Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Moreover, that the Septuagint render, let him be many in number, while our version contrariwise renders, let him be small in number, arises from this, that the Hebrew has, and let his men be a number, which the Septuagint so took. The Chaldee anagogically renders thus: Let Ruben live in eternal life, and not die the second death, and let his sons receive their inheritance, according to their number.
But the cause why Moses omitted Simeon is that this tribe, a little before, had been defiled by the fornication and idolatry of Beelphegor, and therefore greatly punished and slain by God, and that for an example to others, as I said on Numbers xxvi, 12. So Abulensis, Pererius and others (2).
Theodoret, in his last Question, gives another cause, namely that Simeon had been the author of the snares which the brothers laid for Joseph: for which cause Joseph kept Simeon bound before the other brothers, Genesis xlii, 24.
But by the same argument Ruben ought not to have been blessed, on account of the incest committed by him.
7. THIS IS THE BLESSING OF JUDA: HEAR, O LORD, THE VOICE OF JUDA,—that is, as the Chaldee has it, receive, O Lord, the prayer of Juda, when he shall go out to war, AND BRING HIM IN UNTO HIS PEOPLE,—that is, give him strength against enemies, that as victor he may obtain his part and lot in the holy land (3). Less rightly therefore Lyranus explains it thus, as if to say: Bring Juda after death into limbo, that there he may be joined to his fathers and his people: a prophecy of Juda follows.
HIS HANDS SHALL FIGHT FOR HIM,—as if to say: Juda shall fight for the people of Israel, as leader of war and prince of the tribes: that it so came to pass is plain from Judges i, 2. For this cause Moses here sets Juda before Levi, who yet was older than Juda. So Abulensis (4).
AND HE SHALL BE HIS HELPER AGAINST HIS ENEMIES,—namely God, as is plain from the Chaldee and Septuagint, which render thou shalt be, namely O Lord; for him Moses addressed at the beginning of the verse, saying: “Hear, O Lord,” etc.
8. TO LEVI (5) ALSO HE SAID: THY PERFECTION AND THY DOCTRINE BE TO THY HOLY MAN (namely belongs and is due; in Hebrew it is, thy thummim are, thine are the urim, namely of thy pious man, to wit Aaron), WHOM THOU HAST PROVED IN THE TEMPTATION (which place in Hebrew is called massa, Exodus xvii, 7), AND JUDGED AT THE WATERS OF CONTRADICTION,—Numbers xx; as if to say: Thine, O Levi, are, and to thee have been given, the priestly vestments and consequently the priesthood itself; vestments, I say, the ephod and rational, on which are inscribed urim and thummim, that is, illumination or doctrine and integrity or perfection of life, with which the priest ought to shine, and to give light to the people, of which I spoke on Exodus xxviii, 30; whence the Chaldee clearly renders, urim and thummim, that is, perfection and doctrine, thou hast put upon the man who was found holy before thee.
Moreover, these things were given to Levi, because they were given to Aaron, sprung from the tribe of Levi, who was a pious and holy man, save that he sinned, when thou, O Lord, didst prove and judge him, that is, condemn him, not to enter the land of promise: this was done at the Waters of Contradiction, Numbers xx, 12.
Abulensis explains these otherwise, as if to say: Thou, Lord, hast given perfection of life and integrity of the law and doctrine to the holy man, that is, Moses, who was sprung from Levi, that he might communicate the same to the people, but most of all to his Levites. But from the Hebrew it is plain that the former sense is the genuine.
9. WHO HATH SAID TO HIS FATHER AND TO HIS MOTHER: I DO NOT KNOW YOU; AND TO HIS BRETHREN: I KNOW YOU NOT; AND THEIR OWN CHILDREN THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN,—as if to say: Levi, that is the Levites, in the punishment of the idolaters, namely of those adoring the golden calf, Exodus xxxii, 28, had no pity on friends and kinsmen, and brothers and sons; but slew them, as well as others, just as if they had not known them, nay had not seen or regarded them, as the Hebrew has.
Abulensis thinks that “to father and mother” is here added by exaggeration; for no Levite slew father or mother, because in no case or crime is it lawful for a son to kill father or mother, as authors of his life, unless God expressly command it; but that they killed brothers at least born of the other parent, and likewise their sons: for on account of the crime of idolatry it was lawful to kill sons, as is plain from chap. xiii, verses 6 and 10.
But equally, nay more and first, it is said here of father and mother, as of brothers and sons, that the Levites did not regard them in that slaughter of the idolaters, nor pitied them, as the Chaldee renders; whence they seem to have slain all the guilty without distinction, even father and mother: for Moses had commanded them this, Exodus xxxii, 27; for though father and mother are not expressed there, but only brother, friend and neighbour, yet from this it is sufficiently gathered that Moses named father and mother also; or certainly that the Levites rightly interpreted, from their zeal, the command of God concerning the slaying of the worshippers of the calf, so as to include father and mother also.
THESE HAVE KEPT THY WORD, AND OBSERVED THY COVENANT,—namely the covenant entered into with God, Exodus xxiv, 8.
10. THY JUDGMENTS, O JACOB, AND THY LAW, O ISRAEL.—The Hebrew is, these shall teach thy judgments to Jacob, and thy law to Israel. Our Interpreter did not read in the Hebrew the word joru, that is, they shall teach, and perhaps this crept in, so that for yintsoru, that is, they kept, which went before, some copies by Keri and Ketib, in the margin, read joru, which was afterwards added to yintsoru in the text; for without joru the sense stands. For it is an apposition, as if to say: The Levites kept thy covenant, which is nothing else than thy judgments, that is thy precepts and laws.
Secondly, retaining joru, our version can be rightly reconciled, if you take joru, though future, for the past, as Vatablus and others took it: for the past tenses precede; then the sense will be: The Levites taught thy judgments, O Lord, to Jacob, namely by this very deed by which they kept the covenant entered into with thee, and avenged the violators of this covenant: for then by the very fact they showed and taught how rigidly thy judgments, that is thy laws, are to be kept.
THEY SHALL PUT INCENSE IN THY WRATH (the Hebrew is beappecha, which secondly can be rendered, in thy nostrils (1)), AND HOLOCAUST UPON THY ALTAR.—Vatablus again renders “they shall put” as “they have put.” For the sense is: on account of this zeal of the Levites, thou, O Lord, didst choose them for priests, who have offered to thee, offer, and shall offer always hereafter incense and holocausts.
See here how much God makes of zeal, and how he rewards zeal and the zealous. For he himself is a zealot and a consuming fire. “Angels also,” says St. Ambrose on Psalm cxviii, “without zeal are nothing, and lose the prerogative of their substance unless they sustain it by the ardour of zeal.” Finally to the angel of Laodicea it is said, Apocalypse iii, 15: “I know thy works: that thou art neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.” The priest ought to have zeal who is careful to keep the Church’s chastity uncorrupted. Zeal is the life of God. Elias had zeal, and therefore was taken up to heaven: “With zeal,” he says, “have I been zealous for the Lord.” Mathathias had zeal, and therefore obtained glory and rule of his nation. Moses had zeal, smiting the Egyptian oppressing a Hebrew, and rightly: “For zeal purges crime.” From zeal king David cries, Psalm cxviii, 139: “My zeal hath made me pine away: because my enemies forgot thy words.” And Jeremias ix, 1: “Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes?” Christ from zeal seeing the city of Jerusalem wept over it. Paul: “I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God;” and: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?” The zeal of St. Stephen see Acts chap. vi and vii. The spouse in the Canticle was zealous: “Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love;” and the Spouse: “Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell. The lamps thereof are fire and flames.” Zeal Moses commanded the Levites, saying Exodus xxxii, 26: “If any man be on the Lord’s side, let him join with me, and let every man kill his brother and friend;” and Christ to us: “I am come to cast fire on the earth;” “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, etc., yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
This zeal is necessary to a Prelate: hence God in the old Church set Moses over it; in the new, Peter and Paul, for zeal. In the old commonwealth he appointed David king, who says in Psalm lxviii, 10: “The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up;” in the new, the Constantines, Theodosiuses, Charleses, Bouillons, burning with zeal of faith. The zeal of St. Antony restrained the Arians, of Aphraates the Emperor Valens: see the history in Theodoret, book IV Hist. chap. xxiv. Of the zeal of St. Francis see Bonaventure in his Life, book I, chap. ix. This zeal the thought of eternity most sharpens. For who is not zealous against sins, if he think on that: “A moment that delights, an eternity that torments?” Who, to secure a happy eternity for himself and others, does not embrace all labours, all hardships? Let Prelates and priests, who should be sowers of eternity, think on this, and do this.