NOTES for Isa 2:3-11
“The proud look of man will be abased, and the loftiness of man will be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day...” The Lord alone will be exalted in that day... but the Lord is always exalted, the Lord is always far above all that is ours. What exactly does the prophet wish to tell us about “that day”, and what day is it? Has it already come, or is it still to come? We cannot give an unambiguous answer; it would be more accurate to say both yes and no. Yet once again the road to Easter lies before us, the road to the day of the Lord's greatest glory. Before the radiance of that glory all our deeds become insignificant. There is something special here. In the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, among the final words spoken by the priest before Communion are the words: “The holy things for the holy.” The Holy Gifts are given to us as to holy people, because it cannot be otherwise. For a moment, while we receive Communion, we become holy; the Lord brings us into His glory and exalts us, for an instant. But now this road to Easter lies before us, and except on Sundays there is no longer the Liturgy of Chrysostom... Why? Let us recall what the choir answers to the priest's words “The holy things for the holy.” It answers: “One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father.” Truly, only the Lord is holy: “the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.” The Lord calls us to His glory, calls us to the likeness to Him that was given beforehand; but the day comes when we understand that we imagined ourselves exalted, whereas we are insignificant, because we cannot conquer death. We are capable of a great deal; a human being can attain real holiness and can heal as the Lord did, yet even the holiest person dies. No one, no one has risen from the grave. However great the veneration of incorrupt remains, there is no life in them. No... We noticed that in the Vulgate the words “the loftiness of man will be humbled” read “incurvabitur altitudo virorum.” The word “incurvabitur” literally means “will be bent”; one might say “will bow down”, and that is how the Synodal translation renders the word in Isaiah chapter 5: “And man will bow down” — “et incurvabitur homo” (Isa 5:15). But “bow down” is a translation “according to the sense”, whereas Russian has a very apt word close to “incurvabitur”: “извратится”, “will be distorted.” That is the rendering given by Dvoretsky's dictionary, and it is also clear from the structure of the words. This is precisely how our loftiness will be distorted. For there is a straight way upwards, while we follow a crooked way. In English, for instance, curve, which shares the root of incurvabitur, means a curved line; every mathematician or physicist knows that any curvilinear motion, any movement along a curve, can be resolved into the sum of rectilinear motion and rotation. That is why “distortion” sounds somehow especially clear in today's Vulgate. We must feel and understand this: the road to Easter lies before us, and there are only forty days for this road. Our choice is to go straight and arrive, or to follow a curve, to become distorted, and fail to arrive in time.