Heptateuch (the first seven books of the Bible in verse) 1.1–1.600

In the beginning the Lord set heaven and earth in place; for the earth was formless and hidden by the flood, and the immeasurable God was moving over the vast waters, while chaos and black darkness dimmed all things; when he commanded these to be parted, he speaks from heaven’s pole: “Let there be light!” and all things shone brightly in the world. When the Lord had completed the works of the first day, he founded the sky, white with rising clouds. The immeasurable sea receives its wandering shores, sweeping in many rivers with powerful currents. The third light uncovered the tawny face of the lands. Soon the dry ground, its name given, is called earth. Flowering shoots spring up in the windy fields, and fruit-bearing branches at once bend their arms. On the fourth day he begets the moon with the sun’s lamp and fixes the stars, radiant with trembling light. These elements he gave as emblems to the world beneath, to teach the seasons that must change through their various risings. On the fifth day the flowing streams receive fish, and the various birds hang their wings in the air. On the sixth the Father makes the cold serpents glide in coils and spreads herds of four-footed beasts through all the fields, and he commanded all things everywhere to increase with manifold offspring and to roam and feed over the immeasurable lands.

When divine power had established these things by command, seeing that a ruler would be lacking to the world’s affairs, it says: “Let us make man to the exact pattern of our likeness, to reign in the whole world.” And though he could have formed him by a word alone, he deigned nevertheless to shape him with his own holy right hand and breathes into the brute breast from the divine breast. When he saw him formed in an image like his own, he judges that alone he would turn over gnawing cares. At once he floods his eyes with watering sleep, so that from a rib plucked out a woman might be gently formed and a mingled substance might make the twin frames firm; and a name is given her that means life, Eve. Therefore children leave their parents, as is the custom, and cleave to their wives, settling their homes. On the seventh light God rested at the end of his works, establishing it as sacred for the joys of the age to come. Then, when the throngs of living things had been brought in order, to all, one by one, Adam gives a name that endures, skilled with the wisdom granted him. God deigns to address him, and Eve joined with him: “Increase by manifold birth for times to come, that the sky and the full lands may be filled with your offspring, and as my heirs pluck the various fruits that the groves and the fields yield from the rich turf.”

When he had spoken these things, paradise is furnished as a glad court and looks upon the light of the first sun. Among these a tree is begotten with deadly fruit, producing a taste of life and death joined together. In the midst of the dwellings a river flows with a pure stream, which waters the splendid gardens with its liquid waves and cuts four-forked channels from its welling spring. The Pishon, very rich, flows with gold-bearing waves and wears down conspicuous gems in its roaring flood — the green prase is the name of one, of the other the glowing carbuncle — and with clear shallows laps the land of Havilah. After it the Gihon, gliding by, enriches the Ethiopians; the third is the Tigris, joined to the pleasant Euphrates, furrowing Assyria apart with its swift stream. Here Adam is set as keeper with his faithful wife, and as worker he is instructed by such a voice of the Thunderer: “Do not be afraid, both of you, to pluck the permitted fruits that the unshorn grove has produced on its leafy branch, but take care that you do not gather the guilty fruit that flourishes with a twofold juice for separate ends.” Meanwhile deep night still held them blind, and no garment yet covered the limbs just formed. Among these dwellings and gardens of mellow berries the foaming serpent, surpassing the animals in cunning, was creeping silently in cold coils;

