אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ג י״זAllegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book III 17
א׳
1[51] The words ποῦ εἶ, “Where art thou?” can be accounted for in many different ways, first as not being interrogative but declarative, as equivalent to “thou art in a place,” ποὺ receiving the grave accent. For whereas thou thoughtest that God walked in the garden and was contained by it, learn that there was something amiss with thee in thinking this, and listen to a most true utterance from the mouth of God who knoweth, to the effect that God is not somewhere (for He is not contained but contains the universe), but that which came into being is in a place, for it must of necessity be contained but not contain.
ב׳
2[52] A second account is this: What is said is equivalent to “Where hast thou arrived, O soul?” In the place of how great goods, what evils hast thou chosen for thyself? When God had invited thee to participate in virtue, art thou going after wickedness, and when He had provided for thy enjoyment the tree of life, that is of wisdom, whereby thou shouldst have power to live, didst thou gorge thyself with ignorance and corruption, preferring misery the soul’s death to happiness the real life?
ג׳
3[53] Thirdly, there is the interrogative sense, to which two answers might be made. One answer to the question, “Where art thou?” is “Nowhere,” for the soul of the bad man has no place where to find footing or upon which to settle. Owing to this the bad man is said to be “placeless”—“placeless” is used of an evil that defies placing (in any known category). Such is the man that is not good, always restless and unstable, drifting this way and that like a chopping wind, attaching himself absolutely to no fixed principle whatever.
ד׳
4[54] A second answer might be given to this effect. Adam in fact gave it. “Hear where I am; where those are who are incapable of seeing God; where those are who do not listen to God; where those are who hide themselves from the Author of all things; where are those that shun virtue, where are the destitute of wisdom, where those are who owing to unmanliness and cowardice of soul live in fear and trembling. For when Adam says, “I heard Thy voice in the garden and was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself” (Gen. 3:10), he discovers all the traits just enumerated, as I have fully shown in former sections.