Homilies on the Psalms — Homily 24 — Psalm 77 (LXX; MT 78), Homily VII: vv. 44–51 (the plagues of Egypt)
Greek source: Origen's homilies on the Psalms, preserved in a single manuscript (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. graec. 314, 12th century), from the reading text of L. Perrone et al. (eds.), Die neuen Psalmenhomilien. Eine kritische Edition des Codex Monacensis Graecus 314, Origenes Werke XIII (GCS NF 19; Berlin, 2015), pp. 433–448. Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the 77th Psalm, Homily 7
1. The present Scripture seems to abridge the account of the plagues in Egypt in two psalms: in the seventy-seventh, whose words we still have in hand, and in the hundred and fourth. It must be observed that Scripture did not name the ten plagues either here or there. Here it passed over in silence the third and the sixth and the ninth, while there it passed over the fifth. And this too must be observed: the prophet did not set out the list of the plagues according to their order, neither here nor there.
For "And he turned", he says, "their rivers into blood": this, admittedly, was the first plague that came upon the Egyptians. Then, "and these devoured them", and the fourth plague is the dog-fly; "and the frog, and it destroyed them": the second plague is the frog; he was silent about the gnats. "And he gave their fruit to the blight and their labors to the locust": the eighth plague is the locust. He passed over in silence the ninth, which was the darkness that could be felt. "And he delivered up their cattle to hail and their substance to the fire": this is the seventh plague. "And he shut up their cattle to death": this is the fifth plague. The sixth he passed over in silence, which was "sores and boils breaking out". "And he struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt": the last he named last.
If you wish to hear, by setting side by side what stands in both, how he set out the plagues in this psalm and how in the hundred and fourth, listen. Concerning the water that was turned into blood, it is written in the hundred and fourth: "he turned their waters into blood and killed their fish". Concerning the frogs: "their land brought forth frogs in the chambers of their kings". Concerning the gnats, the text was silent here, but there it is written: "and gnats in all their borders". Concerning the dog-fly: "he spoke, and the dog-fly came", to which he added: "and gnats in all their borders". Yet the gnats came before the dog-flies. And the death of the cattle is passed over in silence there, and the sores and the boils breaking out are passed over in silence both here and there. And the hail that came upon the cattle is spoken of in the hundred and fourth psalm in this way: "he made their rains hail, a fire burning in their land, and he struck their vines and their sycamores, and he shattered every tree of their borders". The matters of the locust are said thus in that psalm: "he spoke, and the locust came, and the caterpillar, of which there was no number, and it devoured all the grass in their land and devoured the fruit of their land". The darkness that could be felt is passed over in silence here, but there it is spoken of in this way: "he sent out darkness and it made dark". And the matters of the firstborn are spoken of there thus: "and he struck every firstborn in their land, the first-fruits of their labors", "in the tents of Ham".
2. Come, let us see, if God grants, how to speak also on the plagues themselves against the Egyptians, and first on the one that was both named first and happened first: "he turned their rivers into blood, and their showers, so that they might not drink". Compare the plagues of the Egyptians with the benefits given to the Hebrews, and in comparing, marvel that the Egyptians thirst beside the river, while the Hebrews in the desert have plenty of water: "for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed".
And the Egyptians are devoured by the dog-fly and destroyed by frogs, the most contemptible of creatures; "but the sons" of God "not even the teeth of venomous serpents overcame". For one must know that those who are strangers to God are in want even beside what is reckoned plenty, and are destroyed by chance creatures. But if someone is holy, he has plenty even amid want and is not harmed by the most dangerous things. For these are the things Jesus said to me in the words: "I give you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy". These things happened then too, since there was one God of the Gospel and of the Law. And the serpents that rose up against the people, against those who had sinned, were able to harm them in nothing once those who had sinned repented.
We wish also to present the goodness of God in gloomy things and in what are thought to be plagues: even if God scourges, he scourges as one who is good. And these things will be especially useful against the godless heresies. There are those who wish to cut the one God apart by their own reasoning, and to make schisms of the church even though the word forbids it; those people make a schism of the one God himself. The word, then, forbids his sons to drink Egyptian water and to travel the Egyptian way. Therefore it is written in Jeremiah: "What have you to do with the way of Egypt, to drink the water of Gihon?" There is, then, an Egyptian way, which one must not travel, and there is an Egyptian river, from which one must not drink. For to us the Lord God gives water from the rain of heaven, but for the Egyptians the water is not from above but from below; therefore the Egyptian river waters the land of the Egyptians "like a garden of herbs".
