Theodoret of Cyrus — Commentary on Scripture

Isaiah 43:14-15

[Isaiah] predicts the defeat of the Babylonians and the enslavement of the Chaldeans. They will suffer these misfortunes because of you, he says, since they were unwilling to recognize that their victory depended on my good will and that you were made prisoners because I rejected you.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:43.14

Isaiah 43:19-20

“Because I have given water in the wilderness and rivers in the waterless land to assuage the thirst of my elect race; the people I have set aside for myself proclaim my virtues.” The race that [Jesus] put on according to his human nature is human nature in its entirety, yet is nearer still to the Jewish race. For there is no doubting that our Lord came from Judah.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:43.21

Isaiah 43:19-20

What I am going to do, he says, merits still more admiration than the things done [in the past]. He adds what will be: “And I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the dry land.” Some have thought that these declarations relate to the return from Babylon. This is wrong, for he did not favor them at that time, while they were returning from exile, either with a strange road or with rivers. But he is calling the Gentiles “the desert” [wilderness], and the preachings of the apostles “rivers” and the course that escapes error “the way.” What he has added makes it equally obvious.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:43.19

Isaiah 43:25

Do not forget your errors, God says, but keep them firmly in your memory so that you will always recognize how great are my benefits. In this way you will avoid committing the same misdeeds. Now since he has mentioned judgment and that fear is an appropriate response, he teaches them who would learn the way of victory. “You be the first to confess your sins, so as to be justified.” I do not want to overcome you, but rather I long for the opposite. Learn how it is possible for you to overcome; confess first your errors, and I will grant you pardon. I will judge you if you attempt to hide something from me. If you confess, I will forgive.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:43.26

Isaiah 43:27

[The Lord] has proclaimed these words in addressing those who were in Babylon. It is not I, he says, who am the cause of these misfortunes, but your ancestors, and your priests, who have transgressed my laws. Their iniquity has transformed the renown of Israel to an object of shame.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:43.27

Isaiah 44:3

He does not cease to make mention of the creation and of his kindness after the creation.… You will not be alone in enjoying my benefits, he says, for the thirsty nations will also drink from the streams of salvation, thanks to your descendants.… He is addressing those who are in Babylon, yet it is not to them but to their descendants that he promises to give the grace of the Spirit.… Here the prophetic text, having promised to give water to those traveling through a dry land, has shown through whom he will give it. “I will set my Spirit on your seed and my blessing on your children.”

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:44.1-3

Isaiah 44:5

The reality comes to confirm the prophecy: it is with total freedom of language that each of the believers calls herself a Christian and derives glory from this name.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:44.5

Isaiah 44:6

“Thus says the Lord, the king of Israel, the God of hosts who has saved them: I am the first, and I remain after these things. Apart from me there is no God.” If there is no God apart from him, the Son is not consubstantial with the Father, as the blasphemy of Arius and Eunomius teaches. How, then, can they call him God? If the Son is God and the prophetic word is true that openly states there is no other God, the divinity of the holy Trinity is one, even if they do not admit this.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:44.6

Isaiah 44:12

[Isaiah] has demonstrated that the production of these so-called gods relies on contributions. Their creator needs the blacksmith to prepare the tools and the whetstone for sharpening them; for his part, the bronzesmith needs coal and fire, while the constructor of the objects needs food and drink! It takes all this to prepare a god who is worshiped by these ignorant people. Isaiah is not finished mocking them. After choosing a log, the artisan immediately measures the so-called god. whereas the true God is immeasurable. He then shapes it with the appropriate tools, whereas the real God has no form or shape.… He does not copy divine characteristics but human ones; he shapes his human image and adores his own image as if it were divine.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:44.12

Isaiah 44:15

The prophet proceeds to teach that the Creator gave the forests and woods on the mountains to supply food and fuel and for the sake of human bodies. They, however, take a holm oak, an oak or a cedar that God has planted and watered by providing rain for the benefit of human bodies and use these trees to create gods.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:44.13

Isaiah 44:19

If it is a god, [Isaiah] says, the whole of the wood should be divine. Why, therefore, do you burn leftover parts of the wood and avail yourself of the fire to provide for your food, since at one time you bake bread, at another you boil and roast meat, and both eat and warm yourself and enjoy its light? Is not the wood that is put into the fire of the same kind as that which you worship? How, therefore, can you cast aside the one and adore the other?

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:44.17

Isaiah 44:20

Foolishness has mastered them; they have lost the faculty of reasoning and are slaves to folly. This is why I will put my Spirit on your descendants, so that they will be delivered from error, for in no other way can they receive the truth. “See, you will not say, There is a lie in my right hand.” The other interpreters join this passage to the one that precedes: “[Know] that no one is able to deliver his soul and no one says, is it a lie that you have in your right hand?” [Isaiah] has, therefore, said about the people who are in error that they do not recognize as a lie that which they are holding. But according to the Septuagint, this phrase, which is put into the mouth of God, should be understood thus: “Are my works,” he says, “like those of a whetstone? Has a human made me? Am I an idol? Am I fabricated by cutting wood or stones of gold or silver?”

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:44.20

Isaiah 44:22

God pardoned Israel’s sins when he brought them out of the Babylonian captivity. But, really and truly, it was only after the incarnation that God forgave the sins of those who believed in him. He removed the cloud of their sins and supplied them with eternal life.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 13:44.22

Isaiah 44:23

Again, the prophetic text has made use of a personification. Just as when [Isaiah] accuses Israel, he has invited the heavens and the earth to serve as witness, so also when he announces benefits, he invites creation anew to partake in the joy; it is not as though the elements are animate, but when we are depressed, they seem somber to us, and when we are happy, they naturally seem more radiant. It is not the elements that have changed, but it is to us that they present this appearance. If, however, one desires to apprehend the celestial powers by the phrase “the heavens” and the holy prophets by “the foundations of the earth,” with the thought that they are the ones who sustain [the benefits], one will not be far from the truth. For the Lord has said, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” One can understand the mountains, hills and the woods in a similar fashion. After the return of Israel, they flourished again because they were cultivated and were the source of rejoicing on the mountains.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 14:44.23

Isaiah 44:24

The text has presented, at the same time, a triple teaching: God is the creator, the master and the protector. For the term “Lord” demonstrates his sovereignty; the idea of “redemption,” God’s protection; and that of “formation,” the creation. “I am the Lord who performs all these things.” It is I who have sent you the sorrows and who will obtain the joys for you. Then God shows, by the events that have already happened, what he is able to do. “I alone stretched out the heaven and established the earth.” This again serves to refute completely the madness of Arius and Eunomius, for who is the one who alone has created the elements? Is it the Father? Then the Son is not the Creator. Or is it the Son? Then the Father is not the Creator. But if it is the Father and the Son, how should we understand the term “alone”? Surely it is evident that we must understand it of the one divinity of the Trinity.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 14:44.24

Isaiah 44:26

Here he calls “servant” the very prophet who is exercising the ministry of these words. “And verifying the counsel of his messengers.” Not only of this messenger, he says, but also that of all the others who transmit the divine word. Thus, it is not without forethought that he has made this declaration here but to give force to what is going to be said, for he prophesies in the next passage the royalty of Cyrus, who was the first to reign over the Persians, and the return of the people, the reconstruction of Jerusalem and the total defeat of Babylon. This is why he has prefaced it with “And confirming the word of his servant.” “Who says to Jerusalem, you shall be inhabited; and to the cities of Judea, you shall be built, and its desert places shall spring forth.” The text has shown the tremendous power of the Creator: I only have to speak, he says, and my will is accomplished; for it is by a word that I likewise effected the creation.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 14:44.26

Isaiah 45:1

The divine Scripture designates under the name “anointed” not only those who are brought forward for unction but also those whom the God of the universe has singled out with a view toward [fulfilling] a required function. Thus, referring to the patriarchs who lived before the law, he has said, “Touch not my anointed ones.” Here, in any case, he has given to Cyrus the title “anointed,” in order to announce that it is [God] who has chosen him as king in such a way as to defeat the empire of the Babylonians, to make an end to the captivity of the Jews and to [re]construct the temple of God.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 14:45.1

Isaiah 45:2

By all that is about to be said, he has taught that he has invested Cyrus as king, he has given him the necessary sovereignty to direct his empire with good will and so that the disposition of difficult matters is mitigated and facilitated. This is what the phrase means: “I will level mountains, and I will break to pieces brazen doors.”

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 14:45.2

Isaiah 45:5

[Cyrus] also was a slave to the error of idolatry. Even though he had received kingship from the God of the universe and obtained such great assistance from him, he had not known the dispenser of these benefits. God had nevertheless deemed him worthy, despite his error, of all these benefits. He had appointed him as an instrument of chastisement to the Babylonians and of the liberation of Israel. However, I have found some copies that bear this text: “Meanwhile, Israel, you have not known me.” But I have not found the presence of the word Israel, either in the Hebrew text or with the other interpreters or in the Hexapla version [Origen’s compilation] of the Septuagint. And it is justifiably so, for it is not Israel that he is accusing of scorning him, but Cyrus. Then he also indicates the cause of the liberation of the Jews.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 14:45.5

Isaiah 45:7

He calls “light” here the happy events—the cessation of slavery, the liberation and the return—and “darkness” the sad happenings—the siege, the subjection, the enslavement. It is I, he says, who am the author of these two series of events, of these and of those. It is I who made use of Nebuchadnezzar to inflict the chastisement and who have chosen Cyrus as the instrument for the liberation. And just as I am the creator of the light and of darkness, and [just as] I have produced each of them so that they are used for humankind, I have inflicted bondage on Israel in its interest, and I have made the gift of freedom by reason of my benevolence. “Who make peace and create evil.” He has clearly taught what he has meant under the name of darkness and of light: it is peace that he has called “light” and the events that seem bad “darkness.” So [God] has called them evil, not because they are evil by nature but because people considered them thus. For we have the habit of saying, “Today is a bad day for me,” not because the day itself is changed to some other nature but because in the course…

He calls “light” here the happy events—the cessation of slavery, the liberation and the return—and “darkness” the sad happenings—the siege, the subjection, the enslavement. It is I, he says, who am the author of these two series of events, of these and of those. It is I who made use of Nebuchadnezzar to inflict the chastisement and who have chosen Cyrus as the instrument for the liberation. And just as I am the creator of the light and of darkness, and [just as] I have produced each of them so that they are used for humankind, I have inflicted bondage on Israel in its interest, and I have made the gift of freedom by reason of my benevolence. “Who make peace and create evil.” He has clearly taught what he has meant under the name of darkness and of light: it is peace that he has called “light” and the events that seem bad “darkness.” So [God] has called them evil, not because they are evil by nature but because people considered them thus. For we have the habit of saying, “Today is a bad day for me,” not because the day itself is changed to some other nature but because in the course of that day some events happened that produced sorrow.

COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 14:45.7