(Exodus 4:24) 1ST CATEGORY OT QUESTION 16. WHY DID THE ANGEL WHO WANTED TO KILL MOSES, IN THE ROUTE, BE APPEASED BY THE CIRCUMCISION OF HIS CHILD? — At the sight of the angel who threatened him, Moses repaired an omission which had been at home without purpose. The anger of the angel stopped before the completion of this ceremony, deferred by negligence. Now, this anger of the angel that threatens Moses to take his life, comes from the fact that the fault of a man raised in dignity has a particular character of gravity. This gravity is always in direct proportion to the elevated position one occupies. The fault committed by a man whom God had chosen to be the sovereign chief of his people was therefore very great. Moses was going to stand before the children of Israel as the messenger of the God of Abraham, and he did not bear the sign of the righteousness of Abraham, whom he knew to be a title of glory to the Jews, and he exposed to pass for a seducer or not to be received as the envoy of God who had chosen Abraham. He had not circumcised his children during his stay in the land of Midian; He was not to take them with him to Egypt, from where he was going to draw his brothers, or to circumcise them first for the reasons we have given. Zipporah, wife of Moses, as the Scripture recounts summarily, knowing for what reason the angel was angry with her husband, took a sharp stone and circumcised his son, and the angel departed. She soothes by this action the anger which the negligence of Moses had excited against him. Scripture often speaks in a very concise form of things which the very subject it treats must imply; for example, in these reproaches that the Savior addresses to the Jews: Why did you even violate the command of God to remain faithful to your tradition? for God has made this command: Honor your father and your mother; and this other: Whoever has insulted his father or mother with words will be punished with death. But you say, Whosoever shall say unto his father or to his mother, Every gift that I offer of my good shall be your reward, and after that he shall not honor his father and his mother." (Matt. 15:3-6, Exod. 20:12) Here, of course, the Savior abridged his speech, and implied that the Jewish priests, by engaging in greed, despised the law of God. By a show which impiety alone could inspire, they gave to the children who curse their father and mother the advice of offering to God what they would like, and thus to be freed from the sentence pronounced against the children who insult their children’s parents. But the children in this council had nothing but contempt for their parents against the express command of God. So Moses saw the angel angry with him, understood the reason, and told his wife what was to be done to calm the anger of the angel who wanted to take his life. This is what is implied in the story, as well as what we have pointed out in the reproaches addressed to the Jewish priests.
(Exodus 7:10) 2ND CATEGORY OT QUESTION 8. DID NOT MOSES DO ANOTHER MIRACLE BEFORE PHARAOH THAN THAT OF THE ROD TURNED INTO A SERPENT? — Whoever would be tempted to reproach Moses, tells us what other prodigy he should have done. He changed his rod into a serpent to impress terror, but without doing any harm, because the natural numbness of the snake makes his fury slower. If Moses had made a lion, bear, or other animal appear, how could those who were present have escaped? God did not want this serpent to cause the death of anyone; his intention was only to inspire a salutary fear and to manifest his power. It was by the snake that the sin of our first parents had begun, it was also the sight of a snake that was to recall the remembrance of the knowledge of God, and the necessity to change one's life so that sin was destroyed by the same means that had helped to make him commit. So again, it is through a woman that sin originated, it was by a woman that it was erased, by Mary, mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ who destroyed the kingdom of sin: Eve was still a virgin when she succumbed to sin, just as Mary was also a virgin when she was chosen to be the Savior's mother. Thus all that had perished was restored to its former state; it is by taking from the fruit of the tree that the kingdom of heaven was lost, it is by a tree that we recover our rights to this kingdom. "The Lord," said the Psalmist, "reigned by the wood.” (Ps. 95) It was by the same design that the world had to be repaired at the same time that it was created, that is to say, at the beginning of the first month which is the epoch of the Passover. There is therefore no other bad nature than the. transgression of the law since sin is erased by the same means used to commit it.
(Exodus 12:11) QUESTION 116. THE REASON FOR THE PASSOVER. — The word Passover, my dear brothers, comes from the word passion, as we learn from the figure of this mystery which was celebrated in Egypt by Moses, the faithful servant of God, to the testimony of Scripture: “Here is the Passover of the Lord's sacrifice.” (Exod. 12:11) But why was this mystery celebrated by the blood, why was life repaired by death, so that when it was believed to make a greater number of victims, did it suffer to restrain its power by the blood of the Savior, and to receive the blow which undermined its empire from that very death in which it believed it had displayed all its power? By a marvelous disposition of Divine Providence, death finds death in its work. As it always wishes evil, God seemed to yield to it for a time, so that, being destroyed in its unjust endeavor, it could not complain of being deprived of its empire over men. God can do everything, it is true, but he does nothing that is contrary to reason. He himself follows the rules of justice that he requires of men, without ever abusing his power. God has therefore shown admirable providence towards the human race; the rights and decrees of divine justice have been safeguarded and fulfilled, and man has been delivered from the death which held him in his chains for good reason. But as he had been deceived by the envy of the devil, it seemed just to God to come to his aid. He was condemned by God's judgment, but Satan was the cause. In the same way that it seemed right to God to deliver man, it would have been unjust to effect this deliverance by an act of his power, without the harmony of justice. The man having been defeated by the persuasions of Satan, the demon stood up like an accuser, to oppose the mercy. God, therefore, ensures that he who glorifies himself in the sin of man, should be convinced in the light of sin, that the conscience of his crime may render him any contradiction impossible. The Son of God became man, and preaching righteousness to men, inciting against him the hatred of the devil, because he turned them away from vices of which the demon is the father, and this hatred went so far as to put him to death he who did not know sin. It was then that the devil himself was convicted of sin, and of a sin much greater than that of the man he accused. By virtue of a decree of God, he claimed that the man belonged to him because of his sin, because the one who sins ranks with the party of the devil, but he was convinced of a much greater crime, when he dared put to death the one who had not sinned to extend his empire over him. It was, therefore, death which struck a mortal blow to death itself; the outpouring of blood saved the blood; that is to say, as I have recalled, that the author of death who is the devil, having been convicted of a crime in the death of the Savior, lost all rights over his blood and blood to us all; for just as by the sin of the one Adam alone did he hold all men under the bondage of death, he saw himself carried off all men by the innocence of one. The blood of the Savior poured out unjustly had the reward of victoriously saving the blood to which it owed its origin, and of restoring it to its former state by elevating it to a greater perfection. Conquered death dares not contradict its conqueror. Blessed, then, is the mystery of the Passover, which redeems us by blood, triumphing over death by death, just as it is customary to triumph by the poison of the very action of poison.
(Exodus 20) 1ST CATEGORY OT QUESTION 7. WHAT ARE THE TEN WORDS THAT WERE WRITTEN ON THE TWO TABLES, OR WHAT WORDS WERE ENGRAVED ON EACH TABLE, AND WHAT WAS THEIR NUMBER? — These ten words are the ten commandments. This is how the Savior calls the feeling that he asks the Jews, among other things: "I have a word to ask you too; answer me: Where did John's baptism come from? From heaven or men? (Matt. 21:24) He gives this feeling the name of speech. It is for a similar reason that Scripture tells us that ten words were written on the two tables, and these ten words are ten different thoughts. Here is the first word: "You shall have no other gods but me." (Exod. 3) Then comes the second: "You will not make any image of what is above in heaven, nor of what is down on the earth, or in the waters under the earth. " God adds in the third place: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for God will not regard as innocent one who has taken in vain the name of the Lord his God," that is, you do not take the name of your God to support a lie and perjury that imposes that name. The fourth commandment reads, "You shall keep the Sabbath of the Lord your God, and you shall not do any servile work in this day." These first four words relate directly to God and are the subject of the first table. Others: The first word of the table: "Honor your father and your mother," the second: "You shall not kill;" the third: "You shall not be adulterous”; in the fourth, "You will not stumble”; The fifth: "You shall not bear false witness; The sixth: "You will not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor." The Apostle St. Paul tells us that these were the commandments of the second table when he said, "Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment of the promise. "(Eph. 4:2) How would this commandment be first if God had not engraved it at the head of the second table? Saint Paul says “of the promise”, because God adds immediately: "In order that you may be happy and live long on the earth." This is the promise that is made to those who keep the commandments. So here you have the separate commandments, their exact number and the precise indication of those engraved on each table.
(Exodus 20:5) 1ST CATEGORY OT QUESTION 14. WHY DOES GOD, WHOSE SCRIPTURE PRAISES JUSTICE, THREATEN TO PUNISH THE SINS OF PARENTS THROUGH THEIR CHILDREN UNTIL THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATIONS? — God can neither do nor say any injustice, to doubt it is madness. If, therefore, none of the words of the Lord are removed, but all the elements of the question are carefully put together, the light will give way to the darkness, and one will regard as a trait of goodness what appeared a sovereign injustice. To remove some of the elements of a question is to show either ignorance or bad faith, it is the work of a man who likes to slander rather than educate himself. But God has threatened, it is true, to pursue the sins of the parents even on their children, but on those who would have only hatred for him, that is to say, who persevere in the iniquity of their children, fathers, would worship idols after their example; for it is declaring itself the enemy of God to attribute to the creature the honor which is due to him alone. Just as the children of the righteous who are righteous themselves ennoble a family, where righteousness is transmitted as an inheritance and receive the double glory of their virtues and those of their parents, so also the children of the wicked who inherit their wickedness add to the crimes of their fathers, because they are the children of the wicked and they imitate their guilty examples for the loss of many. God wants to inspire terror here, but his word is true and justified in reason. Who of us, in fact, executes the bad son of a guilty father in the most ludicrous manner? who does not judge worthy of a double reward the virtuous son of a good man? Now, God threatens to exert his vengeance even on the third and fourth generation, because a bad father may have a son who does not walk in his footsteps, while the grandfather will follow him in the path of evil; but he must know that he cannot escape the rigor of this sentence. If, on the contrary, the grandfather does not follow the example of his grandfather, but those of his father, like God's law, like him, let the great grandfather not forget that the sentence may be to extend to him, if he imitates the criminal conduct of his son. In enacting this law, God wished to act upon the impiety of the parents, and to make them recognize the innumerable evils which the idol-worship, so that their affection for their children reminded them at least of the sentiments of religion which they to their Creator, or so that the sons, in the fear of punishment due to the crimes of their fathers, weave profession of obedience to the law of God. But the foolish ones, by an excess of malice, interpret in another sense this divine sentence, saying, "Our fathers have eaten green grapes, and the teeth of the children have been troubled," (Ezek. 13:2) that is to say, assured of impunity, because their children would suffer the penalty due to their sins, they remained insensitive to the spiritual love of God as well as to the natural affection for their children. That is why God says to them through his Prophet: "The son will not die for the father, nor the father for the son, but the soul that has sinned, will die itself. He wants to teach them that it is in vain that they hope for impunity, but that the sins of fathers will be punished in the person of children, in the sense that they will be more rigorously cheated, because by imitating impiety of their fathers they renewed the example of crimes which they should have erased. After having made known the evils of which idolatry is the source, God immediately adds the picture of the rewards which he reserves to those who love him: "And I have mercy in the following of a thousand generations to those who love me and keep my commandments," (Exod. 20:6), that is, the virtues of the father are rewarded not only in the rear of the grandchildren, but even after a thousand and a thousand generations. Thus, for example, that a man who loves God is of the race of David, whose existence goes back well above a thousand years, he is the object of the mercy of God, and in the necessity he deserves to double the title of receiving this mercy, by his personal fidelity in the service of God, and because he descends from the race of a man who has professed to love God. And it is here that the goodness of God is truly worthy of our praise. His righteousness on those who lower him is only exercised until the third and fourth generations, and not over thousands of generations. If, therefore, iniquity is perpetuated in the fifth generation, his vengeance begins from there to spread again to the third and fourth generation. But this objection will be made to me: The first author of a crime must be more severely punished than the one who merely imitates him. The perpetrator of the crime receives the just punishment due to him; if the children are more rigorously punished, it is the punishment of the parents. If you ask why, I will answer that the knowledge of the law adds to the gravity of sin, as it happened to Lamech and after Lamech himself. There are, however, some who think that the sons bore the penalty due to the crimes of their fathers when they were taken captive in expiation of their crimes, and that they remained there until the fourth generation. If this feeling is true, not only did God not only punish the sins of the fathers over the children who hated him, but also those who loved his name, for among these captives were Daniel, the three children Baruch, Ezekiel, and Ezra, who was born during captivity itself. So we clearly answered the question we had asked ourselves.
(Exodus 28:26; Deuteronomy 7:14) 1ST CATEGORY OT QUESTION 17. WHY DOES THE LAW DECLARE AND ACCURSE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT LEFT POSTERITY IN ISRAEL, WHILE ISAIAH PROMISES THAT NOTHING IS TO BE FEARED FOR THE EUNUCHS WHO CANNOT HAVE CHILDREN? — The Jews had heard the words of the Prophet in a different sense than he gave them; So it makes them know what the real meaning is. (Isa. 56:3) As he pronounced this sentence against those who transgress the law of God, and to punish them for having abandoned his worship, they were condemned not to marry, and not to leave posterity, the Jews had fallen into the error of seeing as guilty in the eyes of God those who would not take women, or who, while marrying, could not have children, as if God did not ask something other than children; it is the reproach that the prophet Malachi makes to them. Therefore, to console those who were grieved by the false interpretation of his words, teaches them that he who cannot or will not have children, has nothing to fear, provided he observes the law of God. The curse fell only on those who had the power and the will to have children, remained sterile by an effect of the judgment of God, who refused the fruit of creation to those who had only contempt for the Creator. He wanted that, seeing himself condemned to being unable to father children, or to preserve their lives if they had them, to recognize the effects of the wrath of an angry God and to return to him in the feelings of true repentance. Indeed, the holy personages who were eager to have children without being able to obtain them, believed that their sins were their cause and they were deeply afflicted, not knowing that the providence of God reserved them for the accomplishment of his designs. Thus, through divine intervention, Hannah conceived and bore Samuel (1 Sam. 1:20), Elisabeth John the Baptist (Luke 1:24), and the wife of Manoah, Samson. (Judg. 13:24) The spiritual meaning of these words is that one must look upon as cursed those who have not left posterity destined to see God, that is to say, who have not inspired their children, or their servants, or their neighbor, the feelings of fear of God that they themselves would have to teach others on the earth.
(Exodus 34:29) 1ST CATEGORY OT QUESTION 8. WHY DID MOSES, COMING DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN WITH THE TABLES OF THE LAW, HAVE A FACE SO BRIGHT THAT IT COULD NOT BE FIXED ON HIM? — The power that God had given to Moses over sinners was reflected by this mark of honor and by that dazzling face as he descended from the mountain. For it is against the followers that the law was given. So Moses, who had not sinned, appeared surrounded by glory and glory so glorious that the followers could not stop their eyes on him. The Lord wanted to show in his person that sinners are not worthy to see the glory of God. In fact, after the Israelites had melted and worshiped the idol of the golden calf, after Moses had broken the tables upon which the law of God was written, Moses went up a second time on the mountain with new tables, and when he came down with the law God had written there, his face cast such rays of light that the children of Israel and Aaron himself could not stop looking at him because they had sinned. So he spoke to them by putting a veil on his face, for as long as they sinned in their sins, they were unaware of seeing the glory of God. This is why the Apostle says, "When this people is converted to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away," (1 Cor. 3:16), that is, when purified by the grace of God, they will become worthy of to contemplate the glory of God. In breaking the two tables which he had received in the first place, Moses showed the reprobation of this people, who, by their attachment to iniquity, was to render themselves unworthy of divine promises. The law given a second time meant that this people would succeed another who could not take advantage of the law given on the mountain. |