rolling livid lies with biting mind, he tempts the soft heart in the woman’s breast: “Tell me, why do you fear the happy shoots of the fruit tree? Has God not hallowed all the fruits that are born? Yet if you are eager to pluck honeyed food, the golden world will smile on you from the star-bearing heaven.” She refuses and fears to touch the forbidden branches; yet her heart is overcome by its weak sense. As soon as she bit the mellow fruit with snowy tooth, the clear sky shone out, stained by no cloud. Then the taste, putting allurement into her honeyed throat, drove her to bring the gift to her husband, unused to it. As soon as he took it, night was wiped away, and their eyes shone forth clear, as the world grew radiant. So when each looked upon the naked body, they shade with fig leaves what they see is shameful. When the sun’s light was already setting, they recognize the Lord’s sound and in fear make for out-of-the-way places. Then the Lord of heaven addresses the sorrowful Adam: “Tell me, where are you now?” He answered thus, as a suppliant: “O Lord, I tremble in a fearful heart at your address, great one, and naked I am worn out with chilling fear.” Then the Lord: “Who gave you the guilty fruit?” “The woman handed it over, saying that at once the eyes, flooded with shining day, and the clear sky had shone upon her, and the sun and the stars of heaven.”

At once the wrath of God terrifies the troubled Eve, as the Most High asks who was the author of the forbidden deed. She then reveals: “I received the serpent’s persuasive speech, through deceiving guile and coaxing request. For, weaving his words with viper’s poisons, he told me these fruits were sweet above all.” At once the Almighty condemns the deeds of the serpent, commanding the monster to live hated by all, soon to crawl forward on its outstretched breast, then to eat the ground with its bite, in a war to last for all times between human minds and itself as it glides, so that with head cast down it would creep flat behind the legs of men and at their heels, while gliding it presses close. The woman, wretchedly deceived by fraud-bearing persuasions, is commanded to give birth amid harsh danger and to bear subjection to her husband with devotion. “But you, to whom the counsel of your wife seemed true, who, defeated, yielded to the cruel serpent, shall bewail your wretched toil through long ages. For in place of the crop of wheat there will spring up the thistle and the thorn bush with many sharp spines, so that with wearied body and sorrowful breast your anxious food may cost you very many sighs, until, in the setting time of death when it comes, you are given back to the lying earth from which you bear your body.”

This done, the Lord gives the frightened pair weariness of life and drives them out far from the sacred gardens and sets them facing away and shuts them out by a fire between, in which the Cherub rolls forth with swift heat, while the hot point seethes and whirls its flames. For them the Lord, lest their limbs grow stiff with sluggish cold, sewed skins stripped from the flesh of cattle, covering their naked limbs with warm garments. So when faithful Adam perceived that he was now a husband in wedlock, he gives his wife the name of a beloved mother: two offspring of his seed the father forthwith names with different beginnings: this one has the name Cain; joined with him, Abel kept the harmless sheep with much care, but the other turned the earth with the curved plough. When they were bringing their gifts to the Thunderer continually, they gave unlike fruits as their minds prompted. For the first offered what had sprung from the fertile clods, but the other devotes himself with a gentle lamb, carrying in his hand the pure entrails and snowy fat, and at once the pious offerings please the Lord as he looks on. For this reason Cain glowed with cold anger. God, deigning to address him, begins thus: “Tell me, if you live rightly and discern what is harmful, could you not live pure of the guilt you have contracted?

Cease to destroy your brother with a biting mind; he will bow his neck to you, subject as to a lord.” Yet not broken by these words, he leads his brother to the fields, and when he saw him caught in the lonely grass, gnashing his teeth, he crushes the innocent throat with both his hands. The Lord, having watched the deed from high heaven, asks where on earth Abel is living. He denies that he was set to be his brother’s keeper. God says to him: “Does not the voice of his blood sound, sent to me, and rise up to the lofty sky? Know therefore what will abide for you for so great a crime: for the earth that just now was wet with your brother’s blood is cursed for you and will refuse the seeds entrusted to it and will bring forth no fruit, its plants consumed, so that, sluggish, your limbs shaking with much trembling, you may always draw sighs as if joined to death.” Terrified, he groans and asks death from the divine power, but it was not granted by the angry Thunderer; for, having deserved evil, he is made known by a branded sign, so that no one may lay the guilty man low with the sword, lest sevenfold perils prepare a greater death. Then he goes out from the face of the Lord as one lost, turning from his home, onto the turf of the land of Nod, and from the sons whom his faithful wife bore he founded a lofty city in the name of the firstborn.

