After this, envy rises against him from his own brothers. Envy is the passion from which evil first sprang, the father of death, the first entrance of sin, the root of evil, the source of sorrow, the mother of misfortunes, the foundation of disobedience, the beginning of shame. Envy drove us out of paradise when it became the serpent against Eve. Envy shut us away from the tree of life, stripped us of our sacred clothing, and in shame drove us beneath the branches of the fig tree.
Envy armed Cain against his own nature and introduced the murder for which sevenfold vengeance was decreed. Envy made Joseph a slave. Envy is the deadly sting, the hidden weapon, the disease of nature, a venom like bile, a wasting sickness we bring on ourselves, the bitter arrow, the nail driven into the soul, the fire within, the flame burning in the depths of the body.
For the envious person, what counts as misfortune is not his own suffering but someone else’s good fortune; what counts as success is not his own good but someone else’s misfortune. Envy grieves at the prosperity of others and gloats over their troubles. They say that vultures which feed on corpses are destroyed by perfume, because their nature has become accustomed to what is foul and decayed. In the same way, the person ruled by this disease is undone by the prosperity of friends as though struck by perfume. But if he sees someone suffering misfortune, he swoops down upon it, thrusting in his hooked beak and dragging out the parts of the misfortune that were hidden.
Envy overcame many people before Moses. But when it attacked this great man, it shattered itself like a clay figure dashed against a rock. Here the benefit of Moses’ journey with God became especially clear. He ran in the divine place, stood on the rock, was enclosed within its opening, was covered by the hand of God, and followed behind the One who led him. He did not face God but looked at what was behind Him.
Moses’ experience shows how blessed it is to follow God: he stands beyond the reach of the bow. Envy shoots its arrow at him too, but the shot cannot reach the height where he stands. The bowstring of evil is too weak to send this passion from those already sick with it all the way up to Moses. Aaron and Miriam, however, are wounded by envy. They become, as it were, envy’s bow and shoot words against Moses in place of an arrow.
Moses was so far from sharing in their sickness that he even cured those who were suffering from it. He not only felt no impulse to retaliate against those who had hurt him, but also interceded with God for them. By what he did, he showed, I think, that anyone well protected by the shield of virtue is not wounded by the points of such arrows.
The strength of the armor blunts the arrowhead and turns it back. The armor that protects against such arrows is God Himself, whom the soldier who fights for virtue puts on. For Scripture says, “Put on the Lord Jesus.” This is the unbreakable armor that surrounded Moses and made the evil archer powerless.
No impulse to retaliate against those who had hurt him arose in Moses. And when they were condemned by an impartial judgment, he did not forget what justice toward his own kin required, but pleaded with God for his brothers. He would not have done this if he had not been following behind God, who had shown him His back as a sure guide in the way of virtue.
What follows is similar. Since the enemy of human nature found no opening through which to harm Moses, he turned his attack against those who were easier to capture. He shot the passion of gluttony at the people like an arrow and turned their appetites back toward Egypt: they preferred the meat of Egypt to that heavenly food.
But Moses, whose soul was raised high above such a passion, was wholly intent on the coming inheritance God had promised. It belongs to those who leave the Egypt we have been interpreting and journey toward the land where milk and honey flow. For this reason he appointed scouts to teach the people about the good things found there.
In my view, these scouts represent two kinds of thoughts. Those who set good hopes before us are the thoughts produced by faith, which strengthen our hope in the good things laid up for us. Those who make us despair of better things are thoughts from the adversary, which weaken our faith in what has been promised. Moses pays no attention to the opposing report but trusts the one who promises better things about that land.
Joshua led the scouts who gave the better report, and his assurance showed that the promises could be trusted. Looking to Joshua, Moses held firm hopes for what was to come, taking as a sample of the land’s abundance the cluster of grapes carried back on a pole. And when you hear that this Joshua—“Jesus” in Greek—reports about that land and brings a cluster of grapes hanging from wood, you understand what Moses was looking toward when his hopes became firm.
For what else is the cluster hanging from the wood but the One who, at the end of the ages, hung upon the wood and whose blood becomes a saving drink for those who believe? Moses foretold this to us in a riddle when he said, “They drank wine, the blood of the grape.” Through this the saving Passion is announced beforehand.
Again the people travel through the desert, and those who had despaired of the good things promised to them are worn down by thirst. Once more Moses floods the desert for them through the rock. In the higher meaning, this teaches us about the mystery of repentance. Those who turn aside toward the belly, the flesh, and the pleasures of Egypt after once tasting the rock are condemned to hunger and are cut off from the good things they had shared in.
Yet through repentance they can find again the rock they had left, reopen its stream for themselves, and once more drink deeply from the water it gives. The rock gives this stream to the one who trusts Joshua’s report more than the opposing reports and looks toward the cluster that dripped blood for us and was stained with blood. It is this person who, through the wood, makes the rock gush again for them.