Isaiah 58

Cry, cease not; lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their crimes, and to the house of Jacob their sins. LXX: Cry with strength, and spare not; lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to the people their sins, and to the house of Jacob their iniquities. The preceding chapter finished, in which peace is announced to the righteous and no rest to the impious, God commands the prophet Isaiah to cry with strength, and to lift up his voice like a trumpet, and not to fear to tell the sins and crimes of the people of Israel, by no means afraid of death, nor of the threats and abuse of the impious, but rather considering the Lord who commands him. And because they have deaf ears and can scarcely hear, according to Symmachus and Aquila he is to turn his throat into a horn, which in Hebrew is called SOPHAR (שופר), and which they interpreted as κερατίνην, that is, of horn. Above, indeed, where it was said to the Apostles, Go up onto a high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem; lift it up, do not fear (Isa 40:9), neither horn nor trumpet is taken up, but they are ordered to go up the mountain. Here, however, because those to whom the message must be announced were sinners and lingered below, the Prophet is not ordered to go up onto a mountain, but only to lift up his voice like a trumpet and announce to them the wars to come. Besides, of the day of judgment, when the resurrection of the dead and the last trumpet are spoken of, it is written: For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorrupt; so that, as they are to be judged at the sound of the trumpet, so Israel, dead in sin, may hear his crimes. And at the same time he is called the people of God, so that he may learn what kind of father he has lost, who calls even a sinner his people.

We are commanded then to cry out and to cry forcefully and not to spare our voice, lest we lose our salvation. "And do not be sparing," he says. That is, do not pass over the sinner's wickedness by keeping silent and by being considerate of his shame but inconsiderate of his well-being, for by keeping silent you have made worse the wounds that you ought to have healed by crying out.… We know that a trumpet is usually not so much heard as dreaded; it is not so much accustomed to bring pleasure as to inspire fear. A trumpet is necessary for sinners; it not only penetrates their ears but should strike their heart as well; it should not delight with its melody but chastise when it has been heard; it should encourage the bravehearted to righteousness, while it should turn the cowardly from their crimes.

For also when God saw the dying condition of the Jews who of their own will stopped their ears, and blinded their eyes, and made thick their hearts against the remembrance of the knowledge of God, He stirred up Isaiah to rouse them up, and cried to him to cry into their ears, saying, "Cry with thy throat, and spare not, and lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew My people their iniquity, and the house of Jacob their sins".

1022. Cry, cease not. Here he excludes a useless remedy, by which they wished to prepare themselves for salvation.

And first, he enjoins the duty of announcing, setting out the manner of announcing, that it be loud without fear suppressing it: cry, above: lift up your voice with strength, you that bring good tidings to Zion (Isa 40:9); that it be continuous: cease not, below: upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen all the day, and all the night, they shall never hold their peace (Isa 62:6); that it be clear and open: like a trumpet: let there be a trumpet in your throat (Hos 8:1). And the message of the announcement: show my people their wicked doings, as to greater sins, sins, as to common sins, above: to them that rejoice upon the brick walls, tell their stripes (Isa 16:7).

1034. Note on the words, lift up your voice like a trumpet (Isa 58:1), that preaching is a trumpet: first, because it rouses to life: for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall rise again incorruptible (1 Cor 15:52); second, because it exhorts to battle: if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? (1 Cor 14:8); third, because it announces the approach of a man, above: a noise shall be made with great trumpets (Isa 27:13); fourth, because it calls to counsel: let there be a trumpet in your throat (Hos 8:1); fifth, because it invites to a feast: blow up the trumpet on the new moon (Ps 80:4[81:3]).

These words about the calling of those from Israel can be transferred and come to be understood in another good and highly useful way.… For I think the scope of the prophecy is to be unveiled to those who are prayerful, as will become clear from what follows. … There were those among them who received a reputation for piety and behaved shamefully without being noticed, decorating themselves on the outside and gaining a reputation of gentleness. They undertook fasts and made prayers, thinking that through this they could turn aside God's anger.… Here they learn what their sins are and that they must turn from these if they want to be rewarded by God and become worthy of his sparing them.

For they seek me from day to day, and wish to know my ways, as a nation that has done righteousness and has not forsaken the judgment of its God. LXX likewise. This properly fits the Jews, who run every day to the synagogues and meditate on the law of God, desiring to know what Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did, and what the rest of the saints did, and, turning over the books of the Prophets and of Moses by heart, chant the divine commandments. To them this will most rightly be applied: The wicked will seek me and will not find me. For thus it is written: Everyone who seeks finds (Matt 7); whoever does not find is proved to have sought wrongly. For the Lord is found by those who seek him in goodness, and is shown to those who are not unbelieving toward him. Since, then, they have forsaken the righteousness and the judgment of God, by which names Christ is shown, as the psalmist says, O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the king's son (Ps 71 [72]:1), for Christ has become for us redemption, holiness and righteousness (1 Cor 1), in vain do they boast of their knowledge of the law, since the saint glories not in the knowledge of the Scriptures but in works, saying: I have run the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart (Ps 118 [119]:32).

They ask of me the judgments of righteousness, and they wish to draw near to God. Why have we fasted, and you have not looked? Why have we humbled our souls, and you have not known? Behold, in the day of your fast shall be found your own will, and you have exacted again from all your debtors. Behold, you fast for lawsuits and contentions, and you strike with the fist wickedly. LXX: They now ask of me righteous judgment, and they desire to draw near to God, saying: Why have we fasted, and you have not seen? Why have we humbled our souls, and you have not known? For in the days of your fasts your own wills are found, and you afflict all who are subject to you, fasting for lawsuits and quarrels, and you strike the lowly with your fists. This is another rashness of the Jews: as though in the confidence of a good conscience, they demand righteous judgment and imitate the words of the saints, who say: Judge me, Lord, for I have walked in my innocence (Ps 25 [26]:1, 2); and again: Prove me, Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart; and in another place: Judge my cause and redeem me (Ps 118 [119]:154). And they desire to draw near to God, whereas this is not a matter of place but of affection, and not of an idle mind but of laborious work. In short, what it is to draw near to God, Scripture teaches, saying: Seek the Lord; and when he has drawn near to you, let the impious man forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts. For the Lord draws near to those who draw near to him, and to those who righteously pursue what is righteous and can say: But for me it is good to cling to God (Ps 72 [73]:28). For if Almighty God is the Father of truth and righteousness, whoever is a liar and unrighteous cannot draw near to God, of whom it is written: The malicious shall not dwell beside you, nor shall the unrighteous abide before your eyes (Ps 5:6).

1023. The prophet, in the person of the Lord, excludes the useless remedy: for they seek me from day to day. And concerning this, he does two things: first, he excludes the remedy in which they trusted; second, he exhorts them to those things in which they were lacking: is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? (Isa 58:6).

1024. Concerning the first, he does two things. First, he shows the presumption of their confidence as to three things in which they trusted, namely, in the inquiry of sacred knowledge: for they seek me, in the Scriptures, and desire to know my ways, my precepts and desires, as a nation that has done justice, that is, as if they were prepared to do them: they speak one to another (Ezek 33:30). Again, in prayer: they ask of me the judgments, that is, that I might judge for them against their adversaries; they are willing to approach to God, with their mouth, above: this people draw near me with their mouth (Isa 29:13).

