Wisdom 15:18-19:22
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Second Example Resumed
18 [a]Besides, they worship the most loathsome beasts—(A)
as regards stupidity, these are worse than the rest,[b]
19 For beasts are neither good-looking nor desirable;
they have escaped both the approval of God and his blessing.(B)
Chapter 16
1 Therefore they[c] were fittingly punished by similar creatures,
and were tormented by a swarm of insects.(C)
2 Instead of this punishment, you benefited your people
with a novel dish, the delight they craved,
by providing quail for their food,(D)
3 So that those others, when they desired food,
should lose their appetite even for necessities,
since the creatures sent to plague them were so loathsome,
While these, after a brief period of privation,
partook of a novel dish.(E)
4 For inexorable want had to come upon those oppressors;
but these needed only to be shown how their enemies were being tormented.(F)
5 For when the dire venom of beasts came upon them(G)
and they were dying from the bite of crooked serpents,
your anger endured not to the end.
6 But as a warning, for a short time they were terrorized,
though they had a sign[d] of salvation, to remind them of the precept of your law.
7 For the one who turned toward it was saved,
not by what was seen,
but by you, the savior of all.
8 By this also you convinced our foes
that you are the one who delivers from all evil.(H)
9 For the bites of locusts and of flies slew them,
and no remedy was found to save their lives
because they deserved to be punished by such means;(I)
10 But not even the fangs of poisonous reptiles overcame your children,
for your mercy came forth and healed them.(J)
11 For as a reminder of your injunctions, they were stung,
and swiftly they were saved,
Lest they should fall into deep forgetfulness
and become unresponsive to your beneficence.(K)
12 For indeed, neither herb nor application cured them,
but your all-healing word, O Lord!(L)
13 [e]For you have dominion over life and death;(M)
you lead down to the gates of Hades and lead back.
14 Human beings, however, may kill another with malice,
but they cannot bring back the departed spirit,
or release the soul that death has confined.
15 Your hand no one can escape.
Third Example: A Rain of Manna for Israel Instead of the Plague of Storms
16 For the wicked who refused to know you
were punished by the might of your arm,
Were pursued by unusual rains and hailstorms and unremitting downpours,
and were consumed by fire.(N)
17 For against all expectation, in water which quenches everything,
the fire grew more active;
For the universe fights on behalf of the righteous.(O)
18 Then the flame was tempered(P)
so that the beasts that were sent upon the wicked might not be burnt up,
but that these might see and know that they were struck by the judgment of God;
19 And again, even in the water, fire blazed beyond its strength
so as to consume the produce of the wicked land.
20 Instead of this, you nourished your people with food of angels[f]
and furnished them bread from heaven, ready to hand, untoiled-for,
endowed with all delights and conforming to every taste.(Q)
21 For this substance of yours revealed your sweetness toward your children,
and serving the desire of the one who received it,
was changed to whatever flavor each one wished.(R)
22 Yet snow and ice[g] withstood fire and were not melted,
so that they might know that their enemies’ fruits
Were consumed by a fire that blazed in the hail
and flashed lightning in the rain.(S)
23 But this fire, again, in order that the righteous might be nourished,
forgot even its proper strength;(T)
24 For your creation, serving you, its maker,
grows tense for punishment against the wicked,
but is relaxed in benefit for those who trust in you.(U)
25 Therefore at that very time, transformed in all sorts of ways,
it was serving your all-nourishing bounty
according to what they needed and desired;
26 That your children whom you loved might learn, O Lord,
that it is not the various kinds of fruits that nourish,
but your word that preserves those who believe you!(V)
27 For what was not destroyed by fire,
melted when merely warmed by a momentary sunbeam;(W)
28 To make known that one must give you thanks before sunrise,
and turn to you at daybreak.(X)
29 For the hope of the ungrateful melts like a wintry frost
and runs off like useless water.(Y)
Chapter 17
Fourth Example: Darkness Afflicts the Egyptians, While the Israelites Have Light[h]
1 For great are your judgments, and hard to describe;
therefore the unruly souls went astray.(Z)
2 For when the lawless thought to enslave the holy nation,
they themselves lay shackled with darkness, fettered by the long night,
confined beneath their own roofs as exiles from the eternal providence.(AA)
3 For they, who supposed their secret sins were hid(AB)
under the dark veil of oblivion,
Were scattered in fearful trembling,
terrified by apparitions.
