Isaiah 31

Let our course take us to regions above, because it is better to ascend. Finally, as was read today, "Woe to them that go down to Egypt." Surely it is not wrong to go to Egypt, but to change to the ways of the Egyptians, to change to the violence of their treachery and to the ugliness of their wantonness—this is wrong. He that changes in this way descends, and one who descends falls. Let us keep away, then, from the Egyptian who is a man, but [let us] not [keep away] from God. Even the king of Egypt himself fell under the dominion of his own vices and in comparison with him Moses was accounted a god, ruling over kingdoms and subjecting powers to himself. So we read that it was said to Moses: "I shall make you a god to Pharaoh."

Woe to those who go down into Egypt for help, hoping in horses, and having confidence in chariots, because they are many, and in horsemen, because they are exceedingly strong, and have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel, and have not sought the Lord. But he, being wise, has brought evil, and has not taken away his words; and he will rise up against the house of the most wicked, and against the help of those who work iniquity. Egypt is man and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit: and the Lord will incline his hand, and the helper will collapse, and he to whom help is given will fall, and all of them together will be consumed. After the burden of the beasts of the South, and of those who carried their riches into Egypt to a people that could not profit them, who hoped for help in the strength of Pharaoh and had confidence in the shadow of Egypt, the prophetic word had spoken, under the figure of the return to Jerusalem and of the release of the captivity under Cyrus, of the consummation of the age and of the perfect blessedness of the righteous: now it returns to the same people to whom it had spoken above, that they should not go down into Egypt. And this is the difference between the present passage and the earlier one: there the tribe of Judah is commanded not to go down into Egypt; here it is prophesied that, scorning the command of the Lord, they will go down, and that by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon Israel and the Egyptians alike, the fugitives and their helpers alike, will be slaughtered together. Of this Jeremiah speaks most fully (Jer 42). Woe, then, to those who go down into Egypt and, for fear of the Chaldeans, scorn the precepts of the Lord, hoping in idolaters, while they boast that they hold the worship of God; and, trusting in the help of horses, they do not know that it is written: A horse is a deceitful thing for safety (Ps 32 [33]:17); and they have confidence in four-horse chariots and carriages and horsemen, and do not remember that Song: Horse and rider he has cast into the sea (Exod 15:1). And they have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel, who was promising his help through Jeremiah to those who remained in the land of Judea. And they have not sought the Lord: not that they did not seek him, but that, having sought him, they scorned his words. Hence it is also said of the wicked priests: Who devour my people, they have not called upon the Lord (Ps 52 [53]:5, 6).

These things, indeed, we can also understand of those who, in a time of persecution and of tribulation and distress, do not trust in the Lord, but in the help of the Egyptians, that is, of worldly men; not knowing that Abraham was endangered in Egypt, and that the people of God served with clay and bricks in that region, which is spiritually called the iron furnace. Hence in the Apocalypse of John too we read: The place in which the Lord was crucified is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt (Rev 11:8).

693. Woe to them that go down. In this part, he threatens both at the same time, namely, the Egyptians and the Jews, and concerning this, he does two things:

first, he sets out the threatening;

second, the consolation, where it says, for thus says the Lord to me (Isa 31:4).

Concerning the first, he sets out two things.

First, he sets out their guilt from trust in human help: trusting in horses: vain is the horse for safety: neither shall he be saved by the abundance of his strength (Ps 32[33]:17); and from contempt of divine help: and have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel, against what it says in Psalm 19:8[20:7]: some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will hope in the name of the Lord, our God.

But he, being wise, that is, the Lord, brought evil upon them, and the worst, namely Nebuchadnezzar; or evil in the absolute sense, signifying a thing, not a person; and he did not take away his words, which he had spoken through the prophets. Wherefore he will rise up against the tribe of Judah, the house of the most wicked, and against the help of the Egyptians, who work iniquity.

694. Second, he threatens the punishment: but he.

And first, against their contempt of divine help he sets out the wisdom of God, and the firmness of the sentence: the wise one has brought evil, and has not removed his words, that is, he has not made void what he threatened through the prophets: God is not a man, that he should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should be changed (Num 23:19); and he adds the punishment: and he will rise up.

For Egypt, or the Egyptian, as the Seventy translated, is man and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit. Hence it is also written in Jeremiah: Cursed is the man who has his hope in man, and has made firm the flesh of his arm, and whose heart has departed from the Lord. And he will be like a tamarisk in the desert, which will not see when good things come (Jer 17:5, 6). And in another place it is written: Vain is the salvation of man (Ps 59 [60]:13), or, as it stands better in the Hebrew, in man. And when the Lord stretches out his hand to punish, or inclines it, under the metaphor of a charioteer, and slackens the reins of the running horses, the Egyptian helper will collapse, and Israel, to whom help was being given.

Second, against trust in human help, he sets out their weakness: Egypt is man: whereas you are a man, and not God, in the hand of them that slay you (Ezek 28:9–10); and he adds the punishment: and the helper shall fall: they that dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation (Job 4:19).

For thus says the Lord to me: as when a lion roars, and a lion's whelp, over its prey, and a multitude of shepherds comes against it, it will not dread their voice, nor be afraid at their multitude: so will the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon Mount Zion and upon its hill. Like birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem, protecting and delivering, passing over and saving. In plain passages we set down one edition, especially where there is no difference of sense. When the Israelites, and the Egyptians in whose help they trusted, have been slain in Egypt, the captives will return to Jerusalem in the reign of Cyrus. And by two likenesses the strength of the Lord, who had promised that he would be their helper, is shown. As a lion and a lion's whelp, when hungry, if it sees a flock of sheep, is not frightened by any voice of the shepherds, and, conscious of its own strength, despises their multitude: so the Lord of hosts will fight, not against Mount Zion and its hill, but upon Mount Zion, against its adversaries.

695. For thus says the Lord. Here he sets out the consolation, promising liberation by God from their enemies, from whom they could not be liberated by the Egyptians. And concerning this, he does three things.

First, he sets out the defense of the Jews under the likeness of a defending lion, saying: you and the Egyptians in whom you trusted in contempt of me will perish: for thus says the Lord, who alone saves; so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight, as a defender against those who hindered the building of the temple after the return from captivity; or against the Assyrians: and I will be to them as a lioness, as a leopard in the way of the Assyrians (Hos 13:7).

Let us state the other comparison as well: as birds, to defend their young, fly over their nests, and if they see a serpent or a man, or other birds approaching their chicks, forget their own weakness and fight with beak and claws, and redouble the grief of their breast with chattering cries: so the Lord will protect Jerusalem, and will deliver it, passing over, and will save it. For passing over, in the Hebrew it is PHASE; in the three translators, besides the Seventy, ὑπερβαίνων is set down. From this it is plain that Pascha, that is, the Phase of the Lord, signifies not passion but passage. And that the Lord, in the likeness of birds, was a protector over Jerusalem, he himself testifies in the Gospel: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who were sent to you (Matt 23:37): how often I wished to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not? And in Deuteronomy it is said of the Lord: He spread his wings, and took them up, and carried them on his shoulders (Deut 32:11).

And under the likeness of a protecting bird: as birds: how often would I have gathered together your children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and you wouldst not? (Matt 23:37); as the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them (Deut 32:11).

In place of the last clause ["But you have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, says the Lord."] the true Hebrew text (which is not preserved in the Greek and Latin versions) gives the following: "you have forsaken me, yet return, and I will receive you, says the Lord." Isaiah also speaking in the same sense uses almost the same words: "Return," he cries, "O children of Israel, you who devise a deep and sinful counsel. Return to me, and I will redeem you. I am God, and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is nothing beside me. Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth." Remember this and show yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O you transgressors. Return in heart and remember the former things of old: for I am God and there is none else."

