Heptateuch (the first seven books of the Bible in verse) 2.1041–4.1

twelve stones, which are the number of the tribes, joining them close. Here he brings forth bullocks never yoked and sacrifices them on the sacred altars; part of their blood he pours out on the altar, lets another part drip into a bowl, and sprinkles the thronging people with a light dew, and unrolls the book that keeps the memorials of the eternal God. After the people dear to him had spoken their docile and harmonious assent, he climbs the swelling hill with slow effort and sets the aged elders and his brother on the summit. These together behold a gem glowing with lightning, on which the feet of the starry King had stood; it has the name of sapphire; and a white sky is seen here stretched across the ridges of the mountain; revering all this, they utter lofty praise and take food. Meanwhile the prophet, having told the elders to remain there, has Joshua join his steps with him with peaceful heart, and leaves Hur and Aaron to his people, so that they may hear the quarrels of disputing men with an equal scale and speak the words of law. When he himself reached the many ridges of the holy hill, a shining cloud glides swiftly from the heavenly sky, enfolds and covers the mountain, and hides the prophet apart from his companions for twice three lights of the sun. And now the seventh day had opened the snowy sky,

when the Lord calls the prophet from the midst of the cloud, while, shining, he begins amid wondrous flames, and gives the prophet commands for forty days, so that he might know what sanctuaries are worthy of the highest God; and he orders them to be fixed with lofty timbers, strong for ever, which no age dissolves. It was made in wondrous ways, and a ductile sheet of conspicuous gold covers the commanded measure, joining pairs of rings with smooth roundness on the right and left side where the holy things are worshipped. Then he made an ark of smoothed wood, in which the commands of the everlasting Thunderer might remain. Moreover he makes cherubim come forth from ruddy gold and places them facing apart where the altar opens, with equal splendour of wings and like flight, as though they moved nimble wings into the windy clouds. And many other contrivances of new things besides were made in wondrous ways; whoever wishes to tell them would sooner set out the sands the sea rolls. But neither how many kinds there are, nor what their names, can verse, bound by metre, set out in speech, while the prophet fashions ladles, bowls and mortars, and makes engraved dishes to be carried for the offerings, and the stands placed under the lamps.

Now whatever covers the sacred ark from above or veils the posts he dyed with burning scarlet; moreover robes are woven with a purple mantle for Aaron and the pious priests, who offer gifts in the holy dwelling of God, and flashing gems cling to the folds, marking the names of the tribes, from whose body the people comes, marking single names with noble gems. The first row in its place: the emerald joined to the topaz; the sapphire follows it, with which the carbuncle burns, and the jasper flourishes and gleams amid tawny gold; the third row with the ligure, the agate and the amethyst, shining, dyed with purple; the fourth, the chrysolite, the onyx joined to the beryl. The venerable sign of the heavenly King is added, formed on a sheet of conspicuous gold. Moreover linen garments of snowy weave are ordered to be gathered into loose folds and put on the limbs to hide the private parts of the flesh, lest the priests uncover what is shameful as they carry the sacred things. Meanwhile the whole order of sacrifices is set out: what gifts lighten sin, what victim struck by iron falls and ends the holy wrath of God. For whoever of men touches the sacred altar is made holier, cleansed of the stain in his heart.

that a lamp should always hang from the lofty ceiling, lit, and overcome the night with its light, God’s decree declares, lest perhaps darkness make a dreadful night through the holy altars. The juice of liquid olive is also set there at times, hallowing the flesh of men, as it flows from the top of the head and drenches the limbs with thick ointment; add incense too, whose light breath becomes fitting for the nostrils and bedews the senses with sweet airs. Then, so that the fabric of the great temple might shine and surpass all buildings in its adornment, God gave teachable minds and the greatest skill to the craftsmen and put all arts in them, in Oholiab of the tribe of Dan and in Bezalel joined with him, who had a famous origin from the company of Judah. And so that the Lord’s words might be best known to the people, the prophet receives tablets formed from a twofold rock, God giving them, which the King’s famous hand wrote with holy thumb and like fingers. Meanwhile the people, placed in the measured camp, groaning in biting heart that their prophet has long been absent and muttering that he is nowhere seen, madly and constantly demand of Aaron perverse divinities for themselves; he, as they raged and pressed long, ordered them to bring and hand over the ornaments their daughters and wives wear in their ears, since their native beauty is thought to have too little splendour, and gold hangs down from a shameful wound.

When the people had gathered this, he threw it into the fire, and then, taking out what the furnace flame had softened, mixed it and formed a bullock with grim brow, and said that the next day would be a solemn feast. At once, when the morning star first brought forth its white fires and shut the night out from lofty heaven, the Jewish band rises and gladly keeps the ruinous feast and floods their breasts with many cups, and, maddened, leads exulting dances. The Lord on high sees these things from his lofty citadel and orders the innocent prophet to go down quickly, saying: “Run down quickly and leave the mountain, leader of a perverse people and master of a crowd that profane things please; Judea has sinned greatly under your leadership, while it despises holy acts. See, those whom you led, who were allowed to loose the bonds of untamed Pharaoh and to go out from dark Egypt, stand as transgressors before a bull’s face and celebrate as God the limbs of a counterfeit bullock, and now call this the divinity of their freedom. Do not try to bend my anger, nor stand in my way, while I send them deserved terrors and a fitting ruin. Nor need you fear loss, as though the power taken away would at once pass to another’s summit.

there shall be given you on earth a nation far more outstanding in arms, unknown to you, to be victorious under your leadership.” Terrified by this, the prophet, prostrate, worships the Lord, speaking thus: “Why does your anger now go out with such great emotion against your people, which, groaning under harsh commands, Egypt in its great fear released, while it fears you, great one, while the strength of your lofty right hand terrifies the wretched tyrant, his neck broken? And now, O Lord, what will the crowd of Egypt say, robbed of its captives and hostile to the people it now sees to be yours, except that you, mighty God, favouring them in vain with your accustomed kindness, led the men out to be killed in a deserted place, while they go to their deaths among vast wastes? O lofty one, be gracious to your own, and show your serene face to one who asks; for who can live on earth or in heaven when you are moved, to whom alone runs all that dies and lives for you? And at last let there return to your mind, venerable one, the gifts you prepared once for Abraham, then for the chief Jacob and for pious Isaac, happy men whom service adorns, because they pleased you; you swore by your own strength, holy one, when you pledged that their offspring would be your care, unconquered King, to be made dense with numerous youth and countless ranks, as the stars of the great heaven and the starry gems sparkle on the world’s pole.

Why do the promises waver? Why does no one possess the benefits of the rich land, and the prophet, to whom you promise streams of honey and rivers of milk, stand an exile in his own seats?” The Lord is moved by this and pours all his anger from his breast. At once the prophet comes down from the lofty hill, carrying the tablets inscribed with the Lord’s law inside and out together, for the holy page was committed to the back as well; and as he goes out in haste, Joshua is struck by the immoderate voices of the people and thinks this is the shout of a crowd at war. But the prophet sees not war but hearts slack with wine sending manifold voices to heaven. And now, when the leader had entered the threshold of the camp, he sees the dances of the revelling people seething and sees the golden bullock with swollen neck, which the crowd looked on as on a heavenly father. At once, hostile, as he conceives a hot anger, he breaks the tablets, rising to the full blow, and melts the calf, thrown on the fire, and then casts it into the water and, taking from that stream, orders the astonished people to drink; and then he rebukes his brother, greatly offended, because he had listened to those seeking vain things and outraged God, whose anger was just. He, asking for peace, confesses the people’s crime, making himself free of the guilty deed.

But the chief, preparing to punish the crimes of the mad mob, orders the Levites to run through the whole camp, bare the sword, and strike the bodies they meet everywhere, though they were of the kindred people. They eagerly run through the lanes they knew and fall upon the bands in their way and swiftly, as avengers of the Lord, slay about three thousand men, to which you may join twenty thousand together. These deeds done, the prophet goes out to his people, now milder, and entreats the eternal King for the people’s crime, speaking thus: “The crowd of your people has sinned, unconquered King, more than mortal hearts seek, worshipping the images of dumb cattle; to these they made vows and believed gold a divinity. And now, O Lord, if you count me worthy of the prayer that I make and pour out to you, forgive the guilt that you alone can release. But if a greater penalty awaits them and the sentence of death holds them all, blot out my name, holy one, from the heavenly page that your venerable hand wrote, to which the world is subject.” God’s favourable answers soothe him as he prays: “Whoever, a sinner, wrongs me by forbidden crime, coming against me, no page of the holy book holds, and his guilty name will be blotted out from it.

