Homilies on Exodus 4.1–4.9

On the ten plagues with which Egypt was struck.

1. A most famous account has been read to us, known to the whole world for its greatness, which shows that Egypt, with King Pharaoh, was chastised with tremendous blows of signs and wonders, so that it might restore to their inborn freedom the Hebrew people, whom, though born of free fathers, it had violently reduced to slavery. But the narrative of the events is so woven together that, if you examine each detail carefully, you will find more points at which the understanding sticks than points at which it can extricate itself. And because it would take long to set out each saying of Scripture in order, we will review the substance of the whole account more briefly. At the first sign, then, Aaron threw down his rod and it became a serpent; and the enchanters and sorcerers of the Egyptians were summoned and likewise made serpents from their rods. But the serpent made from Aaron's rod swallowed up the serpents of the Egyptians. Though this ought to have astonished Pharaoh and advanced him to belief, it turned out the opposite. For Scripture says that “Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them.” Here, then, it says that Pharaoh's heart was hardened; and in the first plague too, where the water is turned into blood, the same is written; and in the second, when the frogs swarm; and in the third, when the gnats attack; in the fourth too, when the dog-fly is brought on; and in the fifth, where the hand of the Lord comes upon the cattle of the Egyptians, the same and similar things are said on this point. But in the sixth, where Moses took ashes from the furnace and sprinkled them, and there were sores and burning blisters on men and on four-footed beasts, and the sorcerers could no longer stand in Moses' sight, it is not said that Pharaoh's heart was hardened; something more terrible is said. For it is written that “the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had appointed.” Again in the seventh, when hail and fire lay waste all Egypt, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, but not by the Lord. In the eighth, where the locust is brought on, the Lord is said to harden Pharaoh's heart. And in the ninth too, when palpable darkness comes over the whole land of Egypt, the Lord is written to harden Pharaoh's heart. Finally, when the Hebrew people had departed after the firstborn of the Egyptians had been destroyed, after much else it is said: “And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt and of his servants, and he pursued the sons of Israel.” And when Moses is sent from the land of Midian to Egypt and is commanded to perform all the wonders that the Lord put in his hand, it is added: “You shall do them,” he says, “in Pharaoh's sight. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will not let my people go.” Here for the first time it is said by the Lord: “I will harden Pharaoh's heart.” And a second time too, where the princes of Israel are enumerated, a little later he adds in the person of the Lord: “I,” he says, “will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs.”

But if we believe that these writings are divine and written through the Holy Spirit, I do not think we should think so unworthily of the divine Spirit as to suppose that in so great a work this variation came about by chance: that now the Lord is said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart, and now it is said to have been hardened not by the Lord but, as it were, of its own accord. For my part I confess that I am too little fit and too little capable to search out the secrets of divine wisdom in variations of this kind. Yet I see the apostle Paul, who, because of the Spirit of God dwelling in him, confidently dared to say: “But to us the Lord has revealed it through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” Him, I say, I see, as one who understands what difference there is between Pharaoh's heart being hardened and the Lord hardening Pharaoh's heart, saying in one place: “Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and patience and long-suffering, not knowing that the patience of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” By this he doubtless blames the one who was hardened of his own accord. But elsewhere, as though putting forward a question on this matter, he says: “So he has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills. You will say to me then: Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?” And he adds to this: “O man, who are you to answer back to God?” In this way, concerning the one who is said to have been hardened by the Lord, he replied not so much with a solution of the question as with apostolic authority; judging, I believe, that because of the incapacity of his hearers it was not fitting to commit the secrets of such solutions to paper and ink, just as in another place he himself says of certain words that he had heard things which it is not lawful for men to speak. Hence too in what follows, the one who, not so much by the merit of his studies as from a desire to know, plunges himself too curiously into the depths of more secret questions, he deters with the severity of a great teacher, when he says: “O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to the one who formed it, Why have you made me thus?” and the rest. So let it suffice us too to have noted and looked into these things, and to have shown the hearers how much in the divine law lies sunk in deep mysteries, for which we ought to say in prayer: “Out of the depths …”

