Commentaria in Exodum
In like manner Christ the Lord ratified the new covenant and testament by Himself, as the victim of the covenant, and by His blood as the blood of the covenant victim; chiefly because by this victim and blood He merited for us redemption, grace, inheritance and all the good things which in this His covenant He promised us, Hebrews chap. 9, verse 15 ff.; and He expressed this in the institution of the Eucharist, saying: “This is the blood of the new testament.” Hence against the Sacramentarians thou mayest hurl a strong argument for the truth of the body of Christ: for if the old covenant was ratified with real blood, and that is understood when it is said here in verse 8: “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you,” then surely the new covenant also was ratified with real blood; and that is understood when it is said: “This is the blood of the new testament;” for the old was a type of the new and the true, to which it is certain Christ looked in the words just mentioned.
Thou wilt say: Christ calls it the blood of the new testament, not of the covenant, as Moses here calls his own; therefore this sprinkling of blood is unlike. I answer: Christ calls testament the testamentary covenant, and so covenant and testament are often the same in Scripture, as I showed on 1 Cor.
7. AND TAKING THE BOOK OF THE COVENANT, HE READ IT IN THE HEARING OF THE PEOPLE.—This “book” was the little volume which Moses had lately written on Sinai at God’s dictation, of which in verse 4, which contained the precepts of God already mentioned, and all the words of the Lord from chap. 20 to this chap. 24. Moses therefore read this book, containing God’s precepts (for these were the conditions of the covenant to be entered into with God), to the people; the people then promised that they would keep them; finally Moses, as a herald, ratifying and confirming the covenant between God and the people, sprinkled the people with the blood of the victims.
8. AND HE TOOK THE BLOOD AND SPRINKLED IT UPON THE PEOPLE.—The blood sprinkled upon the people signified the blood of Christ sprinkled upon us. The Apostle, Hebrews chap. 9, verse 19, adds some things which Moses here passes over in silence; for he says: “Taking the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, sprinkled both the book itself and all the people.” For Moses narrates these things briefly, and Paul supplied and expressed them, partly by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, partly from the custom of the legal rite, which was wont to be used in such purifications, as he had learned both from Holy Scripture and from the practice itself; for that water was wont to be mixed with the blood in sacred sprinklings appears from Exodus chap. 12, verse 22. The same appears of scarlet or scarlet wool, and hyssop, Num. chap. 19, verses 6 and 18. Again, that goats also were offered with the calves appears because the goat, as by its stench aptly representing sin, is wont to be offered for sin, as appears Leviticus chap. 9, verses 3 and 15. Hence it aptly figured Christ, who took upon Himself our sins to be expiated. Note: In the ancient purifications of the Hebrews water was added to the blood, that the blood might not clot, but become more liquid and fit for sprinkling the people. Again, allegorically, this water and blood of the victims were a figure and type of the blood and water flowing from the side of Christ, and consequently a type of Baptism and the Eucharist; for water represents Baptism, blood the Eucharist.
Secondly, scarlet wool and hyssop were used in purifications, that of them a sprinkler might be made; for these are suitable for it both by their thickness and by the retentive power they have: for they drink up moisture like a sponge. Again, allegorically, the wool signified the whiteness and innocence of Christ, or the flesh of Christ, in itself white, but on account of our sins scarlet, that is, reddened with the blood of His passion.
The hyssop was a type, first, of the charity and grace of Christ; for hyssop is by nature warm: hence it serves the mystery, and by its heat and fervour denotes the most ardent glow of the Holy Ghost, with which the minds of the pious are kindled. Secondly, hyssop was a type of the humility and humanity of Christ, by which God healed our pride and other sins: for hyssop is a lowly herb, and, as Dioscorides teaches, book 3, chap. 27, cures swelling of the lungs, which is a symbol of pride, as Rupert has noted (1).
10. AND THEY SAW THE GOD OF ISRAEL,—not by essence, but in shadow, that is, in some sensible form, which the will of God chose and human frailty could bear. Hence the Chaldee renders, and they saw the glory of the God of Israel. The Septuagint go farther, supplying another more remote noun, namely place: “And they saw the place,” they say, “where the God of Israel stood.” And this to veil this vision of God, lest these ancients should be thought to have seen God in His essence and divine form.
Thou wilt ask, in what form did God, that is, the Angel in God’s stead, here show Himself to be seen by the ancients? Abulensis answers that God here appeared in the form of a bright cloud, within which the majesty of God was seen to shine, so that the rude Jews thought that in the lowest part of this cloud stood the feet of God, but in the upper part, toward heaven, the rest of the body, and that in this respect it is said here that under the feet of God, that is, under the lowest part of the cloud in which the feet of God were believed to be, there was as it were a work of sapphire stone; for that God did not here appear in the form of a man, or an animal, or any other thing, is plain from Deuter. chap. 4, verse 15, where it is said: “You saw not any similitude in the day that the Lord God spoke to you in Horeb from the midst of the fire: lest perhaps being deceived you might make you a graven similitude,” etc.
Others, however, as Lyranus, Cajetan, Prado on Ezech. chap. 1, more truly judge that God here showed Himself in human form, namely in the appearance of a magnificent prince and kingly lawgiver; whence in the Hebrew, for God, there is not the tetragrammaton name of God, but Elohim, which signifies God as prince and judge; hence also God was seen to have feet, and under His feet a sapphire footstool: for God willed by this appearance to show and impress upon the ancients, and through them upon the people, both the majesty of the lawgiver and fear. Jerome Prado on chap. 1 of Ezech., and some others, add that God here appeared, both to the ancients and to Moses, in human form seated upon the chariot of the Cherubim, which four living creatures, namely four Cherubim having the likeness of an ox, an eagle, a lion and a man, encompassed, sitting thereon: in which form Ezechiel saw God, chap. 1, and St. John, Apoc. chap. 4: so that after the pattern and form of this appearance and vision Moses made the ark and the Cherubim as the chariot of the glory of God; for there is no doubt that God showed Moses the type of these on Sinai, that he might make them according to it; for this is what is said in chap. 25, last verse: “Look, and make it according to the pattern that was shewn thee on the mount.” But of this I shall speak more fully on chap. 25, verse 18.
Allegorically, this human form of God the lawgiver of the old law signified the incarnation of the Word, the lawgiver of the new. So Lyranus and others.
To the argument Abulensis answers that in Deuter. chap. 4 the discourse is not of this secret and private vision, which was granted to Moses and the ancients, but of the public one, made to the whole people, when God promulgated to them the decalogue from Sinai, chap. 19, verse 18, and chap. 20, verse 18: for the people were prone to idolatry; hence God would not show Himself to them in any form of man or animal, lest they should make an idol of it: but this danger was not in Moses and the ancients, as wise and chosen men. Hence it is clear from chap. 25, last verse, that God in fact showed Moses the pattern of the ark, the Cherubim and the whole tabernacle.