1. At the same time I also wrote seven books of Questions on these same divine books, which I chose to call by this name because the matters discussed there I have set forth as things to be inquired into rather than as inquiries resolved—although it seems to me that many more of them have been so thoroughly treated that they may not unreasonably be judged to have been resolved and explained.

We had also begun in the same way to consider the books of Kingdoms; but, having made little progress, we turned our attention to other matters that were more pressing.

In the first book, however, where the discussion concerns the variegated rods that Jacob set in the water so that the sheep, having been placed there to conceive, might see them when they drank and so bear variegated offspring (QQ. in Hept. 1, 93), we did not give a good account of why he did not set them out again when the sheep conceived a second time—that is, when they conceived other offspring—but only at the first conception (Gen 30:37ff). For the explanation of another question (QQ. in Hept. 1, 95), where it is asked why Jacob said to his father-in-law, and you have cheated my wage by ten ewe-lambs (Gen 31:41), having been unraveled with sufficient truth, shows that this one, though it ought to have been solved, was not solved.

2. In the third book also, where the discussion concerns the high priest (QQ. in Hept. 3, 82. 85)—how he begot sons, since he was under the necessity of entering twice a day into the Holy of Holies, where the altar of incense was, to offer incense morning and evening (Exod 30:7-8), into which, as the Law says, he could not enter while unclean, and since the same Law says that a man becomes unclean even from intercourse with his wife (Lev 15:16), whom indeed it commands to wash with water but says that, even when washed, he is unclean until evening—I said: it would follow that he must either be continent or that the incense must be omitted on certain days, not seeing that this did not follow. For what is written, he will be unclean until evening, can be understood in this way: that by evening itself he was no longer unclean, but only up until it, so that at evening, now clean, he might offer the incense, since for the begetting of sons he had united with his wife after the morning incense.

Likewise, where it was asked how the high priest was forbidden to go in over the body of his father (Lev 21:11), since he ought not to be made priest—when there was but one—except after the death of his priestly father, I said: that for this reason it was necessary, while the father was not yet buried, that immediately after his death his son be appointed to succeed the father, on account also of the continual incense which had to be offered twice a day (QQ. in Hept. 3, 83), the very priest who is forbidden to go in over the death of his father not yet buried.

But I gave too little attention to the fact that this could have been commanded rather on account of those who were to become high priests not as successors to high-priestly fathers, but nonetheless from among the sons—that is, from the descendants of Aaron—if perhaps a high priest either had no sons, or had sons so reprobate that none of them ought to succeed his father, as Samuel succeeded the high priest Eli (1 Sam 1:3ff.; 3:1ff), though he was not himself the son of the priest, but was nonetheless from the sons, that is, from the descendants of Aaron.

3. Concerning the thief also, to whom it was said, today you will be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:43), I set down as though certain that he had not been visibly baptized, whereas it is uncertain and it is rather to be believed that he had been baptized, as I myself later argued elsewhere (See QQ. in Hept. 3, 84).

Likewise, what I said in the fifth book, where the mothers are mentioned in the gospel genealogies, namely that they are placed there only together with the fathers (See Matt 1:16; Luke 3:23), is indeed true, but does not pertain to the matter under discussion. For the discussion was about those who married the wives of brothers or kinsmen who had died without children, on account of the two fathers of Joseph, one of whom Matthew mentions and the other Luke. I discussed this question carefully in this work, when we were revising our work Answer to Faustus the Manichean (QQ. in Hept. 5, 46).

This work begins thus: When in reading the Holy Scriptures that are called canonical.

When in reading the Holy Scriptures that are called canonical, and in comparing them with other manuscripts according to the Septuagint translation, we were running through them, it seemed good to set down in writing the questions that came to mind—whether they were merely set forth by a brief mention, or even by some treatment of them, or were solved in whatever way, as by men in haste—lest they slip from memory. This was not so that we might fully explain them, but so that, when there was need, we might be able to look at them; whether that we might be reminded of what still had to be sought out, or that, from what already seemed to have been found, we might be both equipped for thinking and ready for answering, so far as we were able.

If, then, anyone does not, on account of the unpolished speech of our haste, disdain to read these things, and finds some questions set forth but not solved, let him not on that account think that nothing has been gained for him. For it is no small part of discovery to know what you are seeking. And as for those whose solution he finds pleasing, let him not there despise the cheapness of the expression, but let him rather rejoice at some share in instruction. For it is not by truth that disputation is sought, but by disputation that truth is sought. Setting aside, therefore, those matters which, from the beginning, where God is narrated to have made heaven and earth, down to the sending of the two first human beings out of Paradise, can be treated in many ways—about which we have discussed elsewhere, so far as we were able (See De Gen. ad litt.; De Gen. contra Manich.; De Gen. ad litt. imperf)—these are the things which, occurring to us as we read, we wished to commit to writing.

1. (4:17) How could Cain have founded a city, since a city is surely established for some multitude of human beings, whereas those two parents and their two sons are reported to have existed, of which sons the one was killed by the other, and in the place of the one killed another is narrated to have been born? Is the question raised because those who read suppose that the only people then alive were those whom divine Scripture mentions, and do not notice that the two who were first created, and those also whom they begot, lived so long that they begot many? For not even Adam himself begot only those whose names are read, since Scripture, speaking of him, concludes that he begot sons and daughters (See Gen 5:4). Therefore, since they lived many more years than the Israelites were in Egypt, who does not see how many human beings could be born, from whom that city might be filled, if the Hebrews could multiply so greatly in a much shorter time?

2. (5:25-27) It is commonly asked how, according to the reckoning of years, Methuselah could have lived after the flood, since all are said to have perished except those who entered the ark (See Gen 7:21-22). But this question was produced by the faultiness of many manuscripts. For not only in the Hebrew is it found otherwise; but even in the Septuagint translation, in fewer but more accurate manuscripts, Methuselah is found to have died six years before the flood.

3. (6:4) Likewise it is asked how angels could lie with the daughters of men, from whom giants are said to have been born—although some Latin and Greek manuscripts do not have angels, but sons of God; and these certain people, to solve this question, have believed to have been righteous men, who could also be called by the name of angels. For of the man John it is written: behold, I send my angel before your face, who will prepare your way (Mal 3:1; Matt 11:10). But this is troubling: how giants could be born from intercourse with men, or how the women could be mingled with, if they were not men but angels. Yet as for the giants—that is, exceedingly large and strong men—I think it is not to be wondered at that they could be born from men; for even after the flood some are found to have been such; and certain human bodies, incredibly huge, have existed even in our own times, not only of men but also of women. Hence it is more credible that righteous men, called either angels or sons of God, fell through concupiscence and sinned with women (See Gen 6:2), than that angels, having no flesh, could have descended to that sin—although concerning certain demons, who behave wickedly toward women, so many things are said by so many that it is not easy to settle a judgment on this matter.

4. (6:15) Concerning Noah's ark it is commonly asked whether, with the capacity described, it could have held all the animals that are said to have entered it, and their food. Origen solved this question by means of the geometric cubit (Origen, Homilies on Genesis 2), asserting that Scripture did not say without reason that Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22), who loved geometry. He says that the geometric cubit is worth as much as six of our cubits. If, then, we understand cubits so great, there is no question that the ark was of such capacity that it could contain all those things.

5. (6:15) Likewise it is asked whether so great an ark could have been built in a hundred years by four men, that is, Noah and his three sons. But if it could not, it was no great matter to bring in other workmen; though, having received the wages for their work, they would not have cared whether Noah was building it wisely or in vain, and therefore did not enter into it, because they did not believe what he had believed.

6. (6:16) What does he mean when, speaking of the building of the ark, he says: you will make its lower parts with two stories and three stories? For the lower parts were not going to be of two and three stories. But by this distinction he wished the whole structure of it to be understood: that it should have lower parts, and have also the upper part of the lower parts, which are called two-storied; and have also the upper part of the upper parts, which he called three-storied. For in the first dwelling, that is, in the lower parts, the ark was of one story; in the second dwelling, above the lower, it was now two-storied; and thus in the third, above the second, it was without doubt three-storied.

7. (6:21) Since God said that the animals were not only to live but also to be fed in the ark, and commanded Noah to take for himself and for them from all the foods that were to enter in to him, it is asked how lions or eagles, which are accustomed to live on flesh, could be fed there: whether animals beyond that number were brought in for the food of the others, or whether some things besides flesh—which is rather to be believed—were provided, either by the wise man or at God's showing, which would be suitable also as food for such animals.

8. (7:8-9) As to what is written: both of the clean birds and of the unclean birds, and of the clean cattle and of the unclean cattle, and of all the creeping things on the earth—where what is then not added, namely clean and unclean, is understood—and it is added: two by two they went in to Noah into the ark, male and female. It is asked how he distinguished above the two-by-two from among the unclean, but now says that two by two went in, whether from the clean or from the unclean. But this refers not to the number of clean or unclean animals, but to the male and female; because in all, whether clean or unclean, there are two, male and female.

9. (7:15) It is to be noted that what is written, in which is the spirit of life, was said not only of human beings but also of cattle, on account of the fact that some wish to understand of the Holy Spirit the passage where it is written: and God breathed into his face the spirit of life (Gen 2:7)—which certain manuscripts have better as: the breath of life.

10. (7:20) Concerning the height of the mountains, all of which the water is written to have surmounted by fifteen cubits, a question is raised on account of the account of Mount Olympus See Lucan, Pharsalia 2.271-273; see also De civitate Dei 15.27; De Gen. ad litt. imperf. 14.44; De Gen. contra Manich. 1.15.24.. For if the earth could reach into the space of that tranquil air, where it is said that no clouds are seen nor winds felt, why could not the water also by rising?

11. (7:24) As to what is written: and the water was raised above the earth a hundred and fifty days; it is asked whether it kept rising up to this day, or whether for so many days it remained at the height to which it had risen—since other translators seem to say this more plainly. For Aquila said: it prevailed; Symmachus: they prevailed, that is, the waters.

12. (8:1-2) As to what is written, that after a hundred and fifty days a wind was brought over the earth, and the water abated, and the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were closed, and the rain from heaven was held back; it is asked whether these things were done after a hundred and fifty days, or whether by recapitulation all the things were mentioned that began to happen after the forty days of rain; so that this alone pertains to the hundred and fifty days, namely that the water was raised up until them, either because the rain had now ceased from the fountains of the deep, or because it remained at its height while it was dried by no wind; whereas the other things that were said were not all done after a hundred and fifty days, but all the things were mentioned which began to happen from the end of the forty days.

13. (8:6-9) As to what is written, that the raven was sent out and did not return; and that after it the dove was sent out and itself returned, because it had not found rest for its feet; a question is wont to arise whether the raven died, or could in some way have lived. For surely, if there was earth where it might rest, the dove too could have found rest for its feet. Hence it is conjectured by many that the raven could settle on a carcass, which the dove naturally shuns.

14. (8:9) Likewise there is the question how the dove found nowhere to settle, if, as the order of the narrative is woven, the tops of the mountains had already been laid bare (See Gen 8:5). This question seems able to be resolved either by recapitulation, so that those things are understood to be narrated later which happened earlier; or rather because they were not yet dried.

15. (8:21) What does the Lord mean when he says: I will not again curse the earth on account of the works of men; for the mind of man is set toward evil things from his youth. I will not, therefore, again strike all living flesh, as I have done; and then adds the things which, according to the generosity of his goodness, he grants to unworthy men? Is the indulgence of the New Testament here prefigured (See Matt 5:38), and the past vengeance pertains to the Old Testament—that is, the one to the severity of the Law, the other to the goodness of grace?

16. (9:5) What does it mean: and from the hand of a man's brother I will require the soul of man? Did he wish every man to be understood as the brother of every man, according to the kinship derived from one?

17. (9:25-27) It is asked why Ham, sinning in his offense against his father, is cursed not in himself but in his son Canaan—unless it is because it was in a way prophesied that the children of Israel, who would come from the seed of Shem, were to receive the land of Canaan, after the Canaanites had been driven out and conquered.

18. (10:8) It is asked how it was said of Nimrod, he began to be a giant upon the earth, since Scripture mentions that giants were born also before. Or is it perhaps because, after the flood, the renewal of the human race to be restored is mentioned afresh, and in this renewal he began to be a giant upon the earth?

19. (10:25) It is asked what it means: and to Eber two sons were born; the name of the one was Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided—unless perhaps in his days that diversity of languages arose, through which it came about that the nations were divided.

20. (11:1) And the whole earth was one lip—how can this be understood, when it was said above that the sons of Noah, or of his sons, were distributed throughout the earth according to their tribes and according to their nations and according to their languages (See Gen 10:5. 20. 31)—unless it is because by recapitulation he afterward mentions what was earlier? But it creates obscurity that he connects these things in such a manner of speech as if a narrative of things done afterward were following.

21. (11:4) Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach to heaven. If they believed they could do this, an exceedingly foolish boldness and impiety is detected. And since on this account God's punishment followed, so that their languages were divided, it is not absurdly believed that they thought this.

22. (11:7) Come, let us go down, and let us there confound their language, so that no one may hear the voice of his neighbor; is the Lord understood to have said this to the angels? Or is it to be taken according to that which is read at the opening of the book: let us make man to our image and likeness (Gen 1:26)? For just as it is afterward said in the singular: because there the Lord confounded the lips of the earth (Gen 11:9); so too there, when it had been said, let us make to our image, yet in what follows it was not said, "they made," but God made (Gen 1:27).

23. (11:12-13) As to what is written: and Arphaxad was a hundred and thirty-five years old when he begot Cainan; and Arphaxad lived after he begot Cainan four hundred years—or, as we find in the Greek, three hundred years—it is asked how God said to Noah: the years of their life will be a hundred and twenty (Gen 6:3). For Arphaxad was not yet born when God said this, nor was he in the ark with his parents; how, then, are the years of human life thereafter understood to have been foretold as a hundred and twenty, when a man is found to have lived more than four hundred years? Unless it is understood that God said this to Noah twenty years before the ark began to be made—which is found to have been made in a hundred years—when he was already foretelling that he would bring a flood, and that he did not foretell the span of human life that was to be thereafter in those who would be born after the flood, but the life of the men whom he was about to destroy by the flood.

24. (10:21) It is asked why it is written, Shem was the father of all the sons of Eber, when Eber is found to be the fifth from Shem the son of Noah (See Gen 10:22-24): is it because from him the Hebrews are said to be named? For through him the line passed to Abraham. What, then, is more probable—that the Hebrews are so called as it were from Eber, or as it were from Abraham—is rightly asked.

25. 1. (11:26) How is it to be taken that, when Terah, the father of Abraham, was seventy years old, he begot Abraham, and afterward dwelt with all his people in Haran, and lived two hundred and five years in Haran, and died (See Gen 11:32); and that the Lord said to Abraham that he should go out of Haran, and he went out from there when Abraham was seventy-five years old (See Gen 12:1-4)? Unless it is because it is shown by recapitulation that the Lord spoke while Terah was alive; and that Abraham, while his father was alive, went out of Haran according to the Lord's command when he was seventy-five years old—in the one hundred and forty-fifth year of his father's life, if the days of his father's life were two hundred and five years; so that it is written, the years of Terah's life were two hundred and five in Haran (Gen 11:32), because there he completed all the years of his whole life. The question, then, is solved by recapitulation, which would remain insoluble if we took the Lord to have spoken to Abraham, that he should go out of Haran, after Terah's death; because Abraham could not still be seventy-five years old if his father, who had begotten him in the seventieth year of his age, were already dead—for Abraham would be a hundred and thirty-five years old after his father's death, if all his father's years were two hundred and five. And so this recapitulation, if it is noticed in the Scriptures, solves many questions which can seem insoluble—as also according to the explanation of the earlier questions, made by means of the same recapitulation.

25. 2. Although this question is solved by some in another way as well: that the years of Abraham's age are counted from the time when he was delivered from the fire of the Chaldeans—into which he was cast to be burned because he refused to worship that same fire in the superstition of the Chaldeans—from which he was delivered; and although this is not read in the Scriptures, it is nonetheless handed down by Jewish narration. It can also be solved in this way: that the Scripture which said, when Terah was seventy years old, he begot Abraham and Nahor and Haran (Gen 11:26), did not at all wish it to be understood that he begot all three in the same seventieth year of his age, but that Scripture mentioned the year from which he began to beget. And it can be that Abraham was begotten later, but on account of the eminence by which he is greatly commended in the Scriptures was named first—just as the Prophet named the younger first: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Mal 1:2-3); and in Chronicles, though Judah is fourth in order of birth, he is mentioned first, from whom the Jewish people takes its name, on account of the royal tribe (See 1 Chr 4:1). And it is more convenient that several solutions be found, by which difficult questions may be resolved.

25. 3. To be sure, Stephen's narration about this matter is to be considered (See Acts 7:2-3), with which of these explanations it does not rather conflict. And that narration indeed compels us to hold that it was not, as it seems to be narrated in Genesis (See Gen 12:1), after Terah's death that God spoke to Abraham, that he should go out from his kindred and from his father's house; but that, while he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran—already, that is, having gone out of the land of the Chaldeans—God is understood to have spoken to him on that journey. But the fact that Stephen afterward narrates thus: then Abraham, having gone out of the land of the Chaldeans, dwelt in Haran; and from there, after his father died, he settled him in this land (Acts 7:4), brings no small difficulties to this explanation, which is made by recapitulation. For he seems to have had the command of the Lord, which had been spoken to him on the journey of Mesopotamia, when he had gone out of the land of the Chaldeans and was going to Haran, and to have obediently fulfilled this command after his father's death, when it is said: and he dwelt in Haran; and from there, after his father died, he settled him in this land. And thus the question remains: if he was seventy-five years old—as the Scripture of Genesis plainly says—when he went out of Haran, how can this be true, unless perhaps what Stephen says, then Abraham went out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran, is not taken thus: he went out then, after the Lord had spoken to him; for he was already in Mesopotamia, as was said above, when he heard that from the Lord; but Stephen wished to connect it by the very rule of recapitulation, and to say at once whence he went out and where he dwelt, when he says: then Abraham went out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran. In the middle, however—that is, between the going out of the land of the Chaldeans and the dwelling in Haran—God spoke to him. And as for what Stephen then adds, and from there, after his father died, he settled him in this land, it must be observed that he did not say, "and after his father died, he went out of Haran," but from there God settled him in this land; so that after the dwelling in Haran he was settled in the land of Canaan—not having gone out after his father's death, but settled after his father's death in the land of Canaan—so that the order of the words is: "he dwelt in Haran; and from there he settled him in this land, after his father died"; so that we understand Abraham to have been settled or established in the land of Canaan at that time when he there received the grandson whose entire seed was to reign there, the inheritance having been granted by God's promise (See Gen 16:11; 25:1-2). For of Abraham himself was born Ishmael from Hagar, and others were born from Keturah, to whom the inheritance of that land did not pertain. And of Isaac was born Esau, who likewise was alienated from that inheritance. But of Jacob the son of Isaac, all the sons who were born—that is, his entire seed—pertained to that inheritance (See Gen 25:25; 29:32-35; 30:5-10). So, then, Abraham was settled and established in that land, since he lived until the birth of Jacob, if it is rightly understood; and the question is solved according to recapitulation—although the other solutions too are not to be despised.

26. (12:12. 14) It will be, then, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, This is his wife. Now it happened, as soon as Abraham entered into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful. How is it to be taken that Abraham, coming into Egypt, wished to conceal that Sarah was his wife? According to all that is written about this matter, was this fitting for so holy a man, or is a slight failing of his faith to be understood, as some have supposed? I have already argued about this matter in Answer to Faustus (Contra Faust. 22, 33-34); and it has been more carefully explained by the presbyter Jerome (Jerome, Hebrew Questions on Genesis 20, 22) why it does not follow that, because Sarah spent some days with the king of Egypt, she is therefore to be believed to have been defiled by intercourse with him; since it was the royal custom to admit his women to himself by turns, and none entered to the king unless her body had first been long carefully prepared with washes and ointments.

And while these things were being done, Pharaoh was afflicted by the hand of God, so that he might restore untouched to her husband (See Gen 12:17-20) the one whom the husband had entrusted to God himself—being silent that she was his wife, but not lying that she was his sister—so that he might guard against what he could, so far as a man could, and commend to God what he could not guard against; lest, if he should leave to God even that which he could guard against, he be found not to believe in God but rather to tempt God.

27. (13:10) That the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, before it was destroyed, is compared to the paradise of God, because it was well-watered, and to the land of Egypt which the Nile waters, shows sufficiently, I think, how that Paradise which God planted, where he placed Adam (See Gen 2:8), ought to be understood. For what other paradise of God should be understood, I do not see. And surely, if the fruitful trees in Paradise were to be taken as the virtues of the mind, as some suppose—no bodily Paradise on earth having been planted with real kinds of trees—it would not be said of this land, like the paradise of God.

28. (13:14-15) Looking with your eyes, see from the place where you now are, to the north and the southwest, and to the east and the sea, for all the land that you see, I will give it to you and to your seed forever. Here it is asked how it is to be understood that as much land was promised to Abraham and his seed as he could see around him through the four quarters of the world. For how much is it that the sight of bodily vision can reach in beholding the land? But there is no question, if we notice that this alone was not promised; for it was not said, "I will give you as much land as you see," but I will give you the land that you see. For since land farther off on every side was being given as well, surely this in particular, which was seen, was being given. Then it must be noted what follows, for, lest Abraham himself should think that only that much land was promised which he could behold or see around, arise, he says, and walk through the land in its length and breadth, for I will give it to you (Gen 13:17); so that by walking he might reach that which, standing in one place, he could not see with his eyes. Now the land signified is that which the people of Israel, the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, first received—not that wider seed according to faith, which, lest it be passed over in silence, was said to him to be in the future like the sand of the sea, by hyperbole indeed, yet so great that no one could number it (See Gen 13:16).

29. (14:13) And it was reported to Abraham, the one from across the river. The Greek copies too indicate sufficiently that Abraham was called the one from across the river; but why he was so called, this seems to be the reason: that, coming from Mesopotamia, having crossed the river Euphrates, he established his dwelling in the land of Canaan, and was called the one from across the river from that region whence he had come. Hence Joshua, son of Nun, says to the Israelites: What? Do you wish to serve the gods of your fathers who are across the river? (Josh 24:15)

30. (15:12) As to what is written: now about the setting of the sun a dread rushed upon Abraham, and behold, a great fear fell upon him; this question must be treated, on account of those who contend that these disturbances do not befall the mind of the wise man: whether it is something such as Aulus Gellius mentions in his books of the Attic Nights (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 19, 1)—namely, a certain philosopher who was shaken in a great storm at sea, when he was on a ship and was observed by a certain dissolute young man; who, when after the danger had passed he mocked him because the philosopher had quickly been disturbed, whereas he himself had neither feared nor turned pale, answered that the young man had not been disturbed because he need fear nothing for his most worthless soul, which was not even worth anything's being feared on its account. And to the other studious men who had been on the ship, as they waited, he produced a certain book of Epictetus the Stoic, where it was read that the Stoics did not hold this—that no such disturbance befalls the mind of the wise man—as though nothing of the sort appeared in their affections, but that disturbance is defined by them as occurring when reason yields to such motions; but when it does not yield, it is not to be called disturbance. But it must be considered how Aulus Gellius says this, and it should be carefully inserted.

31. (17:8) I will give to you and to your seed after you the land in which you dwell, all the cultivated land, as an eternal possession. The question is how he said "eternal," when it was given to the Israelites only for a time: whether it was called eternal according to this age (saeculum), so that, from the Greek word that means "age" (saeculum), it was said αἰώνιον, as if it could be said in Latin "of this age"; or whether from this we are compelled to understand here something according to the spiritual promise, so that it was called eternal because something eternal is signified hereby;

or rather it is an idiom of the Scriptures, that they call eternal that of which no end is set, or which is not done in such a way that thereafter it should not be done, so far as pertains to the care or power of the doer—as Horace says: he will serve forever, who knows not how to use a little (Horace, Epistles 1, 10, 41). For one cannot serve forever whose very life, by which he serves, cannot be eternal. I would not bring forward this testimony except that it concerns an idiom. For they are authors to us of words, not of facts or opinions. But if the Scriptures are defended according to their proper modes of speech, which are called idioms, how much more according to those which they hold in common with other languages?

32. (17:16) It is asked how it was said to Abraham concerning his son, and kings of nations will be from him: whether, because it did not come about according to earthly kingdoms, it ought to be taken according to the Church; or whether, on account of Esau, it came to pass even literally.

33. (18:2-3) And seeing them, he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and bowed down to the ground, and said: 'Lord, if I have found grace before you, do not pass by your servant.' It is asked how, when there were three men who had appeared to him, he addresses the Lord in the singular, saying, Lord, if I have found grace before you: whether he understood one of them to be the Lord and the others angels; or rather, perceiving the Lord in the angels, he chose to speak to the Lord rather than to the angels—since, one of the three afterward remaining with Abraham himself, two are sent to Sodom, and Lot speaks to them as to the Lord?

34. (18:4-5) Let water be taken, and let me wash your feet, and refresh yourselves under the tree, and I will take bread, and eat. It is asked, if he understood them to be angels, how he could invite them to this human service; for refreshment is necessary for the refreshing of mortal flesh, not for the immortality of angels.

35. (18:11) Now Abraham and Sarah were elderly, advanced in days; and it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. The age of the elderly is less than that of the aged, although the aged too are called elderly. Hence, if the things asserted by some physicians are true—namely, that an elderly man cannot beget sons with an elderly woman, even if the woman still has the manner of women—then according to this we can understand that Abraham marveled at the promise of a son (See Gen 17:17), and that the Apostle set down a miracle (See Rom 4:19) where he spoke of the deadened body of Abraham.

For the deadened body is not to be understood as if it could have absolutely no power of begetting, if the woman were of youthful age; but deadened in this sense, that he could not beget even with a woman of more advanced age. For he was able with Keturah, because youthful age found her. For the physicians teach thus: that a man whose body has already failed in this respect, so that he cannot beget with a woman of more advanced age—though she still suffers her monthly periods—can beget with a young woman. And again, a woman who is already of advanced age, though her monthly periods still flow, so that she cannot bear from an elderly man, can bear from a young man. That, then, was a miracle, because—according to what we have said—when the man's body was deadened, the woman too was of such advanced age that the manner of women had ceased to be with her.

For if anyone should press the word in what the Apostle says, deadened body, because he said deadened, then it must be understood that it no longer even had a soul, but was a corpse—which is the most absurd falsity. Thus, then, this question is solved. Otherwise it rightly raises the question how, when Abraham was nearly of middle age, according to the span by which men then lived, and afterward begot sons by Keturah, he is said by the Apostle to have a deadened body, and is proclaimed as a miracle because he begot.

36. (18:13) And the Lord said to Abraham: 'Why did Sarah laugh within herself, saying, Shall I then truly bear a child? But I have grown old.' It is asked why the Lord rebukes her, since Abraham too laughed—unless it is because his laughter was of wonder and gladness, but Sarah's of doubt; and this could be distinguished by him who knows the hearts of men (See Prov 24:12).

37. (18:15) Sarah denied it, saying, 'I did not laugh'; for she was afraid. How did they understand that it was God who was speaking, when Sarah even dared to deny that she had laughed, as though he could be ignorant of this—unless perhaps Sarah supposed them to be men, but Abraham understood them to be God? And he too, in offering those services of human hospitality of which I spoke above, which could be necessary only for weak flesh, it would be strange if he did not first suppose them to be men; but perhaps in some of them he understood God to speak, certain signs of the divine majesty existing and appearing, as Scripture testifies often appeared in the men of God. But again it is asked, if this is so, how they afterward knew that they were angels—unless perhaps it was when they had gone up into heaven while they watched.

38. (18:19) For I know that he will charge his sons, and his household after him, and they will keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham all the things which he has spoken to him. Behold where the Lord promises Abraham not only rewards, but also the obedience to righteousness of his sons, so that toward them too the promised rewards may be fulfilled.

39. (18:21) Going down, then, I will see whether they are being brought to completion according to the cry of them that comes to me; and if not, that I may know. If we take these words not as those of one doubting which of the two will rather come to pass, but as those of one angry and threatening, there is no question. For in human fashion God speaks in the Scriptures to human beings, and those who know how, know how to understand his anger without disturbance in him. Now we too are accustomed to speak threateningly thus: "let us see whether I do not do it to you," or "let us see whether I will not have done it to him," and "if I cannot do it to you," or "I shall know"—that is, "I shall test this very thing, whether I cannot"; and when this is said by way of threatening, not of ignorance, the disposition of one who is angry appears, but disturbance does not befall God. Now this is the customary and usual manner of human speech, as suits human weakness, to which God adapts his speech.

40. (18:32) It is commonly asked whether what God said about Sodom—that he would not destroy the place if even ten righteous men were found there—is to be understood by a certain particular judgment, of that city, or generally of all, namely that God spares a place wherever even ten righteous men are? In this question it is not indeed necessary that we be compelled to take this of every place; nevertheless of Sodom it could be said even thus, because God knew there were not even ten there; and therefore it was so answered to Abraham, that it might be signified that not even so many could be found there, to magnify their iniquity. For it was not necessary for God to spare such wicked men lest he destroy the righteous along with them, since he could, the righteous having been delivered from there, render to the impious their due punishments; but, as I said, to show the wickedness of that multitude, he said, if I find ten there, I will spare the whole city—as if he said: Surely I can neither destroy the godly with the impious, nor yet on that account spare the impious, since, the godly being delivered and separated from there, I can repay the impious their due; and yet, if they are found there, I spare—this is because not even so many could be found there. Something of this kind occurs in Jeremiah, where he says: go about the streets of Jerusalem, and see, and seek in its squares, and find out whether you will find a man doing righteousness and seeking faith, and I will be merciful to their sins (Jer 5:1); that is, "find even one, and I spare the rest"; to magnify and show that not even one could be found there.

41. (19:1) That Lot met the angels and bowed his face to the ground seems to indicate that he understood them to be angels; but again, when he invites them to the refreshment of the body, which is necessary for mortals, he seems to have thought them to be men. So the question is solved in the same way as it was solved in the case of the three who came to Abraham, namely that they appeared, by certain signs, to have been sent from God, yet were believed to be men. For this too is in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when Scripture was speaking of the good of hospitality: for through this some, unawares, have received angels as guests (Heb 13:2).

42. (19:8) As to what Lot said to the Sodomites, I have two daughters who have not yet known men; I will bring them out to you, use them as it pleases you, only do nothing wicked to these men—since he wished to prostitute his daughters by this exchange, that his men guests might suffer nothing of the sort from the Sodomites—it is rightly asked whether an exchange of disgraceful acts, or of any sins whatever, is to be admitted, that we should do some evil lest another do a graver evil; or whether it is rather to be attributed to Lot's disturbance, not to his deliberation, that he said this. And no doubt this exchange is admitted most dangerously; but if it is attributed to human disturbance, and to a mind so badly shaken, it is in no way to be imitated.