… observation, that certain blows are said to be brought upon Pharaoh or Egypt by Aaron, some by Moses, and some by the Lord himself. For in the first plague, when the waters are turned into blood, Aaron is said to have raised his rod and struck the water; so too in the second, when he struck the waters and brought forth the frogs; and in the third, when he stretched out the rod with his hand and struck the dust of the earth, and gnats came. In these three blows the ministry was Aaron's. But in the fourth the Lord is said to have caused the dog-fly to come and fill the houses of Pharaoh. And in the fifth, when the cattle of the Egyptians are destroyed, the Lord likewise is said to have done this thing. In the sixth, Moses sprinkles ashes from the furnace, and burning sores and blisters come upon men and cattle. In the seventh too Moses raises his hand to heaven, and there are voices in heaven, and hail, and fire runs about over the earth. In the eighth also the same Moses stretches out his hand to heaven, and the Lord brings a wind all day and all night and brings the locusts. And in the ninth the same Moses likewise stretches out his hand to heaven, and there is darkness and gloom over all the land of Egypt. But in the tenth the end and completion of the whole work is carried out by the Lord. For so it is written: “And it came to pass about midnight that the Lord struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat upon his throne to the firstborn of the captive woman who was in the pit, and every firstborn of cattle.”

There is also another difference in these things which we have observed. In the first plague, when the water flows into blood, Moses is not yet told to go in to Pharaoh, but it is said to him: “Go to meet him on the bank of the river, when he goes out to the water.” But in the second plague, after the first had been carried out by them steadfastly and faithfully, it is said to him: “Go in to Pharaoh, and when you have gone in, say: Thus says the Lord,” and the rest. And in the third, where gnats are brought on, the magicians who had earlier resisted give way, confessing that “this is the finger of God.” In the fourth also he is ordered to rise early in the morning and stand against Pharaoh as he goes out to the water, when the houses of the Egyptians are filled with the dog-fly. In the fifth likewise, where the cattle of the Egyptians are destroyed, Moses is ordered to go in to Pharaoh. In the sixth, indeed, Pharaoh is disregarded, and it is not related that Moses or Aaron went in to Pharaoh, because burning sores and blisters came even upon the sorcerers of Egypt and they could not withstand Moses. In the seventh he is ordered to rise very early in the morning and stand against Pharaoh, when he brings forth hail and fire and voices. In the eighth he is commanded to go in to him, when the locust is brought on. In the ninth Pharaoh is again disregarded, and Moses is commanded to stretch out his hands to heaven, so that there may be palpable darkness in all the land of Egypt; and he does not go in of himself but is summoned by Pharaoh. Similarly in the tenth, when the firstborn are destroyed, he is pressed to go out of Egypt in haste. There are also very many other observations, in each of which signs of divine wisdom are shown. For you will find that at first Pharaoh is not bent, nor does he yield to the divine blows, when the waters were turned into blood. But in the second he seems to become a little better: “For he called Moses and Aaron and said to them: Pray for me to the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go.” In the third the magicians give way and say to Pharaoh: “This is the finger of God.” In the fourth, pressed by the dog-fly, he says: “Go and sacrifice to the Lord your God, but do not attempt a longer journey. Pray, therefore, for me to the Lord.” In the fifth he is struck by the death of the cattle, and not only does he not yield but is hardened still more. Similarly in the sixth, over the plague of sores, he does the same. But in the seventh, when he is laid waste with hail and fire: “Pharaoh sent,” it says, “and called Moses and Aaron and said to them: I have sinned; and now the Lord is righteous, but I and my people are impious. Pray, therefore, for me to the Lord.” In the eighth, when he was pressed by the locusts: “And Pharaoh hastened,” it says, “and called Moses and Aaron, saying: I have sinned before the Lord your God and against you; receive my sin even now, and pray for me to the Lord your God.” In the ninth, when darkness is poured over him: “Pharaoh called,” it says, “Moses and Aaron, saying: Go, serve the Lord your God.” And in the tenth, when the firstborn of men and of cattle are destroyed: “Pharaoh called,” it says, “Moses and Aaron by night and said to them: Rise and go out from my people, both you and the sons of Israel; go, serve the Lord your God, as you say; take your sheep and your oxen and go, as you have said. And bless me also. And the Egyptians urged the people to go out of the land of Egypt as quickly as possible. For they said: We shall all die.”