But you, make haste and pursue from here the course you have begun, and assign the promised places to the crowd you have taken up. And lest anxious care touch you on your way, a messenger will always go before you as you travel. But their deeds weigh down those whom crimes darken, men of stiff neck and swollen mind; therefore I do not walk with you as a companion.” The people received these words with sad guilt and groans with streaming tears at such reproaches, putting on soiled garments of black thread. The good prophet bids them in words lay aside the sad garments and mourning, and prays earnestly that they take care lest God’s anger perhaps grow greater if he should be wronged by a like crime. These things done, he brings out the tent prepared for himself and pitches it away from the camp, and fittingly gave it a name from the witness, whose judgment is true. All the men eagerly watched him entering the threshold made for God, and they themselves in turn rejoiced to step forward or stand facing it, when suddenly, dreadful to see, a shining cloud glides from heaven and floods the top of the highest temple; and while the pious prophet walks there and then returns,

Joshua always kept himself in the house of the Lord, never going out. But the prophet goes over his accustomed words with the Lord and asks for things not granted before to mortal man: that he might see close at hand the venerable face of the blessed Lord, and that God might always accompany the chief as he goes, however much a heavenly messenger guarded him. It is granted, and God begins in lofty words what must be done before the grace of so great a gift may feed eyes used to seeing worldly things: “Come, make haste, climb the threatening rock and plant your step, and while my glory runs down from on high, returning thus, stay under the arch of the rock, shaded by my right hand, while, passing by in swift course, I take back the shade of the divine palm. Then you can see only the back of God as he goes; it is not right for any of the number of those who breathe, whom the air of the world sustains, to see the face.” These things are done as commanded; soon, with rock hewn, he makes like tablets again for the divine laws and goes alone to the summit familiar to him from his usual ascents, and does not allow anyone to approach near the mountain, and removes from there even the woolly flocks, because such things are close to guilt: holy things never cleave to the corrupt.

At once, having enjoyed the longed-for words of the Lord, he learns what is to come for his people and offers himself freely: “O Lord, whom bountiful mercy makes great for your own in heaven and on earth, gentle in the heavenly hall, alone mighty and likewise most just, gracious alike to the peoples whom the glad world everywhere holds who confess the Lord with all their mind: you lift all from their offences, you can forgive whatever is unjust, because you alone are without crime; you are likewise wont to condemn deadly guilt on the offspring and children of the fathers and the children’s children: remain with us, God, in your surpassing power. For this fierce people is proud with stiff neck; if you forgive the sins committed by their crime, we shall live through the ages as yours.” Soon the holy Lord of heaven speaks from his hall what he had commanded before: that when the people rested after wounding wars, turning to leisure, they should know only marriages allowed from their own people, lest perhaps a wife taken from outside should ensnare the unwary minds of men with deceitful cunning and teach profane rites. And now this prophet had spent forty suns with their swift light and had taken no food, bringing back a fasting breast to the vast camp.

They feared to look at him, shining with the conspicuous lamp of flame, and his brother is in awe and turns his mortal eyes away from the shining light. But the prophet, not knowing that the honour of a sudden power had shone on his consecrated person, learns from the people’s fear that the stroke of the immense light must be veiled, lest the Jewish band turn away their ears along with their eyes. But whenever he betook himself to the peaceful words of the Lord, he took off the yellow linen veil. At once, the people eagerly bringing out their metals and fleeces dyed with Sidonian dye, he completes the consecrated house with outstanding arts. The Lord on high filled it with a cloud he sent, so much that the prophet could not pass the holy doorposts, though the veil was spread across the whole threshold and no guard stood in the way at the doors. When this cloud had moved away on moving breezes, the camp was moved; and night, wont to return, shone with the excessive light of red flame, while the flying point burns and shows the divine presence.

After he had set up the conspicuous temple in the far wilderness, and what benefits the twin turtledove would bring, or the dove joined and paired with a dove … But, a marvel, fire sent from a lofty star swiftly seized the flesh of the slaughtered cattle. Meanwhile young men, vigorous now in their strong years, believing in their foolish hearts that it was allowed them, Nadab and Abihu, the known children of the prophet Aaron, kindle fire with sacrilegious rites. Their death was not long delayed: for lightning flashed from the sky above and killed the men amid their insincere offerings, while their father mourned greatly. And then their cold limbs are buried in a tomb. Soon, however, the father refrained from mourning the buried, and all their brothers too, the prophet forbidding the weeping that was permitted to the people; for the fiery heat, flying from its heavenly seat, had shaken all the men with the terror it brought, and they saw openly that God, who was not absent, was not to be scorned. Meanwhile the priest learns from the Lord’s voice that wine and honeyed strong drink are denied to him and his sons, lest, when they worship the Lord at the altars set up, breath sent from a wine-filled breast should offend. A common rule of food distinguishes for the people what is allowed and what it is not right to take.

he declares; a custom that our own banquets also keep under heaven’s law: that the vulture not be among our foods, nor the raven or magpie, nor the buzzard, nor the keen hawk, nor the kite with hooked beak, and other things it is hard to tell in measured verse, lest things not clean enough, gathered and settling in the breast, make the innocent organs foul by their touch. A woman who empties her womb in lawful childbirth, if she bears a boy, is unclean for seven days in her whole body; but when the eighth day turns, on which it is the custom to cut the private parts, he will remove the foreskin of the member, and then she will sit for thirty and three days after giving birth, lest she boldly pollute, by sight or foul touch, the altars that are honoured with holy rites. But if the child that she brings forth is a girl, she will keep twice the time and so incur no guilt; then, when that is completed, she will at once offer gifts, twin turtledoves or doves like them, or a lamb of white fleece from the soft flock, so that the priest may by his prayers stop the flow.

The forms and signs of diseases are also taught, at least those that leprosy causes, which floods the flesh of the whole body with yellowish pale corruption and fills the white skin with deadly spots, so that, since it sometimes boils up through the Lord’s anger, it may take flight by this remedy and leave the body of the man who prays for his guilt and brings a gift. Poverty, which, rejoicing, often overcomes the rich … because the Lord drinks in the vow of the simple. Yet no great expense need be provided for the healing: for every law prescribes the offering of two young birds and twin lambs, so that a sheep is joined to a calf, with fine flour sprinkled with a stream of olive oil. These a rich man can offer; but small gifts remain for the poor; for either he will sacrifice at the altar a calf that thrives, a year of twelve months complete, and some sacred meal that he mixes with oil, or twin turtledoves, or perhaps doves like them. Moreover, because sluggish pleasure often mocks men’s sleep in the night, if perhaps seed drips from the member, the body of the sleeper becomes foul and remains unclean until the evening star, conspicuous in the sky, goes before the night with glad light; nor do such dreams disfigure only the bodies with foul stain, but whatever he touches in his acts whom dreams have darkened.

For this reason it is right to bathe the limbs in a river, so that purity may return quickly as the guilt ceases. Moreover it is right to break earthen vessels stained by the man’s touch, but to wash those made of metal and draw off the dirt with a glassy stream. Under this law lawful intercourse too is purified. Then, the troublesome stain of the limbs removed, the priest will give help, when, the sun returned, the seventh dawn has shone with purple stars, if the man comes to the altar relying on twin turtledoves, guilty of sin and of a vow, and on paired doves. A woman, when the month has run its course and her period comes, is defiled by the moist discharge that comes from the womb, and whatever she touches she stains, until the seventh day goes out with the return of the morning star; but if the guilty flow presses more abundantly and departs from the order of its fixed time, the form of the evil will be the same and the same the end of the guilt, if she brings to the holy altar a gift of those birds that are known to have pleased the Lord. Meanwhile, after the sons of the chief Aaron had been destroyed for their crime, the mighty Lord makes this known: that, because the altar has shade let down from veils stretched before it and the sacred ark is likewise covered in cloud, the priest should go and stand there at fixed times, bringing pious vows, because the holy Lord stands there, to be seen in a white cloud.

yet so that he slaughters a calf for his own crime, and for the congregation soon sacrifices like he-goats, by a lot cast, so that one may wander off into the wild, carrying the offences of the sinners and hiding them with itself, but the other is slaughtered for the Lord at the peaceful altar, to bring the best benefits of the heavenly gift. A beast or bird that has died without its blood being shed is fit for the tables of no diners, because the life is in the blood of many creatures. And moreover, if perhaps a beast slain by the blade lets out a saffron stream from its cut throat, the blood should be covered with earth, lest it lie unburied as an offence. Next the Lord instructs which unions are guilty and which hearts concord may join in an equal bond, which this order sets out arranged in fixed ways: first, a mother is not fit for the bed in which a bride lies, and let no mind acknowledge such use, but only the dutiful devotion of her son, since she once clung to his father’s embraces. Likewise a sister born of the same mother, or a granddaughter, born to you of son or daughter; let not an aunt on the father’s side or the mother’s be joined to you in foul affection, nor guilty lust stray toward a daughter-in-law or the wife your brother has; let not a daughter know the use her mother knew, nor lie in the same bed,

mingled with one man, and defile the names of kin; nor take a stepmother, as one who is joined to her stepson; and to hold two sisters in one embrace is a thing at odds with the law; nor the wife whom your neighbour of the people joined to you has taken; let no son be given to serve a mighty idol, lest the Lord’s name be profaned in a forbidden act. Let no male be mingled in obscene love, nor dishonour your own sex; nor let any four-footed beast know shapeless intercourse with woman or man: for these crimes many nations offended the mighty Lord, and the land shows its anger at them all and rejects the filth with which it is stained. But when the reaper is cutting the wheaten ears, or when the vintager cuts off the yellow grapes, let no one gather everything, so that a part may be left for the needy, the last part. Let no one tell a lie, nor be willing to serve theft or ruin his brother, nor bind himself by oath upon an unjust cause. Let no one be pleased to harm another or keep what is stolen, nor keep back the wage of the hired man for his work even for one night; nor wish to curse the deaf or reproach anyone for a bodily defect.

Let the judge’s decision never lean to the left or the right side, because the person of the poor man and of the eminent man must be seen as one by those who, with the scale set, can discern what is right with teachable mind. Next, rein in a swollen heart, lest perhaps you become hateful while you despise all. Nor hate your brother if silent anger drives you, but rather rebuke him and set it out before him openly, so that he may avoid what he did before and reform his mind. And when the right to do harm has been entrusted to you, willingly lay aside your emotions and soften all your anger, which, long gathered in a silent breast, was strong, lest you yourself be lord and avenger of your own pain. And as you wish pleasant and profitable things for your own affairs, so ask them for your brother, lest your mind be divided. Keep this, men, and stand firm in the holy law. Let the beasts that draw your wagons be yoked of like body; do not join a bull with a horse in harness; nor scatter grain among green vines when you sow; nor have any garment of different colours woven in a mixed way or with twofold thread. If anyone loves a slave woman bound to another for a price, the right not yet given her that release grants to slaves and freedom bestowed, he is free of mortal crime.

if, not joined to a husband, she has shared his mind, if she grants easy intercourse without struggle, God is appeased by vows, if a votive ram from the soft flock is slaughtered at the Lord’s altar. Whenever shoots are grafted on a wild trunk, do not pluck fruit until three Decembers have passed, but consecrate it to the highest God; for the fifth year will give you the right to eat it with lawful food. Refuse to serve auguries, and shun hearing omens begun as though true; and do not make straight hair glow red with curling locks, or pluck the beard, or mark the skin with iron, or put brands on the body’s limbs, never gentle to limbs. Let not your daughter be sold by you to smooth-talking adulterers or transferred to a shameful bed; and shun men who heal by chants, and bring them to the penalty they deserve. If a young man does not rise for an old man, and if a boy for anyone bearded, he sins, because one greater in age demands the courtesy that is given to a father’s years. Let the measure of your peck never be short, nor keep a balance with a half-ounce of fraud. God, being just, requires what is just in every act. And reject those who seek answers from ventriloquists. Let no one take care to shave his beard for the dead, or bare his head, or defile his serene brow, or wish for anything that makes him more disfigured.

A woman whom a night-wandering adulterer has possessed is unworthy of marriage with a man who would take her afterward; and she who has been sent away by the decision that makes divorces, let her not know another’s bridal chamber; and the pure priest will in all things provide shining oil, with which the summit of his consecrated head was first anointed. Let a wife of his own race, known to him alone, cling to him, and let him avoid a widow or one guilty of lust, lest his offspring be stained by a forbidden mother. And if anyone bears any defect in his body, he will not be worthy to take up the holy duties. Pure bodies please, not smeared with foul blemishes, … which each, according to his means, has vowed to the altar. Moreover it is by no means right to offer blemished animals, for they are foul with blemishes; the Ruler on high is pure. If the daughter of a holy priest has been given under the law of a stranger, let her by no means touch and eat the first offerings; if, her husband dead, she has come back to live in her father’s house, let her take without care the food and bread her father takes, in her turn. But if anyone has unknowingly put his hand to holy things, for the fault let him bring a fifth more to the altar. Let a lamp hang before the dome from the lofty ceiling, so that the oil may give flaming light by night,

lest the day, run out, should mingle pale shadows in the Lord’s house and hide the holy altars. Meanwhile two young men are stirred with hot gall: one was a Hebrew, the other born of Egypt. And while, raging, they hurled curses at each other, the worthless Jew did not fear to darken the immense name of the Lord with his complaint, as he is carried away by anger. For this deed, dragged outside the rampart of the camp and placed in the middle of the field, at the command of the Lord on high he fell under a blow of stones. God goes through his pious laws and sets them all out. Whenever a needy man wishes to take another’s money, leaving a pledge, if he has made over his land to him whose help he asks, let him promptly repay what was lent him when his hand has grown rich, and receive back what had been transferred before; if he remains needy all his life, the land becomes free in that year in which rest and sweet relief are granted to all. But if perhaps someone sells a house in the middle of a city, let him repay within a year the money entrusted to him, lest he lose the property after the time has passed. Yet money is to be given to the hands of those who ask in such a way that interest may not afterwards exact an entangling gain.

Whoever, being poor, cannot sustain the thin means of life and bear hard days, and thinks it better to submit himself to a master, his freedom given up, let him not bear the yoke as one born of a slave woman, but as one engaged for work at a set wage, until, his time having run, he goes back free in the year when leisure is granted to all things together. And if he goes off sold, as by a master’s command, let his next of kin redeem him, or, if he is not there, let anyone of his tribe be charged to transact his brother’s case and take the servile yoke off the man. For if he was sold for lawful money, he will serve until the time comes in the desired year in which all together take back their rights that were let go; or, if the sum of years was small, let him make it up by the labour of his hands that he has given. So let him go wherever he will and take back with him his children, free and safe, together with his wife. Whoever keeps such commands with sincere heart, tranquil peace remains for him, which wars can disturb with no tumult; but leisure sent through long years will fill the granaries with manifold fruit. Moreover, if a fierce enemy draws his weapons, he will go away thrust back by a small fighting band, however immense the ranks he leads into battle.

But him who shuns the lofty commands of God the terror of death will drive, as though an enemy were whirling a sword, and in headlong flight he will hide trembling in a city. Then extreme famine with pale diseases will surround him, and though full he will think his mouth fasting and will always fear, his fear ever returning. And if he wishes to go out through the double gates where his mind has led him, the sad wilderness will confound him as he goes through fields deserted on every side, and he will fear yet more sadly ravening wolves and the beasts that are terrible through the countryside with tooth or claw; and though the spring crop springs from the rich turf of the land, it will put forth no tender ears on its stalks. Then the father will seek the limbs of his children as sweet to bite, and the mother in hunger will send down into her belly what she once fruitfully bore. Then the victor, rejoicing, will put chains on the captives, and flashing flames will raise their ruddy hair through the great houses, the cities turned to ash, which, harbouring foul things, strong walls once surrounded with protection. The inscriptions will fail, the emblems of varied praises, and what was beautiful before will perish, destroyed, so that God may be loved, ever to be revered on high, whom idols cannot touch with their lying worship.

Then what valuation in drachmas holds in vows, whether a woman or a male has been given to the altar, the rubric of God has written out, whether one older in age, or a boy or girl of years not yet grown, or a house or a farm, or whatever is dedicated in the mind, when the untroubled mind rejoices to trust the highest God, or when it is driven and disturbed by anxious dangers, lest error entangle those caught up in it; part remains set out, part is entrusted to the priest, so that the ruling also values the tithes of the fruits. If one wishes to keep the beast or field or house, it was under the right of the giver; let him soon pay at the altar the sum that coins in agreement assign to the prices.

Meanwhile the year had turned in its accustomed course, running in its own tracks as its months unrolled, since the youth chosen by God had left the shores of the Nile and at last migrated from the Egyptian sand, when God, shining from his starry seat, spoke and commands the prophet to bring sure commands to the tribunes of the tribes and then to number all the people, setting aside the boys and those whom a greater age now shows exempt from the care of anxious war, so that he might know what the sum is from twenty years up. They eagerly go over the number running through all, each his own squadrons, and quickly report the names inspected, which stand set down in twelve tribes. These together made six hundred and three thousand, if you take care to add five hundred and five times ten, while then the knowledge of the houses, man by man, showed the chiefs to be twice six. But the Levites, whom the care of the Lord’s sacred things alone awaits, he forbade to be joined to the people’s total. Hence seven thousand of the Gershonites were chosen for God, with five hundred added; Kohath separately makes twice four thousand, with six hundred added to them; but the third, called Merari in their native speech, showed twice three thousand and two hundred.