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It is difficult, even impossible, to please everyone, and not so much differences in faces as in views. In explaining the twelve prophets, I seemed to some to be extending more than I should have, and therefore in the interpretations of Daniel I took care of brevity, with the exception of the last and penultimate vision, in which it was necessary for me, due to many obscure passages, to draw out the speech, especially when explaining the seven, sixty-two and one weeks, regarding which I briefly outlined the opinions of Africanus, the compiler of the chronicles, Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea, also Clement, a presbyter of the Alexandrian church, and Apollinaris of Laodicea, Hippolytus, and the Jews and Tertullian, leaving it to the will of the reader to choose something from many. So, what we said, out of fear of being condemned and out of respect for future readers, may not please some who want to know not the opinions of the ancients, but our opinion. But the answer to them is easy: I did not want to accept [the opinion of] one so as to seem to condemn others. And if such great and learned men do not please squeamish readers; then how will they treat me, who, due to the poverty of a weak mind, am subject to the wounds of envious people? If I called the above-mentioned men teachers of the church; then let them understand that I do not praise the faith of everyone who disagrees among themselves, but I said this to distinguish myself from Joseph and Porfiry, who spoke a lot on this issue. And as for the fact that when explaining the image and its feet and various fingers, I interpreted iron and clay in relation to the Roman kingdom, which, according to the foreshadowing of Scripture, will first be strong and then weak: then let this be imputed not to me, but to the prophet. For one should not flatter rulers so much as to deny the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures, and general reasoning cannot serve as an accusation against one person. When I was warned about it thanks to the favorable zeal of my people, it was suddenly destroyed by the judgment of God: 43 so that both the zeal of friends towards me and the wiles of envious people would be revealed. But more about that at another time; Now let's continue what we started. Since in the eleventh book of Isaiah, the virgin of Christ Eustochius, the story will be set forth for the most part; then from the beginning to its two parts inclusive it will be lighter; the rest should be dictated as before; but one must take such care of brevity that no damage to understanding occurs. Chapter XXXVI. Art. 1ff. And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria went against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Laches to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a strong army, and he stopped at the water supply of the upper pond on the road of the whitewash field. And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, the ruler of the house, and Sovna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, went out to him. And Rabshakeh said to them: Tell Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What is this hope in which you trust, or with what advice and with what strength do you have to renew the war? In whom do you have hope that you have abandoned me? Behold, you trust in this bruised reed stick, in Egypt, which, if a man leans on it, will go into his hand and pierce it: such is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, for all those who trust in him. And if you answer me: We trust in the Lord our God, is this not the same one whose high places and altars Hezekiah abolished, and said to Judah and Jerusalem: Before this altar will you worship? And now surrender to my lord, the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, and you will not be able to get riders for them from yourself. And how can you stand before the ruler of one locality, [one of] the least servants of my master? If you trust in Egypt, and in chariots and horsemen, then did I go to this land without [the will of] the Lord to destroy it? The Lord said to me: go to this land and destroy it. The story is clear and needs no explanation; in more detail in the books of Days and Kings the same thing is reported that in the third year of Uzziah, the son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, reigned. He was twenty-five years old, he says, when he began to reign, and twenty-nine years old when he reigned in Jerusalem. And do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David did according to all. And after a little while he trusted in the Lord God of Israel, and because of him there was no one like him in the kings of Judah or in those who were before him. And cleave unto the Lord, do not depart from Him, and keep His commandments, as the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord be with him, and in everything he does, he understands. And resist the king of Assyria and do not enslave him (2 Kings 18:1–7). In the sixth year of his reign, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, took Samaria and the ten tribes called Israel, and resettled them in Assyria and settled them in Hale and Habor by the rivers Gozan, in the cities of the Media (Ibid., vv. 9-11). And seven years later, that is, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, the Assyrian king Sennacherib, entering Judea, besieged its fortified cities, wanting to take them. And when he was besieging Lachish, Hezekiah sent messengers to him to say: You who have sinned, return from Me; If you lay it on me, I will bear it (Ibid., v. 14). And when he, by order of the king, paid three hundred talents of silver and thirty gold, breaking down the doors of the church of the Lord and removing its gilding, which he himself had made; Then the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a large army in Jerusalem: they went to Jerusalem and stopped opposite the water supply of the upper pond, which is on the road of the whitewash field, and called the king to them. But Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, the ruler of the house, and Sovna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, drank to them, and Rabshakeh said to them: Tell Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, and the rest of the story. At the same time, one should pay attention to the arrogance of Rabshakeh, that he, like some kind of nasty force, imitates the custom of the prophets, so that like those, to indicate the authority and greatness of the speaker, they usually said in the prologues: thus says the Lord: so he now said: thus says the great king, the king of Assyria. “And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, the ruler of the house, and Sovna the scribe, and Joah, the master of Asaph, the worker, came out to him. This is Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, about whom we read above in the vision of the Valley of Zion: I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your garment and strengthen him with your belt, and I will put your authority in his hand, and he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah (Isa. 22:20-21) and so on. This is said to Sovna, who before him was the ruler of the church and about whom in the same vision it is written: go and enter to the one who lives in the tabernacle, to Sovna, the ruler of the church (Is. 22:15), who, according to the legend of the Jews, frightened by the threat of Rabshakeh, surrendered the troops to the Assyrians and handed over the lower part of Jerusalem to the enemies, and with the exception of the Zion fortress and the church, nothing else remained, unoccupied Assyrians. Therefore, those who consider Sovnu, now going out with Eliakim and Joah to Rabshakeh, to be the same as the one mentioned above, are mistaken. For it speaks of the Sovereign, the ruler of the church, and says that he will be taken captive by the Assyrians; and this Sovna is a scribe, that is, γραμματεύς, who in Hebrew is called sopher and is the same name (δμώνυμος) to the above. Rabshak, who spoke Hebrew, is believed by the Jews to be the son of the prophet Isaiah, who himself was allegedly a traitor, and the remaining son of Isaiah was called Jasub, which in our language means abandoned. Then, others think that he was a Samaritan and that therefore he knew the Hebrew language and so boldly and wickedly blasphemed the Lord. Therefore, let us pay attention to the words of Rabshakeh, and first to the fact that what he said: you rely on this broken reed stick, on Egypt, is a lie, because no history says that Hezekiah sent to the Egyptians and asked for help from Pharaoh. He added: if you answer me: we trust in the Lord our God justly. But he again adds a lie to the truth, that Hezekiah abolished His high places and altars. For he did this not against God, but for God, so that, having destroyed idolatry and the old error, he commanded to be worshiped in Jerusalem, where His church was, although we read that, due to a very bad habit, the people, having built an altar on the mountains and hills, offered sacrifices to God. And as for the fact that he, wanting to point out the small number of the besieged, promises two thousand horses, for which Hezekiah cannot get riders; then this happened not as a result of the weakness of the Jewish people, to whom the knowledge of horse riding was alien, but as a result of observing the commandments of God, who commanded Moses about the king of Israel: he shall not [or shall not multiply] horses for himself, and shall not multiply for himself wives (Deut. 17:16–17). If you, he says, cannot resist me, the least of his servants, then how can you resist such a strong king? To what he said: and if you answer me: we trust in the Lord our God, he skillfully and wisely answers that he did not come of his own free will, but according to the commandments of the Lord. The Lord said to me: go to that land and destroy it. And this serves as proof: of course, I could not come here without the will of the Lord; and since I came and took many cities and [only] part of Jerusalem remains inviolable: it is obvious that I came according to His will. In some interpretation I read that this same Sennacherib took Samaria: but this is completely false. For sacred history tells that for the first time, Phul, king of Assyria, under King Menaim of Israel, devastated the ten tribes. The second Tiglathpileser, under Pekah of Israel, the son of Romeliah, came to Samaria. The third Shalmaneser, under Uzziah, king of Israel, took all of Samaria (4 Gifts 15, 17). The fourth was Sargon, who conquered Ashdod (Isa. 20). The fifth was Esaraddon, who, having resettled the Israelites, sent Samaritans into the land of Judah as guards (2 Kings 17). The sixth was Sennacherib, who took Lachish and other cities of Judah and besieged Jerusalem (2 Kings 18). Others think that the same thing is called by many names. Art. 11. et seq. And Eliakim, and Sobna, and Joah said unto Rabshakeh, Speak unto thy servants in the language of Syria, for we understand it: speak not unto them in Hebrew, in the hearing of the people which are on the wall. And Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to thy master and to thee, to say all these words—or rather to the people who sit on the wall, to eat their own dung and drink the urine of their feet with you?” And Rabshakeh stood up and cried with a loud voice in Hebrew and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.” Thus says the king: Let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot save you, and let not Hezekiah encourage you in the Lord, saying: When the Lord saves us, this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says. The accusation of Rabshakeh serves as evidence about Hezekiah that, after taking all the cities of Judah, he trusted in the Lord and said to the people: Do not be afraid and do not be afraid of the king of Assyria, for there are much stronger with us than with him. Carnal power is with him, and with us is the Lord our God, who is our helper and who fights for us. And the people, he says, were encouraged by these words of Hezekiah, king of Judah. Therefore, Rabshakeh wants to destroy