Exodus 5

Some ask how the people can be told that God gave the order that he would lead them from Egypt into the land of Canaan, while Pharaoh was told that they wanted to make three days' journey into the desert to offer sacrifice to their god by his command. But the passage should be understood thus: although God knew what he was going to do and knew that Pharaoh would not agree to dismiss the people, that fact was to be stated first that would also happen first, if Pharaoh let the people go. The contumacy of Pharaoh and his courtiers merited everything that happened, to which the Scripture afterward attests. God is not lying when he commands what he knows is not going to be done by the one he commands; his purpose is to obtain a just judgment.

But since it is a long matter to speak of each thing in order, let us see what "Moses and Aaron", "having gone in" to Pharaoh, say: "Thus says the Lord: let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness". Moses does not will that the people, while placed in Egypt, should serve the Lord, but that it should go out into the desert and there serve the Lord. This is without doubt what he shows: that so long as anyone remains in the dark deeds of the world and is engaged in the obscurity of affairs, he cannot "serve the Lord"; for he cannot "serve two masters", he cannot "serve the Lord and mammon". We must, therefore, go out of Egypt; the world must be forsaken, if we wish to "serve the Lord". But it must be forsaken, I say, not in place, but in mind; not by setting out on a journey, but by advancing in faith. Hear John saying these same things: "little children, do not love the world nor the things that are in the world; for all that is in the world is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes".

Let us then become lowly, that we may be high. For most utterly doth arrogance abase. This abased Pharaoh. For, "I know not," he saith, "the Lord," and he became inferior to flies and frogs, and the locusts, and after that with his very arms and horses was he drowned in the sea. In direct opposition to him, Abraham saith, "I am dust and ashes," and prevailed over countless barbarians, and having fallen into the midst of Egyptians, returned, bearing a trophy more glorious than the former, and, cleaving to this virtue, grew ever more high. Therefore he is celebrated everywhere, therefore he is crowned and proclaimed; but Pharaoh is both earth and ashes. For nothing doth God so abhor as arrogance.

But Pharaoh resists; "the ruler of these darknesses" does not wish to release you; he does not wish you to be drawn away from his darkness and led to the light of knowledge. And hear what he says: "who is he," he says, "whose voice I should hear? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go". You hear what "the prince of this world" answers: he says that he does not know God. Do you see what raw pride does? So long as "he is not in the labors of men and is not scourged with men", for that reason pride held him fast. Then, a little later, you will see how much he profits under the scourges, how much better he is made when beaten. He who now says: "I do not know the Lord", afterward, when he has felt the force of the blows, is going to say: "pray the Lord for me"; and not only this, but even, when his own magicians testify, he will confess that "it is the finger of God" in the power of the signs. Let no one, then, be so untaught in divine discipline as to think the divine scourges a ruin, as to believe the blows of the Lord a punishing destruction. Behold Pharaoh too, most hardened; yet he profits when beaten. Before the blows he does not know the Lord; when beaten, he asks that the Lord be entreated for him. It is an advance under punishments to recognize this very thing—why you have deserved the punishment. "I do not know," then, he says, "the Lord, and I do not let Israel go". But see in the Gospels how, when beaten, he amends this saying. For it is written that the demons cried out to the Lord and said: "why have you come before the time to torment us? we know you, who you are: you are the Son of the living God". When they have felt the torments, they know the Lord. Before the scourges he says: "I do not know the Lord, and I do not let Israel go"; but he will both let Israel go, and not only let it go, but will himself urge it to go out. For there is no "fellowship of light with darkness"; no "part of the faithful with the unfaithful".

