Isaiah — Chapter 1

VISIO ISAIAE FILII AMOS. Lapide explains that 'vision' (visio) here does not mean corporeal or even imaginary sight, but the clear intellectual perception by which Prophets — elevated in mind toward God — perceived future events as if present. As St. Gregory relates of St. Benedict, one lifted up to God in prayer sees all creation gathered beneath him like a small globe in the sun's rays; so the Prophets, elevated to God, saw distant events as placed before them. This is why they are called 'seers' (videntes). Isaiah especially excelled in this clarity, so that readers of his prophecies feel they are beholding present events rather than hoping for future ones (citing Cyril and Basil). The name 'son of Amos' indicates his prophetic lineage; the Hebrews held a rule that when a prophet's father is named in the title, the father was likewise a prophet, though Lapide finds this rule doubtful. The prophecy is addressed 'over Judah and Jerusalem,' encompassing both prosperity and adversity, from the reign of Uzziah through Hezekiah — a span covering chapters 1-6 (Uzziah), ch.6 (Jotham), chs.7-18 (Ahaz), and the rest through Hezekiah, following Jerome's division.

AUDITE, COELI, ET AURIBUS PERCIPE, TERRA. Lapide explores the prosopopoeia by which Isaiah invokes heaven and earth as witnesses. Haymo reads 'heavens' as spiritual men and 'earth' as carnal ones (a tropological reading). More literally, Cyril, Rupert, and Ambrose take the actual heavens and earth: (1) they were witnesses to God's covenant with Israel at Sinai (Deut 30:19, 'I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses today'); (2) Israel had worshipped the heavenly bodies and earthly idols, so these same creatures now testify against her ingratitude; (3) since rational Israel refused to hear the Prophets, God calls dumb creatures as witnesses — more shaming than any rational accusation. Chrysostom adds examples: the prophet sent to Jeroboam addressed the altar rather than the king (3 Kgs 13), and Jeremiah addressed the earth itself (Jer 22:29). The phrase 'quoniam Dominus locutus est' (for the Lord has spoken) prepares attention from the dignity of the speaker: 'Not I, but the divine majesty speaks through me; my tongue is the pen of the divine Spirit, my throat a trumpet breathing divine breath.' Allegorically, the verse was fulfilled in Christ's Passion, when heaven darkened at midday and earth shook — creation itself witnessing and punishing what rational men refused to acknowledge (Zeno of Verona, cited).

COGNOVIT BOS POSSESSOREM SUUM. Lapide notes with Jerome that Israel is compared not to a noble horse or a sagacious dog, but to a stolid ox and a stupid ass — yet even these beasts know their master. The ox knows its owner and serves him in plowing and threshing; the ass recognizes the master's crib and obeys with docility. Israel, by contrast, does not know or acknowledge God who nurtured, fed, and exalted her. Lapide gives the extended anecdote (from Apion via Gellius, Noctes Atticae V.14) of Androcles and the lion: the lion, recognizing the slave who had once removed a thorn from his paw, refused to attack him in the Roman circus, greeting him with gentle gestures before all the people — a brute beast repaying kindness that rational Israel refuses to repay God. Similarly he cites Democritus on a dragon that saved its nurse Thoas from bandits; a panther that guided a man to save her cubs from a pit; and an asp that killed her own murderous offspring to punish ingratitude. Lapide also cites the miracle of the horses and mules at the tomb of St. Kilian the martyr, who refused to soil the site, proving that irrational creation honors the saints whom men killed. The deeper theological point, following Cyril, Jerome, and Thomas Anglicus: 'Israel autem me non cognovit' — God is the owner and the manger, sustaining Israel in the Promised Land, yet she has not acknowledged Him.

VAE GENTI PECCATRICI. Lapide reads 'hoi' (Hebrew) as 'vae' — an exclamation both of compassion and of threatening. He identifies five grades of sin arranged as a climax or gradation: (1) 'genti peccatrici' — a people that wanders from the law; (2) 'populo gravi iniquitate' — weighted down and hardened by sin's burden; (3) 'semini nequam' — a wicked seed, having inherited and naturalized their parents' idolatry; (4) 'filiis sceleratis' (Hebrew: benim maschitim, 'destroying sons') — those who corrupt not only themselves but others; (5) the five-fold climax culminates in: 'dereliquerunt Dominum, blasphemaverunt Sanctum Israel, abalienati sunt retrorsum.' Lapide explains 'Sanctum Israel' as an emphasis: they have blasphemed God who is holiness itself, and who chose Israel as His own holy people, entrusting her with His holy law, holy faith, and holy sacrifices. Jerome, Basil, and Cyril refer this primarily to the Jews of Isaiah's time but see in it a type of the Jews of Christ's time, who blasphemed Him directly by calling Him a wine-drinker, a demoniac, and one who cast out demons by Beelzebub. Augustine (Contra Adversarios Legis et Prophetarum VII.22) explains 'semen nequam': they have become degenerate from the grace of adoption, turning the pravity of will into a kind of second nature.

