Commentaria in Exodum
Chapter 19
The Hebrews come into Sinai, Moses goes up the mountain, God commands the people to be sanctified and prepared reverently to receive the law of God: and therefore, verse 16, God fills the mountain with fire, smoke, thunders, lightnings, earthquake, and the blast of a trumpet, to strike the Hebrews with fear of himself and religious awe.
1. In the third month of the departure of Israel out of the land of Egypt, on this day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. 2. For departing from Raphidim, and coming to the desert of Sinai, they camped in the same place, and there Israel pitched their tents over against the mountain. 3. And Moses went up to God: and the Lord called to him from the mountain, and said: Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: 4. You have seen what I have done to the Egyptians, how I have carried you upon the wings of eagles, and have taken you to myself. 5. If therefore you will hear my voice, and keep my covenant, you shall be my peculiar possession above all people: for all the earth is mine. 6. And you shall be to me a priestly kingdom, and a holy nation. These are the words thou shalt speak to the children of Israel. 7. Moses came, and calling together the elders of the people, he declared all the words which the Lord had commanded. 8. And all the people answered together: All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And when Moses had related the people’s words to the Lord, 9. The Lord said to him: Lo, now I will come to thee in a cloud, that the people may hear me speaking to thee, and may believe thee for ever. Then Moses told the words of the people to the Lord. 10. And he said to him: Go to the people, and sanctify them today, and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments. 11. And let them be ready against the third day: for on the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people, upon mount Sinai. 12. And thou shalt appoint certain limits to the people round about, and thou shalt say to them: Take heed you go not up into the mount, and that you touch not the borders thereof: every one that toucheth the mount, dying he shall die. 13. No hands shall touch him, but he shall be stoned to death, or shall be shot through with arrows: whether it be beast or man, he shall not live. When the trumpet shall begin to sound, then let them go up into the mount. 14. And Moses came down from the mount to the people, and sanctified them. And when they had washed their garments, 15. He said to them: Be ready against the third day, and come not near your wives. 16. Now the third day was come, and the morning appeared: and behold thunders began to be heard, and lightning to flash, and a very thick cloud to cover the mount, and the noise of the trumpet sounded exceeding loud; and the people that was in the camp, feared. 17. And when Moses had brought them forth to meet God from the place of the camp, they stood at the bottom of the mount. 18. And all mount Sinai was on a smoke: because the Lord was come down upon it in fire, and the smoke arose from it as out of a furnace: and all the mount was terrible. 19. And the sound of the trumpet grew by degrees louder and louder, and was drawn out to a greater length: Moses spoke, and God answered him. 20. And the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, in the very top of the mount, and he called Moses unto the top thereof. And when he was gone up thither, 21. He said unto him: Go down, and charge the people: lest they should have a mind to pass the limits to see the Lord, and a very great multitude of them should perish. 22. The priests also that come to the Lord, let them be sanctified, lest he strike them. 23. And Moses said to the Lord: The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou didst charge and command, saying: Set limits about the mount, and sanctify it. 24. And the Lord said to him: Go, get thee down; and thou shalt come up, thou and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people pass the limits, nor come up to the Lord, lest he kill them. 25. And Moses went down to the people, and told them all.
Verse 1. 1. IN THE THIRD MONTH OF THE DEPARTURE OF ISRAEL OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, ON THIS DAY THEY CAME INTO THE WILDERNESS OF SINAI.—“On this day,” that is, on the same day, or of the same number with the third month, namely the third day of the third month; for that “this” is here used for “the same,” Francis Ribera shows by various examples, book 5 On the Temple, chap. 7, and that it is so to be taken in this place will appear from verse 11. Wherefore some Fathers wrongly think that the Hebrews came into Sinai on the first day of the third month, as Bellarmine learnedly shows, book 3 _On the Worship of Saints_, chap. 13.
Note: The Hebrews came into Sinai on the third day of the third month, of the first year of the exodus from Egypt; and they departed from Sinai in the second year, the second month, on the twentieth day, as is said Num. 10:11. The Hebrews therefore stayed in Sinai a whole year, except thirteen days. All things therefore which from this chapter onward in the whole Exodus and the whole Leviticus, and in Numbers up to chap. 10, verse 11, are described, were done in Sinai.
Whence St. Jerome: “In Sinai,” he says, “was the twelfth station, where the half of Exodus, and the whole of Leviticus, and the precepts of Numbers, and the distribution of the people by tribes, and the offering of the princes are described.”
3. AND MOSES WENT UP TO GOD,—into mount Sinai, on which he knew that God had once appeared to him, Exodus 3, and had commanded that after the departure out of Egypt he should sacrifice to him on the same: concerning which, to consult God, Moses now went up upon it.
Verse 4. 4. HOW I HAVE CARRIED YOU UPON THE WINGS OF EAGLES.—For as eagles do not carry their young with talons and feet, but put them on their wings and carry them so high that no one can reach them even with a dart: so God had borne the Hebrews on the wings of his providence, when he made them most safe from all enemies, and cherished them with paternal solicitude. “For all other birds,” says R. Solomon, “put their young between their feet, because they fear for themselves the birds which fly above them. But the eagle fears for itself none but man, lest he perchance strike it with a dart. For since no bird flies higher than itself, therefore it places its young on its wings, thinking: Better that the dart pierce me than my young. So also I have done, says God, according to that of chap. 14, verse 19: And the angel removing himself, etc., stood between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and when the Egyptians cast darts and stones, the cloud itself, in which the angel lay hid, received them.” So far he. The eagle therefore sets itself like a shield for its young: so also does God for the faithful and just. Again, as eagles lift their young through steep places and accustom them to look at the sun, so also God had led the Hebrews through the greatest obstacles to so clear and familiar a knowledge and worship of God.
Historically, note that the providence and beneficence of God are rightly compared to an eagle; for the eagle has a singular love both for its young and for man, especially if he be a virgin or beneficent. Pliny, book 10, chap. 3, relates that an eagle reared at Sestos by a virgin, and given its liberty, returned her the grace of a double benefit, first by bringing her birds, and then also game. What of this, that when the virgin died, and it saw the pyre already built to burn her, it threw itself into the kindled fire, and burned together with her: since it thought it better to perish by the like death than to survive its foster-mistress.
The Macedonians relate that Ptolemy Soter, son of Arsinoe, was exposed, and nourished by an eagle. This eagle, spreading its wings on high over the infant, turned from him both the heat of the sun and the rain, kept off the flocking birds, and nourished the infant with the blood of quails as with milk: Suidas is witness under Lagus.
Pausanias, book 4, writes that Aristomenes was delivered in a wonderful manner by an eagle from a deep pit, and relates the manner at length.
Plutarch in his Parallels: “When a plague,” he says, “was raging at Sparta, the oracles warned that the force of the evil would cease if every year some noble virgin were sacrificed. It happened by chance that the lot fell on Helen: and as she was being led to be slain, an eagle flying down snatched the sacrificer’s sword, and bore it to the herds, and dropped it upon a heifer; and in proof of this prodigy this sacrifice of virgins, which the Spartans had observed by oracle, was abolished.”
In quite the same way among the Valerii a virgin, whose name was Valeria Luperca, destined by chance for sacrifice, was saved by the kindness of an eagle.
Athenaeus writes, from Phylarchus, that an eagle’s chick reared by a boy loved him as a brother, stood sadly by him when sick; when he would not eat, it likewise refused food; when he died it followed the funeral; and when he was burned, the chick threw itself into the pyre.