The Word blamed the children of Israel on account of such a fast as this, exhorting them by Isaiah the prophet and saying, "This is not the fast or the day that I have chosen, that a person should humble his soul." That we may be able to show what kind of persons we should be when we fast, and of what character the fast should be, listen again to God commanding Moses.… In the tenth day of this seventh month, there shall be a day of atonement; a convocation, and a holy day shall it be to you; and you shall humble your souls, and offer whole burnt offerings to the Lord. And afterwards, that the law might be defined on this point, he proceeds to say, "Every soul that shall not humble itself shall be cut off from the people."

What if your flesh obeys you, and you do not obey God? Aren't you condemned by your own flesh, when it submits to you? Doesn't it bear witness against you, precisely by submitting to you?

Now fasting is a very worthwhile and excellent thing, and prayer is most useful. And humbling oneself in God's eyes has much to commend it. … The God of the universe says, return to me with fasting, wailing, mourning. For he readily has mercy on those doing penance through travail. But it is unusual that those wishing to receive mercy in another way should annoy the legislator and provoke him to wrath by not liking to do the things commanded. For it is necessary that all saints who wish to draw near to God not only do the good works to be done but also that they be free from all reproach.

"Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose a day for a person to humble himself?" Do not fast as if with the aim to fulfill your evil intentions, as if you had made a certain vow in order to obtain one thing or another and so that misfortunes might befall your enemies. Through this kind of fasting and prayers, he says, you seek to delight your will and not mine, and, since you despise me, you say on high, "Why have we fasted, and you do not see it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you do not notice?"

Ye offer [your own wills] as whole burnt offerings unto idols; and unto the wretched thoughts, that ye reckon in yourselves as gods, ye daily sacrifice your free will, a thing more precious than all incense, which ye ought rather to consecrate unto Me by your good works and your purity of conscience.

Why have we fasted, they say, and you have not looked? Why have we humbled our souls, and you have not known? They accuse the Lord of unrighteousness, because he does not regard their good works, and they press upon God only the hunger of the belly, without the work of the virtues: not eating the foods which God created for the faithful and for those who know the truth, to be taken with thanksgiving, but those of which it is written in Proverbs: For these are fed with the foods of impiety, and are drunk with the wine of iniquity (Prov 4:17). Glutted with feasts of this kind, the Pharisee, among his other words of pride, boasted that he fasted twice in the week (Luke 18); he had not drunk the wine of the vine of Sorek, but of the vine of Sodom, whose wine is the fury of dragons and the incurable fury of asps, and their grape is a grape of gall. Them God rebukes through the Prophet: They eat the sins of my people (Hos 4:8); and again: Why have you kept silent about their impiety, and gathered the vintage of iniquities, and eaten the grain of falsehood? (Hos 10:13). Since, then, they had put a question to God, desiring to know why they had fasted and humbled their souls and God had not looked on them, forgetting the ancient history, why he did not look on the gifts of Cain, who offered rightly but did not divide rightly with his brother (Gen 4), not seeing the charity of God, as Scripture says, You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:39): therefore God answered that he does not reject fasts but the works done during fasts, saying: In the days of your fasts your own wills are found, so that you do not God's will but your own wills, which Paul, writing to the Ephesians, rejects: According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of unbelief, among whom we all too once lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and of the thoughts; and we were by nature sons of wrath, as the rest also (Eph 2:2, 3). What follows according to the Seventy, And you goad all who are subject to you, or you afflict, Theodotion and Symmachus translated better, and we have followed them in this place: And you exact again from all your debtors. By this he shows that it is not without danger to dun a poor man who is unable to pay, and not to give back to a debtor shivering with cold the cloak you have taken in place of a pledge, lest his cry come to God. For he who has pity on the poor lends to God (Prov 19); and on the contrary he who duns one who has nothing does violence to God. And that we may know that this is the sense in the present place, we are going to read further on in this same chapter: Loose the bonds of impiety, undo the bundles that weigh down. Doubtless he means bonds of debt.

They think that abstaining from food is the height of virtue, and they accuse me of not automatically deeming them worthy of all providence. As for the phrase "they desire to be near to God," Symmachus translates, "they wish the nearness of God" and Aquila, "they will19 the drawing near of God." The text shows that they have no desire to draw near to God, but want him to come near to them through his protection and care, even while choosing a life unworthy of him.

Again, they trust in the observation of fasts: why have we fasted, and you have not regarded, as if you were grateful; have we humbled our souls, as to the circumstances of their fasts, in outward humiliation, and you have not taken notice, with the knowledge of approval: he labors in vain that serves God, and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances? (Mal 3:14).

1025. Second, he shows rejection of these goods. And first, the cause of rejection, which is the fault of the will: behold in the day of your fast your own will is found, in things which please the flesh: go not after your lusts (Sir 18:30). Also, the fault of cruelty: and you exact of all your debtors, literally, so that they could persist for a long time in litigating, or to its consecutive.

For what does it profit for the face to grow pale with fasts, and to fast for lawsuits and quarrels, when Scripture says, He who loves sins rejoices in quarrels (Prov 17:19)? The servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle (2 Tim 2), and imitate him who says: Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart (Matt 11:29), so that the humility be not affected but of the heart, seeking not the glory of men but the conscience of the soul. You fast, he says, and strike the lowly with your fists, and beat them with slaps (1 Tim 3). Hence a bishop must not be a striker. For how can he rein in lust who cannot restrain either his hand or his tongue? Fasts of this kind the Lord rebukes at the beginning of this prophet too, saying: Fasting and idleness, new moons and sabbaths and your other solemnities my soul hates (Isa 1:13). Hence it is commanded through Joel: Sanctify a fast, proclaim a healing (Joel 2:15), so that we may fast from vices, and, by good works and the healing of our sins, our fasts may become holy. Then it follows: Let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber, and the bride from her bridal room, so that in the time of fasting we may be free for prayer, lest our inner man feed on the flesh of the dragon, which was given as food to the peoples of the Ethiopians. And we say these things not as rejecting fasts, through which Daniel too, the man of desires, came to know the future (Dan 9), and the Ninevites appeased the wrath of God (Jonah 3), and Elijah (1 Kgs 19) and Moses (Exod 34), in a hunger of forty days, were filled with the familiar friendship of God, and the Lord himself (Matt 4) fasted as many days in the desert, so as to leave us the solemn days of fasts; but because it does not profit to carry an empty belly and to do other things that displease God. And, to pass over the rest, there are those who disfigure their faces so as to appear to men to be fasting, who, obtaining glory in the present, will be shut out of the kingdom of God, because they have received their reward (Matt 6). Hence the Apostle too says that, even if he hands over his body to martyrdom so as to burn, or to glory (for both are found in the copies), without the charity of God (1 Cor 13), which is in the conscience of the heart, he sheds his blood in vain.

Do not fast as you have until this day, so that your cry may be heard on high. Is this such a fast as I have chosen, for a man to afflict his soul for a day? Is it to twist his head round like a ring, and to spread sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? LXX: Why do you fast to me as today, so that your voice may be heard in clamor? I have not chosen such a fast, and a day for a man to humble his soul. Not even if you bend your neck like a ring and spread under you haircloth and ashes, not even so shall you call it an acceptable fast. Lest he seem to reject the fast which he himself had commanded, he teaches how one should fast; or rather, before teaching what they should pursue, he instructs them in what they ought to avoid. So that your cry, he says, may be heard on high: do not bring a clamor to prayer, praying in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets so as to be seen by men (Matt 6), and lifting up your voice on high, and proclaiming your fasts and works with the Pharisee, who is condemned by the Lord's judgment (Luke 18). For this reason the Lord, rejecting the prayer of the Pharisees, teaches his disciples how they ought to pray (Matt 6): with the chamber of their breast shut, so that they may speak to God alone, who can hear the silence of the heart; that they may cry in their hearts, Abba, Father (Rom 8:15); and that they may not disfigure their faces, but wash them with water and anoint their head with oil. Of this John the Evangelist too writes: And you have an anointing from the holy one (1 John 2:20); when they have been anointed with it, they too become holy.

Also, the fault of vanity, do not fast as you have done until this day, to make your cry to be heard, for the sake of the praise of men: but you when you shall pray, enter into your chamber, and having shut the door, pray to your Father (Matt 6:6). Or to make your cry to be heard, that is, if you wish that your prayer would be heard by God: hear, O Lord, my prayer: and let my cry come to you (Ps 101[102]:2).

If you have fasted two or three days, do not think yourself better than others who do not fast. You fast and are angry; the other eats and wears a smiling face. You work off your irritation and hunger in quarrels. He uses food in moderation and gives God thanks.

For God does not seek only affliction and the humbling of the soul through injury to the body, that a man should twist his body like a ring, and bow his neck, and go about sad, according to what is said in the Psalms: I am afflicted and bowed down to the end; all the day I went about saddened (Ps 37 [38]:7); nor that one should be clothed in sackcloth and sleep in ashes, as we read of David and of Ahab (2 Sam 3; 1 Kgs 21); but that along with these he should do the things that follow. Otherwise the Apostle too says that he fasted often (2 Cor 6 and 11), and the Lord teaches that his disciples will fast when the bridegroom has been taken from them (Matt 9); and in the Psalms the penitent says: I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping (Ps 101 [102]:10); And when they were troublesome to me, I put on haircloth (Ps 34 [35]:13). From this we learn that the things the Lord wills must be done first, and the others not passed over.

You see then that fasting is certainly not considered by the Lord as a thing that is good in its own nature, because it becomes good and pleasing to God not by itself but by in conjunction with other works. Again, in light of surrounding circumstances it may be regarded as not merely vain but actually hateful, as the Lord says: "When they fast, I will not hear their prayers."

1026. Second, he shows the insufficiency of these goods: is this such a fast as I have chosen, for God does not choose your punishment per se, neither as to the affliction of the flesh, which he touches on when he says: for a man to afflict his soul for the entire day; nor as to the abjection of exterior humiliation, which he touches on where he says: to wind his head about like a circle, namely, to bend the head all the way to the feet, or in a circle as monks do, not in as much as it is ordained to the virtue of the mind: and when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad (Matt 6:16); rend your hearts, and not your garments (Joel 2:13).

Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? Loose the bonds of impiety, undo the bundles that weigh down; let those who are broken go free, and break every burden. Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the wanderers into the house. When you see the naked, cover him, and do not despise your own flesh. LXX: Is not such a fast what I have chosen, says the Lord? But loose every bond of iniquity. Undo the obligations of violent contracts. Let the broken go in release, and tear up every unjust writing. Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the poor without a roof into your house. If you see the naked, cover him, and do not despise those of the household of your seed. After teaching what kind of fast he rejects, he shows what kind he gladly accepts. Loose, he says, the bonds of impiety; undo the bundles that weigh down; or, as the Seventy translated more plainly, the obligations of violent contracts, which our translators, deceived by the ambiguity of the word, that is, συναλλαγμάτων, rendered as exchanges instead of bonds of debt. He means the bundles of papers in which the frauds of moneylenders are contained and by which the poor are oppressed with debt, which in all cities is the chief cause of sedition. Hence the Roman people too occupied the neighboring hills, and hence the New Tables, which the Greeks call χρέων ἀποκοπάς. The Prophet, then, does not command that no one should exact what is owed, especially what he lent justly and justly asks back; otherwise he would be a champion of tribunician sedition. But where the contract is unjust, where the poor are oppressed by fraud, there the bundles of contracts and all the bonds of iniquity must be broken. Or certainly this must be said, since the discourse is about fasts, and a fast involves the affliction and humbling of the soul, while the affliction of the body begs for the pardon of sins: the divine Scripture teaches that we should forgive our debtors, so that the heavenly Father too may forgive us our debts (Mark 11). The old history relates that in the seventh year of release, or in the fiftieth, which is the true Jubilee, all possessions return to their owners, and their former freedom is restored to slaves, and all the debts, which people commonly call contracts, become void (Lev 25 and 27). But if this is commanded in the old Law (Exod 21), how much more in the Gospel, where (Matt 5) all good things are doubled, and we are by no means told to take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but to offer the cheek to him who strikes us! And so that we may know that what we said above, You exact again from all your debtors, is written of creditors, something is added more plainly about debtors: Let those who are broken go free, that is, those who are broken by poverty, whom want has afflicted: do not let their children go begging. And break every burden by which they are weighed down. For this the Seventy translated more plainly, and tear up every unjust writing; which Symmachus translated: And break every false contract.

According to tropology we can say this: Let him who fasts from all evils, and wishes his fast to be regarded, not only turn away from evil but also do good, so as to loose every bond of iniquity by which the simple among believers have been bound through the frauds of the heretics; and the στραγγαλιὰς, the obligations of violent treatises, which the Prophet too points out in the psalm, saying: But those who turn aside into obligations the Lord will lead away with the workers of iniquity (Ps 124 [125]:5). For all who are bound with the chains of the heretics turn aside from the Lord, and are like an ox led to the sacrifice; and they choose and exchange falsehood for the truth. Such men, then, who are broken in judgment, let the churchman release and set free; and let him undo and break every writing of the heretics, of whom this same Prophet says: Woe to those who write iniquity; for writers write malice, robbing the judgment of the poor of my people (Isa 10:1, 2), so that they may by no means hold the simple entangled in their snares. And when he has done this, let him break the bread of the Church's doctrine to the hungry, as the Lord too did, giving the broken loaves to the Apostles; he left these to them in seven baskets and twelve hampers, by no means whole as they were held in the Law, but crumbled and broken in the Gospel, so that they might have something to bestow on the poor (Matt 15). Those whom you see not having the warmth of faith, but shivering outside the Church in the cold of unbelief, needy and strangers, bring, he says, into the house of the Church, and cover them with the cloak of incorruption, so that, clothed with the tunic of Christ, they may by no means remain in the tombs, as we read of him who, possessed by a legion of demons, lived naked among the memorials of the dead. And when, he says, you have done this, and your liberality has been laid open to all, do not, in particular, despise those of the household of the faith.

Do you see, dearly beloved, what true fasting really is? Let us perform this kind and not entertain the facile notion held by many that the essence of fasting lies in going without food till evening. This is not the end in view, but that we should demonstrate, along with abstinence from food, abstinence also from whatever is harmful, and should give close attention to spiritual duties. The person fasting ought to be reserved, peaceful, meek, humble, indifferent to the esteem of this world.

1027. Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? Here he brings in useful counsel. And first, as to the zeal of piety towards one's neighbor; second, as to the worship of religious duty toward God: if you turn away (Isa 58:13).

Concerning the first, he does two things. First, he sets out the counsel of piety, that calumnies should cease: loose the bands of wickedness, the false lawsuits, by which, like usurers, they cunningly bound the poor, undo the bundles, referring to the same thing, that oppress, as to the punishments to which they bound them; them that are broken, by long servitude; break asunder every burden, of servitude: they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, but with a finger of their own they will not move them (Matt 23:4).

