Augustine of Hippo

How can the anger of God be understood, since God is not gripped by any irrational disturbance, as man is? Where Scripture says something like this, we should have a consistent explanation to avoid repeating the same account too often. But one can rightly ask why God says here that he is angry with Moses about his brother Aaron, because he would speak to the people for Moses. For it means that God had not given Moses the fullest ability that he was going to give, because he was diffident. God wished the deed to be carried out by two men. He could also have done it through one, if that man had believed. But all these words, when they are considered more diligently, do not mean that the Lord in his anger had handed over Aaron for punishment. For he says this: “Behold, is your brother Aaron not a Levite? I know that when he speaks, he will speak eloquently.” These words show that God rather reproached Moses, who feared to go because he was less suitable, since he had a brother through whom he could say to the people what he wanted, because Moses himself had a weak voice and a slow tongue. Still, he should have put all his hope in God. Then he says the same things that he had promised shortly before and afterward grown angry. For he had said, “I shall open your mouth and instruct you.” But now he says, “I shall open your mouth and his mouth, and I shall teach you what to do.” But since he added, “And he will speak for you to the people,” the opening of the mouth seems to be provided, because Moses says he is slow of tongue. But the Lord did not will to supply [vocal strength] for the weakness of his voice but added the help of his brother Aaron. Moses could use Aaron’s voice, which was sufficient to teach the people. So when he says, “and you will put my words in his mouth,” he shows that he was going to provide him with words. For if he were only given things to hear for the people, God would have said, “into his ears.” Then it says a little later, “and he will speak for you to the people,” he shows clearly enough that the leading role was for Moses, the subordinate role for Aaron. What he says thereafter, “You will be to him as God,” perhaps this great mystery is to be examined closely. The figure suggests that Moses was the mediator between God and Aaron, and Aaron the mediator between Moses and the people.

We ask first, whom did the angel wish to kill? Was it Moses, because Scripture says, “The angel approached him and sought to kill him”? For whom will he be thought to have approached except him who was in charge of his entire people and by whom the others were led? Or did the angel seek to kill the boy, whom his mother aided by circumcising him? Then one would understand that the reason why God wished to kill the child was that he was not circumcised and thus sanctioned the precept of circumcision by the severity of the punishment. If this is the case, it is unclear of whom it was said previously, “he sought to kill him,” because we do not know who it was until we discover it from what follows. It is a remarkable and unusual expression to say “he approached him and sought to kill him” about someone who had not been mentioned before. But there is such a usage in a psalm: “Its foundations are on the holy mountains; the Lord loves the gates of Zion.” For the psalm begins at that point and had not said anything about the Lord or about that city whose foundations were meant to be understood when the psalm said, “Its foundations are on the holy mountains.” But because of what follows, “the Lord loves the gates of Zion,” the foundations, either those of the Lord or of Zion—“of Zion” yields the better sense—are understood as the foundation of a city. But the gender of this pronoun, “its,” is ambiguous, for it can be masculine, feminine or neuter. In Greek, however, the feminine is autēs, whereas the masculine and neuter are autou, and the Greek text has autou, so we must understand that the foundations are those not of Zion but of the Lord. That is, [they are] the foundations that the Lord constitutes, of which Scripture has said, “the Lord building Jerusalem.” But when the psalm said, “Its foundations are on the holy mountains,” it had not previously mentioned either Zion or the Lord. Here too it is said, “He met him and sought to kill him,” although the child had not yet been named, so that we do not know of whom he was speaking in the words that follow. But still, if someone wants to hold that Moses is meant, he should not be strongly opposed. We should rather understand what follows, if we can, what it means when the text says that the angel refrained from killing any of them because the woman said, “The blood of the infant’s circumcision has stopped flowing.” She does not say that “he drew back from him” because she circumcised the infant but that “the blood of circumcision stopped.” Not that it flowed but that it stopped—in a great mystery, if I am not wrong.