Commentaria in Exodum
AND UNDER HIS FEET.—For God appeared here as a man and a magnificent prince. Note: In Scripture the members of a man are ascribed to God, not that God truly has a body, as the Anthropomorphites held, but to accommodate Himself to the imaginations and senses of men, and to signify something mystical and spiritual suited to them. Hence St. Augustine, epist. 141, which is On the Seeing of God, says thus: “When we hear wings in God, we understand protection; when hands, operation; when feet, presence; when eyes, vision; when face, the knowledge by which He is made known.” And in the same place he cites St. Jerome on Psalm 93, saying: “God is all eye, because He sees all things; all hand, because He works all things; all foot, because He is everywhere. See then what he says: He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? or he that formed the eye, doth he not consider? And he did not say: He that planted the ear, therefore has no ear himself; He that formed the eye, therefore has no eyes himself. But what did he say: He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, doth he not consider? He took away the members, he gave the effects.” He treats of these at length in his book On the Essence of the Godhead, and divine Thomas, part 1, Quest.
AND UNDER HIS FEET AS IT WERE A WORK OF SAPPHIRE STONE, AND AS THE HEAVEN, WHEN IT IS CLEAR,—as if to say: Under the feet of God there appeared as it were a pavement laid of sapphire (1). By this symbol was signified the most splendid and excellent majesty of God, which far transcends and treads under foot all the brilliance and splendour of heaven and gems. For “the sapphire is the gem of gems, says Abulensis; hence among the gods of the Gentiles the sapphire was held in great reverence, because without it responses were not given.” And Pierius, Hieroglyph. 44: “The sapphire,” he says, “was always in great veneration among the ancients, since it is manifest that by it empire and the highest priesthood were signified.” Hence Aelian, book 14, chap. 34, teaches that among the Egyptians the high priest (who was also the supreme judge) was wont to wear hung from his neck an image made of sapphire, which was called Truth. Even now the Supreme Pontiff sends a sapphire to each newly created Cardinal. And Rueus, who asserts: “Antiquity itself bears witness that the sapphire once had the highest authority among men, and favour among the gods.” For the sapphire is most beautiful, because it shines with golden points like stars. Hence in Hebrew it is called sappir, from sepher, that is, from number, namely of stars; or, as St. Jerome, from scaphir, that is, beautiful. Again, the sapphire avails “against melancholy, and quartan fever, and melancholic humours,” according to Avicenna, Albert the Great and Mathiolus, book 5, chap. 66. Finally the sapphire, say Galen and Dioscorides, “taken in drink profits those stung by a scorpion, and is drunk against internal ulcerations, and draws together ruptured membranes, and restrains excrescences and pustules in the eyes.” The sapphire therefore is a symbol of divine vigour and joy.
Anagogically, these things foreshadowed the solidity, purity and height of the heavenly kingdom, in which God is promised to us. So Rupert, and St. Augustine, Quest. 102. For the colour of the sapphire is sky-blue, sprinkled with little golden stars, so that it resembles the very appearance of heaven. Now the blue colour which we behold in the sky is nothing else than the depth of the most lofty light: here, then, it aptly signifies the immensity of the Godhead, as an incomprehensible sea of light, in the sight and thought of which the keenness of the human mind seems plainly to vanish. Again, it signifies the serenity and eternity of divine beatitude.
Allegorically, this sapphire footstool of God signified the most pure brightness of the Blessed Virgin, on whom as on a footstool the Son of God deigned to sit, when He was conceived and born in her. So R. Moses and R. Haccados in Galatinus, book 7, last chapter.
In the Hebrew and Septuagint, instead of stone it is brick; for they have, and under his feet as it were a work of sapphire brick. But brick here is taken for stone; hence Vatablus, the Chaldee, Rabbi David and others here render it, as it were a work of sapphire stone. This brick, then, was a stone, that is, a gem, as to nature and splendour; but it was also a brick as to its square, or rather quadrangular form; for this was an image of the future propitiatory.