WHY IS IT THAT IN THE LAW EVEN AARON HIMSELF IS TOLD THAT HE MUST OFFER BURNT OFFERINGS FOR HIS SINS, WHEN DAVID SAYS, “FOR FAULTS YOU HAVE NOT REQUIRED A BURNT OFFERING” (Ps. 39:7), AND LATER, “YOU WILL NOT TAKE PLEASURE IN BURNT OFFERINGS” (Ps. 50:18)? HOW DID HE COMMAND THAT THERE BE OFFERED WHAT HE DOES NOT TAKE PLEASURE IN? — It is clear that God does not take delight in burnt offerings, but that by way of satisfaction for sin, through the groaning and sorrow of the heart, pardon can be earned. He willed that the sacrifice should be a testimony of sin, so that the sinner, by the offering of the sacrifice, might confess that he had sinned. But how forgiveness might be obtained, He showed in another place, saying, “Break your bread for the hungry; if you see one naked, clothe him, and do not despise your own flesh and blood” (Isa. 58:7), or certainly, “A contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 50:19). First, then, He instructed that the offense must be confessed; then He showed how it can be forgiven. For He never commanded a sacrifice for an obvious, clear offense, but for sins of ignorance; because even when a man does not know, he sins, and when he thinks he is acting rightly, by a certain intention he goes astray. Such a sin, He said, can be cleansed by a sacrifice.

He is finding fault, you see, with the fasts of the quarrelsome; he is looking for the fasts of the kindhearted. He is finding fault with those who oppress others; he is looking for those who give relief. He is finding fault with those who stir up strife; he is looking for those who set free. That is why, you see, during these days you restrain your desires for lawful things; it is in order not to commit unlawful things. If you refrain from your marriage rights during these days, then surely you should not drown yourself in wine or adultery on any day.In this way, in humility and charity, by fasting and giving, by restraining ourselves and forgiving, by paying out good deeds and not paying back bad ones, by turning away from evil and doing good, our prayer seeks peace and obtains it.

If we carefully heed the fact that Christ hungers in the person of the poor, beloved, it will be profitable for us.… Listen and see, a coin and a kingdom. What comparison is there, beloved? You give the poor a coin and receive a kingdom from Christ; you bestow a mouthful and are given eternal life; you offer clothes, and Christ grants the forgiveness of your sins.

And we shall find many examples also in other places,-as, for instance, respecting prayer: "Good works are an acceptable prayer to the Lord," says the Scripture. And the manner of prayer is described. "If thou seest," it is said, "the naked, cover him; and thou shalt not overlook those who belong to thy seed. Then shall thy light spring forth early, and thy healing shall spring up quickly; and thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of God shall encompass thee." What, then, is the fruit of such prayer? "Then shall thou call, and God will hear thee; whilst thou art yet speaking, He will say, I am here."

When you refrain from doing these things, then the things you lack will be yours. For the bearing of fruit toward the neighbor refers to the noble things of love. Love is the fulfillment of the law, as it stands written. For the fulfilling of love toward brothers and compassion are the marks of a reward with God. Seeing how to abstain from evil and doing good are not the same thing. For it does not suffice for glory with God to flee evil but to try in all ways to meet needs and do good works and hold fast to diligence in godliness … thus the old law being a schoolmaster to Christ did not introduce the fulfillment of the good for those at that time but rather taught them to restrain from evil. Thus, "do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not swear" have this force. But the perfect fulfillment of all goodness in the oracles is kept through Christ, through which we learn to fulfill those works of love toward God and our fellows.

But it could happen that someone would say: I have no debtors; what must I do for my fast to be accepted? It follows: Break your bread to the hungry. Not many loaves, lest you plead poverty, but one loaf; and not even the whole of it, but a part of the loaf, which you would have eaten if you were not fasting, so that your fast may not be a gain for your purse but a filling of your soul. And he fittingly added your, lest you make alms out of plunder: For the ransom of a man's soul is his own riches (Prov 13:8); and in another place: Honor the Lord from your righteous labors (Prov 3:9). Surely, if you have no bread, and the multitude of the hungry is very great, give something from which you suffer no loss. A thing in which there is no expense: the poor without a roof bring into your house; or, as it is in the Hebrew, into the house, so that, if you have no house of your own, you may bring them into the little lodging which you hold either on rent or by favor. If you see the naked, cover him. This the Lord too said in the Gospel: He who has two tunics, let him give the other to him who has none (Luke 3:11). For he did not order one tunic to be cut and divided, which many do for the sake of popular favor, but the second not to be kept back; increasing the precepts of righteousness, so that he said that even a cup of cold water held out has its rewards. And do not despise, he says, your own flesh. For every man is our flesh; and according to the Gospel parable of the man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and was wounded by robbers, he who did him good is called his neighbor (Luke 10). Or certainly, according to the Seventy, who said, And do not despise those of the household of your seed, let us understand those of the household of the seed as those of whom the Apostle too teaches that alms must be given to all, but above all to those of the household of the faith (Gal 6). For they are our flesh and our seed, who are begotten with us of one parent. To them the Savior also stretched out his hand, saying: These are my mother and my brothers, who do the will of my Father (Mark 3:34, 35). And so that we may know that there is one Lord of both the New and the Old Instrument, the Lord says the same things in the Gospel of those who will stand on the right hand on the day of judgment: Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was sick and in prison, and you came to me; a stranger, and you brought me into your house; and naked, and you clothed me (Matt 25:34ff.). And when they say in humility that they have done nothing for the Lord the Savior, he answers: As long as you did it to one of the least of my brothers, you did it to me.

And that they extend mercies, exhorting them to mercy as to the hungry: break your bread for the hungry, that is, if you have little; as to the homeless: and bring the needy and the harborless into your house; as to the naked, when you shall see one naked, cover him: if I have denied to the poor what they desired (Job 31:16). And he sets out the cause of his exhortation: and despise not your own flesh, namely, because he is of the same species as you: visiting your species (Job 5:24).

This oracle has great force. For it does not simply say, "Light will be given to you by God," but it will be like lightning whose course and progress is sent by God, through which is clearly shown the desire of those who pray. By saying "first light," it instructs us that it will appear before time. For God, the guardian of all things, knew, as the giver of spiritual gifts, the time suited to each person for his blessings. But if anyone is fair and good and also caring and benevolent—to that person a reward will be given as a "first thing," so that in him there will arise just like an ear of corn his health (that is, the departing of all infirmities and the returning of good health). For the one who is free of diseases is fruitful in all ways, with an easy and cheerful production of good things. So the light of the divine understanding and our healthiness both arise within us, as God removes the burden of all sickness and also sets in us in its place the will to do good works and to abound in righteousness.

