Commentaria in Exodum
Finally, the reward of an obstinate will is the obstinate and perpetual fire of hell. Hear: “the evil of an obstinate mind is punished eternally, though committed in time; because what was brief in time or in deed is known to be long in the pertinacious will: so that if it never died, it would never cease to will to sin, nay it would wish to live always, that it might always be able to sin.”
4. AND I WILL LAY MY HAND,—I will strike, afflict, punish.
BY VERY GREAT JUDGMENTS,—by the greatest plagues. Whence the Septuagint renders with great vengeance, that it may show to all the most just judgment of God upon the Egyptians.
6. SO DID THEY.—It is a Hebrew pleonasm. For it has already said that they did so.
7. AND MOSES WAS EIGHTY YEARS OLD.—Since therefore Moses ruled the people in the desert 40 years, Deut. 8:2 [29:5], and died in the 120th year of his age, Deut. 34:7, hence it follows that he began these signs and these plagues before Pharao immediately, and completed them all in a short time, when he was beginning his 81st year, and that in the same year, at the beginning of spring, he led the people out of Egypt. So Rupert and Abulensis.
Aaron mediately; for immediately God spoke to Moses alone. Whence He adds: “Thou shalt say to Aaron.”
9. SHEW SIGNS.—In Hebrew it is, give a sign for yourselves, that is, prove by a sign what you say, namely that God wills that I let the Hebrews go out of Egypt.
TAKE THY ROD.—The same rod is called now Moses’, now Aaron’s, now God’s, because it was the instrument of all these for working the miracles and plagues of Egypt.
10. THEY DID AS THE LORD HAD COMMANDED.—From verse 16 it appears that first Moses and Aaron asked Pharao on God’s part to let the Hebrews go three days’ journey for sacrifice; but when Pharao refused this and asked a sign, Aaron straightway brought out the rod, which was turned into a serpent: for God did not wish these signs to be thrust voluntarily on Pharao, but only to be done when he asked, as is plain from verse 9.
TOOK.—In Hebrew, Chaldee and Greek it is, cast down.
11. AND PHARAO CALLED THE WISE MEN AND THE MAGICIANS.—“Wise men” are here called those skilled in hidden things or in some wonderful art, who were also magicians and enchanters. For “magicians” the Hebrew has mecassephim, which properly signifies conjurers, but is extended to any magicians. The Septuagint render sophists and pharmacists, that is, poisoners; Onkelos renders, magi; Aquila, prognosticators, that is, knowers and workers of hidden things.
The chiefs of these were Jannes and Mambres, magicians, as is plain from 2 Tim. 3:8, of whose sepulchre Palladius relates wonders in the Life of blessed Macarius, seen and found by him: namely that they were buried in gardens in which they themselves, while living, had planted trees of every kind, hoping that after death they would enjoy delights in that sort of paradise; but this place was held by demons, who therefore assailed blessed Macarius as he entered, but were put to flight by him with the sign of the cross. Macarius, going through each thing, found the fruit of pomegranates, which had nothing within: for they were dried up by the sun; also many golden offerings.
Note: Pliny, Justin, St. Augustine and others commonly relate that the inventor of magic was Zoroaster, who laughed on the same day he was born, and lived in the time of Ninus and Abraham, nearly 600 years before Moses: this Zoroaster some will have to be Cham the son of Noe.
In Cassian, however, Abbot Serenus, Conf. 8, chap. 21, makes the origin of magic earlier than the deluge: for he says it began at the time when the sons of God were mingled with the daughters of men, Genes. 6, and that magic did not perish in the deluge, because Cham learned it before the deluge and published it after the deluge.
AND THEY DID IN LIKE MANNER.—Thou wilt ask, in how many ways can magicians and demons effect their wonders? I suppose that neither demons nor magicians can work true miracles. For a miracle is that which surpasses all force of nature, and all the faculty of natural causes and of men and angels: they can however do some things which surpass the power of men.
I say thirdly, the demon can work wonders by applying active things to passive, and mixing them through natural causes; for he knows most thoroughly the wonderful virtues of natural things. For if physicians make theriac and drugs, whose wonderful virtues we experience, much greater things can the demon do, who knows far better the powers of herbs, gems, animals and other things, and who can bring them most swiftly from India or another part of the world, and mix them with others; but the demon can produce no substantial or accidental form immediately; nay he cannot produce a perfect animal without seed, or form a perfect one of due size suddenly from seed; finally he cannot transform anything into anything, nor suspend the action of natural causes.
