OT § 42

After the crossing of the Red Sea and the hidden things of its great and magnificent mystery, after the choruses and the timbrels, after the triumphal hymns, one comes to Marah. Now the water of Marah was bitter, and the people could not drink it. Why then, after such great and such magnificent wonders, is the people of God brought to bitter waters and the peril of thirst? For it says: "and the children of Israel came to Marah, and they could not drink the water from Marah, because it was bitter; and for this reason the name of that place was called bitterness". But what does it add after these things? "Moses", it says, "cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, and he cast it into the water, and the water was made sweet. And there", it says, "God set for him ordinances of righteousness and judgments". There, where there was bitterness, where there was thirst, and what is more grievous, thirst amid an abundance of waters, there "God set for them ordinances of righteousness and judgments". Was there no place more worthy, more fitting, more fruitful, but this one, in which there is bitterness? Then furthermore, as to what it said: "the Lord showed him a tree, and he cast it into the water, and the water was made sweet", it is exceedingly strange that God should show Moses a tree that he might cast into the water and make it sweet. As though indeed God could not have made the water sweet without a tree. Or was Moses ignorant of the tree, that God had to show it to him? But we must see what beauty the inner sense holds in these things. I think that the law, if it is taken according to the letter, is bitter enough and is itself Marah. For what is so bitter as that a boy on the eighth day should receive the wound of circumcision and that tender infancy should suffer the hardness of iron? Bitter enough and most bitter is this sort of cup of the law, so much so that the people of God — not that people which was baptized "into Moses" "in the sea and in the cloud", but this people which is baptized "in the Spirit" and "water" — cannot drink of that water; nay, it cannot even taste of the bitterness of circumcision, nor is it able to bear the bitterness of the sacrifices, nor the observance of the sabbath. But if "God shows a tree" which is cast into this bitterness, so that the "water" of the law becomes "sweet", then it can drink of it. What that "tree" is which "the Lord showed", Solomon teaches us, when he says of wisdom that "it is a tree of life to all who embrace it". If therefore the tree of the wisdom of Christ has been cast into the law and has shown us how circumcision ought to be understood, how the sabbaths, how the law of leprosy is to be kept, in what manner the distinction of clean and unclean is to be held, then the water of Marah is made sweet, and the bitterness of the letter of the law is turned into the sweetness of spiritual understanding, and then the people of God can drink. For if these things are not interpreted spiritually, the people, which has abandoned idols and fled to God, if it hears the law prescribing concerning sacrifices, immediately recoils and cannot drink; for it perceives this to be bitter and harsh. "For if", it says, "he builds again the things which he destroyed, he makes himself a transgressor". In this bitterness of Marah, therefore, that is, in that letter of the law, "the Lord set ordinances of righteousness and testimonies". Does this not seem to you to say that God has stored up the treasures of his wisdom and knowledge in the letter of the law, as in some vessel? This then is what it says: "and there God set for them ordinances of righteousness and testimonies". This was what the Apostle also was saying: "but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the sublimity of the power may be of God, and not from us". So that this water from Marah could be drunk, "God showed a tree" which might be cast into it, so that he who drinks might not die, might not perceive the bitterness. From which it is clear that, if anyone should wish to drink of the letter of the law without the "tree of life", that is, without the mystery of the cross, without faith in Christ, without spiritual understanding, he will die from the excessive bitterness. Knowing this, the Apostle Paul was saying that "the letter kills"; this is to say openly that the water of Marah kills, if it is drunk unchanged and not turned into sweetness.

Marah was a fountain of most bitter water. Moses cast wood into it and it became sweet. For water without the preaching of the cross of the Lord is of no avail for future salvation. But after it has been consecrated by the mystery of the saving cross, it is made suitable for the use of the spiritual laver and of the cup of salvation. As then Moses, that is, the prophet, cast wood into that fountain, so too the priest utters over this font the proclamation of the Lord's cross, and the water is made sweet for the purpose of grace.

As wood sweetens Marah so that seventy palm trees are watered by its streams, so the cross makes the waters of the law lifegiving to the seventy who are Christ's apostles.

In this mystical number, I say, the children of Israel, arriving at Marah and being unable to draw the water because of its bitterness (for the well had water but no sweetness, and it was pleasing to the eye but polluted to the taste), drank water that became sweet and mild as soon as wood was thrown into it by Moses. The sacrament of the wood removed the harshness that the noxious water bore. I believe that this happened as a sign, for I think that the bitter water of Marah is the Old Testament law, which was harsh before it was tempered by the Lord's cross.

