Commentaria in Exodum
Note: Moses here calls mount Sion and Jerusalem, and consequently the whole of Judea, first, “the habitation of God,” because in it, that is, in his people, as in his Church, God was to dwell. Secondly, “the mountain of God’s inheritance,” because the temple to be built on Sion was to be the house and inheritance of God. Thirdly, “the sanctuary of God,” because in it were to be performed all the sacrifices, the sanctification of all the people, and all the sacred worship of God.
If he would understand it so, let him say with Abulensis that “and ever” is added further by hyperbole, out of the abundance of the heart and the vast desire of one desiring plainly the perennial, immense and boundless duration of God, his kingdom, glory and praise; as if he said: I wish that God may reign for ever, and if any further duration can be given or imagined, may he reign through that also ever further, and further without end; for since men conceive eternity after the manner of something finite (for they cannot conceive the infinite definitely), as though eternity were some limited duration, and therefore comprehensible by our mind: for we conceive eternity as a kind of greatest duration, embracing very many millions of years: hence, to show that eternity transcends all our comprehension and conception, there is added: “and beyond,” as Origen says: “Dost thou think that God will reign for ages of ages? He will reign yet, or beyond; and whatever thou shalt say, that the Prophet will always say to thee of the spaces of his kingdom: And yet, or beyond.”
Again, past tenses are here put for future: “what thou hast wrought,” that is, what thou wilt work; “what they have established,” that is, what they will establish.
See here how great, how long eternity is: How long will God and the Saints reign? How long will the damned burn in hell? For ever. How long?
“of thy hands”: for the temple built by Solomon on Sion stood for a thousand years and more; for so many are the years from Solomon to Titus and Vespasian, who overthrew the temple together with the city. Anagogically, it better suits here the heavenly Sion and Jerusalem, in which is the blessed and glorious House of God, founded and established by God for ever, of which it is said: “Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord; they shall praise thee for ever and ever.”
18. THE LORD SHALL REIGN FOR EVER AND EVER.—Thou wilt say: Nothing is, or can be imagined, beyond eternity.
I answer first, that “eternal” is often used for a very long age, the end and term of which is not foreseen, even though it be not truly and properly so; for this is what the Hebrew olam signifies, as I said in chapter 4. When therefore the Hebrews wish to signify absolute eternity, to remove all doubt they add to “eternal” vaed, that is, “and beyond,” or, as the Chaldee renders it, “for ages of ages,” and, as the Septuagint, “for an age and yet more,” and, as Pagninus, “for an age, and even for ever,” that is, through all eternity. So Lyranus, Cajetan, Lipomanus and others. Whence some also explain it thus: The Lord shall reign through the whole present age, and beyond, namely through the age to come after the day of judgment, that is, through all eternity.
How great is the eternal? Think of a hundred thousand years, thou hast thought nothing in respect of the eternal: think of a million years, nay of ages, thou hast as yet taken nothing from eternity: think of a thousand millions of years, and eternity still remains whole: think of a thousand cubes of millions of years, and thou hast not yet begun the eternal: think of as many millions of cubes as there are drops in the sea; thou hast not yet come to the beginning of eternity, and eternity still remains, eternal, of joys for the Saints, and of torments for the damned. If God were to say to the damned: Let the earth be filled with the finest sand, so that the whole globe be filled with these grains of sand from the earth to the empyrean heaven; and let an angel come every thousandth year, and take away one grain from this heap of sand, and when after so many thousands of years as there are grains he shall have exhausted it, I will deliver you from hell: oh how the damned would exult! they would not esteem themselves damned; but now, after all these thousands there remain other thousands without end, for ever and beyond. This is the heavy weight of eternity, which crushes the damned. Consider, O sinner, that this weight hangs over thee, unless thou repent. But how it refreshes and enlarges the Saints! for they shall reign with God, with Christ, with the Blessed Virgin, with the angels, in all glory and joy, in all delights and honours, for ages of ages, for ever and beyond. O happy eternity, O eternal felicity! how comes it that we think of thee so rarely, so slightly, so cursorily? how comes it that we labour no more for thee, and are no more solicitous? This stupor of ours, this dulness of ours is the cause. For if we penetrated thee, we should say with St. Paul: “That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.”
Thirdly, St. Thomas, Part 1, question 10, article 2, reply to 4, answers that God is said to be and to reign beyond, or above eternity, because he has eternity without beginning, and because he has it of himself, and because he has his whole being at once without any variation. Hear him: “God is said to reign beyond the eternal, because although something else were always to exist, as some philosophers make the motion of heaven eternal, nevertheless God reigns beyond, inasmuch as his kingdom is all at once. In like manner the author of the book De Causis said that God is before eternity, that the intelligences are with eternity, and our soul after eternity, and above time: for although we should posit the intelligences from eternity, yet, because God has in himself all and the whole being at once, whereas the intelligences have their being limited, and participated from God: therefore God would truly be said to be before eternity, namely the eternity participated by creatures.” But this answer is keener and subtler than it is genuine.
Note: With this beautiful epiphonema: “The Lord shall reign (among the Egyptians and other peoples, but most of all among the Hebrews and other faithful, both on earth, and most of all in heaven) for ever and beyond,” Moses closes this song; for what follows: “For Pharao went in,” etc., is only a repetition of the matter of the song, which, as he proposed it in the first verse, he repeats in this last verse.
20. MARY THE PROPHETESS THEREFORE TOOK,—Note the “therefore,” as if to say: Because Mary saw the men singing psalms to God, lest the women, who are generally more prone to devotion, should yield anything to the men in the praises of God, she herself led them in a song, which they might sing in response.
MARY. Concerning this name note first that the Massoretes have corrupted the points; for they read Miriam, whereas the Septuagint as well as St. Jerome, the Syriac and all the ancients read Mariam, with an a, not with an i. Secondly, this name in Hebrew is of two syllables and has the letter m at the end, and is called Mariam; for so have the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint. But the later Greeks and Latins, bringing this name into the idiom of their own tongue, dropped the letter m, and from the dissyllable Mariam made the trisyllable Maria, as they did also with many other names, which is now the common usage of all.
Thirdly, Angelus Caninius, in his Hebrew Names of the New Testament, thinks the initial m in Maria is servile, not radical. For he says the root of the name Maria is rum, that is, to exalt, so that Maria is the same as exalted, lofty. But thus the letter resh, which is the first radical of the verb rum, would in the name Maria be torn from its root, and joined with a servile m: for the Hebrews say Mariam in two syllables: and the splitting of radical letters, especially of the quiescent ones, is gaping and unusual to the Hebrews.
I say therefore: The name Maria is composed of mor, that is, myrrh, or rather of mora, that is, mistress and lady, and iam, that is, of the sea; for that the initial m can here be radical (which Caninius denies without reason) is plain from names such as Mara, Melcha, Messias, Moses, Mamre, Melchisedech, in which it is plain that m is radical. Maria therefore is the same as myrrh of the sea, because, as the Hebrews relate, when Mary was born she began to be bitter through the tyranny of Pharao, who commanded the infants of the Hebrews to be drowned. Or rather, thirdly, Maria is the same as mistress or lady of the sea: for this name was as it were a prognostic in the mind of God (though the parents at Mary’s birth knew or thought nothing of the kind), first, that this Mary would be the leader of the Hebrew women, and go before them both in the passage of the Red Sea and in singing this song of victory to God: whence in this place first she is called Mary; for in chapter 2, verses 4 and 7, she is called not Mary but the sister of Moses, as if to say: Fitly was the sister of Moses called Maria, that is, lady and mistress, because we now experience her to be such. Secondly, because this virgin Mary was to be a type (as St. Ambrose teaches, Exhortation to Virgins) of the Virgin Mother, namely of the Blessed Mary Mother of God, who is mistress and lady of this sea of the world. For mora in Hebrew, and mara in Syriac, signifies both lady and mistress, chiefly among the Syrians. Hence comes that Maran atha, that is, Our Lord is come: for the Syrians call a master Lord. So too the Hebrews call the Lord Rab, Rabbi, Rabboni, which commonly signify master.