Enoch begets Irad; he then Mehujael, with whom as father Methuselah in time came forth into the air and drew out the times of a long life. But Lamech, who struck down dread Cain with the sword, suffers much heavier things than the guilty man he slew; for ten times seven penalties restrain his crime. Groaning at the deed, he reproaches himself before his wives, of whom the first was Adah and the other Zillah. The first bears Jabal, who as a shepherd in the grassy fields fed the flocks in the glad pasture. Jubal follows him, who invented the musical plectrum and strings harmonious with varied murmur. Soon Zillah bears Tubal, whose custom it was to pour streams of bronze and to shape iron subdued on the anvil in diverse ways at the hissing furnace; after him follows Naamah, born of the same father. Meanwhile Adam, not feeble in his vigorous years, begets Seth after the death of gentle Abel. He then begets Enosh, to whom the Lord granted a pure heart; when Enosh called on him, he consented to be entreated and accepted the gifts of a peaceful mind. So when Adam had completed nine hundred and thirty years, put to sleep by death, he rested. And then, long-lived, Enosh lived nine hundred and five years, and Kenan, equalling him, was longer only by five extended years.

Younger than him again by fifteen years the old man Mahalalel lies down; then Jared, by thirty and three, lived more confined in his long age. Enoch, whose care it was to serve the Mighty One and to join his mind to God, much younger than these — when three hundred years were unrolled, if you take care to add five and six times ten — covered in sudden darkness is hidden and, removed by the Lord’s great mercy, lives a happy life in a peaceful time. But Methuselah stretches out nine hundred circling years and seven times ten, to which it is right to join one. Lamech, sprung from this father, when Noah was born, spoke thus, as in the manner of prophets he foresees the future and sends his mind into the age to come: “This one will give us secure dealings of life and remove the hard burden and bring back peace, which was driven out by evil deeds and our guilt and by sad right hands, by whose toil the furrowed earth refuses fruit, since the Lord spoke the curse.” He lived seven hundred and seven years, with seventy added on, as the sum requires. Of his begetting Noah, noble for upright deeds, is born, to give seed to an innocent age. And he begets three sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, who were used to beat softened iron in rhythm and readily to forge the sparkling masses.

The prophet had now lived six hundred years when the Lord, weary of the crimes of the dire world and of the manifold guilt of men under long light, in mercy restricts the troubles of a drawn-out life and set a limit of twice sixty years, which no one under the law laid down could surpass. Meanwhile earthly pleasure entices the holy ones and holds them captive as they come down from the heavenly citadel; while they behold women’s faces smiling with beautiful bodies and cling too closely to pleasing embraces, they begot for themselves giants of grim bulk, by whose crimes the patience of the Lord is at last forced to take offence; while he conceives a long wrath and grieves that man was created by the forming of his starry right hand, moved in his holy breast he speaks: “It is my right to blot out the sins of the guilty world with the waves of the sea and wrap the whole earth and plunge the human race in vast floods, and with them the herds of every kind that crop the glad grass through the fields while they roam the high hills; let one death crush serpents and birds and beasts, that my wrath may grow mild when deceits are blotted out.” Noah therefore receives the mighty commands of God, ordered to build an ark with double chambers, to hold the nests of birds, to remain for future seed.

and, lest the timbers spring apart with splitting cracks, he smeared the ark with very rich ointment of pitch. It was three hundred full cubits long, opening fifty wide across its belly. But where the gables rise with lofty roof, it is raised high toward heaven by thirty cubits, with squared planks, to yield to no floods, bearing at the middle a door with an easy hinge. When God looked down from the stars on these things completed, he addresses thus the prophet who is to be sent onto the waters: “Climb up quickly, and your sons and daughters, into the boat to float on the swelling waves, because I have seen that your heart is just, and your will, long known to me, has deserved greater things than the present; and gather and shut in with you the gentle herds of every kind by sevens in pairs; of the unclean flock you shall let two be with you, and bring in food for all these and your own accustomed food, lest, when through the vast floods tillage has ceased, you too suffer troublesome hunger, borne over the grey-green salt waters with no provisions laid up beforehand; for when the bright light of the sun comes forth in the sky for the seventh time, I am preparing to pour out all the rainclouds from heaven’s pole and roll out all the springs with a greater onrush, by which the ocean may surge larger with waves, receiving foaming rivers more abundantly and smearing all things with mud in its poured-out course.

For through forty days joined with nights I will fill the dripping clouds with ceaseless rain, that whatever lives may be drowned in the swelling waves.” When this was said, the Lord’s commands are carried out by the willing and eager old man, who, renowned for his long life, passing through six hundred years, entrusted himself to the waves and received with him his sons and daughters together, trusting, though he was hidden in a slender cavern. Meanwhile the clouds let loose all their rains, and the deep sent its watering springs into the seas. And now for forty days all things are flooded. Birds do not hold up their bodies on light wings, nor does the beast escape the waters on a high-topped hill; all things are buried in the sea; there is one death for all. Meanwhile, hanging over the swelling sea, the floating ark protected the shut-in prophet as it drifted and, like a parent, kept seed for the ages to come, secure amid its own shipwreck. Soon the thinning air began to bind the rains in the pitch-black clouds. And now the sea decreases as the water ebbs, and when the boat was floating on a modest flood, the old man sends out the raven, black of breast, which, while carried by the swift wind on light wings, did not return, leaving the hopes of the just prophet in suspense.

After it he sends a white dove over the waters, which, worn out with flight over the watery plain, finding ground nowhere, returned to the kindly prophet. And when the seventh light of the returning sun shone, he sends off the bird with clapping wing, which, having found a grove, brought back its beak filled with branches of the rich olive, when evening was already rising among the stars and running ahead of night with trembling fire. Then again, when seven days had duly passed, the bird is sent over the sea, and, gliding away on swift course, never returned to the house of its companions. So the prophet had now passed six hundred and one circling years. In the first month that followed, on the first day of the month, when the freed earth seemed far off to open up the mountains and roll out mist — the mountains over which the sea had flooded fifteen cubits deep — then, when the second month had run its course but three days remained, the earth was free of the whole flood and gladly showed its own green. So when the ark settled on the bared mountains that have the name Ararat in the ancient tongue, the old man unbars the doors, giving back new seed to the earth, and gladly built a festive sanctuary to the Thunderer, and, mindful of his vow, as he burns the altars with flames, the offering was worthy, since it produces gentle odours that breathe in the Lord’s presence with glad breezes.

Then, lest the earth perish by a like disaster, the Lord removes the flood for times to come, commanding the hurrying months and the seasons of the moving year to roll their accustomed courses without rest, but only the saffron bow to be bent in the clouds when the bright stars drip with rain from a clear sky. The Lord’s blessing attends the gentle prophet, namely that over all that earth and sea produce the faithful man should rule, since they are subject to the ruler; he is warned to keep from his tables the flesh of cattle that have not given up their life with the blood let out, because in many creatures this soul is placed. “But if a man is killed by iron or a wild beast’s tooth, I will inquire,” he said, “of those who do such things; in like manner they shall give their necks to shed their blood.” Then the Lord divides the offspring of the prophet he favoured and orders them to take the fertile lands severally, to fill the empty world with dense offspring. The prophet receives this reward by the Lord’s gift, to be the discoverer of the vine and to taste the white wine. When he was quickly filled with cups and heavy with sleep, Ham mocked him — from him the Canaanite youth is born, and he named the people from his lofty name — showing his father with his limbs bared to his brothers. They with equal piety cover and veil him as he lies:

joining their backs with care while they turn their eyes away, they carried the sleeping old man and do not see the limbs shameful to speak of, bending their necks with tender modesty. When the prophet, his mind now clear, came to know that work of piety, he condemns the offender for all time, making him last among his brothers and subject to harsh rule, and, terrified, a suppliant of the strong. Then the old man, having lived, passes nine hundred years and fifty, as the record of the law has provided. His descendants, hastening to raise walls, founded outstanding cities of vast height. And while, pressing on with the work, they build walls in rivalry, they mark them with names, Tarsus and Citium and Rhodes, standing out with their gates, which the sea washes with its wave. Hence Canaan has his name, hence Sidon rises, thence the Jebusite, the Amorite joined to the Hittite; the Girgashite thrives, the Hivite, the Arkite, the Sinite, the Zemarite, the Arvadite and Orus, and whoever inhabits the walls of Gaza, to which Gomorrah and Sodom are yoked, and Admah and Zeboiim, with which Lasha is joined. They also make Mesha and, like it, Sephar, and the high-ridged hill that lifts its cloudy citadels where the flame of whitening day first bursts forth.

from their stock Nimrod is born, used to fierce hunting and towering with huge limbs, and rejoicing to raise himself against the holy God, fierce in the manner of the heroes, whose lofty neck and immense head raise them into the high air. He founds Babylon and Erech, Accad and Calneh amid the glades of Shinar; then he builds Asshur and set Nineveh, outstanding for its buildings, and Rehoboth, and then Calah; Resen divides their glades and rises on the boundary between. And while they eagerly vie and give names to walls, they come into a plain called by the name of Shinar, and, striving to raise hollow towers to the stars, they make no lime by which the inserted stones are bound, but bricks of clay are baked in a hot furnace, so that the walls might shine with immense buildings before a new migration made the nations separate. Bitumen served for lime, which is drawn out with soft fleece and binds the stones with its clinging body. For among all one tongue, sharing its speech, spoke with like utterance and common words. At length the Lord came down and saw the walls, commanding varied voices to burst forth suddenly and diverse sounds, with which the nations each speak.

At once the world is filled as its settlers are placed, and the divided place was soon called Confusion. After these follows Abram, who greatly believed the Lord, whom his father, called Terah by an ancient name, begot. Lot too is joined, a brother of kindred blood. When they had grown strong in the years of youth, they took wives for themselves: Lot rejoices in a covenant with Milcah, and Sarai enriches Abram as his wife, though she led her life to old age without a child. Terah anxiously took them away from the Chaldean flock, since the fields of Canaan with their leafy hills pleased him. But God, who knew the mind of chosen Abram, commands him to take up his seat in another region: “Come now, make haste and remove yourself from your father’s lands, and leave your kindred’s houses and your accustomed thresholds; for I will now make you the chief of an immense nation. Besides this I will add that whoever wounds you with malicious words, cursed from the mouth of the Lord, shall bear every grief; but whoever with kind speech recounts your benefits, let him be greater in glad fortune.” Their seats are changed; the camp is pitched at Shechem, which the Lord pledged to the prophet for a long age. There, making haste, he raises sacred altars; climbing a mountain that throws back the broken waves and, swelling, looks out on the ruddy light of the sun, …

here too an altar is founded with stones set in place, and God is prayed to; then through lonely fields the prophet goes, where the land lies without settlers; and while it is parched in its ever-thirsting veins, the barren land brought on famine, to which care clings. From this fear the fertile fields of the Nile are sought. And because Sarai was radiant with conspicuous beauty, she is told to say that she is a bride bound by no tie but his sister, lest by chance, with monstrous daring, the unbridled crowd should conceive a guilty jealousy against her husband and she should have him as a grim rival’s competitor. The crowd of Canopus marvelled at her as she came and in every way survey Sarai with desirous eyes. And when she was praised through the nobles and handed to the king, the prophet is received with sweet wishes and words. Yet the King of heaven did not will that she be given to him; for with many and great terrors at once he drives the king to distraction, who, charged with the guilty daring, rebukes the chief: why had he said that his wife was rather his sister and mocked him with false cunning? Then he orders him gladly to lead his bride away with him, and whatever of the herd he had brought from his native shores. For God had dedicated to his servant, whose words always agreed with his, huge wealth and all the greatest things.

