Commentaria in Exodum
DOST THOU NOT SEE THAT EGYPT IS UNDONE?—Vatablus renders the Hebrew here in two ways: First, and most plainly, thus, wilt thou first try that Egypt is lost? as if to say: Thou wilt never let this people go until all Egypt has perished; or, let this people go, otherwise it is all over with all Egypt. Secondly, thus, dost thou not yet know that Egypt has perished? or, as the Chaldee, dost thou not yet know that Egypt has perished? For the Hebrew terem signifies not only before but also not yet, as is plain chap. 9, verse 30: for of that of which “before” is said, that is not yet.
8. WHO ARE THEY THAT SHALL GO?—As if to say: There is no need that all go; for a few suffice for sacrifice: at least for it there is no need of women and children; these therefore I wish to be left me as hostages, that I may be sure you will not flee, but will return into Egypt. You see here that Pharao was in part softened, when he came to a half-agreement with Moses; he could therefore have softened himself altogether, as also harden himself. For these plagues sent by God were effective enough not only to soften him in half but altogether.
9. FOR IT IS THE SOLEMNITY,—which it is fitting all the Hebrews without exception to celebrate, and therefore we must take all sheep and herds with us: for we know not what and how many we ought to sacrifice to our God, or what and what kind of things God will take pleasure in and demand. But Moses spoke truly: for the Hebrews were called by God to celebrate a solemnity in Mount Sinai, where they sacrificed many victims at the confirmation of the law, the dedication of the tabernacle, and the consecration of the priests, as is plain chap. 24 and 29; many things however Moses here passes over in silence, which it was prudent to be silent about.
10. SO MAY THE LORD BE WITH YOU.—It is a mycterism, that is, a speech with the nose and a sneer, or feigned laugh, yet not hidden, namely a mocking with a turning up of the nose; now the sense is: So may God help you, as I will let you go, as if to say: In no way will your God help you, or be able to help you: as in no way am I going to let you go with your children and cattle.
WHO DOUBTS BUT YOU HAVE SOME EVIL DESIGN?—For you seem to be plotting sedition and rebellion, that under the feigned show of sacrifice you may draw away from me the Hebrew people subject to me, and stir it up against me.
11. FOR THIS YOU YOURSELVES DESIRED.—Here Pharao lies, but with royal licence, which no one dares to contradict.
AND PRESENTLY THEY WERE CAST OUT.—It is understood by the historical hysteron-proteron that Moses also again, when Pharao asked that the men alone go to sacrifice, refused this, and wished all, even the little ones, to be sent, and that thence the exasperated king ordered them to be driven out.
Let confessors, counsellors and other advisers of princes learn here not to hunt for the favour of princes, but to prepare themselves for reproaches, exiles, and to be driven out of courts with Moses, that they may be faithful to God and to justice.
Again see here the wonderful patience and long-suffering of God and of Moses, in that so often and for so long a time they gently and patiently bear the hard, perfidious and menacing answers of the tyrant Pharao, and try now by prayers, now by threats, now by plagues to bend him to equity. Surely Moses here was rather an angel than a man. We read in the Lives of the Fathers, book 7, chap. 19, of John the Theban, disciple of Abbot Ammon, that he zealously served this old man, sick, for twelve years: but the old man never spoke to him a kind or gentle word. “The old man, then, about to die, before the other old men held his hand, and said to him thrice: Hail, hail, hail. And he delivered him to the old men, saying: He is not a man, but an angel, who for so many years serving me sick, and hearing no good word, yet did obedience with great patience.” If one who patiently serves one sick and peevish old man is an angel, what shall Moses be, who to Pharao, both peevish and hard and menacing, so often so gently and blandly yielded, by praying and taking away the plagues sent upon him by God? who three millions of Hebrews, hard, rebellious and intractable men, for 40 years alone sustained, fed, ruled, led, protected? surely he was both angel and God, to Pharao as well as to the Hebrews, as I said chap. 7, verse 1.
Patience therefore joined with clemency makes a man wise, exalted, angelic, divine. The Gentiles also saw this in shadow. So Plato in the dialogue named Crito brings in Socrates discoursing: “In no way is injury to be done, nor revenge taken, whatever one has himself suffered.” And Plutarch, book On the Profit to be taken from Enemies: “When an occasion of revenging oneself on an enemy is offered,” he says, “to let him go is a mark of equanimity: but he who also pities an afflicted enemy, and brings help to the needy, him all love and praise, for his humanity and goodness of mind.” Hence Diogenes, being asked: How shall I take vengeance on an enemy? answered in few words, but aptly: “Be upright.”
What, that to praise even an enemy often wins greater praise for the praiser than for the praised? They say Tully said of Caesar: “Caesar, when he forbade the statues of Pompey to be overturned, established his own.”
Grave authors report that St. Elizabeth, daughter of the king of Hungary, once prayed to God to bestow on any who had done her some injury some special benefit, so that the benefit might answer the injury, and that it was then signified to her from heaven that she had never so pleased God by her prayers as then: and in compensation for her love so ready toward enemies, forgiveness of all her sins was granted her.
12. AND DEVOUR EVERY HERB THAT IS LEFT AFTER THE HAIL.—For the hail had struck almost only the tallest herb, but the thin shoots, whether then or any afterwards sprung from barley, flax, wheat and rye, were kept for the locusts: which was a greater plague to Egypt, the more fertile that part of the world is, and was once held the granary of the world.
13. A BURNING WIND.—In Hebrew, an east wind, which is hot and burning: for this is contrary to the west wind, namely Favonius, cold and moist, which cast these locusts out of Egypt into the Red Sea. So Abulensis. But the Septuagint and Philo render the South wind; for this is hot and moist, and the South wind generates and is most apt for generating imperfect animals, such as frogs, locusts, and St. Jerome teaches on Joel 2 that locusts are born of the South wind, not the North; by heat, not cold. But I say the South wind, though blowing from the South, is called Eastern. For we are sometimes wont to divide the world into two plagues [parts] only, namely East and West, as cosmographers also do, when they assign the degrees of longitude with respect to those only: by which reasoning South is reckoned with the East, North with the West. It could be said, secondly, that this wind was Euronotus, that is, partly Eastern, partly Southern. Behold how every creature rises against the unwise, and obeys its avenging Creator.
ALL THAT DAY AND NIGHT,—that by its heat and warmth it might produce the locusts, and blow upon those produced into Egypt. Where again there was a double prodigy, or miracle. First, that God suddenly produced so great and so hot a wind, which blew through all Egypt. Second, that by His singular concurrence with it He produced and blew in an innumerable multitude of locusts. Whence follows: “And when it was morning, the burning wind raised the locusts”; for the morning is a fitter time for this; when those locusts that are winged, and were benumbed by the night cold, are excited by the morning heat, and made lively and vigorous, are wont to fly off even by natural instinct.
14. SUCH AS HAD NOT BEEN BEFORE THAT TIME, NOR SHALL BE HEREAFTER.—Moses said this not in a historical but in a prophetic spirit.