43. (19:11) But the men who were at the door of the house they struck with blindness. The Greek has a word that signifies more—if it could be said, "non-sight"—which causes one to see not all things, but not what is needed. For it rightly raises the question how they could fail in seeking the door, and were struck with such blindness that they saw absolutely nothing; for in that way, troubled by their own calamity, they would no longer seek the door. With this too those were struck who were seeking Elisha (See 2 Kgs 6:18). This too those had who, walking with the Lord on the road after his resurrection, did not recognize him (See Luke 24:16)—although there this word is not used, but the thing itself is understood.

44. (19:18-19) But Lot said to them: 'I beg you, Lord, since your servant has found mercy before you, and you have magnified your righteousness which you do to me, that my soul may live; but I cannot be saved in the mountain, lest perhaps evils overtake me and I die.' By this disturbance of fear he did not trust the Lord himself, whom he recognized in the angels—the same fear by which he had also said that about prostituting his daughters: so that we understand that what he said about the shameful use of his daughters is not to be held as authoritative; for neither is this to be held as authoritative, that God is not to be trusted.

45. (19:29) And God remembered Abraham, and brought Lot out of the midst of the overthrow. Scripture commends that Lot was delivered rather on account of the merits of Abraham, so that we understand Lot to be called righteous in a certain way—especially because he worshiped the one true God, and by comparison with the crimes of the Sodomites, among whom, living, he could not be bent to a like life.

46. (19:30) Now Lot went up from Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain. It is surely the very mountain into which he went up of his own accord, into which, when the Lord admonished him, he had been unwilling to go up; for either there is no other, or it does not appear.

47. (19:30) For he feared to dwell in Zoar. To his weakness and fear the Lord had granted the city which Lot himself had chosen, and in it had promised him security, that on his account he would spare the city; yet even there he feared to be—so little strength had his faith.

48. (20:2) Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife: 'She is my sister.' For he feared to say, 'She is my wife,' lest perhaps the men of the city should kill him on her account. It is commonly asked how, still at that age, Abraham feared to be endangered on account of Sarah's beauty. But the power of her form is rather to be wondered at, that it could still be loved, than the question to be thought difficult.

49. (20:6) As to what God said to Abimelech concerning Sarah, and I spared you, that you might not sin against me, when he admonished him that she was Abraham's wife, whom he supposed to be his sister, it must be observed and noted that one sins against God when such things are committed as men think are to be held lightly, as though they were sins in the flesh. And as to what he said to him, behold, you will die (Gen 20:3), this too must be noted: how God says it as though foretelling that it would without doubt come to pass, which he says by way of admonition, so that by abstaining from sin it may be guarded against.

50. (21:8) It is rightly asked why Abraham made a feast neither on the day on which his son was born, nor on the day on which he was circumcised, but on the day on which he was weaned. Unless this is referred to some spiritual meaning, there is no solution of the question—namely, that the great joy of the spiritual age ought to be then, when a man has become a new spiritual man, that is, not such as those to whom the Apostle says: I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it; but neither are you able even now, for you are still carnal (1 Cor 3:2).

51. (21:10) It is asked, when Sarah said, cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not be heir with my son Isaac, why Abraham was grieved, since this was a prophecy (See Gal 4:21)—which surely he himself ought to have known rather than Sarah? But it is to be understood either that Sarah said this from revelation, because it had first been revealed to her; while he, whom the Lord afterward instructs about this, was moved by paternal affection for his son; or that both first did not know what it was, and that this was said prophetically through Sarah, who did not know it, when she was moved with a womanly mind on account of the slave woman's pride.

52. (21:13) It is to be noted that Ishmael too was called by God the seed of Abraham, on account of that which the Apostle teaches is to be so taken, which was said, in Isaac your seed will be called (Gen 21:12); that is, not the children of the flesh, but the children of the promise are reckoned as seed (Rom 9:7-8); so that this pertains properly to Isaac, who was not a child of the flesh, but a child of the promise, where the promise is made concerning all the nations.

53. (21:14) Now Abraham rose in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, and placed it on her shoulders, and the boy, and sent her away. A question is commonly raised how he placed on her shoulders the boy too, who was so big. For he who, before Isaac was born, had been circumcised at thirteen years, when Abraham was ninety-nine (See Gen 17:17), and since Isaac was born when his father was a hundred, and Ishmael was playing with Isaac when Sarah was provoked—surely with one somewhat grown, who had already been weaned—Ishmael was assuredly more than sixteen years old when he was driven out with his mother from his father's house (See Gen 21:9-10). But even if we take what is said about his playing with the little one to be said by recapitulation, before Isaac was weaned, surely even so it is utterly absurd to believe that a boy more than thirteen years old was placed on his mother's shoulders, with the skin and the loaves. But the question is easily solved if we do not supply he placed, but he gave. For Abraham, as is written, gave to his mother the loaves and the skin, which she placed on her shoulders. But when it is added and said, and the boy, we supply he gave, who had given the loaves and the skin; not he placed on her shoulders.

54. (21:15-18) Now the water failed from the skin, and she cast the boy under a fir tree, and went away, and began to sit opposite him at a distance, as far as a bow shoots; for she said, 'I will not see the death of my son'; and she sat opposite him. But the boy cried out and wept; and God heard the voice of the boy from the place where he was, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, 'What is it, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of your son from the place where he is. Rise, and take the boy, and hold him in your hand; for I will make him a great nation.' It is commonly asked how, when the boy was more than fifteen years old, his mother cast him under a tree and went far off, as far as a bow shoots, so as not to see him dying; for what is said seems to sound as though she cast away the one she was carrying, especially because there follows, the boy wept.

But it is to be understood that he was cast away not by one carrying him, but, as happens, in mind, as one about to die. For neither was the one who said, I was cast away from before your eyes (Ps 31:22 (30:23)), being carried. And it is in the daily usage of speech, when someone is said to be cast off by someone with whom he was, so as not to be seen by him or to remain with him.

Now it is to be understood, what Scripture passed over in silence, that the mother went away from her son in such a way that the boy did not know where his mother had gone, and that she hid among the woodland thickets, so as not to see her son failing from thirst. But he—even at that age—what wonder if, his mother not being seen for a longer time and as though lost, he wept in the place where he had been left alone? And so what is afterward said, take the boy, was not said that she should lift him from the ground as though lying there, but that she should join herself to him, and thenceforth hold by the hand the companion she had, as he was; which people of any age very often do when walking together.

55. (21:22) Now it happened at that time, and Abimelech said, and so on. It can be asked, when Abraham made a covenant with this Abimelech (See Gen 21:22-32), and the well that he dug was called the well of swearing (See Gen 21:31), how it agrees with the truth. For Hagar, driven out of Abraham's house with her son, was wandering, as was said, by the well of swearing, which is said to have been made by Abraham much later; for there Abimelech and Abraham swore, which surely had not yet been done when Hagar with her son had been driven out of Abraham's house. How, then, was she wandering by the well of swearing (See Gen 21:14. 19)? Or is it to be understood that it had already been made, and that by recapitulation there is afterward mentioned what Abraham did with Abimelech?

Unless perhaps he who wrote the book long afterward called the region in which the mother was wandering with her son by the name of the well of swearing, as though he said: "she was wandering in that region where the well of swearing was made"—although the well was made afterward, but long before the writer's time; and so the well was called by this name when the book was written, holding the ancient name which Abraham had imposed. But if it is the very well which Hagar saw with opened eyes, nothing remains except that the question be resolved by recapitulation. Nor need it trouble anyone how Hagar did not know the well which Abraham had dug, if it was dug before she was driven out. For it could very well be that, for the sake of his flocks, he dug a well far from the house in which he dwelt with his people, which she did not know.

56. (21:33) It can be asked how Abraham had planted a field at the well of swearing, if in that land, as Stephen says (See Acts 7:5), he had received no inheritance, not even a foot of space. But that inheritance is to be understood which God was going to give by his gift, not bought with a price. And the space around the well is understood to pertain to that compact of purchase in which seven ewe-lambs had been given, when Abimelech and Abraham also swore to each other (See Gen 21:27-30).

57. (22:1) And God tempted Abraham. It is commonly asked how this is true, since James says in his Epistle that God tempts no one (Jas 1:13); unless it is because, in the idiom of the Scriptures, he tempts is wont to be said for what is he tests. But that temptation of which James speaks is understood only as that by which anyone is entangled in sin. Hence the Apostle says: lest perhaps he who tempts has tempted you (1 Thess 3:5). For elsewhere too it is written: the Lord your God tempts you, that he may know whether you love him (Deut 13:3); this too is said in that manner of speech, that he may know, as if it were said, "that he may make you know"; since the powers of one's love are hidden from a man, unless by divine testing they become known even to that same man.

58. (22:12. 14) The voice of the angel from heaven to Abraham: do not lay your hand on the boy, nor do anything to him. For now I have come to know that you fear God; this question too is solved by a similar manner of speech; for now I have come to know that you fear God means: "now I have made you know." And in what follows this kind of speech evidently appears, where it is said: and Abraham called the name of that place, 'The Lord has seen'; so that they say today, 'On the mountain the Lord appeared.' He saw, for what is "he appeared"—that is, he saw, for what is "he caused to be seen"; signifying through the cause that which is caused, as cold is called "lazy-making" because it makes lazy.

59. (22:12) And you have not spared your beloved son for my sake. Did Abraham then not spare his son for the angel's sake, and not for God's? Either, then, by the name angel the Lord Christ was signified, who without doubt is God, and is plainly called by the Prophet the angel of great counsel (Isa 9:6); or it is because God was in the angel, and the angel spoke in the person of God, as is also wont to happen in the Prophets. For in what follows this seems rather to appear, where it is read: and the angel of the Lord called Abraham a second time from heaven, saying: 'By myself I have sworn, says the Lord' (Gen 22:15-16). For it is not easily found that the Lord Christ calls the Father "Lord" as though his own Lord, especially at that time before he took flesh. For according to that by which he received the form of a servant, this seems not incongruously said. For according to the prophecy of this future thing is that in the Psalm: The Lord said to me: 'You are my Son' (Ps 2:7). For not even in the Gospel itself do we easily find God the Father called "Lord" by Christ, as being his Lord; although we find "God" in that place where he says: I go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God (John 20:17). But as to what is written, the Lord said to my Lord, it is referred to the very one who was speaking, that is: the Lord said to my Lord (Ps 110:1 (109:1)), namely the Father to the Son; and the Lord rained from the Lord (Gen 19:24; Luke 17:29)—the one who was writing said it; so that it is understood that his Lord rained from his Lord, that is, our Lord from our Lord, the Son from the Father.

60. (22:21) As to the fact that, among those whom they reported to Abraham to have been born as sons to his brother, Kemuel the father of the Syrians is also named—surely those who made the report could not report him as the father of the Syrians; for from his origin the race of the Syrians was propagated long afterward. But it was said in the person of the writer, who, after all those times, narrated these things in writing; as we said above concerning the well of swearing (See q. 1, 55).

61. (23:7) But Abraham, rising, bowed to the people of the land. It is asked how it was written, you will worship the Lord your God, and him only will you serve (Deut 6:13; 10:20), when Abraham so honored a certain people of the nations that he even bowed to them. But it must be noted that in this same precept it was not said, "the Lord your God only will you worship," as it was said, and him only will you serve, which in Greek is "latreuein." For such service is owed to none but God. Hence idolaters are condemned, that is, those who render to idols this kind of service which is owed to God. Nor let it trouble anyone that in another place, in a certain Scripture, an angel forbids a man to worship him, and admonishes that the Lord rather be worshiped (See Rev 19:10). For that angel had appeared in such a way that he could be worshiped in place of God; and therefore the worshiper had to be corrected.

62. (24:3) That Abraham orders his servant to place his hand under his thigh, and so adjures him by the Lord God of heaven and the Lord of the earth, is wont to trouble the unlearned, who do not attend to the great prophecy concerning Christ that here came to light: that the Lord God of heaven and Lord of the earth himself was to come in that flesh which was propagated from that thigh.

63. (24:12-14) It must be asked in what way unlawful divinations differ from that asking of a sign by which Abraham's servant asked that God show him the very woman who was to be the wife of his master's son Isaac—from whom, when he had asked that she give him drink, it would be said to him: drink, and I will water your camels too until they cease to drink. For it is one thing to ask for something marvelous which by the very miracle is a sign; another to observe those things which happen in such a way that they are not marvels, but are interpreted by soothsayers with superstitious vanity. But this very thing—that something marvelous is asked for, by which what someone wishes to know may be signified, whether it is to be ventured—is no small question. For it is to this that it pertains, that those who do this wrongly are said to tempt the Lord. For when the Lord himself was tempted by the devil, he brought forward a testimony from the Scriptures: you shall not tempt the Lord your God (Deut 6:16; Matt 4:7).

For it was suggested to him, as to a man, that he himself should explore by some sign how great he was—that is, how much he could do with God; which is done viciously, when it is done. But from this is distinguished what Gideon did when the danger of battle was imminent (See Judg 6:17-18); for that was a consultation rather than a tempting of God. Hence Ahaz too, in Isaiah, fears to ask a sign (See Isa 7:11-12), lest he seem to tempt God, when the Lord admonishes him to do this through the prophet; thinking, I believe, that he was being explored by the prophet himself, whether he was mindful of the precept by which we are forbidden to tempt God.

64. (24:37-38) Abraham's servant, narrating what had been commanded him by his master, says that he had said to him: you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell in their land, but you will go into my father's house, and to my tribe, and will take a wife for my son from there; and the rest—if they are read as they were commanded him, the same meaning is found; but not all the words, or the very ones, are even so spoken.

I thought this should be noted on account of foolish and unlearned men who slander the Evangelists on this score, because in some words they do not agree in every respect, although in matters and meanings they do not differ at all. For certainly one man wrote this book, who could set down what he said above, when Abraham gave the command—or set it down as reread—in this way, if he judged it pertinent to the matter; since the truth of narration requires only that it be of matters and meanings by which the intention, for the sake of conveying which the words are made, sufficiently appears.

65. (24:41) Where the Latin manuscripts have, as the servant of Abraham narrates what his master had commanded him, then you will be innocent of my oath, or of my swearing, the Greek has of my curse; for the Greek word means "swearing," and the related word "curse," whence one is also called "accursed." Accordingly the question arises how that oath can be understood as a curse; unless it is because the one who acted against the oath is accursed.

66. (24:49) If, then, you do mercy and justice toward my master, tell me. Those two things which are constantly set down in the other Holy Scriptures, and especially in the Psalms, mercy and justice (See Ps 25:10 (24:10))—for "mercy and truth" amounts to the same thing—begin here already to appear.

67. (24:51) Behold Rebekah before you; take her and hasten back, and let her be the wife of your master's son, as the Lord has spoken. It is asked when the Lord spoke—unless it is because either they knew Abraham to be a prophet, and recognized that what had been said through him had been said prophetically by the Lord (See Gen 24:43. 44); or they called the Lord's speaking that sign which his servant narrated had been given to him (See Gen 24:3. 4); for this was more expressly stated concerning Rebekah. For what Abraham had said, he had not said of Rebekah, but of some woman from his tribe or kindred; and this for either outcome, so that the servant would be free of the oath if he had not obtained his request—which is surely not said when something is prophesied. For prophecy ought to be certain.

68. (24:60) As to what Rebekah's brothers said to her as she set out, you are our sister; may you become thousands of thousands, and may your seed possess the inheritance, the cities of their adversaries—they were not prophets, nor did they wish so great a thing out of vanity, but the things which God had promised to Abraham could not be hidden from them.

69. (24:63) As to what is written, and Isaac went out to take exercise in the field at midday: those who do not know the Greek word on this matter think it bodily exercise. But it is written in Greek with a word that pertains to exercise of the mind, and is often reckoned as a fault; yet in the usage of the Scriptures it is generally set down in a good sense. For this word some of our translators put "exercise," some "garrulity," as it were "wordiness," which, as far as Latin speech is concerned, is scarcely or never found in a good sense; but, as I said, in the Scriptures it is generally said in a good sense; and it seems to me to signify the disposition of a mind very studiously thinking something with delight in the thinking—unless those who better understand these Greek words think otherwise.

70. (25:1) And Abraham, adding still further, took a wife named Keturah. This would be a question, if it were a sin—especially in the ancients who gave attention to propagating offspring. For here something else is rather to be suspected than incontinence in so great a man, especially at that age already. But why he begot sons by her, when he had begotten one by Sarah with a miracle, was said above (See q. 1, 35); although some assert that the gift which Abraham received, as of a body reviving for the procreation of sons, lasted a long while, so that he could procreate others as well. But it is much more clear-cut that an older man could beget with a young woman, what an older man could not do with an older woman—unless God had there shown a miracle, especially on account of not only Sarah's age but also her sterility. Indeed, that one even of greater age, and, as Scripture says, full of days, can be called "elderly," that is, presbytēs, can be understood from this: that Abraham was so called when he died (See Gen 25:8).

Accordingly every old man is also presbytēs, but not every presbytēs is also an old man; for this name generally belongs to an age which, below old age, is near to old age—and from this in the Latin language old age itself takes its name, so that presbytēs is called "elderly." Among the Greeks, however, especially as Scripture speaks, men are called "elder" and "younger," even if the ages of young men are compared—what we call the older and the younger.

Nevertheless this deed of Abraham, that after Sarah's death he procreated sons by Keturah, is not to be taken as though it were done by human custom and intention merely for the sake of providing more numerous offspring. For in this way men could take also what was done with Hagar, did not the Apostle admonish that those things were done prophetically (See Gal 4:22-24), so that in both persons of the women and their sons an allegorical signification might figure the two Testaments for the foretelling of things to come. Hence in this deed of Abraham too something of the sort is to be sought; and even if it does not easily occur, I meanwhile offer what occurs to me. The gifts which the sons of the concubines received seem to me to signify certain gifts of God—whether in sacraments or in any signs whatever—given even to the carnal people of the Jews and to heretics, as to sons of concubines; whereas the gift of the inheritance, which is love and eternal life (See Rom 9:7-8), pertains to none but Isaac, that is, to the children of the promise.

71. (25:13) What does it mean that it is written, these are the names of the sons of Ishmael according to the names of their generations? For it is not sufficiently clear why it was added, according to the names of their generations, when only those whom he begot are named, not also those who were begotten by them. Unless perhaps, because the nations propagated from them are called by their names, this was signified when it was said, according to the names of their generations—although in this way those nations are rather according to the names of these men, not these names according to those nations, since those nations came into being later. Hence the manner of speech is to be noted, because afterward too it is said of them: twelve princes according to their nations (Gen 25:16).

72. (25:22) As to what is written of Rebekah, that she came to ask the Lord when the babes were leaping in her womb, it is asked where she went. For there were not then prophets, or priests according to the order of the tabernacle or the Temple of the Lord. Where, then, she went rightly raises the question—unless perhaps to the place where Abraham had set up an altar (See Gen 22:9). But how the responses were given there, Scripture is altogether silent: whether through some priest—which is incredible, that if there was one he was not named, and that no mention at all was made there of any priests. Or perhaps there, when they had laid out their desires in prayer, they slept in the place, so as to be admonished through a dream? Or was Melchizedek still living, whose excellence was so great that it is doubted by some whether he was a man or an angel? Or were there at that time too any such men of God, in whom God could be asked? Whatever of these it is, and if there is anything else which has perhaps escaped me, so that I did not mention it, Scripture nonetheless cannot lie, which said that Rebekah went to ask the Lord, and that the Lord answered her.

73. (25:23) In that which the Lord answered to Rebekah, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be separated from your belly, and one people will overcome the other, and the elder will serve the younger, by spiritual understanding the carnal in the people of God are signified by the elder son, and the spiritual by the younger; because, as the Apostle says, not first what is spiritual, but what is animal; afterward the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46). It is also commonly understood thus: that in Esau is figured the greater people of God, that is, the Israelite according to the flesh; but by Jacob is figured Jacob himself according to spiritual offspring. But this response is found to have been fulfilled also in its historical literal sense, where the people of Israel, that is, Jacob the younger son, overcame the Idumeans, that is, the nation which Esau propagated, and made them tributaries through David (See 2 Sam 8:13-14; 1 Kgs 11:15); which they were for a long time, until the king [namely Joram] under whom the Idumeans rebelled, and the Idumeans cast the yoke of the Israelites from their neck, according to the prophecy of Isaac himself when he blessed the younger before the elder (See Gen 27:26. 39-40); for he said this to the elder, when he afterward blessed him too.

74. (25:27) But Jacob was a simple man, dwelling at home. What is said in Greek, the Latins translated simple. But properly the Greek word means "unfeigned," whence some Latin translators rendered it without guile, saying: Jacob was without guile, dwelling at home; so that it is a great question how one who was without guile received the blessing through guile. But Scripture set this forth to signify something great. For from this we are especially compelled to understand spiritual things in that passage, because he was without guile who practiced guile. Hence, what we held on the matter, we said sufficiently in a certain sermon delivered to the people (See Sermon 4, 16).

75. (26:1) In that which is written, now a famine came upon the land, besides the famine which came before in the time of Abraham; and Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines in Gerar, it is asked when this happened: whether after Esau sold his birthright for a meal of lentils—for this begins to be narrated after that narration—or whether, as commonly happens, the narrator returned by recapitulation to these things, when, having gone forward concerning his sons, he had reached that place which was mentioned about the lentils. Now it is troubling that the same Abimelech is found who had also desired Sarah; for his groomsman and the commander of his army (See Gen 21:22. 32; 26:26), who are mentioned there, are mentioned here too—whether they could even be alive. For when he became Abraham's friend, Isaac was not yet born, but already promised. Let us suppose that took place a year before Isaac was born; then Isaac begot sons when he was sixty years old; and they were young men when Esau sold his birthright; let us suppose them too to have been about twenty years old; the years of Isaac's age up to that deed of his sons come to about eighty; let us take Abimelech to have been a young man when he desired Isaac's mother and was made Abraham's friend; he could then already be about a hundred, if it was after that deed of his sons that Isaac proceeded into that land by the necessity of famine. From this, therefore, no necessity compels us to think that Isaac's departure into Gerar was narrated by recapitulation. But because it is written that Isaac was there a long time, and dug wells, and contended over them, and was enriched with money (See Gen 26:14ff), it would be strange if these things are not mentioned by recapitulation—things which had been passed over precisely so that the narration about his sons might first reach that passage about the lentils.

76. (26:12-13) In that which is written of Isaac, and the Lord blessed him, and the man was exalted, and going forward he became greater, until he became very great, what follows teaches that it was said according to earthly happiness. For the narrator goes on to recount those same riches by which he was made great; and Abimelech, moved by this, feared him to be there, lest his power be hostile to himself (See Gen 26:14-16). Although, then, these things signify something spiritual, yet according to what actually happened it was therefore set down beforehand, the Lord blessed him, so that with sound faith we may understand that even these temporal gifts can neither be given, nor ought to be hoped for—even when they are sought by the weaker—except from the one God; so that he who is faithful in the least may be faithful also in great things, and he who is found faithful in unrighteous mammon may deserve to receive the true as well, as the Lord says in the Gospel (See Luke 16:10-11). Such things were said also of Abraham, that the gifts of God came to him. Hence this narration builds up sound faith not a little in those who understand it piously, even if no allegorical signification could be carved out of these matters.

77. (26:28) Let there be an imprecation between us and you; that is, an oath which binds with curses, which would fall upon the one who has sworn falsely; according to which is to be considered what Abraham's servant too mentioned, narrating to those from whom he received a wife for his master Isaac.

78. (26:32-33) What does it mean that it is written that, when Isaac's servants had come and said, we have dug a well, and have not found water, Isaac called that same well the oath? Or, although it happened, is it without doubt to be led to some spiritual signification, since it has no fittingness according to the letter, that he should therefore have called the well the oath because water was not found there? Although other translators have said that Isaac's servants announced rather that water had been found; but even so, why was it called the oath, where no oath had been made?

79. (27:1-17) Since so great a patriarch as Isaac, before he dies, asks of his son a catch of game and food, such as he loves, as a great favor, and promises a blessing, we think it in no way free from prophetic signification; especially since his wife hastens that the younger, whom she herself loved, may receive that blessing, and the other things in the same narration move us much to understanding or seeking greater things.

80. (27:33) Where the Latin manuscripts have, but Isaac was afraid with a very great fear, the Greek has a word in which so great an agitation is understood that a certain alienation of mind followed. For this is properly called ecstasy. And because it is wont to occur in revelations of great matters, in this case it is to be understood that a spiritual admonition was made, so that he might confirm his blessing to the younger son—at whom he ought rather to have been angry for having deceived his father. So too of Adam, when this great mystery is prophesied which the Apostle speaks of in Christ and in the Church, they will be two in one flesh (Eph 5:31-32), it is said that an ecstasy preceded (See Gen 2:21).

81. (27:42) How were the words of Esau announced or reported to Rebekah, by which he threatened to kill his brother, since Scripture says that he said this in his own thought (See Gen 27:41)—unless it is because from this we are given to understand that all things were divinely revealed to them? Hence it pertains to a great mystery, that she wished her younger son to be blessed before the elder.

82. (28:2) Where the Latin manuscripts have, as Isaac says to his son, go into Mesopotamia, to the house of Bethuel your mother's father, and take a wife for yourself from there, the Greek manuscripts have not go but flee. Hence it is understood that Isaac too knew what his son Esau had said about his brother in his thought.

83. (28:16-17) And Jacob rose from his sleep, and said: The Lord is in this place, and I did not know it; and he was afraid, and said: 'How terrible is this place! This is none other than the house of God; and this is the gate of heaven.' These words pertain to prophecy, because there was to be the tabernacle which the Lord set up among men in his first people. But the gate of heaven we ought to understand as though from there an entrance is made for believers to lay hold of the kingdom of heaven.

84. (28:18) That Jacob set up the stone which he had placed at his head, and made it a pillar, and poured oil over it, was nothing like idolatry; for neither then nor afterward did he frequent the stone, worshiping it or sacrificing to it; but it was a sign set up in a most evident prophecy, which pertains to anointing, whence the name of Christ is from "chrism."

85. (28:19) And Jacob called the name of that place 'House of God,' and Ulammaus was the name of the city before. If he is understood to have slept beside the city, there is no question; but if in the city, it seems strange how he could set up that pillar. And as to the vow he made, if he should prosper in going and returning, and the tithes he promised to the house of God that would be in that place (See Gen 28:20-22), it is a prophecy of the house of God, where he himself also, returning, sacrificed to God—not calling that stone "God," but the House of God, that is, because in that place the house of God was to be.

86. (29:10) As to the fact that Rachel came with her father's sheep, and Scripture says that when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, he came near and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well, it is rather to be noted that Scripture passes over something which we ought to understand, than that any question is to be raised. For it is understood that those with whom Jacob was first speaking, having been asked who it was that was coming with the sheep, themselves told him she was Laban's daughter—whom of course Jacob did not know; but Scripture, passing over his question and their answer, wished it to be understood.

87. (29:11-12) As to what is written, Jacob kissed Rachel, and crying out with his voice he wept; and he told her that he was her kinsman, and that he was the son of Rebekah. It was indeed the custom, especially in that simplicity of the ancients, that kinsmen kiss their kinswomen, and this is done today in many places; but it can be asked how she received a kiss from one unknown, if Jacob afterward told her of his kinship. So it must be understood either that he, who had already heard who she was, confidently rushed to kiss her; or that Scripture afterward narrated by recapitulation what had happened first, that is, that Jacob told her who he was. Just as concerning Paradise it is afterward said how God planted it, when it had already been said that God planted Paradise (See Gen 2:8) and placed there the man he had formed; and many other things are understood to be said by recapitulation.

88. (29:20) As to what is written, and Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they were in his sight as a few days, because he loved her, it must be asked how this was said, since even a short time is wont to seem long to lovers. It was said, then, on account of the labor of service, which love made easy and light.

89. (29:27-30) If the narration of this matter is given too little attention, it will be thought that, after Jacob married Leah, he then served another seven years for Rachel, and only then married her. But the truth is not so; rather, Laban said to him: complete, then, this one's week, and I will give you this one too for the work which you will work with me yet another seven years. So when he says, complete this one's week, it pertains to the celebration of the wedding, which is wont to be celebrated for seven days. So he says this: "fulfill the seven days of wedding belonging to this one whom you have married, and I will give you this one too for what you will work with me yet another seven years." Then it follows: and Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week, that is, the seven days of Leah's wedding, and Laban gave him Rachel his daughter to be his wife. And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his slave woman as her slave, and he went in to Rachel. And he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served him another seven years. Surely it appears that after he married Rachel, he then served for her another seven years. For it would have been too harsh and very unjust that, having been deceived, he should still put off another seven years, and only then hand over the one he ought to have had first. And that weddings are wont to be celebrated for seven days the book of Judges too shows in Samson (See Judg 14:10), when he made a feast for seven days. And Scripture added that the young men were wont to do so; and he did this on account of his wedding.

90. (30:3. 9) It is not easily discerned whom Scripture calls concubines and whom wives; since Hagar too was called a wife, who is afterward called a concubine, and Keturah, and the slave women whom Rachel and Leah gave to their husband (See Gen 16:3; 25:1. 6). Unless perhaps, in the usage of the Scriptures, every concubine is called a wife, but not every wife a concubine; that is, so that Sarah and Rebekah and Leah and Rachel cannot be called concubines, but Hagar and Keturah and Bilhah and Zilpah are called both wives and concubines.

91. (30:11) Where the Latin have, at the birth of Leah's son by Zilpah, that she said, I have become blessed or fortunate, the Greek has a word that signifies rather "good fortune." Hence an occasion seems to be given to those who do not understand well, as though those people worshiped fortune, or as though the authority of the Divine Scriptures received this word into use. But either "fortune" is to be understood for those things which seem to happen by chance—not because there is any deity, since these very things which seem fortuitous are nonetheless given divinely by hidden causes; whence even words, which no one can remove from the custom of speech, are at hand, that is, "by chance," and "perhaps," and "maybe," and "fortuitously"; whence too it seems to echo in the Greek language, in what they say "perhaps," as from the word for "fortune"—or else Leah spoke thus precisely because she still retained the custom of her gentile background. For Jacob did not say this, so that from it authority should be thought given to this word.

92. (30:30) As to what Jacob says, and the Lord blessed you at my foot, the sense of the Scriptures is sufficiently to be observed and noted, lest, when anyone has spoken thus, he seem as it were to take omens. For there is a great difference in what he added, the Lord blessed you at my foot; for he wished it to be understood "at my entrance," giving thanks to God for this.

