Commentaria in Exodum
Tropologically, Nyssen in the Life of Moses beautifully teaches how we ought to drown our vices with their arms. “For the horsemen, foot-soldiers and chariots of the Egyptians,” he says, “are the passions of the soul, by which man is subjected to servitude. For what differs from that army of the Egyptians outpoured anger, unbridled pleasure, immoderate sorrow, the foulness of avarice? Is not the rush of anger like a quivering spear? Do not excessive pleasures, like unbridled horses dragging the chariot hither and thither, harass the soul? There were also the tristatae in the chariots, three warriors in each, by which we believe the threefold power of the soul to be understood, the rational, the concupiscible, the irascible, these three powers depraved.” Then he teaches that all these are to be drawn through baptism, but all must be left submerged in the water.
24. AND NOW THE MORNING WATCH WAS COME, AND BEHOLD THE LORD LOOKING UPON THE EGYPTIAN ARMY THROUGH THE PILLAR OF FIRE.—The word “looking” signifies that the pillar of cloud as it were opened, that the Angel hidden in it might by a flashing light show himself and look upon the camp of the Egyptians, and presently hurl from it thunders, lightnings, stones or fiery darts, by which he shook the wheels and the horsemen out of the chariots, as is here said. Whence the Egyptians also said: “Let us flee from Israel, for the Lord fighteth for them against us.” So Lyranus and others. Hear also Josephus:
“[…] awful thunders, with lightnings flashing at the same time; thunderbolts also were borne down; and nothing at all was lacking of those things which are wont to be sent by an angry God upon men for their destruction; for a night exceeding dark and gloomy seized them, and so that whole army was destroyed that not even a messenger of the disaster returned home.” Whence also here, verse 28, it is said: “Neither did there so much as one of them remain.” Behold here how true is that: “Fortune is glass; when it shines, it is broken.”
HE SLEW THEIR HOST,—a part of the army; it is a synecdoche: for another part, terrified by this heavenly slaughter of its own, while preparing flight, was swallowed up by the returning waters.
Where note that this slaughter inflicted from heaven by the Angel happened before the sea was rolled back by Moses; for after the slaughter by the Angel the Egyptians fled in terror, and to the fleeing came the waters of the sea returning to their bed, now rolled back by Moses, by which the rest of the army, remaining from the first slaughter, was swallowed up and drowned, as is plain from verse 26 and following.
Josephus writes that in this slaughter in the Red Sea there perished in all of the Egyptians two hundred thousand shield-bearing foot soldiers, and fifty thousand horsemen. Pharao himself also perished, but last, if we believe the Hebrews and Abulensis, namely that he might first see the slaughter of all his own before he himself perished, and so be tormented longer and more grievously. Eusebius in the Chronicle calls this Pharao Cenchres.
25. AND OVERTHREW THE WHEELS OF THE CHARIOTS.—The Septuagint render: he impeded the axles of the chariots, or bound the wheels of the chariots. Whence they seem to have read, in place of vayasar, that is, removed, cast away, overturned, vaya’tser, that is, bound, so that they could not advance. Whence also Vatablus renders, bound the wheels of the chariots, and led them heavily, or with difficulty, as if to say: The Egyptians drove their chariots with difficulty, as they are wont to be driven with great difficulty when the wheels are bound or dragged. But the Hebrew has vayasar, and so the Chaldee, our Interpreter and others.
AND THEY WERE CARRIED INTO THE DEEP.—For the chariots, formerly borne up by the wheels, the wheels being now knocked out, together with the wheels were pressed down into the deep, that is into the very bed of the sea, now emptied of waters, and soon to be filled with them again. The Hebrew is, he led them, namely the wheels, “into heaviness,” that is, into the deep; it is a metalepsis, because heavy things tend to the lowest and deepest: hence heaviness is called the depth itself.
Morally, learn here first how true is that of the Wise Man: “All power is of short life,” and most of all, “all tyranny is of short life.” Behold Pharao, admonished by Moses, and despising the admonitions, while he most cruelly oppresses the Hebrews with brick and clay, after one month is despoiled of life and kingdom. Julius Cæsar, invader of the empire, after three years perished, stabbed in the senate-house by senators. Cyrus reigned from his monarchy, that is from the capture of Babylon, only three years, and was overthrown by Tomyris, queen of the Scythians, and, his head cut off and plunged into a skin full of blood, she said: “Satiate thyself, Cyrus, with blood, for which thou hast so greatly thirsted.” Alexander the Great ruled as monarch only six years after Darius was slain. Wherefore Apelles painted him as lightning, which as it suddenly appears, so also quickly disappears.
Secondly, how true is that of the Poet: To the son-in-law of Ceres (to Pluto, to Orcus) without slaughter and blood few Kings go down, and tyrants by a dry death.
For the just vengeance of God keeps watch over tyrants, that those who have despoiled others of life and goods may be violently despoiled of the same by others. So Pharao, so Cæsar, so Cyrus, so Alexander were taken away by a violent death. So the tyrants Diocletian and Maximian swore that they would utterly destroy the Christians or lay down the empire: wherefore, when they could not destroy the Christians, indignant they laid down the empire on the same day; and a little after Maximian, wishing to resume the empire, was driven to the halter at Marseilles by the Emperor Constantine; Diocletian was consumed by a wasting and putrefaction sent by God. So the Emperor Aurelian, persecutor of the Christians, after a year was taken by the king of the Persians, and made the sport of the world: for the king used him as a footstool when he was about to mount his horse; the same did Tamerlane, king of the Tartars, to Bajazet the tyrant of the Turks. So Julian the Apostate, after two years of empire, fell pierced by a heavenly dart. So Valens the Arian, persecutor of the orthodox, was burned by the Goths in the marshes in a hut to which he had fled when beaten. So the heretical and impious Emperor Anastasius, struck by lightning from God, was cast into hell. So Nero, when from weakness he could not lay hands on himself, was slain by his eunuch. So Decius, Maxentius, Domitian, Otho, Galba, Vitellius, and very many other tyrants perished by a swift and violent death.
Thirdly, learn here the vanity of the kingdoms and pomps of the world. What is human life? It is a comedy, in which one plays the part of a king, another of a soldier, another of a councillor, another a citizen; in death this comedy ends; then each lays aside the part he played, his garments, his titles. Mark Antony, as Seneca relates, book 6 On Benefits, chap. 3, when he saw his fortune passing to another, to Cæsar, and that nothing was left him but the right of death, said: “This I have, whatever I have given.” Augustus Cæsar himself, who reigned 52 years in such felicity and glory, dying, called his friends and asked them: “Have I played my part well enough?” namely in the empire, as in a comedy: and when they assented: “Farewell, then,” he said, “and applaud”; and, the curtains drawn, he breathed out his unhappy soul, about to go to hell.
Where now are the chariots, horsemen and eagles of Augustus? where the pomps? where the triumphs? where the pleasures? where the lusts? O how much would Augustus now rather never have been Augustus: how much rather would he have been a poor rustic Christian! “There remain in the world,” says St. Ambrose on Luke 12, “all the things that are of the world: virtue alone is the companion of the dead.” Ask the impious man in death: The kingdoms and riches which thou hast gotten, whose shall they be? he will answer: Alas, they shall no longer be mine, but others’. Ask the just man: What thou hast gotten, whose shall it be? he will answer: Mine for ever. “For their works follow them”; perishable goods I have by virtue, through the poor, carried over into heaven; from temporal I have made them eternal. Hear finally the epitaph of Pharao.