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

Today’s Scripture Readings in the Orthodox Church
Isaiah 11:10-12:2; Genesis 7:11-8:3; Proverbs 10:1-22

It probably strikes the reader as strange that the readings from Isaiah jump from chapter 10 to 11:10, and skip the significant prophecy of Christ in Isaiah 11:1-9. But that’s probably because that passage is read at the Great Vespers of Christmas.

Isaiah 11:10 (in the LXX and OSB). Here is the meaning: his death will be glorious so that what the Savior prayed in the Gospel might be fulfilled: “Father, glorify me with the glory that I had with you before the world came to be.” This was said about his nativity and about other sacraments in the public view. He came to death who was not accustomed to bearing the name of the dead but because perpetual life was in Christ, it was called “rest.” At that time, when the gospel of Christ shines in all the world and the earth is filled with the knowledge of God, like waters of the sea covering the land, the root of Jesse and he who arises from his stem will be a sign to all the people, that they might see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. He will have a horn in his hands, in which are hidden his strength, that when he is exalted he might draw all things to himself.
St Jerome (4th century)

Isaiah 11:15. Where is now the error of the academicians, who endeavor to establish on sure grounds that nothing is sure, who with shameless brow demand from their hearers belief in their assertions, when they declare that nothing is true? Where is the superstition of the mathematicians, who, looking up at the courses of the constellations, make the lives of men to depend on the motions of the stars? Though the birth of twins often scatters their doctrine to the winds; for though born at one and the same moment, they do not remain in the same kind of life. Where are those many false teachings, which we abstain from enumerating, for fear of digressing far from the course of our commentary? But every false doctrine has now been silenced, because the Lord has bound the tongue of Leviathan by the cord of his incarnation. Whence it is also well said by the prophet: “And the Lord shall lay waste the tongue of the Egyptian sea.” For the “tongue of the sea” is the knowledge of secular learning. But it is well called “the Egyptian sea,” because it is darkened with the gloom of sin. The Lord, therefore, laid waste the tongue of the Egyptian sea, because by manifesting himself in the flesh, he destroyed the false wisdom of this world. The tongue of Leviathan is, therefore, bound with a cord, because the preaching of the old sinner was bound by the likeness of sinful flesh.
St Gregory the Great, ‘Dialogos’ (6th century)

Genesis 7:11. It is now time to examine the evidence that proves convincingly that the biblical years, so far from being only one-tenth as long as ours, were precisely as long as the present solar years. This is true of the years used in giving those extremely long life spans. It is said, for example, that the flood occurred in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life. But notice the full text: “The waters of the flood overflowed the earth in the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month, in the twenty-seventh day of the month.” Now those words are inexplicable if a year was so short that it took ten of them to make one of ours. That would mean that a year had only thirty-six days. For so short a year (if it was actually called a year in ancient usage) either had no months at all, or if it had twelve months, then each month could have had but three days. How, then, [can we] explain the words of the text, “in the six hundredth year … in the second month, in the twenty-seventh day of the month,” unless the months then were the same as they are now? There is no other way of explaining how the flood could be said to have had a beginning on the twenty-seventh day of the second month.
St Augustine (5th century)

Genesis 7:16. “God closed the ark of Noah from without.” You should not imagine that the unbegotten God himself descended or ascended from any place. For the ineffable Father and Lord of all neither comes to any place, nor walks, nor sleeps, nor arises, but always remains in his place, wherever it may be, acutely seeing and hearing, not with eyes or ears but with a power beyond description. 
St Justin Martyr (2nd century)

Genesis 7:17. But let us see where this most sacred number of forty days had its beginning. We read first in the Old Testament that in the time of Noah, when criminal wickedness had seized the whole human race, torrents of water poured forth from the opened floodgates of heaven for just as many days. In a kind of mysterious image of Quadragesima, this inundation of the earth refers not so much to a flood as to baptism.² This was clearly a baptism in which the wickedness of sinners was removed and Noah’s righteousness preserved. For this reason, then, the Lord has given us forty days now as well in imitation of that time, so that for this number of days, while the heavens are opened, a celestial rain of mercy might pour upon us and, with the flood, the water of the saving washing might enlighten us in baptism and—as was the case then—the wickedness of our sins might be quenched in us by the streams of water and the righteousness of our virtues preserved. For the very same thing is at issue with regard to Noah and in our own day: baptism is a flood to the sinner and a consecration to the faithful; by the Lord’s washing, righteousness is preserved and unrighteousness is destroyed.
St Maximus of Turin (4th century)

Genesis 7:22. Then, a little further on in the same book [Genesis], one could just as easily have noticed the verse “Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.” This means that everything that lived on the earth perished in the flood. Thus we find that Holy Scripture is accustomed to use both phrases—“living soul” and “the breath of life”—in regard even to beasts, and in the verse “All things wherein there is the breath of life” the Greek text does not use the word pneuma but pnoē.
St Augustine

Genesis 8:1. “God was mindful of Noah,” the text says, “and of all the wild beasts, all the cattle and all the reptiles that were with him in the ark. God sent a wind upon the earth, and the water subsided.” Being mindful of Noah, the text says, and of those with him in the ark, he directed the flood of water to halt so that little by little he might show his characteristic love and now give the good man a breath of fresh air, free him from the turmoil of his thoughts and restore him to a state of tranquility by granting him the enjoyment of daylight and a breath of fresh air. “God sent a wind upon the earth, and the water subsided. The torrents of the depths and the sluice gates of heaven were shut off.”
St John Chrysostom (4th century)

“And the Lord sent a breath over the earth and the water subsided.” I do not believe that this has been said because under the name of breath we may think of the wind. In fact the wind had no power to dry the deluge. Otherwise the sea, which is moved every day by the winds, would become empty. How would the sea become empty because of the strength of the winds alone? There is no doubt, that the deluge was subsided by the invisible power of the Spirit, not through the wind as such but through divine intervention. (The Greek Septuagint has pneuma, of course, the word for both wind and spirit, just as in Genesis 1:2.)
St Ambrose of Milan (4th century)

Proverbs 10:2. If a man cast his seed in ground that is fertile [only] in thorns, and fruitful in briars, and densely covered with useless stubble, he sustains a double loss; of his seed first, and also of his trouble. In order, therefore, that the divine seed may blossom well in us, let us first cast out of the mind worldly cares and the unprofitable anxiety which makes us seek to be rich. “For we brought nothing into the world, nor can we take anything out.” For what profit is there in possessing superfluities? “Treasures profit not the wicked,” as Scripture says, “but righteousness delivers from death.” For immediately upon the possession of affluence, there run up, and, so to speak, forthwith hem us in, the basest wickednesses; profligate banquets, the delights of gluttony and carefully prepared sauces; music and drunkenness, and the pitfalls of wantonness; pleasures and sensuality, and pride hateful to God. But as the disciple of the Savior has said, “Everything that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of the world; and the world passes away, and its lust; but he that does the will of God abides for ever.”
St Cyril of Alexandria (5th century)

Proverbs 10:7 (10:8 in the LXX and OSB). “The memory of the just man will be praised.” But he did not say this because he meant that the departed souls are helped by our praise. He said it because those who praise the departed derive the greatest benefits from remembering them. Since, therefore, we have so much to gain from keeping their memory sacred, let us not reject the wise man’s words but rather let us heed them.
St John Chrysostom

Proverbs 10.12 (10:13 in the LXX and OSB). Who can explain the bond of the love of God? Who can express the splendor of its beauty? The height to which love lifts us is inexpressible. Love unites us to God, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Love bears all things, is long-suffering in all things. There is nothing mean in love, nothing arrogant. Love knows no schism, does not rebel, does all things in concord. In love all the elect of God have been made perfect. Without love nothing is pleasing to God.
St Clement of Rome (1st century)

Proverbs 10.15 (10:16 in the LXX and OSB). Riches themselves are not to be censured. “The ransom of a man’s life are his riches,” for one who gives to the poor ransoms his soul. Therefore, even in riches there is scope for virtue. You are like helmsmen on a great sea. If one steers his course well, he passes quickly over the sea to reach harbor. But one who does not know how to manage his property is drowned by his load. Thus it is written: “The wealth of the rich is a very strong city.” 
St Ambrose of Milan

Proverbs 10:19 (10:20 in LXX and OSB). How can teaching accomplish anything without a multitude of words, understood in the simpler sense, since even wisdom herself declares to the perishing, “I stretched out words, and you did not heed.” Paul appears to have continued teaching from early morning till midnight, when indeed Eutychus, overcome with deep sleep, fell down and troubled the audience since they thought he was dead. If, then, the statement is true, “In a multitude of words you will not escape sin,” and it is also true that Solomon did not sin when he recited the many words about the subjects mentioned earlier, nor did Paul when he extended his teaching until midnight, one must inquire what the multitude of words is, and from there make a transition to see what the many books are. The complete Word of God which was in the beginning with God is not a multitude of words, for it is not words. It is a single Word consisting of several ideas, each of which is a part of the whole Word.… Consequently, according to this understanding, we would say that he who utters anything hostile to religion is loquacious, but he who speaks the things of truth, even if he says everything so as to leave out nothing, always speaks the one Word. The saints are not loquacious, since they cling to the goal which accords with the one Word.
Origen (3rd century)

How does sin find entrance? We read, “In the multitude of words you shall not escape sin.” When a multiplicity of words has come forth, sin has found an entrance, for in this very multiplicity of words what we utter is not in the slightest degree subject to measure. Because of lack of prudence we fall into error. In fact, to give expression to our thoughts without duly weighing our words is in itself a grave sin.
St Ambrose of Milan

The virtue of silence, especially in church, is very great. Let no sentence of the divine lessons escape you. If you give ear, restrain your voice, utter no word with your lips which you would wish to bring back, but let your boldness to speak be sparing. For in truth in much speaking there is abundance of sin. Mary, as we read, kept in heart all things that were said concerning her Son. So when any passage is read where Christ is announced as about to come or is shown to have come, do not make a noise by talking, but attend. Is anything more unbecoming that the divine words should be so drowned by talking, as not to be heard, believed or made known, that the sacraments should be indistinctly heard through the sound of voices, that prayer should be hindered when offered for the salvation of all? (It seems like talking during Liturgy was a problem in Ambrose’s church as well, 1600 years ago!)
St Ambrose of Milan