Kitabı oku: «The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)», sayfa 25

The twelve tribes, into which the nation of the Hebrews was divided, were carried back to the sons of Jacob, who were thought to be their ancestors. This fact has obviously influenced the number and position of these sons in the tradition. The tribes which claimed to be the oldest must have sprung from the oldest sons of Jacob; those who boasted of the purest descent must have for their progenitors sons born in lawful marriage; those whose blood was less pure were derived from sons born to Jacob by the handmaids of his wives. We found above (p. 409) that Leah, sprung from the true blood of the fathers, while yet in Haran, had borne Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon. The oldest families of the Hebrews were named after Reuben. These, "the sons of Reuben," were "brave men who carried the sword and the shield, and drew the bow, and were skilful in war;"⁶²⁴ but even in later times they still pursued the old pastoral mode of life in the mountain glades on the east of Jordan, and hence had no important influence on the development of the nation. This remarkable insignificance of the oldest tribe is accounted for in the revision by a sin of the ancestor, who lay with Bilhah, his father's handmaid.⁶²⁵ According to the same prophetic authority, Simeon and Levi also had done an unclean deed, and Judah had once been equally guilty.⁶²⁶ It is for his account of Judah only that we must make this narrator entirely responsible. For the deeds of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, he has merely developed hints contained in the "Blessings of Jacob," a poem of the time of the Judges, which he found existing in the Ephraimitic text.⁶²⁷ That poem says expressly that Reuben, though the firstborn, was not to have the pre-eminence; and Simeon and Levi, "because in their anger they slew a man, and in their passion lamed a bull," were to be scattered in Israel, i. e. were to have no district specially their own. In contrast to the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, this poem celebrated the tribe of Joseph – under which name the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh were included – whose praise has been already given, and it brings into prominence the tribe of Judah. The strength of the nation rested on the tribes of Ephraim and Judah; they had done the best service at the conquest of Canaan, and were the foremost in defending the land. The tribe of Ephraim was first in battle, and it retained this superiority for centuries. The tribe was not sprung from the oldest, but from the most beloved son of Jacob, the late-born son of Rachel. Ephraim was the younger of the two sons born to Joseph by the Egyptian woman, but Jacob had placed his right hand on the head of the younger son, and said, "By thee shall Israel bless."⁶²⁸ Such is the account of the Ephraimitic text. In the Judæan Jacob is made to say, "Ephraim and Manasseh shall be as my two firstborn."⁶²⁹ The fathers of the tribes of Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher were considered to have been born to Jacob by his handmaids.

CHAPTER IX.
THE LIBERATION OF THE HEBREWS

The oppression which, according to the Pentateuch, the Egyptians exercised upon the sons of Jacob when settled in the land of Goshen, by field-labour and tasks of building, may be regarded as a historical fact. It is proved by the position of Egypt and her relations to her neighbours on the north-east in the fourteenth century B.C., and it agrees with the arrangements and aims entertained and carried out in this border-land by Sethos I. and Ramses II. It must have been a grievous burden for the Hebrews to pass from the easy life of shepherds to the work of agriculture, and abandon the old life with their flocks. In addition there were the heavy tasks of the fortifications, the canal, and the new cities. Were they to give up the memory of their fathers, and their attachment to their customary mode of life, in order to perform taskwork for the Egyptians and become Egyptians? Was it possible to escape this grievous oppression? How could they be freed from the mighty power of the Pharaohs? Could the Hebrews, a peaceful nation and without practice in war, venture to resist the numerous, disciplined, and drilled armies of Egypt?

