Commentaria in Deuteronomium
17. HE SHALL SERVE THEE FOR EVER,—that is, until the jubilee, after which another and new age, as it were, followed. This is plain from what was said on Exodus xxi, 6.
THOU SHALT DO THE LIKE TO THY WOMAN SERVANT ALSO,—namely by giving her provision for the way, but not by boring her ear, says Abulensis; for the Hebrew maid was not held as a slave, but when she came to maturity she had either to be taken to wife by the master or by the master’s son, or to be let go free; and if she would not, but preferred to remain in the master’s house as a servant, her ear was bored, says Cajetan, like a man-servant’s. See what is said on Exodus xxi, 7.
Symbolically, the man-servant and the maid-servant are anger and desire; these must serve for the whole week of years, that is, the whole of life, and be subjected to reason, until the sabbath, or seventh year of blessed impassibility; for then anger will be let go as free, when it shall be changed into spiritual fervour; and desire will be turned into divine love and delight: so Cyril in his Collections on Deuteronomy.
18. TURN NOT AWAY THINE EYES FROM THEM, WHEN THOU LETTEST THEM GO FREE.—The Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint: let it not be grievous in thine eyes when thou lettest him go; that is, it shall not be burdensome to thee to let the servant go, and to help him with provision for the way.
Allegorically Cyril, book vii On Adoration, page 137: Before Christ, he says, Israel was bound by the spirit of servitude, subject to the law that punishes; but after Emmanuel shone upon us in the seventh year of release, that is, in the time of grace, we were endowed with liberty and the adoption of sons, provision for the way being given, namely the body and blood of the Lord in the Eucharist.
BECAUSE HE HATH SERVED THEE SIX YEARS ACCORDING TO THE WAGES OF A HIRELING.—The Chaldee, Vatablus and other more recent interpreters render: because for six years he hath served thee for the double wages of a hireling. The Hebrews explain this to mean that double wages are due to the servant who has been a servant six years, because hirelings among the Hebrews hired out their labour for only three years; but this servant served six years, therefore he served double, and deserved double.
But the Septuagint, for “double wages,” render “yearly wages,” so that the Hebrew mishneh is derived not from sheni, that is, second, but from shanah, that is, year; as if to say: For six years he hath served thee for yearly wages; which our version renders with equally full sense: According to the wages of a hireling, six years he hath served thee. The sense, then, is this: the servant for six years hath served thee as a hireling, to whom thou shouldst have paid yearly wages every year, whereas he received none for six years; it is just, therefore, that in the seventh year thou let him go free in place of it, with some provision for the way.
19. THOU SHALT NOT DO ANY WORK WITH THE FIRSTBORN OF THE OX,—because this firstborn is due to God, and it is unjust that from God’s animal and his first-fruits thou shouldst take for thyself either the first labours or the wool.
AND THOU SHALT NOT SHEAR THE FIRSTBORN OF THE SHEEP,—but thou shalt bring them with their wool to the priest, that thou mayest give both the wool and the sheep to God, that is, to the priest in the place of God.
Tropologically St. Gregory, book viii of the Morals, xxxiv: “Moses,” he says, “here forbade the life of beginners to be employed in human occupations: for to work with the firstborn of the ox is to display the beginnings of a good manner of life in the exercise of public action; and to shear the firstborn of the sheep is to strip our beginning good works of the covering of their concealment before human eyes. When therefore our life begins something simple and harmless, it is fitting that it leave not the veils of its secrecy, lest it show itself bare to human eyes, as if the fleece were drawn away.”
20. THOU SHALT EAT THEM BEFORE THE LORD THY GOD.—“Thou shalt eat,” that is, thou, O priest; for there is here a change of person: Moses turns his speech from those who offer to the priests, whose part it was to eat the firstborn; for these only were they due, as is plain from Numbers xviii, 17. So Abulensis. Moreover God here commands them to be eaten in a holy place, namely in the court of the temple, because he had commanded the same to be offered to him in the temple, their blood being poured out and the fat burnt, as was done in the peace-offering, as is plain from Numbers xviii, 17: “Because they are sanctified to the Lord, thou shalt only pour out their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn the fat for a most sweet savour to the Lord.” After the immolation of the peace-offering, however, its flesh had to be eaten by the offerers in the same place, namely in the court of the temple; for every victim, since it was sanctified to God, had to be eaten in a holy place, as is plain from Leviticus vi, 16, and chap. vii, vers. 6. The same is signified by this law and the phrase: “Thou shalt feast before the Lord,” that is, in the court of the temple, namely from the peace-offerings and the other oblations. Hence it is repeated again and again, Deuteronomy xii, 12, and 18, and xiv, where it is said: “Thou shalt offer peace-offerings, and shalt eat there and feast before the Lord thy God.” Because of the likeness of the firstborn to the peace-offering, therefore, God here commands in like manner that the priests, to whom the firstborn fell by divine right, should offer them to God in the temple, and after the offering eat them there, so that this eating might be the consummation and completion of the offering, like a peace sacrifice. God therefore ordains that they, as holy things, be eaten by the holy priests in a holy place, especially because the priests dwelt near the temple, as its perpetual keepers and ministers; but the Levites were scattered through all the cities of Juda to teach the people. From what has been said it is plain that Cajetan is wrong in taking “firstborn” improperly for first-fruits, and for flesh set apart to God for a sacred feast.
Mystically see Rabanus, who throughout this book, as through the rest of Holy Scripture, is wholly mystical and moral. Whence the Ordinary Gloss is in great part compiled from him.
21 and 22. BUT IF IT HAVE A BLEMISH, OR BE LAME, ETC., IT SHALL NOT BE SACRIFICED, ETC. BUT THOU SHALT EAT IT WITHIN THE GATES OF THY CITY.—If the firstborn animal were lame, blind or maimed, it could not be sacrificed, but had to be redeemed by a price given to the priests; then it could be eaten by laymen in any place. So Abulensis.