Commentaria in Deuteronomium
1. THIS IS THE BLESSING WHEREWITH MOSES THE MAN OF GOD BLESSED THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.—“Man of God,” that is, friend, prophet, lawgiver, teacher and prince of God. See what was said on 1 Timothy vi, 11.
2. THE LORD CAME FROM SINAI, AND FROM SEIR HE ROSE UP TO US: HE HATH APPEARED FROM MOUNT PHARAN.—Some Jews explain it thus: God first presented his law to the Idumeans, who dwelt in Seir, and were of the seed of Isaac; but when God pronounced the Decalogue, and had come to the fifth precept: “Thou shalt not kill,” the Idumeans said: We will not that law, because to our father it was said: “Thou shalt live by the sword,” Genesis xxvii, 40. Then God went to the Ismaelites, posterity of Abraham, dwelling in Pharan; and when he read to them the sixth precept: “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” they too refused, saying that to their father it had been said that he should be greatly multiplied, Genesis xxi, 13. Whence at last God came to the Jews at Sinai, and set before them the Decalogue, which they eagerly received, and this is what is here said: “From Seir he rose up to us;” who would not laugh at these triflers and fabulists?
The sense therefore is, as if to say: The Lord came from Sinai to us (1), when thence he gave and promulgated to us the law, Exodus xix and xx. Secondly, on mount Seir he rose up to us like a sun, when to many wounded by the bite of fiery serpents he commanded a brazen serpent to be raised, by which those looking on were healed, Numbers xxi. That this happened at the time when the Hebrews went round mount Seir, or Idumea, is gathered from Deuteronomy i, 19, and chap. ii, 28. Thirdly, on mount Pharan he appeared to us, giving quails, and appointing seventy judges, Numbers xi.
To this Habacuc alludes, chap. iii, verse 3, when he says: “God will come from the south (from Idumea, which is southern to Juda), and the holy one from mount Pharan,” as if to say: The Son of God, who on mount Pharan and Seir appeared to the Jews, and was not afterwards seen, but there as it were lay hid, will come to us manifest, when he shall take our flesh.
Where note: Sinai, in which the old law was given, was a type of Sion, in which the new law was promulgated at Pentecost; in Seir the brazen serpent was a type of the cross of Christ: Pharan, where seventy judges were filled with the spirit of God, was a type of the mission of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the seventy disciples of Christ.
Nay, St. Augustine understands these things prophetically and literally of Christ. For Sinai, he says, in Hebrew is the same as temptation (if, namely, by metathesis it be derived from the root nasa, that is, he tempted). The Lord therefore, that is, Christ, came from Sinai, that is, from the temptation of passion and death. Secondly, Seir, that is hairy, signifies the sinner. Christ therefore shone from Seir; because to those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death light has arisen through Christ, or from Seir, that is, from the sinful Gentiles: for among these the preaching and grace of Christ shone. Thirdly, Christ hastened from mount Pharan, that is, the fruitful, that is, the Church, with many thousands of Saints, who were sanctified by Christ, with whom Christ came, that is, will come, to gather and convert the Israelites at the end of the world. But this sense is rather allegorical than literal.
AND WITH HIM THOUSANDS OF SAINTS,—namely thousands of angels, who ever stand by God and minister, Daniel vii, 10. The Rabbis by saints understand Prophets, and doctors who composed the Talmud; because these received their Talmud, those their prophecies, from the Lord; for all their souls already then existed and were with God at Sinai. So these fabulists applaud their fables by their little tales (1).
IN HIS RIGHT HAND A FIERY LAW.—God is said at Sinai to have as it were borne in his right hand, and delivered, the fiery law, because he gave it with fires and flashing lightnings, and that to the terror of the Hebrews, Exodus xix, 18 (2). Moreover Cajetan explains this so that not God himself bears the law, but that for greater pomp the book of the law and the fire were borne by ministers, namely angels, near his right hand, that by this it might be signified that God would judge by the law and punish violators of the law by fire. Whence also, for “Lord,” the Hebrew is Elohim, that is, judge.
