Commentaria in Deuteronomium
19. ADORE NOT THOSE THINGS WHICH THE LORD THY GOD CREATED FOR THE SERVICE OF ALL THE NATIONS.—For “which God created,” the sense is, which God divided, so that by turns, and as in divided times, they serve the several nations and provinces, and give light. See Genesis i, 14. So Rabanus. Hence the Jews fable that the several nations are ruled each by its own star, but themselves by God.
20. BUT THE LORD HATH TAKEN YOU, etc., AND BROUGHT YOU OUT OF THE IRON FURNACE OF EGYPT,—that is, out of the most grievous servitude, which most miserably afflicted you, and which like a furnace burned you, and shut you in as with iron, that no exit or refuge might be open. So Isaias xlviii, 10, it is said: “I have chosen thee in the furnace of poverty”; for the poor are afflicted and burned by poverty as by a furnace. Secondly, Moses here alludes to the baking of bricks, which the Hebrews made in Egypt and baked in brick-kilns, from which God freed them, leading them out into Chanaan.
24. BECAUSE THE LORD THY GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE,—as if to say: God is the avenger of injury done to himself, and punishes it most sharply, like a fire laying waste all things. See what was said on Exodus iii, 2, and Hebrews xii, 29. Wherefore the Persians, considering the force and terror of fire and its other eminent endowments, worshipped it as a deity. Hear Maximus of Tyre: “The Persians adore fire daily, a sign evidently of divinity, insatiable, devouring.” When they sacrifice to it, giving it food, they say: “Eat, Lord fire.” With them, therefore, fire was sacred and eternal, which, wherever the king led the army, they carried before it, placed on silver altars, as a great deity. So Pierius, Hieroglyphics 46, chapter xxxviii.
Symbolically St. Gregory, homily 5 on Ezechiel: “God,” he says, “is a consuming fire, because the mind which he hath filled he renders pure from the rust of sins.” St. Syncletica in the Lives of the Fathers, book V, treatise On Compunction: “There is,” she says, “labour and a great struggle for the impious who are converted to God, and afterwards unspeakable joy. For as those who wish to kindle a fire are first choked, and weep from the annoyance of the smoke, and so obtain what they wish; for it is written: Our God is a consuming fire: so we also must kindle the divine fire in ourselves with tears and labours.”
A JEALOUS GOD,—as if to say: God is a zealot, he suffers no rival, but wills to be worshipped alone, supremely: of which chapter v, verse 9.
26. I CALL HEAVEN AND EARTH TO WITNESS THIS DAY, THAT YOU SHALL QUICKLY PERISH.—Note: Moses and the Prophets, by prosopopœia, attribute life, sense and testimony to irrational creatures, and call them as witnesses or judges to a most grave adjuration, by which they may pierce and move the people; especially heaven and earth, because these extend backward and forward to all generations to come: hence Moses, for the memory of this prediction and threatening, would not call witnesses who must die, but heaven and earth, because they remain for ever. These witnesses, therefore, are immortal and eternal, and will endure in all future times, and with dumb voices will tell God that these things are true, and will likewise cry out to men (especially those reading these words of Moses) that these divine precepts and threats are real.
For all creatures silently obey, consent and bear witness to their Creator, and to his law and ordinance. Hence Baruch, chapter iii, verse 34, says: “The stars have given light in their watches, and rejoiced; they were called, and they said: Here we are; and with cheerfulness they have shined forth to him that made them.” Consequently the same silently applauded and bore witness to these words of Moses; for he was the herald of God the Creator: as if to say, I call heaven and earth to witness, that heaven in giving us light, earth in sustaining us, while I speak and proclaim these things, may in fact be dumb witnesses that I foretold these things to you. Again, that when the plagues which I here foretell to you shall come, the same may be witnesses that this my prediction and these threats were true, and at once be avengers and co-operators with God, who will inflict these plagues on you through heaven and earth. For, as the Wise Man says, chapter v, 21: “The whole world shall fight with him against the unwise.” Wherefore if these witnesses had life and voice, or if God by miracle gave them voice, as he has sometimes given, all with one voice would cry out and condemn the wicked; but so long as they have it not, they will cry out silently and with dumb voice, and condemn the wicked.
So Isaias, chapter i, verse 2, when he says: “Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth,” uses prosopopœia toward inanimate creatures, that the speech may be more weighty and full of indignation, and that first to signify that the Jews had received all their goods from heaven and earth through God. Secondly, because the Jews adored the sun, the moon and stones, he now calls these as if their judges. Thirdly and chiefly, because when they would not hear God, he calls upon inanimate things, which always obey God, that the complaint may be most grave and full of reproach; he calls them, I say, as dumb witnesses, that at some time they may be avengers of their Creator, so that heaven, says Rupert, may show itself brazen to the Jews, the earth iron, but chiefly on the day of judgment, when heaven will hurl lightnings at them and the earth will yawn for them. In like manner does Moses here, and Deuteronomy xxx, Secondly, when he calls heaven and earth to witness, he calls by metonymy all that is in heaven and on earth, and especially angels and men, who are witnesses properly so called. So Theodoretus. So also You eternal fires, and inviolable divinity, I call to witness.
For the Platonists thought that the heavenly fires, that is, the stars, were animated by their intelligences, or angelic presidents, whom they worshipped as lesser gods.
In like manner when we exorcise and adjure irrational creatures, the adjuration is not directed to them, because they do not understand it, but to the rational nature which presides over them and can move them, as St. Thomas says. So water, salt and houses are exorcised: partly the divine power is invoked, to assist in the use of these things and to restrain the power of the devil; partly by the divine power the devil is commanded to depart, and not to harm in them. So locusts, mice, frogs, hail, tempests, etc., are exorcised, that God may avert their damages, and the devil may not hurt through them. See Dominic Soto, book VIII On Justice, Question III, article 3.
29. AND WHEN THOU SHALT SEEK THERE THE LORD THY GOD, THOU SHALT FIND HIM: YET SO, IF THOU SEEK HIM WITH ALL THY HEART, AND ALL THE AFFLICTION (namely in true contrition and conversion) OF THY SOUL.—In Hebrew it is, with all thy soul. It insinuates that true contrition, which reconciles the sinner to God, ought to proceed from the love of God above all things; for this is to seek God with all the heart, and with all the affliction of the soul. So Suarez, III part, Question LXXXV, article 4, disputation IV, section 2.
30. AFTER ALL THE THINGS AFORESAID SHALL FIND THEE (shall comprehend thee: it is a Hebraism), IN THE LATTER TIME,—that is, at the end of the time in which the punishment inflicted on thee by God shall be completed; as if to say: After the plagues sent by God, thou shalt at length grow wise, and return to him. So Vatablus, Abulensis and others.
31. NOR FORGET THE COVENANT IN WHICH (that is, which; so the Hebrew, Septuagint and Chaldee) HE SWORE TO THY FATHERS.
32. ASK OF THE DAYS OF OLD,—that is, of the deeds that happened in the days of old.
FROM ONE END OF HEAVEN TO THE OTHER.—In Hebrew, from the extremity of heaven to its extremity, that is, from the east to the west; as if to say: Ask of those things which have happened anywhere among men throughout the whole world. A like phrase is in Matthew xxiv, 31. So Vatablus.
33. AS THOU HAST HEARD, AND HAST LIVED.—So the Roman, Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint. Wrongly therefore the Plantin editions read, and hast seen; as if to say: It was like a miracle that thou didst hear the so terrible voice of God from Sinai and live, of which again chapter v, 21.
(…) not the place, but the operation, namely calling, freeing and leading thee out of Egypt.
AND HORRIBLE VISIONS,—because in the three days’ darkness of Egypt God cast strange spectres before the Egyptians, and struck them with them, as I said on Exodus x, 22 and following.
36. AND UPON EARTH HE SHEWED THEE HIS EXCEEDING GREAT FIRE,—because the fire seemed to come forth from Sinai; but the voice seemed to be formed and to descend upon it from heaven, that is, from the air.
37. GOING BEFORE THEE WITH HIS GREAT POWER,—by his angel, who went before the camp in the pillar of cloud, and who struck and overthrew thy enemies, Exodus chapter xxiii,
42. WHO SHOULD KILL UNWILLINGLY,—that is, unknowingly, ignorantly and inadvertently. So the Hebrew, Chaldee, Septuagint.
48. UNTO MOUNT SION, WHICH IS ALSO HERMON.—This Sion is therefore different from Mount Sion of Jerusalem and the temple; for this Sion was on the other side of the Jordan, and in Hebrew is written with shin; but the Sion of the temple is written with tsade; see what was said on this Sion, chapter iii, verse 9.
49. THE SEA OF THE WILDERNESS,—the Dead Sea, or the Asphaltite lake.