Heptateuchos

Such things: corrupted, they in no way cohere with the sacred. Straightaway, having used the longed-for words of the lord, he learns what is to come for his own and thrusts himself forward unbidden: "O lord, whom great clemency makes mighty in heaven and on earth for your own, you gentle in the heavenly court and alone powerful, likewise most just, equally indulgent to the peoples whom the world everywhere joyfully holds, confessing the lord with their whole mind: you lift all from deceit, you can forgive whatever is unjust, alone because you lack crime; likewise you are accustomed to condemn deadly guilt in offspring and the children of fathers and the children of children: remain with us, O God of lofty virtue. For this fierce people is proud with stiff neck; if you forgive the atonements committed by anyone's crime, we shall live through the ages as yours." Soon the holy lord of heaven speaks from the court what he had commanded before; that, when the wound-inflicting people had rested after wars, looking back at leisure, they would know only the fellowship granted from his own people, lest a wife taken from outside, with deceitful cunning, close off the unwary minds of the men and teach profane rites. And already the seer had worn away four times ten suns with swift light, and had taken no food, bringing a fasting breast back to the great camp. The gazes of the men feared him shining with the lamp of a conspicuous flame, and the brother, recalling mortal sights from the shining light, fears him. But the seer, unaware of the honor of sudden virtue,

shone for himself, the people's fear he knows the immense light must be veiled, lest the Jewish cohort turn away their ears with their eyes. But when he bore himself to the peaceful words of the lord, he lifted the yellow linen from the transparent veil. At once, with the people vying in metals, and with fleeces dyed in Sidonian yellow, with exceptional arts he completed the consecrated shrine. Which the lord, sent from on high, filled with a cloud so greatly that the prophet could not mount the sanctified threshold, although the whole veil spread before the entrance and no guard was in the way. These things had moved away with the shifting breezes. The camps were moving; night, accustomed to return, shone with excessive light from a red flame, while the bird's crest subsides and presents the divine presence. LEVITICUS. After the final hand was placed on the conspicuous temple in remote regions, soon the care of sacred rites fell upon the prophets: by what rite each thing should be offered: which victim would remove sin, which would give salvation when slain; which gifts the powerful, which the poor should place at the altar, and which the twin turtledove would bring as benefits; which dove, paired and joined with a dove. But it is a wonder: the devouring fire, sent from the high star, snatched the entrails of slaughtered beasts.

Meanwhile, vigorous youths, now in their strong years, believing in their foolish hearts that it was permitted to them, Nabdus and Abiudus, known offspring of the prophet Aaron, kindled fire with sacrilegious rites. The punishment was not long delayed: for a lightning bolt flashed from the heavenly axis and, amid their vows, slew the insincere men. Their father grieved greatly, and thereafter their cold limbs were buried in a tomb. Yet soon the father refrained from mourning the buried, and all his brothers as well, the prophet forbidding weeping, who had been granted to the people. For a fiery blaze, flying from the celestial seat, had shaken all the men with terror instilled, and they openly saw that God, who was not absent, was not to be despised. Amid these events, the priest learns by the Lord's voice that wine is denied to him and honeyed sicera to his sons, lest, when they venerate the Lord at the placed altars, a breath from a wine-laden chest might offend. A common rule of living distinguishes for the people what either is permitted or lawful to consume; it declares what custom our feasts also hold under the celestial law: that neither vulture in foods, nor raven or magpie, nor buzzard, nor sharp-eyed hawk, nor hook-beaked kite, and what is difficult to set forth in measured verse—that things insufficiently pure, gathered and settling in the breast, may not by contact make the innocent fibers foul. A woman, when the womb is emptied by a lawful birth, if she bears a male child, is unclean for seven days in the light, with her whole body; but when the eighth axis has turned, on which it is customary to cut the private parts, she removes the foreskin's membrane.

Then she will sit for thirty-three days, already pregnant. Let no one dare to defile with sacrilegious rites or foul the altars by sight or touch what is consecrated by holy worship. But if the girl's limbs relax from conception, observing the double time will have no deceit; when that is completed, she will immediately vow gifts—turtledoves or twin pigeons, or doves of similar appearance. Or from the soft flock a lamb of white fleece, so that the priest may restrain the disease by prayers. The forms and signs of diseases are also taught, at least those that leprosy creates, which suffuses the whole body with pale yellow discharge and fills the whitening skin with deadly spots, so that, because it sometimes blazes up from the Lord's anger, it may take flight through this remedy and leave the body of the man praying for the offense and bearing the gift—poverty, which often triumphs over the rich; the Lord accepts the vow of the simple. Yet the cost of healing need not be great: for the law commands offering two chicks and twin lambs, so that a sheep may be joined with a calf, with fine flour sprinkled with olive oil. The rich can offer these; but the gifts of the poor remain small; for he will either slaughter a calf at the altar, which is vigorous at the full twelve months of the year, and something of holy grain mixed with oil, or turtledoves or twin pigeons, or perhaps doves.

Moreover, since the pleasure of sleep often deludes men idly through the night, if by chance seed drips from the member, the lying body becomes foul and remains unclean until evening, conspicuous from the sky, cheerfully precedes the night with its light; and not only do bodies become defiled with a foul blemish, but whatever the agent touches, whom dreams darken, it is lawful to bathe the limbs in a river for that reason, so that purity may quickly return as the guilt ceases. Furthermore, it is lawful to break earthen vessels stained by contact with a man, but to wash away defilement from those made of metal and to disperse the filth with a stream of glass. Lawful intercourse is also atoned for under this law. Then, with the troublesome stain of the limbs removed, the priest will provide aid, when, with the sun returned, the seventh dawn has shone with purple stars, if a man, bound by sin and vow, comes to the altar supported by a pair of turtledoves, and a woman, who has completed her monthly cycle, with equal doves. She is defiled by the gore that is wet, which is brought forth from the womb, and whatever she touches, she stains, until the seventh day departs with the returning morning star; but if the harmful wave presses more abundantly and the fixed order of time departs, the face of the evil and the end of the same guilt will be the same, if she brings a gift to the holy altar from those birds which it is known have pleased the Lord.

Meanwhile, after the sons born under the crime of the chin were destroyed, the great lord intimates these things to the leader Aaron: that, because the altar and the sacred ark are pre-shaded by the awnings and veils set before them, at fixed times the priest should return and station himself, bearing pious vows, since the holy lord stands visible in a whitening cloud. Yet in such a way that he sacrifice a calf for his own crime, and for the synagogue soon immolate similar goats under the offered lot, one of which goes astray, bearing the sins of the sinners and hiding them with itself, while the other is sacrificed at the peaceful altar for the lord, about to bring the best benefits of the starry gift. A beast or bird that has died without bloodshed, with no blood poured out, is not suitable for the tables of those who feast: for this reason, because the mind is in the blood of many, and also if by chance an animal slain by the sword releases a saffron stream from its severed throat, it must be covered with earth, lest it not be hidden from fraud. Hence the lord instructs what are the partnerships of guilt and what bonds of equal concord join hearts, which this order explains, set forth in certain modes: first, a mother is not suitable for the bed in which a married woman lies, and she has known no use except the devoted care of her own son, as one who sometimes clings to her father's embraces. In this way a sister, born from the same mother, or a granddaughter looked upon by you, whether from a son or a daughter: let not an aunt by affection nor a maternal aunt be joined in foul union, nor let harmful luxury wander to a daughter-in-law or a married woman.

than his brother has; let the daughter not know the usage which her mother knew; let her not lie in the same bed; let her be joined to one man, and let her not defile the names joined together. If a stepmother becomes the mother of resounding grandchildren, so that she is joined to a stepson, and to keep two sisters in one bosom is a thing contrary to law. Or a woman whom a near kinsman takes from the people; let not a son be given to serve a powerful man, lest the name of the lord be violated in the act. Let a male not be mixed with obscene love. Do not defile your sex; let no four-footed beast know of shapeless unions, whether of a bride or a husband: these are crimes on account of which they have harmed the powerful lord; the nations, manifold, and the earth shows forth its angers and the filth with which it is infected, it rejects. But when the reaper already cuts the wheat ears, or when the vintner cuts the yellowing grapes, let no one gather everything, so that a part is left for the needy. This was the last thing, lest anyone say it is a fault; let him not wish to serve thefts nor to destroy a brother, nor to impose oaths upon an unjust man. Let it not please to harm anyone or to hold seized goods; nor to take away the price of work from the hired man's wages, nor under one night... nor wish to speak to a deaf man as if deaf, nor reproach anyone for a bodily defect. Let the judgment of a judge never be more inclined to the left or right side, because the person of a poor man and of a distinguished man ought to be seen as one by those who, with a balanced mind, can discern what is right. Soon, restrain swelling breasts, lest you perhaps become hateful while you despise all; or hate your brother.

If you are compelled by hidden anger, rather correct openly and unfold the matter placed before you, so that he may avoid previously committed faults and reform his mind. And when the rights to punish have been entrusted to you, willingly set aside your impulse and temper your entire wrath, which, long contracted in your silent breast, was thriving; do not be yourself the master and avenger of your own pain. And as you desire pleasant and advantageous things for your own affairs, so demand for your brother. Let your mind not be discordant. Observe this, you men, and abide by sacred law. Let the yoked beasts be under your wagons, of similar body, and do not join a bull to a horse while guiding the reins; nor among the green vines scatter grain while sowing; and let no garment of yours be of a different color, woven in a different manner or with a two-formed thread. If a man loves a maidservant with a separate wage, ... not yet by the right which manumission grants to slaves and given freedom, he is free from mortal crime. [A girl] if not joined to a man has united her mind to one, if she offers easy intercourse with no struggle, God is appeased by vows. If from a soft flock a votive ram is sacrificed at the master's altar. Whenever shoots are grafted onto a wild trunk, do not pluck the fruit after three Decembers. But consecrate it to the highest God; because the fifth year will give you the right to eat with lawful provisions. Refuse to serve auguries, and flee from hearing auspicious beginnings as if they were true; and avoid curling your hair with a glittering coiffure, or plucking your beard, or marking the skin with iron, or inflicting stigmata on bodily limbs—never gentle to the limbs.

Let a daughter not be handed over to smooth-talking seducers or to a base bed; and avoid men who heal with songs; summon those worthy of punishment. If a youth does not rise for an old man, and if a boy for any bearded man, because greater age demands respect, which is given to paternal years. Let your measure by the bushel never be deficient: nor keep a scale that has even half an ounce of fraud. A just God seeks justice in every act. And reject those who seek responses from ventriloquists. Let no one, on account of the dead, shave his beard or bare his head or defile his serene brow or wish for anything that would make him more disfigured. A woman, if a night-wandering adulterer has possessed her, is unworthy of the marriage of the man she later takes. And she who has been sent away on grounds of divorce, let her not know another’s bed; and a pure priest will provide spotless oil in all matters, with which the summit of the consecrated head is first anointed. His wife shall cling to him from his own people and known only to him, and let him avoid a widow harmful through luxury, lest the offspring become stained from a forbidden mother. And if anyone bears any blemish in his body, he will not be worthy to undertake sacred duties. Pure bodies please, not those smeared with foul stains, which female luxury has, when vows are consecrated. Whatever each has vowed at the altar according to his own means—and indeed it is not lawful to join veils at the same time.

Let a daughter not be handed over to smooth-talking seducers or to a base bed; and avoid men who heal with songs; summon those worthy of punishment. If a youth does not rise for an old man, and if a boy for any bearded man, they are defiled by stains. The ruler is pure in the heights. If a daughter of a sanctified man has been handed over to seers under the authority of a foreign husband, let him who eats the first offerings by no means touch them: if she begins to dwell in her father's house after her husband's death, let her take the food and bread in turn which her father provides. But if anyone unknowingly brings something with a holy hand, let him carry a fifth to the altar for the fault. Let a lamp hang before the dome from the high paneled ceilings, so that it may provide a flaming olive-oil light by night, lest the day's end mingle pale shadows in the master's house and conceal the holy altars. Amid these things, two youths are stirred by hot bile: one was a Hebrew, the other born of Egypt. And while they exchange raging curses with each other, the lazy Jew did not fear to darken the immense name of the Lord with a complaint, as he was led by anger. Because of this crime, he was dragged from the camp's rampart and placed in the middle of the field; by the command of the Lord's lofty speech, he fell by the blow of stones. God runs through the pious laws and reveals all. Whenever a needy person wishes to take money, with a pledge deposited, if he has pledged a field to him whose help he seeks, let him promptly return the credit to himself when the hand has been enriched, and let him recover those things which had been previously transferred; if the needy one remains in perpetual life, he becomes free in the year in which rest and sweet relief are sent to all. But if by chance someone sells a house in the middle of the city, let him return the money entrusted to him within a year, lest after the time is released he abandon the estates.

Yet the right hand must be given money when they pray, lest a hidden profit later demand interest. Whoever, being poor, cannot bear the slender use of life and endure hard days, and thinks it better to subject himself to a master, with freedom already set aside, let him not bear the yoke as if born from a slave woman, but as one hired for the performance of a set wage, until, the time having run its course, he returns free, when rest is granted to all things alike. But if, as if torn away by a master's command, he departs, let the nearest kinsman redeem him, or, if that one is not present, any fellow tribesman who, ordered to conduct his brother's business, shall remove the servile yoke from the man. For if he has been sold for a lawful price, he will serve until the desired time comes in the year when all alike take up again their rights set aside. Or, if the sum of years was small, let him complete this by his own labor of the hands, which he has performed by action. Thus let him go wherever he wishes, and bring back with him, free and secure, his children together with his wife. Such commands, stored in a sincere heart, are attended by tranquil peace, which no tumult of wars can disturb; but rest, sent through long years, will fill the granaries with manifold fruit. Moreover, even if a fierce enemy has drawn his weapons, he will depart, driven back by a small fighting hand, no matter how vast the battle lines he leads into war. But that man who shuns the sublime commands of God, the terror of death will drive, as if an enemy wields steel.

a headlong flight, trembling, will hide in the city. Then final famine, with pallid diseases, will surround him; and though full, he will think his mouth always hungry, and will fear with ever-returning dread. And if it pleases him to go through the open gates, where his senses lead him, this desolate wilderness, through fields everywhere abandoned, will confound him as he goes; and he will fear more sadly the ravening wolves and the beasts terrible with tooth or claw throughout the countryside. And though the spring crop be born from the rich turf of the earth, it will not put forth tender ears from the stalks. Then the father will seek the limbs of his children as sweet morsels, and the mother, from hunger, will let them down into her belly—what she had before fruitfully borne. Then the victor, exulting, will place chains on the captives, and glittering flames will raise their ruddy crests through vast roofs, as cities are turned to ash, which, bearing foul things, had once been surrounded by the strong protection of walls. The titles, the insignia of praises, will fail; and what were once beautiful will perish, destroyed, so that God, always to be venerated in the highest, may be loved, whom idols cannot touch with their feigned worship. What assessment of a drachma remains in the vows, whether a woman or a man be donated to the altar, the rubric of God has prescribed, whether older in age, or a boy or a virgin not yet of pubescent years, or a house or a farm, or whatever is dedicated in the mind.

