Isaiah — Chapter 2

The word which Isaiah the son of Amos saw. Lapide notes that this verse repeats the title of ch.1 but shifts from 'vision' to 'word' (verbum): Jerome interprets this symbolically — in ch.1 Isaiah sees threatening visions, but here he speaks the Word that was in the beginning with God (Christ), moving from threatening Judah to announcing salvation for the Gentiles. The contents look ahead to the messianic age, aligning this passage with the close of ch.1 (vv.26-27).

And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared. Lapide reviews four interpretations of the 'mountain': the Jewish literalist view (Sion literally elevated); the cross of Christ (Cyprian); the Blessed Virgin (Gregory); and most authoritatively, the Church (Cyril, Eusebius, Athanasius, Jerome, Basil, Rupert). The Church is the mountain prepared (nakon = founded, fortified, established) above all other heights: Sion, Moria, the synagogue, pagan religion, philosophy. \"In vertice montium\" means the Church surpasses all patriarchs, prophets, and saints as their fulfillment and head. Anagogically, it is the heavenly Jerusalem.

And many peoples shall go and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. Lapide explains the miraculous 'flowing' (fluent) of nations upward to a mountain as the work of Christ's grace lifting hearts heavenward against nature. The flowing is spontaneous, successive (first Jews, then Samaritans, Syrians, Greeks, Latins, now Indians, Japanese, and Chinese), and powerful as a river's current. \"From Sion shall the law go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem\" — the Apostles first went from Zion; thereafter Rome (Christian Sion) dispatched missionaries to all nations.

He shall judge the Gentiles and rebuke many peoples; and they shall turn their swords into plowshares. 'Judge' is interpreted four ways by Lapide: (1) pronounce just sentence for the Gentiles against the devil; (2) vindicate them from tyranny (as the Judges of Israel); (3) rule and govern (the full empire of Christ); (4) and most sublimely, compose the hatreds and wars of nations through the law of charity. The peace of all the world at Christ's Nativity (noted by Jerome citing ancient historians) was a preambule; Tertullian cites Paul's conversion from persecutor to ploughman (gladius into stylus) as a personal fulfillment.

O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. Lapide interprets this as Isaiah's own voice inviting his Jewish posterity of Christ's time to receive the light of the Gospel alongside the Gentiles. Rupert reads it as the voice of converted Gentiles urging the Jews. Lapide gives it a tropological application: Christians must always ascend to greater perfection (Augustine: 'Come = believe; ascend = advance toward perfection').

For thou hast cast off thy people, the house of Jacob. Lapide explains that Isaiah returns from the Messianic vision to his own era, giving the reasons for Israel's rejection: (1) augury and divination (following Eastern customs); (2) pederasty (adhering to 'strange boys' — sodomy learned from neighboring peoples, per Jerome, Rupert, Haymo, Thomas Aquinas); and (3) mixed marriages with pagans producing semi-Jewish children. The prohibition of pederasty was one reason Jerusalem was earlier called 'princes of Sodom' (ch.1:10).

The land is full of silver and gold and there is no end of its treasures. Israel's fourth sin is avarice: land is full of silver and gold, horses and chariots, and idols. Lapide notes that avarice, unlike land, cannot fill the heart (Plato, Archytas Tarentinus liken the avaricious soul to a leaky vessel). \"The earth is full of horses\" (v.7b-8): pride in military might, forbidden by Deuteronomy 17 so Israel would place trust in God not cavalry. The fifth sin follows immediately: \"the land is full of idols.\"

And the mean man shall be bowed down, and the great man shall be humbled: therefore forgive them not. Both commoner and noble bow to idols. Lapide notes (with Jerome) that after the Babylonian captivity the Jews never again spontaneously worshipped idols (as Tobias ch. last and the Talmud confirm); therefore the idolatry described here was specific to Isaiah's era and the kings before Hezekiah. Calvin wrongly used v.8 against sacred images; Lapide rebuts him: the condemnation is of 'idols' (numina ex homine facta), not of images.

Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the pit from the face of the fear of the Lord. Lapide reads this as biting sarcasm: since Israel refuses to repent, God's certain vengeance will terrify them so that they flee into caves and pits — but even there enemies will find them. This describes the Babylonian captivity and the Roman destruction (Josephus documents both). The 'fear' and 'glory' of the Lord are metonymies for the Chaldeans sent by God.

The lofty eyes of man shall be humbled, and the height of men shall be made low. The proud of both high and low estate will be brought low by the Chaldeans, and then God alone will appear powerful and glorious. Lapide notes this verse (and v.17) are refrains deliberately repeated for emphasis, in the manner of preachers who inculcate the memory of the four Last Things.

For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and high-minded. The 'day of the Lord' is the day of judgment and vengeance exercised through the Chaldeans; allegorically, the Last Judgment when Christ will most severely punish the sins of the Jews and all the impious. Lapide cites Basil and other Fathers for this double sense.

And upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and elevated, and upon all the oaks of Basan. The cedars are the kings, princes, and nobles of Judah (as in Ezech.17); Jerusalem (per Cyril, Eusebius) is the 'Lebanon' because it sat atop Sion and Moria and was built of cedar. The oaks of Basan represent the strong, the wealthy, and the dissolute — 'Basan' meaning 'ignominy' in Hebrew, since wealth leads to gluttony and shameful vice. All will be felled by the Chaldeans.

And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall. The Chaldeans demolished the towers and walls of Jerusalem. Lapide treats vv.14-16 together as a graduated list of everything in which Israel placed pride: mountains, hills, towers, walls, ships.

And upon all the ships of Tharsis, and upon all that is fair to behold. 'Tharsis' means the sea (from Tarsus/Cilicia, maritime dominators); 'ships of Tharsis' are great ocean-going vessels — possibly the fleets of Tyre and Phoenicia attempting to aid besieged Jerusalem, which the Chaldeans also destroyed (Cyril). Lapide notes Sanchez's view that these are Solomon-style merchant fleets, but prefers the interpretation of Phoenician/Tyrian assistance fleets given the poverty of Judah at the time of siege.

And idols shall be utterly abolished. Fulfilled first after the Babylonian captivity (Israel abandoned idolatry permanently after it, per Jerome and the Talmud); second, under Emperor Theodosius, who by public edict abolished idolatry throughout the empire (Cod. Theodosius bk.10-12); third and most fully, at the Last Judgment when all idolaters will flee into caves before God's glory.

In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold... to the moles and to the bats. The moles and bats are either (1) actual moles/bats whose images were worshipped in Egypt (Augustine, City of God IV); (2) metaphors for the idols themselves — blind and lightfleeing as moles and bats (Jerome); or (3) allegories for the devil (Basil: the bat is lightfleeing, amphibious, toothy, generating live young — all apt for the demon). Morally, moles are men groveling in earthly things; bats are the spiritually amphibious who are neither heavenly nor earthly.

Cease ye therefore from the man whose breath is in his nostrils: for he is reputed high. Lapide gives this as a prophetic conclusion with a Christological reference (Jerome, Origen, ancient Rabbis): Isaiah warns Israel not to persecute Christ — though He is fragile as a man who breathes through nostrils, He is qua God the very sublimity (bama) itself. Various readings: Chaldean ('cease lest you be subjected when He becomes terrible'), Arias Montanus ('cease from the old Adam to put on the new Adam'), Leo Castrius ('do not trust Caesar'). Gregory (Moralia XXXI) reads 'spirit in the nostrils' as Christ's prescient knowledge through humanity of what He foreknew from eternity in His divinity.