Hieronymus Oleaster, a "Portuguese Roman Catholic theologian, was born at Lisbon. Some Portuguese writers call him Geronimo de Azambuja, because
they regard him as a native of that place. About 1520 he joined the
Dominicans, and acquired great reputation for his proficiency in
philosophy, theology, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. In 1545 he went to Italy,
and was one of the theologians appointed by Juan III of Portugal to
take part in the Council of Trent. After his return he was appointed
bishop of St. Thomas, in Africa, but declined, preferring to continue
his literary labors. He, however, filled the office of inquisitor, and
several others in his order, He died in 1663. Oleaster wrote Commentaria in Pentateuchum Moysi (Lisbon, 1556. fol. Antwerp, 1568, and Lyons, 1586,1589, fol.): — In Esaiam Commentaria (Paris, 1623, 1658, fol.). See Antoine de Sienne, Bibl. Donzin.; N. Antonio, Bibl. ispana Nova; Echard, Scriptores ord. Prcedicat.; Hook, Ecclesiastes Biog. 7:460." (source). The following is excerpted from his Commentaria in Pentateuchum Moysi. It appears to me to be more of a series of study notes rather than a commentary as such. The translation was done using ChatGPT.
Gen 3:9 “He said to him: ‘Where are you?’”
The Hebrew expression ayekka (אַיֶּכָּה) seems to be composed of ’ai (“alas!” or “ah!”) and ekka (“you”), that is, “alas for you,” or “where are you?” In many passages of Scripture it means “how,” as in Jeremiah 2: ’eich (אֵיךְ), “How do you say, ‘I am not defiled’?” And in Lamentations 1, ’eichah (אֵיכָה), “How does she sit solitary?”
Gen 3:10-12 “I was afraid because I was naked.”
That is, “I was laid bare.”
“The woman whom you placed with me”—that is, “to be with me”—“gave me the fruit.”
Gen 3:13 “The serpent deceived me.”
The meaning of the verb nasha’ (נָשָׁא) is uncertain, but most often it signifies “to lead astray,” “to deceive.” Thus in Isaiah 19: nissu’ means “the princes of Noph have been deceived.”
Gen 3:14 “Cursed are you.”
This does not seem to be derived from the same root as “Noph,” but from ’arah (אָרָה), “to curse.” By pronouncing the curse upon the serpent, God, having revealed the first author of the sin, begins to exact vindication. The punishments inflicted upon the serpent show clearly that the serpent was the true sinner. And when He says, “Cursed are you,” the sense is: “Evil shall men invoke upon you,” or “You shall be abominable to humankind above all animals and wild beasts.”
God does not inquire of the serpent why he did this, for He knew that it was crafty and malicious, and therefore acted according to its disposition; yet it shall not go unpunished.
“Upon your belly you shall go.”
The Hebrew word gachon (גָּחוֹן) has an uncertain meaning. Following the Chaldee paraphrase, some translate it “belly.” Jerome and those who follow him translate “breast,” and Jerome’s view seems more probable, for before this the serpent may have gone upon its belly but not upon its breast, which it held raised; now it moves with the breast dragging. Yet it matters little whether one says “belly” or “breast.”
The same word appears in Leviticus 11, where it is said: “Every creature that goes upon the gachon,” that is, upon the belly or breast.
“Dust you shall eat.”
For previously it appears to have eaten herbs, as other animals do. Four punishments are listed here as inflicted on the serpent: being cursed above all beasts; going on its belly; eating dust perpetually; and being hostile to the woman and her seed, so that it would never again deceive by social intercourse with humankind. And this indeed is what happened, for the woman especially is hostile to the serpent.
Gen 3:15 “And between your seed and her seed.”
Here the reading of the Hebrews is fully certain. They say it means “he has planted me” or “laid snares for me,” as in Job 37: tuphen—“he shall be amazed.”
“He will crush your head.”
That is, “the seed of the woman,” that is, “the human being,” will crush your head, or strike your head; and you will lie in wait for his heel. And this is true in fact, for a person who knows that a serpent lives even when cut in two, does not trouble to cut the body but crushes the head if possible. The serpent, however, since it cannot lift its body, lies in ambush for the heel to bite it.
Notice, however, that the word ha‘aqev (הָעָקֵב), “heel,” is derived from ’aqav (עָקַב), which can mean “to deceive,” “to supplant,” “to hinder,” “to hold back,” and translators render it according to the sense proper to the context. It seems to me to signify “to lie in wait,” especially from behind, or “to take from behind.” Hosea 12: “In the womb he ‘aqav,” that is, “he took his brother from behind,” or “supplanted him.” Jeremiah 9: “Every brother will utterly ‘aqov ya‘qov,” that is, “supplant by supplanting,” or “lie in wait by lying in wait.” And below in Genesis 27: “He rightly called his name Jacob (Ya‘aqob), for he has ‘aqav me,” that is, “supplanted me.”
Likewise in Jeremiah 17, ‘aqov means “treacherous” or “deceitful”: “The heart is ‘aqov above all things.” Isaiah 40: “Every ‘aqov,” that is, “every crooked thing,” shall be made straight. From this also comes ‘eqeb, “wage,” because wage follows work as if from behind.
Here, however, it seems to mean “to lie in wait from behind,” just as the serpent lies in wait for the human being, and the human being for the serpent.
Gen 3:16 “Multiplying I will multiply your pain and your conception.”
It is not fully certain what heron (הֵרוֹן), which we translate “conception,” signifies. Examining the passages where the verb hasah appears, it seems to mean “to compress,” “to be compressed,” or “to feel distress,” for distress is like a compression.
In 1 Samuel 1: “And she was not hasah,” that is, “she was not distressed,” referring to the woman abandoned. Vahasuvath—“the one compressed in spirit”—the Lord has called you. In Isaiah 63: “They heisebu,” that is, “they compressed the Spirit of His holiness.” More clearly in Job 10: “Your hands have hasebu,” that is, “have shaped or compressed me,” as a potter presses clay when forming a vessel.
Ecclesiastes 10: “He who moves stones will be yehassev,” that is, “pressed” or “distressed,” by them. Hence haseb, meaning “idol,” is so called because it is compressed like a potter’s vessel. Isaiah 48: “Lest he say, ‘My idol (hasebi) has done this,’” that is, “my compression has made this.”
Therefore the word here seems to signify “distress” or “compression,” and thus we have translated it: “I will multiply your distresses, your compressions, and your gestation.”
You must not understand this as multiplying offspring, for that was a great gift which the Lord granted women at that time; and such a punishment was not to be inflicted upon all women: not all women have multiplied offspring. Rather, the discourse is about the time of conception.
The Lord had decreed that the woman, after receiving seed and the form of the fetus being completed, would emit it quickly and would not carry it in the womb for months with great discomfort. Therefore, as a penalty for sin, He multiplied the time of gestation, which the word heron seems to indicate, since it signifies not only conception but pregnancy, as the verb harah means “to be pregnant.” Hence it might be rendered “your pregnancy.”
And beyond this, He willed that she give birth in distress or compression. She will not only be compressed in gestation but also in birth, and not only in the first child but in all births.
“And to your husband shall be your desire or turning.”
The sense is that as a penalty for sin the woman will have desire for her husband—she will long for him in his absence—and all her desires and movements will be under the power of her husband; as if He said: “Your desire shall be in the power of your husband,” and He explains it immediately: “He will rule over you.” Previously the woman could desire many things effectively with her husband’s consent; similarly she could go here and there; but on account of this sin such freedom has been taken away.
Notice also that we have translated this word as “desire” or “movement,” because the verb shuḥ (שׁוּחַ) signifies both “to desire” and “to flow” or “to run.” Its primary meaning is “to run” or “to flow,” and consequently “to desire,” because desire flows hither and thither.
Examples show this. Psalm 65: “You have visited the earth and teshuqkeha,” that is, “you have caused it to run,” meaning with waters. Joel 2: “The winepresses will shaqqu,” that is, “flow.” From this also comes shuq meaning “street,” from the running together of people. So too “thigh” or “leg,” because the animal runs with it.
Nahum 2: “The streets will shoqeq,” that is, “run or rush.”
This is also confirmed from the meaning of the verb sakak, which has the same meaning as shuḥ, signifying “to run about,” as in Joel 2: “They will sakkek in the city,” that is, “run through it.” Likewise sakah, “to irrigate,” which is as it were “to make waters run.”
Do not be surprised if in such matters we do not follow the Hebrews, for since they often assign meanings by conjecture, if we find better meanings it is not strange to prefer them. Yet we try, as far as possible, to take one of the meanings that they give the word, and avoid multiplying meanings as they sometimes do.
