Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He ordains that the priests and Levites shall have no portion in Canaan, except the sacrifices, tithes, and offerings. Secondly, verse 10, he forbids consulting diviners and sorcerers; but commands that the Prophet, whom He promises them at verse 15, be heard.
Vulgate Text: Deuteronomy 18:1-22
1. The priests and Levites, and all who are of the same tribe, shall have no portion or inheritance with the rest of Israel, because they shall eat the sacrifices of the Lord and His offerings, 2. and they shall receive nothing else from the possession of their brothers: for the Lord Himself is their inheritance, as He told them. 3. This shall be the due of the priests from the people: those who offer sacrifices, whether they sacrifice an ox or a sheep, shall give the priest the shoulder and the stomach, 4. the first-fruits of grain, wine and oil, and a portion of the wool from the shearing of sheep. 5. For the Lord your God chose him from all your tribes, to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, he and his sons forever. 6. If a Levite goes out from one of your cities anywhere in Israel where he lives, and wishes to come, desiring the place which the Lord has chosen, 7. he shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, like all his brothers the Levites, who shall stand at that time before the Lord. 8. He shall receive the same portion of food as the rest, in addition to what is due to him in his own city from his paternal inheritance. 9. When you have entered the land which the Lord your God will give you, beware lest you wish to imitate the abominations of those nations, 10. nor let there be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through fire; or who consults soothsayers, or observes dreams and omens, nor a sorcerer, 11. nor an enchanter, nor one who consults mediums, nor diviners, or who seeks the truth from the dead. 12. For the Lord abominates all these things, and because of such crimes He will destroy them at your coming. 13. You shall be perfect and without blemish before the Lord your God. 14. These nations whose land you shall possess listen to soothsayers and diviners: but you have been differently instructed by the Lord your God. 15. The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet from your own nation and from among your brothers, like me: Him you shall hear. 16. As you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb, when the assembly was gathered, and you said: I will no longer hear the voice of the Lord my God, and I will no longer see this great fire, lest I die. 17. And the Lord said to me: They have spoken well in all things. 18. I will raise up for them a Prophet from among their brothers, like you: and I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I shall command Him; 19. and whoever will not hear His words which He shall speak in My name, I will be the avenger. 20. But a prophet who, corrupted by arrogance, presumes to speak in My name what I did not command him to say, or speaks in the name of other gods, shall be put to death. 21. And if you reply in your secret thoughts: How can I know the word which the Lord has not spoken? 22. You shall have this sign: What that prophet has predicted in the name of the Lord, and it does not come to pass; this the Lord has not spoken, but the prophet made it up out of the swelling of his own mind; and therefore you shall not fear him.
Verse 3: The Due of the Priests
3. THIS SHALL BE THE DUE OF THE PRIESTS FROM THE PEOPLE. -- That is, this shall be the right or income which the priests receive from the people by their right.
WHETHER THEY SACRIFICE AN OX OR A SHEEP -- namely, as a peace offering.
THEY SHALL GIVE THE PRIEST THE SHOULDER AND THE STOMACH. -- For in a holocaust only the hide went to the priest; in a sin offering, all the flesh; but in a peace offering, only the shoulder and the breast were given to the priest, as is evident from Leviticus.
Note: For "shoulder and stomach," the Hebrew has shoulder, jaws, and stomach. So also the Chaldean and the Septuagint. But by "jaws" here are understood the fleshy parts which, when the shoulder is cut from the animal's quarter, are customarily left on each side of the stomach or breast. Therefore shoulder, jaws, and stomach is the same as shoulder and stomach, or breast, which constitute a quarter of the animal: for by the law of Exodus XXIX, 28, and Leviticus chapter VII, 31, where these are exactly described, nothing else from the peace offering was given to the priest except the shoulder and the breast. So Abulensis. Therefore it seems a fiction what the Hebrews say, that these three were given to the priest on account of Phinehas: namely, the shoulder or arm was given because Phinehas struck Zimri with the Midianite woman by the strength of his arm, Numbers XXV; the stomach was given because Phinehas struck them in the belly, namely in the genitals; the jaws were given because the priests move their jaws when they pray for the offerer: for these were assigned to the priest before the deed of Phinehas, Exodus chapter XXIX, 28.
Verse 5: He Chose Him to Stand and Minister
5. FOR HE CHOSE HIM TO STAND (the Septuagint reads: to stand before the Lord, that is, as a servant continually ministering; hence it follows) AND TO MINISTER IN THE NAME OF THE LORD -- that is, to the Lord, calling upon, honoring, and invoking Him by His name.
Note: To stand signifies both service and its permanence; hence in Micah V, 4, it is said of Christ: "And He shall stand and feed in strength," meaning, Christ will remain continually with Christians and feed them mightily; He will not pass from them to other nations, as He passed from the Jews to the Christians. So St. Jerome there.
Verse 6: If a Levite Wishes to Come
6. IF A LEVITE GOES OUT, etc., AND WISHES TO COME, DESIRING THE PLACE WHICH THE LORD HAS CHOSEN -- meaning, if a Levite, led by devotion and desiring, outside his regular turns, to minister to God in the tabernacle for the rest of his life, as Samuel did.
Verse 8: The Same Portion of Food
8. HE SHALL RECEIVE THE SAME PORTION OF FOOD (OF THE OFFERINGS) AS THE REST -- who minister to God in their regular turns.
IN ADDITION TO WHAT IS DUE TO HIM IN HIS OWN CITY FROM HIS PATERNAL INHERITANCE -- namely, in addition to the tithes which he would receive in his own city; for these are like the inheritance of the Levites, and they have no other. So Abulensis.
Verse 10: Passing through Fire -- Lustration
10. NOR LET THERE BE FOUND AMONG YOU ANYONE WHO MAKES HIS SON PASS THROUGH FIRE. -- In Hebrew: who makes his son pass through fire, that is, who burns his son with fire, which those who worshipped Moloch did, as I said on Leviticus XVIII, 21, or who purifies him by fire. For some had their sons quickly pass through this fire, because they were persuaded that those who had been thus superstitiously lustrated by fire would not die before their time, says Rabbi Moses Maimonides.
Note: To lustrate means to purify; hence lustration was an expiatory sacrifice by which men or fields were purified; such as Virgil describes in the Aeneid VI, when he says: Three times he bore his companions around with pure water, sprinkling with light dew and a branch of fruitful olive, and lustrated the men and spoke the final words.
Such a lustration was that by which they sacrificed children to Moloch or Saturn, to avert public or private calamity, as I said on Leviticus XVIII.
Verse 13: Perfect and without Blemish
13. YOU SHALL BE PERFECT AND WITHOUT BLEMISH BEFORE THE LORD YOUR GOD -- namely, so that you turn away from the idols, rites, and crimes of the Gentiles, and worship the one God alone, and obey Him in all things; "for whoever keeps His commandments, in him love is made perfect," says St. John, epistle I, chapter II, verse 5. Thus David was perfect, Psalm LXXXVIII, 21, and elsewhere: "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who does all My will." And "Noah" who was "a just man, and perfect in his generations," Genesis chapter VI, 9. Thus God commanded Abraham: "Walk before Me, and be perfect," that you may love, worship, obey, think, and be wise toward God in all things, and say with St. Augustine: "All abundance which is not my God is poverty to me."
Cassian on the Path to Perfection
Cassian says beautifully, book IV, last chapter: "Listen, he says, briefly to the order by which you can ascend to the highest perfection without great difficulty. The beginning of our salvation and wisdom is the fear of the Lord: from the fear of the Lord is born saving compunction: from compunction of heart proceeds renunciation, that is, the nakedness and contempt of all possessions: from nakedness humility is brought forth: from humility mortification of the will is generated: by the mortification of the will all vices are uprooted and wither: by the expulsion of vices the virtues bear fruit and grow: by the sprouting of virtues purity of heart is acquired: by purity of heart the perfection of Apostolic charity is possessed."
Verse 15: The Prophet Like Moses
15. THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET FROM YOUR OWN NATION, etc. -- There is as it were a double literal sense here, up to verse 20, as Abulensis and Cajetan rightly teach. The first is that these verses be understood of the common prophets whom God in turn and successively sent to the Hebrews after Moses, to announce and inculcate God's law upon them, so that "prophet" is taken for "prophets." And this sense fits excellently with what precedes and follows; for it preceded that recourse was not to be had to soothsayers and diviners, and that the Hebrews were differently instructed by God, namely that God promised He would send them His true prophets, so that they would not need to have recourse to diviners; and according to this promise of God, the Jews almost always, up to Christ, had prophets sent by God; hence the Psalmist, Psalm LXXIII, 9, laments as of a great calamity and abandonment, saying: "We have not seen our signs; there is no longer a prophet, and he will not know us anymore," etc.
Christ as the Prophet
The latter sense, and the principal one, is that these words are to be understood literally of Christ: for that they must be understood of Him is evident from Acts III, 22; Acts VII, 37; John I, 45, and therefore here He calls Him "prophet" in the singular number, namely, par excellence; again, He calls Him like Moses, namely as regards the leadership of the people and legislation: so St. Augustine, book XVI Against Faustus, chapter XV; secondly, because just as Moses brought the people out of Egypt's slavery, so Christ freed men from the slavery of sin into freedom; thirdly, Moses led us into Canaan, Christ into heaven; fourthly, just as Moses, so also Christ worked many miracles, and inflicted plagues not on Pharaoh but on the devil; fifthly, God spoke with Moses mouth to mouth in a familiar way: so also with Christ, and far more excellently: for Christ was intimately united with the Word of God, and with God Himself.
Moses therefore signifies here that God would send true prophets to instruct the Hebrews and bring God's words to them; and because among them Christ would excel, therefore He is principally the Prophet of whom these words are to be understood, meaning: I, Moses, the prophet, am the type and forerunner of Christ, the supreme Prophet: behold, I die; I send you forward to Christ; I hand the torch to Him; hear Him, follow Him. For that there can be multiple literal senses of the same passage, especially when one is subordinated to another, I showed from St. Augustine and St. Thomas in Canon 36.
Christ's Gift of Prophecy
Moreover, although Abulensis denies that there was in Christ a true and properly-called gift of prophecy, because he thinks that obscurity of knowledge is required for this, which was not in Christ, and therefore Christ is only called a Prophet according to the estimation and designation of the common people: nevertheless the contrary is far truer, namely that Christ was truly and properly a Prophet, even though He had a clear foreknowledge of future things: for obscurity of knowledge is not required for prophecy, as Francisco Suarez shows at length, Part III, Question VII, Disputation XXI, Section I.
As You Asked at Horeb
15 and 16. HIM YOU SHALL HEAR, AS YOU ASKED OF THE LORD YOUR GOD AT HOREB. -- For at Sinai, Exodus XX, 19, the Hebrews, terrified by the voice of God, asked that God not speak to them by Himself, but through Moses, as a prophet. Since therefore they then asked for a prophet to bring them the words of God: and the words of God are necessary not only at that time, but also in future times; hence they tacitly asked not only for Moses at that time, but also for other prophets after him: for these were as necessary to them as Moses, so that through them they might consult and learn the will of God. So Abulensis.
Verse 16: The Assembly at Sinai
16. WHEN THE ASSEMBLY WAS GATHERED -- that is, on the day when all Israel was assembled to hear the voice of God; hence those who speak to the whole assembly, that is, to all the people, are called preachers: and so Solomon in Hebrew is called Qoheleth, in Greek Ecclesiastes, in Latin the Preacher.
Verse 18: I Will Put My Words in His Mouth
18. AND I WILL PUT MY WORDS IN HIS MOUTH -- I will teach Him My words, which He shall speak, so that He may be My interpreter.
These words of God, which He Himself taught us through Christ, St. Cyprian embraces in his treatise On the Lord's Prayer, in that golden sentence which would that Christians would inscribe on their hearts, in their churches, and in their homes! For it is the compendium of Christian life and perfection: "The will of God, he says, which Christ taught and practiced, is first, humility in conduct; second, stability in faith; third, modesty in words; fourth, justice in deeds; fifth, mercy in works; sixth, discipline in morals; seventh, not to know how to do injury; eighth, to be able to bear what is done to us; ninth, to keep peace with our brothers; tenth, to love God with the whole heart; eleventh, to love in Him what is the Father; twelfth, to fear what is God; thirteenth, to put absolutely nothing before Christ, because He put nothing before us; fourteenth, to adhere inseparably to His charity; fifteenth, to stand bravely and faithfully by His cross; sixteenth, when there is a contest about His name and honor, to show in speech the constancy with which we confess; in examination the confidence with which we engage; in death the patience with which we are crowned: this is to will to be a co-heir of Christ, this is to do the commandment of God, this is to fulfill the will of the Father."