The Hebrew tradition gives the following account of the liberation of their forefathers, connecting it with the supposed command of Pharaoh to throw into the Nile all the male children born to the Israelites, and to allow the daughters only to live. The son of Levi, the son of Jacob, was Kahath, and Kahath's son was Amram. Amram had a son born to him by his wife Jochebed. When Jochebed saw that the boy was fair, she hid him for three months; and when she could hide him no longer, she took an ark of reeds and daubed it with resin and pitch, and placed the boy in it, and put the ark in the reeds on the bank of the Nile, and the boy's sister was placed near to see what would come to pass. Then Pharaoh's daughter came with her maidens to bathe in the river. She saw the ark, and caused it to be brought to her, and when she opened it the boy wept. It is one of the children of the Hebrews, she said, and had pity on it. Then the sister came and offered to find a nursing-woman from among the Hebrews, and brought her mother. When the child grew up, Pharaoh's daughter took him for her son, and called him Moses. One day Moses went out to his brethren and saw their burdens, and when an Egyptian smote a Hebrew, and Moses perceived that no one was at hand, he slew the Egyptian, and fled before Pharaoh into the land of Midian. And as he rested at a well, the seven daughters of Jethro came to water the sheep of their father, but the other shepherd prevented them, and drove them away. Then Moses came to their help, and watered their sheep, and their father Jethro took him in, and Moses found favour in his eyes, and took Zipporah, one of his daughters, to wife, and kept Jethro's sheep. After many days the king of Egypt died, and the sons of Israel sighed by reason of their burdens; and God heard their complaint, and thought of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then Moses, as he was keeping the flocks of Jethro, and led them behind the desert, and came to Mount Horeb, saw a bush burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. And Moses approached, and Jehovah spoke to him out of the bush, and said: I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; come not near; put thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground. Then Moses veiled his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. Then Jehovah said: I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt, and I will deliver them. Thou shalt go to Pharaoh and lead my people away to Canaan, to a land flowing with milk and honey. Moses answered: O my Lord, I am not a man of words; I cannot speak to the children of Israel, for I am dull of speech and heavy of tongue. Go, said Jehovah, I will be with thy lips, and will teach thee what to say; and Aaron thy brother, the priest, can speak. Then Moses took his wife and his sons and put them upon the ass, and turned back to Egypt, and Aaron his elder brother met him in the desert. Moses told him the commands of Jehovah, and they gathered the elders of Israel together, and the people believed their words.

Then Moses and Aaron came into the presence of the king of Egypt, and said: Let us go with our people three days' journey into the desert and sacrifice to our God Jehovah, that He may not visit us with the pestilence or the sword. The king answered: Would ye free the people from their tasks? Go to your work. And he ordered the taskmasters and the overseers to increase the work of the Israelites, and make their service heavier, and to give them no more straw for their bricks, so that they might be compelled to gather straw for themselves. But the daily tale of bricks remained the same, and the chiefs of the Israelites were beaten because they could not make up the sum. Then Moses and Aaron went again to Pharaoh, and Aaron threw down his rod before the king, and lo! it became a serpent. Then the wise men and magicians of Egypt cast their rods down, and they also became serpents, but Aaron's serpent consumed the rest. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the water in the stream was turned into blood, and the fish died, and the water became foul and noisome. But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their art. Then Aaron stretched out his hand over the stream, and the frogs came up over the fields, into the houses, the chambers, the beds, the ovens and kneading-troughs. Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron to take away the frogs from him and his land; he was willing to let them go. And the frogs died away out of the houses, the courts, and the fields. But when Pharaoh was delivered he hardened his heart, and would not let the Hebrews go. Then Aaron turned the dust of the earth into flies, and Moses and Aaron took at Jehovah's bidding ashes of the oven and sprinkled them in the air, and the dust of the ashes became boils and blains, breaking out on man and beast, on the magicians, and all the Egyptians. And Moses stretched out his hand to heaven, and Jehovah caused it to thunder and hail, and fire came down, and the hail smote all that was in the field, man and beast, and all the herbs of the field; and all the trees were destroyed; only in the land of Goshen there was no hail. And Moses stretched out his hand over all Egypt, and Jehovah brought the east wind, and in the morning the east wind brought swarms of locusts, and they ate up all that the hail had left in the field: there was nothing green in the field and in the trees. And Moses stretched his hand towards heaven, and there was a thick darkness in the land of Egypt for three days. And now the king was willing to let Israel go, but their flocks and herds must remain behind. Moses answered that not a single hoof should remain, and went in wrath from the presence of Pharaoh. But to the Israelites he said: At midnight Jehovah will go forth and smite all the firstborn of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the woman behind the mill, and all the firstborn of cattle. But they were to slay a yearling lamb without blemish for each household, and to eat it roast, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. With loins girded, with shoes on their feet, and staff in hand, they were to keep the feast. With the blood of the lamb they were to strike the door-posts and the lintel of their houses, that Jehovah might see the blood and pass by their doors. In the morning there was not a house of the Egyptians in which there was not one dead. There was a great cry in Egypt, and the king called Moses and Aaron and said: Depart with your people, your flocks, and your herds.

