And “he called the name of it (the altar), The Lord my exaltation.” In the Seventy [Septuagint] this name is given [as] κύριος καταφυγή μου, “The Lord my refuge.” The Hebrew name can signify either. For if it be derived from nasas or nes [נס], that is, to exalt, it will mean exaltation, or a banner. But if from nus or nas [נס], to flee, it will be a refuge. Yet in the thing itself [there is] no difference. For God is the exaltation and refuge of men — and [is] a refuge for this [reason], that he can and wills to raise up and exalt those fleeing to him. [He is] therefore an exaltation, so that in every depression, and under the mass of calamities, we may flee to him — because he himself is about to lift us up, and to carry [us] to the highest place of most secure felicity. In Vatablus, and in the new version which Calvin proposed to himself to explain, it is thus: “And he called the name of it, Jehovah my miracle.” But he himself [Calvin] rather approves our version — both in the margin, where he put “my exaltation,” and in the commentary. “Why,” he says, “some render ‘miracle’ I do not see, since ‘nes’ is without doubt always taken for a ‘banner.’” Although I do not deny [that] it is here put, metaphorically, for exaltation — as if Moses had said [that] “God, who upheld the Israelites, is worthy to be the only one eminent among them.” Yet that [is], without doubt, not certain, since the Hebrew root, as I said, nasas, can signify to exalt in general. But because banners are lifted on high, [he] who says “exaltation” can also understand a banner. And thus truly God ought to be for us, in our assiduous war against the Amalekites of hell, a banner which we may follow, on which we may gaze, on which we may wholly depend. And this [ought to be] all the more, the firmer and safer [it is] against all the force of the enemies — [a banner] which can never be cast down, never torn apart, or captured. Josephus embraces all these [things] under one other name, saying: θύσας δὲ χαριστήρια Μωσῆς βωμὸν ἱδρύεται νικαῖον ὀνομάσας τὸν Θεόν. For he calls [it] νικαῖον τὸν Θεόν, that is, “the victor,” or “the victorious God,” or simply “God” — if one should perhaps prefer to refer “victorious” to the altar, so that it be βωμὸς νικαῖος [a victory-altar], because he set up an altar [as] a judge and monument of victory, which he called “God.” And from this too, if any [of them] cultivate the truth and modesty of the Innovators, they can learn something. Those [Innovators] are wont to bear [it] heavily, and sometimes to harass [us] before rude peoples with many revilings, because certain [things] which are wont to be attributed to God, we too sometimes attribute to the Blessed Virgin and to the other Saints: “Our hope, [our] life, sweetness, mediator.” And indeed [it] has been said to them already a thousand times [that] this is done by another, lower, trope and manner. Yet they persist, and cry out [that it is] a most unworthy [thing] — which belongs to the Creator —
(col. 86)
for [it] to be attributed to creatures. I have already said [that] it is not the same thing, but only the same name, and indeed in a far other way. But still they shake [their] head, and do not yet acquiesce. But behold: in this very place, an altar — that is, an inanimate thing, some sod or stone — is called by Moses “The Lord my exaltation,” and indeed in Hebrew, with that great name Jehovah. Calvin dissimulated this, and craftily — as if Moses had called [it] only “God” — [and] thus expounded this passage, both here and [in] book 1 of the Institutes, ch. 13, section 9. But [it] openly fights against all the texts. And about the Latin [text], indeed, [it] is clear. In the Hebrew it is expressly said [that] Moses built an altar, and the name of it (for this pronoun of it — or, as the Hebrews call [it], the affix — scatters all shadows) [is] “The Lord my exaltation.” The Greek says: ᾠκοδόμησε Μωσῆς θυσιαστήριον κυρίῳ, καὶ ἐπωνόμασε τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῷ, κύριος καταφυγή μου — “Moses built an altar to the Lord, and named the name of it, The Lord my refuge.” And all these same [texts] explode that version of Junius: “Moses erected an altar, whose name he called, Jehovah of my banner.” The same [texts] also refute Cajetan, who wishes [it to be] not — as [it] openly [stands] in the texts — “The Lord [is my] exaltation,” or “[my] refuge,” but “[the altar] of the Lord of my exaltation, or of my refuge”; or, as another [reading] in Vatablus, “the altar