Isaiah 2

The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In the former Vision too, which we have already expounded, where the Seventy translated, which he saw against Judea and against Jerusalem, there is written in the Hebrew AL JUDA UJERUSALEM (על יהודה וירושלם); and in this one, which is the second, the Hebrew likewise has it. And I wonder why the Seventy Translators said in that one, against Judea and Jerusalem, and in this one about Judea and about Jerusalem; unless perhaps, because there the nation is called sinful, a people full of sins, a most evil seed, sons of iniquity, and princes of Sodom and people of Gomorrah, and a harlot city, and other things of that kind, they translated the sense rather than the word; and here, because prosperous things are promised at once, In the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God on the summit of the mountains, they understood the prophecy not as against Judea and Jerusalem but as about Judea and Jerusalem: although in that one too we read prosperous things after the threat, I will restore your judges as they were before, and your counselors as of old: after this you shall be called the city of the righteous one, a faithful city; and in this one, after the prosperous things, there is a fierce threat: Behold, the ruler, the Lord of hosts, will take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the mighty and the strong, all the strength of bread and all the strength of water, and the rest. Therefore, according to the Hebrew, both in that vision and in this word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw, it is to be understood as about Judah and Jerusalem: not against Judea and Jerusalem, nor for Judah and Jerusalem, as Symmachus translated, but absolutely, about Judah and Jerusalem, in which both glad and sad things can be contained. And this must be considered, that there he sees a vision, here the Word, which was in the beginning with God; and that in that one, threatening the Jews, he comes to the salvation of the nations; in this one, beginning from the salvation of the nations, and Israel being punished, he gathers believers from both callings into the Church of Christ.

Judea and Jerusalem: Isaiah mentions Judea and Jerusalem, and in this is nothing unusual. His discourse was a prophecy, momentarily obscured by the names that are indicated. For it is the same for Jacob, predicting this, in the same way Isaiah will now state it (cf. Gen 49:10-11). Is it then surprising that here too the prophet places the names of Judea and of Jerusalem in his predictions regarding the Church? As he addressed himself to the senseless people who killed the prophets, burned their books, overturned their altars, so it is reasonable that the veil would have been imposed on them in their reading of the Old Testament, according to the utterance of the blessed Paul, "But their minds were hardened. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ" 2 Cor 3:14.

Here he begins to rebuke their fault on the part of turning toward. And this is divided into three parts: in the first part, he denounces them for the fault which they were committing in the worship of idols; in the second, for the fault which they were committing in the oppression of men: "for behold" (ch. 3); in the third, for the fault which they were committing in the abuse of things: "I will sing to my beloved" (ch. 5).

The first of these is divided into two: into a title and a treatise, the second beginning where it says, "and in the last days" (Isa 2:2).

And he sets out this word in the beginning of the chapter because it is a prophecy especially of the Incarnate Word: for "the Lord God will do no word without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7).

The central place they are all coming to is Christ; he is at the center, because he is equally related to all; anything placed in the center is common to all.…Approach the mountain, climb up the mountain, and you that climb it, do not go down it. There you will be safe, there you will be protected; Christ is your mountain of refuge. And where is Christ? At the right hand of the Father, since he has ascended into heaven.

It talks of a mountain, and the mountain is veiled to the party of Donatus. …The holy Daniel saw a vision and wrote down what he saw, and he said that he had seen a stone hewn out of a mountain without hands. It is Christ, coming from the nation of the Jews, which was also a mountain, you see, because it has the kingdom.… What is the mountain over which the heretics stumbled? Listen to Daniel again: "And that stone grew and became a great mountain, such that it filled all the face of the earth." How right the psalm is to say to Christ the Lord as he rises again, "Be exalted over the heavens, O God, and let your glory be over the whole earth." What is your glory over the whole earth? Over the whole earth your church, over the whole earth your bride.

This mountain is Christ. The Prophet speaks of this mountain, saying: “In the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established above the tops of the mountains” (Isa. 2:2). The mountains above whose tops the mountain of the house of the Lord is said to be established signify the Fathers of the Old Testament. Therefore the mountain of the house of the Lord is said to be established above their tops because they themselves foretold him, and when he came in the flesh, he surpassed them by a wondrous height. Therefore the house of the Lord, that is, the Church, was built upon this mountain, because it was founded upon Christ, as the Apostle Paul says: “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11).

He calls the church a mountain when he says, "In the last days the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established."

One can take the time to learn in what manner the prophecies of the call of the Gentiles should be understood and that they were fulfilled only after the coming of our Savior. The beginning of the prophecy is consistent with the reality that the Lord descended not only for the salvation of the Jewish race but also for that of all people, in announcing to all peoples and all the inhabitants of the earth, "Hear, all peoples, and let the earth and all in it listen."

Who is meant by "mountain of strength" but our Redeemer?

And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains. We read of the last days in Genesis too: that Jacob, calling his sons and saying, Come, that I may announce to you what is to come in the last days (Gen 49:1), afterwards said to Judah, from whose seed Christ was born: A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is laid up; and he shall be the expectation of the nations. In these last days will be the last hour, of which John the Apostle speaks: My little children, it is the last hour (1 John 2:18); in which the stone cut from the mountain without hands grew into a great mountain and filled the whole earth; by which the prince of Tyre is said in Ezekiel to have been wounded (Ezek 28:16 LXX). This mountain is in the house of the Lord, for which the Prophet sighs, saying: One thing have I asked of the Lord, this will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life (Ps 26 [27]:4); and of which Paul writes to Timothy: But if I am delayed, that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3:15). This house is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, who themselves too are mountains, as imitators of Christ (Eph 2). Of this house, Jerusalem, the Psalmist cries out, saying: Those who trust in the Lord are like mount Zion; he who dwells in Jerusalem shall not be moved for ever. Mountains are round about it, and the Lord is round about his people (Ps 124 [125]:1). Hence too Christ founds the Church upon one of the mountains, and says to him: You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matt 16:18). Something similar the holy man says to his soul, which longs and impatiently desires to see the house of God: Why are you sad, my soul, and why do you trouble me (Ps 41 [42]:6)? And again: These things I remembered, and I poured out my soul within me: for I shall pass over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God, with the voice of exultation and confession, the sound of those who feast (ibid., 5). The Seventy translated, The manifest mountain of the Lord, and the house of God upon the heads of the mountains. This testimony the prophet Micah too has set down in the same words: which I have expounded in its place (Mic 1).

And it shall be lifted up above the hills. He who was shown and prepared on the heads of the mountains, he shall be lifted up above the hills. Of these mountains and hills the bride too speaks in the Song of Songs: The voice of my kinsman: behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills; my kinsman is like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of Bethel (Song 2:8, 9).

And all nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall go. For all nations shall serve him to whom it was said: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession (Ps 2:8); so that they may serve him, according to Zephaniah, under one yoke; of whom the same prophet testifies: From the borders of the rivers of Ethiopia they shall bring you victims (Zeph 3:10). And in Psalm 71 (72) we read: Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down (Ps 71 [72]:9). For at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, on earth and under the earth (Phil 2).

On my holy mountain, on the high mountain of Israel, says the Lord God, there all the house of Israel shall serve me: all, I say, in the land in which they shall please me; and there I will require your firstfruits and the beginning of your tithes in all your sanctifications. In an odor of sweetness I will receive you, when I have led you out from the peoples and gathered you from the lands into which you were scattered, and I shall be sanctified in you in the eyes of the nations. And you shall know that I am the Lord. Of this mountain, on which all the house of Israel is to serve God, Isaiah and Micah sang with one voice: In the last days the mountain of the house shall be manifest on the summit of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall go and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and again Isaiah: Go up onto a high mountain, he says, you who proclaim to Zion; lift up and exalt your voice, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem. This mountain, Zion, we understand either as the Church, which means 'watchtower' and is set on the height of holy doctrines, or as the Lord Savior himself, in whom the firstfruits and the tithes and all worship are turned into an odor of sweetness, so that all the nations round about, seeing that the people of the Lord has been saved, may glorify God, and those who have been saved may know that he is the Lord.

It must also be known that the Jews and the heirs of their error refer both this section which we have now expounded and the one like it in Isaiah to the thousand-year reign of Christ and of the saints; and that what is said: All peoples shall walk, each in the name of the Lord his God, they interpret in this way: that each nation is to be tormented with its idol and sent into the fire of eternal punishment. But they are refuted by what follows: this is said not of the end of the ages but of the first coming of Christ, in which the remnant of her that halts is gathered, and the nations are saved first. Isaiah, then, set down a testimony of this kind: The word that came to Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem: for in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God upon the summit of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall come to it. And many nations shall go, and shall say: Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God of Jacob, and he will announce to us our way, and we will walk in it; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many nations, and reprove a very great people, and they shall beat their swords into plows, and their hunting-spears into sickles, and nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall not learn to make war any more. Significantly it is said here that the word of God, going forth from Jerusalem, judges among many nations, and properly reproves the people of the Jews. For us, as sinners, he will judge according to the measure of our works; but them, as impious men and deniers, he will not judge, but will reprove them as condemned.

The mountain is Christ, and the house of the God of Jacob is his one church, toward which the concourse of nations and assembly of peoples is moving by this pronouncement.

[Isaiah] announces the wonderful and widespread demonstration of piety everywhere: idolatry will be destroyed, while the house of God will receive its due sign of universal respect.… After our Savior's appearing, idolatry will be shown and the beauty of truth will be unveiled. In this we will see the fulfillment of this announcement. Furthermore, by "last days" he means that time following incarnation.

Here he carries out the intention. And this is divided into three parts: in the first part, he promises the remedy of salvation, lest the weight of the following fault leads to despair; in the second, he shows the guilt of the fault, where it says: "for you have cast off your people" (Isa 2:6); in the third, he threatens the lash of punishment, where it says: "therefore forgive them not" (Isa 2:9).

Concerning the first, three things are set out: first, the preparation of salvation; second, the conversion of the gentiles, where it says, "and all nations shall flow unto it" (Isa 2:2); third, the calling of the Jews in the end, where it says, "O house of Jacob, come" (Isa 2:5).

Concerning the first of these, three things are set out. First, the time of salvation; hence he says, "and it shall be." And he connects this to the preceding prophecy, or to that which he heard from the Lord, as Gregory says about the beginning of Ezekiel. "In the last days," that is, in the time of grace, which is called the last, because the observance of another religion will not succeed it: "behold I am with you even to the consummation of the world" (Matt 28:20); "gather yourselves together, that I may tell you the things that shall befall you in the last days" (Gen 49:1).

But it seems that this salvation which is through the Incarnation of the Son of God ought to have been prepared from the beginning of the human race, because the more quickly a disease is remedied through medicine, the easier it is cured. To this it is to be said that medicine ought to be offered according to the condition of the disease. And because the sin of man occurred through pride, which scorned the precepts of God, it is fitting that the medicine for attaining salvation was prepared through humility, so that man might know the weakness of his powers: for by neither natural law nor written law was he able to provide help to himself; and thus, he would more ardently and humbly seek the medicine, the more he found no help in himself.

Second, he puts forth the power of the savior, when he says, "the mountain of the house of the Lord," on which the house of the Lord was founded: "he set me upon a very high mountain" (Ezek 40:2). Third, the position of the savior: "on the top of mountains," that is, greater princes, "and it shall be exalted above the hills," that is, lesser princes. Below: "behold my servant shall understand, he shall be exalted, and extolled, and shall be exceeding high" (Isa 52:13).

"And all nations shall flow unto it." Here he places the conversion of the gentiles. And concerning this, he sets out three things: first, the conversion itself; second, he declares the order of conversion, where it says, "and many people shall go" (Isa 2:3); third, he promises peace to the converted, where it says, "and he shall judge the Gentiles" (Isa 2:4). Therefore as to the first, he says, "and all nations," that is, from all other nations, "shall flow," in which is noted their multitude and haste: "I will bring them through the torrents of waters in a right way, and they shall not stumble in it" (Jer 31:9).

Let us sing a victorious song of praise to the Lord!Who will lead us to such a company of angels? Who, longing for the heavenly feast and the angels' holiday, will say like the prophet, "I will lead them to the house of God: a multitude joyfully praising God and keeping festival"? The saints of old encourage us to be like that, saying, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob."

The first law, the Old Testament, had come out of Mount Sinai by the lips of Moses; but it was foretold of the law Christ came to give: "The law shall come forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." This explains why Christ ordered repentance to be preached in his name among all peoples but beginning in Jerusalem.

Ask a man of circumcision, a Jew after the flesh, which law and which word the prophet is talking about. About the law given through Moses? Let them show how this law comes "out of Zion." For Moses did not enter the land of possession, whereas Zion is in Judea. The Scripture was mistaken then, according to them, using one name instead of another, for it said Zion instead of Sinai or Horeb. But it refers to the holy law. Which one? When was it given? Where was it written? And "the word out of Jerusalem" as well? The Jew after the flesh says that Isaiah means preaching of the prophets. Yet the preaching of the prophets took place everywhere across Judea, not only in Jerusalem and throughout Israel but also in captivity, in Nineveh and throughout the earth. Let them restrain themselves then before the truth and receive the law giving of the Lord that comes from the watchtower, the God-bearing flesh from which he watched over human actions. "And the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem." Having started from there, the preaching of the gospel has been sown around the whole world.

It was opportune that the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins through confession of Christ's name should have started from Jerusalem. Where the splendor of his teaching and virtues, where the triumph of his passion, where the joy of his resurrection and ascension were accomplished, there the first root of faith in him would be brought forth; [there] the first shoot of the burgeoning church, like that of some kind of great vine, would be planted. Just so, by an increase in the spreading of the word, [the church] would extend the branches of her teaching into the whole wide world.… It was opportune that the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins, good news to be proclaimed to idolatrous nations and those defiled by various evil deeds, should take its start from Jerusalem, lest any of those defiled, thoroughly terrified by the magnitude of their offenses, should doubt the possibility of obtaining pardon if they performed fruits worthy of repentance, when it was a fact that pardon had been granted to those at Jerusalem who had blasphemed and crucified the Son of God.

What can this law proceeding from Zion, which is different from what was made law by Moses in the desert at Mount Sinai, be but the word of the gospel through our Savior Jesus Christ which proceeds from Zion through all the nations? For clearly it was in Jerusalem and Mount Zion, where our Savior and Lord lived and taught, that the law of the new covenant originated and from which it proceeded to all people.

And they shall say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths. The nations and peoples, by no means content with their own salvation, will exhort one another and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob. We have said above what the prepared mountain of the Lord is, and what the house of the Lord on the top of the mountains. And the house of the Lord is called the house of the God of Jacob, so that we may receive the old Instrument, and not, after the manner of Manichaeus, seek another house outside the house of the God of Jacob. And when we are in the house of the God of Jacob, then he will teach us his ways, by which we may go to him, and we shall walk in his paths, which the others too have given. So too Jesus, going up into the mountain, taught his disciples the eight beatitudes and the other things which the word of the Gospel contains (Luke 6). First, then, the ways of the Lord must be learned, and afterwards we must walk in his paths.

For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. All the nations and many peoples will exhort one another for this reason and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and the rest that follows: For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem: by no means from Sinai, and from the desert, and from mount Horeb, but from mount Zion, on which Jerusalem was built, and from Jerusalem, in which is the Temple and the worship of God. We read that the Lord often taught in the Temple (Matt 13), and that it was not fitting for a Prophet to die outside Jerusalem; and above, the word and the law were named together. The princes are commanded to hear the word, the people to give ear to the law. For whoever has first kept the law afterwards comes to the speech of God. And indeed the Church, founded first in Jerusalem, sowed the Churches of the whole world. And this must be said, that whoever is in the watchtower and in the vision of peace, in him both the law and the word of the Lord are established. And he finely did not say: the word and the law of the Lord will be and remain in Zion and in Jerusalem, but will go forth, to signify that all nations are to be watered by the teaching of God from that fountain.

And when the Spirit of prophecy speaks as predicting things that are to come to pass, He speaks in this way: "For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." And that it did so come to pass, we can convince you. For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God; and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ.

I am amazed at the persistence of some to interpret this passage in such a way as to conclude that this is a prediction of the return from Babylonian captivity. Which nations rushed to the temple after its rebuilding? What law was given from there? God gave the ancient law on Sinai, not Zion. Clearly Isaiah is referring to the New Testament, where the law was first given to the apostles and then delivered to all peoples by them. He announces that in addition to the law, the word would come from Zion. The term word is a title given to the message of the gospel. The blessed Luke says, "Those who were from the beginning eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us." He is not talking about God the Word but the message of the divine word. Zion is not where God the Word was from but where he taught the truth.

The order of conversion was that the gentiles were converted through the calling of those who were from the Jews. And therefore he sets out three things: first, those who call, second, the calling, where it says, "come," third, the reason for this order, where it says, "for the law shall come forth from Zion."

Therefore he says, "many," not all, "people," that is, who are from the Jews: in which is noted the small number of Jews who converted in respect to the multitude of gentiles; "shall go," by steps of faith believing, "and say": "we also believe. For which cause we speak also" (2 Cor 4:13).

"Come." Here he places the calling. And they are called to three things. To eminence of faith; hence he says, "come," through consensus, "let us go up," through faith, "to the mountain of the Lord," that is, to Christ, "and to the house of the God of Jacob," that is, to the Church: "arise, and let us go up to Zion to the Lord our God. For thus says the Lord: rejoice in the joy of Jacob" (Jer 31:6–7); "ascent to mount Zion" (Heb 12:22). Second, to teaching, when he says, "he will teach us his ways," that is, the precepts by which one goes to him: "there you shall teach me, and I will give you a cup of spiced wine and new wine of my pomegranates" (Song 8:2). Third, to obedience: "and we will walk," after him, "in the paths," of his counsels: "ask for the old paths, which is the good way, and walk in it" (Jer 6:16).

"For the law shall come forth from Zion." Here he places the reason for the order of the calling, saying, "for the law shall come forth," understood spiritually, "from Zion," not from Mount Sinai, "and the word of the Lord," that is, the Gospel, "from Jerusalem," for the contemplation of peace: "for salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22), and below: "when they rush out from Jacob, Israel shall blossom and bud" (Isa 27:6).

Who is the one who has done this, or who is the one who has joined together in peace people who once hated one another, except for the beloved Son of the Father, the Savior of all, even Jesus Christ, who because of his own love suffered all things for our salvation? For from ages past the peace he would initiate was promised.

Another distinction is in relation to duality. The Old Testament comprises two times: before the Law, and under the Law. In the New Testament, likewise, there are two corresponding times: the time of the calling of the Gentiles that corresponds to the first, and the time of the calling of the Jews that corresponds to the second. This time is not yet, for then will be fulfilled these words of Isaiah: "One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again." For this is not yet fulfilled since both swords are still active: there are still disputes and heresies. Hence the Jews, who are waiting for this believe that Christ has not yet come.

The fact that the Jews will be converted is certain because of Isaiah and the Apostle who teaches authoritatively: "Though the number of the children of Israel are as the sands of the sea, the remnant shall be saved." And again: "A partial blindness only has befallen Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles should enter." Isaiah continues: "Come, let us climb the Lord's mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob." And later: "One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again." The Jews oppose to this the fact that none of it has come about as yet. But the prophet is not speaking of the first advent nor of the first calling, but of the last, when "the Lord will have His day against all that is arrogant." Nor should it be understood that in so doing, the Lord is dismissing these branches.

And he shall judge the nations, and rebuke many peoples. Therefore there is to be judgment among the nations too; nor are all unbelievers to be condemned by the same sentence, but according to the diversity of their merits they will suffer diverse things. And after he has judged the nations, then he will rebuke many peoples, or, as the Seventy translated, a great people. And note the order: the nations will be judged, because they are going to believe: For he who does not believe is already judged (John 3:18). But the great people, which is understood as Israel, will by no means be judged, but rebuked, because it did not receive the Son of God sent to it.

And they shall forge their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles. Every zeal for war will be turned to peace, and instead of discord there will be concord in the whole world. Swords will be changed into ploughshares and spears into sickles, so that, putting aside the fury of war, they may serve agriculture and cut the richest harvests with sickles. This indeed can also be understood spiritually, when all the hardness of our heart is broken by the ploughshare of Christ, and the thorns of vices are rooted out, so that the seed of the word of God may grow into crops; and afterwards we shall eat the labors of our hands, when coming they shall come with exultation, carrying their sheaves (Ps 125 [126]:6).

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be trained any more for battle. Let us turn over the ancient histories, and we shall find that up to the twenty-eighth year of Caesar Augustus (in whose forty-first year Christ was born in Judea) there was discord in the whole world, and the several nations burned with the zeal of fighting against their neighbors, so that they slew and were slain. But when the Lord Savior arose, when under Quirinius, governor of Syria, the first enrollment of the world was made, and by the peace of the Roman empire the way was prepared for the teaching of the Gospel, then all wars ceased, and they were by no means trained for battle throughout the towns and villages, but for the cultivation of the fields, the zeal for war against the barbarian nations being delegated only to the soldiers and the Roman legions: when that harmony of the Angels was fulfilled, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:14); and in his days righteousness arose and abundance of peace.

Not only would the church be firm, steadfast and indestructible, but it would also gain great peace for the world. Governments and monarchies will be destroyed; there will be but one kingdom put together for all people, and, unlike in times past, its greater part will be at peace. For, in the past, all craftsmen and men in public life were trained in warfare and took their place among the ranks. After the coming of Christ, all that was done away with, and wars were confined to widely separated areas.

Long ago did Isaiah declare that "out of Zion should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem," some other law, that is, and another word. In short, he says, "He shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people," meaning not those of the Jewish people only, but also of the nations which are judged by the new law of the gospel and the new word of the apostles, and are among themselves rebuked of their old error as soon as they have believed. And as the result of this, "They beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears (which are a kind of hunting instrument) into pruning hooks." That is to say, minds that once were fierce and cruel are changed by the gospel and the word of the apostles into good dispositions productive of good fruit.

The gospel will be this "way" of the new law and the new word in Christ, no longer in Moses. "And he shall judge among the nations," even concerning their error. "And these shall rebuke a large nation," that of the Jews themselves and their proselytes. "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares"; in other words, they shall change into pursuits of moderation and peace the dispositions of injurious minds, hostile tongues and all kinds of evil and blasphemy.… You learn here that Christ is promised not as powerful in war but pursuing peace.

Here he promises peace to the converted. And concerning this, he does three things: first, he sets out that which brings about peace; second, the sign of peace: "and they shall turn their swords into ploughshares"; third, the fruit of peace: "nation shall not lift up sword."

That which brings about peace is the judgment of a king, and therefore, first, he says, "he shall judge the Gentiles," giving them laws, "and rebuke many peoples," correcting their faults, below: "he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity the meek of the earth" (Isa 11:4).

The sign of peace is that the instruments of war are turned to the cultivation of the field; hence he says, "and they shall turn their swords into ploughshares." "He shall destroy the bow, and break the weapons" (Ps 46:9).

The fruit of peace is in the removal of enemies; hence he says, "nation shall not lift up sword against nation," below: "the old error is passed away: you will keep peace: peace, because we have hoped in you" (Isa 26:3).

On the contrary, afterwards, there were many wars. The Gloss responds that these were not as large as before; hence in the time of the antichrist, however great the future persecution of the saints, nevertheless they will have great peace among themselves, as it was in the time of Diocletian. Or, better, it may be said that this refers to the peace made through Christ, which will be completed in the future.

What did the prophet Isaiah mean when he announced that a mountain would be prepared on the summits of the mountains, to which all peoples were going to come? The law and the Word of God was going to proceed from Zion and Jerusalem to all nations, not from Mount Sinai to one nation. This we see most evidently fulfilled in Christ and the Christians. A little later the prophet says, "O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord." Here, you [the Jews] will surely say your usual piece: "We are the house of Jacob," but listen a moment to what follows, and when you have said what you want to say, hear what you do not want to hear. The prophet continues, "For he has cast off his people, the house of Israel." Here say, "We are the house of Israel"; here acknowledge yourselves and forgive us for reminding you of these facts.

Dearly beloved, whether the Jews receive these divine testimonies with joy or with indignation, nevertheless, when we can, let us proclaim them with great love for the Jews. Let us not proudly glory against the broken branches; let us rather reflect by whose grace it is, and by much mercy, and on what root, we have been grafted into.

House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord: for you have cast off your people, the house of Jacob. After the calling of the nations and the showing of the mountain of the Lord on the top of the mountains, the Prophet turns to his own people, that is, the people of the Jews, which is called the house of Jacob, and exhorts them that, being in the darkness of error, they should receive the light of truth and walk in the light of the Lord. And in a manner he sings that word of David: Come to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be confounded (Ps 33 [34]:6). For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works be reproved. But you, house of Jacob, house of my people, come with me, and let us walk together in the light of the Lord: let us receive the Gospel of Christ, let us be enlightened by him who says: I am the light of the world (John 8:12). And when he had said this to the people of the Jews, seeing their impenitent heart and their soul most hardened by unbelief, he makes an apostrophe to the Lord, and says: I exhort them to come to you and enjoy your light with me for this reason, that, in requital for their sins, you have forsaken your people, once the house of Jacob.

But as there the prophet says, 'And now, O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord; for He has sent away His people, the house of Jacob, because their land was full, as at the first, of soothsayers and divinations;' even so it is necessary for us here to observe that there are two seeds of Judah, and two races, as there are two houses of Jacob: the one begotten by blood and flesh, the other by faith and the Spirit.

Here he places the calling of the Jews after the conversion of the gentiles has occurred: speaking either in the person of the prophet or in the person of the gentiles, that they may be in the tail who were in the head: "blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in" (Rom 11:25). "Let us walk," at the same time and in agreement, that there may be one sheepfold: "and there shall be one fold and one shepherd" (John 10:16). "In the light": "Walk whilst you have the light" (John 12:35).

Because they have been filled of old, and have had soothsayers, like the Philistines. For Philistines the Seventy always translated foreigners, a common noun for a proper one: this is today the nation of the Palestinians, as it were of the Philisthinians, because the Hebrew tongue does not have the letter P, but uses the Greek PHI in its place. Hence what is said in the Psalms, with the enumeration of the other nations, The foreigners have been made subject to me (Ps 59 [60]:10), signifies not all foreign nations but properly the Palestinians. And he gives the reasons why God has cast off his people, the house of Jacob: because they have been filled, he says, as they were at the beginning, with soothsayers and omens and all the filth of idolatry. We know from the writing of Moses that the omens and auguries which the nations had whom the Lord drove out before Israel, the Canaanites, Amorites and Hittites, were not to be heeded. The commentators of the Church expound this passage in one way and another. For some will have it to signify that, the people of the Jews having been cast off, the Roman army entered the land once of promise, and, the Jews being expelled, foreigners dwelt in Judea, settlers of diverse nations from the whole world, brought in by Titus and Vespasian and Hadrian and the other emperors. Others, however, think that this does not pertain to Roman times but to earlier ones, before they were laid waste by the Babylonians, because they are related to have lived under impious kings and were forsaken by the Lord.

And they have clung to strange boys. For which the Seventy translated: And many foreign sons were born to them. Symmachus: And with strange sons they applauded. For which there is written in the Hebrew JESPHICU (ישפיקו), which the Hebrews interpret ἐσφηνώθησαν, and we have rendered they have clung, so that the shamefulness of the vices in the Jewish nation may be shown. And the Greeks and the Romans once suffered from this vice to such a degree that even the most famous philosophers of Greece kept male concubines publicly; and Hadrian, learned in the arts of philosophy, consecrated Antinous as a god and established a temple, victims and priests for him, and from him a city and a region of Egypt received its name. Among the harlots too, in the arches of the theaters, boys stood exposed to public lust, until under the emperor Constantine, when the Gospel of Christ shone forth, both the unbelief of all the nations and this shamefulness were done away. The Seventy, however, signify that their wives were violated, in bearing strange sons to the Jews. Symmachus, by a certain circumlocution and in the decent word of applauding, has shown the same shamefulness with boys.

Here he shows their guilt. And first, in general, second, in particular, at: "and have had soothsayers."

Concerning the first, he does two things. First, he shows their separation from God, when he says, "for you have cast off," and, as the Gloss continues, rightly are they to be called, because you have cast off. "Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?" (Jer 22:28). Second, he places the reason for their separation, because, namely, "they are filled," with iniquity, "as in times past," in Egypt. "The land is full of adulterers" (Jer 23:10). For there is no cause of separation from God except sin; hence below: "your sins have divided between you and your God" (Isa 59:2).

Here he sets out their fault in particular, and especially concerning idolatry, which he denounces in them in three ways. First, as to the gentile way of life; second, as to the occasion of idolatry, where it says, "their land is filled with silver and gold" (Isa 2:7); third, as to the observation of worship, where it says, "and their land is filled" (Isa 2:8).

He censures them for the gentile way of life in two matters. First, as to the diviners and soothsayers that they had: hence he says: "soothsayers," that is, those who foretell the future from the cry and chirping of birds, as the Philistines, among whom this superstition flourished most, against what is commanded in Deuteronomy 18:9: "beware lest you have a mind to imitate the abominations of those nations," and immediately below this, "let there be not found among you any one that consults soothsayers, or observes dreams and omens" (Deut 18:10).

But it seems that augury is not a sin. For birds have a better estimation than fish who are more aquatic; but mariners obtain predictions of a coming storm from the movement of certain fish: therefore something also may be foretold concerning the future through birds. And to this is to be said that God foresaw what was necessary for each thing to be preserved in being, according to the capacity of its nature; and therefore to man he gave reason, through which, by comparing, he is able to devise for himself remedies against harmful things. And because reason is lacking in brute animals, he ordained that nature should supply what is lacking from reason; and therefore weapons and coverings, which man must acquire for himself through art, are given to animals by nature. Similarly, a certain power of natural estimation was also created for them, impelling them to carry out the activity of their species; hence it is better to say that they are acted upon than that they act, as John Damascene says; and when an inferior nature is regulated by a superior nature and is moved, impressions are left in them of superior movements rubbing such movement by which they are moved to provide for themselves in necessities. And obtaining a prediction in such things from birds or the movements of birds or of other animals is not a sin, but only about those things which have their cause from free will, which does not operate by the necessity of the stars.

Second, he censures them as to unnatural passions, in which they were subject: hence he says: "to strange children," that is, foreign, or strange to God, "have adhered," through filthy abuse. "Men with men, working that which is filthy" (Rom 1:27). In 2 Maccabees 4:13, it is said of this vice, "now this was an increase, and progress of heathenish and foreign manners, through the abominable and unheard of wickedness of Jason, that impious wretch, and no priest."

Vanity is the general term for vices, but vain in the particular sense means that which is found alien to God. Just as trusting in the Godhead is fruitful constancy, so deviating from him is the vanity that perishes.… So those who burned with the most base love of idols are convicted, and the phrase is to be pronounced as a rebuke, as if the words were, "Why do you love the vanity by which you perish?" We ought to love things that are beneficial, not harmful, for it is better to curse the things that cause the punishment of lasting damnation to afflict us.

And the land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end of its treasures. Among the other vices of the land of the house of Jacob is numbered also the abundance of gold and silver. Among omens and soothsayers, horses and chariots, which God forbade the kings of Israel to multiply, among idols, which are the works of men's hands, avarice is condemned. Hence the Lord commanded in the Gospel that we should not lay up for ourselves treasures on earth, and that we should not make treasures from which a thief can snatch, adding at the last: You cannot serve God and mammon (Matt 6:24). And finely has the Prophet expressed in other words that phrase of the little verse, The greedy man is ever in want, saying: And there is no end of its treasures; not that treasures have no end, but that the mind of those who possess them is not filled. And by these words both nations, the Jews and the Romans, are branded for avarice. Which the histories too, Greek as well as Latin, relate: that nothing is more avaricious than the nation of the Jews and of the Romans. Hence too the law on extortion was established, and daily we see that word of the Apostle fulfilled: You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal? (Rom 2:21). A more thievish judge hears and condemns a thief, pronouncing in another's case a sentence upon himself.

And its land is filled with horses, and its chariots are innumerable. For what is possessed against God's command is not worthy of number. Hence it is said in the Psalms: The horse is deceptive for safety (Ps 32 [33]:17). And in Exodus: The horse and the rider he has thrown into the sea (Exod 15:1). And in another psalm: Some in chariots and some in horses, but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God (Ps 19 [20]:8). Both can be understood: that the people of the Jews multiplied horses and chariots for themselves against God's precept, and that the land of Judea was filled with the horses and chariots of the conquerors.

Someone might ask, what is wrong with having silver or horses, particularly when what the people believed was not rigorous? How should we respond? The prophet was not criticizing the use of these possessions but the misuse of them. When he said, "Woe to the mighty," he was not condemning them for having possessions but for hoarding so much more than they needed.

Here he sets out the occasion of idolatry, which is avarice or its likeness: "or covetousness, which is a serving of idols" (Eph 5:3–5).

First, therefore, he shows their avarice as to the multiplication of things which pertain to the necessities of life, when he says, "their land is filled," in which is indicated the abundance of things; "and there is no end," in which is indicated the insatiability of the covetous man, who is not satisfied with money. "A covetous man shall not be satisfied with money: and he that loves riches shall reap no fruit from them" (Eccl 5:9), and: "I gave them corn, and wine, and oil, and silver, and I multiplied for them, and gold, which they have used in the service of Baal" (Hos 2:8).

Second, he shows their avarice as to things which pertain to transportation, where he says, "filled with horses." "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will call upon the name of the Lord, our God" (Ps 20:7).

And its land is filled with idols; they have worshiped the work of their own hands, what their fingers have made; and man has bowed himself down, and the man has been humbled. Where once was the Temple and the worship of God, there the statue of Hadrian and the idol of Jupiter were set up. Which many interpret of that testimony which we read in the Gospel: But when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Mark 13:14). And they bowed down to the work of their hands, and man, a rational animal, worshiped bronze and stone. But there are those who interpret these things of the Jews, that before they were taken by the Babylonians they did all these things, and were therefore abandoned by God. Hence at the end of the chapter too is set: Do not, therefore, forgive them. We can say this too according to the anagogy, that every doctrine contrary to the truth worships the works of its own hands and sets up idols in its land, and man bows down and the man is humbled and cannot raise himself up, because he is bound by the devil, unless the Lord raises him up, after the example of that woman whom Satan had bound for eighteen years, so that she could by no means look at the sky but always at the earth (Luke 13).

Not only do human beings "make gods for themselves" from statues, but you will also find them "making gods for themselves" from their imaginations. For such people can imagine another god and creator of the world in a system different from the divine plan of the world recorded by the Spirit, other than the true world. These all have "made gods for themselves," and they have "worshiped the works of their hands." So, too, I believe is the case either among the Greeks who generate opinions, so to speak, of this philosophy or that, or among the heretics, the first who generate opinions. These have "made idols for themselves" and figments of the soul, and by turning to them "they worship the works of their hands," since they accept as truth their own fabrications.

Here he denounces in them the worship of idolatry; and he adds to the weight of this from three things.

First, from its multitude, where he says, "also is full": "Ephraim has made many altars to sin" (Hos 7:11); "under every green tree, and on every high hill you didst prostitute yourself" (Jer 2:20).

Second, from the worthlessness of the idols: for they are "the work of their own hands," and still more, "which their own fingers have made." "The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men" (Ps 115:4).

Do not, therefore, forgive them. For which the Seventy translated: And I will not forgive them. If God is speaking, it is to be understood thus: Because they have done such things, I will not spare them, nor will I forgive such innumerable sins. If the Prophet, it is to be taken thus: Do not, therefore, forgive those who have committed such crimes. And if we understand it of the Romans, the interpretation is truer: who, overthrowing the temple of God, did not worship him who gave them the victory, but the idols of their own hands. But if of the Jews, it is a fierce sentence of the Prophet, so that he seems to pray against his own people, to whom he had said above: House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Third, from the dignity of man: and therefore he says: "man," who was made to the image of God, "has bowed himself down," in putting himself under idols; "man," who seems powerful as to acquired things, "has been debased": "man when he was in honor did not understand; he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them" (Ps 49:12). Below: "he bows down before it, and adores it, and prays unto it, saying: deliver me" (Isa 44:17).

"Therefore forgive them not." Here he threatens them with punishment. And this is divided into two parts: in the first part, he shows them that danger is imminent; in the second part, he closes the remedy of escape, where it says, "cease therefore from the man" (Isa 2:22).

He shows them that danger is imminent, by taking away three things: first, presumption of divine mercy; second, confidence in their own power, where it says, "the lofty eyes of man are humbled" (Isa 2:11); third, the remedy which remained in confidence in other gods, where it says, "in that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver" (Isa 2:20).

And because divine mercy has no measure, but always exalts itself above judgment (Jas 2:13), he does not remove it by foretelling that it will fail but by calling it down as just. Therefore he does two things. First, he places the calling down, saying: since they do such filthy evils, "therefore forgive them not," as if to say: would that there were justice, that you might have mercy on them in nothing: "shall I not visit for these things, says the Lord? And shall not my soul take revenge on such a nation?" (Jer 5:9).

Enter into the rock, hide yourself in the dug-out ground from the face of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of his majesty. I indeed exhorted the people, saying, House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. But because the Lord has cast off the people of Jacob, and has cast them off because they either did or suffered the things which we have expounded above, therefore I foretell to you the evils that are to come, and I exhort you to enter the rocks and hide in the caves from the face of the Babylonian or the Roman army, when all things will be laid waste, according to what we read in the Gospel: Then they will say to the mountains, Fall upon us; and to the rocks, Hide us (Luke 23:30). But according to the anagogy we are commanded, before the face of the Lord's majesty, to take on the strength of the rock, of which it is said: The rock is a refuge for the hares (Ps 103 [104]:18); and, On a rock you have exalted me (Ps 26 [27]:6). Moses too is set in a cleft of the rock to see the back parts of God (Exod 33). And, The people drank from the spiritual rock that followed them (1 Cor 10:4). And he hides himself in the rock who enters his chamber and, having shut the door, adores the Father, so that, though placed in an earthly body, he does not feel the passing storm of the world.

Second, he places, ironically, the counsel to escape, saying, "enter you"; as if to say, since he himself does not send you away, it remains that you should hide yourself from his face. "Enter you into the rock," literally, into the fissures of the rocks to remain there; "hide you in the pit," that is, in the caverns of the earth, "from the face of the fear of the Lord," that is, from the face of those through whom God proves that he is to be feared and glorified: "leave the cities" (Jer 48:28); but this does not avail them, hence in Psalm 139:7: "whither shall I go from your spirit? Or whither shall I flee from your face?"

Bernard explains this as referring to Christ. "And the rock was Christ" (1 Cor 10:4); one must enter him through the affection of devotion. Therefore, Bernard says: that which is lacking to me I usurp from the heart of Jesus Christ. For out of his heart mercies overflow, and there is no lack of fissures by which they flow out: for they dug holes in his hands, pierced his feet. "Arise, make haste, my love, and come in the clefts of the rock" (Song 2:13–14).

The lofty eyes of man are humbled, and the height of men shall be bowed down; but the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. When the enemies have come, and the Babylonian or Roman sword has laid waste the whole province, and the columns of warriors have besieged Jerusalem, then neither riches nor nobility of birth nor the power of offices will be able to defend anyone; but there will be one captivity for all, and God alone will be exalted, whose wrath no one will be able to avoid. Many understand these things of the day of judgment: that every creature, in comparison with the divine glory, will be humbled and bowed down, and will feel itself to be nothing.

Here he takes away from them confidence in their own power, and concerning this, he does two things: first, he excludes the power of resistance; second, he rejects the precaution of hiding, where it says, "and they shall go into the holes of rocks" (Isa 2:19).

He sets out two things to exclude the power of resistance. First, their lowering, both as to pride of heart, when he says, "the eyes," that is, pride, "of the lofty," that is, of powerful men, "are humbled," that is, they will be humbled: the past tense is used for the future because of the certitude of the prophecy: "a generation, whose eyes are lofty, and their eyelids lifted up on high" (Prov 30:13); "he will look on all that are proud, and confound them, and crush the wicked in their place" (Job 40:7). Then also as to nobility of ancestry; hence he says, "the height of men," that is, their nobility of ancestry: "yet I cast out the Amorrhite before their face: whose height was like the height of cedars" (Amos 2:9).

Second, he places the exaltation of the one who punishes: "the Lord alone shall be exalted," that is he who seemed weak in expectation, will appear high in punishing: "the Lord shall be known when he executes judgments" (Ps 9:16); below: "the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment" (Isa 5:16).

For the day of the Lord of hosts is upon everyone proud and lofty, and upon everyone arrogant. These things too are joined to the former. In that day, he says, in which the Lord alone will be exalted, that is, in the day of the Lord's vengeance, all the lofty and the arrogant and the high will be subjected to captivity and the sword. Μεταφορικῶς the word is about the great and the princes: that the more they have been proud, the more they are brought low. For the Lord resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (1 Pet 5). Those who understand it of the day of judgment think that the devil is called proud and lofty and high and arrogant; who in his pride says: I will set my seat above the stars of heaven; I will sit on the lofty mountain, above all the lofty mountains, toward the North; I will ascend above the clouds; I will be like the Most High (Isa 14:13, 14): when out of the mouth of infants and sucklings praise will be perfected, that the enemy and the avenger may be destroyed (Ps 8:3).

Here is set out the manner of fulfillment of the things that have been predicted. And first, as to the lowering of men; second, as to the subtraction of things, where it says, "and upon all" (Isa 2:13).

Thus he says first: therefore this will be which was said, because "the day of the Lord," that is, the time of vengeance, below: "the day of vengeance is in my heart, the year of my redemption is come" (Isa 63:4); "of hosts," that there be no doubt about victory of him, under whom there is such a multitude of servants; he will come as heavy weight to compress, "upon every one that is proud and high-minded," that is, upon him who is raised up more from the great things he has; "and upon every one that is arrogant," who is elevated because of that which he does not have. The arrogant man is he who attributes to himself what he does not have (Gregory). "I hate arrogance, and pride, and every wicked way, and a mouth with a double tongue" (Prov 8:13). "And he shall be humbled": "he that exalts himself shall be humbled" (Luke 14:11).

And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan. In Psalm 28 (29) too it is sung: The voice of the Lord breaking the cedars; the Lord will break the cedars of Lebanon, and will crush them like the calf of Lebanon (Ps 28 [29]:5, 6). And in Psalm 36 (37): I saw the wicked man exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found (Ps 36 [37]:35, 36). The oaks of Bashan too, which Aquila translated δρύας, Symmachus and Theodotion βαλάνους, we know to be acorn-bearing trees, which, even if they bear fruit, are food for swine, not for men. Bashan is a region of Arabia, over which Og ruled, who was called king of Bashan; and it means αἰσχύνη, that is, ignominy; and if we chose to translate it confusion, that would rather signify σύγχυσιν, that is, Babylon, than Bashan. Upon all, then, who are lifted up in pride, and do works of ignominy, and wallow in the mire of lusts, the vengeance of the Lord will rise. But if the prudent reader should ask why cedar wood was set in the temple of the Lord, and why in Psalm 103 (104), according to the Hebrew truth, we read, The trees of the Lord shall be satisfied, and the cedars of Lebanon which you have planted; there the sparrows will build their nests (Ps 103 [104]:16, 17); and why among the other trees the cedars too are summoned to the praises of the Lord; and why at the coming of the Savior, when all the trees and the wood of the field will clap with their branches, it is written: I will set in the waterless land the cedar and the box, and the cypress and the pine (Isa 41:19 LXX); and now the prophetic word threatens the day of the Lord upon the cedars of Lebanon? it must be said that out of the same kind of men some are raised up to the kingdom, others dragged down to punishment; and the cedars of Lebanon, which will be broken because of their pride, are chosen when they are of good odor and have said with the Apostle: We are the good odor of Christ (2 Cor 2:15).

Here he places the subtraction of things which make for defense. And first, as to things that pertain to preparing machines of war: either because of their height, and thus he says, "upon all the cedars"; or because of their strength, and thus he says, "upon all the oaks": "open your gates, O Libanus, and let fire devour your cedars" (Zech 11:1); and below this: "howl, you oaks of Basan, because the fenced forest is cut down" (Zech 11:2).

And upon all the lofty mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up. Just as in a good sense, according to the variety of virtues, men are called mountains and hills, so among the impious, according to the diversity of vices, and above all of pride, some are mountains, others hills, upon which the day of the Lord will be; of whom it is written in Ezekiel: Thus says Adonai the Lord to the mountains and the hills: Behold, I will bring a sword upon you, and your high places shall be scattered, and your altars shall be broken, and the rest (Ezek 6:3).

As to things which pertain to the fortification of places from nature: "and upon all the high mountains": "thus says the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, and to the rocks, and the valleys" (Ezek 6:3).

And upon every lofty tower, and upon every fortified wall. Those who refer these things to the times of Vespasian and Hadrian say that what is written was fulfilled bodily: that no lofty tower, no strongest wall, no multitude of ships and industry of trade could prevail against the might of the Roman army; but that the inhabitants of Judea came into such terror that they, with their wives and children, buried themselves in pits of the earth with the gold and silver which they thought would be a help to them, and sought out the deepest caves. For if the belly is the god of the gluttonous and the luxurious, why should not gold and silver be called the god of the avaricious? Others refer these things to Babylonian times. So I will run through each point according to the laws of tropology. A tower is built either for the defense of a city or for a lookout, so that the enemy may be seen coming from afar. Each of us, then, ought to build a tower, having first reckoned the cost, lest, according to the parable of the Gospel (Luke 14), he be laughed at when he cannot finish the work. This tower, well built, stands firm. But if, raised up in pride, it has no firm foundations, it will fall upon him by whom it was built, like that one in Siloam which killed eighteen men. Hence the Lord too says to his hearers: And unless you repent, you will likewise perish (Luke 13:3). In what follows too we shall read that the Lord built a tower in his vineyard, and made a winepress, and put a wall around it, but that all these things were destroyed and laid waste because they swelled with the vain brow of pride (Isa 5). Lofty walls too are built so that the city may not be quickly destroyed, so that it may not lie open to enemies: for the Churches are surrounded with the wisest men and fortified with every reason, lest any perverse doctrine prevail against the truth. Of such walls God speaks to Jerusalem: Behold, upon my hands I have painted your walls, and they are always in my sight (below, Isa 49:16 LXX). But if those who before had attacked the Church, having come to know the truth, pass over to the faith and fight for that which they had before attacked, then this will be fulfilled: You shall quickly be built by those by whom you had been destroyed (ibid., 17). In Leviticus too we read that a house which is in walled cities, if it has not been redeemed within the year, is confirmed to the buyer as a perpetual possession; but if it is in country places and villages which have no walls, it can always be redeemed, and the buyer's price remains unsettled (Lev 25).

As to things which pertain to the fortification of places from art: "and upon every high tower": "a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high bulwarks. And I will distress men" (Zeph 1:16–17).

And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all that is beautiful to see. For Tarshish, which all translated alike, the Seventy alone translated sea. The Hebrews think that in their own tongue the sea is properly called THARSIS (תרסים), and that when it is called IAM (ים), it is called so not in the Hebrew tongue but in the Syriac. Jehoshaphat too had ships which he sent to Tarshish (1 Kgs 22:49), but they were broken at Ezion-geber. Solomon too had ships which went to Tarshish (1 Kgs 10:22) and returned after three years and brought the king silver and gold, ivory and apes. But because both kings had sinned, the one given to pleasure and a lover of women of foreign nations, the other joining himself with the king of Samaria, both of which things are referred to the pagans and the heretics, in whom there is nothing but the glitter of eloquence, and a sense built up by diabolical art, and dead speech, which is interpreted in the ivory teeth, and a likeness of human reason, which is perceived in the apes; therefore we read in the Psalms, With a violent wind you will shatter the ships of Tarshish (Ps 47 [48]:8). And of these ships the same Isaiah speaks: Woe to the wings of the ships which are beyond Ethiopia (below, Isa 18:1 LXX). But there are on the contrary good ships too, of which it is said in the same psalms: Those who go down to the sea in ships and do business in many waters, they have seen the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep (Ps 106 [107]:23). For those who are not idle in the waves of this world, but work, and carry the Lord's merchandise, and hasten to come to the harbor of rest, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep, when they have come to deep knowledge and, searching all things, that is, even the deep things of God, have beheld his wonders. Josephus thinks Tarshish is Tarsus, a city of Cilicia; others think it a region of India, and that by this name too one of the twelve gems is called, the stone which among us is called chrysolite, from the likeness of its color to the sea. But it is better to take Tarshish absolutely as either the sea or the open main. For Jonah, sailing from Joppa, could not reach India, to which one cannot sail by that sea; but simply go out to the open sea and make for whatever islands. And what follows, And upon all that is beautiful to see, or, as the Seventy translated, And upon every sight of the beauty of ships, is to be taken in the same sense: that whatever seems beautiful in words and is built up by human reason will be destroyed by the day of the Lord, if it lifts itself up against the knowledge of God.

As to things which pertain to abundance of provisions, and thus he says: "and upon all the ships," in which provisions are borne, "of Tharsis," that is, of the sea, below: "howl, you ships of the sea, for the house is destroyed, from whence they were wont to come" (Isa 23:1).

"And upon all that is fair to behold": this pertains to the placating of enemies, or the increase of fighters: "who can despise the people of the Hebrews, who have such beautiful women?" (Jdt 10:18).

And the loftiness of men shall be bowed down, and the height of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, and the idols shall be utterly broken. Human speech seems to have reason so long as it has not been compared with divine knowledge. But when falsehood draws near to the truth, like stubble to fire, it is quickly devoured and perishes, and all the doctrines of falsehood, which are now called idols because they are feigned and fabricated, will be utterly broken.

Here it is as if he concludes the proposition; and it is entirely the same as what was said before, except that something is added about the destruction of idols, so that he alone may be shown to be the highest.

"And idols shall be utterly destroyed": "your idols shall be broken in pieces and shall be no more, and your temples shall be destroyed" (Ezek 6:6).

The Creator ought to be known even by the light of nature, for he may be understood from his works and may thereby become the object of a more widely spread knowledge. To him, therefore, does it appertain to punish such as do not know God, for none ought to be ignorant of him. In the apostle's phrase, "From the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power," he uses the words of Isaiah, who for that same reason attests the very same Lord as arising "to shake terribly the earth."

Here he places the precaution of hiding; and it is the same as before, except that here it is foretold as in the future, because he had also explained by foretelling and not by calling down that their power was to be thrown down; "they shall go into the lower parts of the earth: they shall be delivered into the hands of the sword, they shall be the portions of foxes" (Ps 63:9–10).

In that day man shall cast away the idols of his silver and the images of his gold, which he had made for himself, to worship moles and bats; and he shall go into the clefts of the rocks and the caverns of the stones from the face of the terror of the Lord and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to strike the earth. We have often said that silver and gold are taken for speech and sense; and though these were given by God to men so that they might either speak of God or perceive God and praise their creator, they abuse this gift for the fashioning of idols; according to what is written: I gave them silver and gold, but they made Baal of my silver and gold (Hos 2:8). When, then, someone, terrified by the fear of the Lord, has first hidden his idols in the cave of his breast and concealed them in the abysses of the earth, not daring to bring out what he had wickedly fashioned, the second advance is that he cast away what he had first concealed and not suffer it to be in him. For moles, as we have translated, the Seventy have vain things, Aquila ὀρυκτὰ, Symmachus unfruitful things; Theodotion put the Hebrew word itself, PHARPHAROTH (פרפרות). It is an animal without eyes, which always digs the earth and throws out the soil, and, eating the roots underneath, is harmful to crops; the Greeks call it ἀσπάλακα. The bat, a bird of the night, which received from them the fitting name νυκτερὶς because it flits about in the night, is a small animal, like a mouse, sounding not so much with voice and song as with squeaking; and though it is seen to fly, it shuns the light and cannot bear to see the sun. To such animals are compared the idols, which, blind and dark, are worshiped by the blind, and all doctrines contrary to the truth.

Here he removes the third, namely confidence in idols. And first, he takes away their help; "to adore": "And I went in and saw, and behold every form of creeping things, and of living creatures, the abominations, and all the idols of the house of Israel, were painted" (Ezek 8:10). Below: "in that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your hands have made for you to sin" (Isa 31:7).

And when these have been abandoned in the day of the Lord, those who have cast them away will enter the clefts of the rocks and the caverns of the stones, so as to dwell not in the dust of the earth and in vile mud but in firm reason, and find for themselves the various openings of the virtues, through which they may be able to come to the truth. These things, according to the anagogy, I have touched on as I could in brief words; the Hebrews refer them to Babylonian times and the overthrow of Jerusalem, when the Lord rose to strike the land of the Jews.

Second, he returns to the protection of hiding, where it says, "and he shall go into the clefts of rocks": "every bondman and every freeman hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of mountains" (Rev 6:15).