When the mind rejoices in trusting the highest God with security, or when it is driven by troubled perils, unless error should entangle itself in those to whom it is bound, a part remains expressed, a part is entrusted to the prophet, so that the judgment may also assess the tenth fruits. If it was permitted to keep a flock, a field, or a house under the giver's authority, let him soon pay at the altar the goods which the concord of coin endows with prices. NUMBERS. Meanwhile the year had turned with its customary returns, running through its own tracks with the months completed, after the youth chosen by God left the Nile's shores and finally migrated from the Egyptian sand; when God, shining from the starry seat, spoke, commanding that the prophet bear the certain commands of the tribes to the tribunes and thereafter review the entire people, setting aside boys and those whom an older age renders exempt from the care of trembling war, so that he might know from twice ten years what the total becomes. They eagerly recount, with the number running through all their companies, each their own, and quickly inspect and speak the names which remain stored in the twelve tribes. These together filled six hundred and three thousand, and if you care to join five hundred likewise five times ten, then the knowledge of the leaders taught two thousand six hundred individually. But the Levites, whom the sole care of the Lord's rites remains, forbade joining to the people's total. Hence seven thousand Gershonites were added to God, with five hundred likewise placed; Gaada separately makes twice four thousand increased by six hundred; the third with twice three thousand and two hundred

He set forth in his father's speech the words of Merara. Since a different guard awaits the highest rites of the sanctuary and temple of God, they separate the camps in this way. The first chooses the sea; another stretches toward the south; the third looks upon the freezing breezes of the north. But where the first flame of the coming day blushes, the greatest tents of the conspicuous seer are placed. From here he prepares to distinguish the first-born boys from birth and to consecrate them to the Lord, who completes thousands twice eleven, if you add twice a hundred and seven times ten, for whom it is permitted to take a drachma and to assign them to the temple's sacred rites, once purchased, as if the divine altar removes them. Straightaway, from the hand of Gerson, and Gada, and the said Merara, they choose twice four joined to five hundred thousand, with fifty placed on top, whom he ordered to carry separately the ornaments of the Lord's house or to bring them forth. Thus, with the camp already set, they took their rest; from which it was decided to exclude those beyond the threshold of the gate, whose limbs a dire wasting of diseases had corrupted, lest they bring contagion among the healthy, while hidden dangers wander in warm veins. Straightaway, a husband who silently guards his heart, and has no witness to betray him, if a late adulterer has defiled the once chaste bed of his couch, let him go quickly to the seer and present himself before him.

as one who believes she has sinned. And let him bring forth sacred meal—fine flour and barley—to the altar, anointed with neither incense nor moistened with rich oil. This foreseeing seer shall take water from a spring in earthenware vessels, tingeing it with a little dust which he catches from the middle of the temple's vault, stooping down. Soon he will compel her to bare her head and hold with both hands the twin libations of the sacred rite. And he will compel the elder to drink the waters that hold curses with her. If she is free of crime, she remains unharmed in mind and serene in face. But if crimes are hidden in silent vitals, the woman will swell with a sudden distension of disease, and her obscene thigh will rot with putrid flesh. Moreover, the curses of the mocking crowd sharpen, as they reproach her committed sins with easy laughter. Amid these things, if anyone prepares to lead a life in chaste rite and to fulfill the vow's obligation, desiring with vigilant mind that bodily luxury not flourish at a fixed end, let him willingly deny himself wines born and reject all cups which the care of drinkers has turned into wine with warm waters, or with honey or fruits, when they renew liquid draughts from pure springs. Let him shudder at grapes, and bite no single berry—whether moist with dew or dried by the sun into raisin, shriveled with a cracked rim; and let him also avoid the biting liquid of vinegar.

soberly sipping from the flowing streams; and let him wear a beard that has grown unshorn for the whole time, who will be enrolled by vow; and let the unshorn peak preserve flowing hair; let him not know how to purify tombs and the mounds of fathers and the burial-place of a sister, so that the holy honor may persist. If by chance, under the same roof, someone has relaxed his limbs, having met death, he will compel the infected place to become foul as if defiled. Therefore, let him beg forgiveness with gnawing cares, and let him shear the hair nourished on the squalid crown; and when the clear day has shone forth with the seventh rising, let him offer turtledoves or doves gleaming with similar white feathers, so that the seer's fault may be lifted through words and prayer; yet let there be a loss of that time during which he had previously been abstinent, and let him again take up the beginnings running again with the desired vows, so that he may be able to reach the sought-after goal by his merits. After all these things have been done, when he holds his certain rewards, let him offer lambs similar in white fleece, two-year-old sheep at the completion of the year's courses; one to fall for the reward of the sought-after price and to lift the sin; the other, of a now clean body, and let the ram lie down for health-bringing acts. Let him also sprinkle white bread with oil, and whatever the solemn rites of the ancient sacred law demand, so that he may again be able to take up the long-unused cups. Therefore, act, and whenever you wish to consecrate the people with a prayer of entreaty, ask Christ with this utterance:

The right hand, while it lies prone upon the heads of men, may the white-robed Almighty from the ethereal court bless you, and be your guardian through the ages, and may God raise your shining face above all things, your heads, and be merciful forever; and may he lift up your faces, so that he may look upon you from his seat, and may the renowned lord grant peace with a great gift." Nor meanwhile was the prophet less prompt in all things; he adorns the first temple of the Lord in the allied camps by divine command and anoints it with rich oil. And whatever vessels, wrought of silver or gold, shine in the holy house, he washed with a similar stream. Then the wagons, which the tribunes had given yoked to the tribes, he divided for equal use to the horned oxen and gave to the Levites; two wagons, each drawn by a pair of oxen, were handed over to the first company of Gershon; but the cohort of Merari, yoked with four oxen each, received four carts for carrying things, which were made for the sacred things of God; for only Gath alone, exempt from gifts, bore its burdens on the neck. Meanwhile, the leaders of the tribes, bearing pious gifts, had separate days; for the ranks of the people are five hundred, together with twenty and two thousand, to be led by twice six men, in whose first order the tribe of Judah vowed a gift under the tribune Nahshon; in which he gave vessels distinguished by tawny silver, which when completed make up two hundred and ten weights, full of snowy fine flour.

of the sacred rite, according to custom, from the stream of the green olive, thoroughly moistened; and then a gleaming lamb, and a ram at the same time, to which a white kid is joined, which lifts away sins; with a similar brow, two heifers, one pair, which, joined together, aid the sacred salvation; five rams, and goats, and following ewes in the same number: these are of the first offering. After this, each tribe, separated and joyful over three days, gave gifts, nowhere discordant in the fraternal offering, if the total is placed equally in all vessels. But in bowls, blazing with engraved gold, there are twenty hundred pounds by weight. When the seer had consecrated these insignia of the sacred rites, he heard the Lord speaking in the consecrated temple, while he shines, gleaming above the extraordinary pinnacles. And among the Cherubim, he gives the doctrines of the law. Nor less, in a different part, the lamps, placed, twice six, poured forth torches, which a white order caused to gleam distinctly, while the golden arms of the candelabra spread out, and support the separate lights.

Meanwhile, the Levitical hand, handling the offerings, is taken from twice twenty and five years, and one who has already completed service for five times ten years is free from the duty of obedience, and a young man succeeds the old one in his place and is present. By whose light dew, bodies are rendered pure from a river or spring, and the sharp blade of iron cuts the hair, if the great mass of hair has become dirty. Then the garments are washed with care and attention, lest hidden contagion ever stain the body. Among these, men from the people, whom the harsh concern of a crime followed, while they confess with the mind as witness, beseech the leader, if they might celebrate the sacred Passover on the customary day; he supports them for a little while and, relying on the Lord's commands, prays and reports the mandate, which is the right for those stained with crime to consecrate the notable day and to perform the worship. The joyful night warns him, when the year has passed. But if the innocent people should reconsider the festival, and the concern of avoiding does not keep him far from the temple, he has a capital crime: this law is equal for all. After the pious prophet completed all the duties worthy of God's temple, he soon moved the ranks and filled the terrifying trumpets with mighty blasts, which he had previously prepared by the Lord's command from silver. While the thin plate is curved into a round shape, and a small opening opens to the windy murmurs, with the orders placed, so that at the first sound of the trumpet, the eager battle lines stop at the sacred oracles. This first part of the camp hastens, which stretches toward the dawn and the first lights of the sun.

And when the trumpet repeats other sounds, the column advances, which the south wind sees from the opposite hinge. A third blast of the clarion gives the signal to those legions which hold the camp bordering the sea, after which come the vessels. The youth assigned to the north are chosen. But when the Levites, chosen for divine duties, delay the columns, the descendants of the seer Aaron, already then the pontiffs, it remained their fitting care to sound the trumpets and to stir up all things consecrated to God. They arrive, marching into the vast deserts, at the place Paran for the camp; here the seer, by friendly speech, entreats his son-in-law, the youth Obab, born of Raguel the Midianite, to come with him to the promised realms, where honeycombs with snow-white milk flow abundantly in full streams. But sluggish and hesitant in mind for a while, he prefers to turn his course back to his ancestral home, not at all subdued by his father-in-law's pleading speech: "Why," he says, "do you go a different way? Direct your mind here: to where the Lord's realms call us, which are always rich, always honored, wavering under no stain. And what cause, so harsh and unknown to us, moves you to seek again the borders and your father's people? Which you, long ago and far off, seeking better things in your mind, left behind, and the desert separates with its sands: in which no thought moved your senses. And could there then be a cause, because you would more justly desire those things, when there were no cups flowing with wandering streams and the star of the sun burned hot, and when the uncertain path and the uncertain hope of the future shook the ignorant?

But now, at the very end of this modest labor, when the blessed kingdoms reveal themselves and join with God, you waver so in your mind, as if I were urging worse things upon you than I desire in my senses. Rather, young man, return yourself to your dear parent, and complete the journey you have begun, and finish the gift you have received, so that, as soon as the Lord has settled all in the desired abodes, you may take up what is better, and, placed among the nobles, you may be greater in deed. Then they depart and leave the mountain of God behind them. Nor did the ark, the guardian of the divine teaching, follow the camp any less, after the third morning star had risen high in the sky, night now left behind, so that, with the saints of the Lord always going before, there might be just rest for the people, traveling under a great burden. Then the prophet, while he diligently offers the sign to the first ranks, speaks these suppliant words: "Arise, O God, sublime, and scatter the hostile thousands; let those who prepare to wage war against your camp flee, O God, and those who hate you, O highest Sower, with a spiteful mind; you, on the other hand, strengthen them, so that even the firmest forces may be laid low by your eternal word." As he speaks, a bright cloud covers him and overshadows the packed column and the immense battle lines with the veil of a garment. But the people, fierce and savage, while they roll their murmurs, also hurled the insults of a rabid tongue against the Lord. Because of this, a lofty peak of fire falls from the high sky and consumes the people and the camp in a certain part, but the flames, gleaming sadly,

into a harvest of punishment, the joyful speech to the holy ears extinguished and dissolved in white dust; while the pious prophet, with neck bent, labors and demands the immense God for so great a crime, and again and again wishes, with a weary heart, to endure the constant tumults of the people in vain. But the Lord, God, offers his usual solace to the prophet and summons from the brotherly band the seventy elders together, whose united judgment and number would easily break the quarreling anger, since so many harmonious hearts of the prophets, as if with one sense, would bear the divine oracles: yet these, although they spoke all languages equally, withdraw and speak in their former accustomed tongue. Nor less do the youths, remaining in the camp, with divine mind utter two most certain prophecies and prophesy equally in prophetic speech, Modus and Eldadus; after a messenger brought this to the ears of the leaders, Jesus more urgently presses that they, as if telling truth in unlawful speech, be restrained and rebuked; but the prophet immediately argues with nourishing speech that a mind sent from the ether is not to be restrained by envy, for that is not of faith. Then they come to Aseroth and pitch camp on a vast mound, as if there were wars to be feared by night. Here the brother of the pious prophet and his kinsman swell with envy and rage: "Why is the wife joined to the prophet

An Ethiopian woman she was, and why would one man presume upon the common glory of his kin? For they too were to receive the monuments of the highest God and his renowned commands. This zealous prophet, more gentle than all, hears with innocent mind, is silent, and renounces anger. Yet the Lord does not allow unbridled passions to proceed. From his lofty seat he rebukes those placed before him and, surrounded by a cloud of liquid light, speaks: "Whoever among you is a prophet of kindred race will see truer dreams with watching sense in the dead of night, when men's senses are relaxed in sleep and the holy God grants the joys of his word, while I speak and accommodate my speech to like words. How can he see me, and perceive my face and eyes joined to him, which no living man can discern? But this is not the custom when my true judgment is given to a prophet who is faithful in his whole seat, while he attaches my breast to lawful rites. He can stand before my face and, with clear sight, behold and perceive God. There is nothing ambiguous, no riddles inserted in my words: I bear myself with a revealed countenance. That man, therefore, could behold the honor of the ruling Lord and perceive the light hateful to mortals. And among your number, could he not set a peace that soothes and abolish your sad murmurs?" Scarcely had he uttered these words when, with the cloud suddenly removed, the anger of the Lord came and, embracing the trembling Miriam, struck her and covered her whole body with leprosy.

Seeing these examples, Aaron, terrified, began: "Spare me, I pray, lord, and turn away your harmful wrath. Forgive my sin and that of our sister. We acted in ignorance. That which strikes our limbs and also beats upon our senses—let death, the avenger of wickedness, not follow it. Guard and protect us!" Without delay, as the prophet yields to his brother's prayers with his heart, he seeks the lord's remedies with suppliant vows against the deadly plague, which, spread through all the limbs, was tormenting the saddened sister's entrails with its bite. While he cries out such things: "The punishment exceeds the guilt so greatly! God, dismiss my fear and heal the disease." Immediately it is granted; but the woman, thrust from the camp, is exiled, and after suffering the wasting for seven days, she receives her limbs unharmed with joyful countenance, and thereafter is celebrated with the people's customary honor. But the Judean phalanx, heading toward the promised rewards, moves its standards, and then places its camp in the fields of Pharan and builds its fortifications with a safe rampart. There, compelled by a starry command, it sends twelve young men, whom we earlier called the tribunes of the tribes, to quickly inspect the land and cities of the Canaanites and report back the findings to their allies. They depart and seek the forest called Emath, and after traversing the deserts of the wilderness, they survey Chebron, which the wild peoples Sesi and Thali held. When they came to the valley, already then planted with fig trees,

Sweet and bitter, but those called stony, or rather pomegranates, flourished with the vine in joy. From this tree they bring fruit that will bear a sign of faith, and also from others. The rich field had produced. They strip an immense bunch of grapes from a vine branch, and then carry it back on a shining pole across their shoulders. And with trembling care for fourteen days, after the past days, they bring back what had been seen, adding terror, while they speak of walls raised high in a vast view and immense peoples. Lifting their heads to the sky, like when a many-branched oak of aged trunk is joined to the starry heavens. This people is broken, and affected with bitter feeling, they groan sadly and wet their faces with a copious stream. While he recalls such things: "O men always worthy of enduring praise, whom no image of such great evil terrified, and who placed the customary dead in the earth! Whom neither the sad soil burned with hot sands, and much endured thirst and the small amount of manna: sweet indeed, but soaked with gall, because it does not help the limbs, it affected them with a more severe hunger. To which only the quail is joined, and consumes bodies with meager sustenance. But not in the Pharian region once dwelling did such sad foods torment them, when sweeping up fish was a game and placing the whole Nile or the windy sea on tables from the various swimming populace.

They stripped off and loosened their bellies with rich food. We, rich in flocks. We, in all the fertile gardens, plucked unbought melons and cucumbers, which are wont to swell the belly, with greedy draught, biting. We, garlic and onion. There, the cut leek fed us and refreshed us, when full, with languid sleep. But come, and now put an end to these harsh matters. Quickly turn the standards and return these troops to the Nile, and create a conspicuous leader from the kindred people, who would place the weight of our safety before his own, or before that of the trembling nobles. He who, following the words, as he says, of the fearful god, abandoned the wretched in the deserted fields and exposed them to a monstrous enemy, so that we, inert, suffer heavier things than death, while a beloved wife falls, while a virgin daughter is led away and serves as a captive to a swollen tyrant. When he said these things, they prepare heavier deeds; for the incited crowd seizes stones and, rising up with the whole body, hurls them. But while they tremble beforehand, while they steel themselves for crimes, the nobles tear their garments and, falling prone, flowed to the ground in fear and beseech all, that they not hurl foolish insults at doubtful things against heaven and the abode of god, nor believe that the lofty promises of god are difficult; then Chalebus, with the faith of Joshua accompanying him, speaks as a suppliant:

At the time when it pleased us to test the hidden lands and hostile homes, and to set forth what was seen to you. From all the tribes, the tribunes were the first to please, whose known faith could by no means speak discordantly or deceive citizens with empty falsehood. And now, if a like reverence for our name persists and we utter no windy boasts, believe what has been discovered; for what trust would lead us to deceive citizens, following the Lord’s responses, going with you in like manner through all things? Some think these things fearful, while a pale pallor is in their faces and their senses waver, seized by fear—vainly indeed, because the commands of God strengthen us greatly and do not allow us to be conquered or driven off, even if giants raise high their necks and set dense squadrons of soldiers against us. The land lies open to us, after which it helps to have traversed the lost fields happily, a land that flows rich with much water and with a sweet stream of honey. Only do not separate your hearts from the holy God, nor restrain your timid hands; because, following the signs, the unconquered servitude of God enriches with victory. When these words were spoken, the venerable majesty of God immediately came from its high seats and poured wondrous honor upon the people, the fathers, and the synagogue. Amid these things, the Lord announces sad angers and a final plague, by which a vast nation is to be slain.

Amid the squalid forests and the abandoned land, only two were excepted from the dread plague. Those whom shared strength had fortified with like endurance, seeing that nothing could resist God's commands, however the prophet, trying to avert it by prayer, might entreat with soft words amid timid speech—in vain the Chanannites, sending forth foolish words, clamored that the people were helped by no valor. He who was desired and chosen for the Lord's rewards: yet he could not bend the dread utterances, which fly firm under the law; for it was permitted to none to see the fields, granted only to faith; for the warrior people fell in forty years and left sublime kingdoms to their children. Amid these things, armed and spurred by foolish cares, the legion rises and on the highest summit of the hill places its standards, and headlong rushes slantwise against the enemy. And because the Lord did not terrify the warlike wings, it is defeated and, with its soldier routed, turns its back. The foreseeing prophet remained in the camp's seat, keeping the sacred ark within the protecting valley. Meanwhile, for the people, on a festal day, while someone gathered brushwood, a despiser of the eternal law, he is seized and, by the sacred commands of God, is killed with thrown stones, lest forbidden audacity creep in. Moreover, that which often warned cautious men to turn their minds to the eternal admonitions of the Lord,

A hyacinthine fringe is fastened to all with a knot, and marks the garments with a known border. Then the cause of the evil arises from the forbidden act: for Corah, a Levite by tribe, and likewise Dathan and Abiram, who dared to offer incense with pious frankincense to the Thunderer, a thing permitted to all, but with rash acts of the believing. The swollen seers sought with complaint. Nor was the death long delayed; for, the hinge broken, the open earth sent them all to the infernal Tartarus, together with those who perished equally and see their own funerals: two hundred who bore the sacred things not commanded for God, and five times ten of the whole gathered crowd, and the cattle and whatever had been under the authority of the guilty. And as if one single doom were coming upon all alike, they, scattered, tremble with fear and try in vain to flee the heavenly fire and hide themselves. Moreover, when the day returned, they seethe with tumult, and, not fearing, are at once crushed by a great disaster. And under the same death rush two thousand seven hundred and sixty men: and had not the seer, seeing such great perils, entreated the Lord with soothing prayers among the votive offerings, a greater punishment would have avenged the unspeakable crime.

But when, after the tremors, peace returned, Moses scattered the golden bowls which the wicked youths had earlier offered as unaccustomed libations to the god of heaven, and cunningly consigned all the thin metal plates to destruction, placing them upon the Lord's altars; for whatever is brought to the Lord and placed before the high face of God becomes sacred. Then, so that distinction might be made among the highest prophets and the tribes, he demanded a rod from every prince until the sum of twelve was filled; and then, setting aside one, he displayed it in Aaron's name as a prophet and left it within the Lord's inner chambers. And when the stars had shone for the returning sun, a thing not previously known was seen by the gathered, wondering people, and it revealed the great honor of the Lord. For the rod, previously smooth and cut by iron, belonging to the noble Aaron, flowered from no earthly soil and put forth nuts from its dry stem. To the monuments and commands of the sacred law is added that a heifer, whose yellow hide gleams through its limbs, be slain before the Lord's doors and its body burned with fires, and that the ash born from the burned entrails purify bodies foul with defiling touch, sprinkled through the limbs of a man, to which the herb hyssop is joined, so that with a light stroke it may scatter riverine dews and the pure water wash away the polluted. For whoever touches dead bodies with his hand, or under whose roof a lifeless corpse lies, is afflicted with defilement and stains the eternal temple.

And even the little vessels, foul with the gaping beaks, all are [shattered], and thereafter whoever touches the bloody wound and the bones of the man or the tomb of the buried, can render himself pure on the third day or the seventh, if, having prayed to the Lord in his silent heart, he brings gifts of the purified branch of the healer in the stream. Meanwhile, as the Jewish phalanx marches through the deserted fields, it comes to Cades, and buries the sister of the nobles, who has died, and great anger is kindled because the deserted region, parched with thirst, does not produce any streams from its cold springs, and because all their mouths were dry and their bodies burned by the scorching sun. The Lord, pondering this, commands the prophet to bring forth his rod and to touch the rock with a double stroke. But Moses, striking it with a hesitant heart, rebukes the people, saying: "Alas! Fierce in mind and hard in feeling, can any rocks ever become wet with streams and pour forth living springs?" While he says this, moved, the pliant rod gives blows... rivers burst from the crags. — Yet the Almighty rebukes the hesitating hearts of the prophets, chiding: "Because your judgment was wavering in your divided heart, and your mind, not firm, sees that I can do all things, and it grants too little honor to the command of the sublime Lord, in whom to believe openly...

The Jewish battle lines were fitting, and to report the faith that nothing is impossible for God: for this reason, to lead the people to the long-promised seats and the fertile land, "It was not permitted for you to take up great gifts." Meanwhile, the people are joined to the fields of Edom, through which Moses, eager to lead the peaceful battle lines, with a calm speech requested the king, who was fierce with swollen valor and preparing for battle. Yet, avoiding him, he joins himself to Mount Hor, where, after many times of life have passed, Aaron is buried and left notable insignia of the festive priesthood, who adds to the high altars Eleazar, greater than all, as the great god had commanded and had chosen a minister for the pleasing altars. There, the Canaanites, trusting in their manifold youth, gave excessive terror with a strong slaughter to the Jews, when they turned their backs, exposed through the fields. But yet they take up courage, and with the Lord favoring, they lay low the enemy wedges and set fire to the strong cities and triumph with immense praise. But although the desired successes flowed in their affairs, nevertheless, oblique murmurs and grumblings are not absent, cast against the pious prophet; while each one groans with a fierce voice that Egypt, rich with many gifts of lands, and the Nile, fertile with crops and always with a secure cultivator of the soil, was left behind. The almighty God, punishing with an equal balance,

The viperine battle lines he produced from a poisonous source: they laid low many men, although the slight wounds distended their bodies with lethal venom. But the people, groaning mournfully, while prostrate they prayed at the feet of the seer and recounted the public deaths, received the desired remedy, with the Lord saving them, the knowledge of the disgrace being stored in the heart of all. For the noble prince, commanded, fashioned a swollen serpent from yellow bronze and hung it high on a pole, so that whoever the horned vipers had struck with their wandering fang might shed death by turning toward the hanging snake. Thence the people came to Obetha. Next they sought the fields of Achina; then Zaredina; soon they crossed to Adar. Now in a green plain, where a cultivator of a pleasant abode, the Amorite, dwells and feeds on a rich field. There is a well, transparent with glassy water. Beside it the Lord, having spoken with holy discourse, commanded Moses to marshal the thronging people, so that he might lead them to the watered streams and the gleaming water. Then, deeply consonant, all had a single tongue in divine songs, while they sang this hymn of praise to the Lord: "The immense Lord sent forth streams and removed all the people's thirst. While the well lies open in its full depth and gushes forth with much cold water:

Whom once mighty kings had made. While they rule mighty nations with reins and with scepters they oppress fearful clients: as if their own custom were open to them. With all outsiders removed far away. This one, given by the Lord for our salvation, filled the flowing streams with waters." When they had sung these songs to the starry king, they move camp. And they leave various places behind their backs. Led to King Seon at the end of the journey, they pour out the opposing battle lines in a mighty struggle, which he, mocking the harmless words of the prophet, had built up. And he boasted in vain with empty praise of the Amorite people; which, subdued in harsh war, fell, long since enclosed within mighty cities. Moreover, Jazer, likewise laid waste in a similar conflict, accepted the yoke, trampled down, and surrendered many towns, begging for the peace of longed-for rest. When rumor, anxiously, dictated these things to Balak, who ruled the peoples and cities of the Moabites, he is shaken with a heavier fear and courts Balaam the prophet with honored prayers, so that he might hinder the people, undertaking such great deeds, with his words and check the course of the warriors utterly; since, what he, prostrate, prays for, the Almighty may hear and favor each grievous thing. He denies that it is right for him to bring curses back upon the people going forth with the Lord always as their leader.

To his throne and kingdom. And it seemed more just that each should pray for what is fitting to his merits, since the lord, seen in the night time, forbids opening the old man's responses to Balac. But after the dismissed messenger entered, and his concern holds the king, he breathlessly seeks out chosen nobles and again sends ambassadors to the prophet's threshold, asking in vain for what had already been said, because the words of God fight against them. Yet the prophet, having emerged, mounts a little she-ass and matches the preceding ones with equal steps. Behold, in the middle of the road an angel of the lord soon offers a drawn sword against him, and facing and pressing forward, he frightens the horse, which, roused by a swift leap, straining in that direction, flees and wanders over the plain. While the prophet, with headlong fear spurning the reins, turns the horse and struggles with pressed reins, and goads it with heels and strikes it with a sharp rod, among the vine-covered vines, with the covering already fallen, a half-ruined wall, placed in the way of the hesitating she-ass, impeded its forward rush; it struck its foot back against the rocks and crushed the old man and affected him with bitter sensation. Thence the swift messenger, standing in a different part, resists on a very narrow path, where a thin footpath led, leaving no circuits in any part. The quadruped saw him gleaming with a drawn sword.

And greatly terrified she falls. He orders her to rise, strikes her, and restrains her with many a lash and welt. When she felt the pain, she suddenly spoke, while God releases speech into unaccustomed words: "What have I done, or how have I deserved of you, that you drive me, stumbling, with many a blow? Have I ever denied you my accustomed back? Or have I ever, in fear, fled from my burden, or thrown myself headlong, while you, bent forward, slip from the shoulder and, thrown forward, roll on your neck?" The priest, moved by such words, often gives sad replies and seethes with much anger, and while he rages furiously, soon an angel shines forth with clear countenance and addresses the prophet with holy voice: "You strike an undeserving beast with a third blow, which flees prone before me and, dashed to the ground, lies prostrate for this reason: because your path is not pleasing to the highest God, and you now wander far with straying steps. And unless the horse, going in a different direction, had been turned away by the rein, this hand would have laid you low with a harsh wound of iron and would have drawn a raw sword, so that, with you laid aside, she might have been possessed by me." Here the prophet leaps down, worships the holy one bent before him, and, grieving his fault, prays for return and life. Dismissed, he hastens, completes his tasks, and will speak the words of the Lord to be dictated for report. And now, conquering the road, he reaches the city of Moab and sees the king in the dense throng of soldiers, asking him for help with a fearful voice.

He looks and supplicates the Lord with seven altars; at the same time he sacrifices choice calves and selected sheep, and entrusts all the gifts to the king, and under the silent night earns the judgment of God. Then, unfolding this, he terrified the king with these words: "Ordered from the ancestral mountains by a prince of Moab. Whence the coming day and serene light grow red, and where the land lies enclosed by the twin streams of the Tigris and Euphrates, as if by harsh words I should wish for things unworthy of men, whom the holy Almighty protects from on high and imposes on the rich land. So it is right to see these from the hill from afar soon, and to recognize the longed-for faces of the blessed people, now at last, for me. They alone are followed by the great gifts of God. And the people, separated and set apart far off, receive the desired abodes from the placid divinity. Who then sought the famous pledges of the ancient Jacob, or who could count the people in numbers? Let my life rather perish among these, leaving its bodily seat, and joined to the just, let it rest, and let my offspring live with such a seed!" When Balak had discoursed this with a dulled mind, he fell down and rebuked the prophet speaking diverse and discordant things. Ordered to ascend the swollen hill, so that he might see a small part of the people in the fields below, he adds this with words arranged again: "At once let my words descend through your ears. Ruler of the Moabite people, and come as a witness!

