The ignominy of Egypt is handed down [in] Isaiah 20 v. 4; yet [that] this pertains here, Arias there denies, nor does anyone (whom indeed I know) assert [it]. And therefore [there] are chiefly six opinions. For they say, first indeed, [that it] is the servitude with which the Egyptians vexed the Israelites, and which they were wont to cast at them as [it were] a reproach. So Theodoret (q. 3) and Josephus (cited above, q. 9); and some in Masius add [that] this servitude [was] so removed from them, that [it] could thereafter by no right be dragged back upon the same [Israelites] by the same Egyptians — as if of old [there] had been to those [Egyptians] some right of imposing this servile yoke. Secondly: others understand other reproaches and insults of the same Egyptians cast against the same Israelite nation — for example, [that] they [the Israelites] were deceived by their God, or by Moses: led out of Egypt not to the possession of some land, but to a wandering and needy life; most miserably afflicted with various wanderings and difficulties of the ways, and worn out in the desert. So Ralbag. For to this seems to look [that] (Exod. 32 v. 12) [when] Moses said to the Lord: “Let not the Egyptians, I beseech, say, ‘Craftily he led them out, that he might kill [them] in the mountains, and destroy [them] from the earth.’” Thirdly: others [understand] the foreskin itself — or the uncircumcision — [as] this “reproach” concerning which the question is [asked]; which, as [it] always [clung] to the Egyptians, so [it] had [now] clung to the Israelites for 40 years in the desert. For, first, Gen. 34 v. 14 — where our version says, “We cannot give our sister to an uncircumcised man, because [it] is unlawful and abominable among us” — the Hebrew text says [it] by exactly the same name which we read here: “because this [is] a reproach to us”; and the Greek, ὅτι γὰρ ὄνειδός ἐστιν ἡμῖν [hoti gar oneidos estin hēmin, “for it is a reproach to us”]. Then, [was] it not this very thing [that], as a matter of great contempt, Jonathan said of the Philistines (1 Kings [Sam] 14), and David reproached to Goliath (in the same [book], ch. 17)? This is the first of Ralbag’s three expositions.
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—[this is] the first [of Ralbag’s expositions], which also pleased Abulensis (quaestion 65) — although he had disapproved it (quaestion 62); unless perhaps we say [that] he disapproved only this: [that] this reproach was cast upon the Egyptians by the Israelites while they were still in Egypt. For to the Israelites, [being] in so very hard a servitude, [there] was not present [enough] boldness. But he [rather held] that the uncircumcision was a reproach, as [it were] from the Jews’ opinion and law alone — which, however, they kept [to themselves] silently, and did not dare to bring out in Egypt. But just as slaves sometimes mutter against [their] masters, and fix maledictions upon their household or nation — especially among themselves and secretly — so the Israelites could sometimes, even in Egypt, have called the Egyptians uncircumcised. If Moses dared to kill an Egyptian, thinking [it] would be secret (Exod. 2 v. 12), who would believe [that] no reproach at all against all the Egyptians was hurled by any one of the Israelites, where he would have thought [it] would be hidden and unpunished?
Yet Masius objects two other [things] to this opinion. First: [would it be permissible] to interpret that place of Genesis thus? — “The thing, namely — [that] to give our sister in marriage to an uncircumcised man of a foreign nation would be a reproach to us.” Secondly: why would [it] be called “the reproach of Egypt,” since no nation, except the Hebrews, is wont to circumcise foreskins? Truly [it] may be permitted to expound the Genesis place thus — and therefore perhaps Abulensis did not use it; yet other [texts], from the Book of Kings, are firm. But this latter objection both Abulensis and Ralbag saw. And he [Abulensis] indeed answers [that] uncircumcision is the reproach of all nations, but [that] God here called [it] “the reproach of Egypt” because — since the Israelites had dwelt among the Egyptians alone — they had known [as] uncircumcised chiefly those alone. But Ralbag would have account taken of the intemperance and lust, to which, beyond the other nations, the Egyptians were prone and lecherous. For the Lord too (Num. 18 [Lev. 18]), about to institute the laws of marriage, prefaces [that] the Israelites are not to act as the Egyptian was wont to act. But Masius: “[it] is one thing,” he says, “to be intemperate, another not to have regard of blood and affinity in marriages — [the thing] which is there laid to the charge of the Canaanites, similarly as of the Egyptians, by God — namely, because the Israelites, to whom he was giving the laws, had lately left Egypt, and were going to the Canaanites.”
[It] could perhaps be objected against that opinion an argument contrary to the foregoing: namely, that the foreskin cannot be called “the reproach of Egypt,” because the Egyptians circumcised it (Jer. 9), and indeed — Herodotus (bk. 2) [being] witness — before the Jews themselves. For my part, I have taught [that] circumcision was in use among the Egyptians in later times (Gen. 17). But neither before [it] was in use among the Jews, nor even at that time when these [Israelites] went out of their borders, [was] this rite [yet] among them. Was [there] anywhere any circumcision before Abraham? What propagation of it [was there], except through him and his posterity? And if the Egyptians had already mutilated [circumcised] their own offspring, how — according to Theodoret — would Moses have been recognized in the waters, from the offspring of the Hebrews (Exod. 2)? The contrary, therefore, was to be written by Herodotus: [that] the Egyptians received circumcision [from the Phoenicians]—
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—or from the Jews, [and] not those [the Jews] from these [the Egyptians]; but either forgetfulness stole over him [Herodotus], [about] that which he had heard, or a deception was made by the Egyptians — to whom, on the same matter, the Epicurean Celsus preferred to add [his] faith rather than to Moses, as Origen notes (bk. 1 against him). Fourthly: this reproach is, to others, the religion — or rather the superstition — of the Egyptians itself. But [it] is explained variously. First, the book of the Jews which is called Exodus Rabba hands down — and from it, Ralbag — [that] the Jews [were] prepared by the Lord, through circumcision, for the Passover; by whose religion and rite the empty superstitions of the Egyptians were trampled down: since those [Egyptians] worshipped the Ram [Aries], and believed it armed with fire; but, on the contrary, the Israelites slaughtered rams, and roasted [them] with fire, and devoured [them]. For what sharper axe could be driven into the worship of this [Egyptian] god? Secondly: others said [that] the Ram — which the sun traverses at that time of year — has, in the opinion of the Egyptians, the greatest power in heaven; and [that] to this opinion the throat [of the ram] is, as it were, cut off, when — by God’s command — the ram is slaughtered by the Israelites at the Passover, roasted through, and consumed by eating. Thirdly: certain [ones], as in the Leviticus Rabba [of] R. Haddarshan, and from it Rashi, [say that] Pharaoh announced [threatened] all dire [things] to the departing Jews, and chiefly a most deadly and most pernicious shedding of blood, which the star [constellation] threatened — [the star] whose name [is] רעה [raʿah], that is, “evil” — and under [whose influence] they would go out; as is recognized by Moses (Exod. 32 v. 12). But now, since the blood [has been] shed in circumcision, and the threshold [is] now thrown open for approaching to those goods promised to the fathers — and to Abraham himself especially — [goods leading] to the highest joy and felicity: how is that reproachful announcement of Pharaoh, and of all Egypt, not taken away? This pleased Lyra — whom therefore Abulensis lashes (quaestion 63). Yet, in explaining that reproach, Theodoret (quaestion 3) mentions “religion,” but with a far different mind: namely, that every contagion — or rather likeness — of Egyptian impiety now seems amputated and circumcised. And to this perhaps look also two other expositions which remain: of which one [is] the fifth in number, and put forth by Masius himself — [that] the Israelites had hitherto, in Egypt and in the whole departure, been [like] Egyptians, namely by the very manner of [their] life and by the imitation of circumcision; [and that] this whole [thing] is now cast out as [it were] a certain reproach. The sixth [is] of Junius: [that] this reproach is the very omission of circumcision, which is called “of Egypt” because that omission happened for this cause: that the Hebrews had greatly desired, with a wicked and insane longing, to return into Egypt; and, since in fact they could not return, [they] yet always breathed [after] it in [their] mind, and — with an obstinacy supreme, and worthy not of Israelites but rather of Egyptians — desisted from the office of circumcision. But this was refuted above (quaestion 3).
I, first, think [it] must be observed [that] this word “reproach” [probrum] is found in Scripture in two ways: first, actively — as [in] Nehemiah ch. 5 v. 9, in the Hebrew: “Will you not walk in the way of our God, on account of the reproach of the nations which are our enemies?” — that is, on account of the reproach which the nations and our enemies are wont, or at least could, [cast upon us]—
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—[which the nations and our enemies could] reproach [to us]. And therefore our Latin [translator] too rendered [it] thus: “Why do you not walk in the fear of our God, lest [it] be reproached to us by the nations, our enemies?” Secondly: passively, frequently — Ps. 73[/72]:22; Gen. 30:21 [23]; Isa. 4:1; ch. 25:8; ch. 47:3; Hosea 12:14. And an example of both notions [together] could perhaps be that [of] Daniel 11 v. 17: “He shall make the prince of his reproach to cease, and his reproach shall be turned upon him.” [A second point]: hence [it] seems evident [that] most of the foregoing expositions are quite probable. For the first and second take “the reproach of the Egyptians” actively, but the others passively. Thirdly: primarily, the discourse here seems to be about circumcision, as the third opinion said; secondarily, and, as it were, through a certain connection, about servitude, and about a certain imitation or likeness of Egyptian impiety and depravity of morals — as in the first, the fourth (taken in the way Theodoret understood [it]), and the fifth.