For Jeshurun, a Hebrew word, the other translators translate euthytaton or euthē, that is, most right and right, and only the Septuagint had most loved and connected it to Israel. For according to the Hebrew and the faith of the Scriptures, Israel means the sight of God, that is, a person who sees God, not in the natural things but in the sound of his voice. . . . Isaiah also compares those being reborn in baptism with flourishing plants and with the willow, which rises up near flowing water. Against the nature of things the willow bears fruit, although it was previously barren or became barren because its seed was taken for food.

God himself testifies that the Holy Spirit presides over his blessings, saying, I will put my Spirit on your seed and my blessings on your children. For no blessing can be full except through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

He does not cease to make mention of the creation and of his kindness after the creation. . . . You will not be alone in enjoying my benefits, he says, for the thirsty nations will also drink from the streams of salvation, thanks to your descendants.

. . . He is addressing those who are in Babylon, yet it is not to them but to their descendants that he promises to give the grace of the Spirit. . . . Here the prophetic text, having promised to give water to those traveling through a dry land, has shown through whom he will give it. I will set my Spirit on your seed and my blessing on your children.

For everywhere the divine writings take the willow as the type of chastity, because when its flower is steeped in water, if it is drunk, it extinguishes whatever kindles sensual desires and passions within us, until it renders completely barren and makes every inclination to the begetting of children without effect, as also Homer indicated,^[1] for this reason calling the willows destructive of fruit. . . . For as it is the nature of this tree to bud and grow to maturity when enriched by words, so it is the nature of virginity to blossom and grow to maturity when enriched by words, so that one can hang one’s body^[2] on it.

If, then, the rivers of Babylon are the streams of voluptuousness, as wise people say, which confuse and disturb the soul, then the willows must be chastity, to which we may suspend and draw up the organs of lust that overbalance and weigh down the mind, so that they may not be borne down by the torrents of incontinence and be drawn like worms to impurity and corruption.

The willow is a type of saintly and faithful persons. As Isaiah puts it, There shall spring up, as it were, grass in the midst of water, and the willow in ever-flowing water. So it is on people like these that we hang our instruments, when we bestow them by sharing the grace from reading from the divine Scriptures. Our instruments are the means of bestowing the grace of psalmody and the cause of our joy when it is bestowed on us in turn.

We have seen many of the saints themselves latch on to names of certain men. One calls himself Jacob, another Israel, others even call themselves Jeremiah and Isaiah and Daniel. Encouraged by these names, they give themselves over to martyrdom with enthusiasm. Another will write with his hands, ‘the Lord’s.’ This signifies the marking that many have on their hands or arms, or it refers to those marked with the sign of the cross or the name of Christ. The portion or the inheritance of the name of God is implied by the use of the name derived from Jacob [i.e., Israel]. It signifies that those who have acted in a godly way will not be allowed to go to utter ruin, for he does not want to destroy the whole of Israel but turn them totally toward God. And he provides the way of salvation to those who believe in him.

He calls himself Lord and God, Creator and Framer—this is intended to show that they were in error when Israel gave the name of god to others who were not gods and forgot the one who was from the beginning the creator of humanity. They were honoring their parents as the ones who were responsible in the beginning and ignoring the Maker, as one of the prophets said: The son gives glory to the father and the slave to his master,^[1] and If I am the Father, then where is my glory?^[2] and If I am the ruler of all, where is the fear of me?^[3] says the Lord. For [the Son] is the Lord who rules the creation by hand, but the Father is the one who made it.

The reality comes to confirm the prophecy: it is with total freedom of language that each of the believers calls herself a Christian and derives glory from this name.

Things being as they are, we have chosen the best way to come to the understanding of the intelligible things—by coming to them with God. Thanks to him, we can advance without fear of danger, holding the immortal rudder of the soul and not allowing fleshly passion to erupt into this immortal and intelligible substance and reserving for each one of the intelligible as much honor as is allowed by the order that [God] willed, he by whom their very existence and rank was established. God is the noncreated, in fact the first of all, to which the prophets render acknowledgment. I, God, am the first, and after me and outside of me there is no god. So we have to realize that he is without beginning and ungenerated.

I have not read of, or heard of or found any varying degree in God. Never have I read of a second, never of a third God. I have read of a first God; I have heard of a first and only God.

I am the first, and hereafter am I, and no God was before me, and no God shall be after me.^[1] For knowing more perfectly than all others the mystery of the religion of the gospel, this great prophet foretold even that marvelous sign concerning the virgin, and gave us the good tidings of the birth of the Child and clearly pointed out to us that name of the Son. He, in a word, by the Spirit includes in himself all the truth, in order that the characteristic of the divine nature, whereby we discern that which really is from that which came into being, might be made as plain as possible to all. [Isaiah] utters this saying in the person of God: I am the first, and hereafter am I, and before me no God has been, and after me is none.