That demons can work wonders in this third manner is plain, both because we see some things work wonders in this manner, as Pliny relates of the little fish the remora, book 31, chap. 1, that if it cling to huge ships, though driven by the strongest winds, it holds them back and stops them; and because men work wonders in this manner, as Plutarch narrates of Archimedes in the Marcellus, that he alone by mathematical engines drew a huge cargo ship to himself, and wrought great slaughter in the fleet of the Romans. In this way also Severinus Boethius, in a certain letter written to him either by Cassiodorus or by Theodoric, is said to have done as it were certain miracles, namely that metals bellowed, a brazen serpent hissed, artificial birds sang most sweetly, men of air blew trumpets in the air. See more in Delrio, On Magic.
12. AND THEY CAST DOWN EVERY MAN HIS ROD, AND THEY WERE TURNED INTO SERPENTS [Vulg. DRAGONS],—Some think that the magicians did not exhibit true dragons, but by their illusions deluded the eyes of the beholders, or set before them only certain phantoms and semblances of dragons, as our jugglers and mountebanks, behind a curtain, show the people wonderful semblances of things which are not. So Nyssen, Prosper, 1 part On the Promises, chap. 15; Justin in Orthodox Questions, Quest. 96; Rupert, and Tertullian, book On the Soul, where he says: “Demons are wont to furnish phantasms and to feign bodies, by which they circumvent the outer eyes; but the truth of Moses devoured their lie.” But it is truer, as St. Augustine, Theodoret, Lyranus, Abulensis, Burgensis, Cajetan and others hold, that these were true dragons of the magicians.
It is proved first, for Holy Scripture calls both these of the magicians and those of Aaron and Moses by the same name, dragons. Secondly, because the dragon of Aaron devoured the dragons of the magicians: which devouring was surely real. Nor was there any illusion in these divine portents of Moses: for so Moses would have mocked the Egyptians with vain spectres; they were therefore true dragons, which, produced by the magicians, were devoured by the dragon of Aaron. Thirdly, because in the third sign, of the sciniphs, the magicians failed, because they could not produce them; therefore the two former signs they truly made, otherwise they would have failed in them also. Fourthly, if they had not been true serpents, Moses would have detected this deceit, and so confounded them. Finally, the demon here put forth all his strength and industry; therefore he here exhibited true dragons; for he feared lest, if he exhibited feigned ones, Moses would detect the fraud, to his own great ignominy and the mockery of the magicians.
Thou wilt ask, how did the magicians produce these dragons?
Cajetan thinks the demons had these rods of the magicians by some natural things unknown to us but most efficacious, gradually, beforehand, disposed to the form of dragons; so that when the magicians cast the rods on the ground, they had already the last disposition to the form of dragons, which was therefore then at once induced and true dragons were produced.
But this is little probable, both because dragons, being perfect animals, cannot be generated except from the seed of a parent (which was not the case here); and because no natural cause can convert a rod immediately into a dragon: for rod and dragon are very far apart; but rods must first be corrupted, and turned into other and other things, and at length converted into dragons. Here, however, the rods, when the magicians cast them down, were true rods, and straightway instead of rods dragons appeared: therefore they could not be effected so quickly and immediately by conversion of the rods: for among forms there is a certain natural order, which can be changed neither by demon nor by angel, but by God alone. Thirdly, because these dragons were not tender and small, but large, perfect and long like the rods: for they were equal to the rods; otherwise the rods would not have seemed to be changed into dragons.
Secondly, Calvin thinks that God changed the rods of the magicians into serpents, namely by creating them, which they would suppose to be rods: and that God did this by just vengeance, namely to ensnare Pharao and the Egyptians, impious and unbelieving, in a lie and to harden them. But away with the monstrous blasphemy! For Scripture, verse 11, expressly says that these things were not done by God, but by the incantations of the magicians, at which the demon, being invoked, was present; and if God here on both sides, namely both with Moses and with the magicians, was the maker of the dragons, He fought with Himself, and was witness both to the lie of the magicians and to the truth with Moses: for both this and that He sealed and confirmed by a supernatural work and by His own proper seal, namely a miracle.
I answer, thirdly. I say, therefore, that the demons brought these serpents from elsewhere, and subtly and imperceptibly substituted them for the rods, which they withdrew; so that whoever saw it, being ignorant of magic and fraud, would think that the magicians, like Aaron, had changed their rods into serpents; and for this reason Scripture, which speaks after the common manner, says that the magicians did in like manner as Aaron had done; for in like manner it says, chap. 3, verse 2, that the bush burned, because it seemed to the beholders to burn, when in truth it did not burn; so it says that the angels ate, because they seemed to eat, when in truth they did not eat.