Isaias 51:2
Look unto Abraham your father, and to Sara that bore you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him.
Open Isaias 51:2 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Attendite ad Abraham, patrem vestrum, et ad Saram, quæ peperit vos : quia unum vocavi eum, et benedixi ei, et multiplicavi eum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐμβλέψατε εἰς Ἀβραὰμ τὸν πατέρα ὑμῶν, καὶ εἰς Σάρραν τὴν ὠδίνουσαν ὑμᾶς· ὅτι εἷς ἦν καὶ ἐκάλεσα αὐτόν, καὶ εὐλόγησα αὐτὸν καὶ ἠγάπησα αὐτόν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- הַבִּ֨יטוּ֙ אֶל אַבְרָהָ֣ם אֲבִיכֶ֔ם וְאֶל שָׂרָ֖ה תְּחוֹלֶלְכֶ֑ם כִּי אֶחָ֣ד קְרָאתִ֔יו וַאֲבָרְכֵ֖הוּ וְאַרְבֵּֽהוּ
Haydock's commentary
Alone, and gave him children when he was grown old, and Sara barren. I can surely save you likewise. (Calmet)
The example of these great progenitors is set before the Jews. Thus St. Paul says: Remember your prelates, Hebrews xiii. (Worthington)
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 III. 7
This accordingly the prophet also was intimating, when he said, “Look unto the hard rock, whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit, whence ye are digged: look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you.” Now of this prophecy, you see, he reminds them, showing that if at the beginning he made him a father, as marvellously as if he had made him so out of stones, it was possible for this now also to come to pass. And see how he both alarms them, and cuts them off: in that he said not, “He had already raised up,” lest they should despair of themselves, but that He “is able to raise up:” and he said not, “He is able out of stones to make men,” but what was a much greater thing, “kinsmen and children of Abraham.”
St Cyril of Jerusalem The Father
10. Thus much then at present, in the way of a digression, to put you in remembrance. Let me, however, add yet another testimony in proof that God is called the Father of men in an improper sense. For when in Esaias God is addressed thus, For Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us , and Sarah travailed not with us , need we inquire further on this point? And if the Psalmist says, Let them be troubled from His countenance, the Father of the fatherless, and Judge of the widows , is it not manifest to all, that when God is called the Father of orphans who have lately lost their own fathers, He is so named not as begetting them of Himself, but as caring for them and shielding them. …