Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fifth Sunday in Lent

This is what the Lord says, who makes in the sea a way and a path in the raging water, who leads out chariots and horse and a mighty multitude; but they have gone to sleep, and they will not rise; they are extinguished like quenched flax. “Do not call to mind the former things, and do not consider the ancient things. Look! I will do new things that will now spring forth, and you will perceive them, and I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the waterless place. The beasts of the field will bless me, Sirens and the daughters of sparrows, because I provided water in the wilderness and rivers in the waterless place, to give my chosen race to drink, my people whom I have preserved, to tell of my virtuous acts.” (Isaiah 43:16–21 LXX)

The Lord who destroyed and cast down Babylon and brought down its strongest ones from power, and who took captive all the Chaldeans who were sailing blissfully on the waves of this world, has found the way in the mighty waters of the Red Sea, so that His people were delivered and passed through from Egypt. Or, He who made a way in the Red Sea has found a path even in the mighty waters of the Jordan river, so that both the departure from Egypt and the entry into the promised land contained a miracle. He himself drowned the chariots and the horses and the entire army of Pharaoh in the deep, which have slept in perpetual sleep. They were broken and extinguished as flax in a brief space of time and in an instant and a moment; for flax that has not yet been ignited, because of the lightness of its substance, is immediately put out and extinguished in a glimmering spark.

Therefore, I command this to you, that amongst My signs and miracles, by which the most powerful city of Babylon was torn down, and by which a way was opened for my people in the Red Sea and the Jordan, remember not things of old, because in the gospel I will do much greater things. In comparison with those things, the past things ought to be silent. For I will no longer find a way in the Red Sea, but in the wilderness of the whole world. Not just one river or fountain will burst forth from the rock, but many rivers, not to refresh thirsty bodies, as before, but souls. Thus what we read above is fulfilled: “You will drink water from the fountains of salvation.”

Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah 12.43.14

For this reason, I did not want you to wonder at those things in the future, but there are certain newer wonders that are in no way inferior to the wonders done in old times, and like a light they shine forth among all, and you will know these things when they happen. And what does He mean when He says: I will make a way in the wilderness? Clearly He is speaking again about the church that He established among the nations, which was then a wilderness concerning the knowledge of God before the Christ came to dwell, who said: “I am the way.” And He says I will make a way in that place that was once a wilderness, just as I once made a way through the Red Sea. Rivers of divine words will flow from the teaching of the Holy Spirit into the dry land, just as rivers “gushed out” in the wilderness for Moses. But, indeed, the water that flowed was physical and perishable, but the water that now flows is from the inspired abundant supply of the rational and spiritual water.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Commentary on Isaiah 43