what he has built, and says to the people: Let not Hezekiah deceive you and do not encourage you in the Lord God. And what Eliakim and Sobna and Joah humbly implore: speak to your servants in the Syrian language, because we understand it, and do not speak to them in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall, then this has the following meaning: why is it necessary to confuse the people with false horrors and boast of empty courage? Speak in a language that the people do not understand; because we understand your language and know the Syrian speech, common to both. To this Rabshakeh arrogantly replies: Did my master send me to your master and to you, or rather to the people who sit on the wall? And then, intensifying the fear with a threat, he says: to eat their dung and drink the urine of their feet with you, through which he shows that they will be taken through hunger and want and thirst. But at the same time, he adds deception to intimidation, so that those whom he did not defeat with fear can be seduced by promises and persuasion, in the words of the king of Assyria. Art. 16–18. Perform a blessing with me, and come out to me, and let each one eat from his vineyard, and each one from his fig tree, and let each one drink water from his own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your land: a land of wheat and wine, a land of grain and vineyards. Let not Hezekiah trouble you by saying, The Lord will deliver us. Have the gods of the nations delivered each of their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria? Instead, the book of Kings reads: do with me what is beneficial, and come out to me (2 Kings 18). So the meaning is the same. Do, he says, what is good for you and what contributes to your blessing. Or he says this: bless the king of Assyria and praise him and recognize him as your master in order to receive rewards, and until I return from Egypt or come again after the capture of Lovna, live in your city and use what you have. After this I will come and resettle you in a land similar to yours, a land of wheat, wine and olives. And he does not name the country, because he could not find a land that is the same as the promised land, but he promises something similar. For everyone becomes attached to the [place] in which they were born. Some think that he promised them the Indian land, which was similar to the Jewish land both in position and in production. To this he adds: Art. 19 et seq. Where is the god of Hamath and Arphad? Where is the god of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these lands saved their land from my hand, so that the Lord could save Jerusalem from my hand? But they were silent and did not answer him a word. For the king commanded them, saying: Do not answer him. This shows that Samaria served all these gods and that is why she was taken. If, he says, despite the protection of so many gods, we easily conquered the ten tribes; then how much easier will it be for us to defeat you or, better yet, Jerusalem alone, guarded by God alone? And all the people were silent and did not answer him, because they received orders from the king not to answer him. Hezekiah was truly righteous, doing everything with faith and prudence. He ordered not to respond to the blasphemous Assyrian so as not to provoke him to greater blasphemy. Therefore it is written: do not light coals for a sinner (Sir. 8:13); and in the psalm we read: when the sinner stood up before me, I became dumb and humbled, and kept silent from good things (Ps. 39:2-3), and again: put, O Lord, a guard over my mouth and a guardrail over my lips. Do not turn my heart into words of deceit (Ps. 141:3-4). Chapter XXXVII. Art. 1ff. And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, the ruler of the house, and Sovna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the scribe, came to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh 44 . And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard, that he tore his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of God. And he sent Eliakim, the ruler of the house, and Sovna the scribe and the chief priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the son of Amos the prophet, and they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah: This is a day of sorrow and punishment and reproach, for the children have come to the point of childbirth, and there is no strength to give birth [or to the one giving birth]. Perhaps the Lord your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his lord, sent to blaspheme the living God and revile the words that the Lord your God heard. So say a prayer for the remnant that survives. And the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, and Isaiah said to them: Thus say to your master: Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid of the words with which you heard the servants of the king of Assyria reproached me. Behold, I will give him [or them] spirit, and he will hear the message and return to his land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his land. Omitting the clear, we will explain only those things whose meaning is obscure. They tear their clothes because they hear Rabshakeh's blasphemy. The king himself tore his clothes, because he attributed it to the sins of himself and the people that Rabshakeh reached the gates of Jerusalem and spoke so against the Lord. Therefore, the high priest tore his clothes, thinking that the Savior was blaspheming (Matthew 26), and Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes when the Lycaonians began to show them worship (Acts 14). Instead of royal clothes, he covered himself with sackcloth and, going from the palace to the church, he sent Eliakim the high priest, and Sovna the scribe and the senior priests to Isaiah, the son of Amos the prophet. This should be seen as the king’s humility and prudence. He himself went to the church, and sent the princes of the people and the senior priests, covered not with priestly robes, but with hair shirts, to Isaiah, the son of Amos the prophet. Instead, the book of Kings reads: And he put on sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. And the ambassador Eliakim the builder, and Somnas the scribe, and the elders of the priests were clothed in sackcloth to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz (2 Kings 19:1-2). Since here Isaiah himself wrote a story about himself, he called himself not a prophet, but the son of a prophet; and there, since there was another writer of history, he called him himself a prophet. We also read about the Evangelist Matthew that Matthew himself called himself a publican (Matthew 9), but other evangelists kept silent about the name of the publican and pointed only to the rank of apostle, and that in community with the other apostles he is second for himself, and first for others. And they said to him: Thus says Hezekiah - not a king, not proud of the name of power. This is the day of sorrow and punishment and reproach: our sorrow, God’s punishment, the reproach of our enemies. And he makes the likeness of a woman who is tormented in childbirth and suffers because she has reached the point of giving birth, but cannot give birth, and says: For Thy fear, O Lord, I was in the womb, and sick, and gave birth to the spirit of Thy salvation (Isa. 26:18). It follows: perhaps the Lord your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh. For we do not dare to call the Lord of all, because of whose wrath we suffer so much, our Lord, but we call you your Lord. And in this we place our hope for vengeance, that the living God is blasphemed by the worshiper of dead idols. And they reviled them with words that the Lord God heard. So offer up our humble prayer: not for the whole people who have already perished, but for the remnant who are besieged. And when the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, he again did not call him a prophet in order to continue to maintain humility. And Isaiah warned them; for with the same spirit with which he knew the future, he heard the absent king, and says that they must answer their master, humbled through this confidence in knowledge. Tell, he says, to your master, who serves as your master; for my Lord says this: do not be afraid of the words with which they reviled not you, but Me. But I do not say all that I will do to the king of Assyria, so as not to appear to be boasting of My power, [but only that] a spirit will be given to him, not God’s, but the opposite. And having heard the news, he will return to his land, and fall in it by the sword, so that Hezekiah will hear about two things that are equally desirable for him - that he will be delivered from siege and danger and that a hostile and irritated king will die in his land. If anyone asks why in the book of prophecy the history described in the books of Kings and Days seems mixed; let him take into account that prophecy is connected with history, both about the liberation of the city, and about the death of the Assyrians and the return of the sun by ten hours and the extension of time by fifteen years, which constitutes both prophecy and history. Art. 8 et seq. Having returned, Rabshakeh found the king of Assyria fighting against Lovna; for he had heard that he had gone away from Lachish. And he heard them speak of Tarah king of the Ethiopians: He has come out to fight against you. When he heard this, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, Thus speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. So you heard about everything that the Assyrian kings did to all the lands that they destroyed, and can you be saved? Did the gods of the nations that my fathers, Gozan and Haran, and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden, who were in Thalassara, save them? Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Safarvaim of Ana [or Safarvaim of Anea] and Ava? In the same words and in the same sense it is written in the Book of Kings and Days that Rabshakeh, by the will of the Lord, left the siege of Jerusalem and went to his master, having learned about him that he, either leaving or taking Lachish, went to conquer Lobna. Also, Sennacherib himself, having heard that Taraha, king of the Ethiopians, is starting a war against him, goes out to meet the one coming, and nevertheless sends ambassadors to Hezekiah and letters in order to frighten with words those whom he has not yet conquered by force. And as he said to the people: Let not Hezekiah deceive you (2 Kings Chapter 18), so with the same blasphemy he says to the king: Let not your God deceive you. And he points to the examples of his ancestors that, like other lands, their gods could not free them from their hands; Thus Jerusalem will not be saved. When counting the other nations, he points to Anu (Apa) and Ava (Ava), which united seventy together, said Anavegava (Apave g ava) 45, and the union and, that is, Vav, between two peoples, Ana and Ava, was put in such a way in the Hebrew language that for those who do not know they seem to be one people or city. We briefly skim over the clear in order to dwell on the difficult. And that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, fought against the Egyptians, and besieged Pelusium, and that already after the construction of trenches to take the city, Taraha, the king of the Ethiopians, came to the aid and in one night eighty-five thousand of the Assyrian army died from the plague, Herodotus 46 speaks about this and Berosus 47, who wrote the Chaldean history, speaks in great detail, but the reliability of the books they are still subject to research. Art. 14 et seq. And Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the ambassadors and read them, and went to the house of the Lord and unfolded them before the Lord, and prayed to the Lord, saying: Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who sits on the cherubim! You alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth: for You created the heavens and the earth. Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; Open Thy eyes, O Lord, and behold and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he sent to reproach the living God. For it is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings devastated all their countries and lands, and gave their gods to fire; for they were not gods, but the work of human hands, wood and stones, and they destroyed them. And now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, and let all the kingdoms of the earth know that You are God alone. Against the blasphemy of King Sennacherib, Hezekiah took up conventional weapons. And again he goes to the church and unfolds his letters before the Lord. Previously, he was silent, because, frightened by the fear of the Lord, he did not dare to open his mouth in the church and freely pour out prayers to the Lord. But now, having already heard what Isaiah said: do not be afraid of the words that you heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria reviled me, he boldly prays to the Lord and affirms that there is only one living God, from which we see that idols are images of the dead. What he adds: for it is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings devastated all the lands and their countries, and gave the gods to fire; for these were not gods, but the works of human hands, wood and stones, and they destroyed them, is confirmed by many stories in which it is written that the kings of Persia came to Greece and destroyed and plundered the Greek churches: and he demands vengeance, so that from what happened to him all the kingdoms would know that there is only one God who can save his own from danger. Art. 21 et seq. Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah to say: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: what did you pray to Me about Sennacherib, king of Assyria, this is the word that the Lord spoke about him: the virgin daughter of Zion despised you and laughed at you, after you [or therefore] the daughter of Jerusalem shook her head. Whom did you revile and whom did you blaspheme, and against whom did you lift up your voice and lift up your eyes high? To the Holy One of Israel. Through your servants you reproached the Lord and said: with many of my chariots I have ascended [or will ascend] to the height of the mountains, to the ridge of Lebanon, and I will cut down its tall cedars and its excellent cypress trees and will ascend to its extreme heights, to the forest of Carmel thereof. I dug and drank water and dried up all the channels of the trenches with the sole of my foot. Since Hezekiah so boldly prayed to the Lord, he did not send an embassy to Isaiah, as he had previously sent, and the prophet himself does not go to him, but sends ambassadors so that they tell him in the words of God: this is the sentence of the Lord about Sennacherib, against whom you ask: virgin Zion and the daughter of Jerusalem (she is called virgin and daughter because, while everyone revered the images of dead people, she alone preserves purity divine religion and veneration of the one Divinity) laughed at you and despised you, and without answering you in your presence, so as not to provoke you to greater blasphemy, she shook her head after you left, being confident of vengeance, without doubting about the punishment. And she said this: not before me, but before the Lord, you became proud, and not of yourself, but through your servants, so that the exaltation of the blasphemer might be stronger. For you said that with your many chariots you will ascend to the heights of the mountains and to the ridge of Lebanon and cut down its tall cedars and cypresses. We must understand this either metaphorically (μεταφοριϰῶς) about all nations and their rulers, or about Jerusalem, which means Lebanon, as under its cedars and cypresses - all the strong and noble ones; We will attribute its extreme height and the forest of Carmel to the church. For he himself said above: haven’t you heard what the kings of Assyria did with all the lands that they destroyed? Therefore, you cannot be saved either. What he adds: I dug and drank water and dried up all the channels of the trenches with the sole of my foot can be understood in the historical sense that due to the multitude of troops he dried up all the waters, so that he was forced to dig wells. In a figurative sense, he devastated all the peoples who are sometimes described under the name of waters with his army. Instead, only the Seventy translated: and I built a bridge [or mighty, or power] and emptied the waters and every gathering of waters - that is, in the sense that no people will remain impassable for him, but will trample all the waters of the nations under their feet. Art. 26 et seq. Haven't you heard what I once did to him? I planned this from a long time ago, and now I have brought them, and it has come to pass for the destruction of the hills together of the warring and the fortified cities. Their inhabitants, upon the contraction of the hand [force], trembled and mingled: they became like hay of the field and green grass on the pasture and grass on the housetops, which dried up before it was ripe. I recognized your dwelling place, your exit and your entrance, and your madness against Me, when you raged against Me. Your arrogance has reached My ears: therefore I will put My ring in your nostrils and a bit in your mouth, and I will bring you back by the way by which you came. This must be understood as being said on behalf of God against the words of the Assyrian, in the sense that the Lord answered his blasphemy this way: Don’t you know that what you did was done according to My will and that I predicted it would happen and commanded that it be done through you? So, at the present time, what I once determined is fulfilled - that the hills, that is, the princes who formerly fought with each other, and the cities that are very fortified, when I hold back My hand and do not give ordinary help, should be destroyed, and tremble and perish, and would be like not the olive and the vine, and fruitful trees, but like hay, and shoots, and grass on the housetops that serve an obstacle to fruits and wither before reaching maturity. So, I knew in advance about your whereabouts and your exit and entrance, and about the madness in which you had to rage against Me, I spoke in the foreshadowing of the prophets, through whom I knew that you would one day say: I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven and I will be like the Most High (Is. 14:13-14). Thus, your rage and your arrogance have reached My ears, and I will no longer tolerate you, so that you understand that what was possible for you was possible due not to your strength, but to My will. For the wicked nations and the barren trees deserve to be cut down and fall through you, as through My ax and saw. So I will put a ring or a bridle in your nostrils to close your blasphemous lips and so that you will not dare to say such things anymore, and I will put a bit in your mouth to pacify your cruelty and return you to Assyria. Scripture also uses this metaphor in the Psalms against the wicked: with a bridle and a bridle you will bind their jaws, those who do not approach You (Ps. 31:9). Art. 30–32. You will have the following sign: this year, eat what is born on its own, and in the second year, eat vegetables; in the third year you shall sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. And what is left of the house of Judah and what is left will take root from below and bear fruit from above, for from Jerusalem will come a remnant and salvation from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. All this the prophet says to Hezekiah through the messengers: what Sennacherib said, what did the Lord answer him; Now he addresses himself with a speech, so that he cannot doubt that what has been said will come true. And especially because the people believed the speeches of the prophets, because they spoke not only about what was to follow after many centuries, but also about what was to be fulfilled soon and after a short period of time: that in two years the king of Assyria would perish, and the city of Jerusalem would again be safe. It will serve as a sign of the future that I foretell, he says, that in this year you will eat what is born of itself, or according to the Seventy: what you sowed first. In the second year, according to Symmachus, eat vegetables, or those grown from previous crops and from seeds that fell to the ground. And in the third year, after the Assyrians have fled and the siege has been lifted, sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit: because the remnant of this small city, which is now surrounded by an enemy army and whose salvation they do not believe, will have such abundance in everything and fertility that, like a deep-rooted tree, it will be filled with a multitude of fruits. For from Jerusalem and from Mount Zion a remnant will come out and fill the land of Judea, not because of its merits, but because of the mercy, or rather the jealousy of God, with which He was jealous against the wicked for His people. Art. 33–34. Therefore, this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria: he will not enter this city and will not throw arrows there, nor will he approach it with a shield, nor will he build a rampart around it. He will return along the same road by which he came, and will not enter this city, says the Lord: I will guard this city and save it for My sake and give birth to David My servant. He returns to the subject of his speech and, after hoping for the future, eliminates present fear. For the joy of what He promised would come after a long time was not so great as the concern for what was threatening. And that He says that the Assyrian will leave and will not raise a shield against Jerusalem, and will not shoot arrows, and that the city will not be surrounded by fortifications and a rampart, and the enemy will return the same way as he came, and the city will be freed from the current siege, and finally adds: for my sake and for the sake of David my servant: this means that they will be saved not because of their merits, but because of the mercy of God or rather in memory of David their father. Through this they are reminded of their negligence, and of his faith and truth, for God loves truth so much that he protects even the descendants of holy people, not for their merits, but for the virtues of their ancestors. Art. 36–38. And the angel of God went out and smote one hundred and eighty-five thousand [people] in the Assyrian camp: and they arose in the morning, and behold, all the bodies of the dead. And he went and left, and Sennacherib king of Assyria returned and lived in Nineveh. And it came to pass, when he was worshiping his god Nesrach in the church, that Adramelech and Sarasar his sons killed him with the sword, and fled to the land of Ararat, and Esaraddon his son reigned in his stead. One hundred eighty-five thousand of the bravest people are killed in one night by an angel, and, without inflicting wounds on those killed, cruel death spreads, separating souls from bodies according to the will of God. About this in Chronicles it is read: “And the Lord sent an angel, who smote every mighty man, and warrior, and captain of the army of the king of Assyria: and he returned dishonored to his land” (2 Chronicles 32:21). He was preserved in order to know the power of God and humble blasphemous lips, and become a witness of the greatness of Him whom a little earlier he had despised. What was added: and they got up in the morning, we can attribute either to the Israelites or to the rest of his troops, although in the book of Kings it is written that when the king himself got up at dawn, he saw all the bodies of the dead (2 Kings 19). Also, Pharaoh is preserved during the ten plagues of Egypt, in order to be the last to die, which this [Sennacherib] also experienced (or had to experience). For when he returned to Nineveh, the main city of his kingdom, and worshiped his god Nesrah in the church, as if he had won victory over his enemies, and entered the church of his idol, triumphant and expressing gratitude; then the despiser of the true God is killed in the church of a false deity, and dies not from the sword, which was common to many, but from the parricide of his sons. When they fled to the country of Ararat, which means Armenia, Esaraddon took the place of his father, about whom Scripture testifies that he sent