Unlike a human, God is not false, nor does He make spoken words void or threaten anything with impunity. He who, relying on great gifts, urges me to pray—as I do—and I will consecrate the people of God through vows, from whom all grief and the toils of works will flee, joined with a partner God who repels all hardships, granting the rich gifts of peace. You, ruler of the heavens and earth, see this nobleman from the sacred star: for he is worthy of your honor, who, with neck long pressed down and groaning, led out the people from the harsh reign of Pharaoh, a standard-bearer and second to none in praise of virtues, fosters a unique kingdom and trusts in no augur. He sings no songs nor seeks any empty thing. At a fixed time, the secure and perfect virtue of the supreme God will receive the blessed words, and the Jebusite will become the Lord’s by the might of the highest. This people shines forth, like when a lion with maned neck advances alone through fields, lofty, not returning to the accustomed lairs of the former forest, until, fierce with thick gore and stuffed with prey, it has terrified the green mountains with its threatening roar.” The king, wounded by great anger, also refused these words, asking for a third prophecy on a different hill; from whose summit, when he saw the people stationed throughout the camp, he spoke words from a learned heart: “Sublime and great houses, whatever seed Jacob has, and roofs that raise their peaks equally, like a shining cedar and forest, which the honor of foliage…

It shakes and with complaining murmurs whistles through the branches. Or those which grow green joyfully along the riverbanks. The Lord built these and raised them high to the stars. From whose seed one will one day be born, bearing law to all peoples and marked by an eternal kingdom. Whom God, in His mercy, summons from Pharian Egypt, a man conspicuous, peerless, and without companion. He will direct rebellious peoples in different parts, hurling many deadly darts with his right hand. Then, leaning, he lies down like a lion. Before him, with sleep fallen away, he unfolds himself; then he drives off slumber, and, immediately restored to wakefulness, returns to his actions. And who will make him stand still again by touch? He who praises your sacred proclamation with his speech—that man will become blessed. But he who speaks contrary words brings evil utterances upon himself from his windy mouth. These are the things which our Lord commands you to be warned by my voice, by a speech which it is lawful for no one to break, nor for any man to change, nor to add anything to it. Even if you were to bring a great talent of silver and the immense weight of your wealth and gold, gifts are of no use; what is said is fixed." After these deeds, he seeks his own dwelling and leaves the king, astonished and groaning at the harsh and immense words. Meanwhile, the Jewish army, in successful wars, grows wanton and considers the altars it had conquered as holy, and celebrates pagan idols with unlawful worship.

Beselech, previously devoted, and Phogor, now silent. Then soon the immense wrath of the Lord arises, and he orders the leaders to proceed to the open plain. And turning, he bids them behold the returning light of the sun and, attentive, atone for the nocturnal crime. The seer acts swiftly and bares the sword again, pursuing both the innocent and the guilty with a wandering blade. Meanwhile, someone, betraying a brotherly disgrace—that he had procured a marriage from the people of Midian, which was not permitted to him—presents Zambri and Chasbus before all and the seer, both guilty under the same deceit. Phinees, seizing a spear, quickly strikes them down, and through these just expiations calms the immense plague, which had consumed twice ten thousand men in death, and three thousand besides, while the Lord’s weapon struck all. Because of this deed, the seer receives the consecrated altars and assumes the Lord’s sublime honor. Meanwhile, the youth, born from a new stock, is selected and then, after being counted, is noted by number. They, flourishing in early bloom, already clothed their faces with soft down, joyful through twenty years. This number then came to six hundred thousand, and twice eight, and three hundred added besides. These merited the blessed abodes, with the Lord granting them.

At once the almighty one orders the standard to be turned against the flanking enemy, and the seer to persist in the war he had begun. They go forth with twice six thousand men. To that place each tribe had sent its own; while each of the thousands count their own warriors from their own squadrons. Phinehas leads this host; he carries the sacred vessels and the terrifying trumpets, accustomed for battle. And with the chosen soldier promptly cut down, he slays the Moabite battle lines and kills all the kings: while pressing the backs of the routed, he also kills the seer Balaam, and brings back plunder from the conquered people. But because he was dragging female battle lines after the war in a captive column, he is warned by the leaders' command not to deny life to the maidens alone, who had earned it, and to cleanse the bodily stains of the men with flowing water. No less does he divide the plunder among the entire people. And he gave a portion of the gift to the Levites, as was merited, whom pious care always kept in the Lord's temple. The first fruits are also rendered to the eternal God from all the things brought back from the conquered people.

After these things, the tribe of Ruben, the half-tribe of Manasses, and Gada, joyful in their seats of Galaad, pray. The land is easy for flocks: for it was green, joined to the river Jordan, with much grass. Although the leader refused them with fearless speech, while he thought future battles might change their minds, he nevertheless grants and promises, if they bear arms with the whole soldiery and aid allied cohorts in the wars. DEUTERONOMY. Thus far, the people, harassed by the sands of the shapeless desert, had advanced their arms to the river Jordan; which, while it winds slippery among green groves, left behind the exceptional Jericho as its current glides, and follows and then mingles with the open sea. There the sanctifying seer, as he sees death approaching for himself and the final day impending, which was written for the world while he lives here, gathers the people, assembled in troops and numerous multitudes, and enriches them with such a gift of words: "If it pleases you to utterly prostrate the hostile nations and to hold peaceful peace in the ages to come.

Fear God, and store Him in your whole heart with feeling, so that He may always be joined to you in unbroken love; He who, when you were grieving with oppressed neck, lifted you from bonds and freed you from the prison of Egypt; He who placed a cloud between you and the enemy pressing upon the fearful and driving at your exposed backs; He who gave both a cloud for the safe signs of the day, and wiped away the pitch-black night with clear light: so that you, set upon an unknown path of lands, might be strengthened by the elements of God, changing themselves, where the dark night comes, where the stars shine in their course; He also, by alternate motion, made the ocean, always wandering, where the undetected blasts of wind carry, to run in its accustomed way, and laid bare the dry sand. Exuding bloody, reddening shores, the land; so that He might lead you, constrained by the doubtful destruction of labors, to walls raised with alternate arms, in a divided sea, while it hangs in a forked wave. You have seen what care there was of the high divinity around you, while the enemy, flying, rouses himself behind and seeks a similar path on the windy sea. But that powerful one, unable to cross the swollen waves, falls and is turned among the wet sands. You, whom soft Egypt had given, enriched with spoils, conquered the shapeless lands of the desert, denied to dwellings, with God protecting you, while He sent down lights from rocks and manna from bright Olympus. And quail, falling in great showers through the night, filled the seas placed around the camp. Garments: the long use of the foot did not wear them out, nor did the clothes perish from mold or wear on the body; all things around you, worn out by age, do not perish.

The enemy lines yield and the cities lie open: the standard-bearer is the Lord, who, having sent swift terror, weakens all who obstruct your steps. And now, since we have come to the waves of the Jordan of the sea and the land already joins itself nearby, I call to witness, transcribed from the highest God, through the stars and whatever shines forth in the lofty court of the Lord, that the heavenly law, which the right hand of the Thunderer wrote, you may wish to hold in your senses and your whole heart. It commands nothing harsh or rigid. All things are just, gentle, joyful, and suited to a long life, as indeed they command. So that whatever does not please anyone, entrusted to oneself, one should not strive to inflict on another. Love the Sabbaths. Cherish them with a sincere heart, those whom one law holds, whom one Lord presents. He who loves all, born equal under the law, will wish nothing forbidden to be done. Let Passover be held every year with a powerful vigil night and for seven days, bringing slow leisure and subject to no care. Let the father and mother be dear and always to be revered.

Avoid marriage with a foreign people. Cast down idols and turn away from the left-hand path, which wild nations have produced while they tend to dead divinities and set up offerings in shady groves. Moreover, whenever the harsh trumpet gives a bloody signal and the war-horns lead out the bronze-clad squadrons, consecrate the built houses and the joyful vineyards, and join in lawful marriage with customary feasts: for uncertain events always make pressing dangers for men in war, and no one can guarantee the times of his own life. Keep the unwarlike at home: a wounded mind often disturbs brave men. And in every time of war, spare suppliants and subdue the proud. Avoid, men, overturning a fruitful wood with noble fruits; cut down barren groves in times of war. If by chance the body of a slain man is seen uncovered, a Levite's duty will be to cut off the foot of a heifer, lest the greatest avenger be the god of the innocent. If it has pleased you to join a captive woman to your bed, all right will allow her to be kept under your roof. To cut the hairy head and trim the nails, and to provide thirty days of mourning tears for the dead and the slain elders. She for whom that was created may then finally join in lawful marriage. And if, after the loss of her captured chastity, she has become displeasing, let her lay down the servile yoke and leave her master. If one man has taken two wives and does not keep the partnership with equal care, the children of the neglected one will hold a double portion by right from all the goods which the care of a parent has produced. Bury condemned men and place all the slain in tombs: for the earth is denied to no one.

A woman must never take a man's clothing, nor a man a woman's; such attire is harmful by forbidden custom. If anyone wishes to catch fledgling birds, let him not take the mother along with the young. He who sets a roof must take care lest the craftsman tumble from a height. Let the vine not bear double-clustered grapes twice over; nor for you be grain harvested with double ears. Avoid gentile men; and whatever is abhorrent in customs or culture, the holy law repels far off. Keep away unclean she-wolves, lest they bring the rewards of the night, sold, to the eternal sanctuaries of the Lord. Whoever holds a fugitive, let him not return him to his master; let him not afflict a captive with harsh beating. Let no one gather a harvest grown in another's field; nor wish to press wine that the grape of a neighbor's portion has produced; it is permitted to pluck early clusters and ears of grain, but not to take the whole. If a wife driven from home should marry another husband, and after the same one is lost she becomes a widow, let her not return seeking the companionship of a spurned bed. Let no one put away a new bride within an unblemished year. Nor let a mill be sold, which, hollowed from twin stone, curved into a hollow, flies and grinds the grain. Let one not pay the penalty for another's crimes. Let him receive forty lashes on the back who, fierce with foolish speech, hurls insults. Let the mouth of a threshing ox not be muzzled. If the one whose brother will stand by happens to die without having fathered a child, let the surviving brother lead the dismissed woman to his home and beget children.

without seed, the house is not emptied, nor does it darken a barren lineage; but if the husband refuses, the woman shall soon state her case before the elders and invoke the law, which compels the idle. Whenever quarrels turn into treacherous brawls and gnashing men strike each other in alternating disputes, let not a woman insert herself between them, nor seize the obscene genitals of another's husband. Whoever acts devotedly in this matter is touched by no plague of evil, fears neither war nor burning fevers, does not feel a barren year when the months are consumed, but rejoices peacefully throughout his whole life, with God granting wealth. He who despises the world's crimes, gentle, and punishes in due time." So spoke the prophet, and he warned all the Levites, upon whom the venerable care of the court and of God's sacred rites remains, to read the commands of the eternal law diligently to all; so that the concern for God might be more ready in the hearts of all men; and also that the tablets, polished from twin rocks, which hold the ten commands to be feared throughout the world, should be kept closed in the sanctified ark within the inner chambers. After these things, he orders the one born from Noah to go forth and, by the judgment of God, gives laws to the people to be ruled, and so that the Jewish hand might willingly overturn altars and false gods, he gives words to a melodious hymn.

Hear me, and praise God, the sky that veils the stars above, and the earth divided by the swelling sea, lend your ears and receive the sounds which the mind’s messenger, speech, utters. As it is wont to drink the rainy dews when the swift heat burns with its flame and the harvest withers in the dusty field, the meadows laugh and the world gives birth, and the parched earth, split by many wide cracks, swallows the fruitful showers. For I have sought the name of my lord. To whose glory it befits that servants offer honors and well-deserved praises. To whose words truth clings, which always prevail, vigorous in their youth. Right judgment and just ways entangle no travelers with their twists: there is nothing unjust, nothing depraved. The lord of blessed faithfulness does not render punishments equal to merits. Although a wicked offspring, swift in its pacts, labors for its own punishment. Alas, a people destined for a sorrowful death. You render this to our lord and God, to him who prefers to be called father, while he grants to servants the name of sons: does he not care for all with his eternal power, and could he not suddenly destroy them with death? He established you. He created you. He who now holds and will one day possess. Remember rather the eternal age.

and what lives after death and burial; the years which the future sequence will take up, and what things are to be created again, ask. Or if your mind is dull, pray to your father, who will teach you everything forthwith: or ask one of the presbyters: he will scatter the cloud and give light. When the eternal Lord, high in the stars, had given divided peoples to the world, whom the first creator Adam, begetting, gave to the trembling labor of the lands, the word of the everlasting God had commanded, and imposed an end and a sum upon the nations, such as the starry cohorts hold. The people of Jacob clung to the Lord, whose judgment is referred to him: for the heir of the Lord and God lives, alone sufficient and firm in itself, where the earth lies, denied by roofs, and gasping with hot flames of the sun, is watered by no perpetual streams. There, drawing forth, God afflicted the guilty with a subsequent plague, and soon gave a sanctifying remedy, subjecting them to his right hand, as a bird labors to warm its chicks under the cover of its wings, just as we ourselves hold the middle light hidden, through which we see.

Let there be no troublesome chance of a plague. The Lord alone, who took away from the enemy those whom He willed, who established the sky and made the lands, prepared for them abundant food of many kinds, which the earth brings forth when watered by rains; the rocks gave forth honey and liquids, and olive oil flowed equally richly. The udders of flocks gave milk as food; the fertile earth produced wheat harvests and created wine from moist grapes. With whose liquids the youth, filled, revels in drunkenness, denying the divine power, with whose gifts enriched, it rules! Moreover, following pestilential rites, it prepared fat altars for demons. The light of the Lord and God saw these things and prepared a just death according to their merits, separating the guilty and driving them far away, while it seemed better to Him to prefer the unknown people to the fugitives. Fire flashes from the Lord’s mouth, which, when it wanders through the eternal world, shines forth from the underworld itself, to be feared. It lays low the pastures, destroys the harvests, and what came from sown seeds. The stars shine and the mountains flash with lightning, when the Lord is moved by just anger and strikes the fearful with a hot weapon. Livid pallor will kill the bodies, accustomed to approach the fasting heart.