93. (30:37. 42) In the deed of Jacob when he peeled the rods, stripping off the green so that the white should appear variegated, and so that thus at conception the offspring of the flocks should be variegated—when the mothers drank in the troughs of water and, seeing the rods, conceived that variegation—many things are said to happen similarly in the offspring of animals; and it is handed down to have happened to a woman, and it is found written in the books of Hippocrates, that most ancient and most skilled physician, that she was to be punished on suspicion of adultery, when she had borne a most beautiful child unlike either parent and unlike his kindred—had not the said physician resolved the question, those people having been advised to inquire whether perhaps there was some such picture in the bedroom; and when it was found, the woman was freed from suspicion.

But as to this thing which Jacob did, what usefulness the joining together of three rods from different trees contributed—as far as concerns the multiplying of variegated flocks—does not appear at all; nor does it make any difference toward this advantage whether the rods are variegated from the wood of one kind, or whether there are several kinds of wood, since only the variegation of the wood is sought; and on this account the matter compels us to look for a prophecy and some figured signification—which Jacob without doubt did as a prophet; and therefore he is not to be accused of fraud either. For it is not to be believed that he did anything of the sort except by a spiritual revelation.

But as to what pertained to justice—as other translators narrate this more openly—he did not place the rods at the second conception of the sheep; which is said the more obscurely the more briefly it was said by the Septuagint: because when they had given birth, he did not place them (Gen 30:42); which is understood as "when they had first given birth": so that he is understood no longer to be accustomed to place them when they were about to give birth a second time, lest he himself take away all the offspring, which would be unjust.

94. (31:30) That Laban says, why have you stolen my gods? From this, perhaps, comes the fact that he had said he took omens, and that his daughter had named "Good Fortune" (See Gen 31:29). And it is to be noted that here, for the first time from the beginning of the book, we find the gods of the nations; for in the earlier passages of Scripture they named God.

95. (31:41) What does it mean that Jacob says to his father-in-law, and you have cheated my wage by ten ewe-lambs? For when and how this was done Scripture does not narrate; but surely what he mentions was done; for he said this also to his wives, when he called them into the field. For complaining about their father, he says among other things: and he changed my wage of ten lambs (Gen 31:7). It is understood, then, that at each season of the sheep's bearing, when Laban saw that such offspring were born as it had been agreed should belong to Jacob (See Gen 30:37-42), he changed the compact by fraud, and said that for the future offspring he should have other colors of the flock in Jacob's wage.

But then Jacob did not set out the variegated rods, and there were born not variegated ones, but of one color, which Jacob took away by the new compact. And when Laban saw this, he again changed the compact by fraud, so that the variegated should belong to Jacob; then, by the setting out of those rods, variegated ones were born.

So when Jacob says to his wives, he changed my wage of ten lambs, and afterward to Laban himself, you have cheated my wage by ten ewe-lambs, he did not say it as though that fraud succeeded for his father-in-law; for that it should not succeed for him, he said that God was present to him against the other; and by ten lambs or ten ewe-lambs he meant ten seasons in which the sheep he pastured gave birth over the six years.

For they gave birth twice a year; but it had happened that in the first year, in which they made the compact between themselves and he came to pasture them by the agreement of this wage, they gave birth once at the end of the year, because when he came they had already given birth once; and again in the sixth year, that is, the last, when they had given birth once, the necessity of departure having arisen, he withdrew before they gave birth again; and thus, since the first year and the last had two birthings of the sheep under his charge—that is, one each—but the four middle years had two each, all together come to ten.

Nor is it strange that he called these ten seasons by the name of lambs, which were born in those same seasons; as if someone should say, "through so many vintages," or "through so many harvests," by which the number of years is understood; whence a certain poet says, after a few ears of grain (Virgil, Eclogues 1, 70)—by ears of grain signifying "harvests," and by "harvests" "years." And the fecundity of the flocks of that region, like that of the Italian, is said to be so great that they give birth twice a year.

96. (31:45) And Jacob took a stone, and set it up as a pillar. It must be carefully observed how they set up these pillars in testimony of any matter; not that they might worship them as gods, but that they might signify something by them.

97. (31:47-48) That the heap of stones which Laban and Jacob had set up between themselves they called with some difference—so that Laban called it Heap of testimony, Jacob Heap-witness—is handed down by those who know both the Syriac and the Hebrew language to have been done on account of the properties of each one's own language. For it is wont to happen that what is said in one word in one language is not said in one word in another, and each thing is called by a nearness of signification. For afterward it is said: on this account the name was called: The heap testifies (Gen 31:48). For this was set down in a middle way, that it might suit both him who had said Heap of testimony and him who had said Heap-witness.

98. (31:48-49) What does it mean that, speaking to Jacob, Laban says: this heap witnesses, and this pillar witnesses. On this account the name is called: The heap witnesses. And the vision which he said: 'May God watch between me and you'? Unless perhaps the order is: and the vision which God said: 'May he watch between me and you'; for God had said to him in a vision that he should not harm Jacob.

99. (31:50) What does it mean that Laban says in what follows: see, no one is with us? Unless perhaps "no one of outsiders," or on account of the testimony of God, whom they ought so to have that it was as if no one were with them whom they might join to his testimony.

100. (31:53. 42) And Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. By the fear—surely that by which he feared God, which fear he also commended above, when he said: the God of my father Abraham, and the fear of my father Isaac.

101. (32:2) The camp of God which Jacob saw on the journey—there is no doubt that it was a multitude of angels; for these are named in the Scriptures "the host of heaven."

102. (32:6-12) When it was reported to Jacob that his brother was coming to meet him with four hundred men, he was indeed troubled and confused in mind, for he greatly feared; and, as seemed good to a man disturbed, he arranged his company, divided into two camps (See Gen 32:7). Here it can be asked how he had faith in God's promises, since he said: if my brother comes to the first camp and destroys it, the second will be for safety (Gen 32:8). But even this could happen, that Esau should overthrow his camp, and yet God be present after that affliction, and deliver him, and fulfill what he had promised. And we had to be admonished by this example that, although we believe in God, we should nonetheless do the things that ought to be done by men for the safeguarding of our welfare, lest, by neglecting them, we seem to tempt God.

Finally, after these things, what words the same Jacob says is to be considered: God, he says, of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, Lord, who said to me, 'Return to the land of your birth, and I will do you good,' you are sufficient for me, of all the justice and all the truth which you have done to your servant. For with this my staff I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps; rescue me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest when he comes he strike me and the mothers with the children. But you said: 'I will do you good, and will make your seed like the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.' (Gen 32:9-12) In these words both human weakness and the faith of piety sufficiently appear.

103. (32:21) As to what the Latin manuscripts have about Jacob, for he said: 'I will appease his face, with the gifts going before him': the writer of the book, who in narrating says of Jacob, for he said: 'I will appease his face', is understood to have said up to this point the words of Jacob, but to have inserted the rest as his own, when he says with the gifts going before him; as if he said, "with the gifts which were going before Jacob, I will appease the face of my brother." The order of Jacob's words, then, is: I will appease his face, and after this I will see his face; for perhaps he will receive my face. But the writer's words are interposed: with the gifts going before him.

104. (32:26) That Jacob desires to be blessed by that angel over whom he prevailed in wrestling is a great prophecy concerning Christ. For by this very thing he admonishes us to perceive something mystical, since every man wishes to be blessed by a greater. How, then, did he wish to be blessed by him whom he overcame in wrestling? For Jacob prevailed over Christ, or rather seemed to prevail, through those Israelites by whom Christ was crucified; and yet he is blessed by him in those Israelites who believed in Christ, of whom was he who said: for I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin (Rom 11:1). One and the same Jacob, then, is both lame and blessed: lame in the breadth of his thigh, as it were in the multitude of his race, of whom it is said, and they went lame from their paths (Ps 18:45 (17:46)); but blessed in those of whom it is said, a remnant, through the election of grace, has been saved (Rom 11:5).

105. (33:10) What does it mean that Jacob says to his brother: for this reason I have seen your face, as when one sees the face of God? Did the words of a frightened and disturbed mind burst out even into this flattery? Or can they be taken as said without sin, according to some understanding? For perhaps, because the gods of the nations too were called, which are demons (See Ps 95:5 (93:5)), no prejudice is to be drawn from these words against the man of God. For he did not say, "as if I were to see the face of God," but as when one sees; and who that one may signify is uncertain; and so perhaps the words were so tempered that both Esau himself might gratefully receive the great honor offered him, and those who can understand these things otherwise might convict the one by whom they were said of no crime of impiety. But even if these fraternal words were said with a kindly mind, since after the good reception the fear itself had passed, it could be said thus, just as Moses too was called Pharaoh's god (See Exod 7:1), according to what the Apostle says: although there are those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords (1 Cor 8:5); especially because it was said in the Greek without the article, by which article the signification of the one true God is wont to be made most evidently. For he did not say "the face of the God," but "a face of God"; and those who are accustomed to hear and understand the speech of the Greeks easily understand with what distinction it is said.

106. (33:14) It is asked whether Jacob promised his brother falsely that, following the pace of his own people on the journey—on whose account he would go slowly—he would come to him in Seir; for this, as Scripture then narrates (See Gen 33:17), he did not do, but proceeded by the road that led to his own people. Or had he perhaps promised with a truthful mind, but afterward, on reflection, chose otherwise?

107. (34:2-3) How does Scripture say that Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the land, saw Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and took her, and slept with her, and humbled her; and he set his mind on Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and fell in love with the virgin, and spoke to her according to the mind of the virgin? How is she called a virgin, if he had already slept with her and humbled her? Unless perhaps virgin is a name of age according to Hebrew speech; or rather, is it by recapitulation that there is afterward mentioned what was done first? For he could first set his mind on her and love the virgin, and speak according to the mind of the virgin, and then sleep with her and humble her.

108. (33:5; 34:25) Since a little before, Jacob, speaking with his brother Esau, indicates that his sons are infants, it can be asked how they could make so great a slaughter and plundering of the city, killing the men—though they were laid up in the pain of circumcision—on behalf of their sister Dinah. But it is to be understood that Jacob dwelt there a long time, until both his daughter became a virgin and his sons young men.

For it is written thus: and Jacob came to Salem, to the city of the Shechemites, which is in the land of Canaan, when he arrived from Mesopotamia of Syria, and encamped before the face of the city; and he bought a part of the field in which he there set up his tent, from Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred lambs; and he set up there an altar, and called upon the God of Israel. Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob himself, went out to learn the ways of the daughters of that region (Gen 33:18-34:1), and so on.

It appears, then, from these words that Jacob did not stay there in passing, as a traveler is wont to, but bought a field, set up a tent, built an altar, and on this account dwelt there for a long time; and that his daughter, when she had reached the age that she could now have friends, wished to learn the ways of the daughters of the people of the place; and so there came about, on her account, the most bloody slaughter and plundering, which now, I think, has no further question. For there was no small multitude with Jacob, who had been greatly enriched; but his sons are named in this deed, because they were its chief authors and leaders.

109. (34:30) As to what Jacob says, fearing the wars of the neighbors at the city of Salem, which his sons stormed: but I am few in number, and they will gather against me and kill me; on account of the wars of the many, which could arise, he said he was few in number—not that he had fewer men than could suffice for the storming of that city, since he had divided his people on the journey into two camps.

110. (35:1) And God said to Jacob: 'Rise, and go up to the place Bethel, and dwell there; and make there an altar to the God who appeared to you, when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.' What does it mean that he did not say, "and make there an altar to me, who appeared to you," but God says, make there an altar to the God who appeared to you? Did the Son appear there, and is it God the Father who says this? Or is it to be reckoned among some manner of speech?

111. (35:2) That Jacob, about to go up to Bethel, where he was bidden to make an altar, says to his household and to all who were with him, take away the foreign gods that are among you, from your midst, and so on; then it is said: and they gave to Jacob the foreign gods that were in their hands, and the earrings that were in their ears; it is asked why the earrings too—which, if they were ornaments, did not pertain to idolatry—unless it is to be understood that they were phylacteries of the foreign gods. For Scripture testifies that Rebekah received earrings from Abraham's servant; which would not be done, if it were not permitted them to have earrings for the sake of ornament. Therefore those earrings which were given along with the idols, as was said, were phylacteries of the idols.

112. (35:5) And the fear of God was produced in the cities that were around them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Israel. Let us begin to observe how God works in the minds of men. For by whom was the fear of God produced in those cities, except by him who was guarding his promises in Jacob and his sons?

113. (35:6) And Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, which is Bethel. It must be observed that three names of this city have now been mentioned: Ulammaus, which it is said was its earlier name, when Jacob, going there first on his way to Mesopotamia, had come there; and Bethel, the name he himself imposed, which means House of God; and Luz, which has just been mentioned (See Gen 28:19; 35:15). Nor ought it to seem strange: for in many places this happens—in cities, in rivers, and in any lands whatever—that for one cause or another names are either added or changed, as also to men themselves.

114. (35:9-10) Again in Luz God appeared to Jacob, and said to him: your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel will be your name (Gen 32:28). Behold, God says this to him again in a blessing, and this repetition confirms a great promise in this name. For this is remarkable: that those to whom it is said even once that they are no longer to be called what they were called, but the new name imposed on them, are altogether no longer called anything except what was imposed on them; but this man, throughout his whole life and thereafter, after his life, was called Jacob, to whom God had said not once, you will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel will be your name. So this name is rightly understood to pertain to that promise where God will be seen in such a way as he was not seen before by the Fathers. For there will be no old name, because nothing of the old will remain even in the body itself, and the vision of God will be the highest reward.

115. (35:11) In the promises to Jacob it is said: nations and assemblies of nations will be from you; it is asked whether nations means according to the flesh, but assemblies of nations according to faith, or whether both were said on account of the faith of the nations—if the one nation of Israel according to the flesh cannot be called nations.

116. (35:13-15) And God went up from the place where he had spoken with him; and Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone; and he poured a libation upon it, and poured oil upon it; and Jacob called the name of the place, where God there spoke with him, Bethel. Was what had been done done again in this place (See Gen 28:18-19)? Or was it again mentioned? But whichever of these it be, Jacob poured a libation upon the stone, he did not pour a libation to the stone. He did not, then, as idolaters are wont to do, set up altars before stones, and pour libations to the stones as to gods.

117. 1. (35:26) That the twelve sons of Israel who were born to him are reckoned, and it is said, these are the sons of Israel, who were born to him in Mesopotamia, when Benjamin was born long afterward, when they had already passed Bethel and were approaching Bethlehem—some, vainly trying to solve this question, have said that we must not read were born, as most Latin manuscripts have, but were made; for in Greek it is written with a word meaning "came to be"; wishing thus to have it understood that Benjamin too, although he was not born there, was nonetheless made there, because he had already been sown in the womb, so that Rachel is believed to have gone out from there pregnant. But in this way, even if were born were read, they could say: he had already been born in the womb, because he had been conceived; just as it was said of holy Mary to Joseph: for that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit (Matt 1:20).

117. 2. But there is another thing that hinders this solution of the question; because if Benjamin was already conceived there, those sons of Jacob who went out from there grown could scarcely have been twelve years old. For he completed twenty years there (See Gen 31:41), of which the first seven he was without marriage, until by service he obtained it. So that, even if a son was born to him in the first year in which he married, the firstborn could be twelve years old when he set out from there. Accordingly, if Benjamin was already conceived, that whole journey was completed within ten months, and whatever is written about Jacob on the journey. From which it follows that his sons, so very young, made so great a slaughter for their sister Dinah, butchered so many men, and so stormed the city (See Gen 34:25-29); among whom Simeon and Levi, who first, girded with swords, went in to those men and slew them, the one would be found to have been eleven, the other ten years old—even if she had given birth in each single year without interruption; which is surely incredible, that all those things could be done by boys of that age, when Dinah herself was scarcely yet six years old.

117. 3. Accordingly the question must be solved otherwise: so that it is understood to have been said, when the twelve sons were mentioned, these are the sons of Jacob, who were made to him in Mesopotamia of Syria, because among all of them, who were so many, only one was not born there—who nonetheless had there the occasion of his being born, because there his mother was joined to his father. But this solution of the question must be confirmed by some example of a similar manner of speech.

117. 4. There is, however, no easier solution of this question than that it be taken by synecdoche. For where there is a greater or more important part, by its name is wont to be comprehended also that which does not pertain to the name itself. Just as Judas no longer pertained to the twelve Apostles—who was even dead when the Lord rose from the dead—and yet the Apostle kept the name of that number twelve in his Epistle (See 1 Cor 15:5), where he says that he appeared to those twelve. For the Greek manuscripts have this with the article, so that it cannot be understood as any twelve whatever, but those notable ones in that number. In the same manner of speech, I think, is also that which was said by the Lord: did I not choose you twelve, and one of you is a devil? (John 6:70) So that he too should not seem to pertain to the choosing. For the name of the chosen is not easily found in a bad sense, except when the wicked are chosen by the wicked. But if we should think that he too was chosen, so that through his betrayal the Lord's passion might be accomplished—that is, his malice chosen for something, since God makes good use even of the wicked—let us attend to another place where he says: I do not speak of all of you; I know whom I have chosen (John 13:18); where he declares that none but the good pertain to the choosing. And on this account, that which was said, I chose you twelve, was said by synecdoche, so that by the name of the greater and better part it might embrace also that which does not pertain to the name itself.

117. 5. This manner is in this same book, where Hamor, on behalf of his son Shechem, that he might take Dinah the daughter of Jacob, went out to speak with Jacob himself, and his sons too, who had been absent, came; and to all Hamor says: my son Shechem has chosen your daughter in his mind; give her, then, to him as wife (Gen 34:8). For because the person of the father was the more important, by synecdoche, saying your daughter, he included also the brothers by this name, though she was not their daughter. Hence too is this: run to the flock, and take me from there two kids (Gen 27:9); for the sheep and the goats were pastured together; and because the sheep are the more important, by their name he embraced also the goatkind. So, because the number of the eleven sons of Jacob who had been born in Mesopotamia was the more important, by mentioning them Scripture embraced also Benjamin, who was not born there, and it was said: these are the sons of Jacob, who were made to him in Mesopotamia of Syria.

118. (36:1-5) That after the narration of Isaac's death there is narrated what wives Esau took, and whom he begot, is to be understood as recapitulation. For it did not begin to happen after Isaac's death, when Esau and Jacob were already a hundred and twenty years old (See Gen 25:26). For Isaac begot them when he was sixty, and lived all the years of his life one hundred and eighty (See Gen 35:28).

119. (36:6-7) There is a question how Scripture says that after the death of Isaac his father Esau departed from the land of Canaan and dwelt in Mount Seir (See Gen 36:6-8), when, on the coming of his brother Jacob from Mesopotamia, it is read that he was already dwelling there (See Gen 32:4). Accordingly, what could have happened, so that Scripture is not believed to be deceived or to deceive, is ready at hand to consider: namely, that Esau, after his brother departed into Mesopotamia, was unwilling to dwell with his parents—whether from that agitation by which he grieved that he had been cheated of the blessing, or for some cause either of his wives, whom he saw to be hateful to his parents, or whatever else—and had begun to dwell in Mount Seir. Then, after the return of his brother Jacob, harmony having been made between them, he too returned to his parents, and when they had together buried their dead father, because the land, as is written, by no means held them both, greatly enriched as they were, he departed again into Seir (See Gen 36:7-8), and there propagated the nation of the Idumeans.

120. (36:21) As to what is written, these are the princes of the Hivites, sons of Seir in the land of Edom, the writer mentions it according to the time in which he was living. But when Seir, who begot these men, was dwelling there, Esau not yet having come into that land, it was surely not yet called the land of Edom. For the name was imposed on the land by none but Esau himself, since the same man was called both Esau and Edom, from whom the Idumeans were propagated, that is, the nation of Edom.

121. (36:31-39) As to what is written, and these are the kings who reigned in Edom, before a king reigned in Israel, it is not to be taken as though all the kings were named down to those times in which the kings of Israel began, of whom the first was Saul. For there were many in Edom down to the times of Saul, even in the times of the Judges, whose times were before the kings; but of these many Moses could mention only those who were before he himself died. Nor is it strange that, counting from Abraham through Esau the father of the nation of Edom, and through Reuel the son of Esau, and Zerah the son of Reuel, and Jobab the son of Zerah—to whom Jobab succeeded in the kingdom Balak, who is mentioned as having been the first king in the land of Edom—down to the last king whom Moses could name, more generations are found than are counted from Abraham through Jacob down to Moses. For there about twelve are found, but here, down to Moses, about seven. For it could be that more were named there because, dying sooner, more succeeded one another. So too it happened that Matthew, following another order, counted from Abraham to Joseph forty-two generations (See Matt 1:1-17); but Luke, counting the generations in another order, not through Solomon, as the former, but through Nathan, mentions fifty-five from Abraham to Joseph. For in that order where more are counted (See Luke 3:23-38), they died sooner than here where fewer. But lest it perhaps trouble anyone that among the kings of Edom Balak son of Beor is mentioned, and from the likeness of the name he suppose him to be the Balak who resisted Moses leading the people of Israel—let him know that that Balak was a Moabite, not an Idumean, and that he was the son of Zippor, not the son of Beor; but that there was also there at that time a son of Beor, Balaam, not Balak, whom this same Balak had hired to curse the people of Israel (See Num 22:2-6).

122. (35:29; 37:2) How the death of Isaac could find Joseph his grandson seventeen years old, as Scripture seems to narrate as if in order (See Gen 35:29), is difficult to discover, whichever way one turns. For I do not wish to say that it cannot be discovered, lest perhaps what escapes me does not escape another.

For if, after the death of his grandfather Isaac, Joseph was seventeen years old (See Gen 37:2) when his brothers sold him into Egypt, then without doubt his father Jacob too, in the seventeenth year of his son Joseph, was a hundred and twenty years old. For Isaac begot them when he was sixty, as is written (See Gen 25:26); Isaac therefore lived afterward a hundred and twenty, since he died at a hundred and eighty (See Gen 35:28); therefore he left his sons a hundred and twenty years old, and Joseph seventeen. But since Joseph was thirty years old when he appeared in Pharaoh's sight, and there followed seven years of plenty and two of famine, until his father came to him with his brothers, Joseph was assuredly thirty-nine years old when Jacob entered Egypt (See Gen 41:46). But the same Jacob, as he says with his own mouth to Pharaoh, was then in the hundred and thirtieth year of his age (See Gen 47:9); but Jacob was a hundred and twenty when Joseph was seventeen; which can in no way be true. For if in the seventeenth year of Joseph's life Jacob were a hundred and twenty, then without doubt in the thirty-ninth year of Joseph, Jacob would be found to be not a hundred and thirty, but a hundred and forty-two years old. But if on the day of Isaac's death Joseph was not yet seventeen years old, but reached his seventeenth year some little time after his grandfather's death—in which year, as Scripture testifies, he was sold into Egypt by his brothers—then his father ought to have been even more than a hundred and forty-two years old when he followed his son into Egypt. For Scripture, after it had narrated (See Gen 35:28-29) Isaac's last year of life, the hundred and eightieth, and his death and burial, then mentioned (See Gen 36:6-43) how Esau had departed from his brother out of the land of Canaan into Mount Seir, and wove together the mention of the kings and princes of that nation in which he settled himself, or which Esau propagated; after these things, it brought in the narration about Joseph thus: now Jacob dwelt in the land of Canaan. And these are the offspring of Jacob. Now Joseph was seventeen years old, pasturing the sheep with his brothers (Gen 37:1-2).

Then there is narrated the occasion of the dreams, how he was made hateful to his brothers, and sold (See Gen 37:5-28). Either, then, in the same seventeenth year, or even somewhat older, he came into Egypt; and on this account, either way, the question remains. For if he was seventeen years old after the death of his grandfather, when his father was a hundred and twenty, then surely in his thirty-ninth year, when Jacob came into Egypt, the same Jacob ought to have been a hundred and forty-two years old; but Jacob was then a hundred and thirty; and on this account, if Joseph was sold into Egypt at seventeen years old, he is found to have been sold twelve years before his grandfather died. For he could not be seventeen years old except twelve years before the death of Isaac, in the hundred and eighth year of his father Jacob's life. For when we add to these the twenty-two years during which Joseph was in Egypt until his father's coming, the years of Joseph's age come to thirty-nine, and Jacob's to a hundred and thirty, and there will be no question. But because Scripture narrated these things after Isaac's death, Joseph is thought to have been seventeen years old after the death of this same grandfather. Therefore let us understand that Scripture was silent about the life of Isaac, as of a very decrepit old man, when it was already speaking of Jacob and his sons; yet while Isaac was living, Joseph began to be seventeen years old.

123. (37:10) As to what Jacob says to Joseph, what is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, to bow down to you on the ground?—unless it is taken as said in some mystery, how is it understood of Joseph's mother, who was already dead? Hence neither in Egypt, when he was exalted, is it to be thought that this was fulfilled; for neither did his father bow to him when he came to him in Egypt, nor could his mother, long since dead (See Gen 35:19). In the person of Christ, then, it can easily be understood even of the dead, according to what the Apostle says, that he gave him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Phil 2:9-10).

124. (37:28) It is asked why Scripture also calls Midianites the Ishmaelites to whom Joseph was sold by his brothers, since Ishmael is the son of Abraham by Hagar, but the Midianites are from Keturah. Or is it because Scripture had said of Abraham that he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines, namely Hagar and Keturah, and sent them away from Isaac his son into the land of the East (See Gen 25:6), that they are to be understood to have made one nation?

125. (37:35) It is written of Jacob, as he mourned Joseph: and all his sons and daughters gathered together, and came to console him. What daughters besides Dinah? Or does he say sons and daughters, reckoning in the grandsons and granddaughters? For his elder sons could already have sons.

126. (37:35) And he refused to be consoled, saying: 'For I will go down to my son, mourning, into the netherworld.' It is wont to be a great question how the netherworld is to be understood: whether only the wicked, or also the good, are wont to descend there when dead. If, then, only the wicked, how does this man say that he wishes to descend, mourning, to his son? For he does not believe him to be in the punishments of the netherworld. Or are these the words of one disturbed and grieving, magnifying his own evils even from this?

127. (37:36) And they sold Joseph into Egypt to Potiphar the eunuch, set over the cooks. Some are unwilling to translate set over the cooks, which in Greek is so called, but set over the army, who had the power of putting to death. For so was called also the man whom Nebuchadnezzar sent (See 2 Kgs 25:8-9), in whom the primacy is found rather to have been of the army.

128. (38:1-3) Now it happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers to a certain Adullamite man, whose name was Hirah; and Judah saw there the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua, and took her, and went in to her, and she conceived, and bore a son, and so on. It is asked when these things could happen. For if it was after Joseph came into Egypt, how could it be that within about twenty-two years (for after so much time it is reckoned that they came to this same brother Joseph in Egypt with their father) the sons of Judah could all be of an age to marry wives? For Tamar his daughter-in-law, when his firstborn died, he gave to another son; and when he too died, she waited for the third to grow up; and when he had grown, he did not give her to him either, fearing lest he too should die (See Gen 38:6-11); whence it came about that she offered herself to her father-in-law (See Gen 38:12-18). How, then, all these things could happen within so few years rightly raises the question—unless, as perhaps is customary, Scripture wishes it to be understood by recapitulation that this began to happen some years before Joseph was sold; for it was so set down that it was said, now it happened at that time. Yet here it is asked: if Joseph was seventeen years old when he was sold, how old could Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, have been—since the firstborn Reuben himself could at most precede his brother Joseph by five or six years in age? But Scripture plainly says that Joseph was thirty years old when he became known to Pharaoh. Since, then, he is believed to have been sold in the seventeenth year of his age, he had spent thirteen years in Egypt unknown to Pharaoh (See Gen 41:46); and to these thirteen years were added the seven years of plenty, and they became twenty years; to these are added two, because in the second year of the famine Jacob entered Egypt with his sons, and twenty-two years are found, during which Joseph was absent from his father and his brothers; and in that intervening time, how all the things that are narrated about Judah's wife and sons and daughter-in-law could have happened, is difficult to investigate—unless perhaps we should believe (for this too could happen) that, as soon as Judah began to grow up, he fell into love of the woman he married, Joseph not yet having been sold into Egypt.

129. (38:14) And having laid aside from herself the garments of her widowhood. From this it is suggested that even in the times of the Patriarchs widows had their own definite garments, not at all such as those of married women.

130. (39:1) That it is again said, now Joseph was brought down into Egypt, and Potiphar the eunuch of Pharaoh possessed him, Scripture returns to the order from which it had departed, in order to narrate the things that were set out above.

131. (40:16) As to what some Latin manuscripts have, three baskets of fine flour, whereas the Greek has a word which those who have the use of that language translate as common loaves of bread. But this is troubling: how Pharaoh could have common bread among his foods. For it says that in the upper basket were all the things from which Pharaoh ate, the work of bakers (See Gen 40:17). But it is to be understood that the basket itself too had common loaves, because it was said, three baskets, and that on top, in that same upper basket, were those things of every kind of baker's work.

132. (41:1) That Pharaoh thought he was standing over the river, just as Abraham's servant said, behold, I stand over the spring of water (Gen 24:43)—for there too the Greek said "stand over" as here—this manner of speech, if it is understood in the Psalm where it is written, who founded the earth upon the water (Ps 24:2 (23:2)), men are not compelled to think that the earth floats upon the water like a ship. For according to this manner of speech it is rightly understood that the earth is higher than the water; for it is raised up higher than the waters, where earthly animals dwell.

133. (41:30) As to what is written, they will forget the plenty that is to be in all the land of Egypt—it was not "to be" for those who would suffer the famine, as though plenty came to them afterward; but it was to be then, when he was speaking, as if he said: "the plenty which the good cattle and the good ears signified would be, men will forget in that famine which the bad cattle and the bad ears signified."

134. (41:38) Shall we find such a man, who has the Spirit of God in him? Behold, now, unless I am mistaken, for the third time in this book the Holy Spirit, that is, the Spirit of God, is suggested to us. First, where it was said, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water (Gen 1:2); second, where God says, my Spirit will not remain in these men, because they are flesh (Gen 6:3); and third, now, in that Pharaoh says of Joseph that the Spirit of God is in him; yet we have not yet read "Holy Spirit."

135. (41:45) And Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-paneah; this name is said to mean He has revealed hidden things, surely from the fact that he opened the dreams to the king; but in the Egyptian language they report that by this name he was called "Savior of the world."

136. (41:45) And he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar the priest of the City of the Sun, to be his wife. It is commonly asked which Potiphar—whether the one whose servant he was, or another; but it is judged more credible that it was another. For as to the former, how it should be believed, there are many things that give pause.

First, because Scripture did not mention it, when it seems that it could not have passed over this, which pertained to no small glory of that young man, that he should marry the daughter of the man whose servant he had been. Then, how could a eunuch have a daughter? But it is answered: how a wife? For he is believed to have been castrated afterward, either by chance of a wound or by his own will. And as for his rank, the one that is usually mentioned is not itself mentioned—that is, that he was chief of the cooks, which the Latin translators rendered chief of the cooks, but some wish to be understood as chief of the army. But here too it is answered, that he had two honors: both the priesthood of the Sun and the chief command of the army; and fittingly elsewhere that honor of his was mentioned which suited such acts; but here, after no small divinity appeared in Joseph, the very honor of his father-in-law ought to be named which pertained to no small divinity, according to the opinion of the Egyptians, in the priesthood of the Sun.

But in all this, since he was also set over the guardians of the prison, it is too incredible that a priest should be set over this office. Then it was not said simply that he was a priest of the Sun, but of the City of the Sun, which is called Heliopolis; and it is said to be distant more than twenty miles from the city of Memphis, where the Pharaohs, that is, the kings, mostly resided. How, then, having deserted the office of his priesthood, could he diligently serve the king in the chief command of the army? It is added too that the Egyptian priests are reported never to have served except the temples of their gods, nor to have carried on any other office; but if perhaps it was then otherwise, let everyone believe what he pleases; yet it is not a question whose outcome is closed off, whether there was one Potiphar or two; for whichever of these anyone judges, it is not dangerous to faith, nor contrary to the truth of the Scriptures of God.

137. (41:49) And Joseph gathered wheat, like the sand of the sea, very much, until he could not number it; for there was no number; it was said, for there was no number, because that abundance exceeded the name of every usual number, and how it should be named was not found. For how can it be that the number of any multitude, however great, yet finite, should not exist? Although this could also be said by hyperbole.

138. (42:9) And Joseph remembered his dreams, which he himself had seen; for his brothers had bowed down to him. But something loftier is to be sought in those dreams. For what he had heard from his father, who rebuked him, when he had seen it about the sun and moon (See Gen 37:10), cannot be fulfilled in that way concerning his father and mother, who was already dead—the father being alive.

139. (42:15-16) What does it mean that Joseph, a man so wise, and so praised not only by the testimony of the men among whom he lived, but even by the witness of Scripture itself, swears thus by the welfare of Pharaoh that his brothers would not leave Egypt unless their younger brother came? Was the welfare of Pharaoh held cheap even by a good and faithful man, to whom he kept faith in all things as to his master from the first? For how much more to him who had set him in so great honor, if he kept it to him who possessed him as a purchased slave? But if he did not care for Pharaoh's welfare, ought he not at least to have avoided perjury for the welfare of any man whatever?

Or is it not perjury? For he detained one of them until Benjamin came, and what he had said came true: you will not leave here unless your brother comes (Gen 42:15). For what was said could not pertain to all of them; for how would the other come, unless some had returned to bring him?

But what follows presses the question more, where he swore again, saying: send one of you, and bring your brother; but you will be detained, until your words are made manifest, whether you speak the truth or not; but if not, by the welfare of Pharaoh, you are spies (Gen 42:16); that is, if you do not speak the truth, you are spies. To this sentence he interposed the oath, because if they did not speak the truth, they would be spies—that is, they would be worthy of the punishment of spies—whom nonetheless he knew to be speaking the truth. For no one is a perjurer if he says to one whom he knows to be most chaste, "if you have committed this adultery of which you are accused, God condemns you," and to these words adds an oath; he swears truly indeed: for there is the condition by which he said "if you have done it," whom nonetheless he holds for certain not to have done it.

But someone says: "it is true that if he committed adultery, God condemns him"; but how is this true: "if you do not speak the truth, you are spies," when, even if they lie, they are not spies? But this is what I said, that you are spies was said as if it were said, "you are worthy of the punishment of spies, that is, you will deservedly be reckoned spies because of your lie." And that you are could be said for "you will be held" and "you will be reckoned," innumerable similar manners of speech teach. Hence is that saying of Elijah: whoever answers in fire, he will be God (1 Kgs 18:24). For he will not then be God, but will then be held to be.

140. (42:23) What does it mean that, when the repentant sons of Israel spoke among themselves about their brother Joseph—that they had dealt wickedly with him, and that this was being repaid them by divine judgment, in that they saw themselves in danger—Scripture adds and says: they themselves did not know that Joseph was listening; for there was an interpreter between them. This, of course, is to be understood: that they thought he did not hear, because they saw that the interpreter who was between them said nothing to him of what they were saying; nor did they think the interpreter was employed for any other reason than that he did not know their language; nor was it the interpreter's concern to tell him by whom he had been appointed those things which they spoke not to him, but among themselves.

141. (42:24) And again he came to them, and said to them; but he does not add what he said to them. Hence it is understood that he said these same things which he had said.

142. (42:38) And you will bring down my old age with sadness to the netherworld. Is it to the netherworld because with sadness? Or, even if sadness were absent, does he say this as one about to descend, by dying, as to the netherworld? For about the netherworld there is a great question, and what Scripture means by it must be observed in all the places where this perhaps is mentioned.

143. (43:23) That they hear from the steward of the house, your God and the God of your fathers gave you treasures in your sacks; but I have your silver, tested, seems to be a falsehood, but it must be believed to signify something. For the silver which is both given and not diminished, since it was also called tested, is surely understood as that of which we read elsewhere: the words of the Lord, chaste words, silver tried by fire, tested for the earth, purified sevenfold (Ps 12:6 (11:7)), that is, perfectly.

144. (43:34) And they drank, and were made drunk with him. From this drunkards are wont to seek patronage of testimony—not on account of those sons of Israel, but on account of Joseph, who is commended as very wise. But that this word is wont to be set down also for fullness in the Scriptures, whoever attends carefully will find in many places. Hence is that saying: you have visited the earth and made it drunk, you have multiplied to enrich it (Ps 65:9-10 (64:10)); from the fact that this is set down in praise of blessing, and a gift of God is mentioned, it appears that by this drunkenness fullness is signified. For to be made drunk in the way that drunkards are made drunk is not useful even to the earth, since it is corrupted by more moisture than suffices for fullness; just as the life of drunkards, who do not fill themselves to fullness, but drown themselves in a flood.

145. (44:15) As to what Joseph says to his brothers, did you not know that a man such as I divines by divination?—about this divination he also commanded that it be said to them through his man (See Gen 44:4-6)—what it means is wont to be asked. Is it because it was said not seriously but in jest, as the outcome showed, that it is not to be held a falsehood? For falsehoods are uttered by liars seriously, not in jest; but when things that are not so are said as if in jest, they are not reckoned falsehoods.

But it raises the greater question, what this action of Joseph means, by which he so often deluded his brothers, until he disclosed to them who he was, and held them in such great suspense; which, although it is the sweeter to read the more unexpected it is to those with whom it is done, yet by the gravity of his wisdom—unless something great were signified by this as it were game—would neither be done by him, nor be contained in that Scripture in which there is so great an authority of holiness and so great an intent of prophesying things to come; which I have not now undertaken to pursue by exposition, but only wished to admonish what here ought to be inquired into. For I do not think that to be idle either, that he did not say "I divine," but a man such as I divines. And if this is a manner of speech, something similar must be found in the body of Scripture.

146. I think it must be considered not carelessly how Joseph held so great a misery in this disturbance of his brothers as long as he wished, and prolonged it with as much delay as he wished; surely not making them wretched, since he was contemplating the outcome of their own great future gladness as well; and all that he did, that their joy might be deferred, he did to this end, that by that same delay it might be heaped up; as though their sufferings in all that time in which they were troubled were not worthy to be compared with the future glory of exultation which was to be revealed in them (See Rom 8:18), when the brother was recognized whom they had supposed to be lost by them.

147. (44:18-34) Many things in Judah's narration were said otherwise than Joseph had dealt with them—although he was speaking before him—so that of that charge that they were spies, nothing at all was said. Whether this was passed over on purpose, or whether the forgetfulness of disturbance caused it, does not appear. For that too which they said, that they had been questioned by Joseph himself about their father and brother, and that they had told the one questioning these things, it would be remarkable if this narration can reach even to the sense, so that it stands to be truthful. Although, even if some false things are in it, he could rather be deceived through forgetfulness than dare to lie—especially before him to whom he was inserting into his narration, not as to one ignorant, but even those things which he knew that he knew, in order to bend his mercy.

148. (45:7) What does it mean that Joseph says: for God sent me before you, that a remnant of you might remain upon the earth, and to nourish a great remnant of you? For this does not altogether harmonize, that we should take Jacob and his sons as a remnant, since they are all safe. Or does it perhaps signify, by a deep and secret mystery, what the Apostle says: a remnant, through the election of grace, has been saved (Rom 11:5); because the Prophet had foretold: though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant will be saved (Isa 10:22)?

For to this end was Christ killed by the Jews, and handed over to the nations—as Joseph was handed over to the Egyptians by his brothers—so that the remnant of Israel too might be saved. Hence the Apostle says: for I too am an Israelite; and, so that the fullness of the nations might enter, and thus all Israel might be saved (Rom 11:1. 25); that is, from the remnant of Israel according to the flesh, and the fullness of the nations who in the faith of Christ are Israel according to the spirit.

Or if for that Israelite nation there remains a fullness of faith, from which there was a remnant—in which remnant the Apostles too were then saved—this is signified by that fullness of the deliverance of Israel by which they were delivered through Moses out of Egypt.

149. (46:6-7) Jacob and all his seed entered into Egypt, his sons and the sons of his sons, his daughters and the daughters of his daughters with him. It must be asked how he says, his daughters and the daughters of his daughters with him, when he is read to have had one daughter. Above we had said that his daughters can be taken as his granddaughters, just as the all the sons of Israel means even the whole people propagated from him. But now, when he says daughters of daughters, on account of one Dinah, the plural is put for the singular, as the singular too is wont to be put for the plural; unless someone asserts that his daughters-in-law could be called his daughters.

150. (46:15) As to what Scripture says, that Leah bore so many souls, or that so many souls came out of the thighs of Jacob, it must be seen what is to be answered from this to those who strive to confirm by this testimony that souls are propagated together with bodies from the parents. For that "souls" was said for "human beings," by a manner of speech signifying the whole from a part, no one doubts. But how that very part, from which the whole was named—that is, the soul, by whose name the whole man was signified—we are to keep separate from what was said, they came out of his thighs (Gen 46:26), so that we take only the flesh to have been born of him, although souls alone are named—the modes of speech must be sought according to the Scriptures.

151. (46:15) These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob himself in Mesopotamia of Syria, and Dinah his daughter; all the souls, his sons and daughters, thirty-three. Were all these thirty-three souls born of Leah in Mesopotamia of Syria? Surely six sons and one daughter, of whom grandsons were mentioned. If, then, a question had arisen about one Benjamin, when, the twelve sons of Jacob being counted and mentioned by name, it was said, these are the sons of Jacob who were made to him in Mesopotamia of Syria (Gen 35:26); how much greater is the question now, how thirty-three souls were born of Leah in Mesopotamia of Syria—unless it is because that manner of speech is confirmed, namely that all are spoken of as born there whose parents were born there? Then this too is now beyond doubt, that in one daughter daughters are named, the plural being put for the singular.

152. (46:26-27) That it is read that sixty-six souls entered Egypt with Jacob (See Exod 1:5)—excepting, that is, the sons of Joseph—and then, these being added in, it is brought in: seventy-five souls there were, with whom Jacob entered Egypt (Gen 46:27 (per LXX)); this is to be taken as those who were in the house of Jacob when he entered Egypt. For surely those whom he found there did not enter with them. But since, the truth being more carefully examined, two are found to have been already born when he entered, Ephraim and Manasseh (See Gen 41:50)—which not only the Hebrew manuscripts are said to have in this place, but the very translation according to the Septuagint declares in Exodus (See Exod 1:5)—nor do the Septuagint translators seem to me to have erred in this place, who, for the sake of some mystical signification, by a certain as it were prophetic liberty wished to complete this number, if, while Jacob was still living, there were propagated from his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim those whom they judged should be added to that same number of the house of Jacob. But because Jacob is found to have lived seventeen years in Egypt (See Gen 47:28), how the sons of Joseph could, while he was living, have even grandsons, is not discovered. For Jacob entered Egypt in the second year of the famine (See Gen 45:6); but the sons of Joseph were born in the years of plenty (See Gen 41:50); in whatever years of plenty they are reckoned to have been born, from the first year of plenty to the second year of famine, in which Jacob entered Egypt, there are nine years; to these adding the seventeen during which Jacob lived there, twenty-six years are found. How, then, could young men less than twenty-six years old have even grandsons? But this question is not solved by any Hebrew truth either. For how could it be fulfilled that Jacob received so many grandsons before he entered Egypt—even of Benjamin, who came to his brother at that age? And Scripture mentions not only that he had sons, but also grandsons and great-grandsons, who are all reckoned among the sixty-six persons with whom Jacob is reported to have entered Egypt, even according to the Hebrew truth (See Gen 46:26).

It must also be seen what it means that, while Joseph and his sons are mentioned as no more than eight (See Gen 46:20 (per LXX)), but Benjamin and his sons together are found to be eleven (See Gen 46:21 (per LXX)), not nineteen in all, as eight and eleven are, but eighteen are reported in the sum (See Gen 46:22 (per LXX)); and afterward Joseph, with his sons, is said to have been not eight souls but nine, when only eight are found (See Gen 46:21-22. 27). All these things, which seem insoluble, without doubt contain a great reason; but I do not know whether they can all fit according to the letter, especially in the numbers, which we most worthily believe to be most sacred in the Scriptures and most full of mysteries, from certain ones that we have been able to know from them.

153. (46:32-34) It is commended in the Patriarchs that they were keepers of flocks from their youth and from their parents. And rightly; for this is without any doubt a just servitude and a just dominion, when the flocks serve man, and man rules over the flocks. For so it was said when he was created: let us make man to our image and likeness, and let him have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over all the flocks that are upon the earth (Gen 1:26). Here it is suggested that reason ought to rule over irrational life. But that man should be a servant to man, either iniquity or adversity has caused; iniquity indeed, as it was said, cursed be Canaan, he will be a servant to his brothers (Gen 9:25); but adversity, as happened to Joseph himself, that, sold by his brothers, he became the servant of a foreigner (See Gen 37:28. 36). And so the first servants, on whom this name was imposed in the Latin language, wars produced. For the man who, overcome by a man, could by the right of war be killed, since he was kept safe, was called a servant; whence too "captives," because they were taken by hand. There is also a natural order in human beings, that the women serve the men, and the children the parents, because there too this is the justice, that the weaker reason serve the stronger (See Col 3:18. 20). This, then, is the clear justice in dominions and servitudes, that those who excel in reason should excel in dominion; and when this is disturbed in this age through the iniquity of men, or through the diversity of carnal natures, the just bear the temporal perversity, being destined to have, in the end, a most ordered and everlasting happiness.

154. (46:34) For every shepherd of sheep is an abomination to the Egyptians. Rightly to the Egyptians, in whom there is a figure of the present age, in which iniquity abounds, every shepherd of flocks is an abomination; for a just man is an abomination to the unjust.

155. (47:5-6) Now Jacob and his sons came into Egypt to Joseph; and Pharaoh king of Egypt heard, and Pharaoh said to Joseph, saying: 'Your father and your brothers have come to you; behold, the land of Egypt is before you, settle your father and your brothers in the best land.' This repetition is not of a matter passed over, to which return is often obscurely made by recapitulation, but is altogether open. For Scripture had already said how Joseph's brothers came to Pharaoh, and what he said to them, or heard from them (See Gen 45:16-20); but now it repeated this as if from the beginning, in order from there to weave the narration from these words which Pharaoh said to Joseph alone; of all which, in the Greek manuscripts that were written by the more careful, some have obeli, and signify those things which are not found in the Hebrew but are found in the Septuagint; some asterisks, by which are signified those things which the Hebrews have, but the Septuagint do not have.

156. (47:9) What does it mean that Jacob said to Pharaoh: the days of the years of my life which I sojourn? For so the Greek has, where the Latin has I pass, or I have, or whatever else. Did he then say which I sojourn because he was born in a land which the people had not yet received by the divine promise of inheritance; and there, leading his life, he was surely in a foreign land, not only when he was a sojourner, as in Mesopotamia, but even when he was where he was born?

Or is it rather to be taken according to what the Apostle says: as long as we are in the body, we are sojourners away from the Lord (2 Cor 5:6)? According to this, that too in the Psalm is understood as said: I am a lodger on the earth, and a sojourner like all my fathers (Ps 39:12 (38:13)). For he says again of those same days of his life: they did not reach to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, which days they sojourned. For here he wished nothing else to be understood than what the Latin manuscripts have, they lived; and by this he signified that this life is a sojourning upon the earth, that is, a dwelling of pilgrimage.

But I believe this suits the saints, to whom the Lord promises another, eternal homeland. Hence it must be seen how it was said of the impious: they will sojourn and hide, they will watch my heel (Ps 56:6 (55:7)). For it is more fittingly taken of those who sojourn in order to hide—that is, in order to lie in wait for the children—who do not abide in the house forever.

157. (47:11) And he gave them a possession in the best land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh commanded. It must be asked whether the land of Rameses is the same as Goshen. For they had asked for it, and Pharaoh had commanded it to be given to them (See Gen 47:4. 6).

158. (47:12) And Joseph measured out wheat to his father; and yet his father neither bowed to him when he saw him, nor when he received wheat from him (See Gen 37:9); how, then, are we to think Joseph's dream was now fulfilled, and not rather that it contains a prophecy of a greater matter?

159. (47:14) And Joseph brought all the money into Pharaoh's house. It belonged to Scripture to commend in this matter too the fidelity of God's servant.

160. (47:16. 4) And Joseph said to them: 'Bring your flocks, and I will give you bread for your flocks, if money is lacking.' It can be asked, since Joseph had gathered grain from which men might live, from what the flocks lived, when so great a famine prevailed: especially because Joseph's brothers had said to Pharaoh, for there is no pasture for the flocks of your servants; for the famine has prevailed in the land of Canaan (Gen 47:4); and they had mentioned that they had come on account of this lack of pasture too. Accordingly, if in that famine the pastures had failed in the land of Canaan, why had they not failed in Egypt, the same famine then prevailing everywhere? Or, as is reported by those who know the places, in the many marshes of Egypt the pastures could not be lacking, even when there was a famine of grain, which is wont to come from the inundation of the river Nile? For those marshes are said rather to produce fertile pastures when the water of the Nile rises less.

161. (47:29) Jacob, about to die, says to his son Joseph: if I have found grace in your sight, put your hand under my thigh, and you will do me mercy and truth. He binds his son by that oath by which Abraham bound his servant (See Gen 24:2); the one commanding whence a wife should be taken for his son, the other entrusting the burial of his body. Yet in both cases those two things are named which are to be held great and weighed in all the Scriptures, wherever they are read scattered about—mercy and justice, or mercy and judgment, or mercy and truth—since in a certain place it is written: all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Ps 25:10 (24:10)). So these two, much commended, are much to be considered. Now Abraham's servant had said, if you do mercy and justice toward my master (Gen 24:49); just as this man too says to his son, that you may do me mercy and truth.

But what so anxious an entrusting of his body, from so great a man—that he should not be buried in Egypt, but in the land of Canaan beside his fathers (See Gen 47:30)—means, seems strange, and as it were absurd, and not befitting so great an excellence of a prophetic mind, if we measure this by the custom of men. But if in all these things sacraments are sought, a greater joy of wonder will arise for the very one who finds it. For that sins are signified by the corpses of the dead in the Law is not doubtful, since men are commanded, after touching them, or after any contact whatever, to be purified as from uncleanness (See Num 19:3-12). And from this is drawn that sentence: he who is baptized from a dead body, and again touches it, what does his washing profit? So too he who fasts for his sins, and again, walking, does these same things (Sir 34:30-31). The burial of the dead, then, signifies the remission of sins, pertaining to what was said: blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered (Ps 32:1 (31:1)).

Where, then, were the corpses of the Patriarchs—signifying this—to be buried, except in that land where he was crucified by whose blood the remission of sins was made (See Col 1:14)? For by the deaths of the Patriarchs the sins of men were figured. And it is said that from that place which is called the Abrahamium, where these bodies are (See Gen 50:13), the place where the Lord was crucified is distant about thirty miles, so that even that number is understood to signify him who appeared at his baptism about thirty years old; and if anything else about so great a matter can be understood, either in this way or more loftily, provided only that we do not think such and so great men of God took such great care for the burial of their bodies in vain; since this is, and ought to be, the security of the faithful, that wherever their bodies may be buried, or even left unburied through the rage of enemies, or, torn apart for the lust of enemies, devoured, their resurrection will not on that account be either less whole or less glorious.

162. (47:31) Where the Latin manuscripts have and he worshiped upon the top of his staff, some manuscripts have, more correctly, he worshiped upon the top of his own staff, or at the top of his own staff, or at the tip, or upon the tip. For the Greek word deceives them, which is written with the same letters whether his (another's) or his own; but the accents are different, and are not despised in the manuscripts by those who know these things; for they are of great force for distinguishing. Although it could also have one letter more, if it were his own. And on this account it is rightly asked what it is that was said. For it would easily be understood that the old man, who carried a staff in the way that that age is wont to carry a staff—when he bowed himself to worship God—did this upon the top of his own staff, which he so carried that, bowing his head upon it, he worshiped God.

What, then, does it mean: he worshiped upon the top of his staff, that is, of his son Joseph? Or perhaps he had taken the staff from him when his son swore to him, and while he held it, after the words of the one swearing, before it was yet returned, he soon worshiped God? For he was not ashamed to carry for a while the insignia of his son's power, where a figure of a great future thing was being foreshadowed; although in the Hebrew the easiest resolution of this question is said to be, where they report it is written, and Israel worshiped at the head of the bed, in which the old man surely lay, and had it so placed that on it, when he wished, he might pray without labor; nor, however, on that account is what the Septuagint translated to be thought to have no sense, or only a slight one.

163. (48:4) Here too, when Jacob mentions the promises of God made toward him, he says it was said to him: I will make you into assemblies of nations; by which words he signifies the calling of the faithful rather than the propagation of a carnal race.

164. (48:5-6) As to what is written, when Jacob says concerning Ephraim and Manasseh, now therefore your two sons, who were made to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine, Ephraim and Manasseh; they will be to me as Reuben and Simeon (but those whom you beget afterward will be yours); they will be called by the name of their brothers in their allotments—it sometimes deceives readers, so that they suppose it was said as though, if Joseph should beget others, Jacob commanded them to be called by the names of these; which is not so. For the order of the words is woven: now therefore your two sons, who were made to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine, Ephraim and Manasseh; they will be to me as Reuben and Simeon; they will be called by the name of their brothers in their allotments; that is, they will receive the inheritance together with their brothers, so that they may together be called sons of Israel. For those two tribes were added, so that, excepting the tribe of Levi, which was priestly, there might be twelve to divide the land and present tithes. But that which was interposed is what he said about the other sons of Joseph, if they should be born.

165. (48:7) That Jacob wished to inform his son Joseph, as if he did not know, where and when he buried his mother, when he himself was also present with his brothers; but even if he was so small in age that he could neither attend to that nor retain it in mind, what compelled it to be said now? Unless perhaps it pertained to the matter to mention that Joseph's mother was buried there where Christ was to be born.

166. (48:14-19) That he so blesses his grandsons, Israel, that he lays his right hand on the younger, but his left on the elder, and to his son Joseph, who wished to correct him as one erring and not knowing, he so answers: I know, son, I know, and this one too will be for a people, and this one will be exalted; but his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will be in a multitude of nations; this is to be taken of Christ to the same extent that it was also said of Jacob himself and his brother, that the elder will serve the younger (Gen 25:23). For according to this, Israel, by doing this, signified something prophetically: that the later people, who were to come into being through Christ by spiritual generation, were to overcome the earlier people glorying in the carnal generation of the fathers.

167. (48:22) That Jacob says he gives Shechem as a special portion to his son Joseph, and adds that he possessed it by his sword and bow, it can be asked how it can fit according to the letter. For he bought that possession for a hundred lambs (See Gen 33:19), he did not take it by the right of victory in war. Or is it because his sons stormed Salem, the city of the Shechemites (See Gen 34:25), and it could become his by the right of war—so that a just war seems to have been waged with them, who first did so great an injury in defiling his daughter? Why, then, did he not give that land to those who perpetrated this, that is, to his elder sons? Then, if, now glorying in that victory, he gives that land to his son Joseph, why did the sons who committed this then displease him? Why, finally, even now, when he blessed them, did he mention it reproachfully in their deeds? Without doubt, then, some prophetic sacrament lies hidden here; because Joseph too, by a certain special signification, prefigured Christ, and to him is given that land where Jacob had destroyed the foreign gods by burying them (See Gen 35:4); so that Christ is understood as about to possess the nations that renounce the gods of their fathers and believe in him.

168. (49:32) It must be seen how the Scriptures say, what they constantly say of the dead: and he was gathered to his fathers, or he was gathered to his people. For behold, it is said of Jacob, now indeed dead, but not yet buried; and to what people he is gathered is not ready at hand to see. For from him the earlier people is born, which was called the people of Israel; but those who preceded him are named as so few righteous that we hesitate to call them a people. For if it had been said, he was gathered to his fathers, no question would arise. Or perhaps it is a people not only of holy men but also of angels—the people of that city, whence it is said to the Hebrews: but you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of God, Jerusalem, and to thousands of exulting angels (Heb 12:22)? To this people are gathered those who end this life pleasing to God. For they are then said to be gathered, when no anxiety of temptations remains, and no danger of sins. Looking to which, Scripture says: before death praise no man (Sir 11:28).

169. (50:3) The forty days of burial which Scripture mentions perhaps signify something of penance, by which sins are buried. For not in vain were forty days of fasting appointed, on which Moses (See Exod 34:28) and Elijah (See 1 Kgs 19:8) and the Lord himself fasted (See Matt 4:2); and the Church calls its chief observance of fasts "Lent." Hence in the Hebrew, concerning the Ninevites, in the prophet Jonah, they report it written: forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown (Jonah 3:4); so that through so many days, suited indeed to the humiliation of the penitent, they are understood to have wept for their sins in fasting, and to have obtained the mercy of God. Yet this number is not to be thought to suit only the mourning of the penitent; otherwise the Lord would not have spent forty days with his disciples after the resurrection, going in and out with them, eating and drinking; which days were surely days of great gladness (See Acts 1:3-5). Nor are the Septuagint translators, whom the Church is accustomed to read, to be believed to have erred, in that they said not forty days but three days, and Nineveh will be overthrown. For, endowed with greater authority than the office of translators is, by the prophetic spirit—by which they are confirmed to have agreed even with one mouth in their translations, which was a great miracle—they set down three days, although they were not ignorant that forty days were read in the Hebrew manuscripts; so that in the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ sins might be understood to be dissolved and abolished; of whom it was said: who was handed over for our offenses, and rose for our justification (Rom 4:25). Now the glorification of the Lord is recognized in the resurrection and in the ascension into heaven. Hence he gave the Holy Spirit twice in number—although one and the same: first, after he rose (See John 20:22); again, after he ascended into heaven (See Acts 2:2-4). And since he rose after three days, but ascended after forty days, one of these, which was done later, the Hebrew manuscripts signify by the number of days; but the other, about the three days, which would pertain to the same matter, the Septuagint wished to mention, not by the servitude of translation, but by the authority of prophecy. Let us not, then, say that one of these is false, and quarrel on behalf of some translators against others, since both those who translate from the Hebrew prove to us that what they translate is so written, and the authority of the Septuagint translators, which is commended by so great a miracle divinely done, is confirmed by such great antiquity in the churches.

170. (50:5) That Joseph charged the powerful men of Egypt to say to Pharaoh in his name, my father adjured me, saying: 'In the tomb which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you will bury me', it can be asked how it is true, since these words of his father, when he charged him about his burial, are not read. But we ought to refer the words to the sense, as we have advised in other words or narrations similarly repeated above. For the words ought to serve the will that is to be declared and brought to notice. But that Jacob dug a tomb for himself is nowhere read above in the Scriptures. But unless it were done while he was in those same lands, it would not now be said.

171. (50:10) What does it mean that, when they were going to bury Jacob, Scripture says: and they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is across the Jordan? For they went past the place in which the dead man was to be buried, more (as those who know report) than fifty miles; for so much space, more or less, there is from that place where the Patriarchs were buried, among whom also Jacob, to this place, to which they are narrated to have come. For after the mourning and great lamentation made there, they returned to the place which they had passed, the Jordan being again crossed over. Unless perhaps someone should say that, for the sake of avoiding certain enemies, they came with the body through the desert, by which way too the people of Israel was led, when freed from Egypt, through Moses. For by that route there is both much going around, and one comes through the Jordan to the Abrahamium, where the bodies of the Patriarchs are, that is, to the land of Canaan (See Gen 50:13). But in whatever way it was done, that they went only so far across those places toward the East, and from there came to them through the Jordan, it is to be believed to have been done for the sake of signification—that Israel was afterward to come, in his sons, through the Jordan to those lands.

172. (50:10. 3) And he made mourning for his father for seven days. I do not know whether it is found that for any of the saints in the Scriptures mourning of nine days was celebrated, which among the Latins they call the "ninth-day rite." Hence it seems to me that those Christians, if any, who keep this number for their dead are to be prohibited from this custom, which is rather in the custom of the gentiles. But the seventh day has authority in the Scriptures; whence elsewhere it is written: mourning for the dead, seven days; but for the fool, all the days of his life (Sir 22:12). And the number seven, on account of the sacrament of the Sabbath, is especially an indication of rest; whence it is fittingly shown to the dead, as to those resting. Yet this number the Egyptians multiplied tenfold in the mourning of Jacob, whom they mourned seventy days.

173. (50:22-23) And Joseph lived a hundred and ten years, and Joseph saw the sons of Ephraim to the third generation, and the sons of Machir the son of Manasseh were born upon Joseph's knees. Since Scripture says that Joseph in his lifetime saw these sons of sons, or grandsons of sons, how does it join them to those seventy-five persons with whom it says Jacob entered Egypt—since Joseph reached, in growing old, to seeing them born, whereas, when Jacob entered Egypt, Joseph was a young man, and his father, dying, left him about fifty-six years of age (See Gen 46:27)? Hence it is clear that for the sake of a certain mystery Scripture wished to commend that number, that is, seventy-five. But if anyone demands how it is true even according to the trustworthiness of history, that Jacob entered Egypt with seventy-five souls, his entrance ought not to be understood as on that one day on which he came; but, because Jacob is generally named in his sons, that is, in his descendants, and it is established that he entered Egypt through Joseph, his entry is to be taken as lasting as long as Joseph lived, through whom it came about that he entered. For in all that time all those who are mentioned could be born and live, so that seventy-five souls are completed down to the grandsons of Benjamin. For just as he says, these are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob himself in Mesopotamia of Syria (Gen 46:15), speaking also of those who had not been born—because there she had borne their parents, from whom they were born, reporting them to have been born there, since the cause by which they were born was born there, that is, their parents, whom Leah bore there; so, since Jacob had the cause of entering Egypt in Joseph, all the time during which Joseph lived in Egypt was the entry of Jacob into Egypt through his offspring, which was propagated while he was living, through whom it came about that he entered.