12 And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 6:11-13
(Verse 11-13.) And I said, how long, Lord? And he answered, until the cities are desolate and without inhabitant, and the houses are without people, and the land is left empty. And the Lord will remove men far away, and what was abandoned in the midst of the land will be multiplied. And even in it there will be a tenth, and it will be turned again to destruction, like a terebinth tree, and like an oak tree that sheds its leaves, the holy seed will be the stump that remains in it. The Lord said: Go, and tell this people, Hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them (Deut. XXXII). The prophet responds, anxiously questioning about his people: How long, Lord, will this message endure, that they hear but do not understand; and see but do not perceive? To whom the Lord responded, for so long will not hear, and will not see, and will have a blind heart, until the cities of Judea are completely destroyed by Vespasian and Titus fighting, to the extent that not even the original name remains, and if there are any houses left; they will be without inhabitants, and the land will be reduced to a wilderness; and either by fleeing or by captivity, the Jewish people will be dispersed throughout the entire world: and the Jewish people will multiply not in Judea, as before, but in all the nations. But when I say that it will multiply, the misery of the remaining people will be so great that compared to the previous multitude, hardly a tenth part will remain. And even in the land itself there will be desolation (for this place can be understood in two ways: that hardly a tenth part will remain in the whole world, and that hardly a small part of the people will be reserved in Judea). Again, the remaining people will be for plundering, when after nearly fifty years Adrian will come and completely plunder the land of Judea, to such an extent that it will be compared to a terebinth and an oak tree that has lost its acorns. Finally, after the ultimate devastation, even the laws of the state were suspended, and the Jews were prohibited from entering the land from which they had been expelled. But if anyone believes in Christ, and the fulfillment of what we have read above: 'Unless the Lord of hosts had left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom and become like Gomorrah' (Isaiah 1:9); as the Apostle also says (Romans 9), the remnant will be saved; this holy offspring will be, and from the seed of the apostles all the churches will sprout forth. What we have said, the holy seed will be that which remains in her, or next to the eagle, the holy seed will be its offspring; it is not found in the Seventy Interpreters, but added by Origen from the Hebrew and Theodotion's edition; in the copies of the Church, it is stated that after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel will be saved; and this word of the Lord will also be fulfilled, saying: 'I will kill, and I will make alive; I will wound, and I will heal' (Deuteronomy 32:39).