Commentaria in Deuteronomium
9. THOU SHALT NOT ADORE THEM (by kneeling and prostrating thyself before them, and invoking them), NOR SERVE THEM,—by offerings, feasts, and especially by sacrifices. In Hebrew it is, thou shalt not serve them, namely with latria, as the Septuagint explain, latreuseis autois; as if to say: By sacrifice thou shalt not testify that thou art the servant of any idol, as though by creation it held over thee the supreme right of dominion.
FOR I AM THE LORD THY GOD, A JEALOUS GOD,—or zealot, as the Septuagint translate. The jealousy of God here, says St. Augustine against Adimantus, chapter xi, signifies not a torment of mind, but a most tranquil and sincere justice, by which he does not suffer the soul to fornicate with impunity. Secondly, this jealousy declares the charity of God, says Theodoret, by which he does not permit the soul, as his spouse and wife, to be taken from him. For the old law was as the husband, the people as the wife: if it fell away from the law, it was said to fornicate, as the Prophets often reproach it. Concerning this love and zeal of God the zealot see St. Dionysius, On the Divine Names, chapter iv, page 14, at the end, where he says: “God is called a zealot because he loves creatures”; for he who loves is borne toward the thing loved, and because certain things often hinder the possession of the thing loved, there arises in the will an effort to repel them, which is called zeal, says St. Thomas.
VISITING THE INIQUITY (the punishment of the iniquity) OF THE FATHERS UPON THE CHILDREN, UNTO THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATION OF THEM THAT HATE ME.—Some take this of God punishing the iniquity of the parents in the children, even the innocent, as an example to others, with temporal and bodily punishment. So St. Thomas, I-II, Question LXXXVII, article 8, Hugh of St. Victor, Abulensis, and Vasquez, I-II, Question LXXXIII, article 4, disputation 135, chapter i, nay Tertullian, book II Against Marcion, chapter xv, where he says that God established this punishment on account of the hardness of the people, that they might obey the divine law out of love, if not of him, at least of their children and sons. But this is rare, and as it were extraordinary: hence commonly the Fathers take this place of children who imitate the sins of their parents. So St. Jerome on Ezechiel xviii, St. Augustine Against Adimantus, chapter vii, St. Gregory, Morals book XV, chapter xxii, Chrysostom, homily on that verse of Psalm lxxxiv, Wilt thou be angry with us for ever; Theodoret, Acacius, Severus, Diodorus in the Catena of the Greeks, on Exodus xx, 5, and Rabanus there; and the Chaldee expresses this clearly both here and in Exodus xx, when it translates: Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the transgressing children, etc., when the children follow the sins of the fathers; and our Interpreter, when he translates here and in Exodus xx, “unto the third and fourth generation of them,” or, “of those that hate me”; hence Moses, Exodus xxxiv, 7, having said: “No one by himself is innocent before thee,” subjoined this same sentence. “Of them that hate me” is therefore to be referred to the children as well as to the parents.
The sense is therefore, as if to say: I God am so severely just that I avenge the sins of the parents upon the children who imitate them, so that children as well as parents be punished in their children. For although I may seem to keep silence for a time, yet if I see the children or grandchildren treading in the same steps and filling up the measure of their fathers, my chastisement shall fall more heavily upon them than if no sins of the parents had gone before. For God is wont not to leap at once to avenge sins, but to wait until men, by their multitude and enormity, fill up the measure of sins defined by him. Hence those sayings: “The iniquities of the Amorrhites are not yet at the full,” Genesis xv, 16. “And fill ye up the measure of your fathers, that upon you may come all the just blood,” Matthew xxiii, 32 and 35. But when this measure is filled up, then God pours out his wrath as in one flood, and punishes the posterity more grievously, not than they deserve, but than he would have punished them if they alone had sinned. Examples are in the posterity of Solomon, Jeroboam, Manasses, etc. Objection. Wherefore what St. Augustine says, Enchiridion chapter xlvi, that little children are bound not only by the sins of the first parents, Adam and Eve, but also of their nearest parents, until that guilt is loosed by the sacrament of regeneration, must be taken as said in disputation. For it is now established from Scripture and the Fathers that only Adam’s sin is transfused into posterity; in others, each shall bear his own burden. Another objection. You will say: Ezechiel xviii, 3, the Lord retracts this querulous parable of the Jews: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes (that is, have sinned), and the teeth of the children are set on edge,” and says that he will bring it about that this parable shall be used no more among them: therefore he does not avenge the sins of the fathers upon the children.