Lot too receives whatever he had brought there, and returning they settle at last in their native lands. And there, while they wander with flocks running among one another, the herdsmen of the cattle strike each other in quarrels, because the small pastures cramped the breeding flocks of the two. But the father, desiring to settle the untamed quarrels, offered that his brother should take whatever fields he wished. He gladly obeys, asking for the banks of the Jordan, a river that long ago, swelling with waves like the Nile, enriched the fertile plains with its overflowing stream. The old man receives the Canaanite acres by lot as he comes, and settles his herds through the green fields. But he was not permitted to establish lasting seats; for the father was ordered to survey with his gaze the land that the fiery sun, returning, beholds on both sides or the twin Bears look down upon to its farthest bounds, promised to the race to be created by so great a father. Whoever longs to grasp its number in speech will sooner tell the throngs of stars or of the sand that the sea at times lays bare on its uncertain shore. He goes also to the oak of ancient name, Mamre, and dedicates a lofty altar to the everlasting God. No delay: after concord had made the brothers separate, to establish their realms in their chosen fields,

four kings rise up from a numerous people and, warlike, lay Sodom waste with many soldiers, and four battle lines, each led by its prince, hurl iron through the clouds as far as the Salt valley. The five tyrants take flight, leaving the war, and in headlong flight hide on the leafy mountains what could survive death; the others by their true names are called Arioch, Tidal, Chedorlaomer, and Amraphel too, greedy for years of glory. Amid the many things that happen in the crisis of war, Lot too is captured with all his kin and household. When a messenger told this with grief-bringing mouth, the prophet rises, and from his large flock of servants three hundred retainers, adding nine times two more, he himself as leader calls to war and takes up the sword again. At midnight he falls on them as they now fear nothing, routs the victors and kills many enemies. Moreover he receives his brother, rescued from such great peril, and draws the spoil with him in a broad column. He is welcomed with glad praise by the nobles of Sodom and by the priest of God, renowned for holy deeds — it was Melchizedek, prince and ruler of Salem — and he blessed him, presenting bread and wine, and received from Abram as a gift a tenth of the fruits. The other asks that as victor he deign to return the captives, himself to take the rest as his due under the law of war.

But victorious valour, content with its own restraint, accepts as its whole reward the brother it longed for. Soon God, enlightening the prophet’s sleeping heart, commands him to empty his breast of all fear, since he is safe under the cover of an unconquered right hand. He, eager at the freedom granted him, speaks: “What do your gifts offer me for so great a word? For long old age, my companion, shakes my weary frame, nor is it given me, my service done, to leave a son after my death. And because I have no offspring from a noble marriage bed, a base-born heir will be ours, whom a slave woman bore.” The Lord strengthens the prophet as he speaks thus: “Do not fear; trust me; a slave will not be your heir. For if anyone can know the stars that lack number or run through all the sands of the sea, he alone will be able to number by reckoning the offspring that is to be given you, as far as the whole world stretches; and from your seed one will be born who will see your days, a son who is also the Son of the eternal King; for I am the Lord, founder of the heavens, and I brought you back safe by my help from the Chaldean nation.” The old man believed this, and with the sincere keenness of his heart judges that nothing will be lacking to the Lord’s words, and, relying on him, asks, as he prays with peaceful words, for signs of God to bear in mind and follow in his heart, in return for so great a gift, by which he might beget a son with a sluggish body, his limbs now cold and his time run out.

Warned, he makes ready a heifer now three years old, joining a lively bullock of grim brow, then a ram and a he-goat and a shaggy she-goat, a pair of doves joined with a like turtledove. Soon he splits the bodies of the cattle into two parts, leaving the birds whole in all their flesh; he arranges everything and fits it to the sacred altars, and places himself nearby, alert in mind and ear. But see, at the first hour of dark night the bright breast of the holy prophet is terrified, and blackening darkness rushes in, confounding the light. Astonished at this, he takes comfort from the Lord, as he foreknows the new seed of the nation to come, to be placed through various misfortunes under a hard king of Egypt, whose name will be that of the bitter Pharaoh. “For four hundred years it will serve, subject to masters, to be called back again to fruitful lands; and, the turn reversed, the nation that once trembled as a slave will wield the sceptre, restraining nations with strong valour. But you, when the end of your measured age has come, having lived your life, will be committed to the tomb in your fathers’ seats. For the people, torn away from a seat hostile to it, will come here, to be given the homes of their ancient forefathers.

