Heptateuch (the first seven books of the Bible in verse) 4.643–5.274

and at once he sacrifices conspicuous calves and chosen sheep and commits all the gifts to the king, and receives the judgment of God in the silent night. Then, unfolding it, he terrified the king with these words: “I was summoned by Moab’s prince from my native mountains, where the coming day and the serene light grow red, where the land lies enclosed by the twin streams of Tigris and Euphrates, that, savage with bitter words, I should wish unworthy things on men whom the holy Almighty protects from on high and assigns to a rich land. It is right, then, to see them soon from the hill far off and now to make out the faces I long to see of the happy people, whom alone the great gifts of God follow, and who, set apart from the nations and sharing nothing with them, receive the seats they long for from a gracious divinity. Who, then, has numbered the famous offspring of ancient Jacob, or could run through the people in numbers? Rather let my life die among these, leaving its bodily seat, and rest joined to the righteous, and may my offspring live with such a progeny!” When he had said this, Balak, his senses numbed, collapsed, and rebukes the prophet for speaking contrary and discordant words; he is told to climb a swollen hill to see a small part of the people over the fields below. Again Balaam adds these things in ordered words:

“Send my words at once through your ears, ruler of the people of Moab, and come as a witness! God is not like men, and when he has spoken truth he does not make his words void or threaten anything without effect. He warns me, as I rely on him, to pray for great gifts, as I do; and I will consecrate God’s people with vows, which all pain and toil of labour will escape, with God as its partner joined to it, who repels all hardships, granting the gifts of enriching peace. Look, Ruler of heaven and earth, from your holy star on this people’s chief: for he is worthy of your honour, who led out the people groaning with neck long pressed from the realm of bitter Pharaoh, a standard-bearer, second to none in praise of virtues; he cherishes a single kingdom and trusts in no augur, chants no spells and grasps at nothing vain. At a fixed time he will receive, secure, the happy words of God above, and perfected power will be accomplished from the strength of the highest Lord. This people springs forth as when through lonely fields the lion with maned neck advances on high, not returning to the lairs of his accustomed wood until, grim, full of thick gore and prey, he has terrified the green mountains with his threatening roar.”

The king, wounded with great anger, refused this too, asking the prophet for a third utterance on a different hill; from its summit, when he saw the people encamped, he brought forth words from a teachable breast: “Lofty and great are the houses that the seed of Jacob has, and they raise their roofs with buildings alike, like the cedar and the shining wood that fans the glory of its leaves and plays whistling tunes on plaintive branches, or the tree that flourishes gladly, planted on the banks of a river. These the Lord built and raised to the lofty stars. From their seed one day will be born one who brings laws to all peoples, notable for an eternal kingdom, whom God, merciful, calls out of Egypt, conspicuous, equal to none and without peer. He will rule the nations rebellious in various lands, hurling very many darts with his deadly right hand. When he then lies down, reclining like a lion, he stretches himself out, sleep slipping away, then shakes off his slumber, at once restored to waking deeds. And who will make him rise again by touching him? Whoever praises your glories with holy utterance will be blessed; but whoever speaks against you brings curses on himself from his windy mouth. These are the things the Lord commands you to be warned of by my voice, which no one may break by eloquence, nor may any man change or add anything besides.

though you give a great talent of silver to carry and all your wealth and a weight of immense gold: gifts avail nothing; what is spoken is fixed.” These things done, he goes home and leaves the king astonished and groaning greatly at the hard words. But meanwhile the Jewish band, after successful wars, runs riot and thinks the altars it had conquered holy, and celebrates gentile idols with unlawful worship, devoted to Baal and to dumb Peor. Hence soon the great anger of God rises, and then he commands the chiefs to go out to an open plain and, turned, orders them to face the light of the returning sun and atone attentively for the guilty deed. The prophet does this in haste and bares the sword, pursuing innocent and guilty with roving blade. Meanwhile a man, betraying the shame of his kin, because he had made for himself an unlawful marriage from the Midianite race, displays before all and before the prophet Zimri and Cozbi, guilty in the same sin. Phinehas quickly seizes a spear and strikes them and stays the immense plague by just atonement, which consumed in death twice ten thousand men and three, while the Lord’s weapon runs against all. For this deed the priest receives the sacred altars and took up the lofty honour of the Lord.

