Letter 53

"Every head is given over to pain," says Isaiah, "and every heart to sorrow, from the feet up to the head" [Isaiah 1:5]. And a little further on: "Your land is desolate, and strangers devour your country before your face" [Isaiah 1:7]. By the "feet" he hints at those who are subordinate, and by the "head" at those who lead, both filled with every kind of wickedness; for "every head is given over to pain," but their feet too "run to wickedness," as the Prophet has said in another place [Isaiah 59:7]. Understand "pain," then, as wickedness, just as David says concerning a profane soul, that "You conceived pain, and brought forth lawlessness" [Psalm 7:14]. For wickedness is by nature inclined to give birth to lawlessness. Since, therefore, when men despise the good and love what is base, by God's judgment grim and grievous things often follow, summoning those who go astray to correction, for this reason he has said: "And every heart to sorrow." For the Jews are made sorrowful by God, punished and crushed by a human hand.