And yet what does he say? Let us see how or how far he bids us set out from Egypt: "we will go," he says, "a journey of three days into the wilderness, and there we will sacrifice to the Lord our God". What is "the way of three days" which we must travel, that, going out from Egypt, we may be able to arrive at the place in which we ought to sacrifice? I understand that way to be he who said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life". This way must be traveled by us in three days. For whoever "shall confess with his mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in his heart that God raised him from the dead" on the third day, "shall be saved". This, then, is the "three days' way" by which one arrives at the place where one may sacrifice to the Lord and render "the sacrifice of praise". This, as far as pertains to the mystical understanding. But if we seek also the moral sense, which is most useful to us, we set out "a three days' journey" from Egypt if we so preserve ourselves from every defilement of soul, body, and spirit that, as the Apostle said, "our spirit whole, and soul, and body, may be kept in the day of Jesus Christ". We set out "a three days' journey" from Egypt if, taking away rational, natural, and moral wisdom from worldly things, we turn it to the divine ordinances; we set out "a three days' journey" from Egypt if, purifying in ourselves words, deeds, and thoughts—for these are the three by which men can sin—we are made "pure in heart", that we may be able to "see God". But do you wish to see that such are the things which the Holy Spirit indicates in the Scriptures? This Pharaoh, who is the prince of Egypt, when he sees himself more vehemently pressed to let the people of God go, in the second place desires to obtain this, "that they should not go far off", that they should not set out the whole three days, and he says: "do not go far off". He does not want the people of God to be made "far" from himself; he wants it, if not in deed, at least to sin in word; if not in word, at least to offend in thought. He does not want them to set out from him the whole three days. He wants to have at least one of his days in us; in others two, in others he possesses the whole three days. But blessed are those who withdraw from him the entire three days, and he possesses no day of his own in them. Do not think, then, that Moses led the people out of Egypt only at that time: now too Moses, whom we have with us—"for we have Moses and the prophets"—that is, the law of God, wishes to lead you out of Egypt; if you hear it, it wishes to make you "far" from Pharaoh; it desires to rescue you from the work of mud and straw, if only you hear the law of God and understand it spiritually. It does not want you to remain in the deeds of the flesh and of darkness, but to go out to the wilderness, to come to a place empty of the disturbances and waves of the world, to come to the quiet of silence. For "the words of wisdom are learned in silence and quiet". When, therefore, you come to this place of quiet, there you will be able "to sacrifice to the Lord", there to recognize the law of God and the power of the divine voice. For this reason, then, Moses desires to cast you out from the midst of tossing affairs and from the midst of clamoring peoples. For this reason he desires you to go out of Egypt, that is, out of the darkness of ignorance, that you may hear the law of God and receive the light of knowledge.

What else is this than what was signified by the taskmasters of Pharaoh, of whom it is said in Exodus 1, that they hated the children of Israel and brought them to bitterness, afflicting them with hard labors of clay and brick, and with every kind of servitude? And hear what the Gloss says on that passage of Exodus 5: Why, Moses and Aaron, do you disturb the people from their works? Go to your burdens: "Today if Moses and Aaron, that is, the prophetic and priestly word, should urge a soul to the service of God, to go out from the world, to renounce all that one possesses, to attend to the law and the word of God; immediately you will hear the unanimous friends of Pharaoh saying: See how men are seduced, and young people are perverted, so that they neither labor, nor serve in the military, nor do anything profitable, and having abandoned necessary affairs, they pursue idleness and leisure! What is it to serve God? They do not wish to labor and they seek occasions for idleness. These were then the words of Pharaoh, these also his friends now speak, and they persecute not only with words, but also with blows."

But what does he yet add in his answers? "Why," he says, "O Moses and Aaron, do you turn my people away from their works? Depart, each one of you to your work". So long as the people is with him and works "mud" and "brick", so long as it is occupied in "straw", he does not think it perverted, but that it walks in the right path. But if it should say: I wish to go "the way of three days" and "to serve the Lord", he says that the people is perverted by Moses and Aaron. This indeed "was said to the ancients". But even today, if Moses and Aaron—that is, the prophetic and the priestly word—should rouse the soul to the service of God, invite it to go out of the world, to renounce all that it possesses, to give heed to the divine law and follow the word of God, immediately you will hear it said by those who are of one mind with Pharaoh and his friends: 'see how men are seduced and perverted—what young men, that they may not toil, may not do military service, may not do anything that would profit them, forsaking necessary and useful things pursue trifles and idleness. What is it to serve God? They do not wish to labor and seek occasions for slothful idleness.' These were the words of Pharaoh then, and these his friends and intimates speak now too.

The matter is carried on not by words only; blows follow too—he orders the scribes of the Hebrews to be scourged, straw not to be given, the work to be exacted; these things the fathers endured, in the figure of whom the people of God also, which is in the Church, often suffers as well. For you will find, if you consider them, that those who have wholly handed themselves over to "the prince of this world" act with prosperous successes, that everything, as they themselves think, turns out happily for them; but that to the servants of God often not even these humble and small things of human sustenance turn out well. For these things I think seem to be the straw that is furnished by Pharaoh. It often happens, then, that those who fear God lack even this cheap sustenance, like straw; often too they endure the persecutions of tyrants, they bear tortures and savage torments, so that some, worn out, say to Pharaoh: 'Why do you afflict your people?' For some, overcome by the blows, fall away from the faith and confess themselves to be the people of Pharaoh. "For not all who are of Israel are Israelites; nor because they are the seed are they all sons as well".

When both the good and the bad do the same things and suffer the same things, they are to be distinguished by their intentions, not by their acts and penalties. Pharaoh oppressed the people of God with hard labors; Moses afflicted the same people, who had fallen into idolatry, with severe punishments. They did the same things, but they did not aim at the same result. The former was puffed up with pride of power, the latter was animated by love.

