Isaias 20:3
And the Lord said: As my servant Isaias hath walked, naked and barefoot, it shall be a sign and a wonder of three years upon Egypt, and upon Ethiopia,
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et dixit Dominus : Sicut ambulavit servus meus Isaias nudus et discalceatus, trium annorum signum et portentum erit super Ægyptum et super Æthiopiam ;
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν Κύριος Ὃν τρόπον πεπόρευται ὁ παῖς μου Ἠσαίας γυμνὸς καὶ ἀνυπόδετος τρία ἔτη, τρία ἔτη ἔσται εἰς σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις καὶ Αἰθίοψιν·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהוָ֔ה כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר הָלַ֛ךְ עַבְדִּ֥י יְשַׁעְיָ֖הוּ עָר֣וֹם וְיָחֵ֑ף שָׁלֹ֤שׁ שָׁנִים֙ א֣וֹת וּמוֹפֵ֔ת עַל מִצְרַ֖יִם וְעַל כּֽוּשׁ
Haydock's commentary
Years. Isaias went so long, or perhaps only three days undressed, Numbers xiv. 34., and Ezechiel iv. 5. Egypt and the Arabian Ethiopia were to be abandoned to the Assyrians, in or during three years.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Matthew V. 38, 39, 40
Further: even though one were of necessity to go about naked on account of this sort of self-denial, neither so were it any disgrace. Since Adam too was “naked”in paradise, “and was not ashamed;” and Isaiah was “naked, and barefoot,” and more glorious than all the Jews;and Josephalso, when he stripped himself, did then more than ever shine forth. For to be thus naked is no evil, but to be so clad, as we now are, with costly garments, this is both disgraceful and ridiculous. For this cause, you see, those had praise of God, but these He blames, both by prophets and by apostles.
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).