Aaron's Rod Swallows the Serpents: Death Swallowed Up in Victory
Old Testament: Exodus 7:10-12
So Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharao, and did as the Lord had commanded. And Aaron took the rod before Pharao, and his servants, and it was turned into a serpent. And Pharao called the wise men and the magicians: and they also by Egyptian enchantments and certain secrets did in like manner. And they every one cast down their rods, and they were turned into serpents: but Aaron's rod devoured their rods.
New Testament: 1 Corinthians 15:54-55
And when this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?
The connection
Before Pharao, God gave Moses and Aaron a sign. "Aaron took the rod before Pharao, and his servants, and it was turned into a serpent." The wise men of Egypt answered with their enchantments: "they every one cast down their rods, and they were turned into serpents: but Aaron's rod devoured their rods" (Exodus 7:10-12). The serpent that came from God's rod swallowed every serpent of the magicians. St Paul ends his great chapter on the resurrection with the same word: "when this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55). Christ went down into death as the rod went down into the serpent, and death, meeting Him, was swallowed. St Augustine reads the sign so: "the rod of Moses, turned into a serpent, signified Christ Himself made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." And again: "the rod passed into the serpent, Christ into death; and the serpent again into the rod, whole Christ with His body into the resurrection." Preaching on John he says it plainly: "in Christ's death, death died ... the fullness of life swallowed up death." The Catechism teaches that the obedience of Jesus transformed the curse of death into a blessing (CCC 1009).
Moral sense
The magicians' serpents were real enough to be seen, but they could not survive the rod of God. St Augustine draws the lesson for every soul: the serpents of the magicians, "like those who are dead in the world, unless by believing in Christ they shall have been as it were swallowed up by, and have entered into, His body, will not be able to rise again in Him." Whatever we carried out of Egypt, our own enchantments, systems and false lights, must be given over to Him and swallowed up in His Body. Nothing kept apart from Him can rise. Nothing handed over to Him is lost: "your labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15:58).
Anagogical sense
At the end the swallowing is complete. The rod that became a serpent became a rod again, and St Augustine sees there the whole Christ, Head and body, rising together at the end of time. Then "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more" (Apocalypse 21:4), and the song St Paul taught will be sung for ever: "thanks be to God, who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:57).
The Fathers
St Augustine, On the Trinity III: "so the rod of Moses, turned into a serpent, signified Christ Himself made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." And: "Therefore the rod passed into the serpent, Christ into death; and the serpent again into the rod, whole Christ with His body into the resurrection; which body is the Church." Tractates on John XII: "But in Christ’s death, death died. Life dead slew death; the fullness of life swallowed up death; death was absorbed in the body of Christ." Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 74 (Douay 73): "but the serpent of Moses swallowed up the rods of all those magicians."
Warrant
Patristic. St Augustine reads the sign before Pharao of Christ in three places: On the Trinity III, where the rod turned serpent is Christ obedient unto death and the magicians' serpents must be swallowed into His Body to rise; the Tractates on John (XII, on John 3), where in Christ's death the fullness of life swallowed up death, with 1 Corinthians 15:55 quoted; and his exposition of Psalm 73 (Schaff's 74), where the serpent of Moses swallowed up the rods of all the magicians. Checked in the languages: the Septuagint's swallowed at Exodus 7:12, katepien, and St Paul's is swallowed up at 1 Corinthians 15:54, katepothe, are one verb, katapino, the verb the Septuagint also uses when the fish is commanded to swallow Jonas (Jonas 2:1), who was given back on the third day. The serpents of Exodus 7:9-12 are drakontes in the Septuagint, the word for the great dragon, that old serpent, at Apocalypse 12:9. The Vulgate has devoravit at Exodus and absorpta est at Corinthians, so the link stands in the Greek. The brazen serpent lifted up in the desert, which St Augustine joins to this sign, has its own entry. The lead was Dunk's, from the magicians' serpents read beside the breaking of every proud thing in pieces.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1009.
The verses
Exodus 7:10 · Exodus 7:11 · Exodus 7:12 · 1 Corinthians 15:54 · 1 Corinthians 15:55
