על חיי משה, ספר א נ׳On the Life of Moses, Book I 50
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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.
ג׳
3[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.
ד׳
4[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.
ה׳
5[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.”