Hebrews 11:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

To save him from the death threatened by the Egyptians, they set him upon the river near the bank, with faith in God's providence. But there Pharaoh's daughter, the daughter of the king of Egypt, soon noticed him. She took him to herself and began to raise him as a son. Moses was raised in the royal palace and instructed in all the wisdom of that time (Acts 7:22). He was denied nothing. All that remained for him was to enjoy life in quiet and plenty. But his soul was drawn to his own people. When he came of age, he saw that, apart from him, all the Hebrews outside the palace walls were suffering grievously in Egypt. They were worn down with labor, beaten, feared because of their multitude, and marked for destruction. The heart of Moses could not look upon these sorrows. He sacrificed himself, renounced his pleasantly arranged life, and willingly went to suffer with his people. Moses condemned himself to every deprivation and hardship, not merely from a simple feeling of blood kinship. He did so chiefly because he believed the ancient prophecy about the liberation of the Hebrew people from Egyptian bondage. He also believed that the Hebrew people had been chosen by God and were to give the Savior to the world from among themselves. Moses had hope in the reward, in recompense from the Lord for the insults, labors, and reproaches he endured through faith in the promised Christ the Savior. And through his faith Moses was deemed worthy to become the cause of the Hebrews' liberation. He became their lawgiver, mediator between them and God, prophet and wonderworker, and a type of Jesus Christ.

"He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasure of sin. He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to the reward" (Heb 11:24-26).

How, then, can these virtues be reckoned imperfect? Saint David boasts that he fulfilled the Lord's ordinances with reward in view. And it is said that the Lawgiver, looking to future rewards, despised the dignity of a king's son and preferred the gravest suffering to the treasures of Egypt.

Answer on the difference of perfections.

Chaeremon said: Divine Scripture urges our free will to strive toward different degrees of perfection, according to the state and measure of each one's spiritual capacity.

It could not set forth one identical crown of perfection for all, because not all have equal strength to attain it. Nor do all have the same disposition and zeal for it.

Therefore the word of God appointed different degrees and different measures within the very perfections themselves. The difference among the evangelical beatitudes clearly shows this.

Those to whom the Kingdom of Heaven belongs are called blessed. Those who inherit the earth are blessed. Those who will be comforted are blessed. Those who will be filled are blessed.

Yet we think there is a great difference between dwelling in the Kingdom of Heaven and inheriting the earth, whatever that earth may be. There is also a great difference between receiving consolation and being fully satisfied with righteousness.

Likewise there is a great difference between those who will obtain mercy and those who will be counted worthy to enjoy the glorious vision of God.

For "there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; and star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead" (1 Cor 15:41-42).

Divine Scripture praises those who fear God and promises them complete blessedness, saying: "Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord" (Ps 127:1). Elsewhere, however, it says that there is no fear in love.

Perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. "He who fears is not made perfect in love" (1 Jn 4:18).

Again, Scripture regards service to God as a most glorious work, saying: "Serve the Lord with fear" (Ps 2:11). And: "It is a small thing that You should be My servant" (Isa 49:6). And: "Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing" (Mt 24:46).

Yet the Lord Himself says to the apostles: "I no longer call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have told you everything that I heard from My Father" (Jn 15:15).

And above He says: "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you" (Jn 15:14). From this you can see that the degrees of perfection differ, and that the Lord urges us to ascend from high degrees to still higher ones.

If someone, having become blessed and perfect in the fear of God, goes, as Holy Scripture says, "from strength to strength" (Ps 83:8), and from perfection to a new perfection, he passes from fear to hope.

Ascending with wakefulness of spirit, such a one is called to a new and more blessed state, which is love. He will enter the number of God's friends and children when he becomes a faithful and wise servant (Mt 24:45).

Our words must be understood in this sense. We do not say that the thought of eternal punishment, or of the most blessed reward promised to the saints, is of no use.

On the contrary, such thoughts are useful, since they lead those guided by them to the beginning of blessedness. But love is filled with greater boldness and unceasing joy.

It raises those devoted to it from the degree of servile fear and hired hope to the degree of filial love for God. From those who are perfect, it makes them in some way more perfect.

For "in My Father's house," says the Savior, "are many mansions" (Jn 14:2). And although all the heavenly lights are seen in heaven, there is a great difference between the brightness of the sun and of the moon, and between the morning star and the other stars (1 Cor 15:41).

So too, concerning love, the Apostle preferred it not only to fear and hope, but also to all great and extraordinary gifts. He showed that it surpasses all the other virtues.

After enumerating all the spiritual gifts, and wishing to describe the properties of this virtue, he says: "I show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels..."

"If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries, and have all knowledge and all faith, so that I could remove mountains... And if I give away all my possessions and deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing" (1 Cor 12:31; 13:1-3).

You see, then, that nothing can be found more precious, more perfect, higher, or, so to speak, more enduring than love. For "love never fails, though prophecies will cease, tongues will be silent, and knowledge will pass away" (1 Cor 13:8).

Without love, not only all the most excellent kinds of gifts, but even the glory of martyrdom itself, are nothing.

On the fear born of great love.

Whoever is established on the foundation of perfect love will certainly ascend to the higher degree of that special fear which is born not from dread of punishments, nor from desire for rewards, but from great love.

This is the fear by which a son fears a most tender father, or a brother his brother, or a friend his friend, or a spouse the spouse.

Here we fear not punishment or reproach, but the slightest injury to love. We are always in the greatest concern, lest by any deed, or even by a word, we cool the warmth of love toward us.

One of the prophets, Isaiah, beautifully depicted the dignity of this fear when he said: "The riches of salvation are wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is his treasure" (Isa 33:6).

He could not have expressed the dignity and benefit of this fear more clearly than by saying that the riches of our salvation, consisting in divine wisdom and knowledge, are preserved by it.

Not sinners, but saints, are called to this fear by the prophetic proclamation. "Fear the Lord," says the Psalmist, "all His saints, for there is no want to those who fear Him" (Ps 33:10).

That is, nothing is lacking in the perfection of those who fear the Lord with this fear. Of the other, tormenting fear, the Apostle John speaks clearly: "He who fears is not made perfect in love, because fear has torment" (1 Jn 4:18).

Therefore there is a great difference between the fear to which nothing is lacking, which is the treasure of wisdom and knowledge, and the imperfect fear called "the beginning of wisdom" (Ps 110:10).

That fear has torment within it, and when the fullness of love is attained, it is cast out of the hearts of the perfect. "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear" (1 Jn 4:18).

Truly, if fear is the beginning of wisdom, wherein will its perfection consist, if not in love for Christ? Since this love contains within itself the fear of perfect love, it is no longer called the beginning, but the treasure of wisdom and knowledge.

Thus there are two degrees of fear. One belongs to beginners, that is, to those still under the yoke of servile fear. Of this it is said by the prophet: A servant honors his master (Mal 1:6).

Likewise in the Gospel: "I no longer call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing" (Jn 15:15). Therefore He says: "The servant does not abide in the house forever" (Jn 8:35).

The Savior urges us to pass from the state of tormenting fear into the full freedom of love, and into the boldness of the friends and children of God.

So also the holy Apostle, having passed by the power of the Lord's love beyond the lower degree of servile fear, bears witness that the Lord enriched him with greater gifts.

He says: "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and chastity" (2 Tim 1:7). To those who burned with perfect love for the Heavenly Father, and whom divine adoption had already made sons instead of slaves, he gives this exhortation.

"You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, Abba, Father!" (Rom 8:15).

The prophet describes the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit which was to descend upon the incarnate Son of God. Having said, "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety," he adds something distinct: "And He shall be filled with the fear of the Lord" (Isa 11:2-3).

Here one must especially note that the prophet did not say, "And the Spirit of the fear of God shall rest upon Him," as he had said of the preceding gifts. Rather, he says: "And He shall be filled with the fear of the Lord."

For that Spirit is so abundant that, once He embraces someone by His power, He takes possession of the whole soul, not of one part only.

And this is fitting, because fear united with love, which never fails, does not merely fill the one whom it possesses. It remains with him continuously and inseparably.

Nor is it diminished by any temporal pleasures or joys, as sometimes happens with the fear that is cast out. Therefore the fear with which, as has been said, the God-man was filled is the fear of perfection.

He came not only to redeem the human race, but also to show the pattern of perfection and the examples of all virtues. The true Son of God could not have had the servile fear of punishments.

He "committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth" (1 Pet 2:22).

For the word Mos, in the Egyptian dialect, means water. The God-speaking Paul says of him: "By faith Moses, when he had become great, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter" (Heb 11:24). "When he had become great" means this: when he had reached forty years of age, and had been instructed in all the learning and knowledge then existing in Egypt, he was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" and was "mighty in words and deeds" (Acts 7:22-23). Then, guided by the faith he had learned from his parents while they raised him, he rejected the adoption. He would not endure being called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He rejected it in deed, by leaving Pharaoh's house and Egypt, and by settling "in the land of Midian" (Ex 2:15).

He expressed still greater faith in God at his second and final departure from Egypt. Then he boldly led the people out, not fearing the vengeance of the king that threatened him for this. Finally, he showed his faith by using for salvation from the destroying angel a simple and seemingly insufficient means that God had indicated to him, the Passover, vv. 23-28.