Commentaria in Exodum
DEFENDING THE MAIDENS.—Hugh of St. Victor thinks Moses had companions with him, helped by whom he withstood the shepherds. Everywhere Moses scattered seeds of charity, avenger of the innocent, the oppressed and of justice; so he won for himself the favour of Raguel and Sephora for wife. This is the part of a prudent man, this of a Christian, to bind all to himself by beneficence. So “Christ went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil,” Acts chap. 10:38. The Gentile Scipio also saw this as in a shadow, who kept Polybius’s precept not to depart from the forum without making someone more a friend or well-wisher to himself, says Plutarch.
18. TO RAGUEL.—The Hebrews relate, with Lyranus and Abulensis, that Raguel had four names: first he is here called Raguel; secondly, in the following chapter he is called Jethro, that is adding, because he himself added one chapter to the law, on the ordering of the people by tri‸bunes, centurions, fifties and tens, Exodus 18; thirdly, he is called Cinaeus, Judges 4:11; fourthly, he is called Hobab, that is loving, because he loved the law of God, and was converted to Judaism, as will be plain Exodus 18. But others more probably think that Hobab was not Raguel, but Raguel’s son, of whom:
19. AN EGYPTIAN MAN.—So Moses seemed from his dress and manner; perhaps also he had answered the maidens inquiring that he came from Egypt.
20. THAT HE MAY EAT BREAD,—take food, feast with us. For bread among the Hebrews, by synecdoche, signifies any food.
21. SO MOSES SWORE THAT HE WOULD DWELL WITH HIM.—Scripture here, studying brevity, leaves much to be understood, namely that the daughters returned to the well, and that thence Moses, persuaded by their father’s words, was led home, was lovingly greeted by him, and his disposition being at once tried, after many words on either side, at last came to an agreement to dwell with him, and confirmed it by oath, and finally married his daughter Sephora. Note: For “swore” the Hebrew is joel, which although it properly signifies he willed, consented, acquiesced, and so here the Septuagint, Chaldee, Vatablus and others render, yet sometimes by metathesis, and by interchange of letters, it is the same as the word that means he swore, as is plain 1 Kings 14:24: “And Saul adjured the people;” the Hebrew is _joel_.
22. WHOM HE CALLED GERSAM, SAYING.—In Hebrew, because he said: for it gives the reason why he calls him “Gersam,” namely that Moses himself was a stranger and pilgrim in Madian. For ger signifies stranger, and sham there.
Note: These sons were born to Moses not at once when he came into Madian, in his 40th year, but long after, namely a little before the return from Madian into Egypt, which happened in his 80th year. This is plain from the fact that in this return he set his wife with these sons upon an ass, as is said chap. 4, verse 20. They were therefore then still little.
AND SHE BORE ANOTHER.—Our Interpreter with the Septuagint inserts here the name of Moses’s second son, to enumerate the sons of Moses together, although it is not found in the Hebrew in this place, but in Exodus chap. 18, verse 4: whence the Septuagint and our version transcribed it; or rather it has dropped out here from the Hebrew. For the Hebrew is at times mutilated, as is shown by Bellarmine, book 2 On the Word of God, chap. 1. The name therefore Moses gave to the second son was Eliezer, that is, My God is helper, and that to teach the faithful, first, to bear exiles and all adversities bravely, relying on God; secondly, to regard their children not as incentives to avarice but as monuments of divine bounty, by which they may be stirred to thanksgiving and obedience to God; thirdly, to be always mindful of God, and to name their offspring with the name of the Holy One or of some holy person; fourthly, he wished by his son’s name to remind them to consider whence and how they were born, and what they owe to God, and finally whom they are bound to imitate.
23. NOW AFTER A LONG TIME THE KING OF EGYPT DIED.—That is, he under whom Moses was born, adopted and sought for death: for the sequence of the history seems to demand this. This reason compelled Gerard Mercator, following not Eusebius but Manetho, to hold that all these things that Moses has related till now happened under Armesesmianus, or king Ramesses, who he says reigned very long, namely 66 years.
But since we have no surer chronologer than Eusebius, whom Catholics generally follow, we shall say with them more solidly that at this time there died not only that Pharao under whom Moses was born, but also two others, succeeding him in the kingdom, who were of the same disposition and hatred toward the Jews as he. For these things seem to have happened a little before, and, if we believe Tornielus, one year before the leadership of Moses and the liberation of the Hebrews from Egypt, when Moses was in his 79th year, to which year neither Ramesses nor any other king of Egypt reigned. Moses says here therefore, the liberation now being at hand, that the king afflicting them died with his followers, to indicate that these tyrants being dead, the Hebrews groaned and cried out to God, that he might create for them a milder Pharao, or rather send a liberator to receive them out of Egyptian servitude. The sense therefore is, as if to say: The king and other tyrants being dead, the Hebrews earnestly invoked God for their liberation; and God heard them, and in the following year, which was Moses’s 80th, sent Moses who freed them.
THEY CRIED OUT.—The Hebrews here, roused by this scourge of servitude, returning to their heart, more earnestly after the death of the tyrants, as though a greater occasion of hoping for freedom were now given, cry aloud to God, as to him who alone could free them: so tribulation teaches to call upon God; it is commonly said: He who knows not how to pray, let him go to sea; for there the waves and dangers will teach him to pray, and to call upon God and the saints.
AND THEIR CRY WENT UP UNTO GOD FROM THE WORKS.—The Chaldee, on account of the works. Hence Theologians teach that the oppression of the poor is a sin crying to heaven, which by its enormity provokes God to speedy vengeance on the oppressors and liberation of the oppressed.
24. AND REMEMBERED THE COVENANT.—By anthropopathy here and elsewhere memory and remembrance are ascribed to God: because if God were a man, who till now had permitted the Hebrews to be afflicted, he would rightly be said to have forgotten them; but now, destining to free them, he is said to remember the covenant made with the Patriarchs, in which he promised he would be their God and the God of their seed, with a peculiar and eminent providence toward them.
25. AND THE LORD LOOKED UPON THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL,—so the Roman and Hebrew. God looked upon and knew his people (as the Hebrew adds), thinking to free them quickly, and to show himself merciful to them.
Note: “he heard,” “he remembered,” “he looked upon,” “he knew”: for all these repeat and inculcate God’s wonderful care, love and providence for his own, and that his help and mercy will shortly be great and speedy. The Septuagint render, “and he was known to them,” namely delivering them, as if to say: God’s care and providence for them was made known to them, when through Moses he began and set about freeing them; whence our version renders, “and he delivered them”: for “delivered” here signifies an act begun, not consummated.
In this chapter and the preceding there is an illustrious moral place on the fruits of adversity and patience, and its example in Moses and the Hebrews, who grew through adversities, and became the people, the Church and the kingdom of God. Tertullian (whom St. Cyprian and others followed) wrote a remarkable book On Patience, in which in chap. 5 he shows that the sins of the devil and of all men are to be ascribed to impatience; in the following he shows how excellent an antidote of life patience is, and that against all adversities; and first, against the loss of wealth and means, chap. 7, he gives these remedies of patience.
First: “In almost every place,” he says, “we are reminded in the dominical Scriptures to despise the world. Whence the Lord himself is found in no riches.”
Second, “The Lord always justifies the poor, condemns the rich beforehand; for the root of all evils is covetousness.”
Third, “nothing is ours, since all things are God’s, whose we ourselves also are.”
Fourth, “he who is stirred by impatience of loss, preferring earthly things to heavenly, sins against God through his neighbour. Let us gladly lose earthly things, and guard heavenly: though the whole world perish, so I gain patience.”
Fifth, “patience in losses is an exercise of giving; for it makes us ready to share and to give alms: it does not grieve him to give who does not fear to lose.”
Sixth, “it is for the Gentiles to apply patience to all losses, who perhaps prefer money to the soul; but we ought not to lay down the soul for money, but money for the soul, whether voluntarily in giving or patiently in losing.”