Commentaria in Exodum
27. WRITE THESE WORDS,—these ceremonial precepts now repeated by me, when thou hast come down from the mount, write in some book, for a perpetual memorial of my worship and covenant. So Moses wrote them here in the book of Exodus.
BY WHICH.—In Hebrew, according to the mouth of which, that is, the tenor and reason of which, I have made a covenant with thee and with thy people, namely that they be a people bound to me by this worship and these ceremonies; and I in turn be their God, guardian and provider.
28. AND HE WAS THERE WITH THE LORD FORTY DAYS.—This is the second abode and station of Moses on mount Sinai for 40 days. For the first was of as many days, chap. 24, last verse, in which were said and done those things which are narrated from chap. 24, last verse, to chap. 32, verse 15. But this second began on the day after Moses had come down from the first: for on the next day he went up again into Sinai, and remained there 40 days. This second station of Moses contains the sayings from verse 31 of chap. 32 up to this point: the preceding colloquies of God with Moses, therefore, which have been narrated hitherto, took place in the space of these 40 days, in which Moses remained a second time on the mount, as is plain from this place.
Note: Moses first went up into the mount immediately after the law was given at Pentecost, namely the next day (as is gathered from Exod. 24:12), which was the seventh of the third month: for the law was given on the sixth day of the third month; thence Moses remained with God in the mount forty days; presently he came down with the tables of the law, which he had received from God, and, the calf being seen, broke them on the seventeenth day of the fourth month; the next day, namely the eighteenth, he went up again to God in Sinai, as is plain from chap. 32, verses 30 and 31, and there again remained another forty days, as is plain from chap. 34, verse 28: which being completed he received from God the second tables of the law, and with them came down horned to the people on the twenty-eighth day of the fifth month.
HE DID NEITHER EAT BREAD, NOR DRINK WATER,—that is, he took no food at all, living by prayer alone and converse with God. For the Hebrews are wont by two parts, or things necessary and sufficient to relieve hunger and thirst, namely water and bread, to signify all food. So Augustine, Question 165, and St. Jerome on Isaias 3. Moses therefore fasted twice forty days, namely once before the first, and a second time before the second writing and receiving of the tables of the law: on the disposition and virtue of which fast see St. Maximus, hom. 3 On the Lenten Fast; St. Jerome, book 2 Against Jovinian; Chrysostom, sermon 4 On Fasting; Cyprian, tract On Fasting and the Temptations of Christ; and above all St. Basil, sermon 4 On Fasting. Hear a few out of many.
“Fasting,” says St. Jerome to Demetrias, “is not only a perfect virtue, but the foundation of the other virtues, and sanctification, and chastity and prudence; it is the friend of virginity, the enemy of wantonness; but fullness betrays chastity, and nourishes allurement.” And again: “He,” he says, “keeps Lent who by fasting and watching ascends to the Pasch. For as at other times of the year to fast is a reward, so in Lent not to fast is a sin. For those are voluntary fasts, these necessary: those come of choice, these of law: to those we are invited, to these compelled.” Note the precept of fasting at Lent in the time of St. Ambrose. St. Chrysostom on chap. 6 of Matthew: “As a soldier without arms is nothing, nor arms without a soldier, so neither prayer without fasting, nor fasting without prayer.” St. Basil: “Fasting,” he says, “is the likeness of men with angels.” Again Chrysostom: “Fasting is the food of the soul.” St. Augustine: “Fasting,” he says, “purges the mind, lifts up the sense, subjects the flesh to the spirit, makes the heart contrite and humbled, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fires of lusts, kindles the light of chastity.” St. Athanasius, tract On Virginity: “See,” he says, “what fasting does: it heals diseases, dries up humours, puts demons to flight, drives out evil thoughts, makes the mind brighter, the heart purer, and the body more healthy.” St. Ambrose, On Elias and Fasting: “Fasting,” he says, “is the death of guilt, the destruction of sins, the remedy of salvation, the root of grace, the foundation of chastity: by this step, as by a chariot, Elias ascended.” Peter of Ravenna, sermon On Fasting: “We know,” he says, “that fasting is the citadel of God, the camp of Christ, the wall of the Holy Ghost, the standard of faith, the sign of chastity, the trophy of holiness.” St. Gregory: “Since,” he says, “we fell by food from the joy of paradise, let us rise again by abstinence as far as we can.” Examples and rewards of those who fast I have given on Gen. 9:21, and here chap. 24, verse 18.
