The Douay-Rheims with the Glossa Ordinaria

¹These are the names of the children of Israel, that went into Egypt with Jacob: they went in every man with his household:

²Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Juda,

³Issachar, Zabulon, and Benjamin,

⁴Dan, and Nephthali, Gad and Aser.

⁵And all the souls that came out of Jacob's thigh, were seventy: but Joseph was in Egypt.

⁶After he was dead, and all his brethren, and all that generation,

v.6–7

VERS. 6, 7.-- *And when he was dead,* etc. So, after the true Joseph had tasted death for all, and had destroyed him who had the empire of death, the people of the faithful was multiplied. For unless the grain had died in the earth, it would have remained alone. If Joseph die in thee, that is, if thou take upon thee the mortification of Christ, and mortify thy members to sin, the children of Israel are multiplied in thee, namely, good and spiritual senses. For if the senses of the flesh be mortified, the senses of the soul grow, and as the vices die in thee the virtues are increased, and the earth multiplies thee in good works, which are ministered through the office of the body. The earth had multiplied Paul, who said: *But to remain in the flesh is more needful for your sake.* For while he remains on earth, that is, in his own flesh, the Church is multiplied by believing, by winning a people for God, and by preaching the Gospel from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum.

⁷The children of Israel increased, and sprung up into multitudes, and growing exceedingly strong they filled the land.

⁸In the mean time there arose a new king over Egypt, that knew not Joseph:

v.8–10

VERS. 8-10.-- *Meanwhile there arose a new king over Egypt,* etc. *Allegorically.* This is the devil, who *said in his heart: There is no God;* who says to his own nation, that is, to the apostate angels: *Behold the people of the children of Israel,* those, namely, who are able to see God with the mind, is mightier than we: *Come, let us oppress them wisely.* The devil perceives that the people of Israel is great, and stronger than himself, because he has often engaged them and is often overcome. He knows that Jacob wrestled, and by the help of an angel prevailed against his adversary, and was strong with God. He has felt the wrestlings of the other saints also, he has endured spiritual contests: he fears lest at some time war befall, and they consent to his adversaries, and, these being overcome [devicto eo], depart out of his land. It seems to me, from those things which had been shown to the patriarchs and prophets concerning the coming of Christ, that he perceives that One will come who will strip off his principalities and powers, and with confidence triumph over them and afflict them on the wood of the cross. In the Chronicles of Eusebius and Jerome we read, etc., *as far as* and he perished in the Red Sea; there were many Pharaohs. * Morally.* First I wish to enquire who is the king in Egypt who knows Joseph, and who is he that knows him not. For while he was reigning who knew Joseph, the children of Israel are not said to be afflicted, nor consumed in clay and brick; nor were their males slain and their females kept alive; but only when he began to reign who had not known Joseph. If the Lord rules us, and the sense of our mind or soul is enlightened by God, remembering that Christ has risen from the dead, then in Egypt, that is, in our flesh, our spirit holds the kingdom with justice, and does not consume the children of Israel, that is, the rational senses or the virtues, in clay and brick, nor wear them away with earthly cares. If our sense should lose the memory of these things, and should not know Christ, then the wisdom of the flesh, which is an enemy to God, succeeds to the kingdom; it addresses its own nation, that is, the bodily pleasures, and, the leaders of the vices being called to council, deliberates against the children of Israel, how they may be circumvented, oppressed with clay, and afflicted with brick; how the Egyptians may expose the males, rear the females, and build cities and fortified cities. Nor is it to be thought that the divine books relate the deeds of the Egyptians without cause; but *the things that were written were written for our instruction*, so that thou who hearest these things, if perchance thou hast been baptized and numbered among the children of Israel, and hast received the Lord as king within thee, and after this hast willed to turn aside and to do the works of the world, to perform the doings of earth and to fulfil the offices of clay: know that there has arisen in thee another king, who knows not Joseph, the king of Egypt; he himself compels thee to his own works, to labour at brick and clay; he himself, with taskmasters and drivers set over thee, drives thee with scourges to earthly works, that thou mayest build him cities; he makes thee run about through the world and, out of covetousness, throw into confusion the elements of sea and of land; to beat upon the court with lawsuits and to weary thy kinsmen with quarrels over a scanty clod of earth; to lie in wait against chastity, to deceive innocence, to commit things foul at home, cruel abroad, and shameful within the conscience: in things of this kind know that thou art soldiering for the king of Egypt, which is to be driven by the spirit of this world.

⁹And he said to his people: Behold the people of the children of Israel are numerous and stronger than we.

¹⁰Come let us wisely oppress them, lest they multiply: and if any war shall rise against us, join with our enemies, and having overcome us, depart out of the land.

¹¹Therefore he set over them masters of the works, to afflict them with burdens: and they built for Pharao cities of tabernacles, Phithom, and Ramesses.

v.11–13

VERS. 11-13.-- *He set therefore over them,* etc. The devil, having called together his own nation, desires to oppress the rational sense, which is now figuratively called Israel: he sets over them masters of works, who may compel them to learn the works of the flesh, according to that of Psalm CV: *They were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works.* He teaches them to build cities for Pharaoh: Phithom, which signifies *the mouth of failing,* or *of the abyss;* and Ramesses, which is *the commotion of the moth,* and On, that is, Heliopolis, which is called the city of the sun. The mouth fails when it speaks a lie apart from truth and from proofs. He was a liar from the beginning, and therefore he wills such cities to be built for himself: *the mouth of the abyss,* because the abyss of perdition is his place; his other city is *the commotion of the moth:* for he who follows him lays up treasure there where the moth destroys, and thieves dig through and steal. He builds also the City of the Sun, under a false name *transfiguring himself into an angel of light.* In these he occupies the minds which were made to see God. Yet he foresees that wars threaten him and the ripe destruction of his nation; therefore he says, The nation of Israel prevails over us, would that it might also perceive that we prevail over it: that is to say, that I may not receive the thoughts and the evil concupiscences which he sends in, but may repel the fiery darts with the shield of faith, and in all things that he shall suggest may say: *Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written: Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve*. But this also which he says, Lest perchance war befall us, and these consent with our adversaries — out of the prophetic voices he foresees that war will come upon him, and that he will be forsaken by the children of Israel, and that they will consent to his adversary and be added to the Lord. This is what Jeremias says. *The partridge has cried out, she has gathered what she did not bring forth, she has made riches, and not in judgment: in the midst of his days they shall forsake him, and in his last days he shall be a fool.* He understands therefore that he himself is the partridge who gathered what she did not bring forth; and that those whom he gathered without judgment will forsake him and will follow Christ, who begot them. He himself will remain a fool, when the whole creation shall have fled for refuge to its Maker and Parent; therefore he is indignant, saying: Lest they that fight against us go forth out of our land. He does not wish us to go out of his land, that we may always bear the image of the earthly: lest, having left him, we flee to him who has prepared the kingdom of heaven, leaving the image of the earthly and taking up the image of the heavenly. Therefore he appoints masters of works, who may teach his arts and make us craftsmen of malice. And because there are many masters of malice whom Pharaoh has set over us, who command, exact, and extort earthly works: therefore, when Christ came, he made other teachers fighting against them, who, subjecting all their principalities and powers and virtues, might defend the children of Israel from violence, and might teach them Israelite works, and to see God with the mind; to leave the works of Pharaoh, to go out of the land of Egypt, to put off Egyptian manners and the whole old man with his deeds, and to put on the new, who is created according to God. Israel signifies the Christian people, Pharaoh the devil: who lays upon them the most grievous yoke of clay and brick, that is, the servitude of earthly and miry work; with straw mingled in, that is, with light and irrational deeds: so that, all being oppressed by the burden of sins, there may be none to destroy or to overcome his kingdom.

¹²But the more they oppressed them, the more they were multiplied and increased.

¹³And the Egyptians hated the children of Israel, and afflicted them and mocked them:

¹⁴And they made their life bitter with hard works in clay and brick, and with all manner of service, wherewith they were overcharged in the works of the earth.

¹⁵And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews: of whom one was called Sephora, the other Phua,

v.15

VERS. 15.-- *And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives,* etc. These things we detect not only in the world, which is spiritually called Egypt, but in each one of us: the prince of this world does not wish the males to be kept alive, but the females; by the female the flesh and the affection of the flesh is designated; but the man is the rational sense, and the intellectual spirit, which can lay hold of heavenly things, understand God, and seek the things that are above. Him the prince of Egypt hates and desires to slay; but he desires that the things which are of the flesh should live, and that those which pertain to bodily matter should not only live but be increased and cultivated: for he wills that all should savour of carnal things, should seek things temporal and those that are upon the earth; that no one should lift up his eyes to heaven; that no one should ask whence he came hither; that no one should remember paradise his fatherland. When therefore thou shalt see men leading their life in pleasures, floating in luxury, giving their labour to banquets and unchastities, know that in these the king of Egypt slays the males and keeps the females alive. But if thou see one of a thousand turned to God, lifting his eyes upward, seeking things eternal, hating delights and luxury, loving continence: him, as a male, Pharaoh desires to slay, persecutes, and assails with a thousand engines; such men he hates, he does not suffer them to live in Egypt. Hence it is that in this world the servants of God are held in contempt, exposed to insults; hence hatreds and persecutions are stirred up against them.

¹⁶Commanding them: When you shall do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and the time of delivery is come: if it be a man child, kill it: if a woman, keep it alive.

¹⁷But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded, but saved the men children.

¹⁸And the king called for them and said: What is it that you meant to do, that you would save the men children?

¹⁹They answered: The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women: for they themselves are skilful in the office of a midwife; and they are delivered before we come to them.

²⁰Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and grew exceedingly strong.

²¹And because the midwives feared God, he built them houses.

²²Pharao therefore charged all his people, saying: Whatsoever shall be born of the male sex, ye shall cast into the river: whatsoever of the female, ye shall save alive.

v.22

VERS. 22.-- *Pharaoh therefore commanded,* etc. The Egyptians, whom Pharaoh here commanded to keep only the females alive, hated the males. For they hated the virtues, they nourished the vices. Now also the Egyptians lie in wait, if a male be born to the Hebrews, that they may slay him at once, unless they beware, keep watch, and hide him. Scripture relates that someone of the tribe of Levi begot a male, and saw that the infant was goodly and hid him. Let us not, therefore, do our justice before men, but with the door shut let us pray to our Father in secret, and let not the left hand know what the right hand does, lest it be snatched away by the Egyptians, be set upon, be drowned in the waves. If I give alms because it is the work of God, I beget a male; but if I seek praise from men, and do not hide it, it is seized by the Egyptians, it is plunged into the river, and with so much labour and so much zeal I have begotten a male for the Egyptians. *Whatsoever is of the female*. Wherever in the Scriptures a woman is read of, and the frailer sex, let us transfer it to the understanding of matter. Whence Pharaoh too does not wish males to be born, but females, who are near to matter; and, on the contrary, none of the saints is related, save very rarely, to have begotten daughters. And Salphaat alone, who died in his sins, begot all daughters: Jacob is the father of one daughter, and on her account is brought into peril.

Exodus 1

Before the first verse