Old Testament Bible Study #9
Exodus: Introducing Moses
Prayer: Make the pure light of Your divine knowledge shine in our hearts, Loving Master, and open the eyes of our minds that we may understand the message of Your Gospel. Instill also in us reverence for Your blessed commandments, so that overcoming all worldly desires, we may pursue a spiritual life, both thinking and doing all things pleasing to You. For You, Christ our God, are the Light of our souls and bodies, and to You we give the glory, together with Your Father, without beginning, and Your All Holy, Good, and Life- Creating Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen. (2 Corinthians 6:6; Ephesians 1:18; 2 Peter 2:11)
The Setting: God, through Joseph, had brought his family (his tribe or small nation) to Egypt. Egypt was not a safe place; it was under the authority of other gods, gods that opposed the will of God. The pharaoh himself was considered divine and a mediator for the Egyptian pantheon.
Chapter One. Israel suffers in Egypt.
Patristic commentary: St. Augustine, Questions on Exodus 1. On the midwives.
On the midwives’ lie, by which they deceived Pharaoh and kept him from killing the Israelite males when they were born: The midwives said that Hebrew women did not give birth as Egyptian women did. It is usual to ask whether such lies have been approved by divine authority. Scripture says that God favored the midwives. It is unclear whether God, in his mercy, pardoned the lie or judged that the lie itself deserved a reward. For the midwives did one thing by letting the infant boys live and another by lying to Pharaoh. In letting them live they performed a work of mercy; but they used that lie for their own ends, to keep Pharaoh from harming the infants. This act could be the occasion not for praise but for pardon. It does not seem to me that the authority to lie has been given to those of whom it is said, “And a lie has not been found in their mouths.” For if the lives of certain people, being far below the level of the saints’ lives, include these sins of lying, these people are living in accord with their natural abilities, especially if they do not yet know that they should expect heavenly gifts but busy themselves with earthly things. As for those who live in such a way that their conversation, as the apostle says, is in heaven,4 I do not think that they should regulate the style of their speech, insofar as it affects speaking the truth and avoiding falsehood, on the example of the midwives. But we should consider this question more carefully, on account of the other examples that are found in Scripture.
Chapter Two. Introducing Moses.
Biblical Commentary: Hebrews 11:23-27
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command. By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
Patristic commentary: St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1. Praise of Moses.
Eupolemus in his work On the Kings of Judea says that Moses was the first sage and the first person to transmit to the Jews the science of writing, which passed from the Jews to the Phoenicians and from the Phoenicians to the Greeks. When he reached the age of manhood he developed his practical wisdom, being zealous for his national, ancestral educational traditions, to the point of striking down and killing an Egyptian who was unjustly attacking a Hebrew. The mystics say that he eliminated the Egyptian simply by speaking, as later in Acts Peter is said to have killed by his words those who had kept for themselves part of the price of the land and had told lies.
Jewish Commentary: On Jethro and Midian
The priest of Midian, Jethro (along with Balaam and Job), had once been one of King Pharaoh’s foremost advisors, but because of his friendly attitude towards the Hebrews, he had to leave Pharaoh’s court. Jethro then settled in Midian, and became the highest priest of the land. A man of great intelligence, Jethro soon realized the silliness of idol-worship, and gave up his priesthood. The people of Midian began to hate their erstwhile priest and persecuted him and his daughters. Later, he proclaimed the glory of God (Ex. 18:5-12).
Exodus Three. The Burning Bush
Patristic Commentary: St. Augustine, On the Holy Trinity. About the Angel of the Lord
And here he is first called the angel of the Lord and then God. Is the angel then the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? Therefore he may be rightly understood to be the Savior himself of whom the apostle says, “Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed forever.” Hence even here he, who is the God blessed over all things forever, is not unreasonably understood to be himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. But why was he previously called the angel of the Lord when he appeared in the flame of fire from the bush? Was it because he was one of many angels but by a dispensation represented the person of his Lord? Or was something belonging to a creature assumed which might appear visibly for the task at hand and from which words might be uttered in an audible way, whereby the presence of the Lord would also become known to the bodily senses of man, as circumstances required, by means of a creature made subject to him? For if he was one of the angels, who can readily affirm whether the person given him to announce was that of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, or of God the Father or of the Trinity itself altogether, who is the one and only God, in order that he might say, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob”?
For we cannot say that the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob is the Son of God and not the Father. Nor will anyone dare to deny that either the Holy Spirit or the Trinity itself, which we believe and understand to be the one God, is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For he who is not God is not the God of those fathers. Moreover … not only the Father is God, as all, even the heretics, admit, but the Son also, which willingly or not they are forced to confess, for the apostle says, “who is, over all things, God blessed forever,” and the Holy Spirit as well. The same apostle declares, “Therefore glorify God in your body,” when he had previously stated, “Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit in you, whom you have from God?” And these three are one God, as the sound Catholic faith believes. It is not sufficiently clear which person in the Trinity that angel represented, assuming that he was one of the rest of the angels, and whether it was any person and not that of the Trinity itself.
Liturgical Commentary: Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, Ode 5.
Thou hast heard, O my soul, of the basket of Moses and how he was carried on the waves of the river as if in an ark; and so he avoided the execution of Pharaoh’s bitter decree.
Thou hast heard, O wretched soul, of the midwives who were ordered to put to death in infancy the fruit of manly chastity. Be then like Moses who survived, and ponder wisdom.
Thou, O wretched soul, hast not struck and killed the lustful mind of the Egyptian, as did Moses. How then, shalt thou dwell in that desert where all passions are slain through repentance?
Moses the great went to dwell in the desert; Come then, O my soul, and emulate his life that thou mayest also behold through contemplation, the vision of God in the bush not consumed by the fire.
Imagine, O my soul, the rod of Moses, which divided the sea and dried up the abyss as an image of the Divine and Holy Cross. Through the Cross thou canst also accomplish great things.
While Aaron offered to God a fire that was pure and undefiled, Hophni and Phineas brought to Him, as didst thou, O my soul, a strange sacrifice and a polluted life.
