Commentaria in Numeros
AND MARIA DIED THERE.—namely in Cades, in the first month of the 40th year. Maria died, therefore, four months before her brother Aaron: for he died on the first day of the fifth month of the 40th year, as is plain from Numbers 33:38; and eleven months before Moses: for Moses died toward the end of the same 40th year (as will appear in the last chapter of Deuteronomy), which was the year of the world 9493. Note: Maria died at about the age of 130; for she was easily ten years older than Moses, as I said on Exodus 2:4 and 7. But Moses, who died in the same year, died in the 120th year of his age, as is plain from Deuteronomy, last chapter, verse 7.
Allegorically, in Maria prophecy seems to have died, and in Aaron and Moses an end to be put to the priesthood and law of the Jews: because neither could they themselves cross to the land of promise, nor lead the believing people to it out of the solitude of this world, save Jesus alone, that is, the Saviour, the true Son of God, says St. Jerome.
AND THE PEOPLE WANTING WATER.—There were wells and fountains in Cades; these, while the Hebrews dwelt there, seem to have dried up, and therefore the Jews, suffering from thirst in that place, murmured against Moses. A fable. The Hebrews relate, and Rabbi Solomon by name, that on account of Maria a well of water was given by God to the Jews, which went before them wherever Moses halted; on account of Moses the manna was given them; on account of Aaron, the pillar of cloud; and that on their deaths these failed: whence also the Hebrews were attacked by Arad the king, in the following chapter, because Arad, seeing that after the death of Maria the well was withdrawn from the Hebrews, thought that they were deserted by God, and so could easily be conquered and destroyed.
But these are fables; for it is certain that neither the pillar nor the manna failed at the death of Aaron or Moses, but long after, namely when the Hebrews had already entered Chanaan and tasted of the fruits of the land, as is plain from Josue chapter 5, verse 12.
3. WOULD GOD WE HAD PERISHED AMONG OUR BRETHREN BEFORE THE LORD!—In Hebrew: would that we had expired with our brethren in the desert, and that “before the Lord,” dwelling and presiding in the pillar of cloud and in the tabernacle! For the Lord condemned us to death on account of the murmuring of the spies, chapter 14, verse 19.
See here again the ingratitude of the people, and the great charity of Moses, struggling with it and overcoming it. Laertius, book IV, chapter 1, relates that Antisthenes, when he heard that Plato spoke ill of him, said: “It is kingly, when you have done good, to be ill spoken of.” For it is the mark of a lofty mind not to be deterred by the ingratitude of men from the zeal of doing good to all.
Diogenes, being asked what grows old soonest among men, said: “A benefit.”
Plato called Aristotle a mule: because a mule, when it has been filled with its mother’s milk, kicks its mother. Plato therefore signified the ingratitude of Aristotle, who, having been taught by him, opened a school in the Peripatos and carped at his ideas and doctrines. So Aelian, book IV.
Aristotle, being asked why he had left Athens, answered: “Lest the Athenians sin twice against Phi-
Verse 2.
Verse 3.
losophy,” covertly censuring the death of Socrates and his own danger also. So Aelian, book VI.
Demosthenes, as he fled, looking back again and again at the citadel of Pallas, with raised hands said: “O Pallas, mistress of affairs, why dost thou delight in three most ill-omened beasts, the owl, the dragon and the people?” For the owl is sacred to Pallas; the same has the dragon as her emblem; and the people is a beast of many heads, accustomed to repay with the worst thanks those who have deserved best of it, Phocion, Scipio, etc. So Plutarch.
Epaminondas, accused of having held the command four months beyond the time appointed him, under the compulsion of necessity, when a little dog fawned upon him, said: “This creature repays me thanks for a benefit, but the Thebans, to whom I have often and greatly done splendid service, have by their judgment appointed me the penalty of death.” So Aelian, book XIII.
Pompey, to Marcellinus, whom he had raised up and who had become his enemy and was reviling him: “Are you not ashamed, Marcellinus, to revile me, who made you from a mute into one who speaks, from a starveling into one who vomits?” So Plutarch in the Apophthegms.
Alfonso, king of Aragon, when he was reproached for having bestowed so great benefits on Alvaro de Luna, a man plainly ungrateful to him, of which he was by now not even mindful: “Do you not know,” said he, “that a great benefit is never sufficiently requited except by a great ingratitude?” The same: “I would rather,” said he, “preserve many by my clemency and gentleness than destroy a few by my severity.” Panormitanus is witness in his Life.
6. AND MOSES AND AARON LEAVING THE MULTITUDE WENT INTO THE TABERNACLE OF THE COVENANT—to consult the Lord.
that, leaving the crowds, they should return to the tabernacle, and, setting aside the tumults of outward things, enter the secret place of the mind: for there the Lord is consulted, and what is to be done publicly abroad is heard in silence within; good rulers do this daily: when they perceive that they cannot discern doubtful matters, they return to the secret place of the mind, as to a kind of tabernacle, and, having examined the divine law, as before the ark set before them they consult the Lord, and what they first hear within in silence, this afterward, when they act abroad, they make known.”
O LORD GOD, HEAR THE CRY.—This prayer of Moses is not now found in the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint; either, therefore, it has dropped out of them, or our interpreter has supplied it by paraphrase. For it is certain that Moses in praying prayed not other things, but these very things, namely that God would give water to the people murmuring for thirst. So Abulensis. In like manner, “let us go forth abroad,” Genesis 4:8, is now not found in the Hebrew, Chaldee and Greek.
OPEN TO THEM THY TREASURE, A FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATER.—Living water is said to be that which leaps up or flows, as the Dead Sea is stagnant. He calls such a fountain a treasure, because things that lie hidden and are not yet disclosed are said to be in the treasures of God: whence that of Psalm 32:7: “Laying up the depths in storehouses”; and Deuteronomy 28:12: “The Lord shall open his excellent treasure, the heaven, to give rain”; and chapter 33, verse 19: “They shall suck as milk the abundance of the sea, and the hidden treasures of the sands.”
THAT BEING SATISFIED—namely, when they shall have been.
AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD APPEARED—namely, the brightness of the pillar of cloud, darting new and unwonted rays, the pillar, I say, resting upon the tabernacle.
8. SPEAK TO THE ROCK—what? Probably this: “Rock, in the name of the Lord God, give waters.”