Then your light shall break forth like the morning, and your health shall quickly arise, and your righteousness shall go before your face, and the glory of the Lord shall gather you up. Then you shall call, and the Lord will hear; you shall cry, and he will say: Here I am. LXX: Then your morning light shall break forth, and your healings shall quickly arise, and your righteousness shall go before you in your sight, and the glory of God shall surround you. Then you shall cry, and God will hear you. While you are still speaking, he will say: Here I am. When you have not done the things which the preceding discourse related, and have done these of which we have now spoken, then your fast will be acceptable, and your morning light will break forth: the sun of righteousness, namely, of whom the prophet Malachi speaks in the person of God the Father: For you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, and healing in his wings (Mal 4:2). He who is called the sun there is called the light here. For as the morning light dispels the darkness, so the light of knowledge and truth puts all errors to flight. And your healings, he says, shall quickly arise. For this Aquila, rendering word for word, put: And the scar of your wound shall quickly close over; so that, that is, the wounds of our sins may be closed at the rising of the sun of righteousness, the scar quickly forming over them. Where the Seventy translated τὰ ἰάματά σου, that is, your healings, the Latin translators, led by the likeness of the word ἱμάτια, that is, garments, put that instead. Hence many, deceived by the falseness of the translation, use this testimony to prove the resurrection of the body, wanting the body to be taken as the garment of the soul, which is to arise on the day of resurrection. And your righteousness, he says, shall go before you in your sight (Gen 30:33 LXX), according to what Jacob says: My righteousness will hear me tomorrow; and what is written will be fulfilled: Behold the man and his works. And the glory of the Lord shall surround you, as with a most beautiful garment, so that you may be glorified before God and before men.

The light is desirable, but more desirable still is the dawn that appears after the night. This he has called "the morning light." … Aquila has, "Then your light will break through like the dawn." For just as the dawn tears away the curtain of the night, so, he says, the night of your misfortunes, your life lived under the law, will disperse, and the light of my providence will be supplied to you.… "Your righteousness will go out before you, and the glory of the Lord will surround you." He makes it clear that the divine works follow our works. For with our righteousness in the vanguard, the glory of the Lord of the universe is given access, shining on us as we look for it.

1028. Second, he shows the fruit of this counsel: then shall your light break forth. And first, as to the efficacy of their merits, then as to the works of their virtues: then shall your light break forth as the morning, namely, your merits will appear clearly in the rewards, about which you now complain to the Lord because they are not yet seen; the glory of the Lord shall gather you up, from captivity, or in the protection of his mercy: he will bring forth your justice as the light, and your judgment as the noonday (Ps 36[37]:6).

God is always one and the same; but people have come to be afterwards through the Word, when the Father himself willed it; and God is invisible and inaccessible to originated things, especially to people on earth. When then people in infirmity invoke him, when in persecution they ask help, when they pray as they endure injuries, then the Invisible, being a lover of people, shines forth on them with his beneficence, which he exercises through and in his proper Word. And forthwith the divine manifestation is made to every one according to his need, and is made to the sick, and to the persecuted a "refuge" and "house of defense."

Whenever you keep the ways of the Lord and do His will, then put your hope in the Lord and call on Him.…When temptation overtakes the iniquitous person, he has no confidence wherewith to call upon God, nor to expect salvation from Him, since in the days of his ease he stood aloof from God's will.

[Daniel 9:21] "While I was still speaking in my prayer, behold the man Gabriel, whom I had seen at the beginning of the vision." He calls the previous vision preceding this one the beginning. The effect of his prayer was considerable, and the promise of God was fulfilled which says, "While thou art yet speaking, lo, I am at hand" (Isaiah 58:9). And Gabriel appears not as an angel or archangel, but as a man (vir), a term used to indicate the quality of virtue rather than specifying his sex.

"...he quickly flew to me and touched me at the time of the evening sacrifice." It is stated that he flew, because he had made his appearance as a man. It is said that it was at the time of the evening sacrifice, in order to show that the prophet's prayer had persisted from the morning sacrifice even unto the evening sacrifice, and that God for that reason directed His mercy towards him.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will hear; you shall cry, and he will say: Here I am, not by voice but by deed, not by an answer but by benefits. This is proved according to the letter in the Gospel too, when the leper said to the Lord, If you will, you can make me clean, and the Lord answered, saying: I will; be clean.

If you take away the chain from your midst, and cease to stretch out the finger and to speak what does not profit; when you pour out your soul to the hungry, and fill the afflicted soul, then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. LXX: If you take away from you the bond, and the ordination, and the word of murmuring, and give your bread to the hungry from your soul, and satisfy the humbled soul, then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The Hebrew word MOTA (מוטה), which in Jeremiah is translated iron collar (Jer 28), is read twice in the present chapter. For in the place where, above, according to the Seventy, we said, Undo the obligations of violent exchanges, let us know that for the one word MOTA they put violent contracts, for which Aquila translated error, Symmachus turning aside, Theodotion κλοιὸν, that is, collar. Again, in the present place, where we have rendered, If you take away the chain from your midst, for chain the Seventy translated συνδεσμὸν, that is, binding together, or bond; Aquila, as above, interpreted it error; Symmachus, going over to Theodotion's view, put collar. Let this be said about the variety of interpretation. For the rest, the sense is joined with what precedes thus: The morning light will rise for you, and your healings will quickly arise, and your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will crown you; and he will hear you at once when you entreat him, and will show that he is present. Only on this condition: that to the works mentioned above you also add these, that you take away from yourself the bond and the chain with which your soul is bound. Of this Peter too spoke to Simon: For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity (Acts 8:23). And Paul grieved, seeing the city of the Athenians bound to idolatry. For each one is bound fast by the cords of his own sins (Prov 5). For these bonds of the soul David too prayed in the psalm: Cleanse me, Lord, from my hidden sins, and from those of others spare your servant (Ps 18 [19]:13). It is hard to find one who is not bound by these chains. Rarely is a soul found that does not have this most heavy collar put around its neck, weighing it down to earthly works, so that it looks not to heaven but to the earth. This is related of the woman in the Gospel too, whom Satan had bound for eighteen years, so that, bent over, she could not see the things of heaven (Luke 13). If, then, he says, you take this chain out of the midst of your heart, and scatter bonds of this kind, and the χειροτονίαν, for which the three other translators with one voice translated the outstretched finger, so that not only do you not think evil yourself and not do it, but you do not even disparage your neighbor and point out each person as if with your finger, and speak what does not profit your soul, considering not your own evils but the errors of others: then you will receive what the following discourse adds. Very many of our writers understand χειροτονίαν, that is, the ordination of clerics, which is accomplished not only by the invocation of the voice but by the imposition of the hand (lest, namely, as we have laughed to see in some places, a clandestine invocation of the voice should ordain clerics without their knowing it), in such a way as to take up the testimony of Paul writing to Timothy: Lay hands hastily on no one, and do not share in the sins of others (1 Tim 5:22). For it is no light sin to cast pearls before swine and to give what is holy to dogs (Matt 7), and to bestow ordination to the clergy not on the holy and those most learned in the law of God, but on one's own hangers-on and on the ministers of base services, and, what is more disgraceful than these, at the prayers of silly women. Here we must consider the wisdom of the Apostle, in whom Christ was speaking, who, to show the danger of ordination, joined to it the torments of those who sin: And do not share in the sins of others. As, then, in the ordination of wicked men he who appoints such men is a partaker of their sins, so in the ordination of saints he who chose good men is a partaker of their righteousness. It follows: And the word of murmuring, understood ἀπὸ κοινοῦ: if you take it away from you. Now the word of murmuring is when God speaks against us, Let the murmuring of this people cease from me, and it shall not die; and we refer our sins to God, to make excuses in sins, and say: The heat of the body overcame me, the incitements of youth conquered me, I was created such by God, poverty forced me to theft.

