על עבודת האדמה י״חOn Husbandry 18
א׳
1[82] The same hymn is sung by both choirs, and it has a most noteworthy refrain, the recurrence of which is strikingly beautiful. It is this: “Let us sing unto the Lord, for gloriously hath He been glorified; horse and rider He threw into the sea” (Exod. 15:1, 21).
ב׳
2[83] No one who looks into the matter could find a more perfect victory than one in which that most doughty array of passions and vices, four-footed, restless, boastful beyond measure, has been defeated. So it is, for vices are four in kind and passions equal to these in number. It is a victory, moreover, in which their rider has been thrown and dispatched, even virtue-hating and passion-loving mind, whose delight was in pleasures and cravings, acts of injustice and rascality, as well as in exploits of plundering and overreaching and all that stable.
ג׳
3[84] Right well therefore does the lawgiver in his Charges give directions not to appoint a horse-rearer to be a ruler, regarding as unsuited for such high authority any man who resembles an unbridled and unruly horse, and, in his wild excitement over pleasures, lusts and amours, knows no restraint. These are the lawgiver’s words, “Thou mayest not appoint over thyself a foreigner, because he is not thy brother; for the reason that he shall not multiply to himself horses, nor turn the people back into Egypt” (Deut. 17:15 f.).
ד׳
4[85] According, therefore, to Moses, that most holy man, a rearer of horses is by nature unfit to hold rule; and yet it might be urged that strength in cavalry is a great asset to a king, and not a whit less important than infantry and the naval force; nay, in many cases of greater service than these. These arms are especially important when it is requisite that the offensive should be instantaneous and vigorously pressed; when the state of affairs does not admit of delay, but is in the highest degree critical; so that those who are behindhand would fairly be considered not so much to have been slow to gain the advantage as to have failed for good and all, since the other side has been too quick for them, and gone by them like a cloud.