SUPER QUO PERCUTIAM VOS ULTRA, ADDENTES PRAEVARICATIONEM? Lapide gives three interpretations: (1) Vatablus: 'Toward what end shall I strike you, since you are obstinate and show no hope of amendment?' (2) Jerome and Nazianzus: 'On what part of the body shall I strike you? I find no member not already smitten — the whole body is one wound, bruise, and swelling.' He cites Ovid (Ex Ponto IV): 'What use to drive the sword into one already cut? No room remains in me for another blow.' (3) Cyril: 'With what plague shall I strike you further? I have exhausted every genus of punishment — famine, war, pestilence, captivity — yet you are no better. It remains therefore that I abandon you entirely.' This total abandonment is the most terrible of God's plagues, confirmed by Ps 80:13 ('I gave them up to their heart's desires') and Ezech 16:42 ('My jealousy shall depart from you, and I will be angry no more'). 'Omne caput languidum et omne cor moerens' — by head (ruling princes) and heart (priests, the moral center of the body politic) Lapide understands the entire social body diseased: as Seneca wrote to Nero, 'good health flows from the head to all the limbs, or languor descends from it.'

A PLANTA PEDIS USQUE AD VERTICEM NON EST IN EO SANITAS. Lapide cautions that Isaiah speaks not primarily of bodily wounds but of the wounds of sin: he passes from effect to cause. By 'caput' (head) Lapide understands princes and rulers, in whom wisdom and prudent governance should dwell; by 'cor' (heart) he understands priests, who are the moral center and vital principle of the body politic, transmitting divine life to the people as the heart distributes vital spirits throughout the body. He notes with Sanchez that 'omne caput languidum' may allude to King Uzziah, who arrogated the priestly right of burning incense and was smitten with leprosy on his head and forehead at that very time. 'Vulnus, et livor, et plaga tumens' are then interpreted: the open wound is public sin; the bruise (livor) is hidden, festering sin; the swelling plague is sin of long standing that now stinks and rots. 'Non est circumligata, nec curata medicamine, neque fota oleo' — the wound is not bound, not treated with medicine, not soothed with oil; this means (per Septuagint): 'there is no poultice to apply,' i.e., their obstinacy is such that they refuse all the Prophets' medical ministry, preferring to fester in sin rather than accept healing. Richard of St. Victor wrote an entire treatise (De Statu Interioris Hominis) on this verse.

TERRA VESTRA DESERTA, CIVITATES VESTRAE SUCCENSAE IGNI. Lapide explains that in Hebrew the verbs are participles, not past tenses, and that although Sanchez and some others take them as referring to past or present devastations (by Egyptians, Ammonites, Syrians, and Assyrians under Ahaz), the context — since this appears to be Isaiah's earliest prophecy under Uzziah, when Judah flourished — requires a future reading: 'deserta erit, succensae erunt.' This is the Babylonian captivity under Nebuchadnezzar (Basil) and above all the Roman destruction under Titus and Vespasian, when 'not a stone was left upon a stone' (Cyril, Jerome, Haymo). Lapide notes the principle: Isaiah and the Prophets, while addressing their contemporaries, extend their vision prophetically to future generations who will share in their parents' sins and punishments, especially those of Christ's time. He cites Clement I's application of this verse to rich men who refuse to adopt orphans: God in His just judgment ensures that foreigners consume the goods such men hoarded.

DERELINQUETUR FILIA SION UT UMBRACULUM IN VINEA. 'Filia Sion' (Daughter of Zion = Jerusalem) is so called because the city lies below Mount Zion and, as a daughter, under its protection; also because God cherished it singularly as a daughter. The image is of a vintage watchman's booth: before the harvest, a guardian lives in it to protect the grapes from thieves and animals; once the harvest is gathered, the booth is demolished and only scattered timbers remain — so Jerusalem, sacked by Chaldeans and Romans, will have nothing left of her former glory but ruins. Lapide adds Sanchez's reading: the 'Daughter of Zion' may be the citadel of Zion overlooking Jerusalem, which served it as a watchtower serves a cucumber garden. 'Et sicut civitas quae vastatur': in Hebrew, 'a besieged and captured city,' a metalepsis. Lapide notes that Tertullian (Contra Judaeos III) reads 'sicut specula' (like a watchtower), alluding to the etymology of 'Sion' as a watchtower, but the standard reading is 'umbraculum' (a hut or leafy shelter).

NISI DOMINUS EXERCITUUM RELIQUISSET NOBIS SEMEN, QUASI SODOMA FUISSEMUS. Lapide explains that Hebrew 'sarid' means 'remnant' or 'survivors,' not merely 'seed.' Josephus (Jewish War VI.16) himself acknowledged that had the Romans delayed, Jerusalem would have been swallowed by the earth or destroyed by flood or fire like Sodom, so great was its wickedness. Lapide gives three senses: (1) literal — the few survivors of the Babylonian captivity and the Roman destruction; (2) allegorical — citing Paul (Rom 9:29), the seed is the small remnant of faithful Jews (Mary, the Apostles, and early converts) whom God preserved for Christ, without whom all Israel would have been reprobated like Sodom; (3) an alternative from Origen and Basil — the seed is Christ Himself, whose birth from the Jews God preserved. Chrysostom (Hom. V de Poenitentia) draws the pastoral lesson: God often tolerates great sinners for the sake of their holy posterity He foresees — Terah (Abraham's idolatrous father), Esau (ancestor of Job through Raguel), and the early Egyptian monks, all examples of divine patience. Lapide applies this tropologically to the penitent soul: 'Had the Lord not left in my heart a seed of good inspiration and contrition, I would have perished like Sodom.'

AUDITE VERBUM DOMINI, PRINCIPES SODOMORUM, PERCIPITE AURIBUS LEGEM DEI NOSTRI, POPULUS GOMORRHAE. Lapide explains five reasons why Judah's princes and people are called 'princes of Sodom' and 'people of Gomorrah': (1) their sins were the same — satiety, pride, idleness, neglect of the poor (Ezek 16:49), from which all other vices sprang; (2) they were addicted to the unnatural sin of sodomy (ch.6 of Isaiah implies this); (3) they were as brazen and shameless as the Sodomites (Is 3:9: 'they declare their sin like Sodom, they hide it not'); (4) as few just men were found in Sodom, so in Judah (Cyril); (5) 'Sodom' in Hebrew means 'declension,' 'Gomorrah' means 'rebellion' — and these princes were indeed rebels against God. Lapide notes ecclesiastical parallels: Pope Agapetus called Emperor Justinian (who was pressuring him to confirm Eutychianism) 'a Diocletian rather than a Christian emperor'; Hilary of Poitiers called Constantius a tyrant; Lucifer of Cagliari called him 'a worm of Arius'; Athanasius called him 'Antichrist'; Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople told the iconoclast Leo the Isaurian: 'You are the Antichrist.' All citing the prophetic liberty that Isaiah models.

QUO MIHI MULTITUDINEM VICTIMARUM VESTRARUM? DICIT DOMINUS. PLENUS SUM. God rejects the Jewish sacrifices not because sacrifices are in themselves evil — they were divinely prescribed — but for three reasons: (1) they are offered by men whose hearts are full of sin and whose hands are full of blood; (2) the Jews have placed all their religion in external ceremonies while neglecting the interior worship they signify, even presuming that external sacrifices can expiate sins they intend to commit (Lapide cites Jer 7:4-11); (3) by the time of Christ, the old sacrifices were abrogated and made lethal by the crucifixion. The external sacrifices were ordered by God primarily as a provisional pedagogy: to occupy Israel so it would not sacrifice to idols, and to lead it by figures toward the spiritual sacrifice of the New Law (Jerome, Theodoret, Chrysostom, Haymo, Hugo, Forerius all cited). Lapide makes the comparison: offering external sacrifices with a soul full of sin is like setting before hungry guests painted pictures of food rather than real dishes — citing Lampridius on Heliogabalus's mockery of his guests. Irenaeus (IV.32), Theodoret (De Sacrificiis), Chrysostom, Cyril, and Basil are invoked against those who deny this allegorical dimension; Lapide says Cyril and Cyprian almost accuse of Judaizing those who deny it.

QUIS QUAESIVIT HAEC DE MANIBUS VESTRIS, UT AMBULATETIS IN ATRIIS MEIS? 'Who asked this of your hands?' — meaning: I did not ask for the mere mechanical treading of My courts. 'Ut calcarelis atria mea' (Hebrew: 'that you trample My courts') — the temple forecourts were where sacrifices were burned; but God does not want courts trodden by impious men, He wants hearts purified of sin. To tread His courts with sinful hands is not to honor but to pollute the sacred. Lapide connects this with the general principle already established: external worship without interior conversion is not only valueless but offensive to God.

INCENSUM ABOMINATIO EST MIHI. NEOMENIAM ET SABBATUM ET FESTIVITATES ALIAS NON FERAM. Lapide explains 'incensum' as the burnt offerings (the word derives from 'ignitum,' that which is offered by fire); but it can also mean incense (thymiama) offered on the altar of incense — which, though fragrant in itself, became putrid to God because it rose from the hands of the wicked. He refutes Wolfgang Musculus who absurdly applies this verse against the Church's use of incense at Mass, noting that in Apoc 8:4 the angels themselves appear with censers burning incense before God. The 'Neomenia' (new moon/calendars) were the first days of each month, marked by trumpets and sacrifice; the other feasts (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, Trumpets, Expiation) are also rejected — all for the same reason. 'Iniqui sunt coetus vestri': Hebrew 'atsara' literally means 'assembly' or 'collection,' and Lapide cites the specific feast of the octave of Passover and Tabernacles. He cites Chrysostom: 'To spend feasts in wantonness is to turn propitiation into guilt'; and Augustine: 'It would be better for Jewish women to spin wool on the Sabbath than to dance immodestly at the new moons.'

CALENDAS VESTRAS ET SOLEMNITATES VESTRAS ODIVIT ANIMA MEA. 'Anima Dei' is an anthropopathism: God has no soul in the strict sense, but His divinity — a most pure spirit — is so called. Lapide notes that 'facta sunt mihi molesta' is rendered by the Septuagint as 'you have become a satiety to me; I will no longer remit your sins,' suggesting God's 'nausea' — as a stomach loaded with harmful food relieves itself by vomiting, God will expel Israel with its sins. Lapide sees in this a graduated expression of divine displeasure: from 'hatred' (odivit) to 'burden' (molesta) to active rejection.

ET CUM EXTENDERITIS MANUS VESTRAS, AVERTAM OCULOS MEOS A VOBIS. When Israel in tribulation stretches out her hands to God in prayer and implores His help, He will avert His eyes — because their prayers stink from the foul soul whence they are formed. The reason immediately follows: 'manus enim vestrae sanguine plenae sunt.' Lapide explains 'blood' in a dual sense: literal bloodshed and murder; and metaphorically, all serious sin. He quotes Hosea 4:2 ('blood touches blood') — i.e., sins accumulate upon sins — as explained by the Chaldean Targum, Jerome, and Gregory (Moralia XIII.9). Tertullian and Cyprian apply these words specifically to the Jews who crucified Christ and cried, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children' (Mt 27:25).

LAVAMINI, MUNDI ESTOTE. Having terrified the impious by threats, Isaiah now invites them to repentance and holds out hope of reconciliation. 'Wash' not with water or your repeated ritual washings (which cleanse only legal bodily impurity), but wash the heart from pride, gluttony, anger, hatred, envy, and all evil thoughts and desires. Lapide cites Clement I (Constitutions VIII.8) who applies this to baptismal candidates. The symbolic hand-washing before sacrifice in all ancient religions was meant to remind worshippers of the prior need to cleanse the soul. Lapide narrates the account (from Rufinus, Lives of the Fathers III.167) of a St. Paul, disciple of St. Anthony, who saw a fornicator enter a church black with demons holding a bridle in his mouth; at the hearing of these words of Isaiah — 'Lavamini, mundi estote' — the man was inwardly converted; leaving the church, Paul saw him radiant, the demons following him at a distance, his guardian angel joyful and close beside him. 'Quiescite agere perverse, discite benefacere': Lactantius (Div. Inst. V.9) and Hermes Trismegistus are cited: 'The sole worship of God is to be without evil' — the entirety of Christian religion is to live without crime and without stain.

QUAERITE JUDICIUM, SUBVENITE OPPRESSO, JUDICATE PUPILLO, DEFENDITE VIDUAM. Lapide addresses judges, advocates, solicitors, and notaries: they must investigate whether the cause of litigants is just, and must not pervert judgment for money, favors, or fear. The command to defend the oppressed, to judge the orphan, and to defend the widow is directed primarily at those in authority; Lapide notes God's special care for widows and orphans throughout Scripture and law. He relates two anecdotes about the Emperor Theophilus from Cedrenus and Zonaras: a widow who had been robbed of her late husband's horse by a duke who gave it to the Emperor; Theophilus, hearing her complaint, confiscated the duke's wealth for the widow's children and sent him into perpetual exile. In a second case, Theophilus had the brother of the Empress publicly flogged for building a wall that deprived a widow of light. Lapide notes: 'For heretics, enemies of faith, there can be no true justice, just as there can be no true chastity.'

SI FUERINT PECCATA VESTRA UT COCCINUM, QUASI NIX DEALBABUNTUR. The scarlet/crimson color of sin is compared to the dye extracted from the grana coccinea (kermes beetle), which produced the most persistent and brilliant of ancient red dyes — so pertinacious that, once applied, it could not naturally be removed. Lapide explains the cochineal/kermes process: the beetle is extracted from the oak-gall, immersed in strong white wine, dried, and ground into an infecting powder; the resulting color (doubled-dipped, dibaphus) blazes like Scipio's armor (Silius Italicus XVII). The comparison of sins to this color evokes both the harlot's ornament (meretrix — for Jerusalem is called a harlot in v.21 and wore scarlet to advertise) and Babylon clothed in purple and scarlet (Apoc 17:4). The promise that such sins shall be whitened as snow demonstrates, says Chrysostom (Hom. 80 ad populum), a power no human physician possesses: God purifies the soul so completely that no scar or vestige of sin remains. Lapide notes the Hebraism: it is the person, not the sins, that is whitened; sins are listed for the color of their malice. He refutes Tertullian's reading (Scorpiace XI) that the scarlet refers to martyrdom or Christ's blood — the context is clearly about sins themselves being scarlet. He also refutes Luther's scurrilous application of this verse against the traditional mixing of water and wine in the chalice.

SI VOLUERITIS ET AUDIERITIS ME, BONA TERRAE COMEDETIS. These two verses (19-20) present a clear binary: obedience brings the blessings of the land (ultimately the heavenly Jerusalem — Tertullian, De Resurrectione Carnis, applies 'bona terrae' to the gifts of the glorified body); disobedience brings the sword (of the Babylonians and Romans, per Jerome). Lapide defends free will against Luther and Calvin: the sinner can choose to will or not will obedience to God, as Isaiah plainly says. He dismisses Calvin's distinction between 'free' and 'spontaneous' action as insufficient (animals too act spontaneously), quoting Psalm 80 and Ezek 16 on God's abandonment of the obstinate as the ultimate punishment.

QUOMODO FACTA EST MERETRIX CIVITAS FIDELIS. 'Quomodo' — how! — is an exclamation of astonishment and lamentation. Jerusalem, once faithful to God as a chaste wife to a husband, is now a harlot. Lapide explains the Hebrew 'zona' as meaning not only harlot but hostelry-keeper or tavern-keeper who admits all comers: Jerusalem received all nations' vices and crimes as a common inn receives all travelers. Jerome's disciple Prado (In Ezech. IX) identifies two capital vices imputed here: (1) spiritual adultery (idolatry, against the first table of the Decalogue), opposed to the ancient 'fides' to God; (2) homicide (against the second table), opposed to ancient 'justitia.' 'Justitia habitavit in ea' — justice once slept securely in Jerusalem as in her own bed; now murderers dwell there safely. Lapide draws the theological lesson: 'Faith and true religion are the companions and cause of justice; infidelity and impiety produce injustice. Among heretics who betray the faith, there can be no true justice, just as there can be no true chastity.'

ARGENTUM TUUM VERSUM EST IN SCORIAM: VINUM TUUM MIXTUM EST AQUA. Lapide gives three readings of this double image: (1) Faith is the silver, justice is the wine; dross replaces faith (idolatry for religion) and water replaces wine (fraud and injustice for fervid charity). (2) Jerome, Cyril, and Basil: silver and wine represent the divine eloquence and law of Moses, now adulterated by Pharisaic traditions (the Septuagint renders: 'your tavern-keepers mix wine with water' — i.e., the scribes dilute the law with human inventions). (3) Leo Castrius, following Plato (Republic III) on souls of gold, silver, bronze, and iron: the silver is the prophets, doctors, and priests of Israel, now morally corrupt and corrupting others. Lapide refutes Luther's use of this verse (from his 1522 tract against the King of England) to argue against mixing water with wine in the Eucharistic chalice: the verse condemns tavern-keepers who dilute wine for profit, not worshippers who mix it for sobriety; and Luther objects only because he wants to drink unmixed wine — he is a glutton, not a theologian.

PRINCIPES TUI INFIDELES, SOCII FURUM. Lapide notes the Hebrew paronomasia between 'sarim' (princes) and 'sorerim' (rebellious/decliners). He points out the various translations: Aquila 'receding,' Pagninus 'declining,' Septuagint and Jerome 'disobedient.' He adds the sarcastic aside on Calvin's puns against the clergy ('Cardinales' as 'Carnales,' 'Canonici' as 'Caenonici' etc.) and dismisses him as a son of the devil learning to slander from his father. The main application concerns corrupt judges who love gifts and pervert justice for money. Lapide's outstanding example is Blessed Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, who in two years' service cleared every case from the court without leaving a single one pending, with such integrity that no one could complain — having served in public life from boyhood to age fifty without increasing his income by more than seventy gold pieces. Peter Damian's letter to the Cardinal-Bishops (Ep. II.2) is quoted at length, applying Isaiah's rebuke to prelates who accept gifts, showing how the consciousness of received bribes weakens judgment, softens speech, and saps the freedom of judicial authority.

HEU, CONSOLABOR SUPER HOSTIBUS MEIS, ET VINDICABOR. Lapide notes the ambiguity of Hebrew 'hoi' — both a cry of pain and of gloating — and the Latin 'heu' as a groan of the grieving. He argues for a reading that unites both: God announces His vengeance with a sigh of reluctance, because He is supremely benign and punishes against His natural inclination, like a physician who must cauterize a wound, or a lumberjack who grunts as he delivers a great blow. 'Consolabor' (I will be consoled) = 'vindicabor' (I will be avenged), explained by Hebrew parallelism. Yet God's vengeance is also supreme mercy: through chastisement He converts and emends the sinner, turning an enemy into a friend, a slave of the devil into a child of God. Lapide cites Ezech 5:13 and Deut 28's similar language of divine satisfaction in judgment. 'The same affection by which God avenges and punishes is the affection by which He grieves and has compassion on the one punished: He is a true and pious father even in judgment.'

ET CONVERTAM MANUM MEAM AD TE, ET EXCOQUAM AD PURUM SCORIAM TUAM. The metaphor is from the silversmith: just as a refiner liquefies a mass of impure silver in fire and repeatedly works it until the pure metal separates from the dross, tin, and slag, so God through the fire of tribulation — the Babylonian and Roman captivities — will afflict Israel until idolatry, injustice, Pharisaic traditions, and all the dross of sin are separated and expelled. Lapide notes the Hebrew 'ascib' (I will return my hand), which describes the refiner's repeated action of turning the metal to polish and purify it. The result: God punishes sins but spares the sinner; He kills the old impure man and resurrects a pure one — 'the impure Peter dies and the pure Peter rises.' This wonderful vengeance is simultaneously the highest mercy. Lapide cites Jeremiah 6 (end) for a similar metallurgical metaphor, and notes with Richard of St. Victor that tribulation is the furnace that purifies the elect but consumes the reprobate.

ET RESTITUAM JUDICES TUOS UT FUERUNT PRIUS. The restoration of good judges was fulfilled (1) literally in Esdras, Nehemiah, Jeshua son of Josedech, and the Maccabees after the Babylonian captivity; (2) more fully and truly in Christ's time, when God replaced the impious Scribes and Pharisees with the holy Apostles and their successors in the Church — these new judges surpassing the ancient ones in wisdom, diligence, and the grace of governing. Lapide invokes Jerome, Chrysostom, Haymo, Hugo, Cyril, Dionysius the Carthusian, and Forerius on the Apostolic fulfillment. 'Post haec vocaberis civitas justi' — after the purification, Jerusalem will be called 'city of the Just One' (i.e., of Christ, who is antonomastically called 'the Just One' and 'Holy of Holies'); under His governance through the Apostles, the Church would be ruled not for private advantage but for the most just and holy will of Christ alone. 'Urbs fidelis' — the Church was faithful to God as a chaste spouse, whereas the Synagogue repeatedly played the adulteress with idols.

SION IN JUDICIO REDIMETUR ET REDUCENT EAM IN JUSTITIA. Lapide explains 'in judicio' (in justice/judgment) as the just satisfaction exacted by God: Zion will be redeemed after enduring the just penalty of seventy years' captivity. The Septuagint renders: 'With judgment shall her captivity be saved.' More fully, this is fulfilled by Christ who redeemed Zion (the Church of Jews and Gentiles, beginning in Zion and Jerusalem) 'in judgment' — meaning Christ's redemption was an act of rigorous justice: (1) He paid the price of His blood, satisfying God's justice; (2) the devil held men in tyrannical captivity and was justly deprived of that power; (3) the devil had no lawful power over Christ the innocent, and by abusing his power to have Christ crucified, he merited losing it entirely — 'Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out' (John 12:31). Lapide notes that Christ's redemption, though supremely merciful, is here called 'justice,' because it simultaneously justifies sinners by infusing righteousness. Anagogically: Christ will perfectly redeem Zion from all evil of guilt and punishment at the final resurrection.

ET CONTERET SCELESTOS ET PECCATORES SIMUL. From the Messianic consolation (v.26-27), Isaiah returns to his own era's threats. The wicked will be crushed — 'scelestus' (thoroughly criminal) is more than 'peccator' (sinner), signifying a five-fold gradation. This punishment was accomplished partly in the Babylonian captivity and more fully through Titus and Vespasian against those Jews of Christ's time who refused to believe in Him. Lapide notes the distinction: God redeems 'Sion' in v.27, meaning the believing remnant (Mary, Apostles, early converts); He crushes the 'scelestosi' of v.28, meaning those who rejected Christ, the 'spurious sons of Zion according to the flesh.' The ultimate condemnation falls at the particular and universal judgment: 'those who have forsaken the Lord shall be consumed.'

CONFUNDENTUR ENIM AB IDOLIS QUIBUS SACRIFICAVERUNT. Israel will be shamed on account of their idols because they will see that those idols cannot deliver them from God's chastisements. Lapide notes a textual-critical aside against Castalio who translated 'from the gods' (a divis) to imply an attack on invocation of the saints — Lapide dismisses this as dishonest. The verse refers primarily to the Babylonian captivity, when idol-worship was most prevalent; Lapide notes that by the time of Christ the Jews had abandoned explicit idolatry, but that at the end of the world under Antichrist they will take it up again and be confounded again. 'Erubescetis super hortis quos elegeratis' — the gardens and groves consecrated to idols, especially the obscene Beelphegor (Priapus), where shameless worship was performed (2 Par 15:16); 2 Kings 17:8-13 is cited.

CUM FUERITIS VELUT QUERCUS DEFLUENTIBU FOLIIS, ET VELUT HORTUS ABSQUE AQUA. The image of an oak losing its leaves in winter or old age, and a garden without water, applies to Israel's coming spiritual and physical desolation: 'you sinned in gardens, you shall wither and be punished as gardens.' Lapide interprets the garden without water both corporeally — wasting away in famine and misery — and spiritually: deprived of the water of grace, the soul produces no fruit of good works, living not a human but a bestial, diabolical, and infernal life.

ET ERIT FORTITUDO VESTRA UT FAVILLA STUPAE, ET OPUS VESTRUM QUASI SCINTILLA. 'Their strength' refers both to the cities, walls, arms, and fortresses of Judah, and more particularly to the idols in which they placed all their trust (the Hebrew 'chosen,' strong one, is here applied to the idol). 'Their work' includes the ornament and cult offered to idols, and also the goods — estates, palaces — accumulated through fraud, injustice, and rapine with demonic assistance. Lapide follows Basil, Jerome, and Haymo in seeing both a temporal and an eternal fire: the temporal fire is the Babylonian and Roman destructions; the eternal fire is Gehenna, where the works of the impious and all their glory, wealth, and strength will burn in the very person of the sinner, inexstinguishably. The Chaldean Targum renders: 'The impious and their evil works shall burn.' Lapide adds: 'The fire of Gehenna is properly inexstinguishable' — the image of tow and a spark catching fire simultaneously, with no one to quench it, is a type of the unquenchable perdition of those who forsake God.