Reading Scripture in Lent with the Church Fathers: Monday of the Third Week of Lent

Today’s Scripture Readings in the Orthodox Church
Isaiah 8:13-9:7; Genesis 6:9-22; Proverbs 8:1-21

Isaiah 8:14. Christ rose again from the seed of David, as the son of David, because he had emptied himself. How did he empty himself? By taking what he was not, not by losing what he was. He emptied himself; he humbled himself. Though he was God, he made himself known as a man. He was despised as he walked the earth, though he made the sky. He was despised as a mere man, as though he had no power. Not only despised, but on top of that also killed. He was a stone lying flat; the Jews stumbled over him and were shaken. But what does he say about that himself? “Whoever stumbles over this stone will be shaken; but as for anyone upon whom this stone comes, it will crush him.” First he lay flat, and they stumbled; he will come from above and crush them, after they have been shaken.
St Augustine (5th century)

Isaiah 8:18. Not only do we become his brothers but even his children, for he says, “Behold, I and my children, whom God has given me.” Not only do we become his children but also his members and his body.
St John Chrysostom (4th century)

Isaiah 9:1 (in the Septuagint and OBS). First it must be noted that Matthew’s Gospel uses the text of the Septuagint, not the Hebrew: “Jesus, hearing that John had been handed over, departed to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he came and lived in Capernaum, which is near the sea at the end of Zebulun and Naphtali. This was to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: ‘In the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, by the way of the sea across the Jordan in Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who sat in the region of the shadow of death a light has dawned.’ From that moment, Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘The kingdom of heaven approaches.’ ” And the evangelist John reports that Jesus performed his first sign, changing water into wine, when he was invited to attend a wedding in Cana with his disciples: “Jesus performed the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” Hence, the Septuagint reads, “Drink this first and do it quickly.” For the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali were the first to see the miracles of Christ, that they who first saw the Lord perform a sign would be the first to drink the potion of faith. According to the Hebrew, it is also said to be the first time that the [lifting of the] burden of sins was revealed, because the Savior first preached the gospel in the region of these two tribes.…
St Jerome (4th century)

 Isaiah 9:6 (9:5 in LXX and OSB). “A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulders.” This signifies the power of the cross, which, at his crucifixion, he placed on his shoulders, as shall be demonstrated more clearly as we proceed in this discourse.
St Justin Martyr (2nd century)

Likewise Isaiah also says, “For unto us a child is born.” But what is there unusual in this, unless he speaks of the Son of God? “To us is given he whose government is upon his shoulder.” Now, what king is there who bears the ensign of his dominion upon his shoulder, and not rather upon his head as a diadem, or in his hand as a scepter, or else as a mark in some royal apparel? But the one new King of the new ages, Jesus Christ, carried on his shoulder both the power and the excellence of his new glory, even his cross; so that, according to our former prophecy, he might thenceforth reign from the tree as Lord.
Tertullian of Carthage (3rd century)

The prophet asserts that a son is given to us (9:6). The only-begotten Word of God became man for us not for his own sake but that he might renew human nature to what it was at the beginning. He became a ransom for the life of all, offering his own body as a fragrant offering to God the Father. The prophet says that sovereignty will be upon his shoulder (9:6). It seems to some that these words should be understood as follows: when our Lord Jesus Christ came to his saving passion, bearing the cross, he was lifted up, and through it ruled over everything under heaven, that is, he took the sovereignty upon his shoulder.
This saying of the prophet is persuasive and worthy of praise: With the term shoulder the prophetic word signifies strength, for all our strength is in the arms and the shoulders. Therefore, the Son is called the right hand and arm of God the Father. Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? (53:1). Christ ruled everything under heaven through his own power. He is the power of his God and Father.
He is called Messenger of Great Counsel (9:6), that is, messenger of God the Father. And wise John will testify of him, saying: He who receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent utters the words of God (John 3:33–34). And elsewhere he says to the holy apostles: You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you (John 15:14–15). For this reason he calls Emmanuel Messenger of Great Counsel.
St Cyril of Alexandria (5th century)

(Note the careful distinctions Jerome makes between the Hebrew and Septuagint texts in verse 9:6 in Hebrew, 9:5 in LXX. It’s good to compare a standard English Bible for the Hebrew wording and the OSB for the Septuagint wording.) After two names, therefore [child and son], he will be called by another six names: wonderful, counselor, God, mighty, father of the coming age, prince of peace. For the names are not to be joined into couplets as many think, such that we would read “wonderful counselor” and “mighty God.” Instead “wonderful,” which is pele in Hebrew, is to be read separately, as is “counselor,” or what is called yôʿēṣ in their language. The title “God” also, whom the Hebrews call ēl stands on its own. Thus in subsequent passages where we read, “For you are God and we were unaware,” and again, “I am God and there is no other beyond me,” along with many similar statements, the Hebrew uses ēl where Latin uses Deus. And “mighty,” which comes next, is called gibbôr in Hebrew. Hence when the same prophet remembers “They will lay their trust upon God, the Holy One of Israel in truth, and the remnant of Jacob upon the mighty God,” the Hebrew text has ēl gibbôr for “mighty God.” But anyone who reads that the Savior is our peace, according to the apostle Paul, will have no doubt that the father of the coming age and of the resurrection, which is completed in our vocation, is also the prince of peace who said to the apostles, “My peace I give to you, my peace I bequeath to you.” The Septuagint in my opinion, terrified as it was by the majesty of these names, did not dare to say of a child that he must be called God and so forth but wrote in place of the six names, which it did not have in Hebrew, “angel of great counsel, and I will bring peace and his salvation upon the princes,” which seems to me to have the following meaning: He who announced to us that Israel would be thrown down for a while and that the nations would be healed is the angel of great counsel who also gave peace to its princes, apostles and apostolic men, and bequeathed dogmatic healing to their believers.
St Jerome

Isaiah 9:7 (9:6 in the Septuagint and OSB). Listen to how Isaiah predicted this long beforehand when he said, “and his name shall be called Messenger of Great Counsel, Wonderful Counselor, God the Strong, the Mighty One, the Prince of peace, Father of the world to come.” No one could say this of a mere man, as is obvious even to those who are very eager to show how stubborn they can be. No man from the beginning of time has been called God the Mighty or Father of the world to come or the Prince of peace. For Isaiah said, “There is no end of his peace.” And what did happen makes it clear that this peace has spread over the whole earth and sea, over the world where people dwell and where no one lives, over mountains, woodlands and hills, starting from that day on which he was going to leave his disciples and said to them, “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” Why did Christ speak in this way? Because the peace which comes from a human being is easily destroyed and subject to many changes. But Christ’s peace is strong, unshaken, firm, fixed, steadfast, immune to death and unending.
St John Chrysostom

Genesis 6:13. Somebody may say to me, “Was Adam, created by God as the first man in the original state of the world, condemned for lack of faith or for sin?” It was not incredulity but disobedience that was the cause for his condemnation and the reason why all his posterity are punished. Cain too was condemned, not for lack of faith but because he killed his brother. Why need I seek further proof when I read that this whole world was destroyed not for incredulity but for wickedness.
St Augustine (5th century)

Genesis 6:14. Undoubtedly the ark is a symbol of the city of God on its pilgrimage in history. It is a figure of the church that was saved by the wood on which there hung the “Mediator between God and men, himself man, Jesus Christ.” Even the very measurements of length, height and breadth of the ark are meant to point to the reality of the human body into which he came as it was foretold that he would come… As for the door in the side, that surely, symbolizes the open wound made by the lance in the side of the Crucified—the door by which those who come to him enter in, in the sense that believers enter the church by means of the sacraments that issued from that wound. It was ordered that the ark be made out of squared timbers—a symbol of the foursquare stability of a holy life, which, like a cube, stands firm however it is turned. So it is with every other detail of the ark’s construction. They are all symbols of something in the church.
St Augustine

Proverbs 8:9.  [Jesus] “spoke all things in parables, and without a parable he spoke nothing” [to the apostles]; and if “all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made,” consequently also prophecy and the law were by him and were spoken by him in parables. “But all things are right,” says the Scripture, “before those who understand,” that is, those who receive and observe, according to the church’s rule of faith, the exposition of the Scriptures explained by him. And the church’s rule is the concord and harmony of the law and the prophets in the covenant delivered at the coming of the Lord. Knowledge is then followed by practical wisdom and practical wisdom by self-control, for it may be said that practical wisdom is divine knowledge and exists in those who share in God’s life, while the self-control that is mortal, which is present in those who philosophize, is not yet wise.
Clement of Alexandria (2nd century)

Proverbs 8:11. It is written that “wisdom is better than stones of costly price; and all precious things are not comparable to her.” For the wisdom that comes from above, from God, is an incomparable blessing. When we attain to it by means of the holy Scripture, which is inspired of God, and gain the divine light to dwell in our minds, we then advance without wandering, and we come toward whatever is useful for our spiritual profit. Come, therefore, and let us now also scrupulously examine the meaning of the Gospel lessons.
St Cyril of Alexandria (5th century)