The Bible, Douay-Rheims Part 495

61:7. For your double confusion and shame, they shall praise their part: therefore shall they receive double in their land, everlasting joy shall be unto them.

61:8. For I am the Lord that love judgment, and hate robbery in a holocaust: and I will make their work in truth, and I will make a perpetual covenant with them.

61:9. And they shall know their seed among the Gentiles, and their offspring in the midst of peoples: all that shall see them, shall know them, that these are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.

61:10. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my G.o.d: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation: and with the robe of justice he hath covered me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels.

61:11. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth: so shall the Lord G.o.d make justice to spring forth, and praise before all the nations.

Isaias Chapter 62

The prophet will not cease from preaching Christ: to whom all nations shall be converted: and whose church shall continue for ever.

62:1. For Sion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for the sake of Jerusalem, I will not rest till her just one come forth as brightness, and her saviour be lighted as a lamp.

62:2. And the Gentiles shall see thy just one, and all kings thy glorious one: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name.

62:3. And thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy G.o.d.

62:4. Thou shalt no more be called Forsaken: and thy land shall no more be called Desolate: but thou shalt be called My pleasure in her, and thy land inhabited. Because the Lord hath been well pleased with thee: and thy land shall be inhabited.

62:5. For the young man shall dwell with the virgin, and thy children shall dwell in thee. And the bridegroom shall rejoice over the bride, and thy G.o.d shall rejoice over thee.

62:6. Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen all the day, and all the night, they shall never hold their peace. You that are mindful of the Lord, hold not your peace,

62:7. And give him no silence till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

62:8. The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength: Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thy enemies: and the sons of the strangers shall not drink thy wine, for which thou hast laboured.

62:9. For they that gather it, shall eat it, and shall praise the Lord: and they that bring it together, shall drink it in my holy courts.

62:10. Go through, go through the gates, prepare the way for the people, make the road plain, pick out the stones, and lift up the standard to the people.

62:11. Behold the Lord hath made it to be heard in the ends of the earth, tell the daughter of Sion: Behold thy Saviour cometh: behold his reward is with him, and his work before him.

62:12. And they shall call them, The holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. But thou shalt be called: A city sought after, and not forsaken.

Isaias Chapter 63

Christ's victory over his enemies: his mercies to his people: their complaint.

63:1. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his strength. I, that speak justice, and am a defender to save.

Edom... Edom and Bosra (a strong city of Edom) are here taken in a mystical sense for the enemies of Christ and his church.

63:2. Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garments like theirs that tread in the winepress?

63:3. I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the Gentiles there is not a man with me: I have trampled on them in my indignation, and have trodden them down in my wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my apparel.

63:4. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, the year of my redemption is come.

63:5. I looked about, and there was none to help: I sought, and there was none to give aid: and my own arm hath saved for me, and my indignation itself hath helped me.

63:6. And I have trodden down the people in my wrath, and have made them drunk in my indignation, and have brought down their strength to the earth.

63:7. I will remember the tender mercies of the Lord, the praise of the Lord for all the things that the Lord hath bestowed upon us, and for the mult.i.tude of his good things to the house of Israel, which he hath given them according to his kindness, and according to the mult.i.tude of his mercies.

63:8. And he said: Surely they are my people, children that will not deny: so he became their saviour.

63:9. In all their affliction he was not troubled, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love, and in his mercy he redeemed them, and he carried them and lifted them up all the days of old.

63:10. But they provoked to wrath, and afflicted the spirit of his Holy One: and he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

63:11. And he remembered the days of old of Moses, and of his people: Where is he that brought them up out of the sea, with the shepherds of his flock? where is he that put in the midst of them the spirit of his Holy One?

63:12. He that brought out Moses by the right hand, by the arm of his majesty: that divided the waters before them, to make himself an everlasting name.

63:13. He that led them out through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness that stumbleth not.

63:14. As a beast that goeth down in the field, the spirit of the Lord was their leader: so didst thou lead thy people to make thyself a glorious name.

63:15. Look down from heaven, and behold from thy holy habitation and the place of thy glory: where is thy zeal, and thy strength, the mult.i.tude of thy bowels, and of thy mercies? they have held back themselves from me.

They have held back, etc... This is spoken by the prophet in the person of the Jews at the time when, for their sins, they were given up to their enemies.

63:16. For thou art our father, and Abraham hath not known us, and Israel hath been ignorant of us: thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer, from everlasting is thy name.

Abraham hath not know us, etc... That is, Abraham will not now acknowledge us for his children, by reason of our degeneracy; but thou, O Lord, art our true father and our redeemer, and no other can be called our parent in comparison with thee.

63:17. Why hast thou made us to err, O Lord, from thy ways: why hast thou hardened our heart, that we should not fear thee? return for the sake of thy servants, the tribes of thy inheritance.

Made us to err, etc. Hardened our heart, etc... The meaning is, that G.o.d in punishment of their great and manifold crimes, and their long abuse of his mercy and grace, had withdrawn his graces from them, and so given them up to error and hardness of heart.

63:18. They have possessed thy holy people as nothing: our enemies have trodden down thy sanctuary.

63:19. We are become as in the beginning, when thou didst not rule over us, and when we were not called by thy name.

Isaias Chapter 64

The prophet prays for the release of his people; and for the remission of their sins.

64:1. O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down: the mountains would melt away at thy presence.

64:2. They would melt as at the burning of fire, the waters would burn with fire, that thy name might be made known to thy enemies: that the nations might tremble at thy presence.

64:3. When thou shalt do wonderful things, we shall not bear them: thou didst come down, and at thy presence the mountains melted away.

64:4. From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the ears: the eye hath not seen, O G.o.d, besides thee, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee.