על חיי משה, ספר א ל״דOn the Life of Moses, Book I 34
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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,
ג׳
3[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.
ד׳
4[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.