Who is the one whom God might fill with that Spirit of his with which he filled Moses and Aaron when they performed these wonders and signs, so that, enlightened by the same Spirit, he might be able to discuss what was done through them? For I do not think that the variations and differences of such great matters can be explained otherwise than if they are discussed by the same Spirit by which they were done, since Paul the apostle too says that “the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets.” So the sayings of the prophets are not said to be subject to just anyone, but to the prophets. But since the same blessed Apostle bids us be emulous of this grace, that is, of the prophetic gift, saying, “But be zealous for the better gifts, and especially that you may prophesy,” let us too try to take up the emulation of good things, and to demand of ourselves whatever is in us, while we wait for the fullness of the gift from the Lord. For to this end it is said by the Lord through the prophet: “Open your mouth, and I will fill it”; and for this another scripture says: “Prick the eye, and it brings forth a tear; prick the heart, and it brings forth understanding.” So that we may not, then, out of despair give ourselves over to silence, which certainly does not build up the Church of God, let us briefly go over what we can, and as far as we can.

I think, then, as far as I can perceive, that Moses coming to Egypt and bringing the rod with which he chastises and beats Egypt with ten plagues, this Moses is the law of God, which was given to this world to reprove and correct it with ten plagues, that is, with the ten commandments contained in the Decalogue. The rod, then, through which all these things are done, through which Egypt is subdued and Pharaoh overcome, is the cross of Christ, through which this world is conquered and the prince of this world, with the principalities and powers, is triumphed over. As for the rod being thrown down and becoming a dragon or serpent and devouring the serpents of the Egyptian magicians, who had done the same: that the serpent stands for wisdom or prudence the gospel word shows when it says, “Be prudent as serpents,” and elsewhere: “The serpent was more prudent than all the animals and beasts that were in paradise.” So the cross of Christ, whose preaching seemed folly, which Moses, that is, the law, contains, as the Lord said, “For he wrote of me”: this cross, I say, of which Moses wrote, after it was thrown down on the earth, that is, after it turned to human belief and faith, was turned into wisdom, and such wisdom as to devour all the wisdom of the Egyptians, that is, of this world. Consider, then, how God made foolish the wisdom of this world after he had shown that Christ, who was crucified, is the power of God and the wisdom of God; and the whole world has now been caught by him who says: “I will catch the wise in their craftiness.” That the waters of the river are turned into blood fits quite suitably. First, so that the river to which they had handed over the infants of the Hebrews in cruel slaughter might give back a cup of blood to the authors of the crime, and they might taste by drinking the gore of the polluted stream which they had stained with parricidal slaughter. Then, so that nothing may be lacking to the laws of allegory, the waters are turned into blood, and his own blood is made propitious to Egypt. The waters of Egypt, the wandering and slippery … of the philosophers … for the Lord himself too says that all the blood that has been shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, will be required of this generation. By the second plague, in which frogs are brought forth, I think the songs of the poets are figuratively indicated, who with an empty and inflated melody, like the sounds and songs of frogs, brought into this world the fables of deception. For that animal is useful for nothing except that it gives out the sound of its voice in shameless and importunate croaking. After this gnats are brought forth. This creature is borne on wings, flitting through the air, but it is so delicate and minute that it escapes the eye's sight unless one looks keenly; yet when it settles on a body it pierces with a very sharp sting, so that one who cannot see it flying feels it stinging. This kind of creature, then, I think is most fittingly compared to the art of dialectic, which pierces souls with minute and subtle stings of words and circumvents them with such cunning that the one deceived neither sees nor understands how he is deceived. In the fourth place too I would compare the dog-fly to the sect of the Cynics, who, in addition to the other wickednesses of their deception, even proclaim pleasure and lust to be the highest good. Since, then, the world was first deceived by each of these, the word and law of God, on coming, convicts it with corrections of this kind, so that from the quality of the plagues it may recognize the qualities of its own error. That in the fifth place Egypt is struck by the death of animals or cattle: in this the madness and folly of mortals is convicted, who like irrational cattle assigned the worship and name of God to various figures, not only of men but also of cattle, shaped in wood and stone, worshipping Jupiter Ammon in a ram and Anubis in a dog, honouring Apis too in a bull, and the other monstrous gods that Egypt admires, so that in the very things in which they believed divine worship resided they might see pitiable punishments. After this, burning sores and blisters are brought forth in the sixth blow. And it seems to me that in the sores deceitful and festering malice is convicted, in the blisters swelling and inflated pride, in the burning the madness of anger and fury. Up to this point the punishments of the world are tempered according to the figures of its own errors.

After these blows, voices come from above, it says, thunders, and doubtless hail, and fire running about in the hail. See the moderation of divine correction: it does not strike in silence, but gives voices and sends teaching from heaven, through which the world, chastised, may recognize its fault. It gives hail too, by which the still tender shoots of vices may be laid waste. It gives fire too, knowing that there are thorns and thistles which that fire must consume of which the Lord says: “I came to cast fire upon the earth.” For through this the kindlings … of locusts mention is made in the eighth place; I think that by this kind of plague the inconstancy of the human race, always at variance and in discord with itself, is refuted. For the locust, though it has no king, as Scripture says, leads its army ordered in a single line; but human beings, though made rational by God, have neither been able to govern themselves in order nor patiently endured the governance of God their king. The ninth plague is darkness, either so that the blindness of their mind may be convicted, or so that they may understand that the reasons of the divine dispensation and providence are most obscure. For “God made darkness his hiding place”; and they, desiring boldly and rashly to search it out, and asserting one thing after another, have rolled down into the thick and palpable darkness of errors. Finally the destruction of the firstborn is brought on, in which there may perhaps be something beyond our understanding: something that seems to have been committed by the Egyptians against the Church of the firstborn which is enrolled in heaven. Hence also the destroying angel is sent for a ministry of this kind, to spare only those who are found to have both doorposts marked with the blood of the lamb. Meanwhile the firstborn of the Egyptians are destroyed: whether we call these the principalities and powers and the world-rulers of this darkness, whom Christ at his coming is said to have made a show of, that is, led captive, and triumphed over on the wood of the cross; or whether we call them the authors and inventors of the false religions that existed in this world, which the truth of Christ has extinguished and destroyed together with their authors. So much as regards the mystical sense.