inhabitants to Samaria so that the land would not remain uncultivated. Ararat is a flat country in Armenia, irrigated by the Arax, extremely fertile, at the foot of Mount Taurus, which extends to it. Consequently, the ark in which Noah and his children were saved was attributed, after the end of the flood, not generally to the mountains of Armenia, called Ararat, but to the very high Taurus Mountains, which rise above the plains of Ararat. Chapter ΧΧΧVIII. - Poem. 1–3. In those days Hezekiah became sick even to the point of death. And the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: Dispose of the account of your house, for you will die and not live.” And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, and said: I pray, Lord, remember, I pray, how I walked before You in truth and with a perfect heart, and did what was good in Your sight. And Hezekiah wept with great weeping. - the Lord loves him, punishes him, and beats every son he accepts (Proverbs 3:12). So that after incredible triumphs and victory in the midst of captivity, Hezekiah’s heart would not be exalted, he is visited by the illness of his body, and hears that he will die, so that turning to the Lord will turn away His sentence. This is exactly what we read in the prophet Jonah and in the threats against David, which are said to come true, but which did not come true, not because God changes the verdict, but because He calls the human race to know Him. For He is the Lord, repent of your evils (2 Chron. prayer of Manasseh v. 6. Joel 2, 13. Jonah 4, 2). And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, for he could not go to the church, and precisely to the wall of the church, near which Solomon built the palace; or even to the wall, so that it does not seem that he is showing off his tears to those present; or, at least, according to Jeremiah, who calls the heart by the word cir, that is, a wall: to your heart, so that with all your mind you can pray to the Lord. And he says: I beseech you, Lord, remember, I ask, how I walked before You in truth and with a perfect heart, and did what was good in Your sight. Hearing that he will die, he does not ask for life and very many years, but leaves it to the court of God to grant whatever he pleases, for he knew that Solomon was pleasing to God because he did not ask for many years of life: but having to go to the Lord, he speaks of his deeds, how he walked before Him in truth and with a perfect heart. Happy is the conscience that, in times of grief, remembers good deeds: for blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8) And since it is written elsewhere: whoever boasts of having a pure heart (Prov. 20:9), then this is explained in this way: the perfection of the heart is now called in him the fact that he destroyed idols, overthrew the vessels of the church of Baal, crushed the brass serpent and did other things mentioned in Scripture. He wept with great weeping because of the promise of the Lord to David, which, as he saw, was about to perish with his [Hezekiah’s] death. For at that time Hezekiah had no sons, since after his death Manasseh began to reign in Judah, being twelve years old, from which it is obvious that Manasseh was born after the third year of the life given to him [Hezekiah]. Therefore, all this crying occurs due to the fact that he lost hope of the birth of Christ from his seed. Others argue that very holy men fear death because of the uncertainty of the judgment and ignorance of God's verdict about what kind of residence they will have. And together the question of fate and the bonds of necessity and causes are resolved, because the day of death is not determined in advance for everyone, but by the will of God and but for reasons unknown to mortals, either someone lives or dies, especially when the now decided inevitability of death is postponed, and when we read that after death very many were resurrected. Poem. 4–8. And the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying, Go and tell Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord God of your father David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your days, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend it. This will be a sign from the Lord for you, that the Lord will fulfill this word that He has spoken: Behold, I will cause the shadow of the lines along which it descended at the clock of Ahaz into the sun to return back ten lines. And the sun returned ten lines along the steps along which it had descended. In the wrong order, as in the prophecy, the story is told here, which is read more consistently in the book of Kings (2 Kings 20). While Hezekiah was weeping with great lamentation, “before Isaiah went out into the midst of the court, the word of the Lord came to him, saying: Return, and say to Hezekiah, the leader of my people: I have heard your prayer, and I have seen your tears. Here I will heal you. And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me?” The Prophet answered him: “This will be a sign from the Lord, that the Lord will fulfill the word that He has spoken.” Do you want the shadow to approach so many lines, or for it to return by the same number of steps? Hezekiah said to him: It is easy for a shadow to increase by ten lines, and I do not want this to happen, but for it to return back ten steps. And when, upon Isaiah’s invocation of the power of the Lord, the sign was accomplished, Isaiah ordered that a layer of fresh figs be brought: when they brought it and placed it on his wound, he recovered. The prophet returns to the king, at the command of the Lord, so that the one who struck him would heal him; and Hezekiah is called the leader of His people and the son of David, whose deeds he imitated, for he acted righteously, just as his father David did; and his prayer is heard and his tears are noticed because he walked before the Lord in truth and with a perfect heart, and wept with great tears and did what was right in His sight. Fifteen years are added to his life, which he did not ask for, and moreover, the security of the kingdom is promised during his lifetime. If, as some think, life in the body is condemnation, and according to what is said: turn my soul to your rest (Ps. 115:6), and in another place: bring my soul out of prison (Ps. 142:8), we must desire death in order to be freed from prison: then how does the Lord now grant, as a blessing, that he who should have been freed should live in prison for another fifteen years? It is given as a sign that the sun will return to ten steps, which we turned into lines and hours in accordance with Symmachus, who, in order to make the idea clearer for readers, imagined the steps in the form of lines. Or the steps were arranged in such a way by mechanical art that the shadow, descending along each one, determined the limits of the clock spaces of time. This sign was an image of both the present and the future, so that, just as the sun returned to its beginning, so Hezekiah’s life returned to its outlived years, and for us, living in the sevenfold and octagonal (in hebdomade et ogdoade), the time of life would continue through the resurrection of Christ. Markers of holy places in this area usually show the steps of the house of Hezekiah or Ahaz inside the church fence, because the sun seemed to descend on them. But I will never believe that the house, I do not say, of Ahaz, who was a wicked king, but also of any righteous king, was located at the church of God, when it is said that Solomon, by the way, offended God by raising Mellon high, from where he, walking on the tower of the palace, used to look down on the courtyard of the church (1 Kings 11). Poem. 9. The Scripture of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he was sick and recovered from his illness. LXX: Prayer of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he was sick and arose from his illness. I am surprised how the Seventy alone put prayer instead of scripture, when the prayer is called thephellath, and not machthab, as it is written in the present place; however, it would consistently be called prayer if it referred to the present time, and not to the past. For it is obvious that he wrote this after returning to health, rising from illness. Therefore, this is not a prayer, but an expression of gratitude for the benefit he has received. Poem. 10–13. I said at the end of my days: I will go to the gates of the underworld; I was looking for the rest of my years. I said, I will not see the Lord God in the land of the living; I will no longer see man and the dweller of peace. My race has ceased: it has been taken away and carried away from me like a shepherds' tent. My life was interrupted, as if weaving: while I was still struggling, He cut me off; from morning to evening You will end me. I waited until the morning: like a lion, so He broke all my bones. From morning to evening You will end me. LXX: I said in the height of my days: I will go into the gates of the underworld; I'll leave the rest of the years. I said: I will no longer see the salvation of God in the land of the living, and I will no longer see man with the living. I fell away from my kinship: it came out and departed from me, just as a tent is destroyed by the one who built it. My spirit is separated, like cloth when it is trimmed by a weaver. That day I was betrayed until the morning: like a lion, so He broke all my bones. From day to night I was betrayed. He says that he thought silently during the distress that oppressed him and the illness that threatened him. I said, he says, in my heart, at the end of my days, or as Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion translated, in the illness and silence of my days, instead of which LXX translated height, due to the similarity of the letter, instead of dame, reading rame, although some dame translated blood, so that there was a meaning: in the blood of my days, when my blood and my destruction were required [or expected]. So, in despair, I said: I will go to the gates of the underworld, either according to the general law of nature, or to those gates about which, as a result of his liberation, the Psalmist sings: lift me up from the lies of mortals, for I will proclaim the howl of Your praise in the gates of the daughter Zion (Ps. 9:14.15). I think that these are the gates of hell that do not overcome Peter (Matthew 16), for he rested in the fullness of his days. The saints reach the fullness of their days, as was Abraham, who died full of days, and in his old age is good (Gen. 25:8). Sinners and the wicked die at the end of their days. The Psalmist also says about them: men of blood and deceit will not spend half their days (Ps. 54:24). For they do not fill their deeds with virtues, and do not try to atone for sins with repentance. Therefore, in the middle of life and in the darkness of error, they will be sent to hell. I was looking, he says, for the rest of my days, thinking that I would no longer live. I said: I will not see the Lord, the Lord in the land of the living. Instead of Lord and Lord, in Hebrew Ia is placed twice, which is heard in the last syllable al leluia, instead of which LXX was translated: I will no longer see the salvation of God in the land of the living. It is written about her in another place: I will please the Lord in the land of the living (Ps. 115:8), and again: I will please the Lord in the light of the living (Ps. 55:14). Therefore, the land of the saints is the same one that is called the light of the living. For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matthew 22:32). Yet what he fears is that, being taken to the underworld, he will not be worthy to see the salvation of God. It follows: I will no longer see man and the inhabitant of peace. The last word, due to its ambiguity, we once attached to the next verse; for the Hebrew word holed, if read or written eled, means rest: if edel, means west. Consequently, he is afraid that he will not dwell in peace with the saints and people of God, that he will not see the Lord in the land of the living, that his race will be destroyed like a tent, that he, like a cloth, will be cut off at the very beginning of the day, and that Christ will not be born from his seed. And that our body is called a