Commentaria in Exodum
AND THEY SALUTED ONE ANOTHER WITH WORDS OF PEACE.—In Hebrew, they asked about peace, or whether it was peace, that is, whether all things were safe and prosperous; for this the Hebrew salutation signifies, peace be with thee.
8. THE LABOUR,—the difficulty and trouble. Note here of what kind and how pious are the conversations of the Saints. Such were those between St. Anthony and St. Paul the first hermit, between St. Benedict and his sister Scholastica, among the Essenes, and other ancient hermits and cenobites.
9. AND JETHRO REJOICED.—The Septuagint exestē, he was astonished, as it were rapt in ecstasy.
11. NOW I KNOW THAT THE LORD IS GREAT ABOVE ALL GODS,—as if to say: I Jethro had once some knowledge of your God and the true God, nor did I altogether cast away the faith of Abraham my ancestor, which Madian the son of Abraham, our grandsire, drew from him and handed down to us; yet hitherto it was weak, and polluted by the mixture and worship of idols: but now hearing of his prodigies, which he wrought for you in Egypt and in the Red Sea, I acknowledge and firmly believe that this one, who stood by you, is the true God, the best, most just and most powerful, since he executed so powerful and just vengeance on the impious and tyrannous Egyptians. This faith and piety Jethro propagated to his posterity. For from him sprang the Rechabites, as appears 1 Paral. 2:55, whom for abstinence and obedience, ibid.
See here what the piety of one father and prince can do. So Constantine was great on this account, that he was of great mind and singular piety; and among all the Emperors was the first not only to embrace the faith of Christ, but also to leave Christian Emperors behind him.
Theodosius the younger, bearing the name and piety of his grandfather, made his court a kind of school, in which he exercised himself and his household in piety, having times arranged in order for readings, psalms, fasts and vigils, says Socrates, book 7, chap. 22, and Theodoret, book 5, chap. 36; in which matter his sister Pulcheria and his wife Eudoxia were his companions, nay leader and spur. See their holy court, which our Rader published.
Tiberius, commander of the guards under Justin II, on account of his piety toward God and liberality toward the poor, was in such favour that he was declared successor by the Emperor Justin.
The Emperor Honorius was very zealous for true religion: whence God delivered him from many tyrants rising on every side, as Baronius teaches from Socrates, Sozomen and others.
BECAUSE THEY DEALT PROUDLY AGAINST THEM.—It is an ellipsis, but of a fuller and more perfect sense than is in the Hebrew; for thus it is in Hebrew: because in what they dealt proudly against them (the Hebrews), understand, in the same God punished them, namely in the waters and the sea; for as they had drowned the infants of the Hebrews in these, so by these same they were requited by God, that they themselves also should be drowned in the waters. Whence the Chaldee supplies the ellipsis: for he renders, because in the very thing in which the Egyptians thought to judge (punish and afflict) Israel, they were judged (punished).
12. SO JETHRO OFFERED.—The Hebrew is, he took, namely from Moses and the Hebrews victims, which he might offer, not to idols, as formerly, but to the true God of the Hebrews.
TO EAT BREAD WITH HIM BEFORE GOD.—Note here: Victims offered to God, and in thanksgiving (such as Jethro here offered), for the most part went to a solemn feast, which was therefore said to be held before the Lord, as though he were present at the victims offered to him, and at the feast made of them, especially if the feast was held near the altar on which the victims had been immolated to God. If, the tabernacle being now made and erected at the end of the year, Jethro came to Moses, as Abulensis will have it, then before God, that is before the tabernacle, which was as it were the house of God, this feast was held.
Secondly, some Hebrews think that “before God” is said on account of the holy, pious and divine men who were present at that banquet, according to that saying of the ancient sages: “He who enjoys a banquet at which the wise recline is as if he enjoyed the glory of the divine majesty.”
Thirdly, St. Augustine, Question 66, says “before God,” that is, in honour of God; but both these senses are a little remoter. Hence it is plain that this sacrifice of Jethro was pure and offered to the true God: for otherwise Moses and the other elders would not have eaten of it, lest they be polluted by things offered to idols.
Tropologically, the Saints, says Origen, do all their works before God, as those who behold God present, and are beheld by him; for continually they live, work and walk in the sight of God.
15. THE PEOPLE COME TO ME TO SEEK THE SENTENCE OF GOD.—The Hebrew, seeking God; the Chaldee, seeking doctrine from God; the Septuagint, seeking judgment from God, that is, from the eternal law of God (says St. Augustine, Question 67), which was before every written law, which Moses, full of the Holy Ghost, beheld more clearly than all the other Hebrews, and consulted in all things, both by thinking and meditating, and by praying.
17. THE THING THOU DOST IS NOT GOOD,—Thou doest what is less fitting and less convenient; because what thou doest, in wishing to do everything alone, is too burdensome to thee, and less useful to the people.
18. THOU ART SPENT WITH FOOLISH LABOUR.—The Hebrew nabal signifies to be foolish, also to flow down, to fall, to be consumed: both significations the Interpreter has here rendered.
God willed that Moses, a man otherwise most wise, should be instructed by a stranger and Gentile, namely by Jethro, to show that it is given to no one always to be wise in all things, and therefore that inferiors also who suggest sounder counsels are to be humbly heard.
“For often a gardener has spoken fitting words; for no one is a good teacher who is not teachable; because he too teaches better who daily grows and advances by learning better things,” says St. Cyprian to Pompeius, at the end. So too St. Augustine, Question 68. Nay Plato, when one objected to him: “Are you, who are a teacher, at the same time a disciple? and how long will you learn?” answered: “So long as I shall not repent of becoming wiser,” Plutarch is witness in his Plato.
Allegorically it was signified that Jethro would be wiser than Moses, that is, the Gentile people than the Jewish, says Cyril in the Collections on Num. chap. 9.
19. AND GOD SHALL BE WITH THEE,—God will be thy help, that, aided by so many ministers, and relieved by a part of the burden being passed on to them, thou mayest bear and perfect all things more conveniently.
BE THOU TO THE PEOPLE IN THOSE THINGS THAT PERTAIN TO GOD.—In Hebrew, be thou to the people before God, or in the presence of God, as if to say: Be thou the pleader of the people, advocate and mediator with God, “to bring their words to him,” namely the sayings of the people, vows, petitions and needs; for “to him” regards God, as is plain from the Hebrew, not the people, as Abulensis thought.
20. AND TO SHEW THE PEOPLE THE CEREMONIES, AND THE MANNER OF WORSHIPPING, AND THE WAY WHEREIN THEY MUST WALK,—as if to say: As I said that thou, O Moses, shouldst be the advocate of the people with God: so in turn I say here that thou shouldst likewise be the interpreter of God with the people, to teach them how they ought to worship God and live rightly: but others thou shouldst appoint judges and arbiters to settle their suits and quarrels.