Now if we must also treat the moral figure, we shall say that every soul in this world, while it lives in errors and in ignorance of the truth, is placed in Egypt. If the law of God has begun to approach it, it turns its waters into blood, that is, it turns the fluid and slippery life of youth into the blood of the old or the new covenant. Then it draws out of it vain and empty loquacity, and complaint against the providence of God like that of frogs. It also purges its malicious thoughts and drives away the stings of cunning, like the biting of gnats. It drives off as well the bites of lusts, like the stings of the dog-fly, and destroys the folly in it and the understanding like that of cattle, through which “man, when he was in honour, did not understand, but was compared to senseless beasts and became like them.” For it also reproves the sores of sins and extinguishes in it the swelling of arrogance and the burning of fury. After this it applies also the voices of the sons of thunder, that is, the teachings of the Gospels and the apostles. And it applies the chastisement of hail too, to restrain luxury and pleasures. At the same time it applies the fire of repentance, so that the soul itself may say: “Was not our heart burning within us?” Nor … of the locusts … are fed all its restless and turbulent movements, so that it too may say what the Apostle teaches, that “all its things are done in order.” But when it has been sufficiently chastised for its conduct, restrained by the correction of a more amended life, when it has perceived the author of the blows and has begun to confess that it is the finger of God, and has received a little knowledge, then especially it sees the darkness of its deeds, then it perceives the gloom of its errors. And when it has come to this, then it will be worthy to have the firstborn of Egypt extinguished in it. In this I think something can be understood. Every soul, when it has come to the fullness of age, and a kind of natural law has begun to defend its rights in it, doubtless produces its first movements according to the desire of the flesh, stirred up by the inciting force of the tinder of concupiscence or anger. Hence, as something special and not shared with other human beings, the prophet says of Christ alone: “He shall eat butter and honey; before he does or brings forth evil things, he shall choose the good. For before the child knows good or evil, he resists wickedness, so as to choose what is good.” But another prophet, speaking as of himself, said: “Remember not the sins of my youth and my ignorance.” Since, then, these first movements of the soul, brought forth according to the flesh, rush into sin, they are rightly placed, in the moral sense, as the firstborn of the Egyptians, which are extinguished insofar as the conduct of the rest of life directs a more amended course. So in the soul which the divine law has taken up from its errors, and chastises and corrects, the firstborn of the Egyptians too are understood to have been destroyed, unless after all this it persists in unbelief and will not be joined to the Israelite people, so as to go out of the deep and escape unharmed, but remains in iniquity and goes down like lead into the mighty water. For iniquity, according to the vision of the prophet Zechariah, sits upon a talent of lead. And therefore whoever remains in iniquity is said to be sunk like lead into the deep. As for what we observed above, that some wonders were performed through Aaron, some through Moses, and some through the Lord himself, this can be understood to mean that we recognize that in some things we must be purged through the sacrifices of priests and the supplications of high priests, which the person of Aaron signifies; in some we must be corrected through the knowledge of the divine law, as the office of Moses signifies; but in others, doubtless the more difficult ones, we need the power of the Lord himself.

But we should not think it was observed idly either that at first Moses does not go in to Pharaoh but meets him as he goes out … and there is a contest against Pharaoh for the defence of religion; or if we also try to rescue souls besieged by him from his power, and we have a struggle in disputation: we ought not at once, at the very outset, to go in to the innermost points of the questions, but we must meet the adversary, and meet him at his own waters. For his waters are the authorities of the pagan philosophers. There, then, when we first wish to dispute, we must meet them, so as to refute them and show that they have erred. After this we must then go in to the inner parts of the contest. For the Lord says: “Unless one first binds the strong man, he cannot enter his house and plunder his goods.” So the strong man must first be bound and tied with the bonds of questions, and so one must go in to plunder his goods and to free the souls which he had possessed by the fraud of deception. When we have done this often, and have stood against him (and stood in the way the Apostle says, “Stand, therefore, with your loins girded with truth,” and again, “Stand in the Lord and act manfully”), when, then, we have stood against him in this way, that ancient and cunning artificer will even pretend to be beaten and to yield, in case by this he can make us more negligent in the contest. He will even feign repentance, and will beg us to depart, but not to depart far. He wants us to be his neighbours in some part; he wants us not to depart far from his borders. But unless we withdraw further from him and cross the sea, and say, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our iniquities from us,” we cannot be saved. Therefore let us entreat the mercy of the Lord, that he may rescue us too from the land of Egypt, from the power of darkness, and sink Pharaoh with his army like lead in the mighty water. And let us, set free, sing a hymn to the Lord with joy and exultation, “for he has been gloriously honoured,” since to him be glory and honour for ever and ever. Amen.