Exodus 7:11
And Pharao called the wise men and the magicians: and they also by Egyptian enchantments and certain secrets did in like manner.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Vocavit autem Pharao sapientes et maleficos : et fecerunt etiam ipsi per incantationes ægyptiacas et arcana quædam similiter.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- συνεκάλεσεν δὲ Φαραὼ τοὺς σοφιστὰς Αἰγύπτου καὶ τοὺς φαρμακούς· καὶ ἐποίησαν καὶ οἱ ἐπαοιδοὶ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων ταῖς φαρμακίαις αὐτῶν ὡσαύτως,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיִּקְרָא֙ גַּם פַּרְעֹ֔ה לַֽחֲכָמִ֖ים וְלַֽמְכַשְּׁפִ֑ים וַיַּֽעֲשׂ֨וּ גַם הֵ֜ם חַרְטֻמֵּ֥י מִצְרַ֛יִם בְּלַהֲטֵיהֶ֖ם כֵּֽן
Haydock's commentary
Magicians. Jannes and Mambres, or Jambres, 2 Timothy iii. 8. (Challoner)
The pagans represented Moses as the greatest of magicians. (Pliny, Natural History xxx. 1; Justin xxxvi.)
They also, &c. Hebrew has three terms: "wise men, diviners, and magicians;" but the two last seem to be of the same import. "The enchanters did the like by their secret practices," either by words or by actions. Some say these operations were real; others affirm they were only apparent, and mere delusions. (Calmet)
"Whoever believes that any thing can be made, or any creature changed or transmuted into another species or appearance, except by the Creator himself, is undoubtedly an infidel, and worse than a pagan." (Council of Orange.) See St. Augustine, q. 21, de Trin. iii. 7; St. Thomas Aquinas, 2, 2, 9, 17, a 2.
The devil deceived the senses of the beholders; or brought real serpents, &c., thither. (Menochius)
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 Hippolytus The Refutation of All Heresies, Chapter XI
Now, he says, the stars are the gods of destruction, which impose upon existent things the necessity of alterable generation. These, he says, Moses denominated serpents of the wilderness, which gnaw and utterly ruin those who imagined that they had crossed the Red Sea. To those, then, he says, who of the children of Israel were bitten in the wilderness, Moses exhibited the real and perfect serpent; and they who believed on this serpent were not bitten in the wilderness, that is, (were not assailed) by (evil) powers. No one therefore, he says, is there who is able to save and deliver those that come forth from Egypt, that is, from the body and from this world, unless alone the serpent that is perfect and replete with fulness. Upon this (serpent), he says, he who fixes his hope is not destroyed by the snakes of the wilderness, that is, by the gods of generation. …