine Word), nor the house of Jacob so often named, but quite simply all the nations. And so it is clear how and in what manner, the things foretold having been accomplished through the appearing of our Savior, and the mountain as interpreted and the house indicated having become manifest, we from the nations, who through faith in Christ, the Son of God, have approached the God of the universe, though in former times ignorant of such great things, now through divine grace recognizing them, have "come to Mount Zion and to the living God's city, the heavenly Jerusalem"; and as having been instructed by the Word of God who has come forth, or even come down, from the heavenly Jerusalem, that "the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother," we rouse one another and urge one another on, through teaching and exhortation, toward this heavenly house of God, and toward Zion, itself the heavenly mountain of the Lord, and say: "Come, let us ascend to the Lord's mountain, and to the house of Jacob's God; and he will declare to us his way, and we shall walk in it." When these things were accomplished and by God's grace had become manifest to all of us, another prophecy also reached its end, in which the saving Word himself more clearly bears witness to the section in hand of Isaiah's prophecy, saying: "I became manifest to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me; I said, Behold, here am I, to a nation that did not call on my name." But if someone does not take the passages in this way, what mountain or what house of God could he show otherwise, concerning which the prophecy signifies what was set out beforehand as though they were not then bodily manifest? These things can also be fitted otherwise to the second coming of Christ, as though what was foretold will be completely fulfilled then rather than now. It should be known that nearly the same words are also found in the prophecy of Micah.

2| From the same. 2. "Behold, the master of Sabaoth will take away from Judea and from Jerusalem the strong man and the strong woman, the might of bread and the might of water, the giant and the mighty man, and the warrior, and the judge, the prophet, and the diviner, and the elder, and the commander of fifty, and the wonderful counselor, and the wise master builder, and the understanding listener. And I will set young men as their rulers, and mockers will lord it over them," and so on; to which God adds: "I will not be the leader of this people, for Jerusalem is abandoned and Judea has fallen, and their tongues are with lawlessness, disobeying the things toward the Lord. Therefore now their glory has been humbled, and the shame of their face has stood against them; and their sin they declared and displayed as Sodom's. Woe to their soul, because they have devised an evil plan against themselves, saying, Let us bind the righteous man, because he is troublesome to us; for that reason they shall eat the fruits of their works." And the book called the Wisdom of Solomon has things similar to what is said here about the righteous man, as follows: "Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is troublesome to us and opposes our words." In that book it is plain from the context that these things are said about Christ; and so the things here too are prophesied about those who plotted against him, and who devised an evil plan rather against themselves than against him; therefore the Word fittingly brings a lament upon them, in the words "Woe to their soul"; but he also sets before them the punishment that awaits them, saying: "therefore they shall eat the offspring of their works"; for such as they sowed against Christ, such they will also reap at God's judgment seat. And already in this present life see whether, after the plot against Christ, the word of the prophecy set before us was not fulfilled in them, the word that says: "Behold, the master, the Lord of Sabaoth, will remove from Judea and from Jerusalem the strong man and the strong woman." For truly the divine and heavenly grace that of old had its citizenship among them has been taken away from them, and it is no longer possible to find among them either a prophet or a diviner; and where is their man of war, or their judge, the wonderful counselor, or the understanding listener? And if they seem to partake of spiritual bread in reading the sacred words of God, see whether the power and the strength stored up in the divine writings has not been taken away from them; and plainly in addition to these things Jerusalem is abandoned, and all the rest has been fulfilled in them on account of that one sin against Christ; for "Woe," says the Word, "to their soul"; and it adds the cause of the lament, saying: "because they have devised an evil plan against themselves, saying: Let us bind the righteous man, because he is troublesome to us."

3| 3. "My people, those who call you blessed lead you astray, and they confuse the path of your feet. But now the Lord will stand for judgment, and will set his people on their feet. The Lord himself will come to judgment with the elders of the people and with its rulers." It does not seem that "now the Lord will stand for judgment" is referred to the God of the universe, and especially "the Lord himself will come to judgment with the elders of the people and with its rulers"; but it would fit these things to be prophesied of God the Word, who is himself also styled Lord; for indeed the very Word of God who was proclaimed to all under heaven will stand for judgment with all, giving to not one of the impious any room for defense, since his teaching has run into the hearing of all; and Jesus Christ will come to judgment especially with the elders of the people and with its rulers, since they were gathered together against him and prepared the plot against him; who, calling blessed the people ruled by them, led it astray, calling evil good and declaring the good words of our Savior to be evil.

4| 4. "And the Lord went on to speak to Ahaz, saying: Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, either down in the depth or up in the height. And Ahaz answered, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. And he said, Hear now, O house of David: is it a small matter for you to cause trouble to men, and how do you cause trouble to the Lord? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey he shall eat; before he knows or chooses evil things, he shall choose the good; because, before the child comes to know good or evil, he disobeys evil, to choose the good." Let those of the circumcision who do not accept the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ say who the virgin is who, according to the prophecy, will conceive in the womb and bear the son named Emmanuel; but if they should say that the Hebrew has not "virgin" but "young woman," it must be said that those who first interpreted the Scripture under the divine dispensation were no ordinary men: they were 70 in number, chosen as the best from the whole people, and had given in their own times no small proof of their wisdom. And what astonishing sign would the word promise, testifying beforehand that it would be given by the Lord himself to the house of David as something marvelous, if the word concerned a mere young woman? And nothing prevents us, even if the Hebrew contains "young woman" as they say, from supposing that what is said is declared of a virgin; for in Leviticus you may find a woman who is admittedly a virgin, betrothed to a man but violated by another, called "young woman" by the Scripture; and in this way it would be fitting that a sign be given by the Lord to the house of David because of their unbelief, that a virgin should marvelously give birth, on account of which the one to be born is proclaimed to be someone wonderful, since it is prophesied that from childhood, and so to speak from his very birth, he will disobey evil and choose the good. And his name too is wonderfully proclaimed beforehand, being Emmanuel, which is "God with us"; which we, who confess him and perceive his divine and unspeakable sojourn among all men through his power, might say; and Emmanuel, "God with us," might be said again in this sense, that the Father and God of the universe is beyond not only mortal but all rational nature, whereas the Son is fittingly named "God with us" because of his sojourn among us. And since I remember having heard one of the circumcision say that these things were prophesied to Ahaz about Hezekiah, who was born of him and reigned after him, it must be observed that before Ahaz became king, and before this very prophecy spoken to him, Hezekiah is shown to have been born long since; for he succeeded Ahaz, who reigned for sixteen years, being in the twenty-fifth year of his age when he began to reign, so that his birth preceded his father's accession to the kingship by nine years; but in fact the words before us are prophesied to Ahaz when he was already reigning, about the aforementioned marvelous and most wonderful birth of Christ. What sense each phrase of the wording has, the lover of learning will know on reading those who have expounded these passages of the admirable man.

5| 5. "And the Lord said to me, Take for yourself a large new scroll (of paper), and write in it with a man's pen: To make haste to plunder spoils. For it is at hand; and make faithful men witnesses for me, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah son of Barachiah. And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived in the womb and bore a son; and the Lord said to me, Call his name, Quickly plunder, swiftly pillage; for before the child knows to call father or mother, he shall receive the might of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians." For the record of what was about to be accomplished marvelously, the prophet is commanded to take a large new scroll, unwritten; by which I think the gospel of the new covenant is indicated; and also to make faithful men witnesses for the Lord, of whom one is said to be a priest, and the other, I think, was a prophet (the writing of Chronicles at any rate mentions him); these two I take to be a symbol of the prophets who bore witness to the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the priests long established as a type of him. After this it is said: "And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived in the womb and bore a son," and so on. It is very unseemly, and foreign to the dignity and purity of a prophet, to suppose so readily that the prophet, in the very midst of being inspired, approached a woman, herself a prophetess too, in the presence of the witnesses mentioned, for the sake of shameful intercourse; and what plausibility could dare to say that he approached her, that she conceived and bore a son? No, I think that this prophecy also belongs to the sense of the one set out earlier, in which it was said: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb"; for there the virgin was foretold as going to conceive in the womb and bear a son; here the manner in which the prophecy came to its end is declared: "in the womb," it says, "she conceived and bore a son." Who, then, would the one be who says "I went to the prophetess," if not the Holy Spirit who speaks in the prophet, of whom it was said to Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you"? Wherefore she too, not improperly, may be called a prophetess, since, having conceived from the Holy Spirit, she bore him who there is called Emmanuel but here is named otherwise: "Call," it says, "the name of the child who is born, Quickly plunder, swiftly pillage"; for truly this child plundered and pillaged, by an unspeakable and divine power, the opposing invisible and spiritual powers, so that he could say, "I have conquered the world"; and having taken from them as spoils and booty the souls long tyrannized by them, to proclaim release to captives, he confesses that he received from the Father nations as his inheritance, which may readily be called spoils; and "the ends of the earth" as his possession, which also could fittingly be called booty. In addition to this it says, "before the child knows to call father or mother, he shall receive the might of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians"; which things too I think are said, in the deeper sense only, either about certain evil powers, which the divine power of our Savior brought down along with his birth, or about the different kinds of souls who have believed in him: of whom those who changed over from idolatry to the life of the gospel are likely the so-called power of Damascus, and those from the circumcision who received the Christ of God the so-called spoils of Samaria; and having taken these souls as spoils and booty from the intelligible enemies, over against the intelligible king of the Assyrians, that is, the devil, he armed them and prepared them to fight against him. And these things the one who wishes can examine exactly from the commentaries made on these passages by the holy man; but if those of the circumcision demand these things in a more bodily way, they should be examined in return, whether they can show bodily in what manner Isaiah approached the prophetess for the sake of bodily union in the presence of the witnesses mentioned; and who such a prophetess was, and how she immediately conceived in the womb and at once gave birth, and what sort of child this was that the Lord commands Isaiah to call by the name "Quickly plunder, swiftly pillage"; and what sense has so great a name, or how is it possible, on the obvious meaning, to conceive of any child at all bodily taking the so-called power of Damascus and the so-called spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians, and doing this before knowing to call father or mother? And besides, if they object to what we have set forth, let them themselves show how the Christ they expect, when he comes, will bodily take the power of Damascus according to the prophecy, and what spoils of Samaria, or before what Assyrians, when none of these things is still active in the present times.

