Latin original · 38 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 59:796–59:833 (1230 verses in all)
'And whatever soul shall sin with a high hand, whether of the natives or of the proselytes, this one provokes God, and that soul shall be exterminated from among his people, because he has despised the word of the Lord and has scattered His commandments; with wearing away that soul shall be worn away, its sin is in it.' What sins are those which are done 'with a high hand,' that is, committed out of pride, the Scripture itself has sufficiently set forth in what follows, where it says, 'because he has despised the word of the Lord.' It is therefore one thing to despise the precepts, another to value them greatly, but either through ignorance to act against them, or being overcome.
These two perhaps pertain to those sins which are done by the unwilling, concerning which He earlier admonished in what manner they might be expiated when God is propitiated; and thence He subjoined the sins of pride, when anyone by acting proudly, that is, by despising the precept, does wrong. This kind of sin He did not say ought to be purged by any kind of sacrifice, judging it, as it were, incurable by that treatment at least which was carried out through the sacrifices, such as are commanded to be done in this Scripture. If these are attended to in themselves, they can heal no sin; but if the very things of which these are the sacraments are inquired into, in them the purgation of sins can be found. Therefore that which is written:
'When the sinner has come into the depth of evils, he despises' — this one is signified whom the Scripture in this place says to transgress 'with a high hand.' This therefore cannot be abolished without the punishment of him who commits it; and for that reason it cannot be unpunished even when it is healed by penitence. For the very affliction of the penitent is the punishment of sin, though a medicinal and salutary one. Rightly indeed is it judged a great sin, when pride despises the precept; but, on the contrary, that it may be able to be healed, God does not spurn a contrite and humbled heart. Yet nevertheless, because it does not come about without punishment, therefore such things are said on this account. 'This one,' He says, 'provokes God here,' because God resists the proud.
'And that soul shall be exterminated from among his people' — since such a one is by no means in the number of those who belong to God — 'because he has despised the word of the Lord and has scattered His commandments; with wearing away that soul shall be worn away.' But why 'it shall be worn away with wearing,' He consequently adds, saying: 'its sin is in it.' And through this, if for such a sin one applies to himself the due contrition by repenting, God, as has been said, does not spurn the contrite heart. Although in the Greek it is not said in this place, 'with wearing away it shall be worn away,' but: 'with grinding out that soul shall be ground out': which can be so taken, as though it were extinguished by being ground away in every way, and ceased to be. But first the nature of the soul's immortality refuses this understanding;
and next, if that which is ground out were made in every way not to be, He would not say of the wise man: 'and let your foot wear away the threshold of his doors.' But that distinction is to be considered more and more, whether no one sins except one who is either unaware, or overcome, or contemptuous: concerning which it would now be too long to dispute. As for what it means that Dathan and Abiram, when they had risen up in sedition, being called by Moses and answering proudly and insultingly: 'Is it a small thing that you have brought us up into a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness, that you rule over us, that you are prince? And you have brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey and have given us a lot of field and vineyards' — after these things they added: 'would you have gouged out the eyes of those men? We will not come up.'
Whose eyes did they call 'the eyes of men'? Was it of the people of Israel, as though saying: 'If you had bestowed these things, you would have gouged out the eyes of those men,' that is, they would so love you that they would pluck out their own eyes and give them to you? Which the Apostle too says is a great indication of love: 'that, if it could have been done, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me.' And then they added full obstinacy: 'we will not come up,' that is, 'we will not come,' because he had summoned them. Or rather does he call 'the eyes of those men' the eyes of the enemies, who had been reported as exceedingly fierce and terrible? As if they said: 'Even if you had done this, we would not obey you'; except that one mood of the verb is put for another, so that they did not say, 'we would not come up,' but:
'we will not come up,' by a certain manner of speech. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 'Separate yourselves from the midst of this congregation.' It is to be noted that the Lord then commands a bodily separation to be made, when now vengeance is threatening the wicked. So Noah with his household is separated from the rest who were to perish in the flood; so Lot with his own is separated from the Sodomites who were to be consumed by fire from heaven; so the people itself from the Egyptians who were to be overwhelmed by the waves of the sea; so these now from the congregation of Korah, Abiram, and Dathan, who first wished to break themselves off by sedition: with whom nevertheless the holy ones, previously living and conversing, and with the rest whom God reproves according to the words He speaks in rebuking them, could yet by no means be contaminated by them.
Nor were they commanded to separate themselves, when the Lord either deferred vengeance or applied such vengeance by which the innocent could not be imperiled or harmed, as by the bites of serpents, as by the slaughter of deaths, by which God struck whom He willed, as He willed, another being left untouched; not as by the water of the flood, or fiery rain, or the water of the sea, or the opening of the earth, which could destroy the mingled together alike. Not because even there God could not preserve His own; but what need was there of the trial of a miracle where a separation could be made, so that either water or fire or the opening of the earth might carry off those it found? So too at the end the wheat shall be separated from the tares, so that, while the wicked are consumed by burning flames, the just may shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
As for what Moses says concerning Korah and Abiram and Dathan: 'In a vision the Lord shall show, and the earth opening its mouth shall swallow them up,' certain interpreters have rendered: 'In an opening the Lord shall show.' I believe they suppose the word to have been said 'phasei,' which in Greek is put, whereas 'phanei' was said instead of it, as if it were said: 'in a manifestation,' which shall openly appear to the eyes. For it was not said 'in a vision' in the way that visions are wont to be spoken of, whether of dreams or of any figures seen in ecstasy, but, as I have said, 'in a manifestation.' Some however, thinking otherwise, wished to interpret it 'in a phantasm':
which so departs from the custom of our speech that scarcely anywhere is 'phantasm' said, except where our sense is deluded by the falsity of things seen. Although this too is said from 'seeing'; but, as I have said, the custom of speech has decided otherwise. And they went down, they and all whatever were theirs, living, to the lower regions. It is to be noted that the lower regions are here spoken of according to an earthly place, that is, in the lower parts of the earth. For variously in the Scriptures, and under a manifold understanding, as the sense of the things treated demands, the name of the lower regions is placed, and it is most usually understood as referring to the dead.
But since these are said to have gone down alive to the lower regions, and the very narrative sufficiently shows what happened, it is manifest, as I have said, that the lower parts of the earth were designated by the name of the lower regions in comparison with this upper earth on whose surface one lives: just as in comparison with the higher heaven, where is the abode of the holy angels, the Scripture says that the sinning angels, thrust down into the darkness of this air, are reserved to be punished as though in prisons of hell. 'For if God,' it says, 'spared not the angels that sinned, but thrusting them into the prisons of the darkness of hell delivered them to be reserved unto judgment to be punished,' since the Apostle Paul calls the devil the prince of the power of the air, who works in the children of unbelief.
And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest: 'Take up the bronze censers from the midst of the burnt ones, and scatter this strange fire yonder, because they have sanctified the censers of these sinners in their own souls; and make them into ductile plates, a covering for the altar, since they were offered before the Lord and are sanctified and are made into a sign among the children of Israel.' In this place, why the Lord spoke not to Moses and Aaron, as in the preceding passages, but to Moses and to Eleazar the son of Aaron, this reason for the meantime occurs to me:
since the question was concerning the lineage of the priests, that is, from what family they ought to be — whence those men of another family, because they dared to usurp the priesthood for themselves, perished by so dreadful and marvelous a punishment — God willed to speak not to Aaron, who was already the high priest, but to Eleazar, who was to succeed him and was already performing the second priesthood, so that in this way He might commend the line of the family which ought to exist in the successions of the priests. Whence also in what follows He says:
And Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest took the bronze censers which those who were burnt had offered, and added them as a covering for the altar, a memorial to the children of Israel, that no stranger might approach, who is not of the seed of Aaron, to place incense before the Lord; and it shall not be like Korah and like his conspiracy, as the Lord spoke by the hand of Moses. In this manner therefore God willed, through Eleazar, to commend not the priesthood, which already was in Aaron, but the lineage of the priestly succession. But as for what He says, 'and scatter this strange fire yonder,' 'sprinkle' is to be understood. And what He added, 'because they have sanctified the censers of these sinners in their own souls,' the sentence is indeed expressed by an unusual manner of speech;
but it is to be noted that in a new manner the punishment of those by whom this sin had been perpetrated is called 'sanctified,' because through them an example was given to the rest, which they should fear. But as for why He willed a covering for the altar to be made from them, He added, saying: 'since they were offered before the Lord and are sanctified and are made into a sign among the children of Israel.' Therefore He willed not that it be reproved in them that they were offered by such men, but rather that this be considered and attended to: before whom they were offered — that is, because before the Lord — so that the name of the Lord before whom they were offered might avail more in them than the most wicked merit of those by whom they were offered. This moreover the Scripture had already recalled even in Exodus, when it says the altar was fashioned.