tent, this is what the Apostle teaches, saying: “We, being in this tabernacle, groan under a burden” (2 Cor. 5:4). From morning, he says, until evening, You will finish me: I waited until morning. And Job says that he endured this during his suffering and bodily torment, when during the day he eagerly awaited the night, and during the darkness of the night he waited for daylight, thinking that with the change of times the torment could change (Job 7). That this is true is known to those who are in the heat from strong paroxysms of fever, whose all their bones are consumed, like a lion, by an internal fire, and who thinks that he will no longer survive from the great force of pain. Poem. 14, 15. Like a chick of a swallow, so I will make sounds: I will coo like a dove. My eyes have weakened, looking at the heights: Lord, I suffer violence, answer for me. What will I say, or what will he answer me when He Himself did? LXX: like a swallow, so I will make sounds: like a dove, so I will coo. For my eyes have grown weak from looking at the heights of heaven to the Lord, who delivered me and took away the sickness of my soul, and Himself fulfilled it. The impending death and the oppressive pain from the illness, like a lion, crushed all the bones of my body; but I, like a swallow and a dove, connected days and nights with crying and groaning, and from God alone, who could help, I expected help, lifting my eyes to heights. And I said to Him: I endure more than I deserve; but even if I have sinned in anything, I will correct myself; You answer in my favor: for “[pardon] does not depend on the one who wishes, nor on the one who strives, but on God who has mercy” (Rom. 9:16). And again he turns to himself: what will I say? or how will I be justified before You, my Creator? or what will He answer me, who Himself did what He wanted? Therefore, everything must be endured, no matter what He determines. Instead of a chick of a swallow or swallow, as LXX translated, in Hebrew it is written: sus agor, which is translated by Aquila horse Agor (equus Agor), and in Theodotion sis agur; for if between two samekhs the vowel vav is placed in the middle, then it is read sus and means horse, and if iod, then it is read sis and means swallow. Symmachus translated it this way: like a swallow in prison, so I will sing. This word agor is also read in Jeremiah, where it is written: Erodiya in heaven knew her time, the turtledove and the village gusset, the rabbi kept the times of her entrances (Jer. 8:7). Poem. 16–20. I will think about all my years in the sorrow of my soul. God! If this is how they live, and this is the life of my spirit, then reprove me and revive me. Here in the world my grief is very sad. You delivered my soul so that it would not perish: you threw all my sins behind Your back. For hell will not confess You, and death will not praise You: they who go down to the grave will not trust in Your truth. Living, living, he will confess You, just as I do now. The father will proclaim Your truth to his sons. God! save me, and all the days of our lives we will sing our songs in the house of the Lord. LXX: Oh my God! it was announced to You, and You lifted up my spirit and, comforting, revived. This is my sorrow in the world: for You have delivered my soul so that it would not perish, and You have left all my sins behind me. For those in hell will not praise You, and the dead will not bless You, and those in hell will not trust in Your mercy. The living will bless You, just as I will: for from now on I will bear sons who will proclaim Your righteousness, O Lord of my salvation, and I will not cease to bless You with the psalter all the days of my life in sight of the house of God. No state of mortals is lasting, and all temporary well-being, while achieved, is lost. For when the time of trouble comes, then all that has passed does not help the one in need. Therefore, the opinion of Epicurus is stupid, who claims that by remembering past blessings, present disasters are alleviated. And so Hezekiah says that during this time of real grief he reflected on all the years of his reign and the past, as he thought, prosperity. And since he is now safe and does not suffer what he talks about, he philosophizes about the human condition and says: Lord, if this is how we live, and with such a condition we are born, then You exposed me, but revived me, and, after turning the Assyrian to flight, gave me peace; but my peace was more sorrowful for me than any sorrow, because, after the return of peace to the people and the calm of the city, I alone entered the borders of death. But You delivered my soul so that it would not perish, either for this life or for the future. For You threw all my sins behind the backbone, so that I would not look sadly at them, but look at Your mercy. For hell and death will not confess and praise You according to what is written: but in hell who will confess to You [Ps. 6:6 ]? Confession in this place is understood not in the sense of repentance, but in the sense of glorification and praise, as in the Gospel we read: Confess, Father, the Lord of heaven and earth [Matt. 11:25]. Those who go down to the grave, he says, will not trust in Your truth: better than that of LXX: in mercy. For whoever is in hell does not trust in the truth of judgment, but in the mercy of God, especially when the Savior descended into hell to free prisoners from hell. Instead of the grave, they [LXX] translated hell more clearly. Alive, alive, he will confess You, just as I do now. And here confession is placed instead of praise. For he does not confess his iniquities; but brings thanks to God: and praise is not red in the mouth of a sinner (Sir. 15:9). And while hell and death do not confess or praise God, life and the living, on the contrary, glorify the Lord. What follows next: The Father will proclaim Your truth to his sons means what is said in Deuteronomy: ask your father, and your elders will tell you, and they will tell you (Deut. 32:7), so that successively and through each generation the mercy of God may be proclaimed to your descendants. Instead, LXX put: for from now on I will bear sons who will proclaim Your righteousness. The causal union connects the subsequent with the previous: that, that is, for this reason the living and he himself, remaining alive, will bless God, that from this day he will give birth to sons so that they will proclaim His truth. This undoubtedly was not in his power, because through the Prophet he was not promised sons, but real life was abandoned, especially since he gave birth to the most wicked son Manasseh, who filled Jerusalem from gate to gate with blood, and did not bless, but cursed God, persecuting His saints. Therefore, we can read from the LXX that he said: I will not give birth to sons, but to παιδία, meaning by them either children, or youths, or infants and descendants, so that because he received mercy, all future posterity, recognizing this, would praise His incredible mercy. So save me, Lord, and all of us who believe in You and have been liberated by Your help will sing of You in the church all the days of our lives. Poem. 21, 22. And Isaiah commanded that they should take a plaster of fresh figs and put it on the wound, and that he might recover. And Hezekiah said, What will be the sign that I will go up to the house of the Lord? This should be read before the prayer or the scripture of Hezekiah, which we have now explained. For first a plaster was applied to the wound, and first he demanded a sign of future health, rather than he brought thanks to the Lord, which is said to have been done by him after his recovery. The Jews say that the word siin, which the LXX omitted, means vered, not wound. For both Aquila, and Symmachus and Theodotion translated: ἕλϰος [vered], by which they want to understand the royal disease, for which everything sweet is considered hostile, whether taken in food or applied to the body. Therefore, in order for the power of God to manifest itself, health is restored through things that are harmful and unfavorable. Others suggest that siin is not a vered, but an abscess, when the swollen body is filled with ripened and decomposing pus. And according to the art of doctors, any pus is brought to the surface of the skin by dry and crushed figs; and therefore the art of medicine should not be neglected when it is based on practice and experience, because it was also created by God (Sir. ch. 38). So up to this point a prayer and an expression of gratitude are written down. The rest, and specifically the sign that was given, is told in the order of the previous narrative. Chapter XXXIX. - Poem. 1, 2. At that time Merodach Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and gifts to Hezekiah: for he heard that he was sick and recovered. And Hezekiah rejoiced to them, and showed them a house of spices, and silver, and gold, and incense, and the finest ointment, and all the storehouses of his utensils, and everything that was found in his treasuries: there was not a word that Hezekiah did not show them in his house and in all his possession. We read above that in the fourteenth year of the gift of Hezekiah, Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and took them, and then besieged Lachish, moved to Lobna, sent part of his army to Jerusalem, and, after the defeat through the angel of one hundred and eighty-five thousand of his army, he himself fled to Nineveh, and was killed by his sons in the church of his god, and his son Assaradon reigned in his place; that Hezekiah was sick, and again received health according to the Prophet’s message; that an incredible sign happened, so that the sun returned to its rising for ten hours of time, and the day became almost twice as long. Now we read that at that time, that is, in the same year in which all this happened, Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan, the king of Babylon, sent letters and gifts to Hezekiah, and not Assaradon, who after his father, Sennacherib, took over the kingdom of the Assyrians, about whose death or life the Scriptures are silent. From this it is obvious that the Assyrian kingdom was different then, and the Babylonian kingdom was different. Finally, Samaria, that is, the ten tribes, was captured by the Assyrians, and about Judea and Jerusalem after that we read that they were conquered by the Chaldeans, whose king was Nebuchadnezzar. And since they have an observation of the heavenly bodies, and from long study and practice they know the course of the stars, which is also indicated at the birth of the Lord: they understood that the sun that returned back, during the double time of the day, served the One whom they revered as God. And when they investigated the causes and significance of this miracle, then, with the spread of rumors throughout all nations, they learned that, due to the illness of the king of the Jews, even the course of the brightest luminary was changed. That this is not my opinion, but the assurance of the Holy Scriptures, this is evidenced by the “Words of Days,” which among other things say: “He, Hezekiah, blocked the upper channel of the waters of Geon, and led them down to the western side of the city of David. In all his enterprises he successfully did what he wanted; but at the embassy of the princes of Babylon, who were sent to him to ask about the sign that happened on earth, God left him to test him and make known everything that was in his heart” (2 Chron. 