Homilies on Exodus — Homily 11 (Exod. 17–18 — Rephidim and the thirst; Amalek; Jethro)
Latin source: Origen's Greek homilies on Exodus, surviving only in Rufinus of Aquileia's Latin translation (c. 400), from the reading text of W. A. Baehrens (ed.), Origenes Werke VI (GCS 29, Leipzig, 1920), pp. 145–279. This English translation is released into the public domain.Concerning the thirst of the people at Rephidim, and concerning the war of the Amalekites, and the presence of Jethro.
1. Since "everyone who wishes to live devoutly in Christ suffers persecution" and is assailed by enemies, he who walks the road of this life ought always to be armed and always to stand within the camp. Therefore it is also related concerning the people of God: "the whole synagogue of the sons of Israel set out" it says "from the desert of Sin according to their camps, by the word of the Lord". There is, then, one synagogue of the Lord, but this is divided into four camps. For four camps are described as positioned around the tabernacle of the Lord, as is related in the book of Numbers. And you too, therefore, if you are always watchful and always armed and know that you serve as a soldier in the camps of the Lord, observe that commandment which says that "no one serving as a soldier for God entangles himself in worldly affairs, that he may please Him to whom he has proved himself", because, if you so serve as a soldier that you are free from worldly matters and always keep watch in the camps of the Lord, it will also be said of you that by the word of the Lord you go out "from the desert of Sin" and come "to Rephidim"; for Sin is interpreted as temptation, but Rephidim as soundness of judgment. He who comes well out of temptation, and whom temptation renders approved, this man comes to soundness of judgment; for on the day of judgment he will be sound, and soundness will be with him who was not wounded in temptation, as it is also written in the Apocalypse: "but to him who conquers, I will give of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of my God". He comes, then, to soundness of judgment, who well "orders his words in judgment".
2. But what is it that follows? "The people thirsted" it says "for water, and they murmured against Moses". It might perhaps seem to be said superfluously, that he said that "the people thirsted for water"; for it would have sufficed to say that "they thirsted"; what need was there to add: "they thirsted for water"? The addition is not superfluous; for there are diverse thirsts, and each one has his own thirst. Those who are blessed, according to the word of the Lord, "thirst for righteousness"; and others no less say: "my soul has thirsted for you, O God". But those who are sinners suffer "not a thirst for water nor a hunger for bread, but a thirst for hearing the word of God". For this reason, therefore, here too he adds that "the people thirsted for water", who ought to have thirsted for God, who ought to have "thirsted for righteousness". But since God is truly the "instructor of infants" and the "teacher of the foolish", He corrects faults and amends errors, and He says to Moses that he should take the rod and, striking the rock, bring forth waters for them. For He wishes them now to drink "from the rock", He wishes them to advance and to come to the inner mysteries. For "they murmured against Moses", and therefore the Lord commands that Moses show them a rock from which they may drink. If there is anyone who, reading Moses, murmurs against him, and the law which is written according to the letter displeases him, because in many things it does not seem to preserve consistency, Moses shows him the rock, which is Christ, and leads him to it, that he may drink from there and refresh his thirst. But this rock, unless it be struck, will not give waters; but when struck it brings forth fountains. For Christ, when struck and driven to the cross, brought forth the fountains of the New Testament; and therefore it was said of Him that "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered". It was necessary, then, that He be struck; for unless He had been struck and "water and blood had come forth from His side", we should all suffer "a thirst for the word of God". This, then, is what the Apostle also interpreted, that "they all ate the same spiritual food, and they all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed; and the rock was Christ". Observe, however, what God said in this place to Moses: "go before the people, and take with you the elders, that is, the presbyters of the people". Not Moses alone leads the people to the waters of the rock, but also the elders of the people with him. For not the law alone announces Christ, but also the prophets and the patriarchs and all the "elders".