6| 6. "Behold, I and the children whom God has given me; and there shall be signs and wonders in the house of Israel from the Lord God of Sabaoth, who dwells on Mount Zion." And the words "Behold, I and the children whom God has given me" have been well taken, in the person of the Savior, as concerning the apostles and those who afterward believed in him, in the Epistle to the Hebrews; here, then, is added: "and there shall be signs and wonders in the house of Israel"; and it is clear how at the time of the Savior's coming there were signs and wonders in the house of Israel such as were never accomplished before.

7| 7. "And they will wish that they had been burned by fire. For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us, whose rule has come upon his shoulder, and his name is called Angel of great counsel; for I will bring peace upon the rulers, and health to him. Great is his rule, and there is no limit to his peace; upon the throne of David, and to establish his kingdom, and to uphold it with judgment and with righteousness, from now and forever; the zeal of the Lord Sabaoth will accomplish this." I think the child spoken of here is none other than the one prophesied above as going to be born of the virgin, whom a little earlier the prophetess too was said to have borne; but the name given above was Emmanuel, and the one after that, Quickly plunder, swiftly pillage. Here this same one, according to the interpretation of the Seventy, is styled Angel of great counsel; but according to Aquila, and the Hebrew itself, "his name is Wonderful Counselor, Strong, Mighty Father, further Ruler of peace"; and according to Symmachus, "the name of the child shall be called Wonder, Counselor, Strong, Mighty, Father of the age, Ruler of peace." Those of the circumcision must therefore be asked to show what child they could have to whom such great titles would be fitted; for with us these are conceptions of the divine power of Christ, in whom those who did not believe will wish that they had been burned by fire rather than see their own rejection and the salvation of the nations, which the zeal of the Lord of Sabaoth is said to accomplish; to which you may add what is said in Moses in this way: "They provoked me to jealousy with their idols, and I in turn will provoke them to jealousy with a non-nation; with a senseless nation I will make them angry." But it is not the present occasion, nor indeed our purpose, to explain each phrase of the prophecy, namely how it is said "upon the throne of David and to establish his kingdom"; at which it is likely that those of the circumcision would stumble, because our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ did not bodily sit upon the throne and kingdom of David; therefore, sending the lovers of learning to the commentaries on these passages, we shall bring the matter before us to its end.

8| 8. "Behold, the master, the Lord of Sabaoth, will throw into confusion the glorious with strength, and the lofty in their insolence shall be shattered and shall be abased, and the high ones shall fall by the sword, and Lebanon shall fall with the lofty. And a rod shall go out from Jesse's root, and a flower shall ascend from the root, and the Spirit of God shall repose upon him, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and piety shall fill him; a spirit of the fear of God. He shall not judge according to appearance, nor rebuke according to talk, but he shall judge the humble with judgment, and rebuke the humble of the earth, and he shall strike the earth with the word of his mouth, and with a spirit through his lips he shall slay the impious; and he shall be girded with righteousness about his loins, and bound with truth about his sides. And the wolf shall feed together with the lamb, and the leopard shall rest along with the kid, and the calf and the bull and the lion shall graze together, and their young shall be together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and an infant child shall put his hand on the hole of asps and on the bed of the offspring of asps, and they shall not do harm, nor shall they be able to destroy anyone on my holy mountain, because the whole earth was filled with the knowledge of the Lord, like abundant water to cover seas; and in that day there shall be the root of Jesse, even he who rises to rule nations; in him nations shall hope, and his rest shall be honor." Not even those of the circumcision themselves have supposed that the one prophesied here is anyone other than the Christ, except that, on a bare reading of the prophecy, imagining that the matters in the passage will be more bodily, they do not confess faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; but we, persuaded that the whole prophecy is worthy of God, have believed that these things are said of the changes of men, who through the appearing of our Savior have been changed from the depth of wickedness to gentleness; seeing even now how and in what manner, in the churches throughout the inhabited world, after the coming of Jesus Christ, who sprang from the root of Jesse, the many among men were remolded and changed their very nature from a beastly life, having been formerly wolves, and leopards in some such fashion, and lions, and whatever other beasts and reptiles the prophecy lists according to the varied wickedness and evil in each; who, having changed and as it were been remolded, have advanced to such gentleness that they feed together, eating the same food of the sacred words of God with the men of God who are most gentle in character, whom, because of such harmlessness of soul, the divine Word has likened to tame and most gentle animals, and to the children recorded here. And if anyone is hard to persuade about this, let him say whether it is possible to preserve the wording otherwise on the obvious meaning; for why, or how, will Lebanon fall with the lofty? Let him not read the rod figuratively, nor the flower from it, but let him show how a bodily rod is said to go out from Jesse's root, and what sort of flower is to go up from it; and if these things force even the very stubborn man to rise to the deeper sense, see whether the rest too is not well shown by us to have been fulfilled in sense at the coming of our Savior; which things happened in accordance with the prophecy after the Lord of Sabaoth threw into confusion those formerly glorious among the earlier people, who, exalted by their insolence against our Savior, he prophesies will be shattered and humbled and fall; and the Word says that with them Lebanon too will fall; for it is his custom so to name Jerusalem and the worship formerly performed in it bodily, as is clear from Ezekiel, where it is recorded in this manner: "The great eagle, great-winged, long in extent, full of talons, who has the purpose of entering into Lebanon, and took the choice parts of the cedar." In solving the parable, the prophetic word itself plainly teaches that Lebanon is Jerusalem, saying: "Son of man, say now to the embittering house, Do you not know what these things were? Say: When the king of Babylon comes to Jerusalem, he will take its king and its rulers." It is plain, then, how this Lebanon too, with the lofty ones, fell in its insolence at the coming of our Savior, born of the root of Jesse; upon him the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit rested, and he will come again, at his second and glorious coming, not to judge according to appearance, for God does not receive the face of man, nor to rebuke according to talk, for he is the one who tests hearts and kidneys, and pierces to the division of soul and spirit. And at his coming, already past, the earth was truly filled with the knowledge of the Lord, although before that no one knew him except those alone of the circumcision; but then the prophecy will be brought to its end more fully, when, the fullness of the nations having come in, all Israel will be saved along with the rest of the nations, and Christ, having risen from the dead, has been established by God to rule nations, according to [….] See, then, how in no way here is Israel or Jacob or Judah named, but plainly it is prophesied that the nations will hope in the one who will rise from the root of Jesse, the wording here agreeing with the saying in Moses: "A ruler shall not be lacking from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is reserved; and he is the expectation, not of Israel, but of the nations." And whose rest has come about in the highest honor with God, if not of him who heard the Father say to him: "Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies as a footstool beneath your feet"?

9| 9. "And a throne shall be set right with mercy, and one shall sit upon it with truth in the tent of David, judging and seeking judgment and hastening righteousness." These things too are prophesied about the second coming of Christ, when the Word of God, with the kingship over all set right for him with mercy and love of mankind, shall sit in judgment with truth in the tent of David; and by this name I think the church of the saints and firstborn who are enrolled in heaven is styled, and all who have become saints under the portion of the Word of God.

10| 10. "Behold, the Lord sits on a light cloud, and he will come to Egypt, and the handmade things of Egypt will be shaken before his face, and their heart will be overcome within them." To take what lies before us as concerning the unbegotten nature belonging to the God of the universe, as though he were going to ride on some cloud and sojourn in bodily Egypt, I consider neither plausible nor holy; therefore the prophecy must be understood of the Word of God, and as already clearly completed at his first coming, in which he came into this life, called Egypt figuratively, on a light cloud, the flesh formed for him from the Holy Spirit, and also into bodily Egypt itself, to which, while still a child, he was carried by his mother and Joseph; and at that time, for certain secret reasons, the demons that dwelt in and worked through the handmade wooden images everywhere, thrown into confusion by his presence, were shaken and moved; which is shown by the prophecy that says, "and the handmade things of Egypt will be shaken." These things will also be fulfilled in his second and glorious kingdom from heaven, in which it is likely that Egypt itself will be shaken; and then the handmade things of Egypt that have been mentioned will be shaken still more, whose heart, they say, will be overcome within them, when the divine Word subjects to himself and humbles every height that now lifts itself up against the knowledge of God. All the rest of the prophecy will be rendered only by figurative interpretation.

11| 11. "In that day an altar to the Lord shall stand in the land of the Egyptians, and a pillar at its border to the Lord; and the Lord shall be for a sign forever in the land of Egypt; for they shall cry out to the Lord because of those who oppress them, and he will send them a man who will save them; judging he will save them. And the Lord shall become known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord on that day, and they shall make sacrifices and gifts, and they shall vow vows to God." And who else could the man sent by the Lord be, who saved the Egyptians by judging, if not the Christ of God, who took the form of a slave and was found in appearance as a man? And if Egypt is understood figuratively as the life of men, the Egyptians would be the superstitious and those who had earlier been subject to material things, whom the God of the universe pitied as they were oppressed by the demons who tyrannized them, sending the man mentioned, who saved with a salvation befitting God, so that those formerly excluded by the law from the church of the Lord, through the appearing that came to them, recognized the Lord, the Lord himself making himself known to them; and it is clear how, in the land of the Egyptians mentioned, an altar to the Lord was established from the assemblies held in every place for prayers and the worship of God. One might say, in following the wording "and an altar to the Lord shall stand in the land of the Egyptians," that if the altar is a place of sacrifices, where irrational animals are slaughtered at the word of God, then most justly a greater and truer altar to God has come to be through Christ, in the whole earthly region, called Egypt figuratively, through the martyrs everywhere, who are offered to God as victims and as it were sacrifices on behalf of the race of men, and in the bodily land of the Egyptians itself, where so many and such great martyrs glorified God by their own blood. But if those of the circumcision are hard to persuade about what has been set out, let them say when and where and by whom an altar to the Lord was established in Egypt, and who the man was who saved the Egyptians, and in what manner and when the Lord became known to the Egyptians, so that they, departing from their former error, took up the knowledge of him; for such is the recognizing of the Lord. And all the rest of the prophecy depends on a deeper sense, which the present occasion does not allow us to unfold.

12| 12. "Lord, in affliction I remembered you; in small affliction was your instruction to us; and as the woman in labor draws near to giving birth, and cried out in her labor pain, so have we become to your beloved." A certain inscription in the Psalms is carried "for the beloved"; and again it is said, "the king of the forces of the beloved"; and it is shown in the passages that the one called the beloved of God is none other than the Christ. For this reason we have marked the "beloved" in hand too, supposing him to be that very one whom also the voice from heaven plainly proclaimed, saying: "This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I take pleasure."

13| 13. "Hear the words of the Lord, you afflicted men, and you rulers of this people who are in Jerusalem. For you said, We made a covenant with Hades, and agreements with death; if a rushing storm passes through, it will not come upon us; we have made falsehood our hope, and by falsehood we shall be sheltered. Therefore thus says the Lord, the Lord: Behold, I am laying in the foundations of Zion a costly stone, a chosen one, a cornerstone, precious, for her foundations, and he who believes in it will not be put to shame; and I will make judgment for hope, and my mercy for balances." And how is it not truly foolish and altogether ridiculous, the supposition of those who bodily wait for a stone of those considered costly and valuable to be laid by the Lord himself in the foundations of the bodily Zion, upon which stone the one who believes is prophesied never to be put to shame? Casting off, then, the foolish and Jewish accounts and the old wives' tales, as the apostle named them, let us accept the divinely inspired prophecies in a manner worthy of God. It says, therefore, "Because of this, behold, I am laying in the foundations of Zion a stone." And on account of what, if not because the rulers of the former people had made agreements with death, and because they had left the covenant of God and in its place made a covenant with Hades, and supposed on this account that they would suffer no harm; and also because they had set their hope on falsehood and thought they would be sheltered by falsehood; for it is on account of these things, since they had fallen away from hope in God, that he promises to set the very precious stone for those who believe. To those who said, "We made a covenant with Hades, and agreements with death; if a rushing storm passes through, it will not come upon us; we have made falsehood our hope, and by falsehood we shall be sheltered," the word says further on: "You who trust vainly in falsehood, the storm shall not pass you by, lest it also take away your covenant with death; and your hope toward Hades shall not abide; if a rushing storm comes, you shall be trampled by it." And it is plain how these things were fulfilled on that people at the coming of our Savior. Accordingly we consider the stone indicated here to be none other than the chosen, wonderful and marvelous one, so that those who believe in him will not be put to shame, the sacred Word of God, upon whom as a firm foundation the spiritual and heavenly Zion has been built, which is nothing other than the church of God: "For no one can lay another foundation than the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Of him it is also said in the Psalms: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the head of the corner," and he is named a cornerstone; and Daniel too interprets this stone as referring to the kingdom of Christ, where he says: "and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain, and struck, or filled, all the earth." The builders who build according to the letter of the law rejected this stone; but he, none the less rejected by them, has been shown to be the head of the corner belonging to the church from the nations, according to what is said somewhere, "You will set me as head of nations." Whoever believes on this stone, therefore, will not be put to shame, this prophecy about him also proving true.

14| 14. "Behold, the name of the Lord comes after a long time, burning wrath, with glory the oracle of his lips, the oracle full of anger, and the anger of wrath will devour like fire." And what could the so-called name of the Lord be if not God the Word, through whom all things came to be? I think this prophecy too hints at his second and glorious coming.

15| 15. "Thus says the Lord: Blessed is he who has seed in Zion, and kinsfolk in Jerusalem; for behold, a righteous king will reign, and rulers will rule with judgment." The Christ of God, who said "But I was established king by him," is indicated also through these words; and the rulers under him would be either the apostles and those who rule the churches with the judgment of God, or divine angels, overseers of the salvation of men; and because of this king of Zion and Jerusalem, "blessed is he who has seed in Zion and kinsfolk in Jerusalem"; which things must be taken in a manner worthy of the apostolic spirit, which teaches us about the Jerusalem above and the heavenly mount Zion.

16| 16. "Be glad, thirsty desert; let the desert exult and bloom like a lily; and the wilderness of the Jordan shall bloom and exult, and the glory of Lebanon has been given to it, and the honor of Carmel; and my people will behold the glory of the Lord and the height of God. Be strong, you slackened hands and paralyzed knees; comfort, you faint of heart in your mind; be strong, do not be afraid; behold, our God renders judgment in return and will render in return; he himself will come and save us. Then the blind shall have their eyes opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be clear, for water has broken out in the desert, and a ravine in a thirsty land; and the waterless land shall become marshes, and into the thirsty land a spring of waters shall be." It foretells that at the coming of God there will be marvelous healings. Here too, then, plainly, the Christ of God is honored with the name of God; at whose coming the cures mentioned were accomplished bodily on the sufferers, and are still more marvelously worked even now through faith in him, the whole race of men without exception being freed from the passions of the soul. "Water has broken out in the desert, and a ravine in a thirsty land" at the coming of Christ, the drinkable and life-giving word having gushed forth in the land once desert and thirsty, the church from the nations, in which, formerly waterless and parched, a spring of the words of Jesus, living water leaping up to eternal life, suddenly welled up; and watered by this spring the once desert is said to bloom like a lily, and is commanded to rejoice and exult; and the cause of the joy and exultation is added, since, it says, "the glory of Lebanon was given to it," that is, of Jerusalem, of which it was said in the earlier prophecies that "Lebanon too will fall with the lofty ones"; when it fell, the glory formerly belonging to it was given to the desert that now receives the good news, that is, to the church from the nations, along with the former honor of the so-called Carmel, plainly of the earlier people. These things clearly reached their end in fact after the coming of Christ, in accord with the prophecy at hand and with the word of our Savior himself, which says that the kingdom of God will be taken away and given to a nation producing its fruits.

17| 17. "A voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths; every ravine shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and all the crooked things shall become straight and the rough ways plains; and the glory of the Lord shall be seen, and all flesh shall behold the salvation of God, for the Lord has spoken." John, the forerunner of our Savior, said to those who asked him who he was: "I am the voice of one crying in the desert," and so on. For this reason we have set out the passage among the testimonies concerning Christ, considering John a symbol of the apostolic proclamation; for such is the voice crying in the desert, being an indistinct sound and inarticulate to those who are just now being taught the elements; but in the once desert, the church from the nations, a voice of this kind arises and bids them prepare the Lord's way, and so on; which whoever cares for the knowledge of these things will know on investigating at leisure.

