על הזיווג לשם ההשכלה (על לימודי היסוד) י״זOn Mating with the Preliminary Studies 17
א׳
1[89] Now the lore of the decad has been carefully discussed in detail in the schools of the musicians, and is extolled in no ordinary degree by the holiest of men, Moses, who connects with it things of special excellence, governments, the first-fruits, the recurrent gifts of the priests, the observation of the passover, the atonement, the liberation and return to the old possessions in the fiftieth year, the furnishing of the permanent tabernacle, and others without number. These it would take too long to mention, but crucial examples must not be omitted.
ב׳
2[90] For instance, he represents Noah, the first man recorded as just in holy scriptures, as the tenth descendant from the man who was moulded from the earth; and in doing so he does not wish to set before us any particular number of years, but to shew us clearly that, just as ten is the end of the numbers which start from one and most perfect, so justice in the soul is perfect and the true end of our life’s actions.
ג׳
3[91] For when three is multiplied by itself and thus produces the number nine, the oracles pronounce it to be a number of great hostility, while the added one which completes the ten they approve of as friendly.
ד׳
4[92] This is shewn in the incident of Abraham and the nine kings. When the civil war burst into flames, and the four passions prepared for combat with the five senses, when the whole soul was on the point to suffer sacking and razing like a city, wise Abraham took the field, and appearing as the tenth, made an end of all nine governments (Gen. 14). He provided calm in the place of storm,
ה׳
5[93] health for sickness, and life we may truly say for death, being declared the winner of the trophies by God the victory-giver, to whom too he dedicated the tenths as thank-offerings for his victory (Gen. 14:20).
ו׳
6Further, [94] everything that comes “under the rod,” the rod of discipline, that is every tame and docile creature, has a tenth set apart from it which by the ordinance of the law becomes “holy” (Lev. 27:32), that so through many reminders we may learn the close connexion of ten with God and of nine with our mortal race.