על בריאת העולם י״אOn the Account of the World's Creation 11
א׳
1[38] At this stage, then, water in all its volume had been poured forth over all the earth, and had found its way through all its parts, as through a sponge saturated with moisture. It had produced swamps and deep mud, earth and water being mingled together and kneaded, like a mass of dough, into a single element without shape or distinction of its parts. So God next bids all the briny water, which would have been the cause of barrenness to crops and trees, to be gathered together by flowing to the same point from the pores of the whole earth, and the dry land to appear. The moisture of the fresh sweet part was left behind to secure its permanence, since, when supplied in fit quantity, this sweet moisture served as a cohesive to the separate parts. This was to prevent it from being entirely dried up, and so becoming unproductive and barren, and enable it like a mother to provide, as for offspring, not one only of the two kinds of nourishment, namely solid food, but both kinds, food and drink. Wherefore the earth had abounding veins like breasts. These when opened would pour forth rivers and springs.
ב׳
2[39] No less did He cause the hidden courses of moisture also to penetrate to the rich deep loam with a view to unstinted fertility. Having thus ordered these elements He gave them names. The dry land he called “earth,” and the water separated from it “sea.”