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「whence the coming day reddens and the serene light, and where lies the land enclosed by twin streams, the Tigris and the Euphrates—that with bitter words I might curse things undeserved of men, whom the holy Almighty protects from on high, and assigns to the rich land. These, therefore, from afar upon the hill it is now my right to behold, and now to discern the longed-for faces of the happy people, whom alone the great gifts of God follow, and which, set apart far off and exempt, receives the longed-for abodes from the placid Deity. Who, then, has counted the bright offspring of ancient Jacob, or has been able to run through the people in numbers?」
「Rather may my life perish among these, leaving its bodily seat, and at rest joined to the just, and may my offspring live with such a stock!」 When he had discoursed thus, Balacus, with senses numb, sank down, and chides the prophet uttering things contrary and discordant; and bidden to climb a swollen hill, that he might behold through the fields below a scant part of the people. These things, his utterances ordered, he adds again: 「Forthwith let down my words through your ears, ruler of the people of Moab, and come as witness! Unlike to men is God, nor, having spoken true things, does He make His words void, nor threaten anything with impunity—He who, upheld by great gifts, admonishes me to pray, as I do; and I will consecrate by vows the people of God, which grief shall flee wholly, and the toils of labors.」
「Joined and united to God, who repels all hard things, bestowing the gifts of wealth-bringing peace—behold this people's chieftain from the holy star, O ruler of the heavens and the earth: for he is worthy of your honor, he who led forth the people groaning with neck long pressed down from the kingdom of harsh Pharaoh—a standard-bearer second to none in the praise of virtues, who cherishes a unique realm and trusts in no augur, sings no charms nor grasps at anything vain. At a certain appointed time, secure, he shall receive the felicitous words of the heavenly God, and his perfected virtue shall become Jebusaean from the strength of the supreme Lord. This people flashes forth, just as when through lonely fields a lion with maned neck bears himself aloft, not seeking the lairs of the wood to which he was once accustomed,」
「until, grim, gorged with thick gore and with prey, he has terrified the green mountains with his menacing roar.」 These things too the king, wounded with much wrath, refuses, asking a third utterance of the prophet on a different hill; from whose summit, when he had seen the people stationed throughout the camp, with teachable breast he brought forth words: 「Lofty and great houses, whatsoever the seed of Jacob holds, and they raise their summits with equal roofs, like the cedar and the gleaming wood, which wafts the honor of its foliage and modulates whisperings with its complaining branches; or like that which greens glad, driven beneath the river's banks—these the Lord has built and raised on high to the stars. From whose seed one shall someday be born, bearing laws to all peoples, and notable for an eternal kingdom.」
「Whom God in His clemency summons from Pharian Egypt—conspicuous, equal to none, and lacking a partner. He shall guide the nations rebellious in their several quarters, hurling many deadly darts with His deadly right hand. And when thereafter He reclines, leaning, and like a lion unfolds Himself before the eyes, sleep having slipped away, then He removes the slumber, restored at once to wakeful deeds. And who shall make Him halt again at a touch? Whoever praises your heralding with sanctifying utterance shall become happy; but whoever speaks the contrary, he sends forth ill-spoken words against himself from a windy mouth. These are the things which the Lord commands you to be admonished of by our voice—an utterance which it is right for none to break, nor for any man to change or to add anything besides.」
「However great a talent of silver you may offer to bring, and the weight of your immense wealth and gold: the gifts profit nothing; this is what is fixedly declared.」 These things done, he seeks his own dwelling and leaves the king astonished and groaning over the immense, harsh words. But the Judaean host meanwhile luxuriates in prosperous wars and deems holy the altars it had conquered; and celebrates with unlawful worship the gentile idols—Beseli, before devoted, and the mute Phegor. Hence soon the immense wrath of God rises up, and thereupon He commands the chieftains to advance to an open field, and turning bids them behold the light of the returning sun, and the attentive to expiate the noxious deed. This the prophet hastily does, and bares the iron, pursuing the innocent and the guilty with his wandering blade.
Amid these things a certain man, betraying a brotherly reproach—because he had unlawfully procured for himself a marriage from the Madian race—presents before all of them the guilty Zambrius and Chasbu, in equal fraud; whom Phinea swiftly, snatching up a spear, smites, and stills the immense plague by just atonement, which had consumed in death twice ten thousand men, and three thousand, while the Lord's dart ran among them all. For this deed Phinea, the prophet, receives the consecrated altars and took up the Lord's sublime honor. Meanwhile the youth, begotten of new stock, is enrolled and thereafter, drawn off, is marked by numbers—the youth that, greening in earliest flower, now with tender shoot clothed its face, glad through twenty years; which thereafter came to a sum of six hundred thousand, and twice eight thousand, with three hundred added besides.
These earned the blessed seats by the Lord's gift; and at once the Almighty bids the prophet turn the standards against the slanting foe and press on with the begun war. Against them they go with twice six thousand men—whither each tribe had sent, while every several thousand counts its warlike squadrons from its own. Phineus leads as captain in these things, while he carries into the accustomed battles the holy vessels and the terrifying trumpets; and eager, with chosen soldiery he at once cuts down the Moabite ranks and slays all the kings; while he presses the backs of the routed and slays the prophet Balamus, and brings back the spoil from the subdued nation.
But because, after the wars, he was dragging along ranks of women in a captive column, he is admonished by the chieftains' commands to take away only the deserved life from the virgins, and to purge the bodily stains of the men with streams. And no less he distributes the spoil among all the people, and gave to the Levites a portion from the deserved gift—those whom pious care ever kept in the Lord's temple. And first-fruits also are rendered to the eternal God from all things, brought back from the subdued nation. These things done, the tribe of Ruben and the half of Manasses and Gada ask for the glad seats of Galaditis—a land easy for flocks: for, herbaceous with much grass, joined to the river Jordan, it grew green; which though the leader had refused them with undaunted speech,
while he thinks they were changing their minds because of future battles, he nonetheless concedes and grants it, on condition that with their whole soldiery they bear arms and aid the allied cohorts in war. Thus far the people, harassed by the sands of the shapeless wilderness, had advanced its arms to the river Jordan; which, while it slipperily wanders among the green glens, left famous Jericho with its gliding flood, and follows on, and thereafter mingles with the open sea. There the holy prophet, while he sees death approaching him and the sum of his days drawing near—which had been written down for the world—while he tarries there, gathers the people collected into squadrons and in frequent numbers, and enriches them with such a gift of words: 「If it pleases you utterly to lay low the hostile nations and to hold placid peace in the ages to come,」
「fear God, and store Him up in your hearts with your whole understanding, that He may ever be joined to you with unharmed love—He who lifted you up, mourning with neck long oppressed, from the chains and prison of Egypt; who placed Himself between you and the foe pressing on the trembling and threatening your bared backs; who gave also a cloud as a standard for the carefree day, and wiped away the pitch-black night with clear light: so that, set on the unknown track of the lands, the elements of God might strengthen you, changing themselves, whither the dark night comes, by what course the stars grow bright; He too laid bare on dry sand the ocean wont to run with alternating motion and ever wandering, whither the breaths of the wind bear it unperceived—exuding blood, the reddening shores, the land;」
「so that He might lead you, hemmed in by the doubtful peril of toils, with walls raised on either side to alternating arms, the sea divided, while it hangs in a cloven wave. You saw what care the high Deity then had around you, while flying behind, the foe rouses himself and seeks a like path over the windy marble. But that mighty one, unable to cross the swollen floods, fell, and is tossed amid the wet sands. You, whom soft Egypt had given as rich in spoils, conquered the shapeless lands of the wilderness, denied of dwellings, with God protecting—while at once He sends down light from the rocks and manna from gleaming Olympus. And the quail, fallen through the night with great storms, filled the level fields, set about the camp pitched around;」
「the long use of feet did not wear them out, nor did your garments perish with mold or worn upon the body; worn-out age destroys nothing of all that is around you. The hostile ranks give way and the cities lie open: the Lord is your standard-bearer, weakening with swift dread sent forth all who stand in the way of your steps. And now, since we have come to the watery waves of the Jordan and the land already joins itself nearby—transcribed from God Most High—by the stars I testify, and by whatever shines forth in the high hall of the Lord, that you should hold the heavenly law, which the right hand of the Thunderer wrote, in your senses and with your whole heart. It bids nothing harsh or rigid; all things are just, gentle, joyful, and fitted to a long life, inasmuch as they command that whatever displeases anyone, committed against himself,」
「let him strive to inflict on none. Love the sabbaths and cherish them with a sincere heart, those whom one law holds, whom one Lord exhibits. Nothing forbidden will He wish to be done, who loves all equal under the law of birth. Let the Passover be each year, mighty with its wakeful night, and let it bear slow rest for seven days, subject to no care. Let father and mother be dear and ever to be revered. Beware of forbidden marriage with a foreign nation. Cast away idols, and turn aside the left-hand wrong that fierce nations brought forth, while they tend dead deities and set up offerings in shadowy groves. Moreover, as often as the harsh trumpet gives the bloody signal and the war-clarions lead forth the bronze-clad squadrons, consecrate your built houses and glad vineyards, and join to your accustomed feasts a lawful marriage:」
「for impending wars ever make doubtful chances for men, and no one gives himself the times of his life. Keep the unwarlike at home: a wounded mind often disturbs brave men. And in every time of war, spare the suppliant and war down the proud. Avoid, O men, to overthrow a fruitful wood with noble fruits; cut down the barren glens in time of wars. If by chance the body of one slain is seen unburied, let the Levites' care attend to maim the foot of a heifer, lest God, the greatest avenger, be against the innocent. If it has pleased you to join a captive woman to your bed, all right will let you keep her under your roof, to shear her long-haired head and cut her nails, and to allow thirty days of tears for the grieving woman—the slain and slaughtered elders, by whom she was created—and then at last to bind her to yourself in a just marriage.」
「And if, after the loss of her chastity, the captive woman displeases, let her lay down the servile yoke and leave her master. If by chance one man has married two wives and does not keep their partnership with equal care, the children of the despised wife shall hold two-thirds by right of all things which the parent's care brought forth. Entomb the condemned men and bury all the slain in sepulchres: for the earth is denied to none. Let a woman by no means take up a man's garments, nor men those of women; by forbidden adornment it becomes harmful. If anyone wishes to take the unfledged young of birds, let him not carry off the mother with the brood. Whoever builds a roof, let him provide lest by chance the workman roll down from on high. Let not the vineyard, twice teeming, bear heavy clusters; nor let your harvest be plucked with double ears of grain. Avoid the gentile men;」
「and whatever is abhorrent in morals or in worship, the holy law repels far off. Restrain the unclean she-wolves, lest the wages of a sold night carry off anything to the Lord's eternal sanctuaries. Let whoever holds a fugitive not give him back to his master, lest the fierce one afflict the captive under a harsh lash. Let no one gather a harvest grown in another's field; nor let him wish to press wine which the grape produced from a neighbor's portion of his own; yet to pluck clusters and ears beforehand is permitted, not to take the whole. If a wife, driven from the house, has by chance married another husband, and if afterward she is widowed of that same one, let her not return seeking again the partnership of the spurned bed. Let no one turn out a newly-wed bride within the unfinished year. Nor let the millstone be sold, which, hollowed with twin stones, turns curved in its bowl and grinds the grain. Let not one hang for another's crimes,」
「the penalty. Let him receive forty lashes upon his back, who, fierce with foolish speech, hurls revilings. Let not the mouths of the threshing ox be bound. If by chance one die without begotten offspring, beside whom a brother stood, let him who survives lead the dismissed woman to his house and beget children, lest the home be emptied of any seed and sully the empty race; but if the man refuses, let the woman soon plead her cause before the chieftains and cite the law that compels the slothful. As often as perfidious quarrels turn into brawling, and gnashing men strike one another in alternating wranglings, let not a woman thrust herself between them, nor seize the obscene loins of another's husband. Whoever does these things devoutly,」
He is touched by no plague of evil, nor does he fear wars and burning sicknesses, nor does he feel the year barren when the months are spent; but, serene, he rejoices through the whole span of life, since God grants him riches—He who looks down upon the world's crimes and, gentle, punishes them in due time." With such words the prophet prayed, and admonished all the Levites, to whom belongs the care of the venerable sanctuary and of the holy things of God: that they should constantly read aloud to all the commands of the everlasting law, so that the awe of God might be the readier in the hearts of all men; and that also the tablets, polished from the twin rock, which hold the twice-five commandments to be dreaded throughout the world, the sanctifying priests should keep shut up within the inmost recesses of the ark.
When this was done, he bade Joshua, son of Nun, come forth, and by the judgment of God gave him authority to rule the people; and that the people of Judah might willingly overturn the altars and the false gods, he set words to a tuneful hymn. THE SONG OF MOSES. Let heaven grant hearing and praise God, even that which above stretches its veil over the stars; and let the earth, divided by the swelling sea, lend its ears and receive these sounds—which speech, the herald of the mind, declares: as it is wont to drink the rainy dews, when the harvest, scorched by raging heat with burning flame, wastes away in the dusty field; the grasses laugh and the world brings forth its young, and the cleft earth, parted by gaping fissures, drinks deep the fruitful showers. For I have called upon the name of my Lord. To His glory it is fitting that His servants render due honors and deserved praises.
To His sayings the truth cleaves fast, which ever flourish strong in their vigorous youth. Right judgment and just ways entangle the travelers in no twistings: nothing is unjust, nothing is crooked. The Lord of blessed faithfulness does not repay guilt with deserts equal to the faithful, although the wicked offspring, swift to break covenants, labors for itself a punishment. Alas, the people doomed to a death of grief! Is it thus you repay the Lord, our God—Him who would rather be called Father, while He grants His servants the name of sons; though He sways all things with His everlasting power, and could in a moment destroy them with sudden death? He established you, He created you, He who now holds and shall one day hold dominion. Remember rather the everlasting age, and the things that live on after death and burial; ask of the years which the coming succession shall take up, and what things must again be created.
Or if your mind is dull, entreat the Father, who will straightway teach you all things; or ask one of the elders: he will scatter the cloud and give light. When the Lord, exalted on high, had given the divided peoples to the world—those whom the first father Adam, in creating, gave over to the anxious toil of earth—but the word of the eternal God had ordained that He set an end and a sum to the nations, even such as the starry hosts maintain, the people of Jacob clave to the Lord, whose chosen lot is summoned to Himself: for he lives as heir of the Lord and God, alone sufficient and firm in himself; whereby the land which lay denied of dwellings, panting beneath the burning suns' hot flames, is watered perpetually by no waters. There God, drawing forth the guilty, smote them ever and again with deserved blow, and soon granted sanctifying healing, placing them beneath His right hand.
Even as the bird labors to cherish her chicks, brooding over them with the covering of her wings; as we ourselves are wont to keep the central light, by which we discern, hidden beneath our eyelids, lest by chance some hurt of injury befall it—so the Lord alone snatched them from the foe, He who set the heaven and made the lands; He prepared for them food of many kinds, which the earth, watered by the showers, brings forth; the rocks gave streams of honey, and likewise of flowing rich oil; the udders of the flocks gave milk for sustenance; the fertile earth made harvests of wheat and created wine from the dripping clusters. With the juices of these the youth, filled and drunken, presumes to deny the deity by whose gifts, enriched, it reigns! Nay more, following pestilent rites, it prepared rich altars to demons.
The light of the Lord and God saw these things, and prepared a just death for the guilty according to their deserts, sundering them and driving them far off, since it seemed better to Him to prefer an unknown people to the rebellious ones. Fire flashes from the Lord's mouth, which, as it ranges over the perpetual world, leaps up, to be dreaded even by the powers below. It lays low the pastures and overthrows the harvests and the things that came up from the seeds cast in. The stars shine and the mountains glitter, when the Lord is moved with just wrath and assails the trembling with His burning dart. A lurid pallor shall slay their bodies, wont to enter the fasting breast. Some shall the feathered birds carry off; some the beasts shall devour with their bites; some shall harder wounds by the sword make to mourn for their children consumed; that at length Judah may cease to seem to itself rich, as it were, by its own gift.
The wounding foe shall destroy that people, while a thousand flee and dread one. But again the Lord returns serene, when, gracious, He has at once calmed all His wrath; far unlike the gods of the guilty, whose vine is the vine-stock of Gomorrah, too fruitful with gall-bitter new wine, fiercer than all the venoms of asps. The time now hastens—behold!—of death, to which the avenging Lord constrains them all. And now call upon the pestilent gods: let them be present, let them help, let them lighten the penalties, that healing may return to your prayers. I alone am the Lord, behold: I alone am the founder of life and the arbiter of death; mine is the right to spare, mine the right to smite! No mightier arbiter of the heavens exists who has power to deliver from death the one whom the Lord's hand constrains. While I lift it up through the star-bearing heavens, I will say:
"To everlasting ages I commit it, drawing the sword naked from its sheath: which, while it is whirled among the trembling foes, gleams white with flashing brightness, pestilent to the lowest and dreadful to the high." Rejoice forever with the Lord, O heaven! whom the whole firmament and the angels praise, and the nations with a kindred and equal people. For the Lord bursts forth in long-pent wrath and, while He smites the wicked from on high, spares the submissive and reserves the godly. After the prophet had sung melodies worthy of God, about to look upon the land granted to the people from the peak of Mount Nebo—the land whose governance he had directed—he climbed the lofty ridge, and then, his task fulfilled, sank down, his limbs covered by no tomb; his life had been one hundred and twenty years, unwearied in all things, in a happy and fortunate course.
Worn out by no infirmities and liable to no disease: nay, even at the time of his setting his eyes kept their flames, clear of sight with serene gaze. Amid these things the Lord, deigning to approach Joshua, promises that he shall become exalted with mighty gifts, admonishing him to cross the ford of pleasant Jordan and to pitch his measured camp on the enemy's bank; and that he should establish new dwellings in the appointed part of the lands and dispose the people in fertile places. Nay more, He makes known the nations by their distinct names, as far as the great mountain which the dweller calls Lebanon, even to your banks, O Euphrates, who glide with downward train, dividing the Persians by a Syrian boundary; or the sea, which swelling tosses with windy waves.
For besides his outstanding strength engaged in joined battles, spreading terror far among the pale peoples, the Jewish soldier trusts in the Lord's protection. To him the Lord, bestowing a signal merit from the stars, granted that he should take rich lands without a wound. "Up now, take on manly cares," God thunders, "that the people may soon seize the realms granted to it. And at the same time remove not the law-bearing book from your sight, that, safe under the everlasting Lord, you may never be widowed of Him." He swiftly addresses the scribes who bear his commands, that the people should take up provisions and fitting weapons, about to set the strong cohorts in motion to the neighboring wars, when the third dawn-line should mark the rosy world. And he addressed the tribes remaining beyond the joined Jordan, that they should leave their cattle and children in the lands they had received,
and wage the common war, and afterward return to the conquered peoples, whom they were to drive out with the Lord as their leader. They, eager, join their wedge-formations and mingle their battle-lines, all alike seeking every harsh thing with sword and with vows. Meanwhile he bids young men, chosen from the warlike host, to scout out what places these are and what men dwell there, where the city-walls of the nation stand, and to report back swiftly what they have seen. They, while they survey the rich estates of the land of the Medians, burst into the entrances of the city, unguarded by any sentinel, and secretly survey the site and the dwellings of Jericho. A harlot receives them, who long since was called Rahab, and secretly hides them as they tremble, and soothes them attentively with her words.
And when this was told to the king, with threatening terror he demands the hidden men back, while she with steadfast mind says they have both long since gone out through the wide-open gates—those whom nevertheless she had secretly covered in a hollow of stalks. The leader's care seeks them through every byway, and, as though an enemy were at work, closes the thresholds of the gates. But the harlot, after the tyrant's anxious search had ceased, turns to the young men and spoke after the manner of a prophetess: "Known to me, brothers, are the rewards which the Lord offers you, ever since He first delivered you from swarthy Egypt: how through the midst of the sea the wave, held suspended by the swelling surge, was to you, as it were, in place of mighty walls; or when, through the empty sands of the squalid wilderness, the snowy manna prepared sustenance for the dwellers of heaven; or when the terrible kings,
set beyond the hoarse streams of Jordan, falling by your sword, left their ancestral cities to you as victors. Why do I delay? Pallor has besieged their minds and breasts; no one takes up his weapons or trusts in his bent bow; the footman does not throng the bronze battle-lines for combat; the war-chariot does not fly with iron-shod car. To you, young men, true victory is given—to you, by the star-throned King who made the earth and the stars. And now, O young men, speak with sworn words, that, when the walls shall fall with their ramparts cast down, safety may be set and entrusted in your right hands, that I be not made captive together with my kindred stock and household, my fathers and my dear ones, whose care wearies me." Assent is given, and she is bidden to keep them all at home,
those whom she wished to live with her, and that, as a token-sign, she should cautiously hang her cord of broom-fiber at her window: so that, when the legion shall have poured itself through the captured city, the wool dyed with crimson color might be seen. They, eager, cross the ditches and gain safe ground on the hill of Aisamus, lurking for three days' light, lest, while they make for their own camp in over-hasty retreat, they fall in with any pursuers from another quarter. But the harlot, secure of herself, carries out the commands. Likewise the prince, instructed by the young men's counsel, swiftly moves camp from the valley of Sattin and flies far off, and soothes their spirits, granting rest to all for three days; and he urges the scribes to tell the people, that, when they shall have seen the sacred ark borne before them and the priests proceeding behind the lofty altar,
they should briskly lift the standards and leave a space which should gradually fill out two thousand cubits; and that they should purify their bodies in the streams, since they were to be placed before the face of the Lord. Amid these things the prince, honored with the dignity of the Lord, shines forth, worthy of the excellent lineage of Moses. And now the priests, bidden to cross the river, plunge their bare footsteps at the river's edge: then the twelve tribes appoint chosen tribunes, who should gather white stones from the mid-bottom, that twelve pebbles, taken from the wet sands, might testify to the wayfaring people that the streams had been dried up. Likewise they placed in the midst of the channel, equal in number and manner, stones which the moving wave washes over and floods, slippery, with hoarse surge. And the tribe of Reuben crosses the laid-bare river, followed by Gad,
with Manasseh's half hastening in their midst, sending forty thousand men to war. When suddenly the flood, wont to run down the river, is checked and the course of the waters is reined back by ice: the lower part of the river escapes and hides itself in the ocean and is plunged into the vast surge from the region where the dutiful waters bury the limbs of Moses, all the way to the boundless sea with its wavering billows. And when they had crossed Jordan in throngs, the ice is loosed, softened by the sun's warmth, and joins again to the river the banks it had before drained dry. When the tyrants on the opposite side learned this, they let their spirits sink; no constancy strengthens any of them. Here the prince made knives from twelve stones, with which, as was commanded, he removed the foreskins of the people.
For through twice twenty years in the wilderness so great a people had brought forth strong sons unto greater thousands. To these a slow rest is granted, that the scar, closing little by little, might gently soften the grievous wounds of the sorrowful. Thereafter the Passover is kept, and gleaming manna, that yearly food, is denied to the rich, which the abundant harvest everywhere supplied to the people as they reaped the grain in eager rivalry. The unleavened bread, snow-white, feeds the joyful from its fine flour. The festivals of the holy night are celebrated in the open field, when twice six suns of the new month's sixth had passed. Above this, from the gates a trembling crowd looks down, keeping the camp and the walls just now with chosen soldiery. Meanwhile the prophet spies a certain man threatening with the sword, and rejoices to swiftly join his steps to him; while he speaks thus: "From what side do you present yourself? Are you ours, or rather of the Phoenician race?
Declare it." Straightway he receives the use of the longed-for speech, with God exalted speaking. "Gliding down from the high ether I now come, for whom a renowned legion does battle with all its stars, and under what prince it lives." He, at these words, silently rejoices with mingled awe, prostrate on the ground and venerating God, while he begins thus: "O Lord, deigning to leave Your immeasurable seat, what cares do You bid Your servant to hasten and take up?" He is told to quickly loose the bindings of his soles, since he had set his footsteps on holy ground. Nay more, he sees that Jericho, mighty in its walls and strong with its barrier, is about to fall, and the fierce nations and the destruction of the kings, with whom ruin is joined. Swiftly he surrounds the walls with all his soldiery, stationing the priests behind, and the sacred ark.
Commanding the prophets, that the people might be the bolder, to blast forth terrifying sounds from seven trumpets. Thereafter the legion, bidden, silently surrounds the city, that then, packed close, it might raise the warlike shout, when the terrifying signal should be given by the tall war-tessera. And now the seventh day had opened the joyful world, when Joshua bids the bronze battle-lines advance to the combat with confident step and to send forth a vast crash from their breasts, which the weapons swiftly follow. No battering-ram shakes the masonry and blunts the towers, assailing also the walls and the proud gates; but the crash and the vast voices with their concordant murmur bear a mortal engine, by which the walls sink down and, stripped of their bars, all things lay open. The eager men burst straightway into the overthrown city.