Commentaria in Exodum
Josephus says that Moses pacified and encouraged the tumultuous people with this speech: God willed you to be shut up in this strait place, that here He might show His care and power for you: this place, therefore, ought rather to rouse you to hope; for God is most present in difficulties, when least of hope remains. He called you out of Egypt, He will give the way and the exit, He can turn these mountains into a plain and this sea into land.
WONDERS.—In Hebrew teshuah, that is, salvation.
14. THE LORD WILL FIGHT FOR YOU, AND YOU SHALL HOLD YOUR PEACE,—you shall be at rest, looking on at leisure and with pleasure at this fight and battle of God for you.
Morally, see here how bravely in straits we ought to hope in God, and call upon Him, and how intrepidly, when He calls, follow Him through pathless and untrodden ways, and against hope believe in hope with Abraham that He Himself will protect us and bring us to a happy issue. So the Psalmist, Psalm 26, 3: “If armies in camp should stand together against me,” he says, “my heart shall not fear. If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident.” And Job, chap. 13, verse 15: “Although he should kill me, I will trust in him.” Another writer, chap. 15: “In difficulties and straits believe constantly in God, and commit thyself wholly to Him, as much as thou canst; so He also will not cease to raise thee up to Himself, and will suffer nothing to befall thee but what profits thee, even if thou know it not.” So the Psalmist, Psalm 4, verse 10: “In peace,” he says, “in the selfsame I will sleep, and I will rest: for thou, O Lord, hast singularly settled me in hope.” For hope confoundeth not; because God, who bids great things be hoped from Him, is faithful, and greater and more liberal than all our hope. Hence Ecclesiasticus, chap. 2, verse 11, asserts: “Know ye that no one hath hoped in the Lord, and hath been confounded.” And Isaias, chap. 40, verse 31: “They that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” And Habacuc, chap. 3, verse 18: “But I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will joy in God my Jesus.” For God, because He is magnificent, will not be overcome by our hope, but surpass it: hence He exceeds the merits and wishes of suppliants.
The whetstone, however, and base of this hope is a good conscience: “For if our heart do not reprehend us, we have confidence towards God, and whatsoever we shall ask, we shall receive of him,” says St. John.
Again, observe carefully here, and learn that the singular remedy against all temptations and tribulations is, not to become faint-hearted in them, nor murmur, but generously to resign oneself to God and give Him thanks. Hear Abbot Sanctus, in the Lives of the Fathers, tract On Fortitude: “A certain brother,” he says, “was in a cell, and temptation came upon him, and if anyone saw him he would neither salute him nor receive him into his cell; and if he needed bread, no one lent him; and if he came from the harvest, no one invited him, as was the custom, to refresh himself. He came once from the harvesting in the heat, and had no bread in his cell; and in all these things he gave thanks to God. But God, seeing his patience, took away from him the warfare of temptation.
And behold, someone at once knocked at the door, leading a camel laden with bread; which when that brother saw, he began to weep, saying: Lord, I am not worthy to be even a little afflicted. And when his tribulation had passed, the brethren kept him in their cells, and gave him rest.” Whoever you are, therefore, who are despised, hated, laughed at, straitened, tribulated, follow and try this practice, give thanks to God: God will change their minds, and make all well-disposed to you, and take away the temptation. I know some who have in fact tried this more than once. Rightly, therefore, St. Chrysostom, tom. 5, wrote a homily on this argument: “That the greatest gain in tribulations is thanksgiving.”
Finally, see here in the Hebrews how true is that of Isaias 30, 15: “In silence and in hope shall your strength be.” What is silence? how much is taciturnity worth? Hear John Climacus, step 11: “Taciturnity is the mother of prayer, the recalling from captivity, the keeping of the fire of divine love, the diligent inspection of thoughts, the watch-tower against enemies, the friend of tears; the worker of the memory of death, the declarer of judgment, the spouse of quiet, an addition of knowledge, a secret advance toward God, a hidden ascent.” Of silence I shall say more on Isaias 30.
15. AND THE LORD SAID TO MOSES: WHY CRIEST THOU TO ME?—Scripture passes over, in the Hebrew manner, the previous fact, namely that Moses with fervent elevation of mind to God prayed before Him, and had prayed for the Hebrews; whom God therefore hearing says: “Why criest thou to me?” not reprehending his prayer, but by gentleness consoling him, teaching and rousing him to hope and attempt the following miracle, namely the passage of the Red Sea. For this force an interrogation often has among the Hebrews, as that of Christ to His mother: “What is that to me and to thee, woman?” not a rebuke, but a trial of hope sharpening it. So Genesis 47, 19, the Egyptians say to Joseph: “Why therefore shall we die in thy sight?” And the Lord to Moses, Exodus chap. 4, verse 2: “What is that which thou holdest in thy hand?”
Moreover, “a cry,” says St. Bernard, sermon 16 on Psalm 90, “in the ears of God is vehement desire”; on the contrary, a relaxed intention is a lowered voice. So St. Augustine, Question 52, and St. Jerome, homily On the Woman of Canaan, where he beautifully teaches how everywhere, even while we are among others, we ought to cry to God in mind. Truly did he say: “With God not a great cry avails, but great love.” And Cassiodorus on Psalm 16: “His is the perfect prayer, whose cause cries, and tongue, and act, and speech, and life, and thought.” And St. Augustine in a sermon: “When you pray,” he says, “cry not with the voice, but with the mind. For God hears even those who are silent, nor is the place sought so much as the feeling. Jeremias is comforted in prison, Daniel exults among lions, the three children dance in the furnace, Job naked on the dunghill triumphs, the thief finds paradise from the cross: there is no place where God is not.” Josephus relates that Moses prayed thus: “Thine, O Lord, is this sea, thine this mountain, which shuts us in: if thou wilt, both this can be opened at thy command, and that turned into land; we can also escape lifted up through the air, if it so please thee to save us.”
16. THAT THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL MAY GO IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA,—through the sea itself, deep and vast; “midst” here, therefore, does not signify precisely the middle; so he says: “We shall thirst in the midst of the waves.”
17. AND I WILL HARDEN THE HEART OF THE EGYPTIANS TO PURSUE YOU.—For I will set before their eyes and mind your footsteps (and you crossing the sea with dry foot), which they will boldly and confidently pursue, not knowing that a snare is being prepared for them there. Again, God here took from the Egyptians the apprehension and fear of walking through the bed of the Red Sea; whence they entered by it as by land, spiritedly, to pursue the Hebrews. Thus, therefore, God blinded and hardened them, that He might entice them into this trap, catch and crush them.
19. AND THE ANGEL OF GOD, WHO WENT BEFORE THE CAMP OF ISRAEL, REMOVING, WENT BEHIND THEM: AND TOGETHER WITH HIM THE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD.—“The Angel,” namely lying hid in the pillar of cloud, and showing himself in it: for the Hebrews saw the Angel not in his own essence, nor clothed in human or other form, but only moving in the appearance of a cloud. So Rupert. Whence the Hebrew has: The Angel set out, and with him the pillar of cloud set out.
Hence you may gather with Cajetan that this happened by day: for the pillar of cloud appeared by day only, as the pillar of fire by night only.
Moreover, by this spectacle, namely that the Angel, going before the camp with the pillar, transferred himself to the rear of the camp, and followed it, and so placed himself between the camp of the Hebrews and of the Egyptians, God signified that He has a solicitous care and protection of His people, and thus closes the rear of the Hebrews’ column, that He may defend them all from the Egyptians, in the manner that follows.
Note: Although the pillar here followed the camp from behind, yet at the same time it sent out from itself certain rays far ahead of the first line, to show the way by which they should go to the Red Sea: for the Hebrews were setting out continually, as God had commanded in verse 15.