32:30, 31). He was subjected to the test because, after such a great victory, and the return of the sun, and congratulations from a very powerful kingdom, his heart was exalted. In the same book it is written: He brought many gifts to the Lord to Jerusalem, and Hezekiah gave to the king of Judah, and he became exalted above the combs of all tongues to this day. In those days Hezekiah was sick even to the point of death, and he prayed to the Lord: and when he heard him, he gave him a sign. And Hezekiah did not repay according to the recompense he had given him, but his heart was lifted up, and wrath came upon him, both on Judah and on Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 32:23–25). And again the Holy Scripture says that the exaltation of his heart was smoothed out by repentance, adding: And Hezekiah humbled himself from the height of his heart, and he that dwelt in Jerusalem, and the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:26). So, he rejoiced at the arrival of the ambassadors of Merodach, whom the Jews think was the Father of Nebuchadnezzar, and the presentation of gifts, and congratulations on his recovery. And he showed them, according to the Seventy, the house of nechotha, instead of which Symmachus translated his aromas; and treasuries of silver, and gold, and incense, and the best ointment, which in Hebrew is written: good oil; and all the storehouses of vessels (gazae), or whatever it is read (in Hebrew), their vessels. The word gaza in Persian refers to wealth, and this is not a Hebrew word, but a barbaric one. And there was not, he says, a word (which, according to Jewish custom, is often mistaken for a thing) that he did not show to them in his house and in all his possessions. Hence the completely righteous anger of God, since he showed the treasures not only of his own and the palace, but also of the church (which, of course, was in his possession), from the doors of which he had previously removed sheets of gold. Poem. 3–8. So Isaiah the prophet went in to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say, and where did they come to you from?” And Hezekiah said, They came to me from a distant land, from Babylon. And (Isaiah) said: What did they see in your house? And Hezekiah said, They have seen all that is in my house; There was not a word or thing that I did not show them in my treasures. And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: Behold, the day will come, and all that is in your house, and all that your fathers have gathered up until this day, will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will remain, said the Lord. And they will take from your sons who will come from you, whom you will bear, and they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which he hath spoken. And he said: Let there be only peace and truth in my days. The Jews say that Hezekiah was sick because, after the unheard-of victory of the Jews and the death of the king of Assyria, he did not sing songs of praise to the Lord, which Moses sang after the drowning of Pharaoh (Ex. 15), and Devorah, after the killing of Sisera (Judg. 5), and Anna, after the birth of Samuel (1 Sam. 2) that, therefore, he was reminded of his frailty, and that again, after bodily health and a great sign, another case of pride presented itself, which he, as a prudent man and a reverer of God, should have avoided, and not shown to foreigners the riches that he owned, because they had been given to him by God. From this also, according to the laws of allegorical speech, we learn that we should not throw pearls before swine and give holy things to dogs (Matthew 7:6). For he who is faithful in spirit conceals his deeds; and whoever does not do this, all his virtue weakens, and his offspring perish, and he, having lost his masculine strength, falls into feminine effeminacy (Prov. 11:13-15). So Isaiah enters the king, and, as if not knowing, asks: what did these men say, and where did they come from? Proposes two questions: what did they say, and did they come to challenge them? He gave an answer to one question, omitting another - an answer that should be read with special emphasis [ἐμφάσει] and pride: from a distant land they came to me, from Babylon, because the more distant the country from which they came, the more glorious is the one for whom they came. And they came, he says, to me, who should have said: they came to glorify God for a great sign, from Babylon, the most powerful city in the entire universe. And again Isaiah says: what have they seen in your house! And he answered partly correctly, that they saw everything in his house, and that there was not a thing that he did not show them in his treasuries. But he is silent about something else, regarding which he feared displeasure, that he showed them everything that he had in his power, and also, without a doubt, the utensils of the church. Therefore, Isaiah pronounces the sentence by the word of God: Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: the time will come when everything that is in your house and collected by the labor of not yours, but your Fathers, will be transferred to Babylon, and from your seed there will be eunuchs in the royal palace. From this the Jews conclude that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, who came from the royal tribe and were undoubtedly in the service of King Nebuchadnezzar, were made eunuchs. So Hezekiah said, Good is the word of the Lord which He has spoken. For this he is condemned by the Jews, why did he not imitate the goodness of Moses, who said to the Lord: And now, if thou wilt forgive them their sin, forgive it: and if not, blot me out of thy book, thou hast written it down (Ex. 32:32). Therefore, the Apostle Paul desires to be excommunicated from Christ for his brothers the Israelites (Rom. 9:3). And therefore [according to the Jews] Hezekiah was not approved by the words of God, who further says: Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God (Isa. 40:1), so that those for whom he did not ask may be comforted by the mercy of God. Chapter XL. - Poem. 1–2. Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God: speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call upon it; for the time of his wickedness is ended, his iniquity is forgiven. He accepted from the hand of the Lord double for all his sins. LXX: Comfort, comfort my people, says God ÷ priests ⁑ speak to the heart of Jerusalem, comfort her: for the time of her humiliation is ended. His sin was resolved, for he accepted his sins from the hand of the Lord. According to other translators, others are commanded to comfort both the people of God and Jerusalem together: according to the Hebrew text, the people themselves are commanded to comfort, to speak to the heart of Jerusalem and to call upon it. “Speaking to the heart of Jerusalem” is a feature of the language [idioma] of the Scriptures. For whoever speaks to the sad and is a gentle comforter is said to speak to the heart. This can be taught to us by Shechem, the son of Hamor, who, after corrupting Dinah, spoke to her heart and consoled her [Gen. 34]. And wherever you find something like that, it has this meaning. The reason for the consolation is the remission of sins, and the reason for the remission is the fact that he accepted from the hand of the Lord double for all his sins. For whoever knows the will of his Lord and sins will receive many stripes [Luke. 12:47]. And everyone who has within him the Holy Spirit as an indweller, whom the Savior promised to the apostles, saying: I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that the Spirit of truth may be with you forever [Jn. 14:16 ]; and again: The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, the Father will send Him in My name, He will teach you everything [Verse. 26]; and again: when the Comforter comes, Him I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He who testifies of Me [Jn. 15:26 ]; and: if you have no food, but I go: if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you [Jn. 16:7 ], there is a comforter, who is now commanded to comfort the people of God. Therefore, the Apostle Paul said to the believers: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our sorrow, for He is able to comfort us in all sorrow with the consolation with which we ourselves are comforted from God: just as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds in Christ [2 Cor. 1:3–5 ]; understand: and our hope is known about you: knowingly, just as we are in common with nature, we ask for our comfort, and so do we receive consolation [2 Cor. 1:7]. Who is this people who, through the apostles and men of the church, comfort not Israel and Jacob and Judah, as the Scripture says in other places, but the people of God, the prophet Zechariah testifies to this, saying: “Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Zion: for I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord. And many nations will flee to the Lord in that day, and they will be His people, and they will dwell in your midst, and they will know that the Lord Almighty has sent Me to you” [Zech. 2:10. 11]. This testimony clearly shows that very many nations must be converted to the people of God. And this says the Lord, sent by the Lord, whose name is Almighty. And then it should be noted that our sins are not resolved if we have not accepted them from the hand of the Lord. And remission of sins and remission are not the same thing. For to whom they are released, he does not need permission, hearing in the Gospel; be of good cheer, child, your sins will be forgiven [Matt. 9:2]. To whom they are permitted, they are permitted because they are purified and resolved through punishment. According to history, Jerusalem accepted its sins from the hand of the Lord: the first time - from the Babylonians, the second - from the Romans. And what is added by the Seventy the priests must mark in front with an obel. Poem. 3–5. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. Every valley will be exalted, and every mountain and hill will be made low: and the crooked will be made straight, and the rough will be made smooth. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see together what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. LXX: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low: and the crooked will be made straight, and the rough will be made plain. And the glory of the Lord will appear, and all flesh will see the salvation of God, for the Lord has spoken it. The scribes and Pharisees and the leaders of the Jews, who remembered this voice, when they heard that John was preaching the baptism of repentance in the desert and teaching the people, they sent to ask him whether he was the Christ, or Elijah, or the Prophet. And when he answered that he was none of them, the messengers again asked: Who are you? Yes, the lady’s answer to those who sent us: what are you saying about yourself [Jn. 1:22 ]? And he answered: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: straighten the way of the Lord: just as Isaiah the prophet said [Jn. 1:23]. Here we should pay attention to the fact that the straight ways of the Lord and the paths of our God: the filling of valleys and the lowering of mountains and hills, and the straightening of crooked places, and the leveling of uneven places and the steepness and glory of the Lord and the salvation of our God, are preached not in Jerusalem, but in the desert of the Church and in the desert multitude of the pagans, about which desert we read above: “Rejoice, thirsty desert, let the desert rejoice, and let the desert blossom as lily" [Isa. 35:1]. For she was deprived of the knowledge of God and was held by idols, low in confession, high in pride, impenetrable and unapproachable in savagery. But after the glory of the Lord appeared and all flesh saw the salvation of God, everything suddenly changed, and the way was prepared for the Lord, so that the glory of God appeared in the desert, when the Lord was baptized in the Jordan, and the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended and rested on Him, and the voice of the Father was heard from heaven saying: This is My beloved Son, in Him I am well pleased [Matt. 3:17]: Hear him [Matt. 17:5]. And all flesh saw the salvation of God. She was called flesh because she did not previously have the Holy Spirit. About her the Lord says: My Spirit shall not abide in these men, for they are flesh [Gen. 6:3]. But that flesh, about which He spoke through Joel: I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and they will prophesy [Joel. 2:22], will see the salvation of God. It was not only at that time that John cried out, who, being the forerunner and predecessor of the Word of God, is rightly called a voice (Matthew 3:3), but even now in the desert of the pagans the teachers of the churches are proclaiming so that we make straight paths and paths for God in our hearts, and are filled with virtues, and humble ourselves with humility, so that we change the crooked into the