36. He now explains what He means by telling them to walk. It is that they should believe. That you may be (become) the children of light. The phrase “children of light” is a Hebraism, meaning those who are to possess the light, [pg 222] who are destined for it. Compare Luke xvi. 8; Eph. v. 8.
And he went away, and hid himself from them. SS. Matt. and Mark tell us that He went to Bethania with the twelve and remained there (Matt. xxi. 17; Mark xi. 11).
| 37. Cum autem tanta signa fecisset coram eis, non credebant in eum: | 37. And whereas he had done so many miracles before them, they believed not in him. |
| 38. Ut sermo Isaiae prophetae impleretur, quem dixit: Domine, quis credidit auditui nostro? et brachium Domini cui revelatum est? | 38. That the saying of Isaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he said: Lord, who hath believed our hearing? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? |
| 39. Propterea non poterant credere, quia iterum dixit Isaias: | 39. Therefore they could not believe, because Isaias said again. |
| 40. Excaecavit oculos eorum, et induravit cor eorum: ut non videant oculis, et non intelligant corde, et convertantur, et sanem eos. | 40. He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. |
37-40. Before closing this first part of the narrative portion of the Gospel (see [Introd. iv.]), St. John pauses in the history to note the hard-hearted incredulity of the Jews, notwithstanding the fact that Christ had wrought so many miracles; an incredulity, however, which had been foretold by Isaias, which, therefore, came to pass now in order that (ἱνα) the prediction of the Prophet should be fulfilled (verses 37, 38); and which came to pass necessarily (necessitate consequente), because, as Isaias declared, they no longer had the abundant graces necessary in order that they might believe (verses 39, 40). Thus the incredulity of the Jews in our Lord's time was necessary to the end that prophecy might be fulfilled. How then, we may ask, was that incredulity culpable, if those who were incredulous were not free and able to believe? The answer is, that this incredulity was necessary by a necessity consequent upon the prediction of the inspired Prophet, which prediction was itself consequent upon God's foreknowledge that the Jews would, culpably and of their own free will, remain incredulous. God foresaw this incredulity, predicted it, because He foresaw it was to be; and, of course, it came to pass, as He had foreseen it would. [pg 223] Hence, when God foresees, or His Prophet predicts, the commission of a certain sin, that sin is infallibly, yet freely committed. It is, as if we saw a man walking across a plain; he does so, not because we see him, but we see him because he walks. Similarly, in the boundless plain of His eternal present, God sees all things that are to be, and they happen, not because He sees them, but He sees them because they are to happen.
Note, in verse 38, that our hearing means what has been heard from us, for the preachers of the Gospel are represented in Isaias as complaining of the small number of those who listened to them. The arm of the Lord is Christ, according to several of the fathers; or we may take it to mean the power of the Lord in the work of man's redemption.
Note, in verse 40, where the prophecy is cited freely, after neither the Hebrew nor the Septuagint, that it is not meant that God blinded any man positively, but only negatively, by the withdrawal of His more abundant graces.
| 41. Haec dixit Isaias, quando vidit gloriam eius, et locutus est de eo. | 41. These things said Isaias when he saw his glory, and spoke of him. |
41. See Isaias vi. 1, 9, 10, where the Prophet says: “I saw the Lord” (אדני = the Supreme God), words which are here referred by St. John to the Prophet's having seen Christ; therefore, according to St. John, Christ is the Supreme God.
It would also seem from this verse that the Son of God Himself, and not merely an angel representing Him, appeared to Isaias on that occasion. It was the common opinion of the fathers, though denied by most of the scholastics, that God sometimes appeared in the O. T. apparitions.
And spoke of him, rather, “and he spoke of Him,” for this clause does not depend upon the preceding “when.” It is a statement that it was of Christ Isaias spoke the words just quoted.