Allegorically, this fiery law signified the new law, which is the law of love, of which Christ says: “I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I, but that it be kindled?” Luke xii, 49. Hence tropologically the elect are called the right hand of God: in the right hand of God therefore is the fiery law, because the elect by no means hear the heavenly commands with a cold heart, but for this burn with the torches of inmost love.
3. HE HATH LOVED THE PEOPLE, ALL THE SAINTS ARE IN HIS HAND.—“The people,” that is, the twelve tribes of Israel: for these are called peoples and nations, Genesis xlviii, 19; as if to say: Therefore God gave his law to you who are the people of God, because he loves you; hence also all the saints, that is, those dedicated to his worship, such as you are, are in the hand, that is, in the power and governance, of God.
AND THEY THAT APPROACH (the Hebrew is tuccu, that is, who are made in the midst, or inserted: for toch signifies the midst) TO HIS FEET (that is, who are his disciples, who hear him, and follow his feet and footsteps. For it is the disciple’s part to sit at the feet, or between the feet, of the master. So Paul, Acts xxii, 3, says he was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel; these) SHALL RECEIVE OF HIS DOCTRINE,—namely God’s (3).
4. MOSES COMMANDED US A LAW.—He speaks, showing himself as one of the people, bound by this law of his, nay of God, as good and humane lawgivers are wont to do.
THE INHERITANCE OF THE MULTITUDE OF JACOB;—it is an apposition: for he calls the law an inheritance, because, equally as an inheritance, it was to be handed down to posterity; or because the inheritance of the holy land was given to the Hebrews on this condition, if they kept the law of God; or finally, because it ought to be as dear to them as an inheritance is dear.
5. HE SHALL BE KING WITH THE MOST RIGHT ONE (as if to say: With Israel, as long as he shall remain upright and good, the king shall be the law of God; or rather God ruling them by the law, without another king, and that) THE PRINCES OF THE PEOPLE BEING ASSEMBLED WITH THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL,—that is, as long as the princes with the people shall be of one mind, and conspire together, and live according to the law of God. So Abulensis, Cajetan and others. Hence when the Jews fell away from this uprightness, and asked a king, not God, but a man, God complains to Samuel, and says: “They have not rejected thee, but me, that I should not reign over them,” 1 Kings viii, 7.
Others think there is here a prophecy of king Saul, and of David to be created after him; but with this exposition the word “most right one” does not agree. Others refer this to Moses, that he was as it were king of the Hebrews: but the word “shall be” is against it; for the leadership of Moses had already passed, and he himself was on the threshold of death (1).
6. LET RUBEN LIVE, AND NOT DIE, AND BE HE SMALL IN NUMBER,—as if to say: Let him not utterly die, nor let the posterity and tribe of Ruben ever fail, namely on account of the sin of incest which he committed against his father: for on this account he deserved to be cut off and blotted out. But for the sake of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, God mitigated this punishment, and made it small only in number: the same Jacob, father of Ruben, foretold, Genesis xlix, 4: “Thou art poured out as water,” he says (by lust and incest), “grow thou not.” Note here: the fitting and just punishment of lust, and especially of incest, is the diminution, nay extinction, of the family. On the contrary Ephraim, who succeeded Ruben in this part in the birthright, was greatly multiplied, as is plain from Genesis xlviii, 19.
Note: Moses, now about to die, here imitates the custom of the patriarchs, and blesses his people, of whom he had been leader and as it were father, and prophetically foretells the future state of each tribe.
But he omits Simeon, the second-born son of Jacob; for that the Septuagint insert his name here, and render it, and let Simeon be many in number, it is altogether likely that the name of Simeon crept in here by error; for the Hebrew, the Chaldee and our version have it not: nay neither have St. Ambrose, Procopius, Apollinarius, Diodorus, Epiphanius and Theodoret, who are wont to follow the Septuagint: whence the name of Simeon is omitted here in the Roman edition of the Septuagint which Caraffa published.