Wisdom — Chapter 19

FOR WHILE THEY WERE YET MOURNING, AND LAMENTING AT THE GRAVES OF THE DEAD, THEY CAME TO ANOTHER FOOLISH DEVICE, AND PURSUED AS RUNAWAYS THOSE WHOM THEY HAD EARNESTLY BESOUGHT TO DEPART.

Scarcely finished mourning the firstborn, the Egyptians pursued the very people they had begged to leave. Lapide on the instability of conversion through fear alone: fear-based conversion is unstable and easily reversed. Only a conversion rooted in love of God is permanent.

FOR THE FATE WHICH THEY DESERVED DREW THEM TO THIS END: AND IT MADE THEM FORGET THOSE THINGS THAT HAD HAPPENED, THAT THEY MIGHT FILL UP THE PUNISHMENT WHICH WAS WANTING TO THEIR TORMENTS.

Not pagan fate but divine justice arranged that the Egyptians' own malice drew them to their final destruction. God permitted them to forget the plagues so their malice would lead them to the Red Sea and the completion of their punishment. Lapide: divine providence uses the sinner's own free choices as instruments of just punishment.

THAT THY PEOPLE MIGHT WONDROUSLY PASS THROUGH, BUT THEY MIGHT FIND A STRANGE DEATH.

The crossing of the Red Sea: a wondrous passage for Israel, a strange death for Egypt. Lapide on the typology: Israel crossing the sea = Baptism (death to sin, birth to grace); Egypt drowning = the condemnation of the impenitent. The Red Sea is simultaneously a baptismal font and a font of condemnation.

FOR THE WHOLE CREATURE IN ITS KIND WAS FASHIONED AGAIN ANEW, SERVING THY OWN COMMANDMENTS, THAT THY CHILDREN MIGHT BE KEPT WITHOUT HURT.

At the Red Sea crossing, God in a sense re-created the natural order to serve His will: the sea became dry land, dry land appeared where there was water. Lapide: this encapsulates the whole argument of ch.11-19 — God re-orders creation to serve His plan of salvation for His people.

FOR A CLOUD SHADOWED THE CAMP, AND WHERE WATER STOOD BEFORE, DRY LAND APPEARED, AND IN THE RED SEA A WAY WITHOUT OBSTACLE, AND OUT OF THE GREAT DEEP A PLAIN FIELD.

Three miracles: (1) the cloud sheltering Israel; (2) dry land in the Red Sea; (3) the great deep becoming a plain field. Lapide on the spiritual meanings: the cloud = the Church's shelter through the sacraments; the dry land in the sea = the baptismal path to salvation; the plain field from the deep = the cleared way of grace through the desert of this world.

THROUGH WHICH ALL THE PEOPLE PASSED ON FOOT, SEEING THY WONDERFUL WORKS THAT WERE WROUGHT THERE.

All the people passed on foot — not swimming, not sailing, but walking on the miraculously dry seabed. The miracle was maximally clear and undeniable, witnessed by all. Lapide: the crossing of the Red Sea is the paradigmatic wonder of the Old Testament, celebrated throughout Scripture (Ps 77, 105, 135) and fulfilled in the sacrament of Baptism.

FOR AS HORSES DEVOURED THE GRASS, AND AS LAMBS THEY PLAYED, MAGNIFYING THEE, O LORD, WHO HADST DELIVERED THEM.

Israel celebrated liberation with the joy of horses eating pasture and the playfulness of lambs. After the terror of the Passover night and the miraculous crossing, Israel sang the Canticle of Moses (Exod 15). Lapide: this is a type of the eschatological joy of the redeemed in heaven — pure exultation in divine deliverance.

FOR THEY WERE STILL MINDFUL OF THOSE THINGS WHICH HAD BEEN DONE IN THEIR SOJOURNING: HOW THE GROUND BROUGHT FORTH FLIES INSTEAD OF CATTLE, AND HOW THE RIVER CAST UP A MULTITUDE OF FROGS INSTEAD OF FISHES.

Israel remembered the plagues of Egypt: flies instead of cattle, frogs from the Nile. The memory of God's mighty acts is essential to Israel's faith and worship. Lapide on sacred memory: the liturgical re-enactment of God's saving acts (in Passover, in the Mass) keeps the memory alive and makes each generation present to the original events.

AND AFTERWARDS THEY SAW A NEW GENERATION OF BIRDS, WHEN BEING LED BY THEIR DESIRE, THEY ASKED FOR DELICATE MEATS.

The quails in the desert — a new generation of birds given by God in response to Israel's desire for meat (Num 11:31). Lapide: God sometimes satisfies even disordered desires, though moderation in receiving divine gifts is required. Numbers 11:33 records that some who ate greedily were punished.

FOR VENGEANCE CAME UPON THE SINNERS WITHOUT FAILING, BY THE EVIDENCE OF WHAT HAD BEEN DONE BEFORE.

Punishment came upon the desert sinners (those who murmured) through the evidence of past divine judgments — God's past acts served as warnings. Those who ignored the evidence were punished. Lapide: historical memory of divine judgment is preventive of sin; those who forget God's judgments in history are condemned to experience them personally.

FOR THEY ENTERTAINED STRANGERS WITH HOSPITALITY, IN WHOM JUSTICE AND KINDNESS RESIDED, BUT AS FOR THESE OTHERS, WHO WERE MUCH PLEASED AT THEIR COMING AND HAD RECEIVED THEM UNDER THEIR ROOF AMONG THEMSELVES, THEY OPPRESSED THEM WITH MOST GRIEVOUS LABOURS.

Contrast between Sodomites (refused hospitality to angels, Gen 19) and Egyptians (initially received Israel but enslaved them). Lapide on hospitality as a fundamental obligation of justice and charity, and on the double sin of the Egyptians who betrayed the hospitality they had extended.

AND THESE WERE EVEN AFFLICTED WHO HAD DONE THE SAME EVIL DEEDS: YET THESE BEING VISITED WITH DIVINE JUDGMENT, WERE RECEIVED WITH A DIFFERENT KIND OF PUNISHMENT.

Sodomites and Egyptians both sinned against strangers but received different punishments. Lapide: God proportions punishment to the specific character and circumstances of each sin. Divine retribution is not formulaic but precisely fitted to each crime.

BUT THESE SUFFERED JUSTLY, BECAUSE THEY WILLINGLY HATED STRANGERS: THESE OTHERS, HAVING FIRST RECEIVED STRANGERS WITH JOYFULNESS, AFTERWARDS OPPRESSED WITH LABOUR THOSE ON WHOM THEY HAD CONFERRED EVERY BENEFIT. SO THAT THEY ARE MORE GRIEVOUSLY AFFLICTED.

The Egyptians were more grievously punished than the Sodomites in one respect: they first received Israel hospitably (under Joseph), then reversed course and enslaved them. The betrayal of prior hospitality is a double sin. Lapide: the Egyptians combined violation of justice (enslaving a free people) with violation of gratitude (repaying Joseph's benefits with slavery to his descendants).

AND NOT ONLY SO, BUT WHAT IS MORE, THEY WERE STRICKEN WITH BLINDNESS LIKE THOSE OTHERS, AT THE DOORS OF THE JUST MAN: WHEN THEY WERE COVERED WITH SUDDEN DARKNESS, LET EVERY ONE SEEK THE PASSAGE OF HIS OWN DOOR.

The Sodomites were blinded at Lot's door (Gen 19:11); the Egyptians were blinded by the ninth plague. Both experienced supernatural darkness as punishment for sin against the just. Lapide: the typological parallel between the blinded Sodomites and the darkened Egyptians reinforces the principle of divine retribution through corresponding instruments and circumstances.

FOR THE ELEMENTS ARE CHANGED IN THEMSELVES BY A KIND OF HARMONY, AS IS PERCEIVED FROM THE PLAYING OF A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT, WHERE THE NATURE OF THE SOUND IS CHANGED, WHILE THE SOUND ITSELF CONTINUETH.

The elements underwent a harmonious change — as notes in music change while music itself continues. Lapide on the miraculous rearrangements of the Exodus: not new elements but the same elements reordered. The musical analogy: the notes (elements) remain the same, but their combination produces a new melody (a new order serving God's saving purpose).

LAND ANIMALS WERE CHANGED INTO WATER ANIMALS, SWIMMING ONES ONTO LAND, FIRE MAINTAINED ITS POWER IN WATER, AND WATER FORGOT ITS QUENCHING NATURE.

Specific natural inversions in the Exodus: (1) land animals quasi-aquatic in the sea-crossing; (2) water was as land; (3) fire maintained power within water (pillar of fire in the sea; burning hail); (4) water forgot its quenching nature. Lapide: each miraculous inversion of natural properties serves the theological point that creation obeys God's will rather than its own intrinsic nature when the two come into tension.

ON THE OTHER HAND FLAMES WASTED NOT THE FLESH OF FRAIL ANIMALS WALKING IN THEM: NEITHER MELTED THEY THE ICE-LIKE FOOD THAT WAS EASY TO MELT.

Fire did not consume Israel's livestock in Goshen during the hail plague; fire did not melt manna. Lapide: the same miracles of fire's restraint prove God's sovereign control over all physical processes. The ice-like food = manna, preserved from fire though susceptible to sunlight.

FOR IN ALL THINGS, O LORD, THOU HAST MAGNIFIED THY PEOPLE, AND HAST HONOURED THEM, AND HAST NOT DESPISED THEM: BUT HAST ASSISTED THEM AT ALL TIMES AND IN ALL PLACES.

The concluding doxology of the book: God has magnified, honored, and assisted His people in all times and in all places — throughout all the events narrated from ch.10 through 19. Lapide: this is a comprehensive summary of divine Providence's care for Israel, and by extension for the Church and for every soul in God's grace. \"In all times and in all places\" — the universality and constancy of divine care is the book's final message. Applied to the Christian's confidence in divine Providence: God who accompanied Israel through Egypt, the Red Sea, and the desert will accompany His Church through all the vicissitudes of history until the eternal Promised Land of heaven. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.