The Douay-Rheims with the Glossa Ordinaria

¹Then Moses and the children of Israel sung this canticle to the Lord, and said: Let us sing to the Lord: for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and the rider he hath thrown into the sea.

v.1

VERS. 1.-- *Then sang Moses,* etc. We read many canticles in the Scriptures, but this is the first of them all, which, when the Egyptians and Pharao were drowned, is sung after the victory. For it is the custom of the saints, when the adversary is overcome (since they know that the victory was wrought not by their own strength but by the grace of God), to offer to God a hymn of glorifying. Yet as they sing they take timbrels in their hands, as is related of Mary and Aaron. And thou therefore, if thou hast crossed the Red Sea, if thou hast seen the Egyptians drowned and Pharao cast headlong into the deep, canst thankfully sing a hymn to God, and say: *Let us sing to the Lord gloriously,* etc. And thou wilt say this more worthily if thou have a timbrel in thy hand, that is, if thou have crucified thy flesh with its vices and concupiscences. *For gloriously,* etc. It is not enough, *he is glorified;* for it is one thing to be glorified, another to be gloriously glorified. For when Christ took flesh for us, he was glorified, who came to seek what had perished, yet not gloriously, because he had no comeliness nor beauty; he was glorified when he came to the cross and endured death; whence John XVII: *Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son,* etc. The passion of the cross therefore was also a glory, wherein he was glorified, yet not gloriously, but humbly; whence Philip. II: *He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.* And Wisdom II: *Let us condemn him to a most shameful death.* In these things therefore he was glorified concerning himself humbly, not gloriously; whence Luke XXIV: *Because it behoved Christ to suffer, and so to enter into his glory.* When he shall come in the glory of the Father, and of the angels, to judge the earth, and shall slay the true Pharao, that is, the devil, with the spirit of his mouth, when he shall shine again in the majesty of the Father: then shall he be gloriously glorified, when all shall honour the Son as they honour the Father. *He is magnified, the horse and the rider he hath cast into the sea,* etc. In the signs of Egypt. But he was gloriously magnified, because he drowned Pharao and his army. Or he was magnified in working miracles before the passion, in preaching, in dying on the cross: but he was gloriously magnified when he rose again a conqueror, the devil conquered, hell despoiled. *The horse,* etc. The men who pursue us are horses; and all who are born in the flesh are figuratively horses, and have their riders. There are those whom the Lord mounts, and they go about the whole earth; of whom it is said in Habacuc III: *Thy cavalry is salvation.* Others the devil and his angels mount. Judas was a horse, and while he had the Lord for his rider he was of the cavalry of salvation: for, sent with the other apostles, he gave health to the sick and soundness to the languishing; but when he laid himself down under the devil, who entered into him after the morsel, being made the horse of Satan and led by his reins he rode against the Lord. All persecutors therefore are neighing horses, but they have evil angels as riders by whom they are driven, and therefore they are fierce. If thou see thy persecutor raging beyond measure, know that he is being pricked by his rider, and therefore he is savage and truculent.

²The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he is become salvation to me: he is my God, and I will glorify him: the God of my father, and I will exalt him.

³The Lord is as a man of war, Almighty is his name.