4 For not even their inner chambers kept them unafraid,
for crashing sounds on all sides terrified them,
and mute phantoms with somber looks appeared.
5 No fire had force enough to give light,
nor did the flaming brilliance of the stars
succeed in lighting up that gloomy night.(AC)
6 But only intermittent, fearful fires
flashed through upon them;
And in their terror they thought beholding these was worse
than the times when that sight was no longer to be seen.(AD)
7 And mockeries of their magic art[i] failed,
and there was a humiliating refutation of their vaunted shrewdness.(AE)
8 For they who undertook to banish fears and terrors from the sick soul
themselves sickened with ridiculous fear.
9 For even though no monstrous thing frightened them,
they shook at the passing of insects and the hissing of reptiles,(AF)
10 And perished trembling,
reluctant to face even the air that they could nowhere escape.
11 For wickedness, of its nature cowardly, testifies in its own condemnation,
and because of a distressed conscience, always magnifies misfortunes.(AG)
12 For fear is nought but the surrender of the helps that come from reason;
13 and the more one’s expectation is of itself uncertain,
the more one makes of not knowing the cause that brings on torment.
14 So they, during that night, powerless though it was,
since it had come upon them from the recesses of a powerless[j] Hades,
while all sleeping the same sleep,
15 Were partly smitten by fearsome apparitions
and partly stricken by their souls’ surrender;
for fear overwhelmed them, sudden and unexpected.(AH)
16 Thus, then, whoever was there fell
into that prison without bars and was kept confined.(AI)
17 For whether one was a farmer, or a shepherd,
or a worker at tasks in the wasteland,
Taken unawares, each served out the inescapable sentence;
18 for all were bound by the one bond of darkness.(AJ)
And were it only the whistling wind,
or the melodious song of birds in the spreading branches,
Or the steady sound of rushing water,
19 or the rude crash of overthrown rocks,
Or the unseen gallop of bounding animals,
or the roaring cry of the fiercest beasts,
Or an echo resounding from the hollow of the hills—
these sounds, inspiring terror, paralyzed them.
20 For the whole world shone with brilliant light(AK)
and continued its works without interruption;
21 But over them alone was spread oppressive night,
an image of the darkness[k] that was about to come upon them.
Yet they were more a burden to themselves than was the darkness.
Chapter 18
1 But your holy ones had very great light;
And those others, who heard their voices but did not see their forms,
counted them blest for not having suffered;
2 And because they who formerly had been wronged did not harm them, they thanked them,
and because of the difference between them,[l] pleaded with them.
3 Instead of this, you furnished the flaming pillar,
a guide on the unknown way,
and the mild sun for an honorable migration.(AL)
4 [m]For they deserved to be deprived of light and imprisoned by darkness,
they had kept your children confined,
through whom the imperishable light of the law was to be given to the world.(AM)
Fifth Example: Death of the Egyptian Firstborn; the Israelites Are Spared
5 When they determined to put to death the infants of the holy ones,
and when a single boy[n] had been cast forth and then saved,
As a reproof you carried off a multitude of their children
and made them perish all at once in the mighty water.(AN)
6 That night was known beforehand to our ancestors,
so that, with sure knowledge of the oaths in which they put their faith, they might have courage.(AO)
7 The expectation of your people
was the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of their foes.(AP)
8 For by the same means with which you punished our adversaries,
you glorified us whom you had summoned.(AQ)
9 For in secret the holy children of the good were offering sacrifice
and carried out with one mind the divine institution,[o]
So that your holy ones should share alike the same blessings and dangers,
once they had sung the ancestral hymns of praise.(AR)
10 But the discordant cry of their enemies echoed back,
and the piteous wail of mourning for children was borne to them.(AS)
11 And the slave was smitten with the same retribution as the master;
even the commoner suffered the same as the king.(AT)
12 And all alike by one common form of death
had countless dead;
For the living were not even sufficient for the burial,
since at a single instant their most valued offspring had been destroyed.(AU)
13 For though they disbelieved at every turn on account of sorceries,
at the destruction of the firstborn they acknowledged that this people[p] was God’s son.(AV)
14 [q]For when peaceful stillness encompassed everything
and the night in its swift course was half spent,
15 Your all-powerful word from heaven’s royal throne
leapt into the doomed land,(AW)
16 a fierce warrior bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree,
And alighted, and filled every place with death,
and touched heaven, while standing upon the earth.(AX)
17 Then, at once, visions in horrible dreams perturbed them(AY)
and unexpected fears assailed them;
18 And cast half-dead, one here, another there,
they revealed why they were dying.
19 For the dreams that disturbed them had proclaimed this beforehand,
lest they perish unaware of why they endured such evil.
20 The trial of death touched even the righteous,
and in the desert a plague struck the multitude;
Yet not for long did the anger last.(AZ)
21 For the blameless man[r] hastened to be their champion,
bearing the weapon of his special office,
prayer and the propitiation of incense;
He withstood the wrath and put a stop to the calamity,
showing that he was your servant.
22 He overcame the bitterness
not by bodily strength, not by force of arms;
But by word he overcame the smiter,[s]
recalling the sworn covenants with their ancestors.(BA)
23 For when corpses had already fallen one on another in heaps,
he stood in the midst and checked the anger,
and cut off its way to the living.(BB)
24 For on his full-length robe was the whole world,
and ancestral glories were carved on the four rows of stones,
and your grandeur[t] was on the crown upon his head.(BC)
25 To these the destroyer yielded, these he feared;
for this sole trial of anger sufficed.(BD)
Chapter 19
1 But merciless wrath assailed the wicked until the end,
for God knew beforehand what they were yet to do:(BE)
2 That though they themselves had agreed to the departure
and had anxiously sent them on their way,
they would regret it and pursue them.(BF)
3 For while they were still engaged in funeral rites
and mourning at the burials of the dead,
They adopted another senseless plan:
those whom they had driven out with entreaties
they now pursued as fugitives.(BG)
4 For a compulsion appropriate to this ending drew them on,
and made them forget what had befallen them,
That they might complete the torments of their punishment,
5 and your people might experience a glorious[u] journey
while those others met an extraordinary death.
6 [v]For all creation, in its several kinds, was being made over anew,
serving your commands, that your children might be preserved unharmed.(BH)
7 The cloud overshadowed their camp;
and out of what had been water, dry land was seen emerging:
Out of the Red Sea an unimpeded road,
and a grassy plain out of the mighty flood.(BI)
8 Over this crossed the whole nation sheltered by your hand,
and they beheld stupendous wonders.
9 For they ranged about like horses,
and leapt like lambs,
praising you, Lord, their deliverer.(BJ)
10 For they were still mindful of what had happened in their sojourn:
how instead of the young of animals the land brought forth gnats,
and instead of fishes the river swarmed with countless frogs.(BK)
11 And later they saw also a new kind of bird(BL)
when, prompted by desire, they asked for pleasant foods;
12 For to appease them quail came to them from the sea.
13 And the punishments came upon the sinners
not without forewarnings from the violence of the thunderbolts.
For they justly suffered for their own misdeeds,
since they treated their guests with the more grievous[w] hatred.(BM)
14 For those others[x] did not receive unfamiliar visitors,(BN)
but these were enslaving beneficent guests.
15 And not that only; but what punishment was to be theirs[y]
since they received strangers unwillingly!
16 Yet these,[z] after welcoming them with festivities,
oppressed with awful toils
those who had shared with them the same rights.(BO)
17 And they were struck with blindness,[aa]
as those others had been at the doors of the righteous man—
When, surrounded by yawning darkness,
each sought the entrance of his own door.(BP)
18 For the elements, in ever-changing harmony,
like strings of the harp, produce new melody,
while the flow of music steadily persists.
And this can be perceived exactly from a review of what took place.
19 For land creatures were changed into water creatures,
and those that swam went over on land.
20 Fire in water maintained its own strength,(BQ)
and water forgot its quenching nature;
21 Flames, by contrast, neither consumed the flesh
of the perishable animals that went about in them,
nor melted the icelike, quick-melting kind of ambrosial food.
22 For every way, Lord! you magnified and glorified your people;
unfailing, you stood by them in every time and circumstance.(BR)
Footnotes
- 15:18–19 The author here returns (11:15; 12:23–27) to the main theme of chaps. 11–19, which was interrupted by the digression of 13:1–15:17.
- 15:18 Worse than the rest: this may mean that the creatures worshiped by the Egyptians (e.g., crocodiles, serpents, scarabs, etc.) were less intelligent than the general run of beasts.
- 16:1 They: the Egyptian idolaters, who are punished according to the principle laid down in 11:5, 15–16.
- 16:6 Sign: the brazen serpent, as related in Numbers 21, but the author deliberately avoids any misunderstanding by addressing the Lord as responsible for the healing, since he is “the savior of all” (v. 7; see also vv. 12 and 26 for the role of the “word” of God).
- 16:13–14 The author recognizes the power of the Lord over life and death, as expressed in 1 Sm 2:6; Tb 13:2. The traditional imagery of Sheol (gates and confinement) colors the passage.
- 16:20 Food of angels: the famous phrase (cf. the hymn “Panis Angelicus”) is taken from Ps 78:24 as rendered by the Septuagint. The “bread from heaven” (cf. Ex 16:4; Ps 105:40) with its marvelous “sweetness” becomes a type of the “bread come down from heaven” in Jn 6:32–51, and plays a large role in later Christian devotion.
- 16:22 Snow and ice: the manna; cf. v. 27; 19:21.
- 17:1–18:4 The description of the darkness of the ninth plague is a very creative development of Ex 10:21–29. It betrays a wide knowledge of contemporary thought. For the first and only time in the Septuagint the Greek word for “conscience” occurs, in 17:11. There is no Hebrew word that is equivalent; the idea is expressed indirectly. The horrendous darkness is illumined by “fires” (v. 6), i.e., lightnings that only contributed to the terror.
- 17:7 Magic art: the Egyptian magicians who were successful at first (Ex 7:11, 22) and then failed (Ex 8:14; 9:11) are now powerless against the darkness and the phantoms and are totally discredited.
- 17:14 Powerless: Hades (or Sheol), i.e., the nether world, is often portrayed in the Old Testament as a hostile power, since all must die (Ps 49:8–13), but it has no power against God.
- 17:21 Darkness: of Hades or Sheol; see note on 16:13–14.
- 18:2 The difference between them: God’s distinctive manner of treating the Israelites and the Egyptians according to their respective deeds. Pleaded: perhaps, for their departure.
- 18:4 The discussion of physical light climaxes with a reference to the “imperishable light” of the torah.
- 18:5 Single boy: Moses.
- 18:9 Divine institution: the Passover. Ancestral hymns of praise: possibly the Hallel psalms, the psalms sung at the end of the Passover meal; cf. Mt 26:30; Mk 14:26.
- 18:13 People: the Israelites (cf. Ex 4:22).
- 18:14–16 These verses attribute to the personified “word” the actions of the Lord mentioned in Ex 12:13–17 (note the role of the “destroyer” in Ex 12:23 and compare Wis 18:22, 25).
- 18:21 Blameless man: Aaron, acting according to his office of high priest and intercessor (cf. Nm 17:9–15; Ex 28:15–21, 31–38).
- 18:22 Smiter: the destroying angel; cf. v. 25.
- 18:24 Glories…grandeur: the name of God and the names of the tribes were inscribed on the high priest’s apparel.
- 19:5 Glorious: more precisely, “wondrous,” but the word reflects “glorified” in 18:8 and 19:22.
- 19:6 The cooperation of creation in Israel’s deliverance (vv. 7–12) under the direction of the Lord is a favorite theme; cf. 16:24–25.
- 19:13 More grievous: than that of the people of Sodom (Gn 19) with whom the Egyptians are compared.
- 19:14 Others: the people of Sodom refused to receive strangers. Beneficent: because of the services rendered by Joseph.
- 19:15 Theirs: the people of Sodom.
- 19:16 These: the Egyptians.
- 19:17 Blindness: the plague of darkness. Righteous man: Lot (Gn 19:11).
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.