That teshuqah (תְּשׁוּקָה) signifies “desire” is shown later in chapter 4: “Toward you shall be his teshuqah,” that is, “his desire,” to which Jerome adds, “Under you shall be his desire.” Likewise in the Song of Songs 7: “I am my beloved’s, and toward me (teshuqato) is his desire.” It could also be rendered, “And toward me, or on account of me, is his movement.”
Gen 3:17 “Because you have listened”—that is, obeyed.
Scripture frequently uses “to hear” for “to obey,” meaning “to hear so as to do.”
“Cursed is the ground because of you.”
What this curse consists in He immediately explains. As we have said, God’s blessing is to do good, and His curse is to do evil or to punish.
“In distress you shall eat of it all the days of your life.”
This distress may refer either to the human being or to the ground. If you refer it to the human being, the sense is: “In your distress, that is, in hardship and labor, you will eat of the fruit of the ground.” If you refer it to the ground—which I prefer—the sense is: “By compressing and distressing the earth you will eat of it,” as if He said: “It will not feed and nourish you by itself, but only when compressed and forced by you will it give you food.”
This meaning seems closer to the truth, since He had just threatened a curse upon the earth.
Gen 3:18 “It shall bring forth for you thorn and thistle.
The Hebrew word qōs (‘thorn’) comes, the Hebrews say, from qûs, which they claim signifies being afflicted with narrowness, or being roused, awakened, heated, and other meanings; and this is because they do not know its proper meaning. From contextual hints, however, the verb seems rather to mean ‘to come to an end,’ ‘to fail,’ since what fails comes to its end; and also ‘to cut off,’ which is to bring something to its end. From these three ideas—end, failing, and cutting off—or from fear of something on account of which you fail, they inferred this meaning.
The first example comes from Isaiah 7, “Before the child knows how to call ‘father’ and ‘mother,’ the land which you qās will be forsaken”—where the Vulgate has, “which you detest.”
Again Genesis 27, qāsaṯî, “I fail,” “I come to an end” because of the daughters of Heth—which we in our own tongue translate, “I am at my end” or “I cannot endure it.”
Likewise Numbers 21, “Our soul qāsâh,” that is, “fails,” “is at an end,” because of this very light bread, as if they were saying, “This bread does not fill us; we are failing with it.”
Also Leviticus 20, “All these things they have done, and I have qās them,” that is, “I have made them fail,” or “I have brought them to an end”—and many other places like this.
And because summer (qayits) is the end of the year, or because at that season men faint on account of the heat, the word signifies “to summer,” and qayits means summer. The verb appears in Isaiah 18, weqāyits, “He shall summer upon it, all the birds of the air, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon it.”
In that passage where they say the verb means “to awake,” we can also translate it “to bring to an end,” as in Ezekiel 7, “The end has come, the end has come; it has heqîṣ against you,” that is, “it has awakened” or “it has come to its end against you.” We can also translate, “It has made an end against you.”
Likewise 2 Kings 4, “The child has not heqîṣ,” that is, “has not awakened”—which can also be rendered, “the child has not ended,” namely, “has not completed the sleep of death.”
So Isaiah 29, weheqîṣ, “He shall awake,” or “he shall finish his sleep, and his soul shall be empty.”
Thus qōs signifies “thorn,” because when fully grown it becomes dry, or because it pricks, since at that stage it becomes harder. Rabbi Abraham says that qōs is the larger thorn and dardar, which follows here immediately, the smaller; and he rightly thinks that it grows among the crops, because the text says that instead of grain the earth would bring forth thorns.
The next word, dardar, has an unknown sense among the Hebrews, for they almost never know the meaning of proper names. In Bereshit Rabbah it is explained as “thistle.” Jerome translates it “brier.”
It appears in Hosea 10, “Thorn and dardar,” that is, “thorn and brier (or thistle) shall spring up.”
What follows, “It shall germinate for you,” can also be translated, “It will cause to sprout for you.”
“You shall eat the herb of the field.”
From this place it seems that earlier it had been permitted to eat grains and seeds, but now he is restricted to eating the herbs. But perhaps more fittingly: before, he ate of the delightful fruits of the garden; now he is again sent out to eat the herbs, for earlier it had been said to him: “From every tree of the garden you shall eat.”
Gen 3:19 “In the sweat of your face (or of your nostrils) you shall eat your bread.”
The Hebrews do not know what this word properly signifies. They think the root of the word is yāzah, “to sweat,” whence yāzah, “sweat”—as in Ezekiel 44, “They shall not gird themselves in yāzah,” that is, “in sweat.” The sense is that man must eat his bread in great labor, since sweat comes only from much work.
