Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer; (continued)
COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH
illi praestitit; sic duxisti populum tuum, ut faceres tibi nomen gloriosum.
15. Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained?
15. Aspice e coelo; vide ex habitaculo sanctitatis et gloriae tuae. Ubi zelus tuus, et fortitudo tua? Multitudo viscerum tuorum et misericordiarum tuarum erga me cohibuerunt se.
16. Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.
16. Certe tu pater noster es, etiam si Abraham nesciat nos, et Israel nos non agnoscat; tu tamen pater noster es, redemptor noster; a seculo nomen tuum.
17. O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.
17. Quare fecisti nos errare, Iehova, a viis tuis? Recedere fecisti cor nostrum a timore tuo? Convertere propter servos tuos, ad tribus haereditatis tuae.
18. The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.
18. Ad exiguum tempus possederunt populus sanctitatis tuae; adversarii nostri conculcarunt sanctuarium tuum.
19. We are thine: thou never barest rule over them; they were not called by thy name.
19. Fuimus a seculo, quibus tu non dominatus es, super quos non est invocatum nomen tuum.
1. Who is this that cometh from Edom? This chapter has been violently distorted by Christians, as if what is said here related to Christ, whereas the Prophet speaks simply of God himself; and they have imagined that here Christ is red, because he was wet with his own blood which he shed on the cross. But the Prophet meant nothing of that sort. The obvious meaning is, that the Lord comes forth with red garments in the view of his people, that all may know that he is their protector and avenger; for when the people were weighed down by innumerable evils, and at the same time the Edomites and other enemies, as if they had been placed beyond the reach of all danger, freely indulged in wickedness, which remained unpunished, a dangerous temptation might arise, as if these things happened by chance, or as if God did not care for his people, or chastised them too severely. If the Jews were punished for despising God, much more the Edomites, and other avowed enemies of the name of God, ought to have been punished.
The Prophet meets this very serious temptation by representing God the avenger as returning from the slaughter of the Edomites, as if he were