v.3

VERS. 3.-- *The Lord is as a man of war,* etc. Another reading: *The Lord shall destroy wars.* Amos IX: *The Lord is his name.* He destroys not only visible battles, but those also which are ours against *principalities, and powers, and the rulers of these darknesses.--The Lord* indeed *is his name,* and there is no creature of which he is not Lord. The chariots of Pharao and his army he cast into the sea: the chosen riders, the *ternistratores,* he drowned in the Red Sea. Pharao, as being more powerful in malice and holding the kingdom of wickedness, drives chariots: it is not enough for him to mount one horse, but he drives many at once, and compels them with a twisted lash. Those whom thou seest fouler in luxury, more savage in cruelty, more loathsome in avarice, know that they are of the chariots of Pharao, which he yokes to his car: on these he is borne and flies over the open fields of crimes, with loosened reins. There are other chosen riders, chosen, that is, unto malice. They are called *ternistratores* for this reason, that there is a threefold way of sinning for men. For they sin in deed, in word and in thought. Therefore they are called *ternistratores* one by one, because they possess these three ways of sinning in us, and are ever on the watch and work by ambushes, that either the one may draw an evil word out of the wretched man, or the other wring out an iniquitous work, or the third snatch away a most wicked thought. Finally, where the seed of the word of God falls and perishes, a threefold place is described: by the wayside, among thorns, in stony ground. Contrariwise the good earth brings forth a threefold fruit, sixtyfold, hundredfold, thirtyfold. For there is also a threefold way of doing well, since something good is done either by work, or by thought, or by word; whence the Apostle says in I Cor. III: *He who buildeth upon the foundation silver, gold, precious stones,* indicating a threefold way of good things; and calling the way of evil things wood, hay, stubble. These *ternistratores* therefore are wicked angels, who keep watch in these ways, that they may drive anyone into sin; whom the Lord will plunge into the Red Sea, and will deliver over to fiery waves in the day of judgment, and cover with a sea of punishments.

⁴Pharao's chariots and his army he hath cast into the sea: his chosen captains are drowned in the Red Sea.

⁵The depths have covered them, they are sunk to the bottom like a stone.

v.5–6

VERS. 5, 6.-- *They went down into the deep like a stone.* Because, namely, such men were not stones out of which the children of Abraham might be raised up, but such as loved the deep and liquid element, that is, the bitter and flowing pleasure of things present. Whence it is said of them: *They were sunk like lead in most mighty water.* Sinners are heavy, and iniquity is read to sit upon a talent of lead: hence the wicked are drowned in the deep like lead, but the saints walk upon the waters, because they are light, and are not weighed down by the burden of sin. Christ walked upon the waters, who truly did no sin: Peter also walked, but doubted a little; for he had somewhat of lead, on account of which it is said to him in Matthew XIV: *O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?* All therefore are saved by fire, that if perchance anything of the kind of lead has been admitted, the fire may boil it away and dissolve it, so that all may be made the best gold, since the gold of that land is the best which the saints are to possess; and as the furnace tries gold, so tribulation tries just men. All therefore must come to the melting-pot. For God sits and melts, and purges the sons of Juda. If any man bring many good works and little of iniquity, that little is dissolved and purged as by fire, and the whole remains pure gold. If any man bring more lead, more is burned away, that it may be the more boiled down; so that even if little, yet something of purified gold may remain; but he who comes wholly leaden is plunged *like lead in most mighty water.*

⁶Thy right hand, O Lord, is magnified in strength: thy right hand, O Lord, hath slain the enemy.

⁷And in the multitude of thy glory thou hast put down thy adversaries: thou hast sent thy wrath, which hath devoured them like stubble.

⁸And with the blast of thy anger the waters were gathered together: the flowing water stood, the depths were gathered together in the midst of the sea.

⁹The enemy said: I will pursue and overtake, I will divide the spoils, my soul shall have its fill: I will draw my sword, my hand shall slay them.

¹⁰Thy wind blew and the sea covered them: they sunk as lead in the mighty waters.

¹¹Who is like to thee, among the strong, O Lord? who is like to thee, glorious in holiness, terrible and praise-worthy, doing wonders?

v.11

VERS. 11.-- *Who is like to thee,* etc. He does not compare God to the images of the nations, nor to the demons who falsely claim to themselves the name of gods, but he calls those gods who are so named by grace and by participation of God, according to that of Psalm LXXXI: *I have said: You are gods.* And in the same place: *God hath stood in the assembly of gods.* But these, although they are capable of God, and seem to be endowed with this name by grace, yet none is like to him in power or in nature; and as to what is said, *we shall be like to him,* this likeness is referred not to nature but to grace, as a picture is like to him whose image is expressed in it as to grace, but far unlike as to substance. For that is the appearance of flesh, and the comeliness of a living body; this is a dye of colours, and wax laid upon boards that lack sense. None therefore among gods is like to the Lord, invisible, namely, incorporeal, unchangeable, without beginning and without end. None is the creator of all things save the Father, creating all things through the Son, and sanctifying all things in the Holy Spirit.

