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Chapter 1. Art. 1. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw upon Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Instead of Judas, which denotes the two tribes, LXX and Theodotion put Judea, which denotes the entire land of the twelve tribes, and instead of what we translated from Hebrew into Judah and Jerusalem, they translated: against Judea and Jerusalem. Symmachus, according to his custom, translated more clearly: about Judas and Jerusalem. So, with the inscription I did not want to denote either favorable or unfavorable, but what prophetic speech predicted about Judah and Jerusalem in both respects. And so Isaiah mainly speaks of two tribes: Judah and Benjamin, excluding ten, which were in Samaria and were called Ephraim and Israel and which under Uzziah, king of Judah and Jerusalem, Thul, king of Assyria, had already begun to devastate, and then, in the fifty-second year of the reign of Uzziah, when Pekah, the son of Romeli, reigned in Samaria, “Teglaophelaser, king Assyrian, and took Aion, and Abel, the house of Maazi, and Janoe, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them over to Assyria” (2 Kings 15:29). From this it is clear that, with the approaching destruction of Samaria, all this is said to warn the two tribes. Uzziah is the same one who is also called Azariah, by a double name. From the kings who are supplied in the inscription, we learn that it was at the same time that Isaiah, Hosea, Joel and Amos prophesied; but the beginning of the word of the Lord was to Hoshea the son of Beeri. Amos, the father of Isaiah, was not, as many think, the third of the twelve prophets, but another, and they are written in the Hebrews with different letters: the last has the first and last letters aleph and sade (ץימא), the first - ain and samekh (םימע), and the last is translated by some as fortress or strong, and the first is a cruel or strict people, which we said in more detail in Amos. Not only this prophet, but also others, when they have in the inscription: the vision that Isaiah or Obadiah saw, they not only state what they saw, for example: “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, and two Seraphim around him” (Is. 6:1, 2), but also report what was said to them, that is: hear, O heaven, and teach to the earth (Is. 1:2), and: “This says the Lord God to Idumea: I heard a rumor from the Lord, and He sent an ambassador to the nations” (Obd. 1:1). For the prophets were previously called seers, since they could say: “Our eyes are always towards the Lord” (Ps. 24:15) and: “I have lifted up my eyes to You, who dwells in heaven” (Ps. 122:1). Therefore, the Savior also commanded the apostles: lift up your eyes and see the fields, as if the waters are already ready for harvest (John 4:35). The bride in the Song of Songs also had these eyes of the heart, to whom the groom says: “You wounded my heart, my sister the bride, with one of your eyes” (Song 4:9). And in the Gospel we read: “the lamp of your body is your eye” (Matthew 6:22). The Old Testament also says that all the people saw the voice of God (Ex. 20:18). Therefore, let the ravings of Montanus, who believes that the prophets predicted the future in ecstasy, in a frenzy, be silent; for they could not even see the unconscious. I know that some explain Judea and Jerusalem as heavenly, Isaiah as the image of the Lord Savior, because he foretells the captivity of that country on our earth and then the return and ascension to the holy mountain in the last days. But we reject all this, considering it contrary to the Christian faith, and, following historical truth, in a spiritual sense we explain in such a way that everything that they raving about the heavenly Jerusalem, we attribute to the Church of Christ and to those who, both because of sins, leave it, and as a result of repentance return to their original place - to the Church, about which, we think, the following is said in the same prophet: “Shine, shine Jerusalem, for your light and glory has come the Lord has risen above you,” and: “The Lord will appear in you and His glory will be shown over you, and kings will go in your light and nations in your splendor, when all his sons will come from afar and his daughters will be carried on their shoulders and the camels of Midian and Ephah will cover him, bringing gold and incense, and the flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth will hasten and be propitiatory sacrifices on the altar of the Lord" (Isa. 60:17). As for what is stated in the inscription, that he prophesied under Uzziah and Jotham, and Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, this should not be understood in a mixed way, as with other prophets, as if we did not know what was said in particular under which king; but to the end of the book it is stated what was revealed to him by the Lord separately under Uzziah, what under Jotham, what under Ahaz, and what under Hezekiah. Let us also take into account that Hezekiah began to reign in Jerusalem in the twelfth year of Romulus, who built a city in Italy named after himself, so that it can be clearly seen how much older our stories are than other nations. Isaiah means the saved of the Lord, Judah the confession, Jerusalem the vision of the world, Uzziah the power of the Lord, Jotham the perfection of the Lord, Ahaz holding or strong, Hezekiah the power of the Lord. So whoever is saved by the guidance of the Lord is the son of Amos, i.e. strong and strong, he spiritually sees the vision of confession, when he mourns past sins, and the vision of peace, when after repentance he passes to the light and calms down in eternal peace and all his times pass under the strength of the Lord, and His perfection and power. And when he has done everything, he will say this word of the Gospel: We are unworthy servants, as if we were to create, we have created (Luke 17:10). Art. 2. Hear, O heaven, and hear, earth, because the Lord has spoken. Above in the inscription it was shown who the prophet was, whose son he was, what he saw against Judea and Jerusalem or against Judea and Jerusalem, at what time; now he calls heaven and earth to attention, designating by heaven the highest angelic powers, and by earth the race of mortals, metonymically indicating those containing the contents. Or: since the Lord, giving His law to the people of Israel, through Moses called heaven and earth as witnesses and said: listen to the heavens and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of My mouth (Deut. 32:1); then, after the retreat of the people, he calls them again as a witness, so that all the elements know that God has rightly been called to anger and vengeance for his commands. Instead of heaven, in Hebrew we hear samaim heaven, in the plural, especially when he said listen, that is, semu, which is in the plural, and not in the singular. But some believe that although the heavens are called in the plural, they are understood in the singular, just as we call individual cities Thebes and Athens. It is a feature of the Hebrew language that everything ending in the syllable im is masculine and plural, like Cherubim (cherubim) and Seraphim (seraphim), and everything ending in oth is feminine and plural, like Sabaoth (Sabaoth). And then it should be noted that it is said to the heavens: listen, and to the earth: perceive by hearing; for what is high has greater understanding, and what is lower is overshadowed by earthly feelings. Therefore, the Savior in the Gospel says: if you have ears to hear, let him hear (Matthew 11:15). So, let him who is heaven and a citizen of heaven mysteriously listen to what is said; and whoever is earthly should follow the simple story. It is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that he did not say: listen to heaven and perceive with your ears the earth, what the Lord said to you, but: what did He say to me to convey what I heard in the spirit to you, who do not deserve to hear the words of Himself. Some (Origenists) think that heaven and earth are called to listen as if animated, just as what is said about the earth elsewhere: look upon the earth and make it shake (Ps. 103:32); but here the power of God is expressed, and not earthly understanding. I gave birth to sons and raised them up, but they rejected Me. Instead, Symmachus and Theodotion translated it as follows: I raised and raised sons. From this place, the prophet tells what the Lord told him - that the people of Israel, created by the general law as slaves, He turned into sons and said: My son is the firstborn Israel (Ex. 4:22). And the Lord in the Gospel promises the apostles, if they do His will, to no longer call them slaves, but friends (John 15:15). If Israel becomes proud when he hears that he is the firstborn, then let him understand that he is called the firstborn because the Gentiles are called second sons. For he is not called the only begotten, which would exclude other brothers, but the firstborn, to show that others will follow. And besides, according to the mysteries of the Scriptures, it is not the firstborn who receive the inheritance, but the secondborn. Cain was the firstborn, but Abel's gifts were pleasing to God. Ishmael was the firstborn, but Isaac received the inheritance. Esau was the first-born, but Jacob, the troublemaker, stole his father’s blessing. The firstborn was Reuben, but the blessing of Christ's seed is transferred to Judah. So, they (the Jews), in order of calling, were the first and were called the head, but we were made by the head and are called the sons of God - we are the second, considered the tail, for the little ones received Him, and He gave them the realm to become children of God (John 1:12). And we did not accept the spirit of slavery in fear, but the spirit of adoption, in which we cry: Abba, Father! (Rom. 8:15); for perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). But it is better to read in Hebrew: I raised sons rather than begat them, so that this does not seem to contradict the saying that we read in the epistle of John: whoever is born of God does not commit sin (1 John 3:9). If they were born of God, how could they sin, when anyone born of God cannot sin? Art. 3. The ox knew its owner, and the donkey knew its master's manger. Israel did not understand, My people did not understand. Instead, only the Seventy translated: But Israel did not know Me, and the people did not understand Me. As according to the others, so according to the Hebrew: Israel did not know their Master, and the people did not understand the manger of their Master. The meaning is clear: I adopted you as children, made you my special people, my part, the portion of my inheritance, and called you my firstborn; They did not even do what foolish animals do in order to be touched