Cassiodorus

In his own words on Exodus

• Exodus 1:5

  Scripture often substitutes "souls" for men, as in Exodus: "There went down to Egypt seventy-five souls." The whole man is to be understood from his better part.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 33.23

• Exodus 1:5

  Joseph means "increase"; the interpretation of this name is testimony to the Hebrew people who came out of the land of Egypt in increased numbers.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 80:6

• Exodus 1:5

  The expression "their souls" must be interpreted as meaning the men whom he is known to have slain in that calamity. The words of Exodus attest that the soul stands for the whole person, as we have said: "So all the souls that came out of Jacob's thigh were seventy." This expression is the result of the figure of synecdoche, which signifies the whole from the part.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 77.50

• Exodus 3:14

  So in Genesis [sic] he bade Moses say of himself, "Go and say to the children of Israel, I am who I am. He who is has sent me to you." So he wanted his eternity to be denoted by the present tense. This use of present time ("today") is acknowledged to be peculiar to the divine Scriptures in the sense of perpetuity.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 2:8

• Exodus 3:14

  The phrase "I am" belongs to the divinity. It does not change with time but is always there and remains eternal. So the reply to Moses was "I am who I am" and again "He who is has sent me." But we must first investigate why God alone claims this term which denotes essence for himself. When it was spoken, there were angels, heavenly creatures and all earthly creatures as were decreed to exist. But because he is the only uncreated and eternal nature which did not begin in time and subsists as one divinity in three persons, God alone is rightly said to be, for he needs no one for his existence but ever abides by the strength of his own power. In it there is another mystery: a single syllable, sum ("I am"), is embraced by three letters, so we are taught that the holy Trinity is one God.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 49:7

• Exodus 4:6-7

  Just as Moses was allowed to perform miracles with a rod, so he was ordered to thrust his hand into his bosom, and when it was brought out again it was found to be leprous; then he was ordered to insert it again, and it was at once healed. This indicates that the Jewish people was to become impure by abandoning the Lord Christ but that it would recover its former health by returning to him.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 73:11

• Exodus 6:3

  The God of gods is the Lord Christ; with the Father and Holy Spirit he is truly called God of gods, though the title is not wholly appropriate to the Godhead because the human tongue cannot, as we have already said, indicate the height of the Godhead beyond this. Deus ("God") in the Greek language means "fear," and since he alone is to be feared the word attained the role of a title. We read in Exodus: "My name Adonai I did not show them." From this we are to realize that the name is secret and is known to have been revealed not even to chosen ministers. So he spoke through prophets, through apostles and more powerfully through his own mouth.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 49:1

• Exodus 7:20

  Just as we read in the Gospel that water was turned into wine, which denoted that people were changed for the better, so here its transformation into blood announces that sinners interpret the causes of spiritual things in a bodily sense. Blood is introduced here to denote the flesh, and undoubtedly the Jewish people took this materialistic view. He further says that both their rivers and their rain showers were turned into blood, so that in their preoccupation with the thoughts of the flesh they did not understand the heavenly preaching in a spiritual sense. The literal sense of this and of what follows is clear, for the words of the divine history show that these events occurred in Egypt.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 77.44

• Exodus 11:4

  The words "I rose at midnight" are not without value. They knew that at that hour the firstborn of the Egyptians were smitten, that at that time the bonds of Peter, Paul and Silas who lay in prison were loosed, that the bridegroom would also come at midnight.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 118.62

• Exodus 13:18

  Just as the Jews were saved and extricated through the waters of the Red Sea, so we are delivered from the land of Egypt, that is, from the sins of the flesh, and reborn through regeneration by the sacred water. The very name of the Red Sea is not superfluous. Just as it is known as Red, so the baptismal water can be labeled red, for it came forth mixed with blood from the Lord Savior's side.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 80.6

• Exodus 14:15

  The heart reveals its silent longing, to which the Godhead listens more than to the most thundering voices of nations. He said to Moses, "Why do you cry to me?" although we do not read that Moses had said anything. So the faithful man said that his heart was speaking to the Lord, since he seemed to offer his thoughts by this means.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 26.8

• Exodus 16:4

  These incidents are quite well known from our reading of Exodus, for quails rained down like the heaviest shower, and the Jews received manna to get their fill. But to demonstrate that this was a prefiguration, he spoke not of manna but of the bread of heaven, so that the Lord Savior's coming could be visualized in this blessing, for he is "the living bread which came down from heaven." The meaning of manna, as was stated at Psalm 77, is "What is this?" He disposed of the problem surrounding the name, and with the statement "He filled them with the bread of heaven," he explained the answer to the question about manna, for the Lord of heaven is indicated by the phrase, and the nature of manna is clearly acknowledged.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 104.40

• Exodus 20:26

  Unity knows no number, equality allows no scale. As Scripture says, "You shall not go up by steps to my altar."

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 116:2

• Exodus 32:9

  So these sinners undergo a contrary experience: their necks which they fatally raised against the Lord are subjected to his sweet yoke with the humility which brings salvation. We recall that this often befell persecutors, so that having earlier maintained their idols by the most sacrilegious compulsion, they became proclaimers of our most holy religion.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 128:4

• Exodus 32:12

  By his very love and charm he begs the Lord to temper his justice with a little gentleness, so that he can be prevailed upon by those sinners with whom he was known to be justly angry. But we must notice that he did not say, "Change your ways wholly" but "Change your ways a little," for this is more profitable to us when some lash of tribulation afflicts us. Often when admonished we can gain pardon for our sins by a most wholesome conversion.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 89:13

• Exodus 32:32

  What a holy man, most worthy of all praise! When he came down from Mt. Sinai to the camp and saw the people exultantly and sacrilegiously posturing before the idol, he was roused to anger, broke the tablets in front of them and ordered one or other of them to be slain by the sword. But when comprehensive disaster loomed, he prayed that he himself should be destroyed rather than that the entire nation should perish. Both attitudes were devoted and splendid. Moses was right to converse with the divine clemency, for he loved to carry out its decrees. At the same time that power is revealed by which we often escape the punishment of deserved death through the prayers of the saints. Not that anyone can change the Lord's dispositions, but [we] must realize that the outcome is foreknown by him.

  EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 105:23