Interpreting Prophecy

The word of the holy prophets is always obscure. It is full of hidden meanings, and it is in labor with the foretelling of the divine mysteries to us. For “Christ is the end of the Law” and the Prophets, as it is written (Romans 10:4).

So I say that those who wish to bring out clearly things so subtle and riddling must make haste to survey with the eye of the mind the full breadth of their meanings, and to do so with great good sense: on the one hand setting out the history exactly, on the other giving the spiritual contemplation its due, so that readers may gain from every side and the explanation of the meaning before us may appear to lack nothing.

Now I know that some have written on these things before us and have composed long discourses about them. And this, I think, is enough to give others no mean excuse for hesitation, and to persuade them to choose silence instead, since to what others have already said they would add nothing new, but would rather repeat the same things and go through the same lines of thought.

But even if this should happen to me, there would be nothing at all to grieve over, and the hearers are made firm in the truth by the agreement of many voices. So now too I persuade myself to rise above hesitation. I am convinced that sweat and toil spent on good pursuits are better than the idleness of a snoring sleeper, and I have not wholly given up hope that I may at times find something new and different, since God widens the path of insight. For it is written, “Your commandment is exceedingly broad” (Psalm 119:96).

The blessed Isaiah, then, prophesies in the times of the reigns of Ochozias, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Isaiah 1:1). Come, let us recall the times of each king and say briefly how each one lived. For from this we shall see that the word of the prophecy fits, and is most closely suited to, what was being done in each period.

Uzziah, who is also Ochozias, was a godly man. He advanced so far in glory and strength alike that he mastered the nations bordering on Judea, laid tribute on many of them, and made them bow, as by force, under his own scepter. He built cities, took others, and joined them to the borders of the land of the Jews.

Then something all too human befell him. For from excessive luxury, and overcome by the height of his fame, he grew in a way proud; and, mastered by the sickness of arrogance, he rose up against the divine Law itself. For he thought he ought to crown himself with the glories of the divine priesthood as well. He attempted to force his way into the divine temple, to burn incense to God himself, by his own hand, and so to perform unlawfully the rites the Law prescribes. For this reason he was struck with leprosy at once and was held in the deepest dishonor; for under the Law one gripped by the disease of leprosy is unclean (2 Chronicles 26:16-21).

Then Jotham, his son, succeeded to the kingdom of Uzziah. He was a man who loved God; yet “he did not remove the high places,” Scripture says (2 Kings 15:35), but the people of Israel still sacrificed to the works of their own hands, taking to the mountains and hills, “under oak and poplar and shady tree,” as Hosea says, “because shade is good” (Hosea 4:13).

When Jotham died, Ahaz succeeded to the scepter, a most loathsome man, hateful to God, and full of a wickedness that had reached its very height. He even shut the divine temple itself and would not allow the God of all to be honored with the sacrifices of the Law. He also stopped the customary feasts of the Jews, and, setting up altars in every place in Jerusalem, he ordered the people to worship things made by hand and to serve the host of heaven. He even “made his own children pass through the fire” (2 Chronicles 28:3), that is, burned them as a sacrifice to the unclean demons; and, in a word, there was no form of impiety he did not practice.

After him Hezekiah reigned, a godly man who loved God, a champion of righteousness, zealous for every good thing, and a doer of the divine will. He ordered every measure to be taken and enforced against the lawless deeds of Ahaz. He opened the doors of the temple, then ordered sacrifices and drink offerings to be brought to God, and God to be honored with the priestly services of the Law; and after a long lapse of time he is seen renewing the law of the Passover. He pulled down sacred precincts, altars, and things made by hand; he ordered the mediums, the false diviners, and the troops of enchanters to fall silent; and he was a good man in the eyes of God.

So, since in the times of the reigns we have just described the God of all was sometimes provoked to anger when Israel worshiped idols, and sometimes softened toward gentleness when Israel was being reshaped toward godliness through the goodness of its ruler, for this reason the word of the prophecy is mixed. At times it utters the heaviest threats, since Israel was acting impiously; yet it also brings in a word of promise of good things. Everywhere it keeps in mind the redemption through Christ, and it says that in due time Israel will be sent away from its close bond with God, while the multitude of the nations will be received, justified through faith in Christ.

So I think it right to crown the blessed prophet Isaiah handsomely, not only with the grace of prophecy but also with the glories of an apostle. For he is at once both prophet and apostle, and he does not lack a share in the brightness of the gospel preaching…