על הגירת אברהם ל״וOn the Migration of Abraham 36
א׳
1[196] This is why the character appointed to the highest post in God’s service, who is called “Samuel,” does not set forth the duties of kingship to Saul, while still lingering amid the baggage, but when he has drawn him out thence. For he inquires of the Lord whether the man is still on his way hither, and the divine reply is, “Lo, he hath hidden himself among the baggage.”
ב׳
2[197] What, then, does it become the recipient of this answer to do, endowed as he is by nature with power to exercise discipline, save to draw him forth with all haste? So we read, “he ran thither and taketh him thence” (1 Sam. 10:22 f.), because, while lingering amid such vessels of the soul as body and sense-perception, he was not competent to listen to the principles and rules of kingship—and we pronounce wisdom to be kingship, for we pronounce the wise man to be a king. These principles could only be learnt through his changing his place, when the dark mist would disperse and he would have keen vision. No wonder, then, that the associate of knowledge deems it necessary to quit also the country of sense-perception, called Haran.
ג׳
3[198] When he quits the country he is five and seventy years old; and this number represents the borderland between perceptible and intelligible being, between older and younger, between corruptible and incorruptible.
ד׳
4[199] For seventy represents the principle of intellectual apprehension, of seniority and of incorruption, while the principle that corresponds numerically to the five senses is that of juniority and sense-perception. Under the head of this principle is classed the Trainer of self still at his exercises, not yet qualified to carry off the prize of complete victory; for we read, “the full number of souls sprung from Jacob was five and seventy” (Ex. 1:5):
ה׳
5[200] for the offspring of the champion who does not make havoc of the truly holy contest for the winning of virtue, are not bodies but souls, souls from which the irrational element has not yet been eliminated, and which still have sense-perception’s gang hanging on to them. For “Jacob” is a name belonging to one wrestling, and preparing for the arena, and tripping up his adversary, not of one who has won the victory.
ו׳
6[201] But when, now deemed capable of seeing God, he shall have received the new name of “Israel,” he will have resort only to the principle of seventy, having cut out the five which pertains to the senses; for it is written “amounting to seventy souls thy fathers went down into Egypt” (Deut. 10:22).
ז׳
7This is the number intimately associated with the wise Moses; for the men picked out for their excellence from all the host were seventy, and all of them elders, not in age but in good sense and counsel and judgement and ways of thinking worthy of men of old.
ח׳
8[202] Sacrifices and dues paid to God are determined by this number, whenever the ripe fruits of the soul are gathered in and collected; for it is prescribed at the Feast of Tabernacles, over and above the other sacrifices, to offer seventy young bullocks as a burnt offering (Num. 29:13–36). The bowls of the princes are fashioned in keeping with the principle of seventy—for each of them is of the weight of seventy shekels (Num. 7:13 ff.)—since everything in the soul that tends to peace and friendship and agreement has a truly weighty power of attraction, that sacred principle set forth by seventy, which Egypt, the virtue-hating and passion-loving nature, is represented as mourning over; for among them mourning is reckoned as lasting seventy days (Gen. 50:3).