על חיי משה, ספר אOn the Life of Moses, Book I
א׳
1[1] I purpose to write the life of Moses, whom some describe as the legislator of the Jews, others as the interpreter of the Holy Laws. I hope to bring the story of this greatest and most perfect of men to the knowledge of such as deserve not to remain in ignorance of it;
ב׳
2[2] for, while the fame of the laws which he left behind him has travelled throughout the civilized world and reached the ends of the earth, the man himself as he really was is known to few. Greek men of letters have refused to treat him as worthy of memory, possibly through envy, and also because in many cases the ordinances of the legislators of the different states are opposed to his.
ג׳
3[3] Most of these authors have abused the powers which education gave them, by composing in verse or prose comedies and pieces of voluptuous licence, to their widespread disgrace, when they should have used their natural gifts to the full on the lessons taught by good men and their lives. In this way they might have ensured that nothing of excellence, old or new, should be consigned to oblivion and to the extinction of the light which it could give, and also save themselves from seeming to neglect the better themes and prefer others unworthy of attention, in which all their efforts to express bad matter in good language served to confer distinction on shameful subjects.
ד׳
4[4] But I will disregard their malice, and tell the story of Moses as I have learned it, both from the sacred books, the wonderful monuments of his wisdom which he has left behind him, and from some of the elders of the nation; for I always interwove what I was told with what I read, and thus believed myself to have a closer knowledge than others of his life’s history.
ה׳
5[5] I will begin with what is necessarily the right place to begin. Moses was by race a Chaldean, but was born and reared in Egypt, as his ancestors had migrated thither to seek food with their whole households, in consequence of the long famine under which Babylon and the neighbouring populations were suffering. Egypt is a land rich in plains, with deep soil, and very productive of all that human nature needs,
ו׳
6[6] and particularly of corn. For the river of this country, in the height of summer, when other streams, whether winter torrents or spring-fed, are said to dwindle, rises and overflows, and its flood makes a lake of the fields which need no rain but every year bear a plentiful crop of good produce of every kind, if not prevented by some visitation of the wrath of God to punish the prevailing impiety of the inhabitants.
ז׳
7[7] He had for his father and mother the best of their contemporaries, members of the same tribe, though with them mutual affection was a stronger tie than family connexions. He was seventh in descent from the first settler, who became the founder of the whole Jewish nation.
ח׳
8[8] He was brought up as a prince, a promotion due to the following cause. As the nation of the newcomers was constantly growing more numerous, the king of the country, fearing that the settlers, thus increasing, might shew their superiority by contesting the chief power with the original inhabitants, contrived a most iniquitous scheme to deprive them of their strength. He gave orders to rear the female infants, since her natural weakness makes a woman inactive in war, but to put the males to death, to prevent their number increasing throughout the cities; for a flourishing male population is a coign of vantage to an aggressor which cannot easily be taken or destroyed.
ט׳
9[9] Now, the child from his birth had an appearance of more than ordinary goodliness, so that his parents as long as they could actually set at nought the proclamations of the despot. In fact we are told that, unknown to all but few, he was kept at home and fed from his mother’s breast for three successive months.
י׳
10[10] But, since, as is often the case under a monarch, there were persons prying into holes and corners, ever eager to carry some new report to the king, his parents in their fear that their efforts to save one would but cause a larger number, namely themselves, to perish with him, exposed him with tears on the banks of the river, and departed groaning. They pitied themselves being forced, as they said in their self-reproach, to be the murderers of their own child, and they pitied him too, left to perish in this unnatural way.
י״א
11[11] Then, as was natural in so strangely cruel a situation, they began to accuse themselves of having made bad worse. “Why did we not cast him away,” they said, “directly he was born? The child who has not survived to enjoy a kind nurture is not usually reckoned as a human being. But we meddlers actually nurtured him for three whole months, thus procuring more abundant affliction for ourselves and torture for him, only that when he was fully capable of feeling pleasure and pain he should perish conscious of the increased misery of his sufferings.”
י״ב
12[12] While they departed ignorant of the future, overcome by grief and sorrow, the sister of the infant castaway, a girl still unmarried, moved by family affection, remained at a little distance, waiting to see what would happen, all this being brought about, in my opinion, by the providence of God watching over the child.
י״ג
13[13] The king of the country had but one cherished daughter, who, we are told, had been married for a considerable time but had never conceived a child, though she naturally desired one, particularly of the male sex, to succeed to the magnificent inheritance of her father’s kingdom, which threatened to go to strangers if his daughter gave him no grandson.
י״ד
14[14] Depressed and loud in lamentation she always was, but on this particular day she broke down under the weight of cares; and, though her custom was to remain at home and never even cross the threshold, she set off with her maids to the river, where the child was exposed. Then, as she was preparing to make her ablutions in the purifying water, she saw him lying where the marshland growth was thickest, and bade him be brought to her.
ט״ו
15[15] Thereupon, surveying him from head to foot, she approved of his beauty and fine condition, and seeing him weeping took pity on him, for her heart was now moved to feel for him as a mother for her own child. And, recognizing that he belonged to the Hebrews, who were intimidated by the king’s orders, she considered how to have him nursed, for at present it was not safe to take him to the palace.
ט״ז
16[16] While she was still thus debating, the child’s sister, who guessed her difficulty, ran up from where she stood like a scout, and asked whether she would like to take for his foster-mother a Hebrew woman who had lately been with child.
י״ז
17[17] When the princess agreed, she brought her own and the babe’s mother in the guise of a stranger, who readily and gladly promised to nurse him, ostensibly for wages. Thus, by God’s disposing, it was provided that the child’s first nursing should come from the natural source. Since he had been taken up from the water, the princess gave him a name derived from this, and called him Moses, for Möu is the Egyptian word for water.
י״ח
18[18] As he grew and thrived without a break, and was weaned at an earlier date than they had reckoned, his mother and nurse in one brought him to her from whom she had received him, since he had ceased to need an infant’s milk. He was noble and goodly to look upon;
י״ט
19[19] and the princess, seeing him so advanced beyond his age, conceived for him an even greater fondness than before, and took him for her son, having at an earlier time artificially enlarged the figure of her womb to make him pass as her real and not a supposititious child. God makes all that He wills easy, however difficult be the accomplishment.
כ׳
20[20] So now he received as his right the nurture and service due to a prince. Yet he did not bear himself like the mere infant that he was, nor delight in fun and laughter and sport, though those who had the charge of him did not grudge him relaxation or shew him any strictness; but with a modest and serious bearing he applied himself to hearing and seeing what was sure to profit the soul.
כ״א
21[21] Teachers at once arrived from different parts, some unbidden from the neighbouring countries and the provinces of Egypt, others summoned from Greece under promise of high reward. But in a short time he advanced beyond their capacities; his gifted nature forestalled their instruction, so that his seemed a case rather of recollection than of learning, and indeed he himself devised and propounded problems which they could not easily solve.
כ״ב
22[22] For great natures carve out much that is new in the way of knowledge; and, just as bodies, robust and agile in every part, free their trainers from care, and receive little or none of their usual attention, and in the same way well-grown and naturally healthy trees, which improve of themselves, give the husbandmen no trouble, so the gifted soul takes the lead in meeting the lessons given by itself rather than the teacher and is profited thereby, and as soon as it has a grasp of some of the first principles of knowledge presses forward like the horse to the meadow,
כ״ג
23[23] as the proverb goes. Arithmetic, geometry, the lore of metre, rhythm and harmony, and the whole subject of music as shown by the use of instruments or in textbooks and treatises of a more special character, were imparted to him by learned Egyptians. These further instructed him in the philosophy conveyed in symbols, as displayed in the so-called holy inscriptions and in the regard paid to animals, to which they even pay divine honours. He had Greeks to teach him the rest of the regular school course, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries for Assyrian letters and the Chaldean science of the heavenly bodies.
כ״ד
24[24] This he also acquired from Egyptians, who give special attention to astrology. And, when he had mastered the lore of both nations, both where they agree and where they differ, he eschewed all strife and contention and sought only for truth. His mind was incapable of accepting any falsehood, as is the way with the sectarians, who defend the doctrines they have propounded, whatever they may be, without examining whether they can stand scrutiny, and thus put themselves on a par with hired advocates who have no thought nor care for justice.
כ״ה
25[25] When he was now passing beyond the term of boyhood, his good sense became more active. He did not, as some, allow the lusts of adolescence to go unbridled, though the abundant resources which palaces provide supply numberless incentives to foster their flame. But he kept a tight hold on them with the reins, as it were, of temperance and self-control, and forcibly pulled them back from their forward course.
כ״ו
26[26] And each of the other passions, which rage so furiously if left to themselves, he tamed and assuaged and reduced to mildness; and if they did but gently stir or flutter he provided for them heavier chastisement than any rebuke of words could give; and in general he watched the first directions and impulses of the soul as one would a restive horse, in fear lest they should run away with the reason which ought to rein them in, and thus cause universal chaos. For it is these impulses which cause both good and bad—good when they obey the guidance of reason, bad when they turn from their regular course into anarchy.
כ״ז
27[27] Naturally, therefore, his associates and everyone else, struck with amazement at what they felt was a novel spectacle, considered earnestly what the mind which dwelt in his body like an image in its shrine could be, whether it was human or divine or a mixture of both, so utterly unlike was it to the majority, soaring above them and exalted to a grander height.
כ״ח
28[28] For on his belly he bestowed no more than the necessary tributes which nature has appointed, and as for the pleasures that have their seat below, save for the lawful begetting of children, they passed altogether even out of his memory.
כ״ט
29[29] And, in his desire to live to the soul alone and not to the body, he made a special practice of frugal contentment, and had an unparalleled scorn for a life of luxury. He exemplified his philosophical creed by his daily actions. His words expressed his feelings, and his actions accorded with his words, so that speech and life were in harmony, and thus through their mutual agreement were found to make melody together as on a musical intrument.
ל׳
30[30] Now, most men, if they feel a breath of prosperity ever so small upon them, make much ado of puffing and blowing, and boast themselves as bigger than meaner men, and miscall them offscourings and nuisances and cumberers of the earth and other suchlike names, as if they themselves had the permanence of their prosperity securely sealed in their possession, though even the morrow may find them no longer where they are.
ל״א
31[31] For nothing is more unstable than Fortune, who moves human affairs up and down on the draughtboard of life, and in a single day pulls down the lofty and exalts the lowly on high; and though they see and know full well that this is always happening, they nevertheless look down on their relations and friends and set at naught the laws under which they were born and bred, and subvert the ancestral customs to which no blame can justly attach, by adopting different modes of life, and, in their contentment with the present, lose all memory of the past.
ל״ב
32[32] But Moses, having reached the very pinnacle of human prosperity, regarded as the son of the king’s daughter, and in general expectation almost the successor to his grandfather’s sovereignty, and indeed regularly called the young king, was zealous for the discipline and culture of his kinsmen and ancestors. The good fortune of his adopters, he held, was a spurious one, even though the circumstances gave it greater lustre; that of his natural parents, though less distinguished for the nonce,
ל״ג
33[33] was at any rate his own and genuine; and so, estimating the claims of his real and his adopted parents like an impartial judge, he requited the former with good feeling and profound affection, the latter with gratitude for their kind treatment of him. And he would have continued to do so throughout had he not found the king adopting in the country a new and highly impious course of action. The Jews,
ל״ד
34[34] as I have said before, were strangers, since famine had driven the founders of the nation, through lack of food, to migrate to Egypt from Babylon and the inland satrapies. They were, in a sense, suppliants, who had found a sanctuary in the pledged faith of the king and the pity felt for them by the inhabitants.
ל״ה
35[35] For strangers, in my judgement, must be regarded as suppliants of those who receive them, and not only suppliants but settlers and friends who are anxious to obtain equal rights with the burgesses and are near to being citizens because they differ little from the original inhabitants.
ל״ו
36[36] So, then, these strangers, who had left their own country and come to Egypt hoping to live there in safety as in a second fatherland, were made slaves by the ruler of the country and reduced to the condition of captives taken by the custom of war, or persons purchased from the masters in whose household they had been bred. And in thus making serfs of men who were not only free but guests, suppliants and settlers, he showed no shame or fear of the God of liberty and hospitality and of justice to guests and suppliants, Who watches over such as these.
ל״ז
37[37] Then he laid commands upon them, severe beyond their capacity, and added labour to labour; and, when they failed through weakness, the iron hand was upon them; for he chose as superintendents of the works men of the most cruel and savage temper who showed no mercy to anyone, men whose name of “task-pursuer” well described the facts.
ל״ח
38[38] Some of the workers wrought clay into brick, while others fetched from every quarter straw which served to bind the brick. Others were appointed to build houses and walls and cities or to cut canals. They carried the materials themselves day and night, with no shifts to relieve them, no period of rest, not even suffered just to sleep for a bit and then resume their work. In fact, they were compelled to do all the work, both of the artisan and his assistants, so that in a short time loss of heart was followed necessarily by bodily exhaustion.
ל״ט
39[39] This was shown by the way in which they died one after the other, as though they were the victims of a pestilence, to be flung unburied outside the borders by their masters, who did not allow the survivors even to collect dust to throw upon the corpses or even to shed tears for their kinsfolk or friends thus pitifully done to death. And, though nature has given to the untrammelled feelings of the soul a liberty which she has denied to almost everything else, they impiously threatened to exert their despotism over these also and suppressed them with the intolerable weight of a constraint more powerful than nature.
מ׳
40[40] All this continued to depress and anger Moses, who had no power either to punish those who did the wrong or help those who suffered it. What he could he did. He assisted with his words, exhorting the overseers to show clemency and relax and alleviate the stringency of their orders, and the workers to bear their present condition bravely, to display a manly spirit and not let their souls share the weariness of their bodies, but look for good to take the place of evil.
מ״א
41[41] All things in the world, he told them, change to their opposites: clouds to open sky, violent winds to tranquil weather, stormy seas to calm and peaceful, and human affairs still more so, even as they are more unstable.
מ״ב
42[42] With such soothing words, like a good physician, he thought to relieve the sickness of their plight, terrible as it was. But, when it abated, it did but turn and make a fresh attack and gather from the breathing-space some new misery more powerful than its predecessors.
מ״ג
43[43] For some of the overseers were exceedingly harsh and ferocious, in savageness differing nothing from venomous and carnivorous animals, wild beasts in human shape who assumed in outward form the semblance of civilized beings only to beguile and catch their prey, in reality more unyielding than iron or adamant.
מ״ד
44[44] One of these, the cruellest of all, was killed by Moses, because he not only made no concession but was rendered harsher than ever by his exhortations, beating those who did not execute his orders with breathless promptness, persecuting them to the point of death and subjecting them to every outrage. Moses considered that his action in killing him was a righteous action. And righteous it was that one who only lived to destroy men should himself be destroyed.
מ״ה
45[45] When the king heard this, he was very indignant. What he felt so strongly was not that one man had been killed by another whether justly or unjustly, but that his own daughter’s son did not think with him, and had not considered the king’s friends and enemies to be his own friends and enemies, but hated those of whom he was fond, and loved those whom he rejected, and pitied those to whom he was relentless and inexorable.
מ״ו
46[46] When those in authority who suspected the youth’s intentions, knowing that he would remember their wicked actions against them and take vengeance when the opportunity came, had thus once got a handle, they poured malicious suggestions by the thousand from every side into the open ears of his grandfather, so as to instil the fear that his sovereignty might be taken from him. “He will attack you,” they said, “he is highly ambitious. He is always busy with some further project. He is eager to get the kingship before the time comes. He flatters some, threatens others, slays without trial and treats as outcasts those who are most loyal to you. Why do you hesitate, instead of cutting short his projected undertakings? The aggressor is greatly served by delay on the part of his proposed victim.”
מ״ז
47[47] While such talk was in circulation, Moses retired into the neighbouring country of Arabia, where it was safe for him to stay, at the same time beseeching God to save the oppressed from their helpless, miserable plight, and to punish as they deserved the oppressors who had left no form of maltreatment untried, and to double the gift by granting to himself that he should see both these accomplished. God, in high approval of his spirit, which loved the good and hated evil, listened to his prayers, and very shortly judged the land and its doings as became His nature.
מ״ח
48[48] But, while the divine judgement was still waiting, Moses was carrying out the exercises of virtue with an admirable trainer, the reason within him, under whose discipline he laboured to fit himself for life in its highest forms, the theoretical and the practical. He was ever opening the scroll of philosophical doctrines, digested them inwardly with quick understanding, committed them to memory never to be forgotten, and straightway brought his personal conduct, praiseworthy in all respects, into conformity with them; for he desired truth rather than seeming, because the one mark he set before him was nature’s right reason, the sole source and fountain of virtues.
מ״ט
49[49] Now, any other who was fleeing from the king’s relentless wrath, and had just arrived for the first time in a foreign land, who had not yet become familiar with the customs of the natives nor gained exact knowledge of what pleases or offends them, might well have been eager to keep quiet and live in obscurity unnoticed by the multitude; or else he might have wished to come forward in public, and by obsequious persistence court the favour of men of highest authority and power, if none others, men who might be expected to give help and succour should some come and attempt to carry him off by force.
נ׳
50[50] But the path which he took was the opposite of what we should expect. He followed the wholesome impulses of his soul, and suffered none of them to be brought to the ground. And, therefore, at times he showed a gallant temper beyond his fund of strength, for he regarded justice as strength invincible, which urged him on his self-appointed task to champion the weaker.
נ״א
51[51] I will describe an action of his at this time, which, though it may seem a petty matter, argues a spirit of no petty kind. The Arabs are breeders of cattle, and they employ for tending them not only men but women, youths and maidens alike, and not only those of insignificant and humble families but those of the highest position.
נ״ב
52[52] Seven maidens, daughters of the priest, had come to a well, and, after attaching the buckets to the ropes, drew water, taking turns with each to share the labour equally. They had with great industry filled the troughs which lay near,
נ״ג
53[53] when some other shepherds appeared on the spot who, disdaining the weakness of the girls, tried to drive them and their flock away, and proceeded to bring their own animals to the place where the water lay ready, and thus appropriate the labours of others.
נ״ד
54[54] But Moses, who was not far off, seeing what had happened, quickly ran up and, standing near by, said: “Stop this injustice. You think you can take advantage of the loneliness of the place. Are you not ashamed to let your arms and elbows live an idle life? You are masses of long hair and lumps of flesh, not men. The girls are working like youths, and shirk none of their duties, while you young men go daintily like girls.
נ״ה
55[55] Away with you: give place to those who were here before you, to whom the water belongs. Properly, you should have drawn for them, to make the supply more abundant; instead, you are all agog to take from them what they have provided. Nay, by the heavenly eye of justice, you shall not take it; for that eye sees even what is done in the greatest solitude.
נ״ו
56[56] In me at least it has appointed a champion whom you did not expect, for I fight to succour these injured maidens, allied to a mighty arm which the rapacious may not see, but you shall feel its invisible power to wound if you do not change your ways.”
נ״ז
57[57] As he proceeded thus, they were seized with fear that they were listening to some oracular utterance, for as he spoke he grew inspired and was transfigured into a prophet. They became submissive, and led the maidens’ flock to the troughs, after removing their own.
נ״ח
58[58] The girls went home in high glee, and told the story of the unexpected event to their father, who thence conceived a strong desire to see the stranger, which he showed by censuring them for their ingratitude. “What possessed you,” he said, “to let him depart? You should have brought him straight along, and pressed him if he showed reluctance. Did you ever have to charge me with unsociable ways? Do you not expect that you may again fall in with those who would wrong you? Those who forget kindness are sure to lack defenders. Still, your error is not yet past cure. Run back with all speed, and invite him to receive from me first the entertainment due to him as a stranger, secondly some requital of the favour which we owe to him.”
נ״ט
59[59] They hurried back and found him not far from the well, and, after explaining their father’s message, persuaded him to come home with them. Their father was at once struck with admiration of his face, and soon afterwards of his disposition, for great natures are transparent and need no length of time to be recognized. Accordingly, he gave him the fairest of his daughters in marriage, and, by that one action, attested all his noble qualities, and showed that excellence standing alone deserves our love, and needs no commendation from aught else, but carries within itself the tokens by which it is known.
ס׳
60[60] After the marriage, Moses took charge of the sheep and tended them, thus receiving his first lesson in command of others; for the shepherd’s business is a training-ground and a preliminary exercise in kingship for one who is destined to command the herd of mankind, the most civilized of herds, just as also hunting is for warlike natures, since those who are trained to generalship practise themselves first in the chase. And thus unreasoning animals are made to subserve as material wherewith to gain practice in government in the emergencies of both peace and war;
ס״א
61[61] for the chase of wild animals is a drilling-ground for the general in fighting the enemy, and the care and supervision of tame animals is a schooling for the king in dealing with his subjects, and therefore kings are called “shepherds of their people,” not as a term of reproach but as the highest honour.
ס״ב
62[62] And my opinion, based not on the opinions of the multitude but on my own inquiry into the truth of the matter, is that the only perfect king (let him laugh who will) is one who is skilled in the knowledge of shepherding, one who has been trained by management of the inferior creatures to manage the superior. For initiation in the lesser mysteries must precede initiation in the greater.
ס״ג
63[63] To return to Moses, he became more skilled than any of his time in managing flocks and providing what tended to the benefit of his charges. His capacity was due to his never shirking any duty, but showing an eager and unprompted zeal wherever it was needed, and maintaining a pure and guileless honesty in the conduct of his office.
ס״ד
64[64] Consequently the flocks increased under him, and this roused the envy of the other graziers, who did not see anything of the sort happening in their own flocks. In their case it was felt to be a piece of luck if they remained as they had been, but with the flocks of Moses any failure to make daily improvement was a set-back, so great was the progress regularly made, both in fine quality, through increased fatness and firmness of flesh, and in number through their fecundity and the wholesomeness of their food.
ס״ה
65[65] Now, as he was leading the flock to a place where the water and the grass were abundant, and where there happened to be plentiful growth of herbage for the sheep, he found himself at a glen where he saw a most astonishing sight. There was a bramble-bush, a thorny sort of plant, and of the most weakly kind, which, without anyone’s setting it alight, suddenly took fire; and, though enveloped from root to twigs in a mass of fire, which looked as though it were spouted up from a fountain, yet remained whole, and, instead of being consumed, seemed to be a substance impervious to attack, and, instead of serving as fuel to the fire, actually fed on it.
ס״ו
66[66] In the midst of the flame was a form of the fairest beauty, unlike any visible object, an image supremely divine in appearance, refulgent with a light brighter than the light of fire. It might be supposed that this was the image of Him that IS; but let us rather call it an angel or herald, since, with a silence that spoke more clearly than speech, it employed as it were the miracle of sight to herald future events.
ס״ז
67[67] For the burning bramble was a symbol of those who suffered wrong, as the flaming fire of those who did it. Yet that which burned was not burnt up, and this was a sign that the sufferers would not be destroyed by their aggressors, who would find that the aggression was vain and profitless while the victims of malice escaped unharmed. The angel was a symbol of God’s providence, which all silently brings relief to the greatest dangers, exceeding every hope.
ס״ח
68[68] But the details of the comparison must be considered. The bramble, as I have said, is a very weakly plant, yet it is prickly and will wound if one do but touch it. Again, though fire is naturally destructive, the bramble was not devoured thereby, but on the contrary was guarded by it, and remained just as it was before it took fire, lost nothing at all but gained an additional brightness.
ס״ט
69[69] All this is a description of the nation’s condition as it then stood, and we may think of it as a voice proclaiming to the sufferers: “Do not lose heart; your weakness is your strength, which can prick, and thousands will suffer from its wounds. Those who desire to consume you will be your unwilling saviours instead of your destroyers. Your ills will work you no ill. Nay, just when the enemy is surest of ravaging you, your fame will shine forth most gloriously.”
ע׳
70[70] Again fire, the element which works destruction, convicts the cruel-hearted. “Exult not in your own strength” it says. “Behold your invincible might brought low, and learn wisdom. The property of flame is to consume, yet it is consumed, like wood. The nature of wood is to be consumed yet it is manifested as the consumer, as though it were the fire.”
ע״א
71[71] After showing to Moses this miraculous portent, so clearly warning him of the events that were to be, God begins in oracular speech to urge him to take charge of the nation with all speed, in the capacity not merely of an assistant to their liberation, but of the leader who would shortly take them from Egypt to another home. He promised to help him in everything:
ע״ב
72[72] “For,” he said, “suffering, as they do, prolonged ill-treatment, and subjected to intolerable outrages, with no relief or pity for their miseries from men, I have taken compassion on them Myself. For I know that each severally, and all unitedly, have betaken themselves to prayers and supplications in hope to gain help from Me, and I am of a kindly nature and gracious to true suppliants.
ע״ג
73[73] Now go to the king of the land, and fear not at all, for the former king from whom you fled in fear that he meant mischief is dead, and the land is in the hands of another who does not remember any of your actions against you. Take with you also the elders of the nation, and tell him that the people has received a command from Me to make a three-days’ journey beyond the bounds of the country, and there sacrifice according to the rites of their fathers.”
ע״ד
74[74] Moses knew well that his own nation and all the others would disbelieve his words, and said: “If they ask the name of him who sent me, and I cannot myself tell them, will they not think me a deceiver?”
ע״ה
75[75] God replied: “First tell them that I am He Who IS, that they may learn the difference between what IS and what is not, and also the further lesson that no name at all can properly be used of Me,
ע״ו
76[76] to Whom alone existence belongs. And, if, in their natural weakness, they seek some title to use, tell them not only that I am God, but also the God of the three men whose names express their virtue, each of them the exemplar of the wisdom they have gained—Abraham by teaching, Isaac by nature, Jacob by practice. And, if they still disbelieve, three signs which no man has ever before seen or heard of will be sufficient lesson to convert them.”
ע״ז
77[77] The signs were such as these. He bade him cast on the ground the rod which he carried, and this at once took life and began to creep, and became that high chief of the reptile kingdom, a huge serpent grown to full strength. Moses quickly leaped away from the creature, and, in his fright, was starting to fly, when he was recalled by God, and, at His bidding and inspired by Him with courage,
ע״ח
78[78] grasped its tail. It was still wriggling, but stopped at his touch, and, stretching itself to its full length, was metamorphosed at once into the rod which it had been before, so that Moses marvelled at the double change, unable to decide which was the more astonishing, so evenly balanced was the profound impression which each made upon his soul.
ע״ט
79[79] This was the first miracle, and a second followed soon. God bade him conceal one of his hands in his bosom, and, after a little while, draw it out. And when he did as he was bid, the hand suddenly appeared whiter than snow. He did the same again, put it in his bosom and then brought it out, when it turned to its original colour and recovered its proper appearance.
פ׳
80[80] These lessons he received when he and God were alone together, like pupil and master, and while the instruments of the miracles, the hand and the staff, with which he was equipped for his mission were both in his own possession.
פ״א
81[81] But the third had its birthplace in Egypt. It was one which he could not carry with him or rehearse beforehand, yet the amazement which it was sure to cause was quite as great. It was this: “The water,” God said, “which thou dost draw from the river and pour on the land will be blood quite ruddy, and not only its colour but its properties will be completely changed.”
פ״ב
82[82] Moses evidently felt that this too was credible, not only because of the infallibility of the Speaker, but through the proofs he had already been shewn in the miracles of the hand and the staff.
פ״ג
83[83] But, though he believed, he tried to refuse the mission, declaring that he was not eloquent, but feeble of voice and slow of tongue, especially ever since he heard God speaking to him; for he considered that human eloquence compared with God’s was dumbness, and also, cautious as he was by nature, he shrank from things sublime and judged that matters of such magnitude were not for him. And therefore he begged Him to choose another, who would prove able to execute with ease all that was committed to him.
פ״ד
84[84] But God, though approving his modesty, answered: “Dost thou not know who it is that gave man a mouth, and formed his tongue and throat and all the organism of reasonable speech? It is I Myself: therefore, fear not, for at a sign from Me all will become articulate and be brought over to method and order, so that none can hinder the stream of words from flowing easily and smoothly from a fountain undefiled. And, if thou shouldst have need of an interpreter, thou wilt have in thy brother a mouth to assist thy service, to report to the people thy words, as thou reportest those of God to him.”
פ״ה
85[85] Moses, hearing this, and knowing how unsafe and hazardous it was to persist in gainsaying, took his departure, and travelled with his wife and children on the road to Egypt. During the journey he met his brother, to whom he declared the divine message, and persuaded him to accompany him. His brother’s soul, in fact, had already, through the watchful working of God, been predisposed to obedience, so that without hesitation he assented and readily followed.
פ״ו
86[86] When they had arrived in Egypt, one in mind and heart, they first summoned the senators of the nation secretly, and informed them of the oracles, and how God had, in pity and compassion for them, assured them liberty and departure from their present to a better country, and promised to be Himself their leader.
פ״ז
87[87] After this they were now emboldened to talk to the king, and lay before him their request that he should send the people out of his boundaries to sacrifice. They told him that their ancestral sacrifices must be performed in the desert, as they did not conform with those of the rest of mankind, but so exceptional were the customs peculiar to the Hebrews that their rule and method of sacrifices ran counter to the common course.
פ״ח
88[88] The king, whose soul from his earliest years was weighed down with the pride of many generations, did not accept a God discernible only by the mind, or any at all beyond those whom his eyes beheld; and therefore he answered insolently: “Who is he whom I must obey? I know not this new Lord of whom you speak. I refuse to send the nation forth to run loose under pretext of festival and sacrifices.”
פ״ט
89[89] Then, in the harshness and ferocity and obstinacy of his temper, he bade the overseers of the tasks treat the people with contumely, for showing slackness and laziness. “For just this,” he said, “was what was meant by the proposal to hold festival and sacrifice—things the very memory of which was lost by the hard pressed, and retained only by those whose life was spent in much comfort and luxury.”
צ׳
90[90] Thus they endured woes more grievous than ever, and were enraged against Moses and his companion as deceivers, abusing them, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly, and accusing them of impiety in that they appeared to have spoken falsely of God. Whereupon Moses began to show the wonders which he had been previously taught to perform, thinking that the sight would convert them from the prevailing unbelief to belief in his words.
צ״א
91[91] The exhibition of these wonders to the king and the Egyptian nobles followed very quickly;
צ״ב
92so, when all the magnates had collected at the palace, the brother of Moses took his staff, and, after waving it in a very conspicuous manner, flung it on the ground, where it immediately turned into a serpent, while the onlookers standing round were filled with wonder, fell back in fear, and were on the point of running away.
צ״ג
93[92] But all the wizards and magicians who were present said: “Why are you terrified? We, too, are practised in such matters, and we use our skill to produce similar results.” Then, as each of them threw down the staff which he held, there appeared a multitude of serpents writhing round a single one;
צ״ד
94[93] that one, the first, showed its great superiority by rising high, widening its chest and opening its mouth, when with the suction of its breath it swept the others in with irresistible force, like a whole draught of fishes encircled by the net, and, after swallowing them up, changed to its original nature, and became a staff.
צ״ה
95[94] By this time, the marvellous spectacle had refuted the scepticism in every ill-disposed person’s soul, and they now regarded these events not as the works of human cunning or artifices fabricated to deceive, but as brought about by some diviner power to which every feat is easy.
צ״ו
96[95] But, though they were compelled by the clear evidence of the facts to admit the truth, they did not abate their audacity, but clung to their old inhumanity and impiety as though it were the surest of blessings. They did not show mercy to those who were unjustly enslaved, nor carry out the orders which had divine authority, since God had shown His will by the proofs of signs and wonders, which are clearer than oracles. And therefore a severer visitation was needed, and volley of those blows whereby fools whom reason has not disciplined are brought to their senses.
צ״ז
97[96] The punishments inflicted on the land were ten—a perfect number for the chastisement of those who brought sin to perfection. The chastisement was different from the usual kind,
צ״ח
98for the elements of the universe—earth, fire, air, water—carried out the assault. God’s judgement was that the materials which had served to produce the world should serve also to destrov the land of the impious; and to show the mightiness of the sovereignty which He holds, what He shaped in His saving goodness to create the universe He turned into instruments for the perdition of the impious whenever He would.
צ״ט
99[97] He distributed the punishments in this wise: three belonging to the denser elements, earth and water, which have gone to make our bodily qualities what they are, He committed to the brother of Moses; another set of three, belonging to air and fire, the two most productive of life, He gave to Moses alone; one, the seventh, He committed to both in common; and the other three which go to complete the ten He reserved to Himself.
ק׳
100[98] He began by bringing into play first the plagues of water; for, since the Egyptians had paid a specially high homage to water, which they believed to be the original source of the creation of the All, He thought well to summon water first to reprove and admonish its votaries.
ק״א
101[99] What, then, was the event which so soon came to pass? The brother of Moses, at the command of God, smote the river with his staff, and at once, from Ethiopia to the sea, it turned into blood, and so did also the lakes, canals, springs, wells and fountains and all the existing water-supply of Egypt. Consequently, having nothing to drink, they dug up the ground along the banks; but the veins thus opened spouted up squirts of blood, which shot up as in haemorrhages, and not a drop of clear liquid was anywhere to be seen.
ק״ב
102[100] Every kind of fish died therein, since its life-giving properties had become a means of destruction, so that a general stench pervaded everything from all these bodies rotting together. Also a great multitude of men, killed by thirst, lay in heaps at the cross-roads, since their relatives had not the strength to carry the dead to the tombs.
ק״ג
103[101] For seven days the terror reigned, until the Egyptians besought Moses and his brother, and they besought God, to take pity on the perishing. And He Whose nature is to show mercy changed the blood into water fit for drinking, and restored to the river its old health-giving flood free from impurity.
ק״ד
104[102] For a very short time they relaxed, but soon betook themselves to the same cruelty and lawlessness as before, and seemed to think that either justice had disappeared utterly from amongst men, or that those who had suffered one punishment could not be expected to receive a second blow. But, like foolish children, they were taught once more by experience not to despise the warning. For chastisement, dogging their steps, slowed down when they tarried, but when they hastened to deeds of wickedness quickened its pace and overtook them.
ק״ה
105[103] For once more the brother of Moses, at God’s command, stretched forth and brought his rod upon the canals and lakes and fens; and, as he stretched it, a multitude of frogs crept up, so numerous that not only the market-places and all the open spaces, but all the farm-buildings as well, and houses and temples and every place, public or private, was filled with them, as though it were nature’s purpose to send one kind of the aquatic animals to colonize the opposite region, since land is the opposite of water.
ק״ו
106[104] The people, who could neither go out into the streets, because the passages were occupied by the frogs, nor yet stay indoors, because they had already crept up even to the tops of the houses and taken up the inmost recesses, were in the most unhappy and desperate straits.
ק״ז
107[105] So, after the king had promised them to permit the Hebrews to leave the land, they fled for refuge to those who had helped them before; and they made intercession with God, and when their prayer was granted some of the frogs went back into the river, and others died at once and lay in heaps at the cross-roads, to which the Egyptians added the piles of those which they brought out of their houses, because of the intolerable stench arising from the dead bodies, and bodies of a kind which, even when alive, is highly displeasing to the senses.
ק״ח
108[106] But, having thus obtained a short breathing-space from punishment, and, like athletes in the arena, rallied their forces, only to gain fresh strength for evil-doing, they quickly returned to their familiar wickedness, forgetful of the evils which they had suffered so long.
ק״ט
109[107] Then God stayed from using water to afflict them, and used the earth instead; but appointed the same minister of chastisement, who once more, when bidden, struck the ground with his staff, when a stream of gnats poured forth, and spread like a cloud over the whole extent of Egypt.
ק״י
110[108] Now the gnat is a very small creature, but exceedingly troublesome, for it not only causes mischief to the surface of the body, and produces an unpleasant and very noxious itching, but it forces its way inside through the nostrils and ears, and also flies into and damages the pupils of the eyes, if one does not take precautions. And what precautions would be possible against such a stream, especially when it is a chastisement sent by God?
קי״א
111[109] Someone perhaps may ask why He punished the land through such petty and insignificant creatures, and refrained from using bears and lions and panthers and the other kinds of savage beasts which feed on human flesh; and, if not these, at any rate the asps of Egypt, whose bites are such as to cause immediate death.
קי״ב
112[110] If such a person really does not know the answer, let him learn it: first, God wished to admonish the inhabitants of the land rather than to destroy them, for had He wished to annihilate them altogether He would not have taken animals to co-operate in His visitation, but calamities sent direct from heaven—pestilence and famine.
קי״ג
113[111] And after this the inquirer should be taught a further lesson, and one that is needed throughout life. What is this? When men make war, they look round to find the most powerful auxiliaries to fight beside them, and so compensate for their own weakness; but God, the highest and greatest power, needs no one. But if, at any time, He wills to use any as instruments for His vengeance, He does not choose the strongest and the greatest, of whose might He takes no account, but provides the slightest and the smallest with irresistible and invincible powers, and through them wreaks vengeance on the evil-doers. So it was in this case.
קי״ד
114[112] For what is slighter than a gnat? Yet so great was its power that all Egypt lost heart, and was forced to cry aloud: “This is the finger of God”; for as for His hand not all the habitable world from end to end could stand against it, or rather not even the whole universe.
קי״ה
115[113] Such, then, were the punishments in which the brother of Moses was the agent. We have now, in due course, to examine those which were administered by Moses himself, and to shew what were the parts of nature which went to their making. We find that air and heaven, the purest portions of the universe, took on the succession to earth and water in that admonition of Egypt which Moses was appointed to superintend.
קי״ו
116[114] First, he began to cause disturbance in the air. We must remember that Egypt is almost the only country, apart from those in southern latitudes, which is unvisited by one of the year’s seasons—winter. The reason may be, some say, that it is not far from the torrid zone, and that the fiery heat which insensibly emanates thence warms all its surroundings. It may be, again, that the clouds are used up beforehand by the flooding of the river at the summer solstice.
קי״ז
117[115] The river begins to rise as the summer opens, and ceases when it ceases, and during that time the Etesian winds sweep down opposite to the mouths of the Nile and put a stop to its outflow through them. For, as the sea rises to a great height through the violence of the winds, extending its huge billows like a long wall, it coops the river up within; and then as the stream which flows from the upland springs, and the other which should find its way out but is driven inland by the obstacles which face it, meet each other, prevented as they are from expanding by the banks which compress them on either side, the river naturally rises aloft.
קי״ח
118[116] Another possible reason is that winter is unneeded in Egypt. For the river, by making a lake of the fields, and thus producing the yearly crops, serves the purpose of rainfall.
קי״ט
119[117] And, indeed, nature is no wastrel in her work, to provide rain for a land which does not want it. At the same time she rejoices to employ her science in works of manifold variety, and thus out of contrarieties form the harmony of the universe. And therefore she supplies the benefit of water to some from heaven above, to others from the springs and rivers below.
ק״כ
120[118] Such was the condition of the land, enjoying springtime at mid-winter, the seaboard enriched by only slight showers, while the parts above Memphis, where the royal palace of Egypt was, experienced no rainfall at all, when suddenly a complete change came over the air, and all the visitations which belong to severe winter fell upon it in a body: rainstorms, a great quantity of heavy hail, violent winds, clashing and roaring against each other, cloudbursts, continuous claps of thunder and flashes of lightning and constant thunderbolts. These last provided a most marvellous spectacle, for they ran through the hail, their natural antagonist, and yet did not melt it nor were quenched by it, but unchanged coursed up and down and kept guard over the hail.
קכ״א
121[119] Intense was the despondency to which the inhabitants were reduced, not only by the disastrous onset of all these things, but by the strangeness of the event. For they thought, as indeed was the case, that divine wrath had brought about these novel happenings; that the air in a way unknown before had conspired to ruin and destroy the trees and fruits, while at the same time many animals perished, some through excessive cold, others stoned to death, as it were, through the weight of the falling hail, others consumed by the fire, while some survived half-burnt and bore the marks of the wounds inflicted by the thunderbolts as a warning to the beholders.
קכ״ב
122[120] When the plague abated, and the king and his surroundings recovered their courage, Moses, at God’s command, stretched his rod into the air, and then a violent south wind swooped down, gaining force and intensity throughout the day and night. This in itself was a source of much mischief, for the south wind is dry and produces headache and makes hearing difficult, and thus is fitted to cause distress and suffering, particularly in Egypt which lies well to the south, where the sun and the planets have their orbits, so that when the wind sets it in motion the scorching of the sun is pushed forward with it, and burns up everything.
קכ״ג
123[121] But it also brought with it a huge multitude of creatures which destroyed the plants, locusts that is, who poured forth ceaselessly like a stream, and filling the whole air devoured whatever the lightnings and hail had left, so that nothing any longer could be seen growing in all that great country.
קכ״ד
124[122] Then those in authority, reluctantly brought to a full realization of their own evil plight, approached the king and said: “How long will you refuse to grant these men leave to depart? Do you not yet understand that Egypt is destroyed?” The king yielded, or appeared to do so, and promised to comply if he were relieved from the dire scourge. And when Moses prayed again, a wind from the sea caught and scattered the locusts.
קכ״ה
125[123] But, when they were scattered, and the king was sick to death at the thought of releasing the people, a plague arose greater than all that had gone before; for, in bright daylight, darkness was suddenly overspread, possibly because there was an eclipse of the sun more complete than the ordinary, or perhaps because the stream of rays was cut off by continuous clouds, compressed with great force into masses of unbroken density. The result was that night and day were the same, and indeed what else could it seem but a single night of great length, equivalent to three days and the same number of nights?
קכ״ו
126[124] Then, indeed, as we are told, some who had thrown themselves on their beds did not dare to rise from them, while others, when any of the needs of nature pressed, felt their way along the walls or any other object, proceeding with difficulty as though they were blind. For the light of artificial fire was partly quenched by the prevailing storm wind, partly dimmed to the point of disappearance by the depth of the darkness, so that sight, the most indispensable of the senses, though sound in itself, was helpless and unable to see anything; and the other senses were discomfited,
קכ״ז
127[125] like subjects when their queen has fallen. For men could not bring themselves to speak or hear or take food, but lay tortured in silence and famine with no heart to use any of the senses, so entirely overwhelmed were they by the disaster, until Moses again took pity and besought God, Who made light to take the place of darkness, and day of night, with bright open sky all around.
קכ״ח
128[126] Such, we are told, were the plagues inflicted through the agency of Moses alone, namely the plague of hail and lightning, the plague of the locusts, and that of the darkness which was proof against every form of light. One was committed to him and his brother together, which I will at once proceed to describe.
קכ״ט
129[127] They took in their hands, at God’s bidding, ashes from a furnace, which Moses scattered in the air, and then dust suddenly fell upon men and the lower animals alike. It produced an angry, painful ulceration over the whole skin, and, simultaneously with this eruption, their bodies swelled with suppurated blisters, which might be supposed to be extravasations from inflammation lurking beneath.
ק״ל
130[128] Oppressed as they naturally were by the extreme painfulness and soreness of the ulceration and inflammation, they suffered in spirit more or no less than in body from the exhaustion which their miseries produced. For one continuous ulcer was to be seen stretching from head to foot, the sores scattered over every particular limb and part of the body being concentrated into a single form of the same appearance throughout. So it was until, again by the intercessions which the lawgiver made on behalf of the sufferers, the distemper was lightened.
קל״א
131[129] Rightly indeed was this chastisement committed to the two in common: to the brother because the dust which came down upon the people was from the earth, and what was of earth was under his charge; to Moses because the air was changed to afflict them, and plagues of heaven and air belonged to his ministration.
קל״ב
132[130] The three remaining chastisements were self-wrought, without any human agent, each of which I will proceed to describe as well as possible. In the first, a creature is employed whose ferocity is unequalled in all nature—the dog-fly. This name, which the coiners of words in their wisdom have given it, well expresses its character, for it is a compound formed from the two most shameless animals of the land and the air—the dog and the fly. Both these are persistent and fearless in their assaults, and if one attempts to ward them off meet him with a perseverance which refuses to be beaten, until they have got their fill of flesh and blood.
קל״ג
133[131] The dog-fly has acquired the audacity of both, and is a creature venomous and vicious, which comes with a whirr from a distance, hurls itself like a javelin, and, with a violent onrush, fastens itself firmly on its victim.
קל״ד
134[132] On this occasion the assault was also divinely impelled, so that its viciousness was doubled, prompted by avidity due not only to nature but to divine providence, which armed the creature and roused it to use its force against the population.
קל״ה
135[133] After the dog-fly there followed again a chastisement brought about without human co-operation, the death of the live-stock ; for great herds of oxen and sheep and goats, and every kind of beast of burden and other cattle, perished as by a single agreed signal in a single day, whole droves at a time, thus presaging the destruction of men which was about to follow, just as we find in epidemics. For pestilential disorders are said to be preluded by a sudden murrain among the lower animals.
קל״ו
136[134] After this came the tenth and final judgement, transcending all its predecessors. This was the death of the Egyptians, not of the whole population, since God’s purpose was not to make a complete desert of the country, but only to teach them a lesson, nor yet of the great majority of the men and women of every age. Instead, He permitted the rest to live, but sentenced the first-born only to death, beginning with the king and ending with the meanest woman who grinds at the mill, in each case their eldest male child.
קל״ז
137[135] For, about midnight, those who had been the first to call their parents father and mother, first to be called sons by them, all in full health and robust of body, were suddenly cut off wholesale without apparent cause, and no household, as we are told, was spared this calamity.
קל״ח
138[136] When dawn came, every family, seeing their dearest thus unexpectedly dead, who, up till the evening, had shared their home and board, were naturally struck with profound grief and filled the whole place with their lamentations. And so, since in this general disaster the same emotion drew from all a united outcry, one single dirge of wailing resounded from end to end of the whole land.
קל״ט
139[137] And, as long as they stayed in their houses, everyone, ignorant of his neighbour’s evil plight, bewailed his own only; but, when they came forth and learned what had befallen the rest, their grief was straightway doubled. To the personal sorrow, the lighter and lesser, was added the public, greater and heavier, since they lost even the hope of consolation. For who could be expected to comfort another if he needs consolation himself?
ק״מ
140[138] And, as so often happens in such circumstances, they thought that their present condition was but the beginning of greater evils, and were filled with fear of the destruction of those who still lived. Consequently, bathed in tears and with garments rent, they rushed together to the palace and cried out against the king as the cause of all the dire events that had befallen them.
קמ״א
141[139] If, they said, at the very beginning, when Moses first entreated him, he had suffered the people to go forth, they would have experienced none at all of these happenings; but, as he indulged his usual self-will, the rewards of his contentiousness had been promptly reaped by themselves. Then they exhorted each other to use all speed in driving the people from the whole country, and declared that to detain them even for a single day, or rather only for an hour, would bring upon them a deadly vengeance.
קמ״ב
142[140] The Hebrews, thus hunted as outcasts from the land, and conscious of their own high lineage, were emboldened to act as was natural to them, as freemen and men who were not oblivious of the injustices which malice had inflicted on them;
קמ״ג
143[141] for they took out with them much spoil, which they carried partly on their backs, partly laid on their beasts of burden. And they did this not in avarice, or, as their accusers might say, in covetousness of what belonged to others. No, indeed. In the first place, they were but receiving a bare wage for all their time of service; secondly, they were retaliating, not on an equal but on a lesser scale, for their enslavement. For what resemblance is there between forfeiture of money and deprivation of liberty, for which men of sense are willing to sacrifice not only their substance but their life?
קמ״ד
144[142] In either case, their action was right, whether one regard it as an act of peace, the acceptance of payment long kept back through reluctance to pay what was due, or as an act of war, the claim under the law of the victors to take their enemies’ goods. For the Egyptians began the wrongdoing by reducing guests and suppliants to slavery like captives, as I said before. The Hebrews, when the opportunity came, avenged themselves without warlike preparations, shielded by justice whose arm was extended to defend them.
קמ״ה
145[143] With all these plagues and punishments was Egypt admonished, none of which touched the Hebrews, though they dwelt in the same cities and villages and houses, and though earth, water, air, fire, the constituent parts of that nature which it is impossible to escape, joined in the attack. And the strangest thing of all was that the same elements in the same place and at the same time brought destruction to one people and safety to the other.
קמ״ו
146[144] The river changed to blood, but not for the Hebrews; for, when they wished to draw from it, it turned into good drinking-water. The frog tribe crept from the water on to the land, and filled the market-places, the farm buildings and houses, but held aloof from the Hebrews alone, as though it knew how to distinguish who should be punished and who should not.
קמ״ז
147[145] Neither the gnats, nor the dog-flies nor the locusts, which did so great damage to plants and fruits and animals and men, winged their way to them; neither the rainstorm nor the hail nor the thunderbolts which fell continuously reached as far as them. That most painful ulceration was not felt, or even imagined, by them. When the others were wrapped in profound darkness, they lived in clear radiance with the light of day shining upon them. When the first-born of the Egyptians was slain, no Hebrew died, nor was it likely that they should, when even the murrain, by which numberless cattle perished, did not involve a single herd of theirs in the destruction.
קמ״ח
148[146] Indeed, I think that everyone who witnessed the events of that time could not but have thought of the Hebrews as spectators of the sufferings of others, and not merely spectators in safety, but learners thereby of the finest and most profitable of lessons—piety. For never was judgement so clearly passed on good and bad, a judgement which brought perdition to the latter and salvation to the former.
קמ״ט
149[147] The departing emigrants had among them over six hundred thousand men of military age, while the rest of the multitude, consisting of old men, womenfolk and children, could not easily be counted. They were accompanied by a promiscuous, nondescript and menial crowd, a bastard host, so to speak, associated with the true-born. These were the children of Egyptian women by Hebrew fathers into whose families they had been adopted, also those who, reverencing the divine favour shewn to the people, had come over to them, and such as were converted and brought to a wiser mind by the magnitude and the number of the successive punishments.
ק״נ
150[148] The appointed leader of all these was Moses, invested with this office and kingship, not like some of those who thrust themselves into positions of power by means of arms and engines of war and strength of infantry, cavalry and navy, but on account of his goodness and his nobility of conduct and the universal benevolence which he never failed to shew. Further, his office was bestowed upon him by God, the lover of virtue and nobility, as the reward due to him.
קנ״א
151[149] For, when he gave up the lordship of Egypt, which he held as son to the daughter of the then reigning king, because the sight of the iniquities committed in the land and his own nobility of soul and magnanimity of spirit and inborn hatred of evil led him to renounce completely his expected inheritance from the kinsfolk of his adoption, He Who presides over and takes charge of all things thought good to requite him with the kingship of a nation more populous and mightier, a nation destined to be consecrated above all others to offer prayers for ever on behalf of the human race that it may be delivered from evil and participate in what is good.
קנ״ב
152[150] Having received this office, he did not, like some, take pains to exalt his own house, and promote his sons, of whom he had two, to great power and make them his consorts for the present and his successors for the hereafter. For in all things great and small he followed a pure and guileless policy, and, like a good judge, allowed the incorruptibility of reason to subdue his natural affection for his children.
קנ״ג
153[151] For he had set before him one essential aim, to benefit his subjects; and, in all that he said or did, to further their interests and neglect no opportunity which would forward the common well-being.
קנ״ד
154[152] In solitary contrast to those who had hitherto held the same authority, he did not treasure up gold and silver, did not levy tributes, did not possess houses or chattels or livestock or a staff of slaves or revenues or any other accompaniment of costly and opulent living, though he might have had all in abundance.
קנ״ה
155[153] He held that to prize material wealth shews poverty of soul, and despised such wealth as blind; but the wealth of nature which has eyes to see he highly honoured and zealously pursued, more perhaps than any other man. In dress and food and the other sides of life, he made no arrogant parade to increase his pomp and grandeur. But, while in these he practised the economy and unassuming ways of a private citizen, he was liberal in the truly royal expenditure of those treasures which the ruler may well desire to have in abundance.
קנ״ו
156[154] These treasures were the repeated exhibition of self-restraint, continence, temperance, shrewdness, good sense, knowledge, endurance of toil and hardships, contempt of pleasures, justice, advocacy of excellence, censure and chastisement according to law for wrong-doers, praise and honour for well-doers, again as the law directs.
קנ״ז
157[155] And so, as he abjured the accumulation of lucre, and the wealth whose influence is mighty among men, God rewarded him by giving him instead the greatest and most perfect wealth. That is the wealth of the whole earth and sea and rivers, and of all the other elements and the combinations which they form. For, since God judged him worthy to appear as a partner of His own possessions, He gave into his hands the whole world as a portion well fitted for His heir.
קנ״ח
158[156] Therefore, each element obeyed him as its master, changed its natural properties and submitted to his command, and this perhaps is no wonder. For if, as the proverb says, what belongs to friends is common, and the prophet is called the friend of God, it would follow that he shares also God’s possessions, so far as it is serviceable.
קנ״ט
159[157] For God possesses all things, but needs nothing; while the good man, though he possesses nothing in the proper sense, not even himself, partakes of the precious things of God so far as he is capable. And that is but natural, for he is a world citizen, and therefore not on the roll of any city of men’s habitation, rightly so because he has received no mere piece of land but the whole world as his portion.
ק״ס
160[158] Again, was not the joy of his partnership with the Father and Maker of all magnified also by the honour of being deemed worthy to bear the same title? For he was named god and king of the whole nation, and entered, we are told, into the darkness where God was, that is into the unseen, invisible, incorporeal and archetypal essence of existing things. Thus he beheld what is hidden from the sight of mortal nature, and, in himself and his life displayed for all to see, he has set before us, like some well-wrought picture, a piece of work beautiful and godlike, a model for those who are willing to copy it.
קס״א
161[159] Happy are they who imprint, or strive to imprint, that image in their souls. For it were best that the mind should carry the form of virtue in perfection, but, failing this, let it at least have the unflinching desire to possess that form.
קס״ב
162[160] And, indeed, we all know this, that meaner men emulate men of distinction, and set their inclinations in the direction of what they seem to desire. Thus, when a ruler begins to shew profligacy and turn to a life of luxury, the whole body almost of his subjects gives full vent to the appetites of belly and sex beyond their actual needs, save in the case of some who, blessed by the gifts of nature, possess a soul kindly and propitious and free from viciousness;
קס״ג
163[161] whereas, if that ruler adopt a more severe and more serious rule of life, even the very licentious are converted to continence and are eager, either through fear or shame, to create the impression that, after all, their aims are like to his. In fact the worse, even in madness, will never be found to condemn the ways of the better.
קס״ד
164[162] Perhaps, too, since he was destined to be a legislator, the providence of God which afterwards appointed him without his knowledge to that work, caused him long before that day to be the reasonable and living impersonation of law.
קס״ה
165[163] So, having received the authority which they willingly gave him, with the sanction and assent of God, he proposed to lead them to settle in Phoenicia and Coelesyria and Palestine, then called the land of the Canaanites, the boundaries of which were three days’ journey from Egypt.
קס״ו
166[164] The course by which he then led them was not the straight road. He avoided this, partly because he was apprehensive that if the inhabitants, fearing to lose their homes and personal liberty, offered them opposition, and war ensued, they might return by the same road to Egypt, and thus, exchanging one enemy for another, the new for the old, might be mocked, derided and subjected to hardships worse and more painful than what they underwent before. Partly, too, he wished by leading them through a long stretch of desert country to test the extent of their loyalty when supplies were not abundant but gradually grew scarcer and scarcer.
קס״ז
167[165] Therefore, leaving the straight road, he found one at an angle to it, and, thinking that it extended to the Red Sea, began the journey. It was then, we are told, that there occurred a prodigy, a mighty work of nature, the like of which none can remember to have been seen in the past.
קס״ח
168[166] A cloud shaped like a tall pillar, the light of which in the day-time was as the sun and in night as flame, went before the host, so that they should not stray in their journey, but follow in the steps of a guide who could never err. Perhaps indeed there was enclosed within the cloud one of the lieutenants of the great King, an unseen angel, a forerunner on whom the eyes of the body were not permitted to look.
קס״ט
169[167] But the king of Egypt, seeing, as he thought, that they had lost their way and were traversing a rough and pathless desert, was pleased to find that disaster had befallen their journey, since he judged them to be shut in without an outlet. And, repenting that he had let them go, he essayed to pursue, expecting that he would make the multitude return in fear to renewed slavery, or massacre them wholesale if they proved refractory.
ק״ע
170[168] Then he took with him all his cavalry, javelineers, slingers, mounted archers, and all his other light-armed troops, and gave the six hundred finest of his scythed chariots to the men of rank that they might follow in suitable state and take part in the campaign. With unabated rapidity he rushed to the attack, and pushed on eagerly, wishing to come upon them suddenly and unforeseen. For the unexpected ill is ever more troublesome than the expected, since a negligently, compared with a carefully, guarded force is more liable to be successfully attacked.
קע״א
171[169] While he pursued them with these intentions, hoping to win an uncontested victory, they, as it happened, were already encamped on the shores of the sea. And, just as they were preparing to take their early meal, first a mighty din was heard, caused by the host of men and beasts coming on at full speed; and, at the sound, they poured out of their tents, standing on tiptoe to look around and listen with both ears. Then, shortly afterwards, high on the hill, appeared the enemy’s forces, armed and drawn up for battle.
קע״ב
172[170] At this strange, unexpected sight, they were panic-stricken. They were not ready to defend themselves, for lack of the necessary weapons, for their expedition was not for war but for colonization. They could not fly, for the sea was behind them, the enemy in front, and on either side the depths of the trackless desert. So, in the bitterness of their hearts, broken down by the greatness of their misfortune, they acted as men often act in such troubles, and began to accuse their ruler.
קע״ג
173[171] “Was it because there were no tombs in Egypt where our dead bodies could be laid that you brought us out to kill and bury us here? Is not any slavery a lighter ill than death? You enticed this multitude with the hope of liberty, and then have saddled it with the greater danger which threatens its life.
קע״ד
174[172] Did you not know our unarmedness, and the bitterness and savage temper of the Egyptians? Do you not see how great are our troubles, how impossible to escape? What must we do? Can we fight unarmed against the armed? Can we fly, surrounded as in a net by merciless enemies, pathless deserts, seas impassable to ships, or, if indeed they are passable, what supply of boats have we to enable us to cross?”
קע״ה
175[173] Moses, when he heard these words, pardoned them, but remembered the divine messages, and, using his mind and speech simultaneously for different purposes, with the former silently interceded with God to save them from their desperate afflictions, with the latter encouraged and comforted the loud-voiced malcontents. “Do not lose heart,” he said, “God’s way of defence is not as that of men.
קע״ו
176[174] Why are you quick to trust in the specious and plausible and that only? When God gives help He needs no armament. It is His special property to find a way where no way is. What is impossible to all created being is possible to Him only, ready to His hand.” Thus he discoursed, still calm and composed;
קע״ז
177[175] but, after a little, he became possessed, and, filled with the spirit which was wont to visit him, uttered these oracular words of prophecy: “The host which you see armed to the teeth you shall see no more arrayed against you. It shall all fall in utter ruin and disappear in the depths, so that no remnant may be seen above the earth. And this shall be at no distant time, but in the coming night.”
קע״ח
178[176] Such was his prediction. But at sunset a south wind of tremendous violence arose, and, as it rushed down, the sea under it was driven back, and, though regularly tidal, was on this occasion more so than usually, and swept as into a chasm or whirlpool, when driven against the shore. No star appeared, but a thick black cloud covered the whole heaven, and the murkiness of the night struck terror into the pursuers. Moses now, at God’s command,
קע״ט
179[177] smote the sea with his staff, and as he did so it broke and parted into two. Of the waters thus divided, one part rose up to a vast height, where the break was made, and stood quite firmly, motionless and still like a wall; those behind were held back and bridled in their forward course, and reared as though pulled back by invisible reins; while the intervening part, which was the scene of the breaking, dried up and became a broad highway. Moses, seeing this, marvelled and was glad, and in the fullness of his joy encouraged his men and bade them move on with all speed.
ק״פ
180[178] And, when they were about to begin the passage, a most extraordinary sign occurred. The guiding cloud, which at other times stood in front, turned round to the back of the multitude to form its rearguard, and thus posted between the pursuers and pursued regulated the course of the latter and drove them before it under safe protection, but checked and repelled the former when they strove to advance. When the Egyptians saw this, tumult and confusion prevailed everywhere among them. In their terror their ranks fell into disorder. They tumbled over each other, and sought to escape, but it was of no avail; for,
קפ״א
181[179] while the Hebrews with their women and children, still mere infants, crossed on a dry road in the early dawn, it was otherwise with the Egyptians. Under the north wind the returning tide was swept back, and hurled its lofty billows upon them. The two sections of the sea rolled upon them from either side, united and submerged them, horses, chariots and all, with not even a torchbearer left to announce to the people of Egypt the sudden disaster.
קפ״ב
182[180] This great and marvellous work struck the Hebrews with amazement, and, finding themselves unexpectedly victorious in a bloodless conflict, and seeing their enemies, one and all, destroyed in a moment, they set up two choirs, one of men and one of women, on the beach, and sang hymns of thanksgiving to God. Over these choirs Moses and his sister presided, and led the hymns, the former for the men and the latter for the women.
קפ״ג
183[181] They set out from the sea coast, and travelled for some time, no longer in any fear of danger from the enemy. But after three days the water failed, and thirst once more reduced them to despondency. Again they began to grumble at their lot, as though nothing good had befallen them hitherto. For, under the onset of the present terror, we always lose sense of the pleasantness of past blessings.
קפ״ד
184[182] Then they saw some springs and ran to draw from them, full of joy, but in their ignorance of the truth were deceived. For the water was bitter, and, when they had tasted it, the disappointment broke them down. Their bodies were exhausted and their souls dejected, not so much for themselves as for their infant children, the sight of whom, as they cried for something to drink, was more than they could face without tears.
קפ״ה
185[183] Some of the more thoughtless, men of feeble piety, even denounced the past events as not having been intended for their benefit, but rather to bring them into worse misfortunes. It were better, they said, to die thrice, not merely once, at the hands of enemies, than to perish, or worse than perish, by thirst. To depart from life swiftly and easily is, in the eyes of the wise, the same thing as never dying, and death in the true sense is that which comes slowly and painfully, whose terrors appear not in the state of death, but only in the process of dying.
קפ״ו
186[184] While they were engaged in such lamentations, Moses again addressed his supplications to God, that, knowing the weakness of His creatures, and particularly of mankind, and the necessities of the body, which depends on food, and is tied to those stern mistresses, meat and drink, He should pardon the despondent and also satisfy the needs of all, not at some distant time but with a boon bestowed promptly and swiftly, considering the inborn short-sightedness of mortality, which desires that assistance should be rendered quickly and at the moment. Hardly had he so prayed,
קפ״ז
187[185] when God sent in advance the power of His grace, and, opening the vigilant eye of the suppliant’s soul, bade him lift and throw into the spring a tree which he shewed him, possibly formed by nature to exercise a virtue which had hitherto remained unknown, or possibly created on this occasion for the service which it was destined to perform. Moses did as he was bid,
קפ״ח
188[186] whereupon the springs became sweet, and were converted into drinkable water, so that no one could even guess that they had originally been bitter, since no trace or tang remained to remind one of its former badness.
קפ״ט
189[187] When they had relieved their thirst with double pleasure, since the unexpectedness of the event gave a delight beyond the actual enjoyment, they filled their water-vessels and then resumed their journey, feeling as though they had risen from a banquet and merry-making, and elated, with the intoxication not of wine, but of the sober carousal which the piety of the ruler who led them had invited them to enjoy.
ק״צ
190[188] They then arrived at a second halting-place, one well wooded and well watered, called Elim, irrigated by twelve springs beside which rose young palm-trees, fine and luxuriant, to the number of seventy. Anyone who has the gift of keen mental sight may see in this clear signs and tokens of the national blessings. For the nation has twelve tribes,
קצ״א
191[189] each of which, in virtue of its piety, will be represented by the well which supplies piety in perennial streams and noble actions unceasingly, while the heads of the whole nation are seventy, who may properly be compared to the palm, the noblest of trees, excellent both in its appearance and in the fruit which it bears. Also it has its life-giving principle, not, like the others, buried in its roots, but mounted aloft, seated like a heart in the very centre of the branches which stand around to guard it as their very queen.
קצ״ב
192[190] Such, too, is the nature of the mind of those who have tasted of holiness. Such a mind has learned to gaze and soar upwards, and, as it ever ranges the heights and searches into divine beauties, it makes a mock of earthly things, counting them to be but child’s-play, and those to be truly matters for earnest care.
קצ״ג
193[191] After this no long time had elapsed when they were famished for want of food. It seemed as though the forces of necessity were taking turns to attack them. For those stern mistresses, hunger and thirst, had parcelled out their inflictions and plied them with these successively, with the result that when one was relaxed the other was upon them. This was most intolerable to the victims, since, often when they thought they had got free of thirst, they soon found the scourge of hunger waiting to take its place.
קצ״ד
194[192] And the presence of the dearth was not their only hardship; there was also the despair of obtaining provisions in the future. The sight of the deep, wide desert, utterly barren of fruits, filled them with despondency. All around there was nothing but rough, broken rocks, or plains where the soil was full of salt, or very stony mountains, or depths of sand stretching upwards steep and high, and again no rivers, spring-fed or winter torrent, no well, no tilth, no woodland of trees, either cultivated or wild, no living creature either of the air or of the land, save reptiles that vent poison for the destruction of mankind, such as snakes and scorpions.
קצ״ה
195[193] Then, remembering the teeming fertility of Egypt, and contrasting the abundance of everything there with the lack of everything here, they were roused to anger, and expressed their feelings to each other in such words as these: “We left the country in the hope of freedom, and yet we have no security even of life. Our leader promised us happiness; in actual fact, we are the most miserable of men.
קצ״ו
196[194] What will be the end of this long, interminable journey? Every traveller by sea or land has set before him some goal to come to, market or harbour for the one, city or country for the other; we alone have before us a pathless wilderness, painful journeying, desperate straits. For, as we proceed, there opens out before us, as it were, an ocean, vast, deep, impassable, ever wider day by day. He exhorted and puffed us up with his words,
קצ״ז
197[195] and filled our ears with empty hopes, and then tortures our bellies with hunger, not providing even the barest nourishment. With the name of colonization he has deceived this great multitude, and first carried us from an inhabited to an uninhabited world, then led us on to the grave along the road which brings life to its end.”
קצ״ח
198[196] Moses, when reviled in this way, was indignant not so much at their denunciations of himself as at their instability of judgement. For, after experiencing strange events outside the customary without number, they should have ceased to be guided by anything that is specious and plausible, but should have put their trust in him of whose unfailing truthfulness they had received the clearest proofs.
קצ״ט
199[197] But, on the other hand, when he considered the want of food, as great a misfortune as any that can befall mankind, he forgave them, knowing that the multitude by its very nature is an unstable thing, shaken by the circumstances of the moment, which produce oblivion of the past and despondency of the future. So, while they were all thus overwhelmed by affliction,
ר׳
200[198] and expecting the extreme misfortunes which they believed to be close at hand, ready to attack them, God, moved partly by the clemency and benevolence to man which belongs to His nature, partly too by His wish to honour the ruler whom He had appointed, and still more to bring home to them the greatness of that ruler’s piety and holiness as shewn in matters both clear and obscure, took pity on them and healed their sufferings.
ר״א
201[199] He, therefore, devised new and strange forms of benefaction, that by clearer manifestations they might now be schooled not to shew bitter resentment if something did not at once turn out as they would have it, but bear it patiently in expectation of good to come.
ר״ב
202[200] What, then, did happen? On the morrow about daybreak, a great quantity of dew lay deep around the whole camp, showered noiselessly by God; a strange, extraordinary rain, not water, nor hail, nor snow, nor ice, such as are produced by the changes in the clouds at the winter solstice, but of grains exceedingly small and white, which, poured down in a continuous flow, lay in heaps in front of the tents. It was an incredible sight; and, in astonishment thereat, they asked their leader, “What is this rain, which no man ever saw before, and for what purpose has it come?”
ר״ג
203[201] Moses, in answer, possessed by divine inspiration, spoke these oracular words: “Mortals have the deep-soiled plainland given over to them, which they cut into furrows with the plough, and there sow their seed, and perform the other tasks of the husbandman, thus providing the yearly fruits, and through them abundance of the necessaries of life. But God has subject to Him not one portion of the universe, but the whole world and its parts, to minister as slaves to their master for every service that He wills.
ר״ד
204[202] So now it has seemed good to Him that the air should bring food instead of water, for the earth too often brings rain. What is the river of Egypt, when every year it overflows and waters the fields with its inroads, but a rainpour from beneath?”
ר״ה
205[203] This work of God was strange enough even if it had stopped at this point, but actually there were other facts still stronger enhancing its marvels. For the men brought vessels from every quarter, and collected the grains, some on their beasts, others in burdens on their shoulders, thinking thus to store up provisions to last for later use.
ר״ו
206[204] But, as it turned out, it was impossible to store or hoard them, since it was God’s purpose to bestow gifts ever new. For when they took a sufficient stock for their needs at the time, they consumed it with pleasure, but anything they left for the morrow they found did not keep, but changed and stank and was full of such life as is regularly bred in putrescence. This they naturally threw away, but found other food prepared for them, rained upon them with the dew every day.
ר״ז
207[205] A special distinction was given to the sacred seventh day, for, since it was not permitted to do anything on that day, abstinence from works great or small being expressly enjoined, and therefore they could not then gather what was necessary, God rained a double supply the day before, and bade them bring in what would be sufficient for two days. And what was thus collected kept sound, nor did any of it decay at all as in the previous case.
ר״ח
208[206] There is something still more wonderful to be told. During all that long period of forty years in which they journeyed, the food required was supplied according to the rules just mentioned, like rations measured out to provide the allotment needed for each.
ר״ט
209[207] At the same time, they learned to date aright the day of which they had dearly longed to have knowledge. For, long before, they had asked what was the birthday of the world on which this universe was completed, and to this question, which had been passed down unsolved from generation to generation, they now at long last found the answer, learnt not only through divine pronouncements but by a perfectly certain proof. For, as we have said, while the surplus of the downpour decayed on the other days, on the day before the seventh it not only did not change, but was actually supplied in double measure.
ר״י
210[208] The method they employed with the food was as follows: At dawn they collected what fell, ground or crunched it and then boiled it, when they found it a very pleasant form of food, like a honey-cake, and felt no need of elaborate cookery.
רי״א
211[209] But in fact, not long after, they were well supplied with the means of luxurious living, since God was pleased to provide to them abundantly, and more than abundantly, in the wilderness all the viands which are found in a rich and well-inhabited country. For in the evenings a continuous cloud of quails appeared from the sea and overshadowed the whole camp, flying close to the land, so as to be an easy prey. So they caught and dressed them, each according to his tastes, and feasted on flesh of the most delicious kind, thus obtaining the relish required to make their food more palatable.
רי״ב
212[210] Though this supply of food never failed and continued to be enjoyed in abundance, a serious scarcity of water again occurred. Sore pressed by this, their mood turned to desperation, whereupon Moses, taking that sacred staff with which he accomplished the signs in Egypt, under inspiration smote the steep rock with it.
רי״ג
213[211] It may be that the rock contained originally a spring and now had its artery clean severed, or perhaps that then for the first time a body of water collected in it through hidden channels was forced out by the impact. Whichever is the case, it opened under the violence of the stream and spouted out its contents, so that not only then did it provide a remedy for their thirst but also abundance of drink for a longer time for all these thousands. For they filled all their water vessels, as they had done on the former occasion, from the springs that were naturally bitter but were changed and sweetened by God’s directing care.
רי״ד
214[212] If anyone disbelieves these things, he neither knows God nor has ever sought to know Him; for if he did he would at once have perceived—aye, perceived with a firm apprehension—that these extraordinary and seemingly incredible events are but child’s-play to God. He has but to turn his eyes to things which are really great and worthy of his earnest contemplation, the creation of heaven and the rhythmic movements of the planets and fixed stars, the light that shines upon us from the sun by day and from the moon by night, the establishment of the earth in the very centre of the universe, the vast expanses of continents and islands and the numberless species of animals and plants, and again the widespreading seas, the rushing rivers, spring-fed and winter torrents, the fountains with their perennial streams, some sending forth cold, other warm, water, the air with its changes of every sort, the yearly seasons with their well-marked diversities and other beauties innumerable.
רי״ה
215[213] He who should wish to describe the several parts, or rather any one of the cardinal parts of the universe, would find life too short, even if his years were prolonged beyond those of all other men. But these things, though truly marvellous, are held in little account because they are familiar. Not so with the unfamiliar; though they be but small matters, we give way before what appears so strange, and, drawn by their novelty, regard them with amazement.
רי״ו
216[214] After traversing a long and pathless expanse, they came within sight of the confines of habitable land, and the outlying districts of the country in which they proposed to settle. This country was occupied by Phoenicians. Here they had thought to find a life of peace and quiet, but their hopes were disappointed.
רי״ז
217[215] For the king who ruled there, fearing pillage and rapine, called up the youth of his cities and came to meet them, hoping to bar their way, or, if that were not feasible and they attempted violence, to discomfit them by force of arms, seeing that his men were unwearied and fresh for the contest, while the others were exhausted with much journeying and by the famine and drought which had alternately attacked them. Moses,
רי״ח
218[216] learning from his scouts that the enemy was not far distant, mustered his men of military age, and, choosing as their general one of his lieutenants named Joshua, hastened himself to take a more important part in the fight. Having purified himself according to the customary ritual, he ran without delay to the neighbouring hill and besought God to shield the Hebrews and give a triumphant victory to the people whom He had saved from wars and other troubles still more grievous than this, dispersing not only the misfortunes with which men had menaced them but also those so miraculously brought about in Egypt by the upheaval of the elements and by the continual dearth which beset them in their journeying.
רי״ט
219[217] But, when they were about to engage in the fight, his hands were affected in the most marvellous way. They became very light and very heavy in turns, and, whenever they were in the former condition and rose aloft, his side of the combatants was strong and distinguished itself the more by its valour, but whenever his hands were weighed down the enemy prevailed. Thus, by symbols, God shewed that earth and the lowest regions of the universe were the portion assigned as their own to the one party, and the ethereal, the holiest region, to the other; and that, just as heaven holds kingship in the universe and is superior to earth, so this nation should be victorious over its opponents in war.
ר״כ
220[218] While, then, his hands became successively lighter and weightier, like scales in the balance, the fight, too, continued to be doubtful; but, when they suddenly lost all weight, the fingers serving them as pinions, they were lifted on high like the tribe that wings its way through the air, and remained thus soaring until the Hebrews won an undisputed victory and their enemies were slaughtered wholesale, thus justly suffering the punishment which they wrongly strove to deal to others.
רכ״א
221[219] Then, too, Moses set up an altar, and called it from the event “Refuge of God,” and on this, with prayers of thanksgiving, he offered sacrifices in celebration of the victory.
רכ״ב
222[220] After this battle he came to the conclusion that, since it was now the second year of their travels, he ought to inspect the land in which the nation proposed to settle. He wished them, instead of arguing ignorantly in the usual way, to obtain a good idea of the country by first-hand report, and with this solid knowledge of the conditions to calculate the proper course of action.
רכ״ג
223[221] He chose twelve men corresponding to the number of the tribes, one headman from each, selecting the most approved for their high merit, in order that no part of the nation might be set at variance with the others through receiving either more or less than they, but all might get to know through their chieftains the conditions in which the inhabitants lived, as they would do if the emissaries were willing to report the full truth.
רכ״ד
224[222] When he had chosen them, he spoke as follows: “The conflicts and dangers which we have undergone and still endure, have for their prize the lands which we hope to apportion, a hope which we trust may not be disappointed, since the nation which we are bringing to settle there is so populous. To know the places, the men and their circumstances, is as useful as the ignorance of them is mischievous.
רכ״ה
225[223] So we have appointed you that with the aid of your sight and intelligence we may be able to survey the state of the country. Become, then, the ears and eyes of all this great multitude, to give them a clear apprehension of what they require to know.
רכ״ו
226[224] There are three things which we desire to learn: the size and strength of the population, whether the cities are favourably situated and strongly built, or the contrary, and whether the land has a deep, rich soil, well-adapted to produce every kind of fruits from cornfields and orchards, or on the other hand is thin and poor. Thus shall we counter the number and power of the inhabitants with equal forces, and the strength of their position with machines and siege engines. Knowledge of the fertility or unfertility of the land is also indispensable, for if it is poor it would be folly to court danger to win it.
רכ״ז
227[225] Our arms and engines and all our power consist solely in faith in God. Equipped with this, we shall defy every terror. Faith is able to overpower, and more than overpower, forces the most invincible, in physique, courage, experience and number, and by it we are supplied in the depths of the desert with all that the rich resources of cities can give.
רכ״ח
228[226] Now the season which has been found to be best for testing the goodness of a land is spring, which is now present; for in springtime the different crops come to their fullness and the fruit-trees begin to shew their natural growth. Yet it might be better to wait till summer is at its height, and bring back fruits as samples of the wealth of the land.”
רכ״ט
229[227] When the spies heard this, they set out on their errand, escorted by the whole multitude, who feared that they might be taken and slain, thus entailing two heavy misfortunes, the death of the men who were as eyesight to their particular tribe, and concerning the foe that lay ready to attack them ignorance of the facts which it would be useful to know.
ר״ל
230[228] The men took with them scouts and guides to the road, and followed behind them. And, when they came near to their destination, they quickly ascended the highest of the mountains in the neighbourhood and surveyed the country. Much of it was plainland bearing barley, wheat and grass, while the uplands were equally full of vines and other trees, all of it well timbered and thickly overgrown and intersected with springs and rivers which gave it abundance of water, so that from the lowest part to the summits the whole of the hill country, particularly the ridges and the deep clefts, formed a close texture of umbrageous trees.
רל״א
231[229] They observed also that the cities were strongly fortified, in two ways, through the favourable nature of their situation and the solidity of their walls. And, on scrutinizing the inhabitants, they saw that they were countless in number and giants of huge stature, or at least giant-like in their physical superiority both in size and strength.
רל״ב
232[230] Having marked these things, they stayed on to get a more accurate apprehension, for first impressions are treacherous and only slowly in time get the seal of reality. And, at the same time, they were at pains to pluck some of the fruits of the trees, not those in the first stage of hardening, but fruits darkening to ripeness, and thus have something which would naturally keep in good condition to exhibit to the whole multitude.
רל״ג
233[231] They were especially amazed by the fruit of the vine, for the bunches were of huge size, stretching right along the branches and shoots and presenting an incredible spectacle. One, indeed, they cut off, and carried it suspended from the middle part of a beam, the ends of which were laid on two youths, one in front and another behind, a fresh pair at intervals relieving its predecessors, as they continually were wearied by the great weight of the burden.
רל״ד
234On vital matters, the envoys were not of one mind.
רל״ה
235[232] Indeed, there were numberless contentions among them, even during the journey before they arrived back, though of a lighter kind, as they did not wish that their disputes or conflicting reports should produce faction in the mass of the people. But, when they had returned, these contentions became more severe.
רל״ו
236[233] For, while one party, by dilating upon the fortifications of the cities and the great population of each and by magnifying everything in their description, created fear in their hearers, the others belittled the gravity of all that they had seen, and bade them not be faint-hearted but persist in founding their settlement in the certainty that they would succeed without striking a blow. No city, they said, could resist the combined onset of so great a power, but would fall overwhelmed by its weight. Both parties transmitted the results of their own feelings to the souls of their hearers, the unmanly their cowardice, the undismayed their courage and hopefulness.
רל״ז
237[234] But these last numbered but a fifth part of the craven-hearted, who were five times as many as the better spirited.
רל״ח
238Courage confined to few is lost to sight, when timidity has the superiority of numbers: and that, we are told, happened on this occasion; for the two who gave a highly favourable account were so outweighed by the ten who said the opposite that the latter brought over the whole multitude into dissent from the others and agreement with themselves.
רל״ט
239[235] With regard to the country, they all stated the same, unanimously extolling the beauty of both the plain and hill country. “But of what use to us,” at once cried out the people, “are good things which belong to others, and moreover are strongly guarded so that none can take them away?” And they set upon the two, and nearly stoned them in their preference of the pleasant-sounding to the profitable, and of deceit to truth.
ר״מ
240[236] This roused their ruler’s indignation, who, at the same time, feared lest some scourge should descend upon them from God for their senseless disbelief in His utterances. This actually happened. For the ten cowardly spies perished in a pestilence with those of the people who had shared their foolish despondency, while the two who alone had advised them not to be terrified, but hold to their plan of settlement, were saved, because they had been obedient to the oracles, and received the special privilege that they did not perish with the others.
רמ״א
241[237] This event was the reason why they did not come sooner to the land where they proposed to settle. For, though they could have occupied the cities of Syria and their portions of land in the second year after leaving Egypt, they turned away from the road which led directly thither and wandered about, travelling with difficulty, through long, pathless tracts, which appeared one after the other, bringing endless weariness of soul and body, the punishment they needs must endure for their great impiety.
רמ״ב
242[238] For thirty-eight years in addition to the time already spent, the span of a generation of human life, they went wayworn up and down, tracing and retracing the trackless wilds till at last in the fortieth year they succeeded in reaching those boundaries of the country to which they had come before.
רמ״ג
243[239] Near the entrances there dwelt, among others, some kinsfolk of their own, who, they quite thought, would join in the war against their neighbours and assist the new settlement in every way, or, if they shrank from this, would at the worst abstain from force and remain neutral. For the ancestors of both nations,
רמ״ד
244[240] the Hebrews and the inhabitants of the outlying districts, were two brothers with the same father and mother, and twins to boot. Both had become the parents of an increasing family, and, as their descendants were by no means unfruitful, both households had spread into great and populous nations. One of these had clung to the homeland, the other, as has been said, migrated to Egypt on account of the famine, and was returning after many years.
רמ״ה
245[241] The latter in spite of its long separation maintained the tie of relationship, and though it had to deal with men who retained none of their ancestral customs, but had abandoned all the old ways of communal life, considered that it was proper for humane natures to pay some tribute of goodwill to the name of kinship.
רמ״ו
246[242] The other, on the contrary, had upset all that made for friendship. In its customs and language, its policy and actions, it shewed implacable enmity and kept alive the fire of an ancestral feud. For the founder of the nation, after having of his own accord sold his birthright as the elder to his brother, had later reclaimed what he had surrendered, in violation of their agreement, and had sought his blood, threatening him with death if he did not make restitution; and this old feud between two individual men was renewed by the nation so many generations after.
רמ״ז
247[243] Now the leader of the Hebrews, Moses, though an attack might have won him an uncontested victory, did not feel justified in taking this course because of the above-mentioned kinship. Instead, he merely asked for the right of passage through the country, and promised to carry out all that he agreed to do, not to ravage any estate, not to carry off cattle or spoil of any kind, to pay a price for water if drink were scarce and for anything else which their wants caused them to purchase. But they refused these very peaceful overtures with all their might, and threatened war if they found them overstepping their frontiers, or even merely on the threshold.
רמ״ח
248[244] The Hebrews were incensed at the answer, and were now starting to take up arms when Moses, standing where he could be heard, said: “My men, your indignation is just and reasonable. We made friendly proposals in the kindest spirit. In the malice of their hearts, they have answered us with evil.
רמ״ט
249[245] But the fact that they deserve to be punished for their brutality does not make it right for us to proceed to take vengeance on them. The honour of our nation forbids it, and demands that here too we should mark the contrast between our goodness and their unworthiness by inquiring not only whether some particular persons deserve to be punished, but also whether the punishment can properly be carried out by us.”
ר״נ
250[246] He then turned aside and led the multitude by another way, since he saw that all the roads of that country were barricaded by watches set by those who had no cause to expect injury but through envy and malice refused to grant a passage along the direct road.
רנ״א
251[247] This was the clearest proof of the vexation which these persons felt at the nation’s liberation, just as doubtless they rejoiced at the bitter slavery which it endured in Egypt. For those who are grieved at the welfare of their neighbours are sure to enjoy their misfortunes, though they may not confess it.
רנ״ב
252[248] As it happened, the Hebrews, believing that their feelings and wishes were the same as their own, had communicated to them all their experiences, painful and pleasant, and did not know that they were far advanced in depravity and with their spiteful and quarrelsome disposition were sure to mourn their good fortune and take pleasure in the opposite.
רנ״ג
253[249] But, when their malevolence was exposed, the Hebrews were prevented from using force against them by their commander, who displayed two of the finest qualities—good sense, and at the same time good feeling. His sense was shown in guarding against the possibility of disaster, his humanity in that on kinsmen he had not even the will to take his revenge.
