Commentaria in Exodum
Chapter 5
Moses with his brother performs the embassy of God to Pharao: he despises it, and oppresses the Hebrews more heavily: they therefore expostulate with Moses; Moses finally has recourse to God.
1. And after these things Moses and Aaron went in, and said to Pharao: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Let my people go, that they may sacrifice to me in the desert. 2. But he answered: Who is the Lord, that I should hear his voice, and let Israel go? I know not the Lord, and I will not let Israel go. 3. And they said: The God of the Hebrews hath called us, to go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and to sacrifice to the Lord our God: lest perhaps a pestilence or the sword fall upon us. 4. The king of Egypt said to them: Why do you, Moses and Aaron, draw off the people from their works? Get you gone to your burdens. 5. And Pharao said: The people of the land are numerous; you see that the multitude is increased: how much more if you give them rest from their works? 6. He commanded therefore the same day the overseers of the works and the taskmasters of the people, saying: 7. You shall no more give straw to the people to make brick, as before: but let them go and gather straw. 8. And you shall lay upon them the task of bricks which they did before, neither shall you diminish any thing: for they are idle, and therefore they cry, saying: Let us go and sacrifice to our God. 9. Let them be oppressed with works, and let them fulfil them: that they may not regard lying words. 10. So the overseers of the works and the taskmasters went out, and said to the people: Thus saith Pharao: I give you no straw. 11. Go, and gather straw where you can find it: and nothing of your work shall be diminished. 12. And the people were scattered through all the land of Egypt to gather straw. 13. And the overseers of the works pressed them, saying: Fulfil your work every day, as you were wont to do before, when straw was given you. 14. And they that were over the works of the children of Israel were scourged by Pharao’s taskmasters, saying: Why have you not filled up the task of bricks, neither yesterday nor today, as before? 15. And the overseers of the children of Israel came, and cried to Pharao, saying: Why dost thou deal thus with thy servants? 16. Straw is not given us, and bricks are required of us as before: behold we, thy servants, are beaten with scourges, and thy people is unjustly dealt with. 17. And he said: You are idle, and therefore you say: Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. 18. Go therefore and work: straw shall not be given you, and you shall deliver the accustomed number of bricks. 19. And the overseers of the children of Israel saw that they were in evil case, because it was said to them: There shall not a whit be diminished of the bricks for every day. 20. And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood over against them, as they came out from Pharao: 21. And they said to them: The Lord see and judge, because you have made our savour to stink before Pharao and his servants, and you have given him a sword to kill us. 22. And Moses returned to the Lord, and said: Lord, why hast thou afflicted this people? why hast thou sent me? 23. For since I went in to Pharao to speak in thy name, he hath afflicted thy people: and thou hast not delivered them.
1. AFTER THESE THINGS MOSES AND AARON WENT IN,—with the elders of the people, says Lyranus: for so the Lord had commanded, ch. iii, verse 18. Tostatus and Pererius judge better that Moses alone with Aaron performed this embassy: for they alone are named here and in verse 4. For in place of the elders, whom God at the beginning added to the timid Moses, He afterwards substituted Aaron, who should be the companion of Moses and the leader of the word.
Note here that Moses had a different genius and spirit from that of Calvin, who, under pretext of a reformed religion, spreads his gospel by rousing the people to arms and rebellion against their princes: Moses indeed does nothing of the kind, but by the command of God approaches the king himself, warns and beseeches him to obey God who commands, and to let the people go.
Where note, secondly, the remarkable and strong obedience of Moses toward God, and his charity toward the people: for he could justly fear that he would be hooted away by the tyrant, and yet he approaches him, lays open the commands of God, and asks the release of the people.
to sacrifice is to celebrate a feast, namely by solemnly sacrificing: for it is by solemn sacrifices above all that we celebrate feasts.
2. WHO IS THE LORD?—Pharao expresses the proud contumacy of the devil, says Rabanus; for blind pride had so blinded his mind that, as a fool, he said: There is no God, none more powerful than I, least of all the deity of a foreign, borrowed and abject Hebrew nation, that should compel me to dismiss the Hebrews, so that I should owe obedience to it.
I KNOW NOT THE LORD,—I know not your God, O Moses and Hebrews. Again, I know not any God who commands me with such authority that I should let the Hebrews go. Pharao was therefore most proud, and therefore an atheist. So Pererius. For although that God exists is known of itself, if we regard the thing in itself, yet it is not known of itself to us, but must be demonstrated to us from effects: otherwise there would not be so many pagans and atheists. So S. Thomas, Part I, Question ii, art. 1.
3. THE GOD OF THE HEBREWS HATH CALLED US.—Artapanus, in Eusebius, bk. ix De Praeparatione, last chapter, adds that four miracles befell Moses as he went in to Pharao. First, fire burst from the earth with a voice saying that the Hebrews would shortly be freed by him and brought back to their ancient country. Secondly, that Moses was shut up in prison by Pharao, but went out thence by night, the guards being dead and the doors broken, to the king himself. Thirdly, that the king himself, when the four-lettered name was pronounced in his ear by Moses, was struck dumb, but was soon healed by Moses. Fourthly, that all the priests of Pharao expired in a spasm at the same name. But these seem to be inventions of the Jews.
LEST PERHAPS A PESTILENCE OR THE SWORD FALL UPON US.—Hebrew: lest (God) fall upon us with pestilence or sword, if, that is, we do not obey Him, to go out of Egypt and sacrifice to Him in the desert. Whence it is plain that the explanation of blessed Cyril, bk. i De Adoratione in spiritu et veritate, fol. 21, is not genuine; for he explains thus, as if Moses said: We must sacrifice in the desert, not in cities or fields, lest perhaps there meet us a corpse slain by pestilence or sword, which among you and other idolaters is usually avoided in sacrificing as unclean. For the text is not “lest pestilence meet us,” but “lest He fall upon us with pestilence,” that is, lest God smite us with pestilence.