Exodus 14:12
Is not this the word that we spoke to thee in Egypt, saying: Depart from us that we may serve the Egyptians? for it was much better to serve them, than to die in the wilderness.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- nonne iste est sermo, quem loquebamur ad te in Ægypto, dicentes : Recede a nobis, ut serviamus Ægyptiis ? multo enim melius erat servire eis, quam mori in solitudine.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- οὐ τοῦτο ἦν τὸ ῥῆμα ὃ ἐλαλήσαμεν πρὸς σὲ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ λέγοντες Πάρες ἡμᾶς ὅπως δουλεύσωμεν τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις; κρεῖσσον γὰρ ἡμᾶς δουλεύειν τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις ἢ ἀποθανεῖν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ταύτῃ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- הֲלֹא זֶ֣ה הַדָּבָ֗ר אֲשֶׁר֩ דִּבַּ֨רְנוּ אֵלֶ֤יךָ בְמִצְרַ֨יִם֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר חֲדַ֥ל מִמֶּ֖נּוּ וְנַֽעַבְדָ֣ה אֶת מִצְרָ֑יִם כִּ֣י ט֥וֹב לָ֨נוּ֙ עֲבֹ֣ד אֶת מִצְרַ֔יִם מִמֻּתֵ֖נוּ בַּמִּדְבָּֽר
Haydock's commentary
Wilderness. This is the language of dastardly souls. They had begun to be almost in love with their chains. Every difficulty gives them occasion to repine at the gracious purposes of God, and the exertions of his servant Moses. But God bears patiently with the defects of a carnal and long oppressed nation, ver. 13. (Haydock)
The wiser sort pray to God, while others thus upbraid Moses.
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 Cyprian Treatise XI, Chapter VII
In Exodus the Jewish people, prefigured as a shadow and image of us, when, with God for their guardian and avenger, they had escaped the most severe slavery of Pharaoh and of Egypt, that is, of the devil and the world, faithless and ungrateful in respect of God, murmur against Moses, looking back to the discomforts of the desert and of their labour; and, not understanding the divine benefits of liberty and salvation, they seek to return to the slavery of Egypt, that is, of the world whence they had been drawn forth, when they ought rather to have trusted and believed on God, since He who delivers His people from the devil and the world, protects them also when delivered. “Wherefore hast thou thus done with us,” say they, “in casting us forth out of Egypt? It is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in this wilderness. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).