Книга четырнадцатая

The Lord, who looks at the earth - and it shakes, who touches the mountains - and they will smoke (Ps. 103:32), who says in the song of Deuteronomy: I will kill, and I will create life, I will smite, and I will heal (Deut. 32:39), with frequent illnesses he also shook my land, to which it is said: earth you are, and you will return to earth (Gen. 3:19), and when I forget about the position inherent in man, He often reminds me so that I know that I am a man and an old man and close to death, about whom it is written: why the earth and ashes are proud (Sir. 10:9). Therefore, having struck me with a sudden illness, He healed me with incredible speed, in order to frighten rather than to amaze, and to correct rather than to punish. So, knowing on whom everything by which I live depends, and that for this reason my death may be delayed so that I can finish the work I have begun, dedicated to the prophets, I completely devote myself to this occupation, and, as if placed on some high tower, I contemplate, not without groaning and sorrow, the storm and collapse of this world, thinking not about the present, but about the future, and trembling not before the glory and rumors human, but before the judgment of God. But you, virgin of Christ Eustochia, who helped the sick man with your prayers, also ask for the grace of Christ for the one who was healed, so that with the same spirit with which the prophets proclaimed the future, I could enter into their clouds and darkness and know the word of God, which is heard with the ears not of the flesh, but of the heart, and say with the prophet: The Lord gives me the language of teaching, which I will always understand. it is proper to speak the word (Isa. 50:4). This testimony forms the beginning of the fourteenth book of Isaiah, which I now wish to expound. Chapter L. Art. 4–7. The Lord gave me a skilled tongue, so that I could support the weary with words. In the morning He awakens, in the morning He awakens my ear so that I listen [to Him] as a teacher. The Lord God opened my ear: I don’t contradict, I didn’t step back. I gave my body to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who tormented me. I did not turn my face away from those who cursed and spat on me. The Lord God (in the Vulgate added: My) is my helper; therefore I am not ashamed: therefore I have set my face as a very hard stone, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. LXX: The Lord gives me a language of teaching, so that I may know when the word should be spoken to me. He set me up in the morning; putting my ear to hear; and the teaching of the Lord opens my ears. I don’t refuse or contradict. I gave my backbone to be scourged and my cheeks to be slaughtered. I did not turn my face away from the shame of spitting. And the Lord is my helper; therefore I am not ashamed, but I have kept my face like a very hard stone, and I will know that I will not be ashamed. The Jews, separating this passage from the previous one, want to attribute it to the person of Isaiah, as if he says that he received a word from the Lord on how to support the weak and wandering people and call to salvation, and like children studying in the morning hours, he listens from the Holy Spirit what he should say, and he did not contradict His command, but when the Lord asked: whom will I send and who will go to these people? then he answered: Behold, I am, send me (Isaiah 6:8) And since he said: hear the word of the Lord, princes of Sodomy, heed the law of God, people of Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:10), he suffered so many disasters that he was subjected not only to insults with words, but also to painful beatings. However, he, realizing that this was commanded to him by God, was not afraid, but in accordance with what is said to Ezekiel: “Behold, I have made your face stronger than their faces, and your forehead harder than their forehead, like diamond and flint I have made your face” (Ezekiel 3:8-9), repelled all their attacks. This is what they say who are trying in every possible way to destroy the prophecies about Christ and, through misinterpretation, give them a perverted meaning, as if if this was written about Isaiah, then they can destroy other testimonies about Christ, which are so clear that they shed a clear light on everyone’s eyes. Thus, and this should also refer to the person of the Lord, with whom the previous book was completed, that according to the economy of the incarnation he was taught and received the language of teaching, so as to know when to speak and when to remain silent. Further, he who was silent during suffering now speaks throughout the whole world through the apostles and apostolic men. And a lot of knowledge is required in order to give food to fellow servants at the appropriate time and to apply it to the faces of those listening. Therefore, the Apostle Paul, to those who did not have confidence in the prophets, speaks with testimonies from their authors: just as Neti from your poets said: This is also the generation of us (Acts 17:28), pointing to Aratus, and also from the comic: good customs are corrupted by evil conversations (1 Cor. 15:33), and the geometric verse of Epimenides: the Cretans are ever deceitful, evil beasts, idle bellies (Titus 1:12). Although in translation [these words] do not retain metric order and measure; but you need to know that in Greek they take the form of verses. Daedalus did this because he received the language of learning, so that he could know when to speak a word. By grace he was given an ear, which he did not have by nature, so that we would know that we must understand not physical ears, but spiritual ones, about which the Lord spoke in the Gospel: if you have ears to hear, let him hear (Luke 8:8). This knowledge and teaching opened His ears, so that the knowledge of the Father could be conveyed to us by one who did not contradict Him, but was obedient even to the point of death, even death on the cross (Phil. 2), so that he gave up his body or backbone to be wounded, and God’s chest was struck with many blows and did not turn His cheeks away from the blows. Without a doubt, He suffered this from the servant of the high priest, so that one before the other the Jewish people mocked Him. Subjected to beating and spitting, He was not ashamed, but like a lamb was led to the slaughter and like a sheep before the shearers did not open its mouth. And that the Son, as a result of the sacrament of the incarnation, listened to what to say from the Father, we learn in more detail from the Gospel, in which He himself says: the Father sent me, this commandment gave me, what I should say and what I should say (John 12:49). And one more thing: as I hear, I judge (John 5:30). Art. 8–9. The one who justifies me is close. Who disputes (vulgate: will dispute) with Me? let's stand together. Who is My adversary? Let him come to Me. Behold the Lord God is my helper: who will condemn me? Now everything, like clothing, will decay; pray eat them. LXX: He who is near justifies Me: who will sue Me and resist Me together? And who will enter into litigation against Me? Let him come closer to Me. Behold the Lord is my helper: who will smite me? Look, all of you will become worn out like clothes, and it’s like a moth will eat you. If anyone considers Me justly condemned in the cross, He says, to have committed any sin, let him resist Me. Who will sue Me in order to be defeated not by the power of My greatness, but by reason? Anyone judges the Lord not by royal authority, but by comparison of virtues, just as the apostles judge the twelve tribes of Israel, and the Ninevites and the Queen of Sheba, the people of Judah. In this sense, it is said to Jerusalem: “Sodom was justified by you” (Ezek. 16). So, since no one can justify himself before the Lord, everyone will wear out like clothing (Ps. 101). And what decays is close to destruction. And, he says, like a moth to eat them, that is, the consciousness of sins and envy of the saved pagans, which is said at the end of this book: their worm will not die (Isa. 66:24), and from Micah against the corrupt princes: I will take away their good, as a moth devours and walks according to the rules on the day of watch (Mic. 7:4). And in Proverbs: pray with the bones the heart is sensual (Proverbs 14:30). Instead of moth, Symmachus translated in the present place: rust, Aquila: worm. Art. 10. Which of you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of His servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and be strong in his God. LXX: Whoever among you fears the Lord, let him obey the voice of His servant: those who walk in darkness have no light. You trust in the name of the Lord and establish yourself in God. You scourged Me, you spat on Me; however, I call my persecutors to repentance. For I do not want the death of a sinful people, but only for them to turn and live (Ezek. 33), and I say: whoever among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of the Servant or the Servant, that is, His Son, one of which is characteristic of the received flesh, and the other of nature. And we should not consider the fear of the Lord unimportant, according to what is said in Proverbs: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10). Perfect love casts out fear, because in fear there is torment. And whoever is afraid does not have perfect love. But here fear is taken in the sense of timidity and εὐλαβεία (fear), about which we read elsewhere: “blessed is he who fears everything” as a result of εὐλαβεία, that is, as a result of fear, who are usually called God-fearing. For the Lord guards their way and protects the path of the God-fearing. It is written about this fear: “the fear of the Lord surpasses everything” (Sir. 25:14), and in another place: there is no hardship for those who fear Him (Ps. 33:10). Only after many stages of virtue do they reach this kind of fear of the Lord. For the divine word speaks on behalf of the teacher and father, giving instruction to the disciple and son: if you call on wisdom and give your voice to understanding, and if you seek it as if you tried it for money and as if you tried treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and you will find the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:3-1). This is the fear that keeps the souls of the saints innocent, chaste and pure, about which it is said: the fear of the Lord remains pure forever and ever (Ps. 18:10). Divine sayings admonish us to him: fear the Lord and give Him glory (Apoc. 14:7). So, whoever fears the Lord in this way, let him listen to the voice of His servant or servant, who walked in darkness and had no light, who had neither form nor glory, but in the likeness of sinful flesh took on the form of a servant in order to overcome sin in the flesh. It is said about him that he trusts in the name of the Lord and is established in his God, so that everything human and mortal can be strengthened and supported by divine greatness. This is according to the Hebrew text. According to the Seventy, it speaks of sinners who did not want to obey the voice of His son, and walk in the darkness of error, and therefore have no light. For it is impossible for wisdom to penetrate into a corrupt soul. They have not known or understood, and therefore they walk in darkness. For they did not fulfill the works and commandments of the Lord and did not sow righteousness among themselves and did not gather from the vine to kindle in themselves the light of knowledge. For whoever desires wisdom must keep the commandments, and the Lord will give it to him. Therefore, it is said to God: “Your commandments are light” (Prov. ch. 6), and in another place: the commandment of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes (Ps. 18:9). And the wicked are commanded to trust in the Lord and, having forsaken their sins, strengthen themselves and rely on His help. Art. 11. Behold, all of you who kindle fire, girded with flame, walk in the light of your fire and in the flame that you kindled; It was from My hand that you will fall asleep with suffering. LXX: Here you all kindle the fire and intensify the flame; walk in the light of your fire and in the flame kindled by you. For my sake it was for you. You will fall asleep with sadness. Exhortation does not help at all, and after crimes there is no hope of salvation. Everyone has turned away, everyone has become obscene (Ps. 13), everyone kindles fire for themselves and intensifies the flame. For they all have in them hay, wood, stubble, thorns, thistles, and tares, which will be consigned to everlasting fire. That is why it is written in Proverbs: fire grows in many trees (Proverbs 27:20). If a small fire consumes a lot of substance, then how much will a large flame devastate? Also, the epistle, recognized as the epistle to the Hebrews, speaks of a land that, producing thorns and thistles, is unprofitable and close to a curse, and its end is burning (Heb. 6:8). So those who are girded and surrounded by flames and intensifying the fire within themselves are called to salvation, and it is said to them: walk in the light of your fire and in the flame kindled by you, so that through punishment and punishment you will know the power of God and return to salvation. This means the devastation of the Jewish people, through which they were betrayed to the Romans and bear the yoke of slavery until now. For all this was from the hand of Christ and they will fall asleep with sorrow and suffering, because neither through good deeds nor through torment did they want to accept the Son of God. Therefore he says to them: go into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and His angel (Matthew 25:41). This is also what the apostle says: wrath has come upon them to the end (1 Thess. 2:16). In this section we learn that everyone, depending on the quality of their sin, kindles a fire for themselves, and how those who are in the same place and, so to speak, on the bed, some are healthy, while others are exposed to feverish heat, experiencing different torments according to the difference in phlegm and mucus: so the fire kindled by sinners has material in sins and in iniquity, about which it is written: iniquity will burn like fire and like Dry brood will be consumed by fire (Isa. 9:18). Chapter LI. Art. 1–3. Listen to Me, you who strive for righteousness and seek the Lord. Look at the rock from which you were hewn, and into the pit from which you were separated. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him. Thus the Lord will comfort Zion, and will comfort all its ruins, and will make its wilderness a [place of] pleasure, and its wilderness a garden of the Lord. There will be joy and gladness in it, praise and a voice of praise. LXX: Listen, you who strive for righteousness and seek the Lord. Look at the solid stone that you have hewn out and into the hollow of the trench that you have dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you: for he was alone, and I called him and blessed him, and loved him with her and multiplied him: and you, O Zion, will I now comfort. And I comforted all its deserts, like paradise, that which is in the west, like the paradise of the Lord: joy and gladness will be found in it, confession and the voice of praise, While those who kindled a fire for themselves and made a very strong flame fall asleep in constant sorrow and sorrow, you who strive for righteousness and seek the Lord (points to the face of the apostles and believers through the apostles), look at the rock, that is, at Abraham your father, from whom you were cut off, and to the inside of the pit from which you were separated, that is, to Sarah who gave birth to you. And note that although he was a hundred and one years old and had a barren wife, yet I multiplied his sons like the stars of heaven, so that their number exceeded number. Therefore, if so many thousands of people were born from one man, why should it be difficult for Me to restore the ruins of Zion and turn its wilderness into a paradise of pleasure and into the garden of the Lord, planted by God in Eden to the east, and so that instead of various trees there would be joy and gladness, confession and the voice of praise? The Jews attribute this to the time of Zerubbabel, since after the devastation of Babylon, Zion was restored, and the church was built and the previous worship was resumed. But as it is said above to Zion: they will bring your sons in their arms, and they will deliver your daughters on their shoulders, and kings will be your feeders and queens will be your nurses (Isa. 49:22-23), and: behold, some will come from afar, and behold, some from the north and the sea, and others from the land of the south (ibid. v. 12), when Zion will say: the place is cramped for me; give me a place so that I can live (ibid. v. 20), which excludes the limitations of those times and, as is known, was not fulfilled in relation to earthly Jerusalem: so here the Lord speaks to those who strive for righteousness, in accordance with what is said elsewhere: seek peace and marriage (Ps. 33:15) and also: holding on to the love of hobbies (Rom. 12:13). And they seek the Lord, concluding from the past about the present: since much more difficult things have already happened, then what is promised will undoubtedly come true. Further, according to the Seventy, it is said to those who pursue the truth that they should look to the very hard rock that they hewed out, and the depth of the ditch that they dug, that is, to the Lord Savior, about whom the apostle says: the rock is Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). And in another place it is written: set my nose on stones (Ps. 39:3). And to sleep: you lifted me up on a stone (Ps. 26:5). For they pierced His side with a spear, from which blood and water came out, and they dug up His hands and feet, according to the words of the Lord Savior Himself: They dug up My hands and My nose, and dried up all My bones (Ps. 21:17). We can call the grave of the Savior, in which He was buried, and having risen from the dead, begat countless sons, we can call it a hewn stone. And he is called Abraham, that is, the Father of many nations. Likewise, Sarah, previously barren, means the Church, called under another name Zion, which the Lord consoled and turned its desert into paradise. For many more are empty children than those who have husbands (Isa. 54:1). And the words: what is in the west, I will make the paradise of the Lord or the garden of God, mean that a sudden light appeared to those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. Instead of paradise, which we translated through entertainment, in Hebrew there is eden, which is written about at the beginning of Genesis. And then it should be noted that in Zion, which is compared to the paradise of God, there should be nothing other than joy and gladness, confession and the voice of praise, so that what the saints with the angels of God will do in heaven can also be done on earth through the unceasing praise of the Lord. Art. 4–5. Hearken unto Me, O My people, and My tribe (tribus), hearken unto Me: for from Me shall come the law, and My judgment shall rest for the light of the nations. My righteous one is near: My Savior has come forth, and My armies will judge the nations. The islands will trust in Me and be strong on My arm. LXX: Hear Me, hear Me, O My people, and kings give ear to Me: for from Me shall come the law, and My judgment for the light of the nations. My righteousness is quickly approaching, and My salvation will rise like light; and in My arm the nations will hope. The islands will trust in Me, and rely on My arm. In Hebrew it says once: listen, seventy times twice: listen to Me, listen to Me, to teach us that we must listen both with our bodily ears and with our spiritual sense. And many tribes, that is, the people of God, are called upon to listen carefully to what is being said, about which Zechariah says: many nations will run to the Lord and will be His people (Zechariah 2:11). Or, as some believe, the people are the remnant of the believers in Israel, and the tribe (tribus) or tribes (gentes) are those who believed from the mass of the pagans (nationum), as Moses says to the pagans in the songs of Deuteronomy: rejoice, the Gentiles with His people (Deut. 32:43). Instead of tribe (tribus), as we translated, Theodotion translated clan (genus), Symmachus tribe (gens), Seventy kings. For we are the tribe, and the tribe, and the kindred of the Lord, royal and priestly, just as Abraham was, called king, and the other saints, about whom it is written: Touch not my anointed (Ps. 104:15). What is it commanded to listen to? For from Me will come My law and My judgment for the light of nations or nations. This refers to the spiritual law of the Gospel that will come from Zion, and not that which was once given to Moses at Sinai; and My judgment will take place in the light of the nations, through which He has decided and determined to save all nations. And so that we do not think that after a long time what He promised will happen; He adds: My righteous one is near or [near] righteousness. For the Father has made Christ for us to be wisdom and redemption (1 Cor. 1), holiness and truth and everything that bears the name of virtue. And it is beautifully said that the truth will happen, so that not just one tribe, but the whole world will be saved. And that the Savior or salvation, called Jesus in Hebrew, is the Son of God, sent from the Father, this was said by Simeon, holding the Child in his arms: now do you let go of your servant, Master, because you have seen with my eyes your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all people, a light for revelation with the tongue (Luke 2:29-32). The following is further: and My arms will judge the nations or according to the Seventy: and the nations will trust in My arm means either that all will be judged by His power, or that all nations will believe in Christ, who is the arm and power of God. And in another place it says: Thy arm is with strength: let Thy hand be strengthened and Thy right hand be exalted (Ps. 88:14), and again: sing to the Lord a new song: His right hand and His holy arm will save Him (Ps. 97:1). For the right hand and arm of the Lord is he who saved for himself first those who were lost, so that none of those whom the Father had given him should perish (John ch. 17). And that islands are called either the souls of saints, who, during persecution from this world, were affirmed in a strong faith in God, or numerous pagan churches, we have often stated this. And just as by the arm of the Lord [we mean] the Savior, so by His arms, which will judge the nations, we can understand all the saints, through whom God will judge the world. Art. 6. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look down on the earth: for the heavens will disappear like smoke, and the earth will decay like a garment, and its inhabitants will perish like it; but My salvation will endure forever, and My righteousness will not fail. LXX. Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look down upon the earth, for the sky is established as smoke. The earth will wear out like clothing, and its inhabitants, like it, will die. But My salvation will remain eternal, and My righteousness will not cease. This is also what the Lord says in the Gospel: heaven and earth pass by, but My words will not pass by (Matthew 24:35). And David sings in the psalm: in the beginnings, O Lord, you founded the earth, and the works of your hand are the heavens. They will perish, but You remain, and like a robe they will wear away, and like a garment I will wear, and they will be changed (Ps. 101:26-27). From this it is clear that the destruction of heaven does not mean destruction, but a change for the better. It is said about them: “There will be a new heaven and a new earth, which I will make to abide before Me.” For if it is written about the saints 55: “We will all die, but we will not all change” (1 Cor. 15) and in the inscriptions of the four psalms it reads: about those who change: how much more should this be recognized in relation to the sky and the sun and the stars, when the moon receives light from the sun, and the sun shines with seven times more light? Therefore, all creation groans and suffers together, awaiting the revelation of the sons of God in order to change for the better (Rom. 8). And not only the souls of people who are immortal, but also their bodies will change, [taking on] a glorified nature. It is fitting for this corruptible to put on incorruption, and for this dead thing to put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:53). When the sky and the earth decay, and therefore that which is embraced around the sky, and the people living on the earth die, like her, not for their own destruction, but for the destruction of the former insignificance and the renewal of the future glory, when the righteous are enlightened like the sun (Matthew 13:43), and after the removal of the former and the old, everything will be new. Some understand destruction and decay in the sense of destruction and death, according to what we read in the conciliar epistle: the present heavens and earth are likewise devoured by fire (2 Peter 3:7), and also: the elements will melt by scorching (ibid., v. 10). This is also the opinion of worldly philosophers, that everything we see will perish by fire. Therefore, the apostle says: the image of this world passes away, not seeing what is visible to us, but what is invisible: for what is visible is temporary, but what is invisible is eternal (1 Cor. 7:31; 2 Cor. 4:18). The Apostle John writes something similar: the world and its lusts pass away (1 John 2:17). And the Hebrew text says: the heavens will disappear like smoke, or according to Aquila and Symmachus: they will diminish to destruction and, like salt, will decompose and evaporate, of which the first said ἡλίσϑησαν, the second ἁλίσουσιν, which obviously comes from the decomposition and evaporation of salt. Instead, Seventy - I don’t understand for what purpose - [translated]: the sky is established like smoke: for if hardness is understood in the sense of strength, then how can you compare something that is solid with smoke? Can we really say that all the firmness and strength and strength of heaven is compared to the empty wind and smoke that decays into the air, according to Ecclesiastes: vanity of vanities and all vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2). And then it must be said that when heaven and earth pass by and decay, then as a result of this, its inhabitants, like it, will die and perish, although we know that souls are eternal and that bodies will be resurrected. From this it is clear that heaven and earth are not destroyed or destroyed, but are changed for the better. Art. 7–8. Hear Me, you people who know the truth (the Vulgate adds My): My law is in their heart. Do not be afraid of reproach from people, and do not be afraid of their blasphemy. For the worm eats them like clothing, and the moth eats them like wool. But My salvation will endure forever, and My righteousness to all generations. LXX: Listen to Me, you who know judgment, My people, who have My law in their heart. Do not be afraid of reproach from people and do not submit to their reproach. For like clothing they will be destroyed by time and like a wave they will be eaten up by moths. But My righteousness will endure forever, and My salvation to all generations. Whoever said above: from Me will come the law and My judgment for the light of the nations, he now speaks to those who know His judgment and have His law in their hearts, so that everyone will do justice and have the law that the Lord promises through Jeremiah, saying: I am making a new covenant, not according to the covenant that my Father commanded, but I am making a covenant, giving My laws in their minds, and I will write on their hearts, and I will be God to them, and they will be Me in people (Priests. 31:31-33), so that they live not according to the letter, but according to the spirit, restoring the natural law in their hearts, about which the apostle writes: for the Gentiles, who do not have the law, create food by natural law; these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15). This law is indicated in the psalm: the mouth of the righteous shall learn wisdom, and his tongue shall speak judgment. The law of his God is in his heart, and his feet will not falter (Ps. 37:30-31). And since the prophetic spirit knew that there would be many persecutions against believers, it exhorts them to have courage or, rather, to contempt those who would persecute them. This is what the Lord says in the Gospel: do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna (Matthew 10:28). And in another place: rejoice, when they say all kinds of evil things against you who lie (ibid., 5, 11). For just as a garment is consumed by the worm or by time, and as a wave is eaten by the moth, so all the reproach of the persecutors will pass away along with the persecutors. Therefore, the apostles rejoiced that they were worthy to endure dishonor for the sake of Christ (Acts 5). They rejoiced because the salvation and truth of the Lord, which promised them victory and reward, that is, the Lord and Savior, abides forever, or in both generations of the former and subsequent people who accepted the coming of the one about whom it is said above: My righteous is near; My Savior has come out (v. 4). Art. 9–11. Arise, arise, clothe yourself with strength, arm of the Lord! Arise, as in the days of old, for everlasting generations. Didn't you slay the mighty one, slay the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the water of the great deep, making a way through the depths of the sea so that the redeemed could pass through? And now the redeemed will return to the Lord and come to Zion with praise; and everlasting joy is upon their heads; they will have joy and gladness; sadness and sighs will be removed. LXX: Arise, arise ÷ Jerusalem ⁑ and clothe yourself with the strength of your arm. Rise as at the beginning of the day, as an eternal race. Was it not you who slayed the latitude, crushed the dragon? Was it not you who made the sea empty, and many of the waters in the deep, making the deep of the sea a way for the redeemed and the redeemed to pass through? For they will be brought back by the Lord, and will come to Zion with everlasting joy and gladness. For praise is on their heads, and joy will take possession of them; sickness, sorrow and sighs will be removed. The name of Jerusalem, which is added here by the Seventy, is not in the Hebrew text, and it is not added by any of the three translators; therefore, it should be marked in front with a white space, and the next section should thus be connected with the previous thought. The Lord admonished those who believed in Him, saying: do not be afraid of the reproach of people and do not be afraid of their slander, and promised to help them His salvation and eternal truth, which is none other than Christ, the arm of the Lord, to whom He said above: and in My arm the tribes will hope. Therefore, the people speak to the arm of the Lord and pray for its coming and ask for the promised help, saying: Arise, arise, clothe yourself with strength, arm of the Lord. Arise, as in the days of old, and show all Your power, so that You, who have delivered Your saints for many centuries from danger, may also protect us with Your power. For You have slain the proud, You have slain the dragon, that is, the Egyptian king Pharaoh, who is also called the great dragon in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 29). You dried up the Red Sea so that Your people could pass through very strong waters and the depths of the sea and escape from the pursuing Egyptians. So You, who have done this, also return those redeemed and redeemed by Your blood to Zion and to heavenly Jerusalem or to the Church, which You have prepared for Yourself with Your blood and being in which they will rejoice with eternal joy and say: Lord, for You have crowned us with weapons of favor (Ps. 5:13). For they will have joy and gladness after sorrow and sighing are removed. This is according to the Hebrew text. According to the Seventy, Jerusalem, that is, the sinful soul, is called to put on the strength of its arm and to assimilate its former deeds, as it was before the fall, when it lived in the day and light. For you, he says, have passed the wide and spacious path leading to death, and have crushed the dragon, the writhing serpent, about which it is read in the Psalms: You have erased the heads of the serpents in the water (Ps. 73:13). Remember your former strength, when you trampled the sea of ​​this age and made it empty and made a way among the waves. Therefore, the Apostle Peter walked through the sea of ​​this age to the Lord, and just as he walked through faith, so he began to drown through unbelief, if the right hand of the Lord had not supported him. Thus, just as the previous victory was achieved with the help of the Lord, so those who turned after repentance and heeded [him]: the food that falls does not rise, says the Lord (Jer. 8:4) and: return, ye returning sons, and I will heal your afflictions (Jer. 3:22), He offers His hand and returns them to Zion and to the height and highest level of virtues with with everlasting joy and gladness, and will place praise and gladness on their heads. For the eyes of the wise are in his head, and they will have this crown and be covered with this diadem in order to constantly rejoice and praise the Lord for the fact that sorrow, sadness and sighs have been replaced by joy. Art. 12–16. I, I myself will console you. Who are you that you feared mortal man and the son of man, who will dry up like hay, and forgot about the Lord your Creator, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth, and constantly, all day long, feared the wrath of him who oppressed you and was ready to destroy you? Where is the wrath of the oppressor now? He who comes will come quickly to open, and he will not destroy until he is destroyed, and his bread will not be exhausted. But I am the Lord your God, who troubles the sea, so that its waves mount: the Lord of hosts is my name. I have put My words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of My hand, so that you may plant the heavens and found the earth and say to Zion, “You are My people.” LXX: I, I myself console you. Know what you were, and you feared mortal man and the son of man, who, like grass, withered, and you forgot about God, your Creator, who created the heavens and founded the earth, and incessantly, all the days, you feared the wrath of your oppressor, as he planned to destroy you; and now where is the wrath of your oppressor? For when you are saved, He will not become, and He will not remain, and He will not kill in corruption, and His bread will not fail, because I am your God, who troubles the sea and makes its waves roar: the Lord of hosts is My name. I will put My words in your mouth, and I will cover you in the shadow of My hand, with which I made the heavens and founded the earth; and He will say to Zion: “You are My people.” The people of believers prayed to the Arm of the Lord, which itself is God's power and God's wisdom (1 Cor. 1:24), so that She would arise and give them help, and that, during Her battle for the saints, they, after the removal of sorrow and sighing, would have joy and gladness. So, either the Arm of the Lord, or the Lord Himself, answered: I, I, and not through the prophets, but myself, will comfort you, the God of generosity and the Father of all comfort. I am surprised how you, when I said above: do not be afraid of the reproach of people, and do not be afraid of their blasphemy (Verse 7), were afraid of the rage of the persecutors, and did not know that they, who, like hay, suddenly dry up and perish, are mortal. And, of course, at the time when you were afraid of them, you forgot the Lord, your Creator. For if the remembrance of Me always remained in your heart, then you would never be afraid of people who must turn to dust. And who have you forgotten? God, who hung the heavens with incredible strength and founded the earth on an unshakable stronghold. And you were afraid of your opponents not for a short time, which could be partly excused for you, but continuously and all day long, so that when you had the light of faith, you were possessed by the darkness of fear and that which thought that you would perish. So, where is the pride of the persecutors now? Where is the worldly power with which they raged against you with furious lips? My Son will soon come, coming and trampling underfoot your opponents, to pave the way for you to victory, or to open hell, not to kill those in it to the point of destruction, but to desire to save those who are converted. Finally, His bread, which is interpreted, with the approval of the Gospel; in the sense of teaching, it will never become scarce, but will always be open to those who wish for food. And at the same time he makes an appeal to the Son, regarding whom he promises that He will soon come, and about whose bread he says that it never ceases, because He is, according to the dispensation of the assumed flesh, the Lord His God, disturbing the sea and raising its waves, so that the pride of the persecutors would rise up against His servants, so that it would again, with the help of the Lord, calm down. And he says that He put His words in His mouth, for everything that the Son says is the words of the Father, and that He covered Him with the shadow of His hand, and that He was covered in order to plant new heavens, and to found a new earth, and to say to Zion, that is, the Church: you are My people. Therefore Zion is nothing other than the people of God. Symmachus in the place where we said: the one who is coming will soon come to open, and will not destroy until destruction, translated: hell will soon be opened, and will not die into corruption, this means Christ, who in the fifteenth psalm says: do not leave my soul in hell, let not Thy Reverend see corruption (Article 10). And in the place where we translated according to the Hebrew text and Aquila: I put My words in Your mouth, and covered You in the shadow of My hand, so that You would plant the heavens and found the earth, and say to Zion: You are My people, he translated this way: I will put My words in Your mouth, and I will cover You in the shadow of My hand, with which I planted the heavens and founded the earth, and let me say to Zion: You are the people Mine. According to LXX, this is said to every soul of believers, because it, being created in the image and likeness of God, did not know its dignity, but was afraid of man and the son of man, who can only kill the body, and did not know that it was immortal, and did not speak to the Prophet: The Lord is my enlightenment and my Savior, whom I will fear; The Lord is the protector of my life, from whom shall I fear (Ps. 26:1)? And again: The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man does to me: the Lord is my helper, and I will look upon my enemies (Ps. 118:6, 7). And what man is is shown in another verse: I have trusted in God; I will not fear what the flesh will do to me (Ps. 55:5). Therefore, even now it is said: you were afraid of mortal man and the son of man, who dried up like hay, for all flesh is hay, and all its glory is like the flower of hay (Is. 40:6), and, fearing the power of the judge, you forgot that your patron was the One who created the heavens and the earth, and all the elements that we see, or those heavens that bear the image of the heavenly things, and that earth that multiplies the Lord's crops. And what is said above: He will not kill to decay, and His bread will not fail, was added according to Theodotion’s edition from the Hebrew text. He disturbs the sea and makes its waves rustle; It is also sung to him in the Psalms: You rule over the power of the sea; you calm the disturbance of its waves (Ps. 89:10). And in Jeremiah it is written: Will you not fear Me, says the Lord, or will you not be ashamed of My presence, who made the sand the limit of the sea, an everlasting commandment, and will not exceed it (Jer. 5:22)? The seas were troubled when the Lord's net dragged out many fish (Matthew 13:47). And the Lord put His words in the mouth of the believer, and covered him with the shadow of His hand. He also says in the Gospel: when you are betrayed, do not worry about what you say or what you say: for fear it will be given to you in the hour that you speak. It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you (Matthew 10:19, 20). And in another place he says to the righteous: widen your mouth, and I will do it (Ps. 80:11). And again: open your mouth to the word of God: for the Lord will give the word to those who bring good news with much power (Ps. 67:12). Therefore, to the inner man of Jeremiah, God touched his mouth and said: Behold, I have put my words in your mouth (Jer. 1:9). He could sing with the Psalmist: put a new song in my mouth, singing to our God (Ps. 39:4). Who did all this if not the Lord and Savior, who created heaven and earth, and says to Zion: you are my people (which is proper for the Church itself, gathered from the pagans), and in Hosea promises the believers, saying: the river is not for my people: you are my people, and they say: you are the Lord our God (Hos. 2:23)? Poem. 17–19. Arise, arise, arise, O Jerusalem, who has drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath: who has drunk to the dregs of the cup of intoxication and has drained it to the dregs. There is no one to support him out of all the sons he has fathered, and no one to take his hand out of all the sons he has raised. Two have met you: who will mourn for you? Desolation and destruction, and famine and sword: who will comfort you? LXX: Arise, arise, arise, O Jerusalem, who has drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath. For you have drunk and emptied the cup of fall, the vial (ϰόνδι) of wrath: and there was none to comfort you among all your sons whom you have begotten, and none to take you by the hand among all your sons whom you have exalted. These two are disgusting to you: who will mourn with you? fall and destruction, famine and sword: who will comfort you? I have often taught that Jerusalem and Zion are a city having two names (δυώυνμον), of which the fortress is called Zion, meaning an exalted place, because it is on a mountain: the rest of the city is called Jerusalem, which was formerly called Jebus and Salem, which the Prophet now admonishes, having fallen before through denial, saying at the passion of the Lord: take, take, crucify Him: not the imams of the king, only Caesar (John 19:15), rebelled and brought repentance, and through the disasters of captivity felt how he had offended his Creator. Doctors usually give a person who feels sick in the stomach a very bitter antidote, which gets its name from the taste, so that he can vomit up harmful phlegm and be able to take baked and boiled foods into his stomach, which a lot of phlegm prevents from being digested. Therefore, Jerusalem, who drank from the cup of the wrath of the Lord and from His Vial (ϰόνδυ), from the cup which Symmachus translated into a vessel for dissolving wine (craterem), and which, according to the book of Genesis, Joseph ordered to hide in the sack of his brother Benjamin (Gen. 44), receives a command to rise from intoxication, because he drank, and emptied, and drained it to the scum, which three translators showed in one word: ἐξεστράγγισας (strained everything to the last drop). This is the cup about which we read in the Psalms: the cup in the hand of the Lord of wine is not dissolved, full of dissolution, and turn away from the sowing into this: otherwise its trembling will not be exhausted, all the sinners of the earth will drink (Ps. 74:9). About her and in Jeremiah God says: Take a cup of undissolved wine from My hand, and water all tongues, to them I will send you. And they will drink, and vomit, and wear the sword, which I will send among them (Jer. 25:15. 16). And having spoken about presenting it to other nations, and to Jerusalem, and to the cities of Judah, [the prophet] adds: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: drink and get drunk, and vomit, and fall, and do not rise up from the presence of the sword that I will send among you (Jer. 25:27). And it should be noted that this cup of the Lord’s wrath is His sword sent among sinners. At the same time, the question arises: how, after drinking, drunkenness, and vomiting and falling, Jeremiah says that Jerusalem cannot rise, and now through Isaiah he says to him: rise, rise, rise, Jerusalem. It is resolved this way: as long as someone drinks the cup, and gets drunk, and becomes drunk, and vomits, and falls, he cannot rise, for he has not yet drunk the cup of the Lord, and has not reached the scum to drain it to the bottom. Now he speaks to Jerusalem about the past tense: he who drank from the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath, and not the drinker. And at the same time, we should pay attention to the fact that from that time on there was neither a prophet nor an apostle in Judea who would console him, and would take him by the hand and raise him lying down, from this it is clear that this is said after the last captivity: otherwise, as history tells, in Babylon and after Babylon he had Ezekiel and other prophets. As for the fact that he says: two met you, or these two are disgusting to you: who will grieve for you, and instead of two he brings four: desolation and destruction, famine and sword, then something similar to this is sung in the Psalter: God alone said, these two I heard: for the power of God, and Thine, O Lord, mercy: for Thou hast rewarded each according to his deeds (Ps. 61:12, 13). For there, too, God says once that He is omnipotent, and the Prophet hears twice - that His omnipotence prevails in both parts, so that He shows mercy to those who repent, and subjects those who remain in sin to deserved punishment. Accordingly, in another place Jerusalem was met by two, each of which has a pair. For after fall or desolation comes destruction: after famine and sword, destruction. We can understand this in accordance with the mysterious meaning about the sinful soul, which, not wanting to drink the cup of the Lord’s wrath, says in the psalm: Lord, do not rebuke me with Your wrath, nor punish me with Your wrath (Ps. 6:2). But if she drank it, then it would be good for her to feel her punishments and hear the Lord saying: when the wrath of My wrath passes, I will heal again (Isa. 7:4). And in another place: this says the Lord: food that falls does not rise (Jer. 8:4)? Poem. 20. Your sons were defeated, they slept at the head of all the streets, like chamois in snares, filled with the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your God. LXX: Your sons are poor and sleeping at the head of all paths: like half-cooked beets, filled with the wrath of the Lord and faint from the Lord God. Instead of half-cooked beets, the rest of the translators translated: chamois caught and in snares, which in Hebrew is called tho, which kind of animal found in the desert is considered among clean animals in the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. This LXX was taken to be the word thov et h, which is the name for beetroot in Syriac. From this name let's move on to the meaning. Your sons, like chamois caught in the snares of hunters, slept on the crossroads and streets, and, laying their naked limbs on the bare ground, testified with their own disasters to the wrath of the Lord and the rebuke of their God. Then, according to the Seventy: who will not want to have spiritual riches in all word, and knowledge, and good works (1 Cor. 1:5, Col. 1:9. 10), but they will be poor, unable to withstand threats, they will not dwell in houses erected by virtues, but at the beginning of paths, and at death, touching everything and leaving everything. It is rightly said about them that they sleep in the sleep about which it is written: they fell asleep with their sleep and gained nothing (Ps. 76:6). The Assyrian king put them to sleep with this dream. And they are likened to half-cooked beets, which is a kind of vegetable that is very cheap and fragile. About these vegetables, I think, it is said in the Psalms: do not be jealous of those who are evil; do not envy those who commit iniquity. Like the grass they will soon dry up, and like the herb the herbs will soon fall away (Ps. 36:1.2). For this is food for the faint (Rom. 14:2). Whoever once became an unbeliever forever is called a raw beetroot. Whoever is content with simple faith and does deeds of justice without reasoning and the truth of dogma can be called a boiled beet. And whoever, further, puts himself in the middle between vices and virtues and with a double heart begins to serve God, is very rightly called a half-cooked beet. To such a person in the Apocalypse of John, God says: “Oh, if only you were cold or hot! But since you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, then I will spit you out of My mouth” (Apoc. 3:15.16). Those who are warm and asleep are filled with the wrath of the Lord and they are relaxed or faint through the Lord God: not because the Lord, who did not create death, does not rejoice over the destruction of the living (Wis. Sol. 1:13), was the reason for their relaxation, but so that those who sinned in the law were condemned according to the law (Rom. 2:12), which produces the wrath of God for those who violate it (Rom. 4:15). Poem. 21–23. Therefore, listen to this, you poor man and drunk not from wine. Thus says your Sovereign, the Lord and your God, who fought for His people: Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of drunkenness, the bottom of the cup of My wrath: you will drink it no more. And I will put it in the hand of those who humiliated you and said to your soul: “Bend down so that we can pass by,” and you have made your body as if it were earth and as if it were a street for those who pass by. LXX: Therefore, listen, humiliated and drunk not from wine. Thus says the Lord God, who judges His people: Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of fall, the vial (ϰόνδυ) of My wrath, and you will drink it no more. And I will give it into the hands of those who unjustly oppressed and humiliated you, who said to your soul: “Bend down so that we may pass”; and you have made your mean equal to the earth for those who pass by. O Jerusalem, to whom I said: arise, arise, arise, and bring repentance! since you drank from the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath, and drained it to the dregs, and your sons, scattered throughout the entire globe and taken captives, lay on the streets and crossroads: then know that you are poor and humiliated and drunk not from wine, but from the wrath of the Lord. Therefore, if you bring repentance and rise up, then know that the cup of drunkenness and fall, or, according to Symmachus and Theodotion, torment and anxiety, must be taken from your hand, and the vial (ϰόνδυ), instead of which in this place Symmachus transferred the vessel for dissolving wine (craterem), you will no longer drink, but it must be handed over to your opponents, who spoke to the soul yours: “bend down so that we may pass,” and when they said this, you bent down of your own free will, and made your body, or spine, or, according to the seventieth middle, and your neck, as if it were earth for those passing from outside. This could be said in accordance with history in the sense that Jerusalem, if it wanted to rise up and rebel, would not drink the cup of the wrath of the Lord, and would no longer endure what it had previously endured. But so that we come to the Seventy in spiritual understanding, the soul is told, humiliated by vices and intoxicated by passions, so that it knows that it has the Lord as its judge and that it will give an account of everything. If she changes for the better, then the cup of fall will be taken from her hands, and the vessel for dissolving the wrath of the Lord, which contained punishment, about which Ezekiel says to Jerusalem: drink the cup of your sister [Samaria], deep and wide, abundant for drunkenness (Ezek. 23:32), must be transferred into the hands of those who humiliated him. There is no doubt that he understands the opposing authorities who said to his soul: “Bend down so that we can pass.” At the same time, it should also be noted that they did not bend her over, and did not force her, who had previously stood upright, to bend to the ground, but they left her to her own arbitrariness. She, of her own free will, offered up her neck, or her backbone, or her whole body, not from the inside, but from the outside, to those who trampled on her. We read something similar in the Gospel (Lk. 13:11–13), - that for eighteen years Satan twisted the woman whom the Lord straightened to her former state, so that she could say: I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, but from here will my help come (Ps. 120:1); and: I lift up my eyes to You, who dwell in heaven (Ps. 122:1). Head. LII. - Poem. 1. Arise, arise, put on your strength, O Zion! put on the garments of your glory, O Jerusalem, city of the Holy One! For the uncircumcised and unclean will no longer pass through you. LXX: Arise, arise, ÷ Zion, ⁑ put on your strength, O Zion, and put on your glory, O Jerusalem, holy city! The uncircumcised and unclean will no longer pass through you. Again in this place the name "Zion", as above (Isa. 51:9), is added by the Seventy and therefore pierced with a spear [obel]. So, to whom above (Isa. 51:17) he said: Arise, arise, arise, O Jerusalem, to the same now he says: Arise, arise, put on your strength, Zion. And what Zion is, the next verse shows: Put on the garments of your glory, O Jerusalem. We said this to prove that Jerusalem and Zion constitute one city. And he is commanded to take off his mourning clothes and put on those that he had before he drank the cup of wrath from the hand of the Lord. And it is called the city of the sanctuary (for this means codes) because of the church that was built in it, or Holy, because of the knowledge of God, or holy, because it alone in all the earth received the law. Therefore, after the resurrection of the Savior, the bodies of the dead appeared in the holy city (Matthew 27:53). But no matter how it was, he, due to blasphemy and laying hands on the Lord (Matthew 27), could not be a saint. And that it is promised that if he rises after the fall and is clothed with power and glory, he will no longer pass through him uncircumcised and unclean, this means what the Apostle Paul also says: some fellowship of righteousness with iniquity; or some communication with the light in the darkness; some kind of agreement between Christ and Belial; or which part I will return with the infidel; or some kind of building up the church of God from idols (2 Cor. 6:14, 15)? All this, in accordance with the explanation we began, can be applied to the state of the soul, since if through repentance it again received its former strength, it would be called the dwelling of the Holy One, and would become the church of God, and no uncircumcised and unclean thought (λογισμὀς) would pass through it. About what thoughts it is said: Cleanse me from my secret thoughts, and spare Thy servant from the alien ones: if they do not possess me, then I will be blameless, and I will be cleansed from great sin (Ps. 18:13, 14). However, everything that is promised to Zion and Jerusalem is not said to stones and dust and ashes thereof, in the sense that it will be restored to its former state, as the Jews are delirious, but to the people of Jerusalem, who killed the prophets, and stoned those sent to him (Matthew 23:37), and finally laid hands even on the Son of God. He, who fell during the suffering of Christ, rose up at His resurrection, when many thousands of the Jews believed, and the remnant were saved. We can say the same about the Church, which is the vision and height of the world. If she falls into heresy, she is commanded to come out of it and accept the ornaments of her former faith. And if she rises, then the rewards of holiness and self-control are promised to her, so that no uncircumcised and unclean person will pass through her. This may not refer to circumcision and uncircumcision of the flesh, but to uncleanness or cleanliness of deeds, so that we call uncircumcised and unclean those who serve bodily pleasure and lust. Finally, to those who are circumcised in the flesh, and not in the spirit, Jeremiah says: All the nations are not circumcised in the flesh, but all the house of Israel have not circumcised their hearts (Jer. 9:26). And the blessed apostle, speaking about virginity and abstinence and marriage, inserted in the middle: is anyone called to be circumcised? Let him not make himself uncircumcised: is anyone called to be uncircumcised? Let him not be circumcised (1 Cor. 7:18). He, it seems to me, says in other words the following: if anyone is called and believes unmarried, let him not marry; If, on the contrary, he who has a wife has believed in Christ, let him not be divorced. He holds this thought in relation not only to circumcision and uncircumcision, but also to freedom and slavery, so that he calls virgins and those who abstain from marriage free, and slaves those who would pay tribute to their wives. For it is not in our power, after circumcision, to make ourselves uncircumcised, like those about whom the book of Maccabees tells us that they uncircumcised themselves (1 Mac. 1:15), which is said of sons being born, and not of fathers. Or whoever is called free is the more a slave of Christ (1 Cor. 7:12), since in the baptism of Christ there is no difference between Jew and pagan, Greek and barbarian, man and woman, free and slave (Rom. 10:12, Gal. 3:28, Col. 3:11). Poem. 2, 3. Shake off the dust; rise up, sit down, Jerusalem! loose the bonds of your neck, captive daughter of Zion! For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed. LXX: Shake off the dust and rise, Jerusalem! loose the bonds of your neck, captive daughter of Zion! For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed. That the prophet’s speech does not address Jerusalem, that is, to the ruins of stones and its dust and ashes, but to the people living in it, and that because of the delicacy of the spirit it is called a daughter, this is shown by the following verse, in which it says: loose the bonds of your neck, captive daughter of Zion! For truly the Jewish people, who hitherto bear the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar and are bound by the ropes of their sins and blasphemies, are captives who were sold for nothing and have not done anything worthy for which they could be redeemed. It is said to him above: Behold, I sold myself for your sins, and for your sake I forgave your mother’s iniquities (Isa. 50:1). And presents the reasons why they were sold, why they were rejected. Therefore, he says, he came, and there was no man: he called, and there was no one who listened (Is. 50:2). From this it is clear that they were given over to error and demons because they did not listen to Him crying: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden (Matthew 11:28). Those who want to believe will be redeemed, not with silver and money, but with the precious blood of Christ, so that through the apostles they will hear: Grace and peace to you (Rom. 1:7). For it is not because of merit, but by grace and faith in Christ that we are reconciled to God. It is also said to the soul, which, having been stained with the dirt of vices, has lost the whiteness of its former life, that it, together with the apostles (Matthew 10:14), shakes off the dust that has stuck to its feet. For it could not be that she who, having thrown herself to the ground, put her neck under those passing from without, and united the middle with the earth, and said: “Humble my soul into the finger, my womb clings to the earth” (Ps. 43:26), did not receive the image of earth, from which the apostle distracts us, saying: as we have put on the image of ring, let us also be clothed in the image of heaven. (1 Cor. 15:49). Therefore those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8:8), not because the nature of the flesh was condemned, the Creator of which is God, and in which many have pleased God and reign with Christ, but because the works of the flesh were rejected, about which the same apostle says: I am carnal, sold under sin (Rom. 7:14). Finally, he says to such people: where there is envy and zeal and strife in you, are you not of the flesh, and walk after men (1 Cor. 3:3)? and, conversely, to the saints: you are in the flesh; for the Spirit of God dwells in you (Rom. 8:9). So the dust is shaken off, about which it is written: the finger will confess to You, or He will proclaim Your truth (Ps. 29:10), so that the bonds of our necks may be loosed, and so that we may not hear: Your neck is iron (Isaiah 48:4), but with your bride we are worthy to hear: That your cheeks are adorned like turtledoves, your neck like monists (Song of Songs. 1:9), and again: I will put a wrist on your hand, and a penny on your neck (Ezek. 16:11); so that, having been freed from the heavy burden and receiving the former decorations, we ceased to be captives, being redeemed by Him who came to preach release to the captives (Lk. 4:18), and about which it is written: This will build my city, and will bring back the captivity of my people, neither for reward nor for free (Isaiah 45:13). In accordance with this meaning, the Apostle Peter says: knowingly, the faithful fathers delivered you from your vanity of life not by corrupted silver or gold, but by the honorable blood of Christ, like the unblemished and pure blood of a lamb (1 Peter 1:18). Poem. 4–6. For thus says the Lord God: My people went down into Egypt at the beginning to be settlers there: and the Assyrian reviled them without any reason. And now what do I have here? says the Lord. For My people have been taken freely: their rulers do wickedly, says the Lord, and continually, all day long, My name is blasphemed. Therefore My people will know My name in that day: for I am He who said, Here am I. LXX: For thus says the Lord: My people went down into Egypt first to sojourn there: and to the Assyrians they were led by force; and now why will he be here? says the Lord. Since My people have been taken freely, marvel and cry out. Thus says the Lord: For your sake my name is always blasphemed among the heathen. Therefore my people will know my name in that day: for I am the one who spoke; here I am. He denounces the Jewish people and predicts the future that they, of their own free will, under Jacob, went to the Egyptians, and, in times of need and famine, wandered in the land of Goshen (Gen. 47); then he suffered reproach from the Assyrians, whom he did not offend in any way, and was resettled to Babylon as a result of captivity (2 Kings 17:23). Therefore he adds: and now what do I have here? says the Lord. The meaning is the following: I have nothing else for which I would be in this country, from which My people were taken freely, and sold by their sins, and, like a chamois, caught in nets, or by the armies of the Romans, or by the snares of the devil, in which, having been entangled, they are held hitherto. And for them to endure this, the rulers and their teachers acted lawlessly, who, according to Symmachus and Theodotion, will cry out, according to Aquila, cry when they are given over to torment. For they are the ones who stirred up the people against the Savior, so that he would shout with one voice: take him, take him, crucify him (John 19:15). He has already said about them before: The Lord Himself will come to judgment with the elders of the people and with their princes: why have you set My grapes on fire, and plundered the poor in your houses (Isa. 3:14)? Therefore, according to the Seventy, He says to them: For your sake, My name is always blasphemed among the Gentiles. And you should know that the words of the pagans are not in the Hebrew text, but simply: My name is constantly blasphemed, so that it is implied: in your synagogues: they blaspheme the Savior day and night, and, under the name, as I often said, Nazarene, they pronounce curses on Christians three times a day. So, while they blaspheme and curse the Lord, His people, about whom it has often been spoken, that is, the Christian people, will recognize the name of Him who is to come in the name of the Father, and they will know because He, who spoke before through the prophets, will personally teach the nations. According to the Seventy, God tells Israel that he voluntarily descended into Egypt, as Moses says in Deuteronomy: with seventy and five souls did your fathers go down into Egypt (Deut. 10:22), and they were forcibly taken away by the Assyrians as captives. Therefore it is said to them: and now why are you here? What are you doing in the land of Judea, who, after the beating of the prophets, raised your hands against the Son of God? Or, at least, to the angelic authorities and the angelic leaders of the church, God says: what are you doing here? Why don’t you leave the blasphemous people? For Joseph (Ancient Jude Book VI, Chapter 12) says that when the doors of the church were suddenly unlocked and opened by themselves, which could hardly shut many people, a voice was heard from the sanctuary of the church saying: “Let us move from these seats.” At the same time, we must pay attention to the proper meaning of the words, because they did not say: let us depart, but go over to a people of the pagans. Therefore, the veil of the church from top to bottom was torn in two (Matthew 27:51), so that all the religious rites of the Jews were revealed, and at that time what was said by this very prophet was fulfilled: from Zion will come the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem: and the tongue will judge in the midst (Isa. 2:3. 4) even to the land that is far off (Mic. 4:3). For their message went out into all the earth, and their words went out to the ends of the world (Ps. 18:5). And in every place incense and a pure sacrifice are offered to God (Malach. 1:11), since the prophetic word has been fulfilled: all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the tongues of the fatherland will worship before Him: for the kingdom of the Lord is, and He possesses the tongues (Ps. 21:28.29). Therefore it is said to the leaders of the Jews: be amazed and cry out, for you are the cause of the fall of the people. In accordance with the mysterious meaning, we can say that the people of God descend into Egypt of this century of their own free will when they love pleasure more than God, and do not heed this prophetic: woe to those who descend into Egypt for help (Isa. 31:1). When he is defiled by vices and dwells in a place of waters and rivers, which does not have the dryness characteristic of innocence, then he will be forcibly handed over to the Assyrians so that they will rule over him - [the Assyrians], who will then accuse and expose him of sin. For they are both enemies and avengers, about whom he speaks to Israel: and now what is the way of the Egyptian, why should you drink the water of Geon? So, whoever descended into Egypt, and from the exalted Jerusalem fell to the lower, and, going to Jericho, another Egypt, received many wounds from robbers: it is said to him: and now what do you have here? Why do you pretend that you are on earth and in the Church of God - you, who through addiction and every kind of desire descended into Egypt, and are in the power of the Assyrians and captive by them, and should cry out more than cry, because, due to your vices and sins, the name of God is blasphemed among the pagans? Ezekiel says to them: you have profaned My name among the Gentiles (Ezekiel 3:20). And as in the Gospel the Lord says to the disciples: so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16): so, on the contrary, when we have committed evil deeds, the name of God is blasphemed among the pagans for our sake. Therefore, whoever has the knowledge of the name of God, and is not ignorant that he was created in His image and likeness, will abide in the light and be in the midst of the day about which Abraham rejoiced when he saw it (John 8:56); about which Saint David says: this day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps. 118:24). For those who have enlightened themselves with the light of knowledge and have the everlasting light promised to those who believe, the Lord will be your everlasting light (Isa. 60:20), they walk gracefully in the days (Rom. 13:13), and they are the sons of light and day (1 Thess. 5:5), and they know Him who says to Moses: Thus said the children of Israel: He is my messenger (Exod. 3:14): and Whom they first knew in the saints, they will know that He is present in them. Poem. 7, 8. So beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who proclaims, and who preaches peace, and who proclaims good things: who preaches salvation, and who says to Zion, “Thy God shall reign.” The voice of your guardians: they raised their voice: they will sing their praises together, for they will see eye to eye when the Lord turns Zion. LXX: As ὥρα on the mountains: so are the feet of him who brings good news, the hearing of peace, the good news of good news: for to them that I will make my salvation heard, saying: Zion! Your God will reign. The voice of those who guard you is lifted up, and with their voice they will rejoice together, for eye to eye will see when the Lord will have mercy on Zion. Consistently about the One who said above: I am the One who said: Here am I, the prophet now testifies that He will preach the Gospel on the mountains, that is, on the apostles, about whom it is written: draw near to the everlasting mountains (Mic. 2:9 according to LXX), and whose teaching is the enlightenment of God. Therefore, the Psalms say to Him: You enlighten wonderfully from the eternal mountains (Ps. 76:5). He proclaimed and preached peace to those far off, that is, to the pagans, and to those close to him, that is, to the Jews, reconciling the world with God (Eph. 2:16.17). About Him, under the name of Solomon, the psalm is sung: in His days righteousness and abundance of peace will shine, until the moon is taken away (Ps. 72:7). And this same Prophet says, among other things, about the Child born to us, and about the Son given to us, whose rulership is on His frame, and who will be called the Angel of the great council: and His peace has no end (Isa. 9:7). For He, who made peace through the blood of His cross all things in heaven and on earth, is our peace (Eph. 2:14). He said to the apostles: peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you (John 14:27). And He announced to us blessings, not those that philosophers call indifferent, but those that truly are the blessings given by the Father to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11), that is, all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Finally, another Evangelist writes in the same place: how much more will the Father who is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:13)? He announced to all those good things that the Lord promises to believers: listen to Me, and you will receive good things, and your soul will delight in good things (Isa. 55:2), and not only good things, but also salvation, which He gave, saying to Zion, that is, the Church: your God will reign. Therefore, the apostle says to the saints: let sin not reign in your dead body, unless you listen to it in its lusts (Rom. 6:12), and writing about sinners, he says: death reigns from Adam even to Moses (Rom. 5:14). The following then: the voice of your guardians, or your watchmen, means the apostles, about whom in another place God says to the Church: on your walls I have posted guards who will not remain silent to the end, remembering the Lord (Isa. 62:6), - guards who will lift up their voices, preaching about high things. Therefore it is said to them: go up to a high mountain, preach the gospel to Zion, lift up your voice with strength, preach the gospel to Jerusalem (Isaiah 40:9). They will praise with the same voice and see God eye to eye, which [eye to eye] in other words the apostle calls: face to face (1 Cor. 13:12); just as the Saint sings: I will lift up my eyes to the Lord (Ps. 24:15), and: I have lifted up my eyes to Thee, who dwell in heaven (Ps. 122:1), and the Lord will reward him accordingly: for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are unto their prayer (Ps. 33:16). What the Seventy translated: as ὥρα on the mountains: so the feet of him who brings good news, the hearing of peace, etc., Paul, following the meaning of the Hebrew original, brings in his letter to the Romans: since the feet of those who bring good news of peace are red (Rom. 10:15), meaning the apostles whose feet the Lord washed (John 13), so that they would be clean and beautiful for preaching, and spread throughout the entire universe, and filled the world with a brief teaching about Christ. Ὥρα, that is, hour, according to the Seventy and the ambiguity of Greek speech, means either time or beauty. If there is a time, then it will correspond to it: in the time of pleasure I listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you (Is. 49:8). Therefore, the apostle adds: behold, now is the time acceptable: behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). For at the favorable time, when all turned away and became equally useless, when there was no one who did good, not even one (Ps. 13:3), He shed blood for all, so that for all he might taste death, because all had sinned and fell short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). If we understand by it (ὥρα) beauty, then [this will correspond to what] is read in the psalm: handsome in kindness more than the sons of men (Ps. 45:3). For what is more wonderful than that the kindness of a servant become the kindness of God, and sit and reign with Christ in heaven? The word ὥρα, due to the completeness of the Greek language, can be called care and concern, in accordance with what the Saint says: increase me in my soul by Your power (Ps. 137:3). Instead of multiplying me, the Greek text says: πολυωρήσεις με, which means: you will consider me worthy of much care and concern. And in another place: according to Your height ἐπολυώρησας the sons of men (Ps. 11:9), which in other words in Greek says: πολλῆς ὠρας, τοῦτ’ ἔστι, φροντίδος ἠξίωσας [You have been worthy of much care, that is, thoughtfulness]. But this is unnecessary; and it is better to understand the beautiful feet of Christ and the apostles, that, except for the Seventy, all were translated in a similar way, since Paul approves of their translation. Poem. 9, 10. Rejoice and praise together, you deserts of Jerusalem! For the Lord has comforted His people: He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has prepared His holy arm in the sight of all nations, so that all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. LXX: Let the deserts of Jerusalem rejoice together: for the Lord had mercy on him, and delivered Jerusalem. The Lord will open his holy arm before all nations. And all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. After the Jewish people were taken into captivity and the city was burned, there were either few or no inhabitants in Jerusalem. But after the God-Word, who spoke before in the person of the prophets and was in the beginning with God, dwelt among us and became flesh (John 1:1, 14), the wilderness of Jerusalem was restored; and He came, about whom it is written: This will build My city, and bring back the captivity of My people (Is. 45:13), so that it would not be mourned by Jeremiah: how now is one city multiplied by people; became like a widow, multiplied into a tongue (Lamentations. Jeremiah 1:1), but so that he listened to David, singing: when the Lord returned the captivity of Zion, he became like a consolation (Ps. 126:1), and after a little: he became joyful (Art. 3). And so that we know that this is not said about the Jewish people, but about all those who through the apostles have faith in the Lord, he believes and says: He who comforted him, or had mercy on him, and who delivered or redeemed him, himself prepared or revealed his holy arm before all nations: and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. From this it is clear that after the creation of spiritual Jerusalem through the apostles, that is, the Church abandoned by the Jews, the arm of the Lord is revealed to all nations, and all the ends of the earth see His salvation. This can be understood in two ways. For either the Father reveals His arm to all nations, or the Son reveals His power. It is written about Him: for strength came from Him, and healed all (Luke 6:19), and again: For I felt the power that came from Me (Luke 8:46), which healed the bleeding. And that the Son of God is called the right hand and arm of the Father, there is much evidence for this, of which we will cite a few: His Right Hand will save Him, and His holy Arm will save Him (Ps. 97:1). And in another place: the nations will trust in My Arm (Isa. 51:5). Jacob says about Her: She is the desire of tongues (Gen. 49:10), and the eighty-eighth psalm: Thy Arm is with strength (V. 14), With this Arm the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. About Her, the first of the apostles (Matthew 10:2) says: blessed are you Simon, var Jonah, for flesh and blood have not been revealed to you, but My Father who is in heaven (Matthew 16:17). And the Apostle Paul says about himself: when God was pleased, having chosen me from my mother’s womb, to reveal His Son in me (Gal. 1:15. 16). And that with all the nations he united all the borders of the earth, who had to see the salvation of God, this indicates the same thing as in another place it is said: turn to Me, and you will be saved from the ends of the earth (Isa. 45:22); and through Jeremiah: the nations will come to You from the last of the earth (Jer. 16:19); and again: the entire language of the fatherland will reach out and turn to the Lord: for the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He possesses the tongues (Ps. 21:28.29); so that not only different nations separately, but also all the countries of the world in relation to Christ are foreshadowed as having faith, in accordance with what He Himself says: and this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14). Others, by the edges and ends of the earth, want to understand those who, standing not in the middle of the earth, but at its extreme limits like wheels, leave the base and hurry to the sublime. Poem. 11, 12. Depart, depart, come out from there, do not touch the defiled: come out from among him, purify yourself, you who bear the vessels of the Lord. For you will not go out in confusion, nor will you hasten to flee, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will gather you. LXX: Depart, depart, come out from there, and do not touch the unclean: come out from among him, be separate, you who bear the vessels of the Lord: for you will not go out in confusion, nor will you go in flight, but the Lord, and the God of Israel who gathers you, will go before you. And the Jews try to explain it this way: come out of Babylon and leave their idols. Go out from among him, and take the vessels, carried away after the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25), after Cyrus freed the captives under Zerubbabel and Ezra (1 Ezra ch. 1), to the church; and do not leave Babylon as before you fled from Egypt with confusion and fear, but in peace and according to the will of the king of Persia and Media, in whom the will of the Lord, who protected and gathered you, was revealed. Others interpret what we said about Babylon in relation to the Roman state - that all this will be fulfilled at the coming of Christ, who will free them. But we, who heard above: how beautiful are the feet of him who proclaims and preaches peace on the mountains, and: The Lord will open His arm before all nations: and all the ends of the earth will see that you have saved our God, we understand this not in relation to the Jews, but in relation to the face of the apostles and all the saints. They are commanded that they leave Jerusalem and preach the Gospel to the whole world, according to the word of the Lord Savior: So go and teach all languages, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19); so that those who carry the vessels of the Lord do not stay with the blasphemous Jews, for the beating of whom the Roman army is preparing, but leave the defiled, and separate from them and purify themselves. For they are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16) and the vessels of the great house, gold and silver (2 Tim. 2:20). Such was the Apostle Paul, who is called a chosen vessel (Dean 9:15), for he prepared himself to be a precious vessel and fit for the service of God. Or at least it should be said that the vessels of the Lord are the spiritual armor of God. The Apostle Paul also said about him: put on the full armor of God (Eph. 6:11), and one after another he lists: the armor of righteousness, and the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. To this is added the belt of truth and feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace (Eph. 6:14-17). And in another place: let us put aside dark works, and put on the armor of light (Rom. 13:12). The following follows: Do not go out in confusion, and do not hasten to flee. For they departed from Jerusalem not as vanquished, but as victors, so that they, who, preaching the Gospel of God daily in the church, won over many thousands of Jews to the faith in Christ, would bring the world under His Gospel. For going ahead they had the Lord, the God of Israel, gathering them, that is, making the universe one flock, so that what the Lord says to the Father in the Gospel may be fulfilled: grant that just as I and You are one, so they also may be one in Us (Jn. 17:21): so that with the same feeling and the same thought, they, leaving behind vices that are contradictory and opposite to each other, adopt one and only virtue. For vices and passions do not accompany each other: what is said about the virtues, in which there are neither excesses (ὑπερβολαὶ) nor deficiencies (ἐλλείψεις), that is, neither more nor less, but everything in moderation. In vices, everything is opposite, like timidity and insolence, superstition and unbelief, wastefulness and stinginess. Poem. 13–15. Behold, My servant will understand, he will be exalted, and exalted, and will be very high. How many were amazed at You: so wicked will His appearance be among men, and His image among the sons of men! He will sprinkle many nations; kings will stop their mouths before Him; for those who were not told about Him have seen, and those who have not heard have seen. LXX: Behold, My Child will understand, and will be exalted, and will be greatly glorified. As many will be amazed at You; so will Your appearance be dishonored by men, and Your glory by the sons of men; so will many nations be amazed at Him, and kings will stop their mouths; for those to whom He was not told will see, and those who have not heard will understand. So that the readers do not have any doubt as to who the one who said: I am the one who said: behold, I have come, and what a holy arm of the Lord, open to all nations, Almighty God the Father clearly teaches: behold, My Servant or My Servant will understand, the difference of which we said above. He will understand, not as the Word and Wisdom of God, but as a Servant and a Servant. He, being the image of God, deigned to take on the image of a servant, being obedient to the Father even to the point of death, even death on the cross. Therefore He highly exalted Him, and gave Him the name that is above every name (Phil. 2:6-9). He says in the psalm: I will bless the Lord who admonished me (Ps. 15:7); and about Him David sings: to Him who created the heavens with His mind (Ps. 136:5). For He is wisdom and understanding - He, who advanced like a child in age and wisdom (Luke 2:52), about whom Peter also speaks: God our father glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you betrayed, and having denied Him before Pilate, I destined to let him go: but you have rejected the Holy and Just One (Acts 3:13, 14), about whom, as we have shown, and above it is written: I am a witness, says the Lord God, and my Servant whom I have chosen (Isa. 43:10). Many will be amazed at Him when they see His signs. But from now on, the great miracle will be that His appearance will be unfavorable among people: not because it signifies the vileness of the image, but fifthly, that He will come in humiliation and poverty. He, being rich, became poor for our sake (2 Cor. 8:9), and said to the believers: learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart (Matt. 11:29). About Him, Clement, the apostolic man who ruled the Roman Church after Peter, writes to the Corinthians: The scepter of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, did not come in the vanity of pride, although for Him all things are possible, but in humility, so much so that, being strangled by a servant of the high priest, he answered: If you speak evil, bear witness to evil: if it is good that you slay Me (Jn. 18:19–23), having more than twelve legions of angels who obeyed His commands (Matthew 26:53). He will sprinkle many nations, cleansing them with His blood, and dedicating them in baptism to the service of God. Before Him the kings and princes of the ages will stop their mouths, all the wisdom of which has been overthrown by the preaching of the cross; and those who did not have the Law and the Prophets, and to whom it was not announced, will see and understand for themselves. The Savior also speaks about them: they who saw no blessing, yet believed (John 20:29). By comparison with them, the bitterness of the Jews is condemned, who, seeing and hearing, fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, who said: with hearing you will hear, but will not understand; and with seeing, you will see, and will not see. The hearts of these people are clouded, and their ears are hard to hear (Isa. 6:9. 10). Chapter III. Poem. 1–4. Who believed our hearing, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? And He shall come up like a vine before Him, and like a root out of thirsty ground: He had no form, no beauty: and we saw Him, and there was no form: but we desired Him. The despised and last of men, the man of sorrows and knowledgeable of weakness; as if His face were hidden and despised: therefore we did not pay attention to Him. Truly He took upon Himself our infirmities, and He bore our illnesses: but we considered Him as a leper, and stricken and humiliated by God. LXX: Lord, who believed our hearing, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? We spoke as a child before Him: as a root in a thirsty land. He has no form or glory, and we have seen Him, and He had no form or beauty: but His form is dishonorable and humble before the sons of men. A man in the plague and knowing to bear infirmity, because His face was turned away, and was despised and did not pay attention to himself. He bears our sins, and suffers for us, but we thought that He was in sickness, and in ulcers, and in reproach. After the words of the Father, in which He announced to the world about the future coming of His Son, and before the temptation of the cross, about which He intended to say: His appearance, and His image before the sons of men, will be unworthy, He prefaced the glory of the resurrection: He will be exalted and exalted, and will be very high, so that the humiliation of the cross will be preceded by the glory of the resurrection: the choir of prophets answers that He fulfilled the duty, and, as far as was possible for Him, announced to all His muscle and strength. By the words: whoever believed our hearing, and the arm of the Lord was revealed to whom, makes it clear that the number of believers among the Jews was small. And in the next one: it will grow up like a vine before Him, instead of which the LXX translated: we proclaimed as a child before Him, instead of the vine Symmachus translated: a branch, to show that the person who came from the virgin womb was received. He adds about Him: like a root from a thirsty land. Instead of thirsty, Aquila translated: impassable to show the advantage of virginity - that without any human seed He came from the land that was previously impassable. He is the one about whom we read above: a rod will come out of the root of Jesse, and a flower will arise from its root (Is. 11:1), [which is said in order] to make clear His birth and ascension in the world. If He had no form and glory; but His image was not dishonored and humbled before the sons of men, or as it stands in Hebrew: despised and the last of men: then how does the Psalms say: gird Your sword on Your thigh, O Mighty One, with Your beauty and Your kindness (Ps. 45:4)? This is easily resolved. He was despicable and unequal when He hung on the cross, and, having become a curse for us (Gal. 3:13), He bore our sins, and said to the Father: My God, My God, Thou hast forsaken Me (Matthew 27:46). Glorious and beautiful in appearance He was when, during His suffering, the earth shook, the stones disintegrated (Matthew 27:51), and, when the sun departed, the elements were afraid of eternal night (Luke 23:44.45). The bride also says about Him in the Song of Songs: my brother is white and dark-skinned, chosen from them (Song of Solomon 5:10). He is white in the fullness and purity of virtues, black in suffering, about which we will later read: He who came from Edom, his garments were scarlet from Bozrah (Isa. 63:1); chosen from those for the resurrection, so that He, being the first born of every creation (Col. 1:15), would become the firstborn from the dead (Art. 18). And what he added: a man in illness and knowing to bear infirmity, or a man of sorrows and knowing infirmity, points to the true human body and to the true human soul of the One who, knowing to bear infirmities, overcame all of them with divinity. And His face is hidden and despised, so that the divine power might be hidden by the human body. It is said about Him above: You are the hidden God, but we did not know (Isa. 45:15). Who truly bore our weaknesses and sins, and suffers for us: He was not imaginary, that is, το δοϰεῖν, as the ancient and modern heresies suggest, but truly was crucified. He truly suffered, saying in the Gospel: My soul is sorrowful unto death (Matthew 26:38), and: now my soul is troubled (John 12:27). But we thought that He was unclean, or in illness, as the Seventy translated, instead of which Aquila and Symmachus put: leper, Theodotion: scourged, which in other words, according to the property of the Hebrew language, means leprosy, in accordance with what is written in the psalm: and the scourge will not come near your body (Ps. 90:10). The meaning is this: we thought that He was struck down by God for His sins - He, humiliated and crucified with the robbers for our sake. Instead of what Symmachus translated: ἐν ἁφῆ ὄντα, that is, in leprosy, Aquila put: ἁφημένον, that is, leper, which many, not understanding, take to mean: abandoned, while others read: ϰαϑήμενον, that is, sitting. At the beginning of the section in which according to the Seventy it is said: Lord, who believed our hearing: and the arm of the Lord was revealed to whom, which testimony the Apostle Paul uses in his letter to the Romans (chapter 10), explaining it in relation to the suffering of the Lord, [the word] Lord is not in Hebrew, but it is added for the understanding of the person to whom it is spoken. Poem. 5–7. He was wounded for our iniquities, he was crushed for our crimes. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each one of us has turned aside in his own way: and the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was brought because He Himself desired, and He did not open His mouth. LXX: He was wounded for our sins, and weakened for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace is upon Him: by His stripes we were healed. We all, like sheep, wandered; man wandered on his way. And the Lord betrayed Him for our iniquities, and He did not open His mouth for reproach. We, he says, thought that He was a man of sorrows, or, according to the Seventy, He was in illness, and was struck down by God and suffered for His own sins. He was not wounded for our iniquities, - He, who says in the psalm: He plowed My hands and My nose (Ps. 21:17), - in order to heal our wounds with His stripes, and was crushed or weakened for our transgressions, so that, having become a curse for us, He would free us from the curse (Gal. 3:13): for cursed is every man who hangs on a tree. (Deut. 21:23. Gal. 3:13). Therefore the punishment of our peace is upon Him. For what we had to endure for our crimes, He endured for us, having pacified both earthly and heavenly things with the blood of His cross (Col. 1:20). For He is our peace, having made both one, and the barrier that stood in the midst, the enmity, which He destroyed in His flesh (Eph. 2:14), and by His stripe we were healed. From this it is clear that just as the body, scourged and tormented, bore signs of injustice in scars and wounds, so the soul truly suffered for us, so that in Christ there would not be recognized partly the truth and partly a lie (Rom. ch. 3). All of us, he says, like sheep, have gone astray and had need of God’s mercy, saying in the psalm: we have gone astray like a lost sheep (Ps. 119:176), which in the Gospel parable was brought back on the shoulders of a good and caring Shepherd (Matthew 18; Luke 15). And who these sheep are is shown in the next verse. Man wandered along his path, or everyone on his path turned aside to follow his own error, and, leaving the right path, to think differently about the Crucified One. The Lord laid upon Him the law of all of us, or betrayed Him for our sins, so that what we, due to our weakness of strength, could not bear, would be borne for us by He who was brought because He Himself wanted. For not out of necessity, but voluntarily He endured the cross, as He says in the Gospel: the cup that the Father gave Me, should I not drink it (John 18:11)? And Peter, who was tempted by the name of the cross, not knowing the sacraments, and trembling with the fear characteristic of man, said: follow me, Satan, you are the temptation of me: you do not think that the essence of God is human, but human (Matthew 16:23). Otherwise, He, who could indicate and predict the traitor, and who said to the apostles: you will all be offended because of me this night (Matthew 26:31), if he had not been brought of his own free will, could have rejected those sent to Him, to whom he fearlessly went to meet, and voluntarily appeared, saying: whom are you looking for (John 18:4)? They immediately fell back (John 18:6); for they could not bear the voices of God in His presence. And he added beautifully: and did not open his mouth, - He, not wanting to answer Pilate, who said: Do you not speak to me (Jn. 19:10), or, according to the Seventy, mocked, did not open His mouth; or, according to Symmachus and Theodotion, when he heard, he did not open his mouth. Poem. 7–10. He will be led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearers he will be dumb and will not open his mouth. He was taken from distress and from judgment. Who will explain His family? for he was cut off from the land of the living: for the transgression of my people he smote them. And He will give the wicked for burial, and the rich for His death: because He committed no iniquity, and deceit was in His mouth. And the Lord wanted to crush Him with illness. LXX: He was led like a sheep to be sacrificed, and like a silent lamb before the shearers, so He opened not His mouth. His judgment was taken in humiliation. Who will explain His family? for His life will spring up from the earth. Because of the iniquities of My people I was led to death; and I will give the worst for His burial, and the rich for His death. For He committed neither iniquity nor deception with His mouth: and the Lord wants to cleanse Him from the plague. When the eunuch of Queen Candace, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (chapter 8), was riding in a chariot, and, while reading, did not understand this testimony: then, after Philip explained it in relation to suffering in the name of the Savior, he understood it, and was immediately baptized into the blood of the Lamb (Rom. 6:3), about whom I read, was honored to be called a man, and was sent as an apostle to the Ethiopian people. So, presented to Pilate, because He Himself desired, and did not answer, so that those condemned for us would ascend to the cross, He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearers, He was silent. For the Passover Christ was devoured for us (1 Cor. 5:7), to whom John the Baptist pointed, saying: Behold, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world (John 1:29). He is also often called the Slain Lamb in the Apocalypse of the Evangelist John (Apoc. 5:6. 12). He speaks about Himself in Jeremiah: But I, like a kindly fire led to slaughter, did not understand (Jer. 11:19). For He, who knew no sin, became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). And just as a lamb, when led to be sacrificed, does not resist: so He suffered voluntarily in order to destroy him who had the power of death (Heb. 2:14), having humbled Himself even to death, even death on the cross (Phil. 2:8). This is the Lamb in whose image the lamb was slain, with his blood anointed on the doorposts, putting to flight the destroyer of Egypt (Exod. 12); - that Lamb who not only redeemed us with His blood, but also covered us with a wave, in order to warm us with His clothing, chilling from the cold of unbelief, and so that we would listen to the Apostle, who tells us: if you are baptized in Christ, put on Christ (Gal. 3:27), and in another place: put on our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 13:14). And the following: He was taken away from distress and from judgment, or, as LXI translated, His judgment was taken away in humiliation, means that after misfortune and judgment He ascended to the Father victorious, or that the Judge of all did not find a fair trial, but without any guilt, was condemned due to the indignation of the Jews and the voice of Pilate. Therefore, the Prophet is surprised that God gave Himself up to everyone to suffer. Paul says about Him: if they had understood, they had not crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8). Next follows: who will explain His generation? This is understood in two ways: for it must be understood either in relation to His deity, because of the sacrament of divine birth, about which He Himself speaks in Proverbs: before all the hills He gives birth to Me (Prov. 8:25), it is impossible to know, in accordance with what we read elsewhere: who understands the mind of the Lord, or who is His counselor (Rom. 11:34)? that is, no one; or in relation to the virgin birth, because it can hardly be explained. As a result of this, when Mary was told by the Angel: conceive in the womb and give birth to a Son, she answered: how will this be, even though I do not know a husband? The angel again said to her: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you (Luke 1:31, 34, 35), so that only the Angel or the Evangelist speaks about the sacraments of this birth, which is very rarely narrated, according to it: who is wise and understands this: and this message is meaningful (Hosea 14:10)? If a prudent reader, after silent reflection, answers: how is it written: No one knows the Son but the Father: neither does anyone know the Father but the Son, and whatsoever the Son wills to be revealed (Matthew 11:27)? and whoever knows the Father and the Son can, in any case, explain the mystery of birth: then let him listen to what it is to know and another to explain, because we often cannot explain in words what we perceive with our minds. Therefore, the saints, being in the body, can know the mystery of divine birth more by faith than by explaining it. On the other hand, the Apostle, caught up to the third heaven and into paradise, heard words that the human tongue is not able to utter (2 Cor. 12:1-4). But the Spirit also intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be expressed (Rom. 8:26). So the life of Him, whose generation either none or rare can explain, was taken from the earth, so that He lived not on earth, but in heaven. Or He was torn away from the land of the living, so that what is written in the Apocalypse of John would be fulfilled regarding Him: I am the first and the last - I who lived and died: and behold, I live forever (Apoc. 1:18), so that He, after the life that He led on earth, having died to the earth, would be alive to heaven forever. And the added: for the crime of My people, He struck them down, or, according to LXX, because of the iniquities of my people He was led to death, has a double meaning. For either He struck down the persecutors and criminals of His people with His death: or, because of the gravity of the sins of the people, which He always considered His own, He was led to death in order to return them to life by His death. He gave the wicked for His burial, and the rich for His death; or the worst for His burial, and the rich for His death: meaning both people, so that the wicked and the worst, who previously had no knowledge of God, point to the multitude of pagans; and the rich, who had the Covenant and the Law and the Prophets (Rom. 9:4), point to the Jewish people. Consequently, the Lord suffered and was buried in order to gather a Church for Himself from both people. Or it should be said that the scribes, and Pharisees, and Sadducees, priests and high priests, who formerly ruled over the people and abounded in excessive wealth, God, after the passion of the Lord, handed over to the Romans, and subjected them to eternal slavery. He, for whose burial and death the wicked and the rich were betrayed, committed no iniquity, and no deceit was found in His mouth. It is absolutely impossible to understand this in relation to any of the people - so that he would not sin either in deed or in word, while the Scripture says: whoever is clean from filth, even if he lived on the earth for one day (Job 14:4.5), and: we are all like sheep who have gone astray, each one has turned aside in his own way (Isaiah 53:6): but only in relation to Him who bore our sins, and he suffered for us, and was wounded for our iniquities, and was mocked for our transgressions, by whose wound we were healed. About Him, the first of the apostles, Peter, explaining this testimony, says: for this reason He was called quickly, for Christ also suffered, leaving us an image, so that we may follow His footsteps: He who did not commit sin, lest flattery be found in His mouth: Whoever we rebuke against is not reproached, suffering is not forgiven (1 Peter 2:21-23). But the Lord wanted to cleanse Him from the ulcer that He received, pierced by the warrior’s spear (John 19:34), or to crush Him with illness and wound, about which He Himself spoke: Thou didst smite Him before, and drove them away (Ps. 69:27). And through Zechariah God says: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered (Zech. 13:7). Therefore, for Him to suffer was not a matter of necessity, but of the will of the Father and His own, to whom (the Father) He said: I have pleased to do Your will, O My God (Ps. 39:9). We read about this above: it was brought because He Himself wanted it. Poem. 10, 11. If he lays down his life for sin, he will see a long-lasting seed, and the will of the Lord will be done by his hand. Because His soul labors, it will see and be satisfied: with His knowledge He, the Righteous One, will justify My many servants, and He Himself will bear their iniquities. LXX: If you give for sin, then your soul will see a lasting seed: and the Lord wants to deliver His soul from sorrow, to show Him the light, and to form a mind, to justify the Righteous One, who serves many well: and He Himself will bear their sins. According to the Hebrew text, the meaning is this: if He whom the Lord wanted to crush or cleanse lays down His soul for sin, then He will see a long-lasting seed sown by Him on the good land. It is written about Him in the Gospel: He goes out and sows (Matthew 13:3); and again: the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man who sowed good seed in his village (Art. 24). And the will of the Lord will be fulfilled by His hand, so that whatever the Father desires will be fulfilled by His virtues, saying to the Father: I have kept them in Your name: those whom You gave Me, I have kept, and no one has fallen from them except the son of destruction (John 17:12). He will see the eternal seed, and the will of the Father will be fulfilled by His hand because for a long time His soul was in labor, which did not find rest among the Jews, and said in the Gospel: foxes have plagues, and birds of the air have nests: But the Son of man shall not have where to bow his head (Matthew 8:20), and this same Prophet: I have labored, enduring (Isa. 1:14). So, since He worked, He will see that Churches are appearing throughout the universe, and He will be satisfied with their faith. Therefore, when at noon, during the heat of the sun, He, hungry and thirsty, sat at Jacob’s well (John 4), he did not want to use the purchased brushes, since he was already satisfied with the faith of the Samaritan woman and the city of Shechem that came out to Him. In accordance with this meaning, He spoke between the eight beatitudes: blessedness is he who hungers and thirsts for righteousness (Matthew 5:6). By His knowledge, that is, teaching, He, the Righteous One, who committed no sin, and in whose mouth no deception was found, and the Servant of the Father, who took the form of a servant and served the will of the Lord, will justify many believers throughout the universe. And He Himself will bear their iniquities - iniquities that they could not bear, and which they were oppressed by weight. According to the Seventy this is what it says: O you, for whose sins the Son of God was led to death, you who, being the worst and richest in evil, were given for His burial and death! if you want to repent and offer a sacrifice pleasing to God for your sins, a contrite spirit, then your soul will see a lasting seed, the Lord Savior Himself. About Him in the eighty-eighth psalm it is sung: his seed will endure forever, and his throne is like the sun before me (v. 37); and again: I will set his seed for the age of the world, and his throne as the days of heaven (Verse 30). In other words, Gabriel says to the Virgin: You will conceive in your womb and give birth to Him who will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever: and His kingdom will have no end (Luke 1:31–33). For the Lord wants to deliver from sorrow the soul of Him who said: My soul is sorrowful unto death (Matthew 26:38), so that the reproach of the cross may be tempered by the glory of the resurrection. And show Him the light so that He can see that everyone is enlightened through Him. And to form Him with understanding is meant, so that the spirit of wisdom and understanding may descend upon Him (Isa. 11:2). And vindicate the Righteous One, who served many well; for He came not to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28), at the feet of Peter (John chapter 13), washing away the sins of all the apostles. He appeared in the flesh, was justified in the spirit (1 Tim. 3:16). Judas the traitor also confesses about Him: he sinned by betraying innocent blood (Matthew 27:4). And Pilate’s wife: nothing to you and to that Righteous One: for I have suffered this day in a dream for His sake (Matthew 27:19). And it should be noted that He was justified not in the sense that from a wicked man he became righteous. But being a righteous man, He is not justified in such a way that He began to be what He was not; but so that by what he was, he was revealed to everyone. He, the Righteous One, suffered for the unrighteous in order to bring us all to God (1 Peter 3:18). The Jews are told about Him: But you reject the Holy and Righteous One, and ask a husband to give you a murderer (Acts 3:14). And sins, he says, He Himself will bear, like the ailments of the sick, whom a doctor needs, not the healthy, but the sick (Luke 5:31). Poem. 12. Therefore I will give Him very many, and He will divide the spoils of the mighty: because He gave His soul to death, and was numbered with the evildoers: He Himself bore the sins of many and interceded for the criminals. LXX: Therefore He will possess many, and will divide the spoils of the mighty: because His soul was stained by death, and was numbered with the transgressors, and He took upon Himself the sins of many, and was betrayed for their iniquities. Represents the reasons why Christ will receive many rewards after suffering. Because, he says, He suffered and did everything that is described in the previous words, and Himself bore the iniquities of many: therefore I will assign to Him very many, so that, instead of the Lord’s portion - Jacob and His inheritance - Israel (Deut. 32:9), those who come from the east and west will believe in Him, and recline in the kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Matt. 8:11), upon the fulfillment of what is written: ask of Me, and I will give You the tongues of Your inheritance and Your possession the ends of the earth (Ps. 2:8). About Him and this same Prophet reads: there will be a root of Jesse, and when the tongues arise, the nations will trust in Him (Is. 11:10). These very many were once possessed by the strong, and under the guise of a donkey and a colt they had many masters, to whom the apostles said: The Lord requires her (Matthew 21:3). They were strong before Christ took on a human body, and, having defeated the strong one, they plundered his house. Therefore, He gave the spoils of the mighty to His apostles, and divided them among them in such a way that Peter, James and John became leaders of the circumcised people, and Paul and Barnabas were sent to the Gentiles, being separated in places, and not in spirit, and under the control of one Lord they fought in different detachments, so that through victory over the hordes of both people they would be led in triumph to the Savior. As a result of this, those who, in order to satisfy the blasphemous Porphyry, say that the economic competition between Peter and Paul (Acts. 15) was in fact a quarrel and strife, and they argue that the religious rites of the old law should be observed in the Church of Christ by the tribe of believing Israel, they should wait for the golden thousand-year Jerusalem, to make sacrifices and to be circumcised, to sit on the Sabbath, sleep, be satiated, get drunk and get up to play, which play offends God. We said this in relation to what is now predicted: and he will divide the spoils of the mighty (Isaiah 53:12), in accordance with what is written elsewhere: the kings of heaven will always divide among her (Psalm 67:15), and again: the beloved King of the forces, for the sake of the beauty of the house, divide the gain (Article 13). Finally, about the Apostle Paul, who was from the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew text says: Benjamin is a ravenous wolf: in the morning he will eat the catch, and in the evening he will divide the prey (Gen. 49:27). We have already said about them (the apostles) before: they will rejoice in your presence, as those who rejoice in the harvest, and as those who share gain rejoice (Isa. 9:3), dividing among themselves the churches of Christ throughout the whole universe. Therefore, He, who came to preach release to the captives, and returned the captivity, previously captured by the devil and demons, and gave it as a gift to people as believers, will receive very many nations, since He gave up His soul to death, and was numbered among the villains or lawless people. For if His Apostle to those who were without law was as if without law; although he was not without the law, he was under the law of Christ (1 Cor. 9:21): then why should not Christ be numbered among the lawless, in order to redeem the lawless from sin, and become all things to all, in order to save all? For He bore our sins on His body (1 Peter 2:24), nailing them to the wood of the cross, in order to destroy the handwriting that we had made for the devil and his angels - a handwriting written by the hands of the soul, that is, by its works. The Apostle Paul says about them: He also made you alive, who were dead in sins and in the lusts of the flesh, to eat with Christ, giving us all sins: having destroyed the handwriting against us that was against us, even that was taken out of the way, nailing it to the cross: He has stripped off principalities and powers, and brought them to shame with boldness, having exposed them in Himself (Eph. 2:3; Col. 2:13–15). By the wicked ones, with whom He was numbered, the Evangelist Mark means thieves when he writes: and two thieves were crucified with Him, one on His right hand, and one on His left side. And the scripture was fulfilled, which says: And with the wicked shall I be imputed (Mark 15:27, 28). This can be understood in a deeper sense, in accordance with the words of the Lord about Himself: He was included with those who descend into the pit: He was like a man without help, in dead freedoms (Ps. 88:5, 6). For He was truly numbered with sinners and lawless people, in order to descend into hell, which in many places of Scripture is called a pit, and to free the prisoners in prison. He was betrayed for our sins, and rose again for our justification (Rom. 4:25). And He was so merciful that He prayed on the cross for the criminals, or better yet, for His persecutors, and said: Father, let them go: for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). Regarding the reading of this passage, see. letter to the blessed Jerome to Minervius and Alexander (Works of Jerome in the Russian translation, part 3, p. 110 and given). You might be interested in: