Hebrews 11:23
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents; because they saw he was a comely babe, and they feared not the king's edict.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Fide Moyses, natus, occultatus est mensibus tribus a parentibus suis, eo quod vidissent elegantem infantem, et non timuerunt regis edictum.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Πίστει Μωϋσῆς γεννηθεὶς ἐκρύβη τρίμηνον ὑπὸ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ, διότι εἶδον ἀστεῖον τὸ παιδίον καὶ οὐκ ἐφοβήθησαν τὸ διάταγμα τοῦ βασιλέως.
Haydock's commentary
By faith Moses....was hid three months, &c. It is not improbable what Josephus relates, (lib. ii. Jewish Antiquities, chap. 5) that the parents of Moses, by revelation from God, or by some extraordinary marks, were persuaded that he should deliver the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, and conduct them into the land of promise. (Witham)
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 Methodius The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity, Chapter V
In addition to these matters, there is this also to be considered, so that nothing may escape us of things which are necessary, why He said that the queens were sixty, and the concubines eighty, and the virgins so numerous as not to be counted from their multitude, but the spouse one. And first let us speak of the sixty. I imagine that He named under the sixty queens, those who had pleased God from the first-made man in succession to Noah, for this reason, since these had no need of precepts and laws for their salvation, the creation of the world in six days being still recent. For they remembered that in six days God formed the creation, and those things which were made in paradise; and how man, receiving a command not to touch the tree of knowledge, ran aground, the author of evil having led him astray. …
St Augustine Book III, Chapter VII
13. Nor had I knowledge of that true inner righteousness, which doth not judge according to custom, but out of the most perfect law of God Almighty, by which the manners of places and times were adapted to those places and times, being itself the while the same always and everywhere, not one thing in one place, and another in another; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and all those commended by the mouth of God were righteous, but were judged unrighteous by foolish men, judging out of man’s judgment, and gauging by the petty standard of their own manners the manners of the whole human race. Like as if in an armoury, one knowing not what were adapted to the several members should put greaves on his head, or boot himself with a helmet, and then complain because they would not fit. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 11.20-22
[3.] ( Ver. 23 ) “By faith, Moses when he was born, was hid three months of his parents.” Dost thou see that in this case they hoped for things on the earth after their death? And many things were fulfilled after their death. This is for some who say, ‘After death those things were done for them, which they did not obtain while alive; nor did they believe [would be] after their death.’