For were He distant from us in place, thou mightest well doubt, but if He is present everywhere, to him that strives and is in earnest He is near. Wherefore also the prophet said, "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me;" and God Himself again, "I am a God nigh at hand, and not a God afar off." Then as our sins separate us from Him, so do our righteousnesses draw us nigh unto Him. "For while thou art yet speaking," it is said, "I will say, Here I am." What father would ever be thus obedient to his offspring? What mother is there, so ready, and continually standing, if haply her children call her? There is not one, no father, no mother: but God stands continually waiting, if any of his servants should perchance call Him; and never, when we have called as we ought, hath He refused to hear. Therefore He saith, "While thou art yet speaking," I do not wait for thee to finish, and I straightway hearken.

Let us call Him therefore, as it is His will to be called. But what is this His will? "Loose," saith He, "every band of iniquity, unloose the twisted knots of oppressive covenants, tear in pieces every unjust contract. Break thy bread to the hungry, and bring in the poor that are cast out to thy house. If thou seest one naked, cover him, and them that belong to thy seed thou shalt not overlook. Then shall thy light break forth in the morning, and thine healings shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall cover thee. Then thou shalt call upon me, and I will give ear unto thee; whilst thou art yet speaking, I will say, Lo! here I am."

Then as to intercessions of prayer: then shall you call, above: at the voice of your cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer you (Isa 30:19).

1029. Second, as to the attainment of goods. And first, he returns to the meritorious work: if you will take away the chain, by which you oppress the poor, and cease to stretch out the finger, disparaging and threatening.

1035. Note also on the words, if you will take away the chain out of the midst of you (Isa 58:9), that there is a chain: first, of piety: for which I am an ambassador in a chain (Eph 6:20); second, of iniquity: for they were all bound together with one chain of darkness (Wis 17:17); third, of poverty: if they be conquered (Job 36:8); fourth, of servitude: you have broken chains of wood (Jer 28:13); fifth, of prison: out of prison and chains sometimes a man comes forth to a kingdom (Eccl 4:14).

[My father] actually treated his own property as if it were another's, of which he was but the steward, relieving poverty as far as he could and expending not only his superfluities but his necessities—a manifest proof of love for the poor, giving a portion not only to seven, according to the injunction of Solomon, but if an eighth came forward, not even in his case being stingy but more pleased to dispose of his wealth than we know others are to acquire it.… This is what most people do: they give indeed, but without that readiness that is a greater and more perfect thing than the mere offering. For he thought it much better to be generous even to the undeserving for the sake of the deserving than from fear of the undeserving to deprive those who were deserving. And this seems to be the duty of casting our bread on the waters, since it will not be swept away or perish in the eyes of the just Investigator but will arrive yonder where all that is ours is laid up and will meet with us in due time, even though we think it not. But what is best and greatest of all, [my father's] magnanimity was accompanied by freedom from ambition.

So if we do not do the things that have been said, and do the things that are to be said, so as to give to the hungry not, as above, our bread, but our soul, so as to help him in whatever ways we can, and to give not as if out of sadness and necessity but from the soul, receiving rather than giving a benefit, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor 9:7); so as not to refresh the hungry or afflicted soul in part but to satisfy it, and to grieve with those who grieve and mourn with those who mourn (Rom 12): then our light will rise in the darkness, he who says: I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me may not remain in darkness, but may have the light of life (John 12:46). For the lamp of our body is the eye: if it is single, our whole body will be full of light. But if what ought to be light has been turned into darkness, then the whole body will be dark, and it will be said to us: If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness itself! (Matt 6:23). Let us consider by what great virtues we may come to the light of God, so that the darkness may be turned into noonday, and we may say with the bride: Where do you pasture, where do you lie down, at noonday? (Song 1:6).

When you shall pour out your soul to the hungry, through compassion, and shall satisfy the afflicted soul, through assistance in necessities.

1030. Second, he promises the reward: then shall your light rise up. And first, as to the multiplication of goods, setting out liberation from evils: then shall your light rise up in darkness, that is, adversity will be turned into the light of prosperity, ignorance into the light of knowledge, or sin into the light of knowledge, as to spiritual evils.

Those who were of Israel by blood are written as a type when God sent down manna from heaven. For this figure can be thought of as the bread of angels and as heavenly bread. For there are those in whose minds the divine light shines brightly and who work hard and irreproachably to know the holy Scriptures—we say that these people are filled and brimming with the heavenly nourishment of God.… Now whoever receives knowledge and is filled by his divine mysteries, that person's bones have flesh put on them. For the oracle here is constructed in fleshly terms. Their soul became like a lush garden, that is, luxuriant and tree-filled and with many types of flowers abounding and providing all sorts of fruit. For gardens that lack water are exceedingly ugly, being dry and barren of all fruit.… For just the hardiest among trees has the most beautiful fruit, so also fairest and finest virtues exist in God's sight among the souls of the saints.

And the Lord will give you rest always, and will fill your soul with splendors, and will deliver your bones. And you shall be like a watered garden, and like a fountain of waters whose waters shall not fail. LXX: And your God shall be with you always, and you shall be filled as your soul desires, and your bones shall grow fat. And they shall be like a drunken garden, and like a fountain for which the water shall not fail. What has been added in the Alexandrian copies at the beginning of this chapter, And still my praise shall be in you always, and at the end, and your bones shall spring up like grass, and shall grow fat, and they shall possess by inheritance unto generation and generations, is not found in the Hebrew, nor even in the corrected and true copies of the Seventy; hence it must be marked beforehand with an obelus. When the darkness, he says, of your breast has been dissolved by the rising of the light, and noonday has arisen in place of a palpable night, then you will always have God dwelling in you, to fill your soul with splendors. Of these we read in the psalm: With you is the principality in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints; from the womb before the daystar I have begotten you (Ps 109 [110]:3). Or: you will be satisfied with all that your soul desires, because you yourself have satisfied the hungry soul, and you will be able to say: Bless the Lord, O my soul, who fills your desire with good things (Ps 102 [103]:5); and your bones will be delivered from destruction and from everlasting fire. Or: they will grow fat, so as to recover their former stoutness, having been wasted by the famine of the word of the Lord. This indeed we can understand according to the letter of the resurrection of the bodies which are to fall, and also of the virtues of the soul, which the saint signifies when he says in the psalm: All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like you? (Ps 34 [35]:10). Of these it is also written in Proverbs: A good report makes the bones fat (Prov 15:30). And to those to whom rewards are promised: There shall be health for your body, and healing for your bones (Prov 16:24). Of these again it is written: The Lord keeps all their bones; not one of them shall be broken (Ps 33 [34]:21). On the contrary, he who is a sinner, and has lost the strength and virtue of the soul, laments and says: Our bones are scattered beside hell (Ps 140 [141]:7). For we cannot believe that the bones of sinners are not in hell but beside hell. And a good report makes the bones fat (Prov 15:30), which has nothing to do with the fattening of the body. It follows: And you shall be, or it shall be, that is, either you or your soul, like a watered garden; of which it is written: A fountain went forth and watered the whole face of paradise (Gen 2:6), where in the Hebrew garden is read. This fountain we can call no other than him to whom it is said, With you is the fountain of life (Ps 35 [36]:10), who unceasingly waters his Church and the hearts of all believers.

As for "Here I am," this does not mean a voice but the operation through actions. For you are taught by events that the God whom you called on is with you.You will have God present, who will offer you a share of his goodness. We think by "bones" is meant the thoughts; for these receive joy. For if anyone takes God's promise to his "bones," he will not miss the intention of the prophecy. For the body is enriched by joy in the soul. "For a joyful heart cheers the face."