Then the children of Israel set forth from Ramses to Succoth – 600,000 men on foot, besides children. And with them went a number of strangers, and many flocks and herds. And they went from Succoth, and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the desert; and from Etham they went to Pihahiroth, and encamped over against Baalzephon. But Pharaoh was grieved that he had let the people go from their service; he pursued them with all his chariots, his horsemen, and his army, and found them encamped on the sea at Pihahiroth, over against Baalzephon. But Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and Jehovah caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind through the whole night, and made the sea into dry land, and the Israelites passed through the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall upon their right hand and a wall upon their left. And the Egyptians pursued and came after them with their chariots and their horsemen into the sea. Then Moses again stretched out his hand, and the sea returned towards morning into its bed, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of Pharaoh, so that not one of them was left.

And Moses and the children of Israel sang: I will sing of Jehovah, for he is glorious; the horses and chariots he whelms in the sea; Jehovah, the God of my father, will I praise. Jehovah is a man of war; Thy right hand, O Jehovah, shatters the enemy. The chariots of Pharaoh and his might he threw into the sea; his chosen charioteers were drowned in the reed-sea. The floods covered them; like stones they sank in the pit. At the breath of Thy nostrils the waters rose in a heap; the floods stood like a bank; the floods ran in the midst of the sea. The enemy said: I will pursue, and overtake, and divide the spoil; I will satisfy my lust upon them; I will draw my sword, and destroy them with my hand. Thou didst blow with Thy mouth, O Jehovah, and the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who among the gods is like unto thee, Jehovah?⁶³⁰

The older text narrated in a simple manner, that the Hebrews multiplied greatly in Egypt, and the Egyptians vexed them with heavy burdens, and God heard their cry, and thought of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then God spoke to Moses: he would take Israel for his people, and lead them out of Egypt, and Moses spoke to the children of Israel, but they did not listen to him. Then the command came to Moses to speak to Pharaoh, and Aaron was to speak for him. Afterwards came the plagues (to which the revision has added the hail, the locusts, and the darkness),⁶³¹ the slaying of the firstborn, the march through the sea as described.⁶³² The text of the tribes of Joseph is far better instructed, or, at any rate, far more detailed in its account of Moses, no less than in that of Joseph. To it belongs the command of Pharaoh to slay the children of the Hebrews, the rescue of Moses, the history of his youth, his flight into the desert, his connection with Jethro, the appearance of God on Sinai, and certain traits in the dealings with Pharaoh, and the direct action of God in the march through the sea and the desert.

Of both these narratives the tendency is the same, it is only more strongly marked and broadly realised in the second. The God of the Hebrews has pity on the sufferings of his people. He provides and arouses their leader. To him and to Aaron he imparts the power of working miracles which the magicians of Egypt can only imitate up to a certain point. Yet the power of working miracles given to Moses and Aaron is not enough to overcome Pharaoh. The decisive stroke is given by Jehovah himself, inasmuch as he smites the firstborn among the Egyptians of man and beast. And when Pharaoh hastens after the Hebrews Jehovah causes the sea to retire before them, and finally buries Pharaoh and his host under the returning waves. Thus has Jehovah led his people out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.

The narrative of the slaying of the firstborn of the Egyptians and the mode in which the Hebrews protected themselves from the visitation are borrowed from the Hebrew ritual. We saw above that the firstlings of the fruits, and "all that first opens the womb, man or beast," belonged to the God of the Hebrews.⁶³³ This firstborn must be sacrificed, or ransomed by a vicarious sacrifice. In the spring the sacrifice of the firstfruits was offered from an ancient period, and unleavened bread eaten, as was usual with shepherds.⁶³⁴ The spring, the time when nature has borne anew, was also the right time to offer the sacrifice for the redemption of the house. The head of the family at the spring festival slew a lamb without breaking any bone, and with the blood he smeared the lintel and door-posts. Hence the offering in the spring was also the festival of redemption and purification – the passover, the passah of Jehovah, who had spared the house for the lamb. To this old spring sacrifice, which was celebrated in the month Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew year (it was the year of the Babylonians), at the time of the full moon, when the sun was in the Ram, the first text has already attached a historical background and meaning. It was in the night following this sacrifice that the exodus from Egypt took place. The unleavened bread of the ancient custom was explained by the haste of the exodus; and as signs of the readiness to go forth, the girdle round the loins, the shoes upon the feet, and the staff in the hand were added to the old ritual; the smearing of the lintel with the blood was done in order that the angel of Jehovah might distinguish the doors of the Israelites from those of the Egyptians. Tradition turned the spring festival and sacrifice into a feast of thanksgiving for the protection of the firstborn of the Israelites while Jehovah carried off those of the Egyptians, a thanksgiving for the deliverance of the nation out of Egypt.

The lofty calling of the man whom Jehovah summoned to be the instrument of the deliverance is shown in the Ephraimitic text by the marvellous fortune which attended him even in his earliest years. The daughter of Pharaoh himself, disregarding her father's commands, rescues the boy, brings him up, takes him for her son, and gives the name to the man who is destined to liberate the Hebrews and bring so much misfortune upon Egypt. Amid the kindness shown to him by the Egyptians Moses does not forget the people to whom he belongs. The sight of the oppressions which his people suffer kindles his heart. A rash action, by which he avenges the ill-treatment of a Hebrew, compels him to fly into the desert. Here he founds a family by taking a Midianitish woman, a daughter of the desert, to wife. In the second text the father of his wife is called Jethro, in the revision Reuel.⁶³⁵ When he has begotten sons here, and is advanced in years, his mission is revealed to him on the mountain of God. In both texts he hesitates to undertake it, but finally carries it resolutely to the end.

As in the narrative of Joseph, so here, all that is said of Egypt agrees with what we know from other sources of that country. As the Hebrews were settled to the east of the Tanitic arm of the Nile, the locality of the exposure in the meaning of the Ephraimitic text must be sought in the neighbourhood of Tanis. We saw above that Ramses II. erected considerable buildings in this district (p. 134). The name Moses, which the king's daughter is said to have given to the rescued boy, may be connected without violence with the Egyptian messu, i. e. the child. The plagues too which tradition represents as coming upon Egypt are suited to the nature of the land. Even now the water of the Nile becomes at times red and disagreeable in smell; often after the inundation swarms of frogs cover the fields, and at the same time myriads of marsh-gnats and flies rise out of the mud, and locusts from time to time in thick devastating swarms cover the fields in the valley of the Nile.⁶³⁶ Eruptions of the skin also occur after the inundation, and sometimes grow into large boils. Storms of hail, though not entirely unknown, are yet extremely rare in Egypt, and storms from the south-west, which in the spring blow over the great desert, are one of the worst plagues in Egypt; they bring with them violent heat and thick dust, which darkens the sky.

If we attempt to ascertain the historical value of these narratives, it follows from the helpless position of the Hebrews in regard to the Egyptians which we have already described, that the idea of rescuing them from the dominion of Egypt could only have been entertained by a resolute spirit, and the undertaking begun by a leader who was prepared to make the highest venture in order to preserve the highest prize – nationality and religion. Among the Hebrews there could be no other thought but to leave the borders of Egypt in order to resume the old mode of life in the deserts of Syria, and there to worship their old God in the old manner. In harmony with the situation the Ephraimitic text represents the resolution to make an exodus as growing up after long hesitation and grave thought in the soul of a man who, owing to the oppression of his people, had come into the sharpest conflict with Egypt, had fled into the desert in order to save his life, and there had again seen and lived the free life of the kindred tribes. If the Hebrews intended to leave Egypt it was necessary to know certainly that the tribes of the desert, or at least a part, would receive them, and that they would not one and all oppose them. By combination with the Midianites the conditions most needed for the exodus could be supplied. If of the Midianites and the Amalekites, the desert tribes who dwelt nearest to Egypt, the first were gained for the Hebrews, and from them support, assistance, and alliance in repulsing an Egyptian attack might be expected, then it was possible to hope for success in the venture. The Ephraimitic text represents the Hebrews as choosing that moment for carrying out the exodus in which there was a change of the succession in Egypt, and it is obvious that a change of this kind, the commencement of a new and perhaps contested dominion, secured better prospects for the Hebrews than an established rule when obedience was unchallenged.

According to the older text the Israelites gathered together near the city of Ramses (Abu Kesheb) for the exodus. We have seen that this city was built on the canal, nearly in the middle of the district allotted to the Hebrews; it was therefore the natural place for meeting. From this the Israelites took a southern direction towards the north-west point of the Arabian Gulf, which is known to the Hebrews as the reed-sea. This was the shortest way of reaching the deserts of the peninsula of Sinai and the pastures of the Midianites, and on this line the Hebrews had the Bitter Lakes at hand, from which could be obtained what water was absolutely necessary. When they had passed Succoth, Etham, Pihahiroth, and had reached the corner of the reed-sea, as the first text describes, the pursuit overtook them, which Pharaoh had begun with a hastily-collected force. Southward of the extreme point of the reed-sea, in the neighbourhood of Suez, there are firths which can be crossed at the ebb, especially if a strong north-east wind drives back the waves to the south-west. By a strong east wind, blowing through the whole night, Jehovah caused the sea to retire, and turned it into dry land; and the water became a wall on the right hand and the left, as we learnt from the oldest account. The extreme point of the reed-sea, i. e. the sea on the left of the firth, is too deep to be crossed, on the right the wind and the ebb kept the waters back.⁶³⁷ Thus it was not in itself impossible that the Hebrews reached the other shore, i. e. the peninsula of Sinai, by passing through the firth and cutting off the extreme point of the sea; and not impossible that the Egyptian army in their eagerness to overtake the Hebrews, or afraid that the marshes at the head of the sea would detain them so long that they could not come up with them before the desert made pursuit very difficult, attempted to cross the sea when the water had already returned. The narrative is supported to some extent by the ancient song of victory (p. 446). This song, it is true, cannot be proved to belong to that period, but it is nevertheless of very ancient origin.⁶³⁸

The account which the Egyptians and Manetho give of the exodus of the Hebrews has been already related. According to it the Hebrews are impure and leprous Egyptians whom Pharaoh had banished to the quarries east of the Nile, and made to work there, like other Egyptians employed in that task. That the Hebrews are Egyptians, and leprous Egyptians, in the Egyptian tradition, need excite no astonishment; white leprosy was a disease from which the Israelites frequently suffered. We cannot contest the number of the lepers, which Manetho puts at 80,000, though we have already seen that the Hebrews at the time of the exodus could hardly have approached this number of men capable of work. The Hebrew tradition in both texts represents the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the descendants of Joseph and an Egyptian woman, as growing up during the settlement in Egypt; the revision adds that a "number of strangers" left Egypt with their forefathers. Moses, the leader of the lepers, is described by Manetho as an Egyptian priest of Heliopolis, of the name of Osarsiph. We saw that Heliopolis was the nearest centre of Egyptian religious worship to the land of Goshen, and that the second text gives the daughter of a priest of Heliopolis to Joseph to wife. According to this text also Moses is brought up by the Egyptians, and the revision calls him an "Egyptian."⁶³⁹ Hence we can at once accept the statement of Manetho that the leader of the Hebrews was skilled in the wisdom of the Egyptian priests.⁶⁴⁰ On the other hand the more detailed narrative of Manetho is in itself far more improbable, more full of contradictions and impossibilities, than the account of the Hebrews. It does not agree with the tenor of Manetho's narrative when we find Pharaoh giving over the fortified city of Avaris to the leprous Egyptians whom he had banished to the stone quarries. In that city the lepers rebel, there they make the priest of Heliopolis, Osarsiph, their leader, and Osarsiph gives them the law, to worship no god, to eat the most sacred animals, and to have dealings only with their confederates. From hence he summons the Hyksos, who had been driven out of Avaris a long time before, and had meanwhile built Jerusalem. Pharaoh goes with an army of 300,000 of the best warriors of Egypt against the conspirators, 80,000 unclean persons and 200,000 shepherds, yet turns back voluntarily, and flies towards Ethiopia, while the confederates desolate Egypt without pity for thirteen years. It is hardly credible that a king of Egypt should abandon his kingdom without a struggle to lepers and the descendants of the Hyksos. And if anyone is inclined to assume that the Hebrews did actually combine, not with the supposed Hyksos of Jerusalem, but perhaps with the Midianites, and conquer Egypt and force the king into Ethiopia, and so rule over Egypt for thirteen years – their tradition would not have forgotten or suppressed such a glorious achievement of the nation, such a proof of the power of Jehovah. Compared with this wholly purposeless exile of the king, the account of the Hebrews seems far more credible – that Pharaoh did make the attempt to stop the migration, but that the attempt was without success.

It remains to fix the date at which the Hebrews succeeded in escaping from the dominion of Egypt, and resuming their old mode of life in the deserts of Syria. It has already been proved that Sethos I. and Ramses II. were the Pharaohs who oppressed the Hebrews; and it is in harmony with the whole situation to assume that the attempt to escape from this oppression would be made under a less powerful successor. If, as is shown above (p. 159), the Pharaoh of Manetho, who banished the lepers and retired before them, was Menephta, the son and successor of Ramses II., it would be Ramses II. before whom Moses fled into the desert, and after his death he would have returned and carried out against his son the attempt he could not have ventured upon against so powerful a ruler as Ramses II. Menephta's rule falls in the years 1322 to 1302 B.C. Hence the exodus of the Hebrews must be placed in this period, about the year 1320 B.C.⁶⁴¹ The immigration into the land of Goshen, we found that we might place about the year 1550 B.C. (p. 433). Hence they dwelt there about 230 years, and this lapse of time corresponds pretty closely to the eight generations which the table of the leader under whom the Hebrews afterwards conquered Canaan gave for the sojourn in Egypt (p. 431). When the Hebrews, after retiring from Egypt, wished to give up the peninsula of Sinai, and settle themselves in the east of Jordan, they besought "the king of Edom," according to the second text, for a free passage through his country. The first text knows and mentions eight kings who had ruled over Edom "before kings ruled over Israel." As the monarchy was established in Israel about the year 1050 B.C. (see below), eight generations would carry us two centuries beyond the date of Saul, king of Israel, if this list could be regarded as historical, but the two first names in it seem of a mythical rather than a historical kind.⁶⁴²

The oldest accounts of western writers of the fortunes of the Hebrews date from the time of the successors of Alexander of Macedon. They were founded partly on accounts of the Egyptians, and partly on accounts of the Hebrews themselves. The narrative of Hecataeus of Abdera, who was in Egypt in the time of Ptolemy I., and wrote an Egyptian history, gives us the most unprejudiced account, composed from the widest point of view, and connects the emigration of the Hebrews, whom he does not consider Egyptians, with the supposed emigration from Egypt to Greece. "Once, when a pestilence had broken out in Egypt, the cause of the visitation was generally ascribed to the anger of the gods. As many strangers of various extraction dwelt in Egypt, and observed different customs in religion and sacrifice, it came to pass that the hereditary worship of the gods was being given up in Egypt. The Egyptians, therefore, were of opinion that they would obtain no alleviation of the evil unless they removed the people of foreign extraction. When they were driven out, the noblest and bravest part of them, as some say, under noble and renowned leaders, Danaus and Cadmus, came to Hellas; but the great bulk of them migrated into the land, not far removed from Egypt, which is now called Judæa, and was at that time without inhabitants. These emigrants were led by Moses, who was the most distinguished among them for wisdom and bravery. When he had settled in the land he built several cities, among them Jerusalem, which is now the most famous. He also built the most celebrated temples, taught the worship of the God, and the ritual, and arranged the constitution, and gave laws. He divided the people into twelve tribes, because this number is the most complete, and corresponds to the number of the months which make up the year. The most handsome men, who could also at the same time guide the united people best, he made priests, and arranged that they should concern themselves with all that was sacred, the religious worship and the sacrifices, and at the same time he made them judges in the most important matters, and put into their hands the preservation of the laws and customs. He erected no images of the gods, because he did not believe that God had the form of men; he rather believed that the heaven which surrounds the earth was alone god and lord of all things. The sacrifices, too, and manner of life he arranged unlike those of other people; owing to their own banishment, he introduced among them a misanthropic and inhospitable life. At the end of his laws is written: This Moses has heard from God, and tells it to the Jews. This lawgiver also made provision for war, and compelled the young men to exercise themselves in strength and manliness, and the endurance of privations. He undertook campaigns against the neighbouring nations, and divided the conquered land by lot, and gave to the priests larger lots than to the rest. But no one was permitted to trade with his lot, in order that none might from avarice buy up the lots and drive away the more needy (by this is meant no doubt the Hebrew year of Jubilee). He forced the people also to bring up their children, and as it was possible to do this with little cost, the tribes of the Jews were always numerous. About their marriages and their burials he laid down quite different laws from those in use among other nations."⁶⁴³