Commentaria in Deuteronomium
15. AND I TOOK, etc., HONOURABLE,—in Hebrew, I took the heads of your tribes. The Hebrews require seven virtues in one who bears a magistracy: first, wisdom; second, humility; third, the fear of God; fourth, hatred of avarice; fifth, love of truth; sixth, love of mankind; seventh, a good name.
17. THERE SHALL BE NO DIFFERENCE OF PERSONS (in Hebrew, you shall not acknowledge faces in judgment, that is, you shall not consider the person, whether he be rich or poor); YOU SHALL HEAR THE LITTLE AS WELL AS THE GREAT, NEITHER SHALL YOU RESPECT ANY MAN’S PERSON, BECAUSE IT IS THE JUDGMENT OF GOD,—as if to say: Since in judging you act in the place of God; and God is most just in judgment, and respects no person. This history is described and explained in Exodus xviii, “Render thyself a stranger to the persons of all in judgment, and for justice’s sake defend the poor man in judgment, nor for favour stand by the rich man unbecomingly; or if thou canst not do so, look to the merits of the causes.” And Peter of Ravenna in a certain epistle: “Nothing shines so gloriously in a judge as to love and show justice without any acceptance of persons. For, as Cicero testifies, whoever puts on a friend puts off the person of a judge. The equity which a judge obeys knows neither the left hand of hatred nor the right hand of love. For such ought the minister of the law to be, that in his hand the balance of justice may not totter or waver through the authority of any person.” Again St. Jerome on Amos: “Whoever,” he says, “is led in judging by kinship or friendship, or on the contrary by hostile hatred or enmity, perverts the judgment of Christ, who is justice.” And Pope Innocent III, in the book On the Misery of the Human Condition: “You,” he says, “do not attend to the merits of causes, but of persons; not to rights, but to gifts; not to what reason dictates, but to what the will desires; not to what one thinks, but to what the mind covets; not to what is lawful, but to what is pleasing.” And below: “The cause of the poor you neglect with delay, that of the rich you push forward with urgency. Towards the one you show rigour, towards the other you dispense with gentleness. The one you regard with difficulty, the other you handle with ease. The one you hear carelessly, the other you listen to with close attention.” And below: “The poor man cries out, and no one hears; the rich man speaks, and every one applauds. The rich man hath spoken, and all held their peace; the poor man hath spoken, and they say: Who is this? and if he offend, they will overthrow him. He that suffereth violence crieth out, and no one hears; he lifts up his voice, and there is none to judge. To the rich man they say: Sit thou here well; but to the poor: Stand thou there, or sit under my footstool.” Hence Solon, as Laertius testifies, being asked, “What is law?” answered, “A spider’s web”; because if anything weak falls into it, it is held; but a heavy thing passes through and tears the web; for the poor who violate the law are punished, the rich do with impunity what they please. And Ovid:
The court is shut to the poor; wealth gives honours, wealth gives friendships: the poor man lies low everywhere.
Do you wish examples of those who accept not persons? Elias freely rebuked king Achab, Eliseus Joram, Nathan David, Isaias Manasses, Daniel Nabuchodonosor and Baltassar, Jeremias Joakim and Sedecias, John the Baptist Herod, Christ the Scribes and Pharisees. Do you wish them among the Gentiles? The jurist Papinian, being commanded by the Emperor Caracalla to excuse before the senate his parricide, by which he had slain his brother Geta, refused, saying that “a parricide could not so easily be excused as be committed.” Epaminondas ordered his son, who had been crowned, to be struck with an axe, because, in contempt of his father’s command, he had joined battle with the enemy, and had conquered him. The consul Brutus and Marcus Torquatus punished their sons with death, because they had conspired with the Tarquins against their country. Zaleucus of Locri, when he had made a law that adulterers should be deprived of their eyes, and his own son was found in adultery, deprived himself of one eye and his son of the other, lest the law passed should be violated through acceptance of persons. So Valerius Maximus, book VI, chapter v.
20. I SAID TO YOU: YOU ARE COME TO THE MOUNTAIN OF THE AMORRHITE, etc. 21. SEE THE LAND WHICH THE LORD THY GOD GIVETH THEE,—because Cadesbarne is near Chanaan; only the mountain of Idumea lies between. Hence from Cadesbarne the spies were sent into Chanaan, that it might be invaded forthwith.
22. YOU SAID: LET US SEND MEN TO VIEW THE LAND.—Hence it is plain that the Hebrews themselves asked that spies be sent, who, God and Moses assenting, were sent, Numbers xiii.
28. CITIES WALLED UP TO THE SKY,—that is, fortified and defended with very high walls; and, as the Septuagint translate, tetheichismenai, that is, walled: it is a hyperbole; like that in chapter ix, verse 4.
WE HAVE SEEN THE SONS OF THE ENACIMS (that is, the sons of giants, namely giants of the posterity of the giant Enac) THERE.—This history is explained in Numbers xiii.
31. THE LORD THY GOD HATH CARRIED THEE, AS A MAN IS WONT TO CARRY HIS LITTLE SON.—“He carried,” that is, he led, directed, cherished, protected: first, by the pillar of cloud and fire; second, by giving manna; third, by protecting thee from enemies and subduing them; fourth, by preserving thy strength and health, and likewise the garments and shoes of each.
Hence in chapter ii, verse 7, God is said to have dwelt with the Hebrews forty years.
33. HE MARKED OUT THE PLACE (going before the camp in the pillar of cloud) WHEREIN YOU SHOULD PITCH YOUR TENTS.
36. BECAUSE HE (CALEB) HATH FOLLOWED THE LORD.—In Hebrew, because he fulfilled (that is, so as to go) after the Lord, that is, he fulfilled my commandments by following me, and obeying me fully and perfectly in all things.
39. AND THE CHILDREN WHO THIS DAY KNOW NOT THE DIFFERENCE OF GOOD AND EVIL,—namely your little ones, who have not yet the use of reason to discern good from evil.
43. OPPOSING THE COMMANDMENT OF THE LORD.—In Hebrew, you embittered the mouth of the Lord, that is, you resisted his words and commands; and so you provoked him, and his mouth and countenance.
44. THE AMORRHITE, etc., PURSUED YOU, AS BEES ARE WONT TO DO,—as if to say: As bees, provoked in great number and fury, pursue those who molest them, so your enemies, the Amorrhites, pursued you.
46. SO YOU ABODE IN CADESBARNE A LONG TIME.—In the Hebrew is added, according to the days that you abode. Which Vatablus explains thus: as if to say, you abode in Cadesbarne as many days after the return of the spies as you had abode there before their return. Secondly, the Hebrews in Seder Olam explain thus: you abode in Cadesbarne as many days as you afterwards abode in all the other encampments together, namely 19 years: for twice nineteen make 38; add to these the two years that elapsed before they came to Cadesbarne, and you will have the 40 years of the pilgrimage in the desert. But nothing of the kind can be gathered from our version, nor even from the Hebrew: for “according to the days that you abode” is nothing else than a repetition and explanation of what went before, namely “a long time.” Hence our Interpreter omitted this Hebrew repetition, as idle and unusual to Latin ears.