Even Pharaoh knew that it was proper for one to seek God when he was unoccupied, and for this reason he reproached Israel: "You are unoccupied, you are idle, and you say, 'We shall offer prayers to the Lord, our God.' " Now leisure itself is good and useful to him who is unoccupied, since it produces quiet for the acquisition of salutary doctrines. But the leisure of the Athenians was evil, "who used to spend all their leisure telling or listening to something new." Even at the present time some imitate this, misusing the leisure of life for the discovery of some newer teaching.

In Moses and Aaron the law and the prophets are prefigured. A sick soul often murmurs to itself against the sacred words. After it has begun to hear and follow the heavenly words, the opposition of the Egyptian king—that is, the temptation of an evil spirit—rises up. So the physician should carefully make known to the soul that is making progress which temptations will attack it, so that it can carefully prepare itself for the snares of an evil spirit. Exposition of the Old and New Testament, Exodus

In Moses and Aaron the law and the prophets are prefigured. A sick soul often murmurs to itself against the sacred words. After it has begun to hear and follow the heavenly words, the opposition of the Egyptian king—that is, the temptation of an evil spirit—rises up. So the physician should carefully make known to the soul that is making progress which temptations will attack it, so that it can carefully prepare itself for the snares of an evil spirit.

These, then, who are doubtful and are worn out in tribulations, even speak against Moses and Aaron and say: 'from the day you go in and go out to Pharaoh, you have made our odor abominable before him.' These men speak truly, though perhaps they know not what they say, just as that Caiaphas too spoke truly that "it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people", but he knew not what he was saying. For, as the Apostle says, we are the "good odor" of Christ; but, he says, "to some an odor from life unto life, but to others an odor from death unto death". So the prophetic word too is a "sweet odor" to those who believe, but to the doubtful and unbelieving, and to those who confess themselves to be the people of Pharaoh, it becomes an abominable odor.

The words that Moses speaks to the Lord are not words of contumacy or indignation but of inquiry and prayer. This fact is clear from the way the Lord answered him. For he did not accuse him of infidelity but revealed what he was about to do.

But Moses himself too says to the Lord: "from the time I spoke with Pharaoh, he has afflicted your people". For it is certain that, before the word of God is heard, before the divine preaching is made known, there is no tribulation, there is no temptation, because, unless the trumpet sound, battle is not joined; but when the trumpet of preaching has given the signal of war, there affliction follows, there all the fighting of tribulations rises up. From the time Moses and Aaron began to speak to Pharaoh, the people of God is afflicted. From the time the word of God is brought into your soul, of necessity a struggle is stirred up within you, of the virtues against the vices; but before the word came which would rebuke, the vices endured within you in peace; but when the word of God began to make the distinction of each, then a great disturbance rises up and war is born without treaty. "For when can iniquity accord with justice", unchastity with sobriety, falsehood with truth? And therefore let us not be greatly disturbed if our "odor" seems to be abominable to Pharaoh; for virtue is a thing of abomination to the vices. Nay rather, as he says in what follows, that Moses stood "before Pharaoh", let us too stand "against Pharaoh" and not be bent nor bowed, but let us stand "girt about our loins in truth and our feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace". For thus the Apostle exhorts us, saying: "stand, therefore, and do not again cleave to the yoke of servitude". And again he says: "in which we stand, and glory in the hope of the glory of God". But we stand confidently if we beseech the Lord to "set our feet upon a rock", lest that befall us which the same prophet says: "but my feet were almost moved, and my steps were almost poured out". Let us stand, then, "before Pharaoh", that is, let us resist him in the struggle, as the Apostle Peter too says: "resist him, strong in faith". But Paul likewise says: "stand in faith and act manfully". For if we stand bravely, that too follows which Paul prays for his disciples, saying: "God will crush Satan under your feet speedily". For the more constantly and bravely we stand, the weaker and more feeble will Pharaoh be; but if we begin to be either weak or doubtful, he will become stronger and more constant against us. And truly that is fulfilled in us of which Moses gave a figure: for when he himself "lifted up his hands", Amalek was overcome; but if, as though they were weary, he "let them down" and laid low his feeble arms, "Amalek prevailed". So, then, let us too, in the power of the cross of Christ, lift up our arms and "raise up" in prayer "holy hands in every place without wrath and disputation", that we may deserve the help of the Lord. For this same thing the Apostle James too exhorts, saying: "but resist the devil, and he will flee from you". Let us act, then, with all faith, that Satan may not only "flee from us", but also "be crushed under our feet", just as Pharaoh too was sunk in the sea and extinguished in the deep of the abyss. But we, if we withdraw from the Egypt of the vices, will escape the waves of the world as though by a solid road, through Jesus Christ our Lord, "to whom is the glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen".