Instead of after a long time, Symmachus has said, Lend your ear, O Gentiles, [who come] from afar. The text therefore calls [those of] the islands, the continents and even those who inhabit the extremities [of the earth] to listen to the prophecy. But the expression of the Septua-gint, after a long time, should be understood as follows: the Lord of the universe promised to Abraham to bless all nations in his posterity.^[1] This promise he also made to Isaac and to Jacob. Jacob, in his turn, gave it to Judah as a blessing: The scepter shall not depart from Judah, or a lawgiver from between his feet, until he comes for whom it is reserved, he who is also the expectation of nations.^[2] Now, a very great number of years had passed from the promise made to Abraham until the call of the Gentiles. This is why the prophetic text says, Listen, you Gentiles, after a long time. Then he adds, It shall stand, says the Lord, that is, to say the word of the promise, for the promise of God is trustworthy.

He calls to the islands, which we take to be the churches of Christ, just as they are lying in the sea or the waves of this present existence and surrounded by the insulting attacks of the waves, or the persecutions and afflictions that the enemies of the truth inflict on the churches as they war against the divine call. Concerning these islands the divinely inspired Scripture often speaks. There the blessed David sang a psalm and said, The Lord reigns, and let the earth be glad and many islands rejoice.^[1] So when Christ taking all things in his hands reigned over it from heaven and ejected the demons’ tyranny, then did they rejoice, that is, the churches over all the earth were filled with happiness. . . . [Isaiah] promised that our Savior Jesus Christ would be revealed to everyone and that God as the Word would come on the earth among them in a form after our likeness. . . . That this is so, the person of the Savior himself attests, Out of my mother’s womb he called my name. Mixed into these words is a deep and great mystery that requires mystical understanding from above. . . . For he was and is God the Word, equal and sharing the throne with God the Father, coexisting and coeternal.

Consider how he who was not yet born could have a people, unless he were in being before he was born. The prophet says this in his person, From my mother’s womb he gave me my name; because the angel foretold that he would be called Jesus. Again, concerning the plots of Herod, he says, He . . . concealed me in the shadow of his arm.^[1]

If anyone has been able to hold in the breadth of his mind and to consider the glory and splendor of all those things created in him, he will be struck by their very beauty and transfixed by the magnificence of their brilliance or, as the prophet says, by the chosen arrow. And he will receive from him the saving wound and will burn with the blessed fire of his love.

In my quiver he hid me away, Scripture declares. The quiver, then, is your faith. Fill it with the frangrant aroma of your virtues, that is, of chastity, compassion and justice, and immerse yourself wholly in the inmost mysteries of faith, which are fragrant with the sweet odors of your significant deeds.

When it says chosen arrow, it implies that God has many arrows but not choice ones—these arrows are the prophets and apostles, who go shooting off around the world. . . . But Christ is the one arrow chosen from many arrows and one son from many sons, which he hid in his quiver, that is, in his human body, so that the fullness of divinity could dwell in him bodily and that the faith of believers be distributed.

Such is the word, the source of division that he presented to all people; likewise he declared, I have not come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword.^[1] And moreover, the divine apostle says, The Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.^[2] . . . He has set me like a chosen arrow and hidden me in his quiver. Similarly, Isaiah said this metaphorically; he speaks of an arrow that wounds the souls of those who love him. Each cries, I am wounded by love.^[3] The quiver represents the mystery of the economy of the incarnation.

This arrow signifies his divinity, resting in a quiver signifying the body assumed from the Virgin, in whose cloth of flesh his divinity was clothed.

The name Christ is not appropriate for God the Word before the generation that, as I said, was according to the flesh. If he was then not yet anointed, how could he be called Christ? But when the man came forth from his mother’s womb, then he received the name at the same time as the generation according to the flesh. For it says that he set his mouth like a sharp sword . . . for no one can overcome his all-powerful right hand, but the Word is kept distinct from the dimensions of the humanity. For he is the Word from the Father and himself is the Lord of hosts. When he became man, the Father did not remove the power of the mystery but confirmed him in the economy of salvation. . . . There have been several arrows of God hidden in his quiver, in his foreknowledge, and brought out at the time prepared for each, but the chosen arrow above all others is the Christ hidden in the quiver or foreknowledge of God. For he was known before the creation of the world and brought forth in the middle of time when it was necessary that the earth be visited as it was falling into destruction. . . . This chosen arrow, as I said, got rid of Satan and the evil powers with him . . . yet he wounds in another way, for benefit and salvation. Thus it says in the Song of Songs, I am wounded with love.^[1]

You are my servant Israel, and I will glorify myself in you. This is to be understood according to Christ’s human nature. For according to his human nature Christ is called Israel, Jacob, the son of David, the seed of Abraham, and so on. Christ is called servant since the servile nature God the Word assumed was the form of a slave. For he has given him the name above every name,^[1] that is, to be the Son. As God, Christ the master was always Son, but as man he became Son. For there is not one that is that Son and another that is this Son, but the one who is God the Son also became the Son as a human being.^[2]

With the Father saying these things to me which I have registered, I replied to him, How are you glorified in me, Father, since I have worked in the void and have not been able to summon back to you the great part of the Jewish people? Now this reveals a universal principle, in that it shows the free will of the human being—it is for God to call and for us to believe. And if we do not believe immediately, God is not powerless but leaves his power for our will so that the will fittingly gains the award.