So that you may understand what the discourse about these things means, I will first set out the names of the rivers in Scripture. I will show that the saints also have rivers, and that we must drink from the rivers of the saints, but not from the opposite ones. Listen, then, to Jesus promising his disciples and saying: "rivers out of his belly" (and whose is this "his" if not "my disciple's"?) "will flow a spring of water welling up to eternal life". So there is not only one river but many rivers. For with each contemplation and with each doctrine a river goes forth. A river goes forth from Paul, a river goes forth from Peter: "and a river goes out of Eden", the Eden that is in Paul, and "out of Eden", the one that is in Peter, "to water the paradise", which is the church, "and from there it goes into four heads". For there are many heads (ἀρχαί) of doctrines: the head concerning the Father, the head concerning the Son, the one concerning the Holy Spirit, the one concerning the church, the one concerning the holy powers. And why need I list the heads to which the one spring goes forth, the spring that goes out of Eden, the one river?
But also "the rushings of the river gladden the city of God". And it is plain that he is not speaking of a perceptible river; for we are neighbors of the ancient Jerusalem, and we know that it has no river. Yet it is written: "the rushings of the river gladden the city of God". But if you see Christ, the true river, and the true city of God, the church of God, you will see how "the rushings of the river gladden the city of God". Just as, then, Christ the river gladdens the city, and rivers go forth from his disciples, "of a spring of water welling up to eternal life", so also the words opposed to the truth are themselves rivers, but rivers hostile to the river of God. And I would say that the false doctrines, and especially the one who speaks them, if I see him flowing with a great stream of words, are a river of Egypt, and that this is the one forbidden by the prophet who says: "What have you to do with the way of Egypt, to drink the water of Gihon?" And again, if I see another flowing with much speech, and that speech is false, I will say that he is another river of Egypt.
For Scripture speaks of many rivers of Egypt, contrary to what is evident and perceptible. Listen to the way it speaks: "he turned their rivers into blood". From this you will persuade even those who do not wish to interpret tropologically, telling them that the Egyptians do not have "rivers". For there is one river, which Scripture calls Gihon, some call Aegyptus, and most people call the Nile. How then does Scripture say: "he turned their rivers into blood"? Perhaps, then, there is tropology in the passage. All the streams alien to salvation are rivers of Egypt, and whenever God wishes to convert people, he makes these rivers be turned into blood. He wishes to convert not only his own people but also the Egyptians, so that they may go out and drink from a rock; "and the rock was Christ". For when I condemn alien water, because God has shown me that it is blood, I no longer drink it, lest I become a partaker of blood. And let us pray that, if some river draws us away as a river, God may turn it into blood for us and we may not dare to drink of it. For when it is turned into blood for us, we too shall be among those who go out from the land of Egypt. For indeed "a great mixed multitude" went out. And not all the heterodox are capable in heterodox discourses; there are some who say only brief things, but deadly ones. For this reason not only "the" Egyptians' "rivers" God "turned into blood", but "also their showers".
You will understand these things in the contrary sense of the saints. Some of them have rivers: these are fruitful in the word of truth. Others have showers: these have few words, but sweet, drinkable, and able to convert the hearer. For example, it was a shower and not a river when it is said: "I wish in church to speak five words with my mind, that I may instruct others also". But it was a river when Paul discoursed from morning until midnight. And the text also adds the cause for which God "turned into blood the rivers" of the Egyptians "and their showers". What is the cause, if not so that they might not drink? For this was his purpose: not to let them drink from the stream of the Egyptians.
3. Let us look at the next plague, which is called the second here but is the fourth according to what is written in Exodus: "he sent out", then, "against them the dog-fly, and it devoured them". When I read the book entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, I pause to consider where the writer of that book took these words from: "some the bites of locusts and flies killed". And I was inquiring whether it was said there first. But since God granted me to observe and to attend to the reading, I found that it was taken from here. For in Exodus we do not have it plainly stated that the Egyptians were killed by the frogs and by the dog-flies and the gnats. Here, however, it is plainly said that "he sent out against them the dog-fly, and it devoured them, and the frog, and it destroyed them", as though they died, bitten to the point of being killed by the dog-fly and by the frogs, contemptible as these are, so that they might be released from Egyptian life.
For there is no need of many enemies, nor of a great force to kill them: the dog-fly suffices, the gnat suffices, the frog suffices. If contemptible things come about, things like playthings, while he rebukes, they suffice for the destruction of Egyptian life. "But those who were not admonished by the playthings of rebuke will experience a judgment worthy of God". Therefore the text there rightly named these things "playthings of rebuke". "For there was no lack of means", it says, "for your all-powerful hand, which also created the world out of formless matter, to send upon them a multitude of bears or bold lions or newly created unknown beasts full of rage, either breathing out a fiery blast or winnowing forth a stench of smoke, whose harm could not only destroy them, but whose very sight could frighten them to destruction".
What, then, is the cause of the Egyptians falling into such plagues? Listen: "but judging them little by little, he gave a place for repentance". And perhaps the text, disparaging the Egyptians, did not judge them even to be human; therefore he did not send them flies simply, but, as to dogs, the dog-fly (κυνόμυιαν). "For he sent out against them the dog-fly". From this the letter in the mystical Scripture was taken: it is a kind of fly that is found around dogs, "for he sent against them the dog-fly". Others explained it thus: since the creature sent to the Egyptians was utterly shameless, he combined two shameless creatures and showed them in the name, in order to present their surpassing shamelessness. For the fly is a most shameless creature, and when it is shooed away it comes back; and as for the dog, why need I even say that it is shameless? So, he says, in order that the text might present the utter shamelessness of the plague of the dog-fly, it named it dog-fly.
And the Egyptians are warred against on every side. They are warred against by water changing into blood, as God dispenses the things that have been said. They are warred against by the air; for the dog-fly, since it flies, is a creature of the air. Again, they are warred against by the creatures that live in the waters; for he sent the frog to destroy them. Someone was saying that this frog is the one called the toad. For the narrative about the creature hands this down: a frog that has been left on dry land and has come to be out of the water becomes a deadly poison, so that when it bites it does the same as the viper and the asp and the other creatures that are venomous. For the creature, deprived of its moist life and of its swimming in the water, gathers venom from its food, and the frog makes its venom similar in power to theirs. That is why the frog is food for asps and for venomous creatures, and these creatures take their venom from such food as well.
4. "And he gave their fruit to the blight and their labors to the locust". The fruit of the Egyptians is not good, and the labor of the Egyptians is not good; for they labor about things they should not, and they toil about things they ought not. And it is plain that the fruit of the Egyptians is not good fruit; for their fruit is the works of the flesh, and their fruit is sins, as Solomon says in Proverbs: "but the fruits of the impious are sins". It was, then, the work of a good God to give the fruit of the Egyptians to the blight, so that the fruit of the Egyptians might perish. But God would not give the fruit of the Hebrews to the blight. Yet when they sin and bear evil fruit, "what the cankerworm leaves the locust devours, and what the locust leaves the caterpillar devours, and what the caterpillar leaves the blight devoured". As for the good fruit, which is not delivered to the blight and which we ourselves pray to bear, listen to what kind it is: "but the fruit of the Spirit is love" (love God does not deliver to the blight), "joy, peace". "Joy" and "peace" God does not deliver to the blight, but the Egyptian fruit: "fornication", "impurity", "licentiousness", "idolatry", and whatever are "works of the flesh" and Egyptian deeds.
Having spoken of different fruits, we will add a little, so that it may become clearer which is the good fruit and which the opposite; and then we will speak in the same way about different labors. Hear, then, what we add to the discourse about the fruits: "every tree, then, that does not bear good (καλόν) fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire", as though there were a tree that bears fruit, but not good fruit. I know that in the copies of the Gospels there stands "every tree that does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire", but in some there stands "every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down". Yet these different readings stand not in different copies but in the different Gospels.
Let us look also at the matters of "the labors". The righteous man labors for the acquisition of good things and has this promise: "you shall eat the labors of your fruits". For the text is not, as some suppose, "you shall eat the fruits of your labors"; the exact wording is this: "you shall eat the labors of your fruits". For each one, when he has come to rest, eats the labors of his own fruits and hands. The other versions have "you shall eat the labors of your hands". Therefore the righteous labor for the acquisition of more divine works and of good conduct, while sinners labor in such a way that their labors deserve to be delivered to the locust. For example, you may see heretics toiling and laboring hard night and day to devise how to find and speak the things that support their godless teaching, so that you say of them and of their like: "they failed, searching out searches". If you see such people, that they too labor and are in labors, but in labors that deserve to be delivered to the locust, do not hesitate to say of them what is written also of the Egyptians: "and their labors to the locust".
5. We do not know vines to be living creatures; but Scripture, since 'vine' is otherwise said in the primary sense, says: "he killed (ἀπέκτεινεν) their vine with hail". What is killed is a living creature; therefore it says: "and he killed their vine with hail". And not only is the vine of the Egyptians killed by God, but also their sycamore. For it is written: "and their sycamores with the frost". How, then, the vines of the Egyptians are living creatures must be understood from the contrary. Consider what is said: "A vineyard came to be for the beloved on a horn in a fertile place, and I put a hedge around it and fenced it, and I planted a vineyard of Sorek", and "the vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth is the house of Israel". And each of the true Israelites is a vine; in the same way there is also an Egyptian vineyard.
So that you may understand the Egyptian vineyard and the just judgment of God, who destroys the vine of the Egyptians with hail, pay attention to what is said in Deuteronomy about other accursed vines: "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their tendril is from Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, a cluster of bitterness to them; their wine is the rage of serpents and the incurable venom of asps". And our Savior and Lord himself is a vine, but a good and true vine, and the disciples are branches grown onto this "true vine".
See, then, the branches of holy and blessed vines and the branches of opposing vines. And just as God is the husbandman of the "true vine", according to what the Savior said ("I am the true vine, you are the branches, my Father is the husbandman"), so who would be the husbandman of the Egyptian vine, if not the devil himself? Cain was a type of him: he tilled the earth and offered of the fruits of the earth, and he did not succeed, since God did not accept from the fruits of the earth that he tilled. There is, then, a husbandman of Egypt. And God's purpose is to cultivate the "true vine" and the "branches" in it, but to kill the Egyptian vine and its branches, and this he does as one who is good. For if the grape of the wicked vine "is a grape of gall and a cluster of bitterness to them, and their wine is the rage of serpents and the incurable venom of asps", what shall we say of him who kills the vine that bears these things, except that he is good and spares those who would eat the "grape of gall", and those who wish to drink "the incurable venom of asps"?
"He killed with hail the vine", that vine, and in the same way "also their sycamores with the frost". There is a good sycamore, and there is an opposing sycamore. The sycamore (συκάμινος) is the sycomore (συκομορέα); the difference lies in the name, but the thing meant is the same. If, then, Zacchaeus in the Gospel climbs up onto the sycomore because he was small, so that having climbed he might see my Lord Jesus Christ, see there a sycamore that is not destroyed, since it receives the one who is to see Jesus. But if it is a sycamore of the Egyptians, you will also inquire what is meant by the prophet's words: "I was a goatherd scraping sycamore fruit".
6. And "their sycamores with the frost" God destroys, "and he delivered up their cattle to hail and their substance to the fire". There are some cattle of Christ and there are some cattle not of Christ, and the Scriptures are filled with examples. The Savior says: "My sheep hear my voice", and for this reason you do not hear, "because you are not of my sheep"; so he knows some cattle as his own and he knows some cattle as alien to him. Yet what was once alien can become his possessions. For as the sheep of Laban became Jacob's, so the enemy's sheep too can come under Christ; and so, indeed, the sheep of Christ can also become the enemy's sheep. At any rate, of the sheep, those he rejected he gave to Esau. See, then, that when gifts are sent to Esau, you who are found in the flock of Jesus are not picked out as rejected and unworthy of the spiritual Jacob and sent away to Esau. These things serve to present the Egyptian cattle, which God "delivered up to hail".
So that you may understand still better: I would call cattle of Christ the simpler and more guileless of those who believe. God saves cattle, since it is written: "Men and cattle you will save, O Lord". But cattle not of Christ: suppose I enter the synagogues of the heretics in word (far be it from me to go among them in that way, unless it be to take captivity captive for Christ). If, then, having entered I see guileless souls that know nothing and are quite simple, held fast by the godless teaching and irrationally assenting to it, I would say that these are cattle of the Egyptians, and that these are sheep of Egypt through Marcion. And likewise with the rest. So God "delivered up to hail the cattle" of the Egyptians "and their substance to the fire". For whatever the Egyptians have is delivered to the fire, but whatever belongs to Jesus is not delivered to the fire. Abraham had possessions (ὑπάρχοντα); he gave his possessions to Isaac his son, who was born of the promise, but to the sons of his concubines he gave not possessions but gifts.
7. "He sent out against them the wrath of his fury, fury and wrath and affliction, a sending by evil angels". There are those who think that what Scripture calls wrath is a passion of God, and who for this reason blaspheme against the God of the Law and the prophets. To them it can be said that they do not understand what they say. For if it is a passion and remains in the soul, how can it be sent out (ἐξαποσταλῆναι)? For what is sent out, if indeed it is other than the one who sends it out, and it is sent out, then the wrath too is other than the one whose wrath it is. Perhaps, then, the wrath that is sent out is a living being, and may it be far from all of us! For there is a wrath whose children we were, according to the Apostle: "we were by nature children of wrath, as also the rest", and the wrath has come upon them to the end. That wrath, then, he sends out, and "fury and wrath and affliction", and he sends out a "sending" because of those who deserve such things, "by evil angels". For example, wrath was sent out upon the man who committed fornication in Corinth. And do you wish to see that wrath was sent through the Apostle who sent it? Listen: "I have judged, when you and my spirit are gathered together, with the power of the Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one". He who has been delivered to Satan has been delivered to wrath; wrath, then, is sent out.
But since we have spoken of a good God and wished to smooth these things out, we also wish to show that "He sent out against them the wrath of his fury, fury and wrath and affliction, a sending by evil angels" agrees with what we promised. Often callings come about even through evil angels. For many who did not wish to heed the word were compelled to turn and seek out God when evil spirits came, when unclean demons came.
"He made a road, a path, for his wrath": wrath is not without a road (ἀνοδία). If it were a passion, it would be off the road; it would not be in order. We, for example, when we are angry, do not make a road (ὁδοποιοῦμεν) for our anger; for we are angry off the road. But he who uses wrath against sinners uses it with road and order, and does not dispense the matters of wrath at random. Wishing to present this, the prophet said: "He made a road, a path, for his wrath and did not spare their souls from death". Not sparing the souls of sinners from death, he kills the sinful souls, having said: "I will kill", so that he may also do what follows: "I will make alive".
"And he shut up their cattle to death, and he struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt". With bodily birth, the firstborn inherits double and inherits more, and has more honor with his parents. Perhaps, analogously, there is among souls a firstborn of God and there is a firstborn of Egypt. What I mean is this: "Sanctify to me every firstborn, first-begotten, opening the womb". God, who says these things, speaks about certain other firstborn and not bodily ones, if indeed "the Law has a shadow of the good things to come". And if you wish to see them precisely, listen to Paul saying: "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the festal gathering and church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven".
Just as, then, the firstborn inherit double and receive a larger portion (as Joseph received an inheritance for Ephraim and for Manasseh), in the same way the firstborn of the Egyptians too inherit a double punishment. But God would be the judge: who is the firstborn with the opposing power? Yet perhaps, God granting, I find a way to say who is the firstborn of the opposing power too.
He who was first begotten in a doctrine alien to salvation is the firstborn of that doctrine, having been born to the devil. For example, not all Marcionites are firstborn, but Marcion is their firstborn. And not all the Valentinians are firstborn of the Valentinians; but Valentinus, the father of that wicked knowledge, was the firstborn. So in each case, where someone was first begotten in a doctrine in which the evil one begot, the corresponding firstborn of the Egyptians would be found.
"He struck", then, "every firstborn in the land of Egypt, the first-fruits of their labors in the tents of Ham". As there are the first-fruits of the saints, so there are the first-fruits of the Egyptians. And just as the first-fruits of the saints are dedicated to God, so the first-fruits of the Egyptians are dedicated to the striking, so that the first-fruits may be punished, and after the first-fruits have been punished, then the rest of the first-fruits may also be punished. But may it be granted to us to understand the two things, the lot of the Lord and the lot of the scapegoat, and to send the scapegoat away from our soul into the desert, and to come to be in the lot of God Almighty, through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen.
On the 77th Psalm, Homily 7