Add: this stone appeared to be a brick as to whiteness; for hence brick is called in Hebrew lebena, that is, white, because baked in the furnace it grows white. Finally, by the brick, says R. Solomon, God signified that He remembered the affliction in brick and Egyptian clay, and had now changed it into sapphire. Finally, from this place the Hebrews teach or conjecture that the tables of stone, on which God wrote the law, were of sapphire, as I shall say on chap. 31, last verse.
11. NEITHER DID HE SEND FORTH HIS HAND UPON THEM THAT DEPARTED FAR OFF FROM THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL: AND THEY SAW GOD, AND THEY EAT AND DRANK.—So read the Roman and all other copies, except the Complutensian, which wrongly read, and upon them, etc., in the contrary sense. The sense is: Upon the ancients who had withdrawn from the multitude, and had gone up with Moses into the mount, God sent not forth His hand, that is, God did not strike, did not hurt the princes of Israel who had seen Him; for they ate and drank afterwards, as glad and exulting in this august and delightful vision of God, which was a proof that they had not been slain or hurt by God, though it is written: “Man shall not see me and live.” Hence of old it was the common feeling and fear that he who saw God would be struck dead by God; of which thing there is an example in Manue, Judges chap. 13, verse 22, and in the people on hearing the law, Deut. chap. 5, verse 24. Rightly therefore Moses says here that these ancients saw God, and yet were not dead or hurt. Hence the Chaldee renders: But to the princes of the children of Israel there was no harm; for the Hebrew word atsile, signifying those separated and withdrawn afar, signifies also nobles and princes, who are separated from the multitude by honour and rank. Now to “send forth the hand” upon anyone signifies to strike or hurt him. Vatablus and commonly the more recent writers follow the Chaldee, as if Moses said: To the people and those who were with the people it was not lawful to see God in any sensible form, lest they should fashion an idol of it for themselves; but to the ancients, separated from the people, and, as the Septuagint render, the elect of the children of Israel, it was lawful so to see God: for these were prudent, faithful, steadfast men who feared God. Abulensis explains it otherwise, namely thus: The ancients of the people saw the God of Israel, yet God Himself did not send forth His hand upon those who had withdrawn far off, that is, He did not hide Himself from the people far removed, but rather manifested Himself to them, as to the ancients; for to put forth the hand sometimes signifies among the Hebrews to hide, as appears Exodus chap. 33, verse 22. But this sense is more remote and obscure; the former, therefore, is the genuine one.
13. AND MOSES GOING UP INTO THE MOUNT OF GOD,—that is, into the higher parts of Mount Sinai: whence afterwards on the seventh day he was called to its very summit, to receive the tables of the law. So Hugo.
AND HIS MINISTER JOSUE.—See here Moses content with one minister. Moses, therefore, prince of the people, leader, lawgiver and pontiff, led in his princely office a poor life, using one minister, Josue; he would not have a crowd of servants, horses, chariots. He lived also on the same food, nay on the same portion of food as the other Hebrews, namely one gomor of manna a day, to give posterity and princes an example of modesty, frugality and continence, that they might make themselves equal to the people as far as they could, and not burden them with tribute for their own luxury, nor strive to exalt themselves ambitiously among them and domineer over them proudly.
14. SAID TO THE ANCIENTS: WAIT YE HERE.—Here, that is, with the people; for here is taken broadly, and perhaps Moses pointed with his finger to the very camp of the people, as if to say: It is enough, O elders, that you have accompanied me thus far, and adored the Lord; stay here, do not go up with me, but return to the camp, to rule the people and keep them in their duty; for in the camp, a little after, Aaron made a calf for the people, and was therefore found and rebuked by Moses, who came down from the mount alone with Josue.
IF ANY QUESTION SHALL ARISE, YOU SHALL REFER IT TO THEM.—In the Hebrew: the man of words, that is, of causes or suits, who has some cause or suit, “shall come before them,” namely before Hur and Aaron, that they may decide the cause: the people, therefore, from the camp to the ancients, and these to Hur and Aaron, are here commanded to refer the questions that arise in the absence of Moses.