For where the inhabitant now rejoices in the lands of the Nile, and where the swift Euphrates swims past the regions of the Syrians, they will hold the Kenite and the Kenizzite peoples, the Kadmonites, the Hittites with the joined nation of the Perizzites, and the Rephaim, to whom the band of the Jebusites clings, and the Canaanites will be driven from the seat they love; and the Amorite too, thrust out with his friend the Girgashite, half-dead, will give up the fields he possessed to those who come.” When the holy words of God had declared these things to the prophet, under the setting sun he gives a clear sign by a thunderbolt. For as if flame were seething in a surging furnace, it seemed to lick up the flesh of the slaughtered cattle. Meanwhile Sarai, worn out through long barren years, had lost even the hope of being a parent, and because she would not bring forth a child from her ice-cold womb, she began to coax her husband toward a second bed and compels him, reluctant, to know the joys and partnership of the slave woman, so that he might at least be a father by a lowly pledge. At once the Egyptian Hagar is led into the bridal chamber and from her fertile womb bears Ishmael, a bastard. When she despised her mistress with slavish cunning, afflicted and wounded by harsh blows, she fled. And while she hid out of the way by a nearby spring, a messenger came down from the heavenly height of the sky and sends her, counselled, back to her masters’ house, and also endows her, rejoicing, with a great gift.

And because she had seen the holy one shining with conspicuous light, she named the spring by a like name. And now the prophet Abram had completed ninety and nine years, when he now recognizes himself as about to be a parent through the great gift of a son, one with whom the covenants of the most high God agree, to be the father and leader of innumerable nations, receiving peaceful seats through great ages. Moreover he comes forth greater than his accustomed name: a vowel brings added honour to the hard name, and she who had been Sara is ordered to be called Sarra. Moreover Ishmael, enriched at his father’s prayer, as prince begets and rules twice six peoples. After these deeds the old man, when the eighth sun was at hand, takes away with iron the foreskins of the males brought before him, adding likewise all who were of the people apart. Then, when the time of the promised gift is at hand, he dissolves into trembling laughter with wrinkling face, as he silently turns over the mighty promises in himself: “Will you believe that God can found what never existed and bring forth strength through broken limbs?” Now the sun, more blazing, was climbing the middle of the sky, and the great old man was catching the cool in the shade, when suddenly he sees three young men standing there together. Attentive to them all, he courts one above the rest and begs

that he not leave his servant behind as he passes swiftly by, but peaceably deign to accept the shelter of his oak, and let him wash his two feet with cool water, and deign to take the loaves set on a friendly table. He consents, and Abraham swiftly carries out the venerable commands. Sarah too, making haste, lets herself be seen and gladly brings out three measures of fine flour, which she had given to the heat of the embers to bake. Then a calf, curving its horns on a swelling brow, is chosen, its back darkened by no spot, and dishes of curdled milk are just set out. And while he feeds God, set before him under a threefold image, he tastes sweet joys from the hallowed words: “What is Sarah doing now?” (for she was then hidden in the house) and the true Light continues the words begun: “Rejoice, mindful prophet: in a full year no less she will be a mother”; at this the woman, far off, laughed with glee and despairs of childbirth in her aged body. Meanwhile it is asked what was the cause of the laughter. She denies that she was shaken by easy laughter, since she fears and turns her fault over in her silent breast. The young men rise, comely with equal brightness, and view Sodom lying below in full light. Then the Lord, not suffering anything to be hidden from the prophet, declares what cause leads him to the heavy-laden cities: