Isaiah — Chapter 4

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man. So great will be the slaughter of men in the Roman war that seven (= many) women will vie for one husband, agreeing to provide their own food and clothing — asking only to bear his name and remove the reproach of barrenness (a great disgrace in the Old Law). Jerome interprets allegorically: seven women = seven gifts of the Holy Spirit seizing Christ; Basil: the Synagogue seizing Christ, asking deliverance from spiritual barrenness; Cyril tropologically: many souls receiving Christ as bread and garment of salvation.

In that day the Germen of the Lord shall be glorious. Lapide strongly argues this refers to Christ, not merely to Israel's post-Babylonian restoration (against Sanchez). Hebrew 'tsemach' (germen/shoot) is a Messianic title in Jeremiah 23:5 and Zechariah 6:12. Christ is the magnificent Shoot of the Virgin Mary: glorious in His miracles, the Resurrection, the Ascension (quoted at length from Bernard, sermon 2 De Pentecoste). The 'fructus terrae' is Christ's glorified humanity enthroned at God's right hand. 'Exsultatio' = the joy of the saved remnant of Israel who believed in Christ (apostles, early converts).

Everyone that shall be left in Sion, and that shall remain in Jerusalem, shall be called holy. Those who remain in the spiritual Sion (the Church) after the Jewish nation's ruin will be called holy — i.e., all baptized Christians, who are called saints by Paul. 'Written in life in Jerusalem' = inscribed in the book of life of the heavenly Jerusalem: those predestined to persevere. Lapide notes the ancient custom of marking survivors with a cross (thau, per Sixtus Senensis) and the condemned with the letter theta (initial of thanatos, death).

If the Lord shall wash away the filth of the daughters of Sion... in the spirit of judgment and in the spirit of burning. 'Spirit of judgment' = the Holy Spirit who causes us to judge, discern, and condemn our sins; 'Spirit of burning/ardor' = the Spirit of charity who inflames and burns away the carcinomas of the flesh (citing John the Baptist's 'He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire'). Secondary readings: 'spirit of ejection' (power over the prince of this world), 'spirit of excision' (destroying death itself), 'spirit of pasture' (Christ as Good Shepherd). Anagogically (Augustine): the fire of purgatory at the Last Judgment.

And the Lord will create upon every place of Mount Sion, and where he is called upon, a cloud by day, and a smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire in the night. Lapide rejects Sanchez's limitation of this to the return from Babylon (no such column appeared then). This refers to Christ's time and the Church: God will protect His Church as He led Israel through the desert with the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night (Exodus 13-14). The cloud = the obscurity of faith; the fire = the light of charity. 'Super omnem gloriam protectio' = over all the Church's glory there shall be a canopy of protection.

And there shall be a tabernacle for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a security and covert from the whirlwind and from rain. The tabernacle = the Church or Christ Himself, sheltering His members from the heat of tribulation, the whirlwind of temptation, and the rain of persecutions — as the desert tabernacle sheltered Israel. Anagogically: the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem, sheltering the blessed from every evil.