Commentaria in Exodum
Chapter 20
An angel from Sinai proclaims to the whole people of the Hebrews, and promulgates, the Decalogue. Secondly, verse 21, Moses goes up to God lurking in the darkness of the summit of Sinai, and is commanded by him to make an altar of earth, or of unhewn stone.
1. And the Lord spoke all these words: 2. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. 4. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. 5. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: 6. And shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain. 8. Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day. 9. Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works. 10. But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates. 11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it. 12. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee. 13. Thou shalt not kill. 14. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15. Thou shalt not steal. 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house: neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his. 18. Now all the people saw the voices and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mount smoking; and being terrified and struck with fear, they stood afar off, 19. Saying to Moses: Speak thou to us, and we will hear: let not the Lord speak to us, lest we die. 20. And Moses said to the people: Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that his terror might be in you, and you should not sin. 21. And the people stood afar off. But Moses went to the dark cloud wherein God was. 22. The Lord said moreover to Moses: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. 23. You shall not make gods of silver, nor shall you make to yourselves gods of gold. 24. You shall make an altar of earth unto me, and you shall offer upon it your holocausts and peace offerings, your sheep and oxen, in every place where the memory of my name shall be: I will come to thee, and will bless thee. 25. And if thou make an altar of stone unto me, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones: for if thou lift up a tool upon it, it shall be defiled. 26. Thou shalt not go up by steps unto my altar, lest thy nakedness be discovered.
1. AND THE LORD SPOKE ALL THESE WORDS,—The trumpet, which hitherto had given a confused sound, now, the angel distinguishing voices, gave an articulate sound of the following words, namely of the Decalogue. For the angel here, representing God, as lawgiver promulgated the Decalogue in a trumpet-like voice, which could be heard by the whole people (by three millions of men). So Nyssen, Philo and others.
The angel therefore says: “I am the Lord thy God,” etc., because he speaks in the person of God; as the Viceroy of Naples in his edicts says and writes: “We Philip King command,” etc., because he edicts and commands in the name of King Philip.
Hence Prosper, book 1 Promises, last chap., thinks the Jews were so called because they received the jus of God, that is, the law of God. But this is only an apt allusion to the Latin word; for otherwise it is certain that the Jews are called in Hebrew and denominated from Juda the patriarch,
2. I AM THE LORD.—Here begins the Decalogue, which I shall explain whole more conveniently on Deut. 5:6; for there it is found whole in better order.
18. AND ALL THE PEOPLE SAW THE VOICES.—“Saw,” that is, perceived not by sight, but by hearing, that is, heard. For the Hebrews often interchange one sense with another, and especially take sight for any sense, because sight is the most excellent and most certain of all the senses, says St. Augustine, Question 72: see Canon 5. To see voices here is therefore the same as to know voices: for, as Philo says, book On the Decalogue, this voice thrust itself upon the Hebrews so clearly and sonorously that they thought they saw it rather than heard it.
AND THE FLAMES,—lightnings shining and flaming like lamps. See chap. 19, verse 16.
AND THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET.—The trumpet, which before the promulgation of the Decalogue had sounded as a trumpet, and called out the Hebrews to hear the law of God, had been silent while the angel proclaimed the Decalogue with articulate voice; but when the promulgation of the Decalogue was finished, it presently again began to sound and clang as a trumpet. Whence the people, fearing that God would again speak with his sonorous and terrible voice, asked Moses to be the go-between, and to speak in God’s stead, and to carry God’s commands and words to the people: nay, struck by this sound of the trumpet and by fear, the people retired from Sinai, and stood afar off, as is said here.
…custom, reverence and obedience.
21. AND THE PEOPLE STOOD AFAR OFF.—Understand from the preceding chapter, verse 24, that Moses with Aaron went up beyond the foot of mount Sinai; and the people, or the princes of the people, terrified by the voice of God, cried out to Moses and asked that God should not speak to them, but Moses; which the Lord hearing approved the petition of the people, and commanded him to return to his tents with Aaron; but commanded Moses to remain on the mountain, and to ascend to its summit, that there he might hear the other commands of God which follow, and report them to the people.
BUT MOSES WENT TO THE DARK CLOUD WHEREIN GOD WAS.—By this darkness was signified God and the divine nature, which immeasurably transcends all knowledge of men and angels. God is therefore to himself the highest light, but to us the highest darkness: as the sun is in itself bright, yet to the weak and feeble eye of the owl it is dark, gloomy and invisible. See St. Dionysius, On Mystical Theology, chap. 1, Nyssen here, and the Apostle: who “inhabiteth light inaccessible.” So the Egyptians, signifying the immense obscurity of the divine nature, used to say that the first principle of all things was darkness, set above all understanding. Moreover in their sacred rites they thrice called God “the unknown darkness,” as Nicholas Causinus teaches from Damascius the Platonist in his Symbolic Polyhistor, book 1, chap. 1. Truly the Psalmist says, Psalm 17:12: “He made darkness his covert. At the brightness that was before him the clouds passed.”
23. YOU SHALL NOT MAKE GODS OF SILVER.—The Hebrew adds, with me, namely which you may worship together with me. God repeats the first precept of the Decalogue here, and often elsewhere, and inculcates one God, because the Hebrews, accustomed in Egypt to idols, were very prone to idols. Lactantius teaches, book 1, chap. 15, that the ancients put among the gods men who had deserved well of the republic, both to show themselves grateful to them, and by this example and reward to sharpen the virtue of others. Hence they made Apollo a god for the lyre, Aesculapius for medicine, Saturn and Ceres for agriculture, Liber or Bacchus for the vine and wine, Vulcan for forging. Hence Egypt worshipped Isis, and Athens, a learned city, Minerva, because the one is said to have found the use of linen, the other of oil and the art of wool-working. The same, chap. 22, relates that among the Romans the author of this superstition was Sabinus, who, to persuade the people of it, feigned that he had nocturnal meetings with the goddess Egeria. See St. Augustine, book 4 On the City of God and following.
Tropologically, the gods of gold and silver to the covetous are riches and golden coins: whence covetousness is called by the Apostle the service of idols. For, as Pope Innocent III says, in the book On the Vileness of the human condition: “As the idolater serves an image, so the covetous man serves his treasure. For the former diligently increases the worship of idolatry, and the latter gladly increases his heap of money. The former carefully worships the image, and the latter with all care guards his treasure. The former places his hope in idolatry, and the latter fixes his hope in money. The former fears to mutilate the image, the latter fears to diminish his treasure.”