1 I intend to write the life of Moses, who, according to some, was the lawgiver of the Jews, but according to others only an interpreter of the sacred laws, the greatest and most perfect man that ever lived, because I want to make his character fully known to those who should not remain ignorant of him, 2 for the glory of the laws which he left behind him has spread over the whole world, and has penetrated to the very furthest limits of the universe; and few people really and truly understand him, perhaps partly out of envy, or else from the tendency, so common in many people, to resist the commands that lawgivers in different states deliver, since the historians who have flourished among the Greeks have not seen fit to mention him, 3 most of whom, both in their poems and in their prose writings, have disparaged or defaced the powers they received through education, composing comedies and works full of Sybaritish profligacy and licentiousness to their everlasting shame, when they should rather have used their natural endowments and abilities in preserving a record of virtuous men and praiseworthy lives, so that honourable actions, whether ancient or modern, would not be buried in silence and all memory of them lost, when they could shine gloriously if properly celebrated; and so that they themselves would not seem to pass over more fitting subjects and prefer ones unworthy of any mention, eager to give infamous actions a specious appearance and so win notoriety for disgraceful deeds. 4 But I disregard the envy of these men, and will go on to tell what happened to him, having learnt it both from the sacred scriptures he left as marvellous memorials of his wisdom and from many things I have heard from the elders of my nation, for I have always connected what I have heard with what I have read, and in this way I believe I know the history of his life more accurately than other people do. 5 And I will begin where I must begin. Moses was by birth a Hebrew, but he was born, and brought up, and educated in Egypt, since his ancestors had migrated into Egypt with all their families because of the long famine that oppressed Babylon and all the adjacent countries; for they were in search of food, and Egypt was a level country blessed with a rich soil, and very productive of everything human nature requires, especially grain and wheat, 6 for the river of that country at the height of summer, when, they say, all other rivers that come from winter torrents and from springs in the ground are smaller, rises and increases, and overflows so as to irrigate all the lands, and make them one vast lake. And so the land, without needing any rain, supplies every year an unlimited abundance of every kind of good food, unless sometimes the anger of God interrupts this abundance because of the excessive impiety of the inhabitants. 7 And his father and mother were among the most excellent persons of their time, and though they were of the same tribe, they were led to unite more by a unanimity of feeling than by being related by blood; and Moses is the seventh generation in descent from the first settler in the country, who founded the whole race of the Jews. 8 And he was thought worthy of being raised in the royal palace, for the following reason. The king of the country, as the nation of the Hebrews kept continually increasing in numbers, fearing that the settlers would gradually outnumber the original inhabitants and, being more powerful, would attack them, subdue them by force and make themselves their masters, planned to destroy their strength by impious devices, and ordered that of all the children born only the females should be raised (since a woman, because of the weakness of her nature, is disinclined to war and unfit for it), and that all the male children should be destroyed, so that the population of their cities might not be increased, since a power made up of many men is a fortress hard to take and hard to destroy. 9 So, because the child Moses, from the moment he was born, showed a more beautiful and noble form than usual, his parents resolved, as far as was in their power, to disregard the proclamations of the tyrant. And so, they say, for three months on end they kept him at home, feeding him on milk, without the public learning of it; 10 but when, as commonly happens in monarchies, some of those people who are always eager to bring any new report to the king discovered what was kept secret and in darkness, his parents, afraid that in trying to save one individual, they, who were many, might be caught up in his destruction, with many tears exposed their child on the banks of the river, and departed groaning and lamenting, pitying themselves for the necessity that had come upon them, and calling themselves the slayers and murderers of their child, and pitying the infant too for his destruction, which they had hoped to prevent. 11 Then, as was natural for people caught in a miserable misfortune, they accused themselves of having brought a heavier affliction on themselves than they needed to. "For why," they said, "did we not expose him at the first moment of his birth?" For people in general do not regard one who has not lived long enough to take wholesome food as a human being at all. "But we, in our excessive affection, have nourished him for three whole months, causing ourselves by such conduct more abundant grief, and inflicting upon him a heavier punishment, so that he, having finally gained a great capacity for feeling pleasures and pains, should at last perish fully aware of the most grievous evils." 12 And so they departed in ignorance of the future, wholly overwhelmed with sorrow and misery; but the exposed infant's sister, still a young girl, out of the intensity of her love for her brother, stood a little way off watching to see what would happen, and everything that happened to him seems to me to have taken place by the providence of God, who watched over the infant. 13 Now the king of the country had an only daughter, whom he tenderly loved, and they say that she, although she had been married a long time, had never had any children, and therefore, as was natural, was very eager for children, and especially for a son, who would succeed to the noble inheritance of her father's prosperity and imperial authority, which was otherwise in danger of being lost, since the king had no other grandsons. 14 She was always despondent and lamenting, but on that particular day she was so overcome by the weight of her anxiety that, though she usually stayed indoors and never crossed the threshold of her house, yet now she went out with her handmaidens down to the river, where the infant was lying. And there, as she was about to bathe and purify herself in the thickest part of the marsh, she saw the child, and commanded her handmaidens to bring him to her. 15 Then, after she had looked him over from head to foot, admired his elegant form and healthy, vigorous appearance, and seen that he was crying, she had compassion on him, her soul already stirred by a mother's affection, as if he were her own child. And when she realized that the infant belonged to one of the Hebrews who was afraid because of the commandment of the king, she formed the idea of raising him herself, and thought the matter over, thinking that it was not safe to bring him at once into the palace; 16 and while she was still hesitating, the sister of the infant, who was still looking out, guessing her hesitation from what she saw, ran up and asked her whether she would like the child to be nursed by one of the Hebrew women who had recently given birth; 17 and when she said she wished her to do so, the girl went and fetched her own mother, who was also the infant's mother, as if she were a stranger; and she, with great readiness and willingness cheerfully promised to take the child and bring him up, pretending to be tempted by the promised pay, the providence of God thus making the child's earliest upbringing accord with the true course of nature. Then she gave him a name, very fittingly calling him Moses, because she had received him out of the water, for the Egyptians call water "mos." 18 But when the child began to grow and increase, he was weaned, not at the usual age, but earlier; and then his mother, who was also his nurse, came to bring him back to the princess who had given him to her, since he no longer needed to be fed on milk and was now a fine and noble child to look at. 19 And when the king's daughter saw that he was more perfect than could have been expected at his age, and when his appearance made her feel more goodwill towards him than ever, she adopted him as her son, having first used all sorts of contrivances to make her belly look larger, so that he might be looked upon as her own genuine child, and not a substituted one; but God easily accomplishes whatever he wishes, however difficult it may be to carry through. 20 So the child, now thought worthy of a royal education and royal attendants, was not, like an ordinary child, long delighted by toys and things of laughter and amusement, even though those who had undertaken the care of him allowed him holidays and times for relaxation, and never behaved in any stern or morose way to him; but he himself showed a modest and dignified bearing in all his words and gestures, attending diligently to every lesson of every kind that could improve his mind. 21 And immediately he had all kinds of teachers, one after another, some coming of their own accord from the neighbouring countries and the different districts of Egypt, and some even brought from Greece, tempted by large gifts. But in a short time he surpassed all their knowledge, anticipating all their lessons by the excellent natural endowments of his own genius; so that in his case everything seemed to be remembering rather than learning, while he himself also, without any teacher, comprehended by his instinctive genius many difficult subjects; 22 for great abilities cut out for themselves many new roads to knowledge. And just as vigorous and healthy bodies which are active and quick in motion in all their parts, release their trainers from much care, giving them little or no trouble and anxiety, and as trees of a good kind that grow well by nature give no trouble to their cultivators, but grow finely and improve on their own, so in the same way the well-disposed soul, going forward to meet the lessons which are imparted to it, is improved in reality by itself rather than by its teachers, and taking hold of some beginning or principle of knowledge, bounds, as the proverb has it, like a horse over the plain. 23 Accordingly he speedily learnt arithmetic, and geometry, and the whole science of rhythm and harmony and metre, and the whole of music, through the use of musical instruments, and by lectures on the different arts, and by explanations of each topic; and lessons on these subjects were given him by Egyptian philosophers, who also taught him the philosophy which is contained in symbols, which they display in the sacred characters called hieroglyphics, and⁠a also the philosophy concerned with the reverence they pay to animals, which they invest with the honours due to God. He learnt all the other branches of the encyclical education from Greeks; and the philosophers from the adjacent countries taught him Assyrian literature and the knowledge of the heavenly bodies so much studied by the Chaldaeans. 24 And this knowledge he derived also from the Egyptians, who study mathematics above all things, and he learnt with great accuracy the state of that art among both the Chaldaeans and Egyptians, learning the points on which they agree and differ--making himself master of all their disputes without encouraging any disputatious disposition in himself--but seeking the plain truth, since his mind was unable to admit any falsehood, as those who contend violently for one particular side of a question are accustomed to do, advocating any doctrine put before them, whatever it may be, not inquiring whether it deserves to be supported, but acting like those lawyers who defend a cause for pay, and are wholly indifferent to the justice of their cause. 25 And when he had passed beyond infancy he began to exercise his intellect; not, as some people do, letting his youthful passions roam at large without restraint, although in his case they had ten thousand incentives in the abundant means of gratifying them that royal palaces supply; but he behaved with temperance and fortitude, as though he had bound them with reins, and so he forcibly checked their headlong rush. 26 And he tamed, and appeased, and brought under due command every one of the other passions which by nature and in themselves are frantic, and violent, and unmanageable. And if any of them stirred at all and tried to break free of restraint, he punished it severely, reproving it with severity of language; and, in short, he repressed all the principal impulses and most violent affections of the soul, and kept guard over them as over a restive horse, fearing that they might break all bounds and escape the restraining power of reason, which ought to be their guide, and so throw everything everywhere into confusion. For these passions are the causes of all good and of all evil; of good when they submit to the authority of dominant reason, and of evil when they break out of bounds and scorn all government and restraint. 27 Naturally, then, those who associated with him and everyone who knew him marvelled at him, astonished as if at a new spectacle, and asked what kind of mind it was that lived in his body and that was set up in it like an image in a shrine; whether it was a human mind or a divine intellect, or a combination of the two; because nothing in him resembled the many, but had gone beyond them all and was elevated to a more sublime height. 28 For he never provided his stomach with any luxuries beyond the necessary tributes that nature has appointed to be paid to it, and as for the pleasures of the organs below the stomach, he paid them no attention at all, except for the purpose of having legitimate children. 29 And being, to a most eminent degree, a practitioner of abstinence and self-denial, and being above all men inclined to ridicule a life of effeminacy and luxury (for he desired to live for his soul alone, and not for his body), he displayed the doctrines of philosophy in all his daily actions, saying precisely what he thought, and performing only actions consistent with his words, so as to exhibit a perfect harmony between his language and his life, so that his life was like his words and his language like his life, like people who are playing together in tune on a musical instrument. 30 Therefore men in general, if even the slightest breeze of prosperity blows their way for only a moment, become puffed up and give themselves great airs, becoming insolent to everyone in a lower condition than themselves, and calling them dregs of the earth, and annoyances, and sources of trouble, and burdens of the earth, and all sorts of names of that kind, as if they had been able to fix their prosperity, unchanging, on a solid foundation, though very likely they will not stay in the same condition even until tomorrow, 31 for there is nothing more inconstant than fortune, which tosses human affairs up and down like dice. A single day has often thrown down the man who was previously placed on a height and raised the lowly man on high. And though men see these events continually happening and are well aware of the fact, they still overlook their relations and friends, and transgress the laws according to which they were born and brought up; and they overturn their national hereditary customs which deserve no blame whatever, living in a foreign land and, because they warmly embrace the customs among which they live, no longer remembering a single one of their ancient practices. 32 But Moses, having now reached the very highest point of human good fortune, and being looked upon as the grandson of this mighty king, and being expected by almost everyone to inherit his grandfather's kingdom, and being always addressed as the young prince, still desired and admired the education of his kinsmen and ancestors, regarding everything thought good among those who had adopted him as spurious, even though, under the present state of affairs, it might look brilliant; and regarding what his natural parents thought good, even if it might be somewhat obscure for a short time, as at any rate akin to himself and genuinely good. 33 So, like an incorruptible judge both of his real parents and of those who had adopted him, he cherished goodwill and ardent affection for the first, and showed gratitude to the others for the kindness he had received from them, and he would have displayed the same throughout his whole life if he had not seen the king commit a great and unprecedented wrong in the country; 34 for, as I have said before, the Jews were strangers in Egypt, the founders of their race having migrated from Babylon and the upper satrapies in the time of the famine, because of their lack of food, and come to settle in Egypt, having in a sense taken refuge in the country like suppliants in a sacred asylum, fleeing for protection to the good faith of the king and the compassion of the inhabitants; 35 for strangers, in my opinion, should be looked upon as refugees, and as the suppliants of those who receive them in their country; and, besides being suppliants, these men were also sojourners in the land, and friends desiring to be admitted to equal honours with the citizens, and neighbours differing only a little in character from the original natives. 36 So the king of the country reduced to slavery the men who had left their homes and come into Egypt expecting to live in that land in perfect security, as in a second country, and, as if he had taken them prisoners by the laws of war, or had bought them from masters in whose household they had been raised, he oppressed them and treated them as slaves, though they were not only free men, but also strangers, and suppliants, and sojourners, having neither respect for nor awe of God, who presides over the rights of free men, and of strangers, and of suppliants, and of hospitality, and who sees all actions like his. 37 Then he laid commands on them beyond their power to fulfil, imposing on them labour after labour; and, when they fainted from weakness, the sword came upon them. He appointed overseers over their works, the most pitiless and inhuman of men, who pardoned and made allowance for no one, and whom, from the circumstances and their behaviour, they called persecutors of work. 38 And they worked with clay, some of them fashioning it into bricks, and others collecting straw from everywhere, for straw is the bond which binds bricks together; while others again were assigned the task of building houses, and walls, and gates, and cutting trenches, bearing wood themselves day and night without interruption, having no rest or respite, and not even being allowed time to sleep, but being compelled to perform all the works not only of workmen but also of journeymen, so that in a short time their bodies failed them, their souls having already fainted beneath their afflictions. 39 And so they died, one after another, as if struck down by a plague, and then their taskmasters threw their bodies away unburied beyond the borders of the land, not allowing their kinsmen or their friends to sprinkle even a little dust on their corpses, or to weep over those who had thus miserably perished; but, impious men that they were, they threatened to extend their despotism over the passions of the soul (which cannot be enslaved, and which are almost the only things nature has made completely free), oppressing them with the intolerable weight of a necessity beyond their powers. 40 Moses was greatly grieved and indignant at all these events, since he could neither chastise the unjust oppressors of his people nor help the oppressed, but he gave them all the help he could by words, urging their overseers to treat them with moderation and to relax and ease somewhat the oppressive nature of their commands, and urging the oppressed who were labouring in this way to bear their present distress with a noble spirit and to be men in mind, and not to let their souls faint as well as their bodies, but to hope for good fortune after their present adversity; 41 since all things in this world tend to change into their opposites, cloudy weather to fine, violent gales to calm and absence of wind, storms and heavy billows at sea to fair weather and an unruffled surface of the water; and human affairs are much more likely to change, since they are more unstable than anything. 42 By using these charms, as it were, like a good physician, he thought he would be able to alleviate their afflictions, although they were most grievous. But whenever their distress eased, their taskmasters came back and oppressed them with increased severity, always adding after each respite some new evil even more intolerable than their previous sufferings; 43 for some of their overseers were very savage and furious men, in their cruelty no different at all from poisonous serpents or carnivorous beasts--wild beasts in human form--clothed in the form of a human body to give an appearance of gentleness, in order to deceive and catch their victim, but in reality harder than iron or adamant. 44 Then Moses killed one of these men, the most violent of them, who, besides yielding nothing of his purpose, was even exasperated at the exhortations of Moses and rendered more savage by them, beating those who did not labour with energy and unremittingly at the work which was imposed upon them, and insulting them and subjecting them to every kind of ill-treatment, even to the point of causing the death of many. Moses thought the deed a pious action; and, indeed, it was a pious action to destroy one who only lived for the destruction of others. 45 When the king heard of this action he was very indignant, finding it intolerable, not for one man to be dead, or for another to have killed him, whether justly or unjustly, but for his grandson not to agree with him, and not to regard his friends or his enemies as his own, but to hate persons whom the king loved, and to love persons whom the king looked upon as outcasts, and to pity those whom he regarded with unchangeable and implacable aversion. 46 But when the Egyptian authorities had an opportunity to attack the young man, already having reason to regard him with suspicion (for they knew well that he would in future bear them ill will for their evil practices, and would revenge himself on them when he had an opportunity) they poured in, at all times and from every side, thousands and thousands of calumnies into the willing ears of his grandfather, so that they even implanted in his mind the fear that Moses was plotting to deprive him of his kingdom, saying to him: "He will strip you of your crown. He has no humble designs or notions. He is always seeking to meddle in what does not concern him, and to acquire some additional power. He is eager for the kingdom before his time. He caresses some people; he threatens others; he kills others without a trial; he hates all those who are most loyal to you. Why do you delay? Why do you not cut short all his designs and machinations? Delay by those who are plotted against is the greatest advantage to those who wish to attack them." 47 While they were pressing these arguments on the king, he withdrew to the neighbouring country of Arabia, where it was safe to stay, begging God to deliver his countrymen from inextricable calamities, to chastise as they deserved their oppressors, who spared no form of insolence and tyranny, and to double his joy by letting him see both these prayers fulfilled. And God heard his prayers, looking favourably on his disposition, so devoted to what is good, and so hostile to what is evil, and soon afterwards he pronounced his decision on the affairs of that land as befitted a God. 48 But while he was preparing to make known the decision he was about to pronounce, Moses was devoting himself to all the labours of virtue, having a teacher within himself, virtuous reason, by whom he had been trained to the most virtuous pursuits of life, and had learnt to apply himself to the contemplation and practice of virtue and to the continual study of the doctrines of philosophy, which he easily and thoroughly comprehended in his soul, and committed to memory so that he never forgot them; and, moreover, he made all his own actions, which were praiseworthy in themselves, harmonise with them, wanting not to seem wise and good, but truly and really to be so, because he made the right reason of nature his only aim; which is, in fact, the only first principle and fountain of all the virtues. 49 Anyone else, perhaps, fleeing from the implacable fury of the king, and coming now for the first time into a foreign land, before he had yet mixed with the natives or learnt their customs, and not knowing accurately what they delighted in or regarded with aversion, would have wanted to enjoy tranquillity and to live in obscurity, escaping the notice of men in general; or else, if he had wished to come forward in public, he would have tried by every means to propitiate the powerful men and those in the highest authority in the country by persevering attentions, as men from whom some advantage or assistance might be expected, if any pursuers came after him and tried to drag him away by force. 50 But this man took the exact opposite of the path he would probably have taken, following the healthy impulses of his soul, and not allowing any one of them to be impeded in its progress. For this reason, at times, with the fervour of youth, he attempted things beyond his existing strength; regarding justice as an irresistible power, which encouraged him to go of his own accord to the help of the weaker side. 51 I will also mention one thing he did at that time, which, though it may seem trifling, still came from a lofty spirit. The Arabs are great breeders of cattle, and they all feed their flocks together, not only men but also women, youths and young girls with them, and not only in the obscurer classes and lower ranks of life but also among the most eminent people of the nation. 52 There were seven young women whose father was the priest, and they all came to a certain fountain leading their flocks, and having untied their vessels and let them down by thongs, they took turns drawing up the water, so that they all had an equal share in the work; and in this way they cheerfully and rapidly filled the troughs nearby. 53 And when other shepherds came up they disregarded the weakness of the young women and endeavoured to drive them away with their flocks, and then brought their own herds to the water that had been drawn, wanting to reap the fruits of the labour of others. 54 But Moses, seeing what was happening, for he was not far off, hurried and ran up; and, when he had come near to them, he said: "Will you not stop behaving so unjustly, thinking this lonely place a fitting field for exercising your covetousness? Are you not ashamed to have such cowardly arms and hands? You are long-haired people, female flesh, and not men. The young women behave like vigorous youths, hesitating over nothing they ought to do; but you, young men, are now behaving lazily, like girls. 55 Will you not depart? Will you not be off and make way for those who arrived first, to whom the water belongs, and who are entitled to it; when you ought rather to have drawn water for them, so that they might have had it in greater abundance? Instead, are you trying to take away from them what they themselves have prepared? But I swear, by the celestial eye of justice, which sees what is done even in the most solitary places, that you shall not take it from them. 56 And in any case, justice has now sent me and appointed me to bring help to those who never expected such an officer; for I am an ally to these young women who are thus injured by violence, and I come with a might which you evil-doers and covetous people cannot face, but you shall feel it wounding you invisibly, if you do not change your ways." 57 He said this; and they were alarmed at his words, since while he was speaking he seemed inspired, and his appearance changed so that he looked like a prophet; and, fearing that he might be uttering divine oracles and predictions, they obeyed and became submissive, and brought back the flock of the maidens to the troughs, after first removing their own cattle. 58 So the young women went home exceedingly delighted, and told everything that had happened to them beyond their hopes, so that they made their father long earnestly to see the stranger. In any case, he blamed them for their ingratitude, speaking as follows: "What were you thinking, letting him go, when you ought at once to have brought him here, and to have pressed him to come if he refused? Or when did you see any inhospitality in me? Or do you expect never again to fall into difficulties? Those who forget services done for them must go without defenders; but even so, hurry after him, for the mistake you have made can still be put right; go quickly and first invite him to a hospitable welcome, and then try to repay his service, for great thanks are due to him." 59 So they hurried after him and caught up with him not far from the fountain; and when they had delivered their father's message to him, they persuaded him to return home with them. And their father was at once greatly struck by his appearance, and soon afterwards he learnt to admire his wisdom, for great natures are very easily discovered, and do not require a length of time to be appreciated, and so he gave him the most beautiful of his daughters to be his wife, judging from that single action how thoroughly good and excellent he was, and testifying that what is good is the only thing that deserves to be loved, and that it does not require any external recommendation, but carries in itself the proofs by which it can be known and understood. 60 And after his marriage, Moses took his father-in-law's herds and tended them, and in this way he learned the lessons that would qualify him to become the leader of a people, for the business of a shepherd is a preparation for the office of a king for anyone destined to preside over the most manageable of all flocks, mankind, just as hunting is a good training-school for men of warlike dispositions; for those who are training to learn how to manage an army first study the science of hunting, with brute animals serving as a kind of raw material exposed to their attacks, so that they can practise the art of command for every occasion of war or peace, 61 for the pursuit of wild beasts is a training-school of strategy to be developed against enemies, and the care and management of tame animals is a royal training for the government of subjects; and for this reason kings are called shepherds of their people, not as a reproach but as a most special and pre-eminent honour. 62 And it seems to me, having examined the matter with no regard for the opinions of the many but solely with regard to the truth (and let anyone laugh who likes), that only the man who is well skilled in the shepherd's art can be a perfect king, since he has been trained for more important matters by his experience with the lower animals; for it is impossible for great things to be brought to perfection before small ones. 63 So Moses, having become the most skilful herdsman of his time and the most prudent provider of everything his flock needed and everything that was to its advantage, since he never delayed or hesitated but brought a willing and spontaneous cheerfulness to everything the animals in his care required, 64 saw his flocks increase with great joy and guileless good faith, so that he soon aroused the envy of the other herdsmen, who saw nothing in their own flocks like the condition of his; but they thought themselves well off if they continued as before, while the flock of Moses would have been thought to be declining if it had not improved every day, because of the vast gains it regularly made in beauty from its fine condition and fatness, and in number from the fertility of the females and the wholesome way it was fed and managed. 65 And when Moses was leading his flock into a situation full of good water and good grass, where there was also a great deal of herbage especially suitable for sheep, he came upon a certain grove in a valley, where he saw a most marvellous sight. There was a bush or briar, a very thorny plant, and very weak and supple. This bush suddenly burst into a blaze without anyone setting fire to it, and although it was entirely enveloped from the root to the topmost branch by the abundant flame, as though some fountain were showering fire over it, it nevertheless remained whole and unconsumed, like some impassible essence, not as if it were itself the natural fuel for fire, but rather as if it were taking the fire as its own fuel. 66 And in the middle of the flame a very beautiful form was seen, not resembling any visible thing, a most Godlike image, emitting a light more brilliant than fire, which anyone might have imagined to be the image of the living God. But let it be called an angel, because it merely related (diēngelleto) the events that were about to happen, in a silence more distinct than any voice, through the marvellous sight it displayed. 67 For the burning bush was a symbol of the oppressed people, and the burning fire was a symbol of the oppressors; and the fact that the burning bush was not consumed was an emblem that the people so oppressed would not be destroyed by those attacking them, but that for the one party their hostility would be unsuccessful and fruitless, and for the other the plots against them would do no harm. The angel, in turn, was the emblem of the providence of God, who softens circumstances that seem very formidable and brings out of them a great calm beyond anyone's hope or expectation. 68 But we must now examine closely the comparison made here. The briar, as has already been said, is a very weak and supple plant, yet it has thorns, so that it wounds anyone who so much as touches it. Nor was it consumed by the fire, which is naturally destructive; on the contrary, it was preserved by it, and besides not being consumed, it stayed just as it was before and, without undergoing any change at all itself, gained additional brilliance. 69 All these circumstances are an allegory hinting at what the conditions prevailing at that time suggested, almost crying out in plain words to people in affliction, "Do not faint; your weakness is your strength, which shall pierce and wound innumerable hosts. Those who want to destroy your whole race shall, against their will, save you rather than destroy you, so that you shall not be overwhelmed by the evils with which they will afflict you, but just when your enemies feel surest that they are destroying you, you shall shine out most brilliantly in glory." 70 Again, the fire, which is a destructive essence, convicts men of cruel disposition and says, Do not be so elated that you rely on your own strength; take warning instead when you see irresistible powers destroyed. The consuming power of flame is itself consumed like firewood, and the wood, which by its very nature can be burnt, visibly burns other things like fire. 71 Having shown this prodigious and miraculous sight to Moses, God in this way gave him a most visible lesson about the events that were about to happen; and he began to urge him, by divine admonitions and predictions, to apply himself to the government of his nation, as one who was to be not only the author of its freedom, but also its leader in its migration from Egypt, which would take place before long; and he promised to be with him as his helper in everything. 72 For God says, "I myself have long had compassion on them as they are ill-treated and subjected to unbearable insolence, with no one to lighten their sufferings or pity their calamities; for I have seen them all, each one in private and the whole nation together, turning with one accord to offer supplications and prayer to me, and hoping for help from me. And I am merciful by nature, and gracious to all who sincerely pray to me. 73 But go to the king of the country without fearing anything at all; for the former king, from whom you fled for fear of his plots against you, is dead. And another king now governs the land, who bears you no ill will on any account, and who has taken the elders of the nation into his council; tell him that I am calling the whole nation out by my divine oracle, so that, in keeping with the customs of their ancestors, they may travel three days' journey out of the country and sacrifice to me there." 74 But Moses, knowing well that even his own countrymen would distrust his word, and so would everyone else, said, "If they then ask the name of the one who sent you, and if I do not know what to reply to them, shall I not seem to be deceiving them?" 75 And God said, "First say to them, I am that I am, so that when they have learnt that there is a difference between him who is and him who is not, they may be further taught that there is no name whatever that can properly be assigned to me, since I am the only being to whom existence belongs. 76 And if, because they are weak in their natural abilities, they inquire further about my name, tell them not only the single fact that I am God, but also that I am the God of the men who took their names from virtue, that I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, one of whom is the rule of the wisdom that comes from teaching, another of natural wisdom, and the third of the wisdom that comes from practice. And if they are still distrustful, they shall be taught by these tokens, and then they shall change their minds, seeing signs such as no man has ever seen or heard before." 77 The tokens were these. God ordered Moses to throw the rod he held in his hand down on the ground; and immediately it received life, and crawled along, and quickly became the most powerful of all the animals that lack feet, an immense serpent, complete in all its parts. And when Moses retreated from the beast, and in his fear was about to run away, he was called back again; and when God gave him his commands and filled him with courage, he took hold of it by the tail; 78 and the serpent, though still crawling onwards, stopped at his touch, and, stretched out at its full length, returned to its original elements and became the same rod as before, so that Moses marvelled at both the changes, not knowing which was more wonderful; he was unable to decide between them, since his soul was overwhelmed by these equally strange sights. 79 This was the first sign. The second miraculous token was given to him soon afterwards. God commanded him to put one of his hands in his bosom and hide it there, and a moment afterwards to draw it out again. And when he had done as he was commanded, his hand instantly appeared whiter than snow. Again, when he had put his hand a second time into his bosom, and drawn it out a second time, it returned to its original complexion, and resumed its proper appearance. 80 These two lessons he was taught in solitude, when he was alone with God, like a pupil alone with his master, and having with him the instruments by which these wonders were worked, namely his hand and the rod he walked with along the road. 81 But the third he could not carry about with him, nor could he be taught it beforehand; yet it was destined to astonish him no less than the others, and it had its origin in Egypt. This is what it was. God said, "As much of the river's water as you can take up in your hand and pour on the ground shall become dark blood, completely transformed in both colour and power." 82 And naturally this also seemed credible to Moses, not merely because of the truthfulness of the speaker but also because of the marvels already shown to him with his hand and his rod. 83 But though he believed the words of God, nevertheless he tried to avoid the office to which God was appointing him, pleading that he had a weak voice and was slow of speech and not eloquent, especially since he had heard God himself speaking. For he judged the greatest human eloquence to be mere speechlessness compared with the truth, and, being prudent and cautious by nature as well, he shrank from the undertaking, thinking such great matters suited to proud and bold men and not to him. And he begged God to choose someone else who could easily carry out all the commands he was laying on him. 84 But he approved of his modesty, and said, "Do you not know who it is that gives man a mouth, and who formed his windpipe and his tongue and all the apparatus of the articulate voice? It is I. Therefore, fear nothing. For when I approve, everything will become articulate and clear, and will change for the better, and improve; so that no one shall hinder you, but the stream of your words shall flow forth in a rapid and smooth current as if from a pure fountain. And if there is any need of an interpreter, you shall have your brother, who will be a subordinate mouthpiece for you, so that he may speak to the multitude the words he receives from you, while you speak to him the words you receive from God." 85 When he had heard these things (for it was not at all safe or free from danger to oppose the commands of God), he set out with his wife and children on the road to Egypt, where he met his brother and persuaded him to come with him, telling him the oracular commands he had received from God. And his brother's soul had already been moved to obedience by divine providence, so that he agreed to his proposal without hesitation and readily followed him. 86 And when they arrived in Egypt of one mind and soul, they first gathered the elders of the nation in a secret place, and there they laid the commands of God before them and told them how God had taken pity and compassion on them and promised them freedom and a departure from there to a better country, promising also that he himself would guide them on their way. 87 After these events they took courage to speak with the king about sending their people out of his territory so that they might sacrifice to God; for they said, "Their national sacrifices had to be performed in the wilderness, since they were not carried out in the same way as the sacred rites of other nations, but according to a system and law removed from the ordinary course, because of the distinctive character of their customs." 88 But the monarch, whose soul had been filled from the cradle with all the arrogance of his ancestors, and who had no notion at all of any God perceptible only to the intellect, apart from the objects that are visible to the eye, answered them with insolence, saying, "Who is this that I am to obey? I do not know this new Lord of whom you are speaking. I will not let the nation go to be disobedient and headstrong on the pretext of fasts and sacrifices." 89 And then, like a man of cruel and passionate disposition and implacable in his anger, he commanded the overseers of the works to oppress them still more, because they had previously given them some relaxation and leisure, saying that it was from this relaxation and leisure that their plans for feasting and sacrifice had arisen; for men in great straits did not think of such things, only those whose lives had been spent in much ease and luxury. 90 Therefore the Jews had now to endure more terrible afflictions than before, and were indignant at Moses and his brother as deceivers, and accused them, sometimes secretly and sometimes openly, and charged them with impiety for seeming to have spoken falsely against God; and accordingly Moses began to exhibit the marvellous wonders which he had been previously taught, thinking that in this way he would be able to bring those who saw them from their former disbelief to believe everything he said. 91 And this display of prodigies was carefully staged before the king and the magistrates of the Egyptians. So, when all the powerful men of the state were assembled around the king, the brother of Moses took his rod, shook it in a very striking and demonstrative way, and threw it on the ground, and it immediately became a serpent. And all those who were standing around saw it, and marvelled, and in alarm and terror drew back and fled. 92 But all the sophists and magicians who were present said, "Why are you so alarmed? We too are well practised in tricks like these, and we are skilled in an art which can produce similar effects." And then each of them threw down the rod which he held in his hand, and so a multitude of serpents went crawling around the rod that had been changed first. 93 And that serpent, in the excess of its power, reared itself up high, swelled its chest and opened its mouth, and by violently drawing in its breath, pulled them all towards it as if it had surrounded a large catch of fish with a net cast around them, and then, when it had swallowed them all, it returned to its original nature as a stick. 94 So the marvellous sight shown to them struck fear into the soul of every one of these wicked and malicious men, so that they no longer imagined that what had been done was the trick or artifice of men, devised merely to deceive; they saw that the cause of these things was a more divine power, for which all things are easy. 95 But when the evident might of what had been done compelled them to admit this, they were still no less audacious, clinging to their original inhumanity and impiety as if to some inalienable virtue, neither pitying those who were unjustly enslaved nor doing any of the things the word of God commanded them. And though God himself had declared his will to them by demonstrations clearer than any verbal commands, namely, by signs and wonders, they still needed an even more severe impression to be made on them, and it was necessary for him to rise up against them with still greater power; and so those foolish men, whom reason and command could not move, were corrected by a series of afflictions: and ten punishments were inflicted on the land; 96 so that the number of chastisements inflicted on those who had completed their sins might itself be complete; and the punishment far transcended all ordinary visitations. For the elements of the universe, earth, water, air, and fire, of which the world was made, were all, by the command of God, turned against them in hostility, so that the country of those impious men was destroyed, in order to display the height of the authority wielded by God, who had also fashioned those same elements at the creation of the universe to secure its safety, and who could change them all whenever he pleased to bring about the destruction of impious men. 97 And he divided his punishments, entrusting to the brother of Moses three, those that came from the elements composed of more solid parts, namely earth and water, from which all the distinctive corporeal realities are perfected. An equal number, those that came from the elements most prolific of life, namely, air and fire, he committed to Moses himself alone. One, the seventh, he entrusted to both in common; the other three, to make up the whole number of ten, he reserved for himself. 98 And first he began to bring on the plagues that came from water; for since the Egyptians honoured water to a special degree, thinking it the first principle of the creation of the universe, he thought it fitting to summon water first to afflict and correct those who honoured it so. 99 What happened, then, not long after the events I have already mentioned? The brother of Moses, by the divine command, struck the river with his rod, and immediately, throughout its whole course, from Ethiopia down to the sea, it was changed into blood, and at the same moment, all the lakes, and ditches, and fountains, and wells, and springs, and every particle of water in all Egypt, was changed into blood, so that, for lack of drink, they dug around the banks of the river, but the streams that came up were like veins of the body in a haemorrhage, and spurted up channels of blood like springs, and no clear water could be seen anywhere. 100 And all the different kinds of fish died, since all the life-giving power of the river had been changed into a destructive power, so that everything everywhere was filled with foul odours from such a vast number of bodies rotting all together. Moreover, a great number of men perished from thirst, and their bodies lay in heaps in the roads, since their relatives did not have the strength to carry the dead to the tombs; 101 for this evil lasted seven days, until the Egyptians entreated Moses, and Moses entreated God, to take pity on those who were perishing. And God, being merciful by nature, changed the blood back into wholesome water, restoring to the river its original clear and life-giving streams. 102 But again, after a brief respite, the Egyptians returned to the same cruelty and carelessness as before, as if justice had been utterly banished from among men, or as if those who had endured one punishment were not usually chastised a second time; but through their suffering they were taught, like young children, not to despise those who corrected them; for the next punishment, following on the heels of the last, was slow to come while they too were slow, but when they rushed to do wrong, it ran after them and overtook them. 103 Once again the brother of Moses, under orders, stretched out his hand and held his rod over all the canals, and lakes, and marshes; and as he held out his rod, such an immense multitude of frogs came up that not only the market-place, and all the spots open to the air, were filled with them, but likewise all the stables for cattle, the houses, and all the temples, and every building, public or private, as if nature had planned to send one race of aquatic animals out into the opposite region, the earth, to found a colony there, since the region opposite to water is earth. 104 Since, then, they could not go out of doors because all the passages were blocked, and could not stay indoors because the frogs had already occupied every recess and had crawled up to the very highest parts of the houses, they were now in the greatest distress and in complete despair of safety. 105 So once again they turned to the same means of escape, pleading with Moses, and the king now promised to permit the Hebrews to depart, and they propitiated God with prayers. And when God consented, some of the frogs at once returned into the river, and those that died lay in heaps in the roads, and the people also brought loads of them out of their houses, because of the intolerable stench that came from them, and the smell of so many dead carcases rose to heaven, especially since frogs, even while alive, cause great annoyance to the outward senses. 106 And when they had recovered a little from this punishment, then, like wrestlers at the games, who have recovered fresh strength after a struggle, so that they can contend again with renewed vigour, they returned once more to their original wickedness, forgetting the evils which they had already experienced. 107 And when God had put an end to the punishments which were to proceed out of the water, he brought up others from the land, still using the same minister of punishment; and this minister, obeying the command he received, struck the ground with his rod, and an abundance of lice was poured out everywhere, and it spread like a cloud and covered the whole of Egypt. 108 And that little animal, even though it is very small, is exceedingly annoying; for not only does it spoil the appearance, causing unsightly and harmful itching, but it also penetrates to the inmost parts, entering in at the nostrils and ears. And it flies into the eyes and injures the pupils, unless one takes great care; and what care could guard against so widespread a plague, especially when it was God who was inflicting the punishment? 109 And perhaps someone may here ask why God punished the land with such insignificant and generally despised animals, omitting bears, and lions, and leopards, and the other races of wild beasts who devour human flesh; and if he did not send these, he might at least have sent Egyptian asps, whose bites naturally have the power to cause death instantly. 110 But if such a man really does not know, let him learn, first of all, that God wanted to admonish the Egyptians rather than destroy them: for if he had intended to destroy them utterly once and for all, he would not have used animals as his helpers, so to speak, in the work of destruction, but rather heaven-sent afflictions such as famine and pestilence; 111 and in the second place, let him also learn a lesson that needs to be learnt and applies to every condition and age of life; and what is the lesson? It is this: when men make war, they seek out the mightiest powers and win them over as allies, to make up for their own lack of power; but God, who is the supreme and mightiest of all powers, having need of no assistant, if he ever wishes to use instruments, so to speak, for the punishments he means to inflict, does not choose the mightiest or greatest things as his ministers, since he pays little attention to their capacity, but uses small and insignificant agents, which he makes into irresistible and invincible powers, and through them he chastises those who do wrong, as he does in this instance, 112 for what can be more insignificant than a louse? And yet it was so powerful that all Egypt fainted under their host and was compelled to cry out that "this is the anger of God." For the whole earth put together, from one end to the other, could not withstand the hand of God, nor could the whole universe. 113 These, then, were the chastisements inflicted through the agency of the brother of Moses. Next we must consider those in which Moses himself was the minister, and from what parts of nature they came. After the earth and the water came the air and the heaven, the purest portions of the essences of the universe, as the means of correcting the Egyptians; and Moses was the minister of this correction; 114 and first of all he began to work on the air. For Egypt, almost alone apart from the countries that lie south of the equator, never has the season of the year called winter, perhaps, as some say, because it is not far from the torrid zone, since the essence of fire flows invisibly from that quarter and scorches everything around, or perhaps it is because the river overflows at the time of the summer solstice, and so consumes all the clouds before they can collect for winter; 115 for the river begins to rise at the beginning of the summer, and to fall towards the end of summer; during this period the etesian gales grow more violent, blowing against the mouths of the Nile and preventing it from flowing freely into the sea, and the violence of these winds also raises the sea itself to a considerable height and builds up vast waves like a long wall, and so the river is churned up within the country. Then, when the two streams meet, with the river coming down from its sources above and the waters that ought to escape outward turned back by the pounding of the sea and unable to spread out in breadth, because the banks on each side of the river confine its streams, the river naturally rises high and breaks its bounds; 116 perhaps it is also because winter would be superfluous in Egypt; for the purpose that showers of rain usually serve is provided for here by the river, which overflows the fields and turns them into one vast lake, to make them productive of the annual crops; 117 but nature does not spend her powers to no purpose where they are not needed, providing rain for a land that does not require it; rather she rejoices in the variety and diversity of skilful operations and arranges the harmony of the universe from a number of opposite qualities. And for this reason she supplies the benefits of water to some countries by giving it to them from above, namely from heaven, and to others from below, through springs and rivers; 118 though, then, the land was arranged in this way and enjoyed spring at the winter solstice, and although only the parts along the seacoasts are ever moistened with a few drops of rain, and the country beyond Memphis, where the palace of the king of Egypt is, never even sees snow at all; now, on the contrary, the air suddenly took on a new appearance, so that everything seen in the stormiest and most wintry countries came upon it all at once: abundance of rain, and torrents of dense and ceaseless hail, and heavy winds met and beat violently against one another; and the clouds burst, and there were incessant lightnings, and thunders, and continued roarings, and flashes which made a most wonderful and fearful appearance. For though the lightning and the thunderbolts, a quite contrary substance, pierced and came down through the hail, they did not melt it, nor did the hail put out the flashes; they stayed as they were before and ran up and down in long lines, and even preserved the hail. 119 And not only did the excessive violence of the storm drive all the inhabitants to excessive despair, but the unprecedented nature of the visitation had the same effect. For they believed, as was indeed the case, that all these novel and fearful calamities were caused by the divine anger, since the air had taken on a novel appearance, such as it had never worn before, destroying and overthrowing all trees and fruits, and great numbers of animals were also destroyed by it, some because of the extreme cold, others through the weight of the hail which fell upon them, as if they had been stoned, while others were destroyed by the fire of the lightning. And some remained half consumed, bearing the marks of the wounds caused by the thunderbolts, as an admonition and warning to all who saw them. 120 And when this evil had abated, and the king and his court had regained their confidence, Moses stretched out his rod into the air, at the command of God. Then a south wind of uncommon violence set in and grew in intensity and force all that day and night, a very great affliction in itself; for it is a drying wind, causing headaches, and terrible to bear, apt to cause grief, terror and perplexity in Egypt above all countries, since it lies to the south, in which part of the heaven the revolutions of the light-giving stars take place, so that whenever that wind is set in motion, the light of the sun and its fire is driven in that direction and scorches up everything. 121 And this wind brought a countless number of animals over the land, plant-destroying animals, locusts, which devoured everything ceaselessly like a stream, consuming all that the thunderstorms and the hail had left, so that not a green shoot was to be seen any longer in all that vast country. 122 And then at last the men in authority, though late, came to perceive accurately the evils that had come upon them, and went and said to the king, "How long will you refuse to permit the men to depart? Do you not understand, from what has already taken place, that Egypt is destroyed?" And he agreed to all they said, yielding, at least in appearance; but again, when the evil had abated at the prayer of Moses, the wind came from the sea, and took up the locusts and scattered them. 123 And when they had been completely dispersed, and when the king was again obstinate about allowing the nation to depart, a greater evil than the former ones descended upon him. For while it was bright daylight, a thick darkness suddenly spread over the land, as if there had been an eclipse of the sun more complete than any ordinary one. And it went on, with a long series of clouds and an impenetrable density, the whole course of the sun's rays being cut off by the massive thickness of the veil set in between, so that day did not differ from night at all. For what did it resemble, indeed, if not one very long night, as long as three days and as many nights? 124 And at this time they say that some people threw themselves on their beds and did not dare to get up, and that some, when a need of nature came upon them, could only move with difficulty by feeling their way along the walls or whatever else they could take hold of, like so many blind men; for even the light of the fire lit for necessary uses was either extinguished by the violence of the storm, or else it was made invisible and overwhelmed by the density of the darkness, so that sight, the most indispensable of all the external senses, though unimpaired, was deprived of its function, unable to discern anything, and all the other senses were overthrown like subjects whose leader has fallen. 125 For no one was able to speak or to hear, and no one dared to take food, but they lay down in silence and hunger, using none of the outward senses, wholly overwhelmed by the affliction, until Moses again had compassion on them, and begged God on their behalf. And he restored fine weather, and produced light instead of darkness, and day instead of night. 126 These, they say, were the punishments inflicted through Moses alone: the plague of hail and thunderstorms, the plague of locusts, and the plague of darkness, which shut out every imaginable kind of light. Then he and his brother together brought on one more, which I will now relate. 127 At the command of God they both took up ashes from the furnace in their hands, and Moses sprinkled them in the air. Then dust suddenly rose and produced a terrible, most painful and incurable ulceration over the whole skin of both men and beasts; and immediately their bodies became swollen with the pustules, covered all over with blisters full of pus, which anyone might have supposed were burning underneath and ready to burst; 128 and the people were naturally oppressed with pain and excessive agony from the ulceration and inflammation, and they suffered in their souls even more than in their bodies, being wholly exhausted with anguish. For one vast, unbroken sore could be seen from head to foot, as the sores covering each part of every separate limb spread until they merged into one huge ulcer, until again, when the lawgiver prayed on behalf of the sufferers, the disease became more tolerable. 129 So in this instance the two brothers gave the Egyptians this warning together, and very fittingly: the brother of Moses acted through the dust that rose up, since he had been entrusted with oversight of the things that come from the earth; and Moses acted through the air, which was changed in this way to afflict the inhabitants, for his ministry was assigned to the afflictions to be caused by the air and by the heaven. 130 The remaining punishments are three in number, and they were inflicted by God himself without any agency or ministration of man, each of which I will now relate as well as I can. The first was inflicted by means of the boldest animal in all nature, the dog-fly (kynomuia), which those who invent names named very aptly (for they were wise men), combining the names of the most impudent of all animals, the fly and the dog, the dog being the boldest of all land animals and the fly the boldest of all flying animals. For they approach and run up fearlessly, and if anyone drives them away, they still resist and renew their attack, never yielding until they have had their fill of blood and flesh. 131 And so the dog-fly, having drawn its boldness from both these animals, is a biting and treacherous creature; for it shoots in from a distance with a whizzing sound like an arrow; and when it has reached its mark it clings tightly with great force. 132 But at this time its attack was prompted by God, so that its treachery and hostility were redoubled, since it displayed not only all its own natural greed but also all the eagerness it drew from the divine providence that sent it out, armed it, and roused it to acts of valour against the natives. 133 And after the dog-fly there followed another punishment unconnected with any human agency, namely, the mortality among the cattle; for all the herds of oxen, and flocks of goats, and vast flocks of sheep, and all the beasts of burden, and all other domestic animals of every kind died together in one day, as if by agreement or at a given signal, foreshadowing the destruction of human beings that was to follow shortly afterwards, as happens in a plague; for the sudden destruction of irrational animals is said to be a common prelude to plagues. 134 After this came the tenth and last punishment, more terrible than all that had gone before, namely, the death of the Egyptians themselves. Not of all of them, for God had decreed not to make the whole country desolate but only to correct it. Nor even of most of the men and women of every age taken together, but he permitted the rest to live, and only passed sentence of death on all the first-born, beginning with the eldest of the king's sons, and ending with the first-born son of the most obscure grinder at the mill; 135 for, about midnight, all those children who had been the first to address their fathers and their mothers, and who had also been the first to be addressed by them as their sons, though they were in good health and in full vigour of body, were all suddenly killed in the flower of their youth without any apparent cause; and they say that not a single house in the whole land escaped the visitation. 136 But at dawn, when everyone saw his nearest and dearest relatives unexpectedly dead, people with whom they had shared one home and one table up to the evening before, they were naturally overwhelmed with the most bitter grief and filled every place with lamentation. And so, because the calamity was universal and everyone was weeping together with one accord, a single universal sound of wailing was heard over the whole land from one end to the other. 137 And for a while they stayed in their houses, no one aware of the misfortune that had happened to his neighbour, each lamenting only his own loss. But when anyone went out of doors and learnt the misfortunes of others also, he at once felt a double sorrow, grieving for the common calamity in addition to his own private misfortune, so that a greater and more grievous sorrow was added to the lesser and lighter one, and everyone felt deprived of all hope of consolation. For who was likely to comfort another when he himself needed the same consolation? 138 But, as usually happens in such circumstances, people thought that the present evils were the beginning of greater ones and, afraid that those still living would also be destroyed, ran weeping to the king's palace, and tore their clothes, and cried out against the sovereign as the cause of all the terrible evils that had happened to them. 139 "For if," they said, "he had allowed his nation to depart as soon as Moses first came to him at the beginning, we would never have experienced a single one of the miseries that have happened to us. But he yielded to his natural obstinacy and haughtiness, and so we have reaped the ready reward of his unreasonable contentiousness." Then they urged one another to drive the Jewish people with all speed out of the whole country, and not to allow them to remain one day, or rather one single hour, regarding every moment that they stayed among them as an irreparable calamity. 140 So they, now driven out of the land and pursued, and coming at last to a proper sense of their own nobility and worth, ventured on a daring deed such as it befits the free to dare, as men who had not forgotten the unjust plots laid against them; 141 for they carried off abundant booty, which they themselves collected, by means of the hatred in which they were held, and some of it they carried themselves, taking on heavy loads, and some they loaded onto their beasts of burden, not to satisfy any love of money or, as a usurer might say, because they coveted their neighbours' goods. (How could they?) But, first, because in this way they were receiving the wages owed them by those they had served for so long; and, second, because they had a right to inflict on those who had wronged them afflictions slighter than, and by no means equal to, what they had endured. For how can the deprivation of money and treasures be equivalent to the loss of liberty? For its sake, people in their right minds dare not only to throw away all their property but even to risk their lives. 142 So they now prospered on both counts: they received their wages, as it were, which they now exacted from unwilling paymasters who for a long time had not paid them at all; and also, as if they were at war, they thought it fitting to carry off the treasures of the enemy, according to the laws of conquerors; for it was the Egyptians who had set the example of acts of injustice, having, as I said before, enslaved foreigners and suppliants, as if they had been prisoners taken in war. And so now, when an opportunity arose, they avenged themselves without any preparation of arms, justice itself holding a shield over them, and stretching out its hand to help them. 143 These, then, were the afflictions and punishments by which Egypt was corrected, and not one of them ever touched the Hebrews, although they were dwelling in the same cities and villages, and even houses, as the Egyptians, and touching the same earth and water, and air and fire, which are all component parts of nature, and from which escape is impossible. And the most extraordinary and almost incredible thing is that, through the very same events happening in the same place and at the same time, one people was destroyed and the other people was preserved. 144 The river was changed into blood, but not for the Hebrews; for when they went to draw water from it, it underwent another change and became drinkable. Frogs came up from the water onto the land, and filled all the market-places, and stables, and dwelling-houses; but they withdrew from the Hebrews alone, as if they had been able to distinguish between the two nations and to know which people ought to be punished and which treated in the opposite way. 145 No lice, no dog-flies, no locusts, which greatly injured the plants, and the fruits, and the animals, and the human beings, ever descended upon the Hebrews. Those unceasing storms of rain and hail, and thunder and lightning, which continued so uninterruptedly, never reached them; they never felt, not even in their dreams, that terrible ulceration which caused the Egyptians so much suffering; when that dense darkness came down on the others, they were living in bright daylight, with a noonday brilliance shining all around them; when, among the Egyptians, all the first-born were killed, not one of the Hebrews died; nor was that to be expected, since even the destruction of such countless flocks and herds of cattle never carried off or injured a single flock or a single beast belonging to the Hebrews. 146 And it seems to me that if anyone had been present to see all that happened at that time, he would have concluded only that the Hebrews were there as spectators of the miseries which the other nation was enduring; and, not only that, but that they were also there for the purpose of being taught that most beautiful and beneficial of all lessons, namely, piety. For otherwise so decisive a distinction could never have been made between the good and the bad, giving destruction to the one and salvation to the other. 147 And of those who now went out of Egypt and left their homes in that country, the men of fighting age numbered more than six hundred thousand, and the rest of the multitude, elders, children and women, was so great that it was not easy to count. A mixed multitude of assorted people gathered from all quarters, and servants, also went out with them, like an illegitimate crowd alongside a body of genuine citizens. Among these were those who had been born to Hebrew fathers by Egyptian women, and were enrolled as members of their father's race. There were also all those who had admired the decent piety of the men and so joined them, and some who had come over to them, having learnt the right way through the magnitude and number of the incessant punishments inflicted on their own countrymen. 148 Moses was elected the leader of all these men, and received authority and sovereignty over them, not by gaining it as some men have, forcing their way to power and supremacy by arms and intrigue, by armies of cavalry and infantry and by powerful fleets, but by being appointed because of his virtue and excellence and the benevolence towards all people that he always felt and showed; and, also, because God, who loves virtue, and piety, and excellence, gave him his authority as a well-deserved reward. 149 For since he had given up the chief authority in Egypt, which he could have had as the grandson of the reigning king, because of the injustices being committed in that country, and because of his nobility of soul, the greatness of his spirit and his natural hatred of wickedness, scorning and rejecting all the hopes which he might have conceived from those who had adopted him, the Ruler and Governor of the universe saw fit to reward him with the sovereign authority over a more populous and more powerful nation, which he was about to take to himself out of all other nations and to consecrate to the priesthood, so that it might forever offer prayers for the entire human race, to avert evil from them and to secure them a share in blessings. 150 And when he had received this authority, he was not eager, as some people are, to increase the power of his own family and promote his sons (for he had two) to any great rank, so as to make them sharers in his sovereignty at once and his successors later; for since he always kept a pure and guileless disposition in all things, small and great, he now subdued his natural love and affection for his children, like an honest judge, making these feelings subordinate to his own incorruptible reason; 151 for he always kept one unvarying aim steadily before him: to benefit those under his authority and to do everything, in word and deed, for their advantage, never missing any opportunity to do anything that might promote their prosperity. 152 So he alone of all who have ever held supreme authority neither accumulated treasures of silver and gold, nor levied taxes, nor acquired possession of houses, or property, or cattle, or servants of his household, or revenues, or anything else connected with magnificence and excess, although he could have acquired an unlimited abundance of them all. 153 But since he thought anxiety about material wealth a sign of poverty of soul, he despised it as a blind thing, but he honoured the far-sighted wealth of nature, and was as great an admirer as anyone in the world of that kind of riches, as he showed himself to be in his clothes, and in his food, and in his whole system and manner of life, not indulging in any theatrical affectation of pomp and magnificence, but cultivating the simplicity and unpretentious, affable plainness of a private individual, but a truly royal sumptuousness in the things a ruler should desire and abound in; 154 and these are temperance, and fortitude, and continence, and presence of mind, and acuteness, and knowledge, and industry, and patience under evil, and contempt of pleasure, and justice, and exhortations to virtue and blame, and lawful punishment of offenders, and, conversely, praise and honour to those who did well in accordance with law. 155 So, since he had utterly discarded all desire for gain and of those riches which are held in the highest repute among men, God honoured him, and gave him instead the greatest and most perfect wealth; and this is the Wealth of all the earth and sea, and of all the rivers, and of all the other elements, and all their combinations; for, having judged him worthy to share with himself the portion he had reserved for himself, he gave him the whole world as a possession suitable for his heir: 156 so every one of the elements obeyed him as its master, changing the power which it had by nature and submitting to his commands. And perhaps there was nothing wonderful in this; for if the proverb is true, -- "That all the property of friends is common;" and if the prophet was truly called the friend of God, then it follows that he would naturally share in God himself and in all his possessions as far as he needed; 157 for God possesses everything and is in need of nothing; but the good man has nothing that is properly his own, not even himself, but he has a share granted to him of the treasures of God as far as he is able to partake of them. And this is natural enough; for he is a citizen of the world; that is why he is not spoken of as enrolled as a citizen of any particular city in the inhabited world, since he very appropriately has for his inheritance not a portion of a district, but the whole world. 158 What more shall I say? Has he not also enjoyed an even greater communion with the Father and Creator of the universe, being thought worthy of the same title? For he too was called the god and king of the whole nation, and he is said to have entered into the darkness where God was; that is to say, into the invisible, and shapeless, and incorporeal world, the essence, which is the model of all existing things, where he saw things invisible to mortal nature; for, having set himself and his own life in full view, like an excellently made picture, he established himself as a most beautiful and Godlike work, to be a model for all those who were inclined to imitate him. 159 And happy are those who have been able to take, or have even diligently laboured to take, a faithful copy of this excellence in their own souls; for let the mind, above all other parts, take the perfect appearance of virtue, and if that is impossible, at least let it feel an unhesitating and unvarying desire to acquire that appearance; 160 for indeed everyone knows that people in a lowly condition imitate people of high reputation, and that whatever they see the latter chiefly desire, they too direct their own inclinations and efforts towards it. So when the chief of a nation begins to indulge in luxury and to turn aside to a delicate and effeminate life, then the whole of his subjects, or very nearly the whole, carry their desire for indulging the appetites of the belly and the parts below the belly beyond all reasonable bounds, except perhaps for some people who, through the natural goodness of their disposition, have a soul far removed from treachery, being rather merciful and kind. 161 If, on the other hand, the chief of a people adopts a more austere and dignified course of life, then even those of his subjects who are strongly inclined to incontinence change and become temperate, hurrying, out of fear or out of shame, to give him the impression that they are devoted to the same pursuits and inclinations that he is; and, in fact, the lower orders will never reject the customs and habits of their superiors, and not even madmen will: 162 but, perhaps, since Moses was also destined to be the lawgiver of his nation, he was himself, long before, through the providence of God, a living and rational law, since that providence appointed him lawgiver when he did not yet know anything of his appointment. 163 So when he received the supreme authority, with the good will of all his subjects and with God himself directing and approving all his actions, he conducted his people as a colony into Phoenicia, and into the hollow Syria (Coele-syria), and Palestine, which was at that time called the land of the Canaanites, whose borders were three days' journey from Egypt. 164 Then he led them on, not by the shortest road, partly because he feared that the inhabitants would come out to meet and resist him on his march, from fear of being overthrown and enslaved by such a multitude, and so, if a war arose, they might be driven back into Egypt again, falling from one enemy to another, and being driven by their new enemies upon their ancient tyrants, and so become a sport and a laughingstock to the Egyptians, and have to endure greater and more grievous hardships than before. He also wanted, by leading them through a desolate and extensive country, to test them, and see how obedient they would be when they were not surrounded by any abundance of necessaries, but were only scantily provided and nearly in actual want. 165 So, turning aside from the direct road, he found a side path, and thinking that it must extend as far as the Red Sea, he began to march along it; and, they say, a most portentous miracle happened at that time, a prodigy of nature such as no one anywhere remembers ever happening before; 166 for a cloud, fashioned into the form of a vast pillar, went before the multitude by day, giving forth a light like that of the sun, but by night it displayed a fiery blaze, so that the Hebrews would not stray on their journey but would follow the guidance of their leader along the road, without any deviation. Perhaps, indeed, this was one of the ministers of the mighty King, an unseen messenger, a guide of the way enveloped in this cloud, whom it was not lawful for men to behold with the eyes of the body. 167 But when the king of Egypt saw them proceeding along what he fancied was a pathless track, and marching through a rough and untrodden wilderness, he was delighted at the blunder they were making in their line of march, thinking that now they were hemmed in, having no way of escape whatever. And since he regretted having let them go, he resolved to pursue them, thinking that he would either subdue the multitude by fear and so reduce them to slavery a second time, or else, if they resisted, kill them all, children included. 168 Accordingly, he took all his force of cavalry, and his javelin-throwers, and his slingers, and his mounted archers, and all the rest of his light-armed troops, and he gave his commanders six hundred of the finest of his scythe-bearing chariots, so that they might pursue these men and join the expedition with all fitting dignity and display; and so, with all possible speed, he set out after them and hurried and pressed on the march, wanting to come upon them suddenly before they expected him. For an unexpected evil is always more grievous than one that has been anticipated, just as a danger that has been held in contempt finds it easier to make a formidable attack than one that has been watched with care. 169 So the king, with these ideas, pursued the Hebrews, thinking that he would subdue them by the battle cry alone. And, when he overtook them, they were already encamped along the shore of the Red Sea. And they were just about to have breakfast when first a mighty sound reached them,⁠b as was natural from such a host of men and beasts of burden all advancing in great haste, so that they all ran out of their tents to look around, and stood on tiptoe to see and hear what was the matter. Then, a short time afterwards, the army of the enemy came in sight as it rose over a hill, all in arms, and already drawn up in battle line. 170 And the Hebrews, being terrified at this extraordinary and unexpected danger, and not being well prepared for defence, because of a scarcity of defensive armour and of weapons (for they had not marched out for war, but to found a colony), and not being able to escape, for behind was the sea, and in front was the enemy, and on each side a vast and pathless wilderness, reviled Moses, and, being dismayed at the magnitude of the evils that threatened them, began, as is very common in such calamities, to blame their governors, and said: 171 "Because there were no graves in Egypt in which we could be buried after we were dead, have you brought us out here to kill and bury us here? Or is even slavery not a lighter evil than death? Having lured the multitude with the hope of liberty, you have exposed them to a still more grievous danger than slavery, namely, the risk of losing their lives. 172 Did you not know our simplicity, and the bitterness and cruel anger of the Egyptians? Do you not see the magnitude of the evils which surround us, and from which we cannot escape? What are we to do? Are we, unarmed, to fight against men in complete armour? or shall we flee now that we are hemmed in as by nets cast all around us by our pitiless enemies--hemmed in by pathless deserts and impassable seas? Or even if the sea were navigable, how would we get any ships to cross it?" 173 When Moses heard these complaints, he pardoned his people, but remembered the oracles of God. And, at the same time, he so divided and distributed his mind and his speech that with the one he communed invisibly with God, so that God might deliver him from otherwise inescapable calamities, and with the other he encouraged and comforted those who cried out to him, saying: "Do not lose heart and despair. God does not deliver in the same way that man does. 174 Why do you only trust such means of deliverance as seem probable and likely? When God comes to help, he needs no outside preparations. It is his particular attribute to find a way through inextricable difficulties. What is impossible to every created being is possible and easy to him above." 175 This is how he spoke to them while he was still standing still. But after a short time he became inspired by God, and, full of the divine spirit and under the influence of the spirit that used to enter into him, he prophesied and roused them with these words: "You shall no longer see arrayed against you this army which you see so splendidly armed; for it shall fall, utterly and completely overthrown, so that not a trace of it shall be seen on the earth any more, and that not at some distant time, but this very night." 176 That is what he said. But when the sun had set, immediately a most violent south wind set in and began to blow, and under its force the sea retreated; for, though it usually ebbed and flowed, on this occasion it was driven back much further towards the shore, and drawn up in a heap as if into a ravine or a whirlpool. And no stars were visible, but a dense and black cloud covered the whole of the heaven, so that the night became totally dark, to the consternation of the pursuers. 177 And Moses, at the command of God, struck the sea with his staff. And it was broken and divided into two parts, and one of the divisions, where it was broken off, rose to a height and mounted up, and, made solid like a strong wall, stood still and unshaken; and the portion behind the Hebrews was also drawn in and raised, and kept from moving forward, as if it were held back by invisible reins. And the space in between, where the break had occurred, was dried up and became a broad, and level, and easy road. When Moses saw this he marvelled and rejoiced; and, being filled with joy, he encouraged his followers and exhorted them to march forward with all possible speed. 178 And when they were about to cross over, a most extraordinary prodigy was seen; for the cloud, which had been their guide, and which for all the rest of their march had gone in front of them, now turned back and placed itself at the back of the multitude to guard their rear; and, being situated between the pursuers and the pursued, it guided the one party, keeping them safe and wholly free from danger, and it checked and embarrassed the others, who were hastening on to pursue them. And, when the Egyptians saw this, they were entirely filled with disorder and confusion, and through their consternation they threw all their ranks into disorder, falling over one another and trying to flee when there was nothing to be gained by flight. 179 For at first light the Hebrews passed over by a dry path, with their wives, and families, and infant children. But the portions of the sea which were rolled up and consolidated on each side overwhelmed the Egyptians with their horses and chariots, the tide being brought back by a strong north wind and poured over them, and coming upon them with vast waves and overpowering billows, so that there was not even a torchbearer left to carry the news of this sudden disaster back to Egypt. 180 Then the Hebrews, being amazed at this great and wonderful event, gained, without bloodshed or loss, a victory they had never hoped for; and, seeing the instantaneous and complete destruction of the enemy, formed two choruses, one of men and the other of women, on the sea shore, and sang hymns of gratitude to God, Moses leading the song of the men, and his sister the song of the women; for these two persons were the leaders of the choruses. 181 After they had left the sea they travelled on for some time, no longer feeling any fear of their enemies. But when water failed them, so that for three days they had nothing to drink, thirst again drove them to despondency, and they again began to blame their fate as if they had never enjoyed any good fortune before; for the presence of an existing, present evil always takes away the memory of the pleasure that former good brought. 182 At last, when they saw some fountains, they ran up full of joy, thinking they were going to drink, deceived by their ignorance of the truth; for the springs were bitter. When they tasted them, the unexpected disappointment bowed them down, and they fainted and gave way in both body and soul, lamenting not so much for themselves as for their helpless children, whom they could not bear to see begging for drink without weeping; 183 and some of those with more careless dispositions and no settled ideas of piety blamed everything that had gone before, as if it had turned out not to do them any good but rather to lead them into suffering worse calamities than ever; saying that it was better for them to die, not only once but three times over, by the hands of their enemies, than to perish with thirst; for they declared that in the opinion of wise men a quick and painless departure from life was in no way different from freedom from death, and that real death was the kind that was slow and accompanied by pain; that what was fearful was not being dead but only dying. 184 While they were lamenting and bewailing themselves like this, Moses again begged God, who knew the weakness of all creatures, and especially of men, and the necessary needs of the body, which depends on food for its existence, and which is enslaved by those severe task-mistresses, eating and drinking, to pardon his desponding people, and to relieve their lack of everything, and to do so not after a long interval but with prompt and immediate generosity, since the natural weakness of their mortal nature meant that they needed help and deliverance very quickly. 185 But he, by his bountiful and merciful power, anticipated their wishes, opening and sending forth the watchful, anxious eye of his suppliant's soul, and showed him a piece of wood which he told him to take up and throw into the water, wood to which nature had indeed given the power for that purpose, and which perhaps had a quality unknown until then, or perhaps received it only at that moment, so as to perform the service it was about to do: 186 and when he had done what he was commanded, the fountains changed and became sweet and drinkable, so that no one could tell they had ever been bitter, because there was not the slightest trace or spark of their ancient bitterness left to stir the memory. 187 And so, having quenched their thirst with double pleasure, since the blessing of enjoyment delights us still more when it comes beyond our hopes, and having also refilled their ewers, they departed as if from a feast, as if they had been entertained at a luxurious banquet, and as if they were intoxicated not with the drunkenness that comes from wine but with a sober joy they had drunk undiluted, while pledging and being pledged by the piety of the ruler who was leading them; 188 and so they arrive at a second halting place, well supplied with water, and well shaded with trees, called Aileem, watered by twelve fountains, near which grew seventy young and vigorous palm trunks, a visible sign and token of good for the whole nation, to all gifted with a clear-sighted intellect. 189 For the nation itself was divided into twelve tribes, each of which, if pious and religious, would be regarded as a fountain, since piety is continually pouring forth everlasting and unceasing springs of virtuous actions. And the elders and chiefs of the whole nation were seventy in number, and so were very naturally likened to palm trees, the most excellent of all trees, being both most beautiful to behold, and bearing the most exquisite fruit; the palm also has its vitality and power of existence not buried in the roots as other trees do, but set high up like a man's heart and lodged in the centre of its highest branches, which spread all around it and attend and guard it like a queen, as it really is. 190 And the intellect of those who have tasted holiness has a similar nature too; for it has learned to look upwards and to soar on high, and is continually keeping its eye fixed on sublime objects, and investigating divine things, and ridiculing and scorning all earthly beauty, thinking it mere toys, and divine things the only real and proper objects worthy of its attention. 191 But only a short time after these events, famine oppressed them through the scarcity of provisions, as if one necessity after another were to thwart them in turn: for thirst and hunger are very cruel and terrible mistresses, and, having divided the afflictions between them, attacked them by turns; and it so happened that when the first calamity was relaxed the second came on, which was most intolerable to those who had to bear it, since, having only just thought themselves delivered from thirst, they now found another evil, namely famine, lying in ambush to attack them; 192 and not only was their present scarcity terrible, but they also despaired of any supply of necessary food in the future; for when they saw the vast and extensive desert around them, so utterly barren of any kind of crop, their hearts sank within them. For all around were rugged and precipitous rocks, or else a salt and brackish plain, and stony mountains, or deep sands reaching up and forming mountains of inaccessible height; and moreover there was no river, neither winter torrent nor ever-flowing stream; there were no springs, no plant growing from seed, no tree whether for fruit or timber, no animal whether flying or terrestrial, except some few poisonous reptiles born for the destruction of mankind, and serpents, and scorpions. 193 So the Hebrews, remembering the plenty and luxury which they had enjoyed in Egypt, and the abundance of everything they had been given there, and contrasting it with the total lack of everything they were now experiencing, were grieved and indignant, and talked the matter over with one another, saying:-- "We left our former homes and emigrated in the hope of freedom, happy only in our leader's promises; as far as his actions go, we are the most miserable of all men. 194 What will be the end of this long and interminable journey? Everyone else, whether sailing over the sea or marching on foot, has some limit before him at which he will eventually arrive; some bound for markets and harbours, others for some city or country; but we alone have nothing to look forward to but a pathless desert, and a difficult journey, and terrible hopelessness, and despair; for as we advance, the desert lies before us like an ever open, vast, and pathless sea which widens and increases every day. 195 But Moses, after raising our expectations, puffing us up with fine speeches and filling our ears with vain hopes, racks our bodies with hunger and does not give us even necessary food. He has deceived this vast multitude with talk of a settlement in a colony; he first led us out of an inhabited country into an uninhabitable district, and is now sending us down to the shades below, which is the last journey of life." 196 Moses, though reviled in this way, was grieved not so much by the accusations they brought against him as by the inconstancy of their own resolutions and minds. For since they had already experienced an infinite number of blessings that came to them unexpectedly and outside the ordinary course of things, in his opinion they ought not to have let themselves to be led away by any specious or plausible complaints, but to have trusted in him, as they had already received the clearest possible proofs that he spoke truly about everything. 197 But again, when he came to consider the lack of food, the most terrible evil that can afflict mankind, he pardoned them, knowing that the multitude is by nature inconstant and always moved by present circumstances, which cause it to forget what has gone before, and to despair of the future. 198 Therefore, as they were all in the extremity of suffering, and expecting the most fearful misery which they imagined lay in ambush for them close at hand, God, partly because of his natural love and compassion for man, and partly because he desired to honour the commander whom he had appointed to govern them, and still more to show his great piety and holiness in all matters whether visible or invisible, pitied them and relieved their distress. 199 Therefore he now devised an entirely new kind of benefit, so that, taught by manifest signs and displays of his power, they might feel reverence for him, and learn for the future not to be impatient if anything turned out contrary to their wishes, but to endure present evils with fortitude, in the expectation of future blessings. 200 What then happened? The very next day, around sunrise, a dense and abundant dew fell in a circle all around the camp, raining down on it gently and quietly in an unusual and unprecedented shower; not water, nor hail, nor snow, nor ice, for these are what the changing clouds produce in winter; but what was now rained down upon them was a very small and light grain, like millet, which, because it fell without ceasing, lay in heaps before the camp, a most extraordinary sight. And the Hebrews marvelled at it, and asked the commander what this rain was, which no man had ever seen before, and why it had been sent. 201 And he was inspired, and full of the spirit of prophecy, and spoke to them as follows: "A fertile plain has been granted to mortal men, which they cut into furrows, plough and sow, doing everything else that farming involves, and producing the yearly fruits so as to enjoy an abundance of necessary food. But it is not just one portion of the universe but the whole world that belongs to God, and all its parts obey their master, supplying everything he wants them to supply. 202 So now he has seen fit to have the air produce food instead of water, since the earth has often brought forth rain; for when the river in Egypt every year overflows with inundations and irrigates all the fields, what else is that but rain showered up from below?" 203 That alone would indeed have been most surprising had it stopped there; but now he performed wonders in still more surprising circumstances; for the whole population, bringing vessels one after another, collected what fell, some putting them upon beasts of burden, others loading themselves and taking them on their shoulders, prudently eager to provide themselves with necessary food for a longer time. 204 But it was something that would not bear to be stored up and dispensed gradually, since God always gives his gifts fresh. Accordingly, they now prepared enough for their immediate necessities and present use, and ate it with pleasure. But of what was left until the next day they did not find a single morsel unspoiled; it had all changed and turned fetid, and full of little animals of the kind which usually cause putrefaction. So they naturally threw this away, but they found fresh quantities of it ready for food, and so this food came down every day with the dew. 205 But the holy seventh day had a special honour; for, since nothing whatever may be done on that day (and it is expressly commanded that men are to abstain from all work then, great or small), they could not collect food that day, so instead of food for one day God rained on them a double quantity, and ordered them to collect enough food for two days. And what was collected then stayed sound, and none of it spoiled as it had before. 206 I will also relate something even more marvellous than this; for though they travelled for forty years, throughout that whole long period they had an abundant supply of all necessary things in their appointed order, as in clubs and messes where provisions are regularly measured out to distribute what each individual requires. And, at the same time, they learnt the value of that long-wished for day; 207 for, having long inquired which day was the day of the creation of the world, the day on which the universe was completely finished, and, having inherited this question unresolved from their fathers and ancestors, they at last ascertained it, though with great difficulty, taught not only by the sacred scriptures but also by a very clear proof; for while the portion of the manna (as has already been said) that was more than was needed on the other days of the week spoiled, the portion rained down on the day before the seventh not only did not change its nature but was given in a double quantity. 