“Some ask how the people can be told that God gave the order that he would lead them from Egypt into the land of Canaan, while Pharaoh was told that they wanted to make three days' journey into the desert to offer sacrifice to their god by his command. But the passage should be understood thus: although God knew what he was going to do and knew that Pharaoh would not agree to dismiss the people, that fact was to be stated first that would also happen first, if Pharaoh let the people go. The contumacy of Pharaoh and his courtiers merited everything that happened, to which the Scripture afterward attests. God is not lying when he commands what he knows is not going to be done by the one he commands; his purpose is to obtain a just judgment.”

“Let us then become lowly, that we may be high. For most utterly does arrogance abase. This abased Pharaoh. For, "I know not," he says, "the Lord," and he became inferior to flies and frogs and the locusts, and after that with his very arms and horses was he drowned in the sea. In direct opposition to him, Abraham says, "I am dust and ashes" and prevailed over countless barbarians, and having fallen into the midst of Egyptians, returned, bearing a trophy more glorious than the former, and, cleaving to this virtue, grew ever more high.”

“What else is this than what was signified by the taskmasters of Pharaoh, of whom it is said in Exodus 1, that they hated the children of Israel and brought them to bitterness, afflicting them with hard labors of clay and brick, and with every kind of servitude? And hear what the Gloss says on that passage of Exodus 5: Why, Moses and Aaron, do you disturb the people from their works? Go to your burdens: "Today if Moses and Aaron, that is, the prophetic and priestly word, should urge a soul to the service of God, to go out from the world, to renounce all that one possesses, to attend to the law and the word of God; immediately you will hear the unanimous friends of Pharaoh saying: See how men are seduced, and young people are perverted, so that they neither labor, nor serve in the military, nor do anything profitable, and having abandoned necessary affairs, they pursue idleness and leisure! What is it to serve God? They do not wish to labor and they seek occasions for idleness. These were then the words of Pharaoh, these also his friends now speak, and they persecute not only with words, but also with blows."”

“When both the good and the bad do the same things and suffer the same things, they are to be distinguished by their intentions, not by their acts and penalties. Pharaoh oppressed the people of God with hard labors; Moses afflicted the same people, who had fallen into idolatry, with severe punishments. They did the same things, but they did not aim at the same result. The former was puffed up with pride of power, the latter was animated by love.”

“Even Pharaoh knew that it was proper for one to seek God when he was unoccupied, and for this reason he reproached Israel: "You are unoccupied, you are idle, and you say, 'We shall offer prayers to the Lord, our God.' " Now leisure itself is good and useful to him who is unoccupied, since it produces quiet for the acquisition of salutary doctrines. But the leisure of the Athenians was evil, "who used to spend all their leisure telling or listening to something new." Even at the present time some imitate this, misusing the leisure of life for the discovery of some newer teaching.”

“In Moses and Aaron the law and the prophets are prefigured. A sick soul often murmurs to itself against the sacred words. After it has begun to hear and follow the heavenly words, the opposition of the Egyptian king—that is, the temptation of an evil spirit—rises up. So the physician should carefully make known to the soul that is making progress which temptations will attack it, so that it can carefully prepare itself for the snares of an evil spirit. Exposition of the Old and New Testament, Exodus”