Those with feathers, the flying birds, will carry them off; those that are beasts will devour them with their teeth; those that are wounds, harsher than iron, will make them mourn their children, once consumed; finally, let it cease that he seems to himself rich, as if by a special gift, Judea. That one a wound-inflicting enemy will destroy, while they flee one and fear a thousand. But again the Lord returns serene, so that he immediately calmed all his wrath, [placid]; far unlike the gods of the guilty; whose vine is the vine of Gomorrah, too fruitful with a bitter must. More harsh than the poisons of all asps. The time now hastens, see, of death. All whom the Lord restrains as avenger. And now ask your pestilential gods: let them be present, let them bring aid, let them lighten the punishments. So that healing may return to your prayers. I alone am the Lord, see: I alone am the creator of life and the arbiter of death: the right to spare is mine, the right to strike is mine! No stronger arbiter of the heavens exists. Who could lift from death that one whom the hand of the Lord restrains. While I raise it through the starry constellations, I will say: "I will consign to the eternal ages, drawing the sword naked from its sheath:

While he is whirled among the trembling enemy, he shines with a glittering flash, white as lightning, a bringer of doom to those below and a terror to those above. "Rejoice always with the Lord, O heaven! Whom the whole pole and the angels praise, and the nations as a united and equal people. For the Lord breaks forth with long-delayed anger, and while he strikes the wicked from above, he spares the submissive and preserves the pious." After the prophet sang songs worthy of God, about to see the land given to the people from the summit of Mount Nebo, whose governance he was leading, he ascended the lofty ridge and then, having performed his duty, he died, his limbs covered by no tomb. His life was one hundred and twenty years, in all things a happy and fearless course, broken by no evils, subject to no disease; indeed, even in his declining time, his eyes preserved their flames, his vision clear and serene. JOSHUA. Meanwhile, the Lord deigned to approach Joshua, promising him sublime gifts with strong support, warning him to cross the ford of the pleasant Jordan and to pitch camps on the enemy's bank; and to establish new settlements in a remote part of the lands and to station the people in fertile places. Moreover, he knows the nations by a distinct name as far as the great mountain which the inhabitant calls Lebanon, as far as your banks, Euphrates, where you glide with a sloping current, separating the Persians from the Syrians, or the sea which swells with windy waves. For, besides the exceptional strength joined in battle, spreading terror widely among the pale peoples, the Jewish soldier trusts in the protection of the Lord.

The Lord from the stars granted him a notable reward, so that he might seize rich lands without a wound. "Come, be men, the Lord thunders, seize your cares, so that the people may soon take possession of the kingdoms granted to them. And at the same time, do not let the book of the lawgiver be moved from your sight, so that the people, safe under the eternal Lord, may never be widowed." Swiftly he begins to give commands to the scribes bearing the orders, so that the people may take up provisions and suitable weapons, about to move strong cohorts to the neighboring wars. When the third line marks the crimson world, he speaks to the three tribes remaining at the joined Jordan, that they should leave behind their cattle and children in the lands they have taken, and wage common war, and then return to the conquered peoples, whom the Lord as leader should strike. Those eager ones join their wedges and mix their columns, seeking each harsh thing equally with iron and prayers. Among these, he orders chosen youths from the battle line to search out what places and what men inhabit them, where the walls of the people are, and to report back swiftly what they have inspected. While they traverse the rich lands of the Medes, they burst into the city's approaches, empty of a guard, and secretly inspect the site and the roofs of Jericho. A harlot, long called Rahab, receives them, and secretly hides the trembling men and soothes them with words, being diligent. After this is reported to the king, with threatening terror he demands the hidden ones, speaking with a steadfast mind, that they had recently gone out through the double-opening gates. Yet he had secretly covered them in a cave with wood. The leader's care seeks them through every byway and, as if the enemy were pursuing, closes the thresholds of the gates.

The harlot, after the tyrant's concern ceased, turns to the young men and spoke in the manner of a prophet: "Known to me, brothers, are the rewards which the Lord brings to you, since he first removed swarthy Egypt: how the sea, suspended through the midst of swelling wave, was for you like a huge rampart. Or when, through the empty sands of the squalid desert, the snowy manna prepared the food of the heaven-dwellers. Or when the terrifying kings, stationed beyond the roaring rivers of the Jordan, falling by your sword, left their ancestral cities to you as you conquered. Why do I delay? Pallor has besieged minds and hearts; no one seizes weapons on the curved bow nor trusts in the bow: the foot-soldier does not mass the bronze-clad lines for battle: the war-chariot does not fly on the iron-shod chariot. True victory is given to you, young men, to you by the starry king, who made the earth and the stars. And now, O young men, say with sworn words that, when the walls fall with the ramparts cast down, safety will be established and entrusted in your right hands, lest I become a captive, a companion with my offspring and house, with my fathers and dear ones, whose care wears me out." Assent is given, and she is ordered to keep safe at home all whom she wishes to live with her, and by a signal mark she should hang her rope bonds from a cautious window: so that, when the legion has poured through the captured city, wool smeared with scarlet color may be seen. They eagerly overcome the ditches and seize the safe positions on the hill of Aisamo, hiding under the third light, lest, while they return too hastily to their own camp, they run into some pursuing from a different direction.

The harlot, now free from concern, carries out the commands. And the prince, too, instructed by the young men’s judgment, hastily moves camp from the valley of Sattina and from afar rushes up, and soothes their spirits, granting all a rest of three days; and he urges the scribes to speak to the people, so that, when he has seen the consecrated ark carried forth and the priests proceeding after the high altar, they may eagerly raise the standards, quickly leave the space, and that two thousand may gradually fill it; and that they may purify their bodies in the flowing waters, before the face of the Lord. Meanwhile, the prince, honored with a distinguished rank, shines forth, worthy of the stem of Moses. And now the priests, ordered to cross the river, dip their bare feet on the foremost bank: Then the twelve tribes give chosen tribunes as ordered, who from the middle of the riverbed would gather gleaming stones, so that twelve pebbles taken from the wet sands might testify to the people that the river was dried up for their journey. Similar rocks, in number and manner, they placed in the middle of the channel, which the moving water washes and the hoarse wave drenches slippery. And the tribe of Ruben crosses the river stripped bare; Gada follows; Manasse hurries in the middle. They send forty thousand men to war.

Suddenly the flood, accustomed to running down the river, is compressed, and the course of the waters is checked by ice: part of the river, placed lower down, bursts forth and hides itself in the ocean and is plunged into the vast tide from the region that piously holds the limbs of Moses, all the way to the immense sea with its uncertain waves. And where the frequent crowds had crossed the Jordan, the ice is loosened, softened by the sun’s warmth, and joins the previously drained banks with the river. When the tyrants in different parts learned of this, they lowered their spirits; no one’s constancy holds firm. Here the prince prepared twelve knives from a rock, with which, as ordered, he removed the foreskins of the people. For in the wilderness, over twenty years, such a great multitude had produced strong offspring, numbering twice twenty thousand. A slow rest is granted to them, so that the sad wounds may gradually be soothed by a scar that will close. Then Passover is celebrated, and the gleaming manna is denied, a rich food supply. The harvest, widespread, offered the people plenty of grain as they vied in reaping. Unleavened bread, snowy, feeds them, joyful from the flour. The holy night festival is celebrated in the open plain, in the new month, after twice six days have passed. The fearful crowd looks down upon these things from the gates, now preserving the walls with a chosen soldier. Meanwhile, the seer catches sight of someone threatening with a sword, and rejoices to quickly join his steps. While he recounts such things: “From what part do you present yourself? Are you one of ours, or rather from the Phoenician race? Confess.” He immediately receives the use of the desired speech, with the sublime god narrating.

Falling from high ether now I come, under whom the renowned legion serves with all its stars and under whose command it lives." At these words he, mixed with fear, silently rejoices, prostrate on the ground and venerating God, while he begins thus: "O Lord, deigning to leave your vast seat, what tasks do you bid your servant hasten, what cares to undertake?" He is told to quickly loosen the bonds of the plants, since he had fixed his footsteps on holy ground. Moreover, he sees mighty Jericho, destined to fall, with its walls and strong barrier, and fierce peoples, and the death of kings, to which ruin is joined. He swiftly surrounds the walls with his entire army, placing the priests and the sacred ark in position. Commanding the prophets, so that the people would be bolder. To blast seven terrifying sounds from the trumpets. Then the legion silently surrounds the city by order. So that they might raise a warlike shout when packed together. When the commander gives the signal, a terrifying sign. And now the seventh day had revealed the joyful world, when Jesus orders the bronze-clad ranks into battle to advance with confident step and send forth a vast roar from their chests, which the eager weapons follow. No battering ram shatters the masonry and beats down the towers, assailing even the walls and proud gates. But the roar and vast voices in harmonious murmur carry a deadly force, by which the walls sink down and all the gates, stripped bare, lie open. The eager troops burst in, immediately into the overthrown city, overturning everything with sword and devouring flame.

A single woman was granted the reward of safety, set apart from civil slaughter and hidden in the camp, accompanied by a relative's hand, lest an unknowing soldier kill her while he roamed through all the doorways. A splendid household store of all things is preserved for the lord of the virtues, things that could feed the eye. After these deeds, the leader compelled the people to swear that no one would strive to renew the fallen walls, the first to be punished for the foundation; thereafter, if anyone should try to raise the gates. Meanwhile, adverse events corrupt favorable outcomes. The people pursue idols and, prone, adore stones raised by hand, while the crag believes them to be deities. The standard-bearer is Achar, son of Carmeli of Ambri, whom the cohort followed, abandoning lord and law. They were not long joyful in forbidden things: for after three thousand men, accustomed to impiety, were sent through the fields of the enemy, the believing Georite youth, easily conquered by fear, give their backs in flight through the fields and, in headlong retreat, seek their own camp and leader. After this disgrace reached the leader's ears, he tears his garments and beats his foreseeing breast. The accompanying crowd of grieving elders immediately supplicates, while Auses demands with innocent words: "O lord, what cause was there to lead your people out of their Egyptian seat? Why did you make the sea-waves hang, and all things thereafter which you know were given by a vast hand, than which nothing is richer? Was it for this, that the proud Amorite might lay low the afflicted? Therefore it was safer to live beyond the great river, which lay open to us, dried up by thirsty sand.

What will the wounded woman do, or what will she say in her confusion? How much more do you desire to thrust servitude from the couches? But true safety and the gifts of sure healing lie with you, and whatever gentle mercy bestows. The peoples will come together, whom you gave us to conquer; the mixed phalanx of Jebusite and Amorite will wage fierce wars against you, highest Father. Therefore, will you allow the proud to mock your name, and will unknown peoples have more right? The Lord is moved by these words and ordered the prophet to rise, recalling gradually the deformities of the crime's guilt, to be punished by the destruction of the head, because he had advised such things. Then, when the first day had driven away the dark night, he rouses the body from sleep, wearies his companions, and visits the kindred tribes by each individual name; seizing the guilty head, he gives the body to death—shamelessly—while cattle are likewise sent into the fire. Achar said that this crime was first committed, the unhappy man inflamed by love of booty and spoils, which he had hidden, covering them with his own earth at home. Immediately, those sent seek these things; they are quickly found and placed before the leader and the crowded people. When he saw that the sought-for plunder was not missing, the ruler speaks such words and terrifies the fearful man: "Come now, tell all, what madness seized you? Or how did the ignorant use of things help you, that you, forgetful of the law, followed the rite of the guilty? And if the sublime glory of the people had not saved them, the victorious Amorite would have pressed free necks under the yoke. Come now, pay the penalty for the sins committed on behalf of all, so that the people may be saved.

Let the Lord and Master run back to the camp." When he had set forth these things, a shower of stones rises up and crushes the condemned man and beats his stock; and the cattle and whatever property the same man had preserved, a blazing flame seizes and dissolves into white ash. With these things done, cares are removed: the gentle God looks upon all and restores to all alike their accustomed strength, by which they are able to thrust back all battle lines. The leader receives here the distinguished commands of the Lord, that he should instruct the allied cohorts for whatever wars, choosing a thousand young men of notable body and years, so that, while they prepare the deceptions of war, they should seize the thickets, hiding them not far from the walls of Gergesa in silence, so that when he begins to turn his back with feigned fear and leads the enclosed men out into the open, immediately the swift ones leave their wooded lairs and strive to invade the gates stripped of men. Without delay, all things respond to the prophet's proposals. After the squadrons fight with an oblique line, the prince ordered his men to turn their backs at once, whom the hostile crowd rushes upon with a dense column and presses with much clamor, and the iron glitters. The cohort, which was lying hidden in a hollow valley, watches this. It flies out and breaks through the walls at the empty gates, setting swift fires under the lofty roofs. Then a confused sound and a mournful murmur forced the Gergesenes to gather their heads, as it seemed. They look back at black ash flying into the sky and globes of flames, which the captured rooftops vomited, and a diverse band threatening from rear and front.

Those who were caught shudder and abandon their boneless weapons. Pierced before the eyes and faces of their weeping parents, some are thrust into steep pits as the victor rushes in, or are dashed against the gates of a captured city. Twelve thousand young men are laid low by the sword. The king himself, exulting and daring to break out into the open plain, is captured in the first assault, held bound, and fixed to a cross; the wretched stones give him a tomb. When all were consumed, the fire alone did not swallow what a hasty hand had snatched; only the pack-animals, which bear weights on their backs, were spared from slaughter. Meanwhile, victory flies back to all the kings. The Amorite hears, joined to the pleasant Jordan, and those who have set up their halls on thorny mountains, or inhabit joyful fields and sloping valleys, and those who stand on the margin of the blue sea. The Cetaean likewise and the Canaanite murmurs, the Evean fears, the Pherezite wavers, and the hand of the Jebusite and the Gergessite grow pale together. Yet not utterly broken nor utterly prostrate, they lift up their spirits and steel themselves for battle: one love drives all to thrust Joshua from the kingdoms. They convene at Gibeon, and halt the place and the columns. He himself, amid the cares of wars, builds an altar to God according to the custom of Moses, which the bonds of the...

They bind nothing, while the stones, compacted together, cohere in a uniform joining. He brings forth pleasing libations to the god. A pleasant odor breathes in the heights. Moreover, he sets down the laws of the teacher law: its name is Deuteronomy, because it unfolds what has gone before; it is equally right for the whole world to know it. The nurturing ark is borne on the priests' shoulders, so that all may see the gifts of the highest lord. And the prophet, accustomed to blessing the people, runs through what was commanded earlier, what was then cautioned, with equal reasoning of deeds and a fixed order. But at Gabaon, after the band sees that the Jews have grown with high successes, that the tyrants have been slain, the cities overthrown, and that no one can resist, they hasten with cunning in a crafty deed, and those whom the region had joined in contiguous fields, they pretend to be from a far-off land, apart, marveling at the trophies and fresh victories of the man, to see if they can, by prayers, join right hands with the victor, unite households, and attach the whole nation to live under the given law—unless discordant hearts despise the humble and shrink from submissive necks. And so that they may keep the color of a sure faith, they load many mules, caught, with a heavy burden, carrying rotten grain with swift effort, which the old sacks, with their worn covering, used to contain; and wineskins stitched with many a wound.

They scarcely hold back, while the region denies binding the liquid. Clad in a torn rag, he bared his body. A shoe gives wretched covering to his worn soles. The leader of the people is broken by this, while he is overcome by a suppliant palm and believes that minds cohere with speech. He receives those begging for pardon and takes them back into the camp. But, as often happens, feigned things are not concealed for long, and a testimony of truth reveals the composed deceits. Thereupon the prophet chastises them openly in a friendly manner; and, because he had sworn by the name of the eternal lord, friendly faith remained; but common right was denied: they were ordered, by the duty of camp-followers, to carry water from pure springs around the sacred precincts. After it was reported that these had defected to Donibezelus, who was then managing affairs in the Jebusite court, he moves five faithful kings, taken up into battle, more sharply hostile against allies for the broken treaty than against the people, whom he had routed with immense battle lines. But at Gabaon, terrified by the gathering of many kings, they send envoys and demand the friendly prophet. He immediately rushes to aid the sad ones with his whole army. Without delay, seizing the standards, he sets out from Galgala, heading for the enemy camp, with the lord instilling vigor with such addresses: "Do not fear the names of many kings and think their cohorts powerful;

However vast the clouds of the enemy may trust, the feet of the cavalry will accomplish nothing, nor will their weapons avail; despise the chariots armed with curved scythes. For I will shake the nations with pallid terror; never will the enemy meet us face to face in close combat, while they wander, with a mighty soldier's slaughter." When he learned this, he advances against the numerous enemy; for the tyrants had held Apaphus as the seat of war, and immediately they take flight, dismissing their soldier. The rest of the throng of men fell in a confused heap of slaughter and filled the spreading plains, poured out. Nor did the sword of the victors strike down the lifeless so much as the hail of packed, freezing showers; and although swords flash here and thunderbolts gleam there, one day is not long enough for such great triumphs. Therefore, seeing the dull swords and the slow deaths, the prince prays to the Lord for the aid he was accustomed to. However long the daylight hours are stretched, this light is not sufficient unless you command the night to join its light to the day. Let the flame of the wandering sun now be poised in its weight, and let the trembling fires of the lunar circle not move. So that the elements, as if ignorant of running in their own courses, may prolong the time, while the packed enemy rushes on. He is heard promptly: the sun is halted and the wandering moon has checked its easy course on both pivots.

nor less the kings. Those whom hollow rocks had hidden, he ordered to stand openly with bound necks. Then from all sides Judea rushed together with weapons, and with knee pressed down, he tramples the necks of the groaning. Immediately, bloodless, they are fixed on high crosses, hanging until black night returned. Then he takes down the suspended bodies of the men from the wood, which are loaded with heaped-up stones and ruins. After these deeds, the warrior hastens to subdue Lennam. He kills the aged; the sword did not fail the boys either; nothing at all was permitted to live in the entire people. Then sought-out Lachis burns with its walls prostrated; the king of the people is also captured and killed by the sword. Dabira as well, covered with equal ruins, perishes with its legion destroyed and its tyrant ally. And those who held fortresses on bushy hills or cultivated curved valleys and lying plains, they fell, their companies destroyed together with the king. And while all things flow with joyful second success, Jabirus, seeing the brave deeds of the victorious people, who ruled the wealthy kingdoms of the Asor people, hastening to extinguish the flame of the neighboring war, gathers together outstanding kings and fierce peoples. Roboam approaches him quickly from the hall of Machedon; and Somorus and Axinus, made comrade in arms; and the one who ruled as leader in the Sidonian citadel; Ceneritus and the Arab, whose neighboring kingdoms strengthened their spirits with love of allied scepter.

Ernadurus joins, and Chanannus, who cultivates lands joined to the sea. Or those who see the first reds of the sun, when the rosy axle is first spread out. To these hastens the neighboring Iebusite, the Amorrite; Cetius, Eucheus, and Pherezeus follow. Those who inhabit the desolate byways of squalid Thitsa. All have the spirit to rush in a packed crowd. Then each whirls his javelins in his own fashion: here a legion of foot-soldiers advances, and in a packed cloud, four-horse chariots rush with iron-clad soldiers. So that the very crash puts to flight the gleaming enemy at close quarters. But on the other side, Jesus, unafraid, presses on. Coming near the waters named after Maro; and when he ascends the hill with his chosen soldier, rushing down from above he tramples the unwary enemy. Everything is wet with slaughter, and the earth is stained with blood. Soon swift chariots are consumed by fire beneath, and the feet of horses are cut off by a sharp sword. The prince of kings himself, the Assyrian, gives his breast to the sword; the city also falls, its walls completely undermined. All common booty is given to the victors. In this battle, one man, who had taken the sign from the starry hall, kills twice ten leaders and nine. Immediately the prophet assigns to the people man by man.

He divides the cities, taken from so many perishing peoples, by the tribes. Places set at the threshold and hinge of the earth, where the saffron flame of the coming day reddens, across the river anciently called by the name Jordan, as far as the valley called Chebron, which lies supine, to Mount Hermon, which rises with a vast summit, and to the sea of Chinnereth and its grey-green marble, and to secluded Phasga, long ago called Asedoth. Only the prize of the settled combats remained: Bassamum, its ruler (the ancients called him Oc), fierce with the strength of giants, whom the ruler drove. Astaroth is his home and his seat in Edrei. This land is given to be plowed by two tribes and a half, while the pleasant and grassy valley pleases: to Reuben and Gad together, and to their ally Manasseh. The rest the leader, fair to all, divides among his allies. The region where Lebanon rises into the breezes approaches, and the sea of Masrefah and the fertile fields of Sidon. The Lord deprives the Levites of the name of villages. Balamus falls, accustomed to foretell what is to come.

And always a comrade, Chaleb, joined to the leader, bearing a loyal heart. Resting on a calm breast, he speaks: "You know, leader, the judgment of my mind from that very time when we were sent to view the hostile lands, when all were trembling, I alone, with you as comrade, declared that nothing could stand against us; even if immense giants waged new wars, that God stood against them and took our side. Surely you recall how, calm as he is, the elder promised us the greatest things, and by a separate lot gave this hill to me and to all my men. And now, what war remains from the Enachin race, I will wage with my kindred offspring. I am not degenerate with age, even though four times ten and twice one year already rolls for me. Be mindful of the order and assign the seat to the petitioner. Let my sons and my sons' sons hold it as their own." Such were his pleas; he settled him on the hill of Chebron. Also Ardoc, not discolored among great cities, is added. After these deeds, he hastens to destroy the race of Dabiram, whose accustomed work it is to write down compliant speech and for grave masters to dictate letters to boys. He draws forth the man to the promised covenants, to his daughter. His virtue is ready and his spirit present in his breast. Meanwhile, all peoples are forced to serve; the Jebusaean hand does not cease from its ancestral fields, with Chanan persisting at home and in the roofs of his parents. The remaining lands, measured out, are given to the three times three tribes. For the Levites, he justly separates twice six cities and gives them as a refuge for one fearing a wrongful deed, lest punishment afflict the committed sins by chance. The leaders command the balanced things.

to weigh with a balance, so that a heavier crime may condemn the guilty one with a fitting penalty. He himself devotes forty cities of the Levites, exempt from interest. Then, with the unanimous voice of the people, he accepts the hill of Ephraim for future times, joined to a city which bore the name Thamnatha. Here he placed knives prepared from hard rock, with which he had cut off obscene limbs, so to speak. When all was completed, the companions, wishing to return, across the stagnant waters of the Jordan, he, wandering, began with these words: "A grateful band to us and chosen by the Thunderer, you have merited honors equal to your brave deeds, which the Almighty gave to all. Those who have built houses on these hills. And now return rejoicing. I will often warn you, repeating this for all: that you be mindful of how great a care the Almighty loves you perpetually, what rewards he has given you; and what things he has established to be done by holy words, know that they must be observed. For eternal life is sought by these things, if the grace of the law remains unoffended by God and always dwells in the heart. Therefore, let God and Lord be feared and loved together with all our innards and from our whole heart: thus it will happen that your yoke will press down the nations." * When he had given these words and prayed for all, they complete the journey they had begun and approach the river, and place a conspicuous structure with a turreted summit. Where, when it was made for the tribes, nine monuments become visible.

as if forgetful of the Lord, they desire to clash in war: yet first, envoys are sent who could ascertain the truth; Phineas is chosen, the worthy heir of Aaron, and ten of the first of the tribes by merit and rank, who, mindful of the commands, together with the elders and the fathers, unfold them, although the sorrowful ones had no guilt: "Tell us, what was the care for the constructed shrine? Has God fallen away? Are the sacred oracles of the law? Therefore, with the Thunderer abandoned, do you seek pagan rites and build altars for the dead while living? Did Phagorus give too small monuments to all, condemned to a shameful destruction in a rash venture? These things they command out of hatred for the nations, the peoples and the fathers, while they prepare a social war and take up arms again. Were too few acres of land given to you, which pleased you? Or if it pleases you to extend your borders and advance, take from our fields: provided that the synagogue, always sacred to the starry Thunderer, be the parent, and not stand apart from us in discord. Let the deed of the mad Achan remind your senses, when he fashioned lifeless idols from hard stones. Did not the avenger strike down the people for the crime of one man, a headlong evil? Did he not act because of the guilt of one?" They, humble, reply with flattering words such as these: "We worship the one who created all with a pious word and who sees the crimes clinging in silent fibers; nor is it necessary to call witnesses to public deeds: God himself knows what cause built the altar.

It was our concern to build a perpetual dam at the rivers, so that the captured land might remain as a testimony: lest at some future time reproaches arise for the offspring of believers, the divided oracles of the holy temple. We do not know the vain offerings presented to the gods. Let not such great madness change the pious, that anything should please which displeases the high Lord! It is lawful for us only to sacrifice and lay low what the synagogue has been accustomed to offer to the eternal God." With these words, manifest faith and the peaceful tribunes, adorned with praises and merits, left rejoicing. Meanwhile, the prophet, already aged by long years, filled the summoned people with faithful admonitions: "Do you see, citizens, how long-lived old age weighs me down and my limbs are slowed by final motion? And now either I warn, or, if it does not displease, I beg, that your life be God, the law, always on your lips, and that what He has granted to us and to all the fathers of our ancestors, a mindful utterance may unfold with fateful speech. For the savage peoples, whose kingdoms you now hold, our sword did not subdue, our bow did not strike down. But the Lord, who piously led the standards and the army, going before us, whenever the enemy is at close quarters; who subdued such great peoples by sending icy fear and made kings yield to us; and who, preparing empty fields for our cultivators after war, ordered the wild beasts to burst forth, so that they might consume the remaining part with hired bites.

Therefore, act and learn to claim the dried-up sea for yourselves, and the river halted in its unaccustomed course, frozen solid, if the thin water above is not yet drawn into ice, hardened by the summer heat, so that God may receive well-deserved praises for the immense deed through vast ages. While a harmonious tongue sings in applause that nothing is higher than the one God. Proceed where the teachable precept of the law leads: lest the wanderer, driven by various twists, go astray. Let no idols from the conquered people remain. Let the lofty and immense God be your lord. But if empty things please you and dead divinities are dear to your heart, say so. I will depart, lest they harm those who worship vanities. Choose, all of you, what is suitable for you. The omnipotent one abandons and far rejects those who flee, he who once promised all joyful things to the prophet, his friend, under the monuments of the pestilent Balak. Behold what you hold, how strong are the enemies you have overthrown, and how much God adds to all the faithful. Worship him and bind your strong minds to the law." The people's harmonious judgment responded to the prophet: "Accept, great leader, what trust we have; we worship him who deigned to lead us out of the Nile lands, and we all acknowledge him alone as the God of heaven, earth, and the deep sea, by whose command the waters of the Red Sea opened, and who gave signs most fitting to our prayers, who subjected all peoples to our steps." When the people had spoken these faithful words, the praiseworthy page is read from the sacred beginnings. The old man himself places the terebinth stone in the codex.

So that it may be a witness of the eternal faith to be known. Therefore, when the best leader of life had completed his deeds—his life having been stretched through a hundred years and ten—he died, and by merit gave his limbs to a tomb on the hill of Ephraim, which had been a suitable place for his abode. Because of his merit of justice, he was mourned by no friend: only the knives of the nobles were joined to his ashes, with which the youth of Judea had been circumcised, and his bones, placed in Shechem by Joseph, rest, in which also the limbs of Jacob had been buried. After him, Eleazar leaves behind his earthly deeds. Therefore, after such great men had performed their notable deeds and died, the Gentile people took up worship and idols, fleeing from the Lord of the earth and the Lord of the heavens. Because of the deeds of the tyrant Eglon, he was subjected, and lived as a captive for fourteen years. JUDGES. After Joshua had departed in conspicuous deed and God had returned his servant to peace after the wars, Judea, swelling up, immediately demanded a king for itself. And it begins to ask the Lord what the judgment might be, so that the Canaanite band, which had not yet been subdued in war, turning rival hearts in warlike tumult, might become accustomed to approach the commands with drawn sword. Judah is placed over them, who, with his brother Simeon, immediately extinguishes the Canaanites in battle brought upon them. With them, the Perizzites are laid low in mingled slaughter: about ten thousand fell in poured-out blood. The head of the war himself, the cause of great evils, was the leader and prince Adoni-bezek: wandering, he is seized and pays the penalties deserved for his crime.

For without measure, with hands and feet cut off at once, he mourns with abundant tears the limbs he does not have, and those he does bear, while the wicked one rages with a similar act: he had previously cut off the bodies of seventy kings. Therefore he paid the penalties he had inflicted, and, hanging with fitting evils, he departed from Solyma and left the kingdom. Jerusalem itself is also captured, burned with flames, and falls, violently torn apart by a vast ruin. After Chebron falls, and the Canaanite youth. Which holds the high ridges of the land rising into the sky. Then Dabira is captured, fertile in trembling warfare. The tongue of learned speech unfolds its numbers. And the walls, swifter in their collapse, gave way. He offered to join his daughter Ascha in marriage to Chaleb, her father, who, with strong arms, had arduously overturned the crooked citadels from their foundations. Immediately, inflamed for the use of his promised wife, Gothoniezelus, the praised offspring of Geneza; and when he had fulfilled his joys with completed vows, he receives the earned reward with the great dowry of the parent.

For he gave lofty fields and steep hills with curved slopes, and provided the desired use of waters. The dismissed Phoenicians hasten, and leaving the familiar walls, they search the solitary sands of the desert. They swiftly arrive where the south wind, stirred up, spreads its wings and covers the stars with shadowy clouds. A home is made for both, which they call by the name Arad. And Amalek is joined to the pleasing fields, having been summoned. Then Judah seeks Sephet, with its Canaanite cultivator, and addresses the subdued land with a grievous name, so that it might be an exile and always made separate. He could not subdue Gaza alone with his scepter, nor Ascalon and Accaron, nor bring the territories of Azotus under his rule. He himself, trusting in God and joined to the eternal Lord, easily seized successes in every war. He possessed the mountain, because he could not subdue the curved valley, which had been the vow of strong Caleb. After these deeds, the cohort of Joseph, together with the avenger Judah, hasten to Bethel to cut it down with warlike iron. It had previously been Luza; time changed its name. When they had surrounded the walls with a terrifying assembly, they capture by chance a certain man coming out, and they ask him to teach them the approaches to the city, by which, entering with a dense column, they might be able to break the iron gates. The first reward for the young man was to demand his life, which he merited, rejoicing to tear down his ancestral rampart as a traitor, secretly penetrating his own walls by stealth: while he ransoms himself, he sold his kindred city, and after the destruction of his allies, he flies to the fields of Ceta and builds a hall from the name of his fatherland.

On the other side, Manasses did not hold the estates of Bethsa, which had been captured by Scythian colonists, nor Tanac and his daughters, nor the heights of Dora, nor Balaam, nor the fields of Madog joined to these; for the Canaanite had been accustomed to these lands under the stars. He alone, after all were captured by the avenging Judea, earned the right not to lose his ancestral homes in the midst, being accustomed to provide the benefit of perpetual tribute. Only he, whom Midian fosters, whom the cultivation of Bethsa supports, paid no tax to the enemy. Nor was he less fearless; while he scorns the war of the Amorites, he drives out the offspring of Dan and restrains them with the sword, since, dwelling on a swelling hill, he had not given easy retreats to the subdued plains; he inhabited the mountain, where a great multitude of wild beasts swarms and frightens the glades with varied roaring. Then the scattered host conceives returning wrath and, inflamed by its wounds, goes forth more warlike. And soon it strips the victor of his lifted honor and orders the Amorite to pay the imposed tribute, and restrains him, punished by a great part of the lands. For where the plain of fertile Idumea lies, and where the rocky cliffs of swelling Crabina rise, the victor holds all; subjection oppresses the servitude. Amid these, the lord shakes his gathered wrath. And he orders a servant to descend from the heavenly realms, who, mindful, would set forth the eternal words of the lord. He flies forth, gleaming. He visits Clauthmona from Galgala.

Coming to Bethelam, where the Jewish youth had taken up sweet leisure in times of peace after the wars, they had venerated the gentile gods and had long since given harmful profane incense to sculpted stones. Therefore, he addresses them with these words and terrifies the fearful: "Forgetful of your rule and unmindful of your own affairs, where, Judea, are you rushing? Or what gods are you now fashioning? What superstition is it to prefer earth to heaven and to stand with mad devotion before earthen gods? Where, profane one, has the god gone who, while you groaned under the harsh Pharaoh tyrant among the Nile peoples, through the divided sea, through the parched rocks of the desert, showed such great things and gave you so many nations to yield, so that you, victorious and having fully completed all wars, would flow apart, dedicating other rites and sacred things than those which the rule of the starry law had given you? Behold, you hold the land sworn by the sacred prophets, which was and is given to the chosen people through the ages. The testaments of my word are no longer known, by which, mixed with gentile peoples and with evil persuasions, you beseech mute gods, the pledges of craftsmen. Rather, it would have been more fitting for your life to crush all things and to turn away the fabricated cults. But because no trust is placed in my commands, I will give kingdoms to the conquered; I will again send you under the yoke, so that you may be like the gods whom you believe in." After Judea received the commands of God, she turns to groans and, beating her sad breast, with abundant tears begs for pardon; nor was there any delay in her vows, and through the holy temples of God, piety follows those who seek, which joyfully unlocks for the sorrowful.

Therefore the scattered people gladly return to their familiar homes and give the place a name of lamentation. *** Again their hearts waver, they return to their usual crimes and worship Baal; by such offenses against the Lord they suffer well-deserved punishments for their false gods. They are subjected to masters whom they had conquered—alas, bitter grief!—and their conscious virtue responds to the wretched ones nowhere. Soon the anger of God is appeased and leaders are created, who rashly snatched the people into danger. When these too are despised, their usual madness resurges, and they not only unite in rites: they mix alliances, dedicate unshorn groves, and rebuild altars. Yet their deeds do not proceed unpunished: they are oppressed by servitude and tremble before King Achusa Rathomum, who then gave laws where the twin rivers divide the island, separating the Persians from the Assyrian border. He restrained the subjects for eight returning years. At last Judea groaned, deservedly guilty, and prostrate begs the Lord; who, moved by a friendly deity, restores the comforts of life to the fearful: for a savior is sent, present, and brings salvation to the people, and the warrior wipes away the sad cares from their breast. He is sown from Cenez, the hero Gothozelus, vigorous with his brother Chaleb, but younger in age. The spirit of the Lord raised him, renowned for the gift of virtue, and placed him on a high seat. This man, strong and faithful to God, took away the dangers from the conquered and forced the fearful king to serve. In such matters Judea prevailed for many years and was subject to no deceit.

After the prince had completed the course of his life and passed away, the joyful people reformed their ancient rites; times changed, and war and servitude were imminent. The peoples whom King Eglon led—the Ammonites, Moabites, and the strong Amalekites—rushed together, and with an iron hail they mowed down the Hebrew battle line, and even tore the victorious scepter from the Phoenicians. The nobles who sought to escape death surrendered. Having endured ten lords and eight harvests, the nation, bent by these evils, shuddered at what it had done and called upon God, who alone forgives sins. Straightaway, Aoth was chosen to take up the scepter; this man, striving with both hands, with the strength of his right hand, felt his left hand to be no burden under the weight, though it was weak. When he was bearing gifts for the victor from his allies, with a two-edged sword secretly girded beneath his garment, and having been admitted, he then prostrated himself, leaning on the weak king; for the king’s limbs, emptied by luxury, tottered so much that he could fall with a slight push. Aoth affirmed that he had more to say, and asked the crowded throng of companions to withdraw. His request was granted, and the barbarian leader, sitting in the middle of the hall, rose and, having been drawn close, joined himself with his whole body; and after the band of faithful had withdrawn far off, he snatched the sword from his thigh, which his garment concealed, and drove it through the king’s belly up to the hilt, burying it entirely. He then rushed out, leaving the iron in the wound, and closed the thresholds and proud doorposts behind the nobles.

The servants marvel that their master, accustomed to go out for his duties, stands alone in the silent chamber, perhaps to release the burden of his belly from his drawn-in womb in secret, while he avoids the eyes of the companion crowd. And now, mindful of the deed, Aodus provokes his allies to war and mingles the terrible sounds of trumpets: swiftly moving the standards, he blocks the banks of the Jordan, so that no one can cross the shallow waters. And when he had laid low ten thousand with the hard sword, he restored to his allies their lost name and glory. Thenceforth wars fall silent, battles give no motion, and weapons cease for twice four times ten years. After this, Semegras, proud with equal valor, ruled the Jewish peoples and left them renowned. But while joys feed on secure affairs, the fierce nation spurns God and, with vain prayer to wretched deities, consecrates altars to those it has conquered. Therefore they are exercised by punishments and pay penalties worthy of their crime. Iabinus, a royal hero, with a Canaanite force gathered from the Assyrian youth, fights with Sisara as leader and commander of the army, and fills the ironclad ranks with nine hundred chariots. And although he draws immense troops in a faithful column, a greater terror drives them: for with flying axle, the four-footed hoof shakes the crumbling plain with its sound. The Solymi are conquered, the Canaanite raging everywhere, and they lead twice ten Decembers through each sorrowful thing. At no other time does the prophetess Debbora rule, whose husband was Lapidotha, and whose seat was Metibile, bearing law to the peoples, leaning on the trunk of a palm.

She summons the noble Barac from the city of Cades, and, imbued with the warnings of God, she commands two thousand five hundred Sisarean troops to stand against him. He fears and asks the prophetess for an ally in war, not knowing that the palm of victory for the great enterprise would be lacking for him if he did not also call her to the camp. To whom the first glory belongs: but the woman, by her sex alone, takes up new duties and moves chosen cohorts through cultivated barbarian lands to the river Cison. Coming there, with its steep current it rolls stones and, swelling, rejoices to overcome its banks. And now the phalanxes have come within a spear's throw, when the Lord, in whom resides the power by which he changes the stars, by which the earth trembles, by which the thunderbolt blazes in the clouds, by which he moves the uncertain sea with a receding surge, by sending terror, puts Sisara to flight; he, headlong in misfortune, abandons his chariot and, seizing every byway, leaves the youth in the midst of the battle to fall. And, driven by thirst—for he had fled the enemy on foot— he asks Jael for drink; soon, covered by a woman's hide covering, he hastens to live by the gift; but Jael, seeking praise, scorns the idle man and, hastening, pierces the hollow temples of the man with a stake. He, seized by a cold death, with flowing brain, breathes out his thin life through his pierced skull. Then the nobles sing with a similar speech to the Thunderer: "Whoever you are who are renowned in your kingdom, who rule great cities, who hold satrapies or scepters second to the king, prostrate, venerate God. Give fitting

Songs; for the Lord does not wish to compel you otherwise, He who shakes the lands, who shakes the rocks, who with the blast moves the sea and furrows the blackening clouds with thunder, who raises the lowly from the small, who changes the great. Sing sweet-sounding choruses. Let the hills and the grove respond, and let the air renew praises with ringing sounds. And let the murmurs of your voice immediately harmonize. The Lord looked upon those whom He had abandoned, and to the broken He restored command, and received them back from the midst of the enemy." Therefore, a wondrous rest endures for forty years. And while the people enjoy blessings, with guilt returning once more, what had been condemned pleases them; for they joyfully set up idols and abandon the name and divinity of the Lord. The offended Lord destroyed them over seven years and ordered the fearful to serve the king of Midian. They do not dare to give themselves to any plain, nor to offer their breasts to the foe, but rejoice only in hiding within walls: they fortify camps and lofty defenses out of fear, and even hidden in hollow vaults they still grow pale. Then all their livestock is seized, then all their fields begin to be burned, and nothing but punishment is left within the enclosures. Therefore, poor and fearing both famine and the sword, they return to the Lord God, whom the suppliant crowd

He is moved and sends a prophet bearing pious commands, so that at last they may remember their affairs and the recent war and worship the Lord, who with favorable power recalled the beloved people from the Pharian city, lest again, while they burn forbidden flames on altars, they should not always incur the easy wrath of the godhead. Then a messenger of God sat under a pleasant oak and urges Gideon, while he threshes grain, with these words: "Come now, break your delays! The Lord has ordered you to take up the scepter, by which you may be able to lead the people away from deceit." He teaches that the Lord, hostile with biting words on all sides, weighs out too grievous ruins; and even that the people, now with no soldier, weary, and he himself not strong enough, cannot persist in war. He is urged to serve God, who with lofty strength terrifies manifold battle lines with invincible power. He nods to the commands and asks the holy one for a meal; a young goat is chosen, which, filled only with milk, softer than all, wandered ignorant of grass; soon snow-white unleavened loaves made from flour are placed: these, with the young man admonished, he pours onto a nearby rock, himself stretching out his hand from the topmost point of a rod, touches, and leaves the man in the middle of his speech. Therefore, when Gideon saw that the Lord's minister had flitted before his eyes, he ponders with pious mind, immediately raises an altar consecrated to the Lord and gave the place a name and called it Peace. Warned by nocturnal visions, the gentile temples...

He tears down the groves and uproots them from the deep root. And lest the impious father bring contrary quarrels, by night he silently overturns the ill-made structures, setting up a young bull at the overturned temples. When these things are discovered and the sudden ruins inflame their spirits, the author of the deed is sought throughout the walls, and it is taught that Gideon laid waste the groves. Joash is demanded to surrender his son for the crime. He refuses, recalling that the gods are his avengers and ought to protect their own, if they exist and live. This spirit of the Lord strengthens Gideon for battle, and now the trumpets sound, the horn gives the signal. The Lord is prayed to, that celestial dews may flow like shorn fleece in the night-time: without delay, it moistens and, pressed, fills a basin; then he placed another again, and the dry ground felt the frosty liquids not, while the fleece remained dry. To these things another is added, that twice ten thousand of the people and two more should again command the fearful to return, and that the total for contending be set at ten thousand. Warned, he also diminishes this, lest the crowd, trusting in its own strength, should not perceive the Lord’s arms. As the prince of youths leads the line to the river, and orders them to lap the flowing waters like dogs, so that he might have comrades of joyful valor.

Three hundred men were pleasing; for the rest of the crowd, languid, did not take the shown tastes. They were about to return to their own seats, as if ignorant of battle. Relying on this wedge, he brings war to so many thousands, as many men as cannot be counted, and whom it is the custom to sum up with the fingers of an outstretched hand by the master art. On one side, lines of horsemen mixed with companies of foot-soldiers; on the other, countless camels with their grim bulk. But Gideon, hastening with the attendant Pharan as a follower, seeks the enemy camp, and, covered by dark night, he goes down, and surveying the position and the minds and spirits, he heard a comrade telling a dream, which, poorly asleep, he had noted with wakeful sense. For he seemed to see a loaf of bread rolled to him, the kind which barley makes whenever wheat is denied, and to roll various shapes through the camp, through the army: until he came through the middle of the fortifications of the rampart and deeply invaded the king's seat with its weight. These portents of the man foretold that it was an omen of blood, and they said that the end of Midian had come. Then, after the youth, having venerated the lord, departed, the dreams, then discovered, he begins to interpret to the men more loftily, and soon leads his hand in a triple column.

Horned weapons, trumpets, and torches he places in their hands, and orders himself to be an example of their toils for his men. And they, offering thanks to God, begin the battle. Lest the Lord be absent, by whose leadership they might conquer. Already the first hour of the night had changed the watchmen, when they rush swiftly at the gates and tear down the closed bars, and fill the trumpets with blasts of wind; then they whirl water-jars, which, shattered by their great weight, burst apart. They leap and make sounds with resonant air, and raise broken voices to the stars. Columns of flames, stretched out on the left, flash and overcome the night with much radiant light. By this uproar, their minds are shaken, terror fills all: wherever a gate is given, they rush out and abandon the terrified camp. Soon all Judea gathers and follows the fugitives; some seize well-watered springs and roaring rivers, lest the scattered enemy host, rushing with dry veins from fear, run into the arms of the guards. Nor did so many fall by this deceit; for with a downward charge, the leaders of Midian, Oreb and Axes, come, implacable, and take up iron instead of the flood. And although envy of their valor had twisted those who had been far away and lacked common praise, yet Gideon, with eloquence and suppliant speech, soothed them, because they held the twin monuments of the leaders. After the war, he asks for feasts at Soccoth in a friendly manner.

The rest of the battle’s action is scorned. The enemy kings are even said to live; yet he suspends them for punishment and withdraws, threatening. Then he completes the work begun. He clings to the fleeing. He finds the Sabaeans encamped in Harran, harvesting; for they were massing an army of forty thousand after the disaster, where a hundred thousand had fallen by the sword and twenty thousand at the same time: this number renewed the war. But the whole people, entangled in their own merits, fell. Zebeus the leader, after so many deaths of his men, and Salmana flee; for their spirit, conquered by danger, clung to the final mockery of fate. For Gideon leads the captured equally through each place and displays them to the men, who earlier, with harsh murmuring, had laughed with stupid guffaws at him demanding food. Without delay, the guilty limbs are dragged through briars, and the unshorn men’s blood bedews the thorns. Moreover, lest any trace of such a crime remain, the city is overthrown by the sword and falls, and the threatening towers, utterly convulsed, drag down a long ruin. Afterwards he orders the kings to be brought forth publicly, whom a crowd of the wondering people surrounds on all sides; then he ordered them to say whom and how many men they had laid low in their proud slaughter, by which Judea perishes. They said there were so many that the passion of the kings’ sons betrayed their forms.

He turns over his brothers in his fraternal heart, gazing at the attire of the slain, as if he clings to their bodies. Then, moved, he speaks thus: "I call you to witness, holy Almighty of the gods, and the sublime deeds of your right hand, that you may grant a memorable reward to a woman’s praise." Tholamus follows him. He was twenty-three years old and troubled by no plague of war. Then Iadirus of Galaditicus flourishes, and, equally powerful in peace, he holds the scepter for twenty years... Very wealthy, rejoicing in thirty children, noble. He holds the kingdom for twenty-two years. After his death, new idols suddenly grow; for besides the accustomed altars of the demon Astarath, and the gods of Assyria or Sidon and Moab, Judea prepared rites previously unknown to it. Because of these, pressed by harsh wars with the Ammonites, it endured twenty winters, worn out by dangers. Finally, from on high, it recalls and at last revolves that God is more to be appeased, who by his supreme power can settle even the long-standing guilt of the people.

and renews the sacred laws of God: for at once they cast aside the altars and all the gods, and shatter the stone idols, mindful of the Thunderer who endures through the ages. Meanwhile the order changes with distinct courses, and the people choose a leader who, with a steadfast soldier, can govern cities either in war or in peace. A certain man born of Gilead pleased them, Jephthah, whose nobility was tainted by his mother, who had lived promiscuously prostrated under men in a brothel. His brothers drove him from the house because he was a disgraced heir, lacking a known father, and clung to his mother's property. Fleeing them in fear, he found companions of crimes among the shady hills and seized plunder. But on the other side, Ammon was waging war, pressing the Jebusites and the Solymi; Judah lacked a leader and, weakened, offered easy triumphs. Young men are sent to meet Jephthah, renowned in war, and with flattering persuasion they summon him to battle. At first he refuses aid; soon he joins the ranks and, holding command, drives back the Ammonite enemies. But first, prepared to quell the war with a speech,

He gave commands to the envoys, who then returned and report that nothing has been accomplished and that the enemy is pressing. Thus, when the grace of the longed-for peace was laid aside, Jephthah rushes to arms and, having prayed to the Lord, vows great vows, vows that will much grieve a parent. Forthwith, whoever first should meet him on his return was to become a perpetual victim worthy of the Thunderer. After these acts, he advances exultantly and, with a chosen band, moves the standards and puts the enemies to flight, whom, finishing them off in bloody slaughter, he swiftly destroys twenty cities. But while he returns, while he himself is the herald of his own praise and a long triumphal procession follows in victory, his daughter, who alone tended her father's household tasks, runs to meet him and, with a crowd of companions, sings a charming song and, rising on tiptoe, reaches up for kisses. When her father saw her, he tears his rent garments and stirs his seeing eyes to tears. "Alas, my victory is fatal to me! This was rather an enemy's vow! Where are you running, daughter, where are you rushing? This is the last time I speak to you. For while I was moving the standards and calling upon the Lord for protection, you were made a victim to stand at the holy altars for God." But the maiden, heedless of herself and blessed in death, exults all the more sweetly and plays amid the perils.

He even begs that his own judgment be certain, and that the parent should not doubt nor hesitate. (And the sparing one) prays for time. Who could lament his youth with tears? It is granted, and two months are granted to the one rejoicing. Therefore, the prescribed day arrived, and the father, as priest, sent the virgin's mind to the heavens for the Lord. Amidst this, the madness of the people rushes to arms, and fury drives kindred battle lines, and gnawing envy. While it tears apart the man's pious deeds, he himself perishes: for thirty-two thousand fall by the sword from your peoples, Ephraim, and the victor in the duel, Jephthah, also earned civil triumphs. Judea, bereaved of its former leader, changes its leader. An Israelite, first Esebon, later called leader, took up the reins of the chosen fatherland as governor. Father of many: for there were forty sons from lawful marriages, such great hope of descendants, keeping thirty wives at one time. After completing seven years while he judges as ruler, he dies and, covered by a tomb, leaves worldly things behind. Helon the Zebulunite follows and holds the scepter, who, as ruler for two five-year periods, leaves the reins of governance. To him is quickly subjected Prince Abdon the Pirathonite.

The father of thirty daughters; for the male offspring was fourteen, though he was much richer with a stepmother's offspring and the number of bastards. He obtains the people's judgment for eight years. And while the sole worship of God prevailed, perpetual peace was preserved for the joyful; for idols, worshipped again, stirred up bloody war for the men; for the Lord subdued all the warriors with arms and made them pay the penalty for forty years. In those times the young man Manoah flourished, not yet a father; for joined to a barren wife, he prayed with vows to rejoice in the titles of children. The Lord, gliding down from above the ether, stood by this man's wife, promising the gifts of an unusual birth, commanding that the child not touch wine or strong drink, nor allow him to pluck spotted things with a wide bite, for this reason, that he would be more fortunate than all mothers and would make up for the loss of number in one. "For a noble virtue will arise. No one will be permitted to violate the unconquered head or wound it with iron. Chosen by the Lord from the fertile womb of the mother, so that he may be able to save the people and, fierce in repelling war, turn losses against the enemy maniples." She came and confessed to her husband; for she said she had seen a fiery face of a man and the honor of a shining god, and that the Thunderer had been silent when she asked the name of the god.

He will be a Nazirite, the one born from you," he said. Manoah aids his wife with joined vows; the holy one who was sent should recount the pious words and kindle a new light, by which she might be able to know what is fitting for the boy, who is loved before he is born. Straightaway he is sent from heaven, and, revealing new things, he hastens; and seeing the bride lying on the grass, with her husband set aside, he at once stands near. She rises and runs to her husband; she begins to tell what she had seen. He follows, trembling, and rejoicing to see the holy one, and he sees a face shining with extraordinary light. He approaches and asks the man if he speaks the truth, what he wishes to be done, having explained. With a serene countenance, the angel declares that it is right for equal things to be observed by all, and that the one to be born should not lend his face to unclean things. He should not drink wine or beer, nor should he take any cups by which he might be able to drive his mind from sense. The rejoicing young man gives a goat to the holy one to take; soon, rather, he is ordered to offer the customary gifts to the Thunderer. He asks that they be accepted as a gift for the sake of life. They also ask to learn the name of the lord. That which no one can search out: for it is wondrous. Then the young man brings forth the offerings entrusted to him, placing the goat-born offspring at the holy altars.

Soon, however, rising with flames to the bright stars, his head struck the heavens and held the sky. Through him the holy one, conspicuous, was climbing the clouds. Without delay, the promised offspring swells the womb, and the desired child is given, whom the fathers named with a certain name: Samson; this name pleased both. And while the boy first sets his tottering steps, he walks with God accompanying him; for a spirit was his guide, before whom the earth trembles, to whom the stars are subject. Relying on him, he went through the camps of the Danites and the Thalians. Then, with his body now growing, he came to Timnah, where he was captivated by the beauty of a conspicuous girl. He speaks to the parents; he demands the wife: they dissemble and deny what is permitted, because the woman is not from his own tribes. He insists more vehemently, affirming and swearing that the parents pleased him, whoever they may be: the sought-after girl is married to the suitor. And while he walks through green vineyards with joyful vines and moves his silent gaze over each thing, behold, a lion rules in the pathless wilds of Maxilla: with a terrifying roar, lashing itself with its tail, shaking its muscles, it comes to meet him with open mouth. He, catching it—for it was no effort—with a rush of his right hand, tears it apart and scatters it, its limbs torn asunder. Endowed with the gift of silent virtue, he hides the deed and rejoices, content with his mind as witness. After some days he himself returns and seeks the prey: but here, a horrible and, in speech, a wondrous monster.

He sees honey in the middle of the lion's jaws, mixed with a yellow comb. He immediately takes it, and having tasted it with his own mouth, he offers it more confidently to his distinguished brothers, a young man. And already he had begun to be feared by many because of his exceptional reputation for valor. Therefore, accompanied by thirty men of outstanding virtue, he goes out; then a question is posed to all, and, ensnaring the ignorant, he jokes much. They are to produce garments woven at once from snowy thread. If they are unable to speak the truth. Beginning, he rolls up various words in a figure: "From the jaw of a man came forth common food. Sweeter than honey, it flowed from a strong body." When no one could utter this with a truthful mouth, and after seven days the penalty returned to his friends, they, confused, devised tricks and, hating their companion, came to their fellow citizen, whom we said before had pleased her husband in marriage. And they threaten, asking that Samson, tricked, reveal the secret: and if he does not do so, they testify that avenging flames exist. Terrified, she soothes the hard hearts of her husband with womanly weeping: for he keeps it hidden. And remembering, why should she, garrulous, demand what she did not tell her own parent and mother? But what womanly weeping would not compel to yield? He is overcome and lays bare the secrets of his silent mind. And she teaches the men. On the seventh day of light, the setting world was pale with uncertain light: the companions respond: "What is sweeter than honey, or what

A stronger force can be a lion shaking its mane. The hero immediately recognizes the deceptions of his wife and says: "O young men, this is not your judgment: for unless the woman had coaxed me with flattering persuasion, the question mixed with causes would not have been known." Then the spirit of God sends the young man against the enemies; he cuts down thirty, exulting, and as everything falls, the victor takes the garments and offers them to his own, as he had said. And gradually the seeds of virtues grow in the man; for his father-in-law, led by the desire of a fickle mind, denies the wife to the young man and himself places the denied woman with an outsider. Later, inflamed and bitter, lest he perhaps seek her back, he promises the younger daughter if he should wish. "O greatest avenger!" he exclaims, and with fierce eyes he threatens monstrously, long eager to avenge such audacities, he finds a use for his rage. He eagerly captures three hundred foxes, and with their tails bound together, joined in pairs in order, he sends them throughout the olive groves and vineyards of the pleasant hill, driving them, and places burning lamps on their tails. Scarcely released, they head for the fertile fields. Wherever they hasten, they drag wide fires. Immediately, devouring fire, increased by the winds' blasts, rolls; the flames rise and the dragged fires follow. The deceptions do not lie hidden. A gathered crowd of farmers, slain by such great evils, assembles and demands the young man's wife and the parent himself.

They throw [flames] and burn the roofs of the houses. Thus the mound was what punishment was; the flame, what a tomb was. That man is sharpened by grievous vengeance. For he threatens many things. He gives a vast ruin with slaughter to enemies and his own. Meanwhile, three thousand young men burn with hatred from the tribe of Judah, to kill Samson, such a great soldier, and so many thousands seek one man with the sword. But the young man soon takes up arms and begs his allies, who are pressing, to allow wars to be undertaken for glory. As he wished, faith was done: then they loosen the flaxen bonds, which nine times connect the arms with knots; he is driven from the rock. He arrives at the edge of Jawbone, and the gathered crowd rejoiced to see the captive. And while greedy, they stretch out their right hands and threaten with a horrible roar, he pulls his hands and breaks the linen bonds, then (for what does anger not provide?) he seizes the curved jawbone of a slow donkey, leaning upon it: with this (a wondrous thing) he strikes and kills a thousand men. And when thirst, with dry lung, would remind the young man to hope for help from God, who creates all things from no seed, to whom, when he wished, a parched thing is a spring... who by command either waters dry places or dries up rivers, who among vast rocks and burning desert loosened flowing rivers from hard crags: without delay, a cleft opens in the light bone of the jaw, a river flows, and the stream trembles in its fleeing course.

The young man is filled with drink from a heavenly spring. He performs wonders and sees great things, he deserves praise, under whose command twice-ten Judea, powerful in its circuits, shone forth. Trusting in this man as leader and soldier, he then departed and came to Gaza, where a base woman sold her nights, wounded, to hot young men. He approached her. This was soon the first cause of danger. Behold, the Gazan band flies and with a barrier secures the hard gates and places iron chains beneath: holding him shut in, it delights to toy with him as if captured. About the middle of the night, sleep leaves Samson; roused, he rages immensely: then, striking the thresholds, he tears out the twin posts from the creaking hinge and, taking up the burden, swiftly carries it over the heights of the opposite mountain ridge far off. And, stronger than dangers, the warrior is (hence) captured by the love of Delilah. All the men whom spite drove to overcome the unconquered man approached her, so that, joined to his bed, she might soothe him, softened by sweet allurements, and soon what reinforcements might stir his strength, what seeds nourish such might: does nature make him so strong, or art? If she should sing what is said, they affirm a gift to be given. The young man, entreated, says: "If I am bound with seven sinews, which moisture has not yet left, I will lose all my strength and become more sluggish than all." That woman, deceiving the deceiver, instructs her own. The young man is constricted by the hard strength of the sinews.

Those whom with a slight touch he tore apart like soft fleeces. And then, consulted, he says that ropes are to be feared, untouched ones, which are undone by no seam. She binds the man with those, when already, exhausted by toil, his drooping chest breathed forth a thin sleep. As soon as he felt the knots, he beats the air and laughed at them, like cobwebs he leads. Twice eluded in various ways, yet she dared to pray, again trying Samson with a veiled request. He answered, quite differently, not truly to the one asking: "Loosen my locks and, twisting them back again, weave them mindful. Plaiting, not more than one cubit; thus it will happen that my strength, stripped of its vigor, perishes." What had been foretold, she does, and fearfully unrolling, she ties with a suspended right hand, and bending back the stakes, she binds him, and Delilah hands over the captive to his companions: leaping up, he throws back the stakes and unties the hair. Nothing fears her so often perjured, and so often repulsed, she again swears with tears, ill-sane, prepared, and she learned all the art, by which it might be easier. Nor does his mind, softened, now bear the feigned griefs, and the fraud, but the beloved woman revealed dire things to herself. "I am a Nazirite of the Lord, believe, everlasting. And my strength is in my hair, nor is the blade for the hair...

With an iron blade he cuts: if anyone drives it in, he makes the neck bare, the crown a bald scalp. "This will be for me a sure end of virtue unbought." After these words, faith is manifest: soon, having taken the gift, the woman warms Samson in her lap; she removes all his strength, and the hired barber cuts his hair for a fee. Samson is shaken from his bed. Changed and yet the same, he is seized. His god together with his strength leaves him. Immediately he is bereaved of both eyes; for with the sockets dug out, they leave empty hollows, and he mourns, his legs bound tight with a fetter; yet he does not know the shadow he possesses, blind. Confined in prison, he turns a millstone with his right hand's force: thus with a double weight, the use of his sides helps him. No long time passes before the honor of returning hair: the shorn locks are renewed. At the same time, they restore with themselves both strength and glory. Behold, on a certain day, many nobles gather to perform a solemn rite for the god whom they worship in vain, a deity they have. They call him Dagon by his former name. Here, while they rejoice at the downfall of the imprisoned Samson, far off in the middle of the temple's vault, they order the man, now ready to conquer, to be summoned. And he, ordered to die, is dragged forth, and with loosened laughter he provides causes for wickedness from his blind light. By chance, the whole house was hanging, supported by twin columns: between these, driving, he grasps both.