208 And they used it as follows. At dawn they collected what had been showered down, and then they ground or pounded it; and then they roasted it and made all kinds of sweet food from it, like honey cheesecake, and so they ate it, without needing any great skill in those who prepared it. 209 But they also neither lacked nor had to go far for the means of making life even luxurious, as if they had been in a populous and productive land, since God had determined out of his great abundance to supply them with plenty of everything they needed even in the wilderness; for in the evenings an unbroken cloud of quails was carried to them from the sea, which overshadowed the whole camp, flying very near the ground so as to be easily caught. Therefore, the Hebrews, taking them and preparing them as each individual liked, enjoyed the most exquisite meat, pleasing themselves and varying their food with this necessary and delicious addition. 210 So they had a great abundance of these birds, since the supply never failed. But a second time a terrible scarcity of water came on them and afflicted them; and, as they again speedily began to despair of their safety, Moses, taking his sacred rod with which he had performed the signs in Egypt, being inspired by God, struck the precipitous rock. 211 And when the rock was struck this timely blow, whether because a spring had been hidden beneath it, or because water was then for the first time carried into it through invisible channels pouring in all together and being forced out with violence, at any rate the rock, I say, was split open by the force of the blow and poured forth water in a stream, so that it not only relieved their thirst at the time but also supplied abundant drink for a long time for so many myriads of people. For they filled all their water vessels, as they had done before, from the fountains which were bitter by nature, but which, by divine providence, were changed to sweet water. 212 And anyone who disbelieves these facts neither knows God nor has ever sought to know him; for, if he had, he would have instantly known and surely comprehended, that all these unexpected and extraordinary things are the amusement of God; looking at the things which are really great and deserving of serious attention, namely, the creation of the heaven, and the revolutions of the planets and fixed stars, and the shining of light--of the light of the sun by day and that of the moon by night--and the position of the earth at the very centre of the universe, and the vast dominions of the different continents and islands, and the innumerable varieties of animals and plants, and the effusion of the sea, and the rapid courses of the ever-flowing rivers and winter mountain torrents, and the streams of everlasting springs, some of which pour forth cold and others hot water, and the various changes and alterations of the air and climate, and the different seasons of the year, and an infinite number of other beautiful objects. 213 And a man's whole life would be too short if he wished to list every separate instance of such things, or even to detail fully all that is to be seen in one complete portion of the world; yes, even if he were the longest-lived man ever seen. But all these things, though they are truly wonderful, we despise because we are familiar with them. But things we are not used to, even if they are unimportant, still make an impression on us because of our love of novelty, and we give way to strange ideas about them. 214 And now, having crossed a vast tract of land that had never been travelled, they came in sight of some boundaries of habitable country and some suburbs, as it were, of the land they were heading for, and the Phoenicians inhabited it. But they, hoping they would now be allowed a tranquil and peaceful life, were disappointed in their expectation; 215 for the king of the country, afraid that he might be destroyed, roused up all the youth of his cities, and collected an army, and went out to meet them to keep them from his borders. And he made it plain that if they tried to force their way through, he would repel them with all his forces, his army being fresh, and now for the first time levied and marshalled for battle, while the Hebrews were wearied and worn out with their long travelling and with the scarcity of food and drink which had in turns oppressed them. 216 But when Moses had learnt from his scouts that the army of the enemy was marshalled at no great distance, he picked out the men in the flower of their youth, and appointed one of his subordinate officers, named Joshua, to be their general, while he himself went to procure a more powerful alliance; for, having purified himself with the customary purification, he rode quickly up a neighbouring hill, and there he begged God to hold his shield over the Hebrews and to give them the victory and the mastery, as he had delivered them before from more formidable dangers and from other evils, not only dispelling the calamities men had threatened them with, but also all those that the transformation of the elements so wonderfully caused in the land of Egypt, and those that the long scarcity inflicted on them on their travels. 217 And just as the two armies were about to engage in battle, a most marvellous miracle happened to his hands; for they became lighter and heavier by turns. Then, whenever they were lighter, so that he could hold them up on high, the alliance between God and his people was strengthened, and grew mighty, and became more glorious. But whenever his hands sank down the enemy prevailed, God showing in this way, by a figure, that the earth and all its extremities were the fitting inheritance of the one party, and the most sacred air the inheritance of the other. And as heaven is in every respect supreme over and superior to the earth, so the nation that has heaven for its inheritance shall also be superior to its enemies. 218 For some time, then, his hands, like the pans of a scale, were light by turns, and by turns sank as if heavy; and, during this period, the battle was undecided. But suddenly they became completely weightless, using their fingers as if they were wings, and so they were raised to a lofty height, like winged birds that traverse the heavens, and they continued at this height until the Hebrews had gained an unquestionable victory, their enemies being killed to a man, from the youths up, and justly suffering what they had tried to inflict on others, against all that was right. 219 Then Moses built an altar, which, because of what had happened, he named the refuge of God, on which he offered sacrifices in honour of his victory, and poured forth prayers of gratitude to God. 220 After this battle he thought it proper to reconnoitre the country into which the nation was being led as a colony (and it was now the second year that they had been travelling), not wishing his followers (as often happens) to change their plans out of ignorance, but rather to learn from an accurate report what the country was really like, availing themselves of the positive knowledge of the inhabitants, and then to consider what was best to do; 221 and so he chose twelve men to match the number of the twelve tribes, one from each tribe to lead it, selecting the men most approved for their excellence, so that no quarrels might arise from any one party being better or worse off than another, but so that all might, through those entrusted with the matter, be equally informed about the state of affairs among the inhabitants, if only the spies who were sent out brought a true report. 222 And when he had selected the men he spoke to them as follows: "The inheritance before us is the prize for the labours and dangers we have endured until now and are still enduring, and let us not lose hope of these things, we who are leading so populous a nation to a new settlement. But knowledge of the places, the men and the circumstances is most useful, just as ignorance of these details is most harmful. 223 We have therefore appointed you as spies, so that through your eyes and your intellects we may see the state of things there; you, therefore, must be the ears and eyes of all these myriads of people, so that they may come to an accurate understanding of what they must know. 224 "What we want to know comes down to three points: the number of the inhabitants, and the strength of their cities, whether they are planted in favourable situations, whether they are strongly built and fortified, or the opposite. As to the country, we wish to know whether it has a deep and rich soil, whether it is good for bearing all kinds of fruits, both from plants raised from seed and from fruit-trees; or whether, on the contrary, it has a shallow soil; so that we may be ready to meet the power and numbers of the inhabitants with equal forces, and the fortified state of their buildings and cities with engines and machines for destroying cities. "And it is indispensable to understand the nature of the country, and whether it is a good land or not; for to face dangers voluntarily for a poor and bad land is folly; 225 and our weapons, and our engines, and all our power, consist solely in our trust and confidence in God. With this preparation we will yield to no danger or fear, for it is more than enough, with power to spare, to subdue otherwise invincible strength that relies only on bodily vigour and on armies, and on courage, and skill, and numbers; since it is to that, too, that we owe our full supplies of everything even in a vast wilderness, as if we were in well-stocked cities; 226 and the easiest time to come to a proper understanding of the land's good qualities is spring, the season we are now in; for in the season of spring what has been sown is coming to perfection, and the natures of the trees are beginning to propagate themselves further. It will be better, therefore, for you to enter the land now, and to remain till the middle of the summer, and to bring back fruits with you as samples of what a prosperous and fertile country can provide." 227 When they had received these orders, they went forth to spy out the land, escorted on their way by the whole multitude, who feared that they might be captured and so put to death, and that in that way two great evils might happen to them, namely, the slaughter of the men who were the eye of each tribe, and also ignorance of what was being done by their enemies who were plotting against them, which they most wanted to know. 228 So, taking with them scouts to examine the road and guides to show them the way, they went with them as they first set out. And when they approached the borders of the country they ran up the highest mountain in that district, and from there they surveyed the land, part of which was an extensive plain, fertile in barley, and wheat, and herbage; and the mountain region was no less productive of vines, and all kinds of other trees, and rich in every kind of timber, full of dense thickets, and encircled by rivers and fountains so as to be abundantly well watered, so that from the foot of the mountain district right up to the highest summits of the hills, the whole region was thickly covered with a network of shady trees, and more especially the lower ridges, and the deep valleys and glens. 229 They also surveyed all the strongest cities, looking at them from two points of view: first, the advantages of their situation, and also the strength of their fortifications; and when they inquired about the inhabitants, they saw that they were very numerous indeed, and giants of extraordinary height with truly gigantic bodies, in both size and strength. 230 When they had seen this much they waited to get a more accurate knowledge of everything: for first impressions are not trustworthy, but require the slow confirmation of time. They also took great care to gather specimens of what the land produced, though these were not yet ripe and solid, but only just beginning to be properly coloured, so that they might show them to all the multitude, and for this reason they chose ones that would not spoil easily; 231 but what astonished them most of all was the fruit of the vines, for the branches were of unrivalled size, stretching along all the young shoots and branches in a way that seemed almost incredible. So they cut off one branch and hung it by its middle on a stick whose ends they gave to two young men, one on each side, with others taking over as bearers when the first grew tired, for the weight was very great; and they carried it like that, though the whole body of spies did not agree at all on some points of essential importance. 232 So there were a great many disputes between them even before they returned to the camp, but not very serious ones, so that no factions would arise among them from anyone clinging too contentiously to his own opinion or from different people giving different accounts; but they became more violent after their return; 233 for some of them brought back formidable stories of the strength of the different cities, and the large population and wealth of each of them, exaggerating and making the most of everything in their description so as to cause excessive consternation among their hearers; while others, on the contrary, disparaged and made light of all that they saw, and urged their fellow countrymen not to lose heart but to persevere in their plan of colonising that country, since they would subdue the natives with a mere shout; for, they said, no city whatever would be able to resist the onset of so mighty a power attacking it with its united force, but would be overwhelmed with its might and submit at once. Moreover, each of the spies instilled some of his own spirit into the souls of his hearers, the cowardly spreading cowardice, and the indomitable and bold diffusing confidence united with sanguine hope. 234 But these last were only a fifth of the number of those who were frightened out of their senses, who in turn were five times as numerous as the high-spirited; and the few who show any courage are often beaten down by the many who behave like cowards, as they say happened at this time too; for those who argued the better side of the question were only two, while those who made the contrary report were ten; and the ten so completely prevailed over the two that they led away the whole multitude after them, alienating them from the two, and binding them wholly to themselves. 235 But about the country itself they all brought back the same report with perfect unanimity, praising the beauty both of the plain and of the mountainous district. But then they also cried out, "But what use to us are good things that belong to others, when they are guarded by a mighty force, so that they can never be taken from their owners?" And so, attacking the two who brought the opposite report, they very nearly stoned them, preferring to hear pleasant rather than useful things, and also preferring deceit to truth. 236 Their leader was indignant at this, and at the same time afraid that some evil sent from heaven might fall on them, since they so obstinately persisted in despairing and in disbelieving the word of God; and this is indeed what happened. For of the spies, the ten who brought back cowardly tidings all perished by a pestilential disease, along with those of the multitude who shared their despondency, and only the two who had agreed and counselled the people not to fear but to persevere in the plan of the colony were saved, because they were obedient to the word of God, and for this they received the special honour of being spared the destruction of the others. 237 This is why they did not arrive sooner in the land they set out to colonize; for though they might, in the second year after their departure from Egypt, have conquered all the cities in Syria, and divided the inheritance among themselves, they nevertheless turned aside from the short, direct road, and wandered about, using one long, and difficult, and pathless line of march after another, so as to be incessantly toiling both in soul and body, and enduring the necessary and deserved punishment of their excessive impiety: 238 accordingly, for thirty-eight years more, after the two years I have already mentioned, the life of a complete generation of mankind, they wandered up and down, traversing the pathless wilderness; and at last in the fortieth year, they came with difficulty to the borders of the country which they had reached so many years before. 239 And at the entrance to this country lived other tribes related to them, who they thought would gladly join them in the war against their neighbours, and would co-operate in everything necessary for the establishment of the colony; and if they hesitated to do that, they thought that at any rate they would take neither side but would remain strictly neutral, holding up their hands; 240 for in fact the ancestors of both nations, both of the Hebrews and of those who lived on the borders of the country, were brothers descended from the same father and the same mother, and moreover were twins; for each of their families had grown into a vast and numerous nation from two brothers, who had multiplied into numerous descendants and had been greatly blessed with offspring. One of these nations had clung to its original home, but the other, as already mentioned, had migrated to Egypt because of the famine and was now returning, 241 and one of the two kept its respect for its kindred though it had been separated from them for so long, still showing regard for those who no longer kept a single one of their ancestral customs but had departed in every respect from their ancient habits and constitutions, since it thought it fitting for those who claimed to be civilised to give and yield something to the name of relationship. 242 But the other utterly overturned all notions of friendship and affection, giving way to fierce, unfriendly and irreconcilable dispositions, language, counsels and actions, and so keeping alive the ill-will of their original ancestor to his brother; for the first founder of their race, though he had himself given up his birthright to his brother, shortly afterwards tried to reclaim what he had voluntarily abandoned, breaking his agreement, and he sought to kill his brother, threatening him with death if he did not surrender what he had purchased. And now, after so many generations, the whole nation renewed the ancient enmity that had once been between one individual and another. 243 Therefore Moses, the leader of the Hebrews, although he could have subdued the whole nation with a single effort, indeed with the mere shout of his army, still did not think it right to do so because of the kinship already mentioned, and asked only to use the road through their country, promising that he would in every respect observe the treaties between them, and not strip them of territory, cattle or any booty, and that he would even pay a price for water if there should be a scarcity of drink, and for anything else they might need to buy because they lacked it; but they violently rejected these peaceful approaches and threatened them with war if they heard of their crossing their borders or even setting foot on them. 244 But as the Hebrews received this answer with great indignation and prepared at once to oppose them, Moses stood in a place from where he would be well heard, and said, "Men, your indignation is reasonable and just; for though we made them good and friendly offers in a peaceable spirit, they have given us an evil reply out of their evil and perverse disposition. 245 But it does not follow that, because they deserve to pay the penalty for their cruelty, we ought to take vengeance on them; we must refrain for the sake of the honour due to our own nation, so that we may show that in this respect we are good and unlike wicked men, since we consider not only whether certain people deserve to be punished, but also whether it is proper for them to receive their punishment from us." 246 At this he turned aside and led his army by another road, since he knew that all the roads in that district were guarded by garrisons posted by people who were in no danger of being harmed but who, out of envy and jealousy, would not let them take the shortest road; 247 and the clearest proof of the sorrow they felt at the nation's having gained its liberty was that they had rejoiced while the Hebrews were enduring their bitter slavery in Egypt; for it necessarily follows that people who are grieved by their neighbours' good fortune also rejoice at their misfortune, even if they do not admit it; 248 for they had already told their neighbours, as people in sympathy with them and sharing the same thoughts, all the misfortunes and all the pleasant good fortune that had happened to them, not knowing that these neighbours had gone far in iniquity and were full of unfriendly, hostile and malicious thoughts towards them, so that they were likely to grieve at their good fortune and rejoice at the opposite. 249 But when their malevolence was fully revealed, their ruler nevertheless restrained the Hebrews from open war with them, and so displayed two most excellent qualities at once: prudence and a compassionate disposition; for taking care that no harm comes to anyone is the mark of wisdom, and being unwilling even to repel one's own kinsmen is proof of a humane disposition. 250 So he passed by the cities of these nations; but a certain king of the neighbouring country, named Canaan, when his spies reported that the army of the Hebrews was heading his way and was not far off, thinking that it was in a state of confusion and disorder, and that he could easily conquer it if he attacked at once, set out with the young men of his nation, well armed and equipped, marched at full speed, and put the vanguard of their army to flight as soon as he met them, since they were not drawn up or prepared for battle; and having taken many prisoners, and elated at a success beyond his hopes, he marched on, thinking that he would defeat all the others too. 251 But the Hebrews were not dismayed at the defeat of their advance guard; instead they had gained even more confidence than before, and, eager also to make up with their zeal for battle for the loss of those of their number who had been taken prisoner, they urged one another not to lose heart or yield. "Let us rise up," they said; "let us at once invade their land. Let us show by our vigour in action and our confidence that we are in no way alarmed or depressed. The end is very often judged by the beginning. Let us seize the keys of the country and strike terror into its inhabitants, taking prosperity from their cities and inflicting on them in return the lack of necessities that we bring with us out of the wilderness." 252 And as they urged one another on with these words again and again, they also began to dedicate to God, as the first fruits of the land, the cities of the king and all the citizens of each city. And he accepted their views, inspired the Hebrews with courage, and made the enemy's army ready for defeat. 253 Accordingly, the Hebrews defeated them with mighty power, and fulfilled the pledge of gratitude they had made, taking not the slightest part of the booty for themselves. And they dedicated to God the cities with all the men and treasures that were in them, and, because of what had taken place, they called the whole country an offering to God; 254 for, as every pious man offers to God the first fruits of the fruits of the year, which he collects from his own possessions, so the Hebrews dedicated the whole nation of this mighty country in which they had come to settle, and that great spoil, the kingdom they had so quickly subdued, as a kind of first fruit of their colony; for they did not think it consistent with piety to distribute the land among themselves, or to inherit the cities, before they had offered up to God the first fruits of that country and of those cities. 255 Shortly afterwards they found an abundant spring of water, in a well on the borders of the country, which supplied drink for the whole multitude; drawing it up and drinking it as though it were not water but pure wine, they were refreshed in their souls, and those among the people who loved God, in their cheerfulness and joy, formed choruses and danced in a circle around the well, and sang a new song to God, the possessor and giver of their inheritance and the real leader of their colony, because now, at the very moment they came out of the region where they had lived so long into the inhabited land they were destined to possess, they had found abundant drink, and so they thought it right not to pass this spring by without due honour. 256 For, as the story went, this well had originally been dug not by the hands of private individuals but by kings, who had laboured in rivalry with one another not only in finding the water but also in digging the well, so that its magnificence would show it to be a royal work and the power and magnanimity of those who built it would be evident from the start. 257 And Moses, rejoicing at the unexpected blessings that kept coming his way, advanced further, dividing the young men of his people into a vanguard and a rearguard, and placing the old men, and the women, and the children in the centre, so that they would be protected by those at each end if they had to face any enemy force either in front or behind. 258 A few days afterwards he entered the country of the Amorites, and sent ambassadors to the king, whose name was Sihon, urging on him the same terms he had previously offered his kinsman. But he not only answered these ambassadors with great insolence when they came, but very nearly put them to death, and would have done so if the law protecting ambassadors had not stopped him; but he gathered an army and advanced against them, thinking that he could subdue them in war at once. 259 But when he met them, he found that he had to fight not men without experience or practice in the art of war, but men skilled in every kind of warfare and truly invincible, who only a short time before had performed many important feats of valour, displaying great personal valour, and great wisdom, and excellent sense and virtue. Through these qualities they subdued these enemies with great ease and inflicted heavy losses on them, but they took no part of the spoil, wishing to dedicate to God the first booty they won; 260 and, on this occasion, they guarded their own camp vigorously, and then, with one accord and equally concerted preparation, rushed out against the advancing enemy and charged them, relying on the invincible alliance of the just God, which gave them the greatest boldness and made them cheerful and confident fighters. 261 And the proof of this was clear: there was no need for a second battle; the first was also the only one, and in it the whole power of the enemy was broken for ever. It was utterly overthrown and immediately vanished for ever. 262 And at about the same time the cities were both empty and full: empty of their old inhabitants, and full of those who now took over their rule. In the same way, the cattle stalls in the fields, now left empty, received in their place men who were in every respect better than their former masters. 263 This war struck all the Asiatic nations with terrible consternation, and especially all those who were near the borders of the Amorites, since they saw the danger as closer to themselves. Accordingly, one of the neighbouring kings, named Balak, who ruled a large and densely populated country in the east, deeply distrusted his own strength before meeting them in battle and decided not to engage them in close combat, wishing to avoid a war of extermination fought in the open; instead he resorted to inquiries and divination, thinking that by some ruse or other he might be able to overthrow the irresistible power of the Hebrews. 264 At that time there lived in Mesopotamia a man very famous for his skill in divination, who was initiated in every branch of the soothsayers' art. And he was celebrated and renowned above all men for his experience as a diviner and prophet, since he had on many occasions foretold incredible and momentous events to many people; 265 for, on one occasion, he had predicted heavy rain to one nation at the height of summer; to another he had foretold a drought and burning heat in the middle of winter. He had forewarned others of a scarcity that would follow a season of abundance; and, on the other hand, plenty after famine. In some instances he had predicted the inundations of rivers; or, on the contrary, their sinking low and drying up; and the departure of pestilential diseases, and ten thousand other things. From all this he had gained a widely celebrated name, since he was believed to have foreseen them all, and so he had achieved great renown and his glory had spread everywhere and was continually increasing. 266 So Balak now sent some of his companions to this man, begging him to come to him, and he gave him some presents at once, and he promised to give him others also, explaining the need he was in, which was why he had sent for him. But he did not deal with the messengers in a noble or consistent spirit; with great courtesy and civility he evaded their request, as if he were one of the most celebrated prophets and so in the habit of doing nothing at all without first consulting the oracle, and so he declined, saying that the Deity would not permit him to go with them. 267 So the messengers returned to the king without having succeeded in their errand. And immediately other messengers of the highest rank in the whole land were sent on the same business, bringing larger gifts of money and promising still greater rewards than the former ambassadors had promised. 268 And Balaam, being allured by the gifts which were already offered to him, and also by the hopes for the future which they held out to him, and being influenced also by the rank of those who invited him, began to give way, again citing the commands of the Deity as his excuse, but no longer sincerely. Accordingly, on the next day he prepared for his departure, telling of some dreams that he said had influenced him, and declaring that their clear visions had compelled him not to stay but to follow the ambassadors. 269 But while he was travelling, a very clear sign met him on the road, showing him plainly that the purpose of his journey was displeasing to God and ill-omened; for the beast on which he was riding, while going straight along the road, first stopped suddenly, 270 then, as if someone was forcibly resisting it, or standing in front and driving it back by force, it retreated, moving first to the right and then to the left, and could not stand still, but kept moving, first to one side and then to the other, as if it were drunk on wine; and though it was repeatedly beaten, it disregarded the blows, so that it very nearly threw its rider, and though he stayed on, it still hurt him considerably; 271 for close on each side of the path there were walls and strong fences; therefore, when the beast in its violent motions struck heavily against the walls, the owner had his knee, leg and foot pressed and crushed, and was badly cut. 272 The truth, it seems, is that there was a divine vision, which the beast the diviner was riding saw from a great distance as it came towards him, and the beast was frightened by it; but the man did not see it, which was a proof of his insensibility, for he was shown to be inferior to a brute beast in power of sight at the very time he was boasting that he could see, not only the whole world, but also the Creator of the world. 273 So when after some time he saw the angel opposing him, not because he wished to see so astonishing a sight but so that he might learn his own insignificance and nothingness, he turned to supplications and prayers, begging to be pardoned on the ground that he had acted out of ignorance and had not sinned deliberately. 274 Then, saying that he ought to turn back, he asked the vision that had appeared to him whether he should go back to his own house; but the angel, seeing his insincerity and indignant at it (for what need was there for him to ask questions about a matter so evident, whose answer was plain in itself and which needed no further confirmation in words, unless a person's ears are more to be trusted than his eyes, and words than things), said, "Go on with the journey you have set out on, for you will do no good to those who sent for you, and you must say what I prompt you to say, with no thoughts of your own, as I give you utterance, for I will guide the organs of your speech in the way that is just and expedient, for I will direct your words, predicting everything that will happen by means of your tongue, though you yourself understand none of it. 275 But when the king heard that he was now close by, he went out with his guards to meet him; and when they met at first there were, as was natural, greetings and salutations, and then a brief rebuke for his slowness and for not having come more readily. After this there were feasts and costly entertainments and all the other things usually prepared to receive visitors, everything prepared with royal magnificence so as to give an exaggerated idea of the power and glory of the king. 276 The next day at the rising of the sun, Balak took the prophet and led him up to a high hill, where a pillar also happened to have been erected to some deity that the natives of the country used to worship;⁠c and from there a portion of the camp of the Hebrews could be seen, which was pointed out to the magician from this point, as if from a watchtower. 277 And when he saw it, he said: "Your Majesty, build here seven altars, and offer upon every one of them a bullock and a ram. And I will turn aside and inquire of God what I am to say." So he went out, and immediately he became inspired, as the prophetic spirit entered into him and drove his whole artful system of divination and cunning out of his soul;⁠d for holy inspiration could not live in the same abode as magic. Then, returning to the king and seeing the sacrifices and the altars ablaze, he became like the interpreter of some other being who was prompting his words, 278 and spoke prophetically as follows: "Balak has sent for me from Mesopotamia, having caused me to take a long journey from the east, so that he might chastise the Hebrews by means of curses. But how shall I be able to curse those whom God has not cursed? For I shall see them with my eyes from the loftiest mountains, and I shall see them with my mind; and I shall never be able to harm the people that shall dwell alone, not counted among the other nations, not because of any inheritance of particular places or any allotment of lands, but because of the distinctive nature of their remarkable customs,⁠e as they will never mingle with any other nation so as to depart from their national and ancestral ways. 279 Who has ever accurately traced the first origin and birth of these people? Their bodies, indeed, may have been fashioned according to human means of propagation; but their souls have been brought forth by divine agency, and so they are nearly related to God. May my soul die to the life of the body, so that it may be remembered among the souls of the righteous,⁠f like the souls of these men." 280 When Balak heard these words he was inwardly grieved; and after he had stopped speaking, unable to contain his sorrow, he said: "You were invited here to curse my enemies, and are you not ashamed to offer up prayers for their good? I must, without knowing it, have been deceiving myself in thinking you a friend, when, as is now plain, you were on the contrary enrolled in the ranks of the enemy without my being aware of it. Perhaps, too, you delayed so long in coming to me because of the regard for them that you were secretly cherishing in your soul, and your secret dislike of me and my people; for, as the old proverb says, what is apparent is the best guide for judging what is not visible." 281 But Balaam, whose moment of inspiration had now passed, replied: "In this I face a most unjust charge and am accused undeservedly; for I am saying nothing of my own, but whatever the Deity prompts me to say. And this is not the first time I have said this and you have heard it; I declared it before, when you sent the ambassadors, and I gave them the same answer." 282 But since the king thought either that the prophet was deceiving him, or that the Deity might change his mind and a change of place might shake the firmness of his decision, he led him off to another spot, where, from an exceedingly long, high and distant hill, he could show him a part of the army of his enemies. Then again he built seven altars and sacrificed the same number of victims that he had sacrificed at first, and sent the prophet to look for favourable omens and predictions. 283 And as soon as he was alone, he was again suddenly filled with divine inspiration, and, without understanding at all the words he uttered, spoke everything that was put into his mouth, prophesying as follows:--"Rise up and listen, Your Majesty! prick up your ears and hear. God is not able to speak falsely as if he were a man, nor does he change his purpose like the son of man. Once he has spoken, does he not keep his word? For he will say nothing at all that will not be completely fulfilled, since his word is also his deed.⁠g Indeed, I have been brought here to bless this nation, not to curse it. 284 There shall be no labour or distress among the Hebrews. God visibly holds his shield over them, the God who also scattered the violence of the Egyptian attacks, leading forth all these myriads of people as one man. So they disregarded auguries and every other part of the prophetic art, trusting only in the one sole Governor of the world. And I see the people rising up like a young lion, and exulting as a lion. He shall feast on the prey, and for drink he shall drink the blood of the wounded; and, when he is satisfied, he shall not go to sleep, but shall stay awake and sing the song of victory." 285 But Balak, very indignant at finding that all the help he expected from divination was turning out contrary to his hopes, said: "Man, do not curse them at all, and do not bless them at all; for silence, which is free from danger, is better than unpleasant speeches." And having said this, as if he had forgotten his own words through the inconstancy of his mind, he led the prophet to another place, from which he could show him a part of the Hebrew army; and again he invited him to curse them. 286 But the prophet, being even more wicked than the king, although he had always answered the accusations brought against him with one true excuse, namely, that he was saying nothing of his own but was only interpreting the words of another while carried away and inspired, now, when he ought to have stopped accompanying the king and gone home, ran forward even more eagerly than his guide; and although in his secret thoughts he was weighed down by a heavy sense of evil, he still wished in his mind to curse this people, though he was forbidden to do so with his mouth. 287 So, coming to a mountain greater than any he had stood on before, and stretching a very long way, he told the king to perform the same sacrifices as before, again building seven altars, and again offering up fourteen victims, on each altar two, a bullock and a ram. And he himself no longer went, as was his usual custom, to seek divination and auguries, since he greatly loathed his art, regarding it as a picture that had been defaced and obscured with age and had lost its gift for happy conjecture. But now, though with difficulty, he understood that the designs of the king who had hired him did not match the will of God. 288 So, turning to the wilderness, he saw the Hebrews encamped in their tribes, and he saw their numbers and their array, and marvelled that it was ordered more like a city than a camp, and, becoming inspired, he again spoke. 289 What, then, did the man who saw truly say, the man who in his sleep saw a clear vision of God with the ever open and sleepless eyes of his soul? "How fine are your abodes, army of Hebrews; your tents are shady as groves, as a paradise on the bank of a river, as a cedar by the waters. 290 A man shall one day come out of you who shall rule over many nations, and his kingdom shall increase every day and be raised up to heaven. This people has had God as its guide all the way from Egypt, and he leads their multitude in a single column. 291 Therefore they shall devour many nations of their enemies, and they shall take all their fat, down to their very marrow, and shall destroy their enemies with their far-shooting arrows. He shall lie down to rest like a lion, and like a lion's cub, fearing no one, but showing great contempt for everyone, and causing fear to all other nations. Miserable is the one who stirs him up and rouses him to anger. Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you." 292 And the king, very indignant at these words, said: "Having been invited here to curse my enemies, you have now prayed for and blessed them these three times. So flee quickly, for passion is a hasty emotion, in case I am driven to do something more violent than usual." 293 Most foolish of men, what a vast amount of money, how many presents, and how much renown, celebrity and glory you have deprived yourself of in your madness! Now you will return to your home from a foreign land, carrying nothing good with you, only reproaches and (as seems likely) great disgrace, being ridiculed and despised for the knowledge you once prided yourself on so greatly." 294 And Balaam replied: "Everything I have uttered until now has been oracles and words of God; but what I am about to say is merely the suggestion of my own mind:" and taking him by the right hand while the two of them were alone, he gave him advice by following which he might, as far as possible, guard against the power of his enemies, accusing himself of the most enormous crimes. For why, someone may perhaps say, do you withdraw like this into solitude and give counsel contrary to the oracles of God, unless indeed you think your counsels are more powerful than his decrees? 295 Come, then, let us examine his fine recommendations and see how cunningly they were contrived to bring about the certain defeat of those who had until then always been able to conquer. As he knew that the only way by which the Hebrews could be subdued was by leading them to violate the law, he tried to lead them through debauchery and intemperance, that mighty evil, into the still greater crime of impiety, putting pleasure before them as bait; 296 for he said, "Your Majesty! the women of the country surpass all other women in beauty, and nothing subdues a man more easily than the beauty of a woman; so if you order the most beautiful of them to grant their favours to these men and prostitute themselves to them, they will allure and overcome the youth of your enemies. 297 But you must warn them not to surrender their beauty too easily or too quickly to those who desire them, for resistance and coyness will stimulate the passions and excite them more, and will kindle a more impetuous desire; and so, wholly mastered by their appetites, the men will bring themselves to do and suffer anything. 298 "And let any young woman prepared in this way for the sport resist, and say wantonly to a lover in this state, 'It is not fitting for you to enjoy my company until you have first abandoned your native habits, changed, and learnt to honour the same practices as I do. And I must have clear proof that you have really changed, which I can only have if you agree to join me in the same sacrifices and libations I make, which we may then offer together at the same images and statues and other monuments in honour of my gods.' 299 And the lover, caught, as it were, in the net of her many and varied snares, not being able to resist her beauty and seductive conversation, will be wholly subdued in his reason and, like a wretched man, will obey all the commands which she lays upon him, and will be enrolled as the slave of passion." 300 This, then, was the advice which Balaam gave to Balak. And Balak, thinking that his advice did not lack sense, repealed the law against adultery, and having abolished all the laws established against seduction and prostitution, as if they had never been enacted at all, urged the women to grant their favours without any restraint to every man they chose. 301 Accordingly, once this licence was given, they won over a multitude of young men, having long before seduced their minds and by their tricks and allurements perverted them to impiety; until Phinehas, the son of the chief priest, extremely indignant at all that was happening (for it appeared to him to be a most scandalous thing for his countrymen to give up at one time both their bodies and souls--their bodies to pleasure, and their souls to transgression of the law, and to works of wickedness), undertook a bold and impetuous action, fitting for a young, grave and virtuous man. 302 For when he saw a man of his nation sacrifice with a harlot and then go into her tent, and without even lowering his eyes to the ground or trying to escape the notice of the crowd, but making a display of his licentiousness with shameless boldness, and giving himself airs as if he were about to do something creditable that deserved smiles--Phinehas, I say, being very indignant and filled with just anger, ran in and, while they were still lying on the bed, killed both the lover and the harlot, cutting them in two through the middle, because they had indulged in illicit relations. 303 When some of those who admired temperance, chastity and piety saw this example, they followed it at the command of Moses and killed every last one of their own relations and friends who had sacrificed to idols made with hands, and so, by this implacable revenge on those who had set the example of wrongdoing, they wiped out the stain that was defiling the nation and saved the rest, who clearly vindicated themselves and proved their own piety by showing no compassion to any of those justly condemned to death, and not passing over their offences out of pity, but regarding those who killed them as free of all sin. So they let no one who sinned in this way escape, and such conduct earns the truest praise; 304 and they say that twenty-four thousand men were killed in one day, and so the common pollution that was defiling the whole army was removed at once. When the works of purification had been completed in this way, Moses began to consider how he might give the son of the chief priest, who had been the first to hurry to punish the offenders, an honour worthy of one who had shown such lasting excellence. But God anticipated him, giving Phinehas, by means of his holy word, the greatest of all good things, namely, peace, which no man can bestow; and in addition to this peace he gave him perpetual possession of the priesthood, an inheritance for his family that could not be taken from it. 305 But once no civil and internal evils remained, and all the men suspected of having either abandoned the ways of their ancestors or committed treachery had perished, it seemed a most favourable opportunity to make an expedition against Balak, a man who had both planned and carried out countless evil deeds: he had planned them through the prophet, who he hoped would be able to destroy the power of the Hebrews with his curses, and he had carried out his purpose through the licentiousness and incontinence of the women, who destroyed the bodies of those who associated with them by debauchery, and their souls by impiety. 306 So Moses did not think it wise to wage war on him with his whole army, knowing that excessive numbers are apt to meet with disaster because of those very numbers; and he also thought it useful to keep reserves in place to help any of their allies who seemed likely to fail; instead he selected a thousand picked young men of the nation from each tribe, chosen man by man, twelve thousand in all, for that was the number of the tribes, and he appointed Phinehas to be the commander in the war, since he had already proved that he had the fortunate daring that befits a general; and after offering sacrifices of good omen, he sent out his warriors and encouraged them with these words:-- 307 "The present contest is not one for dominion or sovereignty, nor is it waged for the sake of acquiring the property of others, though these are the only aims, or nearly always the aims, for which wars are fought; but this war is undertaken in the cause of piety and holiness, from which the enemy has turned away our relations and friends, bringing bitter destruction on those they have brought under their yoke. 308 So it is absurd for us to kill our own countrymen for breaking the law, and to spare our enemies, who have violated it far worse, and to kill with every kind of violence those who were only learning and beginning to sin, but to leave unpunished those who taught them, who are in reality the guilty cause of all that has happened and of all the evils our countrymen have either done or suffered." 309 So, steeled by these exhortations and fired with a noble courage that was already in their souls, they went out to the contest with invincible spirit, as if to certain victory; and when they engaged with the enemy, they displayed such incredible vigour and courage that they killed all their enemies, and they all returned unhurt, not one of them killed or even wounded. 310 Anyone who did not know what had happened might have supposed, seeing them return, that they were coming back not from war and a pitched battle but from a display and field day of drill under arms, such as often takes place in peacetime; and these field days are days of exercise and practice, when the men train among friends to attack their enemies. 311 So they destroyed all their cities, razing them to the ground or burning them, so that no one could tell that any cities had ever been inhabited in that land. They led away a truly incalculable number of prisoners and chose to kill all the grown men and women among them, the men because they had set the example of wicked counsels and actions, and the women because they had seduced the young men of the Hebrews and led them into incontinence and impiety, and in the end to death; but they pardoned all the young male children and all the virgins, their tender age winning them forgiveness; 312 and having taken vast booty from the king's palace, and from private houses, and also from the dwellings of all kinds in the open country (for there was no less booty in the countryside than in the cities), they came to the camp, laden with all the wealth they had taken from the enemy. 313 Moses praised Phinehas their general and those who had served under him for their success, and also because they had not greedily pursued their own advantage, chasing booty and thinking of nothing but taking the spoil for themselves, but had brought it all into the common store, so that those who had stayed behind in the tents might share in the booty; and he ordered those men to remain outside the camp for some days, and he commanded the high priest to purify of bloodshed both the men themselves and those of their allies who had returned from fighting beside them; 314 for even though killing the enemies of one's country is lawful, anyone who kills a man, even justly, in self-defence and because he has been attacked, still appears guilty of blood because of his supreme and shared kinship with all under a common father; for this reason those who had killed enemies needed rites of purification to cleanse them of what was regarded as a pollution. 315 Not long afterwards, however, he divided the booty among those who had taken part in the expedition, who were only a small number, giving one half to those who had remained inactive at home and the other half to those who were still in the camp; for he considered it just and fair to give a share of the gains to those who had shared in the contest, if not with their souls, then at least with their bodies; for the onlookers were no less zealous than the actual combatants; they fell short only in time, in having been forestalled. 316 And since each man of the smaller body had received a larger share of the booty, because they had been foremost in facing danger, and each man of the larger body a smaller share, because they had remained at home, it seemed essential that they consecrate the first fruits of the whole booty; so those who had remained at home brought a fiftieth, and those who had actually fought in the war brought and contributed a five-hundredth part; and Moses commanded that the portion of the first fruits that came from those who had taken part in the expedition be given to the high priest, and the portion that came from those who had remained in the camp to the keepers of the temple, who were called the Levites. 317 And the captains of thousands, the centurions and all the many other commanders of battalions and companies willingly contributed special first fruits as an offering for their own safety and the safety of those who had gone out to war, and for the victory won beyond all hope, giving up all the golden ornaments that had fallen to each of them in the division of the booty, and the most costly vessels, made of gold. Moses took all these things and, admiring the piety of those who contributed them, dedicated them in the consecrated tabernacle as a memorial of the men's gratitude; and the division of the first fruits was very beautiful; 318 those given by the men who had borne their share in the war he distributed among the keepers of the temple, as men who had displayed only one half of virtue, namely eagerness without action; but he allotted the first fruits of those who had warred and fought, who had faced danger with their bodies and lives and so had displayed perfect and complete excellence, to the one who presided over the keepers of the temple, namely the high priest; and he allotted the first fruits of the captains, as the offerings of chiefs and rulers, to the great ruler of all, namely God. 319 All these wars were carried on and brought to an end before the Hebrews had crossed the Jordan, the river of the country; they were wars against the inhabitants of the country on the other side of the Jordan, which was a rich and fertile land, with a large plain rich in grain that also produced plenty of grass and fodder for cattle; 320 and when the two tribes who raised cattle, a sixth part of the whole Hebrew host, saw this country, they begged Moses to permit them to take their inheritance in that district, where in fact they had already settled; for they said that the place was very suitable for keeping, feeding and breeding cattle, since it was well watered and full of good pasture and produced abundant grass of its own accord for feeding sheep. 321 But since he thought that they were claiming a sort of right, by some kind of pre-eminence, to receive their share and the honours due to them before their time, or else that they were making this request because they were unwilling to face the wars that were coming, since many kings who held all the country inside the river were still preparing to attack them, he was very indignant at their request and answered them angrily, saying, 322 "Will you then sit here at leisure and give in to idleness at so inappropriate a time? and will the wars that still threaten us afflict all your countrymen, your relations and your friends, while the prizes are given to you alone, as if you had contributed everything to the success? And will battles, wars, distress and the most extreme dangers await others? 323 But it is not just for you to enjoy peace and the blessings that flow from it while the rest endure wars and all the other indescribable evils they bring, or for the whole to be treated as a mere adjunct of a part, when in fact it is for the sake of the whole that the parts are thought worthy of any inheritance at all. 324 You are all entitled to equal honour; you are one race, with the same fathers and one house, the same customs, shared laws and countless other things, each of which draws your kinship closer and cements your goodwill toward one another; why then, when you are thought worthy of equal shares in the most important and most necessary things, do you show such greed in dividing the land, like rulers despising their subjects or masters looking down on their slaves?" 325 You ought to have learned from the afflictions of others; for wise men do not wait until misfortunes strike them. But now, though you have examples at home in your own fathers, who went and spied out this land, and in the calamities that struck them and all who shared their despondency (for they all perished except two), and though you ought therefore to take care not to resemble them in any way at all, you foolish men are still imitating their cowardice, as if such conduct would make you safer from capture; and you check and dampen the eagerness of those who want to show their manhood and valour, sapping and depressing their spirits; 326 so while you hurry to do wrong, you are also hurrying toward punishment. For justice is always slow to be set in motion, but once it is set in motion it moves with great haste and quickly overtakes those who flee from it. 327 So when all our enemies are destroyed, and no other war is expected or feared, and when all those in our present alliance have been examined and found beyond reproach, open to no charge of desertion or treachery or of any misconduct that could possibly have led to our defeat, but seen to have endured steadfastly from beginning to end with bodily effort and with all eagerness of mind, and when the whole country has been cleared of those who previously inherited it, then rewards and prizes for valour will be given to all the tribes with perfect fairness. 328 So they, bearing this rebuke with restraint as true sons of a very kindly father (for they knew that Moses was not a man to behave insolently because of his power and authority, but one who cared for all of them, and honoured justice and equality, and who hated wickedness, not in order to reproach or insult the wicked, but so that he was constantly trying, by admonition and correction, to improve those who were capable of improvement), said to him, "It is only natural that you are indignant, if you imagine that we now want to desert the alliance and obtain our allotments before the proper time; 329 but you should know that no undertaking that calls for valour and virtuous effort alarms us, however laborious it may be. And we judge that the task of virtue is to obey you, so brave and wise a ruler, not to be afraid of facing dangers, and to be willing to bear our share in all future expeditions until our whole business is brought to a fortunate conclusion. 330 "So, as we agreed before, we will remain in our ranks and cross the Jordan in full armour, giving no soldier any excuse to lag behind. But if you have no objection, our infant children, our daughters, wives and mothers, and most of our cattle will be left behind, once we have built houses for our children and wives and stables for our cattle, so that they are not exposed to any enemy raid and harmed by being caught in unwalled and unprotected dwellings." 331 Moses answered with a mild look and an even gentler voice, "If you are telling the truth and acting honestly, the allotments you have asked for will remain assured to you. Leave your wives and children and your flocks and herds behind now, as you wish, and cross the Jordan yourselves in your ranks with the rest of the soldiers, in full armour and arrayed for battle, as though ready to fight at once if necessary. 332 Later, when all our enemies are destroyed, and once peace is established and we have made ourselves masters of the whole country and begun to divide it among ourselves, then you too will return to your families to enjoy the good things that belong to you and to possess the region you have chosen." 333 When Moses had said this and given them this promise, they were filled with cheer and joy, and they settled their families, as well as their flocks and herds, safely in well-fortified and impregnable strongholds, most of them man-made. Taking up their arms, they marched out more cheerfully than any of the other allied forces, as if they alone were going to fight, or at least to fight in the front ranks as the champions of the whole army, for anyone who has received a gift in advance is more eager in the cause he is engaged in, since he thinks he is repaying a debt he owes, not giving a free gift. 334 I have now given an account of what Moses did while he held kingly power. Next I must relate in order all the actions he performed virtuously and successfully as chief priest, and also as lawgiver; for he also exercised these two powers as very closely connected with his kingly authority.