Jerome: (Verse 21, 22.) The seed of the wicked, prepare your sons for the slaughter of the sins of their fathers: they will not rise nor inherit the land, nor fill the face of the cities of the world. And I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts: and I will destroy the name and remnants of Babylon, and its seed, and its offspring, says the Lord of hosts. LXX: The wicked seed, prepare your sons for the slaughter of the sin of your father: so that they will not rise and possess the land, and fill the land of cities. And I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts: and I will destroy their name and remnants and seed. For the evil seed, which the Septuagint translated, is written in Hebrew as Zera Mrim (), which others have interpreted as the seed of wicked men. Not that the seed itself is inherently evil: for God made all things good (Gen. I); but from those who are wicked by their own will, the seed has become evil, which is done by will, not by nature: Hence we read in Daniel: The seed of Canaan and not of Judah (Dan. XIII, 56). And of good sons it is said by the Apostle: In Christ Jesus through the Gospel I have begotten you (1 Cor. 4:15). And in the Gospel: To as many as received him, he gave them power to become the sons of God (John 1:12). For whoever commits sin is of the devil. Therefore, it is commanded to this seed, that is to say, his sons, to prepare for destruction all wicked thoughts and evil deeds, which are born from impious fathers, undoubtedly signifying contrary strengths. The worst sons are therefore slain in the wickedness of their fathers, so that they may not rise up anymore and possess the land which is to be possessed and filled by the saints, that the cities of the Lord may be built in it. And because there is no perfect victory for men: For unless the Lord keeps the city, those who guard it will watch in vain (Psalms 126:2): therefore the Lord himself will rise up against the sons of the worst, and he will destroy their name and remnants from their confusion, and every offspring and progeny, so that they may no longer sprout forth in the cities of the Lord. We read in the Gospel of John (VIII) that the devil is a liar from the beginning and that his father, that is, of lies, which many do not understand, they want the father of the devil to be the dragon who reigns in the sea, which the Hebrews call Leviathan. And they think that this agrees with the present passage according to the Septuagint interpreters, who have said: for the sins of your father: when clearly in Hebrew, it means not 'your father' but 'their fathers'. — Commentary on Isaiah John Chrysostom: Wherefore I entreat, let us kill the serpent, let us shut up the wild beasts, let us stifle them, let us slay them, and these wicked thoughts let us give over to the sword of the Spirit, lest the prophet threaten us also with such things as he threatened Judea, that "The wild asses shall dance there, and porcupines, and serpents." For there are, there are even men worse than wild asses, living as it were in the wilderness, and kicking; yea the more part of the youth amongst us is like this. For indeed having wild lusts they thus leap, they kick, going about unbridled, and spend their diligence on no becoming object. And the fathers are to blame, who while they constrain the horsebreakers to discipline their horses with much attention, and suffer not the youth of the colt to go on long untamed, but put upon it both a rein, and all the rest, from the beginning; but their own young ones they overlook, going about for a long season unbridled, and without temperance; disgracing themselves, by fornications, and gamings, and continuings in the wicked theatres. — Homily 59 on the Gospel of Matthew Jerome: (Verse 23.) And I will make her a possession of hedgehogs, and of swamps of water: I will sweep her away with a broom of destruction, says the Lord of hosts. LXX: And I will make Babylon a desert, says the Lord, so that hedgehogs will dwell in it, and it will be nothing. And I will make it a pit of mud, for destruction. When the Lord of hosts has destroyed the name of Babylon, and its remnants, and its offspring, he will not be satisfied with its destruction unless he gives it as a possession to hedgehogs, and swamps of water, and sweeps it away not lightly, and accidentally: but thoroughly, so that nothing of ancient filth remains in it. In the Acts of the Apostles, it is written (Acts 10 and 11) that in that linen cloth, which was let down from heaven by four corners, all kinds of quadrupeds, and reptiles, and birds were contained, which afterwards, the Apostle, in his discourse, says, 'God showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.' Therefore, the manners of men were represented in various animals, just as the Pharisees and Sadducees are called offspring of vipers on account of their wickedness, and Herod is called a fox on account of his deceit (Luke 3 and 13); and those who are given to luxury and inclined to pleasure are called horses, raging after women (Jeremiah 5): 'And do not be like horse or mule, which have no understanding' (Psalms 32). On the contrary, the innocent are called doves and sheep. Therefore, according to the teaching of the Lord and Savior, who referred to the cares of this world and the seduction of riches as thorns, the hedgehog seems to me to be someone who rejoices in the uncertainty of riches (1 Timothy 6) and trusts in being armed not with the armor of God, but with the thorns and sins of this world. To whom it is rightly said from the Gospel: Foolish one, tonight your soul will be taken from you, and what you have prepared, whose will it be? (Luke 12:20). The inhabitants of Babylon have deserts of virtues, where there is no irrigated field that brings fruits of different seeds, but unproductive marshes, and muddy and dirty, in which animals that delight in mud crawl. Therefore, the most merciful Lord swept it vigorously, and as it were with a broom, he cleaned it completely, so that the seeds of Babylon may perish, and be inhabited by only hedgehogs. When we see someone submerged in the mud of wealth, and as the Seventy have translated, in the pit, that is, in a deep abyss, and surrounded as if by a muddy swamp, let us not hesitate to call him a hedgehog, an inhabitant of deserted Babylon. — Commentary on Isaiah Jerome: (Verse 24, 25) The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, 'Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass, and as I have purposed, so it shall stand: That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders. Afterward his habitation will be desolate in Babylon, and marshes shall cover the land: so that no seed of hers and no abundance shall remain in Babylon. The oath of the Lord will be fulfilled, and as I have purposed, so it shall happen, that the Assyrian shall be broken in his land, and upon his mountains he shall be trodden under foot.' For indeed the reckless enemy not only hastens to occupy the land of God and lowly things, but also those who have advanced in the service of God, so that they may be compared to mountains and it may be said of them: Its foundations are on the holy mountains (Ps. 86:1). And note the property. On earth it is crushed: on the mountains of God it is trampled by the Lord himself. For when all the enemies have been placed under the feet of Christ, so that death may be destroyed at the last, then the holy ones will be freed from the heavy yoke of Assyria, with which they had been oppressed before, and the burden, or as the Septuagint translated it, κῦδος, that is, glory, will be removed from their shoulders, so that with the yoke of the Assyrians lifted, they may see rest, because it is good, and the land, because it is fertile, and they may submit their necks to the yoke of Christ for the purpose of laboring, and become men of the field. And Issachar, which means 'reward,' received his name from his virtues. And in the Prophet we read: 'There is a reward for those who serve the Lord' (Jeremiah 31:16); and in another place: 'Behold the Lord, and his reward is with him' (Isaiah 40:10), who will render to each one according to his works. And as for the Assyrians being crushed and trampled, which represents opposing forces, the Gospel teaches us: 'Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy' (Luke 10:19). And the words of the Apostles testify: God will crush Satan under your feet quickly (Rom. XVI, 20). — Commentary on Isaiah