Meanwhile the youth born of the new stock is enrolled and then, counted, is entered by numbers, which, flourishing in its first flower, already with soft down clothing its cheeks, was glad in its twenty years. Its total then came to six hundred thousand and twice eight, with three hundred more added. This deserved blessed seats by the Lord’s gift. At once the Almighty commands the prophet to turn the standards against the hostile enemy and press on with the war begun. Against them they go with twice six thousand men, to which each tribe had sent its own, while each counts its single thousand of fighters from its own companies. Phinehas leads this as commander, while he carries the holy vessels and the terrifying trumpets into the accustomed battles; and eagerly, with chosen soldiers, he at once cuts down the Moabite ranks and kills all the kings, while he presses on the backs of the routed and kills the prophet Balaam and brings back plunder from the conquered nation. But because after the wars he was dragging the women in a captive column, by the chief’s command he is told to spare their life only to the virgins, as they deserved, and to cleanse the bodily stains of the men with water. He also divides the plunder among all the people and gave the Levites a part as a deserved gift, whom pious care always kept in the Lord’s temple.

and first fruits too are given back to the eternal God from all the things brought back from the conquered nation. These things done, the tribe of Reuben and half Manasseh and Gad ask for the happy seats of Gilead, a land easy for cattle; for, joined to the river Jordan, it was green and grassy with abundant pasture. Though the leader refused them with fearless speech, thinking they were changing their minds to avoid battles to come, he grants it nevertheless and provides it, if with their whole army they bear arms and help the allied cohorts in war.

So far, harassed by the sands of the formless wilderness, the people had advanced their arms to the river Jordan, which, gliding slippery among green glades, left outstanding Jericho with its flowing stream and follows on, and then is mingled with the open sea. There the holy prophet, while he sees death coming to him and the end of his days at hand, which had been written for the world, while he lives there gathers the people assembled in companies and crowded numbers and enriches them with such a gift of words: “If you wish to lay the hostile nations wholly low and hold calm peace for ages to come, fear God and store him in your hearts with all your mind, so that he may always be joined to you in unharmed love; he who, when you mourned long with oppressed neck, lifted you from your chains and freed you from the prison of Egypt; who set himself in the clouds between you and the enemy pressing on you in your fear and on your bared backs; who also gave a cloud as a sign of secure day and wiped away pitch-black night with clear light, so that the elements of God, changing themselves, might strengthen you, set on an unknown path through the lands, by which course the dark night comes and the stars shine; he also laid bare with dry sand the ocean, wont to run forward with alternating motion and ever wandering, where the blasts of the wind carry it uncaught,

sweating a blood-red earth, the reddening shores, so that he might lead you, hemmed in by the double danger of your toils, with walls raised on either arm, the sea divided as it hung in a cloven wave. You saw what care the high divinity then had for you, while behind you the enemy, flying, rushes on and seeks a like way through the windy sea. But he, unable to pass the swollen waves, fell and is rolled among the wet sands. You, whom soft Egypt had made rich with spoils, conquered the formless lands of the wilderness, denied to houses, with God protecting you, while at once he brings streams from rocks and sends down manna from shining heaven. And quail, falling in great clouds through the night, filled the plains around the pitched camp. Long use did not tear the coverings of your feet, nor did your clothes perish by decay or wear; weary age destroys nothing around you. Enemy ranks yield and cities lie open; the Lord is your standard-bearer, sending swift fear to weaken all who stand in your way. And now, since we have come to the waters of the Jordan and the land assigned by the highest God now lies nearest, I call to witness the stars and whatever shines in the lofty hall of the Lord, that the heavenly law which the Thunderer’s right hand wrote

you will be willing to hold with your senses and whole heart. It commands nothing hard or rigid; all is just, gentle, pleasant and fitting for a long life, since it commands that whatever no one likes done against himself, he should not labour to inflict on anyone. Love the sabbaths and cherish with sincere heart those whom one law holds and one Lord sets before you; he who loves all, as equal under the law of birth, will wish to have done nothing forbidden. Let the Passover be kept each year, mighty with its night of watching, and for seven days let it bring slow leisure, bound to no care. Let father and mother be dear and ever revered. Beware of forbidden marriage with a foreign nation. Scatter the idols and turn away the sinister rite that wild nations brought forth, while they care for dead divinities and set up offerings in shady groves. Moreover, whenever the hoarse trumpet gives the bloody signal and the clarions lead out the bronze squadrons, let a man dedicate the house he has built and his glad vineyards and join a lawful marriage with the customary feasts; for wars at hand always make the chances doubtful for men, and no one gives himself the years of his life. Keep the unwarlike at home: a wounded mind often unsettles brave men. And at every time of war spare the suppliant and war down the proud.

Avoid, men, overturning a wood fertile with noble fruits; cut down the barren glades in time of war. If perhaps the body of one slain is seen uncovered, the Levites will be charged to cut off the foot of a heifer, lest God be the great avenger of the innocent. If it pleases a man to take a captive to his bed, the whole law will let him keep her under his roof, shear her long-haired head and cut her nails, and grant her thirty days for tears, mourning her elders, dead and slain, from whom she was born, and then at last bind her to himself in lawful marriage. And if, after the loss of her chastity, the captive displeases him, let her lay down the servile yoke and leave her master. If perhaps one man has married two wives and does not keep the partnerships with equal care, the children of the despised one shall by right hold a double portion of all the things that the parent’s care has produced. Bury condemned men and lay all the slain in tombs, for earth is denied to no one. Let a woman by no means put on a man’s clothes, nor men women’s; guilt comes from forbidden dress. If anyone wishes to take the unfledged young of birds, let him not take the mother with her brood. He who builds roofs, let him take care lest perhaps the workman roll down from on high. Let not the vineyard, twice sown, bear heavy clusters,

nor let your harvest be reaped with double ears. Avoid gentile men; and whatever is abhorrent in morals or worship, the holy law drives far away. Keep out unclean prostitutes, lest they bring the wages of the night they sold to the eternal sanctuary of the Lord. Whoever shelters a fugitive slave, let him not return him to his master, lest the fierce master afflict the captive under a harsh lash. Let no one gather a harvest grown in another’s field, nor wish to press wine that the grape produced from his neighbour’s part; it is allowed, of course, to pluck clusters and ears, but not to take away the whole. If a wife, driven from home, perhaps marries another husband, if afterwards she is widowed by his death, let her not return seeking the partnership of the bed that scorned her. Let no one send away a new bride before the year is out. Nor let a mill be sold, which, hollowed in twin stones, flies round in a circle and breaks the grain. Let one not pay the penalty for another’s crimes. Let him receive forty lashes on his back who fiercely hurls insults in foolish speech. Let not the mouth of the bullock that threshes be bound. If perhaps a man has died with no child begotten, and a brother survives him, let the survivor take the widow to his house and beget children, lest the house be emptied of all seed and darken the name of the family, now empty;

but if the man refuses, let the woman soon plead her cause before the chiefs and invoke the law that compels the reluctant. Whenever faithless quarrels turn into a brawl and drive gnashing men into strife with one another, let no woman put herself between them, nor seize the private parts of another’s husband. Whoever devoutly does these things is touched by no plague of evil, nor fears wars and burning diseases, nor feels a barren year when the months are spent, but, calm, rejoices all the time of his life, God granting riches, who looks gently on the crimes of the world and punishes them in the time of anger.” With such words the prophet prayed and warned all the Levites, whom the care of the venerable hall and of God’s rites awaits, to read the commands of the everlasting law constantly to all, so that the fear of God might be readier in the hearts of all men, and also to keep the tablets polished from twin stone, which hold twice five commands to be feared throughout the world, shut in the inner chamber of the holy ark. These things done, he bids the son of Nun come forward and by God’s judgment gives him the right to rule the people; and so that the Jewish band might gladly overthrow the altars and the lying gods, he gives them words in a melodious hymn.

