על חיי משה, ספר א י״זOn the Life of Moses, Book I 17
א׳
1for 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.
ב׳
2[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.
ג׳
3[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.
ד׳
4[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.
ה׳
5[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.
ו׳
6[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.