Exodus 13:18
But he led them about by the way of the desert, which is by the Red Sea: and the children of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt.
Open Exodus 13:18 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Sed circumduxit per viam deserti, quæ est juxta mare Rubrum : et armati ascenderunt filii Israël de terra Ægypti.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐκύκλωσεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν λαὸν ὁδὸν τὴν εἰς τὴν ἔρημον, εἰς τὴν ἐρυθρὰν θάλασσαν· πέμπτῃ δὲ γενεᾷ ἀνέβησαν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיַּסֵּ֨ב אֱלֹהִ֧ים אֶת הָעָ֛ם דֶּ֥רֶךְ הַמִּדְבָּ֖ר יַם ס֑וּף וַחֲמֻשִׁ֛ים עָל֥וּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם
Haydock's commentary
Armed, in order of battle. Hebrew chamushim, "by fives," or in five battalions. (Josue i. 14; Judges viii. 11.) (Calmet)
Calvin asks where the Hebrews could procure arms, as if to cavil with this translation. But surely they might get them in the same manner as the vessels of gold; and they undoubtedly were not destitute of arms when they encountered the Amalecites, ver. 17. (Haydock)
Haydock wrote amid the controversies of his day. The Church teaches that those born into communities separated from her cannot be charged with the sin of separation, and embraces them as brothers (CCC 818).
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, From Pope Damasus
3. How is Gen. xv. 16 , “in the fourth generation they shall come hither again,” to be reconciled with Ex. xiii. 18 , LXX, “in the fifth generation the children of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt”?
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Pope Damasus
Exodus xiii. 18 , he proposes to reconcile with Gen. xv. 16 , by supposing that in the one place the tribe of Levi is referred to, in the other the tribe of Judah. He suggests, however, that the words rendered by the LXX. “in the fifth generation” more probably mean “harnessed” (so A.V.) or “laden.” In reply to the question about Isaac he says: “No man save Him who for our salvation has deigned to put on flesh has full knowledge and a complete grasp of the truth. Paul, Samuel, David, Elisha, all make mistakes, and holy men only know what God reveals to them.” He then goes on to give a mystical interpretation of the passage suggested by the martyr Hippolytus. Written the day after the previous letter.