Isaiah 1-39

Steven A. McKinion, Thomas C. Oden, Steven A. McKinion

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780830897353
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Études bibliques

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;and the government will be upon his shoulderand his name shall be called"Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."For the early church fathers the prophecy of Isaiah was not a compendium of Jewish history or theology but an announcement of the coming Messiah fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. As such, the prophet's words were a rich source of theological reflection concerning their Lord and a vital aid in their defense against the objections of the Jews that Jesus was the promised Messiah. The interpretation of Jesus' ministry in light of Isaiah's prophecy was not a theological innovation on their part but rather a following of the path blazed by the New Testament writers and Jesus himself.Among passage-by-passage commentaries cited here are those by Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theodoret of Cyr, as well as one attributed to Basil of Caesarea. John Chrysostom preached a series of homilies on Isaiah of which most of those extant concern the first eight chapters, though Chrysostom frequently cites Isaiah in numerous homilies on other books. Augustine of Hippo, Gregory the Great, and Bede the Venerable frequently cite passages from Isaiah 1–39, as did many other fathers in defending the Christian faith from Jewish critics.In this Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume, readers will find materials ranging from East to West and from the first through the eighth centuries, some appearing here in English translation for the first time. Within this treasure house are riches to illumine the mind and fire the heart.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 1-39

The book of Isaiah was a part of the Christian canon from the beginning. From the outset Christians accepted the Hebrew Bible as authoritative Scripture, made up of the Law, Prophets and Writings. Consequently, the earliest Christian writings quote Isaiah and frame the message of Jesus as the Messiah within the boundaries of the message of the Old Testament. Christians believe the prophetic announcement in Isaiah of the coming Messiah was fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. The importance of Isaiah 1-39 for the Fathers was primarily its promise of the Savior.

Patristic writers expressed little concern over modern critical issues such as authorship. While they regarded the prophet Isaiah as the single author of the prophecy, of greater concern for them was the divine author behind the human one. They considered God to be the ultimate author of all Scripture, rendering the Christian interpreter responsible for discovering the divine meaning in the text. Consequently, the original setting of the prophecy or questions of multiple authorship, the use of existing sources by the author or redaction by a later writer were of little or no importance to the Fathers. Some readers may therefore be surprised at what one finds in the selections that follow. There is little emphasis on ancient Near Eastern customs and little effort to reconstruct the original historical context of the prophecy. For the writers in this volume, Scripture was not a compendium of Jewish history or even a textbook of Jewish theology but an announcement of the coming Messiah. This understanding of the Hebrew Bible meant that Christian interpreters looked for and believed they found the message of Jesus Christ throughout the Old Testament.

The Text of Isaiah

The book of Isaiah, like all but a few passages of the Old Testament, was written in Hebrew. Most patristic writers, however, read Isaiah in either Greek or Latin, though many of them demonstrated a knowledge of and interaction with a Hebrew text. The Greek text used was usually a translation of the Hebrew Bible produced by unknown Jewish translators in the third and second centuries before Christ. Due to a legendary tale regarding the independent work of seventy translators producing the exact same translation, this work came to be known as the Septuagint (LXX), from the Greek for seventy. In actuality, different parts of the Hebrew text were translated at various times, and these sections vary widely in style and accuracy. The Jewish scholars Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion made three additional Greek translations of the Old Testament in the second century after Christ, as Christians contended the Septuagint was a Christian book. Patristic writers occasionally made reference to these editions. Origen of Alexandria gathered these four Greek translations along with a Hebrew text and a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew in a volume known as the Hexapla, a name derived from the six columns into which the volume was divided. In the Greek-speaking church, however, the Septuagint was largely believed to be the inspired text and was the most widely used edition of the Old Testament.

As Latin became the language of the church in the West, there was need to translate the Bible into the vernacular. Passages from the Septuagint that had been rendered into Latin became widely used in the Western church. Eventually, sometime after the second century, these various Latin passages were gathered into one text, commonly called the Old Latin. In the fifth century Jerome translated the Old Testament into Latin from the Hebrew in an effort to produce a more accurate text. The Latin Vulgate, as it became known, eventually superseded the Old Latin as the official text of the Old Testament in the West. The Latin-speaking Fathers read Isaiah in either the Old Latin or the Vulgate.

Several Christian interpreters contended with Jewish interpreters over variant readings in the Old Testament. Often the controversy was over passages considered messianic by Christians. In Isaiah 7:14, for example, Jewish readers argued that the prophecy concerned a “young woman” who bore a child, while the Septuagint indicated that a “virgin” would conceive and bear a child. Christian writers including Justin Martyr, Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome accused the Jewish interpreters of removing clearly messianic passages from the Old Testament, particularly those in Isaiah, making the prophecy an important battleground in Christian polemic against Judaism.

Patristic Commentary on Isaiah

Although there is a considerable number of quotations from and allusions to Isaiah in early Christian literature, there are only a few commentaries on the book. Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome and Cyril of Alexandria all produced passage-by-passage commentaries on Isaiah. The three are remarkably similar in their interpretation of numerous passages. Cyril acknowledges the existence of and his use of other commentators in the preface to his commentary, certainly including Eusebius and Jerome. It is possible that although Cyril seems not to have been conversant in Latin he did have at his disposal translators who made Jerome’s commentary available to him in a Greek translation. At least relevant passages would have been translated for him. Cyril’s dependence on Eusebius and Jerome is, it seems, unmistakable.

John Chrysostom preached a series of homilies on Isaiah, although what remains covers only the first eight chapters of Isaiah. Chrysostom’s interpretation of the first chapters of Isaiah is quite similar to that of Eusebius and Jerome. Like Chrysostom’s other sets of homilies, these texts reflect a desire to explain the meaning of the passages for the edification of his congregation.

A commentary on Isaiah bearing the name of Basil of Caesarea has also come down to us. The authorship of the commentary, however, remains a source of scholarly contention. A recent English translation of the commentary by Nikolai Lipatov contends that the work is that of Basil, although the debate is not closed on the question of authorship. Despite this concern, the commentary is a rich exposition of Isaiah similar to that of other fourth- and fifth-century interpreters. Selections are here included under the name of Basil with the proviso that the authorship remains under dispute.

Theodoret of Cyr authored a substantial commentary on the Greek text of Isaiah. Although Theodoret and Cyril of Alexandria were opponents in the christological controversy of the fifth century, they were strikingly similar in their approach to and interpretation of Isaiah. The preface to Cyril’s commentary begins in the same manner as that of Theodoret. Theodoret claims that the prophecy of Isaiah was to announce the coming of the Lord.1 Cyril says, “The end of the Law and Prophets is Christ.”2 Theodoret states that the prophecy of Isaiah was also only to reveal the fate of Israel: Isaiah prophesies concerning Assyrian military operations against the Jews alongside the second coming of Christ. Cyril seeks first to explain the literal meaning of the text, which he does in one passage by surveying the lives and reigns of the kings mentioned in Isaiah 1. Theodoret explains to his readers that some of Isaiah’s prophecies are clear, while others are figurative and require interpretation. Cyril says that proper interpretation of the book will consider the figurative character of the text and offer a full explanation of the meaning found within it. Throughout their respective commentaries the authors distinguish which passages were intended as a warning to Israel and which were intended to announce Christ.

Other Significant Sources

Besides line-by-line commentaries, there are numerous expositions of particular passages from Isaiah in dogmatic treatises, polemical works and homilies. Of particular importance are those patristic works directed against Judaism. In an effort to distance themselves from the Jewish faith, many patristic writers expounded the Old Testament’s message concerning the Messiah, claiming that it was fulfilled in Jesus. These works are of great interest to the interpreter of Isaiah 1-39. Additionally, authors such as Augustine of Hippo, Gregory the Great and Bede the Venerable comment frequently on passages from Isaiah 1-39.

Selection Process and Criteria

While discovering patristic comment on Isaiah was an easy task, selecting the quotations to include was a difficult and sometimes frustrating process. Besides the line-by-line commentaries nearly every significant patristic writer commented on one or more important passages from Isaiah, particularly those cited in the New Testament. In determining which selections to include, I depended on the selection criteria for the ACCS project overall.

We have tried to represent fairly the major lines of thought in early Christian interpretation of Isaiah 1-39. In some places the consensual tradition has very little, if any, opposition. In other places the extant sources include several different accepted interpretations. In both instances we have sought to offer the reader an accurate portrayal of the state of patristic interpretation. We included selections from different periods of time and provenances to demonstrate instances of uniformity of interpretation. When significant difference of opinion existed, we have included the representative selections.

To determine which selections to include we kept in mind that the audience of this volume is first and foremost the community of faith. While the quotations provide the historian of exegesis or even the specialist in patristics a useful tool, we hope the church will be inspired by these voices from early Christianity. Our goal is that reading Isaiah 1-39 with the Fathers will enlighten readers and will inspire them to read the prophet closely and devotionally.

Our search for the patristic interpretation of Isaiah has been aided greatly by technology unavailable until recently. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae and Latin Cetedoc tools were indispensable for the selection of texts. In addition, the commentaries of Isaiah in Migne or critical editions enabled us to locate many comments. Finally, immensely capable and helpful researchers at the ACCS project office searched existing patristic literature to discover quotations of and allusions to Isaiah in the Fathers.

Important Themes in Patristic Interpretation of Isaiah

The most important theme in the early Christian interpretation of Isaiah is messianic announcement. The prophecy of Isaiah occupied a central position in the early Christian proclamation of Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah. Patristic writers followed the New Testament’s understanding of the book as a prophetic announcement of the coming One who would save his people from their sins. Matthew introduces the forerunner to the Messiah, John the Baptist, by quoting from Isaiah.3 Additionally, the Gospel writer explains the virgin birth of Jesus by appealing to Isaiah’s prophecy of the virgin who would conceive and bear a son.4 Jesus read from the book of Isaiah and announced that the promise was being fulfilled in the presence of those who listened to him.5 In the wilderness Philip explained to the Ethiopian eunuch that Jesus was the fulfillment of the message of the prophet.6 New Testament writers believed that the message of the gospel was inextricably linked to the message of Isaiah.

The Fathers followed the New Testament’s interpretation of Isaiah as an announcement of the Messiah fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. Patristic writers focused considerable attention on Isaiah 7:14 and the announcement of the virgin who would bear a child. The Fathers were unanimous in their understanding of this passage as a prophecy concerning the virgin birth of the Savior. Several writers, such as Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome and Justin Martyr, among others, dealt in detail with the question of whether the prophecy was intended to speak of Hezekiah’s day. They were agreed in their belief that the text was intended to speak of the Messiah rather than premessianic events. Evidence for this view was the idea of a sign, along with the fact that neither Hezekiah nor any other child was called “God with us.” In other words, were the birth of the Messiah to be like that of any other baby, rather than a virgin birth, how would the birth be significant?

There is also considerable treatment of the Hebrew word translated “virgin” in the Septuagint. The Fathers contended that Jewish opponents of Christianity had denied the prophecy of a virgin birth in order to discredit the claim that Jesus was the Messiah. They cited the text’s promise that the event would be a sign as evidence for their contention. Were the Messiah to be born simply of a young woman, then how would that be a sign?

Another important element of the text was the name Immanuel. The Fathers recognized that Jesus’ name was not Immanuel. However, they interpreted this part of the text as referring to what he would be called, not to what his name would be.

The other primary messianic locus for the Fathers was Isaiah 9:6-7. Patristic interpreters consistently identified Jesus with this text. Numerous authors explained each of the titles in the passage, referencing something about Christ’s life and ministry that was associated with each. Variant readings of the text offered different sets of titles, but they were all descriptive of Christ.

A second theme of the patristic interpretation of Isaiah 1-39 was Israel’s rejection of the Messiah and consequent judgment by God. The warnings in Isaiah’s prophecy about the overthrow of Jerusalem and the destruction of Israel by its enemies offered the Fathers what seemed to be a clear picture of God’s rejection of the nation of Israel. According to the patristic understanding of Isaiah, Isaiah announced that when Messiah came, the Jews would not acknowledge him as the one sent from God.7 While they had the Law and the Prophets to guide them to the Savior, because of their blindness they would reject him. Cyril of Alexandria claimed that they rejected him because they were tied to the laws of the Old Testament, refusing to see their purpose in leading Israel to the Messiah.8

The Fathers read Isaiah on two levels. First, the prophet warned the people not to fall into idolatry before the Messiah came. Constant calls to remember the law and to turn from sin were intended to remind Israel of the need to be faithful to God while awaiting Messiah’s arrival. These warnings remained important for Christians as well, because they served to remind believers of the constant threat of idolatry. Second, the prophet announced the ultimate failure of Israel to remain faithful to God. Israel’s refusal to receive the Messiah when he came would lead to its demise.

Along with Israel’s loss of God’s blessing because of their rejection of the Messiah, the Fathers also interpreted Isaiah to announce the extension of the blessing to the Gentiles. Matthew’s Gospel had interpreted Isaiah 9:1-2 in the same manner.9 God’s blessing of the Gentiles was not based solely on the Jews’ rejection of the Messiah. The promise to Abraham had included a promise to bless all nations. What followed from the failure of Israel to recognize their Messiah was the loss of a privileged status, not a simple transferal of God’s blessing from one group to another, although this was the view of some writers.

Despite the refusal of the Je...