Heptateuch (the first seven books of the Bible in verse) 2.420–2.1012

Here the Lord deprives the king’s mind of fear, sharpening his swollen senses and fierce mind, so that he says the people whom he himself had sent away were rather fleeing, and moves his forces headlong to war, believing that with easy effort he could catch men whom error drives and trackless ways delay. So eagerly he calls his phalanxes to war as to a small matter, driving iron-clad chariots, which with flying axle a threefold crew drives, while one rises to hurl the swift spear, now low, now lofty into the windy air, apt for terror and deceit, because, beaten with frequent lash, the horn-footed horses lay low the ranks that stand against them and add the blow of their burning wheels, which the roused hoof turns with varied bounds. And now, hastening his march, he had brought his four-horse chariots to the curved shores of the Red Sea for chilling war, when the Jewish band, at once turning its eyes, looks back at the immense ranks and, over all the plains, iron-clad men gleaming, and, hemmed in by an equal weight of twofold fear, as it sees the sea and the enemy opposed, it uses harsh words against the prophet and says: “What great confidence was it, leader, in unaccustomed strength, to destroy your kindred people, to make them follow you, and to set the Red ocean before them as captives? Why, in vain, take from hated Egypt those who bore burdens, sad indeed, but safe?

Was it not better to suffer Pharaoh’s sad hardships and deadly laws? Was not that slavery better than freedom, which, exposed to deceit, prefers what it endured before and counts it sweet whenever worse things, never seen, follow? We said this long ago, when you called us to vows to be paid to the immeasurable God: it is safer there for those used to it to live and bear the slavery of a troublesome yoke than now to lie down in death amid barren plains and a land left behind, while in trembling plight we are terrified by sea and enemy.” But the prophet, overcome by no fear of anything, and rather seeing what is to come, speaks these words: “Loose your biting cares and put on serene minds, O companions, and turn your eyes straight ahead to see how great a salvation is brought you from the lofty stars, given by God on high. Those whom you see pressing on in a dense column you will not be permitted to see after this day, for the time of death presses on them. For God the warrior fights with his lofty right hand and rules those subject to him, while you keep your mouths silent.” When he had said this, deeds followed the words.

For the angel who flew before the camp of the men moves and places himself behind, and then the tawny column stands at their back and with a boundary between divides the ramparts and the sites of the two camps; and God pours dark night from his shining seat, and unexpected peace soothes those raging for war and removes all movement. O too happy, to whom God sent defences from the lofty stars, for whom the shining sky fights, and the nights come sworn together to battle! Then the commands of God bade the chief bring out his rod with outstretched hand and look down on the Red Sea. When this was duly done, the south wind comes, which, using all its blasts, drank up the seething waves through the silent night and dried the sea, so that a path opened in the middle might lay out an unharmed course on the parted sea, when the retreating sea had bared the thirsty sands. So when the hurrying sea had withdrawn, the wave, curved into the face of a mountain, stood round them and received them in its wide bosom and sent them through the deep. Pharaoh, believing the way open to him, while he presses close, enters and treads the sea; but suddenly the wagons groan and slow down, and the horses, prone to the ground with all their breast, push the weights with their knees in vain, which could not be moved at all, their axles bound fast.

At once, bloodless and bound by an immense fetter, striving to attempt hasty flight and to turn back again, they goad their yoked teams with vain terror. Upon them, wretched, another, greater and far more fearful thing is heaped and strikes their sluggish senses. For the sea, accustomed to dash its restless waves, joined its parted waters and mingled the swelling waves and sank all Egypt to the bottom. But the Jewish band, seeing floating bodies of men from the enemy’s side, and chariots swimming, and weapons and whatever is hurled slantwise at an enemy, looked up and feared God, and with faithful mind believed the Lord’s command and revered the prophet, while it sings sweet songs in the words of Moses: “Let us sing to the Lord our God, to whom belongs glory mighty in honour; he adorns himself with magnificent deeds, while the swift chariots of the Egyptians, with their horsemen joined and the heavy crowd, he kills in the streams of the Red Sea. Strong helper of my salvation, he took the people from the midst of the deep, guardian and father and true salvation! This is he, this my Lord and nourisher! Him I will hallow with conspicuous praise,

who is the God of my father. Him I will confess with lofty voices, who bore war and overwhelmed the strong, worthy of the name by which God is called. Like stones and heavy lead he hid in vast waves the cohorts which the king of the Nile, gathering them to arms, threatening, hailed as sharers of the spoil, while he bares swords for our throats and whirls and brandishes drawn iron, saying: ‘I will seize them as they flee, I will divide the spoil and overwhelm the conquered, and with the glory of a noble war I will hold the palm sought by merit.’ While he recounts this and trusts himself, he prepared destruction for all his own. None is like you, Creator, greatest in deeds, and prince of princes; you have given great help to your own, which the nations of the Philistines fear, the Edomites too and the Moabites; at their ruin the Canaanites tremble, until this people, redeemed by you, climbs the conspicuous mountain holy to God, heir with everlasting trophies.”

These words, repeated in like measures by an applauding circle, the mothers sang, the prophet’s sister leading, beating timbrels with their fingers as they sang together. At once, after they saw the forces of unjust Pharaoh overthrown, they press on fearless through the wilderness formerly called Shur, and through the dry heat wore out parched days; for three days the sun’s lamp scorched them with more fiery rays. Wearied, they come to Marah and see water flowing with a sad taste, which, tasting with weary breast, they spit far away, because the very heavy water tortured their parched throats with a bitter sensation. Because of this fault they give the spring its name, and with dense murmuring demand of the prophet flowing streams that could soften the hot vapours. He asks God, for by what power would the water come forth unless the Lord sent it from his starry hall? And at once he takes a wood by which he sweetens the sad drink, and floods the streams with honey not mixed in. There God gave just laws, with the scale balanced, testing the chief, as he speaks thus: “If you mindfully take all my words into a sincere heart to do what is fitting for life, bearing in your heart the commands of God, you will suffer nothing sad all your life long, nor will the loss of goods or cruel disease weigh you down; you will be far from every calamity that laid waste wild Egypt.

since I am the Lord, who heal hearts and can make you sound.” After this they came to Elim, watered with springs, twelve, which flowed by chance amid leafy palms, which with lofty tops waved seventy crowns through the clouds. And after they had spent their leisure with the camp set at Sin, then, travelling on the fifteenth day of the second month, they hasten through shadowy places; they groaned with extreme hunger, while with loud voices they rebuke and harass the leader: “What was the great cause of these evils? Or what can it be? What can be sadder than dire hunger, than burning breath in parched throats, and death at hand, which, delayed, weighs more heavily than death that comes at once? Would that one lot had given us death when we were in Egypt, when the supply of food was abundant for all and no one muttered apart that he lacked nourishment! Now we live here, where life is heavy, even if there are no griefs. Can anyone, then, endure the hated day among barren sands, and bear, parched, the hot sun that no shade tempers?

Rather, if your senses warn you of our dangers, aged leader, we ask you, give back to your own people the Nile and Egypt, and then permit the men who ask it to take up all their labours again, because our judgment is that nothing can be sadder than food cut off, and it is pleasant to serve when well fed.” After such words the prophet speaks, with Aaron as partner in his speech: “Why does it please you to hurl such words in untamed tumult and harass the chiefs? Why ask for food, which he alone can provide who made the stars? Yet at the setting lamp of the sun you shall see that there is a God, by whose gift bread is sent you from heaven; who, though you were long entangled in dark Mareotis, now sends you gladly to the fields. So come, and at the first light of the returning sun taste unaccustomed food, the heavenly manna. For the people’s quarrels, which do not fit our deeds, were rather sent against the Lord, who is used to feeding whatever he nourishes and leads the ages on with long pasture.” When he had said this, the Lord shone out from the cloud above in a brighter day and promised heavenly food to all, which a harvest that knows no deceit brings forth, and whose seeds no blight destroys.

Then, when evening shone from the saffron sky, quail, falling from heaven thick as snow, heaped in a heavy mass, fills the open plains and the site of the camp, to the wonder of all. Moreover, when light returned at its first rising, the manna gives snowy food, which, with fine grain like coriander, flowed down from all the stars. At the command, the men gathered it by hand by a fixed rule of gathering, lest anyone should perhaps wish to store more than the measure of just food, which suffices for each day; nor did vain cleverness help anyone who laid up more than was right at home; for when the sun grew hot the meal rotted, spoiled by manifold worms. Only this the two days’ light cannot spoil, which the Preparation brought out to be eaten on the festal day, which God commands to be holy, and that men bear no labour whenever that day returns, which they call the sabbath, granted to slow rest. Moreover this was thoroughly known to all, that on every seventh day no food comes down from the heavenly harvest; for when, with shrewd care, men went out through the countryside and the open plains, seeing nothing but grass waving in the blasts of the winds, they are carried back to their homes with empty laps.

And lest only those to whom the food of the honeyed gift was sent should see the memorials of God, some of it is shut in the protection of a gilded case, for the band yet to be born and to come one day to see, and, revering God, to marvel at the food of their forefathers. After this they move the standards and the long column is led out to a place which, burning with sun and lacking water, made the people bring out biting words against the chief as they demand water; and not with murmuring alone, but they almost proceeded to violence; for the priest, fearing stones would be hurled at him, sends words to God on high and implores rivers for the dry sands. At once, prompted by the great Lord, his word orders the elders likewise to go ahead; then he takes the familiar rod, with which he had known how to halt the waves and divide the sea with a rampart in the middle, and makes for Mount Horeb, which stands very high and lifts its sacred head to the nearby clouds. There a hard flint had enclosed imprisoned waters, above which the Lord stood and roused the springs by the same reckoning of his powers with which he set immense rivers through the whole world and poured out the seas. Ordered to strike it, he strikes, and suddenly the rock bursts and pours forth rivers in flowing waves.

The crowd runs to the waters in rivalry, in a gathered throng, and countless cattle rush in and quench the heat, and strength returns to the weary bodies when filled. At once the place itself takes from the cause the name of Temptation, because the people were doubtful in heart and uncertain in mind whether the highest Almighty dwelt among them, and because the harsh people had wished curses on the leader in words that anger conceives. There Amalek, arrayed with warlike bands, routed the Hebrew ranks; to ward off this disgrace Joshua takes with him the chosen strength of the fighters. As he goes with iron hand into the war undertaken, the leader helps him with vows and prayers, and climbs Mount Horeb with hastening step; Aaron, joined with him, and Hur flank him in the middle, and his limbs, through his age shrinking from toil and not strong for the duty of standing, they make firm with a stone placed beneath, and lay a hard seat under him and spread it for the leader; then they hold up his drooping hands, so that the prayer of his palms might join the words of his breast; for often, falling under their aged weight, they made the contest doubtful. When right hands placed beneath them on either side had made them firm, the enemy ranks give way, and the fields are filled with slaughter of men, and none of so many thousands survives.

When these things had been done at God’s command, the prophet wrote them in a book to teach the times to come, and at once he builds an altar consecrated to God, calling the holy place by faithful words: “My sure hope is God, whose protection alone has always given me help, who with hidden strength and concealed hand drove off the warring Amalekites and kills them, their cohorts and all their youth.” Meanwhile Jethro learns of his son-in-law’s deeds and comes in haste, rejoicing to see with his own eyes what he had been told; and he finds him hedged in by immoderate labour, as he hears all the cases of a crowd past numbering; and, having prayed to the great God, he sacrifices cattle before him; then by his advice he brings it about that tribunes are chosen from the people and further ranks, which the soldiers receive in order, so that the legions may be ruled by sure law and settle small disputes, while great quarrels are to be judged by the leader alone. When this was duly done, Jethro goes back to his own home and left his son-in-law. Meanwhile the third month had hastened by in its varied course, when the Lord’s column is led through lonely fields to Mount Sinai. The prophet quickly climbs it, prompted by a voice and by God’s warnings; soon, prostrate, he hears:

“Remember to tell all these words spoken to you: you have seen, men, what wonders Egypt suffered, while care for you holds me and I gather you all and carry you as if led on the track of the wings that the prince of birds spreads as it ploughs the clouds. And now, if my words come through your ears, so that what is commanded is done and your hearts cling in harmony to the just law, I will always have you as a people distinguished by rich possessions and will set you before all nations, so that you may reign in strength in the whole world. For all this earth is mine, and whatever anywhere is born is always subject to eternal right. You shall be a kingdom of priests, which my right hand makes famous, and a nation holy to me, which prolongs a long age.” He, mindful of the command, repeated what had been said to the chiefs of the people, and the people believed the notable words and submitted their hearts to the great Thunderer, saying that they would do the illustrious commands. The Lord, about to establish another, greater thing from his lofty seats, sends the prophet to his accustomed duties and orders all to wash away in flowing water the stains from their clothing or their limbs, and the men to spend the nights apart, so that, pure in mind and body, they may see God from the lofty stars on the third day, set far off from the mountain, which no one standing near shall touch or approach; the cattle are ordered to be driven into the far desert, lest punishment fall on them with the guilty.

that comes by stone or iron, when the hand drives and hurls the missile weapon or blows shake the rock. These things done, the people, their bodies stained by no blemish, look toward the hill, when dawn on the third day first gave its redness, the stars withdrawn. And now lightnings flash, now from the lofty stars a great roar of voices is heard, and the stormy cloud holds itself poised in its mass, and with awful crash the trumpet repeats terrible sounds, and, fenced by a rampart in the camp, the sad people tremble, and the steep sides of the sacred mountain smoke, bearing witness to God from heaven. And whoever was a priest from the chosen people stays far from the mountain, which only the pious Aaron and Moses may climb. Then in everlasting utterance God gives commands to endure, in this order of the law: “I am the Lord, who, freeing you from peril, brought you out of the land of Egypt and ordered the hard labour that servile care imposed to cease. Let your hearts worship me alone, and do not fashion any idols for yourself or, relying on a made god, worship it; nor believe to be divinities the stars that shine in heaven, nor marvel likewise at anything on earth or what the grey-green waters of the flowing sea cover. I am a jealous Lord, repaying sins and crimes on the fathers and then on the offspring born in the fourth generation;

very merciful, repaying greater and great rewards that just men have deserved, who in the depth of their heart embrace my commands, keep them and follow them in mind. Revere the name of God. Keep the festal sabbaths with your sons and servants, and gladly lay aside all labour whenever that day returns to the world. In twice three days the Lord made whatever flourishes on land and in heaven and in the swelling sea; on the seventh, the end of his mighty works complete, he rested; hence that festal day flourishes, hence it is ever hallowed, ever honoured by the Lord’s indulgence. Give honour, son, to your parents, so that you may have lasting life on earth, which mighty God prolongs from his mighty seat. Do not love adulteresses, nor kill a man, nor bear witness to oaths perjuring yourself wickedly; commit no theft at all, nor as an evil witness defend a litigant by fraud. Keep your mind and your eyes from another’s wife, and shudder at whatever your mind warns is not yours. Let altars rise built from a heap of earth, where it is right to sacrifice devoted sheep. But if perhaps you choose to raise them with a mass of stones, leave iron far away, since things smoothed by a craftsman’s hand become defiled; and you shall not climb them with ready step, lest perhaps you uncover your nakedness.

Whoever is a slave born of the kindred nation, let him bear the servile yoke for twice three years; then let him go free, carrying his rewards with him, his wife sent away with him if she is not yet seen to be pregnant. But if he already rejoices in children and the name of father, he must leave his wife and offspring to his master, himself his own man and released from his master’s bond. But if he decidedly prefers to remain a slave, let him be placed before the holy doors, his master setting him there, to suffer the wound that a thin awl pierces through the soft ear, never free for all time. It is not lawful for a parent to sell a daughter to a foreign nation; the power to sell remains with the allied people; yet it is in no way right to send her away as a slave. If she displeases the master to whom she passed when sold, the coins at which she was valued shall be returned, so that he may send her back to her father’s threshold. But if perhaps she is given to his son, it is fitting that he treat her as his own daughter. And if the son prefers to take another lawfully, he shall openly provide the garments allowed her, with which her limbs are covered, and shall not then deny her what is hers if she is known to him by intercourse; or, if these things entrusted to the man are not kept, he may release her to go and not reclaim the price given. He who with a hard wound strikes down a man, let him lie in the same death with which he kills; but if the harm came rather by chance, the Lord delivering the guilty man to another’s blows, there is a place that can shelter him, to be granted pardon, the Lord indulgently granting safety.

But he who by guile severs living limbs with iron and rejoices zealously in the blood he has shed has a capital charge and seeks in vain the shelter holy to God on high; for he is taken from there and, led far off, will be cut down with the stiff sword. And he who insolently abuses or strikes his parents rushes into a guilty crime that is atoned by death. No less is he sought for punishment who, with deceitful and faithless mind, steals one born of his fathers’ people and rejoices to transfer him for coins received. But if a quarrel has arisen in words and someone struck with a fist or a stone thrown recovers his usual strength, no guilt will cling to the striker; yet he must pay what the physician’s care has cost. He who at once kills his maidservant or his servant with the blow of a rod does not escape the penalty that clings to him. But if the slave dies after another day, there is no guilt, because he has lost his price. But if perhaps a quarrel boils up between two men, while they grow hot with stirred gall, and one of them strikes a wife swelling with conceived offspring, his hand stretched out to strike, and causes the child to come to be thrust from the mother’s womb before its day, he shall make good the child with a price, as the husband assesses it, if its form was not yet complete and shaped.

But if the infant has died with its features formed, he shall fall by a deserved death. Eye for eye taken each guilty man shall give back, giving up tooth for tooth, and for hand he shall give hand, and foot in turn, whoever cuts off a foot; burning by flames devouring fire expiates; wound shall be given for wound; bruised limbs are atoned by a bruised body. But if anyone robs his servant or his maidservant of an eye, let him let them go free wherever freedom calls; or if fragments of a tooth are struck out by his hand, let the injured one receive consolation, so that gifts may make up for the wound. But if a bull, rejoicing in its very strong neck, still unused to the field and free from the curved plough, strikes anyone with its horn, let it be crushed with a mass of stones, and, buried, not to be eaten by any tooth of men, it shall give its limbs to the earth, to be dissolved in its liquid joints, leaving no danger to its innocent owner. But if, used to strike its neighbours with crescent brow, its owner, long warned, has heedlessly not shut it in, let him die for the slaying by the ox, and let the bull be killed. But if a milder sentence demands the price of the dead, let him pay whatever the assessment requires.

Any man may also demand this for the killing of his son or daughter. If a slave has fallen by the blow of a bull, it is the master’s duty to pay thirty coins, and the savage bullock is killed. But if anyone wishes to sink a well by deep digging, removing the soil to the bottom, let him close it soon with a cover, lest, if perhaps a beast has rolled down the slope, he pay the damages, the owner demanding the price of those that fell, and buy the carcasses of the cattle as slight consolation. But if perhaps an ox kills an ox with its hooked horn, let it be sold; let the price be shared by the two, and let them take the divided flesh of the slain bull. But if its fault had been clearly attested before, the owner shall give back beast for beast for the one lost, the innocent man taking the limbs of the slain bullock. Whoever steals a calf shall be compelled to return five; whoever carries off a lamb shall pay twice two. It is lawful to lay low a night thief with iron while he breaks through the doorposts and the barred thresholds. But if he is caught after the sun has risen, the guilty man is ordered to return twofold what was taken. And if this is beyond his property and means, he shall be sold, to pay for his thefts by the labour of his hands.

If anyone’s beast has stripped another’s crop or green vine, cropping it bit by bit with wide mouth, let him at once measure out acres of fertile field of equal yield and extent; so he will repay the damage that was done before. This rule binds those too who sweep all the fallow lands together and reap the leafy vines, consuming the shoots, so that they lose, by the same reckoning, what they had in plenty in their own fields. For the crackling fire, used to catching thorns from a little kindling, dry stubble and trunks stripped of bark, if it has consumed another’s crop or vine with its heat, the guilt returns on its author through the damages he owes, so that he repays whatever the guilty flame devoured. It is right to return a deposit: if the faithless hand of thieves has plundered it, when the thief is found a double sum is paid; but if he who took the stolen wealth remains hidden, a sacrifice alone will make the keeper free of guilt, because he is free of fraud. But if, deceitful, he is exposed in lying cunning, let him return twice the weight of the deposit before a judge. This measure too must be kept in cases of cattle: that he whose guarding was slack restores what was carried off by wicked theft.

But if the mad rage of wolves tears the soft flock, the quarrel is calmed when the flesh is shown. But if anyone lends a pair of bullocks to draw wagons, let him not claim they died under an enormous load if he himself was present as driver as they went. This holds also for other beasts pressed by loads put on them. But if he who drives them loses the animals received in haste, it is right that he bear the whole loss. But if a man hired for an agreed wage loses them, he shall promptly reckon them in the price of the work. If anyone takes for himself a maiden not betrothed, he shall join her to himself as wife with a dowry. But if there is no agreement to marriage with the girl he has taken, let him give her father the gifts that befit a marriage. It is wrong to hide a sorcerer. Hard death shall kill one who mingles with a beast in the act of shameful intercourse. Let life leave men who revere the shrines of demons, since it is right to bow the neck to the Lord alone. Let no one wrong a stranger by word or hand, because Egypt received you when you left your native soil and former seat. Let a woman whose husband has died not be despised, but rather cherished, and boys bereft of parents, lest the guilty suffer the same penalties and, terrified by swift death, leave their own bereft:

for God hears and helps afflicted hearts. Grant on credit to one who asks the use of the coins he requests, putting far away interest and shameful usury; and do not hastily press the trembling man to repay what he took. And if perhaps he entrusts and hands over to you the covering of his body as a pledge for the money, return it before the sun hides its head from heaven. I am the merciful Lord: I hear these at once. Cease, all of you, to curse foreign gods, and especially the men who will hold the reins of the people. Bring pious gifts to the Lord from the first fruits, and whatever you beget as the firstborn of a bride you shall consecrate to the Lord after the seventh sun has measured its high journey, so that you may be a holy race. Let no one eat a beast killed by the tooth of ravening wolves; let him refuse what is unworthy of tables. You shall not believe reports made to you that no support of good faith upholds; nor wish to speak falsely as a witness with unjust mind; nor, joined as one to the many in a crowd, strive to overpower the innocent so as to condemn the weak and humble on a trumped-up charge. Rather, if perhaps you see wandering the beast of one whose heart is not joined to yours, bring it back. And if beasts of burden are borne down by heavy weight, raise them, and, straining, lift them with both hands.

Do not lay low an innocent man, for he is of a just heart. You shall not take gifts to favour a trembling guilty man and an anxious defendant, since they soon blind the eyes and break the words of men and every judgment. On rich clods let the vigorous farmer labour for twice three years, because the seventh must be one that brings slow leisure, in which every poor man may take what has grown openly, and gladly leave what remains to be eaten by wild beasts as they roam the glades. In the perpetual circle, as the winged year revolves, festivals of three kinds are to be kept by you, and on the seventh day it is right, rejoicing, to take soft azyma of wheaten meal, as I warned you long ago, in the first month of the new season, when you had full freedom to depart from Egypt. Let no one come empty-handed before my face. Know that the first fruits of your works and the beginnings of the harvest are festivals for you, whenever you scatter seed in the field, or when rest is joined to the year’s completed course, all things being finished that the care of labour produces. Let every man mark three times in the year at which he may show himself before my face. For when the glad possession of the land has been committed and entrusted to you, the nations subdued, know that only unleavened bread is to be set on my altars;

that manifold cattle and the red stream of blood avail nothing for your feasts, and that the fat shall not last through the wakeful night into the hours of light that return whenever the care of the rites recurs. And let not a tender lamb be cooked in its mother’s milk. See, I send a starry minister from the heavenly citadel to take care of you, to cherish you with much strength as you go to the land that flourishes gladly with rich fields and pours out sweet waves of nectar. Prepare to hear him and trust his holy words. He is joined to you and will remain faithful, keeping an everlasting name at heaven’s summit. Come now, join your hearing to the holy words and take up my command with sincere mind, that you may be a people dear to me and a blessed nation and a lofty kingdom of God, a race always exalted in all lands that the sun, returning on either side, beholds as it embraces the world with its hot axle. I will cherish those who agree with you and resist all who prepare to war with you; the Amorite will yield to you, and the fierce Hittite and those whom now the best of lands sustains, soon to be turned over to you as its tiller for ever. Take care not to bend your necks to forbidden shrines or, relying on them in fear, worship hostile gods.

Rather overthrow the profane things and scatter all the idols with their inscriptions, and blot out the inscribed names, so that you may serve God, before whom all things tremble. Soon I will bless your food and flowing springs and take away the plagues of disease from your body. No one in all the people will grieve for lack of a child that he has not his father’s name and honour. I will grant long days, so that a broader term of life may prolong the times of the life you long for. Before your ranks sad terror will fly, and hornets will run ahead with poisoned sting, so that your standards may be feared by warlike companies and easy victory may come through fierce nations. Yet I will make them, once subdued, decrease gradually, lest the land be empty of men and the crowd of rabid beasts increase too greatly. With your soldiers spread out I will make the bounds of your land and seat extend, from where, by the Red Sea, the slippery ocean surges with windy waves, as far as the Philistine sea, and the land without human tillers, renowned, and with its great flow, where the Euphrates runs clear with glassy waves.” When he had thundered these words, the Lord bids Aaron and Moses climb the hill, and seventy men of noble age, and bow their necks from afar to the eternal and highest God; for he allows the leader himself to hasten near, who, carrying out the holy commands of God, at once builds a lofty altar at the foot of the outstanding mountain that rises into the empty air: