Questions on the Octateuch

Contents

Reading pages: 0–1.17 · 1.18–1.35 · 1.36–1.55 · 1.56–1.74 · 1.75–1.107 · 1.108–2.11 · 2.12–2.28 · 2.29–2.59 · 2.60–2.72 · 3.1–3.17 · 3.18–3.36 · 3.37–4.18 · 4.19–4.46 · 4.47–5.12 · 5.13–5.42 · 5.43–6.14 · 6.15–7.12 · 7.13–7.28 · 8.1–8.2

1. 0Theodoret dedicates the work to Hypatius and explains that he will answer both hostile and sincere questions about Scripture, beginning with creation.
2. 1.1Theodoret explains that Genesis begins with creation rather than with teaching about God because Israel had absorbed the Egyptian worship of creation, though Moses' words still imply God's eternity.
3. 1.2Theodoret argues that Moses passed over the creation of angels because Israel, prone to idolatry, would have worshiped them, and shows from Scripture that angels are created.
4. 1.3Theodoret argues that angels, being created and circumscribed, need a place and so cannot have existed before heaven and earth.
5. 1.4Theodoret answers the argument that angels must have existed before creation to praise God: God needs no praise, and the angels were probably created with heaven and earth, though the other view does no harm to faith.
6. 1.5Theodoret explains that “the earth was” in Gen 1:2 describes the earth's unformed state after its creation, not its eternal existence.
7. 1.6Theodoret shows from Gen 1:2, the Sabbath commandment, and the Psalms that the waters were created by God.
8. 1.6.1This unnumbered section explains the darkness of Gen 1:2 as the shadow cast inside the newly made heaven, which shut out the light that already existed above it.
9. 1.7Theodoret explains that darkness, though opposite to light, is useful, and that it is not a substance but the shadow cast by heaven and earth.
10. 1.8Theodoret mentions the view that the Spirit over the waters is the Holy Spirit prefiguring baptism, but prefers to take it as the air or wind.
11. 1.9Theodoret explains that God's “let there be” expresses his will, not an order to another creator, and any spoken word was for the angels' sake.
12. 1.10God's verdict “it was good” is recorded so that no one would find fault with creation.
13. 1.11Theodoret distinguishes the first heaven of Gen 1:1 from the firmament of the second day and explains the plural “heavens” as a Hebrew idiom.
14. 1.12Theodoret explains that the seas form one gathering because they are connected, yet many gatherings because they are distinct seas.
15. 1.13Theodoret explains that inedible plants feed animals and supply medicines for the sicknesses that followed sin.
16. 1.14Theodoret explains that God divided the first-created light to form the sun, moon, and stars.
17. 1.15Theodoret explains the sun and moon as measures of days, seasons, years, and months, and takes the “signs” as practical indications for farming and sailing, rejecting astrology.
18. 1.16Plants could be made before the luminaries, but animals with eyes needed the light first distributed among them.
19. 1.17Animals received a blessing of fruitfulness because they were created in pairs, while plants filled the earth at once.
20. 1.18Theodoret explains that dangerous animals serve to correct human laziness and drive people to God, and that each creature must be judged by its use to the whole.
21. 1.19Theodoret rejects the views that “Let us make” was addressed to angels or demons or was a royal plural, and reads it as a hint of the Trinity, connected with baptism and the incarnation.
22. 1.20Theodoret rejects locating the image of God in the soul's invisibility or in the body, and sets out the views that man is God's image as the centerpiece of creation, as ruler, as maker and judge, and in the mind with its word and spirit, an image of the Trinity.
23. 1.21Theodoret explains that the seventh day received a blessing in place of a work of creation, and that “sanctified” means “set apart.”
24. 1.22Theodoret explains the spring of Gen 2:6 as the moisture left in the earth after the waters were separated, citing Aquila's version.
25. 1.23Theodoret denies that God's breathing in Gen 2:7 makes the soul part of God's substance; it shows the ease of creation and the soul's spiritual, created nature.
26. 1.24God planted paradise though he foresaw the fall, because he does not condemn on foreknowledge, and wished Adam to know his gifts and to have a prize for virtue.
27. 1.25Theodoret rejects the view that paradise is in heaven, since Scripture says its trees grew from the earth.
28. 1.26Theodoret holds that the two trees of paradise were ordinary plants named for what God decreed and what happened in connection with them, like the wells and places named by the patriarchs.
29. 1.27Adam and Eve already knew good from evil before the fall; what they gained afterwards was experience of evil.
30. 1.28Theodoret compares Adam and Eve's discovery of their nakedness to children who grow into a sense of shame.
31. 1.29Theodoret explains that the rivers of paradise flow underground before rising in Armenia, which God arranged to keep people from seeking paradise.
32. 1.30God formed the woman from Adam to show their common nature and bind man and woman in affection, which marriage makes one flesh.
33. 1.31Theodoret explains that the serpent is called “prudent” in a bad sense, meaning crafty, as Aquila's version shows.
34. 1.32Theodoret explains that the devil spoke to Eve through the serpent, and that Scripture also calls the devil a serpent.
35. 1.33The opening of their eyes means the awareness of sin, since their bodily eyes were already open.
36. 1.34Theodoret explains that the curse falls properly on the devil, and on the serpent as a reminder to humans of the effects of sin.
37. 1.35God's foreknowledge that the serpent would be misused is no reason against creating it, any more than in the case of man.
38. 1.36God made rational beings with free will; some angels fell by their own choice, and without such freedom there could be no reward for virtue.
39. 1.37Answering the charge that God was cruel to punish Adam's race for a little food, Theodoret argues that God's laws are just, that first transgressions are punished as warnings, that death was foreseen and turned to healing, and that Adam's sin was not small.
40. 1.38Adam did not die at once because God threatens more than he inflicts; “die” means “become mortal,” as Symmachus translated.
41. 1.39Theodoret rejects allegorical and fanciful explanations of the garments of skin and accepts the plain statement that God clothed Adam and Eve.
42. 1.40God's words “like one of us” are ironic, exposing the devil's lie; barring Adam from the tree of life made death a cure for sin.
43. 1.41Cain's grief was not repentance but anger at his brother's success, as Aquila's version shows.
44. 1.42Cain's sign was God's decree protecting him and the trembling that marked him out.
45. 1.43Cain married his sister, which was permitted before the race increased and the law forbade it; God made all nations from one couple to teach their common nature.
46. 1.44Lamech killed one young man, and escaped punishment by confessing his sin.
47. 1.45Theodoret declines to say where Enoch was taken, but explains that his translation encouraged the righteous with a sign of the coming resurrection.
48. 1.46Abel died first so that death's foundation would rest on an unjust killing and so be unsound.
49. 1.47Theodoret rejects the view that the “sons of God” of Gen 6:2 were angels and identifies them as the pious descendants of Seth, who married the daughters of Cain's line.
50. 1.48Theodoret holds that there were men of great size, as Scripture shows, but that God made human bodies modest to curb pride.
51. 1.49The ancients lived long, and had many wives, so that the human race could increase.
52. 1.50Theodoret explains the flood as God's dispensation, not anger or regret, and the seven clean animals as three pairs plus one for sacrifice.
53. 1.51Before the flood, people and animals alike ate only plants, so the animals in the ark ate fodder and seeds.
54. 1.52“God remembered Noah” expresses God's love, not a lapse of memory, just as his “regret” means a change of dispensation.
55. 1.53God's “smelling” Noah's sacrifice means he approved Noah's gratitude; Noah, a second Adam, received Adam's blessing and leave to eat meat.
56. 1.54Blood is forbidden because it is the animal's soul; God's requiring of human blood from the beasts hints at the resurrection.
57. 1.55God permitted meat-eating, and distinguished clean from unclean animals, to keep people from worshiping animals.
58. 1.56Noah's drunkenness came from inexperience with wine, not intemperance, and his uncovering from sleep.
59. 1.57Before the written Law, the law of nature taught honor to parents, so Ham was rightly condemned and his brothers blessed.
60. 1.58Noah's curse fell on Canaan because Ham had shared God's blessing; it was really a prophecy of Israel's possession of Canaan, while Shem's blessing pointed to God's dwelling with his people and finally to the incarnation.
61. 1.59Theodoret argues from travelers' reports that the tower of Babel was built with bitumen, not lime.
62. 1.60Theodoret argues from the meanings of the first names that Syriac is the oldest language.
63. 1.61Theodoret suggests that Hebrew was a sacred, learned language given through Moses, and derives the name “Hebrew” from Abraham's crossing of the Euphrates rather than from Eber.
64. 1.62Theodoret denies that Pharaoh had intercourse with Sarah: God struck him with sickness at once, and Pharaoh's own words show he had meant to marry her.
65. 1.63Scripture states plainly that Abimelech did not touch Sarah to keep Isaac's birth beyond suspicion; both stories show that even pagans knew adultery to be wrong.
66. 1.64Melchizedek's ancestry is unknown; he was probably a Canaanite king who was priest of the true God and a type of Christ's priesthood.
67. 1.65Abraham's question in Gen 15:8 sought the manner of the inheritance, not proof; God's answer explains the delay by the Amorites' sins not yet being complete.
68. 1.66Theodoret reads the animals of Abraham's covenant sacrifice as signs of Israel's three generations in Egypt and its exodus, and also reports the view that it followed a custom of oath-making.
69. 1.67Theodoret defends Abraham's union with Hagar: it was at Sarah's request, for children, at a time when no law forbade it, and Abraham's later conduct shows he was not ruled by desire.
70. 1.68Circumcision was a sign to keep Abraham's descendants separate from the nations; it did not justify Abraham, who was declared righteous by faith.
71. 1.69The angels who visited Abraham only appeared to have bodies and to eat; how they consumed the food is not to be pried into.
72. 1.70Theodoret excuses Lot, who acted in ignorance, partly excuses his drunkenness, and holds his daughters blameless because they believed the human race had perished.
73. 1.71God allowed the incestuous origin of Moab and Ammon so that Israel would shun them and their idolatry.
74. 1.72Abraham's sending away of Ishmael showed his obedience to God and trust in God's promise, which God fulfilled in Ishmael's descendants.
75. 1.73God tested Abraham to show others his faith, not to learn it; he stopped the sacrifice, which he condemns elsewhere, and the event foreshadowed the Father's offering of the Son.
76. 1.74The oath under the thigh recalled circumcision and God's promise; the servant's prayer for a sign was not divination but a pious request that sought a bride marked by hospitality and gentleness.
77. 1.75The patriarchs' wives were barren so that Israel's increase would be seen as God's grace, since Christ was to be born from it.
78. 1.76Rebecca probably inquired of God at one of the patriarchs' altars rather than through Melchizedek.
79. 1.77God kept Isaac in Canaan during the famine to show that he could have provided for Abraham there too.
80. 1.78Isaac wished to bless Esau as firstborn and because Esau's service had won his affection.
81. 1.79Rebecca acted on God's prophecy that the elder would serve the younger.
82. 1.80God left Isaac uninformed so that his care for Jacob would be evident when the blessing went to Jacob against Isaac's intention.
83. 1.81Jacob did not lie in calling himself firstborn, since he had bought the birthright.
84. 1.82Theodoret reads Isaac's blessing of Jacob as a prophecy of Christ: the field is the world, the dew his divinity, the fatness of the earth his humanity, and the nations' service the worship of Christ.
85. 1.83Jacob fled poor and alone so that God's providence, shown at once in the vision of the ladder, would be evident on his return.
86. 1.84Jacob anointed the stone as an offering of what he had, like Christian women of Theodoret's day who anoint sanctuary railings and martyrs' shrines.
87. 1.85Theodoret defends Jacob's four wives: he chose only Rachel, took the maidservants at his wives' request, no law then forbade polygamy, and many children were counted a blessing.
88. 1.86Rachel and Leah were jealous because they were raised by an idolater; the Law later forbade marrying two sisters.
89. 1.87Scripture records the words of impious speakers, like Leah's “good fortune,” as history, not as its own teaching.
90. 1.88Jacob's “at my foot” means that Laban prospered through Jacob's coming and care.
91. 1.89Jacob trusted God, not the peeled rods, for his flocks; the one who appeared to him is called both angel and God, which shows that it was the Son, not the Father.
92. 1.90Theodoret holds that Rachel stole Laban's idols to free him from idolatry, and reads Leah and Rachel as types of the Jewish people and the church of the nations.
93. 1.91“The Fear of Isaac” means the God whom Isaac feared.
94. 1.92God let Jacob win the wrestling match to give him courage against Esau, while the touch on his thigh showed the defeat was voluntary; the one who wrestled was the Son of God. A short added question explains “Iamin” in Gen 36:24 as “spring.”
95. 1.93Theodoret derives Job from Esau's line, identifying him with Jobab king of Edom.
96. 1.94Joseph's brothers envied him as their father's favorite and sold him; his dream of the sheaves foretold their bowing before him in Egypt.
97. 1.95Theodoret defends Tamar: she sought children from Abraham's line, which Judah had denied her, and Judah himself admitted she was more righteous.
98. 1.96Theodoret reads the birth of Perez and Zerah as a figure of the Jews and the believing nations, and notes that Christ descended from Perez through a line that included foreign women.
99. 1.97Joseph's “success” is ascribed to the Lord who was with him, not to fortune.
100. 1.98“Eunuch” could be a title; and even a castrated man might keep a wife to manage his household.
101. 1.99God kept Joseph's fate hidden from Jacob so that the chain of events leading Israel into Egypt, as foretold to Abraham, would be fulfilled.
102. 1.100The brothers sinned from envy; God turned their wickedness to fulfil Joseph's dreams.
103. 1.101Joseph was harsh at first because he feared his brothers had harmed Benjamin too.
104. 1.102Joseph's Egyptian name means “interpreter of secrets.”
105. 1.103Joseph imprisoned Simeon rather than Reuben, who had tried to save him, and the brothers' consciences recalled their crime after twenty-two years.
106. 1.104Jacob distrusted Reuben because Reuben had lain with his father's concubine.
107. 1.105Joseph's servants called the cup a divining cup to aggravate the charge; Joseph himself, Theodoret argues, never claimed to practice divination.
108. 1.106Joseph used the cup to test whether his brothers would defend Benjamin, and when they did he revealed himself and reassured them.
109. 1.107Joseph's acquisition of Egypt's land was a famine measure, returned for a fifth of the produce; Theodoret notes that pagan priests' land was exempt, an honor Christian priests do not receive.
110. 1.108Jacob's and Joseph's burial instructions were prophecies of Israel's return to the promised land.
111. 1.109Jacob's bowing on his staff fulfilled Joseph's dream and foreshadowed Ephraim's preeminence; Theodoret notes how often Scripture prefers the younger son.
112. 1.110Theodoret reads Jacob's last words as prophecies: Judah's blessing foretells Christ, his passion, and the church of Jews and Gentiles; Dan's foretells the Antichrist; and Jacob's being “added to his people” implies the resurrection.
113. 2.1The LXX word χυδαῖοι in Exod 1:7 means that Israel became very numerous, not that it was base.
114. 2.2The midwives refused Pharaoh's order to kill the Hebrew boys, and God rewarded them.
115. 2.3Pharaoh's daughter recognized Moses as a Hebrew by his circumcision, which the Egyptians adopted only later.
116. 2.4Moses' marriage to a foreigner prefigured Christ's union with the church of the nations.
117. 2.5The one who appeared in the burning bush is called both angel and God; Theodoret identifies him as the Son, the “angel of great counsel.”
118. 2.6The burning bush shows God's power and love, Israel's survival in Egypt, and the Virgin's preserved virginity in the incarnation.
119. 2.7Theodoret rejects allegorical explanations of Moses' removing his sandal and sees in it a call to reverence and a model for the priests' barefoot service.
120. 2.8God, though he foreknew Pharaoh's stubbornness, waited to punish him so that the justice of the punishment would be evident.
121. 2.9The rod became a serpent to expose Pharaoh's beastly cruelty and his enmity toward God's people.
122. 2.10Moses' leprous hand signified Israel's defilement in Egypt and its cleansing, and taught that involuntary conditions like leprosy are not truly unclean.
123. 2.11Moses' poor speech displayed God's power, as did the choice of humble apostles.
124. 2.12Theodoret explains the hardening of Pharaoh's heart as Pharaoh's own response to God's patience, not God's doing: like the sun that softens wax and hardens clay, God's long-suffering benefits some and hardens others, and Pharaoh's punishment taught all nations.
125. 2.13God let Israel suffer in Egypt so that they would hate Egypt and its gods and be willing to leave.
126. 2.14Theodoret explains the angel's attack on Moses as a means of driving out his fear of Pharaoh by a greater fear, and notes that it also occasioned the sending home of Zipporah.
127. 2.15God revealed to Moses the divine name withheld from the patriarchs, the tetragram, which the Hebrews do not pronounce.
128. 2.16Aaron's marriage to Nahshon's sister joined the royal and priestly tribes, from both of which Christ, king and priest, descended.
129. 2.17Moses was “god” to Aaron in that he gave him God's commands.
130. 2.18God let Pharaoh's sorcerers imitate some signs so that their limits, and their own confession of “the finger of God,” would show that Moses' miracles were divine.
131. 2.19The first plague struck the Nile, which Egypt worshiped and in which it had drowned the Hebrew babies; the frogs recalled the drowned children.
132. 2.20The sorcerers could imitate the plague of blood with seawater; God varied the sources of the plagues and announced them beforehand to show they were his doing.
133. 2.21God warned the Egyptians before the hail out of mercy, and struck through every element to show that he, not the many gods of the pagans, rules all.
134. 2.22Egypt's firstborn died because Pharaoh oppressed Israel, God's firstborn; yet the believing nations have received the rights of the firstborn.
135. 2.23The Egyptians' gold and clothing were the wages owed to Israel for its forced labor, and the Egyptians shared Pharaoh's guilt.
136. 2.24Theodoret explains the Passover rites as a memorial of the exodus and a type of Christ's passion and the Christian mysteries: the lamb's blood, the unleavened bread, the one house as the one church, and the inclusion of proselytes as a sign of the nations' salvation.
137. 2.25Theodoret holds that the Red Sea was divided in two, not into twelve paths, and that Pharaoh's drowning repaid his drowning of the Hebrew infants.
138. 2.26The wood that sweetened the waters of Marah foreshadows the cross, which sweetened the bitterness of the nations.
139. 2.27Theodoret explains 1 Cor 10:1–4: the exodus is a type of baptism, and the manna and the water from the rock are types of the Eucharist.
140. 2.28The rock and the sea are called Christ and baptism as types.
141. 2.29The manna is called “bread of angels” because angels ministered it, and “bread of heaven” because it came from the air.
142. 2.30The manna was named from the question “What is this?”; Theodoret also notes Symmachus' rendering and the measure gomor.
143. 2.31Hoarded manna spoiled as a punishment for distrust, not by its nature, as the Sabbath portion and the manna kept in the ark show.
144. 2.32God withheld the manna on the Sabbath to teach Israel the commandment, without stopping the course of nature.
145. 2.33Israel fought Amalek with weapons taken from the drowned Egyptians.
146. 2.34Moses' outstretched hands prefigured the cross, and Joshua, Jesus' namesake, prefigured Christ with his apostles.
147. 2.35God chose Israel as a priestly people for the sake of all nations and of Christ's coming; Israel's covenant pledge brought it under the Law's curses, from which Christ redeems believers.
148. 2.36The washing of clothes and the terrors of Sinai taught Israel inner purity and fear of God, and the priests that their office demands greater holiness.
149. 2.37Theodoret argues that the first commandment condemns the Arians and Eunomians, who call the Son God yet make him a creature.
150. 2.38An idol depicts what does not exist, a likeness what does; the commandment forbids both bowing down to and serving either.
151. 2.39God calls himself jealous as a husband of his people, to keep them from idolatry; his jealousy is a sign of love.
152. 2.40God's threat to punish children for their fathers' sins is a warning greater than the punishment; it applies only to children who imitate their fathers, as other texts and Israel's history show.
153. 2.41Theodoret takes the third commandment to forbid using God's name casually, outside teaching, prayer, or real need.
154. 2.42The Sabbath rest taught kindness to servants, animals, and strangers.
155. 2.43The seventh day was chosen because God rested on it after the six days of creation.
156. 2.44Theodoret explains the ban on hewn altar stones as a way to keep Israel's wilderness altars from being reused for pagan sacrifice.
157. 2.45The piercing of the ear of a slave who refused freedom marked a disgrace and signified obedience to his master.
158. 2.46“Forever” in Exod 21:6 means a lifetime, since the Greek word can denote a limited time.
159. 2.47The law of flight for accidental killers teaches the gravity of murder, encourages care, and restrains revenge.
160. 2.48Theodoret explains the LXX law of Exod 21:22–23: causing the miscarriage of a formed fetus is murder, of an unformed one a fineable offence, on the view that the soul is given once the body is formed.
161. 2.49Killing the goring bull teaches the gravity of murder.
162. 2.50Greater thefts receive greater penalties.
163. 2.51The “gods” of Exod 22:28 are judges, as Psalm 82 shows.
164. 2.52The ban on torn meat and the duty to help an enemy's animals teach humane conduct and show that one God gave both Testaments.
165. 2.53Coming before God “not empty” means bringing alms if one has wealth, or virtue if one has chosen poverty.
166. 2.54Theodoret identifies the feasts of Exod 23 and explains that the three pilgrim feasts recalled God's gifts and drew Israel away from pagan festivals.
167. 2.55The ban on leaven with sacrifices signifies that nothing of pagan teaching should be mixed with divine worship.
168. 2.56Several animal laws, including the ban on boiling a kid in its mother's milk, teach kindness.
169. 2.57The promise means a long life.
170. 2.58God's hornets, like the plagues of Egypt, show his power to defeat Israel's enemies by small creatures.
171. 2.59God's promise of land as far as the Euphrates was conditional on obedience, so it was only partly fulfilled, though David and Solomon ruled that far for a time.
172. 2.60Theodoret explains the tabernacle as a portable sanctuary given to wean Israel from idolatry, an image of creation divided between heaven and earth, and he interprets its furnishings and the priestly vestments, ending with the breastpiece and ephod as figures of contemplation and action.
173. 2.61Theodoret explains the laying on of hands as substitution, the sin offerings for ruler and people, the burning outside the camp as a type of Christ's death outside the gate, and the fat and organs as figures of passions to be put to death.
174. 2.62The “fragrant odor” of sacrifices is a human figure for God's acceptance.
175. 2.63The priest's portions signify contemplation and right action, since faith needs works for perfection.
176. 2.64The hin was a Hebrew measure of about two Attic choes.
177. 2.65Like circumcision, the Sabbath was a sign that kept Israel mindful of God and distinct from the nations.
178. 2.66Theodoret partly excuses Aaron's making of the calf as a failed attempt to restrain the people, though Aaron still needed Moses' intercession to escape death.
179. 2.67God's “let me alone” was really an invitation to Moses to intercede, and Moses appealed to the promises made to the patriarchs.
180. 2.68Moses broke the tablets as a dowry contract voided by the bride's adultery; his wish to see God was answered with a sight of God's “back,” that is, his works, seen by faith.
181. 2.69Following Paul, Theodoret reads Moses' veil as the veil over the reading of the Law, removed by turning to Christ and the Spirit, who transform pure hearts into God's likeness.
182. 2.70The materials of the tabernacle came from Egypt, the wood probably carried by the wealthy and the precious metals taken from the Egyptians.
183. 2.71The craftsmen's skill was a gift of God, as are all useful arts.
184. 2.72The tabernacle was set up in spring, the season of creation, of the exodus, of the annunciation, and of Christ's passion, and in time for the Passover.
185. 3.1Opening Leviticus, Theodoret explains the sacrifices as a concession to Israel's Egyptian habits and a means of weaning it from idolatry, and reads the different victims, offerings, and rules as figures of the various ways of Christian life and of the soul's discipline.
186. 3.2Theodoret explains the trespass offerings for neglected dues and for fraud, which required restitution plus a fifth before sacrifice, as Zacchaeus later made restitution.
187. 3.3The priest's offering was wholly burned to teach total dedication.
188. 3.4Sin offerings were slain where the burnt offerings were, to assure penitents that they still belonged to the holy things.
189. 3.5Theodoret reads “shall be sanctified” as binding to temple service whoever touches the sin offering, and as a lesson in reverence.
190. 3.6The time limit on eating sacrificial meat was meant to make Israel share it with the poor.
191. 3.7Ritual impurity from natural things teaches the greater defilement of willful sin.
192. 3.8The anointing of the priest's right ear, hand, and foot prefigures the saving blood and the chrism, obedience, and good works.
193. 3.9Nadab and Abihu's strange fire teaches Christians to keep the Spirit's gift alive and to add nothing foreign to Scripture, as heretics do.
194. 3.10Priests were forbidden wine only while serving; the episode of the uneaten sin offering teaches that clergy who live on the people's offerings must pray earnestly for them.
195. 3.11Theodoret reads the clean and unclean animals as figures of human types, judging by meditation on Scripture, discernment, faith, and virtue, and adds that the distinction also kept Israel from deifying animals.
196. 3.12The different treatment of earthen and costly vessels shows that ritual uncleanness is not natural but serves a purpose; the real defilement is sin.
197. 3.13Seed becomes unclean only when wet; creeping things are especially unclean because of the serpent's role in the fall.
198. 3.14The impurity after childbirth secured rest for the mother by keeping husbands away; the longer period after a daughter is explained by the greater labor.
199. 3.15The leprosy laws figure the diseases of the soul, which the priest must judge.
200. 3.16The wholly leprous man was declared clean so he would not be excluded for life; similarly Christians may eat with unbelievers but must avoid believers who live in open sin.
201. 3.17The leper was marked out so that others would avoid contagion, as Paul tells Christians to avoid sinning brothers.
202. 3.18Leprosy in garments and houses was a merciful chastisement; Theodoret reads the leprous house as the house of Israel.
203. 3.19Theodoret reads the leper's cleansing rite as a type of Christ's passion and of baptism and chrismation, with the unrepentant sinner excluded like the leper.
204. 3.20The impurity laws on discharges and marital intercourse teach that only willful lust truly defiles and urge moderation in marriage, while Paul calls the marriage bed undefiled.
205. 3.21Menstrual impurity teaches the same lesson as other discharges and keeps men from intercourse during menstruation.
206. 3.22Theodoret explains the Day of Atonement: he rejects the idea that the scapegoat was sent to a demon, reads the two goats as Christ's passible humanity and impassible divinity, and sees the high priest's yearly entry as a type of Christ's once-for-all sacrifice and ascension.
207. 3.23Requiring all slaughter at the tabernacle prevented sacrifices to demons; blood is forbidden because it stands for the animal's soul offered in place of human souls.
208. 3.24The incest and bestiality laws of Lev 18 forbid real practices of Egypt and Canaan, as the Persians' marriages with close kin in Theodoret's day show.
209. 3.25The “ruler” of Lev 18:21 is the idol Molech, and the law forbids dedicating children to idols or to foreign rulers.
210. 3.26The land's “loathing” is a warning that Israel will be punished as the Canaanites were if it imitates them.
211. 3.27The laws against mixing kinds teach avoidance of unlawful unions and of inconsistent conduct.
212. 3.28The laws on hair, beards, cuttings, and tattoos forbid pagan rites of dedication and mourning.
213. 3.29Ventriloquists were demon-driven diviners whose demon seemed to speak from inside them.
214. 3.30Priests' marriages and bodily integrity were regulated to make them models of chastity and figures of a sound soul.
215. 3.31Firstborn animals were offered young so that owners would not keep the best and substitute another.
216. 3.32Theodoret explains the firstfruits sheaf, Pentecost, Trumpets, the Day of Atonement fast, and Tabernacles as memorials of Israel's history, and the chaste-tree branches as a reminder of chastity.
217. 3.33Theodoret distinguishes cursing a false god, a sin for its worshiper, from blaspheming the true God, a capital offence.
218. 3.34The law of retaliation was meant to deter injury.
219. 3.35The sabbatical and jubilee years curbed greed, provided for the poor, released debts and slaves, and reminded Israel that the land belonged to God.
220. 3.36Ten women baking in one oven is a threat of extreme poverty for disobedience.
221. 3.37The land's sabbaths foretold the seventy years of exile, one for every neglected sabbatical year; God promised restoration for the patriarchs' sake.
222. 3.38Theodoret explains the valuation of vows in Lev 27, noting a similar custom among the Arab nomads, and the rules on exchange, prices, and things devoted to God.
223. 4.1The census of Numbers shows that God kept his promise to multiply Abraham's offspring.
224. 4.2The Levites were fewer because rulers must be fewer than the ruled, and they did not fight.
225. 4.3Judah, the royal tribe of Christ, was largest and camped on the east; Dan, from which the Antichrist is expected, on the north.
226. 4.4The priests offered sacrifice; the Levites assisted them and guarded the tent.
227. 4.5The Levites were taken in place of Israel's firstborn, and the surplus firstborn were redeemed for five shekels each.
228. 4.6Blue coverings signify heaven and purple God's kingship; the priests covered the holy things so that the Kohathites would not see them and die.
229. 4.7“Unclean by a soul” means defiled by contact with a corpse.
230. 4.8Exclusion of the ritually unclean teaches by analogy that murder, wickedness and adultery defile far more.
231. 4.9“Human sins” are the lesser sins no one escapes; only Christ is sinless; the law prescribes confession and restitution with a fifth added.
232. 4.10The ordeal of the suspected wife was meant to frighten her into confession and to keep jealous husbands from killing their wives on suspicion.
233. 4.11Theodoret explains the Nazirite vow, its purifications and sacrifices, and reads the priestly blessing as foretelling Christ's appearing and the peace he brings.
234. 4.12Shaving the Levites signifies that God's ministers must have nothing dead about them.
235. 4.13The Levites served from twenty-five to fifty, excluding immature youth and weak old age.
236. 4.14Those defiled by a corpse or far away kept a second Passover a month later, and proselytes shared the same law, foreshadowing the calling of the nations.
237. 4.15The trumpet signals of Numbers recalled Sinai, and the distinction between signals and plain sounding is applied to the church's reserve about the mysteries before the uninitiated.
238. 4.16Moses' father-in-law had two names, Jethro and Raguel.
239. 4.17Israel grumbled at the hardship of the march.
240. 4.18God punished quickly at the law's beginning, yet forgave; giving Moses' spirit to the seventy elders did not diminish his grace, as baptism and ordination do not diminish the minister's.
241. 4.19Moses doubted as a man; God gave the quails but punished the gluttony with sickness and death.
242. 4.20The seventy prophesied once only, to show they had received the Spirit; their gift was administration.
243. 4.21Eldad and Modad were probably as worthy as the seventy; Moses showed no envy, and Joshua spoke from zeal, not jealousy.
244. 4.22Rejecting Josephus's and Apollinarius's stories, Theodoret identifies the Ethiopian wife with Zipporah and draws the lesson of leaving vengeance to God.
245. 4.23Miriam alone was struck with leprosy because her fault was greater and Aaron's priesthood had to be spared disgrace; God corrected her as a father.
246. 4.24The spies were sent so that Israel would desire the land, or be without excuse if they refused it.
247. 4.25Hoshea was renamed Joshua (Jesus) as a type of Christ, who like a spy took on our nature to save us.
248. 4.26The Anakim were descendants of a famous giant.
249. 4.27God's oath that his glory will fill the earth, and the sentence on the unbelieving generation, foreshadow the passing of the kingdom to the believing nations.
250. 4.28The laws on sacrifice are repeated so that they will be remembered.
251. 4.29Sins of weakness have some excuse, but deliberate contempt of God's law has none.
252. 4.30The Sabbath-breaker was stoned as the first offender, to deter others.
253. 4.31The blue thread on the tassels recalled heaven and so the God who gave the commandments.
254. 4.32The Reubenites joined Korah because they thought the priesthood belonged to the firstborn, forgetting that Reuben had forfeited his birthright.
255. 4.33Moses appealed to God against the rebels, interceded for the people, and God swallowed up Dathan and Abiram and burned Korah's company.
256. 4.34The censers became a memorial of the priesthood's exclusivity; the priests and Levites lived from firstfruits, firstborn and tithes instead of land.
257. 4.35The red heifer prefigures Christ's sinless passion outside the gate, and its water of purification prefigures baptism.
258. 4.36The uncleanness “until evening” lasts until the end of the law; Christ's coming is the dawn.
259. 4.37Moses and Aaron were barred from the land because, provoked by the people after Miriam's death, Moses spoke ambiguously at the rock.
260. 4.38The bronze serpent prefigures Christ, who took real flesh without sin, so that those who look to his passion in faith are saved.
261. 4.39Balaam did not consult the true God, but the true God answered him.
262. 4.40God let the greedy Balaam go, but only to speak what God willed.
263. 4.41The speaking donkey and the angel showed Balaam God's care for Israel.
264. 4.42Balaam's curse had no power; God prevented it so that Israel would not blame its sufferings on him, and made Balaam proclaim God's unchangeable blessing.
265. 4.43The unicorn's single horn signifies Israel's worship of one God; no divination can foretell God's dealings with Israel, which he reveals through his prophets.
266. 4.44Balaam's prophecies, given by the Spirit, foretold Christ and later history; failing to curse Israel, he advised the Midianites to seduce them into idolatry.
267. 4.45The second census showed that, though the first generation died, God's blessing kept Israel's number undiminished.
268. 4.46Dividing the land by lot left the decision to God and prevented strife, as the apostles' lot did in choosing Matthias.
269. 4.47Joshua, though already filled with the Spirit, received the laying on of hands so that the people would know his appointment came from God; vows of daughters and wives depend on father's or husband's consent.
270. 4.48The married Midianite women were killed because they could lead their captors into idolatry.
271. 4.49The list of encampments records God's care in the wilderness.
272. 4.50The manslayer's return after the high priest's death prefigures Christ's death as release from sin, and also cooled the avengers' anger.
273. 4.51Tribal inheritance was kept separate to preserve Judah's line, though the royal and priestly tribes intermarried, pointing to Christ as priest and king.
274. 5.1Deuteronomy is not a second law but Moses' recapitulation of the law for the new generation; Theodoret surveys Deut 1–5, stressing the ban on images and the humane purpose of the Sabbath.
275. 5.2The Shema teaches the one divine nature while hinting at the three persons.
276. 5.3Loving God with the whole heart means giving him undivided love and loving others in due order under him.
277. 5.4Oaths in God's name were commanded so that Israel would not swear by idols.
278. 5.5Testing God means acting recklessly and without reason.
279. 5.6Intermarriage with the nations was forbidden lest Israel turn to idols; God chose Israel for the fathers' sake and trained them in the wilderness as a father trains a son.
280. 5.7The Anakim were giants; Moses humbles Israel's pride, recalls the golden calf, and teaches that God values circumcision of the heart above that of the flesh.
281. 5.8“God of gods” means God over human judges, whom Scripture calls gods.
282. 5.9Israel was to offer sacrifice only at the place God chose, though ordinary slaughter for food was allowed anywhere.
283. 5.10Two tithes were levied, one for the Levites and one for feasting at the sanctuary; God allowed feasts and music to wean Israel from idolatrous festivals.
284. 5.11The ban on eating blood was meant to cure Israel's readiness to kill.
285. 5.12False prophets work wonders only by God's permission; Israel was to reject them and put to death those who enticed others to idolatry.
286. 5.13Theodoret explains the bans on divination and mourning rites and argues from Deut 14 that the law required two tithes, noting Josephus's count of three.
287. 5.14Unblemished offerings teach that our minds must be sound and ready for good works.
288. 5.15Unleavened bread recalls the hasty departure from Egypt.
289. 5.16Justice must be pursued for its own sake, not for show.
290. 5.17Hard cases were to be referred to the priest or judge at the sanctuary, whose decision was binding.
291. 5.18The king was not to multiply horses so that Israel would trust in God alone.
292. 5.19The captive wife's month of mourning separated grief from marriage and restrained the captor's lust; if he rejected her, she went free.
293. 5.20Both parents had to accuse a rebellious son so that their agreement would establish the truth.
294. 5.21Sparing the mother bird teaches kindness and preserves the species.
295. 5.22The parapet law teaches us to use our reason and take precautions, while trusting God for the outcome.
296. 5.23The ban on sowing among vines curbs greed and protects the soil; the penalty was forfeit of the crop to God.
297. 5.24A betrothed woman counted as a wife, so violating her was punished as adultery; Mary too is called Joseph's wife.
298. 5.25Excluding eunuchs signifies spiritual barrenness; the law also forbade castration and excluded the illegitimate.
299. 5.26Moabites and Ammonites were excluded for their incestuous origin and their seduction of Israel; Edomites and Egyptians were admitted as kin and benefactors.
300. 5.27The sanitary law protected the camp from disease; God's presence in the camp called for holiness.
301. 5.28The Septuagint's terms for initiates refer to people initiated into pagan mystery cults.
302. 5.29Vows must be paid promptly though no one is forced to vow; Miriam's leprosy came from God; each person dies for his own sin.
303. 5.30The Jews give forty lashes less one to avoid exceeding the legal limit.
304. 5.31Paul gave the spiritual sense, but the literal law also teaches justice to the labourer.
305. 5.32Public shaming compelled the duty of levirate marriage where brotherly love failed.
306. 5.33Amalek was destroyed for its unprovoked hostility to its kin; Deut 26 confirms the second tithe; Moses commanded the inscribed stones and altar on Ebal.
307. 5.34Israel, unable to grasp promises of the life to come, was given earthly blessings and curses; Theodoret explains the ceremony on Gerizim and Ebal and reads the curses as foretelling Israel's later disasters.
308. 5.35The blessings and curses of Deuteronomy are new teaching, a covenant in Moab beside the one at Horeb.
309. 5.36The curses outnumber the blessings because threats move the wayward more than promises.
310. 5.37God is said to withhold understanding only in the sense that he permits human free choice; he is the cause of good, not of evil.
311. 5.38Moses condemns deliberate contempt of the law, promises restoration to the repentant, and shows the law is near and easy to keep, as Paul applies to faith in Christ.
312. 5.39The law was to be read every seventh year, when Israel had leisure from war and settlement.
313. 5.40Heaven and earth are called as witnesses because they contain all creation, as hills and wells were named witnesses of covenants.
314. 5.41God's threat to provoke Israel by a “no nation” is fulfilled in the many nations that believed in Christ.
315. 5.42The Song of Moses foretells the joy of Jewish and Gentile believers, attended by angels throughout Christ's life, and the punishment of those who killed the saints.
316. 5.43Moses was kept from the land because God demands more of the perfect and to prevent his deification; Moses stands for the law, Joshua for the Saviour who brings into the kingdom.
317. 5.44Theodoret explains the blessings of Moses on Reuben, Judah and Levi, reading Judah's as pointing to David and Christ and Levi's as teaching priestly detachment.
318. 5.45Benjamin is ranked with Levi because the temple stood in its territory; Theodoret explains the blessings of Joseph, Zebulun, Issachar, Gad, Dan, Naphtali and Asher.
319. 5.46Simeon received no separate blessing, probably as ringleader against Joseph, but shared the common blessing; Moses saw the land without entering it.
320. 6.1Joshua, “minister of Moses,” prefigures Christ, a minister of the circumcision born under the law.
321. 6.2God's promise of land was conditional and was fulfilled more fully in the apostles' mission; Rahab prefigures the church, and the crossing of the Jordan prefigures Christ's baptism and Christian baptism before the Eucharist.
322. 6.3The second circumcision at Gilgal prefigures baptism as spiritual circumcision; circumcision was a sign needed only when Israel lived among other nations.
323. 6.4Stone knives were practical in the wilderness and prefigure Christ, the rock and the sword of the Word, who gives the spiritual circumcision of baptism.
324. 6.5The commander of the Lord's army was probably Michael, the angel promised in Exodus.
325. 6.6Joshua heard the words spoken to Moses at the bush, to show that he shared Moses' dignity.
326. 6.7Jericho was devoted to God as the firstfruits of the conquest and taken by God's power alone.
327. 6.8Rahab's settling in Israel prefigures the gathering of the nations into the one flock.
328. 6.9Jericho, dedicated to God, was not to be rebuilt; the curse was fulfilled in the days of the kings.
329. 6.10All Israel suffered for Achan's theft so that the faithful would expose transgressors; the valley of Achor is named after his stoning.
330. 6.11The ambush at Ai taught Israel to use human effort while trusting God's help.
331. 6.12Joshua's destruction of the Canaanites carried out God's command against their extreme wickedness; setting feet on the kings' necks figures victory over evil spirits.
332. 6.13The Gibeonites, spared by a rash oath, were made servants of the sanctuary, fulfilling Noah's curse on Canaan.
333. 6.14The citation of an older book for the sun's standing still shows that Joshua was written later from sources; the event prefigures the darkness at the crucifixion.
334. 6.15God allowed the Canaanites to fight Israel so that, unlike other nations offered peace, they would be destroyed by his decree.
335. 6.16The division of the land by Moses and Joshua prefigures Jews and believing nations; the Canaanites left in the land figure unbelievers and heretics not yet subdued.
336. 6.17Caleb chose Hebron for the patriarchs' tombs; his age shows the conquest took seven years; Simeon's scattered allotment fulfils Jacob's prophecy.
337. 6.18Joshua took no allotment for himself, prefiguring Christ's humility and teaching rulers to seek their subjects' good.
338. 6.19Theodoret explains the priestly cities, the altar by the Jordan, and Joshua's farewell warnings against intermarriage and idolatry and his covenant renewal at Shechem.
339. 6.20The witness stone convicts the living by the lifeless; Israel stayed faithful while Joshua and the elders lived, then fell into idolatry and servitude to Moab.
340. 7.1Judges is named for the period of the judges; its opening recapitulates events of Joshua's time.
341. 7.2The Jebusites rebuilt Jerusalem after its burning; the name Jerusalem shows Judges was written later.
342. 7.3Achsah asked for watered land and received both upland and plain.
343. 7.4Hobab was Jethro's son, called Moses' father-in-law loosely as his brother-in-law.
344. 7.5The city of palms is Jericho, named for its date palms.
345. 7.6Theodoret reads the Septuagint's “Rechab” as the pious ancestor of the Rechabites, who advised Judah to keep to the hills away from pagan neighbours and the sea.
346. 7.7Israel failed to take the whole land through sloth, greed and idolatry, and God left the Canaanites to discipline them; a small land also suited the law's pilgrimage feasts.
347. 7.8God left some nations to train later generations in war and to test their faithfulness, not because he lacked knowledge; Israel's own impiety kept it from completing the conquest.
348. 7.9Othniel and Caleb were probably half-brothers; the Eglon story confirms that the city of palms is Jericho.
349. 7.10The Jabin of Judges was a different king, perhaps a son of the one killed by Joshua.
350. 7.11Hazor may have been rebuilt after Joshua burned it; the Kenites are Jethro's descendants.
351. 7.12Women can prophesy because they share one nature with men; Deborah was given the gift to shame the men of her day; God disciplined Israel as a father.
352. 7.13Gideon's remembered faith in God's wonders was the “strength” in which he was sent; his self-deprecation was humility, not unbelief.
353. 7.14Gideon offered Baal's bull to God and destroyed Baal's altar to turn Israel from idolatry.
354. 7.15Gideon's fleece figures Israel's former possession of grace and its later loss when grace passed to all humanity.
355. 7.16God chose Gideon's three hundred, the least fit, so that the victory would be clearly his, as he later conquered the demons through unarmed apostles.
356. 7.17Gideon's ephod, though meant to inquire of God, was unlawful and led Israel into idolatry; Abimelech's story shows how evil alliances end in mutual destruction.
357. 7.18Sowing salt signifies barrenness; Israel repeatedly fell into idolatry and was helped again only when it repented.
358. 7.19The Ephraimites betrayed themselves by their dialect, as Syriac speakers in different regions differ in pronunciation.
359. 7.20God allowed Jephthah's rash vow to be carried out as a lesson against thoughtless vows, though Scripture condemns human sacrifice; Manoah's angel refused food and sacrifice.
360. 7.21God gave Samson his gift for the purpose of delivering Israel, not because of his life, and permitted rather than caused his foreign marriage.
361. 7.22Samson's eating from the dead lion and drinking from the jawbone show that such purity laws were not binding on all; his lust cost him God's grace until God heard his last prayer.
362. 7.23Samson's foxes came from a mountain known for them.
363. 7.24Micah's teraphim were idolatrous counterparts to the ephod; his lawless priesthood reflects the anarchy of the time.
364. 7.25The Levite of Bethlehem lived among Judah, perhaps with a mother from Judah; he sinned by serving idols, acting as priest outside Shiloh, and betraying Micah.
365. 7.26The Danite priesthood was held by Moses' descendant Jonathan, unlawfully, since Moses' line were Levites, not priests, perhaps because of Moses' foreign marriage.
366. 7.27Israel was twice defeated by Benjamin because it judged in others the sins it tolerated in itself; the events of Judg 17–21 happened early but were placed after the judges.
367. 7.28The seizure of the Shiloh maidens kept the surviving Benjaminites from marrying foreign women without breaking Israel's oath.
368. 8.1Ruth's story was written because Christ descended from her, and Matthew names Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba to show Christ came for all; it also teaches the virtues of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz.
369. 8.2Naomi's advice and Ruth's night at Boaz's feet were chaste; Boaz kept the law of the kinsman and married Ruth, ancestress of David and Christ. The section ends with the preface to Theodoret's questions on Kingdoms.