על חיי משה, ספר א כ׳On the Life of Moses, Book I 20
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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.
ג׳
3[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.
ד׳
4[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.
ה׳
5[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.
ו׳
6[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.
ז׳
7[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.