על עבודת האדמה י׳On Husbandry 10
א׳
1[41] These are the practices and ways of shepherds, who prefer what is distasteful but beneficial to what is pleasant but hurtful. So full of dignity and benefit has the shepherd’s task been held to be, that poets are wont to give to kings the title of “shepherds of peoples,” a title which the lawgiver bestows on the wise. They are the only real kings, and he shews them to us ruling, as a shepherd does his flock, over the irrational tendency common to all mankind.
ב׳
2[42] This is why he ascribed to Jacob, who was perfected as the result of discipline, the shepherd’s lore. For Jacob tends the sheep of Laban (Gen. 30:36), that is to say, of the soul of the foolish one which considers nothing good but sensible objects that meet the eye, and which is deceived and enslaved by colours and shadows; for the meaning of “Laban” is “whitening.”
ג׳
3[43] He ascribes the same profession to Moses, the all-wise; for he also is appointed shepherd of a mind that welcomes conceit in preference to truth, and approves seeming in preference to being. For “Jethro” or “Iothor” means “uneven,” and self-conceit is an uneven and adventitious thing that comes in to beguile a fixed and steady life. It is a quality whose way is to introduce principles of right varying city by city; of one kind in this city, of another kind in that; not the same rule of right in all. The ordinances of nature that apply to all alike and are immovable it has never seen even in a dream. What we are told is that “Moses was shepherding the sheep of Jethro the priest of Midian” (Exod. 3:1).
ד׳
4[44] This same Moses prays that the whole multitude of the soul-folk may not be left as an untended flock, but may be given a good shepherd, leading them forth away from the snares of folly and injustice and all wickedness, and leading them in to imbibe all that discipline and virtue in its other forms would teach them. For he says, “Let the Lord, the God of the spirits and of all flesh, appoint a man over this congregation;” then, after adding a few words, he continues, “And the congregation of the Lord shall not be as sheep that have no shepherd” (Numb. 27:16 f.).