They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
All Commentaries on Isaiah 11:9 Go To Isaiah 11
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
Paul testifies to our Redeemer when he says, “He was made a curse for us.” The wood of the cross is also announced through the prophet, who said, “The Lord reigned from a tree,” and again, “Let us put wood in his bread.” But the wood of the cross is explicitly revealed through the gospel, where the prophesied passion of the Lord is described.
This very same cross is also maintained in words and works through the apostles, as when Paul writes, “The world is crucified to me and I to the world,” and again, “May I glory in nothing except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” For us who strive to reach the eternal homeland, therefore, sacred Scripture is the sea in its four aspects. It announces the cross because it bears us on a tree to the land of the living. Had the prophet not found a likeness between sacred Scripture and the sea, he never would have said, “The earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord, like the waters covering the sea.” It follows, then: “The four had one likeness and their appearance and work was like a wheel within a wheel.” The four had one likeness because what the law proclaimed, so also did the prophets; and what the prophets announced, the gospel set forth; and what the gospel set forth, the apostles proclaimed throughout the world. The likeness of the four is one, therefore, because even though the divine words are distinct with regard to time, they are nevertheless unified to those who hear them.
“And their appearance and work was like a wheel within a wheel.” The wheel within a wheel is the New Testament within the Old, as we have already said, for what the Old Testament signifies, this the New Testament displays. Let me speak succinctly of complex matters. What does it mean that Eve is produced from a sleeping Adam if not that the church is formed from the dying Christ? What does it mean that Isaac bore wood as he was led to be sacrificed and that he continued to live after he had been laid on the altar, if not that our Redeemer himself bore the wood of the cross as he was led along and that he died in sacrifice for us according to his humanity but nevertheless remained immortal in his divinity?
