Isaiah 57:3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

However, if you indulge in disgrace, what purpose does your anger serve? You are upset when referred to as the child of an unfaithful one; why do you not express the same anger when you act in a wrongful manner?

Ultimately, they led Him before Pilate, leveling accusations that were rooted not in truth but in deception and calumny, asserting that He incited the people and prohibited the payment of tribute to Caesar, among other calumnies that would summon unquenchable wrath upon themselves. Here, the Savior Himself charged them, speaking through Hosea: ‘Woe unto them, for they have strayed from Me; they shall be in distress, having wronged Me; but I will redeem Myself; these have uttered falsehoods against Me’ (Hosea 7:13), and through Jeremiah: ‘I have abandoned My house, I have forsaken My possessions, I have entrusted My beloved soul to her enemies; My possessions are to Me as a lion in the thicket, and he lets out a roar against Me; for this reason, I have rejected her’ (Jeremiah 12:7, 8). In addition to the other accusations they fabricated against Him, when they brought Him to Pilate, they brazenly exclaimed more than once, ‘Take Him, take Him, crucify Him’ (John 19:15). The Jewish leaders were especially pronounced in their actions, for even though they recognized Him as the heir, they secretly conspired, saying, ‘Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance’ (Matthew 21:38). Yet their hopes were in vain; for despite their attempt to kill Him, He did not remain under the dominion of death; He resurrected and entrusted the vineyard to new stewards, having uprooted the wicked—those foolish and murderers of the Lord. Thus, He proclaims, O lawless progeny, offspring of adulterers and harlots. Here, He refers to the leaders—the scribes and law teachers—as adulterers with the synagogue, for although they recite the commandments of the divine law, they stray into unlawful practices, teaching the doctrines and commands of men. The Jewish synagogue is rightly termed a harlot, as it has embraced the seed of adulterers and has rejected the wisdom of the law given by Moses. Therefore, He rightly deems its children lawless. Hence, He asks, in what do you take pleasure, and to whom do you unleash your words, and upon whom do you let your tongue flow? You have often disrespected the holy prophets; yet, though they were close to the God of all, they were His servants and fellow men, and your offenses against them resonate as offenses against mere servants like yourselves. But now, whom do you revile? (For He was unlike the prophets, nor a servant like us, nor subject to the yoke, but the Lord of all, though He assumed the guise of a servant. Therefore, He states, you are children of destruction. You have rejected the Savior. And the seed is lawless, for you have not endured Him who, through the proclamation of the gospel, calls you to righteousness.

Instead of iniquity or lawlessness, as rendered by the LXX, Theodotion used the Hebrew term opepa, which we translate, according to Symmachus, as sorceress, signifying that Jerusalem, the mother of the listeners, was always entangled in idolatry. Therefore, the label of the seed of the adulterer or adulteresses is applied, concerning whom it is stated, ‘And she hath fornicated with the rock and with the tree’ (Jeremiah 3:9), and of the harlot, undoubtedly referring to the same, as seen in, ‘How has the faithful city of Zion become a harlot?’ (Isaiah 1:21). To whom, he declares, have you mocked, spitting upon His face and pulling His beard, and to whom have you lifted your voices and thrust out your tongues, saying, ‘You are a Samaritan, and you have a demon’ (John 8:48)? And further: ‘This man does not cast out demons, but by Beelzebul, the prince of demons’ (Matthew 12:24). Then came the cry at His suffering: ‘Crucify Him, crucify Him’ (Luke 23:21). Again, they shouted: ‘His blood be upon us and upon our children’ (Matthew 27:25). In another account: ‘Alas, He who destroyed the temple and rebuilt it in three days. He saved others, yet He cannot save Himself. Let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him’ (Matthew 27:40, 27:42). Do you not see yourselves as the offspring of transgression, the deceitful generation, those who find solace in idols under every leafy tree, burying your children by the streams beneath the cliffs? The LXX asserts: Are you not sons of destruction, a lawless generation, calling upon idols, or to idols beneath the trees, sacrificing your children in the valleys among the rocks? He proclaims that you have acted according to the previous assertion. You are forerunners of transgression, as was Judas the traitor, who is identified as the son of destruction (John 17), and a lawless or deceitful generation, a brood of falsehood, delighting in idols under every leafy tree, hardening your children by the streams. The accounts of Kings and Chronicles also recount how they led their children to worship false gods, sanctifying them with fire (2 Kings 16, 2 Kings 17, 2 Chronicles 28). This is what Ahab, king of Israel, and Manasseh, king of Judah, undoubtedly practiced, transitioning from child sacrifice to shedding the blood of the prophets, as stated by Hosea: ‘They devour men, for they are short of cattle’ (Hosea 13:2). As it is noted in Hebrew, ‘Quenching children, you worship calves.’ The Psalms describe it in greater detail: they mingled with the oxen, adopting their practices, and crafted their idols, leading to their downfall. Their sons and daughters were consumed by demons, and they shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, which they offered to the idols of Canaan: the land became drenched in blood and defiled by their actions (Psalm 105:35-39). The narrative clearly indicates that the murderers of Christ are the offspring of those who commit such acts, raising the question of how they are labeled as sons of destruction, in contrast to those who acknowledge differing natures—one irredeemably lost and evil, the other inherently good and cannot perish. For if, as they believe, the sons of destruction possess the most despicable nature, how can that which was once lost be restored? Therefore, even in the parables of repentance, both the sheep that strayed from the hundred and the drachma that was lost from the ten are recovered, along with the son who was lost, of whom the father remarked to the elder son, ‘Your brother was dead and is alive again’ (Luke 15:32). For that which was whole can only perish, and only that which was living can die. Thus, those now identified as the sons of destruction or of iniquity, through their own choices have turned away from the Lord, beginning to be called sons of destruction according to the same prophet's declaration, ‘You have forsaken the Lord and provoked the Holy One of Israel’ (Isaiah 1:4). We can also interpret this figuratively in relation to heretics, who are the sons of destruction and seeds of falsehood. Since their inception, they have been deceitful like the devil, who is the father of lies. They entice those who are seduced by them toward idols or doctrines of falsehood beneath leafy trees, luring them with promises of pleasure while concealing their own impurities. Hence, Adam, upon sinning, hid himself in paradise under a tree from the presence of God (Genesis 3). There is no doubt that such sons of destruction and seeds of lawlessness have numerous descendants who are led astray, being ensnared in the depths of valleys and the abyss of iniquity beneath the rocky cliffs, which continually threaten collapse. According to various falsehoods and the multitude of distorted teachings, these are labeled as numerous rocks. Yet we possess one Rock, which consistently follows the people, from which the Israelites once drank during their enjoyment of the Lord's love.