Commentaria in Deuteronomium
1. THESE ARE THE WORDS WHICH MOSES SPOKE TO ALL ISRAEL.—Hence it seems to have been done by miracle that the voice of Moses was heard by all Israel, that is, by two or three million men, says Abulensis. The same is gathered more clearly from chapter xxix, 10: “You all stand this day,” he says, “before the Lord your God, etc. All the people of Israel, your children, and your wives, and the stranger that abideth with thee in the camp, besides the hewers of wood, and them that bring water.” So the voice of St. Anthony of Padua, of St. Vincent Ferrer, and of other apostolic preachers was not only heard but understood at a distance of several leagues, by foreign nations unacquainted with their language.
BEYOND THE JORDAN.—Moses had not crossed the Jordan, but stood on this side of it; yet he is said to have spoken these things beyond the Jordan, because with respect to the Promised Land (by which Scripture is accustomed to fix the regions and positions of places) this region was beyond the Jordan. Hence Scripture calls it beyond the Jordan, as is plain from Numbers xxxii, 32, and Deuteronomy iv, 46. Perhaps Moses wrote “on this side of the Jordan”; but Josue, or whoever arranged these journals of Moses, being already settled in Chanaan, substituted “beyond the Jordan”.
OVER AGAINST THE RED SEA.—For this sea is curved; hence the Hebrews, wandering and circling through the desert, came to it more than once, says Abulensis. Hence the Septuagint translate, “near the Red Sea.” But it is plain from maps that the plains of Moab (in which these words were spoken) are very far distant from the Red Sea. Pererius answers better that “over against,” or “in the direction of,” is said even of a place far distant, provided it lie opposite to the other: as here the Red Sea faced the Hebrews standing in the plains of Moab. Moses makes mention of the Red Sea to recall to the Hebrews the miraculous passage of the Red Sea, and so to move them to observe the commandments of their God, who had been so beneficent.
IN THE PLAIN WILDERNESS, that is, in the plain of Moab. Cf. below, verse 5.
Secondly, because the Red Sea was the beginning, and the plains of Moab the end, of the Hebrews’ pilgrimage: Moses therefore marks both here as its limits. In Hebrew it is “over against the sea Suph,” that is, of reeds; by which the Dead Sea could be understood, which bounds the Holy Land on the east, and near and opposite to which are the plains of Moab. But Suph elsewhere everywhere signifies the Red Sea, which separates Egypt from Arabia, and so here the Chaldee and the Septuagint translate.
BETWEEN PHARAN AND THOPHEL AND LABAN.—The Chaldee, and from him Rupert, takes Thophel not as a proper name but as an appellative, so that it is the same as murmuring; and so Laban, that is, white, signifies the manna. Hence he translates: “He rebuked them because they sinned in the desert; and because they provoked God in the plains over against the Red Sea; and in Pharan, where they murmured against the manna; and in Haseroth, where they provoked God about the flesh meat, and in that they made the golden calf.” For in like manner Jacob at his death rebuked and reproved Ruben, Simeon and Levi, Genesis xlix, and Josue the Israelites, Josue last chapter, and Samuel the people, 1 Kings xii. But it is plain that here it is not the matter but the place of Moses’ speech that is described, and therefore that Thophel and Laban, as well as Pharan and Haseroth, are proper names of places, as the Septuagint teach: wherefore the Chaldee added these things by way of paraphrase, as also that about the golden calf: for there is no mention of it here in the Hebrew; the Hebrew says only that in Haseroth there is sufficiency, that is, abundance, of gold, that is, as our version has it, very much gold. Hence the Septuagint translate, “gold mines.”
2. ELEVEN DAYS’ JOURNEY,—that is, Moses spoke this in eleven days. So some; but what follows, “by the way of mount Seir,” is against it; for Moses could not speak to so great a multitude while walking on the road and journeying. Secondly, Cajetan and Oleaster explain: as if to say, there is an eleven days’ journey from Horeb to Cadesbarne, which is near Chanaan; but the Hebrews, on account of their murmuring, were put off from entering it and led about for forty years. But this exposition is neither true nor to the purpose. For what has this to do with the place or time at which Moses spoke these things? Thirdly, more absurd is what Rabbi Solomon invents, in Lyranus, that the journey from Horeb to Cadesbarne is of eleven days, but that the Hebrews accomplished it in three days; this fiction of three days Abulensis refutes at length here. Fourthly, I say therefore that this, like what precedes, designates in truth the place in which Moses spoke what follows; as if to say: The plains of Moab, where Moses promulgated Deuteronomy, are distant from Horeb or Sinai eleven days, going by the way of mount Seir, by which one goes toward Idumea, advancing as far as Cadesbarne, and thence going round Idumea to the plains of Moab. For from Sinai to Cadesbarne are 17 leagues of an hour; from Cadesbarne to the plains of Moab are 34 leagues, as is plain from the maps of Adrichomius; from Sinai therefore to Moab are 51 leagues: so that if you accomplish four and a half leagues each day, in eleven days you will come from Sinai to these plains of Moab. So Abulensis.
Tropologically, St. Gregory, Morals, book II, chapter 1: “Israel,” he says, “could not hear the words of God on the mountain, but received the precepts in the plains: signifying plainly the weakness of the people that followed, who could not ascend to the heights, but relaxed themselves into the lowest things by living negligently.”
3. IN THE ELEVENTH MONTH, THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH.—Moses therefore promulgated Deuteronomy on the first day of the month Sebat, which corresponds to our January. For the first month of the Hebrews was Nisan, that is, March; and consequently the eleventh was January, the twelfth February. So Christ on the first day of January, by his circumcision and the name of Jesus, began to found the new law and to sanctify it with his blood, so that deservedly this is the beginning of the new year and of the Christian life, which Moses here foretold and prefigured, in promulgating Deuteronomy in the same month and on the same day.
7. COME TO THE MOUNTAIN OF THE AMORRHITES,—to mount Galaad and the kingdom of Og; for the Hebrews occupied this when he was slain, Numbers xxi, 35.
8. THAT HE WOULD GIVE IT TO THEM AND TO THEIR SEED.—The Hebrew and signifies that is; for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob never possessed the Promised Land in their own persons, but only in their sons and posterity. So and is taken elsewhere also, as I showed on Leviticus vi, 9.
10. I AM NOT ABLE ALONE TO BEAR YOU.—The Septuagint: to carry you; as if to say, I cannot alone sustain your government and the care of you, that is, the burden of the whole people.
For Moses was not only the judge of the people, but their father, tutor and mother, who carries her children in her bosom, as is plain from Numbers xi, 11.
11. THE LORD, etc., BLESS YOU,—by giving, namely, together with offspring, an abundance of goods temporal and spiritual; for to bless is God’s to do good, because the word of God is effectual.