18| 18. "Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good news to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good news to Jerusalem; lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God: the Lord, the Lord is coming with strength, and his arm with authority; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him; like a shepherd he will shepherd his flock, and with his arm he will gather lambs, and those that are with young he will comfort." We think these things too are said about the coming of the Word of God, and perhaps rather about the second, in which, as a righteous judge, he is prophesied to come having with him the reward that repays each as his deeds deserve; the rest, however, the occasion does not now require us to relate; so we shall turn to another passage.

19| 19. "Who raised up righteousness from the east, called it to his feet, and it shall go? He will give it before nations, and will astound kings; and he will give their swords to the ground, and their bows as driven stubble, and he will pursue them; the way of his feet shall pass in peace; he will not come. Who has worked and done these things? He who calls it from the generations of the beginning has called it: I am God, first, and for what comes I am; the nations saw and were afraid; the ends of the earth were astonished; they drew near, they came together, each deciding to help his neighbor and his brother; and he will say, The craftsman has become strong, and the smith striking with the hammer, driving together; at one time he will say, The joint is good; they fastened them with nails; they will set them and it shall not be moved." Who could the righteousness raised up from the east be, taken as a circumscribed essence having its own subsistence, if not the Christ of God, of whom the apostle says: "who became for us wisdom from God, and also righteousness and sanctification and redemption"? The dispensation of the incarnation raised him from the Father's bosom, which is the east of all intelligible light; or the Father himself raised him, who gave him before the nations; so that their former kings, being invisible evil powers, may be astounded at the marvel of the dispensation, seeing so great a Son of God having neither form nor beauty; and so that after such astonishment their swords are given to the ground, and their bows are as driven stubble, so that they no longer hold weapons of war and fiery missiles, by which they formerly waged war on the souls subject to them. After this it says, "and he will pursue them," so that, at the end of all, when they have been pursued, the way of his feet may pass in peace. "Who has worked," it says, "and done these things?" We understand in addition: the goodness and love of mankind of the God of the universe, who calls it, plainly righteousness, which is none other than his wisdom, seeing which the nations that previously lived without the fear of God became afraid of God; and these, called from the ends and the limits of the inhabited world, drew near to God; those once far off became near to the kingdom of heaven; therefore also they were astonished at the marvel of the salvation, and, teaching one another, and brother helping brother, they confess their former error about the idols, saying these very things: "He was a craftsman and a smith, who by hammer and nails and human contrivance raised up and strengthened the gods formerly thought of by us; and they were nothing but lifeless wooden images, receiving no motion from themselves, and our fathers possessed false idols, and there was no benefit in them." That these things were so accomplished at the coming of our Savior, the witness of deeds shows better than words.

20| 20. "Jacob my servant, I will take hold of him; Israel my chosen, my soul has accepted him; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth judgment to the nations; he will not cry out, nor let up, nor will his voice be heard outside; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoking flax he will not quench; but he will bring forth judgment to truth; he will shine out and will not be broken until he establishes judgment on the earth; and nations will hope in his name. Thus says the Lord God, who made the heaven and fixed it, who made firm the earth and what is in it, and gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it: I, the Lord God, have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand and strengthen you; and I have given you for a covenant of a race, for a light of nations, to open the eyes of blind men, to bring out of bonds those who are bound, and from the prison house those who sit in darkness." That the words beginning "Jacob my servant, I will take hold of him, Israel my chosen, my soul has accepted him" are not prophesied of the people of the Jews will be clear to those willing to examine each phrase of the passage, and it is also plain from the exactness of the Hebrew; for neither the name Jacob nor Israel is found in it, wherefore it has also been obelized in the exact copies of the Seventy; since no one of the righteous but our Savior Jesus Christ, and not even Isaac's son himself, who was called Jacob and Israel, was such a one that what lies before us could be fitted to him, no one, I think, doubts; for even if someone should fit "I have put my Spirit upon him" to others, what would he say about "he will bring forth judgment to the nations," and what follows, and especially "and in his name nations will hope"? And how could it be plausible to fit to the people of the Jews, or to Jacob the son of Isaac himself, or to some other of the righteous, "I have given you for a covenant of a race, for a light of nations, to open the eyes of blind men, to bring out of bonds those who are bound, and from the prison house those who sit in darkness"? But let these things be put as difficulties to those of the circumcision; the gospel, however, clearly teaches us that this prophecy was fulfilled in our Savior Jesus, when the Pharisees, going out, took counsel against him how to destroy him. "But Jesus, knowing it, withdrew from there; and many followed him, and he healed all of them; and he warned them not to make him known." For to this is added in the gospel: "that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, who said: Behold, my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul has taken pleasure; I will set my Spirit upon him," and so on, as much as is collected in the prophecy. He would be, then, the very one who is also styled Jacob, being the only-begotten servant of God, as is said elsewhere: "It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, to set up the tribes of Jacob and to turn back the dispersions of Israel." This one, then, having heard from the Father, along with the other words, also "I have given you for a covenant of a race, for a light of nations," brought forth judgment to the nations, so that they might live as citizens according to the sacred gospel with a settled reason; and it is clear how the nations that believed in him hoped in his name, and how he was shown to them as a light of nations, so that through the light of his word the eyes of the mind of those formerly blinded by these things were opened; and he also brought out of bonds those formerly constrained by the chains of their own sins, and out of the prison house of the devil those who sat in darkness through ignorance of the God of the universe. It is left to the lover of learning to examine each phrase of the prophecy and to transfer what falls under it, in proportion to what we have said, to the Christ of God.

21| 21. “Be my witnesses, and I too am a witness, says the Lord God, and the servant whom I have chosen.” And who could the servant be whom the Lord God has chosen, whom he also enrolls with himself as one who will be a witness of those who bear witness to him, other than the one of whom it was said in the chapter before this, “Jacob my servant; I will take hold of him,” and the rest? These words were clearly shown to have been prophesied of our Savior and Lord Jesus.

22| 22. “I made the earth, and man upon it; I with my hand set firm the heaven; I gave orders to all the stars. I raised him up with righteousness as king, and all his ways are straight; he shall build my city, and he shall turn back the captivity of my people, not with gifts nor with ransoms, said the Lord Sabaoth. Thus says the Lord Sabaoth: Egypt has toiled, and the Ethiopians' merchandise, and the Sabaeim, tall men, shall cross over to you, and they shall be slaves to you, and shall follow after you in handcuffs, and they shall cross over to you, and shall bow down to you, and shall pray in you, because God is in you, and there is no God except you; for you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior. All who oppose you shall be put to shame and humiliated, and shall go their way in shame.” The Father raised Christ from the dead so that he would be king with righteousness, reigning upon Zion, his holy heavenly mountain; and he raised him for this reason, because all his ways, it says, have become straight, having nothing crooked or twisted; for he did not commit sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. He also built the city of God, both his holy church on earth and the heavenly Jerusalem, turning back the captivity of his people, which had come about once under the intelligible Nebuchadnezzar and the wicked powers under him; and indeed he turned back the captivity just mentioned, not by giving ransoms to those who had taken captives, nor by persuading them with gifts, but by campaigning against them and subduing them in battle, so that, made radiant by his success, he could say, “I have conquered the world.” The multitudes bear witness to these things, those who through him have run back from their former error to knowing the true God; or else let those of the circumcision say to whom the prophecy now in hand could be fitted, when it so clearly confesses as God the one who is prophesied. For it says, “These too shall be slaves to you, and shall follow after you and shall bow down to you, and shall pray in you, because God is in you, and there is no other except you; for you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.” For here it is plain that the one to whom it was said, “God is in you,” is the one the passage addresses when it says, “and there is no other except you; for you are God, and we did not know it.” These words are also understood as spoken in the person of those who have recognized the Christ of God made man, in whom God the Father dwelt, according to the saying, “I am in the Father, and in me is the Father.” For this reason the words “there is no God except you” would fit him alone, since the divinity of the Word alone is united and blended with the Father’s kingdom, and for this reason the glory and rule of both is conceived as one; In the words “Egypt has toiled, and the Ethiopians' merchandise, and the Sabaeim, tall men, shall cross over to you,” I think there is a disclosure concerning certain intelligible opposing powers who took up a contest against Christ and were brought under his hand, or else concerning souls of that sort who at first strained against the Word but later accepted slavery under him for their own benefit. It is of these, I think, that it is also said, “They shall be slaves to you, and shall follow after you bound in handcuffs, and shall pray in you.” But the words, “All who oppose you shall be put to shame and humiliated, and shall go their way in shame,” are prophesied of those who did not repent, but remained enemies and foes, and were in no way willing to take up upon themselves the yoke of the word of Christ. So much for what concerns the plain sense about Christ. It would also be fitting to set this passage before not only those of the circumcision but also those who suppose the Savior to have been a mere man, the Ebionites, or the followers of Artemon and Paul of Samosata. For clearly through these words too the divinity of Christ is demonstrated to those who are hard to persuade about him.

23| 23. “Hear me, Jacob, and Israel whom I call: I am the first, and I am forever. My hand also founded the earth, and my right hand set the heaven firm; I will call them together, and they shall stand and be gathered, and they shall hear. Who announced these things to them? The Lord who loves you: I did your will against Babylon, to take away the seed of the Chaldeans. I spoke, and I called; I led him, and made his way prosper. Draw near to me, and hear these things: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; when it came to be, there I was; and now the Lord, the Lord, sent me, along with his Spirit.” Since there is a single person who speaks these things in the passage, who else could be the Lord who made the heaven and fixed it, and made the earth firm, who says, “I am first, and I am forever,” and adds in what follows, according to all who have interpreted the divine scripture, “and now the Lord God has sent me, as well as his Spirit,” but the holy Word of God, who after the unbegotten beginning of all created things is named first God, of whom it is also written elsewhere, “He sent his word and healed them”? For he is the one through whom all things came to be, both those in the heavens and those on the earth, whether visible or invisible; whom the Lord God the Father also sent, and with him the Holy Spirit, to administer what concerns the salvation of human beings. The saying would also be suitable against the Jews, teaching that the Lord who made all things is other than the God of the universe, by whom he acknowledges that he has been sent when he says, “and now the Lord has sent me”; and he would be the one to whom the Father speaks his command at the making of the world, “Let there be light, and let this and that come to be,” and “Let us make man in our image.” For so it is also recorded in the Psalms, “He spoke, and they came to be; he commanded, and they were created.” For it is plain that one who commands something and speaks does so to another besides himself and gives him orders. To examine each phrase of the passage, however, does not belong to the present work.

24| 24. “Listen to me, islands, and pay attention, nations. After a long time it shall stand, says the Lord. From my mother’s womb I called my name; and he made my mouth like a sharp sword; and under the shelter of his hand he hid me; and he said to me, You are my slave, Israel, and in you I shall be glorified. And I said, I have toiled in vain, I have given my strength for nothing and to no purpose; therefore my judgment is with the Lord, and my labor before my God. And now thus says the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be his slave, to gather Jacob and Israel to him: I shall be gathered and glorified before the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, to set up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the dispersions of Israel; behold, I have set you as a covenant of a race, as a light of nations, that you may be for salvation to the end of the earth. Thus says the Lord, who rescued you, the God of Israel: Make holy the one who holds his own soul cheap, who is abhorred by the nations, the slaves of rulers; kings shall see him, and rulers shall rise up, and they shall bow down to him, for the Lord’s sake; because the Holy One of Israel is faithful, and I have chosen you. Thus says the Lord: In an acceptable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I helped you, and I formed you, and I gave you as a covenant of nations, to establish the earth and to inherit deserted places, saying to those in bonds, Come out, and to those in darkness, Be uncovered; and they shall be pastured along all the ways, and on all the paths shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, nor shall the scorching heat strike them, nor the sun; but the one who has mercy on them shall comfort them, and shall lead them through springs of water, and I shall make every mountain a road, and every path a pasture for them.” It is likely that those of the circumcision suppose that what is in the prophecy was said about themselves, since it has been said, “And he said to me, You are my slave, Israel, and in you I shall be glorified.” But besides the fact that the words do not fit them, it is clearly shown from what follows that what is said is prophesied about a different Israel. For it is written, “And now thus says the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be his slave, to gather Jacob and Israel to him,” and again, “He said to me, It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, to set up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the dispersions of Israel.” But also the words, “Behold, I have set you as a light of nations, that you may be for salvation to the end of the earth,” hint at someone paradoxical and wonderful, the one of whom the discourse speaks; and who could this be other than our Lord Jesus Christ, who was already earlier styled both Jacob and Israel in the passages above, through the words, “Jacob my servant, I will take hold of him; Israel my chosen, my soul has accepted him”? For this is the one who alone in truth sees God the Father, and is named Israel, which is interpreted “seeing God,” in respect of his very divinity; and Jacob, which is “heel-catcher,” in respect of his having become man and having overcome all the opposing powers. See whether the passages do not sound in harmony with one another, the one now in hand and the one in which it was said, “Jacob my servant,” which refers to Christ. For as there it is said, “Jacob my servant,” so here, “It is a great thing for you to be called my servant”; and as there it was said, “Israel my chosen,” so here, “Because the Holy One of Israel is faithful, and I have chosen you.” Again, there it is said, “I gave you as a covenant of a race, as a light of nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out of bonds those who are bound, and from the prison house those who sit in darkness”; and in the passage now in hand, “Behold, I have set you as a light of nations, to establish the earth and to take as inheritance the inheritance of a desert, saying to those in bonds, Come out, and to those in darkness, Be uncovered.” That the contents of the prophecies set before us fit no one other than our Savior alone will be clear to those who consider the multitude of the nations that have set their hope on the God of the universe in him and through him, the nations for whom he was set by the Father as a light. And it says, “to establish the earth,” that is, to bring the soul, which was long in turmoil and instability, into stability and order according to nature; and also “to inherit the inheritance of a desert,” meaning the church from the nations, which, being a desert before his coming, received its inheritance from the one who said to him, “Ask of me, and I shall give you the nations as your inheritance.” And according to the prophecy about him, he said to those in bonds to come out: in the plain sense, as in the case of Lazarus, who was bound in grave cloths and four days in the tomb, whom he let go free, saying, “Lazarus, come out here”; and in part by way of the deeper meaning, in the case of the daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound for eighteen years, whom he likewise freed from her weakness and sent away whole; and in general, when he granted to all who were gripped by the cords of their own sins the forgiveness of their former sins, as the only one who has authority to forgive sins; and to these he still now, through his teaching, gives the command to come out of their former bonds, saying to each, “See, you have become well; sin no more.” In addition to these, he commands that those still buried in ignorance and wickedness be uncovered even now, as being the Word of God, who tests hearts and kidneys and judges the heart's thoughts and intentions. But in order to run through the matter as briefly as possible, let us also fit what precedes these words to what is said about Christ, and taking it up from the beginning, set out our understanding of them as well. He has clearly addressed the people of the circumcision in many places, when he even calls on Jacob or Israel by name; but in the present passage he does not make the prophecy to them, but summons islands and nations to listen to what is to be said. And here the promise of the Lord is spoken about the calling of the nations, formerly altogether faithless and strangers to the worship of God; of these, the so-called islands are also understood in part, the souls which in former times were in some manner flooded by the undersea tempests of life and by the brackish currents of vice. We must consider, then, what the Lord himself teaches these about himself: “From my mother’s womb,” he says, “he called my name.” This is plainly about Christ, for the words are his, and we have learned them from the writing of the gospel; for when Joseph did not know about Mary’s conception, Gabriel, the servant of the Father’s will, stood by him in a dream and said among other things, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people.” And he continues in the prophecy, saying that “he made my mouth like a sharp sword”; and again, “he made me like a chosen arrow.” For the word of God is active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, as the inspired apostle taught. And most reasonably would it be said to him alone, who became obedient to the Father even unto death, “You are my slave, Israel, and in you I shall be glorified”; while “And I said, I have toiled in vain,” and what follows, would be spoken by the Savior on account of the rarity of those who live according to his gospel. And since he came only for the sheep of Israel's house that were lost, it is well said that he visited them first, “to set up the tribes of Jacob and bring back the dispersion of Israel”; and next, because not all of them accepted him, it is added, addressed to him, “Behold, I have set you as a light of nations, that you may be for salvation to the end of the earth.” After this the Lord God and Father, who rescued him from all who were gathered together against him, commands us to make him holy, saying, “Make holy the one who holds his own soul cheap.” For he truly held his own soul cheap, emptying himself and becoming a curse for us, and taking up our sins, and despising shame even to the point of death, and death on a cross. After this it says, “who is abhorred by the nations, the slaves of rulers.” And it is plain how those enslaved to the rulers of this age not only abhorred him at the time of his passion, saying, “He is even grievous for us to look at,” but still abhor him now, trying to overturn his teaching. This one, then, the Lord commands to be made holy, foretelling his glorious coming. Since the discourse, prophesying about the calling from the nations, adds the prophecy that follows, from “I gave you as a covenant of nations” and what comes after, to probe further into these words, which are rather spiritual and are rendered by the meaning alone, does not belong to the present work.