It is necessary to recognize that he says these things as a human. For in the holy Gospels Christ as a human makes a number of humble declarations. For instance, . . . I do nothing from myself.^[1]

For it was a labor for the Word to come among us and to surrender himself to human fragility. But my judgment is the punishment of the Father that I [the Savior] have turned into a feast for their salvation. For that reason the judgment was taken away from him [the servant]. Just what sort of judgment was that? [Sinners] have been cast out of his company, to be placed outside the people of God, no longer sharers in the salvation wrought by him, and they have no longer any taste of the hope of the saints, to which many of the nations have been called in their place.

In respect of nature, [Christ] differs in nothing from us, though he precedes us in time, so long as we all consist and are created by the same hand. ^[1] ZERUBBABEL PREFIGURES CHRIST. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: Who formed me from the womb to be his servant. This is clearly said with reference to Zerubbabel and the people but was accomplished in Christ. And indeed, since Christ will descend from them, it is with good reason that what concerns him is represented in them as in a sign. ^[1]

It is one thing to be named Son according to the divine substance; it is another thing to be so called according to the adoption of human flesh. For, according to the divine generation, the Son is equal to God and Father, and, according to the adoption of a body, he is a servant to God the Father. For, it says, he took upon him the form of a servant.^[1] The Son is, however, one and the same. . . . According to his glory, he is Lord to the holy patriarch David but David’s son in the line of actual descent, abandoning nothing of his own but acquiring for himself the rights that go with the adoption into our race. Not only does he undergo service in the character of man by reason of his descent from David, but also by reason of his name, as it is written: I have found David my servant;^[2] and elsewhere: Behold, I will send to you my Servant, the Orient is his name.^[3] And the Son himself says, Thus says the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be his servant and said to me: It is a great thing for you to be called my servant. Behold, I have set you up for a witness to my people and a light to the Gentiles, that you may be for salvation to the ends of the earth. To whom is this said, if not to Christ? Who, being in the form of God, emptied himself and took on him the form of a servant.^[4] But what can be in the form of God, except that which exists in the fullness of the godhead?

He is called Servant and serves many well. And his being given the grand title Child of God agrees with this. For in truth he was subject as a servant to flesh and to birth and to the conditions of our life with a view toward our liberation. He was subject to all that he saved, held captive as we were in sin.

For a lowly appellation is given to the Word whose origin is from God, that he is called slave, that is, a household member. For such a title can sometimes indicate son, and at other times, as we have said, household member. In the economy of the flesh, it is appropriate to consider the Son as a slave. For he is God by nature and free as being from God the sovereign Father, yet he took the shape or form of a slave. For no one with right understanding could say that he was a slave by nature who was then able to be brought into the form of a slave. Rather, he was outside of slavery and constraint, but for the sake of a sign, in the freedom of his nature, he received the shape, that is, the form of slave. . . . For he was Emmanuel, and he revealed to us no less in this way his freedom which was real and by nature. . . . For he who was God the Word dwelled in them and among us for no other reason except so that he could save Israel and gather Jacob. For he had scattered all others who were on the earth, every inventor of wickedness, into their many-colored and multifaceted vices.

We must also understand the prophet to be speaking of Christ’s humanity here, for it would be no great honor for God the Word to be called the slave of God the Father. It is not my child but my slave that both the Hebrew text and the three translators make clear to us.

But when Christ appeared in the world they were gathered though faith in the one straight and blameless opinion, those whom Satan once had scattered and who formerly had deserted their love for God. They had run toward the enemy who produces and pursues sin. Those who had thrown away God’s providence of good things are now with Christ at peace. . . . So he reveals the ministry of his incarnation, that he was formed as a slave by the Father from the womb so as to gather Israel and Jacob. If anyone says that these are the Jewish people that are meant, he has not strayed from the intention of the text. For Christ said, I have come to save the lost sheep of Israel.^[1] But if anyone decides it is all those saved by faith who are called Israel and Jacob, he is right to do so.

Then Isaiah predicts the disobedience of the Jews and the salvation of the nations. Behold, I have given your race as a covenant, as a light to the nations. The Lord’s race according to the flesh was the entire race of human beings, yet his own and nearest was Israel. . . . And I will put an end to the arrangements that I made with their ancestors.^[1]