¹²Thou stretchedst forth thy hand, and the earth swallowed them.

v.12–13

VERS. 12, 13.-- *Thou hast stretched forth,* etc. That moves me which he says: *Thou hast stretched forth thy right hand and the earth swallowed them,* as though the cause of their being swallowed by the earth was that he stretched forth his right hand. If thou consider how the Lord, lifted up on the cross, all the day stretched out his hand to a people not believing but contradicting, and how death for iniquity crushed the unbelieving people that cried out: *Crucify, crucify him*, thou wilt find how *he stretched forth his right hand, and the earth swallowed them.* Yet one must not altogether despair. For if he who has been swallowed come to himself, he can be vomited forth like Jonas. All of us the earth once swallowed and held in the inmost parts of hell: therefore Christ came down not only to the lands, but also to the lower parts of the earth: and there he found us swallowed up, and sitting in the shadow of death; and leading us out thence, not only to the earth, lest we be swallowed again, but he prepares also the kingdom of heaven. The earth swallows up the wicked even today, who always think of earth, do earthly things, speak of earth, wrangle, desire earth, place their hope in it, look not up to heaven, think not of things to come, fear not the judgment of God, nor desire his promises; when thou seest such a one, say ye that the earth has swallowed him: and if thou see any man given over to lust and to the pleasures of the body, in whom the mind avails nothing but desire possesses the whole, say thou that the earth has swallowed him.

¹³In thy mercy thou hast been a leader to the people which thou hast redeemed: and in thy strength thou hast carried them to thy holy habitation.

¹⁴Nations rose up, and were angry: sorrows took hold on the inhabitants of Philisthiim.

v.14–15

VERS. 14, 15.-- *They went up,* etc. The nations heard and were angry, sorrows took hold of the inhabitants of Philisthiim, etc. As to the history, it is certain that none of these nations was present at the wonders: how then were the Philisthiim, and the Moabites, and Edom, and the remaining nations which he enumerates, terrified with terror or angered? But, spiritually, thou wilt find that the Philisthiim, that is, *falling by the cup,* and Edom, namely, *the earthly one,* tremble: and their princes run to and fro and quake, bound fast with sorrows, when they see their kingdoms, which are in hell, penetrated by him who descended into the lower parts of the earth, that he might snatch away those who were possessed by death. Hence they fear and tremble, because they have felt the greatness of his arm; hence also the inhabitants of Chanaan pined away, that is, *the changeable* and *the moveable,* when they saw their kingdoms shaken, and the strong one bound. Let fear then come upon them, and trembling: the demons tremble and fear the cross of Christ, in which they were triumphed over, and their principalities and power were stripped from them. Fear therefore and trembling shall fall upon them, when they shall see in us the sign of the cross faithfully fixed, and the greatness of the arm which the Lord spread out upon the cross, as Isaias LXV says: *All the day I have spread forth my hands to a people that believeth not,* etc. They will not fear thee otherwise, nor will the trembling of thee rush upon them, unless they see in thee the cross of Christ, so that thou mayest say: *But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ*.

¹⁵Then were the princes of Edom troubled, trembling seized on the stout men of Moab: all the inhabitants of Chanaan became stiff.

v.15–16

VERS. 15, 16.-- *Let them become unmoveable as a stone,* etc. To be made as a stone is not to be a stone by nature. For nothing would be made save what it was not. This we have said on account of those who say that Pharao or the Egyptians were of an evil nature, and were not brought into this from the freedom of choice; and who accuse God the Creator as cruel, as one who turns men into stones: he did not say, Let them become as stones, and then keep silence, but he appointed a time and a measure of the domination, namely, *until thy people pass over.* The former people, which was before us, was made as a hard and unbelieving stone, not that the nature of a stone should remain, but until the people pass over which the Lord has purchased. Whence Rom. XI: *For blindness in part hath happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in, and then Israel should be saved;* which by unbelief was made as a stone, whence Matthew III: *For God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.* But since he is the creator of all things, how is he said to have purchased what there is no doubt is his own? For it is said in the canticle of Deuteronomy: *Is not this the same Lord thy God, who made and created thee, and purchased thee?* For each man seems to acquire that which was not his own. Whence the heretics say of the Saviour that those whom he purchased were not his: for at a price given he bought men whom the Creator had made, and they say it is certain that everyone buys what is not his own. For the Apostle says in I Cor. VII: *You are bought with a price.* But hear the Prophet: *For your sins you are sold, and for your iniquities have I put away your mother*. We are therefore all creatures of God, but each is sold by his own sins, and departs from the Creator. We are God's, therefore, according to that we were created by him: but made servants of the devil, according to that we are sold by our own sins. But Christ coming redeemed us who served the devil, to whom we had sold ourselves by sinning; and thus he seems both to have received back his own, whom he created, and to have purchased strangers, who by sinning had acquired a strange master. But he is rightly said to have redeemed us, who gave his own blood for our price. But what did the devil give, that he should buy us? Manslaying is the devil's money, for he is a murderer from the beginning: thou hast done a manslaying, thou hast received the devil's money. The same is to be said of adultery, sacrilege, theft, false witness and the like: for with this money he buys and makes his own servants all who have received anything, however much, of this revenue of his.

¹⁶Let fear and dread fall upon them, in the greatness of thy arm: let them become immoveable as a stone, until thy people, O Lord, pass by: until this thy people pass by, which thou hast possessed.

¹⁷Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thy inheritance, in thy most firm habitation, which thou hast made, O Lord; thy sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.

v.17

VERS. 17.-- *Thou shalt bring them in and plant them,* etc. The Lord will not have us planted in Egypt, nor in low and lowly places, but in the mountain of his inheritance. Of this planting the Prophet says in Psalm LXXIX: *Thou hast brought a vineyard out of Egypt, thou hast cast out the nations and planted it: thou wast the guide of the way in its sight, and thou didst plant its roots, and it filled the earth. Its shadow covered the mountains, and its branches the cedars of God.* Dost thou mark how God plants, and where? He plants not in valleys, but on mountains, in high and lofty places. For those whom he leads out of Egypt, that is, out of the world unto faith, he will not have set again in lowly places, but that their conversation be lofty, and that they dwell on mountains and on the heights, not creep along the ground. He will not have his vineyard bear its fruits any longer cast down in a low place, but that the shoots be led upward, be set on high, become layered vines: and layered not upon lowly trees, but upon lofty and most high cedars of God, namely the prophets and apostles: to whom if we be joined, and the vine which God brought out of Egypt, and our shoots be spread through their branches, and being entwined with them we be made layers, bound one to another by the bonds of charity, we shall bring forth very much fruit. *For every tree that maketh not good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire*. *Thy most firm dwelling place,* etc. In the prepared habitation which thou hast prepared, O Lord. See the goodness of the merciful Lord: he will not bring thee to labour, he will not that thou thyself make thee a dwelling place; he will now bring thee into a habitation already prepared. Whence John IV: *Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labours.* *Thy sanctuary,* etc. *Thy holy place, O Lord,* etc. The tabernacle of God, or the temple, is called a holy place, because it sanctifies those who approach. In Hebrews IX this is said to be made not by the hand of men, but by the hand of God: for thy sake therefore God both plants and builds; he is made a husbandman and a builder, that nothing be wanting to thee. Whence the Apostle in I Cor. III: *You are God's husbandry, God's building.* What then is this holy place prepared not by the hand of men, but of God. Prov. IX: *Wisdom hath built herself a house,* that is, the flesh of Christ, not by the hand of man, that is, not by human work: the temple of the flesh is built in the Virgin, but the stone cut without hands grew, and became a great mountain: this is the holy place of the flesh assumed, and cut both without hands and without the work of men out of the mountain of human nature and the substance of flesh.