25| 25. “Thus says the Lord: What is this bill of divorce of your mother, with which I sent her away? Or to which creditor have I sold you? Behold, it was for your sins that you were sold, and for your lawless acts I sent your mother away. Because I came, and there was no one who listened; is my hand not strong enough to rescue? Or is it not strong enough to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I shall make the sea desolate, and I shall make rivers deserts, and their fish shall dry up for lack of water, and die of thirst. I shall clothe the heaven in darkness, and I shall make its covering like sackcloth. The Lord, the Lord, gives me a tongue of instruction, that I may know when I must speak a word; he appointed me early in the morning; he added to me an ear to hear, and the instruction of the Lord opens my ears; and I am not disobedient, nor do I contradict. I gave up my back to whips, and my cheeks to slaps, and I did not turn my face away from the shame of spitting; and the Lord, the Lord, became my helper; therefore I was not put to shame, but set my face like a solid rock, and I knew that I would not be ashamed, for the one who justifies me draws near to me. Who is the one who goes to judgment with me? Let him draw near. Behold, the Lord, the Lord, helps me; who will ill-treat me? Behold, all of you shall grow old like a garment, and a moth shall devour you. Who among you is the one who fears the Lord? Let him obey the voice of his servant. You who walk in darkness, and have no light, trust in the name of the Lord, and lean upon God. Behold, all of you kindle a fire and keep a flame strong; walk by the light of your fire and by the flame which you kindled. Because of me these things happened to you; you shall lie down in grief.” The divinity of the Word is clearly shown also by the passages set before us, both that he existed before his becoming man, and that, having become man, he was going to suffer the things which are also recorded in the gospels. For who else could be the one who says, “Is my hand not strong enough,” and what follows down to “I shall clothe the heaven in darkness, and its covering like sackcloth,” if not the Word of God? So he who has said such great things continues, saying, “The Lord gives me a tongue of instruction, that I may know when I must speak a word”; and again he adds the rest, saying, “And I am not disobedient, nor do I contradict; I have set my back to whips, and my cheeks to slaps,” and the words down to “for the one who justifies me draws near to me.” For we say that the Word suffered potentially, suffering together with the man he had taken up. We do not know, then, whether anyone will be able to give an account of the prophecy set before us who does not accept that there is a second subsistence, that of the Word of God, after the first and unbegotten, the Father and God of the universe; We, however, being rightly persuaded, hold that this is clearly God the Word, who here says, among the other things, “I shall clothe the heaven in darkness,” and who adds, in the person of the man he has taken up, “The Lord gives me a tongue of instruction, that I may know when I must speak a word.” To whom else but the man of our Savior would it be fitting to say, “Who is the one who goes to judgment with me? Let him stand against me”? Or about whom could the words from “Who among you is the one who fears the Lord? Let him obey the voice of his servant” be said, if not about Christ alone, who according to the scriptures despised shame, emptied himself, and humbled himself even to scourgings, when according to the prophecy set before us concerning him Pilate scourged him and handed him over to be crucified, and when he also endured blows and spittings, when the high priest tore his garments at his words and declared that he had blasphemed? For then they spat in his face and struck him, and others slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, Christ: who is it that hit you?” It seems that the opening part of the chapter is spoken about the synagogue of the Jews; for “Behold,” it says, “it was for your sins that you were sold, and for your lawless acts I sent your mother away.” For he came to the sheep that were lost, those of the house of Israel, and found no man among them; yet he called them first, and the people was not listening. For this reason it says, “Since I came, and no man was there; I called, and there was none who listened.” And the closing parts of the passage, following their rejection, refer to the calling from the nations, from the words, “Who among you is the one who fears the Lord? Let him listen to the voice of his servant.” For we truly were the ones who walked in darkness, and before the coming of our Savior we had no light, but now by the grace of God we trust in the name of the Lord and lean upon God. To those who did not believe in Christ, to whom it had been said above, “Behold, all of you shall grow old like a garment, and it shall eat you as a moth does,” the word adds, saying, “Behold, all of you kindle as it were a fire,” and what follows; in these words, “Because of me these things happened to you” is plainly said in the person of Christ, who reproaches them and convicts the Jewish people of its lawlessness against him.

26| 26. “Thus says the Lord: Because of you my name is continually blasphemed among the nations; therefore my people shall know my name; therefore on that day, because I am the one who speaks, I am here like the hour upon the mountains, like the feet of one bringing good news of peace, like one bringing good news of good things, for I shall make your salvation heard, saying, Zion, your God shall reign.” This prophecy too would most reasonably fit the Savior, the words “because I am the one who speaks, I am here” being fulfilled at his visit. The words from “Because of you my name is continually blasphemed among the nations” are spoken directly to the former people; but the words from “Therefore my people shall know my name on that day” may be understood of the nations that have believed in him. He is, then, the one who earlier spoke to human beings, sometimes through angels and sometimes through prophets, and who then came to them again and proclaimed salvation to all through himself. What sense the passage has, the lover of learning will know once he has investigated it.

27| 27. “And the Lord will uncover his holy arm before all the nations, and all the nations, the ends of the earth, shall see the salvation that comes from God. Depart, depart, go out from there, and touch nothing unclean; go out from the midst of her, and be set apart, you who carry the vessels of the Lord; for you shall not go out in confusion, nor shall you travel in flight; for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel who gathers you. Behold, my servant shall understand, and shall be exalted, and shall be lifted up exceedingly. In the way that many shall be astonished at you, so shall your appearance be without honor from men, and your glory from men; so shall many nations marvel at him, and kings shall shut their mouths; for those to whom nothing was announced about him shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been uncovered? We announced before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land; he has neither form nor glory; and we saw him, yet he possessed neither form nor beauty; but his form was dishonored, failing beyond the sons of men; a man in affliction, and knowing how to bear weakness, because his face is turned away; he was dishonored and held in no account. This man carries our sins and suffers pain for us, yet we counted him to be in toil and ill-treatment and affliction. But he was wounded because of our sins, and has been made weak because of our lawless acts; upon him lay the chastisement of our peace, and by his bruise we were healed. All of us like sheep went astray; a man went astray in his own way, and the Lord handed him over to our sins; and he, because he was ill-treated, does not open his mouth; he was led to slaughter like a sheep, and like a lamb silent before the one who shears it, so he does not open his mouth; in his humiliation his judgment was taken away; and who shall describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth; because of the lawless acts of my people he was brought to death. And I shall give the wicked in return for his burial, and the rich in return for his death, because he did no lawlessness, nor was deceit found in his mouth; and the Lord wishes to cleanse him from the affliction. If you give on account of sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed; and the Lord wishes to take away from the toil of his soul, by his hand, to show him light, and to form him with understanding, to justify the righteous one who serves many; and he himself shall bear their sins. Therefore he shall inherit many, and shall divide the spoils of the strong; because his soul was handed over to death, and he was counted among the lawless; and he bore the sins of many, and was handed over because of their lawless acts. Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear; break forth and cry out, and be glad, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate are more numerous than those of the woman who has a husband.” And when else than at the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ did the Father and God of the universe uncover before the nations the great arm, which is none other than his Word? And those who saw it, having seen the salvation given them by God, are commanded to withdraw from their former error and no longer to touch the unclean things, the shameful and defiling practices in which they once wallowed. And since it is no small thing to set oneself apart from the former way of life handed down from the fathers, and from the common association of human beings, for this reason the Lord himself promises to go with them and to gather those who carry his vessels, meaning, clearly, the holy teachings and the divine words. Then, in addition, just as in the prophecies above Christ was in various ways named the servant of God, so it is said here also; and it is prophesied that he will understand and be exalted and be glorified exceedingly, with his human nature being conceived as the one about whom this is said. Truly many were astonished and perplexed at him, having taken him to be a man like themselves; and they were astonished because they saw him clothed in no preeminence or worldly glory, when, having put aside the form of God, and emptied himself, and taken the form of a slave, he performed paradoxical deeds worthy of astonishment and amazement, so that those who beheld them were struck and said, “Is this not the son of Joseph? Are not his mother and his brothers with us?” And to this day very many are astonished and perplexed at him, seeing his teaching run through the whole inhabited world, as it still runs now, and observing the unswerving and unalterable disposition of those who have believed in him. Marveling at these things, they do not understand the divine power by which he worked, and is able still now to work, such great things. And truly kings held in and drew together their mouths at him, whether those gathered together at his passion (of whom it was said, “The kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers were gathered together”), or the rulers of the nations in successive times; and they held their mouths shut because they often tried to hinder his word and teaching, yet none the less he prevailed and shone forth, glorified and lifted up on high, so as to make himself manifest not only to those who had received the prophecies about him from their fathers but, most paradoxically, to those to whom nothing about him had ever been announced, that is, to us of the nations; who, though we had heard nothing at all from our ancestors, nor learned beforehand about his coming, understood that he had come and accepted the prophecies about him. Foreseeing these things in the Spirit, the prophet cries out in wonder, saying, “Lord, who has believed our report?” This is not the same as “No one has believed our report”; for clearly many multitudes from the nations, and some of those of the circumcision themselves, have believed the report about Christ. And “to whom,” it says, “has the arm of the Lord,” that is, the preexistent Word of God, “been uncovered?” The same word teaches this at the beginning of the prophecy, saying, “And the Lord will uncover his holy arm before all the nations.” Next after these words it is said, “We announced before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land; he has neither form nor glory, yet we saw him, and he had neither form nor beauty,” and what follows. These too were fulfilled when, having emptied himself of the form of God, he did not choose for himself the handsome and well-formed appearance that people have, nor did he pass through human life with glory among men or the clothing of any worldly preeminence, but taking the form of a slave and servant he humbled himself and became truly a man, “in affliction and knowing how to bear weakness”; and the glorious and divine face of his divinity was turned away and hidden; for this reason he was also dishonored by those who understood only his humanity, and by them he was not esteemed not merely as a son of God, but not even as an ordinary righteous man. And those who perceived these very things by the Spirit say, as though recounting and teaching the reason for such an economy, “This man carries our sins and suffers pain for us.” For they saw, as prophets do, in what manner he would become the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world. There follows: “And we esteemed him to be in toil and affliction and ill-treatment; but he was wounded because of our lawless acts.” For he was wounded potentially when they took up stones to throw at him; “and he has been made weak,” it says, “because of our sins.” For Christ, who more than Paul was weak with the weak, would say, “Who is weak, and I am not weak?” The prophet acknowledges that the one of whom the discourse speaks would suffer all this for himself and for the whole people; “For he was wounded,” he says, “because of our lawless acts, and has been made weak because of our sins”; and counting himself in, he adds, saying, “By his bruise we were healed.” And clearly perceiving the error that came upon the whole people of the circumcision concerning him, and that there is no man who will not sin, even if he seems the most righteous of all, he adds: “All of us like sheep went astray; a man went astray in his own way; and the Lord handed him over to our sins.” and what follows, which is shown beyond dispute to have reached its fulfillment in our Savior Jesus alone. Hence it is worth wondering at the hardness of those of the former people who do not accept him, on the pretext of what they displayed against him, over which they are accustomed to laugh and to jeer, as though he suffered things unworthy of God’s care for him; although the prophet plainly cries out about him, in addition to what has been said, that “he was led to slaughter like a sheep, and like a lamb silent before the one who shears it, so he does not open his mouth,” and that “his life is taken away from the earth.” And who would not marvel, when all that has been enumerated before is followed by the prophet’s saying, “Because of the lawless acts of my people he was brought to death”? Or what could they invent against this, they who truly heard the voice of Christ with their hearing and did not understand, and looked upon his coming with their own eyes and did not see? For what other righteous man could they put forward as having been led to death because of their sins? Or who has been such as to bear the sins of the whole people and of the prophets themselves, and to be pained for them, so that all of them confess they are healed by his bruise, saying, “This man carries our sins and suffers pain for us, and by his bruise we were healed”? And who, having a human nature, could be such that no sin was committed by him in word or deed, so that the divine scripture speaks truly about him when it says, “He did no lawlessness, nor was deceit in his mouth”? And for what cause does the discourse foretell that the one who is attested as such will be led like a sheep to slaughter and, because of the lawless acts of the people, condemned to death? Let them also say whether the Christ they expect to come will certainly suffer these things which the prophecies foretell about him, or whether nothing of the kind will happen to him. But if they stumble at faith in him because of what befell our Savior, they would not say such things of the one they are expecting. On their view, then, it is time to declare the divine utterances unfulfilled and plainly false; but not on ours, we to whom nothing about him was announced by our fathers, nor were the things concerning him handed down, yet who nevertheless saw him and accepted him, according to what is said elsewhere, “A people whom I did not know served me; they obeyed me at the hearing of the ear.” And throughout the whole prophecy the things concerning him are set forth more broadly and more clearly, and the destruction that has overtaken those who plotted against him is made plain by the words, “And I shall give the wicked in return for his burial, and the rich in return for his death, because he did no lawlessness, nor deceit in his mouth.” For it says they killed him though he was such, and that he was to suffer such things for this reason. Next after these, the church from the nations is announced as good news, being compared with the former people and preferred to it, in the words, “Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear; break forth and cry out, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate are more numerous than those of the woman who has a husband.” The matters of this passage need much searching and examination; whoever cares for the commandment of the Savior which says, “Search the scriptures, in which you think you have eternal life, and these are the ones that testify about me,” will know them better once he has searched what is in them.

28| 28. “Listen to me, and you shall eat good things, and your soul shall delight in good things. Give heed with your ears, and follow my ways; listen to me, and your soul shall live in good things, and I shall make with you an everlasting covenant, the faithful holy things of David. Behold, I have given him as a witness among the nations, a ruler and commander among the nations. Behold, nations that do not know you shall call upon you, and peoples that do not understand you shall take refuge in you, for the sake of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified you.” The discourse takes what is said here to mean spiritual food, a divine and heavenly delight, and further a life that is not the indifferent life of the flesh but the everlasting life of the soul. It promises these same people in advance that an everlasting covenant will be made with them, which it says will contain “the faithful holy things of David.” What, then, would this be, which is prophesied as to be given, after the temporary covenant through Moses, as a new and everlasting covenant to those to whom the discourse is addressed? It is the new writing of the holy gospels, containing the holy things of David on account of Jesus the Christ of God, born of his seed. And this one, God says, he has given as a witness not to Israel but to the nations, to rule them and command them, and not to the former people of the circumcision. These nations, formerly not knowing him at all, when they recognized him as the Son of God called upon him as Savior and God; and we too, who had never known him, took refuge in him, escaping our former error and the slavery under opposing powers. “These things,” says the prophecy, “shall come to pass for the sake of the Lord his God, because he has glorified him.” It is plain how the Father glorified him, according to the voice brought to him from heaven, “I have both glorified and will glorify again.” See whether what is in the chapter before this, where it was said, “Those to whom nothing was announced about him shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand,” is not akin to the words here which say, “Nations that do not know you shall call upon you, and peoples that did not know you shall take refuge in you.” Like these also are the words in the seventeenth Psalm, in the person of Christ: “A people whom I did not know served me; they obeyed me at the hearing of the ear.” We, therefore, believing the prophecies to be true, are persuaded that they were fulfilled at the coming of our Savior, perceiving how we ourselves, who were formerly wandering nations, driven by harsh demons through every kind of idolatry, knowing neither the only true God nor heeding the prophetic voice, have through the teaching of our Savior Jesus come to know the God of the universe, and have believed the divinely inspired scriptures, and have received the prophesied Word of God, though we did not know him at all before. Having been benefited in so many ways by the teaching of our Savior, how should we not justly accept him and worship him as divine, as the Son of God and the Savior of ourselves?

29| 29. “See how the righteous one is taken away, and no one takes it to heart, and righteous men are taken away, and no one understands; for from the face of injustice the righteous one has been taken away; his burial shall be in peace; he has been taken away from the midst. But you, draw near here, lawless sons, seed of adulterers and of a harlot. In whom have you reveled? Against whom have you opened your mouth? Against whom have you loosened your tongue? Are you not children of destruction, a lawless seed?” The Christ of God alone, in truth, beyond all those who have ever been styled righteous, has been shown to be such; therefore he alone could properly be styled righteous, so that the prophecy says of him, “See how the righteous one is taken away.” From what he is taken away it adds in the words, “for from the face of injustice the righteous one has been taken away.” And who it is who takes him away one may hear from his own saying, “No one takes my soul from me; I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again.” Then it says, “his burial shall be in peace.” Here it is to be noted that the prophetic scripture indicates not only what concerns his death but also what concerns his burial; hence the holy apostle also, writing to the Corinthians, says, “For I handed on to you among the first things what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried.” And which scriptures, if not those that say, “Because of the lawless acts of my people, he was brought to death,” and “his burial shall be in peace”? And it is not only the righteous one spoken of before who has been taken away from the midst of injustice, but also “righteous men,” it says, “are taken away”; and these might be the holy apostles of Christ themselves, and his wonderful witnesses, who are themselves styled righteous by sharing in his righteousness. While these things were being accomplished, it says, no one looked and no one understood, namely those whose hearts were made fat and who shut their eyes so as not to see; and to them the rest of the prophecy is addressed, from the words, “But you, draw near here, lawless sons, seed of adulterers and of a harlot.”

30| 30. “And those from the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and those from the rising of the sun his glorious name; for wrath shall come from the Lord like a violent river, it shall come with fury. And the one who rescues shall come for Zion’s sake, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, said the Lord. And this is my covenant with them: my Spirit, which is upon you, and the words which I put into your mouth, shall not fail from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your seed, said the Lord, from now and forever.” Here again the discourse prophesies the calling of the church from the nations, which was established through our Savior. For who else could be those spoken of as from the west, or through whom did the nations of every kind fear the name of the Lord, other than those who through the teaching of Jesus abandoned their former error of the darkness of ignorance and took refuge in the God of the universe? And who is the one prophesied to come out of Zion, to rescue and to turn Jacob away from his former ungodliness, other than the one who came to save the lost sheep from the house of Israel, who had fallen into ungodliness; with whom, it says, he will make a covenant of the Spirit of God that is in Christ and of the words of eternal life, which the Father gave into the mouth of the Son; words which, it says, shall not fail from him, nor from the mouth of his seed, from now and for all time? These would be the words of the gospel of the new covenant, which, although so many have plotted against them of old and still plot now, have not failed, nor will they fail, from the mouth of the church established from the rational and intelligible seed of Christ. For the Lord has spoken and declared that he will not blot them out from now and forever; for which reason, according to John, the gospel of Christ is seen to be an everlasting gospel.

31| 31. “Upon me is the Spirit of the Lord, on account of which he anointed me. The Lord has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal those crushed in heart, to proclaim release to captives, and to the blind recovery of sight, to call an acceptable year of the Lord, and a day of recompense to our God; to comfort all who mourn, to give to those who mourn in Zion glory instead of ashes, the oil of gladness to those who mourn, a garment of glory instead of a spirit of faintness; and they shall be called generations of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for glory.” Jesus the Christ of God, who came forth from the root of Jesse, on whom the seven spirits of God rest, who loved righteousness and hated lawlessness, was anointed by God his Father with what is called the spiritual oil of gladness. Taking Isaiah in hand at one time, in the very time when he had become man, and reading the passage set before us, he folded the book and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled.” For he was in truth the one sent from the Father to bring good news of the kingdom of heaven to the poor in spirit, to whom he also said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs”; and to heal the broken-hearted, of whom it has been said, “A broken and humbled heart God will not despise.” Beyond this, he came also to proclaim the release of sins to those who had long ago become captives of the intelligible Nebuchadnezzar; for which reason he also said confidently to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” But he has also come to give recovery of sight to those whose eyes of understanding have been damaged and who have been blinded by the intelligible Philistines and Babylonians, as Samson and Zedekiah were; and among those healed by him were also the bodily blind, whom he made to see again when they believed in him and said with a cry, “Have mercy on us, son of David.” This is the one who called the acceptable year of the Lord, which he proclaimed after John was shut up in prison, and who taught about the kingdom of God and about our judgment, in which each will be repaid the just penalty for what he has done. Besides this he has come to comfort those who mourn with the mourning that is praiseworthy before God; to them he also promised a blessing when he said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And he came in addition so that glory might be given to those who mourn in Zion. And who might these be, if not those who seek their own homeland and keep rekindling the memory of the heavenly city; such as that man was who, knowing himself to be a sojourner and stranger on the earth, lamented, “Woe is me, that my sojourning has been prolonged”; and further those who wept by the rivers of Babylon when they remembered Zion; for to these, then, the Christ of God, fulfilling the comfort he promised to those who mourn, will give glory when they are released from mourning, and in place of the ashes with which they covered themselves while mourning in this life he will provide the oil of gladness, anointing them too with the oil of rejoicing, so that they may become partakers of his anointing and kingdom, so that they too may say, “For we have become partakers of [….].” Beyond this, it is prophesied that Christ will give to those who mourn in Zion “a garment of glory in place of the spirit of faintness,” since they grew faint over the affairs of life, as being displeased at the deeds of human beings; and mourning most of all in this way, not only because they see God’s promises from afar, but also, out of sympathy and love for humankind, suffering with and grieving with their weak members, and all but crying out in the apostle’s disposition, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?”

32| 32. “Let my soul exult in the Lord, for he clothed me in a garment of salvation and a tunic of gladness; he has put a turban on me like a bridegroom, and adorned me with ornament like a bride. And as the earth makes its flower grow, and as a garden makes its seeds spring up, so the Lord, the Lord, will make righteousness and rejoicing spring up before all the nations.” The soul of our Lord Jesus Christ, of which he said, “My soul is deeply grieved” and “Now my soul is troubled,” rejoices and is glad in none of the created things, but only in the Father and Lord; for the garment of divinity clothed him, and the tunic of true and perfect gladness. Moreover, it was the bridegroom of the bride, the church that has no spot or wrinkle, and so he put a turban on it as on a bridegroom; and it was the bride of the divinity that is above all reproach, and as a bride he adorned it with the ornament fitting for the Spirit of the Lord. He also tilled it as a fruitful and good earth, and further as a garden that grows and flourishes with the shoots in it, with which the great paradise of God is also said to be planted. And these things shall be, it says, since the Lord, being righteous, and being God not only of the Jews but also of the nations, made his own righteousness spring up, that is, his Christ, before all the nations that believe through him.

33| 33. “Lift up a signal for the nations. For behold, the Lord has made it heard to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your savior has arrived, having his reward with him and his work before his face; and he will call him a holy people, redeemed by the Lord; and you shall be called a city sought out and not forsaken. Who is this who has come from Edom, with the redness of his garments from Bosor? So beautiful in his robe, with force and with might? I speak righteousness and a judgment of salvation. Why are your garments red, and your clothes like those of one from a trodden winepress? Full of what has been trampled; and of the nations there is no man with me, and I trampled them in my wrath.” Here again the prophecy commands taking up a signal concerning the church from the nations, promising that the Lord will make something heard to the end of the earth; and this reached its fulfillment at the coming of our Savior Jesus, when the sound of his apostles went forth into the whole earth, and their words reached the ends of the inhabited world. Next it is said: “Say to the daughters of Zion” (that is, to the churches from the nations; for these are the daughters of the heavenly Zion, who is our mother according to the apostle) “Behold, your savior arrives, having his reward,” and what follows, by which the second coming of Christ is made plain, when he will come as judge to render to each the wages for his labors in the present life, and the recompense for the wicked things each has done. Next after this the discourse says, as if asking, “Who is this who comes from Edom, with the redness of his garments (the name is interpreted ‘earthly’), with the redness of his garments from Bosor? So beautiful in his robe?” He seems to say this in wonder that even after the becoming man, the emptying, the sojourn on earth, and after the passion and the descent among the dead, the Savior’s beauty remained lovely and radiant, in no way confused, and that he took on no filth or stain or blemish from the material and bodily condition of earthly and human affairs; and also in astonishment at his strength, in that he overcame the whole army of the devil. It adds: “So beautiful in his robe, with force and with might?” To this question the Savior answers, teaching who he is, and says, “I speak righteousness and a judgment of salvation.” Again the discourse says to him, as though because of the passion, “Why are your garments red,” and what follows; for as the Lamb of God, who took upon himself the sins of the world, he put on garments reddened from our sins; so that for this reason it is said also in the prophet Zechariah, “And Jesus was clothed in filthy garments”; and these were the clothes made from our sins, because of which it was said a little earlier, “This one bears our sins and suffers pain for us”; for he himself did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. Then the Savior, answering the question, teaches from what his garments became red, saying, “from the nations”; and these nations, with no man working with him, he subdued alone, trampling down the whole opposing power of the wicked spirits that were hostile to him.

34| 34. “And the Lord remembered the days of old: who brought up from the earth the great shepherd of the sheep, who put in them the Holy Spirit.” And who else could be the one brought up from the earth by the Lord, the shepherd of God’s sheep, other than our Savior, who came to the sheep of the house of Israel that were lost? For this is the good shepherd who laid down his soul for the sheep, whom the Father brought up from the earth and exalted on high, granting him the name above every name.

35| 35. “The city of your holy one has become a wilderness; Zion has become like a wilderness, Jerusalem a curse. The house, our sanctuary, and the glory which our fathers blessed, has been burned with fire, and all our glorious things have fallen in ruin. And at all these things you held back, O Lord, and kept silent, and humbled us greatly. I became visible to those who did not inquire of me; I was found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here I am,’ to a nation that had not called on my name. But to you I spread out my hands all day long, to a people disobedient and contrary, who did not walk in the true way but after their sins.” Here too the casting off of Israel is prophesied first, and next is indicated the choosing of the nations that came about through Christ. For when the prophet has sent up a prayer in the person of the people, the Word answers, exposing the hardness and disobedience of the former people and setting forth his own love for humankind. “How can you say these things,” he says, “as though I were reluctant to save you? Why, even to those who did not inquire of me or seek me I openly presented myself.” And indeed it is plain how the Word of God, formerly unknown to the nations, at the consummation of the ages, through the goodness and love for humankind of the Father and God of the universe, became visible to them, although, because of their error about idols, they had never inquired of him about the things they needed; and he was found by us who did not seek him; and, having become man, he answered even those who had not called on his name, all but crying aloud, “Here I am.” This, then, is what the Word clearly prophesies about the calling of the nations. Next he turns again to the case of the Jews and adds, in words that put it most to shame, “But to you I spread out my hands, to a people disobedient and contrary.” These words can also signify the shape of his suffering on the cross. So much for the passages from Isaiah. And now that we have completed the plan of the Extracts in four books, in this ninth treatise of the General Elementary Introduction, we shall try in the tenth to provide another approach, suited to those whose reasoning has been damaged by the godless heresies.

Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/eusebius/103-prophetic-extracts-book-iv#p0), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.

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