Father Noel Alexandre's Literal Commentary on 1 Peter 1:3-9

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 Translated by Qwen. 1 Pet 1:3–4: The Blessing of Regeneration "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you." We ought to give immortal thanks to God, to offer Him continually the sacrifice of praise, on account of His infinite goodness toward His elect. It belongs to the Eternal Father to choose the members of His Son, the adopted children who are co-heirs with the Only-Begotten. Let us seek no other reason for this election than mercy, whose greatness cannot be worthily expressed in human words. He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Us, unworthy sinners, His enemies, deserving of eternal punishments, He has regenerated through Baptism; and, the oldness which we had contracted from Adam in our first birth being abolished, He ...
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Rabanus Maurus' Commentary on Exodus 17:3-7

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On the Journey of the Children of Israel from the Desert of Sin to Rephidim, where the People Murmured on Account of the Lack of Water:

"Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel set out from the desert of Sin by stages, according to the word of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. And the people quarreled with Moses and said: Give us water to drink. Moses replied to them: Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? And the people thirsted there for lack of water, and murmured against Moses, saying: Why have you brought us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" (Exodus 17:1–3).

Rephidim is a place in the desert near Mount Horeb. The whole wilderness as far as Mount Sinai is called Sin, and from the name of the whole region even the place of a single encampment takes its name — just as Moab is the name both of a city and of a province. In this wilderness there are five stopping-places: Suph, the desert of Sin, Daphca, Alush, and Rephidim. Hence it is briefly noted in Exodus: "The whole congregation of the children of Israel set out from the desert of Sin by stages according to the mouth of the Lord, and came to Rephidim" (Exodus 17:1). From this it is clear that several stopping-places are indicated by the name of a single region.

"Moses cried out to the Lord, saying: What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me. The Lord said to Moses: Go before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river." (Exodus 17:4–5).

According to the reading of Aaron — not Moses — it was Aaron who struck the river with the staff. For Moses divided the sea with that same staff, not the river. From Augustine: What then does it mean when it says "the staff with which you struck the river"? Did he perhaps call the sea a river? If so, an example of this usage should be sought. Or is what Aaron did rather attributed to Moses, because it was through Moses that God commanded what Aaron did? Indeed God said to him at the very beginning concerning his brother: "He shall be your spokesman to the people, and you shall be to him as God" (Exodus 4:16).

"Behold, I will stand before you there upon the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel — and he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the children of Israel, and because they tested the Lord, saying: Is the Lord among us or not?" (Exodus 17:6–7).

From Isidore: After the manna, the people complain from the burning of thirst, and a spring burst forth from the rock. Now that same rock which, when struck, caused water to flow had the form of Christ, from whose opening everything flowed. The wood of the Passion came to him as it were like a staff, so that grace might flow out for believers. For when struck, the spring flowed; Christ, struck upon the cross, poured out upon the thirsty the grace of the washing and the gift of the Holy Spirit. That this rock had the form of Christ the Apostle proves when he says: "They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4).

As for the fact that the thirsty people murmur against Moses on account of water, and God therefore commands him to show them the rock from which they may drink — what does this signify, if not that if there is anyone who, reading Moses, murmurs against him and finds the Law as written according to the letter displeasing, Moses shows him the rock which is Christ, and leads him to Christ himself, so that he may drink from him and quench his thirst?

CONTINUE

 

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