I answer: The Lord there speaks of innocent children. For the Jews, boasting this parable, complained that they, innocent and harmless, were punished for the sins of their parents alone. So the Fathers cited.
UNTO THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATION,—as far as the life and the memory of the fathers’ crimes commonly extends. St. Athanasius notes, in the treatise On the Common Essence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, before the end, that here is signified that the clemency of God is greater than his justice, in that he punishes the sins of the fathers only to the third and fourth generation, but rewards the good deeds of parents unto thousands, that is, to a thousand generations.
Plutarch relates in the Roman Apophthegms that Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, had the right hand longer than the left, and hence was called Longimanus; and when this was imputed to him as a fault, he turned it to all good and kingly virtue, saying that God had communicated to him, as to the best of princes, that he should have a hand most ample and long for giving, but the other, the left, contracted for receiving and drawing in: since it is more worthy of a king, and “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” Acts xx, 35. Much more is God Longimanus for doing good, Brevimanus for punishing, Nullimanus for receiving. For he can receive nothing from creatures; but rather all that they have, he himself bestows on them. And in this consists his blessedness, riches and immense goodness, by which, like an overflowing sea, he communicates and pours out his goods upon angels and men.
Yet, secondly, this definite number may be taken for an indefinite: “Unto the third and fourth generation,” that is, to many generations, and then the antithesis between the punishment of impious parents and the reward of the good will be perfect and as it were adequate. For three and four, as well as a thousand, denote among the Hebrews a great multitude. Scripture willingly uses the number three, on account of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, and by it signifies abundance. Hence that of Isaias xl, 12: “Who weighed the bulk of the earth with three fingers”; Genesis xviii, 6, and Matthew xiii, 33, three measures of meal; Ecclesiastes iv, 12: “A threefold cord is not easily broken”; so we commonly say, thrice happy, that is, most happy; thrice greatest, etc. So St. Chrysostom, homily 41 on Matthew. Tropologically, says St. Jerome on Ezechiel xv [xviii], the father is the incentive of vice, the son is sin, the grandson is the work perpetrated, the great-grandson is to glory in sin; which last two God is wont chiefly to punish.
10. AND SHEWING MERCY UNTO THOUSANDS, TO THEM THAT LOVE ME.—In Hebrew and Chaldee, unto a thousand, that is, unto very many generations. Behold how mindful the divine goodness is of our piety and obedience, and how it here, by love, as before by fear and by awe, incites and impels us to keep his law.
Symbolically, note here that the number thousand is a symbol of God and of his infinity and infinite mercy. For a thousand is the cube of ten (ten times ten makes a hundred, ten times a hundred make a thousand), and the end of all numbers. So God is the cube and end of all things, and by mercy strives to bring all back to himself, as to their last end, namely to eternal happiness.
11. THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN,—namely for vanity, as if to say: Thou shalt not add the dread name of God to graven things, says St. Cyril, book IV on John, and Clement, Stromata book VI, toward the end, and Tertullian too, in his book On Idolatry, chapter xx: “Thou shalt not take,” he says, “the name of God in vain,” that is, in an idol. But that we have already heard forbidden in the first precept, by which idolatry is forbidden: the same, however, is forbidden also by this second precept, so far as it is itself a profanation of the divine name; but this is not the adequate sense of this precept, for many other things are forbidden by it. Secondly, St. Thomas, II-II, Question CXXII, article 3, holds that by this second precept perjury alone is properly and directly forbidden. Hence the Chaldee also translates: Thou shalt not swear in the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Nay, the Hebrew too may be rendered thus: Thou shalt not take the name of thy God for a lie. For the Hebrew shav signifies both vain and a lie: as also in Latin we sometimes use vain for lying.