straight, turn the cruel into the tender, and thus become worthy see the glory of the Lord and the salvation of God. Poem. 6–8. Speaker's voice: shout. And I said: what shall I proclaim? All flesh is grass, and all its glory is like the flower of a field. The grass has dried up, the color has faded; for the spirit of God breathed upon him: verily the people are grass. The grass has dried up, the color has faded; The word of our Lord will endure forever. LXX: Speaker's voice: shout. And I said: what shall I proclaim? All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is like the flower of the field. The grass withered and the color fell, for the spirit of God breathed upon him, truly the people are grass, the grass withered, the color fell. ⁑ The Word of our God endures forever. That which is marked by asterisks: for the spirit of God blew upon him: verily the people are grass: the grass withered, the color fell, added from the Hebrew text and the edition of Theodotion. From this it is obvious that this was either omitted by the Seventy, or little by little, through the fault of the scribes, disappeared from the text, since both the previous and subsequent verses end with the word color. Above we read how the prophet says: and I heard the voice of the Lord saying: whom I will send, and who will go to this people; and rekokh: Behold, I am: send me. And he said: go and speak to this people: with hearing you will hear, but you will not understand: and with seeing you will see, but you will not see (Isa. 6:8, 9), and so on. Since during this proclamation he suffered cruelties, now, when the voice of the Lord says: shout, he, fearing this, asks what he should proclaim, and, starting with the general: all flesh is grass, and all its glory, like the color of grass, moves on to the particular, in order nevertheless to say about the people: truly the people are grass. And in fact, if anyone pays attention to the frailty of the flesh and to the fact that we grow and grow old every minute, and do not remain in the same state, and that even what we say, dictate and write flies away along with a particle of our life: then we will not hesitate to say that the flesh is grass, and its glory is like the color of grass, or like the meadows of the field. Who was previously a child suddenly becomes a youth; the one who was a youth suddenly becomes a youth, and after an unknown period of time moves towards old age, and, before being surprised that he is no longer a youth, he feels like an old man. A beautiful woman, who has drawn crowds of young people with her, is endowed with a wrinkled face, and who previously aroused love for herself, then inspires self-loathing. The famous Greek speaker 48 writes about this: “physical beauty either fades with time, or disappears from illness.” So, the flesh has dried up, and the beauty of the one who bears the image of the earth and serves vices and luxury, and is a grass and a transitory flower, has fallen; for the spirit of wrath and judgment of God blew upon her (from general reasoning let us return to the order of Scripture). Whoever has and guards in himself the image of heavenly things, that is the flesh that sees the salvation of God, which is daily renewed into knowledge in the image of the Creator (Col. 3:10), and, receiving an incorruptible and immortal body, changes glory, and not nature. The Word of our Lord and those who are united with the Word remain forever. Poem. 9–11. Ascend to the high mountain, the evangelist of Zion! lift up your voice with power, O evangelist of Jerusalem! exalt yourself, do not be afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with power, and His arm will have dominion. This is His reward with Him, and His work is before Him. Like a shepherd, He will feed His flock, gather the lambs with His hand and make them rest in His bosom; He will carry pregnant women himself. LXX: Go up to the high mountain, O preacher of the good news to Zion! lift up your voice with might, bringing good news to Jerusalem! Lift up, do not be afraid, say to the cities of Judah: This is your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with power, and His arm with power: behold, His reward is with Him, and the work is in His sight. Like a shepherd, He will feed His people, and with His hand He will gather the lambs, and comfort the pregnant women. The face of the apostles is commanded that for the gospel of all flesh, which will see the salvation of God, they ascend to the sublime, and, intending to speak about great things, remain in the heavenly. But the Hebrew text and other translators put the feminine gender, saying: the evangelist of Zion and the evangelist of Jerusalem. This word according to the Greek [translators] is ambiguous, so that we can understand either the one who proclaims, or the one by whom it is announced. So whether the word of God and the salvation of the Lord proclaims to Zion and Jerusalem: From Zion shall the law go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isa. 2:3), or is it proclaimed to them through the apostles, they must ascend to the sublime and pass on to the things above. And it is surprising that even though Zion itself is a mountain, since Scripture says: This is Mount Zion, in which you dwell (Ps. 73:2); however, he receives a command to ascend another high mountain, from which the prince of Tire was wounded (Ezek. 28:16). And since there were many things contrary to the teaching of the apostles, and they were brought before the rulers and the judgment seat, it is added: lift up, do not be afraid; tell the cities of Judah, that is, the synagogues and the people of Judah, about whom the Lord said: I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24). And the Apostle Paul says: it is not right for you to speak the word of God first (Acts 13:46). What are they commanded to say? This is your God, whom you have always looked for: this is the Lord God, whom you despised when he came in humiliation, will come with power. And His power, which formerly took the form of a servant, being obedient to the Father even unto death (Phil. 2:7, 8), will rule. This is His reward with Him, and His work is before Him (Isa. 40:10. 62:11). Accordingly, He himself says in the Gospel: for the Son of man will come in the glory of His Father, and then He will reward everyone according to his deeds (Matthew 16:27). Like a shepherd, He will feed His flock. The one who is later to come in glory first takes on the image of a shepherd and says about Himself: I am the good shepherd, and I know My, and they know My, and I lay down My life for the sheep (John 10:14, 15). About Him in Zechariah the Father says: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered (Zech. 13:7). With His hand, He says, He will gather together the lambs, not younglings, and rams, and goats, and great sheep, which through Ezekiel (chap. 34) threatens because they feed on milk, and are clothed with waves, and trample underfoot the weak flock, but still very tender and in the state of innocent infancy in Christ, lambs, recently reborn in baptism, about which the Lord himself spoke to Peter: Feed my lambs (John 21:15). Therefore, in the same Ezekiel it is written: I will raise up for them one shepherd, and I will shepherd My servant David; I will shepherd him, and he will be their shepherd, and the Lord will be their God, and My servant David will be a prince among them. I am the Lord, and I have made a covenant of peace with David (Ezek. 34:23–25). Here we should pay attention to His words that, after many times, He, rejecting voracious shepherds, will raise up David, our Lord, descended from the tribe of David, who will gather the lambs and warm them in His bosom, and Himself will carry lambs or pregnant sheep on His shoulder, as we read in the Gospel that He brought back a sheep that had gone astray and was apart from the flock on His shoulder. His own into the sheepfold (Luke 15:3–7). We can call pregnant sheep the apostles and the apostolic men and all the teachers of the Church who give birth to the salvation of so many and say to the apostle: My children, in the image of my sickness, until Christ is imagined in you (Gal. 4:19). The Jews assert, and they have no doubt about this subject, that the Holy Spirit is called in their language by a feminine name, that is, Rua Godsa. And what is said in the sixty-seventh psalm: The Lord will give the word to those who preach the gospel with much power (Ps. 67:12), they understand this way: the Lord will give the word to those who preach the good news with much power, that is, to those souls who have followed the Holy Spirit. Also in this: like the eyes of a slave into the hand of her mistress (Ps. 123:2) by the slave they mean the soul, and by the mistress the Holy Spirit. But in the Gospel of the Hebrews (juxta Heiraeos scriptum), which the Nazarenes read, the Lord says: “My mother, the Holy Spirit, recently gave birth to Me.” But no one should be tempted here by the fact that among the Jews the spirit is called in the feminine gender, while in our language it is called in the masculine gender, and in Greek - in the neuter gender. For in the Godhead there is no gender. It is called three genders in the three main languages ​​in which the inscription of the suffering of the Lord was made, so that we know that there is no gender in what is different. Art. 12–17 . Who measured the waters by the handful and measured the heavens with a span? Who weighed the mass of the earth with three fingers and weighed the mountains with weights and the hills with scales? Who helped the Spirit of the Lord or who was His adviser and showed Him? With whom did He consult and who enlightened Him, and guided Him on the path of righteousness, and taught Him knowledge and showed Him the path of wisdom? Here are the peoples like a drop from a bucket, and are counted like a grain (momentum) on the scales: here are the islands like fine dust. And Lebanon is not enough for the burning, and the animals therein are not enough for the burnt offering. All nations are before Him as non-existent, and are considered by Him as insignificance and emptiness. Seventy: Who measured the water with his hand, and the sky with a span, and the whole earth with a handful? Who ranked the mountains by weight, the rocks by scales? Who knew the mind of the Lord or who was His counselor? Who taught Him, whose advice did He accept, and who instructed Him? Or who showed Him judgment and showed Him the way of understanding? Do not all nations count as a drop from a bucket and as a grain on a scale, and are they not counted as spit? Lebanon is not enough for burning and all the animals for burnt offerings, and all the nations are like nothing and are counted as nothing. Lest anyone consider difficult the calling of the nations and the fact that all flesh saw the salvation of God, that those who brought good news (or good news) to Zion were commanded to ascend to a high mountain, and that the Lord himself comes with power, and rewards everyone according to his deeds, and like a shepherd warms the lambs on his chest and himself bears the pregnant ones: then His greatness is described - that for Him nothing is impossible, and the Creator of all things and the Creator of all things can accomplish and this is small compared to that. Speaking about handfuls and spans, he uses words and measurements common among people, so that through our words we learn the power of God. Where LXX translated: who measured the water with his hand, or as we translated: who measured the water with a handful, Aquila translated: who measured the water with a very small finger? For this means λιχάς, that is, that not with the whole hand, but with the small finger, which is usually called the index finger, the entire vast extent of the waters is measured; σπιϑαμή, that is, span, means an open hand from the thumb to the little finger. If we squeeze our hand, then a handful is formed: so that through a span and a handful we will know the outstretched heavens and the globe. Instead of a handful, as the LXX translated regarding the volume of the earth, in Hebrew it is written salis, which Symmachus translated τρίτον, Aquila τρίσωμον, and we, for greater clarity, translated through three fingers in the precise sense that he weighed the mass of the earth and the heights of mountains and hills as if with three small fingers and by means of a small grain on the scales, through which it is indicated to the greatness of God and the power of the Creator. Who, he says, helped the Spirit of the Lord or who was an adviser to Him and pointed out to Him, etc. Instead, Symmachus translated: Who prepared the Spirit of the Lord and who showed Him an adviser? With whom He consulted and who gave Him understanding, and guided Him into the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the path of wisdom. This more clearly indicates the preparation or affirmation of that Spirit, about which the Apostle says: But the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), and: “The Spirit of God rested on Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,” etc. (Is. 11:2), and which below says: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, His is for the anointing of Me (Is. 61:1). For He Himself is the Spirit of the Lord and His counselor, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily (Col. 2:9). He consulted with the One about whom we said above (chapter 9, art. 6): a wonderful adviser. And in Proverbs it is written: God is the foundation of the earth with wisdom, but the heavens are prepared with understanding (Prov. 3:19). Then, the Seventy, who said: who knew the mind of the Lord and who was His counselor, want to make it clear that the mind, knowledge and understanding of God, through which everything happened and without which nothing happened, is the one about whom it is sung in the Psalms: By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of His mouth all their strength (Ps. 33:5). All peoples who have not known their Creator or the entire race of mortals in comparison with God are like a drop from a bucket or like a grain on a scale, which, with insignificant weight, tilts in the other direction. And just as the carrier does not pay attention if a small drop flows out of the bucket, so the whole multitude of nations, compared with the heavenly armies and the multitude of angels, is considered nothing. Also, the islands are considered to be saliva or, according to Symmachus and Theodotion, who put the most Hebrew word as doc, that which has fallen away, instead of which Aquila translated: λεπτὸν βαλλόμενον. The Jews say that this word denotes the finest dust, which, being raised by a whirlwind, flies into the eyes, and is more felt than visible. Therefore, this word refers to the smallest and almost invisible particles of dust, perhaps those that Democritus calls atoms. There are many names that are read (or understood) in Greek as they are in Hebrew, due to the difficulty of translation and the comparative poverty of both the Greek and Latin languages ​​with the Hebrew language. While gradually turning people away from idolatry, He at the same time destroys sacrificial rites and teaches that all the trees of Lebanon and the cattle grazing on it cannot be sufficient for His burnt offerings. If all nations are before Him as if they do not exist and are considered insignificance and emptiness (and Israel is among all nations); then, therefore, he [Israel] also exists as non-existent and is considered insignificance and emptiness. We say this to break his pride and so that he knows that he is like other nations. Art. 18–20. So to whom do you liken God or what image will you put of Him? Didn't the artist cast the image, and the gilder decorated it with gold and the silversmith with silver plates? The skilled artist chose a strong and non-rotting tree, and will look for how to place the idol so that it does not wobble. Having described the greatness of God and shown in part His power, calling also the nations and islands as if for a drop from a bucket and for a grain on the scales and dust and rejecting sacrificial rites, [and saying] why all nations are like nothing before Him and are considered as if for emptiness; He further teaches: to whom have you likened God or what image will you put of Him, who is the Spirit and is in everyone and abides everywhere and holds the earth as if by a handful? At the same time, he ridicules the recklessness of the peoples, that an artist or a coppersmith, or a gilder, or a silversmith makes a god for themselves and fastens it with plates and nails, and firmly installs it so that it will not be knocked down by the blowing winds. As for what he added: a skillful artist chose a strong and non-rotting tree, in Hebrew it is called amsuchan - this is a kind of non-rotting tree, from which idols are mostly made. He says this so that, after idols are rejected, the way is prepared for the gospel teaching and so that all that is crooked is made straight, the valleys are exalted and the hills are low, and the glory of the Lord is revealed, so that all flesh can see the salvation of God. In an allegorical sense, we can say that heresiarchs are reproached who make various idols in their hearts, either through eloquent exposition, which means silver, or the shine of gold, which refers to the mind, or wood that does not rot, that is, empty doctrines, which those who invent them consider solid and establish them through dialectical art, so that they are not shaken and do not fall, but stand on a solid root. Art. 21–26. Won't you find out? Won't you hear? Was it not told you from the beginning? Have you not understood the foundations of the earth? He sits on the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like locusts. He spread out the heavens like a thin cloth (nihilum), and spread them out like a tent to dwell in. He makes the researchers of secrets seem non-existent, turning the judges of the earth into emptiness. In truth, their trunk was not planted, not sown, not rooted in the ground: suddenly He breathed on them, and they dried up, and the whirlwind carried them away like stubble. And to whom have you compared Me and with whom have you compared Me? says the Saint. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created them: He who numbers their army and calls them all by name. In abundance of power, strength and strength, and nothing is left behind. Seventy: Don't you recognize? Won't you hear? Was it not told you from the beginning? Have you not known the foundations of the earth? He holds the circle of the earth and its inhabitants like locusts. He set up the sky as a vault and spread it out like a tent for habitation. He allows princes to reign like nonentities, and created the earth as if they were insignificant. For they will not be planted and sown, and their roots will not be established in the earth. He breathed on them, and they withered away, and the storm lifted them up like stubble. To whom have you now likened Me? Will I be equal to them? said the Saint. Lift up your eyes and see who showed all this? He numbers out his army (ornatum), calls everyone by name, from much glory and in the strength of the fortress nothing is hidden from You. First, he says, I taught you through the natural law, and then through the law written by Moses, I testified that idols were nothing and that the creator of the world was God himself, who founded such a mass of earth on the seas and placed it on the rivers, so that a very heavy element hung on the light waters by the will of God, who, like a king, sits on its circle, as a result of which some claim that the earth is point-shaped and spherical and that its inhabitants are like locusts. For if you pay attention to the various peoples throughout the whole earth, from ocean to ocean, that is, from the Indian Sea to the British, and from the Atlantic to the harsh north, where the waters freeze and beautiful amber thickens; then we will see that the entire human race lives in the middle, like locusts. So, why do earth and dust boast? Since the sky, or better (to take advantage of the authority of the Scriptures) the heavens, extends like a vault, or, in Hebrew, like doc, which we said above - instead of which the LXX translated saliva, and the same word was translated either saliva, or chamber, that is, vault - and such a breadth is spread out from above like a tent and pavilion, in order to cover people like a roof and make them seem to live in a very vast home; is it any wonder if the small bodies of people are considered to be similar to locusts and small animals? Then, and regarding this place, they claim that the ἡμιϰύϰλιον (semicircular) sky protrudes above the lands and that the sky is spherical, using the name of the vault precisely because the middle part of the ball covers the earth, while in Hebrew we read not vault, but doc, that is, very fine dust. In exchange for this, saliva thrown onto the ground and mixed with the earth and disappearing indicates that the entire mass of the body should be considered insignificant. He stretched out the heavens and spread them out, either so that hosts of angels could live above, or so that people could live below, and built, as it were, a large house for rational creatures: He Himself at various times appoints princes or researchers of secrets, so that they would be as if non-existent, and turned the judges of the earth into emptiness. Instead, LXX translated: created the earth as insignificant; because at the beginning of Genesis, where it is written: the earth is invisible and unsettled (Gen. 1:2), others translated: the earth was empty and insignificant. How many kings are described in Greek, barbarian, and Roman history! Where is the famous countless army of Xerxes? Where are the mass of Israelites who were in the wilderness? Where is the incredible power of kings? What can we say about the ancients? Let these examples show us that princes are like nonentities and the judges of the earth are considered emptiness. These princes and judges of the earth (or heaven, as others suggest) are neither sown, nor planted, nor established by a strong root, and as a result of a sudden command they are removed and perish, just as straw is carried away by a whirlwind and a storm, according to what is written: and he died, and behold, he was not, and he sought it, and his place was not found (Ps. 37:36). With such power and majesty of the Creator, to whom do you compare God? Do you not rather infer from the multitude of creations their Creator? If you do not believe the words, then at least believe your eyes, and from the ministry of heaven and all the elements, conclude the power of the Creator. He who numbers their army, that is, the heavens, and calls everything by name, means the stars. It is also sung about them in the Psalms: counting the multitude of stars and naming names for them all (Ps. 147:4). Or by the army of heaven we can understand the angels and those armies of heaven, about which Daniel says: thousands of thousands will serve Him, and darkness will stand before Him (Dan. 7:10). Therefore it is also said: Lord of hosts, which in our language is called the Lord of hosts and armies or powers. He numbers the host of heaven, so that the sun, the moon and other stars, which Abraham could not number, are numbered with Him and fulfill their appointed service, because the sun makes the same journey across the sky in one year, the morning and evening star in two years, the moon every month, and all the stars make their way at certain times, some of them are called wandering, and we cannot see their unequal movements with our eyes, neither with our minds, nor do we comprehend it so much as we are surprised by it. For the greatness of God’s power forces them all to serve in their own order, or according to the Seventy, according to the multitude of the glory and power of His power, nothing can hide from Him, but by the greatness of the Creator all paths, laws and movements are known. Of course, in all likelihood, the accusation against Bl. Jerome by his opponents before Stilicho, which did not receive a move due to the sudden death of this commander by order of Honorius in 408. The first verse of this chapter in the Greek and Hebrew Bible, as well as in the Vulgate, refers to the preceding chapter ΧΧΧVΙ. The Greek text of LXX now reads Ἀναγγουγάνα or Ἀναεγγουγαυά. Joseph. Ancient book X, ch. 1. Isocrates (Orat. ad Demonic.). You might be interested in: