Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
18. AND THE GOLDEN MICE, ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF THE CITIES OF THE PHILISTINES, OF THE FIVE PROVINCES (of the five satrapies of the Philistines which stretch and extend), FROM THE WALLED CITY TO THE VILLAGE THAT WAS WITHOUT WALL, AND TO THE GREAT ABEL.—As there were therefore only five golden emerods, so there were only as many golden mice offered by the Philistines: because so many were their Satraps and Satrapies. Less rightly therefore the Hebrews in St. Jerome, Cajetan and the Master of the Scholastic History so interpret; as if they offered as many golden mice as there were cities and towns in Philistia. Whence Isidore Clarius: “The men of the other cities and places,” he says, “hearing the counsel of the priests, wished themselves also to offer to the God of Israel golden emerods and mice, fearing that the offering of the five chief cities would not avail them.”
AND TO THE GREAT ABEL, UPON WHICH THEY SET DOWN THE ARK.—“Great Abel” was a great stone, as the Chaldee and Septuagint render, and is plain from verses 14 and 15. This stone was called Abel, that is, mourning, from the mourning of the Philistines, as the threshing-floor of Atad was surnamed Abel on account of the mourning which the Hebrews made in it for the death of Jacob, Genesis 50, 11; so Bede, Lyranus, Abulensis, Hugh, Dionysius, Vatablus, Serarius, Mariana, Salianus and others. Secondly Cajetan from R. David interprets great Abel as a great plain; for so Abel is taken for valley and plain in Judges 7, 23. Thirdly, St. Jerome in the Questions, Procopius, Angelomus, Rupert, by great Abel understand the great city, namely Bethsames, of which a little before was treated: for this was called Abel, they say, on account of the mourning of the citizens slain who had looked on the ark: the first opinion, as it is more common, so is truer.
19. AND HE SMOTE (that is, slew) OF THE MEN OF BETHSAMES, BECAUSE THEY HAD SEEN THE ARK OF THE LORD,—uncovered and bare: for this was forbidden under penalty of death, Num. 4; so Abulensis, Quest. 26; or rather because they had looked into it, to see whether the Philistines had taken the tables of the law out of it, or had put something else in it: whence from the Hebrew you may render, because they had looked into the ark. So Serarius, Vatablus, Clarius. R. Solomon asserts that the Bethsamites despised the ark; Hugo Victorinus, that they left it in the field and did not bring it into the city; Lyranus adds three other causes: “First, that they exulted in empty joy; second, that they sacrificed females; third, that they venerated the ark with no lights burning before it.” But the first of these is invented. The second would have been the fault only of those priests who sacrificed. The third is nothing, since not even in the desert were lights of this kind carried before it, and there was only the candlestick in the tabernacle, Exod. 26:27.
The true cause of the smiting, therefore, was that the Bethsamites uncovered the ark that had returned from Philistia, covered with its veils, and gazed upon it bare; which was not lawful even for the Levites under pain of death, as is clear from Num. chap. 4, verses 5 and 20. Such was the reverence due to the ark, because it was as it were the seat and throne of God, who willed to dwell and be hidden in it as if invisible.
Allegorically, the ark containing the manna represented the Eucharist, which those who look upon irreverently and receive unworthily are often punished with present death, and always will be punished with eternal death, as the Apostle teaches, 1 Cor. 11:30. So Dionysius. For this reason the priest in the Mass washes the tips of his fingers: “So that he who has already been washed before,” says St. Dionysius, Eccl. Hierar. chap. 3, “may apply no other washing but only that of his extremities and tips. By which supreme cleanness he surely obtains this, that, set in the most chaste garb of the divine appearance, he may come forth to the image of the divine goodness, free and unencumbered by all the bonds of mortal affections.” And a little after: “Those,” he says, “who approach to confect the heavenly sacraments ought to be of such cleanness that they have the very extreme images of the soul purified.”
Hear Chrysostom, hom. 60 to the People: “Who ought not to be purer, enjoying such a sacrifice? What hand should not be more splendid than a ray of the sun, dividing this flesh? The mouth that is filled with spiritual fire? The tongue that reddens with the tremendous blood? Consider with what honor you have been marked; at what table you feast: that which the angels see and shudder at, and dare not freely look upon, because of the splendor flashing forth from it, with this we are fed; with this we are united, and we have become one body of Christ and one flesh.”
Finally, Blessed Peter Damian, book 1, epist. 6: “If,” he says, “our Redeemer so greatly loved the integrity of flowering modesty that he was not only born of a virgin womb, but was also handled by a virgin foster-father; and this while he was still a little child crying in the cradle; by whom, I ask, does he now wish his body to be handled, when he reigns immense in the heavens? If he wished to be touched by clean hands when laid in the manger, how great a cleanness does he now wish to be present to his body, exalted in the glory of the Father’s majesty?”
AND HE SMOTE OF THE PEOPLE SEVENTY MEN,—the chief men, because for seven months they had left the ark in the power of the enemy, and had been unwilling to undertake any danger of war for it, say Theodoret and Procopius. This is uncertain: I have already given the more certain cause. St. Gregory, Angelomus and the Rabbis say that they were Judges or nobles; the Chaldee, the elders of the people.
AND FIFTY THOUSAND OF THE COMMON PEOPLE.—So the Septuagint and the Chaldee. But why were so many thousands smitten for so slight a look and fault? Josephus, the Hebrews, St. Jerome in the Quaestiones, Rupert, Dionysius, Isidore, Clarius, Lyranus and Abulensis say that only seventy were smitten: wherefore a mistake has crept in here, and “and fifty thousand of the common people” must be removed, says Abulensis; or it must be explained as if it said that those seventy men were so eminent that they were equal to fifty thousand of the common people, says Lyranus. As in book 2, chap. 17, David alone is said to be as ten thousand. Finally, from the Hebrew you may render thus: And he smote of the people seventy men out of fifty thousand men who were present; so that what our version renders, and fifty thousand of the common people, you may explain in the nominative, as if to say: and fifty thousand of the common people were present, and saw this slaughter of seventy. So Serarius.
But that fifty thousand of the common people were smitten by God our version clearly indicates, as do the Septuagint and the Chaldee. For this was a great plague, as is said in verse 19. Wherefore wonder and marvel here at the severity of God’s judgments, as in the destruction of Sodom and the flood under Noe. So St. Gregory, Theodoret, Eucherius, Angelomus, Rupert, Dionysius, Mariana, Mendoza and Salianus. For the ark represented God, and was his throne and seat.
Mystically St. Gregory: “Who are the Bethsamites who were smitten,” he says, “if not heretics deceived by false contemplation? While they presumed to see the ark in a stone, they were smitten: who, while unworthily discussing the sacraments of our Lord and Redeemer, they have been cast down, by the snares of damnation, through the deceit of error.” Learn again here with what veneration and caution we ought to handle the sacred vessels.
21. AND THEY SENT MESSENGERS TO THE INHABITANTS OF CARIATHIARIM,—either because they were nearer, so that the ark could be transferred the sooner; or because they were stronger, who for that reason could more easily defend the ark against the Philistines, if these wished to take it back; or because they were nobler, among whom for that reason the ark would be kept with greater worship and veneration. So Mendoza.