Commentaria in Exodum
4. YOU DRAW OFF.—In Hebrew, you make cease.
5. AND PHARAO SAID—to his overseers of the works.
YOU SEE THAT THE MULTITUDE IS INCREASED.—Hence it is plain that the law of infanticide, as infamous and execrable, had long since been abrogated. So Cajetan.
7. YOU SHALL NO MORE GIVE STRAW TO THE PEOPLE TO MAKE BRICK.—Straw is used for bricks, not to kindle the fire by which the bricks are baked, as S. Bernard, soon to be cited, explains: but it is mixed in short pieces with the clay, to hold the clay together and bind and unite it, and so to make the bricks tougher and firmer, says Lyranus; for straw is mixed with the clay with which clay walls are plastered, and perhaps the Egyptian earth coheres less and is less coagulated than ours, so that it has to be joined and consolidated with straw into bricks.
Symbolically S. Bernard, sermon 34, among the short sermons: “Under the yoke of Pharao,” he says, “works are made of clay, that is, dissolute and sordid; by him straw is given, that is, light thoughts. It is of the nature of straw to be easily kindled and consumed in a moment: so likewise evil thoughts sent in by the devil are quickly kindled in our minds, the softness of the flesh consenting; but if we strive manfully to resist, by God’s help they are at once extinguished. With the straw kindled the clay was baked and hardened into bricks: likewise wicked thoughts, which are as it were clay (as S. Gregory teaches, Moral. bk. xxxiv, ix), are kindled by the straws of delight: which when they pass into act are then baked through; but when they are drawn into habit, then they are hardened as into bricks.”
8. AND THE TALE OF BRICKS WHICH THEY DID BEFORE, YOU SHALL LAY UPON THEM.—As if to say: You shall compel them to render daily the accustomed measure and task of bricks, whether in number or in the building up and bulk; hence the Septuagint renders it, that you may give the accustomed building up of the brick-making.
FOR THEY ARE IDLE—they are sluggish and slack, and grow torpid in leisure. So the Hebrew.
9. THAT THEY MAY NOT REST UPON LYING WORDS.—Behold, Pharao does not listen to Moses, nor believe that he has been sent by God, but thinks that he either lies in this or has dreamed it, as the Lord had foretold in chapter 3, verse 19.
10. I GIVE YOU NO STRAW—I will not give you straw; this is an enallage of tense. Behold here the subtle tyranny of Pharao, by which he burdens the Hebrews and drives them almost to the halter and to despair, so that they may have no mind to think of their departure, or of God who calls them out. But when the most vehement temptation presses in, deliverance was at hand; so God is wont to do. Hence Procopius notes mystically that Pharao, that is, the devil, by denying straw of comforts to sinners who strive to give themselves to God, offers them a difficult malice, lest satiety breed disgust in his servant: for we ever strive for the forbidden, and desire what is denied.
16. WE ARE UNJUSTLY DEALT WITH.—Lest they offend the king, they ascribe the injury to the fault and cruelty of others, namely the overseers; hence they do not say: “You deal unjustly,” but, “It is unjustly done”; in Hebrew it is, “Sin is done against thy people”.
17. YOU ARE IDLE.—In Hebrew, “idle, idle you are,” or “sluggish, sluggish,” that is, most sluggish. “Leisure,” says one, “kills body and mind with sloth; exercise makes both most fair.” St. Chrysostom, hom. 15 on Genesis: “Idleness,” he says, “is a grievous evil, and makes all easy things seem difficult; just as by study and vigilance even arduous and difficult things become easy to us.” And hom. 54 on the Acts: “Cares and anxieties,” he says, “are the gymnasium and school of philosophers, etc. Iron, if it lie idle, is corrupted; if it be used, it shines: so it is with the soul that is moved and labours.” St. Bernard, On Consideration, book 2: “We must beware,” he says, “of leisure in leisure; idleness is to be shunned, the mother of trifles, the stepmother of virtues.” St. Ambrose, serm. 44 on Psalm 118: “Leisure tempts,” he says, “those whom wars had not broken; dangerous therefore are the leisures even of peace.” The same said of himself, epist. 41 to Sabina: “I am never less alone than when I seem to be alone; nor less idle than when I am idle.” See St. Augustine, book On the Work of Monks. St. Antony, afflicted with the weariness of solitude, cried out: I desire to be saved, O Lord, and my thoughts oppose me. Presently, going out from his cell, he saw a man (it was an angel) girt in a monk’s habit, now weaving baskets, now bowing down to pray, who said to him: Do so too, Antony, and thou shalt overcome temptations. Wherefore Antony, who was to lead an illustrious life, shrank from idleness, and was exhorted both to labour and to consider diligently with himself what he had done by night and by day, says Sozomen, book 1 Hist., chap. 11. Theodosius the monk held the same opinion, in Theodoret’s History of the Holy Fathers, chap. 10. Moreover Alexander the Great said: “It is kingly to labour, it is servile to give oneself to leisure and luxury.” Finally the maxim of the ancient monks was: “He that works is troubled by one demon, the idle by many.” Cassian is witness, chap. 22, book 10 of the Institutes.
Here is expressed a type of God’s callings and enlightenings, which temptation straightway accompanies, and to those who persevere bravely deliverance is near.
First, then, the Hebrews are called out of Egypt by God through Moses; second, they believe the call, and are at once most cruelly scourged; third, a little after, God delivers them and leads them out by wonderful portents.
Aeneas Silvius, in his History of Bohemia, relates that this was a saying of Capnio: “When the bricks were doubled, then came Moses the deliverer,” by which he signified that God’s help is at hand when adversities press in.
The same was the course and progress of the whole Christian Church; the same is that of each one’s vocation, that he who is in the second stage should not doubt of his vocation, but rather know that he is advancing in the right order appointed by God, and look with most certain expectation for the third. So St. Gregory, Moral. 29, chap. 14: “When the divine light,” he says, “illumines the human heart, straightway temptations rise against it from the devil, so that they feel themselves pressed more by temptations than when they did not see the rays of the inner light.” And Origen here, hom. 3: “Unless the trumpet of the word of God sound, war is not joined; but where the trumpet of preaching has given the signal of battle, there the whole battle of tribulations rises.” Hence we learn by daily experience, says St. Bernard, that those who resolve to be converted are more sharply tempted by concupiscence of the flesh; and those who strive to escape the rule of Pharao are more heavily pressed in the works of clay. So he himself, On Conversion to the Clergy, chap. 17.