1 Moses answered, and said: They will not believe me, nor hear my voice, but they will say: The Lord hath not appeared to thee.
2 Then he said to him: What is that thou holdest in thy hand? He answered: A rod.
v.2–5
VERS. 2-5.-- *What is that which,* etc. Moses is the Jewish people; the rod, the power of the Godhead; the serpent, Christ's mortality: for since death came by a serpent, by a serpent mortality is signified. Or because it is written in Matthew X: *Be ye prudent as serpents;* and because the highest prudence, that is, the wisdom of God, was made flesh, his mortality is rightly figured in the serpent. Whence John IV: *As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up.* Moses held the rod, because the Jewish people, before the coming of the Redeemer, trusted in the power of God; he cast it upon the ground, because through the patriarchs and prophets it announced that God was to be made flesh; the rod is turned into a snake, because Christ, remaining God in himself, was made mortal in man. But Moses also, beholding the snake, was afraid and fled, because the Jewish people, when it saw Christ mortal, was terrified to believe him God. He is bidden to hold its tail, because the people which now refuses to believe will gather itself to the faith in the uttermost part of the Lord's body, that is, in the later time of the Church, namely at the end of the world; holding the tail of the snake, because him whom it had before despised as mortal, it will confess in the last part of the Church to be its own Redeemer. Presently the serpent returns into a rod, because as soon as the Jewish people shall have believed in Christ, he will presently appear unto judgment in the power of his Godhead: so that now the serpent is a rod, because he who on earth was a man despised will, coming from heaven, be seen as God above the angels. The serpent persuaded man to death. Death therefore comes from the serpent; the rod in the serpent is Christ in death. Moses was afraid and fled: for when Christ was dead, the disciples were afraid, falling back from the hope in which they had been. He took hold of the tail, that is, of the hinder parts, and it was made a rod: because, first slain, afterwards, when all was accomplished, he returned by rising again to that which he had been, where, death being swallowed up by life, nothing of the serpent appeared in him. Or the tail of the serpent is the end of the world, because thus the mortality of the Church is rolled onward through slippery times; some go, others come, by death, as it were by the serpent, through whom death was sown: but at the end of the world, as at the tail, we return to the hand of God, and being laid hold of we shall be restored; and when the last enemy, death, has been destroyed, we who rise again shall be at the right hand of God a rod of the kingdom.
3 And the Lord said: Cast it down upon the ground. He cast it down, and it was turned into a serpent, so that Moses fled from it.
4 And the Lord said: Put out thy hand, and take it by the tail. He put forth his hand, and took hold of it, and it was turned into a rod.
5 That they may believe, saith he, that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to thee.
6 And the Lord said again: Put thy hand into thy bosom. And when he had put it into his bosom, he brought it forth leprous as snow.
v.6–8
VERS. 6, 8.--... *Put forth thy hand,* etc. Some assert that that portent came to pass in order to show that the law is not laid down for the just man. Although afterwards he ratifies laws by what manner the disease of leprosy is to be examined and the unclean man declared, yet very many laws are so delivered as though they were given to fools and to little children. So far does God accommodate himself to our weakness! The hand is white, that is, unclean, for whiteness in the skin is leprosy, not fairness. For the very inheritance of God, that is, the people, being sent forth from him, was made unclean. Whence Psalm LXXIII: *Why turnest thou away thy hand and thy right hand,* etc. But the hand was called back into the bosom, and returned to its own colour: so the Jewish people, estranged from the bosom of God, remained unclean without; but being called back, it will return to its former colour when it shall have acknowledged the Saviour. *For blindness in part hath happened in Israel*.
7 And he said: Put back thy hand into thy bosom. He put it back, and brought it out again, and it was like the other flesh.
8 If they will not believe thee, saith he, nor hear the voice of the former sign, they will believe the word of the latter sign.
9 But if they will not even believe these two signs, nor hear thy voice: take of the river water, and pour it out upon the dry land, and whatsoever thou drawest out of the river, shall be turned into blood.
v.9–10
VERS. 9, 10.-- *Take water,* etc. The water signifies the people; whence Apocalypse XVII: *The waters which thou sawest are peoples and nations.* The people therefore is turned into blood, that is, into faith in the blood of Christ.
10 Moses said: I beseech thee, Lord, I am not eloquent from yesterday and the day before; and since thou hast spoken to thy servant, I have more impediment and slowness of tongue.
v.10
VERS. 10.-- *I beseech thee, Lord,* etc. As to what Moses says to the Lord: *I pray thee, Lord, I am not eloquent since yesterday nor since the day before, nor since thou hast begun to speak to thy servant,* it is understood that he could believe himself to be made eloquent suddenly by the will of God, when he says: *nor since thou hast begun to speak to thy servant,* as though showing that it could have come to pass that one who had not been eloquent before yesterday and the day before should suddenly be made so from the time when the Lord began to speak with him. While Moses was in Egypt, and was being instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, he was not of a slender voice, nor slow of tongue, nor did he declare himself uneloquent. For he was, as regards the Egyptians, of a sonorous voice and of incomparable eloquence. But when he heard the voice of God and received the utterances of the Lord, he perceives his voice to be slender and thin and slow, and his tongue hindered, and he pronounces himself dumb, when he begins to know the true Word, which was in the beginning with God: for though an untaught man be compared with dumb animals, he will seem eloquent; but if with the learned and the eloquent, foolish and dumb. But if anyone should regard the word of God and the divine wisdom, weighing it far more highly than it is weighed among us, before God he will profess himself a dumb animal. Whence Psalm LXXII: *As a beast of burden was I driven before thee.* Since therefore he advanced so far in understanding as to know himself, which is a great part of wisdom, the divine condescension rewarded him, saying: *I will open thy mouth,* etc. Blessed are they whose mouth God opens that they may speak. Whence Psalm LXXX: *Open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it.* Likewise Paul says to the Ephesians VI: *That speech may be given me in the opening of my mouth.* The mouth, then, of those who speak true things God opens; the mouth of those who speak a lie, false witness, buffooneries, filthiness, and of whisperers too and detractors, and of those who speak idle things, the devil opens. Of Judas it is related in John XIII, *that Satan entered into him, and put it into his heart to betray him.* His mouth therefore he opened, that he might speak with the Pharisees how he might betray him for money received. Now it is no small grace to discern the mouth which God opens and that which the devil opens. God also opens the ears of the saints to hear the divine words; whence: The Lord will open my ear. He opens the eyes, as he opened the eyes of Agar, and she saw a well of living water; whence Eliseus: *Open, Lord, the eyes of thy servant, that he may see, for there are more with us*. But the ear which is opened by the instruction of the Lord is sometimes open, sometimes shut; whence: Thou shalt not receive a vain hearing. If vain, profane, filthy things are spoken, he who knows the instruction of the Lord shuts his ear and says: *But I was as one dumb, who opened not his mouth, and as one deaf I heard not*. But if the things spoken pertain to the profit of the soul, if the discourse is of God, if it teaches morals, invites to virtues, cuts away vices, let the ears lie open and the whole door of the soul. And it is to be noted that the law used the greatest moderation in saying: *Thou shalt not receive a vain hearing;* it did not say, Thou shalt not hear; but, *Thou shalt not receive.* For we often hear vain things: for Marcion and Valentinus, and all who dispute against the Creator, speak vain things; yet we frequently hear them that we may contradict them, but we do not receive them, because the devil opens their mouth. May the Lord vouchsafe to open our mouth, that we may be able to refute the gainsayer, and to stop the mouth which the devil opens.
11 The Lord said to him: Who made man's mouth? or who made the dumb and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? did not I?
v.11
VERS. 11.-- *Who made the mouth of man?* etc. There are those who calumniate God, or rather the Scripture of the Old Testament, because God said that he made the dumb. What then do they say of Christ, who says openly in John X: *I am come, that they who see not may see; and they who see may be made blind.* And who, save one who does not know, would believe that anything can befall a man in respect of bodily defects which God does not will? But that he wills the whole justly no one doubts.
12 Go therefore, and I will be in thy mouth; and I will teach thee what thou shalt speak.
v.12–13
VERS. 12, 13.-- *Go therefore,* etc. *Allegorically.* As to what the Lord says to Moses: *But now go thou, and I will open thy mouth and instruct thee what thou art to speak,* it appears that not only the instruction of the mouth, but the very opening of it also, belongs to the grace of God. For he did not say, Open thy mouth, and I will instruct thee; but he promises both, I will open, and I will instruct. And in Psalm LXXX: *Open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it up.* Where he signifies in man the will of receiving what God gives to him that wills, so that to the beginning of the will belongs, *Open wide thy mouth,* but to the grace of God, *and I will fill it.*
13 But he said: I beseech thee, Lord, send whom thou wilt send.
14 The Lord being angry at Moses, said: Aaron the Levite is thy brother, I know that he is eloquent: behold he cometh forth to meet thee, and seeing thee, shall be glad at heart.
v.14
VERS. 14.-- *The Lord being angry with Moses, said,* etc. He seems, as to one distrusting, not to have given the fullest faculty, etc., *as far as* whose figure Moses bears as it were in the midst between God and Aaron, and Aaron between Moses and the people.
15 Speak to him, and put my words in his mouth: and I will be in thy mouth, and in his month, and will shew you what you must do.
v.15–18
VERS. 15-18.-- *And I will be in thy mouth and in his mouth,* etc. Not only to Moses is it promised that his mouth shall be opened by the Lord, but to Aaron also. For it is said: I will open thy mouth and his mouth, and I will instruct you what ye are to do.
16 He shall speak in thy stead to the people, and shall be thy mouth: but thou shalt be to him in those things that pertain to God.
17 And take this rod in thy hand. wherewith thou shalt do the signs.
18 Moses went his way, and returned to Jethro his father in law, and said to him; I will go and return to my brethren into Egypt, that I may see if they be yet alive. And Jethro said to him: Go in peace.
19 And the Lord said to Moses, in Madian: Go, and return into Egypt; for they are all dead that sought thy life.
v.19
VERS. 19.-- *The Lord therefore said,* etc. Now after many days the king of Egypt died. And the Lord said to Moses in Madian: *Go, proceed into Egypt,* etc. Many kinds of expression are to be noted in these words. For first he says: *Go, proceed into Egypt,* as though one were not enough; then, *they are all dead who sought thy life,* whereas the Scripture had said that only the king of Egypt was dead: of whom alone it had before been said that he sought to kill Moses. Or did he himself die last after the other enemies? And if it is so, it is not a manner of speech, but the sense.
20 Moses therefore took his wife, and his sons, and set them upon an ass; and returned into Egypt, carrying the rod of God in his hand.
v.20
VERS. 20.-- *Moses therefore took,* etc. As to what is said, that Moses set his wife and his little ones upon a beast, that he might go into Egypt, but that afterwards Jethro his father-in-law met him there with them, when he had led the people out of Egypt: it is to be understood that, after that slaying which was to come from the angel, the wife of Moses or of the child returned with the little ones. For some have thought that the angel terrified him for this cause, lest the female sex should accompany him to the hindrance of the ministry divinely laid upon him.
21 And the Lord said to him as he was returning into Egypt: See that thou do all the wonders before Pharao, which I have put in thy hand: I shall harden his heart, and he will not let the people go.
v.21–23
VERS. 21-23.-- *I will harden his heart.* What is, *I will harden his heart,* save that, when my grace shall have been absent, his own wickedness hardens him? Just as, whenever water is bound fast by exceeding cold, it is loosed when the heat of the sun comes upon it, and when the sun departs it is hardened again: so by the cold of sins the charity of many grows cold, and they are hardened as it were into ice; and when the warmth of the divine mercy shall have come upon them, they are loosed. This we recognize in Pharao, who, as often as the scourges were removed from him, hardened himself and raised himself up against God; as often as he was afflicted, he made supplication. There is not therefore iniquity in God. Whence it was not so much the power as the patience of God that made Pharao to be hardened. Which thing we too are wont to practise with our home-born servants, whom, when they sin frequently, we indulge, saying: I have made thee such as thou art, I by sparing thee have nourished thy insolence and thy negligence.
22 And thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Israel is my son, my firstborn.
23 I have said to thee: Let my son go, that he may serve me, and thou wouldst not let him go: behold I will kill thy son, thy firstborn.
24 And when he was in his journey, in the inn, the Lord met him, and would have killed him.
v.24
VERS. 24.-- *The Lord met him,* etc. Another reading: *And it came to pass on the way at the resting-place, an angel met him, and sought to kill him: and Sephora, taking a pebble, circumcised the foreskin of her son, and fell down at his feet and said: The blood of the circumcision of my child hath stood, and he departed from him because of this which she said: The blood of the circumcision hath stood.* First it is asked whom the angel wished to slay, etc., *as far as* by a great mystery, if I am not mistaken.
25 Immediately Sephora took a very sharp stone, and circumcised the foreskin of her son, and touched his feet, and said: A bloody spouse art thou to me.
v.25–26
VERS. 25, 26.-- *Thou art to me a spouse of blood,* etc. According to history, the Gentile mother, wondering at the newness of the thing, could say to Moses: *Thou art to me a spouse of blood;* as if to say, the rite of thy nation compels me to shed the blood of my son, which among other nations is not the custom. But mystically Sephora signifies the Church from among the Gentiles, which strips the foreskin of her son, that is, of the Gentile people, with a most sharp stone, that is, with the teaching of the Holy Spirit, or with that rock of which it is said in II Corinthians X: *Now the rock was Christ,* that it may be cleansed from all defilement of flesh and spirit: *And that he may put off the old man with his deeds*. For the blood of circumcision stands when this corruptible shall put on incorruption.
26 And he let him go after she had said: A bloody spouse art thou to me, because of the circumcision.
27 And the Lord said to Aaron: Go into the desert to meet Moses. And he went forth to meet him in the mountain of God, and kissed him.
v.27–31
VERS. 27-31.-- *And the Lord said,* etc. Aaron met Moses, and he went out of Egypt. But it matters where he meets Moses, whose mouth is to be opened by the Lord: and he meets him in the mount of God. Deservedly is his mouth opened who meets him in the mount of God. Peter, James and John in the mount deserved both to see the Lord Jesus transfigured, and Moses and Elias with him in glory. Thou also, unless thou shalt have ascended the mount of God, and there met Moses, that is, unless thou shalt have ascended the lofty ascent of the law, unless thou shalt have seized the summit of spiritual understanding, there is no door opened to thee by the Lord. If thou shalt have stood in the lowly place of the letter, thou hast not met Moses in the mount of God; God has not opened thy mouth, nor instructed thee what it behoves thee to speak; unless Aaron had met Moses in the mount, unless he had seen his understanding to be lofty, he would not speak to him the words of God, nor would he have delivered to him the power of the signs, nor have made him a sharer of so great a mystery.
28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord, by which he had sent him, and the signs that he had commanded.
29 And they came together, and they assembled all the ancients of the children of Israel.
30 And Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had said to Moses: and he wrought the signs before the people.
31 And the people believed. And they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction: and falling down they adored.