על חיי משה, ספר א מ״בOn the Life of Moses, Book I 42
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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.
ג׳
3[234] But these last numbered but a fifth part of the craven-hearted, who were five times as many as the better spirited.
ד׳
4Courage 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.
ה׳
5[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.
ו׳
6[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.