Whence it is understood that the kinds of things done have been distributed throughout the books, not the order of times woven together. For also concerning the rod of Aaron, how the thing was done, so that by flowering and budding it might divinely indicate the election of his priesthood, the Scripture has narrated in this book. And yet concerning that same rod it is said in Exodus that it should be placed in the holy of holies with the manna in the ark, when it is commanded concerning the tabernacle to be fashioned: which was certainly commanded long before the tabernacle itself was fashioned and completed and stood. But it stood in the first month of the second year from which they went out of Egypt, and this book begins from the second month of the same second year on the first day of the month:
whence it is clear that these things, if we consider the order of the books, are recalled by way of recapitulation, that is, a recollection of things past — things which those who attend less diligently suppose to have been done in the same order in which they are narrated. And the Lord said to Aaron, saying: 'You and your sons and your father's house with you shall receive the sins of the holy things; and you and your sons shall receive the sins of your priesthood.' These are the sins which are called sacrifices for sins. Accordingly 'the sins of the holy things' was said, not those which the holy ones commit, but from that which are holy things it was said 'of the holy things.' Because in the holy things they are offered, and are called 'sacrifices for sins,' therefore they were called the sins of the holy things.
And 'the sins of your priesthood,' that is, those same things which are offered for sins: as also in Leviticus it declares and says they ought to pertain to the priest. 'All the firstborn, whatsoever shall be in their land, whatsoever they shall bring to the Lord, shall be yours.' Here he says 'firstborn,' not the first offspring of the cattle; for those are in Greek 'prototoka,' but these are 'protogenemata.' But in Latin two names have not been found for these two things. And therefore some have interpreted these 'protogenemata' as 'firstfruits'; but firstfruits are so called and are something else. These three therefore are thus distinguished: because 'aparchai' are the first offspring of animals, even of men; 'protogenemata' the first fruits taken from the earth, whether from tree or from vine;
but firstfruits are indeed from the fruits, yet now brought in from the field, as from the heap, from the vat, from the jar, from the cask, which were taken first. Concerning the red heifer, whose ash the law commanded to be of use for the water of sprinkling and for the cleansing of those who have touched a dead body, we are neither permitted to be silent — for in it a most evident sign of the New Testament is prefigured — nor, hastening, are we able to speak worthily enough of so great a sacrament. For first, that the Scripture began to speak of this matter thus, whom would it not move and make most attentive to the loftiness of the sacrament? 'And the Lord spoke,' it says, 'to Moses and Aaron, saying: This is the distinction of the law, whatsoever the Lord has appointed.'
Without doubt there is no distinction except between some two or more things; for singularity does not require distinction. Nor did He mention the distinction of any single thing, but added: 'of the law,' nor of any law whatsoever. For constantly in Scripture it is said concerning each particular thing about which something is lawfully prescribed: 'This is the law of this or that thing,' not the universal law, which contains all the things that are lawfully prescribed. But here, when He had said, 'This is the distinction of the law,' He following subjoined: 'whatsoever the Lord has appointed,' by prescribing indeed, not by creating. For some interpreters have even rendered it 'whatsoever the Lord has commanded.'
If therefore this is the distinction of the law, whatsoever the Lord has commanded, without doubt that distinction is great; and it is rightly understood to distinguish the two testaments. For the same things are in the Old and the New: there overshadowed, here revealed; there prefigured, here made manifest. For not only are the sacraments diverse, but also the promises. There temporal things seem to be set forth, by which a spiritual reward is secretly signified; but here spiritual and eternal things are most manifestly promised. And of temporal and carnal honors, and of spiritual and eternal ones, what distinction is clearer and more certain than the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ?
In whose death it was sufficiently established that this earthly and transitory felicity is not to be hoped for and desired from the Lord God as a great gift: since indeed, in His only-begotten Son, whom He willed to suffer all those things, He declared by the most manifest distinction that something far other than this ought to be sought and awaited from Him. This passion therefore of our Lord Jesus Christ, as it were a distinction of the two testaments, is fittingly enough prefigured by this which is narrated concerning the slaying of the red heifer. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 'This is the distinction of the law, whatsoever the Lord has appointed.' And then He begins to give command, adding these words, saying: 'Speak to the children of Israel.' It can also be distinguished thus:
And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 'This is the distinction of the law, whatsoever the Lord has appointed by saying' — not whatsoever the Lord has appointed by creating, as heaven and earth and all the things that are in them, but whatsoever the Lord has appointed by saying, namely in the two testaments — so that there may then follow: 'Speak to the children of Israel, and let them take to you a red heifer without blemish.' The red heifer signifies the flesh of Christ: the female sex is on account of the weakness of the flesh; it is red on account of that very bloody passion. But as for what He says:
'let them take to you' — in Moses himself He shows the figure of the law, since according to the law they seemed to themselves to kill Christ, because He was, according to them, loosing the Sabbath and, as they thought, profaning the lawful observances. That therefore this heifer is said to be 'without blemish' is no wonder; for this flesh even the other victims prefigured, where likewise cattle without blemish are commanded to be immolated. For that flesh was indeed in the likeness of sinful flesh, but not the flesh of sin. Yet nevertheless here, where God more evidently willed to commend the distinction of the law, it was too little to say 'without blemish,' unless it were said: 'which has not in itself a blemish.'
And if it was said for the sake of repetition, perhaps it is not in vain, that the very repetition commended that matter more firmly. Although even this does not depart from the truth, that it should be understood as added for this reason, 'which has not in itself a blemish,' when it had already been said 'a heifer without blemish,' because the flesh of Christ had not in itself a blemish, but in others it had, who are His members. For what flesh in this life is without sin except that alone which has not in itself a blemish? 'And there is not placed upon it a yoke.' For it was not subjected to iniquity, to which, finding others subjected, He freed them and broke their bonds, so that it might be said to Him: 'You have broken my bonds, to You I will sacrifice a sacrifice of praise.'
For upon His flesh no yoke was placed, who had power to lay down His soul and to take it up again. 'And you shall give it,' He says, 'to Eleazar the priest.' Why not to Aaron, unless perhaps it was thus prefigured that the Lord's passion would come not to the time which then was, but to the descendants of this priesthood? 'And they shall cast it forth outside the camp': so too the Lord was cast forth to suffer outside the city. But as for what He says, 'into a clean place,' it was thus signified, because He had no evil cause. 'And they shall slay it in his sight': just as the flesh of Christ was slain in the sight of those who were already to be priests in the new testament of the Lord.
And Eleazar shall take of its blood and sprinkle toward the face of the tabernacle of the testimony from its blood seven times. This is the testimony that Christ, according to the Scriptures, shed His blood for the remission of sins. Therefore 'toward the face of the tabernacle of the testimony,' because it was declared no otherwise than as it had been foretold by divine testimony; and therefore 'seven times,' because that very number pertains to spiritual cleansing. And they shall burn it in his sight. I think that the burning up pertains to the sign of the resurrection. For it is the nature of fire to be moved to the upper regions, and that which is burned is converted into it. For the very word 'to burn' (cremare) is drawn from Greek into Latin from 'suspending.' But as for what was added:
in his sight, that is, in the sight of the priest — this seems to me to be intimated, because the resurrection of Christ appeared to those who were to be a royal priesthood. Now as for what follows: 'and its skin and its flesh and its blood with its dung shall be burned up,' this same thing is set forth as to how it shall be burned up, and it is signified that not only the substance of the mortal body of Christ — which is intimated by the mention of skin and flesh and blood — but also the contumely and abjection of the people, which I think is signified by the name of dung, would be converted into glory, which the flame of the burning signifies. And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.
The cedar wood is hope, which ought to dwell firmly in the things above; the hyssop is faith, which, though it is a lowly herb, clings by its roots to the rock; the scarlet is charity, which by its fiery color bears witness to the fervor of the Spirit. These three things we ought to cast into the resurrection of Christ, as into the midst of that burning, so that with Him our life may be hidden, as the Apostle says: 'And your life is hidden with Christ in God.' 'And the priest shall wash his garments and shall wash his body with water, and afterward he shall come into the camp; and the priest shall be unclean until evening.' What is the washing of the garments and of the body but the cleansing of the outer and the inner man? This is the priest's part. Then follows:
'And he who burns her shall wash his garments and shall wash his body with water, and he shall be unclean until evening.' In him who burns them I think there are figured those who buried the flesh of Christ, consigning it to the resurrection as though to a conflagration. 'And a clean man shall gather the ashes of the heifer and shall lay them up outside the camp in a clean place.' What do we call the ashes of the heifer—that is, the remains of that slaying and burning—but the fame that followed the passion and resurrection of Christ? For there are remains belonging to the man of peace. For it was indeed ash, because like a dead thing He was despised by the unbelievers, and yet it cleansed, because He was believed by the faithful to have risen again.
And because this fame shone forth chiefly among those who were in the other nations and were not of the fellowship of the Jews, therefore I think it was said: 'And a clean man shall gather the ashes of the heifer'—clean, that is, from the slaying of Christ, which had made the Jews guilty. 'And he shall lay them up in a clean place,' that is, he shall treat them honorably, yet 'outside the camp,' because outside the celebration of the Jewish custom the evangelical honor shone forth. 'And it shall be for the synagogue of the children of Israel unto preservation; it is the water of sprinkling, a purification.' Afterward it declares more fully how from that ash was made the water of sprinkling, whereby men were cleansed from contact with the dead—which surely signifies cleansing from the iniquity of this dying or death-laden life.
But it is remarkable what follows: 'And he who gathers,' it says, 'the ashes of the heifer, shall wash his garments and shall be unclean until evening.' How shall he who had approached clean become unclean from this, unless because even those who seem to themselves clean in the Christian faith acknowledge that all have sinned and lack the glory of God, being justified freely through His blood? Yet it said that this man was to wash his garments, but not also his body; I believe because, by the gathering of that ash and its laying up in a clean place—if these things are understood spiritually—it wishes it already to be understood that he had been cleansed inwardly.
Just as Cornelius, hearing and believing what Peter had preached, was so cleansed that before the visible baptism he, together with those present with him, received the gift of the Holy Spirit; yet nevertheless the visible sacrament could not be despised, so that, being also washed outwardly, he in a certain manner washed his garments. 'And it shall be,' it says, 'a perpetual statute for the children of Israel and for the proselytes who are added.' What else does it show but that the baptism of Christ, which the water of sprinkling signified, would profit both Jews and Gentiles, that is, the children of Israel and the proselytes, as the natural branches and the wild olive grafted into the fatness of the root? But who would not be made attentive by this, that after the washing it is said of each and every one: 'and he shall be unclean until evening'?
Not only here, but in all or nearly all such cleansings this is said. Here I know not whether anything else can be understood except that every man, after the fullest remission of sins, by continuing in this life contracts something whereby he is unclean until the end of that same life, where this day is in a certain manner closed for him—which the evening signifies. Then the Scripture begins to speak and proceeds to tell how men made unclean are purified by that water of sprinkling. 'He who touches a dead man,' it says, 'the soul of every man shall be unclean seven days; he shall be purified on the third day and on the seventh day and shall be clean.' And here too I see nothing else to be understood except that the touching of a dead man is the iniquity of a man.
But the uncleanness of seven days I think is spoken of on account of the soul and the body—the soul in the number three, the body in the number four. Why this is so, it would be long to discuss. According to this I think it was said through the prophet: 'For three and four impieties I will not turn away.' But it adds and says: 'But if he be not purified on the third day and on the seventh day, he shall not be clean. Everyone who touches a dead man, from any soul of a man, if he has died and has not been purified'—that is, if he died before, having touched a dead man, than he was purified—'he has defiled the tabernacle of the Lord: that soul shall be cut off from Israel.' It is to be noted that most rarely is anything found more clearly written in these books concerning the life of the soul after death.
Here, then, when it says 'if he shall have died before purification, the uncleanness remains in him and that soul is cut off from Israel,' that is, from the fellowship of the people of God, what else does it wish to be understood but that the punishment of the soul remains even after death, if, while he lives, he has not been made clean by this sacrament by which the baptism of Christ is figured? 'Because the water of sprinkling,' it says, 'has not been sprinkled upon him, he is unclean; his uncleanness is still in him.' 'Still,' that is, even after death. But as for what it said above, 'he has defiled the tabernacle of the Lord,' it said this so far as lay in himself, just as the Apostle says: 'Quench not the Spirit,' though He cannot be quenched.
For if it wished the tabernacle to be understood as thereby made unclean, it would surely have commanded it to be cleansed. But afterward it commands those made unclean from the dead—that is, from dead works, which are all iniquities—to be cleansed in this manner. 'And they shall take for that unclean one,' it says, 'of the ash of that burnt purification, and shall pour upon it'—that is, upon that same ash—'living water in a vessel;'
'and a clean man, taking hyssop and dipping it in the water, and sprinkling upon the house and upon the vessels and upon the souls, as many as shall be there, and upon him who has touched a human bone or one wounded or dead or a grave; and the clean man shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day, and he shall be purified on the seventh day and shall wash his garments and shall be washed with water, and he shall be unclean until evening.' One thing is the water of sprinkling, and another surely is that with which he shall wash his garments. 'And he shall be washed with water,' which I think is to be understood spiritually by signification, not by literal property. For without doubt it was visible, like all those shadows of things to come.