Jerome : (Verse 12 and following) Stand with your sorcerers, and with the multitude of your evil deeds, in which you have labored since your youth, if perhaps it will benefit you, or if you can become stronger. You have failed in the multitude of your plans: let the astrologers of the heavens stand and save you, who observe the stars and calculate the months, to announce to you what is to come. Behold, they have become like stubble, fire has burned them up: they will not deliver their souls from the hand of the flame: there are no coals to warm themselves, nor a fire to sit beside: thus have they become to you in all your labors: each of your merchants has wandered in his own way since your youth: there is no one to save you. LXX: Stand now in your incantations and in your many sorceries, which you have learned from your youth, if they can be of any help to you; and you have labored in your counsels: let the astrologers of the sky stand and save you, those who look at the stars and tell you what is coming upon you. See, they will all be consumed like stubble in the fire; they will not deliver themselves from the flame; for you have coals of fire, and you will sit upon them. They will be for your help. You have labored in your change from youth: man has wandered in himself: but there will be no salvation for you. The reading of the Prophet Daniel proves to have had all of Babylon and all of Chaldea, the study of sorcerers and soothsayers and diviners and exorcists, whom we call haruspices, whom for their advice he recounts as having done all things for the Babylonian kings. Also, because we have interpreted it according to Symmachus and Theodotion: Let the astrologers of the heavens stand and save you, the Seventy have translated more explicitly, Let the astronomers of the heavens stand and make you safe; who are commonly called mathematicians, and by the course and movement of the stars, they judge human affairs to be governed. And so the Magi from the East came, saying that they had seen the Lord's star, either through the knowledge of their art or through the prophecy of their own prophet Balaam, who had said in Numbers: A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall come forth from Israel (Num. XXIV, 17). Therefore, these people who calculate months and count years, and weigh the moments of hours, promise knowledge of the future. Let them tell you what the Lord has thought concerning you. And when they are silent about what is to come, the Prophet responds: Behold, they have become like straw; fire has devoured them. Those who promised salvation to others were ignorant of their own punishment. And there is no doubt that, with the city on fire, its inhabitants were consumed by the voracious flame. And what follows: They are not like prunes that can be heated, nor a hearth for them to sit by, as the Hebrews have taught. They have no knowledge of heat, nor a sense of light that can dispel their darkness and drive out the cold of error. For this reason, I do not know what the Seventy translators intended when they rendered it: You have coals of fire, you shall sit upon them; they shall be a help to you; unless, perhaps, we can say that the fire and burning of Babylon were much more useful than the magi and the Gazarenes, the astrologers and the enchanters. For indeed he provokes them through punishments and penalties to repentance; they, on the other hand, are led into pride by error. All his labor and the merchants of his, whom we understand to be magicians, accomplished this, that each one would wander in his own way; and he himself, being lost, would not offer salvation to another. Let us ask those who assert different natures, whether Babylon is of evil nature or of good? If they say evil, which it is not doubtful that they will answer, how is it provoked to repentance, and it is said to it: Sit in remorse, enter into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. After the enumeration of sins and crimes, you have charcoal fires, you will sit upon them: will they be of help to you? And what does it mean that it is mentioned next to them in the Septuagint: You have labored in exchange from youth? What is this exchange? Surely it is for the worse. From which it is clear, that by nature one becomes good, by will one becomes bad. Finally it is said: Man has wandered in himself, not by nature, but by the choice of the mind. — Commentary on Isaiah Theodoret of Cyrus : The prophetic text addresses these words to [Babylon] in an ironic manner: stick to your habitual magic; stick to your customary incantations. It is likely that you will escape from misfortunes that besiege you! Then he proclaims the vainness of these practices. — COMMENTARY ON Isaiah 14:47.12