A Land Full of Horses and Idols

… and very fittingly our God, who loves virtue, censures them as men whose mind is never sated in its love of gain, as men who ride on horses, and as men caught in the snares of vainglory. He says that their land was filled with horses (Isaiah 2:7), because not one or two had fallen sick with arrogance; rather, their whole land, as it were, had been seized by the passion, and the evil was spreading over them all.

Yet by this too He convicts them of having offended against the Law and of having chosen to disobey God, who had said plainly: “If you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, and you inherit it and dwell in it, and you say, ‘I will set a ruler over myself, like the other nations around me,’ you shall surely set over yourself a ruler whom the Lord your God chooses” (Deuteronomy 17:14-15). Then He says of the one appointed: “For he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor turn the people back to Egypt, so that he may not multiply horses for himself” (Deuteronomy 17:16). And besides this: “Nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself” (Deuteronomy 17:17).

So He blames them for heaping up wealth, and doing so insatiably, and for multiplying horses for themselves as well. The blame for this, it seems, falls most of all on those whose lot it was to lead, as men who transgressed the commandment; for it was fitting that they, before all others, should be seen to honour what had been decreed and to rebuke those who transgressed it.

“And the land was filled with the abominations, the works of their hands, and they worshipped what their fingers had made. And man bowed down, and a man was brought low, and I will not forgive them” (Isaiah 2:8-9).

Again He charges them with spiritual fornication, and with having chosen to worship many of the falsely named gods. He shows that they had come to such a measure of impiety as to drive every evil to its limit, and to practise the most complete apostasy from God, who knows all things, upholds them by His nod, and brought them into being.

He seems in some way also to grieve deeply for human nature, so utterly dishonoured. For the God of all honoured man by making him with His own hand. Man was not simply produced by a word along with the other creatures, as was, for example, “Let there be a firmament; and it was so” (Genesis 1:6). Rather, “He took dust from the earth and made man” (Genesis 2:7), according to the words of the all-wise Moses. He was made after the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), and was appointed a kind of ruler over the things on earth. Besides this, he was honoured with the spirit of life as well; for “He breathed into his face the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7).

So “man, being in honour, did not understand,” as it is written (Psalm 49:12); for he served carved images, and, as the prophetic word said, “they worshipped what their fingers had made” (Isaiah 2:8).