Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Isaiah 50:2

Eastern Fathers

Cyril of Alexandria

No one who views things correctly thinks God possesses a physical body. It is only that the holy Scriptures speak in a human fashion about him. For those of us in simple and crass bodies can think in no other way, except that these things are adapted for us by a range of metaphors, so that in the perception of visible things we are able to know in part about the divine and higher being, which is higher than all bodily imaginings. Observe how in these words the message is adapted to human understanding.

Commentary On Isaiah 4:4.50:1 ↗

Western Saints

Jerome

Has my hand been shortened and become small, that I cannot redeem? Or is there no power in me to deliver? Indeed, I will make the sea a desert, I will dry up the rivers. The fish will rot without water and die of thirst. I will clothe the heavens in darkness and make sackcloth their covering. LXX: Can my hand not save, or is it not strong enough to deliver? Behold, by my threat I will make the sea a desert, and I will dry up the rivers, and their fish will wither away because there is no water, and they will die of thirst. …

Commentary on Isaiah ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Third, he sets out the argument: because I came, through inspiration, I called, through the prophets: I called, and you refused (Prov 1:24). Is my hand shortened? Here he excludes lack on the part of divine power, first excluding lack of power: shortened, that I cannot subject them to me even from afar; little, against the powerful, below: behold the hand of the Lord is not shortened (Isa 59:1). …

Commentary on Isaiah ↗