of the Lord of my banner.” But why would it have been necessary to call [it] so? Because, indeed, he had built it to the Lord, it was agreed [that] it belonged to the Lord; and this would have been, for it, a common appellation with all things which were ever anywhere consecrated to God, or to be consecrated. For all those are the Lord’s. Nay, this [very] land too could be said to have [that] name, because it is written, “The Lord’s is the earth, and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 23). So, further, that altar was [so] called because it was a sign and a monument of the exaltation which God had wrought — as here, and on Jeremiah 23, Lyranus rightly says, when he said [that] it was named so from [its] effect. And Oleaster: “So that there might always be a memory of the benefit received,” he says, “he named the place from the benefit.” The same [things] refute Galatinus, when (book 3 against the Jews, ch. 9) he proves [that] the altar is not called “God.” But he proves that matter only by the exposition of two Rabbinical witnesses. One is Onkelos, on Genesis ch. 22, saying: “And Abraham worshipped and adored in that place, and says before God: Here shall be generations worshipping thee, or serving thee.” And in this very place (Exodus 17): “Moses built,” he says, “and worshipped, or served” — i.e. “sacrificed upon it before God, who did signs for him.” The other is the book Mechilta, which interprets these same words thus: “And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it, God my sign. Rabbi Elai Hamakow said: that is, God called it — the altar, namely — ניסי [nissi] N-I-S-I, that is, my sign.” And [although] these [expositions] may indeed avail something against the Jews, against us [they avail] little. For they punctuate the text otherwise, as [is] apparent, than [as] the text has [it]; and they are opposed even to the Septuagint themselves, who are older than they; and they seem to have expounded [it] thus only lest the coarser Jews — and [those] more prone to idolatry — should catch from it some little handle of error. Otherwise, in certain other places [there] are names not dissimilar. Genesis 22: “The Lord sees.” Judges 6:24: “Gideon built an altar to the Lord, and called it, The Lord’s peace.” But, as I said, these divine names are imposed upon other things [only] in a lower manner [by a lesser trope] — as book 1 On Christ, ch. 7, of Bellarmine, and Lyranus on Jeremiah 23, rightly teach. But Philo (book 1 On the Life of Moses, p. 433): “Moses sets up an altar, which he named, from the [things] that had happened, ‘God [my] refuge’: upon which he offered the victory-sacrifices, rendering thank-offering prayers.”
This is the [meaning of the fact] that he himself said: “Because the hand of the Lord alone…”
(col. 87)
…”[Because the hand of the Lord alone,] and the war of the Lord shall be against Amalek from generation to generation.” Yet the same words others render otherwise from the Hebrew. For the Septuagint [render]: ὅτι ἐν χειρὶ κρυφαίᾳ πολεμεῖ κύριος ἐπὶ Ἀμαλὴκ ἀπὸ γενεῶν εἰς γενεάς — that is, “because with a hidden hand the Lord wages war against Amalek from generations unto generations.” Most of the more recent [translators, thus]: “Because a hand [is] upon the throne of the Lord: [there is] war for the Lord against Amalek from generation unto generations.” In Calvin: “Certainly a hand [is] upon the throne of Jehovah: the battle of Jehovah [is] with Amalek from generation unto generations.” Vatablus: “With my hand lifted up over the throne of God I swear, that the battle of the Lord shall be against Amalek through all ages.” Junius and Tremellius: “Because the hand of Amalek was against the throne of Jah, the war of Jehovah shall be against the Amalekites from age unto age.”
Joseph Scaliger [renders it] with an altogether new version — unheard-of both among the Hebrews and the Greeks and the Latins — and yet word for word, as he himself says (so, book 3 On the Emendation of Times, fol. 209). In Greek he interprets [it]: ᾗ ἂν ὑπὲρ τῆς ἱερομηνίας (or, if you prefer, τριακάδος, or ἑορτῆς) πόλεμος ἄσπονδος κατὰ τοῦ Ἀμαλήκου — that is, “A triumphal monument [Cippus] on account of the last day of the month: an implacable war against Amalek”; or, as he himself renders these last [words] of his own Greek, and writes [them] in larger letters: “[That] there shall be an eternal war between the people of God and Amalek.”
We have seen the various versions; what is signified by them is now to be explained.