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Isaiah 66:10-14
The new nation
[12] For thus says the Lord:
“Behold, I will extend prosperity to her like a river,
and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream;
and you shall suck, you shall be carried upon her hip,
and dandled upon her knees.
[13] As one whom his mother comforts,
so I will comfort you;
you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
[14] You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice;
your bones shall flourish like the grass;
and it shall be known that the hand of the Lord is with his servants,
and his indignation is against his enemies.
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Commentary:
7-14. This last poem about the exaltation of Zion is built around the metaphor of
motherhood. The opening verses (7-9) are a reflection full of rhetorical questions
about the eschatological city that gives birth to an entire people in a spectacular,
miraculous way. She is the new Eve, the mother of all the living (cf. Gen 2:23),
who gives birth painlessly. This Zion, a thing of wonder, easy for God to create
but impossible for men even to conceive, has been interpreted as a symbol of
the Church who bears in her womb and gives birth to the members of the new
people of God – and a symbol, too, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave birth,
without the loss of her virginity, to Jesus (cf. Rev 12:5). The end of the poem (vv.
10-14) also uses the analogy of Zion as a mother, although at one point, very
boldly, it depicts God as comforting his people like a mother giving suck to her
children (v. 11). As we have seen, the second part of Isaiah is where the attri-
butes of a mother are most often applied to God (cf. 42:14; 45:10; 49:15). “By
calling God ‘Father’, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God
is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the
same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tender-
ness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood (cf. Is 66:13; Ps 131:
2), which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and
creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents,
who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience
also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of father-
hood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the hu-
man distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God.
He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood (cf. Ps 27:10), although
he is their origin and standard (cf. Eph 3:14; Is 49:15)” (Catechism of the Catho-
lic Church, 239).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.