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Thus saith the Lord of hosts, As I have said, so it shall be: and as I have purposed, so the matter shall remain: 25 even to destroy the Assyrians upon my land, and upon my mountains: and they shall be for trampling; and their yoke shall be taken away from them, and their glory shall be taken away from their shoulders. 26 This is the purpose which the Lord has purposed upon the whole earth: and this the hand that is uplifted against all the nations. 27 For what the Holy God has purposed, who shall frustrate? and who shall turn back his uplifted hand? 28 In the year in which king Achaz died this word came. 29 Rejoice not, all ye Philistines, because the yoke of him that smote you is broken: for out of the seed of the serpent shall come forth the young asps, and their young shall come forth flying serpents, 30 And the poor shall be fed by him, and poor men shall rest in peace: but he shall destroy thy seed with hunger, and shall destroy thy remnant. 31 Howl, ye gates of cities; let the cities be troubled and cry, even all the Philistines: for smoke is coming from the north, and there is no possibility of living. 32 And what shall the kings of the nations answer? That the Lord has founded Sion, and by him the poor of the people shall be saved.
St. Basil the Great makes clear the difference between the fleshly Israel, that is, the Israel of the Old Testament, and the spiritual Israel, the New Testament Church. Both Israels understand that the historical reference of the prophecy is to the destruction of the Assyrian empire at the end of the 7th century B.C. But the fleshly Israel, those who rejected and killed their Messiah, Jesus Christ, cling to the idea that prophecies such as this foretell and validate their domination over all the other nations on earth, the Assyrians being only one historical example thereof. The New Testament Church, the true Israel, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, understands that events such as these constitute not a license from God to dominate and destroy nations not our own, but rather are an image of the spiritual life, in which we are called to throw off the foreign yoke of the demons and to attain true spiritual freedom. Here is what St. Basil writes:
“The fleshly Israel assumes that the message of the prophet is about the land deemed by them to be God’s, and about the earthly mountains of the physical Judaea; and that Israel will carry off Assyria captive, imposing on them the yoke of slavery. But as for ourselves, who are risen with Christ and seek those things which are above (Col. 3:1), we designate the “land” as the good heart, according to what we were taught by the Lord Himself, Who says, But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty (Matt. 13:23). Consequently, the “mountain of God” on which the Assyrians “shall be for trampling” is called the man who has grown great in good works and excels others in both word and knowledge In such a man the enemies shall become for trampling.”
The “Assyrians,” then are the demons, the invisible enemies of our salvation, their “yoke” is our enslavement to them because of our passions and sins, but we trample on them by the power of Christ, when we throw off sin and take on His light yoke, the yoke of repentance.
Yesterday, on the Sunday of the Veneration of the Precious Cross, we arrived at the halfway point of Great Lent. On Wednesday we shall have arrived at the halfway point to Holy Pascha. Let us raise the Cross on high, as the invincible banner of our victory over the spiritual Assyrians who war against us, and by the power of Our victorious Lord cast off everything that hinders our repentance, that we may glorify His Resurrection in purity of heart.