And the Lord will give you rest, as to temporal evils: God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness (2 Cor 4:6); multiplication of interior, spiritual goods: he will fill your soul with brightness, namely, virtues or consolations, and deliver your bones, as to bodily goods: a cheerful and good heart (Sir 30:27); and multiplication of exterior goods: and you shall be like a watered garden, because of your prosperity, or an unfailing supply of all goods: how beautiful are your tabernacles, O Jacob (Num 24:5).

The prophetic word comes to us through two further metaphors, and the beautiful form of hidden ideas is displayed. For it is about a deserted town and its defenseless state that a form of words is molded. It declares, your deserts will be lived in perpetually, that is, you will not be naked of good thoughts indwelling your heart, nor will you be defenseless or unguarded and insecure. For Christ will be your enduring foundation and support, and like a city you will have countless people dwelling there. For the souls of the saints are full of holy words and thoughts. And many will come to it as the level of perfection, running up and down, declaring it to be full of good things. And you will be called a builder of walls.… You must know that there are evil and contrary powers invading the vulnerable soul, giving rise to awful desires and in a despotic way carrying off whatever they want and strolling round the barren garden. But they will stop this interference when a wall is erected, that is, the divine fear set up within [the soul].

And the deserts of ages shall be built up in you; you shall raise up the foundations of generation and generation; and there shall be called in you the builder of hedges, turning the paths into rest. LXX: And the places desert from of old shall be built up for you, and your foundations shall be everlasting for generations and generations; and you shall be called the builder of the wall, and you shall make the paths in the midst to rest. Not only, he says, will your light rise in the darkness, and your darkness be like noonday, and the Lord give you rest always, and you be like a watered garden, and the rest, but there shall be built up in you the things that had been desert for a long time; and the foundations of your dwellings will be laid to endure through many generations; so that either you yourself will be called the builder of hedges and walls, or one will arise in you who will be the builder of hedges and will turn the paths into rest, or, according to the Seventy, will make the tracks in the midst to rest. The Jews, and the friends only of the letter that kills, refer these things to the restoration of the cities of Palestine; and they contend either that they were done under Zerubbabel and Ezra and Nehemiah, or that they will be in the last time: that for the restoration of Jerusalem and of the cities round about, very deep foundations are to be laid, and walls built so high that none of the enemy can enter, and the entry of all foes into them is barred. But we, following the order of the explanation we have begun, say that the things that had been desert among the Jews are built up in the Church, not for a short time but for ever, and that its foundations are to be raised up from both peoples, that is, in two generations. Hence the Apostle said: As a wise architect I have laid the foundation; another builds upon it; but let each one see what he builds upon it (1 Cor 3:10); and in another place: We are God's husbandry, God's building; and again: Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets (Eph 2:20); and that she, or he who was born in her, is to be called the builder of hedges. Of him we read in the psalm: A man was born in her, and the Most High himself has founded her (Ps 86 [87]:5). These hedges and walls (for this is what φραγμοῦς signifies in the Greek tongue) Scripture records as being set around a field and vineyards: You brought a vine out of Egypt; you cast out the nations and planted it; and a little after: Why have you broken down its wall, and all who pass by the way gather its vintage? (Ps 79 [80]:9 and 13). And in this same Prophet: A vineyard was made for the beloved; describing it in beautiful language, he adds: I built a tower and surrounded it with a wall (Eccl 2:4). Whoever breaks it down, according to Ecclesiastes, a serpent will bite him. It was surrounded for this purpose, that the approach of all beasts into the vineyard of God might be barred. This is the crooked serpent who deceived Eve in paradise; because she had broken down the precepts of God, she was therefore open to his bites, and heard from the Lord: You shall watch for his head, and he shall watch for your heel (Gen 3:15). In the place where we, lest we seem to innovate in anything, interpreted according to the Seventy, because the testimony is widely known, and you shall be called the builder of hedges, in the Hebrew is read and there shall be called in you GODER PHERES גדר פרץ, which Aquila interpreted περιφράκτης διακοπῆς, which we can render according to the sense as one who sets himself against the raging anger of God. Indeed, Symmachus translated setting a wall against the one who strikes (1 Sam 7), such as were Moses and Aaron and Samuel, who withstood the anger of the Lord and, as though by building a wall, set a limit to his indignation. This is also said to Jeremiah: that he should not run to meet the Lord, nor wish to resist his anger, and so shut off his indignation by prayers as by a kind of wall (Jer 7); and to Moses, as though the Lord were being held back by him: Let me go, he says, and I will strike this people (Exod 32:10). A builder, then, of walls, ramparts and hedges of this kind will turn the paths into rest, so that the wrath of God may by no means rage, but the Lord may be appeased toward them, and all the paths of indignation may come to rest.

1031. Second, as to the rebuilding of their homeland: and the places that have been desolate for ages, that is, namely, the cities of the desert in former times, shall be built, after their return from captivity; you shall raise up, rebuilding upon the old foundations, above: who say to Jerusalem: you shall be inhabited: and to the cities of Judah: you shall be built (Isa 44:26).

1032. Third, as to the restoration of their reputation: and you shall be called the repairer of the fences, that is, impediments to sin; iniquity or into rest, namely, turning the paths of sin into rest: I will hedge up your way with thorns (Hos 2:6).

"If you call the sabbath a delight," in other words, you honor it for the banquets and the drinks, finding your joy on that day as if it were a party. "If you honor it, not following your will or speaking any word." Indeed, it was not forbidden to them to speak but it was forbidden to lie. And by the word will he does not prohibit them from doing their own will, but from acting according to a will that is contrary to the will of God. By mentioning the sabbath, he alludes to all the commandments of the law.

If you turn away your foot from the sabbath, from doing your own will on my holy day, and call the sabbath delightful, and the holy of the Lord glorious, and glorify him while you do not make your own ways, and your own will is not found to speak a word. LXX: If you turn away your foot on the sabbaths, so as not to do your own wills on the holy day; and you shall call the sabbaths delightful, holy to the Lord; you shall not lift your foot to work, nor speak a word ÷ in anger from your mouth ⁚. To the one to whom he had said above, Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen: loose the bond of impiety, undo the bundles that weigh down, and the rest, he now too promises rewards, if he is willing to do the things that follow (Exod 20): namely, that he restrain his foot on the sabbaths, and not do his own wills, nor stain the holy day of the Lord with his wills. It is commanded in the Law that on the sabbaths we should do no servile work, kindle no fire, sit in one place, and do only those works that belong to the salvation of the soul. If we take this according to the letter, it cannot be fulfilled at all. For who can do this: sitting the whole day and night on the sabbath, not go away from one place, or rather not even move slightly, since if he did he would be a transgressor of the law? From one commandment, then, which is impossible according to the letter, we are compelled to understand the rest spiritually as well: that we should not do servile work and lose the freedom of the soul, for he who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8); that we should not carry a burden on the sabbath, such as he carried who says: My iniquities have gone up over my head; like a heavy burden they have weighed heavily upon me (Ps 37 [38]:5); that the iniquity which sits upon the talent of lead should have no power in us; that the pleasure and lust of the body should not set us on fire (Zech 5), for all adulterers, their hearts are like an oven (Hos 7); and the fiery darts of the devil are there to shoot in the dark at the upright of heart (Ps 10 [11]). We are commanded too that, having taken hold of the plow, we should not look behind us; that, having climbed to the height of the roofs, we should by no means wish to come down to take the garments of the world (Luke 9); but that we should hear with Moses, But you, stand here with me (Exod 34:2); and sit with the Lord, weary on the way of this world, at the well of the Samaritan woman, thirsting for the conversion and salvation of those who stray (John 4); that we should hear the Apostle warning, Be firm and immovable (1 Cor 15:58), lest we suffer what Judas the traitor suffered, who lost the place of his ministry and became a transgressor; and let us always remember that sentence: If the spirit of him who has power rises up against you, do not leave your place (Eccl 10:4). He who rests thus on the sabbath washes his hands among the innocent, and does not move his feet to do his own wills: he keeps the delightful sabbaths of the Lord. This sabbath rest, according to the Epistle written to the Hebrews, is promised to us in the heavens, and glory is prepared (Heb 4): so long as we do not make our own ways on the sabbath, nor is our own will found, to speak a word; that is, that we sin neither in deed nor in word. Otherwise, if these things are forbidden only on the sabbath, then on the other six days freedom to sin is granted us. And since it is foolish to believe this, it remains that the sabbath, which means rest, must be sanctified by the faithful at all times, while they do the wills not of the flesh but of the soul. What is added according to the Seventy, in anger from your mouth, is not found in the Hebrew. To this sabbath, to be celebrated with all festivity, the Savior calls us in the Gospel, saying: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt 11:28); for this is what ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς signifies: that, laying down the burdens of sins, we may keep sabbath in Christ and say: He has set my feet upon a rock (Ps 39 [40]:3), and may avoid what the saint says he almost suffered: But my feet were almost moved (Ps 72 [73]:2).

1033. If you turn away your foot from the sabbath. Here he sets out counsel as to the worship of religious duty in the observation of the sabbath. And first, he sets out the counsel: if you turn away your foot, lest you do prohibited works; and call the sabbath delightful, that is, celebrating this kind of sabbath, as to the exercise of good works: remember that you keep holy the sabbath day (Exod 20:8). Other versions have: called instead of call, and the sense is the same.

I used to strive daily to win my way outside the world, outside the flesh; to drive all phantasms of the body from the eyes of my soul, and to see incorporeally supernal joys; and not only with my voice but in the core of my heart I used to say, "My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face, Thy face, Lord, will I seek." Moreover desiring nothing, fearing nothing, in this world, I seemed to myself to stand on a certain summit of things, so that I almost believed to be fulfilled in me what I had learnt of the Lord's promise through the prophet, "I will lift thee up upon the high places of the earth." For he is lifted up upon the high places of the earth who treads under foot through looking down upon them in his mind even the very things of the present world which seem lofty and glorious. But, having been suddenly dashed from this summit of things by the whirlwind of this trial, I have fallen into fears and tremors, since, even though I have no fears for myself, I am greatly afraid for those who have been committed to me. On every side I am tossed by the waves of business, and sunk by storms, so that I may truly say, "I am come into the depth of the sea, and the storm hath overwhelmed me." After business I long to return to my heart; but, driven therefrom by vain tumults of thoughts, I am unable to return.

Then you shall delight upon the Lord, and I will lift you up above the heights of the earth, and I will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. LXX: And you shall be confident upon the Lord, and he will lift you up above the good things of the earth, and he will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. When you have called the sabbaths delightful, and have not moved your foot on the sabbath to do servile work, nor spoken a word, that is, have always kept silent and fulfilled what is commanded, Keep your tongue from evil, and let your lips speak no deceit (Ps 33 [34]:14), then you will delight in the Lord, and will see fulfilled in yourself: Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the petitions of your heart (Ps 36 [37]:4). Or: you will have confidence in the Lord, according to what is written: He who trusts in the Lord is blessed; and in Jeremiah: Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his hope (Jer 17:7); and elsewhere: It is good to trust in the Lord rather than to trust in man (Ps 117 [118]:8). And the Lord will lift you up and raise you above the heights and good things of the earth. For the land of the meek and the land of the living is not below but above. Thus it is said to Lot as he fled from the valley of Sodom and Gomorrah: Save yourself on the mountain (Gen 19); and after he had reached it, the sun rose for him in Zoar. Of this land the Lord said: Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land (Matt 5:4); and many other things which we have often used, among which is this: Honor your father and your mother, and you shall be long-lived upon the land which the Lord your God will give you (Exod 20:12). According to the letter this cannot stand at all; for many honor their parents and die soon, and other men, parricides, live a long time. But so that we may know more surely that this land is in the heights, let us briefly recall the thirty-sixth psalm, in which it is written: The meek shall possess the land, and shall feast in the abundance of peace. After this it adds: Wait for the Lord and keep his ways, and he will lift you up to possess the land (Ps 36 [37]:11); of which it is sung in another place: The righteous shall possess the land, and shall dwell upon it for ever and ever (ibid., 34). This too is impossible: for if the earth shall pass away, this one certainly which we inhabit, how shall the righteous dwell upon it for ever and ever? From this we learn that there is a land which is set in the heights. After this it adds: And I will feed you, or the Lord will feed you, with the inheritance of Jacob your father. For as he who has the faith of Abraham is called a son of Abraham, so he who supplants vices and sins is called a son of Jacob; and whose virtue anyone imitates, his son he is also called. The good things of the land set in the heights, with which the son of Jacob is satisfied, must be taken as those which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man (1 Cor 2). Of them it is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews: For those who say these things show that they seek a homeland; and if indeed they were seeking that from which they had come out, they had time to return to it. But now they desire a better homeland, that is, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 11:14ff.). From this we learn that the fable of the thousand years, in which marriages are promised again, and foods, and the conduct of an earthly life, is to be rejected. For if in the resurrection they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be like the Angels, because they are sons of the resurrection (Matt 22); and the Apostle speaks of the belly and foods: Food for the belly, and the belly for foods; but God will destroy both the one and the other (1 Cor 6:13): how shall we seek again, in an incorrupt, spiritual and immortal body, the vices of our former mortal and corrupt flesh? And we say this not as denying the substance of the glorified body, but as taking away entirely the former works in those who are like the Angels. Otherwise, even in this body of ours we imitate the angelic virtues by fasts and continence and perpetual chastity and charity, and yet we do not lose the substance of our bodies. That we may believe all these things to be future, let us know that they have been promised by God, whose mouth has spoken; so that, as in the hands we understand work, and in the feet walking, and in the belly generation, and in the ears and eyes hearing and sight, so in the mouth we may understand the speech of God.

He teaches the manner [in which it is required] to rest: "Nor speak a word in anger out of your mouth," he says, "and you shall trust in the Lord"; it is as though if he ordains to honor the sabbath by making an end to bad actions and clinging to the accomplishment of good actions. There you see why he imposes a double duty even on priests, for they offered double sacrifices; they were required to sacrifice the victims and to clean the meats, offer them on the altar, light the fire and bring wood to the fire to feed it. Similarly, the reading of the divine word was done in abundance, as was the chanting of hymns and the prayer. And all that shows that the law diverted them from practical realities to lead them to spiritual realities on the day of the Sabbath, for they could not act continuously in such a way, given that they lived in a too-carnal fashion and were entirely absorbed in the cares they took with the body. "And he shall bring you up to the good places of the land and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father." And [here is] the confirmation of what he has just said: "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." The One who has made the promise does not lie, he says; he will undoubtedly grant you to take part in his beneficence, and you will enjoy the providence accorded to your ancestors.

Second, he sets out the fruit: then shall you be delighted in the Lord, as to spiritual goods; and I will lift you up above the high places of the earth, leading you back to your land, which is mountainous; and will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father, as to the enjoyment of the goods of the land: then shall you abound in delights in the Almighty (Job 22:26).