All the words will be for you
like the words of a book that is sealed. If they give it to someone with
knowledge of writing, saying to him, Read this, he will say, I cannot read: it
is sealed. This book will be given into the hands of someone with no knowledge
of writing and they will say to him, Read it, and he will say, I cannot read
it: I have no knowledge of writing (vv. 11-12). Our Lord Jesus Christ said
somewhere to the Jews, “Search the Scriptures, because you think that in them
you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse
to come to me to have life.” So the people of Israel went to trouble hither and
yon in vain discussing constantly the commandment from Moses, pretending that
they had imbibed into mind and heart an uncommon understanding of the legal
writings, but without searching for Christ, despite the Law’s speaking of the mystery
concerning him. They were told further, in fact, “If you believed Moses, you
would believe me, for he wrote of me.” So since they set little store by the
Law—or rather, they killed the one proclaimed in it and paid no regard for
Moses—the inspired Scripture was in a sense sealed, as it were, in one book;
it is all one, and is spoken through one Holy Spirit. Now, in what way was it sealed?
Those able to read and familiar with writing could not understand what was in
it, and anyone familiar with writing will know nothing of what is hidden in it.
Instead, the Law will be sealed for everyone just as if the force of the text
were completely incomprehensible, even for those familiar with the text. This
is surely what was the object of praise to God by David, “Let their eyes be
darkened so that they cannot see, and their back forever bent.” (Cyril of Alexandria,
Commentary on Isaiah, 3 vols. [trans. Robert Charles Hill; Brookline,
Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2008], 2:197-98)
