The Eye Hath Not Seen: Prepared for Them That Wait, Revealed to Them That Love
Old Testament: Isaias 64:1, 4
That thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down: the mountains would melt away at thy presence. ... From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the ears: the eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee.
Old Testament, also: Isaias 65:17
For behold I create new heavens, and a new earth: and the former things shall not be in remembrance, and they shall not come upon the heart.
New Testament: 1 Corinthians 2:7-10
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him. But to us God hath revealed them, by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
The connection
Isaias prays for the one thing Israel could not bring about: "That thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down." Three verses later he confesses what no one has ever known: "the eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee." God has something ready, and it is hidden from every eye but His. All His people can do is wait. St Paul quotes the verse and says where it comes from: "as it is written." But he tells the Corinthians the hidden thing has now been spoken. It is "the wisdom of God in a mystery", and the proof that the world did not see it is that its princes "crucified the Lord of glory." Isaias asked God to rend the heavens and come down. He came down, and the world did not know Him, and nailed Him to a cross. That was the thing prepared. Then Paul changes one word. Isaias wrote "for them that wait for thee"; Paul writes "for them that love him." The waiting of the prophets has become the love of those who have seen what they waited for. And what was hidden is no longer hidden: "to us God hath revealed them, by his Spirit."
Moral sense
What God prepares is not seen in advance, and it is not earned by seeing it. The prophets waited without knowing what they waited for; the Christian loves without yet seeing it all. Both are the same posture: trust that what He has ready is better than anything the eye could picture. Love is waiting that has met the One it waited for.
Anagogical sense
The Church reads the verse above all of heaven. The new heavens and new earth Isaias promised are the things no eye has seen, and the Spirit who now reveals the mystery of the Cross is the pledge of what is still to be shown: God Himself, seen at last by those who love Him.
The Fathers
St Jerome, Letter 57, to Pammachius: "We see then from what place the quotation is taken and yet the apostle has not rendered his original word for word, but, using a paraphrase, he has given the sense in different terms."
Warrant
Scriptural because 1 Corinthians 2:9 quotes Isaias 64:4 with "as it is written." Checked in the originals: Paul does not follow the Septuagint, which reads "thy works which thou wilt do for them that wait for mercy" (tois hypomenousin eleon), but gives the sense of the Hebrew, and where Isaias has those who wait he has those who love (tois agaposin). St Jerome (Letter 57, to Pammachius) traces the quotation to Isaias according to the Hebrew against those who looked for it in an apocryphal book, and notes that the apostle "has not rendered his original word for word, but, using a paraphrase, he has given the sense in different terms." Reading Isaias 64:1, the prayer that God would rend the heavens and come down, together with the Lord of glory crucified in 1 Corinthians 2:8, is the entry's own. Isaias 65:17 is added for the anagogical sense. St Augustine (On the Trinity I.13.28) reads 1 Corinthians 2:8 of the one Person who is God and man: "For He was crucified after the form of a servant, and yet "the Lord of glory" was crucified." St John Cassian, On the Incarnation of the Lord against Nestorius, reads Isaias' prayer that God would rend the heavens and come down as the saints' prayer that God might "take the form of a servant and submit Himself to endure all the bitterness and insults of the passion" (V.15), and he reads the thing that eye hath not seen as "that the Lord of glory should be born of a virgin and come in the flesh, and suffer all kinds of punishment, and shameful passion" (III.10).
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1027.
The verses
Isaias 64:1 · Isaias 64:4 · Isaias 65:17 · 1 Corinthians 2:7 · 1 Corinthians 2:8 · 1 Corinthians 2:9 · 1 Corinthians 2:10
