Literatura ng Ikalawang Templo sa Exodo 1:11: On the Posterity, On Dreams & On the Confusion

§ 57. θησαυρίζονται This word is suggested by the “store-cities” of Exod. 1:11, and also perhaps by βουνός = a pile, from which the LXX. coined the verb βουνίζω = “I pile up,” “accumulate.” (See Ruth 2:14, 16.)

[77] In the course of sacred revelation “Sun” is used in several figurative senses. To begin with, it is used of the human mind, which is erected and set up as a city by those who under compulsion serve creation in preference to the uncreated One. Of them we read that “they built strong cities for Pharaoh, namely Peitho,” speech, to which persuading is dedicated, “and Raamses,” sense-perception, by which the soul is eaten through as though by moths: the name means “moth-shock”;—“and On,” the mind, which Moses called Sun-city (Ex. 1:11), since the mind, like a sun, has assumed the leadership of our entire frame and bulk, and makes its forces reach, like the sun’s rays, to every part of it.

[91] Ere now, too, there have been those who went to a further extreme, and not only worked up their own souls to do thus, but have violently forced their betters, the children of the race that has vision, to make bricks under duress and build strong cities (Ex. 1:11) for the mind which thinks itself their sovereign. They wished in this way to shew that good is the slave of evil and passion stronger than the higher emotions, that prudence and every virtue are subject to folly and all vice, and thus must render obedience to every command of the despotic power.