Isaías 35
Augustine of Hippo · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Isaías 35:4
This is the divine arrangement, as far as any human being can investigate it, better minds in a better way, lesser minds less effectively; this divine arrangement is giving us hints of a great and significant mystery. Christ, you see, was going to come in the flesh, not anyone at all, not an angel, not an ambassador; but "he himself will come and save you." It wasn't anyone who was going to come; and yet how was he going to come? He was going to be born in mortal flesh, to be a tiny infant, to be laid in a manger, wrapped in cradle clothes, nourished on milk; going to grow up, and finally even to be done to death. So in all these indications of humility there is indeed a pattern of an extreme humility. — SERMON 293:8
Isaías 35:10
What about hope? Will that be there [i.e., in heaven]? Hope will not continue when the thing hoped for is there. Certainly hope is very necessary for us in our exile. It is what consoles us on the journey. When the traveler, after all, finds it wearisome walking along, he puts up with the fatigue precisely because he hopes to arrive. Rob him of any hope of arriving, and immediately his strength for walking is broken. So the hope also which we have here is part and parcel of the justice of our exile and our journey. Listen to the apostle himself. "Awaiting the adoption," he says, "we cannot yet say there is the bliss of which Scripture says, 'Toil and groaning have passed away.' " — SERMON 158:8.8