Until you return to the earth, for from it you were taken, which he immediately explains: “for you are dust.” Notice that, as we advised in the canon, Scripture here explains what it had said obscurely.
Observe also the six kinds of punishments inflicted on man because of sin:
First, that on his account the earth is cursed.
Second, that he eats from it in distress.
Third, that it will produce for him thorns and thistles.
Fourth, that he shall eat the herb of the field.
Fifth, that he shall eat bread in the sweat of his brow.
Sixth, that he shall return to dust.
Gen 3:20 “And Adam called the name of his wife Chawwāh,” which we corruptly pronounce “Eve.”
Notice: Chawwāh is used for Chayyāh, for the reason of the name is: “because she was to be the mother of all the living.” Now ḥawwāh does not mean “to live,” but “to announce,” whereas ḥayyāh means “to live.” And the letters waw and yod are interchangeable, as grammar shows.
Gen 3:21 “Tunics of skin,” that is, from hides—and to make these it was necessary to kill animals.
Gen 3:22 “Behold, the man has become as one of us.”
These words are spoken, I believe, as words of honor directed to the angels—just as in chapter 11: “Let us confuse their language.”
“To know good and evil.”
For he was already like God in his soul.
“And now, lest perhaps he put forth his hand and also take of the tree of life…”
The Lord God willed that Adam should bear the penalty imposed upon him—namely, death—which God had threatened; yet God does not truly threaten in the sense of deception. Some say God, out of great mercy, did not wish Adam to have perpetual life lest his miserable life be prolonged. Since some wish life to continue however miserable it may be, I think it truer that God did not will that such life be perpetuated. Thus ʿōlām (age, world) more often signifies “perpetual,” but if you look to its root, which means “to be hidden,” it seems to signify something obscure or unknown—like a long or enduring time.
Gen 3:23 “The Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he had been taken.”
That is, to cultivate the earth from which he had been formed.
Gen 3:24 “And he drove out Adam,” that is, he cast him out of the garden.
The verb gāraš signifies “to cast out,” and gērēs means “that which is cast forth,” like the fruit which is cast out of the bud. Deuteronomy 33, “Of the fruit of gērēs,” that is, “the casting forth of the moon,” meaning “that which it casts forth or produces.”
“And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim.”
The verb šākan means “to dwell,” and the sense is that he “caused the cherubim to dwell” before the garden where its entrance was, as is immediately stated. “Cherubim” is a plural noun, so it seems he placed not one but many.
It should also be noted, as Ibn Ezra says, that “cherub” is a genus-name, a universal term for any such figure; the ones in the Law have a human form, such as those now painted, whereas those in Ezekiel have the four-faced form described there.
The Hebrew sages think the letter kaph is not radical in “cherub,” but that the root is rabia, meaning “youth,” and they believed these cherubim were like children—something I do not believe, since in Ezekiel some of them do not have a human form.
“A flaming sword.”
The verb lāhaṭ signifies a flashing flame, as is said in the same place: “each of the four had a flaming appearance.” Others interpret cherub as “carved,” and cherubim as “carved figures.” Jerome interprets it as “multitude of knowledge,” from nākar (to recognize) and rab (multitude). But it seems better to say they are called cherubim from kharabbîm, “many,” that is, “a multitude,” because they exist in great number.
“And the flame of the sword.” Or, as Pagninus translates, “the flaming fire,” as in Psalm 104, “He makes his ministers a flaming fire.” The lahat is the edge of the sword, which shines like a flame. Thus the Targum translates here: “And the edge of the sword.” Therefore in Exodus 7, “The magicians of Egypt did likewise belāṭehēm,” which should be translated “by their flashes,” or “their gleamings,” because, as Rabbi David says, they performed their enchantments upon the gleam of a sword.
“Turning,” that is, able to turn easily—or better, “whose edge was turned toward either side,” or “which had an edge on either side.” It could also be translated, “The edge of the sword turning or revolving.”
Thus: “The edge of the sword turning to guard the way to the tree of life.”
From this it seems the sword had a single point, but that that point was turned toward the way of the tree of life.
Learn also from this how utterly mistaken are those who say this garden is the whole world, when here you read that man was enclosed there first and then cast out.
It also stands that the tree of life was not immediately uprooted nor the garden destroyed, but remained for a long time; for had man remained there, he could have eaten of it perpetually. It is most remarkable that this place has never since been known or found; yet it could be that the waters of the Flood overthrew the trees of that place.
CONTINUE.
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