Augustine of Hippo — Commentary on Scripture

Isaiah 52:7 · 2 passages

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

But you, “O elect people,” set in the firmament of the world, who have forsaken everything that you may follow the Lord, follow him now and confound the mighty! Follow him, O beautiful feet, and shine in the firmament, that the heavens may declare his glory, dividing the light of the perfect ones—though not yet so perfect as the angels—from the darkness of the little ones, who are nevertheless not utterly despised.

When they of whom it was foretold, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet,” … announce this gospel of peace, then each one begins to be a son of peace when he obeys and believes this gospel, and, justified by faith, begins to have peace with God. However, according to the predestination of God he already was a child of peace. For it is not said, “He on whom your peace shall have rested, he will become a child of peace.” “If a child of peace is there, your peace will rest on him.”

Isaiah 52:11

Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.

What else does touching anything unclean mean, anyway, but consenting to sins? And what else does going out from there mean, but doing what is involved in rebuking the bad, to the extent that this can be done, taking account of each person’s status and position, without damage to peace? It has displeased you that someone sinned; you have taken care not to touch an unclean thing. You have challenged, rebuked, warned, even administered, if the matter called for it, a suitable penalty that does no violence to unity; you have gone out from there.…When Scripture thunders at us that we must withdraw from the wicked, we are only being required to understand that we must withdraw in our hearts. Otherwise we may commit a greater evil by separating too simply the good from the bad. This is what the Donatists have done.… To understand what he said, I pay attention to what he did.… What he said was “Depart.” … What I am asking is, did he depart physically from such people? I find that he did not. So he must have understood his own words differently. Because, of course, he himself would be the fi…

What else does touching anything unclean mean, anyway, but consenting to sins? And what else does going out from there mean, but doing what is involved in rebuking the bad, to the extent that this can be done, taking account of each person’s status and position, without damage to peace? It has displeased you that someone sinned; you have taken care not to touch an unclean thing. You have challenged, rebuked, warned, even administered, if the matter called for it, a suitable penalty that does no violence to unity; you have gone out from there.…When Scripture thunders at us that we must withdraw from the wicked, we are only being required to understand that we must withdraw in our hearts. Otherwise we may commit a greater evil by separating too simply the good from the bad. This is what the Donatists have done.…
To understand what he said, I pay attention to what he did.… What he said was “Depart.” … What I am asking is, did he depart physically from such people? I find that he did not. So he must have understood his own words differently. Because, of course, he himself would be the first to do what he commanded.… God, after all, could not blame him for his own sins, because he did not commit any; or for other people’s, because he did not approve of them; or for indifference or neglect, because he did not keep quiet; or for pride, because he remained steadily in the unity of God’s people.

Isaiah 52:15

So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

The Word, joined to human flesh, came forth from the virgin womb and has now strode forth like a giant and has run his course, and his exit was from the highest heaven and his return to the height of heaven. Now he has been exalted and honored, and many nations now marvel at him, and the kings stop their mouths because they have passed the cruelest laws against Christians. For, indeed, they were not told about him. Now they see, and though they did not hear, now they understand.

Isaiah 53:1 · 4 passages

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

Are we correct in understanding God’s right hand to be the one of whom Isaiah says, “And the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed”? That, you see, is the only Son, whom the Father did not spare “but handed him over for us all.” And thus he stretched out his right hand on the cross, and the earth devoured the godless, when they thought of themselves as victorious and of him as despicable in defeat.

For just as it is your arm through which you work, so his Word was called the arm of God, because through the Word he constructed the world. For why does a person, in order to construct something, stretch out his arm except to directly execute his will?

Look and see that he alone is Father and his arm is the Son, and there are not two but one, a person and his arm. Not understanding or noticing how the words of one thing are transferred to other things on account of some similarity in everyday speech concerning visible and well-known things, how much more when ineffable things are spoken in some way, which are said in such a way to be impossible [in another way]? For a person calls another person “his arm” through whom he does whatever he does. And if he is taken away, he mourns and says, “I have lost my arm.” And to the one who took him away, he says, “You have taken my arm away.” We can thus understand how it can be said that the Son is the arm of the Father through which the Father works all things. Failing to understand this, we remain in the shadows of error, just like those of whom it was said, “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

If we should understand “hand” as power, the power of the Father and the Son is one; but if we should understand “hand” as it was said through the prophet, “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” the hand of the Father is the Son himself.

Isaiah 53:3

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Christ’s deformity is what gives form to you. If he had been unwilling to be deformed, you would never have got back the form you lost. So he hung on the cross, deformed; but his deformity was our beauty.

Isaiah 53:4

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

“But not what I will, but what you will, Father,” It is not as if the Father’s will was one thing and the Son’s another. [Christ is referring to] the utterance of our weaknesses, however faithful, which our Head transformed into himself, when also he bore our sins.

Isaiah 53:7 · 2 passages

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

Because he has come hidden, our God, that is, Christ, will come manifest. “And he will not keep silence.” What does it mean, “will not keep silence”? Because he had first kept silence. When did he keep silence? He was judged in order that there might be fulfilled that which the prophet had also predicted: “As a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer, without voice, so he opened not his mouth.” Therefore, if he were unwilling to suffer, he would not suffer. If he did not suffer, his blood would not be poured forth. If his blood would not be poured forth, the world would not be redeemed.

[Christ] kept silent while he was concealed, because “in humility his judgment was taken away.” He kept silent while he was concealed, because he was thought to be only human. But as God he will come openly; and as our God, he will not keep silent. So what about you? You were saying, “I want him to come.”

Isaiah 53:8 · 3 passages

He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

If you think this to be referred to the human generation by which he was born of a virgin, look into yourself and ask your soul whether the prophet would dare to declare the divine generation if words failed him for the human one.

The Son of God, who is also the Son of man, our Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Father without mother, created every single day; born of his mother without father, he consecrated this particular day [Christmas Day]; invisible in his divine birth, visible in his human one, in each of them wonderful. Thus it is difficult to judge about which of the two the prophet is more likely to have prophesied, “Who shall tell the tale of his begetting?”—whether of that one in which, never not born, he has the Father co-eternal with himself; or of this one in which, born at a particular time, he had already made the mother of whom he would be made; whether of that one where he was always born, since he always was. Who, after all, will tell the tale of how light was born from light, and they were both one light; how God was born from God, and the number of gods did not increase?

To sum up, Christ was born both of a Father and of a mother; both without a father and without a mother; of a Father as God, of a mother as man; without a mother as God, without a Father as man.… “Who will recount his begetting,” whether that one without time or this one without seed; that one without beginning or this one without precedent; that one which never was not, or this one which never was before or after that one which has no end, or this one which has its beginning in its end?

Isaiah 53:12

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Three men were crucified in the same place, the Lord in the middle, because “he was reckoned among the wicked.” They placed the two robbers on either side, but they were not crucified for the same reason. They were flanking Christ as he hung there, but they were far removed from him in reality. They were crucified by their crimes, he by ours.

Isaiah 54:13

And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children.

And the surest sign that you have been taught of God is that you put into practice what you have been taught. Of that character are all who are called according to God’s purpose, as it is written in the prophets, “They shall be all taught of God.” The person, however, who has learned what ought to be done but does not do it, has not yet been “taught of God” according to grace but only according to the law, not according to the Spirit but only according to the letter. There are many who appear to do what the law commands through fear of punishment, not through love of righteousness, and such righteousness as this apostle calls “his own which is after the law”—a thing as it were commanded, not given.… When the free person keeps a commandment, he does it readily. And whosoever learns his duty in this spirit does everything that he has learned ought to be done.

Isaiah 55:6 · 2 passages

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

If, therefore, he who is sought can be found, why was it said, “seek his face evermore”? Or is he perhaps still to be sought even when he is found? For so ought we to seek incomprehensible things, lest we should think that we have found nothing, who could find only how incomprehensible is the thing that we are seeking. Why, then, does he so seek if he comprehends that what he seeks is incomprehensible, unless because he knows that he must not cease as long as he is making progress in the search itself of incomprehensible things and is becoming better and better by seeking so great a good, which is sought in order to be found and is found in order to be sought? For it is sought that it may be found sweeter and is found in order that it may be sought more eagerly.

How then am I to seek for you, Lord? When I seek for you, my God, my quest is for the happy life. I will seek you that “my soul may live,” for my body derives life from my soul, and my soul derives life from you.… Is not the happy life that which all desire, which indeed no one fails to desire?

Isaiah 56:7

Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.

It is written in the prophet Isaiah, "My house will be called a house of prayer among all nations." But perhaps the Jews will say that the house of God, that is, the synagogue, is open to all. We will not argue the point, except to say that the circumcised always appeal to the law. For their law is of the manner of Abraham's circumcision. Nothing new is to be seen in what the prophet gives. But if only worthless things can be found, who will say that the prophet is speaking unnecessary and empty words? I do not know whether it is prudent to listen and not to prohibit. For since the Jewish people because of their sins, which took them away from God, were asking requests from idols, they were often rebuked by the prophets. They did not want to walk the road of penitence and return to God; to their shame he signals his house is open to all nations for prayer and that since the Jews have abandoned it, he will put others in their place. For if the nations were always being admitted to the law, as the Jews claim, how was the prophet speaking of the future, unless that signified something o…

It is written in the prophet Isaiah, "My house will be called a house of prayer among all nations." But perhaps the Jews will say that the house of God, that is, the synagogue, is open to all. We will not argue the point, except to say that the circumcised always appeal to the law. For their law is of the manner of Abraham's circumcision. Nothing new is to be seen in what the prophet gives. But if only worthless things can be found, who will say that the prophet is speaking unnecessary and empty words? I do not know whether it is prudent to listen and not to prohibit. For since the Jewish people because of their sins, which took them away from God, were asking requests from idols, they were often rebuked by the prophets. They did not want to walk the road of penitence and return to God; to their shame he signals his house is open to all nations for prayer and that since the Jews have abandoned it, he will put others in their place. For if the nations were always being admitted to the law, as the Jews claim, how was the prophet speaking of the future, unless that signified something other than had already been commanded? For it would not be possible to speak of such things as happening every day, since they were yet to come.