רנ״ד
254[250] So, then, he passed by the cities of this nation; but the king of the adjoining country Chananes by name, having received a report from his scouts that the host of wayfarers was at no great distance, supposed that they were disorganized and would be an easy conquest if he attacked them first. He, therefore, started with a strongly armed force of such younger men as he had around him, and by a rapid attack routed those who first met him, unprepared as they were for battle; and, having taken them captive, elated at the unexpected success he advanced further, expecting to overpower all the rest.
רנ״ה
255[251] But they, not a whit daunted by the defeat of the vanguard, but infused with courage greater even than before, and eager to supply by their zealousness the deficiency caused by the capture of their comrades, worked upon each other not to be faint-hearted. “Let us be up and doing,” they cried. “We are are now setting foot in the country. Let us shew ourselves undismayed and possessed of the security which courage gives. The end is often determined by the beginning. Here, at the entrance of the land, let us strike terror into the inhabitants, and feel that ours is the wealth of their cities, theirs the lack of necessities which we bring with us from the desert and have given them in exchange.”
רנ״ו
256[252] While they thus exhorted each other, they vowed to devote to God the cities of the king and the citizens in each as firstfruits of the land, and God, assenting to their prayers, and inspiring courage into the Hebrews, caused the army of the enemy to fall into their hands.
רנ״ז
257[253] Having thus captured them by the might of their assault, in fulfilment of their vows of thank-offering, they took none of the spoil for themselves, but dedicated the cities, men and treasures alike, and marked the fact by naming the whole kingdom “Devoted.”
רנ״ח
258[254] For, just as every pious person gives firstfruits of the year’s produce, whatever he reaps from his own possessions, so too the whole nation set apart the kingdom which they took at the outset, and thus gave a great slice of the great country into which they were migrating as the firstfruits of their settlement. For they judged it irreligious to distribute the land until they had made a firstfruit offering of the land and the cities.
רנ״ט
259[255] Shortly afterwards they also found a spring of good water in a well situated on the borders of the land. This supplied the whole multitude with drink, and their spirits were enlivened thereby, as though the draught were strong wine rather than water. In their joy and gladness, the people of God’s choice set up choirs around the well, and sang a new song to the Deity, Who gave them the land as their portion and had, in truth, led them in their migration. They did so at this point because here, for the first time, when they passed from the long expanse of desert to set foot in a habitable land, and one which they were to possess, they had found water in abundance, and therefore they judged it fitting not to leave the well uncelebrated.
ר״ס
260[256] For, as they were told, it had been dug by the hands of no common men, but of kings, whose ambition was not only to find the water but so to build the well that the wealth lavished upon it should shew the royal character of the work and the sovereignty and lofty spirit of the builders.
רס״א
261[257] Moses, rejoicing at the succession of unexpected happinesses, proceeded further, after distributing his younger men into vanguard and rearguard and placing the old men, womenfolk and children in the centre, so as to be protected by those on either side if any enemy host should attack either in front or behind.
רס״ב
262[258] A few days after, he entered the land of the Amorites, and sent ambassadors to the king, Sihon by name, with the same demands as he had made to his kinsman before. But Sihon not merely answered the envoys insolently, and came nigh to putting them to death, had he not been prevented by the law of embassies, but also mustered his whole army, and went to the attack thinking to win an immediate victory.
רס״ג
263[259] But, when he engaged, he perceived that he had no untrained or unpractised fighters to deal with, but men who were truly masters in warfare and invincible, men who had shortly before performed many great feats of bravery and shown themselves strong in body, mettlesome in spirit, and lofty in virtue, and through these qualities had captured their enemies with abundant ease, while they left the spoil untouched in their eagerness to dedicate the first prizes to God.
רס״ד
264[260] So, too, on this occasion, mightily fortified by the same resolutions and armoury, they went out to meet the foe, taking with them that irresistible ally, justice, whereby also they became bolder in courage and champions full of zeal. The proof of this was clearly shewn.
רס״ה
265[261] No second battle was needed, but this first fight was the only one, and in it the whole opposing force was turned to flight, then overthrown and straightway annihilated in wholesale slaughter.
רס״ו
266[262] Their cities were at once both emptied and filled—emptied of their old inhabitants, filled with the victors. And, in the same way, the farm-houses in the country were deserted by the occupants, but received others superior in every way.
רס״ז
267[263] This war caused terrible alarm among all the nations of Asia, particularly among those of the adjoining territories, since the expectation of danger was nearer. But one of the neighbouring kings, named Balak, who had brought under his sway a great and populous portion of the East, lost heart before the contest began. As he had no mind to meet the enemy face to face, and shrank from a war of destruction waged freely and openly with arms, he had recourse to augury and soothsaying, and thought that, if the power of the Hebrews was invincible in battle, he might be able to overthrow it by imprecations of some kind.
רס״ח
268[264] Now, there was at that time a man living in Mesopotamia far-famed as a soothsayer, who had learned the secrets of that art in its every form, but was particularly admired for his high proficiency in augury, so great and incredible were the things which he had revealed to many persons and on many occasions.
רס״ט
269[265] To some he had foretold rainstorms in summer, to others drought and great heat in mid-winter, to some barrenness to follow fertility, or again plenty to follow dearth, to some rivers full or empty, ways of dealing with pestilences, and other things without number. In every one of these his reputation for prediction made his name well known and was advancing him to great fame, since the report of him was continually spreading and reaching to every part.
ר״ע
270[266] To him Balak sent some of his courtiers, and invited him to come, offering him gifts at once and promising others to follow, at the same time explaining the purpose for which his presence was required. But the seer, actuated not by any honourable or sincere feelings, but rather by a wish to pose as a distinguished prophet whose custom was to do nothing without the sanction of an oracle, declined, saying that the Deity did not permit him to go.
רע״א
271[267] The envoys then returned to the king without success, but others, selected from the more highly reputed courtiers, were at once appointed for the same purpose who brought more money and promised more abundant gifts.
רע״ב
272[268] Enticed by those offers present and prospective, and in deference to the dignity of the ambassadors, he gave way, again dishonestly alleging a divine command. And so on the morrow he made his preparations for the journey, and talked of dreams in which he said he had been beset by visions so clear that they compelled him to stay no longer but follow the envoys.
רע״ג
273[269] But, as he proceeded there was given to him on the road an unmistakable sign that the purpose which he was so eager to serve was one of evil omen. For the beast on which he happened to be riding, while proceeding along the straight road,
רע״ד
274[270] first came to a sudden stop, then, as though someone opposite was thrusting it by force or causing it to rear, it fell back and then again swerved to right and left and floundered hither and thither unable to keep still, as though heady with wine or drink; and, while repeatedly beaten, it paid no regard to the blows, so that it almost threw its rider, and, even though he kept his seat, caused him as much pain as he gave.
רע״ה
275[271] For the estates on either side had walls and hedges close by, so that when the beast in its movements dashed against these, the feet, knees and shins of its master were crushed and lacerated by the pressure.
רע״ו
276[272] It was evidently a divine vision, whose haunting presence had for a considerable time been seen by the terrified animal, though invisible to the man, thus proving his insensibility. For the unreasoning animal showed a superior power of sight to him who claimed to see not only the world but the world’s Maker.
רע״ז
277[273] When, cat last, he did discern the angel standing in his way, not because he was worthy of such a sight, but that he might perceive his own baseness and nothingness, he betook himself to prayers and supplications, begging pardon for an error committed in ignorance and not through voluntary intention.
רע״ח
278[274] Yet even then, when he should have returned, he asked of the apparition whether he should retrace his steps homewards. But the angel perceived his dissimulation, for why should he ask about a matter so evident, which in itself provided its own demonstration and needed no confirmation by word, as though ears could be more truthful than eyes or speech than facts? And so in displeasure he answered: “Pursue your journey. Your hurrying will avail you nought. I shall prompt the needful words without your mind’s consent, and direct your organs of speech as justice and convenience require. I shall guide the reins of speech, and, though you understand it not, employ your tongue for each prophetic utterance.”
רע״ט
279[275] When the king heard that he was now near at hand, he came forth with his guards to meet him. The interview naturally began with friendly greetings, which were followed by a few words of censure for his slowness and failing to come more readily. Then came high feasting and sumptuous banquets, and the other usual forms of provision for the reception of guests, each through the king’s ambition of more magnificence and more imposing pomp than the last.
ר״פ
280[276] The next day at dawn Balak took the prophet to a hill, where it chanced that in honour of some deity a pillar had been set up which the natives worshipped. From thence a part of the Hebrew encampment was visible, which he shewed as a watchman from his tower to the wizard.
רפ״א
281[277] He looked and said: “King, do you build seven altars, and sacrifice a calf and a ram on each, and I will go aside and inquire of God what I should say.” He advanced outside, and straightway became possessed, and there fell upon him the truly prophetic spirit which banished utterly from his soul his art of wizardry. For the craft of the sorcerer and the inspiration of the Holiest might not live together. Then he returned, and, seeing the sacrifices and the altars flaming, he spake these oracles as one repeating the words which another had put into his mouth.
רפ״ב
282[278] “From Mesopotamia hath Balak called me, a far journey from the East, that he may avenge him on the Hebrews through my cursing. But I, how shall I curse them whom God hath not cursed? I shall behold them with my eyes from the highest mountains, and perceive them with my mind. But I shall not be able to harm the people, which shall dwell alone, not reckoned among other nations; and that, not because their dwelling-place is set apart and their land severed from others, but because in virtue of the distinction of their peculiar customs they do not mix with others to depart from the ways of their fathers.
רפ״ג
283[279] Who has made accurate discovery of how the sowing of their generation was first made? Their bodies have been moulded from human seeds, but their souls are sprung from divine seeds, and therefore their stock is akin to God. May my soul die to the life of the body that it may be reckoned among the souls of the just, even such as are the souls of these men.”
רפ״ד
284[280] Balak suffered tortures inwardly as he listened to these words, and, when the speaker ceased, he could not contain his passion. “Are you not ashamed,” he cried, “that, summoned to curse the enemy, you have prayed for them? It seems that all unconsciously I was deceiving myself in treating you as a friend, who were secretly ranged on the side of the enemy, as has now become plain. Doubtless also your delay in coming here was due to your secretly harbouring a feeling of attachment to them and aversion for me and mine. For, as the old saying goes, the certain proves the uncertain.”
רפ״ה
285[281] The other, now liberated from the possession, replied: “I suffer under a most unjust charge and calumny, for I say nothing that is my own, but only what is prompted by God, and this I do not say or you hear now for the first time, but I said it before when you sent the ambassadors to whom I gave the same answer.”
רפ״ו
286[282] But the king, thinking either to deceive the seer or to move the Deity and draw Him from His firm purpose by a change of place, led the way to another spot, and from an exceedingly high hill shewed the seer a part of the enemy’s host. Then again he set up seven altars, and, after sacrificing the same number of victims as before, sent him away to seek good omens through birds or voices.
רפ״ז
287[283] In this solitude, he was suddenly possessed, and, understanding nothing, his reason as it were roaming, uttered these prophetic words which were put into his mouth. “Arise, O King, and listen. Lend me a ready ear. God cannot be deceived as a man, nor as the son of man does He repent or fail to abide by what He has once said. He will utter nothing at all which shall not certainly be performed, for His word is His deed. As for me, I was summoned to bless, not to curse.
רפ״ח
288[284] There shall be no trouble or labour among the Hebrews. Their God is their shield for all to see, He Who also scattered the fierce onset of the ills of Egypt, and brought up all these myriads as a single man. Therefore, they care nothing for omens and all the lore of the soothsayer, because they trust in One Who is the ruler of the world. I see the people rising up as a lion’s cub, and exulting as a lion. He shall feast upon the prey, and take for his drink the blood of the wounded, and, when he has had his fill, he shall not betake himself to slumber, but unsleeping sing the song of the victorious.”
רפ״ט
289[285] Highly indignant at finding the soothsayer’s powers thus unexpectedly hostile, Balak said: “Sirrah, do not either curse or bless, for the silence which avoids danger is better than words which displease.” And, having said this, as though in the inconstancy of his judgement he had forgotten what he said, he led the seer away to another place from which he shewed him a part of the Hebrew host and begged him to curse them.
ר״צ
290[286] Here the seer proved himself to be even worse than the king; for, though he had met the charges brought against him solely by the true plea that nothing which he said was his own but the divinely inspired version of the promptings of another, and therefore ought to have ceased to follow, and departed home, instead, he pressed forward even more readily than his conductor, partly because he was dominated by the worst of vices, conceit, partly because in his heart he longed to curse, even if he were prevented from doing so with his voice.
רצ״א
291[287] And, having arrived at a mountain higher than those where he had stood before, and of great extent, he bade them perform the same sacrifice after again erecting seven altars, and bringing fourteen victims, two for each altar, a ram and a calf. But he himself did not go again, as was to be expected, to seek for omens from birds or voices, for he had conceived a great contempt for his own art, feeling that, as a picture fades in the course of years, its gift of happy conjecture had lost all its brilliance. Besides, he at last realized that the purpose of the king who had hired him was not in harmony with the will of God.
רצ״ב
292[288] So, setting his face to the wilderness, he looked upon the Hebrews encamped in their tribes, and, astounded at their number and order, which resembled a city rather than a camp, he was filled with the spirit, and spoke as follows:
רצ״ג
293[289] “Thus saith the man who truly sees, who in slumber saw the clear vision of God with the unsleeping eyes of the soul. How goodly are thy dwellings, thou host of the Hebrews! Thy tents are as shady dells, as a garden by the riverside, as a cedar beside the waters.
רצ״ד
294[290] There shall come forth from you one day a man and he shall rule over many nations, and his kingdom spreading every day shall be exalted on high. This people, throughout its journey from Egypt, has had God as its guide, Who leads the multitude in a single column.
רצ״ה
295[291] Therefore, it shall eat up many nations of its enemies, and take all the fatness of them right up to the marrow, and destroy its foes with its far-reaching bolts. It shall lie down and rest as a lion, or a lion’s cub, full of scorn, fearing none but putting fear in all others. Woe to him who stirs up and rouses it. Worthy of benediction are those who bless thee, worthy of cursing those who curse thee.”
רצ״ו
296[292] Greatly incensed by this, the king said: “Thou wast summoned to curse the enemy, and hast now thrice invoked blessings on them. Flee quickly, for fierce is the passion of wrath, lest I be forced to do thee some mischief.
רצ״ז
297[293] Most foolish of men, of what a store of wealth and presents, of what fame and glory, hast thou robbed thyself by thy madness. Thou wilt return from the stranger’s land to thy own with nothing good in thy hand, but with reproaches and deep disgrace, as all may see, having merely brought such ridicule on the lore of the knowledge on which thou didst pride thyself before.”
רצ״ח
298[294] The other replied: “All that has been said hitherto was oracles from above. What I have now to say is suggestions of my own designing.” And, taking him by the right hand, he counselled him in strict privacy as to the means by which, as far as might be, he should defend himself against the army of the enemy. Hereby he convicted himself of the utmost impiety; for, “Why,” we might ask him, “do you put forth your own personal counsels in opposition to the oracles of God? That were to hold that your projects are more powerful than the divine utterances.”
רצ״ט
299[295] Well, then, let us examine these fine injunctions of his, and see how they were contrived to gain an unquestioned victory over the truths which have ever the power to prevail. His advice was this. Knowing that the one way by which the Hebrews could be overthrown was disobedience, he set himself to lead them, through wantonness and licentiousness, to impiety, through a great sin to a still greater, and put before them the bait of pleasure.
ש׳
300[296] “You have in your countrywomen, king,” he said, “persons of pre-eminent beauty. And there is nothing to which a man more easily falls a captive than women’s comeliness. If, then, you permit the fairest among them to prostitute themselves for hire, they will ensnare the younger of their enemies.
ש״א
301[297] But you must instruct them not to allow their wooers to enjoy their charms at once. For coyness titillates, and thereby makes the appetites more active, and inflames the passions. And, when their lust has them in its grip, there is nothing which they will shrink from doing or suffering.
ש״ב
302[298] Then, when the lover is in this condition, one of those who are arming to take their prey should say, with a saucy air: ‘You must not be permitted to enjoy my favours until you have left the ways of your fathers and become a convert to honouring what I honour. That your conversion is sincere will be clearly proved to me if you are willing to take part in the libations and sacrifices which we offer to idols of stone and wood and the other images.’
ש״ג
303[299] Then the lover, caught in the meshes of her multiform lures, her beauty and the enticements of her wheedling talk, will not gainsay her, but, with his reason trussed and pinioned, will subserve her orders to his sorrow, and be enrolled as a slave of passion.”
ש״ד
304[300] Such was his advice. And the king, thinking that the proposal was good, ignoring the law against adultery, and annulling those which prohibited seduction and fornication as though they had never been enacted at all, permitted the women, without restriction, to have intercourse with whom they would. Having thus received immunity,
ש״ה
305[301] so greatly did they mislead the minds of most of the young men, and pervert them by their arts to impiety, that they soon made a conquest of them. And this continued until Phinehas, the son of the high priest, greatly angered at what he saw, and horrified at the thought that his people had at the same moment surrendered their bodies to pleasure and their souls to lawlessness and unholiness, shewed the young, gallant spirit which befitted a man of true excellence.
ש״ו
306[302] For, seeing one of his race offering sacrifice and visiting a harlot, not with his head bowed down towards the ground, nor trying in the usual way to make a stealthy entrance unobserved by the public, but flaunting his licentiousness boldly and shamelessly, and pluming himself as though his conduct called for honour instead of scorn, he was filled with bitterness and righteous anger, and attacking the pair whilst they still lay together he slew both the lover and his concubine, ripping up also her parts of generation because they had served to receive the illicit seed.
ש״ז
307[303] This example being observed by some of those who were zealous for continence and godliness they copied it at the command of Moses, and massacred all their friends and kinsfolk who had taken part in the rites of these idols made by men’s hands. And thus they purged the defilement of the nation, by relentlessly punishing the actual sinners, while they spared the rest who gave clear proof of their piety. To none of their convicted blood-relations did they shew pity, or mercifully condone their crimes, but held that their slayers were free from guilt. And, therefore, they kept in their own hand the act of vengeance, which in the truest sense was laudable to its executors. Twenty-four thousand,
ש״ח
308[304] we are told, perished in one day. And with them perished, at the same moment, the common pollution which was defiling the whole host. When the purging was completed, Moses sought how to give to the high priest’s son, who had been the first to rush to the defence, such reward as he deserved for his heroism. But he was forestalled by God, Whose voice granted to Phinehas the highest of blessings, peace—a gift which no human being can bestow—and, besides peace, full possession of the priesthood, a heritage to himself and his family which none should take from them.
ש״ט
309[305] Since, now, their internal troubles were entirely at an end, and, further, all those who were suspected of desertion or treachery had perished, it seemed to be a very suitable opportunity for waging war against Balak who had both plotted and executed mischief on so vast a scale. In the plotting he had been served by the soothsayer, who, he hoped, would be able by his curses to destroy the power of the Hebrews; in the execution by the licentiousness and wantonness of the women, who had caused the ruin of their paramours, of their bodies through lust, of their souls through impiety.
ש״י
310[306] However, Moses did not think well to employ his whole army, knowing that over-large multitudes fall through their own unwieldiness, and, at the same time, he thought it was an advantage to have reserves to reinforce those who bore the first brunt. He accordingly selected the flower of his men of military age, one thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand, that is, corresponding to the number of the tribes, and chose as commander-in-chief Phinehas, who had already given proof of his courage in that capacity; and after favourable sacrifices he dispatched his armed men, with words of encouragement to the following effect: “The contest before you is not to win dominion,
שי״א
311[307] nor to appropriate the possessions of others, which is the sole or principal object of other wars, but to defend piety and holiness, from which our kinsfolk and friends have been perverted by the enemies who have indirectly caused their victims to perish miserably.
שי״ב
312[308] It would be absurd, then, if, after having slain with our own hands those who transgressed the law, we should spare the enemies who committed the graver wrong; if, after putting to death those who learned the lesson of wrongdoing, we should leave unpunished the teachers who forced them to it, and are responsible for all they did or suffered.”
שי״ג
313[309] So, braced by these exhortations, with the native gallantry of their souls kindled to a flame, they went forth to the contest as to certain victory with indomitable resolution, and in the engagement shewed such a wealth of strength and boldness, that they made a slaughter of their opponents, and returned themselves all safe and sound without a single one killed or even wounded.
שי״ד
314[310] Indeed, any spectator who did not know the facts would have supposed that they were returning not from a war or pitched battle but from those military reviews and displays of arms so frequently made in peace-time, which serve as drilling and practising grounds, where training for hostilities is carried on among friends.
שי״ה
315[311] They proceeded to destroy the cities utterly by demolition or fire, so that no one could have told that they had ever been inhabited. And, having carried off prisoners more than they could count, they felt justified in putting the men and women to death, the former because these iniquitous designs and actions had been begun by them, the women because they had bewitched the younger Hebrews and thus led them into licentiousness and impiety and finally to death; but to the boys who were quite young and the maidens they shewed the mercy which their tender age secured for them.
שי״ו
316[312] Having greatly enriched themselves with much booty from the palaces and private houses, and also from the country homesteads, since there was as much to be got from the estates as from the cities, they returned to the camp laden with all the wealth obtained from their enemies.
שי״ז
317[313] Moses praised the general, Phinehas, and the combatants for their exploits, and also because they had not rushed to gain the prizes, nor thought of taking the spoil for themselves alone, but put it into a common stock, that those who had stayed behind in the tents might have their share. But he gave orders that they should stay outside the camp for some days, and that the high priest should purge from bloodshed those members of the united army who returned after being actually engaged.
שי״ח
318[314] For, though the slaughter of enemies is lawful, yet one who kills a man, even if he does so justly and in self-defence and under compulsion, has something to answer for, in view of the primal common kinship of mankind. And therefore purification was needed for the slayers, to absolve them from what was held to have been a pollution.
שי״ט
319[315] However, after a short time, he went on to distribute the spoil, giving half to the campaigners, who were a small number compared with those who had remained inactive, while the other half he gave to those who had stayed in the camp. For he considered that it was just to give them a part of the prizes, seeing that their souls at least, if not their bodies, had taken part in the conflict. For reserve troops are not inferior in spirit to the actual fighters, but take a second place only in time and because the first place is preoccupied by others.
ש״כ
320[316] And, now that the few had taken more, because they were in the forefront of danger, and the many less, because they had remained in the camp, he thought it necessary to dedicate the firstfruits of all the spoil. So the reserves contributed a fiftieth, and those who had led the advance a five-hundredth. The offerings of the latter class he ordered to be given to the high priest, and those of the former class to the temple servants, who were called Levites.
שכ״א
321[317] But the commanders of hundreds and thousands, and the rest of the company of officers who led the various divisions, voluntarily made a special offering of firstfruits in acknowledgement of the preservation of themselves and their fellow-combatants, and of the victory whose glory no words could describe. These offerings were all the golden ornaments which each of them obtained from the spoil, and very costly vessels also made of gold; all of which Moses took, and, honouring the piety of the donors, laid them up in the consecrated tabernacle as a memorial of their thankfulness. Admirable indeed was the system of distributing the firstfruits.
שכ״ב
322[318] The tribute of the non-combatants, who had shewn a half-excellence by a zeal unaccompanied by action, he assigned to the temple servants; that of the fighters, who had hasarded bodies and souls, and thus displayed a complete measure of manly worth, he gave to the high priest, the president of the temple servants, that of the commanders of divisions, being the gift of captains, to the captain all, even God.
שכ״ג
323[319] All these wars were fought and won without crossing the river of the land, the Jordan, against the inhabitants of the rich and deep-soiled country on the outer side, where there was much expanse of plain fit for growing corn and providing excellent fodder for cattle.
שכ״ד
324[320] When the two cattle-breeding tribes, who were a sixth part of the whole host, surveyed this country, they besought Moses to let them take their allotments there and settle down at once; for the region, they said, was very well suited to give pasturage and grazing to cattle, being well supplied with water and grassland and producing of itself abundance of herbage for maintaining sheep.
שכ״ה
325[321] Moses, however, considered that they were either claiming to have precedence in the distribution and to take their prizes before they were due, or else were shirking the wars which awaited them, where more kings, whose possessions were situated on the inner side of the river, were still lying ready to resist them. Consequently, he was greatly incensed, and answered them angrily in these words:
שכ״ו
326[322] “Are you, then, to settle down here to enjoy an undeserved leisure and idleness, leaving your kinsfolk and friends to the agony of the wars which still remain? And are the prizes to be given to you alone, as though success was complete, while battles and labours and tribulation and supreme dangers await the others?
שכ״ז
327[323] Nay, it is not just that you should reap peace and its blessings, while the others are struggling with wars and countless ills, or that the whole should be a mere appendage to the parts, whereas, on the contrary, it is only on the merits of the whole that the parts are held deserving of their portion.
שכ״ח
328[324] You have all equal rights with us; one race, the same fathers, one house, the same customs, community of laws, and other things innumerable, each of which strengthens the tie of kinship and the harmony of goodwill. Why, then, when you have been adjudged an equal share in the greatest and most vital matters, should you seek an unfair preference in the distribution, with the arrogance which a ruler might shew to his subjects or a master to his slaves?
שכ״ט
329[325] You ought, indeed, to have learnt a lesson from the blows which others have suffered; for wise men do not wait till the calamity is upon them. As it is, though your own kin supplies you with examples of warning in your fathers who inspected this land, and in the misfortune of them and those who shared their craven-heartedness, all of whom perished save two, though you should not let your name be associated with any such as these, so senseless are you that you follow after cowardice and forget that it will make you an easier prey. And you upset the ardent resolution of those who are fully disposed to manliness, whose spirits you paralyse and unnerve. Therefore, in hastening to sin,
ש״ל
330[326] you will be hastening to punishment also; for it is the way of justice to be slow to move, but, when it is once moved, it overtakes and seizes the fugitives.
של״א
331[327] When all the enemies are destroyed, and there is no prospect of war still awaiting us; when all the confederates have on scrutiny been found guiltless of desertion from the ranks or from the army, or of any other action which is the sequel of defeat, but have proved their constancy both of body and spirit from first to last; when finally the whole country has been cleared of its former inhabitants, then will the prizes and rewards for valour be given to the tribes on equal terms.”
של״ב
332[328] The two tribes listened to this admonition meekly, as true-born sons to a very kindly father. For they knew that he did not speak with an arrogance founded on official authority, but out of solicitude for them all and respect for justice and equality, and that his detestation of evil was never meant to cast reproach but always to bring those capable of improvement to a better mind. “You are naturally indignant,” they replied, “if you have got the idea that we are eager to leave the confederacy and take our portions before they are due.
של״ג
333[329] But you must clearly understand that no form of virtuous conduct, however toilsome it may be, alarms us. And by virtuous conduct we understand that we should obey you, great leader as you are, and be backward in no danger, and take our place in all the coming campaigns until the happy consummation is reached.
של״ד
334[330] We will, therefore, as before, take our place in the ranks, and cross Jordan with our full equipment, and give none of our armed men any excuse to stay behind; but our sons who are mere children and our daughters and our wives and our great stock of cattle will be left behind, if you permit, after we have built houses for the women and children and sheds for the animals, since otherwise, caught before we return, in a position unfortified and unprotected, they might meet with disaster at the hands of raiders.”
של״ה
335[331] Moses’ face was kindly and his tones milder, as he replied as follows: “If you are true to your words, the apportionments which you have asked shall remain secure to you. Leave your women and children and cattle, as you demand, and cross the river yourselves in your battalions with the rest, fully armed and arrayed for the fight, ready to engage at once if necessary.
של״ו
336[332] Later, when all the enemy are destroyed, and, peace having been made, the victors divide the land, you too will return to your people to enjoy the good things that fall to your share and reap the fruits of the lot that you have chosen.”
של״ז
337[333] When they heard these promises from his lips, filled with joy and courage, they settled their people and cattle safely in positions strongly protected against assault, in most cases by artificial fortifications. Then, taking up their arms, they rushed to the field more eagerly than the other confederates, as though they would wage the war alone or at any rate be the first of all to enter the conflict. For the acceptance of a gift beforehand increases a man’s readiness to support his comrades. He feels that he is not a free giver, but is repaying a debt which he cannot escape.
של״ח
338[334] We have now told the story of Moses’ actions in his capacity of king. We must next deal with all that he achieved by his powers as high priest and legislator, powers which he possessed as the most fitting accompaniments of kingship.