Commentaria in Exodum
But they are better fitted to the Lord, that the Lord himself cried, saying: “O the Lord, the Lord God,” etc. Whence in the Hebrew and Septuagint the words are in the third person, not the second, though our Interpreter has turned them into the second for clearness. For that the Lord cried and said these things is plain from the preceding chapter, verse 19, where the Lord said: “I will call by the name of the Lord,” that is, I will proclaim the name of the Lord, saying: “O the Lord, the Lord God,” etc. The same is plain from Num. chap. 14, verse 17, where it is said: “As thou hast sworn, saying: The Lord is patient and rich in mercy.” Where did God say this, if not here? whence also Moses here, in verse 8, only after these words of the Lord, falling to the earth, began to pray to the Lord. So Abulensis, Oleaster, Vatablus, Cajetan and Lipomanus.
Wherefore what our Interpreter renders, “when he passed before him, he said”; he said, understand the Lord, and this from the Hebrew custom, who do not always take as the subject of the verb the substantive which is nearest, but often recall a more remote one, as we shall see in this chapter, verse 28, and elsewhere.
The Lord therefore cried to Moses, saying: Lord, Lord, as the Septuagint render; or, as our Interpreter renders more clearly: O the Lord, the Lord, not as though God invoked or prayed to himself, but to give Moses a formula of invoking him; as Christ did to the Apostles when he said: “Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven,” etc. In like manner God here did to Moses, as if to say: Thus thou with thine shalt invoke me, thus shalt thou entreat me: “O the Lord, the Lord God, who keepest mercy unto thousands,” etc. So Abulensis.
Secondly, if you wish to take the words of our Interpreter of Moses, as uttered by him, say that God passing before Moses first uttered these words, and then Moses following God uttered them a second time, so that these words of God were repeated by him. Whence I said in the preceding chapter that “I will call by the name of the Lord” is to be understood thus, as if to say: By calling the name of the Lord I will teach thee to invoke the same; and so our Interpreter wished to signify both: namely both that God uttered these words, which he expressed sufficiently in the preceding chapter, in that verse 19; and then that Moses, from the teaching of God, repeated and recited the same, which he says in this place. For which cause perhaps the Hebrew here is ambiguous, so that it can be fitted to both, namely both Moses and God. Similar is Matt. chap. 21, verse 41, where the chief priests and elders are narrated to have said: “He will bring those evil men to an evil end, and let out his vineyard to other husbandmen,” although in Mark chap. 12, verse 9, and Luke chap. 20, verse 16, the Lord himself is narrated to have said these words; where Matthew and Mark are to be reconciled by saying that these words were first said by the elders, as Matthew says, then Christ repeated the same, to convict them by their own answer, as Mark and Luke say. So Lipomanus.
O THE LORD, THE LORD.—Twelve names, as it were epithets, God here gives himself, by which he wishes to be addressed and invoked by us, because, as the Hebrews say, these epithets in God express a relation to men and to the salvation of men. The first is, “O the Lord, the Lord,” for which in Hebrew is Jehovah, or rather Jeheva, which is the name Tetragrammaton. The second, “God.” The third, “merciful.” The fourth, “gracious.” The fifth, “patient.” The sixth, “of much compassion.” The seventh, “true,” namely in promises. The eighth, “who keepest mercy unto thousands.” The ninth, “who takest away iniquity.” The tenth, “no man of himself is innocent before thee.” The eleventh, “who renderest the iniquity of the fathers to the children.” The twelfth, “and to the grandchildren unto the third and fourth generation,” of which I shall speak on Deut. 5:9.
MERCIFUL AND GRACIOUS.—This mercy of God St. Chrysostom proclaims, in his homily on Psalm 50: “Art thou ungodly?” he says. “Set before thee the Magi”: for these unbelievers Christ called to himself by a star. “Art thou a robber? think of the publican. Art thou impure? let the harlot present herself to thy mind. Art thou a murderer? let that thief be before thine eyes. Art thou a profligate? let Paul come into thy mind, who was first a blasphemer, afterwards an Apostle; first a persecutor, afterwards an Evangelist; first a wolf, afterwards a shepherd. Hast thou sinned? repent. A thousand times hast thou sinned? a thousand times repent.”
And St. Bernard, sermon On the Threefold Mercy: “A great sinner,” he says, “has great work for mercy; that where sin abounded, grace may more abound. Of this there are three degrees: The first, when God delays to strike, ready to pardon. The second, when he gives the grace of repentance. The third, when he shakes the yoke of sin from the conscience.”
The same, on the Gospel of the seven loaves, sermons 9 and 3: “I will sing,” he says, “the mercies of the Lord for ever,” chiefly seven. First, he kept me from many sins while I was yet in the world; I confess and will confess, had not the Lord helped me, my soul had well nigh fallen into every sin. Secondly, I sinned, and thou didst dissemble; I refrained not from crimes, and thou didst withhold the stripes: I prolonged my iniquity a long time, and thou, O Lord, thy kindness. Thirdly, he visited my heart, and changed it so that things bitter became which before were wrongly sweet. Fourthly, he mercifully received me penitent. Fifthly, he gave the strength of living more amendedly, that I might not suffer relapse, and the last error be worse than the first. Sixthly, he created in me hatred of past evils, contempt of present goods, and desire of future ones. Seventhly, he gave hope of obtaining eternal life.
The first mercy consists in the withdrawal of occasion, in power of resisting given, in health of affection. The second embraces the longanimity which God has shown, the election of his predestination which he willed to be fulfilled, and the immense charity with which he loved us. The third, God shook my heart, rousing it to perceive the wounds of its sins, and to feel the pain of the wounds; he terrified it, leading it to the gates of hell and showing the torments prepared for the wicked; inspiring me with consolation, he gave hope of pardon. The fourth, God does not condemn by avenging, does not confound by upbraiding, nor love less by imputing. The fifth, God guards us against all the snares of the flesh, the world and Satan. The sixth has been set forth. The seventh, no want of merits, no consideration of one’s own vileness, no estimate of heavenly beatitude can cast him down from the height of hope who is firmly rooted in it. These things and more scattered passim St. Bernard in the place cited.
The same, sermon 52 among the Little Ones: When, he says, we are converted to God, we kiss the feet of the Lord. Now the feet of the Lord are two, mercy and truth. And sermon 6 on the Canticle: It is not lawful, he says, to kiss one without the other; because the remembrance of judgment alone plunges into the abyss of despair, and the deceitful flattery of mercy begets the worst security.
LONG-SUFFERING—PATIENT.—The Hebrew is erech appayim, long of nostrils; that is, broad in the nostrils, that is slow to anger, or long-suffering. For those who are narrow in the nostrils conceive sooner the fumes and choler rising from the heart, and breathe them out more slowly because of the narrowness of the passages, and therefore are more prone to bile: on the contrary those who are broad in the nostrils have wide passages, by which they breathe out choler and fumes, and by which they admit much cold air, whereby that heat and bile is tempered: whence these are more placid, more patient and long-suffering. So Ribera on Nahum chap. 1, num. 9.
Morally, learn here that God, supremely powerful, is also supremely patient. For impatience is great impotence of mind; patience is power. Hear Boethius, book 3, metre 5: