Heptateuch (the first seven books of the Bible in verse) 1.1277–2.396

For dreams that are joined in double visions God the Thunderer commands to stand sure, joined together. “Rather, while the time is at hand, while there is room for remedy, choose one who, foreknowing these things, with judges appointed, may govern all Egypt from on high and demand back a fifth of every harvest, so that the plenty first given to the fertile lands may sustain the barren years when the crops are consumed.” The prophet’s counsel is received with the nobles’ applause. The king himself too, his heart at last calmed, raises to lofty honour the one who recounted heavenly truths and orders him to be borne as governor through all the cities. Then he crowns the prophet’s finger with a shining ring, soon wraps him in linen cloaks with a saffron robe; a pliant chain is put around his neck, and the new ruler stands higher in a chariot, and a loud herald proclaims the judge before him. Moreover a wife is chosen, whose name was Asenath, whom the priest Potiphera begot of noble lineage, and by her he at once becomes father of two children. The elder is called Manasseh, the younger Ephraim. Hence the prophet, noble on his high platform, collects whatever the lean time could scarcely take, keeping full granaries, so that when need required he might bring out the hidden grain to all who asked.

Afterwards, when dire famine, spread over the whole world, was forcing the frightened to eat whatever could be eaten, the people cry out and demand food from the king. He orders them to obey the warnings of the chief Joseph, who gives grain to all from his stores. Meanwhile Jacob, who had already wept for his son’s death, sends twice five young men from his numerous offspring to buy grain for themselves from afar at a price; but he does not let Benjamin, the youngest of all, go, lest, weak as he was, he should not bear the hard toil. And when they had come to the walls of the Egyptian land, they bowed to the ground and greet their brother, marvelling at him seated high on a lofty seat; yet they do not recognize him, seen after a long time. When the prophet looked on them with mindful heart, he rebukes them and terrifies them, fearful as they are, with many words, saying that they had come to spy out what supply of crops there was and what men held the rich lands under their rule. They plead that they know no tricks and confess that once twice six brothers under one father had a conspicuous house; of all these one, the last by birth, shares their father’s labours, but another was long since gone to a famous death. They were fleeing dire famine, hating the Canaanite land that condemns the seed to thin yield, and asking for goods for sale and grain at a price.

The prophet speaks, swearing by the ruler’s name, that the young men must be shut in harsh custody until they bring the brother whom their gentle father kept. They are bound for three days, stripped, under the care of guards, and then, released, they left one to be held. And, their hearts breaking with hidden pain, they recall how justly these dangers rise against them, because, having tried to sell their innocent brother by a forbidden bargain, they pay the penalty late before a judge. One of them makes it worse with words, recounting the true story, and that the crime was done in haste against his will. The prophet is moved by this and, hearing his brothers’ reproaches, turning aside with silent eyes, he weeps tearfully. Meanwhile Simeon is taken from the middle of the circle of brothers, a faithful hostage for all who were going. Then the young men take the grain they asked for, and the mules are pressed with the heavy weight they received. And now in the middle of the road, as he undoes the cords of his sack, one lets his brothers see the coins he has found; all do the same; then, the price found, marvelling, they praise the chief, vying with one another. And now, as they enter the threshold of their native home, the father greets their return and asks for the one. Learning everything, he takes the coins and gifts, complaining heavily that another son is now gone.

Then, when the food was used up and the grain they had brought forced them again to buy provisions, no one had a mind to turn his steps back to Memphis unless their father bade the youngest brother go with them. When, groaning much, he refused to send him anywhere, Reuben asks for his brother with faithful mouth, confidently pledging his two children to his father. Judah follows, declaring that they could not return, and bearing witness to the words of stern Joseph. When the aged father, now gentler, had taken this in, he gives up the young man, bathing his face with a great flood of tears. They go off and carry with them lightly scented frankincense, joining incense and gum with terebinth, carrying honey amid fragrant vapours, and double the price, lest there be a lingering error, because the coins had been hidden in the closed sacks. When Joseph saw them in his conspicuous hall, he orders them to celebrate a glad feast with him. Yet they came in faith, and with trembling guilt they suppose that they have been summoned by a contrived fraud, because they had not been able to return the sesterces counted out before and given to the prophet, which had been put in their bundles; yet, guiltless of theft, they were bringing everything back, nor had they been used, before this, to live in fear over money.

As they say this, the steward checks them with his words and tells them he knows he has been cheated of no coins: but if any gain has brought the men benefit, let no one call it his, nor the prophet’s, nor the king’s. Simeon meets them all and presents himself. And while he gives the men water and the mules fodder, the prophet enters, thronged by many soldiers, at whose sight the brothers bring out their dutiful gifts. When he had gone through them all with calm speech, he asks whether their father was well and firm in strength. After they said he was unharmed and living well, they affirm that the prophet clings to God for his gift and always holds to what is right. And as if Benjamin were not known to him, Joseph questions the young men, and at once, holy as he is, prays God for every blessing for the boy, to God’s praise. He cannot hold back his groans or stop his tears, but, deeply moved, he seeks a chamber and, anxious, looks for relief for his excessive grief. After he reclined, the servants set out the food. He eats and draws their hearts with easy speech, and, rejoicing to set out divided portions to each man, he offers them, and assigns a larger one to one brother alone.

And when, satisfied, their desire for food was quelled, and as before they had loaded the mules with weight, the money given is hidden in what is now the usual way by Joseph’s order, and the gleaming cup is hidden among your things, Benjamin, more precious for its craftsmanship. And now, set out on their road, they are not many miles away when suddenly a royal troop surrounds them unawares and holds them seized, demanding the shining cup; they threaten that the one whom the crime binds will be a slave. They agree, and all together open their loads, and uncover the cup sought and leave their brother behind, and go to Joseph, and, telling what has happened, at once unroll the charges of their dear father. Moved by their pleas, the prophet orders all others to depart and begins to declare himself by name. They stiffened, rooted with fear, and, in silent guilt condemning themselves, hold back their voices in dread. Soon he coaxes the guilty men and, calling them nearer, requires them to carry words that will please their father, what is, what has been, what is soon to come, urging the old man to migrate, and with his flocks gathered he offers the hills of the Arabs to those who come, so that, since the land would be dry for five years more, he might feed all his kin.

The king learns of these words of the man with a glad heart, asks him to take in the crowd of his dear ones, and orders the grain to be handed over free. Wagons are given to the men, grain, cups, bread, and the mules sweat carrying great loads. Five robes are given to Benjamin and five for his father, and three hundred coins struck with the stamp of the die. But the other young men, with a lesser reward, receive the covering of a snowy garment. When the father learned this, the gifts given, he breathes again, hastening to leave his native land, and makes for Egypt, which borders on the fields of the Arabs, leading out by a father’s rule young men, five and seventy, as the record of Genesis has set down. And while the crowds hurry with hasty effort, Judah runs ahead and flies before the band of brothers and tells Joseph that his father is not far off. He eagerly mounts his chariot and goes out to meet him, receiving the longed-for company when he saw his father. And he quickly returns to the hall of the king, saying that shepherds are hastening, so that the crowd of his dear ones might live apart in lands of fertile grass. The Memphian ruler himself presses the prophet and orders him to settle his brothers in rich fields.

After this the long-lived old man, at Pharaoh’s request, speaks slowly of how many years he has been granted, what his house is, and what the cause of his coming to Egypt. And he praises the excellent leader highly, while meanwhile Joseph sends gifts in return worthy of his own, and gives the leader a great talent to bear, with which the hall was enriched when the crops were sold. And when the buying peoples lacked money, the Memphian crowd, eagerly bringing out their flocks, buys crops in their need, Joseph setting the price. Stripped of these too, they hand over themselves and their estates, receiving seed by which harvests might then grow green. Only the priests’ possessions are not taken away; it pleased the leader to give them grain free, not to sell it. Hence the payment of a fifth of the crops is imposed on the people, which remains, and the rule is kept by fixed right. Meanwhile Jacob, weighing the time of his completed life, makes his son swear, turning over things to come, that he would lay his limbs in the tombs of his ancestors. He assents to the request and, with his right hand placed under the thigh, promising, touches the top of the pliant staff. And the old man soothes with words his grandsons, placed on either side, while he gently gives them kisses. … the right hand is laid in blessing on the younger, while the elder by birth, Ephraim, is touched by the left.

by the old man’s foreknowing mind the elder is compelled to serve the younger, and the first hope yields its place to the second. Though Joseph wished to move the crossed hands apart, he could not call back the pious words. And after the prophet had ratified the blessings for the boys, he gives Shechem, and the sword, and the darts, to his son, so that, more glorious than all, he may climb to lofty honour. Then he calls his sons and distributes rewards to all, words to endure long, and to his sons’ offspring assigns things not granted before, for a long age, and founds twice six tribes from their names. All this done, already blind in both eyes, the prophet departed, his earthly body alone … and gave seventy days to mourning, while the crowd venerates the tomb of the dead. Moreover his sons mourned for seven days with abundant tears, Joseph restoring peace to his brothers as though innocent, as he passes over the old anger. He himself too, after he had passed a hundred and ten years, measuring the time of approaching death, tells his brothers what order of events would come, by which they might retrace their steps and leave the swelling Nile, provided they carry back his ashes and bones laid to rest … So at last, after the bright times of a long life, he departed, went to God, and left his body.

Meanwhile, while the times drive their varied courses and a new generation rises from the seed, the sons die and the offspring of those who followed, and the land of Memphis brings forth new and different kings. Neither the memory of Joseph nor the merits of the prophets avail, once dearly loved; but by the gift of the holy Lord who protects his people, numerous bodies are born and their ranks thicken in an immense cloud. When the king of Egypt saw that these were to be feared, he gathers his companions with such words, stirred by anger: “See, a youth once captive and content with the food that a sparing hand held out; see, it now raises cohorts in a long legion and swells not with arms alone, superior in warlike courage, and bears threatening looks even while subject. What if it now takes up weapons or allies itself with our enemies? Under what weight of war will Egypt fall laid waste, and what great ruins will the lofty cities make, their walls torn down? Rather let them be broken by a hard lot of labour and raise immense citadels on built foundations, lest the hope of lost freedom return to them when idle.”

When this was said, he sets skilful men over them, to build new walls and towers and threatening gates and strive to join them to heaven. Driven by these misfortunes, they build several towns with sweating labour, Rameses, then Pithom, and On, famous for the name of the Sun. But a marvel: the more they were under the sad burden of labour, the stronger the whole youth shone forth, as though it were on holiday. The grim king of Egypt is terrified more and more and devotes to destruction those who did not yet fear his commands, ordering the midwives, when the mothers bear their offspring, to extinguish and destroy the males, with † punishment for the midwives if, though sworn, they left the despised order undone; of whom Puah was one, with her companion. They, the terror of God set in their timid hearts, scorned the leader’s threats and, ordered to appear, say that the Hebrew women, supported by no help, are accustomed to bring forth their ripe offspring quickly. For this they deserved by the Lord’s word his favour, rejoicing to settle in their accustomed homes, while they revere the Lord, praising him with all their heart. The chief’s order is changed, and the people are told to drown in the stream of the Nile the boys who are born. The crowd obeys the leader, drowning the newborn in the river.

Amid these troubles a Levite, having taken a wife, begets a son shining with a beautiful body and conspicuous cheeks, and he shrinks from destroying one who would be a great man with such beauty; lest he be killed, he keeps him hidden until three months had passed. But fearing punishment, lest the deceit be discovered, he sadly sends him out exposed where the roaring streams can carry him downstream, though they lack an oarsman. His sister keeps watch on him from afar with sharp sight, as far as following eyes can keep him in view, so that she might tell the parent the fate of the exposed child. But the king’s daughter, walking gladly, accompanied by her attendants, was bathing in the calm river and washing her body. She sees a small skiff on the swelling waters and orders her maids to bring her the desired prize. They eagerly, as befits the glad age of youth, bring back what was placed in the boat and, setting it before her, make the girl rejoice with a mother’s feeling. She, wishing to keep for herself such sweet joys of beauty and the outstanding honour of a noble brow, orders that a woman of the Hebrew people be summoned openly to be his nurse, and the care of the boy’s hunger is given to her. The sister calls, now with no deceit, the anxious mother, to whom the leader’s daughter might give back her own child, the name of nurse put upon the mother.

The boy grew and quickly reached the years that flourish with the first flower and, given to the court, is held as a true child of Pharaoh’s daughter, and receives the name Moses, because he had been taken from the plaintive waves, floating in a small boat. But he, prompted by his nature and following his heart, prepares to visit his kindred people around the towns, who, in sorrow, were being worn down under the present harsh yoke. By chance in the middle of the road he sees a man of the Egyptian people punishing with loud voice a groaning man, a certain Hebrew; and, hating the unjust lot, he looks all around and, seeing no one present who could later bring out as a witness what he found there, he strikes him with his heel and buries him, laid low, under heaped sand. Then he sees men of the Jewish race threatening one another and, while he eagerly offers himself and helps the weaker side and restores peace, he receives words sent from an angry breast: “Why do you swell with lofty neck, as though you wielded the sceptre of a high prince, and written laws resounded under your presidency? Or perhaps you are preparing to destroy me with sudden death, as you killed the Egyptian youth in yesterday’s light?” When this had been said, talkative rumour carries it to the leader’s ears, and the king in anger puts the young prophet to flight.

He, fleeing the land, came to a deep well in the land of Midian, where the priest Jethro lived, who had begotten seven daughters and filled his house with a dense stock. They kept with care the soft sheep entrusted to them and were drawing what they could from the hollow spring; but by chance shepherds drove off their weak hands and fearful sex; Moses defends them, who did not dare to stand against them or oppose them with ready hands, brings the flocks to the watering streams, cares for them when they have drunk, and sends them home. The girls, returning earlier than usual to their father’s great wonder, and answering at once when he asked, bring the young man, summoned, to their father’s threshold. He, weighing the tall limbs with a cool eye, rejoices to join a great soul with beauty in marriage to his daughter and foresees grandsons of outstanding stock. For Zipporah, diligent, in a quick birth bears Gershom and then brings forth his brother Eliezer. Gershom signifies one born in a foreign land, Eliezer one rescued from the anger of the harsh leader. Meanwhile the leader falls by death, and the captive youth, pressed by many evils, moved the Lord with many laments to look on, to bring his kindness and protect the people,

as he, mindful forever, turned over his gifts within himself, promised long since in sleep to the good, which in time past Abraham had heard would come to his own, and Jacob, too, when he saw the ladder rising to holy things. And now the oppressed race sees God pour forth gentle protection from heaven, while it asks peace from on high. And while Moses alone drives his father-in-law’s woolly sheep through the countryside, he came to the summit of a sacred hill which the Hebrew tongue calls Horeb. On it he sees, in a conspicuous lamp of flames, a bending bramble shining and not burned by the fire. Stirred by the novelty of the thing, he is eager to find out by what kindling such bright fires arise. And while, fearful, he silently draws so near, he is forbidden by the famous voice of the starry Thunderer to come forward quickly, but is made to halt his step and at once remove the coverings from both his feet; and he obeys, because of the holy ground of the summit. Soon fear enters his senses and his sight is darkened by the excess of light, because it is not right for anyone to see the Lord, and he turns away his face and mouth together. Then a voice sent forth sounds, in which the famous King declares that he is the God of the patriarchs, whom we have long since said to be the leaders of believers and of life. Then he adds these words:

“Now the prayers of my people are known to me and seen with all my light, who build cities of vast masses and, driven by the hard sweat of their labours, raise up the wealth of Egypt and realms not their own, while they tremble with servile mind and are tormented with frequent pain, long subject to the will of the guilty. And so I have come here, descending from high Olympus, to protect my own and take them from the seat of Canopus, the giver of great wealth and of a fertile land, which now the bold Canaanite holds, rich with manifold fruits, and the Amorite joined to the Hittite, the band of the Perizzites, and the Girgashites following, and which the Hivite youth also tills. Here from sweet springs, from a rich stream, honey flows with white milk. Being about to give these gifts to the chosen, I set you as leader; I command you to go into the king’s sight and recount what is commanded. And lest, trembling at the undertaking, you should weaken in the act, I will always be with you; and when freedom has returned, you shall worship me on this hill with rejoicing mind and eyes.” When the Lord had thundered these words, little confidence holds the prophet at first. Soon he asks for the eternal name the Lord bears, so that Judea may know the sign of the prince set over them. The Saviour adds these words:

“I am who I am: so you shall say; and he who lives above the stars and is God from the stock of your fathers; God immeasurable, everywhere and through all nations, the sower through the ages of the living who do not lack light. This name is mine; tell this to those gathered; let them pass the words on through peaceful ears. And entering together into the hall of King Pharaoh, say that the Lord of the Israelites has commanded from above that for three days the Jewish host go through the desert fields and sacrifice fitting gifts to the holy God and observe the rite of their forefathers. For the proud tyrant will be willing to release my people after slaughter and plague, sent often from the depths of heaven, varied with many perils. Moreover, when leave has been given you to take the commanded journey, then let each woman ask her neighbour or acquaintance for the rich wealth that soft Egypt now holds, and take what she asks, so that the legion, to be led through the formless fields of the desert, may leave Egypt emptied of noble spoils.” After this the prophet asks for signs that might strengthen wavering minds, if they should not believe that God could have been seen with eyes speaking such bright things; he is told quickly to let down his pliant rod and loose it from his hand; when the earth received it, a foaming serpent gathers itself into a coil with its trail, striking terror into the chief; told to seize it by the tail, he brings it back and restores it to its old shape.

Then, hiding his hand in his bosom, he brought it out snow-white, and covered it again and drew it out, and it was turned back to its own appearance. Then he is told that, if these were small things, he should pour out water taken from the river and change its whiteness into red blood. Yet the prophet resists and says that his speech is thin and his voice, bound in knots, scarcely comes out, because it veils the secrets of the heart; in short, that there is nothing in him worthy for the minds of men to follow and rely on. He is rebuked: no one speaks with polished understanding unless the Lord grants it, nor do the dumb break long silences unless the Lord loosens the bonds of the tongue, he who opens hearing to the deaf and sight to the blind, and clears with pure light the vision of those who see. “Go,” he says, “and speak with full speech in confidence, noble in eloquence and with meaning well rounded into words.” But while he keeps asking God and begs that another be substituted and put in his place, he moved to anger God, outstanding in mercy, who, roused, begins: “See, your brother is eloquent, with a polished mouth, and known to me, born a Levite of that tribe, whom they call by the sure name of Aaron.” At once the prophet goes and tells his father-in-law that he will return and wishes to visit his brothers, sprung from the Jewish race. Here the other yields and, with due affection kept, bids him go gladly.

He eagerly, taking his sons and wife with him, set out on the commanded journey; and, weary with travelling, while he restores his strength, lying down in the cool shade, see, an angel of the Lord comes and threatens death. But Zipporah searches with her fingers for a sharp flint and at once, diligently, cuts the foreskin of her tender son; and when she had thrown herself prone before the feet of the holy one, “Let this blood from the little one’s wound be stanched,” she cries. At her words the holy one departed to the stars. And now the prophet was treading the sands of the barren desert, when suddenly, by command of the Lord, Aaron met his honoured brother at the sacred mountain, and, joined together, they rejoice and plant kisses; and it delights them to reveal to each other in flowing talk what must be done or what has been done. At once both join to the Lord’s word a sincere and firm faith, and, going together, they tell the elders they have summoned what is the command of God; and when the signs were done in order, the people believed that the longed-for remedy had come back, and, bending the knee, prostrate, worships the Lord. They go to the king, who sees nothing with his blind heart and does not believe God, whom he said was not known to him, keeping the people under a harsh law and cruel command, while the burden of labour grows and the work is doubled and an immense weight is added to the raw bricks, which the sun’s lamp bakes.

Moreover he takes away the straw usually mixed as a binding into the cracking earth and wet clay, so that the people, weary with evils, would rather lose heart and suffer exile. While, worn with grief, it is driven with harsh blows, it poured out reproaches on the priests themselves, crying that it was more sharply afflicted since, by their immoderate speeches, they had procured wretched slavery in place of freedom. When the gentle prophet had brought these words to the eternal Lord, he receives these words in return: “See, I have ordered you to be a god to King Pharaoh, and your brother to serve the prophet with zeal and obey you. You will tell your brother what you have learned; he will declare it to the king, that he take care to send out the people.” And now the pious prophet was spending twice forty years of peaceful life in mortal flesh. While they eagerly desire to soften the king with holy speeches and renew the signs, the slippery serpent made from the thrown rod achieves nothing, nor do the rivers changed into red blood compel anything, nor the moving water fouled with sad stench, the fish dead, because the profane mind of men, girded with sinister chant, was skilled in like deeds.

Moreover they make frogs creep forth likewise wherever there was land and water, and they are produced by the magicians’ chant in like ways; these, all croaking with rattling voice, the prophet took care to drive away, only not allowing the rivers to lack their usual ones. This was granted the king, if he wished to escape the plague, through the old man’s prayers, so that it might then be clear that no other god reigns: tomorrow’s light is given back to the sky, and on that day all of them die and, heaped together, dissolve in bitter stench. Gnats are quickly born over all the bodies of beasts and men together, and the land is filled. This too the Chaldean band, having tried it, confesses to be the hand of the Lord, and gives up its vain effort. These things done, the cynomyia comes flowing, which is called the dog-fly, and at the prophet’s nod filled every place, spreading out, and unknown only to the soil of Goshen, which was then the land suited to the Jewish race; wherever it was driven, it brought inexhaustible pains. Then indeed Pharaoh, defeated, bids them go and, migrating, take their steps wherever they wish and serve God with vows; and at the same time he begs that the present and excessive evil depart from the fields of Egypt and that God at last be present with more mercy.

Without delay, when the dead of the sudden destruction are sent away and perish all together, the horny fibre that had been in the king returns; soon a plague is sent at once on beasts of burden and flocks, and deaths follow, Judea losing nothing. Then empty ash, drawn from the bosom of a furnace, is tossed toward the stars and raises dry pustules over the limbs of men and hollow blisters, and, leaving no one exempt, they bring torments through the fields on flocks of every kind. But a renewed face of evil pressed in vain on the sluggish king, so that the praise of God, who works so many wonders, might be higher: see, amid the fires that lightnings hurl and the rumblings of the lofty sky that crash at the Lord’s command, threatening hail runs down from the stars and whirls its freezing darts everywhere, flying thick as from a rock, and men without the cover of roofs it strikes with crushing blows and kills, and all the cattle; and, breaking the bark, it cripples the woods and kills them as the inner bark dries, unseen before and unknown to ancient ages. The wheat crops, since their stalks had not yet grown, and the spelt it only laid flat on the ground; for the rest it buried, which, sown in the soil, the harrow had not yet brought up.

This too loses its strength at the prophet’s request, clear day returning, because, his heart broken, the weakened leader had prayed, confessing his crimes himself and declaring God just on high. See, again his heart is stiffened with insane mind, to bring worse things upon himself to the ruin of the living leader, nor does he believe his companions about the fall of perishing Egypt. But yet he grants a limited right of going, to men stripped of the things that the use of life provides. The prophet does not allow it and demands all their property and the herds of four-footed beasts; but just speech is not for unwilling ears. For this he is driven out, his brother thrust out with him. Then the south wind arrives with much blast and darkens the day, and through the shade of night gathers green-backed locusts beyond measure, which eat whatever moist and full of sap they found through the leafy roofs, and the glad grass in the turf. These then, at the king’s request in his fear, are killed and, gathered together, drowned in the Red Sea. When the grim king spat these things out as trifles, night, gliding down, holds all, and vast storms shut in and confine the men, and likewise for three days they stayed hidden, and no one saw his neighbour or could rise from his helpless bed, while the radiant band enjoyed the open world, touched by no evils. Moreover, as they ran about, the dogs were silent and harmless and, holding back their bark, fearlessly lick their legs, wagging their tails, dogs that at times, their fear laid aside, are savage even against their masters.

Yet the king’s resolve does not yield to these losses; roaring, he rebukes the prophet and threatens him with death, because he wanted to sweep away the cattle and all their property. And now God had darkened the night with a pitch-black mantle, planning a hidden blow amid thick deaths, when suddenly all die whom kindly births had brought forth first, with little difference in their death, from the king’s own throne, and then all of whatever stock, men and cattle and beasts. At once immense grief raises horrid-sounding cries; all the houses groan, the cities resound with lamentation. Then indeed all press to drive out the people that bears the name of Jew, as though by its deserts it were the cause of the evils, and property and all furnishings are handed over, and no loss is reckoned in this; and countless flocks of cattle accompany them as they go. So they depart, God leading them, who went before, and carry on their burdened shoulders the goods of life. And now the world had used up four hundred years and forty more, if one reckons the sum of the time elapsed since Jacob, in his care to obtain grain, came to the Egyptian cities to remain; these fulfilled, God, pitying at last from on high, worthy of praise, took the people from the untamed enemy.

The first day is reckoned by the gift of the Passover, and the joys of the night consecrated to God are celebrated, and seven blessed days, as the year returns, bring slow leisure, and every care is set aside; no one turns the soil, and, free from the curved plough, labour sleeps and slaves rejoice in equal freedom, and the whole business of life is to join hearts to God, to recline on spread couches and to bring in the food that the happy earth produces in its rich fields. And a white lamb is taken, when the months are complete that make the year twice six, unblemished and softer than all the flock; this all together the law compels to eat and to set on the holy table with its bones unbroken, and with its blood to dye the doorposts for cleansing and so to gain a safe life. A common law binds all, and those bought with money and those used to hire out their hands lay aside their foreskins and take the festive food from the lamb’s flesh. Nor may anything remain; if a small company has not eaten it all, it is right to bring in a neighbour from the field. The loaves lack leaven, and soft flour, mixed with spring water, is formed into thin rounds, which they call azyma in their native tongue. These rites are performed by all as the years return.

After four and ten days had run their course in the new month, which men discern with reason as teacher, they bind their flowing garments with anxious care, intent, as if the trumpets sounded and war were waged, and their armed hands carry strong staffs. Moreover they take a sprig of pale hyssop, dip it with devoted hand in the sacred blood, and gladly sprinkle the doors, shaking it out, so that the noble liquid may harden on the dear posts and forbid entry to the evil one who assails holy things. And now the generations had come down to the fifth, when, making for the desert, the people dear to God came to the Red Sea, carrying the bones of Joseph taken from his tomb, who had once said with truthful mouth that the Lord’s serene gaze and kindly right hand would come from heaven and bring freedom. Then they come to Succoth and leave Etham, Christ showing them unknown ways through the trackless waste, who, when at new morning he opened the light from the stars, flying before them, ploughed the sky with a snowy cloud, and, covering the shining radiance of the sun through the darkened sky at night, shone with a comet’s bright hair. Then they make for Pi-hahiroth, to which the land of Migdol is joined, bordering on Baal-zephon opposite.