Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Doxology of God the Legislator, and His Address from Deuteronomy.
The mercies and sanctifications of the Lord I will sing forever. Hear, O Israel, His great deeds, hear His mercies; hear and meditate upon the commandments of your God. That by doing them you may live, and may possess the land which God will give you. For this is your wisdom, so that they may say: Behold a wise and understanding people, a great nation. Nor is there any other nation so great that has gods drawing near to it, as our God is present to all our supplications. For what other nation is so renowned as to have ceremonies, and just judgments, and the law of God? Ask of the days of old, whether it was ever done that a people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you have heard. Whether God ever did such a thing as to take for Himself a nation from the midst of nations, through so many signs and wonders, through battles and a mighty hand. From heaven He made you hear His voice, because He loved your fathers and their offspring. Know therefore that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth below, and there is no other. I call heaven and earth as witnesses that you will quickly perish if you provoke God to anger, for your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love Him with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. These things you shall meditate upon sitting in your house, walking on the road, sleeping and rising, that you may be a people holy to the Lord. The Lord has chosen you, that you may be to Him a special people from among all nations, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. You shall make no covenant with the Gentiles in these matters, nor shall you join with them in marriages. If you keep the covenant and the law of God, you shall be blessed among all peoples. There shall be no barren one among you; the Lord will take away from you every illness; you shall devour all your enemies. The Lord led you for forty years through the terrible desert, in which there were scorpions, vipers, and the serpent that burns with its breath. He gave you manna, to show that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Neither your foot nor your sandal was worn out: behold, it is the fortieth year. He will bring you into a land of milk and honey, a land of wheat, barley, and wine. Not on account of your righteous deeds will He bring you in, but to fulfill the oaths He gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not tempt God, as you did at the burning, at the temptation, and at the graves of desire, for you are a stiff-necked people. Circumcise the foreskin of your hearts, and do not harden your necks any further. And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, except that you fear Him, that you walk in His ways, and that you love Him and serve Him with your whole heart? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth and all that is in it. He is your praise and your God, who did for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen. He multiplied you like the stars of heaven, and like the sand on the seashore. He led you with dry feet through the Red Sea; Pharaoh and the Egyptians He drowned in it. Behold, I am dying: I set before you today a blessing and a curse — a blessing, if you obey; a curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord. What I command you, this alone do: neither add anything nor diminish anything. If a false prophet has arisen saying, 'Let us follow foreign gods,' you shall immediately stone him. You shall destroy the city, even to the livestock: whatever is in it, you shall burn with fire. You shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed, but you shall offer according to the blessing which He has given you. In judgment you shall not show partiality, nor accept gifts, which blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the just.
If a case is too difficult and uncertain for you to judge, you shall come to the priests of the Levitical line, and you shall do whatever they tell you. Whoever acts presumptuously, refusing to obey the authority of the priest and the decree of the judge, shall be put to death. The Lord will raise up for you a prophet from your own nation: you shall listen to him as you listen to me. If you go out to war, do not be afraid, for the Lord is in your midst and will fight for you: only guard yourself from every evil thing. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree: why then, O Christ, did You deign to become a curse for us upon the cross? You shall give the first-fruits of your crops to the Lord, saying: I acknowledge today before the Lord that He has given us a land flowing with milk and honey. You have chosen the Lord today to be your God: therefore keep His commandments and judgments. Blessed is he who keeps the precepts and justice of the Lord: blessed are his houses and his barns. If you have been scattered to the ends of heaven, from there the Lord will gather you back. Cursed is he who does not abide in the words of the law of God, nor fulfills them in deed. Cursed in the city, cursed in the field: cursed going in and coming out. Let the heaven above you be bronze, and the earth you tread upon, iron. May the Lord make the rain of your land into dust; may He deliver you to your enemies, and your corpse to the birds of heaven. May He strike you with the ulcer of Egypt, with madness, blindness, and frenzy of mind. May He give you a fearful and failing heart; let your life be as if hanging before you. In the morning you shall say: Who will grant me evening? And in the evening: Who will grant me morning? And all the nations shall say: Why has the Lord done this to this land? What is this immense fury of His anger? And they shall answer: Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, which He made with their fathers at Horeb. The hidden things belong to the Lord our God; the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. The commandment that I give you today is not beyond you, so that you should say: Who among us can ascend to heaven to bring it down to us? Nor is it placed beyond the sea, so that you should object: Who among us will cross the sea to bring it to us? The word is very near, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. Consider that today I have set before you life and good, and on the other hand, death and evil. Choose therefore life, that both you and your offspring may live: love God, for He is your life and the length of your days. Act manfully and be strengthened; do not fear your enemies. God is your guide; He will not forsake you.
The Canticle of Moses.