Turn back, as you had withdrawn into the depth, sons of Israel. For in that day a man will cast away the idols of his silver and the idols of his gold, which your hands have made for you for sin. And Assyria will fall by a sword not of a man, and a sword not of a human being will devour him: and he will flee, not from the face of the sword, and his young men will be tributaries. And his strength will pass away from terror, and his princes will flee in fear, said the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem. LXX: Turn back, as you had withdrawn into the depth, sons of Israel. For in that day a man will cast away the idols of his silver and the idols of his gold, which your hands have made for you for sin. And Assyria will fall by a sword not of a man, and a sword not of a human being will devour him, and he will flee, not from the face of the sword; his young men will be overcome: for they will be surrounded by rock as by a rampart, and will be conquered; and whoever flees will be taken. Thus says the Lord: Blessed is he who has seed in Zion, and kinsmen in Jerusalem. While the Lord fights upon Mount Zion against its adversaries, and protects it like birds: Turn back, O sons of Israel; or, as Symmachus translated: Repent, you who by deep counsel and sin have withdrawn from the Lord. For if you do this, casting away the idols of gold and silver which were to you for sin, on account of which your city was taken, Assyria, for fear of whom you now flee, will fall, not by the sword of men, nor by the strength of an army, but by the power of God. And he means the Angel by whom one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians were destroyed in one night. The Assyrian king himself will also flee, not from the sword of men, but from the wrath of God: so that his young and strong men become tributaries to the Medes, of whom it is said above, against Babylon: Behold, I will stir up the Medes against you. And the strength of the Assyrian will pass away and go by through the terror of the Lord, and all his princes will tremble. For the Lord has said it and promised it, for whom to have said is to have done; he who has fire in Zion and a furnace in Jerusalem, so that the flame going out from Jerusalem may consume his adversaries like stubble and wood. Another interprets the words: In that day a man will cast away the idols of his silver, and the rest, in such a way as to testify that after the return from the Babylonian captivity until the coming of Christ the sons of Israel never worshipped idols; and that the Assyrian too is signified in the present place as one to be overcome not by the Angel but by the Medes, because a most ancient and once powerful kingdom, after offending the Lord, was destroyed and served its conquerors. The Nazarenes understand this passage thus: O sons of Israel, who by most wicked counsel denied the Son of God, return to him and to his Apostles. For if you do this, you will cast away all the idols which were formerly to you for sin, and the devil will fall before you, not by your own strength, but by the mercy of God: and his young men, who once fought for him, will be tributaries of the Church, and all his strength and his rock will pass away: the philosophers too, and every perverse doctrine, will turn their backs at the sign of the cross. For it is the sentence of the Lord that this should come to pass, whose fire, or light, is in Zion, and his oven in Jerusalem.

696. Second, he sets out the destruction of their enemies, promising counsel for meriting this: return, to me: the wicked man, when he is come into the depths of sins, contemns (Prov 18:3); as you have yielded your members to serve iniquity, unto iniquity: so now yield your members to serve cleanness, unto sanctification (Rom 6:19).

And he sets out the completion of the counsel: in that day, above: in that day a man shall cast away his idols (Isa 2:20).

And he sets out the fruit, namely, the destruction itself as to the death of the slain: by the sword: my sword shall devour flesh (Deut 32:42); and as to the removal of the survivors in flight, fear, and servitude, for his young men shall be tributaries, afterwards, to the Babylonians.

If the breads of the furnace that were baked in secret signify the interior devotion of the mind of the faithful confirmed by the fire of charity, breads which were also commanded by the law to be offered in the sacrifice of the Lord, it is most fitting that the hearts which were made to burn constantly with the flame of intimate love and virtue and to beget words are symbolized through the furnaces in which the same breads were baked. The prophet spoke beautifully about these things when he referred to "the Lord whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem." It is also written: "Did our hearts not burn within us when he spoke along the way and opened the Scriptures to us?"

But if you ask how these things come about, ask grace, not doctrine; desire, not understanding; the groaning of prayer, not the study of reading; the Bridegroom, not the master; God, not man; darkness, not clarity; not light, but the fire that wholly inflames and carries into God through ecstatic anointings and most ardent affections. Which fire is indeed God, and his furnace is in Jerusalem, and Christ kindles this in the fervor of his most ardent passion, which only he truly perceives who says: My soul has chosen hanging, and my bones death. Whoever loves this death can see God, because it is indubitably true: No man shall see me and live. Let us die, therefore, and enter into the darkness; let us impose silence upon our cares, concupiscences, and phantasms; let us pass over with Christ crucified from this world to the Father, so that, when the Father is shown to us, we may say with Philip: It suffices us; let us hear with Paul: My grace suffices for you; let us exult with David, saying: My flesh and my heart have failed, God of my heart and God my portion forever. Blessed be the Lord forever, and let all the people say: So be it, so be it. Amen.

Of this love that is begun here to be perfected from the sight of the Lord in the eternal kingdom Isaiah rightly speaks, saying, "The Lord lives, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem." It is, however, greater to be a furnace than a fire because a fire can also be small, but a larger flame is kindled in a furnace. Zion truly is said to be speculation but Jerusalem the vision of peace. Truly we sometimes catch a glimpse of our peace here in order there later to see it fully. Therefore through the Lord's love the fire is in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem because here we burn in some measure with the flames of his love when we glimpse him, but there we shall burn totally when we shall fully see him whom we love.

Fire and light are written in Hebrew with the same letters, ALEPH, VAU, RES; if it is read UR, it means fire; if OR, light. This is said because for fire, which Symmachus alone translated, Aquila and Theodotion translated light. But what is meant by what we read in the Septuagint: They will be surrounded by rock as by a rampart, and will be conquered: and whoever flees will be taken, I am unable to know. Unless perhaps we can say this: that the young men of the Assyrian king, who are to be conquered and taken, are surrounded by rock, that is, by the strength of the Lord, as a city is surrounded by a rampart. Further, what follows: Blessed is he who has seed in Zion, and kinsmen in Jerusalem, we can interpret so as to say that it fits the sense of the present passage, in that the divine word exhorts those fleeing into Egypt to return to Jerusalem and beget sons. To this city so great a blessedness is promised that it is defended and protected by the help of the Lord; and in another place it is written of it: The glory of this latter house will be greater than that of the former (Hag 2:10). This can also be referred to the Church, the vision of peace and the watchtower, of which it is written: Glorious things are spoken of you, city of God (Ps 86 [87]:2). And elsewhere: The rush of the river makes glad the city of God (ibid. 45 [46]:3). For in her is the fire and the furnace, to devour sinners and to consume wood, hay and stubble; or the light and the oven, so that the brightness of the righteous and the punishment of sinners may be shown.

The prescription of the law must be taken in the more spiritual sense. For there is a spiritual seed which through charity and the fear of God is conceived in the womb of the soul, which in turn travails and brings forth the spirit of salvation. It is in this sense that the passage is to be taken which reads, "Blessed is he who has seed in Zion and kindred in Jerusalem." What, indeed! Even though one is a fornicator, a drunkard or an idolater, will he be blessed, provided only that he has seed in Zion and kindred in Jerusalem? No one in his right mind would say that.

697. Third, he sets out the strengthening of both: the Lord has said it, whose fire, burning the Assyrians, above: the light of Israel shall be as a fire, and the Holy One thereof as a flame (Isa 10:17); or the fire on the altar of incense; his furnace, on the altar of holocausts: the fire on the altar shall always burn (Lev 6:12); or the fire of charity burning imperfectly in the Church militant, but a furnace burning perfectly in the Church triumphant.

698. Note also that charity is called a fire: see the collation preceding this chapter.