Let heaven grant a hearing and praise God, and what spreads above the stars; and let the earth, divided by the swelling sea, lend its ears and receive the sounds that speech, messenger of the mind, utters: as it is wont to drink the rainy dews when, in the hot flame of the swift heat, the harvest wastes away in the dusty field; the grasses smile and the world gives birth, and, gaping, divided by many open cracks, it drinks in the fruitful clouds. For I have called upon the name of my Lord, to whose glory it befits deserving servants to render honours and praises. To his words truth clings, which ever flourish in strong youth. Right judgment and just ways entangle the traveller in no windings; nothing is unjust and nothing crooked. The Lord of blessed faithfulness does not repay guilt in equal measure, though a generation, wicked in its covenants, swiftly labours for its own punishment. Alas, a people to be given over to grief-bringing death!

Is this how you repay the Lord our God, him who prefers to be called Father while he gives his servants the name of sons, though he rules all with everlasting divinity and could destroy them with sudden death? He established you, he created you, he who holds now and will hold hereafter. Remember rather the everlasting age and what lives after death and burial; ask what years the series to come will take and what is to be created anew. Or if your mind grows dull, ask your father, who will teach you everything at once; or ask one of the presbyters: he will dispel the cloud and give light. When the Lord, ever lofty among the stars, had given the divided peoples to the world, whom the first father Adam begot and gave to the anxious labour of the lands, as the word of the everlasting God had commanded, he set a limit and number for the nations such as the starry hosts hold. The people of Jacob clung to the Lord, whose inheritance is claimed for himself:

for the inheritance of the Lord God lives alone sufficient and firm in itself, where the land lies denied to houses and, panting in the hot flames of the sun, is watered by no lasting waters. There God, drawing out the guilty, struck them now and again with the blow they deserved, and soon gave them holy remedies, putting them under his right hand, as a bird labours to cherish its chicks under the cover of its wings; as we ourselves are used to keeping hidden the central light through which we see, lest some chance blow harm it. Those whom the Lord alone took from the enemy, he who set up the heavens and made the lands, for them he prepared manifold food that the land, watered by clouds, brings forth; and the rocks gave streams of honey, and likewise rich flowing olive oil. The udders of cattle gave milk for food; the fertile land created wheaten harvests and wine from moist grapes. Filled with its streams, the youth exults, drunk, to deny the divinity by whose gifts, enriched, it reigns!

Moreover, following pestilent rites, it prepared rich altars for demons. The light of the Lord God saw this and prepared a death just for their deserts, separating the guilty and driving them far away, while it seems right to him to prefer an unknown nation to the deserters. Fire flashes from the mouth of the Lord, which, as it wanders through the everlasting world, flashes out, fearful even to the underworld. It lays low the pastures and destroys the harvests and all that came from the seed sown. The stars shine and the mountains flash when the Lord is moved with just anger and attacks the fearful with his hot weapon. Lurid pallor, wont to come upon the fasting breast, will kill their bodies. Some the winged birds will carry off; some the beasts will devour with their bites; some wounds harder than iron will make to mourn, their children consumed; so that at last Judea may cease to think itself rich as if by its own gift. The wounding enemy will destroy it, while a thousand flee and fear one.

But again the Lord returns serene, as he at once calmed all his anger; far unlike the gods of the guilty, whose vine is the vine of Gomorrah, all too fruitful with gall-filled juice, more deadly than all the venom of asps. The time of death now hastens, see, by which the Lord as avenger restrains all. And now call on your pestilent gods: let them be present, help, and lighten the penalties, so that healing may return through your vows. I alone am Lord, see: alone the founder of life and judge of death; mine is the right to spare, mine to strike! No stronger judge in the heavens exists, who could release from death him whom the Lord’s hand restrains. As I raise it through the starry heavens, I will say: ‘I will command for everlasting ages, drawing the bare sword from its sheath, which, while it is whirled among trembling enemies, shines white with flashing lightning, deadly to the lowest and fearful to the highest.’ Rejoice ever with the Lord, O heaven!

whom the whole sky and the angels praise, and the nations with a people allied and equal. For the Lord breaks forth in long anger and, while he strikes the wicked from above, spares the submissive and preserves the pious. After the prophet had sung strains worthy of God, about to see from the top of Mount Nebo the land given to the people whom he had ruled, he climbs the lofty ridge and then, his life done, lay down, his limbs covered by no tomb. His life lasted twice sixty years, fearless in all things in its happy course, broken by no evils and liable to no disease; moreover, in the time of his setting, his eyes kept their fire, undimmed in serene sight.