Hear, O heavens, what I speak; let the earth hear the words of my mouth. Give glory to our God: the works of God are perfect, and all His ways are judgments. They have sinned against Him, they are not His children: a perverse and crooked generation. Is this what you render to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is He not your father, who possessed you, and made you, and created you? When the Most High divided the nations, He established the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. But the portion of the Lord is His people: Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror and vast solitude. He led him about and taught him, and guarded him as the pupil of His eye. As an eagle, enticing its young to fly, He spread His wings and bore him upon His shoulders. He set him upon the high land, that he might suck honey from the rock and oil from the hardest stone. The beloved one grew fat and kicked: he forsook God his maker, and withdrew from God his Savior. You abandoned the God who begot you; you forgot the Lord your Creator. A fire has been kindled in My fury: it shall burn even to the depths of hell, and shall consume the foundations of the mountains. I will heap evils upon them, and I will spend My arrows against them. They are a nation without counsel and without prudence. O that they were wise, and understood, and would foresee their latter end! Their vineyard is of the vineyard of Sodom: their wine is the gall of serpents and the incurable venom of asps. Vengeance is Mine; I will repay them. The day of their destruction is near, and the appointed times hasten on. I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh. Praise, O nations, His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants and will render vengeance upon their enemies.
The Lord came from Sinai, and rose from Seir upon us; He appeared from Mount Pharan, and with Him thousands of saints. In His right hand was a fiery law; all the saints are in His hand. Moses, dying, blessed Levi, saying: He who said to his father and his mother, 'I do not know you,' and to his brothers, 'I do not recognize them.' They kept Your covenant, O Lord; they observed Your word. They shall place incense in Your wrath, and a holocaust upon Your altar. Bless, O Lord, his strength, and receive the works of his hands. They shall call the peoples to the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of justice. There is no other God like the God of the most righteous one: the rider of the heavens is your helper. His majesty makes the clouds run; His dwelling is above, and beneath are the everlasting arms. Israel shall dwell securely in a land of wheat, oil, and wine, and the heavens shall drip with dew. Blessed are you, O Israel, a people saved by the Lord: He is the shield of your help and the sword of your glory. Your enemies shall deny you, and you shall tread upon their necks.
The Death of Moses.
Moses ascended Mount Abarim and beheld the land promised to Abraham and his offspring. He died, and no man knew his burial place; his eye was not dimmed, nor were his teeth loosened. No prophet arose like him in signs and wonders, who knew the Lord face to face. He made him like Him in the glory of the saints; He showed him His glory. In his faithfulness and meekness He made him holy, and He chose him out of all flesh. To teach Jacob His covenant, and His judgments to Israel.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Prayer and Conclusion.
Creator of all things, O God, who by Your providence govern all things, reaching from end to end mightily and arranging all things sweetly, how holy and wonderful You were in Moses and the Hebrews and in all the works of the Pentateuch! In Genesis we have beheld Your mighty creation of all things; in Exodus, Your singular care and providence toward Your own; in Leviticus, Your sacred religion, sacrifices, and ceremonies; in Numbers, Your august magnificence in such great encampments of the people; in Deuteronomy, Your zeal for the salvation of the people, Your love and ardor. We have beheld the ancient Church and commonwealth instituted among the people chosen by You. We have heard the rivulets of Your eternal law, Your holy precepts — moral, judicial, and ceremonial. Let heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them praise You; let them praise You and bless Your holy name forever. Grant, O Lord, that in all these things we may acknowledge and behold You, revere You, worship and love You with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole strength. Grant that in all these things, foreshadowed and depicted, we may contemplate Your Only-Begotten Son, Christ the Lord, our Savior. Grant also that Israel may recognize Him — the people once chosen by You, now forsaken and wandering. Save, O Lord, the remnant of Israel, for they are the children of Abraham according to the flesh; they are Your kinsmen, the kinsmen of the Apostles. Remove from them the veil of the letter and of carnal ceremonies, which has been placed over their hearts since the days of Moses and the Messiah, that in these things they may read and see the spirit and the hidden mysteries of Your Christ; for this is eternal life: to know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
Grant finally that this commentary may serve to glorify You and to illuminate Your servant Moses, so that whoever reads these things may obtain a clearer knowledge of the Pentateuch, of Christ prefigured therein, and of Your majesty — as the highest of all — and may thereby be stirred to greater love, reverence, and worship of You. Favor these prayers of mine, O Holy Mother of God, Virgin Mary; obtain from Your blessed Son that I may achieve them. For to you, as my mother and the mother of all that is mine, I refer and offer this work of mine, my second as well as my first: to you I dedicate, deliver, and consecrate this Moses of mine, just as I did my Paul. For he is yours, not mine: to you be the glory, and to me the shame of my face. Mary, Mother of God, remember me now and at the hour of death. Grant finally that these writings, these individual letters, may praise You and Your blessed Son with the Father and the Holy Spirit; may they praise, I say, both in this age and in all ages to come, and may they invite all who read them to His perpetual praise; and when I am dead, may they proclaim His everlasting glory and bear witness to all of the eternal and immense desire to praise and glorify Him. Amen.