Again, water is restored from its defect to its native grace of "sweetness" by the tree of Moses. That tree was Christ, restoring of himself the veins of what had been envenomed and bitter nature into the all-salutary waters of baptism.

But what does it add to them? After "God set for them ordinances of righteousness and judgments": "and there", it says, "he tested him, saying: if you will hear with hearing the voice of the Lord your God, and will do openly the things that please him, and will hear his precepts and keep them, every infirmity which I brought upon the Egyptians I will not bring upon you. For I am the Lord who heals you". It seems to me that he sets forth with what purpose the "ordinances of righteousness and judgments" and the testimonies of the law were given: "that he might test them", it says, "whether they would hear the voice of the Lord and keep the things which were commanded". For as regards the former people, what good or perfect thing could be commanded to those who murmured and contradicted? Indeed, a little later they even turn to idols, and forgetful of the benefits and wonders of God they set up the head of a calf. For this reason, therefore, precepts are given to them, in which they may be tested. Hence it is that also through the prophet Ezekiel the Lord says to them: "I gave you precepts and ordinances that were not good, in which you shall not live by them"; for being tested in the precepts of the Lord they are not found faithful. Therefore "the commandment which was unto life was found to be unto death for them", because one and the same commandment, if it is kept, produces life, if it is not kept, produces death. According to this, therefore, that for those who do not keep it it produces death, they are called "commandments not good, in which they shall not live by them". But because he mingled with them the tree of the cross of Christ and they were turned into sweetness, and being understood spiritually they are kept, these same commandments are called "commandments of life", just as he says also elsewhere: "hear, O Israel, the commandments of life". But let us see what is promised, if they are kept. "If", it says, "you keep my precepts, I will not bring upon you all the sicknesses which I brought upon the Egyptians". What does it seem to say? that, if anyone keeps the commandments, he will suffer no sickness, that is, neither be feverish nor bear other pains of the body? I do not think that these are the things which are promised to those who keep the divine commandments. Otherwise Job is an indication for us, most righteous and most observant of all piety, who "from head to foot" is filled "with the worst sore". Therefore those who keep the commandments are not said to lack these infirmities, but they will not have those infirmities which the Egyptians have; for Egypt is figuratively called the world. "To love" therefore "the world and the things that are in the world" is the Egyptian sickness. "To observe days and months and seasons", to seek after signs, to cling to the courses of the stars, is the Egyptian sickness. To be a slave to the luxury of the flesh, to devote effort to pleasures, to have leisure for delights, is the Egyptian sickness. He therefore who keeps the commandments has lacked these infirmities and sicknesses.

When the people of God went out from Egypt, their sixth resting place, in which "there were twelve fountains of water and seventy palm trees," was called Elim (that is, "of rams"), so that both by its name and by its appearance it might contain the figure of the apostles and the apostolic men.

Again, you can multiply the four cardinal virtues by the three theological, and then there are twelve: for prudence must be faithful, trusting, and loving; and so it is with the others. And they are represented by the twelve springs, the twelve gems in the High Priest's vestment, and the twelve doors of the City. First, the twelve springs, for as they flow into each other, they make the soul clean. Second, the twelve gems, for they adorn the soul with all the virtues carried in the heart, as these gems were carried on the High Priest's chest. Third, the twelve doors, in so far as they lead in: for in the east, there is the sincerity of temperance; in the south, the serenity of prudence; in the north, the stability of constancy; and in the west, the sweetness of justice.

They arrived at a place called Elim, where there were twelve very pure springs of water and a multitude of seventy flourishing palm trees. See the mystery of God—how, after the bitterness of the law, the richness of gospel piety abounds. There the one spring is harsh to drink, but here the many are all sweet to imbibe. Once there was no refreshment after weariness, but now there is refreshment after labor. For springs are at the disposal of the thirsty, and palms are offered to victors. Palms are offered to victors, I say, because after the hardness of the law it is a victory to have arrived at the grace of the gospel. For part of the victor's reward is to moisten his mouth from a flowing spring and to take the triumphal palm in his hand. With the spring the confessor's tongue is purified, and with the palm the martyr's hand is honored—the former because it has praised the glory of Christ, the latter because it has refused the altar of sacrilege.

After this it says that: "they came to Elim, and there were there twelve fountains of waters and seventy palm trees". Do you suppose it has no reason that the people is not led first "to Elim", where "there were twelve fountains of waters", in which there was no bitterness, but rather where there was very great pleasantness from the density of the palms, but is led first to salt and bitter waters, which, being made sweet through the tree shown by the Lord, one afterward comes to the fountains? If we follow the history alone, it does not much edify us to know to what place they came first and to what second; but if we search out the mystery lying hidden in these things, we find the order of faith. For first the people is led to the letter of the law; from this, so long as it remains in its bitterness, it cannot depart; but when it has been made sweet through the "tree of life" and the law has begun to be understood spiritually, then one passes over from the old testament to the new and comes to the twelve apostolic fountains. There also will be found "trees of seventy palms". For not only did the twelve Apostles preach the faith of Christ, but also seventy others are reported to have been sent to preach the word of God, through whom the world would come to know the palms of Christ's victory. It is not enough, therefore, for the people of God to drink the water of Marah, although it has been turned into sweetness, although "through the tree of life" and the mystery of the cross all the bitterness of the letter has been driven away. The old instrument alone is not sufficient for drinking; but one must come also to the new testament, from which one drinks without scruple, is given drink without any difficulty. The Jews even now are at Marah, even now they sit beside the bitter waters; for "God" has not yet "shown them the tree" through which their waters might be made sweet. For indeed the prophet foretold to them that: "unless you believe, neither will you understand".

After this it is written: "in the second month", it says, "after they had set out from Egypt, on the fifteenth day of the month, the people murmured against Moses, saying: would that we had died in the land of Egypt, when we sat over the pots of flesh and ate bread to our fill, for you have led us out into this desert, to kill the whole synagogue with hunger". Granted, for the correction of readers let the sin of the people be indicated, that it murmured and was ungrateful for the divine benefits, when it was receiving the heavenly manna; but why is even the day written, on which day "the people murmured"? "In the second month", it says, "on the fifteenth day of the month"; which surely is not written without reason. Recall the things which were said concerning the laws of the Passover, and you will find that this is the time which is appointed for keeping the second Passover by those who were "unclean in soul" or occupied with journeys abroad. Those therefore who were not "unclean in soul" or were not "journeying far", kept the Passover "on the fourteenth day of the first month". But those who "were journeying far and were unclean", keep the second Passover at this time, at which the manna also came down from heaven. On the day on which the first Passover is kept, the manna did not come down, but on this, on which the second Passover is kept. Let us now see, therefore, what the order of the mystery in these things is. The first Passover is of the first people; the second Passover is ours. For we were "unclean in soul", we who "worshiped wood and stone" and "not knowing God served those who by nature were not gods". We also were those who "were journeying far", of whom the Apostle says that we were "strangers and sojourners from the covenants of God, having no hope and without God in this world". Nevertheless the manna is not given from heaven on that day on which the first Passover is kept, but on that on which the second is kept. For the "bread which came down from heaven" did not come to those who celebrated the first solemnity, but to us, who received the second. "For our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed", who is for us the true "bread that came down from heaven". But meanwhile let us see what it is that is shown to have been done on this day. "On the fifteenth day", it says, "of the second month the people murmured and said that it had been better for us to die in Egypt, when we sat over the pots of flesh". O ungrateful people: it desires Egypt, it that saw the Egyptians destroyed! it seeks after the flesh of Egypt, it that saw the flesh of the Egyptians given to the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven! They raise a murmur therefore against Moses, nay, against God. But this indeed is forgiven the first time, forgiven also the second, perhaps even the third; but if they do not cease and persist, hear what follows the murmuring people after these things. In the book of Numbers it is related, which the Apostle also rehearsed in his writings, saying: "neither murmur, as some of them murmured and perished from the serpents". The murmuring people is fed upon by the venomous bite of the serpents in the wilderness. Let us see, we who hear these things, we, I say, for whom they were written: "for they happened to them for correction, but they were written on account of us, upon whom the ends of the ages have come". If we do not cease from murmuring, if we do not desist from our complaints, which we frequently have against God, let us take heed lest we incur a like example of offense. For indeed when we make complaint about the intemperance of the sky, about the barrenness of the fruits, about the scarcity of rains, about the prosperities of others and about the ill-fortune of others, this is to raise up a murmur against God. But these things are forgiven those who are at the beginnings; but upon those who do not cease, it is grievously avenged. For serpents are sent upon them, that is, they are handed over to unclean spirits and venomous demons, who slay them with hidden and lurking bites and consume them with thoughts inward and shut up within the recesses of the heart. But I beseech you, let the examples of the correction set before us profit us; let their punishment be our amendment. For God says that: "I have heard the murmuring of the children of Israel". You see that our murmuring is not hidden from God; he hears all things, and in that he does not punish at once, he awaits the repentance of our conversion.