The Nations as a Drop before God

Tomos 5.

“All the nations are counted as a drop from a jar and as the tipping of a scale, and they will be counted as spittle. Lebanon is not enough for burning, and all the four-footed beasts are not enough for a whole burnt offering, and all the nations are nothing and have been counted as nothing. To whom have you likened the Lord, and with what likeness have you likened Him? Did a carpenter make an image, or did a goldsmith melt gold and gild it over? For the carpenter chooses wood that does not rot, and wisely seeks how he will set up his image so that it may not totter. Will you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not known the foundations of the earth?” (Isaiah 40:15-21).

The prophetic word has recalled for us the dispensation of the Only-begotten in the flesh, and has marvelled fittingly at the ineffable wisdom through which we have been saved and, having come to know Him who is Master by nature and in truth, have been counted worthy of His grace: gathered like lambs by His arm (Isaiah 40:11), and placed under Him as under a Shepherd exceedingly good, for He laid down His life for His own sheep (John 10:11). It has also shown that the Mind is beyond our reach, whether to see or even perhaps to measure (Isaiah 40:13), and has confessed Him to be the highest Wisdom, beyond all things. So it has of necessity brought in one who addresses those from the nations, that is, those who still worship the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25); he takes them away from their ancient error, the error of their forebears handed down from their fathers, moves them to better things, and brings them back to the knowledge that befits human beings.

He therefore shows the measureless pre-eminence of God, who rules all things, and the surpassing dignity of the majesty that is in Him, and that all things are small to Him and would be reckoned as equal to nothing when set beside, I mean, the exceeding greatness of His power and glory. That is why he says: “All the nations are counted as a drop from a jar and as the tipping of a scale, and they will be counted as spittle.” These things are small and worth nothing at all. For what is one drop falling from a jar? And what would the tipping of a scale be, which brings the side that seems lighter up to an even balance? And what is spittle, that is, the spit of a man?

But Lebanon, he says, would not be enough for Him for burning, nor all the four-footed beasts for a whole burnt offering. Such things are wholly contemptible; even if all of them were brought to Him for a whole burnt offering …