¹⁸The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.

v.18

VERS. 18.-- *The Lord shall reign,* etc. *O Lord, who reignest unto the age and unto the age and yet further.* As often as it is said *unto the age,* a length of time indeed is signified, but that there is some end; and if it is said unto another age, something longer is signified, but still an end is set: and as often as ages of ages are named, perhaps some term is signified which, though unknown to us, is yet appointed by God. But that he has here added *and yet further,* leaves no sense of any term or of an end: for whatsoever thou hast thought, in which thou supposest the end to stand, the prophetic word always says to thee, *and yet further;* as if it should say to thee, Thou thinkest the Lord will reign unto the age of the age, and yet further thou thinkest unto the ages of ages: and yet further, and whatsoever thou shalt have said of the spaces of his kingdom, the prophet always says to thee, *and yet further.*

¹⁹For Pharao went in on horseback with his chariots and horsemen into the sea: and the Lord brought back upon them the waters of the sea: but the children of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst thereof.

v.19

VERS. 19.-- *But the children of Israel,* etc. And thou, if *thou art a son of Israel, thou canst walk on dry ground in the midst of the sea.* If thou shalt be in the midst of a depraved and perverse nation, going as the light of the sun in the midst of sinners, the moisture of sin shall not soak thee, and as thou passest through this world no wave of lust shall bespatter thee, no heat of covetousness shall lash thee. He who is Egypt, and follows Pharao, is drowned in the waves of vices. But he who follows Christ, and walks as he walked, to him the water becomes a wall on the right hand and on the left. He himself goes forward by the middle way, over the dry ground he turns aside neither to the right hand nor to the left, until he come out to liberty, and sing a hymn of victory to the Lord, saying: *Let us sing to the Lord,* etc.

²⁰So Mary the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand: and all the women went forth after her with timbrels and with dances.

v.20–21

VERS. 20, 21.-- *A timbrel.* According to Jerome it is a kind of trumpet having at the top a reed or a pipe; through which it renders a sounding voice. The choir, according to the same, is a simple skin with two hemlock pipes; through the one it is blown into, through the other it renders a sound: by both therefore is signified the narrow understanding of the old law. For how brief and how small it is, is shown from this, that it is carried by the hand of a woman. According to Cassiodorus a timbrel is a skin stretched between two pieces of wood: by which the maceration of the flesh is signified. But a choir is a multitude singing together, and it is called *chorus* as it were the song of those of one age. Because therefore in a choir all the voices sound equally, by it charity is signified, whereby we are all one in Christ. Whosoever therefore renders praises to God in jubilation, let him do this in the choir, that is, in charity, and in the timbrel, that is, in the mortification of the flesh. Whence Psalm CL: *Praise ye him with timbrel and choir,* etc.

²¹And she began the song to them, saying: Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea.

²²And Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went forth into the wilderness of Sur: and they marched three days through the wilderness, and found no water.

²³And they came into Mara, and they could not drink the waters of Mara because they were bitter: whereupon he gave a name also agreeable to the place, calling it Mara, that is, bitterness.

v.23–24

VERS. 23, 24.-- *And they came,* etc. After the passage of the Red Sea, after the choirs and the timbrels, after the triumphal hymns, one comes to Mara, that is, to *water* that is *bitter,* which the people could not drink; one comes to the peril of thirst. But Moses cried to the Lord, and he showed him a wood, by which the water was made sweet, and there God set for him justices and judgment; where, namely, there was bitterness, where there was thirst, and, what is heavier, in an abundance of waters, there was no other place more worthy and more fitting. Besides, as to what he says, *God showed him a wood,* and he cast it into the water, and it was made sweet, as though God could not make the water sweet without a wood, or as though Moses did not know the wood. But if the law be taken according to the letter, it is bitter, and is itself Mara. For what is so bitter as that a child should receive the wound of circumcision on the eighth day, and that tender infancy should suffer the hardness of the iron? For the cup of the law is bitter to the people of God, not the people that was baptized in Moses in the cloud and in the sea, but that which in spirit and in water cannot drink and taste it, nor bear the bitterness of the victims, nor the observance of the sabbath. But if God show a wood to be cast into this bitterness, the water of the law becomes sweet and drinkable. Prov. III: *Wisdom is a tree of life to all that embrace her.* If therefore the wood of the wisdom of Christ shall have been cast into the law, showing how circumcision is to be understood, and the sabbath, and the law of leprosy and the like, the bitterness of the law is turned into the sweetness of spiritual understanding, so that the people can drink which has left the idols and taken refuge with God. If it hear the law teaching about sacrifices, it at once shrinks back and cannot drink. Into this bitterness therefore, that is, into the letter of the law, God set justices and testimonies, as it were, namely, into a certain little vessel he shuts up [condidit] the treasures of his wisdom and knowledge. Whence: *We have this treasure in earthen vessels*. That this water therefore may be drunk, God shows a wood to be cast into it, that he who drinks may not die, may not feel the bitterness. If therefore any man drink without the wood of life, that is, without the mystery of the cross, without the faith of Christ, without spiritual understanding, he shall die of the bitterness. Whence: *The letter killeth,* that is, the water of Mara, if it be drunk unchanged and not turned into sweetness.

²⁴And the people murmured against Moses, saying: What shall we drink?

²⁵But he cried to the Lord, and he shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, they were turned into sweetness. There he appointed him ordinances, and judgments, and there he proved him,

v.25–27

VERS. 25-27.-- *Who showed him,* etc. There was a kind of wood that had this power: or could God have done it with any wood whatever, who was doing such great wonders? Yet what is said seems to signify, *he showed him,* as though it were already such; unless perhaps it was a place where no wood at all was to be found, so that this very thing was of the divine help, that the Lord showed him a wood where there was none, and by the wood made the waters sweet, prefiguring the glory and the grace of the cross. But even in such a wood who is to be praised save the Creator and the Shower of it. *There he appointed for him precepts.* Why did he add: After *God set for him justices and judgments, there he tempted him, saying: If thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God.* He seems to expound why he gave justifications and judgments, namely that he might tempt them whether they would hear the voice of the Lord God, and keep his commandments. For as to the former people, what good or perfect thing could be commanded to them who murmured and gainsaid, who a little after, forgetting the wonders of God, turn to idols? Precepts therefore are given in which they may be tempted; whence: *I gave you precepts and justifications that are not good, in which they shall not live*. For being tempted in the precepts they are not found faithful, and therefore it was found that what was unto life was unto death for them. For the same thing, if it be kept, begets life; if it be not kept, death. To those therefore who keep them not the commandments are called not good, and such as they shall not live in. But with the wood of the cross mingled in, being turned into sweetness and spiritually understood, the commandments of life have also been kept. *All the languor which I laid upon Egypt I will not bring upon thee.* He seems to say that if a man keep the commandments he shall suffer no sickness, that is, neither fevers, nor other bodily pains. But Job, altogether most just and full of all piety, is filled from the head to the feet with the worst ulcer. But the just do not have those infirmities which the Egyptians have. Egypt is the world: to love the world therefore and the things that are in the world is the Egyptian languor; to observe months, seasons, to cling to the courses of the stars, to serve the flesh, to give labour to luxury and to be at leisure for delights, is the Egyptian languor. *And they came,* etc. The people is not led into Elim before, where there were twelve fountains of waters, in which there was nothing of bitterness, but very great pleasantness from the thickness of the palm trees: but first it was led to the salt and bitter waters, which being sweetened by the wood shown by the Lord, one comes to the fountains. If we follow the history alone, it does not much edify us to know to what place they came first, to what second. But first the people is led to the letter of the law, from which, while it remains in its bitterness, it cannot withdraw. When therefore it has been sweetened by the wood of life, and spiritually understood, it passes from the Old Testament to the New, and to the twelve apostolic fountains, where are found seventy trees of palms. For not the twelve apostles alone preached the faith of Christ, but seventy others also, through whom the world knew the palms of Christ's victory. It is not enough therefore for the people of God to drink the water of Mara, although sweetened by the wood of life; the Old Testament alone does not suffice for drinking, for one must come to the New, of which one drinks without scruple and without difficulty. The Jews also are even now at Mara, that is, at the bitter waters: for God has not yet shown them the wood by which they grow sweet, because *unless they shall have believed, they shall not understand*.

²⁶Saying: If thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and do what is right before him, and obey his commandments, and keep all his precepts, none of the evils that I laid upon Egypt, will I bring upon thee: for I am the Lord thy healer.

²⁷And the children of Israel came into Elim, where there were twelve fountains of water, and seventy palm trees: and they encamped by the waters.