AND HE WROTE UPON THE TABLES THE TEN WORDS OF THE COVENANT.—Namely the ten precepts of the Decalogue he wrote on the tables of stone; not Moses, as St. Cyprian will have it, tract On the Spirit, and St. Augustine, Question 116, but God. For although the immediately preceding discourse was of Moses, yet this is of God, which, though it may seem strange to Latins, is not so to the Hebrews, who often either understand the subject of the verb, or take in some more remote one, especially if it be known or elsewhere named. So here, from the fact that in verse 1 the Lord said that he would write the law on these tables, it remains manifest that what is here said, he wrote, is to be understood of the Lord, not of Moses. Moreover that it is so is altogether plain from Deut. 10:1–4, where this same history is repeated, and the Lord is said to have written the law, not Moses.
29. AND WHEN MOSES CAME DOWN FROM MOUNT SINAI, HE HELD THE TWO TABLES OF THE TESTIMONY, AND HE KNEW NOT THAT HIS FACE WAS HORNED FROM THE CONVERSATION OF THE LORD.—Note first: God, about to give the tables of the law to Moses and the Hebrews, and conversing with Moses on this matter on Sinai, like a most radiant sun breathed upon Moses his glory, that is rays of his light, so refulgent that the Hebrews could not look at the face of Moses, as at another sun, but were forced to turn their faces away from him. Hence Moses, that he might speak with them, veiled his face and his glory with a veil; whence Scripture says: “He knew not that his face was horned.”
Where note secondly: Our Interpreter renders well, horned; for the Hebrew verb karan properly signifies to be horned, not to radiate, as some feign: just as the noun keren signifies only a horn, and that in almost all languages.
Note thirdly: Horned is here taken metaphorically: for Moses had not horns on his forehead, as painters feign for him; but his face was so lucid that it flashed rays of light, and as it were put forth horns of them. Whence the Chaldee, giving not the words but the sense, says: Moses knew not that the splendour of the glory of his countenance was multiplied; and the Septuagint (or, as others read): Moses knew not that the aspect of the colour, or skin, of his face had been glorified. St. Paul follows the Septuagint, 2 Cor. 3:7, who calls these horns “the glory of the countenance of Moses.” From the same Septuagint, in the Ecclesiastical office of the Transfiguration of Christ, is sung: The face of Moses was glorified. Whence you may conjecture that the ancient edition of Holy Scripture which the Church used before St. Jerome was that of the Septuagint Interpreters. Now these rays of Moses are called horns because they so struck and dazzled the eyes of the Hebrews that they seemed to be pierced as with horns. For they were so smitten by them that for terror they drew back, and, as if repelled by these rays, not bearing their force, fled in all directions. And this to the end that they might revere and dread Moses the lawgiver and the law given him by God, and no longer dare to transgress it. For horns are a symbol, first, of principality and kingdom, according to that of Psalm 131:17: “There will I bring forth a horn (that is, strength and kingdom) to David.” And of the posterity of Joseph, namely the kings to be born of Ephraim his son, Moses says, Deut. 33:17: “His horns are as the horns of a rhinoceros: with them shall he push the nations.” With these horns, therefore, God appointed Moses leader and lawgiver, and as it were adorned him with the insignia of principality, Poising flaming lights on horned countenance, and bearing the heavenly laws in sacred books.