by good deeds and to understand their shepherd and nourisher. And he compared them not with dogs, because this is the smartest kind of animal and protects the houses of their owners for a small amount of food, but with the more stupid ox and donkey, one of which carries carts and turns over the hardest blocks of earth with a plow, and the other carries heavy loads and makes it easier for people to walk, which is why they are called draft animals, since they help people 1 . This passage can also be understood about God the Father; but it refers more to the Son, because the people of Israel did not know and did not accept Him, whose day Abraham saw and rejoiced, and to whose coming the hopes of all the prophets were directed. In the Gospel he speaks to Jerusalem: “How many times have I wanted to gather your sons, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you did not want to” (Matthew 23:37). We ask: where else have we read about the ox and the donkey? In Deuteronomy it is written: let not the foal and the colt together be deceived (Deut. 22:10), and in the same Isaiah: “Blessed is he who sows by every water where the ox and donkey trample” (Is. 32:2). Ebion, worthy of his name by his lowness, by the poverty of his understanding, 2 so accepts the Gospel that he does not abandon the superstitious rites of the Jews, which preceded them in shadow and image. But blessed is he who sows in the sayings of the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments, and tramples the waters of the killing letter in order to reap the fruit of the life-giving spirit. The ox in an allegorical sense refers to Israel, who bore the yoke of the law and is a clean animal; and the donkey, burdened with the weight of sins, means the people of the pagans, to whom the Lord said: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28). Thus, while the Pharisees and scribes, who had the key and knowledge of the law and were rightly called Israel, that is, with the mind that saw God, did not believe, part of the people of Judah believed, so that on one day three thousand believed at once, and on another day five thousand. And while the wise centuries did not accept the cross of Christ, the ignorant crowd of nations accepted it. Therefore, the apostle said: you see your calling, brethren, that you are not many wise according to the flesh, do not be many strong, do not be many noble: but God has chosen the troubled world, that it may put to shame, and God has chosen the weak of the world, that it may put to shame (1 Cor. 1:26, 27). But this interpretation is strained; the true interpretation is the one given above. Art. 4. Alas, a sinful race, a people burdened with iniquity, an obscene seed: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they have turned back. I put it at the end: they turned back, the LXX has no interpreters, and instead of blasphemy they have: they aroused them to anger, and instead of an obscene seed - the worst seed. Others, following this, translated the Hebrew mereim from the worst, so that the apostasy was not so much the fault of the seed (so that they would not think that good and evil have different natures), but rather a consequence of the corruption of those who left the Lord of their own free will. At the beginning of the book the inscription speaks of the person (of the prophet), the reason and the time (of the prophecy); in the second verse the prophet arouses the attention of the listeners, in the third he narrates what the Lord said, in the fourth, as if in anger, he reproaches the sinful tribe and the people, full and burdened with iniquity. This does not mean that there was another tribe and another people, as some think, but Israel itself is called both a tribe and a people and sons of criminals or wicked, so that formerly by grace they were called sons of the Lord, later for their vices they began to be called sons of iniquity, or, as the rest agreed, sons of seducers, that is, δαφθειροντες, since they in their own way due to guilt they were deprived of the benefits bestowed by nature. And in the words: they blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, it is actually said about the Jews, who cried out: not the imams of the King, only Caesar (John 19:15), and: is not this the son of Tekton? (Matt. 13:55), and: “He has a demon and is a Samaritan” (John 8:48). So, since they forsook Christ and blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they therefore turned away, so that those who were called part and sons of God were subsequently called sons of strangers, who lied to the Lord (Ps. 17:46). The Savior commands that when we take up the plow, we should not look back (Luke 9:62), so as not to imitate Lot’s wife. Therefore, the apostle, reaching forward, forgets what is behind (Phil. 3:13). And what he said according to LXX: a people full of sins, this shows that there was no type of sin that did not exist in the people of Israel. If we read, as it stands in Hebrew, a people burdened with iniquity, then let us remember the testimony that wickedness sits over the talent of tin (Zech. 5:7) and that on behalf of the sinner it is said in the thirty-seventh psalm: my iniquity has exceeded my head, as a heavy burden has weighed down on me (Ps. 37:5). We speak briefly about the clear in order to dwell on the darker ones and on what needs explanation. Art. 5. Why else should I strike you, you who practice treachery? From this testimony we learn that the Lord beats sinners in order to correct the afflicted, and that this is not so much punishment as correction. And the meaning is this: I do not find any medicine that I could apply to your wounds: all your members are full of wounds, I do not find any part of the body that was not previously affected. Or this: I don’t find any blows that could break your stubbornness; for the stronger your punishments, the more your stubbornness and wickedness increase, or, as Theodotion translated, deviation, to retreat and deviate from the Lord. This is also what Jeremiah said: “You have smitten your children in vain; you will not accept punishment” (Jer. 2:30). Therefore, the angry He says through Hosea: I will not sit down on your daughters when they commit adultery, and on your brides when they commit adultery (Hos. 4:14), and through Ezekiel: “My jealousy will depart from you, and I will no longer be angry with you” (Ezek. 16:42). We read about this in the Psalms: there is no affirmation in their wounds, they are not in the labors of men, and men will not receive wounds (Ps. 72:5). The whole head is painful, and the whole heart is sad. Spiritual joy sometimes alleviates bodily illness; and if mental distress is added to a physical illness, then the weakness doubles. Between the bodily senses and all members of the body, the main place is occupied by the head, in which sight and smell, hearing and taste are located; and therefore, as soon as the head hurts, weakness is felt in all members. Thus, the prophet metaphorically teaches that from princes to the last common people, from teachers to the ignorant mob, there is no health in anyone; but all with the same desire give themselves over to wickedness. From the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is no integrity in it: an ulcer, and a bruise and a swollen wound. The metaphor continues: from the legs to the crown, that is, from the bottom to the top, from the last to the first, they are ulcerated throughout the body. Ulcers, he says, and spots and swollen wounds; for the bodies are either covered with bruises from blows, or swollen from wounds, or fester from ulcers. We ask: to what time should this be attributed? After the Babylonian captivity under Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, Israel returned to Judah and again received its former state. Under various princes and kings, the church was magnificently built, so that they gained the friendship of even foreign peoples, the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians and the Romans. Therefore, what he says: there is no integrity in him refers to the last captivity; since after Titus and Vespasian and the last destruction of Jerusalem under Aelius Hadrian, to this day there is no healing and what is written is being fulfilled: all who have turned away, together with indecent things have become: do not do goodness, not even one (Rom. 3:12). And what is added that is not whole in it, then understand - both in the people, and in the body, and in the head. Art. 6. Not bound, nor healed with medicine, not softened with oil. Instead, the LXX translated: no poultice, no oil, no bandages can be applied. The sore and bruise and swollen wound of the people of Israel have not yet been bandaged or healed with medicine. Akila translated μότωσιν, that is, a linen dressing applied to wounds to drain pus and extract suppuration. Neither softened by oil, so that their stubbornness would be softened by tears of repentance. Instead of bandages that did not cover Israel's wounds, LXX was given a poultice. So Israel lies wounded and wounded, because he killed the Physician who came to heal the house of Israel. Therefore, in Jeremiah τροπικῶς, under the face of Babylon, the angels say: “We healed Babylon, and she was not healed” (Jer. 51:9), that is, the city of confusion and vices. And in the Gospel (Luke ch. 10) we read that the one going from Jerusalem to Jericho was wounded by robbers and healed by a Samaritan, and after strong wine his wounds were watered with softening oil. Thus, from the place where he said above: why should I beat you and the whole head is painful to the words: not healed by medicine, nor softened by oil, a metaphorical comparison is held, and the description of incurable wounds depicts the eternal captivity of the Jews. Art. 7. Your land is devastated, your cities are burned with fire, your country is being devoured by strangers in your eyes, and everything will be empty, as if devastated by enemies. This was partially fulfilled under the Babylonians after the burning of the church, after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Samaritans took possession of the land of the ten tribes and the land of promise was brought to such desolation that it was devastated by lions. A more complete and perfect description is given of what will happen during the Roman captivity, when all of Judea was devastated by the Roman army, and their cities were burned, and their country was being devoured by strangers before their eyes, and the devastation of the Jews would continue until the end of the world. But allegorically we can understand this in relation to sinners who, having been betrayed to opposing forces, have fallen from their former holiness - that all their goods are devastated, God does not remember their former righteousness and everything is burned by the fire of the devil and serves as food for those animals, about which it is written in another place: do not betray to the beasts the soul that confesses to You (Ps. 73:19). Art. 8. The daughter of Zion will be left as a tent in a vineyard and as a hut in a vegetable garden. That all Israel is called a vineyard, the prophet subsequently testifies to this, saying: for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah has a new beloved garden (below 5:7), and in the Psalm: you brought grapes from Egypt: you drove out the tongues and planted them (Ps. 79:9). While this vineyard bore very abundant fruits, it had God as its guardian, about whom it is written: behold, the guardian of Israel will not sleep, nor will he sleep (Ps. 120:4); When all those passing by along the way had plundered the grapes in it, and the boar of the forest had devastated it, the Lord left His church and, angry, stood up and said: Arise, let us go from here (John 14:31), and: “Your house will be left to you empty” (Matthew 23:38). And through Jeremiah: I have forsaken My house, I have forsaken My inheritance; May My property be like a lion in the oak grove, and let His voice be against Me; For this reason I hated it (Jer. 12:7). And the comparison of the devastation of the temple and Jerusalem is taken from the farmers, who, as long as the vineyard is full of grapes, set watchmen in their tents; Also in the garden, which LXX translates as vegetable storage, small huts are made to shelter in them from the heat and sun rays and to drive away both people and animals, which usually harm young fruits. When these fruits are removed, the huts made of dried bushes and tents remain desolate after the departure of the watchman, who has nothing left to guard. So Almighty God left the church and made the city empty, which there is no need to prove in words, especially to us who see Zion empty, Jerusalem destroyed and the church destroyed to the ground. And calling Zion a daughter indicates the love of the merciful Father. And it is not surprising if Zion is called a daughter, when Babylon is very often called a daughter. For we are all by nature sons of God, but through our own fault we become strangers. In an allegorical sense, our soul can be called God’s vineyard and orchard, which, if controlled by the mind, then has God as its guardian; if vices devastate us, like some animals, then we are left by the guardian - God, and all of ours will come to desolation. If the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed, we would have been like Sodom and would have become like Gomorrah. The Apostle Paul expounds this passage to the Romans in more detail when he writes: I say, God will cast away food from his people? Yes it will not; For I am also an Israelite, from the seed of Abraham, the tribe of Benjamin. God will not cast away His people, their own understanding first (Rom. 11:1, 2) and a little later: “even so at this time the remnants of the election of the grace of God were preserved” (ibid. v. 5). From this it is clear that what preceded the prophetic speech threatening Jerusalem and Judea should not be attributed to the time of the Babylonian captivity, but to the last Roman captivity, when the remnants of the Jewish people were preserved in the apostles and when three thousand believed on one day, and five thousand on another, and the Gospel was sown throughout the world. Instead of the Lord of hosts, as we translated into Latin, following Aquila, in Hebrew it reads: Lord of Hosts, which LXX interpreters, in accordance with the properties of the places, translate in two ways, either the Lord of hosts or the Lord Almighty. The question must be asked, is this being said about the Father or about the Son? There is no doubt that it is read in the twenty-third psalm: lift up the gates, O princes, and be lifted up, O eternal gates, and the King of glory will come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord “Sabaoth” (Ps. 23:7,8), that is, the Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory, to Christ, who, after the triumph of suffering, ascended as a conqueror into heaven. And in another place it is said about the Lord that He is the King of glory: if they had understood, they had not crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8). Thus, not only according to the Apocalypse of John and the Apostle Paul, but also in the Old Testament, Christ is called the Lord of Hosts, that is, omnipotent. For if everything that belongs to the Father belongs to the Son, and as He Himself says in the Gospel: all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me (Matthew 28:18), and Mine is all Your essence, “and I am glorified in them”; then why not attribute the name of the Almighty to Christ, so that being God as the Son of God and the Lord as the Son of the Lord, He would also be Almighty as the Son of the Almighty? Art. 10. Hear the word of the Lord, O princes of Sodom, Hear the law of our God, O people of Gomorrah. After the salvation of the remnant of the people of Israel through the apostles, the prophetic speech turns to the scribes and Pharisees and the people crying crucify, crucify Him (John 19:6), and calls them the princes of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah according to what we read below: you proclaimed and revealed your sin like Sodom. Woe to their souls, having already thought out evil advice on themselves: we will bind the righteous, for it is indecent for us to eat (below 3, 9. 10). So, therefore, they are called the princes of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah, because they conceived an evil plan and bound the righteous and said: “They are not the imams of the king, but Caesar” (John 19:15). And again: “we know what God said to Moses; but we do not know who He is” (John 9:29). At the same time, they, who boasted in the Gospel: we are the seed of Abraham and the laborer of no one (John 8:33), hear from the Lord the Savior: if you were children of Abraham, you quickly did the works of Abraham, and also: “you were born of the father of the devil and want to do the works of your father” (ibid. vv. 39, 44). Ezekiel says something similar to Jerusalem: “Your father is an Amorite and your mother a Hittite” (Ezekiel 16:45). The Jews say that Isaiah was killed for two reasons - because he called them the princes of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah, and because while God said to Moses: you cannot see My face (Ex. 33:20), he dared to say: I have seen the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted (below 6:1). But at the same time they omit the fact that the Seraphim covered the face and feet of God or their own (because the Hebrew says vaguely) and Isaiah writes that he saw only the middle part of Him. So, man cannot see the face of God; the angels of even the smallest ones in the church always see the face of God (Matthew 18:10). We see now as with a mirror in fortune-telling, but then face to face (1 Cor. 13:12), - then, when we from among men reach the perfection of angels and are able to say with the apostle: we, all of us beholding with revealed face the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:18). Although no creature, by the nature of its nature, can see the face of God, it can then be visible to the mind when it is believed to be invisible. Art. 11. Why do I need the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord. I'm full. I did not desire burnt offerings of rams and fattened fat and the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. Instead of what stands: I didn’t want, LXX translated: I don’t want, present tense instead of past. Then, according to the Hebrew, God shows that He never wanted sacrifices from the Jews, which we read in the forty-ninth psalm: I will not accept bulls from your house, nor goats from your flocks; for all the beasts of the oak forest, the cattle of the mountains, and the oxen are mine. I know all the birds of the sky, and the beauty of the countryside is with Me. If I hunger, I will not give you a river; My bo is the universe and its fulfillment. Do I eat yam meat of yuncha, or drink the blood of goats (Ps. 49:9–13)? And having rejected the rituals of the Old Testament, he moves on to the purity of the Gospel and shows what He desires instead: devour the sacrifice of praise to God, and reward your prayers to the Most High, and call upon Me in the day of Your sorrow and wear you out and glorify Me (Ps. 14-15). Thus, the entire content of this chapter, up to the point where it says: sort out the lawsuits of the orphan, defend the widow, and come and let us judge, rejects the offering of sacrifices and teaches that obedience to the Gospel is higher than sacrifice. And what he added: I am full, this must be understood in the sense that I do not need anything: the Lord’s earth and its fulfillment (Ps. 23:1), which is why we receive everything from His fullness. This can also be understood in relation to those who, not fulfilling the commandments of God, think that they can reconcile God with gifts and offerings, or who donate to the altar and to the poor what they have acquired through rapacity and greed. Art. 12. For who demanded this at your hands? Let the Ebionites heed this word, thinking that they must keep the law, which was destroyed after the suffering of Christ. Let the associates of the Ebionites take heed of this, who claim that this should be observed only by Jews and those descended from the Jewish tribe. So, it was not sacrifices and the slaughter of victims that were primarily required by God, but that they should not be offered to idols and that we should move from carnal sacrifices, as if through image and likeness, to spiritual sacrifices. Saying that He did not require sacrifices shows that the law is spiritual and that everything that the Jews did carnally is fulfilled by us spiritually. Art. 13. You will no longer trample My yard. Note that after the Babylonian devastation the church was again built by Zerubbabel, and after a number of years sacrifices were made in the church (1 Ezra 5). Therefore, it indicates the final destruction of the church under Vespasian and Titus, which will continue until the end of the world. Art. 14. I will not tolerate your New Moon and Saturdays and other festivals: your assemblies are lawless. Any congregation that does not make spiritual sacrifices and does not listen to what is sung in the fiftieth psalm: sacrifice to God is a broken spirit: a contrite and humble heart God will not despise (Ps. 50:19), is disgusting to God. And therefore he adds and says: the new moon of yours and your holidays, so that he does not call the holidays his own, but those who abuse them. And what the LXX translated: fasting and rest, we can say that God accepts that fast that has no rest from good deeds. My soul hates. It is said ἀνϑρωποπάϑως (humanoid) - not because God has a soul, but in relation to our dispositions. Art. 15. You have become my satiety: I will not forgive your sins. Instead, LXX and Aquila translated: I am tired of enduring, and Symmachus: ἐκοπώθην ἱλασκόμενος, that is, tired of merciful, to show that He will no longer be merciful, because it is another thing to kill the slaves sent to them, and another thing to kill the Son. We read this thought from the prophet Hosea: “thy destruction, O Israel; Your help is only in Me” (Hos. 13:9). This is understood as follows: perish, O Israel; because you are saved not by your own merit, but only by My help. Your hands are full of blood. He indicates the reason why God turns His eyes away from them and does not heed repeated prayer: because they shed the blood of the righteous and, like crafty workers, killed the Heir sent to them. Therefore, the Savior says to them: “And you fulfill the measure of your fathers” (Matthew 23:32). For they killed the prophets who were sent to them, but you kill the Son of the Lord. This testimony must be used against those who, having their hands full of blood in their constant affairs, spend days and nights in prayer. Art. 16. Wash yourself, be clean. Instead of the above-mentioned sacrifices, burnt offerings, fat, and the blood of fat oxen and goats, and instead of incense and new moons, Saturdays, holidays and fasts, new moons and other festivals, I want the holiness of the gospel, so that you are baptized in My blood by the washing of regeneration, which alone can remit sins. For unless someone is reborn by water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5). And the Lord himself, ascending to the Father, said: Go and teach all languages, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Remove the evil of your thoughts from before My eyes. This is what John the Baptist says: You brood of vipers, who told you to flee from the wrath to come? Produce therefore fruits worthy of repentance (Matthew 3:7; John 3:7), so that the one who has received the baptism of Christ will remove evil from his heart and stop doing wrong and then learn to do good, in accordance with what is commanded elsewhere: turn away from evil and do good (Ps. 33:15). Learn to do good. Thus, virtue must be learned, and natural goodness is not enough for righteousness unless one learns it through appropriate instruction. And Jesus, the son of Sirach, says something similar: “You have desired wisdom, keep the commandments and the Lord will give it to you.” And the same Isaiah subsequently mentions: “Whoever does not learn righteousness on earth will not practice righteousness.” (Ch. 26:10 according to LXX). Thus, one must learn righteousness and tread on the thresholds of teachers of wisdom. Art. 18. Seek justice, help the oppressed, settle the suits of the orphan, defend the widow: then come and accuse Me, says the Lord. Jewish sacrifices are replaced by the Gospel commandments, and therefore He cares for orphans and widows, so that the martyrs go to war without worrying about protecting their spouses and children. When, he says, you do this, then blame Me if I do not give the rewards that I promised. And by saying seek justice, it shows that not everyone can judge fairly, but those who do are wise. That is why Solomon, in a dream vision, asked God that, having received wisdom, he could judge the people fairly. If your sins are like crimson, they will become white as snow, and if they are red as scarlet, they will be white as fleece. The order of thoughts is remarkable: for it is not enough that he said: wash yourself, if you had not added, be clean, so that after washing with water you have purity of heart, for blessed are those who are pure in heart, that they will see God (Matthew 5:8); when they receive purity of heart, they must remove evil from their thoughts, not in the eyes of people, but in the eyes of God, from Whom nothing can hide. In the words: stop doing what is wrong, you can hear the gospel: behold, you are healthy: let no one sin, lest it be worse (John 5:14). So, moving away from vices, let him learn goodness and care about justice, help the oppressed, support the orphan and the widow, and if he does this, then the sins that were previously bloody like purple will be forgiven, and the deeds of murder and blood will be replaced by the garment of the Lord, made from the fleece of the Lamb, which is followed in the Apocalypse (Apocalypse 5) shining with the whiteness of virginity. Art. 19, 20. If you are willing and listen, you will eat the good things of the earth: if you are not willing and do not listen (or as it stands in Hebrew) and provoke Me to anger, then the sword will devour you. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Preserves free will, so that in either case, reward or punishment will not be according to the predestination of God, but according to the merits of each person. The blessings of the earth, I think, are those that we read about in the Psalm: I believe to see the good of the Lord in the land of the living (Ps. 27:13) and: blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). Or: since he spoke to the Jews, who were not yet able to accept spiritual blessings, he promises the blessings of the present age, so that, prompted at least by real blessings, they would fulfill what was commanded. And since they did not want to listen, but, on the contrary, provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they were devoured by the sword, that is, destroyed by the Roman army. And all this, he says, will come true: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken, and as long as sins continue, His decree cannot change. Art. 21. How the faithful city, full of justice, became a harlot: righteousness rested in it, but now murderers. The Hebrew verb jalin, instead of which the LXX translated fell asleep, means she has rested and will rest, that is, both past and future tense. Therefore, both Aquila and Theodotion speak of the future. In a prophetic spirit one is surprised that a city that was once faithful or a repository of the faithful has suddenly become a harlot. Although this can be understood in relation to the times of Isaiah; but more fully refers to the suffering of Christ, when everyone turned aside and became equally indecent (Ps. 13:3). And although the Hebrew does not say: Zion, the LXX added this to make the meaning clearer. Zion is the mountain on which the city of Jerusalem was built, which, after David took it, was called the city of David. And I have no doubt that there were holy men in it when the tabernacle of God was in it and subsequently the church was built, when Nathan and Gad prophesied in it, and Asaph and Jedithum and Heman and the sons of the Horites were placed over the choirs (which are described in more detail in the Book of Days), so that the worship service, little by little, would move from the sacrificial offerings to the praise of the Lord (1 Chron. 25). Thus, the city of the faithful, which was formerly filled with justice and in which truth rested, is now filled with murderers who killed the prophets and the Lord Savior himself. The fornication of Jerusalem, as he laid out his legs to everyone who passed by, is depicted by Ezekiel under the name Ooliba, which is translated: “my tabernacle is in it,” which is now called in other words: righteousness rested in him. Instead of truth in Hebrew it is written sedec, which means righteous rather than truth, so that we understand that the Lord first abided in him, which is said in another place: what has the righteous done? The Lord is in His holy church: The Lord, His throne is in heaven (Ps. 10:3, 4). In an allegorical sense, we can attribute all this to the soul of a husband who was once a saint, to the soul in which the truth of God previously dwelt, if later she sins and instead of the resting God, murderers - demons - settle in her. Art. 22. Your silver has turned to dross. He speaks to the city of Zion, in which truth formerly rested, that its silver, that is, the teaching of the Scriptures, about which we read in the Psalms: the words of the Lord, the words are pure, the silver is kindled, tempted by the earth, purified by the week (Ps. 11:7), turned into dross, which in Hebrew is called sigim, that is, rust on metals or uncleanness and dirt burned out by fire - to preserve the metaphor, as I said about silver. It can also be said that the righteous and holy men who formerly lived in the city later turned into sinful uncleanness. Your sellers mix wine with water. Instead, Symmachus translated: your wine is mixed with water. The meaning is this: the law of God, pure and unalloyed and consisting, so to speak, of undiluted truth, is distorted by the traditions of the Pharisees, which the Lord teaches in more detail in the Gospel, that they abandoned the law of God and follow the commandments of men (Matthew 15). And every teacher who turns the severity of the Scriptures, through which he can reprove the listeners, into condescension and speaks in such a way as not to correct, but to give pleasure to the listeners, spoils the wine of the sacred Scriptures and adulterates it to his own taste. Also, heretics pervert the truth of the Gospel with a false understanding and serve as crafty sellers, turning wine into water, while our Lord, on the contrary, turned water into wine (John 2), and into such wine that the steward was amazed. The Queen of Sheba was also surprised at such wine at Solomon’s feast, praising his cupbearers and wine servants with her speech (2 Chron. 9). And Ecclesiastes, in a mysterious speech, describes the institutions for wine and for his dinner. Therefore, instead of wine, Aquila translated συμπόσιον, that is, feast 3, which the Greeks call ἀπὸ τοῦ ποτοῦ (from the word: drink), but in our country it is more correct from cohabitation 4. Art. 23. Your princes are disobedient, accomplices of thieves. Instead of disobedient, Aquila translated: retreating, and Symmachus: evading. He calls princes the scribes and Pharisees who, having departed from the Lord, or rather, abandoned the path of truth, took the wrong path and became accomplices of the traitor and thief Judas. We must also beware of this, so that, when receiving gifts from the people of the century, who collect riches through robbery and the tears of the unfortunate, we are not called not so much the thieves themselves as the accomplices of the thieves, and so that it is not said to us: you saw the thief and flowed with him, and you took your part with the adulterers (Ps. 49:18). Everyone loves gifts and seeks retribution. The list of vices also includes those who love gifts. He did not say: who accept, for this often happens out of necessity, but: who consider as friends only those from whom they receive gifts, and pay attention not to the lips of friends, but to the hands, and consider those who have their wallets emptied to be saints; Ecclesiastes says about them: “he who loves money will not be satisfied with money” (Eccl. 5:9). Such people pursue retribution, so that they extol those from whom they have received something, or in any case give something only to those from whom they themselves hope to receive. Instead of retribution, Symmachus translated: retribution or vengeance, - that those who repay evil for evil, tooth for tooth, eye for eye (Exodus 21) are also guilty and do not imitate David: if I repay those who repay evil (Ps. 7:5), and Jeremiah, who says about the righteous: he will give his cheek to the one who strikes, he will be filled with reproaches ( Lamentations 3:30), in order to be like the man of the Gospel, who is told: to the one who strikes you on the cheek, give him the other one too (Luke 6:29). Art. 24 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the mighty of Israel. Instead of: the mighty of Israel, which they all translated in the same way, only LXX, I don’t know for what purpose, they put: woe to the mighty of Israel, which we can explain by the thought that the princes and the mighty are also exposed, about whom it is written: the mighty will be more tormented (Perm. 6:7) and: to everyone, much will be given to him, much will be required of him (Luke 12:48). We use this testimony, if it turns out to be necessary, against the leaders of the church, who by their actions undermine their dignity. Oh, I will console myself over My enemies and take vengeance on My enemies. Again, here LXX puts something that is not in the Hebrew: for My wrath has not ceased against My enemies. He denounces the scribes and Pharisees, about whom he says in the Gospel: woe to you, scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23:13ff.), and in another place: an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and a sign will not be given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah (Matthew 12:39). The Merciful Father grieves over the princes who sin and calls them his enemies and adversaries because they perish due to the fact that they do not want to repent, because they did not accept Him who came. For as He approached Jerusalem, He wept and said: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you have beaten the prophets and stoned those who were sent to you, since your fellow children have desired so much, as your chicks gather kokosh under the wing, and you did not want (Matthew 23:39)! Thus, God’s consolation over His enemies and adversaries lies in the fact that those who did not feel the benefits are corrected through punishment. Art. 25. And I will turn My hand against you, I will burn the dross clean and destroy all your lead. Instead of scoria (scoria), as Symmachus translated, Aquila translated στέμφυλα, grape marc, Theodotion γιγαpτῶδες - grape seeds; only LXX: distrustful or disobedient, translating more meaning than words. For since he said above: your silver has turned to dross, now he holds back the metaphor and says that He turns to him, that is, he stretches out His hand for punishment and cleansing and will burn out all the uncleanness and vices of sins, so that after the lead is separated, pure silver will remain, which cannot be without fire, and this shows that they will endure torment. And in Malachi we read about the Lord: “He himself will come out as the fire of a furnace and as the purifying herb of fullers, and will sit as a refiner and refiner, like silver and gold, and will purify the sons of Levi” (Mal. 3:2, 3), so that after they are cleansed, it will be said about them: “and they will offer sacrifices to the Lord in righteousness.” Ezekiel also says that the whole house of Israel is mixed with copper, iron, tin and lead and then will be purified, so that after purification they will know that He is the Lord (Ezek. 22:18, 22). But in the Gospel, under another metaphor, the same meaning is expressed: The shovel is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather the wheat into His barn, and He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17). Art. 26. And I will restore your judges as they were before, and your counselors as of old. I will restore the faithful city of Zion, which later became a harlot, and instead of the righteous or the truth, murderers began to dwell in it. Therefore the Lord stretches out His hand to purge it clean and destroy all its lead and restore its judges as they were in the beginning, and its counselors as in ancient times. The former judges were Moses and Joshua, the son of Nun, and others, from whom the book of Holy Scripture received its name, and later David and other righteous kings. Thus, he will restore similar judges either after the captivity of Babylon, as the Jews believe, Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah and other princes who ruled the people until Hyrcanus, after whom Herod entered the kingdom, or, perhaps more accurately and justly, the apostles and those who believed through the apostles and were appointed heads of the churches, as we said at the beginning of this vision, so that both the threat and the promise refer to the time of the Lord’s suffering and to the faith that founded the church after His suffering. After this you will be called a righteous city, a faithful city. The prophetic speech obviously expresses this regarding the church, which has to believe in the Lord, both from the Jews and from the pagans. The city will be called the city of the Righteous, that is, the Lord Savior, or the righteous, about whom it is said: a city cannot be hidden on top of a standing mountain (Matthew 5:14). Also calling him faithful or, according to LXX, capital, shows that he will be called so by those who believe in the Lord. Art. 27–29. Zion will be redeemed in justice and returned to righteousness and will wipe out the evildoers and sinners, and those who have abandoned the Lord will be destroyed, for they will be ashamed of the idols to which they sacrificed, and you will blush for the gardens that you chose. Not all will be redeemed and not all will be saved, but the remnant, which was mentioned above. They will return in righteousness when evildoers and sinners are crushed and when those who have forsaken the Lord are destroyed. And although they will be saved, those who previously sacrificed to idols will be put to shame, and they will blush for the gardens that they have chosen. Points to crime scenes - groves and forests. Art. 30. For they will be like Terebeth with falling leaves, and like a garden or paradise without water. Jews who read the Holy Scriptures still appear as a terebinth or oak tree, as Symmachus translated, and, according to the Gospel (Matthew 21), a fig tree that withered when the Lord, seeking and not finding fruit on it, cursed it with eternal dryness. Even the very leaves and fruits of words have now ceased with them; and a garden irrigated, that is, knowledge of the Scriptures, or a garden of various trees, not having spiritual grace, does not even produce vegetables, about which the apostle says: grow weary and eat (Rom. 14:2), and when the roots dried up, all the greenery turned into dryness and rubbish. Art. 31. And your strength will be like the ashes of tow. Instead of ashes, Symmachus translated ἀποτίναγμα (shaken out, thrown out), since when tow is scratched, everything that is useless is thrown away. Consequently, all the strength and pride of the sinners and lawless people of Israel, who abandoned the Lord and were therefore destroyed, who made sacrifices to idols and blush for the gardens that they chose, will be turned into flakes of tow, quickly devoured by flames. For it follows: and her work, that is, your strength or idolatry, in which you wandered, will be destroyed by a small spark. And both will burn together: and there will be no one to extinguish it. That is, the knowledge of the Jews and all the works that they do, or both the idol and Jerusalem, in which the idol was: and when the Lord sets it on fire, no one will be able to extinguish it. We can also understand all this regarding the opposite teachings - that both teachers and students will equally perish and all their work will be food for fire. Chapter II. Art. 1. The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw against Judah and Jerusalem. And in the first vision, which we have already outlined, where LXX translated: which I saw against Judea and against Jerusalem, in the Hebrew it is written: al Juda u Jerusalem: and in this, in the second, in the Hebrew it stands the same. But I wonder why the LXX interpreters put in this one: against Judea and Jerusalem, and in this one: about Judea and Jerusalem; unless, perhaps, because since it says: a sinful race, a people full of sins, an evil seed, the sons of wickedness, and the princes of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah, and an adulterous city, and other similar things, they translated more in meaning than literally; and since here prosperity is immediately promised: in the last days the mountain of the Lord will be revealed, and the house of God on the top of the mountains, then they understood the prophecy not against Judea and Jerusalem, but about Judea and Jerusalem, although in that we also read after the threat about prosperity: I will restore your judges, as they were before, and your counselors, as in ancient times: after this you will be called a city of the righteous, a faithful city, and in this, after well-being, lies a terrible threat: behold, the Ruler, the Lord of armies, will take away from Jerusalem and Judah the strong and brave, all the reinforcement with bread and all the reinforcement with water, and so on. Thus, according to the Hebrew, both in that vision and in this word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw, one must understand about Judah and Jerusalem: not against Judah and Jerusalem, or for Judah and Jerusalem, as Symmachus translated; but in general - about Judas and Jerusalem, which can contain both joyful and sad things. And then we must take into account that since there he sees a vision, and here the Word, which was at first with God, then, threatening the Jews, he moves on to the salvation of the pagans, and in this, starting from the salvation of the pagans, after the punishment of Israel, he gathers believers of both callings into the Church of Christ. Art. 2. And in the last days the mount of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains. About the last days we read in Genesis that Jacob, having called his sons and said: “Come, so that I will tell you what will happen in the last days” (Gen. 49:1), then said to Judah, from whose seed Christ came: “The prince will not fail from Judah, nor the leader from his feet, until he comes, for whom it is reserved, and he will be the hope.” peoples." In these last days there will be the last hour, about which the Apostle John speaks: “my children, the last hour is” (1 John 1:18), the time in which the stone, cut off without hands from the mountain, grew into a great mountain and filled the whole earth, the stone about which Ezekiel says that the prince of Tire was wounded by it (Ezek. 28:16 according to LXX). This mountain is in the house of the Lord, about which the prophet groans, saying: I have asked one thing of the Lord, this I will require: my living in the house of the Lord all the days of my life (Ps. 27:4), and about which Paul writes to Timothy: But if I tarry, let him hang it, as is fitting in the house of God for living, which is the living church of God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15). This house was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, who themselves are mountains, as imitators of Christ (Eph. 2). The Psalmist exclaims about this house of Jerusalem, saying: He who trusts in the Lord, like Mount Zion, will not move away in the living age in Jerusalem. The mountains are around him, and the Lord is around his people (Ps. 125:1, 2). Therefore, on one of the mountains Christ founded a church and said: You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). He says something similar to his holy thirsting soul and eagerly desiring to see the Lord: in all things art thou sorrowful, O my soul, and in all things troubling me (Ps. 41:6)? And again: I remembered this and poured out my soul on me, as if I would go to the place of the wondrous settlement, even to the house of God, in the voice of joy and confession, the noise of the celebration (ibid. v. 5). LXX translated: the mountain of the Lord was revealed and the house of God above the heads of the mountains. The prophet Micah also stated this testimony in the same words, which I outlined in my place (Mic. 1). And rise above the hills. He who is set up and prepared on the tops of the mountains will be exalted above the hills. The bride also speaks about these mountains and hills in the Song of Songs: the voice of my brother: behold, he comes, galloping to the mountains and galloping to the hills. My brother is like a roe or a young tree on the mountains of Bethel (Song 2:8, 9). And all nations will flow to her and many nations will go. For all nations will serve Him, to Whom it is said: Ask of Me, and I will give You the tongues of your inheritance, and Your possession the ends of the earth (Ps. 2:8), to serve Him, according to Zephaniah, under one yoke - the nations about which the same prophet testifies: from the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia they will offer sacrifices to You (Zephon. 3:10). And in the seventy-first psalm we read: the Ethiopians will fall before Him (Ps. 71:9). For at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Phil. 2:10). Art. 3. And they will say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob: and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths. Tribes and peoples, not content with their own salvation, will mutually exhort themselves and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob. We said above what kind of prepared mountain this is for the Lord and what kind of house of the Lord is on the top of the mountains. The house of the Lord is called the house of the God of Jacob, so that we accept the Old Testament, and not, according to Manichaeus, look for another house other than the house of the God of Jacob. When we are in the house of the God of Jacob, then He will teach us His ways, in which we will go to Him, and we will walk in His paths, in which others have walked. That is why Jesus, having ascended the mountain, taught His disciples the eight beatitudes and other things contained in the Gospel speech (Luke 6). Thus, one must first learn the ways of the Lord, and then walk in His paths. For out of Zion will come the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. All tribes and many peoples will mutually exhort themselves and say: come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord, etc. because, as follows, the law will go out from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; It will not come from Sinai and from the desert and from Mount Horeb, but from Mount Zion, on which Jerusalem is built, and from Jerusalem, in which is the church and religion of God. We read that the Lord often taught in the church (Matthew 13) and that a prophet should not die outside of Jerusalem. And above the word and the law were compared: the princes are commanded to listen to the word, and the people are commanded to heed the law. For whoever first fulfills the law will then come to the word of God. And the church was first founded in Jerusalem, and from it the churches of the whole world were planted. It must also be said that in everyone who is on guard and in the vision of the world, both the law and the word of the Lord will be established in him. And he said beautifully: in Zion and Jerusalem the word and law of the Lord will not and will remain, but will come out, to signify that from this source all nations will be watered with the teachings of God. And he will judge nations and reprove many nations. Consequently, there must be a difference between nations, and not all unbelievers will be condemned with the same sentence, but according to the difference in merit they will suffer different things. After he judges the nations, then he will reprove many nations, or, as the LXX translated, many people. And notice the order: the nations will be judged because they have faith: for only by not believing is one already condemned (John 3:18). But many people, by which we mean Israel, will not be judged, but convicted, because they did not receive the Son of God sent to them. Art. 4. And they will beat their swords into plows and their spears into pruning hooks. All the passion for war will turn to peace and instead of discord there will be harmony throughout the world. Swords will be changed to plows and spears to sickles, so that, leaving cruel wars, they will serve agriculture and cut off a bountiful harvest with sickles. This can also be understood spiritually, when all our hardness of heart is crushed by the plow of Christ and the thorns of vices are uprooted, so that the sowing of the word of God grows into fruit, and so that later we eat the labor of our hands, when “those who come will come with joy, bearing their sheaves” (Ps. 126:6). Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will no longer practice war. Ancient history is revealed, and we find that until the twenty-eighth year of Caesar Augustus (in the forty-first year of which Christ was born in Judea) there was discord throughout the entire universe and every nation was burning with the desire to fight with neighboring peoples, so that they killed and were killed. After the birth of the Lord Savior, when, under the ruler of Syria, Cyrinus, the first census of the universe was made and the world of the Roman Empire was prepared for the gospel teaching, then all wars ceased and military exercises were not carried out in cities and villages at all, but only exercises in agriculture, while the war with the barbarian peoples was left only to Roman soldiers and legions, when this song of the angels was fulfilled: glory in the highest Peace to God and on earth, good will toward men (Luke 2:14), and in His days righteousness and abundance of peace appeared. Art. 5–6. House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord, for you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob. After the calling of the pagans and the appearance of the mountain of the Lord on the top of the mountains, the prophet turns to his people, that is, to the people of Judah, called the house of Jacob, and exhorts them so that those who were in the darkness of error should accept the light of truth and walk in the light of the Lord. And in some way he sings David’s: come to Him and be enlightened, and your faces will not be ashamed (Ps. 33:6). For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed. But you, house of Jacob, house of my people, come with me and let us walk together in the light of the Lord: let us receive the gospel of Christ, let us be enlightened by Him who says: I am the light of the world (John 8:12). And having said this to the people of Judah, seeing the unrepentance of their heart and their soul very stubborn in unbelief, he turns to the Lord and says: therefore I exhort them to come to You and enjoy Your light with me, since You have forsaken Your people, who were once the house of Jacob, for their sins. Art. 7. Because they were once filled and had fortunetellers, like the Philistines. Instead of Philistines, LXX is always translated by foreigners, a common noun instead of a proper one, which people are now Palestinians, as if Philistines, because the Hebrew language does not have the letter ne, but instead uses the Greek phi. Therefore, what is said in the Psalms when enumerating other nations: Foreign women have submitted to me (Ps. 59:10) does not mean all foreign tribes, but the Palestinians themselves. And he indicates the reasons why God left His people - the house of Jacob: because, he says, they are filled, as they were in the beginning, with fortune-tellers and sorcerers, and with all the uncleanness of idolatry. One should not resort to sorcery and fortune telling, which, as we know from the testimony of Moses, were practiced by the peoples expelled by the Lord before the face of Israel - the Canaanites, Amorites and Hotteans. Church writers explain this place differently. Some believe that this means that when the people of Judea are abandoned, the Roman army will enter the land that was once promised, and after the expulsion of the Jews, foreigners, immigrants from various tribes, brought by Titus, Vespasian and other sovereigns, will live in Judea. Others believe that this does not refer to Roman times, but to those that preceded them, even before the Babylonian devastation - that it says that they were under the rule of wicked kings and were abandoned by the Lord. And they clung to other people's boys. Instead, LXX translated: and many alien sons were born to them. Symmachus: and with the sons of strangers they applauded. Instead, in Hebrew it is written: jesphicu, that the Jews translate ἐσφηνώϑησαν, and we translate cleave to point out the vileness of the vices in the Jewish people. The Greeks and Romans were once so susceptible to this vice that the most famous of the philosophers of Greece publicly had concubines, and Hadrian, versed in the philosophical sciences, dedicated Antinous to God and erected a church to him and sacrifices and priests, and from him the city and region in Egypt received the name. And under the arches of public places, along with dissolute women, boys also stood for public debauchery, until under the Emperor Constantine, in the light of the Gospel of Christ, unbelief and vile vices were destroyed among all nations. Further, LXX states that their wives were dishonored by bearing strange children to the Jews. Symmachus, with some circumlocutions and decent speech about those clapping, pointed out the same debauchery with boys. Art. 8. And the land was filled with silver and gold, and there was no end to its treasures. Among other vices of the land of Jacob, a lot of gold and silver are also listed. Along with sorcerers and fortune tellers, horses and chariots, which God forbade the kings of Israel to multiply, along with idols, which are the work of human hands, greed is condemned. Therefore, the Lord commands in the Gospel that we do not lay up treasures for ourselves on earth and do not make storehouses from which a thief can steal, and in conclusion he adds: you cannot work for God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). The well-known passage of the verse: the miser is always in need, the prophet perfectly expressed in other words, saying: and there is no end to her treasures. Not because the treasures have no end, but because the spirit of those who possess them is not satisfied. With these words, both peoples, the Jews and the Romans, are condemned for their greed, as reported by both Greek and Latin history, testifying that there is no people more greedy than the Jews and the Romans 5 . That is why the law on bribes was established 6, and every day we see the fulfillment of this apostolic message: while preaching, do not steal, you steal (Rom. 2:22). The thief - the judge is listened to and condemned by the more thief judge, passing judgment on himself over the other. And the land was filled with his horses and his chariots without number. For that which is owned contrary to the command of God is not worthy of counting. Therefore, in the Psalms it is said: a lie is a horse for salvation (Ps. 32:17), and in Exodus: the horse and its rider are cast into the sea (Ex. 15:1), and in another Psalm: these on chariots, and these on horses: but in the name of the Lord our God we will call (Ps. 19:8). One can understand both here - that the people of Judah, contrary to the commandment of God, multiplied their horses and chariots, and the land of Judea was filled with the horses and chariots of the victors. Art. 9. And his land was filled with idols: they worshiped the work of their hands that their fingers had made, and the man bowed down, and the man humbled himself. Where once there was a church and the religion of God, there is a statue of Hadrian and an idol of Jupiter. Many see in this an interpretation of the testimony that we read in the Gospel: when you see the abomination of desolation, I stand in a holy place (Matthew 24:15). And they bowed before the work of their hands: and man, a rational being, began to bow to copper and stone. There are also those who interpret this about the Jews, that they did all this before the captivity of Babylon, and therefore were abandoned by God. That’s why it’s at the end of the section: therefore don’t let them go. We can also say in an allegorical sense that every teaching that is contrary to the truth worships the works of its own hands, and sets up idols in its land, and a man bows down, and a man humiliates himself, and cannot straighten up, because he is bound by the devil, unless the Lord straightens him, following the example of that woman whom Satan bound for eighteen years, so that she would constantly look not at heaven, but at earth (Luke 13). Therefore, do not let them go. Instead, LXX translated: and I will not let them go. If God says this, then you need to understand this: since they did this, then I will not spare them and will not forgive such countless sins. If you are a prophet, then you need to understand this: therefore, do not let go of those who have committed so many iniquities. If we understand this about the Romans, then a more correct interpretation is the following: when they destroyed the church of God, they worshiped not the One who gave them victory, but the idols of their own hands. If it is about the Jews, then this is the terrible decision of the prophet to pray, apparently, against his people, to whom he said above: House of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. Art. 10. Enter the rock, hide in the excavated earth from the face of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of His greatness. As for me, I exhorted the people, saying, “House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” But since the Lord left the house of Jacob, he left it because he did or allowed what we stated above; Therefore, I foretell to you the disasters that are to come and I exhort you to enter the rocks and hide in caves from the Babylonian or Roman army, when everything is devastated, just like what we read in the Gospel: “Then they will say to the mountains: fall on us, and to the rocks: hide us” (Luke 23:30). In a mysterious sense, on behalf of the greatness of God, we are commanded to learn the strength of the stone, about which it is said: a stone is a refuge for a hare (Ps. 103:18) and: you lifted me up on a stone (Ps. 26:6). Also, Moses is placed in a cleft of the rock to see God from behind (Ex. 33), and: “the people drank from the spiritual stone that followed them” (1 Cor. 10:4). The one who enters his bedroom and, having locked the door, prays to the Father, so that, consisting of an earthly body, he does not notice the passing storm of the world, hides in the rock. Art. 11. The proud glances of man are cast down, and the heights of men are bowed down: but the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. When the enemies come, and the sword of Babylon or Rome devastates the entire region, and the armies of warriors lay siege to Jerusalem; then neither wealth, nor the nobility of the family, nor the influence of merit will be able to protect anyone, but there will be one captivity for everyone, and one God will rise, whose wrath no one will be able to turn away. Many understand this about the day of judgment, that every creation will humble itself in comparison with the divine glory, and will bow down and recognize its insignificance. Art. 12. For the day of the Lord of hosts is against everyone who is proud and exalted, and against everyone who is proud. And this is in connection with the previous one. On that day, he says, in which the Lord alone will be exalted, that is, on the day of the Lord’s vengeance, all those who exalt themselves, the arrogant, and the proud will be subjected to captivity and the sword. Metaphorically, we are talking about nobles and princes: that the more they are proud, the more they will be humiliated, for the Lord resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). Those who understand this in relation to the day of judgment think that the devil is called proud, exalted, arrogant and arrogant. He proudly says: “I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, I will sit on a high mountain, on all the high mountains to the north, I will ascend upon the clouds, I will be like the Most High” (Isa. 14:13, 14), while praise will be uttered from the mouths of babes and sucklings, so that the enemy and avenger will be cast down (Ps. 8:3). Art. 13. And to all the high and towering cedars of Lebanon, and to all the oaks of Bashan. And in the twenty-eighth psalm it is sung: the voice of the Lord breaking the cedars, and the Lord destroys the cedars of Lebanon, and I am consumed like the calf of Lebanon (Ps. 28:5, 6), and in the thirty-sixth psalm: I saw the wicked exalting itself and standing tall like the cedars of Lebanon: and I died and behold, and sought him, and his place was not found (Ps. 37:35, 36). We also know that the oak trees of Bashan, which Aquila translated δρύαϛ, and Symmachus: βαλάνούϛ, produce acorns, which although they bear fruit, they serve as food for pigs, and not for people. Bashan is a country in Arabia, which was ruled by Og, called the king of Bashan, and means αἰσχύνη, that is, dishonor, which if we want to translate confusion, then the latter meaning has more σύγχυσιϛ, that is, Babylon, than Bashan. So the vengeance of God will rise upon all who indulge in pride, commit dishonest deeds and drown in the mud of vices. If a prudent reader asks why cedar trees were placed in the church of the Lord, and in the hundred and third psalm we read according to the Hebrew original: “the trees of the Lord will be satisfied, the cedars of Lebanon, which you planted: sparrows will nest there” (Ps. 103:16,17), and among other trees, cedars are also recognized to the praises of the Lord, and at the coming of the Lord, when all the forests and the trees of the field will spread their branches, it is written: “I will plant in the land waterless cedar, and beech, and cypress and pine” (Is. 41:19 according to LXX); and now prophetic speech threatens the cedars of Lebanon with the day of the Lord? - then it must be said that from the same kind of people, some are elevated to the kingdom, others are relegated to punishment, and the cedars of Lebanon, crushed for pride, are chosen if they are fragrant and say with the apostle: This is the fragrance of Christ (2 Cor. 2:15). Art. 14. And on all the high mountains, and on all the hills that rise above. Just as on the good side, according to the difference in virtues, pious people are called mountains and hills, so among the wicked, according to the difference in vices, and mainly according to pride, some are mountains, and others are hills; on them it will be the day of the Lord, and about them it is written in Ezekiel: This says Adonai the Lord to the mountains and hills: Behold, I will bring down a sword, and your high places will be consumed, and your altars will be broken, etc. (Ezek. 6:3). Art. 15. And on every high tower, and on every fortified wall. Those who date this back to the times of Vespasian and Hadrian say that what was written was fulfilled physically, because neither the high tower, nor the strongest wall, nor all the multitude of ships and commercial industry could overcome the forces of the Roman army; but the inhabitants of Judea were so horrified that with their wives and children, gold and silver, in which they believed they could help themselves, they took refuge in earthen ditches and fled to the deepest caves. For if for gluttons and intemperate people the womb serves as a god, then why should not gold and silver be called the god of the selfish? Others date it back to Babylonian times. So, I will go through everything separately according to the rules of tropological interpretation. The tower is built either to strengthen the city, or for observation, in order to see a suitable enemy from afar. Thus, each of us must build a tower, having calculated the costs in advance, so that, according to the Gospel parable (Luke 14), we will not be ridiculed if we are not able to complete the work. This tower, being well built, stands firmly. If, proudly rising, it does not have solid foundations, then it will fall on the one who built it, just like the tower of Siloam, which killed eighteen people. Therefore, the Lord says to those listening: unless you repent, you will perish (Luke 13:3). And below we will read that the Lord built a tower in His vineyard, and built a winepress and surrounded it with a wall, but all this was destroyed and devastated, because they became proud with the vain pomp of arrogance (Is. 5). And high walls are built so that the city cannot be quickly destroyed, so that it is not open to enemies; for the churches are surrounded by the wisest men and strengthened in every possible way, so that no perverse teaching will prevail over the truth. God speaks to Jerusalem about this kind of walls: Behold, your walls are written in My hands, and you are always before Me (Isa. 49:16). If those who previously attacked the church move, having learned the truth, to faith, and fight for that which they previously attacked, then it will be fulfilled: having soon been rewarded, you were ruined by them (ibid., v. 17). We also read in the book of Leviticus that a house located in walled cities, if not redeemed within a year, is confirmed as the eternal possession of the buyer, but if located in suburban villages or villages that do not have walls, it can always be redeemed, and the buyer’s price will change (Lev. 25). Art. 16. And to all the ships of Tarshish, and to everything that is beautiful in appearance. Instead of Tarshish, which everyone translated in the same way, only the Seventy translated the sea. The Jews believe that in their own language the sea is called Tharsis, but when it is called jam, it is not in Hebrew, but in Syriac. And Jehoshaphat had ships that he sent to Tarshish (1 Kings 22:49), but they were defeated in Asiongaber. Solomon also had, who went to Tarshish (1 Kings 10:22) and after three years returned and brought silver and gold, ivory and monkeys to the king. But since both kings sinned, one by indulging in voluptuousness and loving the women of foreign nations, and the other by uniting with the king of Samaria, and since both relate to pagans and heretics, in whom there is nothing except the sparkles of eloquence, understanding built with devilish cunning, except the word killing, which is meant by tusks (elephant) and except the likeness of human reason, which is hinted at monkeys: that is why we read in the Psalms: with a stormy spirit you will crush the ships of the Tarsians (Ps. 47:8), and about these ships the same Isaiah says: “Woe to the sails of the ships that are on the other side of Ethiopia” (below 18, 1 according to LXX). On the contrary, there are also good ships, which are spoken of in the same Psalms: going to sea in ships, doing work in many waters. Tiye saw the works of the Lord and His wonders in the depths (Ps. 107:23, 24). For they do not remain idle in the waves of this age, but act and bring their master’s goods and hasten to arrive at a quiet haven; they saw the works of the Lord and His miracles in the depths, when they achieve deep knowledge and, by searching, contemplate everything, that is, even the depths of God and His miracles. Joseph believes that Tarshish is Tarsus of Cilicia, others think that this is a region of India and that this name is also called one of the twelve precious stones, which we call chrysolite due to its resemblance to the color of the sea; but it is better to understand Tarshish as the sea or ocean in general. For Jonah, having set off on a ship from Joppa, could not sail to India, to which one cannot sail on that sea, but he simply wanted to go to sea and head to some islands. Further: and for everything that is beautiful in appearance, or, as the Seventy translated: and for every kind of beauty of ships, it must be understood in the same sense - that on the day of the Lord everything that seems beautiful in words, and that was built by the mind of man, if it rebels against the mind of God. Art. 18. And the arrogance of people will bow down and the greatness of people will be humbled and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day and the idols will be completely destroyed. Human speech seems to have reason until it is compared with divine reason. When a lie comes close to the truth, like straw to a fire, it will soon be consumed and destroyed, and all the teachings of lies, now called idols, will be completely destroyed, as untrue and fictitious. Art. 19. In that day man will throw away the idols of his silver and the images of his gold, which he has made for himself to worship moles and bats, and he will enter into the clefts of the rocks and into the defiles of the mountains from the presence of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth. We said that gold and silver are often understood as word and reason, which are given by God to people in order to either talk about God, or to know Him and praise their Creator, but they abuse this gift for preparing idols, according to what is written: “I gave them silver and gold, and out of my silver and gold they made Baal” (Hos. 2:8). So, when someone, frightened by the fear of the Lord, first hides idols in the depths of his heart and hides them in the abysses of the earth, not daring to bring out what is evilly invented, he then decides to throw away the previous images and does not tolerate their presence in himself. Instead of moles, as we translated, LXX put vain, Aquila ὁpυκτά (dug up), Symmachus barren, and Theodotion put the very Hebrew word pharpharoth. This is an animal without eyes, which constantly digs and tears up the soil, and, eating the roots below, harms the fruits; the Greeks call it άσπάλαχα. The bat, a nocturnal bird, which received their corresponding name νυκτερἱϛ (night bird, bat), since it flies at night, is a small animal similar to mice, making sounds not so much with a voice and singing, but with creaking; Apparently the animal is flying, it avoids light and cannot see the sun. Idols are compared with this kind of animal, which, being blind and dark, are considered blind, as well as all teachings that are contrary to the truth. When they are abandoned on the day of the Lord, those who abandoned them will enter the clefts of the rocks and the gorges of the mountains, so that they will not be in the dust of the earth and despicable dirt, but in a firm mind, and find for themselves various outlets of virtues, so as to be able to achieve the truth through them. I have outlined this as briefly as I could, in an allegorical sense, but the Jews attribute this to Babylonian times and the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Lord arose to smite the land of Judah. Art. 20. Therefore rest on the man whose breath is in his nostrils; for he is recognized as high. This was omitted LXX and in the Greek copies Origen added under the asterisks from the edition of Aquila, and in the Hebrew it reads like this: hedalu lachem men aadam aser nasama baaphpho chi bama nesab hu. Where we said: he is recognized as high, Akila translated: in which he is recognized. The Hebrew word bama means either ὕφωμα, that is, high, which we read in the books of Kings and Ezekiel, or really means in which, of which words both are written with the same letters: bet, mem, ge, and if, in accordance with the properties of the places, we want to read in which, then we say bamma, and if high or tall, then we read bama. Therefore, the Jews, realizing that this was a prophecy about Christ, translated this vague word for the worse, so that apparently they do not praise Christ, but impute it to nothing. For what is the connection in the words and the consistency in the content and meaning if we say: since this is the state of affairs and the day of the Lord will come, in which all the prosperity of Judea will be destroyed and everything will be destroyed, then I exhort you and warn you to rest on a man who breathes and lives like us, people, because he must be counted for nothing? Does anyone praise any of the people, saying: beware of insulting someone who is completely insignificant? Therefore, on the contrary, you need to understand it this way: since all this awaits you and is predicted by the prophetic spirit, I exhort and command that you rest in the One who, although according to the flesh is a man, has a soul and breathes and passes through his nostrils just as we humans breathe and live, but according to divine greatness He is high and is recognized and believed as such. Silently reflecting to myself, I cannot find any reason why LXX did not want to translate such a clear prophecy about Christ into Greek. For it is not surprising that others, although they translated, but gave an impious meaning to the vague speech, translated badly and did not want to say anything glorious about Christ, in whom they did not believe, namely the Jews and half-Jews, that is, the Ebionites. And that Christ is high or highest, which is another word among the Jews called elion, we read about this in the eighty-sixth psalm: mother Zion says man, and man is born in her, and that is the foundation and the Most High (Ps. 86:5), and in the Gospel: and you, a child, are called the prophet of the Most High (Luke 1:76). And, in order not to expand at length (for in the exposition of the sacred Scriptures we must seek truth, and not debate), in this place the Hebrew bama means not high, but high, that is, the very height or sublimity, just as if we were to say about someone that he is not only divine, but divinity itself, not a stream, but a source, not a person, but humanity itself. Origen explained this passage as follows: since it speaks in the singular about one person, it can also be attributed to the Lord the Savior, since the prophet commands us to rest in the One who is recognized as some great one, although at the present time He appears as a man and has breath in his nostrils, as other people breathe. Draft cattle in Latin are called jumentum from juvare to help. The Latin word convivium, which actually means a feast among friends, comrades or acquaintances, comes from convivere, that is, to live or be together. Of course, there is evidence of this from Josephus, Dion and Cicero. In Rome there were six or seven laws against bribery issued at different times. You might be interested in: