Ishodad of Merv — Commentary on Scripture

2 Kings 22:11-14

“They went to the prophet Huldah,” and not to Jeremiah, even though he was already well known as a prophet, probably because Jeremiah was not there at the moment, or maybe because this woman surpassed him with the power of her gift of prophecy.

BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 22:14

2 Kings 23:10-15

“No one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire.” The passage through fire is the symbol of combustion. In fact, the demons demanded that [their worshipers] burn their own children, and sometimes they were immolated, sometimes they only underwent the symbolic rite mentioned above, as if they had been actually placed into the fire and consumed, and so the expectations of the demons were satisfied. Sometimes fire was also passed above somebody to signify that he was by now enveloped in fire. Then salt was thrown, too, according to the customs of those who worship the devil.

BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 23:10

2 Kings 23:31-36

Jehoahaz, also called Shalom, reigned three months until the Egyptians came back from Mabboug. At that stage [Pharaoh] enchained him and brought him to Egypt. So [Jehoahaz] left his country and never came back, according to the prophecy that Jeremiah had spoken against him. Pharaoh appointed his brother Heliakim as the new king and gave him the name of Jehoiakim.

BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 23:31

2 Kings 25:22-30

Evil-merodach was the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Since he had ruled the kingdom badly and had, in addition, troubled the land with a severe conflict, when his father came back [from his military campaign], his father imprisoned him, fearing that he might rebel against him. Now he was imprisoned in the same place where also Jehoaichin was imprisoned. There they kept each other company for a long time and became friends. Therefore, after Nebuchadnezzar was dead and Evil-merodach was appointed as the new king, he granted [Jehoiachin] favors and gifts. And this was a reward given to Jehoiachin, because he had obeyed the prophecy and had surrendered, so that God did not refuse him the wage that he had earned.

BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 25:27

Amos 7:14-15

“And Amaziah sends, etc.” In fact, since the prophet had received the order to prophesy beside the temple of the idols, so that his words might be heard not only by the ten tribes but also by the people living around, Amaziah, the priest of the temple, thinks that if these words were addressed to the people for some time, inevitably they would have been afraid and would not have come to worship the idols anymore, and therefore he would have lost authority. So he sends his complaint to excite the reaction of the king against the prophet, asking that either he was executed or expelled from that place. But since the king was afraid to harm the prophet, Amaziah dares say to the prophet by mocking him and laughing at him—in fact, the word seer is used with scorn: “Go, flee away to the land of Judah.” That is, there you will be treated justly by receiving the wage for your role as a prophet, because those of the house of Judah are accustomed to taking care of their prophets. This priest of the demons had believed that the prophet had taken up his task as if it was an ordinary job, that is…

“And Amaziah sends, etc.” In fact, since the prophet had received the order to prophesy beside the temple of the idols, so that his words might be heard not only by the ten tribes but also by the people living around, Amaziah, the priest of the temple, thinks that if these words were addressed to the people for some time, inevitably they would have been afraid and would not have come to worship the idols anymore, and therefore he would have lost authority. So he sends his complaint to excite the reaction of the king against the prophet, asking that either he was executed or expelled from that place. But since the king was afraid to harm the prophet, Amaziah dares say to the prophet by mocking him and laughing at him—in fact, the word seer is used with scorn: “Go, flee away to the land of Judah.” That is, there you will be treated justly by receiving the wage for your role as a prophet, because those of the house of Judah are accustomed to taking care of their prophets. This priest of the demons had believed that the prophet had taken up his task as if it was an ordinary job, that is, to make a living as he himself had done. He imagined that the motive of Amos was to stuff himself with food. But the prophet answered, according to the Greek text, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son.” That is, I have not learned this profession as a trade nor have I inherited it from my fathers, but it is the work of divine grace that is given to those who seek after God. “I was a goat herder and dug around sycamore trees.” Other versions read, “I looked for the fruits of the sycamore trees,” or “I scraped the wild fig trees,” or “I made incisions on the fruits of the sycamores.” This meaning is, sometimes I pastured goats and sheep as well, sometimes I tilled the ground by digging and raking and irrigating around the trees. By mentioning the sycamore trees, which are wild fig trees, he refers to all trees.

COMMENTARY ON AMOS

Daniel 3:22

The flames killed because the slanderers, being carried away by their joy, approached the furnace to observe the burning of their [victims], but through divine intervention they were consumed by the heat of the furnace. So also, in order that the king and the Babylonians might not think that because of a hallucination or illusion those youths made the fire harmless, God caused many of those who had gathered around the furnace to be consumed while the youths felt just like the king in his bedroom.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 3:22

Daniel 4:10

“Its top,” that is, of the tree, is his thoughts and the pride of his spirit. “Its foliage” is his army. “Its fruits” are his nobles. “The animals of the fields and the birds” are the nations and kingdoms that he has subdued. “From it all living beings were fed” are because the silver and gold that were for the benefit of people were coined by his mint. “A holy watcher” is one of the spiritual beings. “Its branches” is his dominion. “Its stumps and roots” is said because his sovereignty will last until his return. “With bands of iron and bronze in the grass of the field” are the words because when he is in the desert and feeds on vegetables, his sovereignty will stay with him in this manner, like something bound with iron and bronze.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 4:11-15

Daniel 5:2-3

The words “at the taste of the wine, [Belshazzar] said,” that is, after he became drunk and unreasonable as a consequence of tasting wine.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 5:2

Daniel 6:1

We need to take notice that previously the Babylonians, that is, their princes, had used trickery in their jealousy of Daniel to destroy Daniel and his companions and had persuaded Nebuchadnezzar to build the golden statue and to order that it alone be worshiped by those under his authority. So, too, now the Medes use trickery in the elaboration of the edict and decree in order to destroy Daniel.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 6:4

Daniel 7:10

“The books were opened,” not because God needs books, but the prophet is speaking in human terms, according to the style of Scriptures, which speak materially with material beings; in addition, he says that in order to show the rigorous examination, on which the judgments of God are based, that [God] judges with equity and forbearance.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 7:10

Daniel 8:2

That is, before the vestibule and the gate where the river Ulai passed, that is, the gate that opens on the river Ulai.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:2

Daniel 8:7

The words “breaking its two horns,” that is, the two powers, which Darius possessed, as the kingdom was subjected to two races, since the Medes and Persians were indicated together. In the same manner Cyrus, who was the first to rule, was a Mede on his mother’s side and a Persian on his father’s side. As their first king was called a Persian and a Mede, so the peoples, who were under his dominion, were indicated with the same names, because these two territories made a single kingdom.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:7

Daniel 8:10

“The host of heaven” and “the stars and princes of the host”: he recalls in this way Onias and Eleazar and those of the house of the Maccabees. He calls them “stars” because of the brightness and beauty of the fear of God, by alluding to the words “I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:10-11

Daniel 8:11

“The host was given over,” so that “the regular burnt offering” that is, the sacrifices and offerings, were abolished and removed from their place. They were called so, because they had been established since the days of Moses and had continued constantly, or because the Jews offered sacrifices in the morning and the evening; and they came to an end as a consequence of the intervention of that criminal. “The place of his sanctuary,” that is, he destroyed, scattered and overturned the vessels and adornments of the house of the Lord.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:11

Daniel 8:12

“The sanctuary was cast to the ground.” Indeed, when Antiochus gets into Jerusalem and kills forty thousand [inhabitants] and rapes the women, he then enters the temple, destroys the candlestick, breaks the table of the breads of the presence and all the vessels of the sanctuary, builds an altar to Zeus inside the temple, which he calls “temple of Zeus,” and offers a pig to him. He gets into the treasury, where he steals eighteen hundred golden talents and the vessels of the cult. When he departs from [the city], he leaves behind some immoral men in order to overturn the prescriptions and laws of the righteous.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:12

Daniel 8:13

Plūmni: interior. This name is given to the angel on the basis of his actions and the place that he occupies; it indicates the one who is in the inside and close to the Judge and who knows the secrets and the events that are about to happen. It is a Hebrew term.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:13

Daniel 9:2

When the time fixed for the captivity is completed, Daniel begins to pray for the return; indeed, he had not dared to pray [to that purpose] before that moment, in order not to press God needlessly and in order not to hear the word that had been addressed to Jeremiah: “Do not pray for this people, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.” But after seeing that the sentence had been executed, he prays with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. At the same time he thought that the Jews might stay a longer time in captivity because of their sins, according to the fact that God had added thirty years to the Jews in Egypt and had reduced [the time for repentance conceded] to the generation of Noah of twenty years and of fifty in the case of the house of Ephrem. Moreover, it is not at the beginning of their fault that the sinners ask questions of the judge but after the punishment.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 9:2

Daniel 9:24

The words “seventy weeks will linger,” that is, until the destruction caused by the Romans. In fact, even though, in the meantime, they are sometimes afflicted, they will not be abandoned completely. Seventy weeks make 490 years; they are calculated from the time when they will come back from Babylon and will begin to build the temple to the year when the Romans will make war against them after the ascension of our Lord.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 9:24

Daniel 9:26

Theodoret interprets (“the king who will come”) as the foreign kingship and the unlawful doctrine. Others say, “With the king who will come,” meaning with the Christ who will come. Instead of the words “the anointed one shall be killed,” the Jews [say foolishly], “The oil shall be cut off.” Therefore, since there is no oil, and the oil of the anointment does not flow anymore, and it stops and does not proceed anymore, there was nobody to anoint with it both the kings and the priests according to the rule observed since Moses and afterwards. It was necessary that the law come to an end, because without priesthood and without the anointment of all that was anointed under the law, the law itself could not survive anymore. In the same manner, with what will your “anointed prince” be anointed, as there is no oil or ointment? “Its end shall come with a flood” and with destruction just like in the deluge of the generations of Noah.

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 9:26

Daniel 10:1

It is evident that Daniel lived up to the third year [of Cyrus] and beyond, even though at the beginning of the book we read “until the first year of the king Cyrus.”

COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 10:1