For God is one and only and first. But this is not said to the denial of the Son; perish the thought. For he is in that One and First and Only, as being of that One and Only and First the only Word and Wisdom and Radiance. And he too is the First, as the fullness of the godhead of the First and Only, being whole and full God.

If we count, we do not add, increasing from one to many. We do not say, one, two, three, or first, second, and third. God says, I am the first, and I am the last. We have never to this present day heard of two gods. . . . How does one and one not equal two gods? Because we speak of the emperor and the emperor’s image—but not two emperors. . . . The image of the emperor is an image by imitation, but the Son is a natural image.

Thus says the Lord, the king of Israel, the God of hosts who has saved them: I am the first, and I remain after these things. Apart from me there is no God. If there is no God apart from him, the Son is not consubstantial with the Father, as the blasphemy of Arius and Eunomius teaches. How, then, can they call him God? If the Son is God and the prophetic word is true that openly states there is no other God, the divinity of the holy Trinity is one, even if they do not admit this.

Having made mention of the knowledge in Christ, recapping things for our benefit, he now turns his address to something else that is very necessary. For at the time when the godly prophet Isaiah composed the words about such things, offensive and irresistible temptations ruled over them. For what God and honor meant seemed to be up to the judgment of each individual. So God needs to provide them with some rousing encouragement and arguments tailored to their situation. He turns them away from polytheism and the sicknesses that troubled them and summons them through a change of mind to a knowledge of the truth and of his glory and brings them back to the awareness of his incomparable power.

Who is like me? Let him call the things that are not as if they are and let him explain the order of my creation, by which reason I have set humans free in motion as I made them on the earth. And this is not all I will to do, but I also seek out for them knowledge of things to come. So you, Israel, whose king and redeemer I am, do not fear idols, which you have learned on Mount Sinai to be nothing.

[God] himself by his own prophets testifies when he says, “I, God, am the first,” and after this, “And beside me there is no other God” [Is 44:6]. On this account, then, God did not mention any name when he sent Moses to the Hebrews, but by a participle he mystically taught them that he is the one and only God.

[T]he Scripture says, “As I live, says the Lord, there is no other God but me. I am the first, I am after this; except me there is no god” [Is 44:6]. And again: “You shall fear the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve” [Dt 6:13; Mt 4:10]. And again: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord” [Dt 6:4]. And many other passages seal with an oath that God is one, and except him there is no God.

Isaiah sees that in the ensuing time a very great number of people will arise who all will be ashamed and who will cease from their continual error. They will be ashamed and hide their faces. If they persist in their error, however, they will be given over to destruction at the time of judgment. But this word is also for those of us now in the present.

When, however, the Scripture terms them [gods] that are not gods, it does not declare them as gods in every sense but with a certain addition and signification, by which they are shown to be no gods at all, as with David, The gods of the heathens are idols of demons^[1] and You shall not follow other gods.^[2] For in the fact that he says the God of the heathen, yet the heathen are ignorant of the true God, and he calls them other gods, he thereby bars their claim [to be looked on] as gods at all. But as to what they are in their own person, he speaks concerning them, for they are, he says, the idols of demons. And Isaiah says, Let them be confounded, all who blaspheme God and carve useless things; even I am witness, says God. He removes them from [the category of] gods, but he makes use of the word alone, for this [purpose] that we may know of whom he speaks.

How could he fail to pity them in this also, seeing that they worship them that cannot see. In hearing, they pray to them that cannot hear. Born with life and reason, people, as they are, call gods things that do not move at all but do not even have life. Strangest of all, do they serve as their masters beings whom they themselves keep under their own power?

[Isaiah] has demonstrated that the production of these so-called gods relies on contributions. Their creator needs the blacksmith to prepare the tools and the whetstone for sharpening them; for his part, the bronzesmith needs coal and fire, while the constructor of the objects needs food and drink! It takes all this to prepare a god who is worshiped by these ignorant people. Isaiah is not finished mocking them. After choosing a log, the artisan immediately measures the so-called god. whereas the true God is immeasurable. He then shapes it with the appropriate tools, whereas the real God has no form or shape. . . . He does not copy divine characteristics but human ones; he shapes his human image and adores his own image as if it were divine. ^[1] THE ARTISANS MAKE IDOLS TO SATISFY THEIR BODILY NEEDS. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: He becomes hungry, and his strength fails. The first reason for the making of idols is the need of their makers. They are hungry and thirsty and have no food, and, therefore, they make idols, so that their need may be satisfied, thanks to what they themselves do. According to Henana,^[1] it is with regard to the weakness of the idols that the prophet says that they cannot deliver anybody from these needs, when they hunger and thirst, not even the person who makes them and believes he has made a god. ^[2]