3. After this the war waged with the Amalekites is described; the people is related to have fought and conquered. Before it ate bread from heaven and drank water from the rock, the people is not related to have fought, but it is said to it: "the Lord will fight for you, and you will keep silent". There is, then, a time when the Lord fights for us and "does not permit us to be tempted beyond what we are able", nor allows us, unequal in strength, to come to a contest with one "strong". So too Job at last, now made "perfect", completed that most renowned struggle of his temptation. And you too, therefore, when you have begun to eat manna, the heavenly bread of the word of God, and to drink water from the rock, and when you have approached the inner things of spiritual doctrine, expect a battle and prepare yourself for war. Since the battle is imminent, then, let us see what Moses commands: "he said" it says "to Jesus: choose for yourself men, and go out, and fight with Amalek tomorrow". Up to this place no mention has anywhere been made of the blessed name of Jesus; here for the first time the splendor of this name shone forth, here for the first time Moses called Jesus and said to him: "choose for yourself men". Moses calls Jesus, the law calls upon Christ, that He may choose for Himself "mighty men" from the people. Moses could not choose, but Jesus alone is He who can choose "mighty men", who said: "you did not choose me, but I chose you". For He Himself is the leader of the chosen, He Himself the prince of the mighty, He Himself is the one who fights with Amalek. For He Himself is the one who "enters into the house of the strong man and binds the strong man and plunders his goods".
4. But meanwhile let us see what the present history now unfolds: "Moses went up" it says "to the top of the hill". He does not yet go up to the top of the mountain, but "to the top of the hill". For it was reserved for him to go up to the top of the mountain then, when Jesus was to go up, and Moses with Him, and Elijah, and there be transformed into glory. Now, therefore, as one not yet glorified from the transformation of Jesus, he does not go up to the top of the mountain, but "he goes up to the top of the hill". "And it came to pass" it says "that when Moses raised his hands, Israel became superior". Moses indeed raises his hands, he does not stretch them out; but Jesus, who, lifted up on the cross, was to embrace the whole circle of the earth with His arms, says: "I have stretched out my hands to a people that does not believe and that contradicts me". Moses, then, raises his hands, and when he raised his hands, Amalek was conquered. To raise the hands is to raise one's works and deeds to God, and not to have one's deeds cast down and lying on the ground, but pleasing to God and lifted up to heaven. He raises his hands, therefore, who "lays up treasure in heaven"; for "where his treasure is", there also is his eye, there also his hands. He also raises his hands who says: "the lifting up of my hands is the evening sacrifice". If, then, our deeds are lifted up and are not upon the earth, Amalek is conquered. But the Apostle also commands us "to lift up holy hands without anger and dispute", and to certain ones it was said: "lift up the drooping hands and the loosened knees, and make straight steps for your feet". If, then, the people keeps the law, Moses raises his hands and the adversary is conquered; if it does not keep the law, Amalek grows strong. Since, therefore, "for us too the struggle is against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world", if you wish to conquer, if you wish to prevail, lift up your hands and lift up your deeds, and let your conduct be not on the earth, but, as the Apostle said: "walking upon the earth, we have our conduct in heaven". And thus you will be able to overcome the people that opposes you, Amalek, so that it may be said even of you: "that with a hidden hand the Lord fought against Amalek". Lift up your hands too to God, fulfill the commandment that the Apostle gives: "pray without ceasing", and then that will come to pass which is written: "as a calf licks up the green grass in the fields, so this people will lick up the people that is upon the earth". By which, as we have received from our forebears, it is said to be indicated that the people of God fought not so much with hand and arms as with voice and tongue, that is, pouring out prayer to God it laid low its enemies. So, then, you too, if you wish to conquer your enemies, lift up your deeds, cry out to God, as the Apostle says: "being urgent in prayer and watchful in it". For this is the battle of the Christian, by which he overcomes the enemy. But I think that by this figure Moses also designates the form of two peoples, and shows that there is one people from the nations, which lifts up the hands of Moses and raises them, that is, which lifts on high the things that Moses wrote and sets their understanding in the heights, and through this conquers; and that there is another, which, since it does not lift up the hands of Moses nor raise them from the earth, nor considers anything lofty and subtle in him, is conquered by its adversaries and laid low.
5. After this Moses comes to the mountain of God, and there Jethro his father-in-law meets him. And he "went out to meet him" from the camp, and does not lead him to the mountain of God, but "leads him to his own tent". For the priest of Midian could not go up to the mountain of God, nor could he go down into Egypt—neither he himself nor the wife of Moses—but now he comes to him with his sons. For no one can go down into Egypt and undergo the Egyptian contests, unless he be an approved athlete and such a one as the Apostle describes, that: "everyone who strives in the contest is temperate in all things; and they indeed, that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. I therefore run thus, not as toward something uncertain; I fight thus, not as one beating the air". Moses, then, because he was a great and mighty athlete, went down into Egypt, went down to the contests and exercises of the virtues. But Abraham too went down into Egypt, because he also was a great and mighty athlete. For what shall I say of Jacob, who by his very name is an athlete? For he is interpreted as a wrestler and supplanter. And therefore, when Jacob had gone down into Egypt with "seventy-five souls", he became "as the stars of heaven in multitude". But not all who go down into Egypt so fight and so accomplish the contests that they become "a multitude" and are multiplied "as the stars of heaven". For others, to have gone down into Egypt turns out to the contrary. I know that Jeroboam, fleeing from Solomon, went down into Egypt, and not only did not grow "into a multitude", but even tore apart and corrupted the people of God, because, going down into Egypt, he received from King Shishak "the sister of Tahpenes his wife as a wife". But meanwhile Jethro comes to Moses, bringing with him his daughter, the wife of Moses, and his sons. "And Aaron came" it says "and all the presbyters of Israel, to eat bread with the father-in-law of Moses in the sight of God". Not all eat bread "in the sight of God", but those who are "presbyters", who are elders, who are perfect and proved by their merits, they eat bread "in the sight of God"; those who observe that which the Apostle says: "whether you eat, or drink, or do anything else, do all to the glory of God". Everything, therefore, that the saints do, they do "in the sight of God"; the sinner flees from the sight of God. For it is written that Adam, after he sinned, fled "from the sight of God" and, when questioned, answered: "I heard" he said "your voice, and I hid myself, because I was naked". But Cain too, after he was condemned by God for fratricide, "went out" it says "from the face of God, and dwelt in the land of Nod". He "went out", then, "from the face of God", who is unworthy of the sight of God. But the saints both eat and drink "in the sight of God", and all things that they do, they do "in the sight of God". As I examine the present passage still further, I see that those who receive a fuller knowledge of God and are more fully imbued with the divine disciplines, these, even if they do evil, do it before God and do it in His sight, like the one who said: "against you alone have I sinned, and I have done evil before you". What more, then, does he have who does evil before God? That he immediately repents and says: "I have sinned". But he who departs from the sight of God knows not how to turn back and to purge his sin by repenting. This, then, is the difference between doing evil before God and having departed from the sight of God while sinning.
6. But, as I see, Jethro did not come to Moses in vain, nor in vain did he eat bread with the elders of the people "in the sight of the Lord". For he gives Moses counsel quite fitting and useful, that he should choose men and appoint as princes of the people "men who worship God, mighty men and hating pride". For such ought the princes of the people to be, who are not only not proud, but even hate pride, that is, that they should not only themselves be without vice, but should also hate vices in others; I do not say hating men, but vices. "And you shall appoint them" it says "as tribunes and centurions and leaders of fifty and leaders of ten, and they shall judge the people at every hour. But the matter that is weightier, they shall refer to you". Let the princes of the people and the presbyters of the plebs hear that they ought to judge the people at every hour, always and without ceasing to sit in judgment, to settle disputes, to reconcile those who are at variance, to bring back into favor those in discord. Let each one learn from the holy scriptures his own office. Moses, it says, is to be in those things which pertain to God and to expound the word of God to the peoples, but the other princes, whom they call "tribunes"—for tribunes are so called because they preside over a tribe—the other "tribunes", then, or "centurions", or "leaders of fifty" are to preside over lesser judgments, which pertain to individuals, settling them. But I think this very figure was given to the Church not only in the present age, but is also to be preserved in the age to come. Hear at last what the Lord says in the Gospel: "when the Son of man shall sit" it says "upon the throne of his glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel". You see, then, that not only does the Lord judge, to whom the Father "has given all judgment", but He appoints for Himself also other princes, who may judge the people concerning lesser causes, "but the matter that is weightier, they shall refer" to Him. Therefore the Lord too said of a certain one that "he will be liable to the council", but of another: "he will be liable to the judgment", and of another: "he will be liable to the gehenna of fire". But we are said to be about to render an account even for an idle word, and He did not say that we shall render an account to God, just as concerning perjury He says: "but you shall render to the Lord your oaths". Moreover "the queen of the South will rise up in judgment with the men of this generation and will condemn them": behold, yet another kind of judgment. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear". For all these things are a type and "shadow" of heavenly things and an image of "the things to come". But just as we read written that "the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing", so we too cannot be satisfied in beholding and considering the things that are written, from how many sides they build us up, in how many ways they instruct us. For indeed, when I perceive that Moses, a prophet full of God, to whom God spoke "face to face", received counsel from Jethro, a priest of Midian, I fall into an amazement of mind out of exceeding wonder. For the Scripture says: "and Moses heard the voice of his father-in-law, and did whatever he said to him". He did not say that 'God speaks to me, and what I ought to do is conveyed to me by heavenly discourse', and 'how shall I accept counsel from a man, and from a gentile man, a stranger to the people of God?', but he hears his voice and does all that he says, and he listens not to who says it, but to what he says. Wherefore we too, if perhaps we sometimes find something said wisely by the gentiles, ought not straightway to spurn both the sayings along with the name of the author; nor, because we hold the law given by God, is it fitting that we swell with pride and spurn the words of the prudent, but as the Apostle says: "proving all things, holding fast that which is good". But who today among those who preside over the peoples—I do not say, if some things have already been revealed to him by God, but if he has some merit in the knowledge of the law—deigns to accept the counsel even of a lesser priest, not to say of a layman, still less of a gentile? But Moses, who was "a man meek above all men", accepted the counsel of a lesser man, both to give the princes of the peoples a form of humility and to designate the image of a future sacrament. For he knew that it would sometime come to pass that the gentiles would bring forward good counsel to Moses, that they would bring a good and spiritual understanding to the law of God; and he knew that the law would hear them and would do all things as they say. "For the law cannot do", as the Jews say, because "the law is weakened in the flesh", that is, in the letter, and can do nothing according to the letter: "for the law brought nothing to perfection". But according to this counsel, which we bring to the law, all things can be done spiritually, and sacrifices too can be offered spiritually, which now cannot be done carnally; the law of leprosy too can be kept spiritually, which cannot be kept according to the letter. So, then, in the way that we understand, in the way that we perceive and give counsel, the law does all things; but according to the letter it does not do all things, but only very few.
7. But after this, when Jethro had departed and Moses had come "from Rephidim into the desert of Sinai", and there the Lord had descended to Moses "in a pillar of cloud", so that the people, seeing, might believe him and hear his words, the Lord said to Moses: "go down, testify to the people and purify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments, and let them be ready for the third day". If there is anyone who comes together to hear the word of God, let him hear what God commanded: he ought to come sanctified to hear the word, he ought to wash his garments. For if you bring garments here soiled, you too will hear: "friend, how did you enter here, not having wedding garments?" No one, then, can hear the word of God unless he has first been sanctified, that is, unless he is "holy in body and spirit", unless he has washed his garments. For he is about, a little later, to enter to the wedding supper, he is about to eat of the flesh of the lamb, he is about to drink the cup of salvation. Let no one enter to this supper with soiled garments. For this too wisdom commanded elsewhere, saying: "at every time let your garments be clean". For your garments have been washed once: when you came to the grace of baptism, you were purified in body, you were cleansed from all defilement of flesh and spirit. "What" therefore "God has cleansed, do not you make unclean". Hear, then, now also the kind of sanctification: "do not approach" it says "a woman today and tomorrow, that on the third day you may hear the word of God". This is what the Apostle also says: "it is good for a man not to touch a woman", with the remedy preserved, however, for those who because of their weakness need the remedy of marriage. But let us nevertheless hear the counsel of the Apostle who says: "because the time is short, it remains that both those who have wives be as though not having them, and those who buy as though not possessing, and those who use this world as though they use it not. For the fashion of this world passes away", the temporal kingdom passes away, that the perpetual and eternal may come, as we are also bidden to say in prayer: "your kingdom come", in Christ Jesus our Lord, "to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen".